Slashdot Mirror
Domain: amazon.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to amazon.com.
Comments · 40,271
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Re:Who's going to police it?
"If our grandfathers and great-grandfathers could see just how many of the rights and freedoms they fought to protect have now been lost in the name of "safety" and "security", they'd turn in their graves."
Capitalism produces such things, the whole reason is because the rich fear the masses in a capitalist society. Masters vs slaves. Rich vs the rest. You and most people are going to find out too late what the NSA spying is really about.
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening (aka global revolt). i.e. they fear you stopping voting for politicians and causing social and political change because the democratic system is a sham.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
Brezinski worried people are waking up to how world works
Brezinski at a press conference
Brezinski at a press conference
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
Graphs regarding distribution of wealth
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Free trade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
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Re:Who's going to police it?
"If our grandfathers and great-grandfathers could see just how many of the rights and freedoms they fought to protect have now been lost in the name of "safety" and "security", they'd turn in their graves."
Capitalism produces such things, the whole reason is because the rich fear the masses in a capitalist society. Masters vs slaves. Rich vs the rest. You and most people are going to find out too late what the NSA spying is really about.
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening (aka global revolt). i.e. they fear you stopping voting for politicians and causing social and political change because the democratic system is a sham.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
Brezinski worried people are waking up to how world works
Brezinski at a press conference
Brezinski at a press conference
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
Graphs regarding distribution of wealth
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Free trade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
-
Re:Who's going to police it?
"If our grandfathers and great-grandfathers could see just how many of the rights and freedoms they fought to protect have now been lost in the name of "safety" and "security", they'd turn in their graves."
Capitalism produces such things, the whole reason is because the rich fear the masses in a capitalist society. Masters vs slaves. Rich vs the rest. You and most people are going to find out too late what the NSA spying is really about.
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening (aka global revolt). i.e. they fear you stopping voting for politicians and causing social and political change because the democratic system is a sham.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
Brezinski worried people are waking up to how world works
Brezinski at a press conference
Brezinski at a press conference
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
Graphs regarding distribution of wealth
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Free trade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
-
Re:Who's going to police it?
"If our grandfathers and great-grandfathers could see just how many of the rights and freedoms they fought to protect have now been lost in the name of "safety" and "security", they'd turn in their graves."
Capitalism produces such things, the whole reason is because the rich fear the masses in a capitalist society. Masters vs slaves. Rich vs the rest. You and most people are going to find out too late what the NSA spying is really about.
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening (aka global revolt). i.e. they fear you stopping voting for politicians and causing social and political change because the democratic system is a sham.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
Brezinski worried people are waking up to how world works
Brezinski at a press conference
Brezinski at a press conference
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
Graphs regarding distribution of wealth
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Free trade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
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Re:Pointless
Neal Stephenson beat you to it.
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Re:You just created a TOCTTOU race bug
yosefk writes:
If we use exceptions, we have to write exception-safe code - code which frees all resources when the control is transferred from the point of failure (throw) to the point where explicit error handling is done (catch). [...] To solve this, you are supposed to use RAII, meaning that all pointers have to be "smart"
I think this was written before C++11 standardized two suitable smart pointers in std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr. Stash resources allocated by the constructor in a smart pointer.
In 17.4, yosefk continues:
How are you going to figure out whether your program manages resources correctly or not when it's littered with smart pointers of different kinds, especially in [...] cases when "ownership" (the right & duty to dispose a resource) is passed from object to object
The replacement of the problematic std::auto_ptr with std::unique_ptr that uses C++11's new move-construction semantics and addition of std::shared_ptr solved, as yosefk mentioned with the references to Boost pointer templates that made it into TR1.
I wonder whether yosefk plans to refactor this page into "Defective Modern C++" to parallel the title of a 2014 book by Scott Meyers (ISBN 9781491903995).
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Re:The real problem
Robert Martin recently wrote a book called Clean Coders which discusses exactly how to deal with that problem.
