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Re:Does the government not think??? by subsailor · 2002-06-08 13:32 · Score: 1 · on NSA/U.S. Navy Working to Intercept Fiber Optic Cables

Tapping underwater lines has been successful in the past. Parche and Seawolf did it, among others, and gained immense amounts of intelligence against the USSR in the Cold War. Sure, we could do it other more obvious ways, but the whole point was/is to not let the other guy know. FWIW, the Jimmy Carter was intended as a special ops boat from the beginning, to replace Parche. Parche is showing her years, being originally a 637 class boat, and Jimmy Carter is a newer SSN-21 class (in fact the last of the short lived SSN-21 class...but there is talk of turning one of the early 774 class boats into a special ops boat as well, to complement Jimmy Carter...we used to run 3-5 of 'em back in the Cold War, but all except Parche have been decommissioned.) Spy games are nothing new for us in the sub force (yes, us...I'm on Cheyenne (SSN-773), and am a 11 year sub vet).

Re:About atheism by jazzbotley · 2002-06-07 09:52 · Score: 1 · on Moshe Bar on Programming, Society, and Religion

Aw shucks, you're all such cowards. If I can't see it, feel it, touch it, taste it, hear it -- then golly, it must not exist! (I get that a lot from my two year old.)

So we all have knee-jerk reactions on the topic of G-d. Seems to me you're missing out if you can't acknowledge the spiritual dimension of life. Anyone read Gerald Schroeder's The Science of God ? He does a great job of pulling the seemingly divergent tracks of the theory of evolution and our concept of G-d into the realm of plausibility. Not a good read for those of you who've already made up your mind! (Who can change it once you've barricaded yourself behind all your wonderful preconceived notions? Good luck being lonely in there, all by yourself!)

For the brave at heart, prepare to have your mind blown by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, G-d exists and G-d loves you like crazy! What proof do I have of this crazy love? Maybe the overwhelming odds against life ever happening in the first place! Not only has life "happened," it has flourished! Check your physics book, biology book, chemistry book -- tell me how likely a product of random chaos would hold together as the universe in which LIFE is possible!?!?!

Oops, have I offended you? Back to your barricade, infidel!

Re:Yes, but... by pnuema · 2002-06-05 05:23 · Score: 1 · on Cradle to Cradle

Manufacturing industries are highly regulated for all emissions, be they air, water, or solid. Everything must be disposed of properly (however "properly" is defined). This is especially true for toxic materials.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Truth is, that it is often far, far cheaper to just dump toxics into the environment and deal with an ineffective EPA. The agency is so hamstrung that it takes years to bring an effective action, and once an action is brought, the fines don't even come close to covering the cost of initial disposal, much less being punative.

I mean, ask yourself: you are CEO of ABC chemicals. It costs $50 per year to dispose of your waste be environmental regs. But, you know you can just dump it in some poor people's (meaning minority, usually) backyard, and it will take them 10 years to figure it out. Once they do, it will take the EPA 5 years to bring action against your company, and when they finally do, you will pay $100 for lawyers and $200 in fines.

So, in short, it will cost you $750 to do it by the books, or $300 to dump it. Now what are you going to do?

Check out Zodiac by Neal Stephenson for a good novel on the subject. One of my favorite books ever.

Applied Cryptography by Gleef · 2002-06-04 09:03 · Score: 2 · on Keeping Private Customer Data...Private?

Read Applied Cryptography, by Bruce Schneier (ISBN 0471117099). It covers all the basics of cryptographic systems, in depth, including when to use which kind of setup.

After you've read that, if you want more information about Alice and Bob, read here.

Read the First Chapter by dgb2n · 2002-06-04 05:13 · Score: 2 · on Amazon.Heartbreak

You can get the entire first chapter off Barnes and Noble.

My impression was that the author made some pretty poignant points but he blasted them at you so quickly they didn't always resonate. I was struck by some of his descriptions his status as a "slacker"

I do many things, but none particularly well. It is the art of not applying yourself, the only craft I have studied my entire life. Like so many others of my generation, I cherish the delusion that I have superpowers buried deep inside me. They're awaiting the perfect trigger -- radiation, a child in danger -- and in that defining moment I will finally know my birthright.

Not quite enough to entice me to buy the book but obviously a talented guy nonetheless.

