What was revolutionary about the iMac was the near total dependence on the plug-and-play USB interface. We didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but computers became a lot easier to deal with when one did not have to mess around with a multitude of different interfaces and cables (scsi, parallel, serial, ps2, adb,etc).
Let's see what I have now. USB mouse, keyboard, zip drive, floppy drive, scanner, Palm Pilot cradle, SD/MMC card reader, laser printer, ink-jet printer, web-cam, and link to my digital camera. All hot swappable, all plug and play, and no rebooting.
What is kind of weird is that I can remember when/. posted the story on the introduction of the iMac. Whoa, flames galore!
Thanks for the info. It is likely that they can explain away the temperature, but there is no way they can come up with something that can withstand one million times greater pressure.
Then again, most people "understand" temperature, but are relatively clueless when it comes down to pressure. Try to "dig" under 1 MBar pressure.
The pressure at the core-mantle boundary is greater than 1 megabars (atmospheric pressure on the surface of the earth is about 1 bar). Temperature is greater than 3000 degrees Kelvin.
I can't wait to see how the movie works around this.
At least they don't have to worry about gravity as this remains relatively constant throughout the mantle (one the quirks of Mother Nature).
A long time ago, people actually wrote their own programs to execute these nifty numerical methods. But before you wrote the programs, you first had to understand the methodology.
Getting your hands on someone else's code was a gift from god. I had to do a lot of eigen-analysis, and luckily, my Prof had a serviceable SVD subroutine. Give me the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and I could manipulate them with my own code.
Then case IMSL with their "comprehensive" set of subroutines; fortunately, my grad school purchased a license for IMSL. However, you had to use the mainframe computer (IIRC, a IBM 370), which was slow and old. But wait, somebody had the requirement that the IMSL package had to work with WATFIV.
To compile a WATFIV program, you needed access to ALL the source code!:-) I figured out a way to snatch all the IMSL subroutines that I needed to do my research. Then I snared a copy of LINPACK! Then EISPACK! Back then, the hunt was more fun than the kill.
I should point out, that some my classmates took an undergraduate Differential Equations class; one homework assignment was for them to solve a problem using the Runge-Kutta method. They had to write their own R-K program. Another undergraduate Solid Mechanics class made their students write their own Finite Element analysis program. This was a year-long project, but it did teach them the basics of this relatively new methodology.
After the first showing of Nemesis, a guy comes out of the theater and says, "Whoa, Data got wiped out!" Half the geeks in the ticket line turned pale, checked their beepers, and left in a panic.
And don't forget surface waves (e.g., Love waves) where the general rule of thumb is that the longer the period, the deeper the penetration of motion.:-)
A person named *drunkrussian* has posted information about the handling of classified material/equipment. Potential security breach identified. This person may have access to TOP SECRET information. Protocol XB92 authorized.
This automated security alert generated by the NSA Emergency Russian Detector-Slashdot.
My office is a mess. It is better now, but at one point it looked like a history museum of computing in the 90's. Mac CI's, SGI refrigerator, UNIX workstations, Linux box, laptop, etc...
I'm not a computer tech, I'm a scientist.
My office is still a mess (parts for two new linux systems are lurking about), but I still keep one of the still working Mac CI as it has the what I consider to be the best Easter Egg in its boot prom.
One thing that I will keep is my collection of obsolete computer mice dandling from a hook on a wall. This is my new trophy case.
Perhaps I should frame this with some paper tape, linc tapes, and punch cards.
I had one about ten years ago. A scientific project that I was working on had a press conference (CNN, Boston Globe, PBS, etc... attended). My program was used to display the data, and this program was going to be a central part of the demo.
Unfortunately, I was not the person that would be operating the program. Instead, some "kids" (think 18-20 year old) would run it in front of the media.
Unfortunately, I had to make serious changes to the graphical part of the program (think changing from horizontal to vertical display of data) a few weeks before the demo.
