Let's say there are going to be ballots provided by the election officials (I just noticed someone talking about Badnarik*'s idea of every voter bringing his own ballot, never thought of that angle before). I'd rather have a slightly more involved, even if more expensive, elections process that invited two or more companies to supply the machines used *at every polling place.* In the fashion of the time-stamp cards in some workplaces -- like the Hallmark store I worked in during high school -- such a device could tell you with a satisfying "WHOMP!" that Yes, this vote has been registered on one side or the other, and visibly increment the "total votes" column by one. Then let the second machine WHOMP the same ballot, and finally put the ballot into locked box for later recount purposes if the two machines disagree.
The kicker: pay only expenses up-front, with a bonus going only to the most accurate machine. There will be votes that are lost / spindled / folded / mutilated; sorry. Mistakes and bugs may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean that "just any system" is good enough.
I just spent a few minutes trawling unsuccessfully on the Wal-Mart site to locate them, but they do exist. Basically, a stretchy piece of clear plastic sized to fit snugly on a CD and remain in place until removed. (My searches are coming up blank on the site kk.org/cooltools, too, and I'm sure I saw a review there. If not, maybe I'll buy some today and write one;).
However, I swear they're real, I just can't swear that they work (because I've only seen them). A set of 5 costs $5, I think -- which sounds like a fair amount, since blanks are quite cheap, but if it's a disk you'd rather hang onto, a buck isn't that much.
Thanks! I actually have some Ubuntu CDs on the way, including for PPC, so I plan to soon give this a shot. Live CDs are so nice though, they've spoiled me on the x86 for trying things out non-destructively. And I mean even things that never *should* be destructive, but can be: when I put Gnome on my laptop running Mepis, while Gnome worked fine, from that very moment my KDE menus became oddly colored (and hard to read). A bizarre problem, I know, and not an ultra-serious one, but annoyance nonetheless.
btw, have you actually run Ubuntu on iBooks and Powerbooks? When it comes to installable distros, I have seen FC2 running on a powerbook, very nice, it all worked (wireless, sleep, all extra buttons, etc).
I like my iBook's hardware; it's survived enough abuse over the past 3 (or is it 4?) years to make replacing the expensive battery earlier this year worth it, rather than the sort of reluctant decision that it would be if I ever decided to replace the battery in my Toshiba, in which the PCMCIA slots have grown flaky... and Yes, I know my iBook doesn't even have PCMCIA slots to *go* flaky;)
When I travel, I prefer the iBook because it's small/light, has a better keyboard than most laptops (though nothing like an IBM's, sadly), and gets good battery life.
However, when I'm near an outlet at least, I prefer my Toshiba laptop or other intel-type machine just because I like the gigantic rafts of software that come with a typical Linux distro, I like auto-raise windows (is there any way to do this with OS X?) and virtual desktops (again -- maybe they exist for OS X, but I don't see built-in to the OS...), and I happen to like blackbox/fluxbox, WindowMaker, Gnome and KDE a lot, and I use all of them as my mood dictates. (Others, too.) OS X is nice, and familiarity is nice, but since there's change going on in different directions aesthetically and in supposedly well-reasoned user-interface decisions, I like to switch around and see what's up in the free-GUI world.
Also, though I understand it to be a nice application, I don't use iTunes (though I have used it) and don't at this date own an iPod (though I might one day). I am not a big fan of the iTunes interface -- many people like it, and I'll call it better than most interfaces but just not my thing. When I pop in a CD, it used to annoy me that iTunes would load rather than a simpler CD player app. So I'm perhaps not the typical OS X users:)
So:
Is there any current live Linux CD that will a) work spiffily - wireless, sound, sleep, keyboard controls for brightness and sound - on all current macs, or even all G3/G4 current macs? and b) serve as an easy installer, the way Knoppix or Mepis (or a bunch of others) will on x86?
Something that comes with OpenOffice (with good fonts), AbiWord, The GIMP, XMMS, mplayer / vlc / firefox / gaim / several window managers would be good. Yes, I know some if not all of these are available for OS X, but only piecemeal afaik.
I'm not knocking OS X: it's a very nice OS. I like it. However, I'd rather have a Linux desktop in general (I like the underlying software as well as the application software to be Free, for one thing, and for another thing, there's no accounting for taste), and I'm lazy. I've tried -- last year sometime -- the Gentoo PPC live CD, which was slow and IMO buggy on my iBook, and took googling just to find out how to reach X. There's been a PPC knoppix version, but I don't see any versions newer than July 2003. (Which might be OK, I have not yet tried that on my iBook.)
