"The constant storytelling -- about problems
and solutions, about disasters and triumphs, over breakfast, lunch and coffee -- serves a number of overlapping purposes,"
Goldysoft and the Three eBears
Once upon a time, there were three computers, a big server, a medium server, and a small server...
If no one can even agree that global warming is in fact happening, how can we agree on a course of action? We have proof, hard evidence, that the earth went through very significant climatic changes, all by itself, long before we introduced greenhouse gasses. And trying to predict what will happen by measuring temperatures and atmospheric ozone content is like trying to predict the weather. I agree that if we are causing harm to the environment, we should do something about it. But I also think that we should understand what we're fighting before we fight it. Not understanding the problem would be like trying to fight a fire by guessing at what liquid to throw on it.
Public schools are already making great strides in giving our students these opportunities, but private schools lag far behind (and public schools are starting to join them). This is why it's more imperative than ever that we oppose school-voucher programs. Students must be kept in the environments where we're already seeing successes like Josh's.
I'd call this flamebait. Not all public schools are created equal. Similarly, not all private schools are created equally. It's ridiculous to make sweeping generalizations about the quality of educations available public or private schools, and then make a philosophical/political statement about school vouchers.
I think school vouchers are a great idea for a lot of the public schools. And simply labling them all bad is nothing more than left-wing propaganda. This kid's school is obviously doing a good job. And if his parents had vouchers, there's an excellent chance he would still go to this school. Or maybe he would go to a better one. But the point is that he and his parents would be free to make that choice for themselves. Isn't freedom what this country's about?
I've only heard one argument against school vouchers that makes sense to me. That's the idea that if parents used vouchers to send their kids to christian schools, then the government would be sending strings-attached money to the schools, increasing the liklihood that the government would try to regulate the schools, and forcing the schools to lose focus on what their goals are.
I can tell from past experience that the slashdot moderators are most likely liberal and democrats.:-) Feel free to moderate me into oblivion.
Actually its been done. Apache/php can do it (using zlib), and im sure a number of other combos can too.
Zlib is exactly what I was thinking of, but how can the server compress if the client isn't able to decompress?
Also, as a tangent, we could also quickly run jpegs though a quality (and size) reduction filter when the bandwidth gets too high (or switch to less or no graphics), but turn up the quality on off-peak times. Dynamic content depending on server load!
Why hasn't anyone come up with zhtml or something similar? Wouldn't it be trivial to compress content before sending it over the internet? Obviously, somethings wouldn't compress well at all, like jpegs, but what about clear text html? xml? tables output from servlets or asp? It wouldn't make download sites any faster but I bet it would speed up sites like slashdot, amazon, or ebay. It would obviously require a compatible browser, but that's not hard.
Quick question - After you remove the USB card and the metal plate, what next? Do you stick a NIC in its place, or is there an ethernet port hidden somewhere inside?
There's an rj45 hidden behind the plate. When the modem doesn't find the usb daughter card, it switches back to ethernet.
Would you consider throwing up a quick page on how you did the conversion?
I don't have the time to put up a page, but it couldn't be easier. Remove two screws holding on the top. Take off the top. Remove two screws holding on the plate. Remove the plate. Remove the screws holding on the daughter card. Unplug the daughter card. Pull up to unplug. It's held in there by some ultra-thick double edge tape so it takes some force. Put the cover back on and your done. It requires a cross-over cable.
Were you able to set up your own starband system, or did someone have to do it for you?
I had them install it. I probably could have done it myself, but I'm glad I let them do it. (read more)
I ask because starband's excuse for not selling to southern Canada (which, if Maine is in range of the satellite, is most certainly in range) is that they don't have anyone to set the system up in Canada, and won't sell here unless they do
While you may be able to set it up, the vast majority of people wont, even if they've done other dishs. Most dishes have two variables to adjust, elevation and azimuth. But the starband dish has a third, skew. The dish actually points at three different sattelites at the same time, one for tv, one for sending to the internet, and one for reveiving from the internet. The alignment is also crucial. The tv and receive parts aren't hard to hit, but the send component has to be dead-on. If it's off by only a fraction of a degree, it will miss the receiver up in space. There are also warnings about microwave radiation emmision. They tell you not to let kids play on the dish while it's transmitting. I suspect that they're worried about tech support calls, returns, and possible liability for installation mistakes.
