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Re:Yes but... by Lisandro · 2004-12-20 09:50 · Score: 1 · on High School Dropout, Self-Taught Chip Designer

Yes. Not in a Kate Beckinsdale style of hot, but she is pretty good looking. Cutest pic ever (computer fans over 20 will understand!).

and by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-20 07:52 · Score: 0 · on High School Dropout, Self-Taught Chip Designer

geeky beyond belief

files can be owned by nonexistent applications by jcomeau_ictx · 2004-12-12 09:22 · Score: 1 · on Limitations in Current Breed of Palm Handhelds?

The par utility can be used to make .pdb files "owned by" arbitrary applications, which don't have to exist at all. For example, a test I was trying:

par c test.pdb test.html strm html ad.html

That was an error, obviously -- "html" is not a valid application -- and yet I could load it onto my Clié with

pilot-xfer -p net: -i test.pdb

.

You might also want to check out installing Linux on your Palm. That page links to other such efforts, not sure how far advanced any of them are... not very far last time I checked.

migration since 1988 by johnrpenner · 2004-12-10 09:24 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Digital Packrats

digital media is ephemeral, it is only the fact that i have consistently
done the work of migrating data from medium to medium for more
than two decades (since 1981) that has made the data accesible.

the biggest change is that before, you could not keep all your
data in one place on a hard drive, which meant you're always managing
data in discrete physical 'chunks' -- as they happen to be distributed
across multiple removable media.

but now, we can now consoldate all that stuff into one place
with the use of massive hard drive space, and this makes
managing that data an order of magnitude easier.

migration has been:
- 1981: trs80, 70k 5.25" floppies
- 1986: rs232 serial port to macintosh plus 800k 3.5" floppies
- 1998: ethernet cable from ZIP disks to imac, and burnt to CD.
- 2004: it FINALLY all fits in one place -- from 1981 to 2004 fits
into about 20gig.
- the rest, from about 1998 - 2004 -- takes about about another 20gig,
because instead of data, it has become audio, photographs, and these
data formats consume considerably more space for what you get.

> so: twenty-three years of DATA (applications, downloads, database,
fonts, documnents, etc) fits into 20gig -- but of the newer media
types (photo, mp3, and video) has taken 20gigs in four years.

> its not a matter of trying to get as much data as possible,
but rather of having as little data as possible, but not leaving
any essential element out. thus, the data has been highly refined.

> i've found i've started organizing things by YEAR,
and by FREQUENCY of the rate at which the data-type may grow.

regards from storm's nest.

Re:Another approach... by squiggleslash · 2004-12-09 09:24 · Score: 1 · on De-spamming Your Inbox The Hard Way

Alas, myopic ISPs still usually ban people from running their own SMTP servers. Ironically, this means those of us who do it to avoid spam, and use very little in the way of resources, have to do without while waiting for more reasonable progressive ISPs to have service in our areas, while those who put default NT4 installations up and are unaware they have servers running, and end up being big DDoS hosts, usually can safely argue that they didn't run anything deliberately or knowingly and so shouldn't lose their accounts.

Be aware that for those who do not want to run their own servers, or who cannot, Yahoo actually provides exactly this service for a small fee. Take a look at Yahoo's premium email offerings. It's nice to see one Internet service that "gets it" when it comes to rational, non-destructive, RFC-compliant, anti-spam techniques.

Benefits over D? by Per+Wigren · 2004-12-08 11:17 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Introducing The Heron Programming Language

Heron seems to be aiming at the same market as the D programming language, but IMHO Heron is too much C++-like with all its ugliness.

D is a lot more like Java/C#, but compiled to native code and is low-level enough for it to be used for things like where only C and C++ are feasable now (low-level libraries, toolkits, even kernel drivers).. And besides, there is already a (beta) D Frontend for GCC.

With all the positive attention that D has had recently I find it unlikely that Heron will be chosen over D by anyone, but only time will tell... And the competition is good for both languages. :)

Re: women out of matter = pygmalian and galatea by johnrpenner · 2004-11-26 05:55 · Score: 2, Informative · on Envisioning the Desktop Fabricator

> fantasized about a generator of matter,
> one that was able to generate [image of beauty]
> right in front of me complete with a handbag
> full of a strange gritty substance...

this fantasizing of procuring women from stone has persisted
thousands of years in the greek legend of 'pygmalion galatea'

