It's interesting to me that the impact near the South Pole may be the direct cause of a pole reversal (according to the article). Does an impact pole reversal reset the clock between reversals?
Between the impact damage and the pole reversal, it would be interesting to see if corresponding evidence of the strike would be found at/near the North Pole, under the theory that strikes have large effects on the region opposite strikes on the Earth.
I thought the point of this system was that they combined disparate databases to create a whole profile for the no-fly listees. If they flag on "T. Kennedy" without cross referencing ImportantPerson.db and FrequentFlier.db and FaceLooksLikeThis.db and ICanGetFired.db, not to mention mundane things like Address.db and Phone.db and SSN.db, etc., then
1. The database is useless. 2. The public has nothing to worry about when it comes to privacy.
I agree with the poster, ten years is not enough for all this stuff, but for more obvious reasons. Sociological change doesn't happen that fast, and futurists are always overestimating how quickly a society will take advantage of new technology. A few examples:
A smart road is doable now, and testbed roads have cars communicating with the road and between themselves autonomously. But for change to happen on a mass basis, you'd have to:
Legislate and finance the road improvements and policies at the local, state and federal level. That won't happen without decades of kicking and screaming. In the DC area where I live, we can't get intercounty-connector roads built without 30-50 years of effort, and that's 100 year old technology.
Last through the return on investment of present technology. A car purchased today will be operating for at least another ten years, and the entrenched political/corporate interests in maintaining dealerships, support services like fueling stations and repairs, insurance companies, Any new technology with mass sociological requirements will have to coexist with current/old technology for at least our lifetimes.
Be a demonstrably better solution then alternatives, and have political support that beats the opposition. Smart roads with sensors are one solution, but so is smart cars independent of the road, and smart cars are more likely to be assimilated faster. (Better maps, radar and other sensors, GPS, AI expert programming will all lead to (first) driver enhancement, and then eventually driver replacement, without requiring fundamental change from the goverment.)
Health improvements will always be available to those with means, but with the rising cost of health care, a smaller percentage of people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder may have these things, but the larger majority will more likely have less health resources and poorer diagnostics and treatment.
Futurists are always predicting that technology improvements will lead to more free time, less stress, but history demonstrates that the opposite is true - productivity per person will go up, with each person expected to do more, be more accessible, take on more responsibilities. Increased productivity means that the company can do more with less workers, and can push down the labor and labor support costs. Further, it takes money to pay for these tech gadgets, and companies won't spend it unless they can realize immediate and broad return on investment, which mitigates against being a "first-mover" and delays adoption of the technology. And the cost of adopting new technology is always higher then marketed by vendors, because you have to take into account institutiional inertia, training, integration into processes, developing new processes as a result of the availability of the tech, disposal costs of the old tech, etc.
I can't begin to think of all the power supply, data communication and FDA regulatory hurdles standing in the way if data terminal contact lens... It'll take ten years to get permission to do human trials.
Same thing with the widespread use of nanotech probes in your bloodstream.
For the "wristband" data device to know where your hat and sunglasses are, would require RFID tags on *everything*, RFID sensors everywhere, embedded ID tech (so you would grab *your* hat and not someone elses), embedded GPS tech for geolocation, ubiquitous data communication and protocols, power source and supply tech I can't even imagine at present, plus all the privacy problems, government database collection problems, inherent marketing misuse problems (you think spam is bad now... wait until you ask for the location of that hat and all the microprocessors are overriden by trojans and viruses that suppress the location of the hat, tell you its gone, but gee, here's a nice shiny new hat for $109.99, as everything will be expensive to have that much tech installed...).
I bought a copy, and bought another copy just before they discontinued it. I wanted to make the point that we should be able to buy this software, and you can only prove the point by putting up the bucks.
I'm only sorry that Robert Moore had to spend all his money on fighting this fight for us, instead of tricking out a Hummer.
A screw sticks, for example, on a side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is "Remove side cover plate" in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.
If you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. But suppose you're inexperienced and you attach a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw.
Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.
This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.
The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's obvious what's wrong. What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.
This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take the machine to a real mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.
From "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. (Chapter 24)
This was over twenty years ago, but I was a student in a county vocational-technical center over the summer, taking a class in "data processing fundamentals". IBM Model 29 punch card machines, COBOL, etc. The data center had an IBM System 370 mainframe that we could use to run our programs. They had these big red "EMERGENCY STOP" buttons on the wall, cool -- but I digress. This same machine was used by the county to run paychecks, among other things.
