This was actually some question I was asked a while ago... "If you could live forever, would you?" Most people answered "no" to it. Everyone's afraid of dying, but living *forever*? There's more uncertainty in that than in death!
I'm having the same problem - I *really* want to make a Beowulf cluster of them. But I don't feel like scrounging up 6 NICs, installing Linux 6 times (actually, several of them are missing hard drives)...
Maybe someone should start a service where you ship your junk off to them, and they make a Beowulf cluster out of it and send it back? Then again, the power required for running 5 486's is probably about what it would take to run a Cray...
No! AM radio and CB are both at very low frequencies; technically deemed "HF". (Below 30 MHz). First, the legal reason - according to international law, you have to be licensed to transmit down there. (I have seem people argue that CB violates international law.)
Now, the technical reason. You can't fit as much information in at lower frequencies. Ham radio operators are restricted to, if I'm not mistaken, 1200 bps on these bands. I would *hate* to use a new digital device at 1.2Kb...
If you have noticed, digital devices have been moving steadily upwards in frequency.
I got really ticked off with Netscape the other day, and I actually came up with a list of things I'd like to have in my next browser.
Mandatory Auto-forward delay: Many sites have a page that automatically forwards you elsewhere. This is all fine and dandy until you decide to hit "back" a few times. You go back, and are automatically re-forwarded. This annoys me unspeakably. (Yes, it is easy to "pull" on the Back button and get a drop-down list, but it's a pain to have to use the mouse.)
Right-click blocking: Occasionally a banner ad will really start to tick you off, especially if it keeps coming from the same domain or URL. I'd like to be able to right click on it and choose "Block this URL", or "Block this (sub)domain" Or maybe just "Don't load any image that is placed right here."
Right click: Advanced goto options: Occasionally you'll find someone who links to a non-existent page, such as an expired PHP/ASP page. I'd like to be able to right click and say "Go to this domain". Better yet, pop the complete URL up into the URL window, and allow the user to click on sections. Thus, for the URL http://www.whatever.domain.com/1/2/3/index.html, I could click on "/2", and everything before it would be selected. (This will save manually deleting characters.) It might sound dumb, but it can be unbelievably useful.
Stability:My ISP occasionally messes up their nameserver, and Netscape just locks up. My system load goes up to 100%, and I have to bring up a terminal and kill -9 it. I'd like it if it wouldn't get caught in an infinite loop so easily...
Firewall-like controls:I'd like to be able to tell Netscape/Mozilla to "block traffic from doubleclick.net", or whatever. I can do this if I mess with the firewall, but I'd rather leave it alone.
Ping/traceroute/nmap/whois/nslookup:I'm a curious person. When a host is slow, or when I'm particularly curious about where it is, I like to ping/traceroute it. I also like using register.com (whois lookups) to see who owns the domain (I've only recently discovered the UNIX "whois"). And I am simply *obsessed* with Netcraft's "What's that site running?" feature, which will give you detailed info on a server's OS, IP Netblock owner, uptime... I belive it gets the OS through nmap, though I'm not too comfortable nmap'ing every site I go to... I'd just love a little window I can open that will get me all this information on anything.
Sorry if I've rambled endlessly; the mention of preventing pop-ups reminded of the list I have here...
I don't mind banner ads - I guess you could say I'm neutral towards them. I don't like them, but I don't really have anything against them. The ones that are animated are slightly annoying; one of the biggest mistakes newbie web designers make is using animations. They distract the reader - it's a proven fact.
But there is one downside to one of these new advertising techniques - they refresh. I've actually seen this done before - client pull technology is nothing new. But I have one objection to these - they can slow things down. For example, I was playing a game at FreeArcade, when I suddenly lost all control of the game. I was about to give the computer the three-finger salute (it was a Windows box), when I realized that the system wasn't locked up at all - the browser was just pausing while it went out and got a new ad to show me. I ended up losing the game. This is a *great* way to tick people off...
Another thing that annoys me greatly - pop-up ads. (They can, however, be rather amusing - I was using twm, and it has me manually place them. I click to put it wherever; and then I go to close it. But it has already retreated to behind the main browser.)
In short - I'm not one of those people who whine and moan about ads all day. But I do wish people would give a little more thought to how they will affect users - if they unexpectedly go out and get content, it can slow down whatever you're doing at their site. Imagine trying to download a complete Linux distro while being bombarded with refreshing popups!
Yes, I'd really like to concede with this. (s)he was not saying that it's *right* to pick on someone because they're a genius; he was saying that a lot of people are so arrogant that they force people to pick on them.
I thought that the main "focus" was "Many child 'prodigies' bring unnecessary problems unto themselves by being unnecessarily arrogant." The point was "don't be a braggart", not "let's go pick on someone smart."
While I've never used BeOS, it is my understanding that BeOS and Linux go two different ways - BeOS is Mac-type computer; it's supposed to be easy to use, and it aims for the same type of customers. Linux, however, isn't really designed for ease of use (note that I did not say "It is hard to use."), and it aims for the completely opposite type of people - computer geeks.