Re:would you like some cheese with that w(h)ine? by SirSlud · 2002-06-04 04:58 · Score: 2 · on Amazon.Heartbreak

I'll try and find it online. In the meantime, its referenced (with sources) in this book

if you can't load the link... by Jucius+Maximus · 2002-06-04 04:20 · Score: 5, Informative · on Amazon.Heartbreak

...it's probably because you have service.bfast.com blocked. Many premade host blocking lists do this because the host is used for serving ads.

Instead, you can just go to the actual page instead of going through the advertisement provider.

Design Patterns, The Book by Bouncings · 2002-06-03 11:01 · Score: 3, Informative · on Conceptual Models of a Program?

What you are talking about is software design patterns. I suggest Eddison Wesley's book on the topic of object orientation. There's less information on structured programming out there becuase structured programming isn't very trendy right now. New materials on cutting edge (yes, cutting edge) structured programming methodology is really only available on usenet and in people's code. For that, you are on your own.

I also would advocate you not to follow the dogma that object orientation is the holy grail of software. Be open minded to structured programming too! :)

Re:You got it wrong by sholton · 2002-06-01 00:46 · Score: 1 · on Copy That Floppy? Go To Jahannum (Hell)

If I take your GPL'd dice roller and modify it, I've created a derivitive work. But if I take your die roller and add it to my "gaming suite" program, is the entire program derivitive? The law doesn't cleary say "yes," but the GPL's advocates have the repuation (possibly justified--I don't know) of saying "YES" and threatening ("we'll sue you") people who disagree in action.

You are correct that such a decision would need to be made by a Court, but the odds would not be in your favor.

Consider; If a producer makes an original motion picture about a topic of his choice, but includes in the filming a scene which takes place with a particular sculpture in the background, can the artist who created the sculpture claim the whole motion picture is a derivative work?

Click here to find out.

Re:Uh... hold your horses there scottennis by FatRatBastard · 2002-05-31 07:44 · Score: 2 · on Iceland to Voluntarily Go Oil Free in 30-40 Years

... unless you are a complete moron, you obviously believe in a statement that you are backing up...

*BZZZZ* Wrong. Thank you for playing. What I was pointing out was that its not a scientific certainty that oil will dry up in 30-40 years. Some researchers (who must "be shot because they have no scientific knowledge" disagree with the current theories about the origins of petroleum. The Detroit News' logically shaky headline does not an arguement make.

Amazing how dogma effects someone's skills in logic.

Re:They *do* have a video! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-31 03:08 · Score: 0 · on Homogenized Music

It's called Instrument.

Zinn's People's History, Anonymizer, Notebook by Sean+Clifford · 2002-05-29 07:52 · Score: 3, Offtopic · on Subversive Gifts for New College Students?

First, get a copy of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. It comes with a nifty CD even. Best history book I've ever read. Also consider some Noam Chomsky and Bertrand Russell.

And how 'bout an anonymizer account, encryption software, and a *nix based notebook for listening to listening to Democracy Now and staying in touch with friends and family without prying government eyes...

Re:God DAMN it by neocon · 2002-05-29 03:42 · Score: 1 · on Manned Mars Mission Some Way Off

And here we have a perfect example of what I'm talking about. In but four short paragraphs, the poster manages to:

knock the south -- I don't live in the south either, but I find the poster's scorn for those who he no doubt considers the `great unwashed' of the rest of the country quite grating.
claim that only liberals care about some abstract notion of `humanity' -- as if no one could possibly believe that promoting individual liberty and getting the government off the backs of the individual could be good for humanity. Well, here's a counterpoint: in the forty years from 1950 to 1990, the bottom 20% of American society came to have, own, and consume as much (and yes, that's indexed for inflation) as the middle 20% had in 1950 -- and this happened through economic growth, not the myriad of wasteful social programs which served only to sap the economy, not to provide any long-term help to anyone.
to try to associate conservatives with Osama bin Laden -- I don't think this needs a response, I mention it as an example of how shameful the poster's smears are.
tries to associate a few instances of violence which were condemned unequivocally by conservatives with the entire conservative movement -- and this even as the mainstream liberal media lionizes murderers like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, and writes long essays about how the murder of Pim Fortuyn was understandable due to his conservative views -- a notable contrast from conservatives who decry any who claim to be committing violence in the name of conservative causes.

