I've been using an ALPS Glidepoint touchpad in place of a mouse. The best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac. The ADB adaptor cable that has two ADB jacks on it was the second best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac, but I digress.
So, first off, I don't need to wave my hand or arm about to move the cursor. I use my fingertip. The pad has three buttons. The top button is programmed for a doubleclick. Bottom left button is a single click. Bottom right button is programmed to send a "SPACE" signal, just like hitting the space bar.
As Eudora, iCab, Opera, I.E. and NewsWatcher use the spacebar to page down, who needs a scroll wheel?
"But what if you want to scroll UP, huh?" I hear you cry. Remember that bottom left button. I just move the cursor/pointer to the TOP of the vertical scrollbox. Should I need to scroll up, I just hit that button with my thumb and page up that way.
"OK, but what about when you're using a text editor, eh? You can't be using that spacebar thing then, can you!" No, I use either the page up/down, home/end or cursor keys. Again, no scroll wheel needed.
The same driver for the Glidepoint has worked perfectly on my Mac IIsi under System 7.5.5/7.6.1 and all the way through a Performa 630CD, Performa 6300CD (PowerPC, baby!) and now on the PowerMac 5400/200 I'm currently using. That's some pretty good hardware/software compatibility.
Frankly, I can't stand to use a mouse these days. What a primative way to move the pointer around the screen! I suppose that I really should see about getting another one or two of these things as backups.
"Why the hell is the US MILITARY giving TAXPAYER MONEY to some damn red cananadian commie hippy bastard when there are honest, God-fearing Americans that could use the jobs!"
Ted Nelson once said: "Any fool can use a computer. Many do."
The proof and wisdom of the above is once again demonstrated by what the meatsack up there said.
So, why is DARPA funding FreeBSD? They want the OS with the best built in security to be even better and widely available, that's why, meatsack.
Beats stuffing taxpayer dollars down the rathole of licensing MS crapola. In the long run, if FreeBSD replaces Windows and other MS crapola in the Federal bureaucracy, that will be a substantial portion of taxpayer money that won't be wasted by lining Bill Gates pockets.
The thought of FreeBSD on every U.S. Govt desktop makes my nipples hard... metaphorically speaking.
Now go away, meatsack. The non-retarded grownups here have better things to do than clean up after your useless little tantrums.
"...you just update IE with a "search the web" button that uses your search engine and some very large percentage of users will simply use it without investigating alternatives"
I assure you that 48 hours after a version of IE that does that comes out, there will be a freeware third party patch that "fixes" that bug. And that fix will be wildly popular.
Too many people use Google and can not imagine using anything else.
Gates/Balmer are on crack if they think that Google can be overtaken by anything that comes out of Redmond.
op51n, do what I did. I bought a used DVD of The Matrix and The Matrix Revisited. I got them both for less than US$20.00.
The crappy cardboard cases are, well crappy and scuffed, but the disks were in perfect condition and The Matrix even had the original advertising inserts still in case.
The best VHS copy taped off the TV is no match for the DVD.
The two DVDs have a tone of cool stuff on them, espcially the Revisited DVD.
I live in Boston. I'll ride the subway for maybe 20 minutes on April 4th, get off in Cambridge and walk a few minutes to the theater where I'll enjoy Cowboy Bebop, The Movie.
Yes! Boston/Cambridge is a "Major City"! I might weep openly with joy and pride at this signal confirmation of my status as a resident of a "Major City" as decided by Sony!
ObOfficeSpace quote:"Damn, it feels good to be a ganster!"
"Not that I have anything against the impoverished, but...
These people are living in PUBLIC housing projects? Housing that you and I pay for with our tax dollars? I'm in a pretty nice income bracket, living in the middle of Dallas, but I can't get DSL because I'm too far from the CO. However, people we have to subsidize by giving them a place to live (among other subsidies) deserve (probably) high-bandwidth wireless Internet access?
Perhaps we should be more concerned with these people supporting themselves (for instance, paying for their own housing, food, power, etc.) rather than sitting around browsing the Internet.
I'm sure I'll get flamed, but this is only slightly less ridiculous than trying to get broadband internet into third-world countries..."
Yes, you ARE going to get flamed, jerkwad.
YOU live in Dallas, not Boston. Your tax dollars are likely not coming anywhere NEAR Boston. You have no idea of how public housing works here in Boston. YOU aren't giving ANYTHING to people in Boston.
First off, Boston Housing Authority is the main public housing agency in Boston. You pay rent, unless, of course, you have zero income. If you do have income, you pay 30% of that income as rent.
You can't get DSL? Boo fucking hoo! So therefore, poor and elderly (often the same) people don't deserve high speed access?
And if you had actually bothered to read (Whoops! I forgot, you're from Texas. A state not celebrated for academic achivement, as daily demonstrated by its former governor. But I digress...) the article, you would know that all this stuff is DONATED.
You know what, I have never minded that my tax money went to help the less fortunate. It's no skin off my nose that some poor person has faster access than I have with my 56k dialup.
The bottom line is that this service will HELP PEOPLE BETTER THEIR LIVES. And as such, they have the opportunity to get out of poverty.
