Crystal radios. Home-brewing different variable capacitors can be pretty educational.
Digital logic design. We had a number of projects in my freshman year of college that were good for a classroom. Each had you build a circuit to fit a standard interface. On one challenge, you switched model trains based on inputs from magnetic sensors. (Though the trains broke a lot). Another fed your circuit a 4-bit counter and got back turtle-graphics coordinates (4 bits for x, 4 bits for y and 1 bit for pen up or down). The result was drawn on a scope (though now you'd do it on a PC). Another had to play a version of the old "Mastermind" game. For each of these, part of your grade depended on the circuit cost (chip count) and part depended on your performance. (For the drawing one, people judged each others pictures).
Animated displays/art. Kids always got a kick out of building animated homecoming, halloween, etc. displays.
...I only wish the Church operated such an ISP in the US.
Well, IBelieve.com had a one for $20 a year called OnFaith.com, but it looks like they died with whichever free access provider they were using. There are others out there (WorldChristian.net and LtW.net to name two) that cost as much as a traditional ISP.
I doubt many of the users of these ISPs consider not being able to view porn a drawback. Well, at least the parents that are paying for it.
I think almost everyone is missing the point of this product. It's not targeted at the Lego-bot, home security, or bathroom-cam crowds. It's targeted at all those households with VCRs that don't want to pay $300+ for a video camera. Now for just $80 they can tape their kid's first steps or a Christmas message for Grandma.
I've wondered why nobody built something like this. It sure doesn't have to be wireless. Stick a cheap CCD camera and mono microphone on the end of a 50' cable and sell it for $50.
Plus, I wish that instead of using a 9-volt, they would use 6 AA batteries...
A few years ago I worked on a cheap robot made from a $5-$15 RC truck, an early greyscale CCD "pinhole" camera, and a Gemini Rabbit video transmitter (plus a SparcStation with a framegrabber to drive it).
The video transmitter expected 18 volts, so we tried pairs of 9 volt batteries (single-use and nicad). We could get about 5 minutes of transmission time with them. AA nicads gave us maybe half an hour of run-time (but weighed a ton).
9-volt batteries shouldn't be used for anything as power hungry as a transmitter.
I have a CS degree (plus a number of EE and CompE hardware classes and most of the coursework for a PhD in CS).
In my paid work, I rarely use any of my coursework. Most of what I do could be done by any smart person with no degree at all. I work in sort of a traditional IS role, building stuff for the business world. Boring at times, but it pays the bills.
Where would I get good use of a CS degree? I see two places: heavy software engineering methodology and heavy math. I did heavy math when I did cardiac MRI software at Siemens. I could do the same somewhere else doing machine learning stuff, 3D graphics, etc. Or I could go to a big company that follows formal SE methodologies.
I work with some people with CIS/MIS degrees. They mainly stick to traditional IS stuff on IBM boxes. Some write code, some do business analysis crud.
I think it all depends on what you want to do. If you want to live in a cube at a big company, CIS or MIS will be fine. CS would work there too, but if you learn the right stuff you should have the option to go do something more exciting. (A friend of mine from college, Greg Stelmack, did this. He went from boring corporate stuff to working on games at Red Storm. It would have been hard to do this without a good math background.)
If I have these right:
USB maxes out at 1.5 meg a second.
Firewire tops out at 40 meg a second.
SerialATA goes to 150 meg a second.
Parallel ATA (IDE) does 16.7, 33, 66 or 100 meg a second.
SCSI runs 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 meg a second.
Supposedly serial ATA will transparently work with OSs that support parallel ATA. So you can run MS-DOS 5 and Win3.1 on your new 4.3 GHz P5.
The proposed bill does do one interesting thing. There is a 6 month mandatory minimum sentence for most federal computer crimes (including something as simple as defacing a web site if the victim can claim over $5,000 in damages, including time (and soon to include lost revenue)).
This would remove that. It bases this on the claim that some federal prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges because they don't have any room to bargain to get a plea. This is the second time I've seen a bill aimed at reducing that minimum. That's funny because they specifically passed that minimum in either 96 or 98.
