Slashdot Mirror

In which case may I suggest that you get Amazon to put in some of those pages in their samples?
Because otherwise it looks like it will just leave more of us feeling like this.

Rustin

Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.

Mac of All TradesGetcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.

MacResqThe best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.

Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.

Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.

Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.

ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.

Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.

applefritter. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags. You can't buy anything there, but still much fun.

Think Secret Nice little rumor site. Some cool moments.

Of course, for those of us in the New York City area, there's always TekServe, an Apple and media gear mecca. You want to know what Lou Reed, Jam Master Jay, or Oliver Pratt are using? Ask them. You want toys? They got 'em. Ten cent cokes, vintage radios, serious testing gear, and a massive knowledge base. Hell, I once even applied for a job there when it would have meant giving up a far-better paying sysadmin gig. If they're good enough for Steve J., then they're worth a look.


Oh, by the way, the last time that I posted this list I included Shreve. What did I say?
ShreveExpensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.
There. You all feeling better now?
Rustin

I love how everyone that posts to slashdot is an armchair expert in whatever they're posting about, be it tv demographics, marketing, computer security, whatever.
Uh, first of all, I hate to break it to you (no, I don't) but some of us *are* experts in TV demographics (see TwirlipOTM), marketing (no certain examples this thred, they turn up), computer security (well, that would be about five percent of /., which, btw, includes most everybody writing, implementing, hacking, or documenting the field), whatever.
Ya see, if you check the posts, you'll find fanwing comments from aircraft materials designers, media comments from Wil Wheaton, chip design comments from chip fab experts, and so on.
Kinda reminds me of a party I went to once when somebody got pissed at a comment I made while I was still working on wiring systems for missiles and fighter planes. Some dimwit got snotty and yelled at me, "what are you, a rocket scientist?" and a little cluster of engineers I knew all started laughing and said, "well, actually, yes, he is."
You wanta point that comment at me? Go ahead. My site should give you some of it. Otherwise, bio labs? Let's say that I started as an assistant helper guy at NYU Med Center and last did tech work at (among other places) the genetic engineering labs at Rockefeller University.
Hell, even the "what would they be doing with horses" guy sounds like he probably has some relevant tech background.

But even beyond all that, I don't know about you, but I come here to chat. If you care to tell me that the discussions here are even a tenth as off-base, ill-informed, or done by people without professional standing in the subjects being discussed as the appalling grunts and ego ballooning about football sure to be happening all around America this very day, then you simply aren't paying attention. Sure, we ramble; this is our off time. You want formal overviews? Go to the IEEE or APS.

And yes, I really am pissy today, aren't I?
Rustin

Well now, tftp I've got a suggestion for you. Get a fact (any one will do) and come back.
Okay, where do I start? Hmm. . . let' s start with the horses.
First of all, here and now on our own little planet, more and more rural folk are switching *back* to horses or mules. They don't need roads or level ground, they can (if necessary) find their own way home, they can be "fueled" with a much broader range of materials, they are quieter, less polluting, and are self-replicating if you care for them right.
Want some specifics? I can tell you that in Vermont and Oregon, enough small lumber companies are switching back to affect what woods are coming to market, who is willing to have their land selectively lumbered, and how. People are finally learning that sometimes the switch to mechanical tech everywhere is just plain marketing. Are tractors or other mechanical devices better for, say, plowing? Yes, reliably so. Are they better for transportation? Depends on where you're going, what you're carrying, and how soon you need to get there.
Want another example? Police departments all across the industrialized world are switching from cars to a mix of foot patrols, bicycles, horses, SUV-type vehicles, and cars to handle the rest. It turns out that horses are better for crowd control, bikes are the fastest way to move on a crowded city street, and foot patrols are a lot more likely to, for example, notice the anomalous sound that will lead to catching a burglar.
Another? The newest trend in wastewater treatment is fields of reeds and other plants. Cheaper, faster, more reliable. One of the biggest advancements happening in building design is putting plants on the roof. Insulates them, makes the roof last longer, cuts stormwater treatment needs, and cleans the air. The cities of Stuttgart, Toronto, and Chicago have all made greenmantle a major municipal priority. New York City's government just had sixteen (count 'em, sixteen) municipal departments sit down together with a bunch of experts in this stuff and spend a day going over options (and you heard it here first).
In terms of the whole "low-tech" look, I think I covered that one just fine in the post higher up.
Oh, and by the way, what sort of cockamamie ignorant city boy thinks that horses or cows are "low tech"? Do you have any idea at all of the computer power and state of the art infrastructure behind modern cattle breeding? Texas alone has more Star Trek-looking gear for stud work then half the dot coms in California combined. We've got this stuff now, it's called "genetic engineering". Maybe you've heard of it.
Ever been in a biology lab? We've got some real purty stuff now, looks just like real technology and everthin'. Got blinkin' lights and hummin' disk drives and them watchamacallems; you know, oh yeah, parallel processors.
Now personally, I haven't done tech in a bio lab since the early nineties, but even then it was pretty clear that not all the fruits of modern science have QWERTY keyboards attached to them.

