great. yet another example of technology humanity is not mature enough for, yet keeps rushing into
You know, when you made this statement, it triggered something in my mind about those first manned space flights which eventually lead us to the moon.   When you look at the technology that they had then (or lack thereof compared to what we have today), it makes you wonder how we ever did it.   And there are those out there who believe we really didn't do it...;-).   And now that we really do have all the "right stuff" to go to the moon and do some exploring, it's passe (in fact, it became passe after the first couple of moon shots, unfortunately).
I guess I say this in terms of how humanity stumbles along after a dream, and often gets burned in the process, but the dream eventually does become reality...   This whole nanotechnology field is really still an "on paper" thing but leave it to us humans to "make it so" anyway...
You don't think that enhanced human ability isn't a viable market? PLEASE!!
If you look at the current underground "body part", ie., organ donor "market", you will only see a tiny percentage who have the funds to participate in such a thing - let alone participate in a venture like human "enhancement" (and when I say "human enhancement", I mean - a totally engineered "human" - not necessarily genetic enhancement to cure a medical defect or for cosmetic purposes).   "PCs" are a "viable market" because the "average" consumers now have the ability to afford them, particularly in the "used" marketplace.   But a marketplace that might produce entire "societies" of disparate, genetically-enhanced super humans who would wage war on the rest of us - I just don't see any time soon.
And let me clarify my thoughts on this - genetic "super humans" will happen, but not in the forseeable future.   It is an idealist's view that it would happen sooner (as in this subject's call to those in their 20s to comment on something 50 years from now) but as a pragmatist, I just don't see it, even if the morality issues were somehow reconciled.   And I'm still waiting for my flying car by the way, even though I know the average person can barely drive in 1 dimension, let alone 3 (which was hillariously illustrated by Bruce Willis (in I think "Event Horizon").   I also look forward to warp drive being invented in 2061 although I won't be here to see it... -)
... any time soon?   I think we've read and watched alot of sci-fi and then try to be pundits in predicting in what direction technology will go.   How many World's Fairs predicted that there would be flying "cars" and space stations on the moon in our current time (and as we obviously know - none of that has happened)?   How many stories and shows like Star Trek describe stuff like "Eugenics Wars" (which according to ST's fictional timeline, was supposed to have happened between genetically-enhanced "super humans" and everyone else in 1996?).   How many of you have videophones (that have been out since the '60s)?
Bottom line - the industry (whether genetic or other technology-based) is market and money-driven.   When the market is viable, then the product gets put out there.   You can expect alot of medical-related, genetically derived products (and the food products are already available) but genetically "enhanced" humans are some time off.   Sure "test tube" babies have become more common and sure, there will always be corporations out there who will experiment and will probably "create" such a genetically-enhanced "human" (would they then be "human" if artificially created - but that's a side issue), but the morality discussions (and indeed, sci-fi stories extrapolating the consequences) may serve to drive the whole issue into a direction unforeseen by us at this time.
If such a law were to come about, just as the gov't decided to "grandfather" such drugs as aspirin as something that had been in existence before the law (whereby every company back when the Food & Drug laws were first passed, claimed they "invented" aspirin), so too should alot of these computer-based techniques (such as Amazon's claim for the cookie) be "grandfathered".   Then you can begin again from that point.
We have seen time and time again, software companies applying for patents for internet technology that has been existence for years.   Something has to stop this practice now and allow everyone to start fresh in a level playing field with patent reviewers who are a bit more knowledgeable about the technology.
This isn't as "noninvasive" as you might think. Some DVD players have an electrically-erasable ROM in them, they can only be erased and reset a few times.
I want to echo what this AC has posted.   I can't speak for what might happen on a PS2, but if it functions like the "typical" DVD players, you generally are restricted to setting and resetting the regional coding a certain number of times - usually 10, but in some cases 5.
Last fall, I purchased a Pioneer DVD drive for my PC that dual-boots Mandrake 6.5 and Win98 and decodes with a Creative dxr3 card.   Installed it, popped in a Region 1 (U.S., blah) DVD, and it promptly refused to play it.   After some more putzing around with it and thinking that it had been set for the wrong Region code (it was purchased from a surplus place), I found Pioneer's region-code utility here.   Soon as I ran it, I discovered that the DVD player was not set for ANY Region!   Sounds great huh?   But only if you have a DVD that is not encoded with a Region...   and there are a few out there but not many as yet.   So I ran the utility, set it for Region 1, and I was good to go.   But again, most of these units have a limit on how many times you can change the encoding before you're stuck!
