Let me get this straight... the engineer in question fully documented what he (or she) was doing, and provided that documentation to management. Then there was a code review by another engineer. How, exactly, does this make him a rouge ???
Something I have not seen discussed is that 40% less power means 40% less heat generated. Potentially, this means fewer fans (and less fan noise), lower air conditioning costs if you have a lot of drives in a data center, and longer electronics life for the drive.
I will agree heartily with the parent post and add that there is another way to mash the center (and most important) column. Keep your browser in full screen, and then increase the size of the font. I use Firefox, so I can do this with the mouse wheel... and for those of us whose eyes are not so young any more, it is one of my favorite Firefox features. Anyway, as the font gets bigger, the left and right columns get bigger. Bet they are specified in 'ems' !! This is not an uncommon problem amoung CSS laid out sites, and I would love to see it fixed on Slashdot. Doing the left and right column widths as percentages would fix both this and the parent poster's problem.
This is exactly what PgpFone was supposed to provide. AFAIK, PgpFone was written by Phil Zimmerman, and the project was hosted at MIT. As you can see, not much happening here. However, the rights apparently went to NAI, but I don't think they currently offer the product.
I was able to find this link to pgpi.org where it looks like you can find old source and binaries for PgpFone. I don't know what the copyright status of these are.
In the face of the Patriot Act,etc, it would be great if someone started up, and modernized this project again.
You said each and every fan slot was blowing out. That is your problem. The air that is going in to the box is coming from whatever cracks, vents, etc there are. Most, if not all, of these will be unfiltered so you are sucking up environmental dust.
In order to keep dust out of your PC, you need to control the air going *in* to the box. That means having more fans blowing in than out so that the case has a net positive air pressure. This way, air is blowing out of the miscellaneous cracks in the case. Once you do this, you add filters to the fans that are blowing in. No more dust in box.
The most important thing to remember if you use filters on your fans is to clean them often. Clogged intake fans will heat your case up like crazy.
I would also note that you need a balance of fans blowing in and out so that you get the best airflow through the case. Don't have them all going the same direction as that will rarely provide the best cooling.
Most local libraries (at least here in CT) have a small selection of audio books on CD. I have recently "discovered" audio books myself and they have completely replaced radio and music during drive time. Borrowing them from the library and ripping them to my iPod work really well. The interesting thing is that I am listening to things that I would not consider sitting down to read, and really enjoying them.
A few hints... use 64kbit MP3 encoding, that is plently of fidelity for the narration of a book and you can fit twice as much audio as normal. Second, rip the CDs in order and build a play list of all the tracks for just that book, again watching the play order. (Don't forget to turn off song shuffling before playing the book;-)
BTW, in case there are any iTunes developers listening, there are a couple of things that would make iTunes and the iPod much better for audio books. First is a per playlist setting that lets me ALWAYS disable shuffling when that playlist is played. Second is the ability to set a 'bookmark' in the iPod so that I can return to the same spot in the playlist at some future time. Lastly would be a per track or per playlist setting that would keep the tracks from being included when 'all' songs on the iPod are played. These features would make it much easier to go between music and audio books.
Getting back to obtaining audio books from libraries, I am not sure about the legalities of ripping them to an iPod. Seems like fair use, 'cuz that is simply the format I want to play it in, and I am not selling, giving, distributing or anything else. But, that is really a question only a lawyer can answer.
Naw, badass is when you put in your own waveguide;-)
Seriously, ladder line actually has lower loss than coax, which is why its used in the first place. Problem is that ladder line will have an impedance of around 300 ohms. This will work poorly with a dipole, which has an impedance of about 50 ohms. You need a balum (impedance transformer) to connect the dipole to the ladder line, and then some kind of antenna tuner at the cell phone. Even if it was worth the hassle, I've never seen a balun, or ladder line, made for that high a frequency.
Even RG6, which is relatively cheap, and has OK loss characteristics if you get the good stuff made for satelite installations, is 75 ohm coax, and so would not be a perfect match.
Back in the day (when I was more involved with Ham Radio), we would use a passive repeater to fill in dead spots. A passive repeater is simply two antennas connected by a piece of coax. One antenna is placed where it will receive the desired signal well, the other is placed where you want to improve the signal (in this case, the basement).
Seems simple, but there are a couple of things to consider. First, you will have to know which band your cell phone is using at your house. The two likely choices are around 890MHz and around 1800Mhz (I am doing this from memory, so look it up). Then, the simplest antenna to make is a vertical dipole. Each antenna is two pieces of coat hanger, each piece cut to a quarter wavelength of the frequency you are using.
