I'm sure there's probably a lot of folks on here who do the SCA thing. Usually if you're a geek in one way, you're a geek in other ways too.;^)
As for joining, if it seems like it would be fun you should give it a shot. I did and I'm hooked. It's really the most fun collection-of-hobbies-all-rolled-into-one there is. Plus it's nice to get away from the computers and cellphones for a while, and sit by a campfire under some trees every so often. Good for the blood pressure, y'know?
I built some high intensity white LED lighting for...well, it's odd but a tent. I have a 18' tent that I like to go camping in. And my wife for medical reasons has almost no night vision. But I'm a BSEE - so it's no problem to come up with something.
My end result was a system with 60 high intensity LEDs. The power source was a 12v car battery that goes into a simple switched capacitor buck-boost converter that takes it down to 5v. I also added in a variable resistor to the converter trim that allows you to adjust the output voltage from 5v to somewhere around 1.5v.
Works like a champ. Your conversion efficiency drops from 95% at full load to around 75% when you dim, but it looks great. And you don't get that annoying PWM flicker that some cars have that have LEDs as their brake lights (which looks AWFUL, btw). And the whole system will work in heavy usage for two weeks without a recharge. And the whole tent is light enough to play Euchre in or read a book.
One small Whisson windmill on the roof of a suburban house could keep your taps flowing. Biggies on office buildings, whoppers on skyscrapers, could give independence from the city's water supply.
And enough of them and the humidity of the air will drop, reducing all of these miracle machines to a trickle. Probably not good for the local plant and wildlife, too. Rain is important.
I'm in the SCA, and would love the opportunity. Only problem is, once we smashed them on the field they'd sue us. Clearly we're a derivative work. Two out of three of our letters are the same.
It's really unfortunate that in this day and age you'd have to qualify a beautiful sentiment like the rest of your post like that. There was a time in this country, and not too long ago where you could say something like that and not have to cover your ass.
I think what you said stands just fine on its own. If we really want to honor these people, we need to show them and the world in general that their sacrifice was not in vain. And the best way of doing that is to continue their work.
Anyway while it may not be stealing from (insert slashenemy here). It's certainly stealing from the honest who do pay.
So you're suggesting that the reason why movies cost what they do is a function of how many people download them? There's a magical ticker in Hollywood that says 492,781 people downloaded "Herbie Fully Loaded", so we have to sell it at $17 instead of $15? Do you honestly believe that?
Conversely, if nobody downloaded a movie, do you think the industry would suddenly slash prices in appreciation for everyone's honesty? Give me a break.
Something to think about while you're going for a "freebie".
IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]
Yeah, I could see your point - if you define the function of IT that way. Most people out there though, don't. They see IT as the tech problem-solvers in the business. Fix that computer, hook me to such-and-such across VPN, get rid of my spyware.
If you want to have a group of guys doing value added activities, hire some engineers or more IT staff and define their job responsibilities that way. And once you do, don't bug them with other stuff. If they're supposed to be idea guys, let them do that and that only. Don't interrupt them with your secretary's spyware problem.
The legal machinery in this country will always expand upon any new law to the point of lunacy.
Currently the DCMA is being used as a way to stifle competition rather than its original intent of keeping content "safe", as well as other abuses. It's not different than how the Patriot Act is being used to bust drug dealers rather than combat terrorism.
As soon as the law sees a new tool, it will use it to the maximum. When you give them a hammer and tell them it's to pound nails, don't be surprised when they use it as a door opener.
22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine
What they actually mean is that 22% of all machines that phone home fail their validation test.
This doesn't take into account false positives, or people who aren't on the net, or people who uninstall the MS spyware that calls home, or virtual machines, and so on.
Best part about this is that this time, nobody is going to doubt muslix64. After his first crack was posted people were wringing their hands for weeks wondering if it was legit or a hoax.
No offense, but I find it hilarious that a user named "Black-Man" is telling us what it's like in Cuyahoga Falls. If you're local, you know that it's usualy called Caucasian Falls for a reason.
For the rest of the Slashdot crowd, the Falls is still one of those places where you can get a ticket for driving while black. Or poor. I got pulled over once for simply having a crappy car. The cops there work very hard to keep "that element" out of their neighborhood, if you know what I mean.
It's proof-of-concept. Now that we know it can be done, the next step is to figure out how to mass produce it.
Think of your car, for example. If you went to a machine shop and had them custom grind every single part for your car, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once you get a factory stamping them out...well, not so much.
This guy is one of the first. Of course it's going to be expensive.
This would be fantastic if there were a portable apps version of it. Currently I run portable Firefox and Thunderbird off my USB drive from work, and they're great. Having all that extra functionality bundled in, as well as only having one program running would rock.
Slashdot Mirror
Attempt no landings there.
I'm sure there's probably a lot of folks on here who do the SCA thing. Usually if you're a geek in one way, you're a geek in other ways too. ;^)
As for joining, if it seems like it would be fun you should give it a shot. I did and I'm hooked. It's really the most fun collection-of-hobbies-all-rolled-into-one there is. Plus it's nice to get away from the computers and cellphones for a while, and sit by a campfire under some trees every so often. Good for the blood pressure, y'know?
Ever have a bottle of soda suddenly start spraying? How well does sticking your thumb over the nozzle help?