Which brings us to the only non-smear part of the post, the claim that if slashdot and the media are leftist in bias, it is a reflection of their readership. I can't speak for the political affiliation of slashdot's readers, but I will say that even a predominantly leftist readership which had any respect for reason and for civil discourse would not be modding down posts (or, as is more common, hurling insults and vulgarities) simply because they disagree with the author's opinions. As for the media, to claim that the media are biased left because American society is biased left misses the simple fact that ratings for network news are at an all-time low, as Americans rush to networks like Fox which, while themselves conservative, make an attempt to include both sides of every debate.

There's a reason that Bernard Goldberg's book Bias is a run-away bestseller, you know.

Re:God DAMN it by neocon · 2002-05-28 16:25 · Score: 1 · on Manned Mars Mission Some Way Off

Well, as they say on tv, `we report, you decide'. I would argue that there is a strong liberal bias to much of the moderation which goes on here, you seem to feel that there is not. I dare say the readers of our posts can decide that for themselves, taking this thread and others as their guide.

As to your bit about intolerance, I would argue that it misses a key point. Modern `I feel your pain' liberalism, with its morass of identity politics, anti-Americanism, and subjectivist morality, has little use for rational argument and the respect for civil discourse which was a proud tradition of the liberalism of the past. From our college campuses, to our network news, liberals increasingly see labels and smears as a replacement for reason. Conservatism, with its central emphasis on reason and on individual rights, is less guilty of this.

Hint: when was the last time you saw a small group of conservative protesters use insults, violence or threats of violence to shut down a liberal speech, event, or newspaper? It happens to conservatives all the time -- see here, or here, or here or here or here.

Re:Tired Argument Alert by antibryce · 2002-05-28 12:05 · Score: 2 · on Eminem #2 on Gracenote... Before Release

but I think we can agree that a.) Eminem writes his own songs, b.) Eminem performs his own songs, and c.) Eminem has a command of the English language [his ryhming schemes, on a poetically-analyzed level, are very complex].

I won't agree that he writes his own songs. Were you with him when he wrote them? I think most people would be amazed at how little most pop musicians contribute to the actual music on an album. Madonna doesn't write any of her music, and never has. As for performing his songs, I wasn't aware he played any instruments. I thought he just held a microphone on stage, and occasionally performed goofy antics like dressing up as Jason Vorhees. Just look at the credits for his last album Doesn't appear he played any instruments. "primary artist" is a very vague term, one I would be willing to bet was invented by a studio exec.

His command of the English language is a very subjective thing, and at that point we're getting more into the content of his songs, not the actual music talent involved.

Bottom line, he's the current Marilyn Manson. Shockrock has been around forever, and has been very tired and dull for at least 30 years.

Re:Glad it's in Sydney by X-Lancer · 2002-05-26 07:39 · Score: 1 · on Home-built 747 Simulator

Ok. But before we make any deals, I'll ask you not to beleive everything you see on the news. Instead, you can read a book like this one. I don't want to get into who controls the media here, and the US foreign policies, etc. The fact is, I got my elementary and prep school education in Saudi Arabia, and then my high school in Egypt. None taught me that Americans should die a horrible death. Even if people feel any injustice done to them, that doesn't mean they can kill other people.
Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loves not transgressors. - Qur'an (Chapter 2, verse 190)

Re:X45A Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle by thunderbee · 2002-05-23 06:09 · Score: 1 · on E3: Epic, US Army Develop Games as Recruitment Tool

It's been said already, but: Ender's Game.
A must-read :-)

Re:Will nano work? by MarkusQ · 2002-05-20 17:44 · Score: 2 · on More on Micro Turbines

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

Ditto.

Do you seriously expect me to believe that our nano-bots will be manipulating the world at an atomic scale?

Yes. That's what distinguishes nanotechnology from, say, MEMS. The whole point is to have atomically precise devices (eutactic machines if you prefer).

At that scale, brownian motion, electro-static and chemical forces create a whole new set of problems.

All of this and more is covered at length in Nanosystems, which you probably ought to take a look at.

WRT to the piston machine:...the spring needs to push the piston out before the next pressure wave hits, for high frequencies this means a stiffer spring, resulting in less energy extracted. Again, show me the power calculations.

