This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important- you're insane.
There, that's a little more in perspective now isn't it.
I would think any potential service interruptions (and reasonably, there would be some with any large migration) would be much less embarrassing than the continued reminder that their marketing promises are just so much bull.
Just like my title says, all marketing promises are bull. The engineers who have to keep this stuff running know that. They have no pride in their product, they know it sucks. They have pride in their sites and reliability, but to assume that a company must use it's own product, which the engineers know to be less reliable, just because the marketing bozos are spouting off about it? That's silly. Since when has Marketing ever taken engineering into consideration before they begin their BS spreading? Why should engineers take marketing's BS into consideration when choosing a platform for their servers?
Steven
Video games sure held my attention as a kid
on
Video Games and ADD
·
· Score: 1
I remember sitting in front of Leather Goddesses of Phoebos and Leisure Suit Larry for hours on end. My attention span has never been longer.
The first time I saw it was on a program I got from Tom Christiansen's code archives. If he said it originally, or if he quoted it from somewhere, I don't know. But I do remember it wasn't attributed to anyone else.
Although the Yorktown did not have backup systems, Redman said that future Smart Ships will have systems redundancy to ensure that ships can continue to operate.
I can see it now.
[Primary system failure]
BSOD- Divide by zero error
[Switch to backup NT systems]
BSOD- Divide by zero error
[SDIW- Ship Dead In Water]
Commander: "What the... Fucking Windows NT! Get Bill Gates in here."
[Bill Gates enters]
Commander: "You told us SP6 would be more stable, faster and have better failure protection."
Bill: "It does, it's over 400 times less likely to.."[BLAM, Commander blows his head off]
Yes I shamelessly stole this scenario from the Southpark movie.
It's worse than that. Google is fuX0red because they actually cache pages. So they actually have copies of the offending code on their servers. Google, prepare to feel the wrath of Judge Kaplan.
Remember the story about the French judge ordering Yahoo to restrict all access to Nazi perephenelia and information from people coming from French sites? Here's the first step towards the US doing it. We now have something so verboten (DeCSS) that we're not even allowed to LINK to it. How long before they start pulling tactics like Sony is proposing(ie firewalling at every level including ISP and PC)? To protect intellectual property of course.
I mean, when was the last time anyone paid attention to a Heckler? They're worse than trolls, just sitting around making fun of people and trying to annoy the performers. Screw them, do not feed the Heckler. Starve him at your cable company, starve him at your phone company, starve him at your ISP. Starve him at your PC!
In the cartoon the new batsuit is strength-enhancing, has powers of flight, infrared vision, and a ton of other neat gizmos. To see that translated into movie "magic" would either bring about a really great movie, or a really cheesy one. I hope they do a better job showing _Terry's_(Not Tim, regardless of what the article said) suffering over his fathers death. After all that's probably the only thing that makes Wayne sympathetic to him in the final analysis.
Why do we keep seeing stories like this? Has Linux advocacy become nothing more than Microsoft bashing? All we keep seeing is stuff about how NT sucks, and how Linux is taking market share. All this is good. But the way it's being expressed here bothers me. There are a group of people who flaunt any little superiority they have over anyone else. Grammar Nazis are a subset of this group, they bring nothing useful to the discussion, but they just want us all to know they are better at expressing themselves, and by implication, a better person(don't flame me for this, you know that's how it comes across, no matter how it was intended, and if you start into me saying I should have addressed intent instead of semantics all you'll get from me is "pot, kettle")
I know we should celebrate occasions like this one, when the Linux movement makes strides, but what really bothers me is the inevitable "Take THAT Microsoft!" kind of attitude that's displayed. Are we out to build a better world, or just to tear down Gates?
Hmm, good suggestions, wish I could use them:(.
Short answer: I don't have control over how the piston is constructed.
Long answer: Here's the deal. I'm trying to stay completely Lego here, nothing you can't go to Toys 'R' Us and buy. The pneumatic sets(at least the modern ones) have a double input plunger and a single output pump. In my experiences, once there is pressure in the lines, you don't really lose it, the pneumatic nail guns don't keep the air pressure, they release it so the spring can pull the piston back. The Lego pneumatic cylinders, once charged, will keep their charge unless you break the circuit fully.
