This sounds trivial and obvious enough, that it's surprising that Micrrosoft hasn't applied for a patent on it, then tried to charge people for doing it. Of course, they still can. "This will finally exterminate the pesky ipod once and for all - if we charge them to run Linux from it."
Actually, right-hand-drive originated for just that reason - because if you were approaching someone on a horse, you'd want to pass to the left so that your sword hand would be read.
Napoleon taught his troops to fight with their swords in their left hands, to surprise the British. Which is why the continentals would pass to the right.
I'm working with a mass of code (php, perl) that has no comments at all. Like, none. And generic variable names ($counter, @array). My first task as I try to determine what the code does is to run through it and add comments.
I tend to use many types of comments. This way I can find and see the #!errors or #?todos - and at least in PHP I can tell long-term//comments from quickie #!comments.//Notes about how the program does its thing
#dates mod'd, etc. /* big notes; headers, etc. */
//? Todo - Places I need to come back to and figure something out
#? or I'd like to rewrite for speed, etc.
//! Error - Places where something is wrong
#! or an error occurs/might occur
# (commented-out code)
/*
Commented out code
(big blocks of commented-out code)
*/
It's fairly frustrating that comment syntax differs btw perl and php since I go back and forth a lot.
Does this include "De Facto" System Administrators? Those of us who work for companies/people too small and/or too cheap to actually hire a system administrator? Who instead ask us to do the work, because we can usually figure things out, even though it takes time away from the jobs we're actually supposed to be doing (and takes valuable time away from reading/. as well)? Who at the same time consider our best advice to be entirely optional ("Don't click on links you get in spam." "Don't mass-forward cute stories someone else forwarded to you" "When someone dials zero, they should actually reach a human" "Convert our Windows servers to Unix/MacOS because they'll just work better, especially with no sysadmin" "Hire a sysadmin" etc.) because we aren't "experts".
Here's to you (and me) Mr. De Facto System Administrator.
I can relate to this; I'm an occasional journaller and I've gone back and forth btw paper and pen and handheld organizers.
The Newton, of course, was awesome, but the external keyboard was big and clunky - would have been great if it folded over the screen.
Have used a Palm and a folding keyboard; this was great as well but the sync software still is somewhat lousy when it comes to uploading documents as plain text (why can't I just have a directory appear, like on a flash drive, and drag-copy documents from there?) There are third-party solutions for this, of course. Palm sync is still a pain on the Mac, more so with Sony which makes (or used to) cuter hardware.
One of my favorites, tho, which I also used as a fantastic portable RS-232 serial terminal, was an HP200LX. Sturdy (i.e. droppable), relatively inexpensive. Difficult to sync with Mac, IIRC.
My dream machine would be a 200LX form factor, running UX of some flavor, with USB, network, and 802.11 connectivity. Which would of course price it out of the market of your question. Needs to have a clamshell keyboard though.
Also, -Lots of big wide conduit for whatever else you decide to put in later. -Tunnels for the electric trains to go through the walls. -Foor-mounted fishtank with transparent lift-off flooring for feeding and cleaning. Preferably Piranhas.
I did this, with a R/C Hummer and an X-cam wireless (BEFORE they were sold as peeping-toms in internet popups). Picture quality wasn't great, and only worked outdoor, pointed forward with no tilt/pan/zoom.
(Actually the first one of these I built was an old video camera duct taped to a gas R/C buggy. Other than bottoming out the suspension, and having to wait till after a run to see the results, it was pretty cool).
But what really made it, was a heads-up "Virtual Reality" video display. I can't afford a Sony Glasstron so I just used a cheapo head-mounted CRT I found at Fry's. It felt like you were actually driving the car. Especially fun was running a dirt R/C track in it, and rollovers/endos.
I predict this to be the future of R/C toys. Once we have good quality, lightweight wireless video with a decent (half mile or so) range, that we can drop in an R/C airplane or helicopter, and inexpensive decent quality VR goggles (stereo would be best), it becomes like really flying the thing. Add some digital transmitting avionics for altimeter/airspeed/VSI/GPS and it might be a decent training tool.
We know the army is using this for "backpack" RPVs and APVs. And movie companies are using them instead of helicopter shots. So they should become consumer technology soon enough.
Also, picture these for war games (like we used to play with the Big Trac, but with real control of the vehicle and short-range offensive weapons. Combine it with Battlebots - pilots "drive" the vehicles.
