Slashdot Mirror

Maybe because its a private corporation created by the Democratic and Republican parties with the explicit goal of shutting third party candidates out of the political process, as they are doing in so many ways now.

The two parties joined together to sieze control of the debates from the League of Women Voters using this private corporation. The League wasn't always the greatest defender of democracy but they were better than the current two party corporate monopoly on public debate.

I think it would be OK for a private corporation to run debates as long as they buy the airtime for them from the networks as they do for campaign commercials and as Ross Perot did for his infomercials. If the networks are giving them 4 1/2 hours of free air time, especially networks broadcasting on publicly controlled airwaves, I'm pretty sure they should be required to allow any viable candidate access to the debates or give them equal time. Viability is easy to determine, is the candidate on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the election.

Of course the two party monopoly has a solution there too. They send out a small army of lawyers, state by state, as they are doing against Nader, in an effort to keep third party candidates from getting on the ballot at all. The Dem's lawyer are apparently contacting people gathering signatures to get Nader on the ballot and briefing them on the legal consequences should any of the signatures they collect prove to be fraudulent, to put it another way they are threatening people with jail time for trying to exercise their supposed right to "Freedom and Democracy", to have a choice, or to run for office. Our constitution doesn't specify a two party system and I'm pretty sure anyone who meets the basic criteria to be President outlined in the constituion, has the right to run for office and it should be extremely illegal for the two party monopoly to block it. To put it another way the DNC and RNC have no right to decide who can and can't run for office.

The two party monopoly us using their control of state legislators to create unreasonably high barriers to gain access to the ballot. For example the Greens were disbanded as a party in Indiana because they didn't garner 3% of the vote in an off year election, and are forced in to the difficult process of gathering valid signatures to get on the ballot until they garner 3% again.

The U.S. has turned in to an embarrassment to democratic principles. Any of you in other Democratic countries look to America to see how not to do it, and to what happens when you get complacent and let two corrupt, morally bankrupt parties monopolize the system. If there were an honest and viable third party, with an intelligent, charismatic candidate on the ballot, with funding and access to the media, there is a real danger people would turn to it in droves. The two major parties know that so they snuff out every viable alternative at every turn.

So voters in America have no option, they have to choose between one bankrupt party or the other, choos between the lesser of two evils...voters in America are screwed. You know your screwed when both of your Presidential candidates are wealthy, privileged, spoiled prepsters, both born with a silver spoon in their mouths, both Yale graduates, both members of Skull and Bones, the secret society of the elite of the elite. In a country with 300 million people what are the odds both of your presidential candidates would be so nearly identical, both drawn from the same secret society, of the elite, with 800 living members.

The U.S. desperately needs a new Progressive movement. It sprung out of an era in the late 1800's and early 1900's when robber barons and corporations were destroying the lives of most Americans just as they are today. Political corruption was rampant as it is today. Corporations were rapidly merging in to monpolies to the detriment of everyone but th

it is technologically and physically impossible to build a cyclotron in your back yard.

Not at all. There are limits to energy levels you can reach with a small cyclotron, but you can make one that fits on a desktop. Lawrence's first cyclotron was only four inches in diameter.

I found this copy on Google:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/Tin kertoyComputer/TinkerToy.html

Actually that's in fact not true. English is placed in the Germanic language group by linguists. Of course it has a strong French influence (as indicated), but it's primarily a Germanic language. Having studied German (and obviously speaking English), there are many similarities between the languages. And this was even more the case for (old?) English, particularly before the French invasion in 1066.

As for the ignorance; you're right that it's correctable, but it's ironic that we know enough to explain the differences to the ignorant individuals. I honestly attribute that to the permeation of US culture in the rest of the english speaking world. We undnestand the differences between US culture and our own, far more than Americans understand the differences between their culture and others'...

There are various reasons for this. First, 90% of Canada's population lies less than 100 miles from an American border; the same cannot be said for America. As such, it is understandable that the average Canadian comes into contact with Americans more than the other way around. Also, for right or wrong, America is large and rather powerful, with many large businesses. Canada is a major trade partner with the US, but I believe we're more a part of your trade than you are ours. Again, not a right or wrong argument, but the way it is. Since we're bigger, and dabble in world politics more, it's unavoidable that we're more on your radar.

The only things some Americans probably only know about Canada is 1)beer, 2)hockey and 3)eh!

See, we do know everything about Canada. ;) You're probably right, though. Although, Americans who live near Canada know your legal drinking age is lower than ours. So that's four things.

And I pity the poor soul who hasn't had Canadian beer :)

I keep hearing about good Canadian beer, but have never had it (All we get is Molson - I'm not impressed). As a major brew-o-phile, I'm certainly interested in better Canadian beers if they exist. I've never had good experience with Canadian beers, but I expect the Canadian beers I have available are like the American beers you have available: ie, mass-produced shit. For what it's worth, America's starting to (in the last 5-10 years) to make some GREAT beer. One of my favorites is Stone Brewing Co. I realize American beer gets a bad rap - deservedly so - but it's changing dramatically, and I'd say most of the innovation in beers today is in America - ironically enough, because we have little beer tradition to maintain.

You could add support to your script to many file formats by using some of the many PostScript converters that already exist. Pipe their output to an application that extracts plaintext from the PostScript file, then pipe to grep.

You could add support to your script to many file formats by using some of the many PostScript converters that already exist. Pipe their output to an application that extracts plaintext from the PostScript file , then pipe to grep.

I don't think smaller magnets would be able to contain fusion. The coil handles a tremendous 2000 Amps to produce a field with a strength of 6 Teslas, which is immensely powerful.

Compare this to a 12-inch cyclotron, which generates a peak field of one Tesla. This thing's magnet also weighs 4600 pounds compared to the LDX's 1300 because it is not superconducting.

