Re:I agree, but some of the issue lies with us...
on
Security's Shaky State
·
· Score: 1
:) Its the pejorative term we use for folks with a Bachelor of Attendance and Management By Acronym qualifications.
Intended to imply that they are a lesser species who look from a distance to be a Manager. Personally, I respect a good Manager, I have just encountered few.
And remember some of us also act as project managers... and we must judge ourselves equally harshly for our failings:)
A wise man once said "the trick to thin ice is to skate over it pretty quick". Or as my grandfather used to say "You dont have to kick the goal as long as the flags get waved"...
Take that as you will, but I never claimed selling good ideas to the lesser lights above us is EASY to do...
err! jak:)
I agree, but some of the issue lies with us...
on
Security's Shaky State
·
· Score: 3, Informative
... the Engineers and engineers; we doers, designers and other coal face bunnies have to eat some of the blame for under-funding and under-recognition.
If we could accurately quantify the benefits of what we want to do; and there MUST be a simple investment/payback model that any managoid can understand for anything you want to do. We are smarter than them, yet more often than not we bitch about how dumb the senior management is rather than use our smarts to convince them.
Trust me; do your research, present in simple terms the cost of the investment in (insert program here) vs. the cost of not doing it. Remember to quantify the risks in FINANCIAL terms. Lost productive hours; Loss of commercial advantage.
Take an active role in developing Key Performance Indicators for the organisation if it has such programs.
At the end of the day, baby boomers are, by and large, idiots as well as our bosses; they dont get the modern world. We have to present it to them in simple cost accounting terms. The more successful we are at communicating in these terms, the bigger our budgets will be.
Remember, businesses dont/shouldnt SPEND money... they should INVEST it; this is the way to convince and influence PHBs and managoids.
...Drive the teens away from loitering on the streets.
Where do they go?? home to play online games, thats where! We do NOT need more fuckwits dicking around on the aircraft carrier, disobeying orders and trying to fly the blackhawk into the wet deck in BF2.
If anything, install these sounds in games to drive the kids onto the street and away from our internt:)
And "dudefella" is holding with Fantasy conventions?? We dont read about Gabe getting automagically name changed.
No, this is stupid; as someone who likewise has had the same "nick" for a LONG time, over two decades at this point, being UNABLE to use it for the name of my primary character would shit me to tears. Because it IS me, its how my friends find me.
Despite significant temptation, this clearly explains the reasons why I have avoided WarCrack.
...Ok, I have donned the flame proof underwear here. And speaking entirely subjectively; well, in reference to Australian Engineering in any case.
Anyway, I am an Engineer, with certified competencies in Australia. I specialise in mechatronic engineering and work mostly in manufacturing systems development. As a highly qualified professional, I can be and indeed am held personally liable for my failures, as can a Medical Doctor. The similarities?? LONG and COMPLEX degrees, sufficient training and sufficiently rigorous oversight that graduates, after an intern period, may be considered legally liable and have the skills and competence to operate in such an environment. Not only that, but I must demonstrate a significant number of hours a year in professional development to maintain my certification. Without it I couldnt get professional indemnity insurance, nor indeed jobs for which I am likely to be held personally liable.
Here in Australia at least, there are NO true Engineering degrees for computer programmers, Electrical or Electronic engineers often specialise in computer systems, but they are still trained as Engineers first and foremost. Degree qualified computer programmers are at best science graduates and at worst arts graduates. It is unreasonable to place the burden of personal liability on people who did not choose such a career path. When I was at university the difference was 35+ contact hours vs 16- contact hours and a 4~5 year degree vs a 3 year degree. Those doing the latter certainly arent likely to be adequately prepared to shoulder that kind of professional burden.
Take a graduate mechatronic Engineer, a mechanical Engineer, a civil Engineer and an aerospace Engineer. Give them each problems from the other's field and appropriate references. They will struggle with unfamiliarity but they WILL be able to competently solve the problem, why?? they are all trained in the same basic principles. Hand a computer "engineer" a fluid dynamics problem and they will almost certainly NOT be able to solve it. They learn to write programs (so do we, actually, in fact, I consider the ability to program essential in graduate Engineers I hire, same as a second language; just important complementary skills, not core skills).
