that's not entirely true.. macrovision may be included in the encoding of a video, but it can also be injected on the video out of a VCR.. and on the output of a DVD player..
Macrovision on my Apex DVD player is done by the video output chip. I have a hacked rom installed that turns off that "feature" of the video output chip. Since DVD's are mpeg2 video, there is no macrovision encoding on the DVD itself.
actualy, if you read the source, you would notice a few things tweaked in the linux kernel (talking about 2.4.20ish kernels)
to quote linux/include/asm-i386/page.h:/*
* This handles the memory map.. We could make this a config
* option, but too many people screw it up, and too few need
* it.
*
* A __PAGE_OFFSET of 0xC0000000 means that the kernel has
* a virtual address space of one gigabyte, which limits the
* amount of physical memory you can use to about 950MB.
*
* If you want more physical memory than this then see the CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G
* and CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G options in the kernel configuration.
*/
This is speaking about kernel memory limit, which leaves you with up to 3 gigabytes of space for user processes. That is the default, if tweaked, you can get it up higher to 3.5gigabytes... but that limits the kernel to about 500megabytes.
There are _other_ issues, when dealing with single processes, if your code staticaly allocates memory , like...
int foo[1000][1000];
the system normaly uses brk(); to allocate the memory.. this is done from the bottom up.. but if you use mmap(); to grab memory, it comes from the top down.
in include/asm-i386/processor.h there is another parameter that tweaks the memory used for mmap();/*
* User space process size: 3GB (default).
*/ #define TASK_SIZE (PAGE_OFFSET)/* This decides where the kernel will search for a free chunk of vm
* space during mmap's.
*/ #define TASK_UNMAPPED_BASE (TASK_SIZE / 3)
this limits brk(); to the first gig of memory.. which causes some of my users's fortran code to blow up.
thankfully glibc is smart, and will brk() from the bottom if it runs out of mmap space. so i just tuned TASK_UNMAPPED_BASE to be TASK_SIZE - 0x40000000 for my cluster nodes. now I can use up to 2gig of memory for a single fortran process.
There are also other places where LRP (LEAF) are still useful, there are some things a cheap $500 netopia router can't do, that a perfectly cheap PC can.
Full IPSec server, not just client passthrough (I couldn't tell by the VPN features of the netopia 4500 if it could be an IPSec mobile client server)
Full DHCP/DNS server, being able to run a normal ISC dhcpd and bind9 is very handy.
HostAP, I personaly use my router box as a cheap AP, with it's own DHCP subnet, and security controls.
Built in clients for dynamic DNS domains.
I do all this on an 8mb compact flash card, with an IDE ribon cable adapter.. and whenever I get some money to buy a soekris box, I'll be free of moving parts (there is a PSU cooling fan in my router box right now)
Name changing is basicaly a way to try and get people to forget how much your product sucks. two name changes is realy bad.
Take Pascal for example, a teaching language, that has some major suck factor for real world programing. But a bunch of tech school clubies started using it for real world apps.
Most real developers know it sucks, so they renamed it to Delphi, just to confuse people into using it.
it will have to be a good signal, considering the kind of character drops I got when a friend (WB0POQ) was demonstrating PSK31, the bandwidth fits in normal SSB, and we get about line of text for every 10 seconds of tx.
any post that mentions pringles cans as a "usable technology" should be ignored. the gain you get from a pringles can is less than what you'd get with putting a properly sized coat hanger.
Pringles cans get you around 3db of gain, which is only slightly less laughable than the antenna that comes on the pcmcia cards.
most of the linksys/d-link etc AP's I've seen come with 5-6db antennas. If you want real high gain to do anything usefull, go buy a reasonably cheap antenna from fab-corp, or demarctech. they have stuff for $50-100, that out preforms pringles cans any day. they also tend to be waterproof.
or if you realy want to make something usefull, build a bi-quad element, and attach it to a primestar dish. or build a proper 10 element stick yagi. both will get you over 15db of gain.
as for the microwave oven thing, I've yet to find one that causes me any problems with wireless. I don't see any signifigant latency or bandwidth drops when my oven is running, and it's just a cheap POS that I got from target.
I remember back in 94-95 era, people started to complain that "this web thing is eating all our bandwidth" People complained that it was slowing down email, usenet, and IRC. It was a hog, all those images.. yada yada yada...
