What I haven't quite figured out is -why- congress is so pissed. They were out for a piece of Powell during that hearing where he defended the decision.
Lets face it- almost everything our politicians do now is either in the interests of business, stripping our rights, or pork-grabbing for votes come next election(some all of the above). This is, if I ever saw it, some seriously anti-corporate stuff. Is this a case of public opinion being strong enough that they thought they couldn't get away with going with the corporations? Has our house and senate been replaced by aliens?:-)
"For such a small market share they sure do seem to set a lot of standards."
Too bad taste isn't one of those standards.
Pay attention to the laptops in TV/magazine/newspaper ads, not to mention TV shows, music videos...and of course movies...by far, Apple Powerbooks are the laptop of choice, and when a movie features a pseudo-screen-graphic, it usually bears a play-skool resemblence to the older MacOS. Oh, and the sounds you hear while Joe Movie Star is working at the computer...is usually either an ancient seagate MFM drive(wee wee...wee wooo weee) or a Macintosh 3.5" drive(Boop boop boop boop boop brrrrp booop boop). The MFM drive sound not surprisingly is more popular in the low-budg films(just kidding:-)
You have to kind of look closely since they almost always black out the Apple logo(esp on the powerbooks that have glowing apple logos:-), but the case is very distinctive on the G3 powerbooks(the Lombard was code-named after Lombard Street in CA- the curviest street in the world..because almost every surface of the case is curved.)
In fact, at one point, one of the major fashion magazines many years back said the most fashionable item you could have on you while walking down Wall St. was a Powerbook under your arm(probably where the Wallstreet codename came from). The TiBook continues the trend- they're downright gorgeous machines, at least before the paint starts chipping from the case(which is why Apple is, on new models, using unpainted aluminum external surfaces- the painted exterior of the 15" Tibook did NOT go over very well).
GPS (in)accuracy/signal strength makes it useless
on
Wozniak Unveils WozNet
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· Score: 1
I would really like a nice small tag for my car keys...
And since anything denser than medium treecover pretty much hoses GPS(most roofs will kill GPS entirely), it'd be useless.
Oh, not to mention, even with satellite differential(WAAS), you still only get 3 meters accuracy(roughly). That means it would tell you the keys are in your living room...but not WHERE in the living room.
If the copyright holder is the Free Software Foundation, please send the report to .
Note that the GPL, and other copyleft licenses, are copyright licenses. This means that only the copyright holders are empowered to act against violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to do the same.
But, we cannot act on our own if we do not hold copyright. Thus, be sure to find out who the copyright holders of the software are before reporting a violation.
Isn't about time that we as Linux users file a class action lawsuit against SCO for misuse of Linux source?
A better question would be, "Why hasn't the FSF done anything about a major challenge to the GNU license?" "Why are they sitting on their hands, doing nothing but releasing 'statements'?"
From the GNU homepage:
We rely on support from individuals like you who support FSF's mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of Free Software users.
Second question would be "Why hasn't IBM slapped SCO with a Legal Ugly Stick yet?"
In this other short story, Ananova shows an AP photograph of one of the students waltzing with the robot.
$50 says the Boston Globe(along with 2 dozen other newspapers) feature it as their "name that caption" contest of the week.
What do you guys say to making it a slashdot poll? "I'm taking my 5-wheeled-robot a)dancing b)
bowling c)nowhere, she's washing her circuit boards tonight d)CowboyNeal's house"
Ok, so what's to stop you from slipping a little piece of airplane-trim-colored tape over the lens staring you back in the face? Or a little vaseline to blur things a tad? Or, if you're feeling really nasty, some nail polish, clear or otherwise(it'll permanently bond to the plastic lens.)
I can't believe this wound up on Slashdot. First of all, the vger list admin already shitcanned the thread from LKML because it's just inappropriate there.
This is grossly off-topic, but it shocks me that a list admin would do such a thing. I've run mailing lists for years, and NOTHING gets deleted or modified in the archives. Period. It's a historical record, and I treat it as such.
