The link to that anime description is not correct. Which is unfortunate, because I thought for once that an anime company was going to try bringing over a classic, instead of the super new anime (which honestly hasn't been doing it for me lately). I guess it's business as usual for ADV with a slightly different way to download the trailer.
I don't know about you guys, but the only conclusion I got out of this poll is that average American internet users are stupid and don't know what they want. No real surprises here, if you don't know anything about the internet than you shouldn't have any opinion on how to change it. This was a pretty idiotic poll IMHO. Let's poll mall-goers next to see which method of surgical cutting they prefer.
I guess you could note that people are getting edgy about the security problems on the 'net. But what the hell is government going to do about that? If you have a problem with worms, blame Microsoft's complete inability to understand what a buffer overflow is. For spam, ask your ISP why they haven't put in a spam filter yet. These are generally resolveable problems that the government can't do diddily squat to fix.
Palm Desktop is a great, relatively bloat-free program for managing this stuff. Mind you, I don't actually have a palm pilot (though might get one in the future). The program is FREE on Palm's web site, and unlike Outlook, it has better compatibility with third party software (like, say, a different e-mail client). It's also a bit more simple and intuitive. Give it a shot.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people still cling on to the theory that BSD is "dieing" and that OpenBSD is "bad" and has "no driver support". I've been a sysadmin since before Linux was a corporate buzzword, and I've used just about every operating system out there, and I can say that OpenBSD is the best server operating system, hands down.
Sure, there are speciality corners where other operating systems might work better, but I can't see any good reason why security shouldn't be the priority of every single server on the internet. OpenBSD is the only operating system that is actually taking a serious look at security (whereas most Linux distributions are so bad with security right now, that they are less secure than Windows Server). While OpenBSD's "security audit" of the system code is the major point in its favor, some of the real advances in security are sometimes the subtle hidden ones that aren't even being talked about, such as the Pro Police stack, W^X memory protection (which Linus dismissed for not being a "silver bullet"), and randomized malloc. They might be stupid, little changes, but each one means that it is that much harder for somebody to remotely break into the server. The point is, OpenBSD is thinking about all this, while the other Linux distributions are thinking of ways to stuff more dangerous programs into their default startup.
OpenBSD driver support is far cleaner, plug-n-play's far better, and in some areas is actually more complete than Linux (OpenBSD supports a ton of networking devices right now, including wireless).
Once more difficult than Linux, it is now becoming signifigantly easier, because the core system is clean and concise, and there is extensive documentation both in the form of the manpages and in published books. Where most Linux distributions have opted for bloated, unmanageable monsters that are immediately susceptible to remote buffer overflows the second they are installed, OpenBSD has opted for cleanliness and system simplicity, which I think is a far more enlightened and managable approach in the long run.
When software isn't good enough for the team, they make their own. It is this no-compromise position that led to OpenSSH, which every unix system in the country is now using. It also led to PF, the packet filter that absolutely blows away ipfilter (though I'll admit could be a bit easier to use, I'm a moron when it comes to filter rules). The fact that they can make these incredibly powerful, landscape-changing programs on a whim should be a hint to just how talented the developer team really is.
There are some areas where the system needs work, but those areas are quickly focused on and resolved (after last week's hackathon we'll probably have better RAID device support, despite driver snubs by many of the companies).
I probably sound like a hypocritical ideologue in this post, but I'm more interested showing off the good side of OpenBSD so I can drive this point: People that blindly use Linux for everything are missing out on the real advances in practical server technology, which aren't happening in penguin country.
If your stale Marxist rhetoric is correct, then wouldn't HONG KONG be what you are talking about? Because they have no minimum wage, and yet are as prosperous and make as much money as we do (and MORE than their former owner, England, does). Hong Kong has nullified almost every single stupid theory about capitalism, I wish people would stop learning their economics in a bubble.
