On the same note, I've worked for a while with an older worker who was from Britian. Their classes when he was in school were all linked together. Much like you're saying, particularly in IT [he's not asking about CS! That's a different monster!] where solutions matter...not how pretty it is. It would be better to structure the courses around projects...then allow the students flexiblity in solving the problems. Also, that would get rid of some courses [like posters whined about HTML] as they would be required skills to learn even though not specifically taught.
The problem I see is that IT guys are inflexable in changing things...so many places want somebody who has 3-5 years on some specific program [but can't ever seem to pick a good one!]... But from what I've seen of CS people they come out of school stupid and unemployable. Sure they can write a really cool OS...but they couldn't explain any reason to a manager why to USE it!
There are many more IT people than CS people...and most "hackers" fall into the IT catagory. IT is about getting the job done with the tools in front of you NOW. CS is about inventing new tools...which isn't important to most companies to have perfect tools...they just want a job done.
Before you go ragging on it remember Debian is mearly the start point...I haven't heard of many people that run vanilla, un-modified Debian and only Debian. Rember that Debian is the base for lots of other stuff...Distros like Knoppix that take the Debian sources and custom-tailor it for a specific purpose. Now that the feature is available in Debian, these other people can use it TOO! That's the real beauty of the debian system...it's designed to be fairly constant so other people can expand upon it.
True they are a bit picky about what THEY support, but the fact is that Debian is the closest thing there is to a "standard" linux. Especially now that Red Hat is discontiuning consumer versions. So even if they won't host your favorite project you can still use the Debian system to package and distribute your stuff...and because debian has such a slow rate of change over, you've got a pretty good chance of things not gettting broken without warning.
In a lot of ways simply using debian is easier than not. It seems to be the only one immune to some of the political/software changes that break usability of other distros. That's why many new "distros" like Knoppix simply use Debian as the base of their systems. The fact that they toe a hardline and are a bit slow makes them stable and predictible...which is what you really need in OS software!
But you still have to clean up the messages...it's easiest to simply check IP and subject...but if the subject is different every time it's not quick and easy...Remember lots of people use web mail now...the added space is the ISPs problem!
to clarify it, say you report a spam to Yahoo, they most likely are getting 10,000 of the same subject from similar IPs so they just drop the connection after the subject is entered [that is an elemtary feature of even the oldest email servers]...it never gets sent thru the system or to your spam filter. But now they have to run the spam filter on every single email...costing more time than simply dropping it because of subject...remember they deal with 10,000 of the same spam at once in a day....except now it dosen't look the same every time.
The key to many of the one's I've got recently is that they are using random generators so that ISPs can't easily block a whole lot of messages by simply blocking the subject...With baysen spam filters that check content it wouldn't help much. Except that the AOLs and Yahoos of the world look to drop common subjects before ever sending them to the actual spam filter....this forces them to spam check every one which breaks their system.
That's sort of what they do now. On protected CDs there are normal "fixed" tracks for CD players. When you put the CD in a PC, it can't read the broken CD tracks/ directory so it defaults to a copy of wma files. You typically have to hook up on the net to play them and get a "license" for your windows media player. But then you have offical copies [OK, they're loaded with DRM but that's a different issue].
This is classic of the industry shooting itself in the foot!!! That policy was a great concession by the labels to PC music loving folk. [Not that it's the best way, but it's a way to keep people from copying if you do it for them!!!] Of course as iTMS/iPods get bigger, you could see them adding ACC files instead [or perhaps both!]
This is absolutely stupid...and only show that the industry is way to fat for it's own good!!!
What's the date? Mars has about a hundred more days than earth, and several moons. How does that work out for a calander? When does a year start? What would a Martian month be with 2 or more moons? how many days would be in a martian week and would they need leap years or not?
It's what the mega corps like Walmart want. The "wheelers and dealers" want a system where everything can be tracked by barcode/RFID so they can get more market share....That way they can handle more diverse product mix without actually having to know what it is or who they got it from...the computers just figure it out. And the best part is all the paperwork [+ verisign hassle!] is forced on the little guy...so the big guys can beat them up over price!
You do have a great point about tag activation...I must by 75% of my stuff from the local department/grocery chain. I can see it now...getting jumped for "stealing" my own dirty underwear because they reactivated the tags. I suppose they could tally a difference of tags between when you enter and exit...but that's still complicated.
I don't think it will be beneficial economically - at root, economic growth comes from using and accessing raw materials in a more efficient way. You actually have to come up with better ways of doing things and making things.
Actually NASA in the 60's and 70's at the height of their spending was great for the economy...Lots of cool stuff was developed that has found it's way into YOUR house. Everything from ink pens, to velcro, to advanced methods of metallurgy [which you don't see, but companies that make your stuff do] Another real push for a space program would do wonders for US technology...as long as it was prevented from being outsourced!