The bottom line is that eldery, housebound people can now interact with friends and family. The classic grandma emailing the grandkids and getting photos of the grandkids.
Frankly, I hope this spreads to every BHA building in Boston!
"Anyways, my point is the money could probably be used better somewhere else, either in the USA or elsewhere in the world, like the countless refugee camps throughout Asia and Africa, where people have really fucked-up lives. "
Ohm yeah, the pittance involved in this project will REALLY help the all those poor soids in Asia and Africa.
Why, evenly distributed, we could probably send a single Meal, Ready to Eat pouch to every single one of those refugees. Once. Of course, this doesn't include the actual costs of shipping the MREs to the camps.
Look, you're a bleeding heart doofus with no idea whatsoever about the costs involved in this project and the expenses involved in aiding all those refugees.
The WiFi project wouldn't cover the cost of any useful aid prokect in Asia or Africa.
And as for the poor in America, this money IS being used to help the poor. Just because you are a meatsack who is only interested in MP3s, pr0n and IM, don't assume that you are representative of the people this project is helping.
I speak from experience. I've been involved in some projects like this, and I can tell you that a poor family that has access to the Internet does not use it for MP3 and pr0n. The kids use it for schoolwork, the parents use it for everything from education to downloading supermarket coupons. Seniors, particularly the housebound, use the net as a way to keep in touch with friends and family, along with education and entertainment. As an antidote to lonliness, it's pretty damn good.
This is a good thing! I really hope that Boston will expand this to the rest of the public housing infrastructure.
"The worst spacial incident in recorded history occurred less than one day ago and you people are talking about power companies offering cable service?!?! My GOD, people, GET SOME BLOODY PRIORITIES!"
"Recorded history" apparently begins for this meatsack sometime after January 28, 1986.
Said meatsack obviously missed the thread about the disaster right here on Slashdot.
Dear meatsack: please die. Thank you kindly!
Yes, meatsack. It IS a tragedy. But life goes on. If I tell the PhoneCo and CableCo to get some bloody priorities and stop sending me bills, I won't have a phone or cable TV.
I can mourn the passing of STS-107, as well as be interested in cheap cable, telephone and highspeed internet access.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
And, finally. Yes, I know that meatsack is a troll, and not a very good one, either.
In addition to the Strike Force Beta book...
on
Stealth Force Beta
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· Score: 1
...mentioned on the SFB homepage, there are other books available detailing similar goings-on at MIT & Caltech, as well as the aforementioned "If At All Possible, Involve A Cow".
Some years ago, I wrote a review of all of these books, complete with ordering information.
As soon as I hear back from the gentleman selling the SFB book, I'll be ordering a copy for myself. If the web pages are any indication, this will be a very good addition to the MIT/Caltech books,
"In 1996 you could get a Pentium 150 mhz and later on in the year a 200 mhz. You could still use that today with Windows 98 and IE or Linux and whatever. (My grandmother uses a 150 mhz with Windows 95 for her Internet. It works fine.) It's just that when you go the x86 way you can actually afford to upgrade, so you don't have to rationalize using a six year old computer"
Tim, I don't NEED to upgrade the hardware or OS on this old Mac of mine. 180Mhz, 16MB of RAM and System 7.6.1 is still working just fine, and it's working just fine with software more intended for much newer Macs.
For example, I'm using the latest version of iCab to view and interact with websites. When this Mac I'm using rolled off the assembly line, iCab hadn't even been thought of.
This Mac platform, 7 years later, is still working just fine. I might spend the money this year to install 128MB of RAm, OS 8 or OS 9 and possibly a USB 2/FireWire card in the PCI slot, as I'd like to mess around with digital photography, and a USB port is needed.
Now, Pay Attention! At the VERY MOST, I'll spend maybe $150 or so to do all that. A very modest sum of money, indeed, to dramatically increase the capabilities of this old computer. If I choose to do so. If I don't choose to do so, and stay at 16MB of RAM, this computer still works just fine and will continue to work just fine for the foreseeable future.
I don't need to upgrade to continue to do useful work with this computer.
OK, So I can't (currently) run Mozilla. On the other hand, iCab, Opera, IE 5 (ugh) and Netscape 4.7 (ugh) run JUST FINE. As does Eudora 4.3.3. As does Graphic Converter, Adobe Acrobat 4, et al, etc.
My Apple LaserWriter 4/600PS works just fine on this old, slow computer. My Apple Color OneScanner works just fine, as does the OCR software I use with it.
I could go on.
The point is, this 7+ year old computer works just fine as it is. Were I to load it up with RAM, 128MB or so, OS9 would be just fine on it. I could even run OSX on it. It'd be slow as all get out, but it would run.
Apple hardware does have a higher initial cost. But, consider the useful working life of that hardware.
I can drop $60 or so of RAM into this, borrow the OS 9 install CDs from someone, install the Carbon libraries, and get another 4-5 or more years of useful life out of this old Mac, and than, instead of throwing it away, it'll become the backup computer to whatever Mac I'll have by then, as my Mac Performa 6300CD is now the backup to this Mac. (and the ancient Mac IIsi in the closet is the last resort backup machine. Eudora 3 and the current 68K version of iCab work just fine on it.)
