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Yeah, and the same company that brought you that ultra-cool dual deck VCR (more than like Go Video, right?), has brought out a combo VCR and DVD player - and hawk them at Blockbuster! Now, you might be wondering why they would build such a thing, since presumably you would rent the DVD at Blockbuster, take it home, and make a copy of the DVD on a tape (which would be against copyright law), right? Nope - can't do that, they note in some fine print on a flyer (but _not_ on the box itself!).

That is all cool by me - but what if you wanted to make a tape copy of a brand new DVD you bought that you like watching a lot - in theory, fair use, right? Nope - this deck won't allow you! Want to tape an excerpt to show in the drama class you teach at the high school? Nope - can't do that either. Fair use be damned!

But does that stop consumers? No - just like it didn't stop you from buying and attempting to use the VCR you paid for (hopefully in a fair use fashion - but what you do on your own time is YOUR business, not mine). So what is a citizen (not a consumer - get that out of your head NOW - NOW DAMNIT! YOU ARE A CITIZEN - AN INDIVIDUAL WITH RIGHTS, RIGHTS THAT TRANCEND MERE CONSUMERISM!) to do?

Stop any and all contact with those corps and groups who deny your fair use rights, who deny your CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS! Tell anyone who will listen about what is happening - educate the public! Hell, tell anyone, and if they refuse to listen, say it a little louder. If they tell you to shut up, tell them that is what the corps (with a little help from OUR own government!) are slowly doing to them. If even a trickle gets through, it will help.

Point them to /. - point them to the 2600 case, point them to whereever they can get information - print it and post it if you have to. Don't rent/buy tapes, don't buy music, don't see movies, don't take your kid to Disneyland, and a slew of others I can't even begin to name (the level that these companies have wormed their way into the collective fabric of the world is INSANE - I mean, your damn diskwasher might be made by a wholly owned subsidiary of a subsidiary of one of these companies!).

Sometimes I think I should go live in the woods - but what good would that do me - and what good would it do others. So participate - and get the word out, vote for those who seem with you, and let them know why you voted for them, when you can...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Start with a serial mag-stripe reader (many can be gotten for cheap from surplus electronics outlets like All Electronics).

Add a Basic Stamp 2 from Parallax (or maybe your own PIC and extra EEPROM) and a MAX232 to communicate to the reader.

Connect that to one of these boards.

Write your own custom code to do real basic IP stuff for the networking (have fun!)...

Should be able to do all this cheaply - less than $300. Hard part is the coding, getting a small IP stack written to fit, and comm protocol code as well. It is more than possible though...

Finally, when you have it all done, got the VC's lined up stuffin' your pockets with cash, and you bring it to market - think of me, and send me a check of appreciation... ;)

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Nah, the other poster was closer - it was like 89 or 90 when we did this (you see, our programming class was stuck with Apple IIe's, while the Computer class, where one learned how to wordprocess, had 286's, and the Mac lab was, well a Mac lab - best machine was a Mac II color - don't know any other specs on it). Anyhow, you figure 1989 - my home computer was a Tandy CoCo 3 with 512K, 286's were the mid-range machine, and the 386 was top-of-the-line. But a CoCo was cheaper than either, and Apple IIe's were still expensive (but not the ones we had, which broke down more often than not, needing new drives, etc - they were ancient - but a lot of kids learned coding on them)...

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Imagine if you had some way (think nanotech or fast STM) to arrange the atoms at the other end into molecules, and from there up. Matter transporter/3d Fax/replicator/world's best RPD station? If you could deconstruct the other end, perhaps wired teleportation. All of this is blue sky stuff, but remember you heard it here first, and these ideas are public and prior art (ok, I am sure someone else has thought of them in relation to this fiber, perhaps)...

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http://www.ifpi.org/

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In high school (over 10 years ago - eeek!) me and a friend would set up an Apple IIe hooked to a color monitor in our programming class (we took it for the points, and as a break - nothing more) with a Mandelbrot program written in BASIC (!), utilizing the funky 16 color mode (oooh!) that you could hack if you had an 80 column card. At any rate, we would let it run until our class, in the 5th period or so, where it would complete by the end of class, and save to floppy. We would then work out where we wanted to "magnify", and start the run the next day. Got some pretty neat pictures... for an Apple IIe...

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QBasic is limited, I will grant you that - but you shouldn't base all your biases against BASIC on that one version (and actually, you can draw primitives to off-screen bitmaps if you use SCREEN 7 - SCREEN 13 isn't supported natively though, but you could always use my Blast! Library to obtain it). I acknowledge that there are libraries for C/C++ for game programming, but they aren't intrinsic parts of the language. For an individual new to programming, they probably won't even know what a library is!

