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Comment Re:Default to HTML yet? (Score 1) 173

Unless things have changed, I think you can also ##program-name and get the TeXInfo page for it.

With file management, web browsing, KParts rendering PDFs, and the integrated man / TeXInfo viewers I practically never used to leave Konqueror.

Comment Re:In general (Score 1) 74

I imagine that at the moment it really is in the "Just to show they can" phase. I can anticipate some potential benefits of this kind of manufacture, though I'm not an expert in the field, so take it with a pinch of salt! There was an episode of Grand Designs on UK television (I think it's a Channel 4 show) where they build a house using insulation-filled plywood boxes that were CNC-cut on site. It's probably worth a watch if you can get it, since it must have similar benefits to printing (e.g. just ship raw materials to the site and then any custom parts are made just-in-time). What I've heard about that episode has put ideas in my head about that sort of technique...

Firstly, assuming a more completely automated system than the one described above, you might build a house by simply assembling a 3D printer machine around the site and letting it run. You could potentially assemble a building very quickly and with a relatively small workforce.

Secondly, as with other forms of 3D printing, there's the potential to build an irregularly-shaped or custom-designed structure just as easily (in terms of construction effort) as a standard one. Less need to mess about with what curves you can easily make, getting the right sized construction materials, etc. Just let the machine lay down walls in whatever configuration you want.

Thirdly, even in a system like the one described (printing out elements which then require finish and - presumably - putting into place) you still get the opportunity to make custom components on-site where they'll be used. Raw material can be shipped to you in a dense form, instead of transporting unwieldy, finished parts. Although you incur the cost of using the 3D printer, you do avoid the cost of having someone in a factory construct moulds for the concrete shapes you need. I can also imagine designs being checked during the build and minor alterations made before running off the next part. Design errors might be fixed in this way without greatly delaying the project.

Comment Re:Is he free? (Score 1) 148

There was also a form of house arrest in use (supposedly for people who couldn't be tried for security reasons, I think) that was used to severely restrict people's freedom. This was applied if the right people believed "We really, really think this guy is dodgy" but couldn't say why, at least not in a public forum. The house arrest approach was adopted after a ruling by the Law Lords (would now be the Supreme Court, I think) saying that indefinite detention in prison without trial was not legal. The "suspects" were then allowed out of prison but only permitted a very specific, restricted set of "freedoms" including being restricted to their home for most hours of the day.

I'm not sure if those measures are still in force (though I suspect so). As I understand it, they were a separate issue from the (much shorter) periods you could be held by police without charge, nominally whilst they gather evidence, etc.

Comment Re:In the mean time, we are moving to drones (Score 1) 161

I would guess there's a societal aspect to that split also, though... If the Chinese government, with their larger population and stronger controls on the media and information flow, can sustain a large military (and get the public to tolerate military losses) then I'd suggest that they don't need drones so much. That still doesn't give them the other technical advantages of drones, though (e.g. staying aloft for days at a time, etc).

Comment Re:Still dont get it (Score 1) 245

In that instance it strikes me more as protectionism than socialism - the French government are considering measures to aid their local businesses, at a cost to a foreign business which is muscling into their territory. Capitalist governments also take various protectionist measures to safeguard their home industries - often by disadvantaging foreign companies more directly through import duties, etc. For instance, the Conservative government in the UK moved to block EU laws that would have disadvantaged our highly capitalistic financial sector.

You could still argue that protectionism and socialism can be linked, for instance by choosing to protect certain home industries as a way of distributing wealth.

I imagine newspapers all over the world are lobbying their governments about Google. They might not succeed but a common part of big business does seem (sadly) to involve complaining to government about other businesses that seem threatening.

Comment Apple style apology! (Score 1) 413

This really is an Apple style acknowledgement of fault - I'm reminded on when some iPods were found to be carrying a Windows malware, which then infected some PCs...

http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/

Key quote (emphasis mine): "We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it."

They do have chutzpah.

Comment Re:of the BSDs (Score 1) 124

I think Android uses NetBSD-derived userland stuff also? I've had the impression that they wanted BSD stuff for licensing reasons but I wonder if there's something specific to NetBSD that makes everybody particularly like their userland utilities!

Comment Re:of the BSDs (Score 5, Interesting) 124

The Darwin kernel (which is called XNU) is a bit weird - I spent some time looking into it when it was still a relatively new thing (2003-4 kind of era). XNU is Mach + FreeBSD + DeviceKit/Apple-y bits, all sharing the same protection domain. The latter point is interesting, since despite the fact Mach is considered a microkernel they've actually shoved all of the other kernel-level services in with it, rather than separating them into different processes. This makes the whole kernel basically monolithic (i.e. like the modern Windows and Linux kernels), which is kind of unexpected!

The Apple-y bits in the kernel that I mentioned definitely includes DeviceKit, their driver interface. Maybe some other stuff as well. The drivers are not normal FreeBSD-like device drivers - I think they're even C++, unlike FreeBSD itself.

I found it all a bit unexpected really, things didn't fit together as I'd imagined.

There's probably more in here; I'm not sure if it's the original one I read through!
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/About/About.html

Comment On a related tangent: "Computing Across America" (Score 1) 365

http://microship.com/bike/winnebiko/book.html

This chap decided to adopt a "technomadic lifestyle" in the 80s (or maybe early 90s?) and telecommute from wherever he happened to have ridden his recumbent bicycle to. This was back in days before popular use of the internet, so he was signing in primarily to use the facilities of a dial-up service provider, chat online, check e-mail, etc - using an acoustic coupler on public payphones.

He had to hire someone to work in an office to field calls etc for him whilst he was out on the road - these days, there'd be less need for that sort of thing, since it's more practical to be in constant contact and basically all clients will also have e-mail available. Some or all of the work he was actually doing seemed to involve writing about how he was travelling nomadically whilst working ... a bit circular!

On one of his bikes (the second, I think) he could also type by directly chording ASCII characters using switches on his handlebars - that's proper hacker skill!

Unexpectedly, when I read the book, he also turned out to be a bit of a Cassanova and had great success with the ladies on his travels. I wasn't anticipating that so much!

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