Given the clues, and the speculation here on/. - I believe I know what IT is. Bear with me - I haven't read all the posts here (not enough time!!!), but two different paths have emerged which both point at what this thing is:
IT is a bicycle.
IT uses a very advanced Stirling engine for propulsion.
Nothing else seems to fit all of the clues. A small, foldable (and easily assembled) bicycle seems to be the only device that would ellicit a laugh from someone, being that bikes are fun to ride.
A Stirling engine is the only type of device that would make old big industries nervous (lower fuel consumption, and coupled with a bicycle, it would make auto makers tremble too). Some have said that such a Stirling engine couldn't be made, but I beg to differ - there have been numerous studies done to build Stirling engine powered automobiles, but all had the flaw of slow startup times that was thought would deter consumers (the best, done by Ford (?) took 10-15 seconds from "turn the key" to "go", back in the 1960's I believe - yeah, that takes too long for me - not!). But on a bicycle, one could pedal for that long until the thing was going, then let the engine take over (plus, that would reduce the load on the engine during startup, keeping it from stalling, and limiting, or eliminating, the need for a transmission).
Remember - "Ginger" means lightweight, quick-on-the-feet, so to speak. Such a device would have all that. The core technology of the advanced Stirling engine would have a ton of other uses, as well.
Such bicycles, if used by enough people, would cause need for city planning - look at any large city where the residents use a ton of normal bicycles, and you will see what I mean. Plus you would need the infrastructure for refueling, in some manner.
That is my guess. If any of you have ever seen Kamen's iBot wheelchair (this thing is truely amazing - it affords such a level of mobility to those who need it, that the term "wheelchair" doesn't really describe it - think "mobility chair", that comes close), you know this guy knows his stuff, and isn't a crackpot.
I guess we'll know how close I was come next year...
These three things (micropayments, DVDs, and pay-per-view commerce), plus others (ASP applications, digital video and audio with copy control bits) all tie together, in the sense that "big media" is trying to come up with a way to continue making money in a world where copying is ubiquitous.
I don't have a problem with this.
What I have a problem with is that increasingly, it is looking to be a one sided deal. What do I mean by that?
Maybe I am wrong (I hope I am), but it seems like only the "big interests" want to have the payments come to them. They want you to pay them. If you happen to set up content that they want, and want badly - that is "protected" by a micropayment scheme, so that you can earn money, they will scream bloody murder over the fact that they have to pay to use it. At least, it seems like this is something they would do.
What they want is you to pay them, as they gradually up the micropayments, with you not being able to keep up monetarily wise (actually, just barely keep up - because if you couldn't, you would have to stop, if for no other reason than because you are broke, and parasites try not to kill their hosts if they can keep from it).
The only problem I can see out of all this (if they allow it), is that it will force people (that is, ordinary Joes) to start publishing material, in the hopes of getting enough micropayments to pay their own information addiction. Perhaps rings of groups would spring up, those within the ring being able to access each other's content for nothing, while those outside have to micropay.
It gets tricky - your data on their servers is being modified by them, because they didn't like your ideas about what you wanted to receive from them. Some would say "But wait, it is their machines, and they can do with the data as they please." - right? Perhaps if you aren't paying for it, but you are, indirectly, by being willing to look at thier banner ads, which you pay for (once again, indirectly) with bandwidth.
Very grey area, to say the least. But what happens in the future...
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Seem impossible? If the dream of ASPs come true, you will pay to see, access, and alter your data, stored remotely on a server not under your control. They may do what they wish with the information, and as current law stands, not by liable for anything they do with it, because the law is in such a grey area over who owns it.
One thing that bothered me was his tax example program. He states that:
We are assuming that Tax may handle other entities besides people, so we are making it a separate class instead of a method of Person.
Now, I am not an OOP programmer by any means. But wouldn't you do some form of inheritance of the base class Tax, forming a class Person_Tax (which might have specifics to people, but inherits other Tax items), then create an object method in Person based on this class?
I know my terminology may be screwed up, but I know that you don't need a whole seperate class in this example - you are just ordering and reusing components through inheritance. The power from this comes when you change, say, the Tax class - everything trickles down, and updates all other uses of the class and objects created from the class - so you don't have to change things in a billion different areas in your code, like you may have to in a procedural language (now, with good design and attention, you would black box a procedure with arguments you could pass in telling it what to do, like Function CalcTax(type, unit, var1, var2) - so that tax = CalcTax('Person', 'John Doe', var1, var2) is different from tax = CalcTax('Corp', 'JD, Inc.', var1, var2) - and this could be extended for various types, and modified if needed, affecting all areas that called this routine to calculate tax - however, this has to be the only routine used to calculate tax)...
