The human ear (and the corresponding piece of driver code in the brain) is very sensitive to regularities and irregularities in sounds.
Excellent post. A/.-ready example of this would be listening to a modem handshake. Once familiar with the sound of a normal sequence, you just know immediately when things aren't right.
I don't quite understand the obsession with using the latest and greatest. I'm not going to grab this and compile it for my machine; a) 2.4.19 works fine
I used to be latest/greatest, but I've discovered that I wind up with a lot more time to do other things when I go with a more basic approach: keep up-to-date with Slackware's security updates.
I'm still running 2.4.18 with a -- *gasp* -- default kernel. I don't even bother compiling 'em for my machine anymore. Too damn lazy.:lol:
Re:Like riding a bike
on
Balancing Brains
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Mars is only a 3 year flight if you go for a least-fuel cost route.
A fair and reasonable rejoinder. I apologize if my statement came off as an absolute; it was not intended in that fashion. That said, the economics of space flight currently requires that we only carry enough fuel to get the job done. There's still very little margin for "wasteful" burns.
Not to nitpick, but this is a common misconception that is a building block for many arguments against Mars missions.
Again, a fair comment.:) As technology brings us ever more efficient fuels and engine designs, we may within our lifetime find an adequate solution to that enables us to approach such a mission based on least-time rather than least-cost. I don't expect that to happen within, say, the next ten years, however.
Now this is an idea I like. It'll prove a point and just happens to be violence-free. Unfortunately, pulling such a stunt in Tokyo would have me permanently under SURveillance, and that's something I wish to avoid.
It's interesting that our "like riding a bike" idiom that suggests we cannot forget how to do something is patentently false when we remove the organism from its native habitat. The article makes it pretty obvious that if we humans wish to engage in manned space exploration, we'll need artificial gravity in the ships if we've any chance of disembarking on a planet to check things out without tripping all over ourselves.
The moon is one thing, but even Mars is a 3-year-flight away.
You might wish to ask some of the other tenants whether they've experienced the problem recently. Also, did you have a stereo before this? If this is a new problem that is specific to this particular system, I'd be inclined to return it for repair under warranty. The Sony should not only not emit significant RFI, but should reject it, too. It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Re:Saturday revisited
on
Giant Spider Web
·
· Score: 3, Informative
hectares? It was acres, according to the top level post.
According to the professor who discovered the web, it was a 60-hectare field, making this web likely the largest ever discovered. It should be noted that although the print article at the CBC states acres, the radio interview http://cbc.ca/clips/ram-audio/aih_spiderweb_021121.ram clearly states hectares at the beginning. Either way, it's a bloody big web.
I thought a hectare was 100 square acres.
A measure of area, or superficies, containing a hundred ares, or 10,000 square meters, and equivalent to 2.471 acres.
2 spiders sq/cm? That's a lot of spiders. I think that had to be a typo.
Not a typo. This information was gleaned from actually listening to the interview with the professor who discovered the web. We're talking tens of millions of spiders who were so focused on the job of spinning the web that they were running over each other.
Absolutely fascinating.
I have to admit that I'm confused about your reply. Do you belong to the group of people who thing that seriousness is the only way to deal with serious issues?
No, it's just that upon reading your rather thought-provoking post, I didn't find anything funny about it whatsoever. I would be surprised were I to find out that I was the only one who felt that way. My reply was a comment re: the modding of the post and why I felt it was inappropriate.
Note well that I agree that it should be modded up, just not that it was funny. IMO, YMMV and all that rot.
Not that it's relevant to this post but I like your music, by the way.
And, I'll add, if you don't think the military is taking OBSCENE interest in this whole business, brew another pot of coffee. Imagine being able to understand pheromones to the point that you could load up a Stealth Bomber, fly over Country X, drop your payload and 30 minutes later have the entire population off copulating. We're talking about CHEMICAL TRIGGERS here -- behaviour that would not be thwarted by anybody's best intentions.