I applied for a computer security consultant job for Wells Fargo a while ago and never got it. Lets pretend I got the job, and I'm talking to the guy that's telling me they're going to do this:
"Okay, how can I put this so you completely understand me... You plan to put Windows on ATM machines, use a universal protocol standard, and then hook it up to the internet? Okay, how do I begin... this is a REALLY STUPID IDEA. This is an INCREDIBLY DUMB IDEA. You WILL get hacked. You -WILL- destroy the credibility of your bank. And to top it off, it will cost a ridiculous amount of money. Any questions?"
I'm in the process of starting my own Security Consulting company right now because I got sick of looking for jobs, so when they get completely hacked maybe they'll contract me to fix it. I'm not immediately sure what I'd recommend instead, it's definetely something you should put a lot of thought into, but Windows is definetely the wrong direction here. You don't use the second most hacked system on the internet to secure your bank transfers.
There's a reason cable is called a natural monopoly. You can't decide to choose some other cable provider. It is much easier to create a competing Wi-Fi access system, and with more Wi-Fi, you get more competition, which lowers prices.
"Free Internet" is snake oil. If the government pays for it with taxes, it's not actually free (unless you're a hobo), because you're paying for it, just in another, less efficient form. Nevermind the fact that starting this will eventually lead to half the city using the government access and will end up costing a ton of money just for that (and I'm sure the people out there that don't use the service will love to pay for it for you, don't worry). Oh, and forget about freedom from censorship, I'm sure they'll put a nice little web site blocker on it too.
Jesus, grow up people. Learn some BASIC economics here.
It's a very interesting analysis, now that I know the water is salty. I've been told by engineers much more experienced than I that groundwave is as important as line-of-sight in lower frequency broadcasting. But, in my own work I've found that those generalizations are often blurred by practical reality. Then, there's the question of "which is better, good groundwave or good line-of-sight"? I think this picture, along with your information, could lead me to conclude the latter. Line-of-sight still appears plays a serious role in AM broadcasting.
It's definetely something I'll have to investigate further. Very interesting!
Groundwave is a very important factor at lower frequencies, because low frequencies 'travel' along the ground (a natural property of their longer wavelength). The more conductive the ground is, the farther the signals will travel (based on the output wattage of course).
For very high frequencies, like Wi-Fi, the groundwave is considerably less important. With Wi-Fi, the line-of-sight is the most important factor. So you're right if you're thinking about higher frequencies, which are where most of the modern radio systems are operating. My book is about mediumwave (AM band) broadcasting however, so concepts like groundwave still play a pretty important part.
It's an old field strength determination from the 1920s. See the water area below the taller buildings with the '20' strength? Is that water salty, fresh, or a mix of both (salty-leaning, or fresh-leaning even)? The reason I ask, is because if it is salty, it shows with more signifigance the blocking ability of structures (as salt water is very conductive).
For full disclosure, I'm a libertarian writing a series of articles on how badly the FCC has fucked up over the years. I'm not finished yet, but I'm planning on getting IBOC wrapped up sometime this week. It's very nice to see that slashdotters are getting into this, maybe I'll send the article to one of the editors.
Let me first say that Dean is a very smart guy, and for somebody that apparently doesn't know about the guts of the FCC he is definetely pointing in the right direction. Though I wouldn't say the FCC should be completely abolished (the FCC is, after all, more like hundreds of regulatory systems rolled into one entity than a single one doing a couple things). The FCC does do -some- good things, and the idea of policing the radio spectrum isn't neccessarily a bad one, but the FCC is a terrible bungler of policy and the no-compromise command-and-control system is a horrible one at best. Low power radio licenses that would have otherwise been available are denied, not because there isn't space, but simply because the FCC doesn't want to lose their control over the bands, coupled with lobbyists pushing rat bills through congress telling the FCC what to do. They recently adopted a digital radio system (IBOC) that in hybrid mode increases per-station bandwidth by up to 50% thus increasing interference and reducing range, while at the same time signifigantly reducing quality on the only band where audio could actually be improved, the AM broadcast band (and possibly even reducing the quality of the FM one). As for moral regulation, the organization is a total joke and a gross slap in the face of the concept that government shouldn't regulate speech and content.
