open source developers have been so good at developing games in the past?
Maybe not but games aren't the only software that will run on the GBA. Some of the best Palm software is open source: Weasel. Plucker, Diddle, Keyring, etc. Gameboy (the first) was popular with electronics hobbyists because it was so easy to hack and program. I can see the same thing happening all over again with GBA. A 16MHz ARM and a colour LCD all running off batteries is nothing to sneer at.
You would also have to learn where practically every printer and fax machine in the entire building is, because it would vary depending upon where you sit. Either that, or you're going to be walking 500 feet to pick up your printout because you forgot to change your default printer from yesterday.
Not even close. The login process for each dumb terminal (with the swipe card) automatically sets your default printer to the nearest printer. It even routes your phone number automatically to the handset on your desk.
The brilliant bit is that you can pull your swipe card out, move to a different desk, put the card back in, and your entire desktop reappears without a single application lost. And your phone moved with you!
I'd see this scenario happening often... "Gee, where is John today? Floor 2, B section? Floor 3, A section? I better give him a call first... Wait, did he say 2B-47A, or 2A-47B? Oops, better call him again..."
You just click on the username and it shows the floorplan with John's current desk location highlighted.
Wow, whoever came up with this idea is quite a moron.
But it isn't! On a normal day you tend to work on dozens of projects. This system lets you move all the people in a specific project together, so you are sitting right next to the people you are working with. Two hours later you move to the next project on your list so you move near the people working on that project.
You're always sitting in close proximity to the people you're working with. A traditional desk-per-user system means you're always walking up/down stairs or between buildings. This new system means your desktop moves with you.
The downside is that your pens and manuals don't move with you. In practise this encourages people to work out of their briefcases, which is convenient for techs who spend most of their time onsite. It does away with the "damn, I left the important list of instructions on my desk back at work".
If you'd read some of the subsequent messages under this thread you'd notice I did extrapolate a bit on my brother's Visor.
I don't have a time machine so I didn't have an opportunity to respond to what you wrote in the thread after I had written my reply.
The post you originally wrote and the one I replied to read a lot like "Sony Rules and Visor Sucks" based on some very anecdotal evidence. You even imply that the Visor is a "non-quality product" because your self-confessed Sony advertising means the Sony Clie is the "quality product" of your title. I was only offering ideas to make your anecdotal evidence seem less black and white. No offence was intended against your forensic and/or logical skills.
Of course it's possible for a Clie screen to break, but just saying they both use glass and therefore have an equal risk of breaking from a drop lacks logical merit even more than my anecdote.
If we're going to be anally retentive, I never claimed that they have an equal risk of breaking.
Since I've owned it I've "dropped" it twice. Once I knocked it out of the hotsync cradle and onto the floor about 3 feet below. No damage.
Your cradle is probably in the study or bedroom, which is likely carpetted.
The second time I brushed it against my leg while I was walking and it went spinning out onto the ground. Again, no damage.
Spinning in what way? If it spins the right way then it would avoid sharp impact, even if hitting concrete.
My brother dropped his Visor off the kitchen counter and shattered his screen.
And the kitchen is tiled, right?
Your anecdotal story is interesting but it's doesn't prove anything. Both the CLIE and PALM use glass and they both run the risk of dying even from sudden short falls (1-2 foot) onto hard surfaces. It really depends on how they fall, what edge they hit first, and how high they bounce.
But, Aqua is a really nice window manager already. I use OS X and Aqua at home, and Linux/KDE at work, and IMHO Aqua is by far superior to KDE.
KDE is more than just a window manager. This port simply means that Mac OS X users could run Konqueror or Konsole on their Aqua desktop. It doesn't mean Aqua has to be turned off or that you have to use the KDE window manager.
PS: Mac OS X is damn sexy. It's UNIX... but it's Macintosh... but it's UNIX!
It *can* be done. I frequently boot up Capcom vs. Marvel when I'm waiting on a download to let out with some Wolverine-style agression. It would be so much more pleasant if I had a little arcade-style joystick that sat on the left side of my keyboard.
