Yeah but by far most corporate software produced is not for sell. It is for use. So for most cases the only reason companies produce software is because they percieve a need for that software to do something for them. Thus, in the majority of cases, GPLed software is a free jumpstart.
Why would any company want to give a "free jumpstart" to its competitors?
There might be a philosophical argument for Open Source, but I have yet (in almost 6 years of reading/.) to see a convincing economic argument.
If anything could be said in detriment to mainframes, it could only be at the hardware level (like hotswapping CPUs, and IO devices), but Sun machines can already do that sort of stuff...
You say already like that's a good thing, but IBM had the capability decades ago and Sun are only really just catching up.
Sun sued Microsoft because they were adding extensions to the language that can make Java on Windows incompatible with other platforms. Portability goes out the window (pun not intended) when you have to program for java (knowing that 95% of the applets will run the crippled MS VM)
That's a silly argument (Sun's, not yours). The fact was, you could write Java to run anywhere and not take advantage of the MS extensions, or you could use the extensions and use Java as a nice programming language for developing Win32 apps.
But the thing is, it's easy enough to write platform-specific Java anyway. Simple example: if you assume that the scratch directory is always/tmp rather than doing the correct thing and checking the environment variable TMPDIR you have effectively written a Java program that only runs on Unix. Microsoft added functionality to the JVM, rather than taking it away. So long as all their extensions were in their own packages (like com.ms), they'd really done nothing that any other vendor hasn't. Oracle ship a bunch of Oracle-specific stuff with their JVM for example.
Scott McNealy was spoiling for a fight and wanted to push Sun's NC/SunRay product range for corporate desktops. That meant pushing Microsoft off those same desktops. The whole lawsuit was contrived for this purpose.
A professor of mine has been using TechSmith's Camtasia Studio software in order to take movies of what's going on on his screen. However, it's buggy, expensive, and a hassle. I've looked around the web for something that's GPL'd that can accomplish the same thing, and come up with nothing useful. The final stipulation is that it has to work under Windows, as much of the software he uses (Scientific Workplace, for one) is Windows-only. Has anyone found a (free) way to capture what's displayed on screen into a video, as well as grabbing inputs from a mic?
Get a graphics card with TV-out, and just use a regular video recorder (or plug it into the back of another PC with vidcap). Something capturing your display to video in software is going to hurt your performance and may be incompatible with other software.
Mainframes aren't dinosaurs, and never were. They are the most advanced, most capable hardware available, and the proving ground for architectural innovations that eventually filter their way down into workstations (like using a crossbar switch instead of a primitive bus). Sun's dynamic systems domains, considered very advanced by the Unix world are still many years behind the mainframe LPARs, and Sysplex makes SunCluster look like a silly toy. User-mode Linux and Beowulf don't even come close.
Really, you should be asking why obsolete technologies such as the bus are still used in PCs, and why PC technology lags so far behind "real" computers.
BMW has a monopoly in the BMW market. GM has a monopoly in the GM market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other. I guess that's why this guy is only a visiting professor of economics.;)
He means that you can switch between Dell and Compaq very easily, much more so than switching from Mac to PC. If you have a lot of Mac-only software, then Apple pretty much have you over a barrel.
If GM were the only manufacturer who made pick-up trucks, then they fact that BMW made luxury cars would not affect GM's position.
If it costs $20 million to launch 420kg into space, it is all well and good that someone can do it for $10 million. But I don't weigh 420kg.. I weigh 85kg, that's just over 1/5th, so shouldn't it cost $4 million to shoot my ass into low earth orbit?
Umm, you were planning on taking a life support module with you, right? Could be that weighs 335kg.
IRIX has a number of assets that Linux does not have, even in the kernel space -- including scalability (support for up to 512 CPUs, 512 GiB RAM), advanced file systems (XFS journaled file system, XVM volume management), advanced networking (Clustered XFS, SAN), standards compliance (POSIX, DII-COE, Trusted IRIX), and a Unix (BSD+SysV) heritage
I don't think that it is so much whether the author creates believable situations, or that the characters are ordinary people, but that the universe and the characters are consistent -- and that is what makes the story believable. Not any ordinary or extraordinary quality of the characters or the situations they are in, but that the characters exist as consistent beings in a consistent universe.
This is one of the reasons I like Alastair Reynolds' work so much, the consistency and attention to detail. For example, in his universe (set several centuries in the future of our own) FTL travel is still impossible, and the stars were colonized by relying on a combination cryogenic sleep and relativistic time dilation. If you want to intervene in events happening in another star system, it will take years for you to even be aware of it, years to prepare, then years to get there, by which time circumstances could be completely different. The people who do well in this universe aren't impulsive hotheads like Kirk or idiotic risk takers like Archer, they are people who think, because there's no pulling a techno-babble solution our of your ass.
Have to wait 'til next September or something for the conclusion of the trilogy, tho', but there are some other stories set in that universe published in January.
I hope you're not saying that there're no classes in the US, because I've got news for you...
So long as there is both upward and downward mobility between classes, classes are nothing more than convenient demographic groups. The concept of class is not inherently bad. There are still vestiges of class in the UK, but they are increasingly meaningless. Is it money? No, plenty of people from poor backgrounds have become wealthy and plenty of wealthy people have lost everything. Is it profession? No, there are as many lawyers, doctors, bankers from working class backgrounds as there are from middle-class. Is it ownership of land? See wealth. Is it education? No, plenty of working class kids went to elite school (until Blair scrapped the Assisted Places Scheme), and elite universities are a lot more diverse than New Labour's class war propaganda would have you believe.
In the US, have a look at the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans. You might be surprised just how poor the Cabots and the Kennedys are compared to people of ordinary backgrounds - Larry Ellison wasn't born wealthy, neither was Warren Buffet. While the Marxists weren't looking, the world passed their ideas on class by and now they are using thetoric that is as meaningful as Marx's critique of Victorian capitalism is today.
Sun should never have released it in the first place and charging for it is the only rational compromise between doing the smart thing -- discontinuing it -- and appeasing the masses by giving it away for free.'
Well, yes and no. They gave it away on the same basis that they give deep discounts to educational buyers - they more people who know and like Sun equipment, the more people who will recommend buying it when they start work. Sun never intended people to do production work on Solaris x86, it was just a way to get students hooked early.
Now, the cheap hardware is good enough that you can do useful work on it, and you are right, at the low end, SPARC kit is competing (and in many cases losing) against high-end PC kit.
If Sun do want to give Solaris x86 away, it should be under a strict license that precludes it from being used for commercial work.
Because of this we maintain the fiction that people are paid what they are worth in a free market economy. The truth is that people are paid as little as the businesses figure they can get away with.
Well, duh. If you're going to buy a new PC, do you take a look at some web sites, look for the spec you want at the best price? Of course people pay as little for anything as they can get away with. If you do that, can you blame the PC manufacturer for paying as little as possible to its employees?!
