How is this different from Ricochet's service?
Sure, it's going to be 802.11, and not a proprietary protocol, but it'll still have to be a subscription-based service (unlike the free WiFi service in Aspen Colorado being sponsored by some generous guy with deep pockets). Any idea of cost?
Chip H.
By the score of 0, it looks like other slashdot members have never read Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine. (Gollum & Coke were the names of the two wire-wrap prototypes). That book got me started in software development. I actually worked with an Eclipse MV-8000 in college -- nice machine, but old, even then.
Harrumph. Back on topic. I'm amazed at 20TB of online storage, with another 45TB of near-online storage. But... maybe that's not so impressive today - using RAID5 and 120GB drives, that would only be about 500 drives, or about 192U of rack space - the size of two large (for the USA) refrigerators.
Don't skimp on the power supply, guys. Get an Antec or one from PC Power & Cooling. Sure they're expensive, but not as expensive as rebuilding your burnt-out house.
Yes, if the bleed resistor had gone bad (assuming there was one in the first place), the capacitor might still have held a lethal charge. You were lucky.
The same applies to CRT tubes. I wouldn't want to mess with them, either.
If it's in the contract, you need to obey it as long as you want to continue receiving their service. Don't like the contract? You can try negotiating better terms (unlikely) or go somewhere else, like DSL.
If you were to lease a T1, the contract would be much more liberal, only forbidding the truly nasty stuff - kiddy porn, spamming, and assaulting other systems. Plus whatever your upstream provider decided they didn't like, of course. Or go without access.
My 2 year-old fridge is just fine. How about making the "internet terminal" portion available as a retrofit?
Use magnets on the back to hold it onto the door, an umbilical to run to my kitchen's cat-5 & coax TV connection. Maybe include a PCCard slot for 802.11b or a USB connection for a printer.
If you have kids, you could position it nearer the floor rather than at adult height & run TeleTubbies or <shudder> Barney videos on it to keep the kids in one spot. Maybe even stick it on the dishwasher door, if that's more convenient for you than the fridge.
I'm sad to see IBM stop shipping Linux on the Thinkpads, but I hope that they'll continue to ship drivers for their hardware. Failing that, I hope they'll choose sensible hardware that would be easy for someone in the open source community to write a driver.
... that reflects the typical goverment employee-for-life is the fat man who decrypted the message - "There is no answer".
The Cyberiad is also very good - sort of a cybernetic Grimm's fairy tales. I think it was the second sally where the two constructors built the multimortal polypolice beast with laser eyes that was used to kidnap King Korodulan. Along with a green gig with a lantern on the left side for a diversion.
The translation of that book was outstanding - all the terms, rhymes, puns, and alliterations came through very well.
Actually, I've seen it happen with an F-16. I was on my way to my workcenter in 1984, walking past the hanger, when I saw the crew chief go to duck under the aircraft to get to the other side. He was too far forward, and the intake draft sucked him in by his field jacket, folded him in half, and then the engine chewed him up and blew half-burnt pieces of him all over the inside of the hanger.
Is it like the "bathtub curve" for hard drives, where you get some infant mortality, but then the system is good for months and months, until it reaches end-of-life and the number of failures approach 100%?
This thought occurred to me as well. The major stumbling block that I see is how to connect two of these matrixed-carbon poles together.
If I wanted to build a gigantic geodesic dome, I could use this material to form the edges of the triangular panels, but how would I form the connectors at the corners? If I have to transition to another material to make the joint (one of the photos in the article showed an aluminum end-cap), how much strength do I lose?
For that matter, how does this material help me create stronger panels for my dome? Could you form a sandwich with it, sort of like the aluminum honeycomb material used in Formula One race cars?
What with all the allegations of Pay for Play going on right now with the Radio industry, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar set of events isn't occuring in the online world too.
After all, the streaming audio sites are under tremendous pressure to make a profit, and when the indie promotor shows up with a briefcase full of money, it must be very tempting to go along with his playlist "suggestions".
I turned down the Mercedes TeleAid (their name for their telematics service) on my ML-320 because when I'm in the car, I'm only concerned about driving, and all I ask is that my fellow motorists also be concerned about driving. You think car radios/cellphones/kids in the back seat are distracting? Wait until the guy in the next lane starts weaving towards you because he's trying to drive, shave, and surf foxnews.com at the same time.