Now that the average connection is a factor of 10 faster than it was in 95, someone invented an application to utilize that bandwidth.. *SHOCK*
One of our local campus admins talks about how we double our campus backbone connection every 2 years.. we had about 200mbit when i started 2 years ago, now the plan is to get a 3rd provider, and jump to 400mbit before the next school year starts. _IF_ we can afford it. (yay for state budjet problems)
In another 5 years, people will forget all about P2P, because it will be background noise compared to the ********* protocol. Whatever they think up when 100mbit fiber starts to get rolled out.
If you want to really see what is in the works, look at Internet 2 projects. Our campus has 655mbit to I2, and it's already too slow for some of the research. Plans are in the works for a few gbits.
I live in St. Paul, MN, and it's not quiet setup for urban life.. (why I like minneapolis more) The people at the yuppy grocery store are always confused when I start putting stuff in my back pack.
This is one of those places where they have people to bag your groceries, and carry them out to your SUV for you.. that's just sick.. people are so damn lazy. thankfully my new house is 6 blocks from the large grocery store chain, and 2 blocks from kim's korean grocery..
We got a unisys es7000 32proc 2ghz xeon at work.. we didn't actualy buy it.. because we wern't about to pay 800k for it, and then another 800k in windows licenses... they gave it to us.. it's kinda cool.. for a windows box.. the unix admins use it to play snood.
the scientific computing numbers that we're getting off it vary in preformance, some are worse than our 500mhz mips, and some kick the crap out of our Power4's on low number of procs.
I auditioned some magnepan speakers a year or so ago.. and they sound amazing. I also listended to some martin loagan electrotats, and price/preformance, the magnepan's have them beat. You're right about electrostats, they MUST have a bass box somewhere, and all the martin's had them. but magnepans are not electrostats, they're planar speakers.. driven by the sheet, not by charged plates. once you hit the MG 1.6's, you don't need a bass box anymore. Depending on the kind of music you listen to, the MG 12's are close. Sound is only missing a little bit of the punch I get from my current system (DefTech mains, and Klipsch sub)
I use my system for mostly movies, but maybe i'll get some maggies for music some day... the only problem is I have 2 cats.. i bet they'd LOVE to try their claws out on the maggies.. (they allready try and climb my DefTech)
as far as I know, it's illegal for telemarketers in the US to call cell phones. This is because it is the person reciving the calls that pays for the call.
I have only recived one telemarketing call on my cell phone over the last 2 years i've had it. and that was AT&T Broadband (who i use for cable modem, and cable TV) who has the number listed as contact for my current service. They were trying to sell me an upgrade to digital cable. I said, "This is a cell phone, it is illegal to call cell phones, I am going to report this to the PUC".
that reminds me of a story about how for 10 years, two of the science teachers at my HS only posted the pictures of women in physics/chemistry/math events around the halls, and other school publications. after a few years of this, they noticed the rate of women signing up for physics/chemistry/math went from 10% to 50% This kind of promotion would be great for a computer club.. droping the attitude that gender has anything to do with using computers..
so we're now down to 3 boards instead of 4+, major improvement if you ask me.
Soekris will have the 300mzh NatSemi CPU in a month or so, and is expected to be under $300.
I like the huge I/O systems you can stack on the PC/104 spec, but with ethernet I/O and other fast bus I/O parts, it's not really necessary to have it stacked on the system board.
I browsed some of these vendors and sites before.. one vendor I talked to at comdex was asking $800 for a base PC/104+ board.
Not that I do much with embeded systems these days.. that was a few years ago.
I've never had any kind of interest in PC/104.. it's an old standard, the PC/104 pass-through bus is ISA based. Every time I try and find out prices, it's been $400-500 for a devel board, no one seems to think about selling them in small quantities. You only get a 33mhz 486 for that $400 board..
I have recently come to enjoy working with Soekris boards.. http://www.soekris.com
The guy does things right.. Compact flash slots on board for OS, no over-priced Disk-On-Chip stuff. PCI or mini-pci slots, 133mhz AMD Elan chips, PCMCIA slots on some models.. serial port and simple network bootable flash. and 2-3 PCI 10/100 ethernet chips.. a similar PC/104 board would be stacked 4cm tall with adapter boards, all stuck on a ISA bus.
there is no reason to hate AOL.. just don't use them, or reccomend them to people that you care about.
I personaly like having them around, they keep all the idiots on this planet away from good ISP's like the one I use for my servers. Small, localy owned, and easy to deal with.
If the stupid morons on this planet didn't have AOL, my friend adam (who's the sysadmin there) wouldn't have time to take care of my BGP issues, or write 4/1 RFC's.
