I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux. It's cool to see that it's still around.
Still around?!?!
Of course it is still around and it is really good. I use it for older or "non-standard" systems that other distros won't install on without a lot of hand-holding and research into why the next newest and greatest graphical installer for distro X keeps hanging.
Two things that are great about Slack. First, it doesn't assume much about a system, but at the same time holds your hand enough that you don't have to know the scan rates (et al) or other specs your hardware intimately unlike *cough*debian*cough* (though I really like debian). Second, it fails gracefully. If something doesn't launch or was scanned improperly (or whatever) Slack will try to bring it up. If it can't, it throws and error exception, and continues about its way as best it can. I HATE when many systems just hang on installs. THAT is the WORST behavior. Graceful failure is an art and Slackware is very good with its paint brushes.
Case in point. Work gave us these crappy IBM laptops that actually are ACER low-enders. I love IBM and hoped for a better model, but we got these. Having a dual-boot situation of 2000 and Linux woud be really helpful for the types of problems these laptops were meant to help us troubleshoot, but getting SuSE (one of my favorites), RedHat, or Debian to load was a nightmare... mainly due to the USB configuration (it uses an internal hub architecture to split the USB ports... or something... whatever, Linux doesn't like it) among other things. Slackware (the distro that I cut my teeth on, Slackware 96 from Walnut Creek) was mentioned as a possible route. After grabbing the CDs, It installed (with a much easier to use installer than I remember) without one hitch. I love it.
So... give it a try. It is stable, it looks a lot like System V Unix and it is a great little OS.
BTW in the last Gulf War more American soldiers died in training and motor vehicle accidents than actual combat
and let's not leave out our old buddy "Friendly Fire." As if getting shot at by your own troops makes it a little more acceptable. Check out this recent broadcast of This American Life in which a Marine talks about being on the recieving end of "Friendly Fire."
My dad was in the military for 21 years and I spent roughly 16 years following him around the world. I really respect the men in uniform... so much so that unprovoked war is sad.
I was in Germany during the Gulf War... luckily my dad wasn't called up. He was near the end of his career and he was in communications, so not as much call for him. Anyway, I went to an DoDDS (Department of Denfense Dependent School system), Wuerzburg American High School to be exact...
Anyway. The Gulf War starts (at midnight our time). We lived in military housing that was just off the main Wuerzburg kaserne (or base)... no fencing, nothing. Wake up in the morning and it was like we were being invaded. Humvees (with machine guns) everywhere and people pulling barbed wire around the perimeter of our housing area (which included the high school that I went too). Full chain-link and regular patrols began began the next day.
So... it was wierd. Then you get to school. the kids whose parents had already shipped down are freaking out (mom or dad is now in real danger of getting hurt). In the weeks that follow, some other kid loses it as his mom or dad is called down to Iraq.
What did I take from that? Well, Bush Sr. wasn't sending his kids, the fathers and mothers of his grandchildren, to war. Neither were many (if any) of Congress. Instead they were sending people like my dad. The mothers and fathers of my classmates and friends. While "we" were victorious, I can only think that the casualties from our side included families that had no decision in the matter. Luckily, I didn't know any of them. I hope the same occurs with this "war." At least the invasion of Kuwait gave some pretext of Justice... the "He started it" argument.
The other thing (besides the war) that all those distraught kids knew about is just what 56ker mentioned. Massive troop movements always mean casualities whether a shot is fired or not. After all, their families had participated in at least one REFORGER exercise (when it was still in its heyday). Even though it was just an "exercise" people (people just like their moms and dads) died from these sorts of accidents in every single one. So, just the act of being "called up" meant that there was a risk of death or serious injury.
"You're not just dealing with bunker-buster bombs, you have guns that can take out an individual 17 miles away, and that kind of capability is going to have a profound impact on the development of the world."
REP. CHRIS CANNON Utah Republican
Does the use of the word development in conjuction with guns scare the shit out of anybody else here?
I am sure there is a dollars and sense reason, but it would seem that blackberry's (among others) would hint at this PDA being a success.
I could be wrong. Since you work for sharp, what gives?
