Is there anyway to have home automation through something like Fast Ethernet? I don't want to invest in X10 if all it does it network appliances. It would be better to put all my computer and electrical appliances on one network. Maybe even stereos? TVs? Satalite receivers? VCRs?
Kind of ironic that people complain about there not being enough Linux apps. And at the same time, there seem to be so many great Linux apps that now they're being ported to other Operating Systems.
Some scientists believe that dreams are the brain's tool for organization its memory. Basically, when you dream, your brain compares what has been added to your memory, with your permenant memory. It then decided wheather the information should be discarded or wheather it should be stored. The brain tends to store information which can somehow link with information or experiances which have already been stored in permenant memory.
If you know a thing or two about democracy then you know that the general public and its opinions are STUPID. It's quite obvious who is going to win (Kasprov you idiot).
Let's say that a bunch of retards decide to take part in the game. Their votes will then affect the decision. Now, let's say a bunch of grandmasters also take part. Their votes will affect the decision. And undoubtibly, the majority of people won't be retards and they won't be grandmasters.
The decision, therefor, will be that of an average person. So, in a sense, this is a match between an average person and the world's greatest chess players.
All computers emmit a certain amount of electomagnetic radiation. Now, let's take your monitor as an example. Obviously, it emmits visible radiation (light). But that doesn't travel very far. But your monitor ALSO emmits other kinds of radiation. These waves almost resemble the image on your screen, if you analyize them enough. These waves are usually much faster than visible light waves. That means some feds can park a black van accross your street, intercept the highspeed radiation ebing emmited from your monitor and regenerate the exact display of your monitor in the van.
The United States Government started research on this phenomenon many years ago. They code named the project 'Tempest'. Today the Tempest project has been mostly declassified and information on Tempest can be found all over the Internet. I can find the URL for a really informative site on Tempest, unfortunatly. You could try certain channels on IRC. I beleive someone from #2600 (EFNet) has a huge site on tempest.
The near decryption of this message comes as no surprise to me and many others, given the timing. The message encyrpted within the sculpture will be in itself a mystery. It won't make sense and will sound more like a bunch of artistic, mystical jargon with no purpose other than entertainment.
The truth about this sculpture, however, goes deeper than a simple puzzle. This sculpture is the creation of a secret underground organization, spanning multiple governments and religeous institutions. The future has become quite clear to them. World War III is imminent. The antichrist has been located in Egypt. It shall be noted that Nostradamous predicted in the 16th century that the Antichrist would be a man presently living in the Middle East, and educated in Egypt. The opening sentence of the message in the sculpture describes the opening of an ancient egyptian grave. This organization has been secretly planning their part in World War III over the past 10 years. It is unknown to me what their motives are.
Nostradamous predidcted World War III would probably start in July 1999. The people who are decrypted the sculpture do not know about any of this. Are being used as tools. Once the message has been completly decrypted, it will signify the begining of the third and last World-Wide War.
Posted by *JonKatz* on Monday June 14, @11:39AM EDT
from the douglas-coupland-meet-your-twin dept. As we've done before, **both jonkatz and myself** have read, and written reviews of Po Bronson's forthcoming book, Nudist on the Late Shift. While this book will get a huge amount of media attention - it's worth it. Click below to read more.
As suggested by the word marked with *'s, this post was made by JonKatz. Then why is he saying "both jonkatz and myself"?
What the hell... you think some government is going to to Nuclear Ballastic Missiles Simulation on a PLaystation?
China has already stollen so much data from the United States, they can make (And have already made) extremly powerfull supercomputers, nuclear reactors, missiles, aircraft, etc.
Besides, how hard is it to find the parts for a supercomputer? Buy 64000 8-Way 500MHz Pentium III3's with a gig of RAM each and RAID, and 1Gb fiber optic networking hardware, and you can build a cluster with more computing power than the Intel Supercomputer, Red.
Need to put food on the table -- GPL > RH anyway
on
Red Hat Announces IPO
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· Score: 1
Redhat has been in the red for over the past two years. No private company can exsist for too long like this. Open Source development seems to be costing Redhat more than its worth (right now). Public corporations, however, can operate regardless of how much profit there is (if any). Amazon, for example, is still in the red! It's been there for a LONG time. And the stock has approached $400.
The bottom line for Redhat is, they either have to find another way to make money, or they have to shutdown in a few years (as is the natural course for any privatly held company that can't make money but spends millions of it).