I wish/. wasn't so damn crappily coded, or I could use some ASCII art to demonstrate this, but basically, once I throw the switch, the pressurized air in the tank is just diverted, not released, into the other input on the plunger and the shaft is forced back down. Since I opened the circut on the other loop(by throwing the switch) the pressurized air on the other side of the piston head is released and the plunger is forced back down pretty quickly. Then I can throw the switch into a neutral position and let the air I wasted(which was the amount of air in the line to the bottom input on the cylinder when I threw the switch to the "retract" position plus the amount of air in the line feeding the upper input) re-charge then I can fire again.
Basically, I don't lose all that much pressure when I fire and retract. It's the slow pumping that's killing me. The only way I have to get the charging pump repeatedly up and down is with a spirograph type action, a long piece tied to a gear at one end and the top of the pump at the other. Unfortunately this only moves the pump the diameter of the gear each rotation, so it's not a full stroke. I can't use a large gear or it puts too much lateral pressure on the pump and bends it instead of pulling it straight down. Grr, it takes forever(on the order of 15 minutes) to charge primarially, but sucessive charge times are much faster(3 minutes or so)
I'm going to switch to a different type of plunger, one with just a single input and figure out a way of re-directing the airflow to make it both suck and blow at different times, the single pin plunger is an older model and has a larger diameter piston head so it'll hit harder.
my guess? Someone started partying early and mistakenly gave all the trolls mod points. The moderation in this thread _is_ really fscked up. I wish I had meta-mod points.
arghhhhh, stop the juices... *gasp* ok, ok, I give in. Warning, incredibly useless creative stuff follows.
For some reason I looked back through the archive of Lego topics on/. and saw the post about bulk ordering. There was a comment about a Lego machine gun which fired 2*4 bricks. I looked at it and saw that it used rubber bands and a hammer mechanism and some kind of hand crank. Suddenly the inspiration hit me. I'll redesign the thing! I'll motorize it and use a pneumatic plunger as a hammer to fire the bricks!
Basic idea. Put a motor on the plunger which charges a compressed air tank so it charges continually. Have two lines running from the tank to the firing plunger controlled through a SPDT switch, when air is put in at the bottom of the firing plunger, it shoots out and knocks the brick down the barrel, when I throw it the other direction, it will allow the compressed air to flow into the upper input on the firing plunger and retract it, allowing another brick to fall into the firing chamber from the clip. And I can even build the switch into the housing so it looks like a trigger.
The only real problem I see is getting the air chamber compressed to the point where there is a decent velocity imparted to the brick when the plunger strikes it. Those motors don't have near the amount of power the old Robotix building set motors did. I'll have to build gear ratios to allow the mechanism to push the compressing plunger down once there is a fair amount of compressed air in the tank already. Of course my upper limit is the working pressure in the rubber lines, I can make the gear ratio something ungodly and put tons and tons of pressure into the chamber, it may take forever to re-pressurize after firing, but that's the only way I can see to get decent velocity out of the firing plunger.
Now I'm going home and build this stupid thing, my kids will love it. I'll post the design when I get it completed.
Allowing the travails of a single industry -- no matter how legitimate its concerns -- to decide the architecture of that arena would be a folly that could take a long time to undo.
Especially when that industry has a long history of screwing the artists. Perhaps neither the RIAA's model nor Napster's model should be used. The RIAA has shown it's colors and Napster doesn't do enough to compensate artists, face facts, artists have to be compensated or all the arts will suffer. Artists have to eat, they have to have supplies, a roof over their heads. If we're not willing to pay something for their product, they'll have to get a mundane job and who knows how many masterpieces will go uncreated because the unrealized artist is sacking groceries.
We need to get some cross-industry feedback before we decide what the "right" thing to do with intellectual property is. The RIAA is _NOT_ the industry we should attempt to emulate.