There was a pointer/memory addressing problem that I could not debug. The program would sometimes crash at somewhat random times. I was terrified.
Fortunately, I was asked to introduce the program. This is best that I could do.
"The display that you see is blah, blah, blah. These people are going to demonstrate how they analyze the data. However, I should point out that the program is not fully debugged and there is sometimes problems. If you just saw the movie Jurassic Park,..."
Congratulations! You have been selected to receive our new weather forecast service(*) for absolutely NO COST! This is a valuable limited time offer from the US Government that you do not want to pass up!
Here is our next week's customized forecast for your area.
Sunday: Hazy and humid Monday: Hazy and humid. Tuesday: Hazy and humid. Wednesday: One million degrees, blinding sunlight, and one whomping big ass cloud in the sky. Thurday: Hazy and humid.
So sign up NOW for this limited time offer.
(*)Terms and conditions of this service may be subject to change without prior written notice.
If Sklyarov really wanted to get into the US he should break into some FBI computers. Then he should offer the FBI his paid assistance in fixing the computer security holes.
Oooooh! Best of breed solutions! Superior ease of use! New software ecosystem!
MS Marketing 101.
Who the fuck except for MS talks about a freaking software ecosytem? Please attend the Slashdot Astroturf Class held every Thursday at 10 a.m. to learn the less obvious phrases to use when posting at this site. Thank you.
It took me a while before I got my uid because I had this thing against cookies back then. I was perfectly happy to be an AC. IIRC, the login was instituted because ppl were posting using another person's nick (e.g., pinguion, BoredatWork); initially you had the option of "identifying" yourself.
For some odd reason, my favorite story is still the one about the exploding/self-combustible cow.
This is just to provide some balance to the Hell Atlantic/Verizon horror stories. My home home (DC metro area) went dead so I called BA from work. I was on hold for only a couple of minutes. The service rep quickly identified that the problem was somewhere in my house. They sent a tech out the next day (he showed up in the three hour time window that they gave me). The problem (short) was promptly fixed.
Last year Verizon had a DSL offer; 1st month free, next 3(?) months at a reduced rate, free modem, free line filters, and self installation. If I didn't like the service, I could cancel at no charge, and simply return the equipment. I wanted the free trial period to test what kind of download speed I could get, and I wanted self installation.
Equipment arrive within a week, and the line was ready in another week (actually, one day earlier than they had originally said). I used my Mac to make the initial connection to get some IP addresses, then configured my linux system, and reconnected. Advertised max down stream of 768 Kb/s, about 730 Kb/s from a fast site (e.g., kernel.org). I have yet to witness any downtime.
I've heard the horror stories, but I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.
The more things change, the more they will stay the same.
1) Microsoft will integrate the voting softare into the OS.
2) In Chicago, computerized voting booths will be set up in cemeteries due to high voter registration in those areas.
3) Florida election are a mess due to old people forgetting to hit the submit button. Younger people that immediately follow a senior citizen notice that the touchscreen have either the Dem (left) or Rep (right) icons continuously flashing.
4) Losers of elections will demand a manual recount of the digital votes. State officials eventually declare the vote to be 0xdead to 0xbeef.
5) RIAA and MPAA will attempt to stop the digital transfer of votes for candidates who are former musicians or actors.
Slashdot Mirror
Then we'll have a full byte!
What was revolutionary about the iMac was the near total dependence on the plug-and-play USB interface. We didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but computers became a lot easier to deal with when one did not have to mess around with a multitude of different interfaces and cables (scsi, parallel, serial, ps2, adb,etc).
/. posted the story on the introduction of the iMac. Whoa, flames galore!
Let's see what I have now. USB mouse, keyboard, zip drive, floppy drive, scanner, Palm Pilot cradle, SD/MMC card reader, laser printer, ink-jet printer, web-cam, and link to my digital camera. All hot swappable, all plug and play, and no rebooting.
