There's been talk of building an alternative "hinternet" using ham radio technology, but it's not really viable for both economic and technical reasons. Short of that, being able to communicate via voice with anybody in the world using something other than the internet / large telcos as an intermediary is pretty good. Sure, you can't watch Netflix via your 10-meter radio, but basic communication and information sharing is totally doable, and it's going to be very hard for governments to shut such behavior down.
I first got my ham license precisely as a hedge against the apocalypse. If things really go bad, what use is a programmer? Anything requiring a $6 billion fab to get going will be out the window, so I've got to have some other useful talent. Ham radios can be built from scratch fairly easily, so I figured I'd learn to build and use radios so I'd be useful post-apocalypse.
What ended up happening is that I got into my first real hobby, and I've been enjoying making contacts with my little handheld radio. Soon I'm going to be putting together a rig for talking to people around the world! Sure, you can use the internet, but it's not about the messages: it's about the medium. Being able to build your very own personal communications device that can reach around the world feels awesome.
What bands did you use? I'm getting ready to buy my first HF rig, and I'm trying to figure out if I can go with an MFJ single-band right, but I don't know what's best for DXing.
Screw DVD players, doesn't everybody's computer play DVDs? Hell, my Macbook Pro has a DVI output that'll hook up to a ton of HDTVs out there and its own display is higher res than 1080p (you just have to get really close to it...). Between that PS2 sitting in your closet, your computer on the desk nearby, and the standalone DVD player by your TV, I'd say most people are set.
Google ended up restricting their internship program to people 18 and older. That pretty much locked out us high schoolers. Are there any companies interested in professional-level programmers who are looking for internships but happen to be in high school? Or is this just a college thing?
As a 16-year old internet-obsessed teenager, I get the feeling that this article is trying to talk about me and my friends. So many of the comments I am reading are gross generalizations about how teens suck for some reason or another. I'll admit that some of us have some growing up to do, but please don't generalize. I use IM when it's useful, but I actually email many of my friends more than I IM them. I find email a place to have (somewhat) meaningful conversations and it's far easier for me to use. It's not AIM that I always have running, it's Gmail (always the 1st tab in Firefox for me). There are many teenagers out there who actually do something with their time and I don't appreciate being insulted.
That being said, I do have to agree that many teens have nothing to talk about. I have given up IM for the most part and so have several of my busier friends. We just have better things to do than start worthless conversations with random people. I have to agree that 90% of IM is inane. I do sometimes use IM to get ahold of people for quick answers and that's often the only reason some of us stay on IM. If I need to check on what homework we were supposed to do and I plan on doing it in the next 15 minutes, IM is useful. If I'm coordinating a long-term homework assignment, email is better. There are quite a few people on and off my buddy list that really bug me when they try to talk. They have absolutely no reason whatsoever to talk to me other than the fact that they are bored. OTOH, "inane" conversation can actually have a use. Teenagers like to socialize and make friends. Small talk, be it in person or on the Interinet, is crucial to development of relationships. Teenagers still haven't nailed down how to quickly and efficiently grow relationships so they take an inordinate amount of time chit-chatting. By mid to late high school, many of us have grown up and move on from excessive dumb conversation.
I get the feeling that most IM and espescially inane IM centers around people under 14. By 15 or 16, many teens are too busy to be just blabbing. Sports, homework, dating, school, etc. take up much of their time. Kids under 14, however, have very little to be doing. They're still being given their childhood and often have tons of free time. They also have very little in the way of social development. These factors combine to produce (I think) most of the inane IM traffic on the Internet. These kids will grow up and learn, it will just take time.
Wait, but I run Tiger on my iBook here and Gentoo on my box upstairs... Does that make me an impossibility?
There was an article some time back, oh right, a Paul Graham article suggesting that techies might start going Mac. I've seen it happening with other people, it's definitely happening with me. I'll never have an Xserve replace my Debian server box, but Tiger does a damn good job on the laptop.
I have a small network with a few users and we use a combination of iCal and Sunbird. We have an apache web server with a WebDAV repository to store the calendars, so we can all look at them. All three compuers can see all four calendars (there's an extra "common" calendar) and changes are automatically propagated between machines. iCal even syncs one of the calendars to my Treo 650. Yes, Sunbird can be a little hard to work with and a little buggy at times, but it mostly does the job. And we don't need any kind of expensive Exchange server software.
I have a two-year-old Clie T665C (man that thing is trusty) that can be had for a little over $100 hooked up to a $30 Stowaway keyboard. They were having a deal a few months back for Clies, I'm not sure about now. I can type upwards of 100 WPM into my Memo Pad and when I hit the Sync button, poof! The data's in JPilot. Now, there is a better option if you run Windows. Get a Pocket Word-type app (The PalmOS versions are wayyy better than PPC Word). It directly syncs Word, Excel, and PowerPoint docs. WHen you edit it on your palm and sync, boom! the word doc is updated. There is even some limited formatting. The screen on this little puppy is amazing. It's a few years old, but it's bright, clear, beautiful, and I only have one dead pixel.
