No no no..Who told you that mac addresses could be used for identity authentication? They cannot. Asking a computer for it's mac address is no more secure than asking the user to type in their name to login.
You should use SSL on your LAMP server and distribute client AND server RSA keys (out of band, using a usb stick or something). Then the users will not have to login as you will be able to configure apache to verify that the browser has a valid key. This will work with any modern browser and web server, it is tried and true tech.
If money is no object then I would recommend the Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 over either of these options. It is the size and weight of a hard-cover book, has an 8.9" 1280x768 display which flips out into a tablet mode. I carry one around without any kind of case. I can actually wield it like a notebook! (i'm talking about those paper things)
There's also a cheaper, smaller model ($1,000) fujitsu U810
The earth will have no problem with it. It is the squishy bags of mostly water (us and the other creatures we rely on) that will have trouble with changes in the climate.
2)... Use solar electricity to run a pump to pump water *up* the dam into the reservoir in the daytime, then run the plants even harder at night. The gap-filling potential is almost unlimited.
I'm sorry but that is ridiculous. Such a scheme could provide a small amount of extra power. It could not even come close to meeting demand.
For example: Let's assume that a power plant generating power from water that was pumped uphill all day will put out the same amount of power at night as a regular hydro electric dam. (this is a very generous estimation in my opinion) The Hoover dam in the USA puts out about 2 gigawatts. To cover overnight power demands in the USA you would need something on the order of 200 gigawatts. That's 100 new hoover dams just for the batteries that would be required to make solar-power cover baseload. Now you will need enough solar panels to meet 760 gigawatts of demand during the day PLUS enough extra to charge up the dams for the overnight demand. let's generously assume that the water-pump battery system is 100% efficient. You will need 960GW, let's say 1 TeraWatt of power during the day. At 200W per square meter for solar power that comes to 5 million square meters or about 51% of the USA. The land area that would have to be flooded to feed 100 hoover dams is also staggering, not to mention the quantity of fresh water involved.
The numbers just don't add up.
Solar cannot even come close to meeting daytime demand. There is no freakin' way it has hundreds of extra gigawatts to store for overnight and cloudy day demand.
There are hundreds of times more permanently irradiated deserts in the world than would be needed to supply Mankind's power needs for the forseeable future. What shape is the planet you live on? Or are you suggesting that we conduct TeraWatts of power from one side of the planet to the other?
quicky estimates based on info from slashdot posts:
2% of US acreage = about 200,000 square meters solar panels = about $500/square meter for 16% efficiency panels means $100M I have no idea what the construction and transmission infrastructure would cost. This does not include any kind of motorization of the panels to track the sun. power output = about 150W/meter2 (in the field, not in the lab, no gaps between panels) means 300 megawatts total http://global.kyocera.com/
I call shenanigans on the %2 acreage will meet our power needs claim.
Even with vapourware 40% efficient panels there is just no freakin' way that'll work. If you were to build the suggested 'pump water uphill' battery mega-construction project you would need much more than double your peak load so that you can meet demand while 'charging' for overnight demand. So just pave over %80 of the USA and you'll be able to power everything with solar! fantastic!
Not the mention that a pumped-water battery large enough to power the USA overnight would be by far the biggest construction project in history and would have massive environmental consequences.
You're so right! I'm going to run down to my local university and insist that they cancel their scholarship program for children on welfare and divert the money to sending grain to africa. In fact, our local food bank is giving out food to people who have jobs, sometimes they even have homes and beat-up old cars! What a waste! let's send all that food to the people who REALLY need it! the ones who are starving. In fact, let's cancel Canada's welfare service entirely! It is ridiculous to be paying these Canadians all this money so that they can afford $700/month apartments in Ottawa when there are children starving in Africa! Thanks for your great advice!
His vision is to supply every child with what amounts to an advertising delivery mechanism. This is utter nonsense. It is illogical. Fanatically open and non-commercial computers are the polar opposite of an "advertising delivery mechanism". Furthermore, exactly what products and services does he think the evil Mr. Negroponte is planning on advertising to these impoverished children?
Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. How stupid do I look to you Dvorak? Obviously nobody said anything like that. This is a very ham-handed attempt at creating a straw man argument to destroy.
*sigh* Dvorak's argument seems to be that while so many people are going hungry we should not be working on education. Dvorak is not the first one to use this argument. My response could be a detailed explanation of how and why we aught to attack the problem at every level (from emergency food drops to fair trade and university education scholarships). However I am feeling a bit emotional about the issue so instead I offer this rebuttal:
I'm not a fucking farmer dipshit! I'm a programmer. I can show people how to access information, how to process it and how to make tools and ultimately wield the power of knowledge to their own advantage. If you don't think that these skills are of any use to poor people I would really like to know your reasoning.
p.s. Did you think that people are starving because of a lack of money for food aid? Read up on the subject a bit before you go pontificating.