Visual Basic != Blitz Basic. Lack of a recognized standard for the Basic language creates a tremendous learning curve from one dialect to another. For example, some dialects have line numbers; others don't. Some use gosub for function calls; others use call; others use fn; others have a more C-like syntax. Some Basic dialects have multiline if...then...else...end if; others only allow if condition then goto 12345.

No it doesn't - I have coded under so many different dialects of BASIC that my head hurts. It is true that there isn't forward compatibility (ie, most BASICs that require line numbers won't work without them, like GWBASIC), but most modern BASICs have standardized on the dialect of QuickBASIC, sometimes VB (which has QuickBASIC 4.5, PDS 7, and DOS VB influences). Blitz probably falls outside of this standard (actually, I think the best PC BASIC is PowerBASIC, created by the programmer of TurboBASIC).

On Error GoTo is a piece - this is one bit (that, and the menu creation system) programmers have howled over forever since M$ came out with VB for Windows. The error handling is attrocious. M$ has always said we'll fix it on next release, but have yet to do it (supposedly in VB7, but I will believe it when I see it).

When I meant "Genesis", I meant the Genesis SDK engine, a 3D engine designed for interfacing to VB.

Most of the Linux BASICs adhere to a QuickBASIC structure/dialect/standard, so yes, for the most part code done on one will compile (with limited changes) on the other.

For the _best_ info on BASIC, to answer more of your questions on standardization, etc - and for compiler links, etc, go here:

The All BASIC Code Archives

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And Basic is better how?

You have obviously never played with Blitz or AMOS.

I have (on the Amiga, when they came out). Both were DAMN FAST on the Amiga - game programming was no problem there. Of course, most of the work (at least in AMOS) for manipulating the chipset had been done for you, an implemented as BASIC commands (like to scroll a graphics screen - you used the SCROLL command).

BASIC has the easiest learning curve (and if you already know BASIC, no learning curve). There are scads of books on BASIC available (some of the best are the oldest - having listings of Wumpus and Star Trek is fun). Tons of code for all other kinds of BASIC exist on the net (check out the All Basic Code Archives if you are interested in what BASIC can do in good hands).

It is more than possible to program games in some dialect of BASIC today, provided it is a good dialect (even VB - couple it with OpenGL, DirectX, or some other engine, like Genesis, and you could easily make a kicking 3D game. I do know that a few people have done this - in fact, one guy had a dungeon crawl using a custom OpenGL engine and VB, called Mordor 2, later the name was changed when Black Isle Studios picked him up to develop it, they later dropped him, but he still develops it - fun multiplayer network RPG, in 3D, done in VB).

There are several free, open-source compilers for Linux, a couple for using under X as well. Many allow hooks to C and ASM, if you want it.

I will never understand why BASIC is knocked so much nowadays - you would think programmers would know better. It isn't a be-all end-all tool. But in a way, it is close.

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You're not, AC - if this is how it works, it doesn't sound that safe. I would much rather the process is a user process, and root has to go in every now and then and manually run the update, selecting which packages to update. Maybe the system uses sudo or similar to give access to a user process only to certain areas - who knows?

What I don't understand, if the original poster of this thread is correct, is why someone at said "client" doesn't just set up a single server (and a single license with RedHat), set up for free updates, then use that machine to update all the other machines on the network running a copy of RedHat (it isn't necessary for each machine to auto update - talk about a waste of bandwidth)? This shouldn't be that difficult to set up, and bypasses the monthly fee - right?

Hey, I am all for RedHat to make money - and I agree that this is a value added service, and should be charged for. No problems here with that. But they better hope their normal business users are all dumb, or have incompetent admins (running Linux - hah - probably some MCSE who picked up a book on RedHat and now thinks he knows something - that or a management type trying to get ahead)...

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Your idea, my implementation idea, hopefully will show prior art when someone tries to patent it.

Anyhow...

Imagine if the "tarp" was made with black colored Tyvek, and on the roll were two layers (like toilet paper), however, along the length of the roll the Tyvek is "bonded" (however they do this process - heat?) in a wavy back-and-forth across the length, so that a "tube" is formed. Cut at the right place, and you have an inlet and outlet for the water. Hook up the water system and go...

Of course, all of this supposes one thing - Tyvek won't rot in the sun and weather. Not sure how well it would stand up in such conditions, pressurized with water. Perhaps another material could be used, like PVC or PEC?

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Ack! I feel for your chaos (or, maybe it isn't chaotical (?) for you)...

Anyhow, that line is what I am wanting to stave off, the point where I can't transport my bookmarks via floppy and have to start zipping them, then finally emailing them - until there are too many to email...

