This will never happen. The whole idea behind having such wacky computer based systems is to provide a sense of out of control to voters while giving control to to who has the big bucks. Remember government is not made for or from us. we just think it does. If a voting machine "borks" then there is plausible deniability. A chance for a recount, a way to skew the numbers to the benefit of those in charge. Simply put attempting to make a better system only pushes those who can manipulate that system out. So those who can manipulate a system will never allow something that makes it better. You know the old adage: "What's in it for me?" Ask a politician to make a fairer and more robust voting system and he/she will ask you "What's in it for me?"
Assuming PGP and/or GnuPG is capable to producing and managing good encrypted data using the most popular algorithm out today (DES? AES?) we talk of 56 bit easy to crack, 128 bit harder. If as geeks we are so concerned about distributed brute force attacks why not just up the key size to 1024 bit no wait with today's bandwidth make it a 2Mb (2048 bit) key? I mean really is a key the size of 2048 bit really going to slow down the transmission? No less then streaming you favorite internet radio and video sites.
So assume proper key management, and properly secured end terminals. The transmission of the data is the week point bump up the key size to be so astronomical that no for of distributed computing would be able to hack it till some time in 50 - 100 years from now. By that time the information itself will have been expired.
Or am I totally wrong in thinking this?
The law states for emergency or public safety officials is that some traffic laws can be broken but with (and it stresses) "do regard" to others.
What this means is that if a police officer moved through an intersection after stopping at the red light with caution and a truck slammed in to him at 200mph he would not be liable since he showed "do regard".
If you cautiously proceed through and two others slam into each other after you pass because the drivers were staring at your pretty lights instead then you still showed "do regard"
If the officer flew through the intersection with out stopping at a high rate of speed. Lights or not this shows that he did not proceed with "do regard" and is held liable.
Then again that is the law as I understand it from the emergency safety service in the state of Connecticut.
I'm pretty sure there is a reason. And with how the cellphone industry is these days I bet Jobs had to "settle" some how. he is big time now and I'm sure some of his grand ideas still have to go through inverters. And with the number of companies he had to "go through" to approve a cellphone (That is A LOT of red tape) I am sure there was a stipulation to "lock down" the phone.
Only time will tell. Perhaps they will open it later. Or maybe just make the certification (digital signing) process easier unlike Sony (Read PSP)
ME! I need them. A bit of background. I am an Emergency Medical Technition. I sit in an ambulance for 12 hour shifts waiting for someone to hurt themselves and call 911. This is the perfect opertunity to use a portable gaming system.
I have tried three systems so far.
PalmOS - Great for keeping your daily schedual intact (Except pointless as an alarm) but doesn't even scratch the surface of playing good games. (I've found Go and Interactive Fiction to be it's best)
GameBoy - Perfect finally a system were I can pay $30 bucks for a physical carterige that will play a fully fetured games designed by the best in the industry (No more shaddy shareware programming.) But one big problem. I go into a store and find nothing but childrens games. Pokemon, Nickelodeon Movies, and Mario. Don't get me wrong these games are fun for a while but I really crave my Duke Nukem 3D, Splintercell, Grand Theft Auto. And the graphics are not what they should be heck my Pocket PC has better graphics then just birds eye view like the GBA.
TiBook - Still my favorite. It will play many good games with awsome graphics. It also has the advantage of playing DVD's and allowing me to program develope and learn Blender3D. However it is large and you can't carry it on you (Can't bring it into the hospital waiting room easily) It eats up battery life requring a power inverter. and it is very expensive so extreme care must be taken not to break it in an ambulance that's trvaling at 100 MPH with lights and sirens.
Ok so maybe getting a laptop to play Go is extreme but I can only handle so much E rated games before I give up. So in short there are many examples (EMS being one of them) where more then just Pokemon is avaliable for entertainment.
Yes, I over-generalized this post. However my point was that there are not enought gameing systems for adults and there is a market for it. (Appologies for tangent thoughts)
As your car is burning Hydrogen (mixed with Oxygen) the process
will create water (H2O) and store this in a tank.
Pull up to your "Fuel Cell" station and deposit your waste
(water) and refill your Hydrogen.
Now the station takes the water and through electrolysis [wikipedia.org] it creates Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Hydrogen fills the next customers fuel cell while the Oxygen is place back into the atmosphere from which the Hydrogen powered car cot it in the first place.
Now the energy needed for the electrolysis would come from power
plants like nuclear and coal etc. And if cars did there own
electrolysis then the electricity that you use to charge the
batteries would come from nuclear or coal. Not much difference I see
(Is the energy consumption incorrect in my thinking?)