So, if you want to buy a $300 MB or a kilobuck Gateway, where will it be in in 7 years? Will you be using it for anything other than a doorstop? WIll it still even boot?
If you use a Macintosh, get iCab. It prevents JavaScript from opening windows that are not requested by the user, and can filter out banner ads by size or URL.
Windows users might wish to try Opera. While not quite as flexible as iCab, stopping popups is easy with Opera.
FInally, ask your ISP to start using Spamassassin. My ISP recently began using SpamAssassin and now, I can go for days without getting any spam, and the two or three that do slip through are helpfully labeled with a (SPAM?) tag by SpamAssassin.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to run some errands. I have to go xerox a few copies of some documents and buy some more tabasco sauce at the supermarket."
Don't forget your aspirin and the cleaner for your formica countertop.
And if you're a junkie, you should also pick up some heroin while you're at it.
For the demo, you need a couple of identical glass bottles with good, sturdy screw on caps.
Glass salad dressing bottles _should_ work. (As always, try it before you demo it in public!)
Have the kids select one of the bottles. Hand it around so that the kids KNOW it's glass. Everyone knows that glass breaks if you hit it hard enough.
Now, fill it with water. And I mean FILL IT! there can be absolutley NO air bubbles whatsoever in the bottle when it's capped. The best way to do this is to fill it and cap it underwater in a bucket.
Before you attempt the demo, make sure the now filled bottle is free of bubbles. Because while fulids are non-compressable, gases compress REALLY easily and that can result in a broken bottle and bits of glass flying everywhere. Safety gear is a MUST, as is a clear barrier between you and the audience. Just in case.
Take a LARGE nail with a LARGE head and a two by four, and use the water filled bottle as a hammer to drive the nail into the two by four. Don't hit the nail TOO hard and don't bang on thenail too many times.
The water essnetially turns the glass bottle into a solid hunk of sturdy matter, due to the incompressablilty of the water.
Keep in mind that every time you hit the nail with the bottle, you are inducing microscopic stress fractures in the glass at the point of impacts. Do this enough and the bottle will eventually break.
But for those few moments you are hammering a nail with a glass bottle full of water, you will have SEVERELY messed with the way the Universe works in the minds of the audience.
Once you've demonstrated that fluids are non-compressable, you can then demo some simple hydraulics with syringes and tubing.
And remember, wear safety glasses, an apron and have a shield between you and the audience.
Because occasionally, the Universe likes to mess with YOUR mind from time to time.
Cheap hardware, Linux, AOL. I love it!
on
AOL's new Linux PC
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For many years, computers were the rich person's toy.
This is a system that almost anyone can afford.
Now there is a decent little box, running a decent Linux OS that can also run some Windows stuff and there will soon be an AOL version that will run on it.
For a lot of people, this is just what they need for themselves or as a computer/homework machine for the kids.
Sure, the savvy Linux user won't touch it with a stick. To quote Frank N. Furter, "I didn't make it... FOR YOU!"
Stop lamenting about what it doesn't do. Contemplate what it DOES do.
With one stroke, millions of people who formerly could not own a computer, can now have their OWN COMPUTER. They can access the internet. They have the WWW at their fingertips.
This is wonderful. This is nigh-miraculous.
FInally, WE ALL OF US were clueless newbies the first time we sat before a keyboard.
Let the clueless newbies who buy this $200 system make their mistakes and learn from them.
Eventually, they will grow curious and try something new. Something new like a Mandrake or Debian or Red Hat distro CD.
Personally, something like this that chafes the corporate scrotum of MS can't be all bad.
Prior Art (was: Electric Armor)
on
Electric Armor
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· Score: 1
A Mr. Thomas Swift, Senior, of Shopton, New Jersey, USA, today filed suit against the UK firm that has developed "electric armor".
Mr. Swift claims to have invented electric armor in the early 1900's, along with the Electric Runabout, Electric Rifle (a man portible particle accellerator weapon) and several other amazing inventions incorporating the word "electric".
So then JanMark sez: "Should Wernher von Braun be honored like this? I think he was an opportunist, he new what his work was used for by the Germans during WWII."
The conversation between Dr. von Braun and some Nazi big wig went something like this:
"Herr von Braun. You can work for us and develop your cunning little rockets, and do keep in mind that failure will NOT be tolorated, or, you and your entire family will be shipped off to a concentration camp and executed as traitors to the Fatherland."
So, JanMark, if YOU were in von Braun's position, just what would YOU have done?
(This is something I wrote a few years ago. Somewhat updated with new ordering info for the MIT books.)
Legends of Caltech and More Legends of Caltech. These two 80 page volumes chronicle technopranking at Caltech from the 1920s to the late 1980s. Learn about the classic Rose Bowl card section prank that was broadcast live on NBC, See the HOLLYWOOD sign become the CALTECH sign before your very eyes. Vicariously enjoy the revenge of Caltech students upon a greedy police department.
