I have made some drums from large PVC pipe once upon a time. I was walking along and came across a construction site and they were throwing out some 12 inch PVC pieces (no longer that a couple feet long). I took several and built a set of tom-toms from them. I gave them to a friend as a present later, but they didn't sound too bad at all. Sure looked funny though.
I also made some custom mallets for keyboard percussion use. I made some very nice bell (glockenspiel) mallets out of 1/2" brass, they gave a very brilliant sound to the bells. I also made a couple of pairs from 1" brass, which gave a much heavier and darker tone but they were extremely hard to control due to their weight. I made several pairs of mallets from maple also. They were about an inch in diameter and were finished with an oil finish. They sounded extremely nice on a xylophone or on bells. I used a pair of them to wrap a set of mallets for vibes as well (using a cord wrapping). I wasn't terribly pleased with them on vibes as they were a little more abrupt than I was hoping. Unfortunately, my time to work with them was taken over for a need to practice again (I was getting a degree in music at the time, it was before I discovered computers).
Since that time I have built assorted percussion instruments for my children. We occassionally pickup something and see what kind of sounds we can get from it and see how we can modify it to produce other sounds. It is an interesting pass time occassionally.
You sure would. A system that is likely to be attached by worms and virii at will. Decoupling the OS, desktop, and applications to some degree is what is required to secure them better. That doesn't mean that there can't be some exposed API, but it needs to be controlled much better than the M$ implementation.
Admittedly, from what little I have seen, they seem to be getting a little better as they release bug fixes (I believe they call them upgrades and charge large amounts of money for them), but we need to learn from their mistake and not repeat it just so that we can have exactly the same feature set. If a user has to push an extra button or so, then so be it. They will learn and the probably won't appreciate it in the long run. But, they also won't know what they are missing either, because soo many of them don't know that they are infected already.
Along the same lines is the expense of developing on the Windows Platform. If you use actual legal copies of Microsoft's development tools, the cost is somewhat significant. This makes the bar to being able to afford to develop freeware a little higher.
Also, more and more companies are making it difficult to develop freeware if you are a corporate developer. Many companies now claim that they own everything that you do even on your own time, or at least have very strict rules about using company assests (their development tools) to do personal work.
These combined together have hurt "free" software on windows. The financial side keeps young programmers from developing "free" software, as they desparately need to recover their costs. The business side keeps many professional programmers from contributing as they don't want to fight the corporate battles to defend what they are doing. I know several folks in both categories. Most of the young folks are moving to Linux where the tools are much less expensive and the professional guys are finding things to do besides computer work on their own time.
My thoughts exactly. Let's reward those that have little or no patience. While we are at it, we must punish those that have self-control. If one has the self-control to not lose their temper with an inanimate object then one's length of time on hold will be increased.
The real answer is to put people to work answering the phone. Yes, they cost more than the computer system costs in the short term, but all your customers are happier in the long run also. Besides that, if more people are working the cost can be distributed to more customers and the economy improves, etc.
In the long run everyone would be better off! Well, except the guy that invented and probably patented this concept. And if we crush his patent aren't we better off also?
QUIET! Let the OP leave if he/she doesn't love CS enough to go for it anyway. Sounds like the sort that would make a "good" lawyer anyway. If all they are interested in is the money, we don't want them in our profession anyway. And it seems to me that all most lawyers are interested in is finding a way to make a quick buck off someone else.
Maybe someday half the population will be lawyers and they will each have only one client. Did you ever thing about the fact that that means that the rest of us (the non-lawyers) will have to work enough to support 3 people? Ourself, our lawyer, and the one that is suing us for something trivial. And on top of that we won't be able to work anyway because we will be in court so much of the time to make the lawyers look productive that no real work will ever get done. Maybe that is what happened to the dinosaurs, they invented law and lawyers and it drove them to extinction.
As to lawyers, there was a bad accident around here the other day. Seems a bus that would hold 60 people ran off a bridge. It had 59 lawyers on board on their way to a meeting and all were drowned. The bad part is that there was one empty seat:-)
I agree that the freedom we enjoy in the US is because of the sacrifice of life by our fore fathers. Many men and women have given their lifes or given a part of their life that we might have this freedom and they should be honored. Our freedoms also exist bacause of the laws under which we live. Those men and women that died (assuming they were in the US Military) took an oath to defend this country and the Constitution of the United States (our laws).
However, let's be careful about the being held hostage part above. There are multiple ways that can be taken.
