Funny you should say that. In a way, it is sort of backwards. I mean, Mozilla's a great browser, but it's not exactly stable, compared to the Linux kernel. Maybe the Moz team should be taking bug tracking tips from Linus.
There is no such thing as "non-fast-forwardable" material on a DVD. Try watching it with mplayer on Linux. You don't even have to see the stupid title screen, just jump right to the movie. You can even skip the credits if you want. It is a random-access medium, after all.
Of course, there are tons of "repeat" names. There are just so many people born each year, and only so many names, so these conflicts will happen. The question is, who gets the rights to a name shared with others? This article writeup seems to be angling for seniority (the Bill Wyman from 1961 should get it rather than the one from 1964). But it makes more sense to give it to the one who is more famis. After all, who knows about the journalist Bill Wymann? Probably just his immediate family and some coworkers. But thousands of people know about Bill Wyman the rock and roll star. If you want to cause inconvenience to the fewest number of people, you should force the lesser star to change his name.
Good move blocking email from Asia. Those greedy yellow bastards don't have anything important to say anyway. Who's next, Africa or Israel? Maybe the unruly Mexicans?
It's ironic, but the people who invented the Internet thought it would bring us together. How mistaken they were. How tragically mistaken.
This really is a perfect use for Linux. Personally, I use Linux on a desktop PC, and it's perfect for everything I need to do, not to mention easy on the pocketbook.;)
However, I've found that a lot of folks need a desktop OS that supports the latest gee-whiz hardware, plays the newest games, or runs the P2P client of the month. For those people, Windows just makes more sense.
But in the world of tablets, high performance and software compatibility just aren't as important. The lower standards create a perfect market for working Linux in. Maybe if we can get people hooked on Linux for tablet PCs, some company will start developing it for profit, and we can make some headway on the desktop market.
What is Slashdot doing promoting software written by trolls? It's pretty hypocritical, and it might give trolls the idea that they're welcome here. Editors, could you please cancel this story?
I'm not one to celebrate at others' misfortune, but this is great. "Longhorn" (anyone find that name a little, uh, suggestive? Yikes, Bill, stay away from my longhorn!) was to be the Microsoft OS that finally integrated Palladium, dot.net, Passport and other DRM technologies. The fact that MS has abandoned this OS may mean that they've realized how evil DRM is. Kazza users, rejoice!
I don't know if you have considered Linux, but with all of the free software available to you, you should be able to put together a workable solution in Linux without spending a whole lot of time and money. When I hear anything about "organizing," I think "database," and when I hear "database" in combination with "Linux," I think "MySQL," which is faster than anything available on Windows. Hey, Slashdot uses it, so it's got to be good. It shouldn't be too hard to hack together a MySQL database and a simple PERL/TK frontend to handle queries. You'll find that having the source code available makes this kind of project extremely easy. Good luck!
While you're correct that most citizens (including Slashdot editors, I'd guess!) won't be able to buy these babies, please remember that a large portion of Slashdot's readership is in IT, some of us in positions where we may, in fact, purchase equipment through an NSA COMSEC account. Industries and corporations deemed "essential to the National Security" under conditions set forth in the NPHG Protection Act have been given this priveledge since its passage in 1973, in response to the Viet-nam War. I work at a major corn distributor (food being an essential supply during potential siege or embargo, and breakfast being the most important meal of the day), and I can tell you that I hope to have my hands on these sometime this month, before Christmas or President's Day at the very most. It should speed up our processes considerably to not have to be tied to "wired" networks. It's a fun time to be in IT, and this cloak-and-dagger stuff just makes it better.
I have no idea whether or not Fujitsu's hard drives have been "failing in record numbers." But if they haven't, then I imagine that Slashdot will be looking at some sort of lawsuit in the near future. Well done.
Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.
Noted. But, hey, wouldn't those two cents make a nice comment, subject to the same moderation and responses as your readers' comments? There's plenty of room here in the peanut gallery, even for a millionaire such as yourself.
As a Unix sysadmin for seven years, I'd have to agree with the reviewer that this book is a lifesaver. I find that information tends to dissipate from my head after I absorb it (sort of like Mother Nature's swapping algorithm LOL), so I spend the first day of each month rereading it, and this keeps my skills charged for the rest of the month! I've even gotten pretty good at scheduling major projects for early in the month, when things are fresher in my head.
