Given it was a LiveCD of sorts, I kind of ruled out Windows. Is there any authorized version of a Windows LiveCD? I've seen third party hacks (which are darn cool, for sure), but nothing that would be permitted in an educational institution (legally).
The college I went to had us do some exams on our personal laptops. They'd give you a CD to boot from, which put you into a separate OS with no way of accessing the contents of your harddrive or USB drives. You'd then connect to a server to get your particular test. I never heard of anyone finding a way to cheat - excluding the methods that work on pencil & paper tests, of course.
And the network drivers would work with every laptop? That seems hard to believe, unless those personal laptops were standard-issue (all the same spec)...
I think most web designers miss this point these days, but if you specify a width/height to images (and probably a few other tags, in this more complex world), your page *will* render as it's loading. Try it out, you'll be surprised. I've always been commended on how quickly my web pages appear to load, and it's generally due to simply putting width/height tags on images, so the browser knows how to lay things out without actually getting into all the images themselves (when they load).
Why not find what you want, and remove (or have someone) remove the camera. Yes, you'll have warrantee issues. But if you're otherwise stuck, it is a route to consider. Remove the camera, from the inside, apply tape or trim over the glass opening from the inside. It will clearly not be a camera that works.
And, in response to another poster (who said automotive trim might fool some, but when you're caught with the camera still being there, you lose your job), if someone does think you're hiding something, and tries to prove you have a camera, they'll be wrong. The camera won't show up in software, and if they open up the case, there will be no camera there.
It would at least give you the option of getting the hardware you want, sans camera (and yes, sans warrantee; although one could always put it back to send off for service).
If you're not comfortable opening up the equipment, there are many qualified people who are.
I do respect and understand your comments, even if I don't necessarily agree with them 100%. Thanks for stating them so calmly and rationally. I think we could have a good face to face discussion.
However, the thing that freaks me out is that your/. id is DaleGlass, and my real name is Dale Gass (which you couldn't know from my ID).
Sorry, but that really freaks me out that you'd happen to reply to my comment. Either that's an incredible coincence or karma in the universe, or you're stalking me (which I seriously doubt would be worth anyone's while:).
I've made another post here, where I've talked about preferring the BSD-style licenses.
To be balanced, I should mention how I have dispelled FUD related to the GPL in the past.
I've had a couple of products in the past, that used (loosely coupled) a few GPL packages. They were done as web services, so there were no licensing problems (although doesn't the latest GPL start going after that? Ulp.)
Anyhow, GPL was not a problem for us as a web service. However, when the time came that we were approached to license our product to other major players, the question of the GPL came up. These players wanted to run their own web services based upon ours. Fair enough. I told them: "okay, here's our core product; and, by the way, it has these outside dependencies that we won't redistribute, but you'll have to scare up yourself, install yourself, and use yourself." It really wasn't a problem. We listed the GPL requirements, they grabbed them, and fairly used them within the GPL license.
The one thing they couldn't do was modify and shrink wrap the product including those GPL components (without giving away the source). But they just wanted to run their own service, not sell the product for others to run the service, so it was a non-issue. And from our standpoint, we didn't want them to shrink wrap the product and create more competition (our contract specifically forbade it, in fact). In this case, the GPL, somewhat ironically, provided us some protection against them more freely distributing the licensed product.:)
While I appreciate all Stallman and FSF has done, I still prefer the BSD-style license (you're free to do what you want with this code, including not being free with your changes:). Forced freedom isn't true freedom, IMHO. But that's a philosophical debate.
In more practical terms, businesses operate with restrictions. They have fears of licensing problems, code contamination, and lawsuits and such. A less restrictive license such as BSD/Apache/X Windows (which, if I understand correctly, merely require attribution, not giving away your business code if it interfaces too tightly with open source content).
Honestly, what's the problem with BSD over GPL? So I take a BSD kernel (for example), hack it up with my fancy mods, resell it as a proprietary product. I am required to note, hey, this product uses BSD software under the hood. Any competitor is free to grab the same base software, and apply his own talents to competing with me.
