Re:DVB recordings with dishentwork are awesome.
on
MythTV 0.20 Released
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· Score: 1
Indeed, I'm also quite interested. I doubt it can do HD recording (or can it?), but I'd be quite interested to know more. I want to simplify things around the house, and do so at a minimal cost--the $199 lease upgrade fee for a new HD PVR from Dish is a bit much.
I've had this discussion with my father-in-law many times. I've even used the straw/pipe analogy: Your Internet is a 2" pipe, and your wireless is a 12" pipe. Doesn't matter how big you make the wireless pipe, it will always have more than enough room to slide the Internet pipe through it.
So indeed, there are plenty of people--not necessarily all schmucks (my father-in-law is, in general, a very smart man)--who think that the faster the wireless is, the faster their Internet connection will be.
I just moved in to an apartment, near the University of Michigan campus. I expected APs to be around, but not two within a good range from my laptop and completely open to boot. Last night, I turned on the laptop and waited for a connection to my own (MAC-filtered) AP, and saw that the signal strength was below normal. Then the message popped up indicating I was now connected to the "default" network.:-) I surfed for about 30 seconds before deciding that I wanted a better signal and better speeds. Incidentally, the other open network is named "linksys", no foolin'.
Re:If you've ever wondered why your PHB...
on
Why PHBs Fear Linux
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· Score: 5, Funny
Gentoo beat Mandrake by a few days, with its 2004.0 release. And yes, I consider this a "major" distribution, folks. It's got some of the best documentation around, too.
...who said it couldn't be done for less than $10,000! Ha!
It's at just the right price point for those who might be on the fence with CF cards. Although you can, of course, get an extra 11GB for only $50 more...
I was thinking, out of the blue, the other day about the cities I used to construct out of several road-style plates and lots of imagination. I'd set a blanket out on the patio, and get to work. I had truck stops, police stations, fire houses, stores, houses, campgrounds, and more. Some of the areas were pre-designed (i.e., from instructions), but most were just whatever I wanted.
If I could go back to my childhood and only play with one thing, Lego would be it. I plan to pass my entire Lego collection down to my (future) kids.
But the Mindstorms thing kinda bums me out. I had wanted to buy the $200 set since I first saw it. But $200 is a lot of money for someone who also wants to buy a new sound card, or video card, or processor, or (dare I say it?) food and clothes. Had the price been closer to $100--or even $150--I would have had an easier time of buying it. Perhaps Lego priced themselves into trouble, perhaps not.
But however you slice it, Lego isn't going away. I have a sudden urge to go and grab some bricks and build a huge city again. Too bad it's too cold to put the blanket out on the patio.
Of course they don't make those purchases. But then, they're educated about those day-to-day tasks.
If I go in to an auto parts store, I could very easily come out with a part that is not compatible with my engine--since I know very little about auto mechanics.
The idea of Wal Mart selling PCs with an OS to compete with Windows appeals to me. But it can, conceivably, open up a whole host of other problems.
Case in point: My retired aunt and uncle bought a computer based primarily on price. Presuming that the Java-OS computers are cheap, then many people who have never bought a computer will be like my aunt and uncle and buy this computer as their first PC.
What happens when they visit their local techie goods retailer and look for card games, or photo editors, or even hardware like printers, scanners, or digital cameras? Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
The point is this: The hardware is irrelevant. For most people, hardware is nothing more than nails, tacks, and screws. Software is what matters. Unless Wal Mart has Java-OS-specific software right next to the PCs, and can sufficiently educate consumers that Eudora won't install on their computer, then we'll have problems.
(Mind, this diatribe is based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the Java OS. But all thoughts apply regardless.)
I am still a declared physics and math major, even though I'm now CS. Anyhow, here's my favorite math joke:
There was a man in a nuthouse who constantly scared off all the newcomers with a menacing smile and the dreadful-sounding phrase, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!"--invariably the newcomer would cower in the corner and stay far away from the man.