Not to mention that some services are not susceptible to these regulations, thus giving cable and satellite an upper hand over broadcast. Telecom regulation is perhaps the biggest joke of all, and will be obsoleted by voice over IP systems anyways, which are again not susceptible to these regulations and thus have an upper hand and prosper quickly due to the fact that they are a technological improvement and the FCC isn't there to grind progress to a halt. I remember reading an article a while ago regarding phone numbers that can change with service, where the author said that greedy companies would keep it from working. I got a good laugh out of this, considering that Hong Kong allowed for the same thing years ago and it's worked stellarly for them (I then had somebody suggest that Hong Kong commerce wasn't heavily regulated because their companies are "less evil" than US ones, which was equally hilarious). Another great thing about the telecom industry is that it has become another way for stupid politicians to tax you: Last time I checked, my phone bill had a $5-$10 tax on it. Enough with broadband tax, let's get rid of the phone tax too!
Why does the FCC act like this? Firstly, because it is run by morons. Its commissioners are rejects of higher positions in Washington politics, dominated by businessmen and lawyers rather than technocrats and engineers. It's not their fault, in my opinion, they do the best they can, but you need to thoroughly understand your trade before you attempt to regulate it. Also, with things like IBOC, you are absolutely correct about lobbyist powers being the primary influence: IBOC increases interference big time, -WAY- more than Low Power FM would have caused, so why isn't the NAB raising a stink about it? Simple: Because most of these big radio monopolies have investments in Ibiquity, the company that made IBOC and holds its patents and licensing. When Americans are forced to throw away hundreds of millions of perfectly good radios, it's these companies that are going to get the royalties.
Here's my libertarian catch-all: the FCC is too big, stupid, and corrupt to handle most of its regulation properly, and there's a lot of things it shouldn't be regulating at all. One thing's for sure, the FCC is overreaching at best, and society as a whole would benefit if a very large amount of the FCC was broken apart.
I'd like to point out that all the posts here suggesting Canadian life is better are rated Informative, and all the posts here suggesting American life is better are rated Trolls. Real objective rating here guys.
I remember using that really cool GUI on the Apple IIGS, and I was wondering if there was some way to run a telnet shell on it or something (or just an archive of GS/OS software link would be nice, that was a really cool operating system, almost looked exactly like a Macintosh (though I recall it wasn't much for multitasking).
I don't know why, but the IIGS is the coolest of the classic computers to me. It just looks really damn classy IMHO.
I for one am looking forward to seeing this technology develop, and let me tell you this is signifigant! As an electrical engineer that builds transmitters for an income, I can tell you just how signifigant.
There are basically two ways to transform voltage right now. The first way is to use an electromagnetic transformer, which is a very bulky solution. A 2A 125v-24v power transformer can be the size of my fist, and will generate a lot of heat at even half that amperage max.
The second way is to use a type of switching power supply that basically uses a step-up transformer to convert the voltage and then filters it down through a series of circuits. This is the system used by most power supplies nowadays because it is cheaper and smaller, but there are many disadvantages to this method as well, most importantly SAFETY. The voltages that run through these can be thousands of volts, and also the circuits can be complicated (it's easier with a transformer, because all you need is a recitifer bridge and a filter capacitor).
This method, on the other hand, uses a peizoelectric method, which (if I'm understanding it correctly) is very cool. If you need an analogy, this method basically acts like a quartz crystal does, like in radio transmitters and those little RC cars you probably got for christmas.
If these aren't too expensive and can handle at least a few amps, I can see these being adopted widely in the market, not just in laptops. These things are a potental goldmine, for the improved efficiency alone (heat loss = energy loss).
Am I the only one that's a little concerned with the prospect of being able to buy a universal garage door opener? Isn't this like making a master key to every lock in the country?
Frankly, I wish they ruled for the DMCA on this one...
Radio won't die, but it'll be forced to improve.
on
Who Needs Radio?
