Even the most uninformed fan knows that it's not just the light, but it's plasma being shaped into a cylindrical shape approximately 1 meter in length (according to the Episode III novel) that gives the lightsaber its power. (Yes, and the Force, but let me just talk about the saber for the moment...)
One of the problem has to do with the state of the plasma, often called the fourth state of matter. It is by no means solid, and yet the fact that the lightsaber has a distinct shape when activated and the fact that two lightsabers can clash in a duel mean that there is a solid-like boundary to the blade that is inviolable. On the contrary, often we see the blade cutting through other objects and body parts with frightening ease. (Just ask Count Dooku.)
Which brings me to another issue: The power required to confine the plasma in a blade-like configuration (be it magnetic or otherwise) may well exceed the power to generate the blade in the first place. It seems almost redundant for a weapon of this type to be built, as the builder can control and direct the flow of plasma with a device no more than 30 centimeters in length. As someone else said regarding construction of Dyson Spheres, "If you can build it, you don't need it."
I currently work in a higher-ed environment, and one way that our team stays relaxed and ready at the same time is by spending time with each other. I know this sounds a bit corny, but if you like the people you work with, then you enjoy spending time with them. Part of improving morale is knowing that there are actually *good* parts to your job and working those to your advantage.
One thing we do is having daily Quake fragfests around lunch time. Even the director drops by, shakes his head, chuckles and shuffles away. We are even in the process of designing (when we are not doing projects or solving problems, of course) a large Quake map after the actual physical buildings of our school.
Each team is different, and each company/organization is different. For us, we find that (a) we like the work, (b) we like each other (except when "J" has a BFG10K and all I got is a lousy gauntlet). We work to use that to build relationships within the team, and that has positive, outflowing effects on our attitude towards the customers.
As I recall, when John Romero started Ion Storm it was out of the sense that id Software was dominated by technologists/engineers and not by designers. He wanted Ion Storm to be a place where "Design Is Law", then burned through some serious venture capital cash before coughing up Daikatana. The rest, as the saying goes, is history... and so was Ion Storm.
I don't know if Microsoft products need better GUI people as much as architect and security people.
My personal experience using Gnome and KDE...
on
Torvalds Says 'Use KDE'
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Gnome has always seemed to me to be a UI made to look excessively [fill in the blank]: Cute, shiny, hiding the ugly (but important) functional details underneath a glossy appearance. I started using Gnome initially when I didn't know about KDE. I switched over to KDE when I realized that KDE gives me more flexibility to customize the UI to my heart's desire, whereas Gnome is starting to look more like what Windows would have looked like had Bill Gates ported that UI to run on *nix platforms.
I am amazed to no end that once in a long while the media gets its hands around a concept that has been around for years. They then trump it up as this Next Big Thing (tm), only to shamefully admit later on that, no, it's actually been done before.
This is really not much different from remote dumpster diving. If I wanted specific, personal information from someone, I wouldn't need to go through very much trouble in getting it. Just as a security-conscious person would shred sensitive documents before committing them to the bin, one should also be careful revealing personal information to unknown individuals or companies asking for such sensitive information.
Great way for the U.S. to "stay ahead" of the space race while sabotaging other nations' efforts: Export non-metric system components to foreign space agencies. "Yeah, looks like they were looking up furlongs per fortnight instead of kilometers per hour."
"Angry-Little-Black-Hat"? Angry, perhaps, but "black hat"?
If a blackhatter wanted to take down a server, he would have kept his mouth shut and just done it (and erased his footprint when he sneaked out). He would have also concealed his identity a lot better than what this scumbag did.
Reaching a "settlement" is just another way of saying that Microsoft is not going to just give up on a country, as much as their legal/PR team wants to say that they would have no problem taking their toys and leaving S. Korea. Instead of having to back up their threat to leave S. Korea, they are just trying another tactic by settling with them (read: bribing). Because if Microsoft does leave, the flip side is that the other countries that are really tired of Microsoft's strong-arm tactics will suddenly witness *HOW* to get rid of Microsoft from their native soil - something that Microsoft, already embattled and pressured by Linux, does not truly want to see happening.
Unlikely, because in order for any OS to run on any platform, the developers must get the hardware specifications and tailor the low-level code to the new hardware. After that, there is a lot of testing and optimization, and after it goes gold there is support-related issues. Microsoft is unlikely to go through all that just to get to the last 5-10% of the market.
