DH is the secure key transfer mechanism used by SSL and TLS (although TLS can theoretically use other methods, nobody does in practice).
The Diffie-Hellman Key Transfer Algorithm (which I have printed on a T-shirt in nicely colored blocks) is NOT an encryption method, although it is used during protocol negotiations when preparing for encrypted communication across an untrusted network.
If you're not, there are plenty of replies already here for you - get a cheap horribly polluting inefficient genset, run your RV motor all the time, etc. More gasoline = more dollars for Wahabi = more terrorist actions by Islamic fundies, but who cares as long as you've got Microsoft Solitaire?
OK, I topped out my own irony-o-meter on that one. But I get pretty tired of the/. crowd's disregard for anything beyond immediate gratification, sorry.
Anyway, if you want efficiency, and you're handy, check out Home Power Magazine. The current edition has an article on choosing a laptop for low power consumption.
In your RV, you can use a standard laptop car power adapter, or you can build your own. Both my laptops run on DC (they have transformers and converters built into a pod in the middle of the power cord) and although they use odd voltages (14.5 VDC or something like that) I was able to get a DC/DC converter at the local ham radio store.
I have heard that some laptops do the AC/DC conversion internally, so if you have one of those you'll either have to crack the case open and add a connector or you'll need to sacrifice a battery pack to make a "fake battery" containing a simple voltage regulator circuit or else just a jack that you can connect an external PS to.
If you go the "fake battery" route don't be fazed by all those crazy connection points on your LIon battery pack - all but two of them are usually for charging the battery (to equally distribute the charge to all the cells) so you don't have to hook those up - just the two off by themselves, and you can use a cheap $20 multimeter to find polarity off a good pack.
Oh, and be careful if you dissect a battery pack, and dispose of the cells properly. Supposedly some of the laptop cells can blow up if you short 'em out (not sure if I believe that, but better safe than sorry).
Ah, yes, in the scenic Amish area of Pennsylvania. How pleasant it is to ride along Lititz road, overlooking Peach Bottom, seeking out the little back-country cart-roads leading from Blueball road to the picturesque communities of Bird-in-Hand, Gap, and ultimately Intercourse.
Digital Equipment Corporation's VMS operating system (in many ways far superior to Unix, but killed by DEC's incredible lack of marketing savvy)was the first certified POSIX-compliant operating system. And it was not in any sense a Unix.
It was also 64-bit clean around ten years ago, and had ACLs that *worked* before anyone else.
NT inherited some lame vestiges of POSIX compliance from VMS because it is basically a bootleg version of VMS with a GUI inapropriately tacked on at the kernel level instead of userspace where it belongs. Cutler has much to regret.
If DEC had been smart enough to open the VMS source before it got too bloated, there would be no need for Linux or the various Unices. The problem areas in VMS (such as the expensive process creation and the strong bias towards American English) could have been eradicated by the same legions of hackers that have made Linux viable.
In other words, you guys are talking about a fairly typical diesel-electric hybrid scheme. The Prius and Insight are essentially the same idea only using gasoline (aka petrol). Gas is more readily available in many parts of the United States.
Don't know about the Honda, but my Prius uses NimH not NiCad. And believe me, they will get reconditioned/recycled - the pack is large enough to make it economically worthwhile.
The VW super-diesels are not available in the USA yet. But you are right, with bio-diesel they rock.
The most fuel efficient car you can get in the US is still the Hybrid Electric Honda Insight. I have about 63 mpg average over the two years that I've had mine.
My Hybrid Electric Toyota Prius only gets 48 mpg on average, but it's a five-seater (two adults, two kids, one pet) as opposed to your two-seater Honda.
So if you are calculating based on carrying capacity you are incorrect, the Honda isn't the most fuel efficient.
If you are just going by mpg without any other caveats, the Solectrica and EV-1 have you beat because they are pure electrics and use no gas.
On the other hand, Honda's new hybrid (based on the same technology) will probably be an even better family car than the Prius because of Honda's excellent CVCC gas engine technology. Go Honda!
The crude won't run out in 20 years. The *CHEAP* crude will run out in 20 years. Fat cat Washington politicos, network talking heads, the hereditary rich, and corporate robber barons will still be able to drive gas-guzzling behemoths, but the rest of us need to come up with another plan.