Essentially, he says if you want people to treat you like a professional, then you need to act like a professional. I highly recommend that book, it's good.
Refusing to do estimates is not acting like a professional. -
Re:Ada had this in 1995
> Game programmers often use C++ (for various reasons).
Performance is the #1 of reason, but yeah, C++ gets the right balance of power, compactness, performance, and multi-paradigm design which builds upon C's foundation.
> What do you typically use to write programs?
Just because I'm vocal, and passionate, doesn't mean I toss the baby out with the bath water.
I would be stupid to ignore the wisdom of Bjarne Stroustrup:
There are only two kinds of languages:
* the ones people complain about and
* the ones nobody uses.To answer your question:
Pragmatic C++. (With some Javascript, since WebGL is my (current) day job)
Which is the balance of the middle ground between basic C and the modern over-engineered clusterfuck of C++. Why do you think there was an "Embedded C++" movement years ago which removed all the Templates, Exception Handling, and RTTI junk? Gee, look, Ubisoft C++ usage does the exact same thing.
To clarify, I use _only_ templates when it makes sense. Most of the time it doesn't. I use #define macro's where it makes sense. Most of the time it doesn't. I don't use Boost because it is over engineered 99% of the time. I uses classes where it makes sense. I use 3rd party libraries only when necessary. I use design patterns only when the model fits - instead of trying to shoehorn the code+data into a broken model.
I've shipped enough games where a full build was 45+ minutes. This is insanity.
Minimal C++ is the mantra. Use the expressive complexity and power of the language when it matters. Most of the time it doesn't.
I just want the insanity of C++ to stop and address the common core issues instead of adding yet-another-flavor-of-the-month concept. Retarded ideas like 2D Graphics Rendering API proposal is the epitome of everything wrong with the committee. Completely out-of-touch with reality and solutions in search of a problem.
When you _even_ have a C++ committee member admitting he writes in a sub-set of C++ himself you know the language has gotten too big.
*ALL* programming languages suck. Most suck even more.
Want to know someone else who hates C++? Andrei Alexandrescu. *Every* C++ programmer should read until they grok Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied Guess where he works on now? D (All Things D (programming language) - A Conversation with Andrei Alexandrescu.)
When you even have Scott Meyers at a D Conference (DConf 2014: The Last Thing D Needs (Scott Meyers), you know the language has potential. D has its own problems but I would keep my eye on it.
As bad as C++ is, for my needs it is better then the alternatives.
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Re:What Does This Mean
Last year at re:invent they stated "Intel was providing them custom chips", not just selected ones. Google: https://aws.amazon.com/intel/ - Xeon v3?
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Re:Manipulate people opinions
This leaves them with only bottled water which just isn't gonna generate the $$$ that Coke has over the years.
http://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=...
http://smile.amazon.com/Coca-C...
I think Coca Cola Bottling company does quite well on bottled water. It looks like they cost about the same amount, and bottled water has one ingredient which requires no mixing.
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Re:Manipulate people opinions
This leaves them with only bottled water which just isn't gonna generate the $$$ that Coke has over the years.
http://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=...
http://smile.amazon.com/Coca-C...
I think Coca Cola Bottling company does quite well on bottled water. It looks like they cost about the same amount, and bottled water has one ingredient which requires no mixing.
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Re:uh no
Three Felonies a Day
Ignoring the fact that everyone unknowingly breaks the law daily, your lack of compassion is an incredibly nasty thing. If you don't want to be an integral part of society, you may feel free to leave it.
You sound young and inexperienced, because to think the immense bullshit you stated in your first sentence is okay requires that you assume you will never fall into any of these categories. Get really sick and lose your job as a result? Can't get hired because you have a gap in employment? Get arrested because you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and plead guilty in exchange for no prison time like most people do in that situation? Get pregnant or get someone pregnant unintentionally for whatever reason? Oh, well too bad, because now you've fallen into your "fuck you, I'll pretend you don't exist anymore" gutter: you're lazy because you just aren't trying hard enough to get work, or you're irresponsible because you didn't eat more vegetables and take vitamins to stave off the sickness, or you shouldn't have had sex at all because that's always irresponsible and now the baby is your problem so fuck you, or you're a filthy lowlife scumbag criminal piece of shit who no one should hire because you'll totally steal from someone or beat the shit out of a customer...so once again, fuck you, you don't exist and should be locked up forever and never given a chance to get back on your feet, you Bad Person(TM).