The message to which you are replying is talking about someone breaking the law of the land (speeding). Allowing this person to break the law of the land is actually tarnishing that for which those men and women died. And in this case the life that would be saved might not actually be a sacrifice (their own life), but the death of an innocent. I also have a problem seeing how someone killing themselves by speeding would have anything to do with defending our freedoms.
The author of the original message probably could have worded the comment at the end of their message a little better. But speeding is not a freedom, it is a violation of a freedom. To allow law enforcement officers to issue tickets based on GPS would not be giving up a freedom.
While I agree that many are using the sound byte (If it could...) you quoted way too much and are giving up freedoms, please be careful in how you argue against its use.
Surely you remember the line by Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan in real life) from M*A*S*H. I don't remember it exactly, but essentially it was that cows are a homely creature and we are doing them a favor by eating them. He was referring to the Korean people eating horse meat which caused problems with using American vaccines that were developed in horses.
Culture is a wonderful thing, but it sure does cause some weird things in life.
Amen!!! I avoided certain teachers when I was getting my Computer Science degree because they graded homework. They weren't better teachers because they did or didn't grade homework, I just didn't agree with it in advanced classes.
People in college are paying a great deal of money to be there in most cases (or their parents are paying it). If they don't want to learn, it should not be the teachers responsibility to drag them along kicking a screaming by grading homework. If the student doesn't know how to take responsibility by the time they are in advanced (Jr. and Sr. level) classes, they will likely never learn.
Oh, I should say that I was a non-traditional student while getting my CS degree at 30 years old, working full-time, and a family. Homework was not high on my list of priorities, unless I really needed the extra work for the grade that I wanted in a particular class. But even in my days of study at traditional college age, I took the responsibility to study the amount that was necessary for the grades I expected. College age students are supposed to be mature (at least relatively) and there are classes in every field of study to weed out the students that will not succeed in the long run.
Or maybe this will work. It should scale well to any size material and it can cover just about any type of surface as well. Your quality is only limited by your skills.
Sorry I just couldn't resist this one folks:-) But seriously, why does everything have to be robotics? People are cheap today also with unemployment soaring.
And on top of that, some of them return the virus with the message. Therefore, it you don't have virus protection (which is stupid) and your address is forged on one, you might get a copy and also get infected.
There are people out there that don't understand that email addresses are easy to forge. I had two people last night a church services comment about me sending them a virus. I never check email with anything except Linux at home and even at that I have virus scanning on and working to make sure. I also received a few messages bounced by corporate systems that included the virus within the message they sent me, to "notify me that I was infected". Glad I wasn't on Windows.
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in some vinyl siding for your, uh, cave?
(PHONE)Click
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in some low cost life insurance?
(Bin Laden) Will it pay if I am killed in an act of war or terrorism?
(TM) No, but just about anything else
(PHONE)Click
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in our new premium telephone service, it will save you lots of money?
(Bin Laden) Is it guaranteed free of wire taps?
(TM) No, but it is cheap.
(PHONE)Click
(TM)Mr. Saddam, can I interest you in a new low interest mortgage on your palace in Bagdad?
(PHONE)Click
(TM)Mr. Saddam, can I interest you in changing your long distance service to XXX?
(Saddam)I don't need long distance service, I don't trust anyone I can't see.
(PHONE)Click
See, it doesn't matter, those guys would hang up on the too.
Actually what this means is that Kansas lays on the globe at a point where the Semi-Major Axis and the Semi-Minor Axis are almost equal, thus Kansas is a near perfect spheriod. A perfect spheriod at the diameter of the earth would seem flat (in human terms) and is thus called flat.
While I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion in this experiment. I do believe that it meets the definition of improbable research. I give these guys credit on innovative thinking and wonder what they could do on a real research project with a real definition.
You are correct. During the time that they were Messaging Direct, they got heavily into e-Commerce type stuff (secure delivery of information, bill presentation, etc) and left the email client business. They are now a part of ACI Worldwide. For some reason I could not remember the Messaging Direct name.
I kept my personal copy of ExecMail running just as long as I could (the linux version never got out of beta, but I was a beta tester for it and had a license granted to me for my efforts in helping with testing their products). Finally, it got unstable due to system upgrades, and differing libraries and me moving to SuSE when they were using RedHat. But I do still miss it's feature of being able to catagorize message within a single folder by various headers. I also really liked the configuration capability of using IMSP to configure it. I could setup different email users on a single machine and they didn't conflict with each other or have access to each others personal/private information.