However, one day another man came in and confronted the first man. Of course, the first began yelling at the newcomer, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!" But it had no effect on the newcomer. The man yelled "I differentiate you!" several times to no avail. Finally, he broke down in tears. "Why, why?!?" he asked.
I recall Versiontracker from back in the day, when I was new to Linux. Thanks for the reminder!
The nice thing about OS X, and one of the reasons I bought in to the Mac craze, was its Unix heritage. That makes the switch (well, addition) easier for me.
My office retired its old G3 Server, and I talked my boss into selling it to me, including the 17" CRT, keyboard, mouse, and Jaz drive, for $100.
I'm using it primarily to learn the intricacies of OS X 10.3, and I'm liking it so far.
But even with this new "toy" of mine (I've been a staunch Windows user for years and years, although I like Linux too), I'm still drooling over the G5s. Part of me thinks I should get one of the 1.8 dualies and call it a day.
The only bad thing is that when a person switches, you have to not only learn a new OS and how the machine works, but you have to learn what software replaces the stuff you're used to. As an example, I use HomeSite for my Web development. I could buy BBEdit, but I'd like something free...and finding something like this is one of the challenges.
But at the end of the day, it's all worth it. Knowing multiple platforms is always a good thing!
I certainly would call Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo "major distributions." Slackware has been around for, what, 300 years, and Debian nearly so. Slack was actually one of the first distros I used.
Gentoo, while still not as widely known, was #1 on DistroWatch for quite some time, and sits at #5 as I type this. Sure, "Damn Small" and "MEPIS" are the number 8 and 9 spots, respectively, so top-10 membership isn't exactly a determining factor in "major."
But then what does "major" really mean? Knoppix (#3 on the list) would never find its way onto one of my production servers, while Debian or Gentoo probably would (Gentoo, in fact, runs my office's Web site). Conversely, I'm not keen on running Slackware for my desktop, but Mandrake or Red Hat would fit the bill.
So, you must first determine if "major" means anything whatsoever--does it reference the market share in terms of number of servers run? Or the market share on the desktop? And in what country is the determination of "major" made?
I guess what I'm getting at is that there are still plenty of "major" distros out there that are OSS compliant. Gentoo, Debian, and others are among these, and I think the vast majority of people would call them "major."
Sure, but in Windows, you either have to pay for Acrobat (not exactly cheap), or find some sort of convoluted workaround. OO does it very smoothly and easily.
Mind you, it's no substitute for Acrobat (which I use monthly), but it works in a pinch for those short, simple documents.
My favorite feature has to be the ability to export to PDF. It's one of the reasons why I still use OO even though I almost always have access to Microsoft Office.
That, and there's something to be said for the ability to literally unpack a saved file, look at the raw data, and get exactly what you need. (I had to do this on a spreadsheet before I installed OO again, and was able to retrieve an important CD key.;-) )
Forgive me if this has been posted. I'm catching this discussion at the end of its cycle.
What's to stop a large terrorist group (or even a national government) from using this "market" to make money? Let's use a simple example. North Korea has some of its people register on the board, and they place wagers that North Korea will indeed attack Country X with a nuke. A couple weeks later, North Korea attacks with a nuke. Result--people win big, and it goes into the government coffers. Or a bunch of Palestinian sympathizers in the US wager that Sharon will be assasinated, and when he is killed they funnel their winnings right back to the hands of the terrorists.
The article is short on details as to how the Pentagon plans on stopping this, but it's really quite worrisome.
Lately, we've been hearing more and more about the X Prize and the amateur (and not-so-amateur) aerospace engineers taking part.
I suspect that the recent projects are to the government-sponsored space programs as open source software is to commercial software. True, the fundamental ideas/might/ be different, but the goals are the same: Take something that you can't have general access to, make it your own, and make it better. Then contribute that idea to the general public.
In an era when people are becoming more and more concerned with manned space flight, I think projects and contests like this are the only way possible to get humanity into the heavens. Governments will always be under pressure to reduce spending; it will only be with enthusiasts that we make it to our proper place in space.
