"LIGHT AND RADIO WAVES TRAVEL AT 186,000 MILES PER SECOND? No."
Now I'm only doing first year undergrad Physics...but I was under the impression that Einstein's Special Relativity said light was constant - regardless of frame or reference, or medium, and that the only reason light may appear slower in a medium is due to photons being absorbed and reemitted by atoms, as opposed to it actually being 'slowed down' by friction or whatever.
The author justifies his claim by saying that would be ignoring the wave model of light and only taking into account the photon model...however, I was under the impression the reason we have the ray model, quantum photon model and wave model is because all three are somewhat incomplete, and thus for different problems we need to use different models...?
'iunno, can someone who *is* a Physicist or something clear this up? Is the speed of light really 'c' regardless of anything? Ie, is this author completely lost? =P
Also keep in mond the kind of people who go on Slashdot. Even without moderation, the average comment on Slashdot would probably be a lot more inciteful and interesting than the average comment on a site that takes the other masses...
How's this: the "warez scene" that grows around the underground trading of software is like the "drug scene" that grows around the underground traffic of illegal drugs. I think that will get me as far as I need to go. Non-geek != idiot. Mmm...I'd say there is a difference. The smoke and mirrors are the same, but how often do software crackers do it for money? The drug scene is based around groups like this extorting the public and poor, while cracker groups generally extort big companies or whatnot.
I feel kinda inadequete. Back when I was a kid, I read some outdated article on DoSing, so decided to open 20 command prompt windows pinging a server over my dial up connection.
Okay...say you're on the board of directors. Are you going to vote to kick him out? Are you going to face Steve Balmer in a room probably full of *chairs* and say "You have to go mate."
While I always admire when a company admits they were wrong about something, I have to think that this is just massive damage control. Imagine what their inboxes looked like over this fiasco:-) Agreed! I mean, a lot of companies/governments don't want to show any signs of weakness by admitting a mistake. Even if after that they regret doing it, they rarely pull back once it happens. I think this sign of 'modesty' is a good thing. IMO it attracts positive popularity. It must be a pride thing...
Mmm, in my experience, Firefox's Download Manager occassionally leaves me with incompletely downloaded files - especially when they're big. Dunno whether this is a bad connection (Telstra, I wouldn't be surprised) or an issue with the actual Download Manager, but I don't get these isseues when using Free Download Manager.
Anyways, I've done this before for a different thing.
There was a rare file I was trying to get my hands on, which was fairly large, but corrupted. There was a torrent which had it too, but was giving out really slow speeds (like...1-2 seeders, 3-4 leachers who must've been on dial up or Telstra broadband...). So I HTTP downloaded the corrupt file, then used the torrent to fix up the last corrupted parts. Worked perfectly. =)
To be fair, the Hitler Youth was a bit more than just Boy Scouts. They did similar *things* to Boy Scouts, but the Hitler Youth was a way of turning a whole generation of Germans into good Nazi's. It was the best propoganda machine Hitler had because it recruited complete loyalty and subscription to Nazism from a very young age. Kids would even betray their parents if they found out their Mummies and Daddies were anti-Hitler. IMO, the Hitler Youth was one of the main ways Hitler managed to keep loyalty among his troops - even after all his war crimes.
I remember there was some drunk guy at a Casino who was pissed off cause some Greek guy had 'stolen his money' and was busy counting it in front of him and all that. Security guards kicked him out, cops came.
5 cops took him down - one holding down each arm, one holding down each leg and his back, and one in front of him, trying to tell him to calm down. He managed to break free and they had to catch him again.
Talk about lack of training when you 5 cops can't keep 1 small drunk guy down! If it was in America, I bet they would've related to tasing him to do it. What's needed is more training!
I've got an EX38-DQ6 which features the Dynamic Energy Management, which is a feature that changes the power consumption of the CPU based on its current usage. Unfortunately, they measure the 'total saved power' in 'Watts', which as we all know, isn't the right way to measure energy consumption. I'd imagine whoever wrote the article got lured into the same trap somehow...
Yes, advertisement. Wake up, people - "trailers" do not count as "content" to eagerly look forward to, they count as the same BS we pay $200-$400 for fancy digital VCR-like boxes that let us skip them. On TV ads are always irritating...but I always enjoyed watching the trailers when going to the cinemas - yes, I understand they're ads, but so what? They're enjoyable to watch. They don't interrupt half way through the movie and are generally interesting. They usually help everyone relax and get into the mood more too...