At least back then Nigeria 419 did not exist, and spam was a common household dinner... As for viagra and cialis, well, *real* men are geeks and they don't use "enhancements".
This question brings up the issue of managing one's career in IT versus just "going with the flow". It is true that good, talented IT workers will feel demoralized and demotivated when they perceive no upward mobility within an organization. It is also true, from an organizational view, that hiring out of short-term, knee-jerk reactions without a good, hard view on long-term goals will eventually cripple a company to a point where noone wants to work there anymore.
But there must be some initiative on the part of the IT worker to manage and plan his/her own career. If you feel like that the company/organization has no vision on why they should retain and give value to your position and function, you need to speak up and let them know that you bring not only short-term bandaid solutions, but long-term values to the organization. If they are not willing to listen and go to bat for you, you can either (a) create value within the context of the position, or (b) move on to another employer.
I am currently working at a higher-ed institution where there are some very good people on my team to whom I am informally a mentor. As much as I speak up for them to get training or experience to enhance their career, they have also come up to me on their own to indicate a willingness to expand their training and knowledge. It does take two to tango.
My wife and I are expecting our first child any day now (her due date was a week ago), and I recently discovered an interesting application/game on Fedora Core 3. When installed with KDE, KPotato is available as the electronic version of Mr. Potato Head, complete with eyes, mustaches, glasses, and noses that you can place on a blank face.
I did think about KBattleship, but then decided on a more pacifist approach. Maybe chess as she grows older.
He was someone who apparently could not grasp the concept of "overstaying one's welcome". He used to show up unannounced at fellow mathematicians' houses, staying for weeks on end with no apparent plans of leaving, and even inviting other mathematicians over so that he could do math with them. He once even asked the wife of a good friend (who also happened to be a mathematician herself) to cut his toenails for him because they were getting too long. She refused.
This past Saturday I had the experience of interviewing a guy who, I had hoped, could take over the part-time network admin position that I have held at a small, non-profit organization for several years. I had developed a good working relationship with the organization, but had to step down after my full-time job became much more time-consuming. Our interview was the technical portion in a two-parter.
This man's resume was filled with past glorious and lofty titles such as "Director of Information Technology", "Manager of IT", and so on. Initially I felt awkward interviewing him, as he has had twice the number of years working in IT as I have (and I have been working for quite a while). However, when I began to ask him to explain what a TCP 3-way handshake was, he had this blank look on his face that was utterly horrifying. I also tried to get him to explain what a certificate authority is, and all he could say was, "Uhh...".
Mind you, this admin position is by no stretch of imagination an extremely technical one; the only thing we are asking him to do right off the bat is to migrate the organization's email infrastructure from POP3 to Exchange 2003. But this man, who in his past positions was in charge of directing other technical people's work, could not answer simple technical questions. Another question he got stumped on was the *BASIC* concepts behind VPN. The only magic word I heard from him was "encrypt", but little of everything else was useful.
We are in the process of looking for someone else to fill the position. I have already submitted my recommendation that he be held in queue until we can find someone much better. I am hopeful that it will not take long.
It's important, when we speak of using cryptographic algorithms, to distinguish between "impossible" and "infeasible". Given enough processing power and enough time, any key can be cracked. The question is one of feasibility: By the time you crack the key and use it to extract the information, (a) would the information still be relevant and useful to you? and (b) would your fourth-generation decendent be the person who actually cracks the key in your place?
It's quixotic to look for an algorithm that is "impossible" to crack. I do think that we should make it as "infeasible" to crack as possible.
I wonder if this would be a viable strategy for SBC to adopt with regards to AT&T's historical archives. It is absolutely true that AT&T's archives would serve a much broader purpose than mere technological curiosity, but SBC may decide that it does cost them to maintain the entire collection.
Slashdot Mirror
Can a weapon like a lightsaber actually exist?
Even the most uninformed fan knows that it's not just the light, but it's plasma being shaped into a cylindrical shape approximately 1 meter in length (according to the Episode III novel) that gives the lightsaber its power. (Yes, and the Force, but let me just talk about the saber for the moment...)
