Seriously though, I am often amazed at the amount of stuff that people can juggle day in and day out. However, the cost of an individual's multitasking might not be a direct hit to productivity in an immediate fashion. If a heavily loaded indivdual loses the balance which allows them to efficiently task a number of projects, then that is where the productivity hit will make itself visible.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. This article doesn't tell us something we don't already know.
Though I keep my phone, pager, and Handspring Visor clipped to the belt, I keep everything the other critical things in the small pouch: the wallet, leatherman too, spare change, pens, highlighters, a blank MD or two for recording class lecture.
I like keeping the good stuff in the big pocket, such as my car keys, stereo faceplate, and the handgun of the day...something no geek should be without!
I'd be packing up and running for the hills with the MSN agreement. As if passport's privacy isn't bad enough for email. Soon M$ will own not only anything you send and receive through email, but anything you send or receive over their connections.
Someone set up us a Qwest.
All your packets are belong to us!
As far as the Ciscos go, the only time they are vulnerable to the Code Red problems are when the HTTP interface is configured to run on them. I'm also a firm believer in the CLI too. As long as your customer are not enabling the HTTP interface, you shouldn't have any outages.
I suppose any device that has a web-managment capability on its front end would also be vulnerable, though.
Raw sockets, like Code Red, have been blown entirely out of proportion. In fact, the problem lies with those "unprivledged" users without any knowledge that open up attachments from nearly anyone.
Personally, I turn off the "hide known file extensions." I wonder how many people open up those.vbs email attachments becasue they don't see that it is a.vbs attachment.
This isn't the first, or the last security hype that we'll see. As far as I'm concerned, it all started with the Michaelangelo virus that went around about 10 years or so ago. The world didn't end then...and it's not going to end now.
The problem with the focus on 802.11 as it stands is that the "4G" services becomes "0G" service if too many people fire up their nifty 2.4gHz cordless phones. My range for 11mb extends to about 50' in my apartment complex because of it.
I absolutely agree with all the concerns regarding the ruggedness (or possible lack thereof?) regarding the hard drive. I'm also a little concerned about the upgrade path available...if there is one.
I think the coolest thing about this is its network-readiness. It would be very cool to use something like this as a network storage device. Besides, it'd make it a lot easier to transport chunks of my.mp3 collection between my friends if I could just connect the device to the LAN and let them take what they needed.:)
Marlboro is in a good location, particularly since eastern Massachusetts is largely considered to be the Silicon Valley of the east coast. Being a resident of MA and working in the industry, I would have expected someone at the company I work at to have heard about it and reported it.
That particular hotel is a nice little joint too...and it's a stone's throw off I-495.;)
It almost makes me want to recover the Apple//e from my parents' house and waste my days playing AutoDuel again...or loading AppleWorks into the 1mb RamWorks III board (with the CGA extension card). The nostalgia almost gets me teary-eyed!
Need someone for a BW assist.
on
Bionic Nurses
·
· Score: 3
In medical jargon, a BW is short for a beached whale...or someone too fat for their own good. Some patients I have seen in the ER are just too goddamn heavy. Considering the proximity of a patient to the nurse, and the unbalanced mass, it's almost impossible to get in the power zone to lift someone properly. No wonder nurses hurt their backs.
I think all the EMTs and Paramedics out in the field could benefit a lot more from this than nurses can. After all, nurses can summon the entire ER if it's necessary to safely move a patient. I can't say I've really known any EMTs who have made it long enough to retire just based on their backs.
I never knew Tandy made anything that portable before...but it does bring back some memories of the Speak 'n Spell that I had when I was a little kid. The only expansion those things afforded was a little word module which plugged in the back. I have no idea how E.T. made anything useful from it...
The price wasn't too bad, until you consider how much further money went back in the early 80's. I think my first computer cost about $3,000 back in 1984...an Apple//e with 2 floppy drives and a color monitor.
My elementary school had a couple TRS-80s...and the wires to connect a cassette player (anyone remember those?). I'd like to see a picture of one of the portables...
