Okay, so these things are picking up on satelite transmitions. Now, what is stopping us from evesdropping on those same transmitions?
If it's encrypted, we'll just crack it. Even if it's heavily encrypted I know I whole lot of distributed.net and SETI@home will jump on the project. Sure, they'll just change the key, but they need a way to send the key to the satelite. We'll crack that too.
Who needs a police scanner when you can have Echelon!
Unless you have a unusual web-based application, you are much better spending the time optimizing the architecture than the implementation language. CGIs take such a fraction of time, assuming you're not doing something silly, that even if they're dog slow they'll still flood your network.
The the web means most of the time is spend handshaking and transmitting. Try to eliminate those as much as possible, because they're even more critical for people on a modem. For those same people, a script that takes 2 seconds to run loads as fast as a 4KB GIF.
I believe you should use the highest level language possible that will let still execute quickly enough. Perl is used because it is fairly high-level while still executing quickly enough.
Higher level languages are usually more maintainable and make for easier implementation. This is almost always vastly more important than how fast the program executes.
Invest the extra time you get buy using a higher level language, like Perl or Python, into coming up with an efficient architecture. It'll pay off in a big way.
Unless DVD decoders get very cheap ($5-10) it's better to use the CPU to do it. For several reasons:
1- Take that $50 you'll spend on a decoder and put it towards a faster CPU. It'll not only let you do DVD with less of a strain on the system, it'll speed up everything else.
2- Software decoders can be free.
3- Software decoders can be upgraded.
4- Software decoders can be portable across platforms.
5- Hardware takes up space, even a single chip is precious in the land of tiny laptops.
The only reason hardware decoders exist now is because CPU's weren't *quite* able to keep up. Now they are.
Some things need to have special-purpose hardware, like 3D video cards. DVDs do not. The frame rate won't ever need to increase. The resolution will stay the same.
Why are CPU's considered more "cool" than other components? Why do people spend $250 more to gain a few MHz when the same money will get them more memory and a faster drive? I think it's because it's easy to quantify. People like that MHz is one simple number.
So what if the Athlon is a tiny bit more value for the money - I'll get a lot more value if the price of a really good 19" monitor drops a couple of hundred bucks.
Lets assume Microsoft does open source Windows CE. What do we gain? We'll be able to ead the source and see what it really does, and maybe us programmers can fix the occasional bug in our own personal copies.
Will we be able to create our own distributions of Windows CE? Almost definitely not. Will we be able to fix the the underlying architecture problems? Very unlikely. Open source doesn't mean we can do what we want with it, just that it's also available in a alternative format to binary.
So what we would gain with an open source Windows CE is the ability to see what the OS is really doing, which is very useful for application developers.
I've got a Casio E-100 and love the hardware to pieces. Unfortunately, Windows CE drags its otherwise speedy 131 MhZ processor to almost a standstill. It's so bad it can't be anything but an architecture problem.
Check out the Linux port to Palm-sized and handheld PCs. It shows great promise of being able to replace Windows CE on handhelds soon. LinuxCE.
Crappy software will always exist because not every developer really cares about their product. Just like how their will always be at least one construction company that builds shoddy houses.
For free software the solution is easiest. Try it and if you don't like it you didn't lose anything.
For commercial software the solution is easy, if you don't like it, don't buy it. If you don't know if you like it, don't buy it.
Unfortunately, unwitting people will commercial software without trying a fully functional evaluation (if available). These are the people that get screwed by exchanging their cash for crap. These are the people we need to protect with a suitablity-for-use law.
By opening the door your new car, you agree to the following: 1) If the car explodes, too bad 2) If it is missing features we say it has in the advertising, too bad 3) If it is missing a tire, too bad 4) If the white plastic shrink wrap was missing on delivery, send the car back within 90 days
There are definitely times that paper is the bes way to go, such as reading a book by the lake. However, there is NO reason to justify the huge quantities of paper that is being consumed.
As a case in point, there is at least one or two people in our office that just live in the print room. They print thick stacks of paper that I know they never really look at. Then why do they do it? Because paper is tactile. For people who grew up with paper rather than keyboards having paper the feel of paper is important - it makes them feel like they are accomplishing something.
The reason there is more of it now is simple, technology has given us more information and the ability to process it faster. More information means more paper.
And not just to copy the same old information like it use to be, now they can print and generate NEW information. It's heaven for those addicted to the substance.
Paper, like the post office, will slowly disappear. Give it a couple of generations.
Oh Bullshit, once you start growing again, it is easy to hire new workers....
Yes, but only if you start growing again. The only thing that will save SGI is if laying off 3000 people somehow gives them enough time to pull off a miracle. With less people they will have less of a sales force, less technical support, and do less research and development. In the end, all of the things that make money.