As a somewhat long-time Unix user (c. 1987), I cut my teeth getting source-only packages to build. It was a great learning experience and I would recommend it.
But today, if I see a package that doesn't have a pre-built binary, I'm only about 10% as likely to go to the trouble of building it just to try it, especially if there aren't good screenshots or anything.
If the point of your project is to teach people how to run 'make', go ahead and skip the binaries. Otherwise, if you want your project to catch on and get used, post some binaries. If you don't, someone else will...
...very few Napster users rip and share the entire CD.
That's because most CDs only have one to three real tracks. You might as well fill the rest of the disc with audio from congressional sessions or the Big Brother house.
I think we can blame this on Led Zeppelin. When they released their 4th album, they refused to release a single of Stairway to Heaven, so people had to buy the whole album. Sure, there are some cd-singles (for something like $5.99) and tape singles, but Zeppelin proved the whole business model.
In college, we used to spy on the other lab using this sort of audio trick on some SunOS sparcstations. Until someone got pissed and pulled all the microphones.
rsh otherlab "/bin/cat/dev/audio" >/dev/audio
Thanks to the "everything is a file" philosophy, it was amazingly simple to do. But the problems start to crop up. Security is workable (set the file permissions on/dev/audio to only read/write for the console user like Solaris later did). But if I wanted to change the sample rate, I had to go use a non-file interface.
I'm glad to see this move. I was just saying the other day that they could probably make it as a smaller company if they just focused on Usenet archives and access. I would think the banner ad revenue alone could sustain a couple employees. Add some premium Usenet services and you might even be able to buy fancy furniture.
Disclaimer: These organizations sound like a great service and I don't want to discourage anyone from donating to them.
I had an old cell phone. I closed the account (with GTE) and at least 6 months later I was out of town and happened to have the phone with me. I thought I would give it a whirl and see what service it could find. I got a menu of choices where I could even place a credit or calling card call. "Neat," I thought and shut off the phone without even placing a real call.
About a month later I get a bill from GTE for the airtime of listening to the voice menus, plus roaming charges. I called them and explained that I no longer had an account with them and did not expect that phone to receive any service nor to receive any bills related to that phone. They dropped the bill.
So what would have happened if I tossed the phone in the trash, sold it, or donated it to some organization? Could GTE still be trying to bill me even though I don't have an account?
Find a nearby ham radio club that actually does something like teach classes, visit schools, work with scouts, do disaster work, etc. They can always put money to good use like buying electronic kits for kids to build.
How many viruses are really out there in the wild?
I consider myself pretty careful about what I download or run, but my Norton AV has detected 3 viruses in the past year or so. One came from beta software from a blue chip company.
My TNT2 Ultra video card has TV-out. When I got it, I thought I could hook it up to my VCR and do some cheap video editing (since I have a capture card). Or I could hook it to my VCR to feed my big TV to play Quake (since my TV doesn't have video-in but my VCR does).
But the card has Macrovision, I suppose to defeat the criminal masterminds out there that would buy a $200 3D video card so they could make VHS copies of DVDs. Both of them.
Advertising of products and or services of any type is not permitted on Residential Road Runner accounts regardless of transmission medium used, including but not limited to, email, news groups, web services and chat services.
Customers are strictly prohibited from running server-based applications on Residential Road Runner accounts. This would include, without limitation to the running of HTTP Web servers, FTP servers, Gaming servers, SMTP and POP Mail servers, Domain Name Servers, Chat servers, etc.
Advertising of products and or services of any type is not permitted on home pages for Residential Road Runner accounts.
The hosting of Gaming servers of any kind is prohibited on Residential Road Runner Accounts. This includes, but is not limited to Quake servers, etc.
The policies are pretty bad, but it seems like they adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude in practice, at least locally. I've only heard of one person getting kicked off RoadRunner and he was running a ftp server with MP3z or warez.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe he's in the tunnels.