Buy the Namco Arcade Stick for the Playstation and a PSX->PC USB convertor. This combination works in Linux and it's a solid joystick with good tactile response.
"...the role of the lone inventor is over"
Tell that to Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Bram Moolenaar, etc etc... The role of the lone inventor is still very much alive when it comes to open source software...
In what way is Linux an invention? If anybody invented Linux it was Ken Thompson when he invented UNIX, and even that is giving too much credit to Ken because UNIX borrowed many concepts from other systems.
Since NTSC is about 30fps (well 29.97) and PAL is 25fps they record DVDs in different formats i think (lets ignore SECAM). I thought a much smarter solution would be to store the film at 24fps on the disk
They do store the film at 24fps on the disc. The difference between a PAL disc and an NTSC disc is the resolution. PAL is 720x576 and NTSC is 720x480. The player converts the 24fps MPEG stream into 50fps or 60fps for the telly.
Be aware there's an incredible problem with the frame rate conversion. NTSC is 3:2 (odd frames twice, even frames thrice) which converts 24 fps into 60fps neatly. PAL is 2:2 (show each frame twice) which converts 24fps into 48fps. But PAL TVs are syncing at 50fps! So PAL DVD players actually show the movie a little bit fast to keep the frames syncing. This pitch shifts the audio track enough to be irritating, especially if you are playing DVD music (meaning music on DVD, not DVD-A).
Fortunately if you know the problem you can work around it. Some DVD players can output a bastardised format called PAL60. This is the PAL colour encoding at 60Hz. Almost any modern Australian TV supports this bastardised format.
Though an even better solution would be consumer-grade multisync TVs. Then you could sync the TV at 24fps and ignore the upsampling process. I don't know if any consumer-grade DVD player can output 24fps.
I've recently gotten into anime and I'm really, really loving it. I've never been an avid TV watcher but lately I've been doing several hours of anime a day. I ask myself what it is I love about anime and it's not the visuals or the cuteness or the different-ness, it's the simple fact that they have stories.
I think it's more likely that you've only seen the good anime. I'd guess that as with all genres about 1% is great, 10% is watchable, and 89% is unbelievably awful. The benefit of anime is that us Westerners don't have to sift through the drek - the importing houses aren't going to waste their time dubbing and repacking stuff that won't sell - so we are only exposed to better-than-average quality of stories and artwork.
Is it? It must be nice for the XFree people to have been so blessed.
He was already calling XFree86 + GCC + TeX by the name "The GNU System" and nobody complained about that.
How many people knew that's what he meant? I've certainly never thought he was including other people's work in the term "GNU".
Well it's not my problem that you're fucking ignorant. RMS has only been saying that for more than a decade now, and he's had his damn manifesto flying around the Internet for longer than we've had the WWW. Everybody who has bothered to listen to him - as opposed to ignoring him and then insulting him - has figured out what GNU meant.
So what you're saying is that it's okay for RMS to name any project in any way he sees fit. In the case of GNU it was okay to not give any "name credit" to the other components, but in Linux's case it's wrong; both decisions are just laid down by fiat from the almighty hand of Stallman.
What the hell are you talking about? It's not like RMS is the only one doing it. The Linux kernel has BSD code in it but I don't see people calling it the Linux/BSD kernel. XFree86 has X-Open code in it but I don't see people calling it the XFree86/X-Open windowing system. Tom's Root Boot distribution consists of stuff from everywhere - including the Linux kernel - but Tom doesn't honour Linux in the name.
But RMS does honour Linux in the name of his system. Before Linux he was calling it The GNU System. In light of the contribution of a kernel - a single piece of the entire puzzle - he renamed his system to The GNU/Linux System. This is RMS being more gracious than other people. He honours Linux by his own words. And you insult him for this? You think he's trying to steal credit? How can he be stealing credit if he's mentioning Linux in the name of his system?