The tests happen on this scale because we're looking toward fusion in the Real World. Power plants are likely to be big.

• New furniture made of
  • plywood,
  • particleboard,
  • or waferboard
• New carpets, which may trap formaldehyde emitted from other sources and release it when temperature and humidity change
• Gas stoves and kerosene heaters
• Urea Formaldehyde Foam Isulation, UFFI, was used as an effective insulation product in many homes until the 1980's, when the presence of high levels of formaldehyde gas was determined to be a health hazard.
• Embalmed biological specimens or deceased friends :-)

The reaction is reversible: too much heat hydrolyses the UF resin into urea and formaldehyde thereby degrading the bond and releasing even more formaldehyde. It is therefore of critical importance to precisely control pressing time and immediately cool the finished panels after completion of the pressing.

NOTE: Although treatment of a surface with strong ammonia can temporarily reduce formaldehyde levels, ammonia can be toxic and is very dangerous. This procedure is strongly discouraged, since ammonia presents its own serious hazards.

When checking into a hotel room with new furniture, a sniff would detect formaldehyde fumes. Then, he would find the maid and ask her for a few ashtrays and some ammonia. He would then explain his plan to the maid. He would pour ammonia into the ashtrays he placed around his room and leave the room. The maids were asked to not make the room up (or at least not empty the ashtrays). When he returned, the room was now free of formaldehyde fumes, to his own benefit and all subsequent quests.

Yes, pretty much.

We now have structures for a lot of molecules that interact with DNA. DNA that doesn't have Watson and Crick's proposed structure in general won't work with all the proteins that bind to DNA. Sure, you can also suggest that the conformations that these proteins adopt when crystallized are not identical to their in vivo shapes, but it all hangs together pretty consistently.

More recently, NMR has been used to determine protein structures for proteins in solution--this gets you much closer to the in vivo state, and these results generally line up well with the x-ray crystallographic structures.

Electron microscopy of DNA supports the double-helix structure.

NMR experiments also support the double helix under all but some weird circumstances. The Nucleic Acid Database at Rutgers has a very cool collection of NMR and x-ray DNA structures.

In general, DNA exists in a double-helix form. The weird examples above show what happens in a few unusual cases: They represent a vanishingly small proportion of normal DNA--stuff that wouldn't show up in Watson and Crick's work, or configurations that have been deliberately engineered. So yes--skepticism might have been warranted fifty years ago, but we've been past any uncertainty about the predominant form of DNA for decades.

Yes, pretty much.

We now have structures for a lot of molecules that interact with DNA. DNA that doesn't have Watson and Crick's proposed structure in general won't work with all the proteins that bind to DNA. Sure, you can also suggest that the conformations that these proteins adopt when crystallized are not identical to their in vivo shapes, but it all hangs together pretty consistently.

More recently, NMR has been used to determine protein structures for proteins in solution--this gets you much closer to the in vivo state, and these results generally line up well with the x-ray crystallographic structures.

Electron microscopy of DNA supports the double-helix structure.

NMR experiments also support the double helix under all but some weird circumstances. The Nucleic Acid Database at Rutgers has a very cool collection of NMR and x-ray DNA structures.

In general, DNA exists in a double-helix form. The weird examples above show what happens in a few unusual cases: They represent a vanishingly small proportion of normal DNA--stuff that wouldn't show up in Watson and Crick's work, or configurations that have been deliberately engineered. So yes--skepticism might have been warranted fifty years ago, but we've been past any uncertainty about the predominant form of DNA for decades.

It's also very important to realize that DNA does not only form double-helical structures. Granted, that's the conformation that it is preferred in genomic DNA, most of the time. However, when undergoing replication and transcription, it may form other structures, such as hairpin looks, single-stranded, etc. Two conformations of DNA that are currently being analyzed in cancer research (among other areas) are triplex DNA (yes, three-stranded DNA - which forms Hoogsteen sp? base pairs with the third strand), as well as the G-quadruplex structure, where DNA can fold back upon itself (usually under high potassium ion concentration) to form four-stranded DNA. Without going into too much detail, it is the stabilization of the G-quadruplex structure by various DNA-binding drugs, that may one day be able to cure cancer!

But Watson & Crick's research started this trend of DNA research, and had they not discovered their double-helical structure when they did, we probably wouldn't even know about some of the other conformations of DNA, either!

I believe "thw" word you were straining for was "the."

And your periods and commas belong inside the quotation marks.

I actually found this and wrote a blog entry about it before I saw the article on slashdot. I discussed creating an account, and then trying and failing to actually USE the email service, and point out some odd things in the registration, like the bizarre password hint questions, all concerned with either Kim Jong Il's movie obsession or reunification of the country, and the fact that Taiwan is listed as a choice of nationality on the official web site of a government that has China as perhaps its only ally!

Hey tiger, help explain this:

http://rutcor.rutgers.edu/~bisrael/ChiracSaddam.jp g

http://www.usainreview.com/2_11_Chirac_Connection. htm

http://images.ibsys.com/2003/0322/2057832.jpg

Explain why the future head of state of France is dancing around with Saddam, a murderous Baathist in a NUCLEAR facility.

The real reason France and Chirac opposed was simply this: France sold nuclear and conventional weapons technology to Saddam along with the Russians. Ask any Americans and British how bad some of the French missile systems are. Here is a secret, France used its status with NATO to get the missile "secrets" from the USA, then sold them to a future enemy of the US.

Don't give me this highfalutin fucking bull about Hitler. Hitler arguments mean you lost the argument. Its real just subterfuge and cover-up with whip out Hitler when you disagree with a point of view.

While Rums and other diplomats may have met with Saddam, and before Saddam with a ruthless dictator, JFK help setup a rebellion in Iraq, and while Saddam was useful in the struggle against Iran (I suppose you like Fatwahs and Ayatollah's anti western edicts?), no person who is now head of state actually engaged in the proliferation of western technologies worse than Chirac.

