Do the math. Once this thing got started, no one in power was going to say, "STOP! It's costing too much!", both because it seemed irreversible and because the Dems in power in Boston (Massachusetts is a one-party state)
Do your homework. Dukakis was the last democratic governor. Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney are ALL republicans. Massachusetts is most certainly NOT a one-party state, and it shows how truly ignorant you are to think that it is.
I suppose next you'll call us "taxachusetts", even though we're smack in the middle in the nation in taxes by state. Oh wait:
Democratic Senator from the great Commonwealth of Taxachusetts
You did call us taxachusetts. Well, you're free to move. Yes, there was mismanagement- but a lot of the cost increases were due to the typical things that make civil engineering projects go over budget- things like "the ground's a lot tougher than we thought it would be, even though we did a ton of soil testing and sampling". None of that changes the fact that the project itself was absolutely necessary- and thus doesn't deserve the term "pork barrel". Pork is when projects are steered towards a senator's home state, or when a senator gets money for something completely useless. Pork is $1M for a wildflower research study. Pork is not a $10B+ construction project to fix one of the worst traffic systems in the nation.
No, finally -closing-. It opened over a decade ago, and has been rolled out in several stages over the last several years. I hope I have the order right here:
Ted Williams Tunnel(South Boston->Logan)
Mass pike->Ted Williams connector(BIG deal, you can go straight to Logan without going through Boston proper)
Zaikim Bridge(largest bridge of its type, very unique design). First was 93 northbound.
This weekend, 93 Southbound underground and Zaikim southbound. This is a HUGE deal because the entire elevated section of 93 goes BUBYE. It was a MASSIVE eyesore. When it's gone, a huge amount of land will be available, and it will no longer be a big divider, separating downtown Boston from the waterway. There is of course a big fight as to what to do with all this prime real estate- one of the parties being the people(or, well, in most cases, their relatives) whose land was taken by imminent domain in the first place to build the thing(a HUGE number of people had their homes bulldozed for what turned out to be a massive failure- 93 was at one time the nation's most congested road).
It's grossly over budget(4x at least?), is the largest construction project in the world- and had some amazing tolerances. One of the tunnels passes within inches of the existing red line subway lines(South Station, the largest terminal in Boston, is right smack where 93 had to go). This accounts for the VERY(maximum permissable grade under fed law) steep decline southbound; they had to go over one thing, under another. The red line now 'rests' on a giant concrete wall that was set in-place.
Oh, and in order to do the connector for the mass pike, they had to FREEZE the ground. Yep. Freeze it- because it was so unstable. And they installed new sections in one tunnel by hydraulically jacking them through the ground. Wild stuff.
The Boston Pops were going to do a concert inside the 93 southbound lanes before the opening- partially sponsored by corporate donors. Except that the corporate donors didn't know their money would be used for it. Even when they agreed to -fully- sponsor it, the concert was still cancelled after massive criticism. When you go $8B+ over budget, you don't exactly pat yourself on the back too enthusiastically.
Everyone in Boston is mostly just happy that it's over. For the last decade, we've had all sorts of odd route closures, exits shut down/reopened, conditions placed on tunnel/bridge use...it's finally all over, and everyone can just get back to driving like psychos:-)
It's so nifty to see all the books I read as a kid getting a second revival. Problem is, I wish kids would read these books in the first place, and discover that (gasp!) there's more to children's literature than Harry Potter.
Happy birthday Perl! You are now old enough to get a US drivers license.
Yes. but it's only allowed to execute code until 11pm...and its parents damn well better not find out that it forks around, because it needs parental permission to kill a child process(should it fail to handle variables safely.)
Oh, and the kernel keeps a shotgun by the front door just in case any Java applets come around asking if Perl can go to the movies...
Ahhh, NYC snobbism. Way to go, I'll be sure to stop by and visit you now that you've insulted the city I love. You know what? NYC isn't nearly what it's cracked up to be. I've been. I hated it.
What does NYC have that Boston(and, for that matter, any other city) doesn't? This "NYC, the greatest city in the world" crap is just that- a bunch of crap.
Boston vs NYC:
Parking is easier(believe it or not)
Boston drivers may be insane, but they're reasonably polite. NYC drivers are suicidal- and downright mean.