The next thing to consider is that all coax has loss. At 1.8 Ghz, you could easily be looking at -10db per 100 feet for average coax. So, make sure that you use the best coax you can find (it will be more expensive, but worth it) and keep it as short as possible.
If you are not getting enough signal with this arrangement, you can get fancy and build a better antenna for the end that gets a good signal from the cell tower. Two more pieces of coat hanger will let you build a three element directional array. Mount the coat hanger pieces through 3/4 inch PVC. You will need something like the ARRL Antenna Handbook to get the correct lengths for the pieces, and the distance between them. Since this kind of antenna is directional, you will need to point it at the cell tower. Also, remember to keep the elements vertically oriented, not horizontal like a TV antenna.
I read the directions once I've let the magic smoke out of the device in question. You see, all electronics works on magic smoke. This is easily proved by the fact that if you let the magic smoke out of your electronic device, it generally no longer functions.
The issue of indemnification is very real in the corporate world, and Mr. Quon makes a good point in saying that it needs to be addressed. The problem is that his solution is unworkable because 'Anyone who packages Linux in their products...' includes mostly small organizations that simply can't afford such indemnification.
The small consulting company I work for just had to deal with the indemnification issue with some code we wrote for a client in which we retained some rights. Because of that, the client asked that we indemnify them against claims of various IP violations. The problem is not that we were concerned about our code, but rather that, because of our size, we simply can't afford to win such a case. I.e., the cost of successfully defending a case like this would sink our company.
So, if indemnification is important in the corporate world, but most organizations can't afford to go there, what to do. I wonder if there could be such a thing as 'collective' indemnification. The most likely form this would take is for the FSF or OSI to offer such indemnification for end users of Linux.
Before you turn on that flame thrower, I know there are a host of problems with this. The biggest I see is that the indemnifier would be an organization that has no actual control over what goes into the Linux system (which actually varies by distribution, making things even more difficult). Perhaps this is better done by a consortium of the major Linux suppliers. Perhaps the 1 million dollar legal fund being set up by Red Hat could specifically provide indemnification for Linux end users.
Just don't dismiss discussion of the indemnification issue as FUD.
If you follow the link to the InfoWorld story (about SCO justifying their continued distribution of Linux), there is a link to another InfoWorld story (here) that talks about how the GPL might not be enforcable under German, or EU, law. Read the article, and then consider these points:
This is in line with a previous poster's assertion that the SCO case is really about damaging the GPL. (I actually don't believe that, unless the conspiracy theorists are right, and Microsoft is behind all of this.)
Where local laws demand certain warranty / liability rights on the part of consumers, there could be issues with the GPL (but IANAL).
However, if this German law professor is so concerned about being able to hold someong liable for problems with software, why hasn't Germany or the EU gone after Microsoft for damages relating to one or more of the various, costly security holes in its products.
Finally, although the article points it out, it bears repeating... the study by the German law professor was sponsorred by an organization (VSI) that represents proprietary software vendors.
I feel that the reviewer here is a bit overly enthusiastic about Safari. Here are my points:
First and foremost, the reviewer tries to make a cost justification around being able to read 120 books a year at $1.33 per book. This is nonsense. There are two differing uses for technical books. I buy technical books to come up to speed on new subjects. This generally means reading a book on the subject cover to cover. In this scenario, the above cost model might work, except that I certainly don't do this with 10 books every month.
In fact, I feel the more common use for technical books is in a reference role, and this is where Safaris's pricing model is weaker. A reference book is one that you will keep for a long time, using it routinely on an ongoing basis. If a reference book has a three year life span (before becoming technically obsolete) then you have paid $32 for that book, and you don't even own it. I don't find this particularly attractive.
A previous poster suggested that purchasers of a physical book be given that book on Safari as well (presumably on a permanent basis, and it would not count against your bookshelf size). This is an excellent suggestion, as it solves the reference book problem I describe above while allowing me online access to the book when I don't want to carry the physical copy.
Alternatively, Safari should make it possible to permanently purchase a title (maybe at half the physical book price, or something). A book thus purchased would stay on your bookshelf forever, and would not count against your bookshelf size.
A second issue that I currently have with Safari is the selection of publishers. If I go into Borders, or online to Amazon, I pretty much have access to all available books on a subject. The list of available publishers simply is not adequate at Safari for me contemplate changing the way I work. In particular (at least in my case) I pretty much must have Wrox, and the Sun Java books published by Prentice Hall. I didn't see either of these publishers in the reviewers list. (OK, I admit it, I am too lazy to see if maybe they are actually available, but not listed in the review!)
