We had something like this to stop the nonsense I get in the snail-mail.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to go to the post office to pick up my mail when I had only a couple of valid pieces of mail in my mailbox.
And stamps, not that they're all that expensive, but does anybody else notice a trend here? How much am I paying the post office to give me advertisements I didn't want in the first place? And God forbid my mail get anywhere before the deadline when I send it out last minute!! How silly of me, I mean, there's all this important junk mail to sift through, no wonder there's not any time to get my wife and kid that Christmas card I sent them during the holiday!!
Now that I think about it...
Does anybody else pay for their T-1 according to the bandwidth they use or is that just us...
This sounds so much like when I used to work at the substance abuse treatment center...
When I think about this, it is easily comparable to alcoholism, where the alcoholic is actually looking for an escape from reality or pain rather than a good feeling. Sure, it starts off feeling good, that's why the alcoholic goes back, it feels much better than the reality of life, and the alcoholic actually has CONTROLL over his/her emotions/life when using (so it appears). After a period of time however the good feeling doesn't come as quickly as it used to (a.k.a. tolerance), so the alcoholic has to use more to get that good feeling again.
After a while, as tolerance builds, the good feeling no longer comes, and the alcoholic has to use just to feel normal.
More time passes, for some its a short period of time, for others its a long period of time, but eventually the alcoholic becomes so immersed in this false reality that they stop learning how to interact with people and how to deal with their emotions. They basically stop growing up. When they do return to reality (if they do), they do not know how to deal with normal life situations, and in an attempt to feel normal again, quickly turn back to the false reality. This is usually referred to as "falling off the wagon".
One of the first signs of alcoholism is a replacement of friends, people who used to be very important to the alcoholic can no longer relate to the him so the he replaces them with people who can understand him. This makes it very hard for the alcoholic to escape the lifestyle because they start comparing peoples' outside to their insides "Joe does it, he's perfectly normal". Regardless of the fact that Joe is just as F%$#ed up as he is.
What compounds the problem even further is the fact that gaming is socially acceptable. People don't get hurt by video games the way drunk drivers kill people on the roads. It is quit similar however to the alcoholic businessman who in all accounts and respects has a functioning lifestyle, he pays the bills, goes to work, etc. Never mind the fact that he neglects his wife and children and never grows up emotionally. I've witnessed 35 year old men throwing temper tantrums like 13 year old boys while I was working at the treatment center. I've also witnessed 35 year old men throwing temper tantrums like 13 year old boys while playing D&D or Final Fantasy.
What's the difference?
There really is none. From what I see it's all an escape from reality
Just like alcohol, some can drink it, some can't. Gaming is O.K. as long as it is not an addiction. When it becomes an addiction, it's time to stop and figure out what's really going on.
I work for a company who deals with wireless Internet whose name I will not disclose. There are a number of problems that we have seen that are generally not talked about by people outside of the loop.
The first issue has to do with using a proprietary medium; wich has a restricted coverage area. These are expensive for the providers to expand, because they must place their propriatary equipment in key areas. This is causing them to grow slowly and limits their ability to placate their target audience, the traveling business man.
The second issue has to deal with using standards based medium. Cellular services are the most wide spread point-to-point services in existence today. However, many cellular providers shun the use of analog devices because each device requires it's own channel to communicate, increasing overhead for the provider. On the same token, digital devices rarely achieve top speeds (average top speed = 19.2 kbps) due to their ability to share a digital channel. If someone else logs on, your available bandwidth can effectively be cut in half.
The third issue, which is directed toward cellular devices/services (which are the most common), has to do with the cellular service. Again the traveling businessman needs to travel, this is in fact when the device is most needed. But who wants to pay roaming charges? This can get expensive.
The forth issue is with the modems that most dial in providers use to grant access to the Internet. When two devices connect, they establish a maximum speed at wich both devices can communicate. Cellular device's medium switches in speed often and therefore the speeds that the devices can communicate at shift up and down. Most dial-in modems are unable to accommodate for this switching, and drop the connection. However, because cellular Internet use is increasing, many companies are upgrading to devices that can accommodate this up and down shifting in speed.
The fifth issue is with TCP. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol that uses IP to travel across a medium. If a TCP connection is lost, the connection needs to be reestablished in order for communications to continue This is usually not a problem, except that most medium do not break and recreate themselves erratically (could you imagine if your CAT5 broke and fixed itself without you knowing!!). Cellular connections however do this often when a device is mobile. This is why it is not recommended that you browse the Internet while you drive (there may be other reasons as well, but I'm not qualified to discuss them)
As far as countries outside the US are concerned, these areas seem to be growing quicker due to a general lack of a Telco services infrastructure. We see it most in South America, where it is impossible to find a landline to hook your modem/phone into. The alternative to get on the Internet would be to use a cellular medium.