And that's not, except "renegotiate". However, the problem is that you're not ABLE to negotiate, because there are some 10 people outside, waiting for the same job and they have all to insist in same benefits
If you're really so replaceable that 10 people can easily be found to do your job, then it's likely that you aren't really contributing to the company and are in fact a drain on the payroll of the workers who are more difficult to replace.
Yes, it means. Because I put my brains too, I put my personal capital too (be it time or knowledge or abilities)
If you're an employee, the only risk you take is losing your job and not getting a paycheck. Even if your employer is losing money, your salary will still be paid. The entrpreneur risks bankruptcy - 90% of new businesses fail. The risks don't really compare.
It is OK, if he makes more than me, but making 500 times more is RIDICULOUS.
The average salary in the US is $36,000. You seriously believe that the average manager makes a salary of $1.8M? I'm afraid it is you who are ridiculous.
This is just outrageous. You effectively claim the workers have no rights, and if they want rights they must become employers first !
And you effectively claim that an employer owes you a living whether or not you actually add value to the business.
the rich mangement class are allowed to even voice an opinion on pay structure and labor issues
What on earth are you talking about? There is no "management class". You think all the managers in the IT industry went to the same prep schools, joined the same fraternities at college, play golf together at weekends? What rubbish, if anything the "management class" is more diverse than the "programmer class"
If you're talking about the company owner, then it's up to him/her to set pay structure... and it's up to employees to decide whether or not they want to work there. That's it. The system works remarkably well, and is the basis of all the successful economies in the world. Class War rhetoric is the hallmark of the world's economic basket cases.
I think that thing that everyone is scared of is a Union coming in and telling them that they're relegated to Jr. SysAdmin while the mainframe guys are trained and promoted.
This is exactly what will happen, tho'. Go look up seniority. Remember the recent dispute between the dockers union and the ports on the West Coast? The union paralyzed Pacific trade in a bid to prevent the introduction of new technology. A union thinks in terms of quantity, not quality - they want as many jobs as possible and that's their only priority, even though they risk destroying the source of those jobs.
It's not like the UAW is going to come in and force their methods of union dirty tricks on the IT industry. Would any of you have a problem with an IT Union that was built by Sage/USENIX, or a like organization?
I'm sure all unions were started quite idealistically, after all, who would join the union in its early days if it wasn't a compelling proposition? The problem is that unions are about quantity not quality, and they hate competition between their members, because they rely on presenting a united front. That means that unions always look after the interest of the lowest common denominator. That's another reason they love the idea of seniority; it protects those who have been union members for longers, and it guarantees even mediocre workers promotions if they simply stick around long enough.
That works on an assembly line where workers are interchangeable, but the difference in productivity between an excellent programmer and a poor programmer can easily bee 100:1. Guess which one the union will look after, and which one it will consider a troublemaker?
If there actually were an IT union and it had some clout who do you think could be lobbying in Washington against DMCA and the like?
What makes you assume a union would do that?
Think about this: for an organization of a given size, the organization would require more sysadmins for an all-NT solution than an all-Unix solution. That means a union is going to be campaigning against Linux! That's what unions do, they try to maximize jobs at the expense of efficiency.
The problem is we all still have some of that cowboy glint in our eyes. "Yeah I can be a CIO by 30, I know more than the doofus sitting in the executive suite does anyway" Grow up a little bit and see that while not perfect, in the face of a declining IT industry a Union is one thing that can give you some power back, on a large economic sized scale.
If you think you are that good, at the moment you are free to take the risk and go for it. In a union world, your age would matter more than your skills and ideas.
The IT industry isn't declining, just changing. All those people who lost their jobs in the dotcom crash? The harsh fact is that their jobs disappeared because they weren't doing anything useful in the first place. Whether you were in marketing or programming, dogfood.com was a bad idea - period. All these people took the risk hoping to get rich on stock options, and none of them have any right to complain when it doesn't pan out.
I believe the dreaded office format is what keeps the dependency on windows strong.
The Office format might be what keeps Office popular, but all the professional Office suites run on Windows. No, OpenOffice doesn't count, since it is not feature-competitive with MS Office, or any other office-type suite for windows. So there is no causal relationship between Windows and MS Office.
The price differential is too huge. Most people don't use any of the features of Windows. Really, it's a great OS. I love using it. But if I was a MIS dude at a bank, I would toss it out the window (pun!) because of the cost. Most of the folks at the bank need some email and some access to accounts.
You're exactly right. For example, Barclays do everything with Motif applications running on dedicated X terminals on the desktop and RS/6000 workstations and servers behind it all. A Dell PC running Linux makes a great cheap X terminal, probably even cheaper than the purpose-built ones you buy from NCD. Other banks use their PCs as vt100 or IBM 3270 terminals. Most employees don't even need Office-type software like Word or Excel, they just need to run the one application that the bank wrote itself, or at least massively customized, to do their jobs.
It just makes sense to create an Intranet for all of the internal form filling out work and account access and then use CGIs to do the computing. Let the servers do the work and let the client boxes format it for the screen with Mozilla.
HTML forms are strange, when you think about it. They don't give the sort of rich GUI you can get with Windows/Motif (no combo box, no grid control, no spinner, etc), yet they require a lot of processing power and installed software on the desktop compared to a terminal application. I wonder why HTML forms are still so primitive, they've been around for years now and no-one's bothered to add more exotic widgets, meaning you have to go to Java (which is even more resource intensive than running X) if you want the sort of GUI capability a desktop developer is used to. They would be much better off just using the Linux boxes as old-fashioned terminals and not bothering with trying to shoehorn their apps into a web site.
They are lobbying against your right to choose Open Source.
So what? You are lobbying against the right to choose closed source!
Of course, you won't come out and say it, because that would reveal your hand, but indirectly undermining the economic viability of commercial software amounts to the same thing.
That's not true. Claims of infringement can be made by the current copyright holder, whether or not that institution or person is the original author of the work. In this case, the spam is declared "Copyright 1997, Email Connection Inc." (It's the first line in the message.) This indicates that the message was written as a work-for-hire, and that the corporation is the owner of the copyright.
Will a spammer be so eager to reveal his/her identity and contact details? Perhaps not.
Yeah, duct tape will look great wrapped all over the wires on my new G4.
What matters more, that it does the job or looks pretty? If you are going to prioritize style over substance, you've little grounds for complaint when performance is poor.
Exactly, who ever heard of something really useful that benefits the community, but expensive, being available for free. Like free roads. Or free education. Or free healthcare.
Free electricity? Nope.
Free telephones? Nope.
Free air conditioning? Nope.
Nothing is free; it all has to be paid for somewhere. All the things you mentioned are paid for, by the taxpayer. The only people clamouring for anything "free" are the ones who have made the deliberate decision that taxpayer-funding will result in them getting more from the system than they have contributed, i.e. they want their personal luxuries to be subsidized by other people's work.
Still haven't found presents for the science fans on your list? Before you brave the cold and the holiday crowds again, take a look at our favorite geek gifts to give and get this year.
