World: r3wp

that looks fat, ugly, and far from the concept images we saw in the 
past. India's tablet beats it imo. This OLPC project was overhyped 
from the very beginning imo- http://www.ubislate.com/

Well, one should probably not underestimate the design of the XO-3. 
I wonder which one breaks first, if a child uses one of each for 
a year. Also, the OLPC contains much more beefy educational software, 
specific inputs for measuring equipment and low-voltage charge input 
for mechanical charging with handcrank and solar charging.


The cover can double as a solar panel with built-in battery pack, 
which you take off and leave out in the sun. When it's charged, put 
the cover on the back and the tablet runs off that battery.


When comparing the UI responsiveness, there is pretty much no contest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0OuUr1pZBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5D06XQ1f3o

But the Ubislate is likely much cheaper to produce.

Henrik - I simply don't like things green, government funded, or 
done from public or any other dotations, especially when done fanatically. 
And OLPC is a so so project for me. Was OLPC1 or 2 any significant 
success? Well, Genesi, a commercial entity,might have better HW to 
share. As for tablet, I can't see much innovations there. Such projects 
feel like scientists got money to play, but with not much normal 
commercial focus. From such pov, and being funded by top companies 
like AMD, Intel, Google, I would expect a significant and radical 
innovative design, but it is not imo. One of reasons imo is, that 
none of those companies are willing to ruin their own market ....

Why are you comparing 366MHz machine speed towards the 800MHz one?

Well, you posted the Ubislate, so I thought a comparison was valid.

Yes, there are two models. Old one, 366MHz, you found video for, 
and 7+ version, with following specs: http://www.ubislate.com/specifications.html

if we stick to specs, they are still quite a bit smaller than the 
OLPC XO-3, and is still not designed for educational use, other than 
being cheap. For children in India, price may be a valid point to 
simply allow it to spread, but the OLPC is designed in and out for 
educational use.

A lengthy interview with the developer of the E-cat, Andre Rossi:


http://pesn.com/2012/01/14/9602012_Momentous_Breakthroughs_Announced_During_Anniversary_E-Cat_Interview/transcription.htm

Rossi should better show something, or all this story can be regarded 
a scam ...

He only showed ... steam. The claim that  it"s device is not ready 
to convert steam to electricity from the start is laughable. 
I vote for a scam

OSNews.com goes "dark", as a part of anti-SOPA initiative - http://www.osnews.com/

Wikipedia goes dark in 6 hours ....

It seems they are just using a div tag. I run an adblocker in Chrome 
and did not notice the blackout at all.

I see that too, Henrik. For me, it looks blacked out in all my browsers, 
except Firefox.

it is enough to turn off javascript. Ale - search linked articles 
work too ...

Ale = also ...

Next we will have strikes ....

Get around SOPA  black out on Wikipedia

1. go to blacked out page
2. copy into url bar: 


javascript:$('#mw-sopaOverlay').remove();$('#mw-sopa-blackout').remove();$('body').children().removeAttr('style');

(from a friend of mine that makes DropBox)

{ESC}

Or just hit the "stop" button on the browser in the moment when the 
page is visible, before the blackout appears  (Although this advice 
is kinda late now...)

Still have the blackout here ..and i see some fora are following 
this lead by closing down for the day.

I wish wikipedia actually tracked how often I use wikipedia.  when 
I was a kid, I accessed my book collection (dict, Ency, etc.) often 
every hour.  Now with computers, it is often 5-10 times in an hour.

How reliable or correct do you find wikipedia on a) general topics 
b) specific topics (or more narrow knowledge - don't know how to 
define this category).

I guess it depends on whether you know it's correct? I find it fairly 
reliable with having collections of information that would otherwise 
be hard or time consuming to gather. This is both for general topics 
and very specific topics. If I want to read up on the latest news 
on a developing technology (like Polywell fusion), I go there. Importantly, 
I also use the talk page to see, whether information has been removed 
or corrected for various reasons.

I find it much better these days than a couple of years ago

What Apple released yesterday:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KJxZG2Nv4KA

Bla...bla...bla..
Trying to push a new proprietary document format.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?tag=nl.e539

Wikpedia - is not reliable, rather it is a great place to "start" 
to understand what questions to actually ask.

Good formulation! :)

I think, wikipedia is fine for basic facts, like what is the atomic 
weight of oxygen, or when did that person live, etc. With deeper 
questions, I feel, it become more and more unreliable.

I disagree

Maybe not more and more reliable over time, but more reliable, the 
deeper the question is.

Ladislav, you disagree with which part(s)?

I agree with  Ladislav

With deeper questions, I feel, it become more and more unreliable

 - this is a general statement that is not reliable as far as I can 
 tell. The Wikipedia is surprisingly reliable even when deep knowledge 
 is looked up, as well as it is possible to find even some surprisingly 
 basic facts that are not correct. I find Wikipedia surprisingly accurate 
 and correct, especially taking into account how it is being written. 
 For example, the last Wikipedia article I read contained informations 
 (correct, I have to add) which I did not find in the Stanford encyclopedia...

(the infromations were not even correct and missing from Stanford, 
but they were such that they made the corresponding paragraph in 
the Stanford encyclopedia incorrect, in fact)

I don't remember the last time I came across an incorrect statement 
on wikipedia

Wow .. activism does work ! http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/sopa-pipa-postponed-nice-work-everyone/67622

Yes, for now.

Solar storms may lead to aurora visible from NZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6310695/Aurora-to-light-up-New-Zealand-skies

Not getting up at 3am to look though!

Ubuntu HUD - global menu concept ... hmm, like on Amiga, just improved 
by adding search :-) http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/939

They've reinvented the command line :)

like on Amiga

 - there are many of these on OSX as well. if there is an API for 
 every single action that could be exposed in this menu, beyond what 
 you already have in the existing menus, that would be quite powerful.

(and form a basis for macros)

Ladislav, you seem to be measuring for positives, not for negatives, 
false negatives, or even false positives.  One of our former AltME 
members here was a Wikipedia "editor".  all he did was fix blatant 
mistakes, sabotaged data, etc.

I would send him errors I found every month.


I would simply argue that the accuracy of the data is the same as 
any academic paper, and a “function” of the number of eyes that notice 
something.

Ladislav, you seem to be measuring for positives, not for negatives, 
false negatives, or even false positives.
- no, I just mentioned one example

...and that example was not just "positive", it made the corresponding 
paragraph in the other encyclopedia incorrect exactly because it 
was supposed to be a complete list of available alternatives