Pygmalion and Galatea in Greek Mythology

Pygmalion saw so much to blame in women that he came at last to abhor the sex, and resolved to live unmarried. He was a sculptor, and had made with wonderful skill a statue of ivory, so beautiful that no living woman came anywhere near it. It was indeed the perfect semblance of a maiden that seemed to be alive, and only prevented from moving by modesty. His art was so perfect that it concealed itself and its product looked like the workmanship of nature. Pygmalion admired his own work, and at last fell in love with the counterfeit creation. Oftentimes he laid his hand upon it as if to assure himself whether it were living or not, and could not even then believe that it was only ivory. He caressed it, and gave it presents such as young girls love, - bright shells and polished stones, little birds and flowers of various hues, beads and amber. He put rainment on its limbs, and jewels on its fingers, and a necklace about its neck. To the ears he hung earrings and strings of pearls upon the breast. Her dress became her, and she looked not less charming than when unattired. He laid her on a couch spread with cloths of Tyrian dye, and called her his wife, and put her head upon a pillow of the softest feathers, as if she could enjoy their softness.

The festival of Aphrodite was at hand - a festival celebrated with great pomp at Cyprus. Victims were offered, the altars smoked, and the odor of incense filled the air. When Pygmalion had performed his part in the solemnities, he stood before the altar and timidly said, "Ye gods, who can do all things, give me, I pray you, for my wife" - he dared not say "my ivory virgin," but said instead - "one like my ivory virgin."...
--

sometimes you don't get what you want, but you get what you need.
go for the real thing, reciprocal exchange is so much better... :-D

best regards,
j

James Bond by frank249 · 2004-11-20 01:22 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Hacking Vodka

As noted byt the Accordian Guy, There are similar tricks with liquor. In the Ian Flemming novels, such as Moonraker James Bond had the habit of shaking pepper into his vodka shots. He'd picked it up from the Russians, who did it as a matter of safety rather than taste; the pepper dragged fusel oils left over from their crude distilling process down to the bottom of the glass.

For wine, apparently just decanting the whole bottle into another container improves the taste.

Re:Binary Updates are not for lusers to do. by flosofl · 2004-11-17 07:24 · Score: 1 · on Where Is The Plug-and-Play Linux Office System?

Yeah, he shouldn't be concerned at all about screensavers... especially the ones listed here:

Known Spyware

Some of those cute screensavers (with spyware) chew up bandwidth on local segments regardless of whether they're blocked with a firewall from phoning home.

Normal users shouldn't be able to install ANYTHING, but some companies will sacrifice security because employees grumble (neither here nor there, but still the wrong stance - No install rights should ever be given to standard users). If he were my "IT Manager type" and NOT caring about any 3rd party software(screensavers included) installed out of band, he would be out on his ass. That said, part of IT's mission should be to educate and inform users (at least at a comapny which is serious about IT). We have regular Lunch-and-Learns about security, spyware, browsing, computer usage, network info, etc...

User education is always the best route (and most painful with certain users). If that doesn't work, then you need to enforce penalties. With comprehensive IT policies and practices (and I do mean comrehensive) IT should never need to get into an adversarial mode with the users. I have seen techs/admins who don't like to work with users, be pretty atagonistic and then be all surprised when a round of layoffs occurr and they're on the list. However you want to look at it, at the end of the day users are the whole reason for our career.

It sounds like this guy is trying to educate users rather than make them enemies.

Re:DirectConnect Anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-11-14 15:57 · Score: 0 · on Downhillbattle.org Bounty For P2P Gaim Plug-in

It occurs to me that if the MPAA, RIAA, and others of their ilk continue to sue their own customers for "abuses" of fair use, solutions like this will become more and more popular, and powerful.

It almost feels like a subtle shift toward autonomous zones along the lines of Gibson's walled city - exclusive, encrypted, invite-only networks... Hey, look!

Re:Pictures! by DarkBlackFox · 2004-11-05 04:18 · Score: 1 · on Venus/Jupiter Conjunction Tomorrow

It was supposed to be cloudy up here in the Northeastern US, but I was pleasantly surprised to awake around 4:30am to a few breaks in the clouds, just enough to snatch a few pictures.

Venus & Jupiter 1
Venus & Jupiter 2

Re:Pictures! by DarkBlackFox · 2004-11-05 04:18 · Score: 1 · on Venus/Jupiter Conjunction Tomorrow

It was supposed to be cloudy up here in the Northeastern US, but I was pleasantly surprised to awake around 4:30am to a few breaks in the clouds, just enough to snatch a few pictures.

Venus & Jupiter 1
Venus & Jupiter 2