Here's what I have done a few times with old computers. After installing Linux on them, I have used them to teach the Computer Merit Badge to boy scouts at the summer science camp run by our local council. At the end of it, scouts who did not have their own PCs took the machines home. By the end, scouts did not just have machines they knew how to use - they had machines they knew how to program - even though the programming requirements for the Computer Merit Badge are rudimentary, the longest journey is the one that's never begun and the badge took them the first few steps down the path.
In order to protect workers, you really do need to use high grade gear if you connect your generator to the grid (I don't know whether $2K is a reasonable price). But, if you want to just power some circuits in the house, get a transfer switch and connect the circuits to it. You will then be able to switch the circuits from being powered by the grid to being powered by what you generate.
The easiest way is to carry a copy of Dasher (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/djw30/dasher/) on a USB stick. Use the mouse to enter a password at any time, and it will be hard for a key logger to capture your input.
There is very little of GT.M that is written in assembler, but since GT.M is a compiler, the code generator is the real obstacle to portability. The assembler bits are mostly there to do things like manipulate stack frames, which a run time system needs to do.
Feel free to contact me at ks dot bhaskar at fnf dot com if you have any questions on this.
There is a complete open source stack of VistA on GT.M on Linux. You can download a ready to run Linux live CD from the WorldVistA site at Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista). Grab a 512MB / 1GB USB flash drive, download and burn a CD image, and you're good to go.
At a talk, I heard it said of the University of California Los Angeles medical center that after a major earthquake (perhaps it was the Northridge quake; I don't remember), the structural engineers figured that the building came close to collapsing (which would have been disastrous, since at the same talk I heard it said that it was the second largest building in the US after the Pentagon) when the earth shook, and it was the network cabling that ultimately made enough of a difference to hold it together. I hope someone can authoritatively either corroborate the story or consign it to urban legend status.
However, the exhibit of glass flowers (and other botanical specimens made of glass) at the Harvard Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts ("Boston is a suburb of Cambridge across the Charles River") is truly unique and a must see.
Robot dispensers probably less error prone
on
Robot Pharmacists
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
A pharmacist once made up a label for amoxicillin for my son (an infant then) with three times the regular dose - essentially listing the total daily input as a single dose. I only noticed it when I saw the medicine level in the bottle dropping faster than it should have for a 10 day course. Fortunately, amoxicillin is not toxic in high doses, but other drugs could have killed him.
Let's face it - neither humans not machines are perfect, but machines are less prone to error for routine tasks like prescribing medication.
I speak from the experience of a failed attempt last year to start a Linux Club (actually, a Free and Open Source Software Club) at my eldest son's high school. The school gave us a bunch of vintage PCs (100MHz Pentium; 32/48MB RAM; 600MB drives, and we cannibalized the drives from half to double the storage on the other half). Installing Linux took more time than the club had, so I eventually had to take the the PCs home to install Linux and Open Office. Gnome/KDE proved to be very slow, and the students eventually lost interest. The most successful part was showing them how to configure networking.
1. Do they need to know how to install the OS first, or should I let them look that up on their own while I make them power-users?
Start with PCs on which everything you plan to use is installed. Everything. Too many things can go wrong during installation. At the end of the week, you can have them attempt an install.
2. What distributions of Linux and BSD should they be first introduced to? (I'm only familiar with Debian, and I know virtually nil about *BSD.)
Use whatever you are most familiar with so that you can help them best. Use something that can run a full set of applications (Open Office, Mozilla, etc. -- and don't forget a good set of games) so that the kids can go home and show family and friends how useful and cost effective open source free software can be. I used Red Hat 7.1. If you are familiar with Debian, perhaps Libranet is a possibility? If I were to do it over, I may also consider Gentoo.
3. Initially, do they need to be more adept at the GUI, or do they first need to know how to use the shell?
I'd go with the GUI initially. Many of them will come with a Windows background and it's important to make the point that Linux can be just as visual and attractive, if not more so. You only get to make one first impression.
4. Should I give away Debian CDs no-questions-asked, or should I talk with the almighty Parents so little Daniel doesn't install Linux over Dad's 'work computer.'
Give away CDs. No need to talk to the parents. Little Daniel is old enough to know what's permitted.