Ah...the memories of computing before the Internet!
If something the size of a baseball could make a sonic boom after going only 100 or 200 MPH, I'm sure going to the ballgame would be a lot more fun.
I wonder if they meant to says something more along the lines of 1,000 to 2,000 MPH...then there'd be a boom. Ya know, the size of basketballs or volkswagens.:)
If a person has enough desktop style cases with the same approximate dimensions, if they would be adequately strong enough to make a retaining wall, or maybe even a brick house...hrm.
You are correct, in that the Internet used to be impartial. Then again, the Internet used to be only researchers, technical businesses, and college kids who had the time and energy (and brainpower) to get online. That was back in the pre-web days. I remember the day I cried when CompuServe and Prodigy announced that they would soon join the Internet...anyways...
The proposition that, more money = more valid information is indeed scary. It's scary because an information source with some greenbacks isn't necessarily more accurate than Joe Schmoe's website. I could only hope that entities paying for search priority have the moral sense to keep their information unbiased and accurate.
The problem of the little guy being heard isn't a new problem, regardless of the media front. However, we cannot forget that the Internet is not just a bunch of search engines. Anyone can still set up a website...and people constantly do! The power of the little guy has always been spread by word of mouth...and anyone who has Internet access can still get to his ideas and thoughts. Hearing his voice is a lot harder and has been a lot harder in tradtional print...and forget about traditional broadcasting altogether.
It'll get a _lot_ scarier if/when cable/DSL companies band together to stop all port 80/tcp traffic.
I never said that anyone had a right to steal, though I can see how that might have been inferred.
If the going price for a CD is around $15 or so, that's definitely a fair value if I like the band that I choose to support. Add in the extra content outside the CD, perhaps the packaging, inlay, art, etc...that all adds value. My personal favorite CD that does this the best is Lateralus by Tool.
HOWEVER, I do _not_ think it is fair value for me to need to cough up $6-7 for a CD single because I only happen to like one song from a particular band.
When I was a kid, I used to buy 45's of the stuff that I liked on the radio. They weren't expensive by any stretch and I amassed quite a collection. Because the price was low enough, it was worth buying. Perhaps some of them were shitty little records with a generic paper sleeve, but at.99 cents for some of them...it was reasonably affordable.
Nader's a little bitch. Then again, considering his party affiliation, I'm not surprised.
Now, before the flames start-a-rollin', consider that all these search engines need massive storage space and processing power in order to return an accurate result. Now, we have a couple of legitimate concerns:
Hardware costs money.
Power for the hardware costs money.
Software costs money...even the free stuff needs to be supported by someone.
Power and facilities for the hardware/software/staff costs money.
Let's also consider that a lot search engines suck, and that their data is not exactly accurate.
If a company or entity has the resources to pay for top inclusion into a search engine, then all the more power to them. In fact, if the site has a legitimate and verified page of information, then it _should_ preceed all the junk and garbage from an unverifiable source. I certainly don't expect an entity that can actually pay for search inclusion to waste their hard earned cash (or investors' cash if you will) on a pitiful entry. Yes, payment for service is certainly more verifiable than keywords from Joe Schmoe's random website that got crawled last year.
I'm assuming that evil marketing staff isn't involved in this yet...hence my point of view.
My only problem with the article is that it seems to use CompactFlash and TypeII interchangably, which just isn't the case.
The reason that this marvel of technology was able to be created was due to the open standard for CompactFlash/Type II devices. Score another one for open standards!
Otherwise, that's some cool-ass technology. On my cruddy Kodak DC-120, I can squeeze about 50 pictures of reasonable quality onto a small 16mb flash card. Toss in an extra 5gb, and that amounts to oh...hrm...somewhere in the area of 15,000 still photos.
The implications for personal media devices are immediately apparent. mp3 players, next-generation camcorders (though I would still use miniDV just for time-recording length), and portable recorders are just three obvious applications.
I have to wonder which big media company thought this idea up...I'd be very surprised if the school system came up with it on their own.
