I think the largest shift we've seen isn't cultural so much as commercial. When computers were a hobby in and of themselves, the user was given some credit: Manuals included schematics, and everything was meant to be programmed by the end user.
As the computer has shifted to become another TV, users are turned back into viewers, and there's no incentive to make the innards accessible. It's only by history that we have the degree of control that we do!
I wonder how a culture with no concept of "marketing" would use the tools we now have available to us.
There's an effort underway, and making good progress, to design and fly a sugar-powered rocket to the edge of space. Amateurs have made space shots before, but always using "professional" propellants. If SugarShot makes it, they'll be the first to do it using such a benign power source.
Insert joke about porno endings, or hyperenergetic breakfast cereals, but not both, please.
Ahh, but the full spectrum definition would allow proper display for viewers with differing spectral perception, including the various forms of color-blindness, tetrachromacy, and different species.
Heh. Good thing I searched in-page before posting the same. You know you can get that on a T-shirt, right? SCIENCE. It works, bitches. I adore xkcd. I even showed it to my mom the other day and she got almost half the jokes. Awesome.
ad in the local newspaper to help the students at my local high school organize a computer club. Organize the club, get local businesses to contribute,
This sounds good! You'll be doing a lot of legwork, but that's healthy experience for later in life too, and it looks good on a college admissions questionnaire.
Don't forget to document the whole experience. Keep notes on who you talked to, and what sort of support or advice they offered. When you get the club off the ground and the local newspaper wants to do a story on it, you'll want to be able to give proper, specific credit to the people who helped you out. Once you get a little media attention, it should be easier to go in front of the school board and say "Okay, here's what we've been able to do on our own. How about a little official support, maybe a classroom?"
Once you have a space to use, look at expanding into networking. A closet full of old networking hardware can be valuable if someone's studying for a CCNA, and you know the media loves the C-word. I'm sure you can find someone in the community who got their cert recently and still has a toy lab full of equipment. More press! You'll be the pride of the district! Don't step on any toes here.
The idiots who patronize Hollywood need to boycott them for a few years, until they come up with some new ideas, and a new profit model.
Take the amount of money you spent on Hollywood movies during the last year (tickets, DVDs, rentals, merchandise) and divide it by the amount of money you gave to EFF and ACLU in the last year. This is your Hypocrisy Quotient.
If it's less than or equal to 1, thank you.
If it's between 1 and 3, your heart's in the right place but your wallet is weak.
If it's greater than 3, kindly wear a bright "I sponsored the DMCA!" t-shirt when you attend the Defcon Shoot.
Please try to only approve Ask Slashdot features that have broad general interest, not single-instance specific questions. Requests for a specific product or solution that you can find with 2 minutes and a search engine are probably poor candidates. Questions soliciting opinions, stories, and background that the whole Slashdot community can help with are much more appropriate here. I'm sure there are plenty to choose from.
Congress made the rules, the FCC is just mandated to enforce them. They're complaint-based, so when a million bible-thumpers write angry letters about a bit of areola, they have no choice to act.
Your bitch is with congress, or the tight-undies faction of society. Not the FCC.
I love my kill-a-watt but I've been thinking of picking up a Watt's Up? for the datalogging capabilities. But the price is silly, I should just build one.
Anyway, a clamp-on ammeter should be in your toolkit. (Get a DC-capable model and watch motherboard/peripheral power draw inside your PC!) Instead of slicing open an extension cord, consider an AC line splitter to make your measurements with. The 10-winding side makes small measurements more accurate, and it looks more professional if you end up using it on the job.
Seriously. Go install Freenet and Frost. Give it an hour to get up and running within the network. Create a Frost board, announce it, and coordinate further development pseudonymously.
They send a global email looking for anyone with old C64 hardware,
That's sad. You gave up your 1541? I hope they're enjoying it.
It doesn't take C64 hardware, or any other specific hardware, to read those disks. Any high-density PC floppy drive will do, as long as it's the right physical size. PC floppy mechanisms are quite capable, and when connected to the appropriate controller, they can read and write dozens of old floppy formats, from Commodore 160k to Mac 800k and more.
How reliable are those 20 year old floppy disks?
