I've given some thought to something similar. Low cost, mass produced terminals for public schools to help further electronic textbooks.
First off, I must agree with the idea of ruggedized, waterproof tablets. Laptops can easily be worn out in one season of ham-fisted sports-fans opening, closing, dropping, etc. Also, the spilled beer, weather, etc is a big issue.
What I would include in the spec would be:
No external moving parts (ex: laptop screens, swivel antenna, etc)
No moving internal parts (ex: harddrives, fans, etc)
Touch screen (not tablet, those pens get expensive, a sylus is cheep).
Sealed, waterproof. (obvious)
Rugged, and oversized (for protection and loss prevention.
Wireless, but not specifically 802.11b/g
Of course, cheaper the better.
So, the 'no moving parts' bit is part of the ruggedized theory, no hinges to be broken, no prodtruding bits to be snapped off, no harddrives to get nuked from drops, no fans to get clogged or broken (imagine popcorn/catsup all over the fan in your laptop).
Plain old touchscreen beats a tablet because you can touch it with anything. With a tablet you need the special pen, and if you teather it you just violated the first item. Besides, no matter how well you tie it on, it'll get broken off eventually. With a plain touchscreen it can be operated with a finger, or a cheap stylus, or even a regular pen, also your cost drops.
On a similar note, it should be in a protective case, and sealed shut. like an oversized version of those rubberized sleaves you can get for iPaqs. This will protect the device, can have an easily replacible window (greasy fingers, sharp pens,random scratches, etc), and with large rubberized edges will reduce the chances of being dropped, lessen the damage when it does happen, and prevent the patrons from hurting themselves.
The protective casing can also help loss prevention by making it too large to slip in a purse or backpack, and can be colored to match the decor of the venue. A friend of mine does something similar with a laser pointer he hands to children to ask questions and point things out at the planitarium he runs.
On the issue of wireless, perhaps it would be cheaper to setup bluetooth access points around each section and have those use 802.11b/g or regular cat5 to link into the network. This reduces the cost per unit as well as increases battery life (you're going to have to recharge these things, and the battery will be the bulk of the weight).
An additional benefit to bluetooth is it's short range, regular access throughout the stadiums, but setup special bluetooth gateways around the exits that will alert security if one of the units is about to leave the venue.
Now here comes the big part. You don't make these things from normal computers running winCE or anything even x86 platform. Set up big servers somewhere safe and put all your processing power there. Make the units run off microcontrollers, running linux or some other free OS, with just enough capability to 1) run the touchscreen (serial or USB HID), the bluetooth, tcp/ip stack, the LCD and some form of terminal software (vnc or a remote X windows session). So then, all the user sessions are running on some beefy servers that can each handle 100 clients running a web browser, or macromedia flash, whatever you're doing the apps in. Now the clients can easily run off a 16MB CF card using midori-linux + iceWM + rsh (like what i'm running my Compaq IA1 internet appliance on).
I understand the trace ammounts of nuts bit, because the nut free chocolate is probably made in the same facility and may even be on the same line as the peanut chocolate. so there's a definate chance, and liability, that some nuts could make their way into the plain chocolate.
What i don't get, as the journal entry points out, is the instructions on the same piece of chocolate...
TO OPEN:
Lift flap and tear at end.
--- --- --- --->
It made me feel like I was reading a page from 'So Long and Thanks For All the Fish' where a man is driven to create an asylum for the world upon seeing instructions on a packet of toothpicks.
Sure it is. Compact Flash. =P
Isn't that what the rover used, and got corrupted?
(I have no facts on hand, but that's what i think i remember reading somewhere)
joke or not, maybe its not a bad idea. perhaps a vigilante.slashdot.org?
As one sig said,"slashdot: proof that a million monkeys at a million typewritters can create a masterpiece." with millions of geeks out there, maybe it could work?
Correct me if i'm wrong, i'm too lazy to do research...
Isn't all the artwork in the chrome themes? Even the default?
So why not replace the default theme with a "free" theme?
Or would that substitution somehow break the license?
Yeah, it'd mean it couldn't be directly included, but once the theme.jar (or whatever they are) is created, a simple script could update the latest FireFox build to be included in a "free" distro.
Hell, if it's really that simple, I'll learn how to make themes and make a "free" (beer+libre) theme and a script to replace the default with it prior to distribution.
Of course, there is the issue of the icon on win32, but that's neither here nor there.
Re:Beware inertia and fear
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Beyond Pay?
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Yeah, i pull about 35k. A conservative estimate of what I produced? 200k.
What I suspect some other guys are making, 60-70k. What they earned the company? 0k after their paychecks were paid, just broke even, project didn't even ship because they're morons who get away with whatever they like because their children play with the CFOs children, go to church together, etc.
Re:Beware inertia and fear
on
Beyond Pay?
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· Score: 1
If only more companies could afford to do things that way.
I've been bugging my employer for a raise for months now. The CFO doesn't argue that I'm not worth it, he says I'm more than worth it, but the money just isn't there.