One thing I noticed when I was reorganizing my bookmarks, that I had a fair amount of duplicates, scattered all over the place. This was from creating a bookmark in multiple places, due to it being able to fit into multiple categories - thus, a bookmark to the Livid site might actually fall under "computers/software/video/linux", as well as "computers/hardware/dvd" or some such. This inability to cross reference bookmarks is something I hope to overcome with my code using categorical meta-tags on the bookmarks, coupled with a search engine - so you can browse the categories ala Yahoo, or search them instead. It is a VERY complicated system that I am still designing, in order to make it as easy as possible for me to code it.

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You are going through this too? Information junkie, I suppose? Perhaps like me?

I have over 500K of bookmarks, and it grows by a few bookmarks every day. While I don't know if this is a "record" number of bookmarks for an individual, I can surely tell you it is an insane number.

I use Netscape on both my home PCs and my work PC, and in order to keep the chaos down, and keep my bookmarks up to date, the system I currently use is this:

I only add bookmarks when I am at work. When I find a site at home that I want to bookmark, I email the address to my work, and bookmark it there. Almost every day I copy the bookmarks (with a script) from my work box to a floppy, and take them home. At home I run a script to copy them from the floppy to Netscape. The script also makes a copy to my shared samba area so that the Windows PCs can get to the links.

This has worked out well, but it was frustrating to update the links this way. It has been even more of a problem organizing that many links. I recently spent a couple of days reorganizing the links to make them "fit" better, and be more hierarchical to find them better, but it still isn't what I want. My solution?

I am going to write my own bookmark CGI (in PERL - which I am learning as I work on it), and host it off a small webserver from my cable connection. While such sites (as mentioned prior) do exist that does this, that is way too much information to allow just anybody to have access too (do you really want people to know all your favorite browsing areas?).

My goal is to create this system to allow a few security levels, like Admin, Trusted User, User, and Guest, and put in the links database what level can view what - ie, a link marked as User could be viewed by someone with Trusted User and Admin Access, but not by Guests. I would have logins and passwords - so I could give out access to friends. I would be able to access the server from nearly anywhere, on any machine. With admin access, I will be able to add links, move links, delete links, change links, do all that with users and privilege levels, etc. Maybe even have templates to customise the look of the site - maybe add "news of the day", and clip headlines from /. and k5.

Yeah, I checked freshmeat for such systems, and found a few, but none had the security options - most seemed tailored for a "free-for-all" type situation, with the ability to do remote maintenance, but no way to limit viewability of links. I plan on my system to be different, and much more flexible.

It is a big task, and not suited for everybody, but it is the road I am going down, to preserve my sanity!

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Great ideas - I would like to add that I have seen this sort of stuff done in VERY VERY old copies of Byte magazine, most notably in Ciacia's Circuit Cellar portion. If you have the skills and the time, you can do this cheap.

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Thanks for the info - I don't plan on selling, my actual goal is to get NS to sign both of them, and keep them.

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I have no idea where Heiserman went, but if he did anything interesting it should be out there, either on the web or in Gopher space. I think I'll have a look later tonight. I'll report back if I find anythin!

Actually, finding anything about any of the 70's and 80's robot makers is near impossible, in my experience. Recently, I found what happened to Ben Skora, and his robot AROK - they both were featured on a home show recently about "strange" homes (Ben lives in this weird UFO shaped house he built in the early 70's - complete with all the disco era trimmings - you know automated lights and entertainment, that kind of thing). Apparently AROK is still around.

There are other robots whose whereabouts are completely unknown - one that I was always curious on was named C.H.A.R.L.I.E. (an acronym that means something, I forget what, but his inventor was also named Charlie, I believe). There are many others from the time. I just tend to wonder what happened to them...

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I was younger when I first read the books, and didn't have anywhere near enough money (or skill) to try to build one. When I got older, and managed to find and buy the books (no mean feat, those kind of TAB books you grab when you see them, no waiting), it was clear from reading them (knowing you have the skills now) that it would cost more to build either device than it would be worth in the end.

But by having all three, and seeing how simple Rodney is sensor-wise (I think all it has, IIRC, is some bump sensors, and some current-draw sensors on the motors - maybe a sound and light sensor), was that you could wire it all up to a cheap 486 laptop, and use the code from "Robot Intelligence" to achieve the same device, but cheaper.

Such is progress...

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I have two copies of the book, one in fully readable condition, and one "strange". I assume the "strange" one to be due to a publishing error, but I wonder how many got out of the publisher, and how many were kept (ie, not returned)?

Anyhow, my GF got the book for me a couple of xmases ago. She bought it off Amazon, and when I received it, I immediately began reading it. About a third of the way through, the book "repeated" - I thought I was losing my mind, but the text did repeat. I scanned farther forward, and it "repeated" again, never getting more than 50-75 pages "forward". I think there was a production problem, and multiple "leaves"(? Can't remember what the individual page bundles are called in publishing) got inserted. Funny thing was, the bundles weren't from near the end of the area I was at, but instead were from the mid-beginning, from a point I was well past.