Dope the country, walk in and take over. You wanna bet that any military mind worth its salt is watching this shit very closely.
The parent is currently modded to "funny," but I'd have to categorize it as terrifying. Or maybe it was just funny as in "nervous laugh." You know, the same sort of laugh you have when reacting to the glint of a sharp blade in a deserted alley.
So many freedoms are being tossed out the window in many countries these days. A nervous laugh is simply not an appropriate reaction.
Re:Saturday revisited
on
Giant Spider Web
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
> The trigger for some 10-million spiders to exhibit > like behaviour, IMO, is pheromonal. The question, > however, is what climactic or chemical trigger > caused millions and millions of spiders to behave > identically?
Oy, you think I'd learn to compose an intelligible pair of sentences by now.:rolleyes:
To clarify: The trigger, I think, would have to be pheromonal in nature, but what would bring about such a huge release of pheromones to trigger the behaviour in a spider population covering some 60 hectares?
An additional question that everybody seems to have missed is the species involved. All the questions I've seen have discussed the matter along the lines of it being a single species. Anybody who's taken a look in their own back yard would recognize that there are a bunch of species living together in a very small area. Imagine, then, the number of species involved in the building of this web. It's inconceivable to me that there would be 2 spiders/sq. cm ALL OF THE SAME SPECIES covering 60 hectares.
That, then, amplifies the cause of behaviour that quite probably involved up to 100 species of spiders over the area. Even were it only a handful of species, it's the equivalent of a trigger that causes ALL primates to engage in the same activity.
Kinda puts that one into perspective, doesn't it?
Saturday revisited
on
Giant Spider Web
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Of course, we covered this here already: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/2 2/2228254&mode=thread&tid=134
Still, it's a superbly interesting phenomenon and I really DO hope they figure out the trigger for such behaviour. Personally, I think the conjecture that they ate a plentiful supply of protein-rich prey to be really reaching. The trigger for some 10-million spiders to exhibit like behaviour, IMO, is pheromonal. The question, however, is what climactic or chemical trigger caused millions and millions of spiders to behave identically?
Ah, yes, that argument. Since we are of the kingdom Animalia, I suppose that makes us exactly the same as Canoids. Yup, surely it does. Not.
Current distributions are, indeed, very similar. That said, there's no reason I can think of not to use the Linux kernel as a base to recreate, say, the end-user experience of running an Amiga, Vax or OS/2 system. Not a clone, mind you, meaning that you wouldn't run your Amiga apps on such a system, but the look and feel would be there and on modern hardware.
I loved OS/2 back in the day. That would be a really fun project. I'd dub it: GNOS/2.;)
I agree that Delphi and Kylix are the way to go. Also, what hasn't been mentioned yet is that the language itself is relatively painless to learn for VB programmers. This should make it possible for our intrepid VB programmer to pick up the basics and move on before the.Net move at his current company becomes a serious problem.
Any VB programmer who worked with version 4 will crack open Delphi and Kylix and think, "Wow, I've seen this before!" It's a very comfortable transition.
> Managers tend to forget that IT exists to serve > the employees. IT is not in place to tell the > users what they can't do.
It can be that way, but there has to be limits. Certainly, the larger the installed number of workstations, the more difficult it is to maintain control over a non-homogenous network. The question, as originally posted wasn't that these users *required* Windows, it was that they *wanted* Windows.
I want Linux for work, but use Win2k because, worldwide, we're a Microsoft shop.
> This totally prevents employees from > communicating/filesharing with other employees.
Not necessarily. Being "tight" about what gets into or out of a firewall only affects user productivity if the firewall is poorly configured, i.e., does not address the user's needs. The idea is not to punish; however, there's no reason to let NETBIOS and the like run willy-nilly over the Apple side of the network, right? Let the Windows boxes use Apple protocols for filesharing.
FWIW, although it's somewhat apples-to-oranges, I telecommute. I connect using VPN through a firewall both on my home LAN and at the office. And, yes, traffic is filtered on the connection regardless of the fact that it's via VPN and *could* let traffic on all ports pass through the VPN tunnel. It's just common sense.