... in the U.S., if we don't keep discussions like this going...
We have PIII chips with traceable serial nos., M$ Word documents with traceable serial nos., doubleclick.com with traceable cooking-planting nos., blah.
Looking at the article's description of a massive series of "fire-wall like" censor boxes, don't be surprised if something like that happens here.   Here, it doesn't have to be "political" to be censored   And let me say this in terms of what's happening with the discussions of restricting access to things like Napster in an attempt to not only save bandwidth but to "catch" those illegally trading copyrighted MP3s.   But it hurts those who are legitimately trading public domain stuff.   And also note that many of the pr0n web filters inadvertantly filter out legitimate medical searches and such.
I expect as long as you have a "free and open" media such as the internet (web, BBS, USENET, email, etc.), we can at least bring out the issues and keep the net unrestricted.   I think the restriction should be at the user's discretion (and at their PC if they choose), not at the gov'ts.
Can't think of the name of it off hand but will look it up in a hurry unless someone already knows it and posts...
Replying to my own post!   Found the name of the parallel port ethernet adapter - ADDTRON.   Supposedly the DE-420, 450, & 600 are supported on Linux.
There is an ethernet card that is supported by Linux that attaches to a parallel port.   It's pretty steep in price (around US$100+) though.   One of my buddies was considering buying it since his old XIRCOM parallel port wasn't supported.
Can't think of the name of it off hand but will look it up in a hurry unless someone already knows it and posts...
I thought it was a pretty much foregone conclusion that Mars once had a very different environment than it has now, maybe not exactly like Earth, but with a much more substantial atmosphere and water.   Witness the ice on the poles...   but also note the proximity to the asteroid belt...
I guess that will always be a hypothesis until proven though...
If you are using Wintel, that's all you need to do (there is no maintenance).
;-)   Now I don't know nuthin' about Motorola's EPROMs but I do know some 3COMs that tend to lose their little minds (as I noted previously) meaning that all that stuff programmed into them (routing paths, helpers, etc) go bye bye.   Meaning maintenance.   Plus router software versions change constantly, so you need to keep that updated AND it would be prudent that all your router boxes on the same net have the same software version.   Add to all this the fact that there is a severe shortage of WAN "experts" amongst the ISPs and I can see big problems ahead if this thing gets out there en masse.
Because of stuff like configuration wipes that can occur, I miss having routers with some kind of floppy or even flash card (although you introduce the possibility of a "mechanical" failure as opposed to having a memory-based configuration).
And I still have the concern about DDoSing because other than having those zombie Linux boxes out there, the latest DDoS attacks were magnified by misconfigured routers.
I currently have a Motorola CYBERSUFR cable modem with a Linux box attached doing masquerading and firewalling for my home LAN, and have had nothing but praise for it (and had heard about something like this coming out).   But my concern deals with putting a router in a box like this...   who will be expected to maintain it?   The ISP?   I can't picture Joe Q. User trying to configure a router box if it loses it's little mind.   And imagine the average user base of a cable modem provider (thousands) and the number of staff to try to support them and some new router box (very few).
I also have concern regarding the amount of DDoS that could occur when you put something like that out there...   Imagine what a cracker could do to this thing....
Note that the site brags about being/.ed back in December.   I guess it'll happen again real soon now...   Glad I got to it before the effect occurred! -)
It's good to see some "competition" to VMware.   I like having choices.
Is Mozilla then a good representative of the OSS world? The Mozilla team is primarily Netscape engineers rather than the Internet users, as was initially imagined. So do we want to be associated with it? No major OSS project takes such consistent thrashings, and I wonder how well it reflects on the other projects.
I think you just targeted part of the problem in your statement, ie., the fact that quite a few "insiders" were doing this rather than the OSS community in general.
One of the biggest impetuses that brings much of the OS Software to its highest quality is, as ESR has eloquently put it (paraphrase) - it's the programmer's desire to "scratch an itch".   If you don't have that desire from inside yourself, then it's just a job but not your job.
