It's not too difficult to find people using bittorrent to distribute linux ISOs these days. I just grabbed a set of Debian 3.1. Works like a charm!
In fact, nothing works better. This is so much a viable use, that I don't really believe any more proof of bittorrent is necessary. But hey, the more the better I suppose.
Yes, it's annoying to find out someone has done it better than you, before you. But that's one of the hazards of the modern age.
It's called GreyListing (Or Graylisting if you like the american spelling).
It takes advantage of the fact that spam programs generally have very primitive SMTP implementations and when they receive a 'temporarily unavailable - try again later' message, they will just consider the message undeliverable. Greylisting works by keeping a database of destination email address/sending IP address, and the first time a given combination of the two is seen, it is given a 'come back later' message for ten minutes or whatever.
It works pretty well. But I wouldn't use it as my only line of defense against spam.
I have over 24 years of programming experience, twenty years of Internet experience (it was called Arpanet/Milnet back when I started), but no well-known companies or degree on my resume. In spite of performing well at interviews with the techies, HR has repeatedly rejected me, often over vociferous objections of the techies, because I lacked a degree and/or a good title with a well-known company.
Things were better during the dot-com boom, of course, but difference for me, personally, has been much more extreme than the average guy with a degree. It has to do with the job market. Back in 1999, anyone with experience was in demand, and they got more experience on the job. But none of that led to a degree, so when the bottom fell out of the market, I found it very difficult to compete. I've been turned down for jobs that pay less than half of what I used to make (luckily, hired in other better paying positions, but after much interviewing and effort, and still making nowhere near what I mad in the boom years). I believe it's all due to the lack of a degree. This is especially important in areas where the amount of graduates is very high, such as Boston/Cambridge, where I live.
Now, whether it matters where you GET the degree, I think it does. Non-accredited, or unknown non-US universities, can probably be a negative, because people may think you're a con-man. Community Colleges can educate you, but having an associates degree from them may likewise be a negative - people think you went to a lowest-rung college because that's the only place you could get into and graduate from, whereas if you had no degree at all, they might think you just had better things going on.
I think mid-level schools can be a plus. I'd say that any state university is at least mid-level, with some such as california or michigan being very well respected. But the university within the state college system matters - for instance U.C. Berkeley is so far more impressive than U.C. Riverside.
ANY degress from a top-level university will be impressive, especially outside the U.S. I'd say a bachelor's degree from MIT would trump a Doctorate from University of Alaska. A Bachelor's degree in Botany from Harvard with 3 years of programming experience may very well trump a BS-CS degree from University of Oklahoma with 1 year of experience.
All of this is the reason why I decided to go back to school, and I chose Harvard. They have a wonderful night school, and you can get an actual Harvard bachelor's degree. The cost of courses varies from cheap to moderately expensive though, from $550 - $1975, with the graduate level CS courses being the most expensive. Undergrad CS courses are $1400-$1500. I was also able to transfer in two years (60 units) of credit from other institutions. At Harvard, credits do not expire, unlike many other schools.
But I have started off taking the cheap courses that a requirements outside CS, because I am paying for them myself. In the future I am going to try for financial aid, or employer tuition reimbursement. Let me tell you, this is NOT some sort of community college with a harvard name. No, these courses are DIFFICULT! I took 3 courses (12 credits) this semester and I think I bit off more than I can chew. There's little time for anything else, and I feel guilty about things like...reading slashdot...when I should be doing my schoolwork.
The undead Thatcher moves again, strinking out with lines of great opportunities for corruption and hate. Oh yes, the poll tax, and now the spectrum wholesaling. What will happen to ham radio? what will happen to public broadcasting? what will happen to unlicensed spectrum?
I am a moderately heavy wikipedia user, and I haven't seem the same level of errors that McHenry did. I have checked wikipedia's entries on topics which I know quite well, and found them to be pretty good. Far better than any other source, in terms of adequate summary and depth, and fairly much in line with commercial encyclopedias in terms of accuracy.
