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Everything old is new again... 8 bit microcomputers have been doing things like this for years. It is exactly how the N8VEM home brew computer boots its OS. The Z80 boots CP/M from a 1 MB "ROM drive" and uses the SRAM for its temporary storage. There are many other examples of similar implementations.

http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem

http://n8vem-sbc.pbwiki.com/

There is no such thing as "loosely correlated" in a relational database system. All records carry positive primary identification by which they may be retrieved.

What I guess you mean is that secondary retrieval is aided by search engine. Yes, but building that index and serving the search results to millions of users around the globe ain't no joke.

What I sense is, you and other posters on this topic just don't like, or get, Twitter. That's cool. To me, it's just another communication medium, but it's quickly up-and-coming. It's already mentioned daily by various exponents of the MSM, and it's getting integrated into a wide variety of websites, applications built around it, etc.

You can go see a couple sample graphs in SL at the dataviz sandbox in scilands... there's a slurl here http://sldataviz.pbwiki.com/ Or you can grab the script from greenphosphor.com and rez your own. Also, Elmo Dynamo has a video of one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io62ENVxkQw Croquet would probably work just great for this; I would need to have a SmallTalk programmer implement the protocol however; I'm not into SmallTalk. Arkowitz

Hardware costs in a hosted environment can be pretty outrageous.

But I really wanted to take issue with the insinuation by Foofoobar, which I have heard so many times, that Ruby is "not scalable". Even if he meant Rails, not just Ruby, he is just plain wrong. This scalability "issue" has never been a real issue at all... as long as you didn't mind getting your hands a little dirty in server configurations.

Look at some of the "top" 100 Ruby on Rails sites, and try to tell me again that Ruby "doesn't scale": http://rails100.pbwiki.com/

It shows a very poor understanding of human psychology. Go to this page and do a text search for "drag circles". For boring tasks (such as maintaining Wikipedia), people actually perform worse when they're paid money. If you want the best work out of someone, don't pay them.

http://learn-cs.pbwiki.com/

A lot of legwork already done for you, just give Mr. Weekly credit!

Ian

Not surprising after Comcast does something like limit bandwith. ________________ Abalastow Compendium

Does anyone remember that novel?

I found this wiki when trying to figure out what you were talking about and there are some very grim predictions there. http://earthbydavidbrin.pbwiki.com/Predictions This is kind of like one of the predictions there. I think it would be nice to make a Google service that was a number that I could call with caller ID enabled to send video of a breaking news event and people could get a couple bucks for breaking a news story by being where it happens. The sad part of all this is that with the advances in simulation and graphics it is possible to spoof a complete video of something or somebody. I suppose if I registered my mobile number with Google to allow me to send video news and images it might work.

There are a growing number of "coworking" spaces being established just to solve this issue. Most towns with any major tech focus have plans. Check out the Coworking wiki for more info.

have a look here (and while you're at it, skim through the rest of the site): http://widefox.pbwiki.com/Scheduler#Performance

i don't know of any packages on officially supported architectures that won't run at all. if you're having that sort of problem, a bug-report would seem to be the way to go.

if i want to call people over the computer, i ask them to download and install openwengo. if the other person isn't even willing to do that, i don't see why i should want to call them.

Make Your Own Ubuntu Live CD/DVD or Distro with Remastersys

I'm surprised this isn't more well known, Ubuntu + Remastersys is very nice and easy:

http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/

Official Remastersys forum, here's where you ask and learn:
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/make-an-ubuntu-backup-live-cddvd-with-remastersys-330181.php
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/09/remaster-and-clone-your-ubuntu-install.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys

For those that don't already have it handy, here is the repo info for you /etc/apt/sources.list file.

# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/

Please MOD this up if you find it useful, I think it is, but it gets buried with time and people don't see it because I'm posting as anonymous coward, thanks!

In short, I don't need Windows, it failed me long ago and fails me now, no reason to expect or care for it (or the convicted monopoly) to improve.

