Imagine if every time you cooked a meal in your house you had to pay the recipe owner a royalty..
There would be two or three restaurants in the country and you'd eat there only. Every time you bought a frying pad you'd need to pay a fee to a McDonalds. Buy uncooked food that could be the basis for a meal that *might* infringe McDonalds and you'd pay a fee.
No sharing burgers with your friend...
There would be twenty or thirty "top" meals of the week. If you went out to eat you'd need to eat one of the top meals.
I guess I was lucky in that the courses I took seemed to complement each other well. For example, we discussed the nature of reality in my Philosophy 101 course. At first it seemed like so much spouting, but it was helpful in understanding aspects of calculus and physics. E.g., think of the rotation of a wheel. You can either rotate it around the center of the wheel or around the point of contact with the ground. The former is more obvious, but the latter is easier from an equation standpoint.
It was funny to hear how each instructor would make little comments about the others. Literature professors would say that life cannot be understood only by equations. Calculus profs would ask how can a discipline (and he "used that term loosely") could be valid if there were no *wrong* answers.
The whole signature based approach to AV seems so bizarre. Imagine trying to get into a nightclub.. The bouncer has a list. If you want to get in, he checks the list. If you're *not* on the list, then you can get in. The club owner is concerned because he keeps his wine and beer in the club and doesn't want it to disappear overnight.
Of course the problem with analogies is that they can fail. No one wants the Microsoft solution where applications need to be certified to run. This might be equivalent to the bouncer calling the club owner to see if someone is allowed in. Or having a list where only people on the list are allowed in...
Then you have to hire a couple bouncers because every minute you're checking if someone is allowed in. The club owner gets called all the time because he has to OK every single app. So he makes a declaration that anyone wearing acceptable clothing is allowed in. This works for a while, until some people you don't want in start wearing some acceptable clothing.
So maybe the club owner decides to change how he operates. Instead of keeping the wine and beer freely accessible to anyone who enters the club, he puts it behind a bar. People can come in, have fun, but they'll never be able to get the beer and wine unless they can show some ID. The club owner also starts putting all the important papers in a locked room away from the bar.
So strained analogies aside, whether or not you use an AV scanner can be irrelevant. If you can sandbox your web and email then you'd not have to worry about a whole class of vulnerabilities.
I can't get into trendy clubs anyway, so take it how you will.
Funny thing is that I would gladly pay $40/month for a site like Stage6. I pay around $60/month currently for cable television but rarely watch it because the shows I like are inconvenient to watch. Yeah, there's MythTV and Tivo, but there's rarely a time when I'll sit down and plan what I'm going to watch. I'd much rather browse and get that instant gratification. It would be great if the producers of these shows could come to some advertising/subscription agreement. I have looked at iTunes, but the selection there was dismal.
As I was reading this, the first thing that came to mind was Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. I don't understand it much at all, but essentially it was saying that no one could design a useful ruleset (i.e., axiomatic system) that was entirely self-consistent. The notes (from smart people who understand the Theorem) seems to say that you either have outright contradictions in the system, or there will be statements that cannot be proven by the system.
I know it's a complete misapplication of Incompleteness, but it fits in some cases to the TFA...
There will always be exceptions to the laws where there are outright contradictions. Throw in a bunch of PACs, SIGs, pork belly projects, enthusiastic junior legislators, corruption and what not, then it is inevitable that the laws will morph from their original intent. It's impossible for them to be static. Mix in the fact that laws are more easily passed than repealed and we end up with the situation today.
I played back in the early 80's, then stopped when I left high school. Picked it up for a short while in college. Then the drought where I didn't play for years. A year ago I met some folks who were interested in getting together for some low-pressure games. So I tried. But MAN, so many rules and bits of nonsense that it compeletely killed the imagination that made it so interesting in the first place. The DM had some laptop based tools, but really, if you need a computer to track the game then it's a moot point how useful the tools are.
I hate the move "The Karate Kid" for many reasons, but there was one true thing. After practicing for (supposedly) hours, at the end of the movie the kid was able to block or hit someone because he'd learned a particular move through repetition. After taking a year of karate, I was joking around with a friend and sparring in the office. He did some feints, aborted punches, almost kicks... I did the same. Then at one point time seemed to stand still. I felt - rather than knew - that he was about to throw a punch. It's almost as if I was playing a video game where the bad guy did the same thing over and over again. He threw the punch....