Why do people get all bent out of shape about stuff like this? This isn't Japan, you have to right to employment for life or anything like that... geezz...
I don't know why the do, and I hope you weren't implying I feel that way. I think ideas like government stepping in to save an industry or jobs is insane, as is NOT letting go of 3000 people if it will save the company.
It's an easy way to make a company profitable again, just reduce your expenses so it's less than your income.
Of course, this only works in the short term. Without your staff it will be *much* harder to generate new revenue. And without new revenue it's impossible to hire new staff.
Yes, it's a downward spiral, and one that I fear SGI won't be able to pull out of.
Ages ago they took an A500 and crammed it into a VCR-like consumer device. Sales were a flop, and I suspect they will be again, because of lack of a market opportunity.
If they want to go after the web-surfing market, then they have problems:
1. Established low end competition - WebTV $199 and WebTV Classic $99. Very cheap, good enough for light surfing. Even the Sega Dreamcast $199 has the ability.
2. Bundles - The free or close to free PCs bundled with internet access.
3. Cheap general purpose computers - Your average $750 PC, except now you also have a general purpose computer.
4. Higher end - The ubiqitous $2000 home computer. Many people are willing to pay $2000 because it's what they think they can spend.
Where is there room for them to play?
Don't mind all the confusion coming out of Amiga lately, they just drunk.
Do the math to see why RedHat's strategy to grow the market for Linux is the right one. It boils down to if you want a potential market of half a million or half a billion.
Here are some made-up numbers: Say Linux has 10% of the total OS market. Of that RedHat has 30%, or 3% of total, and the other distributions have 70%.
Who has the other 90% of the OS market? Microsoft of course! So RedHat can either fight the other Linux distributions to get at the other 7% or they can target the remaining 90% that Microsoft has.
Instead of a big slice of a small pie, give me a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.
Don't limit yourself when looking for a life-long partner. The last thing you want to do is eliminate someone because they don't fit a preconcieved image.
If you must have a geek, at least don't restrict yourself to Computer Geeks - alternative forms of geek are just as desirable. While a Garden Geek may not be impressed when she hears of your clever algorithm, she will understand where you are coming from. It is more important she be able and willing to see your point of view than grok code.
I myself have a wife who's a Garden Geek, Classical Guitar Geek and Art Geek all at the same time. I love her to pieces not because she's a geek, but because she understands. Her being a geek just gave her a headstart.
But notice the focus of the article was on the IT manager's perspective: the costs of support may outweigh the usefulness to the company of having them around, and that, I suspect, is likely true
If IT departments feel overwhelmed with support issues for small, simple devices then they're doing things th wrong way. Except for applications unique to the business the IT department should just forward the user to the normal support channels. IT departments always try to do everything themselves, often to the detriment of their users.
I think a lot of IT departments forget they are their to support their users, not dictate how to be productive. Often they are tied together - if something is a support burden it may be making everybody less productive.
But even if a palm-sized gizmo make you less productive, the entertainment value increases productivity through reduced stress. It all balances out.
Handheld PCs aren't toys for people who already live by their day planner. They're pretty much toys for everybody else.
You know what? That's okay. We're allowed to have fun. It seems like everything is becoming about utilizing every spare second of every single day.
I've got my Casio E-100 on order for delivery on Friday. Yes, it's a CAN$700 toy, and that's what I told my wife when decided to buy it. It's just a bonus if it ever saves me time balancing my cheque book.
And yes, porting Linux to it would be a fun thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, so these things are picking up on satelite transmitions. Now, what is stopping us from evesdropping on those same transmitions?
If it's encrypted, we'll just crack it. Even if it's heavily encrypted I know I whole lot of distributed.net and SETI@home will jump on the project. Sure, they'll just change the key, but they need a way to send the key to the satelite. We'll crack that too.
Who needs a police scanner when you can have Echelon!
Unless you have a unusual web-based application, you are much better spending the time optimizing the architecture than the implementation language. CGIs take such a fraction of time, assuming you're not doing something silly, that even if they're dog slow they'll still flood your network.
The the web means most of the time is spend handshaking and transmitting. Try to eliminate those as much as possible, because they're even more critical for people on a modem. For those same people, a script that takes 2 seconds to run loads as fast as a 4KB GIF.
I believe you should use the highest level language possible that will let still execute quickly enough. Perl is used because it is fairly high-level while still executing quickly enough.
Higher level languages are usually more maintainable and make for easier implementation. This is almost always vastly more important than how fast the program executes.
Invest the extra time you get buy using a higher level language, like Perl or Python, into coming up with an efficient architecture. It'll pay off in a big way.