After reading McHenry critique, I thought about what the fundamental concept of an encyclopedia is. It is an authority. Each will market itself as such, touting its panels of experts, professional editing, and its long history. A group authority does not function well when there are sharp divisions between its members on issues of fact. As such, Encyclopedias tend to round the edges, so to speak, and while addressing undeniably popular secondary views, they do not deal well with views that aren't as widely held. To do so would be to rob the reader of the feeling of certainty that they have turned to the dictionary for.
To accomplish this unified view, encyclopedists have created systems wherein experts are found based upon academic credentials, and their work overseen by editors of the encyclopedia. There is no room for radicals. The institutions of Academia and Encyclopedia therefore reinforce each other, as someone who states a fact that is in sharp opposition to an entry in an encyclopedia is seen as a rebel, and therefore will have a difficult time with an academic career, and subsequently will be less likely to be asked to work on an encyclopedia entry. Over time, views may change, but this process is very slow. Encyclopedias are conservative. Note the small 'c'.
The wikipedia is much more of a living document. It can never be called complete, it will always have errors of many types. While it also has editorial committees, the nature of its constant incrememental editing means that some agreement for aknowlegement of less popular views can more easily be reached.
I think that over time, wikipedia will continue to gain respect. I know that it is quite frequently used in academia already, even if it is not cited. I am not saying that scholars are being dishonest, but they often use wikipedia as a shadow source, i.e. a source of sources. I am speaking of not some slouching upstart Internet degree mill either, I am speaking of Harvard University. Over time, citing of, and, more importantly, contributing to, wikipedia will become more common even among the academics who are the core of writers for the traditional encyclopedias. That doesn't mean that Britannica, etc. are going to die off any time soon. The inertia of these weighty volumes is significant.
What needs to happen with wikipedia is for some editors to be funded. I believe these should be endowed, but I am not sure by whom. I have some ideas that I am putting together in an article regarding modern knowledge monastaries, and wikipedia work may be a good project for them.
(note: i didn't review any of this for grammar, etc. It's not a wikipedia article!)
Will this run on my old hardware, such as my SparcStation 20, and SS5/110? How much ram/disk space does it require? I wonder is solaris has become the same bloatware that everything else has in the past couple of years.
If you are concerned about all this consumer information being used as 'big brother', maybe you ought to start doing something about it. Lying on the census or your income taxes is illegal, but marketers are fair game. The easiest way to mess with them is to tell them the opposite of the truth. Or, camouflage your true interests by entering a lot of junk. I.E. if your are pissed off that you didn't get a refund you were due from MicroCenter (notorious refund scammers) just fill out several hundred bogus refund forms. Jam the system.
If you're willing to break the law, you can even do worse harm. But I don't condone that.
Using legal methods to increase the entropy are the best way to fight the marketing databases.
I know exactly what you mean. I *JUST* retired my beloved 800CT last month and sold it on ebay this week.
I've got a whole stack of them here, in various states of repair. The problem with them, is the only one of them has more than 32mb of ram. It's really expensive to buy that proprietary 64mb ram for the 800CT.
It shouldn't be that hard to make something with the specs of a two year old notebook, but sell it for *CHEAP* and with a WARRANTY. If I need to crunch serious numbers or play games, I go to my firebreathing desktop machine - I want something portably, light, and cheap that runs Linux well.
But it is...when the components aren't made any more. Electronics components are made in massive quantities for a short period of time, then discontinued. With the exceptions of a few leftovers, usually scooped up by those who will sit on them for a couple of years and recoup their cost by selling expensive replacement parts, most stuff like CPUs are going to have a two year lifecycle, max.
Ultimately, I went the used route. Last year I got an ultraportable Sony PGC505T (2.5 pounds, PII @300, etc), and Debian was happy.
I too use Debian. But I am not really impressed with Sony. Now, the PCG-XG39 I got had the right price (free, I found it in a trash can !!), it has serious problems: for some reason, it won't recognize any hard drive I put in it (So I use the CD and knoppix), and the screen protector is badly scratched because Sony didn't give enough clearance between it and the keyboard. And it's heavy.