Kids putting copyright symbols on drawings and papers? What's next...intellectual property contracts within a school system?
Before the DMCA came along and gave draconian legal controls to big companies, copyrights served only to protect the economic interests of content authors, granting a temporary monopoly to foster creative works in writing and the arts which were supposed to eventually be released into the public domain. They used to work just like patents...and fortunately patents still expire 17 years.
Regardless, I hope to see this one fall hard. I remember copying tapes on my dual-deck boom box as a kid, and it didn't hurt anyone. What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying.
Saddam Hussein wanted to get his ass kicked. Islamic Extermists of the middle east started tossing around that U.S. "Great Satan" garbage after Desert Storm started. I can only assume, as far back as my memory can attest to, that it was part of an idea to get a world rebellion going against the U.S.
Unfortunately for him, a lot of neighboring countries didn't feel that way and it backfired.
C'mon...even the French have nukes...and that scares the shit outta me.
When it comes to domain names and address space, those are publicly accessible resources, and _should_ be accessible to anyone that needs that contact information. I don't think it's fair to shroud the names of individuals that use finite Internet resources. This information, after all, is public record.
The reason this is an issue at all is because of how easy the information is to get. Let's take another example of public record...
I'm sure more people would be up in arms if the RMV (or DMV in some states) decided to put its records search information online. As it is, I can run any license plate or license number if I have it...but waiting in line is a pain in the ass.
It's really sad that the low tactics of marketers has made this such a problem and brought this issue into the spotlight.
The neat thing about an all-copper run is that the Central Office can easily house all the DSLAMs that are required, cost effectively. If there are a few other providers co-located at the CO, it's much easier to offer multiple DSL solutions to the market.
However, because your're being served off a fiber aggregate circuit, probably an OC-3 or greater (which is later demultiplexed into several dialup lines, or DS0's), there's no way to carry the high-frequency signals that DSL requires.
Now, some readers have already suggested that it can be done, and that with enough complaining DSL may even be possible for you. This now presents a new challenge.
Those little green or beige or grey telephone huts (or SLIC huts as they're called...SLIC = Subscriber Line Interface Cabinet) are nowadays often fed by fiber. It's cost-effective, cheap, and maddeningly port-dense. However, they're not often provisioned to server more than a single DS0 worth of bandwidth (64kbps voice channel).
Also consider the limited space available in those SLIC huts. There's going to be virtually no way to throw in a ton of DSLAMs to serve every subscriber line that leaves the hut on copper. Even if it were possible, the hut would probably need to be upgraded to a faster fiber line, an OC-48 or so, and with the help of an ADM, break out enough bandwidth to serve the DSLAMs.
It's easy to switch providers in the CO, simply by moving a jumper from one DSLAM to another. (however, proper provisioning makes this process horribly complex and time-consuming). That is not necessarily the case when SLIC huts are involved. There's not enough space for one, and it's more expensive to deploy additional units for use in the field that serve a more-restricted geographical region. Given the number of require DSLAMs for a subscriber region, port utilization efficency is greater if there are fewer aggregation points. Economics takes over here.
So yes, it's possible, but it's not as simple of an issue as one may have hoped for. /* ---- */ // Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
I'm sure that Vint is a really smart guy, but let's _not_ forget that he is suggesting that we trust the same FBI that brought us Waco.
The email I generally write would probably not be flagged for use by the FBI. However, I am a firearms enthusiast and a libertarian...two things that aren't exactly popular on the feds list. The government has absolutley no business to snoop where it doesn't belong.
It's not the abuse of power I'm concerned about...it's the power to abuse that scares the hell out of me.
Slashdot Mirror
...reminds me of the days of DesqView!
Seriously though, I am often amazed at the amount of stuff that people can juggle day in and day out. However, the cost of an individual's multitasking might not be a direct hit to productivity in an immediate fashion. If a heavily loaded indivdual loses the balance which allows them to efficiently task a number of projects, then that is where the productivity hit will make itself visible.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. This article doesn't tell us something we don't already know.