As for transport if the station is storing water and making it's
own Hydrogen then the storage would be minimal as opposed to huge
pressurized tanks.
In other words store the Hydrogen in a chemically neutral form
and convert it to pure Hydrogen when you need it. Just an idea.
One of the things you have to look at is that today's society has changed. Before we really worried too much about the dangers of living in this world we had community.
Before children and adults for that matter were watched and tracked my other members of the community. In stead of...
ALERT! Child #0496 has entered Store #339 "Charlie's Candy Surplus"
You would have had...
"Hey Cindy, How's little Billy doing? You know I saw him today he came into my candy store during school hours no less."
But modern day is go go go and fornicate fornicate instant gratification. Hence the push for that same neighborhood watch bundled into a small neat package implanted under the skin. So for many parents this is a godsend because it provides that sense of security you used to have.
I presume you would envision this more in an urban setting rather then your small towns and villages in rural areas.
Invasion of privacy?... Yes. However in this day in age when the "average joe/jane" prefers to not stand up for his/her rights others are somewhat painted into a corner. And as the famous Bugs Bunny said "If you can't beat them, join them"
And here's is how I do it. I have three spots I can toss a headless server running linux in a basement. (My Dad's basement - Cable, My Mother's basement - Cable, and My Grandmother's basement - DSL) Most ISP's don't block or legaly restrict port 22 for SSH access. So I set up some secure Linux boxes all with SSH and X tunneling. I toss PuTTY [www.chiark.greenend.org.uk] and TightVNC [www.tightvnc.com] on my Wrist Watch [www.thinkgeek.com] and I'm all set to abide by there arcaine rules and yet all MY stuff is safe secure and packaged away on secure Linux boxes and many layers of encryption. They can't legally invade that.
As for a Desktop; I would suggest an alternate OS. In the past 4 years I have been able to live without a windows based machine (Yeah I fix them all the time) but I personally never had the need for one (Except some games which I quickly satisfy using a PS2, Thanks to WA, Windows Anonymous)
Yes, I carry a handgun for those few ISP's that block port 22 (That would be a joke!)
Sad enough that many assume that one way of doing things is the only way. I have noticed that there about 5 different ways of doing the same thing in The GIMP (Same true for PS) it comes down to the artist's preference.
I would take options anyday over conformity.
The menu you get from right-clicking is also avaliable by left-clicking the menu arrow located at the upper left corner of the image.
On a side note I have always ripped my hairs out trying to memorize the short cuts in PS. I then tried GIMP and found them to be intuitive and was able to guess about 90% of them easily. Of the ones I couldn't memorize I fell in love when I found you can customize and change them to your fancy so easy.
In fact The GIMP was so intuitive that all I did was hover my mouse over the menu item and press the shortcut I wanted and bingo it was done. No more hard to navigate preference panels.
Simply put: IMHO I don't like the integrated phone/PDA's they are horrible, bulky, and down right inconvenient.
Now before anyone panics let me explain my otherwise irrational rational. When I think mobile ease of use I think a small hand held phone in my pocket as easy. However the display you see on the phone sucks. To be blunt, I cannot SSH from my phone. So the next best thing is a PDA.
My idea of a good mobile setup is a PDA in the car clove box ready to read mail, surf the web, and SSH to my home computer all connected to the internet via my cell phone attached by a simple cord. Since I do the same thing for my laptop this makes perfect sense.
Now I would not feel comfortable carrying a laptop on my back nor would I feel comfortable carrying a $400 mini computer on my hip. I would rather carry a sleek and sexy cell phone. Hence the division in functionality.
A cell phone for phone calls, a cable and PDA for internet browsing. And when I sit down at a coffee shop I use my laptop. Easy. Simple. And useful. The K.I.S.S. Method!
I was at a company that was so into the 'black box' idea that simple things like annoying bug fixes became imposible.
Basically (for the programming geeks) they set up an error handling policy where (deep in the program execution) it trapped all exceptions including fatal programming errors and sent them up the chain. At each level of the program it caught the exception created a new one and dicarded the old one. So by the time the user actually got an error message it was about some butterfly flapping it's wings in Africa and not about the null pointer you tried to write to.
Anyway this IMHO is an example of 'black boxes' going too far. If you build a well designed architecture and proper object API schemes then you shouldn't run into issue like such. But if you put on the blinders and assume that whatever your doing in your black box is of no concern to the rest of the world then you are destined for doom.