(This isn't to say, of course, that a non-government-sponsored flight will be the first to Mars. This is simply to say that it will be the space enthusiasts who shed the light on the important facts about space and its wealth of knowledge.)
One is reminded of the perpetual debate in security: Whether to post an exploit to a group, in order for the vendor to have incentive to patch it, or wait and hope the vendor listens to you. There are excellent arguments on both sides.
This seems to be little different than that example. The challenge is unethical, as far as I am concerned. July 6 is a Sunday, for one thing--in general businesses do not hold normal shifts on a weekend, so this is going to surely cause more grief than an attack on, say, a Tuesday. Moreover, if successful, this could seriously halt a lot of legitimate business, personal, and other transactions across the Internet.
Is this a call to deface Web sites, or generally screw over sysadmins who oftentimes are paid beans to being with? Shameful.
It's always surprised me when I see intelligent people write "PERL" when they refer to Larry Wall's programming language.
From the Perl FAQ, General Questions About Perl:
What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"? One bit. Oh, you weren't talking ASCII?:-) Larry now uses ``Perl'' to signify the language proper and ``perl'' the implementation of it, i.e. the current interpreter. Hence Tom's quip that ``Nothing but perl can parse Perl.'' You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means ``awk and perl'' and ``Python and Perl'' look ok, while ``awk and Perl'' and ``Python and perl'' do not. But never write ``PERL'', because perl isn't really an acronym, aprocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding.
Amazon and Microsoft announced joint patents of a new concept: "A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time."
They're expected to make billions off the royalties.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, I'm also quite interested. I doubt it can do HD recording (or can it?), but I'd be quite interested to know more. I want to simplify things around the house, and do so at a minimal cost--the $199 lease upgrade fee for a new HD PVR from Dish is a bit much.
I've had this discussion with my father-in-law many times. I've even used the straw/pipe analogy: Your Internet is a 2" pipe, and your wireless is a 12" pipe. Doesn't matter how big you make the wireless pipe, it will always have more than enough room to slide the Internet pipe through it.
So indeed, there are plenty of people--not necessarily all schmucks (my father-in-law is, in general, a very smart man)--who think that the faster the wireless is, the faster their Internet connection will be.
I just moved in to an apartment, near the University of Michigan campus. I expected APs to be around, but not two within a good range from my laptop and completely open to boot. Last night, I turned on the laptop and waited for a connection to my own (MAC-filtered) AP, and saw that the signal strength was below normal. Then the message popped up indicating I was now connected to the "default" network. :-) I surfed for about 30 seconds before deciding that I wanted a better signal and better speeds. Incidentally, the other open network is named "linksys", no foolin'.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=phb&r =67
Basically, it's a Bachelor of Philosophy.
Gentoo beat Mandrake by a few days, with its 2004.0 release. And yes, I consider this a "major" distribution, folks. It's got some of the best documentation around, too.
...who said it couldn't be done for less than $10,000! Ha!
It's at just the right price point for those who might be on the fence with CF cards. Although you can, of course, get an extra 11GB for only $50 more...
I was thinking, out of the blue, the other day about the cities I used to construct out of several road-style plates and lots of imagination. I'd set a blanket out on the patio, and get to work. I had truck stops, police stations, fire houses, stores, houses, campgrounds, and more. Some of the areas were pre-designed (i.e., from instructions), but most were just whatever I wanted.
If I could go back to my childhood and only play with one thing, Lego would be it. I plan to pass my entire Lego collection down to my (future) kids.
But the Mindstorms thing kinda bums me out. I had wanted to buy the $200 set since I first saw it. But $200 is a lot of money for someone who also wants to buy a new sound card, or video card, or processor, or (dare I say it?) food and clothes. Had the price been closer to $100--or even $150--I would have had an easier time of buying it. Perhaps Lego priced themselves into trouble, perhaps not.