Considering that almost all data storage companies doing this...would this mean anything significant in the industry? I mean, everything from USB keys, to internal and external HDD storage as well as devices using HDDs (MP3 players) advertise their stuff in GB (10^9) instead of GiB (2^30). Or is this case specific and will not affect across the board?
There are the D&D players who eventually get into Wicca and other "majik" kind of stuff to the point where they believe that they can cast spells and talk to spirits. I think it's basic psychology that anybody who spends any significant amount of time pretending to be someone else will eventually manifest behavorial changes. Yeah, definitely. I had a mate who used to be into the more traditional forms of metaphysical abilities - Qaballah, Hermeticism, Chi Kung, etc etc. Most of them to an extent seem to agree with each other to some extents...except for Wicca. In fact, you look at it - anything in Wicca seems to stem from fantasy based stuff...the whole D&D or Harry Potter culture. So yeah, even among the real traditional 'magic communities', whether you believe its real or not, they ridicule Wicca too because it is pretty much people getting too immersed in their fantasy world.
That's probably because you build them too close and the Zealots get stuck. Use a Shuttle, or if you wanna get pimp, build templars, merge them to archons, and push your zealots out.
Quite honestly speaking, a lot of IT people are rude - mainly the technicians (Probably the reason they are technicians and haven't moved up in the company heirachy).
I remember we had some horrible IT techs at my old school. We were a laptop based school and payed a sizable amount of money for insurance and repairs. Plus, this was a private school - we were already paying them a hellova lot of money. But these guys would act like they were doing you a troublesome favour all the time. And they were so rude.
Hell, I remember almost everytime I'd turn up with an issue, I'd have to wait for ages to even get served while one of the techs played Solitaire. Eventually I'd say "Excuse me" and in an irritated tone one of the two bad ones (One was semi-decent) would turn around and go "What do you want?". Then while explaining my problem, he'd be rolling his eyes or whatnot.
Most of the time I'd end up explaining the problem to them, to which I'd get some sarcastic reply like "Yeah, like you know what you're talking about..." or hell, some direct accusation like "Well, if you didn't use your laptop as a football, it might be alright".
Hell, I remember once I had to get my 802.11 card replaced - had to pay a $100AUD excess on that...a week later our school was migrating to a 802.11a network, and they were gonna force everyone to change. The techs knew this, but rather than replacing the 802.11 with a 802.11a card, they charged me $100, then $100 again 6 months later when the move became compulsory.
I could keep going on, but these guys are a prime example of what bad IT guys can be like...arrogant, without social skills and completely ignoring the fact they're doing a *job* for a *customer* - not doing favours for mates. I'd also like to note these guys were actually quite inexperienced at IT and never really solved a problem - they'd just reformat/reload, or buy replacement parts when problems could easily be remedied (Now I understand trying to fix EVERY problem can be tough - but they'd constantly claim a problem was "Impossible to fix. No one could do it" and talk about concepts they really had no clue about trying to support the idea).
I really wish technicians would learn a thing or two about serving customers.
See it's this kind of humour that is really problematic in today's world, and maybe it should be addressed. Yeah. If you really look at it - the internet promotes some pretty dark humour, and that translates into real life as well. I mean, how many people who've never used the internet would laugh at someone who died? Now, how many people who are part of the internet culture would find some kinda hilariousness in all that? Whether a joke, a picture, etc...
Probably due to the anonymonity, you don't have to worry about potential negative responses to offensive things...
Oh yeah, they'd do phased system changeovers. But for something as serious as switching from the Windows OS to the Linux OS, it *would* require a major change. You could try to phase it out, by getting Linux software running on the Windows first, then changing the OS, but either way, it'd be a big thing to change a company's primary OS.
Hell, there's a reason banks are still using mainframe software over 30 years old. It's just too hard and expensive to changeover - plus, so many systems have been added on, that it's almost impossible to *just* change the mainframe, without changing everything that communicates with it too. Apparently a lot of it isn't even documentated. =/
90% of businesses using open-source...? Yeah, right.
Let's consider - this is *four years* from now. Even with exponential growth, looking at past adoptions of open-source, it won't even be half of that.