I know I'll probably get slammed for posting this on/. instead of on some highly religious web site for the simple fact that the trend tends to be toward anti major religion and on occasion anti conventional patriotism. However, If we are going to post a question to the candidates in regards to religion, it would be nice if for once we included major religion's and organization's rights as well.
Take the Boy Scouts for instance. Here is a major private,/b> organization that chooses to hold a set of beliefs that a minority organization (gay rights movement) disagrees with, and the Boy Scouts are being dragged through the trenches for this by having their rights to use the same public facilities (as the gay rights movement) removed.
When Sunday comes around, you don't start the Cleveland Browns on the 40 yard line after a touchback just because their organization is not as strong as the Rams'.
I'm trying to post this opinion with as neutral a tone as possible, and apologize if I failed to succeed. I don't like either the Browns or the Rams.
I'm not 100 percent sure what was meant by the statement by Tiemann:
"We did start the open-source revolution"
but there is defanately confusion about what words are used. Many keep pointing out that RedHat did not start the open source movement:
movement (mvmnt)
n. A series of actions and events taking place over a period of time and working to foster a principle or policy: a movement toward world peace.
An organized effort by supporters of a common goal
revolution (rv-lshn)
n. Abbr. rev.
A sudden or momentous change in a situation
Why does this matter?
I agree that RedHat did not start the open source movement, but they may very well have been the driving force behind the open source revolution. This of course being a matter of opinion.
Just thought that I'd point out that the root of y=(9x^2+12x+4) should be reduced to it's simplest form (3x+2)^2. Allot of poeple are posting (3x+2)(3x+2) as the answer, the engineers at our firm would go crazy if they saw this.
I'm voting for Bush myself. Technology will continue to move forward despite who the president is. Just look at the free software movement and how M$ has done it's best to thwart that. Didn't work.
On a more personal level, my father was a bubblehead for a good part of my childhood. And while most of America today would consider him a "bad father" because I only saw him 4 weeks a year, I praise God that he was willing to put himself in harms way for me (and you). I shunn anyone who would degrade him for his sacrifice, he could have done the easy thing, but my father grew up in a day when sacrifice was a way of life. I will not throw away the meaning of those sacrifices by voting for somebody who is willing to throw the country that I was raised to love into further moral degridation.
I may be a geek, but there is much more to live and die for than just technology.
Slashdot Mirror
"All it's missing is color."
And 320x320 screen resolution
-Rich
We had something like this to stop the nonsense I get in the snail-mail.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to go to the post office to pick up my mail when I had only a couple of valid pieces of mail in my mailbox.
And stamps, not that they're all that expensive, but does anybody else notice a trend here? How much am I paying the post office to give me advertisements I didn't want in the first place? And God forbid my mail get anywhere before the deadline when I send it out last minute!! How silly of me, I mean, there's all this important junk mail to sift through, no wonder there's not any time to get my wife and kid that Christmas card I sent them during the holiday!!
Now that I think about it...
Does anybody else pay for their T-1 according to the bandwidth they use or is that just us...
This sounds so much like when I used to work at the substance abuse treatment center...
When I think about this, it is easily comparable to alcoholism, where the alcoholic is actually looking for an escape from reality or pain rather than a good feeling. Sure, it starts off feeling good, that's why the alcoholic goes back, it feels much better than the reality of life, and the alcoholic actually has CONTROLL over his/her emotions/life when using (so it appears). After a period of time however the good feeling doesn't come as quickly as it used to (a.k.a. tolerance), so the alcoholic has to use more to get that good feeling again.
After a while, as tolerance builds, the good feeling no longer comes, and the alcoholic has to use just to feel normal.
More time passes, for some its a short period of time, for others its a long period of time, but eventually the alcoholic becomes so immersed in this false reality that they stop learning how to interact with people and how to deal with their emotions. They basically stop growing up. When they do return to reality (if they do), they do not know how to deal with normal life situations, and in an attempt to feel normal again, quickly turn back to the false reality. This is usually referred to as "falling off the wagon".
One of the first signs of alcoholism is a replacement of friends, people who used to be very important to the alcoholic can no longer relate to the him so the he replaces them with people who can understand him. This makes it very hard for the alcoholic to escape the lifestyle because they start comparing peoples' outside to their insides "Joe does it, he's perfectly normal". Regardless of the fact that Joe is just as F%$#ed up as he is.
What compounds the problem even further is the fact that gaming is socially acceptable. People don't get hurt by video games the way drunk drivers kill people on the roads. It is quit similar however to the alcoholic businessman who in all accounts and respects has a functioning lifestyle, he pays the bills, goes to work, etc. Never mind the fact that he neglects his wife and children and never grows up emotionally. I've witnessed 35 year old men throwing temper tantrums like 13 year old boys while I was working at the treatment center. I've also witnessed 35 year old men throwing temper tantrums like 13 year old boys while playing D&D or Final Fantasy.