ROT.

I'm not so sure that music is really a language. It is definitely not a simple question and people have been arguing about it for a long, long time. I've heard people say it is, but I've read some authors who are convinced that it isn't. Here's what I see as the main difficulty. (Hold on, let me try to remember my Derrida from 11th grade English.) The problem is that language consists of two things: The words (signifiers) and the actual objects they represent (signifieds) (linky).They have a concrete relationship. However, does music really have the ability to act as signifiers? Depends on who you ask. You can't exactly look up in a dictionary what an instrumental piece of music means. On the other hand, it's very obvious that some pieces of music are meant to evoke emotions and/or thoughts. The problem is that the meaning isn't set. Different people will get completely different things out of the same music. And if the signifier/signified relationship is different for everyone, is it really a language?

Well, I don't know your situation exactly, but I googled it a couple different ways and found quite a few links. Hopefully one of them can help you.

Needless to say, I've also seen you asking around on some forums which showed up in the search, so I know you're serious enough to have already tried all this. Hopefully there are some new pages that you haven't found yet. A couple of those links claim to have answers, but of course, YMMV.

Since I didn't help you much (probably at all), I'll just take a Lite Beer and an old uneaten crust somebody threw back in the pizza box.

Sorry I couldn't help more, but with Linux, I've found anything is possible if you dig long enough. Hopefully I've uncovered some new dirt for you. Good luck!

Did you get any errors? Did your computer catch on fire? If at first you don't suceed, try, try again! All I had to do to get debian to install was toss a compatible kernel and install root from a colleague's webpage (one of the first hits on google for "debian sparc blade 100") onto a TFTP server, and point the blade 100 to boot from the server by a nice old boot net:dhcp.

http://toolbox.rutgers.edu/~amurphy/fai

Here's a link to the first page of that TinkerToy Computer article A Tinkertoy Computer That Plays Tic-Tac-Toe, in case anyone is interested in reading the whole article.

Don't forget about the Tinkertoy computer

Below is the relevant excerpt from the article:

In finding defendant guilty of careless driving, the Law Division judge stated: The defendant quite clearly operated his vehicle carelessly, failed to exercise appropriate caution in the prevailing circumstances, and endangered both the persons in the other vehicle. These conclusory remarks, however, were insufficient to establish a careless driving violation. It appears that both the Municipal Court judge and the Law Division judge applied a res ipsa loquitur analysis in finding defendant guilty of careless driving. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, however, has no application in the determination of careless driving due to the quasi-criminal nature of the proceeding in which the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt all elements of the offense. See State v. Wenzel, 113 N.J. Super., 215, 216-18 (App. Div. 1971)(the mere fact of an "otherwise unexplained jackknifing" where a tractor-trailer entering a construction area had jackknifed on the wet roadway, crossed into the opposite lane and broadsided another truck fatally injuring the truck's driver, did not establish that the defendant had been driving carelessly.) The careless driving statute provides: [a] person who drives a vehicle on a highway carelessly, or without due caution and circumspection, in a manner so as to endanger, or be likely to endanger, a person or property, shall be guilty of careless driving.

[N.J.S.A. 39:4-97.]

Here, other than the accident itself, the State only presented defendant's statement that his vehicle began to slide on the wet highway and continued to do so when he tapped his brakes. Moreover, his apology was not an admission to driving carelessly, but merely a statement that his car had slid on the wet pavement. The State presented no evidence indicating that defendant had been speeding, driving too fast for the wet road conditions, distracted or otherwise driving without due caution and circumspection. Consequently, there was insufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for careless driving, and we reverse that conviction. We affirm the driving under the influence conviction and sentence under N.J.S.A. 39:4-50(a) and vacate the stay. We reverse the careless driving conviction under N.J.S.A. 39:4-97 and remand to the Law Division to amend the judgment.

Considering that most serious climatologists think the very premise of Day After Tomorrow is bunk, what does that say for the utility of us wasting CPU cycles on it?

Or is the association with the upcoming movie merely some editorial license on the part of the /. crew?

Probably not as complete, but the man pages are free:

http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/428/glman.html

*sigh*

It's pretty hard to reconcile the bible with the abundance of archaeoligcal evidence that shows that dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years before the first humans showed up.

Reading and believing in the Bible doesn't require the reader to take it literally. Some random and eclectic examples of people who don't read the Bible literally.

These fairy tales don't fly on slashdot because the people here are educated enough to know better.

No, they really aren't; I read views on Christianity and other religions that are chock full of misconceptions or misunderstandings all the time.

There's a major tendency by various posters on Slashdot to overgeneralize American Protestant fundamentalism into Christian orthodoxy. If you don't know the differences between fundamentalism and orthodoxy, realize that your knowledge of Christianity ranks fairly low. (Which is to say that people can't be experts on everything. Even on Slashdot.)

My opinion, having been a Slash reader since the site's infancy, is that there's actually a fairly low level of religious knowledge amongst the learned Slashdot crowd. This tends to [unfortunately] manifest itself in haughty arrogance. QED indeed.

People may talk about the market being bad, whatever. Any real engineer from a real university will get a job if he has some work experience and some common sense. I'm sorry, but most people I know that whine about not getting jobs should choose another field as they're not qualified. Notice I said "most" not "all." In any event, they tell you the different engineering disciplines are different. Really, it's just a facade to get you to come to "their" program. Granted, you will learn different things. However, engineering programs are all about applying the same math and physical sciences to problems in a specific discipline, be it electrical, chemical, or mechanical. That doesn't mean some programs are harder than others. Typically, electrical and chemical tend to be up there as far as difficulty. That's OK, a lot of them fail out anyway. As we say at Rutgers, "If you can't hack it, pack it." That refers to the fact that sadly, Rutgers actually has a Packaging Engineering program. So sad, it doesn't even have a website.