In all fairness to the Netscape people, they were designated as the "poster company" for Open Source and alot of us trying to push it in our jobs point to Netscape's decision.   In addition, the Mozilla group made a decison to start from scratch with the code, and they've basically built a "new" (in quotes) browser from the ground up.
One might want to compare them with a Sun, who has taken over the maintenance of StarOffice, to maybe see a different perspective on how a major company handles the Open Source phenomena.   Maybe Sun is not a good example for the moment, but time will tell on how they deal with their new product.
What I wanna know is, does this also work with red grapes? Do seeded grapes produce a different effect? and What kind of wine would result from the fermentation of said grapes? Charred-donnay?
It should work with red grapes too, or anything else conducting and about the right size and sliced so that it has a thin membrane in the middle of the "antenna".
Fun with Grapes - A case study: II
Last updated March 6, 2000
Author
JDax
Abstract
Per the previous Fun with Grapes - A case study, this study was performed to validate it, as a good little scientist should.
Introduction
No need to do that and become redundant.   Read the one here
Materials Required
One seedless red grape (genus - ??? does it matter?)
Microwave-safe plate (I guess it is, I'll know when it explodes)
Knife (sharp!)
Microwave oven (umm.. OH!   it's a GE 600W with turntable)
Upon setting said microwave to "HI" for 40 seconds, the first sparks began at exactly 32 seconds in the countdown.   Sproadic on and off sparks were observed until approximately 8 seconds left on the clock when a magnificent FLARE occurred and lasted approximately 2 seconds, followed be a few intermittant sparks until said microwave cycle ended.
Discussion and Conclusions
Cool!   One whole half of the grape was neatly burnt up.   The plate didn't break (at least yet) and the two halves separated approximately 1.5 cm from each other.   Sorry no pictures, my digital camera's battery is dead.
> According to the scoring guide, your slashdot experience level is: JonKatz Wannabe
Is that better or worse than a "First Post"?   Heeheehee.
Okay. Forget this test. I can't *imagine* a worse insult to a slashdot poster.:)
Nah...  you're right.
By the way, linophiles can get Flash here to see that SIM-WILLIAM SHATNER.   It's kinda lame and the voice is lamer but at least the animation's close to on target...
Heard tell he did but I don't know that for a fact...   Maybe we need a penguin.bas where the penguin throws a nice pointy icicle at Bill Gates...   You get different points for what part of him you hit...   hee hee (okay trolls - don't get started...) -)
By the way, just downloaded and tried to compile dosemu 1.0.0 on my SuSE 6.1 (they say they use SuSE to test it).   No go.  :-(.  It aborted trying to do something with pkt_init.
And the ability to hot-swap parts starts putting Linux into the realm of a Solaris, which is what mission critical stuff usually runs on. I'm just curious what kernel version they're using.
I recall back in December reading an article about AMD's initial announcement for that 1Ghz chip and the article pointed to a link here for a company that makes cases with a cooling compressor for the chip.   And according to the company, this case is for the "home user"!
Should be interesting to see Intel's 3.5 - 4.5Ghz chips soon and the liquid nitrogen coolant I seem to keep hearing about (no lie - I have heard that)... -)
This might be offtopic, but I'm under the impression that privacy isn't that cool in Great Britain. I mean, I recently read somewhere (can't remember where!) that London has surveillance cameras which can identify a persons face among the masses. And there are surveillance cameras everywhere, even in public toilets(!)
You don't need to go to Britain for that.   There are cities here in the good 'ole US of A like NY that are putting up surveillance cameras at intersections to catch moving violations (and other assorted and sundry activity).   And please don't forget the numerous "traffic cams" aimed at the highways and byways.   I guess George Orwell knew his stuff but maybe not exactly how it would eventually come about... -)
so you mean that seinfeld episode involving Jerry videotaping movies (with a camcorder) wasn't fictional?
This is a revelation to me. Honestly.
And I'll admit honestly that I'm one of the miniscule few who never watched that show and maybe saw one episode while with some friends, and whether this practice was going on *before* the episode, I don't know ('cause I don't know when that episode aired)... But since Seinfeld is supposedly taking place in NY (???) I wouldn't be surprised if they were merely "reflecting" what goes on in real life out there...   especially on the east coast.   Such shows often the put things like that in there because people can relate, thus it's funny...   When the size of and price of the camcorder dropped significantly, the proliferation of these bootleg tapes certainly increased - as it's easy to sneek one in, find a good seat in a mostly empty theater in some gigaplex complex running the movie on a million screens, and have at it.   The key is to try find a half-empty *quiet* theater...