As for all this Redhat FUD, it's highly unlikley that Redhat is going "piss on the GPL". For one thing, Redhat has already stated that they fully support the Linux community and will not allow this to change, when they go public. Maybe that won't happen. Doesn't matter. Redhat knows quite well what will happen if they don't treat the Linux Community well. As for defying the GPL -- they'll get sued like crazy for doing that. THEY MUST MAKE THEIR SOFTWARE FREELY AVAILABLE. That stands for all eternity. It doesn't matter if Bill Gates is on the Board of Directors or Al Gore becomes president. Redhat must always make the OS freely available for download.
This is a very special event for the Linux community as well as the Open Source movement. Let us keep in mind that it was the adovacation, contributions and love for Linux which has allowed Linux (and Redhat) to reach this point. Coders have been giving away so much, and now it's time to finally make some money.
Buying this stock will be time critical. There is a LOT of hyper surrounding the Redhat IPO. We don't want some big corporation eating up 25% of the shares within 4 hours, and driving prices up like crazy. It request that Slashdot let this article stay on the front page for more than the usual 1-2 days. I also hope that people start posting some useful investment suggestions. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding this. From what I hear, Redhat hasn't made any profits for a couple years. Leave this article up, so that the Linux and Open Source community can have up-to-the-minute information.
(Can anyone suggest how much a personal investment into Redhat should be? $10k? 20? 40?
Metered telephone calls aren't just expensive in Europe. Most of Asia also has metered calls. Even worse, in a lot of countries, the telco is owned by the government. I have to pay $1US/hour for using the line. Fortunatly, there is a local PBX where I live. So I use the PBX for Internet cals, and it's all free. But I still have to pay by the minute on my direct line. I just feel sorry for the poor chumps who don't have the advantage of a PBX.
But it makes sense, especially in poorer countries with old infrastructure. The telephone networks of the world were designed for calls which should last no more than 30 minutes. But Internet connections use the lines for hours at a time. And you guys in the States and Canada keep your telephone lines busy for months (i know i used to). This puts a lot of stress on the network.
I'm surprised that so many people in Europe are still using telephone lines. Isn't the European Infrastructure superior to the United States? I would image everyone there had xDSL or ISDN or Cable.
The REAL problem is that we keep trying to use the exsisting infrastructure for something it's not meant to do, in order to save money. This actually costs MORE and the users also have to suffer high costs and pathetic bandwidth. Hopefully the world will wake up someday to a SEPERATE, high bandwidth digital network just for the Net. No electrical sockets or cable TV jacks or telephone lines. Fiber optic for extreme bandwidth, copper for decent (100Mb/s) bandwidth and satalite for remote areas (100Mb/s?). Of course, it's unlikley to ever happen (except maybe satalite uplinks).
I remember about a year ago there was this contest going on (I think they were calling it 'Hack a Mac'). This company had some Macintosh Webservers which they claimed to be unhackable. And they were giving some big cash reward to anyone who could change the content of a page on the server (DoS did not count, of course). Anyone have more info about this?
Someday these extremly thin circuits will be embedded onto our skulls. And they will be integrated into our brains through neuron-silicon intigration. Wow. Someday I'll have a Linux Kernel running in my brain.
And some other guy will have Windows in his brain. I wonder what it'll look like when someone's mind crashes due to a Windows General Protection Fault.
No offense to anyone (e.g. Linus Trovalds) but the Pengiun doesn't really reflect the cutting-edge, high-tech image of Linux. Personally, I think almost ANYTHING is better than the pengiun. Especially that famous version of the Pengiun which Slashdot uses on the icon bar.
Personally, I think computer organizations have a real problem with names and logos. Redhat? What kind of name is that. Just because the founder's grandfather had given hima RED HAT, Redhat is almost synonymous for Linux. Sorry to say, that's a really bad reason to use a name. VA Research.. it's a little better... but what's VA? The list goes on and on.
We need some kind of organization which simply works on Linux promotional media, such as slogans, logos, link buttons, 'Powered by Linux' graphics and so forth. Just because Linux is GPLed doesn't mean we shouldn't market it like crazy.
At IBM we occasionaly get a magazine called 'Think Leadership'. In the issue Volume 3, Number 1 on page 22-26 there is a very interesting article about the integration of trillions of devices (aside from computers), all connected to a global network of astronomical size (and possibilities).
In the article, they give a scenario of what IBM envisions within the next decade:
---------------------[excerpt from IBM Think Mag.