Since the iBook hardware (and Apple hardware in general) is pretty stable (not to say "limited":)), I'd think it would be easier to find a good Live CD-installer than it is, esp. considering how very well Mepis/Knoppix work.
timothy
p.s. Really, I've read the flames on this topic before, so you can just say "FLAME" if you want; I'll get your meaning, and you'll save your wrists. I like OS X and do not demand that Live CD-Installers exist, but I am hopeful and curious.
I added the note because it seems the submitter just typed faster than he should have, and left out the third of the (three) chips he promised earlier in the submission. Since that didn't scan right ("the three primary colors, blue and red."), I added the note, which was meant to be unobtrusive:)
My four most-frequently-used computers have, respectively, a VIA (mini-ITX generic shoebox), an AMD (Shuttle shoebox), an Intel (Toshiba laptop) and a Motorola (iBook) chip; I may have favorite machines for different things, but I don't think I know enough to be a processor (or processor manufacturer) bigot:)
Cheers,
timothy
the best thing about these ridiculous things ...
on
Hip-e All-In-One PC
·
· Score: 1
... is that "computer as novelty" has its advantages.
If a computer can be powerful enough to even consider as a modern work-play-fun thingamajig but cheap enough that it gets dolled up to sell to a particular, very niche market, then it means more cheap / free / abandoned hardware for everyone:) (And, despite the justified jeering at the claims of greatness vs. the reality, the specs here are a lot better than you'd be happy to have a few years ago.)
In fact, if you are a "teen" (oooh, what a grating term) and your parents give you one of these embarrassing, ugly devices, I'll give you $50 for it, and you can go buy a violent videogame, or send your girlfriend a dozen roses.
I'd like to install Linux and stick a USB GPS mouse on it, to make the world's least-sophisticated car-computer install.
If the company goes under with unsold inventory, I'd like to be at the warehouse sale to get some new digital picture frames, too:)
In late July is when the name change took effect. Maybe early August. It doesn't really affect Slashdot except in remembering that the letters of the All-knowing Keiretsu have changed, and I don't recall an official announcement about it on Slashdot itself... there's an announcement which appeared on the OSDN --> OSTG site at the time of the change, I'm sure archived somewhere, in which Jeff Bates (hemos) gives an explanation.
Upshot: the change reflects a focus broader than only "developers" -- there are lots of interested parties in the technology world, some of whom code, some fund, some just use it for fun or as part of their business life.
What do you mean "advantage to ask [my] questions"?
I haven't modded up any of my own questions (it's a no-no), and I also am not using my karma bonus. If they get modded up, it's not through any conspiracy.
I'm a reader, too -- just like the Hair Club guy. No special advantage in this context:)
I've read that you wrote your most recent books, which have plenty of words, in longhand, with a fountain pen.
What kind of pen (or pens) could you put up with for so long? Did it make you write more slowly? Did you turn in long-hand manuscripts to your editors / publishers, or decant first into a text processor?
I enjoy writing longhand, but even my favorite pen (Lamy Safari) gets a bit much to hold for more than a few hours...
Tim
Travel tips for modern primitives?
on
Ask Neal Stephenson
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Mr. Stephenson:
I greatly enjoy your travel stories, both non-fiction (Mother Earth, Motherboard) and in particular your descriptions of the Philipines in Cryptonomicon.
Can you share some of the ideas you've developed for savvy trav'lin? For instance, how do you deal with carrying sufficent technology (whatever level you deem this to be) while minimizing the risk of theft, breakage, or loss by other means? Do you dress native or carry your entire warddobe? [And broader, do you travel with something close to nothing, picking up necessary items as the need arises? What do you not leave home without?]
Do you carry any sort of self-defense means in some places, and if so What and Where?
(On behalf of my brother, who first started pushing your books at me years before I finally read any...)
Mr. Stephenson:
In some of your books, your action scenes are far detailed (and better informed) than are those of many authors, who gloss over the ways that actual physical objects, including people, interact at close range (including skateboarding, diving, fighting, and the awkwardness of in-car sex with Amy Shaftoe).
This leads me to ask, Are you a skateboarder? Surfer? Martial Artist, and if so of what variety? (Or Rock climber, spelunker, etc.) If Yes in a general sense, how often do you participate in such things now?
More generally, what physical activities that you find especially invigorating mentally?
You know your situation better (since I don't at all, other than what you wrote in your Ask Slashdot submission), but I wonder... do you really want to be space-limited to small keyboards?
