Technology workers are... a group of working class people who are foolishly squandering their powerful position in the labor market by not unionizing.
Bullshit. If there is a labor shortage, then that means I can get up and leave if I'm being mistreated and have antoher job like *that*. <snaps fingers> Unions were necessary in the past; today they are nothing more than an old boy's club which drives up the prices on automobiles, aggravates our school systems and generally causes havoc wherever it goes. Unions (in their current form) should be illegal.
Next, try putting "power factor correctors" and/or "soft starters" on the power lines to the chiller motors (I think that's what they're called, anyway). The basic idea is that they help correct the EMF problem at the source (and can sometimes save electricity bills too!).
I design soft starters and inverters for a living; the former won't help you here unless the magnetic field is only occurring when the chillers/compressors start, and not while they run. You're absolutely correct about the saving of electricity bills, though. The inrush currents caused by any decently sized squirrel-cage motor are incredible (we're talking 1200-1400A on your typical 250HP) which causes all kinds of bad things, but mostly just problems with the mechanical couplings and mechanical stress on the compressors and motors themselves. The electrical stress is easily overcome with oversized conductors and switchgear. That still doesn't mean the electricity provider will like you. (low power factor, high surge currents, etc., these guys make a living off charging you premiums for this stuff)
Remember, most conductors are run through conduit which is then grounded. I don't think any of this grounded steel plating is going to get you anywhere unless you're missing it already.
I'm anxious to find the solution to your problem -- I can run a computer beside a loaded 300HP dyno without any flicker at all -- 3 phase electricity is magnetically coupled very well and there is not much for a magnetic field if the conductors are close to each other. The motor is a huge chunk of steel which is grounded. I'm not 100% certain on this but I'll check tomorrow: I am almost certain that I can hold a compass near a running motor and not get much deflection, grounded or no. If I run it near a single conductor it'll deflect like crazy but that's what is supposed to happen.:-)
and that all their hardware (starting capacitors, etc.) are functioning properly
You won't have starting capacitors on motors large enough to cause these kinds of problems. Perhaps a weak line is causing your poor magnetic coupling? I am sure you'd hear that though... Motors do not like to be single-phased.
To the story poster/question asker: email me. As I said, I work with this kind of stuff for a living. I may not be able to solve your problem, but I can at least help get you to a solution.
The difference is that you have only your opinion that hypothetical blacks are more likely to rob houses than hypothetical whites.
I am sure I could dig up some hypothetical police arrest records which would show my hypothetical case, just the same as the insurance records.
You know as well as I do that you can make numbers show anything... What I'm upset about (I'm over 25 and married, so this insurance thing doesn't directly impact me anymore, but it did) is that it's still sexual discrimination, which has been taboo-ed in North America, perhaps even moreso than race discrimination.
They do this because statistically those demagraphics cost them more to insure. 16 year olds are more likely to get in accidents than 35 year olds. This is more a facter of inexperience than breaking the law.
This is something else that blows my mind... The insurance companies get away with sex / age discrimination, while I would get arrested for it.
What's so different about saying "Well blacks tend to rob more houses than whites" and "male 16 year olds tend to get in more accidents than married 35 year old women" ??
This isn't meant as a flame or to start a flamewar... This is a valid question I have regarding the two languages and their place.
Perl (mod_perl to be exact) is a huge behemoth. But it allows me to reuse the code I've created over the years to be reused outside of the web realm and without a special "wrapper" program -- just Perl.
I've heard all kinds of people say that PHP is faster... Than perl under mod_perl? I haven't been able to find a decent real benchmark for either. I've coded in PHP, and I've coded in Perl. They both "feel" pretty much the same to me and seem to run just as fast (most of my code is just formatting the output of database requests, since I optimize all the requests themselves instead of pulling in vast reams of information and sorting it in the web server. I don't want to keep two languages just hanging around which seem so similar, as I don't seem to see any kind of advantage to one over the other in the web realm.
Does anyone have any experience or a real-life style of benchmark which would help convince me that PHP is a good thing to keep around even though Perl seems to do most, if not all, of what PHP does and at the same speed?
Again, this is NOT intended as a flame. Seems like a good ontopic post for this particular story though...
It makes perfect sense not to put X on a box that is going to be remotely administered. Remote administration continues to be one of windows weaknesses.
I disagree.
I've started installing some X apps on remote machines just to ease administration... I can call up the X app from within my session and it is as if the machine is my own.
Don't get me wrong, I love the CLI... but just as some things are easier with the CLI, some things are just easier from a GUI perspective.
What I'd like is a good repository of X securifying documentation.
