There is an entire world of hardware hacking out there made possible by the open architecture of the PC. Go down to your local electronics jobber ( or Radio Shack if that's all your town has) and you will find everything you need to make your own interface cards from scratch.
Of course this takes a bit more skill and training than writing a "Hello World" program in VB or cutting a hole in the side of your case, but nonetheless, true hardware hacking is alive and well, even if not high profile in these days when widgets that feign transparency are mistaken for technology.
with the word 'induce.' There are those who also confuse 'induce' with 'incite.' I believe there are those that use such confusion willfully to further their own agendas as well.
The distinction is, in strictly legal terms, extremely important.
Executing a violent video game *causes* certain electronic phenomenon to occur in the machine.
Violent behaviour among minors is *caused* by the minor in question acting violently.
I'll even go so far as to defend the people who use it as a temp folder, * because that's what it is!* Just a temp folder with an "autorestore to its original site" script that happens to be named trash/recycle. It could be named George or Herbert, it doesn't matter.
The people who use it as a temp folder aren't the idiot users, they're the users who are smart enough to have seen through the facade of the interface and realize what *tool* the trash/recycle bin really is.
If it will make any if you who are bothered by this advanced insight on the part of some users any happier we can always just install *two* trashcans on every machine and name one of them "This is really another trashcan but we've named it George because some people get all bent out of shape by people using the one named trash the way it was designed to work, go figure."
There is no such thing as sympathetic magic, things are what they *do,* names have no power and are arbitrary. Join the age of reason brother.
KFG
Basically I agree and believe you deserve the mods
on
Undelete In Linux
·
· Score: 2
But, I'll point out that deleting the wrong JPEG can certainly break apps that haven't had their error handling written properly. The difference is you and I know how to recover and replace that JPEG even if it has truely been nuked from our systems. Not everyone does. I'd say that's the "comfort difference" between us and "Joe-user."
I'd also point out that moving a file to a tmp folder is *using a trashcan/recycle bin,* you just don't think of it that way. . . and neither does Joe-user, which I guess is half the point. When I first booted up Linux and realized, " Ah, no trashcan," it took nearly a whole second to think, " Well, if I want one all I have to do is make a directory named 'My Trashcan like Place' ( or George, or whatever)and alias rm to mv foo George." But then I wasn't your typical newbie.
Ok, to make it a full blown trashcan some sort of simple database to track where each file came from to effect automatic restores is also needed for Joe-user ( renaming it foo./bar/fred/barney works for me on those rare occasions when I think this is necessary), but the basic idea is simple and to me was obvious and trivial to effect. I guess to Joe-user it isn't.
But as you say, if it isn't the default behaviour, and needn't even be installed on *your* machine, who gives a damn? Are we going to start sending out " You moved that file to a tmp folder instead of deleting it" police?
before the US lets go of the past, that's why we're rattling swords to bomb Iraq and won't rest until Afghanistan is a US 'protectorate.'
We're still kinda sore at Mexico too for putting up such a fight at defending 'our' land.
The past created the present, and will create the future, and there's plenty of blame to go around. If everyone wants to shake hands and make friends that'll be ok by me, but you'll have to convince 'them' to go along.
Although oddly enough, even though it's called the "Silk Road," what mostly came back from China was tea and laquerware, silk was too expensive, even for royalty, to make much of a trade route.
But the *real* reason for the road east was India and *pepper,* India gave the world most of its spices. The upper classes could live without silk, but it would be damned if it would live without pepper.
On the other hand you shouldn't necessarily ignore what you 'learn' in school either. Personally, I fooled them by not going and read books instead.
As it happens opium is European, first discovered and cultivated in the Mediteranian basin and introduced to the Middle East by the Greeks. The forced trade of opium to China is perhaps the most sordid event in all of human history, not excluding the purges of Stalin and Mao.
The 'West' has a shitload of apologizing to do before it can preach 'human rights' to China.
came up with are gunpowder, clocks, noodles, nearly all of our domesticated livestock, nearly all of our decorative flowers and plants, civil government by competitive examination, cotton, silk, Lacquer, the compass, paper, printing, paper money, kites, riding horeses, the horse collar, the plow, the princple of the helicopter, the wheelbarrow, matches, medicine, . . . etc., etc., etc..
Just who is standing on who's shoulders? Why on earth do you think people bothered the risk of the "Silk Road?"
Not to mention the fact that in modern times Chinese researchers have walked off with genuine Nobel Prizes.
