I'd like to second that *shudder* at the name PC Chips. I had to do an inventory/software upgrade for an entire hospital, about 70% of which was running Whiteboxes with PC Chips boards in it. Trust me, we were looking for reasons to decomission those!
Y'know, we always talk about the sort of devistation an astroid of size would cause, if it were to impact with the Earth. Let's say this one impacted with the Moon. What sort of ramifacations should we expect? Could it cause enough of a shift in the orbit of the moon, to change our tidal patterns? (And what would that do to our oceans?)
Of course if it were to completely knock the moon out of it's orbit, that might be an even bigger worry for us down here, should it fall from it's long-standing orbit. Or even if it spun off into space. Imagine our nights, without the light of the moon.
To a point, you're correct. However, the ROI (Return On Investment) for Education is likely 10 or 100 times better than the ROI for going to the Moon or Mars for scientific reasons.
It'll cost Billions, if not Trillions of dollars to send a small group to the moon or Mars, and keep them there, on life support, re-supply them regularly, etc.. However, for only a few thousand dollars a year, we can educate an individual.
Please, don't get me wrong. I think it would be -awesome- to have a colony on the Moon or Mars. I just don't think we can find the backing just yet for that sort of event.
While I think that space exploration and colonization isn't a bad idea, this article seems like a bit of fluff, as it doesn't really point out practical reasons to colonize the moon, or even Mars.
For purely scientific reasons means that someone has to pay for it, and not get anything but just knowledge back from it. I think to get real, positive backing, you're going to need solid, long-term business applications. That's when you'll get real money to do something with, I suspect.
Until then, I be we'll just be dreaming about doing it.
Actually, I -believe- that a number of years back, IBM's R&D portion of their HDD company (now being sold off), did research into a sort of HDD that was a 3D cube. They would shoot a set of lasers into the gelatin-like cube, (yeah, yeah..a gelatinous cube), and where the two lasers met, they would leave a point of data.
A 1-inch by 1-inch by 1-inch cube could hold 4 Tb. The biggest problem, of course, was that the gelatinous cube they were using was just a write-once sort of thing. They didn't have a medium they could re-write on.
There pretty much seems to be 2 camps when it comes to IBM and their ThinkPad laptops. Those of us who love them, and (for me) are a bit bigoted. And those who really don't care for them at all.
I'm an ex-IBMer, and when I really got to handle them, even the ones that were broken, I was hooked on them. Now all that has nothing to do with runing Linux on the platform, but as I looked around for something compairable...I couldn't find anything, save maybe a Toshiba.
I won't use anything that has a cheapo trackpad in it. I'll use the pointing stick, or a track ball, the trackpads just suck for me. I wish Apple had the trackpoint as an option, opposed to the trackpad. They'd be an interesting alternative to the ThinkPad.
Well, I suppose the bottom like is that when it comes to laptops, you get what you pay for. And at IBM, you pay a good chunk of change for them!
It'll be sad to see IBM turn it's back on a solid customer base, even if it's not a -HUGE- one. But, you also have to keep in mind, that if IBM is asked to do a $100k project, they turn it down. It's too small.
Let's say we put that video feature in our cell phones. It's an interesting, even nice idea for us geeks out here. If we've left that phone on all the time, and those phones are sending minimal signals back to local towers, so they can track where we are, thereby giving us the best signal...why wouldn't the phone ROM include code to allow someone to wake the phone remotely, and activate the audio pickup, and now the camera?
That would be a darn convenient trick if one of our fine government agencies who have broad wire tapping powers, could do. Imagine how easy it would be to track the movements and activities of a suspected criminal! You could just remotely turn on his phone, and listen in while he does a drug deal. Maybe even get incriminating footage!
Tell me, isn't line-of-sight laser communication simply another version of a fiber-optic technology? I thought there was a recent/. article about having fiber-optic lines tapped. Wouldn't, or rather couldn't line-of-sight laser communications simply be 'tapped' in a similar way, opposed to actually breaking the signal?
