"I suggest looking at buying a copy of a FreeBSD book that includes a CD at a local bookstore. Pay cash and wear a disguise. That way they'll never get your address. "freebsd book cd" picks up a couple of likely hits on google."
The books are all out of date. I want a current release , not one from 12 months or more back. Plus you only ever get the base OS with the books, not all the extra stuff. Yes I'm making it hard for myself , but with good reason.
Thanks for the offer, much appreciated, but I'm a bit reluctant to give out my address to complete strangers. I hope you understand, no offence.
If only BSD was easier to get hold of
on
FreeBSD 4.X Lives On
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· Score: 3, Insightful
There used to be a shop where you could actually buy FreeBSD. Now thats closed down there is no where to get it. I won't order over the net after once my card got duped and another time when something never showed up and I spent days arguing the toss with the supplier, and I can't download it as I have a 56K modem and no burner anyway. So basically even though I would like to get hold of a new version I'm screwed. I can't see why they can't increase their distribution channels somewhat...
Indeed. They seem to forget that DNA in cells require a HUGE amount of supporting biochemical infrastructure to make it work and keep it together. Without that it would , like any other complex biological molecule break down and/or be eaten by bacteria. And as you mention , the temperature problem is not a small one. Unless they come up with some sort of "life support" system for these DNA computers they'll be useless in all but the most benign enviroments. DNA is found in nature because thats one of the few ways you can get SELF REPLICATION chemically. If you simply want pure COMPUTATION or storage then you're probably better off looking elsewhere.
I guess the best use of mechanical digital circuits would be if you don't care about speed but want something almost indestructable. Build the cogs out of titanium with teflon coating for lubrication and who knows what the possibilities could be. Just think of the dangerous places you could send a robot built out of this stuff. Output could be an issue though unless you have the thing wave little semaphore flags and some guy with binoculars notes them down!
How long before someone ports linux to them?
on
Lego Logic Gates
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· Score: 1
The client isn't drawing anything on its screen; the client doesn't have a screen. The server does. And that server could be on the other side of the world to the client. I can run X applications on my office workstation and make them appear on my home PC over the internet. I really don't understand why people have such trouble with the client-server terminology in X. Having it the other way around would be like calling a print server the "client" simply because the server itself doesn't create the content. Absurd.
True hackers wouldn't need an SDK, they'd just create their own binary and upload it. Uploading is the hard part I suspect if you don't have an EPROM blower (assuming the EPROM in the IPOD can even be removed from the circuit board).
I didn't. I'm not american. Neither are lots of people on here. The "management" may or may not be liberal but the people who post have a whole spectrum of views AFAICS.
How close to what exactly? A nuclear explosion? Sorry , it doesn't work like that.
"insult their intelligence is unnecessary and counter-productive"
When you've tried explaining the reality of nuclear power to these sorts of people and all you've got back is "yeah , but its nuclear!" you begin to wonder if they have any verifiable intelligence. Frankly , they deserve more than an insult for the way they've screwed up energy production in this world.
"By contrast, at least fossil fuel products are largely recycled in the natural environment, and what radioactivity they introduce isn't much different from what is already there naturally (compare: radioactive cesium and iodine)."
Yes , all that CO2 is being recycled and isn't really building up in the atmosphere. As from the radioactivity not being different, well outside of a partical accelerator ALL radioactivity is natural - uranium ore is extracted from the ground just like coal, oil gas. I'm not sure what you're point is. And you're forgetting about the huge slag heaps that a lot of fossil fuel stations (mainly coal) produce which just get dumped or used in building material.
"But is cheap and messy nuclear really the right choice to make if we care about the future, and not merely ourselves?"
Frankly , who cares about what happens in 100,000 years time? Either our technology will be so advanced that nuclear waste be a non issue or we'll have gone back to the stone age in which case a bit of radioactivity will make little odds as there won't be many people about anyway. Besides which , right now short term solutions are better than maintaining the status que vis-a-vis fossil fuels given the state of the climate!
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?"
The plasma disperses and the fusion stops. What do you think happens when they shut the field down now after their tests?
"Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also."
Really? Why?
"The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered."
And it would have been had the anti-nuclear nutters who stopped the whole thing in its tracks. Yes 3 mile island happened and then chernobyl. So what? When an airliner crashes 400 people die. Do we stop all flight? Tens of thousands of people die in car crashes every year. Do we ban cars? No.