Every ticket would have a Texan, Californian, or New Yorker on the ticket. Politicians from the aforementioned states would be completely ignored. And before anyone nitpicks this one, historically candidates very rarely lose their home state.

If this were true, candidates would be doing that now. You don't think that Republican's would just throw together a NY/California President/VP ticket then?

. The Dakotas, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Idaho, Rhode Island, Maine, D.C., Alaska and Delaware would never see a candidate campaign in their state. They would be completely irrelevant. Carrying Virginia would completely invalidate losses in all of those states.

Sorry I took these out of order. But a candidate wouldn't really "carry" all the people in Virginia no matter how often he were to visit.

I think that Electoral College should be reformed or throw out all together. As you mention, It seems like it was originally a consession to the smaller states. It is unfair that the smaller states get 3 electoral votes no matter what. This throws off how much weight an individuals vote actually has to an electoral vote.

A constitutional amendment was proposed in 1979 which would have allowed for direct elections...

I like everything about this plan, the only problem is if a recount or run-off is needed it will be hard to do. I suppose they could do a recount only in a disputed state if something like that should be needed. Another plan that could make sense is changing the electoral college so a state can split their votes according to how the states population voted. Maine and Nebraska already have a system like this in place. I also think that if the electoral college is kept, the amount of electoral votes should be determained by actual voter turnout, not total population. Any change to the electoral college should be made with the provision that presidential canidates must visit every state, to avoid the small states from losing out to the bigger ones when it comes to the canidates time.

Some oddities I found about the electoral college....

Voter turnout is different than the actual population of the states which determains the amount of votes in the electoral college, for example in the 2000 election.

2,438,685 people voted in Minnesota, which has 10 electoral votes and an population of 4,919,479

2,359,892 people voted in Missouri which has 11 electoral votes and an population 5,595,211.

So 2,438,685 people in effect counted for 10 votes, while 2,359,892 counted for 11! Clearly this doesn't work out the way it should.

the ratio of electoral voters to population is thrown off in other states also because of the "3 vote minimum" rule. For example Kentucky has a population of 4, 041, 769 and has 8 electoral votes

Maine has a population of 1,274,923 and has 4 electoral votes

Although Kentucky has about three times Maine's population they only have double the electoral votes... I think the electoral college either needs to be reformed, or replaced with a direct election

Well, for heaven's sake, talk to one of them, will you?

Wrong. This says otherwise.

No, it doesn't.

Do you know something scientists at Argonne National Labs don't?

No, but I know something that you don't, apparently the difference between the sentences "Distillation removes both ionic and nonionic organic contaminants" and "Distillation removes all ionic and nonionic organic contaminants." Distillation can remove a large amount of contamination, especially if done repeatedly using industrial equipment. But the fact is that the distilled water you buy at the grocery store has got nothin' on the deionized water used to clean silicon waffers.

I am also curious how you know Calder is a "scientist at Argonne National Labs" and not a high school geometry teacher: (from your link) "NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators." I just find this funny because you took issue with my citing the site for a furnishing industry earlier.

Now, because I am getting tired of carrying on this stupid debate, here is a bunch of those fancy internet links you love so much:

These people manufacture deionized water. Suppose they wouldn't know anything about it. . .

Microelectronics and Nanotechnology Research Laboratory

Myron L Company

Deionized water as a cleaner Question: Why not just use distilled if it has even less ion concentration? Why buy more expensive de-ionized water?

Lytron Fun quote: "Care must be exercised when using DI water. The very lack of ions also makes this coolant unusually corrosive. Called the "universal solvent," DI water is one of the most aggressive solvents known. In fact, to a varying degree, it will dissolve everything to which it is exposed. Therefore, all materials in the cooling loop must be corrosion-resistant."

Semiconductor Glossary

another random newsgroup

Office of water quality technical memorandum

Early Death Comes from Drinking Distilled Water Very interesting article.

Wikipedia entry Interesting quotes: Even distillation does not completely purify water, because of contaminants with similar boiling points and droplets of unvaporized liquid carried with the steam. However, 99.9% pure water can be obtained by distillation. Reverse osmosis is theoretically the most thorough method of large-scale water purification available, although perfect semi-permable membranes are difficult to create.

Why I say no to distilled water Another interesting article on the health side effects of drinking distilled water.

Why purified water is bad to consume

Note that there is a difference between household water purifiers (both distillers and deionizers) and industrial equipment. The later only run the process once, and the so the water has been distilled/deionized, but that doesn't mean it is deionized.

Now, I'm sure you can find a thousand more sites telling me how distilled water is actually so pure it will sometimes spontaneously develop sentience and how deionized water is not only good for you it can kill cancer and stop

Ho ho ho.

Of course Edison never patented the idea of sequenced pictures. Back then, a patent applied to a general class of apparatus.

For example of how this amazing system worked, see: an Apparatus for Exhibiting Photographs of Moving Objects

Just another sign that software is leaving high-tech and becoming a mature industry.

If you want high-tech for the next decade or so, think bio, nano, and robotics, not software.

No matter what technology it uses, neural nets, b-trees, recursion, tinkertoy logic, smell-emitting diode, leaky junction zener transistor, steam-powered aeolipiles, it only automagically presses delete, which is a pretty lame way of fighting spam.

It's a lame way of fighting spam, because, we STILL have to pay for the fucking spam bandwitdh; we STILL have to pay for the goddammed disk space used by the spam; we STILL have to pay for the bloody time lost transmitting the spam; we STILL have to pay for the extra ISP infrastructure to carry those spams.

Naaah. Spammers should be eradicated from the Internet, and the best way to do so is to completely BLOCK networks who host spammers (no matter what service), in order to force the collateral damage to whine to the ISP or simply vote with their feet.