Still I wanted something just a little larger for somewhat more complicated development work, along with a larger screen and keyboard. Again, the used route was the way, scoring a Compaq Armada e500 (PIII @ 850, 512 megs ram, 1400x1080 screen, $430) purchased with a 30-day warranty. Again, debian is happy with it.
Hrm 30 days isn't very long. And I had an e300 that I bought new a couple of years ago, and it was horrible unreliable. I don't want anything in that family! I am really worried, now that Compaq is a part of HP, that HP's quality in laptops has been diluted. I really like the 800CT series, but it's just too far out of date.
But I shouldn't have to. If Compaq were to sell this notebook NEW with the exact same specs for $750, I'd probably get it. Something smaller and lighter and a little less powerful would be a buy too.
But they won't. Because it's just not cost effective for them. Why haven't laptop prices dropped further? Because they break so easily, that there is little competition with used models for consumers who just want a "reasonable" laptop.
Having serviced my client machines for years, including a wide variety of notebooks, the only advice I can offer is to stick with a name-brand vendor for a notebook. If the vender offers a "professional line" and a "consumer line" of machines, get the professional line if for no other reason that it was designed to be sturdier and serviced by an IT department instead of being sent back of every little thing. If you aren't buying a used machine from someone you know personally, try to get it from a company that offers even a basic warranty to make sure all the parts work when you get it. If it was built well by a good company, good production and engineering will see you through.
That sounds like good advice.
At least, usually.;-)
As a bonus, when you get a used, cheap notebook, you don't have to worry about every tiny scratch or ding, or if it get stolen (gasp), you aren't out $2000.
Or if it gets stolen, coffee spilled on it, etc. Yes, I feel alot more relaxed taking a $100 laptop on a trip than a $2000 one. But, like I said, I want something with a bit more power than that Pentium 133 on the 800CT. And then, I'll keep a single old laptop and sell off all the rest of my 13 laptops (no, I am not exaggerating the number!)
Nice...but too much money. My HP 800CT is getting slow and dog-eared, and I am thinking about replacing it. I want something linux-compatible, light, cheap, and with good battery life. Yea sure, everyone wants that...what I am willing to sacrifice is CPU performance (I don't see myself doing lots of compilation on this. No, I won't run gentoo), 3D graphics capbility (I am not really that much into action games), and screen size (I have good eyes...to a point). What I cannot abide is unreliability. Since laptops are throw-away items, I want a good, long comprehensive warrantee . Primarily on the LCD.
So it should be under 3lbs, have 3+ hrs of continuous-use battery life, a 3 year warrantee, and be under $1000. Any suggestions?
Last week, I was told I couldn't open a bank account unless I had a major credit card (debit card's didn't count) - in spite of the fact that I presented a US passport and a state ID. I was outraged, and I was told this was due to the Patriot Act. I went to another bank, and didn't have a problem. Maybe its because, at the second bank, I was the same race as the bank representative.
I dunno what he's talking about. I built a really nice system with 4 SATA-150 drives, 384MB of ram. Is that a lot? And it worked fine. But make sure you pay attention to cooling. I used a generic case and when the AC went out in the server room, it only took half an hour for a drive to fail! After replacing it, I made sure there was enough cooling and everything worked fine, even when the AC failed again, and was off overnight.
I hat to respond to my own post, but I forgot...ALl you people who say even the mention of a site that has breasts on it is immoral. Get off slashdot. We have no need for you. If I ran this place, I'd throw you out, and place a pox on your family. Really. One time I had a party and someone thought that the artistic photograph of a woman whose women whose breasts were bare 'exploited women'. I threw her out on the spot, told her she was never welcome in my house or any party I had control of, and that she should fuck off. She talked a storm, but didn't try to re-enter. Her coat followed her onto the sidewalk. People looked shocked, but later lots of people were telling me how funny it was.
Don't tell me what's porn or not, in my house. I wish the slashdot editors would do the same, and delete your account.