11:30:05 The driver on his way to the airport, inserts a smart card into his car's dashboard. Funds are eletronically downloaded from his bank account [through the Internet] onto the smart card. At the same time, the smart card notifies the airline that the driver is en route.
11:30:10 The car has been engineered so that its electronic network detects early warning signs of malfunction. If a problem is detected, data is communicated via a wireless network to the manufacturer. In some cases, the problem can be "remotley" fixed. Subsequently, the manufacturer can forward data regarding the problem and its fix to tis development lab for analysis as well as for inclusion in its data warehouse.
meanwhile...
11:30:10 At a nearby service station, sensores inside a soda machine detect a rise in outside air temprature. The machine performs a self-inventory and anticipating increased demand, notifes the distributor to request restocking.
11:30:15 A warehouse has caught fire! The networked building siglans the fire department. Floor plans and information regarding the materials in storage from the building's network center to the dispatched fire tricks. Simutaneously, the logistics operation center and insurance carriers that serve the building and companies that store goods there are apprised via the network.
11:30:35 A citrus grower is notified of the fire at the warehouse where its products are locally stored.
11:30:35 The grower's logistics operation headquarters arranged fro an alternative sotrage location and rerouted transporation of goods [which were going to the warehouse on a ship]. The chip-embedded packets used by the grower for tracking purposes are electoeronically updated from the logistics operation headquarters to include the new desitation and transport arangements.
Meanwhile [back to the guy driving in the car]...
11:30:35 The sensor device in a ticketed passenger's smart card automatically alerts an airline that the passanger is too far away to make the flight's scheduled departure time. Alternative travel plans are made and communicated to the passenger via the smartcard.
11:31:10 Held up in trafic due to the warehouse fire, the driver is advised via the car's dashboard scren that a new itinerary and plane ticket will be downloaded onto his smartcard.
---------------------[ END EXCERPT
Okay, very cool. That's like a utopian society. Except they forgot one thing... security. Compare the above scenario to what the Internet is used for today. About the only thing resembling that is Electronic Commerce which is suffering some seriou problems due to security breaches. If something like the above DOES happen, it will open thousands of doors for crackers. Image the number of practical jokes you coupld play on the guy driving the car, in the above scenario:P
I'm not sure if I totally get this. But from what I understood, they want to force hardware / software companies into basically banning MP3s from their products?
Now... I'm listeningm right now, to an MP3 in X11AMP (in Linux) which I downloaded from the net. How the hell are they going to (a) stop me from downloading the file? Let's say I get a friend to encode the file from a CD, and then send the MP3 file to me over IRC (xdcc). Do they think they can actually stop MP3s from being transfered around the net? Maybe they can shutdown some huge MP3 piracy web sites (which, btw, probably deserve it anyway). But they sure as hell can't stop me from doing what I just described. (b) how are they going to stop Linux programs from running MP3s? They couldn't stop people from writing and giving away miltiary-strength encryption algorithms. How are they going to stop people from coding things like X11AMP? (c) what can my hardware do about it? Are they going to get harddrives to intelligently delete all *.mp3 files [without the support of the operating system]? I don't think so.
I don't think so. There IS one thing that they may be able to pull off. They could very well kill the COMMERCIAL value of MUSIC in MP3 format. Perhaps by coming up with a format which is harder to pirate. But then I don't really care all that much. MP3 has come all this way without being a major commercial part of the music industry, and it can continue without it as well. I don't think very many people actually buy legal MP3 files anyway. So this is just part of all the commercial sh*t that happens in the music industry.
This problem isn't going to go away by teachers, parents or students asking jocks, and all the people who push around nerds, to just stop. They know exactly what they're doing, and it takes a LOT to convince them to stop.
What needs to be done is that nerdy students need to be given a somewhat private enviornment where they can learn together, in peace. This not only protects them from the horrors of school bullies, it also helps them socially, as they can be with people whom they like.
Sound more like a dream than reality? I went to a public high school exactly as described above, in Toronto, Canada. It was a public school, with what they call streamed education. The program was funded by corporate partners (the school board had very little influence). We had everything from SGI Indigo's (Unix in school!) to a national robotics team. How it worked was that students submitted their school records, filled out a form, wrote a couple essays, and sent it off to the school with a $10 registration fee. If they thought you had the brain skills (bascially, you had to have above average grades... not 100%), they called you for an interview. The interview is where you really get your chance to show them that you deserve to go to this school.