(P.S. A Beowulf cluster of these, and my robot army will be unstoppable!)
"I hope that the next corvette to come out of GM costs $200,000 and comes in a bunch of boxes"
Land Rover offers an option in some countries of "CKD" - "Complete Knock Down" that comes to you in boxes, you get to put it together. Unfortunately you can't get these in the US (tho they tease people with them at auto shows: http://www.rockcrawler.com/trailreports/SEMA2003/l androver_d110.asp
Personally, my turn-off-the-tv (and the phone and the internet and the social filters and the clothing and most of the rest of the pesky trappings of reality) time is the week before Labor Day. And it's amazing to me to see how little I really miss out on. It's even reduced my consumption of these things the rest of the year (what with beach burns and construction parties and campouts and other social functions).
Besides, if you want to literally kill your television, what better place to do it? (As long as you're playa-friendly, of course!)
But, uh, don't take it from me. Don't go. You wouldn't like it. It's so over. It was better last year. It's just a rave. Too many people. Too hot. Too many drugs and naked freaks.
...but so very rewarding as an end product. Imagine the opposite (shudder!). I need to get around to doing this with our application but then anything that goes wrong becomes my problem.
If like me, you forgot to do this and your dates were hosed, there's a relatively easy way to recover (if you have a spare hard drive/partition/iPod).
From 10.3.3, go to/var/mysql and/or mysql and make a list of your current databases (folders) (mine are all aliased elsewhere with ln -s). Copy/back up these databases just in case!!! Copy them to somewhere you'll be able to see them once you're running 10.3 from the new drive (I used my/Volumes/data partition; otherwise they'll be in/Volumes/(10.3.3 drive)/var/mysql ).
Reinstall OSX 10.3 (base) on the spare drive. Bring up mysql (I just used Applications/Server/Mysql Manager). Run mysql -u root (it has no default password, and I didn't bother setting one for this temporary use). In mysql, create an empty database for each of your existing databases (I don't know if this is required but I seem to remember needing to do it before). Exit mysql. Delete the empty databases you just created, and then copy your production databases from wherever you put them, to/var/mysql. You may wish to go into mysql and check that they're there and the dates are ok.
Export (dump) the databases to sql files as detailed above. Make sure they're somewhere that's accessable from your 10.3.3 install. Reboot to 10.3.3 (System Preferences/Startup Disk). Import the databases as detailed above.
Do the happy dance. (Or if you're me, realize you just wiped out good data with old backups, curse, copy and paste good data from Google cache, wipe sweat from brow).
Yes. At least the 2-button/scrollwheel mouse I've got (macally) and every other one I've tried work fine. Not sure what the third button on a three-button mouse (or scrollwheel click) is supposed to do so I can't test that, but contextual menus are on the right button, and the scrollwheel works in apps that support it.
Well, that certainly puts to shame the troll comment that first came to my mind.
Around here, one of the euphemisms for using the potty (i.e. "dropping the kids off at the pool", "downloading some files", etc.) is "going to a conference on emerging technologies".
Here's a bit of trivia that most people don't know about alternate local phone carriers (LEC Local Exchange Carrier identified by OCN Operating Company Number).
LECs are divided into three tiers: A, B, and C. Most ex-Bell carriers are tier A; most third-party carriers (for example, Cox) are tier C. Frontier, GTE, and Sprint (local) are tier B. I believe that cellphone carriers mostly qualify as tier C, but I'm not sure.
Long distance calls, especially in-state but also interstate long distance, cost the LD carrier a lot more if they originate and/or terminate at tier B or C. A-A calls, for example, might cost the carrier 2c/minute; C-C calls can cost 10c!
Some LD carriers pass these costs directly to the user; others refuse to provide service to tier C users. Many LD companies are considering charging customers different rates depending on the originating and terminating LEC.
Don't be surprised if at some point in the future it costs you more to call a cellphone or a (Joe's local telco) customer long distance.
One application that could use this technology is videoconferencing - put the camera behind the monitor.
This is already possible with one-way mirrors reflecting the screen, but one-way transparent screens would make it easier.
Instead of having the camera at the top of the screen and looking back and forth, put it directly behind the middle of the screen, about 2/3 of the way up. Or have smart software that would track where the other person's eyes are and put the camera between their eyes so you could look directly at them.
I believe that this is a big factor in why videoconferencing always "feels strange" and perhaps part of why it hasn't caught on.