But however you slice it, Lego isn't going away. I have a sudden urge to go and grab some bricks and build a huge city again. Too bad it's too cold to put the blanket out on the patio.
Of course they don't make those purchases. But then, they're educated about those day-to-day tasks.
If I go in to an auto parts store, I could very easily come out with a part that is not compatible with my engine--since I know very little about auto mechanics.
Context, Anonymous Coward. Context.
The idea of Wal Mart selling PCs with an OS to compete with Windows appeals to me. But it can, conceivably, open up a whole host of other problems.
Case in point: My retired aunt and uncle bought a computer based primarily on price. Presuming that the Java-OS computers are cheap, then many people who have never bought a computer will be like my aunt and uncle and buy this computer as their first PC.
What happens when they visit their local techie goods retailer and look for card games, or photo editors, or even hardware like printers, scanners, or digital cameras? Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
The point is this: The hardware is irrelevant. For most people, hardware is nothing more than nails, tacks, and screws. Software is what matters. Unless Wal Mart has Java-OS-specific software right next to the PCs, and can sufficiently educate consumers that Eudora won't install on their computer, then we'll have problems.
(Mind, this diatribe is based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the Java OS. But all thoughts apply regardless.)
I am still a declared physics and math major, even though I'm now CS. Anyhow, here's my favorite math joke:
There was a man in a nuthouse who constantly scared off all the newcomers with a menacing smile and the dreadful-sounding phrase, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!"--invariably the newcomer would cower in the corner and stay far away from the man.
However, one day another man came in and confronted the first man. Of course, the first began yelling at the newcomer, "I differentiate you! I differentiate you!" But it had no effect on the newcomer. The man yelled "I differentiate you!" several times to no avail. Finally, he broke down in tears. "Why, why?!?" he asked.
The second man stated simply, "I'm e^x."
Richard Feynman talked about nanotechnology way back in 1959--before "nanotechnology" was even a word.
It kind of irks me that the person who coins a word gets more credit than a person who talked about the actual process--nearly thirty years prior.
Read Feynman's talk at the Zyvex Web site.
Thanks, but no. $150 wouldn't buy me another Mac...and I like what I have, for now.
I recall Versiontracker from back in the day, when I was new to Linux. Thanks for the reminder!
The nice thing about OS X, and one of the reasons I bought in to the Mac craze, was its Unix heritage. That makes the switch (well, addition) easier for me.
My office retired its old G3 Server, and I talked my boss into selling it to me, including the 17" CRT, keyboard, mouse, and Jaz drive, for $100.
I'm using it primarily to learn the intricacies of OS X 10.3, and I'm liking it so far.
But even with this new "toy" of mine (I've been a staunch Windows user for years and years, although I like Linux too), I'm still drooling over the G5s. Part of me thinks I should get one of the 1.8 dualies and call it a day.
The only bad thing is that when a person switches, you have to not only learn a new OS and how the machine works, but you have to learn what software replaces the stuff you're used to. As an example, I use HomeSite for my Web development. I could buy BBEdit, but I'd like something free...and finding something like this is one of the challenges.
But at the end of the day, it's all worth it. Knowing multiple platforms is always a good thing!
I certainly would call Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo "major distributions." Slackware has been around for, what, 300 years, and Debian nearly so. Slack was actually one of the first distros I used.
Gentoo, while still not as widely known, was #1 on DistroWatch for quite some time, and sits at #5 as I type this. Sure, "Damn Small" and "MEPIS" are the number 8 and 9 spots, respectively, so top-10 membership isn't exactly a determining factor in "major."
But then what does "major" really mean? Knoppix (#3 on the list) would never find its way onto one of my production servers, while Debian or Gentoo probably would (Gentoo, in fact, runs my office's Web site). Conversely, I'm not keen on running Slackware for my desktop, but Mandrake or Red Hat would fit the bill.
So, you must first determine if "major" means anything whatsoever--does it reference the market share in terms of number of servers run? Or the market share on the desktop? And in what country is the determination of "major" made?
