Luckily we have the Linux Standard Base and RPM, but the Cinererella package apparently must be force installed. Euw.
If package dependencies are a support issue that HW don't want to deal with, make an apt repository to serve out the RPMs.
Reminds me of Broadcast 2000 (from the same authors). When I once downloaded the source, and started looking at it, the source tree contained about 10 general-purpose libraries (maybe some of them modified?), and I recall very soon finding a note somewhere basically saying "Do not try to compile this yourself! If the binaries work at all, use them! This will probably not compile!"
Now looking at the source of cinerella, I see directories such as:
Maybe the HW people can roll up some spiffy software, they sure don't know how to do it the clean, unix-like way! It was quite a surprise to download the huge Broadcast 2000 package over a modem line, only to discover it contained half a dozen libraries I already had installed. So be careful of what you promise.
(Not to mention their over-arrogant way of expressing things. Somebody already commented on their page, and as I understand from cinelerra-beta1/make_packages, the package info is along the lines of:
Summary: Complete production environment for audio and video Provides: Everything %description It's about transforming the impossible into reality.
For more than 10 years, practically all university students have gotten a UNIX login, and universities have been full of public terminals for students in labs and in hallways. In some richer universities, they have even had *oooh* X-terminals.
The machines have usually been Sun, but I don't think Linux would be overwhelmingly different from them...
For example here at Helsinki University of Technology, there are a lot of UNIX workstations available (mainly Alpha, Sun, i386 on Digital UNIX, SunOS and Linux), as well as several big-iron machines (kosh.hut.fi currently has 785 users logged in). They are now starting concentrate on Linux machines to slowly replace the SunOS/Digital UNIX workstations. There are already at least 6 classrooms filled with Linux boxen, with more on the way. (These are the common rooms, the CS department has of course lots more.)
(There are, of course, also Windows classrooms, but I haven't touched one in many months.)
However, a quicky search turns up several still-active gophers, for example: gopher://gopher.umsl.edu/ gopher://goph er.cac.psu.edu/ (These actually return data -- some others I found the server up but no data returned).
*** Gopher status update 4/24/1998:
*** The articles and data concerning Penn State are now on the web. *** No new data is being or will be added to this gopher server. *** Please visit the Penn State web page at http://www.psu.edu/
(Many of the other files are similar, though some contain also some information.)
Of course, it is admirable that they still have them up, but they don't seem useful for anything. Quite sad actually, I never learned to use them...
Re:Moving production to Asia?
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: 2
Anything man has ever done to hinder the invisible hand of the free market has always backfired. -- If you give me a hand-out when I'm laid off and make it easier on me, you stifle my innovation and rob the world of the ideas I would think up when it's sink or swim and I've got to swim if I want to feed my kids.
Interesting. Your description of aid that "stifles innovation and robs the world of my ideas" fits the Finnish social security system quite well. Interestingly enough, the World Economic Forumranked Finland ahead of the US in competitiveness last year. Similarily, the IMDranks Finland this year second in competitiveness (after the US), having moved up one rank each year since at least 1998.
Granted, there is unemployment (long-term unemployment has become a major problem in Finland), but still those studies should show that the idea of an extensive social security system isn't all bad.
So in answer to your question about maintenance, yes, there is some stuff that needs maintenance.
I believe that the original poster was asking about the antennas of satellites in space. (Of course, your post was a very interesting read on what happens here on Earth.)
Though there is no wind or water, I'd believe that dust and micrometeorites wear down the stuff in space somewhat. But I'm no expert. If somebody could elaborate on this as well as the parent....? =)
Maybe that makes me a bit disgruntled and angry of how Lucas has fleshed out the plot to "his" movies -- that's fine if they're his movies, but you'd think he'd have the self-interest to make sure the new ones didn't suck. Episode I was just another example of Lucas's complete lack of talent.
I've got a conspiracy theory on that one: Lucas of course deliberately made Ep.I suck so that at least the other two would look good in comparison! =)
On another point, I believe that the general attitude against Jar Jar among the fandom has had an effect on how little Jar Jar was shown in Ep.II. And even when Jar Jar is in the picture, he's a completely new animal - not the same half-witted idiot he was in Ep.I. Along those lines, I don't think Lucas will make any very stupid changes to Eps. IV-VI.