"The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion"
If the halfwitted political loudmouths of society can be convinced this new form is "better" than the old form (whether it is or not) then we may get somewhere with it. If it ever works that is.
"nuclear fission is about the only 'safe' alternative in the meantime. Generating many orders of magnitude less radioactive waste than current fossil fuel plants,"
I completely agree with you , but try telling that to the kneejerk reaction anti nuclear fanatics who can't see the wood for their own foolishly planted trees. Mind you, I've met some of these people and half of them couldn't even spell "radioactivity" never mind tell you what it was. They work purely on a fevered emotional level and no amount of rational discussion will convince them otherwise. They are the same sorts of people who dunked old women in ponds back in the 17th century because they talked to their cat and someone got ill in the village shortly afterwards.
"The average scientific reader of Slashdot? Hahaha."
This may surprise you but some people who read this site actually do work in various scientific disciplines. Unlike you apparently. Go back under your bridge troll.
After all , most people view DVDs on a standalone player , not on a PC. So whats the point of putting in an easter egg that 90% of the people who buy the DVD can't view?
OSF/1 , Tru64 , [insert its name this week] might have been advanced once back in the mid 90s but once compaq got hold of it things started to stagnate feature wise compared to other unixes (probably because some pissant PC company didn't really have a clue what to do when faced with "real" machines and heavyweight 24/7 uptime customers). People knock HP-UX but personally I find it pretty good, plus the hardware is a damn site more reliable than Suns sorry offerings.
Back in 1985. Things have diverged a bit since then and any code (such as clustering) would have been written from scratch anyway and have nothing to do with any original BSD or SysV code.
Slashdot Mirror
Now theres a name just begging for some tasteless puns.
You try and cvsup a 12 month old dist. on a dial up line.
No unfortunately. I don't live in the USA.
"I suggest looking at buying a copy of a FreeBSD book that includes a CD at a local bookstore. Pay cash and wear a disguise. That way they'll never get your address. "freebsd book cd" picks up a couple of likely hits on google."
The books are all out of date. I want a current release , not one from 12 months or more back. Plus you only ever get the base OS with the books, not all the extra stuff. Yes I'm making it hard for myself , but with good reason.
Thanks for the offer, much appreciated, but I'm a bit reluctant to give out my address to complete strangers. I hope you understand, no offence.
There used to be a shop where you could actually buy FreeBSD. Now thats closed down there is no where to get it. I won't order over the net after once my card got duped and another time when something never showed up and I spent days arguing the toss with the supplier, and I can't download it as I have a 56K modem and no burner anyway. So basically even though I would like to get hold of a new version I'm screwed. I can't see why they can't increase their distribution channels somewhat...
Indeed. They seem to forget that DNA in cells require a HUGE amount of supporting biochemical infrastructure to make it work and keep it together. Without that it would , like any other complex biological molecule break down and/or be eaten by bacteria. And as you mention , the temperature problem is not a small one. Unless they come up with some sort of "life support" system for these DNA computers they'll be useless in all but the most benign enviroments. DNA is found in nature because thats one of the few ways you can get SELF REPLICATION chemically. If you simply want pure COMPUTATION or storage then you're probably better off looking elsewhere.
Except it won't stand 2000C heat.
I guess the best use of mechanical digital circuits would be if you don't care about speed but want something almost indestructable. Build the cogs out of titanium with teflon coating for lubrication and who knows what the possibilities could be. Just think of the dangerous places you could send a robot built out of this stuff. Output could be an issue though unless you have the thing wave little semaphore flags and some guy with binoculars notes them down!
Well , kind of inevitable really.
The client isn't drawing anything on its screen; the client doesn't have a screen. The server does. And that server could be on the other side of the world to the client. I can run X applications on my office workstation and make them appear on my home PC over the internet. I really don't understand why people have such trouble with the client-server terminology in X. Having it the other way around would be like calling a print server the "client" simply because the server itself doesn't create the content. Absurd.
True hackers wouldn't need an SDK, they'd just create their own binary and upload it. Uploading is the hard part I suspect if you don't have an EPROM blower (assuming the EPROM in the IPOD can even be removed from the circuit board).
Hardly modding the firmware! Isn't there some way of programming your own apps on the thing?