That's the problem with all these newcomers popping in with "they got it all wrong, and I can fix it." Their semester is almost over but they don't learn about dropping privileges until the next semester in Operating Systems Design. Its kind of sad seeing the future leaders wanting to take us away from drastically improved security practices.

Hey, new kids. Learn about Mandatory Access Controls. Start with LIDS, grsecurity, openwall, SELinux and the LSM. Plus, if you think Apache runs as root any longer than it takes to bind to port 80, then don't worry, your professor will cover it come September.

Sorry to be so gritty, but some commentators are striking fear in me about the directions they think security should go.

I believe the parent is referring to the "Make Penis Fast!" email, for those that haven't read it yet.

No matter what technology it uses, neural nets, b-trees, recursion, tinkertoy logic, smell-emitting diode, leaky junction zener transistor, steam-powered aeolipiles, it only automagically presses delete, which is a pretty lame way of fighting spam.

It's a lame way of fighting spam, because, we STILL have to pay for the fucking spam bandwitdh; we STILL have to pay for the goddammed disk space used by the spam; we STILL have to pay for the bloody time lost transmitting the spam; we STILL have to pay for the extra ISP infrastructure to carry those spams.

Naaah. Spammers should be eradicated from the Internet, and the best way to do so is to completely BLOCK networks who host spammers (no matter what service), in order to force the collateral damage to whine to the ISP or simply vote with their feet.

Your description of Chicago, triggered a recollection of this factoid:

Causes of the Detroit Riot The origins of urban unrest in Detroit were rooted in a multitude of political, economic, and social factors including police abuse, lack of affordable housing, urban renewal projects, economic inequality, black militancy, and rapid demographic change.

Detroit Riot, 1967

As immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot's classic "Black Day in July" covered by "The Tragically Hip" in my currently favourite album:

Beautiful

I ordered mine through Rutgers' Computer Store and I was able to spec mine how I wanted it. It took less than a week to receive it from Apple.

Here is a course I helped design to teach Javascript programming to CS170 students-- pre-business majors.

Javascript was our idea of a language replacement for what we were using True Basic. The idea was to have a language where the students wouldn't constantly question why they were learning it, and to pretend like we were doing some level of web enabled e-commerce site programming.

The problems we have found come from the lack of structure of the language, and combined with the browser's desire to fix as much as it can. While this is a nice feature for a real developer, it sucks when you have to tell a student "I know it works on the browser, but it's still wrong."

The other issue is trying to keep to a small set of structures for programming, and making sure the TAs for the course don't get too ambitious with teaching dozens of alternative ways to accomplish the same thing. For students at this level, they just get confused.

But it does work well, and it is nice not having to ask students to buy another piece of software to program with at home. (Unlike True Basic.)

I'm currently a student at Rutgers University College of Engineering majoring in Computer Engineering. Now while that's fine and dandy, I also am able to work at the school doing real networking work. I am able to work with equipment that most *professionals* have only seen pictures of, let alone worked on (Cisco 12000 series routers, for instance). My suggestion to you is find a good (big is nice too) school that you can get real experience at. The reason I say big is because schools typically don't have carrier, or even enterprise level networks unless they do a lot of research and move a lot of data. That's the sort of thing you want to get experience on, as it's easy to apply experience on big projects to smaller ones, but doing the reverse is much more difficult. Studying for the CCNA is beneficial, even if you don't choose to take the exam. I am fortunate enough in that I had a two-year CCNA program at my high school. It's probably why I got the job I got. I wouldn't stress yourself looking for a "Network Engineering" program. Get a degree in a (semi-)relevant field: CS, any kind of engineering, Math, Physics, you get the drift. They all will do.

I'm currently a student at Rutgers University College of Engineering majoring in Computer Engineering. Now while that's fine and dandy, I also am able to work at the school doing real networking work. I am able to work with equipment that most *professionals* have only seen pictures of, let alone worked on (Cisco 12000 series routers, for instance). My suggestion to you is find a good (big is nice too) school that you can get real experience at. The reason I say big is because schools typically don't have carrier, or even enterprise level networks unless they do a lot of research and move a lot of data. That's the sort of thing you want to get experience on, as it's easy to apply experience on big projects to smaller ones, but doing the reverse is much more difficult. Studying for the CCNA is beneficial, even if you don't choose to take the exam. I am fortunate enough in that I had a two-year CCNA program at my high school. It's probably why I got the job I got. I wouldn't stress yourself looking for a "Network Engineering" program. Get a degree in a (semi-)relevant field: CS, any kind of engineering, Math, Physics, you get the drift. They all will do.

Caffeine keeps you awake, but reduces your ability to think clearly.

Actually, studies show otherwise. This one, for example, demonstrates that caffeine actually helps new brain cells grow. And this one [pdf file] shows that it helps with memory.

Since nobody has (yet) taken the pains of posting the mirror list (yea, yea, I know, this is /.) -- here it is:

Hmm .. I wonder if the /. lameness filter was designed so that people couldn't post whole mirror lists themselves. Telling me that I don't have enough characters per line. I think I'll just ask the KDE people to create a static fast-serving no-css page full of mirrors for KDE whenever a release happens. That way, at least some amount of trouble would be saved. Goes off to mail KDE team ...

(pulled from KDE Mirror List)

WARNING: VERY BAD FORMATTING to get around the lame lameness filter.

mirrors.isc.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .
mirrors.midco.net. . .mirrors.midco.net. . .ftp.oregonstate.edu. . .kde.oregonstate.edu. . .download.uk.kde.org. . .
download.at.kde.org. . .download.at.kde.org. . .ftp.eu.uu.net. . .ftp.tiscali.nl. . .ftp.du.se. . .
ftp.solnet.ch. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .kde.uk.themoes.org. . .kde.us.themoes.org. . .
ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.gwdg.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .
ftp.uni-kl.de. . .download.au.kde.org. . .ftp.roedu.net. . .ftp.fi.muni.cz. . .ftp.fu-berlin.de. . .
ftp.tu-chemnitz.de. . .sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de. . .filepile.tiscali.de. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .
sunsite.icm.edu.pl. . .sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch. . .ftp.se.kde.org. .

