That clears it up a bit, but I would still be worried about the network performance between machines. If you're maxing out your 100MBs link, doesn't that create some sort of delay with the machines synchronizing themselves together? Or is the delay negligible enough given performance gains.
For effects on a file the machine would be able to wait. But what happens when this theory gets applied to real-time things like Video Editing?
Without a fast enough hard drive, you loose frames. Without a fast enough backbone/backplane between machines would a similar effect happen?
Isn't the problem faced by distributing computing such as this the limitation of the network bandwith between machines? Assuming you connected machines via 100MB/s, wouldn't you top out real quick? The processing speed compared to what it can send of the wire would make for a few delays I would think.
Anyone have any feedback on using distributed computing for such "Real-time" things such as Video and Audio?
I have to question the practicality of sending a probe to Pluto. It will take forever to arrive. I don't know of the science behind it, but I think GETTING anything that far might be a challenge. By the time the probe arrives, it's technology will be very obsolete. Of course that's a problem with ALL space probes.
I think the money would be better spent on a planet of possible inhabitance like Mars. I know some won't agree, but what's the use in Pluto when it's so far away? Mars is right next doors.
I just posted another point somewhere in the threads here (have fun looking) but according to another story I found, the Serial ATA Standard will scale to 600MB/s. SCSI Wasn't always 320MB/s, and IDE wasn't always 100 MB/s. You have to keep in mind this is the first bit of the technology.
Anyone know what Fibre Channel/IEEE 1394 current hard drive standards run at?
Here's another story I found:
"Intel propses new hard drive standard"
http://internet.idg.net/crd_ata_289383.html
"Upon introduction, the new interface will perform at 1.6Gbps as opposed to the current ATA standard, which is just under 1Gbps, according to an Intel spokesperson. The Serial ATA interface is expected to eventually scale to 6Gbps. First demonstrations of the product are expected this fall."
6 gigabits a second turns into [about] 600MB/s right? Not too shabby.
Remember, SCSI and IDE sucked too when they first came out. The Serial ATA specification is built to scale to keep up with industry designs. So we're not going to be stuck at 150MB/s forever.
"Where were you when they copy-protected the hardware, Daddy?"
"Well son, way back in the year 2000, we had these wonderful devices called CD Recorders. We could copy almost any CD! Except for evil CDs with defective sectors burn into them, they required a little more work my lad. And we had these great devices called IDE Hard Drives. You could store 80GB of anything you wanted on one of these disks! And copy it to any drive!"
"80GB? You're old dad! How many gigabytes is a terrabyte again? Johnny down the street just got a new Fiber Channel 740TB Drive. Can I get one for the holidays?"
"We'll see, son. I'm liking the looks of the new nanodrives. But anyhow, continuing my story. We had all sorts of magical hardware. We had Orb Disks, which held 2.2 GB! And these things called zip disks, which held 250 or 100MB!"
"100MB?! Ha ha dad. I can't even fit a Word 2044 Document on that!"
"You think 100MB is small? Wayyy back in the day we had things called FLOPPY DISKS. And they only held 1.44MB, 720K, 360K, or.. EVEN LESS! But they were wonderful devices, these floppy disks. We could make as many copies as we wanted as one, and store whatever we wanted! Oh those were the days, when the MP3s flowed free, and the DeCSS rebels weren't laughed at by the public. Yes. Those were the days."
Peak transfer rate for IDE I believe is 100 MBs (ATA 100). SCSI I think is 320 MBs (Ultra 320). With a RAID Array you can do even better.
And if I'm wrong on the numbers, I'm sure the Slashdot fanatics will correct me:)
Agreed with fully. I was never a D&D player, but a big fan of the TSR books. I've read quite a few of the trilogys (23 books in all) and I had nightmares when I saw this trailer for the movie. I am very glad I have not gone and saw it, it seems to suck just as much as I thought it would.
When you take something as good as D&D and put a Wayans brother into the mix, you are asking for trouble!.
They begin by discussing how inherently buggy software was become. This is a given, but how can you compare software to CARS? Software's an entirely different beast than an automobile. I mean if an automobile "crashes" "out of the box" than it doesn't goto market. If software "crashes" "out of the box" there's always more reasons than the software to blame.