Who wants to write software and then be told they have to change the name of it because they used GNU tools to write it? That sort of ego-trip is something we can all do without.
And it's this incredible display of ignorance that continues to astound me. RMS hasn't tried to relabel the Linux kernel. He certainly hasn't tried to relabel Linux just because it builds with Gnu CC. What he does say it that systems that are simply The GNU System + the Linux kernel should be called "The GNU System" or "The GNU/Linux System". Afterall, RedHat/Linux is nothing more than The GNU System + Linux + some modified init scripts. So why does Linux get the big name and GNU doesn't even get a mention? This is what RMS wants rectified. He says that the system was called The GNU System before Linux was even born and so the title should reflect that.
The analogy is simple. RMS built an entire city. Some bits he built himself, some bits were contributed by others, and some bits he just copied from other cities. He wanted to call the city The GNU City. But the city was incomplete. There was no Town Hall. One day somebody built the Linux Town Hall and it completed the entire city. But suddenly people are calling the city The Linux City. RMS is understandably peeved that the street signs say The GNU City and every building has "Built As Part Of The GNU City Project" stamped onto the side of the foundation stone, but 99% of the citizens are wandering around saying "it rules to live in Linux City".
Renaming the GNU system to something else is the only real disrespect here. It's hardly a big deal for RMS to ask that people recognise that what they're using is really the GNU System plus a kernel called Linux.
All copyrights must be held by a private individual. No corporate entity may hold a copyright.
I strongly disagree. Even projects like the Linux kernel have 1000s of copyright holders. Private individuals (meaning SINGULAR) would be the death of collaborative projects.
Copyright expires upon the death of the copyright holder.
God no! People would be assassinating one another to end copyrights. This is an extremely stupid thing to put into law. The copyright must last independently of the current owner.
Copyrights cannot be assigned to another entity
What value does this have? Why shouldn't an author of a work be able to sell it to somebody else, if they so choose? It seems you're taking away the rights of the author.
Stallman's claims are that he doesn't get enough credit.
Stallman's claim is that GNU doesn't get enough credit.
And for people who keep saying "HuH HuH What about GNU/XFree86/Linux/Apache... OH DAMN IM SO SMART", XFree86 is part of the GNU system. The GNU system is a bunch of stuff from a bunch of different groups. Not all of it written by the GNU Project members and not all of it is copyrighted under the GPL. It's not even very hard to find RMS saying this himself.
Developing a whole system is a very large project. To bring it into reach, I decided to adapt and use existing pieces of free software wherever that was possible. For example, I decided at the very beginning to use TeX as the principal text formatter; a few years later, I decided to use the X Window System rather than writing another window system for GNU.
Because of this decision, the GNU system is not the same as the collection of all GNU software. The GNU system includes programs that are not GNU software, programs that were developed by other people and projects for their own purposes, but which we can use because they are free software.
The incredible irony is that Stallman should have just called GNU + Linux by the common name "The GNU System". He was already calling XFree86 + GCC + TeX by the name "The GNU System" and nobody complained about that. But instead Stallman recognised the huge contribution that the Linux kernel provided to the GNU system and graciously called it the GNU/Linux system instead of just the GNU system.
I get the impression that the people who insult RMS - like you - simply don't understand what he's saying. Admittedly RMS is not a very good communicator of his ideas but ingrates like you don't make it any easier.
I don't understand your aversion to Linux. Single floppy Linux distros (eg, Tom's Root Boot) + nfs-server + samba would do what you want.
If you're worried about using a second hard disk as the boot device, then you're in luck. Use a CompactFlash card and an IDE-CompactFlash convertor. A 16MB flash is cheap. Install the single floppy Linux distro onto the flash and use a ramdisk for the root filesystem. Log everything remotely and Bob's your uncle.
If you're worried about the size of the Linux box itself (power supply, motherboard) then spend some money and get a small PC. There are plenty of options available.
I really hate the over-inflated titles that computer mechanics keep giving themselves. I'm sick of seeing business cards for Software Engineers and Network Architects.