I take a a GNU product, apply some of my special magic to it, and I'm screwed (businesswise, at least). I have to give away any enhancements I make. Blah. LGPL at least lets me use compilers, interpreted languages, libraries, and so on, as a bit of dodge. (I feel LGPL only exists because if it didn't, everybody would run screaming from GPL, and it would have died long ago. I can't link to a freakin' library without releasing my code? No thanks.)
I think that bears repeating: LGPL has helped keep GPL'd software in use. That a sign there's a problem there, IMO. With the lines between libraries, compilation, interpreters, interfacing, web access, becoming blurred (and Stallman wanting web services to have to release code), I think it's becoming more and more of a problem.
In a perfect happy world where all our needs and wants and income is taken care of, GPL all the way, man... But in world where one has to express one's talents to make a living, the socialistic ideal of GPL just doesn't jive with business.
In practice, I use GPL'd software a lot, and I am appreciative. But other than for the odd bug fix, I shy away from *ever* touching the source code, period; from a business standpoint, it'd be death.
On BSD style code I've used, I've gone in, made enhancements, and redistributed things; and when I found bugs in the core of the stuff I've worked with, I've contributed back. (But not my new, proprietary enhancements.) So I've been motivated to contribute more to the BSD-style-license world, than the GPL one.
If I'm rich some day, and can afford to work on some projects for free, I will likely contribute to GPL projects as much (although I still have the restricted-freedom philosophical problem). But while I'm in business, I won't spend any significant amount of time enhancing GPL code. It's sad, but it's a harsh reality of our world.
I remember Minix. Before there was Linux, Minix was around. It was my first exposure to a Unix-like operating system on a PC. It was surprisingly lean and elegant and Unix-like. I still have the box of floppies. I remember recompiling and modifying the operating system. It was indeed quite a powerful tool, and I dare say an important precursor to Linux.
(When I first heard about Linux, I had incorrectly assumed it was an evolution of Linux.)
I see a lot of people bashing Minix here; I don't think it will replace Linux by any means, but it is an important historical OS, IMHO.
Wiki notes (about Linux):
In 1991 while attending the University of Helsinki, Torvalds began to work on a non-commercial replacement for MINIX,[13] which would eventually become the Linux kernel.
Linux was dependent on the MINIX user space at first. With code from the GNU system freely available, it was advantageous if this could be used with the fledgling OS.
You can remove and replace the stock radio from your car and it wont break the car.
Tell that to GM. On my Venture (and my former Montana), I wanted to upgrade the player to handle MP3's. I couldn't. The radio was an integral part of the data bus for the vehicle. Various bits of status for the vehicle can show up on the stereo's display; and the "ping ping ping" when you leave a door open or the lights on, actually plays through that stereo. Neat, but pretty freakin' locked down.
(Surprisingly, having started out with Hondas, which seemed to decline in quality [loved my '84 Civic, hated my '89 Civic], that's my biggest complain about the Venture/Montana. I'm coming to like GM vehicles, God help me. Hope they survive.)
There is an aux input on the stereo, but instead of being a simple input jack, it requires a $100 cable to interface to standard audio gear. Feh.
Thankfully, I have recently switched myself (and my clients) over to Postgresql.
It was a sad day when Oracle got the rights to the InnoDB engine, but at least MySQL itself was in the hands of Sun.
With Oracle now owning all the rights to what is probably the biggest free competitor, I think the open source world shouldn't put much stock or investment into MySQL.
I've been quite impressed with the performance and straight-forwardness of PostGres, and will continue to happily use it. I was alawys keeping MySQL in the back of my mind, to try out now and then, but with this announcement, I doubt it'll be worthwhile.
Is there any anti-trust factors to this? Oracle, being a dominant database player, and buying up the biggest open source database?
Aside from that, I find this all very sad. Sun was one of the Unix innvators from the earliest days. Even when they grow large, they still seemed like a "cool company." Healey used to personally answer emails I would send him. Oracle seems to be the antithesis of this; major, corporate, gouging, monster... One can only hope that some of Sun's culture and products will survive.
