I had my boss get me a tablet about 10 months ago. I find it very handy for some things, and not for others. Much like any piece of technology.
For taking notes during classes or seminars I like it a lot. For letting my 3 year old draw pictures, it's great. IMO it would be great for students in class. For reading PDF's the portrait mode is great because I can finally see the whole page, and I can read it in a natural position.
For network admining, it's terrible. I hate trying to fix a server problem with it.
Basically it's suitability is based on what your intended application is. Just like anything else.
While the B-52's 40+ years of service is impressive it's about 40 years behind another weapon that is still in use in the US military. I'm talking about the Browning M2HB.50 caliber machine gun. It was introduced in 1918 and is still in widespread use today and to the best of my knowledge no-one has even suggested looking for a replacement. A marvel of design IMO. During it's lifetime almost every other small arm of the US has been replaced multiple times.
I don't know about your ADSL provider, but here one of the big advantages of ADSL is that you don't need a second phone line. The ADSL traffic is a high frequency signal that runs parallel to your voice traffic. They even provide filters for your phones if you get noise on them from the signal.
Slightly different story in the middle of nowhere
on
Feature: Getting DSL
·
· Score: 1
Maybe it's just because I was one of the first, or maybe it's because there is less demand for it out here, but I didn't have any problems (at all) getting my DSL service.
I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my ISP recently dropped all support for dial-ups and went strictly DSL and faster. I'm sure they were aiming at the business market, but lo and behold they got me and my home LAN.
Here's a brief summary of what it took for me to get ADSL.
1. Bitched and moaned about them dropping dial-up service and having to consider other ISP's and changing my web site, my e-mail address, and in general having to do a whole lot of crap that I didn't want to do.
2. Did some quick math on current monthly cost vs. ADSL monthly cost. ADSL came out $.50 more per month over 2 lines and modems.
3 Ordered ADSL, signed a 1 year agreement to get the Cisco 675 for free (no monthly fee). Got locked into the promo rate for a year (39.50/month for the line).
4. 8 days after dropping off my paperwork I get a call that my Cisco is ready.
5. I stop by and get my Cisco, and get a pleasant surprise. I have a range of 30 static IP address that I can assign as I see fit on my home LAN.
6. Go home and hook my Cisco into the uplink port on my hub, assign IP addresses, call my ISP because I forgot to get the DNS address, finish configuring my computer.
7. Begin surfing.
I have to say installing ADSL was probably the most painless thing I've done in a while for what it gave me. I have a 384K/120K which costs me a grand total of 59.50 per month.
I have found my ISP (binary.net) to be probably the most lenient, customer oriented, ISP in Nebraska when it comes to ADSL service.
I can:
* run servers on my LAN * assign my own IP addresses * register my own domain and they'll host it for no additional charge.
If there are any other/.'ers in the Lincoln area I highly recommend them.
I guess sometimes it pays to live in the middle of nowhere.
Ok, I see where you're going with this. You may be right. Personally if I were designing a system that allowed me to track my computer hardware I wouldn't put the ID in the processor. I would put it in a dedicated chip which is in a non-removable mount on the motherboard. This would allow the processor to be upgraded without changing the system ID. Also, I think you're looking too far down the road. The level of pervasiveness that you are talking about is at least a couple years away, plus you have to have the wiring infrastructure in place to take advantage of it.
I know that toaster and light fixture companies aren't going to be producing software upgradable products anytime soon (I watch the home tech news pretty closely). Probably by the time smart technology has gone to the point you are looking at, a whole new set of issues will crop up. And I'm betting that the privacy nuts are still going to be screaming.
Once again I see that individual machine tracking via an ID chip being desirable for businesses (especially large businesses), but not especially desirable or useful for homes.
But as you say, it's not technology (or anything else) that's bad, it's how it is used that has the potential for being bad. (The gun reference is very telling)
It will be interesting to see what kind of compromise the privacy nuts and the techies come to.
I can see what you are saying about the usefulness of an ID, but that usefulness is specific to the type of environement that you are working in. For 98% of home users and probably 50+% of small businesses there is no use for a chip ID.
Also, with the inherent security, stability, and myriad of other flaws that the predominant OS of home/small business users, it's undoubtably better that a potential privacy flaw like the PIII ID is not put in place to be exploited.
Intel, and AMD produce their chips for the "low" end of the computer food chain. Maybe ID's are appropriate and necessary for chips at the higher end of the food chain, but I really don't believe they are at the end I operate at. Having a chip ID on a $5000 chip makes sense, on a $100 chip why bother?