·
· Score: 1
I've been studying radio (both the technology and social impacts of it) for years now.
Radio will never die out. What I believe will happen (and plan on writing on in the future) is that the internet will break loose RIAA's grip on distribution, which will in turn mean that music will be distributed based on quality and not on promotion through traditional means (such as radio). As a result, radio stations will either have to adapt to the internet standard of music distribution, or sink into a hole along with the RIAA. You don't have to look to the future to see this trend evolving, it's happening right now. Stations are getting more bland and corporate, and as a result they are starting to be frowned upon by the public, as was very loudly seen with the media deregulation hearings.
If the people downstream are so troubled by flooding, why is it the people UP-STREAM that are forced to move and get their land flooded into a resivoir? Why don't the people that are so sick of flooding just stop living by the damn river! Why make the people that aren't affected by floods pay?
This is interesting, but it really doesn't get there. Mind you, I have always been a large advocate of changing the unix file structure: It is a messy, disguisting frankenstein of combinations from the old unix system days, that even experienced unix hackers get messed up in. Hell, until I got a book on porting unix software, -I- didn't know how the unix file structure was defined, and I've been doing this for 5 years!
As for the "Frankenstein" description, consider this: When a file is supposed to be in/usr/local for BSD, the same one is supposed to be in/opt/bin for SysV. It's a mess!
What needs to happen is that a new STANDARD needs to come out, and everybody needs to support it. Of course, nobody will ever support new standards, so that's out of the question, but if you really want to improve the unix file structure you have to do that. Anything less than that, and you're simply adding to the fragmentation problem.
Finally, there are two technical problems with this guy's method, too. Firstly, all the directories use Capital letters, which is unneccessary for clarification, AND makes it harder to type. Same goes for the full name of the folders: reducing "Executables" to "exe" would be just as recognizable, AND a lot easier to deal with in a shell command.
Try searching for Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution on the search engine. The central government has historically been trying to sweep these events under the rug per-se, because both of them question the effectiveness of the communist government.
Either the search engine really sucks, or something is keeping me from trying to pull up any useful information regarding them. The Falun Gong search provided equally humorous results (all of them demonizing the Falun Gong).
And please, people, stop calling the US fascists, being stupid is not trendy anymore.
Jesus, stop comparing the US with fricking China! Especially when your argument is bunk.
The fact that you can get pro-scientology and anti-scientology stuff at the same time means that there is no censorship in place. And any censorship that would occur is because of Google, not the US GOVERNMENT.
I'm not sure what the difference is between the large boxes and the coax filter, but I do know that it takes more than a simple coax filter to do descrambling. (There has to be filter tuning, which involves user control, which makes it so you can't just do "Plug-n-Play" of descramblers)
It's my guess that you need a -real- cable descrambler (as in, one from the official cable company) to use the coax filter, and that cable box needs to send data to the cable company to work, so the coax filter blocks one half of the transaction or something. This puzzles me, though, because I think getting the legitimate descrambler box would cost more than it would to get a "pirate" cable box anyways.
Anybody know more than I do about this?
(P.S. NO I DON'T STEAL CABLE. Why would I anyways, all they ever do is play shitty movies that involve naked women and exploding cars and crap.)
If you want to -really- tune up your Linux system for power savings, read The Linux Battery-Powered Mini Howto. Using the methods presented in this howto, turning off my swap, and using console-based programs to do my work (such as vi) has increased my battery time from less than an hour to four and a half hours. When you cut the unneccessary crap and make sure that the hard drive is only on when neccessary, you can save a lot of power on laptops.
I am disguisted by the result of this. Somebody should stage a national protest, because I will be there. The fact that congress can make a 100+ life of author time of copyright and call it "limited" is just sick. I am very angry right now with the Supreme Court, who are supposed to watch for stuff like this.
Slashdot Mirror
The link to that anime description is not correct. Which is unfortunate, because I thought for once that an anime company was going to try bringing over a classic, instead of the super new anime (which honestly hasn't been doing it for me lately). I guess it's business as usual for ADV with a slightly different way to download the trailer.
