I have an audio-server box that I've avoided installing X on. It's a glorified file server that sits with my TV & audio components, but it also has a DVD-ROM drive and video card with composite output plus a DXR2 decoder card that I'm not exploiting. I enjoy the minimal command-line and console style interface on that box, and I don't accumulate a lot of extra processes or libraries. So is it possible for me to play back DVDs (or DiVXs) from the command-line without X? ie, the app would send the output to the DXR2's composite/s-video output, or possibly to a full-screen VGA buffer? (ie, I don't want/need a windowed GUI environment on this box)
Your point is clear, yes. However, you're talking about the "risks" of winning. That's more along the lines of "be careful what you wish for", as opposed to taking on real risks to attain your goal. SETI@home doesn't really require anyone to take risks, make sacrifices, etc. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. It's all quite civilized and safe, really. That's great. My point was that this quest is in stark contrast to those which require true risk, like landing on the moon, circumnavigating the globe, summitting Everest, a manned mission to Mars, etc. It's all good though.
The nerd who computes the alien-confirming SETI@home work unit won't go down like Neil Armstrong or Sir Edmund Hillary in my book.
Quantum encryption has the very unique feature of snoop-detection. OTP by itself is a method to encrypt. But it does nothing to address detecting whether someone is reading your messages. If your message is "unbreakable", that's a good thing, but knowing that someone is listening is important for some applications. (Just as steganography is useful for some applications.)
That's a quote from Alexander Smith, by the way. I think it's true. People are likening the SETI@home project to a noble challenge that citizens should be rallying behind, as if it's the "race to the moon" of the present day. Well, I'll tell you... I'm 100% behind the concept and philosophy of SETI@home and I've dedicated many a CPU-year to it. But let's face it... we can't "lose" and nothing is really on the line here. Where's the glory in it if there's no guts risked?
Well, unless you count burned fingers on the heatsink of an overclocked SETI@home machine.:-P
Is this not the origin of trial by one's peers which has metamorphed into trial by 12 Joe Randoms
Historically, you might be right. But historic justic also involved trial and execution on-the-spot of suspected witches, etc. So careful there!
I would substitute "evolved" for "metamorphed". The jury watches and ultimately decides, while the lawyers (and accusers & defendants) present arguments to them, ultimately trying to manipulate them into a desired decision. Is it easier to manipulate 12 randoms or 12 people with the same background, world outlook, philosophy, economic interests, etc.? I'd argue that decisions will be more objective, fair, and less suspect of corruption if jurors were selected more-or-less randomly.
when you plug your laptop into the global network, you can re-map your cpus for a given application to the supercomputing cluster in shanghai, the storage vault in the Caymans, and the 12 gig removable drive on the workstation next to you, and the application you wrote sees nothing different at all.
Sounds good. So why can't I accomplish the same thing by coding on a platform such as Java (cross-CPU/cross-OS) and simply map my storage to wherever I want (via SMB/NMB on Win32 or NFS on Linux/BSD/Unix). My application would see nothing different at all.
That's cute. But a "peer" is not someone who needs to look, live, and act like you, or certainly not work in the same industry as you. If I was on trial, I wouldn't expect a jury of entrepreneurs my age with a computer science background who lived in the same neighborhood as me and with the same aspirations as me. That would be just plain creepy and unnecessary. Not to mention easily swayed or manipulated. Variety is good. Consider how scary the jury would have to be to put a serial killer, pedophile, or terrorist on trial according to your standards!
if you are sure you are not using lots of pirated software... then you'll be fine... just give them the info you have...
Whoa! Isn't that like submitting to being searched by John Doe at the side of the road just because you're certain you have nothing to hide from him? Please, please, please heed every else's advice here and stock up on some copyright/software/IT lawyers. Repeat after me, "the BSA is a private interest group", "the BSA is not an elected or state-imposed authority", etc...
I find the name Bart Decrem awkward and offensive. "Bart" is a very abrupt name, and its final "t" combines with the following "D" in an indistinct and wishy-washy way when spoken. The last name is ambiguous, leaving me wondering if I pronounced it correctly (hard or soft "c", and short or long "e"s) or whether I placed the emphasis on the correct syllable. The spelling is questionable and unmemorable, and is likely to cause confusion in the US and Asian markets. Therefore, I propose we retire these names, do not speak them anymore, and stop naming people with them. Bart Decrem is clearly a man good for the Linux world, but he deserves a better name, if only for marketing and aesthetic reasons.