Oh, and this is what I prefer over my Sidekick. I have a Sidekick Color that I use for web surfing etc. and sometimes typing, but nothing beats a full sized qwerty keyboard. I love the Sidekick, but I'm not ditching the palm until I get a laptop.
Actually, I own a Prius and I can tell you, software updates are a bitch. I don't know what they did, but I've talked to many Prius owners who have had their cars reflashed and it really does take that long. Why? I don't know. You would think they would have stuck something as amazingly powerful as an RS232 interface on it... Come on, how much can there be to upload?
But yeah, it actually can take multiple hours for some updates.
How does Spintronics stack up against Plasmonics? I mean, they're both being touted as The Next Big Thing in chips. Are the compatible in any way? Different time frames?
I actually have a small-scale solar power setup that powers my 17W server, our gateway router, my Palm charger, and a few other things all directly at 12 volts. The whole setup is 12V and we have "power busses" throughout out house for LED and stuff. They are two strips, one of copper, one of aluminum. The positive side is copper with female spade connectors. The negative side is aluminum with female bullet connectors. Sound safe? Yeah, it's pretty homebrew but I make pretty real-time graphs and it works well. I'd give you the URL but I haven't set it up to cache the generated graph and I don't want my poor 17W Epia 533 server to get slashdotted.
We are moving in the direction of car connectors, but we need too much diversity. Mant devices have panasonic connectors, but they're all different sizes! If companies standarized on one size of panasonic connector, I think everything would be great.
But running a J2ME app on the Sidekick has nothing to do with its browser, other than maybe adding a hook for downloading the app off the web and running it. The app is run by the OS, which already runs Java apps, not within the browser. J2ME != Applets.
They're rolling out Java support for the SKII sometime this summer, I believe. No news on Javascript support yet.
How does this matter? Sorry, but running J2ME apps on the SKII has no connection whatsoever to having Javascript on the CSK browser....
Sorry, I just had to speak out there.
I have to agree. The concept of doing anything interactive on a 12-key keypad seems prtty stupid to me. I am posting from my Sidekick Color and it handles most sites just fine. Sure the formatting goes all screwy on most, but you can find the text. Slashdot is great. Only problem is, I heard somwhere that Sidekicks see content through an AvantGo proxy. Sure it's good for bandwidth, but what about the possibility of JS or CSS someday? Maybe anchors too?
I don't know about "consumer products" but Linux is great at this kind of stuff. I can have mozilla compiling in the background at nice level 5, my main apps running at normal priority, and X at -1 so it takes priority. It's really easy to do and quite effective. Too bad no HL2 for Linux...
I checked out the docs for ECMAScript for XML and it looks like this is a really cool feature! Now instead of big long yucky DOM calls we get simple parent.child.grandchild access to XML data. This is going to be a boon for people doing Ajax, since it's basically all XML data.
Oh, and I forgot to mention my setup with my vertical mouse. Right on their page they say "5 buttons in XFree 4.0.1 or higher without additional driver. " which is a godsend. I have "pinky click" map to switching virtual desktops and "thumb click" brings up a menu of the apps I launch most right where the mouse is, no matter where it is. 5 usable buttons can be really fun to mess with under Linux, espescially with imwheel.
Actually, I'm 15 and had something similar to carpal tunnel at about age 11 (can you believe it? These damn Silicon Valley people:-D). My big worry was nixing it before high school! I was lucky enough to not have any nerve issues, just sore wrists, but mousing was definitely my issue. My parents both also had mousing issues, but once we switched to vertical mice and adjusted posture, we're all better. Rather than going dvorak, I used IBM ViaVoice for a few months so I could use the computer at all but was eventually able to migrate back into using a normal setup. I have a pretty nice acer split keyboard with a builtin touchpad (which I don't use...) and an amazingly cool Evoluent Vertical Mouse. The big thing for any kind of repetitive strain injury is reduce and relax. I took biofeedback training for a few weeks and it helped me immensely. Not playing games for 6hrs+ a day and switching to learning Java helped too... Now I'm productive and I don't have any problems! Watch your posture too, you can get neck/shoulder issues really easily. You probably already have hypertension and it's just below threshold so you don't treat it.
Hm, the wmv link isn't working for me. I can ping the host, but I can't play the stream. Mplayer hangs on "Connecting to sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov[128.102.151.19]:80". Are there any mirrors or torrents out there?
