I can't imagine the heart-rendering experience of listening to a man die in rubble over the phone.
This makes me think of the story of the guy who called his wife from Mt. Everest as he was freezing to death. I belive there were other climbers maybe hundreds of meters away. It's humbling and frustrating to realize that sometimes such seemingly trivial distances can be insurmountable.
From the coverage I've been seeing (and it's 2:23 AM local time here in NYC) there isn't much debris being removed yet - I think they said it was simply too hot to stay in long enough. Never mind the stability of the remaining buildings in the area. They've recently gotten out two Port Authority officers, but hundreds of NYC police officers are missing, as are hundreds of fire fighters.
I'm just totally blown away. I can't get out of my head the sight of the second tower falling - or earlier, from much closer, of both buildings on fire with gaping holes.
I exited the subway five blocks north of the towers this morning at about 9:20 this morning, with a pretty clear view of the damage caused by the two planes, the second of which had hit about 15 minutes earlier. I hung around a few minutes, stunned, then left for work a few blocks away. There I wrote the following on my Pilot:
Getting out of subway - "do not go to WTC - there has been an explosion." Wasn't sure I heard right. The scene @ Chambers & W. B'way was incredible: huge crowds spilling onto street. Gaping hole on north side of North tower. Lots of smoke. More spread out hole on East side of north tower. Looks like something went in north side & out on east side. South tower also damaged on lower floor. Looked like whatever came out of north tower hit south tower.
At work we could see the smoke from the burning buildings, but not the buildings themselves, since there was another building in between. However, when tower two fell, we could see all the dust from that, obscuring all of lower Manhattan from our tenth floor view.
At that point we were sent home, but I was still in disbelief that the tower had fallen. I thought maybe the top had slid off or something. Another guy thought he'd heard that the radio tower had collapsed, so I walked a couple of blocks north, then headed back west, to the north end of West Broadway.
Many people were there watching tower one burning as well as the dust from tower two. I glanced away for a moment, but looked back when I heard a gasp from the crowd, only to see tower one collapsing.
There was a puff of smoke around the top of the building, then the roof began to fall, including the huge transmitting antenna on top, caving into the building below. After a second or two, we could hear the rumble of the building - it sounded like thunder.
By now the crowd had turned to go north, some running, some walking, but everyone moving with some urgency. I didn't want to run since I didn't want to cause anyone else to panic.
As we crossed 6th Avenue, we passed Mayor Guiliani, surrounded by aides and reporters, who I found out watching TV later had been forced from his mobile command center near the towers.
I continued up 6th Avenue, and apparently the Mayor continued up West Broadway, where he tried unsucessfully to set up temporary headquarters at the swank Soho Grand hotel. We were to cross paths again as he ended up back on 6th Avenue, hoping to get into a fire house, however it was locked. Supposedly someone in the entourage tried to break down the door with a fire extinguisher, and they ultimately made it inside.
I spoke to a friend who works two blocks south of the towers. I'm not too clear on his timeline, but he was engulfed in dust and debris when the first building collapsed and I think he said he took shelter in the building where he works, only to be nearly flattened by the second building falling about half an hour later. He was incredibly fortunate that he had no physical injuries and was able to make it home OK, though rescuers initially wanted to take him to Staten Island.
He also said he called a friend who'd been working in one of the towers and that they had left the building immediately after the first plane hit and were on the street when the second one hit 18 minutes later.
That suggests to me that the loss of life will turn out to be a good deal lower than it could have been. In fact, another friend pointed out that the bombing in 1993 may have actually saved lives today, as those who remembered it may have left at the first sign of trouble.
Now for some personal thoughts: I feel incredibly fortunate that my close friends and family are all unhurt, though I'm sure I'll find out soon enough about acquaintances and friends of friends, etc. who weren't so lucky. I wish everyone could be so lucky.
First of all, how do the county officials plan to get immunity from prosecution for violating the DMCA for all participants in this test? Second, how do the officials plan to limit the scope of what is allowable hacking? If, for example, someone manages to subvert the results with some social hacking, does that count against the test system (or does the hacker get thrown in jail?)
Third (and here's where the paranoia shines through), what about the list of people who try to hack the voting system? Is it going to be destroyed after the test, or will it somehow wind up in the hands of some law enforcement agency to be used as as self-selected suspect list the next time something bad happens to a computer somewhere?
I've got some old CDs of various distributions. I don't really know off the top of my head what versions of libc they use, but if anyone is interested in any of them, contact me and we'll figure out how to get you the ISO.
If we had more Meccano, we would have railways that worked. There would be more engineers with better basic understanding.
That's right. The Russians are kicking themselves for not introducing the Radioaktivo backyard nuclear reactor kit for kids back in the '50s, after that whole Chernobyl thing.