I've had many a time where I've met people who complained to me some software didn't work on their computer. Did you read the minimum requirements I ask? "The what?" they reply? Yes, no wonder say for example, Office 2000 crashes when you try to run it on your P120 with 8 megs of RAM. You idiot.
"In analysing repair histories of 13 kinds of products gathered by Consumer Reports, PC World found that roughly 22 percent of computers break down every year -- compared to 9 percent of VCRs, 7 percent of big-screen TVs, 7 percent of clothes dryers and 8 percent of refrigerators."
There is no definition of what a "Repair history" is given here. Computers are entirely different from VCR's, TV's, clothes dryers, and refrigerators in their complexity. A user cannot modify their refrigerators operating system, upgrade it's CPU or add more RAM in the wrong way. I work in Tech Support and a large majority of calls I deal with are due to user error.
Is this repair history hardware repairs, software repairs, or what? The common person doesn't know jack about fixing their computer. If a program doesn't load the person think's it's "broken". Many a time I've heard comments to the like of "We should just throw it out". It's a computer, not a VCR! VCR's are straight forward, they work or don't work. With computers you have people with many more variables they can screw up.
Until there's a study done on computer "repair history" with more detail, I can't take this article seriously.
Also, I'll take it this guy had the Home Service option for his Dell laptop? Otherwise, when's the last time you heard of a computer manufacturer making housecalls? At work with our Gateway laptops, if they have hardware failure we send them off to a repair center in Texas, and they show up in about two weeks fixed. This exageration is an extreme stretch of what usually happens.
And adding to the "was so and so based off of this" conversation, I'll bring up a TV character that actually was around the time period this man might have been famous at.
Any A-Team fans here? Face sure seems similar to this guy. Another name to add along with the Pretender, Mr. Ripley etc...
In related news, my grandmother keeps getting older.
This is all very cool but this point in the article got me wondering:
"Evidence that microorganisms flourished in the oceans since at least 3.8 billion years ago exists, but when these microorganisms colonized on land is not clear. The oldest undisputed remnants of terrestrial biomass have been 1.2 billion-year-old microfossils found in Arizona."
Does this mean there's even older stuff IN the ocean? I always thought we've spent far few too little of our resources searching all the unexplorer ocean on the planet.
We've been to other planets via NASA, yet a vast majority of our own planet remains unexplored - the ocean.
Linux - for all those old crappy FPS games you love.
Seriously. SiN came out how long ago and we're JUST getting a DEMO of the thing? Why do companies even waste the money paying developers to produce such stuff? If you want to make a Linux game, put it out the same time as the Windows game. Don't pay your developers to produce a demo version of an old game. This is counter active to the whole Games for Linux "movement". These companies are losing money making old games for OS' a small minority use, and games a small minority plays. Assuming SiN for Linux full version was released, can anyone truthfully tell me it has an audience big enough to break even on it's production?
Your mouse doesn't work. I'm so surprised. Not. Even this DEMO doesn't work right. This is why Linux will not be a gaming operating system anytime soon. If something as trivial as the mouse doesn't work out of the box, the average person who had trouble enough figuring out how to load the CD-ROM into the drive isn't going to fix it.
I'll agree with the majority of posts here, X is the root of all problems. In grand UNIX tradition, we've taken technology and kept slapping stuff on top of it to make it look modern. X needs to go, and pronto. It's too modular for it's own good. Layer upon layer upon layer is too SLOW. Someone needs to come up with a GUI of sorts where the UI is integrated into the Windowing system. Make it infinitely skinnable and you'll still get all the customization you want.
Ok I'm going to look dumb here but.. Yahoo _has_ SMTP Servers? I've only ever used the POP3 servers, and my own ISP to send mail. I can't imagine Yahoo's SMTP servers being very reliable to begin with [the pop3 barely works as advertised], but what's the address? smtp.yahoo.com?
I'm not supporting this, merely wondering about the law behind it.
What happens if my backup copy becomes so damaged that it's unsuitable to be a backup anymore? My backup copy is now gone.
