Who would have known they would Open Source this stuff. I'm surprised someone didn't get a patent so you'd have to pay a royalty for every breath your dog takes.
I subscribe to Lockergnome, Red Hat's Under The Brim, and Mandrake's Newletter. Mostly just so I can keep my weekly quota of non-spam email coming in. Seriously, though, the rest I search for on my own. I never completely trust mailing lists to provide me what I want because most them have an agenda that involved advertising dollars.
You should put little metal hats on all wireless antennas. That way the aliens can't get at those precious routers.
Seriously, though, you may be able to setup a small microwave source(s) in the vicinity. Though it may not block all signals. It should effectively reduce the usefulness of anything within a reasonable area.
Today I expect a PC that can play 3D games without hiccuping, display complex text and graphics and manipulate them in real-time, allow me to surf the 'Net at speeds that make my old 14.4 modem pale in comparison. I also, unfortunately, expect a system that is much less stable than what I had ten years ago. I expect the systems of today to require an enormous heat sink and a fan with an alarm and auto-shutdown on overheat function. I never needed this with my older systems.
In the next ten years I expect that the heat issue may still be around, but that the solutions will be quiet and won't require near-constant maintenance. I expect that there will be true 3D displays, along with OSes that utilize all that goes along with them. The "personal" in PC may go the way of Dodo with all the connected world has brought us. Although most of us will certainly have, need, or require local storage of some sort, it will most likely do little or no processing of it's own. I hope that I will have the choice to disconnect at the end of the day, but am not sure this will be so as the government and big business seems to need to know every little thing we do.
My biggest expectation for the future is that I will be surprised. That there will be something I want or need my system to do that I can't even imagine today.
If your body were full of nanomechanisms that feed off the glucose that you ingest and someone pumps you full of glucose will you overheat in some fashion? How would you keep the process in check, or does it naturally stop "feeding" when it is fully powered up? And what happens when the process starts using all of the available glucose?
The other big issue I see for embedded/implanted mechanisms is control. Diabetics currently are the only ones that have to be hyper-aware of their sugar intake. In the future with these types of implants we could all end up with a glucose monitoring system of some sort. I say buy stock now.
I posted this the last time I saw an article on mouse cooling. It was funny and we all had a few laughs. But a friend of mine came up with an interesting idea. If you hollowed out he back of the mouse and got a few of those reusable ice cubes you could just swap an ice cube in and out whenever you felt the need for some cooling.
I pointed out that there might be some issues with condensation inside the mouse causing problems and he pointed me at my own post. Just stuff a little bit of some absorbant material inside the mouse (i.e. a small corner of a feminine napkin) to absorb said moisture.
These PCs will accept a hard drive. As for the strawberry jam there are models that have the CD-ROM permanently internally mounted. So they would have to spoon the jam in through a screw-hole.
I am curious about the overseas outsourcing of call centers. When does it become more of a burden to tell your customers that they have to speak to someone that speaks their language as a second or third language than it does to provide quality service and support? I bear no grudge against people that have accents, as a matter of fact I find accents quite interesting personally. But customers rarely want to deal with this. When they call for help or with a complaint they want to speak to someone that not only understands them and their concern, but that they can understand as well. When this does not occur another customer is lost to some other company that does it well.
Just my $.02US (which probably isn't worth much right now, but wait for deflation to hit and watch out)
Of course IT is still a viable field to get into. Though the current market isn't great within a few years we will probably be hearing cries of, "We need more IT people. After the dot-com bust and the overseas outsourcing crunch of the early part of the decade not nearly enough college students pursued IT degrees."
If this console is anything like their promotional products (try the link, it says their store has either been moved or deleted) it will surely live up to its vaoporous name. I was looking at getting at least a coffee mug because I liked their logo. Oh well, I guess it's off to ThinkGeek for something that's at least for real.
I say fix the whole lot at MS by not installing their software. Use Linux, use OS X. Anything but the effluence flowing from the filthy beast. Maybe if more people stopped complaining about MS and started doing something about it, with their pocket-books and wallets, the whole point here would be moot.
It's similar to the whole controversy over the 7 dirty words that you can't say on the radio or television. There was never a need to ban those words. There are two options; turn the channel, or turn it off. There is choice.
Having recently converted my parents from Windows users to Linux users I can certainly see how Linux could quickly replace OSX as the number two desktop OS. They have taken to Linux rather well. Of course it's been like a twelve step program for them. Ween them off a little at a time. Show them a little more every day.
I have even managed to get them to keep diaries so when they have questions they are at least well thought out. If more people took the time to do this Linux could soon overtake Windows in the home market.
