I do have personal experience with this one, and came here to recommend this. I've personally seen a 4 year old get an elementary understanding of algebra from this app. Worth every penny.
There is nothing technically preventing this. It's already being done. GE Aviation engines can be fitted with technology to report, in real time, the behavior of engines on a plane while it is still in the air.
It wouldn't be a stretch to extend the telemetry to other plane systems.
Don't read the Baroque cycle as your introduction to his works...they are atypical of his style, and may turn you away from some of the fantastic storytelling in Snow Crash and Diamond Age. My particular favorite is Cryptonomicon.
Be considerate. Don't put things that will distract people that may actually have work to do, and if you must, make sure they are out of earshot / eyesight / annoyance range. I'm as in favor of a rousing game of tabble tennis as the next bloke, but when I'm on a conference call, it made me feel like a kill-joy to have to stand up and ask people to quiet down.
And for the love of , no popcorn machines! I used to love popcorn. Until I had to smell it every day for a month while people got bored of the shiny new toy.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Wal*Mart does this with everything. They may not have shopper cards, but as an employee of a company who sells a lot of stuff to Wal*Mart, let me tell you a little about their technology...
For every single one of their major suppliers, Wal*Mart tracks and transmits sales data in real time back to those suppliers. Just bought a 50 pack of Pampers diapers? Both Wal*Mart *AND* Proctor and Gamble know exactly what was purchased within minutes, and is using that data plan productions and shipments for next week. Just bought some light bulbs? GE knows within minutes. Just bought a greeting card? Hallmark and American Greetings know within hours. They may not know who you are, but they mine their sales data to the level that they can predict the frequency that someone will buy both diapers and peanut butter at the same time, and they can predict based on the type of diaper that you buy what type of peanut butter you're most likely to purchase.
This is not new. The concept is called VMI - vendor managed inventory, and retailers have been doing this for years. Wal*Mart doesn't need to call Proctor and Gamble and order more diapers. P&G knows exactly how much to send and where to send it, becuase they track this data to a frighetning level of detail. Wal*Mart is the best at it. There's a reason they're the biggest retailer in the world, and this is it.
As an owner of a Spire, I couldn't agree more. This pack has lasted me 6 years, still looks great, with nary a single hanging thread or broken zipper through more airports than I can remember, including Shanghai and South Africa, and I can tell you without a doubt that this is the best backpack and laptop case you will ever own.
As a bonus, and as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it doesn't look like a laptop case - a huge plus when traveling.
Just my opinion obviously, but if I ever need another laptop bag, I'll never buy anything else.
First, speaking from a Corporate perspective, something like this would be a godsend. If you are a huge company (think 20,000+) desktops, that already uses Cisco and Symantec, and you can prevent machines with outdated virus defs or missing M$ patches from even getting on the network, this would be an answer to my prayers.
Second, why is everyone such an alarmist? Do you honestly think Cisco wants to exclude any customers from using their equipment? This will be policy based, and certainly he-who-controls-the-routers will have the ability to turn off these security policies on or off a per-MAC or per-port basis. To take it a step further, what if they offered agents for your choice of *nix flavor, and these policies could check for patches, and disallow network access for machines missing vital security patches? How can that not be useful?!
As far as ISPs go, sure, there might be ISPs that turn this on and require you to run client software, and that client software might not be available for your platform, but then guess what - change ISPs. Someone will always be there to fill the void.
I think that this is an excellent development in Internet security, and I hope it comes to fruition as quickly as possible.
If you consider black and white a "compression" of color, I guess it's a good thing we didn't "forget" how to see color after all those years of black and white TV.
Good thing we didn't forget how to hear in stereo after all those years of mono AM radio, too.
Instead of centralizing with one database, which isn't practical in a diverse OS environment, you could consider synchronizing instead? Courion - http://www.courion.com - , password synchronization software, has agents for Linux, LDAP, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, NT, and many others. Unfortunately, it's not free. You keep a centralized account database, and when you change a password, it connects to all systems and uses OS native methods to change the passwords on those systems, too. It also lets you specify password complexity, expiration times, etc. It's really a pretty cool system if centralization isn't practical for OS'es that won't support real LDAP (like Windows).
Unfortunately, it costs US $5.00. Good thing I have my tree-killing version.
Go to http://www.sciamarchive.com and search for it.
The Mystery of Damascus Blades from the January, 2001 issue.
Slashdot Mirror
I do have personal experience with this one, and came here to recommend this. I've personally seen a 4 year old get an elementary understanding of algebra from this app. Worth every penny.
There is nothing technically preventing this. It's already being done. GE Aviation engines can be fitted with technology to report, in real time, the behavior of engines on a plane while it is still in the air.