Re:Buzzwords
on
Opengroupware
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· Score: 3, Interesting
My experiences are a little different than yours. Where I presently work, we use Exchange/Outlook for groupware. Some of the folks use it and use it well, however most use it as email (similar to your experience) or because they are forced to use it by their manager.
However, at my previous job, we didn't use a groupware package. We had a real X.500 directory server for addressing within the organization, we had an email system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA, we had a calendaring system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA and the email system (at the server). We had shared email folders via the email server and shared addressbooks via the email server also.
EMail as based on IMAP, SMTP, and IMSP and came from a company then known as Esys, later ExecMail, not sure if they even exist anymore). Their server was basically the same as the cyrus code. The calendar was CorporateTime (later Steltor and now Oracle). We used Palm Pilot handhelds that sync'ed with the calendars just fine. And later even added support for Windows CE (I left there before it was renamed PocketPC but I am sure that it worked as well).
We had about 3500 email users (all the full time employees of the organization) and close to 1000 calendar users (most of the professional and management type employees). We had about 90% of the users actually using the systems. Everyone was given a training class on proper usage of the systems by our in-house training staff and everyone was confident that they knew how to use the systems.
I attribute the usage of the systems to three things. First was training the users to use the systems (not every bell and whistle, but what they needed). Second was the fact that we didn't look for everything in one package, but got the best of class for each individual area. Third was that the packages would actually loosely integrate together.
That is what I would look for today, if I were assigned to get a groupware system together for a company. Unfortunately, with too many people interested in getting everything under one hood, it is getting difficult to get best of class applications. This is true in everything including office suites, office automation (otherwise known as groupware), etc. I have, to this day, never found an email client that I liked as well as the client from ExecMail. It had features that I have never found anywhere else. WordPerfect still tries to fall under my fingers occassionally for WordProcessing (however, I never really liked the rest of their suite.
I collect 12" action figures. I am starting to sew my own uniforms for them and get together an entire platoon of soldiers to recreate an actual unit of men. I enjoy doing this with my son who also has his own group of 12" action figures.
There is model railroading. My son, daughter, and I are starting to build a 15'x30' N-Scale empire in part of our basement. It is on the drawing board (which happens to be a computer, but as a tool for the hobby) and benchwork is ready to start soon.
I do volunteer work with my church, especially with the youth group. My wife and I host youth devotionals (no I am not a Catholic priest or bishop) and are active with other groups in the congregation.
I also help my Mom with genealogical research (no I am not Mormon). It is interesting to travel around and visit the old cemeteries and dig through the records. It is almost as much fun as designing and writing a program. It definitely helps me understand myself better.
We home school our children and that always provides something interesting to be involved with. I participate in our cover school group as regularly as is possible. Especially with field trips, etc.
Those things, two children, a job, and a house to take care of pretty much eats up 168 hours each week. And then occassionally throw in a trip to see an air show, ride a train, see a zoo or aquarium, etc. and life is fun, full, and a computer seems like a break!
My questions are even simpler (in one sense). How does one duplicate THE creation of THE universe (emphasis added)? THE implies one and only one (as does universe), but apparently there are now two. Did they recreate THE creation, thus THE universe has been created twice (not possible)? Or did they create a new universe so that there is not a "THE universe"? Given these options, what are they naming their creation and how do we go visit? Also what are we calling THE universe as it can't be a universe anymore because it isn't universal and it isn't singular thus no THE?
Because it is version 2.30 and doesn't support so many of the things that would be nice. I was looking at doing a project that I wanted to do as OSS and use QT for it so that it would work on Linux and Windows. However, I needed database access into grids, etc. Great QT 3.x supports that with no problem. Ooops, only QT 2.3 for Windows.
I sent TrollTech an email asking if the 3.x version of QT was going to be released for Non-Commercial use. The answer was basically no as that is how we make our money and we can't kill the goose that is laying the golden egg.
Now that begs the question of will the shutdown non-commercial for Linux if it becomes a big player on the desktop? I know that they say that they won't do that, but they were big into the non-commercial license for MS-Windows when it released.
But John Glenn is/was an astronaut and he understands that those guys and gals are explorers. Most would probably go for the ride even if they knew they wouldn't come back and they all go knowing that they might not come back.
If they would launch me in a shuttle tomorrow, I would go happily. I would bet that a large number of/. readers would agree to go also (hint that might be a good/. poll question).
Compare these explorers with explorers of times past. Columbus lost large numbers of his crew, as did Coronado and DeSoto. Anytime people have gone into an unknown frontier large numbers have not returned. The space programs of the USA and the USSR (now Russia) have lost several people, but the loses have been much less than any other exploration in history.