You're starting out with a space crunch that makes you ask the question, Yes, but the space added by full size keyboards (unless they're really huge ones!:) ) won't be that great; if there's a way you could rearrange your seating to fit full-size keyboards, then you'll be better able to fit replacements when they're necessary. (That is, you can replace full-size with either another full-size, or a compact version, but a compact version, if your whole space is built around that size, can't be replaced by a full-size one.) Given that I usually find my keyboards in thriftstores and at yardsales, I'd like the option to use either size.
Also, if your seating is so tight that full-size keyboards are hard to fit in, how's the elbow room? It sounds from here like a tight squeeze! Will people have room to swivel? (Not that any of the links google finds there are the greatest...)
I saw all this as a bigot favoring clicky, mechanical keyboards, which colors my perception of the world;) There *are* some compact clicky keyboards, but they're priced something out of this world, generally. I've considered buying some of the small Model M variants, but... yow! The prices people want are pretty high, even used, even in not-great shape.
One way to save space without forcing yourself into shrunken keyboards is to go for trackballs rather than mice; trackball+mouse can be squeezed next to the next trackball+mouse pair, and probably in no more room than a small keyboard+mousing surface. My favorite trackball for years has been the Logitech MouseMan (I think that's the right model name;)) -- it's symmetrical (good for lefties therefore), comes in USB though I have also owned PS/2 only versions, has a really fast, slick action, and has nice clicky buttons, not sluggish the way I find kensington buttons to me. Also, they're about the cheapest brand-name trackballs you'll find, about $20 at walmart or big computer retailers.
You're right that change is hard to accept, but... it's not completely impossible.
Last Friday night, I have to print a document which would only render right with recent Adobe Acrobat (stupid! but true), and a desperate search for a printer + appropriate computer combination meant printing at the home of my housemate's grandparents. His grandmother asked me if I could help her "get rid of the popups" on her machine, a Windows ME device which it turns out is chock full o' malware.
I don't know enough about Windows to do a thorough decontamination job, but I installed Firefox for her, imported IE bookmarks, set her homepage to her hotmail account, etc, and after a few minutes acclimitization, she was very happy with it.
Firefox is a pretty easy transition to make, less emotional and mental investment than many people have in their word processors, say, but it's a decent start. OpenOffice is next:)
I think a lot of employee resistance is not specific to software, it's just that people don't like to feel they're being bullied / told what to do. If things are offered nicely, with warning and reasoning provided on a gentle slope, with their involvement and suggestions incorporated, acceptable outcomes outlined in such a way that people don't feel forced against a wall, they take care of themselves much nicer. At least, that's what years as a residential adviser to 10-16-year-olds taught me;)
Have you had any success with using a USB wireless dongle under Linux?
I briefly had a (chunky, ugly, but so what) Belkin one working with a hard-drive installed Knoppix system (3.1? 3.2?)... for me, getting it to work at all took quite a bit of googling, cursing, and trusting directions (conditionally) until I found a combination of driver and settings that worked. But when I upgraded a few months later to a different version of Knoppix, figuring the pain would be less the 2nd time around, I never could get that to work again. (And the Belkin is one of the few USB dongles that's reputed to work well with Linux. I know it *can* work, since I witnessed it, but the frustration isn't worth it IMO.)
Have you by chance encountered a USB dongle natively (and without tweaking) supported by Yellow Dog, or any other Linux distro? If so, which one?
Wow! Thanks for the links, that's very informative. The Attacom stuff starts out much more expensive than I'm thinking of, but the Pulver one for just under a thousand seems a decent deal. Phones included and everything -- pretty nice.
Here's the link (from the MythTV site) for MythPhone. It's for making SIP calls, not intended for integration with a POTS service as far as I can see, but conceptually it could be a good front end for calls made over asterics (or any landline, if tied into one). That would lose the fancy picture stuff, but would turn a MythTV computer into a big, fancy phone. Beldar Conhead plastic face mold not included.
"Unfortunately big complex systems require some idea of what you are doing. Services are available to those who don't understand telephony. But usually they want to get paid for their time. You sound like you expected something like this to be just configure, make, make install and it's up and running."
Actually, I'd like it to be even simpler than "configure,make, make install," but I don't *expect* it -- at least, not magically. The reason I suggest a turnkey appliance is because such a thing can encapsulate many hours of the time you mention in a form that's easily reproducable at low marginal cost, and the cost of that time can be amortized over many units' worth of hardware -- the same way interface-design and programming time that go into things like wireless appliance of various kinds can.
