I am not trying to be PC, but the Beeb missed a great chance to cast a female doctor with a male assistant. They could have written a whole raft of lame jokes about this body change !!
> I would like to remind you all that this is still a very good thing so long as it saves more lives than it kills.
I disagree with that general principle. What if, for example, the total number of road deaths goes down but the number of, say pedestrians or cyclists deaths, goes up. I would find that unacceptable. To take it to the extreme you could ban all cyclists, horseriders and motorcyclists, and make car drivers wear full face helmets: death and injury would probably go down, but is it acceptable ? (FWIW I am mainly a cylist and pedestrian, but that should not matter.)
>> And all accross this great nation of ours countless tiny screws are getting lost in the carpet. > You are overestimating the amount of zune users out there...
And now try to imagine the size of the intersection of Zune owners with people who can use a screwdriver !
I skipped the article as the catagories I am interested in are missing:
- Quiet: e.g. my home PC is in an alcove under the stairs and the kids can hear me in the evening - Small footprint: for my small home desk, and to bring the mouse closer in - Best keyboard layout: e.g. the control key should be under the tab key (yes, I know I can re-map it but...)
(FWIW I have a HH2 that does pretty well on all the above, but a little quieter would be nice !)
I work as a "Software Consultant" (21 years so far) and 10 years ago I went from the standard 40 hour week to 30 hours when our second child was on the way (FWIW I am male: all the other part-timers at that time were female). Just recently a friend also went down from 5 to 4 days a week. IIRC the law here in Germany just changed such that the onus fell on the employer to show a reason why *not* to let you work part-time.
Equally, now long before it is cracked ? (As there is more scope for fiddling under the hood in Linux to get a hook in (worst case you stream to a virtual screen and scrape the bits off it (i.e. the analogue hole))).
I come into work, switch on PC, go and change from cycling cloths to work cloths, login to Windows, go make a coffee and by the time I am back it is up and running (Outlook and FF auto-start. Connect to existing VNC/NX session to do 'real' work.
> This is especially cynical when you see and hear how the British press is always going on about the so-called non-elected bureaucrats in Brussels,
It always makes me laugh when I read this kind of stuff in the press: coming from a country with a non-elected 2nd house, and a non-elected *head of state* (who can dissolve parliament, declare war etc!!).
> Have you tried talking to your kids - maybe telling them the value of keeping appointments?
Of course. (And they know that we will not be too happy if we have to come and search for them.) But their reliability varies, they go through phases of getting home on time and then always being late.
But say they have sport at 5pm. It is 5 minutes before and they are not home. A worst case is it could take 15 minutes or more to scour the area to find them (although you may find them after 1 phone call). And sometimes they are at friends with no one answering the door or the phone. But if you tell them to be home 15 minutes before they have to leave then they will then be punctual and pissed off that they have to hang around for 15 minutes when they could be playing with their friends !!
> They're not robots, you should know...
I do: a robot could be reliably programmed to keep appointments !! And it would have a volume control:-)
Since our kids are old enough to take themselves out to friends, or round the local area it has often been a pain to find them when required (meal times, bedtimes etc). I would love a cheap, small pager for each of them: no worries about it getting nicked or what else they use if for etc like a cellphone. It does not even have to carry a message: beeping means time to come home (or phone in). Size/form is the critical factor: eg integrated into a watch so it is not left at home, or on a friends floor !!
- I would not trust anything the Tory-graph reported:-)
- But mainly I do not trust any *news* website that puts an advert for "Gilly_870 Outgoing, adventurous, positive, funny, and mischievous. I am a very passionate woman, and expect to receive from life what I put into it...." in it's sidebar !!
NSLU2 / Debian / external USB laptop (2.5") drive (not external power). Power measured by DIY-market type power-socket watt meter.
The 5 watts figure was from memory when I first set it up a couple of years ago: I checked my notes and it says 10 watts (working, not idle), but I can not remember if that included the power drawn by the DSL modem.