These books MUST be ordered from the Caltech bookstore, as they are privately published by the Caltech Alumni Association. Ordering info is at the bottom of this page.
Ah, but what of MIT? For their history we must turn to a pair of books.
The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT. Published by the MIT Museum, this is a 158 page book with lots of photos and text concerning the hacks pulled by MIT men and women over the decades. See The Great Breast of Knowledge, The Great Pumpkin, the legendary Smoot Marks on the Harvard Bridge. Read about the chronic humiliation suffered by the inmates at Harvard as MIT has its way with the statue of John Harvard and the Harvard Stadium.
"Is This The Way To Baker House?" - A Compendium of Hacking Lore. 165 pages of legends, essays, photographs and stories of and about hacking at MIT. This book, published in 1996, continues where the Journal leaves off. The MIT Campus Police car on the Great Dome, arguably one the greatest hacks in MIT history, graces the cover and several inside pages. Regrettably, only black and white photographs are used in the body of the book, as there are several hacks, most notably, the Cathedral of Our Lady of The All Night Tool (The "stained glass" panels in Lobby 7) that really should be seen in full color. That minor gripe aside, this is a fine companion volume to The Journal and shares the same binding dimensions as The Journal, making them a handsome pair of books to grace the shelves of any creative malcontent. (The title refers to the canonical reply to an MIT Campus cop when one is discovered in a spectacularly inappropriate location, such as the apex of the Great Dome at 4:00AM.)
Our final book is published by St. Martin's Press and should still be available via any bookstore that will special order books for its customers.
If At All Possible, Involve A Cow - The Book Of College Pranks, is a 240 page history of collegiate pranking in America, beginning with the earliest colleges in America, and even taking note of some hijinx taking place in Canada.
This is an excellent companion volume to the preceeding four books, as it covers collegiate pranking in general, as well as detailing some events that are NOT covered in either the Caltech or MIT books.
If I were sending a son or daughter off to college, I would certainly include all five of these books in their "books to bring to school" box. Start 'em off right!
I have all five books and have enjoyed reading and re-reading them. I trust that these will be inspirational to all who enjoy a good hack and tweaking the nose of Authority, be it the State or the School.
Ordering information
Legends of Caltech is $9.00 More Legends of Caltech is $15.00
The mailing address of the Caltech Bookstore is: Caltech Bookstore Mail Code 1-51 San Pasqual Street Pasadena CA 91125
The website http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~citbook/ for the Caltech Bookstore looks like you might be able to order these online.
The toll-free number for the Caltech bookstore is 800/514-2665. For those of you outside the US, their non-free number is 818/395-6161.
In my case, shipping was $6.00. Call to find out what your charges might be or to use a credit card.
(Neither Caltech book has an ISBN, so ordering via your local bookstore is not recommended and may very well be nigh-impossible.)
The Journal of The Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT is $20.00 The ISBN is: 0-917027-03-5
"Is This The Way To Baker House?" - A Compendium of Hacking Lore is $20.00. The ISBN is: 0-917027-04-3
The MIT Press Bookstore Kendall Square 292 Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142 617.253.5249 M-F 9am-7pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 1pm-6pm books@mit.edu
The URL for ordering The Journal of The Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT is here http://mitpress.mit.edu/bookstore/nonpress/hacks.h tml and the URL for "Is This The Way To Baker House?" is here http://mitpress.mit.edu/bookstore/nonpress/baker.h tml
As with the Caltech bookstore, the MIT Press website appears to support online ordering.
If At All Possible, Involve A Cow - The Book Of College Pranks by Neil Steinberg
$9.95 St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-07810-2
This book is out of print. Try eBay, Amazon.com or search the remaindered book sites.
Slashdot Mirror
So atam sez:
(stupid shit about $600 toilet seats)
OK, listen up.
It wasn't a toilet seat of the type you sit your fat ass on.
It was a fiberglass unit that incorporated a toilet seat, while covering the entire toilet mechanism that was installed on an aircraft.
The DoD bought ~50 of them (possibly fewer) and each and every one of them HAD to be essentially hand made.
Why? Because automating the procedure would have increased the unit cost by an order of magnitude.
You want to know where all those $500 hammers come from? The PAPERWORK, that's where.
Your head would explode if you knew of the obscene amounts of paperwork required for a government entity to buy anything.
And you have to pay the people who fill out the forms and someone has to supply that money to pay the bureaucrats who fill out those forms.
I've been using an ALPS Glidepoint touchpad in place of a mouse. The best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac. The ADB adaptor cable that has two ADB jacks on it was the second best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac, but I digress.
So, first off, I don't need to wave my hand or arm about to move the cursor. I use my fingertip. The pad has three buttons. The top button is programmed for a doubleclick. Bottom left button is a single click. Bottom right button is programmed to send a "SPACE" signal, just like hitting the space bar.
As Eudora, iCab, Opera, I.E. and NewsWatcher use the spacebar to page down, who needs a scroll wheel?
"But what if you want to scroll UP, huh?" I hear you cry. Remember that bottom left button. I just move the cursor/pointer to the TOP of the vertical scrollbox. Should I need to scroll up, I just hit that button with my thumb and page up that way.
