Which is why I say that until that happens I'm not worried about the actual apocalypse.
Of course, Russia could invade Israel, and Jesus still might wait ten-thousand years to come back. You never know.
Be careful when trying to interpret prophecy through the lens of current events. You will see the "signs of the apocalypse" everywhere, and yet you will still be wrong. Please remember that the idea of Russia as the invaders from the north is merely an interpretation of the text. If Turkey ascends to superpower status over the next 20 years, the doomsayers will be reworking their interpretations. This has gone on for a very long time. I think that the return of Jesus will be one hell of a surprise. Hal Lindsey and the authors of the "Left Behind" series will probably be left scratching their heads.
Lets tie this into the true topic of the article. We are optimistic as a nation because of the explosion and accesibility of technology. I dont beleive that in the near term technology will solve the worlds problems. However, I do think that once powerful, robust nanotechnology becomes commonplace the world will CHANGE. Of course, widespread access to the technology is key. When you can turn shit into steak, and build a palace of silicon from desert sand, a billion dollars won't amount to a hill of beans (unless you wanted it to, literally). Do you think that anyone will still be looking for Jesus then? Think about it- no hunger, no limit to posessions, no need to really work too hard. Although I dont hold this up as an ideal, I really see american culture celebrating it. Combine this with advances in longevity science and we could extend our lifespans to Old Testament lengths. How do you think that the biblical prophecy would be interpreted in this situation? Does Jesus need to return before we become this advanced?
One of my monitors is very sensitive to any magnetic fields around it. I couldnt imagine trying to put anything at all in there. Even supposedly shileded speakers give it the purple bends from a respectable distance. None of my other monitors are this sensitive. Maybe the 21 incher he was using turned out to be fairly insensitive. I've seen some problems with larger Dell monitors at work, but haven't ever used this brand.
A side question: I got a freebie 15" monitor to use with one of my Linux boxen. It has a small purple magenetic "monitor scar" just about in the middle. No wonder it was free... Anyway it works fine using the CLI, but under X it can be a bit annoying. Any suggestions for a fix?
Feeling lucky Hemos? You can take the extravagant offer of a nickel, but I think you should take my little gamble. Just say the word man, and Ill go couch mining here in my living room. ALL of the change I find is yours. Hell, I'll even check my car seats. How about it Hemos? I found five bucks this way once, now think about it. A chance at a five spot for hemos.com. WOW. This would get the cover of Wired for sure. Let me know...
Now, if you delete your cookies on a daily basis, is that enough to screw doubleclick? Sure they get a days worth of data on you, but can they correlate it with data collected under another cookie? I used to do this periodically and never knew how well it worked.
Of course, thanks to Junkbuser, this is a moot point now. For those of you who aren't running Junkbuster GET IT NOW. Pages load about twice as fast because you dont have to wait for laggy-ass banner servers. You can keep your blessed slashdot cookies while telling doubleclick to sod off. Plus, its pretty transparent once its installed.
You know that, and I know that, but do you expect twelve of your least educated peers to understand? How about everyone with a TV or a newspaper?
If someone was looking to do a bang up smear job, all that they have to say is "kiddy porn" and "advanced decryption techniques". If you are any type of public figure, your career is very heavily damaged. To clear your name you need to educate the public about the workings of one-time pad encryption. In the meantime, people will wonder WHY you have encrypted files in the first place. Giving up the key would probably also help, but that really isnt a viable alternative.
My overall point was that even with encryption, this law could be very nasty to the enemies of the state (whoever that is supposed to be this week). Your life is ruined with four easy steps: Monitor, sieze, "decrypt", and publicize. Encryption can do a lot to help take the teeth out of the law. However, if you are high profile (or hated) enough, scorn and derision is an XOR away.
Man, I must need more caffiene. Am I the only one who misread this sentence?
can't download unless you're 18"
Whoa, you need to be really well hung to use Corel Linux!
No, but seriously folks. Lets not go off half cocked on a (USA centric) holiday weekend. Obviously Corel's legal staff needs some clues. The standard boilerplate just isn't going to work alongside the GPL. A lawyer who is trusted by the community and a master of open source legal issues could make a killing right now. Corel really needs an expert on their staff. On the other side, the Free Software community needs to politely and firmly correct them. Keep the lawyer on speed dial, but don't make it the first button you hit.
They need to be given some time to be able to resolve the issue and explain themselves. Have they made a statement? Hell, linux.corel.com is 404ing right now. The power of the Internet may be rapid communication, but evicerating a company over a long weekend is not its best use. Personally, I'd rather not force them into making hasty decisions about matters of legal importance. Lets give their semi-clued lawyers a day or two to figure things out and make a statement before heading to Canada with pitchforks and torches.
If you are using a one-time pad cypher, they CAN change it to whatever they want. Now that is dangerous.
Hmm, this guy is a politician. How about making this big block O' noise on his hard drive into records about defrauding the taxpayer? Watch him leave in disgrace. This other guy is a theology professor, maybe he would like a disk chock full of porn. Tenure might keep him around, but he would be left to stand in the corner and be ignored. Silencing political opponents is even better than killing them. They lose credibility, and their followers wont have a martyr to rally behind.
