There was a segment on one of the day-time shows a couple months ago. But it was a "Party" bike. Looks like a company in the US has been "pedaling' them for a while (sorry I could not resist). Though they aren't selling them per-se, rather using them as tourist gimic (which several New York readers have already pointed out.)
I disagree with your comment: I'd like to argue that our sense of morality separates us from nature.
Our morality may set us apart, but morality is subjective, and ultimately arbitrary. And thus irrelevent in overall scheme of the universe.
In the end the earth will be a barren wasteland one-way or another. Nature WILL ultimately destroy the planet.
So thinking along the natural vs. unnatural argument is moot. If we believed that strictly if there are people around when the sun expands or a giant astroid hits should those people try to stop Nature if they have the technology to?
I bet if in the several billion years down the road people are around, and have the technology to add nuclear feul to a star, or move a planets orbit or whatever other unimaginable technology to save the day they would try and do it to save whats left of the "homeland".
Or nature could decide to do us in sooner, with a giant asteroid. Its pretty hypocritical in my opinion to plan to save the planet from the astroid, while at teh same time to condemning people from using land if it is needed.
If the rain forest is going to be oblierated anyway why bother? It boils down to darwin and survival of the fittest.
Plants and animals develop ways to defend themselves against us. Some do it very successfully (i.e. pesticide resistent bugs, drugs that are ineffective because the bateria / virus has evolved). In otherwords nature, DOES NOT CARE ABOUT US, one way or the other. In a sense we are at war with nature, and will always be at war because there will ALWAYS be natural threats that could wipe out our species.
But lets get back to the morility issue. Why is it morally wrong to wipe out unknown species or even unimportant known ones; while at the same time it is fine to wipe out a disease like small pox?
Life is life, it does not matter the scale. We'll be pretty darn excited if we confirm a true Martian virus, wouldn't we? It would definately be "morally" wrong to kill our hypothetical Martian virus wouldn't it? Unless of course, it is a threat to us. then we'd all have Mars disinfectant spray sitting around.
It boils down to we will always look out for the best interest of our species. We may try to sugar coat it with morals and ethics, but the fact remians we are at the top of the food chain, and will try ot stay there.
If tearing down rain forest and killing ofother species is in the best interest of people then do it.
I personally DO NOT think it is; because, unlike most other species, we have the capacity to learn and expand our knowledge. We depend on knowledge to survive. Destroying things we do not fully understand is counter-productive.
Our intelligence also confuses us; because it makes us think we have extra "responsibilities" because of arbitrary morals, and ethics.
WRONG! Our morals and ethics are important because they help us function as a society (sometimes), but they may end up to be our downfall, since those same morals and ethics have diversified to the point where we have large populations of people with opposed morals and ethics, trying to condemn the other side.
In some ways I think morals and ethics is Nature using our intelligence against us.
So what we need to do is NOT worry about every little species out there, and should start focusing on preserving and prolonging our own species.
Is the environment important to people? Yes, so we need to take care of it. Is worrying about global warming important? Yes, so we need to keep an eye on it? Is a new species of primates important to us? Yes, they have value to our species.
So to complete the argument, humans number one survival skill is our intelligence. In order for us to survive we ne
Actually wouldn't that make things worse? The way things are going copyrights are eventually going to be perpetual. 15 years, is obvisously better than forever.
I am in no way saying I am in favor of patents on software, I just do not want to make things worse than the alread fsck'd system that currently exists.
The other thing that irks me about this is Kodak, is it is yet another company that has been bleeding badly, and thus turns to litigation to survive. Hopefully soon a judge and the judges above them will get a clue and realize software patents are ridiculous, and should not be allowed to survive.
Maybe someday a judge will be appointed that has a computer science background that will be able to see as plain as most programmers how wrong and misguided software patents are. Until then I know I'll never buy another Kodak product. . .
AMEN. The "John Edwards and I will pass..." respones were annoying. Kerry's answers were exactly what you would expect from a campaign. They offered no real insight, just stuck to safe statements that the majority of his potential voters likely agreed with.
To be objective, Bush's responses were much the same, in that they were targetted at his supporters. the key difference I saw though was he did back up his statements with examples of his actions. So at least he has concrete examples of doing something.
With Kerry the "will do"'s remind me a lot of the kids running for class president, saying they will get us longer lunch periods, longer times between class, and cheaper parking stickers. When we all know that the position has neither the mandate nor the authority to do any of those things.
Also, the nuclear weapons issue made me cringe. we have had the power and the technology to blow ourselves up many time over for the last 60 years. What has kept us from doing so is 1. staying ahead of the pack, and 2. continued research.
If we shelve everything we will just full behind, or apear to full behind. Then we would apprear vulnerable and thus become an even more appealing target to our enemies. I say "appear" because the likely scenerio is that the nuclear programs would be officially scrapped, then shifted to some blck budget operation so we look clean, but in reality it is the same old story. Just like when the bilogical weapons and chemical weapons were supposedly dismantled in the 60's and 70's.
Anyway, if Kerry were actually to follow through on the nuclear arms issue, we would be much worse off, by continuing to pursue those weapons technologies, the programs will at least remain more public and not be forced "underground". The more public it is the more checks and balances their will be in place to safe guard the use. If is secret, then the potential for abuse is much greater.
All in all this interview was IMO an excellent example of how naive Kerry is (or at least is appearing to be). Did he do anything as a Senator to back up his stated opinions? Did he sponsor any legislation that would fit with his agenda? Perhaps he did, and if he did why didn't he support his arguments with examples of actions?
