Some of our local LUG people have gotten bit by the minecraft bug. We've built a massive multiplayer island. Some of the locations include Lua Beach, Torvalds Torrent, FreeBSD falls, and Xen caverns. We also have logic gate fields, where members are working on a binary adder. Working already are various logic gates. One of our members built tux out of blocks (who also doubles as a water slide!).
This game is soooo addicting. Don't get sucked in. The best phrase I've heard describe minecraft went something like this... This game is crap. It is full of bugs and nothing works. I hate it, hate it, hate it! I'm logging in right now.
I was listening to an interview on NPR while in my car. The point made was that most human beings have to work to pay attention, and can be easily distracted. It does not come naturally. As an example they explained that listening to the radio while driving made you a poorer driver. This is because most people's brains are incapable of processing that much information at one time. Just as this was said I started hearing car horns behind me. I had switched my attention from driving to the radio interview about paying attention while driving. I had stopped at a green light.
I believe that most of us have a physiological limit of how much sensory input we can process at once, and how fast we can switch our full attention from one task to the next. The distractions I have right now: the blackberry dinging, the "new mail" flag popping up, the "bell on screen 1" messages, gathering status of several simultaneous running jobs, and writing this post. Something has to be tuned out or lots of work is completed with little progress. I often use music (without lyrics) to drown out distractions, simplify the amount of messages going to my brain, allowing me to pay attention to one task at a time. I usually do this when the "background noise level" is so severe I finally recognize what is happening.
This is why I love/. Summaries for the weak minded and highly-distracted, like me!
I have purchased the entire galaxy known as NGC 1365. If you're interested in renting a planet, the price is $1.8M/month US. If anyone settles there without my permission, expect to be sued.
Further, I am leasing all the space between the Earth and the Moon. If you'd like access to the Moon, the toll will be set at $750,000 US each way.
For ownership verification please see the public records division on Alpha Centauri.
Here is the standard post, thought I'd help get it out of the way:
WHERE THE HELL WERE THE PARENTS!??!? *arrggghhh!*
If you're going to allow your children to use the Internet, understand that its misuse has the potential to cause serious psychological trauma. If your child is pre-disposed to suicidal thoughts to begin with, allowing unsupervised access to the Internet is potentially dangerous. Kind of like leaving your loaded gun within reach. What were the guardian's of this girl doing after the repeated harassment and torment caused by these kids?
Yes, the kids should not have done it. They now will face the consequences. Yes, the teachers should have stopped it. Too bad nothing will happen to them. We wouldn't want to make the teachers responsible for anything.
However, the people with the ultimate responsibility are the people who brought her in to this world. Don't have kids if you can't be bothered to be responsible enough to do the quite difficult job of being a parent. That job includes engaging your child in regular communication, following up with teachers to know what is going on at school, and knowing what your child is doing (especially on the Internet). The parents will now have to live the rest of their lives asking one of two questions "Why didn't we do something?" or "Who can we blame for this?"
My cell phone is probably the single most important tool I use every day, for such occasions as: - Using the camera to take a pic of the whiteboard, and sending it to everyone. - Using the audio recorder to record a conversation or lecture in detail. - Sending tweets as a to-do list. - Shared calender functions let me set up meetings with people. - Video recorder is available if I want to grab a clip off a multi-media presentation or demo. - Using IM features to quickly touch others for information. - Using google maps and GPS to see satellite overhead of where I'm at. - Adding contact information for new people I meet. - Making phone calls. - Driving car salesmen crazy.
All in a pocket sized device with about 3-4 days of battery life. Oh, it syncs with the bluetooth in my car. Plays music. Is extendable by adding new apps. Works just about anywhere (wi-fi FTW!). And lots more. Future features look even more useful.
Just be sure to drop it in to silence mode before sitting in a meeting.
You mean to tell me that 44 percent of visitors to Google News aren't actually interested in the listed headlines, and therefore don't click through!? Let me put this to the test...
