Corn (or insert food of your choice)
grows pretty much anywhere. Even in your back yard.
Get one packet of seeds for a few cents and plant it and you can feed yourself forever.
How could anyone ever make
any money from selling food? Do they think people
would pay for someone just to package and transport (install)
it when consumers can just grow it themselves
for free?
What a ludicrous business model!
Re:So when is /. going to get a decent design?
on
Freshmeat II
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot does have a deccent design. After
you turn off the boxes, graphics, colours
and other assorted rubbish.
The idea of using gravity waves to communicate
has been done before. (For example the Niven story
"The Hole Man" where a small relativistic black hole is manipulated to cause gravity waves).
Although no faster than radio, gravity waves have the advantage of passing right through most obstacles.
We (at the office) bought the windows version, suffered through rebooting into windows, and
switched to linux version when it was avaiable
for download.
The unfettered free-for-all is what has ruined
the DNS namespace.
Mom-and-pop operations registering global.com names. Multinationals registering every
one of their product names as a *.com.
Movie titles as domain names. All these things
suck.
What's needed is
Better use of.cc domains (you
merkins have.us. Use it!)
In preferential voting, you list all (or as
many as you want) of the candidates in your
order of preference. If someone gets
more than half the vote, they win. If not, the
voter with the least votes is eliminated, and
their votes redistributed to the second
preference on the ballot papers. Repeat
until a winner emerges.
Are you saying the US doesn't use preferential
voting? No wonder your politics are so screwy!
In Oz, I can vote first for a minority
candidate, then give preference to whichever
of the major parties I despise least.
I'm not forced to vote for a major party because
of fear of "wasting" my vote.
The DT104 board holds an AVR 20-pin microcontroller. RS-232 serial interface to
the PC. One standard LCD display (driven in 4-bit mode), up to 8 pushbuttons,
a piezo speaker and an ultrabright LED.
Each button push/release sends an event down the serial line. It's up to the
master to turn that into keys (I have a chord-set defined). The speaker is there
mostly because the micro has a nice timer output to hook it to, the LED
is an attention-getter and also a mini-torch (I'm forever poking into dark places where a little light in hand would be helpful).
Power is 7.2v NiCd pack. LCD is currently 16x2 but I have plans to switch to a
128x64 graphic. As you can see, I'm into minimalist computing. I don't think anyone will be porting X to this.:-)
My intended application is wearable computing---cpu unit lives in backpack, or
on belt, display/chord unit is held in hand, connected via curly phone-style cord.
...and in other news the UN announces a resolution making nuclear fission
impossible, and the International Association of Concerned Morons lauches a
plan to add chemicals to beer which render drinkers unable to operate machinery while intoxicated.
To some degree I agree that X may not be ideal for handhelds. However,
you young tykes have been misled by Enlightenment, WindowMaker et.al.
in respect to the job description of a "Window Manager".
WMs such as 9wm, wmx or flwm work very well with restricted screen and memory
resources. (I use wmx on full-size systems and I don't miss the fluff of Those Other
Programs).
Where have y'all been? Plan 9 has been available for download for ages.
The 5-floppy install set is pretty much all you needed for a working system that you could play with. The extra money for the CD version got you source and extra doco.
Using a standalone PC is like riding a tricycle around the backyard, compared to connecting to a network (driving on the freeway).
I don't think you'd expect a six year old kid to be able to drive a car. Likewise, some things about computing are Just Plain Hard.
Programming, network management, security, protecting kids from <insert demon here>. These things are Hard Problems, and no amount of "Teach Yourself X in 24 hours for Anencephalic Walrusus" books can make it easy.
The whole concept of "computers should be made easy" is bogus. Wiring your eletricity should be easy? Anyone should be able to drive a car without needing lessons? Organ Transplants For Dummies? Learn to diagnose your child's illness in 24 hours?
Using computers can be made easier. Management and installation issues, very much less so.
There are the tank-based systems where lasers draw an image on some kind of semitransparent substrate. One early implementation used a transparent plastic helix spinning inside a tank.
The cool point here is "without glasses". As long as you need to hang something on your head, appeal will be limited.
The drawback to autostereoscopy is you have to sit still in front of the screen. I don't know about you, but I spend about 60 hours a week doing that.
I'm fairly familiar with the various technologies for 3d display, and screens that use the physical properties of a flat display to present two images visible from different angles have been in the pipeline for a while now.
If they get cheap and popular, what are we gonna do with them?
The no-brainer applications are gaming and 3d modelling, and someone will certainly come up with a new form of Pr0n.
However, with the appropriate version of ePipe, it will do its stuff over DSL or cable or whatever. eg. If your cable modem uses an ethernet link, you'd ePipe model with two or more ethernet devices. There are many versions in the pipeline.
If you think PSTN modems are expensive, you should see ISDN costs in Australia!
Slashdot Mirror
This is a university project.
Nowadays, I get my minimalist grumpy old unix bigot kicks from 'larswm'.
I start up emacs once a week on monday morning. It runs all week, firing up new windows as required.
I run vi hundreds of times a day, for all the little things.
Emacs is good at some things, vi for others. Use a tool for what it's good at---isn't that a direct corollary of the Unix Philosophy?
I think Niven was following the consequences of a postulated setting to the bitter end, which is what good hard SF writers do.
