My only problem with using the library as a resource, or anything else in print, is that it can sometime be out-of-date. Being a geek myself, I have that thirst for the latest and greatest, so I figure if I can't find it online, there isn't much point finding it elsewhere.
Now that doesn't mean I do all my reading online. I still prefer to curl up in a chair, without the hum of a computer, and read a good story.
This may seem odd, but I also read a lot of study material in book form, like Cisco courseware, Sun books, etc. Maybe it's just old study habits from high school.
I have dealt with many recruitment firms and they all have a similar, slimy feel. The one great exception is The IT Route in Toronto. This firm was put together by ex-geeks that wanted some honest recruiters. I've dealt with them for several years. Sometimes I won't hear anything from them for months, simply because they don't have the right job for me. Then I'll get a call from them for a job that actually fits what I want. They know there is no point trying to just get people in the door if they aren't truly interested, or the right person for the job. This is the firm I've formed my relationship with.
This isn't the first time an ion engine has been used in space. NASA's Deep Space 1 probe toured the solar system for over 3 years with an ion engine. This probe isn't very well known, since it was just a test bed. But in the end it made some history by performing the closest encounter ever with a comet.
I think the real danger that Intel is worried about is what the rest of the world will understand if China successfully makes its own CPU and Linux work. It will show that standards really do work, and that if you have the will, you don't need Microsoft, Intel, or any other monopolistic type of companies.
It's ironic (if I'm using the word correctly), that China, a country that is extremely repressive to its citizens, could adopt something as open-minded as open source. Maybe this is a good sign.
We all had some problems with Jar-Jar in the first episode. He was minimized in the second episode and IMDB doesn't even list Jar-Jar in the credits for the third episode.
Now, with the second episode we were all exposed to the horribly inexperienced acting of Hayden Christensen. If the outline of the leaked story is true, Hayden Christensen will be out of the movie within the first 15 minutes, as Anakin is encased in the armour of Darth Vader.
On another note, I like how the story line ties in with the book "Splinter of the Mind's Eye", which details when Luke and Leia come upon the Kaiburr crystal. (The book takes place between episode IV and V.)
You can find the results at http://www.sciserv.org/isef/results/grnd2003.asp
Wallace was one of several Second award winners.
First award went to two projects: "Is Eating Blueberry Pie Bad for You?" and "Chaotic Fluids: An Examination of Phase Transitions in Taylor-Couette Flow"
I've been looking at making the same decision. I looked at it from a leasing point of view and the technical specifications. Comparing a Civic Hybrid with a regular Civic, you will save on the gas consumed, so it is better for the environment. However, when comparing the total cost of gas and the monthly lease payments of a Civic Hybrid and a similarly equiped Civic, the regular Civic is $200 a month cheaper. (That's Canadian dollars mind you). I like the environment, but I have a budget to keep too. So I'm trading in my Explorer Sport for a regular Civic, which will still consume a lot less gas.
Re:Still won't help Windows
on
MRAM in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
I agree to everyones' arguments that Windows is not the only software that suffers from memory leaks. However, my Sun systems that have been up for 500 days, my Linux system that has been up for 250 days, and my Cisco routers and switches that have been up for 700 days all have an extremely low opinion of my Windows 2000 Advanced Servers that can't stay up longer than a month.
Oh, and I'm running a nice clean Window XP Pro at home. About the only things I run are Internet Explorer and Secure CRT. It ran fine for a few months and I believed in XP. Slow though, things changed and the damn thing can't keep from rebooting or having a seizure once a day. I can run Linux on the same system and it has no problems.
Perhaps scientists realize that the greatest leaps in civilian technology have occurred because of giant leaps in technology during war. The jet plane, space rockets, and computers all owe a big part of their existence to World War II. I'm sure similar advanced will continue due to warfare.
How about that, the Shadows were right and the Vorlons were wrong!
Still won't help Windows
on
MRAM in 2004?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
MRAM is designed to allow programs and data to remain in the local memory and may even, someday, allow us to simply reach out and touch an on/off button to turn off Windows in lieu of going through a ritualized shut-down procedure.
Except for the fact that due to all the memory leaks and other programming issues in Windows, you'll still need to do your daily hard reboot. This will just make it slightly faster.
First, I would have to say I don't have a preference. I read/watch both Science fiction and fantasy. As long as the story is compelling, the plot moves well and the characters are interesting, I'll read/watch it.
If there is a shift recently towards Fantasy, I would say it is due to the success of the Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter. It is much easier for different types of people to relate to fantasy, while it becomes more difficult for people to relate to Science Fiction because it is so forward-looking.
