I had moderated the post "informative" without checking the link. I replied both to warn people and also to cancel the moderation.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
In a kernel there is a lot of interaction between the various parts. In a monolithic kernel these interactions are performed by simple subroutine calls and manipulation of shared data. In a microkernel these interactions require a more complex switch between tasks, and message passing. In exchange, you get better protection of one part from the others, which makes tracking down bugs quicker.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
An excellent treatise, thank you. To respond to your challenge, the first computer I programmed was the DEC PDP-1 in 1964; it had 4096 18-bit words of memory, for 3 times 2 to the 12 power 6-bit characters. My home PC today has 1.5 gigabytes of RAM, or 1.5 times 2 to the 30 power. The quotient is more than 5 orders of magnitude.
My home PC also costs almost two orders of magnitude less than a PDP-1 did, even ignoring inflation.
John Sauter, greybeard (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
So, once again, think about what you install on your computer just like you would think about what you eat or who you have sex with. If you don't know, trust or suspect that software/food/person, then either screen them or think twice.
Hmmm. I detect a market for a software condom. That's a much better term than "sandbox" in some markets.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
When electronic voting machines are being stored they need to be watched carefully to make sure they aren't modified, don't have their guts swapped out, etc, this between-election security is also very expensive.
It's not all that expensive. In the small New Hampshire town where I work, we store our machines behind a locked door in the basement of Town Hall.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.net)
Online voting would probably greatly increase voter turnout throughout the U.S., simply because people wouldn't have to be late for work or skip lunch or whatever to head down to the polling place.
I am not so sure that greater voter turnout would improve our government. Perhaps it is better that only those who are willing to be late for work or skip lunch vote. Perhaps that class of people do a better job of selecting our representatives.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I used Mandrake on my ex-boyfriend's computer when I was staying with him, but he was always around to fix it when something went wrong.
This is the best incentive I have yet seen to persuade geeks to install a non-Windows operating system on their home computers.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
One end is infinitely long, but so narrow that it has a finite volume.
Could someone who is mathematically-inclined help me with this? How can comething be infinitely long in one of its dimensions without having an infinite volume?
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
They could be fired/jailed for that. When I worked as a Relay Operator, the main things stressed were Confidentiality and Transparency. You are NEVER NEVER allowed to talk to either end. Your job is a telephone line. You can't answer questions, you can't do anything. If you get asked questions, you basically have to tell the person that you are a telephone line and don't know anything, and to ask the person who they are talking to. Or my favorite thing to do was just type the questions that they asked me to the TTY user.
Maybe so, but these operators are people, not telephone lines, no matter what they are supposed to be. I can certainly understand how someone doing a job like this would appreciate a few kind words once in a while.
John Sauter (J_sauter@Empire.Net)
I have gotten many such calls at my little computer shop. Sometimes I get into a sympathetic conversation with the operator, who is perfectly willing to tell me the caller is probably a fraud.
I don't sell laptops and I don't ship overseas. If the caller asks why, I say that I am a retail store and prefer that my customers pick up their merchandise in person. My final defense, which I haven't had to use yet, is to say that I only sell the Commodore Amiga.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
So now we have to depend on the processor in a $79 piece of asiaware to correctly detect and 'bleep' or otherwise censor dirty words?
No, the player does not have an AI that can detect offensive material. It gets censorship instructions on a per-movie basis from the manufacturer. The article doesn't say, but I assume you have to connect the player to a telephone line to keep it updated so it can censor new movies. There is probably also a subscription charge for this service.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I think it is important for children to use computers, and not just the games.
Computers barely existed when I was young, but, remembering that the most important skill I learned in High School was typing, I introduced my children to my Apple II when they were in elementary school. At first we would type their assignments together on the computer; later they did the typing themselves. Their comfort level with computers allowed them to find jobs in the computer industry, and with luck they will be able to support me in my old age.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
We used Model 33's and Model 35's. These used 7-bit ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) rather than the 5-bit Baudot used by the Model 28. The low cost of the Model 33 made ASCII the standard character set for non-IBM computers of the time, and hence for the Internet.