Since nobody has (yet) taken the pains of posting the mirror list (yea, yea, I know, this is /.) -- here it is:

Hmm .. I wonder if the /. lameness filter was designed so that people couldn't post whole mirror lists themselves. Telling me that I don't have enough characters per line. I think I'll just ask the KDE people to create a static fast-serving no-css page full of mirrors for KDE whenever a release happens. That way, at least some amount of trouble would be saved. Goes off to mail KDE team ...

(pulled from KDE Mirror List)

WARNING: VERY BAD FORMATTING to get around the lame lameness filter.

mirrors.isc.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .
mirrors.midco.net. . .mirrors.midco.net. . .ftp.oregonstate.edu. . .kde.oregonstate.edu. . .download.uk.kde.org. . .
download.at.kde.org. . .download.at.kde.org. . .ftp.eu.uu.net. . .ftp.tiscali.nl. . .ftp.du.se. . .
ftp.solnet.ch. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .kde.uk.themoes.org. . .kde.us.themoes.org. . .
ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.gwdg.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .
ftp.uni-kl.de. . .download.au.kde.org. . .ftp.roedu.net. . .ftp.fi.muni.cz. . .ftp.fu-berlin.de. . .
ftp.tu-chemnitz.de. . .sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de. . .filepile.tiscali.de. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .
sunsite.icm.edu.pl. . .sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch. . .ftp.se.kde.org. .

Amateurs?

So I suppose the people who run the Transport for London web site are amateurs?

What about the folks running BlogSpot?

How about the admins of Rutgers Univesity?

Finally, how about Kyle Bennett, the creator of [H]ard|OCP?

Sure, Microsoft can say that Apache is used by amateurs. But I'm certain that for every half-assed amateur using Apache there are 100 admins who run Apache for mission-critical stuff and don't bat an eyelid.

Absolutely true. Rutgers is a BARGAIN for the school it is, and is often called a public ivy. Rutgers is also the oldest non-ivy institution second to William & Mary.

" This is the official mirror system of Macromedia Linux packages.
With permission from Macromedia we take their software and package
it in Linux friendly ways (RPM, DEB, ebuild). These packages are
made available for manual download, apt-get, urpmi, or emerge.

Macromedia's EULA forbids repackaging and/or redistribution of
their software so please do not mirror this repository.
Please point your apt-get or urpmi to one of these official
mirrors of this site, as they will be permanent."

Apparently you can either try to ask MM for another exception, or you can make your distribution download the packages from this site. It's maintained by Warren Togami of Fedora.us-fame.

Real Player

You might want to ask the folks at helixsupport.org, and read the licenses over there.

Yahoo IM

When you go to messenger.yahoo.com, click on Unix and check the RPM you see that the license is "proprietary". You can contact them at messenger-unix-support@yahoo-inc.com, maybe they can give you more info.

As for the distributions which include it, like Lycoris, I suppose they've all gotten permission from the authors/owners of this products.

"Although the creature was mighty in strength, supernatural in prescience, and ever alert in following the orders of his Cabalistic creator, so that he saved the Jews of Prague from many a calamity, nonetheless, his creator decided to "unmake" him because he had grown afraid of the creature he had created, for the Golem, waxing drunk with the immense power he was wielding, menaced the entire Jewish community, even trying to bend the Maharal to his will, which had now turned evil and destructive. Thereupon, using the secret gematria of Cabalistic formulas for the second time, the Maharal returned the clay hulk of his creature to its original inanimate condition by withdrawing from its mouth the Shem, the life-creating, ineffable Name of God that he had placed there when first he made him."

I just completed my own homebrew rack, and although it wasn't exactly done cheaply I did research most of the Diy options. The most promising solution I found was using bedframe rails to rack your equipment. They're strong, cheap and readily available in custom lengths at places like Home Depot. They can be mounted to a number of framing materials. ITU standard holes are fairly easy to drill, but threading can be a problem. fortunately you can just drill oversized holes and use cheap clip-on racknuts to mount all of your equipment.

Good luck!

I've had the Nokia 3650 for about two months now. It's an amazing device and if you go to a place thats willing to wheel and deal (like I did) you can end up with the phone for $25 after rebate (yes, twenty five.) There is currently a $150 rebate through T-Mobile on the phone and I was able to talk the places down to $175 from the T-Mobile price of $300 (and T-Mobile is a great service provider as well, I've been using them for over two years now and I've yet to have a problem (with the exception of my first phone with them, the T68m but that wasn't their fault and they were still quick to make things better for me)

Ok, so now I'll run down on the phone itself...

104Mhz StrongARM processor with 4MB of RAM. (Cause every geek loves those stats...)

A very large fairly high resolution screen that fares VERY well in sunlight and any light situation. It's backlit, but only a slight lowering of contrast occurs in sunlight.

The camera that is built in is of amazing quality for a camera and one of the best I've seen. It also records video but it's not as usefull, as the resolution is only 320x240 and the quality is horrible. Good for BS clips but nothing fancy. The camera has actually gotten me rave reviews on my photography skills (more than a regular camera). The two following links are directories full of pictures and videos I've taken with my phone, feel free to browse them at your leisure.
Pictures of the beach by my house
Pictures of the recent snow storm at Rutgers Uni.

