I wish I had mod points since you'd definately be getting a -1 TROLL from me.
Basically your strategy is to call names, and repeat an old Linux bash. Your statement has virtually nothing to do with the post.
Last I checked Linux is being adopted by the masses. Many many more people are converting to Linux than are converting from Linux. Entire countries are basing their IT infrastructure on Linux. So I will argue that Linux IS being adopted ona large scale. Of course it could be a larger scale, but Rome empire was not built over night; nor did it fall in one night.
I'll also say hardware compatibility is a major problem for Windows, especially given the multiple version of it. The people getting the refurbed computers will likely have a difficult time adding any NEW current hardware upgrades to their system. Since Windows 98 is no longer supported by MS, driver suppoort is waning.
Even when it was the only game in town HW sipport (especially modems) was flakey at best. I would have to reboot after every time I used my scanner. Sometimes my sound card would lock up after conflicting with my scanner. Also, I worked ISP technical support and EDI technical support during Windows 95/98 heyday. I can confidently say that most modems did not work well out of the box with any old flavor of windows.
Besides endless conflicts with IRQs and port assignments, especially with the "plug and pray" of Windows 95/98, most modems needed arcane initializations strings that properly matched up to the particular brand of modems used in the ISP bank. It was a mess. and very very annoying from a support perspective, probably cut years off my life.
Hard/Software compatibility is mostly a non-issue in Linux anymore, aside from bleeding edge components. In this case I would be willing to bet that the modem support will be better for a modern Linux distro, than for a 7+ year old OS. I would venture to say a modern Linux distro will support more common hardware better than windows98, especially since USB support was in its infancy with 98.
You have clearly not spent any time with Linux, nor have you probably spent a lot of time trying to support any significant number of remote machines, dialup or otherwise. I have, and I will say that I would have left the tech industry a long time ago if I had to continue using MS operating systems and products.
Perhaps, your brain is big enough to remember all the exceptions, nuances, quirks within the convuluted and confusing dialaog box hell that makes up the Windows world. With each iteraction of MS product line getting more confusing and more complex. My brain isn't, so once I figure out a problem once, it becimes a simple shell script (kind of like your batch files) so that everythign can be repeated again and again.
Ok I'm getting a little off target here myself. My point is Linux is not a gimmick, and your comment is mean spirited FUD at best.
At first I did not like the small screen relatively low res. screen; however, after using it for a while I got used to it and prefer it for a couple of reasons.
1. The small screen, means there are fewer words per page. The smaller word count helps me read faster, because I am not getting lost or distracted.
2. Backlight for low-light conditions. Its nice to read at night with out having a light on in the room. I think it is easier on my eyes when I get tired.
3. one hand operation. It is a lot easier to turn pages one-handed on an PDA. I can generally be more comfortable, and have good posture longer when reading off a PDA than with a book.
I hope this gets modded +1 Funny, I have not laughed so hard.
It took me a while to get that this was satire. But just incase it wasn't a funny satirical post but instead a trolling astroturfer; I'll explain it better of the overzealous sladotters out there who are going to rip on this guy without comprehension.
If we follow his his warped logic we should boycott everything for example:
Here is background on the trucking industry and why it is so very dangerous: 1. Trucks should be banned because they allow distribution of stolen goods, and contra band.
2. Allowing large trucks on our highways causes excessive where and tear on our roads. You might say that the wear and tear is fairly harmless, but think of all the pollution those trucks generate, Global warming is going to make my Michigan home a tropical paradise in a few years thanks to all those trucks. Also think of all those trucks spewing out diesel fumes that innocennt men, women and children are exposed to daily.
Everyone who shops at ubiquitous retail stores (Walmart, Kroger, etc) supports the trucking industry, and has blood on their hands. From this point on I am boycotting everything store bought, and eating bugs and grass nd whereing a fig leaf to cover my loins. I advise everyone with a sense of decency to do so too.
How hard would it be to do a definitive review of these cables in a labratory setting?
I know little physics, but it seems like it would be relatively easy to test the cables, connoectors and other compenents using a standard set of measurables. Heck event the "Rocks" mentioned in the parent post could be tested in a lab.
While those measurables may not work out to a perceptable difference in quality, at least there is some way to guage in advance whether the cable / component, etc will produce results that are pleasing to the subjective ears of a listener, and the individual environment of the audio equipment. There are SO many environmental factors that effect the sound. everythign from humidity, the materials in the walls, the floor covering, the cieling the furnature, in the room, the quality of power in the wire etc.
That is why putting on a pair of head phones almost always sounds better, since the sound is being delivered more directly to your ears.
The discussion may not always directly answer the question, but it does provide valuable background, and offers insights into different aspects the poster may not have thought about.
Those insights help make the discussion interesting. What do you want Yes / No answers? Ask Slashdot is more about the discussion than about actually getting answers, since most of the time a quick google seach will provide a better answer more quickly.
I have no less than 10 teachers within my close family (2 brothers, mom, grandfather, 4 aunts, mom-in-law, sister-in-law), all at differnt stages of their respective careers.
The common thing I see as a problem, is not the teachers or technology. All of my reletives v iew the tech as another tool. In fact, my grandfather was responsible for setting up the first computer labs in schools in Oakland County, MI in the 1970s (remember we're the lucky ones with county wide muni-wifi coming soon!).
Anyway, the problem they all cite is lack of support, software and overall expertise on the equipment. They always seem to be getting new stuff, but almost never are they properly trained. Even when they are trained it is on simple operation procedure, NOT how to make the technology an effective teacher tool.
Too often teachers simply send the kids to the lab and say go at it. Providing little instruction. the kids mindlessly point and click and have a great time, but because the concepts for a partiucular game are not reinforced it is simply an hand eye exercise.
