I'm really surprised that there has only been the ONE mention of GLONASS. GPS/GLONASS receivers have been available for years, but with collapse of the USSR, GLONASS almost became totally useless.
Now however, they've been launching 6 satellites a year and have a nearly full, and quite usable constellation. The accuracy is not quite as good as GPS and it's a much harder system to work with, but, quite useful shoudl anything happen to GPS.
CF bulbs are not designed for short on cycles. They're a poor choice for a hallway where the light is only turned on for a minute or two, or in a laundry room.
I think you're mistaken. I know, because I watch TV! Mythbusters looked at lightbulb myths recently. Actually, I'm not sure what you have in mind when you say CFs are not "designed" for short cycles. If you mean that they will burn out faster, that's certainly possible, but I doubt it. If you're referring to power-up energy costs, CFLs' energy-savings start at 15 milliseconds, so it's generally OK to turn off the bulb.
I think he was referring to the fact that bulbs take a minute or two to get up to full output. I have one CFL in my house that my wife complains about incessantly because it takes "sooooo long" to get to ful brightness. I've heard other people state that they like that side-effect -- it gives the eyes a few minutes to adjust.
Personally, I can see the commenter's point that if you just need to flip the light on to get through the hallway, then it gets turned off again, it would be nice if it came on at full brightness.
Nope. All services are connected to Session 0 (from what I can figure).
It would seem to me that there must be some game you can play by impersonating the current users security token (services running as SYSTEM are allowed to do this). But I'll be dipped if I can figure out how.
I had been using TightVNC to connect to my Windows work computer from my Windows home computer for quite a while (through a VPN) an it worked great. It was (reasonably) fast and was good enough for reading mail or a document. I only had the occational crash.
However, when I tried to connect back to my home computer from work (again over the VPN), all I got was a black screen. After a quick search on the net, I discovered that TightVNC (and all other flavours *VNC flavours), DON'T support Windows XP "fast user switching", which I use extensively at home to keep the kids out of my stuff.
The problem is, if a user is logged on locally, and that person is not the first person to have logged on (session 0), *VNC can't grab control of the desktop...hence, the black screen. It does work if the person logged in IS session 0, or if no one has yet logged into the machine, but that's too limiting.
I've done a fair amount of research, and I can't figure out a way around it. Not with *VNC.
However, the version of Remote Desktop that comes as part of XP (pro only?) handles he situation much more gracefully. True, only one person can be "logged on" at a time, but it does allow you to take control of the desktop, and potentially even log someone off first to allow you to do it.
I'm NOT a big Windows fan, but for Windows XP to Windows XP connections, Remote Desktop seems to be the best option to me.
Do you REALLY need a cell phone AND a pager AND a Blackberry? I would think a pager alone would be sufficient. It's enough to let you know you're needed, and where. You can work out the rest (I hope). Everything else is a perk.
Our IT department all got cell phones a couple years ago. Do you think anyone can get a hold of them. No. They "don't want to give there numbers to just anybody". So you had to call one of them to get the number of another one, but, oh, you don't have the number.....that's useful.
As for connectivity to work, I certainly agree that the company should be responsible for a PORTION of your broadband and you should have sufficient access to SSH or whatever you need to do the job. I know I'd hate to drive all the way in to the office ( hour drive) to fix something I could do in 2 minutes from home if I had the right access. But, how much of the broadband usage is personal and how much is business? 50/50? Not likely. Can you really expect your company to pay the whole shot when it's really only used every now and then for work?
I recently bought a Dell A920 printer. (I wouldn't normally buy a Dell printer but I was helping someone out how bought it and couldn't use it).
Anyway, I was fairly pissed off to find that the cartriges are only availble from Dell, directly. After a little research I discovered that Lexmark makes the printer and they "key" the cartriges differently for the different "models".
Now, with this article, I actually LOOKED at the cartrige and,lo, it looks almost identical to the ones in this article. The "knob" on top is shaped different, and it seems to be "keyed" by the shape of it, but the rest of it looks the same.