I think he's a liar, because I know how much I cost the company (above and beyond pay and benefits, etc) and I know how much I've made them in the last 2 years. I know some profit goes to support failed projects, but the guys on those projects are getting paid double what I am.
Oh, and I'm required (by deadlines) to work 55hr/wk, yet the guys getting paid 2x are working barely 30hr/wk.
I can't just up and leave because I have a wife and a mortgage. But I have to get this raise by the end of April because my wife is getting laid off and shouldn't have to find work the month before finals.
What do you do in _that_ situation? (Besides hack the CFO's workstation and find out once and for all where all the money goes)
Who want's to go out doors and walk around exposed under that burning ball of gas? Really?
Well, you can still do that, but here's what I would do before going outdoors, and this may even provide the level of accuracy you need.
First, make a digital map of your school. As simple as scanning/cleaning up a paper map given to new students, or snag one from your local city hall's zoning department (of course, doing that may end you up on an FBI watch list).
If you really want to geek out, grab a friend and have them do a rough 3D model of the school.
Second, plot the WiFi APs on your digital map.
Third, look up the specifications for each model of AP being used. You should be able to find these in the product documentation/packaging or just go online to the mfr's website.
Fourth, plot circles around the APs on your digital map according to the range specs. I would plot both the unobstructed and obstructed ranges (most WAPs I've looked at the specs for provide clear line of sight and obstructed figures).
Also, I would use a thicker line for the circle that is more applicable to the AP's location (or different opacities on spheres if you're doing this in 3D).
Finally, if that's not accurate enough, or if you're one of those freaks that likes sunlight, go for a walk with a laptop/pda, a copy of your digital map and your notation device of choice (paper, text editor, spreadsheet, etc).
Choose a granularity for your markings (say 10%). Now, go to each AP and start walking in a straight line until your signal strength goes down by 10%, write down the distance. Repeat. It doesn't have to be a perfectly straight line, but just make sure you can measure your distance accurately. If there are significantly different amounts of obstructions near an AP, walk a few lines through the extreams.
Now, take your data and plot new circles from the APs, cutting/bending them as needed for where you walked multiple lines for varying obstruction levels.
Now you should have a nice, topographic looking map of your WiFi network.
I know, it doesn't help with the current situation of allowing access or not, but it would help to keep it from happening in the future.
Also, our CEO also has the password to the admin account, so if the Sr. producer left, the CEO would still be able to access it.
My small gamedev co. used to serve up our own email, but when we downgraded from a T1 to DSL (we were sharing the T1 with a neighbor who moved) we switched to hosting.
Since we were used to full control, we went with something that provided administration features via the webmail system. With this we can set up lists, and more relevantly to this issue, set users passwords (among other things).
If ever somebody left the company (good terms or not) and we needed access to their email (for evidence, or just not wanting to miss an RFP sent to a no longer employed producer), we would simply set said ex-employee's password and take what we want. The hoster never gets involved.
Here one of the Sr. producers holds the keys to the email, in other situations a network admin would be ideal (we have no admin, just whatever random code monkey has time to love and nuture our network).
The software our hoster uses is iMail from Ipswitch. Here's a link. (I have no connection to ipswitch except that our email hoster uses their software.)
I'm sure there's probably open source solutions that can provide similar features (or be adapted to do so).
I heard they're also really great about maternity leave.
What's the immigration policy like? I took a little french in highschool, and while I never got very good at it, I'm pretty sure I could learn to speak it fairly well if I really wanted/needed to.
that's minimum, i pull down about 3100/mo (est. a bit of the medical and dental in there), they charge 10,000/mo to 15,000/mo to the customer and we underbid the going market value.
i asked for a small raise and got turned down, and the CFO made clear it's not because i'm not worth at least that, but that there's just "not enough money" right now. there's a lot of dead weight around here though, a lot of people pulling down double what i get and putting in 1/3 the hours. oh well.
I make about 35k USD, have dental (180USD value), medical (dunno how much, but probably double dental), 1 week vacation, 1 week sick days, accrued monthly, and that's it. No 401k (though one is avail. but w/o contribution matching due to "hard" times and I can't really afford it right now anywho).
I work an average of 60 hours per week, minimum 30, sometimes 80, but 80% of the time it's between 55 and 60. We get "comp" time, no monetary compensation for overtime, but I've never seen half as much comp time as I've put in overtime, let alone time and a half (and that's based on 50hr being the overtime mark). And in my 3.5 years with the company I've only had about 8 to 12 weeks where I wasn't turning a great profit for the company or at least making them double what it took to pay me. And I'm still using a PIII 800Mhz Dell workstation, second hand from an artist and refurbished to begin with, so it's not like they're paying much to equip me.
I also live in one of the more expensive northern suburbs of LosAngeles. My condo (which I sort'a wish I hadn't bought now) was about 180k USD and is only a 2bdr/1.75bth.
That does sound much better, but i just used what i had on hand, which was a bundle of zip ties. also, in theory, the cats could undo the velcro. if applied correctly, the zip ties don't pinch the wires, and are probably cheaper...
but for most people, who are looking to go get supplies for the solution, velcro would definately be the way to go. i actually used one bit that came attached to my keyboard cable, i assume to either bundle a mouse with, or to coil up slack.