So with the wireless access can you use all the trucks on the road as a rolling wireless relay system? If so that would be cool. Sure puts the old CB system to shame.
"Sec. 5. Reports. The Secretary of Commerce, or the Secretary's designee, shall present to me, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs..."
This section would indicate to me that President Bush is out to see what kind of money can be squeezed from the Spectrum. Interesting to me that the first two people to report to him are involved in Economic affairs. Though this may appear to be a squeeze on big business it really would not be. They pass along any rate increases directly to us, at some multiple of their increase in costs.
"The Initiative shall undertake a comprehensive review of spectrum management policies (including any relevant recommendations and findings of the study conducted pursuant to section 214 of the E-Government Act of 2002) with the objective of identifying recommendations for revising policies and procedures to promote more efficient and beneficial use of spectrum without harmful interference to critical incumbent users."
Though the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidth are currently free for public use, the new "recommendations" that this committee is to make could do away with that. What would happen if Microsoft or another large corporation purchsed those chunks of the spectrum at auction? Could we all be forced to pay for licenses just to operate our little Wi-Fi networks?
I don't really know how likely these outcomes are, but when we are talking about big business we should at least consider the possibility that it could occur. It seems to me like we should all be writing to our respective representatives about this issue. Spend a stamp, save a network node.
Has anyone here actually laid their hands on one of these? I am curious to know what the learning curve is. Also, will this cause other problems than carpal tunnel with use over time?
The other thing is will one-handed typing go the way of the dodo?;-)
Actually if you have a shielded wallet, when you open it the shield should open as well. Then you can use the card as you would if it were not shielded. Just like your driver's license picture is hidden until someone asks you to show ID/scare them.
I say we mod this thing to death. I figure if we use some duct-tape mounted magnifying glasses, a couple rubber bands and a mickey-mouse hat with chicken wire ears we could have the ultimate portable/wireless machine on the market. Heck if you have braces you could wrap some wire around those ears and have the ultimate in surveillance systems. Think the gov't will be strapping those things on all their operatives? Lets hope so. At least then we can spot them a mile away.
---- Woman to Buddhist monk: "What did I do in a previous life to deserve such bad luck?" Monk: "You must have designed uncomfortable shoes."
With almost no content to view in the HDTV format who wants to pay thousands of dollars to buy a set that can display it? Not me. I am happy with my current set. Just as with the film The Matrix providing a great vehicle to push DVD players HDTV needs to come up with its 'killer' show. Something so awe-inspiring that we, the viewing public, just can't live without. Good luck.
<P>Do you <put name here>?</P>
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes" VALUE="1">
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="no" VALUE="0">
Do you <put other name here>?
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes1" VALUE="1">
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="no1" VALUE="0">
</FORM>
If yes and yes1
Then
<P>By the power vested in me by the W3C I now pronounce you husband and wife.
<FORM ACTION="//minister-justice-other.sappy.org/comment s.pl" METHOD="SMOOCH">
Kiss each other
# notice only one set of choices after WED METHOD executed
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes2" VALUE="1">
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="no2" VALUE="0">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Enjoy! And major congrats!!! Or is that commander congrats?!?
Actually I was certified BEFORE any of the passport stuff was around. I checked the wording on my certification package and nowhere, not even in small print is there reference to passport or any similar service as a requirement. Go figure.
It can be done. I managed to get my Passport Account cancelled. It was not easy, but here's how I did it.
Send e-mail to the following address requesting the removal of the passport account and the information associated with it:
passport@css.one.microsoft.com
Be sure to word it strongly or you may not get a response. I ended up getting to the point where I was using curse words and basically spamming this address. I also reported this incident to my local news media (who did nothing. surprise surprise) and informed Microsoft of this.
My big beef on this whole Passport thing was that I was signed up because I am Microsoft Certified. I NEVER requested it, I never checked a box saying I wanted information or anything else from them. So I paid $100 to take a test that allowed MS to harass me.
BTW once you have a response from the above e-mail you will get a number. Be sure to include it in every e-mail you send. Go to the MS support site and start spamming them as well. Eventually they will listen. At least they did for me.
A last note. It did take me a couple weeks to rid myself of the PASSPORT, so be patient and persistent.
In High School I spent many hours working in the computer lab. By the time I was a senior I was assistant teacher for the night time Adult Education classes in programming and computer use. By the time I went to college I had about enough of the computer industry, where I could be expected to pull down a healthy salary and sit in a little room all by myself for the rest of my natural life. Being the social sort I was having none of it.
