I don't remember the name of the story, but Isaac Asimov did a short one on communications and information in the future (i.e. our times).
He laid out this neat vision of an interactive television that would feed you content (books, magazines, etc.). I guess he was looking forward to the net as we know it, but he said that things would get more intricate, with the ability to do more with the info, etc., and more and more buttons to push on the TV. He then said that after a while things would level out, and there would be less controls on the box, then finally only one knob, and then even that one would be taken away, and the technology of the TV would be so fantasic that all you ever wanted to know would be magically transferred to your conciousness without having to touch a button.
He then claimed that that technology was available in his day. Books, he said, with no buttons to push, no sound effects, no laser shows, etc. --- books talk to the mind and the imagination, and that's all we need to enjoy a good story.
I worked for Fastband here in New Orleans for 4-1/2 months, until they flopped and were bought out by I-55.
FastBand ruled when they were on the Northshore up in Covington, and I had an account with them for almost a year before I went to work for them. The sysadmin and another Fastband employee (a programmer) were the ones that started our local Linux users group (http://nolug.org). They had pops in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Slidell, Hammond, Lafayette, and even a couple on the beach in Mississippi (Biloxi and Kiln, I think). A total geek place to work for their entire existence, up until the move to downtown New Orleans.
The owners got stupid and started a streaming media site (FastBand GlobalCast) with a concept of offering Hollywood-takeover content (if you wanna call it content -- none of the techs would watch the streams unless we knew the producer was coming down to our floor --- tripe, if you ask me). They set up a DJ booth on Bourbon Street (boob cams and all) and Globalcast was the reason for relocating to the city --- to be close to the booth, and to have enough office space for all the media freaks they hired. They went pre-IPO and financed their fiasco by hanging their entire operation on the perfomance of 2 stocks, I think it was. I answered the phone when the owner called me up from a bar to ask me to check to see how far the stocks had plummeted that day --- one of them was down 1/3. The isp was sold off 2 months later.
The kicker was that they sold out to the crappiest isp in Louisiana. I-55 is owned by 5 morons (well, one or two of them had a brain, but then again they did go into business with the other idiots). I talked with one of them, the guy in charge of handling their acquisitions, and this guy barely escaped dropping out of SLU (which is hard to do) and is a redneck hick like you wouldn't believe. He was a business dude who was pretending to be a technical guy, and was in way over his head.
Prior to all this, Fastband was the best isp around, and probably a quarter of their customers were from I-55 and simply could not take the crappy support and even crappier service that I-55 had.
When they did the change-over there were 4 of us in tech support (well, 5, but we didn't let him work anything but graveyard) and all we did for 2 weeks was answer calls non-stop from people angry because they couldn't log on and many were astonished when we told them that they were being sold off to I-55, and many of them hung up the phone after telling us that they going to switch to BellSouth. On the Northshore that was just about the only choice left.
Turns out that I-55 was busy elsewhere and they have managed to buy out several of the smaller ISPs in New Orleans as well, and there were other takeovers by out-of-state firms, and, as I write this, I don't know if there is a small ISP left in the city (maybe BaileyLink?).
All of this transpired in the last 7 months. I went out and signed a contract with Eatel out of Gonzales to resell their dialup, but to be honest with you, they have terrible connection problems about half the time. If anyone asks my opinion on what ISP to use, if they are friends of mine I tell them to get a BellSouth account.
Um, I hate to pop your bubble, but the Bible contains exactly zero contradictions. There are things that don't make sense the first time around, but as you study the Bible you begin to see the nuances and hidden treasures of wisdom that make the document what it is.
Take, for example, the Israelite King Jeconiah (Coniah), the one that God cursed in Jeremiah chapter 22. He was to never have any sons sitting upon the throne; therefore, the Messiah could never be born, as it had already been established that He was to be a son of David. Jeconiah indeed did not have any sons that became king, and neither did any of his sons nor their offspring beget a king, and so on.
A-HAH! See! There is a contradiction! Jesus couldn't be the King of the Jews, nor the Messiah!