Modest proposal
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I prefer the following : make pennies worth $1.
This would:
-eliminate the penny,
-give us a distinguishable dollar coin,
-and stimulate the economy
Pennies are visibly and tactilly different from our other coins; can be used in vending machines; are easy to carry around. Plus, Lincoln was a great guy, what with freeing the slaves and all (better than that indian-killer Jackson that's on the $20, at least) and this lets us honor him once again.
Income would be redistributed somewhat randomly to people with big jars of pennies. The ultra-rich (you know, the ones getting the big tax cuts) probably have no more than a handfull of pennies. Some people would chose to hoard the new dollars; while others would spend them with abandon. And wouldn't you like to pay your taxes by sending in several rolls of pennies?
Just for laughs, I'd make "wheat cents" worth $100.
When this was discussed before the consensus was to run conduit, so you could change your wires more easily.
I still suggest Pneumatic Tubes (http://www.ptubes.com/ , http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=pneum atic+tube&go=Go). Use it for sending things like sandwiches and martinis. Plus it gives your place that "Brazil" element.
Also, a network of toy train tracks running around the crown molding.
Re:Free Kevin?
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Free as in beer? Free as in speech? Free as in Willy? Free as in parking? Free as in radicals? Free as in "the first one's free..." Free as in Nelson Mandela? Free as in love? Free as in advice? Free as in Mumia Abu-Jamal? Free as in bird? Free as in verse? Free as in wheeling? Free as in Kevin? Free as in Fridays? Free as in basing? Free as in with purchase of first of equal or greater value? Free as in Tibet? Free as in the Chicago Seven?
"I'm sure the battery would last longer (where do they PUT it in that thing?!)"
It hangs underneath the back. Like a stand. Totally destroys the simplicity of the design, like an afterthought ("What, we need a battery?" - wonder how you say "D'oh" in Japanese.)
Neither - I know what the comma is for, but I still think that when read, the ", under god," pointlessly dilutes the meaning of "one nation indivisible". Especially when it's read aloud, either as "onenationundergodindivisible" or, as lately, "one nation UNDER GOD (indivisible)"
Although I agree with the court's ruling, my complaint here has always been with the LOCATION of the added phrase. When spoken, "...one nation, under God, indivisible.." becomes "..one nation under God indivisible..."; indivisible sounds like it's modifying God (God is indivisible?) and takes away from the original meaning, one nation indivisible (which you may recall was the subject of the Civil War).
I keep running into this problem. Floating point stores values as binary calculations - x plus (y divided by z) and 82.845 (and many other numbers)cannot be stored exactly as binary - it's stored as 82.84499999... (like 1/3 can't be stored as decimal, it's 1.3333...
round (82.84499999,2) is currectly 82.84, not 82.845.
A way to correct this is to store and use fixed-point decimals instead of floating-point (wherever possible), especially when you're referring to monetary amounts. (I call this the Superman problem, from the Superman movie where Richard Pryor took all the discarded fractional cents from payroll and added it to his own - and showed up the next day in a Ferarri.)
Aside from this, my most annoying and time-wasting "bugs" are either nulls (I think of NULL as "hasn't been set yet" rather than "don't know" so 5 + null is 5!), or general error messages that give you no information on specifically what went wrong or how to correct the problem (Thanks, M$!).
I've read articles that say we have sufficient science to reprocess current "waste" materials, at best producing some small amount of electricity, at worst degrading the material to a more harmless state. It's just not cost-effective at this point, and the majority of the "bulk" of waste materials is low-level (soiled protective gear, cleaning materials, medical devices, etc).
What if a few thousand years in the future, a pit of mixed plutonium/uranium/cowboynealium can be easily used as fuel (or at least, cleaned up or processed away). But we've made it so difficult to get to or extract safely that reprocessing is impossible.
As discussed earlier, in the future either they'll have knowledge of radioactive materials, or they won't. If they DO then we need to communicate effectively what the materials are so they'll know what to do (or not do) with them.
Something to the effect of "We considered these extremely hazardous materials dangerous enough to hide them here; but if you know what to do with them, here's what you'll find below." Then put unattractive (barrels of warm goo as opposed to pocketable artifacts?) materials nearer the entrance that will kill the curious/clueless quickly before they get too far (letting their survivors know how nasty it is) - but will give the knowledgeable some idea of our processing technology.