We weren't supposed to touch the system console, but they gave us a lot of latitude to try things out. I was messing with it on a Friday, near the end of the day, and I had taken the 8" control floppy out of the console's floppy drawer to look at it. Someone else came into the room so I quickly put it back. Backwards. It apparently wasn't noticed by anyone else either. I found out the following week that the system crashed when it tried to access the floppy, and it set back the payroll processing by several days. It was a really big deal -- some people got into trouble over it, and the rules came down that we were not allowed near the computer room for the rest of the program.
I'm pretty sure no one knew it was me, but I've always felt kind of bad about it. It was a long time ago though.
The BBC article says that the researchers don't want to have to descend vertcally like troglodytes into their shelter, it's not psychologically beneficial. So any design that allows for the accumulation and deepening of the surface cover won't be acceptable. -Gary
Unless the WMA compressed files are lossless, the the experience you get playing a UK disk on your computer is not the same as a non-DRM'd disk. There should be some notice on the disk that playing this disk in a computer (as many of us would do anyway), apart from a standalone disk player, leads to a "less calories" version of the music *unless* you take pains to specifically select the unencrypted tracks.
Take a lesson from the penitentiary folks. Razor wire, vertical window slits, tables chained to the floor and institutional heat-tray snacks really maximize the techs/sq.ft and teach those ingrates who pays the bills...
If you know the difference between Pro and Personal going into it, it still seems powerful. I'm actually glad to hear of a user-oriented distro that I can install on a friend's or family member's machine, that can be updated reasonably easily for problems, but leaves out the power tools (server apps, development tools) they won't need.
Simply put, if you need these things then this distro would be wrong for you.
I believe the problem is a contradiction in purposes. The disk cache confuses the original question.
The argument is that more, but unused RAM is wasteful, so we have the OS take the unused RAM and fill it with a disk cache. But then we are out of available memory, so we have to have swap to provide for graceful memory handling.
What would be the case for performance if we:
Take a system with X RAM and swap.
Add Y (=X) more of RAM,
Disable swap, and
Limit the maximum disk cache to available space in the original X amount of RAM.
Wouldn't that enhance performance over a system with X RAM and swap?
I bought one of these because the ads and the prior Slashdot article sold me on the idea of having Bill Gates' art walls in my house, and while I will give credit to Roku for putting together a good concept, the review is spot-on with regards to slow response to the remote, slow moving between media files and crash crash crash. I spent several hours on the phone with one of the software developers at one point because I just couldn't get it to play music out of my network share (100baseT wired to Win2K3 server) without stuttering every few seconds. We tried everything and then, it just started working, with no apparent reason.
Some other problems we noted -- the single USB port is too close to other important jacks so using a USB Wireless ethernet "thumb" puts a lot of strain on the jack. The on-screen keyboard for entering share names and passwords doesn't support anything but letters/numbers, so share names with dashes and underlines and complex passwords can't be entered unless you telnet into the Roku box and set things that way. I have to jam on the buttons for the remote to have them register even when I touch the tip of the remote to the sensor eye (fresh batteries, too). And on and on. Coupled with the slooooooow response and picture flipping, and I don't use this box at all. The box needs to have a SPDIF optical port out also.
BTW, can I mention how slow? I have a music share with about 375 albums and thousands of songs, organized by artist/album. It usually takes over 30 minutes (yes!) to read through that the first time and display it for choosing. And don't leave the directory once there, because it has to reload it again with the same wait. On a 100baseT switched unemcumbered network, no less.
As an aside, for purely music functions, the Squeezebox network player from Slim Devices is the opposite of the Roku in every way. Small, fast, sounds spectacular, easy to configure, loaded with useful features... put your money on that.
OK. You're in there, then. (Sorry about your job.) What can we do to help mirror the content? What can you do (legally, of course) to feed us the content? Has this been discussed in your department?
I could understand Sony Connect if it existed in a music vacuum, but since it has competition, they would have to answer the single question: What is the compelling advantage to the consumer to buy their product?.
It isn't cheaper than the competition.
It isn't more widely accessible; it's limited to Windows and a proprietary application.
It doesn't enable more freedoms to use the product then the competition. It's has much more restrictive DRM and a lesser-used codec.
It's not usuable on a wider variety of player hardware.
It doesn't have the support of anyone outside Sony.