Well, almost. The beauty of the curse upon Jeconiah is that it totally rules out the possibility of Christ having a human father, leaving only the (im)possibility of being conceived of the Holy Spirit and being born of the virgin Mary. In short, the "contradition" is really one more indicator of the wonderful thing that God did in sending His Son to earth to redeem fallen mankind. Jesus is God come in the flesh, and is not the son of Jeconiah, although He is the rightful heir to that throne (and will soon return to sit upon it).
++
Ok, I know this is off-topic. One demerit will suffice, I think...
I've seen this in various companies/industries. Oftentimes management thinks that unless it costs 10 times the amount that the average line worker knows he can do it for, it ain't gonna happen.
Why is this so? I dunno.... pride, maybe? "If I can get a bigger budget, then I'll look better in the district manager's eyes than Frank across the hall"?
Stupidity and waste is more like it. But what do I know? I was only a lowly line slob...
Applications/servlet plugins, etc. run on the server that apache runs on, and html comes out of the far end. This is what the client (browser) sees, and no developer wanting to use jsp (for example) is going to have it generate code that can't be viewed by a luser running IE.
Microshaft can't do anything about apache. Apache served millions of netscape-friendly and IE-friendly html all day today, with no ill effects.
"Next Generation Web Server"? Hmm... I know about next-generation html, which is supposed to be xml, which no browser yet supports (do you hear that, Michael? You are wasting your time, idiot) [an aside to my clueless (soon to be ex-) boss]. Any future versions of web servers will only be vehicles of serving future html, nothing more, and apache should have no problem then, either.
That's what you think... you haven't seen me when I get in front of a camera. More strange, distorted, disfigured images than you can imagine --- just ask my wife.
Of course, her favorite phrase is, "your face is gonna freeze like that!"
Sorry, but I thought that Jakarta was an outdated implementation of Tomcat. The shop where I am the sysadmin wants to go to jsp, like now. What is the difference between them (in a nutshell)? Any info would be great.
Here in Louisiana the State Constitution says that for every day an ex-employer delays paying you, they owe you another day's pay, up to 90 days' worth.
I worked for a nephew of the Long brothers (Huey and Earl, governors of ill-repute) and he was a total jerk. I don't get along with jerks that well, and after a month of working there, I guess he got tired of me not sucking up and shorted my pay by $122.50. When I asked him about it, he told me I was fired.
I got my lawyer uncle to find a local attorney who took my case, and the jerk ended up having to pay me $5000 when the judge got through with him!
Don't mess with the little guy (at least in Louisiana)!
It's scary to think that all these c001 h4ckz that we come up with end up in the hands of total lamers like Saddam. I am sure that is what he has in mind with all the playstations he scored. Cluster a thousand 300MHz 128-bit boxes and you have one killer supercomputer that's just itching to design an H-bomb.
...in my book, anyway. I am definitely in favor of learning HOW something works than just how to USE it in the workforce. If you have the brains and the cash to get a real CS degree, then go for it.
i could rant on, but I'm sure others will pick up the refrain...
2 or 3 months ago, wasn't it? I don't remember the article's name, but slashdot covered decentralized and *encrypted* networks over irc --- all this current article is about is that someone is actually putting this idea to use, formally...
The Constitution, should anyone care to actually read it (I know that's kinda boring and eneryone would rather take polititians' and lawyers' words as gospel), delineates the fucntions of each of the 3 branches of the federal government, and those things not specifically mentioned as being in the domain of the federal government are by default the responsibility of the states.
I will let others describe the legal and constitutional procedures for electing presidents, but the U. S. Supreme Court basically told the Florida Supreme Court that it had to play by the rules.
{soapbox mode on}If we would pay more attention to what the document actually says, the feds would not own us to the extent that they do. I could go on and on about this, but Washington has no business doing most of the things that it now does, and the Fouding Fathers of this nation never intended that the present abuses of power that are the norm these days would never occur.