I combine that with the use of zip-ties and brackets.
I have a nice corner desk, but the box is on the left and the keyboard and mouse cords come from the right, I also have a ton of periphirals. I got tired of kicking the mouse out of my hand and wanted to be able to streach out my feet without fear of unplugging stuff, so...
First, I decided to group things by device, so i zip-tied the mouse and keyboard together, leaving enough slack to pull out the keyboard tray and get full range on the mouse. I then ziptied my right joystick to that bundle (i also have a left joystick).
Next I grouped all my coax cable together (Video and Data) in nice runs along the wall using some cheap nail in brakets. I then realized i could also use those to nail the bundle of keyboard/mouse/joystick cables to the underside of my desk. So I did.
Then I nailed my powerstrips to the wall and found the best routes the cables and attached them to the wall and bundled multiple cords going to the same destination from the wall runs.
I continued with all the other cables, bundling and nailing as needed.
Any excess slack was taken up and zip-tied into nice loops.
Where possible, I ran the cables at levels where they would be out of site by somebody standing around the office.
Took about 2 and a half hours, but well worth it. now i can see all my cables, and a flick of a knife is much better than the time it used to take to untangle things to extract a single cable. It looks nice and organized. I can streach out without fear of unplugging things. and my cats have a new place to play (a little bitter apple spray keeps them from even thinking about biting the cords, and since they don't dangle they're not tempted to bat at them).
One option for indy game developers are "self" publishing through sites such as cafepress.com.
On cafe press you can publish your game, your merchandise and more. Cafepress.com isn't the only one out there either. They accept all the usual, credit cards, checks, moneyorder. Best of all, the developer doesn't have to worry about deploying an eCommerce solution, and you can do quite a bit in the way of customizing your "store".
I say down with the publishers, software, print and music. For music you have sites like ampcast.com where you can put a selection of mp3s up for download and from the same page, your new found fans can order a hard copy of your CD. Add the url of your ampcast.com page (or your band's site w/link) to your mp3's header info and put them on P2P yourself. Anywho, that's OT.
Note, I don't work for cafepress.com, but my employer does use them for our swag as well as our creative pocket genius' character'sswag .
I'd like to see more opensource and independent developers use sites like this and say f*** you to the publishers. You can always hire somebody else to do your promotion/advertisement.
I went to E3 last year and this was the game that caught my attention most. I had no clue it was for linux... now i'm wondering if their demo machines were running linux...
Anywho, I'll be really sad if they close their doors, it's a really great game, and they were really great guys. It's too bad they were stuffed at the back of one of the main halls, but at least they were upstairs. They set up a ring of machines and you could just sit and play as long as you like, and that's what I did. I'm not big into FPS, but I'm definately gonna buy a copy of Savage as soon as I can (unfortunately, while I still can)!
Slashdot is a large community of nerds/geeks. Yet not all nerds/geeks are created equal, we have science nerds, scifi fans, network administrators, code monkeys, Apple zealots, linux gurus, etc.
While we may not have many lawyers/doctors (and even if we did they'd have to disclaim their advice like crazy for liability/contract reasons), what we do have is a large number of fellow nerds/geeks and a pretty good chance that somebody else has had a similar situation.
Now, while that person may not have legal/medical qualifications, maybe they've had to talk to a lawyer/doctor/psychologist about something similar and can give you a push in the right direction and an idea of what to expect. Not everybody is an expert in Google-Fu, and even if you are, sometimes you just don't know what to google for. Of course, everybody's experiences with situations is different. When I bought a home I asked a dozen friends/coworkers who owned homes questions. By the time escrow closed, I still had no clue WTF I was doing, but at least I knew in what ways I was probably getting screwed. Anywho...
So, reasons why "the hell are people asking about these sorts of things on Slashdot":
There's a good chance somebody else has gone through (or known somebody who has) something similar.
Those people can provide insight of great value.
Most of those will be disclaimed with IANAL, etc. But lawyers can cost hundereds of dollars an hour. So having a better idea of what to ask the lawyer before they're on the clock is very valuable.
You should always google before you Ask Slashdot. But sometimes you just can't find that set of search terms to yeild what you want. Somebody's response to your Ask Slashdot could contain some words you never thought of putting in your search that when added take you right to what you need.
You don't take your car to the dentist, but your dentist owns a car, may have had the same problem and may even recomend a good mechanic. Of course, you have to take it in perspective of what your dentist may know about "good mechanics", but at least you'll have a better idea than you had before.
I worked with these guys a while back. Their techniques work for a number of applications including ADHD, seizures and addiction to name a few.
As a previous poster mentioned, this kind of stuff works by "training" your brain. It does this through biofeedback. Biofeedback works by presenting data of interest from some sort of sensor array (EKG, or in this case an EEG) in a way your brain interprets on various levels (ex: colors, shapes, etc).
These guys usually do it (afaik) in the context of some sort of non-interactive game (well, it is interactive in that it's driven by your brain, not by a joystick/keyboard/mouse, etc).