Anyhow, it made the book unreadable, so I had my GF ask for another from Amazon - they complied, but never asked for the original back in return. I just wonder how unique it is...?

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I should've posted that link myself - I have a link to it, but they are widely seperated in my bookmarks (the LCDProc thing is under Linux-Hardware, while the other LCD stuff is under something like Vendors-New-Hardware-Electronics-LCDs).

Arggh! I hate these bookmarks! I have in mind to create a web server for hosting my bookmark collection, so I can add-change-delete bookmarks at will, anywhere on the net, and give permissions and access to others, etc (I have a ton of ideas for this here). I have around 500k (!) of bookmarks, and I want to search them, shown by rating into categories, so as to allow links to be cross-category indexed and such.

BTW, on the LCDProc thing - has anyone written a driver/interface to display data from the LRP (or an LRP distro)? I am going to soon be building such a box, and having that kind of a panel on the front would really make the box perfect.

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I haven't read the book mentioned in the article, but I have read (and played with the programs contained in it) a much earlier book, published in 1981 by TAB Books, called "Robot Intelligence (with experiments)" by David L. Heiserman (TAB Books, 1981, ISBN 0-8306-9685-7).

In this book, the author explores ideas and meanings behind a type of life he calls "Evolutionay Adaptive Machine Intelligence" or EAMI for short. He explores this through a number of BASIC code programs written in stages, from simple "Alpha-class" systems, to much more complex "Gamma-class" systems.

What makes this book all the more interesting is that in theory (and I believe this is explored somewhat in the book) you can apply all of this back to real-world machines: This book is simply the culmination of two earlier robotics project books by the same author: "Build Your Own Working Robot" (TAB Books, 1976, ISBN 0-8306-6841-1) and "How to Build Your Own Self-Programming Robot" (TAB Books, 1979, ISBN 0-8306-9760-8). This last book actually started to explore the concepts outlined in "Robot Intelligence", but stopped just short of it. The point is, this series of books showed the hobbiest of a couple of decades ago (thereabouts) how to build real ALife, long before it was very popular (not to mention cheap).

I encourage anyone with interest in this subject to pick these three books up. As far as I know, they are long out of print, so happy hunting.

In a side note - does anyone know what happened to Mr. Heiserman and his robots?

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But is there anything they wouldn't put on television, no matter how gruesome or sensational? John Herzfeld's 15 Minutes takes on Big Media and America's corruption by celebrity and money, and answers that question with a No.

Actually, there is, at least for now, though I tend to think it will happen soon enough, given America's appetite for "reality" TV:

Live Death Penalty

IIRC, in the late 80's this was debated to be done on some person who was up for the death penalty, to be executed in short time. I don't remember the manner of the execution, but I think it was to be lethal injection. At any rate, talks actually went real far into doing a pay-per-view thing, where the subscribers could watch the execution. They got the "condemmed" to sign paperwork and everything. However, all this caused such an uproar that it was cancelled, and the individual was executed in a more "normal" fashion.

I remember that a TV movie came out later, that was fiction, about a death row individual getting the electric chair live on TV (pay-per-view) in a stadium (with live seat tickets being expensive, but greatly in demand), and how a reporter uncovered evidence that he was innocent, but didn't manage to save the individual in time (because of viewers lust for "blood" - thus the execution, in fiction, of an innocent man).

I don't remember this too well. I appologize, hopefully someone can back me up.

I for one would not want to see such a thing, and wouldn't pay money to see it. I honestly wonder though at the sanity of a society that, so bent on satiating the apetite for violence with reality TV and such (movies, etc), are loath to see the final consequence of such actions - the mortal death of another human being.

Perhaps it is the lack of a reminder that we all can die, will die, and may die at the hands of another individual, that drives the lack of respect and responsibilty in American society?

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Isn't this akin to the same kind of thing that happened to all the DSS hackers/crackers not too long ago? I mean, they could see the bits of code that Hughes was sending out to thier cards - it wasn't until the final piece got inserted did they find out the "surprise".

Who says the same sort of thing hasn't happened with the kernel changes? Perhaps they are all, or nearly all in place, waiting for that last bit to open it up? Or maybe they will be delivered as patches, until the right moment. I'll admit that it should be very hard to do such a thing in an open source system, but that doesn't make it unlikely.

