Re:they say cut back, we say FIGHT BACK!
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 2
What parts of shitty Compaq will they be using in HPs now?
Damned straight. I sure as hell don't want those Compaq torx screws and nonstandard drive rails stuck into my next oscilliscope or scientific calculator.
Looks like I'm buying Tektronix and TI from here on out.
(Wait... did HP already sell off their hardware geek equipment division and name it something silly - I don't remeber for sure.)
Oh, yeah! Those funny-mentalist Xtians are really powerful and influential! Why, thanks to them, evolution is not taught in the schools, there is prayer every day before class, abortion is illegal, every town square has a Xmas creche/manger scene, Xtians are depicted as wonderful people in the media, and atheists live in fear! Damn those influential funny-mentalists and their infuriating influence on government policy!
(sarcasm off)
Really, I don't know which is more stupid: pimply teenage geek morons posting their ignorant drivel on Slashdot, or the morons who mod them as "insightful"!
Well, all the things that you mention would come to pass within weeks if it weren't for the "pimply teenage geek morons" and other good people who work to keep the government relatively free from the grips of you underappreciated, misunderstood, uninfluential, unassuming, nonjudgemental, just-minding-your-own-business, not-into-witch-hunts-anymore folks.
If they're having a lot of problems with dusty conditions in South Carolina libraries, then I support filters on the computers. It could help the fans and other components last longer.
slashdot is not journalism...and it never claimed to be. it's a news weblog with reader comments... unless you call this, what I am doing now, journalism.
That's for damned sure. If there were any real journalism standards here, then they'd have to fire any "editor" who goes to press with multiple spelling and grammar errors in a three sentence quip. But if they did that, there would be nobody left to post any stories.
When the television was first invented, people would turn it on just to see the snow, if their was no singal to pick up. Just using the technology was a thrill in itself.
And they'd still be doing it too, if it weren't for greedy corps. They figured out that there was no advertising revenue available from watching freely available quantum noise, so they censored it. All you see now on new TVs is a boring blue screen; a BSOD without text.
Did you know that about half of the TV snow signal is cosmic background radiation? Watching snow is like watching God create the universe. It is much more enlightening that watching an insipid sitcom. There are dozens of different channels of snow to watch, and it never repeats. But no longer. If you're lucky enough to have an old TV, hold onto it.
this is a store saying, we caugh you shoplifting here before, so we don't want you back.
No it isn't.
This is a store buying a database from a company that peddles accusations. If the system grows in popularity and most stores implement this, the database company gains quasi-governmental powers but without the checks and balances built into governments.
Inclusion in the database (rightly or wrongly) becomes a form of extra-legal punishment, imposed regardless of any due process punishments already applied by the real government to the offender (or mistaken non-offender).
Like I said originally, it's not each individual store that's the problem. It's the network effect when all stores share accusations in real time via a secret database.
Or, even better, how about not stealing? Really, why is anyone so worried about being watched if they aren't doing anything wrong?
Because the issue isn't whether the watchees are doing anything wrong. I'ts whether the watchers are doing anything wrong.
Enhanced surveillance technology is almost never accompanied by enhanced accoutablility for the operators of that technology. (Be it governments, corporations or spies.) These systems are being deployed with no concern for the fact that they upset balances of interest that have been carefully formed over centuries.
Those who claim that these are not new powers are wrong. The data correlation provided by networked and shared computer databases is a fundamentally new capabality. Comparing this new capability to a cop watching for known criminals on the street is like comparing a nuclear weapon to a hand grenade. At some point in the future, having your face in one of these databases will be like having an emblem sewed on your sleeve in Nazi Germany.
Whether we decide to classify it as a 'major planet', 'minor planet', 'planetoid', or 'planitessimal', is irrelevant.
Exactly. In fact, the situation is a tautology. If people stop squabbling and agree on a word to classify Pluto (it doesn't matter if it's "planet", "minor planet", "flerbage" or whatever), then by definition that word includes Pluto-like objects.
