but to call these sports the opposite of
intellectual may not be the best example.
I agree with you, but probably not quite in
the way you intended...
Football involves quite a lot of careful planning
and implementation of a strategy. Almost a sort
of chess with human pieces.
However, that analogy goes further, on which
point I suspect our views part ways. The
coaches "play" the game, while the
team members act as nothing more than pawns.
They have different strengths and weaknesses,
which will vary day-to-day, but overall they
just go out and follow orders issued by the
coaches.
Now, as for baseball... I don't know if I'd
grant that one as intellectual. You have a
deep but *very* narrow decision tree, due to
the small number of discrete states the game can
occupy at the start of a "move". At any point,
you have a known easily-modelled state, and
although a "good" coach can apply a number of
modifiers to that state based on the same
day-to-day variations in performance that
I mentioned above, they still have a very limited
range of options available to pick from.
So yes, some sports involve quite a lot of
intellectual activity. Just don't make the
mistake of attributing that to what we normally
call the "players".
I'm not certain the MAME guys should be so
sure of that though.
You make the mistake of assuming people really
care about the legality of MAME (or any
emulator, really, although at least for most
of the single-console emulators, they have
homebrew games to justify their existance).
Really, how many arcade machines can you fit in
your living room? Even (former) arcade owners
would realistically only have the right to use
a few dozen games at most. Yet most MAME users
have literally hundreds, if not thousands, of
games.
Not to say that strictly legal users don't exist,
but I would consider them in the tiny
minority.
The +5 used on books is a price extension,
not an item designation.
"Extra" digits on an EAN denote use-specific
data. In the case of books, that may mean
price (I didn't know that, actually, thanks
for the info). But data-wise, they just
append some number of digits to the base EAN
code, so it can mean whatever you want.
When last I played with barcoding (admittedly
a few years, so some aspects of this may have
changed though I highly doubt the
underlying tech has), we used EAN to store
something similar to a 21-digit serial number
(EAN13+8), rather than having any connection
whatsoever to the actual assigned numbers.
If you tried to look up that number as a
registered product code, you'd fail; but,
it worked just fine for our internal use as
an easily machine-readable numeric labelling
system.
Why not take the time to implement a flexible
sytem which may allow to encore an arbitrary
number of characters?
Actually, EAN does include exactly such
a capability... You can basically tack on
additional groups of digits to form a longer,
still-valid EAN barcode.
Most commonly used, you'll find EAN+5 on many
books. Of readers I've worked with, though,
every single one (that could handle +5) would
read out as wide as they could physically
scan.
Just because you have a hammer, though, don't
make the mistake of seeing everything as a
nail - If you want a lot more information,
you really want a 2d symbology such as PDF417
or code 128. EAN (and the similar but weaker
UPC) only exists for the specific purpose of
encoding a few digits for the purpose of product
ID. It has a bit of expansion capability built
in, but they never meant it as a barcode to
do everything.
I've been forwarding all my regular account's
mail to my gmail account, and it misses about
3:10 messages
Unfair comparison, though... Sure, for the really
blatant spam, they'll catch it by content alone.
But for the more subtle crap, they have a lot
better chance of noticing "100k messages coming
from an apparently open relay that doesn't host
any known mailing lists" than "JWS sent himself
another really odd message".
But, I don't really think Google needs an
effective filter, anyway. They don't have a
"useful" product in GMail, they have a geek-cred
toy. As soon as they open accounts to the general
public, they'll become as meaningful as a Yahoo
account.
Very good suggestions. At a previous job, I
created a custom embedded distro to do something
similar to what you point out.
A few comments, though...
It should be noted that I don't know if the
linux kernel can make and support multiple RAM
drives at once.
Yes, not a problem at all. For earlier kernels,
you'll need to tell it to allow 32+ MB ramdisks
and loopback support, but you can mount two
ramdisks at a time without a problem (and
probably far more, though I never tried more
than three).
If not, just make one RAM drive, mount it a/var, and make/home a symlink to/var/home.
I consider this the better option anyway, since it
doesn't force both/var and/home to fit into an
arbitrary sized space (some days you may need a ton
of user files, some days you may need a ton of logging,
why unneccessarily limit each?). I would also add/tmp
and/etc to those as well (/etc takes some work to
get it on a ramdisk, but you can do it).
Finally, for writing data back to the nonvolatile
storage, I'd recommend using a journaling FS,
preferably one that understands the idea of wear
leveling. JFFS2 does, but has general limitations
that make it painful to use. AFAIK, neither
Reiser nor EXT3 do wear leveling, though that may
have changed in the few years since I played with
all this.
Figure labor as your biggest cost. Nobody's
time is free. You can get a decent Laptop for
less money.
At my contracting rate, my "time" equals over
$100/hr.
However, that assumes a non-stop stream of
work at that rate, which does not hold true.
In the current economy, I barely make it (even
accepting much lower hourly rates for
non-corporate clients, so not just because
I won't take less).
So... Sure, if it takes me four hours to set
up a laptop, in theory, it has cost me more
than to buy a used low-end modern laptop. In
practice, I simply don't have $400 to blow on
a new laptop just to save myself four hours of
work (during which I would otherwise have played
some stupid game, or watched a movie, or some
other non-income-generating activity).
I suspect this applies to many of us (although
many may have neither free time nor the spare
cash), making the FP's question a perfectly
valid one... How to stretch the useful life
of older hardware?