In summary, you cannot start to hold an employee personally liable until the training and development systems that produce them are sufficiently rigorous to ensure that people who graduate into that field are at least theoretically able to take on the responsibility. Furthermore, some strong professional bodies would be required. The kind that require members to continue their professional development to retain certification and, therefore, continue to be considered competent to be held personally liable.
Anyway, not trying to belittle computer "engineers", but I think their training has to step up several levels in rigor and broaden its scope to truly be considered an Engineering discipline before you start laying the burden of personal liability on their shoulders. Essentially, if you couldnt get professional indemnity insurance, you probably shouldnt be able to be held personally liable. Whilst there are very certainly programmers and hackers out there more than competent to be held liable for their work, without a professional structure; there is no sure or reliable means to make that descision or filter people who really aren't able.
Just my $0.02 AUD, apologies to any I offended:) err! jak.
This is ADSL2+, so the speeds are UP TO 24Mb. I notice the koolaid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H article doesnt make mention of the "Up to" part, and am amused that a slashdot editor drank said koolaid in the first place.
So, unless you were wise enough to purchase the house next to the exchange (and the cables run directly), you arent going to get even near this speed. In fact, the falloff in speed is quite rapid.
I have ADSL2+ at home (here in Adelaide, Australia) and said home is 3.2 km from the exchange as the crow flies (plus or minus GPS error), probably longer by cable; and Im getting 7.5Mb down and 1.0 Mbit up (1.0 is the upstream limit locally). In my particular situation, the difference between ADSL 2 and ADSL 2+ would be pretty negligible.
On a separate note, I wonder if they realise that their "Be Boxes" (from TFA which wasnt even liked in the beginning) might be mistaken for old school computers:)
Sagndrax said : "How does wanting to prevent that even come remotely close to creating WW2 like scenarios?"
No! You have missed the point entirely.
Freedom is the important thing. If some people die because society is free and you didnt have "total information awareness" to make the links that is unfortunate but nescessary.
Just because the intentions are (apparently) pure, does NOT protect people from the abuse of this tool by future (less pure) governments/officials! It's like all the new "anti-terror" legislations springing up around the place (including, sadly, here in Australia).
You do not protect people by reducing their freedoms. Because that diminishes us all.
You do not protect people by monitoring them all day every day. Because that reduces us to lab specimins.
Try solving the problems that lead to children being under threat rather than simply catching people who threaten children?? The correct actions are never the easy ones. Education, social equity, freedom, health, employment, opportunity... these are the things the government should provide and ensure for us.
Id rather a tiny number of children suffered for the rest to be free in the same way I would rather die as a result of a terrorists action than live in a Police state.
My grandfathers fought, my relatives DIED in their fscking country to prevent exactly this kind of crap, the world made its descision 60some years ago. NO TO FASCISM!!! We need to respect the work of our grandparents, not piss on their sacrafice.
Well, according to the post, Antimatter can be TEN MILLION TIMES more expensive than conventional fuel and still cost the same per launch.
It seems to me that mentioning it is expensive after indicating that you go 10e6 down to 10e-1 is a little pointless. Very few things are that much more expensive than their alternatives and mass adoption will rapidly reduce the price of something.
The E-Tax software has been windows only for the past few years; since it's inception, in fact.
Apparently this bloke doesn't lodge alot of tax returns.
Anyway, a vanilla build of wine with a couple of downloads from our favourite software giants web site deals quite well with this software. Last year in any case, one would assume Wine has improved with age and probably still works;) (look! ma! I made a funny)
Frankly, however, I would rather pay the small and tax-deductable ammount to have a professional keep my records for me:)
No, the ACCC successfully argued that you cannot prevent a person or organisation bypassing CSS OR selling region free players. This doesnt force people to sell region free players but does protect from prosecution those who do.
The waters got muddied with a PS2 pirate who was also selling mod chips; but the basic tone of the judges response to sony was, paraphrased "Its a bloody movie and I dont care how it is turned into moving pictures, I just expect to be able to watch those pictures".
:) Fortunately such activities would most likely be viewed as an unfair barrier to trade by the ACCC.
You see, in Australia we have a statuatory body with the power to enforce consumer protection.
As the DMCA only relates to copyright, then they would be unable to enforce it against a physical product anyway. They would need to patent the specific method of operation for the printer cartridge in order to legally prevent people manufacturing copies.
