Lately, there has been a lot of interest in capturing broadcast television and converting old VHS home movies to a more timeless digital format, such as VCD, SVCD, and DVD.
Timeless? Hardly. If the media lasts 50 years, the technology certainly won't. The answer: convert all your old home videos to microfilm. It' s the way of the future.
1) if it's not in the requirements, it shouldn't be in the code 2)if it's useful or necessary, then it should be in the requirements. But it's not a back door anymore (maybe a side door?)
How about a PIN-protected mechanism similar to a debit-card which allows you to use your phone number to make a purchase? Thats what a 1-900 number is, in essence, anyway.
I know, I know, security concerns. But if a phone company supports this scheme, it doesn't have to be your real phone number, or even a valid phone number. It could be some random number that's associated with your phone number in the phone company's database. The cellphone companies ought to go crazy with this -- it opens up a LOT of options for internet-enables cellphones, esp. when you add bluetooth to the mix.
Okay, the PIN idea sucks for the internet. But hey, there's gotta be a solution there, too. I know of a few, but there's no room in the margin...
Only an optimist wuld believe that the U.N would commit to a path of aggression, until all diplomatic options had been exhausted. The asteroids must be convinced to disarm themselves.
First off, it does not appear to have any battery at all. That's got to be fixed; a laptop battery should provide some reasonable life, given that there's no LCD display to power, and the WiFi network I want would only need to have a range similar to Bluetooth. It would need to have some sort of low-power 'standby' mode when idle. It would have to be cryptographically secure, at least for transmissions, and optionally for the data on the disk.
A battery would make it heavier, but since I wouldn't need to take it out of my backpack/briefcase during the day, that's less of an issue.
Okay, now we have a reasonable Portable Storage Device ("PSD"). Make sure the interface is a well-documented standard, of course. Now any manufacturer can design and sell:
PSDs with different size disks, as the technology becomes available
PDAs with differing features/pricepoints, all of which store their data on the PSD -- in a format I can access/update directly from my PC
MP3 players which can play music from the PSM; and maybe some that can record to it as well
cellphones (preferably just the headset) that can dial from the PDA database, and save voicemail messages to the PSD
cameras that can download/upload images to the PSD
...profit!
11Mbps should make most of these feasible, but as with any bandwidth, more is better.
If we're going to integrate a bunch of personal devices with a wireless network, here's what I want:
a "storage brick": 10's of gigs, CF and/or hard disk, small as possible, long battery life, minimal user interface, integrates with my LAN;
a variety of PDAs that store their info on the brick, so I can choose one with the price/features I want;
a cellphone (actually just a headset) that can access the PDA's phone directory database on the brick, and maybe record conversations/voicemail messages to the brick;
a variety of cameras that can store/retrieve images on the storage brick, so I can choose one with the price/features I want (or not);
an MP3 player, which can play music from the brick;
in a perfect world, they would all plug into a single recharger (i.e. plug in the brick, plug the devices into the brick);
reasonable security for all of the above.
I might accept integration of any two of the items on my list, if the features were right, but I might not, too.
From this list is seems apparent that bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth; even 802.11 might be too slow. Until this bandwidth improves, I'm not going to get excited.
You can put a lot of things in Faraday cages, but if anything is connected to the outside world (power lines, communication lines, etc), then the EMP will send a surge through those lines into your equipment. Poof! According to the article, the surge is powerful enough to toast your equipment despite surge protection.
How useful is a computer, in a Faraday cage deep inside a bunker, without a connection to the outside world?
Ultimately, I've no doubt that it is possible to shield SOME of your equipment, but you can't fight a war from the inside of a Faraday cage.
You can also see her with a sign standing outside the mall in downtown Hamilton, or at the side of the road by the highway.
Yeah, we make her do that every now and then. When she's really bad, we let the monkey play with the joystick.
You humans are missing the point!
on
Starcraft
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· Score: 3, Funny
Look, people -- and I use the term loosely -- the truth is right before your eyes! Is is OUR fault that you only have two of them? (Well, err, yes, it is, actually, sorry about that.)
Look closely: Der Voron. DER VORON. Is that a HUMAN name? By the Great Sceptre of Nebulon, what does it take with your species?
You'd think that you would have clued in with Erik Van Daniken, but, noooooo. SO WE'RE TRYING AGAIN. And we'll KEEP trying until somebody down here finally gets it right!