One of the problem has to do with the state of the plasma, often called the fourth state of matter. It is by no means solid, and yet the fact that the lightsaber has a distinct shape when activated and the fact that two lightsabers can clash in a duel mean that there is a solid-like boundary to the blade that is inviolable. On the contrary, often we see the blade cutting through other objects and body parts with frightening ease. (Just ask Count Dooku.)
Which brings me to another issue: The power required to confine the plasma in a blade-like configuration (be it magnetic or otherwise) may well exceed the power to generate the blade in the first place. It seems almost redundant for a weapon of this type to be built, as the builder can control and direct the flow of plasma with a device no more than 30 centimeters in length. As someone else said regarding construction of Dyson Spheres, "If you can build it, you don't need it."
$1337. And have them write the check entirely in Leetspeak.
No. Think "leaked" as in:
* "compromised"
* "breached"
* "hacked"
* "0wned"
I currently work in a higher-ed environment, and one way that our team stays relaxed and ready at the same time is by spending time with each other. I know this sounds a bit corny, but if you like the people you work with, then you enjoy spending time with them. Part of improving morale is knowing that there are actually *good* parts to your job and working those to your advantage.
One thing we do is having daily Quake fragfests around lunch time. Even the director drops by, shakes his head, chuckles and shuffles away. We are even in the process of designing (when we are not doing projects or solving problems, of course) a large Quake map after the actual physical buildings of our school.
Each team is different, and each company/organization is different. For us, we find that (a) we like the work, (b) we like each other (except when "J" has a BFG10K and all I got is a lousy gauntlet). We work to use that to build relationships within the team, and that has positive, outflowing effects on our attitude towards the customers.
As I recall, when John Romero started Ion Storm it was out of the sense that id Software was dominated by technologists/engineers and not by designers. He wanted Ion Storm to be a place where "Design Is Law", then burned through some serious venture capital cash before coughing up Daikatana. The rest, as the saying goes, is history... and so was Ion Storm.
I don't know if Microsoft products need better GUI people as much as architect and security people.
Gnome has always seemed to me to be a UI made to look excessively [fill in the blank]: Cute, shiny, hiding the ugly (but important) functional details underneath a glossy appearance. I started using Gnome initially when I didn't know about KDE. I switched over to KDE when I realized that KDE gives me more flexibility to customize the UI to my heart's desire, whereas Gnome is starting to look more like what Windows would have looked like had Bill Gates ported that UI to run on *nix platforms.
I am amazed to no end that once in a long while the media gets its hands around a concept that has been around for years. They then trump it up as this Next Big Thing (tm), only to shamefully admit later on that, no, it's actually been done before.
This is really not much different from remote dumpster diving. If I wanted specific, personal information from someone, I wouldn't need to go through very much trouble in getting it. Just as a security-conscious person would shred sensitive documents before committing them to the bin, one should also be careful revealing personal information to unknown individuals or companies asking for such sensitive information.
Great way for the U.S. to "stay ahead" of the space race while sabotaging other nations' efforts: Export non-metric system components to foreign space agencies. "Yeah, looks like they were looking up furlongs per fortnight instead of kilometers per hour."
"Angry-Little-Black-Hat"? Angry, perhaps, but "black hat"?
If a blackhatter wanted to take down a server, he would have kept his mouth shut and just done it (and erased his footprint when he sneaked out). He would have also concealed his identity a lot better than what this scumbag did.
Reaching a "settlement" is just another way of saying that Microsoft is not going to just give up on a country, as much as their legal/PR team wants to say that they would have no problem taking their toys and leaving S. Korea. Instead of having to back up their threat to leave S. Korea, they are just trying another tactic by settling with them (read: bribing). Because if Microsoft does leave, the flip side is that the other countries that are really tired of Microsoft's strong-arm tactics will suddenly witness *HOW* to get rid of Microsoft from their native soil - something that Microsoft, already embattled and pressured by Linux, does not truly want to see happening.
Unlikely, because in order for any OS to run on any platform, the developers must get the hardware specifications and tailor the low-level code to the new hardware. After that, there is a lot of testing and optimization, and after it goes gold there is support-related issues. Microsoft is unlikely to go through all that just to get to the last 5-10% of the market.
At least back then Nigeria 419 did not exist, and spam was a common household dinner... As for viagra and cialis, well, *real* men are geeks and they don't use "enhancements".