The article mentions buffer overflows, which, in my experience, have been virtually deleted in a language like Java. Sure, checking array bounds every single time may be a performance hit, but I will choose a performance hit over a security hit any day.
Not knowing anything about Java, I can't comment much but I do have this question:
If my C program checks all user input, the only thing which could then take me down is a program/compiler bug, no? Do I not get all the benefit of bounds checking without the performance-sapping problem of checking the calculated values on every loop iteration?
1) you were presumably trained or taught yourself, you must have made a mess of things a lot of times before you learnt...
2) you were presumably paid to have a skill to do this
Actually previous to that job I hadn't ever done SMT work or rework. I was an ace solderer though, having ruined a good many boards in my youth. That technique was taught to me at that job and while the first couple of boards didn't look all that hot, they did work (couple loose connections which when reflowed were fine). I was paid to solder them up using the technique they taught
That technique isn't necessary on the M100, as the pins on the PSRAM aren't really fine pitch and you can touch each one without much trouble.
The real big danger here is someone is going to see this, and try it... and then turn their Palm into a paperweight
They saw the pics... if they're ballsy enough to try it, then I guess they'd already weighed the risks associated with palm modifications.
you make it sound simple, and I admit it is. but whilst what to do is simple enough, the actual doing of it isn't - it needs practise, skill and a steady hand.
I agree... there is an amount of steadiness and skill to it. I had replied to your comment because you made it sound like a tantamount feat... it really isn't, and chances are unless you have a 900 degree iron or a 5W iron you'll mangle the board, but if you have a decent iron and the patience to do it, you'll do just fine.
On top of that, li-ion batteries will die completely after a few years (2-3 maybe) after which your device is totally useless.
Where? I've got Li-ion batteries in this notebook that haven't died in two years or even reduced in performance. I still get 3 hours out of it (just over 2 watching DVD).
it was a 30 watt iron, which is pretty excessive for the job... a 15 watt would probably be safer.
That's a common misconception that heat kills.
In reality, too little heat is actually far more damging to the board. You end up causing the pads to lift up from the epoxy board by keeping the iron in there too long.
Yes too much heat is damaging, but I've seen far more boards killed by people and their "cold" irons. Use a hot iron, get in, and get out.
I can't believe that got a +5 informative... and I can't believe I just complained about moderation... I guess there's a first for everything!
This looked fascinating to me until I realised that you need to rework surface mounted components!
Anything you want to hack these days you will do so by reworking SMT. It's a fact of life until we get to molecular circuitry, at which point I think the game will be over for most people. Hell I think with the BGA stuff now it pretty much is over for the hobbiest.
It is possibly one of the most incredibly difficult things you can attempt! I could move that little resistor they have marked, but to succesfully remove an entire DRAM chip and resolder a new one would require some extraordinary skill!
Actually reworking SMT is not all that hard. I used to assemble PCMCIA video cards (204 pin TQFP, some SOJ, a handful of 1206 resistors and capacitors, etc.) with nothing more than a pair of tweezers and a fine pitch soldering iron.
Rework is slightly more difficult but the simple truth is that if you're going to throw away an IC, the best way to get it off the board is to take a razor blade and cut the pins off flush with the case and then remove the pins from the board. Much cleaner, and much less chance of damaging the board itself. If you've got to save the chip things get more difficult in a hurry but that's another story.
even now i could remove the chip, but to put in place a new one would be unthinkable
Placing a TQFP or other fine-pitch component is a piece of cake. You need that fine point iron, some solder flux and solder:
make sure the pads are clean (i.e. flat)
take your flux pen and put a fair amount of flux on the pads (just wipe it across a whole row at a time)
place the chip down and carefully line it up
tack down one corner of the chip. There should be enough solder to short 3-4 leads together
re-align the device (it should only need submillimeter realignment) and tack down the other corner
use the flux pen and wipe it across all the pins, a whole row at a time
Now this is the tricky part... you literally drag the soldering iron across one side of the chip.
If you had enough of a solder blob and the iron angle is right and you've got enough flux, you will leave a perfect amount of solder on each pin and the solder job will be indistinguishable from a professionally mounted device. The speed at which you drag it is enough to heat up the pad and the pin sufficiently and the capilliary action of the solder "sucks" it under the pin and bonds it to the pad. I destroyed a few devices (bent the pins, you can never get them looking right again) with the wrong angle but once I got the hang of it down, I could do a 204 pin PQFP in about 6 minutes. I did up 150 prototypes that summer and not one had a failure in the solder work.
This kind of stuff can be done, and quite easily... you just need to keep your most valuable resource (patience!) handy and keep your excitement in check.