I had to smile as I read this, because it sounded exactly like I did a few years ago. I decided to try and "discover" some obscure bands that were better than the tripe being played on the radio.
It's the conventional wisdom that we hear so much and that we'd all like to believe--mainstream, big-label music sucks, and all the interesting stuff is being done by small, independent artists--but the fact is that it just isn't true. Independent artists tend to be extremely lo-fi, very unpolished, and more often than not, just plain unoriginal. You definitely can't dance to it. Yes, a lot of mainstream music is shit. But that doesn't mean that everything else is worth hearing. There is a small handful of independent artists who have created enough of a following to find success without losing their artistic integrity, but 99% of them are just the folks who couldn't cut it. The music just isn't there.
Fortunately, we do have big-label artists worth hearing. Eminem is always perceptive and interesting, and Tori Amos is dependably good. Most big music stores let you listen to CDs before you buy, so just head over to the New Releases and poke around until you find that happy medium: a big-name, mainstream musician that you like.
It's fascinating to see these kinds of trans-ethnic business practices becoming a reality. To think that only a few hundred years ago, we were all in our separate continents, living in dull homogeneity. Now we've been thrust together, shaken up, and hung out to dry by the Information Age, and we have to adapt to a whole new set of rules.
I'll come clean. I'm white. While I wouldn't want to lose my job to an Indian, I don't think that white folks have any more of a right to their jobs than Indians, or anyone else. If anything, the Indians are slightly more deserving, after we have gone back on so many treaties with them. I imagine I'd stoop to using Microsoft instead of Linux, if it meant I could stop working as a blackjack dealer. So please, try and offer a little understanding before ranting about how you lost your job to someone who happens to have darker skin. We're all people, too.
As programmers, we're all aware that perfect, bug-free software just doesn't exist in the real world. Given that the voting software will have bugs, isn't it better that they be secret for something as vital as this?
It's a nice thought: it would make a good high-profile proof of concept that could give open source the credibility it needs to succeed in the doggy-dog software market.
My only concern is that current open source methodologies may not be able to deliver the robustness and security required in a voting situation. Open source becomes strong through evolution, which necessarily means that the first users experience a lot of minor bugs that eventually get ironed out. Highly reliable bullet-proof systems need to be designed from the ground up.
We don't depend on open source for controlling drawbridges or handling air traffic control systems, and we shouldn't put something as fragile as our democracy in the hands of open source, either. It is not acceptible for my vote to be lost because of a bad fsck.
The problem with this is, there is no way that the wear on the machines is also "negligible." An average business workstation probably has something like 1% CPU usage average each day. When you bump that up to 100% (and drive and memory a related amount), it will shorten the computer's life.
This is why volunteer distributed computation has been primarily popular among academics, students, and low-wage tech workers; people who aren't financially responsible for the computers to which they have access.
This is at least pretty innovative, but I sort of wish the Open Source community would focus on something less subversive. If we want Linux to be accepted in the corporate world, we need to move beyond this image of Linux users as pirates, hackers, and perverts. Software like this hinders us more than it helps. Thanks, but no thanks.:(
another victory for Science?
on
Micro Tetris
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Well, this is cool, I'll give you that. Who would have thought that a video game could be built inside a water droplet, small enough to require an electron microscope just to play! Clearly, there is some interesting research happening over in Holland.
But I'm a little concerned about the "expensive" part. For those who aren't familiar with the Dutch language, I can tell you that "vrije" (as in "Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit") means "free." That is, it's a university without tuition, funded by socialist tax policies (this is very common in Europe).
My concern, then, is that taxpayer money (albeit that of Dutchmen) is being squandled on playing video games through binoculars. You might want to ignore this, thinking that it couldn't possible affect any of us, here in the USA. But remember that none of those countries have any kind of military power or weapons, so they have to rely on us to protect them. While we spend billions a year developing weapons that protect their easy lives of cheese and pornography, they waste their euros playing with the world's tiniest joystick. It's disgraceful to Science, and we should not tolerate it.
Do you have any idea how much power a monitor drains? You'd be replacing all 96 AA batteries every half hour or so. Better to just get a gas generator.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. The correct form would be:
Publishers' Attack Free Government Site's
Editors: plz fix k thx
Funny you should say that. In a way, it is sort of backwards. I mean, Mozilla's a great browser, but it's not exactly stable, compared to the Linux kernel. Maybe the Moz team should be taking bug tracking tips from Linus.