Most aluminum is recycled, and costs little compared to other metals.
But yes, the initial electrolysis of aluminium from bauxite is unbelievably energy-intensive and is typically only feasible where hydroelectric power is cheaply available.
IBM-PCs do indeed suck, rather specifically they position a fan next to the hottest component (the power supply) which sucks heated air from inside the case and exhausts it from an external vent.
This causes them to pull dust-laden air in (often drawing directly across magnetic heads in floppy or other removable media drives) through every crack and crevice in the case.
Once the dust-laden air is inside, it is heated by radiation and convection from motherboard components. This heating and drying changes the amount of dust that can remain suspended in the air, and it rains out to form an insulating blanket over the internal electronics.
Before the corner-cutting PC design became de rigeur, it was accepted that air should be drawn in through a filter, and the inside of the case should be at a positive pressure. Thus, inserting media would cause a rush of air outwards, blowing any foreign particles back away from magnetic heads.
Old machines stayed cleaner inside longer. But they eventually got dirty too, usually from poor maintenance near the end of their useful life cycle.
The #1 design flaw is of course the entire memory architecture.
Why the double-standard? Why do we just accept that any VHS tape we buy will be uncopyable thanks to Macrovision (barring any specialized hardware to bypass it that's beyond the reach of the lay consumer), but we so vigorously oppose those similar protections on CDs? I can't copy my VHS tapes, even if I own them and want to make a copy to take on the road in my van, or to preserve the slowly-degrading quality inherent in repeated playing of such media. But we don't cry about it - we just accept it. Why?
I've never had a problem copying VHS tapes. I don't generally copy commercial tapes - the last time was a couple of years ago (and yes it was fair use, shut up RIAA) but it worked fine then on "The Last Valley" and "Fantastic Planet".
Well, I've read Pirsig's opus several times already, but thanks for the recomendation anyway. It's a pretty good popularization of some basic zen principles (I particularly like the bit about "mechanic's feel") even though a bit less sucessful as a narrative. I also recommend it.
I'm about two thirds through Candide now, and I'm enjoying it. Certainly no LOTR or Gilgamesh, but still interesting and lively, compared to other books I've read from the same time period. And as you mentioned it's short, which is a blessed relief after recently reading Kafka's "Trial" and Frazer's "Golden Bough".
As a rebuttal of Leibnitz/Pangloss, so far it's pretty thorough. The Bantam version's footnotes are refreshingly brief and to the point.
"You'll remember that massive cloning of potatoes led to the Irish potato famine?"
There was more to it than that.
Sure, but not that is relevant to the discussion. The relevant point is the bland generalization "biodiversity good, monoculture bad" that you as a farmer already know. I don't think it would have added anything to include an overview of the socio-political system that led to a single-crop dependency, or the wind-borne mechanism of PB fungii, or the genetic makeup of the lumper potato.
"It seems that a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy ad infinitum leads to weak, disease-riddled plants."
No. It just leads to identical plants with identical vulnerabilities.
Although the plants within a single generation will be nearly identical, it is not possible in reality to produce multiple generations of perfect clones outside the laboratory. Viruses, fungi and airborne teratogens are constantly altering the genetic material of adult organisms in the wild, and the alterations are passed on to offspring when vegetative propagation is solely used (as in pre-famine Ireland). Self-pollination is better - as I said, it's "nearly" cloning, not actual cloning like planting the eyes of your lumpers. There is some error-correction implemented through sexual propagation even when it is hermaphroditic in the same individual organism. In any case, sexually propagated plants can respond to genetic damage by evolving, and the broader the population of interbreeding plants the better they can keep up with the co-evolution of their disease organisms. Plants may have evolved perfumes and markings to attract pollinators through exactly these mechanisms.
"...sustainable farming...fair-trade...learn the truth of that."
There is no truth in politics.
I have no desire to argue that, but I will point out that the value of sustainable agriculture is not political. The value of non-sustainable farming is definitely political, I grant you, but maintaining the productive capacity of land is just common sense. I assume you rotate your crops and pay your labor enough to keep them from stealing regardless of your political beliefs.
