Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress had them back in 1966. I believe they were called "ballistic tubes," and had all the properties mentioned in the patent.
Of course, Heinlein's tubes also travelled at orbital velocity so as to reduce friction and/or power to the maglev coils. This feat would obviously be much harder to replicate on the earth.
It's already easier for me to mount an ISO than to track down a CD, stick it in the drive, and hope it spins up without SafeDisc2 causing bad block errors -- which often freeze Explorer for minutes at a time.
The thing about software copy protection schemes is that, like SafeDisc, they tend to be third-party off-the-shelf solutions that, once beaten the first time, are as simple to crack as they are to implement. Poke around at www.gamecopyworld.com and you'll find countless cracks for the various well-known copy protection schemes. I doubt a dongle solution, when confronted with the existing army of hobbyist game crackers, will last very long.
So, given the choice of downloading a mountable iso from irc or a some private ftp, or paying $50 for a piece of hardware I keep having to swap back and forth, what do you think I will likely do?
The onboard hpt366 scoffs at any drive I bring near it; the controller is renowned for its uselessness. In my machine, its sole function has always been to slow down the boot process and then sit unused (kudos to abit for not providing a way to turn it off in bios).
The drive is currently on a Siig CMD 649u part, which I'm fighting to get working in Debian. Unfortunately, the latest release of Debian, 2.2r3, comes with the old 2.2.17 kernel, which doesn't support it. My (few) attempts to recompile have rendered the fs unmountable.
Either way, I seriously doubt the bp6 is attributing to mechanical failure in another part. If strange systems are often connected to ailing 75gxps, it is due the fact that these drives are largely used by hardware aficionados (when I purchased it, it had only the reputation of being the fastest IDE drive around). Unfortunately, apparently due to corner-cutting in product testing, the 75gxp has proved to be a lemon.
In other news, 95% of vehicles involved in crashes attributed to Wilderness A/Ts WERE RUNNING ON GAS. Clearly gas is the problem here, folks.
My DTLA died on (get this) a 440 bx. If you're looking for contributing factors in that particular instance, I'd be more inclined to point at the vibrations caused by the two global wins on my bp6 (grep your favorite physics text for beat phenomena). Not a little vibration is excuse for a part to up and die.
My own 307030 died. It's alright though, because it only took them 3 weeks to get me a refurbished replacement (not counting the time it took my drive to get back to them).
At least they were careful to never send me a tracking number. The hours I spent on hold attempting to eke out some sort of information were quite soothing.
Why do we need an educational language? C is not easy to learn. Nor is C++. printf("Hello *real* world\n");.
Engineering and Computer Science cirriculae are crammed as it is without the repeated teaching and reteaching.
On another note, anyone remember why Pascal got dropped like the bad habit it was? The Borland version bore an almost 1:1 correspondence to C. But that was the downfall: it was full of Borland-specific enhancements, and no one likes a corporation-owned language. Are we destined to repeat history with Java?
The International Baccalaureate (www.ibo.org) CS test includes a lot of general computer science ideas and de-emphasizes programming. The test uses no actual language, but rather pseudocode so the instructors can choose whatever language they want.
Sounds neat, no?
No. It actually is quite useless. The reason people take AP tests is for the AP -- Advanced Placement. You can't get Advanced Placement in college if you just took a general test. Skipping one class is doable, but the IB test covers a week or so of material from a number of introductory courses in a typical university curriculum.
End result: most institutions will give you little credit if any for even acing the IB Higher Level CS exam.
What's currently lawful and illegal is irrelevant. Only what's right and wrong matters. It's legal to have a whole network of poorly secured machines with an enormous amount of bandwidth at their disposal, but it is by no means right. It's an attractive nuisance, which in today's crowded world is immoral, although in this case not (yet) criminal.
One reason, possibly the most important, that we're basing our realm distro around redhat can be found on redhat's about page. To quote: "Red Hat is based in Durham, N.C." You'll notice that Durham is only about a half hour drive from the NCSU campus.
While ITECS (Information Technology and Engineering Computing Services) is working with RedHat to do the right thing as far as Engineering Computing Services is concerned, the administration in the College of Engineering here at State is still busy blundering.
This next semester, we've finally made the move to Java as the required (not just recommended) language for Electrical Engineers, Computer Engineers, and Computer Science majors. This means new students will be forced to endure 5 Java classes as the core to their coding "education" (Introduction to Programming, Programming Concepts, Discrete Math Sturctions, Concepts of Operating Systems, and Data Structures).
The irony here is that while more and more of the software we use here is open source, fewer and fewer of the students will be able to read that source. C and C++ have simply gone the way of the dinosaur as far as the faculty are concerned, making way for Java, savior of the world.
While a Java-oriented degree program may make sense for some, it is quite myopic for Computer Engineers and Scientists. I pray for the first NCSU student who has to walk into the job market with no idea what a pointer is and why he needs to free what it's pointing at. Java is a great language, mind you, but it's hardly taken over the industry. I strongly doubt a de facto standard interpretted language will ever take the place of C.
Slashdot Mirror
Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress had them back in 1966. I believe they were called "ballistic tubes," and had all the properties mentioned in the patent.
Of course, Heinlein's tubes also travelled at orbital velocity so as to reduce friction and/or power to the maglev coils. This feat would obviously be much harder to replicate on the earth.
http://www.wegrokit.com/miahm.htm
Can anyone beat 1966 for prior art?