Unless DVD decoders get very cheap ($5-10) it's better to use the CPU to do it. For several reasons:
1- Take that $50 you'll spend on a decoder and put it towards a faster CPU. It'll not only let you do DVD with less of a strain on the system, it'll speed up everything else.
2- Software decoders can be free.
3- Software decoders can be upgraded.
4- Software decoders can be portable across platforms.
5- Hardware takes up space, even a single chip is precious in the land of tiny laptops.
The only reason hardware decoders exist now is because CPU's weren't *quite* able to keep up. Now they are.
Some things need to have special-purpose hardware, like 3D video cards. DVDs do not. The frame rate won't ever need to increase. The resolution will stay the same.
No word yet on what they'll ship with, but who knows?
You know what? It doesn't matter. I'll finally be able to buy a PC online without Windows.
This matters most for people who:
- Run a non-Microsoft operating system
- Already *OWN* a copy of windows from a PC they are replacing.
My favorite quote from the hacked page:
Well this site was Cracked By flipz.. ANd no thats not a pic of me..But i wish it was.
... referring to a picture of a young woman with a picture of Tux on her shirt.
Does this mean:
1- He wants to be a woman?
2- He IS a woman.
3- He wants to wear a Tux shirt?
4- He'd rather have his picture on the page?
Sheldon Young
Makes me want to try tilting a Thermin horizontally and using the two axis as X and Y. Mouse? I don't need to stinkin' mouse, I just wave my hand!
Why are CPU's considered more "cool" than other components? Why do people spend $250 more to gain a few MHz when the same money will get them more memory and a faster drive? I think it's because it's easy to quantify. People like that MHz is one simple number.
So what if the Athlon is a tiny bit more value for the money - I'll get a lot more value if the price of a really good 19" monitor drops a couple of hundred bucks.
Lets assume Microsoft does open source Windows CE. What do we gain? We'll be able to ead the source and see what it really does, and maybe us programmers can fix the occasional bug in our own personal copies.
Will we be able to create our own distributions of Windows CE? Almost definitely not. Will we be able to fix the the underlying architecture problems? Very unlikely. Open source doesn't mean we can do what we want with it, just that it's also available in a alternative format to binary.
So what we would gain with an open source Windows CE is the ability to see what the OS is really doing, which is very useful for application developers.
I've got a Casio E-100 and love the hardware to pieces. Unfortunately, Windows CE drags its otherwise speedy 131 MhZ processor to almost a standstill. It's so bad it can't be anything but an architecture problem.
Check out the Linux port to Palm-sized and handheld PCs. It shows great promise of being able to replace Windows CE on handhelds soon.
LinuxCE.
Is Apple drunk or is Motorola screwing them around?
Sorry to hear about the fire, boys. I'm really glad nobody was hurt.
On a lighter side there are several ways it could have been prevented (written in a manner to hopefully avoid hurting nates pride even more):
1) Cases of penguin mints. Can't start a fire while you're sleeping if you don't sleep.
2) Cases of Mountain Dew. Good for refreshment and dosing fires.
3) Eat only Peanut Butter M&Ms. Their wrappers are plastic and won't catch fire in the trash so easily.
4) Move from the Geek Compound into the Geek Fortress. An old missle silo would do - concrete doesn't really burn well.
5) Hemos. Oh wait, this isn't a poll.
Crappy software will always exist because not every developer really cares about their product. Just like how their will always be at least one construction company that builds shoddy houses.
For free software the solution is easiest. Try it and if you don't like it you didn't lose anything.
For commercial software the solution is easy, if you don't like it, don't buy it. If you don't know if you like it, don't buy it.
Unfortunately, unwitting people will commercial software without trying a fully functional evaluation (if available). These are the people that get screwed by exchanging their cash for crap. These are the people we need to protect with a suitablity-for-use law.
By opening the door your new car, you agree to the following: 1) If the car explodes, too bad 2) If it is missing features we say it has in the advertising, too bad 3) If it is missing a tire, too bad 4) If the white plastic shrink wrap was missing on delivery, send the car back within 90 days
How much to do you want to be the backhoe operator will be driving the same car 10 years from now?
There are definitely times that paper is the bes way to go, such as reading a book by the lake. However, there is NO reason to justify the huge quantities of paper that is being consumed.
As a case in point, there is at least one or two people in our office that just live in the print room. They print thick stacks of paper that I know they never really look at. Then why do they do it? Because paper is tactile. For people who grew up with paper rather than keyboards having paper the feel of paper is important - it makes them feel like they are accomplishing something.
The reason there is more of it now is simple, technology has given us more information and the ability to process it faster. More information means more paper.
And not just to copy the same old information like it use to be, now they can print and generate NEW information. It's heaven for those addicted to the substance.
Paper, like the post office, will slowly disappear. Give it a couple of generations.