Being a Symbian OS based device there's TONS of programs for it, ranging from MP3 players (I used it once, not bad, but I prefer my iPod) to Game Boy Emulators (nothing like playing Mario Bros 1 in class) to usefull applications like file browsers, to Doom! (doom links: here and here) Plus its easy to get files onto the phone be it through bluetooth, infared or taking out the phones 16MB MMC card and putting it on there via flash card reader.

Ringtones for the phone are MIDI files so it's easy to find your favorite song or write your own and place it on the phone.

iSync is supported with the phone, as well as other nifty Mac bluetooth programs such as Salings Clicker which lets you controll your mac from your cellphone. Good for controlling iTunes (I have it set so it plays my music when it sees my phone so I come home to my favorite music) and can be used to control DVD Player or Quicktime, and can be set to perform AppleScripts...

Yes. the circular keypad is odd. It took me about a week to get used to it. After a month and a half with the phone, I'm back up to my previous typing speed on the T68i (I can go faster tho, as Nokia's predictive text is much faster than SE's...) and the only time it's a slight problem is when I'm inebriated, but even then all skillsets go to zero, so it's no so much the phone's fault. :) I put all my numbers into the phone book anyways so I rarely dial numbers.

Battery life and size: The phone is slightly larger than other phones, yes. But after all the times I spent digging in the tinest little crevaces of car seats, classrooms, and dorm rooms looking for the phone, a larger phone is appreciated. Plus it leaves room for a larger battery and antenna (and that's another thing. The 3650 has fantastic reception abilities and some have claimed it has the best of any Nokia phone to date.) and it just feels like less of a toy than other phones. I take pictures all the time and have many 5-10 minutes phone calls a day. I have to charge the phone every 3-4 days, but I just keep it on a car charger when I drive and when I sleep its in the charger, but you can get away with forgetting to once in a while with no worries (plus the batteries are the same as the N-G

I've had the Nokia 3650 for about two months now. It's an amazing device and if you go to a place thats willing to wheel and deal (like I did) you can end up with the phone for $25 after rebate (yes, twenty five.) There is currently a $150 rebate through T-Mobile on the phone and I was able to talk the places down to $175 from the T-Mobile price of $300 (and T-Mobile is a great service provider as well, I've been using them for over two years now and I've yet to have a problem (with the exception of my first phone with them, the T68m but that wasn't their fault and they were still quick to make things better for me)

Ok, so now I'll run down on the phone itself...

104Mhz StrongARM processor with 4MB of RAM. (Cause every geek loves those stats...)

A very large fairly high resolution screen that fares VERY well in sunlight and any light situation. It's backlit, but only a slight lowering of contrast occurs in sunlight.

The camera that is built in is of amazing quality for a camera and one of the best I've seen. It also records video but it's not as usefull, as the resolution is only 320x240 and the quality is horrible. Good for BS clips but nothing fancy. The camera has actually gotten me rave reviews on my photography skills (more than a regular camera). The two following links are directories full of pictures and videos I've taken with my phone, feel free to browse them at your leisure.
Pictures of the beach by my house
Pictures of the recent snow storm at Rutgers Uni.

Being a Symbian OS based device there's TONS of programs for it, ranging from MP3 players (I used it once, not bad, but I prefer my iPod) to Game Boy Emulators (nothing like playing Mario Bros 1 in class) to usefull applications like file browsers, to Doom! (doom links: here and here) Plus its easy to get files onto the phone be it through bluetooth, infared or taking out the phones 16MB MMC card and putting it on there via flash card reader.

Ringtones for the phone are MIDI files so it's easy to find your favorite song or write your own and place it on the phone.

iSync is supported with the phone, as well as other nifty Mac bluetooth programs such as Salings Clicker which lets you controll your mac from your cellphone. Good for controlling iTunes (I have it set so it plays my music when it sees my phone so I come home to my favorite music) and can be used to control DVD Player or Quicktime, and can be set to perform AppleScripts...

Yes. the circular keypad is odd. It took me about a week to get used to it. After a month and a half with the phone, I'm back up to my previous typing speed on the T68i (I can go faster tho, as Nokia's predictive text is much faster than SE's...) and the only time it's a slight problem is when I'm inebriated, but even then all skillsets go to zero, so it's no so much the phone's fault. :) I put all my numbers into the phone book anyways so I rarely dial numbers.

Battery life and size: The phone is slightly larger than other phones, yes. But after all the times I spent digging in the tinest little crevaces of car seats, classrooms, and dorm rooms looking for the phone, a larger phone is appreciated. Plus it leaves room for a larger battery and antenna (and that's another thing. The 3650 has fantastic reception abilities and some have claimed it has the best of any Nokia phone to date.) and it just feels like less of a toy than other phones. I take pictures all the time and have many 5-10 minutes phone calls a day. I have to charge the phone every 3-4 days, but I just keep it on a car charger when I drive and when I sleep its in the charger, but you can get away with forgetting to once in a while with no worries (plus the batteries are the same as the N-G

I've had the Nokia 3650 for about two months now. It's an amazing device and if you go to a place thats willing to wheel and deal (like I did) you can end up with the phone for $25 after rebate (yes, twenty five.) There is currently a $150 rebate through T-Mobile on the phone and I was able to talk the places down to $175 from the T-Mobile price of $300 (and T-Mobile is a great service provider as well, I've been using them for over two years now and I've yet to have a problem (with the exception of my first phone with them, the T68m but that wasn't their fault and they were still quick to make things better for me)

Ok, so now I'll run down on the phone itself...

104Mhz StrongARM processor with 4MB of RAM. (Cause every geek loves those stats...)

A very large fairly high resolution screen that fares VERY well in sunlight and any light situation. It's backlit, but only a slight lowering of contrast occurs in sunlight.

