...It's outright painful to try and build anything of any complexity.
That being said, I think these FOSS variant servers could address that. The fact that the client communications protocol is open provides the opportunity for people of a like mind (e.g. who want a real programming environment) to build and gravitate to servers that support their world view.
The really nice aspect of all of this will be the ability to move freely between them - so you don't have to abandon your old friends/associations. You will be able to have your pie and eat it too.
I should preface this by explaining that I am a longtime EQ/DAOC/WOW and various FPSs player. But now I'm getting older (in my 40s), and look at SL and similar worlds as a natural progression beyond those games. The social and academic aspects, coupled with the unique capabilities of being immersed in a 3D environment provide a combination that is light years beyond IM/message boards and other 2D modes - and with the hyper-linking capability within SL - you can still access those external resources as well.
If everything is non-volatile - do the distinctions really matter?
My first machine was a TI/99a -- it booted to Basic in about 2 seconds.
My second machine was a Toshiba T1100 laptop -- it had DOS 3.1 on ROM and booted to that in a few seconds as well (though you could boot off floppy if you really wanted to - not).
This would save energy and make the portable computer truly ubiquitous as a notepad - and just as useful.
How is this any different than keeping your data a USB drive - or a magnetic hard drive?
The only reason we have 'drives' vs. 'ram' is because of the limitations in storage in the past.
There doesn't have to be a difference - other than virtual - to separate the various uses of memory.
I personally like the idea of 'instant on' - being able to power up and have the system within a millisecond or two - back in the state I left it in. Additionally - you could use the 'data disk' just like ram - so you could skip the step of reading the data from the 'disk' to ram in order to work on it -- just work on it directly. That has got to speed up processing if taken to the logical extreme.
My 2002 pickup truck cost $18,000 - with trade-in of fully paid off 1980-something Dodge Neon that was running on 2 cylinders (truck's sticker price was $22,000).
That is the top end of what I can afford.
Until they produce an electric or hydrogen fueled pickup truck that I can use to haul heavy loads, and get through inclement weather - at a similar price --- you can just forget it.
Yes and No. You are talking about Memory Effect - when you over charge a NiCad battery (do not let it discharge fully) - it is able to hold less and less charge. "Voltage depression is caused by repeated over-charging of a battery, which causes the formation of small crystals of electrolyte on the plates. These can clog the plates, increasing resistance and lowering the voltage of some individual cells in the battery. This results in a seemingly rapid discharge as those individual cells discharge quickly and the voltage of the battery as a whole suddenly falls. This effect is very common, as consumer trickle chargers typically overcharge."
There is some scientific basis behind one of the most common recommendations for repairing these batteries: completely drain the battery in another device in order to dissolve the crystals. In practice, however, this technique more often damages the other cells in the battery pack, considerably shortening battery life. Because some cells may discharge before others, they are charged in reverse by the remaining cells, severely damaging them. To avoid damage to the other cells, each cell must be individually discharged, not the entire pack as a whole. (Do not try discharging a cell by shorting it out with a wire, as this will cause it to overheat and possibly explode. A resistance, such as a flashlight bulb or 1000 ohm resistor, should be used.) To protect the cell, the voltage should be monitored and the discharging stopped when it gets down to 1 volt.
So, if you are careful, you can extend the life of your batteries by periodically fully discharging them.
This could be an indication of a general psychic malaise - perhaps the result of the bombardment of negative messages day in and day out...
From a metaphysical perspective, maybe folks are picking up on the negative vibes of past/present/future conditions?
From a scientific perspective, studies on the effects of overcrowding were pioneered by John B. Calhoun in the 1940s by placing Norway pregnant rats in a room with plenty of water and food and observing the population growth. The population reached a number of individuals and did not grow after; overcrowding produced stress and psychopathologies. Even though there was plenty of water and food the rats stop eating and stop reproducing. These effects have also been observed in jam-packed beetles. When overcrowding occurs female beetles destroy their eggs and turn cannibalistic, eating each other. Male beetles lose interest in the females and although there is plenty of water and food there is no population growth. Similar effects have been observed in overcrowded situations in jack rabbits in Minnesota, and deer in the Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps people are starting to pick up on overcrowding - and naturally beginning to have psychological effects as a result?
Tell that to the leaf spring on my pickup truck that split in the middle (jagged break).
Seems Chevy changed from 3 leaves to 2 leaves sometime between 1998 and 2002. I replaced both springs with the earlier 3 leaf model I found on a '98 --- am very happy now. I never - ever - want to have to do that again.
People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer.