I meant to include they will assign for IP-based on exceptions (which I would assume would include SSL). You can do FTP, POP, IMAP, etc... on a virtual host bases (even telnet) but it starts getting tricker (and more limiting).
We run a single IP / multiple host type scenario here... about a dozen and a half websites with individual FTP and email.
qmail and vpopmail work wonderfully supporting tons of domains under one IP
(check freshmeat) ProFTPd seems to use the same interface that Apache uses to give you multiple domains under one IP which remain seperate from each other
I'm not saying all problems can be solved, but the biggest ones (aside from SSL) are gone with some software.
vpopmail in particular is nice... combined with qmailadmin (also on inter7's site) you can give each domain owner the ability to control their email system from a web interface without any hassle on your end. Courier IMAP knows how to handle vpopmail authentication so POP3 and IMAP are done. The only change on the client end is that they must authenticate as "user@domain" instead of just "user". I usually inform people to use user%domain since Netscape tries to be smart and strip off everything after the @.
i'm canadian, so let me say without prejudice that.ca sites mostly pander to the massive inferiority and insecurity complex that continues to plague the canadian psyche.
Interesting theory. I prefer.ca domains (altavista.ca being one in particular) to their.com counterparts. There's no plague on my Canadian psyche; I'm just pissed that I can't get a.ca domain without owning or running a national company..on.ca and.region.on.ca are just too specific, so I went and got an.org instead.
The fact that half the time the Canadian registrar wants faxes and/or snailmail to complete the transaction is a little hokey if you ask me.
its as if we're afraid to admit that we're basically an american state for fear that it might not look posh to the eurotrash.
Again, interesting theory. If we were basically an American state, why is the border we share with the Americans such a pitiful attempt at control? (by who? both sides.) Why can I travel from country to country in Europe without seeing so much as a border guard, but here I have to go through a huge hassle every time I want to go visit friends in the United States?
As far as I'm concerned, Canada is quite different from the United States. The laws are pretty much the same (as they are practically everywhere) but the people are different. Not bad different, just different.
I can't speak for the power plants, but as an electronics designer for an industrial motor controller company, I can tell you with absolute certainty that your standard "squirrel-cage" induction motor is at least 90% efficient, and those are the OLD designs.
These days people (Weg in particular) are pushing what they call "Premium efficiency" motors, which are between 96% and 99% efficient. They're great because they're so efficient, but they also draw 18-26 times their nameplate current during the first half cycle starting up across the line, which tends to piss off the breakers, fusing and switchgear. i.e. if you've got a 500HP motor, that's roughly 500A full load (at 575V here in Canada), but if you throw the switch on it you will see a 9000 to 13000A spike in the first half-cycle due to the highly efficient design.
I'm starting to get offtopic here but I just wanted to point out that that efficiency figure for the electric motors (at least refering to squirrel-cage AC induction motors, which is what you'd want in an electric vehicle) is low if anything.
AGP sucks (for me) because there is just one fucking AGP slot. I have three video cards on my PC. What the fuck am I suposed to do ?
Maybe rethink your video strategy? <ducking>
I would have thought that something like an ATI All-in-wonder + a decent 3D card would get you all you wanted. Hell I think that both Matrox and NVIDIA have combo cards and if not, I am positive that there are very expensive commercial grade frame buffers which could capture your choice of composite/SVideo/maybe even RF modulated at XSVGA resolutions and tack that on the AGP and add your Voodoo3 for 3D.
AGP is yet-another-kind-of-driver adding to the general instability of PC hardware.
That's bullshit, plain and simple. AGP is a wonderful idea compared to some of the alternatives from a cost perspective.
I cried out loud when moto did the altivec.
Why, because you would never use it? I can think of a dozen things I could use extremely fast vector mathematics for. Yeah it takes code to implement it, but that's the problem with computers... you can't think of everything beforehand.
Same story then with the NeXT DSP.
I don't know anything about this but it sounds like they put the DSP on a slow bus or crippled it somehow. A decent DSP (those new TI DSPs look pretty hot) will blow the shit out of your 1.5GHz PIII in doing straight mathematics, which was why DSPs were created in the first place... Fast on math, not so fast everywhere else.
PC is general purpose hardware. THey should stay this way. Each time something specific is done, it is doomed to failure (VLB anyone ?).
I disagree. PCs should cater to the ubiquitous "general user". That doesn't necessarily mean general purpose hardware. And FYI, I am certain that VLB was actually a better bus that PCI, but since PCI was smaller and involved more money brought in, there were certain politics involved quashing VLB.
But saying "If Linus called it GNU/Linux I might think otherwise" makes is sound as though you think it's the naming of the kernel (Linux) that's under discussion, which it isn't or that Linus is reponsible for the whole operating system, which he isn't. It gives the impression that you have no clue as to what what is being dicussed.