Another instance where *most* Linux users are locked out of multimendia content. I have not triued firing up my codeweaver cross-over with it yet. But I am getting sick of "HAVING" to do that. . ..
It is a nice feeling, I have had the priveledge of doing that on several occassions. . ..
As a side note, if I see one more 17" LCD running at 800x600 "because my eyes are not as good as they used to be" I will scream. I think the shitty look large icons, and fuzzy fonts are hurting the eyes a lot more than crisp clean sharp, yet smaller icons and fonts . ..
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a lot of attornies have billable time per quarter hour or is it tenths? I know that not all lawyers bill clients directly, but it seems to me that a great-many lawyers do look at the clock, at least every 15 minutes.
I am guess you or someone you love (or at least someone you live with) is a Detroit RedWings fan, as I can think of no othger logic answer to why you would have a purple octopus on your couch.
I think it would be cool if you could download (or even watch live NFL games over the internet) that are rendered using Madden...I know on the pre-game shows they have used game footage, but imagine a live stream for when your game is blacked out (DAMN NFL), or you are out-of-town.
Technically the games would not be being "rebroadcast" since the data used would be silly be facts describing the action as compiled by a person/computer on the scene. The video and audio track would be created on the fly. . . It would be neat to pause replay and view from multiple angles. Obviously though it would not be totally accurate, but it with some work could be close enough to be entertaining. It would beat the little game boxes on most websites thats for sure.
In time it could augment "real" radio play-by-play nicely. What I am thinking hear is the "audio" track comes from the live broadcasters, and the data stream broadcast digitally, this would probably only be available with the satellite radio broadcasts.
There could be a "fantasy" mode (in addition to the normal "broadcast") where you could watch your fantasy team play against your weekly opponent (or at least highlights of all your fantasy players) on demand. The system could also be used to compile and view player stats and possibly give you "predicted" hilights, based on existing stats.
Anyway, it seems like the real-time rendering for games has yet to tap it full potential of uses outside the traditional games world.
I agree that would be cool. But only a first step....
As far as the machine learning part goes, have it create "virtual" folders with messages sorted by content / threads, similar to how ximian evolution does; but have it be automatic; rather than a product of a filter. But why stop at email?
The kicker would be to have the email categories / topics, xref with browsing habits. Basically bookmarks and/or visited webpages would be categorized and listed in the same way; perhaps even your hard drive contents as well.
Basically the browser would become an extension to your memory in so much as if while you were sitting at your computer you saw some information on the screen, a record of that information would be kept so that you could find it again very quickly. Whether that info was in an email, a word processing document, a PDF, a website, an image, a google search, etc.
KDE's konqueror is the closest so far,because it can handle about a zillion protocols. You can browse local file systems, bookmark remote sites using FTP and SFTP -- I LOVE that), Google searches, PHP searches, etc, you can have multiple tabs of both local and remote browsing with different protocols, and each tab can be split into seperate window panes so you can open two (or more) website up in a single window. It is great having two websites within the same window side by side. Anyway because you can bookmark so many types of URLs, it is kind of a poor man's system of what I described; however it would greatly benifit if the "bookmarking" was done behind the scenes automatically.
Anyway Konquerors interface is a key component, and would make the machine learning stuff I mentioned above a VERY powerful tool.
In summary, it would be nice to see Firefox able to open many more tyes of documents, and to learn form them all. Then present multiple views of what it learned from my surfing / email / etc habits; based on either a local search, filters, dates, media types, authors, senders, arbitrry categories and topics, etc.
PHP does not depend on a webserver to run. It can be executed standalone just fine. I use it that way as a PERL replacement. No need for flame wars, I do still use PERL , the PHP stuff is for "backend" scripts on my webservers that share some common custom PHP libraries I have written as part of web applications, in so doing I eliminated the need to reimplement a lot of logic in PERL...Anyway that was off topic, the point is PHP does NOT need a webserver to run.
It makes no sense at all to me, to have a PDF created of handwritten notes. Since most students will probably just download and print out the PDF anyway. The only adavntage is it may save a few trees not everyone will print them out.
It sounds like the school wants to shift the production costs (i.e printing) to the students. This seems inefficient because the old way where the instructor could go to the copy center and have the notes copied the at the schools expense (I know these expenses are often passed along to the students anyway), rather than at the students DIRECT expense of their time for downloading, then printing out on their own equipment or using their own printing accounts at the computer center.
If the notes were being OCR'd and then made available on-line, or post processed in such a fashion (where they are searchable, indexed, etc) where they were searchable, it would be useful. Otherwise this seems like a waste of time and money.
-MS2k
Re:Upcoming Open Source Alternative to Google...
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Google Files for IPO
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· Score: 1
Even if an open source alternative did manage to become a legitimate competitor in the search world. It seems using open algorithms would make influencing the search results *MUCH* easier leading to a rise of search engine "SPAM" (cloned sites on multiple domains all interlinked) and other ways to artificially inflate the results/rankings.
Search engine algorithms, are the one thing that may be in the best interest to everyone of it is a closely guarded secret, as the a good algorithm implementation is what ensures unbiased results. Unbiased results to me are the single most important factor in a seach engine.
I did do a lot of seriously wrong things, like opened up regedit. Mixed and matched DLL from different flavors of the os (usually in an attempt to get an obscure piece of hardware to work). So doing something wrong is EXACTLY why I had to reinstall all the time. If you F up the registry you were and still are screwed. 6 years ago, I liked to poke around and learn stuff, and regedit was a favorite application. But I grew tired of every little mistake mucking things up. I assumed the audience here (ie Slashdot readers) were into monkeying around with the registry.