Pretty good, if the data's fresh! The material is surprisingly durable and should've held up fine all this time. But if the last time they were written was 20 years ago, good luck. Estimates vary, but floppies more than 5 or 10 years old stand a good chance of having faded beyond the point of readability with standard drives. If you rewrite them every few years to refresh the data, you should be fine. Oh, and do keep them away from stray magnetic fields.
This is simple. Get a Catweasel floppy controller, and use the bundled tools to make images of the disks. You don't even need any of the original Commodore hardware for this, any PC 5.25" drive will do.
If they're too cheap to do that, an X1541 cable and a copy of Star Commander will work fine, plugged between the Commodore drive and a PC. This shouldn't be forensically valid, because the 1541 is a smart peripheral and could concievably be running a modified ROM.
Been there, done that. Look up "access overload class". That's how CDMA does it. Mere mortals are 0-9, depending on the last digit of your phone number. Phone techs, emergency personnel, and government can get higher ACCOLC settings.
I'd assume other networks are similar but I don't have direct experience.
The question is: Does this mean that wireless networks set up after that date, and open, can be used freely under the assumption that the owner meant for them to be open, and permission is implied?
The stickers should really include a note about "If your intent is to provide open access, put )( in your SSID" or something like that.
If you want kids to learn how computers work, then make it so they can experiment with them. Setting it up so that the kids depend on these computers for their classes means they'll be afraid to break anything, which means they won't get anything out of them other than the typical office-worker knowledge, which isn't very deep or useful.
If you want kids to use laptops in class, then stop pretending they'll learn anything useful about computers in the process.
If you don't have to worry about any single file being larger than the backup medium, and if the backup medium is writable with a drive letter, here's how we'd do it under DOS:
First, set the Archive attribute on all the files: > attrib *.* +a/s
Then, copy a bunch of them until the disk is full. Clear the archive attribute of each file successfully copied: > xcopy *.* d:/m/e/h
When the xcopy runs up against disk full, break it with Ctrl-C if it hasn't already, then change disks and run the same command again.
This looks like it would all still work on a modern system, unless you're worried about alternate data streams, access control, or stuff like that.
All elected officials are supposed to act on behalf of their constituents. The Judicial branch is freed from that nuisance and can focus on doing what the Constitution mandates, not what the people consider fashionable.
Keep in mind that without the Judicial branch, we'd still have segregated schools. Things like "legislating from the bench" are exactly what allow the Constitutionally "right" thing to overrule the popular thing.
Smack the next politician who claims it's his or her job to defend the people. Bullshit. It's his or her job to defend the Constitution, that's the oath they took.
I've been tossing around the idea that, one month every year, legislators should work on repealing stupid old laws. It'd make great press, and it might encourage public debate about progressive versus traditional values.
Agreed, it's probably the camera. The compressed image will never look as good as the original, so if the original is just barely acceptable, the compression has a hard time telling important details from discardable details, and the result will be unacceptable.
Most cheap camera sensors are horribly hungry for light. Fix the lighting situation first, and see if the problem goes away. Then, look at a better camera. If you can post a 640x480 snap from the camera on the web, and have people click on it attempting to load the high-res version because they assume it must have come from a nice camera, then you can start to blame the software.
While doing some research into USB cameras a while back, I found a few recommendations for the Vista Imaging Vicam USB. That's to distinguish it from the parallel port version: This sucker was designed back when cameras were curiousities for the rich, and no expense was spared. It's built around a beautiful quality CCD. It's sold as the 3Com HomeConnect Camera, also the InsideOut Networks / Digi Watchport/V. They're all the same guts, and work with the same drivers.
I picked one up at a flea market for $5 and I'm impresed. The stills are incredible, and it's sensitive enough to produce really useful images in candlelight. (Just don't move; in low light it can take a good fraction of a second to gather a frame's worth of photons.) The design is thoughtful, too: The included tilt/swivel stand is attached with a standard 1/4"-20 thread, so removing it readies the camera for practically any mount.
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Future anthropologists' resources: Yankovic, Stewart, Onion
New opiate distilled: 'Religion' overdoses widespread.