Also, given the difference in the specs, would you hold out for the new zaurus or buy a deeply discounted SL-5500? I am thinking about buying one, but was hoping the price for the new ones would be around $400 considering the cost of add on cards and such. Also, if the SL-C700 does come out in the states, do you see a similar price drop in the SL-5600?
Thanks for any insight you might be able to provide.
I didn't want to have to support some garbage eMachine.
I'll stick my neck on the line and say that newer eMachines aren't that bad. AMD Athlon processor, 512 RAM, DVD and 48x CD-RW, 6 USB 2 ports (2 on the front and 4 on the back), and 4 firewire ports (2 up front and 2 in the back). Not a bad system.
Thier new software/driver updater does a pretty good job of alerting users of problems and then provides a convenient download and install option (all tested to work with the specific hardware and software - including post factory installs). Think Red-Hat network for Windows (though, still not as powerful). Again, not a bad system.
Older eMachines? Stay away.
Re:Tech support for your family??
on
Family Tech Support
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree with this. My uncle, God bless him, helped me out a ton while I was in college and beyond (loans, meals, a place to stay, extra cash...).
He actually asks me for help all the time and I am glad to help. The other day, he custom cut a new shower curtain rod for me with this metal working tools.
I don't know my way around a workshop and he doesn't know how to offload his digital pictures from his camera. Stuff works itself out.
If my parents ever do get around to getting their own computer (currently all their computing questions are about work computers or computer acquisitions) and if they want suppport from me...
its going to have to be on Linux. This should stop half or more of the crap that could be automatically downloaded. Plus IPTABLES should handle some of the other problems. The remote sharing tools of KDE 3.1 should help the remote problems, and an ssh server is a nice backup.
Since they really only want it for Internet connectivity and some letters, Linux should serve them fine. If they want to use something else... they can talk to my brother.
At least your parents/relatives ask you for advice. I have two degrees in computer and network related disciplines and I have been doing computer and network support professionally for close to 9 years.
So, what happens when my parents have a computer related question or are considering buying a computer?
...
They ask my brother? An english teaching major. Well... to be fair, my mom sometimes asks some of the interns at work... who are dentists!
While I don't want to have to be their support person for everything, it would be niced to be acknowledged as to having a clue on the subject.
I also take a self-interested form of offense. If they make bad decisions that get them into trouble that their host of English major and dental experts hadn't forseen... they'll come crawling to me to dig them out.
I'll still think of it as the GIMP for a few years;)
the name is offensive to some people.
I use the GIMP all the time. I have my own copy of Grokking the GIMP. It is a great tool and I think it is an easy way to show people the power of Open Source programming.
However, no matter who I mention it too (outside of people who use Open Source), they always take issue with the name in some way.
Either they are crude: "Cool, they named that program after a sex slave|cripple|etc." Which I don't want to associate with Open Source.
or, they are shocked and outraged: "Nice program, but I would never use it. The name is offensive to the disabled community."
Some people look past the name and I explain that it is an acronym. Still, and a good point, they mention that any acronym could have been made up. "Whoever did it thought they were being clever."
What do other people think of the name? This may be off-topic, but I am interested to find out. Could project names stop the widespread adoption of Open Source?
Case in point. The Bootable Linux Forensic CD distro biatchux recently changed its name to F.I.R.E or (Forensic and Incident Response Environment). I am not sure why, but my guess is to aid its adoption rate among the group (mostly security and law enforcement) that needs it most. The name biatchux may be off-putting in the company report after all.
I put it to the/. community. What do you think about some of the project names out there? What are some of the quote-unquote worst and best? Have any others changed names for similar reasons?
I am not passing judgement, mind you. I am just asking.
This is one of the best articles that I have ever read about the trust relationship of and the double edged sword that is the current state of email. Dertouzos (God bless his soul) did a great job of sounding the alarm and offering practical advice. Well worth the read.
If a site is going to get slashdotted what is the big deal if it's slashdotted by the first 100 or the last 100? It's still going to be slashdotted.
If anyone from the Slashdot editor team is listening... why not open up the whole queue for people to read? No comments, but at least let us check out what other people think is important and relevent.