If Safari can address these two issues, then it will be much more compelling for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess they shouldn't have used a Copperhead
Let me get this straight ... the engineer in question fully documented what he (or she) was doing, and provided that documentation to management. Then there was a code review by another engineer. How, exactly, does this make him a rouge ???
Hollywood has got to turn this into a movie ...
I'd be first in line to buy a ticket
And I have it all right here for you. If you'll just supply your email address as a reply to this post, I will send it along.
Something I have not seen discussed is that 40% less power means 40% less heat generated. Potentially, this means fewer fans (and less fan noise), lower air conditioning costs if you have a lot of drives in a data center, and longer electronics life for the drive.
I will agree heartily with the parent post and add that there is another way to mash the center (and most important) column. Keep your browser in full screen, and then increase the size of the font. I use Firefox, so I can do this with the mouse wheel ... and for those of us whose eyes are not so young any more, it is one of my favorite Firefox features. Anyway, as the font gets bigger, the left and right columns get bigger. Bet they are specified in 'ems' !! This is not an uncommon problem amoung CSS laid out sites, and I would love to see it fixed on Slashdot. Doing the left and right column widths as percentages would fix both this and the parent poster's problem.
This is exactly what PgpFone was supposed to provide. AFAIK, PgpFone was written by Phil Zimmerman, and the project was hosted at MIT. As you can see, not much happening here. However, the rights apparently went to NAI, but I don't think they currently offer the product.
I was able to find this link to pgpi.org where it looks like you can find old source and binaries for PgpFone. I don't know what the copyright status of these are.
In the face of the Patriot Act,etc, it would be great if someone started up, and modernized this project again.
You said each and every fan slot was blowing out. That is your problem. The air that is going in to the box is coming from whatever cracks, vents, etc there are. Most, if not all, of these will be unfiltered so you are sucking up environmental dust.
In order to keep dust out of your PC, you need to control the air going *in* to the box. That means having more fans blowing in than out so that the case has a net positive air pressure. This way, air is blowing out of the miscellaneous cracks in the case. Once you do this, you add filters to the fans that are blowing in. No more dust in box.
The most important thing to remember if you use filters on your fans is to clean them often. Clogged intake fans will heat your case up like crazy.
I would also note that you need a balance of fans blowing in and out so that you get the best airflow through the case. Don't have them all going the same direction as that will rarely provide the best cooling.
Most local libraries (at least here in CT) have a small selection of audio books on CD. I have recently "discovered" audio books myself and they have completely replaced radio and music during drive time. Borrowing them from the library and ripping them to my iPod work really well. The interesting thing is that I am listening to things that I would not consider sitting down to read, and really enjoying them.
... use 64kbit MP3 encoding, that is plently of fidelity for the narration of a book and you can fit twice as much audio as normal. Second, rip the CDs in order and build a play list of all the tracks for just that book, again watching the play order. (Don't forget to turn off song shuffling before playing the book ;-)
A few hints
BTW, in case there are any iTunes developers listening, there are a couple of things that would make iTunes and the iPod much better for audio books. First is a per playlist setting that lets me ALWAYS disable shuffling when that playlist is played. Second is the ability to set a 'bookmark' in the iPod so that I can return to the same spot in the playlist at some future time. Lastly would be a per track or per playlist setting that would keep the tracks from being included when 'all' songs on the iPod are played. These features would make it much easier to go between music and audio books.
Getting back to obtaining audio books from libraries, I am not sure about the legalities of ripping them to an iPod. Seems like fair use, 'cuz that is simply the format I want to play it in, and I am not selling, giving, distributing or anything else. But, that is really a question only a lawyer can answer.
"What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."
They are going to be disappointed. This is already a very accurate description of the TV and motion picture industries.
Naw, badass is when you put in your own waveguide ;-)
Seriously, ladder line actually has lower loss than coax, which is why its used in the first place. Problem is that ladder line will have an impedance of around 300 ohms. This will work poorly with a dipole, which has an impedance of about 50 ohms. You need a balum (impedance transformer) to connect the dipole to the ladder line, and then some kind of antenna tuner at the cell phone. Even if it was worth the hassle, I've never seen a balun, or ladder line, made for that high a frequency.
Even RG6, which is relatively cheap, and has OK loss characteristics if you get the good stuff made for satelite installations, is 75 ohm coax, and so would not be a perfect match.
