Comment Re:Interesting, but ... (Score 1) 150
That's only because you mumble.
That's only because you mumble.
I speak (and read and write) both Mandarin and Spanish.
Spanish is a lot easier for an English-speaker to learn.
But Mandarin is, at least IMHO, much more interesting. I enjoy the characters, preferring the traditional ones, coping with the simplified ones.
The most difficult problem I had learning Chinese is that the dominant system of romanization, pinyin, is wholly non-intuitive and conflicting to me as a reader of English. It's frustrating because there are *very* few sounds in Chinese that really couldn't be well-approximated with normal English character order and usage. The exceptions, like the pinyin 'r' sound, could be marked another way (for instance, as the Spanish Ñ.) So learning how to say a word without a native speaker turned out to be a real problem. I got a heck of a boost when a real Chinese restaurant opened in our little town.
One of the reasons I live where I do is because I'm close to work, about 4 miles away. Lets me bike in. That way I don't have to deal with the expense and clusterfuck that is parking on a big campus. 4 miles is a very easy, short, ride so it is no problem. You don't need to change or anything, you don't work up a sweat.
Gosh-o-gosh. Techies on slashdot? What's the world coming to?!?!
You wanted me to just say "iPhoto", right?
lol...
That was all software, you know. Free, too.
...but it saves on random number generator cycles...
Just took a look at Imagemagick; they've definitely come a long way in RAW support. But I'm a little confused about what they mean by:
CR2 R Canon Digital Camera Raw Image Format Requires an explicit image format otherwise the image is interpreted as a TIFF image (e.g. cr2:image.cr2).
Does it read CR2 or not? I have a 6D DSLR, so CR2 support was the first thing I looked for. Then there are the RAW, S-RAW and M-RAW variants.
Just curious.
I'm interested in power measurement (rolled my own), so I took a look.
The ready-to-buy pricing is interesting.
A power consumption measuring module for 8 lines is £324.00; a common breaker box with a capacity of 40 circuits will require five of these, for a total of £1620.00. Then you'll need 25- or 50-ampere current sensors, 40 of them at £12.00, adding £480.00. Now, if you want remote control through their cloud, add another £295.00 for the gateway module. The power supply module is £50.00. Then you get to subscribe to their cloud solution, I think, an idea I got by the "free one year of cloud subscription" you get with a small bundle of components they sell -- though I didn't find a price for the cloud itself.
So a one-breaker panel solution seems to be about £2445.00, or at today's exchange rate, $3,843.13.
That's not horrible for what it does in terms of commercial solutions, but it certainly isn't in the low-end zone, either. You can make a calibrated current sensor for under a dollar if you dig up some surplus ferrite, which I've not found to be particularly difficult (though ferrite isn't the only workable way to go. An optically isolated op amp configured balanced over a tiny resistance also works great.) So roundly, $40 for the ferrite based solution. An op amp and an A/d channel together don't amount to a dollar per either, so another $42 for those (I use a final pair of channels to watch AC voltage and phase at the breaker box, comes in all kinds of handy. Power consumption's not just about current!) Add about $10 worth of digital logic, a $40 Raspberry Pi [there's your computer and wired web server, add $5 to put it all on wifi], roll your own software and PCB or hardwiring, throw in a tiny power supply, and for about $150 US, you've got equally capable -- or better -- measurement capabilities. If you want to be fancy and uber-safe and avoid the whole ferrite space and cost and availability issues, you can add $5/line for another $200 cost for optically isolated op amps would would put you at about $350. And of course there is no need whatsoever for a "cloud." Just a webserver, which the Pi or similar can neatly provide. The Pi is a good choice because it's low power, well supplied with features, and capable and sufficient to the task. You can toss a monitor, keyboard and mouse on there permanently too if you want a fancy at-the-breaker-box position, but you don't actually need to, so I don't count that.
I did wonder what it'd cost to build from their PCBs, but there doesn't seem to be any way to really figure that out other than doing it. Pretty much has to be less than $3840, though.
A database (sqlite would do fine), a little Python (sqlite included), an image display program (painless if we're talking jpeg/gig/png, might be knotty for RAW DSLR images) and thou.
