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This same thing was asked roughly 9 months ago which got me thinking about my own solution. At first I was going to set up something like FreeNAS in a VM (easy backup, save states, etc.) but soon realized I needed more.

What I have now is a dedicated machine with four 500 gig HDDs in RAID 0+1 (I wanted 1+0 but I couldn't find the option and it's too late now).

In addition to a place on the network to store all my excessive files I can also use it for things like downloading media with Miro and sharing the media with TVersity, which allows me to stream media to my 360 etc.

In addition I added an RSYNC relationship (with deltacopy) between it and my primary PC for backing up and it is running JungleDisk (attached to Amazon's S3) for auto backup offsite.

It also is there if I want to rip and re-encode a DVD to DivX but still use my main machine for something else.

This is probably more than you were asking for but it is working pretty well for me.

If you wanted a low-power solution you could set all the above up with one of those mini-itx VIA boards (just buy a bulky enough PSU). The only devices I have are the five HDDs and a rarely used DVD-ROM. It doesn't actually take a lot of watts even with a normal board.

VIA mini-itx resource:
http://www.mini-itx.com/

DeltaCopy:
http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp

Miro:
http://www.getmiro.com/

TVersity:
http://tversity.com/

JungleDisk:
http://www.jungledisk.com/

Amazon S3:
http://aws.amazon.com/s3

My current keyboard, and by far my favorite of all that I've used or owned, is the Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000.

I know, I know. It has a hideously long name and it's from Microsoft. Ignore these things as best you can, it's really quite a nice keyboard. Obviously it is a split design, which doesn't work for a lot of people, but it's more friendly than any other split design I've tried. It's got an interesting set of ergonomics which I won't explain here because Microsoft's product page (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/productdetails.aspx?pid=043) does a good job of explaining.

For reviews, in case you don't want to bother doing a quick search, there are the following:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,123241-page,1/article.html
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000400.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/keyboards/microsoft-natural-ergonomic-keyboard/4505-3134_7-31485240.html
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Natural-Ergo-Keyboard-4000/dp/B000A6PPOK

Anyway, just my little bit of input on the topic. It also should be noted that I have no experience in using this keyboard on OS X, so I suppose that this keyboard's usefulness in that context is something that those who use that OS will need to look at a bit more closely, since I can offer no input in that regard; although, it should be compatible in general as it connects via USB.

I bet it's as accurate as this book.

The Secret Language of Birthdays: Personology Profiles for Each Day of the Year
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Language-Birthdays-Personology-Profiles/dp/0670858579

It's a great coffee table book because everyone sees it and can't resist looking up what the book has to say about their birthday. They then flip it to a few family members to just see. You'll then get them telling you about their family/friends and if they match the book's profile or differ. It's a fun religious neutral book. ;) The authors describe the whole astrology and horoscope thing, but the way they really compiled most of the book was researching lots and lots of famous people and comparing them.

It's sort of like the make a list of your 10 most liked books, movies, video games, or even websites. and we'll know just how to stereotype you. There are days where I'd love to see the results if some AI data mined the census, face book, myspace, and google news to try to compile this book based on the info of everyone in the US. It would take an AI to do it, but I wonder if it would learn if there was anything useful or if it's a just for fun info.

There are other times that I'd want some one to seriously study astrology, history, and politics just to see if gravity or those visible lights in the sky have any effect on human politics or human migration patterns in general. It would be fun just to see the results.

In most peoples' opinion, you can't do any better than this.

There's a damn fine history of the LEO computers, written with input from Caminer himself: A Computer Called Leo, by Georgina Ferry.

I just dug out my copy to get all the names right :o)

Understanding the Linux Kernel has a very good description of most of what you want to know. It, and Linux Device Drivers, certainly helped me get acquainted with the inner parts of the kernel.

You'll need an additional piece of hardware to iron things out.

N.B.: I'm not a networking guy either. (My nerd credentials fall in fire-fighting.) I hope that hardware helps though. It invariably does for me. ;-)

I've been happy with my D-Link 4-Port Load Balancing Router

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DI-LB604-4-Port-Load-Balancing-Router/dp/B000BCC0M8

I've done the DSL+Cable thing and it works well, especially if you have multiple high bandwidth requirements.