Linus created the kernel, this is true. I refer to Linux as the collective kernel and the distribution it's in.
If you want to badger the GNU organization about releasing GNU/Linux, that wouldn't bother me a bit and you'd have a valid point for calling it GNU/Linux. To date, however, GNU has not done this. Slackware has, Redhat has, Debian has, Suse has... you get the point. If I were to wrap the kernel around the Borland compiler and MKS utilities, what would you call it?
This whole GNU/Linux thing makes (oh balls, who is it? RMS? ESR? I can never remember) look like they're trying to grab hold to the fame of Linux after it got popular by tacking on the GNU and acting like a slobbering idiot everytime someone "forgets" to say GNU/Linux. My memory's not perfect, but I don't seem to recall what's-his-nuts emphatically defending the GNU/ in GNU/Linux until a few years ago, and that's what ticks me off. They were helping Linus out way before that.
Hopefully this is making some sense, I'm trying to type and watch my daughter at the same time, and not doing a very good job of either this early in the morning.:-)
Without GNU, Linux would be a hacked clone of Minix. With GNU, it's a genuine alternative to other commercial/free Unix systems.
Give credit where credit is due, dumbass.
I'm sick and tired of this argument. I don't call my car a Chrysler/Toyota/American Motors Jeep*. I don't call my computer an Intel/Asus/WD/Esoniq/Advanced Gravis 466. I don't call my daughter Andrew/Vanessa Katie.
Yes GNU is a big part of Linux. You don't pollute the name of a product after the fact just because it was possible through a
third (or fourth or fifth...) party.
If Linus called it GNU/Linux I may think otherwise. However he didn't, and I don't stroke other people's egos just because they feel that now that what they helped with is popular they should get some face time.
* - I believe that Jeep used Toyota transfer cases in their 90's model Cherokees and Grand Cherokees. That's a pretty important part of a 4WD vehicle, dontchathink?
Do you actually use a Palm regularly? I do, and some of my co-workers are true artists in terms of grafitti style writing. But they still write VERY slowly compared to their keyboard typing speed. It's just a slow way to enter data...
I do. And I am setting them to be standard issue with our sales guys.
I plan on giving them a PalmIIIxe, the Palm Modem and the folding keyboard as a replacement for a laptop. 95% of them don't use the laptops for more than a game machine so why not replace that?
Before I decided on embarking on this venture, I tried the Palm folding keyboard with my Palm V. The keyboard folds out to a standard keyboard size and has standard laptop 3mm travel. Feels great to type on.
So now they have their contacts and some custom enterprise software in their coat pocket. And when they're at the hotel they can write up anything large they need with the keyboard.
I may be issuing portable DVD players to do presentations. Even with the DVD players the total cost is about half that of a laptop capable of playing DVDs.
Most of the article explained how different this transmission mode was from the standard we use now. Electromagnetics is a really complex and interesting field...
I can't get to the article (where I'm working this week has a weird proxy set up) but I'm curious -- are they proposing moving closer to what Shannon says the link is capable of, or are they trying to break it?
You don't have a little sticker on your house door which says "Dudley EX-145 model lock" now do you?
No, it says "Keyless entry system". Not that I need the sticker, the keypad should be obvious enough (with that nice red LED glowing above it). I'd like to see *you* bypass a magnetically-controlled deadbolt...
Still an obscurity layer on top of your other security layers. You don't tell them the model so they can easily find the electronic/mechanical equivalent of an exploit.
Simple.. anyone with a sniffer can get that information, and then scan behind it.
Which is good, because it involves an extra move on their part.
Even worse, you may not detect it because the firewall now views that scan as "authorized".
I don't follow. What's the difference between an unknown IP hitting auth, netbios, ICQ, elite and netbus in addition to your control port, or just hitting the real service ports? The whole point is to make your machine look "normal" to the DSL/cable guys but to include some method of openning up a few real servers when tickled right.
Or maybe that trigger port can be tickled the wrong way and lock YOU out. Or maybe the server on that port can be crashed, thus accomplishing the same.
Those are implementation issues. You could argue that a bug in the real servers could do the same.
As far as I'm concerned, my original point still stands. Obscurity layers are everywhere in the world, partially on purpose but mostly because people are lazy. The internet default, however, is full disclosure if you're lazy.
Slashdot Mirror
Technology workers are... a group of working class people who are foolishly squandering their powerful position in the labor market by not unionizing.