It doesn't provide more, or more useful extras, like printable album covers.
While I have a number of Sony devices which include memory sticks, I haven't considered tasking any of them to be music players because of other limitations inherent to the devices. For example. minimal available memory in a Clie, or the availability of more convenient modes of usage (CDs) in a VAIO notebook.
To repeat, I can't find a single compelling reason to consider purchasing from their online store over its competition. Can you?
"...decide whether or not to send Opportunity inside for a closer inspection without getting it stuck forever"
Whether it is sent into the crater or remains outside and nearby, what is the likelihood that the rovers will *ever* be recovered? Won't they then be "stuck forever" anyway? Also, they just sent the rover to this place over many days. If this wasn't the best place to get stuck, why did they bother?
I have a half-dozen production servers using RedHat 9, and I've been wrestling with this problem as well. The first thing we've done is make sure all the machines are up-to-date as of today (4/30). We will likely subscribe to Prodigy's support service, since replacing the OS or going without security patches will be impossible for us, and we like the convenience of the up2date mechanism. We will defintely wait to subscribe, both because there are no announced patches post-today yet, and because we want to hear of potential problems encountered by others.
It would help a lot if RedHat would provide an ability to upgrade a RH9 installation to RHEL3. I know we would subscribe immediately if that were possible. We originally chose RH9 last year for these machines, over RH Enterprise 2, because the RH9 was more up-to-date with the features we needed at that time. It wasn't a question of hobbyist vs. production then and still isn't.
I keep a 250MB USB flash drive loaded with these installers for when I go to my friends and families' houses and have to fix their computers. This, plus a Bart's PE WinXP boot disk and a SP1-slipstreamed XP install disk pretty much can get me to the point of pulling down anything else I need from the Internet. Which ten are most important depends on the computer and the person I'm helping.
Adobe Acrobat Reader 6
AIM 5.5
DirectX 9
DiVX codec
D-Link DWL-122 WLAN drivers for the "thumb" wireless LAN adapter I also carry.
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.01. I update the SuperDAT file once a month at least.
Lavasoft Ad-Aware 6
Mozilla Firefox
Nero 5
PuTTY and WinSCP
Macromedia Shockwave
Timbuktu Pro
TimeRC 3.0
Tweak UI powertoy
WCPUID
WinZip 9
Zone Alarm (free version(
As many of the MS hotfixes as can fit. Learning how to slip-stream these would be useful, but I would have to burn a new disk every month to keep up.
If I can get a bigger thumb drive, I would add PowerDVD, the XP SP1, all the hotfixes, Audiograbber, Mozilla Thunderbird, a VNC client and server, Retrospect Desktop and one game. I'd like to add Partition Magic and Ghost but can't figure out how to use it and stay legal under the licensing. I will also add an OpenOffice disk when I get a moment.
If I encounter Win9x I make them upgrade before I will help them (I'll perform the upgrade if they ask.) I make them pay for the licenses for anything I use though. I also make sure they have a backup protocol and run at least one backup so I don't have to repeat my work.
Without commenting on the "gold" aspect of the construction, to be fair the various churches have always displayed the substantial-ness of their mission with works of architecture that would portray stability, substantial-ness (I'm not using the right word there) and contruction materials and techniques that would stand for a long time and "attest" to the faith and conviction of the people. It would be consistent to use marble and other durable materials in this context and is not specific to any particular belief.
I operate a bunch of machines in a datacenter but do my sysadmin from home. As a result, I have a nice installation here, in a side room of my basement near my home office, connected to the Internet through a Covad T1.
I use (2) 2-post relay racks from Great Lakes Case & Cabinet, they were ~$300 each. I bought 19" shelves, rack power strips and mini keyboards (that fit on a rack shelf) from Milestek (very inexpensive), and some used APC rack mount 1400W Smart-UPS (one per rack, mounted at the bottom). I did as others have done and built machines into 4U Siliconrax-Sliger SRCX475 rack cases. They are not quiet, but I haven't found them as noisy as others have mentioned.