It's safer- crime's a fraction of NYC
By the time Linuxworld gets here, the Big Dig will be totally done and traffic smooth- and you'll be able to get to Boston downtown from the airport in a matter of maybe 5-10 minutes, and out of the city in 15. Try that in NYC.
Boston/eastern MA is the birthplace of the revolution. 30 minutes out from Boston is Concord, MA- the first major battle in the revolution.
Boston actually has charm. NYC has nothing but rudeness, dirt, crime, overpopulation...
Where else can you take a tour that's half on land, half on water, SAME vehicle? Hmm?
Museum of Science. Museum of Fine Arts. New England Aquarium. Quincy Market. Fanuel Hall. Old Meetinghouse church.
MIT. Harvard. Tufts. BC. BU. Northeastern. In fact, MA as a whole has more colleges than any other state- something like 220 total.
Our subway costs HALF yours. The system may be dirty+unpredictable, but did I mention it costs half?
Our mayor doesn't suck. In fact, he gets re-elected. Imagine that. He also doesn't support a police department that beats up minorities and officers that get routinely arrested for drunk driving.
but it isn't too early to see that the shift is both profound and irreversible
Not really. There's been several explosions of various file/disk encryption products. Your handheld device isn't a Somebody(Something?) until it's got at least a dozen "encrypted" personal information storage widgets for it.
The problem is that encryption is 90% snake oil. Usually it's written by someone who thinks they know encrpytion- and encryption isn't, to coin the phrase, like a hand grenade; close doesn't count. Zimmerman is famous for his saying that "anyone who claims to have unbreakable encryption doesn't"(apologies for paraphrasing).
Encryption also does little when physical security can't be controlled; Dallas Semi had the right idea with their iButtons, which brought reasonably secure key storage to the masses(if opened, for example, it erased itself) but it's gone pretty much nowhere; you just don't see them in widespread use(unlike, say, a proximity card or magswipe). I suspect even USB keys now vastly outnumber iButton devices.
All the encryption in the world won't do you any good if you can't store the keys securely...and these days, all it takes is a janitor with a CDROM with linux that 'phones home' and sends back choice tidbits...or an ipod.....or a USB hard drive..or a USB memory key...or a blank CDR, since so many machines come with CD burners now...
It's not cold enough unless it can offset global warming.
No, it's not cold enough unless it can withstand a slashdotting without bursting into flames.
I think they should have spent more time cooling their webserver, cause that puppy's crisp. Or mysql melted down...ba da dum dum dum, another mysql bites the dust...
I'm confused by your statement, because it sounds like it is simply an interlibrary loan program like the colleges/uni's have in my area.
Minuteman extends beyond just interlibrary lending; it gives the collective group of libraries the purchasing power of a corporation. Minuteman also is 100% responsible/controls the computer networks in the libraries. When something breaks, a MLN tech fixes it...
A project for your local Linux group: Take an old machine with a burner and donate a Linux kiosk to the library.
I tried to get one system into our local town library. The director of the library flatly refused to even consider the proposal to have a linux workstation in the library.
Essentially, even if volunteer-maintained and/or no maintenance required(think Knoppix), she said that they were Windows, and Windows only, and that was because that's what the Minuteman Network supports(the Minuteman Network is a nice little corporation that's making money off the local town libraries.)
Despite being exceptionally polite, she wouldn't even examine the proposal, and complained about issues I had addressed already- in the proposal, if she had bothered to read it.
Don't they have some poor child in the third world they could be helping with their science project
Good job destroying their business model, because everyone is going to run out and buy these because they're loaded with features
FIRST/SECOND/THIRD POST
The black helicopters from the Santa/Jesus Conspirary are out to get me and my alien friend, but if you happen to have a time travel S3-4QB, we'll be safe!(props to all the true wackjobs that end up -1. You guys are something special).
SCO sucks.
I for one welcome our new cheap crappy picture-taking overlords
Slashdot editors suck, this is a dupe.
Oh, I actually read the article now- ok, it's not a dupe. The slashdot editors still suck.
This doesn't work, half the time- for one thing, if the equipment is too heavy/long, you'll damage the case/rack by mounting it incorrectly(and few cases have provisions for mounting near the center of gravity).