Actually, though, I also consider this a really
interesting question from the battery life POV,
as well. Even for those of us with perfectly
good high-end laptops, might we manage to
double the battery life by running the actual
OS from CF or a USB stick, and setting the
HDD itself to spin down after only a few
seconds of non-use? I'd like to see some
numbers (and may even waste a few hours to
answer the question myself), but this could
have a lot of potential.
I've had three laptops in the past four years,
the last two I owned aren't even good enough for
my kids anymore.
...No offense, but you might want to lower your
standards a tad. I still use an 8YO laptop, and
it does everything I need it to - Mindless
timewasting games (solitare, minesweeper, sokoban,
etc); writing small code snippets; email and word
processing; browsing the web (no Flash or Java or
the like, but for plain HTML, it doesn't take
noticeably longer than my far more powerful
desktop); moving files from point A to point B
without needing to burn a DVD; listening to music
while on the road or just away from my main PC.
Basically, with the exception of gaming or
the rare CPU intensive task, no PC needs
more than a PII/300 (the above-mentioned 8YO
laptop has an original Pentium as its CPU).
We demand more because our desktops have
gotten us used to far more power for very little
money. But, if you stop to evaluate why you
have a laptop in the first place, you'd probably
find that you don't need a 3GHz machine to help
you pass the time for the morning commute.
Since most retail CD stores will not take back
an opened CD these days, there's no way to really
verify that what you have just purchased is
actually a CD until its too late.
Do a Google search for your state's name and
"warrant of merchantability".
Most (all?) states have such a law, which
basically boils down to "if it doesn't work,
they must refund your money". The
actual details vary between states, but
everyone should find out and memorize
the specifics for where they live.
Despite what the staff may say, what they
may have posted all over the store, even
what their register receipts may say, "store
policy" never overrides actual law.
Have you tried digging and drilling through
ice? It's neither easy nor cheap.
Ever heard of this new invention, "fire"? You
just make a pile of it, rest your butter knives
in the edge of the fire for a minute, then have
your monkey army stab the ice with the warm knives.
The ice will then magically turn to water beneath
their otherwise ineffective attacks on it.
Okay, so you probably wouldn't really want to
use an army of butter-knife wielding monkeys.
A circular tube (of the diameter of the desired
tunnel) with hot water flowing through it,
however, would work admirably. Push it in as
far as possible, then break off the horizontal
column of ice and pull it out. Poof, instant
tunnel.
Ice does not equal rock, even if under the
conditions involved it can get nearly as hard.
With rock, you need a several thousand degree
temperature increase just to get it to a
consistancy like very very thick molasses.
With ice, at the coldest point on earth, a
mere 200C increase will more than suffice
to make it far more amenable to removal
(ie, turn it into water or even a gas,
if necessary).
So... Only the FCC can regulate the use of
the RF spectrum. Okay, clear enough...
What implications does this have for the
ubiquitous banning of cell phone use on
airplanes (in favor of the much more
expensive payphones they have available for
passengers who really need to make a call)?
Personally, I've always considered the cell
phone ban during flights as nothing short of
offensive. Yeah, suuuuure it interferes
with their navigation. Hey, guess what, if
cell phones interfered with airplane navigation,
the very fact that your phone can get a signal
(from huge many-megawatt transmitting cell
towers) would cause far more problems
than the RF output of your sad little
portable transmitter (aka "phone").
Any thoughts, from someone who might really
know the answer to this? Cell phones now
kosher, or no? How about WAPs (ie, networked
games between two people with 802.11 on their
laptops on the same flight)? How about VOIP,
if you can get a signal?
Just remeber, if Microsoft is held liable
for it's products... eventually open source
authors will be sued for the same.
"Lemon Laws" basically let you get your money
back on a defective product.
So, keeping to that idea - Sure, I'll gladly
refund the purchase price of $0 when a program
I write fails to work for someone.
Similarly (as a freelance contractor), if someone
pays me to write a program, and it doesn't work...
Well, I don't suppose I'd get paid, would I? So
why should Microsoft (and any other commercial
software house) not have to live up to the basic
standard of "works as advertised"?
While not unrealistic in the current IT market,
"crappy help desk job" has nothing to do
with becoming a software or network engineer.
For an analogy, a helpdesk job at an IT firm
compares well to a secretary at a law firm.
The secretary does not "climb the ladder" to
full fledged lawyer, and the helpdesk guy does
not eventually become a real engineer (not to say
it never happens, but it when it does, it will
involve some circumstances beyond "working
up the corporate ladder"). Totally
different jobs, one geared toward MCSEs and
assorted other college dropouts, the other
to people with a 4-year degree and good coding
skills (which do not automatically come with
any degree... You have to get those
skills on your own through years of
practice, which fortunately can start long
before college).
No, a recent college grad shouldn't expect a
six-figure salary. But they shouldn't take a
$7.50/hr helpdesk job thinking it gives them
any sort of "skills" beyond "new ways to insult
users without them noticing".
