I don't know what kind of nutcracker you use, but mine works fine. It looks a lot like a thumb-screw, and you can gradually increase the force until the shell breaks
I've never actually seen those types of nutcrackers before. They sound like a good idea, but you'd still want to hope the nutcracker was made out of something very solid.
The 'useless' nutcrackers are the typical fulcrum designed ones. I have sheared the pin at the fulcrum in the past, trying to crack macadamia nuts. Seriously!
How much energy goes into getting the nuts out of the shells in the first place?
I've visited a macadamia farm, and seen the machine that they use to remove the shells. It resembles something like an engine, with rows of levers catching the nut and compressing it just a few millimeters. The shell is very brittle and cracks completely if you can compress it just a little.
They had a prize of a lifetime supply of macadamias if you could get a nut out of a shell without using a saw. I tried smashing it with a rock with no luck. Apparently, no one had ever collected the prize.
I can't say I'm surprised. I regularly crack open macadamia nuts. Handheld nutcrackers are useless. I've actually broken the nutcracker before I've broken the nut. My method involves an irresistable force and an immovable object (who said that theoretical physics wasn't practical?! 8)) . But seriously, I use a hammer and a rock slab. I literally have to pound the nut a good three or four times with the hammer. And I mean serious swings... with the kind of force you need to drive a nail. But the nut always gives way, and on rare occasion, the finger too (ouch!).
Whoever came up with the phrase "a hard nut to crack", obviously worked in the macadamia business.
Yet I remember reading on Michael Moore's website about how right after 9/11 he noticed that despite the fact that nail clippers weren't allowed on planes, matches and lighters were because the Tobacco industry had complained to the government that not allowing matches doesn't allow their customers to light up once they get off the plane.
I remember the days when I travelled via plane to Canada and the US, with my swiss army knife in my pocket. Fat chance of that ever happening again, and I can live with that, I suppose. But nail clippers, matches, and lighters? Does any of this strike anyone as paranoid to the point of absurdity?
The ironic thing is that any determined terrorist will find a way to do what they need, without having to resort to any of the banned items. Do you want to threaten someone with a dangerous object? There's many devices other than metal knives that will do the job. Want to set fire to something on a plane? The whole chemical world abounds with ways to ignite things. Want to clip your nails on a plane? Hey, any smart terrorist can find a way to make sure their nails are decently manicured before they hijack the transport they're on.
Let's face it. Security is not provided, in any way, by banning a whole bunch of little items. It is just a panacea for a nervous public, looking for action after some very troubling events. It is there to bolster confidence by providing a false sense of security. Succinctly, it's a PR exercise.
I second this, in a very big way. Proper exchange connectivity is the only thing that's preventing me from running Linux permanently at work.
Sure, I can use the Ximian connector for Exchange, but I don't want to pay for something that I only use at work (and work will not pay for it, because they don't support Linux desktops). Plus, I don't think it supports full exchange functionality.
IMAP doesn't cut it either. It'll allow me to view email on Exchange, but the contacts and appointments and tasks and mail filter aren't available.
I really ought to try coding it myself. Just never enough hours in the week.
I especially liked the anecdote about Linus hacking a crashed server to find out what went wrong. Just goes to show how damn proficient the leader of the Linux world is.
I have now added the National Zoo & Aquarium to my list of must-see Canberra places (wow, my list has doubled:). Maybe they'll have Fairy penguin nipping sessions there 'specially for all the visiting geeks. Beats getting mauled by a koala (those things are real killers!).
Open Sourcers like to say "Use The Source", but in reality that's an engineering shortcut borne out of a student userbase that reinstalls every 6 months. As more corporate users with slowly-moving configs get on board Linux, things will have to change. Support of 10 year old binaries is not an uncommon thing in the business world.
Do not underestimate the power of the source, Luke. Lets do a thought experiment... if you were managing IT for some business, would you prefer to support 10 year old binaries without source, or with source? I know which one I'd prefer. Software companies can come and go, but the source is with you forever.;)
Having access to the source of some programs has allowed me to track down problems in a few hours, and therefore create a workaround or even fix the problem directly. This has saved my employer days/weeks/months of possibly waiting for some software company to be bothered to track things down. From a business perspective, open source puts the power back into their hands. How can you not want this?
Alas, the closed source model fails in many cases of binary compatibility. Dare I mention the phrase "dll hell"?
To the "widespread" masses, which includes my mom (hehe), recompiling your browser to fix a compatibility problem with a plug-in is not something that they can and/or are willing to learn to do.
Hey, I agree with you. The common computer user should not need to compile anything for their computer.
