... working on a research boat back in the '70s. The vessel was a converted WWII light cargo boat with a 22' beam, which meant 45-to-45 degree swings on the inclinometer in the wet lab. (We had it marked with labels like "normal food", "light food", "crackers & water".)
My job was to stand on the "hero deck" (i.e., gangplank), strapping plankton nets onto the winch line, dropping the line messengers that opened the nets at depth, etc. This meant being immersed at least up to my neck every minute or so when we were working blue water.
Did I mention my motion sickness? Well, I would do my job & puke during the minute I was out of the water & then be immersed in 50 degree salt water for a minute, then repeat the cycle. When we were "on a station", this might go on for 2-3 hours.
When we were running between stations, I would shivver in my bunk outside the galley while the mate would invariably cook something with a lot of garlic or make hogshead cheese sandwiches. I kept a bucket by my bunk.
This is how I switched from marine biology to freshwater ecology, learned some stats & started programming computers. It's also why I do not think trips to the beach are any fun any more.
Well, that's my story & I'm sticking to it. I know its not as bad as what some of my neighbors are experiencing as reservists in Iraq right now, but it's the worst working environment, I have ever had...
Back in the NSF days, a lapse in administration resulted in disconnection, quick and swift, so the system adminstrators, up and down the line, toed the line to avoid being banished. In the Commercial Internet that replaced the NSF Internet, personal greed gets in the way of this remedy, and so the disdain of social customs is left largely unpunished by the society.
This is perhaps the most insightful thing I've read on/. (or anywhere else) so far today. It is a good history lesson. It illustrates the difference in a strict society based on rules & an open society based on profit.
We like to talk about the "good old days" of the internet as "Wild West", but we forget that the town marshal, er, admin, could shoot down anybody who got out of line & send them straight to Boot Hill, no questions asked.
I'm not sure I'd attribute all our problems to the commercialization of the internet more than how the internet was commercialized.
I don't mean this to start some "Soviet Russia" vs "capitalism" flamefest. Many capitalist enterprises have based their success on following rules other than the profit-loss statement. I don't know why a "rules-based" (pun loosely intended), socially-conscious system wouldn't work for an ISP. It might even attract honest customers.
Not just funny. This is a case where the grammar police should be flogging the editor with a soggy ramen noodle. I, too, read it as if Forbes was sympathizing with the poor & abusing fax.com.
Must be time for bifocals & a cognitive transplant...
One thing to think about - look at sprinters and look at marathon runners. Sprinters are lean and mean. They train for explosive power. Marathon runners on the other hand, while skinny, are rather flabby...
Actually, there's a genetic difference between sprinters & distance runners, which is why very, very few people successfully crossover between the two sports. And the difference in appearance betweens sprinters & marathoners is the difference between someone who can focus on "bulking up" muscles for a short-duration activity and someone who focusses on oxygen transport & nutrient loading for a long haul. (I might also point out that those "flabby" distance runners can't afford to haul a lot of extra mass.)
Sprinters have a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers, while distance runners have a higher proportion of slow-twitch fibers. Muscle tissue of an "average male" is about 55% fast-twitch. Sprinters are about 63% fast twitch, and marathon runners are about 18% fast twitch. The distance runner doesn't need to "bulk up," because his/her slow twitch ratio is already so high. A sprinter bulks up to increase the fast twitch mass.
The difference is hereditary. Elite athletes are "freaks" compared with average people. I might also add that anabolic steroids are popular with sprinters, while they are actually detrimental to distance runners because they increase the runner's weight.
Fast twitch fibers supply their energy anaerobically (mainly through glycolysis), because during very fast exercise, there's little time for complete aerobic cellular respiration. After exercise, they have to pay off oxygen debt. Slow twitch fibers have a rich blood supply & rely on aerobic respiration for their energy.
Depending on the game, a presssure-sensitive game controller might require fast action, but I rather doubt that there would be enough sustained "exercise" involved to do much to build up either fast or slow twitch fibers.
Having a monopoly because You are the only player in the market or if You are the best player in the market is plain old capitalism, and perfectly legal.