Anyways, I don't want to say too much because I'm sure most of it was under some sort of NDA, but here's their sites:
This stuff is pretty amazing, you can actually feel it working, as potent (or more) than any medication I've ever popped. But it should only be done by a trained therapist (I tried it on myself a few times because I was sick of playing back the same old recordings and it gave me a bit of a headache, but under the control of a trained tech it doesn't cause much (any afaik) discomfort. Also, unlike another poster mentioned, I was never irritated by the connections, maybe they've improved over time).
It's pretty cool stuff and I hope I have an opportunity to contribute more in the near future.
Disclaimer: I'm just a code monkey that developed some "front-end" stuff (the game side shown to the patient, not the nuts & bolts on the therapist's side). So, take my info in context of just a guy who coded from a spec and attended one of their conferences.
In light of the recent article, I must agree. KiSS is a SCO wannabe.
I hope this isn't going to be a new trend in closed source software. "Oh, we can steal open-source for use in our products because even if we do get caught, we'll just say it was ours first and leaked to the open-source community."
Ahhh... the beauty of the litigation age. Whoever has the biggest fund for legal staff is correct. Forget the facts.
What's sad is I would expect this in my country (USA) where it's By Big Business, For Big Business... but in this case the bully is in Denmark. There go my hopes for western civilization.
I just can't wait for the irony coming if Bush's regime stays in power for another 8 years or so... I'll probably end up defecting to Russia! =P
I was talking to my uncle who works for a defence contractor over the holidays and one thing he got me thinking about is "Self-Regulation".
Right now parts of the software engineering segment of the defence industry (including his employer) are working on certifications for software engineers equivelent to those for structural engineers. The reason for this self-regulation? They realize that it's only a matter of time until a tragic loss of life occurs due to a software bug, what if Columbia burned up due to a software bug on the re-entry trajectory calculations? So, they self-regulate now in order to avoid gov't regulation later.
The game industry tried and failed. Whenever I hear some story about some kid going off and their parents blaming music/video games my first 2 questions are 1) What was the rating on the package, and 2) Did you watch/listen/play the game yourself before you let your kid play (or at least when your kid started playing. Now that's assuming it really is the music/video games' fault (a whole other can of worms I won't get into here). We (I'm in the game industry) have the ESRB labels and such, but they were unenforced. Maybe there was no way to really get BestBuy, WalMart, ElectronicsBoutique, etc. to enforce them. So now the gov't steps in. Now they will be enforced.
Personally, I wouldn't mind it if they took it one step further and locked up the Mature games like alcohol and tobacco products rather than just putting them out of sight. Sure, it's a pain in the arse when I want smokes at the grocery store and I have to hold up the line while the manager goes and grabs me some smokes, but at my local target all but the bargin bin of games is behind locked glass already anywho.
My figuring is, people who want the games and should be buying them will still buy them. The already messed up kid who's going to play my game for a 4 day bender before blowing away his english teacher , ex-girlfriend, her new girlfriend, that kid that picked on him in grade school, etc. will now have to ask his mommy to buy the game for him. If mommy buys the game, she should be accountable to read the ESRB rating (which would now be posted, I'm seeing something similar to the "We Card" plaques at convinience stores).
So now, when I'm taken to court for making a game that "made" Billy go on a rampage my lawyer can rip into mommy with this line of questioning: "How did Billy get this game?" (I bought it for him), "Did you see the ESRB sign on the shelf, register and your recipt?" (Uhm... I guess so), "Did you check the label on the package after reading the sign?" (I might have), "And you gave him the game anyways?" (Yes, it was his birthday), "Did you watch him play at all?" (No, he plays up in his bedroom with the door closed), "Can you honestly say that you, as Billy's mother, took responsibility and due care regarding what content he was exposed to, even after being exposed to the ESRB information on the shelf the game came from, the register where you purchased the game, the back of your recipt, the pamphlet inside the game and the label on it's packaging?" (Uhm... ), "No further questions, your honor."
Anywho, I've degraded to rambling and I have a new blood and gibs particle system to write!
Ahem... Since I actually RTFA now, I can see from the latest post on MPlayer's site that the problem is that there's no MPlayer source. Well, maybe it's just an oversite rather than an outright violation? The first big post recently was yesterday where they said their requests for sourcecode went unanswered... well, if it's been less than a week I wouldn't be too antsy, many businesses i know won't be all the way back in operation until monday and I'm in southern california. They probably get even better vacations in Denmark.
Also, from the updates on the last problem MPlayer had with Warpvision, maybe they're just being a bit hasty... better hasty than letting themselves get walked over, but hasty all the same. Also, going by the second update in the Warpvision issue, maybe KiSS didn't include the MPlayer source because it hasn't cleared their legal department yet, not because they want to violate the GPL (in which case they're still in the wrong, but differently, but who knows, maybe they'll clean up the MPlayer source and resolve any possible legal issues with it and contribute it back to the opensource community {hey, i can be an optimist sometimes}).
