I was lucky, though, I went to a small high school (~100 students). You couldn't be an outsider for long; sooner or later someone would befriend you.
I really pity the "geeks" in the big schools. The cliques are just too exclusive; in a small school you're forced to get to know others, and they're forced to get to know you. Also, these days families are so spread out that your extended family can be across the country. That was something that helped me: having cousins to talk to and have a bond with got me through some tough times.
Anyone who lays blame on the parents of these kids is comepletely out of touch (my wife is a psychiatrist and she says so!). My parents were good and loving, but a human needs more than parental love (& discipline!) to thrive. You need the love of a *community*. I know that sounds trite but the more I think about it the more I see the logic in it. There's truth in the saying "It takes a village to raise a child". We are social animals, and the ostracizing of these non-conformists deprives them of the love they need.
It's like caging a dog, and poking it with a stick, torturing it day after day. Sooner or later it'll bite you. This is what happened in Littleton. Not that it's right; I'm just calling it as I see it. Those kids were sick, therefore something made them sick.
Hang in there you guys; when you get out you'll be free!
It's late, and I can't sleep, so if this sounds like drivel, forgive me.
You first have to define what you mean by bandwidth. Clearly it's the capacity of some communications link in terms of symbols per unit time. This is a function of the physical properties of the materials with which this link is built (which is also called bandwidth; confusing, isn't it?).
To throw a bunch of tapes on a truck and call it a high-bandwidth link is really misleading. That's a short burst of data; it's unsustainable. In comparing communications throughout history, what you really want to compare is the theoretical maximum sustained rate of transfer of individual symbols (bits)
e.g. give a bit (0 or 1) to the pony expressman and as soon as he leaves, give another expressman the next bit, and so on and so on (assuming an infinite supply of horses!). After a sufficient time such that latency becomes negligible (say, a year), add up the bits received and divide by the total time. So if a horse leaves every 5 seconds, your bandwidth is 1/5=0.2 bits per second.
Note that latency becomes neglible for sustained transfers of data. You don't care how many hops your ftp of the 2.2 kernel takes; you care how long it takes for you to complete the transfer.
Here you'll find an explanation of Shannon's theoretical limit on the bandwidth of a channel: "There is a theoretical maximum to the rate at which information passes error free over the channel. This maximum is called the channel capacity C. The famous Hartley-Shannon Law states that the channel capacity C is given by: C=B*log2(1+S/N) bits/second. Note that S/N is linear in this expression. For example, a 10KHz channel operating in a SNR of 15dB has a theoretical maximum information rate of 10000log2(31.623) = 49828 b/s. "
So, brothers and sisters, the growth of bandwidth is a function of the growth in bandwidth of the materials making up our communications links, and the SNR of these links. I expect the graph would be a nice exponential. Good night.zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Pre-installed Windows vs. you-install Linux ...
on
Slate Takes on Linux
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· Score: 1
I installed Win98 in an hour, basically hands-free. On the same machine, it took me a week of evenings to get RedHat 5.2 up and running. The video driver still doesn't work right (switching from SVGA to text mode leaves the console screen a mess).
Want me to write an article?;-)
Seems to me there's lots of FUD on both sides...
Basically, I like Linux. It's an elegant design. I think it's got a future. And sometimes MS Windows just pisses me off.
However, if I need to get something done today, I'll go to NT. If I need to build a VXI system, I recommend NT. If I have to choose between COM today and CORBA tomorrow, I'll take the former.
If my son wants to play Freddie Fish, we boot up '98. Likewise if my wife needs to play her games. Likewise if my in-laws need to use the computer.
I'm still rooting for the underdog (I've since upgraded to the 2.2.2 kernel, & installed KDE), but I'm as pragmatic as the next guy.
No system is perfect; there's always something that needs improving. Just don't take it so hard when a MS magazine slags your system; what did you expect? The fact that they're noticing it says a lot!
Slashdot Mirror
Nuff said.
I've said all along that other Unixes will be hurt well before MS feels the pain.
I wish I would have had this forum 14 years ago.
I was lucky, though, I went to a small high school (~100 students). You couldn't be an outsider for long; sooner or later someone would befriend you.
I really pity the "geeks" in the big schools. The cliques are just too exclusive; in a small school you're forced to get to know others, and they're forced to get to know you. Also, these days families are so spread out that your extended family can be across the country. That was something that helped me: having cousins to talk to and have a bond with got me through some tough times.
Anyone who lays blame on the parents of these kids is comepletely out of touch (my wife is a psychiatrist and she says so!). My parents were good and loving, but a human needs more than parental love (& discipline!) to thrive. You need the love of a *community*. I know that sounds trite but the more I think about it the more I see the logic in it. There's truth in the saying "It takes a village to raise a child". We are social animals, and the ostracizing of these non-conformists deprives them of the love they need.
It's like caging a dog, and poking it with a stick, torturing it day after day. Sooner or later it'll bite you. This is what happened in Littleton. Not that it's right; I'm just calling it as I see it. Those kids were sick, therefore something made them sick.
Hang in there you guys; when you get out you'll be free!
You first have to define what you mean by bandwidth. Clearly it's the capacity of some communications link in terms of symbols per unit time. This is a function of the physical properties of the materials with which this link is built (which is also called bandwidth; confusing, isn't it?).
To throw a bunch of tapes on a truck and call it a high-bandwidth link is really misleading. That's a short burst of data; it's unsustainable. In comparing communications throughout history, what you really want to compare is the theoretical maximum sustained rate of transfer of individual symbols (bits)
e.g. give a bit (0 or 1) to the pony expressman and as soon as he leaves, give another expressman the next bit, and so on and so on (assuming an infinite supply of horses!). After a sufficient time such that latency becomes negligible (say, a year), add up the bits received and divide by the total time. So if a horse leaves every 5 seconds, your bandwidth is 1/5=0.2 bits per second.
Note that latency becomes neglible for sustained transfers of data. You don't care how many hops your ftp of the 2.2 kernel takes; you care how long it takes for you to complete the transfer.
Here you'll find an explanation of Shannon's theoretical limit on the bandwidth of a channel: "There is a theoretical maximum to the rate at which information passes error free over the channel. This maximum is called the channel capacity C. The famous Hartley-Shannon Law states that the channel capacity C is given by: C=B*log2(1+S/N) bits/second. Note that S/N is linear in this expression. For example, a 10KHz channel operating in a SNR of 15dB has a theoretical maximum information rate of 10000log2(31.623) = 49828 b/s. "
So, brothers and sisters, the growth of bandwidth is a function of the growth in bandwidth of the materials making up our communications links, and the SNR of these links. I expect the graph would be a nice exponential. Good night.zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I installed Win98 in an hour, basically hands-free.
;-)
On the same machine, it took me a week of evenings to get RedHat 5.2 up and running. The video driver still doesn't work right (switching from SVGA to text mode leaves the console screen a mess).
Want me to write an article?
Seems to me there's lots of FUD on both sides...
Basically, I like Linux. It's an elegant design. I think it's got a future. And sometimes MS Windows just pisses me off.
However, if I need to get something done today, I'll go to NT. If I need to build a VXI system, I recommend NT. If I have to choose between COM today and CORBA tomorrow, I'll take the former.
If my son wants to play Freddie Fish, we boot up '98. Likewise if my wife needs to play her games. Likewise if my in-laws need to use the computer.
I'm still rooting for the underdog (I've since upgraded to the 2.2.2 kernel, & installed KDE), but I'm as pragmatic as the next guy.
No system is perfect; there's always something that needs improving. Just don't take it so hard when a MS magazine slags your system; what did you expect? The fact that they're noticing it says a lot!