I think if Intel and AMD want to push their chips up the food chain, then they should optimize them for that purpose, possibly by including an ID so that that they can fit in with the higher end chips that they are competing against.
A view from a former disaffected high schooler
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
As someone that experienced much the same environment in high school I think I have a better understanding of these boys than I might otherwise have.
First some background.
I grew up in a rural (very rural) community (pop. 2000). In my high school there were some things that were accepted as the norm, and if you weren't a part of those things, you were excluded and looked down upon. Those activities were, athletics, drinking, and that was about it. Well I wasn't in sports, I didn't (and still don't) drink, I was heavily into computers, thought gaming was the greatest thing ever, and I took all the "hard" classes. Not exactly a recipe for social success in Podunkville, USA. Now it is normal for people to want to be accepted, and I was no different in high school, but I didn't feel that acceptance was worth abandoning what I found fulfilling.
Still, I had a lot of anger towards my classmates, and with a few incidents happening differently, I might have wound up a statistic like the boys in Littleton. Access to guns was no problem, I had been shooting them since I was 9, and my father trusted me to be responsible with them. I collected knives, swords, and other assorted weaponry, and upon occasion even carried them to school.
What was the difference then?
I have to say that it was my parents. They gave me the attention I needed and the acceptance I required, while teaching me the values, and principles that showed me how to work through my anger without expressing it in a way that would cause injury to others.
A big part of that was my father instilling in me a bone deep respect for what guns can do, and the habits that are required for their safe operation. The first thing he taught me was that guns are not toys and should not be viewed that way. I firmly believe that everyone should be taught gun safety, and if everyone was, there would be a lot less accidents where someone gets hurt.
Now with the Littleton boys, I'm sure that their parents are probably going to blame the games, the internet, the alignment of the stars at their birth, and maybe even break out the lawyers for a lawsuit, but I think they are mainly to blame. The anger that these boys held wasn't caused by any of those things. They merely provided an outlet (ultimately an inadequate outlet) for them to express their anger.
So where did this anger come from?
Like me they wanted acceptance, and they didn't get it. Perhaps they were more persecuted than me, or maybe they just didn't handle it as well, but either way it made them angry. Judging from what I've been able to glean from the media, I'd say their families are pretty well off (driving a BMW to school?), which tells me that the odds of their parents being very work-centric are good. So maybe their parents didn't give them the attention they wanted, this could add to the anger that they had from being ostracized.
As I look at the aftermath of the shootings I wonder.
Where were their parents when they were gathering their weapons, and building their bombs? Building bombs, especially in the quantity they had, is not something that is accomplished quickly or easily. I heard one report that the neighbors complained about the noise they were making in the garage (presumably while they were making the bombs). If the neighbors could hear them it's reasonable to assume so could the parents.
What saddens me is that the boys were by all reports very bright, and could have been very successful if they had been able to deal with their anger. If someone would have taken the time to instill discipline, values, and a sense of self-worth in these boys, and give them the validation that they desired, they and 13 others would most likely not be dead right now.
Today I can look back on high school and see that it made me a stronger person for the adversity that I endured, but it could have all too easily have broken me.
I find it tragic that this happened, but an even greater tragedy would be if no lessons are learned from it.
Would be any of the Rebel Assault family. From what I've seen they are totally arcade with very little in the way of mission restriction and other features common in more in depth games like X-wing and it's family.
I planning my next computer upgrade, and I am leaning towards an AMD chip. I would be upgrading from a P200 MMX to a AMD K6-2 333. Has anyone had experience with both of these chips and the performance they give? I'm using a Supermicro motherboard and I'm trying to put off buying a new motherboard for a while. I'd really appreciate any first hand info I can get on AMD chips especially from someone who is using them on a Supermicro motherboard.
Why is it hat whenever Linux and Notes are mentioned together that we have a whole bunch of people jump on how bad Notes sucks (I disagree but I'm willing to let other people think what they want)? I use Notes every day, I admin it, I develop "applications" in it and in general I find it to be a well behaved application. I would LOVE it if I could ditch my NT servers and run Notes on Linux. I just don't understand why when people see that something is being ported to Linux we have to have a 100 people saying how that software is crap and it's a waste of time to port it. Well people I've got news for you; Notes is a jack-of-all-trades. It doesn't do very many things great, but it does do a LOT of different things, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a SINGLE application that allows you the potential to do so much.
Slashdot Mirror
I had my boss get me a tablet about 10 months ago. I find it very handy for some things, and not for others. Much like any piece of technology.