Actually, I have a pickup truck to haul things that won't fit in the trunk or on top of a car, or if they do would damage the paint job. (Try putting a load of 2X4s or a cubic yard of topsoil in your car). Also, my wife drives it when we get standing water in the streets during bad rain storms (her minivan has a tendency to stall in wet conditions).
I take the bus to work - but I won't give up my truck because it has come in handy over the years for various projects. (it is 6 years old)
It mostly sits in the driveway - but what I save riding the bus more than pays to keep the tank full for when we do need it.
If they made a cost effective electric or hydrogen powered pickup truck that could do all that - then I would buy it. Right now the exotic fuel vehicles are pointed toward a) commuters, b) high end sports car collectors. When they make a truck that I can afford - give me a call.
Most generalizations are not a complete representation of reality.
VPN and SSH tunneling provides a solution to using your own equipment on an unsecured wireless network. Its just serves as a gateway to your own network in that case - very secure.
I use WPA to secure the wireless part of my network (and I use the largest encryption key available - 64 or 128? its been awhile since I set it up). I also limit connections to the specific mac addresses, and limit the number of consecutive links to the total number of wireless machines on my network (2 at the moment). I also turned off broadcasting - it won't announce that its there to the world.
As a minimum that is what you should do to secure your wireless network.
In addition I plan on adding a VPN server and firewall, and moving the wireless connection into a DMZ that is external, and unroutable to my internal wired network - except when connected via VPN. VPN adds an extra layer of encryption too that makes your wireless transmissions doubly secure (and you can add a third layer of encryption via SSH tunneling if you are really paranoid). The VPN also allows me to securely connect to my network from any external network on the wired side without fear of compromise of personal data from that leg of the connection (the service providers, on the other hand...)
That is wireless network security in a nutshell.
Now, if I can just get my wife to remember her password...:(
Yes - there must be a reasonable expectation that you were going to use the ladder for nefarious purposes. If you told me "Can I borrow your ladder - I need to clean my gutters", and then break into the neighbor's house, then I am not culpable for that action. The prosecution would have to convince the jury that I had a reasonable expectation that you would use that ladder to commit the crime.
I think that falls under 'Aiding and Abetting'...it would be just like leaving a loaded gun unattended in your front yard; if a child comes along and kills himself or someone else, you are responsible because you were being irresponsible. That being said, if I left a box of bubble gum on the law, I wouldn't expect to be held responsible for their cavities.
Your box of Molotov cocktails and zippo lighter constitute a clear and present danger - whereas my box of bubble gum does not.
Now, mapping this to our Wifi model - an open wifi connection is like having a lawn without a fence. Bad things can be brought through my lawn - but they did not originate there, and thus I am not aiding and abetting anything, unless you subscribe to the idea that I should not share my wifi connection at all - or using our lawn example: that everyone is required to have a fence around their lawn or be liable if a criminal goes through their lawn in the commission of a crime.
In a test of reasonableness, I don't think the would fly - for lawns, or for wifi.
And it should be noted that this already happens (at least from my vantage point here in the US). All the buzz is about the warrant-less wiretapping. But there is and has always been legal warrants for gathering network data on private individuals that are subject to a police investigation - and ISPs are legally obligated to comply. That is as it should be, and why ISPs want to remain out of the business of policing their networks because the costs involved would drive them out of business (licensing 'investigators', liability from said investigations/miscarriage of justice, storage costs of large amounts of data, etc).
You can have multiple database servers geographically dispersed in the cluster. Network Attached Storage could also be dispersed. Similarly you could have geographically dispersed web servers (probably congruent with your data cluster and NAS nodes). Your switch would provide redirection to properly distribute traffic throughout this network. Only the entry point would need to be centralized...you could even publish direct URIs for the distributed nodes to avoid that step.
Chop off one section/node, and the rest would continue serving.
Of course, you would need some major interconnections within your network - depending the the frequency and volume of activity on the application - and to support re-mirroring your NAS nodes after an interruption of service. If this becomes too costly your subscription service might not work out. On the other hand, if your primary source of revenue is adds (a la google) - then you might be able to justify the cost.
If you watch what the big players are doing - they appear to be positioning exactly that way (dispersed data centres)
I have an old 486 66mhz laptop from the late '80s/ early '90s that has a very small form factor - 500 MB drive, 20 MB ram, simple 4 color graphics back lit LCD, PCMCIA slots (2), and 3 1/4 inch floppy drive. It is 9 inches by 8 inches by 1 3/4 inches (closed). Got it for $40 in running condition at the local Good-Will computer store. It was originally running DOS 5, but I've managed to shoehorn a minimal Slackware Linux (10.0) onto it, and am using the 'TWin' ncurses based windowing system on it - which works nicely.