I don't think it can be half as bad as they say... I've pointed 3 satellite systems already (including American ones) and it only takes a few hours.:-)
There are people in the RV/Camper newsgroups who take the starband dish with them and correctly align it at camp sites. So it's definitly doable, but I think normal people are more likely to have issues with it.
I already have starband. Ok, starband sucks. but it's better than dial-up. And my service was lousy until a very knowledgable independant contractor came out and tuned my installation.
But the point is that my starband modem (or whatever it's called) came with a USB port. When the installer came out, he told me to remove the USB daughter board and a metal plate from the device. The end result? an ethernet connection just like a real cable modem. I bought the linksys $150 broadband router (I know, I should have used linux) and now I have my entire house going through the starband dish.
And for you sattalite ney-sayers, mine is both directions. I'm always on and don't have to use the modem return line. I can download from napster at about 40k per second (it's slow for some reason) and I've downloaded software at 120k per second.
And now fow what sucks: It costs $700 up front for hardware and installation. The service is new so it's kind of unreliable, although it's getting better. I hear news and e-mail is slow. You can't use it for gaming because of stupid ping-times.
But it beats the pants off dialup. And I can use an old 486 as a linux router if I want instead of a $2500 computer.
Since tile based rendering eliminates overdraw, the effective fill rate of a tile based renderer can actually surpass the effective fill rate.
Wow! They can make the effective fill rate surpass the effective fill rate?! Maybe they can make my bank account balance surpass my bank account balance!
No one is saying that the Russians didn't put up a heroic fight during ww2. What impressed me the most about the Russians was how they moved all the factories east of the caucasus (sp?) mountains and out of the range of the german bombers. The point I was making was that Stalin/Russia were not the saviors of the west. Sure they contributed blood and resources, but so did everyone else. And I don't think either side could have won without the other
By the way, in american high schools and in english language documentaries, we're taught that the americans got to berlin first and didn't take the city so that the russians could. I'm not sure which of our history educations is distorted more.
I think you'll find that the americans complaining about privacy are not the same americans that are appearing on talk shows. In america, like all countries, there are plenty of stupid and smart people to go around. The only difference here is that america offers up its stupidity for all to see and laugh at. Just enjoy the show and lighten up. And the social security number is only one of the reasons americans are complaining about privacy. Had you been here to experience eight years of clinton/gore, perhaps you would have the same perspective on privacy.
I had an operating systems class when I was working on my cs degree. The class had one project that was broken into five pieces with a sixth extra credit piece. I was one of the few students who wrote my own code, but I know that some students had gone dumpster diving (ok, the lab trash can) for hard copies of my code. The program was graded by a shell script that simply did a grep on the output, so he didn't really look that closely. I got very good grades on the assignments all the way though. But I chose not to do the extra credit because of time constraints from my other classes. When I went to the final (40% of the grade), the professor got up in front of class before hand and held up a hard copy with a lot of red ink and said, "there were a number of you who submitted very similar code for this assignment. (and named them) After you bring me your final, please stay so that we can discuss it.":-D I'm sure those people were sweating for the duration of the final. And I still believe that had I done the extra credit, I would have been drawn into the problem because of other people's code copying.
As a side story, I saw a girl get nailed in my assembly language class for copying code. She didn't even bother to change the written by comment line at the top.
I quickly became jaded working as an employee. I found that companies always viewed me as a source of income for them, nothing more. I've never worked for a company that was loyal to me. So I'm loyal to only my family and friends. That's all. I switched to contracting as a way to make more money while getting some freedom. In my opinion, stock options, while they may get someone a fair amount of money once vested, are a risky way to go, especially in today's climate. Let's think about the math. In the five years it takes you to become vested, you could be making $50-$100 an hour as a contractor. If you live well below your means, you could put away $50,000 to $100,000 a year. In a good mutual fund over the same five years, you could do very well. And, you have control. You can leave when an environment goes bad without losing your investment in the vesting period. And you can incorporate. I have a young family also (4 kids and I'm 30), and I've missed less work as a contractor than as an employee. This is because I know when the end of the contract is and I can plan for it. As an employee, I would show up to work one day to find the company closed. It's not for everyone, but it's for me.
