19) Paying the network fee (wherever it comes from) does not mean you own the network.
20) Blocking Napster is not a violation of the First Amendment.
21) No, we don't carry those newsgroups.
22) This is a school, not an ISP.
23) No, you can't just run a cable from your neighbor's room and share his connection.
24) I can't help you with that game you have on CD-R that you "borrowed" from a friend.
25) No, I can't get you WaReZ, pr0n, or tips on how to become a 733Ý |-|4)(0R.
And a few to tell the tech support people:
1) Just because I'm calling you, don't assume that I'm a total moron.
2) Don't come over to troubleshoot my computer when you know that the network is down.
3) If I tell you that the "A" drop was removed during renovations and only the "B" drop exists, don't activate A.
4) If after activating A, my computer still can't connect, try activating B as was originally requested.
5) When you stop by instead of activating B, look at the drop labeled B, open it up to find cables that are marked B, and test it to determine that it is actually, as all the evidence indicates, connected to B, don't expect me to be too happy to find out that you have just discovered the obvious.
And finally, some tips for users to keep in mind for the future:
1) That's a hoax/scam/virus and your friend is a moron.
2) When your warez site saturates all our available bandwidth, your port will be shut down and federal stormtroopers will be dispatched to your location.
3) Network games of Quake, et. al., do not count as "academic use."
4) We still don't carry those newsgroups.
5) Taking advantage of a poorly chosen computer password, copying someone's MP3 collection, deleting the originals, and holding the MP3 collection for ransom is not only wrong, it's kind of illegal.
6) No, you don't get a refund for the 15 minutes that the network was down.
7) The correct answer to the question "Reply to all recipients?" is no.
8) Yes, we know who you are and what you are doing.
9) No, we do not provide support for the game "Erotic Annie's Pleasure Arcade."
10) If the network at your friend's school is so much better, why don't you go there instead?
Re:Believe it or not...
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Dorm Storm?
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· Score: 1
Women's view of RPI: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
Men's view of RPI: Women are like parking spots. All the good ones are taken.
Yeah, *PI schools are just so much fun... You hear that a cute girl needs help with her computer (I was generally knowan as that strange Mac guy, so someone with Mac problems didn't have many other options), but you find out (through the usual conversation that takes place after you are offered whatever alcoholic beverages are around, in this case it was Corona) that she has a boyfriend (which just goes without saying at that sort of school). Then you proceed to actually fix the problem (which required fixing several other problems first, making the whole process seem very complicated), making you now completely unnecessary because there's always the Guy With Tools she can invite over to fix things (which I could have done as well), or the Guy With Beer, or the Guy With Annoying Music, or the Guy With Fake ID, or the Guy With Van, etc. Depending on how motivated the girl is, she can have several different guys to call on without giving them anything in return other than the chance to be near her, which a lot of guys seem content with. Tech schools can really screw people up.
I miss reading, at various times, Zippy, Bloom County, Doonesbury, the Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes. What the heck happened to Bill Watterson?!
I don't know what happened to him, but Calvin and Hobbes strips are being posted one per day at http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/, but you probably could have figured that out on your own. It's a part of ucomics.com, which also hosts a Doonesbury archive. And it unfortunately has pop-under ads, so don't say I didn't warn you.
Perfect for the geek away from electronic society
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10GB In A Linux PDA
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· Score: 1
Whatever happened to the idea to Keep It Simple, Stupid...? Do one or two things and do them well. That's why PalmOS has seen the success it has, while WinCE still flounders trying to decide if it wants to be A PDA platform or a PC platform.
KISS works when you only need to do one or two things, but when you need more functionality, that means more devices, more space, and more weight. Let's say I'm on a trip to Europe (sightseeing, not backpacking), without a laptop because I don't want to deal with an electronic device of that size/complexity. My digital camera eats up storage space at a rate of at least 50MB/day (double that when I upgrade to a more recent model), so even a $400 1GB IBM Microdrive could end up being insufficient, not to mention the compatability, power, and reliability issues. That means I need something like the $500 Minds@work Digital Wallet or the $600 NixVue Digital Album (currently the best option), each with about 6GB of storage space. Right now this Mine thing is looking pretty good.
But wait, there's more! I also like to be able to listen to music during the long bus rides between locations of interest, as well as the flights there and back. CD players are a no-no on planes, and carrying around a decent variety of music requires approximately twice the space taken up by the CD player itself. Power isn't an issue thanks to the standard AA batteries (same as the camera, all charged quickly with a Maha C204-F with the appropriate power adapter), which cameras are now moving away from (but that's another rant). So now I've got a bulky music solution that can only be used on the ground - not very good. If we replace that with a $300 or so 6GB MP3 player, that should solve everything, right? Except for the fact that I'm now carrying two 6GB hard drives that won't come close to being even half full, at a cost of up to $1000, both requiring power. My belt pack is starting to feel a bit heavy... Ok, we can simplify by going with a cheap MP3 player with a Compact Flash slot and putting all of the MP3s on the other device, copying files over as desired. Copying, copying, copying... I'm not liking this idea much either.
So now, for the same price as a 6GB data storage device, I can get a 10GB device that can store my MP3s and pictures and do everything that a Digital Album and MP3 player could do, and can also function as a simple voice recorder (no need for that microcassette recorder anymore). All in the space of a graphing calculator (with a couple more lines on the display, it would even look almost exactly like a graphing calculator...), and running on the same batteries I (currently) use for my camera. That brings my total belt pack down to just this thing, the camera, PDA, binoculars, batteries, and a Compact Flash PC card adapter (well, and the mini tripod, clamp, pocket level, pen, passport, plane tickets, assorted pamphlets, etc.). Sounds good to me.
