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The flaw did not affect Linux users of FireFox. I have a remaster of Damn Small Linux with Mozilla Firefox 0.8, running on live CD, and don't see anyone getting into my system, at least not with the shell item addressed. Correct me if I am wrong.

Hormesis is the name of the effect where, at low enough doses, something will have a beneficial effect.

There are quite a few references on the web, with this one being a decent overview. It also goes into possible mechanisms of action. Another site that discusses "safe doses" of cancer-causing agents has a nice graph on the page that helps explain the concept.

I first learned about it back when I was taking "Radioactive Chemistry." We had to use a literal 10-ft. pole to move the one cobalt-60 source. We bought our uranium from the art department. It turns out that the one black pigment had an incredibly high concentration of depleted uranium that was easy to purify.

Maybe the Romulans wore big helmets so the Feds couldn't see their faces...

Leaving that out, then I have to choose the xserver, mouse, screen size and color depth on each box, and can adjust that easily if I try one that isn't what I want.
This is a little off the topic, but there have been some Knoppix users that have gone into a computer store, and tried out a box with their own live CD, so as to see if everything is in fact "linux compatable". On a network, the connection is supposed to be picked up by the OS, and one can try out the internet, or network right away. Modems are the soft spot here, with linux, as so many boxes are built with winmodems. I do build in a starting web page for Firefox that links me to all my internet pages, so I do have a feel that no matter what machine I am on, I am on home territory, and get familiar content.
(If the OS can boot and go on a particular box, of course)
I have not done a lot of roaming around , sticking my CD in various boxes, to see what would happen, but I do have a small group of machines that I do that with, and can imagine what would happen if I turned myself and my CD loose on the town.

However, if you really want all that linux has to offer (maybe browsing the web in coffeeshops, etc) then the way to do it is to have a floppy that boots up doesn't mount the flash disk to run from it, but just to read an image to put into a ram disk; then it runs from the ramdisk. The flash is too slow and may have a limited number of writes.

I did something similar that you might use as a starting point, a linux version of the old laplink boot disks. The first thing you would do is add the USB drivers to the kernel; the next would be to make it mount the flash drive, make a ram drive, and decompress an image onto the ram drive. You would put those commands in the linuxrc file. Compile the kernel to have a larger default ram drive size, and then use it by just accessing /dev/ram0.

If that boots, see if you can copy parts of the 2 floppy X windows setup, and add links for web browsing and if you have to go beyond MC for writing, try abiword.

I would be interested to hear what you figure out on this. Even if you don't complete the project, but get something that partially boots, or anything at all, feel free to send me an email.

Simple question.

Where do they get their figures?
I'm thinking that they're doing a E911 document scam

$79,449=$13.50 ??? I'm confused
(Read The Hacker Crackdown)
mirror on a free angelfire site: http://www.angelfire.com/linux/psyburn/crackdown.z ip
(so this is probably not a good idea :/)
(dl'd only if you cannot get it else where)

I like this part:
"Linux is massively customizable by its very nature regardless of how it's packaged. So let the people that want to customize every little aspect of their system figure it out for themselves."

That's what I have done, and had a ball doing it.

Thanks to Linux for giving me something to do, that seems to me, anyway, worthwhile.

Here's the details on my customized live cd system.
(not available for download or distribution at this time, I'm just having fun working with it for now.)

I'm one of those who has decided to "roll my own" remaster, based on Knoppix. I like the live CD idea, and since I have 256 MB of ram, I "knoppix toram" at bootup, then I can remove the CD, and play a music CD, for instance. I'm posting this as informational, so new users can see what we linux folks can do. Here is my Getting Started Guide.
I have not decided to distribute this remaster at this time, I'm just having fun with it for now.

Yes, it does.

Chris Kattan

Prime Minister

Having used DOS, Windows and Linux for a number of years, I finally decided to spend some time making my own remaster, which I use daily. It's a remaster of Damn Small Linux (live cd), and I load it "knoppix restore toram" and then just turn the box off when done, no need to shutdown. I still have Redhat 9 and Windows 98 on this box, but use them only occasionally. Need Redhat 9 sometimes during the remastering process, but do most of the work for that using my own remaster. Somehow, I feel that the equipment I use (mostly used, out of date) would be much more expensive had Windows not come along to introduce the web and multimedia to the masses, and lead to a glut of older pc's to choose from. I don't distribute my remaster, but do enjoy using it instead of XP. Lots of time saved on required downloads of virus updates, and Windows updates.