5. Are there any other key issue I need to think about?"
If you haven't worked with this age group before, consider carefully how you will keep their attention. I found that taking apart the computers to cannibalize the disk drives was something that they enjoyed, even though I saw it as drudgery. Be prepared with tangents in case you start seeing eyes glazing over.
Working in the Linux kernel is like riding a bicycle. You can read about it till the cows come home, but you just have to dig in and do it. You'll fall off , pick yourself up, dust yourself off and climb that saddle again. Do it a few times, and you're on! Practice configuring and building kernels first without making changes till you get the hang of it. I had to dig in when the driver for my network card, which used to work in 2.2 stopped working in 2.4, and I had to go fix it -- it would have been faster to buy another network card I suppose, but I was born stubborn. (I still have to patch every kernel with that fix, because no one seems interested in applying the fix permanently to the source code tree...)
My guess is that this database is probably bloated because someone is storing images of paperwork as binary data within the database instead of storing the document somewhere else with a reference number in the database. Sounds like Oracle and the disk drive manufacturer are growing fat at taxpayer expense.
Large for a database is determined by the application.
Normally, large for a transaction processing database is in the 10s of GB. Large for decision support may be in the 100s of GB. TB databases would typically be found in data warehouses. These should be different database engines. You wouldn't use a Lamborgini to haul a 50 ton trailer any more than you would use your transaction processing database engine for a warehouse.
Yes, this is a plug for something that I am working on, but it's something that we are very proud of and which is going open source on x86 GNU/Linux.
Check out GT.M at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm. This is a vetted, industrial strength high speed transaction processing database that is in production worldwide at a number of large (and small) banks, and has been benchmarked at 1,200+ online financial transactions per second on a high end RS/6000 (http://www.sanchez.com/news/pr000828.htm), every transaction having full ACID properties.
It's not open source yet, but it will be soon (other niceties such as a project home page are not quite there yet because we're busy scrambling to get a release out). Meanwhile, a binary can be downloaded, as can PDF manuals.
GT.M also has some unique database replication capabilities for creating an application that is continuously available 24x7, even if the data center is blown away or even as the underlying database schema is upgraded. Read the manual for details.
What's missing? SQL/ODBC/JDBC access requires a commercial product (an open source freeware solution is not yet available).
The license for my company's high speed transaction processing database does not in any way restrict the publication of benchmarks, flattering or otherwise.
My team is in the process of open sourcing the x86/Linux version of a high end transaction processing database engine, with some unique features to allow a continuously available application (it will be available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm), using database replication to provide survivability if a suicide bomber or a power outage takes out a data center, and which can be available even as the underlying computer system and database schema are upgraded under the covers. Since I am not too far from Allentown, PA, I will volunteer to give a technical talk at Lehigh, if you like to have me visit at no cost to you (depending on the time of day, pizza, cookies, soda, etc. and a university T-shirt are gratefully accepted). Having the talk jointly hosted by the Computer Science Department would be terrific.
Why will I do this? I work for a company in the area and I would like to improve relations with local universities that have Computer Science programs. In fact, this offer extends to other universities in the Philadelphia area.
Why are we open sourcing the database engine? Attend my talk and ask me.
I have a number of patents, US and international, that I picked up over the years. Some were more original inventions than others. Based on what you have said, your former employer's request is probably reasonable within the current US legal framework.
The way patents work is to make claims that go from the very specific ("if I take a piece of this kind of wire and bend it just so, I can hold two sheets of paper together") to the general ("if I take a piece of flexible material and bend it so that it puts pressure on a surface from two sides, I can use it to hold light, flat objects together") to the ludicrous ("if I take anything, and do anything with it, and it holds anything together, then I invented it"). The nature of patents is that things that are "obvious" are not patentable, so your employer wants to protect itself against someone who uses brass instead of steel for a paperclip and claims a new patent. This is how the patent game is played, and your ex-employer is probably just playing by the rules. If it ever gets to trial, some claims will get thrown out, but some may stand.
Don't assume, unless you know otherwise, that your ex-employer is acting greedy and unreasonable. While patents are usually swords, they are also shields, to prevent others from claiming rights to something that you did. This frequently occurs because many people get the same idea at the same time.
Unless something is very fishy, you don't need to spend your money on an attorney or consult a panel of experts (this forum excepted!).