And speaking as a person who is currently drinking a cup of fair-trade, shade-grown "benevolent blend" branded coffee, I can subjectively say that it's some of the best I've ever had. Well worth the extra two or three pennies a cup it costs me. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it!
Your comment isn't unwarranted; you are correct that the difference between africanized bees and others is the distance they will pursue an enemy and the ferocity of the swarming attack.
However, there have been remarkably few deaths from "killer bees" and I have seen film footage of native Africans receiving easily 300 or more strings. They not only didn't die, they got used to it and the older fellows didn't even bother to brush the bees away from any area except directly around the eyes.
The "killer bee" hysteria is simply that, hysteria. I suspect more people are killed by lighting every year than by bee swarms.
The real point is that large-scale sexual reproduction (such as that provided by insect pollination)is better for the plants than localized, wind-borne pollination and self-pollination. It doesn't matter what the pollinating insect is, but obviously you're better off with something local that you don't have to spend a lot of time tending.
Self-pollination (such as is prevalent in coffee plants drenched with insecticides) is very nearly cloning. You'll remember that massive cloning of potatoes led to the Irish potato famine? It seems that a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy ad infinitum leads to weak, disease-riddled plants.
Theories abound, including ones that feature interesting catch-phrases like "accumulated viral load", but what everyone agrees is that sexual reproduction has distinct evolutionary advantages, and organisms that use those advantages will often be more robust and "survivable" than those that don't.
Most bees in coffee-growing areas of the world have been "Africanized" - that is, the local wimpy bees have been hybridized with more robust strains of bees originally found only in Africa. So, yes, the so-called "Killer Bees" (any bee can kill you if you are allergic to them, but it's highly unlikely otherwise) are pollinating the coffee.
In short, the type of insects involved are unimportant to the thrust of the article, which is that better coffee comes from sustainable farming practices - and all you have to do is taste a fresh cup of shade-grown fair-trade coffee to learn the truth of that. It's the best by far.
Nice post. I have hundreds of solitary mining bees in my gardens; they are good pollinators while they last, but they do leave favored boring areas looking like swiss cheese, and they don't get going in time for the earliest spring-flowering plants.
Never been stung once, and I regularly pass through clouds of them on my way to the garbage cans.
The only kind of "pipe" which is truly future-proof is an empty one, with air inside. One inch is a nice size. And maybe a length of nylon lanyard to help pull something through.
Got that right! 1.25" is nice too... make sure it's metal, continuous ground. And airtight is beautiful if you can get it, pneumatics are fun for all ages.
You've based your outlook on your own experience. That's good, and very scientific. However, my experience is quite different.
When the major labels went to CDs rather than vinyl, I noticed that their profits per album skyrocketed, yet they did not pass those profits to the artists (in the form of increased royalties) or to consumers (in the form of lower prices).
Now, I'm a fan of capitalism (though I concede true laissez-faire capitalism leads to monopolies if not atrocities) so I like to vote with my pocketbook.
So, I only buy CDs directly from the artists. I've got over 200 CDs I bought at concerts and music festivals; most are not on the major labels. I've got another few dozen from minor labels like Green Linnet, Barking Pumpkin, etc.
But I don't download music without permission from the artist. Because I don't need to, and it seems like stealing to me. I don't kill or steal unless I absolutely have to (yes I would kill, cook and eat you if I was starving and had no other options, but that's unlikely, so don't wait up).
So, I see no reason to stop mass file sharing. I suspect the only people who use it wouldn't buy records anyway (because they are either broke or thieves) or else they are simply sampling a product before buying it. Either way it's not harmful to anyone, so it's not worth regulating.
If they need you badly enough to make the counter-offer, see if they need you enough to write a nice contract. If they won't do it, then they were prolly up to no good, and likely to lay you off once your current contract was done.
However, I should point out that I've done this repeatedly throughout my career (brought job offers to my current employers) because I don't think it's fair to run off without explanation. I won't work for anyone I don't have at least that much respect for, basically.
I've never bothered to ask for such a contract, and I've never been burned (three different employers, five or six times through the offer/counter-offer/counter-counter-offer/etc cycle) but it seems like a good idea to me.
