I went Friday to the 12:30pm showing. I thought it was about as good as a Hitchhiker's Guide movie could be. Plenty of Guide entries and a great The Voice made it true to the book, but you just can't capture narrative sentences like, "The rectangular shaped Vogon ships hung in the air much like bricks don't" on film.
The Heart of Gold's doors indeed sighed with pleasure as they opened and closed, but I doubt that the audience understood the GPP. It was so much funnier in the book when Arthur and Ford are frantically running through series of doors that exude happiness as they open and shut.
Eddie the computer was absolutely true to the book, but I just didn't think it was as funny as it was in print. "Guys, I'm tickled pink to inform you that two nuclear missles are headed right for us!"
My overall impression was that the book was geared too much toward children. I got this impression from the light-hearted soundtrack and the stereotypical "wah, wah, waaaaah" kind of music when things go wrong.
Coming out of the theater, I saw groups of fans with their towells in line at the box office. I got a real kick out of that. In retrospect, I should have told them not to panic.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't stay for the credits, where I'm told there are several bonus Guide entries. Dang...
All in all, I liked it, and will probably buy it on DVD, but only because I'm a long-time H2G2 fan. I bet anyone who hasn't read the book will leave the theater mostly confused.
I tested this device for a couple weeks as a candidate for running some software I was developing. This was last summer, mind you. The results were awful. The MCC (modular computing core) can run in one of two "shells". One is a hand-held, passively cooled device (TFA calls it a "Micro Tablet") with a touch-screen LCD and a couple USB ports. It has a velcro strap that lets you easily carry it in one hand by strapping it around your palm. The other "shell" is a desktop docking-station with a fan for cooling and keyboard/mouse and VGA connectors. TFA calls this one the "Desktop Dock".
Let me tell you that this thing ran *hot*. After working with it for a few minutes in the handheld, my hands became so sweaty that I worried it was going to slip out of them. Also, since it's sensitive to heat, it would throttle the CPU back to 300MHz, and Windows XP would slow to a crawl. I found that I could lock the CPU in a 1000MHz frequency, but then it just got even hotter.
The desktop docking station was no better. I tried playing a DivX movie in both modes, and the playback ran at about 1 frame per second. I would expect a 1000MHz CPU to do better. Obviously, this thing has other bottlenecks.
Even for regular productivity applications, like MS Word and friends (err, enemies, this *is*/.), it was still unbearably slow.
In short, this thing is a great idea in concept, but failed to pan out in reality for me.
I couldn't get either of these items to work properly with Ubuntu or Gentoo. The second monitor just clones the first, and the whole system freezes when I take it off or put it on the docking station.
Would anyone recommend Python in an embedded environment, like say embedded Linux on a Virtex 4 with dual hard-core PPC processors running at 350MHz? Would anything but C/C++ be fast enough for this kind of environment?
I'm inclined to think that the embedded world is still very much dependent on the old workhorses C and C++, but I could be wrong.
Lastly, you can't beat Debian stability with the power of apt. I can do inline upgrades of my Debian machines, that's more then the Fedora users can say...I'd have to go to each server and put the new CD in, then go through the whole setup cycle.
You don't have to go to each Fedora machine with a CD. I've updated many Fedora and RedHat boxes to the next release with apt for rpm, like so:
You are right in that I don't think it's possible to perform a seamless dist-upgrade without a moment of downtime (to Debian's credit), but it's not quite as bad as taking a CD from machine to machine. That would be intolerable.
Also, for the record, I have had Fedora machines start behaving strangely after such an upgrade. Frankly, I'm a Debian-on-the-server fan myself.
For the full details of the exploit, TFA gives a pretty decent recipe:
The technical part: How it is done Here is the full recipe with every step outlined. It's extremely simplified to benefit non-tech readers, and hence not 100% accurate in the finer details, but even though I really have tried to keep it simple you may want to read it twice:
1. Googlebot (the "web spider" that Google uses to harvest pages) visits a page with a redirect script. In this example it is a link that redirects to another page using a click tracker script, but it need not be so. That page is the "hijacking" page, or "offending" page.
2. This click tracker script issues a server response code "302 Found" when the link is clicked. This response code is the important part; it does not need to be caused by a click tracker script. Most webmaster tools use this response code per default, as it is standard in both ASP and PHP.
3. Googlebot indexes the content and makes a list of the links on the hijacker page (including one or more links that are really a redirect script)
4. All the links on the hijacker page are sent to a database for storage until another Googlebot is ready to spider them. At this point the connection breaks between your site and the hijacker page, so you (as webmaster) can do nothing about the following:
5. Some other Googlebot tries one of these links - this one happens to be the redirect script (Google has thousands of spiders, all are called "Googlebot")
6. It receives a "302 Found" status code and goes "yummy, here's a nice new page for me"
7. It then receives a "Location: www.your-domain.tld" header and hurries to your page to get the content.
8. It heads straight to your page without telling your server on what page it found the link it used to get there (as, obviously, it doesn't know - another Googlebot fetched it)
9. It has the URL of the redirect script (which is the link it was given, not the page that link was on), so now it indexes your content as belonging to that URL.
