I have an Epia MII mini-ITX board, based around the Eden processor, which I bought nearly 3 years ago to use as a low power media server.
Despite claims about the graphics and media abilities of the board (Integrated VIA UniChromeâ 2D/3D graphics and an MPEG-2 accelerator with motion compensation), playback of DVDs and large video files in Linux using the community-developed Unichrome driver is choppy at best, and largely unwatchable.
Does VIA have plans to provide robust, open source drivers for the Free Software world that match up to the Windows versions for past products?
Trolls like this bring a smile to my face. Especially in a thread where so many informative posts have been modded troll and this one is sitting happily unmodded:)
If your theoretical NASCAR race competitors really manage to get 100 cars round a track on 1 gallon, then I'd sure think that was one gallon well used when the same technology gets into my next Matiz.
Someone got mod-points on a bad hair day and has gone all over this thread with the troll-mod; there is no way the gp, who asked a well worked, polite and very important question, is trolling.
Please, moderators - "troll" is for posts like "OMGZERS L00zers tihs is teh craps ur all so dum sheeple." Not for "Interesting technology, but how much impact will it really have?"
Very true. It's been said that a Prius is delivered with the carbon-emissions equivalent of 20,000 miles already on the clock, due the the extremely high technology and manufacturing costs.
Assuming it uses 2/3 of the fuel, this 'debt' is only paid off once 40k miles are on the clock. And at 50-60k, you'll need to replace the batteries, at a cost of around $10,000 (and who knows how many carbon-miles that's equivalent to).
So yes, the Prius isn't the green saviour people maybe think it is. But it is being taken seriously, selling in large numbers and helping to mature the technology to a point where it can be more useful.
And there are other technologies on the horizon (from the minimal manufacturing costs and fully recyclable mechanical flywheel systems to the fuel cells mentioned in the summary) which may have much more scope for genuinely reducing the lifecycle emissions of vehicles.
Whoa, troll? Didn't see that one coming! It was meant to be a serious point - uncritically destroying every new technology is no better than hand waving beliefs in "technology will solve all our problems."
The first flight was hardly in a useful plane, yet 15 years of development later, we had large, multi passenger transport planes. Just a point.
Most commercially viable fuel cells contain a first stage catalyst which break down a hydro-carbon fuel (petrol or similar) to produce hydrogen and CO2. Obviously for racing, the extra weight of the first stage is avoided by loading up on pre-prepared hydrogen.
The difference in emissions is from the efficiency of the whole system - somewhere under 35% for a conventional IC engine drivetrain, and around 85% upwards for a hydrocarbon/fuel cell drivetrain. Meaning far more than twice the power delivered carbon emissions created.
Longer term, it is easy to replace the first stage with out-of-car hydrogen generation, if and when clean hydrogen becomes cheap and easy to transport. The second stage (the actual fuel cell) remains unchanged.
As with all technologies, it is an incremental process. However, a >50% cut in emissions is a breakthrough - once cells become viable, stable and maintenance free for long term use (still a number of years off), they will be everywhere. In the mean time, the electric drivetrain components are already being implemented, and constantly improved, in full electric cars and hybrid electric vehicles.
How about when all Formula one cars get full hybrid powertrains (mechanical regenerative breaking) in 2013? Or how about when BMW and Honda implement hybridisation in 2009, 4 years before the deadline, giving head to head competition between hybrid and conventional drivelines?
Here's something for you to chew on - people already are taking green technology seriously. Less so in the US than other places, but even that said the majority of the 1,000,000 Priuses sold so far are in the US.
I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame.
While I'm at it, I'm sure that man will never fly. That's the realm of angels and birds.
Oh, hold on, you mean those bicycle mechanics were actually on to something?
It's odd that on a place like Slashdot, it's seen as cool to by cynical, and cynical is seen as non-critically putting down anything that hasn't been out and about for 5+ years. Who would have thought 10 years ago that Formula 1 would be leading the way in development of mechanical (flywheel) hybrid powertrain systems?
I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers running some little script with normal user privileges, and suddenly seeing the prompt change from
user@computer:~$
to
root@computer:~#
And, well, that had been around forever, apparently. And, well, it was fixed the next day.