The school still had normal kids, who went their because it was in their zone (this includes some jocks). BUt those people were not allowed to enter the special classes, and the school tried their best to keep lunch periods seperate. The result was an enviornment where geeks, nerds and even smart Goths can thrive. 80% of the school belonged to the special program.
I don't know if something like this is available in the US, but it should be. If your school doesn't have something like this, try talking with the board. But more importantly, you need to talk to your school. If you can convince your school, show them the benifets (money, extremly high averages, good enviornment for teachers, etc), then convincing the board won't be too hard when you're backed by an entire school. It doesn't cost anyone much, because it can all be sponsored by corporations who donate money and cool hardware.
I think (or at least hope) that the future will be something like that portrayed in the book "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson. Giant superpowers like the US will break up into hundreds of commercially owned states. Each state has its citizens, who pay that state's owner... in return, the state gives them what they want. Don't like what your state's giving you? Go become a citizen of another state... provided you can afford to. This way, everyone will be more or less happy, because it's TOTALY decentralized government. Maybe not as SAFE as current government... but a happier place for those who can afford to enter the preferable states.
Unless those robots have the three (four) laws that Asimov envisions (I wonder from who else you got that 'positron' idea;-), which are:
1. Do not harm any human, either by direct action or by neglegence; 2. Obey any human, except if the resulting action would violate law 1; 3. Protect yourself, except if the resulting actions would violate either law 1 or 2.
Okay... big loop hole here. Let's say I tell a robot to destroy itself... it MUST do so, due to rule 2. Rule 3 says to protect itself, but rule 2 can override rule 3. So basically you'de have people walking by and saying "kill yourself" to robots and watching them blow up. What logic!
You're right. I was thinking the same thing. I learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in 7th Grade. When diagramed, you have a triangle, split horizontally into several sections. The base of the triangle (the largest section) is food, then second is reproduction, third is something, fourth is soomething and fifth (as you said) is self-actualization. Now doesn't this contradict what Linus said about the future and what people will concentrate on? I'm hoping that people won't be THAT stupid as to not even realize what their needs and prioraties are. I think all this popularity is getting the Linus' head... "Linus' Law" ??? give a break.
I can see his point... to an extent. This is somewhat near sighted. What does Linus propose? If janitors, bus drivers and the people who work and McDonalds don't think their jobs are interesting they will quite? Because by then people will be more interested in being entertained than staying alive or getting food?
Perhaps you propose that such classes will not exsist in future times. This too could be quite near sighted. Society has exsisted for thousands and thousands of years, and there have always been lower class workers who didn't work for 'fun', but rather out of need. What makes you think that our society is any better than ancient societies? It's not technology, I'll give you that much. Ancient civilizations have accomplished things which we cannot even begin explain, despite our 'more sophisticated' way of doing things.
The computer, the Internet... it's all a phase in the greater picture. This isn't going to last forever. Some other civilization, thousands, even hundreds, of years later will be completly different... and they won't have Linux (... pitty).
If Apple did INDEED purchase MP3, what happens to all my music? Will it still be okay for people to make their own MP3 players? Or will we have to use QuickTime if we want the latest MP3 technology?
I don't know about others, but I'm getting a little paranoid about this sudden comercial interest in MP3. (I don't purcahse MP3s... like many other ppl, i'm sure:P ). I think I'm going to start looking into other technologies, just in case. I'm not sure, but I hear that other formats exsist which are better compressed, and have higher quality (true?).
I wonder if people will even actually BUY MP3 files. I can see the advantage, but it's actually more expensive than ordinary CDs, when you account for the cost of a portable MP3 player, plus a computer, and one fast enought to play MP3s in the background, while other things are happen, like browsing the net. I have two computers, and this PII400 can handle anything, but my old P133 with 32MB of RAM slows down, and often skips, when I connect to the net while playing MP3s. Not everyone who listens to music has a good computer. And very few people have Portable MP3 hardware. At the same time, MANY MANY people have stereos with CD drives, and many people have portable CD PLayers. Plus, playing CDs on a stereo puts no strain on the computer, so one can do work on a slow computer while listening to music (unlike MP3; that's my experiance).
So is there really an MP3 market as big as the CD and tape market? I dunno... maybe there is.
But back to the original point, does this make a difference to people who use MP3s but no Apple software and hardware??
Slashdot Mirror
Does this mean that there is no way to access a host anonymously? Or send email? Isn't this a privacy breach?