Make Your Own Ubuntu Live CD/DVD or Distro with Remastersys

I'm surprised this isn't more well known, Ubuntu + Remastersys is very nice and easy:

http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/

Official Remastersys forum, here's where you ask and learn:
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/make-an-ubuntu-backup-live-cddvd-with-remastersys-330181.php
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/09/remaster-and-clone-your-ubuntu-install.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys

For those that don't already have it handy, here is the repo info for you /etc/apt/sources.list file.

# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/

Please MOD this up if you find it useful, I think it is, but it gets buried with time and people don't see it because I'm posting as anonymous coward, thanks!

"Is there any way to suggest this as a "summer of code" project or something?"

Why bother, just make one yourself with Remastersys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository/remastersys/
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys

Install Ubuntu, install packages you want, use Remastersys to create your own liveCD or liveDVD

It's easy! If you want to create your own distro with scanning aps too you can do this with Remastersys!

There's a good comparison of recent Linux versus Vista/2008 kernels here

As far as bloat goes, Vista's kernel is about twice the size of Linux.

...And not so many barrel spoilers... rotten old apples that sit an' stink ... and stare atcha!"

"Freon!" Crat cursed. "Just once I'd like to catch some goggle geek alone, with fritzed sensors and no come-go record, then I'd teach 'em it's not polite to stare!"

... "Oh it started as a way to fight street crime - retired people staking out the streets with video cameras and crude beepers. And the seniors' posse really worked...But after the crime rate plummetted, did that stop the paranoia?

(h/t some Brin fanboys)

GREAT article - it is interesting for a non-programmer to read this type of technical detail, presented in an understandable way. For me, right at the edge of my theoretical-only knowledge. A detailed summary, I guess. (oxymoron)

Similar article on NetBSD: Waving the flag: NetBSD developers speak about version 4.0 (1/30/2008)

Linux focused links:

Current discussion:
LWN: Kernel
KernelTrap
KernelNewbies: Summary of Linux Changes
---
The Wonderful World of Linux series are excellent history - in-depth for outsiders:
WWOL 2.2
WWOL 2.4
WWOL 2.6
---
Towards Linux 2.6 - A look into the workings of the next new kernel(2003)
Kernel Comparison: Linux (2.6.22) versus Windows (Vista)(2007)

Kinda, yes.

Javascript Library Performance Test Roundup - http://jst.pbwiki.com/

They may mean USA, or maybe they mean wages in India?

The hottest skills sound about right. But, if you don't have 5 years recent experience already, you can forget about those area: SAP, Project Management, database administrators.

-shameless plug-
Please feel free to view my research on IT wages, collected in the Denver area, go here:

http://it-careers.pbwiki.com/

And click on "IT Salary Survey"

I did an informal survey a few months back, and here is what I found (based on job ads). From what I see, $90K is way over at the high end, no typical at all. Of course, I did not figure in the salries of CIOs, because I do not consider executives as I.T. workers.

1. DATABASE ADMIN : $35 - $62/hour
2. MANAGEMENT : $30 - $55/hour
3. SAP : $50 - $73/hour
4. SECURITY : $25 - $46/hour
5. TECH/HELPDESK : $15 - $19/hour
6. UNIX/LINUX ADMINS: $35 - $50/hour
7. UNSKILLED LABOR : $8 - $16/hour
8. WEB DEVELOPMENT : $20 - $40/hour
9. WINDOWS ADMINS: $20 - $40/hour

http://it-careers.pbwiki.com/Informal_Denver_Area_Salary_Survey#DATABASEADMIN$35$62/hour

Denver is a fair sized city (two million people) and not an especially cheap place to live.

From what I can see, an average I.T. salary is more like $60K, not $90K. That is probably still better than Europe. It may be because it's even easier to outsource jobs in Europe than in the USA. In the long run, the I.T. field is screwed for everybody, except 3rd world countries.

