If you use a low-spec PC without hard-disk drives,
you should be able to remove the fans without
causing overheating problems, since you won't
be stressing the PSU much, and the low-spec CPU
will probably run quite cool anyway - maybe just
a passive heatsink.
There's a Linux distribution (xdenu) that boots
from 2 floppies and runs X. I don't know if it's
still available - and I'm too lazy to search;-)
About a year ago I had it running on a 486 with 8MB RAM, S3 graphics card and 3c509 ethernet card.
With that little memory it didn't have enough left
over to support many apps, but 16MB should do the trick.
What I meant was that if he could persuade enough *other* students (like those not interested in the
company or job, even law students maybe) to express disapproval, some companies might take the hint - especially if they think they're missing out on some of the brightest prospects...
I've never been to a college recruitment fair(*) (in the UK it was called the "Milk Round"), so I'm not sure how easy it would be for a non-tech student to bluff his or her way as far as getting a peek at the contract. But it was just a thought.
(*) I skipped the milk round in my final year and applied for (and got) my first job after I got my degree. But that was 20-odd years ago.
Maybe this would be a good time to let the companies know that non-compete clauses, IP clauses, etc. in the contracts are a Bad Thing(tm).
If you could mobilize enough students to talk to the recruiters, ask pointed questions and express disapproval or even walk away tut-tutting, maybe the message will get through.
... ask why math must assume that 1 does not equal 0
It's just an axiom. You can get a perfectly valid axiomatic system by assuming that 1==0. It's quite a small system though, and not very interesting.
--
Why (many/most) software patents are bad.
on
One-Click Reprise
·
· Score: 2
A fairy story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
Once upon a time in the golden days, when men were real men etc., someone had an idea for something that was not easy to do, but would be incredibly useful if he could manage to make it work. He worked hard at making his idea possible, using a lot of ingenuity and much tearing of hair. When he'd finished, it was obvious from the product how he'd done it, so if he started selling the product others would be able to copy it. So he patented the invention to protect his hard work. And everyone paid him money to use his wonderful new invention, and they all lived happily ever after.
In these modern times, someone has an idea for something that's new and never been done before. He goes along to his programmer, who says "Yes, I can knock one of those out in a few days". So he patents the idea to protect it. And they spend the rest of their days in court, trying to extract money from everyone else who had a similar idea.
Now do you see the difference, boys and girls. In the first patent, it's the technique that's being patented, not the idea. In the second, it's the idea. Once the idea is there, the product can be created by anyone halfway "skilled in the art" as they like to say in "Patentese". Ok, maybe you'd get a different implementation, but that just shows that there's nothing special about the implementation, unless the original has something special that makes it better somehow than the copies.
That's what makes many of the software patents (and probably all of the business method patents) wrong.
I'm not saying I disagree with all software patents. For example, the MP3 patent is (probably) OK - it isn't obvious to any programmer how to gain high levels of compression without losing much quality. However, the RT-Linux patent is bad, because it's blindingly obvious how to do it, once you've had the idea of doing it. And in that case the idea isn't even new.
(The morals of forcing a patented technique through as a standard, or sitting quietly while others do it for you in ignorance of the patent application, is a whole 'nother story.)
So when I click on a ".c" file, will Windows magically know what I want to do with it this time? Edit it? (With which editor?) Compile it? Print it? Mail it to a colleague? Check it in to RCS/CVS/whatever? Check out the latest version? Pass it through the C beautifier? Or any one of a dozen other things that I regularly do with ".c" files. --
Just reminded me of a little experience from a few years ago. A colleague was patching a Unixware box (in the Novell days) during a thunderstorm, with no UPS protection. (Nah - it was a development machine - this was before the web got big). Anyway, several brown-outs and reboots later, the patching was done. It took a bit longer than anticipated, but absolutely no problems. --
The infrastructure on you computer that allows these "viruses" to exist would be the easiest place to put defences against them. But try to persuade the vendors of this crapware to remove these "features" is like pissing against the wind. I won't mention names, but you know who I mean.
However, you could change the software you're using. I've only received a few of these email viruses so far, but I can say with 100% certainty that they've never been forwarded to anyone by my mailreader, nor have they caused any damage to my system or the networks it is connected to.
And there you have it. Usually it isn't the CPU
speed that makes your PC fast, but the disk speed,
and how much you use it. With that much RAM, I don't think you'll be swapping very much.
Now try the same with "only" 64MB, but increase the CPU speed a bit (say 1.3GHz) and see how it crawls.
Well, it would be, except....
MPAA claims that CSS is a copy protection system, not an access control system (see their FAQ), so you'd think there'd be no case to answer.
Any more virus-friendly and the lusers will be migrating away in hordes, so the virus writers will have to find another target.
Any less virus-friendly and the virus writers will start looking for another targets.