This is just more ludicrous barratry from the IP lawyers. Best thing to do is point out that usage is not infringing, and that if they continue to harrass, you will sue for barratry and get damages and get them disbarred.
Remember this document was written by people who had just won a war, by a long shot, against the most powerful and oppressive empire in their world.
No, they didn't. The U.S. has yet to fight the Roman Catholic Church, and seems less likely to do so each year (unfortunately).
Cryptonomicon sub based on real-life incident?
on
Ask Neal Stephenson
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· Score: 1
In the cryptonomicon, a german submarine full of gold was sunk, but its fate and mission were a secret even from others in the U-Boat command. Was any part of the Cryptonomicon based upon the real-life incident of the un-numbered U-boat, of type XI-B, sunk under very suspicious circumstances off of Cape Cod in 1944?
The United States is becoming increasingly stupid, but Germany has just taken a bound ahead. I don't watch TV, don't care about TV shows, and wouldn't care if all TV stations shut down. I had considered moving to Germany, but in light of this ruling I probably won't. I have too many computers, and would end up paying more per month in fees for them than I would receive in a salary.
This is plain stupid. Germans should rise up and have this law crushed. Is suggesting civil disobedience illegal for me to do under german law, or eu law, or any other law that I should be concerned about (i.e. US law apparently extends to the U.K. Does it extend to germany in the same way?) ?
Yes, OpenBSD does some things nice. I am very familiar with it. But I don't want it on my laptop! There are specific applications and purposes for which OpenBSD is not well suited.
I see some other comments picking on me for wanting to use old hardware. How about, you go spend $1000 upgrading your laptop every year, just so you can be current, and ship me your old one? I'll even pay shipping. The same with your car: I am sure that the one you have is probably approaching its 30,000 mile mark and is practically worn out. I'll tell you what, I'll take that year 2002 model off your hands for free. I mean, cars weren't meant to have their batteries changed or shock absorbers replaced, any look inside the hood will tell you that. And the manual for your car does say "No user servicable parts inside". And isn't the ashtray full anyhow?
Won't install with less than 256MB of ram? This is ridiculous! Someone needs to come out with a distribution that doesn't try to sell new hardware, but has the user in mind, who was perfectly fine with his old system but doesn't feel comfortable running an OS that isn't actively maintained. I used to feel that Debian was that, but they can't manage to get Atheros and Prism2 wireless support in their mainstream releases that will install in 32mb of ram (yea, I want to turn old machines into access points. Yeah, I know I can use pebble. But there are reasons I don't want to). Maybe slackware does this, I don't know...bute S.u.S.E. certainly is too fat for me to love. Babe, you need to go on a diet...
Not sure this is still true, but the chief lawyer for Scientology, Earle Cooley, is/was on the BU board. And Scientology is notorious for its use of the law as a weapon against critics.
Ah but it does matter: University of Boston is my copyright. And we are proudly free of scientologists, one-armed despots, and haven't had to pay any money to dismiss ex-NASA administrators because we are too smart to hire any.
The University of Boston offers, among couses:
- KAR01 - Defensive Driving - KAR02 - Offensive Driving - KAR02 - Navigation without street signs - ATH01 - Philosphy of Baseball - Why being #2 is better - ATH02 - Basketball -How can so many black guys can still be call Celtics - LIN01 - Linguistics and Pronunciation - Dialects of Somerville, Charlestown, South Boston, and Jamaica Plain compared - BUS01 - How to get rich in the University business - BUS02 - How to get rich in the Politics business - BUS03 - How to get rich in the Trashy Soveniers business - BUS04 - How to get rich by renting slum apartments to students
The noise you mention is a problem. It is caused by the blade passing close to the tower supporting the turbine. There are a few solutions to this, each with its complications. One that I have thought of is to make the tower streamlined, with the sharp ends at a right angle to the rotation of the rotors. What others have done is to move the blades further 'out' from the support structure. A third alternative is to use one of the so-called 'egg-beater' designs, which have no need for a support structure.