I witness this first hand myself after taking my 5 and 3 year old to the public library. Both wanted to play the computer because it had fun games, neither actually did any thing educational. Basically clicked around and whated outdated shockwave animations.
Heck they both get more education playing my 5 year old dreamcast, because he had to learn to read the menus, and count objects and whatnot in the games.
Another big problem is the school board will push through bonds that can be used to purchase capital equipment, but NOT software. It has happened on more than one occassion that the idiots bought a bunch of new PCs but didn't have the funds to buy any software.
One time the state gavce $1500 to teachers to by a personal computer for home, but they did not give them $$ to buy the software they use at school. Since it was a "personal" machine they could not install software using any school liscenses.
My aunt and mother in-law both had nice ibooks laying around in a closet, until I rescued it and put linux on it and used it for a while. (I had to give it back when they retired, I never did hear how the new teahcer liked YellowDog).
So administration makes dumb decisions and there is never enough $$ ot support the equipment and train properly. It is sad, my local district has been spending bucku bucks lately on buildings, pools, athletic fields, theatre etc.
But in the same shortsighted way they spend all the money on tangible things, but cannot afford to properly staff the stuff. It costs $8 buck for a choir concert, that money used to be fund raiser for a trip, now almost all of it goes toward paying for the use of the theatre.
I am sure the admin people mean well, but it sure as hell seems silly that all the upper level jobs in our district are filled with $80K -$150k + jobs that have a doctorate in education requirement to "manage the pools and fitness centers" or be a athelic director. It really is ridiculous. Oh well I am ranting and getting away for the point.
The administration at all levels needs to GET A CLUE.
The attitude of "F**k 'Em" is a little over the top, but the US companies effected by the frivolous, unwarranted lawsuits should actively seek to ban French users and block indexing of all french sites. Imagine all the French folks who depend on Google to promote their sites, or to augment their income with Adsense. Chances are they would be pretty ticked, and hopefully would blame their elitist self rightous government.
I have no personal gripes against French people. I have several French friends. However, it sure seems lately like there are a few bad apples that typify the Anti-USA crowd. I almost get the feeling that they are purposely trying to be anti-USA/anti-British so they can get a competive advantage with the anti-west world. These lawsuits seem politically motivated and another way to "stick it to the US".
I honestly wonder if terrorists flew a 747 into the Eiffel tower if France would be so anti-war/anti-US? I sincerely doubt it.
Anyway, if I was Google I'd simply block indexing on any site hosted in France. I'd also block access to any IP orginating in France. As far as the internet stuff goes France seems a bit overzealous as far as sueing high-profile American companies.
I can see a big market for automated RBL (Real-time Black Lists) for phone numbers caught spamming. Also someone with a little turnkey Astreisk based computer that has a "junk" voicemail box, recognized calls ring through, everything else silently gets sent to the junk box.
I think it would be great if we had little boxes at home that we could flag messages as SPAM, that would update a RBL. And also check the CallerID against an RBL before answering.
We have fairly mature methods for identifying spam. Obviously the phone stuff will be a little more difficult because we won't be able to adjust filter based on subject or content (at least easily). But some type of automated RBL should be relatively easy with VoIP. A fix for the Caller ID spoofing will have to be in place for this to be effective.
Though it seems like there would be a way to distinguish between a real and a spoofed number. Maybe not at the handset, but at the point of entry on the VOiP network. It would seem like a call from a regular POTS line would look much different than a call orginating on a VOiP line.
The other thing if VOiP lines are being used as SPAM calls it seems like it would be relatively easy to see a pattern in call logs. I.e. a disproportionate amount of outbound calls to inbound calls. The amount of outbound calls per day. The length and duration of outbound calls. The destination of outbound calls.
The VOiP providers should also have a internal call number or something so that when we look at our logs we can flag the call (via a web interface) as probable SPAM. The provider could then use their internal tracking number to determine where that call came from. If it orginated on a competing provider hopefully there would be some type of industry wide anti-spamming effort to make sure assholes like these Spamming vermin don't ruin it for everyone.
I am just speculating as to possible methodsto combat the problem. There are obvious issues with my suggestions, like number poratibility and privacy issues, but the fact remains that if VOiP spam becomes a problem there *should* be some ways to leverage our existing expertise in weeding out shitty shit spewed forth from the lowest life forms that we are currently forced to share of planet with.
It would obvisously be nicer if there was some way to instantly smite the scum with the wrath of God, and have them immediately and permantently cease their existance; however, since that seems unlikely, a combination of filters, RBL and industry action seem like the way to go.
No fuss. I have not tried rsync on win32, but I am sure it exists. I do a lot of web development, but have not used a ftp client on a regular basis in years. My sites are backed up to remote servers using this method, and new sites are uploaded using rsync as well.
Its fast, easy to use and saves on bandwidth, as only changes are transfered. With FTP the whole file is always moved. SO bandwidth savings alone may be worth looking into this solution.
Big organizations are used to dealing with legal threats, litigation and the assorted bag of legal wranglings that accompany big business.
Those large organizations are more concerned with legal risks. And since SCO has esentially taken the fall, those businesses see that the risk is now significantly lower. (remember though, its not over yet, but it does look like two outs in the bottom of the nineth.)
So bottom line is SCO challenged Linux via the IBM suit (and a few others), and has taken a beating virtually every step of the way. Because the way SCO has lost legal ground virtually every step of the way, business have gained confidence in Linux.
Granted IT MAY BE A FALSE CONFIDENCE, because the lawsuits thus far have been toward very specific breaches of older Unix agreements, and the end user lawsuits were against SCO customers.