I dropped out of college and went to work as a security guard while I was deciding what I would like to do. A few months later an internship at a local radio station fell into my lap. It was the most fun I had ever had at a job. It was surely what I would do for the rest of my life.
A couple years later and poor enough to not own a pot to pee in it was time for a big change. My roommate at the time was working for a small computer company that was badly in need of people that could breathe in and out repeatedly. Back again to the world of computers, which had changed dramatically since my High School days. You were actually expected to deal with the people who were using the computer to perform work.
From there I moved on to support a user base of around 4000 for a large, multi-national corporation. Eventually I moved up and up getting out from behind my desk occasionally. In my most recent position I was supporting fortune 100 companies for a large network monitoring company.
Looking back I sometimes wonder how I made it from there to here, but along the way the sidetracks that I have taken have only been to strengthen skills that I did not and could not learn directly in the IT field.
I hope my tale will help others who think it impossible to get work or be productive without a degree.
At what point, when the technology is capable of functioning better than this one has, do we say enough is enough? When do we shut down the system that says you are guilty until proven innocent? In the US we have been falsely raised to believe innocent until proven guilty is the prevailing law. Well, no more. Since 9-11 we have been hearing more and more about tracking individuals with this or that new gadget. As far as I am concerned this would be fine if you were not talking about American citizens. You want to track foreign nationals when they come into our country to make sure they are here doing as they said they would when then crossed our border. Fine. Since when did we decide that Big Brother was ok? I don't know, but I don't like it. We are never going back to the days when we moved about as freely as we once did, but do we have to give up every ounce of freedom for security's sake?
"Clean underwear? Why?!?... First you're gonna say it, then you're gonna do it" -Bill Cosby
As a citizen of the US I would have to agree that you have a valid point. The average citizen in this country has never taken the time to email, let alone write to, their representatives. That being said, it also would make very little impact in this case. The large corporations in this country pay billions of dollars every year to lobbyists (people that are paid to solicit favorable votes - through campaign donations and other 'perks'). These lobbyists hold more sway than the average man since they can afford to pay off the politicians. The problem is that these are perfectly legal transactions. We need to outlaw the lobbyists and send them packing, then maybe, just maybe, we the people would mean something again.
Slashdot Mirror
Who would have known they would Open Source this stuff. I'm surprised someone didn't get a patent so you'd have to pay a royalty for every breath your dog takes.
I subscribe to Lockergnome, Red Hat's Under The Brim, and Mandrake's Newletter. Mostly just so I can keep my weekly quota of non-spam email coming in. Seriously, though, the rest I search for on my own. I never completely trust mailing lists to provide me what I want because most them have an agenda that involved advertising dollars.
You should put little metal hats on all wireless antennas. That way the aliens can't get at those precious routers.
Seriously, though, you may be able to setup a small microwave source(s) in the vicinity. Though it may not block all signals. It should effectively reduce the usefulness of anything within a reasonable area.
Today I expect a PC that can play 3D games without hiccuping, display complex text and graphics and manipulate them in real-time, allow me to surf the 'Net at speeds that make my old 14.4 modem pale in comparison. I also, unfortunately, expect a system that is much less stable than what I had ten years ago. I expect the systems of today to require an enormous heat sink and a fan with an alarm and auto-shutdown on overheat function. I never needed this with my older systems.
In the next ten years I expect that the heat issue may still be around, but that the solutions will be quiet and won't require near-constant maintenance. I expect that there will be true 3D displays, along with OSes that utilize all that goes along with them. The "personal" in PC may go the way of Dodo with all the connected world has brought us. Although most of us will certainly have, need, or require local storage of some sort, it will most likely do little or no processing of it's own. I hope that I will have the choice to disconnect at the end of the day, but am not sure this will be so as the government and big business seems to need to know every little thing we do.
My biggest expectation for the future is that I will be surprised. That there will be something I want or need my system to do that I can't even imagine today.
If your body were full of nanomechanisms that feed off the glucose that you ingest and someone pumps you full of glucose will you overheat in some fashion? How would you keep the process in check, or does it naturally stop "feeding" when it is fully powered up? And what happens when the process starts using all of the available glucose?
The other big issue I see for embedded/implanted mechanisms is control. Diabetics currently are the only ones that have to be hyper-aware of their sugar intake. In the future with these types of implants we could all end up with a glucose monitoring system of some sort. I say buy stock now.
I posted this the last time I saw an article on mouse cooling. It was funny and we all had a few laughs. But a friend of mine came up with an interesting idea. If you hollowed out he back of the mouse and got a few of those reusable ice cubes you could just swap an ice cube in and out whenever you felt the need for some cooling.