I saw it in the Mysterious Future, but there still isn't a good way to report dupes before they go live. I think you should open the thread for comments before it goes live, and nuke/archive/whatever those comments after it's live.
Of course, the Empeg design team is still working on software projects for Rio. We're all hoping the death of SonicBlue does good things for the Empeg.
In another year or two, we could see another serious attempt at automotive mp3 players.
From talking to people I know in europe, the reason SMS is so popular is that SMS messages cost a ton less than talking on the phone. I don't belive "continent wide free long distance" exists over there. Some places still charge by the min for land -line phone calls.
Sounds like some people I was dealing with for their y2k upgrade. This was the end of '98.
They had a old IBM RS/6k machine running AIX 3, it was slow, crusty, and so covered in dust i had to get out a shovel.. but it ran their inventory vertical app.
I Suggested we talk to their app vendor about running linux on a nice custom built, or maybe a compaq/dell/ibm whatever PC server.
The vendor came back and said "linux what?" I wanted to know why.. "We havn't tested on it" I found out they were using a simple database/4gl interpeter, no compiled C code, or anything platform specific.
The only platforms they suppored for new upgrades/installs was Sun and SCO. I told the people buying the software from these guys that they should go with Sun, it would be a much better solution. They didn't listen to me, and the vendor sold them a DEC made PC server, for about 2x the price of a comparable compaq, and even more than some of the Suns I was looking at. I told them both DEC and SCO were bad ideas.
I stoped consulting for them after that. A year later, DEC got sucked up by compaq. SCO has done nothing but tank. This whole SCO vs. IBM thing makes me want to call them up and see how they're doing.
Slashdot Mirror
that's not entirely true.. macrovision may be included in the encoding of a video, but it can also be injected on the video out of a VCR.. and on the output of a DVD player..
Macrovision on my Apex DVD player is done by the video output chip. I have a hacked rom installed that turns off that "feature" of the video output chip. Since DVD's are mpeg2 video, there is no macrovision encoding on the DVD itself.
actualy, if you read the source, you would notice a few things tweaked in the linux kernel (talking about 2.4.20ish kernels)
/*
/* /* This decides where the kernel will search for a free chunk of vm
to quote linux/include/asm-i386/page.h:
* This handles the memory map.. We could make this a config
* option, but too many people screw it up, and too few need
* it.
*
* A __PAGE_OFFSET of 0xC0000000 means that the kernel has
* a virtual address space of one gigabyte, which limits the
* amount of physical memory you can use to about 950MB.
*
* If you want more physical memory than this then see the CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G
* and CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G options in the kernel configuration.
*/
This is speaking about kernel memory limit, which leaves you with up to 3 gigabytes of space for user processes. That is the default, if tweaked, you can get it up higher to 3.5gigabytes... but that limits the kernel to about 500megabytes.
There are _other_ issues, when dealing with single processes, if your code staticaly allocates memory , like...
int foo[1000][1000];
the system normaly uses brk(); to allocate the memory.. this is done from the bottom up.. but if you use mmap(); to grab memory, it comes from the top down.
in include/asm-i386/processor.h there is another parameter that tweaks the memory used for mmap();
* User space process size: 3GB (default).
*/
#define TASK_SIZE (PAGE_OFFSET)
* space during mmap's.
*/
#define TASK_UNMAPPED_BASE (TASK_SIZE / 3)
this limits brk(); to the first gig of memory.. which causes some of my users's fortran code to blow up.
thankfully glibc is smart, and will brk() from the bottom if it runs out of mmap space. so i just tuned TASK_UNMAPPED_BASE to be TASK_SIZE - 0x40000000 for my cluster nodes. now I can use up to 2gig of memory for a single fortran process.
There are also other places where LRP (LEAF) are still useful, there are some things a cheap $500 netopia router can't do, that a perfectly cheap PC can.
Full IPSec server, not just client passthrough (I couldn't tell by the VPN features of the netopia 4500 if it could be an IPSec mobile client server)
Full DHCP/DNS server, being able to run a normal ISC dhcpd and bind9 is very handy.
HostAP, I personaly use my router box as a cheap AP, with it's own DHCP subnet, and security controls.
Built in clients for dynamic DNS domains.
I do all this on an 8mb compact flash card, with an IDE ribon cable adapter.. and whenever I get some money to buy a soekris box, I'll be free of moving parts (there is a PSU cooling fan in my router box right now)
Name changing is basicaly a way to try and get people to forget how much your product sucks. two name changes is realy bad.