Is there anyway to have home automation through something like Fast Ethernet? I don't want to invest in X10 if all it does it network appliances. It would be better to put all my computer and electrical appliances on one network. Maybe even stereos? TVs? Satalite receivers? VCRs?
Kind of ironic that people complain about there not being enough Linux apps. And at the same time, there seem to be so many great Linux apps that now they're being ported to other Operating Systems.
Some scientists believe that dreams are the brain's tool for organization its memory. Basically, when you dream, your brain compares what has been added to your memory, with your permenant memory. It then decided wheather the information should be discarded or wheather it should be stored. The brain tends to store information which can somehow link with information or experiances which have already been stored in permenant memory.
If you know a thing or two about democracy then you know that the general public and its opinions are STUPID. It's quite obvious who is going to win (Kasprov you idiot).
Let's say that a bunch of retards decide to take part in the game. Their votes will then affect the decision. Now, let's say a bunch of grandmasters also take part. Their votes will affect the decision. And undoubtibly, the majority of people won't be retards and they won't be grandmasters.
The decision, therefor, will be that of an average person. So, in a sense, this is a match between an average person and the world's greatest chess players.
All computers emmit a certain amount of electomagnetic radiation. Now, let's take your monitor as an example. Obviously, it emmits visible radiation (light). But that doesn't travel very far. But your monitor ALSO emmits other kinds of radiation. These waves almost resemble the image on your screen, if you analyize them enough. These waves are usually much faster than visible light waves. That means some feds can park a black van accross your street, intercept the highspeed radiation ebing emmited from your monitor and regenerate the exact display of your monitor in the van.
The United States Government started research on this phenomenon many years ago. They code named the project 'Tempest'. Today the Tempest project has been mostly declassified and information on Tempest can be found all over the Internet. I can find the URL for a really informative site on Tempest, unfortunatly. You could try certain channels on IRC. I beleive someone from #2600 (EFNet) has a huge site on tempest.
The near decryption of this message comes as no surprise to me and many others, given the timing. The message encyrpted within the sculpture will be in itself a mystery. It won't make sense and will sound more like a bunch of artistic, mystical jargon with no purpose other than entertainment.
The truth about this sculpture, however, goes deeper than a simple puzzle. This sculpture is the creation of a secret underground organization, spanning multiple governments and religeous institutions. The future has become quite clear to them. World War III is imminent. The antichrist has been located in Egypt. It shall be noted that Nostradamous predicted in the 16th century that the Antichrist would be a man presently living in the Middle East, and educated in Egypt. The opening sentence of the message in the sculpture describes the opening of an ancient egyptian grave. This organization has been secretly planning their part in World War III over the past 10 years. It is unknown to me what their motives are.
Nostradamous predidcted World War III would probably start in July 1999. The people who are decrypted the sculpture do not know about any of this. Are being used as tools. Once the message has been completly decrypted, it will signify the begining of the third and last World-Wide War.
What you want is Tempest-grade sheilding. Do some research on tempest.
Posted by *JonKatz* on Monday June 14, @11:39AM EDT
from the douglas-coupland-meet-your-twin dept.
As we've done before, **both jonkatz and myself** have read, and written reviews of Po Bronson's forthcoming book, Nudist on the Late Shift. While this book will get a huge amount of media attention - it's worth it. Click below to read more.
As suggested by the word marked with *'s, this post was made by JonKatz. Then why is he saying "both jonkatz and myself"?
What the hell ... you think some government is going to to Nuclear Ballastic Missiles Simulation on a PLaystation?
China has already stollen so much data from the United States, they can make (And have already made) extremly powerfull supercomputers, nuclear reactors, missiles, aircraft, etc.
Besides, how hard is it to find the parts for a supercomputer? Buy 64000 8-Way 500MHz Pentium III3's with a gig of RAM each and RAID, and 1Gb fiber optic networking hardware, and you can build a cluster with more computing power than the Intel Supercomputer, Red.
Redhat has been in the red for over the past two years. No private company can exsist for too long like this. Open Source development seems to be costing Redhat more than its worth (right now). Public corporations, however, can operate regardless of how much profit there is (if any). Amazon, for example, is still in the red! It's been there for a LONG time. And the stock has approached $400.
The bottom line for Redhat is, they either have to find another way to make money, or they have to shutdown in a few years (as is the natural course for any privatly held company that can't make money but spends millions of it).