And while trying to block it, I knocked my glasses of my head with own hand and sent them hurtling to the ground...
And still in slow motion I tried to catch them...
And fell...
The fall seemed to last forever.
And of course there was a cute girl watching.
In my mind I'd gone over a hundred times what would happen if I had to defend myself against a bunch of ruthless thugs while she was there. But for some reason it didn't happen. Instead of some Matrix-like martial arts sequences that I'd rehearsed a thousand times in my mind, I fell on my ass and almost broke my glasses and it looked like I'd punched myself to cause it.
I don't think so.. I think it's precisely because my musical tastes are *not* Britney Spears, 50Cent, etc.., that the major labels are declining. If I ask my co-workers and friends and family, none of them (except for the teenagers), listen to them. The labels may think they're serving up appropriate fodder that the masses will consume, but they're not.. They're targeting a demographic that has other interests at this point and almost neglecting the massive demographic that I am in.
well. yes.. Though I may dream otherwise, I've come to the conclusion that I'm horribly average in my tastes and lifestyle. I'm depressingly representative of the masses. Yes, like millions of other people, I may think that I'm edgy, a rebel, a misfit, but in reality (and statistically) I'm just like everyone else. So when I say that I started to buy from independents, started to buy from local artists, there's little doubt in my mind that millions of other people are also doing the same thing.
It's funny too.. In 2007 I bought more CDs than ever since leaving college. This year I bought about 25 different CDs. The only difference is that none were big names from any major labels. I bought from CDBaby, from sales at concerts and events, from music links to independent sites.. Any mainstream/established artists I picked up from iTunes... E.g., Dylan, U2, Linkin' Park (yeah yeah, it was a moment of weakness)...
So maybe the big labels declined, but my guess is that the smaller houses are growing...
I tutored mathematics for several years and noticed a few things about people that struggled in mathematics (as I did, until one day it all "clicked").
Math is highly layered. You need to grasp the lower levels before the higher ones are attainable. You may actually have a mathematical mind, but earlier one may have misunderstood a concept that hinders later understanding. For example, without a clear understanding of the number line, concepts such as points and lines are more difficult to grasp. Without points and lines, trying to grasp quadratics is tough. Spend a couple weeks on the absolute basics first (real numbers, integers, multiplication, fractions) even if you think it's way too simple. You may be surprised to find that you have a misconception somewhere.
People learn in different ways. Some people are better able to grasp trigonometry concepts using the _unit circle_ method. Others learn better by graphing points on the number line. For this reason, try to get several books on a subject and study each. Many times one will reinforce or clarify a concept in another just on the basis of how the concept is presented.
Do the time. Even if you believe you have grasped a concept, keep on doing the lessons until you can visualize the solution in your mind. This means lots of practice exercises. Keep on doing them until they're boring and second-nature.
I've used Blender off and on for a few years, and have even written some tutorials on its usage. For me, it's similar to using vi versus some other editor. Once you get used to the interface, you can get a whole lot of stuff done quite quickly. I'm also lucky in that Blender was one of the first serious 3D apps I had used so there were no pre-conceptions about the interface.
Nah, the reason the series was cancelled was not because so few people got that joke, but that of those that did, 90% of them thought, "That doesn't make any sense. Does he mean Earth atmosphere? Or Jovian? Or Martian?"
Recently my credit card company sent me a letter apologizing for an error in a bill. They were crediting me back some money because of an invalid interest calculation. The letter didn't mention the amount. Whoohooo!!! I thought, more $$$ for me. So I log in to check my account. Sure enough, there's the credit. 4 cents. Yup. 4 cents was enough for them to send out a letter. Of course, multiply this amount by millions and you're talking serious cash, but for one individual account it's hardly worth the electricity to check the bill.
I'm writing this on one of the original Dell Ubuntu laptops. A few days after receiving it, I wiped Ubuntu and put on Centos5 mainly to keep the same software that I use on my servers and other workstations. There was a small glitch in getting the wireless to work, but so far it's been perfect. The laptop hibernates properly, browses wirelessly and wired, and works properly. The annoying stuff that took some configuration were the media keys, MP3 and WMA video playback, and an issue with the sound kicking off and requiring a driver reload via KDE. This wasn't too tough for me to figure out, but I have some experience with Linux. I wouldn't recommend it for the Linux newbie, but heck, that's why it ships with Ubuntu.