It's nice to see that there is the potential here for some good to be done. As I'm Canadian, I really want to see the government there do something right.
Frankly, I think it's bad juu-juu to let users define policy unless it is already mandated by corporate policy. If you have the mandate to nix the installation of Windows boxes on the network, then just do it.
I guess that's the first question then. Can you say no to the request? If so, get 'em running with the standard plan. If not, then firewall them onto their own segment and be very, very tight about what gets in and out from their segment.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still running 2.4.18 with a -- *gasp* -- default kernel. I don't even bother compiling 'em for my machine anymore. Too damn lazy.
trane
Now this is an idea I like. It'll prove a point and just happens to be violence-free. Unfortunately, pulling such a stunt in Tokyo would have me permanently under SURveillance, and that's something I wish to avoid.
This is a stunt best avoided in a police state.
It's interesting that our "like riding a bike" idiom that suggests we cannot forget how to do something is patentently false when we remove the organism from its native habitat. The article makes it pretty obvious that if we humans wish to engage in manned space exploration, we'll need artificial gravity in the ships if we've any chance of disembarking on a planet to check things out without tripping all over ourselves.
The moon is one thing, but even Mars is a 3-year-flight away.
You might wish to ask some of the other tenants whether they've experienced the problem recently. Also, did you have a stereo before this? If this is a new problem that is specific to this particular system, I'd be inclined to return it for repair under warranty. The Sony should not only not emit significant RFI, but should reject it, too. It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
No, it's just that upon reading your rather thought-provoking post, I didn't find anything funny about it whatsoever. I would be surprised were I to find out that I was the only one who felt that way. My reply was a comment re: the modding of the post and why I felt it was inappropriate.
Note well that I agree that it should be modded up, just not that it was funny. IMO, YMMV and all that rot.
My most gracious thanks. I truly appreciate it.
And, I'll add, if you don't think the military is taking OBSCENE interest in this whole business, brew another pot of coffee. Imagine being able to understand pheromones to the point that you could load up a Stealth Bomber, fly over Country X, drop your payload and 30 minutes later have the entire population off copulating. We're talking about CHEMICAL TRIGGERS here -- behaviour that would not be thwarted by anybody's best intentions.
Dope the country, walk in and take over. You wanna bet that any military mind worth its salt is watching this shit very closely.
Uhm............no. Leave it to a Slashdotter to completely miss the significance of an event and use it as an excuse to try to appear witty.
The parent is currently modded to "funny," but I'd have to categorize it as terrifying. Or maybe it was just funny as in "nervous laugh." You know, the same sort of laugh you have when reacting to the glint of a sharp blade in a deserted alley.
So many freedoms are being tossed out the window in many countries these days. A nervous laugh is simply not an appropriate reaction.
> The trigger for some 10-million spiders to exhibit
:rolleyes:
> like behaviour, IMO, is pheromonal. The question,
> however, is what climactic or chemical trigger
> caused millions and millions of spiders to behave
> identically?
Oy, you think I'd learn to compose an intelligible pair of sentences by now.
To clarify: The trigger, I think, would have to be pheromonal in nature, but what would bring about such a huge release of pheromones to trigger the behaviour in a spider population covering some 60 hectares?
An additional question that everybody seems to have missed is the species involved. All the questions I've seen have discussed the matter along the lines of it being a single species. Anybody who's taken a look in their own back yard would recognize that there are a bunch of species living together in a very small area. Imagine, then, the number of species involved in the building of this web. It's inconceivable to me that there would be 2 spiders/sq. cm ALL OF THE SAME SPECIES covering 60 hectares.
That, then, amplifies the cause of behaviour that quite probably involved up to 100 species of spiders over the area. Even were it only a handful of species, it's the equivalent of a trigger that causes ALL primates to engage in the same activity.
Kinda puts that one into perspective, doesn't it?