Now, I did mention that the current
market may require such work... Not because
it has any relevance to the desired "real"
job, but rather, because of what so
many others have pointed out - You don't get
a job by sending out resumes, you get a job
because you know Bill, and Bill knows Fred,
and Fred's sister works in HR at BlobCo, where
they need a new entry-level code-monkey. From
that position (which, if you tried to get
it from a job posting, would still mention 5+
years of a dozen languages, as well as intimate
familiarity with every type of networking hardware
ever created, even though they just want someone
to do VB scripting to access their customer
mailing list running on Oracle 7 on an ancient
Sparc with a fully redundant backup - Which you
can later call "3.5 years of experience with Oracle
in a mission-critical clustered environment" for
the HR drones), you can work your way up to a real
engineer. But the work at a helpdesk in the
interim just kept you fed until you met the
people needed to actually get a real job.
Now, the above may sound a tad elitist, but I
don't mean it as such - I really do appreciate
those who can work a helpdesk. But don't delude
yourselves into considering that as any sort of
entry-level position for a software engineering
job.
...Which they have chosen to SELL (yes, sell, most
universities include a "network access" fee with the
cost of a room) net access to students.
It may come a bit cheaper than a 3rd party ISP, but
as long as they sell it, and restrict alternatives,
they damn well better not play games like you suggest.
Cut me off for not installing officially-sanctioned
spyware? Fine... Make it possible for me to get
DSL from the local (non-uni) teleco, even if you
have to rewire the whole damned campus.
I really fail to see why would any outfit, be
it school, uni, business... have the obligation
of providing access to networked environment for
users' own computers.
Because the price of a dorm room includes a
"network access" fee at most universities. These
students don't just get free internet access,
they pay for it. The university thus has
an "obligation" to provide the service they sell,
whether that means ticketed sporting events, or
internet access, or (on the rare occasion) an
actual education.
So now, relate that back to your own ISP...
If they demanded the right to install
"monitoring" software on your PC, would you
defend that as reasonable, since they also
have no "obligation" to provide you with
internet access?
Re:Am I the only one saying WTF?
on
Spider-Man in India
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Because the movie Spider Man was one of the
top grossing movies in India.
So let me get this straight... Indians loved
Spider Man, so to capitalize on that, they
plan to completely change him to make him
more Indian.
Riiiiiiight... So considering the popularity
of Anime among geeks, Disney should add a more
American touch to it? IIRC, Studio Ghibli
had to invoke a minor miracle to prevent
Disney from turning movies like Tenkû no
shiro Rapyuta into Mickey's Vacation
in Laputa.
Strange. I will never understand the corporate
world.
If, by that, you mean the British took it
away from them in the first place, then sure,
it didn't count as "Arab" land. Woo woo,
Weizmann managed to convince Balfour to give
away a chunk of land neither of them had
much right to. So if I gave your car to
someone I seek favor with (without giving
you any say in the matter, BTW), you won't
have a problem with that?
Which has what to do with this
discussion?
You said, as though it somehow negated the
rights of those living on the relevant chunk
of land, "There has never been a nation-state
called 'Palestine'", to which I responded that
I live in New England, which also does not exist
as a nation-state. You threw out a strawman, I
identified it as such. Next, please.
I don't give a flying fuck what your one
close friend says.
Once again, you said "Ever talked to the troops
serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan [snip]?", and I
respond in an apropos manner. Nice to see you remember
your own requests, I can see this conversation
won't last much longer.
Surrender isn't just a transitive verb.
So explain your use of it... You said that
bringing our troops home would count as surrender.
I say that admitting our mistakes does not mean
"giving up". Let me guess, you don't ever
say "sorry", since that would mean "surrendering"
the point.
Go to schul often, do you?
Other than my informal use of an ellipsis, would you care
to point out the error prompting you to make such a
statement? Or did you not mean that sarcastically,
and just have trouble following all these polysyllabic
words?
Your ignorance of the basic ideas behind governance
and of American history should make you deeply ashamed.
Again, why do you make such a statement? Because I
didn't Google for a list of US declarations of martial
law with which to impress you? Hey, guess what, you
missed a few interesting ones - Such as Jeb declaring it
on 9/11, despite having no reason to, and before even NY
managed to get moving on the issue... And has not yet
lifted it. Or how about March 9th, 1933 - Ring any bells
there, my friend? We have literally had a state of
"national emergency" for over 70 years.
But of course, I carelessly used the phrase "US territory".
Hey, my bad, I used it a tad loosely; I assumed my audience
would have the capacity to "get" figurative language. I
apologize for that, but beyond that nit which you have
picked to death (more figurative language, sorry - This
discussion includes no lice), you have blasted me
thoroughly, without refuting my points, and without
even backing up your admonition. Thus, I assume you will
not respond, or perhaps just another round of "you suck,
you have it all wrong, fuck you". So have a ball.
The Jews defeated the Arab aggressors and,
since peaceful partition had been rejected,
took their state by force.
"We don't want to give up half our land
to you" equates to "Arab aggressors"?
Okaaaay...
There were no "Palestinians," incidentally.
There has never been a nation-state called
"Palestine."
...Nor has a "nation-state" called "New England"
ever existed. Regardless, I live there.
Additionally, the Jewish holy book seems to
mention those pesky "Palestinians" quite a
bit... What do you suppose that could mean,
if no such people exist, nor did they ever?
Right, because key planks in the Republican
party platform include the abolition of the
Constitution, wars of expansionist aggression
on our northern and southern borders, and the
extermination of millions of people in the name
of racial purity.
Funny, but in your attempt at sarcasm (mostly
true, sadly), you walked right into a straight
contradiction. Two of those three we've done
in recent history, and one we have not. I'll
let you pick which to assign each truth-value,
but I don't really suppose it matters, now
does it?