What is kind of weird is that I can remember when
Thanks for the info. It is likely that they can explain away the temperature, but there is no way they can come up with something that can withstand one million times greater pressure.
Then again, most people "understand" temperature, but are relatively clueless when it comes down to pressure. Try to "dig" under 1 MBar pressure.
The pressure at the core-mantle boundary is greater than 1 megabars (atmospheric pressure on the surface of the earth is about 1 bar). Temperature is greater than 3000 degrees Kelvin.
I can't wait to see how the movie works around this.
At least they don't have to worry about gravity as this remains relatively constant throughout the mantle (one the quirks of Mother Nature).
Rep. Barnhart says, "I am a long-time lurker on Slashdot, so I have been aware of the [open source] issue for some time.
I bet he's a freaking Anonymous Coward! Or worse maybe MEEPT!!!
A long time ago, people actually wrote their own programs to execute these nifty numerical methods. But before you wrote the programs, you first had to understand the methodology.
Getting your hands on someone else's code was a gift from god. I had to do a lot of eigen-analysis, and luckily, my Prof had a serviceable SVD subroutine. Give me the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and I could manipulate them with my own code.
Then case IMSL with their "comprehensive" set of subroutines; fortunately, my grad school purchased a license for IMSL. However, you had to use the mainframe computer (IIRC, a IBM 370), which was slow and old. But wait, somebody had the requirement that the IMSL package had to work with WATFIV.
To compile a WATFIV program, you needed access to ALL the source code!:-) I figured out a way to snatch all the IMSL subroutines that I needed to do my research. Then I snared a copy of LINPACK! Then EISPACK! Back then, the hunt was more fun than the kill.
I should point out, that some my classmates took an undergraduate Differential Equations class; one homework assignment was for them to solve a problem using the Runge-Kutta method. They had to write their own R-K program. Another undergraduate Solid Mechanics class made their students write their own Finite Element analysis program. This was a year-long project, but it did teach them the basics of this relatively new methodology.
I'm going after the admin of the Iraq (.iq) TLD!. No, wait.
After the first showing of Nemesis, a guy comes out of the theater and says, "Whoa, Data got wiped out!" Half the geeks in the ticket line turned pale, checked their beepers, and left in a panic.
Just one note. Ed Case (Steve's cousin) is the new Congressman from Hawaii.
Check this person out. Not bad for a six digit id /.er.:-).
P and S are body waves, and it is 4/3mu not .75mu.
And don't forget surface waves (e.g., Love waves) where the general rule of thumb is that the longer the period, the deeper the penetration of motion.:-)
that the one line I want to hear in a Bond movie is
/. (Sorry, but what kind of post would expect from a guy with craw as his id.)
"Excuse Mr. Bond, but is your shoe ringing?"
BTW, This is the second lamest story I have every seen on
Woop! Woop! Woop! Woop! Woop!
Security Alert! Security Alert!
A person named *drunkrussian* has posted information about the handling of classified material/equipment. Potential security breach identified. This person may have access to TOP SECRET information. Protocol XB92 authorized.
This automated security alert generated by the NSA Emergency Russian Detector-Slashdot.
My office is a mess. It is better now, but at one point it looked like a history museum of computing in the 90's. Mac CI's, SGI refrigerator, UNIX workstations, Linux box, laptop, etc...
I'm not a computer tech, I'm a scientist.
My office is still a mess (parts for two new linux systems are lurking about), but I still keep one of the still working Mac CI as it has the what I consider to be the best Easter Egg in its boot prom.
One thing that I will keep is my collection of obsolete computer mice dandling from a hook on a wall. This is my new trophy case.
Perhaps I should frame this with some paper tape, linc tapes, and punch cards.
A demo with a crash.
..."
I had one about ten years ago. A scientific project that I was working on had a press conference (CNN, Boston Globe, PBS, etc... attended). My program was used to display the data, and this program was going to be a central part of the demo.