Now if only Mercedes could do something about their product quality, rather than loading up the cars with gizmos like air conditioned driver's seats (I'm not kidding - it's an option on the S-Class).
OK, here's some finance trivia:
If, starting on July 20th 1969, you had deposited just $24,596.29 each month into a 4% annual interest rate savings account, you'd have the $20 million today needed to buy your ticket. Or, you could have started a small software company who provided the BASIC language to Doc Roberts in Albuquerque, and have money to spare.
Companies appear to be using more and more dodgy ways to make money from us
It's because they think that no one will catch them at it. "Oh, we'll track their surfing habits by downloading this little control onto their PC. They'll never notice, and we can resell the info for a butt-load of money."
The thing I find amazing is how you can be running a truly useful website, and some banner ad that you're displaying links to software 5 businesses away. Which then downloads spyware onto your loyal visitor's computers. The next thing you know you're getting hate mail and end up on the RBL over something you had no control over. As a website owner, that's a hassle I just don't need, and is probably a contributing factor in the decline of banner ad revenue.
I have to concur. After making a couple of starts at Linux development (I'm a former OS/2, current Win32 programmer), I just threw up my hands in frustration and starting learning about.NET. Why?
Because there is NO UNITY of VISION in Linux!!
I *want* to develop for Linux. I *like* the idea of open source. But it seems to me that that people who develop tools for Linux are all suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. They start projects and never finish them!
Why can't they standardize on something as simple as command-line parameter prefixes? Is it a single dash, or a double-dash, or something else?
Chip H.
(No, this isn't flamebait - it's an opinion)
'Nine Princes' will suck, not because SciFi Channel's authors are a bunch of hacks who wouldn't recognize a good story if fell from the sky and whacked them on the head -- but because SciFi Channel doesn't have enough money to do it right.
- Corwin's Mercedes SL? Uhhh, budget crunch - he's in a '92 Ford Taurus wagon. Sorry.
- And, uhh, Nine Princes? More like 5, really. They had the other four signed to do it, but then they left for "Saved By The Bell: The Final Prom Dance".
- Dworkin's animated cards? "Magic: The Gathering" cards that one of the crew stole from his little kid brother's room.
- Walking The Pattern? They simply asked the LAPD to administer field sobriety tests to the cast.
If SciFi were to put the appropiate amount of effort and money into this (like USA Networks did for Stephen King's 'The Stand'), then they'll have something worth spending 6 hours of my life on.
I say rebuild, with two towers just like before (using a newer design certainly, maybe not as tall, and hopefully a little more attractive than the 1970's ones). I dunno about re-using the "World Trade Center" name. I'm sure that someone will call for naming them the "Guiliani Towers" or something, but I say they should be named "Fuck" and "You" as a message to anyone else who wants to attack us.
All the disk-utility vendors have gotta love this. Right now their software probably assumes only two devices per ATA/EIDE channel. But with SATA, you can daisy-chain additional drives, which means a software upgrade is required for all your disk-utilities and backup software to be able to address the additional devices.
Must make a note to put in a "buy" order with the broker for Symantec/Norton, Powerquest, Iomega, Veritas, and Computer Associates.
Jerome - You could have been sentenced to white-collar resort prison with conjugal visits. But now you're on your way to Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison, where you'll be rooming with a guy who has one too many Y-chromosomes.
Just shut the hell up, and let a qualified attorney speak for you.
BTW: I understand that Thursdays are shower days. Pucker up!
It's ironic that when I viewed this story, there was an IBM banner ad present trumpeting how their DB2 database runs on operating systems like Linux, Windows, AIX, and OS/2.
I do miss OS/2. All it really needs is a re-write for 64-bits.
According to today's Pricewatch, the difference between an Athlon 1800 XP and an Athlon 1800 MP is $68.
If you're like me, and you keep your computers forever, what's $136 over a 3-year lifetime when you can be assured of reliable operation? (OK, it's $3.78 a month for fewer crashes).
Slashdot Mirror
How is this different from Ricochet's service? Sure, it's going to be 802.11, and not a proprietary protocol, but it'll still have to be a subscription-based service (unlike the free WiFi service in Aspen Colorado being sponsored by some generous guy with deep pockets). Any idea of cost? Chip H.
By the score of 0, it looks like other slashdot members have never read Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine. (Gollum & Coke were the names of the two wire-wrap prototypes). That book got me started in software development. I actually worked with an Eclipse MV-8000 in college -- nice machine, but old, even then.