Bullshit. If there is a labor shortage, then that means I can get up and leave if I'm being mistreated and have antoher job like *that*. <snaps fingers> Unions were necessary in the past; today they are nothing more than an old boy's club which drives up the prices on automobiles, aggravates our school systems and generally causes havoc wherever it goes. Unions (in their current form) should be illegal.
Next, try putting "power factor correctors" and/or "soft starters" on the power lines to the chiller motors (I think that's what they're called, anyway). The basic idea is that they help correct the EMF problem at the source (and can sometimes save electricity bills too!).
I design soft starters and inverters for a living; the former won't help you here unless the magnetic field is only occurring when the chillers/compressors start, and not while they run. You're absolutely correct about the saving of electricity bills, though. The inrush currents caused by any decently sized squirrel-cage motor are incredible (we're talking 1200-1400A on your typical 250HP) which causes all kinds of bad things, but mostly just problems with the mechanical couplings and mechanical stress on the compressors and motors themselves. The electrical stress is easily overcome with oversized conductors and switchgear. That still doesn't mean the electricity provider will like you. (low power factor, high surge currents, etc., these guys make a living off charging you premiums for this stuff)
Remember, most conductors are run through conduit which is then grounded. I don't think any of this grounded steel plating is going to get you anywhere unless you're missing it already.
I'm anxious to find the solution to your problem -- I can run a computer beside a loaded 300HP dyno without any flicker at all -- 3 phase electricity is magnetically coupled very well and there is not much for a magnetic field if the conductors are close to each other. The motor is a huge chunk of steel which is grounded. I'm not 100% certain on this but I'll check tomorrow: I am almost certain that I can hold a compass near a running motor and not get much deflection, grounded or no. If I run it near a single conductor it'll deflect like crazy but that's what is supposed to happen. :-)
and that all their hardware (starting capacitors, etc.) are functioning properly
You won't have starting capacitors on motors large enough to cause these kinds of problems. Perhaps a weak line is causing your poor magnetic coupling? I am sure you'd hear that though... Motors do not like to be single-phased.
To the story poster/question asker: email me. As I said, I work with this kind of stuff for a living. I may not be able to solve your problem, but I can at least help get you to a solution.
The difference is that you have only your opinion that hypothetical blacks are more likely to rob houses than hypothetical whites.
I am sure I could dig up some hypothetical police arrest records which would show my hypothetical case, just the same as the insurance records.
You know as well as I do that you can make numbers show anything... What I'm upset about (I'm over 25 and married, so this insurance thing doesn't directly impact me anymore, but it did) is that it's still sexual discrimination, which has been taboo-ed in North America, perhaps even moreso than race discrimination.
They do this because statistically those demagraphics cost them more to insure. 16 year olds are more likely to get in accidents than 35 year olds. This is more a facter of inexperience than breaking the law.
This is something else that blows my mind... The insurance companies get away with sex / age discrimination, while I would get arrested for it.
What's so different about saying "Well blacks tend to rob more houses than whites" and "male 16 year olds tend to get in more accidents than married 35 year old women" ??
This isn't meant as a flame or to start a flamewar... This is a valid question I have regarding the two languages and their place.
Perl (mod_perl to be exact) is a huge behemoth. But it allows me to reuse the code I've created over the years to be reused outside of the web realm and without a special "wrapper" program -- just Perl.
I've heard all kinds of people say that PHP is faster... Than perl under mod_perl? I haven't been able to find a decent real benchmark for either. I've coded in PHP, and I've coded in Perl. They both "feel" pretty much the same to me and seem to run just as fast (most of my code is just formatting the output of database requests, since I optimize all the requests themselves instead of pulling in vast reams of information and sorting it in the web server. I don't want to keep two languages just hanging around which seem so similar, as I don't seem to see any kind of advantage to one over the other in the web realm.
Does anyone have any experience or a real-life style of benchmark which would help convince me that PHP is a good thing to keep around even though Perl seems to do most, if not all, of what PHP does and at the same speed?
Again, this is NOT intended as a flame. Seems like a good ontopic post for this particular story though...
It makes perfect sense not to put X on a box that is going to be remotely administered. Remote administration continues to be one of windows weaknesses.
I disagree.
I've started installing some X apps on remote machines just to ease administration... I can call up the X app from within my session and it is as if the machine is my own.
Don't get me wrong, I love the CLI... but just as some things are easier with the CLI, some things are just easier from a GUI perspective.
What I'd like is a good repository of X securifying documentation.
The article mentions buffer overflows, which, in my experience, have been virtually deleted in a language like Java. Sure, checking array bounds every single time may be a performance hit, but I will choose a performance hit over a security hit any day.