I used a 15" CRT for the KVM monitor (both because it was cheap and because, unlike flat panels, they will sync to many more video signals.). I'm using a Black Box ServManager KVM, and it works well, but I don't recommend it because you can do the same thing with cheaper equipment (Belkin). The relay racks are incredibly strong, and I've mounted quite a bit in them. Between the two racks I have several 1U switches, a firewall, the 4U ServManager KVM, a 15" Dell monitor I picked up cheap with the purchase of a server, keyboard, 7 mixed 4U and 1U machines, a 4U robotic tape jukebox, 3 2U power strips, and a 4U lockbox for storing loose bits. All the cables are run along the sides and behind the relay racks -- with a full installation I don't see the wires too much. The relay racks have the option of using casters, and while I didn't buy them, I recommend them to others -- it lets you roll the relay racks out to get behind them.
I had an electrician run separate 15A circuits from my mains panel to each relay rack's UPS, and I also had him install a manual generator transfer switch and heavy-gauge cable to an outside junction box, so I can plug in my generator. (An aside -- if you are going to use a generator to keep things going in a blackout, put a cheap, low wattage light plugged into one of the UPS and turned off, so that it is available to be turned on so you can see what you are doing while switching over to generator and for general tinkering if the place you have your equipment doesn't have a light fixture.)
It looks impressive to have everything mounted this way, and keeps everything tidy.
It would seem the best way to build something like this would be to run for public office. Aim high enough and the government will build it for you. Run for national office and lobbyists will throw money at you at the same time.
According to the AZ Central: "Some executives, for example, believe they should be charging a premium for the online versions of older tracks because consumers may be willing to pay more for harder-to-find material."
Hmm. Material out of print makes the record companies zero income. Selling it online therefore represents a significant new source of revenue with none of the marketing and physical distribution costs that accompany new releases. Profits therefore are considerably enhanced for these products. Traditionally new markets are developed initially at a loss to build volume and recognition. Therefore price the product at a loss leader to build sales^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h higher then new downloadable releases or scarce physical media to grub the most money possible.
There are lots of good reasons to want to go to the Moon/Mars. To quote others here:
1. "We want to go to the moon and to Mars. Because we want to we will eventually." To fulfill the promise of the Apollo astronauts. Bacause its there, we can see it in our sky every day of our lives and it will inspire every human. 2. Build towards space colonies and the survival of humans. "a degree of protection from disasters of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs." 3. Launching point to other destinations. "great place for testing technologies needed for exploring/ exploiting asteroids." "Large-scale mission to the moon to mine Helium 3." 4. "To discover the things that we don't know about living in extraterrestrial environments - BEFORE we strand a group of humans 2 years away from earth."
Let's say it will cost some humongous amount X of money to arrive at Mars in 20 years. This amount X won't be able to be used for other purposes in medicine, agriculture, science, deficit reduction, etc.
IF you compare the cost to achieve this NOW vs. the rate of growth of scientific knowledge and technology application in the last 100 years, the practical answer would be to wait 20 years, see some amazing breakthrough which would allow us to pay 10% of X and most likely arrive at the destination in the same time frame. I have faith in humanity's ability to find answers to problems and come up with new solutions, and the only risk we take is that something catastrophic will happen during the next 20 years. If it did, we would be no worse off, since any progress made now won't significantly change the effect of the catastrophe then.
Well, OK, close up a planetsized ocean looks like, well, ocean. But the scenes underwater in Waterworld were equally amazing to me -- submerged cities. What it must have been like as the water came in. Were skyscrapers little islands of people, moving higher in the buildings as the water climbed? Fascinating.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting to me that the impact near the South Pole may be the direct cause of a pole reversal (according to the article). Does an impact pole reversal reset the clock between reversals?
Between the impact damage and the pole reversal, it would be interesting to see if corresponding evidence of the strike would be found at/near the North Pole, under the theory that strikes have large effects on the region opposite strikes on the Earth.
I thought the point of this system was that they combined disparate databases to create a whole profile for the no-fly listees. If they flag on "T. Kennedy" without cross referencing ImportantPerson.db and FrequentFlier.db and FaceLooksLikeThis.db and ICanGetFired.db, not to mention mundane things like Address.db and Phone.db and SSN.db, etc., then
1. The database is useless.
2. The public has nothing to worry about when it comes to privacy.
A smart road is doable now, and testbed roads have cars communicating with the road and between themselves autonomously. But for change to happen on a mass basis, you'd have to:
Any new technology with mass sociological requirements will have to coexist with current/old technology for at least our lifetimes.
Health improvements will always be available to those with means, but with the rising cost of health care, a smaller percentage of people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder may have these things, but the larger majority will more likely have less health resources and poorer diagnostics and treatment.
