This may also have something to do with President Bush pushing for research funding for hydrogen fueled cars.
Well, it does, but not directly. There's a lot of research money being handed out now for hydrogen fuel cells, and whether or not GM is getting some of this, they want to be seen as a player. Plus, GM owns (via patents) some significant fuel cell technology -- basically the most promising methods for storing hydrogen. So they're a player no matter what.
OTOH, GM doesn't have anything to gain by pushing battery powered vehicles. The only reason they were in it in the first place was because of the 10% zero emissions vehicle mandate by the state of CA, which has now been repealed.
GM is not interested in building electric cars -- they're in the internal combustion business, dammit. At this point, they'll do anything to keep them off the market, do whatever they can to make sure they're forgotten, and make whatever gestures they can to demonstrate they're not viable. Right now, this means harping on what a huge loss they took with the EV1, and actually sending the remaining EV1s to the crusher as their leases expire. You can check on this -- it's absolutely true.
I've been smuggling CDRs to my Canadian friends. Many people bring a bottle of wine or something when they come to visit. I bring a spindle. It's always much appreciated.
One problem with using GObject or any Gnome-centric stuff with KDE is that it might break some of KDE's cross-platform compatibility. KDE is not just for Linux -- it's even supposed to work with Win32, which Gnome is not. These two desktops seem more popular on one platform or the other -- I've seen KDE on almost every BSD box, but never Gnome, and I've seen Gnome on other 'nixes, but not KDE. The original idea of KDE and QT was a cross-platform desktop and GUI toolkit alternative to Win32. So it's understandable if there's a bias by KDE honchos to stay on course with this.
Technically, most internships are paid, but only in a token sense -- maybe 8 bucks an hour. That wonn't even come close to supporting you in any major population center in America. That kind of money wouldn't even keep a Wall St. intern in neckties.
"Expensive" internships are one reason why rich kids still get the best jobs -- Wall St., Washington politics, Hollywood. Try living in NYC for a year, virtually unpaid, having to maintain a top notch wardrobe, being able to afford drinks and meals at the finest restaurants, all so you can enter and stay "in the swim." That's pretty tough for someone without an endless supply of family money, and with a mountain of debt from college.
The tech industry is *much* easier than others in this sense -- wearing Dockers is usually fine, and no one cares if you bring your lunch in a brown paper bag, or drive a crappy car. There's no need to be out schmoozing with co-workers and clients every night, running up huge bar tabs.
Honestly, one of the most appealing things about engineering is that it's devoid of all this crap. This makes it *much* easier to establish a career in than just about anything else, assuming you have the aptitude and ability. And anyone with that can make it.
It's like David and Goliath - sure, David beat Goliath... once. Who's taking bets that SCO won't be the one killing the giant that is IBM?
Not really. Goliath was an evil monster, and David a hero for slaying him. In this case, Goliath is a friendly, benevolent giant, and David a rabid rodent who should be squashed.
The problem with real science reporting is that it runs the risk of offending advertisers, or even potential advertisers. That's why we'll never hear the real truth about diets and health, auto safety, the federal budget, the cost of war with Iraq, the real costs of insurance, or whether Prozac causes people to flip out occasionally. In the interest of "balanced reporting," every truth must always be presented with some vested interest's counter-truth. This leads people to believe that no one really knows, and cannot really know -- so it's OK to just follow one's emotions, which is what advertising is all about. Ultimately, media's customers are not the audience but advertisers, so that's who they pander to.
The trouble is that real science journalism is so easily displaced by the free content provided by corporate PR departments. Real science journalism costs money to do, and doesn't bring in any more eyeballs than press releases about Olestra fighting obesity, etc.
If you're sharing it with your friend down the hall, it's not costing the university anything. Sure it puts a _slight_ strain on the network segment, but it's internal traffic, not metered bandwidth that goes outside the university.
Even if that's true, the real problem is that for the convenience of each other, you have all this crap being shared via P2P apps, which don't discriminate between the downloader down the hall and the world at large. So in fact, you're using your univerisity's resources to offer a free movie and music download service to the entire world. Even big media companies can't afford to do this, which is one reason why they haven't.