I like this idea a lot. Let me add something. Have two layers. You can see the submission queue complete and unfiltered. By the way, Taco, I am sure the submission queue, with all the "Taco Weds Portman, Couple Asks for Grits," stories have to get old.
I think the only interactive option to allow here (if any) is a ranking system, like the random moderation system that gives out random points (say 5) that allow a particularly interesting story to be modded up for consideration by the editors. This again would seem to help the editors sift through the submission bin (assuming it is large) and identify hot topics quickly. If the submission bin isn't that big (can you help the/. crowd out with some numbers), this may be a really dumb idea.
The second tier would be the Mysterious Future bin (with non-AC posting).
If you disabled anonymous posting for the window only and then increased the window to, say, 30 minutes to an hour... that would be worth a $10 subscription for most people, I think.
A chance at half an hour's worth of discussion before the ACs hit the fan sounds great to me. ACs could still post when the half hour is up.
Which is a pretty impressive proccess. Making a set of mathmatical formulas out of an otherwise very much fluid and etheral concept. Not half bad.
Good point. By making the formulas, G00gle has performed the "heavy lifting" of the application in computer science. My quess, however, is that many researches have also quantified (the social version that I mentioned)in mathematical terms as well.
Oh? I think it is the one that everybody with a good sense of taste talks about? What is a good sense of taste? Welllll, now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. What defines a "trustable" website?
Another good point. I guess I diminished Google's work too much. I would say that finding the "trustable" person is quite a sticky problem as well.
True, but what if resturant X has a style of Mexican that is mixed with, say, Soul Food, and the person REALLY loves Soul Food. Then what? Life gets confusing.:)
Now you are making me hungry =^) ! Mexican and Soul Food sound like a great combination. Know of any good places? =^)
Oh? If it is so obvious, why did search engines for so long, well, heh, suck. I remember using insanly complicated regexps with those "other" search engines to do what are now trivial searches on Google.
True, Google is awesome and I use it all the time. I do, however, miss some features of even really old search engines. Does anyone remember the
NEAR
and
NEAR [number]
keywords in Webcrawler. Finding software reviews, for (bad) example, can be very frustrating in Google. On Webcrawler, I would type, for (bad) instance: "Adobe Photoshop" NEAR 5 Review. This is probably a bad example but the gist is that I could pull up pages based on a rudimentary form of context. On Google, I am, often as not, presented with advertisements for Adobe Photoshop on pages reviewing some other software.
LOL, I think that's sort of the point - the end user shouldn't have to think about interfaces, sound servers, and replacing one with the other!
Sure, finding out which hardware works with your system is always a pain. A modern Operating System should just work, after all. I have found theseresources to be invaluable when trying to find out whether something will work with my OS or not.
Of course, I am kidding. But realize all OSes have hardware issues and many times those issues force the user to step outside "the experience" (or pay someone else to) in order to fix the problem that they are having.
To give Microsoft credit, the end user has to do this less and less often if they are working with generic setups and applications. However, once you specialize (on any platform) you run the risk of forcing the user to "think about interfaces."
We forget that Microsoft has the same issues as Apple and Linux, but that is because there is a huge industry that has built up around the support of the OS that is used on 90% of the desktops. That "after market" industry is in many ways an extension of the "ease-of-use" on the user end.
I work in end-user support and the same problems that I hear that Linux must overcome are consistently present in Windows as well. The "average" user is no more adept at using Windows or dealing with its problems. They may be better at it than on a Mac and BeOS, but they still need lots of help.
What G**gle is doing is basically quantifying word of mouth. Everyone knows the best restaurant in town is the one that everyone talks about. We "link" to the restaurant of our choice. Someone new to the office, and town, is looking to go to the best restaurant there is. They ask around. 5 people say it is the Puerto Vallarta Mexican restaurant 2 say it is White River Landing, and 8 others say it is Vince's. Vince's it is.
Simple word-of-mouth ranking right there. If the new person throws in variables like, "I don't eat Mexican." That skews the results. Nothing fancy about this.