For details on this point see chapter 6 (IIRC) of Nanomedicine. In brief and partial answer to your spring-stiffness argument, just remember resonance--we know the frequency, etc. before hand and can design for it. When you add this to the facts that 1) the natural frequency of a system is inversely proportional to the scale, 2) the energy carried by a wave goes up with the square of frequency, 3) the power needed to run a machine drops as the inverse square of scale, it should (to a very rough first aproximation), be 10,000 times more effective to power a device with acoustic waves for every order of magnitude reduction in scale. Given that there have been simple ~10cm devices powered by anharmonic changes in barometric pressure, we should expect (all other things being equal, which of course they aren't) it to be on the order of 10^28 times more effective on the nanoscale.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Foul mood or troll, what's the difference :-). by MarkusQ · 2002-05-19 09:59 · Score: 2 · on More on Micro Turbines

Just doing a quick google search on turbine combustion temperature gives me a figure of 1250F. Or about 675C. I admit that 2000C was a load of horse-pucky but so is 200C.

Remember, if you double the linear scale you have eight times the volume to cool across only four times the surface area. So the smaller you go (other things being equal) the easier cooling will become. More to the point, what really matters isn't the absolute temperature but the gradient. At smaller scales, you can get temperature gradients much higher than you can with larger scales (e.g. in collapsing bubbles) without exposing your components to nearly as high average absolute temperatures.

Turbine blades are notoriously difficult to manufacture because of the high stresses and high temperatures involved in their operation. Making them really small doesn't sidestep the issue.

It sure helps. The main problem is finding something that will spin as fast as you like without flying apart. The forces/cross sectional area scale as RPM x r, so for something half the size you can use a material only half as strong.

Uhmm, to be high in frequency enough to be absorbed/used by nanobots, your average tweeter ain't going to cut it.

We aren't talking light here; you can extract energy from a pressure wave with a wavelength much larger than you are. You can even build something that sits on a desk to extract power (not much of course) from daily variations in barometric pressure. In effect, it's just a piston.

You don't need electronics to control machines. Fluidics then? Pure mechanical linkages?

Sure. Not fluidics of course. See Nanosystems, Chapter 12, for a proof of concept design using only mechanical linkages.

Biobots on the other hand, allow us to crib off of a couple billion years of evolution. Why reinvent mitochondria?

For the same reason we don't harness birds to pull our airplanes. Those billions of years of evolution were hampered by the fact that the beasties had to stay alive every single day. That means no radical redesign, no optimizing for a specific purpose at the cost of evolutionary fitness, etc. As a consequence, we can do many orders of magnitude better than evolution has--when "better" is defined by meeting our needs and not by reproductive success.

Making them really small doesn't sidestep the issue. Especially with regard to friction.

Exactly backwards. Friction is a bulk effect; if you make things small enough, the whole concept of "friction" goes away. Of course, we're talking nanoscale now, not microscale, and thus many orders of magnitude smaller than these turbines.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Some Examples of Contempory Censorship through by monkeydo · 2002-05-17 02:35 · Score: 2 · on Siva Vaidhyanathan On Copyrights and Wrongs

I'll assume that you aren't a communist moron, merely you just don't know how to think for yourself. All of your examples have one thing in common. The copyright holders voluntarily witheld their own works. Whether it is because the fear of lawsuit, the fact that the orignial author sold the rights to someone else, or the author never had the right to publication in the first place, none of the actors in your story were censored by anyone but themselves.

The DMCA is a bad law, I agree. Professor Felten could have faced criminal charges under the DMCA, but there is nothing that would have prevented him from publishing the paper anonymously is there? The first ammendment does not protect you from the consequences of your speech, it only protects you from a priori censorship; so sayeth the Supreme Court.

Censorship is not about people being able to sell books or publish papers, censorship is about preventing ideas from being shared. This is not the case in any of your examples.

I couldn't find "privish" in any of the dictionaries I tried, but I assume it means "available at Amazon.com" since that's where I found the book you refered too.
Here: a link I assume if you are against copyright you are against Patents too, so you'll probably want to get it from Barnes and Noble. Maybe you couldn't find it because the authors name is "Gerald" not "Gerard".

LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell by elucidus · 2002-05-16 07:39 · Score: 1 · on Linux Textbooks?

LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell is very good, since it is preping you to certify for LPI 101 and LPI 102 it contains excersies and questions.