The moral? Horrendous, gaping security holes do exist, and are found from time to time. And they get fixed (faster in FOSS than Windows, but they still get fixed). Of course, some OSs are more equal than others when it comes to general security and user-centric design, but I just can't believe for a minute that this is some life-shattering, end of the world event for Microsoft.
Without encryption, swapping the drive out will bypass the userland/OS passwords.
If the HDD password prevents the drive from being read, then that would be a password protected, encrypted drive. And note the quote: "The information was encrypted on the server, but not on the laptop, although it should have been... However, it was protected by two levels of passwords"
The US was founded after a long fight for freedom from the UK, an oppressive parent country - and the constitution reflects that, deliberately enshrining and limiting the rights of the government, not the people. If the right was not granted to the government, the government didn't have it.
Specific limitations were explained where they contrasted to the old system. For example secure in your person and papers, right to form a well organised malitia, absolute freedom of speech etc - all these things defined as actions the government could not interfere with, where previously they were frequently interfered with and/or denied.
Since that time, the common interpretation seems to have reversed; it is now assumed that if the right is not granted to the people, the people don't have it.
So where clearly the point of privacy in mail was meant to contrast to the previous system by granting privacy in communications (like mail), it has now been taken to mean no privacy in any form of communication except mail.
Offtopic? Seems pretty ontopic to me - he was, after all, the supreme political dissenter during one of the most brutally oppressive periods of history. And used words like "neighbour" and "friend" about brown, white and black folk all equally.
While you're at it, the last time I visited the US I was mildly frustrated at having to wait for a taxi, I was a bit annoyed that the local Starbucks served their coffee slightly on the cool side and I wasn't too amused by some people not holding the door open for me when I was only a few feet behind them.
Cor blimey, there's some laws needed there! Let's call them FAST TAXIS, HOT COFFEE and OPEN DOORS! Then the world will stand up and listen!!
I totally agree with you - I hate overuse of mobile phones (ok, I'm British) in public places.
However, I own a mobile phone, and at times I've been known to use it. In a public place. Maybe even on a bus or train. And I might even start by saying "I'm on the train..." And this may be more convenient than other methods - it's the only way I have of communicating from, eg, an airport or a bus-stop, it's instant, it's voice communication, it's reasonably cheap, it takes no setup, etc etc.
Making them illegal in any situation is not a sensible reaction. The law smacks of the "Get off my lawn" attitude of people who hate everything the "youth" do "nowadays," and react to new technology by banning it, instead of rational law-making for the good of society.
A much better solution exists on most long-distance trains in the UK now, where there are 'silent' carriages. When travelling with friends, I'd never go in them, as I'm probably one of the people they target. But when I'm alone, I love the ability to travel quietly.
Then individual airlines could have clauses in their ticketing agreements like "Access for Suitably Surveyed Customers to Lousy Overcharged Wireless Networks.
Seriously, what's the obsession with rediculous names for laws? PATRIOT, PRO-IP, CAN SPAM to name a few. If this law was called, for example, "On board communications act, 2008," I'd have a lot more time to listen to it.
While this may be oppressive, at least users now know where they stand.This has to be better than an invisible, 'if we think you're using too much we may slow you down, and then lie about it repeatedly' policy.
Not to say that both are mutually exclusive, of course.
Wait, are you calling me a debian newbie, or a human-geek-slashdot newbie?
Either way, I'm fairly sure the output would actually be more like:
$ sudo apt-get install common-sense && man common-sense
common-sense is a meta package
The following NEW packages will be installed:
RMS-logic RMS-common_sense RMS-IP_thoughts
The following currently installed package(s) will be removed:
human_society
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Slashdot Mirror
I have an Epia MII mini-ITX board, based around the Eden processor, which I bought nearly 3 years ago to use as a low power media server.
Despite claims about the graphics and media abilities of the board (Integrated VIA UniChromeâ 2D/3D graphics and an MPEG-2 accelerator with motion compensation), playback of DVDs and large video files in Linux using the community-developed Unichrome driver is choppy at best, and largely unwatchable.
Does VIA have plans to provide robust, open source drivers for the Free Software world that match up to the Windows versions for past products?
