Seldom is somebody actually willing to begin and create a project.
As far as specifications go with hardware...the simpler it is the better. Honestly, do you want to code to something that is unfamiliar? No. You want to run x11 on a Plain old P4 or something with 5 pci video cards in it. vga monitors. Not monochrome monitors running off two wires that make ugly text displays. Something simple to program, and even simpler to replace.
Seriously, you could sell this commercially if you found a backer. Give them the software for free, and sell them the system. One computer, 6 keyboards and 6 monitors. Thats all you need to supply, and you can charge them US$5000 for it. Sell upwards of fifty of these darn things to little mom and pop pizza places and they would be happy, and you would clear $1500 a piece...then start selling to Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's...and make a shitload as they begin replacing their equipment and buying yours.
Be sure to offer them support with certain little things for a specified ammount of time, and charge them like $2000 for a one year service contract.
Modify your code with a couple different modules, and begin handling burgers and fries instead of just pizza sizes, toppings, and cokes...and then you open your market up to smaller chains like A&W, White Castle, and eventually anybody.
there is a need for this type of software and hardware solution, and all businesses feel it roughly every 8 years or so. Thats a pretty good market. Get your hands on some old equipment and see how the inventories worked, the numbers added up, and displayed. Wow. Make yourself a living in 30 long and difficult steps.
Kudos go out to the guy that found this and submited it. Hopefully you knew the guys involved, and didn't just accidently find this information while searching the internet for self worth.
Very Good article, and I admit that I did not understand all of it, nor did I read all of it. However I did forward it along to a couple of friends who do not regularly/.
Here is a reverse engineering feat for you all...POS(Point of Sale) terminal equipment. Specifically to replace NSC(National Systems Corporation) and similar diamond touch gear. If you can reverse engineer a system for taking customer's orders(think pizza/food), showing it on multiple screens around the store, and keeping track of inventory, sales numbers and statistics, customer tracking and history...wow you would be great. Nobody wants to spend $15-30,000 for a new POS system. Nobody.
Biggest problem is that these small operators spend that much money on the system, that they are obligated and forced into using it for 10+ years, well after the hardware(monitors/keyboards) wear out. Then get stuck purchasing proprietary stuff at the same cost it was at the original purchase price...several hundred dollars for a custom keyboard...get real.
Somebody please show me where there is a project to reverse engineer this with an X window under RedHat/Slack. Even terminal would be fine. The current system runs text only...over 1 pair of copper in a phone plug(rj11).
I can build my own pc with some pretty awesome candy at a 1500-2000 price tag. That is where the PC world was 6 years ago...in 1997. I remember that was when PCs were just beginning to nudge down to that $1000 mark...while most high end machines were still at $1500 - $2000.
I strongly agree that Mac has an overengineered and superior product. I also strongly agree that the PC(IA32) world is less than perfection. However, I recently visited my local printshop and borrowed their computing needs for about an hour...and I can honestly say that my Photoshop 7 and assorted programs at home on my 1.3Gig Athlon that I build two years ago for less than $700...yes...it definitely beats the shit out of their brand spankey new $2500 Macs.
How much is that pretty case worth to you? Roughly $1200.
This is very harshely worded, however every bit of it is absolute fact. Unlike all those 'higher learning' things things that we've all ended up reading.
undisputable truth
Isn't this the lightning that we've been seeing from space for over 30 years? Come on. Figure out how to make your own lightning, then we'll fund your damn salary and expensive cameras.
Those darn diehard creationists will also point to the fact that many things are not specifically mentioned in the bible. The bible doesn't exactly mention anything about the americas, the bison there, or the mississippi river...but we can all pretty well believe that it exists. As everything else that exists and not was not specifically mentioned in the bible...life could exist on mars. Life could exist in many many places. Ask yourself this: Did life spontaneously happen out of a completely impossible primordial soup...on different planets...and (later on when we find them) in completely different galaxies...completely by chance each time...Or did some awesome God have a hand in it? Life on mars means absolutely nothing when applied to evolution. Evolutionary 'theory' however, will no doubt contort itself again to be made plausible in light of new 'evidence'. Did you know that evolution is a religion? You must believe in it...it cannot be proven...but the more you believe it the more 'facts' you can find...just like with any other religion.
