Ok, gang, listen up! We are smart people. Let's put our heads together and make some plans to respond to this threat. We can do it!
First question: when the expected platoons of powerful, high-speed autonomous killer robots approach, should we maybe, um, throw eggs? Call the mayor's office? Stand still with flowers in our hair and dare them to run us down? Get out our handguns, shotguns, rifles, assault weapons and then shoot, shoot, shoot?
I don't know how to break this to you. But look, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about this. Countries do not deploy weapons in such a way that others can do something about them. They deploy weapons to intimidate other countries (and, indirectly, their own people) into doing their bidding. It is a plan that works every time. And it is a key part of the plan that no on can say "no" to the country that is deploying the weapons.
Here is my suggestion: relax and try to enjoy the remaining time each of us has. That might be fifty or sixty more years, or it might be a day or two.
And, of course, if you can think of a better response, please let me know.
As a practical matter, Amazon's reviews constitute a rich source of information which, taken as directed, usually results in a good or excellent purchase choice. This is especially true when a product has been reviewed hundreds of times.
There is no way to eliminate bias from reviews, but as the numbers increase, it stands to reason that a smaller proportion of the reviews will be corrupt.
A truly standout product will collect many reviews, of which a high proportion will be 4 or 5. That is what to look for.
Products with smaller numbers of reviews are more difficult to judge,
As in most real-life situations, certainty is unachievable, but good information is available for those willing to put some effort into the selection process.
Like our immune system, the Amazon review process usually works well, typically degrades gracefully, and occasionally fails catastrophically.
It's ok for Chrome to be continuously updated without using publicly visible version numbers because it's a single-sourced proprietary service. There is no question about interoperability, because -- aside from the extensions interface -- Chrome only interacts with itself (one body of source code) and with the user. With respect to chrome, there is nothing to standardize.
Please don't assume that everyone else has the same default lack of caring about others. I tend to care about everyone. I'm not saying that's a better attitude -- though it might be -- but it's certainly not the same as yours.
One of the "authors" this post has "plagerized" uses some perplexing grammar.
The first time I saw this on an advertising flyer, my host was kind enough to explain to a confused visitor that "Does your driveway need sealed?" was localese for "Does your driveway need TO BE sealed?".
Likewise, "... diapers need changed" means "diapers need to be changed".... Which may be true, but I really don't agree about the cartridge box.
I agree, and I'm glad Verisign has signed off on this (at least temporarily), but as of 10:50 PM ET on 3 October, I'm still getting the nasty redirect, like this one: http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=fflklkjfff. com...
George Gamow's One, Two, Three... Infinity is an irreplaceable classic combining the author's deep understanding with jokes and whimsical stories about numbers and physics. An absolute joy, one of my favorite books since age twelve.
Even before the Kinko's case, the recent proliferation of fraudulent emails, supposedly from ebay and similar sites, which ask for passwords to be re-entered on a web site, illustrate that passwords are no longer an adequate form of security.
The most practical alternative at the present time appears to be use of a magnetic stripe card in addition to the password, similar to the authentication process for an ATM. Magnetic stripe readers are now quite common and could be installed on public terminals at minimal expense. Probably the most significant barrier to their widespread adoption is the lack of standard protocols and software packages.
Google is sooo dying. It will join *BSD in doggy heaven.
Be very careful with those medications
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I was diagnosed with "adult ADHD" a few years ago and tried a number of medications, including both Ritalin and a drug called Adderall, which contains dextroamphetamine ("Dexadrine") along with another isomer of the same chemical formula.
The stimulants did help me concentrate, but they also caused me to become somewhat "manic" in the sense that I got extremely overoptimistic about a business venture (an invention involving wireless, recordable toys that could talk back and forth to each other). I then spent far too much of my own money on the project, and ended up with troublesome debts.
I was never psychotic, violent, or dangerous, so maybe what I had should be called "hypomania" (a milder version) rather than "mania", but I really did go out and spend far too much money! And spending too much money is one of the hallmarks of mania.