What a waste of bandwidth! I know this is par for the course with college networks, but step back for a minute and look how stupid it is. People have P2P apps running 24/7, snarfing up more stuff than they'd ever have time to watch, listen to, or whatever. At least if they have lives, or do any studying at all...
If you have time to watch a movie, you have time to copy a disk and run it down the hall. And if you actually did the math for the bandwidth costs (for what the school pays for their main pipe), sneakernet is probably cheaper. If it wasn't, we'd probably have video-on-demand already.
You shouldn't have to worry about selecting the right language when you boot. Knoppix ISOs are available in several different language versions. I speak English and therefore just use the EN version, and it boots to English automagically.
I find Knoppix extremely useful. I use it a lot when I want Linux tools, and all I have available is a Windows system. Knoppix is incredibly slick -- big-name distros like Redhat and Mandrake could learn from it. Check it out for sure. You have nothing to lose, as it runs off a CD.
There's been so much buzz in the last couple of years about the "blogging phenomena" -- itself an astroturf campaign, nothing but a big, self-promotional circle-jerk among a certain clique of writers, programmers, pundits, and promoters. It grew from there, but there was nothing organic about it.
I don't know if this is why but it's true -- LA has very few bugs, one of the major things contributing to southern California's outdoor lifestyle. Many people don't even have screens, and leave their windows and doors open all the time. The patio is treated like just another room in the house. This would be unthinkable on the east coast, where you'd get eaten alive!
Not only that, but smog makes for wonderful sunsets.
Mandrake is *not* "based on" Redhat!
on
Has GNOME Become LAME?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Mandrake may have gotten its start by bringing KDE to Redhat, but it has had little to do with Redhat since about version 5 (and now Mandrake's at version 9). Just because a distribution uses rpm packages doesn't mean it's Redhat based. Mandrake has all its own administration tools, and even its own package manager that's sort of an apt-rpm hybrid (urpmi). It has left Redhat far behind with respect to this, as well as in installation and configuration, where Redhat is still playing catch-up in many ways. So don't equate Mandrake with Redhat. It's certainly no more Redhat than Caldera or Suse are, both of which started as modified Redhat too, but neither of which have much in common with it anymore.
It's long been rumored that SBC has "pink contracts" with certain spammers, where for a certain amount of extra money, SBC agrees to hold off enforcing its supposed anti-spam policies. So if they do this as an ISP, what's to prevent them from doing this with regular phone service?
And they do. Pacbell, an SBC company, has been doing this for years. Even if you sign up for an unlisted number, certain companies, notably the LA Times, seem to automatically get it within hours of your establishing a new line. This has happened to me every time I've gotten a new phone line in the last 15 years. When I ask how they could have gotten my unlisted number, they say it's automatic whenever someone gets a new phone. So there you go -- the number *is* being given out, even when you've *paid extra* to not have this happen.
Taking this one step further -- if unlisted numbers are for sale to the right bidder -- why wouldn't they let certain companies, for the right price, get through caller ID blocking systems?
The fact is, there's no real protection. Whatever the laws are, companies seem to flout them freely. That's because there's no practical means of enforcement.
Take faxes, for example. Junk faxes are clearly illegal, and have been for at least 10 years, yet I know people whose offices receive dozens per day. And these tie up phone lines much worse than junk phone calls do. But still, no one bothers to track down the culprits and prosecute, even when it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The problem is that each junk email, call, or even fax is too much trouble to pursue individually for the amount of nuisance it creates. And that's the perpetrators' inherent advantage.
By that math they'd probably need *5 million* subscribers to break even -- 100 times more than your 50k. At $16 a pop -- which is reasonable, because that's still more than most people pay for regular magazine subscriptions. It may be half of list price, but few people actually pay that -- they go for those "24 issues for $12" deals. For example, it costs $10 to renew Wired for a year.
