Given that these are superconducting coils the amperage relates more to power than it does in a situation where the resistance is unknown.
In other words, amperage is simply a measure of the number of electrons passing a cross-section of the wire in a given period of time. In this instance it is enough to give significant measure of the input power.
It is, however, inadequate in measuring the output, but since they didn't give any further info in the article I chose not to expand my narrative further than the nebulous Amp.
Prefix, Infix, Postfix. Think of it in relation to polish notation. Specifically postfix is RPN. Infix is 'normal' algebra, and prefix notation is another polish notation invented by the person who came up with RPN.
In other news, Nintendo is post-fixing an 'e' to each game's title in the hopes of jumping ahead of the next revolution in electronic naming.
"People are tired of e-this, and e-that, k-this, g-that. We're leading the next naming revolution with new-age names like Donkey Kong-e, and Mario Brothers-e."
Interesting idea, but easy to verify. Send one thousand emails, and include a verifiable email in it. Check the email a few hours later - if it's not there, then don't use the relay.
The robot will find the first occurance of the smiley face, if only to show up the smuggness of the person who retreived the vax backups.
-Adam
You can purchase a worthwhile book at bn.com...
on
ChronoSpace
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
You can purchase a worthwhile book at bn.com, but I'm not even going to bother looking the ISBN up for you. Slashdot welcomes reviews, but please try to review only good books so people will buy them through our sponser's links and we can get more keg-cash.
I hadn't heard of the safari before. Looks like you subscribe to a number of points per month, then you can swap out books up to your point level once every month. If you get the $10/mo you get 5 points, which is five 1 point books per month. To purchase those books you'd pay about $150, so this subscription sounds good for those who only need a particular reference for a few months at a time, as well for those books that have little or no future reference value. It also allows for the fact that too many technologies change, evolve and disappear within 15 months.
Still, I like collecting books. I wonder if they'd give a discount on the sale of previously subscribed titles. Reading a book on the computer isn't as nice as holding it in one's hands, either, but overall it's as good a deal as leasing a car - obviously not for everyone - good for many.
Primarily this is good for marketting, company image, press releases, and selling potential customers on smaller systems.
Chances are good that they will build very few full scale machines. Those that are built go towards data-warehousing, research (atmospheric, oceanic and space science, nuclear modeling, etc) and to the government. Factoring large primes is a use, for instance, as it's a problem that can be performed in parallel.
But they will have the ability to say that x, y, and z companies/ gov't agencies have our equipment, it can't be exported (so it must be good), and our lower end machines will suit your job until you need an upgrade - in other words we can be with you for the whole ride and promise application compatability.
-Adam
Re:Wonder what the heck this is all about?
on
Crushing Experience
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A few pages later the 'art' is explained:
Ideas and thoughts behind work:
This work is an archetypal work of tsunamii.net whose work often conjures ridiculous scenarios and challenges about technology.
CRUSH YOUR SERVER: Although the act of crushing/destroying the computer suggests a Neo-Luddite (2) reaction towards technology, it is only one facet of the work. The act of destroying the server brings up an interesting proposition: the physicality of the 'internet'.
When the client computer fails to find the data from the server, the browser has an error - "cannot find server - xx", and a list of instructions, and reasons appears to rectify the problem. Interestingly, we know the reason why the server cannot be found but the client computer does not. This brings out another aspect of the internet: the physical relationship between the server and the client. Only when the data/server does not exist or fails to function, then the internet user is reminded of this relationship.
Stores have been doing this for years. I remember years ago a particular store required you to have a store card that 'allowed' you to write checks over certian amounts (ie, you could write a check to $20 without the card, and up to $500 with the card). Many not only require your address and phone preprinted on the card, but they ask to see your drivers license and write down the DL number as well.
