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Comment Re:can't read ebook without batteries (Score 1) 107

by jetxee (#27402975) Attached to: Questions Linger Over Google Book Rights Registry

Maybe it's just me, but the tech level required to read a book online is pretty high.

It's a matter of distribution of e-books being mostly illegal in the western world. When the means of distribution is not effectively suppressed, it is used by almost everybody. See, for example, http://lib.rus.ec/ (Russian e-books' site).

Add to that the power consumption.

You need some light to read a paper book too.

But given the typical price of a paper book $15, you can consume as much as 150 kWh if you don't buy it. That's a lot of energy. It's enough to keep the laptop on for 100 days. I believe much longer with an e-Ink device. And all these money now is wasted on ineffective legacy distribution network. Eventually, these $15 will be consumed as energy or resources, emitted as CO2 and contribute to toxic land-dump in third-world countries, with an effect probably multiple of what you, personally, can do with 150 kWh (see Multiplier effect)

And the paranoia of knowing the ebook I read today can be changed tomorrow to reflect a different view.

That's why you should download it and keep forever. Forget online readers and DRM schemes, that let you see a page, but don't let you have a _copy_. Hard drives are cheap.

Respectful publishers will sign their e-books.

Comment Re:Like the phonograph.... The what? (Score 1) 743

by jetxee (#27164631) Attached to: Young People Prefer "Sizzle Sounds" of MP3 Format

You forgot about moka pots. They are affordable ($20) and easy to use. And given a good pot, good beans, and some attention to take it off the fire timely, the drink is rich and strong. Not as strong and oily as a true espresso, but it has its own goodness.

You also forgot about turkish coffee. A good cezve ($20) is not as overpriced as complicated espresso machines. And it can serve for ages (unlike moka pots).The good turkish coffee is really good, tasty and, IMHO, it has the best and the most natural aroma. But it requires more attention and devotion to cook it right.

Comment Re:Which distro? Debian. (Score 1) 466

by jetxee (#26980037) Attached to: Which Distro For an Eee PC?

Happily running Debian eeePC flavour on 901 for three months. Satisfied.

What's not working out of the box:

* Intel HDA Audio plays audio well, but mic is not working right (requires newer ALSA or 2.6.28 kernel, not yet in repository)
* Bluetooth can be enabled only in the BIOS (requires reboot)
* ACPI scripts switch WiFi off correctly, but fail to switch it on correctly if the laptop was put into sleep with WiFi turned off (a workaround: always enable WiFi before putting it into sleep mode, or reboot to restore it)
* mouse driver is used instead of Elantech touchpad driver (requires kernel 2.6.28), so syndaemon cannot be used, multitouch is not working.

Most of this can be solved with a newer kernel, and everything has workarounds.
Operating Systems

Which Distro For an Eee PC? 466

Posted by timothy from the pick-your-poison dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I've got an Eee PC 1000HD, and frankly, I can't stand XP. I know it's odd, because I actually like Vista, but XP is such a giant piece of crap on here that I struggle to use it day-by-day. Anyway, my question is this: which Linux distro should I run on it? Plain Ubuntu just doesn't have driver support. I tried Ubuntu-eee, which, to put it bluntly, does not work for me at all (slow, terrible battery life, even worse interface). I've heard that Jaunty Jackalope is going to have better netbook support, but that's all the way in April! Is there a distro out now that will free me from XP's terribleness without being terrible itself?" Getting wireless working on an Eee PC (though in my experience imperfectly) with stock Ubuntu is possible; for me it took some googling, though I've been told with great enthusiasm that it actually works "out of the box." What distros are you running on your netbook, and what problems do you find?

Comment old games (Score 1) 384

by jetxee (#26063243) Attached to: Used Game Market Affecting Price, Quality of New Titles

games older than half a year (PC) / about 4 years (console) are usually considered obsolete and don't make any money for the publisher / developer.

I specifically look for old games sometimes, as I can be sure if they are good or bad (lots of reviews, bugs fixed, patches available, hardware requirements I can tolerate). It's a pity old titles are rarely republished and are not easily available.

I guess the publshers make too much profit with the new titles, that they can afford to forget about retro.
Operating Systems

MoBo Manufacturer Foxconn Refuses To Support Linux 696

Posted by kdawson from the must-be-some-good-explanation dept.
Noodlenose notes a thread up on the Ubuntu forums, where a user is questioning the practices of hardware manufacturer Foxconn. The user describes how his new Foxconn motherboard caused his Linux install to freeze and fire off weird kernel errors. He disassembles the BIOS and concludes that a faulty DSDT table is responsible for the errors. Even though the user makes Foxconn aware of the problem, they refuse to correct it, as 'it doesn't support Linux' and is only 'Microsoft certified.' The user speculates darkly on Foxconn's motives. Read the forum, read the code, and come to your own conclusions. "I disassembled my BIOS to have a look around, and while I won't post the results here, I'll tell you what I did find. They have several different tables, a group for Windows XP and Vista, a group for 2000, a group for NT, Me, 95, 98, etc. that just errors out, and one for LINUX. The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation.' The worst part is Foxconn's insistence that the product is ACPI compliant because their tables passed to Windows work, and that Microsoft gave the the magic WHQL certification."
Programming

Submission + - Modern Lisp-based RAD web framework (kanamitweb.net)

Submitted by
rbanffy
rbanffy writes: "A couple days ago, a new alternative to the current crop of RAD web development tools arrived, but, unlike its previous counterparts, it's not written in a language usually associated with web development. It's written entirely (down to the HTTP engine) in Lisp."
The Courts

Large Hadron Collider Sparks 'Doomsday' Lawsuit 731

Posted by Zonk from the this-looks-like-a-job-for-superman dept.
smooth wombat writes "In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked."

Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9 580

Posted by Zonk from the keep-quiet-on-the-terminator-jokes dept.
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
Media

Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray 378

Posted by Zonk from the won't-wait-two-minutes-for-a-movie dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes. 'The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastrophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players ... Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"
User Journal

Journal Journal: test

Journal by jetxee
this is a test
Privacy

Site Claims to Reveal 'Tattle-tales' 565

Posted by Zonk from the true-capitalism-in-action dept.
Dekortage writes "Have you ever ratted somebody out? If it was a legal case, you might end up on Who's A Rat, an online database of police informants and undercover agents, identified through various publicly-available documents such as court briefings. The data-mined information is now available online at a price. As reported in the New York Times, 'The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet.' Understandably, U.S. judges and law enforcement agents are upset, although defense lawyers seem to like the idea. Where do you draw the line between legal transparency and secrecy?"

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