For people with open minds that can imagine machines thinking and can see people living in virtual worlds, science fiction is easy to swallow. Whereas you have technically illiterate people like my Mother that simply can't understand some of the Sci-Fi concepts.
A script kiddy would never bring down the power grid...If they did, they'd be bored out of their Internet-dependent minds. Can you imagine these types of kids playing scrabble or cards?!? Or worse yet, being forced to take the opportunity of a black-out to spend quality time with their families. The Horror!
After recently studying for the CISSP, I learned a great deal about biometrics. The most accurate biometrics include things like iris scans, palm scans, retina scans, etc. These are so accurate because they measure characteristics that are totally unique to individuals.
Signature dynamics and keystroke dynamics are some of the most ineffective biometrics around. A big problem is they can be faked. While the article states that early trials are 99% accurate, it doesn't detail how many people have actually tried this system. (A test group of 10 wouldn't be very good.) It also doesn't mention if they tried to fake it out. The real world is a harsh place on biometrics.
The way this story presents the information, it must have an agenda. Look at the facts objectively: When you compare 6-17 boys with 6-17 girls, and 18+ men with 18+ women, the men are still the biggest game players.
6-17 boys: 21%
6-17 girls: 12%
18+ men: 38%
18+ women: 26%
The real question is why does the ratio between males and females close as women get older? I would say there are two reasons:
First, I would say there is still some sort of ignorant social stigma that says girls shouldn't play video games. But by the time they're 18, the girls get over that.
Second, I have noticed my buddies with girlfriends play video games *with* their girlfriends, like any other social activity. And even girls I would consider non-gamers take an interest in their boyfriend's video games, just because the guys play them so much.
I'm no biology expert, but it would seem reasonable to assume that some species have a genetic disposition to a more advanced immune system, with more learning and fighting potential. This would be the same as most Unix systems and some other OSes.
Then you have the Microsoft species, which maybe has one or two chromos in its whole makeup. With this species, the genetic disposition is for such a bloated, yet simplistic organism that has a very slow capability of learning. A big blob that tries to swallow everything up, but no immune system.
The irony (if I'm using that word correctly) is that in the animal kindgom where there is a mix of advanced and simple organisms, the simple organisms will generally tend to evolve quicker than they normally would because of having to compete with the advance organisms. So why does it seem Microsoft, which is surrounded by very advanced organisms, only ever seems to plod along and make the same mistakes with each new version?
Products exists, but prices are a little high
on
Light Bulb Replacements
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I remember reading in a Readers Digest recently about a foundation that was bringing LED lights to third world regions. I was wondering why they didn't turn their attention to the real power consumers of the world, and try to cut down on energy costs. Then I found a site that sells LED bulbs that fit into 120V sockets. (http://www.theledlight.com/120-VAC-LEDbulbs.html) The prices are outrageous. $190 US for a bulb as bright as a 30W incandescent. I don't necessarily fault the company. I'm sure these reflect the cost required to manufacture LEDs. Obviously, these need to be mass-produced before the cost will go down.
Self-healing and redundancy a must for robots
on
Learning Robots
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
While it is certainly natural for all living creatures to learn to cope with an injury, I think this is far more important for robots, since they don't have a survival instinct.
Humans will go to great lengths to avoid getting injured (well, most sane ones). However, robots will just do what they are told. While they may be told to avoid any hazards, they just don't have that instinct that says I *really* don't want to get my limb chopped off today.
So to compensate, all robots in hazardous or isolated situations should have this self-healing built in, as well as redundant limbs. A robot could be built with 2 legs, but why not make it 4 or 6 and have a couple to spare. The same goes for sensors. Only two are needed for stereoscopic vision, but 4 or 6 would be better.
I work in an environment where change control and 99.99% up time is a "must". Due to the natural interaction of some applications with the operating system, that require specific parameters, any patches that change those parameters could bring down the whole system.
So Microsoft, "No, you may not administer my systems!"
After reading the article, it seems pretty plain that the case against McDanel is flawed. They say that he "impaired the integrity" of the system. But the "impairment of integrity" was already there, it just wasn't public.
While I don't agree with what he did, I certainly don't think he did anything illegal. Why isn't the government going after Tornado for exposing their customers to a risk that could breach the confidentiality of their emails?
This is another example of "Security through obscurity". Someone makes a broken piece of code, doesn't want to bother to fix it, and then gets pissed off when someone forces their hand.