You have to look at what is going on around you to properly deal with things. This goes for real life as well as programming. Far too many drones with blinders who can't see past there own nose are walking around lately.
Dude. I have never laughed so hard! I can only imagine a bad cartoon:
"Frank!!! I think we have a problem!!!"
"What?... I'll check the console logs..... Oh No!!"
"What's wrong?"
"Theres a 'Fatel Error: Wing no longher attached!' message!!"
"What do we do Frank?!??"
"I don't know... um... I'll open up the debugger!"
I would be interested in resources for both the technical how-to's and the political how-to's to accomplish a community LAN.
I have always wanted to start one in my area. If it's strait forward enough I could start one block at a time and maybe make a big hit.
Has anyone delt with the compitition? I would assume the Cable and DSL companies would be kinda pissed seeing everyone's money go to a wireless ISP with a T3 not through their wired lines. And since they have the bigger bank it means the little guys (dispite their good intentions) can get hurt real bad in battle.
I loved Linux, BSD, Sun, etc. anything with a propper Bash shell. I would hiss at others as they entered the room with there new Windows ME based hardware. I would scower at others with their up-side-down Apple logos and their shinny happy faces. *shudder*
With Mac OS X all of that has changed. Now I'm one of those shiny happy faces. So why did I switch. Simple: "Based on Unix." Yup That's why. When I saw that a nice and functinoal interface that didn't get in the way ontop of a Unix environment I was almost sold.
Hardware
The hardware is very superior. First thing I noticed is compatability. Not once has my machine fretted about hardware. It has been very polite by either supporting my hardware 100% or nicely letting me know that it doesn't know how to talk to the device.
My TiBook came with two USB ports, A Firewire port, A 1000 Kb/s RJ-45 Jack, A monitor port, S-Video port (with Composite Addapter), 56 Kb/s V.90 Modem and a PCMCIA slot. Eveyone I talk to is amased by the slot loading DVD drive.
The keyboard is nice. It's slim and black with white letters. That in my book is cool. However the keys are weak and shallow. And the Control key is in the upmost worst spot it could be. So thanks to the ease of use of USB I use my "Happy Hacker Keyboard" Plus a Logiteck Optical mouse (3 button w/ wheel).
As for power my machine really kicks but. I got the lower end model at 550 MHz G4 and it's fast. Most of the time I have multiple apps running. Photoshop, Word, iTunes, Mozilla, Terminal (w/ multiple ssh and updatedb at 0000 midnight) and my machine doesn't break a sweat (It's got a fan too)
By far my favorite feature is "sleep mode" all I do is close the lid and the machine suspends itself and a spiffy glowing pulsing LED turns on lighting up the room like a night light. It's that simple. I even had the battery drop out and when I quickly returned it in a panic I found everything was still ok. It is roubust and durable. And it's mad from titanium.
The only two draw backs I saw is the pain on the edges chip off needing a paint job at somepoint. And the price. Apple hardware although superiour is more expensive.
Interface
So far OS X is the best desktop for a Unix environment I have ever seen. It out trumps GNOME and KDE and tottaly obliverates Windows. I may loose some geek factor in favor of ease of use but to be honest Terminal is for those geek things. It it intuitive enough for a kid yet powerfull enough for a serious gamer. Allot is already customizable by default. The look and feel can be customized by a third party app. A few of the Enightenmant features I miss. Mainly the middle mouse button paste. The virtual destop is missing too. And most missed is the sloppy focus. But aside for that the interface is easy and doesn't get in my way Like so many others.
In my eyes OS X compares as if it were just another windows manager on a really well made BSD Distribution. If it ever came to Intel it would rule the world but the hardware is why you should by a Mac. In fact you should get it because it will remove some of the extra thought you use to use the machine and put it to better use. Really the interface does a descent job of freeing you from thinking about it as much. But I'll save more propaganda for more qualified reviewers than myself.
pros
Easy to use
fast
dependable
perfect multitasking
compatability w/ windows networks, Unix, And good hardware compatability.
Looks uber slick
This is the Docker pants amung computers
cons
It's a little pricey
Doesn't have as much commercial software (But you Unix geeks should be used to that)
$120 for an upgrade from 10.1.5 to 10.2
It places fear and resentment to those companies who have been sleeping around with Microsoft
Please forgive the poor quality of this review it's my first time. Questions/comments can be addressed in emails or slashdot reply posts.