"Democrats see Mass. message: Jobs, jobs, jobs" - boring, pass. "Alternate supply routes could open Haiti aid bottleneck" - just got all info I needed. "Americans See Economic Recovery a Long Way Off" - no duh. "Airstrikes Target al-Qaida in Yemen" - woot, bombs, but I'll pass. "Netanyahu turns fire on Abbas as US envoy flies in" - whattahootey? "Powers 'shifting to sanctions' in dealing with Iran" - invasion timer started. "Intel chief concedes errors in Christmas bomb case" - and? "Michelle Obama to launch initiative fighting child obesity" - by dressing fashionably? "Alleged dinner crashers invoke Fifth Amendment" - reality TV series coming to NBC in spring.
Didn't click on anything, until I got to my custom filter: "Twisted Physics: Scientists Create Knots of Light" - Oh wait, this is from fox news. Never mind.
This lead me to the Peek, which I hadn't looked at in some time. $20 for the device, and then $20/month. I picked one up for my 6 year old. There is a lot not to like, but I'll focus on why I got it:
Why the Peek? * E-mail/text only (no phone, games, web, etc). * Fairly durable device, good value. * No long term contract.
What do I expect my 6yo to do with this? * Communicate more frequently with those he loves in a non-intrusive way. * Update his blog. You can argue that one. For my 6yo it has been a great thing.
What do I expect to get out of it? * Teach responsible use of technology (what you post is sticky). * Give him a fun opportunity to use his increasing language and reading skills. * http://www.peekmaps.com/ - just because I've learned to be paranoid.
"this is your gun dont point hat ur face lol" "ponies shoot the poniesll!LL!Lol" "oh gawd they took my liver" "dis is f'd up yo no one reads da stoopid books" "tak ur POGEY BAIT and ASRAAM it up ur HOOCH! lol"
After they added the ID requirement they realized the person making all the edits was Dick Cheney.
How did IBM go from seeing enough value in Sun to buy it, to claiming that Sun isn't worth it? IBM thinks that Sun is worth at least 7 billion dollars, that's a fact. It sounds like some IBM executive leadership got their panties in a bunch when they were rejected by the McNealy faction, and want bloody revenge. I would to if you turned around and found out Oracle swiped the deal right from under you. And it only cost Oracle song and a dance more than IBM was offering. Larry wins, Sam looses. Larry was always better at this game. Maybe Sam should go back to playing sax.
What if I bring my pet elephant to the pasta bar? He's a big fan of lasagna. He can down the entire bar in one trip. Mind the back end, it can get a little messy.
Your analogy would work if certain people were consuming 100 times the average person in pasta, but I doubt any restaurant is going to allow such a customer to stay. The problems many of these ISPs face is complex. They don't have the right people, technical culture, or budget. They simply do what they can with a typical mass-consumer grade service, aging infrastructure, and low budgets. What we want is someone to sell us a carrier grade connection to our homes. That'd be great, but at a few thousand dollars a month it is probably out of most peoples' reach.
Subsidizing the network with municipal investments seems like the right route. Around here though the 'good ole boys' lock up those lines nice and tight. They don't want anyone fiddling around with 'new services.' That's politics, and you might get somewhere by going the political route. In other words - what are you doing today to ensure that tomorrow you're one of those 'good ole boys?' Hardly any of my geek friends get this. They think there will be some kind of magical social awakening some day. It is almost like a religion. If we want to change, we have to get educated. I'm too lazy to care though, so let me know when you get on that. I need to go hide in my cave from the Swine Flu pandemic.
Why does NASA have to spend money on new untested methods? If the old baloon method worked well for two previous rovers, why not use it again? It is hard to beat a 100% success rate. Does anyone know why they want to use this over other methods?
The sysadmin in me says: The more moving parts, the greater the chance something will break.