Congratulations on your shitty pay and shitty apartment. I'm sure you have plenty of money after your expenses, tons of savings and investments, and are infallible, unlike the rest of us. When you fall off the train because life isn't fair and doesn't give a shit, don't cry to anyone else for help, because fuck you! You shouldn't have made any mistakes and LIFE HAS CONSEQUENCES, ASSHOLE.
Or you could just take a moment to consider that you're a human and so is everyone else, and then start treating them as such. Crazy, I know. -
A Hitchcock
So secret agents now have to wave petri dishes over their subject without being noticed.
So like fingerprint identification, this doesn't work on some people.
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Re:MacBook Pro
I hate the crap Broadcom WiFi card in it
Not sure why so many people make a big deal out of this. I had a crappy wifi card in an old dell. Bought a new one Intel Centrino one and it's been rock solid. Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate...
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz : $10.69That's a half-height Mini PCE-E. You can get a bracket on there to extend it to full height for $4 (or just make your own).
(that's not the card I got, but it should do better than what I had picked up - mine lacks "a", but also has bluetooth)
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Re: Zenbook UX305
Avoid Zenbooks.
They have a very slick design and a good battery life, but are well known to mount crappy SSD with a proprietary interface. It seems they not last very long (see comments in the link below), and because of the proprietary interface, a replacement SSD is 2-3 times more expensive than disks with comparable size. Mine died a few weeks ago and I found way more convenient to buy a special adapters to mount a cheaper disk, even if it creates a small bulge at the bottom of the laptop.
I would discourage also the Macbook Pro's because of the fair amount of work that's required to have a reasonable percent of the hardware working fine. In particular, with Linux you would lose one of the main advantages they have that's battery life.
I'm going to buy myself an XPS13 Dev edition, even though I don't think it has the absolute best hardware.
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Re:LOL ... porn ...
Right. My cell phone is mostly for porn. So are the bluetooth speakers I pair it to. My awesome electric car mostly drives me to the adult video store and back. My roomba has an inflatable doll on top, my XBox is hacked to play "Custer's Revenge," my solar panels just power a rotating bed, and my Kindle is for reading Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine.
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Read 'The Gift of Fear', not responding is KEYRead http://www.amazon.com/The-Gift... The Gift of Fear. Really insightful, talks about many issues with stalking, violence, etc.
The main part relevant to this problem: responding to many stalkers even with negative / threatening behavior is a form of positive encouragement, and they'll keep at it. The only solution is to filter YOUR experience (delete / don't listen to VM, don't read emails etc) rather than trying to get the unwanted inputs to stop.
That way there's no feedback to the jerks on the sending side, they get bored or angry at someone else, and go away.
One subtlety is: don't turn off your phone, or leave a outbound message saying 'I will not be checking this voicemail because of the jerks". That's encouragement. Change nothing. Get a 2nd phone as needed, use that.
Likewise, don't setup an autoresponder saying "I don't read this email because of the jerks" - same logic as above. GoF is a very worthwhile read, for everyone.
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Re:Roll 'em!
You looked at thei the website?
https://aws.amazon.com/ Why yes, yes I did. Awesome thing, this intertoobz
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Re:Amazon?
Actually, Amazon _is_ suitable for medical data. It complies with all the HIPAA regulations and can sign a BAA with an organization willing to use Amazon services for sensitive data ( https://aws.amazon.com/ru/comp... ).