There is no such thing as "non-fast-forwardable" material on a DVD. Try watching it with mplayer on Linux. You don't even have to see the stupid title screen, just jump right to the movie. You can even skip the credits if you want. It is a random-access medium, after all.
Of course, there are tons of "repeat" names. There are just so many people born each year, and only so many names, so these conflicts will happen. The question is, who gets the rights to a name shared with others? This article writeup seems to be angling for seniority (the Bill Wyman from 1961 should get it rather than the one from 1964). But it makes more sense to give it to the one who is more famis. After all, who knows about the journalist Bill Wymann? Probably just his immediate family and some coworkers. But thousands of people know about Bill Wyman the rock and roll star. If you want to cause inconvenience to the fewest number of people, you should force the lesser star to change his name.
Interplanetary space missions? Uh, that's great. I'll be looking for a cell phone case made out of this stuff. And boxer briefs, of course.
Guess there're worse ways to spend a Thursday morning.
Good move blocking email from Asia. Those greedy yellow bastards don't have anything important to say anyway. Who's next, Africa or Israel? Maybe the unruly Mexicans?
It's ironic, but the people who invented the Internet thought it would bring us together. How mistaken they were. How tragically mistaken.
What's a licence? I've heard of a license, but a licence?
This really is a perfect use for Linux. Personally, I use Linux on a desktop PC, and it's perfect for everything I need to do, not to mention easy on the pocketbook. ;)
However, I've found that a lot of folks need a desktop OS that supports the latest gee-whiz hardware, plays the newest games, or runs the P2P client of the month. For those people, Windows just makes more sense.
But in the world of tablets, high performance and software compatibility just aren't as important. The lower standards create a perfect market for working Linux in. Maybe if we can get people hooked on Linux for tablet PCs, some company will start developing it for profit, and we can make some headway on the desktop market.
What is Slashdot doing promoting software written by trolls? It's pretty hypocritical, and it might give trolls the idea that they're welcome here. Editors, could you please cancel this story?
I'm not one to celebrate at others' misfortune, but this is great. "Longhorn" (anyone find that name a little, uh, suggestive? Yikes, Bill, stay away from my longhorn!) was to be the Microsoft OS that finally integrated Palladium, dot.net, Passport and other DRM technologies. The fact that MS has abandoned this OS may mean that they've realized how evil DRM is. Kazza users, rejoice!
I don't know if you have considered Linux, but with all of the free software available to you, you should be able to put together a workable solution in Linux without spending a whole lot of time and money. When I hear anything about "organizing," I think "database," and when I hear "database" in combination with "Linux," I think "MySQL," which is faster than anything available on Windows. Hey, Slashdot uses it, so it's got to be good. It shouldn't be too hard to hack together a MySQL database and a simple PERL/TK frontend to handle queries. You'll find that having the source code available makes this kind of project extremely easy. Good luck!
you and I won't be able to buy them
While you're correct that most citizens (including Slashdot editors, I'd guess!) won't be able to buy these babies, please remember that a large portion of Slashdot's readership is in IT, some of us in positions where we may, in fact, purchase equipment through an NSA COMSEC account. Industries and corporations deemed "essential to the National Security" under conditions set forth in the NPHG Protection Act have been given this priveledge since its passage in 1973, in response to the Viet-nam War. I work at a major corn distributor (food being an essential supply during potential siege or embargo, and breakfast being the most important meal of the day), and I can tell you that I hope to have my hands on these sometime this month, before Christmas or President's Day at the very most. It should speed up our processes considerably to not have to be tied to "wired" networks. It's a fun time to be in IT, and this cloak-and-dagger stuff just makes it better.
I have no idea whether or not Fujitsu's hard drives have been "failing in record numbers." But if they haven't, then I imagine that Slashdot will be looking at some sort of lawsuit in the near future. Well done.
Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.
Noted. But, hey, wouldn't those two cents make a nice comment, subject to the same moderation and responses as your readers' comments? There's plenty of room here in the peanut gallery, even for a millionaire such as yourself.
Also, the MPAA thanks you for your endorsement.