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IIRC, it was called Tabs, Pads, and Boards. Basically, the badges were the Tabs - that tracked you through the building. The Pads were essentially wireless network palm style devices (maybe Newton sized, IIRC). They could communicate between each other, so that if one person wrote on his Pad, others in the "meeting" could see his ideas, etc. The "Boards" were large electronic whiteboards, also networked to the Pads, to allow everyone to "collaborate" in the meeting, and carry the data back with them (how often have you wished you had what was on the whiteboard? Sucks to redraw it out).

This was MANY years ago - at least 10 years ago. I remember seeing it while I was in high school. Only now are the pieces really falling into place.

I just wonder why it takes so damn long for these type things to catch on (like multimedia - started in the mid-80's with the Amiga, didn't become popular until the mid-90's with the PC).

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I am just going through those links, and man - great stuff! Pardon me for being a little lazy this time, but:

http://www.bolandcom.com/
http://www.mars-cam.c om/frame/lcd/lcd.html
http://www.designtechengine ering.com/product.html
http://www.shabria.com/bat tery/cammonta.htm
http://www.densitron.com/displa y/
http://www.flat-panel.com/
http://www.eea.eps on.com/products/lcd/lcdpassive.h tm
http://www.kentdisplays.com/prod/products_hm.h tm
http://www.semiconductor.agilent.com/led/intdi spla ys.html

BTW - that last line should be "intdisplays.html" and NOT "intdispla ys.html"...

Look at all those displays! EXCELLENT!

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This place may have what you are looking for...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Found in the other article on /. on one-handed keyboards a link to a page on wearables. About 3/4 of the way down on this page is several links to LCD and display companies. They might have something...

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While they may not be the ideal thing you are looking for, maybe they can help: LCD modules. A number of places sell them:

Matrix Orbital and CrystalFontz both sell serial capable LCD modules in a variety of formats. I didn't see any true graphic modules, but they may be able to get them. Most all have the capability to be backlit (and the backlights are BRIGHT) - note to those making custom PCs: They both sell drive bay insert kits for the LCDs, too...

Scott Edward's Electronics sells small serial graphic LCD displays, and also sells text only VFD displays (VFDs are vacuum flourescent displays - extremely bright). He sells one bay enclosure for one of the VFDs. His largest serial LCD graphic display is 128x64 pixels, backlit, and measures 88 x 38.8 mm.

Finally, Micro Electronics (MEC) sells a variety of LCDs - ma ny are HD44780-based, or compatible, so they are easy to wire up. However, they seem to have a line of graphics modules as well - I don't know if they are bare or have controllers, but the largest (SG320240B) has a resolution of 320x240 (viewable area of 120 x 90 mm). Unfortunately their pages seem to be having problems or something - call them up though, and talk to them. They have a very friendly and helpful staff.

Another option you might try looking into would be small TVs, driving them with a VGA->TV converter. A good converter will give nice results (I have an Averkey iMicro that is excellent and cheap - $100), even on a cheesy small TV. For simple status displays, it might work out well.

Hope this helps somewhat...

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Get rid of the PCs on the floor.

Go with dumb terminals (serial) - the dumber the better. My favorite? The VT100 - green on black monochrome, oh so nice on the eyes, readable in nearly any situation (even a smoke filled room!).

I have seen these things in conditions that would make you blanch. Most of the time, the keyboards are bare, and are covered with such grime you wonder how these guys who can't touch type can hunt-n-peck, because you can't see the letters on the keys anymore (perhaps they really do touch type now, they just don't know it?). The really paranoid places put a keyboard condom on the keyboards, a guess to make 'em last another 15 years or so.

If you can do this in your situation, it would probably be best. The terminals are relatively cheap, and they last forever.

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Not that it would be cheap, but have you thought of using several DLT drives in a RAID configuration of some sort?

I know I have heard of mirroring and parity systems using multiple parallel running tape drives - I am not sure how reliable they are/were - but it should be possible (if expensive).

Tape is actually very robust, and lasts a long time. There is a reason it is used so much in the industry.

I guess another possibility would be to find a card punch and a large cache of cards and... oh nevermind...

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That's pretty wide - didn't think it would be that wide. I still think that if it isn't too "thick", it could still be done with a thin enough monofilament. Heck, even if it was 50 feet thick, there would still be enough clearance between the end of the filament and the water as it swings around. Also remember that as it wraps around the bridge, the "attachment" point changes, in effect speeding up the swing.

Heh - all of this is sounding to complicated to be practical, though - there is probably a simpler solution.

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No - you don't shoot a weight, and have the string on a reel - instead you shoot a ball of string (I would use a lightweight monofilament, maybe mylar monofilament - with the weight in the middle), with one end tied to the bridge. I would think, properly wound (beforehand, in a shop somewhere) in a ball, that you could get it down to the size of a baseball, probably less.