Corn (or insert food of your choice) grows pretty much anywhere. Even in your back yard.
Get one packet of seeds for a few cents and plant it and you can feed yourself forever.
How could anyone ever make any money from selling food? Do they think people would pay for someone just to package and transport (install) it when consumers can just grow it themselves for free?
What a ludicrous business model!
Slashdot does have a deccent design. After you turn off the boxes, graphics, colours and other assorted rubbish.
The idea of using gravity waves to communicate has been done before. (For example the Niven story "The Hole Man" where a small relativistic black hole is manipulated to cause gravity waves).
Although no faster than radio, gravity waves have the advantage of passing right through most obstacles.
Why pay twice when you can download?
Mom-and-pop operations registering global .com names. Multinationals registering every
one of their product names as a *.com.
Movie titles as domain names. All these things
suck.
What's needed is
- Better use of
.cc domains (you
merkins have .us. Use it!)
- More use of subdomains (moviename.studioname.com)
- Limitation on number of domains
per registrant.
(All IMAO of course)In preferential voting, you list all (or as many as you want) of the candidates in your order of preference. If someone gets more than half the vote, they win. If not, the voter with the least votes is eliminated, and their votes redistributed to the second preference on the ballot papers. Repeat until a winner emerges.
Are you saying the US doesn't use preferential voting? No wonder your politics are so screwy!
In Oz, I can vote first for a minority candidate, then give preference to whichever of the major parties I despise least. I'm not forced to vote for a major party because of fear of "wasting" my vote.
A science broadcaster on the Australian radio station Triple J is running a study where he asks listeners to donate their belly-button lint.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2
There's not much to tell.
:-)
The DT104 board holds an AVR 20-pin microcontroller. RS-232 serial interface to
the PC. One standard LCD display (driven in 4-bit mode), up to 8 pushbuttons,
a piezo speaker and an ultrabright LED.
Each button push/release sends an event down the serial line. It's up to the
master to turn that into keys (I have a chord-set defined). The speaker is there
mostly because the micro has a nice timer output to hook it to, the LED
is an attention-getter and also a mini-torch (I'm forever poking into dark places where a little light in hand would be helpful).
Power is 7.2v NiCd pack. LCD is currently 16x2 but I have plans to switch to a
128x64 graphic. As you can see, I'm into minimalist computing. I don't think anyone will be porting X to this.
My intended application is wearable computing---cpu unit lives in backpack, or
on belt, display/chord unit is held in hand, connected via curly phone-style cord.
...and in other news the UN announces a resolution making nuclear fission impossible, and the International Association of Concerned Morons lauches a plan to add chemicals to beer which render drinkers unable to operate machinery while intoxicated.
The poster didn't say it took 30 minutes to boot. It took 30 minutes from unpacking the kit to having an assembled hardware and compiled, running OS.
Was the data egg ever anything but vapour?
(I've built my own using the DT104 board from www.dontronics.com).
WMs such as 9wm, wmx or flwm work very well with restricted screen and memory resources. (I use wmx on full-size systems and I don't miss the fluff of Those Other Programs).
Where have y'all been? Plan 9 has been available for download for ages.
The 5-floppy install set is pretty much all you needed for a working system that you could play with. The extra money for the CD version got you source and extra doco.
That list is probably at least partially a list of posters to news.admin.net-abuse.*.
I never reply to spam. I often followup spam to originating site's postmaster/abuse. I occasionally post to nana*. I'm on the list.
Oh, and to those who say "the whole story of hacking in is impossible!", bite me. People are really that dumb---I've known lusers who
I'm not convinced this story is real, but I'm sure it's not impossible.
Using a standalone PC is like riding a tricycle around the backyard, compared to connecting to a network (driving on the freeway).
I don't think you'd expect a six year old kid to be able to drive a car. Likewise, some things about computing are Just Plain Hard.
Programming, network management, security, protecting kids from <insert demon here>. These things are Hard Problems, and no amount of "Teach Yourself X in 24 hours for Anencephalic Walrusus" books can make it easy.
The whole concept of "computers should be made easy" is bogus. Wiring your eletricity should be easy? Anyone should be able to drive a car without needing lessons? Organ Transplants For Dummies? Learn to diagnose your child's illness in 24 hours?
Using computers can be made easier. Management and installation issues, very much less so.
The cool point here is "without glasses". As long as you need to hang something on your head, appeal will be limited.
The drawback to autostereoscopy is you have to sit still in front of the screen. I don't know about you, but I spend about 60 hours a week doing that.
If they get cheap and popular, what are we gonna do with them?
The no-brainer applications are gaming and 3d modelling, and someone will certainly come up with a new form of Pr0n.
What would you use a flat stereo screen for?
The Lear-Siegler ADM3 and ADM5 terminals are the same shape as the iMac, and predate them by about 20 years.
Discounting philanthropic reasons, why would an employer do this?
Some suggestions:
--cjb
Most of the world doesn't have cable or DSL.
However, with the appropriate version of ePipe, it will do its stuff over DSL or cable or whatever. eg. If your cable modem uses an ethernet link, you'd ePipe model with two or more ethernet devices. There are many versions in the pipeline.
If you think PSTN modems are expensive, you should see ISDN costs in Australia!
Another reason to have a patent is that (certain people think) it looks good in the glossy marketing blurb.