i met my gf over 3 years ago on irc, but it wasnt in a geek oriented channel (it was #friendly on newnet, just a general chat channel). i was in rhode island and she was in alabama. the long distance thing was tough (one month my phone bill was over $300). but i dragged her up here and we are currently happily engaged!:)
one thing i can say about chatrooms and whatnot is that i find myself less shy when i dont have to worry about talking to someone face to face. id never actually worked up the courage to ask someone out in person, but it was easier to get to know her from the comfort of my room. plus, i didnt have to worry about not "looking good" or whatever...when we finally exchanged pictures we were both in love so images didnt much matter (though my girl is beautiful =).
she is a geek though, of biology. she was fairly net savvy when i met her and over the past three years ive trained her pretty well. she was running linux up till recently (she needs to run quickbooks now for her business) and shes getting pretty good at quake. what else does a geek guy need??! (ok, perl cgi is next on the list...woot!)
just goes to show sometimes good things happen on the net...
Am I the only one who thinks that if a web bulletin board has any kind of significant influence on your life, you've got bigger problems than whether or not the site deletes offensive comments?
no, but those who do are wrong. just because the source of the information may not be known, and the location of the information may be spread across a raid array in a server closet somewhere, doesnt mean it wont have "significant influence". a piece of information can have profound influence even if you choose not to believe it or agree with it. for example, if someone posts "hate speech" (or whatever its called) to a public forum, then it may serve to strengthen a reader's beliefs against racism enough to cause them to become an activist.
to put it another way, any information, regardless of source or content, has the potential to influence, and that potential varries from person to person.
a decent article in general, but there are a couple things that should be mentioned.
round 1 Red Hat offers several new installation options, including Custom, Workstation, and Server. this isnt new to 6.1, i know 5.2 had them, possibly earlier versions as well. they also fail to mention kickstart, which allows you to create a file specifying an installation procedure and then use that file to do unattended installs. as they later point out, unattended installs are a new feature of openlinux 2.3.
Red Hat doesn't include software to partition your hard drive. last time i checked, fdisk, cfdisk, and sfdisk were all included. as is fips, which will allow you to repartition without destroying data. granted these arent "graphical" in the way a newbie would prefer, but they are included.
round 2 Yes, email tech support (offered by Caldera) or postings on Usenet deliver somewhat speedy answers, but there's nothing like a bit of human contact when you feel stumped, frustrated, and ready to crawl back to Windows. they apparently dont know about irc ("chat rooms" for the less informed). its fairly easy to find at least one person who can, if nothing else, offer insight to a problem. the major irc networks all have linux channels, afaik.
round 4 not so much a critisism, but there are tools out there that can be downloaded and installed with little hassle to facilitate remote administration. check out Webmin for one...
anyone else catch anything (other than the reference to the development kernel, 2.3.x)?
it is not difficult to show that Deep Blue is smarter than the entire world put together.
that would imply that the "entire world" participated in the the match against him. i am a member of the set of all people in the world, and i did not participate. hence, your reasoning is false.
actually, i dont think they have to change the focus of the case in order for it to be used in the future as a precedent against other cases of similar nature. they would have to win, of course.
INAL either (although i was raised by one...but that doesnt count for much;).
i agree that b&n have a good position, maybe the best so far, to argue against software patents in general. the problem will be convincing them of this fact and then convincing them to follow through with it. i agree that they probably dont have much to lose if anything, but do they have that much to gain? they would likely have to commit extra money and Lawyer Hours to arrange their case against all software patents rather than just the "1-Click" stuff, and the only perceivable gains for them would be avoiding things like this in the future. that gain alone may not be enough to get them involved...
for the record, quake1 does not require a 3d card, and it is quite playable on a low-end pentium system (i used to regularly abuse my coworkers using an amd k5-75 w/ 16 megs of ram, in win95 no less).
i wasnt aware of the quake1 source release. if true, that certainly help modifying it for this sort of task.
i find it *much* easier to concentrate when listening to songs with very few if any vocal parts versus things like popular/alternative/rock/whatever-you-call-it. therefore, i typically listen to techno/trance/electronica or classical.
although, if i forget to take my meds in the morning, even techno can get distracting! but thats just me:)
yes, its good (in general) to see another company pushing linux for various reasons that have already been stated, but you must keep in mind that theyre not offering linux on their desktop boxes, theyre reselling machines from another manufacturer.
