With several other governments (Peru, Germany, Mexico, China) deciding that open source software makes better sense than closed, I've been wondering if/when the US would follow suit. I'm under no illusion that this letter will trigger an immediate change of OMB policies; Microsoft has too many lobbyists for that to happen overnight. However, it will serve to get the ball rolling.
This is also an excellent time for the US-based portion of our community to follow up with our congressional representatives on this issue. Remember, both the House and the Senate place very little stock in email. If you want to get their attention, use either snail-mail or fax, as detailed above. Snail-mail only costs about $1, fax is even cheaper.
When you click on the "Contact My Representative" button, you will be taken to a form. Ignore it. Instead, click on the link for your Representative and go to their homepage. Hopefully, they will have contact information someplace where you can find it. Copy it into your favorite word-processor.
Go here and identify your Senators. Again, we hope that they make it easy to find their contact information.
If you are thinking ahead, save three "empty" letters, addressed to each of the above. This will save time the next time you need to write.
Use your word processor to write an essay explaining your position. Be verbose. Copy this into each of the three letters you prepared above.
If you found any fax numbers (and your computer can print-to-fax!) send copies of your letter that way. Otherwise, print it out and send it by regular mail.
Here's a suggested outline for the text of your letter (and, no, I'm not going to write it for you, staffers can spot a form letter a mile away):
I've said this before, but one of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK:
for (int i=0; i<size; ++i) {... }
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and function/method names above) get the longest names.
What's the point of this message? The link to buy the book is to B&N, not Amazon, so going there won't violate your privacy. (At least, not in the ways detailed by epic.org. B&N probably has their own ways to violate your privacy.)
Direct links and a quote
on
Extreme Cooling
·
· Score: 4, Informative
As you can see the MX-EVA3 can take care of some very high heat load. It is by far the best extreme cooling solution on the market today. I've used all sorts of cooling to get to the top and I was under the impression that my 220 pelt and chilled water cooler was bringing my chip to its limits. I was wrong.
With the MX-EVA3 you can eliminate the use of pelts, extra power supplies and water. Now you use just one simple evaporator hook up.
It also is pretty good for space. It fits under your case so all you're doing is adding about 9 inches to the height of your case. As far as the noise level it is very tolerable for any Xtreme Overclocker. This can only be written up as a good thing.
Bad things
I'll start with the instructions. They are very good for condensation proofing but that's about it. There are no instructions for adjusting the Digital Display as far as setting the boot temperature or setting what ever it is you can set with the 4 buttons on the Digital Display. This would be nice to know.
They have no recommendation on moving your 4 AMD CPU tabs which in my opinion is a critical must.
Mounting is a bit tough but if you take your time you can get it right. It's always a scary moment when it comes to risking frying your CPU. I'm sure the Intel 478 mounting may be a lot easier.
It's 1 am here (2 am east coast, 11 pm west) and this place seems to be down. At least, I keep getting an error message about a failed mysql connection. Anyone with the page in their cache want to post it here?
One of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK:
for (int i=0; i<size; ++i) {... }
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and function/method names above) get the longest names.
One of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK:
for (int i=0; i
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like "name" and "parts" in this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and method names above) get the longest names.
An online version of either Illuminati or INWO would be nice, but I'm thinking that someone needs to organize a game at the next LinuxWorld or something. (And yes, I realize that Alan won't be attending any US-based conferences.)
"Alas, Maxwell's Demon is an impossible beast. [...] The essence of the refutation is that the Demon cannot see the molecules unless he uses a flashlight, and thus spends energy."
The cooling chip uses externally supplied electricity to run. This powers the "flashlight", meaning that no violation of the Second Law need occur. The refridgerator in my kitchen does the same thing: It moved high-energy atoms from the coiled pipe inside to the grid of pipes in the back, by using electricity to move the atoms.
I was a beta-tester for the HandEra 330, so my view of the price is a bit skewed, but it is definitely one *sweet* device. HandEra (the company) had done a lot of specialized stuff for Symbol long before the 330 came out, and they went the extra mile to make sure that the 330 would work with every CF card that Symbol makes.
A difficulty in discussing this is that there's a breakdown of terminology. Unix invented the idea of seperate "fork" and "exec" primitives. All other OSs at that time only had a primitive which was very similar to the run-time "system" call.
