right now Apple uses Open Firmware, which is an open standard for booting
Ask a Sun engineer if you want a more accurate response, but as I recall, Macs (including my own) using Open Firmware, which is a stripped down version of the true "open firmware" known as OpenBoot. This is, of course, used by recent Sun machines and is very nice. I wish my Mac had the same OBP as my Sun.
For example, I managed to damage my video card on my Ultra 30. Yes, it was stupid and I regret it. However, I didn't know exactly what was wrong with it at the time. I connected a serial cable to the Sun, fired it up without the keyboard and was able to get into the OpenBoot prompt. From there, I ran the built in diagnostics which basically told me what an idiot I was and how much damage I'd done to the card (doh!).
Now, granted, I have yet to try this with my Mac but I'm 95% sure it won't work.
Balmer's a big fella. It'd be funny if he went into a Chris Farley-like rage and tried to suplex the twiggy lawyers that brought this to them. Bill would just be sitting back in the large leather chair with a white persian cat, penting his fingers together like Mr Burns, watching the carnage ensue.
I was going to suggest you were deeply disturbed, but I had the exact same mental picture.;)
Just before Balmer goes into his maniacal rage, I imagined him nearly frothing at the mouth and telling the "yahoos" they'll end up living in a van down by the river!
The companies involved -- which also include AT&T Wireless Services, Verizon Communications, and Cingular Wireless -- would build access points in public places such as airports but would not try to supply access to people's homes, according to the report.
It's a bummer.
If you had to pay the full cost of a telephone line to extremely rural areas (or even to most residences) you wouldn't bother. They're not profitable. That's why telcos have exorbitant prices on their business-level services; they offset their losses on residential services with the profits from the business end. If you don't like that you can thank the government (you really should thank the government, though, because it benefits us all a lot more than it hurts a few businesses).
So it's no surprise that they'll be providing access in airports (for a fee, of course) and not to homes. Maybe it's because they want a return on their investment, and that requires profit...
We are trying to build a nationwide "free" network.
Who exactly is "We?" If you have major corporations involved, while you may have their support, I'd be very very surprised if they were paying out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm not trying to be cynical; I'm just being realistic here. You, and other "free thinkers" may want a free, wireless network but unless you fund it entirely on your own, don't hold your breath. If you want corporate backing, you will pay somewhere, although the price may not be entirely obvious (eg, public school research is funded by grants and taxes, or grants from the Feds which is funded by taxes).
The consumer always pays (always). The question is only how much and how often.
It would be simple-minded to think that we do not have sufficient technology to limit your access to the wifi network. Perhaps you could only access "local" nodes, or perhaps you are denied access entirely unless you logon (PPPoE comes to mind). Just because "they" don't restrict you doesn't mean "they" can't.
And therein lies my concern. People can get all hyped up about a free wifi network... and both are good things. But if you don't own it you don't control it so don't be surprised if you start paying for it too.
If such home-brewed networks were to spread across the country we could tie them together via the Internet, or even via leased lines between cities. No way anyone could ever control that......except maybe the individuals who actually owned the hardware, or those who had control over their configurations. Do you really think it would be any different than the how the major backbone providers have it now?
While some people may decide to lose some money in the interest of building a network like this, most people are more self-interested and will find a way to make you pay.
I'm not talking about paying money to see the movie - I'm talking about buying redundant materials.
That's what I'd like to know. I can understand when you buy a DVD when it is released and then months later a special edition is released and so you find it necessary to purchase the new version as well. Hopefully you sell your old copy on eBay...
What I don't understand is why you would buy both versions in this case; it's well known that there will be more than one version, with the later version(s) including more features/footage. I plan on waiting for the last version, but then again, I can only watch one DVD at a time.
You would be quite surprised what people think they need and what they truly need.
You mean when people think they need a billion dollars/euros (say, for spilling a certain hot liquid on themselves) when all they truly need is a swift kick in the...