I think there is a middle ground, that equates to telepresence. Yes, an offline copy of the data collected, but modelled in enough detail, that actions to be carried out remotely, are simulated first, locally. Okay, we got a good copy of the remote world, in incredible detail; now, we reach down, scoop up some dirt, put it in the oven. Okay, simluation went fine, with appropriate estimated feedback, etc.. Send it to be executed, and download the new view of things.
I guess it is effectively what the mars explorers have done, althoguh without the fancy VR stuff. NASA engineers have the understanding and internal models and imagination to have that VR sense of the scene in their heads, from the data they receive. The main difference would be increasing the number and types of sensors sent; although NASA already decides what is the best price/weight/performance of sensors within their budget, so this type of gradual improvement will continue as technologies improve.
I don't necessarily think it's the most effective goal to enable Joe Six-pack to be able to experience things in a dumbed-down full quality VR, when NASA scientists can get the same "sense" with far fewer sensors, and allocate their instrumentation in the way that suits them best.
I never understood this viewpoint. THe most devestated earth we can imagine, surely is more hospitable than the most pristine of the other planets. Even with little or no atmosphere, and high radiation, no food, etc., etc., surviving on earth would *still* be far easier than on any of the known planets. Plus, we don't have to use phenomenal amounts of energy to get there.
What scenario could possibly make surviving on earth, harder than living on the best of other planets? (Even if we were forced underground, that's *far* simpler, and already been done, than establishing a colony off-world.) I just don't think the numbers add up for getting any significant number of humans off-world to create a new society.
This is where public transportation needs to be viewed as a service instead of a profit-making business. The city/county/state population needs to decide, as a whole, that they WANT and are WILLING TO SUBSIDIZE public transportation such that it isn't only usable in a narrow band from 6:30-8:30am and 4:30-6:30pm with crapass route coverage the rest of the time.
Commie!
Seriously, though, what you suggest reeks of socialism. And I say that as a compliment. I'm from Canada. If I get deathly ill, I know I won't lose my house (modest as it is). I think, as a society, people need to decide if basic necessities should be a right for the members of the society. If I'm to be part of this society, I'll contribute what I can; in exchange, I receive certain basics in return. I know I'll be fed and cared for in the worst case, and receive medical attention. *And*, I'll be able to attain reasonable transport around the area, efficiently, and for a modest cost. As much as I agree with free markets, I do believe part of what belonging to a society should mean, is that certain basic essential services are part of the deal (with a reasonable contribution by myself).
Agreed. And going between Linux/Solaris/HPUX/AIX or whatever, is every bit as different as going between those and OS X. I found my move to OS X to be less confusing that when I first used Solaris heavily (I could never find anything).
The most hospitable extra-planetary arrangement we can achieve, still seems *far* more hostile than the worst-case scenario on earth. Nuclear winter, high radiation, global warming, and whatever you can come up with, still result in a more hospitable environment than the Moon, Mars, and so forth. Building appropriate bunkers, protection, sheilding, underground worlds, fortresses, etc., on earth, would be far, far, far, easier than trying to launch enough equipment out of orbit, and transport it far enough, to do it in an offworld environment with little to no atmosphere, wild temperatures, incredible radiation, and so forth...
I agree space exploration is good for mankind in other ways (learning, reaching, proving what can be accomplished, furthering science); but as a salvation path for colonization of the planets by mankind, I really don't think so.
There's nothing that can't be built in space or on another planet, that can't be built *far* more easily on even the most hostile future of earth. The power of gravity alone pretty much ensures that. (Short of a super nova of the sun; and I think the human race will be long gone by factors *way* beyond our control, on that time scale.)
I'd definitely recommend getting a more industry-specific graduate degree. Advanced degrees in computer science are common. Someone with a strong degree in C.S., with a post-graduate in a specific field, will be golden (assuming the field of choice isn't dying itself).
It's so incredibly hard to find computing/programming/design talent for specific industries; typically, you get a CS-only person, with no knowledge of the domain, trying to implement a solution for a domain-only person, with no knowledge of C.S. It's a painful process. There's incrdible value for being a strong computer programmer/designer in a specialized field. Again, assuming the field is lucrative to start with.
I'd look at the best-paying fields in general, and find one that piques your interest. Learn more about it, and see if it's something you'd be passionate about, and that would reward you well. Then go for it.