Multi threaded browsing is a plus. One of my pet hates of Firefox is the one-bad-tab-crashes-the-browser problem.
I've not used IE for donkey's years, but one thread per tab strikes me as an excellent idea.
Honestly though, Why the hell dont the laptops have Linux? ... There is no reason for a email/nutritional PC to not run linux.
There, fixed that for ya.
Trolls like this bring a smile to my face. Especially in a thread where so many informative posts have been modded troll and this one is sitting happily unmodded :)
Would a small, but very high pressure, tank of hydrogen add the required spice?
Might only go off in 2% of crashes, but boy, you'd better duck when it does ;)
If your theoretical NASCAR race competitors really manage to get 100 cars round a track on 1 gallon, then I'd sure think that was one gallon well used when the same technology gets into my next Matiz.
Someone got mod-points on a bad hair day and has gone all over this thread with the troll-mod; there is no way the gp, who asked a well worked, polite and very important question, is trolling.
Please, moderators - "troll" is for posts like "OMGZERS L00zers tihs is teh craps ur all so dum sheeple." Not for "Interesting technology, but how much impact will it really have?"
Very true. It's been said that a Prius is delivered with the carbon-emissions equivalent of 20,000 miles already on the clock, due the the extremely high technology and manufacturing costs.
Assuming it uses 2/3 of the fuel, this 'debt' is only paid off once 40k miles are on the clock. And at 50-60k, you'll need to replace the batteries, at a cost of around $10,000 (and who knows how many carbon-miles that's equivalent to).
So yes, the Prius isn't the green saviour people maybe think it is. But it is being taken seriously, selling in large numbers and helping to mature the technology to a point where it can be more useful.
And there are other technologies on the horizon (from the minimal manufacturing costs and fully recyclable mechanical flywheel systems to the fuel cells mentioned in the summary) which may have much more scope for genuinely reducing the lifecycle emissions of vehicles.
Whoa, troll? Didn't see that one coming! It was meant to be a serious point - uncritically destroying every new technology is no better than hand waving beliefs in "technology will solve all our problems."
The first flight was hardly in a useful plane, yet 15 years of development later, we had large, multi passenger transport planes. Just a point.
Most commercially viable fuel cells contain a first stage catalyst which break down a hydro-carbon fuel (petrol or similar) to produce hydrogen and CO2. Obviously for racing, the extra weight of the first stage is avoided by loading up on pre-prepared hydrogen.
The difference in emissions is from the efficiency of the whole system - somewhere under 35% for a conventional IC engine drivetrain, and around 85% upwards for a hydrocarbon/fuel cell drivetrain. Meaning far more than twice the power delivered carbon emissions created.
Longer term, it is easy to replace the first stage with out-of-car hydrogen generation, if and when clean hydrogen becomes cheap and easy to transport. The second stage (the actual fuel cell) remains unchanged.
As with all technologies, it is an incremental process. However, a >50% cut in emissions is a breakthrough - once cells become viable, stable and maintenance free for long term use (still a number of years off), they will be everywhere. In the mean time, the electric drivetrain components are already being implemented, and constantly improved, in full electric cars and hybrid electric vehicles.
How about when all Formula one cars get full hybrid powertrains (mechanical regenerative breaking) in 2013? Or how about when BMW and Honda implement hybridisation in 2009, 4 years before the deadline, giving head to head competition between hybrid and conventional drivelines?
Here's something for you to chew on - people already are taking green technology seriously. Less so in the US than other places, but even that said the majority of the 1,000,000 Priuses sold so far are in the US.
I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame.
While I'm at it, I'm sure that man will never fly. That's the realm of angels and birds.
Oh, hold on, you mean those bicycle mechanics were actually on to something?
It's odd that on a place like Slashdot, it's seen as cool to by cynical, and cynical is seen as non-critically putting down anything that hasn't been out and about for 5+ years. Who would have thought 10 years ago that Formula 1 would be leading the way in development of mechanical (flywheel) hybrid powertrain systems?
That's it! Damn it, I thought they'd fixed it!!
Let's test it: /media/winxp
adpsimpson@asimpson:~$ PS1='root@computer:~# '
root@computer:~# rm -r
rm: remove write-protected directory `winxp'?