I'm interested in seeing what all these idiots are sending me (call me nosy; I also look at car wrecks when I drive by). What's the safest way to open these attachments on a Windows 98 machine that is not running Outlook?
One overly-complicated yet fairly safe and easy to clean up option I can think of off the top of my head is to use something that emulates a Windows box (like VirtualPC), disable networking, and infect away. Once you're done playing, just quit the emulator, delete the Windows hard drive file, and all is well.
I wonder if congress, once it's done with.kids, would consider forcing ICANN to add a.con TLD. I already use this domain all the time for free software registration (Real player, anything Microsoft, etc.). That way, they are guaranteed to not get a working address (there's always a chance that someone will actually have this.is@fake.com).
Now, if we expand this to spammers, we could sort of get a little alliance going. Spammers are going to always spam someone, right? What we can do is give all the spammers.con addresses and filter that domain, but not tell the AOL/WebTV/etc. crowd about it. If the spammers organized and sent some money to the right people (agreeing to keep the message size and volume minimal), they could make sure that ISPs wouldn't do any filtering, leaving it to the end user. Since.con looks so much like.com, a lot of people would never even notice (unlike stuff like.ru,.kr,.jp, etc.). The spammers get some idiots without changing internet accounts every 5 minutes, ISPs get money, and the rest of us have no more spam. Everybody wins.
But another space show recently aired, Outlaw Star, was barely edited at all. All they removed was foul language and one episode that was completely inappropriate for tv (it was basically just a public bathouse pervision comedy episode).
Actually, they removed a lot more than just foul language; they removed just about all sexually suggestive content (the appearance of nudity without any real nudity (airbrushed bathing suit), any mention of nudity, homosexuality, "inappropriate" contact between characters, etc.), as well as all blood (which got rather confusing when the blood was important to the plot) and various other instances of violence/death/suicide/etc. Most of what was taken out wasn't critical to the plot, but there's a lot of important character information that was lost. And the part where they changed the word "body" to "car" just made no sense... Of course, none of this even comes close to the sexual content of last night's episodes of The Man Show on Comedy Central (or South Park either) or the raw violence of last week's Robocop miniseries (which was probably edited itself) on Sci-Fi, so this just seems really silly. On the other hand, I think I watch far too much television...
Let's see, how many interesting failures have there been? (Spoilers ahead, so don't read if you haven't seen the episodes and don't want to know how they end before you see them.)
-The salvage episode, when one team's equipment pretty much fell apart.
-The cannon episode, when one team couldn't get their projectiles through their barrel.
-The amphibious vehicle episode, when a collision and a poor design caused one boat to take on water and spin in circles.
-The non-wheeled vehicle episode, when both teams had severe failures.
-The demolition episode, when the hydraulic arm broke a weld, was re-welded, developed a coolant leak that was solved by constantly pouring water in, broke a hydraulic fluid line, had that welded back on, and just barely lost.
-The bomber episode, when the airplane team couldn't manage sustained flight.
-The boat rescue episode, when the boat made from a bunch of barrels welded together flipped over after the first turn.
-The hovercraft episode, when the dual engine hovercraft was slow and unstable before crashing and being critically damaged.
I'm sure there are more I'm either forgetting or leaving out on purpose because the failure wasn't interesting enough, and I can't seem to see any but the first two episodes of the UK season 3...
The reason I think they had to do a prequel is that they've totally screwed up the technological level of the future. In the star-trek future, you have super-shields and weapons, you can travel in time, you can use wormholes, etc, etc. Its pretty difficult to write stories where there are abolutely no challenges.
I was kind of hoping that they would make a prequel by starting out in the future, firing up some nifty time travel gizmos, and going back and wiping out every speck of Star Trek: The Overloaded Future. That way they could start over without having to work toward the convoluted mess of the Star Trek future. It would also shut up all of those whiny Star Trek geeks who cry foul at every violation of Star Trek brand physics or Star Trek timelines. They could even give it a clever hip-sounding techie name like Star Trek: Re-Evolution or something. Without the all-powerful technology that is the central theme to most recent Star Trek stuff, they would have to focus on interpersonal relationships, cultural reactions to space travel, societal change, the formation of interplanetary alliances, etc. I know, Star Trek with humanity rather than technology is just a dream...
Maybe Global Climate Change is a better term. Even as the earth does get warmer, a degree or so either way isn't something we're really going to notice - daily variations tend to be much greater anyway. What we do notice is the weather systems getting screwed up as a result of the small rises knocking the established systems out of whack.
And why exactly should we expect everything to stay the same? I know humans tend to like things that are familiar and predictable (sitcoms and Hollywood garbage are proof of this), but that doesn't mean we can force natural events to be convenient. One key concept that is often lacking in all of these discussions is that we have been trying to (and succeeding at) keep terrestrial events nice and constant. We keep the forests from burning down, we keep the rivers from overflowing their banks, we keep the coastline from eroding. What we don't realize is that this artificial constancy interrupts natural cycles, resulting in catastrophic forest fires, massive flooding (the Mississippi is overdue for a significant course redirection because we want it to stay where it is), etc. Change happens.
Global warming alarmists often take the same position - everything isn't staying the same, so we're in trouble. The problem is, how do we know what is normal? As individuals, we have a very short memory. As a society, our memory isn't much longer, and detailed records only go back 100 years or so. Beyond that, we have to rely on our interpretation of various written information and geological evidence to piece together what we believe to be long-term patterns. These can help us to understand long-term changes, but applying this information to short-term changes can be a bit tricky. We don't know what the future will bring, and we know much less than we think we know about the past, so calling any short-term change "abnormal" is a position that is difficult to support.