While I want to start by saying that it's -quite- keen that Bioware is listening to their customers, I was pondering this EULA, and there were some things that troubled me about it.
I began to think about the ramafications of this EULA, and then wondered how it would affect those using their software. It dawned on me, what if you applied this EULA to another piece of software? Does anyone do anything similar?
So, what if our "favorite" company, MicroSoft, applied this EULA to their popular Office suite? You may use MS Word to create all the letters, papers, books, documents, etc. that you like. But, if you print them out and share, fax, or electronically transmit said works, they become property of MicroSoft Corporation.
I'm certain I've seen more than one article talking about the fact that the broadband companies aren't getting to everyone out there, but rather have concentrated their efforts on high population densities. Now they say they're getting to most of the 'people' if not most of the 'geography' of the US.
Do these proposed rate hikes, and bandwidth limitations, new pricing structuers, etc.. mean that they're losing money and need to cover costs because their infrastructure is crummy and needs to be upgraded, can't handle the current and projected usage loads? Or are they just trying to figure out what they can make us pay, now that they have a captive market and don't have to share their lines with other providers?
I have to admit, the basic ideas of doing it, reguardless of what you want to look at, is quite innovative for home use. I'm sitting here in my basement pondering to myself, 'Hey, is this something I could do in the little window wells I have down here?'
While I might not choose a cityscape to gaze up at in my tiny window down here, I'm sure about anything is better than looking up at my neighbors house!
In the past, I've flown alot for business. I enjoy flying, actually, even in some of the cramped up economy spaces.
Before 9/11, I wasn't overly concerned about our planes running into things. The skyes are awfully big up there, and cities, aside from the obvious ones like NY and LA, are pretty easy to miss or avoid with all the land between them.
And as I think about it, the one thing that takes away my fears about a plane running into something, is that guy in the very front seat of the bus. Y'see, I know several pilots, and none of them are foolish enough to believe the ATC, when they're looking out the front of the plane and see a building comming at them quickly.
These are men and women who have, (proportedly), been highly trained and qualified to get us from point A to point B, safely. And I know most, if hopefully not all of them are smart enough to make good decisions when what they see doesn't match what the ATC is telling them.
In the same vein, there are men and women, who hopefully have good training and good instincts about being ATC's, that when a bug comes up, they're smarter than it is, and will make decisions that avoid the loss of life and property.
Sometimes, alas, you must trust the User to do the right thing. And in this case, we get Trained Users to do the job. Let them do their job.
So, here's the $64,000 question: If we do or if we don't make a treaty for territory off-world, in space, Mars, the Moon, etc.. Who will enforce said arrangements and agreements? How will you verify claims that someone has broken the treaty? Governing the peace in space isn't something I think should be left up to the UN.
Call me 'old-fashion' but I still Love My Country, and things like this..make me Fear My Government. I'm willing to be as patriotic as the next red-blooded American. But I still have -some- faith in the courts and in the judges out there to at least look twice at a wiretap or similar spy-order/request.
Without the checks and ballances we've previously had in place, who will be in charge of oversight? Will there be any oversight? Who keeps track of whose wire we're tapping?
Imagine the implications if you could convince your long-time friend over in the FBI/CIA/NSA/ETC that you need to have him plug in and give a listen to your political nemisis?
Say, do you suppose the Secret Service is allowed these broad powers under this act? Could the President order them to wiretap someone, for little to no reason, without someone to keep a check and ballance in place?
Not a Huge Surprise..
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I suppose this shouldn't be a huge surprise. Being an ex-IBMer, I can empathsize with the employees in the HDD division, I'm sure from their point of view, it sucks rocks. I used to be in the service division, back when they cut service off like a gangreen limb and started calling us Technology Service Solutions (TSS) as part of a Joint Venture with Kodak.