As I recall from the brief time that I did CICS programming, it was very similar to CGI programing, except that you weren't in a distinct process. Your program was running as something similar to a thread in a non-preemptive environment. Transactions were invoked and they ran uninterupted until they needed to perform I/O, say to the database. At that point, the thread was reassigned to another transaction's code. (I wanted to say that the thread was killed, but that's not accurate because it implies start-up/shut-down costs that just weren't there.) When the results of the database call were available, the transaction would be resurrected to process the data and transmit the results to the end-user. The whole process was designed to maximize throughput, but it required a coding style that was similar to writting CGI for Win-16.;-)
I scratched my head over this as well. SPARC processors *do* have the ability to switch between user and kernel contexts in a single instruction. This includes pushing and popping the registers on a special hardware "stack" (see this for more info). This might be what he was talking about.
There are two UNIX/Linux solutions to that startup overhead problem. One is to build the transaction program into the network application (as in Apache/mod_perl/php). Note that this uses an interpreter to protect the network application from bugs in transaction programs, which is a major performance hit.
I'm sure others will point this out too, but this just isn't true of mod_perl[...]
What part isn't true? Perl compiles to an intermediate language, which is then interpreted. Yes, in mod-perl the application code is compiled the first time it's needed, but it isn't compiled into machine code, it's just turned into B-code, something that's more efficient to interpret that the original source. This is more efficient that CGI, where the compilation gets done over and over, but the B-code still gets interpreted with each request.
Well, Wal-Mart and K-Mart both just happened to decide that neither of them are going to sell your CD. They claim that it's because it's a piece of sh*t, but I think that they are colluding to exclude tone-deaf musicians from the marketplace.
How about Vonage DigitalVoice? They are selling a service for $39.99/month whereby you plug an ordinary analog phone into a "multimedia terminal adaptor", which in turn plugs into your cable/DSL modem (or a router plugged into same). Their service drops the call off at the local telco of the person you are calling, and gives you a phone number that people can use to call you.
The service is cheap and easy enough for Grandma to use. Or you might could buy the MTA directly (Cisco ATA-186) and start hacking.
Having sugar and caffine near to hand doesn't turn your workplace into a frat house. Having your desktop images automagically selected from alt.binaries.erotica, OTOH...
Who told you that "Federal and state laws within the united states state that all computer equipment must come with original media in the sale."? I've bought and sold lots of computer equipment over the years, and this is the first time I've ever heard of such a thing.
You also say, "Same things go with transportation vehicles, major appliances, etc." Are you sure you haven't been smoking something? So far, at least, vehicles and appliances don't come with "media". They do come with owner's manuals, but even so I seriously doubt that there are any laws anywhere saying that you can't sell them without the original documentation.
When you click on the "Contact My Representative" button, you will be taken to a form. Ignore it. Instead, click on the link for your Representative and go to their homepage. Hopefully, they will have contact information someplace where you can find it. Copy it into your favorite word-processor.
Go here and identify your Senators. Again, we hope that they make it easy to find their contact information.
If you are thinking ahead, save three "empty" letters, addressed to each of the above. This will save time the next time you need to write.
Use your word processor to write an essay explaining your position. Be verbose. Copy this into each of the three letters you prepared above.
If you found any fax numbers (and your computer can print-to-fax!) send copies of your letter that way. Otherwise, print it out and send it by regular mail.
I guess that this will be the last year that I pay taxes online.
You know, I've known lots of people who have said, "If so-and-so gets elected, I've moving to another country." Well, so-and-so *did* get elected, and they are still here. But if the government adopts a privately-owned system as a national ID, I *will* be moving elsewhere.
1) This reminds me of some '70s era arguments for and against the intellegence of dolphins. Dolphins have very large, complex brains. This is likely to process sonar images. The question is, does this complexity lead to intellegence, at least of a sort that can be understood by tool-using primates? It is still arguable that ocean-dwelling mammals are capable of detailed communication with each other, but we can't translate because we don't have referents. Also, several common definition of intellegence include things like tool-making. Creatures without hands are going to have a hard time qualifying, no matter how complex their society.
2) Didn't you read the bit about long it took for cells to get organelles? Yes, once life comes around, it evolves in ways that increase the chances of eating and decrease the chances of being eaten. But that doesn't imply more complex. It's just as likely that evolution follows complex versions of "rock-paper-scissors". Birds evolved flight, but some (penguins, ostriches) have abandoned it. Are they more complex than their forebearers? Are snakes more complex because they evolved "beyond" limbs?
