I used to have a few friends down the street with one. I don't think they ever really fully appreciated it. My first impression was : "Wow. On audio tape. Audio tape."
... Have you ever noticed that when animals are let out of cages, they don't always realize at first that the door's open? Often they have to be poked with a stick to get them out. Something similar happened with blogs. People could have been publishing online in 1995, and yet blogging has only really taken off in the last couple years. In 1995 we thought only professional writers were entitled to publish their ideas, and that anyone else who did was a crank. Now publishing online is becoming so popular that everyone wants to do it, even print journalists. But blogging has not taken off recently because of any technical innovation; it just took eight years for everyone to realize the cage was open.
I think most undergrads don't realize yet that the economic cage is open. A lot have been told by their parents that the route to success is to get a good job. This was true when their parents were in college, but it's less true now. The route to success is to build something valuable, and you don't have to be working for an existing company to do that. Indeed, you can often do it better if you're not.
When I talk to undergrads, what surprises me most about them is how conservative they are. Not politically, of course. I mean they don't seem to want to take risks. This is a mistake, because the younger you are, the more risk you can take....
Actually college is where the line ends. Superficially, going to work for a company may feel like just the next in a series of institutions, but underneath, everything is different. The end of school is the fulcrum of your life, the point where you go from net consumer to net producer.
The other big change is that now, you're steering. You can go anywhere you want. So it may be worth standing back and understanding what's going on, instead of just doing the default thing.
All through college, and probably long before that, most undergrads have been thinking about what employers want. But what really matters is what customers want, because they're the ones who give employers the money to pay you.
So instead of thinking about what employers want, you're probably better off thinking directly about what users want. To the extent there's any difference between the two, you can even use that to your advantage if you start a company of your own. For example, big companies like docile conformists. But this is merely an artifact of their bigness, not something customers need....
A Public Service Message
I'd like to conclude with a joint message from me and your parents. Don't drop out of college to start a startup. There's no rush. There will be plenty of time to start companies after you graduate. In fact, it may be just as well to go work for an existing company for a couple years after you graduate, to learn how companies work.
And yet, when I think about it, I can't imagine telling Bill Gates at 19 that he should wait till he graduated to start a company. He'd have told me to get lost. And could I have honestly claimed that he was harming his future-- that he was learning less by working at ground zero of the microcomputer revolution than he would have if he'd been taking classes back at Harvard? No, probably not.
And yes, while it is probably true that you'll learn some valuable things by going to work for an e
Someday we will have devices that - IF they need to be plugged in - will communicate with the power supply its needs in terms of power handling, voltage, and ripple requirements (or desires). While adapters could provide a means for some time to power the devices that will not communicate (use a switch to manually select), eventually things should be plugNplay - just like your USB mouse. (It's too bad USB can't handle more power at this point....)
This power supply could provide a few hundred watts, run off any voltage (AC or DC) to step (buck or boost) and switch (provided the current on the supply side is available) to the proper output voltage. 3-6 wires and some sort of universal plug would be sufficient to provide a serial comms link and power/ground for a few different supplies to a number of devices.
I can imagine having to buy a large one for your computer desk, and maybe a smaller one for your phone/answering machine/etc. (If they're still around).
The connectors should be bisexual so you can connect a number of cords together without worrying about which end is which (or having to buy matched pairs and end up with extras for DIYers) to get to your device. Feedback from the device on power quality or voltage drop would be nice (expensive however) to compensate at the supply for bad contacts or extra long runs.
NatSemi will eventually come out with an integrated controller that takes care of the signaling (including PHY), all control functions, and the kitchen sink - all somebody has to do is provide the transformer, diodes, filter caps, and case. This will make these easy to manufacture and then companies can compete on form factor, efficiency and cost rather than trying to get you to buy their proprietary cables and yet another wall wart for your [whatever].
A controller that could plug into a spare ATX power supply that would properly load it and provide a number of different voltages and a cabling system with converters to a number of different barrel connector sizes and polarities would be nice:) to start however. Happy 420!
See my previous post here for a pf.conf recipe to implement traffic shaping based on packet type. You could also prioritize via IP, require a ssh session to gain higher priorities for a specific IP (authpf), based on time of day, or any other number of factors.
THE guide to pf (packet filter) can be found here. pf will run on FreeBSD as well as, I believe, a few other open OSs. I think it's really the best. Almost any reader here could surely benefit from at least a partial working knowledge of packet filters ("firewalls") in general.
======= EXTRA CREDIT ======= Got a few connections you'd like to tie together into one? Read more about Address Pools and Load Balancing with pf.
Turn that old P5 and two network cards into an OpenBSD firewall and learn to setup your own router. You will learn a TON about TCP/IP, how to protect your internal network, and BSDs in general (they're pretty neat in the way that they don't have as much "cruft" as usually found in your typical - yeah, that works:) - Linux distro. The simplicity, if you've never experienced it before, can feel both constraining and liberating at the same time. Give it a try if you've got a spare box. It's hard to experiment without learning SOMETHING - and if you're here I'm sure you're into learning, right? So give it a whirl. If you're not sure what BSD to try, give this a read. If you just want to buy a router, learn from the recent Ask Slashdot - Home Routers w/ Decent QoS Performance?. Best of luck!
If you're going to use OpenBSD (which I'd recommend for a firewall/NAT box), be sure to support the OS which strives for portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography by ordering a CD, T-shirt, book, or hacker bunker enhancing poster. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX. Development is active and it won't let you down as a gatekeeper or internal server.
Puffy says "Stay off my computer!" and means it. I sleep well at night knowing "puffy" (the name of my box) is standing guard just behind my cable modem and in front of the 5+ computers my roommates and I are running inside. Has never let me down and doesn't get in my way. Keeps Freenet and torrents from introducing lag into my ssh sessions as well..... Good luck finding a solution to keeping your pipes clean:)
Bill of Rights, Crypto Communication Tools
on
VoIP Wiretapping
·
· Score: 5, Informative
[ Amendment IV ] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Want to read my stuff? Go ahead and crack it - no warrant necessary.
!!! Please do not immediately send newly created keys to the keyservers (as many HOWTOs instruct new users to). They are already overflowing with "test keys" and other people's experiments from over the years THAT HAVE NO EXPIRATION and will never be deleted. These keys are "orphans" and most will never be used. As keyservers sync together, and most keys are never deleted once submitted - GET YOUR KEY SETUP CORRECTLY AND HAVE PRACTICE WITH IT BEFORE SENDING IT OFF TO THE KEYSERVERS!!! Otherwise storage requirements will continue to grow and using these in the future will become more difficult FOR ALL. Please, if you are just starting out with PGP or GPG or GnuPG or anything similar (the last two are in fact the same thing) use manual key distribution to begin (ascii armor your public key with
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org
and copy and paste it into an email body or attach it to an email
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org > myPubKey.txt
to gain practice with GPG before uploading your key. This way if you need to create another you won't have uploaded your mistakes. Many choices need to be made and it's worth getting things right before "going public" with your new digital ID. Experiment with yourself and a few different email accounts or with some friends first.)