This is especially dangerous with aluminum relay racks- you can strip the screws out just trying to get the stuff mounted; the second the guy in back lets go, the bottom screws go "BBRT!" and the bottom slams to the ground, while the tops of the rack ears are now horribly deformed.
Relay racks are only for patch panels, wire management, and SHORT depth equipment(like routers, switches, hubs).
This is a good question to ask before you buy colo space- "are my servers going to be in enclosures, or relay racks?" If they say "relay racks", run away, don't come back- clowns at work. Almost all servers need proper support- ie, front AND back mounting. Preferably with rails.
Ahh, nothing like the smell of plaugerism
on
The Year In Ideas
·
· Score: 1
I'm going to take a stab that "Sarah" didn't "write" that article on Virginia Tech's website. Instead, I'm guessing she took the story that the Washington Post wrote, and rephrased it a little.
Nearly every sentence in Sarah's article is a clear, direct ripoff of the Washington Post article.
Maybe they're just going to analog video recordings for now, but one assumes the license plate images are easy to OCR and that can be done in real time soon enough
Already been done in England.
Someone once recounted to me how a video-based speed camera would take a snapshot of the plate, do OCR on it...and, wait for it....do a lookup against the UK motor vehicle registry. About 500 feet down the road was a digital sign, and it would display personalized messages. As in, "Mr. Bean, you are going over the speed limit, please slow down".
I think he said it freaked out people enough(surprising, given how London has more security cameras than people -wanna see 1984? Go to the UK) that it was pulled.
And here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats, most of whom know little about the technical aspects, are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet.
As opposed to politicians and diplomats, most of whom know little about anything save how to kiss lobbyist/mafia/dictator ass and keep their job, deciding how billions of people should live their lives?
In the US, have you ever noticed that most of your government representatives are, to quote Dilbert, Dumb As Toast? In one of those strange twists, however, Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and probably one of the best educated presidents we've had in a while. His diplomatic talents are practically without comparison.
As far as dumbest, in recent history- it's a tough choice between Regan and Dubya. Dubya certainly takes the title of Worst Diplomat, save maybe his father, who liked to throw up over foreign dignitaries. His father, however... could say more than four words at at time. God bless America!
Nice worshipping there. Who cares? He's just another programmer who happened to write a (rather poor, unscaleable) p2p network. He's not god's gift to humanity, by any stretch of the imagination- and certainly not worthy of front-page mention.
Hmm... PC $600 + about a month configuring it to work as a PVR.
Uh, hello, have you heard of buying these things called used computers?
I bought a P3-650 w/128MB of ram and a 60gb HD for about $100. The PVR-250 card was $150-ish. Genuine intel mobo, ATI rage pro video card(fine for my needs). I'm going to use it just for recording- the powerbook is for watching.
That's about $50-$150 cheaper than your solution...and I'd need to do as much configuring to get the Tivo to share the media files; certainly not via appleshare/SMB/web. With a full fledged linux box, I can do whatever I want, and get web control of it too. Can't press "record" on the TiVo from work, now can you?
Now, if only configuring MythTV wasn't such a royal PITA; it has no debug output, and piss-poor docs. I gave up trying to work on it, haven't touched it in month. I got the encoder card working, but never got the frontend to do anything except lock up when trying to view TV. I never got the backend to do any recording...
Why do stores do this? How often? And does anyone know why Apple has been singled out while their competition has gotten their products discounted?
Because Apple does not allow you to sell Apple products below the pricing offered by Apple themselves.
Apple does, however, let you bundle things- so your best bet is to look for the best bundle(free case etc). Smalldog and MacConnection are among several catalog companies who regularly do these deals, because it's the only way to be competitive(and not a terribly good one, either.)
Do get a case; mine was scratched all over within a half week, and I was excruciatingly careful with it. Also, DO get an extended warranty, and DON'T GET IT FROM APPLE, it's shorter and MORE expensive than Best Buy's(for example.)
FYI- don't bother looking for an iTrip. I placed my order two months ago with Griffin and they have yet to ship me mine. It's getting cancelled tomorrow, I'm fed up of waiting, and I hear the FM adapters all suck anyway.