The solitary bare naked truth is that checks are so easy to forge that companies lose millions a year with forgeries that are never caught, or difficult to prosecute. Companies have a right to determine what forms of payment they will accept and what stipulations they will place on various forms of payment. Obviously check processing is a huge industry right now, and most of the stores here fight this sort of fraud by doing electronic check processing. You sign the check, they put it through a reader, and the funds are instatnly transferred. If the bank refuses the check then another form of payment is requested before they ever leave the store. The problem here is that these companies charge per check in a manner similar to credit cards (fixed per transaction + percentage of transaction) which can sometimes be a bigger overall cost than the fraud. So turn to some low-tech solution - fingerprinting, which is cheap, and there's no charge unless there's fraud, and if the fraud is small they make a note of it and store it for future prosecution if that customer returns, or send the info to the police.
The bottom line is that they are trying to run a business. They have a financial interest in preventing fraud of many forms, and I believe that they deserve the right to do so. If you desire to keep your fingerprint out of their file drawers, then chances are you're paranoid enough to pay by cash for everything anyway, and this won't bother you.
-Adam
I swear, some people just love to go to the beach and moan. Don't tell me you sad story - suck it up and adapt.
Each programmer should have a good grasp of their assigned duties/tasks. It doesn't matter whether the tasks are maintenance, new work, documentation, training, etc. It all boils down to time and task management. If you are stretched too thin maintaining previous projects such that it's impacting current work you need to re-prioritize, often with your superior.
The problem is that people don't leave time for these little tasks, and they accept them without rescheduling other (perhaps more pressing) tasks.
Eventually you'll have to drop maintenance for a project, or reassign that task to another programmer. But most important is to listen to the sales person describe the problem, then point out that they need to go to your superior to have the 'new' project approved and let him push other deadlines around to suit his schedule. If it's your responsability to juggle all these tasks then you'll spend more time doing management than programming eventually, but you'll have to weight and prioritize each task.
In other words, I suspect it's not discussed/researched because it's really a non-issue. The real problem is time and project management.
-Adam
It's heavier, consumes more power, etc...
on
Rear View LCD?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Other solar car teams install these things (4-5" lcd, rearward facing camera) for a variety of reasons. It can provide a smaller cross section for wind resistance, and the camera and lcd can be placed more conveniently.
However, these same teams end up turning them off because they are practically useless (they put them in to meet requirements, but don't engineer them to actually work well), and they consume precious energy. In some cases more than would be wasted by placing a proper aerodynamic mirror externally.
So they turn them off (against the rules) for the best of both worlds - lower wind resistance, lower power consumption - but at the risk of being disqualified.
Furthermore, there is allready so little room in the cockpit, do you honestly think you can find a good place to put it? Outside the window is not only convenient, but frees up precious space inside the vehicle.
That being said, you'll need to look for a nice high resolution camera (broadcast quality tv or better) and matching LCD. These will be very expensive, but solar cars aren't cheap and I'm sure you can find someone to donate one.
Look particularily at what large motorhomes use. A local RV store ought to steer you in the right direction.
They also state that the glass tubing was cut open in 1930, three years after having placed the pitch into the funnel. Those three years the pitch was allowed to settle- therefore the experiment started in 1930, though it was prepared in 1927.
Pcengines is where I've purchased my adaptors. I use them with cheap 8meg cards to boot previously floppy based computers and my tech support problems decreased quite a bit.
The compactflash spec includes an ATA emulation built into the CF storage card - they look exactly like hard drives to the computer. There's little or no buffering, but they are generally faster than hard drives and much faster than floppies. They only manage a palty 1 million writes, though, so don't use them for swap or frequently changed files systems.
No, they were not breaking into someone's house. They were walking into an open unguarded government office, and picking up some confidential documents lying on the desk. I believe that confidential documents are traditionally behind locked doors and guards to keep such a thing from happening.
Which is still tresspassing and is still illegal. Just because the fence isnt very high, and the doors are unlocked doesn't mean you are allowed to enter and shuffle through their stuff.
There are alltogether too many people claiming that the 'online world' is different than the physical world, and should have different rules, laws and regulations. I believe this to be a bunch of bull. While there are a few paradigm changes the basics of freedom, privacy, and reasonable security still apply. The laws that exist currently should be smartly applied to online cases and only when they are found to be severely lacking should we consider new/different rules.
In most cases this is not needed. Trespassing laws (using their equipment w/o their permission for one) should neatly tie this case up.