This could also be a great help to reduce fatigue related accidents on farms. I have friends that are farmers and during harvest times they routinely work 18+ hours driving harvesting machinery. Often a worker falls asleep at the wheel and has caused thousands of dollars in damage, not to mention the potential for human injuries or death.
Okay. Now, for a dose of reality. Ever seen on TV how they have the machines lined up in a row, one after the other? Now, remove the driver, put in a GPS-navigation system. So far so good, right?
Now put yourself 20 feet in front of that cluster of combines. Better run like shit, my friend- because that computer has no clue you're about to get chewed into little bits.
I can see it now- after commanding the drones to switch to Windows 2.003k, they look at the price tag- the jump in overtime, the additional hardware for that "faster" version, the new software licenses...
President:"But...but...that commercial said it would be cheaper, and it had lots of pretty people doing neat things, with nice music in the background! And the nice representative at the golf tournament said I'd get to have employees walking around with little handheld things that showed our inventory! And..."
CFO:"...You mean to tell me you bitched and moaned for months about how we needed to switch, and you based the decision on TV COMMERCIALS?"
President:"DUUUUH, of course not! I SAID, I talked to a MS rep too!"
Sounds like the folks in the Giant Black Marker Business stand to make a lot of money then. Ever tried to recover info from a page that's been "Blacked Out"? It's pretty mcuh impossible.
Only one that's been photocopied. Almost any pen, pencil, or toner looks different from marker ink- this includes typewriter ribbon material. Looking at the paper at an angle would easily reveal the underlying text, which is why you get (bad) copies of blacked-out material.
Am I the only one who still, after years of seeing laptops(and now phones) and PDAs with digital cameras find them cheesy?
I hate the phone cameras- it's an instant turn-off to me, a guarantee I'll pick another model; I'd rather they spent $ on useful features that directly apply to the device's purpose and functionality. PDAs are for storing information- not taking crappy, small pictures that are bested by a 5-year-old "regular" digital camera.
My lack of interest for a lot of modern mechanical sports is the udder lack of distinction between any of the entries, two cars in nascar are more alike than your and my DNA.
Contrary to popular belief there are other motorsports besides NASCAR:
The SCCA(Sports Car Club of America) races(including racetrack, autocross, rallycross, and rally races/events)
FIA rallying
Formula 1
Indy 500
...just to name a few.
For example, on Speedvision(now "The Speed Channel"), you can catch events like the Maine Forest Rally. In rallying, there are lots of different cars, it's pretty exciting, often more so than NASCAR- you've got insane speeds, limited traction, crazy drivers, and little to no control over the course(helloooooo wildlife!:-)
Rallying is intensely popular pretty much everywhere except the US, where the population seems fixated on NASCAR bullshit.
They should use a hydrogen balloon instead of helium - that way when they ignite the rocket, they'll get extra boost as the balloon explodes.
Except that hydrogen needs oxygen to burn. That's why rocket fuel usually has a lot of oxidizer in it.
By the way- this is the reason the Hindenburg really didn't burn 'because of the hydrogen'; there wasn't enough oxygen(if there had, there would have been a massive explosion- not a huge fire). As mentioned on slashdot among other places, scientists examined the film and noticed lots of black smoke, and lots of visible light; witnesses reported lots of yellow flame. Hydrogen burns cleanly, and generates next to no visible light when it does.
What caused it? Well, maybe the paint on the canopy- which was discovered to have a chemical composition very similar to solid rocket fuel(powdered aluminum, for example, was one ingredient.)
I thought we decided that Sun was evil this week. Did I miss a memo?
Heh, you're expecting proper cronological order from this editorial staff? Oh, but don't worry- they'll get the order right next time they post the stories. Failing that, third time's the charm.
Verizon Guy: Can you hear me NOW?
FBI Spook: Yep!
Verizon Guy: urk...
This is a true story, I swear:
When I was in college, I knew one or two of the student sysadmins. One of the more flamboyant campus personalities(small campus) would, all the time, infer on the school newsgroups that the student sysadmins were reading other student's mail(they sysadmin'd all the non-school-administration servers). It always pissed off the student admins, because they didn't read other student's mail, and found the insinuation insulting.