My grand parents Windows 95 machine still runs just fine after not being touched for 8 years. Granted all they do with it is Solitaire and light word processing (NO INTERNET). Of course, if you're not messing around and working within the specified and recommended usage patterns Windows should not break.
The other thing contributing to my endless headache was that I would spend a ton of time downloading and installing trial software and shareware (back before everything was spyware), and generally a bunch of software that never uninstalled cleanly. Eventually the registry was so bloated that it would take ten minutes to start up (granted it was a 486 DX4100 with a whopping 16MB Ram).
I should point out also that a lot of the time I did not "NEED" to install in the truest sense. I was usually able to survive the screw up, but fixing the screw up was usually a longer and more frustrating process than simply starting over.
Obvisously, times have changed, there are applications now better at cleaning up the mess the junk software makes. From what I know of my families computer habits, they are either installing new hardware / drivers all the time in an effort to improve speed for games, which still seems to cause a fair amount of problems at times. They NEVER buy a prebuilt system, they (as do I ) simply buy components and continually upgrade everything in the box. This has lead to the root of most of my personal computing problems, and I suspect a large number of my families issues.
Also to be clear, in the begining with Linux it WAS very much the same way. I would muck things up to the point where I could not correct them. Eventually I realized that there was usually a better way, and a quick Google search (or at the time Alta Vista or usenet) provided the answers. In my experience it was a lot easier to go down the road of disaster Windows 95/98/ME and to a lesser extent NT4.0 were sure a lot easier to permentently screw up.
Oh well, I started my own business so that besides dealing with my family, I don't have to deal with the bloated headache inducing sh*t spewed from Redmond. If you want to use it MS software, more power to you, just don't call me with problems unless your last name is Phillips;)
Because most of the time 1. you do not need to wipe and restart and 2. you are running a distribution you like because it includes the applications you like. Most Linux distro's will have the "must have" applications already there. That is one of the beuatiful things about free software. The distros can include popular applciations.
In fact Linux users are much more likely to have a top ten of applications they UNINSTALL after a fresh upgrade. I'm not that paranoid on my home PC, but I do nuke a lot of applications on the public servers I run.
Back to the post, when I used Windows regularly it was about once a month before I needed a clean install. I've been running Linux exclusively for about 6 years now, and have never had to do a regular "clean" install becaus of clutter ( a couple of times when I was a newbie, and fsck'd up though ). Now the only times I do "reinstall" are when the hardrive fails, or when i am exploring a new distribution.
As of now I am favoring Knoppix, which includes most everything out of the gate. I find the only things I "MUST" add are:
1. custom scripts i've written that help make it easier for me to maintain my quirky ways. 2. my data 3. custom configs for name servers, printers, X config (I run dual headed, so I usually have to tweak the X settings) etc
Since the internet and debian make installing things so easy, and Knoppix out of the box is pretty complete, I find that I don't have to install "must haves" until they are actually needed.
It really is nice when the desktop has an uptime in the 200-300 day range. I still get to go through the regular scheduled hard drive flushes vicariously through my Dad or brothers who have yet to seriously consider Linux. Their updates usually include a fair amount of swearing as drivers no longer work, and for some reason his network never works after a fresh install.
I usually hear about it when they call me to try to help, and I patiently explain for the umpteenth time that I have not used Windows for years, and this is a fine example of why (AKA I TOLD YOU SO). Then I offer my limited windows expertise and we generally get the system in question hobbled back together for a month or two until somebody else's computer is doomed to repeat the scenerio over again...
Make your presentation a bunch of images, put them in a directory then use a screen saver to roll through them, no keyboard / mouse required, and you get fancy effects for free! Be sure to lock the screen or better yet, unplug the keyboard and mouse after you turn the screen saver on.
I used a CD based linux distro (i believe knoppix) when I setup a similar system a while back. The images were stored on a CD in a second CD drive.
Anyway, set the PC in the window, and walk away....
-MS2k
They are the key to programming success.
on
PHP Template Engines?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I have been working on my own templating system / toolkit for quite a while. I use a central wrapper, and include "handlers" parse and handle various other PHP and non php data sources. Using this approach I can integrate other systems and seamlessly tie NUKE, PHPBB , PHPSHOP and other common php applications all with my own template engine.
My main purpose is to design interactive applications or "admin sites". I have code templates (seperate from the layout templates). That enable me to generate an decent looking application, with the ability to add/update/delete/browse/copy/update multiple records based on a mysql table in under an hour. I have code that builds a config file based on the database schema, and provides basic data validation for things like phone numbers, credit cards, date ranges, zip codes, etc. So when customers approach me with custom application requests 85-90% of the coding is done.
A side benifit for this is the business logic can be seperated from the infra-structure and templating logic, so the site are easily maintainable (and upgradable, since my template handler scripts, can be swappped out and upgraded). This also helps security, because I will disable certian handlers, based on the authenication level, and can store the handler scritps outside the web directory tree, so if you don't have the proper rights the file handler simply does not exist, or a lesser version of it does.
Another important benifit is that this extra layer of seperation, and pre-coded templates help me maintain a very consistent look across the various admin screen with very little effort (the html forms are automatically generated based on the DB schema, and the user defined config file). That way if you add a field to the database, it instantly appears in your application, no need to update HTML/PHP code, its all done automatically.
The vast majority of the core application is written and maintained by me. I distribute it to my clients under the GPL, but I have not formally released the application other than to people who are using it.