...I'll sell you a million dollars' worth of equity in my company. Then I'll go and rent the coolest possible office, so chicks will dig me. I'll lease a flashy car, so chicks will dig me. then I'll hire a really cute assistant so chicks know I'm being digged by other chicks. Rich dudes will dig my cool, chick-soaked lifestyle so much they'll want to hang out with me all the time. They'll hook me up with the best business deals for sure. So it's a can't-lose proposition. At the very least, I'll get invited to the coolest parties, with the best looking chicks. As a shareholder, you can come too. How's that sound? If business is ever slow, it's OK 'cuz you'll still have equity. Cool, huh!
"Fake it 'til you make it" has *never* worked!
on
Salon Asks for Help
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· Score: 1
Part of the problem is that to get financing, you must look like you already have money.
This is why a lot of dot-coms had to get offices in places that were expensive.
While it might be cost effective to have a server farm and offices in the middle of Iowa or something, it would have done damage to their image.
Bullshit. That "fake it 'til you make it" strategy has never worked. If it has, show me. It didn't work for the Wall St. wannabes in the 80s. It didn't work for interns trying to look like well-connected bluebloods by running up their credit cards, or Hollywood wannabes trying to do the same thing. And it didn't work for the dotcommers either. Gee, surprise...
Um, because they're stupid - the whole problem!
on
The Future of the CD
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· Score: 1
The music industry's problems, if indeed they could be characterized as such, are because the industry is run by knuckle-draggers. Anyone who's ever dealt with them knows this is the case. That's why their sales are "down," and it's why they say stupid things -- because they're stupid. And even if they could be performing "better," these music mills are still cash cows.
The compressor will work anywhere there's a gas line. That's most towns in the US, and probably Europe too.
The biggest hurdle to adopting this technology is the fight over who's not getting paid -- governments that aren't set up to collect road taxes from such things.
A lotta money for a stupid compressor...
on
10 Techno-Cool Cars
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· Score: 1
A thousand bucks is a lot of money for a stupid little compressor. These could be really cheap, but of course Honda has to go for full markup with accessories for their cute little yuppie greenie car.
Slashdot Mirror
This may also have something to do with President Bush pushing for research funding for hydrogen fueled cars.
Well, it does, but not directly. There's a lot of research money being handed out now for hydrogen fuel cells, and whether or not GM is getting some of this, they want to be seen as a player. Plus, GM owns (via patents) some significant fuel cell technology -- basically the most promising methods for storing hydrogen. So they're a player no matter what.
OTOH, GM doesn't have anything to gain by pushing battery powered vehicles. The only reason they were in it in the first place was because of the 10% zero emissions vehicle mandate by the state of CA, which has now been repealed.
GM is not interested in building electric cars -- they're in the internal combustion business, dammit. At this point, they'll do anything to keep them off the market, do whatever they can to make sure they're forgotten, and make whatever gestures they can to demonstrate they're not viable. Right now, this means harping on what a huge loss they took with the EV1, and actually sending the remaining EV1s to the crusher as their leases expire. You can check on this -- it's absolutely true.
I've been smuggling CDRs to my Canadian friends. Many people bring a bottle of wine or something when they come to visit. I bring a spindle. It's always much appreciated.
One problem with using GObject or any Gnome-centric stuff with KDE is that it might break some of KDE's cross-platform compatibility. KDE is not just for Linux -- it's even supposed to work with Win32, which Gnome is not. These two desktops seem more popular on one platform or the other -- I've seen KDE on almost every BSD box, but never Gnome, and I've seen Gnome on other 'nixes, but not KDE. The original idea of KDE and QT was a cross-platform desktop and GUI toolkit alternative to Win32. So it's understandable if there's a bias by KDE honchos to stay on course with this.
Technically, most internships are paid, but only in a token sense -- maybe 8 bucks an hour. That wonn't even come close to supporting you in any major population center in America. That kind of money wouldn't even keep a Wall St. intern in neckties.
"Expensive" internships are one reason why rich kids still get the best jobs -- Wall St., Washington politics, Hollywood. Try living in NYC for a year, virtually unpaid, having to maintain a top notch wardrobe, being able to afford drinks and meals at the finest restaurants, all so you can enter and stay "in the swim." That's pretty tough for someone without an endless supply of family money, and with a mountain of debt from college.