Though I keep my phone, pager, and Handspring Visor clipped to the belt, I keep everything the other critical things in the small pouch: the wallet, leatherman too, spare change, pens, highlighters, a blank MD or two for recording class lecture.
I like keeping the good stuff in the big pocket, such as my car keys, stereo faceplate, and the handgun of the day...something no geek should be without!
Check it out at Shooting Systems.
I'd be packing up and running for the hills with the MSN agreement. As if passport's privacy isn't bad enough for email. Soon M$ will own not only anything you send and receive through email, but anything you send or receive over their connections.
Someone set up us a Qwest.
All your packets are belong to us!
As far as the Ciscos go, the only time they are vulnerable to the Code Red problems are when the HTTP interface is configured to run on them. I'm also a firm believer in the CLI too. As long as your customer are not enabling the HTTP interface, you shouldn't have any outages.
I suppose any device that has a web-managment capability on its front end would also be vulnerable, though.
Raw sockets, like Code Red, have been blown entirely out of proportion. In fact, the problem lies with those "unprivledged" users without any knowledge that open up attachments from nearly anyone.
.vbs email attachments becasue they don't see that it is a .vbs attachment.
Personally, I turn off the "hide known file extensions." I wonder how many people open up those
This isn't the first, or the last security hype that we'll see. As far as I'm concerned, it all started with the Michaelangelo virus that went around about 10 years or so ago. The world didn't end then...and it's not going to end now.
The problem with the focus on 802.11 as it stands is that the "4G" services becomes "0G" service if too many people fire up their nifty 2.4gHz cordless phones. My range for 11mb extends to about 50' in my apartment complex because of it.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
Aside from the nameserver registration crapola going on with the 128k models of the modem, it looks like the peer-to-peer connectivity is the balls!
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
What's the range on a couple of those things?
I absolutely agree with all the concerns regarding the ruggedness (or possible lack thereof?) regarding the hard drive. I'm also a little concerned about the upgrade path available...if there is one.
.mp3 collection between my friends if I could just connect the device to the LAN and let them take what they needed. :)
I think the coolest thing about this is its network-readiness. It would be very cool to use something like this as a network storage device. Besides, it'd make it a lot easier to transport chunks of my
Portable network storage...yum!
...if it were better publicized.
;)
//e from my parents' house and waste my days playing AutoDuel again...or loading AppleWorks into the 1mb RamWorks III board (with the CGA extension card). The nostalgia almost gets me teary-eyed!
Marlboro is in a good location, particularly since eastern Massachusetts is largely considered to be the Silicon Valley of the east coast. Being a resident of MA and working in the industry, I would have expected someone at the company I work at to have heard about it and reported it.
That particular hotel is a nice little joint too...and it's a stone's throw off I-495.
It almost makes me want to recover the Apple
In medical jargon, a BW is short for a beached whale...or someone too fat for their own good. Some patients I have seen in the ER are just too goddamn heavy. Considering the proximity of a patient to the nurse, and the unbalanced mass, it's almost impossible to get in the power zone to lift someone properly. No wonder nurses hurt their backs.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
I think all the EMTs and Paramedics out in the field could benefit a lot more from this than nurses can. After all, nurses can summon the entire ER if it's necessary to safely move a patient. I can't say I've really known any EMTs who have made it long enough to retire just based on their backs.
I never knew Tandy made anything that portable before...but it does bring back some memories of the Speak 'n Spell that I had when I was a little kid. The only expansion those things afforded was a little word module which plugged in the back. I have no idea how E.T. made anything useful from it...
//e with 2 floppy drives and a color monitor.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
The price wasn't too bad, until you consider how much further money went back in the early 80's. I think my first computer cost about $3,000 back in 1984...an Apple
My elementary school had a couple TRS-80s...and the wires to connect a cassette player (anyone remember those?). I'd like to see a picture of one of the portables...
Ah...the memories of computing before the Internet!