Even though I stopped taking amphetamines several years ago, I still miss that enthusiasm and the ability to hyper-concentrate for long periods. But I would say that overall, taking those drugs was a mistake, and I would not do it again.
If this move improves Verisign/Network Solution's customer service for domain names and DNS management, I'm all in favor. Although that service has been pretty abysmal, I get the impression they are genuinely trying to do better.
I signed up for their Advanced DNS Manager for one of my domains after 24-hour failure at DNSMadeEasy made me nervous.
The overall reliability and redundancy of Network Solutions' DNS servers appears to be outstanding, but the site for editing DNS records has sometimes been unavailable. At $24/yr/domain, all parts of the system should work all of the time, in my always humble opinion.
---- This is not really a sig.
Offsite backup is crucial in case of natural disaster. Think of the WTC disaster. And with broadband access, backup over the internet is the best way to achieve offsite backup.
If you have an ISP account including storage space, or have any other access to an offsite server, arrange for automatic FTP or NFS backup of critical data to that server. The backup can be done with commercial software such as Retrospect, which has an FTP option and does its own timed backups, or with free software such as cpdup, run from a nightly cron job. I use both.
This situation should be seen as a great opportunity for you to keep working for your old employer at much higher rates. Be very upbeat and professional when you discuss this with her. Don't bring up any old issues - this is business and it's for your benefit and hers. "I would be happy to help you. Now that I'm independent, my rate for this kind of work is $75 per hour. (Here you negotiate if necessary. Don't go below about $45 per hour.) Where do I send my bill when the work is completed? To whose attention?"
When you go in to do the work, wear nice clothes, preferably a suit unless the workplace is very casual. Act calm and professional, and don't pal around too much. Work the whole time you're there and keep careful track of your hours. Bill in 15-minute increments. For instance, the bill might be for 2.75 hours. Bill for all the time you spend, but don't bill for any time you didn't spend. Don't charge for travel unless it's more than 45 minutes in each direction, and in that case bill the travel at half rate or else charge a minimum for showing up instead.
When finished with the job, thank your new customer for the opportunity to do business with her, and make it clear that you would be pleased to be of assistance again in the future. Don't ask for a check on the spot, but quietly mention again as you're leaving that you'll be sending along a bill.
When you send your invoice, make it very professional looking. Use a company name if possible, but if you're not set up for this in advance you can use your own name.
It is advisable to send the bill in a window envelope, with only the client's company name, attn line, and address showing through the window. Print on the envelope (or on a label) a nice-looking return address.
To put those "bazillion tests" and "puny portions" into perspective, note that most of the movies show droplet sizes of 700 nl.
Thus a typical blood tube of about 7 ml would yield 7.0E-3 / 7.0E-7 = 1.0E4 = 10,000 droplets! If the blood were diluted (likely), the number of droplets per tube would be correspondingly increased.
Under these circumstances, blood could be automatically mixed with many different assay reagents, perhaps in widely varying concentrations. Each reagent would be used in such miniscule quantities that the total cost per test would be negligible. Colorimetric analysis of the results would be trivially accomplished by directing the mixed droplets past sensing stations.
Some droplets could be sent to storage areas for timed incubation, while others moved through faster test procedures elsewhere on the chip.
If the droplets contained bacteria in suspension, they could be systematically exposed to a huge variety of prospective antibiotic compounds in parallel at extremely low cost without the need for cumbersome slides, vials, and so forth.
I was trying to hint, in a (perhaps excessively) subtle way, that the original posting did not offer any easily decipherable clues as to the purpose or strengths of the new scheduler. In other words, I was expressing the opinion that the posting conveyed very little information.
I guess the first moderator picked this up, while the one who called my post "overrated" did not.
This moderation up and then down a point made me laugh quite a bit. I had been faintly praised, then unceremoniously knocked off my molehill-sized pedestal.
The nipple is NOT intuitive. Ask any woman who has breast fed a baby. The mom has to teach the baby how to find the nipple and how to hang on long enough to get something!