The tech industry is *much* easier than others in this sense -- wearing Dockers is usually fine, and no one cares if you bring your lunch in a brown paper bag, or drive a crappy car. There's no need to be out schmoozing with co-workers and clients every night, running up huge bar tabs.
Honestly, one of the most appealing things about engineering is that it's devoid of all this crap. This makes it *much* easier to establish a career in than just about anything else, assuming you have the aptitude and ability. And anyone with that can make it.
It's like David and Goliath - sure, David beat Goliath... once. Who's taking bets that SCO won't be the one killing the giant that is IBM?
Not really. Goliath was an evil monster, and David a hero for slaying him. In this case, Goliath is a friendly, benevolent giant, and David a rabid rodent who should be squashed.
Why would big media want to report the facts about cold fusion, life on Mars, alien landings in New Mexico, or anything else? Why kill a good story?
The problem with real science reporting is that it runs the risk of offending advertisers, or even potential advertisers. That's why we'll never hear the real truth about diets and health, auto safety, the federal budget, the cost of war with Iraq, the real costs of insurance, or whether Prozac causes people to flip out occasionally. In the interest of "balanced reporting," every truth must always be presented with some vested interest's counter-truth. This leads people to believe that no one really knows, and cannot really know -- so it's OK to just follow one's emotions, which is what advertising is all about. Ultimately, media's customers are not the audience but advertisers, so that's who they pander to.
The trouble is that real science journalism is so easily displaced by the free content provided by corporate PR departments. Real science journalism costs money to do, and doesn't bring in any more eyeballs than press releases about Olestra fighting obesity, etc.
If you're sharing it with your friend down the hall, it's not costing the university anything. Sure it puts a _slight_ strain on the network segment, but it's internal traffic, not metered bandwidth that goes outside the university.
Even if that's true, the real problem is that for the convenience of each other, you have all this crap being shared via P2P apps, which don't discriminate between the downloader down the hall and the world at large. So in fact, you're using your univerisity's resources to offer a free movie and music download service to the entire world. Even big media companies can't afford to do this, which is one reason why they haven't.
Just more corporate marketroid brochure babble. Spare us.
MSNBC is a retard. Along with AOL, the MPAA, etc., they're doing all they can to kill the Internet as anything other than a click-NOW-to-buy network.
Yup, they're retarded, but they're not trying to kill the web -- they're trying to turn it into television -- the only thing they understand.
What a waste of bandwidth! I know this is par for the course with college networks, but step back for a minute and look how stupid it is. People have P2P apps running 24/7, snarfing up more stuff than they'd ever have time to watch, listen to, or whatever. At least if they have lives, or do any studying at all...
If you have time to watch a movie, you have time to copy a disk and run it down the hall. And if you actually did the math for the bandwidth costs (for what the school pays for their main pipe), sneakernet is probably cheaper. If it wasn't, we'd probably have video-on-demand already.
...more like "Girls Gone Wild" DVDs...
You shouldn't have to worry about selecting the right language when you boot. Knoppix ISOs are available in several different language versions. I speak English and therefore just use the EN version, and it boots to English automagically.
I find Knoppix extremely useful. I use it a lot when I want Linux tools, and all I have available is a Windows system. Knoppix is incredibly slick -- big-name distros like Redhat and Mandrake could learn from it. Check it out for sure. You have nothing to lose, as it runs off a CD.
There's been so much buzz in the last couple of years about the "blogging phenomena" -- itself an astroturf campaign, nothing but a big, self-promotional circle-jerk among a certain clique of writers, programmers, pundits, and promoters. It grew from there, but there was nothing organic about it.
...just 'cuz they're smaller! Jeez!
I don't know if this is why but it's true -- LA has very few bugs, one of the major things contributing to southern California's outdoor lifestyle. Many people don't even have screens, and leave their windows and doors open all the time. The patio is treated like just another room in the house. This would be unthinkable on the east coast, where you'd get eaten alive!
Not only that, but smog makes for wonderful sunsets.