In fact, I bet a few hours of research into Sociology, Psychology, and Linuquistics papers will turn up generic proofs and observations of the very same things that page rank takes care of in a different context. A context shift shouldn't be patentable. Much software (but not all) involves making these logical leaps. Many times they are leaps from pure science that is copyrighted (on the one hand) but (increasingly less so) open on the other. This is human knowledge we are dealing with. The Scientific Method... all that crap. It doesn't work unless everyone shares their toys. Start locking them up and you stifle innnovation (at the least) or become dictatorial master of (increasingly more of) everyone's lives.
[/Rant Off]
Because they're at the bottom of the scale, nerds are a safe target for the entire school. If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don't persecute nerds; they don't need to stoop to such things. Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes.
Yes, these are generalizations, but the article is very good at navigating some of the sticky issues that you point out. The problem isn't necessarily with the most popular kids, it's with those who (a) don't want to be ostracized and have fears that they are not far off and (b) want to be considered a member of the upper groups. Both (a) and (b) may not only make them "unpopular" with the highest level, but also make them "one rung up" from their immediate peers.
Reading the article helps clarify things sometimes...
A good follow up to this post is a short introduction to honeyd by Marcus Ranum in the latest issue of Information Security Magazine. A good little overview of what the program does and how to potentially use it.
The scariest part of the article is in West's response, IMHO.
West is vigorously and creatively responding to the new world enabled by the Web. For example, in January 2001, West acquired FindLaw www.findlaw.com, the leading legal information portal on the Web. By providing a wealth of legal information, related analyses, and legal data without charge, FindLaw attracts businesses and individuals seeking legal advice and directs them to appropriate legal professionals. Recent statistics indicate that FindLaw traffic is five times that of its nearest competitors as measured by its user base
Findlaw is a great resource and you can (or used to) be able to pull up all sorts of case law and analysis (for free). There were paid parts of the service as well, but free went a long way.
In my Regulatory class in grad school, we were expressly told to use Westlaw for our case analysis and research. That meant treking over to the library in the middle of winter (it gets cold in Indiana) to use the clunky and unintuitive Westlaw client. Instead, I stumbled onto Findlaw and did all my research there. With cases being categorized nicely and hyperlinks abounding in the texts (case histories and such having hyperlinks to other cases), I did the majority of my research on Findlaw (and linked information sites). Of course, then I had to trek over to the library to find all of my Westlaw reference numbers... but it was still easier and took a lot less time.
The news that West has acquired Findlaw is a bad omen in my book. Findlaw was built for and from the Web. Hopefully they don't mess up a good thing.
The average American savings percentage is -10% (I think)... which is down from -1%.
This statistic blows me away.
Much of this is the genesis for the Simple Living or Voluntary Simplicity movement that is beginning to see a surge in the US.
The guiding idea is that you can have a happier more fulfilled life if you pull out of the rat race. There are tons of tools to help you along this path.
My wife and I are looking at pursuing it even more vigorously as we look at starting a family. In all probability, we will be able to have one of us stay home with our kids with just a few life changes made now.
Learn to be a penney pincher and you can afford to save $100-$150 a month
I would go so far as to say, you can afford to save 10% of your earnings without taking on an extra job. Join a Voluntary Simplicity circle and work with a group of peers to find ways to unclutter your financial life.
Extraordinarily most people that make these changes are able to shift their lives to follow what is most important to them and many are much happier.
I have a friend who works for Deloitte and Touche (sp?) who is very successful. He has a grad school education. He is doing what he was trained for. In many ways, he is very successful.
Downsides? For 8 solid months he never set foot in his apartment or drove his brand new car. He lived out of his suitcase and only hung out with the same group of people that he worked with every day and they only talked about work.
I saw him not to long ago, he came back to our average university town for a breather. His first vacation in one and half years.
When I talked to him, he told me how is thinking of getting out of "the business" and getting a "normal" job. He was looking at perhaps running a small bookstore or starting a restaraunt and had already looked into taking up crappy side jobs to learn the business when he was back at home.
His bank account isn't fat yet (though I am sure it isn't bad), but he is on the fast track.
If he does cut out, I think it is for an understanding of what life and work is all about.
Work to live, don't live to work.