If advertising was ethical, products wouldn't be held in such a ludicrously high light. They take whatever means are necessary to get people to come visit, with no regard to whether or not they're being deceptive. This is why search engines must disclose paid links.
Exactly.
Also, refer to the same rules which apply to text ads...
Ever see those ads in Newsweek/Time/etc that look like they're editorials or "cool new product" blurbs but then you notice at the bottom of the page in small, but readable text it says "Paid Advertisement"?
It's been my experience that Microsoft's Macintosh projects are far better than their Windows counterparts.
I've heard this as well. In fact, more importantly, I heard that with the previous version of Word/Office for the Mac, there were features added by the Mac programmers (who are reportedly excellent in their field) which were specifically removed by Micrsoft HQ/management. Apparently they didn't want the Mac version of (for example) Word 2001 to have more features, or otherwise be superior to, Word 2000 for Windows.
That's what I recall reading about, but it was probably on a Mac rumor site, so take it with a grain of salt.
If Bill thinks he's going to lead the game, he'd better try to get out in front on a thing or two.
There's no need for Bill to do that. He'll just run along behind you, using your draft to save a few bucks, and letting you do all the work. Then when you're on the final lap, with the home stretch in sight, he'll knife you in the back and steal the win!
My guess is that they are neither your personal man hours, nor have you paid for the man hours in question. I could make a similar argument about your hobbies, such as collecting cola can pull-tabs or feeding your pet rock.
How can a script (software) reboot a a server that has already halted?
The system wasn't halted. The UPS kicked in and ran on batteries for a couple minutes then switched back to mains. The server remained up and running. The apcupsd daemon was set to run a script when hen the utility power returned, and the script was configured to be "shutdown -r now"
At no point during the process was the system halted.
I second the vote for using apcupsd. However, I think it is important for me to relay my experiences with it just to avoid potential problems for those of you uptime zealots (like me).
A few months ago, I had a short (2 minute) power outage and of course my UPS kicked in and my server stayed online as you might expect. However, when power was restored, the apcupsd scripts were (by default) configured to reboot the server after a return to utility power. Why this is the case, I cannot answer, however I'm sure there is a logical explanation. In my case, I found this very unsettling as it caused my 100+ days of uptime to return to zero whence they came. The scripts were easy to fix, but hopefully this will serve as a warning for those of you who cannot afford the restart.
On a slightly different note, I'm still not understanding the whole journalling file system issue; I understand the benefits, but are you really crashing that much (which must be hard locks), that you need to do a hard reset and let the journal replay the transactions? Personally, I have a tape backup, and a UPS. Do I really need a journalling file system, other than the obvious advantage of impressing the ladies? At the moment, I'm interested in XFS because of the ACLs and the "intensive disk usage" features SGI has in the IRIX version, and I'm hoping those make it into the "final" Linux version (if there ever will be a "final" version).
The customized system presented in this story does not require a computer. So while it's great that FinalScratch runs on BeOS, it still requires a computer which is exactly opposite what our story's protagonist aimed to create.
...is to just "Wizard" every action the user may need to take. By trying to anticipate what the user wants, a wizard can be provided to allow the user to quickly, and easily, complete their task. Of course, then you end up with a wizard so large and complex that it becomes an OS in itself, and one needs to read the help files associated with each option to successfully progress thorough the wizard's heirarchical structure (refer to Windows XP's default settings for the control panel). You have to know what each option does before you can click it. So eventually, when wizards rule the lands, there will be a manual for the wizards! And, as a "computer guy" I can still say "RTFM!"
Mod the parent down. Porn picture or no porn picture, the last thing we need is a link to a personal site with ads which simply redirects to the actual site provided. If you have a link to post, post the real thing. We don't need your redirects. Thankfully it was blocked by my anti-banner ad HOSTS file.
Why do people even submit the stories? The Slashdot editors will probably post them anyways. Not to critize TH; it just seems that whenever they post a new article, it shows up a few hours later on the Slashdot front page. Maybe Slashdot needs a special "Tom's Hardware" topic or even it's own section (th.slashdot.org).