So where does this leave us with environmental protection? We should start with the small things and work our way up. Instead of trying to combat global warming, we should be trying to reduce emissions because of the problems we are more sure of (smog, acid rain, groundwater contamination, health concerns, etc.). By dealing with what we are fairly sure we are contributing to first, we can move on to better understand the more complicated issues like the heating/cooling cycles of the planet. When we can properly define what a "normal" temperature change is (and over what period of time to measure it), then we can try to determine if we are the cause of the abnormality (again, change happens, and humans aren't responsible for all of it). As it stands now though, we cannot say with any certainty whether the short-term change in temperature over the past century is "normal" or whether it is a result of human activity.
Am I the only one who thought of Junkyard Wars after reading about a contraption powered by a chainsaw engine? This sounds like a good challenge for the next season...
I think the consensus here would be that *SOFTWARE*, *ALGORITHM*, and *BUSINESS MODEL* patents are evil tools of corporate greed.
If you wanna patent your shiny new universal threshing machine, be my guest.
But what if this threshing machine is just like any other threshing machine, except for a nifty little software algorithm control system that makes it far better than anyone else's threshing machine? I've done algorithm development for industrial equipment before, and there was nothing unique about the equipment used or the objective of the device - the key advance was in the algorithms. In fact, in many hardware patents, I would guess that there is a significant amount of algorithm description involved, since it's not what chips you use that matters, but what you do with them. Not all "software" patents are without merit, some are just the result of the logical progression of technology from hardware-based to software-based.
My thesis advisor does something similar in each of his classes. Since his homework assignments usually ask questions that require several sentences to answer, many students simply go online and cut and paste answers. A simple web search for a characteristic phrase or sentence will then reveal the source material. The class then gets a mini lecture on professional ethics.
As a TA and undergraduate grader, I also came across a lot of rather uncreative cheaters. There was one pair of homeworks that had the exact same layout, only different paper and handwriting. The only error in any of the solutions was a very small one that could only be explained as a copying error. Then there was the group of three homeworks with plots printed out on the same crappy printer. Everything about the printouts was the same, except for some slight rewording of the captions. My personal favorite was someone who constantly looked at other people's papers during an exam. He didn't even try to hide it (I was looking at him and standing less than 10 feet away when he was doing this). Fortunately, he wasn't very good at cheating, so he still failed the course.
The common problem in all cases is the lack of disciplinary action. Even when the cheating is obvious and is reported to the professor, little more than a warning is ever the result. Cheating became a big issue and students and faculty made a push for an honor code, as if that would change anything. Simply enforcing existing rules would be enough, but for some reason that doesn't happen.
Too often the punishments for cheating are either too lenient or too strict. A warning just tells students what they did wrong so they can cheat more successfully in the future. Extreme measures tend to be strongly resisted by incompetent parents who believe that their little angel can do no wrong. Public caning would be a nice solution, but discipline has been pretty much outlawed in the US. Cheating has become the American way, so we might as well just stop pretending to fight it if we're only bluffing to begin with. We're only telling students that it's ok to break the rules if you have someone who can put up a good defense for you. Oh, wait, that's the US judicial system too. Nevermind...
Last fall I spent some time looking into getting some UWB hardware for testing, and it was an interesting experience. I called Time Domain several times and was routed to a different person's voice mail each time. None of them returned my calls. At one point, when requesting to be transferred to sales, I was asked why I wanted to talk to someone in sales (apparently it wasn't obvious). When I responded that I wanted information on product availability, I was told that there weren't any products available. I guess they weren't too concerned about the possibility that someone might be interested in products that they might somehow have available in the future...
Aether Wire on the other hand was the exact opposite in my experience. Not only was I able to talk to someone, but that someone was one of the head engineers. At the time they were planning on having prototype kits available for testing this summer, but I don't know if that date has changed. Aether Wire is focusing on positioning and tracking applications of UWB, and these products could have many important uses for warehouses, hospitals, emergency services, and the military. That is, if the products ever exist and live up to everyone's claims.
DeCSS is also useful to evade country codes, which is also a fair use issue and also requires a same as original quality.
You can just buy one DVD player for each country code if you need original quality in this case. After all, if it is "reasonable" to have to buy a VHS copy whenever you want to make a clip from a DVD you own, what's wrong with buying multiple DVD players to watch DVDs from different parts of the world (aside from the sheer stupidity, which doesn't seem to matter to some of the people involved in this case)? If there is a legal (though costly) alternative, the point won't carry much weight in court (judging by the "just buy another copy" mentality that has been expressed previously).
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech?
The problem here is that for most of us, this point is so intuitively obvious that it becomes difficult to express to others. Code, like any form of speech, is composed of elements that by themselves are of little value (a single letter or character, a pixel, tile, or small quantity of colored material, etc.). The expression comes from combining these elements into some functional form.
For example, an algorithm expressed in plain English is speech (I hope everyone can agree on that) - it is a description of one person or group's idea of how something can be done. That same algorithm, when implemented in code, doesn't suddenly lose its status as speech - it still has the same qualities, only in a different form.
To those who don't understand it, code is just nonsense. To others, code can be seen as an expression of a concept in terms of fundamental structures, just like a mosaic or a philosophical argument. Computer programming is just a medium that, like television, audio, or printed media, can be used to express ideas, entertain, educate, solve problems, or just waste time.
Looking specifically at DeCSS, it can be difficult to see the speech issues involved, just like if you try to judge the speech content of television based on watching one of those silly "reality" shows. If you step back and look at the potential for expression though, it becomes obvious that programming is a medium for speech and expression, and that speech takes the form of code.