I don't know about you guys, but the only conclusion I got out of this poll is that average American internet users are stupid and don't know what they want. No real surprises here, if you don't know anything about the internet than you shouldn't have any opinion on how to change it. This was a pretty idiotic poll IMHO. Let's poll mall-goers next to see which method of surgical cutting they prefer.
I guess you could note that people are getting edgy about the security problems on the 'net. But what the hell is government going to do about that? If you have a problem with worms, blame Microsoft's complete inability to understand what a buffer overflow is. For spam, ask your ISP why they haven't put in a spam filter yet. These are generally resolveable problems that the government can't do diddily squat to fix.
Palm Desktop is a great, relatively bloat-free program for managing this stuff. Mind you, I don't actually have a palm pilot (though might get one in the future). The program is FREE on Palm's web site, and unlike Outlook, it has better compatibility with third party software (like, say, a different e-mail client). It's also a bit more simple and intuitive. Give it a shot.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people still cling on to the theory that BSD is "dieing" and that OpenBSD is "bad" and has "no driver support". I've been a sysadmin since before Linux was a corporate buzzword, and I've used just about every operating system out there, and I can say that OpenBSD is the best server operating system, hands down.
Sure, there are speciality corners where other operating systems might work better, but I can't see any good reason why security shouldn't be the priority of every single server on the internet. OpenBSD is the only operating system that is actually taking a serious look at security (whereas most Linux distributions are so bad with security right now, that they are less secure than Windows Server). While OpenBSD's "security audit" of the system code is the major point in its favor, some of the real advances in security are sometimes the subtle hidden ones that aren't even being talked about, such as the Pro Police stack, W^X memory protection (which Linus dismissed for not being a "silver bullet"), and randomized malloc. They might be stupid, little changes, but each one means that it is that much harder for somebody to remotely break into the server. The point is, OpenBSD is thinking about all this, while the other Linux distributions are thinking of ways to stuff more dangerous programs into their default startup.
OpenBSD driver support is far cleaner, plug-n-play's far better, and in some areas is actually more complete than Linux (OpenBSD supports a ton of networking devices right now, including wireless).
Once more difficult than Linux, it is now becoming signifigantly easier, because the core system is clean and concise, and there is extensive documentation both in the form of the manpages and in published books. Where most Linux distributions have opted for bloated, unmanageable monsters that are immediately susceptible to remote buffer overflows the second they are installed, OpenBSD has opted for cleanliness and system simplicity, which I think is a far more enlightened and managable approach in the long run.
When software isn't good enough for the team, they make their own. It is this no-compromise position that led to OpenSSH, which every unix system in the country is now using. It also led to PF, the packet filter that absolutely blows away ipfilter (though I'll admit could be a bit easier to use, I'm a moron when it comes to filter rules). The fact that they can make these incredibly powerful, landscape-changing programs on a whim should be a hint to just how talented the developer team really is.
There are some areas where the system needs work, but those areas are quickly focused on and resolved (after last week's hackathon we'll probably have better RAID device support, despite driver snubs by many of the companies).
I probably sound like a hypocritical ideologue in this post, but I'm more interested showing off the good side of OpenBSD so I can drive this point: People that blindly use Linux for everything are missing out on the real advances in practical server technology, which aren't happening in penguin country.
If your stale Marxist rhetoric is correct, then wouldn't HONG KONG be what you are talking about? Because they have no minimum wage, and yet are as prosperous and make as much money as we do (and MORE than their former owner, England, does). Hong Kong has nullified almost every single stupid theory about capitalism, I wish people would stop learning their economics in a bubble.
http://globalpolitician.com/articles.asp?ID=255
I applied for a computer security consultant job for Wells Fargo a while ago and never got it. Lets pretend I got the job, and I'm talking to the guy that's telling me they're going to do this:
"Okay, how can I put this so you completely understand me... You plan to put Windows on ATM machines, use a universal protocol standard, and then hook it up to the internet? Okay, how do I begin... this is a REALLY STUPID IDEA. This is an INCREDIBLY DUMB IDEA. You WILL get hacked. You -WILL- destroy the credibility of your bank. And to top it off, it will cost a ridiculous amount of money. Any questions?"