The state could make your cyphertext into whatever has the greatest political fallout. Now, your lawyer can argue your case on technical merits and probably win. However you can still have your reputation damaged beyond repair.
An unstable person might learn that you have to aim a little ahead of your target when shooting people. [snip] How they use it determines if they make the evening news.
Of course, a really unstable person may be thinking to himself how laggy the server is and lead his targets even more than normal:
Todays shooting spree downtown could have been one of the worst shootings ever. A lone gunman opened fire on crowds of people as they arrived to work. Fortunately on this day, tragedy was averted. Everyone was saved because the gunman aimed 10 feet in front of everyone while screaming "Die you high ping bastards." The one casualty was caused by a SWAT team member armed with a rocket launcher. Sadly, he didnt come all of the way around a corner before firing. Psycologists brought in to counsel his son were heard saying, "No Billy, Daddy isnt going to respawn." In other news, a madman from Boise tried to take over the entire state of Idaho with tank divisions assembled in his back yard...
Replace traffic laws with drug laws and I think you might have something...
From three different sources, Ive heard that Microsoft will come investigate if you are caught using pirated MS software at work. Is that in the EULA, or are they trying to come up with thier own police force? It sounded bogus to me.
Has anyone been investigated for software piracy at work? What is the process like? Is your server tomb raided by HERF gun toting heavies from the BSA? Hell, as far as Im concerned you arent even coming into the lobby without a warrant. Is there someone out there who has been through this?
Too bad I'll be an executive before I can afford it
At that point you wont even look at your computer once. You will INSIST that your secretary print all of your email, annotate it with highlighter, xerox it for archival purposes and re-highlight the xeroxes. Your "personal" assistant will replace surfing for porn, and your broker will take care of your trades for you. No need to even turn on the box.
Of course you will have to get the most expensive one with the 20 inch LCD. Its like the leather chair, yours has to be the biggest. Never mind that the web developers are using 14".32 dot pitch monitors to work on the website. Dont forget that you need a laptop too, and that the IT guys need to come to your house to fix stuff. Oh yeah, and when you know that the IT guys are coming into your office to upgrade stuff, leave important memos lying arount. Memos that talk about increasing yearly bonuses among all of the execs by amounts greater than any other employee's salary. Dont forget to mention cutting bonuses for other staff at the same time. Gee, and you thought being an executive would be easy.
No, but it really should be up near the top. At least it should be above all of the "expensive, shoddy, deadly" enviro-weenies.
I think that you are dead on in your analysis. Currently I know three people who have the "Emergency" phone in their glove box. This would be a perfect choice for them. Over the course of a year, they would probably save at least 100 bucks.
Personally, I hate cell phones. I dont want to be reached most of the time, and I sure as hell dont want to talk while I am in the grocery store. In the past year I can think of about five times that I could have used a cell phone. At current prices, that level of usage just isnt worth it. For a 20 dollar one time charge, sure it would be nice to have.
As far as environmental concerns, I dont think that these phones will present too much of a problem. My buddies who use their cell phones have upgraded two or three times in the past four years. That doesnt include breakage, dead and buried batteries, or toilet droppage. Everyone that I know who has an emergency phone still has the first phone that they bought. Keep in mind that people who are going to go through five or ten of these disposables in a year probably already have a phone, or will buy a real one. With well designed phone deposit and return programs, the environmental impact will be negligable. Think it through, disposable does not always equal environmentally unfriendly.
Hehehe, someone out there should make a text mode video editing app. Convert the mpeg to moving ascii art and add some editing functionality. Sure, the results would be like textmode Quake, but you could play guess-the-movie and have some fun with it.
Im not sure what crack he smokes, I dont deal to him and we dont party together.
When I first heard his explanation, I didnt believe him. I thought that the inertia of the spinning drive would keep it moving fast enough to provide the lift needed for the head to get to the landing zone. Im still not convinced, but he has seen the inside of more drives than I have.
I happen to have a head assembly from a WD drive in my desk drawer. Yes the arms are metal, however they do have a bit of flex to them. I have an old 100 meg drive that I may take apart later today just to see the platters spin up with the cover open. Doubt Ill see much but it should be fun. I always take stuff apart when it breaks, and have seen the innards to some interesting electronics.
Here is a reference from storagereview.com, I think that you might be interested in their explanation:
Here are a couple of choice bits quoted from their site: When the platters are not spinning, the heads rest on the surface. When the platters spin up, the heads rub along the surface of the platters until sufficient speed is gained for them to "lift off" and ride on their cushion of air. When the drive is spun down, the process is repeated in reverse. In each case, for a period of time the heads make contact with the surface of the disk--while in motion, in fact.
That pretty much supports the assertion that the heads are flying over the surface of the disk. Furthermore, it counters the claim that simply touching the platter while it is in motion will rip the head off of the mounting arm.
