Yes, I see a minimum of $ 0.242 wiped out or changed by ebook distribution, plus some unknown fraction of $ 0.321. My math: $0.047 college store income + $ 0.068 college store operation + $ 0.114 college store personnel + $0.013 freight = $0.242. A 25-50% change in costs seems substantial.
Well, we could argue fruitlessly about whether I'm missing anything (obviously the motion and gunk I described aren't bothering contact wearers or they'd complain), but the muscles and motion of the eye are spectacularly weird. The superior oblique muscle connects to the eyeball through a tiny bone stirrup to produce the kind of rotation that you mention, which is the weirdest anatomical tidbit I've run across. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eyemuscles.jpg
I'll have to respectfully disagree with at least the first and last of your rebuttals. I've seen lots of eyes blown up on video screens while tracking, and contacts absolutely float around on the cornea. I'm painfully aware of this because the edge of small contacts (gas-permeable?) frequently interferes with eye-tracking in one of two ways: creating changing refractions of the edge of the pupil; and/or reflecting light itself and creating false positives when the tracker attempts to detect a corneal reflection. This is not to say that contacts are completely untethered, but they certainly move around quite a bit, and I imagine more than enough to make a tiny embedded screen useless without sophisticated control. As to keeping contacts clean by blinking, that's just silly. Why would they need to be cleanly nightly if they were being cleaned thousands of times each day? Believe me, there's plenty of crud on contacts that blinking doesn't budge; it's the very first thing we ask people to do when there's an issue, and it only helps sometimes. As to the orientation maintenance, that's news to me, but I'm pleased to hear that somebody cracked it. It also makes the left eye/right eye near/far correction I encountered even less comprehensible.
I love the idea, but having conducted many eye-tracking sessions I think that there are a number of basic challenges that the contact-lens implementation would need to overcome. First, contacts drift all over the cornea. It's really quite disconcerting to watch, especially when you've got obvious markers like vanity-coloring for irises. Station-keeping over the pupil would require technology that's not mentioned here. Alternatively, you might monitor the portion of the contact that's positioned over the pupil at any given moment using photocells on the underside to catch light reflected off the retina, but then you'll need a bigger display and use up valuable real estate. Second, similarly and perhaps even more importantly, orientation maintenance. If there was a good way for contact orientation to be maintained, bifocal contact lenses would be a reality already. Instead you encounter bizarre stopgaps like a reading lens in one eye and a distance lens in the other. Third, eyes are a fairly disgusting environment. Crud on regular contacts doesn't seem to impede vision, but the delicate electronics in a device like this might object to working in a wet, salty, bacteria-ridden setting unless very carefully insulated.
Nothing bad about reaching for the dream, but I'll take a pair of prescription Virtual Light-style glasses while we're waiting.
ZFS is indeed labeled experimental, and it's an important distinction. That said, I believe that Pawel Dawidek, who ported the file system from Solaris, is using it in production. The chief caveat at the moment is that ZFS should only be used on the amd64 architecture. Other issues are not specific to FreeBSD's implementation of ZFS, e.g., the large memory footprint, but are instead inherent to the current release of ZFS and would be the same under any OS. More about the project at http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFS/.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
Proceeds from auctions appear to be paid to the Treasury, although I admit I didn't wade through the entire act and it has been amended piecemeal since enactment http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf (PDF warning):
(C) DEPOSIT AND USE OF AUCTION ESCROW ACCOUNTS.--
Any deposits the Commission may require for the qualification of
any person to bid in a system of competitive bidding pursuant to
this subsection shall be deposited in an interest bearing account at a
financial institution designated for purposes of this subsection by
the Commission (after consultation with the Secretary of the
Treasury). Within 45 days following the conclusion of the
competitive bidding--
(i) the deposits of successful bidders shall be paid to
the Treasury;
(ii) the deposits of unsuccessful bidders shall be
returned to such bidders; and
(iii) the interest accrued to the account shall be
transferred to the Telecommunications Development Fund
established pursuant to section 714 of this Act.
* SMedia 3362 Graphics Accelerator * 2 3D Accelerometers
The outfit that makes the graphics chip needs to fix the product page; http://www.smediatech.com/product3362.htm should be correct but seems to describe the 3365 instead.