I use Jed for editing (provides an emacs-like interface without the overhead. I've got Lynx loaded for browsing the web. I've also loaded Python for programming - and a selection of other tools that you really can't do without.
There are only two issues I need to resolve to make it perfect:
1. Replace the old wasted batteries with more modern long lasting and lighter weight versions (I've done a bit of research and they are available for $120 each - I want two for long life).
2. Get the PCMCIA slot working so I can get on wireless networks for connectivity. (sneaker net is no longer an option since I got rid of the last FD on my network during the last server rebuild)
When it is finally finished I'll have a workable mini-notebook that can get run over by a bus and I won't cry (too much).
Total Cost will be: $280... sounds like I should have just bought one of these EEE machines?
I shared an $800 a month furnished apartment in Alexandria VA right out of high school. It had a nice sauna and whirlpool. This was 1982... We ate a lot of cans of beans as a result - though there was a Subway sandwich shop across the street we used to partake of on occasion.
I can only imagine what that same place goes for today.
I'm thinking I'll get a used HD TV at some point, and get rid of the two monitors I'm using now. I just have to figure out how to fit that on my desk without crushing it...
I think he is complaining about the size of the fonts...as resolution goes up, the size of the fonts goes down. I would expect this to happen because you are being given 'more' real estate to work with - but you are still physically dealing with the same space.
Several options present themselves:
1. Increase your default font sizes. Kind of brute force, and won't work on everything.
2. Use CTRL-Mouse Scroll Wheel to increase the size of the fonts on your favorite browser. Again won't work for everything.
3. Use various tools that provide a virtual magnifying glass on the screen.
4. If you are using OSX, you can zoom the whole screen when you need to see something better.
.Even if we disagree with it, if the majority of people want it, then they are correct to legislate it, provided it doesn't violate the State and US Constitutions.
There - I fixed it for you. Majority rule does not mean minority subjugation.
Slashdot Mirror
...It's outright painful to try and build anything of any complexity.
That being said, I think these FOSS variant servers could address that. The fact that the client communications protocol is open provides the opportunity for people of a like mind (e.g. who want a real programming environment) to build and gravitate to servers that support their world view.
The really nice aspect of all of this will be the ability to move freely between them - so you don't have to abandon your old friends/associations. You will be able to have your pie and eat it too.
I should preface this by explaining that I am a longtime EQ/DAOC/WOW and various FPSs player. But now I'm getting older (in my 40s), and look at SL and similar worlds as a natural progression beyond those games. The social and academic aspects, coupled with the unique capabilities of being immersed in a 3D environment provide a combination that is light years beyond IM/message boards and other 2D modes - and with the hyper-linking capability within SL - you can still access those external resources as well.
Modern carbon fibre compounds might make that irrelevant...
If everything is non-volatile - do the distinctions really matter?
My first machine was a TI/99a -- it booted to Basic in about 2 seconds.
My second machine was a Toshiba T1100 laptop -- it had DOS 3.1 on ROM and booted to that in a few seconds as well (though you could boot off floppy if you really wanted to - not).
This would save energy and make the portable computer truly ubiquitous as a notepad - and just as useful.
How is this any different than keeping your data a USB drive - or a magnetic hard drive?
The only reason we have 'drives' vs. 'ram' is because of the limitations in storage in the past.
There doesn't have to be a difference - other than virtual - to separate the various uses of memory.
I personally like the idea of 'instant on' - being able to power up and have the system within a millisecond or two - back in the state I left it in. Additionally - you could use the 'data disk' just like ram - so you could skip the step of reading the data from the 'disk' to ram in order to work on it -- just work on it directly. That has got to speed up processing if taken to the logical extreme.
This is why I propose the next deployed all electric or plugin/hybrid (burning hydrogen?) should be a heavy duty all-wheel-drive pickup truck.
Maybe something like THIS
289 kW (387 hp) peak power (more powerful than my current gasoline powered pickup truck).
Yummy!
My 2002 pickup truck cost $18,000 - with trade-in of fully paid off 1980-something Dodge Neon that was running on 2 cylinders (truck's sticker price was $22,000).
That is the top end of what I can afford.
Until they produce an electric or hydrogen fueled pickup truck that I can use to haul heavy loads, and get through inclement weather - at a similar price --- you can just forget it.
Yes and No. You are talking about Memory Effect - when you over charge a NiCad battery (do not let it discharge fully) - it is able to hold less and less charge. "Voltage depression is caused by repeated over-charging of a battery, which causes the formation of small crystals of electrolyte on the plates. These can clog the plates, increasing resistance and lowering the voltage of some individual cells in the battery. This results in a seemingly rapid discharge as those individual cells discharge quickly and the voltage of the battery as a whole suddenly falls. This effect is very common, as consumer trickle chargers typically overcharge."