It's more than technical skill - it's familiarity. Think about the cost of changing a large-scale information system in a corporation. We're talking millions of dollars - most likely just resulting in a loss that would take many many years to repay.
There's the cost of implementation, there's training the technical support (which at the moment, is largely made up of support for closed-source software), training the staff, rewriting custom applications for the new system, setting new procedures into place - and of course, the inevitable 'dealing with problems along the way'.
Now unless the company was already planning to make a major migration and had to choose between a closed-source and open-sourced system, why would that do move to something completely different?
I'm also considering that the 90% of businesses that the analyst are counting includes not only the software being used at say, a branch, but the software used in the networks, the mainframes, and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
I was skimming through the electricity misconceptions site too http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/eleca.html#light...and I came across the section:
"LIGHT AND RADIO WAVES TRAVEL AT 186,000 MILES PER SECOND? No."
Now I'm only doing first year undergrad Physics...but I was under the impression that Einstein's Special Relativity said light was constant - regardless of frame or reference, or medium, and that the only reason light may appear slower in a medium is due to photons being absorbed and reemitted by atoms, as opposed to it actually being 'slowed down' by friction or whatever.
The author justifies his claim by saying that would be ignoring the wave model of light and only taking into account the photon model...however, I was under the impression the reason we have the ray model, quantum photon model and wave model is because all three are somewhat incomplete, and thus for different problems we need to use different models...?
'iunno, can someone who *is* a Physicist or something clear this up? Is the speed of light really 'c' regardless of anything? Ie, is this author completely lost? =P
~Jarik
Also keep in mond the kind of people who go on Slashdot. Even without moderation, the average comment on Slashdot would probably be a lot more inciteful and interesting than the average comment on a site that takes the other masses...
~Jarik
I feel kinda inadequete. Back when I was a kid, I read some outdated article on DoSing, so decided to open 20 command prompt windows pinging a server over my dial up connection.
It didn't go down. =(
~Jarik
Okay...say you're on the board of directors. Are you going to vote to kick him out? Are you going to face Steve Balmer in a room probably full of *chairs* and say "You have to go mate."
If you do, you have balls.
~Jarik
~Jarik
You'd think rather than just trying to take down CoreAVC-for-Linux immediately, CoreCodec might try to release a Linux version of the codec first.
~Jarik
Mmm, in my experience, Firefox's Download Manager occassionally leaves me with incompletely downloaded files - especially when they're big. Dunno whether this is a bad connection (Telstra, I wouldn't be surprised) or an issue with the actual Download Manager, but I don't get these isseues when using Free Download Manager.
Anyways, I've done this before for a different thing.
There was a rare file I was trying to get my hands on, which was fairly large, but corrupted. There was a torrent which had it too, but was giving out really slow speeds (like...1-2 seeders, 3-4 leachers who must've been on dial up or Telstra broadband...). So I HTTP downloaded the corrupt file, then used the torrent to fix up the last corrupted parts. Worked perfectly. =)
~Jarik
To be fair, the Hitler Youth was a bit more than just Boy Scouts. They did similar *things* to Boy Scouts, but the Hitler Youth was a way of turning a whole generation of Germans into good Nazi's. It was the best propoganda machine Hitler had because it recruited complete loyalty and subscription to Nazism from a very young age. Kids would even betray their parents if they found out their Mummies and Daddies were anti-Hitler. IMO, the Hitler Youth was one of the main ways Hitler managed to keep loyalty among his troops - even after all his war crimes.
~Jarik
C'mon...you can't have a MacGuyver who is *not* Richard Dean Anderson. He's just that awesome.
~Jarik
I remember there was some drunk guy at a Casino who was pissed off cause some Greek guy had 'stolen his money' and was busy counting it in front of him and all that. Security guards kicked him out, cops came.
5 cops took him down - one holding down each arm, one holding down each leg and his back, and one in front of him, trying to tell him to calm down. He managed to break free and they had to catch him again.
Talk about lack of training when you 5 cops can't keep 1 small drunk guy down! If it was in America, I bet they would've related to tasing him to do it. What's needed is more training!
~Jarik
I've got an EX38-DQ6 which features the Dynamic Energy Management, which is a feature that changes the power consumption of the CPU based on its current usage. Unfortunately, they measure the 'total saved power' in 'Watts', which as we all know, isn't the right way to measure energy consumption. I'd imagine whoever wrote the article got lured into the same trap somehow...