The KDE Project Ships the Third-Generation of the Leading Desktop for Linux/UNIX, Offering Enterprises, Governments, Schools, and Businesses an Outstanding Free and Open Desktop Solution
Whatever happened to the good old way of announcing open-source software??
It's actually funny that the student union here at HUT has rented private premier shows (the ones that start 00:01) for both LotR:FotR and SW:AotC only for students.
The LotR tickets went immediately: if you were at the secretary at 8 o'clock when they started selling the tickets, you probably couldn't get a ticket. I waited about 2 hours, and I was 20th in line. (Each person in line was allowed 2 tickets.)
The SW tickets have now been on sale for a few weeks, and AFAIK there are still places left! Goes to show that Ep1 really scared people away...
(I haven't got a ticket - Ep1 was poor enough that I'll wait a few days longer to watch it 1.5 EUR cheaper.)
It may be stating the obvious, especially on Slashdot, but there are many people in the world who need to hear this: again and again, M$ pushes its products not by trying to make them have the highest quality and win in market competition, and certainly not by innovating, but rather by playing political hardball and introducing gratuitous incompatibilities, all to deprive consumers of choices.
I agree whole-heartedly to what you say, but there is one thing to remember when making this point to the large audience: don't write M$!! Using terms like M$, micro$oft, Microsloth etc. is stylish and everything, but it also gives the average sceptical reader the impression that this is just some half-assed nerd who's got a personal grudge against Microsoft.
Just write Microsoft. It might hurt at first, but it isn't really as difficult as you might think. Using proper names gives your text so much more credibility.
This nonsense be why OSS don't be goin nowhere. All ya'll be standin around pointin to yo $hit and saying "This right here be better than M$. It be stable, and cheap, man, word up." Check this out blood, don't no consumers care about no stability or security, or especially about no damn philosohy. They computer is just a machine and they don't care what makes it work as long as it does for most of the time. If they computer runs slow or crashes or some $hit, they don't be thinkin about how much memory Word or Excel be wastin. They be checkin the fuse box or tellin they kids to quit jumpin around upstairs cause it be rattlin the wires and $hit. And if they do complain about M$, it's because some busta like you told them that Bill Gates was the devil or some $hit and they beleived you cause you knew how to Ctrl-Alt-Delete they $hit and get it workin again.
If this is true, then why does Microsoft have to use the non-competitive practises? If what you say is true, it should be easy for Microsoft to compete fairly too.
(And the non-competitive practises are a fact, not just an opinion.)
Re:This is the beginning of the revolution
on
Google to Offer API
·
· Score: 2
They'll need a business model of some sort -- without the ads, and with the potential this has to hammer their servers, they'll need to meter access to the API in some way. But I'll pay -- where do I sign up?
Another option is to give better access to paying customers: a paying customer is given unlimited use of the search, while private individuals (distinguished via IP/registration/...) would be limited to, say, one search per 5 seconds. It would be great to be able to use this API for some small things without having the hassle of paying. A 5-10 second delay isn't very bad in a small home situation, but is out of the question for any larger-scale applications.
I'd say it would also be consistent with their current user-friendly business model, and give another jolt of good PR for them.
Isn't Slashdot already running it? I guess it still has a few bugs in it though...
When mod_perl runs 857 / 649% When it becomes 2.1 1008 / 763% Brian B spins it urban style 390 / 295% Slashdot runs it 708 / 536% Already running it, thank you 455 / 344% On CowboyNeals box, which I've r00t3d 2594 / 1965%
132 total votes.
Re:How to Google Whack...
on
Google Juice
·
· Score: 2
There is also a somewhat easy to prevent google from picking up the posted whack: post it as an image.
Yeah. And the only thing needed to foil this method is for Google to add OCR to their image search.
Actually now I come to think of it, would this be so impossible? Just some system to find a single-colored area with some markings in other colors, and then run an ORC on it. Many images contain text that would be immensely relevant for the search...
Mouse (too lazy to get a PS/2 mouse, and a short while ago I didn't have PS/2 ports), modem, and DS-7 camera. Some while ago I also had a dumb terminal, but I got rid of that because of space limitations.