As for all this Redhat FUD, it's highly unlikley that Redhat is going "piss on the GPL". For one thing, Redhat has already stated that they fully support the Linux community and will not allow this to change, when they go public. Maybe that won't happen. Doesn't matter. Redhat knows quite well what will happen if they don't treat the Linux Community well. As for defying the GPL -- they'll get sued like crazy for doing that. THEY MUST MAKE THEIR SOFTWARE FREELY AVAILABLE. That stands for all eternity. It doesn't matter if Bill Gates is on the Board of Directors or Al Gore becomes president. Redhat must always make the OS freely available for download.
This just proves there are at least 3000 people in Japan who have waaaaay too much time and money.
Request to Slashdot:
This is a very special event for the Linux community as well as the Open Source movement. Let us keep in mind that it was the adovacation, contributions and love for Linux which has allowed Linux (and Redhat) to reach this point. Coders have been giving away so much, and now it's time to finally make some money.
Buying this stock will be time critical. There is a LOT of hyper surrounding the Redhat IPO. We don't want some big corporation eating up 25% of the shares within 4 hours, and driving prices up like crazy. It request that Slashdot let this article stay on the front page for more than the usual 1-2 days. I also hope that people start posting some useful investment suggestions. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding this. From what I hear, Redhat hasn't made any profits for a couple years. Leave this article up, so that the Linux and Open Source community can have up-to-the-minute information.
(Can anyone suggest how much a personal investment into Redhat should be? $10k? 20? 40?
Metered telephone calls aren't just expensive in Europe. Most of Asia also has metered calls. Even worse, in a lot of countries, the telco is owned by the government. I have to pay $1US/hour for using the line. Fortunatly, there is a local PBX where I live. So I use the PBX for Internet cals, and it's all free. But I still have to pay by the minute on my direct line. I just feel sorry for the poor chumps who don't have the advantage of a PBX.
But it makes sense, especially in poorer countries with old infrastructure. The telephone networks of the world were designed for calls which should last no more than 30 minutes. But Internet connections use the lines for hours at a time. And you guys in the States and Canada keep your telephone lines busy for months (i know i used to). This puts a lot of stress on the network.
I'm surprised that so many people in Europe are still using telephone lines. Isn't the European Infrastructure superior to the United States? I would image everyone there had xDSL or ISDN or Cable.
The REAL problem is that we keep trying to use the exsisting infrastructure for something it's not meant to do, in order to save money. This actually costs MORE and the users also have to suffer high costs and pathetic bandwidth. Hopefully the world will wake up someday to a SEPERATE, high bandwidth digital network just for the Net. No electrical sockets or cable TV jacks or telephone lines. Fiber optic for extreme bandwidth, copper for decent (100Mb/s) bandwidth and satalite for remote areas (100Mb/s?). Of course, it's unlikley to ever happen (except maybe satalite uplinks).
I remember about a year ago there was this contest going on (I think they were calling it 'Hack a Mac'). This company had some Macintosh Webservers which they claimed to be unhackable. And they were giving some big cash reward to anyone who could change the content of a page on the server (DoS did not count, of course). Anyone have more info about this?
Someday these extremly thin circuits will be embedded onto our skulls. And they will be integrated into our brains through neuron-silicon intigration. Wow. Someday I'll have a Linux Kernel running in my brain.
And some other guy will have Windows in his brain. I wonder what it'll look like when someone's mind crashes due to a Windows General Protection Fault.
No offense to anyone (e.g. Linus Trovalds) but the Pengiun doesn't really reflect the cutting-edge, high-tech image of Linux. Personally, I think almost ANYTHING is better than the pengiun. Especially that famous version of the Pengiun which Slashdot uses on the icon bar.
.. it's a little better ... but what's VA? The list goes on and on.
Personally, I think computer organizations have a real problem with names and logos. Redhat? What kind of name is that. Just because the founder's grandfather had given hima RED HAT, Redhat is almost synonymous for Linux. Sorry to say, that's a really bad reason to use a name. VA Research
We need some kind of organization which simply works on Linux promotional media, such as slogans, logos, link buttons, 'Powered by Linux' graphics and so forth. Just because Linux is GPLed doesn't mean we shouldn't market it like crazy.
At IBM we occasionaly get a magazine called 'Think Leadership'. In the issue Volume 3, Number 1 on page 22-26 there is a very interesting article about the integration of trillions of devices (aside from computers), all connected to a global network of astronomical size (and possibilities).
...
