Yes! APRS is cool, and it's free, and there is a very nice web interface to it that which is really amazing. The guy that runs it is a real pro, despite his open source politics;)
I use APRS to track my favorite underground music icons.
This is a question about providers in Southern California, right? I just finished a pretty thorough search for Colocation providers in the Los Angeles area, maybe my research will be of some benefit to you.
First, if you're in the area of LA proper, your choices are pretty limited. Qwest, Sprint, and plenty of others have data centers in and around Irvine and Burbank, but both are just far enough away to be inconvenient if you do business in downtown LA, Santa Monica, or Beverly Hills.
Pretty much everybody knows about Exodus in El Segundo. The facility is supposed to be terrific, but we couldn't get the deal done because of our clients' concerns about their financial stability. Also, we heard rumors that this facility might be one of the first to go if they end up scaling things back.
There's a company called IX2 (www.ix2.com) that offers pure colocation downtown, but they provide only the physical space, you contract separately with the carrier. One of my very large corporate clients has put their entire data center down there, and is really happy with it, but they're not a colocation provider in the traditional sense.
Another unusual option is Los Nettos, which is a consortium of companies (Centergate, CalTech, JPL, TRW, USC, ISI) that operates a big network in the LA area and connects with MAE-LA etc. They provide colocation in two data centers. It sounds like the facility and connectivity is very good, but I'm not sure about support. Their pricing was comparable with the other folks, but they just didn't feel commercial enough for me.
At least one regional ISP called Interworld (www.interworld.net) offers managed colocation and other services through those facilities. They're small, but very very smart, and I highly recommend doing business with Interworld in general.
Verio has a very small but nice colo facility in downtown Los Angeles. We ended up doing the deal with them because the price was just too good to turn down. Their connectivity is good, and I've been happy with the service overall. We've had no unscheduled downtime in about three months of operation, according to mrtg.
The only gotcha is that they facility is remotely monitored and there's no on-site 'remote hands' or any other kind of support, other than through contracted third parties. But they do provide a web interface to the power distribution, so you can power cycle stuff remotely. We got a single rack @ the 1MB/sec rate in a locked cage, with extra space behind and on the sides, for the same price that Exodus quoted for an open rack.
The issue of rolling blackouts is a red herring. Any serious operation will offer both battery backup and generator backup well in excess of what's necessary to insulate you from brief outages.
64 posts in 60 minutes, and all but about 2 are/. in-jokes. They're all very, very clever - but did anyone read the paper and have anything interesting to say about it?
I read it, but I'm not sure I get it. I -think- they're saying that they set out to implement a neural net for voice recognition, came out with something that worked much better than expected.
I think they're saying that the -reason- that it works so much better than expected is a fairly novel reason (meaning not derivative of common neural net principles), and the process of understanding why this novel method works is best understood by treating the whole problem from a biology, rathern than compsci perspective. e.g. as you would go about trying to figure out how some organism that does something in a novel way does what it does.
It seems to me that they go to great lengths in the paper to be "cute" about using biology terms to describe the behavior of their computer program, because they want to emphasize how organism-like their program is. Do all AI researchers talk this way?
It would be really great if someone who actually understands the paper would post a translation, so everyone can understand what they're really talking about.
Written by my colleague, use at your own risk. Subsequent version will delete the viral *.vbs files and un-hide the hidden MP3 files. This could be improved: but I figured, release early, release often!
' Written by nowickis@hotmail.com ' No warranties: This may ruin your entire life and cause massive damage, use at your own risk! ' On Error Resume Next
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set szDirWin = fso.GetSpecialFolder(0) Set szDirSys = fso.GetSpecialFolder(1) Set szDirTemp = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2)
set wscr=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'The virus creates several copies of itself. Delete them . . . fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\MSKernel32.vbs" fso.DeleteFile szDirWin & "\Win32DLL.vbs" fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs" fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.HTM"
'It then sets these instances to run at start-up. Stop that from happening . . . wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\Run\MSKernel32" wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\RunServices\Win32DLL"
if (szDownloadFolder = "") then szDownloadFolder = "c:\" end if
'The virus sets your IE homepage to point to an executable called WIN-BUGSFIX.exe and then sets that 'file to load at start up. I don't know what that file does, but it's probably not nice. Let's delete that 'one, too. wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur rentVersion\Run\WIN-BUGSFIX"
'Reset the IE home page . . . wscr.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page", "http://www.microsoft.com/ie"
'That should do it. Any problems, check the web site of your anti-virus provider for additional help . . .
The views expressed in this article totally lack reason and substance. The piece advocates no position at all; instead, it's pure rhetoric, designed to be emotionally inflammatory rather than persuasive or rational. To wit:
The band's efforts to identify and intimidate 335,435 fans and Napster users for alleged copyright violations are a shock. In the perfectly legitimate disagreements regarding the distribution of free music online, this action goes way over the top. It invades privacy, is a blatant act at intimidating mostly younger Net users, and sets a dreadful precedent for resolving the many issues raised by the Net concerning who can own, control and disseminate intellectual property.