I suppose the point of my story is that even several years ago, IBM has been looking for the places it can cut the fat, increase the profits. It's what all business folk do. And IBM has done their share of silly business moves that looked like good ideas, (*cough* TSS *cough*). And if it's doesn't work out, those who endure, will get folded back in and things could very well be better than before.
IBM does alot of drive business. How many times have you opened up your Apple G3 or G4, only to find the IBM HDD inside? Or how about your laptop? How many folks have upgraded their laptop HDD's with IBM drives? If IBM is getting out of the HDD business, there must be something in R&D that's pretty darn cool, or IBM's losing their competative edge.
Hey, I'm a new father, so I have something clue-like, if not the full clue. I still believe that being active in your child's life is key to teaching them what is right and what is wrong. They work harder to hide things, but if you give them reason, they won't find the need to do those things. Be a good example.
My father has been an educator all my life. My sister and my brother are now educators. I'm sorta the black-sheep of the family, being the computer guy. Net-Nanny is a fine tool, but it's not a replacement for an active parent.
BTW, I happened to have liked "I love Lucy" and have only about 6 channels on the TV that I know I don't have to be concerned with our 8-year-old watching, without someone in the same room.
Let's just be responsible, good parents, and not rely on an unthinking-tool to make decisions that it's not as qualified as we are to make.
Agreed. And if you let a -real person- do the filtering, (a much longer process, time consuming and all that), then there would be less overblock, and little underblock. An automated process does the job, but isn't yet intelligent enough to decide if the content is about health, or just about sex.
A community in NY, KS, and CA are all going to have different answers to what is and what isn't good for children to see at the library. And none of the answers are really wrong.
Our best defense for protecting our children from things on the Internet that we don't want them to see, is to be active, responsible adults. That means we shouldn't leave our under aged offspring to roam around freely in places where they could be exposed.
If we, the ones who spawned our children, aren't responsible for protecting them, why should someone else (including the government) be concerned about doing it for us?
I think it all boils down to being responsible adults to those who aren't yet adult enough to be responsible.
This sounds like a wonderful idea. While it'd be nice to be able to go sit in the park and get some exposure to the 'real world' outside, while having ones 'constant connection' to their laptop, how long will it take to push this sort of technology out from the heart of the Silicon Valley area?
I'm still waiting for Nextel to allow me to Direct Connect across regions, and they've really had most of the infrastructure for a while now. I think I'm more interested in seeing what sort of pricing structure and rollout schedule they're thinking of -if- things work out.
Certainly it doesn't work for all computer issues, but it's something to consider, hopefully make one think outside the box about the problem at hand. If the company are really spammers, then they deserve what they get. But what if they're not spammers?
In all our fighting against those who do spam, eventually we're bound to take a wrong step and accuse someone who looks like a spammer, but really isn't. When we do, whose fault is it? Us, or them?
What if this weren't about spam email, but about a mechanic who worked on someones car? If your mechanic mis-diagnoses your car, puts in the wrong part, and causes more damage than when he started, do you expect him to fix it all, and fix it right? And if he doesn't, you have to take it to someone else, do you have a valid case to make the first mechanic pay the bill?
Of course it all hinges on the fact that the first mechanic -did- make a mistake. If not, then you're out the cost of the lawyer too.
Being a Comcast customer (previously @Home), I've noticed that there were times when I found hard bandwidth limits while trying to pull in data. In particular, I was hitting a 15kb/sec limit with an FTP action. It seems to me, that perhaps some providers, (maybe by locales/regions) may already be limiting our throughput, and just not making it terribly public.
Granted, 15kb/sec is better than our old dialup, but when you're trying to move a large chunk of data, 15kb/sec is noticably slow, when you can test the line speed up to 1 Mbs.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to second that *shudder* at the name PC Chips. I had to do an inventory/software upgrade for an entire hospital, about 70% of which was running Whiteboxes with PC Chips boards in it. Trust me, we were looking for reasons to decomission those!
