i came across these photos from inside a Google data centre on flickr.com
turns out that they were inadvertently posted up there and were quickly removed because i'd blogged about it. The pictures weren't that remarkable either - just a photo of racks and racks of servers...
"Twenty years ago, it seems there were much more clear and concise paths one could take to learn programming. Now I'm at a loss as to what language and resources I should use."
He hits it on the nail - when i started off on the ZX Spectrum way way back in 1983, it was very very easy to get into programming.
1. Buy zx spectrum 2. Buy Your Sinclair magazine
Your Sinclair was just packed full of Sinclair Basic programs for you to type in - through that, you learned about programming. It really was kind of an open source way of learning about programming and it was just BASIC , but at least it gave my former 12 year old self a leg up and a way in to murky world of coding.
Fast forward to today and i dont see a "Your PHP" or "Your Python" kind of weekly magazine. Dr Dobbs magazine comes close, but that's really seriously high level.
Yeah, i know - PHP and Python have tons of websites, but in reality , a printed magazine on the newstands would make an impact. Maybe we , as in the Slashdot crowd or the more general open source community, should seriously think of going back to "old media" and think about doing a printed monthly magazine with nothing but code in it in order to give the youngsters of today a bit of inspiration.
maybe we've been too self-centred and too self-obsessed with the whole "internet" thing that we've forgotten where we've come from.
we need to reach out and get the kids that dont use the internet involved. maybe that's what might happen over the next few years - new media re-discovers the old media. a kind of influx of new media types into the world of real world publishing.
"May I remind you this is illegal, and unethical"
And what about the "ethics" of the corporate media, spouting of the lies of the Bush administration VERBATIM in the run up to war in Iraq, which lead to the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis (according to British Medical Journal, The Lancet). No wonder folks are bit-torrenting TV shows - cos there's damn all "ethics" being shown right now by the U.S. corporate media.
I did a detailed minute by minute analysis of the main lunchtime bulletin from CNN Europe from 13:00 to 13:30 on Sept 10th 2003. This is a genuine and honest report.
Actual real news is in bold.
Running total of real news is in italics
1300-1301: Brief summary of headlines 1 minute 1301-1303 : Israel/Palestine/Iraq - new Palestinian PM speaking - he gets 15 seconds on air. 3 minutes 1303-1307 - Commentary/opinion by reporter in Israel. That's 4 minutes solid, compared to the Palestinian PMs 15 seconds. Opinion is NOT news.
1307 - 1307 30 seconds - Ariel Sharon coming back from trip abroad 3 minutes 30 secs 1307 30 secs - 1309 - Iraq. Attack on U.S. soldiers 5 minutes 1309 - Commentary/opinion from reporter in Iraq
1310 for 30 seconds - Blair in parliament justifying himself for not finding WMDs. Old news from archives. NOT news.
1310. 30secs - 1313 - Indonesia, Bali bomber trial.7 minutes 30 seconds 1313 Adverts , infomercials
1315-1319 "911 the legacy" - reporter commentary, documentary. Not news.
1319 Adverts, informericals
1321-1324 Weather report
1324-1326 Stock markets 1326-1327 WTO Summit , Cancun 8 minutes 30 secs 1327 RIAA sueing 12 year old 9 minutes 30 secs 1328: Teller, creator of H Bomb dies
40 secs 10 minutes 10 secs 1328 40 secs to 1330 Adverts informericals
So, in my half hour snapshot, I estimated that out of 30 minutes broadcast, only 10 minutes 10 seconds was devoted to actual reporting of hard news - my definition of "hard" news is just that - whats going on in a certain place. Weather forecasts and stock market roundups are not included in that definition (for the purposes of this experiment)
Note the amount of reporting on the WTO Summit. This summit had far reaching consequences for the entire planet, yet it gets a meagre 1 minute, and that is tucked right at the end of the 1/2 hour broadcast. (It was THAT WTO summit that Brazil and others walked out on)
Note also, the complete lack of coverage of anything in Europe , despite the fact that I was watching "CNN Europe".
No wonder folks are switching off the TV. If you did the same analysis for Fox, ABC and any of the other big TV stations, you'll probably get similar results. In the UK the one big exception is Channel 4 News.
"In related news, what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines?"
I'll be upgrading them to Mandrake 10.1 official - they are already on Mandrake 10 and are extremely happy with it. Mother in law is on Mandrake 9.2,uncle in law Mdk 10, and my aunt is on - yes, Mandrake 10.
Just wondering - if lots of other Slashdotters are doing this kind of thing, are we now seeing the growth of the Linux desktop amongst non-tech users, which just isnt covered by Gartner style estimates.