Don't mistake China with China's government of the mere last 50 years or so.
KFG
Re:There was an Ask Slashdot a while back. . .
on
Engineer in a Box?
·
· Score: 1
Note that in school you went to the lab and broke shit. Of course it isn't practical to crash test every design, but sometimes, if you aren't careful, you're likely to "crash test" something you didn't intend to, like a suspension bridge. But it's less likely the more time you've spent breaking things before.
I'm not knocking the books, the math or the programs. I'm an "old timer" who showed up at my first classes with a slide rule and I'm damned glad these nifty little desktop machines do the grunt work.
And I'll stand by my statement that the real engineering starts when something breaks that wasn't expected to, like the Tocoma Narrows bridge. Everything *in* the books got there because someone broke something, sometime, somewhere.
And if they don't run screaming from the room you know you've got some future geeks on your hand.:)
KFG
Re:There was an Ask Slashdot a while back. . .
on
Engineer in a Box?
·
· Score: 1
S'ok, we can switch to the McDonald's "Fatty" suit instead.:)
KFG
Re:There was an Ask Slashdot a while back. . .
on
Engineer in a Box?
·
· Score: 2
Actually, that's what *will* happen. After all, it's McDonald's fault that their coffee burned you if you tried to drink it while driving and spilled it on your lap.
What I'm *saying* is that that's bullshit. It's the engineer's job to use software as a tool, not as a substitute for personal skill and understanding.
KFG
There was an Ask Slashdot a while back. . .
on
Engineer in a Box?
·
· Score: 2
where someone asked how he could gain some basic engineering skills if it wasn't his intent to go to school to become an engineer, just for the purpose of becoming more skilled than average at designing and making things about the home workshop.
I advised him to go out on trash day and collect all the broom handles and angle iron ( bed frames) he could find and simply play about at making structures from them.
While a few people understood what I was about I was amazed, and somewhat distressed, at the invective I also received from that simple suggestion.
Engineering is about understanding structures, and the materials that make them, in every day use. There is no way you can learn this from a book. It requires that you " get your hands dirty" and build some actual structures, with actual materials. That's why engineering schools have programs like Formula SAE.
If you don't believe me have another look at your.avi of "Galloping Gertie."
It ain't all in the books, and it ain't all going to be in no software package.
When do you actually begin to be an engineer? Not when you get your degree. Not when you get your first job in the field.
You *first* begin to be an engineer when you design and build a project * and it fails!* And when the stadium dome or the car you designed fails and someone dies you damn well better learn to be an engineer in a hurry or it's the fry machine for the rest of your working life, and I defy any software package not simply being used as a tool by thinking, *experienced* engineers to figure out why something it said would work. ..didn't.
You're absolutely correct, but when your job consists solely of those items you'll be making a couple of bucks over minimum wage.
When the elite becomes commonplace so does the salary. Every CS degree times every "ease of use" advancement equals a devaluation of the labor.
This is nothing new. The first few operators of a cotton gin were highly paid specialists, now it's unskilled labor delegated to the 'kid' who just applied for work.
Get used to it, if you're under 25 you may have to live through the same cycle three more times in your working lifespan.
Now, now, now, now, now, and I'm going to hold my breath until I get it!
*Thud*
In the words of Scotty, " I canna change the laws of physics Cap'n."
Honestly people, what sort of harm are you actually going to come to by having to wait to watch a movie until you receive it?
Hey, here's what I do. I walk to my library ( 5 minutes each way) and take out three videos. They already have more in stock than I can watch in what remains of my lifetime and the collection grows daily. If I do this early in the morning I can watch all three, return them, and take out three more, watch them and then repeat that one more time, making the last return the next morning when I return for three more to start my day. Repeat until death.
Pretty good "bandwith," and ecologically friendly too.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm, yeah. Wrenches, hammers and software applications are nonsentient objects.
If someone chooses to attempt driving a finishing brad with a sledgehammer you can pretty much bet that anyone witnessing said event will refer to the *user* as being "Dumb as a bag of rocks," not the hammer. The hammer's lack of cognitive ablility is taken as an axiom.
However, a brad hammer pretty much "sucks" as a device for driving railroad spikes.
You can try a personal test of this principle next time you return to your work station at the frier by selecting your hand as scooping tool. I don't think even a California jury will have much sympathy for your resulting lawsuit.