At the moment there's a nice balance. Soft enough so that the virus writers don't have to think too hard, but the lusers still think the problem is manageable. So the virus-writers don't come after ME.
From personal experience, the parts that usually fail through age are (in order):
1. Monitors (especially the cheaper ones) - easy to check out, although sometimes they only start failing after an hour or more of use.
2. PSU and CPU fans - usually very noisy, but silent once totally dead. Watch out for this.
3. Mouse - yeah, well...
4. Disk drives - which might be recoverable if it's only bad blocks, but probably not worth the effort.
Motherboards and other solid-state bits very rarely fail through age (unless the CPU fried due to 2). Most failures on these bits happen early in their lifetime. It's called the bathtub curve, and PCs are unlikely to be on the upward slope (unless they're _really_ old, in which case it probably isn't worth the effort of even looking at them.)
So your best bet would be to test all the boxes first, using a known good monitor/keyboard/mouse. Those that don't work can be stripped and diagnosed individually.
There's something wrong with that logic, because if there were no money, no patents would be granted, end of problem.
The real problem is that there's no incentive to deny patents, but plenty to grant them. Which unbalances the system somewhat. Perhaps a change of the rules is in order, to allow interested 3rd parties to submit evidence of prior art, both before and after the patent is granted. Yeah, that'd cost money - but there'd be plenty of scope for the USPTO to save that money by more careful review of the applications.
Another suggestion - if the invalidation of a single claim in a patent were to invalidate the whole patent, perhaps applicants would be a bit more carefule about what they claim. Many of the patents I've read recently begin with "Claim 1: A device or apparatus for doing X", when we all know that devices for doing X existed long before the patent was filed. The real novelty (if any) is usually "Claim 437: A device as in claim 1 with new widget Y attached.". So the patent is granted, and now someone is the proud owner of a partly invalid patent, but to get rid of it means expensive court cases.
And before you tell me to write to my congressman - I don't have one.
You can build a simple switch-mode PSU that'll get close to crawling speed without breaking the bank. Admittedly it's smoother if you have a 5- or 7-pole motor instead of the 3-pole variety that's in most "consumer" models.
You can even get multiple trains on the same track if you split the track into small enough sections. You'll need a microprocessor if you want to do it reasonably cheaply, but the engines are still passive, and you can still use toggle switches to set the thing up. Plus, you don't have space problems in the N-scale tank engines either.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a Linux distribution (xdenu) that boots from 2 floppies and runs X. I don't know if it's still available - and I'm too lazy to search ;-)
About a year ago I had it running on a 486 with 8MB RAM, S3 graphics card and 3c509 ethernet card. With that little memory it didn't have enough left over to support many apps, but 16MB should do the trick.
I've never been to a college recruitment fair(*) (in the UK it was called the "Milk Round"), so I'm not sure how easy it would be for a non-tech student to bluff his or her way as far as getting a peek at the contract. But it was just a thought.
(*) I skipped the milk round in my final year and applied for (and got) my first job after I got my degree. But that was 20-odd years ago.
--
If you could mobilize enough students to talk to the recruiters, ask pointed questions and express disapproval or even walk away tut-tutting, maybe the message will get through.
--
Oh no! I've ended with a preposition.
That is the kind of pedantry up with which we will not put.
(Winston Churchill, I think)
--
It's just an axiom. You can get a perfectly valid axiomatic system by assuming that 1==0. It's quite a small system though, and not very interesting.
--
Once upon a time in the golden days, when men were real men etc., someone had an idea for something that was not easy to do, but would be incredibly useful if he could manage to make it work. He worked hard at making his idea possible, using a lot of ingenuity and much tearing of hair. When he'd finished, it was obvious from the product how he'd done it, so if he started selling the product others would be able to copy it. So he patented the invention to protect his hard work. And everyone paid him money to use his wonderful new invention, and they all lived happily ever after.
In these modern times, someone has an idea for something that's new and never been done before. He goes along to his programmer, who says "Yes, I can knock one of those out in a few days". So he patents the idea to protect it. And they spend the rest of their days in court, trying to extract money from everyone else who had a similar idea.
Now do you see the difference, boys and girls. In the first patent, it's the technique that's being patented, not the idea. In the second, it's the idea. Once the idea is there, the product can be created by anyone halfway "skilled in the art" as they like to say in "Patentese". Ok, maybe you'd get a different implementation, but that just shows that there's nothing special about the implementation, unless the original has something special that makes it better somehow than the copies.
That's what makes many of the software patents (and probably all of the business method patents) wrong.
I'm not saying I disagree with all software patents. For example, the MP3 patent is (probably) OK - it isn't obvious to any programmer how to gain high levels of compression without losing much quality. However, the RT-Linux patent is bad, because it's blindingly obvious how to do it, once you've had the idea of doing it. And in that case the idea isn't even new.
(The morals of forcing a patented technique through as a standard, or sitting quietly while others do it for you in ignorance of the patent application, is a whole 'nother story.)
