Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Space, Smallness, Pigeons
5k is more than you think. Drywall writes: "So after much deliberation (and announcement deadline pushed back a few days), the winners of the 2001 5k contest have been announced. It's interesting to note that the judges' assessments were in some cases very different from those of the contest viewers. Check it out."
They took care of the pigeon technicalities, we took care of the computer technicalities. Loco3KGT writes: "My article on the recent RFC1149 test is up on linux.com. It's an interview with Vegard Engen of the Bergen Linux Users Group, your typical followup type thing. Might be worth the read to a few."
Sheerest understatement. Good details here for anyone wishing to provide a nice high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-poop connection between not-so-distant places.
Still fits in your hand. There were some questions raised about the Simputer handheld device mentioned on Slashdot a few weeks ago, now metlin writes: "The Simputer FAQ has been updated, and this time around a few questions that the Slashdot commnunity maybe interested have been added. Some of these include GPLing the design, USB capabilities, IML and some more stuff regarding Linux & the Simputer. Check it out!"
Dave, what sort of meeting is this? Dave? An Anonymous Coward references this review of the Making of 2001, (and perhaps ought also mention Cliff Lampe's review of Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory as well), then writes: "On May 26th ... http://www.isdc2001.org/. 'nuf said." Well, perhaps not quite 'nuf. This is the International Space Development Conference's 2001 meeting, and it's coming up soon -- May 24-28th. The submitter was apparently interested in the 2001: A Space Oddysey Banquet (#5 on this page), which sounds like an interesting dinner, which will be featuring no ham sandwiches (for authenticity).
Let us now praise famous men. Randy Rathbun writes "I just got a email from Peter de Jager, who, as you may or may not recall, is the guy who got all the bad Y2K press because he did his job getting the world to recognize there was a problem. Well, he is finally getting some well-deserved recognition from the Canadian Information Processing Society."
According to an email Rathbun quotes, de Jager says: "Although I've been thanked privately by thousands of people in IT, this is my first formal & public thanks for my work in Y2K and I'm as 'pleased as punch' to use an old Irish expression."
Hear, hear -- (many of) the Y2K enthusiasts deserve congratulations for speaking their mind and contributing greatly to the smooth transition that actually took place. (Anyone besides me have lots of water on hand that New Year's Eve?)
Gee, look how many colors are on this map! After I erroneously described giant game-fest The Gathering as a Dutch event, Rune Kristian Viken of the Gathering's crew pointed out that I wasn't even all that close. An apology to both countries, hope no one buys tickets to the wrong airport ;)
Viken wrote:
"The Gathering is a _NORWEGIAN_ Computer Party not a Dutch one. Its at Hamar / Norway - and nowhere in the Netherlands.Sigh. Earlier in this century people thought that a red-white'n blue flag indicated a ship from the netherlands out of the colors. Now people think that The Gathering is a Dutch party.
*Sigh*. No respect for the Scandinavian DemoScene from you younglings! ;)
"
...in any Y2K projects! ;)
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
It was a joke; the whole thing is about 5k, so it was a joke to add that extra .5 MB.
No, wait, Geocities gives you 7 MB of space, or is it 7.5 MB???
:-)
15 megs.
BTW, that took me 15 seconds to find out. Research, man, research!
Jeez, who modded this up? This could very well be the most over-told joke ever.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
heh. i used to print out porn on my old dot-matrix black and white printer... it was surprisingly high quality :)
By using integer notation you actually exclude the "begins with" part of the statements.
I'm just wondering how many slashdotters already bought their airplane tickets... Oh well, I hear the Netherlands isn't a bad place to relax (and the coffee shops are killer!).
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
is just another proof that porn is driveing the internet.
-------------
How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb?
"Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem."
It's funny because of the term overhead. Pigeon overhead. Laugh - it's funny.
That site was great! Certainly worth $100 a month. Did you see the lesbian animation? Wow that was hot :) Only problem was the site was slashdoted so badly it took as long to load the 5k site as it would to load a modern porn site.
xToto
Timmy! TIMMAH! You couldn't have fucked up the description of The Gathering more badly if you tried.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
Y2K was never something to be really concerned about.