I've spent some time around cowboys while they were working. I respect what they do. They have a very difficult and demanding job. However, they didn't seem the kind of people who were well paid. The rancher, yes, but not the cowpuncher. What is the anual cost of a cowboy, his materials, and transportation (not just the horse, but the trucks and other gear they need).
I respectfully disagree. While I can understand your point of view, here is an alternative vision:
I pay taxes, and I want to know what the police are doing with those tax dollars. When they make an arrest I want to know who they arrested and why. It is important because we need to keep tabs on the police to ensure they do not over-reach boundaries we feel comfortable with. Unfortunately ever since 9/11 we as a people are much more tolerant of false arrests and investigations. What we should not tolerate is having these things go on without our knowledge. Now, posting the details of an arrest on a web site may not be the right approach, but we need to have a system in place that is a balance to the power of the police. Local and state government used to be able to keep these organizations in check. Since that does not appear to be having any effect these days, we need a new way. The only way we can get there is if enough of us start to care to create a majority. And that I don't see happening any time soon. We can't agree on anything. I hardly talk to my neighbors, and I don't want to. United we stand, divided we fall. I am not sure there has ever been a time in this nation where everyone felt so disconnected with their community. I am part of a global community, I could really care less about my local community. I am totally apathetic about it, and so are most of the people I know. That will only change when the cops ram my door down some morning and haul me off.... and there is no record of it anywhere.
Perhaps you are not familiar with what a modern day large server is capable of. The cost/benefit of larger systems doesn't work in every case, but in many cases it does. Not every application is suited to run on a cluster of low cost x86 systems.
My favorite large server is the HP superdome. Check out some of the specs:
- Up to 128 core. - Up to 2TB of RAM, usually you'd mirror this, so 1TB usable realistically. - Up to 192 PCI-X slots. - 12 power supplies. - 18 fans. - Partition the system up to 16 different ways. - Up to 32 GB/s IO bandwidth. - 273.1 GB/s memory bandwidth. - Cost, starts around $1,000,000 (last I asked). - Jump the CPU/RAM/IO around to different partitions as needed, without rebooting anything.
The thing about this that is unlike your typical entry level x86 Enterprise server - EVERYTHING is hot swap. And I mean everything. CPUs, RAM, IO. Very few pieces require a complete shutdown to service.
My favorite mainframe story: "A guy called to ask what procedure he should follow to reboot his mainframe. Tech support told him to just follow the same procedure he did last time. The guy responded, "but only knows how to do that." And so, tech support said "well, get him to do it." At which point the guy remarked: "Well, the problem is he quit 6 years ago."
Yeah. When you need _UPTIME_ it is hard to do better.
It looks like the purpose is to protect the commercial interests of private space companies. If all the sudden people are launching rockets and giving away the data for free, that hurts space commerce. The goal here, again, is commercial. They want to create a commercial space enterprise. So while that sector is growing Uncle Sam is going to protect it.
Because they have a policy of being "nondiscriminatory" they have to either charge everyone, or charge no one.
However, one could argue that if your goal is non-commercial this wouldn't apply to you.
This policy probably had good intentions, but is now very out of date.
As the article mentions, if there is a malfunction of the B2 Spirit's computer system (either in sensors or the system itself) the pilots must eject or be killed. There was a video, not available any more, explaining that the computer is the reason why the airplane doesn't spin out of control and crash. If it goes offline it takes just a few seconds before you're toast. This apparently happened once or twice during early development while they worked out the kinks in the software (sorry, can't find any current proof of this). The only B2 that has crashed (that we know of) crashed due to bad sensor input to the computer (if that is really the truth):
When you've got a billion dollars flying around at very high speeds, with some nuclear weapons on-board, and a couple of highly-trained pilots... you need to be 100% sure the system doesn't go off-line resulting in a near instant vehicle loss. It is also well known that spacecraft and aircraft use technologies that are actually very advanced, but might appear on the surface as old. The amount of materials research that goes in to these things costs in the multitudes of billions. It is very important the H-bombs drop where they are supposed to, and when. It is very scary, and the only way to test all the moving parts together is to start a nuclear war. As the SysAdmins say: "Not if, but when."