As far as political partisanship goes, Goerge Washington was against it from the start, and knew that politicians would over time give more allegience to their party than to the good of the nation.{soapbox mode on off}
{political plug inserted here}I voted for GWB in an effort to keep Communist Al out of the White House, but I am registered as a member of the Constitution Party. Before you cry foul, let me say that we favor a return to government limited to that outlined by the Constitution of the United States. In other words, we espouse freedom from government as it is presently (mis)administered, for the most part --- even freedom from the IRS, with is patently unconstitutional, and was never ratified as an amendment thereof.
Before you flame or moderate negatively, at least load the link I posted...ok?
A week or so ago a whole lot of lamers dumped on ham radio operators in this forum, and now when you have a project that needs an easy solution, you come running to us for an answer....
(soapbox) Hams pioneered the underlying technologies for most of what we take for granted today. Unlike Algore we really did invent many things. (/soapbox) One of the things we got into decades ago was telemetry. We regularly bounce signals off satellites and distant ground stations. Usually one would need a valid FCC license for this, however one is allowed to put out a signal under 100 milliwatts without a license in many frequency bands.
My advice is to find the nearest ham club (there is one in your town, I'd wager) and ask them for help. Chances are, if this is not a commercial venture, they might even consider working jointly on this kind of a project. For that matter, if it is commercial and you guys are willing to pay, I know that someone in their club would be willing to do the work. At any rate, they ought to be able to point you in the right direction, seeing as this kind of stuff is what we do for fun.
--KD4TFF
Jefferson Amateur Radio Club
Metairie, Louisiana
This has probably been said before (even today in this thread) but if M$ gets into the Linux gig, it will only be so that it can release a proprietary distro and smother everyone else's so that our Linux (the free, open-source OS) is stamped out of existence.
How to do this? Well, for starters, they could release it either bundled with windows (running in a vmware-like box perhaps, that couldn't be turned on and off, of course, and ran M$-approved Linux apps only --- no apache, samba, etc.) or in the event that they are forced to separate win-os and win-apps, they could tie M$-Linux to M$ Office for Linux and M$ IE for Linux to the OS like they do with windows, claiming of course that they cannot release the Linux sources because doing so would enable hackers to also access their software souces (IE and Office).
Make no mistake about it --- M$ is bent upon world domination, period.
What I think happened here is that michael got ahold of some of that stolen M$ code the other day, ran it, and this story is what came out in the middle of all the crashes and segfaults:P
There was a thread in our LUG's mailing list a few weeks back about Linux boxes being rooted. The kiddies used the hacked boxes for irc takeover bots and warez. One poor soul in particular learned he had been hacked weeks after the intrusion only when he discovered that his 20 gig hard drive was full.
I'll say it again, and listen up this time --- you can't put a Red Hat or other boxed distro box up on the net without turning off all kinds of services and running a locked-down ipchains ruleset, or you are gonna get owned in short order.
I discovered long ago that drinking coke gets rid of them right away --- it's the carbonation that does it. Also, when I can't find a coke, the old "swish and swallow" routine with a mouthful of water usually does it, too. No more than 2 or 3 tries with either method and they are gone:)
Slashdot Mirror
He laid out this neat vision of an interactive television that would feed you content (books, magazines, etc.). I guess he was looking forward to the net as we know it, but he said that things would get more intricate, with the ability to do more with the info, etc., and more and more buttons to push on the TV. He then said that after a while things would level out, and there would be less controls on the box, then finally only one knob, and then even that one would be taken away, and the technology of the TV would be so fantasic that all you ever wanted to know would be magically transferred to your conciousness without having to touch a button.
He then claimed that that technology was available in his day. Books, he said, with no buttons to push, no sound effects, no laser shows, etc. --- books talk to the mind and the imagination, and that's all we need to enjoy a good story.
FastBand ruled when they were on the Northshore up in Covington, and I had an account with them for almost a year before I went to work for them. The sysadmin and another Fastband employee (a programmer) were the ones that started our local Linux users group (http://nolug.org). They had pops in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Slidell, Hammond, Lafayette, and even a couple on the beach in Mississippi (Biloxi and Kiln, I think). A total geek place to work for their entire existence, up until the move to downtown New Orleans.
