I'm involved in Dizz-Net and I was thinking of a way to separate commercial websites and websites that may or may not be somewhat commercial, yet contains useful information (Slashdot is commercial, yet contains useful information).
Example: Suppose you're looking for information on a Zip drive. You already have the drive but are having trouble with it (problems with zip drives? really?:-)* ). You do a search and you get a million sites that "guarantee lowest prices!" You could go to the manufacturer's site but they may downplay and misinform about *ahem* "certain problems" (1st zip drive gets click death. Get replacement. Feel ripped off because replacement is refurb. Vow to never buy anything Iomega ever agin when 2nd drive starts to click. Use harddrive to backup zip drive. Hope that it falls into some black hole in the bottom of closet).
Of course I don't even bother, I just go straight for the LDP, but Windows users don't have that option.
It would be interesting to be able to search only engineering sites for engineering information. I once did a search for "wheatstone bridge" and got tons of $cientology links. If the engine was able to determine if a site was, in fact, an engineering information site, that wouldn't have happened.
How about a "no pr0n" checkbox. That would be sweet.
Of course that would require a herculean effort in changing the standards and getting site owners to be honest.
But maybe not. Here are some ideas I was thinking of:
How about manually specifying the categories for some major sites and letting the search engine crawl the links from them and categorising them as Linux sites. If you can get to a link within a reasonable number of links from a bona fide Linux site, it will also be a Linux site. It may also be a gardening site, and can be reached from gardening sites as well. Tada, two categories. etc.
Search result moderation. Registered users of the search engine can moderate search results. If you're searching recipe sites for a recipe (using that category thing above, remember?) and a pr0n site comes up, you can select "irrelevant, it's a porn site" and press the moderate button at the bottom.
It's not perfect, but it's gotta be better than the garbage we put up with now.
It is a bad shrink who responds to every problem with drugs.
Talking about it is probably the best treatment, with drugs for extreme cases in addition to talking.
I've done both, and realised when I got off the drugs that I feel no different now than with the drugs. It was the talking that made the difference. The drugs may clear up your mind so that talking may have an impact, but drugs alone won't do a damn thing.
This is a problem that needs more attention. And it's good to see the US government putting more effort into helping people. Yes, helping people who need help.
Ever hear of the doctor-patient confidentiality thing?
I've known many people with various mental disorders. I, myself, have gone through tough times and managed to find help, thanks to those I know who have been through the same things. I am now a very happy and satisfied person. The problem is that many people do not get the help they need and end up killing themselves.
What planet are you from? Small towns don't have pubic water and sewer? Each house has its own private water and waste facilities!!?? What kind of crack have you been smoking the last, oh say 50 years or so?
Um, where do you think I'm getting the well water from? I have a load of 4L bottles that I send to a friend's place, which is about a 15 minute drive from where I live, in the capital city of Newfoundland. Many of my relatives in Ontario chose to dig wells, too. Basically, the water doesn't have so much Cl in it, which is a good thing.
Those "rural water coops" are awful. The water quality is much worse than even city water. I'd rather *not* have to boil my water after it comes out to avoid "beaver fever," thank you very much.
I had heard that a town in Ontario did a Y2K check on their water system and it leaked diesel into the water supply.
The joke was that it improved the water.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now (morons, what the fsck do they get paid for?).
Meanwhile, I'm in a larger city and I have quite a stockpile of well water and those bubbly drinks containing caffeine (It was on sale). Has nothing to do with y2k, though, our water supply simply has way too much chlorine in it and those Brita things are a PITA. If you run the water, you'll be able to smell the Cl from across the room and it tastes like pool water.
Read 2010: Odyssey Two, Chapter 11: Ice and Vacuum.
He describes a very interesting creature uniquely adapted to the harsh cold and explains how it could have evolved there.
Yes, it *is* science fiction, but remember that this is Clarke, who loves throwing facts and theories into the writing. It does make it that much more interesting. Try reading "Ghost off the Grand Banks", where he describes a lot about offshore oil drilling and the Hibernia rig only recently completed near here, the Mandelbrot set including the history of it with some very good explanations, plus a lot of discussion on ways to possibly raise the Titanic.
Asimov is good like that as well. I remember reading his retelling of "The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs" from a chemist's point of view. That one fictional short story made chemistry make so much sense that I really started getting interested in it. Now I have a bit of a chemistry lab here sharing space with electronics and computer equipment.