I'm not a big fan of Dell home systems (their business machines are much better built), but having a major vendor support Linux is a good thing regardless. By them supporting Linux fixes can get pushed to other systems. The glitches in the Intel 3945 wireless card will be worked out. Maybe the Broadcoms start working without ndiswrapper. Heck, ATI might come around and make a proper video driver set.
I chose to buy this laptop precisely because the hardware is Linux compatible (well, except for the closed Nvidia drivers which are not too bad). If more people did this it gives an incentive for hardware manufacturers to release code and drivers for Linux. That helps everyone.
It's interesting.. Our local LUG (FLUX in S. Florida) has been wrestling with declining (still respectable, but declining) attendance for a couple years. We've batted around ideas, but I guess part of the reason is that the novelty of Linux has worn out. It's somewhat pedestrian now, considering how many suits use it without even knowing.
The interesting thing is that I see a lot more Linux usage in corporate environments than ever before. There are lots of requests for administration and setup from SMBs, and in my 9-to-5 corporate IT employer, there are Linux servers running production loads.
Running Linux is no big deal anymore, so has lost some of its attraction. But I noticed the Mac groups have had a resurgence.. Maybe it's in cycles.. I was in a Mac user group a long time ago (about the time of the Centris and Quadra machines), and they faded for a while, but came back. With the Dell offerings, more corporate deployments, "good enough" improvements of Linux in corporate loads, etc.., I think the groups will grow again. The demographics will be different, but people will come.
Plus the Internet has made the community a lot larger. Before it was hard to find like-minded folks.
Walking, either normally or "race", is still a lot more efficient than running. In sprints, the knees move up quite high. In long distance running, it's more efficient, but still nowhere near that of a walk. I can run for 30 minutes at about 6.0 mph, but I can walk for hours at 4.0 mph.
A couple months ago I disconnected my cable modem service with Comcast. They were fast, but down as much as they were up. I missed it the first few days.. No longer could pull down Linux ISOs in an hour. No longer could stream last weeks BSG episodes. But I got by.
Then my DSL went south. I lost pretty much all connectivity to the Internet. They finally fixed it, but at half the previous speed. It was barely enough for me to serve up my web pages.
My mail server had some problems recently. I had to rebuild the hard drive and drop it back to a backup machine. Had some backups, but was too busy (ok, lazy) to restore. Didn't feel like reconfiguring the webmail frontend in any case. So I started pushing some of the domain up to a hosting facility.
I started using dialup internet because the DSL was just horrid. That wasn't as bad as it sounds, but the hosting site didn't support IMAP, only POP3 because they didn't want to store mail. It was easier to use a command line client in any case.
That worked for a while, but it was still slow. So I had my buddy set up a box with direct modem dial up access. I set up a SLIP connection and could then pull my mail faster. I ditched Pine for the mail utility since it was faster.
But why have SLIP when I could just drop a modem directly to a console? It eliminated about 8% overhead in packet traffic in any case.
Heck, why stop there. I could set up a UUCP connection to another machine and really move mail quickly via serial modem. If I strip HTML attachments and just go with standard mail it'll fly.
Heck, the mail envelope is WAY too much overhead. I should strip that too...
I've noticed this with some Nvidia cards and it has always been solved by disabling the framebuffer mode for text console. This kills the high-res console, but at least makes it stable.
I already have a couple E1505s. It was a PITA to get the video working properly (ATI) and the Dell wireless card in one never really worked even with ndiswrappers. I spoke with sales support today and the E1505 with an Nvidia chipset is not offered anymore. Big shame because that would have been a perfect system for me. But if the price is decent and xorg fully supports the Intel 950 chipset, I'll probably end up getting another one despite it all.
The Dell home customer support is probably the worst I've ever encountered, but their systems tend to be cheaper than other vendors.
I admire you. This is off-topic somewhat, but I've noticed that lots of IT folks have no clue how to budget and save. I admire that you drive a 13 year old car. Lots of the IT workers in my department who make less than me spend more on cars than I spend on a mortgage. Hey, if cars are their passion, go for it, but it's a little alarming to see how little they save. I also admire that you understand the concept of a family budget. I don't know if it's because the typical IT worker is younger, but it's also alarming to see how many of them are waiting on their next check because bills are due. At the same time they're picking up laptops, cameras, high-end electronics on credit cards. Again, it's their finances, but I'm a little frightened for some of them (the younger ones mostly) who have never seen an employment downturn.