In other news, the US government announced that in the future it would be making documents available in Word XP format and will be requiring Passport accounts for access.
It's true. I set up a PC for my mother, a computer novice, and put Slackware 7.2 on it. I set up Lilo to boot in framebuffer mode, which shows a little penguin logo as the kernel messages are scrolling past.
Instead of the feared "what does all that stuff mean?" question, the reaction from my mother and sister, who was there too, was "Oooh, look at the cute penguin!"
I'd actually like to see someone name one part which is ahead of Microsoft. Just one.
I'm not really up on this stuff, but didn't Linux have IPv6 before Windows? I think it came out as a service pack for NT or something like that.
Here's one where Linux is way ahead of Windows - flexibility. How many window managers do you want to try? Don't like the way that program behaves? Edit, recompile, et voila.
Here's another way - portability. Linux has been ported to just about every CPU architecture out there. Regular Windows (NT/95) only currently works on x86, as I think MS abandoned Alpha. Only CE, which is a poor cousin to NT/95 in that it doesn't run the same applications, is being supported on multiple architectures. Then there's clustering, in which Linux leads.
The point is that for some people, these advances are big advantages, while for other people, Windows' strengths are more important. If you like playing the latest games, for example, you have to have Windows. As another poster pointed out, Linux is more stable. If you want to run a [Web/file/ftp/DNS/mail] server and not have to think about it very often, Linux (or a BSD) is your way to go.
I don't think most people who run Office for Windows are all of a sudden going to run Linux
Right. My point was only that having Office on Windows would eliminate a reason for needing to run Windows, not that this in and of itself would cause anyone to switch their OS. However, the lack of Office for Linux is one of the canonical reasons why Linux isn't ready to replace Windows as a "default" consumer OS.
I can imagine it would lead to PC companies trying to shave a few bucks and preinstalling Linux with this (hypothetical) Office for Linux and selling it as an entry-level, or at least low-cost PC. If the company saved $100 for the Windows license, they could charge $75 less and put the difference towards support costs.
However, my guess is that now would be an unlikely time for this to succeed, as the first-time PC buyer market seems to be stagnant, if not on the decline.
They need to... Port Office to linux and they could help control it.
A move like this would probably hurt Microsoft. It would eliminate a reason for needing to run Windows (which is a big cash cow for them, as they get paid for a Windows license for nearly every PC sold.)
Moreover, I don't think they could control Linux. Perhaps you're thinking they could supply patches to the kernel that would make Office run better than, say KWord or Star Office. However, this would require Linus' agreement. I doubt he'd include such dubious features. They're free, of course, to fork the kernel and make their own distribution, but they would have to distribute their source code and couldn't stop their customers from doing the same.
However, I think you're right that what would help Microsoft (or at least hurt the open source community) would be if they managed to divide and conquer the community. Their recent rantings about open source as "cancer", however, seems to have caused the OS community to close ranks and ignore their differences, as MS paints them all with the same brush.
Perhaps they would consider trying to divide the OS community along OS licenses, but complaining in public about OS licenses is a weak tactic for MS, because it relies on the arcana of the definition of open source. It would be pointless for MS to try to divide the OS community by picking sides in the "which license is better" debate because their PR machine works at the consumer/upper management level. The decision about which license is better takes place at the developer level, and is hardly a topic of interest to the general public. (I.e. typical Windows users.)
Then there's OS-X. While Apple freely embraces OS in the form of BSD and makes no bones about it, as many people have pointed out Windows (NT) is based in part on some BSD code. So MS rantings about OS "cancer" only also alienate them from Mac afficianados as well. This tactic seems to have backfired by (a) causing their otherwise fractioned enemies to find common ground, and (b) exposing their own hypocracy in their use of BSD code.
You'd better hope no Scientologists are working at any of those locations whose coordinates you just published or they might sue your ass in California.
Weren't there several witnesses and lawyers for the defense at their trial? Granted, they might be busy with appeals and so forth, but Napster itself might want to send a spokesperson.
I helped my mother learn how to use a computer (my brother was conveniently living 1000 miles away) and set her up on my machine. She'd had her first lesson on a visit to my brother and I can't even imagine how painful that must have been for both of them after several episodes like the following:
She called me over for help when the mouse had reached the edge of the mouse pad. I said, "Pick it up and move it over" so she picked up the mouse pad in her other hand and started moving them together.
Incidentally, this was on a machine running Linux, proving wrong anyone who says Linux isn't ready for the unwashed masses.
The cases are pretty neat, and the fact that they documented their startup efforts is even cooler. However (and I'm no EE) doesn't a regular case provide EM shielding and wouldn't a layer of clear plastic not provide such shielding?
companies say 'no', 95% of employees say 'oh well, I tried, but its better than being unemployed', and we all keep living this beautiful capitalist dream without a care in the world
It seems to me that this would be a reason to support having a programmer's union. The solidarity of a union would make it easier to try to stand up to such employer behavior.
