There's a symbolic math package called Octave that's opensource & such... I remember running it under Solaris, Linux, and AIX... http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave/
Sounds good. Of course, that kills interoperability somewhat in that I can't just bring my laptop over and be on your LAN, unless you give me the key. So not bad for home users, but maybe not what you want to put into all your field offices unless you *like* teaching salesdroids to rekey their wireless cards.
My only problem with the webgear stuff is that it's FH, not DS ; only the DS stuff will go 11Mbps... plus the DS stuff is what we've got at the office:)
Good point; I had forgotten the Adhoc/Infrastructure mode bit. OTOH, I know from experience that the APs are just embedded boards that themselves contain a wireless card; it's just a matter of flipping the right mode bit on the card. I've actually heard of people turning 2Mbps APs into 11Mbps APs by upgrading the cards and the AP firmware (lesse, $200 for the card plus free firmware upgrade vs. $1700(at the time) for a new 11Mbps AP vs. $400 to get a 'factory' upgrade... which of these would YOU pick?)
So you're right, it's a bit more than making just a bridge, but not much more, and certainly nothing you shouldn't be able to do on a linux box...
>Nobody has said anything here (yet) about the security of wireless LAN cards. If I run a tape backup across my LAN can someone sit outside my house and scoop it all up?
Pretty much. Minor security in the form of an SSID that will keep the naive user from connecting to your net (it's really a way to run multiple wireless subnets that overlap), but nothing to stop the sophisticated user. Tcpdump works fine. So SSH is your friend. But of course the Men In Black have Tempest technology.
A large part of the problem is that the recording industry has come to rely upon a technological solution (lack of availability of the technology to make distribution of data easy) to the, basically social, problem of theft (violation of copyright). In a sense, they've been able to maintain their stranglehold on distribution and reproduction rights by taking advantage of the barrier to entry of acquiring sufficient technology to break the rules.
Now technology is cheap, and they are finding that they cannot long maintain their iron grip on distribution channels and rights. Their technological solution to the problem is no longer viable, and so they thrash about looking for a substitute; thus far they've looked very hard and failed, which they will continue to do as long as the nature of their solution remains technological and not some social measure such as a change in the law, or the promulgation of changed attitudes.
They're really in a place where a new law and/or a good ad campaign could help them more than all the cryptographic tricks in the book. Not that there's any chance they'll remain unscathed; after all, much of the value add of huge distribution channels and mass publishing goes away with the advent of the internet. It remains to be seen what other abilities the recording industry brings to the table.
Could have been.. the original release of Illuminati, was, I believe in a 'pocket box' format (that little black plastic case you mention). You'll likely never see that format again (the molds for the cases were literally broken and would be expen$ive to replace).
If IBM is giving away the entire board spec, including layout, partspec and even circuit board art, well.. what do these things cost to get made in short runs of, say, 5 or 10 or 25 or 100? I can see it now: Slashdot-branded motherboards!
IBM's providing the "source", all we need is to "compile" it. It'd be cool to order my motherboard from a local board shop instead of overseas or whatever...
Some ABIT motherboards can be strapped with a jumper between the reset and power switch connectors to make them act in an 'always on' fashion like AT motherboards do.
If you feel like experimenting a bit, you can look in electronics parts catalogs for POST transistors... these basically act like delayed momentary-on relays. One lead goes to +5V, the others go to the power-switch jumper.
http://www.nexpath.com is a PC-based voicemail/autoattendant/etc system. They base their solution on one of the more commercial unices (SCO, I think), but linux drivers for their boards have recently appeared on their ftp site (ftp://ftp.nexpath.com/pub/linux).
To people crying censorship: The basic wrongness of censorship is not the suppression of free speech or the right to be heard, but the big-brotherish 'I know better than you' decision that someone _OTHER THAN THE INDIVIDUAL_ has control over what the individual is allowed to see. For better or for worse, I'm the only one with the right to decide what I want to see. So don't try and stop me from seeing things I want. Similarly, don't try and force me to see things I don't want.