If something the size of a baseball could make a sonic boom after going only 100 or 200 MPH, I'm sure going to the ballgame would be a lot more fun.
:)
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
I wonder if they meant to says something more along the lines of 1,000 to 2,000 MPH...then there'd be a boom. Ya know, the size of basketballs or volkswagens.
I wonder...
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
If a person has enough desktop style cases with the same approximate dimensions, if they would be adequately strong enough to make a retaining wall, or maybe even a brick house...hrm.
- Cluster to generate multiple 5.1 audio streams.
- One machine to handle the artificial scent generatior.
Well, maybe the scent generator is a little TOO real...You are correct, in that the Internet used to be impartial. Then again, the Internet used to be only researchers, technical businesses, and college kids who had the time and energy (and brainpower) to get online. That was back in the pre-web days. I remember the day I cried when CompuServe and Prodigy announced that they would soon join the Internet...anyways...
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
The proposition that, more money = more valid information is indeed scary. It's scary because an information source with some greenbacks isn't necessarily more accurate than Joe Schmoe's website. I could only hope that entities paying for search priority have the moral sense to keep their information unbiased and accurate.
The problem of the little guy being heard isn't a new problem, regardless of the media front. However, we cannot forget that the Internet is not just a bunch of search engines. Anyone can still set up a website...and people constantly do! The power of the little guy has always been spread by word of mouth...and anyone who has Internet access can still get to his ideas and thoughts. Hearing his voice is a lot harder and has been a lot harder in tradtional print...and forget about traditional broadcasting altogether.
It'll get a _lot_ scarier if/when cable/DSL companies band together to stop all port 80/tcp traffic.
I never said that anyone had a right to steal, though I can see how that might have been inferred.
.99 cents for some of them...it was reasonably affordable.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
If the going price for a CD is around $15 or so, that's definitely a fair value if I like the band that I choose to support. Add in the extra content outside the CD, perhaps the packaging, inlay, art, etc...that all adds value. My personal favorite CD that does this the best is Lateralus by Tool.
HOWEVER, I do _not_ think it is fair value for me to need to cough up $6-7 for a CD single because I only happen to like one song from a particular band.
When I was a kid, I used to buy 45's of the stuff that I liked on the radio. They weren't expensive by any stretch and I amassed quite a collection. Because the price was low enough, it was worth buying. Perhaps some of them were shitty little records with a generic paper sleeve, but at
Now, before the flames start-a-rollin', consider that all these search engines need massive storage space and processing power in order to return an accurate result. Now, we have a couple of legitimate concerns:
- Hardware costs money.
- Power for the hardware costs money.
- Software costs money...even the free stuff needs to be supported by someone.
- Power and facilities for the hardware/software/staff costs money.
Let's also consider that a lot search engines suck, and that their data is not exactly accurate.If a company or entity has the resources to pay for top inclusion into a search engine, then all the more power to them. In fact, if the site has a legitimate and verified page of information, then it _should_ preceed all the junk and garbage from an unverifiable source. I certainly don't expect an entity that can actually pay for search inclusion to waste their hard earned cash (or investors' cash if you will) on a pitiful entry. Yes, payment for service is certainly more verifiable than keywords from Joe Schmoe's random website that got crawled last year.
I'm assuming that evil marketing staff isn't involved in this yet...hence my point of view.
My only problem with the article is that it seems to use CompactFlash and TypeII interchangably, which just isn't the case.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
The reason that this marvel of technology was able to be created was due to the open standard for CompactFlash/Type II devices. Score another one for open standards!
Otherwise, that's some cool-ass technology. On my cruddy Kodak DC-120, I can squeeze about 50 pictures of reasonable quality onto a small 16mb flash card. Toss in an extra 5gb, and that amounts to oh...hrm...somewhere in the area of 15,000 still photos.
The implications for personal media devices are immediately apparent. mp3 players, next-generation camcorders (though I would still use miniDV just for time-recording length), and portable recorders are just three obvious applications.
