First and formost, remember that all audio/video enthusiasts have their own likes and dislikes that won't match yours, so take all advice and opinions with a grain of salt. Your ears are the only ones that matter. If you do your homework, you'll end up okay. That being said, here's my $0.02.
I'm a big Marantz fan. In my opinion, Marantz moves towards or equals high end products like Acurus, Adcom, Mark Levinson and others. But they also have a wide range of receivers in your price range. Check out the SR4000, for example.I've got the SR7000 (@$750) and absolutely love it.
I agree with other posters that speakers are the most important. Spend the most you can on speakers. In your price range, I'd check out the smaller Paradigm, Tannoy, or B&W speakers. If you're looking for a sub/sat system on a tight budget, check out Energy Take-5($500 for the set, if I remember correctly). Then get what you can for your receiver.
It's also important to note that speakers and receivers don't necessarily "match", i.e. they might sound crappy together but with different equipment might sound fantastic. So if you buy the receiver and speakers at the same time, make sure to listen to them together and not on the equipment that the dealer has set up. If you buy one before the other, bring it with you when you go to audition.
Last word of advice: audition, audition, audition. A good dealer will give you the remote control and let you test to your heart's content. Bring your favorite CDs. A wide range of material is good. Also bring a couple DVD's to check out the DD/DTS sound as well. Don't let anyone bully you into making a purchase or offer a "one time sale"...if they do, do you really want to buy your equipment from them?
Even with the testimony of the teacher and teacher's aide, who confirmed I was performing a responsible security audit
I applaud the teachers for sticking up for you. I think the school district was out of line for suspending you for two days.
(and I'm making more money now as a 17 year old Sysadmin than any of my teachers ever have or will).
As a teacher, I've got to take issue with what I perceive to be the tone of this statement. Forgive me if it's not what you intended.
Did you ever have a teacher who you admired and thought that they could do be in any profession that they wanted to? There are teachers in this world who choose to teach because they love doing it. There are not many teachers who are doing it for the money. There are other benefits of being a teacher. I don't know a lot of jobs outside of academia which provide such vacation time, for instance. I, for one, get a thrill out of teaching Computer Science to students and watching their skills grow from nothing into marketable skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. I can't personally place a monetary value on that.
The tone of your message seemed to imply that you are in some way better than teachers simply because you make more money. Please realize that for a lot of teachers, it's not about the money, and so your comment really doesn't make any sense at all.
I know you're probably looking for an OS solution from Palm rather than add-on software, but I think it's worth checking out Pimlico Software'sDateBk4(pdf manual here).
I just installed it myself, so I'm not completely aware of all that it can do, but it does integrate the basic apps together, as well as provide a myriad of other functions. I think it takes up about 400k of memory, and there's a 45 day shareware version. To register, it's $25.
One of the more interesting functions it has is a "floating" appointment. You can have it activate in the future or at the current time, and then it stays on your current day's list until you wipe it out. It's sort of like the ToDo function, only more powerful.
I don't think it takes care of the 4k Memo problem, though.
1) All of those military votes that supposedly still haven't come in...historically, haven't they been pro-republican?
2) Aren't there other states where the vote was incredibly close? (Wisconsin and Iowa, IIRC??) Why aren't recounts being demanded in those states as well, instead of waiting to see how things go in Florida?
I haven't voted yet, I'll be going right after work. And honestly, I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm in Connecticut, which appears to be fairly solid behind Gore. I keep thinking that maybe I should vote for Nader and try to get a third party some funding for the next time around, but then another thought hits me:
What if the Green Party does get funding for the next time around? Isn't this just going to split the Democratic Vote and make it possible for the Republicans to get some real whack-o elected the next time around? A Green Party candidate isn't going to grab any Republican votes, is he? And the way I see it, George W. is pretty tame compared to some other Republicans.
Well, it's just a thought. I'm still undecided. Oh, and I'm not trying to offend any Republicans out there, it's just my liberal point of view.