They can be slow, and cumbersome if they are too database dependent, but because the logic and data and layout are all well organized it is very easy to automatically create static pages if need be. (This is another feature of my toolset, albeit an incomplete one).
Anyway, without the structure of a templating system I would not be able to stay in business. I don't believe in plugging my business on slashdot. But, if you are really interested in knowing more you should be able to track me down via my slashdot info. Ask for Brandon:)
The problem is they don't put developers on the project to make their product better. They assign marketing droids to produce the crappy FUD linked to in the article. Unfortuantely their FUD machine is so weak, that it using an Apple Mac to make a PDF to tout how great their product is.
So basically they would rather spend $$ bashing the competition, rather than actually doing something about it.
This is just another example of their monopolistic thinking. They are trying to prevent a competitor from gaining acceptence, rather than focusing on their own products and making their product better.
Aren't police scanners just one-way radios? Isn't that what the original question was refering to?
My take was the EMS is simply passively monitoring the police frequencies and responding when needed. I was under the impression that they could not respond. It does sound like a fairly strange setup to me, but I admittedly know jack about EMS / POLICE protocols.
If you want to get your PowerBook on line at the office don't waste your time with firewire, just buy a cheap hub.
Use the right tool for the job. Firewire probably can be coersed into working, but it was not designed as a netwroking tool. Thus it will definately will be a lot bigger pain in the butt than simply using standard network tools.
I speak for e experience of trying to get an SLIP connection going between my desktop and my HP 200LX back in the day. I also wasted time with an old notebook and laplink parrellel cables, because I did not want to spend $200 at the time for a PCMCIA network card.
At last someone looks at the value of human life objectively. Our lives have an immeasurabley high value, but not so high that it is unthinkable to sacrifice one's life for the good of the group. It's just that our list of acceptable sacrifices is growing shorter.
Sacrifice your life saving your family = acceptable Sacrifice your life in defense of your country = acceptable Sacrifice your life in hopes of new discoveries = no
In the wake of the Challenger and Columbia disasters, there was such a loud outcry and long delays because NASA has to do everything it can to make space a safe place for people. Loss of life is simply unacceptable for us "civilized" westernerns.
Space is dangerous, there is risk and will always be risk. We have to keep trying, and keep learning, and the risk will go down. But it will always remain. Wasting billions of dollars to make it an old program a wee bit (percentage wise) safer is ludicrous. We should set LOWER safety standards, and encourage our government to risk lives and we will have progress in SPace exploration.
If we continue to place this high value on human lives we are doomed to low earth orbit for a long long time. We need to make dieing for scientific discovery as acceptible as dieing for terrorism. Heres a thought how much would we have learned if we lost the ~500 people attempting to establish colonies instead of fighting in Iraq?
True there are plenty of people opposed to the war. Though, I imagine a lot more people can accept 500 deaths as the price to eliminate "terrorism" and threats of biological/chemical/nuclear arms against the US and allies, than could the nebuolous cause of better all mankind through discovery.
Think back to the late 1400 and early 1500's. Our society was just leaving the dark ages, that set science and discovery back 500 years perhaps. We were waking up and things got done. At the time going across the ocean was a major risk, and often represented a one-way trip. We owe our modern western society to these early colonists and explorers.
Granted they did some horrible things in the process, but we learned (and continue to learn) from the mistakes of the past. If I had the opportunity to voluteer for a harsh hard life on mars, leaving my friends and family behind, I would do it. I would encourage my children to do it. Everyone is going to die, and I'd rather I have some say in how it happens.
Exploring in the long run is about survival of our species. All animals have the instinct to protect themselves, and to propogate. Adaptation and exploration are critical elements. As we, as a species, have gotten more intelligent we have become increasingly self centered on survival of the individual. Hence we place extremely high values on individual lives. For example, we often do things to our environment that are short sighted and produce positive effects for only a small subset of our population, while causing a negative effect for the larger community.
Anyway, I applaud someone who has the courage to at least propose the idea. Obviously it will not get far, as it would be way too controversial for any government (at least any Western Government) to support. Maybe the Chinese would consider it?
Another point worth mentioning is that while, we may not have the technology at the time we send them to bring them back. It is certainly possible that after a few years things will have progressed enough to send a "rescue" or retrieval mission. So if they can hold out a decade maybe there will be hope. . ..
I worked for a company that competed with those guys at the time, I guarantee we were doing it before Novemer 23, 1999. I was hired in May of 1999, and worked on some pieces of the back end almost as soon as I was hired.
We owned over 90% of the top 3000 surnames of medical doctors. I have long since removed files, and emails from that era. Unfortunately the way back machine didn't grab any of our sites until the fall of 2000. Though the sites at least explain the concept we were going after.
A little better proof is the formation date of the Z.md LLC, June of 1999. The original company name was z.md, before they decided to market to doctors. They formed an LLC in June 1999 to begin marketing the concept. See:
I was just a coder / admin, but I know the owners had a lot of legal work done, that included formal business plans which explained their concept in detail. So these guys definately are wasting time and $$.
Interestingly enough, my former boss is still involved with the first@last concept, this time with the.sr domain. see http://name.sr Though this most recent venture is too recent to do any good against a patent.
Oh well, it really is moot because the guys at netidentity were doing it before us.
Slashdot Mirror
The old Agenda VR1 met those specs 3 years ago.
There was a segment on one of the day-time shows a couple months ago. But it was a "Party" bike. Looks like a company in the US has been "pedaling' them for a while (sorry I could not resist). Though they aren't selling them per-se, rather using them as tourist gimic (which several New York readers have already pointed out.)