One day, this jerk was emailing a friend and made some nasty comment- something along the lines of "you better call me, the student admins here are always reading our email". Somewhere along the line, either he, or the friend, mistyped the email address- and a bounce of the message went to postmaster.
The student admin grinned ear to ear and said "so I sent a reply to them both that just said, 'No we don't.'"
I can only imagine what kind of manuever problems the U.S.S. Gerald Ford would have. It could potentially destroy half a sea port while attempting to dock.
Ah, but at least it would remember where the seaport was.
Sure would be handy, though. Very plausible deniability, if you ever screwed up. Nobody on board would remember having done anything wrong:-)
Who said anything about profit? Further, I hack around for fun too, but I do it with modern tools and technologies. There's no point in starting with older technology, since nobody uses it anymore. Do you realize that most of the IIGS probably used TTL circuitry, instead of CMOS, which is the norm now? Nevermind that it runs at such slow speeds that you'd never learn about RF interference, EFI/EMI considerations, etc...
The point of projects like this one is to have fun and learn skills that can be used for endeavors that have a more practical use.
Please explain what useful skills you can learn working on a IIGS that are practical today. It would be like spending months learning all about tube amps, and then trying to find a job as an electrical engineer; you'd be very hard pressed to find employment(save a few snooty audio companies and some Air Traffic Control towers), because your skills would be so outdated as to be useless. When you walked into any electronics supply house or opened any electronics catalog, you wouldn't be able to find what you needed to "mess around for fun". When you did find tubes, they'd cost 100x as much as an IC that replaced thousands(or millions!) of them. I can buy a complete functioning uC with onboard ethernet, digital and analog IO, etc for less than a single tube.
What better way to learn the ins and outs of a TCP/IP stack than to implement one? What better way to learn about an OS than to write one, even if it is on hardware thats somewhere between having a Bar Mitzvah and being old enough to vote?
How about doing it on modern tools? The assembly language used in the IIGS is useless today, hopelessly outdated. Your argument is akin to saying "here, learn Word Perfect for DOS, it'll help you learn valuable skills!"- except clearly it won't teach you ANYTHING about using a modern operating system, modern word processors...or even a fucking mouse.
I'm glad someone appointed you the official arbitrator of usefulness.
Nobody appointed me. Look at availability(poor), functionality(poor), serviceability(none, period), development tools(none), technology(OVER twenty years old)...and decide for yourself. You can barely buy 5.25" floppies these days(although the IIGS did use 3.5"). It's like people who still waste time developing stuff for the Commodore 64, or insist that tube amps/phonographs sound better(they don't, they sound worse.) If they stopped and looked around at the tools available to them today, they'd be amazed. Read the review of the Rabbit2000 in Circuit Cellar; the guy can't stop raving about how what used to require a 500W power supply, had a couple bytes of ram, a few IO lines, NO development tools etc...is outclassed by something that fits on his thumb, and offers so much more.
It's a shame that so many people today waste time on frivolous things like "having an idea and pursuing it"
I NEVER said you shouldn't have an idea and pursue it. But there's no sense in working on something that is DEAD, when there's something more modern available that's better in ALL ways.
This is both interesting and a terrible shame. It's interesting, because the people involved obviously have some talent. It's a shame, because they're devoting such talent to utterly useless projects.
There's NOTHING you couldn't do better, easier, cheaper, for less power/heat, in a smaller package, and faster(all by dozens of orders of magnitude)...with something more modern.
Even the 8-bit uC sitting on my desk right now runs at 50mhz, fully supports C or an easy to learn assembly language- it's got seperate data+IO busses, 5-6 serial ports(SPI, IrDA, RS232, RS485 are all supported), dozens of IO lines for bitwise or parallel IO...builtin ethernet with a VERY thorough royalty-free TCP/IP stack w/large set of utility routines, two forms of realtime operations(one is the uCOSII). Oh yes, and it costs about $50 in single-unit quantities including ethenet magnetics etc...with very aggressive quantity pricing. Oh, and it's based off the Z80 family, so if you know the Z80, you'll find this baby pretty familiar(if you hadn't guessed already, this is the Rabbit3000 core module.)
...and it's just ONE of hundreds of uC's available.