--
Does this mean I have to delete all the "X-Files" from my disk? xclock, xlogo, xcalc ...
--
So when I click on a ".c" file, will Windows magically know what I want to do with it this time? Edit it? (With which editor?) Compile it? Print it? Mail it to a colleague? Check it in to RCS/CVS/whatever? Check out the latest version? Pass it through the C beautifier? Or any one of a dozen other things that I regularly do with ".c" files.
--
Yep, you can buy it at many Tankstellen here in Germany.
--
Just reminded me of a little experience from a few years ago. A colleague was patching a Unixware box (in the Novell days) during a thunderstorm, with no UPS protection. (Nah - it was a development machine - this was before the web got big). Anyway, several brown-outs and reboots later, the patching was done. It took a bit longer than anticipated, but absolutely no problems.
--
BTW To those admins whose Linux boxen have been up for more than a year - better plan a reboot soon before jiffies overflows.
--
However, you could change the software you're using. I've only received a few of these email viruses so far, but I can say with 100% certainty that they've never been forwarded to anyone by my mailreader, nor have they caused any damage to my system or the networks it is connected to.
--
Now there's an interesting addition to Dr. Touretsky's Gallery
Is it possible to implement DeCSS as in an Excel spreadsheet? Is anything possible in Excel?
--
There's no such place as America. All these 4-letter abbreviations (DMCA, MPAA, RIAA etc) are obviously the ravings of a deranged mind.
--
And there you have it. Usually it isn't the CPU speed that makes your PC fast, but the disk speed, and how much you use it. With that much RAM, I don't think you'll be swapping very much.
Now try the same with "only" 64MB, but increase the CPU speed a bit (say 1.3GHz) and see how it crawls.
--
MPAA claims that CSS is a copy protection system, not an access control system (see their FAQ), so you'd think there'd be no case to answer.
--
Doesn't have to be a copy protection scheme. The
DMCA says it's illegal to circumvent an access control scheme.
--
[Replying to himself ... sad case]
That ME is the original me, not the millenium edition.
;-)
--
Nah. Windows is just fine the way it is.
;-) for the hard-of-smiling.
Any more virus-friendly and the lusers will be migrating away in hordes, so the virus writers will have to find another target.
Any less virus-friendly and the virus writers will start looking for another targets.
At the moment there's a nice balance. Soft enough so that the virus writers don't have to think too hard, but the lusers still think the problem is manageable. So the virus-writers don't come after ME.
Oh, and
--
Dropping a large object (like an anvil) on them from a great height will normally work.
--
From personal experience, the parts that usually fail through age are (in order):
1. Monitors (especially the cheaper ones) - easy to check out, although sometimes they only start failing after an hour or more of use.
2. PSU and CPU fans - usually very noisy, but silent once totally dead. Watch out for this.
3. Mouse - yeah, well...
4. Disk drives - which might be recoverable if it's only bad blocks, but probably not worth the effort.
Motherboards and other solid-state bits very rarely fail through age (unless the CPU fried due to 2). Most failures on these bits happen early in their lifetime. It's called the bathtub curve, and PCs are unlikely to be on the upward slope (unless they're _really_ old, in which case it probably isn't worth the effort of even looking at them.)
So your best bet would be to test all the boxes first, using a known good monitor/keyboard/mouse. Those that don't work can be stripped and diagnosed individually.
--
There's something wrong with that logic, because if there were no money, no patents would be granted, end of problem.
The real problem is that there's no incentive to deny patents, but plenty to grant them. Which unbalances the system somewhat. Perhaps a change of the rules is in order, to allow interested 3rd parties to submit evidence of prior art, both before and after the patent is granted. Yeah, that'd cost money - but there'd be plenty of scope for the USPTO to save that money by more careful review of the applications.
Another suggestion - if the invalidation of a single claim in a patent were to invalidate the whole patent, perhaps applicants would be a bit more carefule about what they claim. Many of the patents I've read recently begin with "Claim 1: A device or apparatus for doing X", when we all know that devices for doing X existed long before the patent was filed. The real novelty (if any) is usually "Claim 437: A device as in claim 1 with new widget Y attached.". So the patent is granted, and now someone is the proud owner of a partly invalid patent, but to get rid of it means expensive court cases.
And before you tell me to write to my congressman - I don't have one.
--
He only sez that when he posts anonymously.
--
A bit sick, considering this. :-(
--
You can build a simple switch-mode PSU that'll get close to crawling speed without breaking the bank. Admittedly it's smoother if you have a 5- or 7-pole motor instead of the 3-pole variety that's in most "consumer" models.
You can even get multiple trains on the same track if you split the track into small enough sections. You'll need a microprocessor if you want to do it reasonably cheaply, but the engines are still passive, and you can still use toggle switches to set the thing up. Plus, you don't have space problems in the N-scale tank engines either.
--