Your "backup" copy contains the same songs. What makes your backup copy any different from mine? Both were pressed onto CD's, mine was sourced from vinyl, yours from cd. Same music.
And let's assume I kept my vinyl in perfect condition with no scratches, so my backup copy was on par with a "Cd quality" backup.
What specific laws prevent me from doing this? If my backup copy made from vinyl is going to sound the same as your backup copy made from CD, then where is the logic or law behind this?
I don't actually do this. And my cheapie vinyl would never be flawless enough:) But this is a hypothetical question.
I bought a whole bunch of vinyl records at flea markets and yard sales over the past 4 years. I've worked up my collection to about 100 albums on Vinyl of good old Classic Rock. The thought occured to me, do I actually have any sort of right to this music at all? I mean, law permits me to make a "backup copy" of the music. What if I make a "backup copy" onto a cd using your CD of the album I borrowed? This is similar to me copying my vinyl onto a CD. Same music, same backup media, different source.
802.11 wireless and X? Grab your favorite Palm computer... locate the existing wireless solution for your hardware.
Download VNC if you have a Windows Ce. If you don't have CE, than go get PalmVNC and wirelessly compute!
Geez, what kind of geek ARE you if you couldn't figure that out?!
Hello moderator. Before you moderate this story as "offtopic" like I know you might, I ask you this question. If I am offtopic, then we are all to assume there is a place for me to be on topic with a point like this I am about to make. There is however, no such forum on Slashdot for general slashdot story issues. So any moderations of offtopic on this comment will be redundant, because there is no ONTOPIC place to post it. You will simply be wrong and wasting your moderation points. Thank you and enjoy the comment.
Ok here's one little pet peeve that I'm finding as of late with Slashdot stories. The story above mentions a new joystick concept from Microsoft. Obviously a technology story that belongs here on Slashdot. But oh wait, we forgot the OBLIGATORY linux reference! "Can't wait for x11 drivers"
Oh goodness, we couldn't just post a story for itself? No. We must complain about how every single new technology does not work with our beloved Linux, FreeBSD, KDE or GNOME. Oh wait I'm sorry, I just offended all you users of Debian.. Slackware... OpenBSD... NetBSD..
Speaking of that, what the hell is an "x11 driver" anyways?! Last time I checked, joysticks were handled by joystick code in the kernel, not an "x11 driver". This from the same site that continuously complains when the media interchangably uses "hacker" and "cracker". Does anyone want to explain to me an "x11 driver?" Because if not, you look just as silly as the media.
As of late Slashdot has been posting lots of good stories such as this joystick one, but then the editors must quip in with their whole "... but i wonder when open source drivers will be availble" or "shame it doesnt work in linux" etc comments. This is insulting and irritating for me to read. Must you find it necessary to use such tired, old cliches?
What kind of crazy formula is that? How in the world can they expect us to believe any sort of crap like that? Any statistics they come up with our pure guesses, it's impossibile to determine the number of "illegal" programs out there obviously. I could tell you there's X number of stars in the sky, based on the fact I can see Y many in an area Z big. But then there's the elusive L... which you can't see..
We must continue to support the DARE Program, or there will be more overweight cops on the street.
For the good of our children, please support your local DARE officer!
Good points however, can you really sit there and say "without the government, there would be no internet" truthfully? I mean sure, the government throws money at lots of stuff, this one just happened to stick. I'm sure there was research being done by non-government groups into networking-related projects, Sure the "Web" may have been invented by Timothy Berns Lee (and if I messed up his name, I'm sorry.. a little tired right now) - but there was also gopher. I'm not familiar with protocol history, but who made gopher?
Anyhow, to sit there and claim the government is responsible for all this technology is a dumb point to try to make. You cannot seriously believe that it would have not evolved anyways.
Boycott this translation! Babelfish is closed source! You should be using GPLTrans instead! We cannot let the corporate hegemony of Slashdot dictate our translation ways!
[recommended moderation: funny]
But eh seriously... why doesn't GPLTrans ever get mentioned? I find in most of the cases with these non-english articles, it produces much more readable text than MangleFish.
A friend and I just went out and got a CueCat today.
We first went to the Radio Shack in Horsham, PA. I asked if they had any CueCat scanners. The young guy gave me a blank stare for a moment, but then a lightbulb went off in his head. He said yeah, and went to the back room.
