15 bucks is NOT reasonable, and was the price point initially agreed upon to finance the cost to convert to the new format (i.e. from vinyl). CDs were supposed to cost about eight bucks in stores.
CD's came out in 1983, according to this page on the history of the CD. If you adjust for inflation, a CD that cost US$8.00
in 1983 ended up costing US$14.09 in 2001. Taking inflation alone into account (and ignoring improvements in technology, etc.), 15 bucks actually ends up being somewhat reasonable. Of course, we all know there's a lot more involved, but I just thought I should point out the effect of inflation alone.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Salon.com's "Star Wars" vs. "Star Trek" argument
on
The Case for the Empire
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Back in 1999, when the internet was supposedly profitable, Salon.com ran an article by David Brin arguing that George Lucas has an agenda pushing the benefits of a totalitarian government as opposed to Star Trek's belief that the best system is one in which everyone can participate, even the "commoners".
From the article:
By now it's grown clear that George Lucas has an agenda, one that he takes very seriously. After four "Star Wars" films, alarm bells should have gone off, even among those who don't look for morals in movies. When the chief feature distinguishing "good" from "evil" is how pretty the characters are, it's a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.
Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames?
Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.
All in all, an interesting argument that reminds me of the article mentioned in this story.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
As near as I can tell only 2 humans were shown being killed. One of them was Padme's decoy in the beginning, the other was Anakin's mother at the raider camp. Both of them died in the arms of a beloved friend or family member.
Everyone else I saw in the movie being killed was either an ugly alien, a droid, or someone who was covered head to toe in battle armor to hide their "human-ness." Did anybody else notice this?
What about Jengo Fett himself? I'd say getting decapitated is a pretty sure-fire way to check him off the list. Not to mention the numerous Jedi who showed up and probably died off-screen, some of whom may have been human.
And don't forget the clones - clones are people too, you know.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Oh, try taking a small dose of arsenic every day and watch your health detoriate over time.. Everything doesn't make you stronger. That's how they got Napoleon, anyway.
This is a common misconception that was only recently pointed out to me. One of the chemistry teachers at the high school where I teach told me about a video she has called "Napoleon's Wallpaper" that suggests that arsenic in the wallpaper in his house of exile on St. Helena was to blame for the levels of arsenic found in his hair after his death.
You could always grab the Atari 800 emulator for *nix and many other platforms. That way you get the exact experience instead of being at the mercy of a port.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
I was one of the people who would keep holding the food out of their reach. LET THEM STARVE! I was even known to take the last M.U.L.E. out of the pen during a Smithore crisis, and just let it run free.
That was one of the best parts about the tournament level - people (especially the computer) usually tried to produce Chrystite, and if you could get enough of the mountain ranges, you could choke them on M.U.L.E.s pretty easily. Personally, I always liked producing plenty of energy after buying all of it up from the store so that no one could produce anything.
I've been trying to teach some of the nastier tricks to my girlfriend, but usually when we play, she's the Flapper so she has a bit of an advantage.
I spent 10 minutes in class one day trying to explain it to my students, and a couple of them downloaded it and started playing it. I wish the Atari 800 emulators had multiplayer over TCP/IP, but then I probably wouldn't get any work done.
God I love that game.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
While I've often dreamed of an update to M.U.L.E. (or Archon), I question whether simply updating the graphics and adding new cutscenes can really enhance the excellent gameplay. M.U.L.E.'s gameplay was such that the random events every turn could throw off the balance of the game just enough to give any player the opportunity to take the lead within a couple turns (there were only 12 turns in the game, each representing a month). There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving. Besides that, it had arcade and strategic elements (try figuring out which plot of land you're going to grab at the beginning of each turn can be somewhat stressful) along with a certain 8-bit charm that probably won't translate very well to the modern PC.
I'll definitely grab the demo, but that's only if EA doesn't sue them out of existence first...