The hope is to shoot the string and weight out until it is taut, then let gravity (coupled with centrifugal force to keep the string taut) swing it down and around.

I really don't know how wide the bridge is, nor how high above the water it is - but I doubt it is very wide - doesn't it only have 2 or 3 lanes of traffic in each direction? - so maybe only 50 or 60 feet wide or so? Make it about 20 feet thick, and you are looking at perhaps 100-130 feet of monofilament, tops.

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I bet I have an idea as to "how" - use an air cannon to shoot a weighted ball of string at a near vertical (say, 15-30 degrees) angle from one side of the bridge. The length of this ball of string should be about triple (maybe more, given the thickness of the bridge - but not so long as to be longer than the bridge is high, above the waterline) the width of the bridge. The air cannon would shoot this wad of string out, and it would unravel in an arc. When the weight reached the end of travel, hopefully most of its forward momentum would be converted into an angular momentum, and the weight would start to fall, eventually swinging up and wrapping "around" the bridge, to be "caught" by individuals on the other side.

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...of a store once (I think it was a HomeBase) because they used this and wouldn't let me sign a regular receipt. The cashier called the manager over and proceeded to insinuate that I was some nut who wouldn't sign the pad. I explained to the manager my reasoning (in a loud enough voice so that others in line could hear) that, once they have a digitized signature, how could I prove that someone has forged my name should they happen to gain access to that file? How easy it would be for an individual to cut and paste the image into a Word document, and "sign" my name to whatever they wish. How, in a day and age where mass numbers of credit card numbers are routinely stolen online and off, that I could trust that such a digitized image would be safe? Many of the customers in line got a clue, became slightly aghast (when they relized how many places they had signed on a pad), but did nod to my statements. I am certain those individuals will never sign a pad, either.

Despite my protests, the manager still insisted that I sign the "pad". I told him no, got my card back, and said I could buy my merchandise at more enlightened vendors, like Home Depot.

Is it any wonder that HomeBase is going under now (ok, maybe it has nothing to do with the pads, but it would be a nice thought)?

I never once used these pads when they first appeared at Best Buy. Then Sears got them, then HomeBase - even the post office has them (though they don't use them - yet). I tend to wonder how long it will be before they start to take a picture of your face at time of checkout (and in theory, they already do with the numerous security cameras in most places).

Kinda makes you want to wear a ski-mask and gloves whereever you shop and pay with cash (of course, once routine DNA collecting occurs, it won't matter).

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I agree with you on this one - I understand being religious and such, but destroying such works (two 100+ foot Buddas, from the 4th or 5th century) is a shame to archeology and anthropology studies. It's frustrating to see this occur (mainly because they are another country, and can, and should, be able to do what they please, within limits).

I rank it right up there with the flooding of old temples in China due to the Yangtzee (sp?) river damn project - that is such a beautiful valley, and wonderful old temples - all to be put under a lake for power (if it hasn't happened already)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Is a book detailing the history of "hobbiest" computing before 1970. In other words, there had to be hobbiests building thier own computers out of junked telephone relays, vacuum (sp?) tubes, homemade punched cards - maybe even a few fortunate ones managed to salvage some transistors, or even a thrown out teletype (or maybe hooked up an electric typewriter, or something.

I tend to pick up nearly any book related to computer history. My favorite books that I own are actually historical in nature, in that they were written as "up-to-date" cutting-edge "about computers"-type books - but are from the 1950's and 60's. I managed to find one book on the building the TV Typewriter (though this is from the 1970's). I also have a strange "homebrew" book (I hesitate to call it this - it is stapled along one edge, typewritten, 30 odd sheets of 8.5 x 11 inch paper - very homebrew) detailing building computers from scratch. I can't remember the publication date, but I believe it was around the early 70's.

Anyhow - I am sure that there were hackers building computers in their garages - not anything like we would call PC's - they weren't portable by any means - but more like homebrew minis or mainframes. Like we have hackers today homebrewing supercomputers from throw away old pentium boxes.

Does anyone have any ideas, info, or anecdotes about this? I would be especially interested in the latter. Any "old-timers" with strange friends? More importantly - do any of these old machines still exist (side note - it is like tracking down old homebrew robots - nearly impossible to find - I know of one still in existance - AROK - one that I have pics of, but nothing else, that I would love to find out if it still exists, was called CHARLIE - about 6 feet tall, white, boxlike humanoid construction)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

It seems clear that no one in the federal government from Congress to the regulatory agencies to the White House -- is in a strong position to oversee or regulate the Net or the increasingly disparate tech nation.

Correct - essentially a more natural language based form of spoken SQL, coupled with either a relational or OO-based DB.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

I doubt an 80-year old secretary will want to walk the "distance" a real DB would entail - especially in the VRE imagined in Disclosure. Even a normal healthy individual wouldn't do it (else we would see more people riding a bike 20 miles to work).