Every time they come out with a new standard for ethernet it's the same old schpiel - "you need this special expensive coax/shielded-pair/fiber-optic etherhose to make it work; you canna change the laws o' physics Cap'n!"
Then eight months later somebody figures out how to run it on old lamp cords and string.
Don't rush out to buy fiber unless you need the noise isolation (glass is great for that!) and don't care about the cost.
Habitat doesn't "give away free houses". You should take a look at what they do before you condemn them. From their FAQ:
Habitat is not a giveaway program. In addition to a down payment and the monthly mortage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor -- sweat equity -- into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.
Habitat also does not use the criteria you've assumed in determining who should benefit from their work; in particular, they don't build houses for people who don't need them. They also teach skills (usually construction skills, unless there are physical disability issues) to the homeowners so they will be able to afford their mortgages.
I recommend volunteerism to you as a way to put a little perspective in your life. Habitat might be a good start - check out your local chapter. Keep in mind that although it's a Xpian charity, you are not required or even expected to have any particular religious affiliation (the local chapter in my neck of the woods is run by Unitarian Universalists and Bhuddists!).
Not quite the formatting I had in mind. Someday I'll get the hang of this computer thingy (right after I master telephones and copiers, I guess).
Oh, well, my post will get modded out of existence by the resident Zionist and Anti-Zionist fanatics anyway, since neither group has the ability to tolerate equal time for the opposition.
Slashdot Mirror
DH is the secure key transfer mechanism used by SSL and TLS (although TLS can theoretically use other methods, nobody does in practice).
The Diffie-Hellman Key Transfer Algorithm (which I have printed on a T-shirt in nicely colored blocks) is NOT an encryption method, although it is used during protocol negotiations when preparing for encrypted communication across an untrusted network.
If you're not, there are plenty of replies already here for you - get a cheap horribly polluting inefficient genset, run your RV motor all the time, etc. More gasoline = more dollars for Wahabi = more terrorist actions by Islamic fundies, but who cares as long as you've got Microsoft Solitaire?
/. crowd's disregard for anything beyond immediate gratification, sorry.
OK, I topped out my own irony-o-meter on that one. But I get pretty tired of the
Anyway, if you want efficiency, and you're handy, check out Home Power Magazine. The current edition has an article on choosing a laptop for low power consumption.
In your RV, you can use a standard laptop car power adapter, or you can build your own. Both my laptops run on DC (they have transformers and converters built into a pod in the middle of the power cord) and although they use odd voltages (14.5 VDC or something like that) I was able to get a DC/DC converter at the local ham radio store.
I have heard that some laptops do the AC/DC conversion internally, so if you have one of those you'll either have to crack the case open and add a connector or you'll need to sacrifice a battery pack to make a "fake battery" containing a simple voltage regulator circuit or else just a jack that you can connect an external PS to.
If you go the "fake battery" route don't be fazed by all those crazy connection points on your LIon battery pack - all but two of them are usually for charging the battery (to equally distribute the charge to all the cells) so you don't have to hook those up - just the two off by themselves, and you can use a cheap $20 multimeter to find polarity off a good pack.
Oh, and be careful if you dissect a battery pack, and dispose of the cells properly. Supposedly some of the laptop cells can blow up if you short 'em out (not sure if I believe that, but better safe than sorry).
Good luck!
Right, obviously. I mean, who wants to apply for a job as a "SAP programmer"? You aren't going to get the geek girls with that job title!
Ah, yes, in the scenic Amish area of Pennsylvania. How pleasant it is to ride along Lititz road, overlooking Peach Bottom, seeking out the little back-country cart-roads leading from Blueball road to the picturesque communities of Bird-in-Hand, Gap, and ultimately Intercourse.
Digital Equipment Corporation's VMS operating system (in many ways far superior to Unix, but killed by DEC's incredible lack of marketing savvy)was the first certified POSIX-compliant operating system. And it was not in any sense a Unix.
It was also 64-bit clean around ten years ago, and had ACLs that *worked* before anyone else.
NT inherited some lame vestiges of POSIX compliance from VMS because it is basically a bootleg version of VMS with a GUI inapropriately tacked on at the kernel level instead of userspace where it belongs. Cutler has much to regret.