For those of you who are interested in being as ergonomically correct as possible, you might want to check out the Typing Injury FAQ Home Page.
There's information there about furniture, keyboards, mice, etc., as well reasons why you want an ergonomically correct environment
My department just got the Aeron Chair from Herman Miller, and they are not only very comfortable, but easy to configure and reconfigure, so that you don't keep the same posture throughout the day. I highly recommend them, although they run about $750 per chair.
I cracked the department code!
on
The Code Book
·
· Score: 1
Did any one else crack the "from the.lvw4b50*#9\].l94exjs$~~ dept."?
It says:
from the guy-who-cracked-The-Code-Book-challenge-has-too-mu ch-time-on-his-hands dept.
Four big executives are playing golf together and on the second tee they
hear a phone ring, and Michael Eisner reaches into his golf bag and pulls
out a cellular phone and talks to his office for awhile.
And they play the second hole, and on the third tee there's a little buzz
and Warren Buffett puts one finger in his ear and one finger to his mouth
and talks, and afterward he explains that he has a tiny microphone
installed in one fingernail and a tiny speaker in another, so he can keep in
touch with the office. Everyone is impressed.
And they play the third hole and on the fourth tee, suddenly Ted Turner
starts talking--no phone or anything. And afterward he explains that he
has a microphone in a filling in his tooth and a speaker in his ear, so that
he can always talk to the office. They are even more impressed and
move on. And suddenly they see Bill Gates pull his pants down and squat
and reach into his golf bag for a roll of toilet paper, and he looks up and
says, "It's okay. I'm expecting a fax."
Factoring n into p and q is necessary for breaking the RSA code. If you factor n into p and q, you can generate the inverse of a. RSA relies on the fact that factoring the product of two primes is extremely "difficult" while multiplying p and q to get n is "easy".
For more info on what easy and difficult really mean, read up on Big-O notation (i.e. O(n) is linear running time, O(2^n) is exponential growth) and NP completeness.:) Factoring:
Well, of course, you can brute force p and check to see whether you get an integer q. If you're using large primes (300 digits or so) for p and q, prepare to be long dead before you get q with our current computing.
I won't go into detail, but here are some popular factoring methods for you to look for, and a link:
Pollard Rho method
Pollard P-1 method
ECM (Elliptic Curve method)
Multiple Polynomial Quadratic Sieve (MPQS)
According to the link below, "The best general-purpose factoring algorithm today is the Number Field Sieve"(NFS)
Here's a somewhat simplified taste of how RSA works, for those of you who are curious.
Note: I took this from a document that I wrote for my students, so this is how I personally had them implement RSA, NOT how RSA is really done in real life. But the basic premise of key generation is the same. Background math: gcd is greatest common divisor. mod means modular arithmetic.
To generate your personal key:
1. Generate two prime numbers, p and q.
2. Calculate n = p*q.
2. Calculate phi(n) = (p-1)(q-1).
3. Pick a public key b where 0<b<phi(n) and gcd(b,phi(n))=1.
4. Calculate the private key a such that a=b^-1 mod phi(n) (multiplicative inverse).
Make sure pub is less than phi(n), gcd(phi(n),b)=1, and a>0.
5. n and the public key can be published in a directory. Keep the private key secret.
To crack a key given n and the public key b:
1. Factor n into p and q.
2. Calculate phi(n) = (p-1)(q-1).
3. Calculate the private key; it's a=b^-1 mod phi(n).
To encrypt code, translate from an array of characters to numbers.
let a=0.. z=25. Encrypt in blocks of three like this:
abc = 0*26*26 + 1*26 + 2 = 28
dog = 3*26*26 + 14*26 + 6 = 2398
cat = 2*26*26 + 0*26 + 19 = 1371
zzz = 25*26*26 + 25*26 + 25 = 17575
Call chunks of text converted to numbers m (for message). Compute m^b mod n. Each of these
numbers go on separate lines in the file.
To decrypt code, do the process in reverse. Call the encrypted message m. Compute m^a mod n.
