This is the $100,000 question. I'd like to switch over to Jabber, but Trillian helps me hook up with my AOL, MSN, and Yahoo pals...I tried Gaim, but it was breaking on Windows a few months ago, and I went back to Trillian. I'm getting really tired of MSN or Yahoo implementing barriers to third-party parasite clients (which I concede they are within their rights to do), and I'm ready to try something completely separate from the big conglomerates.
Now, as long as Jabber installs easily and has a nice interface (which I imagine it does), that would be a starting point for convincing friends/chat-acquaintances to switch over. I find that with my less-technically inclined friends, working the anti-corporate angle helps to influence them to try something new. My dad, and a few friends have started using OpenOffice, and were very impressed with the results. They like the idea of using something that doesn't require them to pay big bucks to m$.
I find that very casually mentioning a certain piece of software (ie. Mozilla or OpenOffice) tends to pique people's interest more effectively then when I go on a rant about evil Microsoft and the holy Open Source...So how well does Jabber work? Any criticisms... praises?
"Poetry isn't like American Bandstand...'I like Byron, I'd give him a 42, but I can't dance to it'."
Objectivity. It's what's for breakfast.
Are they hiring...?
on
United Nuclear
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I don't even know if these guys are on the up-and-up as it's already difficult to navigate their website...
If they are legit...they would be added to the employment genre, of "ohmygod-whatacooljob-thatwouldbe". Here's a few of their products.
From the suspiciously cool...
This device increases a vehicle's horsepower by an average of 23%. The system
does not cause any damage to the engine, and only consumes about 2 amps of
electrical power (about as much as your taillights use). The power increase is due
to the introduction of large volumes of Ozone to the engine air intake.
...all the way to hehebeavis cool.
Typical "Stun Guns" are handheld devices that produce a high voltage shock to
incapacitate an attacker. They have a big disadvantage of requiring you to be very
close to the attacker to use them.
Our "Water Taser" is a cross between a high output
Stun Gun, and a small "Super Soaker" type water pistol. High voltage travels down the
conductive water stream and incapacitates the attacker from a distance.
The intra-office version of the "bandwidth of a station wagon" analogy I believe is the Sneaker net. I worked with this ex-navy guy who used to say that every once in a while, and I was hearing that phrase for almost a year before I snapped to and asked...what is this "sneaker" net?
The guy just looks down at my feet.
Does anyone know where the "sneaker" net phrase originated? I'm guessing military/DoD...
The economics of Open Source are something that
is rarely talked about in great detail. Generally, the satisfaction of the task is more important than any (at least, immediate) financial kickbacks. But generally, when a software engineer tells his friends and family what he/she does, they never really quite get it...what is software? You create something, but it's not physical. But it's more concrete than an idea.
The more fundamental question that firms and policy makers need to be thinking about is just what type of good is software?
...
If we are granting special tax privileges to organizations to produce software, we as a society are saying something about the nature of that good and the nature of the markets that create it.
It may take years for people to see that software has forever altered the how goods are perceived in capitalist economies. Software is not necessarily shipped, carried, ported, but...it is installed and uninstalled...no? The RIAA-file-sharing controversy is based almost exclusively on the inability to reconcile old capitalism (physical goods, use of trucks, etc) and new capitalism (ease of using replication technologies, marginal costs/returns not really applicable). In the face of all of this, the worker (developer) faces a whole different set of challenges and seeks a whole different set of benefits...hence Open Source.
Check out Mahony's (the interviewee in the article)dissertation
Honestly, I think that the "contradiction in terms" that the interviewer was hinting at was based on the stereotypes of the "hacker" in mainstream media. This stereotype is based on ultra-egotistical behavior, the digital uber-indvidualist, etc.
As long as the media continues to run with this misperception that all hackers are just digital mischief makers, they will continue to be baffled as to why these individuals could possibly want to start non-profit organizations.