That said, the nipple is almost perfectly "modeless", and so is the telephone, at least for ordinary direct-dial calls.
But my washing machine was pretty intimidating at first. All those unclearly-labeled settings! My wife had to teach me how to use it, of course.
The most common actions, as well as those required to set up the equipment, should be the easiest to access and understand. Infrequently-used options can be more complex, since the user is already accustomed to the interface at that point.
Finally, there is no substitute for closely observing the actions of a group of naive users confronted with a proposed new interface. That is just common sense.
A handy source of human-readable time (claiming 300-400 msec acccuracy) can be found at www.time.gov. It puts up a java applet with a ticking digital clock. This can be useful when you need to set something manually within a second or two, perhaps for later refinement via a synchronization protocol such as ntp.
Excellent developer opportunity here. Nothing in GPL says you can't make money selling software for Linux. Source included, of course, or available on the web site.
The user wanting to put together greeting cards and signs (ok, "cheesy" if you like) just wants to buy a CD that will install and run. S/he couldn't care less where the source code resides.
Take a look at Lucky Green's new PGP public key at the end of his message. Geez, is that thing a key or a keystream? I have this funny feeling we may be taking a good idea too far...
Sendmail's SMTP out is fine on Camcast Cable
on
SMTP-Friendly ISPs?
·
· Score: 1
I have a small network (about 10 computers) behind a simple firewall box (Xsense's XRouter Pro) that does NAT. One of those computers is hosting FreeBSD, including Sendmail, running on an old P90 behind the firewall. From any of the other machines on the network, a mail client such as Eudora can be set up to use that SMTP server for outbound mail. Sendmail does what its name implies: it sends the mail out. Presumably on port 25, since I did not specify a custom port. A mail client can also be set up to use Comcast's SMTP server. That works perfectly well, but a mail client typically gets rid of the mail much faster when using the internal SMTP server.
Is this what you mean? It works just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, gang, listen up! We are smart people. Let's put our heads together and make some plans to respond to this threat. We can do it!
First question: when the expected platoons of powerful, high-speed autonomous killer robots approach, should we maybe, um, throw eggs? Call the mayor's office? Stand still with flowers in our hair and dare them to run us down? Get out our handguns, shotguns, rifles, assault weapons and then shoot, shoot, shoot?
I don't know how to break this to you. But look, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about this. Countries do not deploy weapons in such a way that others can do something about them. They deploy weapons to intimidate other countries (and, indirectly, their own people) into doing their bidding. It is a plan that works every time. And it is a key part of the plan that no on can say "no" to the country that is deploying the weapons.
Here is my suggestion: relax and try to enjoy the remaining time each of us has. That might be fifty or sixty more years, or it might be a day or two.
And, of course, if you can think of a better response, please let me know.
As a practical matter, Amazon's reviews constitute a rich source of information which, taken as directed, usually results in a good or excellent purchase choice. This is especially true when a product has been reviewed hundreds of times.
There is no way to eliminate bias from reviews, but as the numbers increase, it stands to reason that a smaller proportion of the reviews will be corrupt.
A truly standout product will collect many reviews, of which a high proportion will be 4 or 5. That is what to look for.
Products with smaller numbers of reviews are more difficult to judge,
As in most real-life situations, certainty is unachievable, but good information is available for those willing to put some effort into the selection process.
Like our immune system, the Amazon review process usually works well, typically degrades gracefully, and occasionally fails catastrophically.
It's ok for Chrome to be continuously updated without using publicly visible version numbers because it's a single-sourced proprietary service. There is no question about interoperability, because -- aside from the extensions interface -- Chrome only interacts with itself (one body of source code) and with the user. With respect to chrome, there is nothing to standardize.
Please don't assume that everyone else has the same default lack of caring about others. I tend to care about everyone. I'm not saying that's a better attitude -- though it might be -- but it's certainly not the same as yours.
Is it really better to die of a heart attack than to run into another car?
Chaucer's astrolabe manual, translated into modern english, can be found here.