Of course they go on to say: ...When the power is shut off, the electromagnetic force from the voice coil abates, and the spring yanks the heads to the landing zone before the platters can spin down. Other disks use a different mechanical or electronic scheme to achieve the same goal. This means that modern hard disks will automatically park their heads--even in the event of a power failure--and no utilities are required.
Read the entire article to get the overall context. Very informative.
So, it appears that power failures dont matter nearly as much as he thought they did. In the past perhaps they caused some problems, and he is still operating based on older knowledge. That doesnt surprise me because he deals mainly with older drives.
Earlier this year, I talked with a data recovery tech about what kinds of drives he likes the best. Surprisingly he didnt see a big difference between major manufacturers. Overall he had four pieces of advice:
1. Stay away from drives made in Turkey. He noticed that on average Turkish made drives had higher rates of failure.
2. Dont trust a drive for longer than 18 months for critical data. Sure, I still have 6 year old drives spinning merrily away. However he said that the bathtub shaped failure curve starts ramping up at that point. Supposedly all of the tech at the shop swap out their old drives every 18 months.
3. Get SCSI if you can afford it. The construction tends to be a bit better on the higher end drives.
4. Use a UPS. Apparently sudden power failures can cause the head to tap the platters because they lose the lift provided by the rapidly rotating surface. Not good for the tapped sector, and can lead to catastrophe.
In terms of brands, he said that IBM was making some pretty nice drives. On the other hand, he has seen so many failures from every brand on the market that he believes that all hardware sucks. I guess its like determining which flavor of Windows is the best. After you work on each of them for a while, NT seems better than the others but it still annoys the hell out of you.
Personally, I like IBM drives and would go for it. Ive done tech support for hundreds of boxen and havent had too many problems with IBM drives. Of course YMMV.
Yep, I quit using linux (on my main screw-off PC) because I didnt like the browsers. These days Netscape is a crufty POS. It wasnt always this way. Back in the days of 2.0 and 3.0 Netscape ruled the roost. Right now, compared to IE 5, its not even a contest. This whole situation makes me very sad.
My first experiences with the net were with a dialup shell account on a HP-UX box. At first there was no web. Pine and trn were my friends. Later on I remember running Lynx for the first time and being blown away. Banner ads were nothing but a gleam in some twisted bastards eye, and as far as I was concerned Unix and the Internet were inseperable.
Then I started using Netscape on a Win 3.1 box over a PPP link. In a lot of ways, I liked my shell account better and kept using it for mail and news. Eventually, I moved on to Win 95 and refused to use IE until I was forced to at work. As far as Im concerned, IE was worthless until 4.0. Even then, Netscape was good enough.
Last year, I finally installed Debian 1.3. Everything worked and I was pretty happy. I upgraded to Slink, surfed the unstable tree and enjoyed myself. The software wasnt broken, except for Netscape. I tried other browsers, tried other Netscape versions and tried a Mozilla milestone build. They all sucked compared to what I was using at work- IE 5. I was tired of Netscape crashing, tired of it hosing X, and wanted point and drool. Now I have it. Granted I still use Linux for anything serious, and run it on other boxen. However, right now suffering with Windows on one box is worth it to be able to use IE.
I see the lack of a top quality browser as one of the major problems with Linux. This is not a troll, or flamebait. Its a sad confession with hope for something better.
I remember playing the original for hours on end. The only black mark that this game had was the arbitrary 32 station or train limit. This kept me from reaching my goal of total World Domination.
Have they fixed this problem, or will I still be limited to a mimi-empire?
That seems like quite a bit of money, lets do a quick breakdown. Mind you this is really rough and contains a bunch of assumptions. If you want to do better you are welcome to.
2,500,000 / 1500 = $1666 dollars per student
If this contract lasts 20 years, that figure becomes around 83 bucks per student per year.
At 50-75 cents a can, its not unreasonable for them to recoup the cost over the life of the contract. Variable pricing schemes will only help this matter. That is a good measure less than one coke purchased per student per education day. The situation gets better for Coke as prices go up and student body size increases.
The benefits dont stop there. Soft drinks have pretty good brand loyalty that develops early in life. If all that you can get at school is Coke, then there is a good chance that you will keep drinking Coke. Similarly, Gilette hands out free razors so that they can make money selling you the replacement blades. Companies are willing to take an initial loss if the continued relationship will bring them enough profit. If they manage to hook you on Coke products, they can look forward to a lifetime of sales.
Another point for Coke is all of the free advertising they can display in the school. At the very least, they have the bright red vending machines sporting the Dynamic Ribbon Device TM. Chances are they will get a banner on the scoreboard, and other placement opportunities.
Personally, I am against all forms of advertising in schools. If I ever hear the words: "This lecture was sponsored by Coca-Cola, please enjoy a nice cold Coke in your next class." my kids are out of that school. Screw Channel One.
You might want to cook up a better analysis and ask the administration sold out so cheaply. Hey, arent elections for the school board coming up?
One of the prime applications could be encrypted message archival. Lets say that you dont want the DOJ/FBI/ATF snooping in your company's old email. You could delete it, but then you lose the ability to refer to it again. You could encrypt it and keep it around, but I bet some judge can force you to cough up the key. Sticking it offshore in an unfriendly jurisdiction may help. Just keep it away from the Church of $cientology.