Then you can convert from unencrypted numbers back into plaintext.
You can also do a double encryption (digital signature) by taking already encrypted code and
encrypting those numbers. Suppose Alice wants to send a message to Bob which only Bob can
decrypt and Bob knows can only have come from Alice. Alice uses her own private key to encrypt
the message. Then she applies Bob's public key and gives the file to Bob. Bob takes the file
and applies his private key to it, and then Alice's public key, leaving him with the plaintext.
This ensures that Alice sent the message and only Bob can decode it.
"The courts announced that Unix has Microsoft running scared... anyone surprised?"
I'm not surprised. Bait and switch? Why, just the other day, I installed Office 2000, and this paper clip came up and asked to help me out. Bait me with a word processor, switch me to a paper clip. It happens all the time.
I helped Yale's team get their two computers networking to each other before they left, so I've seen their setup.
In the F-180 league, anyways, the AI is not done on the bot itself. Teams get a camera mounted above the playing surface which sends the image to the computer. The computer then makes the decisions and sends the info to the robots via RF. Color markings on top of Yale's bots help with identifying bot orientation as well as identification; after all, you need to know which bot you're looking at and which one you're going to move!
This year the rules changed to make the walls at a 45 degree angle to discourage bounce shots; I believe the intention is to do away with walls completely in future comptetitions. Next year the competition is in the US somewhere.
It's really cool to see these boxes on wheels driven by vcr motors chase after the golf balls. Maybe not as thrilling as Robot Wars, but thrilling nonetheless.
I added my own AvantGo Channel so that I can read/. from my Vx... just configure/. to be a minimalist (no graphics, no/boxes, etc. ) It's not great, but it's acceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
First and formost, remember that all audio/video enthusiasts have their own likes and dislikes that won't match yours, so take all advice and opinions with a grain of salt. Your ears are the only ones that matter. If you do your homework, you'll end up okay. That being said, here's my $0.02.
I'm a big Marantz fan. In my opinion, Marantz moves towards or equals high end products like Acurus, Adcom, Mark Levinson and others. But they also have a wide range of receivers in your price range. Check out the SR4000, for example.I've got the SR7000 (@$750) and absolutely love it.
I agree with other posters that speakers are the most important. Spend the most you can on speakers. In your price range, I'd check out the smaller Paradigm, Tannoy, or B&W speakers. If you're looking for a sub/sat system on a tight budget, check out Energy Take-5($500 for the set, if I remember correctly). Then get what you can for your receiver.
It's also important to note that speakers and receivers don't necessarily "match", i.e. they might sound crappy together but with different equipment might sound fantastic. So if you buy the receiver and speakers at the same time, make sure to listen to them together and not on the equipment that the dealer has set up. If you buy one before the other, bring it with you when you go to audition.
Last word of advice: audition, audition, audition. A good dealer will give you the remote control and let you test to your heart's content. Bring your favorite CDs. A wide range of material is good. Also bring a couple DVD's to check out the DD/DTS sound as well. Don't let anyone bully you into making a purchase or offer a "one time sale"...if they do, do you really want to buy your equipment from them?
Good luck!
Even with the testimony of the teacher and teacher's aide, who confirmed I was performing a responsible security audit
I applaud the teachers for sticking up for you. I think the school district was out of line for suspending you for two days.
(and I'm making more money now as a 17 year old Sysadmin than any of my teachers ever have or will).
As a teacher, I've got to take issue with what I perceive to be the tone of this statement. Forgive me if it's not what you intended.
Did you ever have a teacher who you admired and thought that they could do be in any profession that they wanted to? There are teachers in this world who choose to teach because they love doing it. There are not many teachers who are doing it for the money. There are other benefits of being a teacher. I don't know a lot of jobs outside of academia which provide such vacation time, for instance. I, for one, get a thrill out of teaching Computer Science to students and watching their skills grow from nothing into marketable skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. I can't personally place a monetary value on that.
