Slashdot Mirror

So what we're hearing is that we'll need to lose five GPS satellites - 18% of them - before GPS isn't 100% available world-wide 100% of the time.

Of course, an event could cause us to lose 100% of them at once. But if we just fail one at a time, the redundancy appears to be sufficient. Losing one (or even four) satellites isn't a problem. When one fails, you shoot up another. When a bunch of them fail at once - well, it could happen, but at that point all the redundancy in the world likely isn't going to help.

GPS is a pretty cool technology, but sadly some vendors are crappy when it comes to Linux or even Mac support. Platform support is what we should be pissed about. Damned Garmin just refuses to support anything well except Windows, perhaps because Garmin's desktop software developers aren't permitted to do anything except maintain their ancient Windows software. Some people have managed to get this stuff to work on Linux and the Mac, but it just ain't the same as full, documented support.

Maybe the Mac is too hard for them.

While I steered clear of the God thing in my initial post, the relevance to religion did occur to me. Skepticism appears to be suffering throughout the world right now, particularly in the US. Given the emotional attachment many people have to their religious beliefs I often find it's easier to get them to realise the importance of skepticism in areas less important to them (like alternative therapies or horoscopes).

There's a wealth of skeptical thought to be found at the skeptics' circle though it can usually considered--if you'll excuse the ironic pun--to be preaching to the choir.

This is a little offtopic, but it is probably the most relevant article that I can post it in.

Google is looking for Mac developers. Signs of more cross platform software coming from the Googleplex?

This is a little offtopic, but it is probably the most relevant article that I can post it in.

Google is looking for Mac developers. Signs of more cross platform software coming from the Googleplex?

It's nowhere near as mature as InnoDB, at least so it could be used as a drop-in replacement:
"Even though Berkeley DB is in itself very tested and reliable, the MySQL interface is still considered gamma quality. We continue to improve and optimize it."

  (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/bdb-storag e-engine.html)

The people at Sleepy Cat see a possible opportunity though:
http://devtoe.blogspot.com/2005/10/oracle-buys-inn odb-will-fork-save.html

I'm definitely not a "hard-core" programmer. Or even a soft-core one. My focus is on the business strategy behind open source. A true sign of open source's maturity is that it can tolerate and support hangers-on like me. :-)

That said, I've been involved with open source since 1998 (on the business side), and I think I have solid credentials on that side of the community. (As for ESR...http://asay.blogspot.com/2005/09/news-flash- eric-raymond-is-god-he.html)

Matt

Then after clicking a few links, I found Fernando Magariños, Ramón Morales López, and Mauricio Hernandez.

I'm sure there are countless others...

Then after clicking a few links, I found Fernando Magariños, Ramón Morales López, and Mauricio Hernandez.

I'm sure there are countless others...

For those who would like to go on an in-depth exploration of issues touched upon in this article, check out the Case Of The Killer Robot on the onlineethics.org website: http://onlineethics.org/cases/robot/robot.html which I edited back in school. Note that the case is a hypothetical one and all the characters are fictional.

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

(2003ish): IBM discovers cheap labor in India/Bangalore and starts slashing jobs in the US in small but consistent increments over a prolonged time...

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

• Comment 1
• Comment 2
• Comment 3
• Comment 4
• Comment 5
• Comment 6

And his name is Shithead

Thank you very much.

This guy is a Fuckwad

Internet Addiction is becoming a big threat to humanity nowadays.

Sometimes internet activity can be addictive. i think the negative effects of computers and internet can be overcome only by careful strategies.

...I use the "ad-punishment system". In a nutshell:

I understand that websites have to make money to stay afloat; I do understand that this is achieved via ads; I just do not like certain types of ads (pretty much like turning the volume down while watching TV when the ads "shout" at me).

The "ad-punishement system" is simple, annoy me once, get blocked in /etc/hosts. My reasoning in greater detail at Slow browsing.
just my 2 cents

Or "OpenOffice vs. MS Office", or "Firefox vs. IE". Be fair. Open some minds. I don't know about others, but OSS is a big part of what I do -- I use Firefox 90% of the time and IE 10% of the time; I got OpenOffice in my hard drive but rarely use it (in this case, MS Word/Works wins); I use GIMP 100% of the time (exhibit: my blog at http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/), because the price of Photoshop ($600) scares me away.