For Electronic references start here:
O'Reilly Open Books Project

Re:Here's a book title... by _xeno_ · 2002-05-16 02:41 · Score: 1 · on Bitter Java

Reminds me of a book I saw while walking along the bookshelves in Barnes and Noble... Java Principles of Object Oriented Programming . It was a green book as I recall with large, yellow (or maybe white) letters running down the spine:

"POOP"

There was a (extremely small, relative to the huge "POOP") "Java" oriented perpendicular to the POOP as well, but walking down, looking at books and seeing one entitled "POOP" was just... well, weird.

get your poster by proxybyproxy · 2002-05-15 10:11 · Score: 1 · on Hubble's 'Pillars of Non-Creation'

I have to get a poster of this.

Get one here for $22 at 24"*30" or here for $295 at 32"*48"

You *Could* Do That by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-15 06:11 · Score: 1, Insightful · on Managing a Global Programming Team?

Having worked for software shop that was hired to oversee Indian developers, and cooperate with Indian developers, on various projects, I do have a few points.

1) We've grown up with computers. I'm a programmer because I feel in love with video games as a kid, on an Intellivision. I had to have a computer. I wanted to be a programmer as bad as a lot of kids want to be an astronaut. We've delt with bad user interfaces (Japanese VCRs with interrelated knobs switches buttons and levels spread accrost the back front sides and top). We've grown up with computer and had every chance to think about how things should work, and how life relates to software. Eg, the elevator algorithm SysV Unix to sort requests for disc blocks. The people of India have not. Their government decided to invest in technology, and sent many of them to a crash source on Java a few years back. The Indians I've delt with were invariable smart people, and I feel bad that they had to lie to get the projects, then try to fake their way through it, and I wish them and their country the best in this persuit, but it should be known their exposure to technology is recent, limited, and mostly rote.

2) American labor is competitive right now. Because employeers of mine started going under before it was popular to do so, I've been laid off more than most. Dispite years of experience, dating back to BASIC (before basica.com), and as diverse as Perl (I frequently speak at the local Perl Mongers meetings), SNOBOL, yacc, 6502 assembly, MIPS assembly, C, SQL, Java... I'm unemployeable. I can't get a job. I'm eeking by with contract work from old contact that trickle in, and my creditors aren't the least bit happy with me. My monthly income is below what I would be making working full time for minimum wage. Hire me! I'll work for $10/hour. Scott Walters' Resume. Seriously - I'm on Java and Perl mailing lists for the area I'm in. I don't call numbers when someone posts a help wanted ad, because invariable when I get through, I hear the same thing: "I've been bombarded with qualified resumes. I had no idea I would get that kind of response. I don't have time to review them all. All I can do is hire the first person I talked to." There is a vast surplus of highly qualified labor in the states right now.

3) If you learn anything from the dot com blow out, learn that companies aren't reliable. Indian companies just like US companies will hire random people without reviewing what their code looks like (hey, they talked a good talk!) when the contract is signed. Why pay them to take a gamble with employees when you can do the same thing yourself, and probably do a better job interviewing? The people you shake hands with probably won't be the people doing the code - it'll get passed off to the jounior programmers - just like the states. An eLance programmer (or myself), who has no real ability to sue you, will have much more motivation for doing a satisfatory job in a timely manner.

4) Buying a lot of cheap brains - aren't you making the Mythical Man Month mistake?

4) If you absolutely must hire Indian programmers, or Russian programmers, etc, take a lession from the "eXtreme Programming" garbage floating around: set many short deadlines for the near future to set a healthy pace, track progress more precisely, and catch mistakes before they become ingrained. Use the "looking over their shouldres" technique. Install VNC and arrange overlapping hours (early mornings/late nights) for a portion of the day. Programmers don't work well if you keep them on a short leash or micromanageme them (it's difficult to find one working solution, and impossible to find a working solution that satisifies the arbitrary whim of an evil overload who won't leave you alone), but having people look over your shoulder adds the Open-Source element of peer review. It facilitates good communication, too. You don't know what questions to ask. Perhaps you've been in an interview, and you're asked, "Is there anything else you'd like to know about our company?", or "Do you have any other questions for us?", and stumbled looking for something? It's hard to know which questions to ask. Asking the right questions has been attributed to the soul of quality. Looking over someone elses shoulder gives you the chance to discover questions you didn't know you needed to ask. Maybe the methods to the API were established and documented, but you completely misunderstood when they would be used, or for what purpose. Working with them and taking on small parts of the project yourself (an object here, an interface there) will give you the knowledge you need to be able to talk about the project with them in real terms instead of managementease ("Oh, it's going really well, thank you, no problems at all! About that deadline...").