Bad guys in the movies all keep their wall safes hidden behind paintings
No, bad guys in movies walk into the Rich Dude's house, immediately realize where the safe is, pull the painting away and get whatever's in the safe. How many times have we said that security through obscurity isn't security, and now we're all clamoring about obscuring data to make it safer.
Data-wise, it seems like you'd need to be hiding a relatively small amount of data. Otherwise, you're like an elephant trying to blend in at an LA cocktail party.
This is, after all, what one hears when a lightning bolt strikes.
The "common laser pointer" they talk about is one milliwatt(mW). That means their laser is 40W, common in industrial laser applications.
A lightning bolt contains roughly enough power to light an entire city for a second or two; it's about a million volts, and about 10,000 amps on average. That's a -trillion- watts. We're talking a MINOR difference in scale here, my friend. A lightning bolt makes a noise because it turns the air around it into superhot plasma, along with any moisture(which expands thousands of times its original volume when vaporized).
If the satellite were to receive that much energy, it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND- just wanted to get that straightened out, since you seem to have slept through most of your high school and college science classes.
But none address the fundamental problem -- why do cells turn cancerous.
It's incredibly simple. They divide. They don't do a perfect job when copying themselves. Occasionally they fuck up the bits that control their internal processes, like how fast they divide. All the wonderful chemicals we've surrounded ourselves with make 'em screw up more.
Is it any particular wonder that cancer rates are skyrocketing in the last half decade, with all the chemical crap we've come up with and dumped into the environment?
Slashdot Mirror
Do your homework. Dukakis was the last democratic governor. Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney are ALL republicans. Massachusetts is most certainly NOT a one-party state, and it shows how truly ignorant you are to think that it is.
I suppose next you'll call us "taxachusetts", even though we're smack in the middle in the nation in taxes by state. Oh wait:
Democratic Senator from the great Commonwealth of Taxachusetts
You did call us taxachusetts. Well, you're free to move. Yes, there was mismanagement- but a lot of the cost increases were due to the typical things that make civil engineering projects go over budget- things like "the ground's a lot tougher than we thought it would be, even though we did a ton of soil testing and sampling". None of that changes the fact that the project itself was absolutely necessary- and thus doesn't deserve the term "pork barrel". Pork is when projects are steered towards a senator's home state, or when a senator gets money for something completely useless. Pork is $1M for a wildflower research study. Pork is not a $10B+ construction project to fix one of the worst traffic systems in the nation.
No, finally -closing-. It opened over a decade ago, and has been rolled out in several stages over the last several years. I hope I have the order right here:
It's grossly over budget(4x at least?), is the largest construction project in the world- and had some amazing tolerances. One of the tunnels passes within inches of the existing red line subway lines(South Station, the largest terminal in Boston, is right smack where 93 had to go). This accounts for the VERY(maximum permissable grade under fed law) steep decline southbound; they had to go over one thing, under another. The red line now 'rests' on a giant concrete wall that was set in-place.
Oh, and in order to do the connector for the mass pike, they had to FREEZE the ground. Yep. Freeze it- because it was so unstable. And they installed new sections in one tunnel by hydraulically jacking them through the ground. Wild stuff.
The Boston Pops were going to do a concert inside the 93 southbound lanes before the opening- partially sponsored by corporate donors. Except that the corporate donors didn't know their money would be used for it. Even when they agreed to -fully- sponsor it, the concert was still cancelled after massive criticism. When you go $8B+ over budget, you don't exactly pat yourself on the back too enthusiastically.
Everyone in Boston is mostly just happy that it's over. For the last decade, we've had all sorts of odd route closures, exits shut down/reopened, conditions placed on tunnel/bridge use...it's finally all over, and everyone can just get back to driving like psychos :-)
It's so nifty to see all the books I read as a kid getting a second revival. Problem is, I wish kids would read these books in the first place, and discover that (gasp!) there's more to children's literature than Harry Potter.
Yes. but it's only allowed to execute code until 11pm...and its parents damn well better not find out that it forks around, because it needs parental permission to kill a child process(should it fail to handle variables safely.)
Oh, and the kernel keeps a shotgun by the front door just in case any Java applets come around asking if Perl can go to the movies...