Out of the box , Firefox 1.0 does not have the "new tab" icon in the default toolbar - you have to add it. (Linux version)
A bit strange considering how "tabbed browsing" is one of the key features.
"The NHS covers the UK, not just England. England is not the UK. Scotland+England+Ireland+Wales = UK"
The UK is made up of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland is an independent republic.
Or PHP for example - originally short for "personal home page" , it was a series of perl scripts for tracking who was looking at Ramus Lerdorf's online c.v.
Now its somehow morphed into something that runs millions of websites worldwide. If thats not a good example of Linus's "think small" philosophy, i dont know what is.
Vivek Mehra and Mark Orr , two of the co-founders of Cobalt Networks were ex-Apple , and the cube thing re-appeared with the Cobalt Qube in the late 90s:
Linux has a pretty big market share of web servers - wouldnt THAT be a nice juicy target for spyware?
Why arent the spambot writers targetting Linux servers?
Wouldnt thousands of Linux servers issueing spam be far preferrable to ADSL connected Windows machines?
Sorry, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with market share.
"its a common fact that people really don't care about strangers, but this shirade of caring when the opportunity arises makes me want to puke."
i care a hell of a lot about free software hackers and advocates - even if i dont know them, they've given me a living and keep a roof over my head.
Heck - i probably got advice from Hans via some pseudonym on some Debian message board. THATS why I feel sad tonight. The open source community is just that - a real community. If you can get that, then you should go back to the Microsoft world, where it really IS a dog eat dog, dont give a shit about anyone kind of universe....
you can post condolences to Hans and his family and friends on
this site.
This wikipedia page has already gone up for Hans. So if anyone can find out about his biography and post something up as a lasting memorial to the guy, then please do so. Thanks
"Still, it takes money to run such an amazing resource, and so they are running a fundraiser. The goal is to raise $50,000."
why dont they use Google Adsense?
in order to take off , they had to turn the engine off, then adjust the ailerons. then switch the engine on again.
Then they to adjust the flaps - adjust flaps, turn off engine, restart engine.
When it comes into land, they had to extend the landing gear, turn the engine off and start it up again, but unfortunately, the latest variant of MyDoom (version 15.E for flying XP things) had gotten into it, so the plane flew off to Russia.
"sometimes a drag and drop into firefox would toss a url, but the page wouldnt load? other time i would get an error, other times nothing would happen"
hint:
get a three button mouse.
highlight a url with the left button pressed down.
you can then paste using the middle mouse button.
Slashdot Mirror
i came across these photos from inside a Google data centre on flickr.com turns out that they were inadvertently posted up there and were quickly removed because i'd blogged about it. The pictures weren't that remarkable either - just a photo of racks and racks of servers...
"Twenty years ago, it seems there were much more clear and concise paths one could take to learn programming. Now I'm at a loss as to what language and resources I should use."
He hits it on the nail - when i started off on the ZX Spectrum way way back in 1983, it was very very easy to get into programming.
1. Buy zx spectrum
2. Buy Your Sinclair magazine
Your Sinclair was just packed full of Sinclair Basic programs for you to type in - through that, you learned about programming. It really was kind of an open source way of learning about programming and it was just BASIC , but at least it gave my former 12 year old self a leg up and a way in to murky world of coding.
Fast forward to today and i dont see a "Your PHP" or "Your Python" kind of weekly magazine. Dr Dobbs magazine comes close, but that's really seriously high level.
Yeah, i know - PHP and Python have tons of websites, but in reality , a printed magazine on the newstands would make an impact. Maybe we , as in the Slashdot crowd or the more general open source community, should seriously think of going back to "old media" and think about doing a printed monthly magazine with nothing but code in it in order to give the youngsters of today a bit of inspiration.
maybe we've been too self-centred and too self-obsessed with the whole "internet" thing that we've forgotten where we've come from.
we need to reach out and get the kids that dont use the internet involved. maybe that's what might happen over the next few years - new media re-discovers the old media. a kind of influx of new media types into the world of real world publishing.
just my 2 euros.
"May I remind you this is illegal, and unethical" And what about the "ethics" of the corporate media, spouting of the lies of the Bush administration VERBATIM in the run up to war in Iraq, which lead to the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis (according to British Medical Journal, The Lancet). No wonder folks are bit-torrenting TV shows - cos there's damn all "ethics" being shown right now by the U.S. corporate media.
Actual real news is in bold. Running total of real news is in italics
1300-1301: Brief summary of headlines 1 minute
1301-1303 : Israel/Palestine/Iraq - new Palestinian PM speaking - he gets 15 seconds on air. 3 minutes
1303-1307 - Commentary/opinion by reporter in Israel. That's 4 minutes solid, compared to the Palestinian PMs 15 seconds. Opinion is NOT news.