The second application would be for housing content that is not legal or welcome in some jurisdictions. This could include some forms of hate speech, anti-government propaganda, techniques for manufacturing drugs, and of course pr0n. It may also be a good place to put crypto software. Damn, I hate lumping crypto into that group.
My favorite application would be an encrypted chain of proxy servers and anonymous remailers. Paranoia, sweet paranoia. Gotta go, the black helicopters are circling again.
Oh, I understand. If you cant afford to give away more money than the world's richest man then it is insignificant. What the hell?
Some of the most outstanding acts of charity are performed by those who can least afford to give. Giving isnt about the number of commas on the check, its about helping others and your attitude towards them.
The gift also has to match the needs. In this case, ten billion dollars would have been far too much to give to one institution. At some point, money isnt going to be the limiting factor in research progress. Giving more money will lead to inefficency and cause distractions.
I wonder if any of your money is being used for biotech research? (I hope so...) Oh, wait, you dont have 10 billion dollars to give? Never mind, your contribution amounts to nothing.
I second that vote for Google. I was a die-hard Altavista fan, and actually remember being excited when it was launched. Now I hardly use it at all. Its only advantage over Google is the advanced search features that help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
On the other hand, Google finds what I want quickly. Today I taught someone how to "Search the Web" and showed them Google first. Next up was a trip through Yahoo and a passing mention of AltaVista. Two years ago I had to explain AltaVistas search syntax and do some handholding. Now all that I have to do is point them to Google, bookmark it, and say that it works pretty much like you would think it would. KISS HTH HAND
And why limit your gene splicing to plants? How fun would it be to have a glow-in-the-dark dog?
Wow, thats cool- you would really know if it was housebroken. Of course your neighbor wouldnt appreciate the glowing puddles on the lawn.
What about glow in the dark bacteria? If you could fit all of the necessary genes on a plasmid you might be able to get it to spread naturally. Then you would know that your roommate did a really lousy job cleaning the bathroom. Also, it might help you figure out when the Kung Pao chicken has passed its prime.
I can get my trusty PII 233 to run at 350Mhz with pretty good stability using air cooling. Of course I have to take the cover off of my case and blast it with a big-ass window fan. According to the thermistor on my motherboard, the chip didnt heat up over 313K. Since my PII is pretty hot anyway, I was impressed. YMMV
Has anyone tried running a Sterling engine using a CPU as the heat source? I was thinking about building one, but dont have access to a machine shop anymore. I think that it would be super cool to have a 18th century reciprocating engine running your case fan.
Well, for a large portion of biological molecules you could simply convert them into gasses or water.
Carbon = CO2 Nitrogen = N2 Oxygen = H2O or O2 Hydrogen = H2O, or for you fire-breathers- H2 * poof * drip, drip, drip...
Granted, sulfur and phosphorous would be a bit more problematic. Heavy metals and small ions may become concentrated in the process. Here are some solutions:
Use the nanites and waste to make useful substances that for the body, enzymes, repair mucous membranes and so on.
Take the sulfur and sodium ion, a bunch of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Nanite magic makes it into Sodium Laureth Sulfate- instant shampoo. Its probably best to not let this happen internally.
Heavy metals and perhaps crystals of small ions could be wrapped up in polysaccharide coats and surrounded by phospholipid membrane. Sneeze out, or slough off, and get rid of a bunch of crap in the process. Buckyballs are our friends. You could have reserves of encapsulated electrolytes to maintain balance throughout the day. Make your own Gatorade.
Plus, some of the substances may be useful in nanite repair or assembly.
If nanotechnology gets to the point that individual atoms can be manipulated at will, my toilet will be the envy of de Beers.
Have you played the game? I was wondering how different it would be from Half-Life or Quake since it is Christianized. What, no super violent mega gib bloodbath setting? Angel wears a C cup instead of Double D? The Bible would probably make incredible subject matter for a FPS, even though it can be really bloody at times.
The "about the game" section gives some hints about the intentions of the developers. It looks like it is set before the fall of Satan. That seems cool, but Im still wondering about gameplay issues. Hacking someone to death with a sword isnt any better than perforating them with a minigun. Personally, I'd like to see more family friendly games. However I feel like I need to be careful about what religious propaganda that my children are exposed to. How about making games that dont come with prepackaged ideology? Id like to see a return to fun, nonviolent games that value gameplay over graphics. Then all they need to do is port them to the Mac and Linux and we can all have fun.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why I say that until that happens I'm not worried about the actual apocalypse.
Of course, Russia could invade Israel, and Jesus still might wait ten-thousand years to come back. You never know.
Be careful when trying to interpret prophecy through the lens of current events. You will see the "signs of the apocalypse" everywhere, and yet you will still be wrong. Please remember that the idea of Russia as the invaders from the north is merely an interpretation of the text. If Turkey ascends to superpower status over the next 20 years, the doomsayers will be reworking their interpretations. This has gone on for a very long time. I think that the return of Jesus will be one hell of a surprise. Hal Lindsey and the authors of the "Left Behind" series will probably be left scratching their heads.
