Slashdot Mirror

• Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems
• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Embedded Systems Building Blocks: Complete and Ready-to-Use Modules in C
• Embedded Systems Design: An Introduction to Processes, Tools and Techniques
• An Embedded Software Primer
• Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems

Realtime:

• Real-time Design Patterns
• Real-Time Concepts for Embedded Systems
• Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns

Integration:

• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Third Edition
• Co-verification of Hardware and Software (About ARM, but still useful for other platforms)
• The Art of Programming Embedded Systems
• The Art of Designing Embedded Systems (Edn Series for Design Engineers)
• Embedded Systems Architecture: A Comprehensive Guide for Engineers and Programmers (Embedded Technology)

Testing:

• Temporal Verification of Reactive Systems: Safety
• Understanding Formal Methods (FACIT)
• The Way of Z
• Z: an Introduction to Formal Methods
• Test Driven Development: By Example

• Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems
• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Embedded Systems Building Blocks: Complete and Ready-to-Use Modules in C
• Embedded Systems Design: An Introduction to Processes, Tools and Techniques
• An Embedded Software Primer
• Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems

Realtime:

• Real-time Design Patterns
• Real-Time Concepts for Embedded Systems
• Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns

Integration:

• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Third Edition
• Co-verification of Hardware and Software (About ARM, but still useful for other platforms)
• The Art of Programming Embedded Systems
• The Art of Designing Embedded Systems (Edn Series for Design Engineers)
• Embedded Systems Architecture: A Comprehensive Guide for Engineers and Programmers (Embedded Technology)

Testing:

• Temporal Verification of Reactive Systems: Safety
• Understanding Formal Methods (FACIT)
• The Way of Z
• Z: an Introduction to Formal Methods
• Test Driven Development: By Example

• Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems
• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Embedded Systems Building Blocks: Complete and Ready-to-Use Modules in C
• Embedded Systems Design: An Introduction to Processes, Tools and Techniques
• An Embedded Software Primer
• Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems

Realtime:

• Real-time Design Patterns
• Real-Time Concepts for Embedded Systems
• Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns

Integration:

• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Third Edition
• Co-verification of Hardware and Software (About ARM, but still useful for other platforms)
• The Art of Programming Embedded Systems
• The Art of Designing Embedded Systems (Edn Series for Design Engineers)
• Embedded Systems Architecture: A Comprehensive Guide for Engineers and Programmers (Embedded Technology)

Testing:

• Temporal Verification of Reactive Systems: Safety
• Understanding Formal Methods (FACIT)
• The Way of Z
• Z: an Introduction to Formal Methods
• Test Driven Development: By Example

• Practical Statecharts in C/C++: Quantum Programming for Embedded Systems
• Large-Scale C++ Software Design
• Embedded Systems Building Blocks: Complete and Ready-to-Use Modules in C
• Embedded Systems Design: An Introduction to Processes, Tools and Techniques
• An Embedded Software Primer
• Problem Frames: Analyzing and Structuring Software Development Problems

Realtime:

• Real-time Design Patterns
• Real-Time Concepts for Embedded Systems
• Doing Hard Time: Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks and Patterns

Integration:

• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Third Edition
• Co-verification of Hardware and Software (About ARM, but still useful for other platforms)
• The Art of Programming Embedded Systems
• The Art of Designing Embedded Systems (Edn Series for Design Engineers)
• Embedded Systems Architecture: A Comprehensive Guide for Engineers and Programmers (Embedded Technology)

Testing:

• Temporal Verification of Reactive Systems: Safety
• Understanding Formal Methods (FACIT)
• The Way of Z
• Z: an Introduction to Formal Methods
• Test Driven Development: By Example