Now don't think that I don't grieve for the lost heros, because I do. I wish that we could explore space with no loose of life.
You have to remember that building a new system takes a lot of time. Marshall SFC is already working on a space plane but it isn't scheduled to be ready for some number of years. I am including a quote from the Huntsville Times below:
Former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, who flew into space on a shuttle mission in 1998 and was the first American to orbit the Earth in a 1962 Mercury mission, told The Times the space plane might be "too expensive, too complex and probably too late to fit the station's needs."
This was from an article concerning what to use to replace the shuttles for the needs of ISS. In another article he also stated.
Glenn compared the situation with the space shuttle to the airline system.
"Airplanes fall out of the sky, and you don't stop flying," Glenn said.
BTW, in one of the two articles quoted above John Glenn proposed a re-entry sphere that is heat shielded and equiped with parachutes and oxygen. This could splash-down in the earth's oceans for recovery. This would be used for emergency and medical evacuation from the ISS. Sounds logical to me.
Also John Glenn has several times stated that the science is important and that the ISS needs to got to full staffing of 6 or 7 ASAP. The re-entry sphere would allow that to happen rapidly and is likely why he supports that idea.
Disclaimer : I do live in the Huntsville area, but I am not in anyway affliated with Marshall SFC or NASA.
I have a friend that works for a company (Emerging Systems, Inc.) that does NAS. I don't believe that they have 1394, but they definitely do RAID. You might check them out at www.esysinc.com.
I understand what you are saying for a system. But who is going to bid Open Office for an office solution (unless it is going with a computer), or who is going to bid Apache if they are looking for a web server (unless it is part of a complete system). There are places like this that Open Source Software can make major inroads but presently can't even compete.
Yes, if given the opportunity OSS can compete on projects. The other part of that is given the opportunity to compete. Remember that many governments have a bid list and if you aren't on the bid list, you don't even get an invitation to bid on projects.
I still support a bill that would require OSS to be given a fair footing.
I would however be in favor of laws (and I suspect they already exist) that indicate government contracts have to be bid out and decided upon by 1) The best solution and 2) the lowest bid.
This would likely eliminate OSS in the process. After all who is going to do the bidding with OSS when the software is all that is needed, such as a web server? While I don't think that laws should be passed demanding that OSS always be used, I think that it should be considered before the purchase of any software. If a suitable substitute exists, then it should be used. And I also believe that all specifications should be thoroughly checked to verify that they haven't been written so that only one vendor/product can meet the specs.
I agree whole heartedly that fast food is BAD. I simply used McDonald's as an example. Fast Food resturants know how to market to the younger folks in our families. They put that hugh playground in the front of the store that is bigger than anything in the park even. They put those cheap toys in the bag with the food and then advertise it everywhere. Once the youngster is school age (I have a 10 year old that is NOW home schooled), they figure out how to get into the schools as rewards for contests (Pizza Hut is a sponser for a reading program around here at least). Youngsters are social creatures and they do talk to each other and once one goes somewhere and gets the latest toy, the others "have to have it".
And you are certainly right that the entire blame finally rests with the parents. I am guilty of not enforcing that my children eat as they should on occassions. However, I in no way meant that McDonald's was the only place to eat. I simply meant that if you are going to eat out and ask you child/children where they would like to eat, McDonald's will likely be the answer.
And how long would it take to get Microsoft Office running on OpenBSD? At least you have the possibility of getting OO.o to work. If it were closed source, there would be no hope. Since OO.o is an open source project, you could conceivably help find the root problems and submit fixes for them.
Also, you can't expect all open source software to run on all platforms coming out of the chute. Most open source developers, don't have the resources to have one of each operating system and each platform for testing. You will likely find more that will work on Linux as it is the most popular open source operating system, and less on the x86 BSD systems and then even less on the PowerPC and Sparc based systems.
It's funny to see to what lengths Christians (and other Religious fanatics) will go to in order to justify their paranoid delusions.
I take offense to at least some of the above statement. I don't believe that you should group Christians and "other Religious fanatics" together like that. I realize that I am taking an unpopular stand here, but just because a person is a Christian doesn't mean that he is a paranoid delusional or a religious fanatic.
The message to which you responded was obviously a flamebait. If Bill Gates were truly a Christian, then Microsoft wouldn't be the company that it is. He would deal ethically with his fellow man and even his competitors. The person that wrote the post to which you refer went about as far in finding every "mark of satan" in Linux (and some based on untruths i.e. Linux came from BSD?) as some do in finding the same things about Bill Gates and Microsoft.