Lets tie this into the true topic of the article. We are optimistic as a nation because of the explosion and accesibility of technology. I dont beleive that in the near term technology will solve the worlds problems. However, I do think that once powerful, robust nanotechnology becomes commonplace the world will CHANGE. Of course, widespread access to the technology is key. When you can turn shit into steak, and build a palace of silicon from desert sand, a billion dollars won't amount to a hill of beans (unless you wanted it to, literally). Do you think that anyone will still be looking for Jesus then? Think about it- no hunger, no limit to posessions, no need to really work too hard. Although I dont hold this up as an ideal, I really see american culture celebrating it. Combine this with advances in longevity science and we could extend our lifespans to Old Testament lengths. How do you think that the biblical prophecy would be interpreted in this situation? Does Jesus need to return before we become this advanced?
-BW
One of my monitors is very sensitive to any magnetic fields around it. I couldnt imagine trying to put anything at all in there. Even supposedly shileded speakers give it the purple bends from a respectable distance. None of my other monitors are this sensitive. Maybe the 21 incher he was using turned out to be fairly insensitive. I've seen some problems with larger Dell monitors at work, but haven't ever used this brand.
A side question:
I got a freebie 15" monitor to use with one of my Linux boxen. It has a small purple magenetic "monitor scar" just about in the middle. No wonder it was free... Anyway it works fine using the CLI, but under X it can be a bit annoying. Any suggestions for a fix?
-BW
Feeling lucky Hemos? You can take the extravagant offer of a nickel, but I think you should take my little gamble. Just say the word man, and Ill go couch mining here in my living room. ALL of the change I find is yours. Hell, I'll even check my car seats. How about it Hemos? I found five bucks this way once, now think about it. A chance at a five spot for hemos.com. WOW. This would get the cover of Wired for sure. Let me know...
-BW
Now, if you delete your cookies on a daily basis, is that enough to screw doubleclick? Sure they get a days worth of data on you, but can they correlate it with data collected under another cookie? I used to do this periodically and never knew how well it worked.
Of course, thanks to Junkbuser, this is a moot point now. For those of you who aren't running Junkbuster GET IT NOW. Pages load about twice as fast because you dont have to wait for laggy-ass banner servers. You can keep your blessed slashdot cookies while telling doubleclick to sod off. Plus, its pretty transparent once its installed.
-BW
You know that, and I know that, but do you expect twelve of your least educated peers to understand? How about everyone with a TV or a newspaper?
If someone was looking to do a bang up smear job, all that they have to say is "kiddy porn" and "advanced decryption techniques". If you are any type of public figure, your career is very heavily damaged. To clear your name you need to educate the public about the workings of one-time pad encryption. In the meantime, people will wonder WHY you have encrypted files in the first place. Giving up the key would probably also help, but that really isnt a viable alternative.
My overall point was that even with encryption, this law could be very nasty to the enemies of the state (whoever that is supposed to be this week). Your life is ruined with four easy steps: Monitor, sieze, "decrypt", and publicize. Encryption can do a lot to help take the teeth out of the law. However, if you are high profile (or hated) enough, scorn and derision is an XOR away.
-BW
Man, I must need more caffiene. Am I the only one who misread this sentence?
can't download unless you're 18"
Whoa, you need to be really well hung to use Corel Linux!
No, but seriously folks. Lets not go off half cocked on a (USA centric) holiday weekend. Obviously Corel's legal staff needs some clues. The standard boilerplate just isn't going to work alongside the GPL. A lawyer who is trusted by the community and a master of open source legal issues could make a killing right now. Corel really needs an expert on their staff. On the other side, the Free Software community needs to politely and firmly correct them. Keep the lawyer on speed dial, but don't make it the first button you hit.
They need to be given some time to be able to resolve the issue and explain themselves. Have they made a statement? Hell, linux.corel.com is 404ing right now. The power of the Internet may be rapid communication, but evicerating a company over a long weekend is not its best use. Personally, I'd rather not force them into making hasty decisions about matters of legal importance. Lets give their semi-clued lawyers a day or two to figure things out and make a statement before heading to Canada with pitchforks and torches.
-BW
If you are using a one-time pad cypher, they CAN change it to whatever they want. Now that is dangerous.
Hmm, this guy is a politician. How about making this big block O' noise on his hard drive into records about defrauding the taxpayer? Watch him leave in disgrace. This other guy is a theology professor, maybe he would like a disk chock full of porn. Tenure might keep him around, but he would be left to stand in the corner and be ignored. Silencing political opponents is even better than killing them. They lose credibility, and their followers wont have a martyr to rally behind.
The state could make your cyphertext into whatever has the greatest political fallout. Now, your lawyer can argue your case on technical merits and probably win. However you can still have your reputation damaged beyond repair.
-BW
An unstable person might learn that you have to aim a little ahead of your target when shooting people. [snip] How they use it determines if they make the evening news.
