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Comment Install Linux (Score 2) 417

This IS Slashdot. Just install Linux on it. This is what you've been waiting for. Remember, you bought it because it was UNIX -- with a shell -- and you can run X. Well, now that you're done trying out the OS that came with the computer, you can actually install the OS you wanted to be using all along.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Idea: Looking back

Journal by cyberrodent

I just looked at the few comments I've made here. One was about the kids use of the iPad and other technology in general - I could use my slashdot journal to make some notes about that.

The other comment was from 2005 and was about the operating system of the future. Given how things are now 6 years later it would be interesting to look at that thread again in light of the present, with the browser emerging as the new operating system

Submission + - The Mathematics of Lawn Mowing 4

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "I enjoy mowing my six acre lawn with my John Deere 757 zero-turn every week and over the course of the last five years of mowing I have come up with my own most efficient method of getting the job done which takes me about three hours. While completing my task this morning, I decided after I finished to research the subject to discover if there is a method for determining the most efficient path for mowing and found that Australians Bunkard Polster and Marty Ross wrote last summer about an elegant mathematical presentation of the problem of mowing an irregularly shaped area as efficiently as possible. First we simplify our golf course mowing problem by covering the course with an array of circles with each circle radius equal to the width of the mower disc. Connecting the centers of the circles produces an equilateral triangular grid, with vertices at the circle centers. Following a path consisting of grid edges, there will necessarily be a fair amount of overlap so the statement of the problem is to minimize the overlap by minimizing the number of vertices that are visited more than once which Polster and Ross say is easily achieved by well-known computer search algorithms. Any other tips from slashdot readers?"

Comment Re:iPad (any touch iThing) (Score 1) 417

by cyberrodent (#33474508) Attached to: Software (and Appropriate Input Device) For a Toddler?

As others have stated, we've found iPhone/iPad to be one of the kids (one is now 18 months and the other almost 3 year) favorite things to play with - from about 14 months or so they were able to unlock it and find their favorite apps or videos. We load it up with Sesame Street videos and some toddler games. They also love to look at photos and movies of themselves and the family. They also like drawing apps, music apps (Piano, Bloom, etc) The older one likes matching games - its helped them learn shapes, color, animals and animal sounds and now letters and words. The older one knows how to find videos on YouTube and Netflix already. (sigh)

Its saved us from numerous meltdowns when waiting in long lines or on long car rides. They also have to share it with each other.

A downside is that when the little one sees ANYTHING that resembles and icon, she taps on it as if it were an iThing -- she's done this on cereal boxes, books, TV screens etc.

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Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of everything and the Wirth of nothing?

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