All these chicken littles did was make money off other people's ignorance, including your own. In my opinion, they should be taken out and fed to the senate.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
how well does this work in Iowa?
This link works better. Gotta remember that shift button.
----- One piece short of Legoland
Oh hallelujah, it's another of the (admittedly few and far between in these wiser times) opportunities for Y2K wackos to congratulate themselves on their remarkable foresight in replacing their backyards with giant holes full of baked beans.
Y2K was the most egregious scam in my lifetime, and I'll probably still be able to say that the day I die.
The alarmists running around like freshly-beheaded chickens most certainly did not help the situation. They diverted resources from the few isolated situations where programmers actually were required, and caused programming services to be bid up to the point where the handful of legitimately at-risk institutions had a hard time managing the costs.
Nobody was more obstructive to effective resolution of the Y2K issue than the chirping hordes of Gary North acolytes, trousers soggy with thrill at the prospect of finally facing a catastrophe of such banality that even people of their chilling stupidity could get their heads around it. Nobody, that is, except for the opportunists, with their Y2K readiness shamware, their PowerPoint-and-doomsday consulting services, and their little green Y2-OK stickers. I can only quietly cheer at the fact that they're all now wholly and resoundingly discredited, hopefully for the remainder of their days.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
(i) It is good, readily available Free Software : it made it possible for 7 individuals to complete the project in quick time
(ii) It is good, readily available free software : it has helped keep costs low
(iii) It is a good, readily available free OS : comes with a bunch of apps; developing new apps is does not need a whole new "development environment".
Read the FAQ...
Where did all the hippies go?
Get away from the Northern Hemisphere for new Years.. go to The Gathering.
Perhaps the 5k folks should have taken a dose of their own medicine. I went to the site only to find that every link was to an ASP, of which finally timed out with an MS ODBC SQL error.
Perhaps they should buy a $9.95 5 meg hosting account at one of many hosting companies and put the results there....
No, wait, Geocities gives you 7 MB of space, or is it 7.5 MB???
Seems to me that if I'm that dependent on the features of the browser itself, then it ought to be fair to write a 20 byte java program that does the equivalent of "system(minesweeper)" and claim to have written a 20 byte minesweeper.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I dunno. At least when you have to tell someone that you can't meet them for dinner 'cos the network took a shit on you, you'll be being literal.
Sorry, had to be said.
rark!
If there had ever been an actual potential for any kind of Y2K meltdown on the scale that the doomsayers predicted somebody, somewhere, would have had a problem.
Up until the last moment we heard about countries in Southeast Asia and clueless companies that started way too late to get fixed in time.
All those folks sailed right thru Y2K just as happily as we did. If one percent of the predictions were true something, somewhere, would have happend. The media was left grasping for Y2K straws.
Instead of fixing a blown out of problem that didn't realy exist, engineers and programmers in those countries and companies were doing real work, advancing their state of the art while the rest of the world stood still.
Y2K certification cost us almost a year of useful development work in my office. That was all testing and documentation - the only Y2K code changes we made were cosmetic.
We completed many a live test, each of which was more disruptive to production than Y2K itself. Each time the Y2K office then came up with new tests to run.
We submitted source code to third party monkies for review. The Y2K office's expert reviewers couldn't understand that a quantity defined by the ANSI C standard as "years since 1900" is quite properly converted to a four digit year by adding 1900 to it. I spent most of a day trying to explain that one. They even wanted to know which ANSI C standard we were using.
When Y2K day occured the world wide disruptions from Y2K precautions far exceeded the disruptions from Y2K related failures. Countless systems critical to their owners experienced downtime, not because of any Y2K bug, but because management bought the Y2K hype.
Y2K hype cost more in real disruption on Jan 1, 2000 than the Y2K bug ever could have.
The Y2K profits deserve to be pilloried, not aplauded. Hounded out of town, not honored. Disgraced, not dignified.
Peter what's his name can rot. And I'll not waste brain cells remembering his name. Y2K came off smoothly not because of brilliant remediation, but because there was no big problem to begin with.
Is four colors really so many?
I doubt, therefore I may be.
I work in a hospital. I spent more than 18 months up to y2k in making sure that when the date rolled over, things would carry on working. They did!