-MS2K
Our morality may set us apart, but morality is subjective, and ultimately arbitrary. And thus irrelevent in overall scheme of the universe.
In the end the earth will be a barren wasteland one-way or another. Nature WILL ultimately destroy the planet.
So thinking along the natural vs. unnatural argument is moot. If we believed that strictly if there are people around when the sun expands or a giant astroid hits should those people try to stop Nature if they have the technology to?
I bet if in the several billion years down the road people are around, and have the technology to add nuclear feul to a star, or move a planets orbit or whatever other unimaginable technology to save the day they would try and do it to save whats left of the "homeland".
Or nature could decide to do us in sooner, with a giant asteroid. Its pretty hypocritical in my opinion to plan to save the planet from the astroid, while at teh same time to condemning people from using land if it is needed.
If the rain forest is going to be oblierated anyway why bother? It boils down to darwin and survival of the fittest.
Plants and animals develop ways to defend themselves against us. Some do it very successfully (i.e. pesticide resistent bugs, drugs that are ineffective because the bateria / virus has evolved). In otherwords nature, DOES NOT CARE ABOUT US, one way or the other.
In a sense we are at war with nature, and will always be at war because there will ALWAYS be natural threats that could wipe out our species.
But lets get back to the morility issue. Why is it morally wrong to wipe out unknown species or even unimportant known ones; while at the same time it is fine to wipe out a disease like small pox?
Life is life, it does not matter the scale. We'll be pretty darn excited if we confirm a true Martian virus, wouldn't we? It would definately be "morally" wrong to kill our hypothetical Martian virus wouldn't it? Unless of course, it is a threat to us. then we'd all have Mars disinfectant spray sitting around.
It boils down to we will always look out for the best interest of our species. We may try to sugar coat it with morals and ethics, but the fact remians we are at the top of the food chain, and will try ot stay there.
If tearing down rain forest and killing ofother species is in the best interest of people then do it.
I personally DO NOT think it is; because, unlike most other species, we have the capacity to learn and expand our knowledge. We depend on knowledge to survive. Destroying things we do not fully understand is counter-productive.
Our intelligence also confuses us; because it makes us think we have extra "responsibilities" because of arbitrary morals, and ethics.
WRONG! Our morals and ethics are important because they help us function as a society (sometimes), but they may end up to be our downfall, since those same morals and ethics have diversified to the point where we have large populations of people with opposed morals and ethics, trying to condemn the other side.
In some ways I think morals and ethics is Nature using our intelligence against us.
So what we need to do is NOT worry about every little species out there, and should start focusing on preserving and prolonging our own species.
Is the environment important to people? Yes, so we need to take care of it. Is worrying about global warming important? Yes, so we need to keep an eye on it? Is a new species of primates important to us? Yes, they have value to our species.
So to complete the argument, humans number one survival skill is our intelligence. In order for us to survive we ne
Actually wouldn't that make things worse? The way things are going copyrights are eventually going to be perpetual. 15 years, is obvisously better than forever.
I am in no way saying I am in favor of patents on software, I just do not want to make things worse than the alread fsck'd system that currently exists.
The other thing that irks me about this is Kodak, is it is yet another company that has been bleeding badly, and thus turns to litigation to survive. Hopefully soon a judge and the judges above them will get a clue and realize software patents are ridiculous, and should not be allowed to survive.
Maybe someday a judge will be appointed that has a computer science background that will be able to see as plain as most programmers how wrong and misguided software patents are. Until then I know I'll never buy another Kodak product. . .
AMEN. The "John Edwards and I will pass..." respones were annoying. Kerry's answers were exactly what you would expect from a campaign. They offered no real insight, just stuck to safe statements that the majority of his potential voters likely agreed with.
To be objective, Bush's responses were much the same, in that they were targetted at his supporters. the key difference I saw though was he did back up his statements with examples of his actions. So at least he has concrete examples of doing something.
With Kerry the "will do"'s remind me a lot of the kids running for class president, saying they will get us longer lunch periods, longer times between class, and cheaper parking stickers. When we all know that the position has neither the mandate nor the authority to do any of those things.
Also, the nuclear weapons issue made me cringe. we have had the power and the technology to blow ourselves up many time over for the last 60 years. What has kept us from doing so is 1. staying ahead of the pack, and 2. continued research.
If we shelve everything we will just full behind, or apear to full behind. Then we would apprear vulnerable and thus become an even more appealing target to our enemies. I say "appear" because the likely scenerio is that the nuclear programs would be officially scrapped, then shifted to some blck budget operation so we look clean, but in reality it is the same old story. Just like when the bilogical weapons and chemical weapons were supposedly dismantled in the 60's and 70's.
Anyway, if Kerry were actually to follow through on the nuclear arms issue, we would be much worse off, by continuing to pursue those weapons technologies, the programs will at least remain more public and not be forced "underground". The more public it is the more checks and balances their will be in place to safe guard the use. If is secret, then the potential for abuse is much greater.
All in all this interview was IMO an excellent example of how naive Kerry is (or at least is appearing to be). Did he do anything as a Senator to back up his stated opinions? Did he sponsor any legislation that would fit with his agenda? Perhaps he did, and if he did why didn't he support his arguments with examples of actions?
-MS2k
Another instance where *most* Linux users are locked out of multimendia content. I have not triued firing up my codeweaver cross-over with it yet. But I am getting sick of "HAVING" to do that. . . .
It is a nice feeling, I have had the priveledge of doing that on several occassions. . . .