With a decent ruleset for Sendmail and an array of RBLs, I haven't gotten any spam at my "main" address in quite some time. Eventually I want to implement SpamAssassin for additional protection. The most important thing is to reject messages while in the SMTP conversation! Do not accept them and then forward to/dev/null.
I'd like to thank Pacific Bell, however, for the barrages of spam I get there. I don't even bother to check the account more than once a week since I know it's just spam.
Breaking one persons account can be handled the same way they deal with credit card theft, they just publish a list of identities that are known to have been broken. No big drama.
One remote hole in the default install, in nearly 6 years!
. . .
See for yourself!
Something missing... but what?
on
Minority Report
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I thought Minority Report was an entertaining movie and decent SciFi, but for some reason I got the feeling that the movie simply "could have been better" but I'm at a loss to point to specific instances where I felt some touch up was necessary.
In addition, the movie is actually quite different from the original short story, which I guess would be natural when someone like Spielberg tries to expand a short story to a two and half hour blockbuster which is designed to appeal to Joe Consumer.
I remember this one time we knew the Feds had a wiretap running on our phone system, and more than a few listening devices placed covertly around the office. We'd say the most outrageous things, and everyone would try to out-do to the others. One time we looked out in the parking lot and saw a bunch of black-clad men rolling around laughing on the ground behind their white van. What was really outrageous was where the bugs were placed; one was in the bottom of one coder's coffee cup, another in a VP's toupee, and another one in women's restroom. We'd play copyprotected Celine Dion CDs into them at full blast (in a sound proof room of course so as to not harm our own employees).
Slashdot Mirror
right now Apple uses Open Firmware, which is an open standard for booting
Ask a Sun engineer if you want a more accurate response, but as I recall, Macs (including my own) using Open Firmware, which is a stripped down version of the true "open firmware" known as OpenBoot. This is, of course, used by recent Sun machines and is very nice. I wish my Mac had the same OBP as my Sun.
For example, I managed to damage my video card on my Ultra 30. Yes, it was stupid and I regret it. However, I didn't know exactly what was wrong with it at the time. I connected a serial cable to the Sun, fired it up without the keyboard and was able to get into the OpenBoot prompt. From there, I ran the built in diagnostics which basically told me what an idiot I was and how much damage I'd done to the card (doh!).
Now, granted, I have yet to try this with my Mac but I'm 95% sure it won't work.
Balmer's a big fella. It'd be funny if he went into a Chris Farley-like rage and tried to suplex the twiggy lawyers that brought this to them. Bill would just be sitting back in the large leather chair with a white persian cat, penting his fingers together like Mr Burns, watching the carnage ensue.
;)
I was going to suggest you were deeply disturbed, but I had the exact same mental picture.
Just before Balmer goes into his maniacal rage, I imagined him nearly frothing at the mouth and telling the "yahoos" they'll end up living in a van down by the river!
Hey, it could happen!
So when can we expect RegExp.NET? You know, the one which returns your SSN, credit card info, and pictures of your wife along with each query?
The companies involved -- which also include AT&T Wireless Services, Verizon Communications, and Cingular Wireless -- would build access points in public places such as airports but would not try to supply access to people's homes, according to the report.
It's a bummer.
If you had to pay the full cost of a telephone line to extremely rural areas (or even to most residences) you wouldn't bother. They're not profitable. That's why telcos have exorbitant prices on their business-level services; they offset their losses on residential services with the profits from the business end. If you don't like that you can thank the government (you really should thank the government, though, because it benefits us all a lot more than it hurts a few businesses).
So it's no surprise that they'll be providing access in airports (for a fee, of course) and not to homes. Maybe it's because they want a return on their investment, and that requires profit...
We are trying to build a nationwide "free" network.