Let's see, there were some VR guys that mounted a camera on a bike and took side-looking photos every few feet through some Colorado town, and put together a VR tour of the place. I'm moving in a month or so and wanted to do the same for where I've lived for the past decade.
Games magazine once had a puzzle consisting of a dozen photos along a very similar route; the goal was to put them into the proper order. It wasn't too hard for me, as I've driven from my house (St. Louis, MO) to my then-mother-in-law's house (Columbus, OH) more times that I can count. Going the other direction, some friends from college and I drove to Colorado for spring skiing for way too many years. So, yeah, I know I-70 pretty well.
A year ago, I drove my oldest son to Boston to attend college and took pictures with a PalmPix almost every step of the way, mostly of things that had always intriged me but that I hadn't seen for years. In particular, there used to be an old barn just east of the Indiana-Ohio state line that was painted with one of the old Apollo pictures of Earth rising over the lunar horizon. It was gone (or repainted) on my last trip through, so don't bother looking for it now. If anyone has any recollections, or better yet pictures, post a reply to this.
Well, that's all for now, I guess. I'm going to scroll through those pictures looking for things that I recognize.
Slashdot Mirror
This is also an excellent time for the US-based portion of our community to follow up with our congressional representatives on this issue. Remember, both the House and the Senate place very little stock in email. If you want to get their attention, use either snail-mail or fax, as detailed above. Snail-mail only costs about $1, fax is even cheaper.
- Go here and get your ZIP+4 code.
- Go here and identify your Congressperson.
- When you click on the "Contact My Representative" button, you will be taken to a form. Ignore it. Instead, click on the link for your Representative and go to their homepage. Hopefully, they will have contact information someplace where you can find it. Copy it into your favorite word-processor.
- Go here and identify your Senators. Again, we hope that they make it easy to find their contact information.
- If you are thinking ahead, save three "empty" letters, addressed to each of the above. This will save time the next time you need to write.
- Use your word processor to write an essay explaining your position. Be verbose. Copy this into each of the three letters you prepared above.
- If you found any fax numbers (and your computer can print-to-fax!) send copies of your letter that way. Otherwise, print it out and send it by regular mail.
Here's a suggested outline for the text of your letter (and, no, I'm not going to write it for you, staffers can spot a form letter a mile away):I've said this before, but one of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK: ... }
for (int i=0; i<size; ++i) {
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and function/method names above) get the longest names.
What's the point of this message? The link to buy the book is to B&N, not Amazon, so going there won't violate your privacy. (At least, not in the ways detailed by epic.org. B&N probably has their own ways to violate your privacy.)
Good things
As you can see the MX-EVA3 can take care of some very high heat load. It is by far the best extreme cooling solution on the market today. I've used all sorts of cooling to get to the top and I was under the impression that my 220 pelt and chilled water cooler was bringing my chip to its limits. I was wrong.
With the MX-EVA3 you can eliminate the use of pelts, extra power supplies and water. Now you use just one simple evaporator hook up.
It also is pretty good for space. It fits under your case so all you're doing is adding about 9 inches to the height of your case. As far as the noise level it is very tolerable for any Xtreme Overclocker. This can only be written up as a good thing.
Bad things
I'll start with the instructions. They are very good for condensation proofing but that's about it. There are no instructions for adjusting the Digital Display as far as setting the boot temperature or setting what ever it is you can set with the 4 buttons on the Digital Display. This would be nice to know.
They have no recommendation on moving your 4 AMD CPU tabs which in my opinion is a critical must.
Mounting is a bit tough but if you take your time you can get it right. It's always a scary moment when it comes to risking frying your CPU. I'm sure the Intel 478 mounting may be a lot easier.
It's 1 am here (2 am east coast, 11 pm west) and this place seems to be down. At least, I keep getting an error message about a failed mysql connection. Anyone with the page in their cache want to post it here?
One of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK: ... }
for (int i=0; i<size; ++i) {
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and function/method names above) get the longest names.
One of the best ideas that I ever encountered was that the length of variable names should be proportional to the size of their scope. So, one the one hand, this is OK:
for (int i=0; i
(assuming that the "..." doesn't contain any braces), but function/method arguments should be longer, like "name" and "parts" in this:
int createWidget(string name, billOfMaterials parts) {...}
and globally-visible items (like the class and method names above) get the longest names.
An online version of either Illuminati or INWO would be nice, but I'm thinking that someone needs to organize a game at the next LinuxWorld or something. (And yes, I realize that Alan won't be attending any US-based conferences.)