I built some high intensity white LED lighting for...well, it's odd but a tent. I have a 18' tent that I like to go camping in. And my wife for medical reasons has almost no night vision. But I'm a BSEE - so it's no problem to come up with something.
My end result was a system with 60 high intensity LEDs. The power source was a 12v car battery that goes into a simple switched capacitor buck-boost converter that takes it down to 5v. I also added in a variable resistor to the converter trim that allows you to adjust the output voltage from 5v to somewhere around 1.5v.
Works like a champ. Your conversion efficiency drops from 95% at full load to around 75% when you dim, but it looks great. And you don't get that annoying PWM flicker that some cars have that have LEDs as their brake lights (which looks AWFUL, btw). And the whole system will work in heavy usage for two weeks without a recharge. And the whole tent is light enough to play Euchre in or read a book.
One small Whisson windmill on the roof of a suburban house could keep your taps flowing. Biggies on office buildings, whoppers on skyscrapers, could give independence from the city's water supply.
And enough of them and the humidity of the air will drop, reducing all of these miracle machines to a trickle. Probably not good for the local plant and wildlife, too. Rain is important.
I'm in the SCA, and would love the opportunity. Only problem is, once we smashed them on the field they'd sue us. Clearly we're a derivative work. Two out of three of our letters are the same.
Didn't read TFA, but when I saw this in the blurb:
draconian copyright laws
...I just assumed it was us.
Someone in America cracked this first.
Sorry, I've been at the malt whisky.
It's really unfortunate that in this day and age you'd have to qualify a beautiful sentiment like the rest of your post like that. There was a time in this country, and not too long ago where you could say something like that and not have to cover your ass.
I think what you said stands just fine on its own. If we really want to honor these people, we need to show them and the world in general that their sacrifice was not in vain. And the best way of doing that is to continue their work.
Anyway while it may not be stealing from (insert slashenemy here). It's certainly stealing from the honest who do pay.
So you're suggesting that the reason why movies cost what they do is a function of how many people download them? There's a magical ticker in Hollywood that says 492,781 people downloaded "Herbie Fully Loaded", so we have to sell it at $17 instead of $15? Do you honestly believe that?
Conversely, if nobody downloaded a movie, do you think the industry would suddenly slash prices in appreciation for everyone's honesty? Give me a break.
Something to think about while you're going for a "freebie".
Cry me a river, astroturfer.
AC post, pointless panic laden rhetoric. Somebody please mod this down, and keep /.'s signal to noise ratio up.
Will you people please for the love of all that is holy get it straight.
Theft is theft, and copyright violation is copyright violation. If they were the same thing, we wouldn't need two different laws to handle them each.
To make it super simple:
Theft: The act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.
Copyright Violation: The unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law particularly the copyright in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.
Quit buying into the idiotic *AA party line that copyright violation is the same thing as theft. It is not!
If he was a native English speaker, he'd probably be in a country that has some sort of DMCA-type law. And he'd probably be in custody by now.
Oops. I get typing fast, I get finger dyslexia sometimes. :)
IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]
Yeah, I could see your point - if you define the function of IT that way. Most people out there though, don't. They see IT as the tech problem-solvers in the business. Fix that computer, hook me to such-and-such across VPN, get rid of my spyware.
If you want to have a group of guys doing value added activities, hire some engineers or more IT staff and define their job responsibilities that way. And once you do, don't bug them with other stuff. If they're supposed to be idea guys, let them do that and that only. Don't interrupt them with your secretary's spyware problem.
It's like saying brain surgeons are smart. You have to be smart to fly a plane. So, why aren't all brain surgeons pilots?
The legal machinery in this country will always expand upon any new law to the point of lunacy.
Currently the DCMA is being used as a way to stifle competition rather than its original intent of keeping content "safe", as well as other abuses. It's not different than how the Patriot Act is being used to bust drug dealers rather than combat terrorism.
As soon as the law sees a new tool, it will use it to the maximum. When you give them a hammer and tell them it's to pound nails, don't be surprised when they use it as a door opener.
For a really spooky read, do some Google work for forfeiture abuses. Here's a good place to start.
22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine
What they actually mean is that 22% of all machines that phone home fail their validation test.
This doesn't take into account false positives, or people who aren't on the net, or people who uninstall the MS spyware that calls home, or virtual machines, and so on.
Best part about this is that this time, nobody is going to doubt muslix64. After his first crack was posted people were wringing their hands for weeks wondering if it was legit or a hoax.
"Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."
No offense, but I find it hilarious that a user named "Black-Man" is telling us what it's like in Cuyahoga Falls. If you're local, you know that it's usualy called Caucasian Falls for a reason.
For the rest of the Slashdot crowd, the Falls is still one of those places where you can get a ticket for driving while black. Or poor. I got pulled over once for simply having a crappy car. The cops there work very hard to keep "that element" out of their neighborhood, if you know what I mean.
Ohio can be a pretty embarrassing place to live.
Just line the chamber with Pentiums.
It's proof-of-concept. Now that we know it can be done, the next step is to figure out how to mass produce it.
Think of your car, for example. If you went to a machine shop and had them custom grind every single part for your car, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once you get a factory stamping them out...well, not so much.
This guy is one of the first. Of course it's going to be expensive.
This would be fantastic if there were a portable apps version of it. Currently I run portable Firefox and Thunderbird off my USB drive from work, and they're great. Having all that extra functionality bundled in, as well as only having one program running would rock.
And nothing came of it.