SET AN EXPIRATION OF 2-5 YEARS OR SO AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR PREFERENCES THE WAY YOU LIKE THEM BEFORE SENDING TO A KEYSERVER! Better yet is to HOST YOUR KEY ON YOUR WEBSITE (or try using http://biglumber.com/ instead to host your key and help c
Stay below 92.5MHz on your FM dial and you're usually a lot better off.
You'll often find NPR stations and college radio, often almost completely void of annoying DJs and commercial interruptions.
In the triangle we've got:
88.1 -- WKNC @ NC State Listen in high-quality.mp3 or.ogg (station formats and history) I have really grown to like "After Hours" between 20:00 and 23:00Eastern on weekdays. Saturday evening is pretty decent hip hop mix. You're in for a surprise if you try Friday evenings or Sunday mornings:) Some PSA's.
89.7 -- TheClassicalStation, WCPE Listen in.mp3,.ogg,.wma, Quicktime, or Real. (please send them a few bucks if you stream their music!) All classical all the time. (Just disconnect if you're not listening!) SUPPORT
91.5 -- WUNC in Chapel Hill Listen in.mp3,.wma, or Real (from iBiblio) to a well funded public radio station. You get Terry Gross, BBC and Day to Day. "Back Porch Music" on weekend evenings (great bluegrass). Program ScheduleSUPPORT
I know everybody doen't have such a wonderful selection at the bottom of the dial as the Triangle, but check it out locally - you may discover something... (tune manually rather than with "seek" or "scan" as these will often miss low powered - sometimes high quality - listening opportunities). If you don't have a FM tuner onboard your music player, you can either pipe in audio from a regular radio to your soundcard for automatic recordings and conversion to your favorite format or use the FM tuner that's built in to many TV capture cards and do the same.
Prepare lunch for the next day before you go to sleep. Put in in the fridge.
Jog for 5 minues at soon as you get up and before your shower. Even if it's just around the block. Wake. Throw on shorts (or sweats if it's cold), some old socks (why dirty a new pair?), and a sweater. Go outside and run around the block or down to the corner and back. Then shower and have a good healthy (it can be quick!) breakfast. Bring the CD-R you prepared the night before with an automatic script full of the latest podcasts, TTS news, or random selection from your audio collection - hop in the car and drive. Pick up a friend, coworker, or slug on the way if you can.
Go for a jog around the building when you get to work (after your drive) and before you leave. It can be quick. They'll laugh but you're not the one with the weak legs for weekend activities!
Make good use of your lunch break. Have a sandwich while climbing the stairs to the top of your building.
Promise yourself 20 crunches and 50 pushups before the day is over (how long does it take to do 10 pushups and don't tell me you can't take 5 short breaks over 12 hours...). Set a timer.
Find some pipes in the utility closet and do 5 pullups a day for 2 months. Each month after add 2 more. Do these on a piss break.
Eat Fruit. No heavy lunches. Bring yogurt (if you're into that kind of thing - cold plain vanilla w/ sugar sprinkled on top - delish!) Eat nuts (yes - something _other_ than peanuts).
Do at least an hour or two of non-staring_at_the_computer_screen work if you can help it. Plan. Use a notepad and pencil. Make calls. Write a letter to your congressman or old friend or mother or grandparent or serviceman.
10 jumping jacks every 71 minutes. Set a timer.
Go see Jane or Mark on the other side of the building to say hi - find an excuse. Take a walk to the next building or volunteer to take things to the post box. Be back in a timely fashion.
Keep a bottle of water nearby, fill it religiously and get yourself lots of piss breaks. WATER IS GOOD FOR YOU. PASS IT THROUGH. EXERCISE THOSE NEPHRONS. Get a Brita (a BIG one) for your desk or buy those large 2 1/2 gallon jugs at the supermarket. (Spring over distilled - you lose the minerals with distilled). Water will keep you from feelingl like crap from sitting there all day, force you to get up, and keep you hydrated for all the running and stair-climing you're doing. Water is your body's oil. ESPECIALLY if you drink coffee - drink lots of water. Keep ahead of the diuretic effects. See if you can down a quart and a half of plain water three times a day (sure. go it all at once -- no pussy footin' around. Chug it!)
Take your vitamins.
Find some guys to play pickup basketball or ultimate.
Ask your boss about taking an hour to go to the gym. Give him a guilt trip about your health. Or go at lunch after eating at your desk @ 11a and having an apple and nuts when you get back. You'll probably be more productive if you actually have a chance to get up and be active.
Find a stretch regimen and commit to doing it twice a day.
Park your car not at home but down the street next to a well-lit bike rack. Ride there, drive to work. Drive back, ride home.
I didn't notice it at first, but part of the reason the ClearLooks screenshot is so appealing is the presence of dropshadows. Subtle, but definatly pleasing.
Just get your X server up to snuff and you can enjoy them too....
Spectacular. Parent deserves a "+1 : Something". Many thanks for the link.
Have never used Vinum but have always been a fan of FreeBSD since my first intro (3.4??). Two production 4.x boxes in service at the moment with uptimes peaking above 200 days; downs due only to scheduled power outages and required hardware additions. Not overly impressive, but I certainly don't stay awake at night worrying about them.
[....Psst.....((random/. reader))..... If you haven't tried it, "the beast[ie]" makes a __really__ nice server...]
The linked man page is "tasty" n'all, but details on implementing such magical wonders, until recently, have been rather scarce.
This man page is better than the one linked to in the original post. There's also some information from committer (read: major contributor to ggate ) Pawel Jakub Dawidek in Poland.
Not that the info isn't there now, right under man, but for a while it was all very vague.
When searching about all that is BSD, don't forget Google's special google.com/bsd section.
You can also search the freebsd-geom mail list archives to learn more.
geom-gate sure looks nifty! It's akin to block-level NFS (though that's most likely an extremely oversimplified view). All the fun things you can do with geom you can do over your network. Need worldwide distributed, encrypted, multi-level RAID? Go right ahead!
Pretty slick. We'll be hearing more about this.....
... OpenBSDwould be great to learn on as it will definately push you into the documentation and get you used to some of the conventions used (slices v. partitions, startup scripts, etc.). I'd suggest you use an older or spare computer if you've got extra or can pick one up cheap. You could also just set aside space on those 80 gigs you've got. READ UP ON PARTITIONING, USE OF LARGE DRIVES, ETC. BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING!