their primary market is still the windoze desktop and to me, this news does not in any way suggest theyre going to start offering linux as an alternative on their desktops. a move like that would require substantial reorganization in their hardware, support, and sales departments...
well, the person asking the question mentioned perl as one of his/her languages of choice. im pretty sure perl interpreters are available for most platforms.
i dont know of the availability of any sort of distributed frameworks for perl however...
i am by no means familiar (aside from reading occasional user documentation) with distributed programing frameworks, but i am fairly familiar with C/C++. one thing i think should be noted is that while C/C++ syntax and semantics are well standaradized, as operating systems and architectures differ vastly, they are apt to have different implimentations of certain system calls (eg network sockets, file system calls (beyond things like open/close), etc). afaik, interpretted languages like java and perl should be able to avoid this problem since its all handled by the interpreter.
if you plan on using a lot of things like that while still maintaining cross-platform-ness, i would chock that up as a Con for C++.
not so sure about that...when you go to download the linux version of either 11.0.3 or 11.9.2, you are directed to this licence which says you can only have a maximum of 3 users and cant redistribute it among other thigns.
particularly relavant is this line: 5. SUPPORT. These download Programs are provided on an "as is" basis and are unsupported. This Agreement does not entitle you to any maintenance or other services or any updates or new versions of the Programs.
um...i think you misinterpretted me. my post (subject aptly "Re:Maglev 747's would be cool too.") was regarding the feasability of a maglev- assisted takeoff system for current commercial passenger aircraft.
i am aware of the possible benefits this system could bring to future space craft.
er...maybe im forgetting something from physics class (not surprising considering how many i slept through), but doesnt the mass of the object work into the equation somewhere? i seem to remember F = ma among other things.....
thats a good point too actually. i would think theyd have to insulate the object's (be it plane or spacecraft) electronics systems from the magnetic field...here's where my electrical physics knowledge ends however...
hmm...i do recall that about fighter pilots, but i was thinking 7 for "average" people, since fighter pilots do have a bit more training. plus, iirc, they also have a system in their flight suits that helps force blood back up to their head (well, i know it helps improve circulation somehow...).
iirc, the average person blacks out around 7g's. space shuttle astronauts are subjected to 3g's during takeoff, which most people can take fairly easily (think amusement parks).
regarding the angle of the track, thats the question i was left with after reading the article. as someone else mentioned, it is possible to penetrate the atmosphere at any positive angle above the horizon (provided there are no obstructions). i would think the system wouldnt work straight up b/c the object would no longer be levitating above the track, it would be next to it (unless they surround it with track sections, which seems a bit impractical).
as for Cape Canaveral, i believe one of the considerations in choosing that location is that its close to a large body of water (2 if you count the gulf of mexico). they jetison the Solid Rocket Boosters after 2 minutes of flight, and they are later picked up by ship. obviously you wouldnt want to just drop those over land. the other thing to consider is, if they have to scrub the launch, they dont want to be jetisoning the SRB's or the big fuel tank (cant remember what its called) over land and have it drop on a populated area.
well, the system they talk about in the article accellerates objects at 6g's (6x the force of gravity). i doubt the FAA would allow that to be done to airline passengers (iirc, the average person blacks out at 7g's).
they could however reduce the acceleration force simply by making the track longer and thus having the object accelerate slower. this solution however introduces more cost, both for the track materials and electricity.
besides, the main gain of the system described in the article is that they save on the some of the weight of the rocket fuel needed to get them from 0 to whatever the max speed of the maglev system is (600mph here). i doubt enough jet fuel would be saved in the short distance of a runway to offset the cost of the whole system...
i was just noticing there has been little mention of Sybase (so far anyway). Are there compelling reasons why a Sybase product would NOT be a good solution for this problem?
For that matter, are there compelling reasons not to use Sybase for anything? just curious...