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
David Lawrence from Online Tonight was on The Screen Savers Friday talking about the math of web royalties because of the CARP recommendation. Besides having to pay approximately $21/hr for 1000 listeners getting 10 songs per hour, a webcaster would have to put up around 14 ads per song at the current online advertising rates just to break even.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Lewis Caroll's day of the week algorithm
on
Deep Algorithms?
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· Score: 2, Funny
My personal favorite (and one I use all the time) is Lewis Caroll's algorithm that allows you to find the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) for any given date (for example, August 15, 2001 would return a Wednesday). It's pretty useful with our school's attendance system, which is written in Perl and run on Apache.
Personally, I find it interesting that this algorithm was developed by the same guy who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A guy I teach with showed it to me a couple months ago, and I'm planning on using it in class soon to teach some programming concepts.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
He has now started work on Camileon, a program aimed at recovering the data on the Domesday discs.
"We have got a couple of rather scratchy pairs of discs and we are confident we will eventually be able to read all their images, maps and text," he said.
"Unfortunately, we don't know what we will do after that. We could store the data on desktop computers - but they are likely to become redundant in a few years.
"That means we have to find a way to emulate this data, in other words to turn into a form that can be used no matter what is the computer format of the future. That is the real goal of this project."
How about printing it on paper? Amazingly, it seems that the best way to 'emulate' the data over the past many centuries is to use a physical medium that requires no electricity, no magnetic readers, no lasers, no pools of mercury - only decent eyesight and some light. Hell, it's even portable!
If they complain that they can't fit it all on paper because there's too much data, then they should use very small print and include a magnifying glass like my grandmother's old unabridged dictionaries. It was still possible to read them without the magnifying glass if you got your eyes really close to the paper and squinted a little.
And if they complain that printing all the data on paper is too expensive, they should keep in mind how much money (2.5M) was wasted on the previous project. Better to spend more now and have it last a bit longer than 15 years.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
I've been a science teacher for the past 4 years, but luckily I've been able to start up some IT classes (focusing mainly on the entry-level CompTia certifications, but also some web design & cgi) thanks to good management (aka administration in education). I've also been fortunate enough to contribute to the growth of our high school's overall technology - we're "urban" but have around 600+ computers for ~2000 students grades 10-12.
The major reason I've been able to contribute (along with our tech. coordinator) is because our administration is willing to let us take some risks and try some new things that we're excited about just to see how they work out. Usually we don't suggest anything we don't think we can't accomplish, and usually they don't let us do anything that's too risky or too expensive, but they've given us lots of room to explore. There's a level of trust involved at their level to make sure we don't completely screw things up, but they know there's a strong level of committment at our level to make sure those things don't screw up and continue to work.
Because of this, I've found my best experiences with administration (managment) have been with those who trust their subordinates because their subordinates can deliver. As soon as you have a breakdown on either side - where a manager doesn't trust you and won't listen to your suggestions because they've been burned before, or a subordinate gets more responsibility or trust than they can handle or deserver - the seed of doubt is planted and, in most cases, neither side will fully recover. Managers will always be more cautious, and oftentimes overly so, and employees will be less likely to contribute to something since they're just expecting to be disappointed anyway. It's a vicious cycle that requires true vision and leadership to break out of, and that's rare in any job.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. --Ghandi
Maybe he shouldn't have modified the WAP Linksys, but there seems to be some gray area in whether this is illegal or not. The 2.4GHZ band is defined as "amateur" by this frequency spectrum chart, so there might be some wiggle room there.
That doesn't necessarily make it legal, though - take a look at some of the recent action by the FCC against people and organizations violating the Communications Act of 1934/1996. The interesting thing is that against individuals, a good deal of the action seemed to focus on pirate radio.