Take Pascal for example, a teaching language, that has some major suck factor for real world programing. But a bunch of tech school clubies started using it for real world apps.
Most real developers know it sucks, so they renamed it to Delphi, just to confuse people into using it.
it will have to be a good signal, considering the kind of character drops I got when a friend (WB0POQ) was demonstrating PSK31, the bandwidth fits in normal SSB, and we get about line of text for every 10 seconds of tx.
-KC0NBY
Redhat 9 2.4.20 is patched with 2.4.21pre3. so the major fixes are already in there.
any post that mentions pringles cans as a "usable technology" should be ignored. the gain you get from a pringles can is less than what you'd get with putting a properly sized coat hanger.
Pringles cans get you around 3db of gain, which is only slightly less laughable than the antenna that comes on the pcmcia cards.
most of the linksys/d-link etc AP's I've seen come with 5-6db antennas. If you want real high gain to do anything usefull, go buy a reasonably cheap antenna from fab-corp, or demarctech. they have stuff for $50-100, that out preforms pringles cans any day. they also tend to be waterproof.
or if you realy want to make something usefull, build a bi-quad element, and attach it to a primestar dish. or build a proper 10 element stick yagi. both will get you over 15db of gain.
as for the microwave oven thing, I've yet to find one that causes me any problems with wireless. I don't see any signifigant latency or bandwidth drops when my oven is running, and it's just a cheap POS that I got from target.
most of the mobile phone range is because of the _really_ good antennas on the cell towers. but even still, there is more output power on cell phones.
/. post
most cell phones range their power in the 100-300mw output.. some (all?) nextel phones can bump up to 500mw.
most 802.11[abg] cards run at 30mw, but some (cisco, and "high power") cards range 100-200mw.
I wish I had some dbm figures on the cards/phones.. but i'm too lazy to look around for a
What I'd like to see is for there to be an option in the tivo ad item (main screen) to thumb-down an ad I don't like, or don't even want to watch..
Back in the day....
I remember back in 94-95 era, people started to complain that "this web thing is eating all our bandwidth" People complained that it was slowing down email, usenet, and IRC. It was a hog, all those images.. yada yada yada...
Now that the average connection is a factor of 10 faster than it was in 95, someone invented an application to utilize that bandwidth.. *SHOCK*
One of our local campus admins talks about how we double our campus backbone connection every 2 years.. we had about 200mbit when i started 2 years ago, now the plan is to get a 3rd provider, and jump to 400mbit before the next school year starts. _IF_ we can afford it. (yay for state budjet problems)
In another 5 years, people will forget all about P2P, because it will be background noise compared to the ********* protocol. Whatever they think up when 100mbit fiber starts to get rolled out.
If you want to really see what is in the works, look at Internet 2 projects. Our campus has 655mbit to I2, and it's already too slow for some of the research. Plans are in the works for a few gbits.
I live in St. Paul, MN, and it's not quiet setup for urban life.. (why I like minneapolis more) The people at the yuppy grocery store are always confused when I start putting stuff in my back pack.
This is one of those places where they have people to bag your groceries, and carry them out to your SUV for you.. that's just sick.. people are so damn lazy. thankfully my new house is 6 blocks from the large grocery store chain, and 2 blocks from kim's korean grocery..
We got a unisys es7000 32proc 2ghz xeon at work.. we didn't actualy buy it.. because we wern't about to pay 800k for it, and then another 800k in windows licenses... they gave it to us.. it's kinda cool.. for a windows box.. the unix admins use it to play snood.
the scientific computing numbers that we're getting off it vary in preformance, some are worse than our 500mhz mips, and some kick the crap out of our Power4's on low number of procs.
if one more idiot tries to make a 3db gain antenna out of a pringles can, i'm gonna go on a shooting spree.
if you're going to have any chance of getting real distance (20+ miles) you need a real antenna.
http://www.fab-corp.com/ has 24db parabolics for $70, they have an 8 degree beam width. A pair of these will get you a good signal over 15 miles.
I auditioned some magnepan speakers a year or so ago.. and they sound amazing. I also listended to some martin loagan electrotats, and price/preformance, the magnepan's have them beat. You're right about electrostats, they MUST have a bass box somewhere, and all the martin's had them. but magnepans are not electrostats, they're planar speakers.. driven by the sheet, not by charged plates. once you hit the MG 1.6's, you don't need a bass box anymore. Depending on the kind of music you listen to, the MG 12's are close. Sound is only missing a little bit of the punch I get from my current system (DefTech mains, and Klipsch sub)
I use my system for mostly movies, but maybe i'll get some maggies for music some day... the only problem is I have 2 cats.. i bet they'd LOVE to try their claws out on the maggies.. (they allready try and climb my DefTech)
as far as I know, it's illegal for telemarketers in the US to call cell phones. This is because it is the person reciving the calls that pays for the call.