He is looking to build relationships and experience life... not store away for the "future" date when that will be possible.
Who knows if he will do it or not. Maybe he was just tired.
Either way that he goes, I am sure that he will do well.
How long before someone either sells or puts up a instructions on creating a personal "white noise" generator (for lack of a better term) that has an ultra limited range, but scrambles incoming RFID inquiries.
Even better, how about a device that responds before the RFID can to all requests with erroneous information?
Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4
A free version is available. And it has great compression rates and excellent sound quality. Ogg Vorbis seems to fit the bill.
That isn't to say that I am the biggest Ogg users, but then again, I am not the biggest MP3 user either. However, I will not buy DRM enabled equipment, more out of principle than anything. I use my CD-R to burn art that I have created and Open Source software for the most part. On the same token, I will tend to shy away from DRM enabled software and formats.
As far as the ownership idea goes. I fully believe in property rights. But I also believe in the benefits of good will. Most everything that I write semi-professionally is released under an "open content" type boilerplate license (for lack of a better term). The Baen Free Library's experiences seem to back up the economic power of this type of good will as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out the book... The Dreams Our Stuff is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas Disch, a sci-fi writer and poet. It goes over this sort of topic in intimate and astounding detail.
Still around?!?!
Of course it is still around and it is really good. I use it for older or "non-standard" systems that other distros won't install on without a lot of hand-holding and research into why the next newest and greatest graphical installer for distro X keeps hanging.
Two things that are great about Slack. First, it doesn't assume much about a system, but at the same time holds your hand enough that you don't have to know the scan rates (et al) or other specs your hardware intimately unlike *cough*debian*cough* (though I really like debian). Second, it fails gracefully. If something doesn't launch or was scanned improperly (or whatever) Slack will try to bring it up. If it can't, it throws and error exception, and continues about its way as best it can. I HATE when many systems just hang on installs. THAT is the WORST behavior. Graceful failure is an art and Slackware is very good with its paint brushes.
Case in point. Work gave us these crappy IBM laptops that actually are ACER low-enders. I love IBM and hoped for a better model, but we got these. Having a dual-boot situation of 2000 and Linux woud be really helpful for the types of problems these laptops were meant to help us troubleshoot, but getting SuSE (one of my favorites), RedHat, or Debian to load was a nightmare... mainly due to the USB configuration (it uses an internal hub architecture to split the USB ports... or something... whatever, Linux doesn't like it) among other things. Slackware (the distro that I cut my teeth on, Slackware 96 from Walnut Creek) was mentioned as a possible route. After grabbing the CDs, It installed (with a much easier to use installer than I remember) without one hitch. I love it.
So... give it a try. It is stable, it looks a lot like System V Unix and it is a great little OS.
and let's not leave out our old buddy "Friendly Fire." As if getting shot at by your own troops makes it a little more acceptable. Check out this recent broadcast of This American Life in which a Marine talks about being on the recieving end of "Friendly Fire."
My dad was in the military for 21 years and I spent roughly 16 years following him around the world. I really respect the men in uniform... so much so that unprovoked war is sad.
I was in Germany during the Gulf War... luckily my dad wasn't called up. He was near the end of his career and he was in communications, so not as much call for him. Anyway, I went to an DoDDS (Department of Denfense Dependent School system), Wuerzburg American High School to be exact...
Anyway. The Gulf War starts (at midnight our time). We lived in military housing that was just off the main Wuerzburg kaserne (or base)... no fencing, nothing. Wake up in the morning and it was like we were being invaded. Humvees (with machine guns) everywhere and people pulling barbed wire around the perimeter of our housing area (which included the high school that I went too). Full chain-link and regular patrols began began the next day.
So... it was wierd. Then you get to school. the kids whose parents had already shipped down are freaking out (mom or dad is now in real danger of getting hurt). In the weeks that follow, some other kid loses it as his mom or dad is called down to Iraq.
What did I take from that? Well, Bush Sr. wasn't sending his kids, the fathers and mothers of his grandchildren, to war. Neither were many (if any) of Congress. Instead they were sending people like my dad. The mothers and fathers of my classmates and friends. While "we" were victorious, I can only think that the casualties from our side included families that had no decision in the matter. Luckily, I didn't know any of them. I hope the same occurs with this "war." At least the invasion of Kuwait gave some pretext of Justice... the "He started it" argument.