Of course, a really unstable person may be thinking to himself how laggy the server is and lead his targets even more than normal:
Todays shooting spree downtown could have been one of the worst shootings ever. A lone gunman opened fire on crowds of people as they arrived to work. Fortunately on this day, tragedy was averted. Everyone was saved because the gunman aimed 10 feet in front of everyone while screaming "Die you high ping bastards." The one casualty was caused by a SWAT team member armed with a rocket launcher. Sadly, he didnt come all of the way around a corner before firing. Psycologists brought in to counsel his son were heard saying, "No Billy, Daddy isnt going to respawn." In other news, a madman from Boise tried to take over the entire state of Idaho with tank divisions assembled in his back yard...
-BW
Hehehe...
From what Ive heard, its running some variant of UNIX. My sources inside NASA have leaked that this latest failure was caused by operator error.
One of the scientists working on the telescope telnetted in and accidentally typed:
ifconfig eth0 down
Either that or it was some 31337 script kiddie with a HST rootkit.
Now they have to send astronauts up to restore the link from the console.
OK, OK, I know it doesnt use ethernet. Does anyone know the technical details of how the telescope communicates with the ground?
-BW
Replace traffic laws with drug laws and I think you might have something...
From three different sources, Ive heard that Microsoft will come investigate if you are caught using pirated MS software at work. Is that in the EULA, or are they trying to come up with thier own police force? It sounded bogus to me.
Has anyone been investigated for software piracy at work? What is the process like? Is your server tomb raided by HERF gun toting heavies from the BSA? Hell, as far as Im concerned you arent even coming into the lobby without a warrant. Is there someone out there who has been through this?
-BW
Too bad I'll be an executive before I can afford it
.32 dot pitch monitors to work on the website. Dont forget that you need a laptop too, and that the IT guys need to come to your house to fix stuff. Oh yeah, and when you know that the IT guys are coming into your office to upgrade stuff, leave important memos lying arount. Memos that talk about increasing yearly bonuses among all of the execs by amounts greater than any other employee's salary. Dont forget to mention cutting bonuses for other staff at the same time. Gee, and you thought being an executive would be easy.
At that point you wont even look at your computer once. You will INSIST that your secretary print all of your email, annotate it with highlighter, xerox it for archival purposes and re-highlight the xeroxes. Your "personal" assistant will replace surfing for porn, and your broker will take care of your trades for you. No need to even turn on the box.
Of course you will have to get the most expensive one with the 20 inch LCD. Its like the leather chair, yours has to be the biggest. Never mind that the web developers are using 14"
-BW
This isn't going to get moderated up, is it?
No, but it really should be up near the top. At least it should be above all of the "expensive, shoddy, deadly" enviro-weenies.
I think that you are dead on in your analysis. Currently I know three people who have the "Emergency" phone in their glove box. This would be a perfect choice for them. Over the course of a year, they would probably save at least 100 bucks.
Personally, I hate cell phones. I dont want to be reached most of the time, and I sure as hell dont want to talk while I am in the grocery store. In the past year I can think of about five times that I could have used a cell phone. At current prices, that level of usage just isnt worth it. For a 20 dollar one time charge, sure it would be nice to have.
As far as environmental concerns, I dont think that these phones will present too much of a problem. My buddies who use their cell phones have upgraded two or three times in the past four years. That doesnt include breakage, dead and buried batteries, or toilet droppage. Everyone that I know who has an emergency phone still has the first phone that they bought. Keep in mind that people who are going to go through five or ten of these disposables in a year probably already have a phone, or will buy a real one. With well designed phone deposit and return programs, the environmental impact will be negligable. Think it through, disposable does not always equal environmentally unfriendly.
-BW
Hehehe, someone out there should make a text mode video editing app. Convert the mpeg to moving ascii art and add some editing functionality. Sure, the results would be like textmode Quake, but you could play guess-the-movie and have some fun with it.
-BW
Im not sure what crack he smokes, I dont deal to him and we dont party together.
o r_arms.html
When I first heard his explanation, I didnt believe him. I thought that the inertia of the spinning drive would keep it moving fast enough to provide the lift needed for the head to get to the landing zone. Im still not convinced, but he has seen the inside of more drives than I have.
I happen to have a head assembly from a WD drive in my desk drawer. Yes the arms are metal, however they do have a bit of flex to them. I have an old 100 meg drive that I may take apart later today just to see the platters spin up with the cover open. Doubt Ill see much but it should be fun. I always take stuff apart when it breaks, and have seen the innards to some interesting electronics.
Here is a reference from storagereview.com, I think that you might be interested in their explanation:
http://www.storagereview.com/guide/guide_actuat
Here are a couple of choice bits quoted from their site:
When the platters are not spinning, the heads rest on the surface. When the platters spin up, the heads rub along the surface of the platters until sufficient speed is gained for them to "lift off" and ride on their cushion of air. When the drive is spun down, the process is repeated in reverse. In each case, for a period of time the heads make contact with the surface of the disk--while in motion, in fact.