The owners got stupid and started a streaming media site (FastBand GlobalCast) with a concept of offering Hollywood-takeover content (if you wanna call it content -- none of the techs would watch the streams unless we knew the producer was coming down to our floor --- tripe, if you ask me). They set up a DJ booth on Bourbon Street (boob cams and all) and Globalcast was the reason for relocating to the city --- to be close to the booth, and to have enough office space for all the media freaks they hired. They went pre-IPO and financed their fiasco by hanging their entire operation on the perfomance of 2 stocks, I think it was. I answered the phone when the owner called me up from a bar to ask me to check to see how far the stocks had plummeted that day --- one of them was down 1/3. The isp was sold off 2 months later.
The kicker was that they sold out to the crappiest isp in Louisiana. I-55 is owned by 5 morons (well, one or two of them had a brain, but then again they did go into business with the other idiots). I talked with one of them, the guy in charge of handling their acquisitions, and this guy barely escaped dropping out of SLU (which is hard to do) and is a redneck hick like you wouldn't believe. He was a business dude who was pretending to be a technical guy, and was in way over his head.
Prior to all this, Fastband was the best isp around, and probably a quarter of their customers were from I-55 and simply could not take the crappy support and even crappier service that I-55 had.
When they did the change-over there were 4 of us in tech support (well, 5, but we didn't let him work anything but graveyard) and all we did for 2 weeks was answer calls non-stop from people angry because they couldn't log on and many were astonished when we told them that they were being sold off to I-55, and many of them hung up the phone after telling us that they going to switch to BellSouth. On the Northshore that was just about the only choice left.
Turns out that I-55 was busy elsewhere and they have managed to buy out several of the smaller ISPs in New Orleans as well, and there were other takeovers by out-of-state firms, and, as I write this, I don't know if there is a small ISP left in the city (maybe BaileyLink?).
All of this transpired in the last 7 months. I went out and signed a contract with Eatel out of Gonzales to resell their dialup, but to be honest with you, they have terrible connection problems about half the time. If anyone asks my opinion on what ISP to use, if they are friends of mine I tell them to get a BellSouth account.
Take, for example, the Israelite King Jeconiah (Coniah), the one that God cursed in Jeremiah chapter 22. He was to never have any sons sitting upon the throne; therefore, the Messiah could never be born, as it had already been established that He was to be a son of David. Jeconiah indeed did not have any sons that became king, and neither did any of his sons nor their offspring beget a king, and so on.
A-HAH! See! There is a contradiction! Jesus couldn't be the King of the Jews, nor the Messiah!
Well, almost. The beauty of the curse upon Jeconiah is that it totally rules out the possibility of Christ having a human father, leaving only the (im)possibility of being conceived of the Holy Spirit and being born of the virgin Mary. In short, the "contradition" is really one more indicator of the wonderful thing that God did in sending His Son to earth to redeem fallen mankind. Jesus is God come in the flesh, and is not the son of Jeconiah, although He is the rightful heir to that throne (and will soon return to sit upon it).
++
Ok, I know this is off-topic. One demerit will suffice, I think...
Why is this so? I dunno.... pride, maybe? "If I can get a bigger budget, then I'll look better in the district manager's eyes than Frank across the hall"?
Stupidity and waste is more like it. But what do I know? I was only a lowly line slob...
Applications/servlet plugins, etc. run on the server that apache runs on, and html comes out of the far end. This is what the client (browser) sees, and no developer wanting to use jsp (for example) is going to have it generate code that can't be viewed by a luser running IE.
Microshaft can't do anything about apache. Apache served millions of netscape-friendly and IE-friendly html all day today, with no ill effects.
"Next Generation Web Server"? Hmm... I know about next-generation html, which is supposed to be xml, which no browser yet supports (do you hear that, Michael? You are wasting your time, idiot) [an aside to my clueless (soon to be ex-) boss]. Any future versions of web servers will only be vehicles of serving future html, nothing more, and apache should have no problem then, either.
Of course, her favorite phrase is, "your face is gonna freeze like that!"