Now, I know, this is stereotypical, but the majority of people fit the stereotype. I'm sure some people will leave Linux for BeOS, but, well... there are people who leave Linux for Windows!
The reason for my filesystem comment is that the one thing everyone seems to envy about BeOS is it's filesystem. I must admit, I haven't done my homework and researched it, but I have heard a fair amount about it, and it sounds like something Linux ought to pick up.
Am I the only one who got the "640... ought to be enough for anybody..." thing? I've seen the quote from Bill Gates a lot; I'm surprised no one has commented on it. Unless everyone thinks it's so glaringly obvious that they didn't bother...
Hmm... If you don't pay full attention, this almost sounds like a good thing. They patented
Thus, a really strict (and surely incorrect) interpretation of this means that my local TV/radio stations have to pay royalties to them. Perhaps they just won't run ads anymore?;-)
To qualify for a utility patent, an invention must be new, useful, and "nonobvious."
I find this rather amusing. Does this mean that none of Microsoft's patents are valid? I suppose you could consider it useful - it gives some people hours of amusement - watching for that randomly appearing bluish screen...
And nonobvious... Selling crap is a pretty obvious idea... And the phrase "prior art" comes to mind. But then again, I'll give them (Microsoft) credit - they have taken selling crap to a new extreme.
And who says that Microsoft's stuff is new? A lot of the stuff in their code is at the very least "inspired" by pre-existing stuff.
So what does all this mean? Perhaps it is now legal to freely distribute Microsoft software? No, that might help drag more people into using it!
Search capability is often overlooked, or, perhaps, something people conciously omit. A search engine can require a really good webserver. However, a site without a search engine is, as far as I'm concerned, something that the nephew of the site owner threw together while playing with FrontPage for the first time.
A site with a few pages can get away with it, but any government site should really have search capability.
I am really happy with themes.org - the layout is *excellent*. Particularly cool is the ability to choose a site theme - they will occasionally redesign the site, but users can choose from any existing layouts if they want. This does, however, require that they keep cookies, and I'm sure a lot of people will have issues with the government and cookies...
All this said, I can't quite see how themes.org and the government are at all related - themes.org is essentially a super-cool database (plus forums and such). I cannot imagine going to irs.gov and clicking on "New Tax Rate: +10%". Nor can I imagine people uploading pictures of their taxes... But stop by themes.org, if you never have, and play around with it for a while. I liked it, then I registered. Now I *love* it.
While this is a great idea, who is so paranoid?! If you're going to go as far as to rip apart your motherboard and build it completely custom, what have you done? How many warrants are out for your execution?!
I personally would laugh if the FBI tapped my keyboard - they'd probably want to come in and shoot me for boring them to death.
BTW, here's another idea for how to confuse them... If you suspect you're being monitored, bang on the keyboard for half an hour straight. Perhaps they will suspect that you're using a non-standard keyboard and give up... At the very least, it would tick them off. Or type an e-mail to someone about some gross topic. ("I dropped a razor blade onto my crotch! It is all bloody now!") Or, my personal favorite - write utter nonsense. (ie - random words) Another fun idea - make it look like you're completely computer illiterate. ("hppt:||ww.micro soft.comm")
I would just love to contest evidence gathered from a keyboard monitoring device. If I bring up a text editor and type "telnet www.fbi.gov", and, after a small delay "root", and then after another small pause, begin entering random commands, they have no way of knowing where my text is going. Maybe I'm actually doing it at the command line, maybe I'm in Microsoft Word.
Now, if they also tapped your monitor, that would be a different story. But still, can they *prove* that I actually did something illegal? They would really have to have a copy of my hard drive to *prove* that when I ran "telnet", the normal telnet program was executed, not a little script that prints various information. (The type of thing they do in the movies.)
I really don't know why they do this; I think I can contest almost all their moves. ("We have proof that he typed 'I hacked the FBI's servers!" Yes, but suppose I say that I typed "What if I were to type" before it? What if I was writing a novel?) Pretending the courts still operate on the "innocent until proven guilty" strategy, all of their evidence is useless - the burden of proof is on the FBI, to *prove* that whatever I do actually happens as my screen shows it - I could setup a nameserver to route traffic for.com domains to an internal server.
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This was actually some question I was asked a while ago... "If you could live forever, would you?" Most people answered "no" to it. Everyone's afraid of dying, but living *forever*? There's more uncertainty in that than in death!
I'm having the same problem - I *really* want to make a Beowulf cluster of them. But I don't feel like scrounging up 6 NICs, installing Linux 6 times (actually, several of them are missing hard drives)...
Maybe someone should start a service where you ship your junk off to them, and they make a Beowulf cluster out of it and send it back? Then again, the power required for running 5 486's is probably about what it would take to run a Cray...
A whole new meaning to IP Flooding... ;-P (Get it?> "I pee"? Sorry...