"Most on here voted for Kerry I would bet "
I didn't. I'm not american. Neither are lots of people on here. The "management" may or may not be liberal but the people who post have a whole spectrum of views AFAICS.
"I think about how close we came in 1979"
How close to what exactly? A nuclear explosion? Sorry , it doesn't work like that.
"insult their intelligence is unnecessary and counter-productive"
When you've tried explaining the reality of nuclear power to these sorts of people and all you've got back is "yeah , but its nuclear!" you begin to wonder if they have any verifiable intelligence. Frankly , they deserve more than an insult for the way they've screwed up energy production in this world.
"But is cheap and messy nuclear really the right choice to make if we care about the future, and not merely ourselves?"
Well my experience differs. They seem to be nothing more than Joe Public with a loud mouth.
"To compare people caring about the enviroment, to witchhunters make YOU look foolish"
Theres a difference between this and caring about the enviroment. Try figuring it out.
"By contrast, at least fossil fuel products are largely recycled in the natural environment, and what radioactivity they introduce isn't much different from what is already there naturally (compare: radioactive cesium and iodine)."
Yes , all that CO2 is being recycled and isn't really building up in the atmosphere. As from the radioactivity not being different, well outside of a partical accelerator ALL radioactivity is natural - uranium ore is extracted from the ground just like coal, oil gas. I'm not sure what you're point is. And you're forgetting about the huge slag heaps that a lot of fossil fuel stations (mainly coal) produce which just get dumped or used in building material.
"But is cheap and messy nuclear really the right choice to make if we care about the future, and not merely ourselves?"
Frankly , who cares about what happens in 100,000 years time? Either our technology will be so advanced that nuclear waste be a non issue or we'll have gone back to the stone age in which case a bit of radioactivity will make little odds as there won't be many people about anyway. Besides which , right now short term solutions are better than maintaining the status que vis-a-vis fossil fuels given the state of the climate!
"Things would burn and melt and stuff."
Oh boy. Go back to watching your cartoons. This discussion is for grown ups.
"What is the failure mode for a collapsed fusuion capable magnetic field?"
The plasma disperses and the fusion stops. What do you think happens when they shut the field down now after their tests?
"Wow, these are bad, very very very bad also."
Really? Why?
"The folks that came to our little burg for a 'rah rah' meeting claimed that power would be so cheap, it wouldn't be metered."
And it would have been had the anti-nuclear nutters who stopped the whole thing in its tracks. Yes 3 mile island happened and then chernobyl. So what? When an airliner crashes 400 people die. Do we stop all flight? Tens of thousands of people die in car crashes every year. Do we ban cars? No.
"The situation with nuclear power has not changed just becuase we are looking at 'new and improved' fusion"
If the halfwitted political loudmouths of society can be convinced this new form is "better" than the old form (whether it is or not) then we may get somewhere with it. If it ever works that is.
"nuclear fission is about the only 'safe' alternative in the meantime. Generating many orders of magnitude less radioactive waste than current fossil fuel plants,"
I completely agree with you , but try telling that to the kneejerk reaction anti nuclear fanatics who can't see the wood for their own foolishly planted trees. Mind you, I've met some of these people and half of them couldn't even spell "radioactivity" never mind tell you what it was. They work purely on a fevered emotional level and no amount of rational discussion will convince them otherwise. They are the same sorts of people who dunked old women in ponds back in the 17th century because they talked to their cat and someone got ill in the village shortly afterwards.
Care to fill us all in on how you'd view this one on a normal DVD player then?
"I'm not a scientist "
That pretty much says it all.
"The average scientific reader of Slashdot? Hahaha."
This may surprise you but some people who read this site actually do work in various scientific disciplines. Unlike you apparently. Go back under your bridge troll.
After all , most people view DVDs on a standalone player , not on a PC. So whats the point of putting in an easter egg that 90% of the people who buy the DVD can't view?
OSF/1 , Tru64 , [insert its name this week] might have been advanced once back in the mid 90s but once compaq got hold of it things started to stagnate feature wise compared to other unixes (probably because some pissant PC company didn't really have a clue what to do when faced with "real" machines and heavyweight 24/7 uptime customers). People knock HP-UX but personally I find it pretty good, plus the hardware is a damn site more reliable than Suns sorry offerings.
"based on the same code"
Back in 1985. Things have diverged a bit since then and any code (such as clustering) would have been written from scratch anyway and have nothing to do with any original BSD or SysV code.