Yes, but it is the finest death and destruction money can buy! Just think of an F-22 swooping in to drop a smartbomb down your throat! Can you think of anything more patriotic? Makes you tear up a bit. God bless the USA!
How do you graduate with a CS degree, and not know how to program? What kind of CS program are they running at this 'major' university?
Tech support? Your experience is TECH SUPPORT?!?!?
Maybe if you work hard you'll make assistant tech support manager some day.
Your best bet at this point is to either beef up your scripting skills, networking skills (or both) and jump over to system administration where a degree is almost ancillary. Entry level positions typically start in a NOC, and go up from there.
When the state wants to read your e-mail, you have these choices: 'oops, it was accidentally deleted, our bad', let them read it, go to jail. If you try to 'cheat' the system by encrypting your mail, then they can simply pass a law that enforces you handing over the password. If you resist, you get X years in jail automatically even if you are innocent of the original offence. Clearly, only the guilty have secrets to hide. Or so will be the slogan the politicians will use to pacify any large resistance.
When the state no longer protects your privacy or freedom you are left to protect it yourself. Usually it takes a revolution of some kind to develop a meaningful force to fight such a powerful state. Frankly, I'm not ready to die to stop the DHS from reading my e-mail. When enough people would rather be killed than submit a password to the authority, then we can hit the gigantic reset button and start over.
In the mean time, have fun with your various political processes. Some of them just won't quit even if you kill -9 them. You gotta reboot eventually. 200 years is a pretty good uptime, really.
I was living in Salt Lake City during these games. Remember that the Olympics were only a few months after 9/11. There were huge security concerns. We saw low flying helicopters over the city we were told were searching for nuclear material. We saw various 'special forces' teams deployed in the mountains around venues looking for 'snipers.' The security downtown was surreal. People were checking every car coming in and out for bombs. Everyone had to go through metal detectors (in some cases, you actually had to pass two layers of metal detectors). The amount of government agents per city block was astounding. Many were armed with sub-machine guns. For such a quiet city like Salt Lake, seeing troops walk around in full combat gear was quite theatrical.
My favorite security theatric was an ATF agent standing on a street corner, machine gun in hand and in full combat gear. He was waving and smiling at people driving buy to be sure they all saw him and his gun. I stopped and watched him for about 20 minutes before he started using his radio while giving me the 'killer' eyes. Despite the smiling and waving, he was not friendly, not at all. I decided to vacate my vantage point. Those guys were so bored they were looking for targets to harass.
I am not a window manager guru by any stretch. I use Gnome since that is what a lot of my friends use, and at the time I made the choice KDE didn't seem as capable. Now I look at KDE and get the impression that Gnome is falling behind in breadth and depth of features, configurability, and ease of use. Is that an accurate view of the situation? If so, why isn't Gnome able to keep up?
Let me get this straight. If you got "screwed" (somewhat debatable), you get a choice between 50% off a 1GB MP3 player (so it'll cost you about $30), or you can get a coupon for 20% off at the over-priced company store? What's to stop creative from upping the prices 5% to offset the 20% 'discount'? This isn't a punishment, it's a marketing campaign. You get a better deal going to their sales and clearance sections!
Slashdot Mirror
she has my vote!
*My eyes! The goggles do nothing!*
Some of our local LUG people have gotten bit by the minecraft bug. We've built a massive multiplayer island. Some of the locations include Lua Beach, Torvalds Torrent, FreeBSD falls, and Xen caverns. We also have logic gate fields, where members are working on a binary adder. Working already are various logic gates. One of our members built tux out of blocks (who also doubles as a water slide!).
http://plug.org/mc_tux.png
This game is soooo addicting. Don't get sucked in. The best phrase I've heard describe minecraft went something like this... This game is crap. It is full of bugs and nothing works. I hate it, hate it, hate it! I'm logging in right now.