So what's next? Computer Surgeon? Information Astronaut? Why not go the whole nine yards and call yourself a Software Deity or Network Visionary?
I want to see some realism in titles. The person paid to maintain legacy COBOL should be called a Code Janitor. The person who designs networks should be called a Network Foreman. And anybody who writes code should be called a Software Author.
But please, enough with the self-aggrandizing titles.
I'm sorry, but I blame Apple for this one. No data, however warped and horrid, should be able to do this to a drive. That it can do so means that Apple misdesigned the drive (and its device drivers).
Except Apple didn't design the drive. They didn't build it either. And the problem is with the drive's firmware, so it's nothing to do with Apple's device drivers.
If you had bought the same drive for a PC then it would do exactly the same thing.
There's a hilarious fictional IRC session featuring Richard James as the egomanical moderator. I reckon I'm not getting even half of the jokes but it's still a riot.
I do hope there will be no copycats for this thing. Some people with less pure intentions (e.g terrorists) might decide to do some redirecting.
Is "terrorists" the new "communists"? When do the witch hunts begin? Can anybody join?
And why is it that the USA doesn't give a rats arse about "terrorism" until it happens to them.
Re:Instead of sprinkling around duplicate code...
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Apple Drops Mac OS 9
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Function pointers are slow. My experiments on Linux show that, with fully optimized code (compiled by g++), using a pointer to call a function can take upto three times as much (depending on the function size) as calling the function directly. This overhead can easily be infeasible if you have a very small function called frequently.
True, but function pointers will still be quicker than a test and branch.
I know somebody who did this recently. The results are very impressive, and he managed to do it all very cheaply.
First step was picking up a mini-security camera from the local electronics store. Cost $150AUD and is the size of a bottle cap. It's a CCD based camera with 12V input and standard TV composite output. It uses a pinhole instead of a lens to get the size so small. It's only black/white but it also picks up infrared! Auto-adjusting brightness. The picture quality is quite amazing.
Run a coaxial cable + 12V power cable (low amp wire) to the camera. The cable can be really long - this guy is running it over 20 metres. Plug the other end of the coaxial cable into a BT878 TV card on the PC. The TV card was $100AUD. The PC was $300AUD. You need at least a Celeron-2 processor. The 12V power supply is $20AUD pre-built from the electronics store.
Next, install Linux! You need the "motion" software package. It records MJPEG (?) but only records changing frames. It also puts a useful highlighted rectangle around the section of the frame that moved.
Finally (and I don't think he's done this step) you write a simple script to rsync the motion/MJPEG output directory to a remote server. You can use "stat" on the directory to determine if there are new frames: record the "modified" line, compare it on subsequent stat commands, any difference means there are new frames so call rsync! You could easily stick an email in there as well to alert somebody.
The setup is very impressive. The picture quality is simply incredible. Because the CCD camera detects IR you could even use it in the dark with some IR leds to illuminate the room with "invisible light". A number of people have shown interest in building their own after hearing/seeing about the original setup.
Right, and it's Microsoft's component that Dell signed an contract to package on it's computers. Part of the contract was that you don't mess with the Windows component because you didn't create it. It's not Microsoft's fault that Dell signed the silly agreement.
Illegal contracts are not binding. Contracts that you are coerced into signing are not binding. Just because it's a contract doesn't mean the Dell has foregone their rights, nor that Microsoft has gained the right to do illegal things.
Because Microsoft did act illegally. That was stated in the findings of facts and it has been upheld by the appeals court. The law says that Microsoft was not allowed to tell the OEMs to drop Netscape Navigator. The judge found that Microsoft is a monopoly. The law says that monopolies cannot use their privilege in an anti-competitive way. Microsoft broke the law; contract or no contract.
I do remember what they did to Netscape (they muscled them out and replaced them with a better product) but I don't care, and I'm not a sucker for using IE, as you stated yourself it's a better product and I'd only be using Netscape to spite Microsoft.