OF course don't tell Bush that FDR and JFK were DEMOCRATS! and the republicans at the time tore them a new one for such policies. That's how we got such wonders as the Hover Dam...inventing needs to make jobs.
I wonder if the Egyptians had these problems building the pyramids?
or when it controls all the software. After all, Choice is also good to keep say, Dell, from getting too big and telling MS what they are going to buy/not buy. MS is sort of like Don King...anybody can fight as long as they pay MS to be in the ring.
not quite because Apple is making their OS components available to PC users...OK it's a stretch. How dare Apple leverage it's bundling iTMS with OSX to get in to the PC market...the gull of them!!! MSLogic ceases to amaze.
Apple has been developing quicktime for years...It was one of the first multimedia codex available for PC...until MS wanted to "share" [their rules of course] Now apple has a shot at getting quicktime back into the mainstream with just a touch of MS style bundling. You buy the iPod and install the FULL Quicktime program! including the animation and movie formats...three of the things MS has been trying to break since apple was gullible enough to ever talk to them. iPod and even moreso iTMS is a total coup for Apple in 10+ years of playing second fidddle to MS! It's a codex coup almost worth of MS in it's execution. But hey, turnabout is fair play!!!
I use GameDrive For my games...It does burn a lot of disk space, but space is cheap nowdays. I like it alot, but it needs some userfriendliness...like automatically loading CDs when you click a shortcut or something...it's not kid friendly which makes it fustrating for "little people" use because they can't do it themselves...but I suppose you could burn off some drive letters keeping them all loaded at once.
Really this is a problem! I mean they waste upto 1.5 Gigabytes of disk space and still require the CD, that's stupid. If they're going to require the CD, make a game that doesn't need patched so often and then run from the CD like a console...PC CD-roms are faster, and have more memory to use than consoles and a HDD for swaping...why do we need to install to our HDD. Or if they don't like that argument, install to the HDD, get the authorization by 1-800 # or internet and get it over with.
That said, I've taken to using Farstone's GameDrive for all my CD Rom games the only drawback is space, but even then it's probably still cheaper to burn the space than spend the time swapping disks. They probably have some copy protection involved to keep from swapping images, but I wouldn't know about that.
But the software industry has said YOU don't own the software, the CD is just a delivery tool, not what you paid for. Actually I've sent in several CDs for replacement at only a fraction of the original cost and it worked out great.
but iTMS is a part of the iPod package even if it isn't perfect. If they give in and support wma, then most of the music will be wma...no need for acc...or iTMS...MS wins by default! You miss that the competition isn't for music players, but codex/server software....and the players are Apple and MS only [real and some others are also rans right now] If Apple flinches it's lost. and along with the battle for software is the battle for consumer rights...which you will loose entirely if MS has it's way!!!
But then you have to put control software somewhere and a bridge to the internet too. Using IP is quick and simple and already in place...cost about $40 now to add basic IP to an already electronic device.
But once wmas run on iPod, apple has lost it's edge... iPod would have no distinguishing features from any other player except price...And apple can't function in a price war. That's the beauty of the MS plan. The manufactures of hardware lead a race to the bottom while MS quitely taps all of them for cash without "getting its hands dirty". MS gets a dime from every other service & device...and when pickings get slim steps in and puts the winners out of business if they don't toe MS line.
Actually it's about 60-100 LED's per 100Watt bulb.
When I was working for an ECM [Electronics Contract Manufacture] They cost OUR buyers about $.20 a pop...fairly high for electronic parts. But...
An LED typically has a lifetime of 10's of thousands of hours because it is solid state. [your light bulb will be lucky to get 1000 hours under normal use] Also, Watts per Lumen is about 50-100 to one in favor of the LED! They are that much better.
Now for our direct wired USA world the initial cost is somewhat more than the over all savings. But if you were wanting to build away from civilization or go ecofriendly, LEDs would allow you to cut the cord and use less over all juice per day. In addition, with all the different types, you could make LEDs in to any shape neccesary... you can physically see with a lot less light if you can have it where you need it...like halls lit by track lites rather than one bulb...reading lites in back of a chair..under a counter...heat and high voltage electricity aren't an issue with LEDs they can be shaped and sealed.
But mac's are supposed to be unique...again, you could change them, but we're against NATing tonite, OK. On top of that, MAC addressing skips certian IP protocols for the sake of remote configuration...it uses UDP directly I believe [don't flame me] which lets hardware talk directly to hardware without configuration. Also, using MAC addresses would allow your ISP and everybody else to know far too much about your hardware...as honest people wouldn't hack their systems. So finding flawed hardware would be even simpler...imagine being able to write a worm to target WinModems software layer directly...ouch! Right now it's a brute force thing, but imagine if you could KNOW a computer was running windows [or that it was a Dell with a vunerable nic] before you sent the virus!