I pointed out that there might be some issues with condensation inside the mouse causing problems and he pointed me at my own post. Just stuff a little bit of some absorbant material inside the mouse (i.e. a small corner of a feminine napkin) to absorb said moisture.
These PCs will accept a hard drive. As for the strawberry jam there are models that have the CD-ROM permanently internally mounted. So they would have to spoon the jam in through a screw-hole.
I am curious about the overseas outsourcing of call centers. When does it become more of a burden to tell your customers that they have to speak to someone that speaks their language as a second or third language than it does to provide quality service and support? I bear no grudge against people that have accents, as a matter of fact I find accents quite interesting personally. But customers rarely want to deal with this. When they call for help or with a complaint they want to speak to someone that not only understands them and their concern, but that they can understand as well. When this does not occur another customer is lost to some other company that does it well.
Just my $.02US (which probably isn't worth much right now, but wait for deflation to hit and watch out)
Of course IT is still a viable field to get into. Though the current market isn't great within a few years we will probably be hearing cries of, "We need more IT people. After the dot-com bust and the overseas outsourcing crunch of the early part of the decade not nearly enough college students pursued IT degrees."
If this console is anything like their promotional products (try the link, it says their store has either been moved or deleted) it will surely live up to its vaoporous name. I was looking at getting at least a coffee mug because I liked their logo. Oh well, I guess it's off to ThinkGeek for something that's at least for real.
I say fix the whole lot at MS by not installing their software. Use Linux, use OS X. Anything but the effluence flowing from the filthy beast. Maybe if more people stopped complaining about MS and started doing something about it, with their pocket-books and wallets, the whole point here would be moot.
It's similar to the whole controversy over the 7 dirty words that you can't say on the radio or television. There was never a need to ban those words. There are two options; turn the channel, or turn it off. There is choice.
Having recently converted my parents from Windows users to Linux users I can certainly see how Linux could quickly replace OSX as the number two desktop OS. They have taken to Linux rather well. Of course it's been like a twelve step program for them. Ween them off a little at a time. Show them a little more every day.
I have even managed to get them to keep diaries so when they have questions they are at least well thought out. If more people took the time to do this Linux could soon overtake Windows in the home market.
So with the wireless access can you use all the trucks on the road as a rolling wireless relay system? If so that would be cool. Sure puts the old CB system to shame.
"Sec. 5. Reports. The Secretary of Commerce, or the Secretary's designee, shall present to me, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs..."
This section would indicate to me that President Bush is out to see what kind of money can be squeezed from the Spectrum. Interesting to me that the first two people to report to him are involved in Economic affairs. Though this may appear to be a squeeze on big business it really would not be. They pass along any rate increases directly to us, at some multiple of their increase in costs.
"The Initiative shall undertake a comprehensive review of spectrum management policies (including any relevant recommendations and findings of the study conducted pursuant to section 214 of the E-Government Act of 2002) with the objective of identifying recommendations for revising policies and procedures to promote more efficient and beneficial use of spectrum without harmful interference to critical incumbent users."
Though the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidth are currently free for public use, the new "recommendations" that this committee is to make could do away with that. What would happen if Microsoft or another large corporation purchsed those chunks of the spectrum at auction? Could we all be forced to pay for licenses just to operate our little Wi-Fi networks?
I don't really know how likely these outcomes are, but when we are talking about big business we should at least consider the possibility that it could occur. It seems to me like we should all be writing to our respective representatives about this issue. Spend a stamp, save a network node.
Scissors work well for that particular issue. It gets expensive, but hey you get to visit Victoria's Secret with her afterwards.
Has anyone here actually laid their hands on one of these? I am curious to know what the learning curve is. Also, will this cause other problems than carpal tunnel with use over time?
;-)
The other thing is will one-handed typing go the way of the dodo?
Actually if you have a shielded wallet, when you open it the shield should open as well. Then you can use the card as you would if it were not shielded. Just like your driver's license picture is hidden until someone asks you to show ID/scare them.
I say we mod this thing to death. I figure if we use some duct-tape mounted magnifying glasses, a couple rubber bands and a mickey-mouse hat with chicken wire ears we could have the ultimate portable/wireless machine on the market. Heck if you have braces you could wrap some wire around those ears and have the ultimate in surveillance systems. Think the gov't will be strapping those things on all their operatives? Lets hope so. At least then we can spot them a mile away.
----
Woman to Buddhist monk: "What did I do in a previous life to deserve such bad luck?"
Monk: "You must have designed uncomfortable shoes."