I had a lot of programming experience prior to reaching university; so I took a B.Comm. to start, then finished with an M.Sc. Best choices I've ever made. Having business case insight, and a strong programming/design ability, has really helped me achieve things I wouldn't have been able to, otherwise.
I saw one at a car show in Toronto many years back. I barely touched the side mirror, and it fell off in my hand. I've heard the rest of the vehicle was made with the same level of quality...
I get a kick out of this line: "In a continuing sprit [sic] of openness,"
Aside from the typo, hasn't trying to crack Skype's closed down, locked, encrypted protocol been one of the ongoing challenges in the VOIP world?
I'm glad they're opening it up, but I suspect it's more out of fear, competition, or general business troubles that they're grasping into a slightly different market.
Although I should add, it sure sounds like the Gods used an encrypted, secure channel for that transmission, rather than broadcasting it to the world...
"In 1988, during prolonged deep meditation in a Himalayan cave, David received a mystical transmission of the Esoteric Teaching, the confidential meta-knowledge behind all genuine spiritual paths. This revelation, recounted in his book Search for the Absolute Truth, completed his education in the transcendental mysteries of spiritual life, opening to him the secret pathway to complete self-realization."
Good to know you put that under creative commons, rather than DRM'ing it:)
When I had a major photo sharing site on the 'Net circa '98-'01, we hosted a lot of user data, to the tune of 50M photos. They were all backed up, regularly and religiously. To multiple media. They were stored on RAID to start with, so any hardware failure was dealt with. Then we had mag tape as a primary backup, stored offsite. And we even did a dump to DVD now and then. With a site that lives and dies on user's content, backup (and restore!) is critical to your survival.
Screwing this up is gross negligence, IMHO. Especially where RAID and redundant servers are so incredibly cheap nowadays. (And we were stashing entire photos from digital cameras; these guys were storing bookmarks... Tiny!)
Let's consider what The Woz did for floppies Back In The Day. While the early floppy drives are to modern drives the way the Wright Brothers plane is comparable to the B2 Stealth Bomber.... the fact is, The Woz turned the industry on its head. While in one light his contributions can be viewed as an incremental improvement, in every other light, HOLY CRAP HE KICKED SO MUCH ASS when it came to primordial microcomputer disk controllers. He proved that the highest-tech, super-chip-count hyper-expensive controllers could be implemented with a handful of chips.
It is interesting the way he accomplished this, too; he used software to do more of the work. Other traditional floppy controllers of the day had hard-step servo motors that would have to step to exactly the right physical track on the disk on order to work; "hard sectored" drives were also common, where there were actually 10 or so hole punched in disk, viewable view a little hole, to find where each sector is. If your track alignment was off on your drive, you were screwed, and had to have it readjusted.
When I first used an Apple drive, I was amazed at it's "swishhhhh/swish" sound it maded, versus the clunk-clunk of the drives I had used. Instead of making the hardware be so accurate with the seeking, the software would seek to approximately where it though the right track was (a bit more analog-ish, less discrete steps), and read a sector to see how close it came (each sector had a track/sector ID).
If it was off, it would seek a little more in the right direction, and try again, until it nailed the right track. Then, similarly, it would read from the track enough to find the right sector.
A little trial-and-error-ish, but it worked great in practice, and very much reduced the chip count and hardware requirements. Listening to the drive seek, you could hear this trial-and-error occurring; whoooooooosh, whosh! One long seek, then one or more small adjustments to hone in on the right track.
(A modern parallel, would be winprinters and winmodems, where more processing is done on the computer, with the printer/modem itself being dumber.)
That approach is somewhat less relevant nowadays (or at least pushed to the device) when it's cheap to stick a whack of custom processing power right on the devices, but in its day, it was quite inventive.
This off, off, off topic, but I've always found how they treat waiters/waitresses/fast-food-staff to be a great measure of a person. The employees I've known who are rude, impatient, and condescending to such staff, really show how they treat people who aren't "useful" to them. In the long run, I've seen these people come to treat me (their former employer) with the same attitude, when I was no longer "useful" to them. People who are patient and courteous with food staff, typically have been nice to me when I was no longer their employer and of immediate relevance to them.