Whoa, what are all these popups??
I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers running some little script with normal user privileges, and suddenly seeing the prompt change from
user@computer:~$
to
root@computer:~#
And, well, that had been around forever, apparently. And, well, it was fixed the next day.
The moral? Horrendous, gaping security holes do exist, and are found from time to time. And they get fixed (faster in FOSS than Windows, but they still get fixed). Of course, some OSs are more equal than others when it comes to general security and user-centric design, but I just can't believe for a minute that this is some life-shattering, end of the world event for Microsoft.
As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
Something tells me that perhaps he doesn't genuinely, really believe that God is his witness... :)
Without encryption, swapping the drive out will bypass the userland/OS passwords.
If the HDD password prevents the drive from being read, then that would be a password protected, encrypted drive. And note the quote: "The information was encrypted on the server, but not on the laptop, although it should have been... However, it was protected by two levels of passwords"
The US was founded after a long fight for freedom from the UK, an oppressive parent country - and the constitution reflects that, deliberately enshrining and limiting the rights of the government, not the people. If the right was not granted to the government, the government didn't have it.
Specific limitations were explained where they contrasted to the old system. For example secure in your person and papers, right to form a well organised malitia, absolute freedom of speech etc - all these things defined as actions the government could not interfere with, where previously they were frequently interfered with and/or denied.
Since that time, the common interpretation seems to have reversed; it is now assumed that if the right is not granted to the people, the people don't have it.
So where clearly the point of privacy in mail was meant to contrast to the previous system by granting privacy in communications (like mail), it has now been taken to mean no privacy in any form of communication except mail.
Offtopic? Seems pretty ontopic to me - he was, after all, the supreme political dissenter during one of the most brutally oppressive periods of history. And used words like "neighbour" and "friend" about brown, white and black folk all equally.
You're right!
While you're at it, the last time I visited the US I was mildly frustrated at having to wait for a taxi, I was a bit annoyed that the local Starbucks served their coffee slightly on the cool side and I wasn't too amused by some people not holding the door open for me when I was only a few feet behind them.
Cor blimey, there's some laws needed there! Let's call them FAST TAXIS, HOT COFFEE and OPEN DOORS! Then the world will stand up and listen!!
I totally agree with you - I hate overuse of mobile phones (ok, I'm British) in public places.
However, I own a mobile phone, and at times I've been known to use it. In a public place. Maybe even on a bus or train. And I might even start by saying "I'm on the train..." And this may be more convenient than other methods - it's the only way I have of communicating from, eg, an airport or a bus-stop, it's instant, it's voice communication, it's reasonably cheap, it takes no setup, etc etc.
Making them illegal in any situation is not a sensible reaction. The law smacks of the "Get off my lawn" attitude of people who hate everything the "youth" do "nowadays," and react to new technology by banning it, instead of rational law-making for the good of society.
A much better solution exists on most long-distance trains in the UK now, where there are 'silent' carriages. When travelling with friends, I'd never go in them, as I'm probably one of the people they target. But when I'm alone, I love the ability to travel quietly.
Then individual airlines could have clauses in their ticketing agreements like "Access for Suitably Surveyed Customers to Lousy Overcharged Wireless Networks.
Seriously, what's the obsession with rediculous names for laws? PATRIOT, PRO-IP, CAN SPAM to name a few. If this law was called, for example, "On board communications act, 2008," I'd have a lot more time to listen to it.
While this may be oppressive, at least users now know where they stand.This has to be better than an invisible, 'if we think you're using too much we may slow you down, and then lie about it repeatedly' policy.
Not to say that both are mutually exclusive, of course.
Wait, are you calling me a debian newbie, or a human-geek-slashdot newbie?
Either way, I'm fairly sure the output would actually be more like:
$ sudo apt-get install common-sense && man common-sense
common-sense is a meta package
The following NEW packages will be installed:
RMS-logic RMS-common_sense RMS-IP_thoughts
The following currently installed package(s) will be removed:
human_society
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Top end vendor charges more for service than mass-market vendor.
Film at 11.
how do we distinguish between infringing and non-infringing uses of a large number?
$ sudo apt-get install common-sense && man common-sense