Pluto itself remains the same no matter what we call it.
If they really want to make a different, why not provide vocational training for the disadvantaged so they can actually learn a skill to help them better themselves. Now, that would be money better spent.
No, you're forgetting that this is Houston. Here, the first priority is trucks. The government has done a great job so far, because now every family here has at least one truck.
Unfortunately, we now have a "maximum-GVW divide". It seems that many poor and minorities only have a short bed, a regular cab, or (shudder), a compact pickup. These people will never catch up with the affluent class who drive late model super-duty 4x6s with V10 engines.
If they really, truly want to make a difference, they should provide a free crew-cab extended bed pickup to every family. Only then will we have social justice in Houston.
For those who want to call it Linux, I'd just suggest this: try running your favorite distro after subtracting all of the GNU system. Have fun.
Try running your favorite distro after subtracting all of the NON-GNU software (Apache, Perl, Python, vim, etc..). Not much fun either; yet none of those developers are clamoring to get their names prefixed to the system.
Lots to consider. But, most of the problems that you outline have to do with the lack of economies of scale. As you point out, with a seed capital measured in thousands of dollars, it will be very hard to succeed in this business.
However, if somebody could organize a system with a couple of $million behind it, things might be different. There would be leverage to negotiate the best rates with CD pressers, shippers, distributors, etc.
This kind of large scale nonprofit enterprise has been done in the past. IIRC, until they recently sold out, most Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMOs were run as nonprofit organizations. Even for-profit businesses can be arranged around an interest other than shareholders; my auto insurance is through a mutual insurance company that is supposedly owned by the policy holders.
I think that it is mainly a question of getting the thing off of the ground. The music industry should be full of the dedicated types of people who could make this work. It's strange that nobody has stepped up to the plate (not even a any rich over-the-hill superstars).
BTW, that UPC fee business is pretty outrageous. I'm suprised that there hasn't been an uproar on/. along the lines of the DNS root debates. I guess the issue is just way off of the radar screen of any geek. I wonder if there are any UPC squatters, like for the code 66666 66666.
Your policy of trying to physically stop your
employees from extracting files sounds like a
challenge. Let's assume that you don't have
network connections, otherwise defeating your
policy would be too trivial to contemplate.
If I worked there, I would still 0wn all of your
files in 10 minutes just by bringing in my trusty
old parallel port zip drive. I hope you don't have
a false sense of security.
Not to mention that we'd scrape our knuckles to bloody shreds against lead-coated IC pins trying to insert and extract option cards, so we could try endless permutations of DIP switch settings in the vain hope of getting the machine to boot. We didn't have 'plug-and-play'. We didn't need it.
I'm just learning python now. There just aren't enough hours in the day for me to learn all of these languages.
Then learn Ruby. Python looks clean to the untrained eye, but you have to remember lots and lots of special cases because of the arbitrary mixture of object-oriented and procedural features.
Ruby is extremely consistent and well thought out. I've used well over a dozen languages, and Ruby is my favorite by far.
Before the civil war, the park was home to about 8,000 eastern lowland gorillas. That number may have since been reduced to fewer than 1,000, the report estimated, because miners and others in the forest are far from food supplies and must rely on bush meat. Apes are killed for food or killed in traps set for other animals. If something is not done to stop mining and poaching, the report said that the eastern lowland gorilla ''will become the first great ape to be driven to extinction -- a victim of war, human greed and high technology.''
A major species closely related to ourselves is going to go extinct to so that some people can scrounge up some meat. In fact, less total meat than a single planeload of hamburger patties.
And we humans are self-aware enough to realize this is happening, yet are too incompetent and self-centered to do anything about it.
It's fscking pathetic.
I hope they put more focus on the "fun" part
on
Quake 4 Announced
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· Score: 2, Flamebait
I hope they put more focus on the "fun" part, because they dropped the ball on Quake III. It's been all Unreal Tournament for me for the last 18 months.