I sincerely hope this essay helps.

-scott

You *Could* Do That by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-15 06:11 · Score: 1, Insightful · on Managing a Global Programming Team?

Having worked for software shop that was hired to oversee Indian developers, and cooperate with Indian developers, on various projects, I do have a few points.

1) We've grown up with computers. I'm a programmer because I feel in love with video games as a kid, on an Intellivision. I had to have a computer. I wanted to be a programmer as bad as a lot of kids want to be an astronaut. We've delt with bad user interfaces (Japanese VCRs with interrelated knobs switches buttons and levels spread accrost the back front sides and top). We've grown up with computer and had every chance to think about how things should work, and how life relates to software. Eg, the elevator algorithm SysV Unix to sort requests for disc blocks. The people of India have not. Their government decided to invest in technology, and sent many of them to a crash source on Java a few years back. The Indians I've delt with were invariable smart people, and I feel bad that they had to lie to get the projects, then try to fake their way through it, and I wish them and their country the best in this persuit, but it should be known their exposure to technology is recent, limited, and mostly rote.

2) American labor is competitive right now. Because employeers of mine started going under before it was popular to do so, I've been laid off more than most. Dispite years of experience, dating back to BASIC (before basica.com), and as diverse as Perl (I frequently speak at the local Perl Mongers meetings), SNOBOL, yacc, 6502 assembly, MIPS assembly, C, SQL, Java... I'm unemployeable. I can't get a job. I'm eeking by with contract work from old contact that trickle in, and my creditors aren't the least bit happy with me. My monthly income is below what I would be making working full time for minimum wage. Hire me! I'll work for $10/hour. Scott Walters' Resume. Seriously - I'm on Java and Perl mailing lists for the area I'm in. I don't call numbers when someone posts a help wanted ad, because invariable when I get through, I hear the same thing: "I've been bombarded with qualified resumes. I had no idea I would get that kind of response. I don't have time to review them all. All I can do is hire the first person I talked to." There is a vast surplus of highly qualified labor in the states right now.

3) If you learn anything from the dot com blow out, learn that companies aren't reliable. Indian companies just like US companies will hire random people without reviewing what their code looks like (hey, they talked a good talk!) when the contract is signed. Why pay them to take a gamble with employees when you can do the same thing yourself, and probably do a better job interviewing? The people you shake hands with probably won't be the people doing the code - it'll get passed off to the jounior programmers - just like the states. An eLance programmer (or myself), who has no real ability to sue you, will have much more motivation for doing a satisfatory job in a timely manner.

4) Buying a lot of cheap brains - aren't you making the Mythical Man Month mistake?

4) If you absolutely must hire Indian programmers, or Russian programmers, etc, take a lession from the "eXtreme Programming" garbage floating around: set many short deadlines for the near future to set a healthy pace, track progress more precisely, and catch mistakes before they become ingrained. Use the "looking over their shouldres" technique. Install VNC and arrange overlapping hours (early mornings/late nights) for a portion of the day. Programmers don't work well if you keep them on a short leash or micromanageme them (it's difficult to find one working solution, and impossible to find a working solution that satisifies the arbitrary whim of an evil overload who won't leave you alone), but having people look over your shoulder adds the Open-Source element of peer review. It facilitates good communication, too. You don't know what questions to ask. Perhaps you've been in an interview, and you're asked, "Is there anything else you'd like to know about our company?", or "Do you have any other questions for us?", and stumbled looking for something? It's hard to know which questions to ask. Asking the right questions has been attributed to the soul of quality. Looking over someone elses shoulder gives you the chance to discover questions you didn't know you needed to ask. Maybe the methods to the API were established and documented, but you completely misunderstood when they would be used, or for what purpose. Working with them and taking on small parts of the project yourself (an object here, an interface there) will give you the knowledge you need to be able to talk about the project with them in real terms instead of managementease ("Oh, it's going really well, thank you, no problems at all! About that deadline...").

I sincerely hope this essay helps.

-scott

Re:A way to boost sales... by Gibbys+Box+of+Trix · 2002-05-13 20:13 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Music Meets Steganography

The article states that the EP was released in 1999, and the face hasn't been announced by James or his record company. That hardly sounds like a publicity stunt to me.