IE6 might be the bees knees but this doesn't excuse past illegal activities. The court case is about illegal acts that Microsoft did several years ago: the DOJ is not trying to determine whether IE is a better browser than Netscape today.
You better hope that your router has support for more VLAN's than you have users then.. if your device can only support 64 vlans, that you can only have 63 users on the network (you'll need one vlan to get to your gateway).
Yup.
Not to mention that you'll have to write all sorts of code to guess the subnet masq and the gateway the person is trying to use.
Nope, just have the router respond to all addresses on the/0 network. That way no matter what gateway the laptop tries to talk to, your router will claim to be that gateway.
What happens when there DNS server is on a private network and you have no idea how to route to it?
Your router is sending back ARP replies for all addresses, including whatever address their DNS is set to. You then NAT the DNS packets to a local DNS server.
I'm imagining significant problems if their laptop configuration uses DNS names for various services (eg, http_proxy, mailhost) because your local DNS wouldn't resolve them. I wonder if you could write an "intelligent" bind8 that would wildcard match for records that don't resolve!?
Any vegetable can configure DHCP -- this is an unreasonable request.
I agree it's nuts. The hotel probably just wants DHCP but they've worded it in a bad way. The cost of providing true "anything will work" is wasteful: 99% of the hotel guests will have DHCP configured anyway, so the complexity would only be catering for a tiny fraction of guests.
It would be more sensible to build a plain reliable DHCP environment and provide printed instructions for guests to enable DHCP on their laptops, only to be used if they have trouble.
I see that this would take care of the host-ip/gateway problems, but how would this setup deal with fixed http proxies?
Router responds to all ARP requests with it's own MAC address. Tagged VLANs mean the router is the only machine who will ever see ARP anyway. Router then NATs all dst-port 80 traffic to a transparent HTTP proxy. The proxy is configured to rewrite requests with the Host: header, and accept all destination hosts as valid. All dst-port 25 traffic is routed to a smarthost with full spam-relay capability. All other dst-ports are NAT'd directly (no proxy).
Damn it's messy, but it's certainly possible. You would need to hold your nose while building it though.
It Can Be Done. 1 VLAN per laptop and NAT at the router. It'd be messy as all shit, but it's doable. It would even work if every laptop had the same static-IP.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe not but games aren't the only software that will run on the GBA. Some of the best Palm software is open source: Weasel. Plucker, Diddle, Keyring, etc. Gameboy (the first) was popular with electronics hobbyists because it was so easy to hack and program. I can see the same thing happening all over again with GBA. A 16MHz ARM and a colour LCD all running off batteries is nothing to sneer at.
Not even close. The login process for each dumb terminal (with the swipe card) automatically sets your default printer to the nearest printer. It even routes your phone number automatically to the handset on your desk.
The brilliant bit is that you can pull your swipe card out, move to a different desk, put the card back in, and your entire desktop reappears without a single application lost. And your phone moved with you!
You just click on the username and it shows the floorplan with John's current desk location highlighted.
But it isn't! On a normal day you tend to work on dozens of projects. This system lets you move all the people in a specific project together, so you are sitting right next to the people you are working with. Two hours later you move to the next project on your list so you move near the people working on that project.
You're always sitting in close proximity to the people you're working with. A traditional desk-per-user system means you're always walking up/down stairs or between buildings. This new system means your desktop moves with you.
The downside is that your pens and manuals don't move with you. In practise this encourages people to work out of their briefcases, which is convenient for techs who spend most of their time onsite. It does away with the "damn, I left the important list of instructions on my desk back at work".
I don't have a time machine so I didn't have an opportunity to respond to what you wrote in the thread after I had written my reply.
The post you originally wrote and the one I replied to read a lot like "Sony Rules and Visor Sucks" based on some very anecdotal evidence. You even imply that the Visor is a "non-quality product" because your self-confessed Sony advertising means the Sony Clie is the "quality product" of your title. I was only offering ideas to make your anecdotal evidence seem less black and white. No offence was intended against your forensic and/or logical skills.