The following quote seems very appropriate for this newsstory:

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
- Robert Wilensky

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

Already done to death. Szulik is a little late.

I'm using Perl on Poles!

As I explain here: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2005/06/japane sefrench-son-of-concorde-vs.html the next SST is likely to be a small biz jet from the U.S., Russia, and/or Canada. The Japanese are just putting out cool press releases for their basic research.

My only problem with Google is how will people find that very creative, yet extremely retarded way of putting the $ in M$ into Google? After all, god forbid, a company out to make a profit. Google is trying the EXACT same things as MS. Buying out companies for their products/ideas? Ya. Stealing away employees the same way people bitched about MS for doing? Ya.

Google lucked out and got a ton of people hooked early, and what now (just like MS)? They aren't light years ahead of anyone (just like MS, with the exception of Office, coincidentally). Yahoo has just as many good results as I find using Google (even though I use Google out of habit), and even MSN Search has just as many good results. In fact, I haven't seen any "MSN bombing" or "Yahoo bombing." Google has been a miserable failure in fixing this though.

Note the "ad" on the right of those search results: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombi ng-failure.html .

"...Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission."

I use GMail, but only because I needed an email account with an email username that I wanted (unlike PICKY432412312321 that you see on older services), outside of my personal email account (business, and personal). As an early adopter, I got the perk of getting the one I wanted, and convienently a huge mailbox (~2.7 GB now). I don't even use 2 MBs of it though and I regularly "delete" messages from the service, and I am fearful about the rumours that nothing is actually deleted, so I only use it as an account I accept can be spammed (use the account on questionable websites as my contact address, expecting them to spam it). It's also annoying that I cannot send files over 10 MB to my GMail account, which is one of the other reasons I originally signed up for it (beats using MY FTP space!).

A really direct attack against Microsoft would be the Google Web browser project, see here http://goolocalizations.blogspot.com/, in the 'Googler' section. This attack to be more successful than Netscape/Mozilla/Opera's attempts should be based on GoogleOS (next Mandriva?). A nice, poweful Google Computer line would also help.

In his blog Oracle OS evangelist Omar Tazi raves about all the things that Innobase can do and MySql can't. Then he says: It'll be interesting to see how this affects MySQL. Stay tuned! Doesn't sound like a friendly takeover...

If you look closely at the second picture that you linekd to, http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/sakurai_double.JPG - you can see two things.

A) The demo was held at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. All the robots that were demoed there were functional to various degrees (some are commercially available, some are lab prototypes, but they all were functional - no funky mockups). I know this because I was there (http://erinandterencetravels.blogspot.com/2005/09 /back-in-tokyo.html) and I recognize exactly where in the EXPO that would be demoed at. That was demoed at the Robot Station, in the kid's zone.

B) The sticker on the Endoskeleton's thigh is for NEDO - New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (http://www.nedo.go.jp/english/). This is Japan's largest public R&D management organization. They are the equivalent of the NSF (http://www.nsf.gov/) in the US of A. Hardly the guys to sponsor amateur hacks.

Why that realclimate.org rubbish is even more irrelevant.. http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/10/dutch-journalism -award-kyoto-is-junk_06.html

Has ./ set a robot to post each blog entry of Google's official blog on Slashdot, albeit with a delay of 48 hrs?

Here I give tomorrow's ./ headline - "Google launches Feed Reader"! No kiddin', visit reader.google.com

Now that's some amazing progress.

This is great news for the soldiers soon to be removed the line of fire; "ominous" news for the millions of truckers and taxi drivers (in the US alone) who'll be quickly replaced over the next decade.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

"Net neutrality. As voice, video, and data rapidly converge, Congress is rewriting U.S. telecommunications laws and deregulating broadband connectivity, which is largely a good thing. But in a country where most citizens have only one or two viable broadband options, there are real dangers for the Internet: Should network operators be able to block their customers from reaching competing websites and services (such as Internet voice calls and video-on-demand)? Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors? Should an innovator with a new online service or application be forced to get permission from each broadband cable and DSL provider before rolling it out? Or, if that's not blunt enough for you, what's better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It's not [a].)"