Re:The Lord Shines His Face Upon You.
on
Is 3G Irrelevant?
·
· Score: 0
edit...The US started out with 1 & 2G...and kinda got stuck there trying to cover tripple the landmass that european companies have to cover. Lucky for europe, they started with 2 and 3G...much cheaper especially when considering 1/3rd landmass.
Lucky them. Hopefully lucky us too, I wouldn't mind a cellular broadband service to my laptop out in the country.:)
The Lord Shines His Face Upon You.
on
Is 3G Irrelevant?
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Amen.
Could this mean the stuffy eurotrash can't say they are better than the US anymore just because they can download pretty ringtones faster than we can?
of the company. Also, it would be beneficial if you all decided on a date to all walk out together.
I'll be sure to have my resume updated and sent to that company a week or so before you all leave, and then again the day after you leave.
I'll take a 50 hour a week IT job where they think I am their eternal savior for coming to their aid in the time of trial.
Maybe it will work out the best for everyone. You could leave and be happy. The management would get a clue, and realize they need your department more than they need air. I would get a better job. You could work elsewhere where you are appreciated, and I could work there and the management would appreciate me because you taught them a lesson of life.
Everybody is happy.
Just let me know where and when. send me a message.:) skogs
Mobile tech as you say, should be more advanced in certain parts of europe. Think this one thru...the entire continent of europe(even including the insignificant nations) are roughly the size of the american state of Texas combined with mexico. The whole of america is roughly 5 times the size of europe(4 times if ignoring alaska). To bring High tech cell phones and equipment to europe, it would cost say...500Billion dollars/euros....to do it in america, it would take 2-3 Trillion dollars.
Lets just get rid of their whole continent. Take away all the spammer's networks. They can then spend all their time spamming eachother, and finding ways to counterspam. tehy can make up their own damn chinanet system and run it however they want.
then we can have ip6 all to ourselves, and have no more offers to increase our penis size, see young college coeds get wild, or earn money in nigeria.
So...they are selling a basic computer....
with its only output to my TV and its crap ass resolution?
What a piece of trash. I can sit right up close to my 17" display and not get sore eyes...If I sat that close to my 33" TV I'd go nuts.
I doubt that they exist yet. All of the news postings seem to simply say that they are announcing it. And that they are announcing all the little things and features that they will be placing into the game. Right now, I think the game consists of a bunch of programmers, and a bunch of drawings penciled by a playboy toting game jockey. Game won't be out until 2004...thats at least 7 months from now right?
how many adolescent boys will need new keyboards because of "mom, the keys in my keyboard are sticky, they don't work anymore...can I get a new wireless unit?".
It is still pretty incredible...pointing an object the size of a bus and accurately focusing it on something the size of a spec of sand...really, really, really far away. All while moving at a relative 26,000 miles an hour or whatever to keep it up in the sky...Not to mention the orbial speed of the earth itself...
Only took 8 guys, several computers, and millions of dollars worth of equipment. Oh yeah, and that one maintenance run made a few years back to keep it pointing straight.
Well, I am pretty sure I've heard it said that the moon slows us down. Forgive me if this has been pointed out a dozen times already, but I didn't see it as I read thru most of the posts.
So, given fact that the moon slowly slows us down - the whole energy loss during tidal surges and everything...Could it be simply that we are miscalculating the effect of the Moon? Or better yet, increased polar cap melting putting more water in the oceans, so we have more tidal effect slowdown of the earth's rotation?
thanks for the tweak. what a waste of fuel...oh well..I've wasted a few thousand gallons of military fuel.:)
Strange though, I see it was officially a training mission, but with fully loaded planes. Doesn't really seem to have been a real operation either...just refered to as missions that came to be known as chrome dome. Then they were actually put on active attack status...for 40 days...then they sat back down. Looks like one of those 'training missions' that the north koreans are 'exercising' right now.:)
Here Here. I am really peaved about that spyware program they loaded onto my machine. I actually had my program suddently become 'non-activated'...luckily it was AFTER I had filed my taxes. Otherwise they think they rightfully could bill me another 30 bucks. Jackasses. As if they don't have a constant revenue stream...why can't they just make due with their current income each year?