Common is relative. The movie industry raised fears that they would be destroyed by rampant piracy - that just about every average Joe would be trading movies rather than buying/renting.
And that is why they (ESPECIALLY companies like MCA - who released the "Back to the Future" series) put Macrovision on the tapes - and this did in fact stop alot of the dubbing because very few dual VCR combinations could get around what it did to the brightness translations (ie., the Macrovision signal put on the tape being copied would send a brightness "overload" signal to the recorder, which would tape THAT, inturn manifesting itself at the TV when you played the dubbed tape back - this might not be the exact "techical" description, but it's the jist).   This caused that fading in and out of the picture + plus you got those black and white-checked lines scrolling through you picture.   In fact, there was such a furor over it because it impacted *legitimate* viewing of a tape, that many companies decided to pull it.   And so no, the rampant consumer copying DIDN'T happen - but what I'm talking about is a new phenomena with the drop in price of video cameras and the ability to inconspicuously sit in a movie theater and tape.
The undeniable fact is that the vast majority of people used VCRs legally, and the vast majority of people use Napster illegally. The funny thing is that most Americans get this, while the geeks (who are building huge MP3 collections) are in denial.
True too...   but it's the ease of the technology that allowed that.   When the audio cassette tape recorder came out, how many people threw out their records and bought the identical album on cassette?   Or did people opt to record their collection on tape for convenience - not very difficult to do.
Those aren't consumers selling the tapes - the are professional crooks with high speed dubbing machines. They rent a copy of "The Matrix" and buy a box of blanks, they feed the tapes into dubbing rig and sell the copies.
No no no no no no... -) And what I'm going to say is "da truth".   I have seen movies offered "for sale" *while* the movie was STILL playing in the movies.   Get it?   For example, "Mission to Mars" is about to release soon.   I guarantee you that if you come here to Philly the day after that movie releases, some idiot will be out on the street hawking it.   It'll be carefully hidden amongst the VAST selection on the table.   And NOT in the "seedy" parts of town either - on major business strips.   My friends and I laugh about these "bootleg" tapes where the picture is all blurry and you can literally hear the movie audience in the background (and people buy them too - and what got me is that they WERE shrink wrapped).   You can get shrink wrap machines easily.   The box puzzled me for awhile except that what I heard happens is that someone "knew someone" who "knew someone" who "worked as a trucker" who "knew where the a stash of boxes were" (that were pre-assembled in advance for the eventual release of the video) that for some reason "got damaged and had to be thrown out" blah blah.   THIS is how it happens.   There's a whole underground economy going on out there.
You couldn't make a profit trying to do this consumer gear. The heads couldn't take the wear and tear - even if they did you couldn't copy enough tapes in a day to make any money.
Say I'm Joe Q. Bootlegger and I got me a brand new portable video camera + a tape for my birthday.   I'll just hop on over to K-mart, get me a cheap pack of tapes, pay my $5.00 matinee fee, find a good seat, point the camera at the screen, and set the tape to record.   Then I go home, get my 2 cheapy VCRS, connect them together with a couple of wires, and record away.   If the average cheapy tape costs maybe $7.99 on sale for 4 and I make 4 copies and sell them for $10 each, have I not just made a $32.01 profit for myself (not counting the movie fee 'cause I wanted to see the movie anyway)?   Not bad for about 2 hours of sitting in a movie theater and a day's worth of dubbing and packaging it.   If I opt to sell the "real popular" ones for $15 (still about $10 less than what it would be when it released for real), I'd make $60 minus $7.99 materials cost, or $52.01 profit... divided by 10 hours, and that would come out to about $5.20/hr. - more than minimum wage.
This is no "rent a movie already out on tape and dub it".   This is RECORD a movie playing in a movie theater, dup it, and sell it.
Slashdot Mirror
great. yet another example of technology humanity is not mature enough for, yet keeps rushing into
;-).   And now that we really do have all the "right stuff" to go to the moon and do some exploring, it's passe (in fact, it became passe after the first couple of moon shots, unfortunately).