Oh yeah, highly recommended Asimov non-fiction: "The Relativity of Wrong." It's a collection of essays on a myriad of topics. They're quite witty, too. He exhibits a bit of a Dave Barry-ish style in a couple of places. I learned a lot from that book, and the title essay, "The Relativity of Wrong," is very cool.
Ok, got a little off-topic there, but these books were, I think, some of the most important I have ever read.
they could have just said "ah, screw it, none of those nerds ever watch TV anyways"
I think they know the demographics for shows like "The Simpsons," "Futurama," and "The X-Files."
Keeping us nerds out wouldn't be a very intelligent thing to do, and despite shows like "World's Scariest/Funniest/etc foo," they probably are somewhat intelligent.
I had heard of Electrolux making a tiny one that can get into all the crazy nooks and crannies that regular vaccums cannot. I think they claimed 90% coverage, while average regular coverage is around 75% (reciting from faded memory, could be wrong numbers). I couldn't find any mention on their site but I did find their Real Fridge Cam, which I found a bit amusing.
Aha, a good ol' Google search returned their link: http://www3.electrolux.se/robot/. Apparently, it goes over cables without any trouble. That's impressive.
Basically, we need to get down exactly what to do and how to do it. More developers would be nice too...
Here's part of one of my messages on the list:
"The servers can perform database updating/maintenance and may also run client software itself. The client software sends it's finished "work units" to it's designated server. The servers assign IP addresses to be indexed to each client. Say a client is indexing in Australia and hits a link located in New York. The client will tell it's server about the link (and any other non-local ones) which will send them to the server nearest each link. The New York server sends a work unit to an arbitrary client waiting for links to index. It indexes, so on, etc. The cycle continues."
Commentary on the past articles is right on the spot, though I've got to admit I missed the "Mattress King" reference.
That was a segment on John Stewart. It was pretty funny. You had to see it, though.
I still like the archivist who spends his free time archiving porn and lives with his mother. I had to laugh at that, especially the puppet porn they showed clips of.
I also enjoyed watching Tori Amos not talking very much, then pouring a glass of water on the floor for no apparent reason.
From reading some previous comments, I've thought about starting such a database.
I was thinking of starting as a simple website, then defining a protocol and writing client and server software, maybe a browser plugin, option in Konqueror and Mozilla, etc.
Made in Canada - Rick Mercer plays a prick. It's great.
Newsroom - Very funny, Seinfeld fans would notice that "Lloyd Braun(sp?)" plays Jim, the idiot anchorman in it. I liked when they set up a camera to catch people getting hookers, and caught Jim...
Twitch City - Genius show about a couch potato. Stars Don McKellar (who did the excellent movie "Last Night") and Molly Parker.
Global - When I lived in Halifax, I didn't bother getting cable. Global was more than enough for me. They played American shows that I could handle, like Simpsons, South Park, and Mad TV. The Global stuff was good, too. I really liked Traders. Have you ever actually seen it? It's worth watching for Patrick McKenna, who played Harold in the Red Green Show, but isn't a geek there.
Now that I'm back in Newfoundland (sadly), I don't get Global, but get most of my TV from the Comedy Network (American: Dennis Miller Live, John Stewart, Ben Stein, WKRP(!!), Canadian: Tom Green, Kevin Spencer ("he's a chain smoking, alcoholic, sociopath"), Butch Patterson: Private Dick ("Give me another drink or I'll slap you around like my prison lover"), Mike Bullard) and Teletoon (who, unfortunately, do not play "Late Night Anime" anymore, but still play Duckman, Spawn every Halloween, and the Canadian "Ned's Newt" (with jokes like, "Who's the man who's a machine to all the chicks" (It *is* a kid's show after all, they had to clean up that reference), and "That's brilliant, you're way too smart for the army, you're fired") and, of course, Splat!).
Wow, I've got to give up with those damn parenthesis, I've been programming a little too long.
I guess I'll go watch Win Ben Stein's Money, now...
the Pyramids have an elaborate embedded calendar that runs through 2000 that is supposed to predict some stuff.
I read a book on this few years back. I don't completely remember it but I'll give it a shot.
Apparently, they've so far determined the time scale and where we are. ~1.5 inches per year, I think.