Why yes, I do. In fact, all the "kids" are retarded up to a certain point. Have you ever written a nontrivial application that was pefection itself on first draught?
The answer is simple enough, and I note that you have availed yourself of it, register and score a goal. Even in a sporting event you must *register.* How else are they going to figure out *who* did what in the game and deserves what merits or penalties?
Posting as an AC essentially says " I *don't intend* to take personal credit for my actions, bad or good."
One can view an individual post as existing on its own, or as participating in a community. With regards to the subject of the *news story* we're dicussing posting as it relates to community. If posts are to be viewed as individual entities everyone should be AC.
One of the things that distinguishes/. as a community though is the fact that participation is entirely *voluntary,* even for AC's.
KFG
Why is it that everyone seems to lose. . .
on
IBM, MS Critique MySQL
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
sight of the fact that MySQL was never intended as an "Enterprise" DBMS?
Look at the very top of the O'Reilly book. What does it say there?
"Databases for Moderate-Sized Organizations & Websites"
Please note that it doesn't say:
"This is a free product that kicks Oracle's ass"
It is explicitly intended to be, and I quote:
"Inexpensive, lightweight and fast."
To accomplish this they restrict themselves to a subset of the SQL language.
Why do you think that *adjustable* wrenches come in different sizes? If they're adjustable wouldn't you just get the biggest one and use it for everything? That philosophy might seem like a good idea, until you try to turn a 6mm *aluminum* nut with a 14" wrench!
It's OK for tools to come in different sizes and types. Pick (are you ready for it?) the *right tool for the right job.*
Does MySQL suck? For many particular jobs, sure, but that's the fault of the person who attempted to use it for those jobs. Conversely, there are situations and jobs for which it is everything *but* MySQL that sucks.
I just don't get the *one true DBMS* holy wars. Diversity be good. Monolithism be bad. Get with the program.
Thank you sir, I couldn't have said it better myself.
The only thing you left out is that should you ulitmately succed in your appeal you *still* won't be able to travel, you will be bankrupt, unemployed and unemployable and with your entire life in tatters.
It's the oldest "law enforcment" trick in the book.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an entire world of hardware hacking out there made possible by the open architecture of the PC. Go down to your local electronics jobber ( or Radio Shack if that's all your town has) and you will find everything you need to make your own interface cards from scratch.
Of course this takes a bit more skill and training than writing a "Hello World" program in VB or cutting a hole in the side of your case, but nonetheless, true hardware hacking is alive and well, even if not high profile in these days when widgets that feign transparency are mistaken for technology.
KFG
with the word 'induce.' There are those who also confuse 'induce' with 'incite.' I believe there are those that use such confusion willfully to further their own agendas as well.
The distinction is, in strictly legal terms, extremely important.
Executing a violent video game *causes* certain electronic phenomenon to occur in the machine.
Violent behaviour among minors is *caused* by the minor in question acting violently.
KFG
I'll even go so far as to defend the people who use it as a temp folder, * because that's what it is!* Just a temp folder with an "autorestore to its original site" script that happens to be named trash/recycle. It could be named George or Herbert, it doesn't matter.
The people who use it as a temp folder aren't the idiot users, they're the users who are smart enough to have seen through the facade of the interface and realize what *tool* the trash/recycle bin really is.
If it will make any if you who are bothered by this advanced insight on the part of some users any happier we can always just install *two* trashcans on every machine and name one of them "This is really another trashcan but we've named it George because some people get all bent out of shape by people using the one named trash the way it was designed to work, go figure."
There is no such thing as sympathetic magic, things are what they *do,* names have no power and are arbitrary. Join the age of reason brother.
KFG
But, I'll point out that deleting the wrong JPEG can certainly break apps that haven't had their error handling written properly. The difference is you and I know how to recover and replace that JPEG even if it has truely been nuked from our systems. Not everyone does. I'd say that's the "comfort difference" between us and "Joe-user."
I'd also point out that moving a file to a tmp folder is *using a trashcan/recycle bin,* you just don't think of it that way. . . and neither does Joe-user, which I guess is half the point. When I first booted up Linux and realized, " Ah, no trashcan," it took nearly a whole second to think, " Well, if I want one all I have to do is make a directory named 'My Trashcan like Place' ( or George, or whatever)and alias rm to mv foo George." But then I wasn't your typical newbie.