Oh Bullshit, once you start growing again, it is easy to hire new workers....
Yes, but only if you start growing again. The only thing that will save SGI is if laying off 3000 people somehow gives them enough time to pull off a miracle. With less people they will have less of a sales force, less technical support, and do less research and development. In the end, all of the things that make money.
Why do people get all bent out of shape about stuff like this? This isn't Japan, you have to right to employment for life or anything like that... geezz...
I don't know why the do, and I hope you weren't implying I feel that way. I think ideas like government stepping in to save an industry or jobs is insane, as is NOT letting go of 3000 people if it will save the company.
It's an easy way to make a company profitable again, just reduce your expenses so it's less than your income.
Of course, this only works in the short term. Without your staff it will be *much* harder to generate new revenue. And without new revenue it's impossible to hire new staff.
Yes, it's a downward spiral, and one that I fear SGI won't be able to pull out of.
If we look at the events of the past few weeks we'll notice they have:
1. Changed management
2. Changed CPUS
3. Changed OSs
4. Changed their platform (desktop to consumer)
5. Given up on hardware
So, like, why are we even bothering paying attention any more? Yes, I loved my Amiga 500 too, but this has nothing to do with the original.
Does this mean there is a Rage 128 driver available for us i386 users too? It bites not having an XFree86-supported video card.
We've seen this before: CDTV.
Ages ago they took an A500 and crammed it into a VCR-like consumer device. Sales were a flop, and I suspect they will be again, because of lack of a market opportunity.
If they want to go after the web-surfing market, then they have problems:
1. Established low end competition - WebTV $199 and WebTV Classic $99. Very cheap, good enough for light surfing. Even the Sega Dreamcast $199 has the ability.
2. Bundles - The free or close to free PCs bundled with internet access.
3. Cheap general purpose computers - Your average $750 PC, except now you also have a general purpose computer.
4. Higher end - The ubiqitous $2000 home computer. Many people are willing to pay $2000 because it's what they think they can spend.
Where is there room for them to play?
Don't mind all the confusion coming out of Amiga lately, they just drunk.
Do the math to see why RedHat's strategy to grow the market for Linux is the right one. It boils down to if you want a potential market of half a million or half a billion.
Here are some made-up numbers: Say Linux has 10% of the total OS market. Of that RedHat has 30%, or 3% of total, and the other distributions have 70%.
Who has the other 90% of the OS market? Microsoft of course! So RedHat can either fight the other Linux distributions to get at the other 7% or they can target the remaining 90% that Microsoft has.
Instead of a big slice of a small pie, give me a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.
Don't limit yourself when looking for a life-long partner. The last thing you want to do is eliminate someone because they don't fit a preconcieved image.
If you must have a geek, at least don't restrict yourself to Computer Geeks - alternative forms of geek are just as desirable.
While a Garden Geek may not be impressed when she hears of your clever algorithm, she will understand where you are coming from. It is more important she be able and willing to see your point of view than grok code.
I myself have a wife who's a Garden Geek, Classical Guitar Geek and Art Geek all at the same time. I love her to pieces not because she's a geek, but because she understands. Her being a geek just gave her a headstart.
Database + CGI scripts = Money
Yahoo, Alta Vista, eBay, google, etc. They're all just databases and CGI scripts.
Okay, maybe marketing too.
But notice the focus of the article was on the IT manager's perspective: the costs of support may outweigh the usefulness to the company of having them around, and that, I suspect, is likely true
If IT departments feel overwhelmed with support issues for small, simple devices then they're doing things th wrong way. Except for applications unique to the business the IT department should just forward the user to the normal support channels. IT departments always try to do everything themselves, often to the detriment of their users.
I think a lot of IT departments forget they are their to support their users, not dictate how to be productive. Often they are tied together - if something is a support burden it may be making everybody less productive.
But even if a palm-sized gizmo make you less productive, the entertainment value increases productivity through reduced stress. It all balances out.
Handheld PCs aren't toys for people who already live by their day planner. They're pretty much toys for everybody else.
You know what? That's okay. We're allowed to have fun. It seems like everything is becoming about utilizing every spare second of every single day.
I've got my Casio E-100 on order for delivery on Friday. Yes, it's a CAN$700 toy, and that's what I told my wife when decided to buy it. It's just a bonus if it ever saves me time balancing my cheque book.
And yes, porting Linux to it would be a fun thing to do.
It's so nice a refreshing to see people get rewarded for the work they do anyway.
Rob, Hemos, you guys are great. You deserve it.
A couple of the people in the top 100 can do the SETI blocks in 7 minutes. Yikes.
I special hardware involved?
Because the SETI client doesn't multithread in it's current version, that would have to be one honkin' processor. Or a parallelizing compiler.