Ever talked to the troops serving in Iraq,
in Afghanistan, in South Korea, in Germany, in
the Philippines?
As a matter of fact, yes, I have. A close
friend, for that matter. They want OUT.
"Stop-Loss" measures made morale look like
Swiss-cheese. They want to "fight the good
fight" about as much as they want a new hole in
their head Oh, wait, those mean the same
thing. My bad.
Like I said: you don't propose that we support
the troops. You propose that we surrender.
Surrender? To what, pray tell, could we surrender?
Remember, we fight a rag-tag group of discontents,
whom we've all but crushed. We have established
democracy in Iraq, and saved the world for all things
good. To whom could we surrender, by your reasoning?
Sigh. Your understanding of the intricacies of
government is truly dizzying.
So, you have a PhD on the new Iraqi constitution?
Kudos, I'd imagine it must have taken you quite a
lot of work to do so in a mere three months. But
wait, we basically made them a US territory... So,
assuming US law holds there (on which topic you
could have a PhD, though not likely), how
does declaring martial law not make it essentially
a dictatorship?
Is Slashdot growing ever-more replete with fools
Yes. Clearly. Why, just compare our UIDs, and your
facetious comment becomes all-too-painfully clear.
Well, even if no one else did, I considered
that one of the most insightful (and funny)
comments in this thread so far.:-)
I did find some of the examples at the link amusing,
however... Sure, it reduces polygon counts - But makes
your spiffy model of a human head look like someone
attacked a styrofoam hat form with a cheese-slicer.
Funny, I downloaded them yesterday (at least,
the d1 and d2 ISOs) from a site linked on Slackware's
"Get Slack" page (don't recall which one, I had to
try a dozen of them before finding one with the ISOs).
No problems, reasonably fast, right checksums...
Unfortunately, I downloaded the 9.1 install
ISOs yesterday. Great, just wonderful - I wasted
1.3GB, two CDs, and two hours, and the very
next day, the new version comes out.
Yeah, what a scam. They actually want to make
a profit from their business!
Except, this targets people who already
bought the DVD in question. Disney already made
their sale, and this program targets only
victims of the DMCA.
So yes, I do call that a scam. If not
for the DMCA , I (or anyone, I don't mean this
as some sort of whine about a personally missed
marketing op) could provide that same service
for under a buck per disc, including shipping,
and still make a few cents per disc. Only
laws passed thanks to "monetary incentives" from
Disney and similar companies prevent me from doing
exactly that.
If you can make your own bed, and I get a law passed
requiring you to pay me to do it, that counts as a
scam - Arguments about "how to fold sheet corners"
as a trade-secret ignored.
If all of the companies (like EA) who sold CDs
(movies, music, video games) had the same sort of
support that Disney movies have (disc replacement
program), would there still be a justification for
this sort of program?
From Disney: "If you accidentally damage or break
one of your Disney DVDs, you can get a replacement
disc for a nominal charge of $6.95. Please call
(800) 723-4763 for details."
"Replacement" program? The guys at Disney must
love this! Considering that Wallyworld can
make money selling older DVDs for $5, Disney must
do very well "replacing" titles they actually
publish for $2 more per copy. What a great scam they
have going! Especially when you consider that younger
kids, their target audience, tend to beat the hell
out of everything they touch (including DVDs)... Wow.
Even at a more reasonable price, though, such an
offer would not justify depriving us of our right
to make backups. Either we buy the media, in which
case we can do with it as we will (including copying
it, since we would need to supply our own blank, the
physical "product", to do so), or we license it, in
which case the physical copy holds no special value
(and thus, we can copy it at will because the license,
not the media, reflects the purchase price). Either
way, we have a right to back it up.
The DRM components that are required view any
change in the system clock as an attempt to work
around the license and automatically void it,
rendering the movie unwatchable.
...Then this wouldn't work on XP anyway, since
it connects to MS's NTP server by default. Thus,
at least twice a year, and more likely several
times a day, your PC's clock changes in an
"unnatural" manner.
This brings up a good point; how do you
explain to someone who is NOT a geek (and
has no interest in being one) about what
DRM is and how it will effect them?
I had that very experience last night, talking
to a friend about allofmp3.com...
I tried explaining it from a few different
angles, but I think the one that worked best
went something like:
"You buy a new Ford, expecting it to work
just like your old Ford (jokes about Fords
not working aside). Except, it only runs
on Ford brand gasoline. And only genuine
Ford dealers can repair it - even the most
minor problem like a burned out headlight,
or adding wiper fluid. And you can only
drive it on Ford-owned roads (which all
have a Ford-tax toll booth on them). And
if you want to sell it, you need written
permission from Ford, and they can decide to
only allow you to sell it back to a dealer
for a pittance, or they can even chose not
to allow you to sell it at all. Best of all,
although you don't work for GM, don't know
anyone that works for GM, and have never
even owned a GM car, they've taken all those
steps not so much to make more money or to
piss you off (they really couldn't care
less about your opinion of all this),
but to stop GM engineers from stealing their
ideas."
Sure it will! It just does a check at startup.
It compares that check to a simple registry
key. So, while you can't install with
more than two CPUs active, you can install on
two (to make sure it uses the multiCPU kernel),
tweak the registry (try Google, I don't remember
the key off the top of my head), then enable the
rest of the CPUs. Not even a real hack, more
like turning on LargeSystemCache. "Max CPUs?