Bart, naming aside, that was an insightful interview. Thanks.
My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).
My tunes are in an iPod and also played via headphones. No watch or phone required. No wireless snooping or hacking of my devices or my activities. I win.
Some have suggesting coding is like writing a novel. But consider that it may be more like creating (free-form) poetry, since coders are one of the priveleged very few who can create the language, grammar, and all the rules themselves and then use that language, grammar, and rules to craft the end experience.
When a carpenter or sculptor or engineer tells me they built a never-conceived-of-before tool to solve a specific problem, I smile broadly. I'm happy for them to experience that kind of magic. And I'm happier that I work in a profession that lets us do that kind of thing every single day, cheaper, and with fewer boundaries than anyone else. Sure, the hardware-design camp gets to build amazing physical gadgetry, but not nearly as often, and always under heavier material constraints.
"The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination." -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. "The Mythical Man Month"
Would copyright law apply?
on
GPL's Strength
·
· Score: 2
If the user doesn't accept the terms of the GPL, the default is for copying and redistribution to be forbidden under copyright law.
I understand your point, but IANAL, so are you sure that the "default" would apply? Does copyright law apply to a work published in that manner? (Maybe by using the word "publish", I've answered my own question!) I'm talking about technicalities such as not including the "Copyright" message, etc.?
You did once. And then TWICE, when you didn't bother to remove or rename the story while the ending had not yet aired yet for a significant percentage of your readership. Oh, sorry, you mentioned you're "loathe" to do that.
Time to burn off some karma and moderating rights here...
CHRISD, why the hell did you put your meek apology up there (under the story, of all places), and then keep the headline in tact?!
I had the episode somewhat spoiled for my by your thoughtless headline, but you could have minimized the damage to others by pulling or changing the headline! You're not printing uncorrectable newspapers here! Use the medium, for god's sake.
Spoiling the ending of one of the all-time nerdest TV shows for an audience of nerds should be a capital offense on a "news for nerds" site. Realizing the damage done and then not bothering to minimize for subsequent readers isn't even forgivable. CHRISD, you're a real piece of work.
CHRISD is an idiot for allowing this spoiler
on
The Lone Gunmen Are Dead
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
My answer was: The machines crash every day. Why should it matter if it happens on [insert-date-here]?
It matters because, while machines crash every day, they don't generally crash at predetermined times and in large numbers. Multiple computers (possibly serving as backups for each other) that are systematically "scheduled" to crash at or around the same time clearly have a larger impact than isolated, random, daily crashes.
Consider the analogy of cars breaking down. It happens all the time and any one incident is easily worked around. However, if there is reason to believe that a large number of cars are all going to stop working at the same time or around the same location, it could result in traffic gridlocks or blocking essential services.
NPD Research claims 98.3% have Flash
on
Flash and Open Source
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I see some people posting here saying "oh, don't develop for Flash; nobody bothers to install those plugins". Well, I was curious myself, so a quick Google search turned up this: (from a Whitepaper on Macromedia's website(!), but the NPD Research numbers should be easily confirmable)
"In December 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."
Take it for what it's worth. Seems amazingly high to me though.
Laptops are quieter all-round
on
No-click Mouse?
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· Score: 2
Laptop keyboards tend to be of the mushy, non-clicking variety. The hard disks and fans tend to be quieter than desktop equivalents. And, to answer your question, the the pointing device (whatever you call it) on my IBM Thinkpad and its 3 buttons are essentially silent. Mushy, but with some physical feedback so you know contact was made. Satisfying to use. Anyways, something to consider.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an audio-server box that I've avoided installing X on. It's a glorified file server that sits with my TV & audio components, but it also has a DVD-ROM drive and video card with composite output plus a DXR2 decoder card that I'm not exploiting. I enjoy the minimal command-line and console style interface on that box, and I don't accumulate a lot of extra processes or libraries. So is it possible for me to play back DVDs (or DiVXs) from the command-line without X? ie, the app would send the output to the DXR2's composite/s-video output, or possibly to a full-screen VGA buffer? (ie, I don't want/need a windowed GUI environment on this box)
It always seems to point south. Bah!