Harrumph. Back on topic.
I'm amazed at 20TB of online storage, with another 45TB of near-online storage. But... maybe that's not so impressive today - using RAID5 and 120GB drives, that would only be about 500 drives, or about 192U of rack space - the size of two large (for the USA) refrigerators.
Chip H.
Don't skimp on the power supply, guys. Get an Antec or one from PC Power & Cooling. Sure they're expensive, but not as expensive as rebuilding your burnt-out house.
Chip H.
Yes, if the bleed resistor had gone bad (assuming there was one in the first place), the capacitor might still have held a lethal charge. You were lucky.
The same applies to CRT tubes. I wouldn't want to mess with them, either.
Chip H.
If it's in the contract, you need to obey it as long as you want to continue receiving their service. Don't like the contract? You can try negotiating better terms (unlikely) or go somewhere else, like DSL.
If you were to lease a T1, the contract would be much more liberal, only forbidding the truly nasty stuff - kiddy porn, spamming, and assaulting other systems. Plus whatever your upstream provider decided they didn't like, of course. Or go without access.
Chip H.
My 2 year-old fridge is just fine. How about making the "internet terminal" portion available as a retrofit?
Use magnets on the back to hold it onto the door, an umbilical to run to my kitchen's cat-5 & coax TV connection. Maybe include a PCCard slot for 802.11b or a USB connection for a printer.
If you have kids, you could position it nearer the floor rather than at adult height & run TeleTubbies or <shudder> Barney videos on it to keep the kids in one spot. Maybe even stick it on the dishwasher door, if that's more convenient for you than the fridge.
Chip H.
Absolutely.
I'm sad to see IBM stop shipping Linux on the Thinkpads, but I hope that they'll continue to ship drivers for their hardware. Failing that, I hope they'll choose sensible hardware that would be easy for someone in the open source community to write a driver.
Chip H.
... that reflects the typical goverment employee-for-life is the fat man who decrypted the message - "There is no answer".
The Cyberiad is also very good - sort of a cybernetic Grimm's fairy tales. I think it was the second sally where the two constructors built the multimortal polypolice beast with laser eyes that was used to kidnap King Korodulan. Along with a green gig with a lantern on the left side for a diversion.
The translation of that book was outstanding - all the terms, rhymes, puns, and alliterations came through very well.
Chip H.
Actually, I've seen it happen with an F-16. I was on my way to my workcenter in 1984, walking past the hanger, when I saw the crew chief go to duck under the aircraft to get to the other side. He was too far forward, and the intake draft sucked him in by his field jacket, folded him in half, and then the engine chewed him up and blew half-burnt pieces of him all over the inside of the hanger.
I still have nightmares.
Chip H.
What's the failure curve like for a gyroscope?
Is it like the "bathtub curve" for hard drives, where you get some infant mortality, but then the system is good for months and months, until it reaches end-of-life and the number of failures approach 100%?
Chip H.
I think the word you were looking for is "discrete", not "discreet".
Discrete: Consisting of unconnected distinct parts.
As in: "Amazon shipped my books in discrete boxes."
Discreet: Marked by, exercising, or showing prudence and wise self-restraint in speech and behavior; circumspect.
As in: "Discreet Escort Services."
Chip H.
This thought occurred to me as well. The major stumbling block that I see is how to connect two of these matrixed-carbon poles together.
If I wanted to build a gigantic geodesic dome, I could use this material to form the edges of the triangular panels, but how would I form the connectors at the corners? If I have to transition to another material to make the joint (one of the photos in the article showed an aluminum end-cap), how much strength do I lose?
For that matter, how does this material help me create stronger panels for my dome? Could you form a sandwich with it, sort of like the aluminum honeycomb material used in Formula One race cars?
Chip H.
What with all the allegations of Pay for Play going on right now with the Radio industry, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar set of events isn't occuring in the online world too.
After all, the streaming audio sites are under tremendous pressure to make a profit, and when the indie promotor shows up with a briefcase full of money, it must be very tempting to go along with his playlist "suggestions".
Chip H.
I turned down the Mercedes TeleAid (their name for their telematics service) on my ML-320 because when I'm in the car, I'm only concerned about driving, and all I ask is that my fellow motorists also be concerned about driving. You think car radios/cellphones/kids in the back seat are distracting? Wait until the guy in the next lane starts weaving towards you because he's trying to drive, shave, and surf foxnews.com at the same time.