One of the "authors" this post has "plagerized" uses some perplexing grammar.
... Which may be true, but I really don't agree about the cartridge box.
The first time I saw this on an advertising flyer, my host was kind enough to explain to a confused visitor that "Does your driveway need sealed?" was localese for "Does your driveway need TO BE sealed?".
Likewise, "... diapers need changed" means "diapers need to be changed".
-- Not a Sig ---
I agree, and I'm glad Verisign has signed off on this (at least temporarily), but as of 10:50 PM ET on 3 October, I'm still getting the nasty redirect, like this one: http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=fflklkjfff. com...
George Gamow's One, Two, Three... Infinity is an irreplaceable classic combining the author's deep understanding with jokes and whimsical stories about numbers and physics. An absolute joy, one of my favorite books since age twelve.
Even before the Kinko's case, the recent proliferation of fraudulent emails, supposedly from ebay and similar sites, which ask for passwords to be re-entered on a web site, illustrate that passwords are no longer an adequate form of security.
The most practical alternative at the present time appears to be use of a magnetic stripe card in addition to the password, similar to the authentication process for an ATM. Magnetic stripe readers are now quite common and could be installed on public terminals at minimal expense. Probably the most significant barrier to their widespread adoption is the lack of standard protocols and software packages.
Google is sooo dying. It will join *BSD in doggy heaven.
I was diagnosed with "adult ADHD" a few years ago and tried a number of medications, including both Ritalin and a drug called Adderall, which contains dextroamphetamine ("Dexadrine") along with another isomer of the same chemical formula.
The stimulants did help me concentrate, but they also caused me to become somewhat "manic" in the sense that I got extremely overoptimistic about a business venture (an invention involving wireless, recordable toys that could talk back and forth to each other). I then spent far too much of my own money on the project, and ended up with troublesome debts.
I was never psychotic, violent, or dangerous, so maybe what I had should be called "hypomania" (a milder version) rather than "mania", but I really did go out and spend far too much money! And spending too much money is one of the hallmarks of mania.
Even though I stopped taking amphetamines several years ago, I still miss that enthusiasm and the ability to hyper-concentrate for long periods. But I would say that overall, taking those drugs was a mistake, and I would not do it again.
Just my two cents.
If this move improves Verisign/Network Solution's customer service for domain names and DNS management, I'm all in favor. Although that service has been pretty abysmal, I get the impression they are genuinely trying to do better. I signed up for their Advanced DNS Manager for one of my domains after 24-hour failure at DNSMadeEasy made me nervous. The overall reliability and redundancy of Network Solutions' DNS servers appears to be outstanding, but the site for editing DNS records has sometimes been unavailable. At $24/yr/domain, all parts of the system should work all of the time, in my always humble opinion. ---- This is not really a sig.
This sort of patent should be called an unvention.
Offsite backup is crucial in case of natural disaster. Think of the WTC disaster. And with broadband access, backup over the internet is the best way to achieve offsite backup.
If you have an ISP account including storage space, or have any other access to an offsite server, arrange for automatic FTP or NFS backup of critical data to that server. The backup can be done with commercial software such as Retrospect, which has an FTP option and does its own timed backups, or with free software such as cpdup, run from a nightly cron job. I use both.
This situation should be seen as a great opportunity for you to keep working for your old employer at much higher rates. Be very upbeat and professional when you discuss this with her. Don't bring up any old issues - this is business and it's for your benefit and hers. "I would be happy to help you. Now that I'm independent, my rate for this kind of work is $75 per hour. (Here you negotiate if necessary. Don't go below about $45 per hour.) Where do I send my bill when the work is completed? To whose attention?"
When you go in to do the work, wear nice clothes, preferably a suit unless the workplace is very casual. Act calm and professional, and don't pal around too much. Work the whole time you're there and keep careful track of your hours. Bill in 15-minute increments. For instance, the bill might be for 2.75 hours. Bill for all the time you spend, but don't bill for any time you didn't spend. Don't charge for travel unless it's more than 45 minutes in each direction, and in that case bill the travel at half rate or else charge a minimum for showing up instead.