I'm in the process of starting my own Security Consulting company right now because I got sick of looking for jobs, so when they get completely hacked maybe they'll contract me to fix it. I'm not immediately sure what I'd recommend instead, it's definetely something you should put a lot of thought into, but Windows is definetely the wrong direction here. You don't use the second most hacked system on the internet to secure your bank transfers.
There's a reason cable is called a natural monopoly. You can't decide to choose some other cable provider. It is much easier to create a competing Wi-Fi access system, and with more Wi-Fi, you get more competition, which lowers prices.
"Free Internet" is snake oil. If the government pays for it with taxes, it's not actually free (unless you're a hobo), because you're paying for it, just in another, less efficient form. Nevermind the fact that starting this will eventually lead to half the city using the government access and will end up costing a ton of money just for that (and I'm sure the people out there that don't use the service will love to pay for it for you, don't worry). Oh, and forget about freedom from censorship, I'm sure they'll put a nice little web site blocker on it too.
Jesus, grow up people. Learn some BASIC economics here.
Thank you very much, it's very appreciated!
It's a very interesting analysis, now that I know the water is salty. I've been told by engineers much more experienced than I that groundwave is as important as line-of-sight in lower frequency broadcasting. But, in my own work I've found that those generalizations are often blurred by practical reality. Then, there's the question of "which is better, good groundwave or good line-of-sight"? I think this picture, along with your information, could lead me to conclude the latter. Line-of-sight still appears plays a serious role in AM broadcasting.
It's definetely something I'll have to investigate further. Very interesting!
Groundwave is a very important factor at lower frequencies, because low frequencies 'travel' along the ground (a natural property of their longer wavelength). The more conductive the ground is, the farther the signals will travel (based on the output wattage of course).
For very high frequencies, like Wi-Fi, the groundwave is considerably less important. With Wi-Fi, the line-of-sight is the most important factor. So you're right if you're thinking about higher frequencies, which are where most of the modern radio systems are operating. My book is about mediumwave (AM band) broadcasting however, so concepts like groundwave still play a pretty important part.
I'm making a radio broadcasting book, and I had a question about the New York water system that I never quite addressed.
It's on this picture: http://www.usinternet.com/users/kyledrake/newyork- radio.jpg
It's an old field strength determination from the 1920s. See the water area below the taller buildings with the '20' strength? Is that water salty, fresh, or a mix of both (salty-leaning, or fresh-leaning even)? The reason I ask, is because if it is salty, it shows with more signifigance the blocking ability of structures (as salt water is very conductive).
Thank you!
For full disclosure, I'm a libertarian writing a series of articles on how badly the FCC has fucked up over the years. I'm not finished yet, but I'm planning on getting IBOC wrapped up sometime this week. It's very nice to see that slashdotters are getting into this, maybe I'll send the article to one of the editors.
Let me first say that Dean is a very smart guy, and for somebody that apparently doesn't know about the guts of the FCC he is definetely pointing in the right direction. Though I wouldn't say the FCC should be completely abolished (the FCC is, after all, more like hundreds of regulatory systems rolled into one entity than a single one doing a couple things). The FCC does do -some- good things, and the idea of policing the radio spectrum isn't neccessarily a bad one, but the FCC is a terrible bungler of policy and the no-compromise command-and-control system is a horrible one at best. Low power radio licenses that would have otherwise been available are denied, not because there isn't space, but simply because the FCC doesn't want to lose their control over the bands, coupled with lobbyists pushing rat bills through congress telling the FCC what to do. They recently adopted a digital radio system (IBOC) that in hybrid mode increases per-station bandwidth by up to 50% thus increasing interference and reducing range, while at the same time signifigantly reducing quality on the only band where audio could actually be improved, the AM broadcast band (and possibly even reducing the quality of the FM one). As for moral regulation, the organization is a total joke and a gross slap in the face of the concept that government shouldn't regulate speech and content.