But, to be honest, we all know that a truly free society isn't free at all. You have to have some rules for life to continue. This may be one of them. How much does it matter if you can't speak a string of hexes for copyright/DMCA reasons? It doesn't. Some may say "this is a slippery slope", and that's partly true, but everyone knows that when they start trying to keep us from quoting a favorite line from a recent funny movie, people won't give a damn, and they'll just do it anyways. There will be people with money at that point that realize it's absurd, and when sued, will fight back. I don't see many other places a precedent relating to this Hex issue could lead. So I say it's not a big deal. In fact I would even venture to say that I would support more of this. People want to be entertained, but they're also freaking lazy. When they have to work too hard to be entertained, they'll find something else cheaper, less expensive to entertain themselves with. Have any of you been to Waldenbooks at the mall lately? I recently picked up this for under $10 (by the way I'd highly recommend it; . I took a glance around and found many other cool books-- a 200 page pictured book of historically significant scientific inventions for $6, a 1" thick, 12"x18" book with nothing but pictures of planets in our solar system (and stuff about the far out ones) for $20; Barak Obama's book for $15; etc. etc.-- that had a WAY better cost/entertainment ratio than Spiderman 3 or any of those HD-DVD/Blu-ray discs. Lets see-- $20 for me [and a wife in the future hopefully] to go see a movie (not including the $8 poppcorn and $5 drinks), or $20 for any of those books I listed above that will provide hours more of entertainment? Easy choice. Eventually when this stuff is so restricted that we can't download it for free, and so expensive that we simply can't afford it, a market will be created for cheap ways to entertain yourself-- and these $10 books at Waldenbooks and Barnes and Noble will fly off the shelves. People will visit their library more. They'll go walk at the park with friends more. So while I think it's good to fight for our rights, the result wouldn't be that bad. "Burn the land, boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me..." We'll find plenty other things to occupy ourselves with. Who cares about AACS and movies and stuff when you can find something else just as, if not more entertaining, for half the price?

Nope Pinocchio the Disney film came out exactly 50 years after Carlo Collodi the Italian author of "Le avventure di Pinocchio" died. Which means that it was in production when it was in copyright, and Disney released it as soon as they no longer needed to pay copyrights.

Or for something more recent you might try reading the Curious Clownfish by Eric Maddern published 1987 and compare it to the Disney film Finding Nemo and ask why Eric Maddern has not received one penny from Disney.

Disney like copyright when it suites them, and at no other time. What I would like is for Disney to be forced to pay back compensation to the holders of the Pinocchio and other copyrights with interest for the time they infringed on their copyrights based on the new exteneded copyright periods. If the mouse deservers 90 years in the eyes of Disney, then so does Pinocchio. Perhaps then they would not be so keen on extending copyrights.

It is great that you want to contribute with documentation. A great program/framework/OS/whatever that no one can use because there is no documentation to be found is worthless.

Sun has published a pretty good book called Read Me First! - A style guide for the computer industry. Covers "writing styles", legal guidelines, writing for an international audience, types of techical documents, and so on. Recommended. For a fun example of how NOT to write, read this page and see if you can figure out which sentences refer to the "old" bad way to do animations, and which sentences refer the new recommended way (the rest of the tutorial is pretty good though, and I really appreciate the time and effort people have spent on it - I just wish someone who knows more than me about Blender could rewrite that particular section.)

Which project to contribute to - well, you had three good examples there. Just pick any project you are passionate about and comfortable using, try to think about what documentation you would have found handy when you was learning to use it. Start writing that.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596 007655/findability-20/

This book has been shaking things up a bit in some circles in the same way as The Tipping Point did.

And Stirling's quoted on the book's blurb. Bit of a giveaway.

A good book on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Media-Monopoly-6th-Ben-Bagdi kian/dp/0807061794/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0498667-670 0705?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178229839&sr=8-1 It is mostly about newspapers, but the idea can be easily carried out to other media.

Interestly enough, that was the theme around Tales from the Boom Boom Room. When you work in Wall Street firms, you sign a boilerplate agreement that waives your right to court proceedings and will instead settle disputes in NASD arbitration. Not just little scuffles over back commissions, they were taking issues of civil rights and sexual harassment cases before these industry-led kangaroo courts where many of the rules of evidence, testimony,etc are null and void. Not surprisingly, firms got off with a kiss on the wrist much of the time. Worse, when the women at these firms banded together in a class action suit, their attorneys that had gotten overly chummy with the defendants pushed an arbitration-style settlement process that would dole out paltry settlements in exchange for covering up their misdeeds. Some difference.

When companies collude to make sure that all of their employees sign these agreements, it isn't a choice anymore. Choosing between signing over your rights or starving is a farcical definition of choice.