Technically, what this VP did to this guy could be considered the same thing that Kevin Mitnick did - used false pretenses and other "social engineering" tactics to gain unauthorised access to machines, and the information contained therein.
So why isn't this VP's ass in the slammer yet?
Not that I advocate what was done to Kevin Mitnick. While I know that what he did was in the wrong, I don't believe his treatment or his "punishment" fit the crime committed. However, had KM only did 1/10 the time, he still would've did more time than this VP.
Just more proof of class ruling over justice - somehow I think all of this will be swept under the rug, the VP will get his wrists slapped, and we'll hear no more about it...
So we can continue hear such drivel for what it is!
Mr. Carr states:
I could not escape one central dilemma: Only two forms of regulation are available in the United States: governmental and corporate.
He neglects a third, though one I can easily see why he neglects, because it is oh-so-extremely-rare in our American society:
Self-regulation.
Namely, that of being responsible for one's own actions, and respecting the rights of other individuals.
Responsibility and respect: I have said it before, and others have said it as well. Until these two ideals are exercised on a day-to-day basis by our citizens, we will continue to see decline within our society.
As I stated before, if it was an admin related or work related server, the whole thing should be backed up - all partitions in one fell swoop, preferably with a rolling backup schedule swapping tapes, and with an off site copy (perhaps even in a different geographical area for the truely paranoid). The sysadmin should not have to remember config info, because on restoring the system from backup, the config would be what it was at the time of the backup.
The programmer and web designer both sound very disorganised - if it is a work environment. There should be only one place for the code, all others would be mirror image backups. Anything done at home should be seperate from the work environment. The work environment code should be on a server that can be backed up by the admin as part of the backup process. The user is responsible to put code that needs to be backed up in a place to back it up. They may have to back it up themselves.
You are right in that humans will do whatever they want, regardless of what you tell them. A geek without driving experience though is not likely to tackle a porche for a first lesson, they are likely to try something slower and simpler. But if they like driving, they will learn what it takes to maintain a car, and work up to that porche. The reverse isn't true - most people look at computers as something that should "just work", like a TV, and not even attempt to learn more about them as time goes by. Computers will never be TVs (barring some big advance in AI). We all do have to learn - problem is so many people think that computers don't require this - and never ask questions to learn more about why they should be making backups, or worse, asking for advice, then forgetting what to do 10 minutes later.
You will see that I am pro-gun, anti-SUV, anti-sprawl.
I believe individuals have the right to say when their government is doing wrong, and if the government continues to abuse its power, then they have a right to change it by force, if absolutely necessary (this is HUGE responsibility IMO, not something to be toyed with, and only invoked after ALL other options have failed). Without this right, all other rights are so much "lip-service".
I do not think every person and his brother, sister and mom needs an SUV. I like 4WD vehicles, but they have a place, and only for those who use them for responsible 4WDing. I would love to own an older model Blazer, for instance - but I recognize that I don't really have a need for one. Many people use SUVs like oversize station-wagons (which many actually tend to be - some aren't even 4WD! - its all an image thing). Personally, I would love to have an ethanol powered vehicle, but it is kinda hard to buy ethanol anywhere when you need it.
Lastly, I support the idea of arcologies. I would love to live and work in one. I think such a system could be built today, that would be much more environmentally friendly than individual homes (plus, you wouldn't need SUV's in an arcology - you could walk).
I don't trust our (when I say this, I mean American) government. They have done nothing major in the past 20 years to earn any kind of trust, and they continue to abuse the power (I can't even understand using "they" - because they are people too - I don't understand why the parts can't get the whole to be beneficial/benevolent - maybe some strange chaos related thing, or maybe it is more akin to a biological process).
I view freedom as the right to be left alone, to pursue my own goals, provided that said goals and actions do not harm or cause hardship to other individuals in the society. Owning a gun does not cause a problem (shooting my neighbor does) - see the difference?
Ask them what they want - try to find solutions and compromises, then encode them into the manual to sign. If a democratic approach is taken, everyone should be happy.
Say everyone likes to listen to music, but they want a more personal selection. You may not want to allow streaming audio (or video) from the outside, due to security or bandwidth considerations. Maybe you could set up some kind of MP3 server, then (you must have a junk box somewhere, that you could outfit with a large drive). Everybody could place their MP3s on it, and share them around (rather than duplicating them on each desktop).
To CYA yourself legally, don't allow porn or warez. Codify it in the manual, but in practice don't actively look for it - but if it comes up (like say you're looking at a firewall log and you notice a reference to a porn site), privately speak to the individual - make it known that it won't be tolerated. If it is found again, let the person go. Even if it is the "higher ups" (esp. here - why should they get special treatment? - if you have someone on staff with enough skills he/she might be checking up internally without your knowledge of what managment is up to, as their own form of CYA - heh, heh).