That time has come once again when Scientific American editors wrap up their holiday shopping. Okay, actually we're far from done. We admit it. But in our annual mad dash for this season's best science and technology presents, we have turned up quite a few terrific gifts--from pet tornadoes and weather stations to million-year-old fossils and ancient pyramid kits. Grouped into five categories below--wearables, novelties, toys, gizmos and other stuff--this collection has something for the geek in all of us. How would Dad like a watch with a built-in universal remote control? How about a chemistry set of delicious bath soaps for Mom? Have a nutty relative who, so far as you can tell, lives in a cave? Give him a bona fide bat detector. Or a lump of coal--from the Titanic. Happy browsing! --the Editors
Wearables Tied to Science When you have to tie one on, it might as well be scientifically stylish. Josh Bach offers several options among its offerings of colorful silk ties for $39 apiece, including cartoons of atoms, moon phases and rocket ships. http://www.joshbach.com
Double Helix Bracelet Wear your feelings about science on your sleeve--and at the same time commemorate the upcoming (March 2003) 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. The bracelets are fashioned from spring steel and then silver plated. They come in three sizes and prices ($6, $10 or $15). There are also "hematite" and multi-color finishes available. http://www.carolynforsman.com/product.cfm?item_i d= 14
Smart (Alec) T-shirts Want to advertise your smarts before you even open your mouth? Some of these T-shirts should do the trick. The Bell Curve shirt shows the simple graph used so often for grading--and nicely points out the wearer's superior spot at the far end of the scale. Another T, in a lovely shade of turquoise, conveniently shows more digits of Pi than you will ever need. http://store.thecoop.com/cgi-bin/coopstore.store fr ont/3dde42fa048dda74273fc0a814660702/Catalog/1343
Space Station Crew Cap Is someone on your gift list out of this world in one way or another? Give them this black baseball cap, identifying them as a crew member on the space station. The back of the hat features the IMAX logo. http://store.thetech.org/spacstatcrew.html
Midas Remote Controlled Watch Think of it--a universal remote control attached to your wrist at all times. No TV will ever again escape your will, at least not if it's within 20 feet. This watch's database covers every make/model of TV and cable receiver imaginable. What does such power cost, you ask? Only $39.99. http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/5a7b/
Novelties Aged Well Fossils, skulls, and large insects are among the offerings at Maxilla and Mandible online. When we looked, for instance, the 350 million-year-old fossil trilobite was a steal at $56. Also available was a modern wildebeast skull with graceful black horns ($360), and an impressive specimen of a giant scorpion ($100). Prices and offerings vary. http://www.maxillaandmandible.com/
Titanic Coal Need to fill stockings for bad children, large and small? Well, for a mere $21.95 you can give them a piece of coal from the engine room of the most famous shipwreck, the sinking of the Titanic. Each lump comes with a certificate of authenticity. http://shop.store.yahoo.com/scimall-usa/titanicc oa l.html
Test-tube Spice Rack For the chemist-cum-cook, this set of glass test tubes in a matching silver rack makes it easy to brew up just about anything in the kitchen. Cork stoppers keep spices fresh. http://www.gourmetbistro.com/glastestubsp.html Bath Science Fill your tub with a variety of potions and lotions from chemistryset.net this season and keep the beakers and vials for later use. The delicious soaps, bath bombs, mineral salts, aromatherapy beads and candles from this site are all you need to dissolve holiday stress. http://www.chemistryset.net/
MC2 Frame Hand-made, hand-painted and cast in bonded porcelain, this beautiful frame is a nice way to display your photos of Einstein--or anyone else you hold near and dear. http://store.yahoo.com/msichicago/16-538.html
Surveyors' Bearings Antique scientific instruments can be very pricey. But there are some high quality, accurate reproductions available that will put less of a dent in the pocketbook. The classic surveying compass, for example, was patented by Colorado mining engineer D.W Brunton in 1894. It quickly became the standard instrument for explorers mapping new lands and territories and charting coastlines. This faithful replica has a solid polished brass casing that opens to reveal folding peep sights; on the inside of the lid is a mirror with a centre line. The case is heavily constructed from a machined casting, with brass screws and hinges. It comes in a leather case with stitched seams and brass strap fastening. www.simplysuperbgifts.com
Signed by Chuck Yeager In 1947, Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager, flew into history when he became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. The Bell X-1 Rocket Research plane he piloted. You can't give someone the original X-1--its at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum but you can give them a 1:32 scale model autographed by Yeager. The model is handcrafted of mahogany and presented on a wooden display stand. www.smithsonianstore.com
Astronaut Autographs The moonwalker astronauts are now in their 60s and 70s--and most will likely be gone before humans return to the moon. But space buffs can still get the gift of a living remembrance of those heroic journeys in the form of NASA photographs autographed by the astronauts. For example, a signed and authenticated 16-by-20 copy of the famous photo of Neil Armstrong reflected in the faceplate of Buzz Aldrin's helmet can be purchased for $299; framed for $459. www.novaspace.com
Toys Rocket Car Forget the run-of-the-mill remote-controlled models from Radio Shack. This two-foot long speed machine runs on pure vinegar and baking soda. You might want to send Fido outside before you fire 'er up. http://store.thecoop.com/cgi-bin/coopstore.store fr ont/3dde42fa048dda74273fc0a814660702/Product/View/ 5029
Pet Tornado Speaking of pets, why not keep your very own storm around for a, well, sunny day? No need for walks, bones, scratching posts, flea collars or pigs ears. Just spin the cage and watch a baby tornado form. At $4.50, it makes a great stocking stuffer. http://store.yahoo.com/msichicago/pettornado.htm l
Cat-A-Pults Watch mechanics in action as Newton the foam cat flies from one catapult to the next. This set contains five catapults, each with 25 adjustment settings to control the cat's trajectory up to distances of eight feet, and 10 actual Newtons, for a total of 90 feline lives. http://store.yahoo.com/ explo/catapults.html
Pyramid Building Blocks Reconstruct Tut's tomb with this 67-piece block set. These hardwood blocks come in 18 different shapes, making it far easier for you to engineer a pyramid than it was for the ancient Egyptians. http://www.smithsonianstore.com/product_detail.a sp ?style=67301&catid=10001814&dptid=502
Talking Globe Learn geography plus national anthems and songs. This globe asks more than 10,000 questions and grades your answers. You can create custom quizzes at different skill levels and track scores for up to four players. http://www.smithsonianstore.com/product_detail.a sp ?style=6026&catid=239&dptid=235
Ant-omology Like chemistry sets, the holidays wouldn't be the same without some budding entomologist getting an ant farm. This escape-proof set up allows kids to watch these industrious arthropods through the walls of a round-walled clear container with a snap on magnifier for closer viewing. "Sugar Cement" puts nutrients into the sand while making it cave-in resistant and spurs the ants to greater activity. A mail-in coupon brings the ants to their new abode within 2 to 4 weeks. It also gives parents a chance to reconsider. www.scientificsonline.com
Designer Molecules Molecular models may be the Tinker Toys of the 21st century. Here's a kit that contains an extensive assortment of 480 atoms molded in polypropylene. Three hundred flexible vinyl connectors represent the bond "linkages." Double and triple bonds are easily constructed. Anything from an acid to an enzyme is easily fabricated. And even if its not the next blockbuster designer drug, the models are nice to look at. gallery.bcentral.com