Re: complexity / money for time, the same could be said (and has been) about all kinds of complex systems which have in the end been simplified with sufficient skill to make them useful *without* a big learning curve. I want my cake and to eat it too, Yes, but so does everyone who drives a car that doesn't need to be manually cranked, rides a ski-lift, or uses central heating instead of stoking a coal furnace (etc). There will always be a market (in money and attention span) for the hardcore, bare-metal approach to just about anything, but that doesn't mean simplifications and commoditization in general are bad.
Somewhat related example: video compression. Using dvd::rip, I have squashed a few DVDs into hard-drive friendly smaller sizes, so I can carry some favorite films on my laptop. dvd::rip is itself a front-end meant to be simpler and friendlier than using the underlying programs it connects, but it's still not all that user friendly, at least to klutzes like me:) Got it working, eventually, Yes, but QuickRip (sadly discontinued) does a good-enough job with a shallower learning curve. Tradeoffs are everywhere, and there's one.
Someone (not me! not me! the monkeys!) should connect asterics with festival, an audio compression program, and a mail agent.
Would be good to call one's landline (connected to an asterics box) and be given options like "press 7 to hear email."
Would be annoying to hear everything, perhaps (and too slow, too), but an option like "play the first 10 words, then prompt for more, or to skip to the next message" would make it bearable.
I know at least one technically skilled computer programmer type (ruling me out on two counts) who had a lot of pain setting up asterics. (Brian will remain completely anonymous.)
Considering the ludicrous (low) prices for which one can buy a complete system far-more-than-capable of running asterics, the relatively cheap price of the phone interfaces, etc, it seems like a plentifully adequate Asterics box could be made for a lot less than $500, and perhaps sold for that amount (just one or two lines, more could cost more). This isn't *dirt* cheap like future, hypothetical home PBX appliances ought to be from Linksys and similar companies, but considering you can also use it as a home server and other things on the side, strikes me as at least a plausible, reasonable price to aim for.
Has anyone done this? Does anyone sell a shoe-box PBX for a few hundred dollars that can be accessed via web, so new voice messages and menus can be dropped in via clicky-clicky drop-down menus?
On this front, Isaac from MythTV and Marc from Asterics should get together and forge an unholy alliance, integrating two home-automation tasks in a nice, non-monolithic, package. I noticed that MythTV has *some* kind of new addition involving phones, but I have not read the linked bits yet;)
What I'd like most in a PVR is a system allowing pitch-corrected speedup. Some shows I want to watch in real time, others I'd like pumped at least a few percent faster.
(In addition to the other things you name, like cutting out the junk;))
Interesting contrast; when a new release of Windows comes out, I don't see Bill Gates answering questions from all and sundry in public forums like this. (Of course, I don't follow Windows closely, so maybe I'm wrong on that.)
"There is a good reason why the homicide rates are much much lower in countries where gun ownership rates are low, compared to the U.S. Pick any western european country as an example."
"Wow, no disrespect, but you've come up with the worst analogies I've seen. To use your analogy, who needs guns in the first place? We can use rocks. But who needs rocks? That argument goes nowhere."
I'm pretty tired / dopey at the moment, but I don't follow what you mean here. I am arguing against the idea that "need" is a sensible prerequisite for the development / use / possession of anything, guns included, and it implies some sort of overarching intelligent body which could neatly assess such need.
"Apples and Oranges. The citizens of Switzerland are its militia. They all have assault weapons, true. But they don't have a standing army like we do. They are also NOT ALLOWED to use the weapons they have except as specifically mandated."
OK, I'm not sure here either what you're arguing, so I'm not sure if I agree with you or not... do you object to me saying that the Swiss attitude seems to be that an armed populace is important enough to justify the dangers that it brings? I realize (and admire) that they don't have a standing army, and that the required military arms in Swiss households are not for non-military use, but I don't think they detract from that claim.
I have never been to Switzerland, and so my knowledge is 2nd hand at best, but as I understand it, gun ownership is relatively liberal aside from the military weapons as well; handgun permits are necessary but easily obtained (I think), long arms readily available, and only a few Cantons regulate private firearms sales. Swiss people use their (private) firearms for hunting, target shooting, etc. I'm sincerely interested in being corrected on any of these points:)
Slashdot Mirror
Let's say there are going to be ballots provided by the election officials (I just noticed someone talking about Badnarik*'s idea of every voter bringing his own ballot, never thought of that angle before). I'd rather have a slightly more involved, even if more expensive, elections process that invited two or more companies to supply the machines used *at every polling place.* In the fashion of the time-stamp cards in some workplaces -- like the Hallmark store I worked in during high school -- such a device could tell you with a satisfying "WHOMP!" that Yes, this vote has been registered on one side or the other, and visibly increment the "total votes" column by one. Then let the second machine WHOMP the same ballot, and finally put the ballot into locked box for later recount purposes if the two machines disagree.