"Plain old capitalism" is exactly what the railroad robber barons did in the 1800s. And it is one reason that anti-trust laws exist today. It is not legal to use "industry leadership" in one area whether it's railroads or operating systems to create monopolies in areas where you are not the best player but just the richest or most powerful (due to dominance in another area).
Let's imagine a "hypothetical situation." A company produces a software application in addition to its very popular operating system. The new software application is not as good as the competition's product and isn't as popular with secretaries. By bullying the retailers (as in "if you include our competitor's software on your computers, we won't let you use our operating system"), that company might very well find itself an industry leader without ever having to improve the product.
Of course, this is purely an hypothetical example...
how am I going to know if i am deserved royalties?
I had tunes on mp3.com, too. I never could figure out if I had earned royalties under their system. I got a few checks & a couple of nice mp3.com logo gig bags, though.
I knew a few people who were making fairly decent royalties from mp3.com but I always got the impression they were doing something, um, untoward to stoke their "pay per play" stats. I never got to a high enough number of plays to get any pay to speak of...
Another approach would be to buy 10 100GB drives. Using Western Digital as a case study, this would cost about $690, the 10 drives would collectively weigh 13.2 lb & occupy approximately the same space.
But yeah, the terabyte drive would win in moving large amounts of data.
True. But how much would a stack of "conventional" 100 GB drives equalling a terabyte weight?
I don't think "external" in this case (pun intended, read on) is intended to mean "ultra-portable." This drive is probably external to permit it to be interfaced with existing hardware, including cases that wouldn't accomodate something as "compact" as a cigar box.
When they get this thing down to the size of a box of Havatampa Jewels, well, that would be really compact!
...and this option were available to make me able to be more productive, I'd take whatever risks are entailed in having a piece of hardware installed in my braincase.
OTOH, the risks of an invasive procedure such as this would involve would probably preclude any applications for healthy people. We live in a litigious society & the risk of medical malpractice would scare off any physicians who might think about installing the equipment in the noggins of people who didn't have serious, serious physical problems already.
Is this why politicians are jumping on the tort reform bandwagon? Limit people's ability to sue doctors for malpractice & you might wind up with voters whose brains are all hooked to a network. Wow! And we thought voting machine fraud was an issue!
... coming out of the netherworld of concert taping, I know that most concert tapes get "tagged" (a gap, drop out, spoken word, etc) so the taper can identify his "source" opposed to others that might be in the hall. My personal favorite "tag" is a amateur video of Bob Dylan & Joan Baez performing circa 1981. The videographer made it a point to film several other tapers "in the act."
For that matter, back in the day when music was distributed on grooved plates made out of vinyl, promos & prereleases were usually marked on the label.
Are they aware of their company crumbling from the inside *before* this Linux attack started?
I believe SCO was well aware that their company was on shaky ground & that that was the #1 reason for their spurious attempt to force all Linux distributors to pay them a fee. SCO may not be good at making money selling software, but they are good at making money with litigation.
Barring a successful lawsuit (which now looks like a long shot), McDarl has already entertained the possibility of a buyout. This reinforces the contention that SCO was pretty wobbly to begin with.
There might be a reason that McDarl has a bit of a hardon for Novell: McBride bio.
It would be excellent if a Brit could be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. But for the time being Steve is subsisting on the dregs of a NESTA (the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) grant to him as a 'Dreamtime Fellow' more on the artistic merits of his work than on its scientific promise. How weird is that?
I confess up front to not having read the book & further confess that I don't plan to...
That said, I think "dreamtime" funding is perfectly appropriate for a mind that can imagine the cumulative work of 50 million years or so of mammalian evolution can be replicated in a lab in a few years.
Reading down the replies here, I'd have to think that this "Lucy" supports the thesis that John Lennon was really talking about LSD.
So... Can I write a bunch of lucy-in-the-sky & get some funding from the British gummimint?
I am just looking forward to the day where this SCO's legal challenge gets thrown out of court.
As are many others here! Let's hope that IBM's contribution helps get that ball rolling. It takes money to mount enough of a challenge to get SCO's case pitched into the circular file, hopefully with prejudice.