If the U.S. eventually passes a law that makes software publishers liable for these flaws, there will probably be a huge backlash from sloppy programmers because it interferes with their Consitutional rights for the "Pursuit of Happiness", since they are stuck at work fixing their unsecure code.
a large company with a huge gap between technology workers and management, a few lawyers on retainer worrying about being singled out by SCO for a lawsuit, and a little runt of a IP company that hasn't had anyone seriously stand up to its schoolyard bully tactics? That's probably what is going on here.
While I think the IBM and RedHat countersuits are good, there could be one thing better: A fortune 500 company (or any large company for that matter) standing up to SCO and saying "Show me the code!" (With all due respect to Jerry Mcguire)
This just gives open source projects another wonderful opportunity. Start porting Linux or BSD over to Cisco, NetApp, whatever. Then, when you go to buy a piece of equipment from the manufacturer, tell them they will have to give you the unbundled price that only includes the cost of the hardware, not the software. That will really get you a dirty look.
"IBM urges its customers to use non- warranted, unprotected software. This software violates SCO's intellectual property rights in UNIX, and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux. If IBM wants customers to accept the GPL risk, it should indemnify them against that risk. The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims."
Why would SCO care how IBM treats their customers? It shouldn't care, because if IBM treats their customers poorly they'll go elsewhere, possibly to SCO. So why would they say that? Most likely because they don't like IBM supporting free software. For IBM, software isn't the big seller, it's services and high-end hardware. SCO doesn't have this. At most, SCO is just a software company, but I would say it is just an IP company now. They see their demise if Linux keeps going for free.
The real irony (hopefully I'm using that word correctly) is that if the rumours about Microsoft supporting SCO behind the scenes are true, and Microsoft is the one that put Netscape out of business by giving away web browser software, then Microsoft has really supported the downfall of SCO by setting a business precedent of giving away software.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that doesn't mean I do all my reading online. I still prefer to curl up in a chair, without the hum of a computer, and read a good story.
This may seem odd, but I also read a lot of study material in book form, like Cisco courseware, Sun books, etc. Maybe it's just old study habits from high school.
because my toaster's embedded Windows CE seized up and I can't eject the toast.
I have dealt with many recruitment firms and they all have a similar, slimy feel. The one great exception is The IT Route in Toronto. This firm was put together by ex-geeks that wanted some honest recruiters. I've dealt with them for several years. Sometimes I won't hear anything from them for months, simply because they don't have the right job for me. Then I'll get a call from them for a job that actually fits what I want. They know there is no point trying to just get people in the door if they aren't truly interested, or the right person for the job. This is the firm I've formed my relationship with.
This isn't the first time an ion engine has been used in space. NASA's Deep Space 1 probe toured the solar system for over 3 years with an ion engine. This probe isn't very well known, since it was just a test bed. But in the end it made some history by performing the closest encounter ever with a comet.
"I am Canadian!"
It's ironic (if I'm using the word correctly), that China, a country that is extremely repressive to its citizens, could adopt something as open-minded as open source. Maybe this is a good sign.
while [ 1 ]; do wget -T 10 www.verisign-sucks-ass.com; sleep 1; done;
Now, with the second episode we were all exposed to the horribly inexperienced acting of Hayden Christensen. If the outline of the leaked story is true, Hayden Christensen will be out of the movie within the first 15 minutes, as Anakin is encased in the armour of Darth Vader.
On another note, I like how the story line ties in with the book "Splinter of the Mind's Eye", which details when Luke and Leia come upon the Kaiburr crystal. (The book takes place between episode IV and V.)
You can find the results at http://www.sciserv.org/isef/results/grnd2003.asp Wallace was one of several Second award winners. First award went to two projects: "Is Eating Blueberry Pie Bad for You?" and "Chaotic Fluids: An Examination of Phase Transitions in Taylor-Couette Flow"
I've been looking at making the same decision. I looked at it from a leasing point of view and the technical specifications. Comparing a Civic Hybrid with a regular Civic, you will save on the gas consumed, so it is better for the environment. However, when comparing the total cost of gas and the monthly lease payments of a Civic Hybrid and a similarly equiped Civic, the regular Civic is $200 a month cheaper. (That's Canadian dollars mind you). I like the environment, but I have a budget to keep too. So I'm trading in my Explorer Sport for a regular Civic, which will still consume a lot less gas.
Oh, and I'm running a nice clean Window XP Pro at home. About the only things I run are Internet Explorer and Secure CRT. It ran fine for a few months and I believed in XP. Slow though, things changed and the damn thing can't keep from rebooting or having a seizure once a day. I can run Linux on the same system and it has no problems.