The Model 33 and Model 35 were upper case only; the lower case Model 37 came later.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Obscenity is generally considered a victimless crime, since nobody is forced to watch it, but here is an exception: Lam Nguyen and his six associates are required to watch obscene materials. Indeed, the article even said that they get counseling for it. I don't think producing obscenity should be a crime, since if it is really bad nobody will buy it and it will go away. However, I do think it should be a crime to require people, as a condition of their employment, to view so much obscenity that they become sickened by it. We have workplace rules that forbid even relatively light-hearted sexual banter if it gives offense; surely required viewing of obscenity should also be forbidden.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
With advances in physical chemistry we could see an improvement of 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. With those kind of fuels one could put a bottle rocket into orbit!
With those kind of fuels, a suicide bomber could destroy a medium-sized city.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Orwellian also in describing a disconnect between what is expected of you, and what you are told (in the training video) is expected of you.
On a higher level, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four exaggerated the effects of loss of privacy to send a warning, and the message has taken root. The author of this piece likewise wishes to send a message about the foolishness of paying for technical support based on the number of calls handled per day, without any quality metric. I hope the necessary people read this story.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
By the time the situation is resolved, I doubt that anyone will be able to get any damages from SCO. It will have been completely gutted by then.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Well, OK, but early calendars attempted to include both the seasons of the year and the phases of the moon, making them much more complex. If the moon had been much less visible perhaps early civilizations wouldn't have bothered with it.
Actually, a more reasonable excuse for the moon is the tides. Lunar tides may have been important in providing a place for early life to form.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I wasn't thinking of stars but of the wonderous effect of an eclipse of the sun. The sun is "eaten" by a black circle, for a few seconds at totality you can see the corona, and then the black circle moves aside. Wouldn't seeing that fill you with a desire to learn what is going on?
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Slashdot Mirror
I had moderated the post "informative" without checking the link. I replied both to warn people and also to cancel the moderation.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Watch out, the PartyCat link is bogus.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I think a lot of people have forgotten 1789. Doesn't "Department of Homeland Security" sound a lot like "Committee of Public Safety?"
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Did the availability of the thief's blood help the police to catch him, or the prosecutors to convict him?
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
nbsp; John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
In a kernel there is a lot of interaction between the various parts. In a monolithic kernel these interactions are performed by simple subroutine calls and manipulation of shared data. In a microkernel these interactions require a more complex switch between tasks, and message passing. In exchange, you get better protection of one part from the others, which makes tracking down bugs quicker.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
My home PC also costs almost two orders of magnitude less than a PDP-1 did, even ignoring inflation.
John Sauter, greybeard (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_sauter@Empire.Net)
I don't sell laptops and I don't ship overseas. If the caller asks why, I say that I am a retail store and prefer that my customers pick up their merchandise in person. My final defense, which I haven't had to use yet, is to say that I only sell the Commodore Amiga.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Computers barely existed when I was young, but, remembering that the most important skill I learned in High School was typing, I introduced my children to my Apple II when they were in elementary school. At first we would type their assignments together on the computer; later they did the typing themselves. Their comfort level with computers allowed them to find jobs in the computer industry, and with luck they will be able to support me in my old age.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
The Model 33 and Model 35 were upper case only; the lower case Model 37 came later.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Obscenity is generally considered a victimless crime, since nobody is forced to watch it, but here is an exception: Lam Nguyen and his six associates are required to watch obscene materials. Indeed, the article even said that they get counseling for it. I don't think producing obscenity should be a crime, since if it is really bad nobody will buy it and it will go away. However, I do think it should be a crime to require people, as a condition of their employment, to view so much obscenity that they become sickened by it. We have workplace rules that forbid even relatively light-hearted sexual banter if it gives offense; surely required viewing of obscenity should also be forbidden.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
You anticipated my thought: a conversation-translating PDA is another step towards a protocol droid.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
On a higher level, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four exaggerated the effects of loss of privacy to send a warning, and the message has taken root. The author of this piece likewise wishes to send a message about the foolishness of paying for technical support based on the number of calls handled per day, without any quality metric. I hope the necessary people read this story.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
How can you tell if a politician is lying?
You watch his mouth. If it's moving, he's lying.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
By the time the situation is resolved, I doubt that anyone will be able to get any damages from SCO. It will have been completely gutted by then.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Actually, a more reasonable excuse for the moon is the tides. Lunar tides may have been important in providing a place for early life to form.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I wasn't thinking of stars but of the wonderous effect of an eclipse of the sun. The sun is "eaten" by a black circle, for a few seconds at totality you can see the corona, and then the black circle moves aside. Wouldn't seeing that fill you with a desire to learn what is going on?
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)