... new proposed name: WGPL = WearableGPL One of the things that I think is important is that we be taken seriously. I tend to dislike "cyborg" and "borg", as well as movie-related matter since I belive we have enough trouble being taken seriously. Myself, having been "laughed at" for 20 years or so, wearing strange things, maybe I'm a little oversensitive to this, but nevertheless, I think if and when you really do put on your wearcomp and walk down the street, you'll be glad there is at least an element of seriousness backing you (e.g. you can describe this as part of a serious scientific and engineering effort). In that spirit, I still favor GPLWear or GPLW. However, I thought of an alternative name WPGL WearableGPL. Both of these have a nice history and tradition in the cyberculture of rebels like Richard Stallman, GNU, etc., and also they will be immediately understood by the "right" audience (cool unix dudes and linux hackers). Those are the people we need to make this field work. Yes there will always be mainstream followers, but you've got to really win the hearts and respect of fellow "hackers" to make this a real win. On the issue of 486 versus 603 processors or the like, the basic goal of the WearComp project was to make wearable computing accessible to the largest number of people. Therefore, although I know that the 603e is a better processor (I'm an electrical engineer in a group of researchers that specialize in computer architecture) I think we need to bite our teeth together and swallow the 486. No matter how bad it tastes, that's what's the most ubiquitous. A 486 processor will do most of the things we need to do, and it will do them the easiest. As a personal user of wearable computing, my experience has been that it takes a great deal of time to use anything else. Everything you try to do is harder. One roadblock after another. I built a 603e wearcomp so I can say this from personal experience. With a 486, everything is easy, and you can get a system up and running in 30 minutes, and be typing a thesis while jogging down the street connected to the Internet, responding to email and maybe running GIMP now and again to draw a fake moustache on someone you meet. steve Professor Steve Mann University of Toronto
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