In the end, my idea is probably the easiest. But it won't be 100% effective. It is best to locate large-scale turbines away from areas where sound will be a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not too difficult to find people using bittorrent to distribute linux ISOs these days. I just grabbed a set of Debian 3.1. Works like a charm!
In fact, nothing works better. This is so much a viable use, that I don't really believe any more proof of bittorrent is necessary. But hey, the more the better I suppose.
they used to measure the signals from stationary radio statios (am broadcast) and determine location based on this. You could do that too.
Yes, it's annoying to find out someone has done it better than you, before you. But that's one of the hazards of the modern age. It's called GreyListing (Or Graylisting if you like the american spelling). It takes advantage of the fact that spam programs generally have very primitive SMTP implementations and when they receive a 'temporarily unavailable - try again later' message, they will just consider the message undeliverable. Greylisting works by keeping a database of destination email address/sending IP address, and the first time a given combination of the two is seen, it is given a 'come back later' message for ten minutes or whatever. It works pretty well. But I wouldn't use it as my only line of defense against spam.
I have over 24 years of programming experience, twenty years of Internet experience (it was called Arpanet/Milnet back when I started), but no well-known companies or degree on my resume. In spite of performing well at interviews with the techies, HR has repeatedly rejected me, often over vociferous objections of the techies, because I lacked a degree and/or a good title with a well-known company.
Things were better during the dot-com boom, of course, but difference for me, personally, has been much more extreme than the average guy with a degree. It has to do with the job market. Back in 1999, anyone with experience was in demand, and they got more experience on the job. But none of that led to a degree, so when the bottom fell out of the market, I found it very difficult to compete. I've been turned down for jobs that pay less than half of what I used to make (luckily, hired in other better paying positions, but after much interviewing and effort, and still making nowhere near what I mad in the boom years). I believe it's all due to the lack of a degree. This is especially important in areas where the amount of graduates is very high, such as Boston/Cambridge, where I live.
Now, whether it matters where you GET the degree, I think it does. Non-accredited, or unknown non-US universities, can probably be a negative, because people may think you're a con-man. Community Colleges can educate you, but having an associates degree from them may likewise be a negative - people think you went to a lowest-rung college because that's the only place you could get into and graduate from, whereas if you had no degree at all, they might think you just had better things going on.
I think mid-level schools can be a plus. I'd say that any state university is at least mid-level, with some such as california or michigan being very well respected. But the university within the state college system matters - for instance U.C. Berkeley is so far more impressive than U.C. Riverside.
ANY degress from a top-level university will be impressive, especially outside the U.S. I'd say a bachelor's degree from MIT would trump a Doctorate from University of Alaska. A Bachelor's degree in Botany from Harvard with 3 years of programming experience may very well trump a BS-CS degree from University of Oklahoma with 1 year of experience.
All of this is the reason why I decided to go back to school, and I chose Harvard. They have a wonderful night school, and you can get an actual Harvard bachelor's degree. The cost of courses varies from cheap to moderately expensive though, from $550 - $1975, with the graduate level CS courses being the most expensive. Undergrad CS courses are $1400-$1500. I was also able to transfer in two years (60 units) of credit from other institutions. At Harvard, credits do not expire, unlike many other schools.
But I have started off taking the cheap courses that a requirements outside CS, because I am paying for them myself. In the future I am going to try for financial aid, or employer tuition reimbursement. Let me tell you, this is NOT some sort of community college with a harvard name. No, these courses are DIFFICULT! I took 3 courses (12 credits) this semester and I think I bit off more than I can chew. There's little time for anything else, and I feel guilty about things like...reading slashdot...when I should be doing my schoolwork.
The undead Thatcher moves again, strinking out with lines of great opportunities for corruption and hate. Oh yes, the poll tax, and now the spectrum wholesaling. What will happen to ham radio? what will happen to public broadcasting? what will happen to unlicensed spectrum?
I am a moderately heavy wikipedia user, and I haven't seem the same level of errors that McHenry did. I have checked wikipedia's entries on topics which I know quite well, and found them to be pretty good. Far better than any other source, in terms of adequate summary and depth, and fairly much in line with commercial encyclopedias in terms of accuracy.