The cooling chip uses externally supplied electricity to run. This powers the "flashlight", meaning that no violation of the Second Law need occur. The refridgerator in my kitchen does the same thing: It moved high-energy atoms from the coiled pipe inside to the grid of pipes in the back, by using electricity to move the atoms.
I was a beta-tester for the HandEra 330, so my view of the price is a bit skewed, but it is definitely one *sweet* device. HandEra (the company) had done a lot of specialized stuff for Symbol long before the 330 came out, and they went the extra mile to make sure that the 330 would work with every CF card that Symbol makes.
As I recall from the brief time that I did CICS programming, it was very similar to CGI programing, except that you weren't in a distinct process. Your program was running as something similar to a thread in a non-preemptive environment. Transactions were invoked and they ran uninterupted until they needed to perform I/O, say to the database. At that point, the thread was reassigned to another transaction's code. (I wanted to say that the thread was killed, but that's not accurate because it implies start-up/shut-down costs that just weren't there.) When the results of the database call were available, the transaction would be resurrected to process the data and transmit the results to the end-user. The whole process was designed to maximize throughput, but it required a coding style that was similar to writting CGI for Win-16. ;-)
I scratched my head over this as well. SPARC processors *do* have the ability to switch between user and kernel contexts in a single instruction. This includes pushing and popping the registers on a special hardware "stack" (see this for more info). This might be what he was talking about.
Well, Wal-Mart and K-Mart both just happened to decide that neither of them are going to sell your CD. They claim that it's because it's a piece of sh*t, but I think that they are colluding to exclude tone-deaf musicians from the marketplace.
The service is cheap and easy enough for Grandma to use. Or you might could buy the MTA directly (Cisco ATA-186) and start hacking.
Having sugar and caffine near to hand doesn't turn your workplace into a frat house. Having your desktop images automagically selected from alt.binaries.erotica, OTOH...
Igloo cooler full of assorted caffinated beverages
Shoe-box full of Butterfingers, Snickers, and beef jerky
Enya playing in the background.
You also say, "Same things go with transportation vehicles, major appliances, etc." Are you sure you haven't been smoking something? So far, at least, vehicles and appliances don't come with "media". They do come with owner's manuals, but even so I seriously doubt that there are any laws anywhere saying that you can't sell them without the original documentation.
"Hey, I want to donate this computer for the school's Beowulf cluster."
"Do you have the original disks that came with it?"
"Err, no."
"Sorry, I can't accept it."
You know, I've known lots of people who have said, "If so-and-so gets elected, I've moving to another country." Well, so-and-so *did* get elected, and they are still here. But if the government adopts a privately-owned system as a national ID, I *will* be moving elsewhere.
2) Didn't you read the bit about long it took for cells to get organelles? Yes, once life comes around, it evolves in ways that increase the chances of eating and decrease the chances of being eaten. But that doesn't imply more complex. It's just as likely that evolution follows complex versions of "rock-paper-scissors". Birds evolved flight, but some (penguins, ostriches) have abandoned it. Are they more complex than their forebearers? Are snakes more complex because they evolved "beyond" limbs?
Err, actually, it comes with a place where you could dock another mini-sub. The mini-sub itself would be an after-market add-on.
Let's see, there were some VR guys that mounted a camera on a bike and took side-looking photos every few feet through some Colorado town, and put together a VR tour of the place. I'm moving in a month or so and wanted to do the same for where I've lived for the past decade.
Games magazine once had a puzzle consisting of a dozen photos along a very similar route; the goal was to put them into the proper order. It wasn't too hard for me, as I've driven from my house (St. Louis, MO) to my then-mother-in-law's house (Columbus, OH) more times that I can count. Going the other direction, some friends from college and I drove to Colorado for spring skiing for way too many years. So, yeah, I know I-70 pretty well.
A year ago, I drove my oldest son to Boston to attend college and took pictures with a PalmPix almost every step of the way, mostly of things that had always intriged me but that I hadn't seen for years. In particular, there used to be an old barn just east of the Indiana-Ohio state line that was painted with one of the old Apollo pictures of Earth rising over the lunar horizon. It was gone (or repainted) on my last trip through, so don't bother looking for it now. If anyone has any recollections, or better yet pictures, post a reply to this.
Well, that's all for now, I guess. I'm going to scroll through those pictures looking for things that I recognize.