Open source, features up to you, no lock in because you can export it to any format you're willing to take the time to fool with. Best environment for this kind of undertaking is a web browser and some CGI, both of which, under linux as you prefer, are easily handled.
Image organization is a pretty minimal undertaking, if that's all one is really really after. The database will do the vast majority of the work. Just make sure you provide fields for everything that matters to you, or might matter to you, and then USE them.
Ubuntu, for one, has everything you need for the jpg/png/gif case built right in. RAW DSLR, as mentioned, will require some work.
You discover Apple software sucks way less on OS-X. The fanboys will tell you this is evidence of how much better OS-X is, of course, but the real reason is Apple doesn't do a good job on their ports. They really half-ass their Windows ports so they end up not being good software. It is possibly something to try and make OS-X look better but more likely simply laziness and a lack of good Windows developers.
There's a big difference between not going out of your way to support something and going out of your way to prevent it. Windows doesn't have a native POSIX interface (it used to have a basic one) but you can add one if you like. It can be done higher level via something like Cygwin, or it can be done directly in the executive just like the Win32/64 APIs. There is nothing stopping you from adding it, they don't care.
Same deal with DirectX and OpenGL. A Windows GPU driver has to provide DirectX support. It is just part of the WDDM driver. Windows provides no OpenGL acceleration, and no software emulation. However you can provide your own OpenGL driver if you wish, and Intel, nVidia, and AMD all elect to do so. Windows does nothing to stop this and they work great (if the company writes a good driver). Indeed you could develop your own graphic API and implement that, if you wished.
There's a big difference between saying "We aren't going to do any work to support your stuff," and saying "We are going to work to make sure your stuff can't be supported."
comments that state that prohibition is the solution to America's drug problem
Prohibition is America's drug problem.
I don't believe it is controversial to consider vaccination 14 shots at 2 years old extreme.
Unfortunately, no one has yet convinced mother nature that it's "extreme" to threaten children (and adults too) with 14 (if only it was just fourteen!) infectious and not-that-unlikely really severe threats to their health. So there's your basic conundrum, partner: stick little Billy even if he cries, or let him die of some horrible disease, because, hey, 14 shots, so extreme.
Also, the autism thing... that's utter bullshit. Do a little honest research.
See, here's the problem. When the susceptible, that is, those you consider genetically deficient, engage in a mass die-off, there is a rather immediate and severe problem with bacterial and viral outbreaks that have little directly to do with the initial vector. Disposal of bodies becomes a severe problem (I refer you to Google for massive and unequivocal reams of corroborating evidence), the economy takes it in the shorts as all manner of people in all walks of life fall victim, distribution of necessities are disrupted, water supplies become corrupted, many newly desperate people begin to engage in rapidly upscaled numbers of antisocial acts -- theft, violence, etc. -- basically civilization shits itself and falls in it. Into this uniformly unpleasant and dangerous swamp of defecation you, complete with the pure and holy genes that rendered you immune from the initial outbreak, will almost certainly fall. Along with your spouse, offspring, pets and friends.
So let's not get too excited about letting nature run wild when we have the ability to prevent it, shall we? Life is ever so much more pleasant when you can go outside without a surgical mask, automatic weapons, and night vision equipment.
Oh, man, I truly hate to go there, but... at what level of risk, if any, do you feel it is appropriate for society to step in? What if Mom gets her jollies from dangling little Joey over a pit of alligators by a raveled string? What if daddy thinks his little cutie-pie looks best with a mouthful of semen? What if both parents like to hear the kids squeal when they shoot them in the limbs with a
The only argument along these lines that has any credibility at all is the one that notes the legal and bureaucratic tendency of limited, appropriate interference to become large, inappropriate interference, and suggests that the risk to the relatively small number of kids who have a pair of batshit-crazy parents (perhaps if only one is fucktarded, we can at least hope the other will interfere) does not outweigh the risk to everyone else of the government interfering with, and/or taking their children for what amount to some or all of the wrong reasons.
Do you really mean to say that parents can do anything they want with their kids?
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