Once you get some OpenBSD under your belt, put a box in service at your network connection (right behind you cable/DSL connection?) and learn to setup pf (packet filter - built in). Experiment with AltQ and get yourself a good firewall/NAT in place (junk the Linksys). Not too much trouble and the docs at OpenBSD - pf [openbsd.org] are quite good. Here you could experiment with adding a web server or MTA (if you don't have tons of boxen to keep your "real" services in some kind of dedicated DMZ). My home OpenBSD box forwards BitTorrent, Freenet, VNC and SSH to a variety of machines in my house. I also prioitize packets in the following order: 1st to tcp_ack_out, [then] Vonage telephone, ssh_interactive, everything else, freenet, and finally ssh_bulk. Keeps my phone line crisp and prevents freenet from destroying my ssh sessions' latency. You can do this with other products but I've had a good time (and have learned quite a bit) constructing my/etc/pf.conf file. (Yes. I've got a life otherwise:)
Then build youself a FreeBSD box. This should be cake. 5.x should install without a problem for you and you've got access to all the ports you could ever imagine. Your experience with OpenBSD will help you understand some of the differences you'll encounter. Makes a great desktop. OpenBSD will work fine as a desktop machine but I've never done it. Same for NetBSD I suppose. Give it a whirl. I'm sure you'll learn a ton and be quite happy with whatever you decide.
Don't short yourself on learning OpenBSD. It is awesome, security aware and has some wonderful features (need encrypted swap case the feds might knock down your door at any minute? check.). It may just serve all your needs and knowing it is surely going to be useful to either yourself or others in the future. Use it for utility and the ability to sleep at night with your data behind it. (still better go with RSA keys on sshd though). Check out http://undeadly.org/ [undeadly.org]
Don't short yourself either on checking out FreeBSD. I moved from Linux to "the beast" some 5 years ago and haven't looked back since. The 4.10 machine I use everyday has been up 168 days as of today. I had at shutdown the machine previous to that due to a scheduled power outage. It sits fully exposed on an unprotected IP and runs user apps, a web server and mail. Not a single problem in years. FreeBSD has certainly served me (and some clients of mine) well.
If you're a system developer or like playing with things at the driver level or experimenting with new code, new systems or want to put your toaster on the network, don't deny yourself a NetBSD 2.x install. Wonderful features at the leading edge. Very capable and I hope to get some more experience with it myself one day. (a NetBSD page)
Learn OpenBSD. You won't regret it. [FreeBSD and NetBSD will run pf as well]
Here's the juice: (yes - read the docs and modify for your own setup. The various sections need to be in a certain order too (options, normalization, queueing, translation, filtering)
Here's one way.... Get a small computer, big harddrive.
Get an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (~$100) and maybe a right-angle PCI adapter to fit it into your little BTX box or whatever. Load your OS of choice. You've already got plans for the rest - that way should be just fine. Rip your stuff onto the drive (encode with FLAC), hook it up to an amplifier, and you're all set.
The 2496 has already got RCA IN/OUT and Digital connectors (read the specifics on compatibility and what you can and cannot use at the same time) making hookup easy. It will also record at impressive rates and resolutions (playback too if you've got fancy hi-res sources). You can find drivers for most of the following at OSS (these are commercial drivers that run ~$50 for the most common OSs that include free tech support and upgrades for 2 years).
* Linux (x86, Alpha, PowerPC)
* VxWorks (Tornado)
* LynxOS (x86, PowerPC)
* SCO Open Server
* SCO UnixWare
* Solaris (x86, Sparc)
* IBM AIX
* FreeBSD
* BSD/OS
* OpenBSD
* NetBSD
* HP-UX
You could buy a mixer and some mics to do some high quality recordings too. (I've picked up a 10 channel Yamaha mixer [MG10/2] w/ 4 mic inputs (phantom capable) for $99 and a Samson CO2 matched pair of small condensers for ~$120 at Sam Ash to do recordings with a setup very similar to that above and it worked quite well.) No experience with the OSS drivers but they seem to be responsive to email inquirys about specifics and have a free trial available.
I dream of a portable custom BSD based solution that has easy controls (serial keypad and LCD - "real" buttons and switches), could be setup for automated recordings, has a builtin mixer, microphone inputs (phantom powered for my dream large condenser pair), and speaker/headphone driver, AND is powerful enough to run baudline for use in the field. Background processes could compress material as I was recording (incremental, selectively, to be sure you could grab the entire recording - even if your quality had to suffer - but you'd get the highest possible of any given event). The network interface could stream audio at selectable bitrates (.ogg peeling) OR amplify a stream like an internet radio station. AND it could do my laundry for me and fit in a backpack. If anybody else would be interesed in something like this please contact me and I'd love to collaborate. [ bricoleur !AT! 80d !DOT! org ]
My bad. Myself, and others I'm sure, appreciate your reply. Thank you for clearing me up and not letting my uninformed dialog go read by others unchecked.
I've heard nothing but good things about the distribution.
Do you think the purchase is healthy for Connectiva and/or Mandrake?
I don't know how a majority share buy actually affects this, but might the exposure to a large, spanish speaking user/developer base be worth anything, even if in a less-than-tangible way?
First thing I see is market. Think South America is interested in cheap software? I'd guess they are.
Exposure, due to the connection, and perhaps a stronger documentation/application translator force. Mandrake (eventually) saves the Connectiva platform with a buyout (or maybe it just doesn't die), offering Mandrake as a 'prosumer' distro through existing channels and Connectiva contact pages - maybe multimedia centric or something, and grabs some of the technology and/or userbase as their own as they grab some people to translate their documentation and desktop.
Mandrake will also retain any devoted Connectiva "customers" and perhaps offer up some parts of their distro as enhancements, and use their experience finding their way out of bankrupcy to help those a hemisphere away to do the same, increasing the worth of their own investment.
Readers should "consider the source" when deciding to implement these ideas. We *are* Slashdot - and with that dot comes great powers. Use your "creative muscle" wisely people! Don't ask your boss.... ask your conscience.
I still think random maps on the wall are always fun. Don't deny the maps..... Got some blank wall you can put a tack into? Got some old maps in your desk drawer at home or one in your car from your last trip to Elba, NY or Urbana, MO - hang it!
Or you could do the f'ing work your office is intended for and stretch your creative muscles on your own time, at home.
I'm not sure if this is intended for me specifically, or the general reader. I am responsible about getting my work done - and I use my creative muscle at home and at work. Feel free to do whatever you'd like at your work - sounds pretty exciting from here. Unless you work odd hours or have your own business, I'd say you aren't much different from many readers here looking at the times you've been posting over the past few months.
Isn't superiority wonderful??
14:55 Friday 18 February 2005 20:04 Thursday 17 February 2005 00:14 Sunday 13 February 2005 20:23 Tuesday 08 February 2005 00:32 Tuesday 08 February 2005 16:08 Thursday 03 February 2005 11:50 Thursday 03 February 2005 15:50 Tuesday 01 February 2005 15:33 Tuesday 01 February 2005 18:56 Wednesday 26 January 2005 15:46 Tuesday 25 January 2005 13:56 Monday 24 January 2005 23:56 Wednesday 19 January 2005 14:04 Tuesday 18 January 2005 09:47 Tuesday 18 January 2005 19:20 Friday 14 January 2005 19:28 Friday 14 January 2005 20:56 Thursday 13 January 2005 17:59 Wednesday 12 January 2005 12:09 Monday 10 January 2005 14:29 Monday 10 January 2005 12:01 Monday 10 January 2005 11:54 Monday 10 January 2005 13:33 Saturday 08 January 2005
I'll give you 8 out of 10 on your attempt at condesention. It sounded pretty good at making people feel bad. Making *me* feel like crap - Sorry that I can't give you better than a 3. Do try again. It's appreciated by us all.... I'm sure especially by your boss.