Unraveling DNA It's been 50 years since Watson and Crick figured out that the DNA packed in all living cells was coiled in the form of a double helix. But few people have actually seen this stuff of life. Here's a kit that can give amateur experimenters a look by extracting the DNA from onion cells. By following simple instructions users can see the DNA precipitate from solution and lift it out of the test tube. In the process, they learn about cell lysis, denaturation, precipitation, super coiling, high molecular mass, and the double stranded helix. www.books4kids.com
Gadgets Portable Solar Array If the batteries in your CD player or cell phone run dry on a clear, sunny day, just plug the little gadget into iSun, a portable solar charger offered by ICP Global Technologies. The size of a small book, one iSun generates about two Watts of electricity, enough to power a Walkman, cell phone or PD. Each unit costs $79.99 a piece, and they can be linked together like a daisy chain to power hungrier devices. www.icpglobal.com
Backyard Weather Station Dreaming of a white Christmas? Go one step farther and make your own forecast. These professional weather stations feature anemometers to measure wind speed and direction, rain collectors to track daily and accumulated rainfall amounts, temperature and humidity sensors and much more. They transmit their readings to remote LCD console/receivers that can be placed up to 400 feet away. http://www.weathershop.com/davis_wireless.htm
Bat Detectors No, this isn't a giant bat-shaped spotlight you project into the night sky. This palm-held gizmo is the bat-hunter's equivalent to a fish finder. For beginners, Bat Conservation International, Inc., which brings you the Swedish-made devices, suggests the E-5 Microbat model, with high/low frequency capabilities for detecting most bats through a speaker or headphones. For around $89, it comes with belt clip, battery and instructions. http://www.batcon.org/catalog/catp3.html
Time Flows By Here's new twist on the time-honored hourglass egg timer. The Bubble Timer is a polished two-inch acrylic cube that reckons the minutes by the lazy ascent of a bubble through a tube. Depending on the face the cube is set on, the tube has three inclinations--and hence counts out three different times: ten seconds, one minute or five minutes. Invert the cube to repeat the measurement. bubbletimer.com/
Don't Party Without It No need to fear the consequences of overzealous holiday celebrating is you are carrying this Digital Alcohol Detector. This compact personal breathalyzer uses advanced semiconductor gas sensor technology to approximate the percent of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) from your breath. Blow into the mouth vent and within 10 seconds a precise reading, in increments of 0.01 percent, ranging from 0.00 to 0.19 percent BAC.appears on the LCD display. www.scientificsonline.com
Atomic Time With the ExactSet clock there is no reason to call the phone company for the correct time. This compact travel clock sets itself automatically to the radio signal from the US Atomic Clock in Colorado. In addition, the clock incorporates two alarms, time/day/date display, indoor temperature, and low battery indicator. It even has an eight minute snooze for an indisputable wakeup call. www.weathertools.com
Solar Observer Here's a safe way to look at the surface of the sun. The Sunspotter is a wooden, folded-Keplerian telescope that uses a system of mirrors and a powerful 62millimeter objective lens to project a brilliant three-inch solar image onto a white viewing screen. Sunspots can be easily tracked as they appear and move across the solar disk. Tracing the images provides an hour-by-hour or day-by-day record of the solar cycle. www.scientificsonline.com
Bright Beam Almost everyone has a flashlight--or too many--but the X5 LED Long Distance Flashlight adds a new dimension. Its powerful beam reaches 120 feet but, unlike conventional flashlights, it illuminates that darkness in full spectrum color by combining the light from five LED bulbs. The distinctive blue beam can be seen more than two miles away at dusk or dark. Its aircraft-grade aluminum case is virtually unbreakable, completely waterproof (up to 150 feet), and shock proof. shopping.discovery.com
Digital Microscope Another old standby children's gift--the optical microscope--is going digital. The C2D Microscope connects to a PC and can magnify objects up to 220 times their actual size. The software can record both stills and video. Like its mechanical forebears, the kit also contains dissecting tools and prepared slides. store.yahoo.com
Other
Adopt a Whale For only $54 dollars, you can help support research on killer whales and claim one for your very own or for a friend. The killer whale adoption program from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center sends you an ID photo and biography of your whale, an adoption certificate, a CD featuring the sounds of British Columbia's killer whales and newsletter about the research program. You choose your whale from a pull-down menu: Balaklava, Clio, Echo, Izumi, Nimpkish, Whisky and pals are waiting. http://www.clamshell.org/
Sponsor a Big Cat For only $25, you can sponsor a jaguar, snow leopard or Siberian Tiger and get a bunch of great goodies as well. The Wildlife Conservation Society will send you a limited edition T-shirt, one year of their magazine, a brief history of your cat and information about what WCS is doing in its habitat to help protect wildlife. For $35 or more, you'll also receive a quarterly newsletter. http://wcs.org/bigcats/#whichcat
Blue Planet This hauntingly beautiful journey beneath the sea made documentary history. From giant whales to tiny coral polyps and the strange organisms that live in the abyssal deep, it contains scenes never before captured on camera. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, it stands as a definitive exploration of the ocean's most breathtaking habitats, from its deepest recesses to its frozen deserts. The entire series is available in a boxed gift set of four DVDs. DVD extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, photo galleries, fact files and a Blue Planet music video. shopping.discovery.com
It's not aboot caring aboot speed, it's aboot worring about being hit by per minute fees while online. Those that switched to broadband from dial-up didn't care before or after aboot the speed. As the summary and article say, users are taking their time interacting with the web as they don't have to rush to get on, do what they want to do, and then get off.
Speed does matter, but with ADSL I know that if it is slow, I can just leave it running overnight. 5K/s for 12 hrs is 216M and the cash cost to me is the same. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer the 50-70K/s I normally get, but I recognize that that is a luxury and always-connected is a necessity, like any other utility.
The idea behind mesh networks is that after the mesh density reaches a critical level, they can start "floating" and stop relying on wire networks for medium and long distance connections.
If the idea was to create an entirely self-contained wireless WAN (say for pure P2P applications) then I'd agree with you. But a great deal of traffic consists of clients connecting to servers, which means the boundaries between your WWAN and the existing hardwired network are extremely porous. It's very difficult to provide QoS on a wireless network, and bandwidth is necessarily limited - you can't just add another AP and double the bandwidth in a given area, because the frequency spectrum is limited. So server owners and anyone else who needs a lot of reliable bandwidth will continue to prefer hardwires. So is it going to be cheaper and more reliable to go from the WLAN in Manhattan to the router to the fibre backbone and connect to a data center in San Francisco, or to go from the WLAN over the WWAN across the continent, then have to go onto the fibre anyway in SF to get to the data center?
The way to provide ubiquitous coverage is WLANs connected by hardwires - the only question is how to make sure people pay for what they use. I'd be a lot more likely to open my own AP to the public if I could make only X% of my ADSL bandwidth available for guests and reserve the rest for people with the WEP key.