Unfortunately, I was not the person that would be operating the program. Instead, some "kids" (think 18-20 year old) would run it in front of the media.
Unfortunately, I had to make serious changes to the graphical part of the program (think changing from horizontal to vertical display of data) a few weeks before the demo.
There was a pointer/memory addressing problem that I could not debug. The program would sometimes crash at somewhat random times. I was terrified.
Fortunately, I was asked to introduce the program. This is best that I could do.
"The display that you see is blah, blah, blah. These people are going to demonstrate how they analyze the data. However, I should point out that the program is not fully debugged and there is sometimes problems. If you just saw the movie Jurassic Park,
The people in Hawaii are going to love this idea!
Congratulations! You have been selected to receive our new weather forecast service(*) for absolutely NO COST! This is a valuable limited time offer from the US Government that you do not want to pass up!
Here is our next week's customized forecast for your area.
Sunday: Hazy and humid
Monday: Hazy and humid.
Tuesday: Hazy and humid.
Wednesday: One million degrees, blinding sunlight, and one whomping big ass cloud in the sky.
Thurday: Hazy and humid.
So sign up NOW for this limited time offer.
(*)Terms and conditions of this service may be subject to change without prior written notice.
Agent Smith got bitch-slapped.
There *eventually* was no wood and that was the problem. Easter Island is the classic example of the dire effects of deforestation.
If Sklyarov really wanted to get into the US he should break into some FBI computers. Then he should offer the FBI his paid assistance in fixing the computer security holes.
Oooooh! Best of breed solutions! Superior ease of use! New software ecosystem!
MS Marketing 101.
Who the fuck except for MS talks about a freaking software ecosytem? Please attend the Slashdot Astroturf Class held every Thursday at 10 a.m. to learn the less obvious phrases to use when posting at this site. Thank you.
Wow, lots of old geezers here.
It took me a while before I got my uid because I had this thing against cookies back then. I was perfectly happy to be an AC. IIRC, the login was instituted because ppl were posting using another person's nick (e.g., pinguion, BoredatWork); initially you had the option of "identifying" yourself.
For some odd reason, my favorite story is still the one about the exploding/self-combustible cow.
This is just to provide some balance to the Hell Atlantic/Verizon horror stories. My home home (DC metro area) went dead so I called BA from work. I was on hold for only a couple of minutes. The service rep quickly identified that the problem was somewhere in my house. They sent a tech out the next day (he showed up in the three hour time window that they gave me). The problem (short) was promptly fixed.
Last year Verizon had a DSL offer; 1st month free, next 3(?) months at a reduced rate, free modem, free line filters, and self installation. If I didn't like the service, I could cancel at no charge, and simply return the equipment. I wanted the free trial period to test what kind of download speed I could get, and I wanted self installation.
Equipment arrive within a week, and the line was ready in another week (actually, one day earlier than they had originally said). I used my Mac to make the initial connection to get some IP addresses, then configured my linux system, and reconnected. Advertised max down stream of 768 Kb/s, about 730 Kb/s from a fast site (e.g., kernel.org). I have yet to witness any downtime.
I've heard the horror stories, but I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.
The more things change, the more they will stay the same.
1) Microsoft will integrate the voting softare into the OS.
2) In Chicago, computerized voting booths will be set up in cemeteries due to high voter registration in those areas.
3) Florida election are a mess due to old people forgetting to hit the submit button. Younger people that immediately follow a senior citizen notice that the touchscreen have either the Dem (left) or Rep (right) icons continuously flashing.
4) Losers of elections will demand a manual recount of the digital votes. State officials eventually declare the vote to be 0xdead to 0xbeef.
5) RIAA and MPAA will attempt to stop the digital transfer of votes for candidates who are former musicians or actors.
Maybe Microsoft did try to use the DMCA to stop this via the DMCA, but they picked the wrong venue.
"All rise! The US District Court is now in session. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson presiding!"
MS: "Oh shit!"