~Jarik
Considering that almost all data storage companies doing this...would this mean anything significant in the industry? I mean, everything from USB keys, to internal and external HDD storage as well as devices using HDDs (MP3 players) advertise their stuff in GB (10^9) instead of GiB (2^30). Or is this case specific and will not affect across the board?
~Jarik
If you're reading slashdot, then *you're* not doing your job.
`Jarik
Oshi! Must hide that class 3 laser rave lighting thingy we ordered from China... >_>
It looks cool at parties though. =P
~Jarik
That's probably because you build them too close and the Zealots get stuck. Use a Shuttle, or if you wanna get pimp, build templars, merge them to archons, and push your zealots out.
~Jarik
Quite honestly speaking, a lot of IT people are rude - mainly the technicians (Probably the reason they are technicians and haven't moved up in the company heirachy).
I remember we had some horrible IT techs at my old school. We were a laptop based school and payed a sizable amount of money for insurance and repairs. Plus, this was a private school - we were already paying them a hellova lot of money. But these guys would act like they were doing you a troublesome favour all the time. And they were so rude.
Hell, I remember almost everytime I'd turn up with an issue, I'd have to wait for ages to even get served while one of the techs played Solitaire. Eventually I'd say "Excuse me" and in an irritated tone one of the two bad ones (One was semi-decent) would turn around and go "What do you want?". Then while explaining my problem, he'd be rolling his eyes or whatnot.
Most of the time I'd end up explaining the problem to them, to which I'd get some sarcastic reply like "Yeah, like you know what you're talking about..." or hell, some direct accusation like "Well, if you didn't use your laptop as a football, it might be alright".
Hell, I remember once I had to get my 802.11 card replaced - had to pay a $100AUD excess on that...a week later our school was migrating to a 802.11a network, and they were gonna force everyone to change. The techs knew this, but rather than replacing the 802.11 with a 802.11a card, they charged me $100, then $100 again 6 months later when the move became compulsory.
I could keep going on, but these guys are a prime example of what bad IT guys can be like...arrogant, without social skills and completely ignoring the fact they're doing a *job* for a *customer* - not doing favours for mates. I'd also like to note these guys were actually quite inexperienced at IT and never really solved a problem - they'd just reformat/reload, or buy replacement parts when problems could easily be remedied (Now I understand trying to fix EVERY problem can be tough - but they'd constantly claim a problem was "Impossible to fix. No one could do it" and talk about concepts they really had no clue about trying to support the idea).
I really wish technicians would learn a thing or two about serving customers.
~Jarik
Probably due to the anonymonity, you don't have to worry about potential negative responses to offensive things...
~Jarik
Good point actually. Sorry, didn't think of it like that.
Oh yeah, they'd do phased system changeovers. But for something as serious as switching from the Windows OS to the Linux OS, it *would* require a major change. You could try to phase it out, by getting Linux software running on the Windows first, then changing the OS, but either way, it'd be a big thing to change a company's primary OS.
Hell, there's a reason banks are still using mainframe software over 30 years old. It's just too hard and expensive to changeover - plus, so many systems have been added on, that it's almost impossible to *just* change the mainframe, without changing everything that communicates with it too. Apparently a lot of it isn't even documentated. =/
~Jarik
90% of businesses using open-source...? Yeah, right.
Let's consider - this is *four years* from now. Even with exponential growth, looking at past adoptions of open-source, it won't even be half of that.
It's more than technical skill - it's familiarity. Think about the cost of changing a large-scale information system in a corporation. We're talking millions of dollars - most likely just resulting in a loss that would take many many years to repay.
There's the cost of implementation, there's training the technical support (which at the moment, is largely made up of support for closed-source software), training the staff, rewriting custom applications for the new system, setting new procedures into place - and of course, the inevitable 'dealing with problems along the way'.
Now unless the company was already planning to make a major migration and had to choose between a closed-source and open-sourced system, why would that do move to something completely different?
I'm also considering that the 90% of businesses that the analyst are counting includes not only the software being used at say, a branch, but the software used in the networks, the mainframes, and so on.
~Jarik
Damnit, they worked out the reason I started Bachelor of Engineering this year...and here I had my whole career plan ahead of me.
Where can I donate money for the aid effort of all those poor people who were caught in the disaster?
`Jarik