Now if only Mercedes could do something about their product quality, rather than loading up the cars with gizmos like air conditioned driver's seats (I'm not kidding - it's an option on the S-Class).
Chip H.
That's what student loans are for, Reschly.
;-)
OK, here's some finance trivia:
If, starting on July 20th 1969, you had deposited just $24,596.29 each month into a 4% annual interest rate savings account, you'd have the $20 million today needed to buy your ticket. Or, you could have started a small software company who provided the BASIC language to Doc Roberts in Albuquerque, and have money to spare.
Chip H.
Companies appear to be using more and more dodgy ways to make money from us
It's because they think that no one will catch them at it. "Oh, we'll track their surfing habits by downloading this little control onto their PC. They'll never notice, and we can resell the info for a butt-load of money."
The thing I find amazing is how you can be running a truly useful website, and some banner ad that you're displaying links to software 5 businesses away. Which then downloads spyware onto your loyal visitor's computers. The next thing you know you're getting hate mail and end up on the RBL over something you had no control over. As a website owner, that's a hassle I just don't need, and is probably a contributing factor in the decline of banner ad revenue.
Chip H.
I have to concur. After making a couple of starts at Linux development (I'm a former OS/2, current Win32 programmer), I just threw up my hands in frustration and starting learning about .NET. Why?
Because there is NO UNITY of VISION in Linux!!
I *want* to develop for Linux. I *like* the idea of open source. But it seems to me that that people who develop tools for Linux are all suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. They start projects and never finish them!
Why can't they standardize on something as simple as command-line parameter prefixes? Is it a single dash, or a double-dash, or something else?
Chip H.
(No, this isn't flamebait - it's an opinion)
- Don't have the talent required for CS
- Can't work/think alone
- Are "Honesty Challenged"
I don't think this is a bad thing. I wouldn't want someone writing the software for my ABS braking system who is a cut-n-paste queen.Sturm, Ruger & Co. is one of the largest producers of titanium in the US. They use it in golf clubs, firearms, and specialized castings
'Nine Princes' will suck, not because SciFi Channel's authors are a bunch of hacks who wouldn't recognize a good story if fell from the sky and whacked them on the head -- but because SciFi Channel doesn't have enough money to do it right.
- Corwin's Mercedes SL? Uhhh, budget crunch - he's in a '92 Ford Taurus wagon. Sorry.
- And, uhh, Nine Princes? More like 5, really. They had the other four signed to do it, but then they left for "Saved By The Bell: The Final Prom Dance".
- Dworkin's animated cards? "Magic: The Gathering" cards that one of the crew stole from his little kid brother's room.
- Walking The Pattern? They simply asked the LAPD to administer field sobriety tests to the cast.
If SciFi were to put the appropiate amount of effort and money into this (like USA Networks did for Stephen King's 'The Stand'), then they'll have something worth spending 6 hours of my life on.
I say rebuild, with two towers just like before (using a newer design certainly, maybe not as tall, and hopefully a little more attractive than the 1970's ones). I dunno about re-using the "World Trade Center" name. I'm sure that someone will call for naming them the "Guiliani Towers" or something, but I say they should be named "Fuck" and "You" as a message to anyone else who wants to attack us.
Chip H.
All the disk-utility vendors have gotta love this. Right now their software probably assumes only two devices per ATA/EIDE channel. But with SATA, you can daisy-chain additional drives, which means a software upgrade is required for all your disk-utilities and backup software to be able to address the additional devices.
Must make a note to put in a "buy" order with the broker for Symantec/Norton, Powerquest, Iomega, Veritas, and Computer Associates.
Chip H.
Jerome - You could have been sentenced to white-collar resort prison with conjugal visits. But now you're on your way to Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison, where you'll be rooming with a guy who has one too many Y-chromosomes.
Just shut the hell up, and let a qualified attorney speak for you.
BTW: I understand that Thursdays are shower days. Pucker up!
It's ironic that when I viewed this story, there was an IBM banner ad present trumpeting how their DB2 database runs on operating systems like Linux, Windows, AIX, and OS/2.
I do miss OS/2. All it really needs is a re-write for 64-bits.
Chip H.
According to today's Pricewatch, the difference between an Athlon 1800 XP and an Athlon 1800 MP is $68.
If you're like me, and you keep your computers forever, what's $136 over a 3-year lifetime when you can be assured of reliable operation? (OK, it's $3.78 a month for fewer crashes).