"OK, but what about when you're using a text editor, eh? You can't be using that spacebar thing then, can you!" No, I use either the page up/down, home/end or cursor keys. Again, no scroll wheel needed.
The same driver for the Glidepoint has worked perfectly on my Mac IIsi under System 7.5.5/7.6.1 and all the way through a Performa 630CD, Performa 6300CD (PowerPC, baby!) and now on the PowerMac 5400/200 I'm currently using. That's some pretty good hardware/software compatibility.
Frankly, I can't stand to use a mouse these days. What a primative way to move the pointer around the screen! I suppose that I really should see about getting another one or two of these things as backups.
"Unlike IE it actually works when you tell it to largen up the page"
"largen"? What the hell kind of word is that? Use proper English, dammit!
The CORRECT word is, "embiggen"!
A perfectly cromulent word!
SO Fulcrum of Evil sez:
"6 BUCKS?! Where do you live, anyway? Everywhere I go around here it's $8.50"
Matinee prices here in Boston are $6.00 or so.
Where do YOU live that a matinee ticket is $8.50?
So I kept saying FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD.
Sorry about that.
So some A.C. meatsack sez:
"Why the hell is the US MILITARY giving TAXPAYER MONEY to some damn red cananadian commie hippy bastard when there are honest, God-fearing Americans that could use the jobs!"
Ted Nelson once said: "Any fool can use a computer. Many do."
The proof and wisdom of the above is once again demonstrated by what the meatsack up there said.
So, why is DARPA funding FreeBSD? They want the OS with the best built in security to be even better and widely available, that's why, meatsack.
Beats stuffing taxpayer dollars down the rathole of licensing MS crapola. In the long run, if FreeBSD replaces Windows and other MS crapola in the Federal bureaucracy, that will be a substantial portion of taxpayer money that won't be wasted by lining Bill Gates pockets.
The thought of FreeBSD on every U.S. Govt desktop makes my nipples hard... metaphorically speaking.
Now go away, meatsack. The non-retarded grownups here have better things to do than clean up after your useless little tantrums.
So blamanj sez:
"...you just update IE with a "search the web" button that uses your search engine and some very large percentage of users will simply use it without investigating alternatives"
I assure you that 48 hours after a version of IE that does that comes out, there will be a freeware third party patch that "fixes" that bug. And that fix will be wildly popular.
Too many people use Google and can not imagine using anything else.
Gates/Balmer are on crack if they think that Google can be overtaken by anything that comes out of Redmond.
op51n, do what I did. I bought a used DVD of The Matrix and The Matrix Revisited. I got them both for less than US$20.00.
The crappy cardboard cases are, well crappy and scuffed, but the disks were in perfect condition and The Matrix even had the original advertising inserts still in case.
The best VHS copy taped off the TV is no match for the DVD.
The two DVDs have a tone of cool stuff on them, espcially the Revisited DVD.
It sucks to be you, A.C.!
I live in Boston. I'll ride the subway for maybe 20 minutes on April 4th, get off in Cambridge and walk a few minutes to the theater where I'll enjoy Cowboy Bebop, The Movie.
Yes! Boston/Cambridge is a "Major City"! I might weep openly with joy and pride at this signal confirmation of my status as a resident of a "Major City" as decided by Sony!
ObOfficeSpace quote:"Damn, it feels good to be a ganster!"
So Syncdata sez:
"Cowboy bebop also has the most rediculously awesome opening title sequence of anything commited to celluloid, ever"
That's what got me to watch that first episode on Cartoon Network!
There was more action and attention demading images than in almost any hour of live action prime time TV.
And don't forget that wonderful opening music! "3,2,1, let's jam!"
So tvsjr sez:
"Not that I have anything against the impoverished, but...
These people are living in PUBLIC housing projects? Housing that you and I pay for with our tax dollars? I'm in a pretty nice income bracket, living in the middle of Dallas, but I can't get DSL because I'm too far from the CO. However, people we have to subsidize by giving them a place to live (among other subsidies) deserve (probably) high-bandwidth wireless Internet access?
Perhaps we should be more concerned with these people supporting themselves (for instance, paying for their own housing, food, power, etc.) rather than sitting around browsing the Internet.
I'm sure I'll get flamed, but this is only slightly less ridiculous than trying to get broadband internet into third-world countries..."
Yes, you ARE going to get flamed, jerkwad.
YOU live in Dallas, not Boston. Your tax dollars are likely not coming anywhere NEAR Boston. You have no idea of how public housing works here in Boston. YOU aren't giving ANYTHING to people in Boston.
First off, Boston Housing Authority is the main public housing agency in Boston. You pay rent, unless, of course, you have zero income. If you do have income, you pay 30% of that income as rent.
You can't get DSL? Boo fucking hoo! So therefore, poor and elderly (often the same) people don't deserve high speed access?
And if you had actually bothered to read (Whoops! I forgot, you're from Texas. A state not celebrated for academic achivement, as daily demonstrated by its former governor. But I digress...) the article, you would know that all this stuff is DONATED.