You can't say, "Well, just make the world move faster around them" - because if you have never been in a real VR system, you can't imagine the nausea this would cause, as your brain is saying "you took two steps", but your eyes are saying "you moved 50 feet!" - most people would puke at that point, esp an 80 year old secretary.

It would be much better for you to stay in one spot, and have the data come to you based on a structured query, in a similar manner to SQL, but based off of more normal language. Not typed in language either, but spoken word.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

SQL syntax is what I was thinking about, with a speech-to-text interface, and probably some kind of semantics and/or thesarus capabilty to resolve certain issues. It wouldn't be completely SQL syntax, but it would be close (ie, "Show me all employee records displaying name and address who have been employed since last November" would translate to "SELECT name, address FROM employees WHERE emp_since >= '11/01/2000'").

You are right about certain issues, but with the proper syntax defined for the language being spoken, to make it more compatible with SQL, it would probably work for most cases.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

I saw the movie a while back, and read the book not to long ago.

The thing I thought most stupid about both is how inefficient it would be to browse a database in this VR system! I mean, you have to actually walk over to a cabinet, open it, find the file, then open it and read it? Not the database you want? So now you walk down the corridor to a branch to find the portal to the next DB?

I am a strong advocate of VR - don't get me wrong. But database searching and retrieval doesn't seem to be an ideal app for virtual environments (one thing I found funny about the book - I can't remember it in the movie - was when they were looking at the 3D factory "spec" - what I couldn't understand is why the factory spec couldn't simply be "rendered" around them, instead of as a smaller model, allowing them to see many different details).

Virtual chatrooms - yes. Collaboration - yes. Surgery - yes. Training - yes. Architecture - yes. Trending/Statistics/Number modeling - yes.

All of these could benifit from a DB backend - but searching that DB shouldn't be a human process in the virtual world (ie, why couldn't they just ask the avatar - "angel" in the book - to find what they are looking for?)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Well, yeah...

Thanks for the links - someone mod this up!

I should set this up on an internal server on my home system - it rocks!

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Great link! Here's more:

http://www.alphalink.com.au/~derekw/upntcvr.htm
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/laser l ink.html
http://www.k3pgp.org/

Another site worth going to if you are interested in lasercomm stuff:

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm

Finally, one that appears to be dead (?) is Ronja. In my opinion, this is one of the best projects out there - if it is still going. IIRC, it uses both lasers and high-brightness LEDs for the system. From the opencollector.org DB:

Ronja 115 Loopipe

Category: design
Clock 4 November 2000; 19:02

Ronja connects two PC's point-to-point, using visible light. The design is very simple, building is easy and complete guide will be availiable on the Web.

Schematics are availalble in the moment. Suitable for anybody who wants to communicate entirely freely in a direct line of sight. Building is cheap and requires only common tools available in home workshop. Communicates 115200 bps full duplex over 260m, but new, stronger version Ronja 666 Lucifer is in development.

Update

The Loopipe construction with HSDL1001 frontend has been successfully verified by another person, Pavouk.Two bugfixes resulted. He also designed a PCB. Pavouk tested the electronic part (not the optics), with success. The XTAL oscillator has been redesigned and HSDL1001 frontend was built for the first time and proved to be functional.

http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/r0nj4

---

I remember the link working at one time though. I managed to get a copy of the info on the site. If anyone can confirm if the site is dead, alive, or moved, please let me know...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

But I also like HTML help as well. I have looked at info help, but didn't like it as much.

The thing I like about HTML is the ability, which is lacking in man pages, of hyperlinks - when a command or program you are getting help on refers to another command or program, man pages highlight what command/program it is, but there is no simple way to just "go" to that other man page - you have to start another term window and "man" it.

How hard would it be to write a script to replace "man", in say, perl, and this script would perform the function of converting man pages into browsable HTML pages (using Lynx?) or automatically use Lynx if the page is already in HTML, or if the page is info based, convert that? Something like this should be possible.

I can't think of too many systems where you couldn't have a simple browser like Lynx to view help with. HTML makes perfect sense of help files, IMO.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Heh, heh - forgot about that meaning. Scary...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Ah, I forgot about them - and you are correct, they do reprint it. Still, nothing beats holding a hardbound edition from the original publishers (ok, I am a small-time bibliophile, so sue me)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

I have a powerstrip that I love - though it has since been replaced (mostly) with two Tripp-Lite UPSs - anyhow...

I don't have the model number handy, but it was branded by Memorex - 8 outlets, all wall-wart capable (meaning if all you have is wall-warts, 8 will fit!). Surge protection, phone line protection, etc. All outlets are color coded, too (and matching tape strips are included to stick to the other end of the cords, so you know if you want to pull the power on the right cord). But the best feature I believe is...