If I and thousands (millions?) like me had not spent our time like this, there would have been dead people, hungry people, riots, darkness, no water, unreated sewage in the rivers, no working railways and a load more things that would have made good reading in the moron papers.
The news media was very annoyed with us because we prevented all these and more. Sucesses do not make good stories. When was the last time the space shuttle got banner headlines on all the papers? When it went wrong.
Time was not wasted. It was not a scam or false alarm or anything else the ignorant want to call it.
The hospital I work in would have had no water, electricity for a limited time, no way of getting rid of a LOT of very nasty stuff that hospitals generate, no telephones heating or all sorts of nice stuff.
Don't get me started! Anyone who thinks that the Y2K success we had was a non-event needs to get their head out from where the sun doesn't shine!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
pussy being thrown at you from every direction
... well, more cats out there!" "Blame it on that Japanese weather forecaster predicting a hairstorm."
:-)
"It's raining cats and
Sorry.
Grab.
*grin* ;)
Well, judging from my ping response times from my cable modem (I'm in Iowa, too), I'd guess that its already being used up here
- Karen
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
<Disclaimer>
I don't know Michael at all, but I think that you may be wasting your time trying to flame him every day or so for an event that happened quite awhile ago, and one that you will never have enough information to honestly say who was wrong and who was right.
So, a few friends/peers had a clash of egos or power; surely, everyone makes mistakes, and mostly everyone gains maturity from understanding their experiences.
As I see it (my opinion), Michael does at least an average job as a Slashdot editor, especially when you consider he rarely ever has grammatical errors in his posts.
Let bygones be bygones, and get on with your life, my friend.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
To relive some oldschool low-res porn, checkout "The Girls of '64," as in Commodore 64.
http://girls.c64.org is the link.
zsazsa
What's wrong with TCPoAC?
All your packets will start at Score: 0 and half of them will end up being links to goatse.cx.
Thanks, but no thanks.
NO CARRIER
14 years ago, I designed the hardware and software for some LED display signs. I used a Dallas Semiconductor chip for time/date which rolled over from year 99 to 00.
Now I probably incorporated protection against problems, but after 14 years who can remember exactly. (And I doubt I ever actually tested that code.)
I think I still have a copy of the code on 5 1/4" floppy somewhere. Does the company I worked at have a copy? Who can say?
Now I admit that LED signs aren't exactly "critical" applications -- Or are they? Shortly after I left, the company built the traffic control display signs for the 401 highway here in Toronto. If no one checked and tested before hand, the code to handle roll over would have been live-tested on the highway at 00:00 01/01/00.
Sometimes probably okay isn't good enough.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005'
Unknown token received from SQL Server
The company I work for, way back in 1850, used carrier pigeon to transmit news and stock info from Germany to Belgium because it took the pigeons two hours less, or half the time, than man-made transport to make the trip.
I'm surprised someone in our company didnt set one of these up.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
The method of paper-borne packet transmission should be updated to take advantage of today's advances in airborne transmission media. Specifically, liquid or solid propellant rockets. Given the possibility of packet loss due to negative in-flight uncontrolled combustion events, this would best be paired with UDP.
The MTU of the media is also selectively adaptable by adjusting the size of the rocket device. As a specific example, ping packets with the size parameter used to max out the packet data payload would of course need larger rockets. This is perhaps appropriate given the designation of "ping of death" sometimes applied to large ping packets.
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I had a much better, lower altitude protocol design, now I'm tempted to write up an RFC for it. Its a moderate bandwidth, high response time, high moisture method of transmission.
;) ). Also, dolphins teach their young; in all likelyhood, they'd teach them this. You'd get a family or two of dolphins who could tow exobytes of data back and forth on short trips. For longer trips, you'd need a router (which rewards with fish accordingly).
Basicly, you have streamlined, floating, waterproof containers, strapped with up to perhaps 100 lbs of rewritable storage media of any kind. A tow cable is attached to each container. Each container can fit into a special docking bay which verifies, by looking at a single element of the storage media, if this is the proper destination for the packets. If not, it kicks it out of the bay. If so, it processes the storage media (using a robot arm, of course, to put them into the reader, one at a time), and routes accordingly; as it does this, it dispenses about a dozen large fish into the water. When packets are to be sent, it places a sound specific to the location for which they are to be sent after filling a container. it then kicks that container out to be towed.