Apparently his supervisor was in the backroom. They seemed to loot through a few boxes before they found the things, as they yelled to us "how many do you need?". Two I replied. He then brought them to the front. The employee and manager tried to figure out how to ring them up. Finally he just typed in the SKU and "oh wow, see it already rings up as zero-zero-zero" He then proceeded to ask for my name. I love radio shack.
"Why do you need my name?" "For the computer." "Yeah, why?" "We need your name or we can't give you one". Ok.
John, John Williams. (My filmscores are quite famous!) "Ok I have a few in here" [to my amusement] "Oh, let me see the screen" [tilts screen to me] "Yeah, that ones me". I happily get handed a CueCat.
My friend I'm with promptly invents an identity on the spot. I try hard not to crack up laughing. He also gets one.
We decided to try another Radio Shack, this time Huntingdton Valley, PA. I think I'll be Randy Edelman this time...
Anyhow. Hm darn, this Radio Shacks doing business. We wait [business at a radio shack? Sure thing somethings wrong!]. Anyhow we get an older gentlemen who seems to know what hes doing. I ask if they have CueCat scanners. He says "yeah" [pregnant pause] "The CueCat scanners.. you know, the free ones?". Utoh.
"No you see here's the deal. They're not free alone. You have to buy a catalog [what?!] and you get one free with it. But we don't have the catalogs now. If you want one it will be $2.95"
"Oh uh, ok"
I leave dejected. Not bored enough to argue my way into a second free barcode scanner. Anyhow, these things are pretty uh, crappy. I tried it at work scanning it on some stuff, it understood like not a single UPC code we threw at it [lotta computer stuff]. I have mine at home here now. I installed the software [god thats an AWFUL AWFUL install routine]. I can't find the icon, I can't even find it on the hard drive. Oops, can we say software bug?
Anyhow, go screw over your local big-brother-database Tandy friends today and pickup a useless CueCat! Although it sure does look cool in the dark as a case ornament. And I'm sure there's people hacking these things as we speak so they're you know, USEFUL.
I have had something very interesting happen with my personal info. Most notably, there seems to be no acknowledgment besides our phone bills that we have a second phoneline going into our house. I didn't order the line so I don't know what my parents might have said to the phone company when activating it. We previously had the number at another address, and when we moved we transferred it along with us to our new residence.
However: a) We don't pay the unpublished/unlisted fee b) It's not in the phonebook c) I can't find it in ANY online databases d) It doesn't reverse search on anywho or anywhere else.
No record exists of this number at EITHER residence. I would think with our move someone would have picked it up. I can barely find any evidence of it on our phone bill either, other than another page or two. No where do I actually remember the number printed.
So I ask, how did I accidently manage to keep this number totally anonymous? Perhaps when they ordered the line, one of my parents mentioned it was for a "modem" only? Would Bell Atlantic maybe have some crazy kind of "hey don't waste your time dialing this number cause it's a MODEM" flag? Maybe BA royally screwed up and this number doesn't even exist in their phone records anymore yet it still WORKS? (whee, free calls for me I guess!) This has perplexed me for a while and I was wondering if anyone else ever had this happen.
Has anyone done any extensive benchmarking on laptops using CPU "Software cooling programs?". You know the programs - the ones written for overclockers. Unless I'm missing something super-obvious, wouldn't this be a great way to increase the battery life on your laptop?
From what I read these programs stop/slow down your CPU a whole lot so they don't overheat when you've got your Celeron 300A clocked to 533 or whatever. If run on a laptop, it would slow it down whenever you weren't doing anything, resulting in longer battery life - I'd think. Can anyone with a laptop who's tried this perhaps comment on this?
Slashdot Mirror
That clears it up a bit, but I would still be worried about the network performance between machines. If you're maxing out your 100MBs link, doesn't that create some sort of delay with the machines synchronizing themselves together? Or is the delay negligible enough given performance gains.
For effects on a file the machine would be able to wait. But what happens when this theory gets applied to real-time things like Video Editing?
Without a fast enough hard drive, you loose frames. Without a fast enough backbone/backplane between machines would a similar effect happen?