Futurists are always predicting that technology improvements will lead to more free time, less stress, but history demonstrates that the opposite is true - productivity per person will go up, with each person expected to do more, be more accessible, take on more responsibilities. Increased productivity means that the company can do more with less workers, and can push down the labor and labor support costs. Further, it takes money to pay for these tech gadgets, and companies won't spend it unless they can realize immediate and broad return on investment, which mitigates against being a "first-mover" and delays adoption of the technology. And the cost of adopting new technology is always higher then marketed by vendors, because you have to take into account institutiional inertia, training, integration into processes, developing new processes as a result of the availability of the tech, disposal costs of the old tech, etc.
I can't begin to think of all the power supply, data communication and FDA regulatory hurdles standing in the way if data terminal contact lens... It'll take ten years to get permission to do human trials.
Same thing with the widespread use of nanotech probes in your bloodstream.
For the "wristband" data device to know where your hat and sunglasses are, would require RFID tags on *everything*, RFID sensors everywhere, embedded ID tech (so you would grab *your* hat and not someone elses), embedded GPS tech for geolocation, ubiquitous data communication and protocols, power source and supply tech I can't even imagine at present, plus all the privacy problems, government database collection problems, inherent marketing misuse problems (you think spam is bad now... wait until you ask for the location of that hat and all the microprocessors are overriden by trojans and viruses that suppress the location of the hat, tell you its gone, but gee, here's a nice shiny new hat for $109.99, as everything will be expensive to have that much tech installed...).
And so on and so on.
I bought a copy, and bought another copy just before they discontinued it. I wanted to make the point that we should be able to buy this software, and you can only prove the point by putting up the bucks.
I'm only sorry that Robert Moore had to spend all his money on fighting this fight for us, instead of tricking out a Hummer.
A screw sticks, for example, on a side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is "Remove side cover plate" in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.
If you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. But suppose you're inexperienced and you attach a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw.
Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.
This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.
The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's obvious what's wrong. What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.
This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take the machine to a real mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.
From "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. (Chapter 24)
This was over twenty years ago, but I was a student in a county vocational-technical center over the summer, taking a class in "data processing fundamentals". IBM Model 29 punch card machines, COBOL, etc. The data center had an IBM System 370 mainframe that we could use to run our programs. They had these big red "EMERGENCY STOP" buttons on the wall, cool -- but I digress. This same machine was used by the county to run paychecks, among other things.
We weren't supposed to touch the system console, but they gave us a lot of latitude to try things out. I was messing with it on a Friday, near the end of the day, and I had taken the 8" control floppy out of the console's floppy drawer to look at it. Someone else came into the room so I quickly put it back. Backwards. It apparently wasn't noticed by anyone else either. I found out the following week that the system crashed when it tried to access the floppy, and it set back the payroll processing by several days. It was a really big deal -- some people got into trouble over it, and the rules came down that we were not allowed near the computer room for the rest of the program.
I'm pretty sure no one knew it was me, but I've always felt kind of bad about it. It was a long time ago though.
The BBC article says that the researchers don't want to have to descend vertcally like troglodytes into their shelter, it's not psychologically beneficial. So any design that allows for the accumulation and deepening of the surface cover won't be acceptable. -Gary
Unless the WMA compressed files are lossless, the the experience you get playing a UK disk on your computer is not the same as a non-DRM'd disk. There should be some notice on the disk that playing this disk in a computer (as many of us would do anyway), apart from a standalone disk player, leads to a "less calories" version of the music *unless* you take pains to specifically select the unencrypted tracks.
Take a lesson from the penitentiary folks. Razor wire, vertical window slits, tables chained to the floor and institutional heat-tray snacks really maximize the techs/sq.ft and teach those ingrates who pays the bills...
Sporks make great wi-fi antennas.
If you know the difference between Pro and Personal going into it, it still seems powerful. I'm actually glad to hear of a user-oriented distro that I can install on a friend's or family member's machine, that can be updated reasonably easily for problems, but leaves out the power tools (server apps, development tools) they won't need.
Simply put, if you need these things then this distro would be wrong for you.
- Take a system with X RAM and swap.
- Add Y (=X) more of RAM,
- Disable swap, and
- Limit the maximum disk cache to available space in the original X amount of RAM.