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Yeah but by far most corporate software produced is not for sell. It is for use. So for most cases the only reason companies produce software is because they percieve a need for that software to do something for them. Thus, in the majority of cases, GPLed software is a free jumpstart.
/.) to see a convincing economic argument.
Why would any company want to give a "free jumpstart" to its competitors?
There might be a philosophical argument for Open Source, but I have yet (in almost 6 years of reading
If anything could be said in detriment to mainframes, it could only be at the hardware level (like hotswapping CPUs, and IO devices), but Sun machines can already do that sort of stuff...
You say already like that's a good thing, but IBM had the capability decades ago and Sun are only really just catching up.
Sun sued Microsoft because they were adding extensions to the language that can make Java on Windows incompatible with other platforms.
/tmp rather than doing the correct thing and checking the environment variable TMPDIR you have effectively written a Java program that only runs on Unix. Microsoft added functionality to the JVM, rather than taking it away. So long as all their extensions were in their own packages (like com.ms), they'd really done nothing that any other vendor hasn't. Oracle ship a bunch of Oracle-specific stuff with their JVM for example.
Portability goes out the window (pun not intended) when you have to program for java (knowing that 95% of the applets will run the crippled MS VM)
That's a silly argument (Sun's, not yours). The fact was, you could write Java to run anywhere and not take advantage of the MS extensions, or you could use the extensions and use Java as a nice programming language for developing Win32 apps.
But the thing is, it's easy enough to write platform-specific Java anyway. Simple example: if you assume that the scratch directory is always
Scott McNealy was spoiling for a fight and wanted to push Sun's NC/SunRay product range for corporate desktops. That meant pushing Microsoft off those same desktops. The whole lawsuit was contrived for this purpose.
A professor of mine has been using TechSmith's Camtasia Studio software in order to take movies of what's going on on his screen. However, it's buggy, expensive, and a hassle. I've looked around the web for something that's GPL'd that can accomplish the same thing, and come up with nothing useful. The final stipulation is that it has to work under Windows, as much of the software he uses (Scientific Workplace, for one) is Windows-only. Has anyone found a (free) way to capture what's displayed on screen into a video, as well as grabbing inputs from a mic?
Get a graphics card with TV-out, and just use a regular video recorder (or plug it into the back of another PC with vidcap). Something capturing your display to video in software is going to hurt your performance and may be incompatible with other software.
Ever wonder why these things are still around
Mainframes aren't dinosaurs, and never were. They are the most advanced, most capable hardware available, and the proving ground for architectural innovations that eventually filter their way down into workstations (like using a crossbar switch instead of a primitive bus). Sun's dynamic systems domains, considered very advanced by the Unix world are still many years behind the mainframe LPARs, and Sysplex makes SunCluster look like a silly toy. User-mode Linux and Beowulf don't even come close.
Really, you should be asking why obsolete technologies such as the bus are still used in PCs, and why PC technology lags so far behind "real" computers.
BMW has a monopoly in the BMW market. GM has a monopoly in the GM market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other. I guess that's why this guy is only a visiting professor of economics. ;)
He means that you can switch between Dell and Compaq very easily, much more so than switching from Mac to PC. If you have a lot of Mac-only software, then Apple pretty much have you over a barrel.
If GM were the only manufacturer who made pick-up trucks, then they fact that BMW made luxury cars would not affect GM's position.
If it costs $20 million to launch 420kg into space, it is all well and good that someone can do it for $10 million. But I don't weigh 420kg.. I weigh 85kg, that's just over 1/5th, so shouldn't it cost $4 million to shoot my ass into low earth orbit?
Umm, you were planning on taking a life support module with you, right? Could be that weighs 335kg.
IRIX has a number of assets that Linux does not have, even in the kernel space -- including scalability (support for up to 512 CPUs, 512 GiB RAM), advanced file systems (XFS journaled file system, XVM volume management), advanced networking (Clustered XFS, SAN), standards compliance (POSIX, DII-COE, Trusted IRIX), and a Unix (BSD+SysV) heritage
Don't forget Guaranteed Rate I/O.
I don't think that it is so much whether the author creates believable situations, or that the characters are ordinary people, but that the universe and the characters are consistent -- and that is what makes the story believable. Not any ordinary or extraordinary quality of the characters or the situations they are in, but that the characters exist as consistent beings in a consistent universe.
This is one of the reasons I like Alastair Reynolds' work so much, the consistency and attention to detail. For example, in his universe (set several centuries in the future of our own) FTL travel is still impossible, and the stars were colonized by relying on a combination cryogenic sleep and relativistic time dilation. If you want to intervene in events happening in another star system, it will take years for you to even be aware of it, years to prepare, then years to get there, by which time circumstances could be completely different. The people who do well in this universe aren't impulsive hotheads like Kirk or idiotic risk takers like Archer, they are people who think, because there's no pulling a techno-babble solution our of your ass.
Have to wait 'til next September or something for the conclusion of the trilogy, tho', but there are some other stories set in that universe published in January.
Solaris on x86 boxes would allow easier intergration of workstations with Sun big iron, so it might ensure more hardware purchases in the future
And fewer sales of Sun workstations, which is why they don't do it.
I hope you're not saying that there're no classes in the US, because I've got news for you...
So long as there is both upward and downward mobility between classes, classes are nothing more than convenient demographic groups. The concept of class is not inherently bad. There are still vestiges of class in the UK, but they are increasingly meaningless. Is it money? No, plenty of people from poor backgrounds have become wealthy and plenty of wealthy people have lost everything. Is it profession? No, there are as many lawyers, doctors, bankers from working class backgrounds as there are from middle-class. Is it ownership of land? See wealth. Is it education? No, plenty of working class kids went to elite school (until Blair scrapped the Assisted Places Scheme), and elite universities are a lot more diverse than New Labour's class war propaganda would have you believe.
In the US, have a look at the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans. You might be surprised just how poor the Cabots and the Kennedys are compared to people of ordinary backgrounds - Larry Ellison wasn't born wealthy, neither was Warren Buffet. While the Marxists weren't looking, the world passed their ideas on class by and now they are using thetoric that is as meaningful as Marx's critique of Victorian capitalism is today.
Sun should never have released it in the first place and charging for it is the only rational compromise between doing the smart thing -- discontinuing it -- and appeasing the masses by giving it away for free.'
Well, yes and no. They gave it away on the same basis that they give deep discounts to educational buyers - they more people who know and like Sun equipment, the more people who will recommend buying it when they start work. Sun never intended people to do production work on Solaris x86, it was just a way to get students hooked early.
Now, the cheap hardware is good enough that you can do useful work on it, and you are right, at the low end, SPARC kit is competing (and in many cases losing) against high-end PC kit.
If Sun do want to give Solaris x86 away, it should be under a strict license that precludes it from being used for commercial work.
Because of this we maintain the fiction that people are paid what they are worth in a free market economy. The truth is that people are paid as little as the businesses figure they can get away with.
Well, duh. If you're going to buy a new PC, do you take a look at some web sites, look for the spec you want at the best price? Of course people pay as little for anything as they can get away with. If you do that, can you blame the PC manufacturer for paying as little as possible to its employees?!