From slashdot: "$999 For a Complete DNA Scan, Worth it?" From 23andme.com: "...the laboratory process reads nearly 600,000 data points on your genome."
This is a targeted scanning looking for a specific list of genes. This service does not provide you with your complete genome. It provides a tiny fraction of your genome. (It sounds really cool and if i had the money to spare i might do it)
*grumble*grumble* this is the part of my post where i bitch and moan about the abysmal level of reading comprehension and writing skills demonstrated by slashdot article submitters and editors. Can we vote to have slashdot exclusively hire editors who have passed highschool english? please? I suppose that the punctuation problems can be forgiven but the failure to correctly summarise the article is not forgivable. *grumble*
"preserve Internet privacy"
bwahahahaha! What planet have you been living on? Where and in what way is there any privacy on the Internet? The only privacy on the Internet is that which you make for yourself using encryption.
part of the genius of the American Constitution is it's simplicity. Yes, absolutely. However I think that the 'aid and comfort' bit is an exception to that rule. That phrase is not at all clear.
For example, plenty of people consider Jane Fonda being photographed at AA installations to be propaganda for the enemy and therefore aid and comfort to the enemy. So aside from ill-defined terms like proaganda, what exactly was wrong with what she did? I think the argument is that by highlighting the very real threat of AA-fire that she was intimidating our soldiers and thus diminishing the effectiveness of our military. Am I right that this is the heart of the argument? (i don't know the details of her case. I am assuming that the AA installations DID exist and that she wasn't making shit up so please bear with me as i mis-use her as a case-study) If so, then does not the same argument apply to people in the US who try to keep kids from enlisting by telling them about IEDs and the allied death-toll in Iraq?
Or, is it all about trying to pursuade our active-duty personel that a war is wrong/illegal. You can try to pursuade the general public/gvt but not soldiers? Is THAT the problem with fonda's AA photos? There is certainly a reasonable argument to be made there. A problem arises with the real-world application of that sort of distiction because of the availablility of Internet and other media to our soldiers. If I KNOW that soldiers will read my blog/youtube/whatever would it be wrong to post an argument so pursuasive that it might induce some soldiers to flee or go awol for moral/religious reasons?
Opposing a war by voicing your opposition in the public debate is not giving them 'aid and comfort' (regardless of what Bush says). isn't it? strictly speaking i think that it is. If we are the invaders then pursuading our government to withdraw our forces is literally aid and comfort to the enemy is it not? They would certainly be aided and comforted by that.
The proper move for people who knowingly and intentionally aid enemy armies, provide material support, supplies, reinforcements, troop counts, secret plans, or anything that helps defeat the US should be captured and treated like a enemy combatant. I agree. I think that would make a better definition of treason.
'aid and comfort' is bullshit. What if you are just telling everyone that the enemy is not actually 'evil' and we should stop attacking them? What if you do that by going on TV with them and talking to them like people?
If THAT is considered treason then we're doomed. If that is treason then ALL voicing of opposition to ANY war is treason. What if our own leaders start an unjust and illegal war? Is it treason to say so? Is it treason to go and interview the survivors of our attacks?
The 'aid and comfort' definition is an invitation to abuse, intimidation and perpetual war.
"It has a 1.5 Ghz VIA C7 CPU embedded in a Mini-ITX motherboard, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. Normally, this would simply mark it as unacceptably low-end for use with modern software."
You've got to be f-ing kidding me. That is nonsense. the author has been talking to sales people and/or the microsoft vista team. That is double the spec you need for XP with office-like software and broadband Internet multimedia stuff.
The latest games and vista are the only "modern software" for which those specs are inadequate. And that is only because games can always use more power and are thus coded for the latest and greatest equipment. (I can't explain vista)
we also give away hundreds of billions a year to foreign countries The US is very generous with their foreign aid. Props to y'all. However, it is not hunderds of billions/year. Bear in mind that when the US government quotes a number of dollars given for aid they choose to include the inflated costs of weapons and 'counter-insugency' training given to 'allies'. I only mention it because most people think of food and shelter when they hear 'aid'.
Slashdot Mirror
No no no..Who told you that mac addresses could be used for identity authentication?
They cannot.
Asking a computer for it's mac address is no more secure than asking the user to type in their name to login.
You should use SSL on your LAMP server and distribute client AND server RSA keys (out of band, using a usb stick or something). Then the users will not have to login as you will be able to configure apache to verify that the browser has a valid key.