This question brings up the issue of managing one's career in IT versus just "going with the flow". It is true that good, talented IT workers will feel demoralized and demotivated when they perceive no upward mobility within an organization. It is also true, from an organizational view, that hiring out of short-term, knee-jerk reactions without a good, hard view on long-term goals will eventually cripple a company to a point where noone wants to work there anymore.
But there must be some initiative on the part of the IT worker to manage and plan his/her own career. If you feel like that the company/organization has no vision on why they should retain and give value to your position and function, you need to speak up and let them know that you bring not only short-term bandaid solutions, but long-term values to the organization. If they are not willing to listen and go to bat for you, you can either (a) create value within the context of the position, or (b) move on to another employer.
I am currently working at a higher-ed institution where there are some very good people on my team to whom I am informally a mentor. As much as I speak up for them to get training or experience to enhance their career, they have also come up to me on their own to indicate a willingness to expand their training and knowledge. It does take two to tango.
On that note, it is also fitting to bid him farewell with a scene from Star Trek II, just after the surprise attack by Khan:
Peter Preston: "Is the word given, Admiral?"
Admiral Kirk: "The word is given: Warp speed."
Peter Preston: "Aye."
Godspeed, Mr. Doohan.
James Earl Jones has never sounded so... Verizon.
My wife and I are expecting our first child any day now (her due date was a week ago), and I recently discovered an interesting application/game on Fedora Core 3. When installed with KDE, KPotato is available as the electronic version of Mr. Potato Head, complete with eyes, mustaches, glasses, and noses that you can place on a blank face.
I did think about KBattleship, but then decided on a more pacifist approach. Maybe chess as she grows older.
...I thought it meant "Microsoft Offers Tools to ISPs Who Are Spammers".
Taking it to another level, I guess.
Someone should blackmail the Moscow electrical grid. "If you ever want to send spam again, fork over $200 and send it to this address..."
...routers for warez d00dz and spammer scums?
...evading all those diggers and sentinels.
1) Monopoly
2) Linux
3) SCO
4) Longhorn
5) U.S. Department of Justice
He was someone who apparently could not grasp the concept of "overstaying one's welcome". He used to show up unannounced at fellow mathematicians' houses, staying for weeks on end with no apparent plans of leaving, and even inviting other mathematicians over so that he could do math with them. He once even asked the wife of a good friend (who also happened to be a mathematician herself) to cut his toenails for him because they were getting too long. She refused.
This past Saturday I had the experience of interviewing a guy who, I had hoped, could take over the part-time network admin position that I have held at a small, non-profit organization for several years. I had developed a good working relationship with the organization, but had to step down after my full-time job became much more time-consuming. Our interview was the technical portion in a two-parter.
This man's resume was filled with past glorious and lofty titles such as "Director of Information Technology", "Manager of IT", and so on. Initially I felt awkward interviewing him, as he has had twice the number of years working in IT as I have (and I have been working for quite a while). However, when I began to ask him to explain what a TCP 3-way handshake was, he had this blank look on his face that was utterly horrifying. I also tried to get him to explain what a certificate authority is, and all he could say was, "Uhh...".
Mind you, this admin position is by no stretch of imagination an extremely technical one; the only thing we are asking him to do right off the bat is to migrate the organization's email infrastructure from POP3 to Exchange 2003. But this man, who in his past positions was in charge of directing other technical people's work, could not answer simple technical questions. Another question he got stumped on was the *BASIC* concepts behind VPN. The only magic word I heard from him was "encrypt", but little of everything else was useful.
We are in the process of looking for someone else to fill the position. I have already submitted my recommendation that he be held in queue until we can find someone much better. I am hopeful that it will not take long.
It's important, when we speak of using cryptographic algorithms, to distinguish between "impossible" and "infeasible". Given enough processing power and enough time, any key can be cracked. The question is one of feasibility: By the time you crack the key and use it to extract the information, (a) would the information still be relevant and useful to you? and (b) would your fourth-generation decendent be the person who actually cracks the key in your place?
It's quixotic to look for an algorithm that is "impossible" to crack. I do think that we should make it as "infeasible" to crack as possible.
I wonder if this would be a viable strategy for SBC to adopt with regards to AT&T's historical archives. It is absolutely true that AT&T's archives would serve a much broader purpose than mere technological curiosity, but SBC may decide that it does cost them to maintain the entire collection.