And that's not, except "renegotiate". However, the problem is that you're not ABLE to negotiate, because there are some 10 people outside, waiting for the same job and they have all to insist in same benefits
If you're really so replaceable that 10 people can easily be found to do your job, then it's likely that you aren't really contributing to the company and are in fact a drain on the payroll of the workers who are more difficult to replace.
Yes, it means. Because I put my brains too, I put my personal capital too (be it time or knowledge or abilities)
If you're an employee, the only risk you take is losing your job and not getting a paycheck. Even if your employer is losing money, your salary will still be paid. The entrpreneur risks bankruptcy - 90% of new businesses fail. The risks don't really compare.
It is OK, if he makes more than me, but making 500 times more is RIDICULOUS.
The average salary in the US is $36,000. You seriously believe that the average manager makes a salary of $1.8M? I'm afraid it is you who are ridiculous.
This is just outrageous. You effectively claim the workers have no rights, and if they want rights they must become employers first !
And you effectively claim that an employer owes you a living whether or not you actually add value to the business.
the rich mangement class are allowed to even voice an opinion on pay structure and labor issues
What on earth are you talking about? There is no "management class". You think all the managers in the IT industry went to the same prep schools, joined the same fraternities at college, play golf together at weekends? What rubbish, if anything the "management class" is more diverse than the "programmer class"
If you're talking about the company owner, then it's up to him/her to set pay structure... and it's up to employees to decide whether or not they want to work there. That's it. The system works remarkably well, and is the basis of all the successful economies in the world. Class War rhetoric is the hallmark of the world's economic basket cases.
I think that thing that everyone is scared of is a Union coming in and telling them that they're relegated to Jr. SysAdmin while the mainframe guys are trained and promoted.
This is exactly what will happen, tho'. Go look up seniority. Remember the recent dispute between the dockers union and the ports on the West Coast? The union paralyzed Pacific trade in a bid to prevent the introduction of new technology. A union thinks in terms of quantity, not quality - they want as many jobs as possible and that's their only priority, even though they risk destroying the source of those jobs.
It's not like the UAW is going to come in and force their methods of union dirty tricks on the IT industry. Would any of you have a problem with an IT Union that was built by Sage/USENIX, or a like organization?
I'm sure all unions were started quite idealistically, after all, who would join the union in its early days if it wasn't a compelling proposition? The problem is that unions are about quantity not quality, and they hate competition between their members, because they rely on presenting a united front. That means that unions always look after the interest of the lowest common denominator. That's another reason they love the idea of seniority; it protects those who have been union members for longers, and it guarantees even mediocre workers promotions if they simply stick around long enough.
That works on an assembly line where workers are interchangeable, but the difference in productivity between an excellent programmer and a poor programmer can easily bee 100:1. Guess which one the union will look after, and which one it will consider a troublemaker?
If there actually were an IT union and it had some clout who do you think could be lobbying in Washington against DMCA and the like?
What makes you assume a union would do that?
Think about this: for an organization of a given size, the organization would require more sysadmins for an all-NT solution than an all-Unix solution. That means a union is going to be campaigning against Linux! That's what unions do, they try to maximize jobs at the expense of efficiency.
The problem is we all still have some of that cowboy glint in our eyes. "Yeah I can be a CIO by 30, I know more than the doofus sitting in the executive suite does anyway" Grow up a little bit and see that while not perfect, in the face of a declining IT industry a Union is one thing that can give you some power back, on a large economic sized scale.
If you think you are that good, at the moment you are free to take the risk and go for it. In a union world, your age would matter more than your skills and ideas.
The IT industry isn't declining, just changing. All those people who lost their jobs in the dotcom crash? The harsh fact is that their jobs disappeared because they weren't doing anything useful in the first place. Whether you were in marketing or programming, dogfood.com was a bad idea - period. All these people took the risk hoping to get rich on stock options, and none of them have any right to complain when it doesn't pan out.
I believe the dreaded office format is what keeps the dependency on windows strong.
The Office format might be what keeps Office popular, but all the professional Office suites run on Windows. No, OpenOffice doesn't count, since it is not feature-competitive with MS Office, or any other office-type suite for windows. So there is no causal relationship between Windows and MS Office.
The price differential is too huge. Most people don't use any of the features of Windows. Really, it's a great OS. I love using it. But if I was a MIS dude at a bank, I would toss it out the window (pun!) because of the cost. Most of the folks at the bank need some email and some access to accounts.
You're exactly right. For example, Barclays do everything with Motif applications running on dedicated X terminals on the desktop and RS/6000 workstations and servers behind it all. A Dell PC running Linux makes a great cheap X terminal, probably even cheaper than the purpose-built ones you buy from NCD. Other banks use their PCs as vt100 or IBM 3270 terminals. Most employees don't even need Office-type software like Word or Excel, they just need to run the one application that the bank wrote itself, or at least massively customized, to do their jobs.
It just makes sense to create an Intranet for all of the internal form filling out work and account access and then use CGIs to do the computing. Let the servers do the work and let the client boxes format it for the screen with Mozilla.
HTML forms are strange, when you think about it. They don't give the sort of rich GUI you can get with Windows/Motif (no combo box, no grid control, no spinner, etc), yet they require a lot of processing power and installed software on the desktop compared to a terminal application. I wonder why HTML forms are still so primitive, they've been around for years now and no-one's bothered to add more exotic widgets, meaning you have to go to Java (which is even more resource intensive than running X) if you want the sort of GUI capability a desktop developer is used to. They would be much better off just using the Linux boxes as old-fashioned terminals and not bothering with trying to shoehorn their apps into a web site.
They are lobbying against your right to choose Open Source.
So what? You are lobbying against the right to choose closed source!
Of course, you won't come out and say it, because that would reveal your hand, but indirectly undermining the economic viability of commercial software amounts to the same thing.
That's not true. Claims of infringement can be made by the current copyright holder, whether or not that institution or person is the original author of the work. In this case, the spam is declared "Copyright 1997, Email Connection Inc." (It's the first line in the message.) This indicates that the message was written as a work-for-hire, and that the corporation is the owner of the copyright.
Will a spammer be so eager to reveal his/her identity and contact details? Perhaps not.
Yeah, duct tape will look great wrapped all over the wires on my new G4.
What matters more, that it does the job or looks pretty? If you are going to prioritize style over substance, you've little grounds for complaint when performance is poor.
Exactly, who ever heard of something really useful that benefits the community, but expensive, being available for free. Like free roads. Or free education. Or free healthcare.
Free electricity? Nope.
Free telephones? Nope.
Free air conditioning? Nope.
Nothing is free; it all has to be paid for somewhere. All the things you mentioned are paid for, by the taxpayer. The only people clamouring for anything "free" are the ones who have made the deliberate decision that taxpayer-funding will result in them getting more from the system than they have contributed, i.e. they want their personal luxuries to be subsidized by other people's work.
Still haven't found presents for the science fans on your list? Before you brave the cold and the holiday crowds again, take a look at our favorite geek gifts to give and get this year.