The kicker: pay only expenses up-front, with a bonus going only to the most accurate machine. There will be votes that are lost / spindled / folded / mutilated; sorry. Mistakes and bugs may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean that "just any system" is good enough.
timothy
* My candidate of choice
I just spent a few minutes trawling unsuccessfully on the Wal-Mart site to locate them, but they do exist. Basically, a stretchy piece of clear plastic sized to fit snugly on a CD and remain in place until removed. (My searches are coming up blank on the site kk.org/cooltools, too, and I'm sure I saw a review there. If not, maybe I'll buy some today and write one ;).
However, I swear they're real, I just can't swear that they work (because I've only seen them). A set of 5 costs $5, I think -- which sounds like a fair amount, since blanks are quite cheap, but if it's a disk you'd rather hang onto, a buck isn't that much.
timothy
Thanks! I actually have some Ubuntu CDs on the way, including for PPC, so I plan to soon give this a shot. Live CDs are so nice though, they've spoiled me on the x86 for trying things out non-destructively. And I mean even things that never *should* be destructive, but can be: when I put Gnome on my laptop running Mepis, while Gnome worked fine, from that very moment my KDE menus became oddly colored (and hard to read). A bizarre problem, I know, and not an ultra-serious one, but annoyance nonetheless.
btw, have you actually run Ubuntu on iBooks and Powerbooks? When it comes to installable distros, I have seen FC2 running on a powerbook, very nice, it all worked (wireless, sleep, all extra buttons, etc).
Cheers,
timothy
I like my iBook's hardware; it's survived enough abuse over the past 3 (or is it 4?) years to make replacing the expensive battery earlier this year worth it, rather than the sort of reluctant decision that it would be if I ever decided to replace the battery in my Toshiba, in which the PCMCIA slots have grown flaky ... and Yes, I know my iBook doesn't even have PCMCIA slots to *go* flaky ;)
...), and I happen to like blackbox/fluxbox, WindowMaker, Gnome and KDE a lot, and I use all of them as my mood dictates. (Others, too.) OS X is nice, and familiarity is nice, but since there's change going on in different directions aesthetically and in supposedly well-reasoned user-interface decisions, I like to switch around and see what's up in the free-GUI world.
:)
:)), I'd think it would be easier to find a good Live CD-installer than it is, esp. considering how very well Mepis/Knoppix work.
When I travel, I prefer the iBook because it's small/light, has a better keyboard than most laptops (though nothing like an IBM's, sadly), and gets good battery life.
However, when I'm near an outlet at least, I prefer my Toshiba laptop or other intel-type machine just because I like the gigantic rafts of software that come with a typical Linux distro, I like auto-raise windows (is there any way to do this with OS X?) and virtual desktops (again -- maybe they exist for OS X, but I don't see built-in to the OS
Also, though I understand it to be a nice application, I don't use iTunes (though I have used it) and don't at this date own an iPod (though I might one day). I am not a big fan of the iTunes interface -- many people like it, and I'll call it better than most interfaces but just not my thing. When I pop in a CD, it used to annoy me that iTunes would load rather than a simpler CD player app. So I'm perhaps not the typical OS X users
So:
Is there any current live Linux CD that will a) work spiffily - wireless, sound, sleep, keyboard controls for brightness and sound - on all current macs, or even all G3/G4 current macs? and b) serve as an easy installer, the way Knoppix or Mepis (or a bunch of others) will on x86?
Something that comes with OpenOffice (with good fonts), AbiWord, The GIMP, XMMS, mplayer / vlc / firefox / gaim / several window managers would be good. Yes, I know some if not all of these are available for OS X, but only piecemeal afaik.
I'm not knocking OS X: it's a very nice OS. I like it. However, I'd rather have a Linux desktop in general (I like the underlying software as well as the application software to be Free, for one thing, and for another thing, there's no accounting for taste), and I'm lazy. I've tried -- last year sometime -- the Gentoo PPC live CD, which was slow and IMO buggy on my iBook, and took googling just to find out how to reach X. There's been a PPC knoppix version, but I don't see any versions newer than July 2003. (Which might be OK, I have not yet tried that on my iBook.)
Since the iBook hardware (and Apple hardware in general) is pretty stable (not to say "limited"
timothy
p.s. Really, I've read the flames on this topic before, so you can just say "FLAME" if you want; I'll get your meaning, and you'll save your wrists. I like OS X and do not demand that Live CD-Installers exist, but I am hopeful and curious.