One thing to codify in the manual - add a line that says that the policy will only change with written changes, to be signed by the employee (ie, updates), and finally - add a line the says something along the lines of "any rights/rules/actions/etc not explicitly described herein falls to the discretion/right of the employee" - kinda like how the Bill of Rights state the same falling to the States, and not the US Government (not that it is followed much today).
I bought one of these when it first became a "hit", I think it was last Christmas (99), or maybe it was later - early last year, anyway.
I had mounted mine to the wall (none too securely), and it fell off - breaking the mouth actuator in the process.
Figuring this was as good of time as any to open it up, and see how it worked, I went ahead, pulled it apart, and took the actuator assembly out of the "skin" - kinda freaky looking, but I found the busted part. A little superglue and some struggling with the skin, and it worked like a champ afterward.
After seeing how simple the thing was, I knew it wouldn't take anything to hook the thing to a computer, and write drivers, etc to control it (I was thinking the parallel port route, or maybe a PIC with a custom serial interface - nothing too fancy) - but at the time, it was just "one of those projects", that I seem to have a million of running in the back of my head. I shelved it, figuring someone would do it sooner or later.
I guess it has been done, to an extent, at least - pretty cool. Since the Boogie Bass came out, others have been available - I have seen a trout, an alligator, a lobster, a shark, a fish with no skin (just bones - for Halloween), and one with a stocking cap for Xmas.
Other cool animatronic animals I have seen are a line of moving "creatures" that perform an action when you press a hidden "under-the-skin" button - I have seen them at toys-r-us.
Never thought when I was a kid that audio-animatronic devices would be sold cheaply. I remember being fascinated by the Chuck E Cheese characters, going to the point of trying to build my own "dancing" robot (I actually got a head working that would "sing" to a radio - built the trigger circuitry for the motor using a Radio Shack 150-in-1 kit!). I loved seeing how they worked, listening to the compressed air pistons, etc.
I am not advocating backing up everything - in fact, unless it is a server, only back up the important data. When a crash occurs, re-install the software, then restore the data (like I said, unless it is a server, or some other form of work environment where the downtime is gonna cost money).
Of the data backed up, it should be reviewed, organised, and prioritized to get rid of the least important stuff, keep the important stuff - then put it where it would be best served. Most of my data goes onto ZIP disks, as those fill I go into an organization mode, build an image, and move it to a CDR, then wipe the ZIP disks for more. The ZIP disks are mainly there for convenience, not permanence (not that I expect CDRs to be permanent or anything). Some stuff I resign to the "a copy can be found on the net" bin - and get rid of. Other things I hold a backup only on the hard drive and a ZIP disk (like my web sites), because they change (ir)regularly, and there will always be a copy somewhere. I don't consign these to a CDR, unless they are dead sites that I have moved off to an archive.
I guess one of the good skills in backup is to be organized...
From the time I got my first computer when I was 11 years old (MANY moons ago - it was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with 16K), I was told the importance of having a backup. If that meant an extra cassette, or some handwritten code on a piece of paper, so be it.
Backing up your data should be common sense - unfortunately it isn't, but it isn't that hard to find information on what a backup is, or what it is for. I cannot understand why people simply think that when data is put into a computer, it will always be there (I guess they think that high-tolerance mechanical devices never wear out)? The majority of people clearly do not understand the power and nature of the tool they are using. It is almost like they expect their car to run forever without an oil change...
Oops - I forgot - some cars can now go for a damn long time without an oil change, while the emmisions/engine control computer reconfigures everything, while the engine wears down - until one day it does break. Manufacturers started making these 100,000 mile cars because people are either too stupid or lazy to have periodic maintenance done, instead opting to "buy" a new car every 3-5 years (and perpetually paying for the vehicle, or worse, LEASING it). Is it that hard to take a car in to have the oil changed, or to do it yourself? Brakes, same thing (the number of times I have heard metal-to-metal brake wear is appalling - how those people stop at all is a wonder) - it really isn't that difficult to replace one's own brakes on a car (though drum brakes do tend to be a bitch).
I don't think everyone needs to know everything about their computer - but they should have common sense about it, simple maintenance, care, and troubleshooting at minimum. Backups are a part of this.
Ok, for the most part, California is "free" - but if you look closely at its laws, and what is currently going on, you will see it is rapidly becoming a police state.
Case in point: California recently enacted legislation (as of the first of this year) to drop the number of guns that may be legally registered from over 1000 to approximately 150. Colt Firearms said "Screw You" to various provisions, and pulled out their stock, and told gun dealers they could get refunds on the stock they still had.