Isn't the problem faced by distributing computing such as this the limitation of the network bandwith between machines? Assuming you connected machines via 100MB/s, wouldn't you top out real quick? The processing speed compared to what it can send of the wire would make for a few delays I would think.
Anyone have any feedback on using distributed computing for such "Real-time" things such as Video and Audio?
I have to question the practicality of sending a probe to Pluto. It will take forever to arrive. I don't know of the science behind it, but I think GETTING anything that far might be a challenge. By the time the probe arrives, it's technology will be very obsolete. Of course that's a problem with ALL space probes.
I think the money would be better spent on a planet of possible inhabitance like Mars. I know some won't agree, but what's the use in Pluto when it's so far away? Mars is right next doors.
I just posted another point somewhere in the threads here (have fun looking) but according to another story I found, the Serial ATA Standard will scale to 600MB/s. SCSI Wasn't always 320MB/s, and IDE wasn't always 100 MB/s. You have to keep in mind this is the first bit of the technology.
Anyone know what Fibre Channel/IEEE 1394 current hard drive standards run at?
Here's another story I found:
"Intel propses new hard drive standard"
http://internet.idg.net/crd_ata_289383.html
"Upon introduction, the new interface will perform at 1.6Gbps as opposed to the current ATA standard, which is just under 1Gbps, according to an Intel spokesperson. The Serial ATA interface is expected to eventually scale to 6Gbps. First demonstrations of the product are expected this fall."
6 gigabits a second turns into [about] 600MB/s right? Not too shabby.
Remember, SCSI and IDE sucked too when they first came out. The Serial ATA specification is built to scale to keep up with industry designs. So we're not going to be stuck at 150MB/s forever.
From The Register's story:
.. EVEN LESS! But they were wonderful devices, these floppy disks. We could make as many copies as we wanted as one, and store whatever we wanted! Oh those were the days, when the MP3s flowed free, and the DeCSS rebels weren't laughed at by the public. Yes. Those were the days."
"Where were you when they copy-protected the hardware, Daddy?"
"Well son, way back in the year 2000, we had these wonderful devices called CD Recorders. We could copy almost any CD! Except for evil CDs with defective sectors burn into them, they required a little more work my lad. And we had these great devices called IDE Hard Drives. You could store 80GB of anything you wanted on one of these disks! And copy it to any drive!"
"80GB? You're old dad! How many gigabytes is a terrabyte again? Johnny down the street just got a new Fiber Channel 740TB Drive. Can I get one for the holidays?"
"We'll see, son. I'm liking the looks of the new nanodrives. But anyhow, continuing my story. We had all sorts of magical hardware. We had Orb Disks, which held 2.2 GB! And these things called zip disks, which held 250 or 100MB!"
"100MB?! Ha ha dad. I can't even fit a Word 2044 Document on that!"
"You think 100MB is small? Wayyy back in the day we had things called FLOPPY DISKS. And they only held 1.44MB, 720K, 360K, or
Peak transfer rate for IDE I believe is 100 MBs (ATA 100). SCSI I think is 320 MBs (Ultra 320). With a RAID Array you can do even better. And if I'm wrong on the numbers, I'm sure the Slashdot fanatics will correct me :)
Agreed with fully. I was never a D&D player, but a big fan of the TSR books. I've read quite a few of the trilogys (23 books in all) and I had nightmares when I saw this trailer for the movie. I am very glad I have not gone and saw it, it seems to suck just as much as I thought it would.
When you take something as good as D&D and put a Wayans brother into the mix, you are asking for trouble!.
This article smacks of incoherent thought.
They begin by discussing how inherently buggy software was become. This is a given, but how can you compare software to CARS? Software's an entirely different beast than an automobile. I mean if an automobile "crashes" "out of the box" than it doesn't goto market. If software "crashes" "out of the box" there's always more reasons than the software to blame.
I've had many a time where I've met people who complained to me some software didn't work on their computer. Did you read the minimum requirements I ask? "The what?" they reply? Yes, no wonder say for example, Office 2000 crashes when you try to run it on your P120 with 8 megs of RAM. You idiot.