;-)
Now I can only look forward to cheering the first year with my beloved.
You've had a Real Doll for a year now? How time flies. Post a review!
Your point is clear, yes. However, you're talking about the "risks" of winning. That's more along the lines of "be careful what you wish for", as opposed to taking on real risks to attain your goal. SETI@home doesn't really require anyone to take risks, make sacrifices, etc. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. It's all quite civilized and safe, really. That's great. My point was that this quest is in stark contrast to those which require true risk, like landing on the moon, circumnavigating the globe, summitting Everest, a manned mission to Mars, etc. It's all good though.
The nerd who computes the alien-confirming SETI@home work unit won't go down like Neil Armstrong or Sir Edmund Hillary in my book.
Quantum encryption has the very unique feature of snoop-detection. OTP by itself is a method to encrypt. But it does nothing to address detecting whether someone is reading your messages. If your message is "unbreakable", that's a good thing, but knowing that someone is listening is important for some applications. (Just as steganography is useful for some applications.)
That's a quote from Alexander Smith, by the way. I think it's true. People are likening the SETI@home project to a noble challenge that citizens should be rallying behind, as if it's the "race to the moon" of the present day. Well, I'll tell you... I'm 100% behind the concept and philosophy of SETI@home and I've dedicated many a CPU-year to it. But let's face it... we can't "lose" and nothing is really on the line here. Where's the glory in it if there's no guts risked?
:-P
Well, unless you count burned fingers on the heatsink of an overclocked SETI@home machine.
Is this not the origin of trial by one's peers which has metamorphed into trial by 12 Joe Randoms
Historically, you might be right. But historic justic also involved trial and execution on-the-spot of suspected witches, etc. So careful there!
I would substitute "evolved" for "metamorphed". The jury watches and ultimately decides, while the lawyers (and accusers & defendants) present arguments to them, ultimately trying to manipulate them into a desired decision. Is it easier to manipulate 12 randoms or 12 people with the same background, world outlook, philosophy, economic interests, etc.? I'd argue that decisions will be more objective, fair, and less suspect of corruption if jurors were selected more-or-less randomly.
when you plug your laptop into the global network, you can re-map your cpus for a given application to the supercomputing cluster in shanghai, the storage vault in the Caymans, and the 12 gig removable drive on the workstation next to you, and the application you wrote sees nothing different at all.
Sounds good. So why can't I accomplish the same thing by coding on a platform such as Java (cross-CPU/cross-OS) and simply map my storage to wherever I want (via SMB/NMB on Win32 or NFS on Linux/BSD/Unix). My application would see nothing different at all.
That's cute. But a "peer" is not someone who needs to look, live, and act like you, or certainly not work in the same industry as you. If I was on trial, I wouldn't expect a jury of entrepreneurs my age with a computer science background who lived in the same neighborhood as me and with the same aspirations as me. That would be just plain creepy and unnecessary. Not to mention easily swayed or manipulated. Variety is good. Consider how scary the jury would have to be to put a serial killer, pedophile, or terrorist on trial according to your standards!
if you are sure you are not using lots of pirated software... then you'll be fine... just give them the info you have...
Whoa! Isn't that like submitting to being searched by John Doe at the side of the road just because you're certain you have nothing to hide from him? Please, please, please heed every else's advice here and stock up on some copyright/software/IT lawyers. Repeat after me, "the BSA is a private interest group", "the BSA is not an elected or state-imposed authority", etc...
I find the name Bart Decrem awkward and offensive. "Bart" is a very abrupt name, and its final "t" combines with the following "D" in an indistinct and wishy-washy way when spoken. The last name is ambiguous, leaving me wondering if I pronounced it correctly (hard or soft "c", and short or long "e"s) or whether I placed the emphasis on the correct syllable. The spelling is questionable and unmemorable, and is likely to cause confusion in the US and Asian markets. Therefore, I propose we retire these names, do not speak them anymore, and stop naming people with them. Bart Decrem is clearly a man good for the Linux world, but he deserves a better name, if only for marketing and aesthetic reasons.
