...but I doubt it.
Just tried out the New 6.06 Ubuntu Dapper on a clean install. Although I've been configuring servers for years with Gentoo or RedHat, the Desktop Linux keeps stomping on me. Wireless card (3com 3CRSHPW196) seems to work but doesn't, DNS gets lost every few minutes on static LAN, could not figure out how to import Outlook Express messages and settings into Evolution and many other surprises along the way. It looks nice, but it's so much effort looking at message boards for hours to figure out how to fix things that aren't even broken...
OK, I understand the issue of redundancy causing lowering the security, but at the same time I think it should be possible to have an encryption designed in a way that a wrong byte corrupts a single file within the container and not the entire container... This happens often enough.
I concur. But there's also the issue of reliability. People here keep naming Truecrypt and I've tried it out, but in the FAQ they specify that if some bytes are lost, then you may loose the entire encrypted partition. Am I the only one to find this totally unacceptable ?!? Losing one file to a disk crash due to a power failure is one thing, losing the entire partition is NOT. Wake me where there's some built in redundancy, and no, don't tell me to put it on a RAID as it's 2 different problems.
Bunnies were called cunnies/connies before the Victorians changed their name 'cos they sounded too much like the slang term for something else.
It's not just that they sound the same, it's the same origin, coming from the latin and still found in italian 'coniglio' for instance. Also the international 'cunilingus' and other terms...
Never heard of any of those candies. From their names they sound rather disgusting. You should rephrase that to "rule the US of A" where the sense of taste is a long gone memory. In the meanwhile the rest of the world enjoys chocolate eggs.
I have my own list here, with emphasis on Cygwin, but the single most important tool is [Send To Clipboard As Name] which is a leftover from Win95 tweaks. Essential when doing lots of file manipulations but hard to find. It's an inf file and a dll.
My website has already been on the front page of slashdot, so I'm not really kharma whoring, but yes, we do run Linux there. I got back last months from 12 months in Antarctica, spending the winter at the new station of Concordia on the high Antarctic Plateau where we had temperatures of -78C (no, not including the windchill). I was doing atmosphere science there, in charge of 8 experiments as part of a team of 13 people. I had something like 10 PCs with me, many of whom died at one point or another, due to the high altitude, exposure to cold when the power goes out, or overheating due to thin dry air (not good for cooling).
For Antarctica, I think an OS with a penguin would be the most suitable.
And to answer your question, yes we run Linux for some of the acquisition systems. I hate XP for the 'call home' reason. If you need to reinstall a PC there, it sucks as there's no Internet connection and getting a satellite comm up is expensive and very unreliable. On the other hand you cannot do 'emerge world' either...
I've been reading some of Kurzweil's articles for over 2 decades and 99% of the time I call bullshit. He always promises AI but he (or others) never comes up with anything close to his predictions. I have no idea where he gets his projections from, even if his (?) singularity theory kinda makes sense (once the computing power of a CPU gets above that of the human brain thanks to Moore's Law, all hell breaks loose). Just to say that putting 10 thousand pocket calculators next ot each other doesn't make it an AMD x64...
I've been told the same thing about my site many times and I've been putting off doing a visual overhaul for years. But then I discovered that I've increadibly well ranked for some basic keywords on Google (top 3 for 'Penguins', 'Dead Pixels', 'climbing pictures' and many others). And without resorting to any dirty tricks at all.
So I figure the high ranking is due to several factors, like being on the net for 10 years, but also being all text and spending more time on content than on 'aspect'. See how many sites have their menus entirely in mouseover graphics of JavaScript... What do you want Google to do with those ?
But it does look ugly, particularly in Mozilla/Firefox which doesn't seem to respect float and alignment orders in CSS. Or at least in any way I could control. If anybody has a workaround...
I don't know in what format they provide the image, but if it's some kind of bitmap I've written a freeware for the express purpose of displaying quickly large image files (64 exabyte limit). Windows only, sorry.
Why is it that nowadays archeology is considered newsworthy only if it has something to do with the bible ?
A few days ago there was a much more interesting discovery in Creta of several tablets written in Linear B (1200BC, the written language of the Acheans [the Greeks] of the Tojan war, and also the first written language ever translated thanks to a computer in the 60s), and also in the much rarer and much more misterious Linear A (c. 1700BC), still undeciphered.
I'd expect Slashdoters to be more interested by languages decyphered by computer or still mysterious than by some vague myth...
Apparently they want to build it in the high deserts of South America
Well, I'm also loosely connected with this, and it may end up in a more surprising place: Dome C in the middle of Antarctica where I'm currently finishing the first winterover (there's been a bunch of Slashdot articles about this previously). During the winter, my fellow astronomer (I do atmospheric sciences) has determined that it is the best site for astronomy on the planet. Period. Next year they'll bring a 3.5m telescope and a bunch of interferometers; and after that there are talks for big scopes.