Slashdot Mirror
There's been talk of building an alternative "hinternet" using ham radio technology, but it's not really viable for both economic and technical reasons. Short of that, being able to communicate via voice with anybody in the world using something other than the internet / large telcos as an intermediary is pretty good. Sure, you can't watch Netflix via your 10-meter radio, but basic communication and information sharing is totally doable, and it's going to be very hard for governments to shut such behavior down.
I first got my ham license precisely as a hedge against the apocalypse. If things really go bad, what use is a programmer? Anything requiring a $6 billion fab to get going will be out the window, so I've got to have some other useful talent. Ham radios can be built from scratch fairly easily, so I figured I'd learn to build and use radios so I'd be useful post-apocalypse.
What ended up happening is that I got into my first real hobby, and I've been enjoying making contacts with my little handheld radio. Soon I'm going to be putting together a rig for talking to people around the world! Sure, you can use the internet, but it's not about the messages: it's about the medium. Being able to build your very own personal communications device that can reach around the world feels awesome.
What bands did you use? I'm getting ready to buy my first HF rig, and I'm trying to figure out if I can go with an MFJ single-band right, but I don't know what's best for DXing.
I understand that Adobe's Acrobat Reader leaves something to be desired, but why do the rest of us have to put up with the crap that is iPaper??
Yes! I'm pretty sure T-Mobile is chill with you sticking your SIM in any phone you want.
Screw DVD players, doesn't everybody's computer play DVDs? Hell, my Macbook Pro has a DVI output that'll hook up to a ton of HDTVs out there and its own display is higher res than 1080p (you just have to get really close to it...). Between that PS2 sitting in your closet, your computer on the desk nearby, and the standalone DVD player by your TV, I'd say most people are set.
Wow, that's pretty cool. I'll have to look into it. The URL you gave me specifically said college, any idea where high schoolers apply? Thanks!
Google ended up restricting their internship program to people 18 and older. That pretty much locked out us high schoolers. Are there any companies interested in professional-level programmers who are looking for internships but happen to be in high school? Or is this just a college thing?
As a 16-year old internet-obsessed teenager, I get the feeling that this article is trying to talk about me and my friends. So many of the comments I am reading are gross generalizations about how teens suck for some reason or another. I'll admit that some of us have some growing up to do, but please don't generalize. I use IM when it's useful, but I actually email many of my friends more than I IM them. I find email a place to have (somewhat) meaningful conversations and it's far easier for me to use. It's not AIM that I always have running, it's Gmail (always the 1st tab in Firefox for me). There are many teenagers out there who actually do something with their time and I don't appreciate being insulted.
That being said, I do have to agree that many teens have nothing to talk about. I have given up IM for the most part and so have several of my busier friends. We just have better things to do than start worthless conversations with random people. I have to agree that 90% of IM is inane. I do sometimes use IM to get ahold of people for quick answers and that's often the only reason some of us stay on IM. If I need to check on what homework we were supposed to do and I plan on doing it in the next 15 minutes, IM is useful. If I'm coordinating a long-term homework assignment, email is better. There are quite a few people on and off my buddy list that really bug me when they try to talk. They have absolutely no reason whatsoever to talk to me other than the fact that they are bored. OTOH, "inane" conversation can actually have a use. Teenagers like to socialize and make friends. Small talk, be it in person or on the Interinet, is crucial to development of relationships. Teenagers still haven't nailed down how to quickly and efficiently grow relationships so they take an inordinate amount of time chit-chatting. By mid to late high school, many of us have grown up and move on from excessive dumb conversation.
I get the feeling that most IM and espescially inane IM centers around people under 14. By 15 or 16, many teens are too busy to be just blabbing. Sports, homework, dating, school, etc. take up much of their time. Kids under 14, however, have very little to be doing. They're still being given their childhood and often have tons of free time. They also have very little in the way of social development. These factors combine to produce (I think) most of the inane IM traffic on the Internet. These kids will grow up and learn, it will just take time.
Wait, but I run Tiger on my iBook here and Gentoo on my box upstairs... Does that make me an impossibility? There was an article some time back, oh right, a Paul Graham article suggesting that techies might start going Mac. I've seen it happening with other people, it's definitely happening with me. I'll never have an Xserve replace my Debian server box, but Tiger does a damn good job on the laptop.
I have a small network with a few users and we use a combination of iCal and Sunbird. We have an apache web server with a WebDAV repository to store the calendars, so we can all look at them. All three compuers can see all four calendars (there's an extra "common" calendar) and changes are automatically propagated between machines. iCal even syncs one of the calendars to my Treo 650. Yes, Sunbird can be a little hard to work with and a little buggy at times, but it mostly does the job. And we don't need any kind of expensive Exchange server software.