The camera that is built in is of amazing quality for a camera and one of the best I've seen. It also records video but it's not as usefull, as the resolution is only 320x240 and the quality is horrible. Good for BS clips but nothing fancy. The camera has actually gotten me rave reviews on my photography skills (more than a regular camera). The two following links are directories full of pictures and videos I've taken with my phone, feel free to browse them at your leisure.
Pictures of the beach by my house
Pictures of the recent snow storm at Rutgers Uni.

Being a Symbian OS based device there's TONS of programs for it, ranging from MP3 players (I used it once, not bad, but I prefer my iPod) to Game Boy Emulators (nothing like playing Mario Bros 1 in class) to usefull applications like file browsers, to Doom! (doom links: here and here) Plus its easy to get files onto the phone be it through bluetooth, infared or taking out the phones 16MB MMC card and putting it on there via flash card reader.

Ringtones for the phone are MIDI files so it's easy to find your favorite song or write your own and place it on the phone.

iSync is supported with the phone, as well as other nifty Mac bluetooth programs such as Salings Clicker which lets you controll your mac from your cellphone. Good for controlling iTunes (I have it set so it plays my music when it sees my phone so I come home to my favorite music) and can be used to control DVD Player or Quicktime, and can be set to perform AppleScripts...

Yes. the circular keypad is odd. It took me about a week to get used to it. After a month and a half with the phone, I'm back up to my previous typing speed on the T68i (I can go faster tho, as Nokia's predictive text is much faster than SE's...) and the only time it's a slight problem is when I'm inebriated, but even then all skillsets go to zero, so it's no so much the phone's fault. :) I put all my numbers into the phone book anyways so I rarely dial numbers.

Battery life and size: The phone is slightly larger than other phones, yes. But after all the times I spent digging in the tinest little crevaces of car seats, classrooms, and dorm rooms looking for the phone, a larger phone is appreciated. Plus it leaves room for a larger battery and antenna (and that's another thing. The 3650 has fantastic reception abilities and some have claimed it has the best of any Nokia phone to date.) and it just feels like less of a toy than other phones. I take pictures all the time and have many 5-10 minutes phone calls a day. I have to charge the phone every 3-4 days, but I just keep it on a car charger when I drive and when I sleep its in the charger, but you can get away with forgetting to once in a while with no worries (plus the batteries are the same as the N-G

I've had the Nokia 3650 for about two months now. It's an amazing device and if you go to a place thats willing to wheel and deal (like I did) you can end up with the phone for $25 after rebate (yes, twenty five.) There is currently a $150 rebate through T-Mobile on the phone and I was able to talk the places down to $175 from the T-Mobile price of $300 (and T-Mobile is a great service provider as well, I've been using them for over two years now and I've yet to have a problem (with the exception of my first phone with them, the T68m but that wasn't their fault and they were still quick to make things better for me)

Ok, so now I'll run down on the phone itself...

104Mhz StrongARM processor with 4MB of RAM. (Cause every geek loves those stats...)

A very large fairly high resolution screen that fares VERY well in sunlight and any light situation. It's backlit, but only a slight lowering of contrast occurs in sunlight.

The camera that is built in is of amazing quality for a camera and one of the best I've seen. It also records video but it's not as usefull, as the resolution is only 320x240 and the quality is horrible. Good for BS clips but nothing fancy. The camera has actually gotten me rave reviews on my photography skills (more than a regular camera). The two following links are directories full of pictures and videos I've taken with my phone, feel free to browse them at your leisure.
Pictures of the beach by my house
Pictures of the recent snow storm at Rutgers Uni.

Being a Symbian OS based device there's TONS of programs for it, ranging from MP3 players (I used it once, not bad, but I prefer my iPod) to Game Boy Emulators (nothing like playing Mario Bros 1 in class) to usefull applications like file browsers, to Doom! (doom links: here and here) Plus its easy to get files onto the phone be it through bluetooth, infared or taking out the phones 16MB MMC card and putting it on there via flash card reader.

Ringtones for the phone are MIDI files so it's easy to find your favorite song or write your own and place it on the phone.

iSync is supported with the phone, as well as other nifty Mac bluetooth programs such as Salings Clicker which lets you controll your mac from your cellphone. Good for controlling iTunes (I have it set so it plays my music when it sees my phone so I come home to my favorite music) and can be used to control DVD Player or Quicktime, and can be set to perform AppleScripts...

Yes. the circular keypad is odd. It took me about a week to get used to it. After a month and a half with the phone, I'm back up to my previous typing speed on the T68i (I can go faster tho, as Nokia's predictive text is much faster than SE's...) and the only time it's a slight problem is when I'm inebriated, but even then all skillsets go to zero, so it's no so much the phone's fault. :) I put all my numbers into the phone book anyways so I rarely dial numbers.

Battery life and size: The phone is slightly larger than other phones, yes. But after all the times I spent digging in the tinest little crevaces of car seats, classrooms, and dorm rooms looking for the phone, a larger phone is appreciated. Plus it leaves room for a larger battery and antenna (and that's another thing. The 3650 has fantastic reception abilities and some have claimed it has the best of any Nokia phone to date.) and it just feels like less of a toy than other phones. I take pictures all the time and have many 5-10 minutes phone calls a day. I have to charge the phone every 3-4 days, but I just keep it on a car charger when I drive and when I sleep its in the charger, but you can get away with forgetting to once in a while with no worries (plus the batteries are the same as the N-G

We sort of do this at Rutgers University This summer was absolutely crazy for the network, due to all the worms and such. A new policy was instituted which requires users to visit a website which checks their operating system. If they're running Windows, they are *required* to download a scanner that checks for the relevant worms and installs Anti-Virus software. Users running alternative operating systems are completely exempt. It just says "There are currently no additional requirements for running Linux on the residential network." We've just begun shutting people off who fail to comply with the policy. I, for one, like it. However, the routers start to get overloaded if they have too many access control lists because they have trouble running them on the ASICs. So, they have to run in software mode, which starts to slow things down.