10. It deliberately chooses to keep the redirect URL, as the redirect script has just told it that the new location (That is: The target URL, or your web page) is just a temporary location for the content. That's what 302 means: Temporary location for content.
11. Bingo, a brand new page is created (never mind that it does not exist IRL, to Googlebot it does)
12. Some other Googlebot finds your page at your right URL and indexes it.
13. When both pages arrive at the reception of the "index" they are spotted by the "duplicate filter" as it is discovered that they are identical.
14. The "duplicate filter" doesn't know that one of these pages is not a page but just a link (to a script). It has two URLs and identical content, so this is a piece of cake: Let the best page win. The other disappears.
15. Optional: For mischievous webmasters only: For any other visitor than "Googlebot", make the redirect script point to any other page free of choice.
A lot of people are commenting that SEO is worthless, that SEO alone won't get people to stay on your site and buy your products. Well, this is only partially true. Some people make a good living by climbing the search engine ranks, and not selling anything on their site. The trick? They sell linkage. If you own a site that Google considers a pagerank 10, other site owners will pay you thousands of dollars per month to link to their site. Yes, SEO can be a profitable business model in and of itself.
Lets agree that Social Security is flawed, take the hit this generation, and start something new and rational for the next.
Great comment! I wish more Americans had this attitude. I fall in the same age group and share your opinion.
If I can feel rich, as well as travel to exotic places, living below the poverty line, and you can't feel the same way about your own life when you're clearly making a couple hundred k, I really think you might take another look at your priorities.
But you are likely not saving for retirement or your kids' education. Speaking from first-hand experience, retirement and education savings for two kids can equal your $16,000 yearly salary. You are also single, I presume. Rent is cheap, tuition is relatively cheap depending on your institution, and financial assistance abounds for students. Wait until you have 4 kids to feed, clothe, and house. Then we can talk about small salaries. I too felt rich in college, but not so anymore.
That being said, though, I feel strongly that a 6-figure salary is not required to raise a family and save for retirement. I live in a conservatively sized house, drive one car, and have a family of 4 on much less than 6 figures.
And, to stay on topic, I lost my hope for options when a large company bought my little one, but I certainly wasn't counting on them for my future.
Re:Google GLAT ( Google Labs Aptitude Test )
on
Google's Math Puzzle
·
· Score: 1
#17 Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13)=6. Notice that f(1)=1. What is the next largest n such that f(n)=n?
Now, automate this entire list into a single exe file. Then, and only then, will you get wide-spread fixes. No one wants to run down a check-list. They would rather just call their computer nerd friend/relative to do it for them.
Heck, you could even have the exe mail itself to everyone in the user's address book.;)
Microsoft has to rewrite large portions of windows code to take on new features, which make it incompatible with older software. While Unix based OS's can run older versions of software.
I don't understand this. Why is it that I can run Windows 3.1 applications on Windows XP, but everytime I recompile my kernel, my Nvidia driver stops working?
It seems like a malicious user could keep you from connecting to your own machine by sending "malicious knock noise" to multiple ports. Meanwhile, your valid knocks would be disregarded as they are intermingled with malicious knocks. This may not seem like a big deal since the malicious user's connection could probably be stopped easily. But in a crisis it may cost you precious seconds or even minutes before you can eliminate the "malicious knock noise" and log into your system.
Slashdot Mirror
I went Friday to the 12:30pm showing. I thought it was about as good as a Hitchhiker's Guide movie could be. Plenty of Guide entries and a great The Voice made it true to the book, but you just can't capture narrative sentences like, "The rectangular shaped Vogon ships hung in the air much like bricks don't" on film.
The Heart of Gold's doors indeed sighed with pleasure as they opened and closed, but I doubt that the audience understood the GPP. It was so much funnier in the book when Arthur and Ford are frantically running through series of doors that exude happiness as they open and shut.
Eddie the computer was absolutely true to the book, but I just didn't think it was as funny as it was in print. "Guys, I'm tickled pink to inform you that two nuclear missles are headed right for us!"
My overall impression was that the book was geared too much toward children. I got this impression from the light-hearted soundtrack and the stereotypical "wah, wah, waaaaah" kind of music when things go wrong.
Coming out of the theater, I saw groups of fans with their towells in line at the box office. I got a real kick out of that. In retrospect, I should have told them not to panic.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't stay for the credits, where I'm told there are several bonus Guide entries. Dang...
All in all, I liked it, and will probably buy it on DVD, but only because I'm a long-time H2G2 fan. I bet anyone who hasn't read the book will leave the theater mostly confused.
I tested this device for a couple weeks as a candidate for running some software I was developing. This was last summer, mind you. The results were awful. The MCC (modular computing core) can run in one of two "shells". One is a hand-held, passively cooled device (TFA calls it a "Micro Tablet") with a touch-screen LCD and a couple USB ports. It has a velcro strap that lets you easily carry it in one hand by strapping it around your palm. The other "shell" is a desktop docking-station with a fan for cooling and keyboard/mouse and VGA connectors. TFA calls this one the "Desktop Dock".