Supposedly, this law doesn't affect private party transactions. But if you want a small, concealable gun in Cali - good luck in getting it legally. Same if you want a gun that can't be "locked" (ie, a trigger lock, with a physical key - not a safety).
Somehow the politicos over there think this will stop something. Murders? Crime? Who knows - at any rate they have thier heads up their arses like backwards ostriches.
Want a more free state? Try Arizona (though in Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe sucks big time - it sucks to live in a state where a county jail is listed on the top 10 Amnesty International problem jails). But California? Bah!
Is probably the 900 MHz transmitter antenna - look at the x-10 wireless camera, notice the similarity?
My first thought was that this camera was nothing more than a repackaged x-10 system (that, or the makers of the x-10 camera also sold the system to the makers of the toy cam)...
I know for sure people rigged up quickcams on their Lego creations long before Lego decided to put its cam on the market. I know of one guy who made camera crane rigs from Lego this way, controllable via a web gateway (ie, a controlable Lego webcam).
Lego released their camera (as a Mindstorms add-on, and also as some kind of interactive movie making set) - unfortunately it is still tethered to the PC via a cable - it isn't wireless, thus limiting its true potential for experimentation.
This kid's camera isn't much cheaper than the X-10 thing. Plus, I wish that instead of using a 9-volt, they would use 6 AA batteries (for longer "on" time).
I have always wanted one of those things, but when I finally became an adult with a job and money, they become non-existant (or VERY pricey on Ebay).
My only consolation was to buy the cheapest camcorder I could find - it was GE 8mm camcorder, very, VERY basic (ie, manual zoom, seperate lensed viewfinder, no titling, no preview, no nothing). Price? $250.00 US - that was five years ago, and I haven't seen anything come close to it since (though there are some nice $300 rigs - I just don't use a video camera often enough to justify any of it).
I know this guy - strange dude, but cool (hey, the way I figure it, anybody who does this kind of thing for a hobby has to have some kind of worthy mind).
Portability - the ability to have the code allows the userbase to reimplement (ie, port) the code to another platform - that may or may not be currently supported. Porting of code may happen now, while the code owner still exists, or even in the future, long after the owner is gone, or even after the hardware no longer is manufactured. As long as the code exists, future support and upgrades are always possible.
Security - by having full access to the source code, the userbase may easily see if and where the code may provide a security breach, and actively fix the problem. This is especially important in a server environment (though I tend to think that no sane admin would be running Athena on a server).
The first issue will keep your company chasing new hardware platforms, while the second will keep it from becoming a business platform (though that didn't hurt M$, of course, people are less naive today - or maybe that's wishful thinking)...
Personally, I would love to run Athena - but these two issues make me believe I should, at minimum, take a "wait-and-see" attitude. I am sorry that there is lashback at corporations, but the public is waking up to the fact that corps don't exist for the people, they exist for the $$$.
When I was your age (many moons ago), pop-culture was the "thing", and was hardly questioned by teenagers of the period. We had our our stars and icons, and the various other accoutrements that accompany such things...
I imagine we didn't question it much because there wasn't any way to question it - we couldn't really publish on our own, and it was hard to spread word about the "bad" things corporations do.
With the internet at your disposal, and at the disposal of your peer group - do you question these things? I tend to think you would, since you read/. - but do your peers? Or do they simply take the stuff that is fed them, without questioning it? If that is the case, does this lead to a lot of "friction" in whatever social life you have with your peers?
I am just curious as to how today's teens see the corporate world around them, which looms large, vs. what was around us when I was younger...?
Boycott and educate! Create your own content (if you can - even if it is only a web-based comic strip, drawn and scanned)! Educate those around you (your friends, family, fellow employees) - especially anybody who doesn't read/.
Talk to people - let them know your feelings, the possible scenarios, where all of this could go, and seems to be going to. Ask them if they want a pay-per-view/listen/read/taste/think world.
Make your voice loud about the issue, especially at places you buy from, so that other customers hear you. Heck, walk up to strangers who are buying DVDs, ask them for a moment of their time, and educate them. Give them a business card with some info (URLs, etc) pointing to what they need - pass them out (business cards are cheap to have made)...
Get involved in some way - any way. Help is much needed.
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Given the clues, and the speculation here on /. - I believe I know what IT is. Bear with me - I haven't read all the posts here (not enough time!!!), but two different paths have emerged which both point at what this thing is:
IT is a bicycle.
IT uses a very advanced Stirling engine for propulsion.
Nothing else seems to fit all of the clues. A small, foldable (and easily assembled) bicycle seems to be the only device that would ellicit a laugh from someone, being that bikes are fun to ride.