Slashdot Mirror
Here's what I have done a few times with old computers. After installing Linux on them, I have used them to teach the Computer Merit Badge to boy scouts at the summer science camp run by our local council. At the end of it, scouts who did not have their own PCs took the machines home. By the end, scouts did not just have machines they knew how to use - they had machines they knew how to program - even though the programming requirements for the Computer Merit Badge are rudimentary, the longest journey is the one that's never begun and the badge took them the first few steps down the path.
In order to protect workers, you really do need to use high grade gear if you connect your generator to the grid (I don't know whether $2K is a reasonable price). But, if you want to just power some circuits in the house, get a transfer switch and connect the circuits to it. You will then be able to switch the circuits from being powered by the grid to being powered by what you generate.
The easiest way is to carry a copy of Dasher (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/djw30/dasher/) on a USB stick. Use the mouse to enter a password at any time, and it will be hard for a key logger to capture your input.
As the guy who manages GT.M, let me assert that the licensing of GT.M as released on Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm) is GPL.
There is very little of GT.M that is written in assembler, but since GT.M is a compiler, the code generator is the real obstacle to portability. The assembler bits are mostly there to do things like manipulate stack frames, which a run time system needs to do.
Feel free to contact me at ks dot bhaskar at fnf dot com if you have any questions on this.
There is a complete open source stack of VistA on GT.M on Linux. You can download a ready to run Linux live CD from the WorldVistA site at Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista). Grab a 512MB / 1GB USB flash drive, download and burn a CD image, and you're good to go.
At a talk, I heard it said of the University of California Los Angeles medical center that after a major earthquake (perhaps it was the Northridge quake; I don't remember), the structural engineers figured that the building came close to collapsing (which would have been disastrous, since at the same talk I heard it said that it was the second largest building in the US after the Pentagon) when the earth shook, and it was the network cabling that ultimately made enough of a difference to hold it together. I hope someone can authoritatively either corroborate the story or consign it to urban legend status.
The word unique is often abused.
However, the exhibit of glass flowers (and other botanical specimens made of glass) at the Harvard Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts ("Boston is a suburb of Cambridge across the Charles River") is truly unique and a must see.
A pharmacist once made up a label for amoxicillin for my son (an infant then) with three times the regular dose - essentially listing the total daily input as a single dose. I only noticed it when I saw the medicine level in the bottle dropping faster than it should have for a 10 day course. Fortunately, amoxicillin is not toxic in high doses, but other drugs could have killed him.
Let's face it - neither humans not machines are perfect, but machines are less prone to error for routine tasks like prescribing medication.
I speak from the experience of a failed attempt last year to start a Linux Club (actually, a Free and Open Source Software Club) at my eldest son's high school. The school gave us a bunch of vintage PCs (100MHz Pentium; 32/48MB RAM; 600MB drives, and we cannibalized the drives from half to double the storage on the other half). Installing Linux took more time than the club had, so I eventually had to take the the PCs home to install Linux and Open Office. Gnome/KDE proved to be very slow, and the students eventually lost interest. The most successful part was showing them how to configure networking.
1. Do they need to know how to install the OS first, or should I let them look that up on their own while I make them power-users?
Start with PCs on which everything you plan to use is installed. Everything. Too many things can go wrong during installation. At the end of the week, you can have them attempt an install.
2. What distributions of Linux and BSD should they be first introduced to? (I'm only familiar with Debian, and I know virtually nil about *BSD.)
Use whatever you are most familiar with so that you can help them best. Use something that can run a full set of applications (Open Office, Mozilla, etc. -- and don't forget a good set of games) so that the kids can go home and show family and friends how useful and cost effective open source free software can be. I used Red Hat 7.1. If you are familiar with Debian, perhaps Libranet is a possibility? If I were to do it over, I may also consider Gentoo.
3. Initially, do they need to be more adept at the GUI, or do they first need to know how to use the shell?
I'd go with the GUI initially. Many of them will come with a Windows background and it's important to make the point that Linux can be just as visual and attractive, if not more so. You only get to make one first impression.
4. Should I give away Debian CDs no-questions-asked, or should I talk with the almighty Parents so little Daniel doesn't install Linux over Dad's 'work computer.'
Give away CDs. No need to talk to the parents. Little Daniel is old enough to know what's permitted.