You know, when you made this statement, it triggered something in my mind about those first manned space flights which eventually lead us to the moon.   When you look at the technology that they had then (or lack thereof compared to what we have today), it makes you wonder how we ever did it.   And there are those out there who believe we really didn't do it...
I guess I say this in terms of how humanity stumbles along after a dream, and often gets burned in the process, but the dream eventually does become reality...   This whole nanotechnology field is really still an "on paper" thing but leave it to us humans to "make it so" anyway...
You don't think that enhanced human ability isn't a viable market? PLEASE!!
;-)
If you look at the current underground "body part", ie., organ donor "market", you will only see a tiny percentage who have the funds to participate in such a thing - let alone participate in a venture like human "enhancement" (and when I say "human enhancement", I mean - a totally engineered "human" - not necessarily genetic enhancement to cure a medical defect or for cosmetic purposes).   "PCs" are a "viable market" because the "average" consumers now have the ability to afford them, particularly in the "used" marketplace.   But a marketplace that might produce entire "societies" of disparate, genetically-enhanced super humans who would wage war on the rest of us - I just don't see any time soon.
And let me clarify my thoughts on this - genetic "super humans" will happen, but not in the forseeable future.   It is an idealist's view that it would happen sooner (as in this subject's call to those in their 20s to comment on something 50 years from now) but as a pragmatist, I just don't see it, even if the morality issues were somehow reconciled.   And I'm still waiting for my flying car by the way, even though I know the average person can barely drive in 1 dimension, let alone 3 (which was hillariously illustrated by Bruce Willis (in I think "Event Horizon").   I also look forward to warp drive being invented in 2061 although I won't be here to see it...  
... any time soon?   I think we've read and watched alot of sci-fi and then try to be pundits in predicting in what direction technology will go.   How many World's Fairs predicted that there would be flying "cars" and space stations on the moon in our current time (and as we obviously know - none of that has happened)?   How many stories and shows like Star Trek describe stuff like "Eugenics Wars" (which according to ST's fictional timeline, was supposed to have happened between genetically-enhanced "super humans" and everyone else in 1996?).   How many of you have videophones (that have been out since the '60s)?
Bottom line - the industry (whether genetic or other technology-based) is market and money-driven.   When the market is viable, then the product gets put out there.   You can expect alot of medical-related, genetically derived products (and the food products are already available) but genetically "enhanced" humans are some time off.   Sure "test tube" babies have become more common and sure, there will always be corporations out there who will experiment and will probably "create" such a genetically-enhanced "human" (would they then be "human" if artificially created - but that's a side issue), but the morality discussions (and indeed, sci-fi stories extrapolating the consequences) may serve to drive the whole issue into a direction unforeseen by us at this time.
If such a law were to come about, just as the gov't decided to "grandfather" such drugs as aspirin as something that had been in existence before the law (whereby every company back when the Food & Drug laws were first passed, claimed they "invented" aspirin), so too should alot of these computer-based techniques (such as Amazon's claim for the cookie) be "grandfathered".   Then you can begin again from that point.
We have seen time and time again, software companies applying for patents for internet technology that has been existence for years.   Something has to stop this practice now and allow everyone to start fresh in a level playing field with patent reviewers who are a bit more knowledgeable about the technology.
This isn't as "noninvasive" as you might think. Some DVD players have an electrically-erasable ROM in them, they can only be erased and reset a few times.
I want to echo what this AC has posted.   I can't speak for what might happen on a PS2, but if it functions like the "typical" DVD players, you generally are restricted to setting and resetting the regional coding a certain number of times - usually 10, but in some cases 5.
Last fall, I purchased a Pioneer DVD drive for my PC that dual-boots Mandrake 6.5 and Win98 and decodes with a Creative dxr3 card.   Installed it, popped in a Region 1 (U.S., blah) DVD, and it promptly refused to play it.   After some more putzing around with it and thinking that it had been set for the wrong Region code (it was purchased from a surplus place), I found Pioneer's region-code utility here.   Soon as I ran it, I discovered that the DVD player was not set for ANY Region!   Sounds great huh?   But only if you have a DVD that is not encoded with a Region...   and there are a few out there but not many as yet.   So I ran the utility, set it for Region 1, and I was good to go.   But again, most of these units have a limit on how many times you can change the encoding before you're stuck!
... in the U.S., if we don't keep discussions like this going...