No we didn't. They were on alert...that does not mean that they were in the air. The aircraft had their electronics on, and they had nukes...but they were not flying. Coincidently had a squadron of B-52s with nukes been scrambled into the air...the russians probably would have seen it and the whole thing would have spun out of control real fast.
Trust me. They were not in the air.
I had some buddies that had to guard them. Two guys, constantly walking on a red paint circle around the plane...for 6 hrs a pop. And also, since they were 'turned on', the gun turrents that were created in the 40s...yeah, they are run by computers now and are heat seeking. The turrents would lock on to their body heat and rotate around as they walked around the plane. Very disconcerting, or so I've heard.
There has been a lot of posting about Linux on the XBox, but I am much less adventerous and way too cheap to buy a brand spanky new xbox. But Simcountry has an incredibly in depth and hopelessly nerd centric game that I can play with the glories of Opera/IE/Netscape. They simulate an entire world right down to each country's roadmap and social security payments...and they do it on linux. It takes almost 12 full hours of processing to make each world go thru one month of activity. I wonder where they fell on this list of favorite linux games.
All servers are dual processor units running everybody's favorite free operating system:linux. You can see how it all works. And see me.
Now they can read whats on your computer screen! Whats next? Roaming through college dormitories in search of students downloading music and porno when they aren't over 21 yet? Do we need to bring a legal fiasco back into the mix? Did those admins that knew what was being downloaded really deserve to be locked up instead?
Wow. Search warrents for allowing people to download music...hope it doesn't trickle down to everybody.
It probably won't work, since spammers are professional and very devious...Gosh what if it could work. The possibilities are endless...why, we could slow the entire cultural progress of entire nations like Taiwan!
Slashdot Mirror
As far as specifications go with hardware...the simpler it is the better. Honestly, do you want to code to something that is unfamiliar? No. You want to run x11 on a Plain old P4 or something with 5 pci video cards in it. vga monitors. Not monochrome monitors running off two wires that make ugly text displays. Something simple to program, and even simpler to replace.
Seriously, you could sell this commercially if you found a backer. Give them the software for free, and sell them the system. One computer, 6 keyboards and 6 monitors. Thats all you need to supply, and you can charge them US$5000 for it. Sell upwards of fifty of these darn things to little mom and pop pizza places and they would be happy, and you would clear $1500 a piece...then start selling to Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's...and make a shitload as they begin replacing their equipment and buying yours.
Be sure to offer them support with certain little things for a specified ammount of time, and charge them like $2000 for a one year service contract.
Modify your code with a couple different modules, and begin handling burgers and fries instead of just pizza sizes, toppings, and cokes...and then you open your market up to smaller chains like A&W, White Castle, and eventually anybody.
there is a need for this type of software and hardware solution, and all businesses feel it roughly every 8 years or so. Thats a pretty good market. Get your hands on some old equipment and see how the inventories worked, the numbers added up, and displayed. Wow. Make yourself a living in 30 long and difficult steps.
Very Good article, and I admit that I did not understand all of it, nor did I read all of it. However I did forward it along to a couple of friends who do not regularly /.
Here is a reverse engineering feat for you all...POS(Point of Sale) terminal equipment. Specifically to replace NSC(National Systems Corporation) and similar diamond touch gear. If you can reverse engineer a system for taking customer's orders(think pizza/food), showing it on multiple screens around the store, and keeping track of inventory, sales numbers and statistics, customer tracking and history...wow you would be great. Nobody wants to spend $15-30,000 for a new POS system. Nobody.