1) You're arguing like an email spammer - 'You shouldn't block spam because you might find something interesting in it'. Yes, I might. But *I* find that risk (of missing something interesting) acceptable. So I block spam. Similarly, when I make the decision to filter the posts of certain people from mailing lists I'm on, it means that _to me_, the cost of wading through the crap to get to a few gems is too high. You wouldn't suggest that I MUST spend all my money (time) on high-risk stocks (random people's opinions) in the hope of getting lucky and striking it rich (finding useful or interesting opinions), when I can rather put that money (time) into something like a managed fund (filtered site) or, if I so deem, get a brokerage account and do my own trading (personal filtering), would you? (wow, that came out long and bizzare - I hope the basic idea came through)
2) That aside, you seem to be mostly advocating that diversity of opinion is a good thing, and tring to warn that filtering will lead to the narrowing of that diversity. My answer is: Yeah, so? If it's what *I* want, who are you to force your (or anyone's) dogma down my throat? I don't listen to religious radio, the rantings of neo-nazis, or the President's public addresses. I don't read _The National Enquirer_, _Globe_, _The Washington Post_, or the _London Times_ (I'm in Austin, TX). Those are my choices. Yours are probably different. Good for you.
3) As others have pointed out, everyone _already_ filters things, in a fairly informal way. My friends recommend books and movies. They tell me about cool or interesting stories they've heard or read about. I don't read any newspapers, but if I did, it'd probably be the local one and not the one in Bangladesh. I can even get restraining orders against people who harass me constantly in person. How are these filters different from the ability Slashdot gives me to filter out flames, trolls, and 'f1r5+ p05+!' messages? In both cases I basically have to trust the filterer. So, I do. I trust my friends to recommend good books and to keep me at least somewhat up to date if they hear about any cool new stuff going on. I also trust the Slashdot staff and moderators not to waste my time with drivel. But that's my choice. If you don't like it, fine, don't filter. See everything. I'd rather be productive.
As has been stated many times, this article is incredibly misleading. A reorg is not a split. If I want fake news, I'll go to segfault.org. C'mon slashdot, get back to your older, better standards of what's worth reporting... unreliable news is worse than no news at all.
Slashdot Mirror
What's it like not being dead?
There's a symbolic math package called Octave that's opensource & such... I remember running it under Solaris, Linux, and AIX... http://www.che.wisc.edu/octave/
Sounds good. Of course, that kills interoperability somewhat in that I can't just bring my laptop over and be on your LAN, unless you give me the key. So not bad for home users, but maybe not what you want to put into all your field offices unless you *like* teaching salesdroids to rekey their wireless cards.
:)
My only problem with the webgear stuff is that it's FH, not DS ; only the DS stuff will go 11Mbps... plus the DS stuff is what we've got at the office
--Z
Good point; I had forgotten the Adhoc/Infrastructure mode bit. OTOH, I know from experience that the APs are just embedded boards that themselves contain a wireless card; it's just a matter of flipping the right mode bit on the card. I've actually heard of people turning 2Mbps APs into 11Mbps APs by upgrading the cards and the AP firmware (lesse, $200 for the card plus free firmware upgrade vs. $1700(at the time) for a new 11Mbps AP vs. $400 to get a 'factory' upgrade... which of these would YOU pick?)
So you're right, it's a bit more than making just a bridge, but not much more, and certainly nothing you shouldn't be able to do on a linux box...
--Z
>Nobody has said anything here (yet) about the security of wireless LAN cards. If I run a tape backup across my LAN can someone sit outside my house and scoop it all up?
Pretty much. Minor security in the form of an SSID that will keep the naive user from connecting to your net (it's really a way to run multiple wireless subnets that overlap), but nothing to stop the sophisticated user. Tcpdump works fine. So SSH is your friend. But of course the Men In Black have Tempest technology.
--Z
802.11 doesn't specify FH (Frequency Hopping) or DS (Direct Sequencing). DS is what's taking over.
And yes, you also have to pay attention that the frequency is the same (2.4GHz is standard now)
And since the I in IEEE (the standards body that specified 802.11) stands for 'International', I sure hope you can connect with European versions
--Z
>While 802.11 access points would be nice, bridging should be sufficient (at least for me).
Uhm, what do you think an 802.11 AP is, but a bridge between the wireless and wired interfaces?
In the words of Nakor, 'There is no magic.'