Of course, nothing can prevent a clueless operator from putting data on a publicly accessible share. -
Might still be a disappointment
Having read the original book (and would highly recommend it), I still expect to be disappointed by the film adaptation. The science in the film may be solid, and we can indeed be grateful for that, but there are other aspects of adapting a novel where Hollywood can make the result feel compromised. Think of all the tired old tropes they could throw in there, like slow-motion shots of characters at poignant times, an intrusive film score that tries to jerk the audience emotionally in a particular direction, or the acting itself where it's hard to suspend disbelief when it's Matt Damon up there and he's not known for smoothly entering into roles and going unrecognized as Matt Damon.
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Re:I liked the cartoon that read:
To anyone that opened it, it would look like a box of electronic junk and wires. Yes, there's a huge red display, but LED alarm clocks do not turn on their display when they are not plugged into AC power. The 9V battery is just to run the clock and alarm circuit. There were no ominous huge red numbers counting down when they opened the box.
It was nothing like this alarm clock.
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Re:Get rid of open plan offices
Try to get forty hours a week or so out of your developers
Not even close. Study after study (IBM's was the most authoritative) has shown that expecting more than 6-6.5 hours/day of productivity is unreasonable. Pushing for more than 8 is the surest path to hell: requiring rework, increased introduction of bugs and lower quality.
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Re:I liked the cartoon that read:
Perhaps not a little pencil box, but a pencil box nonetheless. 8.25 x 5.5 x 2.5 Inches You can buy them on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Vaultz-L...
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Re:MMM
The Mythical Man Month is still extremely relevant on this topic.
Meh.
Those who realizes that there is a structural problem in the company that needs to be corrected already knows everything it has to say. Those who doesn't would never read it anyway.
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Re:MMM
The Mythical Man Month is still extremely relevant on this topic. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously on this topic unless they've read it.
Should we take you seriously? It's clear you didn't bother to RTFA.
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Sounds like Human Resources Redux
HR was the Great Corporate Hope of the '90s. It was going to make the entire corporate workforce happy, productive, creative, and interacting with one another in unexpected, cross-functional combinations, while also recruiting the best and brightest... from diverse backgrounds of course. The head of HR was practically a C-level employee.
Here's what happened to HR, 15 years later.
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MMM
The Mythical Man Month is still extremely relevant on this topic. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously on this topic unless they've read it. Communication is, of course, one of the major challenges with scaling an engineering team.
One thing the MMM points out is that some engineers are 10 times more efficient than others. The obvious solution is to teach the "others" to do the things the efficient programmers do. -
Boron in GraphiteThe Nazi team went the very expensive heavy water route because the graphic route appeared unworkable . After reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb I concluded that the Nazi were unable to make a good estimate the needed critical mass because of Boron in their graphite. Essentially the US National Carbon had a better process than the German Siemans process. Or perhaps this was because Fermi was on the American team and demanded a better process. Another possibility was that Heisenberg just missed the Boron.
Also see the Nuclear Graphite History section for some details.
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To me, it looks like abuse.
I notice that Slashdot commenters often find ways to justify abuse.
One problem is not Apple offering a 16GB iPhone, it is that those who want more must pay 20 times Apple's cost.
Although Tim Cook tries to imitate Steve Jobs, he clearly does not understand how to do that. Steve Jobs did everything necessary to positioning Apple products at the top. Offering a new model of iPhone with only 16GB is a sure way to get negative comments, and it did.
Steve Jobs was extremely abusive, biographical books say, but he was aware of the effect of every aspect of advertising and how even minor items might be received in people's minds.
Books: The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer published in 1984, gives the early history.
See page 84 of this book: iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business. Quote: "Steve was not only very rich but pulling a quarter of a million dollars a year out of the company in salary, yet he refused to let any of his engineers receive more than $30,000 a year, the lowest salaries of any engineers at Apple. He considered anyone working less than 80 hours a week to be wimping out." -
To me, it looks like abuse.
I notice that Slashdot commenters often find ways to justify abuse.
One problem is not Apple offering a 16GB iPhone, it is that those who want more must pay 20 times Apple's cost.