If you look hard enough, you will find fault with everything on earth. After all the world as we know it is not a perfect place. BTW, "Thou Shall Not Kill" is better translated as "Thou Shall Not Murder" and there is a difference in Murder (cold blooded) and killing in war. While I do not support religious wars, I do not feel that war in and of itself is wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I have made some drums from large PVC pipe once upon a time. I was walking along and came across a construction site and they were throwing out some 12 inch PVC pieces (no longer that a couple feet long). I took several and built a set of tom-toms from them. I gave them to a friend as a present later, but they didn't sound too bad at all. Sure looked funny though.
I also made some custom mallets for keyboard percussion use. I made some very nice bell (glockenspiel) mallets out of 1/2" brass, they gave a very brilliant sound to the bells. I also made a couple of pairs from 1" brass, which gave a much heavier and darker tone but they were extremely hard to control due to their weight. I made several pairs of mallets from maple also. They were about an inch in diameter and were finished with an oil finish. They sounded extremely nice on a xylophone or on bells. I used a pair of them to wrap a set of mallets for vibes as well (using a cord wrapping). I wasn't terribly pleased with them on vibes as they were a little more abrupt than I was hoping. Unfortunately, my time to work with them was taken over for a need to practice again (I was getting a degree in music at the time, it was before I discovered computers).
Since that time I have built assorted percussion instruments for my children. We occassionally pickup something and see what kind of sounds we can get from it and see how we can modify it to produce other sounds. It is an interesting pass time occassionally.
You sure would. A system that is likely to be attached by worms and virii at will. Decoupling the OS, desktop, and applications to some degree is what is required to secure them better. That doesn't mean that there can't be some exposed API, but it needs to be controlled much better than the M$ implementation.
Admittedly, from what little I have seen, they seem to be getting a little better as they release bug fixes (I believe they call them upgrades and charge large amounts of money for them), but we need to learn from their mistake and not repeat it just so that we can have exactly the same feature set. If a user has to push an extra button or so, then so be it. They will learn and the probably won't appreciate it in the long run. But, they also won't know what they are missing either, because soo many of them don't know that they are infected already.
That was covered in the "more secure" line.
Along the same lines is the expense of developing on the Windows Platform. If you use actual legal copies of Microsoft's development tools, the cost is somewhat significant. This makes the bar to being able to afford to develop freeware a little higher.
Also, more and more companies are making it difficult to develop freeware if you are a corporate developer. Many companies now claim that they own everything that you do even on your own time, or at least have very strict rules about using company assests (their development tools) to do personal work.
These combined together have hurt "free" software on windows. The financial side keeps young programmers from developing "free" software, as they desparately need to recover their costs. The business side keeps many professional programmers from contributing as they don't want to fight the corporate battles to defend what they are doing. I know several folks in both categories. Most of the young folks are moving to Linux where the tools are much less expensive and the professional guys are finding things to do besides computer work on their own time.
My thoughts exactly. Let's reward those that have little or no patience. While we are at it, we must punish those that have self-control. If one has the self-control to not lose their temper with an inanimate object then one's length of time on hold will be increased.
The real answer is to put people to work answering the phone. Yes, they cost more than the computer system costs in the short term, but all your customers are happier in the long run also. Besides that, if more people are working the cost can be distributed to more customers and the economy improves, etc.
In the long run everyone would be better off! Well, except the guy that invented and probably patented this concept. And if we crush his patent aren't we better off also?
QUIET! Let the OP leave if he/she doesn't love CS enough to go for it anyway. Sounds like the sort that would make a "good" lawyer anyway. If all they are interested in is the money, we don't want them in our profession anyway. And it seems to me that all most lawyers are interested in is finding a way to make a quick buck off someone else.
:-)
Maybe someday half the population will be lawyers and they will each have only one client. Did you ever thing about the fact that that means that the rest of us (the non-lawyers) will have to work enough to support 3 people? Ourself, our lawyer, and the one that is suing us for something trivial. And on top of that we won't be able to work anyway because we will be in court so much of the time to make the lawyers look productive that no real work will ever get done. Maybe that is what happened to the dinosaurs, they invented law and lawyers and it drove them to extinction.