But two connections != twice as fast... just twice as much theoretical throughput plus redundancy.

Here's the raw truth:

All the computer models are wrong. They have not only failed to predict the future, they can't even predict that past.

That is, when you run their software with the data from, say, the 1970s or 1980s, and project what should happen in the 1990s or 2000s, they project results that have absolutely nothing to do with the known climate data for those decades.

Now I know what you're going to say you're going to contest that my sources aren't scientific enough, or they are unfounded. That's the coward's way out; especially when your source was Wikipedia. Try refuting evidence with evidence.

You'll also be apt to say that this is only a handful of evidence against the towering "evidence" of your "scientists." Ok. Prove it.

As for your "supernatural" comment, faith and science are not all that different. You have faith that the sun will rise, because it has before. You have faith in these scientists because of their titles, given to them by humans just as fallible and weak as you and I.

I, on the other hand, have faith that God exists and that prayers are answered because they are and have been before. You can chalk all you want up to coincidence or superstition, but I'd rather stick to that which I know for myself to be true. Personal experience has taught me that science can't explain everything.

I recently read that the relative lengths of your index and ring fingers (if the latter are longer than the former) are related to an aptitude for higher mathematics. Genetic trait relationships can be damn weird and unexpected. What if this wasn't known and 20 years from now there was a big fad that indexes should be longer than ring fingers?

I like the line in S.M. Stirling's Drakon where it's revealed that, while doing a lot of of genetic manipulation in creating themselves and their slave race, the Draka accidentally selected against many of the genes for creativity, removing them from their gene pool.

I was thinking the same thing. The US is rapidly becoming worse then Soviet era Russia when it comes to rights, so going someplace with "sexual favors"?

Also note, he said OFFERED. That is so much better then REQUESTED.

If I am not attracted to the person offering me nookie, I could always play the wounded professional and act upset.

Let's also remember, Catherine Zeta Jones was SPANISH! :)

Spanish for Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Dummies-Susana-Wald/dp/0764551949/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214599230&sr=8-4

"What would you buy him as a retirement gift?"

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Programming-Dummies-Wally-Wang/dp/0764508350

There are smart conservatives, just not as many.

[Citation needed]

Meanwhile, may I recommend the If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans?

Or are you also a book-hater?

There are already space vegetables. I don't see how a space asparagus changes things one bit.

I had this exact problem and after much research I found that the D-Link DGL-4100 has the QoS features needed to make sure VOIP works smoothly even when downloads are going on.

It sets up easily and handles different network setups flexibly. And it processes packets fast. It easily keeps up with my 5Mbps WAN connection

Well worth it; highly recommended.

Gunsmithing isn't too hard to do, if you know what you're doing...
http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Gunsmithing-Methods-Firearms-Desperate/dp/1581601190
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xf62PKC5M
etc.

And Amazon has it for a cheap $150 (used)! http://www.amazon.com/Meiers-Alpha-Centauri-Planetary-Linux/dp/B00004TBBX/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1214510827&sr=1-14 (Tuxgames is sold out as usual.)

Straight-up UML seems to be a bad match for most embedded systems - embedded systems tend to be built on procedural design principles, and matching them to object-oriented principles is often an exercise in frustration. Bruce Powell Douglas ( Doing Hard Time , Real Time UML ) seems to have the best handle on which core diagram types make sense for most of the embedded systems out there - I can't recommend his work highly enough.

There is no definitive diagram standard for the embedded systems industry - the industry is still trying things out. In my corner of aerospace, Matlab Simulink is rapidly becoming our de facto standard for low-level algorithm requirements and design, with Rhapsody UML diagrams used everywhere else.

Whatever you decide on, make sure it is a technology that will be around when you need to re-visit your code. Many legacy programs are littered with the remnants of the diagrams from the SASD movement (structured analysis, structured design) which paved the way to UML. If you need to maintain your diagram system in-house, that's fine - the only reason I see people gravitating towards UML-type diagrams is the warm fuzzy feeling that UML is a well-documented diagram system that will be understood in two decades' time.