Slashdot Mirror
What I haven't quite figured out is -why- congress is so pissed. They were out for a piece of Powell during that hearing where he defended the decision.
Lets face it- almost everything our politicians do now is either in the interests of business, stripping our rights, or pork-grabbing for votes come next election(some all of the above). This is, if I ever saw it, some seriously anti-corporate stuff. Is this a case of public opinion being strong enough that they thought they couldn't get away with going with the corporations? Has our house and senate been replaced by aliens? :-)
[discuss]...
More like, "how long will the schools be able to justify spending thousands of dollars to protect the identities of students breaking the law."
Too bad taste isn't one of those standards.
Pay attention to the laptops in TV/magazine/newspaper ads, not to mention TV shows, music videos...and of course movies...by far, Apple Powerbooks are the laptop of choice, and when a movie features a pseudo-screen-graphic, it usually bears a play-skool resemblence to the older MacOS. Oh, and the sounds you hear while Joe Movie Star is working at the computer...is usually either an ancient seagate MFM drive(wee wee...wee wooo weee) or a Macintosh 3.5" drive(Boop boop boop boop boop brrrrp booop boop). The MFM drive sound not surprisingly is more popular in the low-budg films(just kidding :-)
You have to kind of look closely since they almost always black out the Apple logo(esp on the powerbooks that have glowing apple logos :-), but the case is very distinctive on the G3 powerbooks(the Lombard was code-named after Lombard Street in CA- the curviest street in the world..because almost every surface of the case is curved.)
In fact, at one point, one of the major fashion magazines many years back said the most fashionable item you could have on you while walking down Wall St. was a Powerbook under your arm(probably where the Wallstreet codename came from). The TiBook continues the trend- they're downright gorgeous machines, at least before the paint starts chipping from the case(which is why Apple is, on new models, using unpainted aluminum external surfaces- the painted exterior of the 15" Tibook did NOT go over very well).
I would really like a nice small tag for my car keys...
And since anything denser than medium treecover pretty much hoses GPS(most roofs will kill GPS entirely), it'd be useless.
Oh, not to mention, even with satellite differential(WAAS), you still only get 3 meters accuracy(roughly). That means it would tell you the keys are in your living room...but not WHERE in the living room.
Pertinent passage:
If the copyright holder is the Free Software Foundation, please send the report to . Note that the GPL, and other copyleft licenses, are copyright licenses. This means that only the copyright holders are empowered to act against violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to do the same. But, we cannot act on our own if we do not hold copyright. Thus, be sure to find out who the copyright holders of the software are before reporting a violation.
A better question would be, "Why hasn't the FSF done anything about a major challenge to the GNU license?" "Why are they sitting on their hands, doing nothing but releasing 'statements'?"
From the GNU homepage:
We rely on support from individuals like you who support FSF's mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of Free Software users.
Second question would be "Why hasn't IBM slapped SCO with a Legal Ugly Stick yet?"
Lost you there. Oh, oh, MacOS X. Gotcha, sorry.
I bet Visual Basic code runs reel fast on this baby
Visual Basic, fast? Oh god, please...someone mod the parent up as funny, he/she deserves it :-)
...and his name is Steve "Monkey Boy" Balmer.
$50 says the Boston Globe(along with 2 dozen other newspapers) feature it as their "name that caption" contest of the week.
What do you guys say to making it a slashdot poll? "I'm taking my 5-wheeled-robot a)dancing b) bowling c)nowhere, she's washing her circuit boards tonight d)CowboyNeal's house"
Ok, so what's to stop you from slipping a little piece of airplane-trim-colored tape over the lens staring you back in the face? Or a little vaseline to blur things a tad? Or, if you're feeling really nasty, some nail polish, clear or otherwise(it'll permanently bond to the plastic lens.)
This is grossly off-topic, but it shocks me that a list admin would do such a thing. I've run mailing lists for years, and NOTHING gets deleted or modified in the archives. Period. It's a historical record, and I treat it as such.
This could also be a great help to reduce fatigue related accidents on farms. I have friends that are farmers and during harvest times they routinely work 18+ hours driving harvesting machinery. Often a worker falls asleep at the wheel and has caused thousands of dollars in damage, not to mention the potential for human injuries or death.