Ahhh, NYC snobbism. Way to go, I'll be sure to stop by and visit you now that you've insulted the city I love. You know what? NYC isn't nearly what it's cracked up to be. I've been. I hated it.
What does NYC have that Boston(and, for that matter, any other city) doesn't? This "NYC, the greatest city in the world" crap is just that- a bunch of crap.
Boston vs NYC:
Not really. There's been several explosions of various file/disk encryption products. Your handheld device isn't a Somebody(Something?) until it's got at least a dozen "encrypted" personal information storage widgets for it.
The problem is that encryption is 90% snake oil. Usually it's written by someone who thinks they know encrpytion- and encryption isn't, to coin the phrase, like a hand grenade; close doesn't count. Zimmerman is famous for his saying that "anyone who claims to have unbreakable encryption doesn't"(apologies for paraphrasing).
Encryption also does little when physical security can't be controlled; Dallas Semi had the right idea with their iButtons, which brought reasonably secure key storage to the masses(if opened, for example, it erased itself) but it's gone pretty much nowhere; you just don't see them in widespread use(unlike, say, a proximity card or magswipe). I suspect even USB keys now vastly outnumber iButton devices.
All the encryption in the world won't do you any good if you can't store the keys securely...and these days, all it takes is a janitor with a CDROM with linux that 'phones home' and sends back choice tidbits...or an ipod.....or a USB hard drive..or a USB memory key...or a blank CDR, since so many machines come with CD burners now...
Of course, I read neither. Did anyone? Can we get a copy posted here, and a little analysis?
No, it's not cold enough unless it can withstand a slashdotting without bursting into flames.
I think they should have spent more time cooling their webserver, cause that puppy's crisp. Or mysql melted down...ba da dum dum dum, another mysql bites the dust...
I don't suppose he considered, oh, say, a dual/quad xeon/amd-64?
AMD 64 bit dual rackmount boxes are about $2.5k these days with low-end disk, and they'd probably kick the crap out of whatever he's got.
Or he could go for some really big iron.
I personally can't wait until he gets his electric bill- refrigeration units are VERY power hungry.
Minuteman extends beyond just interlibrary lending; it gives the collective group of libraries the purchasing power of a corporation. Minuteman also is 100% responsible/controls the computer networks in the libraries. When something breaks, a MLN tech fixes it...
I tried to get one system into our local town library. The director of the library flatly refused to even consider the proposal to have a linux workstation in the library.
Essentially, even if volunteer-maintained and/or no maintenance required(think Knoppix), she said that they were Windows, and Windows only, and that was because that's what the Minuteman Network supports(the Minuteman Network is a nice little corporation that's making money off the local town libraries.)
Despite being exceptionally polite, she wouldn't even examine the proposal, and complained about issues I had addressed already- in the proposal, if she had bothered to read it.
God, can't anyone take a damn joke? I hope you all get meta-moderated to hell.
Let me get it all out of the way for y'all, ok?
Did I miss anyone?
This doesn't work, half the time- for one thing, if the equipment is too heavy/long, you'll damage the case/rack by mounting it incorrectly(and few cases have provisions for mounting near the center of gravity).
This is especially dangerous with aluminum relay racks- you can strip the screws out just trying to get the stuff mounted; the second the guy in back lets go, the bottom screws go "BBRT!" and the bottom slams to the ground, while the tops of the rack ears are now horribly deformed.
Relay racks are only for patch panels, wire management, and SHORT depth equipment(like routers, switches, hubs).
This is a good question to ask before you buy colo space- "are my servers going to be in enclosures, or relay racks?" If they say "relay racks", run away, don't come back- clowns at work. Almost all servers need proper support- ie, front AND back mounting. Preferably with rails.
I'm going to take a stab that "Sarah" didn't "write" that article on Virginia Tech's website. Instead, I'm guessing she took the story that the Washington Post wrote, and rephrased it a little.
Nearly every sentence in Sarah's article is a clear, direct ripoff of the Washington Post article.
Maybe that would be a good system for the U.S.
You mean, like, say, the Massachusetts ballot? The technical term is a "marksense" ballot, and I think about a quarter of the US uses it to vote.
Already been done in England.