The problem today is that stupidity like this makes it more and more difficult for kids to play and be kids. We've all seen the stories about kids getting suspended for playing cops and robbers, which many of us played without turning into psychopaths. These days you can't buy a toy gun that looks real (even one that turns into a robot), meaning that if you want a realistic gun to play with, you need a real one. When I was a kid (which wasn't that long ago), we not only could buy realistic toy guns, but we could also bring them to school. We could probably even play cops and robbers with them if we were that ambitious. Despite all of this fantasy violence (which involved pointing what looked like real guns at real people), nobody thought to use real guns. Nobody shot anybody else, nobody died, nobody filed stupid lawsuits. Sometimes, when you have a sufficient substitute, you don't need the real thing.
Second to none when it comes to macho military posturing, the U.S. can't say it's sorry for the accident and bring everybody home.
An apology won't get anyone home, that has never been promised. It is likely to do the following:
-Open the door for further demands (no more flights near China, etc.).
-Embarrass the US ("The US will admit to anything if you grab a few people and make demands."), especially when it is obvious that China is more at fault in this case.
-Create (or increase) strong anti-American feelings in China ("See? The American scum admits to murdering our pilot!").
-Put the pilot and possibly some of the crew on trial for murder in a Chinese court ("How can you deny that you are responsible when your own government says that you are?").
This is why the US should not give in to China's demands. The Chinese government has demonstrated that it does not want to play nice with the rest of the world. It's time to let them sulk in the corner while the rest of us get on with our lives.
In the case of Outlook, we've taken several steps to provide improved security for users. For example, after the "I Love You" virus of last spring, we took the initiative to change the balance between security and functionality by releasing the Outlook E-Mail Security Update. The Update prevents executable attachments from being delivered to an Outlook user
Why stop there? Why not prevent all attachments from "being delivered to an Outlook user?" I know, you could have all e-mail routed through a Microsoft virus-checking server. Or just force everyone to use Hotmail instead. It could be prompted by a message that pops up when someone tries to use Outlook: "You are too stupid to be trusted with e-mail client software. Please sign up for your very own FREE Hotmail account and take care of all of your e-mail with the fun of the latest transparent peer-to-peer file sharing and remote computer access and control features in Internet Explorer."
It seems to me that closing the security hole would make more sense than blocking attachments, but then again I don't work at Microsoft, so what do I know? Just how many average Outlook users use Visual Basic? How many even know what it is? It's been almost 2 years and the best they can come up with is limiting useful functionality? Of course, this is also the company that makes most of its money on bug fixes but can't get a simple patch right...
The RIAA wanted this kind of a system last summer, back when Napster was arguing that it would not be able to effectively filter songs without completely shutting down the service. The filters that are already in place have so far proven Napster correct; people are either getting around the filters or not using Napster anymore. As I wrote in September, if I were a more cynical person, I would think that this move by the RIAA is intended to hurt Napster and independent artists and not to protect copyrights. Actually, I am a more cynical person, and "protecting copyright" at the expense of someone else's rights is like preventing automobile accidents by forcibly shutting down all roads.
I'm sure this happens to lots of people. I never came up with anything revolutionary, but I still found a few ways to save time in math class back in high school. You see, I'm lazy. Laziness and math don't seem to go together, but the amount of mind-numbingly boring repetitive exercises that you get stuck with can really motivate you to find a shortcut, especially when you don't need to do the same problem a thousand times to understand the underlying concept.
I learned this particular lesson back in 10th grade. At the time we were doing something with ellipses. Whatever it was involved finding the distance from the origin to an arbitrary point in order to figure out something else (sorry I'm not more specific, it's been a long time since this happened). Since it didn't matter what point you picked on the ellipse, I just picked a point at the intersection with one of the axes. This simplified the math considerably, reducing the calculation to one-dimensional (since the other dimension was just 0). A few minutes after I confirmed that this worked, the resident teacher's pet raised her hand and told the teacher that she found another way to do the problem. She then went on to explain the exact same approach I took (she used the other axis, but the concept was the same). Now, I didn't particularly care that someone else thought of the same thing. After all, it was rather obvious. The problem was that everyone thought she was a genius because of it. I was left with the knowledge that I had come up with an idea that impressed other people, even though they didn't know what I had done.
The moral of this story is that the loud and annoying people get all the credit, while the rest of us just get whatever we give ourselves. Of course, the loud and annoying people are also more likely to make fools of themselves...
There is no other legitimate purpose for a gun then to kill people.
When did clay discs and paper targets become people? How about animals? What about wounding people, is that "legitimate?" There are plenty of legitimate uses for guns out there that don't involve killing people. Just because you don't take part in these activities, that doesn't mean others don't enjoy them.
I suppose I shouldn't have expected much from this show. After all, this is the same station that had such gripping police dramas as Walker, Texas Ranger and Martial Law (ok, watching Arsenio Hall get his butt kicked was rather entertaining). Still, they also have JAG (although they didn't have it first).
All they had to do was copy the shows on The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel about forensic investigations. Unfortunately, it looks more like they rounded up all the writers who weren't even good enough for Diagnosis Murder and gave them a 20 year old science textbook. The tone switches between dull personal drama ("My bastard ex-husband is such a bastard!") and dull science lecture ("And here's a diagram of a dog's nose. Note the large surface area, which gives a dog a better sense of smell than a human.").
Shows like JAG and Homicide succeeded at combining plot and character development (although JAG has been getting a bit light on plot lately), but CSI has yet to get it right. The "mysteries" are usually so simple that the solutions are obvious ("How could he have been shot in the back when he was facing the shooter?"). The lead actor gives a dull, lifeless performance, almost like Don Johnson playing an accountant. The rest of the cast is pretty much filler, providing no compelling reason to care about anything more than the investigation. After all of this, I was surprised that this show was such a hit. Then again, there really isn't much on opposite it (other than the second showing of Battlebots).