After reading McHenry critique, I thought about what the fundamental concept of an encyclopedia is. It is an authority. Each will market itself as such, touting its panels of experts, professional editing, and its long history. A group authority does not function well when there are sharp divisions between its members on issues of fact. As such, Encyclopedias tend to round the edges, so to speak, and while addressing undeniably popular secondary views, they do not deal well with views that aren't as widely held. To do so would be to rob the reader of the feeling of certainty that they have turned to the dictionary for.
To accomplish this unified view, encyclopedists have created systems wherein experts are found based upon academic credentials, and their work overseen by editors of the encyclopedia. There is no room for radicals. The institutions of Academia and Encyclopedia therefore reinforce each other, as someone who states a fact that is in sharp opposition to an entry in an encyclopedia is seen as a rebel, and therefore will have a difficult time with an academic career, and subsequently will be less likely to be asked to work on an encyclopedia entry. Over time, views may change, but this process is very slow. Encyclopedias are conservative. Note the small 'c'.
The wikipedia is much more of a living document. It can never be called complete, it will always have errors of many types. While it also has editorial committees, the nature of its constant incrememental editing means that some agreement for aknowlegement of less popular views can more easily be reached.
I think that over time, wikipedia will continue to gain respect. I know that it is quite frequently used in academia already, even if it is not cited. I am not saying that scholars are being dishonest, but they often use wikipedia as a shadow source, i.e. a source of sources. I am speaking of not some slouching upstart Internet degree mill either, I am speaking of Harvard University. Over time, citing of, and, more importantly, contributing to, wikipedia will become more common even among the academics who are the core of writers for the traditional encyclopedias. That doesn't mean that Britannica, etc. are going to die off any time soon. The inertia of these weighty volumes is significant.
What needs to happen with wikipedia is for some editors to be funded. I believe these should be endowed, but I am not sure by whom. I have some ideas that I am putting together in an article regarding modern knowledge monastaries, and wikipedia work may be a good project for them.
(note: i didn't review any of this for grammar, etc. It's not a wikipedia article!)
Will this run on my old hardware, such as my SparcStation 20, and SS5/110? How much ram/disk space does it require? I wonder is solaris has become the same bloatware that everything else has in the past couple of years.
If you are concerned about all this consumer information being used as 'big brother', maybe you ought to start doing something about it. Lying on the census or your income taxes is illegal, but marketers are fair game. The easiest way to mess with them is to tell them the opposite of the truth. Or, camouflage your true interests by entering a lot of junk. I.E. if your are pissed off that you didn't get a refund you were due from MicroCenter (notorious refund scammers) just fill out several hundred bogus refund forms. Jam the system.
If you're willing to break the law, you can even do worse harm. But I don't condone that.
Using legal methods to increase the entropy are the best way to fight the marketing databases.
have the locks replaced for $200. Yea, that works.
I've got a whole stack of them here, in various states of repair. The problem with them, is the only one of them has more than 32mb of ram. It's really expensive to buy that proprietary 64mb ram for the 800CT.
It shouldn't be that hard to make something with the specs of a two year old notebook, but sell it for *CHEAP* and with a WARRANTY. If I need to crunch serious numbers or play games, I go to my firebreathing desktop machine - I want something portably, light, and cheap that runs Linux well.
But it is...when the components aren't made any more. Electronics components are made in massive quantities for a short period of time, then discontinued. With the exceptions of a few leftovers, usually scooped up by those who will sit on them for a couple of years and recoup their cost by selling expensive replacement parts, most stuff like CPUs are going to have a two year lifecycle, max.
Ultimately, I went the used route. Last year I got an ultraportable Sony PGC505T (2.5 pounds, PII @300, etc), and Debian was happy.
I too use Debian. But I am not really impressed with Sony. Now, the PCG-XG39 I got had the right price (free, I found it in a trash can !!), it has serious problems: for some reason, it won't recognize any hard drive I put in it (So I use the CD and knoppix), and the screen protector is badly scratched because Sony didn't give enough clearance between it and the keyboard. And it's heavy.