For the SC2 fans out there: Humans become expert *dancers*, avenge Androsynth.
IM IN UR GOVERNMENT KILLING UR....
New high capacity battery, Soylent Pikachu.
Sunspot cycle delay loop. Exit condition!
I think the largest shift we've seen isn't cultural so much as commercial. When computers were a hobby in and of themselves, the user was given some credit: Manuals included schematics, and everything was meant to be programmed by the end user.
As the computer has shifted to become another TV, users are turned back into viewers, and there's no incentive to make the innards accessible. It's only by history that we have the degree of control that we do!
I wonder how a culture with no concept of "marketing" would use the tools we now have available to us.
There's an effort underway, and making good progress, to design and fly a sugar-powered rocket to the edge of space. Amateurs have made space shots before, but always using "professional" propellants. If SugarShot makes it, they'll be the first to do it using such a benign power source.
Insert joke about porno endings, or hyperenergetic breakfast cereals, but not both, please.
Ahh, but the full spectrum definition would allow proper display for viewers with differing spectral perception, including the various forms of color-blindness, tetrachromacy, and different species.
You build the camera for it.
Heh. Good thing I searched in-page before posting the same. You know you can get that on a T-shirt, right? SCIENCE. It works, bitches. I adore xkcd. I even showed it to my mom the other day and she got almost half the jokes. Awesome.
Don't forget to document the whole experience. Keep notes on who you talked to, and what sort of support or advice they offered. When you get the club off the ground and the local newspaper wants to do a story on it, you'll want to be able to give proper, specific credit to the people who helped you out. Once you get a little media attention, it should be easier to go in front of the school board and say "Okay, here's what we've been able to do on our own. How about a little official support, maybe a classroom?"
Once you have a space to use, look at expanding into networking. A closet full of old networking hardware can be valuable if someone's studying for a CCNA, and you know the media loves the C-word. I'm sure you can find someone in the community who got their cert recently and still has a toy lab full of equipment. More press! You'll be the pride of the district! Don't step on any toes here.
Take the amount of money you spent on Hollywood movies during the last year (tickets, DVDs, rentals, merchandise) and divide it by the amount of money you gave to EFF and ACLU in the last year. This is your Hypocrisy Quotient.
But only one man would dare give me the raspberry!
Dear Slashdot Editors,
Please try to only approve Ask Slashdot features that have broad general interest, not single-instance specific questions. Requests for a specific product or solution that you can find with 2 minutes and a search engine are probably poor candidates. Questions soliciting opinions, stories, and background that the whole Slashdot community can help with are much more appropriate here. I'm sure there are plenty to choose from.
Thanks,
(we, the undersigned)
Congress made the rules, the FCC is just mandated to enforce them. They're complaint-based, so when a million bible-thumpers write angry letters about a bit of areola, they have no choice to act.
Your bitch is with congress, or the tight-undies faction of society. Not the FCC.
I love my kill-a-watt but I've been thinking of picking up a Watt's Up? for the datalogging capabilities. But the price is silly, I should just build one.
Anyway, a clamp-on ammeter should be in your toolkit. (Get a DC-capable model and watch motherboard/peripheral power draw inside your PC!) Instead of slicing open an extension cord, consider an AC line splitter to make your measurements with. The 10-winding side makes small measurements more accurate, and it looks more professional if you end up using it on the job.
Seriously. Go install Freenet and Frost. Give it an hour to get up and running within the network. Create a Frost board, announce it, and coordinate further development pseudonymously.
Ahh, glad I looked for mentions of Project Xanadu before posting! Yes, this sounds like a rehash of the same ideas.
Existing is good.
It doesn't take C64 hardware, or any other specific hardware, to read those disks. Any high-density PC floppy drive will do, as long as it's the right physical size. PC floppy mechanisms are quite capable, and when connected to the appropriate controller, they can read and write dozens of old floppy formats, from Commodore 160k to Mac 800k and more.
Pretty good, if the data's fresh! The material is surprisingly durable and should've held up fine all this time. But if the last time they were written was 20 years ago, good luck. Estimates vary, but floppies more than 5 or 10 years old stand a good chance of having faded beyond the point of readability with standard drives. If you rewrite them every few years to refresh the data, you should be fine. Oh, and do keep them away from stray magnetic fields.