Survival of the human personality after the death of the body is a concept that has long intrigued those engaged in psychical research. This survival, if it occurs, might take the form of reincarnation. Although this hypothesis has not been widely accepted in the West, some eminent thinkers have given it attention. Among them are Pythagoras, Plato, Hume, Kant and Schopenhauer.

In this study Ian Stevenson presents twenty cases that are suggestive of reincarnation. In these cases, which Dr. Stevenson has personally investigated, people have claimed that they remember having lived an earlier life on earth. These claims are usually made by a young child, whose memories of his earlier life fade after several years. When the child remembers certain facts that he has not been able to learn in a normal way in his present life, it is difficult to account for his memories unless the hypothesis of reincarnation is accepted. Nevertheless, Dr. Stevenson does not claim that these cases offer positive proof of reincarnation; he claims only that they are suggestive. The investigation he undertook and the subsequent reports he makes provide fascinating reading. Of the cases he studied, seven occurred in India, three in Ceylon, two in Brazil, one in Lebanon, and seven among the Tlingit Indians of Southeastern Alaska.

First published in 1966, this is the second edition of the book. In this edition Dr. Stevenson presents the material he obtained from follow-up interviews with eighteen of the twenty subjects. In each of the eighteen cases, at least one interview was held not less than eight years after the original one. ...

Wil McCarthy has an interesting book called Hacking Matter, which talks about Quantum Dots and explains a bunch of applications.

Quite an interesting read, and well written. And I think you can download the book online at his website, as well.

Highly recommended - entertaining, informative read.

Articulation of perception is just the last step in a long complex mental process.

Just because you can't explain something in a rational symbolic cognitive socially-accepted linguistic framework doesn't mean you haven't perceived it.

Tools that help enhance and articulate these perceptions would be very useful - especially in war.

On a related note: may I suggest The Science and Art of Tracking.

Everyone has a sixth sense about making split second decisions. Professional soldiers who've been in combat situations over their life gain subcontious instincts that let them spot things that "don't seem right." But this is experience one gains over time from encountering lots of examples.

This technology would merely make your subcontious more contious. But it doesn't tell you anything that you don't already know. Green recruits dropped into combat with this technology wouldn't get any use out of it, since they don't have the experience to understand what to look for. And all it would do to senior soldiers is confirm their already itching suspicions.

http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without /dp/0316172324

It's an interesting idea, especially for scientific purposes of visualizing what goes through a soldier's mind during combat. You get the possibility of mapping the subcontious in a visual way. But I have a strong feeling this tech will never make it on a practical side.

Why bother with the mediocre writing of game novel hacks when you can go straight to Niven?

... Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. Although it is SciFi, a lot of the social issues (and their evolution) presented in the book could be real. The entire trilogy it's also quite entertaining.

Not directly related, I'd like to publicize the recording of a 13th century manuscript, the Worcester fragments:
http://www.amazon.com/Worcester-Fragments-Orlando- Consort/dp/B000002052/ref=sr_1_6/102-6883430-63329 31?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1178109790&sr=8-6

There are no reviews but this disc is really good. Nice work, performance and recording.

Two. Although I haven't read anything by Eco after I read Foucault's Pendulum. It was a brilliant study of the hermeneutics of arcana and all, but there is something about the subject as such that just fails. I've gotten to the point where I simply don't read anything that might so much as mention the Templars because they are just not a very interesting dead monastic order, and simply mentioning them seems to draw even the most competent author into a welter of pointless digression. Eco's digressions are way more interesting than most, but there's a limit, so no more Templars for me.

Any serious reader needs some fairly arbitrary "rules for not reading", and that's one of mine. Another is refusing to read anything about or by anyone who has anything to do with Ireland, although I make an exception for Nuala O'Faolain, and you should too.

I haven't found the exact page, but I'm sure it's in in here somewhere:

http://www.amazon.com/Million-Random-Digits-Normal -Deviates/dp/0833030477

Back in 2003, such a thing seemed to be an "Unrealistic portrait of a dark future", according to one of the reviewers of A.E. Van Vogt's "Computerworld" on the Amazon site: Check it out

Don't discount *that* - that's the argument in a nutshell. I have to spend $10 in mileage costs to go buy a physical CD. If I was billing the round-trip time to a client instead of driving to go get it that CD probably costs well over a hundred dollars (not that I work 24/7/365 - I sleep too, but you get the point).