Now I have to look into modifications......sigh...
In an attempt to keep our software build process as uniform as possible, we keep most of our build tools under version control, including a perl script to do a basic product release. Obviously, putting ALL of perl under out VCS just so people could run the build script was abhorent. The answer was to use perl2exe (actually perlapp from the Active State PDK, but the behaviour is similar).
The script is not small, it performs alot of grunt work (version labeling, coping to archives etc) and I have NEVER had any problem with it.
The executables it produces are perhaps a little big as they include everything necessary to run the script, and of course, startup time sufferers, but in terms of convenience, it can't be beat!
Just because we can't decipher it doesn't mean we can't detect it and recognize it as intelligent. Sure, it would be cool if we could hear someone else out there AND figure out what they were saying, but in my mind, it would be at least as important just to hear something that SOUNDS coherent. But in reality, I agree that we don't have much of a chance of figuring out what they might be saying.
The company I work for started a tradition with Episode I in that they reserved an entire theater on a Friday afternoon and took the whole company (excused with pay). So this week we did the same thing with Episode II. Granted we're not a huge company, 130 people or so, but that's a bit of a productivity hit.
I think the moral and team building boost was well worth it. If people can't have any fun with their co-workers, then they AREN'T going to enjoy their work either.
So what you really want is the GPS receiver to internally sign the data coming out with a private key that the receiver manufacturer holds? This would prove that the GPS data was provided by the card and was not tampered with after it came out. From there, it's up to the person to sign the GPS data to verify that he/she believes the GPS data represents their position. It would be quite simple for a GPS receiver to have a built in manufacturer key and sign data it produces.
Further, even if you could somehow tie your position and identity together, a GPS Constellation simulator only costs about $250,000 USD. If it was really important to generate a fake, that's really not too high a price.
I work in the GPS business and would be interested in pursuing this a little further. If anyone has any bright ideas, let's throw a prototype together.
Re: Domain names are not JUST for web sites
on
The Battle for .Web
·
· Score: 1
I think there is significant confusion out there regarding what the TDL is supposed to be about. The implication of a.web address would be that a web site lives there. This is completely inconsistant with the way things are now and even redundant in the current paradigm. Web sites (and other services ie. ftp, gopher, etc) are generally indicated by the machine name.
For example, www.site.web would be redundant unless the.web part had nothing to do with the services of that particular address. (Should I have a www.site.web and ftp.site.ftp and mud.site.mud?)
So, it seems to me that the TLD HAS to be tied to the type of entity that owns the domain name. Obviously, company, organization, and what? Up until now it's been sorta random. Why not SlashDot.com? It is a company isn't it? I don't know about most of you, but if I'm looking for a particular site/group/company, I always try.com first, then.org then.net.
The only way it makes sense to me is if the.web TLD is reserved for company's involved in the web specifically. If there are no rules about how the TLDs will be distributed, then they are completely pointless and just create more names that you have to try before you find the one you really want.
I don't recall ever signing anything. In fact, my thesis (which IS available on Contentville) is clearly marked as copyright Ian C. Williamson on page 3!
Now, maybe the university shouldn't have published it with my copyright in it, but it's there, so can they just give it away? Regardless of what I may have signed. Maybe universities whould be more clear on copyright.
Further, I'm a Canadian citizen and did my graduate work at a Canadian University, so I'm not entirely sure how that works into the mix.
Actually, you will only get ~10 meter accuracy with a non-military receiver (that is, about 10x better than now). Millitary receivers use a second encrypted frequency to receive higher precision satellite orbital elements that circumvent SA anyway. I believe they DO get about 1 meter accuracy but I'm not too sure. Ian
Slashdot Mirror
I'm really surprised that there has only been the ONE mention of GLONASS. GPS/GLONASS receivers have been available for years, but with collapse of the USSR, GLONASS almost became totally useless.