A Stirling engine is the only type of device that would make old big industries nervous (lower fuel consumption, and coupled with a bicycle, it would make auto makers tremble too). Some have said that such a Stirling engine couldn't be made, but I beg to differ - there have been numerous studies done to build Stirling engine powered automobiles, but all had the flaw of slow startup times that was thought would deter consumers (the best, done by Ford (?) took 10-15 seconds from "turn the key" to "go", back in the 1960's I believe - yeah, that takes too long for me - not!). But on a bicycle, one could pedal for that long until the thing was going, then let the engine take over (plus, that would reduce the load on the engine during startup, keeping it from stalling, and limiting, or eliminating, the need for a transmission).
Remember - "Ginger" means lightweight, quick-on-the-feet, so to speak. Such a device would have all that. The core technology of the advanced Stirling engine would have a ton of other uses, as well.
Such bicycles, if used by enough people, would cause need for city planning - look at any large city where the residents use a ton of normal bicycles, and you will see what I mean. Plus you would need the infrastructure for refueling, in some manner.
That is my guess. If any of you have ever seen Kamen's iBot wheelchair (this thing is truely amazing - it affords such a level of mobility to those who need it, that the term "wheelchair" doesn't really describe it - think "mobility chair", that comes close), you know this guy knows his stuff, and isn't a crackpot.
I guess we'll know how close I was come next year...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
These three things (micropayments, DVDs, and pay-per-view commerce), plus others (ASP applications, digital video and audio with copy control bits) all tie together, in the sense that "big media" is trying to come up with a way to continue making money in a world where copying is ubiquitous.
I don't have a problem with this.
What I have a problem with is that increasingly, it is looking to be a one sided deal. What do I mean by that?
Maybe I am wrong (I hope I am), but it seems like only the "big interests" want to have the payments come to them. They want you to pay them. If you happen to set up content that they want, and want badly - that is "protected" by a micropayment scheme, so that you can earn money, they will scream bloody murder over the fact that they have to pay to use it. At least, it seems like this is something they would do.
What they want is you to pay them, as they gradually up the micropayments, with you not being able to keep up monetarily wise (actually, just barely keep up - because if you couldn't, you would have to stop, if for no other reason than because you are broke, and parasites try not to kill their hosts if they can keep from it).
The only problem I can see out of all this (if they allow it), is that it will force people (that is, ordinary Joes) to start publishing material, in the hopes of getting enough micropayments to pay their own information addiction. Perhaps rings of groups would spring up, those within the ring being able to access each other's content for nothing, while those outside have to micropay.
Somehow, I see a vicious, ugly circle brewing...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Unfortunately this relies on CALLed type subroutines - I am thinking older style BASIC, with line numbers, gosubs, etc - no CALL statements...
Still a pretty cool example...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
More for my own amusement than anything else - It would be a hoot to see an OOP-like piece of code running on a TRS-80 CoCo...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Cool for QB 4.5 - but I am looking for something much older - like with the line numbers, and only GOSUBs and such (no CALL statements)...
Maybe it can't be done with that old of BASIC?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
It gets tricky - your data on their servers is being modified by them, because they didn't like your ideas about what you wanted to receive from them. Some would say "But wait, it is their machines, and they can do with the data as they please." - right? Perhaps if you aren't paying for it, but you are, indirectly, by being willing to look at thier banner ads, which you pay for (once again, indirectly) with bandwidth.
Very grey area, to say the least. But what happens in the future...
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Seem impossible? If the dream of ASPs come true, you will pay to see, access, and alter your data, stored remotely on a server not under your control. They may do what they wish with the information, and as current law stands, not by liable for anything they do with it, because the law is in such a grey area over who owns it.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
One thing that bothered me was his tax example program. He states that:
We are assuming that Tax may handle other entities besides people, so we are making it a separate class instead of a method of Person.
Now, I am not an OOP programmer by any means. But wouldn't you do some form of inheritance of the base class Tax, forming a class Person_Tax (which might have specifics to people, but inherits other Tax items), then create an object method in Person based on this class?
I know my terminology may be screwed up, but I know that you don't need a whole seperate class in this example - you are just ordering and reusing components through inheritance. The power from this comes when you change, say, the Tax class - everything trickles down, and updates all other uses of the class and objects created from the class - so you don't have to change things in a billion different areas in your code, like you may have to in a procedural language (now, with good design and attention, you would black box a procedure with arguments you could pass in telling it what to do, like Function CalcTax(type, unit, var1, var2) - so that tax = CalcTax('Person', 'John Doe', var1, var2) is different from tax = CalcTax('Corp', 'JD, Inc.', var1, var2) - and this could be extended for various types, and modified if needed, affecting all areas that called this routine to calculate tax - however, this has to be the only routine used to calculate tax)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Please - someone show me an example of this - and not in VB.