Straight-up UML seems to be a bad match for most embedded systems - embedded systems tend to be built on procedural design principles, and matching them to object-oriented principles is often an exercise in frustration. Bruce Powell Douglas ( Doing Hard Time , Real Time UML ) seems to have the best handle on which core diagram types make sense for most of the embedded systems out there - I can't recommend his work highly enough.

There is no definitive diagram standard for the embedded systems industry - the industry is still trying things out. In my corner of aerospace, Matlab Simulink is rapidly becoming our de facto standard for low-level algorithm requirements and design, with Rhapsody UML diagrams used everywhere else.

Whatever you decide on, make sure it is a technology that will be around when you need to re-visit your code. Many legacy programs are littered with the remnants of the diagrams from the SASD movement (structured analysis, structured design) which paved the way to UML. If you need to maintain your diagram system in-house, that's fine - the only reason I see people gravitating towards UML-type diagrams is the warm fuzzy feeling that UML is a well-documented diagram system that will be understood in two decades' time.

I've enjoyed all of Simon Singh's books, but Fermat's Enigma really stands out.
"Math's Greatest Riddle" stood for 350 years taking swings from many a great thinker.
Singh makes the math easy to understand,
but what's REALLY interesting is the people who made progress towards the proof.
Like Sophie Germain who disguised herself as a man, "Monsieur Le Blanc" in order to become a mathematician.

He also did a similar treatment for Physics in "The Big Bang".
Thanks to you fine slashdotters, I watched his entertaining talk on the book at the Perimeter Institute.

Actually, you're about 7 years off. Spacemen 3 turned into Spiritualized. in roughly 1990, 1991 and then recorded "Ladies And Gentlemen we are floating in space" in 1997, and that's where Cop Shoot Cop is from.

Actually, you're about 7 years off. Spacemen 3 turned into Spiritualized. in roughly 1990, 1991 and then recorded "Ladies And Gentlemen we are floating in space" in 1997, and that's where Cop Shoot Cop is from.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos has a companion book. I happen to have the nice big hardcover version.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos has a companion book. I happen to have the nice big hardcover version.

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/055326382X

Far from it, it's just that for the most part the garage engineer has been replaced by the garage coder in popular culture.

I doubt non-geeks can name 1 engineer (unless you count programmers).

Designers like Hideo Kojima, software devs like Gates, Woz, Jobs and the brother's Google get more credit.

Why? Well they are more likely to make all the subsequent developments needed for a brilliant idea to become a functioning product.

I suppose the DWave engineers will probably cross this boundary... when their software guys get their product out the door.

It's not hard to figure out, people have learned that construction acheivements are usually in materials and design not engineering. The continued existence of the 747 with all of its technical problems, high fuel costs, low seating #s and high maintenance show that some of the most powerful corporations haven't been able to find two brilliant aerospace engineers to rub together.

Part of the problem is that society has taken a very negative view of risks created through engineering. Huge systems to level mountains, de-salinize seas and lakes, irrigate the Sahara, experiment with cloud cover to resolve global warming, etc. are not fashionable.

The only other thing big enough to capture the public's immagination, projects with huge personal or financial risk, are rare because technology has largely caught up to Scientific theory.

Meh, there's some good pseudo science... Dawkin's "Selfish Gene" or Atomic Bomb's for Dumbies are both good reading, partially because the ideas contained are so facinating and controversial.

About half way through Bomb you realize you could have made one by now :P

Chaos: Making a new science, by James Gleick is an excellent book. It covers the history of fractals/chaos and reads a bit like a novel. The mini biographies of many cutting edge scientists that are discussed along the way are very interesting too. I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0140092501

he Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature is a decent read but published in '82, is a bit lacking with modern developments. Still, it's history of Quantum Mechanics is very well written and easily understood. Makes a good intro for older kids.

I've read several glowing reviews of Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer (this one is from Ars Technica), and I'm deeply intrigued by what I've heard of it. Reviewers agree that Zimmer does a wonderful job of explaining the science, as well as the attendant politics (stem cells, intelligent design), rendering it understandable to the layman, while not insulting the more knowledgeable. Would anyone here who has read it care to comment?