I was listening to an interview on NPR while in my car. The point made was that most human beings have to work to pay attention, and can be easily distracted. It does not come naturally. As an example they explained that listening to the radio while driving made you a poorer driver. This is because most people's brains are incapable of processing that much information at one time. Just as this was said I started hearing car horns behind me. I had switched my attention from driving to the radio interview about paying attention while driving. I had stopped at a green light.
I believe that most of us have a physiological limit of how much sensory input we can process at once, and how fast we can switch our full attention from one task to the next. The distractions I have right now: the blackberry dinging, the "new mail" flag popping up, the "bell on screen 1" messages, gathering status of several simultaneous running jobs, and writing this post. Something has to be tuned out or lots of work is completed with little progress. I often use music (without lyrics) to drown out distractions, simplify the amount of messages going to my brain, allowing me to pay attention to one task at a time. I usually do this when the "background noise level" is so severe I finally recognize what is happening.
This is why I love /. Summaries for the weak minded and highly-distracted, like me!
That is a spacecraft sir, we do not refer to it as a capsule.
I have purchased the entire galaxy known as NGC 1365. If you're interested in renting a planet, the price is $1.8M/month US. If anyone settles there without my permission, expect to be sued.
Further, I am leasing all the space between the Earth and the Moon. If you'd like access to the Moon, the toll will be set at $750,000 US each way.
For ownership verification please see the public records division on Alpha Centauri.
Thank you.
Here is the standard post, thought I'd help get it out of the way:
WHERE THE HELL WERE THE PARENTS!??!? *arrggghhh!*
If you're going to allow your children to use the Internet, understand that its misuse has the potential to cause serious psychological trauma. If your child is pre-disposed to suicidal thoughts to begin with, allowing unsupervised access to the Internet is potentially dangerous. Kind of like leaving your loaded gun within reach. What were the guardian's of this girl doing after the repeated harassment and torment caused by these kids?
Yes, the kids should not have done it. They now will face the consequences.
Yes, the teachers should have stopped it. Too bad nothing will happen to them. We wouldn't want to make the teachers responsible for anything.
However, the people with the ultimate responsibility are the people who brought her in to this world. Don't have kids if you can't be bothered to be responsible enough to do the quite difficult job of being a parent. That job includes engaging your child in regular communication, following up with teachers to know what is going on at school, and knowing what your child is doing (especially on the Internet). The parents will now have to live the rest of their lives asking one of two questions "Why didn't we do something?" or "Who can we blame for this?"
My cell phone is probably the single most important tool I use every day, for such occasions as:
- Using the camera to take a pic of the whiteboard, and sending it to everyone.
- Using the audio recorder to record a conversation or lecture in detail.
- Sending tweets as a to-do list.
- Shared calender functions let me set up meetings with people.
- Video recorder is available if I want to grab a clip off a multi-media presentation or demo.
- Using IM features to quickly touch others for information.
- Using google maps and GPS to see satellite overhead of where I'm at.
- Adding contact information for new people I meet.
- Making phone calls.
- Driving car salesmen crazy.
All in a pocket sized device with about 3-4 days of battery life. Oh, it syncs with the bluetooth in my car. Plays music. Is extendable by adding new apps. Works just about anywhere (wi-fi FTW!). And lots more. Future features look even more useful.
Just be sure to drop it in to silence mode before sitting in a meeting.
You mean to tell me that 44 percent of visitors to Google News aren't actually interested in the listed headlines, and therefore don't click through!? Let me put this to the test...
"Democrats see Mass. message: Jobs, jobs, jobs" - boring, pass.
"Alternate supply routes could open Haiti aid bottleneck" - just got all info I needed.
"Americans See Economic Recovery a Long Way Off" - no duh.
"Airstrikes Target al-Qaida in Yemen" - woot, bombs, but I'll pass.