That and copious quantites of C4H12N2 (1,4-Diaminobutane, aka Putrescine - the smell of rotting flesh).
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds trivial and obvious enough, that it's surprising that Micrrosoft hasn't applied for a patent on it, then tried to charge people for doing it. Of course, they still can. "This will finally exterminate the pesky ipod once and for all - if we charge them to run Linux from it."
Actually, right-hand-drive originated for just that reason - because if you were approaching someone on a horse, you'd want to pass to the left so that your sword hand would be read.
Napoleon taught his troops to fight with their swords in their left hands, to surprise the British. Which is why the continentals would pass to the right.
$hellfreezesover = 0; ...code...
repeat until $hellfreezesover {
}
I'm working with a mass of code (php, perl) that has no comments at all. Like, none. And generic variable names ($counter, @array). My first task as I try to determine what the code does is to run through it and add comments.
//comments from quickie #!comments. //Notes about how the program does its thing
/* big notes; headers, etc. */
//? Todo - Places I need to come back to and figure something out
//! Error - Places where something is wrong
/*
I tend to use many types of comments. This way I can find and see the #!errors or #?todos - and at least in PHP I can tell long-term
#dates mod'd, etc.
#? or I'd like to rewrite for speed, etc.
#! or an error occurs/might occur
# (commented-out code)
Commented out code
(big blocks of commented-out code)
*/
It's fairly frustrating that comment syntax differs btw perl and php since I go back and forth a lot.
Does this include "De Facto" System Administrators? Those of us who work for companies/people too small and/or too cheap to actually hire a system administrator? Who instead ask us to do the work, because we can usually figure things out, even though it takes time away from the jobs we're actually supposed to be doing (and takes valuable time away from reading /. as well)? Who at the same time consider our best advice to be entirely optional ("Don't click on links you get in spam." "Don't mass-forward cute stories someone else forwarded to you" "When someone dials zero, they should actually reach a human" "Convert our Windows servers to Unix/MacOS because they'll just work better, especially with no sysadmin" "Hire a sysadmin" etc.) because we aren't "experts".
Here's to you (and me) Mr. De Facto System Administrator.
I can relate to this; I'm an occasional journaller and I've gone back and forth btw paper and pen and handheld organizers.
The Newton, of course, was awesome, but the external keyboard was big and clunky - would have been great if it folded over the screen.
Have used a Palm and a folding keyboard; this was great as well but the sync software still is somewhat lousy when it comes to uploading documents as plain text (why can't I just have a directory appear, like on a flash drive, and drag-copy documents from there?) There are third-party solutions for this, of course. Palm sync is still a pain on the Mac, more so with Sony which makes (or used to) cuter hardware.
One of my favorites, tho, which I also used as a fantastic portable RS-232 serial terminal, was an HP200LX. Sturdy (i.e. droppable), relatively inexpensive. Difficult to sync with Mac, IIRC.
My dream machine would be a 200LX form factor, running UX of some flavor, with USB, network, and 802.11 connectivity. Which would of course price it out of the market of your question. Needs to have a clamshell keyboard though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube
How else are you going to get sandwiches from one end of the house to the other?
Also,
-Lots of big wide conduit for whatever else you decide to put in later.
-Tunnels for the electric trains to go through the walls.
-Foor-mounted fishtank with transparent lift-off flooring for feeding and cleaning. Preferably Piranhas.
I did this, with a R/C Hummer and an X-cam wireless (BEFORE they were sold as peeping-toms in internet popups). Picture quality wasn't great, and only worked outdoor, pointed forward with no tilt/pan/zoom.
(Actually the first one of these I built was an old video camera duct taped to a gas R/C buggy. Other than bottoming out the suspension, and having to wait till after a run to see the results, it was pretty cool).
But what really made it, was a heads-up "Virtual Reality" video display. I can't afford a Sony Glasstron so I just used a cheapo head-mounted CRT I found at Fry's. It felt like you were actually driving the car. Especially fun was running a dirt R/C track in it, and rollovers/endos.
I predict this to be the future of R/C toys. Once we have good quality, lightweight wireless video with a decent (half mile or so) range, that we can drop in an R/C airplane or helicopter, and inexpensive decent quality VR goggles (stereo would be best), it becomes like really flying the thing. Add some digital transmitting avionics for altimeter/airspeed/VSI/GPS and it might be a decent training tool.