Two serial ports simply isn't enough. And adding another multi-I/O would take an IRQ for every port, so that's out of the question too. Six is enough. (My brother has ten.)
Nowadays I guess you could manage with fewer with PS/2 and USB ports, but why upgrade a perfectly functional serial mouse, and I don't think the modern ports are very user-made-device friendly... I'm planning making a computer-controlled nightlight. =)
And if it does happen, they'll either be a fork, or massive exodus away from Gnome. -- Gnome is GPL - what's everyone so scared about? We've got bigger fish to fry.
Isn't there enough competition already over free software developers between GNOME/KDE? Do we really need another fork of GNOME in the competition? The discussion may be boring, but radical changes (like Mono) in the desktop must be made by consensus. That's what the discussion is striving at. Or at least that's what it should be striving at.
Both are almost identical, and somewhat criticize Google's actions: Online search engine maker Google Inc. is introducing a program that allows Web sites to be displayed more prominently if sponsors pay more money - an advertising-driven system derided by critics as an invitation to deceptive business practices.
I agree a lot. The problem is, many people need different things. When everything is crammed into one book, it gets bloated for everyone.
My point of case: Linux in a Nutshell. I have previously thought that all information is more easily available on the net, and most books were useless. I borrowed the first edition of this book from a library in a project to find some books to our local school (which was switching to Linux). I thought it was pretty good, but as I was learning Perl at the time, I wished it would have a Perl-reference too.
When I noticed that a second edition was available and that it included a Perl quick reference, I went to buy the book the very next day. It was excellent. It did have some cruft that didn't seem to fit in, e.g. the booting section. It didn't matter much, though, as it was only 20 pages.
When I flipped through the third edition in a bookstore sometime later, I was horrified. It was already a huge, bulky book, containing network administration, booting and configuration stuff for GNOME, KDE and fvwm2! This isn't what I want! I want a simple book that tells me how to use the simple unix text-based programs (bash, sed, gawk, perl, etc.)
How difficult would it be to offer custom-made books? This is the only way I can think of to get really slim books that cover what I need.
The classic example is: I have a sealed box of an odorous gas. I take it into a large room and open the box. The gas obviously will disperse and fill the room; this is predicted by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If you look at the random motions of just one of these gas particles, it would look perfectly OK if you watched the movie "in reverse". However, it wouldn't look ok for the entire process to go in reverse. The reason is that it is incredibly unlikely that if a room is full of gas, then all the gas particles will, by chance, all move into the box in the corner. It is possible, but so incredibly unlikely you'd be waiting for many many times the age of the universe before it probably would happen.
Let's try that (or something similar) out with numbers: Let's take a 10 liter box of air at room temperature, normal pressure, and open it into a 5x5x4 meter room in vacuum.
We can get a crude estimate by saying that at some point in time, the position of an air molecule in the room is random. Let's figure out what's the probability of the air moving into the box.
From PV=NkT we get N=PV/kT=10^5Pa*10dm^3/(1.38E-23J/K*300K)=1E26 air molecules. The probability for one of them to be in the box is 10dm^3/(50dm*50dm*40dm)=1E-4. The probability for all air molecules to be in the box is 1E-4^1E26=1E-104.
If the air molecules move at such a speed that the places can be takes as random 1000 times per second (they don't), the probability of the air molecules being in the box for an instant during one second is 1 to a googol (10^100) against.
Let's get a picture of what a googol seconds is:
1. Take the whole history of the universe, and squeeze that into a ball 1mm in diameter. Cover the whole Earth with a layer 100 meters thick of those balls.
2. Squeeze that Earth into a ball 1mm in diameter. Cover the whole Earth with those balls 100 meters thick.
3. Then squeeze that Earth into a ball 1mm in diameter, and cover the Earth 100 meters deep with those balls.
There you would have approximately a googol seconds!
My mother went to see it, and when she came back, she swore the movie deep into ground. She complained that the movie had compeletely ruined the story of the book, having only the fighting.