More than most things, berating a water seems to be something that most closet assholes can't resist (just like "shave and a haircut" for toons:)
cpap.com. Wow, what a totally obscure and probably irrelevant site that happens to have useful reviews.
Although it turns out I have sleep apnea and need a cpap unit (provides positive ventilation when you sleep, opening airways, stopping snoring and apnea). Wholy crap, what are odds. On even more of a side note, if you're tired all the time during the day, check out the possibility that you might not be breathing well during the night. Lack of air during the night (when you may not notice it) can really have a serious impact on your performance during the day. I've heard life-changing reports about the use of cpap units in general, and am looking forward to using one myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Given it was a LiveCD of sorts, I kind of ruled out Windows. Is there any authorized version of a Windows LiveCD? I've seen third party hacks (which are darn cool, for sure), but nothing that would be permitted in an educational institution (legally).
And the network drivers would work with every laptop? That seems hard to believe, unless those personal laptops were standard-issue (all the same spec)...
I think most web designers miss this point these days, but if you specify a width/height to images (and probably a few other tags, in this more complex world), your page *will* render as it's loading. Try it out, you'll be surprised. I've always been commended on how quickly my web pages appear to load, and it's generally due to simply putting width/height tags on images, so the browser knows how to lay things out without actually getting into all the images themselves (when they load).
Why not find what you want, and remove (or have someone) remove the camera. Yes, you'll have warrantee issues. But if you're otherwise stuck, it is a route to consider. Remove the camera, from the inside, apply tape or trim over the glass opening from the inside. It will clearly not be a camera that works.
And, in response to another poster (who said automotive trim might fool some, but when you're caught with the camera still being there, you lose your job), if someone does think you're hiding something, and tries to prove you have a camera, they'll be wrong. The camera won't show up in software, and if they open up the case, there will be no camera there.
It would at least give you the option of getting the hardware you want, sans camera (and yes, sans warrantee; although one could always put it back to send off for service).
If you're not comfortable opening up the equipment, there are many qualified people who are.
I do respect and understand your comments, even if I don't necessarily agree with them 100%. Thanks for stating them so calmly and rationally. I think we could have a good face to face discussion.
However, the thing that freaks me out is that your /. id is DaleGlass, and my real name is Dale Gass (which you couldn't know from my ID).
Sorry, but that really freaks me out that you'd happen to reply to my comment. Either that's an incredible coincence or karma in the universe, or you're stalking me (which I seriously doubt would be worth anyone's while :).
Wow.
-dale
I've made another post here, where I've talked about preferring the BSD-style licenses.
To be balanced, I should mention how I have dispelled FUD related to the GPL in the past.
I've had a couple of products in the past, that used (loosely coupled) a few GPL packages. They were done as web services, so there were no licensing problems (although doesn't the latest GPL start going after that? Ulp.)
Anyhow, GPL was not a problem for us as a web service. However, when the time came that we were approached to license our product to other major players, the question of the GPL came up. These players wanted to run their own web services based upon ours. Fair enough. I told them: "okay, here's our core product; and, by the way, it has these outside dependencies that we won't redistribute, but you'll have to scare up yourself, install yourself, and use yourself." It really wasn't a problem. We listed the GPL requirements, they grabbed them, and fairly used them within the GPL license.
The one thing they couldn't do was modify and shrink wrap the product including those GPL components (without giving away the source). But they just wanted to run their own service, not sell the product for others to run the service, so it was a non-issue. And from our standpoint, we didn't want them to shrink wrap the product and create more competition (our contract specifically forbade it, in fact). In this case, the GPL, somewhat ironically, provided us some protection against them more freely distributing the licensed product. :)
While I appreciate all Stallman and FSF has done, I still prefer the BSD-style license (you're free to do what you want with this code, including not being free with your changes :). Forced freedom isn't true freedom, IMHO. But that's a philosophical debate.
In more practical terms, businesses operate with restrictions. They have fears of licensing problems, code contamination, and lawsuits and such. A less restrictive license such as BSD/Apache/X Windows (which, if I understand correctly, merely require attribution, not giving away your business code if it interfaces too tightly with open source content).