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As a side note, if I see one more 17" LCD running at 800x600 "because my eyes are not as good as they used to be" I will scream. I think the shitty look large icons, and fuzzy fonts are hurting the eyes a lot more than crisp clean sharp, yet smaller icons and fonts . .
oh well. . .
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a lot of attornies have billable time per quarter hour or is it tenths? I know that not all lawyers bill clients directly, but it seems to me that a great-many lawyers do look at the clock, at least every 15 minutes.
-MS2k
I am guess you or someone you love (or at least someone you live with) is a Detroit RedWings fan, as I can think of no othger logic answer to why you would have a purple octopus on your couch.
I think it would be cool if you could download (or even watch live NFL games over the internet) that are rendered using Madden...I know on the pre-game shows they have used game footage, but imagine a live stream for when your game is blacked out (DAMN NFL), or you are out-of-town.
Technically the games would not be being "rebroadcast" since the data used would be silly be facts describing the action as compiled by a person/computer on the scene. The video and audio track would be created on the fly. . . It would be neat to pause replay and view from multiple angles. Obviously though it would not be totally accurate, but it with some work could be close enough to be entertaining. It would beat the little game boxes on most websites thats for sure.
In time it could augment "real" radio play-by-play nicely. What I am thinking hear is the "audio" track comes from the live broadcasters, and the data stream broadcast digitally, this would probably only be available with the satellite radio broadcasts.
There could be a "fantasy" mode (in addition to the normal "broadcast") where you could watch your fantasy team play against your weekly opponent (or at least highlights of all your fantasy players) on demand. The system could also be used to compile and view player stats and possibly give you "predicted" hilights, based on existing stats.
Anyway, it seems like the real-time rendering for games has yet to tap it full potential of uses outside the traditional games world.
I agree that would be cool. But only a first step....
As far as the machine learning part goes, have it create "virtual" folders with messages sorted by content / threads, similar to how ximian evolution does; but have it be automatic; rather than a product of a filter. But why stop at email?
The kicker would be to have the email categories / topics, xref with browsing habits. Basically bookmarks and/or visited webpages would be categorized and listed in the same way; perhaps even your hard drive contents as well.
Basically the browser would become an extension to your memory in so much as if while you were sitting at your computer you saw some information on the screen, a record of that information would be kept so that you could find it again very quickly. Whether that info was in an email, a word processing document, a PDF, a website, an image, a google search, etc.
KDE's konqueror is the closest so far,because it can handle about a zillion protocols. You can browse local file systems, bookmark remote sites using FTP and SFTP -- I LOVE that), Google searches, PHP searches, etc, you can have multiple tabs of both local and remote browsing with different protocols, and each tab can be split into seperate window panes so you can open two (or more) website up in a single window. It is great having two websites within the same window side by side. Anyway because you can bookmark so many types of URLs, it is kind of a poor man's system of what I described; however it would greatly benifit if the "bookmarking" was done behind the scenes automatically.
Anyway Konquerors interface is a key component, and would make the machine learning stuff I mentioned above a VERY powerful tool.
In summary, it would be nice to see Firefox able to open many more tyes of documents, and to learn form them all. Then present multiple views of what it learned from my surfing / email / etc habits; based on either a local search, filters, dates, media types, authors, senders, arbitrry categories and topics, etc.
Good Luck
PHP does not depend on a webserver to run. It can be executed standalone just fine. I use it that way as a PERL replacement. No need for flame wars, I do still use PERL , the PHP stuff is for "backend" scripts on my webservers that share some common custom PHP libraries I have written as part of web applications, in so doing I eliminated the need to reimplement a lot of logic in PERL...Anyway that was off topic, the point is PHP does NOT need a webserver to run.
MS2k
*NOTE* I did not check AMD's website or the warranty card recently, but when I did I did not notice mention of this policy.
Anyway, I had an AMD return (using the "home"/retail) support department and they requested that I send the original cooling fan and heatsink.
Since I had the heatsink, and the CPU was over two years old I did not push the issue, BUT they did seem to have the same policy...
-MS2k
It makes no sense at all to me, to have a PDF created of handwritten notes. Since most students will probably just download and print out the PDF anyway. The only adavntage is it may save a few trees not everyone will print them out.
It sounds like the school wants to shift the production costs (i.e printing) to the students. This seems inefficient because the old way where the instructor could go to the copy center and have the notes copied the at the schools expense (I know these expenses are often passed along to the students anyway), rather than at the students DIRECT expense of their time for downloading, then printing out on their own equipment or using their own printing accounts at the computer center.
If the notes were being OCR'd and then made available on-line, or post processed in such a fashion (where they are searchable, indexed, etc) where they were searchable, it would be useful. Otherwise this seems like a waste of time and money.
-MS2k
Even if an open source alternative did manage to become a legitimate competitor in the search world. It seems using open algorithms would make influencing the search results *MUCH* easier leading to a rise of search engine "SPAM" (cloned sites on multiple domains all interlinked) and other ways to artificially inflate the results/rankings.
Search engine algorithms, are the one thing that may be in the best interest to everyone of it is a closely guarded secret, as the a good algorithm implementation is what ensures unbiased results. Unbiased results to me are the single most important factor in a seach engine.
I did do a lot of seriously wrong things, like opened up regedit. Mixed and matched DLL from different flavors of the os (usually in an attempt to get an obscure piece of hardware to work). So doing something wrong is EXACTLY why I had to reinstall all the time. If you F up the registry you were and still are screwed. 6 years ago, I liked to poke around and learn stuff, and regedit was a favorite application. But I grew tired of every little mistake mucking things up. I assumed the audience here (ie Slashdot readers) were into monkeying around with the registry.