I didn't feel exactly the same, but in my opinion, the movie did lack depth. The relationships didn't have time to develop. And what was IMHO most irritating, was the immediate decisions. Aragorn didn't have any trouble choosing whether to go to Minas Tirith first or to Mordor. Whether to follow Frodo or not. And for Christ's sake the Council of Elrond was the place to decide the fate of whole middle-earth, not some rash "me too, me too!" beach party! Nobody even suggested hiding the Ring. Nobody even doubted it's authenticity! (Gandalf uttering the Black Speech could have made a wonderful effect, if done right.)
Add, say, 5-30 minutes more pondering to the Council of Elrond and other times of decision, as well as to the interaction between the character of the Fellowship, and you'll double the depth of the film. I hope the uncut DVD will be better - that might even be reason enough to get a DVD-player.
It's only interesting then why Microsoft stuck to DOS for so long. Win95 is provably DOS-based, and I wouldn't be suprised if Win98 has a lot legacy too. (There was a bug in Win95 such that if you had been in DOS and then started windows with "win", and then shut down the computer, it just slammed the graphics on the screen and exited to DOS. You could type "mode co80" and continue like nothing happened. I have personally tested this on two separate Win95 installations.)
Compatibility with DOS programs is one thing, Win95 another.
2) IP availability. According to Slashdot, your IPID is "8e451..." Mr. Ska's IPID is "b18e8..." Whoop. Big invasion of privacy there. The IPID system is solely a reaction to people abusing anonymity to post hundreds of crap comments. Now people who do that get automatically IP-banned for 72 hours. I'm all for it.
I'd say one of the central questions here is: are the IPIDs attached with the message? I'm not so interested in whether a Slashdot editor discriminates some individual, but what if, say, the FBI/NSA/other-three-letter-department comes knocking at your door? They can get any information that you store about the comments. If the IPIDs are attached to the messages, then when posting anonymously you always risk the chance that your IP _can_ be traced from that comment. (The MD5 hash doesn't help in this case, since you just have to try 2^32 combinations - shouldn't be a major problem for a fast machine.)
The flood-banning could be implemented just by keeping a log of IPs or IPIDs, and how many messages have been posted recently, but without attaching them to the messages in question.
Are the IPIDs attached to the posted messages? That's the point I'm worried about.
Slashdot Mirror
If package dependencies are a support issue that HW don't want to deal with, make an apt repository to serve out the RPMs.
Reminds me of Broadcast 2000 (from the same authors). When I once downloaded the source, and started looking at it, the source tree contained about 10 general-purpose libraries (maybe some of them modified?), and I recall very soon finding a note somewhere basically saying "Do not try to compile this yourself! If the binaries work at all, use them! This will probably not compile!"
Now looking at the source of cinerella, I see directories such as:
Maybe the HW people can roll up some spiffy software, they sure don't know how to do it the clean, unix-like way! It was quite a surprise to download the huge Broadcast 2000 package over a modem line, only to discover it contained half a dozen libraries I already had installed. So be careful of what you promise.
(Not to mention their over-arrogant way of expressing things. Somebody already commented on their page, and as I understand from cinelerra-beta1/make_packages, the package info is along the lines of:
Summary: Complete production environment for audio and video
Provides: Everything
%description
It's about transforming the impossible into reality.
I wouldn't say that's very descriptive.)
For more than 10 years, practically all university students have gotten a UNIX login, and universities have been full of public terminals for students in labs and in hallways. In some richer universities, they have even had *oooh* X-terminals.
The machines have usually been Sun, but I don't think Linux would be overwhelmingly different from them...
For example here at Helsinki University of Technology, there are a lot of UNIX workstations available (mainly Alpha, Sun, i386 on Digital UNIX, SunOS and Linux), as well as several big-iron machines (kosh.hut.fi currently has 785 users logged in). They are now starting concentrate on Linux machines to slowly replace the SunOS/Digital UNIX workstations. There are already at least 6 classrooms filled with Linux boxen, with more on the way. (These are the common rooms, the CS department has of course lots more.)
(There are, of course, also Windows classrooms, but I haven't touched one in many months.)
gopher://gopher.umsl.edu/
gopher://gop
(These actually return data -- some others I found the server up but no data returned).
From gopher://info.psu.edu/00/about/About this gopher:
From gopher://gopher.umsl.edu/00/dummy.file, labelled "If you like our Gopher, you'll love our WWW Server":
(Many of the other files are similar, though some contain also some information.)