Show me an OOP'ed "Hello World" BASIC program, using a circa 1980 or so version of BASIC...
Can this really be done (and would it be at all readable)?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Technically, what this VP did to this guy could be considered the same thing that Kevin Mitnick did - used false pretenses and other "social engineering" tactics to gain unauthorised access to machines, and the information contained therein.
So why isn't this VP's ass in the slammer yet?
Not that I advocate what was done to Kevin Mitnick. While I know that what he did was in the wrong, I don't believe his treatment or his "punishment" fit the crime committed. However, had KM only did 1/10 the time, he still would've did more time than this VP.
Just more proof of class ruling over justice - somehow I think all of this will be swept under the rug, the VP will get his wrists slapped, and we'll hear no more about it...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Lessee here - I git onna dose ol'fangle-type chinese south-pointin' carts, and hitch it to de back o' my car - den throw the dish on top of dat!
Smile - I'm trying to be humorous here...
[ducks]
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
So we can continue hear such drivel for what it is!
Mr. Carr states:
I could not escape one central dilemma: Only two forms of regulation are available in the United States: governmental and corporate.
He neglects a third, though one I can easily see why he neglects, because it is oh-so-extremely-rare in our American society:
Self-regulation.
Namely, that of being responsible for one's own actions, and respecting the rights of other individuals.
Responsibility and respect: I have said it before, and others have said it as well. Until these two ideals are exercised on a day-to-day basis by our citizens, we will continue to see decline within our society.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
As I stated before, if it was an admin related or work related server, the whole thing should be backed up - all partitions in one fell swoop, preferably with a rolling backup schedule swapping tapes, and with an off site copy (perhaps even in a different geographical area for the truely paranoid). The sysadmin should not have to remember config info, because on restoring the system from backup, the config would be what it was at the time of the backup.
The programmer and web designer both sound very disorganised - if it is a work environment. There should be only one place for the code, all others would be mirror image backups. Anything done at home should be seperate from the work environment. The work environment code should be on a server that can be backed up by the admin as part of the backup process. The user is responsible to put code that needs to be backed up in a place to back it up. They may have to back it up themselves.
You are right in that humans will do whatever they want, regardless of what you tell them. A geek without driving experience though is not likely to tackle a porche for a first lesson, they are likely to try something slower and simpler. But if they like driving, they will learn what it takes to maintain a car, and work up to that porche. The reverse isn't true - most people look at computers as something that should "just work", like a TV, and not even attempt to learn more about them as time goes by. Computers will never be TVs (barring some big advance in AI). We all do have to learn - problem is so many people think that computers don't require this - and never ask questions to learn more about why they should be making backups, or worse, asking for advice, then forgetting what to do 10 minutes later.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
You will see that I am pro-gun, anti-SUV, anti-sprawl.
I believe individuals have the right to say when their government is doing wrong, and if the government continues to abuse its power, then they have a right to change it by force, if absolutely necessary (this is HUGE responsibility IMO, not something to be toyed with, and only invoked after ALL other options have failed). Without this right, all other rights are so much "lip-service".
I do not think every person and his brother, sister and mom needs an SUV. I like 4WD vehicles, but they have a place, and only for those who use them for responsible 4WDing. I would love to own an older model Blazer, for instance - but I recognize that I don't really have a need for one. Many people use SUVs like oversize station-wagons (which many actually tend to be - some aren't even 4WD! - its all an image thing). Personally, I would love to have an ethanol powered vehicle, but it is kinda hard to buy ethanol anywhere when you need it.
Lastly, I support the idea of arcologies. I would love to live and work in one. I think such a system could be built today, that would be much more environmentally friendly than individual homes (plus, you wouldn't need SUV's in an arcology - you could walk).
I don't trust our (when I say this, I mean American) government. They have done nothing major in the past 20 years to earn any kind of trust, and they continue to abuse the power (I can't even understand using "they" - because they are people too - I don't understand why the parts can't get the whole to be beneficial/benevolent - maybe some strange chaos related thing, or maybe it is more akin to a biological process).
I view freedom as the right to be left alone, to pursue my own goals, provided that said goals and actions do not harm or cause hardship to other individuals in the society. Owning a gun does not cause a problem (shooting my neighbor does) - see the difference?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Ask them what they want - try to find solutions and compromises, then encode them into the manual to sign. If a democratic approach is taken, everyone should be happy.
Say everyone likes to listen to music, but they want a more personal selection. You may not want to allow streaming audio (or video) from the outside, due to security or bandwidth considerations. Maybe you could set up some kind of MP3 server, then (you must have a junk box somewhere, that you could outfit with a large drive). Everybody could place their MP3s on it, and share them around (rather than duplicating them on each desktop).