A little explanation: The pyramid has a long tunnel that is not what you would expect from most traditional tunnels. It was painstakingly designed as a calendar. The tunnel, amazingly (could be a coincidence), maps out the state of the world over thousands of years. The way it is currently read, it has already predicted all of the major stuff in our past (in a world view).
According to the current understanding of it, we are approaching a spot where the tunnel is a deep pit with one tiny walkway along the side. After that it rises (over thousands of years) to a high, ornate room. That's where it ends.
An interesting read, even by a card-carrying skeptic, like myself.
I better idea would be to charge the sender of the emails, pings or whatever. Most people who really don't send much would hardly be effected, but the people who spam 1000's of messages would be screwed!
Ding, I think you've just hit the jackpot.
Just like phone service, sender pays, unless it's a collect call.
Unfortunately, this wouldn't work too well with web traffic. A whole new type of attack would emerge...
The Napster guy is valid in his assumption that open specs will cause lots of hacking. However, he seems to forget that keeping it closed will not stop hacked clients from emerging. Gnap is proof of this.
If you're going to bombard Napster with email, don't flame. Just indicate that security-through-obscurity simply doesn't work. Any sort of protective measures he wants to do should be done on the servers, not so much the clients which everyone has access to.
I personally would like to see lots of encryption.
i>Rip out their "desktop" - I have a desktop. I just want to start a plain word processor/spreadsheet/presentation program - not a new desktop
Exactly. My one and only complaint about StarOffice.
Well, actually, I hate the "Windowsizing" it does inside of there as well. I have my "close window" button on the left in KDE. It makes much more sense to me, even though I have never used a Mac in my life.
I can live with it though. StarOffice is an extremely well-polished office package.
Just let the WM do the WM work, and I'll be very happy.
I too, collect old computers. I have actually put old character cell terminals into use. Tomorrow I should get a brand new 13w3 cable so I can get my new-to-me Sun 3/80 up and running as an X-terminal. Add to that all of the old TRS-80s, C64s, etc. that I don't actually use, but I have. I can't bring myself to throw them out. I seems such a waste.
I also have a collection of old video game consoles. Coleco, Intellivision, 2600, 7800, etc.
Old music gear, too. I have a late 60's Ampeg B-15N which is always what I play bass through. It's funny because the younger kids look at it and say, "what a piece of crap." While the older guys (especially sound guys) make large offers on it (no sale, don't bother trying) and fawn over it. I played one time and went over to the sound guy who had never done sound for us before to tell him, "Ok, no DI (bass goes directly to board, amp is only used for monitor). That amp will either be miked or, if you prefer, run into the board *after* the amp (got a nice output jack on the back, great for recording)." He said, "An amp like that? There's no way I'm letting you go DI."
Yes, Virginia, there are geeks in the music world, and they are just as nostalgic.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at this
Has anyone else noticed that RMS looks a helluva lot like Ron Jeremy there?
I bet with a little shaving, RMS could be the next great porn star!
You think the government can help you?
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I live in Canada.
They even paid for me to finish high school at the college I went on to do engineering at.
Example: Suppose you're looking for information on a Zip drive. You already have the drive but are having trouble with it (problems with zip drives? really?
Of course I don't even bother, I just go straight for the LDP, but Windows users don't have that option.
It would be interesting to be able to search only engineering sites for engineering information. I once did a search for "wheatstone bridge" and got tons of $cientology links. If the engine was able to determine if a site was, in fact, an engineering information site, that wouldn't have happened.
How about a "no pr0n" checkbox. That would be sweet.
Of course that would require a herculean effort in changing the standards and getting site owners to be honest.
But maybe not. Here are some ideas I was thinking of:
It's not perfect, but it's gotta be better than the garbage we put up with now.
Sigh.
It is a bad shrink who responds to every problem with drugs.
Talking about it is probably the best treatment, with drugs for extreme cases in addition to talking.
I've done both, and realised when I got off the drugs that I feel no different now than with the drugs. It was the talking that made the difference. The drugs may clear up your mind so that talking may have an impact, but drugs alone won't do a damn thing.
This has nothing to do with profiling.
This is a problem that needs more attention. And it's good to see the US government putting more effort into helping people. Yes, helping people who need help.
Ever hear of the doctor-patient confidentiality thing?
I've known many people with various mental disorders. I, myself, have gone through tough times and managed to find help, thanks to those I know who have been through the same things. I am now a very happy and satisfied person. The problem is that many people do not get the help they need and end up killing themselves.