Anyway, I am sure there are a variety of legal fronts that may be vulnerable to this type of attack. However, because of the perception of victory on the side of Linux companies who may want to sue will think twice. Since undoubtably the cost of entry into the litigation game are very high. Just how many companies now are going to want to spend $30,000,000 or more to try and knock off Linux?
At the same time, companies wanting to leave the proprietary jail of other Unices, or bolt from the cold clutches of MS will be more confident to do so, because they know Linux has been challenged and came out stronger.
I represent the buggy whip industry, and we would like to join the efforts against municipalities who are offering useful public services.
While we no longer pack the lobbying punch we did 100 years ago, we feel its important to make a stand here and now. It is not the cities place to provide mass public transportation on its roads. God created the horse to transport man. He gave us whips to get those horses moving.
Buses are bad, so are cars. Horses eat grass, and could be feed on our lawn clippings further protecting the environment. Even horse's shit can be useful in fertilizing and for electrical generation, Clearly Municipal governments missed the boat 100 years ago in funding such follies as public roads, and mass transit systems.
As a God fearing nation of people we implore our leaders to stop trying to mess with Gods plan, and threaten wholesome established industries. Much like our own buggy whip industry once was; simply because technology has made it economically feasible to provide such services.
Why should tax payers pay for things they might actually use more than say a library or more often than a park? To hell with the people who would benifit from those services, you need thriving industry lobbying dollars. Unfortunately at the time our industry did not react quickly enough, and we are but a footnote in history. Don't let that happen to what's left of the Bells.
Communications and access to information is a priviledge and should only be readily accessible to those who can afford it, and those willing to pay for it. Information and the internet most certainly are different than other services traditionally provided by local governments, like libraries.
We the buggy whip industry clearly messed up a 100 years ago. It is going to take a lot of effort to reverse the clear damage done to our industry by the municipalities senseless actions.
But here ans now we can help prevent a another senseless travesty by feverently supporting the telecommunications industry's oppisition to the communistic cesspools of municiple wifi Internet access.
Infact, I hear you can even get pornography, and other naughty things, for free on the Internet. I heard that terrorists might even use tit to communicate.
Surely a God fearing, senator representing good wholesome people in the worlds greatest democracy, will not allow these back water heathanistic towns to undermine the very fabric of our country.
Municipal wifi will taking jobs away for hard working telecommunications workers who often risk their lives high atop poles stringing cable for one of the great and lasting american icons. Municipal wifi will encourage people to get online and have access to dangerous information, and maybe even porn. Municipal wifi is communism, it might even be an even more communistic than the GPL, and free software. (Those Linux zealots will undoubtably further undermine the economicy if allowed to leverage their radical beliefs to the masses with free Internet.)
For Gods ske this is AMERICA, we cannot block the internet liek CHINA and get a way with it. We need to limit the free flow of information more covertly. We have already made broadband Internet dangerously low priced. Higher government cannot afford to let everyone have access to the knowledge and power of the Internet. If that happens then things like Internet voting could become a realistic. Vote turnout would sore, and fine Senetors might become obsolete like buggy whips.
We the buggy whip industry implore you to NOT let our fate happen NEEDLESSLY AGAIN.
My grandfather just had this done as a treatment for Parkinsons. He can no longer write nor drink out of a cup without a straw because of the trembling.
He had to have three surgeries total. Two were to implant the brain stimulators. One week they drilled the left side, the next week they drilled the right side. The third week they implanted the "pace maker / battery pack" into his back.
He has not yet had the device activated. The doctors make him wait about a month for the injuries from the surgeries to heal. They do test the implants immediately after the drilling and implants. In case you did not notice from the article it is a "Local' anethesia, which for those of you out there not paying attention, means they drill into your head while you are awake.
That part sucks big time, but it is needed because they count on feed-back from the patient to make sure the electrodes are placed properly within the brain.
Anyway, he has not yet had the device turned on for every day use. His healing period was delayed when he got pnuemonia. He is getting anxious to have the device activated. He said the other people who have had this procedure have greatly improved, almost immediately.
How it works for depression I don't know, but it is already being used for Parkinsons.
I am pretty sure that gravity is not the major factor limiting terraforming here. Here is an example. Titan has a thicker atmosphere than earth, but obviously a much smaller gravity well.
I am not qualified to offer the other factors to consider, and I am too lazy to Google the explanation at the moment.
Actually, since I spend so much time in my office, and now use the Vonage line a lot more than the cell line, it is cheaper with two bills.
I used to have a big minutes cell plan and used the cell almost exclusively. But no with the flat rate of Vonage, I was able to switch to a much cheaper rate plan. Because of my usage habits, it has been cheaper for me to have two bills than it was with one big minute cell plan.
I have a similar situation. Except my office is in the basement. Anyway, I use Vonage.
I have my cellphone set to conditionally forward to the vonage line. By that if I don't answer, instead of going to voicemail, it goes to the Vonage line. I use the Vonage voice mail. IMHO it is better because you can check the VM online via a web browser and other nifty features that are better than the cellphone.
Oakland has a lot of very very rich people, but it too has its share of poverty.
I live in Oakland, and do ok, but where I am at there are plenty around me who are not very well off. Poverty is real, just like it is in most places. Why should we feel it is "right" or more "just" to roll out a public service in the most economically depressed areas?
I guess my point is we all have problems, and whereever you look there will be people who need help. If Oakland can give us ubiquitous net access, without raising my taxes appreciably I am all for it. Yes the rich guys in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham will benifit, but so will folks in the depressed areas of like Pontiac.
As far as privacy ccncerns with the government running an ISP... No one is forcing you to use the service. If in ten or twenty years it becomes so good and so ubiquitous that COmcast and the DSL providers pull out, leaving the government ISP as the only game in town, we would have a problem. But even then, as long as quantum computing is not a reality, SSH and its descendents will keep the my Internet habits pretty private.