Someone once recounted to me how a video-based speed camera would take a snapshot of the plate, do OCR on it...and, wait for it....do a lookup against the UK motor vehicle registry. About 500 feet down the road was a digital sign, and it would display personalized messages. As in, "Mr. Bean, you are going over the speed limit, please slow down".
I think he said it freaked out people enough(surprising, given how London has more security cameras than people -wanna see 1984? Go to the UK) that it was pulled.
Yeah, it's all fun and games until someone gets caught flying upside down, no pants on, playing with the stick, lookin' at kiddie porn...
As opposed to politicians and diplomats, most of whom know little about anything save how to kiss lobbyist/mafia/dictator ass and keep their job, deciding how billions of people should live their lives?
In the US, have you ever noticed that most of your government representatives are, to quote Dilbert, Dumb As Toast? In one of those strange twists, however, Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and probably one of the best educated presidents we've had in a while. His diplomatic talents are practically without comparison.
As far as dumbest, in recent history- it's a tough choice between Regan and Dubya. Dubya certainly takes the title of Worst Diplomat, save maybe his father, who liked to throw up over foreign dignitaries. His father, however...
could say more than
four words at at time.
God bless
America!
Nice worshipping there. Who cares? He's just another programmer who happened to write a (rather poor, unscaleable) p2p network. He's not god's gift to humanity, by any stretch of the imagination- and certainly not worthy of front-page mention.
Uh, hello, have you heard of buying these things called used computers?
I bought a P3-650 w/128MB of ram and a 60gb HD for about $100. The PVR-250 card was $150-ish. Genuine intel mobo, ATI rage pro video card(fine for my needs). I'm going to use it just for recording- the powerbook is for watching.
That's about $50-$150 cheaper than your solution...and I'd need to do as much configuring to get the Tivo to share the media files; certainly not via appleshare/SMB/web. With a full fledged linux box, I can do whatever I want, and get web control of it too. Can't press "record" on the TiVo from work, now can you?
Now, if only configuring MythTV wasn't such a royal PITA; it has no debug output, and piss-poor docs. I gave up trying to work on it, haven't touched it in month. I got the encoder card working, but never got the frontend to do anything except lock up when trying to view TV. I never got the backend to do any recording...
Because Apple does not allow you to sell Apple products below the pricing offered by Apple themselves.
Apple does, however, let you bundle things- so your best bet is to look for the best bundle(free case etc). Smalldog and MacConnection are among several catalog companies who regularly do these deals, because it's the only way to be competitive(and not a terribly good one, either.)
Do get a case; mine was scratched all over within a half week, and I was excruciatingly careful with it. Also, DO get an extended warranty, and DON'T GET IT FROM APPLE, it's shorter and MORE expensive than Best Buy's(for example.)
FYI- don't bother looking for an iTrip. I placed my order two months ago with Griffin and they have yet to ship me mine. It's getting cancelled tomorrow, I'm fed up of waiting, and I hear the FM adapters all suck anyway.
No, bad guys in movies walk into the Rich Dude's house, immediately realize where the safe is, pull the painting away and get whatever's in the safe. How many times have we said that security through obscurity isn't security, and now we're all clamoring about obscuring data to make it safer.
Data-wise, it seems like you'd need to be hiding a relatively small amount of data. Otherwise, you're like an elephant trying to blend in at an LA cocktail party.
The "common laser pointer" they talk about is one milliwatt(mW). That means their laser is 40W, common in industrial laser applications.
A lightning bolt contains roughly enough power to light an entire city for a second or two; it's about a million volts, and about 10,000 amps on average. That's a -trillion- watts. We're talking a MINOR difference in scale here, my friend. A lightning bolt makes a noise because it turns the air around it into superhot plasma, along with any moisture(which expands thousands of times its original volume when vaporized).
If the satellite were to receive that much energy, it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND- just wanted to get that straightened out, since you seem to have slept through most of your high school and college science classes.
I cannot -believe- the parent got modded up...
It's incredibly simple. They divide. They don't do a perfect job when copying themselves. Occasionally they fuck up the bits that control their internal processes, like how fast they divide. All the wonderful chemicals we've surrounded ourselves with make 'em screw up more.
Is it any particular wonder that cancer rates are skyrocketing in the last half decade, with all the chemical crap we've come up with and dumped into the environment?