Although Tim Cook tries to imitate Steve Jobs, he clearly does not understand how to do that. Steve Jobs did everything necessary to positioning Apple products at the top. Offering a new model of iPhone with only 16GB is a sure way to get negative comments, and it did.
Steve Jobs was extremely abusive, biographical books say, but he was aware of the effect of every aspect of advertising and how even minor items might be received in people's minds.
Books: The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer published in 1984, gives the early history.
See page 84 of this book: iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business. Quote: "Steve was not only very rich but pulling a quarter of a million dollars a year out of the company in salary, yet he refused to let any of his engineers receive more than $30,000 a year, the lowest salaries of any engineers at Apple. He considered anyone working less than 80 hours a week to be wimping out." -
Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proof
I never said they thought it was a bomb.. They though it was a BOMB TRIGGER you ninny...
No, they thought it was a bomb hoax. No one but you thought it's a real bomb trigger.
Both building a bomb and building a bomb trigger are illegal you know....
So, watches and cellphones are illegal? Or, is it just things that go from a current source to a controlled explosion (e.g. low explosives) illegal? Such as these:
http://www.amazon.com/Generic-...
When you make shit up, be specific!
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Re:No push for teacher education?
Amazon sells bomb triggers. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...
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Re:I wonder if they're going to use this as "proofThese kid toys have been around for 50 years. I used to carry one around with me everywhere since the third grade.
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Re:Evidence of the Great Filter?
I actually like think the answer is more likely the one proposed by Cixin Liu in The Dark Forest.
Warning spoilers follow
His theory, stems from a few simple axioms. It proposes the following axioms:
First, survival is the primary need of civilization. Second, civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.(Liu, Cixin (2015-08-11). The Dark Forest (p. 479))
He further defines two concepts benevolence and malice:
'Benevolence’ means not taking the initiative to attack and eradicate other civilizations. ‘Malice’ is the opposite.
(Liu, Cixin (2015-08-11). The Dark Forest (p. 481)).
Because no benevolent culture can truly determine if another is benevolent the best path is simply silence.
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life— another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod— there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
Liu, Cixin (2015-08-11). The Dark Forest (pp. 484-485).
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Re:Why didn't his teacher stand up for him?
Why suspicious. I used to build stuff like this all of the time and bring it to school to show my teachers and other kids. These exact kits were sold in the 1970's (along with chemistry kits). http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb...
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Re:Stupid people are stupid
In the 70's, an electronic kit in a shoebox was a popular toy from Radio Shack. All the kids who got them for Christmas grew up to be engineers and built the internet. The kids who didn't get them grew up to be teachers.
You can find them on amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-... -
Nuclear dirty bomb DIY kits from amazon
http://www.amazon.com/4M-4568-...
Don't kid yourself kids. Potatoes are oozing with radon 226 and potassium 40 making them the perfect radiological weapons of mass destruction.
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Help Irving High start a STEM program
Noted on Twitter last night that many people have found inexpensive electronic clock kits, and are sending them to Irving High to help the teachers learn about what clocks are, that they're not terribly threatening, and to help their kids learn to build them.
That address is:
Irving High School
900 N O Connor Rd
Irving, TX 75061 -
Re:Where have I heard this before?
Where have I heard this idea before? Oh yeah... it's called The Unix Philosophy.
Indeed. I've been using Linux since the turn of the millennium, but in the last couple of years I've been trying to gain a more proficient command of Unix standard utils and piping commands with tutorials like O'Reilly's Classic Shell Scripting . I feel like a computing god, and friends and relatives are baffled at how I can so quickly solve computing needs that, they believed, would have to take minutes or hours of laborious pointing and clicking.
And that's why I find the premise of this article so odd. The average public does not seem to me on the cusp of a programming revolution. I might as well link here to Philip Guo's essay The Two Cultures of Computing, a.k.a. "How Ya Gonna Get 'Em Down on UNIX After They've Seen Spotify?". The interfaces ordinary people use so hide hackability that they generally forget it even exists.* Plus, with people in the developing world starting to do more and more of their computing on their phone, a device without a real keyboard, they are hardly able to do all the typing that coding requires.