We have PIII chips with traceable serial nos., M$ Word documents with traceable serial nos., doubleclick.com with traceable cooking-planting nos., blah.
Looking at the article's description of a massive series of "fire-wall like" censor boxes, don't be surprised if something like that happens here.   Here, it doesn't have to be "political" to be censored   And let me say this in terms of what's happening with the discussions of restricting access to things like Napster in an attempt to not only save bandwidth but to "catch" those illegally trading copyrighted MP3s.   But it hurts those who are legitimately trading public domain stuff.   And also note that many of the pr0n web filters inadvertantly filter out legitimate medical searches and such.
I expect as long as you have a "free and open" media such as the internet (web, BBS, USENET, email, etc.), we can at least bring out the issues and keep the net unrestricted.   I think the restriction should be at the user's discretion (and at their PC if they choose), not at the gov'ts.
JMHO.
Can't think of the name of it off hand but will look it up in a hurry unless someone already knows it and posts...
Replying to my own post!   Found the name of the parallel port ethernet adapter - ADDTRON.   Supposedly the DE-420, 450, & 600 are supported on Linux.
[ Reply to This | Parent ]
There is an ethernet card that is supported by Linux that attaches to a parallel port.   It's pretty steep in price (around US$100+) though.   One of my buddies was considering buying it since his old XIRCOM parallel port wasn't supported.
Can't think of the name of it off hand but will look it up in a hurry unless someone already knows it and posts...
I thought it was a pretty much foregone conclusion that Mars once had a very different environment than it has now, maybe not exactly like Earth, but with a much more substantial atmosphere and water.   Witness the ice on the poles...   but also note the proximity to the asteroid belt...
I guess that will always be a hypothesis until proven though...
If you are using Wintel, that's all you need to do (there is no maintenance).
;-)   Now I don't know nuthin' about Motorola's EPROMs but I do know some 3COMs that tend to lose their little minds (as I noted previously) meaning that all that stuff programmed into them (routing paths, helpers, etc) go bye bye.   Meaning maintenance.   Plus router software versions change constantly, so you need to keep that updated AND it would be prudent that all your router boxes on the same net have the same software version.   Add to all this the fact that there is a severe shortage of WAN "experts" amongst the ISPs and I can see big problems ahead if this thing gets out there en masse.
Because of stuff like configuration wipes that can occur, I miss having routers with some kind of floppy or even flash card (although you introduce the possibility of a "mechanical" failure as opposed to having a memory-based configuration).
And I still have the concern about DDoSing because other than having those zombie Linux boxes out there, the latest DDoS attacks were magnified by misconfigured routers.
I currently have a Motorola CYBERSUFR cable modem with a Linux box attached doing masquerading and firewalling for my home LAN, and have had nothing but praise for it (and had heard about something like this coming out).   But my concern deals with putting a router in a box like this...   who will be expected to maintain it?   The ISP?   I can't picture Joe Q. User trying to configure a router box if it loses it's little mind.   And imagine the average user base of a cable modem provider (thousands) and the number of staff to try to support them and some new router box (very few).
I also have concern regarding the amount of DDoS that could occur when you put something like that out there...   Imagine what a cracker could do to this thing....
Note that the site brags about being /.ed back in December.   I guess it'll happen again real soon now...   Glad I got to it before the effect occurred!   ;-)
It's good to see some "competition" to VMware.   I like having choices.
Is Mozilla then a good representative of the OSS world? The Mozilla team is primarily Netscape engineers rather than the Internet users, as was initially imagined. So do we want to be associated with it? No major OSS project takes such consistent thrashings, and I wonder how well it reflects on the other projects.
I think you just targeted part of the problem in your statement, ie., the fact that quite a few "insiders" were doing this rather than the OSS community in general.
One of the biggest impetuses that brings much of the OS Software to its highest quality is, as ESR has eloquently put it (paraphrase) - it's the programmer's desire to "scratch an itch".   If you don't have that desire from inside yourself, then it's just a job but not your job.
In all fairness to the Netscape people, they were designated as the "poster company" for Open Source and alot of us trying to push it in our jobs point to Netscape's decision.   In addition, the Mozilla group made a decison to start from scratch with the code, and they've basically built a "new" (in quotes) browser from the ground up.