Then, you train a family of dolphins to tow these things back and forth to the particular destination associated for a particular sound, for the reward of fish. Dolphins being intellegent, will keep going back and forth for fish (wait... is this intellegence?
- Karen
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
I dunno if anyone else is having the same problem with the5k.org stuff, but I get an ASP issue....so...here is another link..it may or may not work. :) link If that doesn't work, just go to the5k.org and click on the 2001 winners circle. Trust me, it loads fast. :)
The anti-salmon
It was one of those situations where, if you do your job right, nothing goes wrong.
of course, if you are a BOFH, then you make sure things are always going wrong, so you can be a hero when convenient, or when you want to be entertained.
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Wow, reminds me of old Apple ][ low-res graphics
Great imagination on the site, though!!
The SGPL's wording is often similar to that of the GNU GPL. The names are also very similar. It seems to me the Simputer people are trying to cash in on the GNU GPL's success. I believe Richard Stallman should be notified of this.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Pigeon overhead is nasty. Too many "packets" are dropped
When does the Millennium Begin?
..., and you begin the first millennium with the year 0 CE
...) was originally designed by
..., 100, ..., 500, ... Then we can say that the period from 1 A.D.
..., 10). Similarly from 1 A.D. through 100
..., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 ... This is called the "astronomical"
...).
..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2,
The answer is if you use the Gregorian Calendar and start the first
millennium with the year 1 AD then the third millennium begins with the year
2001 AD. But if you use the Common Era Calendar, in which years are numbered
-2, -1, 0, 1, 2,
then the third millennium begins with the year 2000 CE. You have a choice. And
if you opt for the Common Era Calendar you no longer have to put up with the
smug assertion that "there was no year zero (so the new millennium begins in
2001)". There was no year zero when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian
Calendar in the 16th Century but there certainly is one now, and the new
millennium in the Common Era Calendar begins in 2000 CE.
The number zero was introduced into westerm circles, along with the
Arabic numerals we use to day, in the 13th century, but the church refused to
allow them to be used, simply on the grounds that they were invented by Muslims.
However, zero and the numbering system we use today did eventually make it into
acceptance by the 16th century, and greatly simplified mathematics in Europe.
We can't really blame the church for 2000/2001 issue, because the current year
numbering system that we used (2 BC, 1 BC, 1 AD,
a monk in either the 7th or 8th century, before we even heard of the Arabic
numbering system or zero.
Roman numerals do not have a figure designating zero, and treating zero
as a number on an equal footing with other numbers was not common in the 6th
century when our present year reckoning was established by Dionysius Exiguus.
Dionysius let the year AD 1 start one week after what he believed to be Jesus'
birthday. Therefore, AD 1 follows immediately after 1 BC with no intervening
year zero. So a person who was born in 10 BC and died in AD 10, would have died
at the age of 19, not 20. Furthermore, Dionysius' calculations were wrong. The
Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus was born under the reign of King Herod the
Great, and he died in 4 BC. It is likely that Jesus was actually born around 7
BC. The date of his birth is unknown; it may or may not be 25 December.
Since the "Anno Domini" system did not come into effect until the 6th
Century A.D. it is artificial to speak of the years 1 A.D., 100 A.D., etc.,
because people living at that time knew nothing of this system of numbering
years (since it had not then been invented yet). Furthermore the Romans in the
reign of Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.) were somewhat lax in the proper
observance of leap years. But we can project backwards (and forwards) from 525
A.D. by representing the succession of years by the series of natural numbers:
1, 2, 3,
through 10 A.D. (including both years) was a period of ten years (since there
are ten numbers in the series 1, 2,
A.D. is a period of 100 years, and from 1 A.D. to 1000 A.D. is a period of 1000
years.