Okay. Now, for a dose of reality. Ever seen on TV how they have the machines lined up in a row, one after the other? Now, remove the driver, put in a GPS-navigation system. So far so good, right?
Now put yourself 20 feet in front of that cluster of combines. Better run like shit, my friend- because that computer has no clue you're about to get chewed into little bits.
I can see it now- after commanding the drones to switch to Windows 2.003k, they look at the price tag- the jump in overtime, the additional hardware for that "faster" version, the new software licenses...
President:"But...but...that commercial said it would be cheaper, and it had lots of pretty people doing neat things, with nice music in the background! And the nice representative at the golf tournament said I'd get to have employees walking around with little handheld things that showed our inventory! And..."
CFO:"...You mean to tell me you bitched and moaned for months about how we needed to switch, and you based the decision on TV COMMERCIALS?"
President:"DUUUUH, of course not! I SAID, I talked to a MS rep too!"
(sound of 12 hands slapping 12 foreheads)
Only one that's been photocopied. Almost any pen, pencil, or toner looks different from marker ink- this includes typewriter ribbon material. Looking at the paper at an angle would easily reveal the underlying text, which is why you get (bad) copies of blacked-out material.
Am I the only one who still, after years of seeing laptops(and now phones) and PDAs with digital cameras find them cheesy?
I hate the phone cameras- it's an instant turn-off to me, a guarantee I'll pick another model; I'd rather they spent $ on useful features that directly apply to the device's purpose and functionality. PDAs are for storing information- not taking crappy, small pictures that are bested by a 5-year-old "regular" digital camera.
My lack of interest for a lot of modern mechanical sports is the udder lack of distinction between any of the entries, two cars in nascar are more alike than your and my DNA.
Contrary to popular belief there are other motorsports besides NASCAR:
...just to name a few.
For example, on Speedvision(now "The Speed Channel"), you can catch events like the Maine Forest Rally. In rallying, there are lots of different cars, it's pretty exciting, often more so than NASCAR- you've got insane speeds, limited traction, crazy drivers, and little to no control over the course(helloooooo wildlife! :-)
Rallying is intensely popular pretty much everywhere except the US, where the population seems fixated on NASCAR bullshit.
This does not however mean that Microsoft and its hench-OEM Dell are poised to hoover up all of the Department's lovely IT budget
Ahhhh, unbiased reporting. Have you considered working for FOX News?
They should use a hydrogen balloon instead of helium - that way when they ignite the rocket, they'll get extra boost as the balloon explodes.
Except that hydrogen needs oxygen to burn. That's why rocket fuel usually has a lot of oxidizer in it.
By the way- this is the reason the Hindenburg really didn't burn 'because of the hydrogen'; there wasn't enough oxygen(if there had, there would have been a massive explosion- not a huge fire). As mentioned on slashdot among other places, scientists examined the film and noticed lots of black smoke, and lots of visible light; witnesses reported lots of yellow flame. Hydrogen burns cleanly, and generates next to no visible light when it does.
What caused it? Well, maybe the paint on the canopy- which was discovered to have a chemical composition very similar to solid rocket fuel(powdered aluminum, for example, was one ingredient.)
What don't they give awards for nowadays?
Best Slashdot Post
Best Use of Consonants in Slashdot Post
You're forgetting the obvious award for our dear editors!
Most # of Dupes
I thought we decided that Sun was evil this week. Did I miss a memo?
Heh, you're expecting proper cronological order from this editorial staff? Oh, but don't worry- they'll get the order right next time they post the stories. Failing that, third time's the charm.
Verizon Guy: Can you hear me NOW?
FBI Spook: Yep!
Verizon Guy: urk...
This is a true story, I swear:
When I was in college, I knew one or two of the student sysadmins. One of the more flamboyant campus personalities(small campus) would, all the time, infer on the school newsgroups that the student sysadmins were reading other student's mail(they sysadmin'd all the non-school-administration servers). It always pissed off the student admins, because they didn't read other student's mail, and found the insinuation insulting.