With the limited space available, I've seen some pretty interesting combos, especially with those that have 2 or more in a room.
Our dorm rooms had somewhat modular furniture where it could be hooked up in different ways. I hooked my bunk-bed to the back of my roommate's closet module and put my desk underneath. You can't beat floor space. It took a few hours to get all of our junk out into the hallway and do the transformation, but made the remaining 7 or so months there a great deal more comfortable.
It sounds obvious, but people forget. When given limited space, go vertical. Stack things. Use walls. Add shelves. Hang from the ceiling. How much more paper (read: junk) could the average desk collect if people hung their monitors from the ceiling? Mine is raised about a foot off my desk on a small pedestal to make for more comfortable viewing when leaning back in my chair. More room for stuff from ThinkGeek if you'd like. More room for books and a place to stuff a keyboard for mine.
Be creative. Move stuff around. Can't usually hurt much (well, do a backup first:) and you're likely to find a more useful configuration for your stuff.
When evolution slows, and things get stale - Force the Mutation. Tear it down and put it together again. The downsides you know about you can strip away. Let the strong attributes survive. You need to invest in the system to bring about healthy change but it's served Mother Nature pretty well for eons now. Play God with your office furniture or anything else you've built. (Doing so with stuff others have built can be good for, well, Others - but can make the original creator and/or other users of such a device or system mad. Not knowing much about something you'd like to destroy can have negative consequences - subtilties you're not aware of can be destroyed, upsetting the status-quo. That may not be bad - just be careful.)
(Chuck D turned 196 on 2 Feb., 2005 and the tenants he spoke of in Origin of Species stand true today, even in engineering. Use that force to bring about change for good. When things could be better, force a mutation. Some will whine, some will glorify you. If nothing else, you're sure to be enlightened.) As always.... Experiment. You can't *help* but learn something.
Come up with something cool nobody else has done before. Not even people "on the internet."
I once saw a room in college where the ceiling was covered with wrinkled aluminum foil and had red and blue lights pointed at it. It was a pretty nice effect. He did a really nice job too - right up to the corners and *lots* of crinkles. It was all probably about 2-3 inches thick. Neat look, relatively simple to do. (shiny side out!)
But you can't do that. It's taken. Just kidding. Do what you want.
Another guy in the same place had a very small room so he put his bed on a system where he could raise it up to the ceiling using some steel cable, pulleys, and counterweights to get it out of the way during the day.
Collect random junk and try to make something that looks like a person standing in the corner. Dress up a coatrack with random junk. Spare CAT5 for hair (or shredded paper), some spools of some kind for eyes - be sure to add some shades. Old t-shirt from the thrift shop. Think up some other stuff for the rest.
You could put color filters in your flourescent overhead lighting.
Build a LARGE binary clock for your wall.
You can always hang models or random crap from the ceiling.
Use tape or rearrange the tiles for some kind of boardgame layout on your floor. Pac-Man
Do what you can to "0wn" your friends cubicles in a non-destructive way.
All your cubicles are belong to us!
Racing stripes. Get some from an auto parts store and stick it to the side of your computer or monitor cases.
Have an artist friend do a mural. Mosaic-ify it and do it on the tiles, overhead, on the wall, in the bathroom.
Put up and "I'm from here." map. Even if it's just your city or tri-county area.
Maps. Just find maps from random places.
LEDs. Can't forget LEDs. (Just be sure to over drive them with an incorrectly designed power supply so they burn out and/or try to catch things on fire... HHOK) LEDs everywhere! (Everybody else is doing it.)
Get some lasers and front-surface mirrors. Get a laser to bounce back and forth across the office a few times then smoke something in the dark to make it appear:)
TUX. Can't forget TUX. He could use some wall space - right?
Beastie. Can't forget Beastie. Make a blanket!:)
Random sports equipment usually looks sorta cool hanging from the walls. Find a surfboard.
Replace some standard office equipment with the same piece, but made out of LEGOs.
Spare/Junk/Coastered CDs can be put on the walls in interesting patterns or made into clocks.
Make the coffee machine run off a generator connected to an exercise bike. Put people on rotation and make sure they get to work on time. Maybe riding the bike is enough exercise to replace the need for coffee?
Build a still. Like on *M*A*S*H* Imbibe on Fridays.
Build a file-cabinet maze.
Get some flourescent paint. Buy some blacklights.
Mess with the bathroom somehow. Make visitors wonder.
Paper airplane airport. Practice landings. Make a launcher with rubber bands.
Print out banner ads for your wall.
Tin-can-and-string telephone/intercom???
Get some fish.
Get yourself a "Jump to Conclusions" mat for the office.
You could probably etch a number of carpets or other surfaces with bleach or acid. Just mask and pour! (Carpet would probably need something heavy to push down into the pile to prevent run-out. Masking tape won't work unless you use a spray bottle. Mask -far- back.)
Take a Friday afternoon to go shopping for old couches and coffee tables. How about a gaudy lamp from 1964 for the corner of your office??
Have a "Cubicle Pimp-Out Contest". Flashy and Gaudy wins.
Remodel. Just moving stuff around will be fun and interesting for the next few weeks.
No windows in your office? Buy yourself a sledgehammer. It won't come with directions. You don't need directions.....
Out of the 3 you mentioned, subpixel rendering is actually the one I was thinking could prove most useful in a corporate environment. It *does* help, and with the number of LCDs making their way onto desktops today, this feature would benefit free systems (free system users) in a big way.
Whether or not the boss will take your eyestrain into consideration when choosing a business platform is another question altogether....:)
This won't be easy - tearing people away from their, "but I need this clause" licenses.....
How about taking the 3 or so licenses as mentioned, but allowing each (or some) to have a number of options that could be opted for on a case by case basis? Rather than a one-size-fits-all, perhaps an aproach like the various Creative Commons licenses would be better for the entire community?
Find some common elements from a large number licenses from the "Approved" Open Source License Collection and make some of the most common language available as "plug-ins" to some sort of meta-license that encompasses a large cross-section of what's currently being used.
Rather than chooing a particular license just because it has some sort of attribution or distribution clause the author is interested in, bring consistency to the community but still allow individuals to apply special clauses to the documents that protect (or ensure the freedom of) their work.
One way to aproach this situation is to put a large multi-user box in each individual department or workgroup. Keep the windows desktops there, add X-servers, and run some apps centrally.
If the question is licensing, a net-booted corporate (Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD) desktop wouldn't be too difficult. Run locally what the machine can handle, make sure the network is super fast, and run the apps requiring performance on the workgroup server.
This would reduce the need to upgrade lots of hardware (which will surely be obsolete again soon) and minimize downtime in the process. If need be, some legacy apps could survive under Wine locally or, again, at the workgroup server. Keep storage centralized to facilitate backups across the entire organization (OpenAFS?).