I notice that a lot of folks are questioning IBM's ultimate motive here. Of course, their motive is to make money & defend their interests. But until SCO's spurious claims are properly squashed, nobody -- whether it's "profit-mongers" or the "free as in beer" crowd -- will be able to move with any certainty.
Just reading that is making my old PC start to overheat again & I've already added fans! This is a must read for the crowd that's trying to numerologically relate "b i l l g a t e s" with "s a t a n"! 8-)
Semi-seriously, I had higher hopes for the article after it began:
EVERY SO often, there is a big shift in an industry. The shifts are not usually visible until long after they've happened, making you look back and say: "Oh yeah, things were different back then".
We are experiencing a major IT industry shift right now, and if you know where to look you can actually see it as it happens. This shift is all about Microsoft and open source.
The anti-Micro$oft polemic that follows kinda gets in the way of Charlie Demerjian's stated thesis, which is that there's a paradigm shift going on in the direction of OSS, but that doesn't mean he's wrong either. And I happen to think his correct with the "polemic", too, FWIW. It's just a bit over the top & a bit of a danger to older monitors everywhere!
I see Micro$oft as a lumbering giant, based on a '80s business model. The internet changed the playing field, mobile applications are changing it some more. In a real sense, OSS has evolved in order to survive against the M$ model. Viva la evolucion!
How much of the MSIE integration into Windows goes deeper than the user interface? Methinks it may not be as much as we are led to believe. Remember "shelling" out to the MS-DOS prompt? The whole GUI used to be 100% dispensable.
Yes, KDE is 'system near' but it's not the OS. We really have no idea about Windows, because they ain't telling.
(My bet is that the majority of Micro$oft employees no longer know what is really necessary in the Windows codebase & what isn't...;-)
HUDs are set to be in focus while you are looking at the road/horizon ahead so that you DON'T have to re-focus your eyes.
True. But focussing & re-focussing aside, do you really want anything that close in on your field of vision?
I would think the windscreen would be a better location for a HUD, simply because a helmet is a lot easier to steal than a fairing. And nav info is just too much -- a switchable guage (tach, speedo, etc) would be more useful.
All this said, most riders get to the point where they aren't driving or shifting by speedo or tach anyway. The only time a speedo is really important is when you see a trooper lurking in a bear cave up the I-state...
Does that computer act as an 802.11b access point? As a four port switch? Have a single, easy to use web interface for configuring the VPN, Routing, Switching, NAT, DCHP, and firewall which the machine provides?
For about $100, you could stick a 802.11b (or maybe g) access point on the rig & have all those things.
So maybe it should've been "$1395? I can top that at $550"...
The point about HTAs is that they consist of (X)HTML, JavaScript and COM (ActiveX) objects. When installed on your system, they run as applications in the Windows environment, meaning no sandboxing: file system access, etc.
So basically MS has patented turning off the "chrome" so desktop applications written in DHTML can use the browser engine without looking like they're running in a browser window? Wow.
I can't wait to see what the malware outfits will create using this technology.
You are not alone...
on
PC Annoyances
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My dad, who's in his late 70s, bought a PC last year (because it was cheap & he is parsimonious). This replaced an antique Mac Classic, which still runs BTW.
After many phone calls for advice about Win XP, I showed him the Annoyances web site. He looked at me & looked relieved. "So other people are just as annoyed with this stuff as I am, huh?" And he's had fun implementing the various fixes, although he's still too stingy to go buy the book.
Maybe I'll get him the book for Christmas...
I've already left him a Knoppix CD to play with, though;-)
Slashdot Mirror
My job was to stand on the "hero deck" (i.e., gangplank), strapping plankton nets onto the winch line, dropping the line messengers that opened the nets at depth, etc. This meant being immersed at least up to my neck every minute or so when we were working blue water.
Did I mention my motion sickness? Well, I would do my job & puke during the minute I was out of the water & then be immersed in 50 degree salt water for a minute, then repeat the cycle. When we were "on a station", this might go on for 2-3 hours.
When we were running between stations, I would shivver in my bunk outside the galley while the mate would invariably cook something with a lot of garlic or make hogshead cheese sandwiches. I kept a bucket by my bunk.
This is how I switched from marine biology to freshwater ecology, learned some stats & started programming computers. It's also why I do not think trips to the beach are any fun any more.