As a Unix sysadmin for seven years, I'd have to agree with the reviewer that this book is a lifesaver. I find that information tends to dissipate from my head after I absorb it (sort of like Mother Nature's swapping algorithm LOL), so I spend the first day of each month rereading it, and this keeps my skills charged for the rest of the month! I've even gotten pretty good at scheduling major projects for early in the month, when things are fresher in my head.
I had to smile as I read this, because it sounded exactly like I did a few years ago. I decided to try and "discover" some obscure bands that were better than the tripe being played on the radio.
It's the conventional wisdom that we hear so much and that we'd all like to believe--mainstream, big-label music sucks, and all the interesting stuff is being done by small, independent artists--but the fact is that it just isn't true. Independent artists tend to be extremely lo-fi, very unpolished, and more often than not, just plain unoriginal. You definitely can't dance to it. Yes, a lot of mainstream music is shit. But that doesn't mean that everything else is worth hearing. There is a small handful of independent artists who have created enough of a following to find success without losing their artistic integrity, but 99% of them are just the folks who couldn't cut it. The music just isn't there.
Fortunately, we do have big-label artists worth hearing. Eminem is always perceptive and interesting, and Tori Amos is dependably good. Most big music stores let you listen to CDs before you buy, so just head over to the New Releases and poke around until you find that happy medium: a big-name, mainstream musician that you like.
I saw this on CNN and in the Times this morning. I've never been so happy.
It's fascinating to see these kinds of trans-ethnic business practices becoming a reality. To think that only a few hundred years ago, we were all in our separate continents, living in dull homogeneity. Now we've been thrust together, shaken up, and hung out to dry by the Information Age, and we have to adapt to a whole new set of rules.
I'll come clean. I'm white. While I wouldn't want to lose my job to an Indian, I don't think that white folks have any more of a right to their jobs than Indians, or anyone else. If anything, the Indians are slightly more deserving, after we have gone back on so many treaties with them. I imagine I'd stoop to using Microsoft instead of Linux, if it meant I could stop working as a blackjack dealer. So please, try and offer a little understanding before ranting about how you lost your job to someone who happens to have darker skin. We're all people, too.
As programmers, we're all aware that perfect, bug-free software just doesn't exist in the real world. Given that the voting software will have bugs, isn't it better that they be secret for something as vital as this?
It's a nice thought: it would make a good high-profile proof of concept that could give open source the credibility it needs to succeed in the doggy-dog software market.
My only concern is that current open source methodologies may not be able to deliver the robustness and security required in a voting situation. Open source becomes strong through evolution, which necessarily means that the first users experience a lot of minor bugs that eventually get ironed out. Highly reliable bullet-proof systems need to be designed from the ground up.
We don't depend on open source for controlling drawbridges or handling air traffic control systems, and we shouldn't put something as fragile as our democracy in the hands of open source, either. It is not acceptible for my vote to be lost because of a bad fsck.
The problem with this is, there is no way that the wear on the machines is also "negligible." An average business workstation probably has something like 1% CPU usage average each day. When you bump that up to 100% (and drive and memory a related amount), it will shorten the computer's life.
This is why volunteer distributed computation has been primarily popular among academics, students, and low-wage tech workers; people who aren't financially responsible for the computers to which they have access.
This is at least pretty innovative, but I sort of wish the Open Source community would focus on something less subversive. If we want Linux to be accepted in the corporate world, we need to move beyond this image of Linux users as pirates, hackers, and perverts. Software like this hinders us more than it helps. Thanks, but no thanks. :(
Well, this is cool, I'll give you that. Who would have thought that a video game could be built inside a water droplet, small enough to require an electron microscope just to play! Clearly, there is some interesting research happening over in Holland.
But I'm a little concerned about the "expensive" part. For those who aren't familiar with the Dutch language, I can tell you that "vrije" (as in "Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit") means "free." That is, it's a university without tuition, funded by socialist tax policies (this is very common in Europe).
My concern, then, is that taxpayer money (albeit that of Dutchmen) is being squandled on playing video games through binoculars. You might want to ignore this, thinking that it couldn't possible affect any of us, here in the USA. But remember that none of those countries have any kind of military power or weapons, so they have to rely on us to protect them. While we spend billions a year developing weapons that protect their easy lives of cheese and pornography, they waste their euros playing with the world's tiniest joystick. It's disgraceful to Science, and we should not tolerate it.
Do you have any idea how much power a monitor drains? You'd be replacing all 96 AA batteries every half hour or so. Better to just get a gas generator.