For taking notes during classes or seminars I like it a lot. For letting my 3 year old draw pictures, it's great. IMO it would be great for students in class. For reading PDF's the portrait mode is great because I can finally see the whole page, and I can read it in a natural position.
For network admining, it's terrible. I hate trying to fix a server problem with it.
Basically it's suitability is based on what your intended application is. Just like anything else.
Novell's NDS is available for Windows, Linux, Solaris, and several other OS's. It's very secure, very easy to administer, and very, very stable.
My network uses it for Netware, and NT, and I've toyed with adding a Linux server into the mix.
While the B-52's 40+ years of service is impressive it's about 40 years behind another weapon that is still in use in the US military. I'm talking about the Browning M2HB .50 caliber machine gun. It was introduced in 1918 and is still in widespread use today and to the best of my knowledge no-one has even suggested looking for a replacement. A marvel of design IMO. During it's lifetime almost every other small arm of the US has been replaced multiple times.
I don't know about your ADSL provider, but here one of the big advantages of ADSL is that you don't need a second phone line. The ADSL traffic is a high frequency signal that runs parallel to your voice traffic. They even provide filters for your phones if you get noise on them from the signal.
Maybe it's just because I was one of the first, or maybe it's because there is less demand for it out here, but I didn't have any problems (at all) getting my DSL service.
/.'ers in the Lincoln area I highly recommend them.
I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my ISP recently dropped all support for dial-ups and went strictly DSL and faster. I'm sure they were aiming at the business market, but lo and behold they got me and my home LAN.
Here's a brief summary of what it took for me to get ADSL.
1. Bitched and moaned about them dropping dial-up service and having to consider other ISP's and changing my web site, my e-mail address, and in general having to do a whole lot of crap that I didn't want to do.
2. Did some quick math on current monthly cost vs. ADSL monthly cost. ADSL came out $.50 more per month over 2 lines and modems.
3 Ordered ADSL, signed a 1 year agreement to get the Cisco 675 for free (no monthly fee). Got locked into the promo rate for a year (39.50/month for the line).
4. 8 days after dropping off my paperwork I get a call that my Cisco is ready.
5. I stop by and get my Cisco, and get a pleasant surprise. I have a range of 30 static IP address that I can assign as I see fit on my home LAN.
6. Go home and hook my Cisco into the uplink port on my hub, assign IP addresses, call my ISP because I forgot to get the DNS address, finish configuring my computer.
7. Begin surfing.
I have to say installing ADSL was probably the most painless thing I've done in a while for what it gave me. I have a 384K/120K which costs me a grand total of 59.50 per month.
I have found my ISP (binary.net) to be probably the most lenient, customer oriented, ISP in Nebraska when it comes to ADSL service.
I can:
* run servers on my LAN
* assign my own IP addresses
* register my own domain and they'll host it for no additional charge.
If there are any other
I guess sometimes it pays to live in the middle of nowhere.
Rand
Ok, I see where you're going with this. You may be right. Personally if I were designing a system that allowed me to track my computer hardware I wouldn't put the ID in the processor. I would put it in a dedicated chip which is in a non-removable mount on the motherboard. This would allow the processor to be upgraded without changing the system ID. Also, I think you're looking too far down the road. The level of pervasiveness that you are talking about is at least a couple years away, plus you have to have the wiring infrastructure in place to take advantage of it.
I know that toaster and light fixture companies aren't going to be producing software upgradable products anytime soon (I watch the home tech news pretty closely). Probably by the time smart technology has gone to the point you are looking at, a whole new set of issues will crop up. And I'm betting that the privacy nuts are still going to be screaming.
Once again I see that individual machine tracking via an ID chip being desirable for businesses (especially large businesses), but not especially desirable or useful for homes.
But as you say, it's not technology (or anything else) that's bad, it's how it is used that has the potential for being bad. (The gun reference is very telling)
It will be interesting to see what kind of compromise the privacy nuts and the techies come to.
I can see what you are saying about the usefulness of an ID, but that usefulness is specific to the type of environement that you are working in. For 98% of home users and probably 50+% of small businesses there is no use for a chip ID.
Also, with the inherent security, stability, and myriad of other flaws that the predominant OS of home/small business users, it's undoubtably better that a potential privacy flaw like the PIII ID is not put in place to be exploited.
Intel, and AMD produce their chips for the "low" end of the computer food chain. Maybe ID's are appropriate and necessary for chips at the higher end of the food chain, but I really don't believe they are at the end I operate at. Having a chip ID on a $5000 chip makes sense, on a $100 chip why bother?