Bart, naming aside, that was an insightful interview. Thanks.
Incorrect. if you have no freedom of will. You can't even think of crime.
That's not the point. When freedoms are taken away, that act in itself is a crime. Thus, crime exists where freedom is not.
Only where freedom is, can crime exist.
Incorrect. Crime also exists, by default, where freedom is not.
My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).
My tunes are in an iPod and also played via headphones. No watch or phone required. No wireless snooping or hacking of my devices or my activities. I win.
Some have suggesting coding is like writing a novel. But consider that it may be more like creating (free-form) poetry, since coders are one of the priveleged very few who can create the language, grammar, and all the rules themselves and then use that language, grammar, and rules to craft the end experience.
When a carpenter or sculptor or engineer tells me they built a never-conceived-of-before tool to solve a specific problem, I smile broadly. I'm happy for them to experience that kind of magic. And I'm happier that I work in a profession that lets us do that kind of thing every single day, cheaper, and with fewer boundaries than anyone else. Sure, the hardware-design camp gets to build amazing physical gadgetry, but not nearly as often, and always under heavier material constraints.
"The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination."
-- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. "The Mythical Man Month"
If the user doesn't accept the terms of the GPL, the default is for copying and redistribution to be forbidden under copyright law.
I understand your point, but IANAL, so are you sure that the "default" would apply? Does copyright law apply to a work published in that manner? (Maybe by using the word "publish", I've answered my own question!) I'm talking about technicalities such as not including the "Copyright" message, etc.?
I didn't mean to ruin it for anyone
You did once. And then TWICE, when you didn't bother to remove or rename the story while the ending had not yet aired yet for a significant percentage of your readership. Oh, sorry, you mentioned you're "loathe" to do that.
Time to burn off some karma and moderating rights here...
CHRISD, why the hell did you put your meek apology up there (under the story, of all places), and then keep the headline in tact?!
I had the episode somewhat spoiled for my by your thoughtless headline, but you could have minimized the damage to others by pulling or changing the headline! You're not printing uncorrectable newspapers here! Use the medium, for god's sake.
Spoiling the ending of one of the all-time nerdest TV shows for an audience of nerds should be a capital offense on a "news for nerds" site. Realizing the damage done and then not bothering to minimize for subsequent readers isn't even forgivable. CHRISD, you're a real piece of work.
a fscking gdbm idiot.
From the article: I don't have any genius definition of "good UI"; I'm not a UI expert.
Super. I stopped reading right about there.
soon nobody will ever do any work!
Seems like this problem should work itself out then.
My answer was: The machines crash every day. Why should it matter if it happens on [insert-date-here]?
It matters because, while machines crash every day, they don't generally crash at predetermined times and in large numbers. Multiple computers (possibly serving as backups for each other) that are systematically "scheduled" to crash at or around the same time clearly have a larger impact than isolated, random, daily crashes.
Consider the analogy of cars breaking down. It happens all the time and any one incident is easily worked around. However, if there is reason to believe that a large number of cars are all going to stop working at the same time or around the same location, it could result in traffic gridlocks or blocking essential services.
I see some people posting here saying "oh, don't develop for Flash; nobody bothers to install those plugins". Well, I was curious myself, so a quick Google search turned up this: (from a Whitepaper on Macromedia's website(!), but the NPD Research numbers should be easily confirmable)
"In December 2001, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash preinstalled. The results show that 98.3% of Web users can experience Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."
Take it for what it's worth. Seems amazingly high to me though.
Laptop keyboards tend to be of the mushy, non-clicking variety. The hard disks and fans tend to be quieter than desktop equivalents. And, to answer your question, the the pointing device (whatever you call it) on my IBM Thinkpad and its 3 buttons are essentially silent. Mushy, but with some physical feedback so you know contact was made. Satisfying to use. Anyways, something to consider.
Used to be, I'd do it just for the love of it (and to save some dough). Now, it's usually just a pain in the ass.
;-)
Congratulations. You're no longer a hacker. You're a consumer. Enjoy your appliances.