There, fixed.

Aura looks pretty good, but I haven't played it. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be anything recent that's very close to Myst. Try realMYST if you're looking for a spot of nostalgia, or a clone that isn't based on Hypercard. I've played the demo, and it seems pretty good.

If you read Bill Bryson's "A short History of nearly everything" you will read some wonderful stories on how in archeology as well as the field of paleontology wild speculation is used frequently to fill in the gaps. Books upon books have been written on the findings of sometimes just a single bone, even when that bone wasn't shared among scientists! Fascinating fields of science :-)

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

—

Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce

Right, still no indication of the originally stated full professorship though :-P Wikipedia's
not much help either. This indicates that he did continue to teach, as does this,
but not what his title was. There are full (tenured) professors, associate professors, assistant
professors, visiting scientists and lecturers. All may teach, but they are not equivalent. However
this book, poorly written though it may be, does seem to indicate he held some title
of professorship. Which I suppose will have to do, as it's not clear the same distinctions
were made then.

She obtained a high-visibility job that put her in a the position to affect the lives of thousands of applicants by intentionally and significantly lying to get her job - and now she and others want to call it an itty-bitty mistake - but only after she was caught of course.

Actually, she obtained a high-visibility job that put her in the position to affect thousands of lives by being damn good at it. Yes, she fucked up 28 years ago by padding her resume with degrees she didn't earn (to get a job that ironically, did not even require a degree). That deception was wrong, no question. However, she ended up being stellar at her job, and produced superb results for MIT and for the applicants and incoming students (and probably orders of magnitude more with her book on trying to de-stress college admissions). Pretty much everyone who has dealt with her thought she was the bee's knees. I'm not sure whether i think she should have been fired, lying is bad...but in this circumstance, it seems to me that the lie had approximately zero to do with her ability to do her job extremely well (and benefit loads of kids). Context matters, and in this case it's not totally clear-cut.

There are military officers who have committed suicide over less - but hey, this is the high-integrety acadmic world - blatant lies here are just - have a nice day - simple little mistakes.

Right, that's why MIT sacked her as soon as they found out about the deception...'cuz academics have no integrity. You are an idiot.

-Ted

I have one name and two numbers for you -

Obama '08

If you think this will be the same country when we elect the first African-American President, then I guess nothing will shake your beliefs.

Read his book - "The Audacity of Hope."

He is different. Give him a chance.

Peace.

I've long ago lost track of the number of circuits I've been involved in provisioning. That's what I do for a living, provision internet service via a variety of technologies. Couldnt tell you how many LEC telco facilities I've visited either. I can only laugh, because I know your provisioning experience is severely limited to a company that has ordered a handful of T1s. Over 90% of the service I install has bandwidth greater than 3m. Onnet ethernet, muxed ds0s and ds1s, ds3s and oc3s. I've been involved with the order, configuring, and onsite physical layer elements required. Buildings down town, industrial parkways, malls, BFE. In many of the local telco facilities some tech has been drawing a cartoon frog drawn on the backboard for a number of years. (no, it isnt me.)

I've not seen it all by any means. There is always something new to go WTF about.

I want you to search google for T1 and DSL. You will find a number of sites that clearly state that a T1 (and E1's in europe) are flavors of DSL. You can also see this clearly stated in the Telco Dictionary http://www.amazon.com/Newtons-Telecom-Dictionary-2 2nd/dp/1578203198).

Oh the telco horror stories I can tell... but my favorite... I was trouble shooting an issue with the lec. They kept saying it was our equipment, but the issue appeared after they made a change on their side and there were no issues with the other services being supported on the device. The onsite tech was a jerk the entire time. At about 5 o'clock the tech says "hear that sound?". "Um, no". That's the sound of my truck. I'm done for the day." Hangs up and leaves.

I love when they do a stress test with their sidekick and say it the line is fine when it is shorted. This has only happened to me (on ds0s) about a gillian times. Or when I report foreign battery and they close the case with NTF. Oh, or when the dmarc is freaken wired backwards!