This is simple. Get a Catweasel floppy controller, and use the bundled tools to make images of the disks. You don't even need any of the original Commodore hardware for this, any PC 5.25" drive will do.
If they're too cheap to do that, an X1541 cable and a copy of Star Commander will work fine, plugged between the Commodore drive and a PC. This shouldn't be forensically valid, because the 1541 is a smart peripheral and could concievably be running a modified ROM.
This could be, only in the USA.
Been there, done that. Look up "access overload class". That's how CDMA does it. Mere mortals are 0-9, depending on the last digit of your phone number. Phone techs, emergency personnel, and government can get higher ACCOLC settings.
I'd assume other networks are similar but I don't have direct experience.
The question is: Does this mean that wireless networks set up after that date, and open, can be used freely under the assumption that the owner meant for them to be open, and permission is implied?
The stickers should really include a note about "If your intent is to provide open access, put )( in your SSID" or something like that.
Of course, a "confidence game" is unrelated to a "convention/conference", but somehow they both get shortened to "con".
Argh. --- that one's a conference/convention, but wishes to distance itself from your conventional perceptions of same.
If you want kids to learn how computers work, then make it so they can experiment with them. Setting it up so that the kids depend on these computers for their classes means they'll be afraid to break anything, which means they won't get anything out of them other than the typical office-worker knowledge, which isn't very deep or useful.
If you want kids to use laptops in class, then stop pretending they'll learn anything useful about computers in the process.
If you don't have to worry about any single file being larger than the backup medium, and if the backup medium is writable with a drive letter, here's how we'd do it under DOS:
/s
/m /e /h
First, set the Archive attribute on all the files:
> attrib *.* +a
Then, copy a bunch of them until the disk is full. Clear the archive attribute of each file successfully copied:
> xcopy *.* d:
When the xcopy runs up against disk full, break it with Ctrl-C if it hasn't already, then change disks and run the same command again.
This looks like it would all still work on a modern system, unless you're worried about alternate data streams, access control, or stuff like that.
All elected officials are supposed to act on behalf of their constituents. The Judicial branch is freed from that nuisance and can focus on doing what the Constitution mandates, not what the people consider fashionable.
Keep in mind that without the Judicial branch, we'd still have segregated schools. Things like "legislating from the bench" are exactly what allow the Constitutionally "right" thing to overrule the popular thing.
Smack the next politician who claims it's his or her job to defend the people. Bullshit. It's his or her job to defend the Constitution, that's the oath they took.
I've been tossing around the idea that, one month every year, legislators should work on repealing stupid old laws. It'd make great press, and it might encourage public debate about progressive versus traditional values.
Agreed, it's probably the camera. The compressed image will never look as good as the original, so if the original is just barely acceptable, the compression has a hard time telling important details from discardable details, and the result will be unacceptable.
Most cheap camera sensors are horribly hungry for light. Fix the lighting situation first, and see if the problem goes away. Then, look at a better camera. If you can post a 640x480 snap from the camera on the web, and have people click on it attempting to load the high-res version because they assume it must have come from a nice camera, then you can start to blame the software.
While doing some research into USB cameras a while back, I found a few recommendations for the Vista Imaging Vicam USB. That's to distinguish it from the parallel port version: This sucker was designed back when cameras were curiousities for the rich, and no expense was spared. It's built around a beautiful quality CCD. It's sold as the 3Com HomeConnect Camera, also the InsideOut Networks / Digi Watchport/V. They're all the same guts, and work with the same drivers.
I picked one up at a flea market for $5 and I'm impresed. The stills are incredible, and it's sensitive enough to produce really useful images in candlelight. (Just don't move; in low light it can take a good fraction of a second to gather a frame's worth of photons.) The design is thoughtful, too: The included tilt/swivel stand is attached with a standard 1/4"-20 thread, so removing it readies the camera for practically any mount.
Anyone with a sense of humor about Gary Larson's cartoon is someone your students should be learning about.
As for monolithic dead-tree biographies, not so much, but she's written a number of books and there's abundant information on the web.