Back in the day (when I was more involved with Ham Radio), we would use a passive repeater to fill in dead spots. A passive repeater is simply two antennas connected by a piece of coax. One antenna is placed where it will receive the desired signal well, the other is placed where you want to improve the signal (in this case, the basement).
Seems simple, but there are a couple of things to consider. First, you will have to know which band your cell phone is using at your house. The two likely choices are around 890MHz and around 1800Mhz (I am doing this from memory, so look it up). Then, the simplest antenna to make is a vertical dipole. Each antenna is two pieces of coat hanger, each piece cut to a quarter wavelength of the frequency you are using.
The next thing to consider is that all coax has loss. At 1.8 Ghz, you could easily be looking at -10db per 100 feet for average coax. So, make sure that you use the best coax you can find (it will be more expensive, but worth it) and keep it as short as possible.
If you are not getting enough signal with this arrangement, you can get fancy and build a better antenna for the end that gets a good signal from the cell tower. Two more pieces of coat hanger will let you build a three element directional array. Mount the coat hanger pieces through 3/4 inch PVC. You will need something like the ARRL Antenna Handbook to get the correct lengths for the pieces, and the distance between them. Since this kind of antenna is directional, you will need to point it at the cell tower. Also, remember to keep the elements vertically oriented, not horizontal like a TV antenna.
Good luck
I read the directions once I've let the magic smoke out of the device in question. You see, all electronics works on magic smoke. This is easily proved by the fact that if you let the magic smoke out of your electronic device, it generally no longer functions.
FUD?? No, sadly it is not. I wish it were.
The issue of indemnification is very real in the corporate world, and Mr. Quon makes a good point in saying that it needs to be addressed. The problem is that his solution is unworkable because 'Anyone who packages Linux in their products ...' includes mostly small organizations that simply can't afford such indemnification.
The small consulting company I work for just had to deal with the indemnification issue with some code we wrote for a client in which we retained some rights. Because of that, the client asked that we indemnify them against claims of various IP violations. The problem is not that we were concerned about our code, but rather that, because of our size, we simply can't afford to win such a case. I.e., the cost of successfully defending a case like this would sink our company.
So, if indemnification is important in the corporate world, but most organizations can't afford to go there, what to do. I wonder if there could be such a thing as 'collective' indemnification. The most likely form this would take is for the FSF or OSI to offer such indemnification for end users of Linux.
Before you turn on that flame thrower, I know there are a host of problems with this. The biggest I see is that the indemnifier would be an organization that has no actual control over what goes into the Linux system (which actually varies by distribution, making things even more difficult). Perhaps this is better done by a consortium of the major Linux suppliers. Perhaps the 1 million dollar legal fund being set up by Red Hat could specifically provide indemnification for Linux end users.
Just don't dismiss discussion of the indemnification issue as FUD.
I feel that the reviewer here is a bit overly enthusiastic about Safari. Here are my points:
First and foremost, the reviewer tries to make a cost justification around being able to read 120 books a year at $1.33 per book. This is nonsense. There are two differing uses for technical books. I buy technical books to come up to speed on new subjects. This generally means reading a book on the subject cover to cover. In this scenario, the above cost model might work, except that I certainly don't do this with 10 books every month.
In fact, I feel the more common use for technical books is in a reference role, and this is where Safaris's pricing model is weaker. A reference book is one that you will keep for a long time, using it routinely on an ongoing basis. If a reference book has a three year life span (before becoming technically obsolete) then you have paid $32 for that book, and you don't even own it. I don't find this particularly attractive.
A previous poster suggested that purchasers of a physical book be given that book on Safari as well (presumably on a permanent basis, and it would not count against your bookshelf size). This is an excellent suggestion, as it solves the reference book problem I describe above while allowing me online access to the book when I don't want to carry the physical copy.
Alternatively, Safari should make it possible to permanently purchase a title (maybe at half the physical book price, or something). A book thus purchased would stay on your bookshelf forever, and would not count against your bookshelf size.
A second issue that I currently have with Safari is the selection of publishers. If I go into Borders, or online to Amazon, I pretty much have access to all available books on a subject. The list of available publishers simply is not adequate at Safari for me contemplate changing the way I work. In particular (at least in my case) I pretty much must have Wrox, and the Sun Java books published by Prentice Hall. I didn't see either of these publishers in the reviewers list. (OK, I admit it, I am too lazy to see if maybe they are actually available, but not listed in the review!)
If Safari can address these two issues, then it will be much more compelling for me.