Of those statutes that may govern interception of radio communications, the FCC only has the authority to interpret Section 705 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. Section 605, "Unauthorized Publication of Communications." Section 705 of the Communications Act generally does not prohibit the mere interception of radio communications, although mere interception of radio communications may violate other Federal or State statutes. In other words, if you happen to over hear your neighbor's cordless telephone, you do not violate the Communications Act. Similarly, if you listen to radio transmissions on your scanner, such as emergency service reports, you are not in violation of Section 705. However, a violation of Section 705 would occur if you divulge or publish what you hear or use it for your own or someone else's benefit. An example of using an intercepted call for a beneficial use in violation of Section 705 would be someone listening to accident reports on a police channel and then sending his or her tow truck to the reported accident scene in order to obtain business.(1)
The Communications Act does allow for the divulgence of certain types of radio transmissions, however. The statute specifies that there are no restrictions on the divulgence or use of radio communications that have been transmitted for the use of the general public (i.e. transmissions of a local radio or television broadcast station); or relate to ships, aircraft, vehicles or persons in distress; or are transmitted by amateur radio or citizens band radio operators.
Of course, if you have a lot of free time to kill, you can read the whole Communications Act of 1934, but I don't think there's going to be much on wireless networking in there. I think for now, since Cringely is already a subscriber to the ISP that he's banking off of, he should be fine, especially since the FCC is allowing people to set up Low Power FM stations in their homes. There doesn't really seem to be any precedence to this from the FCC's point of view.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. --Ghandi
I believe the LinkSys cable/DSL routers have offered the capability to change the hardware MAC address on the WAN port through their configuration software. I once heard this was done as a workaround for cable companies that stopped service to costumers using the routhers because they didn't want their users hooking up multiple computers to their cable modems without paying the extra $10 per computer per month. Changing the MAC address would potentially allow you to hop back on their network shortly after shutting you down - you could probably even write a script to access the Linksys's configuration page do it for you.
I'd say at this point that the only way the ISP could really do anything about it would be to require different authentication levels on their network depending on each user's connection (which could be a pain to do) or contact the owners of the mountain to have the repeater removed from the tree. If I were Cringely, I wouldn't have mentioned the specifics of the location, because it wouldn't be very difficult to find, nor to figure out where he lives.
On a slightly unrelated note, considering the potential effects of excessive EM radiation on the body, how safe is this? I know that in this case, all Cringely is doing is repeating a signal, but I'm not so sure that this idea of beaming directional 802.11b radio streams at unaware people sitting in coffee bars is going to be good for people in the long run. I was a physics major in college, but I honestly don't know enough about 802.11 radio waves at 2.4GHz to make any sort of scientific judgement. Can anyone elaborate or speculate?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
Bulk mail, presorted stuff, stuff mailed and labeled by machines is actually cheaper for the Post Office to deliver, but the PO doesn't pass ALL of this cost savings on to the Bulk Mailers. You see, those folks sending out junk mail are actually SUBSIDISING YOU! That Valentine's Day card you're about to send to your grandmother costs you less than it should because of all those coupons and solicitations you receive.
If you eliminated junk mail from the US Mail, the Postal Service would cost _more_ per piece to maintain, the price of stamps would go _up_ and it wouldn't save a dime from the Federal Budget.
A few points:
I think many people (myself included) would be willing to pay a small fee if they were guaranteed that they wouldn't receive a single piece of junk mail.
Just because "advertising" slightly decreases the overall cost of something (junk mail, television, web sites) doesn't justify its existence for everyone. I would rather pay $10/month/channel for in-demand streaming video to a set-top box without commercials than pay $100/month for all the channels and have to put up with annoying advertisements.
Who cares if the price of stamps goes up? If you need to send a letter, use email or fax. If you need to send a package, use UPS or FedEx; they have better tracking systems anyway. If the postal service can't compete in some areas of communication and in light of new technology, then maybe they shouldn't.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
You buy another one for $12 US. If you're a pro, you buy a whole bunch when you first set up to cover the inevitable breakages.