Honestly, what's the problem with BSD over GPL? So I take a BSD kernel (for example), hack it up with my fancy mods, resell it as a proprietary product. I am required to note, hey, this product uses BSD software under the hood. Any competitor is free to grab the same base software, and apply his own talents to competing with me.
I take a a GNU product, apply some of my special magic to it, and I'm screwed (businesswise, at least). I have to give away any enhancements I make. Blah. LGPL at least lets me use compilers, interpreted languages, libraries, and so on, as a bit of dodge. (I feel LGPL only exists because if it didn't, everybody would run screaming from GPL, and it would have died long ago. I can't link to a freakin' library without releasing my code? No thanks.)
I think that bears repeating: LGPL has helped keep GPL'd software in use. That a sign there's a problem there, IMO. With the lines between libraries, compilation, interpreters, interfacing, web access, becoming blurred (and Stallman wanting web services to have to release code), I think it's becoming more and more of a problem.
In a perfect happy world where all our needs and wants and income is taken care of, GPL all the way, man... But in world where one has to express one's talents to make a living, the socialistic ideal of GPL just doesn't jive with business.
In practice, I use GPL'd software a lot, and I am appreciative. But other than for the odd bug fix, I shy away from *ever* touching the source code, period; from a business standpoint, it'd be death.
On BSD style code I've used, I've gone in, made enhancements, and redistributed things; and when I found bugs in the core of the stuff I've worked with, I've contributed back. (But not my new, proprietary enhancements.) So I've been motivated to contribute more to the BSD-style-license world, than the GPL one.
If I'm rich some day, and can afford to work on some projects for free, I will likely contribute to GPL projects as much (although I still have the restricted-freedom philosophical problem). But while I'm in business, I won't spend any significant amount of time enhancing GPL code. It's sad, but it's a harsh reality of our world.
I remember Minix. Before there was Linux, Minix was around. It was my first exposure to a Unix-like operating system on a PC. It was surprisingly lean and elegant and Unix-like. I still have the box of floppies. I remember recompiling and modifying the operating system. It was indeed quite a powerful tool, and I dare say an important precursor to Linux.
(When I first heard about Linux, I had incorrectly assumed it was an evolution of Linux.)
I see a lot of people bashing Minix here; I don't think it will replace Linux by any means, but it is an important historical OS, IMHO.
Wiki notes (about Linux):
Tell that to GM. On my Venture (and my former Montana), I wanted to upgrade the player to handle MP3's. I couldn't. The radio was an integral part of the data bus for the vehicle. Various bits of status for the vehicle can show up on the stereo's display; and the "ping ping ping" when you leave a door open or the lights on, actually plays through that stereo. Neat, but pretty freakin' locked down.
(Surprisingly, having started out with Hondas, which seemed to decline in quality [loved my '84 Civic, hated my '89 Civic], that's my biggest complain about the Venture/Montana. I'm coming to like GM vehicles, God help me. Hope they survive.)
There is an aux input on the stereo, but instead of being a simple input jack, it requires a $100 cable to interface to standard audio gear. Feh.
Thankfully, I have recently switched myself (and my clients) over to Postgresql.
It was a sad day when Oracle got the rights to the InnoDB engine, but at least MySQL itself was in the hands of Sun.
With Oracle now owning all the rights to what is probably the biggest free competitor, I think the open source world shouldn't put much stock or investment into MySQL.
I've been quite impressed with the performance and straight-forwardness of PostGres, and will continue to happily use it. I was alawys keeping MySQL in the back of my mind, to try out now and then, but with this announcement, I doubt it'll be worthwhile.
Is there any anti-trust factors to this? Oracle, being a dominant database player, and buying up the biggest open source database?
Aside from that, I find this all very sad. Sun was one of the Unix innvators from the earliest days. Even when they grow large, they still seemed like a "cool company." Healey used to personally answer emails I would send him. Oracle seems to be the antithesis of this; major, corporate, gouging, monster... One can only hope that some of Sun's culture and products will survive.