If we're going to be anally retentive, I never claimed that they have an equal risk of breaking.
PS: Nice gratuitous use of the word "quantum".
Your cradle is probably in the study or bedroom, which is likely carpetted.
Spinning in what way? If it spins the right way then it would avoid sharp impact, even if hitting concrete.
And the kitchen is tiled, right?
Your anecdotal story is interesting but it's doesn't prove anything. Both the CLIE and PALM use glass and they both run the risk of dying even from sudden short falls (1-2 foot) onto hard surfaces. It really depends on how they fall, what edge they hit first, and how high they bounce.
KDE is more than just a window manager. This port simply means that Mac OS X users could run Konqueror or Konsole on their Aqua desktop. It doesn't mean Aqua has to be turned off or that you have to use the KDE window manager.
PS: Mac OS X is damn sexy. It's UNIX... but it's Macintosh... but it's UNIX!
Turbo Special Edition Alpha 2 Plus
Buy the Namco Arcade Stick for the Playstation and a PSX->PC USB convertor. This combination works in Linux and it's a solid joystick with good tactile response.
In what way is Linux an invention? If anybody invented Linux it was Ken Thompson when he invented UNIX, and even that is giving too much credit to Ken because UNIX borrowed many concepts from other systems.
Ken Thompson works for AT&T.
I don't know. What you say sounds possible but I've not heard of it being done.
As you say, computer DVDs can and do output at the correct framerate with no pitch changes.
They do store the film at 24fps on the disc. The difference between a PAL disc and an NTSC disc is the resolution. PAL is 720x576 and NTSC is 720x480. The player converts the 24fps MPEG stream into 50fps or 60fps for the telly.
Be aware there's an incredible problem with the frame rate conversion. NTSC is 3:2 (odd frames twice, even frames thrice) which converts 24 fps into 60fps neatly. PAL is 2:2 (show each frame twice) which converts 24fps into 48fps. But PAL TVs are syncing at 50fps! So PAL DVD players actually show the movie a little bit fast to keep the frames syncing. This pitch shifts the audio track enough to be irritating, especially if you are playing DVD music (meaning music on DVD, not DVD-A).
Fortunately if you know the problem you can work around it. Some DVD players can output a bastardised format called PAL60. This is the PAL colour encoding at 60Hz. Almost any modern Australian TV supports this bastardised format.
Though an even better solution would be consumer-grade multisync TVs. Then you could sync the TV at 24fps and ignore the upsampling process. I don't know if any consumer-grade DVD player can output 24fps.
I think it's more likely that you've only seen the good anime. I'd guess that as with all genres about 1% is great, 10% is watchable, and 89% is unbelievably awful. The benefit of anime is that us Westerners don't have to sift through the drek - the importing houses aren't going to waste their time dubbing and repacking stuff that won't sell - so we are only exposed to better-than-average quality of stories and artwork.
Well it's not my problem that you're fucking ignorant. RMS has only been saying that for more than a decade now, and he's had his damn manifesto flying around the Internet for longer than we've had the WWW. Everybody who has bothered to listen to him - as opposed to ignoring him and then insulting him - has figured out what GNU meant.
What the hell are you talking about? It's not like RMS is the only one doing it. The Linux kernel has BSD code in it but I don't see people calling it the Linux/BSD kernel. XFree86 has X-Open code in it but I don't see people calling it the XFree86/X-Open windowing system. Tom's Root Boot distribution consists of stuff from everywhere - including the Linux kernel - but Tom doesn't honour Linux in the name.
But RMS does honour Linux in the name of his system. Before Linux he was calling it The GNU System. In light of the contribution of a kernel - a single piece of the entire puzzle - he renamed his system to The GNU/Linux System. This is RMS being more gracious than other people. He honours Linux by his own words. And you insult him for this? You think he's trying to steal credit? How can he be stealing credit if he's mentioning Linux in the name of his system?