I guess what I'm getting at is that there are still plenty of "major" distros out there that are OSS compliant. Gentoo, Debian, and others are among these, and I think the vast majority of people would call them "major."
Sure, but in Windows, you either have to pay for Acrobat (not exactly cheap), or find some sort of convoluted workaround. OO does it very smoothly and easily.
Mind you, it's no substitute for Acrobat (which I use monthly), but it works in a pinch for those short, simple documents.
My favorite feature has to be the ability to export to PDF. It's one of the reasons why I still use OO even though I almost always have access to Microsoft Office.
;-) )
That, and there's something to be said for the ability to literally unpack a saved file, look at the raw data, and get exactly what you need. (I had to do this on a spreadsheet before I installed OO again, and was able to retrieve an important CD key.
Forgive me if this has been posted. I'm catching this discussion at the end of its cycle.
What's to stop a large terrorist group (or even a national government) from using this "market" to make money? Let's use a simple example. North Korea has some of its people register on the board, and they place wagers that North Korea will indeed attack Country X with a nuke. A couple weeks later, North Korea attacks with a nuke. Result--people win big, and it goes into the government coffers. Or a bunch of Palestinian sympathizers in the US wager that Sharon will be assasinated, and when he is killed they funnel their winnings right back to the hands of the terrorists.
The article is short on details as to how the Pentagon plans on stopping this, but it's really quite worrisome.
In the US:
Sony Returns and Replacements
100 Sony Drive
Sony Hills, CA 99888
Attn: Rube Goldberg
Lately, we've been hearing more and more about the X Prize and the amateur (and not-so-amateur) aerospace engineers taking part.
/might/ be different, but the goals are the same: Take something that you can't have general access to, make it your own, and make it better. Then contribute that idea to the general public.
I suspect that the recent projects are to the government-sponsored space programs as open source software is to commercial software. True, the fundamental ideas
In an era when people are becoming more and more concerned with manned space flight, I think projects and contests like this are the only way possible to get humanity into the heavens. Governments will always be under pressure to reduce spending; it will only be with enthusiasts that we make it to our proper place in space.
(This isn't to say, of course, that a non-government-sponsored flight will be the first to Mars. This is simply to say that it will be the space enthusiasts who shed the light on the important facts about space and its wealth of knowledge.)
One is reminded of the perpetual debate in security: Whether to post an exploit to a group, in order for the vendor to have incentive to patch it, or wait and hope the vendor listens to you. There are excellent arguments on both sides.
This seems to be little different than that example. The challenge is unethical, as far as I am concerned. July 6 is a Sunday, for one thing--in general businesses do not hold normal shifts on a weekend, so this is going to surely cause more grief than an attack on, say, a Tuesday. Moreover, if successful, this could seriously halt a lot of legitimate business, personal, and other transactions across the Internet.
Is this a call to deface Web sites, or generally screw over sysadmins who oftentimes are paid beans to being with? Shameful.
Nope. From what I've read, someone thought up that expansion and pegged Perl as an acronym.
There's your history lesson for the day, folks.
It's always surprised me when I see intelligent people write "PERL" when they refer to Larry Wall's programming language.
From the Perl FAQ, General Questions About Perl:
What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"? :-) Larry now uses ``Perl'' to signify the language proper and ``perl'' the implementation of it, i.e. the current interpreter. Hence Tom's quip that ``Nothing but perl can parse Perl.'' You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means ``awk and perl'' and ``Python and Perl'' look ok, while ``awk and Perl'' and ``Python and perl'' do not. But never write ``PERL'', because perl isn't really an acronym, aprocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding.
One bit. Oh, you weren't talking ASCII?
You can read the entire FAQ if you like.
I kinda wondered that, frankly. I suspect it's 'cause I was the first to make the remark? Who knows...
Amazon and Microsoft announced joint patents of a new concept: "A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time."
They're expected to make billions off the royalties.