I think there is a middle ground, that equates to telepresence. Yes, an offline copy of the data collected, but modelled in enough detail, that actions to be carried out remotely, are simulated first, locally. Okay, we got a good copy of the remote world, in incredible detail; now, we reach down, scoop up some dirt, put it in the oven. Okay, simluation went fine, with appropriate estimated feedback, etc.. Send it to be executed, and download the new view of things.
I guess it is effectively what the mars explorers have done, althoguh without the fancy VR stuff. NASA engineers have the understanding and internal models and imagination to have that VR sense of the scene in their heads, from the data they receive. The main difference would be increasing the number and types of sensors sent; although NASA already decides what is the best price/weight/performance of sensors within their budget, so this type of gradual improvement will continue as technologies improve.
I don't necessarily think it's the most effective goal to enable Joe Six-pack to be able to experience things in a dumbed-down full quality VR, when NASA scientists can get the same "sense" with far fewer sensors, and allocate their instrumentation in the way that suits them best.
I never understood this viewpoint. THe most devestated earth we can imagine, surely is more hospitable than the most pristine of the other planets. Even with little or no atmosphere, and high radiation, no food, etc., etc., surviving on earth would *still* be far easier than on any of the known planets. Plus, we don't have to use phenomenal amounts of energy to get there.
What scenario could possibly make surviving on earth, harder than living on the best of other planets? (Even if we were forced underground, that's *far* simpler, and already been done, than establishing a colony off-world.) I just don't think the numbers add up for getting any significant number of humans off-world to create a new society.
Commie!
Seriously, though, what you suggest reeks of socialism. And I say that as a compliment. I'm from Canada. If I get deathly ill, I know I won't lose my house (modest as it is). I think, as a society, people need to decide if basic necessities should be a right for the members of the society. If I'm to be part of this society, I'll contribute what I can; in exchange, I receive certain basics in return. I know I'll be fed and cared for in the worst case, and receive medical attention. *And*, I'll be able to attain reasonable transport around the area, efficiently, and for a modest cost. As much as I agree with free markets, I do believe part of what belonging to a society should mean, is that certain basic essential services are part of the deal (with a reasonable contribution by myself).
Agreed. And going between Linux/Solaris/HPUX/AIX or whatever, is every bit as different as going between those and OS X. I found my move to OS X to be less confusing that when I first used Solaris heavily (I could never find anything).
I agree; and further to your point:
The most hospitable extra-planetary arrangement we can achieve, still seems *far* more hostile than the worst-case scenario on earth. Nuclear winter, high radiation, global warming, and whatever you can come up with, still result in a more hospitable environment than the Moon, Mars, and so forth. Building appropriate bunkers, protection, sheilding, underground worlds, fortresses, etc., on earth, would be far, far, far, easier than trying to launch enough equipment out of orbit, and transport it far enough, to do it in an offworld environment with little to no atmosphere, wild temperatures, incredible radiation, and so forth...
I agree space exploration is good for mankind in other ways (learning, reaching, proving what can be accomplished, furthering science); but as a salvation path for colonization of the planets by mankind, I really don't think so.
There's nothing that can't be built in space or on another planet, that can't be built *far* more easily on even the most hostile future of earth. The power of gravity alone pretty much ensures that. (Short of a super nova of the sun; and I think the human race will be long gone by factors *way* beyond our control, on that time scale.)
I'd definitely recommend getting a more industry-specific graduate degree. Advanced degrees in computer science are common. Someone with a strong degree in C.S., with a post-graduate in a specific field, will be golden (assuming the field of choice isn't dying itself).
It's so incredibly hard to find computing/programming/design talent for specific industries; typically, you get a CS-only person, with no knowledge of the domain, trying to implement a solution for a domain-only person, with no knowledge of C.S. It's a painful process. There's incrdible value for being a strong computer programmer/designer in a specialized field. Again, assuming the field is lucrative to start with.
I'd look at the best-paying fields in general, and find one that piques your interest. Learn more about it, and see if it's something you'd be passionate about, and that would reward you well. Then go for it.
I had a lot of programming experience prior to reaching university; so I took a B.Comm. to start, then finished with an M.Sc. Best choices I've ever made. Having business case insight, and a strong programming/design ability, has really helped me achieve things I wouldn't have been able to, otherwise.