Not to mention that some services are not susceptible to these regulations, thus giving cable and satellite an upper hand over broadcast. Telecom regulation is perhaps the biggest joke of all, and will be obsoleted by voice over IP systems anyways, which are again not susceptible to these regulations and thus have an upper hand and prosper quickly due to the fact that they are a technological improvement and the FCC isn't there to grind progress to a halt. I remember reading an article a while ago regarding phone numbers that can change with service, where the author said that greedy companies would keep it from working. I got a good laugh out of this, considering that Hong Kong allowed for the same thing years ago and it's worked stellarly for them (I then had somebody suggest that Hong Kong commerce wasn't heavily regulated because their companies are "less evil" than US ones, which was equally hilarious). Another great thing about the telecom industry is that it has become another way for stupid politicians to tax you: Last time I checked, my phone bill had a $5-$10 tax on it. Enough with broadband tax, let's get rid of the phone tax too!
Why does the FCC act like this? Firstly, because it is run by morons. Its commissioners are rejects of higher positions in Washington politics, dominated by businessmen and lawyers rather than technocrats and engineers. It's not their fault, in my opinion, they do the best they can, but you need to thoroughly understand your trade before you attempt to regulate it. Also, with things like IBOC, you are absolutely correct about lobbyist powers being the primary influence: IBOC increases interference big time, -WAY- more than Low Power FM would have caused, so why isn't the NAB raising a stink about it? Simple: Because most of these big radio monopolies have investments in Ibiquity, the company that made IBOC and holds its patents and licensing. When Americans are forced to throw away hundreds of millions of perfectly good radios, it's these companies that are going to get the royalties.
Here's my libertarian catch-all: the FCC is too big, stupid, and corrupt to handle most of its regulation properly, and there's a lot of things it shouldn't be regulating at all. One thing's for sure, the FCC is overreaching at best, and society as a whole would benefit if a very large amount of the FCC was broken apart.
I'd like to point out that all the posts here suggesting Canadian life is better are rated Informative, and all the posts here suggesting American life is better are rated Trolls. Real objective rating here guys.
By the way, I'm not a vintage GUI OS partisan.. I'm planning on dusting off that C64 in the basement too ;)
I remember using that really cool GUI on the Apple IIGS, and I was wondering if there was some way to run a telnet shell on it or something (or just an archive of GS/OS software link would be nice, that was a really cool operating system, almost looked exactly like a Macintosh (though I recall it wasn't much for multitasking).
I don't know why, but the IIGS is the coolest of the classic computers to me. It just looks really damn classy IMHO.
I for one am looking forward to seeing this technology develop, and let me tell you this is signifigant! As an electrical engineer that builds transmitters for an income, I can tell you just how signifigant.
There are basically two ways to transform voltage right now. The first way is to use an electromagnetic transformer, which is a very bulky solution. A 2A 125v-24v power transformer can be the size of my fist, and will generate a lot of heat at even half that amperage max.
The second way is to use a type of switching power supply that basically uses a step-up transformer to convert the voltage and then filters it down through a series of circuits. This is the system used by most power supplies nowadays because it is cheaper and smaller, but there are many disadvantages to this method as well, most importantly SAFETY. The voltages that run through these can be thousands of volts, and also the circuits can be complicated (it's easier with a transformer, because all you need is a recitifer bridge and a filter capacitor).
This method, on the other hand, uses a peizoelectric method, which (if I'm understanding it correctly) is very cool. If you need an analogy, this method basically acts like a quartz crystal does, like in radio transmitters and those little RC cars you probably got for christmas.
If these aren't too expensive and can handle at least a few amps, I can see these being adopted widely in the market, not just in laptops. These things are a potental goldmine, for the improved efficiency alone (heat loss = energy loss).