Ok, to make it a full blown trashcan some sort of simple database to track where each file came from to effect automatic restores is also needed for Joe-user ( renaming it foo./bar/fred/barney works for me on those rare occasions when I think this is necessary), but the basic idea is simple and to me was obvious and trivial to effect. I guess to Joe-user it isn't.
But as you say, if it isn't the default behaviour, and needn't even be installed on *your* machine, who gives a damn? Are we going to start sending out " You moved that file to a tmp folder instead of deleting it" police?
Any controversy over this is just plain silly.
KFG
before the US lets go of the past, that's why we're rattling swords to bomb Iraq and won't rest until Afghanistan is a US 'protectorate.'
We're still kinda sore at Mexico too for putting up such a fight at defending 'our' land.
The past created the present, and will create the future, and there's plenty of blame to go around. If everyone wants to shake hands and make friends that'll be ok by me, but you'll have to convince 'them' to go along.
KFG
Although oddly enough, even though it's called the "Silk Road," what mostly came back from China was tea and laquerware, silk was too expensive, even for royalty, to make much of a trade route.
But the *real* reason for the road east was India and *pepper,* India gave the world most of its spices. The upper classes could live without silk, but it would be damned if it would live without pepper.
KFG
On the other hand you shouldn't necessarily ignore what you 'learn' in school either. Personally, I fooled them by not going and read books instead.
As it happens opium is European, first discovered and cultivated in the Mediteranian basin and introduced to the Middle East by the Greeks. The forced trade of opium to China is perhaps the most sordid event in all of human history, not excluding the purges of Stalin and Mao.
The 'West' has a shitload of apologizing to do before it can preach 'human rights' to China.
KFG
came up with are gunpowder, clocks, noodles, nearly all of our domesticated livestock, nearly all of our decorative flowers and plants, civil government by competitive examination, cotton, silk, Lacquer, the compass, paper, printing, paper money, kites, riding horeses, the horse collar, the plow, the princple of the helicopter, the wheelbarrow, matches, medicine, . . . etc., etc., etc..
Just who is standing on who's shoulders? Why on earth do you think people bothered the risk of the "Silk Road?"
Not to mention the fact that in modern times Chinese researchers have walked off with genuine Nobel Prizes.
Don't mistake China with China's government of the mere last 50 years or so.
KFG
Note that in school you went to the lab and broke shit. Of course it isn't practical to crash test every design, but sometimes, if you aren't careful, you're likely to "crash test" something you didn't intend to, like a suspension bridge. But it's less likely the more time you've spent breaking things before.
I'm not knocking the books, the math or the programs. I'm an "old timer" who showed up at my first classes with a slide rule and I'm damned glad these nifty little desktop machines do the grunt work.
And I'll stand by my statement that the real engineering starts when something breaks that wasn't expected to, like the Tocoma Narrows bridge. Everything *in* the books got there because someone broke something, sometime, somewhere.
KFG
And if they don't run screaming from the room you know you've got some future geeks on your hand. :)
KFG
S'ok, we can switch to the McDonald's "Fatty" suit instead. :)
KFG
Actually, that's what *will* happen. After all, it's McDonald's fault that their coffee burned you if you tried to drink it while driving and spilled it on your lap.
What I'm *saying* is that that's bullshit. It's the engineer's job to use software as a tool, not as a substitute for personal skill and understanding.
KFG
where someone asked how he could gain some basic engineering skills if it wasn't his intent to go to school to become an engineer, just for the purpose of becoming more skilled than average at designing and making things about the home workshop.
.avi of "Galloping Gertie."
.didn't.
I advised him to go out on trash day and collect all the broom handles and angle iron ( bed frames) he could find and simply play about at making structures from them.
While a few people understood what I was about I was amazed, and somewhat distressed, at the invective I also received from that simple suggestion.
Engineering is about understanding structures, and the materials that make them, in every day use. There is no way you can learn this from a book. It requires that you " get your hands dirty" and build some actual structures, with actual materials. That's why engineering schools have programs like Formula SAE.
If you don't believe me have another look at your
It ain't all in the books, and it ain't all going to be in no software package.
When do you actually begin to be an engineer? Not when you get your degree. Not when you get your first job in the field.
You *first* begin to be an engineer when you design and build a project * and it fails!* And when the stadium dome or the car you designed fails and someone dies you damn well better learn to be an engineer in a hurry or it's the fry machine for the rest of your working life, and I defy any software package not simply being used as a tool by thinking, *experienced* engineers to figure out why something it said would work. .