To CYA yourself legally, don't allow porn or warez. Codify it in the manual, but in practice don't actively look for it - but if it comes up (like say you're looking at a firewall log and you notice a reference to a porn site), privately speak to the individual - make it known that it won't be tolerated. If it is found again, let the person go. Even if it is the "higher ups" (esp. here - why should they get special treatment? - if you have someone on staff with enough skills he/she might be checking up internally without your knowledge of what managment is up to, as their own form of CYA - heh, heh).
One thing to codify in the manual - add a line that says that the policy will only change with written changes, to be signed by the employee (ie, updates), and finally - add a line the says something along the lines of "any rights/rules/actions/etc not explicitly described herein falls to the discretion/right of the employee" - kinda like how the Bill of Rights state the same falling to the States, and not the US Government (not that it is followed much today).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I knew I shoulda did this long ago!
I bought one of these when it first became a "hit", I think it was last Christmas (99), or maybe it was later - early last year, anyway.
I had mounted mine to the wall (none too securely), and it fell off - breaking the mouth actuator in the process.
Figuring this was as good of time as any to open it up, and see how it worked, I went ahead, pulled it apart, and took the actuator assembly out of the "skin" - kinda freaky looking, but I found the busted part. A little superglue and some struggling with the skin, and it worked like a champ afterward.
After seeing how simple the thing was, I knew it wouldn't take anything to hook the thing to a computer, and write drivers, etc to control it (I was thinking the parallel port route, or maybe a PIC with a custom serial interface - nothing too fancy) - but at the time, it was just "one of those projects", that I seem to have a million of running in the back of my head. I shelved it, figuring someone would do it sooner or later.
I guess it has been done, to an extent, at least - pretty cool. Since the Boogie Bass came out, others have been available - I have seen a trout, an alligator, a lobster, a shark, a fish with no skin (just bones - for Halloween), and one with a stocking cap for Xmas.
Other cool animatronic animals I have seen are a line of moving "creatures" that perform an action when you press a hidden "under-the-skin" button - I have seen them at toys-r-us.
Never thought when I was a kid that audio-animatronic devices would be sold cheaply. I remember being fascinated by the Chuck E Cheese characters, going to the point of trying to build my own "dancing" robot (I actually got a head working that would "sing" to a radio - built the trigger circuitry for the motor using a Radio Shack 150-in-1 kit!). I loved seeing how they worked, listening to the compressed air pistons, etc.
Now they can be bought at Walgreens...sigh.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I am not advocating backing up everything - in fact, unless it is a server, only back up the important data. When a crash occurs, re-install the software, then restore the data (like I said, unless it is a server, or some other form of work environment where the downtime is gonna cost money).
Of the data backed up, it should be reviewed, organised, and prioritized to get rid of the least important stuff, keep the important stuff - then put it where it would be best served. Most of my data goes onto ZIP disks, as those fill I go into an organization mode, build an image, and move it to a CDR, then wipe the ZIP disks for more. The ZIP disks are mainly there for convenience, not permanence (not that I expect CDRs to be permanent or anything). Some stuff I resign to the "a copy can be found on the net" bin - and get rid of. Other things I hold a backup only on the hard drive and a ZIP disk (like my web sites), because they change (ir)regularly, and there will always be a copy somewhere. I don't consign these to a CDR, unless they are dead sites that I have moved off to an archive.
I guess one of the good skills in backup is to be organized...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
From the time I got my first computer when I was 11 years old (MANY moons ago - it was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with 16K), I was told the importance of having a backup. If that meant an extra cassette, or some handwritten code on a piece of paper, so be it.
Backing up your data should be common sense - unfortunately it isn't, but it isn't that hard to find information on what a backup is, or what it is for. I cannot understand why people simply think that when data is put into a computer, it will always be there (I guess they think that high-tolerance mechanical devices never wear out)? The majority of people clearly do not understand the power and nature of the tool they are using. It is almost like they expect their car to run forever without an oil change...
Oops - I forgot - some cars can now go for a damn long time without an oil change, while the emmisions/engine control computer reconfigures everything, while the engine wears down - until one day it does break. Manufacturers started making these 100,000 mile cars because people are either too stupid or lazy to have periodic maintenance done, instead opting to "buy" a new car every 3-5 years (and perpetually paying for the vehicle, or worse, LEASING it). Is it that hard to take a car in to have the oil changed, or to do it yourself? Brakes, same thing (the number of times I have heard metal-to-metal brake wear is appalling - how those people stop at all is a wonder) - it really isn't that difficult to replace one's own brakes on a car (though drum brakes do tend to be a bitch).