I wonder if part of this is for the same reason - I know you get your filestore, desktop and so on, but its still not your computer with its own local drive, humming power-supply fan, and (goddam it), smell.
Well, I have my own development server locked in a room somewhere. I can't hear or smell it, but it's still mine.
Do you try to book the same cuboid every day?
You can only reserve them for five days at a time so I mostly stay in once place all week. But I often don't get the same room. And some rooms are better than others. I can look down a long hallway at the moment, 45 degrees to me left. It's an annoying visual distraction. There's good sound-proofing though. The reservation system also has a few bugs so sometimes, there are collisions. I got bumped a couple weeks ago by another person while I was at lunch. We both had valid reservations. The most annoying thing, though, is that I can't keep my reference books handy. They have lockers (just like high school, no kidding) but that's annoying. And I also can't keep my small lego collection handy.
I'm working on a contract at Sun Microsystems at the moment. I have a five-digit phone extension and this thing called a sunray card, but no real cube. Instead, I reserve a cube (really, it's more like a cross between a shower, closet, and phone booth with a patio door) with an intranet application. Then I go to the room with a thin client machine and a 21" monitor. I put the sunray card in and it instantly displays my X session from yesterday. No logging in. All my windows are still open. I can do my work and move to another machine if necessary. Without loggin out, I can pull the card and move to another machine or come back tomorrow. And for the phones, I log in with an access code. My wife can call me at a specific number that doesn't change and the phone system rings the phone I'm next to. It's a great system, but I don't much like being a nomad.
A number of years ago, I worked as a programmer for a very small company which was owned and operated by scientologists. There were only about eight employees and half of us were normal. It was really comical sometimes.
For example, no one could have an arguement about any subject without reaching for this giant tome with a giant S on it (like the schilling spice S or the suzuki S). The four inch thick book somehow had guidelines for how to have an arguement.
When I arrived, I received a piece of paper with a story. The story was all about this thing called the Apollo. It went on and on about the apollo's bow, stern, engine room, and bridge. About how and when it left port and other nautical attributes of apollo. The first mention of apollo had an asterisk with a footnote, which most people don't read. At the end, they ask you what apollo is. My response was that apollo was obviously a boat. Their resonse was that it's wasn't just a boat, it was L Ron Hubbard's yacht. And since I didn't read the footnote explaining that, I obviously understood exactly 0% of the document. Huh?
At one point, they sent a (normal) co-worker to clearwater florida which is where the Org is. They gave her what amounted to brain-washing sessions. They would make ridiculous statements. And when she argued with them, they would respond with, "No, you don't understand." Because, obviously, if you understood, you would agree with them. So, I believe that you owe me a million dollars. "No I don't!" No you don't understand, you owe me a million dollars.
I once asked the VP of the company (a scientologist, the nuttiest of the bunch), "according to scientology, what happens to you when you die?" She went on a 15 minute lecture on how I was not prepared to understand that information because I had not attained a sufficient spiritual level or something and then finished with, "so for instance, if I told you that you go to the filling station in the clouds to get your memories erased, you wouldn't understand." She's right, I don't understand.
One of the programmers (a scientologist) got a cold at one point. He was firmly convinced that the reason he had a cold was because people were thinking bad thoughts about him.
It's my personal opinion that scientology is a scam. They advertise clearly non-christian ideology while using christian symbols. They use their monitary resources to engage in what can only be described as legal terrorism. They prey on people by promising them spiritual fulfillment while draining their bank accounts. And while some (even most) scientologists may really believe in their religion and have other people's interests at heart, I believe there are a lot of very power evel forces operating within their organization.
And one other thing, even with the comical insanity, it wasn't a bad place to work. The reason I left was because the company was seized by the IRS for failure to pay payroll taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
"The constant storytelling -- about problems and solutions, about disasters and triumphs, over breakfast, lunch and coffee -- serves a number of overlapping purposes,"
Goldysoft and the Three eBears
Once upon a time, there were three computers, a big server, a medium server, and a small server...