... security. Compare the above scenario to what the Internet is used for today. About the only thing resembling that is Electronic Commerce which is suffering some seriou problems due to security breaches. If something like the above DOES happen, it will open thousands of doors for crackers. Image the number of practical jokes you coupld play on the guy driving the car, in the above scenario :P
In the article, they give a scenario of what IBM envisions within the next decade:
---------------------[excerpt from IBM Think Mag.
11:30:05 The driver on his way to the airport, inserts a smart card into his car's dashboard. Funds are eletronically downloaded from his bank account [through the Internet] onto the smart card. At the same time, the smart card notifies the airline that the driver is en route.
11:30:10 The car has been engineered so that its electronic network detects early warning signs of malfunction. If a problem is detected, data is communicated via a wireless network to the manufacturer. In some cases, the problem can be "remotley" fixed. Subsequently, the manufacturer can forward data regarding the problem and its fix to tis development lab for analysis as well as for inclusion in its data warehouse.
meanwhile
11:30:10 At a nearby service station, sensores inside a soda machine detect a rise in outside air temprature. The machine performs a self-inventory and anticipating increased demand, notifes the distributor to request restocking.
11:30:15 A warehouse has caught fire! The networked building siglans the fire department. Floor plans and information regarding the materials in storage from the building's network center to the dispatched fire tricks. Simutaneously, the logistics operation center and insurance carriers that serve the building and companies that store goods there are apprised via the network.
11:30:35 A citrus grower is notified of the fire at the warehouse where its products are locally stored.
11:30:35 The grower's logistics operation headquarters arranged fro an alternative sotrage location and rerouted transporation of goods [which were going to the warehouse on a ship]. The chip-embedded packets used by the grower for tracking purposes are electoeronically updated from the logistics operation headquarters to include the new desitation and transport arangements.
Meanwhile [back to the guy driving in the car]...
11:30:35 The sensor device in a ticketed passenger's smart card automatically alerts an airline that the passanger is too far away to make the flight's scheduled departure time. Alternative travel plans are made and communicated to the passenger via the smartcard.
11:31:10 Held up in trafic due to the warehouse fire, the driver is advised via the car's dashboard scren that a new itinerary and plane ticket will be downloaded onto his smartcard.
---------------------[ END EXCERPT
Okay, very cool. That's like a utopian society. Except they forgot one thing
Just thought this might help you.
I'm not sure if I totally get this. But from what I understood, they want to force hardware / software companies into basically banning MP3s from their products?
... I'm listeningm right now, to an MP3 in X11AMP (in Linux) which I downloaded from the net. How the hell are they going to (a) stop me from downloading the file? Let's say I get a friend to encode the file from a CD, and then send the MP3 file to me over IRC (xdcc). Do they think they can actually stop MP3s from being transfered around the net? Maybe they can shutdown some huge MP3 piracy web sites (which, btw, probably deserve it anyway). But they sure as hell can't stop me from doing what I just described.
Now
(b) how are they going to stop Linux programs from running MP3s? They couldn't stop people from writing and giving away miltiary-strength encryption algorithms. How are they going to stop people from coding things like X11AMP?
(c) what can my hardware do about it? Are they going to get harddrives to intelligently delete all *.mp3 files [without the support of the operating system]? I don't think so.
I don't think so. There IS one thing that they may be able to pull off. They could very well kill the COMMERCIAL value of MUSIC in MP3 format. Perhaps by coming up with a format which is harder to pirate. But then I don't really care all that much. MP3 has come all this way without being a major commercial part of the music industry, and it can continue without it as well. I don't think very many people actually buy legal MP3 files anyway. So this is just part of all the commercial sh*t that happens in the music industry.
This problem isn't going to go away by teachers, parents or students asking jocks, and all the people who push around nerds, to just stop. They know exactly what they're doing, and it takes a LOT to convince them to stop.
... not 100%), they called you for an interview. The interview is where you really get your chance to show them that you deserve to go to this school.
What needs to be done is that nerdy students need to be given a somewhat private enviornment where they can learn together, in peace. This not only protects them from the horrors of school bullies, it also helps them socially, as they can be with people whom they like.
Sound more like a dream than reality? I went to a public high school exactly as described above, in Toronto, Canada. It was a public school, with what they call streamed education. The program was funded by corporate partners (the school board had very little influence). We had everything from SGI Indigo's (Unix in school!) to a national robotics team. How it worked was that students submitted their school records, filled out a form, wrote a couple essays, and sent it off to the school with a $10 registration fee. If they thought you had the brain skills (bascially, you had to have above average grades
The school still had normal kids, who went their because it was in their zone (this includes some jocks). BUt those people were not allowed to enter the special classes, and the school tried their best to keep lunch periods seperate. The result was an enviornment where geeks, nerds and even smart Goths can thrive. 80% of the school belonged to the special program.