"Netanyahu turns fire on Abbas as US envoy flies in" - whattahootey?
"Powers 'shifting to sanctions' in dealing with Iran" - invasion timer started.
"Intel chief concedes errors in Christmas bomb case" - and?
"Michelle Obama to launch initiative fighting child obesity" - by dressing fashionably?
"Alleged dinner crashers invoke Fifth Amendment" - reality TV series coming to NBC in spring.
Didn't click on anything, until I got to my custom filter:
"Twisted Physics: Scientists Create Knots of Light" - Oh wait, this is from fox news. Never mind.
This lead me to the Peek, which I hadn't looked at in some time. $20 for the device, and then $20/month. I picked one up for my 6 year old. There is a lot not to like, but I'll focus on why I got it:
Why the Peek?
* E-mail/text only (no phone, games, web, etc).
* Fairly durable device, good value.
* No long term contract.
What do I expect my 6yo to do with this?
* Communicate more frequently with those he loves in a non-intrusive way.
* Update his blog. You can argue that one. For my 6yo it has been a great thing.
What do I expect to get out of it?
* Teach responsible use of technology (what you post is sticky).
* Give him a fun opportunity to use his increasing language and reading skills.
* http://www.peekmaps.com/ - just because I've learned to be paranoid.
...then they started getting entries like this:
"this is your gun dont point hat ur face lol"
"ponies shoot the poniesll!LL!Lol"
"oh gawd they took my liver"
"dis is f'd up yo no one reads da stoopid books"
"tak ur POGEY BAIT and ASRAAM it up ur HOOCH! lol"
After they added the ID requirement they realized the person making all the edits was Dick Cheney.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123896664697090681.html
How did IBM go from seeing enough value in Sun to buy it, to claiming that Sun isn't worth it? IBM thinks that Sun is worth at least 7 billion dollars, that's a fact. It sounds like some IBM executive leadership got their panties in a bunch when they were rejected by the McNealy faction, and want bloody revenge. I would to if you turned around and found out Oracle swiped the deal right from under you. And it only cost Oracle song and a dance more than IBM was offering. Larry wins, Sam looses. Larry was always better at this game. Maybe Sam should go back to playing sax.
What if I bring my pet elephant to the pasta bar? He's a big fan of lasagna. He can down the entire bar in one trip. Mind the back end, it can get a little messy.
Your analogy would work if certain people were consuming 100 times the average person in pasta, but I doubt any restaurant is going to allow such a customer to stay. The problems many of these ISPs face is complex. They don't have the right people, technical culture, or budget. They simply do what they can with a typical mass-consumer grade service, aging infrastructure, and low budgets. What we want is someone to sell us a carrier grade connection to our homes. That'd be great, but at a few thousand dollars a month it is probably out of most peoples' reach.
Subsidizing the network with municipal investments seems like the right route. Around here though the 'good ole boys' lock up those lines nice and tight. They don't want anyone fiddling around with 'new services.' That's politics, and you might get somewhere by going the political route. In other words - what are you doing today to ensure that tomorrow you're one of those 'good ole boys?' Hardly any of my geek friends get this. They think there will be some kind of magical social awakening some day. It is almost like a religion. If we want to change, we have to get educated. I'm too lazy to care though, so let me know when you get on that. I need to go hide in my cave from the Swine Flu pandemic.
Why does NASA have to spend money on new untested methods? If the old baloon method worked well for two previous rovers, why not use it again? It is hard to beat a 100% success rate. Does anyone know why they want to use this over other methods?
The sysadmin in me says: The more moving parts, the greater the chance something will break.
I've spent some time around cowboys while they were working. I respect what they do. They have a very difficult and demanding job. However, they didn't seem the kind of people who were well paid. The rancher, yes, but not the cowpuncher. What is the anual cost of a cowboy, his materials, and transportation (not just the horse, but the trucks and other gear they need).