The details will vary by school, but here's what I found out about the two at one school while I was working on my EE degrees:
Computer Science (CS) requires no real engineering, but Computer Engineering (CE, although the actual designation was EEC, since CE was Civil) requires a CS courseload just about sufficient for a CS minor. CE is really Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Computers, while CS can have concentrations in many different areas, with or without any hardware or engineering. Changes in major almost always went from EE/CE to CS and not the other way around - it was much easier to get a CS degree than an EE degree, although clueless people still managed to get through with an EE degree (maybe not a CE though).
Confused yet? There's an easy way to start things off - don't make your final decision yet. Plan to take introductory courses in both CS and EE (or CE if those are separate). By the end of your first year you should have a good idea of where your interests are. If you like playing with code and algorithms, CS is probably your best bet. If you have an interest in logic and processors, as well as basic electronics, stick with CE. If you want a good background that can lead into many different kinds of jobs, go with EE and just take whatever classes interest you (if your school's EE program is flexible enough).
In the end it really doesn't matter what your degree says, what matters is what you can do. I only had a basic background in programming and digital logic, but Compaq and The Mathworks both had an interest in me (Compaq gave me a big offer, Mathworks was too slow) because I demonstrated that I was capable of doing whatever they wanted me to do. I ended up picking the job that seemed the best for me, which was in the area of communications, which I had a bit more of a background in. Having a Master's degree really helped here - it only took me another year and a half, it didn't cost anything (except for books), and I still got a decent paycheck each month. The advanced degree made me look a lot better to prospective employers because it gave me a lot of good real-world engineering experience (in other words I got to sit in on endless meetings and also work on a successful project). Now if they would just stop trying to give me jobs...
In short:
-Just start taking classes, pick the exact major once you know more about your school's programs.
-Do what you want, not just what you need to do to get the degree.
-Don't worry about what companies will want, if you have the ability they will be interested.
-If possible, get your Master's degree right away.
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19) Paying the network fee (wherever it comes from) does not mean you own the network.
20) Blocking Napster is not a violation of the First Amendment.
21) No, we don't carry those newsgroups.
22) This is a school, not an ISP.
23) No, you can't just run a cable from your neighbor's room and share his connection.
24) I can't help you with that game you have on CD-R that you "borrowed" from a friend.
25) No, I can't get you WaReZ, pr0n, or tips on how to become a 733Ý |-|4)(0R.
And a few to tell the tech support people:
1) Just because I'm calling you, don't assume that I'm a total moron.
2) Don't come over to troubleshoot my computer when you know that the network is down.
3) If I tell you that the "A" drop was removed during renovations and only the "B" drop exists, don't activate A.
4) If after activating A, my computer still can't connect, try activating B as was originally requested.
5) When you stop by instead of activating B, look at the drop labeled B, open it up to find cables that are marked B, and test it to determine that it is actually, as all the evidence indicates, connected to B, don't expect me to be too happy to find out that you have just discovered the obvious.
And finally, some tips for users to keep in mind for the future:
1) That's a hoax/scam/virus and your friend is a moron.
2) When your warez site saturates all our available bandwidth, your port will be shut down and federal stormtroopers will be dispatched to your location.
3) Network games of Quake, et. al., do not count as "academic use."
4) We still don't carry those newsgroups.
5) Taking advantage of a poorly chosen computer password, copying someone's MP3 collection, deleting the originals, and holding the MP3 collection for ransom is not only wrong, it's kind of illegal.
6) No, you don't get a refund for the 15 minutes that the network was down.
7) The correct answer to the question "Reply to all recipients?" is no.
8) Yes, we know who you are and what you are doing.
9) No, we do not provide support for the game "Erotic Annie's Pleasure Arcade."
10) If the network at your friend's school is so much better, why don't you go there instead?
Men's view of RPI: Women are like parking spots. All the good ones are taken.
Yeah, *PI schools are just so much fun... You hear that a cute girl needs help with her computer (I was generally knowan as that strange Mac guy, so someone with Mac problems didn't have many other options), but you find out (through the usual conversation that takes place after you are offered whatever alcoholic beverages are around, in this case it was Corona) that she has a boyfriend (which just goes without saying at that sort of school). Then you proceed to actually fix the problem (which required fixing several other problems first, making the whole process seem very complicated), making you now completely unnecessary because there's always the Guy With Tools she can invite over to fix things (which I could have done as well), or the Guy With Beer, or the Guy With Annoying Music, or the Guy With Fake ID, or the Guy With Van, etc. Depending on how motivated the girl is, she can have several different guys to call on without giving them anything in return other than the chance to be near her, which a lot of guys seem content with. Tech schools can really screw people up.
I don't know what happened to him, but Calvin and Hobbes strips are being posted one per day at http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/, but you probably could have figured that out on your own. It's a part of ucomics.com, which also hosts a Doonesbury archive. And it unfortunately has pop-under ads, so don't say I didn't warn you.
KISS works when you only need to do one or two things, but when you need more functionality, that means more devices, more space, and more weight. Let's say I'm on a trip to Europe (sightseeing, not backpacking), without a laptop because I don't want to deal with an electronic device of that size/complexity. My digital camera eats up storage space at a rate of at least 50MB/day (double that when I upgrade to a more recent model), so even a $400 1GB IBM Microdrive could end up being insufficient, not to mention the compatability, power, and reliability issues. That means I need something like the $500 Minds@work Digital Wallet or the $600 NixVue Digital Album (currently the best option), each with about 6GB of storage space. Right now this Mine thing is looking pretty good.