Your driving habits are atypical. Many people want to live in the suburbs and work in the city. It's how our cities are constructed in most of the US. This leads to traffic, congestion, wasted fuel. But to change that requires deep re-thinking of the American dream (home in the suburbs, two cars, etc.).
I agree in spirit with your comment, but experience has taught me that compensation seems more closely tied to how "big" a system is rather than what the admin actually does. I.e., an admin in a small startup may wear many hats, is constantly busy updating DNS, tuning the database disks, installing patches, etc., but is almost certainly pulling in a smaller income than a enterprise admin that does little more than write reports on system uptime...
But that's neither bad nor good. In an enterprise, the systems better damn well never go down (unscheduled). If they do, you may get fired that day, that minute. Millions of dollars may rely on system uptime. People can lose their jobs if a web page crashes. At the same time, the enterprise admin may get siloed. He/she probably won't be installing Oracle (that's DBA function) or tuning Sendmail (Notes/Mail folks) or troubleshooting the network (Infrastructure team).
What works well in a smaller shop -- the ability to rig a system, improvise -- completely falls over in a larger shop. There are different skillsets, certainly. In smaller shops there's rarely a SAN, few Oracle RACs, HACMP, clusters, change management, SOX rules, etc., but that's a given in a larger shop. But it seems that smaller shop admins generally know a few (newer) scripting languages such as Ruby, Python, etc.. Even Perl, a graybeard loon among scripting languages, is not always in the toolset of big shop admins.
Slashdot Mirror
..as music it would be interesting.
Imagine if every time you cooked a meal in your house you had to pay the recipe owner a royalty..
There would be two or three restaurants in the country and you'd eat there only. Every time you bought a frying pad you'd need to pay a fee to a McDonalds. Buy uncooked food that could be the basis for a meal that *might* infringe McDonalds and you'd pay a fee.
No sharing burgers with your friend...
There would be twenty or thirty "top" meals of the week. If you went out to eat you'd need to eat one of the top meals.
French fries would cost $15.
I guess I was lucky in that the courses I took seemed to complement each other well. For example, we discussed the nature of reality in my Philosophy 101 course. At first it seemed like so much spouting, but it was helpful in understanding aspects of calculus and physics. E.g., think of the rotation of a wheel. You can either rotate it around the center of the wheel or around the point of contact with the ground. The former is more obvious, but the latter is easier from an equation standpoint.
It was funny to hear how each instructor would make little comments about the others. Literature professors would say that life cannot be understood only by equations. Calculus profs would ask how can a discipline (and he "used that term loosely") could be valid if there were no *wrong* answers.
The whole signature based approach to AV seems so bizarre. Imagine trying to get into a nightclub.. The bouncer has a list. If you want to get in, he checks the list. If you're *not* on the list, then you can get in. The club owner is concerned because he keeps his wine and beer in the club and doesn't want it to disappear overnight.
Of course the problem with analogies is that they can fail. No one wants the Microsoft solution where applications need to be certified to run. This might be equivalent to the bouncer calling the club owner to see if someone is allowed in. Or having a list where only people on the list are allowed in...
Then you have to hire a couple bouncers because every minute you're checking if someone is allowed in. The club owner gets called all the time because he has to OK every single app. So he makes a declaration that anyone wearing acceptable clothing is allowed in. This works for a while, until some people you don't want in start wearing some acceptable clothing.
So maybe the club owner decides to change how he operates. Instead of keeping the wine and beer freely accessible to anyone who enters the club, he puts it behind a bar. People can come in, have fun, but they'll never be able to get the beer and wine unless they can show some ID. The club owner also starts putting all the important papers in a locked room away from the bar.
So strained analogies aside, whether or not you use an AV scanner can be irrelevant. If you can sandbox your web and email then you'd not have to worry about a whole class of vulnerabilities.
I can't get into trendy clubs anyway, so take it how you will.
Yup. Same here.
Funny thing is that I would gladly pay $40/month for a site like Stage6. I pay around $60/month currently for cable television but rarely watch it because the shows I like are inconvenient to watch. Yeah, there's MythTV and Tivo, but there's rarely a time when I'll sit down and plan what I'm going to watch. I'd much rather browse and get that instant gratification. It would be great if the producers of these shows could come to some advertising/subscription agreement. I have looked at iTunes, but the selection there was dismal.