I think if Intel and AMD want to push their chips up the food chain, then they should optimize them for that purpose, possibly by including an ID so that that they can fit in with the higher end chips that they are competing against.
As someone that experienced much the same environment in high school I think I have a better understanding of these boys than I might otherwise have.
First some background.
I grew up in a rural (very rural) community (pop. 2000). In my high school there were some things that were accepted as the norm, and if you weren't a part of those things, you were excluded and looked down upon. Those activities were, athletics, drinking, and that was about it. Well I wasn't in sports, I didn't (and still don't) drink, I was heavily into computers, thought gaming was the greatest thing ever, and I took all the "hard" classes. Not exactly a recipe for social success in Podunkville, USA. Now it is normal for people to want to be accepted, and I was no different in high school, but I didn't feel that acceptance was worth abandoning what I found fulfilling.
Still, I had a lot of anger towards my classmates, and with a few incidents happening differently, I might have wound up a statistic like the boys in Littleton. Access to guns was no problem, I had been shooting them since I was 9, and my father trusted me to be responsible with them. I collected knives, swords, and other assorted weaponry, and upon occasion even carried them to school.
What was the difference then?
I have to say that it was my parents. They gave me the attention I needed and the acceptance I required, while teaching me the values, and principles that showed me how to work through my anger without expressing it in a way that would cause injury to others.
A big part of that was my father instilling in me a bone deep respect for what guns can do, and the habits that are required for their safe operation. The first thing he taught me was that guns are not toys and should not be viewed that way. I firmly believe that everyone should be taught gun safety, and if everyone was, there would be a lot less accidents where someone gets hurt.
Now with the Littleton boys, I'm sure that their parents are probably going to blame the games, the internet, the alignment of the stars at their birth, and maybe even break out the lawyers for a lawsuit, but I think they are mainly to blame. The anger that these boys held wasn't caused by any of those things. They merely provided an outlet (ultimately an inadequate outlet) for them to express their anger.
So where did this anger come from?
Like me they wanted acceptance, and they didn't get it. Perhaps they were more persecuted than me, or maybe they just didn't handle it as well, but either way it made them angry. Judging from what I've been able to glean from the media, I'd say their families are pretty well off (driving a BMW to school?), which tells me that the odds of their parents being very work-centric are good. So maybe their parents didn't give them the attention they wanted, this could add to the anger that they had from being ostracized.
As I look at the aftermath of the shootings I wonder.
Where were their parents when they were gathering their weapons, and building their bombs? Building bombs, especially in the quantity they had, is not something that is accomplished quickly or easily. I heard one report that the neighbors complained about the noise they were making in the garage (presumably while they were making the bombs). If the neighbors could hear them it's reasonable to assume so could the parents.
What saddens me is that the boys were by all reports very bright, and could have been very successful if they had been able to deal with their anger. If someone would have taken the time to instill discipline, values, and a sense of self-worth in these boys, and give them the validation that they desired, they and 13 others would most likely not be dead right now.
Today I can look back on high school and see that it made me a stronger person for the adversity that I endured, but it could have all too easily have broken me.
I find it tragic that this happened, but an even greater tragedy would be if no lessons are learned from it.
Would be any of the Rebel Assault family. From what I've seen they are totally arcade with very little in the way of mission restriction and other features common in more in depth games like X-wing and it's family.
I planning my next computer upgrade, and I am leaning towards an AMD chip. I would be upgrading from a P200 MMX to a AMD K6-2 333. Has anyone had experience with both of these chips and the performance they give? I'm using a Supermicro motherboard and I'm trying to put off buying a new motherboard for a while. I'd really appreciate any first hand info I can get on AMD chips especially from someone who is using them on a Supermicro motherboard.
Thanks in advance,
Rand
Why is it hat whenever Linux and Notes are mentioned together that we have a whole bunch of people jump on how bad Notes sucks (I disagree but I'm willing to let other people think what they want)? I use Notes every day, I admin it, I develop "applications" in it and in general I find it to be a well behaved application. I would LOVE it if I could ditch my NT servers and run Notes on Linux. I just don't understand why when people see that something is being ported to Linux we have to have a 100 people saying how that software is crap and it's a waste of time to port it. Well people I've got news for you; Notes is a jack-of-all-trades. It doesn't do very many things great, but it does do a LOT of different things, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a SINGLE application that allows you the potential to do so much.