And it's this incredible display of ignorance that continues to astound me. RMS hasn't tried to relabel the Linux kernel. He certainly hasn't tried to relabel Linux just because it builds with Gnu CC. What he does say it that systems that are simply The GNU System + the Linux kernel should be called "The GNU System" or "The GNU/Linux System". Afterall, RedHat/Linux is nothing more than The GNU System + Linux + some modified init scripts. So why does Linux get the big name and GNU doesn't even get a mention? This is what RMS wants rectified. He says that the system was called The GNU System before Linux was even born and so the title should reflect that.
The analogy is simple. RMS built an entire city. Some bits he built himself, some bits were contributed by others, and some bits he just copied from other cities. He wanted to call the city The GNU City. But the city was incomplete. There was no Town Hall. One day somebody built the Linux Town Hall and it completed the entire city. But suddenly people are calling the city The Linux City. RMS is understandably peeved that the street signs say The GNU City and every building has "Built As Part Of The GNU City Project" stamped onto the side of the foundation stone, but 99% of the citizens are wandering around saying "it rules to live in Linux City".
Renaming the GNU system to something else is the only real disrespect here. It's hardly a big deal for RMS to ask that people recognise that what they're using is really the GNU System plus a kernel called Linux.
I strongly disagree. Even projects like the Linux kernel have 1000s of copyright holders. Private individuals (meaning SINGULAR) would be the death of collaborative projects.
God no! People would be assassinating one another to end copyrights. This is an extremely stupid thing to put into law. The copyright must last independently of the current owner.
What value does this have? Why shouldn't an author of a work be able to sell it to somebody else, if they so choose? It seems you're taking away the rights of the author.
Stallman's claim is that GNU doesn't get enough credit.
And for people who keep saying "HuH HuH What about GNU/XFree86/Linux/Apache... OH DAMN IM SO SMART", XFree86 is part of the GNU system. The GNU system is a bunch of stuff from a bunch of different groups. Not all of it written by the GNU Project members and not all of it is copyrighted under the GPL. It's not even very hard to find RMS saying this himself.
The incredible irony is that Stallman should have just called GNU + Linux by the common name "The GNU System". He was already calling XFree86 + GCC + TeX by the name "The GNU System" and nobody complained about that. But instead Stallman recognised the huge contribution that the Linux kernel provided to the GNU system and graciously called it the GNU/Linux system instead of just the GNU system.
I get the impression that the people who insult RMS - like you - simply don't understand what he's saying. Admittedly RMS is not a very good communicator of his ideas but ingrates like you don't make it any easier.
I don't understand your aversion to Linux. Single floppy Linux distros (eg, Tom's Root Boot) + nfs-server + samba would do what you want.
If you're worried about using a second hard disk as the boot device, then you're in luck. Use a CompactFlash card and an IDE-CompactFlash convertor. A 16MB flash is cheap. Install the single floppy Linux distro onto the flash and use a ramdisk for the root filesystem. Log everything remotely and Bob's your uncle.
If you're worried about the size of the Linux box itself (power supply, motherboard) then spend some money and get a small PC. There are plenty of options available.
I really hate the over-inflated titles that computer mechanics keep giving themselves. I'm sick of seeing business cards for Software Engineers and Network Architects.
So what's next? Computer Surgeon? Information Astronaut? Why not go the whole nine yards and call yourself a Software Deity or Network Visionary?
I want to see some realism in titles. The person paid to maintain legacy COBOL should be called a Code Janitor. The person who designs networks should be called a Network Foreman. And anybody who writes code should be called a Software Author.
But please, enough with the self-aggrandizing titles.
Except Apple didn't design the drive. They didn't build it either. And the problem is with the drive's firmware, so it's nothing to do with Apple's device drivers.
If you had bought the same drive for a PC then it would do exactly the same thing.
There's a hilarious fictional IRC session featuring Richard James as the egomanical moderator. I reckon I'm not getting even half of the jokes but it's still a riot.