Biggest problem is that these small operators spend that much money on the system, that they are obligated and forced into using it for 10+ years, well after the hardware(monitors/keyboards) wear out. Then get stuck purchasing proprietary stuff at the same cost it was at the original purchase price...several hundred dollars for a custom keyboard...get real.
Somebody please show me where there is a project to reverse engineer this with an X window under RedHat/Slack. Even terminal would be fine. The current system runs text only...over 1 pair of copper in a phone plug(rj11).
Amen. The US Military also purchases a lot of Toshiba.
I can build my own pc with some pretty awesome candy at a 1500-2000 price tag. That is where the PC world was 6 years ago...in 1997. I remember that was when PCs were just beginning to nudge down to that $1000 mark...while most high end machines were still at $1500 - $2000. I strongly agree that Mac has an overengineered and superior product. I also strongly agree that the PC(IA32) world is less than perfection. However, I recently visited my local printshop and borrowed their computing needs for about an hour...and I can honestly say that my Photoshop 7 and assorted programs at home on my 1.3Gig Athlon that I build two years ago for less than $700...yes...it definitely beats the shit out of their brand spankey new $2500 Macs. How much is that pretty case worth to you? Roughly $1200.
This is very harshely worded, however every bit of it is absolute fact. Unlike all those 'higher learning' things things that we've all ended up reading. undisputable truth
Internally consistant? We must be talking about completely different things.
Isn't this the lightning that we've been seeing from space for over 30 years? Come on. Figure out how to make your own lightning, then we'll fund your damn salary and expensive cameras.
Those darn diehard creationists will also point to the fact that many things are not specifically mentioned in the bible. The bible doesn't exactly mention anything about the americas, the bison there, or the mississippi river...but we can all pretty well believe that it exists. As everything else that exists and not was not specifically mentioned in the bible...life could exist on mars. Life could exist in many many places. Ask yourself this: Did life spontaneously happen out of a completely impossible primordial soup...on different planets...and (later on when we find them) in completely different galaxies...completely by chance each time...Or did some awesome God have a hand in it? Life on mars means absolutely nothing when applied to evolution. Evolutionary 'theory' however, will no doubt contort itself again to be made plausible in light of new 'evidence'. Did you know that evolution is a religion? You must believe in it...it cannot be proven...but the more you believe it the more 'facts' you can find...just like with any other religion.
edit...The US started out with 1 & 2G...and kinda got stuck there trying to cover tripple the landmass that european companies have to cover. Lucky for europe, they started with 2 and 3G...much cheaper especially when considering 1/3rd landmass. Lucky them. Hopefully lucky us too, I wouldn't mind a cellular broadband service to my laptop out in the country. :)
Amen. Could this mean the stuffy eurotrash can't say they are better than the US anymore just because they can download pretty ringtones faster than we can?
of the company. Also, it would be beneficial if you all decided on a date to all walk out together.
:) skogs
I'll be sure to have my resume updated and sent to that company a week or so before you all leave, and then again the day after you leave.
I'll take a 50 hour a week IT job where they think I am their eternal savior for coming to their aid in the time of trial.
Maybe it will work out the best for everyone. You could leave and be happy. The management would get a clue, and realize they need your department more than they need air. I would get a better job. You could work elsewhere where you are appreciated, and I could work there and the management would appreciate me because you taught them a lesson of life.
Everybody is happy.
Just let me know where and when. send me a message.
Mobile tech as you say, should be more advanced in certain parts of europe. Think this one thru...the entire continent of europe(even including the insignificant nations) are roughly the size of the american state of Texas combined with mexico. The whole of america is roughly 5 times the size of europe(4 times if ignoring alaska). To bring High tech cell phones and equipment to europe, it would cost say...500Billion dollars/euros....to do it in america, it would take 2-3 Trillion dollars.
Lets just get rid of their whole continent. Take away all the spammer's networks. They can then spend all their time spamming eachother, and finding ways to counterspam. tehy can make up their own damn chinanet system and run it however they want. then we can have ip6 all to ourselves, and have no more offers to increase our penis size, see young college coeds get wild, or earn money in nigeria.