But the common computer user should also _not_ be using a beta version of Mozilla distributed by mozilla.org. The common computer user can quite happily use the version of Mozilla that is compiled by their distribution. Therefore it's the distributions responsibility to make sure of compatibility.
if it were a Microsoft product that did this, hordes of Slashbots would post hundreds of "+5" posts decrying the evil antics and poor design. But it's standard procedure when it comes to major Linux apps, and nobody bats an eye.
And here's the reason why: because with Linux, we can actually do something about it! We have the source code, and we can then compile it with an older version of gcc.
With Microsoft, you can do nothing! You have no access to the source, and cannot change things if you don't agree with their direction. Now THAT is evil!
Furthermore, the real evil lies with the fact that RealPlayer don't have a gcc 3.2 version of their plugin (I assume). Hopefully they will release a new version of the plugin, and this will be OK.
Lastly, have a closer look at the release notes... it says "The Linux binaries distributed by mozilla.org are now compiled with GCC 3.2.". Note the phrase "distributed by mozilla.org". Therefore, if it's distributed by your favourite distribution, things should be OK, as your distribution will assure operability with things like RealPlayer.
Your complaint is a non-event. Please post something a little more constructive in future.
This CEO is wonderfully straight forward. That's a rare thing in this befuddling world of business catch phrases and buzzwords. His scope on the whole TCO argument is...
I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em. How about when we do have a problem, you don't have to send some guy to a corner of the building to find out what's going on--he never leaves his desk, because everything's server-based. There's no doubt that what I'm doing is cheaper to operate. The analyst guys can say whatever they want.
Hurrah! Someone finally cut through all the bullshit, and basically said it straight. Take that you buzzword speaking analyst! Begone back to the hellish dimension that spawned you!
Unfortunately, same goes for ext2 in general. You can compile your kernel with large file support, but your applications and filesystem drivers need to support it as well.
Good lord, why? Is it just national/istic pride? I see that as something to be outgrown with respect to driving, receiving, and appreciating scientific discoveries and technological advancements.
Speaking as one who has played Civilisation until the late hours of the morning, I can confidently say that the country with the most advanced technology, wins.
Direct from the Alanis Morissette school of Irony, now comes a word that we've all been waiting for... rhetorical! Ladies and gentlemen, expect to see more of this word appear in songs and discourse, without any regard for its actual meaning.
I mean, whatever happened to the usual meaning of rhetoric as "the art of oratory"!? (Yes, Virginia, that was a rhetorical question.) How the hell can rhetoric be extended to using objects to communicate? Rhetoric has always been associated with _verbal_ communication.
Mr. Davidson tries to "loosely" define rhetoric at the beginning of his article, and in general, he failed. It almost seems like "rhetoric" is starting to become the trendy word of the month. And I despise people who try to be trendy.
Please call it what it actually is; a metaphor or a symbol. For my sanity. For everyones sanity. For the children... the little children. Why won't anyone please consider the children!
And yet, on/. Australia appears if not daily, then certainly several times a week (usually censorship, ISP, firewalls, etc. stories). So what gives?
I think a more pertinent question would be... why NOT Australia?! I mean, honestly, do you really want to be narrow-minded with no idea of what happens outside your own little space? It's good to hear news from _everywhere_, as it gives perspective on our own situation.
As for why Austraila doesn't appear in the regular "world news"... well, do you really expect the regular news to report on Australian police targeting free email providers? That news is not really big enough for "regular" news feeds, but is very relevent to Slashdot.
As for why stories on Australia appear regularly on Slashdot... could it be that the Slashdot editors realise that they actually have a worldwide audience?! I think it could.
DeeK
Those hyperintelligent pandimensional beings!!
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Psychotic Lab Mice
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· Score: 5, Funny
How better to disguise their real natures, and how better to guide your thinking. Suddenly running down a maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis. If it's finely calculated the cumulative effect is enormous.
Go to http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/, search for your item, and then click on the Show only merchants who ship internationally. So not only do you find a whole heap of stores that will ship to you, but you can also bargain hunt all on the one page. It's certainly a big help.
Years ago, I set up a mail/web/dns server for an ISP with 1000 users. The hardware I used... a Pentium 100 with 64MB ram running Slackware Linux.
I guess what I'm trying to say is your dual P4 2.8 will do the job quite nicely.
Just one thing, if you can, get hot swappable SCSI drives with a SCSI RAID controller. That way if a drive does bite the dust, it's easy to replace it without even stopping the server. These little things are always important.
SCO seeks at least $1 billion in damages from IBM's alleged breach of its contract with SCO; another $1 billion for breach of the Unix contract signed by Sequent, which IBM acquired in 1999; and another $1 billion for unfair competition.