Why, I think I'll take 32, please!".
Gack. The thought of needing to "upgrade" to
XP to run more than two CPUs makes me want to
stay with only two, as nice as four (or eight,
for two dual-core HTs) virtual CPUs sounds...
No way will I put up with XP for that. Such
a requirement might well give me the incentive
to deal with Linux as my primary desktop machine,
moving away from Windows entirely.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
but to call these sports the opposite of intellectual may not be the best example.
I agree with you, but probably not quite in the way you intended...
Football involves quite a lot of careful planning and implementation of a strategy. Almost a sort of chess with human pieces.
However, that analogy goes further, on which point I suspect our views part ways. The coaches "play" the game, while the team members act as nothing more than pawns. They have different strengths and weaknesses, which will vary day-to-day, but overall they just go out and follow orders issued by the coaches.
Now, as for baseball... I don't know if I'd grant that one as intellectual. You have a deep but *very* narrow decision tree, due to the small number of discrete states the game can occupy at the start of a "move". At any point, you have a known easily-modelled state, and although a "good" coach can apply a number of modifiers to that state based on the same day-to-day variations in performance that I mentioned above, they still have a very limited range of options available to pick from.
So yes, some sports involve quite a lot of intellectual activity. Just don't make the mistake of attributing that to what we normally call the "players".
I'm not certain the MAME guys should be so sure of that though.
You make the mistake of assuming people really care about the legality of MAME (or any emulator, really, although at least for most of the single-console emulators, they have homebrew games to justify their existance).
Really, how many arcade machines can you fit in your living room? Even (former) arcade owners would realistically only have the right to use a few dozen games at most. Yet most MAME users have literally hundreds, if not thousands, of games.
Not to say that strictly legal users don't exist, but I would consider them in the tiny minority.
The +5 used on books is a price extension, not an item designation.
"Extra" digits on an EAN denote use-specific data. In the case of books, that may mean price (I didn't know that, actually, thanks for the info). But data-wise, they just append some number of digits to the base EAN code, so it can mean whatever you want.
When last I played with barcoding (admittedly a few years, so some aspects of this may have changed though I highly doubt the underlying tech has), we used EAN to store something similar to a 21-digit serial number (EAN13+8), rather than having any connection whatsoever to the actual assigned numbers. If you tried to look up that number as a registered product code, you'd fail; but, it worked just fine for our internal use as an easily machine-readable numeric labelling system.
Why not take the time to implement a flexible sytem which may allow to encore an arbitrary number of characters?
Actually, EAN does include exactly such a capability... You can basically tack on additional groups of digits to form a longer, still-valid EAN barcode.
Most commonly used, you'll find EAN+5 on many books. Of readers I've worked with, though, every single one (that could handle +5) would read out as wide as they could physically scan.
Just because you have a hammer, though, don't make the mistake of seeing everything as a nail - If you want a lot more information, you really want a 2d symbology such as PDF417 or code 128. EAN (and the similar but weaker UPC) only exists for the specific purpose of encoding a few digits for the purpose of product ID. It has a bit of expansion capability built in, but they never meant it as a barcode to do everything.
I've been forwarding all my regular account's mail to my gmail account, and it misses about 3:10 messages
Unfair comparison, though... Sure, for the really blatant spam, they'll catch it by content alone. But for the more subtle crap, they have a lot better chance of noticing "100k messages coming from an apparently open relay that doesn't host any known mailing lists" than "JWS sent himself another really odd message".
But, I don't really think Google needs an effective filter, anyway. They don't have a "useful" product in GMail, they have a geek-cred toy. As soon as they open accounts to the general public, they'll become as meaningful as a Yahoo account.
Very good suggestions. At a previous job, I created a custom embedded distro to do something similar to what you point out.
/var, and make /home a symlink to /var/home.
/var and /home to fit into an
arbitrary sized space (some days you may need a ton
of user files, some days you may need a ton of logging,
why unneccessarily limit each?). I would also add /tmp
and /etc to those as well (/etc takes some work to
get it on a ramdisk, but you can do it).
A few comments, though...
It should be noted that I don't know if the linux kernel can make and support multiple RAM drives at once.
Yes, not a problem at all. For earlier kernels, you'll need to tell it to allow 32+ MB ramdisks and loopback support, but you can mount two ramdisks at a time without a problem (and probably far more, though I never tried more than three).
If not, just make one RAM drive, mount it a
I consider this the better option anyway, since it doesn't force both
Finally, for writing data back to the nonvolatile storage, I'd recommend using a journaling FS, preferably one that understands the idea of wear leveling. JFFS2 does, but has general limitations that make it painful to use. AFAIK, neither Reiser nor EXT3 do wear leveling, though that may have changed in the few years since I played with all this.
Figure labor as your biggest cost. Nobody's time is free. You can get a decent Laptop for less money.
...No offense, but you might want to lower your
standards a tad. I still use an 8YO laptop, and
it does everything I need it to - Mindless
timewasting games (solitare, minesweeper, sokoban,
etc); writing small code snippets; email and word
processing; browsing the web (no Flash or Java or
the like, but for plain HTML, it doesn't take
noticeably longer than my far more powerful
desktop); moving files from point A to point B
without needing to burn a DVD; listening to music
while on the road or just away from my main PC.
At my contracting rate, my "time" equals over $100/hr.