Jesus, how often do you guys break records? I mean, I'm sure it can happen, but I've been DJing on and off for 9 years and I've never actually broken a record. Maybe a record coffin is in order.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Ghandi
From the license terms of the CD: You may not authorize, encourage or allow the Player or any Content to be reproduced, modified, displayed, distributed or otherwise used by any other party
This sounds to be like you are not allowed to let anyone other than yourself use the CD in any way. If you are playing the CD yourself, and someone else walks into the room and hears it, does that count?
I wonder if Slashdot can legally be held liable for people who post stuff like this, "encouraging" us to "reproduce" the "Content". Since when did music become "Content" with a capital C?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
Many people have already pointed out that MS Office for OS X can't be easily ported to UNIX because it's written using Carbon APIs, but I thought I'd point out that there are a couple ways to implement Xwindow on MacOSX.
First, there's the XonX project, where they've developed a way to run rootless XFree86. It's kind of a pain to get working, so you need:
XDarwin, which is a nice way to get XFree86 windows run next to MacOSX's Aqua windows. However, even this has its faults, so I highly recommend:
OroborOSX, which is an X11 window manager/environment. I've been running 0.75a3 and a4 for a little while now, and it's pretty good. I haven't successfully compiled any X applications for it, but I haven't had much time over Christmas break to work seriously on it.
If you're looking for UNIX software to run on Mac OS X, try Fink, which aims to port all sorts of UNIX software to OS X. There's also the GNU Mac OS X Public Archive, which I only just found, and some Mac OS X ports on Forked.net, which I used to solve some initial XDarwin issues I was having.
Anyway, Microsoft wouldn't be able to port Office for OS X to UNIX very easily, we can move UNIX software (and even X11 software) to Mac OS X without too much difficulty.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
After having tons of problems with NT 4 and IIS crashing our high school's web server on a daily basis, we switched to Apache on RedHat 5.2 (about 3 years ago). Since then, we've switched machines a couple times (as better machines are hand-me-downed to us) and upgraded the Linux distro, but we've had great uptime.
The success of our web server allowed us to push for a perl/apache/linux-based attendance system that let us get rid of scan-tron sheets to be filled in every morning. Now, our teachers open up their web browsers in the morning, log in, and they check off their absent students 1st period. In the afternoon, they can check who was here and who wasn't, and it saves us about a ream of paper per day, since we don't have to print out attendance bulletins any more. Most of the work for the attendance program was done by one of my students who was learning perl on the fly.
I also teach a class for A+ and Network+ certifications, but we cover Linux both semesters (especially when we do network security in Network+). I'm hoping that next semester, we'll be able to use Linux as the primary desktop OS for most of the networking stuff, but we'll have to see what happens.
There are two major problems, in my opinion: businesses want students who are proficient with Windows and Office, and schools don't have the resources to hire people who are competent Linux admins. If the demand for Linux users starts going up, then maybe the number of computers running Linux in schools will increase, but for now, it's probably limited to servers.
One funny tidbit - earlier this school year, Code Red and Nimda running on local districts' NT/2000 IIS web servers took down the WAN access for most of the schools in Southwest Ohio. Seems that the servers weren't patched or maintained as well as they should have been. Web servers running Apache, of course, didn't have this problem.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
Better yet, if you're using NT/2000 and you're stupid enough to double-click on an email attachment or even use Outlook, maybe you're spending your operating system money in the wrong area. Maybe personnel training? Maybe a different platform? I'm sure a business full of Macs wouldn't be bothered by this.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
I know that beat writer William S. Burroughs has a book called Blade Runner - I stumbled across it in the library while looking for Junky - and having just seen the movie, I sat down and read it. All I remember is that it was short and had absolutely nothing to do with the movie.
I think someone else in this thread incorrectly attributed the story of teens smuggling medical parts to another author.