Not knowing anything about Java, I can't comment much but I do have this question:
If my C program checks all user input, the only thing which could then take me down is a program/compiler bug, no? Do I not get all the benefit of bounds checking without the performance-sapping problem of checking the calculated values on every loop iteration?
1) you were presumably trained or taught yourself, you must have made a mess of things a lot of times before you learnt ...
2) you were presumably paid to have a skill to do this
Actually previous to that job I hadn't ever done SMT work or rework. I was an ace solderer though, having ruined a good many boards in my youth. That technique was taught to me at that job and while the first couple of boards didn't look all that hot, they did work (couple loose connections which when reflowed were fine). I was paid to solder them up using the technique they taught
That technique isn't necessary on the M100, as the pins on the PSRAM aren't really fine pitch and you can touch each one without much trouble.
The real big danger here is someone is going to see this, and try it ... and then turn their Palm into a paperweight
They saw the pics... if they're ballsy enough to try it, then I guess they'd already weighed the risks associated with palm modifications.
you make it sound simple, and I admit it is. but whilst what to do is simple enough, the actual doing of it isn't - it needs practise, skill and a steady hand.
I agree... there is an amount of steadiness and skill to it. I had replied to your comment because you made it sound like a tantamount feat... it really isn't, and chances are unless you have a 900 degree iron or a 5W iron you'll mangle the board, but if you have a decent iron and the patience to do it, you'll do just fine.
On top of that, li-ion batteries will die completely after a few years (2-3 maybe) after which your device is totally useless.
Where? I've got Li-ion batteries in this notebook that haven't died in two years or even reduced in performance. I still get 3 hours out of it (just over 2 watching DVD).
Are you perhaps thinking of NiCd or NiMH?
it was a 30 watt iron, which is pretty excessive for the job... a 15 watt would probably be safer.
That's a common misconception that heat kills.
In reality, too little heat is actually far more damging to the board. You end up causing the pads to lift up from the epoxy board by keeping the iron in there too long.
Yes too much heat is damaging, but I've seen far more boards killed by people and their "cold" irons. Use a hot iron, get in, and get out.
I can't believe that got a +5 informative... and I can't believe I just complained about moderation... I guess there's a first for everything!
This looked fascinating to me until I realised that you need to rework surface mounted components!
Anything you want to hack these days you will do so by reworking SMT. It's a fact of life until we get to molecular circuitry, at which point I think the game will be over for most people. Hell I think with the BGA stuff now it pretty much is over for the hobbiest.
It is possibly one of the most incredibly difficult things you can attempt! I could move that little resistor they have marked, but to succesfully remove an entire DRAM chip and resolder a new one would require some extraordinary skill!
Actually reworking SMT is not all that hard. I used to assemble PCMCIA video cards (204 pin TQFP, some SOJ, a handful of 1206 resistors and capacitors, etc.) with nothing more than a pair of tweezers and a fine pitch soldering iron.
Rework is slightly more difficult but the simple truth is that if you're going to throw away an IC, the best way to get it off the board is to take a razor blade and cut the pins off flush with the case and then remove the pins from the board. Much cleaner, and much less chance of damaging the board itself. If you've got to save the chip things get more difficult in a hurry but that's another story.
even now i could remove the chip, but to put in place a new one would be unthinkable
Placing a TQFP or other fine-pitch component is a piece of cake. You need that fine point iron, some solder flux and solder:
- make sure the pads are clean (i.e. flat)
- take your flux pen and put a fair amount of flux on the pads (just wipe it across a whole row at a time)
- place the chip down and carefully line it up
- tack down one corner of the chip. There should be enough solder to short 3-4 leads together
- re-align the device (it should only need submillimeter realignment) and tack down the other corner
- use the flux pen and wipe it across all the pins, a whole row at a time
- Now this is the tricky part... you literally drag the soldering iron across one side of the chip.
If you had enough of a solder blob and the iron angle is right and you've got enough flux, you will leave a perfect amount of solder on each pin and the solder job will be indistinguishable from a professionally mounted device. The speed at which you drag it is enough to heat up the pad and the pin sufficiently and the capilliary action of the solder "sucks" it under the pin and bonds it to the pad. I destroyed a few devices (bent the pins, you can never get them looking right again) with the wrong angle but once I got the hang of it down, I could do a 204 pin PQFP in about 6 minutes. I did up 150 prototypes that summer and not one had a failure in the solder work.This kind of stuff can be done, and quite easily... you just need to keep your most valuable resource (patience!) handy and keep your excitement in check.
I meant to include they will assign for IP-based on exceptions (which I would assume would include SSL). You can do FTP, POP, IMAP, etc... on a virtual host bases (even telnet) but it starts getting tricker (and more limiting).