Wouldn't that enhance performance over a system with X RAM and swap?I bought one of these because the ads and the prior Slashdot article sold me on the idea of having Bill Gates' art walls in my house, and while I will give credit to Roku for putting together a good concept, the review is spot-on with regards to slow response to the remote, slow moving between media files and crash crash crash. I spent several hours on the phone with one of the software developers at one point because I just couldn't get it to play music out of my network share (100baseT wired to Win2K3 server) without stuttering every few seconds. We tried everything and then, it just started working, with no apparent reason.
Some other problems we noted -- the single USB port is too close to other important jacks so using a USB Wireless ethernet "thumb" puts a lot of strain on the jack. The on-screen keyboard for entering share names and passwords doesn't support anything but letters/numbers, so share names with dashes and underlines and complex passwords can't be entered unless you telnet into the Roku box and set things that way. I have to jam on the buttons for the remote to have them register even when I touch the tip of the remote to the sensor eye (fresh batteries, too). And on and on. Coupled with the slooooooow response and picture flipping, and I don't use this box at all. The box needs to have a SPDIF optical port out also.
BTW, can I mention how slow? I have a music share with about 375 albums and thousands of songs, organized by artist/album. It usually takes over 30 minutes (yes!) to read through that the first time and display it for choosing. And don't leave the directory once there, because it has to reload it again with the same wait. On a 100baseT switched unemcumbered network, no less.
As an aside, for purely music functions, the Squeezebox network player from Slim Devices is the opposite of the Roku in every way. Small, fast, sounds spectacular, easy to configure, loaded with useful features... put your money on that.
OK. You're in there, then. (Sorry about your job.) What can we do to help mirror the content? What can you do (legally, of course) to feed us the content? Has this been discussed in your department?
I always liked Clippy. I liked clicking on his wire and watching him grind through the machine.
I don't have a lot to do much of the time.
I could understand Sony Connect if it existed in a music vacuum, but since it has competition, they would have to answer the single question: What is the compelling advantage to the consumer to buy their product?.
While I have a number of Sony devices which include memory sticks, I haven't considered tasking any of them to be music players because of other limitations inherent to the devices. For example. minimal available memory in a Clie, or the availability of more convenient modes of usage (CDs) in a VAIO notebook.
To repeat, I can't find a single compelling reason to consider purchasing from their online store over its competition. Can you?
"...decide whether or not to send Opportunity inside for a closer inspection without getting it stuck forever"
Whether it is sent into the crater or remains outside and nearby, what is the likelihood that the rovers will *ever* be recovered? Won't they then be "stuck forever" anyway? Also, they just sent the rover to this place over many days. If this wasn't the best place to get stuck, why did they bother?
I have a half-dozen production servers using RedHat 9, and I've been wrestling with this problem as well. The first thing we've done is make sure all the machines are up-to-date as of today (4/30). We will likely subscribe to Prodigy's support service, since replacing the OS or going without security patches will be impossible for us, and we like the convenience of the up2date mechanism. We will defintely wait to subscribe, both because there are no announced patches post-today yet, and because we want to hear of potential problems encountered by others.
It would help a lot if RedHat would provide an ability to upgrade a RH9 installation to RHEL3. I know we would subscribe immediately if that were possible. We originally chose RH9 last year for these machines, over RH Enterprise 2, because the RH9 was more up-to-date with the features we needed at that time. It wasn't a question of hobbyist vs. production then and still isn't.
I love Mac OS X as much as you and find it equally easy, but I do have a short list of must-have programs:
Plus everything in the Software Update syspref.
I keep a 250MB USB flash drive loaded with these installers for when I go to my friends and families' houses and have to fix their computers. This, plus a Bart's PE WinXP boot disk and a SP1-slipstreamed XP install disk pretty much can get me to the point of pulling down anything else I need from the Internet. Which ten are most important depends on the computer and the person I'm helping.
If I can get a bigger thumb drive, I would add PowerDVD, the XP SP1, all the hotfixes, Audiograbber, Mozilla Thunderbird, a VNC client and server, Retrospect Desktop and one game. I'd like to add Partition Magic and Ghost but can't figure out how to use it and stay legal under the licensing. I will also add an OpenOffice disk when I get a moment.
If I encounter Win9x I make them upgrade before I will help them (I'll perform the upgrade if they ask.) I make them pay for the licenses for anything I use though. I also make sure they have a backup protocol and run at least one backup so I don't have to repeat my work.
Without commenting on the "gold" aspect of the construction, to be fair the various churches have always displayed the substantial-ness of their mission with works of architecture that would portray stability, substantial-ness (I'm not using the right word there) and contruction materials and techniques that would stand for a long time and "attest" to the faith and conviction of the people. It would be consistent to use marble and other durable materials in this context and is not specific to any particular belief.