KFG
You're absolutely correct, but when your job consists solely of those items you'll be making a couple of bucks over minimum wage.
When the elite becomes commonplace so does the salary. Every CS degree times every "ease of use" advancement equals a devaluation of the labor.
This is nothing new. The first few operators of a cotton gin were highly paid specialists, now it's unskilled labor delegated to the 'kid' who just applied for work.
Get used to it, if you're under 25 you may have to live through the same cycle three more times in your working lifespan.
KFG
Now, now, now, now, now, and I'm going to hold my breath until I get it!
*Thud*
In the words of Scotty, " I canna change the laws of physics Cap'n."
Honestly people, what sort of harm are you actually going to come to by having to wait to watch a movie until you receive it?
Hey, here's what I do. I walk to my library ( 5 minutes each way) and take out three videos. They already have more in stock than I can watch in what remains of my lifetime and the collection grows daily. If I do this early in the morning I can watch all three, return them, and take out three more, watch them and then repeat that one more time, making the last return the next morning when I return for three more to start my day. Repeat until death.
Pretty good "bandwith," and ecologically friendly too.
KFG
Petrify Natalie Portman's pants, i.e.:
"Never underestimate all your base in a beowulf cluster of hot grits down Natalie Portman's petrified pants!"
Please forgive the correct capitalization and puctuation in the above, I'm just not feeling very "133t" today.
KFG
*Thank* you.
KFG
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm, yeah. Wrenches, hammers and software applications are nonsentient objects.
If someone chooses to attempt driving a finishing brad with a sledgehammer you can pretty much bet that anyone witnessing said event will refer to the *user* as being "Dumb as a bag of rocks," not the hammer. The hammer's lack of cognitive ablility is taken as an axiom.
However, a brad hammer pretty much "sucks" as a device for driving railroad spikes.
You can try a personal test of this principle next time you return to your work station at the frier by selecting your hand as scooping tool. I don't think even a California jury will have much sympathy for your resulting lawsuit.
KFG
Why yes, I do. In fact, all the "kids" are retarded up to a certain point. Have you ever written a nontrivial application that was pefection itself on first draught?
They call it trial and *error* for a reason.
KFG
I suggest you read "The Little Prince," paying particular attention to his dialog with the King.
KFG
The answer is simple enough, and I note that you have availed yourself of it, register and score a goal. Even in a sporting event you must *register.* How else are they going to figure out *who* did what in the game and deserves what merits or penalties?
/. as a community though is the fact that participation is entirely *voluntary,* even for AC's.
Posting as an AC essentially says " I *don't intend* to take personal credit for my actions, bad or good."
One can view an individual post as existing on its own, or as participating in a community. With regards to the subject of the *news story* we're dicussing posting as it relates to community. If posts are to be viewed as individual entities everyone should be AC.
One of the things that distinguishes
KFG
sight of the fact that MySQL was never intended as an "Enterprise" DBMS?
Look at the very top of the O'Reilly book. What does it say there?
"Databases for Moderate-Sized Organizations & Websites"
Please note that it doesn't say:
"This is a free product that kicks Oracle's ass"
It is explicitly intended to be, and I quote:
"Inexpensive, lightweight and fast."
To accomplish this they restrict themselves to a subset of the SQL language.
Why do you think that *adjustable* wrenches come in different sizes? If they're adjustable wouldn't you just get the biggest one and use it for everything? That philosophy might seem like a good idea, until you try to turn a 6mm *aluminum* nut with a 14" wrench!
It's OK for tools to come in different sizes and types. Pick (are you ready for it?) the *right tool for the right job.*
Does MySQL suck? For many particular jobs, sure, but that's the fault of the person who attempted to use it for those jobs. Conversely, there are situations and jobs for which it is everything *but* MySQL that sucks.
I just don't get the *one true DBMS* holy wars. Diversity be good. Monolithism be bad. Get with the program.
KFG
Thank you sir, I couldn't have said it better myself.
The only thing you left out is that should you ulitmately succed in your appeal you *still* won't be able to travel, you will be bankrupt, unemployed and unemployable and with your entire life in tatters.
It's the oldest "law enforcment" trick in the book.
KFG
So is it your premise that when the ballgame starts everyone should be credited with a goal up front?
KFG
No, zero is the, ummmmmmm, zero point. One would be receiving a benifit not yet earned. If they started at -1 they would have received a penalty.
Unlike the way some people think these days the lack of being given a bonus is *NOT* the same as a penalty.
KFG