For the parnoid browser, it is pretty easy to setup apache as a proxy server on a low cost hosting account (if you have your own copy of apache). You might even be able to run squid.
Anyway, since I live in one of the few rural areas of Oakland, it will probably be a while before I see any of this coming my way.
This has been an absolute joy. I bought it for a client about three years ago. In linux it works great out of the box using lpr. Using CUPS, advanced features like duplex printing and multiple copies per page work fast and easy.
That is exactly the point. BSG and SG1 and SGA are all 100x better than Enterprise. UPN did not have a prayer of Enterprise doing well against SciFi's line up. I'm surprised there was even 2.5million people. They probably were reallly jsut people with VCRs / Tivo's taping it while watch quality SciFI on the not-so quality SciFi network.
Anyway, how could they expect Enterprise to have a prayer against shows with a decent writing, character development, and all clumped to gether in a "MUST SEE SCIFI TV" type of lineup. Even though SG1 seems to be running out of steam, it is still far and away better than the crap that Enterprise has been.
BSG truely rocks, it feels real, you never know who is going to bite the bullet. The writers are not afraid of character with faults, and for every victory there is usually a price to pay.
Enterprise, if some major character is "killed" it is just a matter of going back in time to save them. Or some other "magic" technology, with little basis in reality, gets jury rigged in 10 minutes to save the day. Where is the dram in that. At the end of the day, or at least the end of the season, everyone will be safe and happy once again.
I mean I used to enjoy Star Trek very much, but after seeing some of the more recent quality sci-fi shows like Firefly, Farscape, BSG and the earlier years of SG1 the whole premise of STarTrek is a lot harder to swallow.
There was no chance ever of it being renewed. It was moved to Friday, which we all know is teh death nell for any SciFi show. I mean if FireFly could not cut it on Friday, how the heck is the worst Star Trek show going to have a prayer. B&B blow, and Joss rocked. Damnit bring back FireFly... ..
I keep trying to sell my brother and his gamer friends on a survival of the fittess concept game were you try simply to survive. The concepts of building teams and armies, and allowing custom weapons via an API and generally unlimited scripting / building. Basically an anything goes world , maybe not like the Matrix (at first), more like the online world in Snow Crash.
A virtual world were geeks ruled.... And the real-life popular crowd was more-or-less just wannabee posers using off-the-self avatars.
It would be quite cool to have a giant open source virtual world that was ultimately an eye candy filled geek play ground. No holds barred.
If it is too slow nobody would use it, and therefore they would not be able to sell ads. So they certainly have an incentive to make it work reasonably well. Perhaps they add a ring or two, perhaps there would be a 5 second minimum connect time. Just long enough to hear "$5 Dollar Large Pizza at Dolly's - press *3 after finishing your call."
I wonder if this is a step towards making VoIP basically a free tool, much like the web is today. It would be interesting if Google or another VoIP provider go to an advertising model to support free VoIP.
I think it would be interesting to have ads while a call is being connected (i.e. ringing). It seems like they could pipe audio ads down the wire during the inevitable pause while the system tries to track down a cell phone, or the long distance call is being routed...
A company like Google could also put a phone front end on to the search engine, I'm thinking along the lines of directory assistance, but instead of limiting info to just addresses / phones numbers, the Google directory assistance would search the internet and speak the results (and a few related ads) over the phone.
They might even have the CPU power to do adequate speech recognotion. All told it is pretty easy to imagine a system taking adavtage of the newest phones, with enhanced SMS, web interfaces, along with a voice interface. It would also be cool if you could specify where you want your search result output to go. Maybe if they had VoIP and some type of phone based interafce you could have your results displayed on your phone, pda or spoken. With a viable VoIP perhaps you could have the results faxed to you at a hotel. I'd also like to see the option of having the results emailed.
All told these relatively small technical advancements, would be large strides in making Google even more ubiqutious. Non-computer users and casual users would have another resource to get and retrieve information in the "real-world".
I just wish I was smart enough to get a job with them . . .
I agree. Object recognition is where the human compture (i.e brain) is FAR superior to any silicon based computer at this point. It seems people in this thread are thinking pretty small. Visual Google, will have its uses but the technology will revolutionize the way cmputers and humans interact someday.
This image searching would make computing far more intuitive. In the far future, it may also lead to computers able to learn/recall in the same way as humans, (via visual memory). I believe that when this "skill" is mastered by computers we wil have computers that can easily pass a turing test. Whether or not they are truely intelligent will still be up in the air.
This will also lead to a better human / computer interface. Imagine wearing a pair of those fancy glasses that have a computer screen displayed on the lense. If you have a camera that snaps an image of what your looking at and then does a real-time lookup it'd be pretty sweet. of course this pipe dream also depens on ubiquitous high-speed wireless access to the internet.
Even further down the road is an implant that reads the signal from your optic nerve (I know its been done already on Cats) and use the raw signal from the eye for the lookup.
The possiblities for human enhancement are really endless if we can get computers and people to be more "compatible".
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I wish I had mod points since you'd definately be getting a -1 TROLL from me.
Basically your strategy is to call names, and repeat an old Linux bash. Your statement has virtually nothing to do with the post.
Last I checked Linux is being adopted by the masses. Many many more people are converting to Linux than are converting from Linux. Entire countries are basing their IT infrastructure on Linux. So I will argue that Linux IS being adopted ona large scale. Of course it could be a larger scale, but Rome empire was not built over night; nor did it fall in one night.