Open source needs to protect itself and to enforce it's rights, but should do so with tact and a little patience. Don't want to come off like a bunch of rabid hippies simply reacting to SCO by becoming bullies ourselves. That's my 0.02USD.
Slashdot Mirror
First off, I must agree with the idea of ruggedized, waterproof tablets. Laptops can easily be worn out in one season of ham-fisted sports-fans opening, closing, dropping, etc. Also, the spilled beer, weather, etc is a big issue.
What I would include in the spec would be:
- No external moving parts (ex: laptop screens, swivel antenna, etc)
- No moving internal parts (ex: harddrives, fans, etc)
- Touch screen (not tablet, those pens get expensive, a sylus is cheep).
- Sealed, waterproof. (obvious)
- Rugged, and oversized (for protection and loss prevention.
- Wireless, but not specifically 802.11b/g
- Of course, cheaper the better.
So, the 'no moving parts' bit is part of the ruggedized theory, no hinges to be broken, no prodtruding bits to be snapped off, no harddrives to get nuked from drops, no fans to get clogged or broken (imagine popcorn/catsup all over the fan in your laptop).Plain old touchscreen beats a tablet because you can touch it with anything. With a tablet you need the special pen, and if you teather it you just violated the first item. Besides, no matter how well you tie it on, it'll get broken off eventually. With a plain touchscreen it can be operated with a finger, or a cheap stylus, or even a regular pen, also your cost drops. On a similar note, it should be in a protective case, and sealed shut. like an oversized version of those rubberized sleaves you can get for iPaqs. This will protect the device, can have an easily replacible window (greasy fingers, sharp pens,random scratches, etc), and with large rubberized edges will reduce the chances of being dropped, lessen the damage when it does happen, and prevent the patrons from hurting themselves.
The protective casing can also help loss prevention by making it too large to slip in a purse or backpack, and can be colored to match the decor of the venue. A friend of mine does something similar with a laser pointer he hands to children to ask questions and point things out at the planitarium he runs.
On the issue of wireless, perhaps it would be cheaper to setup bluetooth access points around each section and have those use 802.11b/g or regular cat5 to link into the network. This reduces the cost per unit as well as increases battery life (you're going to have to recharge these things, and the battery will be the bulk of the weight).
An additional benefit to bluetooth is it's short range, regular access throughout the stadiums, but setup special bluetooth gateways around the exits that will alert security if one of the units is about to leave the venue.
Now here comes the big part. You don't make these things from normal computers running winCE or anything even x86 platform. Set up big servers somewhere safe and put all your processing power there. Make the units run off microcontrollers, running linux or some other free OS, with just enough capability to 1) run the touchscreen (serial or USB HID), the bluetooth, tcp/ip stack, the LCD and some form of terminal software (vnc or a remote X windows session). So then, all the user sessions are running on some beefy servers that can each handle 100 clients running a web browser, or macromedia flash, whatever you're doing the apps in.
Now the clients can easily run off a 16MB CF card using midori-linux + iceWM + rsh (like what i'm running my Compaq IA1 internet appliance on).
So, to summarize, you'd end up with:
anyways, sorry for the rambling braindump format, i'm done now.
What i don't get, as the journal entry points out, is the instructions on the same piece of chocolate...
It made me feel like I was reading a page from 'So Long and Thanks For All the Fish' where a man is driven to create an asylum for the world upon seeing instructions on a packet of toothpicks.
Here's a relevant journal entry about a piece of xmas chocolate i was examining while coding late one night...
packaging
Sure it is. Compact Flash. =P Isn't that what the rover used, and got corrupted? (I have no facts on hand, but that's what i think i remember reading somewhere)
joke or not, maybe its not a bad idea. perhaps a vigilante.slashdot.org? As one sig said,"slashdot: proof that a million monkeys at a million typewritters can create a masterpiece." with millions of geeks out there, maybe it could work?
Correct me if i'm wrong, i'm too lazy to do research... .jar (or whatever they are) is created, a simple script could update the latest FireFox build to be included in a "free" distro.
Isn't all the artwork in the chrome themes? Even the default?
So why not replace the default theme with a "free" theme?
Or would that substitution somehow break the license?
Yeah, it'd mean it couldn't be directly included, but once the theme
Hell, if it's really that simple, I'll learn how to make themes and make a "free" (beer+libre) theme and a script to replace the default with it prior to distribution.
Of course, there is the issue of the icon on win32, but that's neither here nor there.
Yeah, i pull about 35k. A conservative estimate of what I produced? 200k.
What I suspect some other guys are making, 60-70k. What they earned the company? 0k after their paychecks were paid, just broke even, project didn't even ship because they're morons who get away with whatever they like because their children play with the CFOs children, go to church together, etc.