I have to wonder which big media company thought this idea up...I'd be very surprised if the school system came up with it on their own.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
Kids putting copyright symbols on drawings and papers? What's next...intellectual property contracts within a school system?
Before the DMCA came along and gave draconian legal controls to big companies, copyrights served only to protect the economic interests of content authors, granting a temporary monopoly to foster creative works in writing and the arts which were supposed to eventually be released into the public domain. They used to work just like patents...and fortunately patents still expire 17 years.
Regardless, I hope to see this one fall hard. I remember copying tapes on my dual-deck boom box as a kid, and it didn't hurt anyone. What the major media companies have to do is add enough value to their content to make the package worth buying.
Saddam Hussein wanted to get his ass kicked. Islamic Extermists of the middle east started tossing around that U.S. "Great Satan" garbage after Desert Storm started. I can only assume, as far back as my memory can attest to, that it was part of an idea to get a world rebellion going against the U.S.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
Unfortunately for him, a lot of neighboring countries didn't feel that way and it backfired.
C'mon...even the French have nukes...and that scares the shit outta me.
Now, I'd like to see one of those solar powered planes carry one of those nuclear warheads...THAT would be cool technology.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
As far as nuclear war goes, the first attack that goes through and well...this planet is fuct.
When it comes to domain names and address space, those are publicly accessible resources, and _should_ be accessible to anyone that needs that contact information. I don't think it's fair to shroud the names of individuals that use finite Internet resources. This information, after all, is public record.
/* ---- */
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
The reason this is an issue at all is because of how easy the information is to get. Let's take another example of public record...
I'm sure more people would be up in arms if the RMV (or DMV in some states) decided to put its records search information online. As it is, I can run any license plate or license number if I have it...but waiting in line is a pain in the ass.
It's really sad that the low tactics of marketers has made this such a problem and brought this issue into the spotlight.
The neat thing about an all-copper run is that the Central Office can easily house all the DSLAMs that are required, cost effectively. If there are a few other providers co-located at the CO, it's much easier to offer multiple DSL solutions to the market.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
However, because your're being served off a fiber aggregate circuit, probably an OC-3 or greater (which is later demultiplexed into several dialup lines, or DS0's), there's no way to carry the high-frequency signals that DSL requires.
Now, some readers have already suggested that it can be done, and that with enough complaining DSL may even be possible for you. This now presents a new challenge.
Those little green or beige or grey telephone huts (or SLIC huts as they're called...SLIC = Subscriber Line Interface Cabinet) are nowadays often fed by fiber. It's cost-effective, cheap, and maddeningly port-dense. However, they're not often provisioned to server more than a single DS0 worth of bandwidth (64kbps voice channel).
Also consider the limited space available in those SLIC huts. There's going to be virtually no way to throw in a ton of DSLAMs to serve every subscriber line that leaves the hut on copper. Even if it were possible, the hut would probably need to be upgraded to a faster fiber line, an OC-48 or so, and with the help of an ADM, break out enough bandwidth to serve the DSLAMs.
It's easy to switch providers in the CO, simply by moving a jumper from one DSLAM to another. (however, proper provisioning makes this process horribly complex and time-consuming). That is not necessarily the case when SLIC huts are involved. There's not enough space for one, and it's more expensive to deploy additional units for use in the field that serve a more-restricted geographical region. Given the number of require DSLAMs for a subscriber region, port utilization efficency is greater if there are fewer aggregation points. Economics takes over here.
So yes, it's possible, but it's not as simple of an issue as one may have hoped for.
/* ---- */
I'm sure that Vint is a really smart guy, but let's _not_ forget that he is suggesting that we trust the same FBI that brought us Waco.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7)
The email I generally write would probably not be flagged for use by the FBI. However, I am a firearms enthusiast and a libertarian...two things that aren't exactly popular on the feds list. The government has absolutley no business to snoop where it doesn't belong.
It's not the abuse of power I'm concerned about...it's the power to abuse that scares the hell out of me.
/* ---- */