Crystal radios. Home-brewing different variable capacitors can be pretty educational.
Digital logic design. We had a number of projects in my freshman year of college that were good for a classroom. Each had you build a circuit to fit a standard interface. On one challenge, you switched model trains based on inputs from magnetic sensors. (Though the trains broke a lot). Another fed your circuit a 4-bit counter and got back turtle-graphics coordinates (4 bits for x, 4 bits for y and 1 bit for pen up or down). The result was drawn on a scope (though now you'd do it on a PC). Another had to play a version of the old "Mastermind" game. For each of these, part of your grade depended on the circuit cost (chip count) and part depended on your performance. (For the drawing one, people judged each others pictures).
Animated displays/art. Kids always got a kick out of building animated homecoming, halloween, etc. displays.
Since when is religion a Fortune 1000 industry?
Since the beginning of time.
Well, IBelieve.com had a one for $20 a year called OnFaith.com, but it looks like they died with whichever free access provider they were using. There are others out there (WorldChristian.net and LtW.net to name two) that cost as much as a traditional ISP.
I doubt many of the users of these ISPs consider not being able to view porn a drawback. Well, at least the parents that are paying for it.
I think almost everyone is missing the point of this product. It's not targeted at the Lego-bot, home security, or bathroom-cam crowds. It's targeted at all those households with VCRs that don't want to pay $300+ for a video camera. Now for just $80 they can tape their kid's first steps or a Christmas message for Grandma.
I've wondered why nobody built something like this. It sure doesn't have to be wireless. Stick a cheap CCD camera and mono microphone on the end of a 50' cable and sell it for $50.
Plus, I wish that instead of using a 9-volt, they would use 6 AA batteries...
A few years ago I worked on a cheap robot made from a $5-$15 RC truck, an early greyscale CCD "pinhole" camera, and a Gemini Rabbit video transmitter (plus a SparcStation with a framegrabber to drive it).
The video transmitter expected 18 volts, so we tried pairs of 9 volt batteries (single-use and nicad). We could get about 5 minutes of transmission time with them. AA nicads gave us maybe half an hour of run-time (but weighed a ton).
9-volt batteries shouldn't be used for anything as power hungry as a transmitter.
I have a CS degree (plus a number of EE and CompE hardware classes and most of the coursework for a PhD in CS).
In my paid work, I rarely use any of my coursework. Most of what I do could be done by any smart person with no degree at all. I work in sort of a traditional IS role, building stuff for the business world. Boring at times, but it pays the bills.
Where would I get good use of a CS degree? I see two places: heavy software engineering methodology and heavy math. I did heavy math when I did cardiac MRI software at Siemens. I could do the same somewhere else doing machine learning stuff, 3D graphics, etc. Or I could go to a big company that follows formal SE methodologies.
I work with some people with CIS/MIS degrees. They mainly stick to traditional IS stuff on IBM boxes. Some write code, some do business analysis crud.
I think it all depends on what you want to do. If you want to live in a cube at a big company, CIS or MIS will be fine. CS would work there too, but if you learn the right stuff you should have the option to go do something more exciting. (A friend of mine from college, Greg Stelmack, did this. He went from boring corporate stuff to working on games at Red Storm. It would have been hard to do this without a good math background.)
If I have these right:
USB maxes out at 1.5 meg a second.
Firewire tops out at 40 meg a second.
SerialATA goes to 150 meg a second.
Parallel ATA (IDE) does 16.7, 33, 66 or 100 meg a second.
SCSI runs 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 160 meg a second.
Supposedly serial ATA will transparently work with OSs that support parallel ATA. So you can run MS-DOS 5 and Win3.1 on your new 4.3 GHz P5.
The proposed bill does do one interesting thing. There is a 6 month mandatory minimum sentence for most federal computer crimes (including something as simple as defacing a web site if the victim can claim over $5,000 in damages, including time (and soon to include lost revenue)).