Something I put together myself.

http://it-careers.pbwiki.com/Informal_Denver_Area_Salary_Survey

That's not completely true, there are a few (minor) areas where the windows kernel has features that linux doesn't.
An objective (feature by feature) comparison can be found at http://widefox.pbwiki.com/Kernel%20Comparison%20Li nux%20vs%20Windows.
The current comparison is Vista vs 2.6.22 (features that can be patched in are noted), and it looks like the next update will be Linux 2.6.23 kernel versus Windows Server 2008 kernel.

Slashdot wasn't registered, I believe, till Nov 1996. I was thinking more along the lines perhaps of the first site being AOL's 1998 launch, with its notions of public buddy profiles that were discoverable by interest. There's a great timwline wiki here btw.

I'm afraid I have to throw some actual facts into this perky troll-vs-troll thread: Kernel Comparison: Linux (2.6.21) versus Windows (Vista)

I think you'd find that there are other areas where Linux is well ahead of Windows, beyond filesystem support and research. The following are just the ones right off the top of my head:

• Support for massive multiprocessor machines (over 1024 processors on NUMA 64bit Linux).
• Support for massive memory architectures (8589934592GB on Linux 64bit, compared with 128Gb Windows)
• Support for many platforms (x86, x86_64, IA64, Sparc, MIPS, System 390, PowerPC, POWER, etc.)
• Vastly better performance on pipes and sockets.
• Faster thread and process creation.
• Multiple schedulers to choose from (and new ones being flamed on kerneltrap^W^W^W written every month).

I'm sure there'll be more to add to this list. There are good comparisons around.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Having read the briefs available at
  http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/
here's a non-lawyer's opinion.

First, many of the demands are ridiculous, such as lengthy apologies for changing small bits of articles almost no one seems to have read (until Mr. Crookes himself drew attention to them), and demanding that google return nothing when "gang of Crookes" is entered in a search engine. This despite the fact that major newspapers carried the story and used that phrase. So evidently THEY do not believe that using it to refer to Mr. Crookes' political allies is defamatory.

Second, this is certainly SLAPP as understood in the US, so the first thing google and yahoo should do is apply for a change of venue and countersue (for triple damages). It's not the defendant's ability to pay lawyers that defines a SLAPP so much as the suit being "against public participation", that is, political statements, by the individuals. Every statement listed in the suits regards Crookes' behaviour in the party not in his business.

Another factor that makes a SLAPP "strategic" is usually the timing. Elizabeth May, whose faction in the Green Party opposed the David Chernushenko faction Crookes supported strongly, had just announced a major deal with the Liberal Party of Canada. The suits were filed interestingly just after, distracting attention and reducing ability of May allies to support her in that controversial move. You can read more about this in blog posts:
    http://technorati.com/tag/Wayne+Crookes

Third, the defendants are in fact mostly individuals. Have a look at this, which lists all the defendants (in an awesome logo!):
  http://p2pnet.net/story/12037

They're mostly individuals. The companies seem to have been targetted to gain more information and incriminating information against the individuals.

Fourth, the goal here seems not to get money so much as information useful to suppress dissent. This seems to be a classic attempt to leverage political information out of a corporation, the way Yahoo was coerced into providing data on dissidents in China. Canada is no better than China in this regard since it allows people to be sued for "libel" despite the statements being both political and true.

What's more, the individuals all have a track record of being involved in actual political debates, many as candidates for the Green Party of Canada itself. This is clearly a politically-motivated suit by Mr. Crookes and his "gang". The Green Party of Canada under his mentorship or influence (while Dermod Travis was there) filed two similar politically-motivated suits against Gretchen Schwarz and Matthew Pollesel, which were dropped as soon as the 2006 election was over.

This certainly would be considered a SLAPP suit in the US. In California, it would expose Mr. Crookes and his "gang of Crookes" to triple damages in a countersuit. After all, he's called very large publicly traded companies "reckless" and unconcerned about enabling harassment (i.e. spreading truth).