I am proud to say my Mac is 100% OS X. I have deleted my Virtual PC's so no more windows and Classic (OS 9) has been remove. Fink [sf.net] saved my sanity.
WHAT!? Microsoft can tell you what to do with a computer?!?!? So thay have the power to say all PCs must come with a PCI slot and a Intel Proccessor? So they can tell me I can't have my glowing neon case mod?
We are now letting Microsoft dictate how we do business? If I just deside to build a computer from parts and sell it I'm now bound to install some kind of OS? When did I agree to this?
Now I'm scared. I'm really paranoid. I'm going to be looking in every closet from now on to see if there is a Microsoft rep lurking about. I'm going to save every scrap of paper I find incase it happens to be an end user license agreement. Look under your beds. GnuPG every file you have! Microsoft is coming to town!!!
I missed my caffine today so I'm a few brain cells short.
Perhaps I should clarify my former (soon to be) flaimbait.
First off It'[s knee jerk reaction to project splits. I don't like seeing projects split unless politiaclly there is no other option (like the maintainer is a source code greedy jerk). So I'm some what aggitated by news of another version control. Especially with spening such great effort to fight the CVS battle against VSS and the like. And when the de facto standard of CVS came about I thought I had won.
Secondly, I do feel changes need to be made. CVS is limited and enhancment are required. (But what open source project isn't). The subversion successor sounds fabulous and I will download and try it perhaps even use it in production. However It bothers me as to why it's is a sepereate project. Subversion or CVS v2.0 or CVS (Subversion) v2.0? I don't see why a completely new project is required.
one of the ideals of a hacker is you should never solve a puzzle twice. So now Subversion is reinventing the CVS wheel to make it better when it could just make CVS better. See my delema?
Anyway maybe there is a good reason hiden there. that's why comment welcome. And none of these are intended as flamebait thay just sound that way. Sorry.
And if that doesn't convince you, well, it's not for nothing that some of the primary developers of CVS are now working on subversion.
Can you back this up? I'm interested to see.
I have to admit I'm biased to CVS. I love it so much that I used to sleep with a floppy containing the binary under my pillow for a month. (ok slight exageration).
Anyway I see a big breach in the "open source" way of doing things. In the past a simple project would grow as needed. If features didn't exists or bugs were around. Someone would fix it.
CVS has been the de facto standard for version control in the "open source" community especially in say SourceForge. Now it's being abandoned like a poor basterd child. I would like to see just why a proven software that in many ways is one of the best, known to out beat VSS the lord and ruler (MicroSoft), is now now a heap of garbage not worthy of the "open source" way of collaborative enhanchments.
Instead of throwing it away reuse it. If RCS isn't possible rewrite it. Convert CVS to a new and better way. But why destroy the one faithfull servent because it's old or doesn't live up to expectstions. We're smart people. If Linux had the same problem would we abandon it at a whim? No, I'd like to belive we would make it better. Did the GIMP give up when they were faced with a crappy Windows ToolKit?
It sounds as if it is a tempermental thing that many people are assamed of the CVS name. I, who belives in CVS and sometimes worships CVS; who in my many years of administration have never seen a problem can't fathom why it would be so ridiculed and persicuted in a world that pride themselves on co-operation and "freedom" to enhance and superiorize software at will. A huge efort to give CVS up is underway and no effort to bring CVS to the top of the ladder. It seems counter productive and contrary to what "free software" or "open source" ideals used to be.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
Sounds as if he is stuck in the 60s. Sorry buddy but I used that line once and got slapped.
In todays world of skript kikddies and MCPs (Magazine Certified Programmers) The "if your a programmer then you should know how the computer works" way of thinking is right out.
I have met about three computer programmers so far and thay couldn't tell me why explorer.exe was required to have at least one instance running at all times!
I remember one Visual C++ programmer who every time a shouted "Damb it! another illegal operation bug! I want my Linux machine back!" he would reply "You need to go to an OS collage course and learn why an OS is so hard and complicated. These things are little things because the OS is so busy with just running it can't handle everything"
hmmm. I would award him the nobel prize for computer sympathy!
So I guess the computer idustry is so saturated that anybody who anybody can join without any prior skills or knowladge. Gone are the days of codeFu. Gone are the days of mathamatics. Gone are the scientists striving to get to the moon. And in come the monkeys with quick tails to bow to the needs of every big haired boss.
Looks like Open Source comunity better get trucking in taking over the world. If we continue eventually the whole internet will have a big general protection fault and the only ones left standing will be us!