Who exactly is "We?" If you have major corporations involved, while you may have their support, I'd be very very surprised if they were paying out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm not trying to be cynical; I'm just being realistic here. You, and other "free thinkers" may want a free, wireless network but unless you fund it entirely on your own, don't hold your breath. If you want corporate backing, you will pay somewhere, although the price may not be entirely obvious (eg, public school research is funded by grants and taxes, or grants from the Feds which is funded by taxes).
The consumer always pays (always). The question is only how much and how often.
It would be simple-minded to think that we do not have sufficient technology to limit your access to the wifi network. Perhaps you could only access "local" nodes, or perhaps you are denied access entirely unless you logon (PPPoE comes to mind). Just because "they" don't restrict you doesn't mean "they" can't.
And therein lies my concern. People can get all hyped up about a free wifi network... and both are good things. But if you don't own it you don't control it so don't be surprised if you start paying for it too.
If such home-brewed networks were to spread across the country we could tie them together via the Internet, or even via leased lines between cities. No way anyone could ever control that... ...except maybe the individuals who actually owned the hardware, or those who had control over their configurations. Do you really think it would be any different than the how the major backbone providers have it now?
While some people may decide to lose some money in the interest of building a network like this, most people are more self-interested and will find a way to make you pay.
I'm not talking about paying money to see the movie - I'm talking about buying redundant materials.
That's what I'd like to know. I can understand when you buy a DVD when it is released and then months later a special edition is released and so you find it necessary to purchase the new version as well. Hopefully you sell your old copy on eBay...
What I don't understand is why you would buy both versions in this case; it's well known that there will be more than one version, with the later version(s) including more features/footage. I plan on waiting for the last version, but then again, I can only watch one DVD at a time.
You would be quite surprised what people think they need and what they truly need.
You mean when people think they need a billion dollars/euros (say, for spilling a certain hot liquid on themselves) when all they truly need is a swift kick in the...
If advertising was ethical, products wouldn't be held in such a ludicrously high light. They take whatever means are necessary to get people to come visit, with no regard to whether or not they're being deceptive. This is why search engines must disclose paid links.
Exactly.
Also, refer to the same rules which apply to text ads...
Ever see those ads in Newsweek/Time/etc that look like they're editorials or "cool new product" blurbs but then you notice at the bottom of the page in small, but readable text it says "Paid Advertisement"?
there's a reason you have to take a class called "Business Ethics" to get an MBA
Isn't that class just so MBA's can't plead ignorance (you know, covering the school's legal ass and the like)?
It's been my experience that Microsoft's Macintosh projects are far better than their Windows counterparts.
I've heard this as well. In fact, more importantly, I heard that with the previous version of Word/Office for the Mac, there were features added by the Mac programmers (who are reportedly excellent in their field) which were specifically removed by Micrsoft HQ/management. Apparently they didn't want the Mac version of (for example) Word 2001 to have more features, or otherwise be superior to, Word 2000 for Windows.
That's what I recall reading about, but it was probably on a Mac rumor site, so take it with a grain of salt.
If Bill thinks he's going to lead the game, he'd better try to get out in front on a thing or two.
There's no need for Bill to do that. He'll just run along behind you, using your draft to save a few bucks, and letting you do all the work. Then when you're on the final lap, with the home stretch in sight, he'll knife you in the back and steal the win!
seems like an awful waste of man hours
Ah, still pulling the slashdot party line?
My guess is that they are neither your personal man hours, nor have you paid for the man hours in question. I could make a similar argument about your hobbies, such as collecting cola can pull-tabs or feeding your pet rock.
How can a script (software) reboot a a server that has already halted?
The system wasn't halted. The UPS kicked in and ran on batteries for a couple minutes then switched back to mains. The server remained up and running. The apcupsd daemon was set to run a script when hen the utility power returned, and the script was configured to be "shutdown -r now"
At no point during the process was the system halted.
I second the vote for using apcupsd. However, I think it is important for me to relay my experiences with it just to avoid potential problems for those of you uptime zealots (like me).