What's the difference?
There really is none. From what I see it's all an escape from reality
Just like alcohol, some can drink it, some can't. Gaming is O.K. as long as it is not an addiction. When it becomes an addiction, it's time to stop and figure out what's really going on.
I work for a company who deals with wireless Internet whose name I will not disclose. There are a number of problems that we have seen that are generally not talked about by people outside of the loop.
The first issue has to do with using a proprietary medium; wich has a restricted coverage area. These are expensive for the providers to expand, because they must place their propriatary equipment in key areas. This is causing them to grow slowly and limits their ability to placate their target audience, the traveling business man.
The second issue has to deal with using standards based medium. Cellular services are the most wide spread point-to-point services in existence today. However, many cellular providers shun the use of analog devices because each device requires it's own channel to communicate, increasing overhead for the provider. On the same token, digital devices rarely achieve top speeds (average top speed = 19.2 kbps) due to their ability to share a digital channel. If someone else logs on, your available bandwidth can effectively be cut in half.
The third issue, which is directed toward cellular devices/services (which are the most common), has to do with the cellular service. Again the traveling businessman needs to travel, this is in fact when the device is most needed. But who wants to pay roaming charges? This can get expensive.
The forth issue is with the modems that most dial in providers use to grant access to the Internet. When two devices connect, they establish a maximum speed at wich both devices can communicate. Cellular device's medium switches in speed often and therefore the speeds that the devices can communicate at shift up and down. Most dial-in modems are unable to accommodate for this switching, and drop the connection. However, because cellular Internet use is increasing, many companies are upgrading to devices that can accommodate this up and down shifting in speed.
The fifth issue is with TCP. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol that uses IP to travel across a medium. If a TCP connection is lost, the connection needs to be reestablished in order for communications to continue This is usually not a problem, except that most medium do not break and recreate themselves erratically (could you imagine if your CAT5 broke and fixed itself without you knowing!!). Cellular connections however do this often when a device is mobile. This is why it is not recommended that you browse the Internet while you drive (there may be other reasons as well, but I'm not qualified to discuss them)
As far as countries outside the US are concerned, these areas seem to be growing quicker due to a general lack of a Telco services infrastructure. We see it most in South America, where it is impossible to find a landline to hook your modem/phone into. The alternative to get on the Internet would be to use a cellular medium.
I know I'll probably get slammed for posting this on /. instead of on some highly religious web site for the simple fact that the trend tends to be toward anti major religion and on occasion anti conventional patriotism. However, If we are going to post a question to the candidates in regards to religion, it would be nice if for once we included major religion's and organization's rights as well.
Take the Boy Scouts for instance. Here is a major private,/b> organization that chooses to hold a set of beliefs that a minority organization (gay rights movement) disagrees with, and the Boy Scouts are being dragged through the trenches for this by having their rights to use the same public facilities (as the gay rights movement) removed.
When Sunday comes around, you don't start the Cleveland Browns on the 40 yard line after a touchback just because their organization is not as strong as the Rams'.
I'm trying to post this opinion with as neutral a tone as possible, and apologize if I failed to succeed. I don't like either the Browns or the Rams.
I'm not 100 percent sure what was meant by the statement by Tiemann:
"We did start the open-source revolution"
but there is defanately confusion about what words are used. Many keep pointing out that RedHat did not start the open source movement:
movement (mvmnt)
n. A series of actions and events taking place over a period of time and working to foster a principle or policy: a movement toward world peace. An organized effort by supporters of a common goal
revolution (rv-lshn) n. Abbr. rev.
A sudden or momentous change in a situation
Why does this matter?
I agree that RedHat did not start the open source movement, but they may very well have been the driving force behind the open source revolution. This of course being a matter of opinion.
Just thought that I'd point out that the root of y=(9x^2+12x+4) should be reduced to it's simplest form (3x+2)^2. Allot of poeple are posting (3x+2)(3x+2) as the answer, the engineers at our firm would go crazy if they saw this. I'm voting for Bush myself. Technology will continue to move forward despite who the president is. Just look at the free software movement and how M$ has done it's best to thwart that. Didn't work. On a more personal level, my father was a bubblehead for a good part of my childhood. And while most of America today would consider him a "bad father" because I only saw him 4 weeks a year, I praise God that he was willing to put himself in harms way for me (and you). I shunn anyone who would degrade him for his sacrifice, he could have done the easy thing, but my father grew up in a day when sacrifice was a way of life. I will not throw away the meaning of those sacrifices by voting for somebody who is willing to throw the country that I was raised to love into further moral degridation. I may be a geek, but there is much more to live and die for than just technology.
A wise man once said, "If you go to the barber shop, be prepaired to get a haircut."