Slashdot Mirror
This will never happen. The whole idea behind having such wacky computer based systems is to provide a sense of out of control to voters while giving control to to who has the big bucks. Remember government is not made for or from us. we just think it does. If a voting machine "borks" then there is plausible deniability. A chance for a recount, a way to skew the numbers to the benefit of those in charge. Simply put attempting to make a better system only pushes those who can manipulate that system out. So those who can manipulate a system will never allow something that makes it better. You know the old adage: "What's in it for me?" Ask a politician to make a fairer and more robust voting system and he/she will ask you "What's in it for me?"
Assuming PGP and/or GnuPG is capable to producing and managing good encrypted data using the most popular algorithm out today (DES? AES?) we talk of 56 bit easy to crack, 128 bit harder. If as geeks we are so concerned about distributed brute force attacks why not just up the key size to 1024 bit no wait with today's bandwidth make it a 2Mb (2048 bit) key? I mean really is a key the size of 2048 bit really going to slow down the transmission? No less then streaming you favorite internet radio and video sites. So assume proper key management, and properly secured end terminals. The transmission of the data is the week point bump up the key size to be so astronomical that no for of distributed computing would be able to hack it till some time in 50 - 100 years from now. By that time the information itself will have been expired. Or am I totally wrong in thinking this?
The law states for emergency or public safety officials is that some traffic laws can be broken but with (and it stresses) "do regard" to others.
What this means is that if a police officer moved through an intersection after stopping at the red light with caution and a truck slammed in to him at 200mph he would not be liable since he showed "do regard".
If you cautiously proceed through and two others slam into each other after you pass because the drivers were staring at your pretty lights instead then you still showed "do regard"
If the officer flew through the intersection with out stopping at a high rate of speed. Lights or not this shows that he did not proceed with "do regard" and is held liable.
Then again that is the law as I understand it from the emergency safety service in the state of Connecticut.
I'm pretty sure there is a reason. And with how the cellphone industry is these days I bet Jobs had to "settle" some how. he is big time now and I'm sure some of his grand ideas still have to go through inverters. And with the number of companies he had to "go through" to approve a cellphone (That is A LOT of red tape) I am sure there was a stipulation to "lock down" the phone.
Only time will tell. Perhaps they will open it later. Or maybe just make the certification (digital signing) process easier unlike Sony (Read PSP)
ME! I need them. A bit of background. I am an Emergency Medical Technition. I sit in an ambulance for 12 hour shifts waiting for someone to hurt themselves and call 911. This is the perfect opertunity to use a portable gaming system.
I have tried three systems so far.
Ok so maybe getting a laptop to play Go is extreme but I can only handle so much E rated games before I give up. So in short there are many examples (EMS being one of them) where more then just Pokemon is avaliable for entertainment.
Yes, I over-generalized this post. However my point was that there are not enought gameing systems for adults and there is a market for it. (Appologies for tangent thoughts)
Correct me if I'm wrong but what about this idea?
As your car is burning Hydrogen (mixed with Oxygen) the process will create water (H2O) and store this in a tank.
Pull up to your "Fuel Cell" station and deposit your waste (water) and refill your Hydrogen.
Now the station takes the water and through electrolysis [wikipedia.org] it creates Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Hydrogen fills the next customers fuel cell while the Oxygen is place back into the atmosphere from which the Hydrogen powered car cot it in the first place.
Now the energy needed for the electrolysis would come from power plants like nuclear and coal etc. And if cars did there own electrolysis then the electricity that you use to charge the batteries would come from nuclear or coal. Not much difference I see (Is the energy consumption incorrect in my thinking?)
As for transport if the station is storing water and making it's own Hydrogen then the storage would be minimal as opposed to huge pressurized tanks.
In other words store the Hydrogen in a chemically neutral form and convert it to pure Hydrogen when you need it. Just an idea.
Lithium Ion batteries require conditioning. If the laptop is always plugged in (Like my TiBook) the battery with loose it's conditioning.
You have to routinely run the battery down till the computer sleeps itself and then charge it up to 100% before using it again.
It's a pain in my butt that's why I don't do it instead I'll wait till forced to by a $70 - $100 battery replacement.
Least that is what I've been told about Li-Ion batteries.
One of the things you have to look at is that today's society has changed. Before we really worried too much about the dangers of living in this world we had community.
Before children and adults for that matter were watched and tracked my other members of the community. In stead of...
You would have had...
But modern day is go go go and fornicate fornicate instant gratification. Hence the push for that same neighborhood watch bundled into a small neat package implanted under the skin. So for many parents this is a godsend because it provides that sense of security you used to have.