It's an old way of doing things but overlooked far too often. You've obviously got to run the numbers but, surely, "a few good men" handling things on the server (they would handle the app server AND the centralized, consistent-across-the-organization, netboot image(s)) would be much less expensive than the workload on an IT staff required by an office full of people and their problems on Windows machines.
Maybe not *THE* solution, but certainly worth a look for many.
Slashdot Mirror
Please. Do tell.
I used to have a few friends down the street with one. I don't think they ever really fully appreciated it. My first impression was : "Wow. On audio tape. Audio tape."
A must read : Undergraduation. ( and feedback from anon professors on this essay )
Yet Another College Advice Essay
Grab some microeconomics before you leave.
The following is from http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
Someday we will have devices that - IF they need to be plugged in - will communicate with the power supply its needs in terms of power handling, voltage, and ripple requirements (or desires). While adapters could provide a means for some time to power the devices that will not communicate (use a switch to manually select), eventually things should be plugNplay - just like your USB mouse. (It's too bad USB can't handle more power at this point....)
:) to start however. Happy 420!
This power supply could provide a few hundred watts, run off any voltage (AC or DC) to step (buck or boost) and switch (provided the current on the supply side is available) to the proper output voltage. 3-6 wires and some sort of universal plug would be sufficient to provide a serial comms link and power/ground for a few different supplies to a number of devices.
I can imagine having to buy a large one for your computer desk, and maybe a smaller one for your phone/answering machine/etc. (If they're still around).
The connectors should be bisexual so you can connect a number of cords together without worrying about which end is which (or having to buy matched pairs and end up with extras for DIYers) to get to your device. Feedback from the device on power quality or voltage drop would be nice (expensive however) to compensate at the supply for bad contacts or extra long runs.
NatSemi will eventually come out with an integrated controller that takes care of the signaling (including PHY), all control functions, and the kitchen sink - all somebody has to do is provide the transformer, diodes, filter caps, and case. This will make these easy to manufacture and then companies can compete on form factor, efficiency and cost rather than trying to get you to buy their proprietary cables and yet another wall wart for your [whatever].
A controller that could plug into a spare ATX power supply that would properly load it and provide a number of different voltages and a cabling system with converters to a number of different barrel connector sizes and polarities would be nice
Learn more about queueing at the pf FAQ.
:) - Linux distro. The simplicity, if you've never experienced it before, can feel both constraining and liberating at the same time. Give it a try if you've got a spare box. It's hard to experiment without learning SOMETHING - and if you're here I'm sure you're into learning, right? So give it a whirl. If you're not sure what BSD to try, give this a read. If you just want to buy a router, learn from the recent Ask Slashdot - Home Routers w/ Decent QoS Performance?. Best of luck!
:)
See my previous post here for a pf.conf recipe to implement traffic shaping based on packet type. You could also prioritize via IP, require a ssh session to gain higher priorities for a specific IP (authpf), based on time of day, or any other number of factors.
THE guide to pf (packet filter) can be found here. pf will run on FreeBSD as well as, I believe, a few other open OSs. I think it's really the best. Almost any reader here could surely benefit from at least a partial working knowledge of packet filters ("firewalls") in general.
=======
EXTRA CREDIT
=======
Got a few connections you'd like to tie together into one? Read more about Address Pools and Load Balancing with pf.
Another Bandwidth management HOWTO for Linux systems (last revised in '03 - may be better for concepts than router config recipes)
bittorrent traffic shaping
A nice K5 article about packet filtering with OpenBSD firewalls
Prioritizing empty TCP ACKs with pf and ALTQ
Making the most out of a busy connection
Turn that old P5 and two network cards into an OpenBSD firewall and learn to setup your own router. You will learn a TON about TCP/IP, how to protect your internal network, and BSDs in general (they're pretty neat in the way that they don't have as much "cruft" as usually found in your typical - yeah, that works
If you're going to use OpenBSD (which I'd recommend for a firewall/NAT box), be sure to support the OS which strives for portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography by ordering a CD, T-shirt, book, or hacker bunker enhancing poster. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX. Development is active and it won't let you down as a gatekeeper or internal server.
Puffy says "Stay off my computer!" and means it. I sleep well at night knowing "puffy" (the name of my box) is standing guard just behind my cable modem and in front of the 5+ computers my roommates and I are running inside. Has never let me down and doesn't get in my way. Keeps Freenet and torrents from introducing lag into my ssh sessions as well..... Good luck finding a solution to keeping your pipes clean
Want to read my stuff? Go ahead and crack it - no warrant necessary.
Get the rabbit installed on a machine behind your firewall
==> http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Faster than freenet
==> http://www.i2p.net/
Encrypt Jabber
==> http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/Jabber/jabberd.html
Onion Routing
==> http://tor.eff.org/
Emerging Network To Reduce Orwellian Potency Yield
==> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
Free Internet telephony
==> http://skype.com/
GNU-ified P2p
==> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
DO NOT DENY yourself about 2 hours @ InfoAnarchy.org
OMG! ==> http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Pag e
LearnLearnLearnLearn ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography
=================EMAIL ENCRYPTION===============
GPG (Free PGP)
==> http://gnupg.org/
Integrated with Thunderbird
==> http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
Mutt can't be beat as a mailreader and integrates GPG wonderfully.
==> http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/
==> http://www.mutt.org/links.html
==> http://wiki.mutt.org/index.cgi?UserPages
!!! Please do not immediately send newly created keys to the keyservers (as many HOWTOs instruct new users to). They are already overflowing with "test keys" and other people's experiments from over the years THAT HAVE NO EXPIRATION and will never be deleted. These keys are "orphans" and most will never be used. As keyservers sync together, and most keys are never deleted once submitted - GET YOUR KEY SETUP CORRECTLY AND HAVE PRACTICE WITH IT BEFORE SENDING IT OFF TO THE KEYSERVERS!!! Otherwise storage requirements will continue to grow and using these in the future will become more difficult FOR ALL. Please, if you are just starting out with PGP or GPG or GnuPG or anything similar (the last two are in fact the same thing) use manual key distribution to begin (ascii armor your public key with
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org
and copy and paste it into an email body or attach it to an email
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org > myPubKey.txt
to gain practice with GPG before uploading your key. This way if you need to create another you won't have uploaded your mistakes. Many choices need to be made and it's worth getting things right before "going public" with your new digital ID. Experiment with yourself and a few different email accounts or with some friends first.)
SET AN EXPIRATION OF 2-5 YEARS OR SO AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR PREFERENCES THE WAY YOU LIKE THEM BEFORE SENDING TO A KEYSERVER! Better yet is to HOST YOUR KEY ON YOUR WEBSITE (or try using http://biglumber.com/ instead to host your key and help c
Yeah. Stick with closed systems. That'll keep you agile.
Thanks Agility Alliance!!
Stay below 92.5MHz on your FM dial and you're usually a lot better off.