I don't know if something like this is available in the US, but it should be. If your school doesn't have something like this, try talking with the board. But more importantly, you need to talk to your school. If you can convince your school, show them the benifets (money, extremly high averages, good enviornment for teachers, etc), then convincing the board won't be too hard when you're backed by an entire school. It doesn't cost anyone much, because it can all be sponsored by corporations who donate money and cool hardware.
I think (or at least hope) that the future will be something like that portrayed in the book "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson. Giant superpowers like the US will break up into hundreds of commercially owned states. Each state has its citizens, who pay that state's owner ... in return, the state gives them what they want. Don't like what your state's giving you? Go become a citizen of another state ... provided you can afford to. This way, everyone will be more or less happy, because it's TOTALY decentralized government. Maybe not as SAFE as current government ... but a happier place for those who can afford to enter the preferable states.
Unless those robots have the three (four) laws that Asimov envisions (I wonder from who else you got that 'positron' idea ;-), which are:
... big loop hole here. Let's say I tell a robot to destroy itself ... it MUST do so, due to rule 2. Rule 3 says to protect itself, but rule 2 can override rule 3. So basically you'de have people walking by and saying "kill yourself" to robots and watching them blow up. What logic!
1. Do not harm any human, either by direct action or by neglegence;
2. Obey any human, except if the resulting action would violate law 1;
3. Protect yourself, except if the resulting actions would violate either law 1 or 2.
Okay
who IS Asimov, anyway?
You're right. I was thinking the same thing. I learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in 7th Grade. When diagramed, you have a triangle, split horizontally into several sections. The base of the triangle (the largest section) is food, then second is reproduction, third is something, fourth is soomething and fifth (as you said) is self-actualization. Now doesn't this contradict what Linus said about the future and what people will concentrate on? I'm hoping that people won't be THAT stupid as to not even realize what their needs and prioraties are. I think all this popularity is getting the Linus' head ... "Linus' Law" ??? give a break.
I can see his point ... to an extent. This is somewhat near sighted. What does Linus propose? If janitors, bus drivers and the people who work and McDonalds don't think their jobs are interesting they will quite? Because by then people will be more interested in being entertained than staying alive or getting food?
... it's all a phase in the greater picture. This isn't going to last forever. Some other civilization, thousands, even hundreds, of years later will be completly different ... and they won't have Linux ( ... pitty).
Perhaps you propose that such classes will not exsist in future times. This too could be quite near sighted. Society has exsisted for thousands and thousands of years, and there have always been lower class workers who didn't work for 'fun', but rather out of need. What makes you think that our society is any better than ancient societies? It's not technology, I'll give you that much. Ancient civilizations have accomplished things which we cannot even begin explain, despite our 'more sophisticated' way of doing things.
The computer, the Internet
If Apple did INDEED purchase MP3, what happens to all my music? Will it still be okay for people to make their own MP3 players? Or will we have to use QuickTime if we want the latest MP3 technology?
... like many other ppl, i'm sure :P ). I think I'm going to start looking into other technologies, just in case. I'm not sure, but I hear that other formats exsist which are better compressed, and have higher quality (true?).
... maybe there is.
I don't know about others, but I'm getting a little paranoid about this sudden comercial interest in MP3. (I don't purcahse MP3s
I wonder if people will even actually BUY MP3 files. I can see the advantage, but it's actually more expensive than ordinary CDs, when you account for the cost of a portable MP3 player, plus a computer, and one fast enought to play MP3s in the background, while other things are happen, like browsing the net. I have two computers, and this PII400 can handle anything, but my old P133 with 32MB of RAM slows down, and often skips, when I connect to the net while playing MP3s. Not everyone who listens to music has a good computer. And very few people have Portable MP3 hardware. At the same time, MANY MANY people have stereos with CD drives, and many people have portable CD PLayers. Plus, playing CDs on a stereo puts no strain on the computer, so one can do work on a slow computer while listening to music (unlike MP3; that's my experiance).
So is there really an MP3 market as big as the CD and tape market? I dunno
But back to the original point, does this make a difference to people who use MP3s but no Apple software and hardware??