If there are 36 possible characters (A-Z,0-9)

For the rest of the VIN, I, O and Q are not allowed, as they are to easily confused with zero and one.

The 9th (checksum) digit has further restrictions.

As you point out, they could add other characters to extend the set. Imagine saying your Ford's serial number is !F$CK*NG$#!POS&23 :-)

Remember - you heard it here first (PS - I already solved this problem for one piece of software by having a drop-down select box that lets you choose the year range - pre-1980, 1980 to 2008, 2009 and up. User selects the range, and the proper year is calculated. reject vin if <> 17 chars && > 1979. Handles pre-1980 already :-)

As for the rest, you might want to go here for more information on decoding VINs.

Kind of makes you question the veracity of what's being reported by the press.

This is a wonderfull development. Seeing as what a massive source of pollution Fireworks are. The blackpowder used to launch the shells will no longer release carcinogenic sulfur-coal compounds into the air directly ONTOP of our population centers.

Everytime you watch a fireworks display, you are watching tonnes of heavy-metal and radioactive materials being peppered on your community. Making the evening not as wonderfull as Id like.

But, tell me, how is a prudent environmentalist to come out against fireworks? What will the public think about the environmentalists who want to take something generally considered joyfull and request its abolition?

on a more practical note, people need to be aware... we are capable of putting *some* amount of 'pollution' into our environment, but a wise person would not want to see so much that it adversly affects our (and nature's) health. If everyone decided "yes, we will release x,y and z of quatities a,b and c for this display and instead will stop buying/making/behaving in manner T" The trouble is we are not near this level of organization/understanding in the will of the public. Like most environmental issues that the public is directly connected to (consumption) they dont A) care or B) recognize their very real contribution to our looming problems.

So, who wants to martyr themeselves on the Anti-Fireworks Brigade?

Agreed. That was an interesting book. However, I later discovered that John Atanasoff should more likely be considered the builder/inventor of the first computer, especially as we know them. The ENIAC was a base ten computer, while the Atanasoff Berry Computer was base two.

M$'s PR people have a long way to go to overcome their infamous Apple Switcher, writing letters to senators from dead people and other Astroturf campaigns. M$ is an evil and dishonest company with a record that makes them impossible to trust.

More:

Study Finds Home Schooled Children Better at Social Skills
Children Educated at Home Don't Become Social Misfits
Developmental Phases of Social Development
A Game of Socialization
Homeschooling and the Myth of Socialization
Marvin Minsky Comment on Schooling
THE MYTH OF SOCIALIZATION AND THE VALUE OF PLAY
Questioning Socialization
Sociability of Students in a Home-based Charter School
Social Development or Socialization?
Social Skills and Homeschooling: Myths and Facts
SOCIALIZATION ISSUES
That Dreaded "S" Word

Generation X, the band, existed since 1976 The also shortened their name to Gen X and also documented here

An interesting repudiation of Gen Xers as slackers was listed by none other than David Schwimmer in 1995.

Douglas Coupland's Generation X dates from 1991 and is listed as the source of the term generation-x here

Now, I can't find a single source about Gen Xers, as in when the term was first used, but I seem to recall it being used for a long long time. Pre 1991? I can't tell you for sure. I can't even tell you for sure when the Baby Boomlet term was first used, nor when Gen-Y, what I consider the current youth generation to be, was first used. I can tell you that the "Gen-X" movement, attitude, etc, was already noticed as early as 1982. The media at the time just couldn't understand the punk movement at all. (Things got a little out of whack on a large scale right around then, teens wearing earings, dyed hair, spikes, etc.) It was also the time in the 80s that we noticed that gee, our economy wouldn't keep growing insanely, and thus the first of us to graduate college started looking at ever bleaker job prospects, getting paid barely enough to get by, with no real prospects of advancement if you happened to get a job. (Sort of one defining aspect of GenX)

But I want to say all 3 terms have been in use more than 10 years, and I would swear that Gen X was in use prior to 1991. I would love to have this nailed down, but who's to say for sure? It's been almost 15 years and predates most of the internet (there were only a couple of thousand USENET newsgroups around at that time, and the myriad BBS's, the survivors that eventually comprised FIDONET. But that's going down almost forgotten memory lanes...even the waybackmachine doesn't go far enough back for this.