The way I see it NAT was a necessity becuse if the suits were left to themselves we'd be right back to MaBell telling us what can connect to the net and when....and paying thru the noze for it. There are lots of big ISPs that would love to have complete control of what you connect...no Xbox, PS2, or Linux for you without paying $$$...or not at all because it's not "supported". not to mention corperate or government suits trying to crack your internal boxes...or simply knowing you have 20 devices in your house...it's none of their business!
The problem is that nobody "in the know" belives in NATing your stuff...everybody wants your fridge to be remote monitorable from the appliance company. While I agree that NATing too many things is causing problems [just about everybody with cable or DSL is NAT'd now...and can't run "servers"...like having a phone and still needing an operator's permission for all your calls]...or rather the lack of intellegence involved on the consumer side. It's a great solution to the problem...but it removes a level of control from the execs and engineers and we can't have that can we?
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I thought she brought spray on jumpsuits!
The problem I see is that IT guys are inflexable in changing things...so many places want somebody who has 3-5 years on some specific program [but can't ever seem to pick a good one!]... But from what I've seen of CS people they come out of school stupid and unemployable. Sure they can write a really cool OS...but they couldn't explain any reason to a manager why to USE it!
There are many more IT people than CS people...and most "hackers" fall into the IT catagory. IT is about getting the job done with the tools in front of you NOW. CS is about inventing new tools...which isn't important to most companies to have perfect tools...they just want a job done.
Before you go ragging on it remember Debian is mearly the start point...I haven't heard of many people that run vanilla, un-modified Debian and only Debian. Rember that Debian is the base for lots of other stuff...Distros like Knoppix that take the Debian sources and custom-tailor it for a specific purpose. Now that the feature is available in Debian, these other people can use it TOO! That's the real beauty of the debian system...it's designed to be fairly constant so other people can expand upon it.
In a lot of ways simply using debian is easier than not. It seems to be the only one immune to some of the political/software changes that break usability of other distros. That's why many new "distros" like Knoppix simply use Debian as the base of their systems. The fact that they toe a hardline and are a bit slow makes them stable and predictible...which is what you really need in OS software!
But you still have to clean up the messages...it's easiest to simply check IP and subject...but if the subject is different every time it's not quick and easy...Remember lots of people use web mail now...the added space is the ISPs problem!
to clarify it, say you report a spam to Yahoo, they most likely are getting 10,000 of the same subject from similar IPs so they just drop the connection after the subject is entered [that is an elemtary feature of even the oldest email servers]...it never gets sent thru the system or to your spam filter. But now they have to run the spam filter on every single email...costing more time than simply dropping it because of subject...remember they deal with 10,000 of the same spam at once in a day....except now it dosen't look the same every time.
The key to many of the one's I've got recently is that they are using random generators so that ISPs can't easily block a whole lot of messages by simply blocking the subject...With baysen spam filters that check content it wouldn't help much. Except that the AOLs and Yahoos of the world look to drop common subjects before ever sending them to the actual spam filter....this forces them to spam check every one which breaks their system.
This is classic of the industry shooting itself in the foot!!! That policy was a great concession by the labels to PC music loving folk. [Not that it's the best way, but it's a way to keep people from copying if you do it for them!!!] Of course as iTMS/iPods get bigger, you could see them adding ACC files instead [or perhaps both!]
This is absolutely stupid...and only show that the industry is way to fat for it's own good!!!
What's the date? Mars has about a hundred more days than earth, and several moons. How does that work out for a calander? When does a year start? What would a Martian month be with 2 or more moons? how many days would be in a martian week and would they need leap years or not?
You do have a great point about tag activation...I must by 75% of my stuff from the local department/grocery chain. I can see it now...getting jumped for "stealing" my own dirty underwear because they reactivated the tags. I suppose they could tally a difference of tags between when you enter and exit...but that's still complicated.
Actually NASA in the 60's and 70's at the height of their spending was great for the economy...Lots of cool stuff was developed that has found it's way into YOUR house. Everything from ink pens, to velcro, to advanced methods of metallurgy [which you don't see, but companies that make your stuff do] Another real push for a space program would do wonders for US technology...as long as it was prevented from being outsourced!
I wonder if the Egyptians had these problems building the pyramids?
or when it controls all the software. After all, Choice is also good to keep say, Dell, from getting too big and telling MS what they are going to buy/not buy. MS is sort of like Don King...anybody can fight as long as they pay MS to be in the ring.
not quite because Apple is making their OS components available to PC users...OK it's a stretch. How dare Apple leverage it's bundling iTMS with OSX to get in to the PC market...the gull of them!!! MSLogic ceases to amaze.