That pretty much supports the assertion that the heads are flying over the surface of the disk. Furthermore, it counters the claim that simply touching the platter while it is in motion will rip the head off of the mounting arm.
Of course they go on to say:
...When the power is shut off, the electromagnetic force from the voice coil abates, and the spring yanks the heads to the landing zone before the platters can spin down. Other disks use a different mechanical or electronic scheme to achieve the same goal. This means that modern hard disks will automatically park their heads--even in the event of a power failure--and no utilities are required.
Read the entire article to get the overall context. Very informative.
So, it appears that power failures dont matter nearly as much as he thought they did. In the past perhaps they caused some problems, and he is still operating based on older knowledge. That doesnt surprise me because he deals mainly with older drives.
-BW
Earlier this year, I talked with a data recovery tech about what kinds of drives he likes the best. Surprisingly he didnt see a big difference between major manufacturers. Overall he had four pieces of advice:
1. Stay away from drives made in Turkey. He noticed that on average Turkish made drives had higher rates of failure.
2. Dont trust a drive for longer than 18 months for critical data. Sure, I still have 6 year old drives spinning merrily away. However he said that the bathtub shaped failure curve starts ramping up at that point. Supposedly all of the tech at the shop swap out their old drives every 18 months.
3. Get SCSI if you can afford it. The construction tends to be a bit better on the higher end drives.
4. Use a UPS. Apparently sudden power failures can cause the head to tap the platters because they lose the lift provided by the rapidly rotating surface. Not good for the tapped sector, and can lead to catastrophe.
In terms of brands, he said that IBM was making some pretty nice drives. On the other hand, he has seen so many failures from every brand on the market that he believes that all hardware sucks. I guess its like determining which flavor of Windows is the best. After you work on each of them for a while, NT seems better than the others but it still annoys the hell out of you.
Personally, I like IBM drives and would go for it. Ive done tech support for hundreds of boxen and havent had too many problems with IBM drives. Of course YMMV.
-BW
Yep, I quit using linux (on my main screw-off PC) because I didnt like the browsers. These days Netscape is a crufty POS. It wasnt always this way. Back in the days of 2.0 and 3.0 Netscape ruled the roost. Right now, compared to IE 5, its not even a contest. This whole situation makes me very sad.
My first experiences with the net were with a dialup shell account on a HP-UX box. At first there was no web. Pine and trn were my friends. Later on I remember running Lynx for the first time and being blown away. Banner ads were nothing but a gleam in some twisted bastards eye, and as far as I was concerned Unix and the Internet were inseperable.
Then I started using Netscape on a Win 3.1 box over a PPP link. In a lot of ways, I liked my shell account better and kept using it for mail and news. Eventually, I moved on to Win 95 and refused to use IE until I was forced to at work. As far as Im concerned, IE was worthless until 4.0. Even then, Netscape was good enough.
Last year, I finally installed Debian 1.3. Everything worked and I was pretty happy. I upgraded to Slink, surfed the unstable tree and enjoyed myself. The software wasnt broken, except for Netscape. I tried other browsers, tried other Netscape versions and tried a Mozilla milestone build. They all sucked compared to what I was using at work- IE 5. I was tired of Netscape crashing, tired of it hosing X, and wanted point and drool. Now I have it. Granted I still use Linux for anything serious, and run it on other boxen. However, right now suffering with Windows on one box is worth it to be able to use IE.
I see the lack of a top quality browser as one of the major problems with Linux. This is not a troll, or flamebait. Its a sad confession with hope for something better.
-BW
I remember playing the original for hours on end. The only black mark that this game had was the arbitrary 32 station or train limit. This kept me from reaching my goal of total World Domination.
Have they fixed this problem, or will I still be limited to a mimi-empire?
-BW
That seems like quite a bit of money, lets do a quick breakdown. Mind you this is really rough and contains a bunch of assumptions. If you want to do better you are welcome to.
2,500,000 / 1500 = $1666 dollars per student
If this contract lasts 20 years, that figure becomes around 83 bucks per student per year.
At 50-75 cents a can, its not unreasonable for them to recoup the cost over the life of the contract. Variable pricing schemes will only help this matter. That is a good measure less than one coke purchased per student per education day. The situation gets better for Coke as prices go up and student body size increases.
The benefits dont stop there. Soft drinks have pretty good brand loyalty that develops early in life. If all that you can get at school is Coke, then there is a good chance that you will keep drinking Coke. Similarly, Gilette hands out free razors so that they can make money selling you the replacement blades. Companies are willing to take an initial loss if the continued relationship will bring them enough profit. If they manage to hook you on Coke products, they can look forward to a lifetime of sales.
Another point for Coke is all of the free advertising they can display in the school. At the very least, they have the bright red vending machines sporting the Dynamic Ribbon Device TM. Chances are they will get a banner on the scoreboard, and other placement opportunities.
Personally, I am against all forms of advertising in schools. If I ever hear the words: "This lecture was sponsored by Coca-Cola, please enjoy a nice cold Coke in your next class." my kids are out of that school. Screw Channel One.