.mp3 or .ogg (station formats and history) I have really grown to like "After Hours" between 20:00 and 23:00Eastern on weekdays. Saturday evening is pretty decent hip hop mix. You're in for a surprise if you try Friday evenings or Sunday mornings :) Some PSA's.
.wma or Real. Mostly Jazz. SUPPORT
.mp3, .ogg, or Real to one of the first radio station in the world to rebroadcast over the net. Eclectic and chill.
.mp3, .ogg, .wma, Quicktime, or Real. (please send them a few bucks if you stream their music!) All classical all the time. (Just disconnect if you're not listening!) SUPPORT
.mp3, .wma, or Real (from iBiblio) to a well funded public radio station. You get Terry Gross, BBC and Day to Day. "Back Porch Music" on weekend evenings (great bluegrass). Program Schedule SUPPORT
d io.html 5 40231&tid=141&tid=185&tid=95&tid=4
You'll often find NPR stations and college radio, often almost completely void of annoying DJs and commercial interruptions.
In the triangle we've got:
88.1 -- WKNC @ NC State Listen in high-quality
88.9 -- WSHA @ Shaw University Listen in
89.3 -- WXYC @ Duke Listen in
89.7 -- TheClassicalStation, WCPE Listen in
91.5 -- WUNC in Chapel Hill Listen in
I know everybody doen't have such a wonderful selection at the bottom of the dial as the Triangle, but check it out locally - you may discover something... (tune manually rather than with "seek" or "scan" as these will often miss low powered - sometimes high quality - listening opportunities). If you don't have a FM tuner onboard your music player, you can either pipe in audio from a regular radio to your soundcard for automatic recordings and conversion to your favorite format or use the FM tuner that's built in to many TV capture cards and do the same.
http://gary.burd.info/2003/07/time-shifting-fm-ra
http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/
http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/radio/
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/1
Prepare lunch for the next day before you go to sleep. Put in in the fridge.
Jog for 5 minues at soon as you get up and before your shower. Even if it's just around the block. Wake. Throw on shorts (or sweats if it's cold), some old socks (why dirty a new pair?), and a sweater. Go outside and run around the block or down to the corner and back. Then shower and have a good healthy (it can be quick!) breakfast. Bring the CD-R you prepared the night before with an automatic script full of the latest podcasts, TTS news, or random selection from your audio collection - hop in the car and drive. Pick up a friend, coworker, or slug on the way if you can.
Go for a jog around the building when you get to work (after your drive) and before you leave. It can be quick. They'll laugh but you're not the one with the weak legs for weekend activities!
Make good use of your lunch break. Have a sandwich while climbing the stairs to the top of your building.
Promise yourself 20 crunches and 50 pushups before the day is over (how long does it take to do 10 pushups and don't tell me you can't take 5 short breaks over 12 hours...). Set a timer.
Find some pipes in the utility closet and do 5 pullups a day for 2 months. Each month after add 2 more. Do these on a piss break.
Eat Fruit. No heavy lunches. Bring yogurt (if you're into that kind of thing - cold plain vanilla w/ sugar sprinkled on top - delish!) Eat nuts (yes - something _other_ than peanuts).
Do at least an hour or two of non-staring_at_the_computer_screen work if you can help it. Plan. Use a notepad and pencil. Make calls. Write a letter to your congressman or old friend or mother or grandparent or serviceman.
10 jumping jacks every 71 minutes. Set a timer.
Go see Jane or Mark on the other side of the building to say hi - find an excuse. Take a walk to the next building or volunteer to take things to the post box. Be back in a timely fashion.
Keep a bottle of water nearby, fill it religiously and get yourself lots of piss breaks. WATER IS GOOD FOR YOU. PASS IT THROUGH. EXERCISE THOSE NEPHRONS. Get a Brita (a BIG one) for your desk or buy those large 2 1/2 gallon jugs at the supermarket. (Spring over distilled - you lose the minerals with distilled). Water will keep you from feelingl like crap from sitting there all day, force you to get up, and keep you hydrated for all the running and stair-climing you're doing. Water is your body's oil. ESPECIALLY if you drink coffee - drink lots of water. Keep ahead of the diuretic effects. See if you can down a quart and a half of plain water three times a day (sure. go it all at once -- no pussy footin' around. Chug it!)
Take your vitamins.
Find some guys to play pickup basketball or ultimate.
Ask your boss about taking an hour to go to the gym. Give him a guilt trip about your health. Or go at lunch after eating at your desk @ 11a and having an apple and nuts when you get back. You'll probably be more productive if you actually have a chance to get up and be active.
Find a stretch regimen and commit to doing it twice a day.
Park your car not at home but down the street next to a well-lit bike rack. Ride there, drive to work. Drive back, ride home.
Have lots of sex on your 3 days off!
I didn't notice it at first, but part of the reason the ClearLooks screenshot is so appealing is the presence of dropshadows. Subtle, but definatly pleasing.
1 -December/msg00107.html
Just get your X server up to snuff and you can enjoy them too....
[May or may not be useful....]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-doc-list/200
http://www.xfce.org/gtkmenu-shadow/
http://www.gnome-look.org/
Spectacular. Parent deserves a "+1 : Something". Many thanks for the link.
/. reader))..... If you haven't tried it, "the beast[ie]" makes a __really__ nice server...]
Have never used Vinum but have always been a fan of FreeBSD since my first intro (3.4??). Two production 4.x boxes in service at the moment with uptimes peaking above 200 days; downs due only to scheduled power outages and required hardware additions. Not overly impressive, but I certainly don't stay awake at night worrying about them.
[....Psst.....((random
Where are all the geom HOWTOs?
The linked man page is "tasty" n'all, but details on implementing such magical wonders, until recently, have been rather scarce.
This man page is better than the one linked to in the original post. There's also some information from committer (read: major contributor to ggate ) Pawel Jakub Dawidek in Poland.
Not that the info isn't there now, right under man, but for a while it was all very vague.
When searching about all that is BSD, don't forget Google's special google.com/bsd section.
You can also search the freebsd-geom mail list archives to learn more.
geom-gate sure looks nifty! It's akin to block-level NFS (though that's most likely an extremely oversimplified view). All the fun things you can do with geom you can do over your network. Need worldwide distributed, encrypted, multi-level RAID? Go right ahead!
Pretty slick. We'll be hearing more about this.....
...
OpenBSD would be great to learn on as it will definately push you into the documentation and get you used to some of the conventions used (slices v. partitions, startup scripts, etc.). I'd suggest you use an older or spare computer if you've got extra or can pick one up cheap. You could also just set aside space on those 80 gigs you've got. READ UP ON PARTITIONING, USE OF LARGE DRIVES, ETC. BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING!