Y'know, we always talk about the sort of devistation an astroid of size would cause, if it were to impact with the Earth. Let's say this one impacted with the Moon. What sort of ramifacations should we expect? Could it cause enough of a shift in the orbit of the moon, to change our tidal patterns? (And what would that do to our oceans?)
Of course if it were to completely knock the moon out of it's orbit, that might be an even bigger worry for us down here, should it fall from it's long-standing orbit. Or even if it spun off into space. Imagine our nights, without the light of the moon.
To a point, you're correct. However, the ROI (Return On Investment) for Education is likely 10 or 100 times better than the ROI for going to the Moon or Mars for scientific reasons.
It'll cost Billions, if not Trillions of dollars to send a small group to the moon or Mars, and keep them there, on life support, re-supply them regularly, etc.. However, for only a few thousand dollars a year, we can educate an individual.
Please, don't get me wrong. I think it would be -awesome- to have a colony on the Moon or Mars. I just don't think we can find the backing just yet for that sort of event.
Indeed, it does! Drat! Foiled again!
While I think that space exploration and colonization isn't a bad idea, this article seems like a bit of fluff, as it doesn't really point out practical reasons to colonize the moon, or even Mars.
For purely scientific reasons means that someone has to pay for it, and not get anything but just knowledge back from it. I think to get real, positive backing, you're going to need solid, long-term business applications. That's when you'll get real money to do something with, I suspect.
Until then, I be we'll just be dreaming about doing it.
Actually, I -believe- that a number of years back, IBM's R&D portion of their HDD company (now being sold off), did research into a sort of HDD that was a 3D cube. They would shoot a set of lasers into the gelatin-like cube, (yeah, yeah..a gelatinous cube), and where the two lasers met, they would leave a point of data.
A 1-inch by 1-inch by 1-inch cube could hold 4 Tb. The biggest problem, of course, was that the gelatinous cube they were using was just a write-once sort of thing. They didn't have a medium they could re-write on.
There pretty much seems to be 2 camps when it comes to IBM and their ThinkPad laptops. Those of us who love them, and (for me) are a bit bigoted. And those who really don't care for them at all.
I'm an ex-IBMer, and when I really got to handle them, even the ones that were broken, I was hooked on them. Now all that has nothing to do with runing Linux on the platform, but as I looked around for something compairable...I couldn't find anything, save maybe a Toshiba.
I won't use anything that has a cheapo trackpad in it. I'll use the pointing stick, or a track ball, the trackpads just suck for me. I wish Apple had the trackpoint as an option, opposed to the trackpad. They'd be an interesting alternative to the ThinkPad.
Well, I suppose the bottom like is that when it comes to laptops, you get what you pay for. And at IBM, you pay a good chunk of change for them!
It'll be sad to see IBM turn it's back on a solid customer base, even if it's not a -HUGE- one. But, you also have to keep in mind, that if IBM is asked to do a $100k project, they turn it down. It's too small.
Let's say we put that video feature in our cell phones. It's an interesting, even nice idea for us geeks out here. If we've left that phone on all the time, and those phones are sending minimal signals back to local towers, so they can track where we are, thereby giving us the best signal ...why wouldn't the phone ROM include code to allow someone to wake the phone remotely, and activate the audio pickup, and now the camera?
That would be a darn convenient trick if one of our fine government agencies who have broad wire tapping powers, could do. Imagine how easy it would be to track the movements and activities of a suspected criminal! You could just remotely turn on his phone, and listen in while he does a drug deal. Maybe even get incriminating footage!
Tell me, isn't line-of-sight laser communication simply another version of a fiber-optic technology? I thought there was a recent /. article about having fiber-optic lines tapped. Wouldn't, or rather couldn't line-of-sight laser communications simply be 'tapped' in a similar way, opposed to actually breaking the signal?
While I want to start by saying that it's -quite- keen that Bioware is listening to their customers, I was pondering this EULA, and there were some things that troubled me about it.