Are they serious?! No really, is this serious?! It's almost as if they're treating this whole thing as a joke. Or maybe they're thinking "what the hell... let's go for broke". 'Cause broke is where they're heading.
I wonder how they actually arrived at the figure of $1 billion for each "transgression". I'm guessing that they plucked the figure from their heads in a group brainstorming session, not unlike a Dr. Evil and minions meeting. Whoever came up with that theory (which I read in a previous post), it's certainly looking more credible now.
I also wonder exactly how many $1 billion transgressions they can think of in the next meeting. It's both frightening and amusing at the same time.
DeeK
CVS history of Linux code?
on
Latest SCO News
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Does anybody know how far back the CVS logs go for the Linux kernel? Once SCO release the exact code that is in question, it will be interesting to go back and query exactly who submitted the patch to the kernel.
Then we can go to whoever submitted the patch, and find out if they wrote it from scratch. If they did, then I'd say SCO have just been busted big time for putting GPL code into their system.
And that would be a real shame, wouldn't it.
DeeK
Re:This SCO story just makes me sick to my stomach
on
Latest SCO News
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· Score: 1
Yeah, y'know, because there are lots of starving Ethiopians with networked clusters lying around. "Operating systems" are usually listed right after "wheat" on their want lists...
The original poster is not the only one guilty of hyperbole...;)
But really, the original poster definitely has a point. Though the Ethiopian farmers care not for free operating systems, the schools and community centers would certainly be able to use it to tremendous advantage.
You've got to ask yourself... is playing violent video games the cause, or a symptom? If the young children are brought up in a repressive family environment, I can surely imagine that they would play violent video games to work off their negative emotions.
Personally, I can't imagine ANYONE being influenced to actual violence through games, unless they had some underlying problem in the first place. In that case, surely it would be better to treat the problem, instead of blaming the game. Maybe people are too frightened of discovering the cause, lest it be themselves.
Does anyone remember a feature of Scorched Earth, when you defeat another player, and they suddenly spew forth about 2 or 3 volatile attacks before they finally perish?
This sooo reminded me of SCO and their situation for some reason.
This is Sydney, unfortunately. If you own a spare 1000 m^2 in Sydney, then you're already a millionaire. And that's without even building anything on it. Property prices have become obscene in the last few years. A shed covered with kangaroo repellent would probably sell for a cool $300k in Sydney. More, dependent on position.
If SCO wins its suit against IBM, SCO could legally put a major kibosh into commercial Linux distributions
Look at it from an engineering perspective. If there is any code in the kernel that was previously copyrighted, then that code must be removed or replaced.
If SCO wins this fight with IBM, I'm assuming that they will finally notify Linus of the "offending" code. Then Linus will remove the code....... and life will go on. You see, this is how an engineer thinks. They find a problem, they solve the problem, they move onto the next problem. If other people want to make a big fuss, or run around in circles tearing their hair out, then that's their problem.
The commercial Linux distributions are fine. They have no responsibility for any copyrighted code in the kernel. Most kernel developers will be fine. They don't have any responsibility for any copyrighted code in the kernel. If someone DID submit copyrighted code, then they are solely responsible.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that SCO are talking out of their arse. If this goes to court, they will get whomped, of that I have no doubt. In the interests of supposition though, if SCO won, then they would take their winnings from IBM, the Linux kernel would have half its SMP code ripped out, and people would discover that there IS a tomorrow!
except he didn't say anything about the Xbox having "crap gameplay" as you seem to imply.
Whoops, I didn't mean to imply that. Since I've never owned or played an Xbox, I can't comment on the games for it. It was just a generic statement.
I don't think that competition misses the point at all. There were three consoles in the house where one was played more than the others, another is played less and the third was abandoned.
The competition didn't prove anything about how good the consoles were in themselves, which seemed to be the point of the competition. But then again, maybe I misread the intent. Maybe they were testing the console and games available for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never actually seen those types of nutcrackers before. They sound like a good idea, but you'd still want to hope the nutcracker was made out of something very solid.
The 'useless' nutcrackers are the typical fulcrum designed ones. I have sheared the pin at the fulcrum in the past, trying to crack macadamia nuts. Seriously!
- How much energy goes into getting the nuts out of the shells in the first place?
I've visited a macadamia farm, and seen the machine that they use to remove the shells. It resembles something like an engine, with rows of levers catching the nut and compressing it just a few millimeters. The shell is very brittle and cracks completely if you can compress it just a little.- They had a prize of a lifetime supply of macadamias if you could get a nut out of a shell without using a saw. I tried smashing it with a rock with no luck. Apparently, no one had ever collected the prize.