It's important to remember that the FreeBSD ports tree is a special case of building from source. Many programs are patched by porters to ensure that they will work under the OS; that extra attention isn't all that different from a distro, although the system does allow you to start from a much smaller installed base. Also, building some apps/suites from source is brutally slow; compiling Xorg or Gnome on an old system can take days. In these cases, FreeBSD's own packaging system is extremely handy if somewhat limiting.
Fair enough; I'm satisfied with foobar2000/BMPx and rsync. That said, it sounds like iTunes might work with Rockbox if you're willing to work on it. See this forum post.
I received an iPod as a Christmas gift, and was dismayed at the thought of returning it because my music is mostly Vorbis. Enter Rockbox. It's still a work in progress; battery life isn't as good as Apple's native firmware and video playback doesn't work, but it can play a wide array of formats and let me use the iPod the way I wanted to.
From the spec linked from the article, section 11:
1227 In Norse mythology, Bifrost is the bridge which keeps mortals, inhabitants of 1228 the realm of Midgard, from venturing into Asgard, the realm of the gods. In 1229 effect, Bifrost is a powerful security system designed to keep out unwanted 1230 intruders. 1231 1232 This is not why the OLPC security platform's name is a play on the name of the 1233 mythical bridge, however. What's particularly interesting about Bifrost is a 1234 story that 12th century Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sturluson tells in 1235 the first part of his poetics manual called the Prose Edda. Here is the 1236 relevant excerpt from the 1916 translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur: 1237 1238 Then said Gangleri: "What is the way to heaven from earth?" 1239 1240 Then Harr answered, and laughed aloud: "Now, that is not wisely asked; has 1241 it not been told thee, that the gods made a bridge from earth, to heaven, 1242 called Bifrost? Thou must have seen it; it may be that ye call it rainbow.' 1243 It is of three colors, and very strong, and made with cunning and with more 1244 magic art than other works of craftsmanship. But strong as it is, yet must 1245 it be broken, when the sons of Muspell shall go forth harrying and ride it, 1246 and swim their horses over great rivers; thus they shall proceed." 1247 1248 Then said Gangleri: "To my thinking the gods did not build the bridge 1249 honestly, seeing that it could be broken, and they able to make it as they 1250 would." 1251 1252 Then Harr replied: "The gods are not deserving of reproof because of this 1253 work of skill: a good bridge is Bifrost, but nothing in this world is of 1254 such nature that it may be relied on when the sons of Muspell go 1255 a-harrying." 1256 1257 This story is quite remarkable, as it amounts to a 13th century recognition of 1258 the idea that there's no such thing as a perfect security system.
Also falling into the "not necessarily better, but interesting" category, portmaster is a utility much like portupgrade, but it requires no dependencies to build or run. It's worth noting that you end up relying on FreeBSD's pkg_* utilities instead of portupgrade's port* suite. Of course, if you would have Ruby installed anyway, then portupgrade doesn't really cost you anything extra.
I poked around a bit; csup's got no dependencies to build, which I like. Does it speed source and ports-tree updates substantially? How about versus portsnap in the latter case?
Slashdot Mirror
I hope that he's right, but without a thorough audit, who can say?
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/skonrath/files/empathy_decline.pdf
Yes, I see a minimum of $ 0.242 wiped out or changed by ebook distribution, plus some unknown fraction of $ 0.321. My math: $0.047 college store income + $ 0.068 college store operation + $ 0.114 college store personnel + $0.013 freight = $0.242. A 25-50% change in costs seems substantial.