But wait, there's more! I also like to be able to listen to music during the long bus rides between locations of interest, as well as the flights there and back. CD players are a no-no on planes, and carrying around a decent variety of music requires approximately twice the space taken up by the CD player itself. Power isn't an issue thanks to the standard AA batteries (same as the camera, all charged quickly with a Maha C204-F with the appropriate power adapter), which cameras are now moving away from (but that's another rant). So now I've got a bulky music solution that can only be used on the ground - not very good. If we replace that with a $300 or so 6GB MP3 player, that should solve everything, right? Except for the fact that I'm now carrying two 6GB hard drives that won't come close to being even half full, at a cost of up to $1000, both requiring power. My belt pack is starting to feel a bit heavy... Ok, we can simplify by going with a cheap MP3 player with a Compact Flash slot and putting all of the MP3s on the other device, copying files over as desired. Copying, copying, copying... I'm not liking this idea much either.
So now, for the same price as a 6GB data storage device, I can get a 10GB device that can store my MP3s and pictures and do everything that a Digital Album and MP3 player could do, and can also function as a simple voice recorder (no need for that microcassette recorder anymore). All in the space of a graphing calculator (with a couple more lines on the display, it would even look almost exactly like a graphing calculator...), and running on the same batteries I (currently) use for my camera. That brings my total belt pack down to just this thing, the camera, PDA, binoculars, batteries, and a Compact Flash PC card adapter (well, and the mini tripod, clamp, pocket level, pen, passport, plane tickets, assorted pamphlets, etc.). Sounds good to me.
One overly-complicated yet fairly safe and easy to clean up option I can think of off the top of my head is to use something that emulates a Windows box (like VirtualPC), disable networking, and infect away. Once you're done playing, just quit the emulator, delete the Windows hard drive file, and all is well.
Now, if we expand this to spammers, we could sort of get a little alliance going. Spammers are going to always spam someone, right? What we can do is give all the spammers .con addresses and filter that domain, but not tell the AOL/WebTV/etc. crowd about it. If the spammers organized and sent some money to the right people (agreeing to keep the message size and volume minimal), they could make sure that ISPs wouldn't do any filtering, leaving it to the end user. Since .con looks so much like .com, a lot of people would never even notice (unlike stuff like .ru, .kr, .jp, etc.). The spammers get some idiots without changing internet accounts every 5 minutes, ISPs get money, and the rest of us have no more spam. Everybody wins.
Actually, they removed a lot more than just foul language; they removed just about all sexually suggestive content (the appearance of nudity without any real nudity (airbrushed bathing suit), any mention of nudity, homosexuality, "inappropriate" contact between characters, etc.), as well as all blood (which got rather confusing when the blood was important to the plot) and various other instances of violence/death/suicide/etc. Most of what was taken out wasn't critical to the plot, but there's a lot of important character information that was lost. And the part where they changed the word "body" to "car" just made no sense... Of course, none of this even comes close to the sexual content of last night's episodes of The Man Show on Comedy Central (or South Park either) or the raw violence of last week's Robocop miniseries (which was probably edited itself) on Sci-Fi, so this just seems really silly. On the other hand, I think I watch far too much television...
-The salvage episode, when one team's equipment pretty much fell apart.
-The cannon episode, when one team couldn't get their projectiles through their barrel.
-The amphibious vehicle episode, when a collision and a poor design caused one boat to take on water and spin in circles.
-The non-wheeled vehicle episode, when both teams had severe failures.
-The demolition episode, when the hydraulic arm broke a weld, was re-welded, developed a coolant leak that was solved by constantly pouring water in, broke a hydraulic fluid line, had that welded back on, and just barely lost.
-The bomber episode, when the airplane team couldn't manage sustained flight.
-The boat rescue episode, when the boat made from a bunch of barrels welded together flipped over after the first turn.
-The hovercraft episode, when the dual engine hovercraft was slow and unstable before crashing and being critically damaged.
I'm sure there are more I'm either forgetting or leaving out on purpose because the failure wasn't interesting enough, and I can't seem to see any but the first two episodes of the UK season 3...
I was kind of hoping that they would make a prequel by starting out in the future, firing up some nifty time travel gizmos, and going back and wiping out every speck of Star Trek: The Overloaded Future. That way they could start over without having to work toward the convoluted mess of the Star Trek future. It would also shut up all of those whiny Star Trek geeks who cry foul at every violation of Star Trek brand physics or Star Trek timelines. They could even give it a clever hip-sounding techie name like Star Trek: Re-Evolution or something. Without the all-powerful technology that is the central theme to most recent Star Trek stuff, they would have to focus on interpersonal relationships, cultural reactions to space travel, societal change, the formation of interplanetary alliances, etc. I know, Star Trek with humanity rather than technology is just a dream...
And why exactly should we expect everything to stay the same? I know humans tend to like things that are familiar and predictable (sitcoms and Hollywood garbage are proof of this), but that doesn't mean we can force natural events to be convenient. One key concept that is often lacking in all of these discussions is that we have been trying to (and succeeding at) keep terrestrial events nice and constant. We keep the forests from burning down, we keep the rivers from overflowing their banks, we keep the coastline from eroding. What we don't realize is that this artificial constancy interrupts natural cycles, resulting in catastrophic forest fires, massive flooding (the Mississippi is overdue for a significant course redirection because we want it to stay where it is), etc. Change happens.
Global warming alarmists often take the same position - everything isn't staying the same, so we're in trouble. The problem is, how do we know what is normal? As individuals, we have a very short memory. As a society, our memory isn't much longer, and detailed records only go back 100 years or so. Beyond that, we have to rely on our interpretation of various written information and geological evidence to piece together what we believe to be long-term patterns. These can help us to understand long-term changes, but applying this information to short-term changes can be a bit tricky. We don't know what the future will bring, and we know much less than we think we know about the past, so calling any short-term change "abnormal" is a position that is difficult to support.