But I am about to upgrade to a Fit-PC Slim with a built in 2.5" drive: claimed 5 to 7 watts, but I will be disabling the Wifi so I will soon see how it compares (for power draw and performance).
> Standy on desktop doesn't waste that much electricity (10-15Watt) compared to a power off mode (5Watt)
10-15 Watts is *twice* what my always-on file server uses when it is *on* ! Worst case of 15 is 3 times as much waste as 5 watts. Turn off at the socket = 0 watts (I use a remotely wire switch).
> having cops watch how much fuel you put in your car's tank, and checking your mileage after a journey, to make sure you don't speed
Err, respectfully not a good analogy. They *should* watch to see if you speed. They also watch that your car is roadworthy, that you are insured and licensed, that you stop at red lights etc. To me all these are right and good. And, no, you can not *trust* "grown" adults to do this. Without the cops watching over them a hell of a lot of drivers would behave even more irresponsibly than they do: sad but true ?
I am not sure you could call it a "near miss". It was detected automatically during a routine check (you would not say a aircraft "nearly crashed" if a fuel pipe leaked during a pressure test in the maintenance hanger ?).
> int c; >/*Initialize it with the value zero (0)*/
This comment is very likely to be incorrect: at least is is for SPARC/Solaris. I have traced a few bugs down to the assumption that C initializes memory to 0: in practice it *usually* is 0, but *sometimes* it is not:-(
Slashdot Mirror
I am not trying to be PC, but the Beeb missed a great chance to cast a female doctor with a male assistant. They could have written a whole raft of lame jokes about this body change !!
> Why don't they just get on with the computer-driven cars already?
As a software programmer of 20+ years that would scare the **** out of me.
> I would like to remind you all that this is still a very good thing so long as it saves more lives than it kills.
I disagree with that general principle. What if, for example, the total number of road deaths goes down but the number of, say pedestrians or cyclists deaths, goes up. I would find that unacceptable.
To take it to the extreme you could ban all cyclists, horseriders and motorcyclists, and make car drivers wear full face helmets: death and injury would probably go down, but is it acceptable ?
(FWIW I am mainly a cylist and pedestrian, but that should not matter.)
>> And all accross this great nation of ours countless tiny screws are getting lost in the carpet.
> You are overestimating the amount of zune users out there...
And now try to imagine the size of the intersection of Zune owners with people who can use a screwdriver !
I skipped the article as the catagories I am interested in are missing:
- Quiet: e.g. my home PC is in an alcove under the stairs and the kids can hear me in the evening ...)
- Small footprint: for my small home desk, and to bring the mouse closer in
- Best keyboard layout: e.g. the control key should be under the tab key (yes, I know I can re-map it but
(FWIW I have a HH2 that does pretty well on all the above, but a little quieter would be nice !)
Without doubt Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg It had me gripped in a way that no programming book could have :-)
I work as a "Software Consultant" (21 years so far) and 10 years ago I went from the standard 40 hour week to 30 hours when our second child was on the way (FWIW I am male: all the other part-timers at that time were female).
Just recently a friend also went down from 5 to 4 days a week.
IIRC the law here in Germany just changed such that the onus fell on the employer to show a reason why *not* to let you work part-time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/12/introducing_iplayer_deskto.html
In case anyone is wondering this seems to be a variation on this Letter to the Times.
Equally, now long before it is cracked ? (As there is more scope for fiddling under the hood in Linux to get a hook in (worst case you stream to a virtual screen and scrape the bits off it (i.e. the analogue hole))).
I come into work, switch on PC, go and change from cycling cloths to work cloths, login to Windows, go make a coffee and by the time I am back it is up and running (Outlook and FF auto-start. Connect to existing VNC/NX session to do 'real' work.
Going home is similar to shutdown.
Cost to my employer: 0 (Euro)cents.
Maybe I spend too much time on *NIX, but for me:
Virtual Memory = Physical Memory + Swap space.
So the question should then read "Why use a swap file..."
Like this ? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=982541&cid=25230129
> This report comes just as copper prices are plummeting due to the worldwide recession, which should reduce the problem significantly.