It wouldn't be a stretch to extend the telemetry to other plane systems.
http://www.geae.com/services/information/diagnostics/tier.html
Don't read the Baroque cycle as your introduction to his works...they are atypical of his style, and may turn you away from some of the fantastic storytelling in Snow Crash and Diamond Age. My particular favorite is Cryptonomicon.
Not about this one in particular, but assuming some simlarities:
t u
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_
rbines/en/36mw/index.htm
Check the PDF docs and they have nice curves of how much power is generated at what wind speeds.
400kW @ 5m/s (11mph for the metric challenged)
up to 3.6MW @ 14m/s (31mph)
Be considerate. Don't put things that will distract people that may actually have work to do, and if you must, make sure they are out of earshot / eyesight / annoyance range. I'm as in favor of a rousing game of tabble tennis as the next bloke, but when I'm on a conference call, it made me feel like a kill-joy to have to stand up and ask people to quiet down.
And for the love of , no popcorn machines! I used to love popcorn. Until I had to smell it every day for a month while people got bored of the shiny new toy.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Wal*Mart does this with everything. They may not have shopper cards, but as an employee of a company who sells a lot of stuff to Wal*Mart, let me tell you a little about their technology...
For every single one of their major suppliers, Wal*Mart tracks and transmits sales data in real time back to those suppliers. Just bought a 50 pack of Pampers diapers? Both Wal*Mart *AND* Proctor and Gamble know exactly what was purchased within minutes, and is using that data plan productions and shipments for next week. Just bought some light bulbs? GE knows within minutes. Just bought a greeting card? Hallmark and American Greetings know within hours. They may not know who you are, but they mine their sales data to the level that they can predict the frequency that someone will buy both diapers and peanut butter at the same time, and they can predict based on the type of diaper that you buy what type of peanut butter you're most likely to purchase.
This is not new. The concept is called VMI - vendor managed inventory, and retailers have been doing this for years. Wal*Mart doesn't need to call Proctor and Gamble and order more diapers. P&G knows exactly how much to send and where to send it, becuase they track this data to a frighetning level of detail. Wal*Mart is the best at it. There's a reason they're the biggest retailer in the world, and this is it.
As an owner of a Spire, I couldn't agree more. This pack has lasted me 6 years, still looks great, with nary a single hanging thread or broken zipper through more airports than I can remember, including Shanghai and South Africa, and I can tell you without a doubt that this is the best backpack and laptop case you will ever own.
As a bonus, and as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it doesn't look like a laptop case - a huge plus when traveling.
Just my opinion obviously, but if I ever need another laptop bag, I'll never buy anything else.
First, speaking from a Corporate perspective, something like this would be a godsend. If you are a huge company (think 20,000+) desktops, that already uses Cisco and Symantec, and you can prevent machines with outdated virus defs or missing M$ patches from even getting on the network, this would be an answer to my prayers.
Second, why is everyone such an alarmist? Do you honestly think Cisco wants to exclude any customers from using their equipment? This will be policy based, and certainly he-who-controls-the-routers will have the ability to turn off these security policies on or off a per-MAC or per-port basis. To take it a step further, what if they offered agents for your choice of *nix flavor, and these policies could check for patches, and disallow network access for machines missing vital security patches? How can that not be useful?!
As far as ISPs go, sure, there might be ISPs that turn this on and require you to run client software, and that client software might not be available for your platform, but then guess what - change ISPs. Someone will always be there to fill the void.
I think that this is an excellent development in Internet security, and I hope it comes to fruition as quickly as possible.
I think this was supposed to be funny, not interesting. Doesn't anyone else get it? Pringles can - focusing - antenna. Anyone?
Where's Harry Seldon when we need him?
Was that too obscure? Bah! Not for this crowd!
If you consider black and white a "compression" of color, I guess it's a good thing we didn't "forget" how to see color after all those years of black and white TV.
Good thing we didn't forget how to hear in stereo after all those years of mono AM radio, too.
Instead of centralizing with one database, which isn't practical in a diverse OS environment, you could consider synchronizing instead? Courion - http://www.courion.com - , password synchronization software, has agents for Linux, LDAP, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, NT, and many others. Unfortunately, it's not free. You keep a centralized account database, and when you change a password, it connects to all systems and uses OS native methods to change the passwords on those systems, too. It also lets you specify password complexity, expiration times, etc. It's really a pretty cool system if centralization isn't practical for OS'es that won't support real LDAP (like Windows).
http://www.iit.edu/~gawojar/ldap/
Unfortunately, it costs US $5.00. Good thing I have my tree-killing version. Go to http://www.sciamarchive.com and search for it. The Mystery of Damascus Blades from the January, 2001 issue.
Infoworld has an article in the most recent issue related to this topic. You can find it online at: Should you leave your job for one at a startup?