Currently I have a single order that is 50 days old. It was foced for last week. Now it doesnt have a foc. We ordered it early too! My assumption is that there is an issue with the une facilities and that is why the ordered was canceled with instructions to reorder as a special access t. I once had an order for an onnet ds3... This took over 9 months to get provisioned. I wanted to blow my brains out every time I talked to the telco during that time. Each day would be either another issue or another lie. I dont even know how we managed to keep the end customer from telling us to drop dead.

And why, when they have oc3s or ds3s, do they hand off to the end user with such a crappy medium? They could install a switch, run LRE over the buildings existing copper facilities, and offer greater bandwidth, but they dont. The could hand off as ethernet, but they dont.

I could continue to argue with you, but it is like screaming at a special ed kid. They dont get it, and it is only fun for a moment or two. You've witnessed a handful of crks being installed where you work and make a lot of assumptions based on very little experience. Go live in your fairy and elf world where the lec completes a crk on time and where they care about the customer and where they are offering you a service worth while at a reasonable price. Answer this to yourself, do you know what a DLR is? Have you seen one? If not, why would you think you know anything about provisioning?

For anyone else reading this: A T1 is dsl; delivered via copper to the prem, or in some cases sliced out of the existing facilities and converted to a dsl signal that is then converted to a t1 (which the customer then converts to ethernet). You should all contact your local providers and inquire about what bandwidth solutions they have to offer and what technologies they are using. In cleveland, pittsburg, miami, and chicago there are great solutions available. In many cases you can more than double your speed for the same price you are paying for your curre

A sniper's job will become a whole lot easier... unless you want to get into the fact that the majority of a sniper's job is about getting in and then hopefully back out.

Actually, this would be a win from that standpoint as well. Current sniper bullets are always supersonic, and thus there is a loud *CRACK* sound that helps indicate the location of the sniper. The laser beam would be silent.

(If you are interested in snipers, you ought to read the book Marine Sniper, a biography of Carlos Hathcock. Hathcock commented that a sniper usually gets one free shot, because no one is expecting the shot, and surprised people don't do a good job of figuring out where the shot came from; if the sniper fires a second shot, all the people in the area will start looking in the correct direction, because this time they are expecting something. So he figured it was better to get close enough to get a guaranteed one-shot kill; even though he would be closer, he would be much harder to find than if he had to take a second shot.)

Imagine a sniper killing someone, and the only sound is the body falling over. Kind of creepy. The sniper might be able to kill the person without other people in the area even noticing!

On the other hand, assuming a high-tech enemy, it might be possible to track the sniper by waste heat from the laser. If you are putting enough energy to kill out of a laser rifle, there will be nontrivial amounts of waste heat. So there might be a special "sniper model" battlefield laser weapon that contains the heat somehow (cartridges with compressed gases, and you use the expanding gas to cancel the waste heat?). Thus the sniper model would probably be the heaviest model.

(Or perhaps the heaviest model would be the "squad automatic" laser, which could be fired many times rapidly...)

Actually, a physics question: would there be a trail in the air, caused by the laser traveling through the air, that could be seen with some sort of vision enhancer goggles? Would the air molecules be ionized or something, and could that be used to track a sniper? If so, there would be a line drawn in the air pointing from the target straight back at the sniper. But I really have no idea if that is possible.

steveha

After Grandia II, there was Grandia Xtreme for the PS2 (which was a plotless dungeon crawler with only slightly more story than Nethack, the comments here sum it up very nicely), and then towards the end of 2006 Grandia III was released here. I haven't tried Grandia III yet, maybe when I can pick it up cheap used, I'll get it just for the battle system.

No, you can travel through wormholes, but you risk opening a portal to Hell. Hasn't anyone played DOOM?

Or read the book?

Or saw the movie?

About 10 years ago I bought an SF Novel by K.W Jeter called "Noir", the background of the story was a world where copyright theft was punishable by death, if you were lucky.

http://www.amazon.com/Noir-K-W-Jeter/dp/0553576380

The book itself was good but I thought that copyright crime as a capital offence was a fun idea but just a step too far away from reality to be believable.

Not now. Science Fiction can tell the future and it's not one I like.

The European commission and parliament is turning into a bureaucratic corporate playground.