I saw one at a car show in Toronto many years back. I barely touched the side mirror, and it fell off in my hand. I've heard the rest of the vehicle was made with the same level of quality...
I get a kick out of this line: "In a continuing sprit [sic] of openness,"
Aside from the typo, hasn't trying to crack Skype's closed down, locked, encrypted protocol been one of the ongoing challenges in the VOIP world?
I'm glad they're opening it up, but I suspect it's more out of fear, competition, or general business troubles that they're grasping into a slightly different market.
Although I should add, it sure sounds like the Gods used an encrypted, secure channel for that transmission, rather than broadcasting it to the world...
Is this you?
"In 1988, during prolonged deep meditation in a Himalayan cave, David received a mystical transmission of the Esoteric Teaching, the confidential meta-knowledge behind all genuine spiritual paths. This revelation, recounted in his book Search for the Absolute Truth, completed his education in the transcendental mysteries of spiritual life, opening to him the secret pathway to complete self-realization."
Good to know you put that under creative commons, rather than DRM'ing it :)
When I had a major photo sharing site on the 'Net circa '98-'01, we hosted a lot of user data, to the tune of 50M photos. They were all backed up, regularly and religiously. To multiple media. They were stored on RAID to start with, so any hardware failure was dealt with. Then we had mag tape as a primary backup, stored offsite. And we even did a dump to DVD now and then. With a site that lives and dies on user's content, backup (and restore!) is critical to your survival.
Screwing this up is gross negligence, IMHO. Especially where RAID and redundant servers are so incredibly cheap nowadays. (And we were stashing entire photos from digital cameras; these guys were storing bookmarks... Tiny!)
It is interesting the way he accomplished this, too; he used software to do more of the work. Other traditional floppy controllers of the day had hard-step servo motors that would have to step to exactly the right physical track on the disk on order to work; "hard sectored" drives were also common, where there were actually 10 or so hole punched in disk, viewable view a little hole, to find where each sector is. If your track alignment was off on your drive, you were screwed, and had to have it readjusted.
When I first used an Apple drive, I was amazed at it's "swishhhhh/swish" sound it maded, versus the clunk-clunk of the drives I had used. Instead of making the hardware be so accurate with the seeking, the software would seek to approximately where it though the right track was (a bit more analog-ish, less discrete steps), and read a sector to see how close it came (each sector had a track/sector ID).
If it was off, it would seek a little more in the right direction, and try again, until it nailed the right track. Then, similarly, it would read from the track enough to find the right sector.
A little trial-and-error-ish, but it worked great in practice, and very much reduced the chip count and hardware requirements. Listening to the drive seek, you could hear this trial-and-error occurring; whoooooooosh, whosh! One long seek, then one or more small adjustments to hone in on the right track.
(A modern parallel, would be winprinters and winmodems, where more processing is done on the computer, with the printer/modem itself being dumber.)
That approach is somewhat less relevant nowadays (or at least pushed to the device) when it's cheap to stick a whack of custom processing power right on the devices, but in its day, it was quite inventive.
This off, off, off topic, but I've always found how they treat waiters/waitresses/fast-food-staff to be a great measure of a person. The employees I've known who are rude, impatient, and condescending to such staff, really show how they treat people who aren't "useful" to them. In the long run, I've seen these people come to treat me (their former employer) with the same attitude, when I was no longer "useful" to them. People who are patient and courteous with food staff, typically have been nice to me when I was no longer their employer and of immediate relevance to them.
More than most things, berating a water seems to be something that most closet assholes can't resist (just like "shave and a haircut" for toons :)
And won't someone *please* think of the drug dealers?!?!???
cpap.com. Wow, what a totally obscure and probably irrelevant site that happens to have useful reviews.
Although it turns out I have sleep apnea and need a cpap unit (provides positive ventilation when you sleep, opening airways, stopping snoring and apnea). Wholy crap, what are odds. On even more of a side note, if you're tired all the time during the day, check out the possibility that you might not be breathing well during the night. Lack of air during the night (when you may not notice it) can really have a serious impact on your performance during the day. I've heard life-changing reports about the use of cpap units in general, and am looking forward to using one myself.