I'll also say hardware compatibility is a major problem for Windows, especially given the multiple version of it. The people getting the refurbed computers will likely have a difficult time adding any NEW current hardware upgrades to their system. Since Windows 98 is no longer supported by MS, driver suppoort is waning.
Even when it was the only game in town HW sipport (especially modems) was flakey at best. I would have to reboot after every time I used my scanner. Sometimes my sound card would lock up after conflicting with my scanner. Also, I worked ISP technical support and EDI technical support during Windows 95/98 heyday. I can confidently say that most modems did not work well out of the box with any old flavor of windows.
Besides endless conflicts with IRQs and port assignments, especially with the "plug and pray" of Windows 95/98, most modems needed arcane initializations strings that properly matched up to the particular brand of modems used in the ISP bank. It was a mess. and very very annoying from a support perspective, probably cut years off my life.
Hard/Software compatibility is mostly a non-issue in Linux anymore, aside from bleeding edge components. In this case I would be willing to bet that the modem support will be better for a modern Linux distro, than for a 7+ year old OS. I would venture to say a modern Linux distro will support more common hardware better than windows98, especially since USB support was in its infancy with 98.
You have clearly not spent any time with Linux, nor have you probably spent a lot of time trying to support any significant number of remote machines, dialup or otherwise. I have, and I will say that I would have left the tech industry a long time ago if I had to continue using MS operating systems and products.
Perhaps, your brain is big enough to remember all the exceptions, nuances, quirks within the convuluted and confusing dialaog box hell that makes up the Windows world. With each iteraction of MS product line getting more confusing and more complex. My brain isn't, so once I figure out a problem once, it becimes a simple shell script (kind of like your batch files) so that everythign can be repeated again and again.
Ok I'm getting a little off target here myself. My point is Linux is not a gimmick, and your comment is mean spirited FUD at best.
-MS2k
I have enjoyed reading on my iPAQ.
At first I did not like the small screen relatively low res. screen; however, after using it for a while I got used to it and prefer it for a couple of reasons.
1. The small screen, means there are fewer words per page. The smaller word count helps me read faster, because I am not getting lost or distracted.
2. Backlight for low-light conditions. Its nice to read at night with out having a light on in the room. I think it is easier on my eyes when I get tired.
3. one hand operation. It is a lot easier to turn pages one-handed on an PDA. I can generally be more comfortable, and have good posture longer when reading off a PDA than with a book.
-MS2k
I hope this gets modded +1 Funny, I have not laughed so hard.
It took me a while to get that this was satire. But just incase it wasn't a funny satirical post but instead a trolling astroturfer; I'll explain it better of the overzealous sladotters out there who are going to rip on this guy without comprehension.
If we follow his his warped logic we should boycott everything for example:
Here is background on the trucking industry and why it is so very dangerous:
1. Trucks should be banned because they allow distribution of stolen goods, and contra band.
2. Allowing large trucks on our highways causes excessive where and tear on our roads. You might say that the wear and tear is fairly harmless, but think of all the pollution those trucks generate, Global warming is going to make my Michigan home a tropical paradise in a few years thanks to all those trucks. Also think of all those trucks spewing out diesel fumes that innocennt men, women and children are exposed to daily.
Everyone who shops at ubiquitous retail stores (Walmart, Kroger, etc) supports the trucking industry, and has blood on their hands. From this point on I am boycotting everything store bought, and eating bugs and grass nd whereing a fig leaf to cover my loins. I advise everyone with a sense of decency to do so too.
How hard would it be to do a definitive review of these cables in a labratory setting?
I know little physics, but it seems like it would be relatively easy to test the cables, connoectors and other compenents using a standard set of measurables. Heck event the "Rocks" mentioned in the parent post could be tested in a lab.
While those measurables may not work out to a perceptable difference in quality, at least there is some way to guage in advance whether the cable / component, etc will produce results that are pleasing to the subjective ears of a listener, and the individual environment of the audio equipment. There are SO many environmental factors that effect the sound. everythign from humidity, the materials in the walls, the floor covering, the cieling the furnature, in the room, the quality of power in the wire etc.
That is why putting on a pair of head phones almost always sounds better, since the sound is being delivered more directly to your ears.
The discussion may not always directly answer the question, but it does provide valuable background, and offers insights into different aspects the poster may not have thought about.
Those insights help make the discussion interesting. What do you want Yes / No answers? Ask Slashdot is more about the discussion than about actually getting answers, since most of the time a quick google seach will provide a better answer more quickly.
-MS2k
I have no less than 10 teachers within my close family (2 brothers, mom, grandfather, 4 aunts, mom-in-law, sister-in-law), all at differnt stages of their respective careers.
The common thing I see as a problem, is not the teachers or technology. All of my reletives v iew the tech as another tool. In fact, my grandfather was responsible for setting up the first computer labs in schools in Oakland County, MI in the 1970s (remember we're the lucky ones with county wide muni-wifi coming soon!).
Anyway, the problem they all cite is lack of support, software and overall expertise on the equipment. They always seem to be getting new stuff, but almost never are they properly trained. Even when they are trained it is on simple operation procedure, NOT how to make the technology an effective teacher tool.
Too often teachers simply send the kids to the lab and say go at it. Providing little instruction. the kids mindlessly point and click and have a great time, but because the concepts for a partiucular game are not reinforced it is simply an hand eye exercise.
I witness this first hand myself after taking my 5 and 3 year old to the public library. Both wanted to play the computer because it had fun games, neither actually did any thing educational. Basically clicked around and whated outdated shockwave animations.
Heck they both get more education playing my 5 year old dreamcast, because he had to learn to read the menus, and count objects and whatnot in the games.
Another big problem is the school board will push through bonds that can be used to purchase capital equipment, but NOT software. It has happened on more than one occassion that the idiots bought a bunch of new PCs but didn't have the funds to buy any software.