Even if you did leave your front door open others are still liable for charges if they choose to enter your property without your permission.
Sum the numbers (one of the fastest things you can do with them) and then subtract the result from 55. The missing number is the result of the subtraction.
Aside from that, a programmer needs several things to work well, but three utmost are:
Basic skill set, knowledge of tools used in particular tasks in your company - you don't want to hire a programmer who knows little java for an all java job unless the other qualities are far and above others you interview who do know java
Problem solving skills, an interest in the solutions of unique problems, etc. This is your programmer's greatest asset. Their ability to find out information about something they do not know about is just as important as leaning back and considering a problem. Finding an elegant solution is nice, but finding a solution that is workable and maintainable is paramount.
Lastly, and perhaps most important, is the ability to cummunicate. 90% of your problems are problems of communication (and 72% of statistics are made up on the spot). Teamwork is important for companies where programmers work together, but more important where they work alone or are one of the few technical people in their department/company.
I'm criticizing him (the person who's griping about the cable box) because he appears to not understand how to solve his problem.
He has, in my limited view, several options:
Return the box and go back to the older style cable - This would solve all his problems, but he wouldn't have digital cable. He doesn't tell us why he cannot or will not go back. If it's a forced upgrade, then go on to the next solution, if not then he needs to realize that he's trading the 'benefits' of digital cable for these few annoying (but not show stopping:-) features.
If it is a forced upgrade, or if it's a one way trip (semi forced, can't go back once you're in) (which is unlikely as a premium service) then you need to complain to the cable company and find out why these features are not included and when they will be. He didn't tell us what he's already done.
But the bottom line is that he seems willing to trade those features for the unknown value of the digital cable.
You are a highly trained consumer. You believe them when they say "Digital cable is better". They eventually offer channels on digital cable you can't get on regular to force upgrades. They cross pollinate commercials so you can realize what you are missing because you don't get the apes on meth channel, which has a new series everybody will talk about at work the next morning while you think about last night's rerun of "Gilligan's Island".
You have been bred in captivity just to upgrade, and when they take a feature away it is only for your own good.
And they know exactly where your breaking point is. They will remove features one by one, forcing you to watch what they want you to watch (why do you think so many channels start their shows at odd times?). Just before the point where you switch to another provider or give it up alltogether they'll blast you with 'new' features you've 'got' to have.
People have been hiding antennae for years in situations where they are distracting or otherwise undesirable.
Dominos farms (Ann Arbor, MI) has a tower that looks more like a bent sculpture than a cell phone/radio/microwave tower.
I'm certian you can take a flat 802.11b antenna, put some durable rock looking material over it and place it inconspicuously on the exterier of the building. It need only stick out an inch or two.
I would try, though, first putting a high gain directional antenna inside the buildings pointing to the other buildings. The rock will dampen the signal, but I bet you'll get more than enough to improve vastly on 128k.
Lastly, look at using two DSL modems and the on site phone wiring. You can put most DSL modems into a peer to peer mode, and they simply go over any used or unused (phone levels) unshielded twisted pair wire. Think of it as a higher version of the venerable modem, but broadband since you aren't actually trying to transmit over the phone networks digital switched network. This might actually be better than wireless.
The crux of the bill is in subsection (a) which states that they won't be liable for any ciminal or civil action which results from impairing the distribution of copyright works. However, there are exceptions to that, which I find quite large. If I'm reading this correctly, then they cannot claim their actions fall under this bill if it:
(B) causes economic loss to any person
other than affected file traders; or
(C) causes economic loss of more than $50.00 per impairment to the property of the affected file trader, other than economic loss involving computer files or data made available through a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network that contain works in which the owner has an exclusive right granted under section 106;
This means that if they dos someone on my local cable segment then I can sue them if it impacts my bandwidth, Comcast can sue if it deprives their customers of service and/or uses their resources, and all the backbones and other service providers whose bandwidth is eaten up can call for reimbursement.
The two downsides of this is that the bill is not limited to dos. It is pretty wide open in that they can do pretty much anything technologically which has the effect of "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction" of their material. Which includes crashing or otherwise rendering inoperable network communications on the computer.