...but, there's other programs that people might find more socially useful/productive than SETI.
How 'bout...this from United Devices? They do a variety of biologically related projects, the most popular one, as far as I can tell, being cancer research...I've been running it for almost 2 years, and I have 100,000 points...how many points do you have?
While I imagine you're right about the qualifications and the illegality...one has to wonder how much of a strict qualification/certification process is necessary to the skill of drilling holes, installing face plates and laying CAT-5 cable...it's not like you can electrocute yourself with CAT-5.
Great article...but as it says in the header this is the kind of knowledge that's good for people who own their home rather than rent. I don't have the option to drill holes in the wall and install CAT-5 outlets. And it's not currently in my budget to convert all the existing hosts on my home (read play) network to wireless.
I'd like to see an article about the unique ways in which geeks acquire used hardware...the kind of stories where people who don't understand why on earth some computer savvy individual could possibly want their old PII desk top system which is slowly grinding to a halt under the cross of Win 98!
Ultimately, most of my struggles with slowly building and upgrading my home network have been software related. Looking forward to 10 years from now when I can afford a house and will have the luxury to hide the CAT-5 (or most likely go wireless) in the walls instead of having to run them along the baseboard of our hallways!
I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a gov/mil meteorlogical database conference in San Diego a couple years ago, back when I was still wet behind the ears w/r/t Linux, and he had a very positive impact on me. Interestingly enough, throughout the conference there were several individuals who kept inquiring about a timeline for when the DoD was going to approve various Linux platforms for installing various "segments".
The article in Znet did seem a little too processed to properly convey Hall's stance, but the one thing I focused on was what he said about being smaller international firms being able to capitalize on local technical knowledge.
Also, what he said about proprietary ("one-size-fits-all") vs open source (customizable) should be the ultimate argument in favor of open source. As much as I don't like ideologues poisoning the debate trough, a lot of this debate is clearly ideological. Pro-proprietary software supporters (I should say conformists) are just plain suspicious of the idea of something of great value being produced by individuals who collectively enjoy creating a quality piece of software. Most corporate types are still thinking hard-and-heavy machinery-type capitalism, where physical components are "assembly lined" and then fitted together. They just can't see the fluidity of software. It's freaking soft for the love of God!
If the issue is convincing colleagues to switch over to non-conventional-Windows solutions, I would at least spread the word about Cygwin, which is a good switch over environment. It gives them a chance to use Linux (and assorted "free" software) on top of Windows.
I used to work for a company that did government contract work distributing radio frequency calculations, and we basically all had dual-booted linux/win2k boxes with Cygwin running on the Win2k side. Cygwin was where I got my walking-feet for eventually pursuing the use of Linux whereever I could manage.
As for Visual Basic...ewwwww! I work in an all Windows shop now, and they are all anti-Unix, for no good reason other than they are intimidated by the command line. However, using Cygwin (setting up your build system, versioning, etc), would be a good way to convert people slowly, and still be able to fall back on Windows-related development apps. The more I look around on the web, it seems like there's so many ports of popular, quality Unix development packages/apps to Win32, that the mythic oppositional relationship of WindowsVsUnix doesn't really exist so much. Everything's so hybrid. Have you seen all those jokes on Slashdot where people post about running Cygwin on top of Wine on top of Unix...etc etc...?!
I'm a relative newbie to hard core networking stuff...I've run servers for ssh, samba, etc, but just getting those servers running has been a bit of a mystery. Plus they're such great programs, it's easy to get them running without understanding the underlying protocols.
I'm hoping Snort will educate me to some of the nuts and bolts that float in the underbelly of networking...It helps to have a friend/mentor too...a guy I know who does crazy networking stuff all day told me that Snort is not the easiest piece of software to use. That's scary to a newbie like me !
I noticed a lot of people put The Code Book by Simon Singh in this thread, which I think is a good recommendation.