There is some scientific basis behind one of the most common recommendations for repairing these batteries: completely drain the battery in another device in order to dissolve the crystals. In practice, however, this technique more often damages the other cells in the battery pack, considerably shortening battery life. Because some cells may discharge before others, they are charged in reverse by the remaining cells, severely damaging them. To avoid damage to the other cells, each cell must be individually discharged, not the entire pack as a whole. (Do not try discharging a cell by shorting it out with a wire, as this will cause it to overheat and possibly explode. A resistance, such as a flashlight bulb or 1000 ohm resistor, should be used.) To protect the cell, the voltage should be monitored and the discharging stopped when it gets down to 1 volt.
So, if you are careful, you can extend the life of your batteries by periodically fully discharging them.
This could be an indication of a general psychic malaise - perhaps the result of the bombardment of negative messages day in and day out...
From a metaphysical perspective, maybe folks are picking up on the negative vibes of past/present/future conditions?
From a scientific perspective, studies on the effects of overcrowding were pioneered by John B. Calhoun in the 1940s by placing Norway pregnant rats in a room with plenty of water and food and observing the population growth. The population reached a number of individuals and did not grow after; overcrowding produced stress and psychopathologies. Even though there was plenty of water and food the rats stop eating and stop reproducing. These effects have also been observed in jam-packed beetles. When overcrowding occurs female beetles destroy their eggs and turn cannibalistic, eating each other. Male beetles lose interest in the females and although there is plenty of water and food there is no population growth. Similar effects have been observed in overcrowded situations in jack rabbits in Minnesota, and deer in the Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps people are starting to pick up on overcrowding - and naturally beginning to have psychological effects as a result?
Tell that to the leaf spring on my pickup truck that split in the middle (jagged break).
Seems Chevy changed from 3 leaves to 2 leaves sometime between 1998 and 2002. I replaced both springs with the earlier 3 leaf model I found on a '98 --- am very happy now. I never - ever - want to have to do that again.
I digress....
People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer.
Actually, I have a pickup truck to haul things that won't fit in the trunk or on top of a car, or if they do would damage the paint job. (Try putting a load of 2X4s or a cubic yard of topsoil in your car). Also, my wife drives it when we get standing water in the streets during bad rain storms (her minivan has a tendency to stall in wet conditions).
I take the bus to work - but I won't give up my truck because it has come in handy over the years for various projects. (it is 6 years old)
It mostly sits in the driveway - but what I save riding the bus more than pays to keep the tank full for when we do need it.
If they made a cost effective electric or hydrogen powered pickup truck that could do all that - then I would buy it. Right now the exotic fuel vehicles are pointed toward a) commuters, b) high end sports car collectors. When they make a truck that I can afford - give me a call.
Most generalizations are not a complete representation of reality.
VPN and SSH tunneling provides a solution to using your own equipment on an unsecured wireless network. Its just serves as a gateway to your own network in that case - very secure.
I use WPA to secure the wireless part of my network (and I use the largest encryption key available - 64 or 128? its been awhile since I set it up). I also limit connections to the specific mac addresses, and limit the number of consecutive links to the total number of wireless machines on my network (2 at the moment). I also turned off broadcasting - it won't announce that its there to the world.
As a minimum that is what you should do to secure your wireless network.
In addition I plan on adding a VPN server and firewall, and moving the wireless connection into a DMZ that is external, and unroutable to my internal wired network - except when connected via VPN. VPN adds an extra layer of encryption too that makes your wireless transmissions doubly secure (and you can add a third layer of encryption via SSH tunneling if you are really paranoid). The VPN also allows me to securely connect to my network from any external network on the wired side without fear of compromise of personal data from that leg of the connection (the service providers, on the other hand...)
That is wireless network security in a nutshell.
Now, if I can just get my wife to remember her password... :(
Yes - there must be a reasonable expectation that you were going to use the ladder for nefarious purposes. If you told me "Can I borrow your ladder - I need to clean my gutters", and then break into the neighbor's house, then I am not culpable for that action. The prosecution would have to convince the jury that I had a reasonable expectation that you would use that ladder to commit the crime.
IANAL - so take that with a grain of salt.
Where law is concerned, an analogy is required because there is little, if any, precedence surrounding the intertubes...
This is necessary to convince a judge and/or jury what is reasonable and what is not.
I think that falls under 'Aiding and Abetting'...it would be just like leaving a loaded gun unattended in your front yard; if a child comes along and kills himself or someone else, you are responsible because you were being irresponsible. That being said, if I left a box of bubble gum on the law, I wouldn't expect to be held responsible for their cavities.