If only more companies could afford to do things that way. I've been bugging my employer for a raise for months now. The CFO doesn't argue that I'm not worth it, he says I'm more than worth it, but the money just isn't there. I think he's a liar, because I know how much I cost the company (above and beyond pay and benefits, etc) and I know how much I've made them in the last 2 years. I know some profit goes to support failed projects, but the guys on those projects are getting paid double what I am. Oh, and I'm required (by deadlines) to work 55hr/wk, yet the guys getting paid 2x are working barely 30hr/wk. I can't just up and leave because I have a wife and a mortgage. But I have to get this raise by the end of April because my wife is getting laid off and shouldn't have to find work the month before finals. What do you do in _that_ situation? (Besides hack the CFO's workstation and find out once and for all where all the money goes)
Who want's to go out doors and walk around exposed under that burning ball of gas? Really?
Well, you can still do that, but here's what I would do before going outdoors, and this may even provide the level of accuracy you need.
First, make a digital map of your school. As simple as scanning/cleaning up a paper map given to new students, or snag one from your local city hall's zoning department (of course, doing that may end you up on an FBI watch list).
If you really want to geek out, grab a friend and have them do a rough 3D model of the school.
Second, plot the WiFi APs on your digital map.
Third, look up the specifications for each model of AP being used. You should be able to find these in the product documentation/packaging or just go online to the mfr's website.
Fourth, plot circles around the APs on your digital map according to the range specs. I would plot both the unobstructed and obstructed ranges (most WAPs I've looked at the specs for provide clear line of sight and obstructed figures).
Also, I would use a thicker line for the circle that is more applicable to the AP's location (or different opacities on spheres if you're doing this in 3D).
Finally, if that's not accurate enough, or if you're one of those freaks that likes sunlight, go for a walk with a laptop/pda, a copy of your digital map and your notation device of choice (paper, text editor, spreadsheet, etc).
Choose a granularity for your markings (say 10%).
Now, go to each AP and start walking in a straight line until your signal strength goes down by 10%, write down the distance. Repeat.
It doesn't have to be a perfectly straight line, but just make sure you can measure your distance accurately.
If there are significantly different amounts of obstructions near an AP, walk a few lines through the extreams.
Now, take your data and plot new circles from the APs, cutting/bending them as needed for where you walked multiple lines for varying obstruction levels.
Now you should have a nice, topographic looking map of your WiFi network.
I know, it doesn't help with the current situation of allowing access or not, but it would help to keep it from happening in the future.
Also, our CEO also has the password to the admin account, so if the Sr. producer left, the CEO would still be able to access it.
My small gamedev co. used to serve up our own email, but when we downgraded from a T1 to DSL (we were sharing the T1 with a neighbor who moved) we switched to hosting.
Since we were used to full control, we went with something that provided administration features via the webmail system. With this we can set up lists, and more relevantly to this issue, set users passwords (among other things).
If ever somebody left the company (good terms or not) and we needed access to their email (for evidence, or just not wanting to miss an RFP sent to a no longer employed producer), we would simply set said ex-employee's password and take what we want. The hoster never gets involved.
Here one of the Sr. producers holds the keys to the email, in other situations a network admin would be ideal (we have no admin, just whatever random code monkey has time to love and nuture our network).
The software our hoster uses is iMail from Ipswitch. Here's a link.
(I have no connection to ipswitch except that our email hoster uses their software.)
I'm sure there's probably open source solutions that can provide similar features (or be adapted to do so).
I heard they're also really great about maternity leave.
What's the immigration policy like? I took a little french in highschool, and while I never got very good at it, I'm pretty sure I could learn to speak it fairly well if I really wanted/needed to.
ps, the small raise was 300 week, just enough to offset my wife getting laid off this coming april.
that's minimum, i pull down about 3100/mo (est. a bit of the medical and dental in there), they charge 10,000/mo to 15,000/mo to the customer and we underbid the going market value.
i asked for a small raise and got turned down, and the CFO made clear it's not because i'm not worth at least that, but that there's just "not enough money" right now. there's a lot of dead weight around here though, a lot of people pulling down double what i get and putting in 1/3 the hours. oh well.
I make about 35k USD, have dental (180USD value), medical (dunno how much, but probably double dental), 1 week vacation, 1 week sick days, accrued monthly, and that's it. No 401k (though one is avail. but w/o contribution matching due to "hard" times and I can't really afford it right now anywho).
I work an average of 60 hours per week, minimum 30, sometimes 80, but 80% of the time it's between 55 and 60. We get "comp" time, no monetary compensation for overtime, but I've never seen half as much comp time as I've put in overtime, let alone time and a half (and that's based on 50hr being the overtime mark).
And in my 3.5 years with the company I've only had about 8 to 12 weeks where I wasn't turning a great profit for the company or at least making them double what it took to pay me. And I'm still using a PIII 800Mhz Dell workstation, second hand from an artist and refurbished to begin with, so it's not like they're paying much to equip me.
I also live in one of the more expensive northern suburbs of LosAngeles. My condo (which I sort'a wish I hadn't bought now) was about 180k USD and is only a 2bdr/1.75bth.
That does sound much better, but i just used what i had on hand, which was a bundle of zip ties. also, in theory, the cats could undo the velcro. if applied correctly, the zip ties don't pinch the wires, and are probably cheaper... but for most people, who are looking to go get supplies for the solution, velcro would definately be the way to go. i actually used one bit that came attached to my keyboard cable, i assume to either bundle a mouse with, or to coil up slack.