I'd also suggest Chaos: The New Science by James Gleick. Has plenty of good geeky computer stuff and is also accessible to the layman.
And, I think David Foster Wallace's essay collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is the epitome of summer reading. The title essay is about his observations on a luxury cruise..and it's not literary bubble gum either. David Foster Wallace is practically a "geek" in his own right. His novel Infinite Jest also has some interesting popular pharmaceutical chemistry and high math content, which should be right up any geek's alley.
I also worked for a defense contractor for over 2 years. I was never flat out rejected for my security clearance, but my application never made it all the way through the system either. Ultimately, my boss theorized it was because I was carrying a high amount of credit debt at the time. I ended up just working on unclassified work, of which we had plenty at the time at said-company. That company has since gone dormant, and I work for a non-defense related company now. But I did find the whole procedure to be interesting, as I was pretty hyped on getting my clearance. Certainly would have made it easier to argue about project specifications with management!
Slashdot Mirror
This is the $100,000 question. I'd like to switch over to Jabber, but Trillian helps me hook up with my AOL, MSN, and Yahoo pals...I tried Gaim, but it was breaking on Windows a few months ago, and I went back to Trillian. I'm getting really tired of MSN or Yahoo implementing barriers to third-party parasite clients (which I concede they are within their rights to do), and I'm ready to try something completely separate from the big conglomerates.
... praises?
Now, as long as Jabber installs easily and has a nice interface (which I imagine it does), that would be a starting point for convincing friends/chat-acquaintances to switch over. I find that with my less-technically inclined friends, working the anti-corporate angle helps to influence them to try something new. My dad, and a few friends have started using OpenOffice, and were very impressed with the results. They like the idea of using something that doesn't require them to pay big bucks to m$.
I find that very casually mentioning a certain piece of software (ie. Mozilla or OpenOffice) tends to pique people's interest more effectively then when I go on a rant about evil Microsoft and the holy Open Source...So how well does Jabber work? Any criticisms
Anyway, chat shouldn't be this difficult!
Big Brother smacks you with the right hand and comforts you with the left hand. Either way it's just jerking off.
From the suspiciously cool
I gots to get me some of that.
The intra-office version of the "bandwidth of a station wagon" analogy I believe is the Sneaker net. I worked with this ex-navy guy who used to say that every once in a while, and I was hearing that phrase for almost a year before I snapped to and asked...what is this "sneaker" net?
The guy just looks down at my feet.
Does anyone know where the "sneaker" net phrase originated? I'm guessing military/DoD...
Check out Mahony's (the interviewee in the article) dissertation
Honestly, I think that the "contradiction in terms" that the interviewer was hinting at was based on the stereotypes of the "hacker" in mainstream media. This stereotype is based on ultra-egotistical behavior, the digital uber-indvidualist, etc.
As long as the media continues to run with this misperception that all hackers are just digital mischief makers, they will continue to be baffled as to why these individuals could possibly want to start non-profit organizations.
...but, there's other programs that people might find more socially useful/productive than SETI.
How 'bout...this from United Devices? They do a variety of biologically related projects, the most popular one, as far as I can tell, being cancer research...I've been running it for almost 2 years, and I have 100,000 points...how many points do you have?
While I imagine you're right about the qualifications and the illegality...one has to wonder how much of a strict qualification/certification process is necessary to the skill of drilling holes, installing face plates and laying CAT-5 cable...it's not like you can electrocute yourself with CAT-5.
Great article...but as it says in the header this is the kind of knowledge that's good for people who own their home rather than rent. I don't have the option to drill holes in the wall and install CAT-5 outlets. And it's not currently in my budget to convert all the existing hosts on my home (read play) network to wireless.
I'd like to see an article about the unique ways in which geeks acquire used hardware...the kind of stories where people who don't understand why on earth some computer savvy individual could possibly want their old PII desk top system which is slowly grinding to a halt under the cross of Win 98!