Aphex Twin isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea, I think you either buy this stuff or not, you're not going to be swayed to buy it because you can see a freaky face when you run it through certain software.

I would, however, recommend Selected Ambient Works 85-92 as a gentler introduction to the man's work.

Re:se7en by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-12 06:15 · Score: 0 · on UK Home Office plan: ID Chips in Everything

They monitor reading habits. Not every book, but certain ones are flagged. Books about... let's say, how to build a nuclear bomb, or maybe Mein Kampf...

...or even A Dog Year.

Another idea by Chardish · 2002-05-12 04:13 · Score: 2, Informative · on Star Wars Episode II: The Book Review

For the same plot information even quicker, simply read the Children's Movie Storybook. :)

Thanks Lucas for making spoilers readily available before the film is even released.

-Evan

Jon Katz you ignorant slut by ChenLing · 2002-05-10 05:24 · Score: 0, Flamebait · on Spider-Man, Star Wars and the Power of Myth

I am not a writer. I do not pretent to be.
However, I believe that anyone who does claim to be a writer has to follow some simple guidelines:

Accuracy -- check your facts (Wolverine of X-Men fame has adamatine claws, and so does "drink with his buddies") before you write about them.
Consistency -- Have your essay actually make one point. Don't seesaw back and forth on different topics hoping to stumble upon a point. It is like having a plot -- please actually have one!
Integrity -- Say what you believe in. If Star Wars does better than Spider-Man, should we be expecting an article on how complex themes appeals to the mass audience more than "simple" story lines?
Quality -- Don't make your 'editorials' your personal diary. At least don't make it read like your personal diary -- a meandering mess. Don't use buzz words like some clueless PHB. I'm sure some other /. poster will have the "check list" (geek empowerment check, reference to hackers check, references to terrorism/Sept11 check, etc)

Perhaps you do some reading before you write next. May I suggest:

Jon Katz you ignorant slut by ChenLing · 2002-05-10 05:24 · Score: 0, Flamebait · on Spider-Man, Star Wars and the Power of Myth

I am not a writer. I do not pretent to be.
However, I believe that anyone who does claim to be a writer has to follow some simple guidelines:

Accuracy -- check your facts (Wolverine of X-Men fame has adamatine claws, and so does "drink with his buddies") before you write about them.
Consistency -- Have your essay actually make one point. Don't seesaw back and forth on different topics hoping to stumble upon a point. It is like having a plot -- please actually have one!
Integrity -- Say what you believe in. If Star Wars does better than Spider-Man, should we be expecting an article on how complex themes appeals to the mass audience more than "simple" story lines?
Quality -- Don't make your 'editorials' your personal diary. At least don't make it read like your personal diary -- a meandering mess. Don't use buzz words like some clueless PHB. I'm sure some other /. poster will have the "check list" (geek empowerment check, reference to hackers check, references to terrorism/Sept11 check, etc)

Perhaps you do some reading before you write next. May I suggest:

Jon Katz you ignorant slut by ChenLing · 2002-05-10 05:24 · Score: 0, Flamebait · on Spider-Man, Star Wars and the Power of Myth

I am not a writer. I do not pretent to be.
However, I believe that anyone who does claim to be a writer has to follow some simple guidelines:

Accuracy -- check your facts (Wolverine of X-Men fame has adamatine claws, and so does "drink with his buddies") before you write about them.
Consistency -- Have your essay actually make one point. Don't seesaw back and forth on different topics hoping to stumble upon a point. It is like having a plot -- please actually have one!
Integrity -- Say what you believe in. If Star Wars does better than Spider-Man, should we be expecting an article on how complex themes appeals to the mass audience more than "simple" story lines?
Quality -- Don't make your 'editorials' your personal diary. At least don't make it read like your personal diary -- a meandering mess. Don't use buzz words like some clueless PHB. I'm sure some other /. poster will have the "check list" (geek empowerment check, reference to hackers check, references to terrorism/Sept11 check, etc)

Perhaps you do some reading before you write next. May I suggest:

Re:Sci-Fi Still won't be on the list by jonbrewer · 2002-05-08 11:45 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Why Doesn't Sci-Fi Hit the Bestseller Lists?

" The large chain bookstores already track author popularity very closely and, if your last book didn't do well, your next book may not get the opportunity to do well."