The other thing (besides the war) that all those distraught kids knew about is just what 56ker mentioned. Massive troop movements always mean casualities whether a shot is fired or not. After all, their families had participated in at least one REFORGER exercise (when it was still in its heyday). Even though it was just an "exercise" people (people just like their moms and dads) died from these sorts of accidents in every single one. So, just the act of being "called up" meant that there was a risk of death or serious injury.
Does the use of the word development in conjuction with guns scare the shit out of anybody else here?
Taken from this.
Well, that and needing someone to take out the Iranians (and by weapons from us to support the Contras)
Saddam specifically says the date in the broadcast in order to thumb his nose at the efforts.
Reminds me of Tenacious D's SNL news commentary song... "We're just stirring up one big hornet's nest."
I am sure there is a dollars and sense reason, but it would seem that blackberry's (among others) would hint at this PDA being a success.
I could be wrong. Since you work for sharp, what gives?
Also, given the difference in the specs, would you hold out for the new zaurus or buy a deeply discounted SL-5500? I am thinking about buying one, but was hoping the price for the new ones would be around $400 considering the cost of add on cards and such. Also, if the SL-C700 does come out in the states, do you see a similar price drop in the SL-5600?
Thanks for any insight you might be able to provide.
I'll stick my neck on the line and say that newer eMachines aren't that bad. AMD Athlon processor, 512 RAM, DVD and 48x CD-RW, 6 USB 2 ports (2 on the front and 4 on the back), and 4 firewire ports (2 up front and 2 in the back). Not a bad system.
Thier new software/driver updater does a pretty good job of alerting users of problems and then provides a convenient download and install option (all tested to work with the specific hardware and software - including post factory installs). Think Red-Hat network for Windows (though, still not as powerful). Again, not a bad system.
Older eMachines? Stay away.
He actually asks me for help all the time and I am glad to help. The other day, he custom cut a new shower curtain rod for me with this metal working tools.
I don't know my way around a workshop and he doesn't know how to offload his digital pictures from his camera. Stuff works itself out.
its going to have to be on Linux. This should stop half or more of the crap that could be automatically downloaded. Plus IPTABLES should handle some of the other problems. The remote sharing tools of KDE 3.1 should help the remote problems, and an ssh server is a nice backup.
Since they really only want it for Internet connectivity and some letters, Linux should serve them fine. If they want to use something else... they can talk to my brother.
=^)
So, what happens when my parents have a computer related question or are considering buying a computer?
They ask my brother? An english teaching major. Well... to be fair, my mom sometimes asks some of the interns at work... who are dentists!
While I don't want to have to be their support person for everything, it would be niced to be acknowledged as to having a clue on the subject.
I also take a self-interested form of offense. If they make bad decisions that get them into trouble that their host of English major and dental experts hadn't forseen... they'll come crawling to me to dig them out.
Or maybe not.
They might just ask the garbage man.
the name is offensive to some people.
I use the GIMP all the time. I have my own copy of Grokking the GIMP. It is a great tool and I think it is an easy way to show people the power of Open Source programming.
However, no matter who I mention it too (outside of people who use Open Source), they always take issue with the name in some way.
Either they are crude: "Cool, they named that program after a sex slave|cripple|etc." Which I don't want to associate with Open Source.
or, they are shocked and outraged: "Nice program, but I would never use it. The name is offensive to the disabled community."
Some people look past the name and I explain that it is an acronym. Still, and a good point, they mention that any acronym could have been made up. "Whoever did it thought they were being clever."
What do other people think of the name? This may be off-topic, but I am interested to find out. Could project names stop the widespread adoption of Open Source?
Case in point. The Bootable Linux Forensic CD distro biatchux recently changed its name to F.I.R.E or (Forensic and Incident Response Environment). I am not sure why, but my guess is to aid its adoption rate among the group (mostly security and law enforcement) that needs it most. The name biatchux may be off-putting in the company report after all.