Apple has been developing quicktime for years...It was one of the first multimedia codex available for PC...until MS wanted to "share" [their rules of course] Now apple has a shot at getting quicktime back into the mainstream with just a touch of MS style bundling. You buy the iPod and install the FULL Quicktime program! including the animation and movie formats...three of the things MS has been trying to break since apple was gullible enough to ever talk to them. iPod and even moreso iTMS is a total coup for Apple in 10+ years of playing second fidddle to MS! It's a codex coup almost worth of MS in it's execution. But hey, turnabout is fair play!!!
I use GameDrive For my games...It does burn a lot of disk space, but space is cheap nowdays. I like it alot, but it needs some userfriendliness...like automatically loading CDs when you click a shortcut or something...it's not kid friendly which makes it fustrating for "little people" use because they can't do it themselves...but I suppose you could burn off some drive letters keeping them all loaded at once.
That said, I've taken to using Farstone's GameDrive for all my CD Rom games the only drawback is space, but even then it's probably still cheaper to burn the space than spend the time swapping disks. They probably have some copy protection involved to keep from swapping images, but I wouldn't know about that.
But the software industry has said YOU don't own the software, the CD is just a delivery tool, not what you paid for. Actually I've sent in several CDs for replacement at only a fraction of the original cost and it worked out great.
but iTMS is a part of the iPod package even if it isn't perfect. If they give in and support wma, then most of the music will be wma...no need for acc...or iTMS...MS wins by default! You miss that the competition isn't for music players, but codex/server software....and the players are Apple and MS only [real and some others are also rans right now] If Apple flinches it's lost. and along with the battle for software is the battle for consumer rights...which you will loose entirely if MS has it's way!!!
But then you have to put control software somewhere and a bridge to the internet too. Using IP is quick and simple and already in place ...cost about $40 now to add basic IP to an already electronic device.
But once wmas run on iPod, apple has lost it's edge... iPod would have no distinguishing features from any other player except price...And apple can't function in a price war. That's the beauty of the MS plan. The manufactures of hardware lead a race to the bottom while MS quitely taps all of them for cash without "getting its hands dirty". MS gets a dime from every other service & device...and when pickings get slim steps in and puts the winners out of business if they don't toe MS line.
When I was working for an ECM [Electronics Contract Manufacture] They cost OUR buyers about $.20 a pop...fairly high for electronic parts. But...
An LED typically has a lifetime of 10's of thousands of hours because it is solid state. [your light bulb will be lucky to get 1000 hours under normal use] Also, Watts per Lumen is about 50-100 to one in favor of the LED! They are that much better.
Now for our direct wired USA world the initial cost is somewhat more than the over all savings. But if you were wanting to build away from civilization or go ecofriendly, LEDs would allow you to cut the cord and use less over all juice per day. In addition, with all the different types, you could make LEDs in to any shape neccesary ... you can physically see with a lot less light if you can have it where you need it...like halls lit by track lites rather than one bulb...reading lites in back of a chair..under a counter...heat and high voltage electricity aren't an issue with LEDs they can be shaped and sealed.
But mac's are supposed to be unique...again, you could change them, but we're against NATing tonite, OK. On top of that, MAC addressing skips certian IP protocols for the sake of remote configuration ...it uses UDP directly I believe [don't flame me] which lets hardware talk directly to hardware without configuration. Also, using MAC addresses would allow your ISP and everybody else to know far too much about your hardware...as honest people wouldn't hack their systems. So finding flawed hardware would be even simpler...imagine being able to write a worm to target WinModems software layer directly...ouch! Right now it's a brute force thing, but imagine if you could KNOW a computer was running windows [or that it was a Dell with a vunerable nic] before you sent the virus!
The way I see it NAT was a necessity becuse if the suits were left to themselves we'd be right back to MaBell telling us what can connect to the net and when....and paying thru the noze for it. There are lots of big ISPs that would love to have complete control of what you connect...no Xbox, PS2, or Linux for you without paying $$$...or not at all because it's not "supported". not to mention corperate or government suits trying to crack your internal boxes...or simply knowing you have 20 devices in your house...it's none of their business!
The problem is that nobody "in the know" belives in NATing your stuff...everybody wants your fridge to be remote monitorable from the appliance company. While I agree that NATing too many things is causing problems [just about everybody with cable or DSL is NAT'd now...and can't run "servers"...like having a phone and still needing an operator's permission for all your calls]...or rather the lack of intellegence involved on the consumer side. It's a great solution to the problem...but it removes a level of control from the execs and engineers and we can't have that can we?