Now if I could get a mouse or equivalent that works with my fingers on the home row, that would be cool.
Look for the IBM Trackpoint keyboard. It's got a tiny joystick between the G and H keys, I think, just like on the IBM laptops. I used one of these laptops for a while and really liked this feature, especialy compared to touch pads, and even trackballs.
So if you got Linux on your xbox without booting the Windows code, would you be entitled to the Windows refund?
Cool geek factor aside, it seems ironic, if not silly, that someone would want to buy one of these to run Linux. The Linux user's classic apology for using Windows is that it's for games, so I don't see why you'd bother running Linux on a box designed for games.
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This makes me think of the story of the guy who called his wife from Mt. Everest as he was freezing to death. I belive there were other climbers maybe hundreds of meters away. It's humbling and frustrating to realize that sometimes such seemingly trivial distances can be insurmountable.
From the coverage I've been seeing (and it's 2:23 AM local time here in NYC) there isn't much debris being removed yet - I think they said it was simply too hot to stay in long enough. Never mind the stability of the remaining buildings in the area. They've recently gotten out two Port Authority officers, but hundreds of NYC police officers are missing, as are hundreds of fire fighters.
I'm just totally blown away. I can't get out of my head the sight of the second tower falling - or earlier, from much closer, of both buildings on fire with gaping holes.
At work we could see the smoke from the burning buildings, but not the buildings themselves, since there was another building in between. However, when tower two fell, we could see all the dust from that, obscuring all of lower Manhattan from our tenth floor view.
At that point we were sent home, but I was still in disbelief that the tower had fallen. I thought maybe the top had slid off or something. Another guy thought he'd heard that the radio tower had collapsed, so I walked a couple of blocks north, then headed back west, to the north end of West Broadway.
Many people were there watching tower one burning as well as the dust from tower two. I glanced away for a moment, but looked back when I heard a gasp from the crowd, only to see tower one collapsing.
There was a puff of smoke around the top of the building, then the roof began to fall, including the huge transmitting antenna on top, caving into the building below. After a second or two, we could hear the rumble of the building - it sounded like thunder.
By now the crowd had turned to go north, some running, some walking, but everyone moving with some urgency. I didn't want to run since I didn't want to cause anyone else to panic.
As we crossed 6th Avenue, we passed Mayor Guiliani, surrounded by aides and reporters, who I found out watching TV later had been forced from his mobile command center near the towers.
I continued up 6th Avenue, and apparently the Mayor continued up West Broadway, where he tried unsucessfully to set up temporary headquarters at the swank Soho Grand hotel. We were to cross paths again as he ended up back on 6th Avenue, hoping to get into a fire house, however it was locked. Supposedly someone in the entourage tried to break down the door with a fire extinguisher, and they ultimately made it inside.
I spoke to a friend who works two blocks south of the towers. I'm not too clear on his timeline, but he was engulfed in dust and debris when the first building collapsed and I think he said he took shelter in the building where he works, only to be nearly flattened by the second building falling about half an hour later. He was incredibly fortunate that he had no physical injuries and was able to make it home OK, though rescuers initially wanted to take him to Staten Island.
He also said he called a friend who'd been working in one of the towers and that they had left the building immediately after the first plane hit and were on the street when the second one hit 18 minutes later.
That suggests to me that the loss of life will turn out to be a good deal lower than it could have been. In fact, another friend pointed out that the bombing in 1993 may have actually saved lives today, as those who remembered it may have left at the first sign of trouble.
Now for some personal thoughts: I feel incredibly fortunate that my close friends and family are all unhurt, though I'm sure I'll find out soon enough about acquaintances and friends of friends, etc. who weren't so lucky. I wish everyone could be so lucky.
Third (and here's where the paranoia shines through), what about the list of people who try to hack the voting system? Is it going to be destroyed after the test, or will it somehow wind up in the hands of some law enforcement agency to be used as as self-selected suspect list the next time something bad happens to a computer somewhere?
They are:
That's right. The Russians are kicking themselves for not introducing the Radioaktivo backyard nuclear reactor kit for kids back in the '50s, after that whole Chernobyl thing.
In other news, the US government announced that in the future it would be making documents available in Word XP format and will be requiring Passport accounts for access.
It's true. I set up a PC for my mother, a computer novice, and put Slackware 7.2 on it. I set up Lilo to boot in framebuffer mode, which shows a little penguin logo as the kernel messages are scrolling past.
Instead of the feared "what does all that stuff mean?" question, the reaction from my mother and sister, who was there too, was "Oooh, look at the cute penguin!"
I'm not really up on this stuff, but didn't Linux have IPv6 before Windows? I think it came out as a service pack for NT or something like that.