Given that people use search engines precisely to get true information, and given that yahoo for instance would be placed in an impossible position if it had to obey demands from foreign courts for information that exposes it to lawsuits under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, yahoo probably has no choice but to respond strongly to discourage this kind of nuisance lawsuit.

He has all kinds of lawsuits! See http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/ he has soooed little people like this http://section15.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-am-being-s ued-by-wayne-crookes.html he got very involved in politics, and made many mistakes. People write things about him. They do not say that he eats babies, they say that he made mistakes that hurt the Green Party. Like what he is doing now. Instead of saving the earth, all these green people have to find money for lawyers, and spend time fighting the silly libel laws of Canada. In Canada, with libel you are guilty until proven innocent, and there are no penalities for bozos with lots of bucks who try to make people apologize for telling the truth. he is soooing this little worm for writing this: http://greencompostheap.blogspot.com/2006/08/blow- it-out-your-tailpipe.html and yet it is all true! You do not want people to be able to soooee you in British Columbia under their really old libel laws, do you? You do not have to live there to be soooeed.

and as you can see, it does it a lot faster than the old windows xp kernel (no surprise there). i wonder what it will be like against vista?

http://widefox.pbwiki.com/Kernel%20Comparison%20Li nux%20vs%20Windows

I think it would be useful to point people to the Coworking Wiki for efforts to support mobile workers with a bit of community. It looks like a great start, though sadly, my home city, London is a bit lacking at this time. If anyone knows good spots, please add them to the website.

-Grey

So would you be in favor of a license more in line with GNU copyleft ideas, like maybe the Free Artist Community License?

http://hp50g.pbwiki.com/Buyers%20guide Mick C

Agreed, it's inferior to the 48s/g series, it's not much worse, unlike the interim HPs and every other graphing calc out there.

As for the documentation, the printed documentation is severely lacking.

The internal Ely Lilly memos have been leaked to the intenet using Tor. See zyprexakills.us for details.

I posted a little WIKI after the limited price FON Linksys routers came out the first time here: http://truthcankill.pbwiki.com/fonrouter Yes they prob changed hardware and have better coding, but this is not new, somthing for cheap or free is going to get hacked!

You ask for 1000 and you get 1.
If you ask for 1 you'll get -1.

It's the same thing RIAA does. They say: "we'll take away ALL your freedoms" and we negotiate and settle down to "OK, take our freedom to copy OUR DATA. Phew".

Join oink.
http://oinkoink.pbwiki.com/

Have you been arrested for posting this yet?

Free Speech Zones?
The guy who was detained and questioned for several hours for stating his opinion of Bush?
http://freejosh.pbwiki.com/
The recent laws signed in by Bush, making him the guy who defines torture?

All this and more, in a United States near you!

lastgoogle query data is also available to the world:

http://lastgoogle.pbwiki.com/Last%20Google%20Datas ets

Unfortunately, the data doesn't include the AOL subscriber numbers of the searchers, so its research value is limited.

Personally, I don't care how my data is stored. It can be holographic, electromagnetic, or paper-click-o-matic. I care about how much I can store. I want it secure and I want it instantly available. Getting excited about "holographic" is pretty much a waste of time. Just tell me how much I can store, tell me how it can be (easily) set up and secured, and how much it is going to cost. After that, I'm just hearing 01010100101010. No thanks.

By the way, I recently found out about the Data Storage Industry Wiki. From a business perspective, this is pretty cool. They talk about trends and big picture stuff, and there are many good links to useful resources and smart people. Good stuff; relevant.