I began to think about the ramafications of this EULA, and then wondered how it would affect those using their software. It dawned on me, what if you applied this EULA to another piece of software? Does anyone do anything similar?
So, what if our "favorite" company, MicroSoft, applied this EULA to their popular Office suite? You may use MS Word to create all the letters, papers, books, documents, etc. that you like. But, if you print them out and share, fax, or electronically transmit said works, they become property of MicroSoft Corporation.
...
Thought provoking, huh?
Hold on a minute, I've got my surprised look around here somewhere...um, just a second... (Insert sounds of rumaging here.) Oh, here it is.
(GASP!) You mean people didn't -like- the idea of having their privacy invaded? I'm shocked! [But mostly not.]
Sheesh.
I'm certain I've seen more than one article talking about the fact that the broadband companies aren't getting to everyone out there, but rather have concentrated their efforts on high population densities. Now they say they're getting to most of the 'people' if not most of the 'geography' of the US.
Do these proposed rate hikes, and bandwidth limitations, new pricing structuers, etc.. mean that they're losing money and need to cover costs because their infrastructure is crummy and needs to be upgraded, can't handle the current and projected usage loads? Or are they just trying to figure out what they can make us pay, now that they have a captive market and don't have to share their lines with other providers?
I have to admit, the basic ideas of doing it, reguardless of what you want to look at, is quite innovative for home use. I'm sitting here in my basement pondering to myself, 'Hey, is this something I could do in the little window wells I have down here?'
While I might not choose a cityscape to gaze up at in my tiny window down here, I'm sure about anything is better than looking up at my neighbors house!
I'll try not to stray offtopic here.
In the past, I've flown alot for business. I enjoy flying, actually, even in some of the cramped up economy spaces.
Before 9/11, I wasn't overly concerned about our planes running into things. The skyes are awfully big up there, and cities, aside from the obvious ones like NY and LA, are pretty easy to miss or avoid with all the land between them.
And as I think about it, the one thing that takes away my fears about a plane running into something, is that guy in the very front seat of the bus. Y'see, I know several pilots, and none of them are foolish enough to believe the ATC, when they're looking out the front of the plane and see a building comming at them quickly.
These are men and women who have, (proportedly), been highly trained and qualified to get us from point A to point B, safely. And I know most, if hopefully not all of them are smart enough to make good decisions when what they see doesn't match what the ATC is telling them.
In the same vein, there are men and women, who hopefully have good training and good instincts about being ATC's, that when a bug comes up, they're smarter than it is, and will make decisions that avoid the loss of life and property.
Sometimes, alas, you must trust the User to do the right thing. And in this case, we get Trained Users to do the job. Let them do their job.
At what point do we shift the name of a product like this from Explorer to Sieve? How many previous 'security holes' have there been?
MS is starting to look more and more like the little boy whose plugging the leaks in the dike with their fingers.
So, here's the $64,000 question: If we do or if we don't make a treaty for territory off-world, in space, Mars, the Moon, etc.. Who will enforce said arrangements and agreements? How will you verify claims that someone has broken the treaty? Governing the peace in space isn't something I think should be left up to the UN.
Call me 'old-fashion' but I still Love My Country, and things like this..make me Fear My Government. I'm willing to be as patriotic as the next red-blooded American. But I still have -some- faith in the courts and in the judges out there to at least look twice at a wiretap or similar spy-order/request.
Without the checks and ballances we've previously had in place, who will be in charge of oversight? Will there be any oversight? Who keeps track of whose wire we're tapping?
Imagine the implications if you could convince your long-time friend over in the FBI/CIA/NSA/ETC that you need to have him plug in and give a listen to your political nemisis?
Say, do you suppose the Secret Service is allowed these broad powers under this act? Could the President order them to wiretap someone, for little to no reason, without someone to keep a check and ballance in place?