I added the note because it seems the submitter just typed faster than he should have, and left out the third of the (three) chips he promised earlier in the submission. Since that didn't scan right ("the three primary colors, blue and red."), I added the note, which was meant to be unobtrusive :)
:)
My four most-frequently-used computers have, respectively, a VIA (mini-ITX generic shoebox), an AMD (Shuttle shoebox), an Intel (Toshiba laptop) and a Motorola (iBook) chip; I may have favorite machines for different things, but I don't think I know enough to be a processor (or processor manufacturer) bigot
Cheers,
timothy
... is that "computer as novelty" has its advantages.
:) (And, despite the justified jeering at the claims of greatness vs. the reality, the specs here are a lot better than you'd be happy to have a few years ago.)
:)
If a computer can be powerful enough to even consider as a modern work-play-fun thingamajig but cheap enough that it gets dolled up to sell to a particular, very niche market, then it means more cheap / free / abandoned hardware for everyone
In fact, if you are a "teen" (oooh, what a grating term) and your parents give you one of these embarrassing, ugly devices, I'll give you $50 for it, and you can go buy a violent videogame, or send your girlfriend a dozen roses.
I'd like to install Linux and stick a USB GPS mouse on it, to make the world's least-sophisticated car-computer install.
If the company goes under with unsold inventory, I'd like to be at the warehouse sale to get some new digital picture frames, too
timothy
In late July is when the name change took effect. Maybe early August. It doesn't really affect Slashdot except in remembering that the letters of the All-knowing Keiretsu have changed, and I don't recall an official announcement about it on Slashdot itself ... there's an announcement which appeared on the OSDN --> OSTG site at the time of the change, I'm sure archived somewhere, in which Jeff Bates (hemos) gives an explanation.
Upshot: the change reflects a focus broader than only "developers" -- there are lots of interested parties in the technology world, some of whom code, some fund, some just use it for fun or as part of their business life.
timothy
What do you mean "advantage to ask [my] questions"?
:)
I haven't modded up any of my own questions (it's a no-no), and I also am not using my karma bonus. If they get modded up, it's not through any conspiracy.
I'm a reader, too -- just like the Hair Club guy. No special advantage in this context
Cheers,
Tim
Mr. Stephenson:
...
I've read that you wrote your most recent books, which have plenty of words, in longhand, with a fountain pen.
What kind of pen (or pens) could you put up with for so long? Did it make you write more slowly? Did you turn in long-hand manuscripts to your editors / publishers, or decant first into a text processor?
I enjoy writing longhand, but even my favorite pen (Lamy Safari) gets a bit much to hold for more than a few hours
Tim
Mr. Stephenson:
I greatly enjoy your travel stories, both non-fiction (Mother Earth, Motherboard) and in particular your descriptions of the Philipines in Cryptonomicon.
Can you share some of the ideas you've developed for savvy trav'lin? For instance, how do you deal with carrying sufficent technology (whatever level you deem this to be) while minimizing the risk of theft, breakage, or loss by other means? Do you dress native or carry your entire warddobe? [And broader, do you travel with something close to nothing, picking up necessary items as the need arises? What do you not leave home without?]
Do you carry any sort of self-defense means in some places, and if so What and Where?
Tim
(On behalf of my brother, who first started pushing your books at me years before I finally read any ...)
Mr. Stephenson:
In some of your books, your action scenes are far detailed (and better informed) than are those of many authors, who gloss over the ways that actual physical objects, including people, interact at close range (including skateboarding, diving, fighting, and the awkwardness of in-car sex with Amy Shaftoe).
This leads me to ask, Are you a skateboarder? Surfer? Martial Artist, and if so of what variety? (Or Rock climber, spelunker, etc.) If Yes in a general sense, how often do you participate in such things now?
More generally, what physical activities that you find especially invigorating mentally?
Tim
You know your situation better (since I don't at all, other than what you wrote in your Ask Slashdot submission), but I wonder ... do you really want to be space-limited to small keyboards?
:) ) won't be that great; if there's a way you could rearrange your seating to fit full-size keyboards, then you'll be better able to fit replacements when they're necessary. (That is, you can replace full-size with either another full-size, or a compact version, but a compact version, if your whole space is built around that size, can't be replaced by a full-size one.) Given that I usually find my keyboards in thriftstores and at yardsales, I'd like the option to use either size.
...)