I presume you would envision this more in an urban setting rather then your small towns and villages in rural areas.
Invasion of privacy? ... Yes. However in this day in age when the "average joe/jane" prefers to not stand up for his/her rights others are somewhat painted into a corner. And as the famous Bugs Bunny said "If you can't beat them, join them"
And here's is how I do it. I have three spots I can toss a headless server running linux in a basement. (My Dad's basement - Cable, My Mother's basement - Cable, and My Grandmother's basement - DSL) Most ISP's don't block or legaly restrict port 22 for SSH access. So I set up some secure Linux boxes all with SSH and X tunneling. I toss PuTTY [www.chiark.greenend.org.uk] and TightVNC [www.tightvnc.com] on my Wrist Watch [www.thinkgeek.com] and I'm all set to abide by there arcaine rules and yet all MY stuff is safe secure and packaged away on secure Linux boxes and many layers of encryption. They can't legally invade that.
As for a Desktop; I would suggest an alternate OS. In the past 4 years I have been able to live without a windows based machine (Yeah I fix them all the time) but I personally never had the need for one (Except some games which I quickly satisfy using a PS2, Thanks to WA, Windows Anonymous)
Yes, I carry a handgun for those few ISP's that block port 22 (That would be a joke!)
Sad enough that many assume that one way of doing things is the only way. I have noticed that there about 5 different ways of doing the same thing in The GIMP (Same true for PS) it comes down to the artist's preference.
I would take options anyday over conformity.
The menu you get from right-clicking is also avaliable by left-clicking the menu arrow located at the upper left corner of the image.
On a side note I have always ripped my hairs out trying to memorize the short cuts in PS. I then tried GIMP and found them to be intuitive and was able to guess about 90% of them easily. Of the ones I couldn't memorize I fell in love when I found you can customize and change them to your fancy so easy.
In fact The GIMP was so intuitive that all I did was hover my mouse over the menu item and press the shortcut I wanted and bingo it was done. No more hard to navigate preference panels.
P.S. BRING LAZY FOCUS FOLLOWS MOUSE TO AQUA!!!!!
What would happen if this did go through?
Let's see, Given:
So I'll stick with Google. Loyalty. (And Linux/Mac friendly)
I would prefer as an alternative to regexp (since that obviously would be way too much power and too many exploits) is simple logic operators.
Most search engines now have AND and OR but none have nested logic or short hand
for example I would love to do this in google: (linux && modems) || ("AT commands" && !windows)
Simply put: IMHO I don't like the integrated phone/PDA's they are horrible, bulky, and down right inconvenient.
Now before anyone panics let me explain my otherwise irrational rational. When I think mobile ease of use I think a small hand held phone in my pocket as easy. However the display you see on the phone sucks. To be blunt, I cannot SSH from my phone. So the next best thing is a PDA.
My idea of a good mobile setup is a PDA in the car clove box ready to read mail, surf the web, and SSH to my home computer all connected to the internet via my cell phone attached by a simple cord. Since I do the same thing for my laptop this makes perfect sense.
Now I would not feel comfortable carrying a laptop on my back nor would I feel comfortable carrying a $400 mini computer on my hip. I would rather carry a sleek and sexy cell phone. Hence the division in functionality.
A cell phone for phone calls, a cable and PDA for internet browsing. And when I sit down at a coffee shop I use my laptop. Easy. Simple. And useful. The K.I.S.S. Method!
I was at a company that was so into the 'black box' idea that simple things like annoying bug fixes became imposible.
Basically (for the programming geeks) they set up an error handling policy where (deep in the program execution) it trapped all exceptions including fatal programming errors and sent them up the chain. At each level of the program it caught the exception created a new one and dicarded the old one. So by the time the user actually got an error message it was about some butterfly flapping it's wings in Africa and not about the null pointer you tried to write to.
Anyway this IMHO is an example of 'black boxes' going too far. If you build a well designed architecture and proper object API schemes then you shouldn't run into issue like such. But if you put on the blinders and assume that whatever your doing in your black box is of no concern to the rest of the world then you are destined for doom.
You have to look at what is going on around you to properly deal with things. This goes for real life as well as programming. Far too many drones with blinders who can't see past there own nose are walking around lately.
Dude. I have never laughed so hard! I can only imagine a bad cartoon:
Sick man, sick. I am very proud of you. ^_^
Cool Sig.
"i am batman"The terror that lurks in the night.