Once you get some OpenBSD under your belt, put a box in service at your network connection (right behind you cable/DSL connection?) and learn to setup pf (packet filter - built in). Experiment with AltQ and get yourself a good firewall/NAT in place (junk the Linksys). Not too much trouble and the docs at OpenBSD - pf [openbsd.org] are quite good. Here you could experiment with adding a web server or MTA (if you don't have tons of boxen to keep your "real" services in some kind of dedicated DMZ). My home OpenBSD box forwards BitTorrent, Freenet, VNC and SSH to a variety of machines in my house. I also prioitize packets in the following order: 1st to tcp_ack_out, [then] Vonage telephone, ssh_interactive, everything else, freenet, and finally ssh_bulk. Keeps my phone line crisp and prevents freenet from destroying my ssh sessions' latency. You can do this with other products but I've had a good time (and have learned quite a bit) constructing my
Then build youself a FreeBSD box. This should be cake. 5.x should install without a problem for you and you've got access to all the ports you could ever imagine. Your experience with OpenBSD will help you understand some of the differences you'll encounter. Makes a great desktop. OpenBSD will work fine as a desktop machine but I've never done it. Same for NetBSD I suppose. Give it a whirl. I'm sure you'll learn a ton and be quite happy with whatever you decide.
Don't short yourself on learning OpenBSD. It is awesome, security aware and has some wonderful features (need encrypted swap case the feds might knock down your door at any minute? check.). It may just serve all your needs and knowing it is surely going to be useful to either yourself or others in the future. Use it for utility and the ability to sleep at night with your data behind it. (still better go with RSA keys on sshd though). Check out http://undeadly.org/ [undeadly.org]
Don't short yourself either on checking out FreeBSD. I moved from Linux to "the beast" some 5 years ago and haven't looked back since. The 4.10 machine I use everyday has been up 168 days as of today. I had at shutdown the machine previous to that due to a scheduled power outage. It sits fully exposed on an unprotected IP and runs user apps, a web server and mail. Not a single problem in years. FreeBSD has certainly served me (and some clients of mine) well.
If you're a system developer or like playing with things at the driver level or experimenting with new code, new systems or want to put your toaster on the network, don't deny yourself a NetBSD 2.x install. Wonderful features at the leading edge. Very capable and I hope to get some more experience with it myself one day. (a NetBSD page)
Learn OpenBSD. You won't regret it. [FreeBSD and NetBSD will run pf as well]
Here's the juice: (yes - read the docs and modify for your own setup. The various sections need to be in a certain order too (options, normalization, queueing, translation, filtering)
Here's one way.... Get a small computer, big harddrive.
Get an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (~$100) and maybe a right-angle PCI adapter to fit it into your little BTX box or whatever. Load your OS of choice. You've already got plans for the rest - that way should be just fine. Rip your stuff onto the drive (encode with FLAC), hook it up to an amplifier, and you're all set.
The 2496 has already got RCA IN/OUT and Digital connectors (read the specifics on compatibility and what you can and cannot use at the same time) making hookup easy. It will also record at impressive rates and resolutions (playback too if you've got fancy hi-res sources). You can find drivers for most of the following at OSS (these are commercial drivers that run ~$50 for the most common OSs that include free tech support and upgrades for 2 years).
* Linux (x86, Alpha, PowerPC)
* VxWorks (Tornado)
* LynxOS (x86, PowerPC)
* SCO Open Server
* SCO UnixWare
* Solaris (x86, Sparc)
* IBM AIX
* FreeBSD
* BSD/OS
* OpenBSD
* NetBSD
* HP-UX
You could buy a mixer and some mics to do some high quality recordings too. (I've picked up a 10 channel Yamaha mixer [MG10/2] w/ 4 mic inputs (phantom capable) for $99 and a Samson CO2 matched pair of small condensers for ~$120 at Sam Ash to do recordings with a setup very similar to that above and it worked quite well.) No experience with the OSS drivers but they seem to be responsive to email inquirys about specifics and have a free trial available.
I dream of a portable custom BSD based solution that has easy controls (serial keypad and LCD - "real" buttons and switches), could be setup for automated recordings, has a builtin mixer, microphone inputs (phantom powered for my dream large condenser pair), and speaker/headphone driver, AND is powerful enough to run baudline for use in the field. Background processes could compress material as I was recording (incremental, selectively, to be sure you could grab the entire recording - even if your quality had to suffer - but you'd get the highest possible of any given event). The network interface could stream audio at selectable bitrates (.ogg peeling) OR amplify a stream like an internet radio station. AND it could do my laundry for me and fit in a backpack. If anybody else would be interesed in something like this please contact me and I'd love to collaborate. [ bricoleur !AT! 80d !DOT! org ]
More homework next time. More homework....
My bad. Myself, and others I'm sure, appreciate your reply. Thank you for clearing me up and not letting my uninformed dialog go read by others unchecked.
I've heard nothing but good things about the distribution.
Do you think the purchase is healthy for Connectiva and/or Mandrake?
I don't know how a majority share buy actually affects this, but might the exposure to a large, spanish speaking user/developer base be worth anything, even if in a less-than-tangible way?
First thing I see is market. Think South America is interested in cheap software? I'd guess they are.
Exposure, due to the connection, and perhaps a stronger documentation/application translator force. Mandrake (eventually) saves the Connectiva platform with a buyout (or maybe it just doesn't die), offering Mandrake as a 'prosumer' distro through existing channels and Connectiva contact pages - maybe multimedia centric or something, and grabs some of the technology and/or userbase as their own as they grab some people to translate their documentation and desktop.
Mandrake will also retain any devoted Connectiva "customers" and perhaps offer up some parts of their distro as enhancements, and use their experience finding their way out of bankrupcy to help those a hemisphere away to do the same, increasing the worth of their own investment.
What do you think?
You are so very, very right.... :) Oh well.
Readers should "consider the source" when deciding to implement these ideas. We *are* Slashdot - and with that dot comes great powers. Use your "creative muscle" wisely people! Don't ask your boss.... ask your conscience.
I still think random maps on the wall are always fun. Don't deny the maps..... Got some blank wall you can put a tack into? Got some old maps in your desk drawer at home or one in your car from your last trip to Elba, NY or Urbana, MO - hang it!
Doing anything tonight Mr. Coward? You sound cute.
I've never met anybody with your first name. Why did your parents name you that?
Or you could do the f'ing work your office is intended for and stretch your creative muscles on your own time, at home.
I'm not sure if this is intended for me specifically, or the general reader. I am responsible about getting my work done - and I use my creative muscle at home and at work. Feel free to do whatever you'd like at your work - sounds pretty exciting from here. Unless you work odd hours or have your own business, I'd say you aren't much different from many readers here looking at the times you've been posting over the past few months.
Isn't superiority wonderful??
14:55 Friday 18 February 2005
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14:04 Tuesday 18 January 2005
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13:33 Saturday 08 January 2005
I'll give you 8 out of 10 on your attempt at condesention. It sounded pretty good at making people feel bad. Making *me* feel like crap - Sorry that I can't give you better than a 3. Do try again. It's appreciated by us all.... I'm sure especially by your boss.
With the limited space available, I've seen some pretty interesting combos, especially with those that have 2 or more in a room.
:) and you're likely to find a more useful configuration for your stuff.
Our dorm rooms had somewhat modular furniture where it could be hooked up in different ways. I hooked my bunk-bed to the back of my roommate's closet module and put my desk underneath. You can't beat floor space. It took a few hours to get all of our junk out into the hallway and do the transformation, but made the remaining 7 or so months there a great deal more comfortable.