How about that, the Shadows were right and the Vorlons were wrong!
Except for the fact that due to all the memory leaks and other programming issues in Windows, you'll still need to do your daily hard reboot. This will just make it slightly faster.
If there is a shift recently towards Fantasy, I would say it is due to the success of the Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter. It is much easier for different types of people to relate to fantasy, while it becomes more difficult for people to relate to Science Fiction because it is so forward-looking.
For people with open minds that can imagine machines thinking and can see people living in virtual worlds, science fiction is easy to swallow. Whereas you have technically illiterate people like my Mother that simply can't understand some of the Sci-Fi concepts.
A script kiddy would never bring down the power grid...If they did, they'd be bored out of their Internet-dependent minds. Can you imagine these types of kids playing scrabble or cards?!? Or worse yet, being forced to take the opportunity of a black-out to spend quality time with their families. The Horror!
After recently studying for the CISSP, I learned a great deal about biometrics. The most accurate biometrics include things like iris scans, palm scans, retina scans, etc. These are so accurate because they measure characteristics that are totally unique to individuals. Signature dynamics and keystroke dynamics are some of the most ineffective biometrics around. A big problem is they can be faked. While the article states that early trials are 99% accurate, it doesn't detail how many people have actually tried this system. (A test group of 10 wouldn't be very good.) It also doesn't mention if they tried to fake it out. The real world is a harsh place on biometrics.
The real question is why does the ratio between males and females close as women get older? I would say there are two reasons:
Then you have the Microsoft species, which maybe has one or two chromos in its whole makeup. With this species, the genetic disposition is for such a bloated, yet simplistic organism that has a very slow capability of learning. A big blob that tries to swallow everything up, but no immune system.
The irony (if I'm using that word correctly) is that in the animal kindgom where there is a mix of advanced and simple organisms, the simple organisms will generally tend to evolve quicker than they normally would because of having to compete with the advance organisms. So why does it seem Microsoft, which is surrounded by very advanced organisms, only ever seems to plod along and make the same mistakes with each new version?
I remember reading in a Readers Digest recently about a foundation that was bringing LED lights to third world regions. I was wondering why they didn't turn their attention to the real power consumers of the world, and try to cut down on energy costs. Then I found a site that sells LED bulbs that fit into 120V sockets. (http://www.theledlight.com/120-VAC-LEDbulbs.html) The prices are outrageous. $190 US for a bulb as bright as a 30W incandescent. I don't necessarily fault the company. I'm sure these reflect the cost required to manufacture LEDs. Obviously, these need to be mass-produced before the cost will go down.
Humans will go to great lengths to avoid getting injured (well, most sane ones). However, robots will just do what they are told. While they may be told to avoid any hazards, they just don't have that instinct that says I *really* don't want to get my limb chopped off today.
So to compensate, all robots in hazardous or isolated situations should have this self-healing built in, as well as redundant limbs. A robot could be built with 2 legs, but why not make it 4 or 6 and have a couple to spare. The same goes for sensors. Only two are needed for stereoscopic vision, but 4 or 6 would be better.
So Microsoft, "No, you may not administer my systems!"
While I don't agree with what he did, I certainly don't think he did anything illegal. Why isn't the government going after Tornado for exposing their customers to a risk that could breach the confidentiality of their emails?
This is another example of "Security through obscurity". Someone makes a broken piece of code, doesn't want to bother to fix it, and then gets pissed off when someone forces their hand.
If the U.S. eventually passes a law that makes software publishers liable for these flaws, there will probably be a huge backlash from sloppy programmers because it interferes with their Consitutional rights for the "Pursuit of Happiness", since they are stuck at work fixing their unsecure code.
While I think the IBM and RedHat countersuits are good, there could be one thing better: A fortune 500 company (or any large company for that matter) standing up to SCO and saying "Show me the code!" (With all due respect to Jerry Mcguire)
Why would SCO care how IBM treats their customers? It shouldn't care, because if IBM treats their customers poorly they'll go elsewhere, possibly to SCO. So why would they say that? Most likely because they don't like IBM supporting free software. For IBM, software isn't the big seller, it's services and high-end hardware. SCO doesn't have this. At most, SCO is just a software company, but I would say it is just an IP company now. They see their demise if Linux keeps going for free.
The real irony (hopefully I'm using that word correctly) is that if the rumours about Microsoft supporting SCO behind the scenes are true, and Microsoft is the one that put Netscape out of business by giving away web browser software, then Microsoft has really supported the downfall of SCO by setting a business precedent of giving away software.