One time the state gavce $1500 to teachers to by a personal computer for home, but they did not give them $$ to buy the software they use at school. Since it was a "personal" machine they could not install software using any school liscenses.
My aunt and mother in-law both had nice ibooks laying around in a closet, until I rescued it and put linux on it and used it for a while. (I had to give it back when they retired, I never did hear how the new teahcer liked YellowDog).
So administration makes dumb decisions and there is never enough $$ ot support the equipment and train properly. It is sad, my local district has been spending bucku bucks lately on buildings, pools, athletic fields, theatre etc.
But in the same shortsighted way they spend all the money on tangible things, but cannot afford to properly staff the stuff. It costs $8 buck for a choir concert, that money used to be fund raiser for a trip, now almost all of it goes toward paying for the use of the theatre.
I am sure the admin people mean well, but it sure as hell seems silly that all the upper level jobs in our district are filled with $80K -$150k + jobs that have a doctorate in education requirement to "manage the pools and fitness centers" or be a athelic director. It really is ridiculous. Oh well I am ranting and getting away for the point.
The administration at all levels needs to GET A CLUE.
The attitude of "F**k 'Em" is a little over the top, but the US companies effected by the frivolous, unwarranted lawsuits should actively seek to ban French users and block indexing of all french sites. Imagine all the French folks who depend on Google to promote their sites, or to augment their income with Adsense. Chances are they would be pretty ticked, and hopefully would blame their elitist self rightous government.
I have no personal gripes against French people. I have several French friends. However, it sure seems lately like there are a few bad apples that typify the Anti-USA crowd. I almost get the feeling that they are purposely trying to be anti-USA/anti-British so they can get a competive advantage with the anti-west world. These lawsuits seem politically motivated and another way to "stick it to the US".
I honestly wonder if terrorists flew a 747 into the Eiffel tower if France would be so anti-war/anti-US? I sincerely doubt it.
Anyway, if I was Google I'd simply block indexing on any site hosted in France. I'd also block access to any IP orginating in France. As far as the internet stuff goes France seems a bit overzealous as far as sueing high-profile American companies.
-MS2k
I can see a big market for automated RBL (Real-time Black Lists) for phone numbers caught spamming. Also someone with a little turnkey Astreisk based computer that has a "junk" voicemail box, recognized calls ring through, everything else silently gets sent to the junk box.
I think it would be great if we had little boxes at home that we could flag messages as SPAM, that would update a RBL. And also check the CallerID against an RBL before answering.
We have fairly mature methods for identifying spam. Obviously the phone stuff will be a little more difficult because we won't be able to adjust filter based on subject or content (at least easily). But some type of automated RBL should be relatively easy with VoIP. A fix for the Caller ID spoofing will have to be in place for this to be effective.
Though it seems like there would be a way to distinguish between a real and a spoofed number. Maybe not at the handset, but at the point of entry on the VOiP network. It would seem like a call from a regular POTS line would look much different than a call orginating on a VOiP line.
The other thing if VOiP lines are being used as SPAM calls it seems like it would be relatively easy to see a pattern in call logs. I.e. a disproportionate amount of outbound calls to inbound calls. The amount of outbound calls per day. The length and duration of outbound calls. The destination of outbound calls.
The VOiP providers should also have a internal call number or something so that when we look at our logs we can flag the call (via a web interface) as probable SPAM. The provider could then use their internal tracking number to determine where that call came from. If it orginated on a competing provider hopefully there would be some type of industry wide anti-spamming effort to make sure assholes like these Spamming vermin don't ruin it for everyone.
I am just speculating as to possible methodsto combat the problem. There are obvious issues with my suggestions, like number poratibility and privacy issues, but the fact remains that if VOiP spam becomes a problem there *should* be some ways to leverage our existing expertise in weeding out shitty shit spewed forth from the lowest life forms that we are currently forced to share of planet with.
It would obvisously be nicer if there was some way to instantly smite the scum with the wrath of God, and have them immediately and permantently cease their existance; however, since that seems unlikely, a combination of filters, RBL and industry action seem like the way to go.
MS2k
I have to transfer files and directories across several locations, and I do it automatically using rsync and SSH certificates.
/to/this/directory
SSH is configured to only allow transfers with a valid certificate from a valid IP address. There is no pass-phrase on the certs.
Copying / syncing directories is a breeze:
rsync -ae ssh server1:/copy/this/directory/
No fuss. I have not tried rsync on win32, but I am sure it exists. I do a lot of web development, but have not used a ftp client on a regular basis in years. My sites are backed up to remote servers using this method, and new sites are uploaded using rsync as well.
Its fast, easy to use and saves on bandwidth, as only changes are transfered. With FTP the whole file is always moved. SO bandwidth savings alone may be worth looking into this solution.
-MS2k
I have to disagree with your disagreement.
.
Big organizations are used to dealing with legal threats, litigation and the assorted bag of legal wranglings that accompany big business.
Those large organizations are more concerned with legal risks. And since SCO has esentially taken the fall, those businesses see that the risk is now significantly lower. (remember though, its not over yet, but it does look like two outs in the bottom of the nineth.)
So bottom line is SCO challenged Linux via the IBM suit (and a few others), and has taken a beating virtually every step of the way. Because the way SCO has lost legal ground virtually every step of the way, business have gained confidence in Linux.
Granted IT MAY BE A FALSE CONFIDENCE, because the lawsuits thus far have been toward very specific breaches of older Unix agreements, and the end user lawsuits were against SCO customers.