So, tell me again, why exactly is it that a backwoods impoverished frontier in the far future will necessarily look like Ronald Reagan's bright shiny idea of a space station?

Rustin

In a perfect world, Mutant Enemy should take the whole thing in-house, produce episodes in DVD-resolution MPEG-4 format, and offer 'em for sale over the net for two bucks apiece.
Oh god, don't I wish. It would be a beautiful thing to see them loosen the network lease. On top of the obvious stuff, they would then be free to do whatever programming format they wanted. From what I've seen of Joss' style, I bet that he would love to, for example, be able to do a set of eight or ten minute eps on some one thing he's had crawling around in his head and wants to play with. Make 'em one dollar downloads (or less) and keep them up on a heavy duty site just pullin' in the bucks (a little at a time) for decades to come.

Never happen, though, because there's so fucking much piracy in the world, particularly so among Firefly's target audience, that the company would make about six dollars per episode and would go down faster than a two-bit whore.
Well, yes and no. Most revenue for shows like this is either in both being able to have *somebody* put it on the air (that brings in the initial dollars) and long-term syndication and single unit resale (DVD/download, etc.). The problems I see are both lack of a decent micropayment system out there, even now (wtf?) and short term DRM issues that mostly trace back to either the RIAA crowd or BillG. being (as usual) a dick.
In the long run I'm betting (no metaphor there since my company's future depends on it) that both of these issue will be resolved.

Here's hopin'
Rustin

A friend of mine recently pointed out that a staggering new doctrine has been slowly weaseling its way into American minds for decades now. That is the belief that businesses have a right to a "fair" profit for work that they do.
It's the spread of cost-plus contracting doctrine.
Think about it.
Increasingly companies have been getting away with portraying big business a some sort of glorious activity for the good of society (Think Chrysler bailout or protectionism for U.S. steel companies.)
Here in New York restaurants have gotten away with having almost all the street vendors shut down or regulated out of existence because it was "unfair" for some poverty income immigrant pooling the money of twenty relatives to sell tasty kebobs on a street corner and undercut the prices of snotty wealthy restaurants charging airport-style prices for food that customers (like me) didn't want anyway.
As far as I'm concerned our current regime is out of the closet by now. They are anti-capitalist and anti-productivity. True free market capitalism would take away their Microsoft-type profits and true productivity gains tend to come from the sorts of small companies that don't get favors from the Bushes and Cheneys and Powells.
Me? I'm the founder of a small business that sells formatted information to pay the bills. I'm well aware that to Reed-Elsevier, Time Warner, Westlaw, and their ilk I'm a street vendor cutting into their profits. In fact, if you take the story of the Steves offering their designs to Atari, that pretty well describes what happened to me with T/W and McGraw-Hill. They turned 'em down, now I'm doing it on my own. I plan to fight the dirty bastards right down to the goddamn wire.
Deal with it, people. The American public has elected a bunch of crooks who are systematically reshaping our country as their whore. Better get used to bending over and spreading wide.
Rustin H. Wright
Founder, Reed&Wright
Former techie/consultant to the publishing business (Harcourt-Brace, Houghton-Mifflin, Scholastic, J.Crew, Bantam Doubleday Dell, Gruener and Jahr, Capital Cities, etc. etc. etc.)

Who says that living in a townhouse precludes gardening? I ive in an apartment and do all sorts of stuff, even beyond the terrace garden. I've got three words for you:
-Grow lights (or blue and white LEDs if you're going high-tech and low-power usage)
-sweater boxes (they're cheap, watertight, big, and lightweight)
and . . .
-intense cultivation. It's amazing what you can grow in small spaces when you put your mind to it. Think of it as coding for a low-RAM environment.

If what you're worried about is weight then check out light-weight soils using stuff like shredded styrofoam.

I'ld recommend that you go with LEDs instead. Lots more flexibility. Far more options.
Let me give you a few of the links from the upcoming LED section of my site. (Yep, that was a plug.)

American Science and Surplus
Inner Mountain Outfitters
Gilway
Superbright LEDs
Overall you'll find that they'll work with any decent source of 3.5 to 6 volt (depending on the LED) current, which includes the cheesy little plug-in transformers that you can buy at Radio Shack. But they'll work better off battery power or some other means that is truly DC. I ran a tiny custom jobbie in my bathroom as a functional light source for weeks, all running off standard nine-volt batteries. I just turned it on and left it on to see how long it would last. These, BTW, were rebuilt versions of the LED-based clip-on lights that they sell for bike riders.
Of course if you've got a cheap supply of watch batteries or have a recharger for them then you could just hang photons about the place.
Lastly, if you're just going for cool low-level lighting, good old FLAME can be plenty of fun. In other words, don't dismiss the possibilities of oil lamps and such until you've tried them. Properly set up, especially if they're indirect, they give a just variable enough glow to be quite satisfying. I've also had fun with building custom lamps based on isopropyl alcohol. You know, the stuff sold for 99 cents a bottle to put on small cuts. A big (say, two inches around) alcohol flame in a deep container with a well setup oxygen supply will last for hours. Since the flame isn't very hot, is non-toxic, and blows out readily it's easy to experiment using things like soup bowls while you figure out what you want to do. Yo could cheat and go somewhere like Illuminations (I'm not providing a link, there are too many mall businesses as it is) and buy wicks, but you shouldn't need to bother.
And with all of this the fire department has only come by here once (damn those witnesses!).
Rustin

Mac of All Trades Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.