;) There *are* some compact clicky keyboards, but they're priced something out of this world, generally. I've considered buying some of the small Model M variants, but ... yow! The prices people want are pretty high, even used, even in not-great shape.
;)) -- it's symmetrical (good for lefties therefore), comes in USB though I have also owned PS/2 only versions, has a really fast, slick action, and has nice clicky buttons, not sluggish the way I find kensington buttons to me. Also, they're about the cheapest brand-name trackballs you'll find, about $20 at walmart or big computer retailers.
You're starting out with a space crunch that makes you ask the question, Yes, but the space added by full size keyboards (unless they're really huge ones!
Also, if your seating is so tight that full-size keyboards are hard to fit in, how's the elbow room? It sounds from here like a tight squeeze! Will people have room to swivel? (Not that any of the links google finds there are the greatest
I saw all this as a bigot favoring clicky, mechanical keyboards, which colors my perception of the world
One way to save space without forcing yourself into shrunken keyboards is to go for trackballs rather than mice; trackball+mouse can be squeezed next to the next trackball+mouse pair, and probably in no more room than a small keyboard+mousing surface. My favorite trackball for years has been the Logitech MouseMan (I think that's the right model name
Cheers,
timothy
You're right that change is hard to accept, but ... it's not completely impossible.
:)
;)
Last Friday night, I have to print a document which would only render right with recent Adobe Acrobat (stupid! but true), and a desperate search for a printer + appropriate computer combination meant printing at the home of my housemate's grandparents. His grandmother asked me if I could help her "get rid of the popups" on her machine, a Windows ME device which it turns out is chock full o' malware.
I don't know enough about Windows to do a thorough decontamination job, but I installed Firefox for her, imported IE bookmarks, set her homepage to her hotmail account, etc, and after a few minutes acclimitization, she was very happy with it.
Firefox is a pretty easy transition to make, less emotional and mental investment than many people have in their word processors, say, but it's a decent start. OpenOffice is next
I think a lot of employee resistance is not specific to software, it's just that people don't like to feel they're being bullied / told what to do. If things are offered nicely, with warning and reasoning provided on a gentle slope, with their involvement and suggestions incorporated, acceptable outcomes outlined in such a way that people don't feel forced against a wall, they take care of themselves much nicer. At least, that's what years as a residential adviser to 10-16-year-olds taught me
Cheers,
timothy
Have you had any success with using a USB wireless dongle under Linux?
... for me, getting it to work at all took quite a bit of googling, cursing, and trusting directions (conditionally) until I found a combination of driver and settings that worked. But when I upgraded a few months later to a different version of Knoppix, figuring the pain would be less the 2nd time around, I never could get that to work again. (And the Belkin is one of the few USB dongles that's reputed to work well with Linux. I know it *can* work, since I witnessed it, but the frustration isn't worth it IMO.)
I briefly had a (chunky, ugly, but so what) Belkin one working with a hard-drive installed Knoppix system (3.1? 3.2?)
Have you by chance encountered a USB dongle natively (and without tweaking) supported by Yellow Dog, or any other Linux distro? If so, which one?
timothy
unlike CNN and other news acronyms, I didn't have a satellite connection from the strip, and had to jog back to the press room's wireless coverage ;)
timothy
What did you have to do to make the transplant work?
What parts of the laptop were kept, which ones replaced (and how)?
Where did you happen to salvage the laptop guts?
timothy
Dare nMc:
Wow! Thanks for the links, that's very informative. The Attacom stuff starts out much more expensive than I'm thinking of, but the Pulver one for just under a thousand seems a decent deal. Phones included and everything -- pretty nice.
timothy
Here's the link (from the MythTV site) for MythPhone. It's for making SIP calls, not intended for integration with a POTS service as far as I can see, but conceptually it could be a good front end for calls made over asterics (or any landline, if tied into one). That would lose the fancy picture stuff, but would turn a MythTV computer into a big, fancy phone. Beldar Conhead plastic face mold not included.
:) Got it working, eventually, Yes, but QuickRip (sadly discontinued) does a good-enough job with a shallower learning curve. Tradeoffs are everywhere, and there's one.
"Unfortunately big complex systems require some idea of what you are doing. Services are available to those who don't understand telephony. But usually they want to get paid for their time. You sound like you expected something like this to be just configure, make, make install and it's up and running."
Actually, I'd like it to be even simpler than "configure,make, make install," but I don't *expect* it -- at least, not magically. The reason I suggest a turnkey appliance is because such a thing can encapsulate many hours of the time you mention in a form that's easily reproducable at low marginal cost, and the cost of that time can be amortized over many units' worth of hardware -- the same way interface-design and programming time that go into things like wireless appliance of various kinds can.