You seem to be making the following argument: Unfair copyright law + Right to lawbreaker's privacy outweighs the rights of copyright holders. It's a romantic argument, but it totally ignores the rule of law. The fact is that if I go to Blockbuster and rent The Phantom Menace, then make copies of it and hand it out to all my friends, my right to privacy isn't going to protect me from the rule of law.
There is simply no justification for a band to go after hundreds of thousands of its own fans, mostly kids, for the purpose of intimidation. Said Metallica's attorney Howard King: "I don't know if it's going to put a chill on the user end, but it certainly is going to show other artists what they can to do get their work out of Napster."
Your repeated focus on the fact that most offenders are kids is irrelevant and inflammatory, and I'm offended that you chose this cheap tactic in a nearly transparent effort to raise the ire of your readership. It's appalling.
I'd guess that most software pirates are kids, also, I can't remember meeting a warez sysop in the old days that was over 17. Do you defend the rights to privacy of illegal siteops on the basis of the fact that intellectual property law is outdated and ambiguous?
How about the DOS attacks? The mean age of these kiddies seems to be about 14 -- let's hear your argument that the anarchic nature of the internet combined with a user's right to privacy equals special protection for the lawbreakers.
Like everyone else, I believe the record industry is screwed up, and it's governed by 50-year old ideas about cannibalization and control that don't hold true anymore. The music industry would make a lot more sense (and money) embracing the technology instead of running scared.
But I also believe that the only coherent and meaningful argument in favor of Napster is that copyright law is immoral and injust, and must therefore be resisted, or at least ignored. I don't think that's a good argument in this case, but at least it makes sense, and it puts you on the side of something.
Which side of the Napster debacle is Jon Katz on? Oh, he's Pro-Child.
...on the whole Napster debacle: one or two highly-publicized arrests of the very worst offenders, probably those who are sharing immense Metallica or Dr. Dre catalogues.
Effect: Inclusion of Napster restrictions in the acceptable use policies of most ISPs, Universities, and in the data security policy of all major corps: just as many currently forbid the exchange of copyrighted material.
Outcome: Sharing of illegal MP3s goes underground, and becomes primarily a warez kiddie application.
This is more or less how software piracy was gotten under (relative) control.
I can highly recommend the Port Noteworthy Backpack from extensive personal experience. It's listed on the Targus Backpacks page, along with other models. Disclosure: We built their website.
The Noteworthy model in particular has gone along with me on a number of grueling road trips. I've used to to carry everything from a 12 lb. Dell Inspiron to my current Dell Latitude LS ultralight.
I did a 10-city West Coast tour with my favorite band recently, and I used the Targus bag to bring all my taping gear as well as all my notebook gear to every show. The capacity of this thing is unbelievable, I was carrying:
Notebook PC with AC Adapter
DAT recorder in outside pocket
Microphones/preamp in other outside pocket
Port replicator (fits easily in the large inner compartment)
Voltage converter for the car
Cell phone and charger
External floppy drive
External CD-ROM drive
Digital camera
Rechargeable batteries/charger
Assorted tapes, CDs, patch cables, so on
There's no question that this bag could easily handle two notebook computers complete will all the accessories, although only one of the inner compartments is lined with the air protection system.
The bag carries all of this in about the same size as your garden variety backpack. I can tell you that the folks at Targus (and Port, which they own) take their product design and development very, very seriously. They also have an excellent lifetime warranty on all the cases (if it ever breaks, they replace it) and killer customer service.
I consider myself an expert on this subject, meaning the "How much does Digex suck" subject, and I can back this up 100%. They are in my opinion the most completely clueless operation in the business. I'm tired of re-re-documenting all the crap I've been through with them, contact me by email if you're interested.
Because you'll take that computer home and log into slashdot or buy the latest VA Linux server or whatever. As a practical matter, people use computers in ways that eventually require them to disclose some information about their identity.
Theoretically, the ID gives a clandestine third party a way to index this data and combine the the stuff you did "anonymously" with the stuff that you did that disclosed some or all of your identity. Given enough college students and free time, all theoretical vulnerabilities become exploits.
The combination of strong encryption in the protocol layer and truly anonymous currency would make this almost moot, as discussed in this slashdot article, which is why it scares law enforcement, dig?
It's interesting to consider the various compromises you can achieve with, say, strong encryption in the protocol layer but necessarily traceable currency, and so on.
What if it cost companies (consultants, agencies, etc.) more -not- to open-source their projects. What if it cost $10G in tools to get a closed-source project off the ground, but you could get world-class development tools for your open-source project for free.