Yes, full 3D view has a name: 4pi steradians, which is he unit used to measure solid angles.
BTW, I'd like to see the opposite of this concept. Imagine sevral fixed cameras pointing at an interesting scene, say a boxing game. You build a real-time 3D model of the scene and then create a virtual image filmed from any vantage point. It would allow you to have views filmed from the inside of sporting events. Imagine seeing from the eyes of the guy being hammered by Tyson... Then again it might not be such a good idea...
For those who want to know more, the movie was filmed at the French station of Dumont d'Urville in 2003. I'm currently wintering over at the new continental station of Concordia where we had -72C today... Sorry, can't write more as we connect only 15 minutes a day to download email (and read slashdot, hehe)...
Kudo to Jacket for his success. I met him couple years back when he was working on a previous penguin documentary.
Yet more proof that the internet is truly everywhere
Well, well, well... I'm writing this from the center of the Antarctic Plateau, where the winter night is now permanent and the temperature drops to below -80C... And I can tell you that the internet connection sucks. We connect 2-3 times a day to transfer email, and web connection is only available during those 20 or so minutes. The DNS timeout is 2 seconds while the ping on the DNS is on average 5 seconds... (if anyone knows how to change that 1st value on a windows box, let me know through my site contact address).
So, no, Internet access is not ubiquitous yet. Read my blog for more info (some actually relevant to this thread).
At these speeds, the kinetic energy is so great that chemical explosives are nearly pointless
Which is why, if alien wanted to destroy civilisation on Earth, they wouldn't come firing with laser guns like in most sci-fi flicks, but just slowly accelerate a bunch of moderate size asteroids over the course of some decades/centuries.
Yes, don't mistake me, I love my Tikka too (I have 3, one per backpack so I won't forget it) and use it all the time. It's a huge improvement on the old classic Petzl with 4.5V flat battery, particularly as you notice in terms of duration. But the light is blindeningly blue, leaving you with blind spot when you turn it off. I just purchased a red Tikka in online astronomy accessories store, thinking it would have red LEDs, but was dispointed to see it's just a red filter...
I hope those provide better lighting quality than the so-called energy-saving bulbs. I just moved into a new appartment and decided to use those ESB. They are a scam IMO:
they absolutely are not '5 times brighter than normal bulbs'. The 100W equivalent lits about as much as the old 40W bulb that was there.
their color sucks, depending on the model (I bought several different), they are either greenish or even more yellow than a tungsten bulb
They take time to lit to full output.
They cost a lot.
After a month of trying to get used to them, I threw them away. So I hope LEDs can do better, but since I already have several headlamps with while LEDs, I expect some problems. In particular the headlamps I have (Petzl and Black Diamond) are way too blue, they are blinding.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
--Robert A. Heinlein.
As recently posted on slashdot, I'll be wintering over at Dome C next year (leaving next week). The temperature there drops down to -84C in winter. How can I tell if there is some CO2 ice formed somewhere ?
In the past, on cold summer days (meaning below -50C), I've noticed solid state condensation on some materials, but that's just ice (I think). Anyway, my mission blog will be here.
Both the parent and g-parent posts ideas are interesting. I thought of another way to limit the power of companies: have a rule that states that the highest salary (all included) cannot be more than N times the lowest one. This way if a company is truly profitable, everyone down to the janitor will flourish. And when a downturn comes, no golden parachute for the guy who is, in most respects, the most likely culprit. I'll let the computation of a fair value of N to real economists.
Slashdot Mirror
...but I doubt it.
Just tried out the New 6.06 Ubuntu Dapper on a clean install. Although I've been configuring servers for years with Gentoo or RedHat, the Desktop Linux keeps stomping on me. Wireless card (3com 3CRSHPW196) seems to work but doesn't, DNS gets lost every few minutes on static LAN, could not figure out how to import Outlook Express messages and settings into Evolution and many other surprises along the way. It looks nice, but it's so much effort looking at message boards for hours to figure out how to fix things that aren't even broken...
OK, I understand the issue of redundancy causing lowering the security, but at the same time I think it should be possible to have an encryption designed in a way that a wrong byte corrupts a single file within the container and not the entire container... This happens often enough.
I concur. But there's also the issue of reliability. People here keep naming Truecrypt and I've tried it out, but in the FAQ they specify that if some bytes are lost, then you may loose the entire encrypted partition. Am I the only one to find this totally unacceptable ?!? Losing one file to a disk crash due to a power failure is one thing, losing the entire partition is NOT. Wake me where there's some built in redundancy, and no, don't tell me to put it on a RAID as it's 2 different problems.