Ultimately, most of my struggles with slowly building and upgrading my home network have been software related. Looking forward to 10 years from now when I can afford a house and will have the luxury to hide the CAT-5 (or most likely go wireless) in the walls instead of having to run them along the baseboard of our hallways!
...for OSS.
I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a gov/mil meteorlogical database conference in San Diego a couple years ago, back when I was still wet behind the ears w/r/t Linux, and he had a very positive impact on me. Interestingly enough, throughout the conference there were several individuals who kept inquiring about a timeline for when the DoD was going to approve various Linux platforms for installing various "segments".
The article in Znet did seem a little too processed to properly convey Hall's stance, but the one thing I focused on was what he said about being smaller international firms being able to capitalize on local technical knowledge.
Also, what he said about proprietary ("one-size-fits-all") vs open source (customizable) should be the ultimate argument in favor of open source. As much as I don't like ideologues poisoning the debate trough, a lot of this debate is clearly ideological. Pro-proprietary software supporters (I should say conformists) are just plain suspicious of the idea of something of great value being produced by individuals who collectively enjoy creating a quality piece of software. Most corporate types are still thinking hard-and-heavy machinery-type capitalism, where physical components are "assembly lined" and then fitted together. They just can't see the fluidity of software. It's freaking soft for the love of God!
If the issue is convincing colleagues to switch over to non-conventional-Windows solutions, I would at least spread the word about Cygwin, which is a good switch over environment. It gives them a chance to use Linux (and assorted "free" software) on top of Windows.
I used to work for a company that did government contract work distributing radio frequency calculations, and we basically all had dual-booted linux/win2k boxes with Cygwin running on the Win2k side. Cygwin was where I got my walking-feet for eventually pursuing the use of Linux whereever I could manage.
As for Visual Basic...ewwwww! I work in an all Windows shop now, and they are all anti-Unix, for no good reason other than they are intimidated by the command line. However, using Cygwin (setting up your build system, versioning, etc), would be a good way to convert people slowly, and still be able to fall back on Windows-related development apps. The more I look around on the web, it seems like there's so many ports of popular, quality Unix development packages/apps to Win32, that the mythic oppositional relationship of WindowsVsUnix doesn't really exist so much. Everything's so hybrid. Have you seen all those jokes on Slashdot where people post about running Cygwin on top of Wine on top of Unix...etc etc...?!
I'm a relative newbie to hard core networking stuff...I've run servers for ssh, samba, etc, but just getting those servers running has been a bit of a mystery. Plus they're such great programs, it's easy to get them running without understanding the underlying protocols. I'm hoping Snort will educate me to some of the nuts and bolts that float in the underbelly of networking...It helps to have a friend/mentor too...a guy I know who does crazy networking stuff all day told me that Snort is not the easiest piece of software to use. That's scary to a newbie like me !
...for women in a bar will be an even more graceful gesture than ever... Who says geeks can't be smooth!?
I noticed a lot of people put The Code Book by Simon Singh in this thread, which I think is a good recommendation.
I'd also suggest Chaos: The New Science by James Gleick. Has plenty of good geeky computer stuff and is also accessible to the layman.
And, I think David Foster Wallace's essay collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is the epitome of summer reading. The title essay is about his observations on a luxury cruise..and it's not literary bubble gum either. David Foster Wallace is practically a "geek" in his own right. His novel Infinite Jest also has some interesting popular pharmaceutical chemistry and high math content, which should be right up any geek's alley.
I also worked for a defense contractor for over 2 years. I was never flat out rejected for my security clearance, but my application never made it all the way through the system either. Ultimately, my boss theorized it was because I was carrying a high amount of credit debt at the time. I ended up just working on unclassified work, of which we had plenty at the time at said-company. That company has since gone dormant, and I work for a non-defense related company now. But I did find the whole procedure to be interesting, as I was pretty hyped on getting my clearance. Certainly would have made it easier to argue about project specifications with management!