Not only that, but anyone who tries to face up to them needs very deep pockets to fight them - even if they caused more than $50 of damage they'll still have to prove it in court.
In other words, "Shoot now, ask questions later" and "You are guilty until proven innocent" should be stamped across this bill.
Translation: Fight the bill here and now. It'll be ten times more difficult and costly to remove it from law than it is to keep it from being placed there in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that these are superconducting coils the amperage relates more to power than it does in a situation where the resistance is unknown.
In other words, amperage is simply a measure of the number of electrons passing a cross-section of the wire in a given period of time. In this instance it is enough to give significant measure of the input power.
It is, however, inadequate in measuring the output, but since they didn't give any further info in the article I chose not to expand my narrative further than the nebulous Amp.
Gravity: Not just a good idea, it's the law.
-Adam
Scientist, "Yeah, so, like, the fusion reaction can put out, you know, a lot of power - like 10,000 amps or so."
...
Reporter, "And how much current does the one smaller magnet consume again?"
Scientist, "Uh... 46,000 amps. But it's so cool! I mean, it glows and stuff!"
3) Profit!
-Adam
So... There's hope for single geeks everywhere to perpetuate the species?
:-)
Remember - just because you can doesn't mean you should.
-Adam
Because you don't have to buy it.
-Adam
Prefix, Infix, Postfix. Think of it in relation to polish notation. Specifically postfix is RPN. Infix is 'normal' algebra, and prefix notation is another polish notation invented by the person who came up with RPN.
-Adam
In other news, Nintendo is post-fixing an 'e' to each game's title in the hopes of jumping ahead of the next revolution in electronic naming.
"People are tired of e-this, and e-that, k-this, g-that. We're leading the next naming revolution with new-age names like Donkey Kong-e, and Mario Brothers-e."
-Adam
Interesting idea, but easy to verify. Send one thousand emails, and include a verifiable email in it. Check the email a few hours later - if it's not there, then don't use the relay.
-Adam
The robot will find the first occurance of the smiley face, if only to show up the smuggness of the person who retreived the vax backups.
-Adam
You can purchase a worthwhile book at bn.com, but I'm not even going to bother looking the ISBN up for you. Slashdot welcomes reviews, but please try to review only good books so people will buy them through our sponser's links and we can get more keg-cash.
Thanksh.
Shincerely,
The sloshdot team
-Adam
Forget the smiley, I want the ET holding a chainsaw picture in press format mentioned near the end of the file...
MMmmmm Aliens and powertools.....
-Adam
"...just then a talking chicken told him to shut up - we knew it was all over after that..."
I hadn't heard of the safari before. Looks like you subscribe to a number of points per month, then you can swap out books up to your point level once every month. If you get the $10/mo you get 5 points, which is five 1 point books per month. To purchase those books you'd pay about $150, so this subscription sounds good for those who only need a particular reference for a few months at a time, as well for those books that have little or no future reference value. It also allows for the fact that too many technologies change, evolve and disappear within 15 months.
Still, I like collecting books. I wonder if they'd give a discount on the sale of previously subscribed titles. Reading a book on the computer isn't as nice as holding it in one's hands, either, but overall it's as good a deal as leasing a car - obviously not for everyone - good for many.
-Adam
Primarily this is good for marketting, company image, press releases, and selling potential customers on smaller systems.
Chances are good that they will build very few full scale machines. Those that are built go towards data-warehousing, research (atmospheric, oceanic and space science, nuclear modeling, etc) and to the government. Factoring large primes is a use, for instance, as it's a problem that can be performed in parallel.
But they will have the ability to say that x, y, and z companies/ gov't agencies have our equipment, it can't be exported (so it must be good), and our lower end machines will suit your job until you need an upgrade - in other words we can be with you for the whole ride and promise application compatability.
-Adam
-Adam
Stores have been doing this for years. I remember years ago a particular store required you to have a store card that 'allowed' you to write checks over certian amounts (ie, you could write a check to $20 without the card, and up to $500 with the card). Many not only require your address and phone preprinted on the card, but they ask to see your drivers license and write down the DL number as well.