Mandrake may have gotten its start by bringing KDE to Redhat, but it has had little to do with Redhat since about version 5 (and now Mandrake's at version 9). Just because a distribution uses rpm packages doesn't mean it's Redhat based. Mandrake has all its own administration tools, and even its own package manager that's sort of an apt-rpm hybrid (urpmi). It has left Redhat far behind with respect to this, as well as in installation and configuration, where Redhat is still playing catch-up in many ways. So don't equate Mandrake with Redhat. It's certainly no more Redhat than Caldera or Suse are, both of which started as modified Redhat too, but neither of which have much in common with it anymore.
It's long been rumored that SBC has "pink contracts" with certain spammers, where for a certain amount of extra money, SBC agrees to hold off enforcing its supposed anti-spam policies. So if they do this as an ISP, what's to prevent them from doing this with regular phone service?
And they do. Pacbell, an SBC company, has been doing this for years. Even if you sign up for an unlisted number, certain companies, notably the LA Times, seem to automatically get it within hours of your establishing a new line. This has happened to me every time I've gotten a new phone line in the last 15 years. When I ask how they could have gotten my unlisted number, they say it's automatic whenever someone gets a new phone. So there you go -- the number *is* being given out, even when you've *paid extra* to not have this happen.
Taking this one step further -- if unlisted numbers are for sale to the right bidder -- why wouldn't they let certain companies, for the right price, get through caller ID blocking systems?
The fact is, there's no real protection. Whatever the laws are, companies seem to flout them freely. That's because there's no practical means of enforcement.
Take faxes, for example. Junk faxes are clearly illegal, and have been for at least 10 years, yet I know people whose offices receive dozens per day. And these tie up phone lines much worse than junk phone calls do. But still, no one bothers to track down the culprits and prosecute, even when it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The problem is that each junk email, call, or even fax is too much trouble to pursue individually for the amount of nuisance it creates. And that's the perpetrators' inherent advantage.
By that math they'd probably need *5 million* subscribers to break even -- 100 times more than your 50k. At $16 a pop -- which is reasonable, because that's still more than most people pay for regular magazine subscriptions. It may be half of list price, but few people actually pay that -- they go for those "24 issues for $12" deals. For example, it costs $10 to renew Wired for a year.
...I'll sell you a million dollars' worth of equity in my company. Then I'll go and rent the coolest possible office, so chicks will dig me. I'll lease a flashy car, so chicks will dig me. then I'll hire a really cute assistant so chicks know I'm being digged by other chicks. Rich dudes will dig my cool, chick-soaked lifestyle so much they'll want to hang out with me all the time. They'll hook me up with the best business deals for sure. So it's a can't-lose proposition. At the very least, I'll get invited to the coolest parties, with the best looking chicks. As a shareholder, you can come too. How's that sound? If business is ever slow, it's OK 'cuz you'll still have equity. Cool, huh!
Part of the problem is that to get financing, you must look like you already have money.
This is why a lot of dot-coms had to get offices in places that were expensive.
While it might be cost effective to have a server farm and offices in the middle of Iowa or something, it would have done damage to their image.
Bullshit. That "fake it 'til you make it" strategy has never worked. If it has, show me. It didn't work for the Wall St. wannabes in the 80s. It didn't work for interns trying to look like well-connected bluebloods by running up their credit cards, or Hollywood wannabes trying to do the same thing. And it didn't work for the dotcommers either. Gee, surprise...
The music industry's problems, if indeed they could be characterized as such, are because the industry is run by knuckle-draggers. Anyone who's ever dealt with them knows this is the case. That's why their sales are "down," and it's why they say stupid things -- because they're stupid. And even if they could be performing "better," these music mills are still cash cows.
The compressor will work anywhere there's a gas line. That's most towns in the US, and probably Europe too.
The biggest hurdle to adopting this technology is the fight over who's not getting paid -- governments that aren't set up to collect road taxes from such things.
A thousand bucks is a lot of money for a stupid little compressor. These could be really cheap, but of course Honda has to go for full markup with accessories for their cute little yuppie greenie car.