You know what, I have never minded that my tax money went to help the less fortunate. It's no skin off my nose that some poor person has faster access than I have with my 56k dialup.
The bottom line is that this service will HELP PEOPLE BETTER THEIR LIVES. And as such, they have the opportunity to get out of poverty.
The bottom line is that eldery, housebound people can now interact with friends and family. The classic grandma emailing the grandkids and getting photos of the grandkids.
Frankly, I hope this spreads to every BHA building in Boston!
So boomgopher sez:
"Anyways, my point is the money could probably be used better somewhere else, either in the USA or elsewhere in the world, like the countless refugee camps throughout Asia and Africa, where people have really fucked-up lives. "
Ohm yeah, the pittance involved in this project will REALLY help the all those poor soids in Asia and Africa.
Why, evenly distributed, we could probably send a single Meal, Ready to Eat pouch to every single one of those refugees. Once. Of course, this doesn't include the actual costs of shipping the MREs to the camps.
Look, you're a bleeding heart doofus with no idea whatsoever about the costs involved in this project and the expenses involved in aiding all those refugees.
The WiFi project wouldn't cover the cost of any useful aid prokect in Asia or Africa.
And as for the poor in America, this money IS being used to help the poor. Just because you are a meatsack who is only interested in MP3s, pr0n and IM, don't assume that you are representative of the people this project is helping.
I speak from experience. I've been involved in some projects like this, and I can tell you that a poor family that has access to the Internet does not use it for MP3 and pr0n. The kids use it for schoolwork, the parents use it for everything from education to downloading supermarket coupons. Seniors, particularly the housebound, use the net as a way to keep in touch with friends and family, along with education and entertainment. As an antidote to lonliness, it's pretty damn good.
This is a good thing! I really hope that Boston will expand this to the rest of the public housing infrastructure.
So this braindead A.C. spews:
"The worst spacial incident in recorded history occurred less than one day ago and you people are talking about power companies offering cable service?!?! My GOD, people, GET SOME BLOODY PRIORITIES!"
"Recorded history" apparently begins for this meatsack sometime after January 28, 1986.
Said meatsack obviously missed the thread about the disaster right here on Slashdot.
Dear meatsack: please die. Thank you kindly!
Yes, meatsack. It IS a tragedy. But life goes on. If I tell the PhoneCo and CableCo to get some bloody priorities and stop sending me bills, I won't have a phone or cable TV.
I can mourn the passing of STS-107, as well as be interested in cheap cable, telephone and highspeed internet access.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
And, finally. Yes, I know that meatsack is a troll, and not a very good one, either.
...mentioned on the SFB homepage, there are other books available detailing similar goings-on at MIT & Caltech, as well as the aforementioned "If At All Possible, Involve A Cow".
Some years ago, I wrote a review of all of these books, complete with ordering information.
You can see this review HERE .
As soon as I hear back from the gentleman selling the SFB book, I'll be ordering a copy for myself. If the web pages are any indication, this will be a very good addition to the MIT/Caltech books,
So, Tim sez:
"In 1996 you could get a Pentium 150 mhz and later on in the year a 200 mhz. You could still use that today with Windows 98 and IE or Linux and whatever. (My grandmother uses a 150 mhz with Windows 95 for her Internet. It works fine.) It's just that when you go the x86 way you can actually afford to upgrade, so you don't have to rationalize using a six year old computer"
Tim, I don't NEED to upgrade the hardware or OS on this old Mac of mine. 180Mhz, 16MB of RAM and System 7.6.1 is still working just fine, and it's working just fine with software more intended for much newer Macs.
For example, I'm using the latest version of iCab to view and interact with websites. When this Mac I'm using rolled off the assembly line, iCab hadn't even been thought of.
This Mac platform, 7 years later, is still working just fine. I might spend the money this year to install 128MB of RAm, OS 8 or OS 9 and possibly a USB 2/FireWire card in the PCI slot, as I'd like to mess around with digital photography, and a USB port is needed.
Now, Pay Attention! At the VERY MOST, I'll spend maybe $150 or so to do all that. A very modest sum of money, indeed, to dramatically increase the capabilities of this old computer. If I choose to do so. If I don't choose to do so, and stay at 16MB of RAM, this computer still works just fine and will continue to work just fine for the foreseeable future.
I don't need to upgrade to continue to do useful work with this computer.
OK, I'm using a Mac 5400/180.
This particular Mac was made in 1996.
It has 16MB of RAM and runs at 180Mhz.
Oh, and the OS is System 7.6.1.
OK, So I can't (currently) run Mozilla. On the other hand, iCab, Opera, IE 5 (ugh) and Netscape 4.7 (ugh) run JUST FINE. As does Eudora 4.3.3. As does Graphic Converter, Adobe Acrobat 4, et al, etc.
My Apple LaserWriter 4/600PS works just fine on this old, slow computer. My Apple Color OneScanner works just fine, as does the OCR software I use with it.
I could go on.
The point is, this 7+ year old computer works just fine as it is. Were I to load it up with RAM, 128MB or so, OS9 would be just fine on it. I could even run OSX on it. It'd be slow as all get out, but it would run.