Whilst we have to add a DMCA for the FTA, it doesnt impact on existing consumer laws or legal precedent. Our courts have been quite hard on the symmantics of "its got some software in there so we can get copyright protection" since they tend to see the intended and expected function as more binding under law.
Firstly, modernising our copyright laws is a great thing! Australians should act to provide input to the deliberations.
However, "Fair Use" enshrined in copyright is not specifically nescessary in Australia. The copyright laws here are more to do with "Users" and "Owners" of copyright. Consumers dont fall into either category (unless they start selling illegal copies, when they become "Users" of copyright, illegal users at that). However, if I buy a CD in Australia, as a consumer, I am entiteled to certain protections. I am entitled to use it as I see fit and it must function as advertised (a CD must play in any device I could reasonably expect it to play in). This allows Australians the right to claim their money back for copy protected CDs that dont play in a CD player or to bypass said copy protection to allow them to play said CD.
Like DVD region zoning; in Australia a consumer can freely bypass CSS to allow them to watch a DVD as this is what they reasonably expect when they purchase it.
The reason we need Fair Use is to allow media shifting; as this is not as clear cut a case of reasonable expectations protected under consumer laws.
Essentially, rather than our CD being considered a product, we need the law to recognise that it is both a physical product that must work (see comments above) AND a virtual product. IE, we actaully buy music to listen to; we should be able to listen to that music via any medium we see fit.
Let me be clear, I personally DO NOT agree with wholesale sharing of music files. In my opinion this is offside. However, I see nothing wrong with sending a friend track 6 off my new album to show them how cool it is or ripping the entire thing to my iPod and the hard drive of my car stereo. I would like this not to be technically illegal. Im also not certain we need to water down copyright to add this protection to consumers; this could easily be covered in statuatory consumer protection and policed by the ACCC.
This patent covers a novel invention for ultra-high bandwidth full duplex data transfer.
This invention comprises of the following components: Carrier medium; a level, rigid surface no less than 8.0 meters wide. The exemplar is black bitumen.
Duplex Facilitation Indicator; a parallel strip of material (paint is used for the exemplar) of width 100.0 millimeters spaced 100.0 millimeters apart placed in the geometric centre of the carrier medium. Colour must be suffiently different to the carrier medium as to be easily visible to the human eye at a distance of 20.0 meters, the exemplar is yellow.
Data Packet; 1972 Ford XC Station Wagon containing no less than 10,000 Dual Layer DVD+RW.
The implementation of....
well, much as the joke should be funny, the sad fact that; properly gussied up by a patent attorney or, as I like to call them, waste of perfectly good oxygen; this would probably be granted a patent leads me to the inevetable conclusion that the patent system is permanently broken, being as it was intended to FACILITATE competition and progress, not stifle same.
That and we have continuing proof of the universe's phenomenal ability to produce bigger and better idiots.
Ive blogged on the disturbing accuracy of the targetted adds in gmail (like realising we are writing haiku where we havent actually mentioned the word "haiku"), I am fully cognicent of their MASSIVE database and penetration of all things search. They know more about me than I would normally be comfortable for people to know as I conduct ALL my searches there. Now this... a product which I feel drawn to using, in much the same way I reflexively watch star wars movies no matter how bad they are...
And a small voice at the back of my mind muses that perhaps this is how the German people felt as they voted back in 1933. It SEEMS like a good idea but you cant help but wonder where it is all going to lead.
For now I just take solace in the fact that Microsoft's ridiculously large staff probably sit around in horror, wondering how the fuck Google keeps doing this:)
Could be... but it is also conveniently about 18 months since x86_64 linux distributions began appearing; so it could also just be laziness and/or incompetence:)
that uses GNOME!! I use XFCE for my notebook due to its slick lightweight interface... and minimal overhead.
http://www.encryptec.net/flashlinux/
This is a 200MB distro complete with openoffice (or abiword/gnumeric)... so it fits on a 256MB stick with space for/home/luser too:)
bloody slow but useful. With 256MB sticks being thrown out in wheatbix packets it is spot on.
This distro could be trimmed to fit in 128MB if you deleted open office... any smaller and you would need to resort to xdirectFB or similar since X takes a fair chunk... but XFCE with GTK+ is not that heavy, but wont make that much difference compated to a butchered gnome/KDE installation, maybe 15~20MB lighter...