I don't think everyone needs to know everything about their computer - but they should have common sense about it, simple maintenance, care, and troubleshooting at minimum. Backups are a part of this.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Ok, for the most part, California is "free" - but if you look closely at its laws, and what is currently going on, you will see it is rapidly becoming a police state.
Case in point: California recently enacted legislation (as of the first of this year) to drop the number of guns that may be legally registered from over 1000 to approximately 150. Colt Firearms said "Screw You" to various provisions, and pulled out their stock, and told gun dealers they could get refunds on the stock they still had.
Supposedly, this law doesn't affect private party transactions. But if you want a small, concealable gun in Cali - good luck in getting it legally. Same if you want a gun that can't be "locked" (ie, a trigger lock, with a physical key - not a safety).
Somehow the politicos over there think this will stop something. Murders? Crime? Who knows - at any rate they have thier heads up their arses like backwards ostriches.
Want a more free state? Try Arizona (though in Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe sucks big time - it sucks to live in a state where a county jail is listed on the top 10 Amnesty International problem jails). But California? Bah!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Is probably the 900 MHz transmitter antenna - look at the x-10 wireless camera, notice the similarity?
My first thought was that this camera was nothing more than a repackaged x-10 system (that, or the makers of the x-10 camera also sold the system to the makers of the toy cam)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I know for sure people rigged up quickcams on their Lego creations long before Lego decided to put its cam on the market. I know of one guy who made camera crane rigs from Lego this way, controllable via a web gateway (ie, a controlable Lego webcam).
Lego released their camera (as a Mindstorms add-on, and also as some kind of interactive movie making set) - unfortunately it is still tethered to the PC via a cable - it isn't wireless, thus limiting its true potential for experimentation.
This kid's camera isn't much cheaper than the X-10 thing. Plus, I wish that instead of using a 9-volt, they would use 6 AA batteries (for longer "on" time).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I have always wanted one of those things, but when I finally became an adult with a job and money, they become non-existant (or VERY pricey on Ebay).
My only consolation was to buy the cheapest camcorder I could find - it was GE 8mm camcorder, very, VERY basic (ie, manual zoom, seperate lensed viewfinder, no titling, no preview, no nothing). Price? $250.00 US - that was five years ago, and I haven't seen anything come close to it since (though there are some nice $300 rigs - I just don't use a video camera often enough to justify any of it).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I know this guy - strange dude, but cool (hey, the way I figure it, anybody who does this kind of thing for a hobby has to have some kind of worthy mind).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Portability - the ability to have the code allows the userbase to reimplement (ie, port) the code to another platform - that may or may not be currently supported. Porting of code may happen now, while the code owner still exists, or even in the future, long after the owner is gone, or even after the hardware no longer is manufactured. As long as the code exists, future support and upgrades are always possible.
Security - by having full access to the source code, the userbase may easily see if and where the code may provide a security breach, and actively fix the problem. This is especially important in a server environment (though I tend to think that no sane admin would be running Athena on a server).
The first issue will keep your company chasing new hardware platforms, while the second will keep it from becoming a business platform (though that didn't hurt M$, of course, people are less naive today - or maybe that's wishful thinking)...
Personally, I would love to run Athena - but these two issues make me believe I should, at minimum, take a "wait-and-see" attitude. I am sorry that there is lashback at corporations, but the public is waking up to the fact that corps don't exist for the people, they exist for the $$$.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
When I was your age (many moons ago), pop-culture was the "thing", and was hardly questioned by teenagers of the period. We had our our stars and icons, and the various other accoutrements that accompany such things...
/. - but do your peers? Or do they simply take the stuff that is fed them, without questioning it? If that is the case, does this lead to a lot of "friction" in whatever social life you have with your peers?
I imagine we didn't question it much because there wasn't any way to question it - we couldn't really publish on our own, and it was hard to spread word about the "bad" things corporations do.
With the internet at your disposal, and at the disposal of your peer group - do you question these things? I tend to think you would, since you read
I am just curious as to how today's teens see the corporate world around them, which looms large, vs. what was around us when I was younger...?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Boycott and educate! Create your own content (if you can - even if it is only a web-based comic strip, drawn and scanned)! Educate those around you (your friends, family, fellow employees) - especially anybody who doesn't read /.
Talk to people - let them know your feelings, the possible scenarios, where all of this could go, and seems to be going to. Ask them if they want a pay-per-view/listen/read/taste/think world.
Make your voice loud about the issue, especially at places you buy from, so that other customers hear you. Heck, walk up to strangers who are buying DVDs, ask them for a moment of their time, and educate them. Give them a business card with some info (URLs, etc) pointing to what they need - pass them out (business cards are cheap to have made)...
Get involved in some way - any way. Help is much needed.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!