Disaster and famine relief organizations (I'm thinking Mercy Corps, not the Red Cross), Doctors Without Borders, CARE, and UNICEF have relatively low administrative overheads (Mercy Corps claims 5%!) and work to stop people from dying. If slashdotters want to concentrate on helping people at home, plenty of homeless shelters and havens for abused and/or addicted women and children, not to mention any number of cancer and disease societies and, yes, famine relief organizations in almost every city, also are desperate for funding.
There are definitely charities that do a lot of good, but I think it's up to each individual to choose how they want to contribute. If someone wants to contribute to the EFF, then at least they're contributing to something.
As for the Red Cross, if they can't handle a national crisis when the country turned to them first and gave so much, then maybe they should step aside and let another organization do it. I helped raise $1,500 through the high school where I teach, and when I found out they weren't going to use all the money for the terrorist attacks, I felt used. Fortunately, they've changed their minds and decided to do the right thing, but I will never ever donate to the Red Cross again, nor will I support them.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
It might be a year or two since I've read it, but if I remember correctly, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (who has posted on Slashdot occasionally) included concepts like logging into your desk in a classroom and dorm/barracks environment, as well as the manipulation of global politics by two supra-genius kids writing articles anonymously for online publications (more or less). Also included are medical devices connected to your body to monitor you and your health, and remote warfare (although it wasn't robotic). Not bad for a book published in 1985 that started out as a short story published in 1977.
The second book in the series, Speaker For The Dead, included an artificial intelligence that existed in the fluctuations produced by the use of "subspace" communications. (The name currently escapes me and I don't have the books handy, but it started with an "a").
They're no comparison for the original Star Trek for all the new technological concepts introduced, but I liked how those things were included as a part of regular, everyday life. Ender's Game is worth a read, regardless of whether you're looking for hints of the future or not.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
Just because RoadRunner does not support Windows XP today does not rule it out tomorrow. Remember that a lot of people have Macintoshes, and I don't think that RoadRunner directly supports them either.
This is incorrect. I'm running RoadRunner to a LinkSys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router, which then goes out to my PowerMac G4MP, my PowerMac G3, and my girlfriend's iMac. The RoadRunner techs actually let me do the install on my own machine (since I was moving from DSL) and were basically there to just drill a hole through my floor, give me the equipment and make sure it had enough blinking green lights. The RoadRunner box included a Mac CD that has drivers and an odd little RR Diagnostics tool.
Now, if you're talking about Mac OS X, I'm not sure if they support that yet, but I believe the minimum requirements for RoadRunner were Mac OS 9 (or was it 8.6?) and an ethernet port, USB port, or PCI slot for their NIC.
Incidentally, RoadRunner also works fine on the Linux-Mandrake/Win2k system I have.
You can go to your local Walmart and buy
a disposable camera for five bucks, take 27 pictures, and then get your photos posted on Walmart's site for download or forwarding to family and friends. Sure, it's not a true "digital camera", but it's probably good enough for the masses looking to email photos cheaply. Somehow I think a service like this would have more applications than a disposable/reusable digital camera with terrible image quality.
Slashdot Mirror
CD's came out in 1983, according to this page on the history of the CD. If you adjust for inflation, a CD that cost US$8.00 in 1983 ended up costing US$14.09 in 2001. Taking inflation alone into account (and ignoring improvements in technology, etc.), 15 bucks actually ends up being somewhat reasonable. Of course, we all know there's a lot more involved, but I just thought I should point out the effect of inflation alone.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
From the article:
By now it's grown clear that George Lucas has an agenda, one that he takes very seriously. After four "Star Wars" films, alarm bells should have gone off, even among those who don't look for morals in movies. When the chief feature distinguishing "good" from "evil" is how pretty the characters are, it's a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.
Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames?
All in all, an interesting argument that reminds me of the article mentioned in this story.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Everyone else I saw in the movie being killed was either an ugly alien, a droid, or someone who was covered head to toe in battle armor to hide their "human-ness." Did anybody else notice this?
What about Jengo Fett himself? I'd say getting decapitated is a pretty sure-fire way to check him off the list. Not to mention the numerous Jedi who showed up and probably died off-screen, some of whom may have been human.