I have a two-year-old Clie T665C (man that thing is trusty) that can be had for a little over $100 hooked up to a $30 Stowaway keyboard. They were having a deal a few months back for Clies, I'm not sure about now. I can type upwards of 100 WPM into my Memo Pad and when I hit the Sync button, poof! The data's in JPilot. Now, there is a better option if you run Windows. Get a Pocket Word-type app (The PalmOS versions are wayyy better than PPC Word). It directly syncs Word, Excel, and PowerPoint docs. WHen you edit it on your palm and sync, boom! the word doc is updated. There is even some limited formatting. The screen on this little puppy is amazing. It's a few years old, but it's bright, clear, beautiful, and I only have one dead pixel.
Oh, and this is what I prefer over my Sidekick. I have a Sidekick Color that I use for web surfing etc. and sometimes typing, but nothing beats a full sized qwerty keyboard. I love the Sidekick, but I'm not ditching the palm until I get a laptop.
Actually, I own a Prius and I can tell you, software updates are a bitch. I don't know what they did, but I've talked to many Prius owners who have had their cars reflashed and it really does take that long. Why? I don't know. You would think they would have stuck something as amazingly powerful as an RS232 interface on it... Come on, how much can there be to upload?
But yeah, it actually can take multiple hours for some updates.
How does Spintronics stack up against Plasmonics? I mean, they're both being touted as The Next Big Thing in chips. Are the compatible in any way? Different time frames?
I actually have a small-scale solar power setup that powers my 17W server, our gateway router, my Palm charger, and a few other things all directly at 12 volts. The whole setup is 12V and we have "power busses" throughout out house for LED and stuff. They are two strips, one of copper, one of aluminum. The positive side is copper with female spade connectors. The negative side is aluminum with female bullet connectors. Sound safe? Yeah, it's pretty homebrew but I make pretty real-time graphs and it works well. I'd give you the URL but I haven't set it up to cache the generated graph and I don't want my poor 17W Epia 533 server to get slashdotted.
We are moving in the direction of car connectors, but we need too much diversity. Mant devices have panasonic connectors, but they're all different sizes! If companies standarized on one size of panasonic connector, I think everything would be great.
But running a J2ME app on the Sidekick has nothing to do with its browser, other than maybe adding a hook for downloading the app off the web and running it. The app is run by the OS, which already runs Java apps, not within the browser. J2ME != Applets.
I have to agree. The concept of doing anything interactive on a 12-key keypad seems prtty stupid to me. I am posting from my Sidekick Color and it handles most sites just fine. Sure the formatting goes all screwy on most, but you can find the text. Slashdot is great. Only problem is, I heard somwhere that Sidekicks see content through an AvantGo proxy. Sure it's good for bandwidth, but what about the possibility of JS or CSS someday? Maybe anchors too?
I don't know about "consumer products" but Linux is great at this kind of stuff. I can have mozilla compiling in the background at nice level 5, my main apps running at normal priority, and X at -1 so it takes priority. It's really easy to do and quite effective. Too bad no HL2 for Linux...
Wait a sec, they did?! I never heard about it... How do I get to it?
I checked out the docs for ECMAScript for XML and it looks like this is a really cool feature! Now instead of big long yucky DOM calls we get simple parent.child.grandchild access to XML data. This is going to be a boon for people doing Ajax, since it's basically all XML data.
Oh, and I forgot to mention my setup with my vertical mouse. Right on their page they say "5 buttons in XFree 4.0.1 or higher without additional driver. " which is a godsend. I have "pinky click" map to switching virtual desktops and "thumb click" brings up a menu of the apps I launch most right where the mouse is, no matter where it is. 5 usable buttons can be really fun to mess with under Linux, espescially with imwheel.
Actually, I'm 15 and had something similar to carpal tunnel at about age 11 (can you believe it? These damn Silicon Valley people :-D). My big worry was nixing it before high school! I was lucky enough to not have any nerve issues, just sore wrists, but mousing was definitely my issue. My parents both also had mousing issues, but once we switched to vertical mice and adjusted posture, we're all better. Rather than going dvorak, I used IBM ViaVoice for a few months so I could use the computer at all but was eventually able to migrate back into using a normal setup. I have a pretty nice acer split keyboard with a builtin touchpad (which I don't use...) and an amazingly cool Evoluent Vertical Mouse. The big thing for any kind of repetitive strain injury is reduce and relax. I took biofeedback training for a few weeks and it helped me immensely. Not playing games for 6hrs+ a day and switching to learning Java helped too... Now I'm productive and I don't have any problems! Watch your posture too, you can get neck/shoulder issues really easily. You probably already have hypertension and it's just below threshold so you don't treat it.
ah, there we go...
Hm, the wmv link isn't working for me. I can ping the host, but I can't play the stream. Mplayer hangs on "Connecting to sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov[128.102.151.19]:80". Are there any mirrors or torrents out there?