(Perversely, this might be something that millions of people should be thankful for: that ignorance is why they still have jobs. So much time-consuming work could be done in a much shorter time were the Unix philosophy applied. If scripting were something that managers keen on every possible costsaving measure were strongly aware of, even more jobs would be automated away.)
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Re:Very cool research
If you're interested, Svante Paablo (Nice work with that Unicode, Slashdot) has a book about the science (and engineering) of paleo DNA sequencing. Pretty amazing hard core work.
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Re:C.H.I.P. The $9 Computer
I've never seen a modern TV not have Composite input. Most current TVs have a couple HDMI, Composite and Component inputs at the very least. Some will have optical audio, and rarely DVI or VGA now. There's tons of devices in use that only output composite.
I'm sure you can find TVs without composite input, but it's still on the majority of them.
Just for fun - I was around in 1980 - very very few TVs had Composite inputs on them. They were mostly high end video equipment (studio use), security monitors or computer monitors. You were lucky if a TV had a 75 Ohm Coax connector (what cable uses). Most TVs of that era still used 300 Ohm twin-lead connectors (the ones you needed a screwdriver to connect).
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Re:C.H.I.P. The $9 Computer
I've never seen a modern TV not have Composite input. Most current TVs have a couple HDMI, Composite and Component inputs at the very least. Some will have optical audio, and rarely DVI or VGA now. There's tons of devices in use that only output composite.
I'm sure you can find TVs without composite input, but it's still on the majority of them.
Just for fun - I was around in 1980 - very very few TVs had Composite inputs on them. They were mostly high end video equipment (studio use), security monitors or computer monitors. You were lucky if a TV had a 75 Ohm Coax connector (what cable uses). Most TVs of that era still used 300 Ohm twin-lead connectors (the ones you needed a screwdriver to connect).
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Re:No surprise...
>Vegan diets are ALL ABOUT low protein, low fat, high carb. It is NOT a healthy way to live (if you fail to watch your amino and mineral balance, you can have really bad things happen, such as blindness.) The fact is that protein and fat raise blood leptin better than carbohydrates do, which makes you feel more full on less overall calories. The only reason some vegans may appear healthier is because usually they don't consume too much sugar (a simple carb) often found in breads and snacks that are made in part by egg and/or dairy products. However neither egg nor dairy products are inherently bad, it's just the high amount of carbs found in these that are.
It's a bit of an inference nightmare when the Vegans come out of the woodwork talking about how skinny they are. The vegan data is from a strongly self selected group. Many people (most? who knows?) simply can't handle a vegan diet. They feel bad quickly. There are those who are well adapted to a vegan diet. They have high carb tolerance, they can go for years. Some outliers manage to do it for a lifetime. Must most people cannot because they get sick.
Eggs are good food. If the egg board wants to bait the vegans, then they are fighting the good fight.
Read The China Study, and learn about the negative impact too much animal protein (>10% total calories) has on health.
The findings come from - by far - the biggest and best study of its kind. Denying it would be on par with denying evolution. Yes - it's that big, and that definitive.
Seriously, just take a look. If you're scientifically inclined at all, you'll find it very hard to ignore. -
What is a pocket heater anyway?
I don't think they're talking about this http://www.amazon.com/Zippo-Wa...
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classic office used to be "frisky"
In the recent hisotry of the modern office called Cubed there was a section on post-WWII where intra-office affairs were common. Men looking variety from their families. Women looking for husbands. I think the women lib types in the 70s dampened this.
http://www.amazon.com/Cubed-A-... -
Re:We'll be here to help
For a satisfied user of iOS looking to switch from Windows, I recommend a Mac.
So would I, if they had reasonably priced Macs to pick from.
Since they don't, that really isn't a choice for most people.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...
I'm typing this message on the above laptop. I paid $349 for it from Amazon.