I combine that with the use of zip-ties and brackets.
I have a nice corner desk, but the box is on the left and the keyboard and mouse cords come from the right, I also have a ton of periphirals. I got tired of kicking the mouse out of my hand and wanted to be able to streach out my feet without fear of unplugging stuff, so...
First, I decided to group things by device, so i zip-tied the mouse and keyboard together, leaving enough slack to pull out the keyboard tray and get full range on the mouse. I then ziptied my right joystick to that bundle (i also have a left joystick).
Next I grouped all my coax cable together (Video and Data) in nice runs along the wall using some cheap nail in brakets. I then realized i could also use those to nail the bundle of keyboard/mouse/joystick cables to the underside of my desk. So I did.
Then I nailed my powerstrips to the wall and found the best routes the cables and attached them to the wall and bundled multiple cords going to the same destination from the wall runs.
I continued with all the other cables, bundling and nailing as needed.
Any excess slack was taken up and zip-tied into nice loops.
Where possible, I ran the cables at levels where they would be out of site by somebody standing around the office.
Took about 2 and a half hours, but well worth it. now i can see all my cables, and a flick of a knife is much better than the time it used to take to untangle things to extract a single cable.
It looks nice and organized. I can streach out without fear of unplugging things. and my cats have a new place to play (a little bitter apple spray keeps them from even thinking about biting the cords, and since they don't dangle they're not tempted to bat at them).
Good to hear. I'm still gonna buy it as soon as I can.
One option for indy game developers are "self" publishing through sites such as cafepress.com.
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On cafe press you can publish your game, your merchandise and more. Cafepress.com isn't the only one out there either. They accept all the usual, credit cards, checks, moneyorder. Best of all, the developer doesn't have to worry about deploying an eCommerce solution, and you can do quite a bit in the way of customizing your "store".
I say down with the publishers, software, print and music. For music you have sites like ampcast.com where you can put a selection of mp3s up for download and from the same page, your new found fans can order a hard copy of your CD. Add the url of your ampcast.com page (or your band's site w/link) to your mp3's header info and put them on P2P yourself. Anywho, that's OT.
Note, I don't work for cafepress.com, but my employer does use them for our swag as well as our creative pocket genius' character'sswag
I'd like to see more opensource and independent developers use sites like this and say f*** you to the publishers.
You can always hire somebody else to do your promotion/advertisement.
<flamebait>Publishers are obsolete.</flamebait>
I went to E3 last year and this was the game that caught my attention most. I had no clue it was for linux... now i'm wondering if their demo machines were running linux...
Anywho, I'll be really sad if they close their doors, it's a really great game, and they were really great guys. It's too bad they were stuffed at the back of one of the main halls, but at least they were upstairs. They set up a ring of machines and you could just sit and play as long as you like, and that's what I did. I'm not big into FPS, but I'm definately gonna buy a copy of Savage as soon as I can (unfortunately, while I still can)!
While we may not have many lawyers/doctors (and even if we did they'd have to disclaim their advice like crazy for liability/contract reasons), what we do have is a large number of fellow nerds/geeks and a pretty good chance that somebody else has had a similar situation.
Now, while that person may not have legal/medical qualifications, maybe they've had to talk to a lawyer/doctor/psychologist about something similar and can give you a push in the right direction and an idea of what to expect. Not everybody is an expert in Google-Fu, and even if you are, sometimes you just don't know what to google for. Of course, everybody's experiences with situations is different. When I bought a home I asked a dozen friends/coworkers who owned homes questions. By the time escrow closed, I still had no clue WTF I was doing, but at least I knew in what ways I was probably getting screwed. Anywho...
So, reasons why "the hell are people asking about these sorts of things on Slashdot":
- There's a good chance somebody else has gone through (or known somebody who has) something similar.
- Those people can provide insight of great value.
- Most of those will be disclaimed with IANAL, etc.
- You should always google before you Ask Slashdot. But sometimes you just can't find that set of search terms to yeild what you want. Somebody's response to your Ask Slashdot could contain some words you never thought of putting in your search that when added take you right to what you need.
You don't take your car to the dentist, but your dentist owns a car, may have had the same problem and may even recomend a good mechanic.But lawyers can cost hundereds of dollars an hour. So having a better idea of what to ask the lawyer before they're on the clock is very valuable.
Of course, you have to take it in perspective of what your dentist may know about "good mechanics", but at least you'll have a better idea than you had before.
</OFFTOPIC>
As a previous poster mentioned, this kind of stuff works by "training" your brain. It does this through biofeedback.
Biofeedback works by presenting data of interest from some sort of sensor array (EKG, or in this case an EEG) in a way your brain interprets on various levels (ex: colors, shapes, etc).
These guys usually do it (afaik) in the context of some sort of non-interactive game (well, it is interactive in that it's driven by your brain, not by a joystick/keyboard/mouse, etc).