We know the army is using this for "backpack" RPVs and APVs. And movie companies are using them instead of helicopter shots. So they should become consumer technology soon enough.
Also, picture these for war games (like we used to play with the Big Trac, but with real control of the vehicle and short-range offensive weapons. Combine it with Battlebots - pilots "drive" the vehicles.
(P.S. A Beowulf cluster of these, and my robot army will be unstoppable!)
"I hope that the next corvette to come out of GM costs $200,000 and comes in a bunch of boxes"
l androver_d110.asp
Land Rover offers an option in some countries of "CKD" - "Complete Knock Down" that comes to you in boxes, you get to put it together. Unfortunately you can't get these in the US (tho they tease people with them at auto shows: http://www.rockcrawler.com/trailreports/SEMA2003/
Besides, if you want to literally kill your television, what better place to do it? (As long as you're playa-friendly, of course!)
But, uh, don't take it from me. Don't go. You wouldn't like it. It's so over. It was better last year. It's just a rave. Too many people. Too hot. Too many drugs and naked freaks.
...but so very rewarding as an end product. Imagine the opposite (shudder!). I need to get around to doing this with our application but then anything that goes wrong becomes my problem.
If like me, you forgot to do this and your dates were hosed, there's a relatively easy way to recover (if you have a spare hard drive/partition/iPod).
/var/mysql and/or mysql and make a list of your current databases (folders) (mine are all aliased elsewhere with ln -s). Copy/back up these databases just in case!!! Copy them to somewhere you'll be able to see them once you're running 10.3 from the new drive (I used my /Volumes/data partition; otherwise they'll be in /Volumes/(10.3.3 drive)/var/mysql ).
/var/mysql. You may wish to go into mysql and check that they're there and the dates are ok.
From 10.3.3, go to
Reinstall OSX 10.3 (base) on the spare drive. Bring up mysql (I just used Applications/Server/Mysql Manager). Run mysql -u root (it has no default password, and I didn't bother setting one for this temporary use). In mysql, create an empty database for each of your existing databases (I don't know if this is required but I seem to remember needing to do it before). Exit mysql. Delete the empty databases you just created, and then copy your production databases from wherever you put them, to
Export (dump) the databases to sql files as detailed above. Make sure they're somewhere that's accessable from your 10.3.3 install. Reboot to 10.3.3 (System Preferences/Startup Disk). Import the databases as detailed above.
Do the happy dance. (Or if you're me, realize you just wiped out good data with old backups, curse, copy and paste good data from Google cache, wipe sweat from brow).
Yes. At least the 2-button/scrollwheel mouse I've got (macally) and every other one I've tried work fine. Not sure what the third button on a three-button mouse (or scrollwheel click) is supposed to do so I can't test that, but contextual menus are on the right button, and the scrollwheel works in apps that support it.
Well, that certainly puts to shame the troll comment that first came to my mind.
Around here, one of the euphemisms for using the potty (i.e. "dropping the kids off at the pool", "downloading some files", etc.) is "going to a conference on emerging technologies".
Here's a bit of trivia that most people don't know about alternate local phone carriers (LEC Local Exchange Carrier identified by OCN Operating Company Number).
LECs are divided into three tiers: A, B, and C. Most ex-Bell carriers are tier A; most third-party carriers (for example, Cox) are tier C. Frontier, GTE, and Sprint (local) are tier B. I believe that cellphone carriers mostly qualify as tier C, but I'm not sure.
Long distance calls, especially in-state but also interstate long distance, cost the LD carrier a lot more if they originate and/or terminate at tier B or C. A-A calls, for example, might cost the carrier 2c/minute; C-C calls can cost 10c!
Some LD carriers pass these costs directly to the user; others refuse to provide service to tier C users. Many LD companies are considering charging customers different rates depending on the originating and terminating LEC.
Don't be surprised if at some point in the future it costs you more to call a cellphone or a (Joe's local telco) customer long distance.
This is already possible with one-way mirrors reflecting the screen, but one-way transparent screens would make it easier.
Instead of having the camera at the top of the screen and looking back and forth, put it directly behind the middle of the screen, about 2/3 of the way up. Or have smart software that would track where the other person's eyes are and put the camera between their eyes so you could look directly at them.
I believe that this is a big factor in why videoconferencing always "feels strange" and perhaps part of why it hasn't caught on.
I prefer the following : make pennies worth $1.