Either way, you wont find a pretty windowmanager that doesnt use some kind of pretty widget/graphics library. GTK+/QT are not what makes gnome/kde so heavy, its all the extraneous crap that comes with it. The libraries on their own are negligible.
Without B5 there never WOULD have been a new wave of non ST scifi. They pioneered the use of SIGNIFICANT CGI scenes, "real" space and as close to "real" physics as a good story allows. Yes, their space suits looked more like hazmat suits and the sets were a little dodgy, but the were made with a shoestring budget. However; Character driven stories, an underlying thread that continues regardless of the episode... all the things that make firefly great and, indeed, meant that Battlestar 2k was quite watchable also; were born in B5.
Moreso that startrek, B5 and JMS ensured we would have a continuing future of SCI FI on television as they demonstrated, over rocky roads, that you didnt have to be star trek to make money...
Either way, you can pry both firefly and B5 from my cold dead hands... dont RENT the DVDs, buy them. Every firefly dvd set sold is a big fuck you very much to the Fox network that killed it for "poor ratings".
As a card carrying gentoo Zealot I am incredibly impressed with this new release (or at least its betas).
This takes gentoo one step closer to being the One Distro, IMLTHO:)
Those of you who felt gentoo was obscure and difficult to install, this is no longer true; however its inherent light weight and "only what I asked for" philosiphy is soundly intact. I recommend you give it a shot with this new LiveCD release.
This darkspur, which as we know was not forged by man, wars apparently with a lightspur across time for dominion over all, or beer; I'm not sure about the last bit.
Anyway, what is the origin of the spur's and will we be seeing them again in the future?
Slashdot Mirror
:) Its the pejorative term we use for folks with a Bachelor of Attendance and Management By Acronym qualifications.
:)
Intended to imply that they are a lesser species who look from a distance to be a Manager. Personally, I respect a good Manager, I have just encountered few.
And remember some of us also act as project managers... and we must judge ourselves equally harshly for our failings
A wise man once said "the trick to thin ice is to skate over it pretty quick". Or as my grandfather used to say "You dont have to kick the goal as long as the flags get waved"...
:)
Take that as you will, but I never claimed selling good ideas to the lesser lights above us is EASY to do...
err!
jak
... the Engineers and engineers; we doers, designers and other coal face bunnies have to eat some of the blame for under-funding and under-recognition.
If we could accurately quantify the benefits of what we want to do; and there MUST be a simple investment/payback model that any managoid can understand for anything you want to do. We are smarter than them, yet more often than not we bitch about how dumb the senior management is rather than use our smarts to convince them.
Trust me; do your research, present in simple terms the cost of the investment in (insert program here) vs. the cost of not doing it. Remember to quantify the risks in FINANCIAL terms. Lost productive hours; Loss of commercial advantage.
Take an active role in developing Key Performance Indicators for the organisation if it has such programs.
At the end of the day, baby boomers are, by and large, idiots as well as our bosses; they dont get the modern world. We have to present it to them in simple cost accounting terms. The more successful we are at communicating in these terms, the bigger our budgets will be.
Remember, businesses dont/shouldnt SPEND money... they should INVEST it; this is the way to convince and influence PHBs and managoids.
Anyway, just my $0.02AUD
err!
jak.
...Drive the teens away from loitering on the streets.
:)
Where do they go?? home to play online games, thats where! We do NOT need more fuckwits dicking around on the aircraft carrier, disobeying orders and trying to fly the blackhawk into the wet deck in BF2.
If anything, install these sounds in games to drive the kids onto the street and away from our internt
And "dudefella" is holding with Fantasy conventions?? We dont read about Gabe getting automagically name changed.
No, this is stupid; as someone who likewise has had the same "nick" for a LONG time, over two decades at this point, being UNABLE to use it for the name of my primary character would shit me to tears. Because it IS me, its how my friends find me.
Despite significant temptation, this clearly explains the reasons why I have avoided WarCrack.
Just my $0.02.
err!
Jak.
...Ok, I have donned the flame proof underwear here. And speaking entirely subjectively; well, in reference to Australian Engineering in any case.