You should read the writings of Lloyd Kaufman on the subject. He's the guy behind Troma Studios, and he does a much better job explaining why the ratings system which gives Terminator 2 a PG-13 rating and Bloodsucking Freaks an "X" is terminally fucked than I ever could.

...but the Internet is something entirely different.

With all due respect to former Vice President Al Gore, the “superhighway” analogy was thin at best.

Senator Stevens took a stance for all that is “layman” by stating, “It's a series of tubes.” His statement brings to light the genuine need for a layman's understanding for the greatest collaborative network known to human-kind.

Perhaps we should start there; a collaborative network. That's just a general sentiment for what the Internet really is, because it doesn't just let people collaborate. It also lets us compete-with, share, ridicule, praise, shame, acknowledge, threaten and even enlighten others.

We should make a distinction between the “Web” and the “'Net”, because one is a part of the other. The “Web” is just the part of the Internet that we access with a Web Browser, even to include all the rich media content we enjoy every day. The Internet goes much, much further than that.

The Internet is e-mail. The Internet is 'chat'. The Internet is online gaming. The Internet is merchantibility. The Internet is news. The Internet is business. The Internet is government by self-rule. Yes indeed, the Internet is also a tremendous conveyor for pornographic media. The Internet is many things to many people, but then again, just what is it?

What I noticed on the Google page was a plethora of technical definitions, focusing on the nuts-and-bolts that make the Internet work. That said, it still isn't enough to really define the Internet, is it? I mean, there's more to your iPod than some miniaturized electronics, a small LCD screen and a hard drive, yeah?

The Internet must be something more than what we can tangibly see and touch. It's more than T-1, more than fiber, more than bridges and routers and hubs. (oh my!)

I seem to be failing at the “succinct” part, here. Still, considering all that's been covered to this point, there must be words “big” enough, yet simple enough for anyone to easily grasp.

Here are my humble attempts to name the Un-nameable:

Communication (pure and simple)
Connections (abstract, but to the point)
A Portal (yeah, vague)
The Presence of Remote Information (maybe that's just the Web)
The Human Connection (too much like a slogan?)

This is no easy task, (whatever you others might think) and may—IMHO—require the invention of new words, or new semantics for existing words. Hey, we've done it before!

I've always admired Marshall McLuhan for his philosophies, and insight into the modern age. His book, The Medium Is The Massage (sic) he basically predicts the emergence of computing and networks, as “an extension of the mind”.

McLuhan was thought esoteric, but also coined the term, “global village”. The idea is that, the great idea to connect human ideas (the Internet) will ultimately bring the human culture full-circle to a borderless tribal-state.

Is that it, then? Maybe it's more philosophical than practical, but I think The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas puts it together nicely. After all, I guess it answers the fundamental question.

What is the internet?
The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas
Well, what does it do?
It connects.

According to a book I read, On Being a Photographer --by David Hurn from Magnum Photos-- the best camera is "the one that takes the picture". In that sense, a camera phone is more likely to be "the best camera" if only because --unlike your dSLR-- you have it on you most of the time: the odds of your being able to take a casual snapshot of something that catches your eye (a custom car on the curb, your kid enjoying himself on the swings, a beautiful sunset...) with a camera phone are way higher that those of you doing likewise with a real camera. Thus it is nice to see camera phones being able to take (objectively) better pictures everyday.

That being said, I don't see camera phones ever taking the place of real cameras. There are a hell of a lot of situations when you know you'll be taking pictures (trips, parties...) and, as some other people have already pointed out, there is no way the cheap lens and sensor in a camera phone will provide the same quality as the bigger and more complex lens and higher-quality sensor in a real camera.

I mean this Han Blix. Also,could you link to the site that you are copy and pasting from? Makes it easier to evaluate the authenticity of the quotes.

Okay, I can get a dual-layer DVD Burner for about seventy bucks currently, which means I can burn about 8 GB (or 18% of 45 GB) for less than one-tenth of the price--nearly twice as "cost effective."

Then you consider that I can buy the six dual-layer DVDs for about $1.50 each ($9 total), whereas a single "sweet-burnin'" dual-layer Blu-Ray disc (the kind you need to hold 45 GB) is gonna cost me at LEAST thirty bucks--four times as much for the same amount of data.