This would:
-eliminate the penny,
-give us a distinguishable dollar coin,
-and stimulate the economy
Pennies are visibly and tactilly different from our other coins; can be used in vending machines; are easy to carry around. Plus, Lincoln was a great guy, what with freeing the slaves and all (better than that indian-killer Jackson that's on the $20, at least) and this lets us honor him once again.
Income would be redistributed somewhat randomly to people with big jars of pennies. The ultra-rich (you know, the ones getting the big tax cuts) probably have no more than a handfull of pennies. Some people would chose to hoard the new dollars; while others would spend them with abandon. And wouldn't you like to pay your taxes by sending in several rolls of pennies?
Just for laughs, I'd make "wheat cents" worth $100.
When this was discussed before the consensus was to run conduit, so you could change your wires more easily. I still suggest Pneumatic Tubes (http://www.ptubes.com/ , http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=pneum atic+tube&go=Go). Use it for sending things like sandwiches and martinis. Plus it gives your place that "Brazil" element.
Also, a network of toy train tracks running around the crown molding.
Free as in beer? Free as in speech? Free as in Willy? Free as in parking? Free as in radicals? Free as in "the first one's free..."
Free as in Nelson Mandela? Free as in love? Free as in advice? Free as in Mumia Abu-Jamal? Free as in bird? Free as in verse? Free as in wheeling? Free as in Kevin? Free as in Fridays? Free as in basing? Free as in with purchase of first of equal or greater value? Free as in Tibet? Free as in the Chicago Seven?
"I'm sure the battery would last longer (where do they PUT it in that thing?!)"
It hangs underneath the back. Like a stand. Totally destroys the simplicity of the design, like an afterthought ("What, we need a battery?" - wonder how you say "D'oh" in Japanese.)
"if memory serves me..."
I'm hoping this was an oblique reference to the opening lines from Iron Chef
Neither - I know what the comma is for, but I still think that when read, the ", under god," pointlessly dilutes the meaning of "one nation indivisible". Especially when it's read aloud, either as "onenationundergodindivisible" or, as lately, "one nation UNDER GOD (indivisible)"
Although I agree with the court's ruling, my complaint here has always been with the LOCATION of the added phrase. When spoken, "...one nation, under God, indivisible.." becomes "..one nation under God indivisible..."; indivisible sounds like it's modifying God (God is indivisible?) and takes away from the original meaning, one nation indivisible (which you may recall was the subject of the Civil War).
I keep running into this problem. Floating point stores values as binary calculations - x plus (y divided by z) and 82.845 (and many other numbers)cannot be stored exactly as binary - it's stored as 82.84499999... (like 1/3 can't be stored as decimal, it's 1.3333...
round (82.84499999,2) is currectly 82.84, not 82.845.
A way to correct this is to store and use fixed-point decimals instead of floating-point (wherever possible), especially when you're referring to monetary amounts. (I call this the Superman problem, from the Superman movie where Richard Pryor took all the discarded fractional cents from payroll and added it to his own - and showed up the next day in a Ferarri.)
Aside from this, my most annoying and time-wasting "bugs" are either nulls (I think of NULL as "hasn't been set yet" rather than "don't know" so 5 + null is 5!), or general error messages that give you no information on specifically what went wrong or how to correct the problem (Thanks, M$!).
I've read articles that say we have sufficient science to reprocess current "waste" materials, at best producing some small amount of electricity, at worst degrading the material to a more harmless state. It's just not cost-effective at this point, and the majority of the "bulk" of waste materials is low-level (soiled protective gear, cleaning materials, medical devices, etc).
What if a few thousand years in the future, a pit of mixed plutonium/uranium/cowboynealium can be easily used as fuel (or at least, cleaned up or processed away). But we've made it so difficult to get to or extract safely that reprocessing is impossible.
As discussed earlier, in the future either they'll have knowledge of radioactive materials, or they won't. If they DO then we need to communicate effectively what the materials are so they'll know what to do (or not do) with them.
Something to the effect of "We considered these extremely hazardous materials dangerous enough to hide them here; but if you know what to do with them, here's what you'll find below." Then put unattractive (barrels of warm goo as opposed to pocketable artifacts?) materials nearer the entrance that will kill the curious/clueless quickly before they get too far (letting their survivors know how nasty it is) - but will give the knowledgeable some idea of our processing technology.
That and copious quantites of C4H12N2 (1,4-Diaminobutane, aka Putrescine - the smell of rotting flesh).