Never heard of any of those candies. From their names they sound rather disgusting. You should rephrase that to "rule the US of A" where the sense of taste is a long gone memory. In the meanwhile the rest of the world enjoys chocolate eggs.
I have my own list here, with emphasis on Cygwin, but the single most important tool is [Send To Clipboard As Name] which is a leftover from Win95 tweaks. Essential when doing lots of file manipulations but hard to find. It's an inf file and a dll.
My website has already been on the front page of slashdot, so I'm not really kharma whoring, but yes, we do run Linux there. I got back last months from 12 months in Antarctica, spending the winter at the new station of Concordia on the high Antarctic Plateau where we had temperatures of -78C (no, not including the windchill). I was doing atmosphere science there, in charge of 8 experiments as part of a team of 13 people. I had something like 10 PCs with me, many of whom died at one point or another, due to the high altitude, exposure to cold when the power goes out, or overheating due to thin dry air (not good for cooling).
And to answer your question, yes we run Linux for some of the acquisition systems. I hate XP for the 'call home' reason. If you need to reinstall a PC there, it sucks as there's no Internet connection and getting a satellite comm up is expensive and very unreliable. On the other hand you cannot do 'emerge world' either...I've been reading some of Kurzweil's articles for over 2 decades and 99% of the time I call bullshit. He always promises AI but he (or others) never comes up with anything close to his predictions. I have no idea where he gets his projections from, even if his (?) singularity theory kinda makes sense (once the computing power of a CPU gets above that of the human brain thanks to Moore's Law, all hell breaks loose). Just to say that putting 10 thousand pocket calculators next ot each other doesn't make it an AMD x64...
So I figure the high ranking is due to several factors, like being on the net for 10 years, but also being all text and spending more time on content than on 'aspect'. See how many sites have their menus entirely in mouseover graphics of JavaScript... What do you want Google to do with those ?
But it does look ugly, particularly in Mozilla/Firefox which doesn't seem to respect float and alignment orders in CSS. Or at least in any way I could control. If anybody has a workaround...
I don't know in what format they provide the image, but if it's some kind of bitmap I've written a freeware for the express purpose of displaying quickly large image files (64 exabyte limit). Windows only, sorry.
Why is it that nowadays archeology is considered newsworthy only if it has something to do with the bible ?
A few days ago there was a much more interesting discovery in Creta of several tablets written in Linear B (1200BC, the written language of the Acheans [the Greeks] of the Tojan war, and also the first written language ever translated thanks to a computer in the 60s), and also in the much rarer and much more misterious Linear A (c. 1700BC), still undeciphered.
I'd expect Slashdoters to be more interested by languages decyphered by computer or still mysterious than by some vague myth...
BTW, I'd like to see the opposite of this concept. Imagine sevral fixed cameras pointing at an interesting scene, say a boxing game. You build a real-time 3D model of the scene and then create a virtual image filmed from any vantage point. It would allow you to have views filmed from the inside of sporting events. Imagine seeing from the eyes of the guy being hammered by Tyson... Then again it might not be such a good idea...
Kudo to Jacket for his success. I met him couple years back when he was working on a previous penguin documentary.
And also inside most binoculars and also, surprisingly, when you use the 'night' position of your rearview mirror.
If I did that, I would end up naked after the latest batch gets holed up too much...
Well, actually they are at the bottom of the drawer, but I didn't know this, so I won't throw them away.
Yes, don't mistake me, I love my Tikka too (I have 3, one per backpack so I won't forget it) and use it all the time. It's a huge improvement on the old classic Petzl with 4.5V flat battery, particularly as you notice in terms of duration. But the light is blindeningly blue, leaving you with blind spot when you turn it off. I just purchased a red Tikka in online astronomy accessories store, thinking it would have red LEDs, but was dispointed to see it's just a red filter...
- they absolutely are not '5 times brighter than normal bulbs'. The 100W equivalent lits about as much as the old 40W bulb that was there.
- their color sucks, depending on the model (I bought several different), they are either greenish or even more yellow than a tungsten bulb
- They take time to lit to full output.
- They cost a lot.
After a month of trying to get used to them, I threw them away. So I hope LEDs can do better, but since I already have several headlamps with while LEDs, I expect some problems. In particular the headlamps I have (Petzl and Black Diamond) are way too blue, they are blinding.So, technical issues or marketing issues ?
In the past, on cold summer days (meaning below -50C), I've noticed solid state condensation on some materials, but that's just ice (I think). Anyway, my mission blog will be here.
Both the parent and g-parent posts ideas are interesting. I thought of another way to limit the power of companies: have a rule that states that the highest salary (all included) cannot be more than N times the lowest one. This way if a company is truly profitable, everyone down to the janitor will flourish. And when a downturn comes, no golden parachute for the guy who is, in most respects, the most likely culprit. I'll let the computation of a fair value of N to real economists.