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That time has come once again when Scientific American editors wrap up their holiday shopping. Okay, actually we're far from done. We admit it. But in our annual mad dash for this season's best science and technology presents, we have turned up quite a few terrific gifts--from pet tornadoes and weather stations to million-year-old fossils and ancient pyramid kits.
Grouped into five categories below--wearables, novelties, toys, gizmos and other stuff--this collection has something for the geek in all of us. How would Dad like a watch with a built-in universal remote control? How about a chemistry set of delicious bath soaps for Mom? Have a nutty relative who, so far as you can tell, lives in a cave? Give him a bona fide bat detector. Or a lump of coal--from the Titanic. Happy browsing! --the Editors
Wearables
Tied to Science
When you have to tie one on, it might as well be scientifically stylish. Josh Bach offers several options among its offerings of colorful silk ties for $39 apiece, including cartoons of atoms, moon phases and rocket ships.
http://www.joshbach.com
Double Helix Bracelet
Wear your feelings about science on your sleeve--and at the same time commemorate the upcoming (March 2003) 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. The bracelets are fashioned from spring steel and then silver plated. They come in three sizes and prices ($6, $10 or $15). There are also "hematite" and multi-color finishes available.
http://www.carolynforsman.com/product.cfm?item_
Smart (Alec) T-shirts
Want to advertise your smarts before you even open your mouth? Some of these T-shirts should do the trick. The Bell Curve shirt shows the simple graph used so often for grading--and nicely points out the wearer's superior spot at the far end of the scale. Another T, in a lovely shade of turquoise, conveniently shows more digits of Pi than you will ever need.
http://store.thecoop.com/cgi-bin/coopstore.stor
Space Station Crew Cap
Is someone on your gift list out of this world in one way or another? Give them this black baseball cap, identifying them as a crew member on the space station. The back of the hat features the IMAX logo.
http://store.thetech.org/spacstatcrew.html
Midas Remote Controlled Watch
Think of it--a universal remote control attached to your wrist at all times. No TV will ever again escape your will, at least not if it's within 20 feet. This watch's database covers every make/model of TV and cable receiver imaginable. What does such power cost, you ask? Only $39.99.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/5a7b/
Novelties
Aged Well
Fossils, skulls, and large insects are among the offerings at Maxilla and Mandible online. When we looked, for instance, the 350 million-year-old fossil trilobite was a steal at $56. Also available was a modern wildebeast skull with graceful black horns ($360), and an impressive specimen of a giant scorpion ($100). Prices and offerings vary.
http://www.maxillaandmandible.com/
Titanic Coal
Need to fill stockings for bad children, large and small? Well, for a mere $21.95 you can give them a piece of coal from the engine room of the most famous shipwreck, the sinking of the Titanic. Each lump comes with a certificate of authenticity.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/scimall-usa/titanic
Test-tube Spice Rack
For the chemist-cum-cook, this set of glass test tubes in a matching silver rack makes it easy to brew up just about anything in the kitchen. Cork stoppers keep spices fresh.
http://www.gourmetbistro.com/glastestubsp.html
Bath Science
Fill your tub with a variety of potions and lotions from chemistryset.net this season and keep the beakers and vials for later use. The delicious soaps, bath bombs, mineral salts, aromatherapy beads and candles from this site are all you need to dissolve holiday stress.
http://www.chemistryset.net/
MC2 Frame
Hand-made, hand-painted and cast in bonded porcelain, this beautiful frame is a nice way to display your photos of Einstein--or anyone else you hold near and dear.
http://store.yahoo.com/msichicago/16-538.html
Surveyors' Bearings
Antique scientific instruments can be very pricey. But there are some high quality, accurate reproductions available that will put less of a dent in the pocketbook. The classic surveying compass, for example, was patented by Colorado mining engineer D.W Brunton in 1894. It quickly became the standard instrument for explorers mapping new lands and territories and charting coastlines. This faithful replica has a solid polished brass casing that opens to reveal folding peep sights; on the inside of the lid is a mirror with a centre line. The case is heavily constructed from a machined casting, with brass screws and hinges. It comes in a leather case with stitched seams and brass strap fastening.
www.simplysuperbgifts.com
Signed by Chuck Yeager
In 1947, Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager, flew into history when he became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. The Bell X-1 Rocket Research plane he piloted. You can't give someone the original X-1--its at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum but you can give them a 1:32 scale model autographed by Yeager. The model is handcrafted of mahogany and presented on a wooden display stand.
www.smithsonianstore.com
Astronaut Autographs
The moonwalker astronauts are now in their 60s and 70s--and most will likely be gone before humans return to the moon. But space buffs can still get the gift of a living remembrance of those heroic journeys in the form of NASA photographs autographed by the astronauts. For example, a signed and authenticated 16-by-20 copy of the famous photo of Neil Armstrong reflected in the faceplate of Buzz Aldrin's helmet can be purchased for $299; framed for $459.
www.novaspace.com
Toys
Rocket Car
Forget the run-of-the-mill remote-controlled models from Radio Shack. This two-foot long speed machine runs on pure vinegar and baking soda. You might want to send Fido outside before you fire 'er up.
http://store.thecoop.com/cgi-bin/coopstore.stor
Pet Tornado
Speaking of pets, why not keep your very own storm around for a, well, sunny day? No need for walks, bones, scratching posts, flea collars or pigs ears. Just spin the cage and watch a baby tornado form. At $4.50, it makes a great stocking stuffer.
http://store.yahoo.com/msichicago/pettornado.ht
Cat-A-Pults
Watch mechanics in action as Newton the foam cat flies from one catapult to the next. This set contains five catapults, each with 25 adjustment settings to control the cat's trajectory up to distances of eight feet, and 10 actual Newtons, for a total of 90 feline lives.
http://store.yahoo.com/
explo/catapults.html
Pyramid Building Blocks
Reconstruct Tut's tomb with this 67-piece block set. These hardwood blocks come in 18 different shapes, making it far easier for you to engineer a pyramid than it was for the ancient Egyptians.
http://www.smithsonianstore.com/product_detail.
Talking Globe
Learn geography plus national anthems and songs. This globe asks more than 10,000 questions and grades your answers. You can create custom quizzes at different skill levels and track scores for up to four players.
http://www.smithsonianstore.com/product_detail.