Now having done the research, I do recall we were initially called the Post-Baby Boom generation, in the early 80s on some of the freakier stuff that got reported in the news. Oh well, at the very least, Coupland is not in my frame of reference when someone mentions Generation X. I always related it to the band, who's single, Dancing with Myself, was re-released on Idol's first solo album and was a big hit at my high school, anyways. So I've 100% dated myself now!:)

Jello Biafra bio

KFG

• The Net Legends FAQ
  
• The Happynet Manifesto
  
• The New Hacker's Dictionary
  
• The alt.sex.hello-kitty FAQ

No, you wouldn't.

I rather like the explosions, took me a while to get it that way though.

I have a couple of fairly expensive modems that won't work under Damn Small Linux, unless you remaster, to add wvdial. One is a pcmcia modem that was nearly $230.00, and the other an ISA modem that was $80.00.
I suppose they started with a base notebook computer that had a winmodem built in, not removeable, so they were stuck with it.

Start here on your journey through the Turing Tarpits.

And then go do some Object Oriented BrainF*ck just because OOP makes things so much easier.

As far as I know, the current (P4,P5,etc.) cards have no current hack. The previous cards (P3, etc.) no longer work (except for the audio signal and DTV's own channels) at all. Makes me wonder...

Also, from a random site <http://www.watchintv.com/terminology.php>:
Bootloaders- Device designed to circumvent the Black Sunday ECM. The device is shaped like an access card on one end, and has an access card slot on the other. A Black Sunday ECM'ed H-card is placed into the slot, and then the entire setup "becomes" the new, fixed H-card. When a hacker wishes to program this card, he simply inserts the bootloader with H-card into a programmer (since the bootloader has an end shaped exactly like the card) and does so. The device works by glitching past the test of the security area. As of late, DirecTV has implimented hashing on bootloaders, making them useless for anything but emulation.

Unlooper: This is a powerful type of card programming hardware that is able to 'unloop'cards(with proper software) by in a sense, glitching the card. many testers who must program multiple cards will use unloopers due to their speed.

So, DTV doesn't seem to have a clue, as bootloaders have not been commonly used in several years, and the unlooping can be done with software (see http://www.angelfire.com/trek/bigv0001/winexplorer .htm for exmple) on a common ISO card r/w.

http://www.dssmili.com/whole_frame.html has been one of the few sites with legit info.

Yes. Yes. Yes... Bureaucratic cowards! There are so many projects that have been snuffed because NASA feared negative PR in the event of failure. NASA is the Cathedral! However, the general population does view space travel as a bit of a frivolous thing and so its easy to sympathize with their plight. Here is one project that NASA killed that actually offered the possibility of interplanetary travel. Project Orion (projectorion.com doesn't seem to be around anymore.)

I'm using my own remaster of Damn Small Linux, called Rapidweather Remaster. I usually do "knoppix toram restore", and the system is fairly quick. But, I do have Windows 98 on the box, since I have hardware that I can run with that, and also Redhat 9, which is very useful sometimes, especially when I have to make a "logo16" for my remaster, or do some work on my web pages. I also find uses for Window 3.1, to make the .bmp that I covert to my logo16. I have some programs on 3.1 that are useful, and work well enough for the purpose, and don't really have a counterpart in Redhat that works like I want it to. So, I use 'em all, but really enjoy my own remaster on a day to day basis.

Here's another one - Aphex Twin - Powerpill Pacman . For details on their PowerPill Pacman EP single - follow this link. There are several remixes on this EP Single.

This article seems like a good place to plug my Pacman clone/ripoff/project/experiment/what have you. In making my own Pacman game I have come to admire the gameplay, balance, and brilliance of the original more than ever.

It is the "green" power solution... until a plant goes crazy, and it becomes the "yellow" power solution.

Terrorists, have reinvented the 'sticky bomb' in a new spring shade of mauve.

So why did she take the pain to do all this?

She's a writer and used the trip to gain attention.

My business was to show people Chernobyl as I saw it and now it is time to get busy with another chapter, which will not be a Chernobyl relative and I will make online version of it.