I respectfully disagree. While I can understand your point of view, here is an alternative vision:
I pay taxes, and I want to know what the police are doing with those tax dollars. When they make an arrest I want to know who they arrested and why. It is important because we need to keep tabs on the police to ensure they do not over-reach boundaries we feel comfortable with. Unfortunately ever since 9/11 we as a people are much more tolerant of false arrests and investigations. What we should not tolerate is having these things go on without our knowledge. Now, posting the details of an arrest on a web site may not be the right approach, but we need to have a system in place that is a balance to the power of the police. Local and state government used to be able to keep these organizations in check. Since that does not appear to be having any effect these days, we need a new way. The only way we can get there is if enough of us start to care to create a majority. And that I don't see happening any time soon. We can't agree on anything. I hardly talk to my neighbors, and I don't want to. United we stand, divided we fall. I am not sure there has ever been a time in this nation where everyone felt so disconnected with their community. I am part of a global community, I could really care less about my local community. I am totally apathetic about it, and so are most of the people I know. That will only change when the cops ram my door down some morning and haul me off.... and there is no record of it anywhere.
Perhaps you are not familiar with what a modern day large server is capable of. The cost/benefit of larger systems doesn't work in every case, but in many cases it does. Not every application is suited to run on a cluster of low cost x86 systems.
My favorite large server is the HP superdome. Check out some of the specs:
- Up to 128 core.
- Up to 2TB of RAM, usually you'd mirror this, so 1TB usable realistically.
- Up to 192 PCI-X slots.
- 12 power supplies.
- 18 fans.
- Partition the system up to 16 different ways.
- Up to 32 GB/s IO bandwidth.
- 273.1 GB/s memory bandwidth.
- Cost, starts around $1,000,000 (last I asked).
- Jump the CPU/RAM/IO around to different partitions as needed, without rebooting anything.
The thing about this that is unlike your typical entry level x86 Enterprise server - EVERYTHING is hot swap. And I mean everything. CPUs, RAM, IO. Very few pieces require a complete shutdown to service.
My favorite mainframe story: "A guy called to ask what procedure he should follow to reboot his mainframe. Tech support told him to just follow the same procedure he did last time. The guy responded, "but only knows how to do that." And so, tech support said "well, get him to do it." At which point the guy remarked: "Well, the problem is he quit 6 years ago."
Yeah. When you need _UPTIME_ it is hard to do better.
Here is a link to the act itself:
http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/landsat/15USCch82.html
It looks like the purpose is to protect the commercial interests of private space companies. If all the sudden people are launching rockets and giving away the data for free, that hurts space commerce. The goal here, again, is commercial. They want to create a commercial space enterprise. So while that sector is growing Uncle Sam is going to protect it.
Because they have a policy of being "nondiscriminatory" they have to either charge everyone, or charge no one.
However, one could argue that if your goal is non-commercial this wouldn't apply to you.
This policy probably had good intentions, but is now very out of date.
As the article mentions, if there is a malfunction of the B2 Spirit's computer system (either in sensors or the system itself) the pilots must eject or be killed. There was a video, not available any more, explaining that the computer is the reason why the airplane doesn't spin out of control and crash. If it goes offline it takes just a few seconds before you're toast. This apparently happened once or twice during early development while they worked out the kinks in the software (sorry, can't find any current proof of this). The only B2 that has crashed (that we know of) crashed due to bad sensor input to the computer (if that is really the truth):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit#Incidents_and_accidents
When you've got a billion dollars flying around at very high speeds, with some nuclear weapons on-board, and a couple of highly-trained pilots... you need to be 100% sure the system doesn't go off-line resulting in a near instant vehicle loss. It is also well known that spacecraft and aircraft use technologies that are actually very advanced, but might appear on the surface as old. The amount of materials research that goes in to these things costs in the multitudes of billions. It is very important the H-bombs drop where they are supposed to, and when. It is very scary, and the only way to test all the moving parts together is to start a nuclear war. As the SysAdmins say: "Not if, but when."