10/06/2005 07:09:00 AM
Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, Senior Policy Counsel

It seems that policymaking and regulatory activity in Washington, D.C. affect Google and our users more every day. It's important to be involved - to participate in the policy process and contribute to the debates that inform it. So we've opened up a shop there. The first member of our Washington team is Alan Davidson, a veteran thinker and advocate for issues we care about.

Our mission in Washington boils down to this: Defend the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation. OK, that sounds a little high and mighty, so let me break it down into something a bit wonkier with a sampling of the U.S. policy issues we're working on:

Net neutrality. As voice, video, and data rapidly converge, Congress is rewriting U.S. telecommunications laws and deregulating broadband connectivity, which is largely a good thing. But in a country where most citizens have only one or two viable broadband options, there are real dangers for the Internet: Should network operators be able to block their customers from reaching competing websites and services (such as Internet voice calls and video-on-demand)? Should they be able to speed up their own sites and services, while degrading those offered by competitors? Should an innovator with a new online service or application be forced to get permission from each broadband cable and DSL provider before rolling it out? Or, if that's not blunt enough for you, what's better: [a] Centralized control by network operators, or [b] free user choice on the decentralized, open, and astoundingly successful end-to-end Internet? (Hint: It's not [a].)

Copyrights and fair use. Google believes in protecting copyrights while maintaining strong, viable fair use rights in this new digital age. We support efforts by the U.S. Copyright Office to facilitate the use of orphan works (works whose rights-holders can't be found), while fully respecting the interests of creators. We applauded the Supreme Court's carefully calibrated decision in the Grokster case, but worked to defeat legislation that would have created new forms of liability for neutral technologies and services like Google.

Intermediary liability. As a search engine, Google crawls the Internet, gathering information everywhere we can find it. We're a neutral tool that allows users to find information posted by others - like a continuously updated table of contents for the Internet. Not surprisingly, we don't believe the Internet works well if intermediaries and ISPs are held liable for things created by others but made searchable through us. That's why Google will continue to oppose efforts to force us to block or limit lawful speech; instead, we focus on providing users the information, tools, and features (such as SafeSearch) they need to protect themselves online.

This is just a taste. We're also engaged in policy debates over privacy and spyware, trademark dilution, patent law reform, voice-over-Internet-protocol (VOIP) regulation, and more. The Internet policy world is fluid, so our priorities will surely morph over time. And, of course, Google is a global company. In a future post, we'll introduce you to some of the policy issues we're confronting outside the U.S.

Here http://goolocalizations.blogspot.com/, under the "Googler" section a some other 'tagged' browser is proposed.

In passing 17 USC 107, which lists some factors for fair use, Congress stated that "Section 107 is intended to restate the present judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way." In other words, Congress simply listed these in the statute to show some of the considerations that the courts have employed in the past, but putting it in the statute imposed no changes on what courts had always done, or might choose to do in the future.

On top of that, your claim of a prohibition on the reproduction of an entire work is dangerous misinformation. At best, there is the language of the third factor, "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole," which basically means the more of the work that is copied, the less likely it is fair use. This is a far cry from (the entire work - 1) being some kind of a technical loophole that might work.

Fair use is unfortunately a very unpredictable legal test, with many factors that get weighed by the courts. The result is very sensitive to the facts of each case. But as a rule of thumb, you can pretty much count on copying / distributing portions of film & music works as being seen as plain & simple copyright infringement by the courts. It's when you get into issued like DJs remixing, where some amount of creative effort is involved, or educational use, where claims of fair use become more viable.

I've been following the evolution of Google Maps for a while now. You can tell it's a killer app when people begin developing more applications around it and using it in ways the original developer never guessed.

Here are some of my favorite Google Map apps :

My recent favorite: Live streaming New York traffic cams integrated with Google Maps.

Track your GPS enabled vehicle live.

Use Craigslist home listings with Google Maps Cheap, plentiful phone cams with GPS flooding the market have spawned Geobloggers. Thousands of shots from GPS enabled Phone cams, posted to Flickr accompanied with the longitude/lattitude co-ordinates.