However, that assumes a non-stop stream of work at that rate, which does not hold true. In the current economy, I barely make it (even accepting much lower hourly rates for non-corporate clients, so not just because I won't take less).
So... Sure, if it takes me four hours to set up a laptop, in theory, it has cost me more than to buy a used low-end modern laptop. In practice, I simply don't have $400 to blow on a new laptop just to save myself four hours of work (during which I would otherwise have played some stupid game, or watched a movie, or some other non-income-generating activity).
I suspect this applies to many of us (although many may have neither free time nor the spare cash), making the FP's question a perfectly valid one... How to stretch the useful life of older hardware?
Actually, though, I also consider this a really interesting question from the battery life POV, as well. Even for those of us with perfectly good high-end laptops, might we manage to double the battery life by running the actual OS from CF or a USB stick, and setting the HDD itself to spin down after only a few seconds of non-use? I'd like to see some numbers (and may even waste a few hours to answer the question myself), but this could have a lot of potential.
I've had three laptops in the past four years, the last two I owned aren't even good enough for my kids anymore.
Basically, with the exception of gaming or the rare CPU intensive task, no PC needs more than a PII/300 (the above-mentioned 8YO laptop has an original Pentium as its CPU). We demand more because our desktops have gotten us used to far more power for very little money. But, if you stop to evaluate why you have a laptop in the first place, you'd probably find that you don't need a 3GHz machine to help you pass the time for the morning commute.
Since most retail CD stores will not take back an opened CD these days, there's no way to really verify that what you have just purchased is actually a CD until its too late.
Do a Google search for your state's name and "warrant of merchantability".
Most (all?) states have such a law, which basically boils down to "if it doesn't work, they must refund your money". The actual details vary between states, but everyone should find out and memorize the specifics for where they live.
Despite what the staff may say, what they may have posted all over the store, even what their register receipts may say, "store policy" never overrides actual law.
Have you tried digging and drilling through ice? It's neither easy nor cheap.
Ever heard of this new invention, "fire"? You just make a pile of it, rest your butter knives in the edge of the fire for a minute, then have your monkey army stab the ice with the warm knives. The ice will then magically turn to water beneath their otherwise ineffective attacks on it.
Okay, so you probably wouldn't really want to use an army of butter-knife wielding monkeys. A circular tube (of the diameter of the desired tunnel) with hot water flowing through it, however, would work admirably. Push it in as far as possible, then break off the horizontal column of ice and pull it out. Poof, instant tunnel.
Ice does not equal rock, even if under the conditions involved it can get nearly as hard. With rock, you need a several thousand degree temperature increase just to get it to a consistancy like very very thick molasses. With ice, at the coldest point on earth, a mere 200C increase will more than suffice to make it far more amenable to removal (ie, turn it into water or even a gas, if necessary).
So... Only the FCC can regulate the use of the RF spectrum. Okay, clear enough...
What implications does this have for the ubiquitous banning of cell phone use on airplanes (in favor of the much more expensive payphones they have available for passengers who really need to make a call)?
Personally, I've always considered the cell phone ban during flights as nothing short of offensive. Yeah, suuuuure it interferes with their navigation. Hey, guess what, if cell phones interfered with airplane navigation, the very fact that your phone can get a signal (from huge many-megawatt transmitting cell towers) would cause far more problems than the RF output of your sad little portable transmitter (aka "phone").
Any thoughts, from someone who might really know the answer to this? Cell phones now kosher, or no? How about WAPs (ie, networked games between two people with 802.11 on their laptops on the same flight)? How about VOIP, if you can get a signal?
Just remeber, if Microsoft is held liable for it's products ... eventually open source
authors will be sued for the same.
"Lemon Laws" basically let you get your money back on a defective product.
So, keeping to that idea - Sure, I'll gladly refund the purchase price of $0 when a program I write fails to work for someone.
Similarly (as a freelance contractor), if someone pays me to write a program, and it doesn't work... Well, I don't suppose I'd get paid, would I? So why should Microsoft (and any other commercial software house) not have to live up to the basic standard of "works as advertised"?
Get a crappy help desk job and work your way up.
While not unrealistic in the current IT market, "crappy help desk job" has nothing to do with becoming a software or network engineer.
For an analogy, a helpdesk job at an IT firm compares well to a secretary at a law firm. The secretary does not "climb the ladder" to full fledged lawyer, and the helpdesk guy does not eventually become a real engineer (not to say it never happens, but it when it does, it will involve some circumstances beyond "working up the corporate ladder"). Totally different jobs, one geared toward MCSEs and assorted other college dropouts, the other to people with a 4-year degree and good coding skills (which do not automatically come with any degree... You have to get those skills on your own through years of practice, which fortunately can start long before college).
No, a recent college grad shouldn't expect a six-figure salary. But they shouldn't take a $7.50/hr helpdesk job thinking it gives them any sort of "skills" beyond "new ways to insult users without them noticing".
Now, I did mention that the current market may require such work... Not because it has any relevance to the desired "real" job, but rather, because of what so many others have pointed out - You don't get a job by sending out resumes, you get a job because you know Bill, and Bill knows Fred, and Fred's sister works in HR at BlobCo, where they need a new entry-level code-monkey. From that position (which, if you tried to get it from a job posting, would still mention 5+ years of a dozen languages, as well as intimate familiarity with every type of networking hardware ever created, even though they just want someone to do VB scripting to access their customer mailing list running on Oracle 7 on an ancient Sparc with a fully redundant backup - Which you can later call "3.5 years of experience with Oracle in a mission-critical clustered environment" for the HR drones), you can work your way up to a real engineer. But the work at a helpdesk in the interim just kept you fed until you met the people needed to actually get a real job.