Anyway, I am sure there are a variety of legal fronts that may be vulnerable to this type of attack. However, because of the perception of victory on the side of Linux companies who may want to sue will think twice. Since undoubtably the cost of entry into the litigation game are very high. Just how many companies now are going to want to spend $30,000,000 or more to try and knock off Linux?
At the same time, companies wanting to leave the proprietary jail of other Unices, or bolt from the cold clutches of MS will be more confident to do so, because they know Linux has been challenged and came out stronger.
Oh well, thats my take for what its worth . . .
MS2K
Dear duly elected state stenator,
I represent the buggy whip industry, and we would like to join the efforts against municipalities who are offering useful public services.
While we no longer pack the lobbying punch we did 100 years ago, we feel its important to make a stand here and now. It is not the cities place to provide mass public transportation on its roads. God created the horse to transport man. He gave us whips to get those horses moving.
Buses are bad, so are cars. Horses eat grass, and could be feed on our lawn clippings further protecting the environment. Even horse's shit can be useful in fertilizing and for electrical generation, Clearly Municipal governments missed the boat 100 years ago in funding such follies as public roads, and mass transit systems.
As a God fearing nation of people we implore our leaders to stop trying to mess with Gods plan, and threaten wholesome established industries. Much like our own buggy whip industry once was; simply because technology has made it economically feasible to provide such services.
Why should tax payers pay for things they might actually use more than say a library or more often than a park? To hell with the people who would benifit from those services, you need thriving industry lobbying dollars. Unfortunately at the time our industry did not react quickly enough, and we are but a footnote in history. Don't let that happen to what's left of the Bells.
Communications and access to information is a priviledge and should only be readily accessible to those who can afford it, and those willing to pay for it. Information and the internet most certainly are different than other services traditionally provided by local governments, like libraries.
We the buggy whip industry clearly messed up a 100 years ago. It is going to take a lot of effort to reverse the clear damage done to our industry by the municipalities senseless actions.
But here ans now we can help prevent a another senseless travesty by feverently supporting the telecommunications industry's oppisition to the communistic cesspools of municiple wifi Internet access.
Infact, I hear you can even get pornography, and other naughty things, for free on the Internet. I heard that terrorists might even use tit to communicate.
Surely a God fearing, senator representing good wholesome people in the worlds greatest democracy, will not allow these back water heathanistic towns to undermine the very fabric of our country.
Municipal wifi will taking jobs away for hard working telecommunications workers who often risk their lives high atop poles stringing cable for one of the great and lasting american icons. Municipal wifi will encourage people to get online and have access to dangerous information, and maybe even porn.
Municipal wifi is communism, it might even be an even more communistic than the GPL, and free software. (Those Linux zealots will undoubtably further undermine the economicy if allowed to leverage their radical beliefs to the masses with free Internet.)
For Gods ske this is AMERICA, we cannot block the internet liek CHINA and get a way with it. We need to limit the free flow of information more covertly. We have already made broadband Internet dangerously low priced. Higher government cannot afford to let everyone have access to the knowledge and power of the Internet. If that happens then things like Internet voting could become a realistic. Vote turnout would sore, and fine Senetors might become obsolete like buggy whips.
We the buggy whip industry implore you to NOT let our fate happen NEEDLESSLY AGAIN.
My grandfather just had this done as a treatment for Parkinsons. He can no longer write nor drink out of a cup without a straw because of the trembling.
He had to have three surgeries total. Two were to implant the brain stimulators. One week they drilled the left side, the next week they drilled the right side. The third week they implanted the "pace maker / battery pack" into his back.
He has not yet had the device activated. The doctors make him wait about a month for the injuries from the surgeries to heal. They do test the implants immediately after the drilling and implants. In case you did not notice from the article it is a "Local' anethesia, which for those of you out there not paying attention, means they drill into your head while you are awake.
That part sucks big time, but it is needed because they count on feed-back from the patient to make sure the electrodes are placed properly within the brain.
Anyway, he has not yet had the device turned on for every day use. His healing period was delayed when he got pnuemonia. He is getting anxious to have the device activated. He said the other people who have had this procedure have greatly improved, almost immediately.
How it works for depression I don't know, but it is already being used for Parkinsons.
-MS2k
I am pretty sure that gravity is not the major factor limiting terraforming here. Here is an example. Titan has a thicker atmosphere than earth, but obviously a much smaller gravity well.
I am not qualified to offer the other factors to consider, and I am too lazy to Google the explanation at the moment.
-MS2k
Actually, since I spend so much time in my office, and now use the Vonage line a lot more than the cell line, it is cheaper with two bills.
I used to have a big minutes cell plan and used the cell almost exclusively. But no with the flat rate of Vonage, I was able to switch to a much cheaper rate plan. Because of my usage habits, it has been cheaper for me to have two bills than it was with one big minute cell plan.
-MS2k
I have a similar situation. Except my office is in the basement. Anyway, I use Vonage.
I have my cellphone set to conditionally forward to the vonage line. By that if I don't answer, instead of going to voicemail, it goes to the Vonage line. I use the Vonage voice mail. IMHO it is better because you can check the VM online via a web browser and other nifty features that are better than the cellphone.
-MS2k
Oakland has a lot of very very rich people, but it too has its share of poverty.
I live in Oakland, and do ok, but where I am at there are plenty around me who are not very well off. Poverty is real, just like it is in most places. Why should we feel it is "right" or more "just" to roll out a public service in the most economically depressed areas?
I guess my point is we all have problems, and whereever you look there will be people who need help. If Oakland can give us ubiquitous net access, without raising my taxes appreciably I am all for it. Yes the rich guys in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham will benifit, but so will folks in the depressed areas of like Pontiac.
