Comment So it goes. (Score 0) 121
Poo-tee-weet
Comment I learned more from BYTE than I did (Score 1) 185
getting my EE in college. Thanks Steve!
Comment Re:Nothing New (Score 1) 258
Logged in to make this comment. People have been doing this for a long while. Over at http://www.cnczone.com/ you can find dozens of people who've built their own machines as well as links any and all material that you might need to buy. And they build all types of machines from 8-axis titanium milling to 2-axis wood routers. It's a fairly big hobbyist industry.
Comment I don't know what it will be like in 2030 (Score 1) 738
but I need two earths now.
Comment Re:Illegal under Net Neutrality (Score 1) 196
Bandwidth is not the same as latency. If I push though 1Mb in 1ms and the other 999ms nothing, it can be quite different than 1kb every 1ms. Both users see data throughput of 1Mb/s, the former would experience unacceptable details for gaming.
Comment From an engineering seminar (Score 1) 366
that I attended for DigitalTV, the claim was made that studies indicated in the US viewers were more concerned with sound and audio whereas in Japan these preferences were reversed.
Comment Adopt a dog (Score 1) 825
Best security system available. At least according to an insurance adjuster relative who told me that security systems don't work. Plus you can have a wonderful companion and maybe even save a life,
Comment Re:Build it... and they will come. (Score 1) 589
Is that even possible? Fuel:battery energy density ratios with efficiency added in are in the neighborhood of 50-100:1.
Comment Re:Wait... They want them to dumb things down... (Score 1) 511
I think it was Feynman who said something like
If you can't explain it to a kindergarten student, then you don't understand it yourself
Better Development Through Competition? 251
theodp writes "Among the tips Derek Sivers offers for how to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen is an intriguing one: hire more than one person to complete your first programming milestone, with the expectation that one will go bad, one will be so-so, and one will be great. 'Yes it means you're paying multiple times for this first milestone,' says Sivers, 'but it's worth it to find a good one.' It's not a new idea — the practice of pitting two different programmers against each other on the same task was noted three decades ago in Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine — but one that never gained widespread acceptance. Should the programming code-off be adopted as a software development best practice?"
A Close Look At Apple's A4 Chip 245
PabloSandoval48 writes "Apple's A4 processor is heavily influenced by Apple's long-established relationship with Samsung and represents an evolution rather than a revolution in circuit design. A team of experts takes a look at the evidence on A4 in an attempt to determine its origins and the influence of recent Apple acquisitions in the area of chip design."
US Dept. of Energy Wants Bigger Wind Energy Ideas 252
coondoggie writes "The Department of Energy wants to kick up the research and development of offshore wind projects as it looks to achieve its goal of producing 20% of the country's electricity from wind farms by 2030. The DOE Wind Program is looking to focus on what it calls specific advanced technology, gigawatt-scale demonstration projects that can be carried out by partnerships with a wide range of eligible organizations and stimulate cost-effective offshore wind energy deployment in coastal and Great Lakes regions of the country. The agency is also looking for more research that can help address market barriers in order to facilitate deployment and reduce technical challenges facing the entire industry, as well as technology that will reduce cost of offshore wind energy through innovation and testing."
First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241
Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"
Comment Re:Google has lost their identity (Score 1) 466
I really, still don't see the issue with this.
Apparently neither did Google.
Comment Re:Microsoft Weak Link ... (Score 1) 371
I thought TRON was the most widely used OS on the planet.