I expect there will also be a book offering. Nothing really wrong with what she did (slight misrepresentation), it's just marketing, right?

Here is a link to Elena's updated website.

You can not change the laws of physics
laws of physics
laws of physics
You can not change the laws of physics
laws of physics jim!

Listen for your self

I'm curious where you might have learned marketing from. All my recent jobs involved media training, part of which was to avoid bad PR.

Just enter any combination of UFO and god/bible/demon/angel etc into Google and you will find a whole mess of sites on this topic. (Here and here are just two.) IIRC, some well-known evangelist/fundamentalist back in the 70s wrote a very popular book about how UFOs were literally the work of the Devil, signs of the end times and so on. (Wish I could remember his name ... I MAY be thinking of Billy Graham, who seems to have suggested that UFO occupants are angelic, but I can't seem to find if/when he wrote a book about it.) But, anyway, while it may not be an orthodox belief, it's not an uncommon one either.

Oh sure, now my remaster of Damn Small Linux will get taxed if I decide to give some copies to whoever...

I had a fun time wardriving with Lord Hector and Umut after the 80211-planet.com in Philadelphia a while back. Wardriving is definitely a neat way to explore a new City (or even one's home town). We have the data we collected posted at WiFiMaps.com.

It's amazing to me that with the number of people like you out there, there are still people who wonder why programs are slow and resource hungry when written with modern object oriented languages

Not so fast. No, I absolutely understand what you're talking about, but today's coder is already in that inefficient, Moore's Law or Bust world. If you're not working on a compiler, that stuff doesn't really help you all that much.

My point is this: The trade-off today is to have hackers create easy to write, [hopefully] maintainable code, not [in your example] speedy, efficient code, and a CompSci degree doesn't efficiently prepare you for that world. I've done some machine lang coding, and it's great to start from there and understand the theory behind Form1, how to write a quick sort, and how hashtables work, but when you start earning your dough as a hacker, not a scientist, all that theory goes quickly to waste if you're not writing a compiler or the like. I doubt you're writing much assembly either, and if you are, you're in the extreme minority, and I hope your game rocks.

Another replier said...
You can teach a humanities or arts individual to be an excellent programmer...

I daresay you're not really teaching these programmers with unconventional backgrounds at all -- you're reaching out to an aptitude for thinking in a way that higher education isn't really cultivating all that well right now. Many people come out of college looking to earn their bread hacking, not researching, and their CS degree is given too much weight. It's not even in the same field as the work they're being hired to do!

I made a mistake in my original post... a distinction that these threads are making clear is that CompSci is about science. That's an important distinction to make. What so much of what's discussed on /. is about is actually programming, and building atop what the scientists created and the engineers turned into OSes, etc. Now we need worker bees, like myself, with a relatively different set of skills than what a CS grad would have, to make the digital world go round cleanly -- and efficiently from a business standpoint, not an academic one.

Mecha Streisand

No heaven or hell to go to after you die. So you'll be behaving yourself because you're civilized and not just to get the price at the end of the ride.

Science will eventualy provide a full explaination of consciousness...

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

-- KJV Bible at umich.edu

I came across the grandparent to this post in metamod and wanted to see the replies - which was (un?)lucky for you, cos you reminded me of a page I once came across:
Sneezing Gay People

check out this:

ghost town

How about putting the classroom material on live CD's? Only a small HDD needed to store personal stuff. Here's a distro I'm working on, and I could put a bunch of class lessons, materials, etc. in there.

This is by far the best web tour of the area.

Maybe you could be interested in Scientific Pantheism. It's a religion mainly for non theists, but skeptical theists like you could also benefit from their teachings. The main point of this religion is to admire all that can be perceived; and if you perceive something that you can call 'soul', well, maybe SP can have an explanation for this.

And the source of these comments would be???

How about the track record of Christians faced with the carbon dating of the Turin Shroud?

Or how about this fine example of feebleminded apologetics?

Seriously, why bother pretending that you're willing to take scientific evidence seriously, when you reserve the right to make arguments of the form "If God wants it to be so, then it's so."?

kinda like this?

...what about synthetics? but obviously if oil is too expensive to put in cars, gasoline will be out of the question too...

So what if Wil Wheaton's project went awry, MST3k told me that nanites are cute and friendly :]


-Colin