As to lawyers, there was a bad accident around here the other day. Seems a bus that would hold 60 people ran off a bridge. It had 59 lawyers on board on their way to a meeting and all were drowned. The bad part is that there was one empty seat
I agree that the freedom we enjoy in the US is because of the sacrifice of life by our fore fathers. Many men and women have given their lifes or given a part of their life that we might have this freedom and they should be honored. Our freedoms also exist bacause of the laws under which we live. Those men and women that died (assuming they were in the US Military) took an oath to defend this country and the Constitution of the United States (our laws).
...) you quoted way too much and are giving up freedoms, please be careful in how you argue against its use.
However, let's be careful about the being held hostage part above. There are multiple ways that can be taken.
The message to which you are replying is talking about someone breaking the law of the land (speeding). Allowing this person to break the law of the land is actually tarnishing that for which those men and women died. And in this case the life that would be saved might not actually be a sacrifice (their own life), but the death of an innocent. I also have a problem seeing how someone killing themselves by speeding would have anything to do with defending our freedoms.
The author of the original message probably could have worded the comment at the end of their message a little better. But speeding is not a freedom, it is a violation of a freedom. To allow law enforcement officers to issue tickets based on GPS would not be giving up a freedom.
While I agree that many are using the sound byte (If it could
Surely you remember the line by Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan in real life) from M*A*S*H. I don't remember it exactly, but essentially it was that cows are a homely creature and we are doing them a favor by eating them. He was referring to the Korean people eating horse meat which caused problems with using American vaccines that were developed in horses.
Culture is a wonderful thing, but it sure does cause some weird things in life.
Amen!!! I avoided certain teachers when I was getting my Computer Science degree because they graded homework. They weren't better teachers because they did or didn't grade homework, I just didn't agree with it in advanced classes.
People in college are paying a great deal of money to be there in most cases (or their parents are paying it). If they don't want to learn, it should not be the teachers responsibility to drag them along kicking a screaming by grading homework. If the student doesn't know how to take responsibility by the time they are in advanced (Jr. and Sr. level) classes, they will likely never learn.
Oh, I should say that I was a non-traditional student while getting my CS degree at 30 years old, working full-time, and a family. Homework was not high on my list of priorities, unless I really needed the extra work for the grade that I wanted in a particular class. But even in my days of study at traditional college age, I took the responsibility to study the amount that was necessary for the grades I expected. College age students are supposed to be mature (at least relatively) and there are classes in every field of study to weed out the students that will not succeed in the long run.
Or maybe this will work. It should scale well to any size material and it can cover just about any type of surface as well. Your quality is only limited by your skills.
:-) But seriously, why does everything have to be robotics? People are cheap today also with unemployment soaring.
Sorry I just couldn't resist this one folks
And on top of that, some of them return the virus with the message. Therefore, it you don't have virus protection (which is stupid) and your address is forged on one, you might get a copy and also get infected.
There are people out there that don't understand that email addresses are easy to forge. I had two people last night a church services comment about me sending them a virus. I never check email with anything except Linux at home and even at that I have virus scanning on and working to make sure. I also received a few messages bounced by corporate systems that included the virus within the message they sent me, to "notify me that I was infected". Glad I wasn't on Windows.
I can see it now.
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in some vinyl siding for your, uh, cave?
(PHONE)Click
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in some low cost life insurance?
(Bin Laden) Will it pay if I am killed in an act of war or terrorism?
(TM) No, but just about anything else
(PHONE)Click
(TM) Mr. Bin Laden, can I interest you in our new premium telephone service, it will save you lots of money?
(Bin Laden) Is it guaranteed free of wire taps?
(TM) No, but it is cheap.
(PHONE)Click
(TM)Mr. Saddam, can I interest you in a new low interest mortgage on your palace in Bagdad?
(PHONE)Click
(TM)Mr. Saddam, can I interest you in changing your long distance service to XXX?
(Saddam)I don't need long distance service, I don't trust anyone I can't see.
(PHONE)Click
See, it doesn't matter, those guys would hang up on the too.
Actually what this means is that Kansas lays on the globe at a point where the Semi-Major Axis and the Semi-Minor Axis are almost equal, thus Kansas is a near perfect spheriod. A perfect spheriod at the diameter of the earth would seem flat (in human terms) and is thus called flat.
While I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion in this experiment. I do believe that it meets the definition of improbable research. I give these guys credit on innovative thinking and wonder what they could do on a real research project with a real definition.
You are correct. During the time that they were Messaging Direct, they got heavily into e-Commerce type stuff (secure delivery of information, bill presentation, etc) and left the email client business. They are now a part of ACI Worldwide. For some reason I could not remember the Messaging Direct name.