"In analysing repair histories of 13 kinds of products gathered by Consumer Reports, PC World found that roughly 22 percent of computers break down every year -- compared to 9 percent of VCRs, 7 percent of big-screen TVs, 7 percent of clothes dryers and 8 percent of refrigerators."
There is no definition of what a "Repair history" is given here. Computers are entirely different from VCR's, TV's, clothes dryers, and refrigerators in their complexity. A user cannot modify their refrigerators operating system, upgrade it's CPU or add more RAM in the wrong way. I work in Tech Support and a large majority of calls I deal with are due to user error.
Is this repair history hardware repairs, software repairs, or what? The common person doesn't know jack about fixing their computer. If a program doesn't load the person think's it's "broken". Many a time I've heard comments to the like of "We should just throw it out". It's a computer, not a VCR! VCR's are straight forward, they work or don't work. With computers you have people with many more variables they can screw up.
Until there's a study done on computer "repair history" with more detail, I can't take this article seriously.
Also, I'll take it this guy had the Home Service option for his Dell laptop? Otherwise, when's the last time you heard of a computer manufacturer making housecalls? At work with our Gateway laptops, if they have hardware failure we send them off to a repair center in Texas, and they show up in about two weeks fixed. This exageration is an extreme stretch of what usually happens.
English
:)
Technology is destroying Spanish? Why without babelfish I would never be able to "speak"
Spanish! Oh wait, babelfish DOES destroy Spanish.
into Spanish
La tecnología está destruyendo a españoles? Porqué sin babelfish nunca podría "hable" español! La espera del Oh, babelfish destruye a españoles.
into English
The technology is destroying Spaniards? Porqué without babelfish never could " speaks " Spanish! The delay of the Oh, babelfish destroys Spaniards.
Technology destroying Spanish? Never!
This looks like a very interesting book.
And adding to the "was so and so based off of this" conversation, I'll bring up a TV character that actually was around the time period this man might have been famous at.
Any A-Team fans here? Face sure seems similar to this guy. Another name to add along with the Pretender, Mr. Ripley etc...
In related news, my grandmother keeps getting older.
This is all very cool but this point in the article got me wondering:
"Evidence that microorganisms flourished in the oceans since at least 3.8 billion years ago exists, but when these microorganisms colonized on land is not clear. The oldest undisputed remnants of terrestrial biomass have been 1.2 billion-year-old microfossils found in Arizona."
Does this mean there's even older stuff IN the ocean? I always thought we've spent far few too little of our resources searching all the unexplorer ocean on the planet.
We've been to other planets via NASA, yet a vast majority of our own planet remains unexplored - the ocean.
Linux - for all those old crappy FPS games you love.
Seriously. SiN came out how long ago and we're JUST getting a DEMO of the thing? Why do companies even waste the money paying developers to produce such stuff? If you want to make a Linux game, put it out the same time as the Windows game. Don't pay your developers to produce a demo version of an old game. This is counter active to the whole Games for Linux "movement". These companies are losing money making old games for OS' a small minority use, and games a small minority plays. Assuming SiN for Linux full version was released, can anyone truthfully tell me it has an audience big enough to break even on it's production?
Your mouse doesn't work. I'm so surprised. Not. Even this DEMO doesn't work right. This is why Linux will not be a gaming operating system anytime soon. If something as trivial as the mouse doesn't work out of the box, the average person who had trouble enough figuring out how to load the CD-ROM into the drive isn't going to fix it.
I'll agree with the majority of posts here, X is the root of all problems. In grand UNIX tradition, we've taken technology and kept slapping stuff on top of it to make it look modern. X needs to go, and pronto. It's too modular for it's own good. Layer upon layer upon layer is too SLOW. Someone needs to come up with a GUI of sorts where the UI is integrated into the Windowing system. Make it infinitely skinnable and you'll still get all the customization you want.
Then again, what do I know.
I'm just a user.
Ok I'm going to look dumb here but.. Yahoo _has_ SMTP Servers? I've only ever used the POP3 servers, and my own ISP to send mail. I can't imagine Yahoo's SMTP servers being very reliable to begin with [the pop3 barely works as advertised], but what's the address? smtp.yahoo.com?