The tone of your message seemed to imply that you are in some way better than teachers simply because you make more money. Please realize that for a lot of teachers, it's not about the money, and so your comment really doesn't make any sense at all.
I know you're probably looking for an OS solution from Palm rather than add-on software, but I think it's worth checking out Pimlico Software's DateBk4(pdf manual here).
I just installed it myself, so I'm not completely aware of all that it can do, but it does integrate the basic apps together, as well as provide a myriad of other functions. I think it takes up about 400k of memory, and there's a 45 day shareware version. To register, it's $25.
One of the more interesting functions it has is a "floating" appointment. You can have it activate in the future or at the current time, and then it stays on your current day's list until you wipe it out. It's sort of like the ToDo function, only more powerful.
I don't think it takes care of the 4k Memo problem, though.
The link seems to be: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20001128/tc/will_p hone_numbers_replace_urls__1.html
I'd be interested in hearing comments and personal experience stories about these three different input devices/methods:
1. Kinesis contoured keyboard ( www.kinesis-ergo.com)
2. BAT keyboard ( www.infogrip.com)
3. The DVORAK layout (info at www.thisistrue.com/dvorak.html)
Do you have a source on this 200 vote difference?
A couple questions...
1) All of those military votes that supposedly still haven't come in...historically, haven't they been pro-republican?
2) Aren't there other states where the vote was incredibly close? (Wisconsin and Iowa, IIRC??) Why aren't recounts being demanded in those states as well, instead of waiting to see how things go in Florida?
I haven't voted yet, I'll be going right after work. And honestly, I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm in Connecticut, which appears to be fairly solid behind Gore. I keep thinking that maybe I should vote for Nader and try to get a third party some funding for the next time around, but then another thought hits me:
What if the Green Party does get funding for the next time around? Isn't this just going to split the Democratic Vote and make it possible for the Republicans to get some real whack-o elected the next time around? A Green Party candidate isn't going to grab any Republican votes, is he? And the way I see it, George W. is pretty tame compared to some other Republicans.
Well, it's just a thought. I'm still undecided. Oh, and I'm not trying to offend any Republicans out there, it's just my liberal point of view.
'a feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately.'
<zoiks>
Well, it's too late for someone to slap a patent on that one!
</zoiks>
For those of you who are interested in being as ergonomically correct as possible, you might want to check out the Typing Injury FAQ Home Page.
There's information there about furniture, keyboards, mice, etc., as well reasons why you want an ergonomically correct environment
My department just got the Aeron Chair from Herman Miller, and they are not only very comfortable, but easy to configure and reconfigure, so that you don't keep the same posture throughout the day. I highly recommend them, although they run about $750 per chair.
Did any one else crack the "from the .lvw4b50*#9\].l94exjs$~~ dept."?
u ch-time-on-his-hands dept.
It says:
from the guy-who-cracked-The-Code-Book-challenge-has-too-m
Four big executives are playing golf together and on the second tee they hear a phone ring, and Michael Eisner reaches into his golf bag and pulls out a cellular phone and talks to his office for awhile. And they play the second hole, and on the third tee there's a little buzz and Warren Buffett puts one finger in his ear and one finger to his mouth and talks, and afterward he explains that he has a tiny microphone installed in one fingernail and a tiny speaker in another, so he can keep in touch with the office. Everyone is impressed. And they play the third hole and on the fourth tee, suddenly Ted Turner starts talking--no phone or anything. And afterward he explains that he has a microphone in a filling in his tooth and a speaker in his ear, so that he can always talk to the office. They are even more impressed and move on. And suddenly they see Bill Gates pull his pants down and squat and reach into his golf bag for a roll of toilet paper, and he looks up and says, "It's okay. I'm expecting a fax."
Not my joke, I take no credit.
My parents went to toybuilders.com and all I got was this lousy blob of 3D printed plastic.