Oh yeah, and they better make it run faster on an the Athlon than the P4, or all the/. armchair CPU architects out there are really going to be pissed:-)
Not gonna fly until after 2004...
on
Triana Mothballed
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· Score: 5, Insightful
...because those pesky scientists would most likely use it to gather evidence about inconvenient issues like global warming and pollution. In the mean time, the money is much better spent on that trillion dollar orbiting erector set.
Access speeds need to increase to take Internet use tot he next level, yet at the same time, there has to be useful broadband content to merit the cost of increasing access speeds. But what will come first?
There are an astronomical number of possible board configurations in chess, but they are finite.
Maybe technically finite, but astronomical doesn't give justice to the number. My quick estimate is that even if you could somehow store one game per atom, the entire earth doesn't have enough atoms to save all of the permutations.
Microsoft is using a Beta version of the new IIS software for their hotmail servers that come with the worm already bundled with it.
This is another monopolistic outrage!!! Just where will the bundling stop? Now Bill Gates wants to take away the livelyhoods of the virus witers! Is anybody safe?
"In one benchmark I have read about, a 200-byte message was reduced to 20 bytes with normal compression methods, but ASN.1 encoded it into just 2 bytes and a few bits,"
I can do better than that. How about my algorithm that can compress the whole Bible into 1 bit:
Slashdot Mirror
Damned straight. I sure as hell don't want those Compaq torx screws and nonstandard drive rails stuck into my next oscilliscope or scientific calculator.
Looks like I'm buying Tektronix and TI from here on out.
(Wait... did HP already sell off their hardware geek equipment division and name it something silly - I don't remeber for sure.)
(sarcasm off)
Really, I don't know which is more stupid: pimply teenage geek morons posting their ignorant drivel on Slashdot, or the morons who mod them as "insightful"!
Well, all the things that you mention would come to pass within weeks if it weren't for the "pimply teenage geek morons" and other good people who work to keep the government relatively free from the grips of you underappreciated, misunderstood, uninfluential, unassuming, nonjudgemental, just-minding-your-own-business, not-into-witch-hunts-anymore folks.
If they're having a lot of problems with dusty conditions in South Carolina libraries, then I support filters on the computers. It could help the fans and other components last longer.
That's for damned sure. If there were any real journalism standards here, then they'd have to fire any "editor" who goes to press with multiple spelling and grammar errors in a three sentence quip. But if they did that, there would be nobody left to post any stories.
And they'd still be doing it too, if it weren't for greedy corps. They figured out that there was no advertising revenue available from watching freely available quantum noise, so they censored it. All you see now on new TVs is a boring blue screen; a BSOD without text.
Did you know that about half of the TV snow signal is cosmic background radiation? Watching snow is like watching God create the universe. It is much more enlightening that watching an insipid sitcom. There are dozens of different channels of snow to watch, and it never repeats. But no longer. If you're lucky enough to have an old TV, hold onto it.
No it isn't.
This is a store buying a database from a company that peddles accusations. If the system grows in popularity and most stores implement this, the database company gains quasi-governmental powers but without the checks and balances built into governments.
Inclusion in the database (rightly or wrongly) becomes a form of extra-legal punishment, imposed regardless of any due process punishments already applied by the real government to the offender (or mistaken non-offender).
Like I said originally, it's not each individual store that's the problem. It's the network effect when all stores share accusations in real time via a secret database.
Because the issue isn't whether the watchees are doing anything wrong. I'ts whether the watchers are doing anything wrong.
Enhanced surveillance technology is almost never accompanied by enhanced accoutablility for the operators of that technology. (Be it governments, corporations or spies.) These systems are being deployed with no concern for the fact that they upset balances of interest that have been carefully formed over centuries.
Those who claim that these are not new powers are wrong. The data correlation provided by networked and shared computer databases is a fundamentally new capabality. Comparing this new capability to a cop watching for known criminals on the street is like comparing a nuclear weapon to a hand grenade. At some point in the future, having your face in one of these databases will be like having an emblem sewed on your sleeve in Nazi Germany.