That's what sad.
What planet are you from? Small towns don't have pubic water and sewer? Each house has its own private water and waste facilities!!?? What kind of crack have you been smoking the last, oh say 50 years or so?
Um, where do you think I'm getting the well water from? I have a load of 4L bottles that I send to a friend's place, which is about a 15 minute drive from where I live, in the capital city of Newfoundland. Many of my relatives in Ontario chose to dig wells, too. Basically, the water doesn't have so much Cl in it, which is a good thing.
Those "rural water coops" are awful. The water quality is much worse than even city water. I'd rather *not* have to boil my water after it comes out to avoid "beaver fever," thank you very much.
I had heard that a town in Ontario did a Y2K check on their water system and it leaked diesel into the water supply.
The joke was that it improved the water.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now (morons, what the fsck do they get paid for?).
Meanwhile, I'm in a larger city and I have quite a stockpile of well water and those bubbly drinks containing caffeine (It was on sale). Has nothing to do with y2k, though, our water supply simply has way too much chlorine in it and those Brita things are a PITA. If you run the water, you'll be able to smell the Cl from across the room and it tastes like pool water.
Read 2010: Odyssey Two, Chapter 11: Ice and Vacuum.
He describes a very interesting creature uniquely adapted to the harsh cold and explains how it could have evolved there.
Yes, it *is* science fiction, but remember that this is Clarke, who loves throwing facts and theories into the writing. It does make it that much more interesting. Try reading "Ghost off the Grand Banks", where he describes a lot about offshore oil drilling and the Hibernia rig only recently completed near here, the Mandelbrot set including the history of it with some very good explanations, plus a lot of discussion on ways to possibly raise the Titanic.
Asimov is good like that as well. I remember reading his retelling of "The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs" from a chemist's point of view. That one fictional short story made chemistry make so much sense that I really started getting interested in it. Now I have a bit of a chemistry lab here sharing space with electronics and computer equipment.
Oh yeah, highly recommended Asimov non-fiction: "The Relativity of Wrong." It's a collection of essays on a myriad of topics. They're quite witty, too. He exhibits a bit of a Dave Barry-ish style in a couple of places. I learned a lot from that book, and the title essay, "The Relativity of Wrong," is very cool.
Ok, got a little off-topic there, but these books were, I think, some of the most important I have ever read.
they could have just said "ah, screw it, none of those nerds ever watch TV anyways"
I think they know the demographics for shows like "The Simpsons," "Futurama," and "The X-Files."
Keeping us nerds out wouldn't be a very intelligent thing to do, and despite shows like "World's Scariest/Funniest/etc foo," they probably are somewhat intelligent.
Aha, a good ol' Google search returned their link: http://www3.electrolux.se/robot/. Apparently, it goes over cables without any trouble. That's impressive.
For other robot vacuums, here's a short list:
I want that Electrolux one, though.
I haven't seen the Dyson one from the article. The site appears to be down hard.
"Hi there little guy..."
http://www.dizz.net/
Basically, we need to get down exactly what to do and how to do it. More developers would be nice too...
Here's part of one of my messages on the list:
You can get on the list at http://www.egroups.com/group/dizz-net.
I realize it's rarely practical for anything
It's great for simple microcontroller-based devices.
Actually, you'd be surprised how easy Microchip PIC assembly is. It's alot of fun, too.
The things some people have done with them are amazing. I even saw an easy-to-build Pong project.
Commentary on the past articles is right on the spot, though I've got to admit I missed the "Mattress King" reference.
That was a segment on John Stewart. It was pretty funny. You had to see it, though.
I still like the archivist who spends his free time archiving porn and lives with his mother. I had to laugh at that, especially the puppet porn they showed clips of.
I also enjoyed watching Tori Amos not talking very much, then pouring a glass of water on the floor for no apparent reason.
Moderation Totals:Offtopic=6, Flamebait=2, Troll=2, Funny=15, Overrated=2, Total=27
That's quite a power struggle. Wichert's karma has been having a bumpy little ride, indeed.
For the record, *I* think it's damn funny.
From reading some previous comments, I've thought about starting such a database.
I was thinking of starting as a simple website, then defining a protocol and writing client and server software, maybe a browser plugin, option in Konqueror and Mozilla, etc.
I like the idea.