Apple hardware does have a higher initial cost. But, consider the useful working life of that hardware.
I can drop $60 or so of RAM into this, borrow the OS 9 install CDs from someone, install the Carbon libraries, and get another 4-5 or more years of useful life out of this old Mac, and than, instead of throwing it away, it'll become the backup computer to whatever Mac I'll have by then, as my Mac Performa 6300CD is now the backup to this Mac. (and the ancient Mac IIsi in the closet is the last resort backup machine. Eudora 3 and the current 68K version of iCab work just fine on it.)
So, if you want to buy a $300 MB or a kilobuck Gateway, where will it be in in 7 years? Will you be using it for anything other than a doorstop? WIll it still even boot?
Remember, you really DO get what you pay for.
If you use a Macintosh, get iCab. It prevents JavaScript from opening windows that are not requested by the user, and can filter out banner ads by size or URL.
Windows users might wish to try Opera. While not quite as flexible as iCab, stopping popups is easy with Opera.
FInally, ask your ISP to start using Spamassassin. My ISP recently began using SpamAssassin and now, I can go for days without getting any spam, and the two or three that do slip through are helpfully labeled with a (SPAM?) tag by SpamAssassin.
So Suppafly sez:
"Mac users hate microsoft until the need to browse the web, read email, open a doc file, or do just about anything else."
Web: iCab, Opera, Netscape.
Email: Eudora, diverse Mac/Claris Email applications
Doc files: Tex-Edit Pro comes to mind. As does, "I don't use Word. "
Anything else: Photoshop, Quark, Word Perfect, Graphic Converter, ClarisWorks, AppleWorks, PageMaker, Illustrator, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhotos, et al, etc.
Go away, Suppafly, and ply your pitifully inept trolling elsewhere.
So stwrtpj says:
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to run some errands. I have to go xerox a few copies of some documents and buy some more tabasco sauce at the supermarket."
Don't forget your aspirin and the cleaner for your formica countertop.
And if you're a junkie, you should also pick up some heroin while you're at it.
Fluids are non compressable.
For the demo, you need a couple of identical glass bottles with good, sturdy screw on caps.
Glass salad dressing bottles _should_ work. (As always, try it before you demo it in public!)
Have the kids select one of the bottles. Hand it around so that the kids KNOW it's glass. Everyone knows that glass breaks if you hit it hard enough.
Now, fill it with water. And I mean FILL IT! there can be absolutley NO air bubbles whatsoever in the bottle when it's capped. The best way to do this is to fill it and cap it underwater in a bucket.
Before you attempt the demo, make sure the now filled bottle is free of bubbles. Because while fulids are non-compressable, gases compress REALLY easily and that can result in a broken bottle and bits of glass flying everywhere. Safety gear is a MUST, as is a clear barrier between you and the audience. Just in case.
Take a LARGE nail with a LARGE head and a two by four, and use the water filled bottle as a hammer to drive the nail into the two by four. Don't hit the nail TOO hard and don't bang on thenail too many times.
The water essnetially turns the glass bottle into a solid hunk of sturdy matter, due to the incompressablilty of the water.
Keep in mind that every time you hit the nail with the bottle, you are inducing microscopic stress fractures in the glass at the point of impacts. Do this enough and the bottle will eventually break.
But for those few moments you are hammering a nail with a glass bottle full of water, you will have SEVERELY messed with the way the Universe works in the minds of the audience.
Once you've demonstrated that fluids are non-compressable, you can then demo some simple hydraulics with syringes and tubing.
And remember, wear safety glasses, an apron and have a shield between you and the audience.
Because occasionally, the Universe likes to mess with YOUR mind from time to time.
For many years, computers were the rich person's toy.
This is a system that almost anyone can afford.
Now there is a decent little box, running a decent Linux OS that can also run some Windows stuff and there will soon be an AOL version that will run on it.
For a lot of people, this is just what they need for themselves or as a computer/homework machine for the kids.
Sure, the savvy Linux user won't touch it with a stick. To quote Frank N. Furter, "I didn't make it... FOR YOU!"
Stop lamenting about what it doesn't do. Contemplate what it DOES do.
With one stroke, millions of people who formerly could not own a computer, can now have their OWN COMPUTER. They can access the internet. They have the WWW at their fingertips.
This is wonderful. This is nigh-miraculous.
FInally, WE ALL OF US were clueless newbies the first time we sat before a keyboard.
Let the clueless newbies who buy this $200 system make their mistakes and learn from them.
Eventually, they will grow curious and try something new. Something new like a Mandrake or Debian or Red Hat distro CD.
Personally, something like this that chafes the corporate scrotum of MS can't be all bad.
A Mr. Thomas Swift, Senior, of Shopton, New Jersey, USA, today filed suit against the UK firm that has developed "electric armor".
Mr. Swift claims to have invented electric armor in the early 1900's, along with the Electric Runabout, Electric Rifle (a man portible particle accellerator weapon) and several other amazing inventions incorporating the word "electric".