/.), it was still unbearably slow.
Let me tell you that this thing ran *hot*. After working with it for a few minutes in the handheld, my hands became so sweaty that I worried it was going to slip out of them. Also, since it's sensitive to heat, it would throttle the CPU back to 300MHz, and Windows XP would slow to a crawl. I found that I could lock the CPU in a 1000MHz frequency, but then it just got even hotter.
The desktop docking station was no better. I tried playing a DivX movie in both modes, and the playback ran at about 1 frame per second. I would expect a 1000MHz CPU to do better. Obviously, this thing has other bottlenecks.
Even for regular productivity applications, like MS Word and friends (err, enemies, this *is*
In short, this thing is a great idea in concept, but failed to pan out in reality for me.
Do you use dual monitors?
Do you use a docking station?
I couldn't get either of these items to work properly with Ubuntu or Gentoo. The second monitor just clones the first, and the whole system freezes when I take it off or put it on the docking station.
That thing looks awful.
Would anyone recommend Python in an embedded environment, like say embedded Linux on a Virtex 4 with dual hard-core PPC processors running at 350MHz? Would anything but C/C++ be fast enough for this kind of environment?
I'm inclined to think that the embedded world is still very much dependent on the old workhorses C and C++, but I could be wrong.
You don't have to go to each Fedora machine with a CD. I've updated many Fedora and RedHat boxes to the next release with apt for rpm, like so:
You are right in that I don't think it's possible to perform a seamless dist-upgrade without a moment of downtime (to Debian's credit), but it's not quite as bad as taking a CD from machine to machine. That would be intolerable.
Also, for the record, I have had Fedora machines start behaving strangely after such an upgrade. Frankly, I'm a Debian-on-the-server fan myself.
If SCO held theses patents, they wouldn't just be suing Sony, they'd be suing PlayStation owners as well.
A legitimate patent case involves the patented item's distributors. Not its users.
I'll bet there are hundreds of open source developers scouring these posts right now to see if they show up on someone's list.
A lot of people are commenting that SEO is worthless, that SEO alone won't get people to stay on your site and buy your products. Well, this is only partially true. Some people make a good living by climbing the search engine ranks, and not selling anything on their site. The trick? They sell linkage. If you own a site that Google considers a pagerank 10, other site owners will pay you thousands of dollars per month to link to their site. Yes, SEO can be a profitable business model in and of itself.
and run on Linux.
Since when does hardware runs on the OS?
Lets agree that Social Security is flawed, take the hit this generation, and start something new and rational for the next.
Great comment! I wish more Americans had this attitude. I fall in the same age group and share your opinion.
Good points by parent. Here's another gem from TFA:
The pioneer of the industry has plans to become the top most leaders, which they already are, this year.
What?
Shares in Utah's SCO Group went into a tailspin late Tuesday.
So what? The stock is higher now than it was when they started all this litigation in 2003.
Try this link instead. The laptop apparently comes with "SUSE® Linux HP Edition 9.1". Odd. Wonder what they've modified.
But you are likely not saving for retirement or your kids' education. Speaking from first-hand experience, retirement and education savings for two kids can equal your $16,000 yearly salary. You are also single, I presume. Rent is cheap, tuition is relatively cheap depending on your institution, and financial assistance abounds for students. Wait until you have 4 kids to feed, clothe, and house. Then we can talk about small salaries. I too felt rich in college, but not so anymore.
That being said, though, I feel strongly that a 6-figure salary is not required to raise a family and save for retirement. I live in a conservatively sized house, drive one car, and have a family of 4 on much less than 6 figures.
And, to stay on topic, I lost my hope for options when a large company bought my little one, but I certainly wasn't counting on them for my future.
For those wondering what heel-toe downshifting is, see this artcle on Edmunds.
#17 Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13)=6. Notice that f(1)=1. What is the next largest n such that f(n)=n?
199981?
I can't wait for Apple's version of a portable media center. Imagine the ease of use and style of an iPod that you can plug into your TV!
IANAL, but I interpret the violation list from the article as as:
Based on the text and comma-placement, only commercial use is prohibited.
Now, automate this entire list into a single exe file. Then, and only then, will you get wide-spread fixes. No one wants to run down a check-list. They would rather just call their computer nerd friend/relative to do it for them.
;)
Heck, you could even have the exe mail itself to everyone in the user's address book.
--Dave
See the cube in action here.
I don't understand this. Why is it that I can run Windows 3.1 applications on Windows XP, but everytime I recompile my kernel, my Nvidia driver stops working?
It seems like a malicious user could keep you from connecting to your own machine by sending "malicious knock noise" to multiple ports. Meanwhile, your valid knocks would be disregarded as they are intermingled with malicious knocks. This may not seem like a big deal since the malicious user's connection could probably be stopped easily. But in a crisis it may cost you precious seconds or even minutes before you can eliminate the "malicious knock noise" and log into your system.