Here are some more details (may be a bit redundant):
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Preliminary_Design_Review_Of_New_B_2_Bomber_Computer_Architecture_Completed_999.html
Yes, but it is the finest death and destruction money can buy! Just think of an F-22 swooping in to drop a smartbomb down your throat! Can you think of anything more patriotic? Makes you tear up a bit. God bless the USA!
How do you graduate with a CS degree, and not know how to program? What kind of CS program are they running at this 'major' university?
Tech support? Your experience is TECH SUPPORT?!?!?
Maybe if you work hard you'll make assistant tech support manager some day.
Your best bet at this point is to either beef up your scripting skills, networking skills (or both) and jump over to system administration where a degree is almost ancillary. Entry level positions typically start in a NOC, and go up from there.
When the state wants to read your e-mail, you have these choices: 'oops, it was accidentally deleted, our bad', let them read it, go to jail. If you try to 'cheat' the system by encrypting your mail, then they can simply pass a law that enforces you handing over the password. If you resist, you get X years in jail automatically even if you are innocent of the original offence. Clearly, only the guilty have secrets to hide. Or so will be the slogan the politicians will use to pacify any large resistance.
When the state no longer protects your privacy or freedom you are left to protect it yourself. Usually it takes a revolution of some kind to develop a meaningful force to fight such a powerful state. Frankly, I'm not ready to die to stop the DHS from reading my e-mail. When enough people would rather be killed than submit a password to the authority, then we can hit the gigantic reset button and start over.
In the mean time, have fun with your various political processes. Some of them just won't quit even if you kill -9 them. You gotta reboot eventually. 200 years is a pretty good uptime, really.
Yeah, because no hacker would think to follow this link:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=drivers+license&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
And print out a drivers license for himself suitible for faxing/doctoring....
oops. Hope mine isn't in there.
*clicking noises*
P.S. Oh, and I have NEVER done that okay? That would be illegal. And I wouldn't dare do something like that.
P.P.S. I should have posted this A.C. Now the Reichsführer-SS (i.e. DHS) will probably be knocking on my door.
I was living in Salt Lake City during these games. Remember that the Olympics were only a few months after 9/11. There were huge security concerns. We saw low flying helicopters over the city we were told were searching for nuclear material. We saw various 'special forces' teams deployed in the mountains around venues looking for 'snipers.' The security downtown was surreal. People were checking every car coming in and out for bombs. Everyone had to go through metal detectors (in some cases, you actually had to pass two layers of metal detectors). The amount of government agents per city block was astounding. Many were armed with sub-machine guns. For such a quiet city like Salt Lake, seeing troops walk around in full combat gear was quite theatrical.
My favorite security theatric was an ATF agent standing on a street corner, machine gun in hand and in full combat gear. He was waving and smiling at people driving buy to be sure they all saw him and his gun. I stopped and watched him for about 20 minutes before he started using his radio while giving me the 'killer' eyes. Despite the smiling and waving, he was not friendly, not at all. I decided to vacate my vantage point. Those guys were so bored they were looking for targets to harass.
I am not a window manager guru by any stretch. I use Gnome since that is what a lot of my friends use, and at the time I made the choice KDE didn't seem as capable. Now I look at KDE and get the impression that Gnome is falling behind in breadth and depth of features, configurability, and ease of use. Is that an accurate view of the situation? If so, why isn't Gnome able to keep up?
Let me get this straight. If you got "screwed" (somewhat debatable), you get a choice between 50% off a 1GB MP3 player (so it'll cost you about $30), or you can get a coupon for 20% off at the over-priced company store? What's to stop creative from upping the prices 5% to offset the 20% 'discount'? This isn't a punishment, it's a marketing campaign. You get a better deal going to their sales and clearance sections!
http://us.creative.com/shop/shopcategory.asp?category=720
Go Creative Labs. You must have very good lawyers.