UFO's have been spotted. Still no certainty about what they are, but fun anyway.

Just emerging are: Google Maps merged with recently released prisoner data, Wireless hotspots, nearest grassroots recommended restaurants, cash machines...

Wireless access, Google maps, and tagging will create sticky location-based fountains of useful knowledge.

This is one to watch. There's no telling what will spin off next.

I don't think its good news for Redmond based company. But that's Google. There is at least more than one web based office application is available like Writely (The Web Word Processor), and NumSum (Web Spreadsheet). Both are in beta stages. I personally worked on both of them and they have a long way to go. When I heard Google is partnering with Sun to make OpenOffice available online, I was thrilled. Its like if Google is doing something, it must be good. I don't know how long its going to take them to have a beta version out. I am waiting. http://gupta-puneet.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-of fice.html

Let me save some time and just point you at http://firefoxopera.blogspot.com/ a listing of Firefox extensions that duplicated Opera features.

Versions of Greasemonkey in the 0.5.x series (including the current, stable release) will not work in Deer Park, nor will any future 0.5 release. Support for GM in DP is being developed in versions 0.6.x, which is now in beta. This is discussed here. It includes a link to the current beta (0.6.2 as of this writing).

I installed this beta this morning, and, so far, the only problem I encountered was that, when I close some tabs, a JavaScript alert pops up with a diagnostic message. I'm not sure if this is a real error or just being used by the Greasemonkey development team to monitor some condition that might be handled without effect in a future, offical release of 0.6. There do not seem to be any harmful effects after dismissing the alert; the tab gets removed and FireFox can continue to be used as normal.

You can use Greasemonkey 06.2 beta for Firefox 1.5.

more details in Greasemonkey blog
http://greaseblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/firefox-15- compatible-greasemonkey.html

What I really want to know is: Will my crappy D-Link Air DWL-520 Wireless Adapter(rev.E) be supported? It uses a Prism2.5 chipset that seems to confuse several distributions, including Ubuntu. I was using Mandrake and then Mandriva with functioning ethernet, but when I dropped my cable internet subscription a few months ago and started piggybacking on the neighbor's wifi, I could no longer use linux to get online. I am not a linux guru, but I can edit config files and such. I tried some 3rd party drivers but I had no luck. Getting this piece of hardware to work is over my head.

I'd love it to just work out of the box.

(The neighbors are cool with sharing their bandwidth.)

---------- My blog: Both of Us http://jspjbbphilly.blogspot.com/

I don't know where you get your legal advice. Anonymous Lawyer?

I can't tell if you think the current situation is the *best* situation. So far you've just been reacting to the news article. That's not a criticism, but I'd like to hear what you think the America *should* do with regards to root server control.

A reasonable question, sir. My answer is, nothing should be done. I cannot say with certainty if ICANN is the "best" solution for DNS Root control, but I do know that it works today. And in the absense of a better solution, it is best to not fix something that isn't broken.

It seems to me (and this may be what we end up with) there should be a fully independant organization that isn't even *located* physically in any one country permanently, that would control the root servers scattered throughout the world, and would operate under a very strict charter.

Many other posters have addressed these issues, so I will only summarize:

1. Having control of the DNS Root servers is not a requirement. For a short period of time, nothing would happen to the internet if such servers were to disappear. On a larger scale, a foreign power could run their own root servers with no negative impact to the internet. All that is required is that the DNS servers used by users in the foreign country change from looking at the ICANN root to the new root. The foreign power can even choose to keep their root servers in sync with the US, or reject updates as they feel appropriate.

2. 19 of the 39 DNS root servers are not located in the US. Should a war break out, there is nothing stopping these countries from seizing control of the servers inside their borders.

With this in mind, why would we want to shake up vital infrastructure by giving control to the UN when the UN members have done nothing to secure themselves against any possible attacks on the infrastructure?

What this is about is not the concern for of economic disaster imposed by the US. It's about control. Control to force whatever domains the UN members want, control to reject things they want to censor, and control to subjugate users of the internet. Let me say that there is nothing more scary than having a country like China in the lineup of those who have control over the internet's most vital point. After reviewing their non-stop abuse of their own constitution, I have little to no question that they would use any power given to not only persecute their own people, but to extend their influence beyond their borders.