Of course, we covered this here already: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/2 2/2228254&mode=thread&tid=134
Still, it's a superbly interesting phenomenon and I really DO hope they figure out the trigger for such behaviour. Personally, I think the conjecture that they ate a plentiful supply of protein-rich prey to be really reaching. The trigger for some 10-million spiders to exhibit like behaviour, IMO, is pheromonal. The question, however, is what climactic or chemical trigger caused millions and millions of spiders to behave identically?
It's an incredibly interesting question.
Ah, yes, that argument. Since we are of the kingdom Animalia, I suppose that makes us exactly the same as Canoids. Yup, surely it does. Not.
;)
Current distributions are, indeed, very similar. That said, there's no reason I can think of not to use the Linux kernel as a base to recreate, say, the end-user experience of running an Amiga, Vax or OS/2 system. Not a clone, mind you, meaning that you wouldn't run your Amiga apps on such a system, but the look and feel would be there and on modern hardware.
I loved OS/2 back in the day. That would be a really fun project. I'd dub it: GNOS/2.
trane
I agree that Delphi and Kylix are the way to go. Also, what hasn't been mentioned yet is that the language itself is relatively painless to learn for VB programmers. This should make it possible for our intrepid VB programmer to pick up the basics and move on before the .Net move at his current company becomes a serious problem.
Any VB programmer who worked with version 4 will crack open Delphi and Kylix and think, "Wow, I've seen this before!" It's a very comfortable transition.
I use all three.
trane
> Managers tend to forget that IT exists to serve
> the employees. IT is not in place to tell the
> users what they can't do.
It can be that way, but there has to be limits. Certainly, the larger the installed number of workstations, the more difficult it is to maintain control over a non-homogenous network. The question, as originally posted wasn't that these users *required* Windows, it was that they *wanted* Windows.
I want Linux for work, but use Win2k because, worldwide, we're a Microsoft shop.
> This totally prevents employees from
> communicating/filesharing with other employees.
Not necessarily. Being "tight" about what gets into or out of a firewall only affects user productivity if the firewall is poorly configured, i.e., does not address the user's needs. The idea is not to punish; however, there's no reason to let NETBIOS and the like run willy-nilly over the Apple side of the network, right? Let the Windows boxes use Apple protocols for filesharing.
FWIW, although it's somewhat apples-to-oranges, I telecommute. I connect using VPN through a firewall both on my home LAN and at the office. And, yes, traffic is filtered on the connection regardless of the fact that it's via VPN and *could* let traffic on all ports pass through the VPN tunnel. It's just common sense.
trane
It's nice to see that there is the potential here for some good to be done. As I'm Canadian, I really want to see the government there do something right.
trane
Very, very interesting.
:-(
I just fired up KStars, set the date/time to 2002-12-01 05:00:00 and location to Los Angeles. Looks like it's going to be one helluva show.
Unfortunately, I'm going to miss this. I'm in Tokyo, and by the time the moonrise hits here, the alignment is way gone. Damn.
trane
Frankly, I think it's bad juu-juu to let users define policy unless it is already mandated by corporate policy. If you have the mandate to nix the installation of Windows boxes on the network, then just do it.
I guess that's the first question then. Can you say no to the request? If so, get 'em running with the standard plan. If not, then firewall them onto their own segment and be very, very tight about what gets in and out from their segment.
You know, man, I'd say justice was done. Very cool.
I'm Canadian, so the French connection is there.
Two days later and it's still a 1. :rolleyes
> amazon 'had no comment' on the ongoing lawsuits.
Uhm....you *really* expect a company that holds the bogus One-Click patent to comment on a bogus patent? Erm, I think not, jer.
> At the most, we could expect an asteroid of that :)
> size to support a little boy, maybe some sheep,
> and a flower.
If this doesn't get modded up, I'll take it as proof that there is no genuine goodness here, let alone familiarity with literary classics.
I should add that I'm discussing still subjects. If you're able to freeze a golf swing at 1/60th of a second, I'll be mighty surprised. ;)