Exactly. In fact, the situation is a tautology. If people stop squabbling and agree on a word to classify Pluto (it doesn't matter if it's "planet", "minor planet", "flerbage" or whatever), then by definition that word includes Pluto-like objects.
Pluto itself remains the same no matter what we call it.
steal, even if it saves someone's life. Period.
Congratulations, sir. You have just made the single /.
most moronic assertion ever posted on
Quite an accomplishment.
What part of "there's nothing certain in life except death and taxes" do you not understand? Deal with it or run for mayor.
No, you're forgetting that this is Houston. Here, the first priority is trucks. The government has done a great job so far, because now every family here has at least one truck.
Unfortunately, we now have a "maximum-GVW divide". It seems that many poor and minorities only have a short bed, a regular cab, or (shudder), a compact pickup. These people will never catch up with the affluent class who drive late model super-duty 4x6s with V10 engines.
If they really, truly want to make a difference, they should provide a free crew-cab extended bed pickup to every family. Only then will we have social justice in Houston.
Try running your favorite distro after subtracting all of the NON-GNU software (Apache, Perl, Python, vim, etc..). Not much fun either; yet none of those developers are clamoring to get their names prefixed to the system.
It tastes like the real thing
This fake plastic slashdot
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I could just roll back
And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out
Who'd pay $20 million to ride on a Russian rocket? There's certainly no profit in that.
However, if somebody could organize a system with a couple of $million behind it, things might be different. There would be leverage to negotiate the best rates with CD pressers, shippers, distributors, etc.
This kind of large scale nonprofit enterprise has been done in the past. IIRC, until they recently sold out, most Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMOs were run as nonprofit organizations. Even for-profit businesses can be arranged around an interest other than shareholders; my auto insurance is through a mutual insurance company that is supposedly owned by the policy holders.
I think that it is mainly a question of getting the thing off of the ground. The music industry should be full of the dedicated types of people who could make this work. It's strange that nobody has stepped up to the plate (not even a any rich over-the-hill superstars).
BTW, that UPC fee business is pretty outrageous. I'm suprised that there hasn't been an uproar on /. along the lines of the DNS root debates. I guess the issue is just way off of the radar screen of any geek. I wonder if there are any UPC squatters, like for the code 66666 66666.
If I worked there, I would still 0wn all of your files in 10 minutes just by bringing in my trusty old parallel port zip drive. I hope you don't have a false sense of security.
Not to mention that we'd scrape our knuckles to bloody shreds against lead-coated IC pins trying to insert and extract option cards, so we could try endless permutations of DIP switch settings in the vain hope of getting the machine to boot. We didn't have 'plug-and-play'. We didn't need it.
Then learn Ruby. Python looks clean to the untrained eye, but you have to remember lots and lots of special cases because of the arbitrary mixture of object-oriented and procedural features.
Ruby is extremely consistent and well thought out. I've used well over a dozen languages, and Ruby is my favorite by far.
And we humans are self-aware enough to realize this is happening, yet are too incompetent and self-centered to do anything about it.
It's fscking pathetic.
Oh yeah, and they better make it run faster on an the Athlon than the P4, or all the /. armchair CPU architects out there are really going to be pissed :-)
...because those pesky scientists would most likely use it to gather evidence about inconvenient issues like global warming and pollution. In the mean time, the money is much better spent on that trillion dollar orbiting erector set.
pr0n.
Maybe technically finite, but astronomical doesn't give justice to the number. My quick estimate is that even if you could somehow store one game per atom, the entire earth doesn't have enough atoms to save all of the permutations.
This is another monopolistic outrage!!! Just where will the bundling stop? Now Bill Gates wants to take away the livelyhoods of the virus witers! Is anybody safe?
I can do better than that. How about my algorithm that can compress the whole Bible into 1 bit:
if ($msg[0] & 0x80) {
STDOUT << $king_james_version;
$msg[0] &= 0x7f;
}
STDOUT << @msg;