5. Are there any other key issue I need to think about?"
If you haven't worked with this age group before, consider carefully how you will keep their attention. I found that taking apart the computers to cannibalize the disk drives was something that they enjoyed, even though I saw it as drudgery. Be prepared with tangents in case you start seeing eyes glazing over.
Working in the Linux kernel is like riding a bicycle. You can read about it till the cows come home, but you just have to dig in and do it. You'll fall off , pick yourself up, dust yourself off and climb that saddle again. Do it a few times, and you're on! Practice configuring and building kernels first without making changes till you get the hang of it. I had to dig in when the driver for my network card, which used to work in 2.2 stopped working in 2.4, and I had to go fix it -- it would have been faster to buy another network card I suppose, but I was born stubborn. (I still have to patch every kernel with that fix, because no one seems interested in applying the fix permanently to the source code tree...)
My guess is that this database is probably bloated because someone is storing images of paperwork as binary data within the database instead of storing the document somewhere else with a reference number in the database. Sounds like Oracle and the disk drive manufacturer are growing fat at taxpayer expense.
Large for a database is determined by the application.
Normally, large for a transaction processing database is in the 10s of GB. Large for decision support may be in the 100s of GB. TB databases would typically be found in data warehouses. These should be different database engines. You wouldn't use a Lamborgini to haul a 50 ton trailer any more than you would use your transaction processing database engine for a warehouse.
Yes, this is a plug for something that I am working on, but it's something that we are very proud of and which is going open source on x86 GNU/Linux.
Check out GT.M at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm. This is a vetted, industrial strength high speed transaction processing database that is in production worldwide at a number of large (and small) banks, and has been benchmarked at 1,200+ online financial transactions per second on a high end RS/6000 (http://www.sanchez.com/news/pr000828.htm), every transaction having full ACID properties.
It's not open source yet, but it will be soon (other niceties such as a project home page are not quite there yet because we're busy scrambling to get a release out). Meanwhile, a binary can be downloaded, as can PDF manuals.
GT.M also has some unique database replication capabilities for creating an application that is continuously available 24x7, even if the data center is blown away or even as the underlying database schema is upgraded. Read the manual for details.
What's missing? SQL/ODBC/JDBC access requires a commercial product (an open source freeware solution is not yet available).
The license for my company's high speed transaction processing database does not in any way restrict the publication of benchmarks, flattering or otherwise.
My team is in the process of open sourcing the x86/Linux version of a high end transaction processing database engine, with some unique features to allow a continuously available application (it will be available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm), using database replication to provide survivability if a suicide bomber or a power outage takes out a data center, and which can be available even as the underlying computer system and database schema are upgraded under the covers. Since I am not too far from Allentown, PA, I will volunteer to give a technical talk at Lehigh, if you like to have me visit at no cost to you (depending on the time of day, pizza, cookies, soda, etc. and a university T-shirt are gratefully accepted). Having the talk jointly hosted by the Computer Science Department would be terrific.
Why will I do this? I work for a company in the area and I would like to improve relations with local universities that have Computer Science programs. In fact, this offer extends to other universities in the Philadelphia area.
Why are we open sourcing the database engine? Attend my talk and ask me.
Please send e-mail to k.bhaskar@sanchez.com.
-- Bhaskar
I have a number of patents, US and international, that I picked up over the years. Some were more original inventions than others. Based on what you have said, your former employer's request is probably reasonable within the current US legal framework.
The way patents work is to make claims that go from the very specific ("if I take a piece of this kind of wire and bend it just so, I can hold two sheets of paper together") to the general ("if I take a piece of flexible material and bend it so that it puts pressure on a surface from two sides, I can use it to hold light, flat objects together") to the ludicrous ("if I take anything, and do anything with it, and it holds anything together, then I invented it"). The nature of patents is that things that are "obvious" are not patentable, so your employer wants to protect itself against someone who uses brass instead of steel for a paperclip and claims a new patent. This is how the patent game is played, and your ex-employer is probably just playing by the rules. If it ever gets to trial, some claims will get thrown out, but some may stand.
Don't assume, unless you know otherwise, that your ex-employer is acting greedy and unreasonable. While patents are usually swords, they are also shields, to prevent others from claiming rights to something that you did. This frequently occurs because many people get the same idea at the same time.
Unless something is very fishy, you don't need to spend your money on an attorney or consult a panel of experts (this forum excepted!).