--Z
Now technology is cheap, and they are finding that they cannot long maintain their iron grip on distribution channels and rights. Their technological solution to the problem is no longer viable, and so they thrash about looking for a substitute; thus far they've looked very hard and failed, which they will continue to do as long as the nature of their solution remains technological and not some social measure such as a change in the law, or the promulgation of changed attitudes.
They're really in a place where a new law and/or a good ad campaign could help them more than all the cryptographic tricks in the book. Not that there's any chance they'll remain unscathed; after all, much of the value add of huge distribution channels and mass publishing goes away with the advent of the internet. It remains to be seen what other abilities the recording industry brings to the table.
Could have been.. the original release of Illuminati, was, I believe in a 'pocket box' format (that little black plastic case you mention). You'll likely never see that format again (the molds for the cases were literally
broken and would be expen$ive to replace).
If IBM is giving away the entire board spec, including layout, partspec and even circuit board art, well.. what do these things cost to get made in short runs of, say, 5 or 10 or 25 or 100? I can see it now: Slashdot-branded motherboards!
IBM's providing the "source", all we need is to "compile" it. It'd be cool to order my motherboard from a local board shop instead of overseas or whatever...
--Z
There're a couple of options
Some ABIT motherboards can be strapped with a
jumper between the reset and power switch connectors to make them act in an 'always on'
fashion like AT motherboards do.
If you feel like experimenting a bit, you can
look in electronics parts catalogs for POST
transistors... these basically act like delayed
momentary-on relays. One lead goes to +5V,
the others go to the power-switch jumper.
--Z
http://www.nexpath.com is a PC-based voicemail/autoattendant/etc system. They base their solution on one of the more commercial unices (SCO, I think), but linux drivers for their boards have recently appeared on their ftp site (ftp://ftp.nexpath.com/pub/linux).
To people crying censorship: The basic wrongness of censorship is not the suppression of free speech or the right to be heard, but the big-brotherish 'I know better than you' decision that someone _OTHER THAN THE INDIVIDUAL_ has control over what the individual is allowed to see. For better or for worse, I'm the only one with the right to decide what I want to see. So don't try and stop me from seeing things I want. Similarly, don't try and force me to see things I don't want.
1) You're arguing like an email spammer - 'You shouldn't block spam because you might find something interesting in it'. Yes, I might. But *I* find that risk (of missing something interesting) acceptable. So I block spam. Similarly, when I make the decision to filter the posts of certain people from mailing lists I'm on, it means that _to me_, the cost of wading through the crap to get to a few gems is too high. You wouldn't suggest that I MUST spend all my money (time) on high-risk stocks (random people's opinions) in the hope of getting lucky and striking it rich (finding useful or interesting opinions), when I can rather put that money (time) into something like a managed fund (filtered site) or, if I so deem, get a brokerage account and do my own trading (personal filtering), would you? (wow, that came out long and bizzare - I hope the
basic idea came through)
2) That aside, you seem to be mostly advocating that diversity of opinion is a good thing, and tring to warn that filtering will lead to the narrowing of that diversity. My answer is: Yeah, so? If it's what *I* want, who are you to force your (or anyone's) dogma down my throat? I don't listen to religious radio, the rantings of neo-nazis, or the President's public addresses. I don't read _The National Enquirer_, _Globe_, _The Washington Post_, or the _London Times_ (I'm in Austin, TX). Those are my choices. Yours are probably different. Good for you.
3) As others have pointed out, everyone _already_ filters things, in a fairly informal way. My friends recommend books and movies. They tell me about cool or interesting stories they've heard or read about. I don't read any newspapers, but if I did, it'd probably be the local one and not the one in Bangladesh. I can even get restraining orders against people who harass me constantly in person. How are these filters different from the ability Slashdot gives me to filter out flames, trolls, and 'f1r5+ p05+!' messages? In both cases I basically have to trust the filterer. So, I do. I trust my friends to recommend good books and to keep me at least somewhat up to date if they hear about any cool new stuff going on. I also trust the Slashdot staff and moderators not to waste my time with drivel. But that's my choice. If you don't like it, fine, don't filter. See everything. I'd rather be productive.
As has been stated many times, this article is incredibly misleading. A reorg is not a split. If I want fake news, I'll go to segfault.org.
C'mon slashdot, get back to your older, better standards of what's worth reporting... unreliable news is worse than no news at all.