Comment I bought several of these.... (Score 1) 28
And they're awesome. There are several different models on the original strandbeest website. However, the "animaris rhinoceros parvus" is quite fragile and quickly lost its "wings".
Comment I love Vance... (Score 1) 83
... but people keeps mentioning the dying earth series, Cugel and friends; and these are precisely the only four books from Vance that I didn't like much if at all. I found all of his marvellous inventions of many strange civilisations and customs so much more interesting; the space operas, the exotic adventures on strange worlds...
Comment Re:I like my netbook. (Score 1) 300
Back in 2008 the Aspire One was really excellent, contrary to the EeePC of the time it has a keyboard large enough for my big hands; the main culprit with it nowadays is the 512MB of RAM, which are not enough even for Firefox, and upgrading, though possible, is a terrible PITA. The 1225C comes with 2GB and a dual core, HT processor which gives it enough oomph to play back comfortably hi quality video from the HDMI to my TV (tried this last night).
Comment Re:I like my netbook. (Score 1) 300
I just bought a Ubuntu-preloaded Asus 1225C. It's really quite nice, cheap, but powerful enough, very light, and a good 6 to 7 hours of battery. I like it, it actually feels like good value for the (little) money, with a decent screen quality and size (1366x768); I was tired of my Acer Aspire One 1024x600 screen, really too cramped even for basic web browsing.
Submission + - Galileo: Europe's version of GPS reaches key phase (bbc.co.uk) 1
another random user writes: The third and fourth spacecraft in Europe's satellite navigation system have gone into orbit. The pair were launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.
It is an important milestone for the multi-billion-euro project to create a European version of the US Global Positioning System.
With four satellites now in orbit — the first and second spacecraft were launched in 2011 — it becomes possible to test Galileo end-to-end. That is because a minimum of four satellites are required in the sky for a smartphone or vehicle to use their signals to calculate a positional fix.
It is an important milestone for the multi-billion-euro project to create a European version of the US Global Positioning System.
With four satellites now in orbit — the first and second spacecraft were launched in 2011 — it becomes possible to test Galileo end-to-end. That is because a minimum of four satellites are required in the sky for a smartphone or vehicle to use their signals to calculate a positional fix.
Comment Not mentioned elsewhere (Score 1) 700
The Odyssey. Indisputably one of the best books ever. Quite geeky and excellent, Umberto Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" is one of these books I've reread regularly for 25 years.
Submission + - The Three Pillars of Nokia Strategy - Have All Failed. (blogs.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: When all 3 legs of your 3-legged strategy fail, what do you do? You rush — run run run — to change your total strategy. But what would a madman do? — Read Tommi Ahonen's new article to find out. Is the Nokia board either asleep at the wheel, or incompetent, or in collusion with the incompetent CEO? Tommi gives full details, not just of how Nokia's Windows phone strategy has failed, but how this has spread to other parts of the companies technology and the "Elop Effect" has single-handedly destroyed [...] Europe's biggest tech giant" and leaves us only with the question: Why is Nokia's board failing to act?
We've discussed Tommi's articles before where he was correctly predicting Windows phones market failure at a point where others were claiming that "the Lumia line is, in fact, selling quite nicely"
We've discussed Tommi's articles before where he was correctly predicting Windows phones market failure at a point where others were claiming that "the Lumia line is, in fact, selling quite nicely"
Submission + - Libertarian Candidate Excluded From Debate For Refusing Corporate Donations (fishmanforcongress.com) 3
fishdan writes: "I'm a long time /. member with excellent karma. I am also the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress in Massachusetts 6th District. I am on the ballot. I polled 7% in the only poll that included me, which was taken 6 weeks ago, before I had done any advertizing, been in any debates or been on television. In the most recent debate, the general consensus was that I moved a very partisan crowd in my favor. In the 2 days since that debate, donations and page views are up significantly.
Yesterday I received a stunning email from the local ABC affiliate telling me that they were going to exclude me from their televised debate because I did not have $50k in campaign contributions, even though during my entire campaign I have pointedly and publicly refused corporate donations. They cited several other trumped up reasons, including polling at 10%, but there has not been a poll that included me since the one 6 weeks ago — and I meet their other requirements."
Yesterday I received a stunning email from the local ABC affiliate telling me that they were going to exclude me from their televised debate because I did not have $50k in campaign contributions, even though during my entire campaign I have pointedly and publicly refused corporate donations. They cited several other trumped up reasons, including polling at 10%, but there has not been a poll that included me since the one 6 weeks ago — and I meet their other requirements."
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What book(s) you read that has significant impact on your life? 5
gspec writes: A little background about me: 36-yr old computer engineer working in the Bay Area. While I bring in about 100k annually after tax (actually, in the Bay Area this is not as much as it sounds), I consider my self as an underachiever and my career is stagnant (I have only been promoted 4 times in 12-yr career). I have led a couple projects, but I am not in any leadership/management position.
I realize I need to do something to enhance my career, and unfortunately at this point going back to school is not an option. I believe I need to read more quality books.
My question: Which books, any type/genre, that you have read and has significant impact on your life? Thank you all.
I realize I need to do something to enhance my career, and unfortunately at this point going back to school is not an option. I believe I need to read more quality books.
My question: Which books, any type/genre, that you have read and has significant impact on your life? Thank you all.
Comment My advice: Use fdupes.pl (Score 1) 440
For this purpose I'm using a wonderful perl script, fdupes.pl. I've tested it on many millions files, many terabytes filesystems and it works fine. I've found the original on perlmonks.org, but modified it to 1 skip symbolic links (a symlink is obviously identical to its target) 2 auto-delete dupes (after confirmation). For anyone interested, find the script here: http://pastebin.com/cMFbBjt9
Comment Re:Translation (Score 1) 332
As far as I'm concerned, it's an urban legend.
Maybe an urban legend coming from Nintendo, to discourage hacking
Comment Re:All of them. (Score 1) 1200
I never heard a Speak and Spell with a female voice
Comment Re:Teletype Displays (Score 1) 1200
They can be forgiven. Just about every movie computer since the 1950s has had to make some sort of buzzing, whirring or clacking noises.
Some electronics can be relatively noisy. Back in 1996, I remember clearly the SGI Indigo2 Extreme for that; whenever you moved a big 3D model on screen, you could clearly hear the graphic board hissing and buzzing.
Comment Re:All of them. (Score 1) 1200
> Lightman's computer has the same speech synthesizer as NORAD's.
Back then everyone used the same TI chip for speech synthesizers, so that's not much of a stretch. Anyway the speech synthesizer is just a useful gadget to avoid getting the actors to read the screen aloud constantly.
Italian Scientists Demonstrate Cold Fusion? 815
Haffner quotes physorg which says "Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W....when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy. The reactor uses less than 1 gram of hydrogen and starts with about 1,000 W of electricity, which is reduced to 400 W after a few minutes. Every minute, the reaction can convert 292 grams of 20C water into dry steam at about 101C. Since raising the temperature of water by 80C and converting it to steam requires about 12,400 W of power, the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31."
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//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