Of course, it is admirable that they still have them up, but they don't seem useful for anything. Quite sad actually, I never learned to use them...
Anything man has ever done to hinder the invisible hand of the free market has always backfired. -- If you give me a hand-out when I'm laid off and make it easier on me, you stifle my innovation and rob the world of the ideas I would think up when it's sink or swim and I've got to swim if I want to feed my kids.
Interesting. Your description of aid that "stifles innovation and robs the world of my ideas" fits the Finnish social security system quite well. Interestingly enough, the World Economic Forum ranked Finland ahead of the US in competitiveness last year. Similarily, the IMD ranks Finland this year second in competitiveness (after the US), having moved up one rank each year since at least 1998.
Granted, there is unemployment (long-term unemployment has become a major problem in Finland), but still those studies should show that the idea of an extensive social security system isn't all bad.
So in answer to your question about maintenance, yes, there is some stuff that needs maintenance.
I believe that the original poster was asking about the antennas of satellites in space. (Of course, your post was a very interesting read on what happens here on Earth.)
Though there is no wind or water, I'd believe that dust and micrometeorites wear down the stuff in space somewhat. But I'm no expert. If somebody could elaborate on this as well as the parent....? =)
Maybe that makes me a bit disgruntled and angry of how Lucas has fleshed out the plot to "his" movies -- that's fine if they're his movies, but you'd think he'd have the self-interest to make sure the new ones didn't suck. Episode I was just another example of Lucas's complete lack of talent.
I've got a conspiracy theory on that one: Lucas of course deliberately made Ep.I suck so that at least the other two would look good in comparison! =)
On another point, I believe that the general attitude against Jar Jar among the fandom has had an effect on how little Jar Jar was shown in Ep.II. And even when Jar Jar is in the picture, he's a completely new animal - not the same half-witted idiot he was in Ep.I. Along those lines, I don't think Lucas will make any very stupid changes to Eps. IV-VI.
OK, how many of you too read: "Alan Cox, the writer/director ..."? Hands up, now!
Whatever happened to the good old way of announcing open-source software??
It's actually funny that the student union here at HUT has rented private premier shows (the ones that start 00:01) for both LotR:FotR and SW:AotC only for students.
The LotR tickets went immediately: if you were at the secretary at 8 o'clock when they started selling the tickets, you probably couldn't get a ticket. I waited about 2 hours, and I was 20th in line. (Each person in line was allowed 2 tickets.)
The SW tickets have now been on sale for a few weeks, and AFAIK there are still places left! Goes to show that Ep1 really scared people away...
(I haven't got a ticket - Ep1 was poor enough that I'll wait a few days longer to watch it 1.5 EUR cheaper.)
It may be stating the obvious, especially on Slashdot, but there are many people in the world who need to hear this: again and again, M$ pushes its products not by trying to make them have the highest quality and win in market competition, and certainly not by innovating, but rather by playing political hardball and introducing gratuitous incompatibilities, all to deprive consumers of choices.
I agree whole-heartedly to what you say, but there is one thing to remember when making this point to the large audience: don't write M$!! Using terms like M$, micro$oft, Microsloth etc. is stylish and everything, but it also gives the average sceptical reader the impression that this is just some half-assed nerd who's got a personal grudge against Microsoft.
Just write Microsoft. It might hurt at first, but it isn't really as difficult as you might think. Using proper names gives your text so much more credibility.
This nonsense be why OSS don't be goin nowhere. All ya'll be standin around pointin to yo $hit and saying "This right here be better than M$. It be stable, and cheap, man, word up." Check this out blood, don't no consumers care about no stability or security, or especially about no damn philosohy. They computer is just a machine and they don't care what makes it work as long as it does for most of the time. If they computer runs slow or crashes or some $hit, they don't be thinkin about how much memory Word or Excel be wastin. They be checkin the fuse box or tellin they kids to quit jumpin around upstairs cause it be rattlin the wires and $hit. And if they do complain about M$, it's because some busta like you told them that Bill Gates was the devil or some $hit and they beleived you cause you knew how to Ctrl-Alt-Delete they $hit and get it workin again.