"Dammit Joe, that's the fifth dog I've had to buy this week. Would you fix the robot so it will stop shooting my dogs"
"Oh damn, I'm sorry Frank, I don't know what keeps getting into him, I'll reprogram him as soon as I get home."
Later(In the Batcave):
$ telnet BeetleBorg
Trying 69.69.69.69...
Connected to BeetleBorg.franksplace.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Linux(SuSe) 6.4
login: MastaJoe
Password:
$ pico shooting.conf
Enemy = new-> Dog;
while (Enemy) {
if (bark){
then shoot(Enemy);
undef Enemy;
}
fi
}
(save and quit)
(Picks up phone and dials)
"Hello Frank? Yea, I just finished reprogramming the bot, you shouldn't have any more problems with it. I'm really sorry about all this, you know how much I love dogs. Gotta run, catch you later? Cool, bye."
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement which believes that information should be available without charge because proprietary impelementations, "Trade Secrets" and current copyright laws stifle innovation and ultimately hurt the consumer.
Would that be better? I don't really think so, because this really strips away any possibility of a creator controlling his creation. I think we're going to have to get away from the concept of Intellectual Property. We can still give people credit for their ideas, but once an idea is out, it's out, and there is no really reliable way to keep it in.
I have been playing around with wine and the latest releases work VERY well with office. Running word, you cannot tell you're not sitting on a windows box.
Unless you look at your uptime, then you'll know you aren't on a WinBlows box.
Which of course is the best development model for beer yet devised. Think about it, instead of some canned, unmodifiable crap from Michelob, or even decent, unmodifiable stuff from Guinness, you can hack your own beer! Always wanted darker color? No problem. More body? As much as you want. Just remember, you have to share your recipies with everyone there.
But no worries, you have no warranty, implied or otherwise, which makes you responsible for how drunk people get from your recipe.
Steven
Creative Juices flowing...must stop...can't..
on
Lego + Linux HOWTO
·
· Score: 1
arghhhhh, stop the juices... *gasp* ok, ok, I give in. Warning, incredibly useless creative stuff follows.
For some reason I looked back through the archive of Lego topics on/. and saw the post about bulk ordering. There was a comment about a Lego machine gun which fired 2*4 bricks. I looked at it and saw that it used rubber bands and a hammer mechanism and some kind of hand crank. Suddenly the inspiration hit me. I'll redesign the thing! I'll motorize it and use a pneumatic plunger as a hammer to fire the bricks!
Basic idea. Put a motor on the plunger which charges a compressed air tank so it charges continually. Have two lines running from the tank to the firing plunger controlled through a SPDT switch, when air is put in at the bottom of the firing plunger, it shoots out and knocks the brick down the barrel, when I throw it the other direction, it will allow the compressed air to flow into the upper input on the firing plunger and retract it, allowing another brick to fall into the firing chamber from the clip. And I can even build the switch into the housing so it looks like a trigger.
The only real problem I see is getting the air chamber compressed to the point where there is a decent velocity imparted to the brick when the plunger strikes it. Those motors don't have near the amount of power the old Robotix building set motors did. I'll have to build gear ratios to allow the mechanism to push the compressing plunger down once there is a fair amount of compressed air in the tank already. Of course my upper limit is the working pressure in the rubber lines, I can make the gear ratio something ungodly and put tons and tons of pressure into the chamber, it may take forever to re-pressurize after firing, but that's the only way I can see to get decent velocity out of the firing plunger.
Now I'm going home and build this stupid thing, my kids will love it. I'll post the design when I get it completed.
Slashdot Mirror
to the simple mathematical truth I'll relate below
NumberOfAppsWhichRunOnWindows NumberOfAppsWhichCrashOnWindows
Why is this so astounding? Well, it's kind of like discovering "Hey I really can cram 2 liters of coke into a dixie cup without spilling any!"
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important- you're insane.
There, that's a little more in perspective now isn't it.
Steven
I would think any potential service interruptions (and reasonably, there would be some with any large migration) would be much less embarrassing than the continued reminder that their marketing promises are just so much bull.