Hehe..
As I was reading this, the first thing that came to mind was Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. I don't understand it much at all, but essentially it was saying that no one could design a useful ruleset (i.e., axiomatic system) that was entirely self-consistent. The notes (from smart people who understand the Theorem) seems to say that you either have outright contradictions in the system, or there will be statements that cannot be proven by the system.
I know it's a complete misapplication of Incompleteness, but it fits in some cases to the TFA...
There will always be exceptions to the laws where there are outright contradictions. Throw in a bunch of PACs, SIGs, pork belly projects, enthusiastic junior legislators, corruption and what not, then it is inevitable that the laws will morph from their original intent. It's impossible for them to be static. Mix in the fact that laws are more easily passed than repealed and we end up with the situation today.
I think you hit it on the head...
I played back in the early 80's, then stopped when I left high school. Picked it up for a short while in college. Then the drought where I didn't play for years. A year ago I met some folks who were interested in getting together for some low-pressure games. So I tried. But MAN, so many rules and bits of nonsense that it compeletely killed the imagination that made it so interesting in the first place. The DM had some laptop based tools, but really, if you need a computer to track the game then it's a moot point how useful the tools are.
I hate the move "The Karate Kid" for many reasons, but there was one true thing. After practicing for (supposedly) hours, at the end of the movie the kid was able to block or hit someone because he'd learned a particular move through repetition. After taking a year of karate, I was joking around with a friend and sparring in the office. He did some feints, aborted punches, almost kicks... I did the same. Then at one point time seemed to stand still. I felt - rather than knew - that he was about to throw a punch. It's almost as if I was playing a video game where the bad guy did the same thing over and over again. He threw the punch....
And while trying to block it, I knocked my glasses of my head with own hand and sent them hurtling to the ground...
And still in slow motion I tried to catch them...
And fell...
The fall seemed to last forever.
And of course there was a cute girl watching.
In my mind I'd gone over a hundred times what would happen if I had to defend myself against a bunch of ruthless thugs while she was there. But for some reason it didn't happen. Instead of some Matrix-like martial arts sequences that I'd rehearsed a thousand times in my mind, I fell on my ass and almost broke my glasses and it looked like I'd punched myself to cause it.
nah. just good natured bashing..
Like when your co-worker drops his coffee on his lap.. you don't hate the co-worker, but you have lots of fun at his expense. "Coffee's hot, I bet."
I don't think so.. I think it's precisely because my musical tastes are *not* Britney Spears, 50Cent, etc.., that the major labels are declining. If I ask my co-workers and friends and family, none of them (except for the teenagers), listen to them. The labels may think they're serving up appropriate fodder that the masses will consume, but they're not.. They're targeting a demographic that has other interests at this point and almost neglecting the massive demographic that I am in.
well. yes.. Though I may dream otherwise, I've come to the conclusion that I'm horribly average in my tastes and lifestyle. I'm depressingly representative of the masses. Yes, like millions of other people, I may think that I'm edgy, a rebel, a misfit, but in reality (and statistically) I'm just like everyone else. So when I say that I started to buy from independents, started to buy from local artists, there's little doubt in my mind that millions of other people are also doing the same thing.
It's funny too.. In 2007 I bought more CDs than ever since leaving college. This year I bought about 25 different CDs. The only difference is that none were big names from any major labels. I bought from CDBaby, from sales at concerts and events, from music links to independent sites.. Any mainstream/established artists I picked up from iTunes... E.g., Dylan, U2, Linkin' Park (yeah yeah, it was a moment of weakness)...
So maybe the big labels declined, but my guess is that the smaller houses are growing...
I tutored mathematics for several years and noticed a few things about people that struggled in mathematics (as I did, until one day it all "clicked").
Math is highly layered. You need to grasp the lower levels before the higher ones are attainable. You may actually have a mathematical mind, but earlier one may have misunderstood a concept that hinders later understanding. For example, without a clear understanding of the number line, concepts such as points and lines are more difficult to grasp. Without points and lines, trying to grasp quadratics is tough. Spend a couple weeks on the absolute basics first (real numbers, integers, multiplication, fractions) even if you think it's way too simple. You may be surprised to find that you have a misconception somewhere.