Well, we could argue fruitlessly about whether I'm missing anything (obviously the motion and gunk I described aren't bothering contact wearers or they'd complain), but the muscles and motion of the eye are spectacularly weird. The superior oblique muscle connects to the eyeball through a tiny bone stirrup to produce the kind of rotation that you mention, which is the weirdest anatomical tidbit I've run across. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eyemuscles.jpg
I'll have to respectfully disagree with at least the first and last of your rebuttals. I've seen lots of eyes blown up on video screens while tracking, and contacts absolutely float around on the cornea. I'm painfully aware of this because the edge of small contacts (gas-permeable?) frequently interferes with eye-tracking in one of two ways: creating changing refractions of the edge of the pupil; and/or reflecting light itself and creating false positives when the tracker attempts to detect a corneal reflection. This is not to say that contacts are completely untethered, but they certainly move around quite a bit, and I imagine more than enough to make a tiny embedded screen useless without sophisticated control. As to keeping contacts clean by blinking, that's just silly. Why would they need to be cleanly nightly if they were being cleaned thousands of times each day? Believe me, there's plenty of crud on contacts that blinking doesn't budge; it's the very first thing we ask people to do when there's an issue, and it only helps sometimes. As to the orientation maintenance, that's news to me, but I'm pleased to hear that somebody cracked it. It also makes the left eye/right eye near/far correction I encountered even less comprehensible.
I love the idea, but having conducted many eye-tracking sessions I think that there are a number of basic challenges that the contact-lens implementation would need to overcome. First, contacts drift all over the cornea. It's really quite disconcerting to watch, especially when you've got obvious markers like vanity-coloring for irises. Station-keeping over the pupil would require technology that's not mentioned here. Alternatively, you might monitor the portion of the contact that's positioned over the pupil at any given moment using photocells on the underside to catch light reflected off the retina, but then you'll need a bigger display and use up valuable real estate. Second, similarly and perhaps even more importantly, orientation maintenance. If there was a good way for contact orientation to be maintained, bifocal contact lenses would be a reality already. Instead you encounter bizarre stopgaps like a reading lens in one eye and a distance lens in the other. Third, eyes are a fairly disgusting environment. Crud on regular contacts doesn't seem to impede vision, but the delicate electronics in a device like this might object to working in a wet, salty, bacteria-ridden setting unless very carefully insulated. Nothing bad about reaching for the dream, but I'll take a pair of prescription Virtual Light-style glasses while we're waiting.
Could we just switch it to GnIMPh and be done?
What the parent post describes should be sufficient, but the current /usr/src/UPDATING is available online at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/UPDATING?rev=1.520;content-type=text%2Fplain; previous versions are at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/UPDATING. The mergemaster process can be a bit daunting when crossing major versions as so many files are likely to have changed, but apart from that upgrading is usually straightforward.
Good tip, hadn't tripped over that utility. Thanks!
ZFS is indeed labeled experimental, and it's an important distinction. That said, I believe that Pawel Dawidek, who ported the file system from Solaris, is using it in production. The chief caveat at the moment is that ZFS should only be used on the amd64 architecture. Other issues are not specific to FreeBSD's implementation of ZFS, e.g., the large memory footprint, but are instead inherent to the current release of ZFS and would be the same under any OS. More about the project at http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFS/.
The entire parent post is lifted from Uncyclopedia, "the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit": http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/BSD_is_Dying. Their featured article for the day is about global cooling in the 25th century: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Global_Cooling. I assume the two pages are equally accurate.
It's important to remember that the FreeBSD ports tree is a special case of building from source. Many programs are patched by porters to ensure that they will work under the OS; that extra attention isn't all that different from a distro, although the system does allow you to start from a much smaller installed base. Also, building some apps/suites from source is brutally slow; compiling Xorg or Gnome on an old system can take days. In these cases, FreeBSD's own packaging system is extremely handy if somewhat limiting.
Fair enough; I'm satisfied with foobar2000/BMPx and rsync. That said, it sounds like iTunes might work with Rockbox if you're willing to work on it. See this forum post.
I received an iPod as a Christmas gift, and was dismayed at the thought of returning it because my music is mostly Vorbis. Enter Rockbox. It's still a work in progress; battery life isn't as good as Apple's native firmware and video playback doesn't work, but it can play a wide array of formats and let me use the iPod the way I wanted to.
Also falling into the "not necessarily better, but interesting" category, portmaster is a utility much like portupgrade, but it requires no dependencies to build or run. It's worth noting that you end up relying on FreeBSD's pkg_* utilities instead of portupgrade's port* suite. Of course, if you would have Ruby installed anyway, then portupgrade doesn't really cost you anything extra.
And it's in the base system. That's a really easy compile.
I poked around a bit; csup's got no dependencies to build, which I like. Does it speed source and ports-tree updates substantially? How about versus portsnap in the latter case?