As far as privacy ccncerns with the government running an ISP... No one is forcing you to use the service. If in ten or twenty years it becomes so good and so ubiquitous that COmcast and the DSL providers pull out, leaving the government ISP as the only game in town, we would have a problem. But even then, as long as quantum computing is not a reality, SSH and its descendents will keep the my Internet habits pretty private.
For the parnoid browser, it is pretty easy to setup apache as a proxy server on a low cost hosting account (if you have your own copy of apache). You might even be able to run squid.
Anyway, since I live in one of the few rural areas of Oakland, it will probably be a while before I see any of this coming my way.
-MS2k
This has been an absolute joy. I bought it for a client about three years ago. In linux it works great out of the box using lpr. Using CUPS, advanced features like duplex printing and multiple copies per page work fast and easy.
The printer has held up well.
-MS2k
That is exactly the point. BSG and SG1 and SGA are all 100x better than Enterprise. UPN did not have a prayer of Enterprise doing well against SciFi's line up. I'm surprised there was even 2.5million people. They probably were reallly jsut people with VCRs / Tivo's taping it while watch quality SciFI on the not-so quality SciFi network.
Anyway, how could they expect Enterprise to have a prayer against shows with a decent writing, character development, and all clumped to gether in a "MUST SEE SCIFI TV" type of lineup. Even though SG1 seems to be running out of steam, it is still far and away better than the crap that Enterprise has been.
BSG truely rocks, it feels real, you never know who is going to bite the bullet. The writers are not afraid of character with faults, and for every victory there is usually a price to pay.
Enterprise, if some major character is "killed" it is just a matter of going back in time to save them. Or some other "magic" technology, with little basis in reality, gets jury rigged in 10 minutes to save the day. Where is the dram in that. At the end of the day, or at least the end of the season, everyone will be safe and happy once again.
I mean I used to enjoy Star Trek very much, but after seeing some of the more recent quality sci-fi shows like Firefly, Farscape, BSG and the earlier years of SG1 the whole premise of STarTrek is a lot harder to swallow.
There was no chance ever of it being renewed. It was moved to Friday, which we all know is teh death nell for any SciFi show. I mean if FireFly could not cut it on Friday, how the heck is the worst Star Trek show going to have a prayer. B&B blow, and Joss rocked. Damnit bring back FireFly. .. . .
GoDaddy does basic (they call them "turbo") certs now for under $29 a year.
Of course if you're cheap, you can always self sign a certificate for free.
-MS2k
Somebody already did that. I am pretty sure it was mentioned here on slashdot. Anyway here is the URL:
/
http://librenix.com/?inode=5508
Basically a guy wants to see what will do the most damage --
rm -rf
or
format c:\
I keep trying to sell my brother and his gamer friends on a survival of the fittess concept game were you try simply to survive. The concepts of building teams and armies, and allowing custom weapons via an API and generally unlimited scripting / building. Basically an anything goes world , maybe not like the Matrix (at first), more like the online world in Snow Crash.
A virtual world were geeks ruled.... And the real-life popular crowd was more-or-less just wannabee posers using off-the-self avatars.
It would be quite cool to have a giant open source virtual world that was ultimately an eye candy filled geek play ground. No holds barred.
And no I don't think Slashdot counts. . .
If it is too slow nobody would use it, and therefore they would not be able to sell ads. So they certainly have an incentive to make it work reasonably well. Perhaps they add a ring or two, perhaps there would be a 5 second minimum connect time. Just long enough to hear "$5 Dollar Large Pizza at Dolly's - press *3 after finishing your call."
I wonder if this is a step towards making VoIP basically a free tool, much like the web is today. It would be interesting if Google or another
VoIP provider go to an advertising model to support free VoIP.
I think it would be interesting to have ads while a call is being connected (i.e. ringing). It seems like they could pipe audio ads down the wire during the inevitable pause while the system tries to track down a cell phone, or the long distance call is being routed...
A company like Google could also put a phone front end on to the search engine, I'm thinking along the lines of directory assistance, but instead of limiting info to just addresses / phones numbers, the Google directory assistance would search the internet and speak the results (and a few related ads) over the phone.
They might even have the CPU power to do adequate speech recognotion. All told it is pretty easy to imagine a system taking adavtage of the newest phones, with enhanced SMS, web interfaces, along with a voice interface. It would also be cool if you could specify where you want your search result output to go. Maybe if they had VoIP and some type of phone based interafce you could have your results displayed on your phone, pda or spoken. With a viable VoIP perhaps you could have the results faxed to you at a hotel. I'd also like to see the option of having the results emailed.
All told these relatively small technical advancements, would be large strides in making Google even more ubiqutious. Non-computer users and casual users would have another resource to get and retrieve information in the "real-world".
I just wish I was smart enough to get a job with them . . .
I agree. Object recognition is where the human compture (i.e brain) is FAR superior to any silicon based computer at this point. It seems people in this thread are thinking pretty small. Visual Google, will have its uses but the technology will revolutionize the way cmputers and humans interact someday.
This image searching would make computing far more intuitive. In the far future, it may also lead to computers able to learn/recall in the same way as humans, (via visual memory). I believe that when this "skill" is mastered by computers we wil have computers that can easily pass a turing test. Whether or not they are truely intelligent will still be up in the air.
This will also lead to a better human / computer interface. Imagine wearing a pair of those fancy glasses that have a computer screen displayed on the lense. If you have a camera that snaps an image of what your looking at and then does a real-time lookup it'd be pretty sweet. of course this pipe dream also depens on ubiquitous high-speed wireless access to the internet.
Even further down the road is an implant that reads the signal from your optic nerve (I know its been done already on Cats) and use the raw signal from the eye for the lookup.
The possiblities for human enhancement are really endless if we can get computers and people to be more "compatible".
-MS2k