Anyways, I don't want to say too much because I'm sure most of it was under some sort of NDA, but here's their sites:
- EEG Spectrum International
- NeuroCybernetics
This stuff is pretty amazing, you can actually feel it working, as potent (or more) than any medication I've ever popped. But it should only be done by a trained therapist (I tried it on myself a few times because I was sick of playing back the same old recordings and it gave me a bit of a headache, but under the control of a trained tech it doesn't cause much (any afaik) discomfort. Also, unlike another poster mentioned, I was never irritated by the connections, maybe they've improved over time).It's pretty cool stuff and I hope I have an opportunity to contribute more in the near future.
Disclaimer: I'm just a code monkey that developed some "front-end" stuff (the game side shown to the patient, not the nuts & bolts on the therapist's side). So, take my info in context of just a guy who coded from a spec and attended one of their conferences.
In light of the recent article, I must agree. KiSS is a SCO wannabe.
I hope this isn't going to be a new trend in closed source software. "Oh, we can steal open-source for use in our products because even if we do get caught, we'll just say it was ours first and leaked to the open-source community."
Ahhh... the beauty of the litigation age. Whoever has the biggest fund for legal staff is correct. Forget the facts.
What's sad is I would expect this in my country (USA) where it's By Big Business, For Big Business... but in this case the bully is in Denmark. There go my hopes for western civilization.
I just can't wait for the irony coming if Bush's regime stays in power for another 8 years or so... I'll probably end up defecting to Russia! =P
I was talking to my uncle who works for a defence contractor over the holidays and one thing he got me thinking about is "Self-Regulation".
Right now parts of the software engineering segment of the defence industry (including his employer) are working on certifications for software engineers equivelent to those for structural engineers. The reason for this self-regulation? They realize that it's only a matter of time until a tragic loss of life occurs due to a software bug, what if Columbia burned up due to a software bug on the re-entry trajectory calculations? So, they self-regulate now in order to avoid gov't regulation later.
The game industry tried and failed. Whenever I hear some story about some kid going off and their parents blaming music/video games my first 2 questions are 1) What was the rating on the package, and 2) Did you watch/listen/play the game yourself before you let your kid play (or at least when your kid started playing. Now that's assuming it really is the music/video games' fault (a whole other can of worms I won't get into here).
We (I'm in the game industry) have the ESRB labels and such, but they were unenforced. Maybe there was no way to really get BestBuy, WalMart, ElectronicsBoutique, etc. to enforce them.
So now the gov't steps in. Now they will be enforced.
Personally, I wouldn't mind it if they took it one step further and locked up the Mature games like alcohol and tobacco products rather than just putting them out of sight. Sure, it's a pain in the arse when I want smokes at the grocery store and I have to hold up the line while the manager goes and grabs me some smokes, but at my local target all but the bargin bin of games is behind locked glass already anywho.
My figuring is, people who want the games and should be buying them will still buy them. The already messed up kid who's going to play my game for a 4 day bender before blowing away his english teacher , ex-girlfriend, her new girlfriend, that kid that picked on him in grade school, etc. will now have to ask his mommy to buy the game for him. If mommy buys the game, she should be accountable to read the ESRB rating (which would now be posted, I'm seeing something similar to the "We Card" plaques at convinience stores).
So now, when I'm taken to court for making a game that "made" Billy go on a rampage my lawyer can rip into mommy with this line of questioning: "How did Billy get this game?" (I bought it for him), "Did you see the ESRB sign on the shelf, register and your recipt?" (Uhm... I guess so), "Did you check the label on the package after reading the sign?" (I might have), "And you gave him the game anyways?" (Yes, it was his birthday), "Did you watch him play at all?" (No, he plays up in his bedroom with the door closed), "Can you honestly say that you, as Billy's mother, took responsibility and due care regarding what content he was exposed to, even after being exposed to the ESRB information on the shelf the game came from, the register where you purchased the game, the back of your recipt, the pamphlet inside the game and the label on it's packaging?" (Uhm... ), "No further questions, your honor."
Anywho, I've degraded to rambling and I have a new blood and gibs particle system to write!
Ahem... Since I actually RTFA now, I can see from the latest post on MPlayer's site that the problem is that there's no MPlayer source. Well, maybe it's just an oversite rather than an outright violation? The first big post recently was yesterday where they said their requests for sourcecode went unanswered... well, if it's been less than a week I wouldn't be too antsy, many businesses i know won't be all the way back in operation until monday and I'm in southern california. They probably get even better vacations in Denmark.
Also, from the updates on the last problem MPlayer had with Warpvision, maybe they're just being a bit hasty... better hasty than letting themselves get walked over, but hasty all the same. Also, going by the second update in the Warpvision issue, maybe KiSS didn't include the MPlayer source because it hasn't cleared their legal department yet, not because they want to violate the GPL (in which case they're still in the wrong, but differently, but who knows, maybe they'll clean up the MPlayer source and resolve any possible legal issues with it and contribute it back to the opensource community {hey, i can be an optimist sometimes}).
Open source needs to protect itself and to enforce it's rights, but should do so with tact and a little patience. Don't want to come off like a bunch of rabid hippies simply reacting to SCO by becoming bullies ourselves. That's my 0.02USD.