The solitary bare naked truth is that checks are so easy to forge that companies lose millions a year with forgeries that are never caught, or difficult to prosecute. Companies have a right to determine what forms of payment they will accept and what stipulations they will place on various forms of payment. Obviously check processing is a huge industry right now, and most of the stores here fight this sort of fraud by doing electronic check processing. You sign the check, they put it through a reader, and the funds are instatnly transferred. If the bank refuses the check then another form of payment is requested before they ever leave the store. The problem here is that these companies charge per check in a manner similar to credit cards (fixed per transaction + percentage of transaction) which can sometimes be a bigger overall cost than the fraud. So turn to some low-tech solution - fingerprinting, which is cheap, and there's no charge unless there's fraud, and if the fraud is small they make a note of it and store it for future prosecution if that customer returns, or send the info to the police.
The bottom line is that they are trying to run a business. They have a financial interest in preventing fraud of many forms, and I believe that they deserve the right to do so. If you desire to keep your fingerprint out of their file drawers, then chances are you're paranoid enough to pay by cash for everything anyway, and this won't bother you.
-Adam
I swear, some people just love to go to the beach and moan. Don't tell me you sad story - suck it up and adapt.
Each programmer should have a good grasp of their assigned duties/tasks. It doesn't matter whether the tasks are maintenance, new work, documentation, training, etc. It all boils down to time and task management. If you are stretched too thin maintaining previous projects such that it's impacting current work you need to re-prioritize, often with your superior.
The problem is that people don't leave time for these little tasks, and they accept them without rescheduling other (perhaps more pressing) tasks.
Eventually you'll have to drop maintenance for a project, or reassign that task to another programmer. But most important is to listen to the sales person describe the problem, then point out that they need to go to your superior to have the 'new' project approved and let him push other deadlines around to suit his schedule. If it's your responsability to juggle all these tasks then you'll spend more time doing management than programming eventually, but you'll have to weight and prioritize each task.
In other words, I suspect it's not discussed/researched because it's really a non-issue. The real problem is time and project management.
-Adam
Other solar car teams install these things (4-5" lcd, rearward facing camera) for a variety of reasons. It can provide a smaller cross section for wind resistance, and the camera and lcd can be placed more conveniently.
However, these same teams end up turning them off because they are practically useless (they put them in to meet requirements, but don't engineer them to actually work well), and they consume precious energy. In some cases more than would be wasted by placing a proper aerodynamic mirror externally.
So they turn them off (against the rules) for the best of both worlds - lower wind resistance, lower power consumption - but at the risk of being disqualified.
Furthermore, there is allready so little room in the cockpit, do you honestly think you can find a good place to put it? Outside the window is not only convenient, but frees up precious space inside the vehicle.
That being said, you'll need to look for a nice high resolution camera (broadcast quality tv or better) and matching LCD. These will be very expensive, but solar cars aren't cheap and I'm sure you can find someone to donate one.
Look particularily at what large motorhomes use. A local RV store ought to steer you in the right direction.
-Adam
They also state that the glass tubing was cut open in 1930, three years after having placed the pitch into the funnel. Those three years the pitch was allowed to settle- therefore the experiment started in 1930, though it was prepared in 1927.
-Adam
Pcengines is where I've purchased my adaptors. I use them with cheap 8meg cards to boot previously floppy based computers and my tech support problems decreased quite a bit.
The compactflash spec includes an ATA emulation built into the CF storage card - they look exactly like hard drives to the computer. There's little or no buffering, but they are generally faster than hard drives and much faster than floppies. They only manage a palty 1 million writes, though, so don't use them for swap or frequently changed files systems.
-Adam
No, they were not breaking into someone's house. They were walking into an open unguarded government office, and picking up some confidential documents lying on the desk. I believe that confidential documents are traditionally behind locked doors and guards to keep such a thing from happening.
Which is still tresspassing and is still illegal. Just because the fence isnt very high, and the doors are unlocked doesn't mean you are allowed to enter and shuffle through their stuff.