If no one can even agree that global warming is in fact happening, how can we agree on a course of action? We have proof, hard evidence, that the earth went through very significant climatic changes, all by itself, long before we introduced greenhouse gasses. And trying to predict what will happen by measuring temperatures and atmospheric ozone content is like trying to predict the weather. I agree that if we are causing harm to the environment, we should do something about it. But I also think that we should understand what we're fighting before we fight it. Not understanding the problem would be like trying to fight a fire by guessing at what liquid to throw on it.
Tell me again why spamming warrants a longer jail term than some violent crime?
Public schools are already making great strides in giving our students these opportunities, but private schools lag far behind (and public schools are starting to join them). This is why it's more imperative than ever that we oppose school-voucher programs. Students must be kept in the environments where we're already seeing successes like Josh's.
I'd call this flamebait. Not all public schools are created equal. Similarly, not all private schools are created equally. It's ridiculous to make sweeping generalizations about the quality of educations available public or private schools, and then make a philosophical/political statement about school vouchers.
I think school vouchers are a great idea for a lot of the public schools. And simply labling them all bad is nothing more than left-wing propaganda. This kid's school is obviously doing a good job. And if his parents had vouchers, there's an excellent chance he would still go to this school. Or maybe he would go to a better one. But the point is that he and his parents would be free to make that choice for themselves. Isn't freedom what this country's about?
I've only heard one argument against school vouchers that makes sense to me. That's the idea that if parents used vouchers to send their kids to christian schools, then the government would be sending strings-attached money to the schools, increasing the liklihood that the government would try to regulate the schools, and forcing the schools to lose focus on what their goals are.
I can tell from past experience that the slashdot moderators are most likely liberal and democrats. :-) Feel free to moderate me into oblivion.
How is this off topic?! It's an 800 number service that tells you PI that only works in America!
Actually its been done. Apache/php can do it (using zlib), and im sure a number of other combos can too.
Zlib is exactly what I was thinking of, but how can the server compress if the client isn't able to decompress?
Also, as a tangent, we could also quickly run jpegs though a quality (and size) reduction filter when the bandwidth gets too high (or switch to less or no graphics), but turn up the quality on off-peak times. Dynamic content depending on server load!
Why hasn't anyone come up with zhtml or something similar? Wouldn't it be trivial to compress content before sending it over the internet? Obviously, somethings wouldn't compress well at all, like jpegs, but what about clear text html? xml? tables output from servlets or asp? It wouldn't make download sites any faster but I bet it would speed up sites like slashdot, amazon, or ebay. It would obviously require a compatible browser, but that's not hard.
The 1-800 number doesn't work in Canada or I suspect overseas.
So maybe we should call it American Pi.
Scientists had managed to store the data with relative ease, but couldn't retreive the data later on.
Is that like write-only memory?
But the old stuff was better! When you were done with it, you could color a nice picture on it and bake it. Just like shrinky-dinks!
Quick question - After you remove the USB card and the metal plate, what next? Do you stick a NIC in its place, or is there an ethernet port hidden somewhere inside?
There's an rj45 hidden behind the plate. When the modem doesn't find the usb daughter card, it switches back to ethernet.
Would you consider throwing up a quick page on how you did the conversion?
I don't have the time to put up a page, but it couldn't be easier. Remove two screws holding on the top. Take off the top. Remove two screws holding on the plate. Remove the plate. Remove the screws holding on the daughter card. Unplug the daughter card. Pull up to unplug. It's held in there by some ultra-thick double edge tape so it takes some force. Put the cover back on and your done. It requires a cross-over cable.
Were you able to set up your own starband system, or did someone have to do it for you?
I had them install it. I probably could have done it myself, but I'm glad I let them do it. (read more)
I ask because starband's excuse for not selling to southern Canada (which, if Maine is in range of the satellite, is most certainly in range) is that they don't have anyone to set the system up in Canada, and won't sell here unless they do
While you may be able to set it up, the vast majority of people wont, even if they've done other dishs. Most dishes have two variables to adjust, elevation and azimuth. But the starband dish has a third, skew. The dish actually points at three different sattelites at the same time, one for tv, one for sending to the internet, and one for reveiving from the internet. The alignment is also crucial. The tv and receive parts aren't hard to hit, but the send component has to be dead-on. If it's off by only a fraction of a degree, it will miss the receiver up in space. There are also warnings about microwave radiation emmision. They tell you not to let kids play on the dish while it's transmitting. I suspect that they're worried about tech support calls, returns, and possible liability for installation mistakes.