If DEC had been smart enough to open the VMS source before it got too bloated, there would be no need for Linux or the various Unices. The problem areas in VMS (such as the expensive process creation and the strong bias towards American English) could have been eradicated by the same legions of hackers that have made Linux viable.
In other words, you guys are talking about a fairly typical diesel-electric hybrid scheme. The Prius and Insight are essentially the same idea only using gasoline (aka petrol). Gas is more readily available in many parts of the United States.
Don't know about the Honda, but my Prius uses NimH not NiCad. And believe me, they will get reconditioned/recycled - the pack is large enough to make it economically worthwhile.
The VW super-diesels are not available in the USA yet. But you are right, with bio-diesel they rock.
So if you are calculating based on carrying capacity you are incorrect, the Honda isn't the most fuel efficient.
If you are just going by mpg without any other caveats, the Solectrica and EV-1 have you beat because they are pure electrics and use no gas.
On the other hand, Honda's new hybrid (based on the same technology) will probably be an even better family car than the Prius because of Honda's excellent CVCC gas engine technology. Go Honda!
The crude won't run out in 20 years. The *CHEAP* crude will run out in 20 years. Fat cat Washington politicos, network talking heads, the hereditary rich, and corporate robber barons will still be able to drive gas-guzzling behemoths, but the rest of us need to come up with another plan.
Most aluminum is recycled, and costs little compared to other metals.
But yes, the initial electrolysis of aluminium from bauxite is unbelievably energy-intensive and is typically only feasible where hydroelectric power is cheaply available.
IBM-PCs do indeed suck, rather specifically they position a fan next to the hottest component (the power supply) which sucks heated air from inside the case and exhausts it from an external vent.
This causes them to pull dust-laden air in (often drawing directly across magnetic heads in floppy or other removable media drives) through every crack and crevice in the case.
Once the dust-laden air is inside, it is heated by radiation and convection from motherboard components. This heating and drying changes the amount of dust that can remain suspended in the air, and it rains out to form an insulating blanket over the internal electronics.
Before the corner-cutting PC design became de rigeur, it was accepted that air should be drawn in through a filter, and the inside of the case should be at a positive pressure. Thus, inserting media would cause a rush of air outwards, blowing any foreign particles back away from magnetic heads.
Old machines stayed cleaner inside longer. But they eventually got dirty too, usually from poor maintenance near the end of their useful life cycle.
The #1 design flaw is of course the entire memory architecture.
Well, I've read Pirsig's opus several times already, but thanks for the recomendation anyway. It's a pretty good popularization of some basic zen principles (I particularly like the bit about "mechanic's feel") even though a bit less sucessful as a narrative. I also recommend it.
I'm about two thirds through Candide now, and I'm enjoying it. Certainly no LOTR or Gilgamesh, but still interesting and lively, compared to other books I've read from the same time period. And as you mentioned it's short, which is a blessed relief after recently reading Kafka's "Trial" and Frazer's "Golden Bough".
As a rebuttal of Leibnitz/Pangloss, so far it's pretty thorough. The Bantam version's footnotes are refreshingly brief and to the point.
What of Rousseau's would you recommend?
And speaking as a person who is currently drinking a cup of fair-trade, shade-grown "benevolent blend" branded coffee, I can subjectively say that it's some of the best I've ever had. Well worth the extra two or three pennies a cup it costs me. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it!
Your comment isn't unwarranted; you are correct that the difference between africanized bees and others is the distance they will pursue an enemy and the ferocity of the swarming attack.
However, there have been remarkably few deaths from "killer bees" and I have seen film footage of native Africans receiving easily 300 or more strings. They not only didn't die, they got used to it and the older fellows didn't even bother to brush the bees away from any area except directly around the eyes.
The "killer bee" hysteria is simply that, hysteria. I suspect more people are killed by lighting every year than by bee swarms.
The real point is that large-scale sexual reproduction (such as that provided by insect pollination)is better for the plants than localized, wind-borne pollination and self-pollination. It doesn't matter what the pollinating insect is, but obviously you're better off with something local that you don't have to spend a lot of time tending.
Self-pollination (such as is prevalent in coffee plants drenched with insecticides) is very nearly cloning. You'll remember that massive cloning of potatoes led to the Irish potato famine? It seems that a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy ad infinitum leads to weak, disease-riddled plants.