In addition to using open source courseware such as Moodle, a number of teachers and administrators have been switching to wiki platforms like PBwiki and Wikispaces as a very lightweight replacement for heavy-handed, thickly-structured courseware. Disclaimer: I'm the founder of PBwiki. But I can tell you, we have tens of thousands of educational wikis set up with us, many of which are being used instead of Blackboard, even in districts where Blackboard has been paid for. PBwiki is proudly patent free; we'll compete on merit, thank you. :)

What you don't mention is Tycho's motivation in writing this rant against Wikipedia, as revealed by the part of the article you didn't quote: He was pissed off because they deleted some of his articles. Articles about a book series called "Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga". A book series that doesn't exist.

In other words, this very set of arguments as to why wikipedia's system "doesn't work" was prompted by an incident of wikipedia's system working. Tycho tried to post false information, and Wikipedia rejected this. And Tycho got pissy and went and complained about Wikipedia on his blog.

Now given, Tycho's false information was awesome; the ELOTH:TES stuff that Wikipedia rejected is truly hilarious, and now that it's been moved to its own wiki (where it probably should have been in the first place), it's turned into a collaborative project in its own right, as if Borges' "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" conspiracy had had as their goal to parody fantasy novels.

But it didn't belong on Wikipedia. And the incident in which it was removed from Wikipedia itself neatly refutes the complaints that the incident inspired Tycho to level against Wikipedia.

The first complaint is that "Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions... all sources of information are not of equal value... I believe there is such a thing as expertise." I don't think it's very hard to read between the lines here; we already know Tycho is pissed off because some "persistent idiot" obliterated his contributions. It's not very hard to imagine that the real issue here is that Tycho (who certainly is a person with expertise) thinks he as a source of information is of value, and the Wikipedia hivemind does not. But Tycho himself shows that the things wikipedia values are more valuable than "expertise"-- Wikipedia values facts, neutrality and whenever possible rigor, and ignores authority. If we accepted "expertise" or appeals to authority, then we'd be obligated to accept Tycho as a source of information just cuz he's a real smart person with a real popular blog. And then Wikipedia would have a series of articles about a fantasy novel franchise and ill-fated 1980s children's TV show which never existed.

Second off, Tycho issues the complaint that Wikipedia's "errors get fixed eventually" principle isn't very useful if you don't know whether the errors have been fixed yet. Simply looking at a wikipedia page, you have no way to know whether you're looking at a cleanly vetted, accurate bunch of information, or if your pageload just happened by random coincidence to fall in that 30-second gap of space between a vandal entering a statement that Ken Lay committed suicide and a watchlister rving it. This is a much more serious and substantial complaint, and one which is a serious problem for the idea of Wikipedia as an information source. The lesson to be learned here is of course that you shouldn't treat wikipedia as a primary source but rather a starting point for further information, and if the information you're taking from wikipedia is important you need to check the references like a hawk. But in the end, it still isn't a real problem-- as Tycho has shown us. After all, as Tycho found when he tried to introduce false information, that little gap of time where the Wikipedia Wave Function hasn't yet collapsed and pageloads return false information is strikingly small. This is generally not a matter of errors taking months to get fixed. It is sometimes measured in minutes or seconds. The probability of hitting at a bad moment is small enough we can effectively ignore it, unless we have some kind of ulterior motives and are just trying to make Wikipedia look bad.

When I want to do word processing online, I use PBWiki on a private page. You have a complete history of changes made to the page available to download as backup versions, etc. And the wiki is available to you from any computer with an internet connection.

These are the only possible advantages I can see to word processing online, outside of cost benefit. I'd much rather use MS Word or Open Office for most tasks.

Vain, thanks for the suggestion. I love it already -- http://ants.pbwiki.com/ ... :)

So a brief caveat here - I'm a bit biased as to the potential uses for wikis, since I started and run PBwiki (which was developed at an all-night hackathon, but that's another story). If you're interested, I also gave a talk at Xerox PARC about wikis.

I think pretty much any time you email out a Word document and ask several people for changes or edits, you're in need of a wiki. Any time there's a "Document Master" for a particular piece of information a la "Oh, Linda's in charge of the phone list, you should let her know you have a new number" or "Tell Jimmy what you're bringing to the potluck" or "Coach Z has the schedule for the softball season" -- those are ideal spots for wikis.