Is "terrorists" the new "communists"? When do the witch hunts begin? Can anybody join?
And why is it that the USA doesn't give a rats arse about "terrorism" until it happens to them.
True, but function pointers will still be quicker than a test and branch.
I know somebody who did this recently. The results are very impressive, and he managed to do it all very cheaply.
First step was picking up a mini-security camera from the local electronics store. Cost $150AUD and is the size of a bottle cap. It's a CCD based camera with 12V input and standard TV composite output. It uses a pinhole instead of a lens to get the size so small. It's only black/white but it also picks up infrared! Auto-adjusting brightness. The picture quality is quite amazing.
Run a coaxial cable + 12V power cable (low amp wire) to the camera. The cable can be really long - this guy is running it over 20 metres. Plug the other end of the coaxial cable into a BT878 TV card on the PC. The TV card was $100AUD. The PC was $300AUD. You need at least a Celeron-2 processor. The 12V power supply is $20AUD pre-built from the electronics store.
Next, install Linux! You need the "motion" software package. It records MJPEG (?) but only records changing frames. It also puts a useful highlighted rectangle around the section of the frame that moved.
Finally (and I don't think he's done this step) you write a simple script to rsync the motion/MJPEG output directory to a remote server. You can use "stat" on the directory to determine if there are new frames: record the "modified" line, compare it on subsequent stat commands, any difference means there are new frames so call rsync! You could easily stick an email in there as well to alert somebody.
The setup is very impressive. The picture quality is simply incredible. Because the CCD camera detects IR you could even use it in the dark with some IR leds to illuminate the room with "invisible light". A number of people have shown interest in building their own after hearing/seeing about the original setup.
Illegal contracts are not binding. Contracts that you are coerced into signing are not binding. Just because it's a contract doesn't mean the Dell has foregone their rights, nor that Microsoft has gained the right to do illegal things.
Because Microsoft did act illegally. That was stated in the findings of facts and it has been upheld by the appeals court. The law says that Microsoft was not allowed to tell the OEMs to drop Netscape Navigator. The judge found that Microsoft is a monopoly. The law says that monopolies cannot use their privilege in an anti-competitive way. Microsoft broke the law; contract or no contract.
IE6 might be the bees knees but this doesn't excuse past illegal activities. The court case is about illegal acts that Microsoft did several years ago: the DOJ is not trying to determine whether IE is a better browser than Netscape today.
Yup.
Nope, just have the router respond to all addresses on the /0 network. That way no matter what gateway the laptop tries to talk to, your router will claim to be that gateway.
Your router is sending back ARP replies for all addresses, including whatever address their DNS is set to. You then NAT the DNS packets to a local DNS server.
I'm imagining significant problems if their laptop configuration uses DNS names for various services (eg, http_proxy, mailhost) because your local DNS wouldn't resolve them. I wonder if you could write an "intelligent" bind8 that would wildcard match for records that don't resolve!?
I agree it's nuts. The hotel probably just wants DHCP but they've worded it in a bad way. The cost of providing true "anything will work" is wasteful: 99% of the hotel guests will have DHCP configured anyway, so the complexity would only be catering for a tiny fraction of guests.
It would be more sensible to build a plain reliable DHCP environment and provide printed instructions for guests to enable DHCP on their laptops, only to be used if they have trouble.
Router responds to all ARP requests with it's own MAC address. Tagged VLANs mean the router is the only machine who will ever see ARP anyway. Router then NATs all dst-port 80 traffic to a transparent HTTP proxy. The proxy is configured to rewrite requests with the Host: header, and accept all destination hosts as valid. All dst-port 25 traffic is routed to a smarthost with full spam-relay capability. All other dst-ports are NAT'd directly (no proxy).
Damn it's messy, but it's certainly possible. You would need to hold your nose while building it though.
It Can Be Done. 1 VLAN per laptop and NAT at the router. It'd be messy as all shit, but it's doable. It would even work if every laptop had the same static-IP.