I'm not supporting this, merely wondering about the law behind it.
:) But this is a hypothetical question.
What happens if my backup copy becomes so damaged that it's unsuitable to be a backup anymore? My backup copy is now gone.
Your "backup" copy contains the same songs. What makes your backup copy any different from mine? Both were pressed onto CD's, mine was sourced from vinyl, yours from cd. Same music.
And let's assume I kept my vinyl in perfect condition with no scratches, so my backup copy was on par with a "Cd quality" backup.
What specific laws prevent me from doing this? If my backup copy made from vinyl is going to sound the same as your backup copy made from CD, then where is the logic or law behind this?
I don't actually do this. And my cheapie vinyl would never be flawless enough
I bought a whole bunch of vinyl records at flea markets and yard sales over the past 4 years. I've worked up my collection to about 100 albums on Vinyl of good old Classic Rock. The thought occured to me, do I actually have any sort of right to this music at all? I mean, law permits me to make a "backup copy" of the music. What if I make a "backup copy" onto a cd using your CD of the album I borrowed? This is similar to me copying my vinyl onto a CD. Same music, same backup media, different source.
..
Yet another gray area of law
802.11 wireless and X? Grab your favorite Palm computer... locate the existing wireless solution for your hardware. Download VNC if you have a Windows Ce. If you don't have CE, than go get PalmVNC and wirelessly compute! Geez, what kind of geek ARE you if you couldn't figure that out?!
Hello moderator. Before you moderate this story as "offtopic" like I know you might, I ask you this question. If I am offtopic, then we are all to assume there is a place for me to be on topic with a point like this I am about to make. There is however, no such forum on Slashdot for general slashdot story issues. So any moderations of offtopic on this comment will be redundant, because there is no ONTOPIC place to post it. You will simply be wrong and wasting your moderation points. Thank you and enjoy the comment.
... NetBSD ..
Ok here's one little pet peeve that I'm finding as of late with Slashdot stories. The story above mentions a new joystick concept from Microsoft. Obviously a technology story that belongs here on Slashdot. But oh wait, we forgot the OBLIGATORY linux reference! "Can't wait for x11 drivers"
Oh goodness, we couldn't just post a story for itself? No. We must complain about how every single new technology does not work with our beloved Linux, FreeBSD, KDE or GNOME. Oh wait I'm sorry, I just offended all you users of Debian.. Slackware... OpenBSD
Speaking of that, what the hell is an "x11 driver" anyways?! Last time I checked, joysticks were handled by joystick code in the kernel, not an "x11 driver". This from the same site that continuously complains when the media interchangably uses "hacker" and "cracker". Does anyone want to explain to me an "x11 driver?" Because if not, you look just as silly as the media.
As of late Slashdot has been posting lots of good stories such as this joystick one, but then the editors must quip in with their whole "... but i wonder when open source drivers will be availble" or "shame it doesnt work in linux" etc comments. This is insulting and irritating for me to read. Must you find it necessary to use such tired, old cliches?
What kind of crazy formula is that? How in the world can they expect us to believe any sort of crap like that? Any statistics they come up with our pure guesses, it's impossibile to determine the number of "illegal" programs out there obviously. I could tell you there's X number of stars in the sky, based on the fact I can see Y many in an area Z big. But then there's the elusive L ... which you can't see ..
[D]onut [A]wareness [R]esistance [E]ducation.
We must continue to support the DARE Program, or there will be more overweight cops on the street.
For the good of our children, please support your local DARE officer!
DARE - Keeping America's Cops Thin.
Good points however, can you really sit there and say "without the government, there would be no internet" truthfully? I mean sure, the government throws money at lots of stuff, this one just happened to stick. I'm sure there was research being done by non-government groups into networking-related projects, Sure the "Web" may have been invented by Timothy Berns Lee (and if I messed up his name, I'm sorry.. a little tired right now) - but there was also gopher. I'm not familiar with protocol history, but who made gopher?
Anyhow, to sit there and claim the government is responsible for all this technology is a dumb point to try to make. You cannot seriously believe that it would have not evolved anyways.