While many people do use wikis personally, as a sort of notepad-on-steroids, and others use wikis as a simple web page publication tool, the killer app for wikis is in letting groups speak as one and create their own little universes of knowledge. Sometimes this means collaborative fiction or Dungeons and Dragons and sometimes this means documenting your project plans or brainstorming your next company idea.

While wikis have been around for some time, they're only just now starting to cross the chasm from geekland to the leading edge of regular people. Wikipedia can take nearly all of the credit for that. But hopefully we'll now get some of the power that geeks have had by way of CVS and Subversion and put it in the hands of regular people to collaborate and coordinate their thoughts, hopes, and ideas. This has been a long time coming.

So a brief caveat here - I'm a bit biased as to the potential uses for wikis, since I started and run PBwiki (which was developed at an all-night hackathon, but that's another story). If you're interested, I also gave a talk at Xerox PARC about wikis.

I think pretty much any time you email out a Word document and ask several people for changes or edits, you're in need of a wiki. Any time there's a "Document Master" for a particular piece of information a la "Oh, Linda's in charge of the phone list, you should let her know you have a new number" or "Tell Jimmy what you're bringing to the potluck" or "Coach Z has the schedule for the softball season" -- those are ideal spots for wikis.

While many people do use wikis personally, as a sort of notepad-on-steroids, and others use wikis as a simple web page publication tool, the killer app for wikis is in letting groups speak as one and create their own little universes of knowledge. Sometimes this means collaborative fiction or Dungeons and Dragons and sometimes this means documenting your project plans or brainstorming your next company idea.

While wikis have been around for some time, they're only just now starting to cross the chasm from geekland to the leading edge of regular people. Wikipedia can take nearly all of the credit for that. But hopefully we'll now get some of the power that geeks have had by way of CVS and Subversion and put it in the hands of regular people to collaborate and coordinate their thoughts, hopes, and ideas. This has been a long time coming.

Try pbwiki. That's the site that Penny Arcade use for their ELotH:TES thing, not one of those fly-by-night wiki-hosts we hear so much about in the press these days :)

Try pbwiki. That's the site that Penny Arcade use for their ELotH:TES thing, not one of those fly-by-night wiki-hosts we hear so much about in the press these days :)

If you're designing spec docs and then coding to them, you're doing the wrong things. I wouldn't apply for such a job.

Rational Unified Process really is the way to go. Waterfall development processes suck to work under and don't perform. Divide a project into clear "user stories", do the risky ones first, and use agile methods (planning poker, team velocity, etc) to estimate time to completion.

You can't know precisely what you want to do until you've tried some of it, all the way through down to coding an example. Trying to design complete spec docs and then coding to them only makes sense if you have built an example system first, and even then you should expect to have to make updates as you learn new things.

See http://projectbootstrap.pbwiki.com/

He's referring to "ELOTHES (Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs)" , which is basically a parodical half-assed-fantasy-realm much like you'd find in Everquest, or a merchandising-based children's cartoon.

http://elothtes.pbwiki.com/

This fake history stuff sounds a lot like http://elothtes.pbwiki.com/

There is indeed a connection. Few people know that Jerry Holkins is indeed a pseudonym for Claus VIII, who has decided to start a new Christmas-like campaign, this time without the involvement of elves. Penny Arcade was founded as a way to gather a large fan community as well as a strong presence in the internet, thus allowing Claus VIII/Jerry Holkins to get people to do the present logistics themselves, thus saving him a lot of work and trouble.
Penny Arcade is a collaboration between him and Mike Krahulik, the reincarnated Jesus of Nazareth, who also has a vested interest in making the Christmas season as merry as possible, because "I want people to be fucking happy about my birthday", as he put it in an interview. The occasional appearance of the biblical Jesus is seen as a subtle hint at Krahulik/Nazareth's real identity.