I can't say I'm surprised. I regularly crack open macadamia nuts. Handheld nutcrackers are useless. I've actually broken the nutcracker before I've broken the nut. My method involves an irresistable force and an immovable object (who said that theoretical physics wasn't practical?! 8)) . But seriously, I use a hammer and a rock slab. I literally have to pound the nut a good three or four times with the hammer. And I mean serious swingsWhoever came up with the phrase "a hard nut to crack", obviously worked in the macadamia business.
DeeK
I remember the days when I travelled via plane to Canada and the US, with my swiss army knife in my pocket. Fat chance of that ever happening again, and I can live with that, I suppose. But nail clippers, matches, and lighters? Does any of this strike anyone as paranoid to the point of absurdity?
The ironic thing is that any determined terrorist will find a way to do what they need, without having to resort to any of the banned items. Do you want to threaten someone with a dangerous object? There's many devices other than metal knives that will do the job. Want to set fire to something on a plane? The whole chemical world abounds with ways to ignite things. Want to clip your nails on a plane? Hey, any smart terrorist can find a way to make sure their nails are decently manicured before they hijack the transport they're on.
Let's face it. Security is not provided, in any way, by banning a whole bunch of little items. It is just a panacea for a nervous public, looking for action after some very troubling events. It is there to bolster confidence by providing a false sense of security. Succinctly, it's a PR exercise.
I second this, in a very big way. Proper exchange connectivity is the only thing that's preventing me from running Linux permanently at work.
Sure, I can use the Ximian connector for Exchange, but I don't want to pay for something that I only use at work (and work will not pay for it, because they don't support Linux desktops). Plus, I don't think it supports full exchange functionality.
IMAP doesn't cut it either. It'll allow me to view email on Exchange, but the contacts and appointments and tasks and mail filter aren't available.
I really ought to try coding it myself. Just never enough hours in the week.
I especially liked the anecdote about Linus hacking a crashed server to find out what went wrong. Just goes to show how damn proficient the leader of the Linux world is.
:). Maybe they'll have Fairy penguin nipping sessions there 'specially for all the visiting geeks. Beats getting mauled by a koala (those things are real killers!).
I have now added the National Zoo & Aquarium to my list of must-see Canberra places (wow, my list has doubled
Do not underestimate the power of the source, Luke. Lets do a thought experiment
Having access to the source of some programs has allowed me to track down problems in a few hours, and therefore create a workaround or even fix the problem directly. This has saved my employer days/weeks/months of possibly waiting for some software company to be bothered to track things down. From a business perspective, open source puts the power back into their hands. How can you not want this?
Alas, the closed source model fails in many cases of binary compatibility. Dare I mention the phrase "dll hell"?
- To the "widespread" masses, which includes my mom (hehe), recompiling your browser to fix a compatibility problem with a plug-in is not something that they can and/or are willing to learn to do.
Hey, I agree with you. The common computer user should not need to compile anything for their computer.But the common computer user should also _not_ be using a beta version of Mozilla distributed by mozilla.org. The common computer user can quite happily use the version of Mozilla that is compiled by their distribution. Therefore it's the distributions responsibility to make sure of compatibility.
- if it were a Microsoft product that did this, hordes of Slashbots would post hundreds of "+5" posts decrying the evil antics and poor design. But it's standard procedure when it comes to major Linux apps, and nobody bats an eye.
And here's the reason why: because with Linux, we can actually do something about it! We have the source code, and we can then compile it with an older version of gcc.With Microsoft, you can do nothing! You have no access to the source, and cannot change things if you don't agree with their direction. Now THAT is evil!
Furthermore, the real evil lies with the fact that RealPlayer don't have a gcc 3.2 version of their plugin (I assume). Hopefully they will release a new version of the plugin, and this will be OK.
Lastly, have a closer look at the release notes
Your complaint is a non-event. Please post something a little more constructive in future.
- I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em. How about when we do have a problem, you don't have to send some guy to a corner of the building to find out what's going on--he never leaves his desk, because everything's server-based. There's no doubt that what I'm doing is cheaper to operate. The analyst guys can say whatever they want.
Hurrah! Someone finally cut through all the bullshit, and basically said it straight. Take that you buzzword speaking analyst! Begone back to the hellish dimension that spawned you!Unfortunately, same goes for ext2 in general. You can compile your kernel with large file support, but your applications and filesystem drivers need to support it as well.
Speaking as one who has played Civilisation until the late hours of the morning, I can confidently say that the country with the most advanced technology, wins.