It has a nice Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD (which I swapped out for a 512GB SSD for $131), a 1080p 15.6" display, a DVD burner, and many hours of battery life. It also isn't too heavy, comes with Windows 10 already on it (no upgrading!), and for anything other than games or serious image/video editing, is plenty fast enough.
What Mac would compete with this machine?
None.
Exactly, that is why Mac doesn't have much market share either.
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Re:We'll be here to help
I want to load Firefox, Python, a text editor, GIMP, GCC, GNU Make, and FCEUX onto a device that fits in my bag.
That is a very specific and unusual set of applications...
But fair enough... remind me why those don't run on Windows 10 again?
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You say you want the 10" size, but it sounds like you'd be a good candidate for a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.
If that is more than you want to spend, how about this:
http://www.amazon.com/Dell-11-...
$379 for a touch screen dual core machine with 2-in-1 features (it is a tablet and a laptop).
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Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?
Google result for 10 inch thinkpad is $878.99 on Amazon. What this tells me is that your suggestion for Linux-compatible hardware costs three times as much as Linux-incompatible hardware in the same size class. This can be spun as one advantage of Windows over Linux.
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Re:stop teaching
If you're going to link to a Golden Guide, at least link to the best one.
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Re:Rasberry PI.
If they have a TV, then all they need is this: Rasberry PI. $30
OK. Actually, it's a little more than that for the version that has WiFi and enough USB ports. Otherwise you would have to add a powered USB hub, which again adds to the cost.
USB Keyboard $1
Grow up.
USB Mouse $1
Grow up.
SD Card $1
Grow up.
Micro USB Cell phone charger $5
OK.
You have a fully functional Linux desktop computer.
Not until someone capable has made a significant investment of time to install and set up the OS, you haven't. Yeah, for you or me it would be no problem to fix one up, but how about for an entire class of schoolkids? And you left out an HDMI cable to attach it to the TV, and we would both be ASSUMING the kid has access to an HDMI TV which he would not have to fight the parents and siblings for to get primetime evening use for homework.
Sure you can spend more and get a better computer, but this one will get it done on the cheap.
I'm tuned in to the sentiment, but the way I realistically check prices, the total cost for all items mentioned would be pretty close to $70 rock bottom, if not more, PLUS labor, which is pretty sad when you think about it. And when you were done you would have this fragile thing dangling from wires which could easily get knocked on the floor and stepped on.
I WANT this to be viable, oh how I want it, but realistically, um
Umm.. where did you check, a local "rip you off" pc shop? Sigh...
The old rasberry pi is cheaper and has two usb, that's all you need. That's all I need on each of the rasberry pi's that I use for this purpose. Personally I prefer wired networking on a non portable device. Don't students get ethernet connections in their dorm rooms? Most places they do.
Let me shop for you:
Mouse: $0.37 http://www.amazon.com/JennyShop-Pastel-Turtle-Scroll-1000dpi/dp/B00FOWQ76U
Keyboard: $4.75: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-SK-8825-104-key-USB-Keyboard/dp/B007V6YIGI I have this keyboard on one of my machines, it's fine. I did underestimate the price by $3.75 I guess.
4GB Sandisk SDHC card: $0.01 http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Micro-Flash-Memory-adapter/dp/B0018Z7Y28 I use a sandisk microsdhc with one of my pi's. This 4GB model is overkill, but it will do the job. Power adapter: $2.99 http://www.amazon.com/ReadyPlug®-Wall-Charger-Samsung-Galaxy/dp/B00NVYQWOK
If you do want that USB HUb, you'll be glad to know it's a whopping $0.20 http://www.amazon.com/White-4-Outport-480Mbps-Splitter-Adapter/dp/B012LBKR58
Sure, you could get better of everything on the list, but you don't HAVE to. If you want a computer on the cheap, you can do it with a pi, really cheap. $35.33 (with the hub) plus shipping. If you could live with used parts I think you could do even slightly better, perhaps even on the pi.