And don't forget the clones - clones are people too, you know.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
This is a common misconception that was only recently pointed out to me. One of the chemistry teachers at the high school where I teach told me about a video she has called "Napoleon's Wallpaper" that suggests that arsenic in the wallpaper in his house of exile on St. Helena was to blame for the levels of arsenic found in his hair after his death.
I know it's off-topic, but the whole story is pretty fascinating.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
I was one of the people who would keep holding the food out of their reach. LET THEM STARVE! I was even known to take the last M.U.L.E. out of the pen during a Smithore crisis, and just let it run free.
That was one of the best parts about the tournament level - people (especially the computer) usually tried to produce Chrystite, and if you could get enough of the mountain ranges, you could choke them on M.U.L.E.s pretty easily. Personally, I always liked producing plenty of energy after buying all of it up from the store so that no one could produce anything.
I've been trying to teach some of the nastier tricks to my girlfriend, but usually when we play, she's the Flapper so she has a bit of an advantage.
I spent 10 minutes in class one day trying to explain it to my students, and a couple of them downloaded it and started playing it. I wish the Atari 800 emulators had multiplayer over TCP/IP, but then I probably wouldn't get any work done.
God I love that game.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
While I've often dreamed of an update to M.U.L.E. (or Archon), I question whether simply updating the graphics and adding new cutscenes can really enhance the excellent gameplay. M.U.L.E.'s gameplay was such that the random events every turn could throw off the balance of the game just enough to give any player the opportunity to take the lead within a couple turns (there were only 12 turns in the game, each representing a month). There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving. Besides that, it had arcade and strategic elements (try figuring out which plot of land you're going to grab at the beginning of each turn can be somewhat stressful) along with a certain 8-bit charm that probably won't translate very well to the modern PC.
I'll definitely grab the demo, but that's only if EA doesn't sue them out of existence first...
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Personally, I find it interesting that this algorithm was developed by the same guy who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A guy I teach with showed it to me a couple months ago, and I'm planning on using it in class soon to teach some programming concepts.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
"We have got a couple of rather scratchy pairs of discs and we are confident we will eventually be able to read all their images, maps and text," he said.
"Unfortunately, we don't know what we will do after that. We could store the data on desktop computers - but they are likely to become redundant in a few years.
"That means we have to find a way to emulate this data, in other words to turn into a form that can be used no matter what is the computer format of the future. That is the real goal of this project."
How about printing it on paper? Amazingly, it seems that the best way to 'emulate' the data over the past many centuries is to use a physical medium that requires no electricity, no magnetic readers, no lasers, no pools of mercury - only decent eyesight and some light. Hell, it's even portable!
If they complain that they can't fit it all on paper because there's too much data, then they should use very small print and include a magnifying glass like my grandmother's old unabridged dictionaries. It was still possible to read them without the magnifying glass if you got your eyes really close to the paper and squinted a little.
And if they complain that printing all the data on paper is too expensive, they should keep in mind how much money (2.5M) was wasted on the previous project. Better to spend more now and have it last a bit longer than 15 years.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
The major reason I've been able to contribute (along with our tech. coordinator) is because our administration is willing to let us take some risks and try some new things that we're excited about just to see how they work out. Usually we don't suggest anything we don't think we can't accomplish, and usually they don't let us do anything that's too risky or too expensive, but they've given us lots of room to explore. There's a level of trust involved at their level to make sure we don't completely screw things up, but they know there's a strong level of committment at our level to make sure those things don't screw up and continue to work.