So where does this leave us with environmental protection? We should start with the small things and work our way up. Instead of trying to combat global warming, we should be trying to reduce emissions because of the problems we are more sure of (smog, acid rain, groundwater contamination, health concerns, etc.). By dealing with what we are fairly sure we are contributing to first, we can move on to better understand the more complicated issues like the heating/cooling cycles of the planet. When we can properly define what a "normal" temperature change is (and over what period of time to measure it), then we can try to determine if we are the cause of the abnormality (again, change happens, and humans aren't responsible for all of it). As it stands now though, we cannot say with any certainty whether the short-term change in temperature over the past century is "normal" or whether it is a result of human activity.
Am I the only one who thought of Junkyard Wars after reading about a contraption powered by a chainsaw engine? This sounds like a good challenge for the next season...
If you wanna patent your shiny new universal threshing machine, be my guest.
But what if this threshing machine is just like any other threshing machine, except for a nifty little software algorithm control system that makes it far better than anyone else's threshing machine? I've done algorithm development for industrial equipment before, and there was nothing unique about the equipment used or the objective of the device - the key advance was in the algorithms. In fact, in many hardware patents, I would guess that there is a significant amount of algorithm description involved, since it's not what chips you use that matters, but what you do with them. Not all "software" patents are without merit, some are just the result of the logical progression of technology from hardware-based to software-based.
As a TA and undergraduate grader, I also came across a lot of rather uncreative cheaters. There was one pair of homeworks that had the exact same layout, only different paper and handwriting. The only error in any of the solutions was a very small one that could only be explained as a copying error. Then there was the group of three homeworks with plots printed out on the same crappy printer. Everything about the printouts was the same, except for some slight rewording of the captions. My personal favorite was someone who constantly looked at other people's papers during an exam. He didn't even try to hide it (I was looking at him and standing less than 10 feet away when he was doing this). Fortunately, he wasn't very good at cheating, so he still failed the course.
The common problem in all cases is the lack of disciplinary action. Even when the cheating is obvious and is reported to the professor, little more than a warning is ever the result. Cheating became a big issue and students and faculty made a push for an honor code, as if that would change anything. Simply enforcing existing rules would be enough, but for some reason that doesn't happen.
Too often the punishments for cheating are either too lenient or too strict. A warning just tells students what they did wrong so they can cheat more successfully in the future. Extreme measures tend to be strongly resisted by incompetent parents who believe that their little angel can do no wrong. Public caning would be a nice solution, but discipline has been pretty much outlawed in the US. Cheating has become the American way, so we might as well just stop pretending to fight it if we're only bluffing to begin with. We're only telling students that it's ok to break the rules if you have someone who can put up a good defense for you. Oh, wait, that's the US judicial system too. Nevermind...
Aether Wire on the other hand was the exact opposite in my experience. Not only was I able to talk to someone, but that someone was one of the head engineers. At the time they were planning on having prototype kits available for testing this summer, but I don't know if that date has changed. Aether Wire is focusing on positioning and tracking applications of UWB, and these products could have many important uses for warehouses, hospitals, emergency services, and the military. That is, if the products ever exist and live up to everyone's claims.
You can just buy one DVD player for each country code if you need original quality in this case. After all, if it is "reasonable" to have to buy a VHS copy whenever you want to make a clip from a DVD you own, what's wrong with buying multiple DVD players to watch DVDs from different parts of the world (aside from the sheer stupidity, which doesn't seem to matter to some of the people involved in this case)? If there is a legal (though costly) alternative, the point won't carry much weight in court (judging by the "just buy another copy" mentality that has been expressed previously).
The problem here is that for most of us, this point is so intuitively obvious that it becomes difficult to express to others. Code, like any form of speech, is composed of elements that by themselves are of little value (a single letter or character, a pixel, tile, or small quantity of colored material, etc.). The expression comes from combining these elements into some functional form.
For example, an algorithm expressed in plain English is speech (I hope everyone can agree on that) - it is a description of one person or group's idea of how something can be done. That same algorithm, when implemented in code, doesn't suddenly lose its status as speech - it still has the same qualities, only in a different form.
To those who don't understand it, code is just nonsense. To others, code can be seen as an expression of a concept in terms of fundamental structures, just like a mosaic or a philosophical argument. Computer programming is just a medium that, like television, audio, or printed media, can be used to express ideas, entertain, educate, solve problems, or just waste time.
Looking specifically at DeCSS, it can be difficult to see the speech issues involved, just like if you try to judge the speech content of television based on watching one of those silly "reality" shows. If you step back and look at the potential for expression though, it becomes obvious that programming is a medium for speech and expression, and that speech takes the form of code.
The problem today is that stupidity like this makes it more and more difficult for kids to play and be kids. We've all seen the stories about kids getting suspended for playing cops and robbers, which many of us played without turning into psychopaths. These days you can't buy a toy gun that looks real (even one that turns into a robot), meaning that if you want a realistic gun to play with, you need a real one. When I was a kid (which wasn't that long ago), we not only could buy realistic toy guns, but we could also bring them to school. We could probably even play cops and robbers with them if we were that ambitious. Despite all of this fantasy violence (which involved pointing what looked like real guns at real people), nobody thought to use real guns. Nobody shot anybody else, nobody died, nobody filed stupid lawsuits. Sometimes, when you have a sufficient substitute, you don't need the real thing.
Well, my last name is Lug, does this mean I can get 50% off there too? Or is this just for those damn Linux User Groups that stole my name?
An apology won't get anyone home, that has never been promised. It is likely to do the following:
-Open the door for further demands (no more flights near China, etc.).
-Embarrass the US ("The US will admit to anything if you grab a few people and make demands."), especially when it is obvious that China is more at fault in this case.