If this is true, then why does Microsoft have to use the non-competitive practises? If what you say is true, it should be easy for Microsoft to compete fairly too.
(And the non-competitive practises are a fact, not just an opinion.)
They'll need a business model of some sort -- without the ads, and with the potential this has to hammer their servers, they'll need to meter access to the API in some way. But I'll pay -- where do I sign up?
Another option is to give better access to paying customers: a paying customer is given unlimited use of the search, while private individuals (distinguished via IP/registration/...) would be limited to, say, one search per 5 seconds. It would be great to be able to use this API for some small things without having the hassle of paying. A 5-10 second delay isn't very bad in a small home situation, but is out of the question for any larger-scale applications.
I'd say it would also be consistent with their current user-friendly business model, and give another jolt of good PR for them.
Isn't Slashdot already running it? I guess it still has a few bugs in it though...
When mod_perl runs 857 / 649%
When it becomes 2.1 1008 / 763%
Brian B spins it urban style 390 / 295%
Slashdot runs it 708 / 536%
Already running it, thank you 455 / 344%
On CowboyNeals box, which I've r00t3d 2594 / 1965%
132 total votes.
There is also a somewhat easy to prevent google from picking up the posted whack: post it as an image.
Yeah. And the only thing needed to foil this method is for Google to add OCR to their image search.
Actually now I come to think of it, would this be so impossible? Just some system to find a single-colored area with some markings in other colors, and then run an ORC on it. Many images contain text that would be immensely relevant for the search...
Mouse (too lazy to get a PS/2 mouse, and a short while ago I didn't have PS/2 ports), modem, and DS-7 camera. Some while ago I also had a dumb terminal, but I got rid of that because of space limitations.
Two serial ports simply isn't enough. And adding another multi-I/O would take an IRQ for every port, so that's out of the question too. Six is enough. (My brother has ten.)
Nowadays I guess you could manage with fewer with PS/2 and USB ports, but why upgrade a perfectly functional serial mouse, and I don't think the modern ports are very user-made-device friendly... I'm planning making a computer-controlled nightlight. =)
If you want a really invisible case, just lay your mobo and parts out on a table. Then, your PC will be +5 cool.
Like this (the pegboard computer) or mine?
And if it does happen, they'll either be a fork, or massive exodus away from Gnome. -- Gnome is GPL - what's everyone so scared about? We've got bigger fish to fry.
Isn't there enough competition already over free software developers between GNOME/KDE? Do we really need another fork of GNOME in the competition? The discussion may be boring, but radical changes (like Mono) in the desktop must be made by consensus. That's what the discussion is striving at. Or at least that's what it should be striving at.
Searching Google for google results currently in two news articles about the matter:
MSNBC: Google unveils new program that lets Web sites bid for advertising
Washington Post: Google Introduces New Program
Both are almost identical, and somewhat criticize Google's actions: Online search engine maker Google Inc. is introducing a program that allows Web sites to be displayed more prominently if sponsors pay more money - an advertising-driven system derided by critics as an invitation to deceptive business practices.
How about BF?
I agree a lot. The problem is, many people need different things. When everything is crammed into one book, it gets bloated for everyone.
My point of case: Linux in a Nutshell. I have previously thought that all information is more easily available on the net, and most books were useless. I borrowed the first edition of this book from a library in a project to find some books to our local school (which was switching to Linux). I thought it was pretty good, but as I was learning Perl at the time, I wished it would have a Perl-reference too.
When I noticed that a second edition was available and that it included a Perl quick reference, I went to buy the book the very next day. It was excellent. It did have some cruft that didn't seem to fit in, e.g. the booting section. It didn't matter much, though, as it was only 20 pages.
When I flipped through the third edition in a bookstore sometime later, I was horrified. It was already a huge, bulky book, containing network administration, booting and configuration stuff for GNOME, KDE and fvwm2! This isn't what I want! I want a simple book that tells me how to use the simple unix text-based programs (bash, sed, gawk, perl, etc.)
How difficult would it be to offer custom-made books? This is the only way I can think of to get really slim books that cover what I need.