I put it to the /. community. What do you think about some of the project names out there? What are some of the quote-unquote worst and best? Have any others changed names for similar reasons?
I am not passing judgement, mind you. I am just asking.
This is one of the best articles that I have ever read about the trust relationship of and the double edged sword that is the current state of email. Dertouzos (God bless his soul) did a great job of sounding the alarm and offering practical advice. Well worth the read.
I like this idea a lot. Let me add something. Have two layers. You can see the submission queue complete and unfiltered. By the way, Taco, I am sure the submission queue, with all the "Taco Weds Portman, Couple Asks for Grits," stories have to get old.
I think the only interactive option to allow here (if any) is a ranking system, like the random moderation system that gives out random points (say 5) that allow a particularly interesting story to be modded up for consideration by the editors. This again would seem to help the editors sift through the submission bin (assuming it is large) and identify hot topics quickly. If the submission bin isn't that big (can you help the /. crowd out with some numbers), this may be a really dumb idea.
The second tier would be the Mysterious Future bin (with non-AC posting).
Thoughts?
A chance at half an hour's worth of discussion before the ACs hit the fan sounds great to me. ACs could still post when the half hour is up.
First blush reaction at least
Good point. By making the formulas, G00gle has performed the "heavy lifting" of the application in computer science. My quess, however, is that many researches have also quantified (the social version that I mentioned)in mathematical terms as well.
Another good point. I guess I diminished Google's work too much. I would say that finding the "trustable" person is quite a sticky problem as well.
Now you are making me hungry =^) ! Mexican and Soul Food sound like a great combination. Know of any good places? =^)
True, Google is awesome and I use it all the time. I do, however, miss some features of even really old search engines. Does anyone remember the
and keywords in Webcrawler. Finding software reviews, for (bad) example, can be very frustrating in Google. On Webcrawler, I would type, for (bad) instance: "Adobe Photoshop" NEAR 5 Review. This is probably a bad example but the gist is that I could pull up pages based on a rudimentary form of context. On Google, I am, often as not, presented with advertisements for Adobe Photoshop on pages reviewing some other software.Sure, finding out which hardware works with your system is always a pain. A modern Operating System should just work, after all. I have found these resources to be invaluable when trying to find out whether something will work with my OS or not.
Of course, I am kidding. But realize all OSes have hardware issues and many times those issues force the user to step outside "the experience" (or pay someone else to) in order to fix the problem that they are having.
To give Microsoft credit, the end user has to do this less and less often if they are working with generic setups and applications. However, once you specialize (on any platform) you run the risk of forcing the user to "think about interfaces."
We forget that Microsoft has the same issues as Apple and Linux, but that is because there is a huge industry that has built up around the support of the OS that is used on 90% of the desktops. That "after market" industry is in many ways an extension of the "ease-of-use" on the user end.
I work in end-user support and the same problems that I hear that Linux must overcome are consistently present in Windows as well. The "average" user is no more adept at using Windows or dealing with its problems. They may be better at it than on a Mac and BeOS, but they still need lots of help.
Just my .02
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Really.
What G**gle is doing is basically quantifying word of mouth. Everyone knows the best restaurant in town is the one that everyone talks about. We "link" to the restaurant of our choice. Someone new to the office, and town, is looking to go to the best restaurant there is. They ask around. 5 people say it is the Puerto Vallarta Mexican restaurant 2 say it is White River Landing, and 8 others say it is Vince's. Vince's it is.
Simple word-of-mouth ranking right there. If the new person throws in variables like, "I don't eat Mexican." That skews the results. Nothing fancy about this.
In fact, I bet a few hours of research into Sociology, Psychology, and Linuquistics papers will turn up generic proofs and observations of the very same things that page rank takes care of in a different context. A context shift shouldn't be patentable. Much software (but not all) involves making these logical leaps. Many times they are leaps from pure science that is copyrighted (on the one hand) but (increasingly less so) open on the other. This is human knowledge we are dealing with. The Scientific Method... all that crap. It doesn't work unless everyone shares their toys. Start locking them up and you stifle innnovation (at the least) or become dictatorial master of (increasingly more of) everyone's lives.