:)
Anyway, I am an Engineer, with certified competencies in Australia. I specialise in mechatronic engineering and work mostly in manufacturing systems development. As a highly qualified professional, I can be and indeed am held personally liable for my failures, as can a Medical Doctor. The similarities?? LONG and COMPLEX degrees, sufficient training and sufficiently rigorous oversight that graduates, after an intern period, may be considered legally liable and have the skills and competence to operate in such an environment. Not only that, but I must demonstrate a significant number of hours a year in professional development to maintain my certification. Without it I couldnt get professional indemnity insurance, nor indeed jobs for which I am likely to be held personally liable.
Here in Australia at least, there are NO true Engineering degrees for computer programmers, Electrical or Electronic engineers often specialise in computer systems, but they are still trained as Engineers first and foremost. Degree qualified computer programmers are at best science graduates and at worst arts graduates. It is unreasonable to place the burden of personal liability on people who did not choose such a career path. When I was at university the difference was 35+ contact hours vs 16- contact hours and a 4~5 year degree vs a 3 year degree. Those doing the latter certainly arent likely to be adequately prepared to shoulder that kind of professional burden.
Take a graduate mechatronic Engineer, a mechanical Engineer, a civil Engineer and an aerospace Engineer. Give them each problems from the other's field and appropriate references. They will struggle with unfamiliarity but they WILL be able to competently solve the problem, why?? they are all trained in the same basic principles. Hand a computer "engineer" a fluid dynamics problem and they will almost certainly NOT be able to solve it. They learn to write programs (so do we, actually, in fact, I consider the ability to program essential in graduate Engineers I hire, same as a second language; just important complementary skills, not core skills).
In summary, you cannot start to hold an employee personally liable until the training and development systems that produce them are sufficiently rigorous to ensure that people who graduate into that field are at least theoretically able to take on the responsibility. Furthermore, some strong professional bodies would be required. The kind that require members to continue their professional development to retain certification and, therefore, continue to be considered competent to be held personally liable.
Anyway, not trying to belittle computer "engineers", but I think their training has to step up several levels in rigor and broaden its scope to truly be considered an Engineering discipline before you start laying the burden of personal liability on their shoulders. Essentially, if you couldnt get professional indemnity insurance, you probably shouldnt be able to be held personally liable. Whilst there are very certainly programmers and hackers out there more than competent to be held liable for their work, without a professional structure; there is no sure or reliable means to make that descision or filter people who really aren't able.
Just my $0.02 AUD, apologies to any I offended
err!
jak.
This is ADSL2+, so the speeds are UP TO 24Mb. I notice the koolaid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H article doesnt make mention of the "Up to" part, and am amused that a slashdot editor drank said koolaid in the first place.
:)
So, unless you were wise enough to purchase the house next to the exchange (and the cables run directly), you arent going to get even near this speed. In fact, the falloff in speed is quite rapid.
I have ADSL2+ at home (here in Adelaide, Australia) and said home is 3.2 km from the exchange as the crow flies (plus or minus GPS error), probably longer by cable; and Im getting 7.5Mb down and 1.0 Mbit up (1.0 is the upstream limit locally). In my particular situation, the difference between ADSL 2 and ADSL 2+ would be pretty negligible.
On a separate note, I wonder if they realise that their "Be Boxes" (from TFA which wasnt even liked in the beginning) might be mistaken for old school computers
Just my $0.02 AUD.
err!
jak.
Yes, I realise I cant spell... :)
Sagndrax said : "How does wanting to prevent that even come remotely close to creating WW2 like scenarios?"
No! You have missed the point entirely.
Freedom is the important thing. If some people die because society is free and you didnt have "total information awareness" to make the links that is unfortunate but nescessary.
Just because the intentions are (apparently) pure, does NOT protect people from the abuse of this tool by future (less pure) governments/officials! It's like all the new "anti-terror" legislations springing up around the place (including, sadly, here in Australia).
You do not protect people by reducing their freedoms. Because that diminishes us all.
You do not protect people by monitoring them all day every day. Because that reduces us to lab specimins.
Try solving the problems that lead to children being under threat rather than simply catching people who threaten children?? The correct actions are never the easy ones. Education, social equity, freedom, health, employment, opportunity... these are the things the government should provide and ensure for us.
Id rather a tiny number of children suffered for the rest to be free in the same way I would rather die as a result of a terrorists action than live in a Police state.
My grandfathers fought, my relatives DIED in their fscking country to prevent exactly this kind of crap, the world made its descision 60some years ago. NO TO FASCISM!!! We need to respect the work of our grandparents, not piss on their sacrafice.
err!
jak.