Here's one where Linux is way ahead of Windows - flexibility. How many window managers do you want to try? Don't like the way that program behaves? Edit, recompile, et voila.
Here's another way - portability. Linux has been ported to just about every CPU architecture out there. Regular Windows (NT/95) only currently works on x86, as I think MS abandoned Alpha. Only CE, which is a poor cousin to NT/95 in that it doesn't run the same applications, is being supported on multiple architectures. Then there's clustering, in which Linux leads.
The point is that for some people, these advances are big advantages, while for other people, Windows' strengths are more important. If you like playing the latest games, for example, you have to have Windows. As another poster pointed out, Linux is more stable. If you want to run a [Web/file/ftp/DNS/mail] server and not have to think about it very often, Linux (or a BSD) is your way to go.
Yeah, porn sites are already hand powered.
Right. My point was only that having Office on Windows would eliminate a reason for needing to run Windows, not that this in and of itself would cause anyone to switch their OS. However, the lack of Office for Linux is one of the canonical reasons why Linux isn't ready to replace Windows as a "default" consumer OS.
I can imagine it would lead to PC companies trying to shave a few bucks and preinstalling Linux with this (hypothetical) Office for Linux and selling it as an entry-level, or at least low-cost PC. If the company saved $100 for the Windows license, they could charge $75 less and put the difference towards support costs.
However, my guess is that now would be an unlikely time for this to succeed, as the first-time PC buyer market seems to be stagnant, if not on the decline.
A move like this would probably hurt Microsoft. It would eliminate a reason for needing to run Windows (which is a big cash cow for them, as they get paid for a Windows license for nearly every PC sold.)
Moreover, I don't think they could control Linux. Perhaps you're thinking they could supply patches to the kernel that would make Office run better than, say KWord or Star Office. However, this would require Linus' agreement. I doubt he'd include such dubious features. They're free, of course, to fork the kernel and make their own distribution, but they would have to distribute their source code and couldn't stop their customers from doing the same.
However, I think you're right that what would help Microsoft (or at least hurt the open source community) would be if they managed to divide and conquer the community. Their recent rantings about open source as "cancer", however, seems to have caused the OS community to close ranks and ignore their differences, as MS paints them all with the same brush.
Perhaps they would consider trying to divide the OS community along OS licenses, but complaining in public about OS licenses is a weak tactic for MS, because it relies on the arcana of the definition of open source. It would be pointless for MS to try to divide the OS community by picking sides in the "which license is better" debate because their PR machine works at the consumer/upper management level. The decision about which license is better takes place at the developer level, and is hardly a topic of interest to the general public. (I.e. typical Windows users.)
Then there's OS-X. While Apple freely embraces OS in the form of BSD and makes no bones about it, as many people have pointed out Windows (NT) is based in part on some BSD code. So MS rantings about OS "cancer" only also alienate them from Mac afficianados as well. This tactic seems to have backfired by (a) causing their otherwise fractioned enemies to find common ground, and (b) exposing their own hypocracy in their use of BSD code.
I think Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana would disagree.
You'd better hope no Scientologists are working at any of those locations whose coordinates you just published or they might sue your ass in California.
--Fermat
Anyone care to fill me in on the secret?
Weren't there several witnesses and lawyers for the defense at their trial? Granted, they might be busy with appeals and so forth, but Napster itself might want to send a spokesperson.
Yeah, like spray-painting "Peace, Love, and Linux" on the sidewalks for people to see when they leave the talk...
She called me over for help when the mouse had reached the edge of the mouse pad. I said, "Pick it up and move it over" so she picked up the mouse pad in her other hand and started moving them together.
Incidentally, this was on a machine running Linux, proving wrong anyone who says Linux isn't ready for the unwashed masses.
The cases are pretty neat, and the fact that they documented their startup efforts is even cooler. However (and I'm no EE) doesn't a regular case provide EM shielding and wouldn't a layer of clear plastic not provide such shielding?
Then Dr. Felten's OK, since Amazon will be suing SDMI for breach of patent on the "I Agree" button.
It seems to me that this would be a reason to support having a programmer's union. The solidarity of a union would make it easier to try to stand up to such employer behavior.
Look for the IBM Trackpoint keyboard. It's got a tiny joystick between the G and H keys, I think, just like on the IBM laptops. I used one of these laptops for a while and really liked this feature, especialy compared to touch pads, and even trackballs.
...Kids with guns, lots of guns, kill people.
And if you look at the whole flight, with the lift from the B-52 and then a booster rocket, I'll bet that mileage goes way down.
Cool geek factor aside, it seems ironic, if not silly, that someone would want to buy one of these to run Linux. The Linux user's classic apology for using Windows is that it's for games, so I don't see why you'd bother running Linux on a box designed for games.