Still I wanted something just a little larger for somewhat more complicated development work, along with a larger screen and keyboard. Again, the used route was the way, scoring a Compaq Armada e500 (PIII @ 850, 512 megs ram, 1400x1080 screen, $430) purchased with a 30-day warranty. Again, debian is happy with it.
Hrm 30 days isn't very long. And I had an e300 that I bought new a couple of years ago, and it was horrible unreliable. I don't want anything in that family! I am really worried, now that Compaq is a part of HP, that HP's quality in laptops has been diluted. I really like the 800CT series, but it's just too far out of date.
But I shouldn't have to. If Compaq were to sell this notebook NEW with the exact same specs for $750, I'd probably get it. Something smaller and lighter and a little less powerful would be a buy too.
But they won't. Because it's just not cost effective for them. Why haven't laptop prices dropped further? Because they break so easily, that there is little competition with used models for consumers who just want a "reasonable" laptop.
Having serviced my client machines for years, including a wide variety of notebooks, the only advice I can offer is to stick with a name-brand vendor for a notebook. If the vender offers a "professional line" and a "consumer line" of machines, get the professional line if for no other reason that it was designed to be sturdier and serviced by an IT department instead of being sent back of every little thing. If you aren't buying a used machine from someone you know personally, try to get it from a company that offers even a basic warranty to make sure all the parts work when you get it. If it was built well by a good company, good production and engineering will see you through.
That sounds like good advice.
At least, usually. ;-)
As a bonus, when you get a used, cheap notebook, you don't have to worry about every tiny scratch or ding, or if it get stolen (gasp), you aren't out $2000.
Or if it gets stolen, coffee spilled on it, etc. Yes, I feel alot more relaxed taking a $100 laptop on a trip than a $2000 one. But, like I said, I want something with a bit more power than that Pentium 133 on the 800CT. And then, I'll keep a single old laptop and sell off all the rest of my 13 laptops (no, I am not exaggerating the number!)
I am not the original poster, BUT...have you noticed the Evian spelled backwards is Naive?
Nice...but too much money. My HP 800CT is getting slow and dog-eared, and I am thinking about replacing it. I want something linux-compatible, light, cheap, and with good battery life. Yea sure, everyone wants that...what I am willing to sacrifice is CPU performance (I don't see myself doing lots of compilation on this. No, I won't run gentoo), 3D graphics capbility (I am not really that much into action games), and screen size (I have good eyes...to a point). What I cannot abide is unreliability. Since laptops are throw-away items, I want a good, long comprehensive warrantee . Primarily on the LCD.
So it should be under 3lbs, have 3+ hrs of continuous-use battery life, a 3 year warrantee, and be under $1000. Any suggestions?
Last week, I was told I couldn't open a bank account unless I had a major credit card (debit card's didn't count) - in spite of the fact that I presented a US passport and a state ID. I was outraged, and I was told this was due to the Patriot Act. I went to another bank, and didn't have a problem. Maybe its because, at the second bank, I was the same race as the bank representative.
I dunno what he's talking about. I built a really nice system with 4 SATA-150 drives, 384MB of ram. Is that a lot? And it worked fine. But make sure you pay attention to cooling. I used a generic case and when the AC went out in the server room, it only took half an hour for a drive to fail! After replacing it, I made sure there was enough cooling and everything worked fine, even when the AC failed again, and was off overnight.
there should be a tld for ham radio operators. just callsign.ham, i.e. w1aw.ham
Hams are already registered, so all the big whois mess wouldn't be a big problem.
Don't let anything other than a callsign be in it. So no nastyness about coke.ham and lawyers involved.
I hat to respond to my own post, but I forgot...ALl you people who say even the mention of a site that has breasts on it is immoral. Get off slashdot. We have no need for you. If I ran this place, I'd throw you out, and place a pox on your family. Really. One time I had a party and someone thought that the artistic photograph of a woman whose women whose breasts were bare 'exploited women'. I threw her out on the spot, told her she was never welcome in my house or any party I had control of, and that she should fuck off. She talked a storm, but didn't try to re-enter. Her coat followed her onto the sidewalk. People looked shocked, but later lots of people were telling me how funny it was.