Am I the only one that's a little concerned with the prospect of being able to buy a universal garage door opener? Isn't this like making a master key to every lock in the country?
Frankly, I wish they ruled for the DMCA on this one...
I've been studying radio (both the technology and social impacts of it) for years now.
Radio will never die out. What I believe will happen (and plan on writing on in the future) is that the internet will break loose RIAA's grip on distribution, which will in turn mean that music will be distributed based on quality and not on promotion through traditional means (such as radio). As a result, radio stations will either have to adapt to the internet standard of music distribution, or sink into a hole along with the RIAA. You don't have to look to the future to see this trend evolving, it's happening right now. Stations are getting more bland and corporate, and as a result they are starting to be frowned upon by the public, as was very loudly seen with the media deregulation hearings.
COUNTER SUIT!
If the people downstream are so troubled by flooding, why is it the people UP-STREAM that are forced to move and get their land flooded into a resivoir? Why don't the people that are so sick of flooding just stop living by the damn river! Why make the people that aren't affected by floods pay?
This is interesting, but it really doesn't get there. Mind you, I have always been a large advocate of changing the unix file structure: It is a messy, disguisting frankenstein of combinations from the old unix system days, that even experienced unix hackers get messed up in. Hell, until I got a book on porting unix software, -I- didn't know how the unix file structure was defined, and I've been doing this for 5 years!
/usr/local for BSD, the same one is supposed to be in /opt/bin for SysV. It's a mess!
As for the "Frankenstein" description, consider this: When a file is supposed to be in
What needs to happen is that a new STANDARD needs to come out, and everybody needs to support it. Of course, nobody will ever support new standards, so that's out of the question, but if you really want to improve the unix file structure you have to do that. Anything less than that, and you're simply adding to the fragmentation problem.
Finally, there are two technical problems with this guy's method, too. Firstly, all the directories use Capital letters, which is unneccessary for clarification, AND makes it harder to type. Same goes for the full name of the folders: reducing "Executables" to "exe" would be just as recognizable, AND a lot easier to deal with in a shell command.
Try searching for Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution on the search engine. The central government has historically been trying to sweep these events under the rug per-se, because both of them question the effectiveness of the communist government.
Either the search engine really sucks, or something is keeping me from trying to pull up any useful information regarding them. The Falun Gong search provided equally humorous results (all of them demonizing the Falun Gong).
And please, people, stop calling the US fascists, being stupid is not trendy anymore.
Jesus, stop comparing the US with fricking China! Especially when your argument is bunk.
The fact that you can get pro-scientology and anti-scientology stuff at the same time means that there is no censorship in place. And any censorship that would occur is because of Google, not the US GOVERNMENT.
Stop feeling lucky and do an actual search.
I'm not sure what the difference is between the large boxes and the coax filter, but I do know that it takes more than a simple coax filter to do descrambling. (There has to be filter tuning, which involves user control, which makes it so you can't just do "Plug-n-Play" of descramblers)
It's my guess that you need a -real- cable descrambler (as in, one from the official cable company) to use the coax filter, and that cable box needs to send data to the cable company to work, so the coax filter blocks one half of the transaction or something. This puzzles me, though, because I think getting the legitimate descrambler box would cost more than it would to get a "pirate" cable box anyways.
Anybody know more than I do about this?
(P.S. NO I DON'T STEAL CABLE. Why would I anyways, all they ever do is play shitty movies that involve naked women and exploding cars and crap.)
If you want to -really- tune up your Linux system for power savings, read The Linux Battery-Powered Mini Howto. Using the methods presented in this howto, turning off my swap, and using console-based programs to do my work (such as vi) has increased my battery time from less than an hour to four and a half hours. When you cut the unneccessary crap and make sure that the hard drive is only on when neccessary, you can save a lot of power on laptops.
I am disguisted by the result of this. Somebody should stage a national protest, because I will be there. The fact that congress can make a 100+ life of author time of copyright and call it "limited" is just sick. I am very angry right now with the Supreme Court, who are supposed to watch for stuff like this.