Also, I've heard stories about people just carrying them outdoors and inadvertently setting things on fire. I don't know that this idea will catch on!
Now, the technical reason. You can't fit as much information in at lower frequencies. Ham radio operators are restricted to, if I'm not mistaken, 1200 bps on these bands. I would *hate* to use a new digital device at 1.2Kb...
If you have noticed, digital devices have been moving steadily upwards in frequency.
Sorry if I've rambled endlessly; the mention of preventing pop-ups reminded of the list I have here...
But there is one downside to one of these new advertising techniques - they refresh. I've actually seen this done before - client pull technology is nothing new. But I have one objection to these - they can slow things down. For example, I was playing a game at FreeArcade, when I suddenly lost all control of the game. I was about to give the computer the three-finger salute (it was a Windows box), when I realized that the system wasn't locked up at all - the browser was just pausing while it went out and got a new ad to show me. I ended up losing the game. This is a *great* way to tick people off...
Another thing that annoys me greatly - pop-up ads. (They can, however, be rather amusing - I was using twm, and it has me manually place them. I click to put it wherever; and then I go to close it. But it has already retreated to behind the main browser.)
In short - I'm not one of those people who whine and moan about ads all day. But I do wish people would give a little more thought to how they will affect users - if they unexpectedly go out and get content, it can slow down whatever you're doing at their site. Imagine trying to download a complete Linux distro while being bombarded with refreshing popups!
I thought that the main "focus" was "Many child 'prodigies' bring unnecessary problems unto themselves by being unnecessarily arrogant." The point was "don't be a braggart", not "let's go pick on someone smart."
While I've never used BeOS, it is my understanding that BeOS and Linux go two different ways - BeOS is Mac-type computer; it's supposed to be easy to use, and it aims for the same type of customers. Linux, however, isn't really designed for ease of use (note that I did not say "It is hard to use."), and it aims for the completely opposite type of people - computer geeks.
Now, I know, this is stereotypical, but the majority of people fit the stereotype. I'm sure some people will leave Linux for BeOS, but, well... there are people who leave Linux for Windows!
The reason for my filesystem comment is that the one thing everyone seems to envy about BeOS is it's filesystem. I must admit, I haven't done my homework and researched it, but I have heard a fair amount about it, and it sounds like something Linux ought to pick up.
Am I the only one who got the "640... ought to be enough for anybody..." thing? I've seen the quote from Bill Gates a lot; I'm surprised no one has commented on it. Unless everyone thinks it's so glaringly obvious that they didn't bother...
Thus, a really strict (and surely incorrect) interpretation of this means that my local TV/radio stations have to pay royalties to them. Perhaps they just won't run ads anymore? ;-)
I find this rather amusing. Does this mean that none of Microsoft's patents are valid? I suppose you could consider it useful - it gives some people hours of amusement - watching for that randomly appearing bluish screen...
And nonobvious... Selling crap is a pretty obvious idea... And the phrase "prior art" comes to mind. But then again, I'll give them (Microsoft) credit - they have taken selling crap to a new extreme.
And who says that Microsoft's stuff is new? A lot of the stuff in their code is at the very least "inspired" by pre-existing stuff.
So what does all this mean? Perhaps it is now legal to freely distribute Microsoft software? No, that might help drag more people into using it!
A site with a few pages can get away with it, but any government site should really have search capability.
All this said, I can't quite see how themes.org and the government are at all related - themes.org is essentially a super-cool database (plus forums and such). I cannot imagine going to irs.gov and clicking on "New Tax Rate: +10%". Nor can I imagine people uploading pictures of their taxes... But stop by themes.org, if you never have, and play around with it for a while. I liked it, then I registered. Now I *love* it.
I personally would laugh if the FBI tapped my keyboard - they'd probably want to come in and shoot me for boring them to death.
BTW, here's another idea for how to confuse them... If you suspect you're being monitored, bang on the keyboard for half an hour straight. Perhaps they will suspect that you're using a non-standard keyboard and give up... At the very least, it would tick them off. Or type an e-mail to someone about some gross topic. ("I dropped a razor blade onto my crotch! It is all bloody now!") Or, my personal favorite - write utter nonsense. (ie - random words) Another fun idea - make it look like you're completely computer illiterate. ("hppt:||ww.micro soft.comm")
Now, if they also tapped your monitor, that would be a different story. But still, can they *prove* that I actually did something illegal? They would really have to have a copy of my hard drive to *prove* that when I ran "telnet", the normal telnet program was executed, not a little script that prints various information. (The type of thing they do in the movies.)
I really don't know why they do this; I think I can contest almost all their moves. ("We have proof that he typed 'I hacked the FBI's servers!" Yes, but suppose I say that I typed "What if I were to type" before it? What if I was writing a novel?) Pretending the courts still operate on the "innocent until proven guilty" strategy, all of their evidence is useless - the burden of proof is on the FBI, to *prove* that whatever I do actually happens as my screen shows it - I could setup a nameserver to route traffic for .com domains to an internal server.