It's already easier for me to mount an ISO than to track down a CD, stick it in the drive, and hope it spins up without SafeDisc2 causing bad block errors -- which often freeze Explorer for minutes at a time.
The thing about software copy protection schemes is that, like SafeDisc, they tend to be third-party off-the-shelf solutions that, once beaten the first time, are as simple to crack as they are to implement. Poke around at www.gamecopyworld.com and you'll find countless cracks for the various well-known copy protection schemes. I doubt a dongle solution, when confronted with the existing army of hobbyist game crackers, will last very long.
So, given the choice of downloading a mountable iso from irc or a some private ftp, or paying $50 for a piece of hardware I keep having to swap back and forth, what do you think I will likely do?
The onboard hpt366 scoffs at any drive I bring near it; the controller is renowned for its uselessness. In my machine, its sole function has always been to slow down the boot process and then sit unused (kudos to abit for not providing a way to turn it off in bios).
The drive is currently on a Siig CMD 649u part, which I'm fighting to get working in Debian. Unfortunately, the latest release of Debian, 2.2r3, comes with the old 2.2.17 kernel, which doesn't support it. My (few) attempts to recompile have rendered the fs unmountable.
Either way, I seriously doubt the bp6 is attributing to mechanical failure in another part. If strange systems are often connected to ailing 75gxps, it is due the fact that these drives are largely used by hardware aficionados (when I purchased it, it had only the reputation of being the fastest IDE drive around). Unfortunately, apparently due to corner-cutting in product testing, the 75gxp has proved to be a lemon.
In other news, 95% of vehicles involved in crashes attributed to Wilderness A/Ts WERE RUNNING ON GAS. Clearly gas is the problem here, folks.
My DTLA died on (get this) a 440 bx. If you're looking for contributing factors in that particular instance, I'd be more inclined to point at the vibrations caused by the two global wins on my bp6 (grep your favorite physics text for beat phenomena). Not a little vibration is excuse for a part to up and die.
My own 307030 died. It's alright though, because it only took them 3 weeks to get me a refurbished replacement (not counting the time it took my drive to get back to them).
At least they were careful to never send me a tracking number. The hours I spent on hold attempting to eke out some sort of information were quite soothing.
Why do we need an educational language? C is not easy to learn. Nor is C++. printf("Hello *real* world\n");.
Engineering and Computer Science cirriculae are crammed as it is without the repeated teaching and reteaching.
On another note, anyone remember why Pascal got dropped like the bad habit it was? The Borland version bore an almost 1:1 correspondence to C. But that was the downfall: it was full of Borland-specific enhancements, and no one likes a corporation-owned language. Are we destined to repeat history with Java?
"I don't agree. Starting off with assembler is like starting off a driver's education course with a class on auto repair."
Everybody's gotta drive; no one is obliged to code.
The International Baccalaureate (www.ibo.org) CS test includes a lot of general computer science ideas and de-emphasizes programming. The test uses no actual language, but rather pseudocode so the instructors can choose whatever language they want.
Sounds neat, no?
No. It actually is quite useless. The reason people take AP tests is for the AP -- Advanced Placement. You can't get Advanced Placement in college if you just took a general test. Skipping one class is doable, but the IB test covers a week or so of material from a number of introductory courses in a typical university curriculum.
End result: most institutions will give you little credit if any for even acing the IB Higher Level CS exam.
the fact that there is no jerkcity on this list clearly invalidates the efforts of this journalist. what a sham.
What's currently lawful and illegal is irrelevant. Only what's right and wrong matters. It's legal to have a whole network of poorly secured machines with an enormous amount of bandwidth at their disposal, but it is by no means right. It's an attractive nuisance, which in today's crowded world is immoral, although in this case not (yet) criminal.
I'd like to leave a few guns and explosives lying around in your neighborhood. It's my right and my prerogative.
One reason, possibly the most important, that we're basing our realm distro around redhat can be found on redhat's about page. To quote: "Red Hat is based in Durham, N.C." You'll notice that Durham is only about a half hour drive from the NCSU campus.
Ben Creech
Junior, Computer Engineering, NCSU
While ITECS (Information Technology and Engineering Computing Services) is working with RedHat to do the right thing as far as Engineering Computing Services is concerned, the administration in the College of Engineering here at State is still busy blundering.
;
This next semester, we've finally made the move to Java as the required (not just recommended) language for Electrical Engineers, Computer Engineers, and Computer Science majors. This means new students will be forced to endure 5 Java classes as the core to their coding "education" (Introduction to Programming, Programming Concepts, Discrete Math Sturctions, Concepts of Operating Systems, and Data Structures).
The irony here is that while more and more of the software we use here is open source, fewer and fewer of the students will be able to read that source. C and C++ have simply gone the way of the dinosaur as far as the faculty are concerned, making way for Java, savior of the world.
While a Java-oriented degree program may make sense for some, it is quite myopic for Computer Engineers and Scientists. I pray for the first NCSU student who has to walk into the job market with no idea what a pointer is and why he needs to free what it's pointing at. Java is a great language, mind you, but it's hardly taken over the industry. I strongly doubt a de facto standard interpretted language will ever take the place of C.
Oh, and if you want a link to NCSU's Eos/Linux information (rather than a Business Wire article), try http://www.linux.ncsu.edu/eos-linux/
Thanks for your time,
Ben Creech
Junior, Computer Engineering, NCSU
(Part Time ITECS Help Desk employee)