Direct from the Alanis Morissette school of Irony, now comes a word that we've all been waiting for
I mean, whatever happened to the usual meaning of rhetoric as "the art of oratory"!? (Yes, Virginia, that was a rhetorical question.) How the hell can rhetoric be extended to using objects to communicate? Rhetoric has always been associated with _verbal_ communication.
Mr. Davidson tries to "loosely" define rhetoric at the beginning of his article, and in general, he failed. It almost seems like "rhetoric" is starting to become the trendy word of the month. And I despise people who try to be trendy.
Please call it what it actually is; a metaphor or a symbol. For my sanity. For everyones sanity. For the children
Wow, I can't believe how annoyed I am with this.
I think a more pertinent question would be
As for why Austraila doesn't appear in the regular "world news"
As for why stories on Australia appear regularly on Slashdot
DeeK
Credits to D.Adams
Go to http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/, search for your item, and then click on the Show only merchants who ship internationally. So not only do you find a whole heap of stores that will ship to you, but you can also bargain hunt all on the one page. It's certainly a big help.
Years ago, I set up a mail/web/dns server for an ISP with 1000 users. The hardware I used ... a Pentium 100 with 64MB ram running Slackware Linux.
I guess what I'm trying to say is your dual P4 2.8 will do the job quite nicely.
Just one thing, if you can, get hot swappable SCSI drives with a SCSI RAID controller. That way if a drive does bite the dust, it's easy to replace it without even stopping the server. These little things are always important.
- SCO seeks at least $1 billion in damages from IBM's alleged breach of its contract with SCO; another $1 billion for breach of the Unix contract signed by Sequent, which IBM acquired in 1999; and another $1 billion for unfair competition.
Are they serious?! No really, is this serious?! It's almost as if they're treating this whole thing as a joke. Or maybe they're thinking "what the hellI wonder how they actually arrived at the figure of $1 billion for each "transgression". I'm guessing that they plucked the figure from their heads in a group brainstorming session, not unlike a Dr. Evil and minions meeting. Whoever came up with that theory (which I read in a previous post), it's certainly looking more credible now.
I also wonder exactly how many $1 billion transgressions they can think of in the next meeting. It's both frightening and amusing at the same time.
DeeK
Does anybody know how far back the CVS logs go for the Linux kernel? Once SCO release the exact code that is in question, it will be interesting to go back and query exactly who submitted the patch to the kernel.
Then we can go to whoever submitted the patch, and find out if they wrote it from scratch. If they did, then I'd say SCO have just been busted big time for putting GPL code into their system.
And that would be a real shame, wouldn't it.
DeeK
The original poster is not the only one guilty of hyperbole
But really, the original poster definitely has a point. Though the Ethiopian farmers care not for free operating systems, the schools and community centers would certainly be able to use it to tremendous advantage.
DeeK
You've got to ask yourself
Personally, I can't imagine ANYONE being influenced to actual violence through games, unless they had some underlying problem in the first place. In that case, surely it would be better to treat the problem, instead of blaming the game. Maybe people are too frightened of discovering the cause, lest it be themselves.
DeeK
Does anyone remember a feature of Scorched Earth, when you defeat another player, and they suddenly spew forth about 2 or 3 volatile attacks before they finally perish?
This sooo reminded me of SCO and their situation for some reason.
DeeK
"Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple."
DeeK
This is Sydney, unfortunately. If you own a spare 1000 m^2 in Sydney, then you're already a millionaire. And that's without even building anything on it. Property prices have become obscene in the last few years. A shed covered with kangaroo repellent would probably sell for a cool $300k in Sydney. More, dependent on position.
DeeK
Look at it from an engineering perspective. If there is any code in the kernel that was previously copyrighted, then that code must be removed or replaced.
If SCO wins this fight with IBM, I'm assuming that they will finally notify Linus of the "offending" code. Then Linus will remove the code
The commercial Linux distributions are fine. They have no responsibility for any copyrighted code in the kernel. Most kernel developers will be fine. They don't have any responsibility for any copyrighted code in the kernel. If someone DID submit copyrighted code, then they are solely responsible.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that SCO are talking out of their arse. If this goes to court, they will get whomped, of that I have no doubt. In the interests of supposition though, if SCO won, then they would take their winnings from IBM, the Linux kernel would have half its SMP code ripped out, and people would discover that there IS a tomorrow!
DeeK
Whoops, I didn't mean to imply that. Since I've never owned or played an Xbox, I can't comment on the games for it. It was just a generic statement.
The competition didn't prove anything about how good the consoles were in themselves, which seemed to be the point of the competition. But then again, maybe I misread the intent. Maybe they were testing the console and games available for it.
DeeK