;)
My grand parents Windows 95 machine still runs just fine after not being touched for 8 years. Granted all they do with it is Solitaire and light word processing (NO INTERNET). Of course, if you're not messing around and working within the specified and recommended usage patterns Windows should not break.
The other thing contributing to my endless headache was that I would spend a ton of time downloading and installing trial software and shareware (back before everything was spyware), and generally a bunch of software that never uninstalled cleanly. Eventually the registry was so bloated that it would take ten minutes to start up (granted it was a 486 DX4100 with a whopping 16MB Ram).
I should point out also that a lot of the time I did not "NEED" to install in the truest sense. I was usually able to survive the screw up, but fixing the screw up was usually a longer and more frustrating process than simply starting over.
Obvisously, times have changed, there are applications now better at cleaning up the mess the junk software makes. From what I know of my families computer habits, they are either installing new hardware / drivers all the time in an effort to improve speed for games, which still seems to cause a fair amount of problems at times. They NEVER buy a prebuilt system, they (as do I ) simply buy components and continually upgrade everything in the box. This has lead to the root of most of my personal computing problems, and I suspect a large number of my families issues.
Also to be clear, in the begining with Linux it WAS very much the same way. I would muck things up to the point where I could not correct them. Eventually I realized that there was usually a better way, and a quick Google search (or at the time Alta Vista or usenet) provided the answers. In my experience it was a lot easier to go down the road of disaster Windows 95/98/ME and to a lesser extent NT4.0 were sure a lot easier to permentently screw up.
Oh well, I started my own business so that besides dealing with my family, I don't have to deal with the bloated headache inducing sh*t spewed from Redmond. If you want to use it MS software, more power to you, just don't call me with problems unless your last name is Phillips
Because most of the time 1. you do not need to wipe and restart and 2. you are running a distribution you like because it includes the applications you like. Most Linux distro's will have the "must have" applications already there. That is one of the beuatiful things about free software. The distros can include popular applciations.
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In fact Linux users are much more likely to have a top ten of applications they UNINSTALL after a fresh upgrade. I'm not that paranoid on my home PC, but I do nuke a lot of applications on the public servers I run.
Back to the post, when I used Windows regularly it was about once a month before I needed a clean install. I've been running Linux exclusively for about 6 years now, and have never had to do a regular "clean" install becaus of clutter ( a couple of times when I was a newbie, and fsck'd up though ). Now the only times I do "reinstall" are when the hardrive fails, or when i am exploring a new distribution.
As of now I am favoring Knoppix, which includes most everything out of the gate. I find the only things I "MUST" add are:
1. custom scripts i've written that help make it easier for me to maintain my quirky ways.
2. my data
3. custom configs for name servers, printers, X config (I run dual headed, so I usually have to tweak the X settings) etc
Since the internet and debian make installing things so easy, and Knoppix out of the box is pretty complete, I find that I don't have to install "must haves" until they are actually needed.
It really is nice when the desktop has an uptime in the 200-300 day range. I still get to go through the regular scheduled hard drive flushes vicariously through my Dad or brothers who have yet to seriously consider Linux. Their updates usually include a fair amount of swearing as drivers no longer work, and for some reason his network never works after a fresh install.
I usually hear about it when they call me to try to help, and I patiently explain for the umpteenth time that I have not used Windows for years, and this is a fine example of why (AKA I TOLD YOU SO). Then I offer my limited windows expertise and we generally get the system in question hobbled back together for a month or two until somebody else's computer is doomed to repeat the scenerio over again..
Oh well, that's just my $.02
-MS2K
Make your presentation a bunch of images, put them in a directory then use a screen saver to roll through them, no keyboard / mouse required, and you get fancy effects for free! Be sure to lock the screen or better yet, unplug the keyboard and mouse after you turn the screen saver on.
I used a CD based linux distro (i believe knoppix) when I setup a similar system a while back. The images were stored on a CD in a second CD drive.
Anyway, set the PC in the window, and walk away....
-MS2k
I have been working on my own templating system / toolkit for quite a while. I use a central wrapper, and include "handlers" parse and handle various other PHP and non php data sources. Using this approach I can integrate other systems and seamlessly tie NUKE, PHPBB , PHPSHOP and other common php applications all with my own template engine.
:)
My main purpose is to design interactive applications or "admin sites". I have code templates (seperate from the layout templates). That enable me to generate an decent looking application, with the ability to add/update/delete/browse/copy/update multiple records based on a mysql table in under an hour. I have code that builds a config file based on the database schema, and provides basic data validation for things like phone numbers, credit cards, date ranges, zip codes, etc. So when customers approach me with custom application requests 85-90% of the coding is done.
A side benifit for this is the business logic can be seperated from the infra-structure and templating logic, so the site are easily maintainable (and upgradable, since my template handler scripts, can be swappped out and upgraded). This also helps security, because I will disable certian handlers, based on the authenication level, and can store the handler scritps outside the web directory tree, so if you don't have the proper rights the file handler simply does not exist, or a lesser version of it does.
Another important benifit is that this extra layer of seperation, and pre-coded templates help me maintain a very consistent look across the various admin screen with very little effort (the html forms are automatically generated based on the DB schema, and the user defined config file). That way if you add a field to the database, it instantly appears in your application, no need to update HTML/PHP code, its all done automatically.
The vast majority of the core application is written and maintained by me. I distribute it to my clients under the GPL, but I have not formally released the application other than to people who are using it.
They can be slow, and cumbersome if they are too database dependent, but because the logic and data and layout are all well organized it is very easy to automatically create static pages if need be. (This is another feature of my toolset, albeit an incomplete one).