Hm. When you consider the trend, I think I can hold off for, say, two years when Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whoever wins that war costs about what a dual-layer DVD burner costs now (and ditto for the discs).

Burning 45 GB onto just one disc will be "sweet," but for the nonce I can stand burning six d-l DVDs without laying out the $800 smackers (esp. since I've already bought the DVD burner with my latest notebook computer anyway).

In The Sovereign Individual, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg make the case that governments as we currently know them are already obsolete, and the 'empire' known as the United States is in the process of dying.

While that seems a bit premature (plus, Davidson and Rees-Mogg have made prior predictions that have, at least not yet, come about), it can be argued that the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were not aware of its collapse until over a century after it ceased to have any effective control over most of its 'jurisdiction'. No one event can be pointed out as the pivot of the collapse, but we are seeing some parallels here and now -- including the modern equivalent of "bread and circuses" while trying to maintain military dominance of a crumbling empire.

Party squabbling and petty vendettas are merely symptomatic of the death throes of a government. I suspect the process is more or less inevitable (democracy is only possible until the citizens discover that they can vote themselves the proceeds of the treasury, and that has already happened here), but that doesn't mean that the powers that be will die quietly. The process is likely to be very painful for most of us.

But you only need two to get a Druish princess.

In related news, there's an apparent premium on Wiis. I thought these things were supposed to be less than $300.

Will the Jesuits be the first to get there?

Thing is, the pets.com sock puppet was so popular, he outlasted the company the company that invented him. You still seem him in ads now and then. He even wrote a book.

Now, I personally hate cutesy mascots. When I was helping revise the Java Tutorial, I wanted to barf every time I saw Duke. But there's no denying that they can be effective. Obnoxious marketing is often effective marketing, because it registers.

Also, you're overlooking the fact that deliberate irony is all the rage these days, not least in advertising. The sock puppet, obviously phony and done by a guy who couldn't be bothered to take off his wrist watch, buys into that. (Some of the mascots listed are ironic, but not intentionally.) A few years back, there was an ad campaign for 7-11 phone cards, features Simpsons characters. One sticker had Crusty saying "I heartily endorse this product or event!"

Come to think of it, there's a sort of apologetic subtext to this kind of irony. It's the advertiser's way of saying, "Yeah, we know you're sick of lame ad campaigns. We're sick of them too. But we gotta move the product."

Read this book and find out why colony ships might not work out so well.

Perhaps link to some websites about decent American cheeses?

If you'd like to make one, investigate cookbooks by Alice Waters (1, 2, 3, bio,) who may very well be the greatest chef, globally, of her generation. You have the privilege of walking the Earth while she's still alive and while Chez Panisse still runs. Don't miss out. (Anyone who can turn down five invitations by three presidents to be white house chef is worth looking into, natch.)

If you'd like to make one, investigate cookbooks by Alice Waters (1, 2, 3, bio,) who may very well be the greatest chef, globally, of her generation. You have the privilege of walking the Earth while she's still alive and while Chez Panisse still runs. Don't miss out. (Anyone who can turn down five invitations by three presidents to be white house chef is worth looking into, natch.)

If you'd like to make one, investigate cookbooks by Alice Waters (1, 2, 3, bio,) who may very well be the greatest chef, globally, of her generation. You have the privilege of walking the Earth while she's still alive and while Chez Panisse still runs. Don't miss out. (Anyone who can turn down five invitations by three presidents to be white house chef is worth looking into, natch.)

If you'd like to make one, investigate cookbooks by Alice Waters (1, 2, 3, bio,) who may very well be the greatest chef, globally, of her generation. You have the privilege of walking the Earth while she's still alive and while Chez Panisse still runs. Don't miss out. (Anyone who can turn down five invitations by three presidents to be white house chef is worth looking into, natch.)

Yes, but did they take the next step to completely scrap reality, as Einstein saw it, and wonder if the world was instantiated upon simulation hardware with limited abilities?

Yes, but did they take the next step to completely scrap reality, as Einstein saw it, and wonder if the world was instantiated upon simulation hardware with limited abilities?

Yes, but did they take the next step to completely scrap reality, as Einstein saw it, and wonder if the world was instantiated upon simulation hardware with limited abilities?