And on that note, there's nothing wrong with hiring someone who works for a company to write an editorial about issues affecting that company's industry. What's the problem with giving the oft-bullied pro-Microsoft person a chance to give an opinion?

I disagree. First off, if ZDNet were to base their hiring decisions based on who is getting bullied, then they should also have on staff writers who work for Real, Netscape, Novell, IBM, and a pile of other companies that Microsoft has bullied over the years. Besides which, it isn't as if the organization doesn't already have a long history of employing people who are pro-Microsoft.

Secondly, we have no way of seperating out what parts (if any) of Mr. Carrol's writings are what he truly believes, or what he thinks might advance his career at Microsoft. Do you think for one moment he would ever in a million years pen anything along the lines of what one might see over at the Mini-Microsoft blog?

Mr. Carrol is good for one thing, and that is writing MS puff pieces. We, as readers, can't determine if the content are indeed his own personal thoughts, if they're what Microsoft is paying him to say, or if he just thinks he might get ahead with his employer for saying them. And that makes it bad journalism and lacking in any semblance of integrity.

Having a pro-Microsoft advocate writing for them isn't the problem. The problem is when that advocate also works for and is paid by Microsoft. ZDNet has had a lot of MS-shills on staff over the years -- but at least they didn't also work for Microsoft (unless some of the rumours are true, and some people were getting paid under the table...).

Yaz.

I prefer the ATX form factor, SageTV and Haupagge TV Tuner combination in my own homebrew PVR.

You got that right. I have one called http://federermagic.blogspot.com/ and it earns very small money :(

Let me reiterate what the other AC said (without the flame):

Virtual hosts.

For instance, what is apparently Rosie O'Donnell's blog has its own hostname: http://onceadored.blogspot.com/

The blog Can Google take further on Microsoft..? have some thoughts relavent to it.. What Google can do at Office suit....? I come across a good open source office suit by name openoffice (www.openoffice.org), which works similar in windows machines and Unix/Linux machines. This can be a right choice to Google to either fund this project and take base from it, and enhance and give to people.

I'm on the fence whether or not I believe that bogger made $15,000 from AdSense last month on a blog. That's insane. If true, then I guess I need to spend a lot more time on my blog http://devrock.blogspot.com/ and start promoting the hell out of it. I make good cash on the pr0n links, but less than $100/mo.

No sir, you have not poked a single hole. You have failed to detail what the holes are, so therefore your argument is no argument at all. All you have stated is, "you are wrong, you use UN/EU, then use only UN." (Without detailing why this is inappropriate, I might add.) I will repeat again, that the UN is acting as a complete body. While it may be the EU who is pushing this heavily (which isn't entirely true either, according to TFA), the entire UN is the one that stands to gain or lose from this exchange.

Now either make an argument, sir, or remove yourself from the discussion.

Take my criticism and learn, young grasshopper. Enroll in a logic class or something.

Considering that your own claim to fame is fictional "rag sheet" stories, sir, I'm not certain you're in a position to be claiming expertise in logic battles. Rather I submit, that you are merely disagreeing with me for your own personal amusement. i.e. You are "trolling", as according to the popular term. Again, please find a logical, non-fictional argument, or remove yourself from the discussion.

The article describes combining the two antenna - one on each end of the link. Does anyone know if commercial manufacturers have looked into drastically varying the standard antenna shape or material. In my line of work, I study genetic algorithms and know that GAs have been used to design space antenna (http://illigal.blogspot.com/2005/01/corkscrew-sha ped-space-antennas.html) that are far more effective than current designs.

Jason Calacanis is the owner of Weblog Inc. The man is $25 million richer today than yesterday, so give him some credit. Weblog Inc. network has 80 blogs, and it is sold for $25 million, so one blog is worth, roughly, $300,000. I'm happy to sell my blog (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/) for a lot less. Nevertheless, congrats to Jason, because he got into the game earlier and smarter than everybody else.

..like this guy: http://ahyesmedschool.blogspot.com/

Well worth the read.