Just like my title says, all marketing promises are bull. The engineers who have to keep this stuff running know that. They have no pride in their product, they know it sucks. They have pride in their sites and reliability, but to assume that a company must use it's own product, which the engineers know to be less reliable, just because the marketing bozos are spouting off about it? That's silly. Since when has Marketing ever taken engineering into consideration before they begin their BS spreading? Why should engineers take marketing's BS into consideration when choosing a platform for their servers?
Steven
I remember sitting in front of Leather Goddesses of Phoebos and Leisure Suit Larry for hours on end. My attention span has never been longer.
Steven
What you need is a pair of the new Alcohol-cooled slacks. Then you can overclock your laptop and not roast your wiener.
Keeps you from embarassing yourself when a hot babe walks by too. "Down Boy! Don't make me turn this thing to 'Arctic'."
Steven
The first time I saw it was on a program I got from Tom Christiansen's code archives. If he said it originally, or if he quoted it from somewhere, I don't know. But I do remember it wasn't attributed to anyone else.
HTH
Steven
Although the Yorktown did not have backup systems, Redman said that future Smart Ships will have systems redundancy to ensure that ships can continue to operate.
I can see it now.
[Primary system failure]
BSOD- Divide by zero error
[Switch to backup NT systems]
BSOD- Divide by zero error
[SDIW- Ship Dead In Water]
Commander: "What the... Fucking Windows NT! Get Bill Gates in here."
[Bill Gates enters]
Commander: "You told us SP6 would be more stable, faster and have better failure protection."
Bill: "It does, it's over 400 times less likely to.."[BLAM, Commander blows his head off]
Yes I shamelessly stole this scenario from the Southpark movie.
Steven
The link is here
It's worse than that. Google is fuX0red because they actually cache pages. So they actually have copies of the offending code on their servers. Google, prepare to feel the wrath of Judge Kaplan.
Remember the story about the French judge ordering Yahoo to restrict all access to Nazi perephenelia and information from people coming from French sites? Here's the first step towards the US doing it. We now have something so verboten (DeCSS) that we're not even allowed to LINK to it. How long before they start pulling tactics like Sony is proposing(ie firewalling at every level including ISP and PC)? To protect intellectual property of course.
Steven
Why not just call yourself, Parrot, Black Parrot.
And whatever you do DON'T rename your PC HAL, cold blooded son-of-a-(@!*$.
I mean, when was the last time anyone paid attention to a Heckler? They're worse than trolls, just sitting around making fun of people and trying to annoy the performers. Screw them, do not feed the Heckler. Starve him at your cable company, starve him at your phone company, starve him at your ISP. Starve him at your PC!
Steven
In the cartoon the new batsuit is strength-enhancing, has powers of flight, infrared vision, and a ton of other neat gizmos. To see that translated into movie "magic" would either bring about a really great movie, or a really cheesy one. I hope they do a better job showing _Terry's_(Not Tim, regardless of what the article said) suffering over his fathers death. After all that's probably the only thing that makes Wayne sympathetic to him in the final analysis.
Steven
spurred on by the need for more realistic pr0n.
Steven
Why do we keep seeing stories like this? Has Linux advocacy become nothing more than Microsoft bashing? All we keep seeing is stuff about how NT sucks, and how Linux is taking market share. All this is good. But the way it's being expressed here bothers me. There are a group of people who flaunt any little superiority they have over anyone else. Grammar Nazis are a subset of this group, they bring nothing useful to the discussion, but they just want us all to know they are better at expressing themselves, and by implication, a better person(don't flame me for this, you know that's how it comes across, no matter how it was intended, and if you start into me saying I should have addressed intent instead of semantics all you'll get from me is "pot, kettle")
I know we should celebrate occasions like this one, when the Linux movement makes strides, but what really bothers me is the inevitable "Take THAT Microsoft!" kind of attitude that's displayed. Are we out to build a better world, or just to tear down Gates?
Steven
Hmm, good suggestions, wish I could use them :(.