I know from experience that Barnes and Noble will take books from local authors and feature them prominently in their stores, irregardless of popularity or past sales of the author. The managers of such chain bookstores are not entirely dictated to from above, so I don't believe your blanket statement to be true.

Re:biggest balloon ever? by hubie · 2002-05-07 18:01 · Score: 3, Informative · on Largest Balloon Ever

The 40 isn't the largest balloon out there, it is (just as you stated) the largest that is part of Raven's "off the shelf" stock. I think they used to make 52's, and I'm sure if you come with the proper amount of money, they can accomodate larger sizes. I'm not sure who makes these balloons overseas.

The goal of 40km should not be a problem for these guys if they have a successful launch. I was part of a research team that launched a 2000 lb payload to over 42 km on a 40 Mcft balloon, so if these guys get a larger balloon than that, it should be that much easier. The manned balloon altitude record, by the way, is 113,740 ft set in 1961 from the Strato-Lab V platform by US Navy pilots Malcolm Ross and Vic Parther.

An excellent history of setting the manned balloon altitude record can be found in David DeVorkin's Race to the Stratosphere .

Re:It's because up until recently, nobody KNEW... by tapin · 2002-05-07 06:31 · Score: 2 · on Musicnet Fails to Impress Customers

Until recently, nobody except the people being screwed knew anything about it.

Sorry, but that's just not true. As far back as 1991 (over a decade ago!) it was being widely reported -- just witness Dannen's excellent book Hit Men, which came out 7/91. Or the anti-signing screed "Some of Your Friends Are Already This Fucked", which I don't have a date on -- but I know I read months or years before Love's speech.

The problem's been around, it's been out in the open, but it's just now getting the attention it deserves because it's a convenient excuse for people who want to justify using P2P music networks.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not condemning people for sharing music via P2P, but if all these people are "sharing the tunes for the benefit of the artist", they should also be feeding the artists -- going to concerts and buying two CDs, three t-shirts, and six beers (how do you think bands get re-booked? Tip your damn wait staff!) Some people do. I applaud them. Most people, being lazy, don't.

Yeah .. Tungsten.. by k98sven · 2002-05-05 00:40 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Photonic Structure Increases Light Bulb Efficiency

The coolest element of them all..

If you don't belive me read the book "Uncle Tungsten".

Great book, a must for anyone remotly intrested
in chemistry or the history of chemistry.

Ok, so it's a shameless plug.. but I just had to push that damn fine book.

Re:don't tell me you're suprised with this news ! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-05-02 21:53 · Score: 0 · on Another Reason to be Annoyed by Cell Phones

Yes there are studies going on. But it is also a conspiracy. Being /. readers I'm sure you would be interested in reading more about it. Check out this book. The industry has been trying for years to keep this from being seriously looked into and the findings made public. Just for a moment imagine if the EM wave was of a different sort that produced an annoying (but non harmful) light instead. How quickly would such a thing be banned due to people's annoyance? Of course if it did this no one would use it in the first place but that's beside the point. People are getting addicted to the instant gratification and are going to be hard pressed to get rid of them even when they are completely exposed as causing genetic damage. Not that I'm complaining cause I personally think the planet is too populated anyway and can't wait for this thing to kick in and start reducing the masses. Antisocial anyone?

Re:Cool! by dracken · 2002-05-02 04:53 · Score: 5, Informative · on Nature's Building Blocks

There has always been "cool facts" chemistry books. Isaac Asimov's "Building Blocks of the Universe" and "The Search For The Elements" were published in the early 60's. His style is absolutely engaging as he takes up elements in the periodic table, and tells a story about their origin, discovery, properties and uses. These books might be old (and slightly outdated as several elements have been discovered since then) but I still vividly remember the thrill that I had while reading them.

"Nature's Building Blocks" might be good - but sorry, its prior art. Isaac Asimov did it first - same style, same layout. IMHO there is no better scientist cum story teller better than asimov.

-Dracken.

Andromeda Strain... by vitalidea · 2002-05-01 17:59 · Score: 1 · on Mars Exploration Must Consider Contamination

Uh... isn't this the Andromeda Strain argument, earily coming back. If you haven't seen it, a Martian virus comes back to earth on a fallen probe and then starts to spread and kill everything it's path. An old sci-fi flick, but an awesome one. The key is that the martian virus has a structure unlike any that is seen on earth, and thus is a total mystery. Therefore, nearly impossible to stop.