:)
I have only recived one telemarketing call on my cell phone over the last 2 years i've had it. and that was AT&T Broadband (who i use for cable modem, and cable TV) who has the number listed as contact for my current service. They were trying to sell me an upgrade to digital cable. I said, "This is a cell phone, it is illegal to call cell phones, I am going to report this to the PUC".
"Oh, sorry" *CLICK*
Havn't had a problem since
that reminds me of a story about how for 10 years, two of the science teachers at my HS only posted the pictures of women in physics/chemistry/math events around the halls, and other school publications. after a few years of this, they noticed the rate of women signing up for physics/chemistry/math went from 10% to 50% This kind of promotion would be great for a computer club.. droping the attitude that gender has anything to do with using computers..
so we're now down to 3 boards instead of 4+, major improvement if you ask me.
Soekris will have the 300mzh NatSemi CPU in a month or so, and is expected to be under $300.
I like the huge I/O systems you can stack on the PC/104 spec, but with ethernet I/O and other fast bus I/O parts, it's not really necessary to have it stacked on the system board.
I browsed some of these vendors and sites before.. one vendor I talked to at comdex was asking $800 for a base PC/104+ board.
Not that I do much with embeded systems these days.. that was a few years ago.
I've never had any kind of interest in PC/104.. it's an old standard, the PC/104 pass-through bus is ISA based. Every time I try and find out prices, it's been $400-500 for a devel board, no one seems to think about selling them in small quantities. You only get a 33mhz 486 for that $400 board..
I have recently come to enjoy working with Soekris boards.. http://www.soekris.com
The guy does things right.. Compact flash slots on board for OS, no over-priced Disk-On-Chip stuff. PCI or mini-pci slots, 133mhz AMD Elan chips, PCMCIA slots on some models.. serial port and simple network bootable flash. and 2-3 PCI 10/100 ethernet chips.. a similar PC/104 board would be stacked 4cm tall with adapter boards, all stuck on a ISA bus.
there is no reason to hate AOL.. just don't use them, or reccomend them to people that you care about.
I personaly like having them around, they keep all the idiots on this planet away from good ISP's like the one I use for my servers. Small, localy owned, and easy to deal with.
If the stupid morons on this planet didn't have AOL, my friend adam (who's the sysadmin there) wouldn't have time to take care of my BGP issues, or write 4/1 RFC's.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/19/173624 9
atleast this one is in html form, not pdf.
I saw it in the Mysterious Future, but there still isn't a good way to report dupes before they go live. I think you should open the thread for comments before it goes live, and nuke/archive/whatever those comments after it's live.
Of course, the Empeg design team is still working on software projects for Rio. We're all hoping the death of SonicBlue does good things for the Empeg.
In another year or two, we could see another serious attempt at automotive mp3 players.
On the U of MN campus, it's very nice outside today.. Might have to get my soccer ball out and kick it around after work.
From talking to people I know in europe, the reason SMS is so popular is that SMS messages cost a ton less than talking on the phone. I don't belive "continent wide free long distance" exists over there. Some places still charge by the min for land -line phone calls.
Sounds like some people I was dealing with for their y2k upgrade. This was the end of '98.
They had a old IBM RS/6k machine running AIX 3, it was slow, crusty, and so covered in dust i had to get out a shovel.. but it ran their inventory vertical app.
I Suggested we talk to their app vendor about running linux on a nice custom built, or maybe a compaq/dell/ibm whatever PC server.
The vendor came back and said "linux what?" I wanted to know why.. "We havn't tested on it" I found out they were using a simple database/4gl interpeter, no compiled C code, or anything platform specific.
The only platforms they suppored for new upgrades/installs was Sun and SCO. I told the people buying the software from these guys that they should go with Sun, it would be a much better solution. They didn't listen to me, and the vendor sold them a DEC made PC server, for about 2x the price of a comparable compaq, and even more than some of the Suns I was looking at. I told them both DEC and SCO were bad ideas.
I stoped consulting for them after that. A year later, DEC got sucked up by compaq. SCO has done nothing but tank. This whole SCO vs. IBM thing makes me want to call them up and see how they're doing.
most of the redhat major numbers are due to libc changes.. what libc version is include with the 9 beta?