This would remove that. It bases this on the claim that some federal prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges because they don't have any room to bargain to get a plea. This is the second time I've seen a bill aimed at reducing that minimum. That's funny because they specifically passed that minimum in either 96 or 98.
Or VMWare.
As a somewhat long-time Unix user (c. 1987), I cut my teeth getting source-only packages to build. It was a great learning experience and I would recommend it.
But today, if I see a package that doesn't have a pre-built binary, I'm only about 10% as likely to go to the trouble of building it just to try it, especially if there aren't good screenshots or anything.
If the point of your project is to teach people how to run 'make', go ahead and skip the binaries. Otherwise, if you want your project to catch on and get used, post some binaries. If you don't, someone else will...
That's because most CDs only have one to three real tracks. You might as well fill the rest of the disc with audio from congressional sessions or the Big Brother house.
I think we can blame this on Led Zeppelin. When they released their 4th album, they refused to release a single of Stairway to Heaven, so people had to buy the whole album. Sure, there are some cd-singles (for something like $5.99) and tape singles, but Zeppelin proved the whole business model.
A couple times a week I think it's "Slashdot: News that was on Yahoo yesterday."
In college, we used to spy on the other lab using this sort of audio trick on some SunOS sparcstations. Until someone got pissed and pulled all the microphones.
rsh otherlab "/bin/catThanks to the "everything is a file" philosophy, it was amazingly simple to do. But the problems start to crop up. Security is workable (set the file permissions on /dev/audio to only read/write for the console user like Solaris later did). But if I wanted to change the sample rate, I had to go use a non-file interface.
Do not all go out together for a TexMex lunch.
I'm glad to see this move. I was just saying the other day that they could probably make it as a smaller company if they just focused on Usenet archives and access. I would think the banner ad revenue alone could sustain a couple employees. Add some premium Usenet services and you might even be able to buy fancy furniture.
Maybe they could have gotten the guy that build clockwork gears from AOL CDs to help them build replacement rotors for the Enigma box...
Disclaimer: These organizations sound like a great service and I don't want to discourage anyone from donating to them.
I had an old cell phone. I closed the account (with GTE) and at least 6 months later I was out of town and happened to have the phone with me. I thought I would give it a whirl and see what service it could find. I got a menu of choices where I could even place a credit or calling card call. "Neat," I thought and shut off the phone without even placing a real call.
About a month later I get a bill from GTE for the airtime of listening to the voice menus, plus roaming charges. I called them and explained that I no longer had an account with them and did not expect that phone to receive any service nor to receive any bills related to that phone. They dropped the bill.
So what would have happened if I tossed the phone in the trash, sold it, or donated it to some organization? Could GTE still be trying to bill me even though I don't have an account?
My wife got free hosting donated for BonkFest.org just by asking the web host she uses (and providing 501(c)(3) paperwork, etc.).
Find a nearby ham radio club that actually does something like teach classes, visit schools, work with scouts, do disaster work, etc. They can always put money to good use like buying electronic kits for kids to build.
How many viruses are really out there in the wild?
I consider myself pretty careful about what I download or run, but my Norton AV has detected 3 viruses in the past year or so. One came from beta software from a blue chip company.
This is exactly one of the uses VMWare quotes.
My TNT2 Ultra video card has TV-out. When I got it, I thought I could hook it up to my VCR and do some cheap video editing (since I have a capture card). Or I could hook it to my VCR to feed my big TV to play Quake (since my TV doesn't have video-in but my VCR does).
But the card has Macrovision, I suppose to defeat the criminal masterminds out there that would buy a $200 3D video card so they could make VHS copies of DVDs. Both of them.
Why put Macrovision on a stand-alone 3D card?
As far as I know, my RoadRunner service isn't currently blocking any services. My OpenBSD firewall gets regular hits on all the good ports.
Here are the snippets from their policy:
The policies are pretty bad, but it seems like they adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude in practice, at least locally. I've only heard of one person getting kicked off RoadRunner and he was running a ftp server with MP3z or warez.
You don't have my favorite from the audio version of this: "Why don't you go outside and play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself?"