Look, I'll spell it out for you: The whole reason for the secrecy is... oops, boss is coming...sorry, got to go.
LOOK TO THE SKIES. WAIT FOR THESE SIGNS: YIELD. DO NOT WALK. DEER CROSSING.
I had a game a long time ago, it was one of those football games where the little plastic men all began to move around the field when you made the field vibrate. Only problem was, they basically just kind of linked arms and went in circles...
Now I've got a picture in my head of dozens of seniors, linked arm in arm, moving helplessly up and down the aisles at Walmart...
I'm sorry, I cant help it...it's just the way I am.
We try to manage the time our kids spend on the computer, the same as we do for the TV. In general, our rule is: one hour of homework, reading, or outside play earns an hour of screen time. Most of the sites the kids visit are constant; right now it's mostly Neopets and Lego. We know this, because we ask, and we look in on them from time to time.
We've tried to teach our kids the difference between sites that are meant for kids, and sites that are not. They know that if there is ever a question, it is okay to ask. Most of the sites we all worry about are so obviously over the line that even my seven-year old KNOWS -- and isn't likely to trip over it from the children's sites we know they frequent. But if she DID happen to trip over goatse.cx, or bigtitties, or whatever, we would have an opportunity to talk about it. I'm not looking forward that day, but it's preferable to hiding from it.
Both my kids know the rules about chat rooms -- we borrow from the second Harry Potter book: "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."
My eleven-year old knows that there's some stuff out there she might stumble across while doing research for a school project, or whatever, and we've talked about it. Some of the things we talk about are " ewww, GROSS!" and we don't need to dwell on the details.
Any page that falls in a gray area, we talk about: why we don't think the opinions expressed at site xyz are suitable to quote in your science project, or why these pictures aren't appropriate for children -- or daddies.
My kids know I keep a log of the Internet sites they visit. I hardly ever check the log, but the fact that they know it exists means that they don't go wandering off into grownup land without a guide.
Common calling standard -- a mainline written in, say, Fortran could call subroutines written in C or Cobol or Pascal or Bliss or Basic or Assembler -- or almost any other language; they all used the same method for passing args on the stack. Foresight, or what?
Clusters -- VMS systems have been clustering for longer than any other OS -- and the functionality any VMS cluster had a decade ago far outstrips the capabilities I've seen in any Microsoft or Unix cluster today.
Asynchronous Traps (ASTS) -- man, they made network and I/O programming easy -- just start an I/O operation, and specify the routine to be invoked when the operation completes -- then just forget about it, go and do something else.
DECnet -- VMS was the first DEC O/S to have DECnet built in from the ground up. This meant that copying/reading/writing network files was a trivial exercise -- if you could do it on a local file, it would work over the network without any extra effort. FTP, pfffft!
TECO -- it didn't start on VMS, but hey, now there was a real programmer's editor. Forget about EDT or SOS or VI or even EMACS. TECO ruled.
Documentation -- the doc set weighed more than a lot of the workstations -- and needed a whole lot more shelf space. Good, too. Way, WAY better then Microsoft, or any Unix variant I've come across. IBM's docs were almost as good -- but then, IBM programmers need docs more;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know the name or author either.
But at least you weren't hallucinating. Unless you're hallucinating this, too...
Only a true geek would have bottled water that needs batteries...
Sucks to be a microorganism. Especially one with hemorrhoids.
...they'll get another chance on the duplicate posting...
3) Someone's running around cutting the limbs off of eskimo clowns
and there'll finally be an implementation of the long-awaited COMEFROM statement...
Wow. Now every Taco Bell has to pay royalties for every taco sold. Not to mention the chihuahua.
Timeless? Hardly. If the media lasts 50 years, the technology certainly won't. The answer: convert all your old home videos to microfilm. It' s the way of the future.
ahh, it actually was 4 hours of DVD-quality movies...
1) if it's not in the requirements, it shouldn't be in the code
2)if it's useful or necessary, then it should be in the requirements. But it's not a back door anymore (maybe a side door?)
How about a PIN-protected mechanism similar to a debit-card which allows you to use your phone number to make a purchase? Thats what a 1-900 number is, in essence, anyway.