People learn in different ways. Some people are better able to grasp trigonometry concepts using the _unit circle_ method. Others learn better by graphing points on the number line. For this reason, try to get several books on a subject and study each. Many times one will reinforce or clarify a concept in another just on the basis of how the concept is presented.
Do the time. Even if you believe you have grasped a concept, keep on doing the lessons until you can visualize the solution in your mind. This means lots of practice exercises. Keep on doing them until they're boring and second-nature.
I've used Blender off and on for a few years, and have even written some tutorials on its usage. For me, it's similar to using vi versus some other editor. Once you get used to the interface, you can get a whole lot of stuff done quite quickly. I'm also lucky in that Blender was one of the first serious 3D apps I had used so there were no pre-conceptions about the interface.
Nah, the reason the series was cancelled was not because so few people got that joke, but that of those that did, 90% of them thought, "That doesn't make any sense. Does he mean Earth atmosphere? Or Jovian? Or Martian?"
Funny you mentioned this...
Recently my credit card company sent me a letter apologizing for an error in a bill. They were crediting me back some money because of an invalid interest calculation. The letter didn't mention the amount. Whoohooo!!! I thought, more $$$ for me. So I log in to check my account. Sure enough, there's the credit. 4 cents. Yup. 4 cents was enough for them to send out a letter. Of course, multiply this amount by millions and you're talking serious cash, but for one individual account it's hardly worth the electricity to check the bill.
I'm writing this on one of the original Dell Ubuntu laptops. A few days after receiving it, I wiped Ubuntu and put on Centos5 mainly to keep the same software that I use on my servers and other workstations. There was a small glitch in getting the wireless to work, but so far it's been perfect. The laptop hibernates properly, browses wirelessly and wired, and works properly. The annoying stuff that took some configuration were the media keys, MP3 and WMA video playback, and an issue with the sound kicking off and requiring a driver reload via KDE. This wasn't too tough for me to figure out, but I have some experience with Linux. I wouldn't recommend it for the Linux newbie, but heck, that's why it ships with Ubuntu.
I'm not a big fan of Dell home systems (their business machines are much better built), but having a major vendor support Linux is a good thing regardless. By them supporting Linux fixes can get pushed to other systems. The glitches in the Intel 3945 wireless card will be worked out. Maybe the Broadcoms start working without ndiswrapper. Heck, ATI might come around and make a proper video driver set.
I chose to buy this laptop precisely because the hardware is Linux compatible (well, except for the closed Nvidia drivers which are not too bad). If more people did this it gives an incentive for hardware manufacturers to release code and drivers for Linux. That helps everyone.
It's interesting.. Our local LUG (FLUX in S. Florida) has been wrestling with declining (still respectable, but declining) attendance for a couple years. We've batted around ideas, but I guess part of the reason is that the novelty of Linux has worn out. It's somewhat pedestrian now, considering how many suits use it without even knowing.
The interesting thing is that I see a lot more Linux usage in corporate environments than ever before. There are lots of requests for administration and setup from SMBs, and in my 9-to-5 corporate IT employer, there are Linux servers running production loads.
Running Linux is no big deal anymore, so has lost some of its attraction. But I noticed the Mac groups have had a resurgence.. Maybe it's in cycles.. I was in a Mac user group a long time ago (about the time of the Centris and Quadra machines), and they faded for a while, but came back. With the Dell offerings, more corporate deployments, "good enough" improvements of Linux in corporate loads, etc.., I think the groups will grow again. The demographics will be different, but people will come.
Plus the Internet has made the community a lot larger. Before it was hard to find like-minded folks.
Dude, have you ever tried to take down a rhino? Getting rhino horn is like showing off a SuperBowl ring.
"Look, Zhang, I got some rhino horn here."
"Really Kwan?!? How ever did you get it?"
"It was hard work but I am manly."
"Ooooooohhhhh!"
Walking, either normally or "race", is still a lot more efficient than running. In sprints, the knees move up quite high. In long distance running, it's more efficient, but still nowhere near that of a walk. I can run for 30 minutes at about 6.0 mph, but I can walk for hours at 4.0 mph.
A couple months ago I disconnected my cable modem service with Comcast. They were fast, but down as much as they were up. I missed it the first few days.. No longer could pull down Linux ISOs in an hour. No longer could stream last weeks BSG episodes. But I got by.