Your box of Molotov cocktails and zippo lighter constitute a clear and present danger - whereas my box of bubble gum does not.
Now, mapping this to our Wifi model - an open wifi connection is like having a lawn without a fence. Bad things can be brought through my lawn - but they did not originate there, and thus I am not aiding and abetting anything, unless you subscribe to the idea that I should not share my wifi connection at all - or using our lawn example: that everyone is required to have a fence around their lawn or be liable if a criminal goes through their lawn in the commission of a crime.
In a test of reasonableness, I don't think the would fly - for lawns, or for wifi.
If I leave it at the airport parking garage for 2 weeks, I won't know that it's missing within a few days...
And it should be noted that this already happens (at least from my vantage point here in the US). All the buzz is about the warrant-less wiretapping. But there is and has always been legal warrants for gathering network data on private individuals that are subject to a police investigation - and ISPs are legally obligated to comply. That is as it should be, and why ISPs want to remain out of the business of policing their networks because the costs involved would drive them out of business (licensing 'investigators', liability from said investigations/miscarriage of justice, storage costs of large amounts of data, etc).
It doesn't have to be 'strongly centralized':
You can have multiple database servers geographically dispersed in the cluster. Network Attached Storage could also be dispersed. Similarly you could have geographically dispersed web servers (probably congruent with your data cluster and NAS nodes). Your switch would provide redirection to properly distribute traffic throughout this network. Only the entry point would need to be centralized...you could even publish direct URIs for the distributed nodes to avoid that step.
Chop off one section/node, and the rest would continue serving.
Of course, you would need some major interconnections within your network - depending the the frequency and volume of activity on the application - and to support re-mirroring your NAS nodes after an interruption of service. If this becomes too costly your subscription service might not work out. On the other hand, if your primary source of revenue is adds (a la google) - then you might be able to justify the cost.
If you watch what the big players are doing - they appear to be positioning exactly that way (dispersed data centres)
I have an old 486 66mhz laptop from the late '80s/ early '90s that has a very small form factor - 500 MB drive, 20 MB ram, simple 4 color graphics back lit LCD, PCMCIA slots (2), and 3 1/4 inch floppy drive. It is 9 inches by 8 inches by 1 3/4 inches (closed). Got it for $40 in running condition at the local Good-Will computer store. It was originally running DOS 5, but I've managed to shoehorn a minimal Slackware Linux (10.0) onto it, and am using the 'TWin' ncurses based windowing system on it - which works nicely.
I use Jed for editing (provides an emacs-like interface without the overhead. I've got Lynx loaded for browsing the web. I've also loaded Python for programming - and a selection of other tools that you really can't do without.
There are only two issues I need to resolve to make it perfect:
1. Replace the old wasted batteries with more modern long lasting and lighter weight versions (I've done a bit of research and they are available for $120 each - I want two for long life).
2. Get the PCMCIA slot working so I can get on wireless networks for connectivity. (sneaker net is no longer an option since I got rid of the last FD on my network during the last server rebuild)
When it is finally finished I'll have a workable mini-notebook that can get run over by a bus and I won't cry (too much).
Total Cost will be: $280 ... sounds like I should have just bought one of these EEE machines?
You can send that MacBook Pro you're not using to me -- I'll give it a good home (read: use it for spare parts for my 15" MacBook Pro).
I shared an $800 a month furnished apartment in Alexandria VA right out of high school. It had a nice sauna and whirlpool. This was 1982... We ate a lot of cans of beans as a result - though there was a Subway sandwich shop across the street we used to partake of on occasion.
I can only imagine what that same place goes for today.
I'm thinking I'll get a used HD TV at some point, and get rid of the two monitors I'm using now. I just have to figure out how to fit that on my desk without crushing it...
I think he is complaining about the size of the fonts...as resolution goes up, the size of the fonts goes down. I would expect this to happen because you are being given 'more' real estate to work with - but you are still physically dealing with the same space.
Several options present themselves:
1. Increase your default font sizes. Kind of brute force, and won't work on everything.
2. Use CTRL-Mouse Scroll Wheel to increase the size of the fonts on your favorite browser. Again won't work for everything.
3. Use various tools that provide a virtual magnifying glass on the screen.
4. If you are using OSX, you can zoom the whole screen when you need to see something better.
.Even if we disagree with it, if the majority of people want it, then they are correct to legislate it, provided it doesn't violate the State and US Constitutions.
There - I fixed it for you. Majority rule does not mean minority subjugation.
The term 'geek' is sadly misused in this context.