-Create (or increase) strong anti-American feelings in China ("See? The American scum admits to murdering our pilot!").
-Put the pilot and possibly some of the crew on trial for murder in a Chinese court ("How can you deny that you are responsible when your own government says that you are?").
This is why the US should not give in to China's demands. The Chinese government has demonstrated that it does not want to play nice with the rest of the world. It's time to let them sulk in the corner while the rest of us get on with our lives.
Why stop there? Why not prevent all attachments from "being delivered to an Outlook user?" I know, you could have all e-mail routed through a Microsoft virus-checking server. Or just force everyone to use Hotmail instead. It could be prompted by a message that pops up when someone tries to use Outlook: "You are too stupid to be trusted with e-mail client software. Please sign up for your very own FREE Hotmail account and take care of all of your e-mail with the fun of the latest transparent peer-to-peer file sharing and remote computer access and control features in Internet Explorer."
It seems to me that closing the security hole would make more sense than blocking attachments, but then again I don't work at Microsoft, so what do I know? Just how many average Outlook users use Visual Basic? How many even know what it is? It's been almost 2 years and the best they can come up with is limiting useful functionality? Of course, this is also the company that makes most of its money on bug fixes but can't get a simple patch right...
The RIAA wanted this kind of a system last summer, back when Napster was arguing that it would not be able to effectively filter songs without completely shutting down the service. The filters that are already in place have so far proven Napster correct; people are either getting around the filters or not using Napster anymore. As I wrote in September, if I were a more cynical person, I would think that this move by the RIAA is intended to hurt Napster and independent artists and not to protect copyrights. Actually, I am a more cynical person, and "protecting copyright" at the expense of someone else's rights is like preventing automobile accidents by forcibly shutting down all roads.
I learned this particular lesson back in 10th grade. At the time we were doing something with ellipses. Whatever it was involved finding the distance from the origin to an arbitrary point in order to figure out something else (sorry I'm not more specific, it's been a long time since this happened). Since it didn't matter what point you picked on the ellipse, I just picked a point at the intersection with one of the axes. This simplified the math considerably, reducing the calculation to one-dimensional (since the other dimension was just 0). A few minutes after I confirmed that this worked, the resident teacher's pet raised her hand and told the teacher that she found another way to do the problem. She then went on to explain the exact same approach I took (she used the other axis, but the concept was the same). Now, I didn't particularly care that someone else thought of the same thing. After all, it was rather obvious. The problem was that everyone thought she was a genius because of it. I was left with the knowledge that I had come up with an idea that impressed other people, even though they didn't know what I had done.
The moral of this story is that the loud and annoying people get all the credit, while the rest of us just get whatever we give ourselves. Of course, the loud and annoying people are also more likely to make fools of themselves...
When did clay discs and paper targets become people? How about animals? What about wounding people, is that "legitimate?" There are plenty of legitimate uses for guns out there that don't involve killing people. Just because you don't take part in these activities, that doesn't mean others don't enjoy them.
All they had to do was copy the shows on The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel about forensic investigations. Unfortunately, it looks more like they rounded up all the writers who weren't even good enough for Diagnosis Murder and gave them a 20 year old science textbook. The tone switches between dull personal drama ("My bastard ex-husband is such a bastard!") and dull science lecture ("And here's a diagram of a dog's nose. Note the large surface area, which gives a dog a better sense of smell than a human.").
Shows like JAG and Homicide succeeded at combining plot and character development (although JAG has been getting a bit light on plot lately), but CSI has yet to get it right. The "mysteries" are usually so simple that the solutions are obvious ("How could he have been shot in the back when he was facing the shooter?"). The lead actor gives a dull, lifeless performance, almost like Don Johnson playing an accountant. The rest of the cast is pretty much filler, providing no compelling reason to care about anything more than the investigation. After all of this, I was surprised that this show was such a hit. Then again, there really isn't much on opposite it (other than the second showing of Battlebots).
Computer Science (CS) requires no real engineering, but Computer Engineering (CE, although the actual designation was EEC, since CE was Civil) requires a CS courseload just about sufficient for a CS minor. CE is really Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Computers, while CS can have concentrations in many different areas, with or without any hardware or engineering. Changes in major almost always went from EE/CE to CS and not the other way around - it was much easier to get a CS degree than an EE degree, although clueless people still managed to get through with an EE degree (maybe not a CE though).
Confused yet? There's an easy way to start things off - don't make your final decision yet. Plan to take introductory courses in both CS and EE (or CE if those are separate). By the end of your first year you should have a good idea of where your interests are. If you like playing with code and algorithms, CS is probably your best bet. If you have an interest in logic and processors, as well as basic electronics, stick with CE. If you want a good background that can lead into many different kinds of jobs, go with EE and just take whatever classes interest you (if your school's EE program is flexible enough).
In the end it really doesn't matter what your degree says, what matters is what you can do. I only had a basic background in programming and digital logic, but Compaq and The Mathworks both had an interest in me (Compaq gave me a big offer, Mathworks was too slow) because I demonstrated that I was capable of doing whatever they wanted me to do. I ended up picking the job that seemed the best for me, which was in the area of communications, which I had a bit more of a background in. Having a Master's degree really helped here - it only took me another year and a half, it didn't cost anything (except for books), and I still got a decent paycheck each month. The advanced degree made me look a lot better to prospective employers because it gave me a lot of good real-world engineering experience (in other words I got to sit in on endless meetings and also work on a successful project). Now if they would just stop trying to give me jobs...
In short:
-Just start taking classes, pick the exact major once you know more about your school's programs.
-Do what you want, not just what you need to do to get the degree.
-Don't worry about what companies will want, if you have the ability they will be interested.
-If possible, get your Master's degree right away.