A few months ago, I had a short (2 minute) power outage and of course my UPS kicked in and my server stayed online as you might expect. However, when power was restored, the apcupsd scripts were (by default) configured to reboot the server after a return to utility power. Why this is the case, I cannot answer, however I'm sure there is a logical explanation. In my case, I found this very unsettling as it caused my 100+ days of uptime to return to zero whence they came. The scripts were easy to fix, but hopefully this will serve as a warning for those of you who cannot afford the restart.
On a slightly different note, I'm still not understanding the whole journalling file system issue; I understand the benefits, but are you really crashing that much (which must be hard locks), that you need to do a hard reset and let the journal replay the transactions? Personally, I have a tape backup, and a UPS. Do I really need a journalling file system, other than the obvious advantage of impressing the ladies? At the moment, I'm interested in XFS because of the ACLs and the "intensive disk usage" features SGI has in the IRIX version, and I'm hoping those make it into the "final" Linux version (if there ever will be a "final" version).
Despite being a nearly exact copy of a previous post 11 minutes prior, I will hazard a response to both posters:
The customized system presented in this story does not require a computer. So while it's great that FinalScratch runs on BeOS, it still requires a computer which is exactly opposite what our story's protagonist aimed to create.
So use this login to read the story:
user: 578929835
pass: 578929835
Wait a moment...
578-92-9835 ???
Is that your social security number?
...is to just "Wizard" every action the user may need to take. By trying to anticipate what the user wants, a wizard can be provided to allow the user to quickly, and easily, complete their task. Of course, then you end up with a wizard so large and complex that it becomes an OS in itself, and one needs to read the help files associated with each option to successfully progress thorough the wizard's heirarchical structure (refer to Windows XP's default settings for the control panel). You have to know what each option does before you can click it. So eventually, when wizards rule the lands, there will be a manual for the wizards! And, as a "computer guy" I can still say "RTFM!"
Mod the parent down. Porn picture or no porn picture, the last thing we need is a link to a personal site with ads which simply redirects to the actual site provided. If you have a link to post, post the real thing. We don't need your redirects. Thankfully it was blocked by my anti-banner ad HOSTS file.
The datamining link should be:
www.ccsu.edu/datamining/resources.html
Why do people even submit the stories? The Slashdot editors will probably post them anyways. Not to critize TH; it just seems that whenever they post a new article, it shows up a few hours later on the Slashdot front page. Maybe Slashdot needs a special "Tom's Hardware" topic or even it's own section (th.slashdot.org).
With a decent ruleset for Sendmail and an array of RBLs, I haven't gotten any spam at my "main" address in quite some time. Eventually I want to implement SpamAssassin for additional protection. The most important thing is to reject messages while in the SMTP conversation! Do not accept them and then forward to /dev/null.
I'd like to thank Pacific Bell, however, for the barrages of spam I get there. I don't even bother to check the account more than once a week since I know it's just spam.
Breaking one persons account can be handled the same way they deal with credit card theft, they just publish a list of identities that are known to have been broken. No big drama.
Except for the particular consumer involved.
One remote hole in the default install, in nearly 6 years!
.
.
.
See for yourself!
I thought Minority Report was an entertaining movie and decent SciFi, but for some reason I got the feeling that the movie simply "could have been better" but I'm at a loss to point to specific instances where I felt some touch up was necessary.
In addition, the movie is actually quite different from the original short story, which I guess would be natural when someone like Spielberg tries to expand a short story to a two and half hour blockbuster which is designed to appeal to Joe Consumer.
I remember this one time we knew the Feds had a wiretap running on our phone system, and more than a few listening devices placed covertly around the office. We'd say the most outrageous things, and everyone would try to out-do to the others. One time we looked out in the parking lot and saw a bunch of black-clad men rolling around laughing on the ground behind their white van. What was really outrageous was where the bugs were placed; one was in the bottom of one coder's coffee cup, another in a VP's toupee, and another one in women's restroom. We'd play copyprotected Celine Dion CDs into them at full blast (in a sound proof room of course so as to not harm our own employees).