You might want to cook up a better analysis and ask the administration sold out so cheaply. Hey, arent elections for the school board coming up?
-BW
What might some of the applications be?
One of the prime applications could be encrypted message archival. Lets say that you dont want the DOJ/FBI/ATF snooping in your company's old email. You could delete it, but then you lose the ability to refer to it again. You could encrypt it and keep it around, but I bet some judge can force you to cough up the key. Sticking it offshore in an unfriendly jurisdiction may help. Just keep it away from the Church of $cientology.
The second application would be for housing content that is not legal or welcome in some jurisdictions. This could include some forms of hate speech, anti-government propaganda, techniques for manufacturing drugs, and of course pr0n. It may also be a good place to put crypto software. Damn, I hate lumping crypto into that group.
My favorite application would be an encrypted chain of proxy servers and anonymous remailers. Paranoia, sweet paranoia. Gotta go, the black helicopters are circling again.
-BW
Oh, I understand. If you cant afford to give away more money than the world's richest man then it is insignificant. What the hell?
Some of the most outstanding acts of charity are performed by those who can least afford to give. Giving isnt about the number of commas on the check, its about helping others and your attitude towards them.
The gift also has to match the needs. In this case, ten billion dollars would have been far too much to give to one institution. At some point, money isnt going to be the limiting factor in research progress. Giving more money will lead to inefficency and cause distractions.
I wonder if any of your money is being used for biotech research? (I hope so...) Oh, wait, you dont have 10 billion dollars to give? Never mind, your contribution amounts to nothing.
-BW
I second that vote for Google. I was a die-hard Altavista fan, and actually remember being excited when it was launched. Now I hardly use it at all. Its only advantage over Google is the advanced search features that help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
On the other hand, Google finds what I want quickly. Today I taught someone how to "Search the Web" and showed them Google first. Next up was a trip through Yahoo and a passing mention of AltaVista. Two years ago I had to explain AltaVistas search syntax and do some handholding. Now all that I have to do is point them to Google, bookmark it, and say that it works pretty much like you would think it would. KISS HTH HAND
-BW
And why limit your gene splicing to plants? How fun would it be to have a glow-in-the-dark dog?
Wow, thats cool- you would really know if it was housebroken. Of course your neighbor wouldnt appreciate the glowing puddles on the lawn.
What about glow in the dark bacteria? If you could fit all of the necessary genes on a plasmid you might be able to get it to spread naturally. Then you would know that your roommate did a really lousy job cleaning the bathroom. Also, it might help you figure out when the Kung Pao chicken has passed its prime.
Imagine the possibilities
-BW
I can get my trusty PII 233 to run at 350Mhz with pretty good stability using air cooling. Of course I have to take the cover off of my case and blast it with a big-ass window fan. According to the thermistor on my motherboard, the chip didnt heat up over 313K. Since my PII is pretty hot anyway, I was impressed. YMMV
Has anyone tried running a Sterling engine using a CPU as the heat source? I was thinking about building one, but dont have access to a machine shop anymore. I think that it would be super cool to have a 18th century reciprocating engine running your case fan.
-BW
Well, for a large portion of biological molecules you could simply convert them into gasses or water.
Carbon = CO2
Nitrogen = N2
Oxygen = H2O or O2
Hydrogen = H2O, or for you fire-breathers- H2
* poof * drip, drip, drip...
Granted, sulfur and phosphorous would be a bit more problematic. Heavy metals and small ions may become concentrated in the process. Here are some solutions:
Use the nanites and waste to make useful substances that for the body, enzymes, repair mucous membranes and so on.
Take the sulfur and sodium ion, a bunch of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Nanite magic makes it into Sodium Laureth Sulfate- instant shampoo. Its probably best to not let this happen internally.
Heavy metals and perhaps crystals of small ions could be wrapped up in polysaccharide coats and surrounded by phospholipid membrane. Sneeze out, or slough off, and get rid of a bunch of crap in the process. Buckyballs are our friends. You could have reserves of encapsulated electrolytes to maintain balance throughout the day. Make your own Gatorade.
Plus, some of the substances may be useful in nanite repair or assembly.
If nanotechnology gets to the point that individual atoms can be manipulated at will, my toilet will be the envy of de Beers.
-BW
Have you played the game? I was wondering how different it would be from Half-Life or Quake since it is Christianized. What, no super violent mega gib bloodbath setting? Angel wears a C cup instead of Double D? The Bible would probably make incredible subject matter for a FPS, even though it can be really bloody at times.
The "about the game" section gives some hints about the intentions of the developers. It looks like it is set before the fall of Satan. That seems cool, but Im still wondering about gameplay issues. Hacking someone to death with a sword isnt any better than perforating them with a minigun. Personally, I'd like to see more family friendly games. However I feel like I need to be careful about what religious propaganda that my children are exposed to. How about making games that dont come with prepackaged ideology? Id like to see a return to fun, nonviolent games that value gameplay over graphics. Then all they need to do is port them to the Mac and Linux and we can all have fun.
Unclean is very cool BTW...
-BW