I don't think it can be half as bad as they say... I've pointed 3 satellite systems already (including American ones) and it only takes a few hours. :-)
There are people in the RV/Camper newsgroups who take the starband dish with them and correctly align it at camp sites. So it's definitly doable, but I think normal people are more likely to have issues with it.
I already have starband. Ok, starband sucks. but it's better than dial-up. And my service was lousy until a very knowledgable independant contractor came out and tuned my installation.
But the point is that my starband modem (or whatever it's called) came with a USB port. When the installer came out, he told me to remove the USB daughter board and a metal plate from the device. The end result? an ethernet connection just like a real cable modem. I bought the linksys $150 broadband router (I know, I should have used linux) and now I have my entire house going through the starband dish.
And for you sattalite ney-sayers, mine is both directions. I'm always on and don't have to use the modem return line. I can download from napster at about 40k per second (it's slow for some reason) and I've downloaded software at 120k per second.
And now fow what sucks: It costs $700 up front for hardware and installation. The service is new so it's kind of unreliable, although it's getting better. I hear news and e-mail is slow. You can't use it for gaming because of stupid ping-times.
But it beats the pants off dialup. And I can use an old 486 as a linux router if I want instead of a $2500 computer.
Since tile based rendering eliminates overdraw, the effective fill rate of a tile based renderer can actually surpass the effective fill rate.
Wow! They can make the effective fill rate surpass the effective fill rate?! Maybe they can make my bank account balance surpass my bank account balance!
No one is saying that the Russians didn't put up a heroic fight during ww2. What impressed me the most about the Russians was how they moved all the factories east of the caucasus (sp?) mountains and out of the range of the german bombers. The point I was making was that Stalin/Russia were not the saviors of the west. Sure they contributed blood and resources, but so did everyone else. And I don't think either side could have won without the other
By the way, in american high schools and in english language documentaries, we're taught that the americans got to berlin first and didn't take the city so that the russians could. I'm not sure which of our history educations is distorted more.
has lots of germs, is loud and offensive, and only speaks one language
I thought that was how all the french were.
I think you'll find that the americans complaining about privacy are not the same americans that are appearing on talk shows. In america, like all countries, there are plenty of stupid and smart people to go around. The only difference here is that america offers up its stupidity for all to see and laugh at. Just enjoy the show and lighten up. And the social security number is only one of the reasons americans are complaining about privacy. Had you been here to experience eight years of clinton/gore, perhaps you would have the same perspective on privacy.
I had an operating systems class when I was working on my cs degree. The class had one project that was broken into five pieces with a sixth extra credit piece. I was one of the few students who wrote my own code, but I know that some students had gone dumpster diving (ok, the lab trash can) for hard copies of my code. The program was graded by a shell script that simply did a grep on the output, so he didn't really look that closely. I got very good grades on the assignments all the way though. But I chose not to do the extra credit because of time constraints from my other classes. When I went to the final (40% of the grade), the professor got up in front of class before hand and held up a hard copy with a lot of red ink and said, "there were a number of you who submitted very similar code for this assignment. (and named them) After you bring me your final, please stay so that we can discuss it." :-D I'm sure those people were sweating for the duration of the final. And I still believe that had I done the extra credit, I would have been drawn into the problem because of other people's code copying.
As a side story, I saw a girl get nailed in my assembly language class for copying code. She didn't even bother to change the written by comment line at the top.
I quickly became jaded working as an employee. I found that companies always viewed me as a source of income for them, nothing more. I've never worked for a company that was loyal to me. So I'm loyal to only my family and friends. That's all. I switched to contracting as a way to make more money while getting some freedom. In my opinion, stock options, while they may get someone a fair amount of money once vested, are a risky way to go, especially in today's climate. Let's think about the math. In the five years it takes you to become vested, you could be making $50-$100 an hour as a contractor. If you live well below your means, you could put away $50,000 to $100,000 a year. In a good mutual fund over the same five years, you could do very well. And, you have control. You can leave when an environment goes bad without losing your investment in the vesting period. And you can incorporate. I have a young family also (4 kids and I'm 30), and I've missed less work as a contractor than as an employee. This is because I know when the end of the contract is and I can plan for it. As an employee, I would show up to work one day to find the company closed. It's not for everyone, but it's for me.