I'm sorry but the day SPAM comes to me encrypted is the day I head into the woods and never return to society.
Honestly though, By their very nature Spammers have no concept of privicy. So I highly doubt any of then even know what a key is.
Interesting idea. Employ a policy where all email recived must be signed or it will be deleted. Hmmm.... I must ponder this thought.
I would be interested in resources for both the technical how-to's and the political how-to's to accomplish a community LAN.
I have always wanted to start one in my area. If it's strait forward enough I could start one block at a time and maybe make a big hit.
Has anyone delt with the compitition? I would assume the Cable and DSL companies would be kinda pissed seeing everyone's money go to a wireless ISP with a T3 not through their wired lines. And since they have the bigger bank it means the little guys (dispite their good intentions) can get hurt real bad in battle.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
My account of a Linux geek turned Mac
I loved Linux, BSD, Sun, etc. anything with a propper Bash shell. I would hiss at others as they entered the room with there new Windows ME based hardware. I would scower at others with their up-side-down Apple logos and their shinny happy faces. *shudder*
With Mac OS X all of that has changed. Now I'm one of those shiny happy faces. So why did I switch. Simple: "Based on Unix." Yup That's why. When I saw that a nice and functinoal interface that didn't get in the way ontop of a Unix environment I was almost sold.
HardwareThe hardware is very superior. First thing I noticed is compatability. Not once has my machine fretted about hardware. It has been very polite by either supporting my hardware 100% or nicely letting me know that it doesn't know how to talk to the device.
My TiBook came with two USB ports, A Firewire port, A 1000 Kb/s RJ-45 Jack, A monitor port, S-Video port (with Composite Addapter), 56 Kb/s V.90 Modem and a PCMCIA slot. Eveyone I talk to is amased by the slot loading DVD drive.
The keyboard is nice. It's slim and black with white letters. That in my book is cool. However the keys are weak and shallow. And the Control key is in the upmost worst spot it could be. So thanks to the ease of use of USB I use my "Happy Hacker Keyboard" Plus a Logiteck Optical mouse (3 button w/ wheel).
As for power my machine really kicks but. I got the lower end model at 550 MHz G4 and it's fast. Most of the time I have multiple apps running. Photoshop, Word, iTunes, Mozilla, Terminal (w/ multiple ssh and updatedb at 0000 midnight) and my machine doesn't break a sweat (It's got a fan too)
By far my favorite feature is "sleep mode" all I do is close the lid and the machine suspends itself and a spiffy glowing pulsing LED turns on lighting up the room like a night light. It's that simple. I even had the battery drop out and when I quickly returned it in a panic I found everything was still ok. It is roubust and durable. And it's mad from titanium.
The only two draw backs I saw is the pain on the edges chip off needing a paint job at somepoint. And the price. Apple hardware although superiour is more expensive.
InterfaceSo far OS X is the best desktop for a Unix environment I have ever seen. It out trumps GNOME and KDE and tottaly obliverates Windows. I may loose some geek factor in favor of ease of use but to be honest Terminal is for those geek things. It it intuitive enough for a kid yet powerfull enough for a serious gamer. Allot is already customizable by default. The look and feel can be customized by a third party app. A few of the Enightenmant features I miss. Mainly the middle mouse button paste. The virtual destop is missing too. And most missed is the sloppy focus. But aside for that the interface is easy and doesn't get in my way Like so many others.
In my eyes OS X compares as if it were just another windows manager on a really well made BSD Distribution. If it ever came to Intel it would rule the world but the hardware is why you should by a Mac. In fact you should get it because it will remove some of the extra thought you use to use the machine and put it to better use. Really the interface does a descent job of freeing you from thinking about it as much. But I'll save more propaganda for more qualified reviewers than myself.
pros- Easy to use
- fast
- dependable
- perfect multitasking
- compatability w/ windows networks, Unix, And good hardware compatability.
- Looks uber slick
- This is the Docker pants amung computers
consPlease forgive the poor quality of this review it's my first time. Questions/comments can be addressed in emails or slashdot reply posts.
I am proud to say my Mac is 100% OS X. I have deleted my Virtual PC's so no more windows and Classic (OS 9) has been remove. Fink [sf.net] saved my sanity.
What a second what about selling no OS?
Oh wait you said Microsoft said they couldn't.
WHAT!? Microsoft can tell you what to do with a computer?!?!? So thay have the power to say all PCs must come with a PCI slot and a Intel Proccessor? So they can tell me I can't have my glowing neon case mod?