Slashdot Mirror
i met my gf over 3 years ago on irc, but it wasnt in a geek oriented channel (it was #friendly on newnet, just a general chat channel). i was in rhode island and she was in alabama. the long distance thing was tough (one month my phone bill was over $300). but i dragged her up here and we are currently happily engaged! :)
one thing i can say about chatrooms and whatnot is that i find myself less shy when i dont have to worry about talking to someone face to face. id never actually worked up the courage to ask someone out in person, but it was easier to get to know her from the comfort of my room. plus, i didnt have to worry about not "looking good" or whatever...when we finally exchanged pictures we were both in love so images didnt much matter (though my girl is beautiful =).
she is a geek though, of biology. she was fairly net savvy when i met her and over the past three years ive trained her pretty well. she was running linux up till recently (she needs to run quickbooks now for her business) and shes getting pretty good at quake. what else does a geek guy need??! (ok, perl cgi is next on the list...woot!)
just goes to show sometimes good things happen on the net...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Am I the only one who thinks that if a web bulletin board has any kind of significant influence on your life, you've got bigger problems than whether or not the site deletes offensive comments?
no, but those who do are wrong. just because the source of the information may not be known, and the location of the information may be spread across a raid array in a server closet somewhere, doesnt mean it wont have "significant influence". a piece of information can have profound influence even if you choose not to believe it or agree with it. for example, if someone posts "hate speech" (or whatever its called) to a public forum, then it may serve to strengthen a reader's beliefs against racism enough to cause them to become an activist.
to put it another way, any information, regardless of source or content, has the potential to influence, and that potential varries from person to person.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
a decent article in general, but there are a couple things that should be mentioned.
round 1
Red Hat offers several new installation options, including Custom, Workstation, and Server.
this isnt new to 6.1, i know 5.2 had them, possibly earlier versions as well. they also fail to mention kickstart, which allows you to create a file specifying an installation procedure and then use that file to do unattended installs. as they later point out, unattended installs are a new feature of openlinux 2.3.
Red Hat doesn't include software to partition your hard drive.
last time i checked, fdisk, cfdisk, and sfdisk were all included. as is fips, which will allow you to repartition without destroying data. granted these arent "graphical" in the way a newbie would prefer, but they are included.
round 2
Yes, email tech support (offered by Caldera) or postings on Usenet deliver somewhat speedy answers, but there's nothing like a bit of human contact when you feel stumped, frustrated, and ready to crawl back to Windows.
they apparently dont know about irc ("chat rooms" for the less informed). its fairly easy to find at least one person who can, if nothing else, offer insight to a problem. the major irc networks all have linux channels, afaik.
round 4
not so much a critisism, but there are tools out there that can be downloaded and installed with little hassle to facilitate remote administration. check out Webmin for one...
anyone else catch anything (other than the reference to the development kernel, 2.3.x)?
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
we have cow, llama, walrus, donkey, hippo... the machines arent big and/or slow or anything, we just like those particular animals...
moooo
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
it is not difficult to show that Deep Blue is smarter than the entire world put together.
that would imply that the "entire world" participated in the the match against him. i am a member of the set of all people in the world, and i did not participate. hence, your reasoning is false.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
actually, i dont think they have to change the focus of the case in order for it to be used in the future as a precedent against other cases of similar nature. they would have to win, of course.
;).
INAL either (although i was raised by one...but that doesnt count for much
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
i agree that b&n have a good position, maybe the best so far, to argue against software patents in general. the problem will be convincing them of this fact and then convincing them to follow through with it. i agree that they probably dont have much to lose if anything, but do they have that much to gain? they would likely have to commit extra money and Lawyer Hours to arrange their case against all software patents rather than just the "1-Click" stuff, and the only perceivable gains for them would be avoiding things like this in the future. that gain alone may not be enough to get them involved...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
for the record, quake1 does not require a 3d card, and it is quite playable on a low-end pentium system (i used to regularly abuse my coworkers using an amd k5-75 w/ 16 megs of ram, in win95 no less).
i wasnt aware of the quake1 source release. if true, that certainly help modifying it for this sort of task.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Note that the photo accompanying the article was a file photo. It was probably taken last month.
indeed it was, as the photo's caption states:
A building devastated by the last month's earthquake
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
also, the first number of every line starts with 0
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Nirvanna counts in this respect, too. Can YOU understand their lyrics? I sure can't. :)
:)
certainly! but i guess it helps that i like to sing along a lot...CERTAINLY NOT in front of anyone though!
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
goa rules. juno reactor is my favorite goa artist.
as for other trance stuff, i like antiloop, man with no name, and of course, underworld!
mmm...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
i find it *much* easier to concentrate when listening to songs with very few if any vocal parts versus things like popular/alternative/rock/whatever-you-call-it. therefore, i typically listen to techno/trance/electronica or classical.