Theories abound, including ones that feature interesting catch-phrases like "accumulated viral load", but what everyone agrees is that sexual reproduction has distinct evolutionary advantages, and organisms that use those advantages will often be more robust and "survivable" than those that don't.
Most bees in coffee-growing areas of the world have been "Africanized" - that is, the local wimpy bees have been hybridized with more robust strains of bees originally found only in Africa. So, yes, the so-called "Killer Bees" (any bee can kill you if you are allergic to them, but it's highly unlikely otherwise) are pollinating the coffee.
In short, the type of insects involved are unimportant to the thrust of the article, which is that better coffee comes from sustainable farming practices - and all you have to do is taste a fresh cup of shade-grown fair-trade coffee to learn the truth of that. It's the best by far.
Nice post. I have hundreds of solitary mining bees in my gardens; they are good pollinators while they last, but they do leave favored boring areas looking like swiss cheese, and they don't get going in time for the earliest spring-flowering plants.
Never been stung once, and I regularly pass through clouds of them on my way to the garbage cans.
Got that right! 1.25" is nice too... make sure it's metal, continuous ground. And airtight is beautiful if you can get it, pneumatics are fun for all ages.
You've based your outlook on your own experience. That's good, and very scientific. However, my experience is quite different.
When the major labels went to CDs rather than vinyl, I noticed that their profits per album skyrocketed, yet they did not pass those profits to the artists (in the form of increased royalties) or to consumers (in the form of lower prices).
Now, I'm a fan of capitalism (though I concede true laissez-faire capitalism leads to monopolies if not atrocities) so I like to vote with my pocketbook.
So, I only buy CDs directly from the artists. I've got over 200 CDs I bought at concerts and music festivals; most are not on the major labels. I've got another few dozen from minor labels like Green Linnet, Barking Pumpkin, etc.
But I don't download music without permission from the artist. Because I don't need to, and it seems like stealing to me. I don't kill or steal unless I absolutely have to (yes I would kill, cook and eat you if I was starving and had no other options, but that's unlikely, so don't wait up).
So, I see no reason to stop mass file sharing. I suspect the only people who use it wouldn't buy records anyway (because they are either broke or thieves) or else they are simply sampling a product before buying it. Either way it's not harmful to anyone, so it's not worth regulating.
If they need you badly enough to make the counter-offer, see if they need you enough to write a nice contract. If they won't do it, then they were prolly up to no good, and likely to lay you off once your current contract was done.
However, I should point out that I've done this repeatedly throughout my career (brought job offers to my current employers) because I don't think it's fair to run off without explanation. I won't work for anyone I don't have at least that much respect for, basically.
I've never bothered to ask for such a contract, and I've never been burned (three different employers, five or six times through the offer/counter-offer/counter-counter-offer/etc cycle) but it seems like a good idea to me.
Every time they come out with a new standard for ethernet it's the same old schpiel - "you need this special expensive coax/shielded-pair/fiber-optic etherhose to make it work; you canna change the laws o' physics Cap'n!"
Then eight months later somebody figures out how to run it on old lamp cords and string.
Don't rush out to buy fiber unless you need the noise isolation (glass is great for that!) and don't care about the cost.
I recommend volunteerism to you as a way to put a little perspective in your life. Habitat might be a good start - check out your local chapter. Keep in mind that although it's a Xpian charity, you are not required or even expected to have any particular religious affiliation (the local chapter in my neck of the woods is run by Unitarian Universalists and Bhuddists!).
Not quite the formatting I had in mind. Someday I'll get the hang of this computer thingy (right after I master telephones and copiers, I guess).
Oh, well, my post will get modded out of existence by the resident Zionist and Anti-Zionist fanatics anyway, since neither group has the ability to tolerate equal time for the opposition.
Some Dads are not entirely self-centered. Go figure. Some Dads are even (gasp!) socially aware. If your Pop fits the profile, try a gift in his name to one of these: Habitat for Humanity Save the Afghan Children RAWA The Heifer Project Southern Poverty Law Center Adopt a Solar Family in Guatemala Palestinian Red Crescent Maen David Adom
I sort of assumed roller coaster designers and test engineers used Mary Jane.