When finished with the job, thank your new customer for the opportunity to do business with her, and make it clear that you would be pleased to be of assistance again in the future. Don't ask for a check on the spot, but quietly mention again as you're leaving that you'll be sending along a bill.
When you send your invoice, make it very professional looking. Use a company name if possible, but if you're not set up for this in advance you can use your own name.
It is advisable to send the bill in a window envelope, with only the client's company name, attn line, and address showing through the window. Print on the envelope (or on a label) a nice-looking return address.
Good luck in your new venture.
To put those "bazillion tests" and "puny portions" into perspective, note that most of the movies show droplet sizes of 700 nl.
Thus a typical blood tube of about 7 ml would yield 7.0E-3 / 7.0E-7 = 1.0E4 = 10,000 droplets! If the blood were diluted (likely), the number of droplets per tube would be correspondingly increased.
Under these circumstances, blood could be automatically mixed with many different assay reagents, perhaps in widely varying concentrations. Each reagent would be used in such miniscule quantities that the total cost per test would be negligible. Colorimetric analysis of the results would be trivially accomplished by directing the mixed droplets past sensing stations.
Some droplets could be sent to storage areas for timed incubation, while others moved through faster test procedures elsewhere on the chip.
If the droplets contained bacteria in suspension, they could be systematically exposed to a huge variety of prospective antibiotic compounds in parallel at extremely low cost without the need for cumbersome slides, vials, and so forth.
That's why I found it so funny. Proportionately.
I was trying to hint, in a (perhaps excessively) subtle way, that the original posting did not offer any easily decipherable clues as to the purpose or strengths of the new scheduler. In other words, I was expressing the opinion that the posting conveyed very little information.
I guess the first moderator picked this up, while the one who called my post "overrated" did not.
This moderation up and then down a point made me laugh quite a bit. I had been faintly praised, then unceremoniously knocked off my molehill-sized pedestal.
What is the purported advantage of the new scheduler?
The nipple is NOT intuitive. Ask any woman who has breast fed a baby. The mom has to teach the baby how to find the nipple and how to hang on long enough to get something!
That said, the nipple is almost perfectly "modeless", and so is the telephone, at least for ordinary direct-dial calls.
But my washing machine was pretty intimidating at first. All those unclearly-labeled settings! My wife had to teach me how to use it, of course.
The most common actions, as well as those required to set up the equipment, should be the easiest to access and understand. Infrequently-used options can be more complex, since the user is already accustomed to the interface at that point.
Finally, there is no substitute for closely observing the actions of a group of naive users confronted with a proposed new interface. That is just common sense.
A handy source of human-readable time (claiming 300-400 msec acccuracy) can be found at www.time.gov. It puts up a java applet with a ticking digital clock. This can be useful when you need to set something manually within a second or two, perhaps for later refinement via a synchronization protocol such as ntp.
Excellent developer opportunity here. Nothing in GPL says you can't make money selling software for Linux. Source included, of course, or available on the web site.
The user wanting to put together greeting cards and signs (ok, "cheesy" if you like) just wants to buy a CD that will install and run. S/he couldn't care less where the source code resides.
$9.95, anyone?
Take a look at Lucky Green's new PGP public key at the end of his message. Geez, is that thing a key or a keystream? I have this funny feeling we may be taking a good idea too far...
I have a small network (about 10 computers) behind a simple firewall box (Xsense's XRouter Pro) that does NAT. One of those computers is hosting FreeBSD, including Sendmail, running on an old P90 behind the firewall. From any of the other machines on the network, a mail client such as Eudora can be set up to use that SMTP server for outbound mail. Sendmail does what its name implies: it sends the mail out. Presumably on port 25, since I did not specify a custom port. A mail client can also be set up to use Comcast's SMTP server. That works perfectly well, but a mail client typically gets rid of the mail much faster when using the internal SMTP server. Is this what you mean? It works just fine.