We run a single IP / multiple host type scenario here... about a dozen and a half websites with individual FTP and email.
I'm not saying all problems can be solved, but the biggest ones (aside from SSL) are gone with some software.
vpopmail in particular is nice... combined with qmailadmin (also on inter7's site) you can give each domain owner the ability to control their email system from a web interface without any hassle on your end. Courier IMAP knows how to handle vpopmail authentication so POP3 and IMAP are done. The only change on the client end is that they must authenticate as "user@domain" instead of just "user". I usually inform people to use user%domain since Netscape tries to be smart and strip off everything after the @.
i'm canadian, so let me say without prejudice that .ca sites mostly pander to the massive inferiority and insecurity complex that continues to plague the canadian psyche.
Interesting theory. I prefer .ca domains (altavista.ca being one in particular) to their .com counterparts. There's no plague on my Canadian psyche; I'm just pissed that I can't get a .ca domain without owning or running a national company. .on.ca and .region.on.ca are just too specific, so I went and got an .org instead.
The fact that half the time the Canadian registrar wants faxes and/or snailmail to complete the transaction is a little hokey if you ask me.
its as if we're afraid to admit that we're basically an american state for fear that it might not look posh to the eurotrash.
Again, interesting theory. If we were basically an American state, why is the border we share with the Americans such a pitiful attempt at control? (by who? both sides.) Why can I travel from country to country in Europe without seeing so much as a border guard, but here I have to go through a huge hassle every time I want to go visit friends in the United States?
As far as I'm concerned, Canada is quite different from the United States. The laws are pretty much the same (as they are practically everywhere) but the people are different. Not bad different, just different.
Electric motors 90% efficient?
I can't speak for the power plants, but as an electronics designer for an industrial motor controller company, I can tell you with absolute certainty that your standard "squirrel-cage" induction motor is at least 90% efficient, and those are the OLD designs.
These days people (Weg in particular) are pushing what they call "Premium efficiency" motors, which are between 96% and 99% efficient. They're great because they're so efficient, but they also draw 18-26 times their nameplate current during the first half cycle starting up across the line, which tends to piss off the breakers, fusing and switchgear. i.e. if you've got a 500HP motor, that's roughly 500A full load (at 575V here in Canada), but if you throw the switch on it you will see a 9000 to 13000A spike in the first half-cycle due to the highly efficient design.
I'm starting to get offtopic here but I just wanted to point out that that efficiency figure for the electric motors (at least refering to squirrel-cage AC induction motors, which is what you'd want in an electric vehicle) is low if anything.
AGP sucks (for me) because there is just one fucking AGP slot. I have three video cards on my PC. What the fuck am I suposed to do ?
Maybe rethink your video strategy? <ducking>
I would have thought that something like an ATI All-in-wonder + a decent 3D card would get you all you wanted. Hell I think that both Matrox and NVIDIA have combo cards and if not, I am positive that there are very expensive commercial grade frame buffers which could capture your choice of composite/SVideo/maybe even RF modulated at XSVGA resolutions and tack that on the AGP and add your Voodoo3 for 3D.
AGP is yet-another-kind-of-driver adding to the general instability of PC hardware.
That's bullshit, plain and simple. AGP is a wonderful idea compared to some of the alternatives from a cost perspective.
I cried out loud when moto did the altivec.
Why, because you would never use it? I can think of a dozen things I could use extremely fast vector mathematics for. Yeah it takes code to implement it, but that's the problem with computers... you can't think of everything beforehand.
Same story then with the NeXT DSP.
I don't know anything about this but it sounds like they put the DSP on a slow bus or crippled it somehow. A decent DSP (those new TI DSPs look pretty hot) will blow the shit out of your 1.5GHz PIII in doing straight mathematics, which was why DSPs were created in the first place... Fast on math, not so fast everywhere else.
PC is general purpose hardware. THey should stay this way. Each time something specific is done, it is doomed to failure (VLB anyone ?).
I disagree. PCs should cater to the ubiquitous "general user". That doesn't necessarily mean general purpose hardware. And FYI, I am certain that VLB was actually a better bus that PCI, but since PCI was smaller and involved more money brought in, there were certain politics involved quashing VLB.
But saying "If Linus called it GNU/Linux I might think otherwise" makes is sound as though you think it's the naming of the kernel (Linux) that's under discussion, which it isn't or that Linus is reponsible for the whole operating system, which he isn't. It gives the impression that you have no clue as to what what is being dicussed.
Linus created the kernel, this is true. I refer to Linux as the collective kernel and the distribution it's in.