One day, this jerk was emailing a friend and made some nasty comment- something along the lines of "you better call me, the student admins here are always reading our email". Somewhere along the line, either he, or the friend, mistyped the email address- and a bounce of the message went to postmaster.
The student admin grinned ear to ear and said "so I sent a reply to them both that just said, 'No we don't.'"
I can only imagine what kind of manuever problems the U.S.S. Gerald Ford would have. It could potentially destroy half a sea port while attempting to dock.
Ah, but at least it would remember where the seaport was.
Sure would be handy, though. Very plausible deniability, if you ever screwed up. Nobody on board would remember having done anything wrong :-)
I don't hack for profit, I hack for FUN
Who said anything about profit? Further, I hack around for fun too, but I do it with modern tools and technologies. There's no point in starting with older technology, since nobody uses it anymore. Do you realize that most of the IIGS probably used TTL circuitry, instead of CMOS, which is the norm now? Nevermind that it runs at such slow speeds that you'd never learn about RF interference, EFI/EMI considerations, etc...
The point of projects like this one is to have fun and learn skills that can be used for endeavors that have a more practical use.
Please explain what useful skills you can learn working on a IIGS that are practical today. It would be like spending months learning all about tube amps, and then trying to find a job as an electrical engineer; you'd be very hard pressed to find employment(save a few snooty audio companies and some Air Traffic Control towers), because your skills would be so outdated as to be useless. When you walked into any electronics supply house or opened any electronics catalog, you wouldn't be able to find what you needed to "mess around for fun". When you did find tubes, they'd cost 100x as much as an IC that replaced thousands(or millions!) of them. I can buy a complete functioning uC with onboard ethernet, digital and analog IO, etc for less than a single tube.
What better way to learn the ins and outs of a TCP/IP stack than to implement one? What better way to learn about an OS than to write one, even if it is on hardware thats somewhere between having a Bar Mitzvah and being old enough to vote?
How about doing it on modern tools? The assembly language used in the IIGS is useless today, hopelessly outdated. Your argument is akin to saying "here, learn Word Perfect for DOS, it'll help you learn valuable skills!"- except clearly it won't teach you ANYTHING about using a modern operating system, modern word processors...or even a fucking mouse.
Nobody appointed me. Look at availability(poor), functionality(poor), serviceability(none, period), development tools(none), technology(OVER twenty years old)...and decide for yourself. You can barely buy 5.25" floppies these days(although the IIGS did use 3.5"). It's like people who still waste time developing stuff for the Commodore 64, or insist that tube amps/phonographs sound better(they don't, they sound worse.) If they stopped and looked around at the tools available to them today, they'd be amazed. Read the review of the Rabbit2000 in Circuit Cellar; the guy can't stop raving about how what used to require a 500W power supply, had a couple bytes of ram, a few IO lines, NO development tools etc...is outclassed by something that fits on his thumb, and offers so much more.
It's a shame that so many people today waste time on frivolous things like "having an idea and pursuing it"
I NEVER said you shouldn't have an idea and pursue it. But there's no sense in working on something that is DEAD, when there's something more modern available that's better in ALL ways.
This is both interesting and a terrible shame. It's interesting, because the people involved obviously have some talent. It's a shame, because they're devoting such talent to utterly useless projects.
There's NOTHING you couldn't do better, easier, cheaper, for less power/heat, in a smaller package, and faster(all by dozens of orders of magnitude)...with something more modern.
Even the 8-bit uC sitting on my desk right now runs at 50mhz, fully supports C or an easy to learn assembly language- it's got seperate data+IO busses, 5-6 serial ports(SPI, IrDA, RS232, RS485 are all supported), dozens of IO lines for bitwise or parallel IO...builtin ethernet with a VERY thorough royalty-free TCP/IP stack w/large set of utility routines, two forms of realtime operations(one is the uCOSII). Oh yes, and it costs about $50 in single-unit quantities including ethenet magnetics etc...with very aggressive quantity pricing. Oh, and it's based off the Z80 family, so if you know the Z80, you'll find this baby pretty familiar(if you hadn't guessed already, this is the Rabbit3000 core module.)
...and it's just ONE of hundreds of uC's available.