The french... a bus company is suing some commuters for car. pooling.
The world is badly, badly b0rken.
err!
jak.
Making food for useful people since 1972.
Well, according to the post, Antimatter can be TEN MILLION TIMES more expensive than conventional fuel and still cost the same per launch.
:)
It seems to me that mentioning it is expensive after indicating that you go 10e6 down to 10e-1 is a little pointless. Very few things are that much more expensive than their alternatives and mass adoption will rapidly reduce the price of something.
Course, I could have missed something
The E-Tax software has been windows only for the past few years; since it's inception, in fact.
;) (look! ma! I made a funny)
:)
Apparently this bloke doesn't lodge alot of tax returns.
Anyway, a vanilla build of wine with a couple of downloads from our favourite software giants web site deals quite well with this software. Last year in any case, one would assume Wine has improved with age and probably still works
Frankly, however, I would rather pay the small and tax-deductable ammount to have a professional keep my records for me
Hell No, dont save the money just coz you can record it!!
It doesnt matter if it *IS* being aired in its entirety; they wont make new episodes unless they smell money.
By the DVDs. Hell, buy 10 sets and hand them out instead of socks to your relatives at >insert culturally appropriate annual celebration here
No, the ACCC successfully argued that you cannot prevent a person or organisation bypassing CSS OR selling region free players. This doesnt force people to sell region free players but does protect from prosecution those who do.
The waters got muddied with a PS2 pirate who was also selling mod chips; but the basic tone of the judges response to sony was, paraphrased "Its a bloody movie and I dont care how it is turned into moving pictures, I just expect to be able to watch those pictures".
err!
jak.
:) Fortunately such activities would most likely be viewed as an unfair barrier to trade by the ACCC.
You see, in Australia we have a statuatory body with the power to enforce consumer protection.
As the DMCA only relates to copyright, then they would be unable to enforce it against a physical product anyway. They would need to patent the specific method of operation for the printer cartridge in order to legally prevent people manufacturing copies.
Whilst we have to add a DMCA for the FTA, it doesnt impact on existing consumer laws or legal precedent. Our courts have been quite hard on the symmantics of "its got some software in there so we can get copyright protection" since they tend to see the intended and expected function as more binding under law.
Thats just my take anyway.
err!
jak.
Firstly, modernising our copyright laws is a great thing! Australians should act to provide input to the deliberations.
However, "Fair Use" enshrined in copyright is not specifically nescessary in Australia. The copyright laws here are more to do with "Users" and "Owners" of copyright. Consumers dont fall into either category (unless they start selling illegal copies, when they become "Users" of copyright, illegal users at that). However, if I buy a CD in Australia, as a consumer, I am entiteled to certain protections. I am entitled to use it as I see fit and it must function as advertised (a CD must play in any device I could reasonably expect it to play in). This allows Australians the right to claim their money back for copy protected CDs that dont play in a CD player or to bypass said copy protection to allow them to play said CD.
Like DVD region zoning; in Australia a consumer can freely bypass CSS to allow them to watch a DVD as this is what they reasonably expect when they purchase it.
The reason we need Fair Use is to allow media shifting; as this is not as clear cut a case of reasonable expectations protected under consumer laws.
Essentially, rather than our CD being considered a product, we need the law to recognise that it is both a physical product that must work (see comments above) AND a virtual product. IE, we actaully buy music to listen to; we should be able to listen to that music via any medium we see fit.
Let me be clear, I personally DO NOT agree with wholesale sharing of music files. In my opinion this is offside. However, I see nothing wrong with sending a friend track 6 off my new album to show them how cool it is or ripping the entire thing to my iPod and the hard drive of my car stereo. I would like this not to be technically illegal. Im also not certain we need to water down copyright to add this protection to consumers; this could easily be covered in statuatory consumer protection and policed by the ACCC.
Anyway, my rambling $0.02...
err!
jak
:) well, DUH! where do you think I was inspired.
My patent, however, is clearly different in that it enables full duplex communication.
Not to mention DVD's instead of tapes.
Course, you have rather ingenuously stumbled across my actual point... good for you!
This patent covers a novel invention for ultra-high bandwidth full duplex data transfer.