Don't tell me what's porn or not, in my house. I wish the slashdot editors would do the same, and delete your account.
This is just more ludicrous barratry from the IP lawyers. Best thing to do is point out that usage is not infringing, and that if they continue to harrass, you will sue for barratry and get damages and get them disbarred.
IANAL, yea.
No, they didn't. The U.S. has yet to fight the Roman Catholic Church, and seems less likely to do so each year (unfortunately).
References:
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The United States is becoming increasingly stupid, but Germany has just taken a bound ahead. I don't watch TV, don't care about TV shows, and wouldn't care if all TV stations shut down. I had considered moving to Germany, but in light of this ruling I probably won't. I have too many computers, and would end up paying more per month in fees for them than I would receive in a salary.
This is plain stupid. Germans should rise up and have this law crushed. Is suggesting civil disobedience illegal for me to do under german law, or eu law, or any other law that I should be concerned about (i.e. US law apparently extends to the U.K. Does it extend to germany in the same way?) ?
Yes, OpenBSD does some things nice. I am very familiar with it. But I don't want it on my laptop! There are specific applications and purposes for which OpenBSD is not well suited.
I see some other comments picking on me for wanting to use old hardware. How about, you go spend $1000 upgrading your laptop every year, just so you can be current, and ship me your old one? I'll even pay shipping. The same with your car: I am sure that the one you have is probably approaching its 30,000 mile mark and is practically worn out. I'll tell you what, I'll take that year 2002 model off your hands for free. I mean, cars weren't meant to have their batteries changed or shock absorbers replaced, any look inside the hood will tell you that. And the manual for your car does say "No user servicable parts inside". And isn't the ashtray full anyhow?
Won't install with less than 256MB of ram? This is ridiculous! Someone needs to come out with a distribution that doesn't try to sell new hardware, but has the user in mind, who was perfectly fine with his old system but doesn't feel comfortable running an OS that isn't actively maintained. I used to feel that Debian was that, but they can't manage to get Atheros and Prism2 wireless support in their mainstream releases that will install in 32mb of ram (yea, I want to turn old machines into access points. Yeah, I know I can use pebble. But there are reasons I don't want to). Maybe slackware does this, I don't know...bute S.u.S.E. certainly is too fat for me to love. Babe, you need to go on a diet...
Not sure this is still true, but the chief lawyer for Scientology, Earle Cooley, is/was on the BU board. And Scientology is notorious for its use of the law as a weapon against critics.
Ah but it does matter: University of Boston is my copyright. And we are proudly free of scientologists, one-armed despots, and haven't had to pay any money to dismiss ex-NASA administrators because we are too smart to hire any.
The University of Boston offers, among couses:
- KAR01 - Defensive Driving
- KAR02 - Offensive Driving
- KAR02 - Navigation without street signs
- ATH01 - Philosphy of Baseball - Why being #2 is better
- ATH02 - Basketball -How can so many black guys can still be call Celtics
- LIN01 - Linguistics and Pronunciation - Dialects of Somerville, Charlestown, South Boston, and Jamaica Plain compared
- BUS01 - How to get rich in the University business
- BUS02 - How to get rich in the Politics business
- BUS03 - How to get rich in the Trashy Soveniers business
- BUS04 - How to get rich by renting slum apartments to students
And many more!
The noise you mention is a problem. It is caused by the blade passing close to the tower supporting the turbine. There are a few solutions to this, each with its complications. One that I have thought of is to make the tower streamlined, with the sharp ends at a right angle to the rotation of the rotors. What others have done is to move the blades further 'out' from the support structure. A third alternative is to use one of the so-called 'egg-beater' designs, which have no need for a support structure.
In the end, my idea is probably the easiest. But it won't be 100% effective. It is best to locate large-scale turbines away from areas where sound will be a problem.