This will work with any modern browser and web server, it is tried and true tech.
"Why don't you put HER in charge?"
"Look, I'm telling ya, there's somethin' movin' and it ain't us! Tracker's off scale, man. They're all around us, man. Jesus! "
"Wierzbowski!! WIERZBOWSKI!!!!
Where's Apone? Where's Apone?
The Sarge is gone! Let's get the fuck outta here!"
"We're all gonna die man."
"Yeah right, man, Bishop should go. Good idea!"
Ah, the memories. Now I'm thinking of going home and watching it again.
Best movie evar.
If money is no object then I would recommend the Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 over either of these options.
It is the size and weight of a hard-cover book, has an 8.9" 1280x768 display which flips out into a tablet mode.
I carry one around without any kind of case.
I can actually wield it like a notebook! (i'm talking about those paper things)
There's also a cheaper, smaller model ($1,000) fujitsu U810
The earth will have no problem with it.
It is the squishy bags of mostly water (us and the other creatures we rely on) that will have trouble with changes in the climate.
nice post but i have no mod points right now.
The laws of nature come from invisible sky wizards of course.
Damned heathens. (literally)
you are correct, i botched my land area numbers
Such a scheme could provide a small amount of extra power.
It could not even come close to meeting demand.
For example: Let's assume that a power plant generating power from water that was pumped uphill all day will put out the same amount of power at night as a regular hydro electric dam. (this is a very generous estimation in my opinion)
The Hoover dam in the USA puts out about 2 gigawatts.
To cover overnight power demands in the USA you would need something on the order of 200 gigawatts.
That's 100 new hoover dams just for the batteries that would be required to make solar-power cover baseload.
Now you will need enough solar panels to meet 760 gigawatts of demand during the day PLUS enough extra to charge up the dams for the overnight demand. let's generously assume that the water-pump battery system is 100% efficient. You will need 960GW, let's say 1 TeraWatt of power during the day.
At 200W per square meter for solar power that comes to 5 million square meters or about 51% of the USA.
The land area that would have to be flooded to feed 100 hoover dams is also staggering, not to mention the quantity of fresh water involved.
The numbers just don't add up.
Solar cannot even come close to meeting daytime demand. There is no freakin' way it has hundreds of extra gigawatts to store for overnight and cloudy day demand.
Or are you suggesting that we conduct TeraWatts of power from one side of the planet to the other?
quicky estimates based on info from slashdot posts:
2% of US acreage = about 200,000 square meters
solar panels = about $500/square meter for 16% efficiency panels means $100M I have no idea what the construction and transmission infrastructure would cost. This does not include any kind of motorization of the panels to track the sun.
power output = about 150W/meter2 (in the field, not in the lab, no gaps between panels) means 300 megawatts total
http://global.kyocera.com/
US power demand in 2006 = 760 GigaWatts
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat3p2.html
I call shenanigans on the %2 acreage will meet our power needs claim.
Even with vapourware 40% efficient panels there is just no freakin' way that'll work.
If you were to build the suggested 'pump water uphill' battery mega-construction project you would need much more than double your peak load so that you can meet demand while 'charging' for overnight demand.
So just pave over %80 of the USA and you'll be able to power everything with solar! fantastic!
Not the mention that a pumped-water battery large enough to power the USA overnight would be by far the biggest construction project in history and would have massive environmental consequences.
You're so right!
I'm going to run down to my local university and insist that they cancel their scholarship program for children on welfare and divert the money to sending grain to africa.
In fact, our local food bank is giving out food to people who have jobs, sometimes they even have homes and beat-up old cars! What a waste! let's send all that food to the people who REALLY need it! the ones who are starving.
In fact, let's cancel Canada's welfare service entirely! It is ridiculous to be paying these Canadians all this money so that they can afford $700/month apartments in Ottawa when there are children starving in Africa!
Thanks for your great advice!
Fanatically open and non-commercial computers are the polar opposite of an "advertising delivery mechanism".
Furthermore, exactly what products and services does he think the evil Mr. Negroponte is planning on advertising to these impoverished children? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. How stupid do I look to you Dvorak?
Obviously nobody said anything like that. This is a very ham-handed attempt at creating a straw man argument to destroy.
*sigh*
Dvorak's argument seems to be that while so many people are going hungry we should not be working on education.
Dvorak is not the first one to use this argument.
My response could be a detailed explanation of how and why we aught to attack the problem at every level (from emergency food drops to fair trade and university education scholarships). However I am feeling a bit emotional about the issue so instead I offer this rebuttal:
I'm not a fucking farmer dipshit!
I'm a programmer. I can show people how to access information, how to process it and how to make tools and ultimately wield the power of knowledge to their own advantage.