It sounds obvious, but people forget. When given limited space, go vertical. Stack things. Use walls. Add shelves. Hang from the ceiling. How much more paper (read: junk) could the average desk collect if people hung their monitors from the ceiling? Mine is raised about a foot off my desk on a small pedestal to make for more comfortable viewing when leaning back in my chair. More room for stuff from ThinkGeek if you'd like. More room for books and a place to stuff a keyboard for mine.
Be creative. Move stuff around. Can't usually hurt much (well, do a backup first
When evolution slows, and things get stale - Force the Mutation. Tear it down and put it together again. The downsides you know about you can strip away. Let the strong attributes survive. You need to invest in the system to bring about healthy change but it's served Mother Nature pretty well for eons now. Play God with your office furniture or anything else you've built. (Doing so with stuff others have built can be good for, well, Others - but can make the original creator and/or other users of such a device or system mad. Not knowing much about something you'd like to destroy can have negative consequences - subtilties you're not aware of can be destroyed, upsetting the status-quo. That may not be bad - just be careful.)
(Chuck D turned 196 on 2 Feb., 2005 and the tenants he spoke of in Origin of Species stand true today, even in engineering. Use that force to bring about change for good. When things could be better, force a mutation. Some will whine, some will glorify you. If nothing else, you're sure to be enlightened.) As always.... Experiment. You can't *help* but learn something.
Come up with something cool nobody else has done before. Not even people "on the internet."
I once saw a room in college where the ceiling was covered with wrinkled aluminum foil and had red and blue lights pointed at it. It was a pretty nice effect. He did a really nice job too - right up to the corners and *lots* of crinkles. It was all probably about 2-3 inches thick. Neat look, relatively simple to do. (shiny side out!)
But you can't do that. It's taken. Just kidding. Do what you want.
Another guy in the same place had a very small room so he put his bed on a system where he could raise it up to the ceiling using some steel cable, pulleys, and counterweights to get it out of the way during the day.
Collect random junk and try to make something that looks like a person standing in the corner. Dress up a coatrack with random junk. Spare CAT5 for hair (or shredded paper), some spools of some kind for eyes - be sure to add some shades. Old t-shirt from the thrift shop. Think up some other stuff for the rest.
You could put color filters in your flourescent overhead lighting.
Build a LARGE binary clock for your wall.
You can always hang models or random crap from the ceiling.
Use tape or rearrange the tiles for some kind of boardgame layout on your floor. Pac-Man
Do what you can to "0wn" your friends cubicles in a non-destructive way. Racing stripes. Get some from an auto parts store and stick it to the side of your computer or monitor cases.
Have an artist friend do a mural. Mosaic-ify it and do it on the tiles, overhead, on the wall, in the bathroom.
Put up and "I'm from here." map. Even if it's just your city or tri-county area.
Maps. Just find maps from random places.
LEDs. Can't forget LEDs. (Just be sure to over drive them with an incorrectly designed power supply so they burn out and/or try to catch things on fire... HHOK) LEDs everywhere! (Everybody else is doing it.)
Get some lasers and front-surface mirrors. Get a laser to bounce back and forth across the office a few times then smoke something in the dark to make it appear
TUX. Can't forget TUX. He could use some wall space - right?
Beastie. Can't forget Beastie. Make a blanket!
Random sports equipment usually looks sorta cool hanging from the walls. Find a surfboard.
Replace some standard office equipment with the same piece, but made out of LEGOs.
Spare/Junk/Coastered CDs can be put on the walls in interesting patterns or made into clocks.
Make the coffee machine run off a generator connected to an exercise bike. Put people on rotation and make sure they get to work on time. Maybe riding the bike is enough exercise to replace the need for coffee?
Build a still. Like on *M*A*S*H* Imbibe on Fridays.
Build a file-cabinet maze.
Get some flourescent paint. Buy some blacklights.
Mess with the bathroom somehow. Make visitors wonder.
Paper airplane airport. Practice landings. Make a launcher with rubber bands.
Print out banner ads for your wall.
Tin-can-and-string telephone/intercom???
Get some fish.
Get yourself a "Jump to Conclusions" mat for the office.
You could probably etch a number of carpets or other surfaces with bleach or acid. Just mask and pour! (Carpet would probably need something heavy to push down into the pile to prevent run-out. Masking tape won't work unless you use a spray bottle. Mask -far- back.)
Take a Friday afternoon to go shopping for old couches and coffee tables. How about a gaudy lamp from 1964 for the corner of your office??
Have a "Cubicle Pimp-Out Contest". Flashy and Gaudy wins.
Remodel. Just moving stuff around will be fun and interesting for the next few weeks.
No windows in your office? Buy yourself a sledgehammer. It won't come with directions. You don't need directions.....
It did seem offtopic at first... but...
:)
Out of the 3 you mentioned, subpixel rendering is actually the one I was thinking could prove most useful in a corporate environment. It *does* help, and with the number of LCDs making their way onto desktops today, this feature would benefit free systems (free system users) in a big way.
Whether or not the boss will take your eyestrain into consideration when choosing a business platform is another question altogether....
This won't be easy - tearing people away from their, "but I need this clause" licenses.....
How about taking the 3 or so licenses as mentioned, but allowing each (or some) to have a number of options that could be opted for on a case by case basis? Rather than a one-size-fits-all, perhaps an aproach like the various Creative Commons licenses would be better for the entire community?
Find some common elements from a large number licenses from the "Approved" Open Source License Collection and make some of the most common language available as "plug-ins" to some sort of meta-license that encompasses a large cross-section of what's currently being used.
Rather than chooing a particular license just because it has some sort of attribution or distribution clause the author is interested in, bring consistency to the community but still allow individuals to apply special clauses to the documents that protect (or ensure the freedom of) their work.
Just an idea...
One way to aproach this situation is to put a large multi-user box in each individual department or workgroup. Keep the windows desktops there, add X-servers, and run some apps centrally.
If the question is licensing, a net-booted corporate (Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD) desktop wouldn't be too difficult. Run locally what the machine can handle, make sure the network is super fast, and run the apps requiring performance on the workgroup server.
This would reduce the need to upgrade lots of hardware (which will surely be obsolete again soon) and minimize downtime in the process. If need be, some legacy apps could survive under Wine locally or, again, at the workgroup server. Keep storage centralized to facilitate backups across the entire organization (OpenAFS?).
It's an old way of doing things but overlooked far too often. You've obviously got to run the numbers but, surely, "a few good men" handling things on the server (they would handle the app server AND the centralized, consistent-across-the-organization, netboot image(s)) would be much less expensive than the workload on an IT staff required by an office full of people and their problems on Windows machines.
Maybe not *THE* solution, but certainly worth a look for many.
How necessary are these activities on a corporate desktop? Are they worth the IP hassle to implement on a office desktop?
I wonder how far the nearest cave is to the rover's current position? Does the rover have a flashlight?