My favorite recent science read was _The Equation that Couldn't Be Solved_, by Mario Livio (Amazon listing). It's a great book about symmetry, group theory, and the lives of several of the mathematicians that discovered and advanced the field, such as Galois and Abel. It has some slightly fluffy chapters but there's a nice mix of mathematics and human interest. Not sure if it would play on Oprah, but Galois's story alone is pretty intense stuff.

Richard Hofstadter's book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life was originally written in 1963. As such it discusses McCarthyism and "eggheads" like Adlai Stevenson, but the arguments are as current now as they were then.

Entertainment Weekly will never find a science book that reaches its audience because no book that could legitimately be called science would ever fall far enough down the intellectual spectrum to be approachable by that magazine's readers.

Most times when people think about using flowcharts, they really should create state transition diagrams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_diagram/ to discuss, describe, and document behavior. Statecharts are an improvement on earlier state transition diagrams and are included in the latest UML specification.

Some Statechart references:

1. Samek, Miro; Montgomery, Paul: State-Oriented Programming. Embedded.com. 2000-08. http://www.embedded.com/2000/0008/0008feat1.htm/
2. Samek, Miro: Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems. CMP Books. 2002-07. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578201101/002-2659023-9156009/

The God Particle by Leon Ledderman is one of my favourite Physics books. It offers an incredibly accessible introduction to particle physics for the non science oriented while at the same time provides a fascinating look (for the science oriented) into the history of particle physics by someone involved in several of the key discoveries of the last 50 years.

The Red Queen on the evolutionary benefits of sex (and how it pertains to evolution), by Matt Ridley and The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, a book on Evolutionary Psychology.

I still think back to both books when I ponder the behaviour of the people around me.

The Red Queen on the evolutionary benefits of sex (and how it pertains to evolution), by Matt Ridley and The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, a book on Evolutionary Psychology.

I still think back to both books when I ponder the behaviour of the people around me.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Class-You-Wish-Had/dp/0399523138

"The Science Class You Wish You Had"

It covers a LOT of ground in very short time, and makes everything accessible. This is definitely for people who think that Harry Potter is the #2 best book of the last 25 years.

Absolutely; you can do just fine with a different 800-page book.

The interview just seems like a very brief sampling of "The Design and Evolution of C++".

Even if you do not care much about C++, it's an excellent look into the philosophy and thought that goes into language design.

Just be thankful you didn't buy this book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1418499757/ref=cm_rdp_product

in an 8 page interview? I feel like a sucker for buying the 900 page book

In pre-roman britain it was common for people to have sex in front of others. Partners would frequently engage in intercourse in front of children. Incest was rife, for example a boy was generally expected to lose his virginity to his mother, his subsequent sexual partners would be his sisters and from then on he could pretty much do it with any girl he liked (girls were expected to make themselves available to men on request). People became sexually active in the very early teens. It's all here: The Year Zero : The True Story of Life in Britain 2000 Years Ago

Solved

http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Made-Maximin-30-Count-Boxes/dp/B000FKHK6W/ref=pd_sim_hpc_1

I think its worth $12, and I'll get the Windows version from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=sacred%20underworld&tag=operasoft-20&index=blended&link_code=qs

Hierarchical temporal memory is a theory you might be interested in... See http://www.numenta.com/ or read the book http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805078533/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214300344&sr=8-1

-1 misquote

http://paranoidlinux.org/

Paranoid Linux is an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government (it was intended for use by Chinese and Syrian dissidents), and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. It even throws up a bunch of "chaff" communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you're doing anything covert. So while you're receiving a political message one character at a time, ParanoidLinux is pretending to surf the Web and fill in questionnaires and flirt in chat-rooms. Meanwhile, one in every five hundred characters you receive is your real message, a needle buried in a huge haystack. ~Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, 2008)

When those words were written, ParanoidLinux was just a fiction. It is our goal to make this a reality. The project officially started on May 14th, and has been growing ever since. We welcome your ideas, contributions, designs, or code. You can find us on freenode's irc server in the #paranoidlinux channel. Hope to see you there!

It's also necessary to understand human intelligence as an evolutionary hack

I recognize your handle from the conference in Cambridge a couple of weeks back. Have you read Kludge yet? It reflects your POV perfectly.

See also: Random Acts of Management by Scott Adams