The classic example is: I have a sealed box of an odorous gas. I take it into a large room and open the box. The gas obviously will disperse and fill the room; this is predicted by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If you look at the random motions of just one of these gas particles, it would look perfectly OK if you watched the movie "in reverse". However, it wouldn't look ok for the entire process to go in reverse. The reason is that it is incredibly unlikely that if a room is full of gas, then all the gas particles will, by chance, all move into the box in the corner. It is possible, but so incredibly unlikely you'd be waiting for many many times the age of the universe before it probably would happen.
Let's try that (or something similar) out with numbers: Let's take a 10 liter box of air at room temperature, normal pressure, and open it into a 5x5x4 meter room in vacuum.
We can get a crude estimate by saying that at some point in time, the position of an air molecule in the room is random. Let's figure out what's the probability of the air moving into the box.
From PV=NkT we get N=PV/kT=10^5Pa*10dm^3/(1.38E-23J/K*300K)=1E26 air molecules. The probability for one of them to be in the box is 10dm^3/(50dm*50dm*40dm)=1E-4. The probability for all air molecules to be in the box is 1E-4^1E26=1E-104.
If the air molecules move at such a speed that the places can be takes as random 1000 times per second (they don't), the probability of the air molecules being in the box for an instant during one second is 1 to a googol (10^100) against.
Let's get a picture of what a googol seconds is:
1. Take the whole history of the universe, and squeeze that into a ball 1mm in diameter. Cover the whole Earth with a layer 100 meters thick of those balls.
2. Squeeze that Earth into a ball 1mm in diameter. Cover the whole Earth with those balls 100 meters thick.
3. Then squeeze that Earth into a ball 1mm in diameter, and cover the Earth 100 meters deep with those balls.
There you would have approximately a googol seconds!
a high speed network and a google of different communications devices.
;-)
I think you mean a googol, not a google. See also Google's explanation. Please keep you're words straight.
(Oh, it's also available at MathWorld - great to have it back!)
My mother went to see it, and when she came back, she swore the movie deep into ground. She complained that the movie had compeletely ruined the story of the book, having only the fighting.
I didn't feel exactly the same, but in my opinion, the movie did lack depth. The relationships didn't have time to develop. And what was IMHO most irritating, was the immediate decisions. Aragorn didn't have any trouble choosing whether to go to Minas Tirith first or to Mordor. Whether to follow Frodo or not. And for Christ's sake the Council of Elrond was the place to decide the fate of whole middle-earth, not some rash "me too, me too!" beach party! Nobody even suggested hiding the Ring. Nobody even doubted it's authenticity! (Gandalf uttering the Black Speech could have made a wonderful effect, if done right.)
Add, say, 5-30 minutes more pondering to the Council of Elrond and other times of decision, as well as to the interaction between the character of the Fellowship, and you'll double the depth of the film. I hope the uncut DVD will be better - that might even be reason enough to get a DVD-player.
It's only interesting then why Microsoft stuck to DOS for so long. Win95 is provably DOS-based, and I wouldn't be suprised if Win98 has a lot legacy too. (There was a bug in Win95 such that if you had been in DOS and then started windows with "win", and then shut down the computer, it just slammed the graphics on the screen and exited to DOS. You could type "mode co80" and continue like nothing happened. I have personally tested this on two separate Win95 installations.)
Compatibility with DOS programs is one thing, Win95 another.
2) IP availability. According to Slashdot, your IPID is "8e451..." Mr. Ska's IPID is "b18e8..." Whoop. Big invasion of privacy there. The IPID system is solely a reaction to people abusing anonymity to post hundreds of crap comments. Now people who do that get automatically IP-banned for 72 hours. I'm all for it.
I'd say one of the central questions here is: are the IPIDs attached with the message? I'm not so interested in whether a Slashdot editor discriminates some individual, but what if, say, the FBI/NSA/other-three-letter-department comes knocking at your door? They can get any information that you store about the comments. If the IPIDs are attached to the messages, then when posting anonymously you always risk the chance that your IP _can_ be traced from that comment. (The MD5 hash doesn't help in this case, since you just have to try 2^32 combinations - shouldn't be a major problem for a fast machine.)
The flood-banning could be implemented just by keeping a log of IPs or IPIDs, and how many messages have been posted recently, but without attaching them to the messages in question.
Are the IPIDs attached to the posted messages? That's the point I'm worried about.