I kept my personal copy of ExecMail running just as long as I could (the linux version never got out of beta, but I was a beta tester for it and had a license granted to me for my efforts in helping with testing their products). Finally, it got unstable due to system upgrades, and differing libraries and me moving to SuSE when they were using RedHat. But I do still miss it's feature of being able to catagorize message within a single folder by various headers. I also really liked the configuration capability of using IMSP to configure it. I could setup different email users on a single machine and they didn't conflict with each other or have access to each others personal/private information.
My experiences are a little different than yours. Where I presently work, we use Exchange/Outlook for groupware. Some of the folks use it and use it well, however most use it as email (similar to your experience) or because they are forced to use it by their manager.
However, at my previous job, we didn't use a groupware package. We had a real X.500 directory server for addressing within the organization, we had an email system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA, we had a calendaring system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA and the email system (at the server). We had shared email folders via the email server and shared addressbooks via the email server also.
EMail as based on IMAP, SMTP, and IMSP and came from a company then known as Esys, later ExecMail, not sure if they even exist anymore). Their server was basically the same as the cyrus code. The calendar was CorporateTime (later Steltor and now Oracle). We used Palm Pilot handhelds that sync'ed with the calendars just fine. And later even added support for Windows CE (I left there before it was renamed PocketPC but I am sure that it worked as well).
We had about 3500 email users (all the full time employees of the organization) and close to 1000 calendar users (most of the professional and management type employees). We had about 90% of the users actually using the systems. Everyone was given a training class on proper usage of the systems by our in-house training staff and everyone was confident that they knew how to use the systems.
I attribute the usage of the systems to three things. First was training the users to use the systems (not every bell and whistle, but what they needed). Second was the fact that we didn't look for everything in one package, but got the best of class for each individual area. Third was that the packages would actually loosely integrate together.
That is what I would look for today, if I were assigned to get a groupware system together for a company. Unfortunately, with too many people interested in getting everything under one hood, it is getting difficult to get best of class applications. This is true in everything including office suites, office automation (otherwise known as groupware), etc. I have, to this day, never found an email client that I liked as well as the client from ExecMail. It had features that I have never found anywhere else. WordPerfect still tries to fall under my fingers occassionally for WordProcessing (however, I never really liked the rest of their suite.
I collect 12" action figures. I am starting to sew my own uniforms for them and get together an entire platoon of soldiers to recreate an actual unit of men. I enjoy doing this with my son who also has his own group of 12" action figures.
There is model railroading. My son, daughter, and I are starting to build a 15'x30' N-Scale empire in part of our basement. It is on the drawing board (which happens to be a computer, but as a tool for the hobby) and benchwork is ready to start soon.
I do volunteer work with my church, especially with the youth group. My wife and I host youth devotionals (no I am not a Catholic priest or bishop) and are active with other groups in the congregation.
I also help my Mom with genealogical research (no I am not Mormon). It is interesting to travel around and visit the old cemeteries and dig through the records. It is almost as much fun as designing and writing a program. It definitely helps me understand myself better.
We home school our children and that always provides something interesting to be involved with. I participate in our cover school group as regularly as is possible. Especially with field trips, etc.
Those things, two children, a job, and a house to take care of pretty much eats up 168 hours each week. And then occassionally throw in a trip to see an air show, ride a train, see a zoo or aquarium, etc. and life is fun, full, and a computer seems like a break!
My questions are even simpler (in one sense). How does one duplicate THE creation of THE universe (emphasis added)? THE implies one and only one (as does universe), but apparently there are now two. Did they recreate THE creation, thus THE universe has been created twice (not possible)? Or did they create a new universe so that there is not a "THE universe"? Given these options, what are they naming their creation and how do we go visit? Also what are we calling THE universe as it can't be a universe anymore because it isn't universal and it isn't singular thus no THE?
Because it is version 2.30 and doesn't support so many of the things that would be nice. I was looking at doing a project that I wanted to do as OSS and use QT for it so that it would work on Linux and Windows. However, I needed database access into grids, etc. Great QT 3.x supports that with no problem. Ooops, only QT 2.3 for Windows.
I sent TrollTech an email asking if the 3.x version of QT was going to be released for Non-Commercial use. The answer was basically no as that is how we make our money and we can't kill the goose that is laying the golden egg.
Now that begs the question of will the shutdown non-commercial for Linux if it becomes a big player on the desktop? I know that they say that they won't do that, but they were big into the non-commercial license for MS-Windows when it released.