I suppose this shouldn't be a huge surprise. Being an ex-IBMer, I can empathsize with the employees in the HDD division, I'm sure from their point of view, it sucks rocks. I used to be in the service division, back when they cut service off like a gangreen limb and started calling us Technology Service Solutions (TSS) as part of a Joint Venture with Kodak.
I suppose the point of my story is that even several years ago, IBM has been looking for the places it can cut the fat, increase the profits. It's what all business folk do. And IBM has done their share of silly business moves that looked like good ideas, (*cough* TSS *cough*). And if it's doesn't work out, those who endure, will get folded back in and things could very well be better than before.
IBM does alot of drive business. How many times have you opened up your Apple G3 or G4, only to find the IBM HDD inside? Or how about your laptop? How many folks have upgraded their laptop HDD's with IBM drives? If IBM is getting out of the HDD business, there must be something in R&D that's pretty darn cool, or IBM's losing their competative edge.
Hey, I'm a new father, so I have something clue-like, if not the full clue. I still believe that being active in your child's life is key to teaching them what is right and what is wrong. They work harder to hide things, but if you give them reason, they won't find the need to do those things. Be a good example.
My father has been an educator all my life. My sister and my brother are now educators. I'm sorta the black-sheep of the family, being the computer guy. Net-Nanny is a fine tool, but it's not a replacement for an active parent.
BTW, I happened to have liked "I love Lucy" and have only about 6 channels on the TV that I know I don't have to be concerned with our 8-year-old watching, without someone in the same room.
Let's just be responsible, good parents, and not rely on an unthinking-tool to make decisions that it's not as qualified as we are to make.
Agreed. And if you let a -real person- do the filtering, (a much longer process, time consuming and all that), then there would be less overblock, and little underblock. An automated process does the job, but isn't yet intelligent enough to decide if the content is about health, or just about sex.
A community in NY, KS, and CA are all going to have different answers to what is and what isn't good for children to see at the library. And none of the answers are really wrong.
Our best defense for protecting our children from things on the Internet that we don't want them to see, is to be active, responsible adults. That means we shouldn't leave our under aged offspring to roam around freely in places where they could be exposed.
If we, the ones who spawned our children, aren't responsible for protecting them, why should someone else (including the government) be concerned about doing it for us?
I think it all boils down to being responsible adults to those who aren't yet adult enough to be responsible.
This sounds like a wonderful idea. While it'd be nice to be able to go sit in the park and get some exposure to the 'real world' outside, while having ones 'constant connection' to their laptop, how long will it take to push this sort of technology out from the heart of the Silicon Valley area?
I'm still waiting for Nextel to allow me to Direct Connect across regions, and they've really had most of the infrastructure for a while now. I think I'm more interested in seeing what sort of pricing structure and rollout schedule they're thinking of -if- things work out.
Certainly it doesn't work for all computer issues, but it's something to consider, hopefully make one think outside the box about the problem at hand. If the company are really spammers, then they deserve what they get. But what if they're not spammers?
In all our fighting against those who do spam, eventually we're bound to take a wrong step and accuse someone who looks like a spammer, but really isn't. When we do, whose fault is it? Us, or them?
What if this weren't about spam email, but about a mechanic who worked on someones car? If your mechanic mis-diagnoses your car, puts in the wrong part, and causes more damage than when he started, do you expect him to fix it all, and fix it right? And if he doesn't, you have to take it to someone else, do you have a valid case to make the first mechanic pay the bill?
Of course it all hinges on the fact that the first mechanic -did- make a mistake. If not, then you're out the cost of the lawyer too.
Being a Comcast customer (previously @Home), I've noticed that there were times when I found hard bandwidth limits while trying to pull in data. In particular, I was hitting a 15kb/sec limit with an FTP action. It seems to me, that perhaps some providers, (maybe by locales/regions) may already be limiting our throughput, and just not making it terribly public.
Granted, 15kb/sec is better than our old dialup, but when you're trying to move a large chunk of data, 15kb/sec is noticably slow, when you can test the line speed up to 1 Mbs.