Ant-omology
Like chemistry sets, the holidays wouldn't be the same without some budding entomologist getting an ant farm. This escape-proof set up allows kids to watch these industrious arthropods through the walls of a round-walled clear container with a snap on magnifier for closer viewing. "Sugar Cement" puts nutrients into the sand while making it cave-in resistant and spurs the ants to greater activity. A mail-in coupon brings the ants to their new abode within 2 to 4 weeks. It also gives parents a chance to reconsider.
www.scientificsonline.com
Designer Molecules
Molecular models may be the Tinker Toys of the 21st century. Here's a kit that contains an extensive assortment of 480 atoms molded in polypropylene. Three hundred flexible vinyl connectors represent the bond "linkages." Double and triple bonds are easily constructed. Anything from an acid to an enzyme is easily fabricated. And even if its not the next blockbuster designer drug, the models are nice to look at.
gallery.bcentral.com
Unraveling DNA
It's been 50 years since Watson and Crick figured out that the DNA packed in all living cells was coiled in the form of a double helix. But few people have actually seen this stuff of life. Here's a kit that can give amateur experimenters a look by extracting the DNA from onion cells. By following simple instructions users can see the DNA precipitate from solution and lift it out of the test tube. In the process, they learn about cell lysis, denaturation, precipitation, super coiling, high molecular mass, and the double stranded helix.
www.books4kids.com
Gadgets
Portable Solar Array
If the batteries in your CD player or cell phone run dry on a clear, sunny day, just plug the little gadget into iSun, a portable solar charger offered by ICP Global Technologies. The size of a small book, one iSun generates about two Watts of electricity, enough to power a Walkman, cell phone or PD. Each unit costs $79.99 a piece, and they can be linked together like a daisy chain to power hungrier devices.
www.icpglobal.com
Backyard Weather Station
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Go one step farther and make your own forecast. These professional weather stations feature anemometers to measure wind speed and direction, rain collectors to track daily and accumulated rainfall amounts, temperature and humidity sensors and much more. They transmit their readings to remote LCD console/receivers that can be placed up to 400 feet away.
http://www.weathershop.com/davis_wireless.htm
Bat Detectors
No, this isn't a giant bat-shaped spotlight you project into the night sky. This palm-held gizmo is the bat-hunter's equivalent to a fish finder. For beginners, Bat Conservation International, Inc., which brings you the Swedish-made devices, suggests the E-5 Microbat model, with high/low frequency capabilities for detecting most bats through a speaker or headphones. For around $89, it comes with belt clip, battery and instructions.
http://www.batcon.org/catalog/catp3.html
Time Flows By
Here's new twist on the time-honored hourglass egg timer. The Bubble Timer is a polished two-inch acrylic cube that reckons the minutes by the lazy ascent of a bubble through a tube. Depending on the face the cube is set on, the tube has three inclinations--and hence counts out three different times: ten seconds, one minute or five minutes. Invert the cube to repeat the measurement.
bubbletimer.com/
Don't Party Without It
No need to fear the consequences of overzealous holiday celebrating is you are carrying this Digital Alcohol Detector. This compact personal breathalyzer uses advanced semiconductor gas sensor technology to approximate the percent of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) from your breath. Blow into the mouth vent and within 10 seconds a precise reading, in increments of 0.01 percent, ranging from 0.00 to 0.19 percent BAC.appears on the LCD display.
www.scientificsonline.com
Atomic Time
With the ExactSet clock there is no reason to call the phone company for the correct time. This compact travel clock sets itself automatically to the radio signal from the US Atomic Clock in Colorado. In addition, the clock incorporates two alarms, time/day/date display, indoor temperature, and low battery indicator. It even has an eight minute snooze for an indisputable wakeup call.
www.weathertools.com
Solar Observer
Here's a safe way to look at the surface of the sun. The Sunspotter is a wooden, folded-Keplerian telescope that uses a system of mirrors and a powerful 62millimeter objective lens to project a brilliant three-inch solar image onto a white viewing screen. Sunspots can be easily tracked as they appear and move across the solar disk. Tracing the images provides an hour-by-hour or day-by-day record of the solar cycle.
www.scientificsonline.com
Bright Beam
Almost everyone has a flashlight--or too many--but the X5 LED Long Distance Flashlight adds a new dimension. Its powerful beam reaches 120 feet but, unlike conventional flashlights, it illuminates that darkness in full spectrum color by combining the light from five LED bulbs. The distinctive blue beam can be seen more than two miles away at dusk or dark. Its aircraft-grade aluminum case is virtually unbreakable, completely waterproof (up to 150 feet), and shock proof.
shopping.discovery.com
Digital Microscope
Another old standby children's gift--the optical microscope--is going digital. The C2D Microscope connects to a PC and can magnify objects up to 220 times their actual size. The software can record both stills and video. Like its mechanical forebears, the kit also contains dissecting tools and prepared slides.
store.yahoo.com
Other
Adopt a Whale
For only $54 dollars, you can help support research on killer whales and claim one for your very own or for a friend. The killer whale adoption program from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center sends you an ID photo and biography of your whale, an adoption certificate, a CD featuring the sounds of British Columbia's killer whales and newsletter about the research program. You choose your whale from a pull-down menu: Balaklava, Clio, Echo, Izumi, Nimpkish, Whisky and pals are waiting.
http://www.clamshell.org/
Sponsor a Big Cat
For only $25, you can sponsor a jaguar, snow leopard or Siberian Tiger and get a bunch of great goodies as well. The Wildlife Conservation Society will send you a limited edition T-shirt, one year of their magazine, a brief history of your cat and information about what WCS is doing in its habitat to help protect wildlife. For $35 or more, you'll also receive a quarterly newsletter.
http://wcs.org/bigcats/#whichcat
Blue Planet
This hauntingly beautiful journey beneath the sea made documentary history. From giant whales to tiny coral polyps and the strange organisms that live in the abyssal deep, it contains scenes never before captured on camera. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, it stands as a definitive exploration of the ocean's most breathtaking habitats, from its deepest recesses to its frozen deserts. The entire series is available in a boxed gift set of four DVDs. DVD extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, photo galleries, fact files and a Blue Planet music video.
shopping.discovery.com
It's not aboot caring aboot speed, it's aboot worring about being hit by per minute fees while online. Those that switched to broadband from dial-up didn't care before or after aboot the speed. As the summary and article say, users are taking their time interacting with the web as they don't have to rush to get on, do what they want to do, and then get off.
Speed does matter, but with ADSL I know that if it is slow, I can just leave it running overnight. 5K/s for 12 hrs is 216M and the cash cost to me is the same. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer the 50-70K/s I normally get, but I recognize that that is a luxury and always-connected is a necessity, like any other utility.
The idea behind mesh networks is that after the mesh density reaches a critical level, they can start "floating" and stop relying on wire networks for medium and long distance connections.
If the idea was to create an entirely self-contained wireless WAN (say for pure P2P applications) then I'd agree with you. But a great deal of traffic consists of clients connecting to servers, which means the boundaries between your WWAN and the existing hardwired network are extremely porous. It's very difficult to provide QoS on a wireless network, and bandwidth is necessarily limited - you can't just add another AP and double the bandwidth in a given area, because the frequency spectrum is limited. So server owners and anyone else who needs a lot of reliable bandwidth will continue to prefer hardwires. So is it going to be cheaper and more reliable to go from the WLAN in Manhattan to the router to the fibre backbone and connect to a data center in San Francisco, or to go from the WLAN over the WWAN across the continent, then have to go onto the fibre anyway in SF to get to the data center?
The way to provide ubiquitous coverage is WLANs connected by hardwires - the only question is how to make sure people pay for what they use. I'd be a lot more likely to open my own AP to the public if I could make only X% of my ADSL bandwidth available for guests and reserve the rest for people with the WEP key.