Yep: yet again Slashdot is on the cutting edge of news reporting !!
> This is especially cynical when you see and hear how the British press is always going on about the so-called non-elected bureaucrats in Brussels,
It always makes me laugh when I read this kind of stuff in the press: coming from a country with a non-elected 2nd house, and a non-elected *head of state* (who can dissolve parliament, declare war etc!!).
> Have you tried talking to your kids - maybe telling them the value of keeping appointments?
Of course. (And they know that we will not be too happy if we have to come and search for them.) But their reliability varies, they go through phases of getting home on time and then always being late.
But say they have sport at 5pm. It is 5 minutes before and they are not home. A worst case is it could take 15 minutes or more to scour the area to find them (although you may find them after 1 phone call). And sometimes they are at friends with no one answering the door or the phone.
But if you tell them to be home 15 minutes before they have to leave then they will then be punctual and pissed off that they have to hang around for 15 minutes when they could be playing with their friends !!
> They're not robots, you should know...
I do: a robot could be reliably programmed to keep appointments !! And it would have a volume control :-)
Since our kids are old enough to take themselves out to friends, or round the local area it has often been a pain to find them when required (meal times, bedtimes etc).
I would love a cheap, small pager for each of them: no worries about it getting nicked or what else they use if for etc like a cellphone. It does not even have to carry a message: beeping means time to come home (or phone in).
Size/form is the critical factor: eg integrated into a watch so it is not left at home, or on a friends floor !!
- I would not trust anything the Tory-graph reported :-)
- But mainly I do not trust any *news* website that puts an advert for "Gilly_870 ..." in it's sidebar !!
Outgoing, adventurous, positive, funny, and mischievous. I am a very passionate woman, and expect to receive from life what I put into it.
> What file server do you use that is 5watts?
NSLU2 / Debian / external USB laptop (2.5") drive (not external power). Power measured by DIY-market type power-socket watt meter.
The 5 watts figure was from memory when I first set it up a couple of years ago: I checked my notes and it says 10 watts (working, not idle), but I can not remember if that included the power drawn by the DSL modem.
But I am about to upgrade to a Fit-PC Slim with a built in 2.5" drive: claimed 5 to 7 watts, but I will be disabling the Wifi so I will soon see how it compares (for power draw and performance).
> Standy on desktop doesn't waste that much electricity (10-15Watt) compared to a power off mode (5Watt)
10-15 Watts is *twice* what my always-on file server uses when it is *on* !
Worst case of 15 is 3 times as much waste as 5 watts.
Turn off at the socket = 0 watts (I use a remotely wire switch).
> If it's open source, then I can go in, change the code and bypass the whole kit-n-kaboodle, right?
Not sure how this got modded +4 Insightful. You can get Open Source SSH clients and servers but it does not mean you can bypass or decrypt it.
(Without defending DRM)
> having cops watch how much fuel you put in your car's tank, and checking your mileage after a journey, to make sure you don't speed
Err, respectfully not a good analogy. They *should* watch to see if you speed. They also watch that your car is roadworthy, that you are insured and licensed, that you stop at red lights etc. To me all these are right and good. And, no, you can not *trust* "grown" adults to do this. Without the cops watching over them a hell of a lot of drivers would behave even more irresponsibly than they do: sad but true ?
> Linux has already had a near miss back in 2003
I am not sure you could call it a "near miss". It was detected automatically during a routine check (you would not say a aircraft "nearly crashed" if a fuel pipe leaked during a pressure test in the maintenance hanger ?).
> Actually, that comment was for the next line:
> c=0;
Sorry: I looked at it again and you are right (serves me right for posting quickly when I c/should be, errr, doing something else !!).
> int c; /*Initialize it with the value zero (0)*/
>
This comment is very likely to be incorrect: at least is is for SPARC/Solaris. I have traced a few bugs down to the assumption that C initializes memory to 0: in practice it *usually* is 0, but *sometimes* it is not :-(