/. wasn't so damn crappily coded, or I could use some ASCII art to demonstrate this, but basically, once I throw the switch, the pressurized air in the tank is just diverted, not released, into the other input on the plunger and the shaft is forced back down. Since I opened the circut on the other loop(by throwing the switch) the pressurized air on the other side of the piston head is released and the plunger is forced back down pretty quickly. Then I can throw the switch into a neutral position and let the air I wasted(which was the amount of air in the line to the bottom input on the cylinder when I threw the switch to the "retract" position plus the amount of air in the line feeding the upper input) re-charge then I can fire again.
Short answer: I don't have control over how the piston is constructed.
Long answer: Here's the deal. I'm trying to stay completely Lego here, nothing you can't go to Toys 'R' Us and buy. The pneumatic sets(at least the modern ones) have a double input plunger and a single output pump. In my experiences, once there is pressure in the lines, you don't really lose it, the pneumatic nail guns don't keep the air pressure, they release it so the spring can pull the piston back. The Lego pneumatic cylinders, once charged, will keep their charge unless you break the circuit fully.
I wish
Basically, I don't lose all that much pressure when I fire and retract. It's the slow pumping that's killing me. The only way I have to get the charging pump repeatedly up and down is with a spirograph type action, a long piece tied to a gear at one end and the top of the pump at the other. Unfortunately this only moves the pump the diameter of the gear each rotation, so it's not a full stroke. I can't use a large gear or it puts too much lateral pressure on the pump and bends it instead of pulling it straight down. Grr, it takes forever(on the order of 15 minutes) to charge primarially, but sucessive charge times are much faster(3 minutes or so)
I'm going to switch to a different type of plunger, one with just a single input and figure out a way of re-directing the airflow to make it both suck and blow at different times, the single pin plunger is an older model and has a larger diameter piston head so it'll hit harder.
Wish me luck.
Steven
WHat is going on with the moderation today???
my guess? Someone started partying early and mistakenly gave all the trolls mod points. The moderation in this thread _is_ really fscked up. I wish I had meta-mod points.
Steven
arghhhhh, stop the juices... *gasp* ok, ok, I give in. Warning, incredibly useless creative stuff follows.
/. and saw the post about bulk ordering. There was a comment about a Lego machine gun which fired 2*4 bricks. I looked at it and saw that it used rubber bands and a hammer mechanism and some kind of hand crank. Suddenly the inspiration hit me. I'll redesign the thing! I'll motorize it and use a pneumatic plunger as a hammer to fire the bricks!
For some reason I looked back through the archive of Lego topics on
Basic idea. Put a motor on the plunger which charges a compressed air tank so it charges continually. Have two lines running from the tank to the firing plunger controlled through a SPDT switch, when air is put in at the bottom of the firing plunger, it shoots out and knocks the brick down the barrel, when I throw it the other direction, it will allow the compressed air to flow into the upper input on the firing plunger and retract it, allowing another brick to fall into the firing chamber from the clip. And I can even build the switch into the housing so it looks like a trigger.
The only real problem I see is getting the air chamber compressed to the point where there is a decent velocity imparted to the brick when the plunger strikes it. Those motors don't have near the amount of power the old Robotix building set motors did. I'll have to build gear ratios to allow the mechanism to push the compressing plunger down once there is a fair amount of compressed air in the tank already. Of course my upper limit is the working pressure in the rubber lines, I can make the gear ratio something ungodly and put tons and tons of pressure into the chamber, it may take forever to re-pressurize after firing, but that's the only way I can see to get decent velocity out of the firing plunger.
Now I'm going home and build this stupid thing, my kids will love it. I'll post the design when I get it completed.
Steven
Allowing the travails of a single industry -- no matter how legitimate its concerns -- to decide the architecture of that arena would be a folly that could take a long time to undo.
Especially when that industry has a long history of screwing the artists. Perhaps neither the RIAA's model nor Napster's model should be used. The RIAA has shown it's colors and Napster doesn't do enough to compensate artists, face facts, artists have to be compensated or all the arts will suffer. Artists have to eat, they have to have supplies, a roof over their heads. If we're not willing to pay something for their product, they'll have to get a mundane job and who knows how many masterpieces will go uncreated because the unrealized artist is sacking groceries.