If you want to badger the GNU organization about releasing GNU/Linux, that wouldn't bother me a bit and you'd have a valid point for calling it GNU/Linux. To date, however, GNU has not done this. Slackware has, Redhat has, Debian has, Suse has... you get the point. If I were to wrap the kernel around the Borland compiler and MKS utilities, what would you call it?
This whole GNU/Linux thing makes (oh balls, who is it? RMS? ESR? I can never remember) look like they're trying to grab hold to the fame of Linux after it got popular by tacking on the GNU and acting like a slobbering idiot everytime someone "forgets" to say GNU/Linux. My memory's not perfect, but I don't seem to recall what's-his-nuts emphatically defending the GNU/ in GNU/Linux until a few years ago, and that's what ticks me off. They were helping Linus out way before that.
Hopefully this is making some sense, I'm trying to type and watch my daughter at the same time, and not doing a very good job of either this early in the morning. :-)
Without GNU, Linux would be a hacked clone of Minix. With GNU, it's a genuine alternative to other commercial/free Unix systems.
Give credit where credit is due, dumbass.
I'm sick and tired of this argument. I don't call my car a Chrysler/Toyota/American Motors Jeep*. I don't call my computer an Intel/Asus/WD/Esoniq/Advanced Gravis 466. I don't call my daughter Andrew/Vanessa Katie.
Yes GNU is a big part of Linux. You don't pollute the name of a product after the fact just because it was possible through a third (or fourth or fifth...) party.
If Linus called it GNU/Linux I may think otherwise. However he didn't, and I don't stroke other people's egos just because they feel that now that what they helped with is popular they should get some face time.
* - I believe that Jeep used Toyota transfer cases in their 90's model Cherokees and Grand Cherokees. That's a pretty important part of a 4WD vehicle, dontchathink?
Ralph Wiggum
I know how Ralph is spelled, for some reason I had thought that his was spelled different from the norm. After a quick check I stand corrected. :-)
"Me fail English? That's umpossible!" - Ralf Wiggum
(not a spelling nazi, just a Simpsons fan)
Do you actually use a Palm regularly? I do, and some of my co-workers are true artists in terms of grafitti style writing. But they still write VERY slowly compared to their keyboard typing speed. It's just a slow way to enter data...
I do. And I am setting them to be standard issue with our sales guys.
I plan on giving them a PalmIIIxe, the Palm Modem and the folding keyboard as a replacement for a laptop. 95% of them don't use the laptops for more than a game machine so why not replace that?
Before I decided on embarking on this venture, I tried the Palm folding keyboard with my Palm V. The keyboard folds out to a standard keyboard size and has standard laptop 3mm travel. Feels great to type on.
So now they have their contacts and some custom enterprise software in their coat pocket. And when they're at the hotel they can write up anything large they need with the keyboard.
I may be issuing portable DVD players to do presentations. Even with the DVD players the total cost is about half that of a laptop capable of playing DVDs.
Looks like it prints how much space is used in each directory under the current one.
I didn't run the command or do any man page referencing so I may be a bit off with the particular switches though.
Most of the article explained how different this transmission mode was from the standard we use now. Electromagnetics is a really complex and interesting field...
I can't get to the article (where I'm working this week has a weird proxy set up) but I'm curious -- are they proposing moving closer to what Shannon says the link is capable of, or are they trying to break it?
My /. # < your ./ #.
Actually it isn't, but who's counting?
No, it says "Keyless entry system". Not that I need the sticker, the keypad should be obvious enough (with that nice red LED glowing above it). I'd like to see *you* bypass a magnetically-controlled deadbolt...
Still an obscurity layer on top of your other security layers. You don't tell them the model so they can easily find the electronic/mechanical equivalent of an exploit.
Simple.. anyone with a sniffer can get that information, and then scan behind it.
Which is good, because it involves an extra move on their part.
Even worse, you may not detect it because the firewall now views that scan as "authorized".
I don't follow. What's the difference between an unknown IP hitting auth, netbios, ICQ, elite and netbus in addition to your control port, or just hitting the real service ports? The whole point is to make your machine look "normal" to the DSL/cable guys but to include some method of openning up a few real servers when tickled right.
Or maybe that trigger port can be tickled the wrong way and lock YOU out. Or maybe the server on that port can be crashed, thus accomplishing the same.
Those are implementation issues. You could argue that a bug in the real servers could do the same.
As far as I'm concerned, my original point still stands. Obscurity layers are everywhere in the world, partially on purpose but mostly because people are lazy. The internet default, however, is full disclosure if you're lazy.
Doh! Please excuse my stupid ass. It should really be 127.0.0.0/8
Mine too. I checked my polcy and that is what I have. It was a brainfart last night in that post, I swear. :-)