Boycott this translation! Babelfish is closed source! You should be using GPLTrans instead! We cannot let the corporate hegemony of Slashdot dictate our translation ways! [recommended moderation: funny] But eh seriously... why doesn't GPLTrans ever get mentioned? I find in most of the cases with these non-english articles, it produces much more readable text than MangleFish.
A friend and I just went out and got a CueCat today.
...
We first went to the Radio Shack in Horsham, PA. I asked if they had any CueCat scanners. The young guy gave me a blank stare for a moment, but then a lightbulb went off in his head. He said yeah, and went to the back room.
Apparently his supervisor was in the backroom. They seemed to loot through a few boxes before they found the things, as they yelled to us "how many do you need?". Two I replied. He then brought them to the front. The employee and manager tried to figure out how to ring them up. Finally he just typed in the SKU and "oh wow, see it already rings up as zero-zero-zero" He then proceeded to ask for my name. I love radio shack.
"Why do you need my name?" "For the computer." "Yeah, why?" "We need your name or we can't give you one". Ok.
John, John Williams. (My filmscores are quite famous!) "Ok I have a few in here" [to my amusement] "Oh, let me see the screen" [tilts screen to me] "Yeah, that ones me". I happily get handed a CueCat.
My friend I'm with promptly invents an identity on the spot. I try hard not to crack up laughing. He also gets one.
We decided to try another Radio Shack, this time Huntingdton Valley, PA. I think I'll be Randy Edelman this time
Anyhow. Hm darn, this Radio Shacks doing business. We wait [business at a radio shack? Sure thing somethings wrong!]. Anyhow we get an older gentlemen who seems to know what hes doing. I ask if they have CueCat scanners. He says "yeah" [pregnant pause] "The CueCat scanners.. you know, the free ones?". Utoh.
"No you see here's the deal. They're not free alone. You have to buy a catalog [what?!] and you get one free with it. But we don't have the catalogs now. If you want one it will be $2.95"
"Oh uh, ok"
I leave dejected. Not bored enough to argue my way into a second free barcode scanner. Anyhow, these things are pretty uh, crappy. I tried it at work scanning it on some stuff, it understood like not a single UPC code we threw at it [lotta computer stuff]. I have mine at home here now. I installed the software [god thats an AWFUL AWFUL install routine]. I can't find the icon, I can't even find it on the hard drive. Oops, can we say software bug?
Anyhow, go screw over your local big-brother-database Tandy friends today and pickup a useless CueCat! Although it sure does look cool in the dark as a case ornament. And I'm sure there's people hacking these things as we speak so they're you know, USEFUL.
I have had something very interesting happen with my personal info. Most notably, there seems to be no acknowledgment besides our phone bills that we have a second phoneline going into our house. I didn't order the line so I don't know what my parents might have said to the phone company when activating it. We previously had the number at another address, and when we moved we transferred it along with us to our new residence.
However:
a) We don't pay the unpublished/unlisted fee
b) It's not in the phonebook
c) I can't find it in ANY online databases
d) It doesn't reverse search on anywho or anywhere else.
No record exists of this number at EITHER residence. I would think with our move someone would have picked it up. I can barely find any evidence of it on our phone bill either, other than another page or two. No where do I actually remember the number printed.
So I ask, how did I accidently manage to keep this number totally anonymous? Perhaps when they ordered the line, one of my parents mentioned it was for a "modem" only? Would Bell Atlantic maybe have some crazy kind of "hey don't waste your time dialing this number cause it's a MODEM" flag? Maybe BA royally screwed up and this number doesn't even exist in their phone records anymore yet it still WORKS? (whee, free calls for me I guess!) This has perplexed me for a while and I was wondering if anyone else ever had this happen.
Has anyone done any extensive benchmarking on laptops using CPU "Software cooling programs?". You know the programs - the ones written for overclockers. Unless I'm missing something super-obvious, wouldn't this be a great way to increase the battery life on your laptop?
From what I read these programs stop/slow down your CPU a whole lot so they don't overheat when you've got your Celeron 300A clocked to 533 or whatever. If run on a laptop, it would slow it down whenever you weren't doing anything, resulting in longer battery life - I'd think. Can anyone with a laptop who's tried this perhaps comment on this?