This invention comprises of the following components:
Carrier medium; a level, rigid surface no less than 8.0 meters wide. The exemplar is black bitumen.
Duplex Facilitation Indicator; a parallel strip of material (paint is used for the exemplar) of width 100.0 millimeters spaced 100.0 millimeters apart placed in the geometric centre of the carrier medium. Colour must be suffiently different to the carrier medium as to be easily visible to the human eye at a distance of 20.0 meters, the exemplar is yellow.
Data Packet; 1972 Ford XC Station Wagon containing no less than 10,000 Dual Layer DVD+RW.
The implementation of....
well, much as the joke should be funny, the sad fact that; properly gussied up by a patent attorney or, as I like to call them, waste of perfectly good oxygen; this would probably be granted a patent leads me to the inevetable conclusion that the patent system is permanently broken, being as it was intended to FACILITATE competition and progress, not stifle same.
That and we have continuing proof of the universe's phenomenal ability to produce bigger and better idiots.
err!
jak
Ive blogged on the disturbing accuracy of the targetted adds in gmail (like realising we are writing haiku where we havent actually mentioned the word "haiku"), I am fully cognicent of their MASSIVE database and penetration of all things search. They know more about me than I would normally be comfortable for people to know as I conduct ALL my searches there. Now this... a product which I feel drawn to using, in much the same way I reflexively watch star wars movies no matter how bad they are...
:)
And a small voice at the back of my mind muses that perhaps this is how the German people felt as they voted back in 1933. It SEEMS like a good idea but you cant help but wonder where it is all going to lead.
For now I just take solace in the fact that Microsoft's ridiculously large staff probably sit around in horror, wondering how the fuck Google keeps doing this
err!
jak.
Could be... :)
but it is also conveniently about 18 months since x86_64 linux distributions began appearing; so it could also just be laziness and/or incompetence
that uses GNOME!! I use XFCE for my notebook due to its slick lightweight interface... and minimal overhead.
/home/luser too :)
http://www.encryptec.net/flashlinux/
This is a 200MB distro complete with openoffice (or abiword/gnumeric)... so it fits on a 256MB stick with space for
bloody slow but useful. With 256MB sticks being thrown out in wheatbix packets it is spot on.
This distro could be trimmed to fit in 128MB if you deleted open office... any smaller and you would need to resort to xdirectFB or similar since X takes a fair chunk... but XFCE with GTK+ is not that heavy, but wont make that much difference compated to a butchered gnome/KDE installation, maybe 15~20MB lighter...
Either way, you wont find a pretty windowmanager that doesnt use some kind of pretty widget/graphics library. GTK+/QT are not what makes gnome/kde so heavy, its all the extraneous crap that comes with it. The libraries on their own are negligible.
just my 0.02.
err!
jak
Course,
Cause and effect my friend.
Without B5 there never WOULD have been a new wave of non ST scifi. They pioneered the use of SIGNIFICANT CGI scenes, "real" space and as close to "real" physics as a good story allows. Yes, their space suits looked more like hazmat suits and the sets were a little dodgy, but the were made with a shoestring budget. However; Character driven stories, an underlying thread that continues regardless of the episode... all the things that make firefly great and, indeed, meant that Battlestar 2k was quite watchable also; were born in B5.
Moreso that startrek, B5 and JMS ensured we would have a continuing future of SCI FI on television as they demonstrated, over rocky roads, that you didnt have to be star trek to make money...
Either way, you can pry both firefly and B5 from my cold dead hands... dont RENT the DVDs, buy them. Every firefly dvd set sold is a big fuck you very much to the Fox network that killed it for "poor ratings".
err!
jak
"I recommend you give it a shot with this new LiveCD release."; read WHEN this new LiveCD is released :)
but this bloody well is :)
:)
As a card carrying gentoo Zealot I am incredibly impressed with this new release (or at least its betas).
This takes gentoo one step closer to being the One Distro, IMLTHO
Those of you who felt gentoo was obscure and difficult to install, this is no longer true; however its inherent light weight and "only what I asked for" philosiphy is soundly intact. I recommend you give it a shot with this new LiveCD release.
err!
jak
This darkspur, which as we know was not forged by man, wars apparently with a lightspur across time for dominion over all, or beer; I'm not sure about the last bit.
Anyway, what is the origin of the spur's and will we be seeing them again in the future?
err!
jak.