Because of this, I've found my best experiences with administration (managment) have been with those who trust their subordinates because their subordinates can deliver. As soon as you have a breakdown on either side - where a manager doesn't trust you and won't listen to your suggestions because they've been burned before, or a subordinate gets more responsibility or trust than they can handle or deserver - the seed of doubt is planted and, in most cases, neither side will fully recover. Managers will always be more cautious, and oftentimes overly so, and employees will be less likely to contribute to something since they're just expecting to be disappointed anyway. It's a vicious cycle that requires true vision and leadership to break out of, and that's rare in any job.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. --Ghandi
That doesn't necessarily make it legal, though - take a look at some of the recent action by the FCC against people and organizations violating the Communications Act of 1934/1996. The interesting thing is that against individuals, a good deal of the action seemed to focus on pirate radio.
I found this stuff from the FCC interesting, too:
Of course, if you have a lot of free time to kill, you can read the whole Communications Act of 1934, but I don't think there's going to be much on wireless networking in there. I think for now, since Cringely is already a subscriber to the ISP that he's banking off of, he should be fine, especially since the FCC is allowing people to set up Low Power FM stations in their homes. There doesn't really seem to be any precedence to this from the FCC's point of view.First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. --Ghandi
I'd say at this point that the only way the ISP could really do anything about it would be to require different authentication levels on their network depending on each user's connection (which could be a pain to do) or contact the owners of the mountain to have the repeater removed from the tree. If I were Cringely, I wouldn't have mentioned the specifics of the location, because it wouldn't be very difficult to find, nor to figure out where he lives.
On a slightly unrelated note, considering the potential effects of excessive EM radiation on the body, how safe is this? I know that in this case, all Cringely is doing is repeating a signal, but I'm not so sure that this idea of beaming directional 802.11b radio streams at unaware people sitting in coffee bars is going to be good for people in the long run. I was a physics major in college, but I honestly don't know enough about 802.11 radio waves at 2.4GHz to make any sort of scientific judgement. Can anyone elaborate or speculate?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
If you eliminated junk mail from the US Mail, the Postal Service would cost _more_ per piece to maintain, the price of stamps would go _up_ and it wouldn't save a dime from the Federal Budget.
A few points:
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
You buy another one for $12 US. If you're a pro, you buy a whole bunch when you first set up to cover the inevitable breakages.
Jesus, how often do you guys break records? I mean, I'm sure it can happen, but I've been DJing on and off for 9 years and I've never actually broken a record. Maybe a record coffin is in order.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Ghandi
You may not authorize, encourage or allow the Player or any Content to be reproduced, modified, displayed, distributed or otherwise used by any other party
This sounds to be like you are not allowed to let anyone other than yourself use the CD in any way. If you are playing the CD yourself, and someone else walks into the room and hears it, does that count?
No, I think it's more like, "If you distribute a decoder/ripper, make a t-shirt out of it, or come up with some way around copy-protected technology with minimal features so that people with disabilities can use it. And god forbid you encourage someone to do those things! (oh wait, that's not the right link - here it is)
I wonder if Slashdot can legally be held liable for people who post stuff like this, "encouraging" us to "reproduce" the "Content". Since when did music become "Content" with a capital C?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Ghandi
First, there's the XonX project, where they've developed a way to run rootless XFree86. It's kind of a pain to get working, so you need:
XDarwin, which is a nice way to get XFree86 windows run next to MacOSX's Aqua windows. However, even this has its faults, so I highly recommend:
OroborOSX, which is an X11 window manager/environment. I've been running 0.75a3 and a4 for a little while now, and it's pretty good. I haven't successfully compiled any X applications for it, but I haven't had much time over Christmas break to work seriously on it.
If you're looking for UNIX software to run on Mac OS X, try Fink, which aims to port all sorts of UNIX software to OS X. There's also the GNU Mac OS X Public Archive, which I only just found, and some Mac OS X ports on Forked.net, which I used to solve some initial XDarwin issues I was having.