Well, that's my story & I'm sticking to it. I know its not as bad as what some of my neighbors are experiencing as reservists in Iraq right now, but it's the worst working environment, I have ever had...
But would anybody notice if they did that & tethered the thing over Times Square?
We like to talk about the "good old days" of the internet as "Wild West", but we forget that the town marshal, er, admin, could shoot down anybody who got out of line & send them straight to Boot Hill, no questions asked.
I'm not sure I'd attribute all our problems to the commercialization of the internet more than how the internet was commercialized.
I don't mean this to start some "Soviet Russia" vs "capitalism" flamefest. Many capitalist enterprises have based their success on following rules other than the profit-loss statement. I don't know why a "rules-based" (pun loosely intended), socially-conscious system wouldn't work for an ISP. It might even attract honest customers.
Will they sell advertising painted on the sides of the airships?
It's almost the fax equivalent of a denial of service attack but in hardcopy.
Must be time for bifocals & a cognitive transplant...
Actually, there's a genetic difference between sprinters & distance runners, which is why very, very few people successfully crossover between the two sports. And the difference in appearance betweens sprinters & marathoners is the difference between someone who can focus on "bulking up" muscles for a short-duration activity and someone who focusses on oxygen transport & nutrient loading for a long haul. (I might also point out that those "flabby" distance runners can't afford to haul a lot of extra mass.)
Sprinters have a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers, while distance runners have a higher proportion of slow-twitch fibers. Muscle tissue of an "average male" is about 55% fast-twitch. Sprinters are about 63% fast twitch, and marathon runners are about 18% fast twitch. The distance runner doesn't need to "bulk up," because his/her slow twitch ratio is already so high. A sprinter bulks up to increase the fast twitch mass.
The difference is hereditary. Elite athletes are "freaks" compared with average people. I might also add that anabolic steroids are popular with sprinters, while they are actually detrimental to distance runners because they increase the runner's weight.
Fast twitch fibers supply their energy anaerobically (mainly through glycolysis), because during very fast exercise, there's little time for complete aerobic cellular respiration. After exercise, they have to pay off oxygen debt. Slow twitch fibers have a rich blood supply & rely on aerobic respiration for their energy.
Depending on the game, a presssure-sensitive game controller might require fast action, but I rather doubt that there would be enough sustained "exercise" involved to do much to build up either fast or slow twitch fibers.
"Plain old capitalism" is exactly what the railroad robber barons did in the 1800s. And it is one reason that anti-trust laws exist today. It is not legal to use "industry leadership" in one area whether it's railroads or operating systems to create monopolies in areas where you are not the best player but just the richest or most powerful (due to dominance in another area).
Let's imagine a "hypothetical situation." A company produces a software application in addition to its very popular operating system. The new software application is not as good as the competition's product and isn't as popular with secretaries. By bullying the retailers (as in "if you include our competitor's software on your computers, we won't let you use our operating system"), that company might very well find itself an industry leader without ever having to improve the product.
Of course, this is purely an hypothetical example...
Will the initiative end when they discover that there is neither oil nor Al Quaeda operatives hiding on the Moon or Mars?
I had tunes on mp3.com, too. I never could figure out if I had earned royalties under their system. I got a few checks & a couple of nice mp3.com logo gig bags, though.
I knew a few people who were making fairly decent royalties from mp3.com but I always got the impression they were doing something, um, untoward to stoke their "pay per play" stats. I never got to a high enough number of plays to get any pay to speak of...
But yeah, the terabyte drive would win in moving large amounts of data.
True. But how much would a stack of "conventional" 100 GB drives equalling a terabyte weight?
I don't think "external" in this case (pun intended, read on) is intended to mean "ultra-portable." This drive is probably external to permit it to be interfaced with existing hardware, including cases that wouldn't accomodate something as "compact" as a cigar box.
When they get this thing down to the size of a box of Havatampa Jewels, well, that would be really compact!
OTOH, the risks of an invasive procedure such as this would involve would probably preclude any applications for healthy people. We live in a litigious society & the risk of medical malpractice would scare off any physicians who might think about installing the equipment in the noggins of people who didn't have serious, serious physical problems already.