The word "millennium" means "a period of 1000 years" so we can conclude
that the period from 1 A.D. through 1000 A.D. (including both years) constituted
one millennium, and in fact, the first millennium of the Christian era. So the
second millennium of the Christian era begins with the year 1001 A.D., or more
exactly, on 1st January 1001 A.D. And the third millennium of the Christian era
begins on 1st January 2001 A.D. So for Christians - or at least, for all who
adhere to the Christian system of numbering years - the answer is clear: The new
millennium begins on 1st January 2001 A.D. However, this is not the end of the
matter, because the "Anno Domini" system of year numbering has a major flaw,
namely, it may be OK for years since 1 A.D., but what happens when we consider
earlier years? As is well known, such years are numbered in reverse order, and
designated as years "Before Christ". Thus the year immediately before 1 A.D. is
designated 1 B.C., and the series extends backwards: 2 B.C., 3 B.C., etc.
With the rise of modern scholarship, particularly astronomy, archaeology
and chronological studies, this system was felt to be inadequate for scientific
purposes. For one thing it does not lend itself to calculation using dates. For
example (a very simple one), how many years elapsed between 1st January 6 B.C.
and 1st January 6 A.D.? Twelve years? No. The answer is not obvious (and still
less obvious if we consider longer periods such as that from 535 B.C. to 481
A.D.). So astronomers and chronologists decided to number years by representing
the succession of years by the doubly-infinite series of positive and negative
numbers:
system of numbering years. In this system years from 1 onwards have the same
numbers as years A.D. (year 1 = 1 A.D., and so on), but years B.C. are related
as follows: The year 0 in the astronomical system is the year 1 B.C., and the
year -n in the astronomical system is the year n+1 B.C. (for n = 1, 2, 3,
Conversely, the year n B.C. is the year -(n-1) in the astronomical system. Thus
year -1 = 2 B.C., year -2 = 3 B.C., and so on.
A millennium is, by definition, a period of 1000 years. But it is no
part of the definition that a millennium must begin or end with a particular
year number. If we adopt the astronomical year numbering system then we can
begin the "first" millennium with year 0 just as well as with year 1. Strictly
speaking, there is no first millennium in the astronomical system, since it
simply numbers years by mapping them onto the sequence
..., and we are free to begin millennia where we think fit. It is thus clear
that the answer to the question as to when the new millennium begins depends on
which system of year-numbering one chooses to use. Christians may prefer to stay
with the system of years "Anno Domini", in which case they must answer that the
new millennium begins on 1st January 2001 A.D. Scientists and others who prefer
a more rational and useful system of numbering years may prefer to adopt
explicitly the astronomical system. In this case they are free to begin
millennia from the years 1, 1001, 2001, and so on (in which case the third
millennium begins on 1st January 2001), or from the years 0, 1000, 2000, and so
on (in which case the third millennium begins on 1st January 2000). Thus anyone
who wishes, for whatever reason, to celebrate the start of the new millennium on
1st January 2000 has entirely good and rational grounds for doing so, namely,
(i) the adoption of the astronomical system for numbering years, combined with
(ii) the convention of beginning millennia with years whose numbers end in "000"
(and beginning centuries with years whose numbers end in "00"). Note that this
article does not show that those who hold (as those who adhere to the Christian
calendar must hold) that the new millennium begins on 1st January 2001 are
mistaken. Such people have reasons to justify their preference. But this does
show that anyone who prefers to think of the year 2000 as the first year of the
new millennium has perfectly sound reasons for doing so.
Somebody explain to me why a handheld computer needs a multiuser operating system...or system-level security at all for that matter (I'd go so far as memory protection, etc.).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Let us now praise famous men. Randy Rathbun writes "I just got a email from Peter de Jager
/. told me") or Tom Jones famous? I mean, seriously, i think real fame is achieved when you can't walk down the street without pussy being thrown at you from every direction. Only then can one truly be Cmdr. Taco famous.
Now are we talking secluded linux geek famous (i.e. "i remember hearing this guy's name three years ago, but just now was reminded who he was because the guys at
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
This message is quite clear. Let's go over it:
/shared/functions.asp, line 666
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005'
An error occurred inside of a function. 80004005 is your user ID.
Unknown token received from SQL Server
You have obviously tried to board this train without a valid token, report to the station manager immediately.
Microsoft shares functions with the Devil. This is definitive proof that Bill Gates is *not* the devil. He only fills in on occasion.
Better see that station manager if you have any chance to survive, make your time.
Dancin Santa