So then JanMark sez:
"Should Wernher von Braun be honored like this? I think he was an opportunist, he new what his work was used for by the Germans during WWII."
The conversation between Dr. von Braun and some Nazi big wig went something like this:
"Herr von Braun. You can work for us and develop your cunning little rockets, and do keep in mind that failure will NOT be tolorated, or, you and your entire family will be shipped off to a concentration camp and executed as traitors to the Fatherland."
So, JanMark, if YOU were in von Braun's position, just what would YOU have done?
(This is something I wrote a few years ago. Somewhat updated with new ordering info for the MIT books.)
h tml and the URL for "Is This The Way To Baker House?" is here http://mitpress.mit.edu/bookstore/nonpress/baker.h tml
Legends of Caltech and More Legends of Caltech. These two 80 page volumes chronicle technopranking at Caltech from the 1920s to the late 1980s. Learn about the classic Rose Bowl card section prank that was broadcast live on NBC, See the HOLLYWOOD sign become the CALTECH sign before your very eyes. Vicariously enjoy the revenge of Caltech students upon a greedy police department.
These books MUST be ordered from the Caltech bookstore, as they are privately published by the Caltech Alumni Association. Ordering info is at the bottom of this page.
Ah, but what of MIT? For their history we must turn to a pair of books.
The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT. Published by the MIT Museum, this is a 158 page book with lots of photos and text concerning the hacks pulled by MIT men and women over the decades. See The Great Breast of Knowledge, The Great Pumpkin, the legendary Smoot Marks on the Harvard Bridge. Read about the chronic humiliation suffered by the inmates at Harvard as MIT has its way with the statue of John Harvard and the Harvard Stadium.
"Is This The Way To Baker House?" - A Compendium of Hacking Lore. 165 pages of legends, essays, photographs and stories of and about hacking at MIT. This book, published in 1996, continues where the Journal leaves off. The MIT Campus Police car on the Great Dome, arguably one the greatest hacks in MIT history, graces the cover and several inside pages. Regrettably, only black and white photographs are used in the body of the book, as there are several hacks, most notably, the Cathedral of Our Lady of The All Night Tool (The "stained glass" panels in Lobby 7) that really should be seen in full color. That minor gripe aside, this is a fine companion volume to The Journal and shares the same binding dimensions as The Journal, making them a handsome pair of books to grace the shelves of any creative malcontent. (The title refers to the canonical reply to an MIT Campus cop when one is discovered in a spectacularly inappropriate location, such as the apex of the Great Dome at 4:00AM.)
Our final book is published by St. Martin's Press and should still be available via any bookstore that will special order books for its customers.
If At All Possible, Involve A Cow - The Book Of College Pranks, is a 240 page history of collegiate pranking in America, beginning with the earliest colleges in America, and even taking note of some hijinx taking place in Canada.
This is an excellent companion volume to the preceeding four books, as it covers collegiate pranking in general, as well as detailing some events that are NOT covered in either the Caltech or MIT books.
If I were sending a son or daughter off to college, I would certainly include all five of these books in their "books to bring to school" box. Start 'em off right!
I have all five books and have enjoyed reading and re-reading them. I trust that these will be inspirational to all who enjoy a good hack and tweaking the nose of Authority, be it the State or the School.
Ordering information
Legends of Caltech is $9.00
More Legends of Caltech is $15.00
The mailing address of the Caltech Bookstore is:
Caltech Bookstore Mail Code 1-51 San Pasqual Street Pasadena CA 91125
The website http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~citbook/ for the Caltech Bookstore looks like you might be able to order these online.
The toll-free number for the Caltech bookstore is 800/514-2665. For those of you outside the US, their non-free number is 818/395-6161.
In my case, shipping was $6.00. Call to find out what your charges might be or to use a credit card.
(Neither Caltech book has an ISBN, so ordering via your local bookstore is not recommended and may very well be nigh-impossible.)
The Journal of The Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT is $20.00 The ISBN is: 0-917027-03-5
"Is This The Way To Baker House?" - A Compendium of Hacking Lore is $20.00. The ISBN is: 0-917027-04-3
The MIT Press Bookstore
Kendall Square
292 Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142
617.253.5249
M-F 9am-7pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 1pm-6pm
books@mit.edu
The URL for ordering The Journal of The Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery & Pranks at MIT is here http://mitpress.mit.edu/bookstore/nonpress/hacks.
As with the Caltech bookstore, the MIT Press website appears to support online ordering.
If At All Possible, Involve A Cow - The Book Of College Pranks
by Neil Steinberg
$9.95 St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-07810-2
This book is out of print. Try eBay, Amazon.com or search the remaindered book sites.
I always liked The LGM.
If anything, they were more devoted to finding the truth than Mulder.
Despite their failures and their lack of resources, they kept trying and they kept delivering the truth, no matter the cost in money or to themselves.
And in the end, "Whatever it takes!" was sacrificing their own lives so that others would live.
Yeah, these guys are heroes. Fictional characters though they may be.
So, thanks Chris Carter, for not only giving us one more episode of The Lone Gunmen, but for giving the guys a decent and meaningful passing.