So...they are selling a basic computer.... with its only output to my TV and its crap ass resolution? What a piece of trash. I can sit right up close to my 17" display and not get sore eyes...If I sat that close to my 33" TV I'd go nuts.
I doubt that they exist yet. All of the news postings seem to simply say that they are announcing it. And that they are announcing all the little things and features that they will be placing into the game. Right now, I think the game consists of a bunch of programmers, and a bunch of drawings penciled by a playboy toting game jockey. Game won't be out until 2004...thats at least 7 months from now right?
how many adolescent boys will need new keyboards because of "mom, the keys in my keyboard are sticky, they don't work anymore...can I get a new wireless unit?".
It is still pretty incredible...pointing an object the size of a bus and accurately focusing it on something the size of a spec of sand...really, really, really far away. All while moving at a relative 26,000 miles an hour or whatever to keep it up in the sky...Not to mention the orbial speed of the earth itself... Only took 8 guys, several computers, and millions of dollars worth of equipment. Oh yeah, and that one maintenance run made a few years back to keep it pointing straight.
Well, I am pretty sure I've heard it said that the moon slows us down. Forgive me if this has been pointed out a dozen times already, but I didn't see it as I read thru most of the posts. So, given fact that the moon slowly slows us down - the whole energy loss during tidal surges and everything...Could it be simply that we are miscalculating the effect of the Moon? Or better yet, increased polar cap melting putting more water in the oceans, so we have more tidal effect slowdown of the earth's rotation?
thanks for the tweak. what a waste of fuel...oh well..I've wasted a few thousand gallons of military fuel. :)
Strange though, I see it was officially a training mission, but with fully loaded planes. Doesn't really seem to have been a real operation either...just refered to as missions that came to be known as chrome dome. Then they were actually put on active attack status...for 40 days...then they sat back down. Looks like one of those 'training missions' that the north koreans are 'exercising' right now. :)
hmm...I stand corrected. No mention that it ended in 1960 tho! :)
Here Here. I am really peaved about that spyware program they loaded onto my machine. I actually had my program suddently become 'non-activated'...luckily it was AFTER I had filed my taxes. Otherwise they think they rightfully could bill me another 30 bucks. Jackasses. As if they don't have a constant revenue stream...why can't they just make due with their current income each year?
No we didn't. They were on alert...that does not mean that they were in the air. The aircraft had their electronics on, and they had nukes...but they were not flying. Coincidently had a squadron of B-52s with nukes been scrambled into the air...the russians probably would have seen it and the whole thing would have spun out of control real fast. Trust me. They were not in the air. I had some buddies that had to guard them. Two guys, constantly walking on a red paint circle around the plane...for 6 hrs a pop. And also, since they were 'turned on', the gun turrents that were created in the 40s...yeah, they are run by computers now and are heat seeking. The turrents would lock on to their body heat and rotate around as they walked around the plane. Very disconcerting, or so I've heard.
There has been a lot of posting about Linux on the XBox, but I am much less adventerous and way too cheap to buy a brand spanky new xbox. But Simcountry has an incredibly in depth and hopelessly nerd centric game that I can play with the glories of Opera/IE/Netscape. They simulate an entire world right down to each country's roadmap and social security payments...and they do it on linux. It takes almost 12 full hours of processing to make each world go thru one month of activity. I wonder where they fell on this list of favorite linux games. All servers are dual processor units running everybody's favorite free operating system:linux. You can see how it all works. And see me.
Now they can read whats on your computer screen! Whats next? Roaming through college dormitories in search of students downloading music and porno when they aren't over 21 yet? Do we need to bring a legal fiasco back into the mix? Did those admins that knew what was being downloaded really deserve to be locked up instead?
Wow. Search warrents for allowing people to download music...hope it doesn't trickle down to everybody.
It probably won't work, since spammers are professional and very devious...Gosh what if it could work. The possibilities are endless...why, we could slow the entire cultural progress of entire nations like Taiwan!