We are now letting Microsoft dictate how we do business? If I just deside to build a computer from parts and sell it I'm now bound to install some kind of OS? When did I agree to this?
Now I'm scared. I'm really paranoid. I'm going to be looking in every closet from now on to see if there is a Microsoft rep lurking about. I'm going to save every scrap of paper I find incase it happens to be an end user license agreement. Look under your beds. GnuPG every file you have! Microsoft is coming to town!!!
Your all right. Perhaps I will take my head out of my ass. What good does complaining and bickering do anyway.
So the real question is how can I help subversion and get it up to CVS expectations politically? Hmmm I think I'll read the TODO list tonight.
Thanks all.
I missed my caffine today so I'm a few brain cells short.
Perhaps I should clarify my former (soon to be) flaimbait.
First off It'[s knee jerk reaction to project splits. I don't like seeing projects split unless politiaclly there is no other option (like the maintainer is a source code greedy jerk). So I'm some what aggitated by news of another version control. Especially with spening such great effort to fight the CVS battle against VSS and the like. And when the de facto standard of CVS came about I thought I had won.
Secondly, I do feel changes need to be made. CVS is limited and enhancment are required. (But what open source project isn't). The subversion successor sounds fabulous and I will download and try it perhaps even use it in production. However It bothers me as to why it's is a sepereate project. Subversion or CVS v2.0 or CVS (Subversion) v2.0? I don't see why a completely new project is required.
one of the ideals of a hacker is you should never solve a puzzle twice. So now Subversion is reinventing the CVS wheel to make it better when it could just make CVS better. See my delema?
Anyway maybe there is a good reason hiden there. that's why comment welcome. And none of these are intended as flamebait thay just sound that way. Sorry.
Can you back this up? I'm interested to see.
I have to admit I'm biased to CVS. I love it so much that I used to sleep with a floppy containing the binary under my pillow for a month. (ok slight exageration).
Anyway I see a big breach in the "open source" way of doing things. In the past a simple project would grow as needed. If features didn't exists or bugs were around. Someone would fix it.
CVS has been the de facto standard for version control in the "open source" community especially in say SourceForge. Now it's being abandoned like a poor basterd child. I would like to see just why a proven software that in many ways is one of the best, known to out beat VSS the lord and ruler (MicroSoft), is now now a heap of garbage not worthy of the "open source" way of collaborative enhanchments.
Instead of throwing it away reuse it. If RCS isn't possible rewrite it. Convert CVS to a new and better way. But why destroy the one faithfull servent because it's old or doesn't live up to expectstions. We're smart people. If Linux had the same problem would we abandon it at a whim? No, I'd like to belive we would make it better. Did the GIMP give up when they were faced with a crappy Windows ToolKit?
It sounds as if it is a tempermental thing that many people are assamed of the CVS name. I, who belives in CVS and sometimes worships CVS; who in my many years of administration have never seen a problem can't fathom why it would be so ridiculed and persicuted in a world that pride themselves on co-operation and "freedom" to enhance and superiorize software at will. A huge efort to give CVS up is underway and no effort to bring CVS to the top of the ladder. It seems counter productive and contrary to what "free software" or "open source" ideals used to be.
Sounds as if he is stuck in the 60s. Sorry buddy but I used that line once and got slapped.
In todays world of skript kikddies and MCPs (Magazine Certified Programmers) The "if your a programmer then you should know how the computer works" way of thinking is right out.
I have met about three computer programmers so far and thay couldn't tell me why explorer.exe was required to have at least one instance running at all times!
I remember one Visual C++ programmer who every time a shouted "Damb it! another illegal operation bug! I want my Linux machine back!" he would reply "You need to go to an OS collage course and learn why an OS is so hard and complicated. These things are little things because the OS is so busy with just running it can't handle everything"
hmmm. I would award him the nobel prize for computer sympathy!
So I guess the computer idustry is so saturated that anybody who anybody can join without any prior skills or knowladge. Gone are the days of codeFu. Gone are the days of mathamatics. Gone are the scientists striving to get to the moon. And in come the monkeys with quick tails to bow to the needs of every big haired boss.
Looks like Open Source comunity better get trucking in taking over the world. If we continue eventually the whole internet will have a big general protection fault and the only ones left standing will be us!
I know this is off topic but your .sig is really bugging me. how do I decode it? I've tried all rotations from 1-25 none worked.
Ahh it's buggn' me I don't know how to decode it!!!
Xorw rw guz tg apketmped dfkkade !
AHHHHH. LOL.