With almost no content to view in the HDTV format who wants to pay thousands of dollars to buy a set that can display it? Not me. I am happy with my current set. Just as with the film The Matrix providing a great vehicle to push DVD players HDTV needs to come up with its 'killer' show. Something so awe-inspiring that we, the viewing public, just can't live without. Good luck.
<HTML>
<BODY>
<HEAD>Will You?</HEAD>
<FORM ACTION="//wedding.forever.org/comments.pl" METHOD="WED">
<P>Do you <put name here>?</P>
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes" VALUE="1">
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="no" VALUE="0">
Do you <put other name here>?
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes1" VALUE="1">
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If yes and yes1
Then
<P>By the power vested in me by the W3C I now pronounce you husband and wife.
<FORM ACTION="//minister-justice-other.sappy.org/commen
Kiss each other
# notice only one set of choices after WED METHOD executed
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="yes2" VALUE="1">
<INPUT TYPE="CHECKBOX" NAME="no2" VALUE="0">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Enjoy! And major congrats!!! Or is that commander congrats?!?
Actually I was certified BEFORE any of the passport stuff was around. I checked the wording on my certification package and nowhere, not even in small print is there reference to passport or any similar service as a requirement. Go figure.
It can be done. I managed to get my Passport Account cancelled. It was not easy, but here's how I did it.
Send e-mail to the following address requesting the removal of the passport account and the information associated with it:
passport@css.one.microsoft.com
Be sure to word it strongly or you may not get a response. I ended up getting to the point where I was using curse words and basically spamming this address. I also reported this incident to my local news media (who did nothing. surprise surprise) and informed Microsoft of this.
My big beef on this whole Passport thing was that I was signed up because I am Microsoft Certified. I NEVER requested it, I never checked a box saying I wanted information or anything else from them. So I paid $100 to take a test that allowed MS to harass me.
BTW once you have a response from the above e-mail you will get a number. Be sure to include it in every e-mail you send. Go to the MS support site and start spamming them as well. Eventually they will listen. At least they did for me.
A last note. It did take me a couple weeks to rid myself of the PASSPORT, so be patient and persistent.
Good luck!!!
In High School I spent many hours working in the computer lab. By the time I was a senior I was assistant teacher for the night time Adult Education classes in programming and computer use. By the time I went to college I had about enough of the computer industry, where I could be expected to pull down a healthy salary and sit in a little room all by myself for the rest of my natural life. Being the social sort I was having none of it.
I dropped out of college and went to work as a security guard while I was deciding what I would like to do. A few months later an internship at a local radio station fell into my lap. It was the most fun I had ever had at a job. It was surely what I would do for the rest of my life.
A couple years later and poor enough to not own a pot to pee in it was time for a big change. My roommate at the time was working for a small computer company that was badly in need of people that could breathe in and out repeatedly. Back again to the world of computers, which had changed dramatically since my High School days. You were actually expected to deal with the people who were using the computer to perform work.
From there I moved on to support a user base of around 4000 for a large, multi-national corporation. Eventually I moved up and up getting out from behind my desk occasionally. In my most recent position I was supporting fortune 100 companies for a large network monitoring company.
Looking back I sometimes wonder how I made it from there to here, but along the way the sidetracks that I have taken have only been to strengthen skills that I did not and could not learn directly in the IT field.
I hope my tale will help others who think it impossible to get work or be productive without a degree.
At what point, when the technology is capable of functioning better than this one has, do we say enough is enough? When do we shut down the system that says you are guilty until proven innocent? In the US we have been falsely raised to believe innocent until proven guilty is the prevailing law. Well, no more. Since 9-11 we have been hearing more and more about tracking individuals with this or that new gadget. As far as I am concerned this would be fine if you were not talking about American citizens. You want to track foreign nationals when they come into our country to make sure they are here doing as they said they would when then crossed our border. Fine. Since when did we decide that Big Brother was ok? I don't know, but I don't like it. We are never going back to the days when we moved about as freely as we once did, but do we have to give up every ounce of freedom for security's sake?
... First you're gonna say it, then you're gonna do it" -Bill Cosby
"Clean underwear? Why?!?
As a citizen of the US I would have to agree that you have a valid point. The average citizen in this country has never taken the time to email, let alone write to, their representatives. That being said, it also would make very little impact in this case. The large corporations in this country pay billions of dollars every year to lobbyists (people that are paid to solicit favorable votes - through campaign donations and other 'perks'). These lobbyists hold more sway than the average man since they can afford to pay off the politicians. The problem is that these are perfectly legal transactions. We need to outlaw the lobbyists and send them packing, then maybe, just maybe, we the people would mean something again.