Is this why politicians are jumping on the tort reform bandwagon? Limit people's ability to sue doctors for malpractice & you might wind up with voters whose brains are all hooked to a network. Wow! And we thought voting machine fraud was an issue!
And if the gummimint was really intent on messing up the A-rabs, it would be force-feedin' it to the "detainees" at Gitmo.
Smoke & mirrors by any other name would still be smoke & mirrors. Four more years of smoke & mirrors...
For that matter, back in the day when music was distributed on grooved plates made out of vinyl, promos & prereleases were usually marked on the label.
I wonder why it took Hollywood so long.
I believe SCO was well aware that their company was on shaky ground & that that was the #1 reason for their spurious attempt to force all Linux distributors to pay them a fee. SCO may not be good at making money selling software, but they are good at making money with litigation.
Barring a successful lawsuit (which now looks like a long shot), McDarl has already entertained the possibility of a buyout. This reinforces the contention that SCO was pretty wobbly to begin with.
There might be a reason that McDarl has a bit of a hardon for Novell: McBride bio.
That said, I think "dreamtime" funding is perfectly appropriate for a mind that can imagine the cumulative work of 50 million years or so of mammalian evolution can be replicated in a lab in a few years.
Reading down the replies here, I'd have to think that this "Lucy" supports the thesis that John Lennon was really talking about LSD.
So... Can I write a bunch of lucy-in-the-sky & get some funding from the British gummimint?
As are many others here! Let's hope that IBM's contribution helps get that ball rolling. It takes money to mount enough of a challenge to get SCO's case pitched into the circular file, hopefully with prejudice.
I notice that a lot of folks are questioning IBM's ultimate motive here. Of course, their motive is to make money & defend their interests. But until SCO's spurious claims are properly squashed, nobody -- whether it's "profit-mongers" or the "free as in beer" crowd -- will be able to move with any certainty.
Semi-seriously, I had higher hopes for the article after it began:
The anti-Micro$oft polemic that follows kinda gets in the way of Charlie Demerjian's stated thesis, which is that there's a paradigm shift going on in the direction of OSS, but that doesn't mean he's wrong either. And I happen to think his correct with the "polemic", too, FWIW. It's just a bit over the top & a bit of a danger to older monitors everywhere!
I see Micro$oft as a lumbering giant, based on a '80s business model. The internet changed the playing field, mobile applications are changing it some more. In a real sense, OSS has evolved in order to survive against the M$ model. Viva la evolucion!
Yes, KDE is 'system near' but it's not the OS. We really have no idea about Windows, because they ain't telling.
(My bet is that the majority of Micro$oft employees no longer know what is really necessary in the Windows codebase & what isn't... ;-)
Is this correct?
:-)
Code reuse = maturity + experience
I gotta offer that beginning programmers simply don't have a ton of code to reuse unless they avail themselves of open source.
True. But focussing & re-focussing aside, do you really want anything that close in on your field of vision?
I would think the windscreen would be a better location for a HUD, simply because a helmet is a lot easier to steal than a fairing. And nav info is just too much -- a switchable guage (tach, speedo, etc) would be more useful.
All this said, most riders get to the point where they aren't driving or shifting by speedo or tach anyway. The only time a speedo is really important is when you see a trooper lurking in a bear cave up the I-state...
For about $100, you could stick a 802.11b (or maybe g) access point on the rig & have all those things.
So maybe it should've been "$1395? I can top that at $550"...
So basically MS has patented turning off the "chrome" so desktop applications written in DHTML can use the browser engine without looking like they're running in a browser window? Wow.
I can't wait to see what the malware outfits will create using this technology.
My dad, who's in his late 70s, bought a PC last year (because it was cheap & he is parsimonious). This replaced an antique Mac Classic, which still runs BTW. After many phone calls for advice about Win XP, I showed him the Annoyances web site. He looked at me & looked relieved. "So other people are just as annoyed with this stuff as I am, huh?" And he's had fun implementing the various fixes, although he's still too stingy to go buy the book. Maybe I'll get him the book for Christmas... I've already left him a Knoppix CD to play with, though ;-)