Now however, they've been launching 6 satellites a year and have a nearly full, and quite usable constellation. The accuracy is not quite as good as GPS and it's a much harder system to work with, but, quite useful shoudl anything happen to GPS.
CF bulbs are not designed for short on cycles. They're a poor choice for a hallway where the light is only turned on for a minute or two, or in a laundry room.
I think you're mistaken. I know, because I watch TV! Mythbusters looked at lightbulb myths recently. Actually, I'm not sure what you have in mind when you say CFs are not "designed" for short cycles. If you mean that they will burn out faster, that's certainly possible, but I doubt it. If you're referring to power-up energy costs, CFLs' energy-savings start at 15 milliseconds, so it's generally OK to turn off the bulb.
I think he was referring to the fact that bulbs take a minute or two to get up to full output. I have one CFL in my house that my wife complains about incessantly because it takes "sooooo long" to get to ful brightness. I've heard other people state that they like that side-effect -- it gives the eyes a few minutes to adjust.
Personally, I can see the commenter's point that if you just need to flip the light on to get through the hallway, then it gets turned off again, it would be nice if it came on at full brightness.
Nope. All services are connected to Session 0 (from what I can figure).
It would seem to me that there must be some game you can play by impersonating the current users security token (services running as SYSTEM are allowed to do this). But I'll be dipped if I can figure out how.
Ig
I had been using TightVNC to connect to my Windows work computer from my Windows home computer for quite a while (through a VPN) an it worked great. It was (reasonably) fast and was good enough for reading mail or a document. I only had the occational crash.
However, when I tried to connect back to my home computer from work (again over the VPN), all I got was a black screen. After a quick search on the net, I discovered that TightVNC (and all other flavours *VNC flavours), DON'T support Windows XP "fast user switching", which I use extensively at home to keep the kids out of my stuff.
The problem is, if a user is logged on locally, and that person is not the first person to have logged on (session 0), *VNC can't grab control of the desktop...hence, the black screen. It does work if the person logged in IS session 0, or if no one has yet logged into the machine, but that's too limiting.
I've done a fair amount of research, and I can't figure out a way around it. Not with *VNC.
However, the version of Remote Desktop that comes as part of XP (pro only?) handles he situation much more gracefully. True, only one person can be "logged on" at a time, but it does allow you to take control of the desktop, and potentially even log someone off first to allow you to do it.
I'm NOT a big Windows fan, but for Windows XP to Windows XP connections, Remote Desktop seems to be the best option to me.
Ig.
Do you REALLY need a cell phone AND a pager AND a Blackberry? I would think a pager alone would be sufficient. It's enough to let you know you're needed, and where. You can work out the rest (I hope). Everything else is a perk.
Our IT department all got cell phones a couple years ago. Do you think anyone can get a hold of them. No. They "don't want to give there numbers to just anybody". So you had to call one of them to get the number of another one, but, oh, you don't have the number.....that's useful.
As for connectivity to work, I certainly agree that the company should be responsible for a PORTION of your broadband and you should have sufficient access to SSH or whatever you need to do the job. I know I'd hate to drive all the way in to the office ( hour drive) to fix something I could do in 2 minutes from home if I had the right access. But, how much of the broadband usage is personal and how much is business? 50/50? Not likely. Can you really expect your company to pay the whole shot when it's really only used every now and then for work?
There's nothing cheap about being pragmatic.
I recently bought a Dell A920 printer. (I wouldn't normally buy a Dell printer but I was helping someone out how bought it and couldn't use it).
,lo, it looks almost identical to the ones in this article. The "knob" on top is shaped different, and it seems to be "keyed" by the shape of it, but the rest of it looks the same.
Anyway, I was fairly pissed off to find that the cartriges are only availble from Dell, directly. After a little research I discovered that Lexmark makes the printer and they "key" the cartriges differently for the different "models".
Now, with this article, I actually LOOKED at the cartrige and
Now I have to look into modifications......sigh...