Cord Corrals (ok, I made that up - but that is what they do!) - at the "bottom" of each outlet is a "C" shaped "runner", with a little space between each outlet. Plug the cord (or wall wart) in, and slip the cord between the slot and down the channel - all cords exit at one end, no more rats nest at the strip!

After checking Memorex's site (it seems it was called the "PowerCenter/Pro" or something), it has unfortunately been discontinued. Seems like this is the way with good products! Monster (www.monstercable.com) has a similar device, but it still isn't quite the same (doesn't have the cable corral system, it appears - and all plugs aren't spaced for wall-warts).

I have to say the only thing I dislike about the strip is its size - larger than most power strips (heh, if they did the APS thing and added a UPS to it, it would be perfect)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Insofar as "old" tech books go - but I can go one better:

There is a book, quite difficult to find now (in any condition - it is quite out-of-print), called "The Boy Electrician" by Alfred P. Morgan. This book was first published in 1913 (by Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co.), and later again 1929, 1940, and 1948 (by the same publishers). A second printing was done in 1948, and third and forth in 1951, and 1952, respectively (my copy is the 1952 edition).

A wonderful book, filled with all sorts of how-to and gadgets for the beginning 1900's geek. Delightfully illustrated by the author (from what I understand, the picture of the boys in the book were based off of the author's sons), most all of the projects were aimed at boys around the ages of 8-13, as far as I can assertain (although I may be completely wrong here - today I fear kids would be dumbstruck by the sheer amount of patience and volume of reading this book requires to build devices - I sometimes wonder if kids in those days were smarter). These projects ranged from magnets and static electricity, building batteries (using real lead and sulpheric acid!), building motors and generators, alarms, radios, telephones - and yes, an X-Ray machine.

It seems that back in the day, one could easily purchase an X-Ray "tube" - a vaccumn tube designed to emit X-Rays - fairly cheaply (Morgan quotes 4 and a half dollars - which would equate to a bit of money today, but still fairly inexpensive). He then shows how to hook it up to a high voltage supply (which is built in earlier chapters using an ignition coil from a Model-T), then use a special "flourosope" to allow you to view the bones in you hand when you switch it on! It is funny in the naivete of the device, and how much damage could be done - but at the same time, such simplicity and curiosity is gone from our world, simply because of fear of danger.

Alfred P. Morgan also wrote other books aimed at young experimenters - I know one was a more advanced book on radio and TV, and another may have been on chemistry (I have the titles of the books put away somewhere) - all of the books are difficult to find, sadly.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

What I see happening is that they will simply market 2 of everything, a consumer line and a "pro" line, with the pro line only available to actual businesses (maybe you have to show some actual proof - might be hard if you are an independent consultant).

To top it off, the pro line will be slightly more expensive (say, $200 for a consumer drive, while the pro drive is $250) - not enough to piss a normal business off, but enough to make consumers shy away from it via sticker shock, if they see what is going on, and can figure out a way around providing proof.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

This distro of QNX is only free insomuch as you have a need for a Pentium-only compilation - which effectively rules out its use on anything less, such as, oh, say - embedded applications. In other words, this would make for a good development/testing system, on higher-end processors, but for anything else (say a non-commercial embedded app, like an MP3 player or something), from what I understand this distro is worthless.

If I am wrong, please - somebody - let me know about it. I would rather be told I was wrong, and shown the proof, as it would mean a lot to a project I am involved in (check www.phoenixgarage.net for more info) that uses an AMD 5x86/133 cpu (basically an overblown 486)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Despite past screwups by NASA (which I accept as a hazzard of space exploration), this makes me proud to call myself a geek. While I have nothing in common with the individuals involved in this project, and have never participated or been involved with anything on this scale - I know that we share at least a few things, notably curiosity, the drive to hack something that wasn't suppose to work that way, and pushing the limits of the hardware (and if landing an "unlandable" probe isn't pushing limits - nothing is).

Damn proud... Kudos to those involved!

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

The announcement went out that no one should use email, I walked around a little bit later looking for my manager (he had asked me to look at the code to the script, find out what it does - not much anymore, other than waste resources, it turns out) - the office was near empty: Everyone went to lunch!

If that isn't lost money, I don't what is!

We use Windows (unfortunately) for a lot of our stuff, and most everybody uses Outlook - I use Netscape, and I consequently DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM (Netscape doesn't know what to do with the attachments). Also, I uninstalled Windows Scripting, so that nips it as well.

I have tried repeatedly to get the IS dept or anyone who would listen to switch to something else, filter VBS scripts at the server - something: All to no avail, so far...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!