But John Glenn is/was an astronaut and he understands that those guys and gals are explorers. Most would probably go for the ride even if they knew they wouldn't come back and they all go knowing that they might not come back.
/. readers would agree to go also (hint that might be a good /. poll question).
If they would launch me in a shuttle tomorrow, I would go happily. I would bet that a large number of
Compare these explorers with explorers of times past. Columbus lost large numbers of his crew, as did Coronado and DeSoto. Anytime people have gone into an unknown frontier large numbers have not returned. The space programs of the USA and the USSR (now Russia) have lost several people, but the loses have been much less than any other exploration in history.
Now don't think that I don't grieve for the lost heros, because I do. I wish that we could explore space with no loose of life.
Also John Glenn has several times stated that the science is important and that the ISS needs to got to full staffing of 6 or 7 ASAP. The re-entry sphere would allow that to happen rapidly and is likely why he supports that idea.
Disclaimer : I do live in the Huntsville area, but I am not in anyway affliated with Marshall SFC or NASA.
I have a friend that works for a company (Emerging Systems, Inc.) that does NAS. I don't believe that they have 1394, but they definitely do RAID. You might check them out at www.esysinc.com.
I understand what you are saying for a system. But who is going to bid Open Office for an office solution (unless it is going with a computer), or who is going to bid Apache if they are looking for a web server (unless it is part of a complete system). There are places like this that Open Source Software can make major inroads but presently can't even compete.
Yes, if given the opportunity OSS can compete on projects. The other part of that is given the opportunity to compete. Remember that many governments have a bid list and if you aren't on the bid list, you don't even get an invitation to bid on projects.
I still support a bill that would require OSS to be given a fair footing.
I would however be in favor of laws (and I suspect they already exist) that indicate government contracts have to be bid out and decided upon by 1) The best solution and 2) the lowest bid. This would likely eliminate OSS in the process. After all who is going to do the bidding with OSS when the software is all that is needed, such as a web server? While I don't think that laws should be passed demanding that OSS always be used, I think that it should be considered before the purchase of any software. If a suitable substitute exists, then it should be used. And I also believe that all specifications should be thoroughly checked to verify that they haven't been written so that only one vendor/product can meet the specs.
I agree whole heartedly that fast food is BAD. I simply used McDonald's as an example. Fast Food resturants know how to market to the younger folks in our families. They put that hugh playground in the front of the store that is bigger than anything in the park even. They put those cheap toys in the bag with the food and then advertise it everywhere. Once the youngster is school age (I have a 10 year old that is NOW home schooled), they figure out how to get into the schools as rewards for contests (Pizza Hut is a sponser for a reading program around here at least). Youngsters are social creatures and they do talk to each other and once one goes somewhere and gets the latest toy, the others "have to have it".
And you are certainly right that the entire blame finally rests with the parents. I am guilty of not enforcing that my children eat as they should on occassions. However, I in no way meant that McDonald's was the only place to eat. I simply meant that if you are going to eat out and ask you child/children where they would like to eat, McDonald's will likely be the answer.
And how long would it take to get Microsoft Office running on OpenBSD? At least you have the possibility of getting OO.o to work. If it were closed source, there would be no hope. Since OO.o is an open source project, you could conceivably help find the root problems and submit fixes for them.
Also, you can't expect all open source software to run on all platforms coming out of the chute. Most open source developers, don't have the resources to have one of each operating system and each platform for testing. You will likely find more that will work on Linux as it is the most popular open source operating system, and less on the x86 BSD systems and then even less on the PowerPC and Sparc based systems.
It's funny to see to what lengths Christians (and other Religious fanatics) will go to in order to justify their paranoid delusions.
I take offense to at least some of the above statement. I don't believe that you should group Christians and "other Religious fanatics" together like that. I realize that I am taking an unpopular stand here, but just because a person is a Christian doesn't mean that he is a paranoid delusional or a religious fanatic.
The message to which you responded was obviously a flamebait. If Bill Gates were truly a Christian, then Microsoft wouldn't be the company that it is. He would deal ethically with his fellow man and even his competitors. The person that wrote the post to which you refer went about as far in finding every "mark of satan" in Linux (and some based on untruths i.e. Linux came from BSD?) as some do in finding the same things about Bill Gates and Microsoft.
If you look hard enough, you will find fault with everything on earth. After all the world as we know it is not a perfect place. BTW, "Thou Shall Not Kill" is better translated as "Thou Shall Not Murder" and there is a difference in Murder (cold blooded) and killing in war. While I do not support religious wars, I do not feel that war in and of itself is wrong.