FWIW, VA has kicked a** helping us spec out a major project recently -- they had a custom-configured eval unit in our hands in less time than it took Dell to answer some basic questions about theirs. They get it, bigtime.
Aargh! The CNN article doesn't even mention that only Windows/Outlook users are affected. It's like posting a warning about drowning and not mentioning that it only happens IF YOU'RE HELD UNDER WATER.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that anybody cares, but let history record that I predicted this exact thing in April of last year:
8
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5184=110850
Yes! APRS is cool, and it's free, and there is a very nice web interface to it that which is really amazing. The guy that runs it is a real pro, despite his open source politics ;)
I use APRS to track my favorite underground music icons.
They have a GPS/APRS transmitter on the tour bus, so you can track its location in real-time (well, close).
We want to see what you built! Post the specs, and some pictures, damnit!
This is a question about providers in Southern California, right? I just finished a pretty thorough search for Colocation providers in the Los Angeles area, maybe my research will be of some benefit to you.
First, if you're in the area of LA proper, your choices are pretty limited. Qwest, Sprint, and plenty of others have data centers in and around Irvine and Burbank, but both are just far enough away to be inconvenient if you do business in downtown LA, Santa Monica, or Beverly Hills.
Pretty much everybody knows about Exodus in El Segundo. The facility is supposed to be terrific, but we couldn't get the deal done because of our clients' concerns about their financial stability. Also, we heard rumors that this facility might be one of the first to go if they end up scaling things back.
There's a company called IX2 (www.ix2.com) that offers pure colocation downtown, but they provide only the physical space, you contract separately with the carrier. One of my very large corporate clients has put their entire data center down there, and is really happy with it, but they're not a colocation provider in the traditional sense.
Another unusual option is Los Nettos, which is a consortium of companies (Centergate, CalTech, JPL, TRW, USC, ISI) that operates a big network in the LA area and connects with MAE-LA etc. They provide colocation in two data centers. It sounds like the facility and connectivity is very good, but I'm not sure about support. Their pricing was comparable with the other folks, but they just didn't feel commercial enough for me.
At least one regional ISP called Interworld (www.interworld.net) offers managed colocation and other services through those facilities. They're small, but very very smart, and I highly recommend doing business with Interworld in general.
Verio has a very small but nice colo facility in downtown Los Angeles. We ended up doing the deal with them because the price was just too good to turn down. Their connectivity is good, and I've been happy with the service overall. We've had no unscheduled downtime in about three months of operation, according to mrtg.
The only gotcha is that they facility is remotely monitored and there's no on-site 'remote hands' or any other kind of support, other than through contracted third parties. But they do provide a web interface to the power distribution, so you can power cycle stuff remotely. We got a single rack @ the 1MB/sec rate in a locked cage, with extra space behind and on the sides, for the same price that Exodus quoted for an open rack.
The issue of rolling blackouts is a red herring. Any serious operation will offer both battery backup and generator backup well in excess of what's necessary to insulate you from brief outages.
Yours,
mjr
64 posts in 60 minutes, and all but about 2 are /. in-jokes. They're all very, very clever - but did anyone read the paper and have anything interesting to say about it?
I read it, but I'm not sure I get it. I -think- they're saying that they set out to implement a neural net for voice recognition, came out with something that worked much better than expected.
I think they're saying that the -reason- that it works so much better than expected is a fairly novel reason (meaning not derivative of common neural net principles), and the process of understanding why this novel method works is best understood by treating the whole problem from a biology, rathern than compsci perspective. e.g. as you would go about trying to figure out how some organism that does something in a novel way does what it does.
It seems to me that they go to great lengths in the paper to be "cute" about using biology terms to describe the behavior of their computer program, because they want to emphasize how organism-like their program is. Do all AI researchers talk this way?
It would be really great if someone who actually understands the paper would post a translation, so everyone can understand what they're really talking about.
This reminds me of a song a very wise boss taught me years ago.
It goes like this:
Feature Creep!
Feature Creep!
Feature feature feature feature
Feature Creep!
Best sung standing on your desk with your arms in front of you, palms forward, waving in a circular motion.
Oops -- I was off by 350k defendants.
Written by my colleague, use at your own risk. Subsequent version will delete the viral *.vbs files and un-hide the hidden MP3 files. This could be improved: but I figured, release early, release often!
r rentVersion\Run\MSKernel32" r rentVersion\RunServices\Win32DLL"
t \Internet Explorer\Download Directory")
r rentVersion\Run\WIN-BUGSFIX"
' Written by nowickis@hotmail.com
' No warranties: This may ruin your entire life and cause massive damage, use at your own risk!