If I can't view something correctly on the net, I fire up Mozilla to see if it renders any better.
And as far as the topic goes, if I can't view their crappy shopping cart, I'll take my e-money elsewhere.
Thanks :)
And about the pdf comment below, I agree with that...
Or the Borg from one of those other straw universes is gonna come and get ya...
...than push a Chevy.
Here in Louisiana the State Constitution says that for every day an ex-employer delays paying you, they owe you another day's pay, up to 90 days' worth.
I worked for a nephew of the Long brothers (Huey and Earl, governors of ill-repute) and he was a total jerk. I don't get along with jerks that well, and after a month of working there, I guess he got tired of me not sucking up and shorted my pay by $122.50. When I asked him about it, he told me I was fired.
I got my lawyer uncle to find a local attorney who took my case, and the jerk ended up having to pay me $5000 when the judge got through with him!
Don't mess with the little guy (at least in Louisiana)!
It's scary to think that all these c001 h4ckz that we come up with end up in the hands of total lamers like Saddam. I am sure that is what he has in mind with all the playstations he scored. Cluster a thousand 300MHz 128-bit boxes and you have one killer supercomputer that's just itching to design an H-bomb.
i could rant on, but I'm sure others will pick up the refrain...
2 or 3 months ago, wasn't it? I don't remember the article's name, but slashdot covered decentralized and *encrypted* networks over irc --- all this current article is about is that someone is actually putting this idea to use, formally...
I will let others describe the legal and constitutional procedures for electing presidents, but the U. S. Supreme Court basically told the Florida Supreme Court that it had to play by the rules.
{soapbox mode on}If we would pay more attention to what the document actually says, the feds would not own us to the extent that they do. I could go on and on about this, but Washington has no business doing most of the things that it now does, and the Fouding Fathers of this nation never intended that the present abuses of power that are the norm these days would never occur.
As far as political partisanship goes, Goerge Washington was against it from the start, and knew that politicians would over time give more allegience to their party than to the good of the nation.{soapbox mode on off}
{political plug inserted here}I voted for GWB in an effort to keep Communist Al out of the White House, but I am registered as a member of the Constitution Party. Before you cry foul, let me say that we favor a return to government limited to that outlined by the Constitution of the United States. In other words, we espouse freedom from government as it is presently (mis)administered, for the most part --- even freedom from the IRS, with is patently unconstitutional, and was never ratified as an amendment thereof. Before you flame or moderate negatively, at least load the link I posted ...ok?
My advice is to find the nearest ham club (there is one in your town, I'd wager) and ask them for help. Chances are, if this is not a commercial venture, they might even consider working jointly on this kind of a project. For that matter, if it is commercial and you guys are willing to pay, I know that someone in their club would be willing to do the work. At any rate, they ought to be able to point you in the right direction, seeing as this kind of stuff is what we do for fun.
--KD4TFF
Jefferson Amateur Radio Club
Metairie, Louisiana
How to do this? Well, for starters, they could release it either bundled with windows (running in a vmware-like box perhaps, that couldn't be turned on and off, of course, and ran M$-approved Linux apps only --- no apache, samba, etc.) or in the event that they are forced to separate win-os and win-apps, they could tie M$-Linux to M$ Office for Linux and M$ IE for Linux to the OS like they do with windows, claiming of course that they cannot release the Linux sources because doing so would enable hackers to also access their software souces (IE and Office).
Make no mistake about it --- M$ is bent upon world domination, period.
What I think happened here is that michael got ahold of some of that stolen M$ code the other day, ran it, and this story is what came out in the middle of all the crashes and segfaults :P
I'll say it again, and listen up this time --- you can't put a Red Hat or other boxed distro box up on the net without turning off all kinds of services and running a locked-down ipchains ruleset, or you are gonna get owned in short order.
I discovered long ago that drinking coke gets rid of them right away --- it's the carbonation that does it. Also, when I can't find a coke, the old "swish and swallow" routine with a mouthful of water usually does it, too. No more than 2 or 3 tries with either method and they are gone :)