I know, I know, security concerns. But if a phone company supports this scheme, it doesn't have to be your real phone number, or even a valid phone number. It could be some random number that's associated with your phone number in the phone company's database. The cellphone companies ought to go crazy with this -- it opens up a LOT of options for internet-enables cellphones, esp. when you add bluetooth to the mix.
Okay, the PIN idea sucks for the internet. But hey, there's gotta be a solution there, too. I know of a few, but there's no room in the margin...
Only an optimist wuld believe that the U.N would commit to a path of aggression, until all diplomatic options had been exhausted. The asteroids must be convinced to disarm themselves.
the show that pits the White Supremacist Geeks against the Black Gay Jewish Construction Workers
A battery would make it heavier, but since I wouldn't need to take it out of my backpack/briefcase during the day, that's less of an issue.
Okay, now we have a reasonable Portable Storage Device ("PSD"). Make sure the interface is a well-documented standard, of course. Now any manufacturer can design and sell:
PSDs with different size disks, as the technology becomes available
PDAs with differing features/pricepoints, all of which store their data on the PSD -- in a format I can access/update directly from my PC
MP3 players which can play music from the PSM; and maybe some that can record to it as well
cellphones (preferably just the headset) that can dial from the PDA database, and save voicemail messages to the PSD
cameras that can download/upload images to the PSD
...profit!
11Mbps should make most of these feasible, but as with any bandwidth, more is better.
a "storage brick": 10's of gigs, CF and/or hard disk, small as possible, long battery life, minimal user interface, integrates with my LAN;
a variety of PDAs that store their info on the brick, so I can choose one with the price/features I want;
a cellphone (actually just a headset) that can access the PDA's phone directory database on the brick, and maybe record conversations/voicemail messages to the brick;
a variety of cameras that can store/retrieve images on the storage brick, so I can choose one with the price/features I want (or not);
an MP3 player, which can play music from the brick;
in a perfect world, they would all plug into a single recharger (i.e. plug in the brick, plug the devices into the brick);
reasonable security for all of the above.
I might accept integration of any two of the items on my list, if the features were right, but I might not, too.
From this list is seems apparent that bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth; even 802.11 might be too slow. Until this bandwidth improves, I'm not going to get excited.
How useful is a computer, in a Faraday cage deep inside a bunker, without a connection to the outside world?
Ultimately, I've no doubt that it is possible to shield SOME of your equipment, but you can't fight a war from the inside of a Faraday cage.
Yeah, we make her do that every now and then. When she's really bad, we let the monkey play with the joystick.
Look closely: Der Voron. DER VORON. Is that a HUMAN name? By the Great Sceptre of Nebulon, what does it take with your species?
You'd think that you would have clued in with Erik Van Daniken, but, noooooo. SO WE'RE TRYING AGAIN. And we'll KEEP trying until somebody down here finally gets it right!
Look, I'll spell it out for you: The whole reason for the secrecy is... oops, boss is coming...sorry, got to go.
LOOK TO THE SKIES. WAIT FOR THESE SIGNS: YIELD. DO NOT WALK. DEER CROSSING.
Now I've got a picture in my head of dozens of seniors, linked arm in arm, moving helplessly
up and down the aisles at Walmart...
I'm sorry, I cant help it...it's just the way I am.
We've tried to teach our kids the difference between sites that are meant for kids, and sites that are not. They know that if there is ever a question, it is okay to ask. Most of the sites we all worry about are so obviously over the line that even my seven-year old KNOWS -- and isn't likely to trip over it from the children's sites we know they frequent. But if she DID happen to trip over goatse.cx, or bigtitties, or whatever,
we would have an opportunity to talk about it. I'm not looking forward that day, but it's preferable to hiding from it.
Both my kids know the rules about chat rooms -- we borrow from the second Harry Potter book: "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."
My eleven-year old knows that there's some stuff out there she might stumble across while doing research for a school project, or whatever,
and we've talked about it. Some of the things we talk about are " ewww, GROSS!" and we don't need to dwell on the details.
Any page that falls in a gray area, we talk about: why we don't think the opinions expressed at site xyz are suitable to quote in your science project, or why these pictures aren't appropriate for children -- or daddies.
My kids know I keep a log of the Internet sites they visit. I hardly ever check the log, but the fact that they know it exists means that they don't go wandering off into grownup land without a guide.
Reboot faster.