Factoring n into p and q is necessary for breaking the RSA code. If you factor n into p and q, you can generate the inverse of a. RSA relies on the fact that factoring the product of two primes is extremely "difficult" while multiplying p and q to get n is "easy". :)
For more info on what easy and difficult really mean, read up on Big-O notation (i.e. O(n) is linear running time, O(2^n) is exponential growth) and NP completeness.
Factoring:
Well, of course, you can brute force p and check to see whether you get an integer q. If you're using large primes (300 digits or so) for p and q, prepare to be long dead before you get q with our current computing.
I won't go into detail, but here are some popular factoring methods for you to look for, and a link:
Pollard Rho method
Pollard P-1 method
ECM (Elliptic Curve method)
Multiple Polynomial Quadratic Sieve (MPQS)
According to the link below, "The best general-purpose factoring algorithm today is the Number Field Sieve"(NFS)
For more info including Big-O notation (i.e. an idea of how fast the algorithms work as the size of n increases), check out:
http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalab s/faq/2-3-4.html
Here's a somewhat simplified taste of how RSA works, for those of you who are curious.
.. z=25. Encrypt in blocks of three like this:
Note: I took this from a document that I wrote for my students, so this is how I personally had them implement RSA, NOT how RSA is really done in real life. But the basic premise of key generation is the same.
Background math: gcd is greatest common divisor. mod means modular arithmetic.
To generate your personal key:
1. Generate two prime numbers, p and q.
2. Calculate n = p*q.
2. Calculate phi(n) = (p-1)(q-1).
3. Pick a public key b where 0<b<phi(n) and gcd(b,phi(n))=1.
4. Calculate the private key a such that a=b^-1 mod phi(n) (multiplicative inverse). Make sure pub is less than phi(n), gcd(phi(n),b)=1, and a>0.
5. n and the public key can be published in a directory. Keep the private key secret.
To crack a key given n and the public key b:
1. Factor n into p and q.
2. Calculate phi(n) = (p-1)(q-1).
3. Calculate the private key; it's a=b^-1 mod phi(n).
To encrypt code, translate from an array of characters to numbers.
let a=0
abc = 0*26*26 + 1*26 + 2 = 28
dog = 3*26*26 + 14*26 + 6 = 2398
cat = 2*26*26 + 0*26 + 19 = 1371
zzz = 25*26*26 + 25*26 + 25 = 17575
Call chunks of text converted to numbers m (for message). Compute m^b mod n. Each of these numbers go on separate lines in the file.
To decrypt code, do the process in reverse. Call the encrypted message m. Compute m^a mod n. Then you can convert from unencrypted numbers back into plaintext.
You can also do a double encryption (digital signature) by taking already encrypted code and encrypting those numbers. Suppose Alice wants to send a message to Bob which only Bob can decrypt and Bob knows can only have come from Alice. Alice uses her own private key to encrypt the message. Then she applies Bob's public key and gives the file to Bob. Bob takes the file and applies his private key to it, and then Alice's public key, leaving him with the plaintext. This ensures that Alice sent the message and only Bob can decode it.
I'm not surprised. Bait and switch? Why, just the other day, I installed Office 2000, and this paper clip came up and asked to help me out. Bait me with a word processor, switch me to a paper clip. It happens all the time.
In the F-180 league, anyways, the AI is not done on the bot itself. Teams get a camera mounted above the playing surface which sends the image to the computer. The computer then makes the decisions and sends the info to the robots via RF. Color markings on top of Yale's bots help with identifying bot orientation as well as identification; after all, you need to know which bot you're looking at and which one you're going to move!
This year the rules changed to make the walls at a 45 degree angle to discourage bounce shots; I believe the intention is to do away with walls completely in future comptetitions. Next year the competition is in the US somewhere.
It's really cool to see these boxes on wheels driven by vcr motors chase after the golf balls. Maybe not as thrilling as Robot Wars, but thrilling nonetheless.
I added my own AvantGo Channel so that I can read /. from my Vx ... just configure /. to be a minimalist (no graphics, no /boxes, etc. ) It's not great, but it's acceptable.