Now that I'm back in Newfoundland (sadly), I don't get Global, but get most of my TV from the Comedy Network (American: Dennis Miller Live, John Stewart, Ben Stein, WKRP(!!), Canadian: Tom Green, Kevin Spencer ("he's a chain smoking, alcoholic, sociopath"), Butch Patterson: Private Dick ("Give me another drink or I'll slap you around like my prison lover"), Mike Bullard) and Teletoon (who, unfortunately, do not play "Late Night Anime" anymore, but still play Duckman, Spawn every Halloween, and the Canadian "Ned's Newt" (with jokes like, "Who's the man who's a machine to all the chicks" (It *is* a kid's show after all, they had to clean up that reference), and "That's brilliant, you're way too smart for the army, you're fired") and, of course, Splat!).
Wow, I've got to give up with those damn parenthesis, I've been programming a little too long.
I guess I'll go watch Win Ben Stein's Money, now...
709
Just to add another one.
"The Bill of Rights: A Whole New Chapter In The Stock Market"
That just made me laugh out loud.
I still don't know why...
the Pyramids have an elaborate embedded calendar that runs through 2000 that is supposed to predict some stuff.
I read a book on this few years back. I don't completely remember it but I'll give it a shot.
Apparently, they've so far determined the time scale and where we are. ~1.5 inches per year, I think.
A little explanation: The pyramid has a long tunnel that is not what you would expect from most traditional tunnels. It was painstakingly designed as a calendar. The tunnel, amazingly (could be a coincidence), maps out the state of the world over thousands of years. The way it is currently read, it has already predicted all of the major stuff in our past (in a world view).
According to the current understanding of it, we are approaching a spot where the tunnel is a deep pit with one tiny walkway along the side. After that it rises (over thousands of years) to a high, ornate room. That's where it ends.
An interesting read, even by a card-carrying skeptic, like myself.
I better idea would be to charge the sender of the emails, pings or whatever. Most people who really don't send much would hardly be effected, but the people who spam 1000's of messages would be screwed!
Ding, I think you've just hit the jackpot.
Just like phone service, sender pays, unless it's a collect call.
Unfortunately, this wouldn't work too well with web traffic. A whole new type of attack would emerge...
Interestingly enough, those screenshots have a KDE 2 look to them.
Are they including a pre-alpha KDE 2 with 6.3? Did they modify KDE 1 like Corel did?
Maybe this is only for the YaST 2...
Look at the comments on the main page.
The Napster guy is valid in his assumption that open specs will cause lots of hacking. However, he seems to forget that keeping it closed will not stop hacked clients from emerging. Gnap is proof of this.
If you're going to bombard Napster with email, don't flame. Just indicate that security-through-obscurity simply doesn't work. Any sort of protective measures he wants to do should be done on the servers, not so much the clients which everyone has access to.
I personally would like to see lots of encryption.
i>Rip out their "desktop" - I have a desktop. I just want to start a plain word processor/spreadsheet/presentation program - not a new desktop
Exactly. My one and only complaint about StarOffice.
Well, actually, I hate the "Windowsizing" it does inside of there as well. I have my "close window" button on the left in KDE. It makes much more sense to me, even though I have never used a Mac in my life.
I can live with it though. StarOffice is an extremely well-polished office package.
Just let the WM do the WM work, and I'll be very happy.
Old stuff... Where to begin :-)*
I too, collect old computers. I have actually put old character cell terminals into use. Tomorrow I should get a brand new 13w3 cable so I can get my new-to-me Sun 3/80 up and running as an X-terminal. Add to that all of the old TRS-80s, C64s, etc. that I don't actually use, but I have. I can't bring myself to throw them out. I seems such a waste.
I also have a collection of old video game consoles. Coleco, Intellivision, 2600, 7800, etc.
Old music gear, too. I have a late 60's Ampeg B-15N which is always what I play bass through. It's funny because the younger kids look at it and say, "what a piece of crap." While the older guys (especially sound guys) make large offers on it (no sale, don't bother trying) and fawn over it. I played one time and went over to the sound guy who had never done sound for us before to tell him, "Ok, no DI (bass goes directly to board, amp is only used for monitor). That amp will either be miked or, if you prefer, run into the board *after* the amp (got a nice output jack on the back, great for recording)." He said, "An amp like that? There's no way I'm letting you go DI."
Yes, Virginia, there are geeks in the music world, and they are just as nostalgic.