One might want to compare them with a Sun, who has taken over the maintenance of StarOffice, to maybe see a different perspective on how a major company handles the Open Source phenomena.   Maybe Sun is not a good example for the moment, but time will tell on how they deal with their new product.
Yikes! I've seen /.'ings before, but this is definitely the worse one I've seen on us yet.
/.ed. shortly after a story about them gets posted.   ;-)
Consider it a badge of honor.   Many sites now brag about being
Ya'll killed the penguin!   Here's what I get:
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It should work with red grapes too, or anything else conducting and about the right size and sliced so that it has a thin membrane in the middle of the "antenna".
Fun with Grapes - A case study: II
Last updated March 6, 2000
Author
JDax
Abstract
Per the previous Fun with Grapes - A case study, this study was performed to validate it, as a good little scientist should.
Introduction
No need to do that and become redundant.   Read the one here
Materials Required
- One seedless red grape (genus - ??? does it matter?)
- Microwave-safe plate (I guess it is, I'll know when it explodes)
- Knife (sharp!)
- Microwave oven (umm.. OH!   it's a GE 600W with turntable)
- No parental whuh???
ProcedureWell...   same as here
Observed results (the cool part)
Upon setting said microwave to "HI" for 40 seconds, the first sparks began at exactly 32 seconds in the countdown.   Sproadic on and off sparks were observed until approximately 8 seconds left on the clock when a magnificent FLARE occurred and lasted approximately 2 seconds, followed be a few intermittant sparks until said microwave cycle ended.
Discussion and Conclusions
Cool!   One whole half of the grape was neatly burnt up.   The plate didn't break (at least yet) and the two halves separated approximately 1.5 cm from each other.   Sorry no pictures, my digital camera's battery is dead.
> According to the scoring guide, your slashdot experience level is: JonKatz Wannabe
:)
Is that better or worse than a "First Post"?   Heeheehee.
Okay. Forget this test. I can't *imagine* a worse insult to a slashdot poster.
Nah...  you're right.
By the way, linophiles can get Flash here to see that SIM-WILLIAM SHATNER.   It's kinda lame and the voice is lamer but at least the animation's close to on target...
Didn't Bill Gates write that?
;-)
:-(.  It aborted trying to do something with pkt_init.
Heard tell he did but I don't know that for a fact...   Maybe we need a penguin.bas where the penguin throws a nice pointy icicle at Bill Gates...   You get different points for what part of him you hit...   hee hee (okay trolls - don't get started...)  
By the way, just downloaded and tried to compile dosemu 1.0.0 on my SuSE 6.1 (they say they use SuSE to test it).   No go.  
Now I can run my old QuickBasic version of Q-Bert on my Linux box!!
;-)
Oh, wait...Its on 5 1/4...
Nah....   gorilla.bas rulez.   Pop up a dosemu session and have at it.
And the ability to hot-swap parts starts putting Linux into the realm of a Solaris, which is what mission critical stuff usually runs on. I'm just curious what kernel version they're using.
I recall back in December reading an article about AMD's initial announcement for that 1Ghz chip and the article pointed to a link here for a company that makes cases with a cooling compressor for the chip.   And according to the company, this case is for the "home user"!
;-)
Should be interesting to see Intel's 3.5 - 4.5Ghz chips soon and the liquid nitrogen coolant I seem to keep hearing about (no lie - I have heard that)...  
This might be offtopic, but I'm under the impression that privacy isn't that cool in Great Britain. I mean, I recently read somewhere (can't remember where!) that London has surveillance cameras which can identify a persons face among the masses. And there are surveillance cameras everywhere, even in public toilets(!)
;-)
You don't need to go to Britain for that.   There are cities here in the good 'ole US of A like NY that are putting up surveillance cameras at intersections to catch moving violations (and other assorted and sundry activity).   And please don't forget the numerous "traffic cams" aimed at the highways and byways.   I guess George Orwell knew his stuff but maybe not exactly how it would eventually come about...  
so you mean that seinfeld episode involving Jerry videotaping movies (with a camcorder) wasn't fictional?
;-)
This is a revelation to me. Honestly.