Anyway, Microsoft wouldn't be able to port Office for OS X to UNIX very easily, we can move UNIX software (and even X11 software) to Mac OS X without too much difficulty.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
The success of our web server allowed us to push for a perl/apache/linux-based attendance system that let us get rid of scan-tron sheets to be filled in every morning. Now, our teachers open up their web browsers in the morning, log in, and they check off their absent students 1st period. In the afternoon, they can check who was here and who wasn't, and it saves us about a ream of paper per day, since we don't have to print out attendance bulletins any more. Most of the work for the attendance program was done by one of my students who was learning perl on the fly.
I also teach a class for A+ and Network+ certifications, but we cover Linux both semesters (especially when we do network security in Network+). I'm hoping that next semester, we'll be able to use Linux as the primary desktop OS for most of the networking stuff, but we'll have to see what happens.
There are two major problems, in my opinion: businesses want students who are proficient with Windows and Office, and schools don't have the resources to hire people who are competent Linux admins. If the demand for Linux users starts going up, then maybe the number of computers running Linux in schools will increase, but for now, it's probably limited to servers.
One funny tidbit - earlier this school year, Code Red and Nimda running on local districts' NT/2000 IIS web servers took down the WAN access for most of the schools in Southwest Ohio. Seems that the servers weren't patched or maintained as well as they should have been. Web servers running Apache, of course, didn't have this problem.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
Better yet, if you're using NT/2000 and you're stupid enough to double-click on an email attachment or even use Outlook, maybe you're spending your operating system money in the wrong area. Maybe personnel training? Maybe a different platform? I'm sure a business full of Macs wouldn't be bothered by this.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
I think someone else in this thread incorrectly attributed the story of teens smuggling medical parts to another author.
Maybe it's just me, but after the Red Cross were less than forthcoming about what they were going to do with all the money raised to help out the September 11th terrorist attacks and then destroyed excess blood donations instead of passing them on, I have a hard time supporting them.
There are definitely charities that do a lot of good, but I think it's up to each individual to choose how they want to contribute. If someone wants to contribute to the EFF, then at least they're contributing to something.
As for the Red Cross, if they can't handle a national crisis when the country turned to them first and gave so much, then maybe they should step aside and let another organization do it. I helped raise $1,500 through the high school where I teach, and when I found out they weren't going to use all the money for the terrorist attacks, I felt used. Fortunately, they've changed their minds and decided to do the right thing, but I will never ever donate to the Red Cross again, nor will I support them.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
The second book in the series, Speaker For The Dead, included an artificial intelligence that existed in the fluctuations produced by the use of "subspace" communications. (The name currently escapes me and I don't have the books handy, but it started with an "a").
They're no comparison for the original Star Trek for all the new technological concepts introduced, but I liked how those things were included as a part of regular, everyday life. Ender's Game is worth a read, regardless of whether you're looking for hints of the future or not.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Ghandi
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
-Ghandi
Just because RoadRunner does not support Windows XP today does not rule it out tomorrow. Remember that a lot of people have Macintoshes, and I don't think that RoadRunner directly supports them either.
This is incorrect. I'm running RoadRunner to a LinkSys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router, which then goes out to my PowerMac G4MP, my PowerMac G3, and my girlfriend's iMac. The RoadRunner techs actually let me do the install on my own machine (since I was moving from DSL) and were basically there to just drill a hole through my floor, give me the equipment and make sure it had enough blinking green lights. The RoadRunner box included a Mac CD that has drivers and an odd little RR Diagnostics tool.
Now, if you're talking about Mac OS X, I'm not sure if they support that yet, but I believe the minimum requirements for RoadRunner were Mac OS 9 (or was it 8.6?) and an ethernet port, USB port, or PCI slot for their NIC.
Incidentally, RoadRunner also works fine on the Linux-Mandrake/Win2k system I have.
You can go to your local Walmart and buy a disposable camera for five bucks, take 27 pictures, and then get your photos posted on Walmart's site for download or forwarding to family and friends. Sure, it's not a true "digital camera", but it's probably good enough for the masses looking to email photos cheaply. Somehow I think a service like this would have more applications than a disposable/reusable digital camera with terrible image quality.