I wonder if part of this is for the same reason - I know you get your filestore, desktop and so on, but its still not your computer with its own local drive, humming power-supply fan, and (goddam it), smell.
Well, I have my own development server locked in a room somewhere. I can't hear or smell it, but it's still mine.
Do you try to book the same cuboid every day?
You can only reserve them for five days at a time so I mostly stay in once place all week. But I often don't get the same room. And some rooms are better than others. I can look down a long hallway at the moment, 45 degrees to me left. It's an annoying visual distraction. There's good sound-proofing though. The reservation system also has a few bugs so sometimes, there are collisions. I got bumped a couple weeks ago by another person while I was at lunch. We both had valid reservations. The most annoying thing, though, is that I can't keep my reference books handy. They have lockers (just like high school, no kidding) but that's annoying. And I also can't keep my small lego collection handy.
I'm working on a contract at Sun Microsystems at the moment. I have a five-digit phone extension and this thing called a sunray card, but no real cube. Instead, I reserve a cube (really, it's more like a cross between a shower, closet, and phone booth with a patio door) with an intranet application. Then I go to the room with a thin client machine and a 21" monitor. I put the sunray card in and it instantly displays my X session from yesterday. No logging in. All my windows are still open. I can do my work and move to another machine if necessary. Without loggin out, I can pull the card and move to another machine or come back tomorrow. And for the phones, I log in with an access code. My wife can call me at a specific number that doesn't change and the phone system rings the phone I'm next to. It's a great system, but I don't much like being a nomad.
A number of years ago, I worked as a programmer for a very small company which was owned and operated by scientologists. There were only about eight employees and half of us were normal. It was really comical sometimes.
For example, no one could have an arguement about any subject without reaching for this giant tome with a giant S on it (like the schilling spice S or the suzuki S). The four inch thick book somehow had guidelines for how to have an arguement.
When I arrived, I received a piece of paper with a story. The story was all about this thing called the Apollo. It went on and on about the apollo's bow, stern, engine room, and bridge. About how and when it left port and other nautical attributes of apollo. The first mention of apollo had an asterisk with a footnote, which most people don't read. At the end, they ask you what apollo is. My response was that apollo was obviously a boat. Their resonse was that it's wasn't just a boat, it was L Ron Hubbard's yacht. And since I didn't read the footnote explaining that, I obviously understood exactly 0% of the document. Huh?
At one point, they sent a (normal) co-worker to clearwater florida which is where the Org is. They gave her what amounted to brain-washing sessions. They would make ridiculous statements. And when she argued with them, they would respond with, "No, you don't understand." Because, obviously, if you understood, you would agree with them. So, I believe that you owe me a million dollars. "No I don't!" No you don't understand, you owe me a million dollars.
I once asked the VP of the company (a scientologist, the nuttiest of the bunch), "according to scientology, what happens to you when you die?" She went on a 15 minute lecture on how I was not prepared to understand that information because I had not attained a sufficient spiritual level or something and then finished with, "so for instance, if I told you that you go to the filling station in the clouds to get your memories erased, you wouldn't understand." She's right, I don't understand.
One of the programmers (a scientologist) got a cold at one point. He was firmly convinced that the reason he had a cold was because people were thinking bad thoughts about him.
It's my personal opinion that scientology is a scam. They advertise clearly non-christian ideology while using christian symbols. They use their monitary resources to engage in what can only be described as legal terrorism. They prey on people by promising them spiritual fulfillment while draining their bank accounts. And while some (even most) scientologists may really believe in their religion and have other people's interests at heart, I believe there are a lot of very power evel forces operating within their organization.
And one other thing, even with the comical insanity, it wasn't a bad place to work. The reason I left was because the company was seized by the IRS for failure to pay payroll taxes.
creating a sort of Dept of Agriculture/Cotton Moth arms race
I hope they don't buy sperm from the russians.
I'd like to see that! Napster running on a beowulf cluster made entirely of playstation 2s!