Re: complexity / money for time, the same could be said (and has been) about all kinds of complex systems which have in the end been simplified with sufficient skill to make them useful *without* a big learning curve. I want my cake and to eat it too, Yes, but so does everyone who drives a car that doesn't need to be manually cranked, rides a ski-lift, or uses central heating instead of stoking a coal furnace (etc). There will always be a market (in money and attention span) for the hardcore, bare-metal approach to just about anything, but that doesn't mean simplifications and commoditization in general are bad.
Somewhat related example: video compression. Using dvd::rip, I have squashed a few DVDs into hard-drive friendly smaller sizes, so I can carry some favorite films on my laptop. dvd::rip is itself a front-end meant to be simpler and friendlier than using the underlying programs it connects, but it's still not all that user friendly, at least to klutzes like me
Cheers,
timothy
Someone (not me! not me! the monkeys!) should connect asterics with festival, an audio compression program, and a mail agent.
Would be good to call one's landline (connected to an asterics box) and be given options like "press 7 to hear email."
Would be annoying to hear everything, perhaps (and too slow, too), but an option like "play the first 10 words, then prompt for more, or to skip to the next message" would make it bearable.
timothy
I know at least one technically skilled computer programmer type (ruling me out on two counts) who had a lot of pain setting up asterics. (Brian will remain completely anonymous.)
;)
Considering the ludicrous (low) prices for which one can buy a complete system far-more-than-capable of running asterics, the relatively cheap price of the phone interfaces, etc, it seems like a plentifully adequate Asterics box could be made for a lot less than $500, and perhaps sold for that amount (just one or two lines, more could cost more). This isn't *dirt* cheap like future, hypothetical home PBX appliances ought to be from Linksys and similar companies, but considering you can also use it as a home server and other things on the side, strikes me as at least a plausible, reasonable price to aim for.
Has anyone done this? Does anyone sell a shoe-box PBX for a few hundred dollars that can be accessed via web, so new voice messages and menus can be dropped in via clicky-clicky drop-down menus?
On this front, Isaac from MythTV and Marc from Asterics should get together and forge an unholy alliance, integrating two home-automation tasks in a nice, non-monolithic, package. I noticed that MythTV has *some* kind of new addition involving phones, but I have not read the linked bits yet
timothy
In the book (said my mom, a long time ago, but I remember it well ...), ET eats M&Ms. Making your point even clearer ;)
That movie made me cry, so I don't want to see it again.
timothy
What I'd like most in a PVR is a system allowing pitch-corrected speedup. Some shows I want to watch in real time, others I'd like pumped at least a few percent faster.
;))
(In addition to the other things you name, like cutting out the junk
timothy
Who can type faster:
:)
Bruce Perens? Or Mark Shuttleworth?
Interesting contrast; when a new release of Windows comes out, I don't see Bill Gates answering questions from all and sundry in public forums like this. (Of course, I don't follow Windows closely, so maybe I'm wrong on that.)
timothy
"There is a good reason why the homicide rates are much much lower in countries where gun ownership rates are low, compared to the U.S. Pick any western european country as an example."
How about Switzerland?
timothy
"Wow, no disrespect, but you've come up with the worst analogies I've seen. To use your analogy, who needs guns in the first place? We can use rocks. But who needs rocks? That argument goes nowhere."
... do you object to me saying that the Swiss attitude seems to be that an armed populace is important enough to justify the dangers that it brings? I realize (and admire) that they don't have a standing army, and that the required military arms in Swiss households are not for non-military use, but I don't think they detract from that claim.
:)
I'm pretty tired / dopey at the moment, but I don't follow what you mean here. I am arguing against the idea that "need" is a sensible prerequisite for the development / use / possession of anything, guns included, and it implies some sort of overarching intelligent body which could neatly assess such need.
"Apples and Oranges. The citizens of Switzerland are its militia. They all have assault weapons, true. But they don't have a standing army like we do. They are also NOT ALLOWED to use the weapons they have except as specifically mandated."
OK, I'm not sure here either what you're arguing, so I'm not sure if I agree with you or not
I have never been to Switzerland, and so my knowledge is 2nd hand at best, but as I understand it, gun ownership is relatively liberal aside from the military weapons as well; handgun permits are necessary but easily obtained (I think), long arms readily available, and only a few Cantons regulate private firearms sales. Swiss people use their (private) firearms for hunting, target shooting, etc. I'm sincerely interested in being corrected on any of these points
timothy