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Yes, these are generalizations, but the article is very good at navigating some of the sticky issues that you point out. The problem isn't necessarily with the most popular kids, it's with those who (a) don't want to be ostracized and have fears that they are not far off and (b) want to be considered a member of the upper groups. Both (a) and (b) may not only make them "unpopular" with the highest level, but also make them "one rung up" from their immediate peers.
Reading the article helps clarify things sometimes...
A good follow up to this post is a short introduction to honeyd by Marcus Ranum in the latest issue of Information Security Magazine. A good little overview of what the program does and how to potentially use it.
Findlaw is a great resource and you can (or used to) be able to pull up all sorts of case law and analysis (for free). There were paid parts of the service as well, but free went a long way.
In my Regulatory class in grad school, we were expressly told to use Westlaw for our case analysis and research. That meant treking over to the library in the middle of winter (it gets cold in Indiana) to use the clunky and unintuitive Westlaw client. Instead, I stumbled onto Findlaw and did all my research there. With cases being categorized nicely and hyperlinks abounding in the texts (case histories and such having hyperlinks to other cases), I did the majority of my research on Findlaw (and linked information sites). Of course, then I had to trek over to the library to find all of my Westlaw reference numbers... but it was still easier and took a lot less time.
The news that West has acquired Findlaw is a bad omen in my book. Findlaw was built for and from the Web. Hopefully they don't mess up a good thing.
This statistic blows me away.
Much of this is the genesis for the Simple Living or Voluntary Simplicity movement that is beginning to see a surge in the US.
The guiding idea is that you can have a happier more fulfilled life if you pull out of the rat race. There are tons of tools to help you along this path.
My wife and I are looking at pursuing it even more vigorously as we look at starting a family. In all probability, we will be able to have one of us stay home with our kids with just a few life changes made now.
Learn to be a penney pincher and you can afford to save $100-$150 a month
I would go so far as to say, you can afford to save 10% of your earnings without taking on an extra job. Join a Voluntary Simplicity circle and work with a group of peers to find ways to unclutter your financial life.
Extraordinarily most people that make these changes are able to shift their lives to follow what is most important to them and many are much happier.
Good luck.
I have a friend who works for Deloitte and Touche (sp?) who is very successful. He has a grad school education. He is doing what he was trained for. In many ways, he is very successful.
Downsides? For 8 solid months he never set foot in his apartment or drove his brand new car. He lived out of his suitcase and only hung out with the same group of people that he worked with every day and they only talked about work.
I saw him not to long ago, he came back to our average university town for a breather. His first vacation in one and half years.
When I talked to him, he told me how is thinking of getting out of "the business" and getting a "normal" job. He was looking at perhaps running a small bookstore or starting a restaraunt and had already looked into taking up crappy side jobs to learn the business when he was back at home.
His bank account isn't fat yet (though I am sure it isn't bad), but he is on the fast track.
If he does cut out, I think it is for an understanding of what life and work is all about.
Work to live, don't live to work.
He is looking to build relationships and experience life... not store away for the "future" date when that will be possible.
Who knows if he will do it or not. Maybe he was just tired.
Either way that he goes, I am sure that he will do well.
Does this have a point? Probably not.
How long before someone either sells or puts up a instructions on creating a personal "white noise" generator (for lack of a better term) that has an ultra limited range, but scrambles incoming RFID inquiries.
Even better, how about a device that responds before the RFID can to all requests with erroneous information?
A free version is available. And it has great compression rates and excellent sound quality. Ogg Vorbis seems to fit the bill.
That isn't to say that I am the biggest Ogg users, but then again, I am not the biggest MP3 user either. However, I will not buy DRM enabled equipment, more out of principle than anything. I use my CD-R to burn art that I have created and Open Source software for the most part. On the same token, I will tend to shy away from DRM enabled software and formats.
As far as the ownership idea goes. I fully believe in property rights. But I also believe in the benefits of good will. Most everything that I write semi-professionally is released under an "open content" type boilerplate license (for lack of a better term). The Baen Free Library's experiences seem to back up the economic power of this type of good will as well.