MacResq The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.

Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.

Shreve Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.

Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.

Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.

Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.

Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.

ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.

Think Secret The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.

Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
That's it. You want more? Then go to my site already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on /.,
Rustin

Sorry that was I in such a rush this morning. Trust me, if you'ld had to wade through the zoo down by the WTC site (visiting police strutting about, tourists blocking the sidewalks, media types damn near hitting folks with eighty bazillion pound cameras) to, get this, coordinate a move, you'ld want to get in and out ASAP too.
Anyway, the direct Pongsat link is here, most of my other science teacher resources are here (check out SciPlus in particular; they're amazing). The homeschooling discussion is archived here, and the obligatory LEGO link is here.
Good luck,
Rustin

Check out scripting.com, where Dave Winer and his friends have figured out a good response to this. Don't sit around bitching, learn how to game the legislative process and get good people elected.
They've started backing the Libertarian candidate to replace one of the Congress critters backing this nonsense and now she's getting real media coverage and is given a chance to win.
We don't need to put up with these yahoos in DC. God knows they need us more than we need them, so let's get moving on replacing their bought and paid for asses.
I'm certainly doing my partto spread the word.
Rustin

Well, Cliff,

There's plenty of good stuff out there, but you'll have to do some editing. As somebody who grew up around teachers and has worked in textbook publishing I can assure you that teachers all have to do it too. Their stuff sucks far worse than anything referenced here.

While Project Gutenberg is great, you should also check out on-line encyclopedias like NuPedia, and Everything2 which are all open source, as is The Open Directory Project . A great source of fiction, which can be a wonderful learning tool, is Baen Books who have put hundreds of book online and are eager to have them downloaded and spread around.

For science materials, there are lots of great sites for kids done by educators pursuing whever they're into. All of which you'll want to use to spice up access to sites like Science Daily that are handy but a bit too serious some days for young minds.

Which brings me to Make Stuff which should fill in quite nicely for the "arts and crafts" part of most school curricula.

For biography I'ld check out American National Biography and for history a good start can be made with pages like Anyday which can be amazing or useless, all based on where *you* go from the starting point that they provide. Places like Colonial America are designed just for this but again, check out more than one.

For reference material you should check out Theodora which, while not meant to be open source, is very handy, Geographic.Org, which is open source and student-oriented, should do the rest. I've found that the CIA sourcebook is terrible, as folk should have long since figured out. Biased, misinformed, and sometimes just wierd; leave it behind. However if you hunt you'll find that within various.gov sites there's tons of great stuff, from manuals on camping to stuff on solar panels.

The space science community is very kid friendly, from NASA down to the local Mars Society chapter, having plenty of materials on quite a range of topics that you're free to reproduce and spread around. If you can handle it, the neopagan community is reliably eager to provide information and links on ancient indo-european history, from the government of Sumeria, to Celtic ironwork. (You might be surprised at how many neopagans have advanced degrees in history and/or literature.)

Speaking of limits, you'll always have to be careful that your kids aren't ending up places they shouldn't be but again, every teacher and librarian faces that one.

Lastly, the reason that I've got all this ready to hand is that I took it from my source database, more of which can be found on my web site, which is primarily oriented towards adults and older kids but does have plenty of other links like the ones here.

Best of luck to you and be sure to post back to slashdot in a few years about how it's going.

Rustin H. Wright - Information Geek
"It's all about the information, Marty. Little ones and zeros!"

use plastic lumber or simply buy it and donate it to local community gardens or others who can use it.

A serious solar charger for batteries and use rechargable batteries wherever possible (I know that this has shortcomings, but still helpful for now).

buy LED light bulbs (especially for hallways and other areas you use briefly)

a wind turbine based-system rather than a PV one (more bang for the buck, generally longer lifespan)

an on-demand water heating system, ideally one able to be run on methane

buy a diesel car and convert it to biodiesel, or even better, offer to help others who already have diesel (like local school buses) convert.

The last one is the biggest and the most effective. If you want to spend serious cash then funding a biodeisel support program that buys kits, pays engineering students or auto mechanics to install and support them, and then funds the processing of waste oil (local fast food outlets will have plenty) would make a huge difference. These folks have solid conversion kits and these folks can get you up and running. I figure an effective program would cost about $20K to set up and about $3K to $5K a year to maintain.
Good luck,

Rustin