Then my DSL went south. I lost pretty much all connectivity to the Internet. They finally fixed it, but at half the previous speed. It was barely enough for me to serve up my web pages.
My mail server had some problems recently. I had to rebuild the hard drive and drop it back to a backup machine. Had some backups, but was too busy (ok, lazy) to restore. Didn't feel like reconfiguring the webmail frontend in any case. So I started pushing some of the domain up to a hosting facility.
I started using dialup internet because the DSL was just horrid. That wasn't as bad as it sounds, but the hosting site didn't support IMAP, only POP3 because they didn't want to store mail. It was easier to use a command line client in any case.
That worked for a while, but it was still slow. So I had my buddy set up a box with direct modem dial up access. I set up a SLIP connection and could then pull my mail faster. I ditched Pine for the mail utility since it was faster.
But why have SLIP when I could just drop a modem directly to a console? It eliminated about 8% overhead in packet traffic in any case.
Heck, why stop there. I could set up a UUCP connection to another machine and really move mail quickly via serial modem. If I strip HTML attachments and just go with standard mail it'll fly.
Heck, the mail envelope is WAY too much overhead. I should strip that too...
We'll see how it goes...
I wonder if the BIX account is still active?
I've noticed this with some Nvidia cards and it has always been solved by disabling the framebuffer mode for text console. This kills the high-res console, but at least makes it stable.
BSG: Atlantis - A lost colony of Capricans made it to Earth long before...
BSG: DS9 - A colony of Capricans find a space station near a worm hole
BSG: TNG - The children of the original Capricans find a home on Earth. Great situational comedy starring Nicole Trachtenberg.
BSG: The Chachi Years -- still in production...
I already have a couple E1505s. It was a PITA to get the video working properly (ATI) and the Dell wireless card in one never really worked even with ndiswrappers. I spoke with sales support today and the E1505 with an Nvidia chipset is not offered anymore. Big shame because that would have been a perfect system for me. But if the price is decent and xorg fully supports the Intel 950 chipset, I'll probably end up getting another one despite it all.
The Dell home customer support is probably the worst I've ever encountered, but their systems tend to be cheaper than other vendors.
I admire you. This is off-topic somewhat, but I've noticed that lots of IT folks have no clue how to budget and save. I admire that you drive a 13 year old car. Lots of the IT workers in my department who make less than me spend more on cars than I spend on a mortgage. Hey, if cars are their passion, go for it, but it's a little alarming to see how little they save. I also admire that you understand the concept of a family budget. I don't know if it's because the typical IT worker is younger, but it's also alarming to see how many of them are waiting on their next check because bills are due. At the same time they're picking up laptops, cameras, high-end electronics on credit cards. Again, it's their finances, but I'm a little frightened for some of them (the younger ones mostly) who have never seen an employment downturn.
Your driving habits are atypical. Many people want to live in the suburbs and work in the city. It's how our cities are constructed in most of the US. This leads to traffic, congestion, wasted fuel. But to change that requires deep re-thinking of the American dream (home in the suburbs, two cars, etc.).
I agree in spirit with your comment, but experience has taught me that compensation seems more closely tied to how "big" a system is rather than what the admin actually does. I.e., an admin in a small startup may wear many hats, is constantly busy updating DNS, tuning the database disks, installing patches, etc., but is almost certainly pulling in a smaller income than a enterprise admin that does little more than write reports on system uptime...
But that's neither bad nor good. In an enterprise, the systems better damn well never go down (unscheduled). If they do, you may get fired that day, that minute. Millions of dollars may rely on system uptime. People can lose their jobs if a web page crashes. At the same time, the enterprise admin may get siloed. He/she probably won't be installing Oracle (that's DBA function) or tuning Sendmail (Notes/Mail folks) or troubleshooting the network (Infrastructure team).
What works well in a smaller shop -- the ability to rig a system, improvise -- completely falls over in a larger shop. There are different skillsets, certainly. In smaller shops there's rarely a SAN, few Oracle RACs, HACMP, clusters, change management, SOX rules, etc., but that's a given in a larger shop. But it seems that smaller shop admins generally know a few (newer) scripting languages such as Ruby, Python, etc.. Even Perl, a graybeard loon among scripting languages, is not always in the toolset of big shop admins.