I operate a bunch of machines in a datacenter but do my sysadmin from home. As a result, I have a nice installation here, in a side room of my basement near my home office, connected to the Internet through a Covad T1.
I use (2) 2-post relay racks from Great Lakes Case & Cabinet, they were ~$300 each. I bought 19" shelves, rack power strips and mini keyboards (that fit on a rack shelf) from Milestek (very inexpensive), and some used APC rack mount 1400W Smart-UPS (one per rack, mounted at the bottom). I did as others have done and built machines into 4U Siliconrax-Sliger SRCX475 rack cases. They are not quiet, but I haven't found them as noisy as others have mentioned.
I used a 15" CRT for the KVM monitor (both because it was cheap and because, unlike flat panels, they will sync to many more video signals.). I'm using a Black Box ServManager KVM, and it works well, but I don't recommend it because you can do the same thing with cheaper equipment (Belkin). The relay racks are incredibly strong, and I've mounted quite a bit in them. Between the two racks I have several 1U switches, a firewall, the 4U ServManager KVM, a 15" Dell monitor I picked up cheap with the purchase of a server, keyboard, 7 mixed 4U and 1U machines, a 4U robotic tape jukebox, 3 2U power strips, and a 4U lockbox for storing loose bits. All the cables are run along the sides and behind the relay racks -- with a full installation I don't see the wires too much. The relay racks have the option of using casters, and while I didn't buy them, I recommend them to others -- it lets you roll the relay racks out to
get behind them.
I had an electrician run separate 15A circuits from my mains panel to each relay rack's UPS, and I also had him install a manual generator transfer switch and heavy-gauge cable to an outside junction box, so I can plug in my generator. (An aside -- if you are going to use a generator to keep things going in a blackout, put a cheap, low wattage light plugged into one of the UPS and turned off, so that it is available to be turned on so you can see what you are doing while switching over to generator and for general tinkering if the place you have your equipment doesn't have a light fixture.)
It looks impressive to have everything mounted this way, and keeps everything tidy.
It would seem the best way to build something like this would be to run for public office. Aim high enough and the government will build it for you. Run for national office and lobbyists will throw money at you at the same time.
According to the AZ Central: "Some executives, for example, believe they should be charging a premium for the online versions of older tracks because consumers may be willing to pay more for harder-to-find material."
Hmm. Material out of print makes the record companies zero income. Selling it online therefore represents a significant new source of revenue with none of the marketing and physical distribution costs that accompany new releases. Profits therefore are considerably enhanced for these products. Traditionally new markets are developed initially at a loss to build volume and recognition. Therefore price the product at a loss leader to build sales^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h higher then new downloadable releases or scarce physical media to grub the most money possible.
There are lots of good reasons to want to go to the Moon/Mars. To quote others here:
1. "We want to go to the moon and to Mars. Because we want to we will eventually." To fulfill the promise of the Apollo astronauts. Bacause its there, we can see it in our sky every day of our lives and it will inspire every human.
2. Build towards space colonies and the survival of humans. "a degree of protection from disasters of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs."
3. Launching point to other destinations. "great place for testing technologies needed for exploring/ exploiting asteroids." "Large-scale mission to the moon to mine Helium 3."
4. "To discover the things that we don't know about living in extraterrestrial environments - BEFORE we strand a group of humans 2 years away from earth."
Let's say it will cost some humongous amount X of money to arrive at Mars in 20 years. This amount X won't be able to be used for other purposes in medicine, agriculture, science, deficit reduction, etc.
IF you compare the cost to achieve this NOW vs. the rate of growth of scientific knowledge and technology application in the last 100 years, the practical answer would be to wait 20 years, see some amazing breakthrough which would allow us to pay 10% of X and most likely arrive at the destination in the same time frame. I have faith in humanity's ability to find answers to problems and come up with new solutions, and the only risk we take is that something catastrophic will happen during the next 20 years. If it did, we would be no worse off, since any progress made now won't significantly change the effect of the catastrophe then.
Well, OK, close up a planetsized ocean looks like, well, ocean. But the scenes underwater in Waterworld were equally amazing to me -- submerged cities. What it must have been like as the water came in. Were skyscrapers little islands of people, moving higher in the buildings as the water climbed? Fascinating.