Anyway, without the structure of a templating system I would not be able to stay in business. I don't believe in plugging my business on slashdot. But, if you are really interested in knowing more you should be able to track me down via my slashdot info. Ask for Brandon
-MS2k
The problem is they don't put developers on the project to make their product better. They assign marketing droids to produce the crappy FUD linked to in the article. Unfortuantely their FUD machine is so weak, that it using an Apple Mac to make a PDF to tout how great their product is.
So basically they would rather spend $$ bashing the competition, rather than actually doing something about it.
This is just another example of their monopolistic thinking. They are trying to prevent a competitor from gaining acceptence, rather than focusing on their own products and making their product better.
-MS2K
Aren't police scanners just one-way radios? Isn't that what the original question was refering to?
My take was the EMS is simply passively monitoring the police frequencies and responding when needed. I was under the impression that they could not respond. It does sound like a fairly strange setup to me, but I admittedly know jack about EMS / POLICE protocols.
If you want to get your PowerBook on line at the office don't waste your time with firewire, just buy a cheap hub.
Use the right tool for the job. Firewire probably can be coersed into working, but it was not designed as a netwroking tool. Thus it will definately will be a lot bigger pain in the butt than simply using standard network tools.
I speak for e experience of trying to get an SLIP connection going between my desktop and my HP 200LX back in the day. I also wasted time with an old notebook and laplink parrellel cables, because I did not want to spend $200 at the time for a PCMCIA network card.
The times have changed, take advantage of it.
MS2k
At last someone looks at the value of human life objectively. Our lives have an immeasurabley high value, but not so high that it is unthinkable to sacrifice one's life for the good of the group. It's just that our list of acceptable sacrifices is growing shorter.
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Sacrifice your life saving your family = acceptable
Sacrifice your life in defense of your country = acceptable
Sacrifice your life in hopes of new discoveries = no
In the wake of the Challenger and Columbia disasters, there was such a loud outcry and long delays because NASA has to do everything it can to make space a safe place for people. Loss of life is simply unacceptable for us "civilized" westernerns.
Space is dangerous, there is risk and will always be risk. We have to keep trying, and keep learning, and the risk will go down. But it will always remain. Wasting billions of dollars to make it an old program a wee bit (percentage wise) safer is ludicrous. We should set LOWER safety standards, and encourage our government to risk lives and we will have progress in SPace exploration.
If we continue to place this high value on human lives we are doomed to low earth orbit for a long long time. We need to make dieing for scientific discovery as acceptible as dieing for terrorism. Heres a thought how much would we have learned if we lost the ~500 people attempting to establish colonies instead of fighting in Iraq?
True there are plenty of people opposed to the war. Though, I imagine a lot more people can accept 500 deaths as the price to eliminate "terrorism" and threats of biological/chemical/nuclear arms against the US and allies, than could the nebuolous cause of better all mankind through discovery.
Think back to the late 1400 and early 1500's. Our society was just leaving the dark ages, that set science and discovery back 500 years perhaps. We were waking up and things got done. At the time going across the ocean was a major risk, and often represented a one-way trip. We owe our modern western society to these early colonists and explorers.
Granted they did some horrible things in the process, but we learned (and continue to learn) from the mistakes of the past. If I had the opportunity to voluteer for a harsh hard life on mars, leaving my friends and family behind, I would do it. I would encourage my children to do it. Everyone is going to die, and I'd rather I have some say in how it happens.
Exploring in the long run is about survival of our species. All animals have the instinct to protect themselves, and to propogate. Adaptation and exploration are critical elements. As we, as a species, have gotten more intelligent we have become increasingly self centered on survival of the individual. Hence we place extremely high values on individual lives. For example, we often do things to our environment that are short sighted and produce positive effects for only a small subset of our population, while causing a negative effect for the larger community.
Anyway, I applaud someone who has the courage to at least propose the idea. Obviously it will not get far, as it would be way too controversial for any government (at least any Western Government) to support. Maybe the Chinese would consider it?
Another point worth mentioning is that while, we may not have the technology at the time we send them to bring them back. It is certainly possible that after a few years things will have progressed enough to send a "rescue" or retrieval mission. So if they can hold out a decade maybe there will be hope. . .
For what its worth thats my take . .
MS2k
I worked for a company that competed with those guys at the time, I guarantee we were doing it before Novemer 23, 1999. I was hired in May of 1999, and worked on some pieces of the back end almost as soon as I was hired.
/ /w ww.drweb.md/1 45703/http://w ww.z.md/
i d_ nbr=B53759&name_entity=Z.MD,%20L.L.C.
.sr domain. see http://name.sr
We owned over 90% of the top 3000 surnames of medical doctors. I have long since removed files, and emails from that era. Unfortunately the way back machine didn't grab any of our sites until the fall of 2000. Though the sites at least explain the concept we were going after.
http://web.archive.org/web/20001018103649/http:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001017
A little better proof is the formation date of the Z.md LLC, June of 1999. The original company name was z.md, before they decided to market to doctors. They formed an LLC in June 1999 to begin marketing the concept. See:
http://www.cis.state.mi.us/bcs_corp/dt_llc.asp?
I was just a coder / admin, but I know the owners had a lot of legal work done, that included formal business plans which explained their concept in detail. So these guys definately are wasting time and $$.
Interestingly enough, my former boss is still involved with the first@last concept, this time with the
Though this most recent venture is too recent to do any good against a patent.
Oh well, it really is moot because the guys at netidentity were doing it before us.
-ms2k