Now, the above may sound a tad elitist, but I don't mean it as such - I really do appreciate those who can work a helpdesk. But don't delude yourselves into considering that as any sort of entry-level position for a software engineering job.
It's the school's network, however.
...Which they have chosen to SELL (yes, sell, most
universities include a "network access" fee with the
cost of a room) net access to students.
It may come a bit cheaper than a 3rd party ISP, but as long as they sell it, and restrict alternatives, they damn well better not play games like you suggest.
Cut me off for not installing officially-sanctioned spyware? Fine... Make it possible for me to get DSL from the local (non-uni) teleco, even if you have to rewire the whole damned campus.
I really fail to see why would any outfit, be it school, uni, business... have the obligation of providing access to networked environment for users' own computers.
Because the price of a dorm room includes a "network access" fee at most universities. These students don't just get free internet access, they pay for it. The university thus has an "obligation" to provide the service they sell, whether that means ticketed sporting events, or internet access, or (on the rare occasion) an actual education.
So now, relate that back to your own ISP... If they demanded the right to install "monitoring" software on your PC, would you defend that as reasonable, since they also have no "obligation" to provide you with internet access?
Because the movie Spider Man was one of the top grossing movies in India.
So let me get this straight... Indians loved Spider Man, so to capitalize on that, they plan to completely change him to make him more Indian.
Riiiiiiight... So considering the popularity of Anime among geeks, Disney should add a more American touch to it? IIRC, Studio Ghibli had to invoke a minor miracle to prevent Disney from turning movies like Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta into Mickey's Vacation in Laputa.
Strange. I will never understand the corporate world.
It wasn't their land.
If, by that, you mean the British took it away from them in the first place, then sure, it didn't count as "Arab" land. Woo woo, Weizmann managed to convince Balfour to give away a chunk of land neither of them had much right to. So if I gave your car to someone I seek favor with (without giving you any say in the matter, BTW), you won't have a problem with that?
Which has what to do with this discussion?
You said, as though it somehow negated the rights of those living on the relevant chunk of land, "There has never been a nation-state called 'Palestine'", to which I responded that I live in New England, which also does not exist as a nation-state. You threw out a strawman, I identified it as such. Next, please.
I don't give a flying fuck what your one close friend says.
Once again, you said "Ever talked to the troops serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan [snip]?", and I respond in an apropos manner. Nice to see you remember your own requests, I can see this conversation won't last much longer.
Surrender isn't just a transitive verb.
So explain your use of it... You said that bringing our troops home would count as surrender. I say that admitting our mistakes does not mean "giving up". Let me guess, you don't ever say "sorry", since that would mean "surrendering" the point.
Go to schul often, do you?
Other than my informal use of an ellipsis, would you care to point out the error prompting you to make such a statement? Or did you not mean that sarcastically, and just have trouble following all these polysyllabic words?
Your ignorance of the basic ideas behind governance and of American history should make you deeply ashamed.
Again, why do you make such a statement? Because I didn't Google for a list of US declarations of martial law with which to impress you? Hey, guess what, you missed a few interesting ones - Such as Jeb declaring it on 9/11, despite having no reason to, and before even NY managed to get moving on the issue... And has not yet lifted it. Or how about March 9th, 1933 - Ring any bells there, my friend? We have literally had a state of "national emergency" for over 70 years.
But of course, I carelessly used the phrase "US territory". Hey, my bad, I used it a tad loosely; I assumed my audience would have the capacity to "get" figurative language. I apologize for that, but beyond that nit which you have picked to death (more figurative language, sorry - This discussion includes no lice), you have blasted me thoroughly, without refuting my points, and without even backing up your admonition. Thus, I assume you will not respond, or perhaps just another round of "you suck, you have it all wrong, fuck you". So have a ball.
The Jews defeated the Arab aggressors and, since peaceful partition had been rejected, took their state by force.
...Nor has a "nation-state" called "New England"
ever existed. Regardless, I live there.
"We don't want to give up half our land to you" equates to "Arab aggressors"? Okaaaay...
There were no "Palestinians," incidentally. There has never been a nation-state called "Palestine."
Additionally, the Jewish holy book seems to mention those pesky "Palestinians" quite a bit... What do you suppose that could mean, if no such people exist, nor did they ever?
Right, because key planks in the Republican party platform include the abolition of the Constitution, wars of expansionist aggression on our northern and southern borders, and the extermination of millions of people in the name of racial purity.
Funny, but in your attempt at sarcasm (mostly true, sadly), you walked right into a straight contradiction. Two of those three we've done in recent history, and one we have not. I'll let you pick which to assign each truth-value, but I don't really suppose it matters, now does it?
Ever talked to the troops serving in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in South Korea, in Germany, in the Philippines?
As a matter of fact, yes, I have. A close friend, for that matter. They want OUT. "Stop-Loss" measures made morale look like Swiss-cheese. They want to "fight the good fight" about as much as they want a new hole in their head Oh, wait, those mean the same thing. My bad.
Like I said: you don't propose that we support the troops. You propose that we surrender.