There are alltogether too many people claiming that the 'online world' is different than the physical world, and should have different rules, laws and regulations. I believe this to be a bunch of bull. While there are a few paradigm changes the basics of freedom, privacy, and reasonable security still apply. The laws that exist currently should be smartly applied to online cases and only when they are found to be severely lacking should we consider new/different rules.
In most cases this is not needed. Trespassing laws (using their equipment w/o their permission for one) should neatly tie this case up.
Even if you did leave your front door open others are still liable for charges if they choose to enter your property without your permission.
-Adam
Aside from that, a programmer needs several things to work well, but three utmost are:
- Basic skill set, knowledge of tools used in particular tasks in your company - you don't want to hire a programmer who knows little java for an all java job unless the other qualities are far and above others you interview who do know java
- Problem solving skills, an interest in the solutions of unique problems, etc. This is your programmer's greatest asset. Their ability to find out information about something they do not know about is just as important as leaning back and considering a problem. Finding an elegant solution is nice, but finding a solution that is workable and maintainable is paramount.
- Lastly, and perhaps most important, is the ability to cummunicate. 90% of your problems are problems of communication (and 72% of statistics are made up on the spot). Teamwork is important for companies where programmers work together, but more important where they work alone or are one of the few technical people in their department/company.
-AdamHe has, in my limited view, several options:
But the bottom line is that he seems willing to trade those features for the unknown value of the digital cable.
-Adam
You are a highly trained consumer. You believe them when they say "Digital cable is better". They eventually offer channels on digital cable you can't get on regular to force upgrades. They cross pollinate commercials so you can realize what you are missing because you don't get the apes on meth channel, which has a new series everybody will talk about at work the next morning while you think about last night's rerun of "Gilligan's Island".
You have been bred in captivity just to upgrade, and when they take a feature away it is only for your own good.
And they know exactly where your breaking point is. They will remove features one by one, forcing you to watch what they want you to watch (why do you think so many channels start their shows at odd times?). Just before the point where you switch to another provider or give it up alltogether they'll blast you with 'new' features you've 'got' to have.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you, Consumer.
People have been hiding antennae for years in situations where they are distracting or otherwise undesirable.
Dominos farms (Ann Arbor, MI) has a tower that looks more like a bent sculpture than a cell phone/radio/microwave tower.
I'm certian you can take a flat 802.11b antenna, put some durable rock looking material over it and place it inconspicuously on the exterier of the building. It need only stick out an inch or two.
I would try, though, first putting a high gain directional antenna inside the buildings pointing to the other buildings. The rock will dampen the signal, but I bet you'll get more than enough to improve vastly on 128k.
Lastly, look at using two DSL modems and the on site phone wiring. You can put most DSL modems into a peer to peer mode, and they simply go over any used or unused (phone levels) unshielded twisted pair wire. Think of it as a higher version of the venerable modem, but broadband since you aren't actually trying to transmit over the phone networks digital switched network. This might actually be better than wireless.
-Adam
The real insecurity is that they trust Verisign by default.
-Adam
- (B) causes economic loss to any person
other than affected file traders; or
- (C) causes economic loss of more than $50.00 per impairment to the property of the affected file trader, other than economic loss involving computer files or data made available through a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network that contain works in which the owner has an exclusive right granted under section 106;
This means that if they dos someone on my local cable segment then I can sue them if it impacts my bandwidth, Comcast can sue if it deprives their customers of service and/or uses their resources, and all the backbones and other service providers whose bandwidth is eaten up can call for reimbursement.The two downsides of this is that the bill is not limited to dos. It is pretty wide open in that they can do pretty much anything technologically which has the effect of "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction" of their material. Which includes crashing or otherwise rendering inoperable network communications on the computer.
Not only that, but anyone who tries to face up to them needs very deep pockets to fight them - even if they caused more than $50 of damage they'll still have to prove it in court.
In other words, "Shoot now, ask questions later" and "You are guilty until proven innocent" should be stamped across this bill.
Translation: Fight the bill here and now. It'll be ten times more difficult and costly to remove it from law than it is to keep it from being placed there in the first place.
-Adam