:)
although, if i forget to take my meds in the morning, even techno can get distracting! but thats just me
Keyboard not found.
lets not get too crazy....
yes, its good (in general) to see another company pushing linux for various reasons that have already been stated, but you must keep in mind that theyre not offering linux on their desktop boxes, theyre reselling machines from another manufacturer.
their primary market is still the windoze desktop and to me, this news does not in any way suggest theyre going to start offering linux as an alternative on their desktops. a move like that would require substantial reorganization in their hardware, support, and sales departments...
dont expect to see the end of winmodems yet...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
well, the person asking the question mentioned perl as one of his/her languages of choice. im pretty sure perl interpreters are available for most platforms.
i dont know of the availability of any sort of distributed frameworks for perl however...
--Siva
p.s. mooo
Keyboard not found.
i am by no means familiar (aside from reading occasional user documentation) with distributed programing frameworks, but i am fairly familiar with C/C++. one thing i think should be noted is that while C/C++ syntax and semantics are well standaradized, as operating systems and architectures differ vastly, they are apt to have different implimentations of certain system calls (eg network sockets, file system calls (beyond things like open/close), etc). afaik, interpretted languages like java and perl should be able to avoid this problem since its all handled by the interpreter.
if you plan on using a lot of things like that while still maintaining cross-platform-ness, i would chock that up as a Con for C++.
*donning asbestos suit*
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
not so sure about that...when you go to download the linux version of either 11.0.3 or 11.9.2, you are directed to this licence which says you can only have a maximum of 3 users and cant redistribute it among other thigns.
particularly relavant is this line:
5. SUPPORT. These download Programs are provided on an "as is" basis and are unsupported. This Agreement does not entitle you to any maintenance or other services or any updates or new versions of the Programs.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
if you'll notice, he/she said to the east at the equator.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
um...i think you misinterpretted me. my post (subject aptly "Re:Maglev 747's would be cool too.") was regarding the feasability of a maglev- assisted takeoff system for current commercial passenger aircraft.
i am aware of the possible benefits this system could bring to future space craft.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
er...maybe im forgetting something from physics class (not surprising considering how many i slept through), but doesnt the mass of the object work into the equation somewhere? i seem to remember F = ma among other things.....
ah hell with it...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
thats a good point too actually. i would think theyd have to insulate the object's (be it plane or spacecraft) electronics systems from the magnetic field...here's where my electrical physics knowledge ends however...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
hmm...i do recall that about fighter pilots, but i was thinking 7 for "average" people, since fighter pilots do have a bit more training. plus, iirc, they also have a system in their flight suits that helps force blood back up to their head (well, i know it helps improve circulation somehow...).
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
iirc, the average person blacks out around 7g's. space shuttle astronauts are subjected to 3g's during takeoff, which most people can take fairly easily (think amusement parks).
regarding the angle of the track, thats the question i was left with after reading the article. as someone else mentioned, it is possible to penetrate the atmosphere at any positive angle above the horizon (provided there are no obstructions). i would think the system wouldnt work straight up b/c the object would no longer be levitating above the track, it would be next to it (unless they surround it with track sections, which seems a bit impractical).
as for Cape Canaveral, i believe one of the considerations in choosing that location is that its close to a large body of water (2 if you count the gulf of mexico). they jetison the Solid Rocket Boosters after 2 minutes of flight, and they are later picked up by ship. obviously you wouldnt want to just drop those over land. the other thing to consider is, if they have to scrub the launch, they dont want to be jetisoning the SRB's or the big fuel tank (cant remember what its called) over land and have it drop on a populated area.
hope i didnt babble to much...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
well, the system they talk about in the article accellerates objects at 6g's (6x the force of gravity). i doubt the FAA would allow that to be done to airline passengers (iirc, the average person blacks out at 7g's).
they could however reduce the acceleration force simply by making the track longer and thus having the object accelerate slower. this solution however introduces more cost, both for the track materials and electricity.
besides, the main gain of the system described in the article is that they save on the some of the weight of the rocket fuel needed to get them from 0 to whatever the max speed of the maglev system is (600mph here). i doubt enough jet fuel would be saved in the short distance of a runway to offset the cost of the whole system...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
i was just noticing there has been little mention of Sybase (so far anyway). Are there compelling reasons why a Sybase product would NOT be a good solution for this problem?
For that matter, are there compelling reasons not to use Sybase for anything? just curious...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.