Surrender? To what, pray tell, could we surrender? Remember, we fight a rag-tag group of discontents, whom we've all but crushed. We have established democracy in Iraq, and saved the world for all things good. To whom could we surrender, by your reasoning?
Sigh. Your understanding of the intricacies of government is truly dizzying.
So, you have a PhD on the new Iraqi constitution? Kudos, I'd imagine it must have taken you quite a lot of work to do so in a mere three months. But wait, we basically made them a US territory... So, assuming US law holds there (on which topic you could have a PhD, though not likely), how does declaring martial law not make it essentially a dictatorship?
Is Slashdot growing ever-more replete with fools
Yes. Clearly. Why, just compare our UIDs, and your facetious comment becomes all-too-painfully clear.
check out i2p...
;-)
From the very page you linked: "Please keep the www.i2p.net url private as before, no Slashdot links"
So, I take it that, for some reason, you dislike this project and want to kill it young, via a Slashdotting?
That's No Icosahedron, It's a MOON!
:-)
Well, even if no one else did, I considered that one of the most insightful (and funny) comments in this thread so far.
I did find some of the examples at the link amusing, however... Sure, it reduces polygon counts - But makes your spiffy model of a human head look like someone attacked a styrofoam hat form with a cheese-slicer.
IIRC, no official FTP sites ever had the ISOs.
Funny, I downloaded them yesterday (at least, the d1 and d2 ISOs) from a site linked on Slackware's "Get Slack" page (don't recall which one, I had to try a dozen of them before finding one with the ISOs). No problems, reasonably fast, right checksums...
Unfortunately, I downloaded the 9.1 install ISOs yesterday. Great, just wonderful - I wasted 1.3GB, two CDs, and two hours, and the very next day, the new version comes out.
Just shoot me, it would hurt less.
Yeah, what a scam. They actually want to make a profit from their business!
Except, this targets people who already bought the DVD in question. Disney already made their sale, and this program targets only victims of the DMCA.
So yes, I do call that a scam. If not for the DMCA , I (or anyone, I don't mean this as some sort of whine about a personally missed marketing op) could provide that same service for under a buck per disc, including shipping, and still make a few cents per disc. Only laws passed thanks to "monetary incentives" from Disney and similar companies prevent me from doing exactly that.
If you can make your own bed, and I get a law passed requiring you to pay me to do it, that counts as a scam - Arguments about "how to fold sheet corners" as a trade-secret ignored.
If all of the companies (like EA) who sold CDs (movies, music, video games) had the same sort of support that Disney movies have (disc replacement program), would there still be a justification for this sort of program?
From Disney: "If you accidentally damage or break one of your Disney DVDs, you can get a replacement disc for a nominal charge of $6.95. Please call (800) 723-4763 for details."
"Replacement" program? The guys at Disney must love this! Considering that Wallyworld can make money selling older DVDs for $5, Disney must do very well "replacing" titles they actually publish for $2 more per copy. What a great scam they have going! Especially when you consider that younger kids, their target audience, tend to beat the hell out of everything they touch (including DVDs)... Wow.
Even at a more reasonable price, though, such an offer would not justify depriving us of our right to make backups. Either we buy the media, in which case we can do with it as we will (including copying it, since we would need to supply our own blank, the physical "product", to do so), or we license it, in which case the physical copy holds no special value (and thus, we can copy it at will because the license, not the media, reflects the purchase price). Either way, we have a right to back it up.
The DRM components that are required view any change in the system clock as an attempt to work around the license and automatically void it, rendering the movie unwatchable.
...Then this wouldn't work on XP anyway, since
it connects to MS's NTP server by default. Thus,
at least twice a year, and more likely several
times a day, your PC's clock changes in an
"unnatural" manner.
This brings up a good point; how do you explain to someone who is NOT a geek (and has no interest in being one) about what DRM is and how it will effect them?
I had that very experience last night, talking to a friend about allofmp3.com...
I tried explaining it from a few different angles, but I think the one that worked best went something like:
"You buy a new Ford, expecting it to work just like your old Ford (jokes about Fords not working aside). Except, it only runs on Ford brand gasoline. And only genuine Ford dealers can repair it - even the most minor problem like a burned out headlight, or adding wiper fluid. And you can only drive it on Ford-owned roads (which all have a Ford-tax toll booth on them). And if you want to sell it, you need written permission from Ford, and they can decide to only allow you to sell it back to a dealer for a pittance, or they can even chose not to allow you to sell it at all. Best of all, although you don't work for GM, don't know anyone that works for GM, and have never even owned a GM car, they've taken all those steps not so much to make more money or to piss you off (they really couldn't care less about your opinion of all this), but to stop GM engineers from stealing their ideas."
What won't work is 2k Pro.
;-)
Sure it will! It just does a check at startup. It compares that check to a simple registry key. So, while you can't install with more than two CPUs active, you can install on two (to make sure it uses the multiCPU kernel), tweak the registry (try Google, I don't remember the key off the top of my head), then enable the rest of the CPUs. Not even a real hack, more like turning on LargeSystemCache. "Max CPUs? Why, I think I'll take 32, please!".
Gack. The thought of needing to "upgrade" to XP to run more than two CPUs makes me want to stay with only two, as nice as four (or eight, for two dual-core HTs) virtual CPUs sounds... No way will I put up with XP for that. Such a requirement might well give me the incentive to deal with Linux as my primary desktop machine, moving away from Windows entirely.