And I'll admit honestly that I'm one of the miniscule few who never watched that show and maybe saw one episode while with some friends, and whether this practice was going on *before* the episode, I don't know ('cause I don't know when that episode aired)... But since Seinfeld is supposedly taking place in NY (???) I wouldn't be surprised if they were merely "reflecting" what goes on in real life out there...   especially on the east coast.   Such shows often the put things like that in there because people can relate, thus it's funny...   When the size of and price of the camcorder dropped significantly, the proliferation of these bootleg tapes certainly increased - as it's easy to sneek one in, find a good seat in a mostly empty theater in some gigaplex complex running the movie on a million screens, and have at it.   The key is to try find a half-empty *quiet* theater...
Common is relative. The movie industry raised fears that they would be destroyed by rampant piracy - that just about every average Joe would be trading movies rather than buying/renting.
;-)
And that is why they (ESPECIALLY companies like MCA - who released the "Back to the Future" series) put Macrovision on the tapes - and this did in fact stop alot of the dubbing because very few dual VCR combinations could get around what it did to the brightness translations (ie., the Macrovision signal put on the tape being copied would send a brightness "overload" signal to the recorder, which would tape THAT, inturn manifesting itself at the TV when you played the dubbed tape back - this might not be the exact "techical" description, but it's the jist).   This caused that fading in and out of the picture + plus you got those black and white-checked lines scrolling through you picture.   In fact, there was such a furor over it because it impacted *legitimate* viewing of a tape, that many companies decided to pull it.   And so no, the rampant consumer copying DIDN'T happen - but what I'm talking about is a new phenomena with the drop in price of video cameras and the ability to inconspicuously sit in a movie theater and tape.
The undeniable fact is that the vast majority of people used VCRs legally, and the vast majority of people use Napster illegally. The funny thing is that most Americans get this, while the geeks (who are building huge MP3 collections) are in denial.
True too...   but it's the ease of the technology that allowed that.   When the audio cassette tape recorder came out, how many people threw out their records and bought the identical album on cassette?   Or did people opt to record their collection on tape for convenience - not very difficult to do.
Those aren't consumers selling the tapes - the are professional crooks with high speed dubbing machines. They rent a copy of "The Matrix" and buy a box of blanks, they feed the tapes into dubbing rig and sell the copies.
;-) And what I'm going to say is "da truth".   I have seen movies offered "for sale" *while* the movie was STILL playing in the movies.   Get it?   For example, "Mission to Mars" is about to release soon.   I guarantee you that if you come here to Philly the day after that movie releases, some idiot will be out on the street hawking it.   It'll be carefully hidden amongst the VAST selection on the table.   And NOT in the "seedy" parts of town either - on major business strips.   My friends and I laugh about these "bootleg" tapes where the picture is all blurry and you can literally hear the movie audience in the background (and people buy them too - and what got me is that they WERE shrink wrapped).   You can get shrink wrap machines easily.   The box puzzled me for awhile except that what I heard happens is that someone "knew someone" who "knew someone" who "worked as a trucker" who "knew where the a stash of boxes were" (that were pre-assembled in advance for the eventual release of the video) that for some reason "got damaged and had to be thrown out" blah blah.   THIS is how it happens.   There's a whole underground economy going on out there.
;-)
No no no no no no...  
You couldn't make a profit trying to do this consumer gear. The heads couldn't take the wear and tear - even if they did you couldn't copy enough tapes in a day to make any money.
Say I'm Joe Q. Bootlegger and I got me a brand new portable video camera + a tape for my birthday.   I'll just hop on over to K-mart, get me a cheap pack of tapes, pay my $5.00 matinee fee, find a good seat, point the camera at the screen, and set the tape to record.   Then I go home, get my 2 cheapy VCRS, connect them together with a couple of wires, and record away.   If the average cheapy tape costs maybe $7.99 on sale for 4 and I make 4 copies and sell them for $10 each, have I not just made a $32.01 profit for myself (not counting the movie fee 'cause I wanted to see the movie anyway)?   Not bad for about 2 hours of sitting in a movie theater and a day's worth of dubbing and packaging it.   If I opt to sell the "real popular" ones for $15 (still about $10 less than what it would be when it released for real), I'd make $60 minus $7.99 materials cost, or $52.01 profit... divided by 10 hours, and that would come out to about $5.20/hr. - more than minimum wage.
This is no "rent a movie already out on tape and dub it".   This is RECORD a movie playing in a movie theater, dup it, and sell it.
Trust me.   I no lie....