'
On Error Resume Next
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set szDirWin = fso.GetSpecialFolder(0)
Set szDirSys = fso.GetSpecialFolder(1)
Set szDirTemp = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2)
set wscr=CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'The virus creates several copies of itself. Delete them . . .
fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\MSKernel32.vbs"
fso.DeleteFile szDirWin & "\Win32DLL.vbs"
fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs"
fso.DeleteFile szDirSys & "\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.HTM"
'It then sets these instances to run at start-up. Stop that from happening . . .
wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cu
wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cu
szDownloadFolder = wscr.RegRead("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsof
if (szDownloadFolder = "") then
szDownloadFolder = "c:\"
end if
'The virus sets your IE homepage to point to an executable called WIN-BUGSFIX.exe and then sets that
'file to load at start up. I don't know what that file does, but it's probably not nice. Let's delete that
'one, too.
wscr.RegDelete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cu
'Reset the IE home page . . .
wscr.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page", "http://www.microsoft.com/ie"
'That should do it. Any problems, check the web site of your anti-virus provider for additional help . . .
Guess you can't call them globally unique idenitifiers anymore.
Sorry, I've been waiting to make that crack for a looooong time.
You seem to be making the following argument:
Unfair copyright law + Right to lawbreaker's privacy outweighs the rights of copyright holders. It's a romantic argument, but it totally ignores the rule of law. The fact is that if I go to Blockbuster and rent The Phantom Menace, then make copies of it and hand it out to all my friends, my right to privacy isn't going to protect me from the rule of law. Your repeated focus on the fact that most offenders are kids is irrelevant and inflammatory, and I'm offended that you chose this cheap tactic in a nearly transparent effort to raise the ire of your readership. It's appalling.
I'd guess that most software pirates are kids, also, I can't remember meeting a warez sysop in the old days that was over 17. Do you defend the rights to privacy of illegal siteops on the basis of the fact that intellectual property law is outdated and ambiguous?
How about the DOS attacks? The mean age of these kiddies seems to be about 14 -- let's hear your argument that the anarchic nature of the internet combined with a user's right to privacy equals special protection for the lawbreakers.
Like everyone else, I believe the record industry is screwed up, and it's governed by 50-year old ideas about cannibalization and control that don't hold true anymore. The music industry would make a lot more sense (and money) embracing the technology instead of running scared.
But I also believe that the only coherent and meaningful argument in favor of Napster is that copyright law is immoral and injust, and must therefore be resisted, or at least ignored. I don't think that's a good argument in this case, but at least it makes sense, and it puts you on the side of something.
Which side of the Napster debacle is Jon Katz on? Oh, he's Pro-Child.
Effect: Inclusion of Napster restrictions in the acceptable use policies of most ISPs, Universities, and in the data security policy of all major corps: just as many currently forbid the exchange of copyrighted material.
Outcome: Sharing of illegal MP3s goes underground, and becomes primarily a warez kiddie application.
This is more or less how software piracy was gotten under (relative) control.
The Noteworthy model in particular has gone along with me on a number of grueling road trips. I've used to to carry everything from a 12 lb. Dell Inspiron to my current Dell Latitude LS ultralight.
I did a 10-city West Coast tour with my favorite band recently, and I used the Targus bag to bring all my taping gear as well as all my notebook gear to every show. The capacity of this thing is unbelievable, I was carrying:
There's no question that this bag could easily handle two notebook computers complete will all the accessories, although only one of the inner compartments is lined with the air protection system.
The bag carries all of this in about the same size as your garden variety backpack. I can tell you that the folks at Targus (and Port, which they own) take their product design and development very, very seriously. They also have an excellent lifetime warranty on all the cases (if it ever breaks, they replace it) and killer customer service.
I consider myself an expert on this subject, meaning the "How much does Digex suck" subject, and I can back this up 100%. They are in my opinion the most completely clueless operation in the business. I'm tired of re-re-documenting all the crap I've been through with them, contact me by email if you're interested.
Theoretically, the ID gives a clandestine third party a way to index this data and combine the the stuff you did "anonymously" with the stuff that you did that disclosed some or all of your identity. Given enough college students and free time, all theoretical vulnerabilities become exploits.
The combination of strong encryption in the protocol layer and truly anonymous currency would make this almost moot, as discussed in this slashdot article, which is why it scares law enforcement, dig?
It's interesting to consider the various compromises you can achieve with, say, strong encryption in the protocol layer but necessarily traceable currency, and so on.
What if it cost companies (consultants, agencies, etc.) more -not- to open-source their projects. What if it cost $10G in tools to get a closed-source project off the ground, but you could get world-class development tools for your open-source project for free.
Ack!
Isn't that what Sagan used?
FWIW, VA has kicked a** helping us spec out a major project recently -- they had a custom-configured eval unit in our hands in less time than it took Dell to answer some basic questions about theirs. They get it, bigtime.
Aargh! The CNN article doesn't even mention that only Windows/Outlook users are affected. It's like posting a warning about drowning and not mentioning that it only happens IF YOU'RE HELD UNDER WATER.