We need to get some cross-industry feedback before we decide what the "right" thing to do with intellectual property is. The RIAA is _NOT_ the industry we should attempt to emulate.
Steven
"Dammit Joe, that's the fifth dog I've had to buy this week. Would you fix the robot so it will stop shooting my dogs"
"Oh damn, I'm sorry Frank, I don't know what keeps getting into him, I'll reprogram him as soon as I get home."
Later(In the Batcave):
$ telnet BeetleBorg
Trying 69.69.69.69...
Connected to BeetleBorg.franksplace.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Linux(SuSe) 6.4
login: MastaJoe
Password:
$ pico shooting.conf
Enemy = new-> Dog;
while (Enemy) {
if (bark){
then shoot(Enemy);
undef Enemy;
}
fi
}
(save and quit)
(Picks up phone and dials)
"Hello Frank? Yea, I just finished reprogramming the bot, you shouldn't have any more problems with it. I'm really sorry about all this, you know how much I love dogs. Gotta run, catch you later? Cool, bye."
Oh, nearly forgot.
$ BeetleBorg botsnack
[logout]
Steven
Internet Explorer and
:P
Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported."
Now Windows Media player can fsck up the configuration of all my other media players on _both_ the OS's I run at home.
Thanks guys
Steven
Hmm, what would be a better way to put it?
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement which believes that information should be available without charge because proprietary impelementations, "Trade Secrets" and current copyright laws stifle innovation and ultimately hurt the consumer.
Would that be better? I don't really think so, because this really strips away any possibility of a creator controlling his creation. I think we're going to have to get away from the concept of Intellectual Property. We can still give people credit for their ideas, but once an idea is out, it's out, and there is no really reliable way to keep it in.
Any opinions?
Steven
I have been playing around with wine and the latest releases work VERY well with office. Running word, you cannot tell you're not sitting on a windows box.
Unless you look at your uptime, then you'll know you aren't on a WinBlows box.
Steven
Yep, all you have to do is convert your .sig into a .doc and you'll have those HD's filled in no time.
Steven
Which of course is the best development model for beer yet devised. Think about it, instead of some canned, unmodifiable crap from Michelob, or even decent, unmodifiable stuff from Guinness, you can hack your own beer! Always wanted darker color? No problem. More body? As much as you want. Just remember, you have to share your recipies with everyone there.
But no worries, you have no warranty, implied or otherwise, which makes you responsible for how drunk people get from your recipe.
Steven
arghhhhh, stop the juices... *gasp* ok, ok, I give in. Warning, incredibly useless creative stuff follows.
/. and saw the post about bulk ordering. There was a comment about a Lego machine gun which fired 2*4 bricks. I looked at it and saw that it used rubber bands and a hammer mechanism and some kind of hand crank. Suddenly the inspiration hit me. I'll redesign the thing! I'll motorize it and use a pneumatic plunger as a hammer to fire the bricks!
For some reason I looked back through the archive of Lego topics on
Basic idea. Put a motor on the plunger which charges a compressed air tank so it charges continually. Have two lines running from the tank to the firing plunger controlled through a SPDT switch, when air is put in at the bottom of the firing plunger, it shoots out and knocks the brick down the barrel, when I throw it the other direction, it will allow the compressed air to flow into the upper input on the firing plunger and retract it, allowing another brick to fall into the firing chamber from the clip. And I can even build the switch into the housing so it looks like a trigger.
The only real problem I see is getting the air chamber compressed to the point where there is a decent velocity imparted to the brick when the plunger strikes it. Those motors don't have near the amount of power the old Robotix building set motors did. I'll have to build gear ratios to allow the mechanism to push the compressing plunger down once there is a fair amount of compressed air in the tank already. Of course my upper limit is the working pressure in the rubber lines, I can make the gear ratio something ungodly and put tons and tons of pressure into the chamber, it may take forever to re-pressurize after firing, but that's the only way I can see to get decent velocity out of the firing plunger.
Now I'm going home and build this stupid thing, my kids will love it. I'll post the design when I get it completed.
Steven