The way I've understood it, from the outside, "in our universe", the cat is both alive and dead because we can't observe it.
From the cat's perspective, "his universe", he is observing a state of aliveness or deadness, but the outside universe is in an indeterminate state.
The two universes don't actually need to be the same...do they?
In an attempt to keep our software build process as uniform as possible, we keep most of our build tools under version control, including a perl script to do a basic product release. Obviously, putting ALL of perl under out VCS just so people could run the build script was abhorent. The answer was to use perl2exe (actually perlapp from the Active State PDK, but the behaviour is similar).
The script is not small, it performs alot of grunt work (version labeling, coping to archives etc) and I have NEVER had any problem with it. The executables it produces are perhaps a little big as they include everything necessary to run the script, and of course, startup time sufferers, but in terms of convenience, it can't be beat!
My two cents anyway.
Ian
Just because we can't decipher it doesn't mean we can't detect it and recognize it as intelligent. Sure, it would be cool if we could hear someone else out there AND figure out what they were saying, but in my mind, it would be at least as important just to hear something that SOUNDS coherent. But in reality, I agree that we don't have much of a chance of figuring out what they might be saying.
The company I work for started a tradition with Episode I in that they reserved an entire theater on a Friday afternoon and took the whole company (excused with pay). So this week we did the same thing with Episode II. Granted we're not a huge company, 130 people or so, but that's a bit of a productivity hit.
I think the moral and team building boost was well worth it. If people can't have any fun with their co-workers, then they AREN'T going to enjoy their work either.
Hey! I actually found something that describes it.
So what you really want is the GPS receiver to internally sign the data coming out with a private key that the receiver manufacturer holds?
This would prove that the GPS data was provided by the card and was not tampered with after it came out. From there, it's up to the person to sign the GPS data to verify that he/she believes the GPS data represents their position.
It would be quite simple for a GPS receiver to have a built in manufacturer key and sign data it produces.
Further, even if you could somehow tie your position and identity together, a GPS Constellation simulator only costs about $250,000 USD. If it was really important to generate a fake, that's really not too high a price.
I work in the GPS business and would be interested in pursuing this a little further. If anyone has any bright ideas, let's throw a prototype together.
I think there is significant confusion out there regarding what the TDL is supposed to be about. The implication of a .web address would be that a web site lives there. This is completely inconsistant with the way things are now and even redundant in the current paradigm. Web sites (and other services ie. ftp, gopher, etc) are generally indicated by the machine name.
.web part had nothing to do with the services of that particular address. (Should I have a www.site.web and ftp.site.ftp and mud.site.mud?)
.com first, then .org then .net.
The only way it makes sense to me is if the .web TLD is reserved for company's involved in the web specifically. If there are no rules about how the TLDs will be distributed, then they are completely pointless and just create more names that you have to try before you find the one you really want.
For example, www.site.web would be redundant unless the
So, it seems to me that the TLD HAS to be tied to the type of entity that owns the domain name. Obviously, company, organization, and what? Up until now it's been sorta random. Why not SlashDot.com? It is a company isn't it? I don't know about most of you, but if I'm looking for a particular site/group/company, I always try
I don't recall ever signing anything. In fact, my thesis (which IS available on Contentville) is clearly marked as copyright Ian C. Williamson on page 3!
Now, maybe the university shouldn't have published it with my copyright in it, but it's there, so can they just give it away? Regardless of what I may have signed. Maybe universities whould be more clear on copyright.
Further, I'm a Canadian citizen and did my graduate work at a Canadian University, so I'm not entirely sure how that works into the mix.
I DO feel a little violated by this.
IanW
Actually, you will only get ~10 meter accuracy with a non-military receiver (that is, about 10x better than now). Millitary receivers use a second encrypted frequency to receive higher precision satellite orbital elements that circumvent SA anyway. I believe they DO get about 1 meter accuracy but I'm not too sure. Ian