If you don't think that these skills are of any use to poor people I would really like to know your reasoning.
p.s. Did you think that people are starving because of a lack of money for food aid?
Read up on the subject a bit before you go pontificating.
From slashdot:
"$999 For a Complete DNA Scan, Worth it?"
From 23andme.com:
"...the laboratory process reads nearly 600,000 data points on your genome."
This is a targeted scanning looking for a specific list of genes.
This service does not provide you with your complete genome. It provides a tiny fraction of your genome.
(It sounds really cool and if i had the money to spare i might do it)
*grumble*grumble* this is the part of my post where i bitch and moan about the abysmal level of reading comprehension and writing skills demonstrated by slashdot article submitters and editors.
Can we vote to have slashdot exclusively hire editors who have passed highschool english? please?
I suppose that the punctuation problems can be forgiven but the failure to correctly summarise the article is not forgivable.
*grumble*
'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office'
ZOMG! Run for the hills!!!!
maybe my imagination is weak because that would hardly even register...
why would i care?
"preserve Internet privacy"
bwahahahaha!
What planet have you been living on?
Where and in what way is there any privacy on the Internet?
The only privacy on the Internet is that which you make for yourself using encryption.
AT&T is a traitor to America and the principles of freedom.
Revoke their fucking charter for the sake of our children.
Spying bastards.
That phrase is not at all clear.
For example, plenty of people consider Jane Fonda being photographed at AA installations to be propaganda for the enemy and therefore aid and comfort to the enemy.
So aside from ill-defined terms like proaganda, what exactly was wrong with what she did? I think the argument is that by highlighting the very real threat of AA-fire that she was intimidating our soldiers and thus diminishing the effectiveness of our military. Am I right that this is the heart of the argument? (i don't know the details of her case. I am assuming that the AA installations DID exist and that she wasn't making shit up so please bear with me as i mis-use her as a case-study)
If so, then does not the same argument apply to people in the US who try to keep kids from enlisting by telling them about IEDs and the allied death-toll in Iraq?
Or, is it all about trying to pursuade our active-duty personel that a war is wrong/illegal.
You can try to pursuade the general public/gvt but not soldiers? Is THAT the problem with fonda's AA photos? There is certainly a reasonable argument to be made there.
A problem arises with the real-world application of that sort of distiction because of the availablility of Internet and other media to our soldiers. If I KNOW that soldiers will read my blog/youtube/whatever would it be wrong to post an argument so pursuasive that it might induce some soldiers to flee or go awol for moral/religious reasons? Opposing a war by voicing your opposition in the public debate is not giving them 'aid and comfort' (regardless of what Bush says). isn't it? strictly speaking i think that it is.
If we are the invaders then pursuading our government to withdraw our forces is literally aid and comfort to the enemy is it not? They would certainly be aided and comforted by that.
I think that would make a better definition of treason.
'aid and comfort' is bullshit. What if you are just telling everyone that the enemy is not actually 'evil' and we should stop attacking them?
What if you do that by going on TV with them and talking to them like people?
If THAT is considered treason then we're doomed.
If that is treason then ALL voicing of opposition to ANY war is treason.
What if our own leaders start an unjust and illegal war?
Is it treason to say so?
Is it treason to go and interview the survivors of our attacks?
The 'aid and comfort' definition is an invitation to abuse, intimidation and perpetual war.
bytes_printed = printf('super important info');
/not a c coder and can't be bother looking up correct syntax.
if bytes_printed == 0:
printf('error! unable to print messages!);
WIN!
It is slashdot, not I, that 'knows it already'.
dumbass.
*Yawn*
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/16/162246
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/18/0644240
Try mplayer. It will have CPU to spare.
"It has a 1.5 Ghz VIA C7 CPU embedded in a Mini-ITX motherboard, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. Normally, this would simply mark it as unacceptably low-end for use with modern software."
You've got to be f-ing kidding me.
That is nonsense. the author has been talking to sales people and/or the microsoft vista team.
That is double the spec you need for XP with office-like software and broadband Internet multimedia stuff.
The latest games and vista are the only "modern software" for which those specs are inadequate.
And that is only because games can always use more power and are thus coded for the latest and greatest equipment.
(I can't explain vista)
$65/month 20Mb/20Mb fiber Internet service (even with the very limited service area) qualifies your country as kick-ass. You may now gloat.
However, it is not hunderds of billions/year. Bear in mind that when the US government quotes a number of dollars given for aid they choose to include the inflated costs of weapons and 'counter-insugency' training given to 'allies'.
I only mention it because most people think of food and shelter when they hear 'aid'.