1307 - 1307 30 seconds - Ariel Sharon coming back from trip abroad 3 minutes 30 secs
1307 30 secs - 1309 - Iraq. Attack on U.S. soldiers 5 minutes
1309 - Commentary/opinion from reporter in Iraq
1310 for 30 seconds - Blair in parliament justifying himself for not finding WMDs. Old news from archives. NOT news.
1310. 30secs - 1313 - Indonesia, Bali bomber trial. 7 minutes 30 seconds
1313 Adverts , infomercials
1315-1319 "911 the legacy" - reporter commentary, documentary. Not news.
1319 Adverts, informericals
1321-1324 Weather report
1324-1326 Stock markets
1326-1327 WTO Summit , Cancun 8 minutes 30 secs
1327 RIAA sueing 12 year old 9 minutes 30 secs
1328: Teller, creator of H Bomb dies 40 secs 10 minutes 10 secs
1328 40 secs to 1330 Adverts informericals
So, in my half hour snapshot, I estimated that out of 30 minutes broadcast, only 10 minutes 10 seconds was devoted to actual reporting of hard news - my definition of "hard" news is just that - whats going on in a certain place. Weather forecasts and stock market roundups are not included in that definition (for the purposes of this experiment)
Note the amount of reporting on the WTO Summit. This summit had far reaching consequences for the entire planet, yet it gets a meagre 1 minute, and that is tucked right at the end of the 1/2 hour broadcast. (It was THAT WTO summit that Brazil and others walked out on)
Note also, the complete lack of coverage of anything in Europe , despite the fact that I was watching "CNN Europe".
No wonder folks are switching off the TV. If you did the same analysis for Fox, ABC and any of the other big TV stations, you'll probably get similar results. In the UK the one big exception is Channel 4 News.
tut tut.
I'll be upgrading them to Mandrake 10.1 official - they are already on Mandrake 10 and are extremely happy with it. Mother in law is on Mandrake 9.2 ,uncle in law Mdk 10, and my aunt is on - yes, Mandrake 10.
Just wondering - if lots of other Slashdotters are doing this kind of thing, are we now seeing the growth of the Linux desktop amongst non-tech users, which just isnt covered by Gartner style estimates.
Out of the box , Firefox 1.0 does not have the "new tab" icon in the default toolbar - you have to add it. (Linux version)
A bit strange considering how "tabbed browsing" is one of the key features.
"The NHS covers the UK, not just England. England is not the UK. Scotland+England+Ireland+Wales = UK"
The UK is made up of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland is an independent republic.
i've linked to that page from my blog over 6 months ago. what slashdotter DOESNT know about it?
old news.
Or PHP for example - originally short for "personal home page" , it was a series of perl scripts for tracking who was looking at Ramus Lerdorf's online c.v.
Now its somehow morphed into something that runs millions of websites worldwide. If thats not a good example of Linus's "think small" philosophy, i dont know what is.
Vivek Mehra and Mark Orr , two of the co-founders of Cobalt Networks were ex-Apple , and the cube thing re-appeared with the Cobalt Qube in the late 90s:
Cobalt Qube and Cobalt history
Linux has a pretty big market share of web servers - wouldnt THAT be a nice juicy target for spyware? Why arent the spambot writers targetting Linux servers? Wouldnt thousands of Linux servers issueing spam be far preferrable to ADSL connected Windows machines? Sorry, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with market share.
Heck - i probably got advice from Hans via some pseudonym on some Debian message board. THATS why I feel sad tonight. The open source community is just that - a real community. If you can get that, then you should go back to the Microsoft world, where it really IS a dog eat dog, dont give a shit about anyone kind of universe....
you can post condolences to Hans and his family and friends on this site.
This wikipedia page has already gone up for Hans. So if anyone can find out about his biography and post something up as a lasting memorial to the guy, then please do so. Thanks
smirking chimp
what really happened
bartcop
atrios
"Still, it takes money to run such an amazing resource, and so they are running a fundraiser. The goal is to raise $50,000." why dont they use Google Adsense?
It was rejected.
"Word Count Tuesday August 03, @06:04AM Rejected "
992-995 america ensure oil opportunity
3046-3051 iraq winner, fucking smooth, nick votes
and in mandrake you've got urpmi
hitler was a rabid anti-communist and threw thousands of them into the death camps. read your history.
you'll also need to untick the "remember me" tick box or else you'll get stupid cookies-are-needed-blah-blah messages...
it's this site: http://www.aa419.org/FlashMob.shtml
yup - i'm definitely NOT doing that at the moment....
seti in dna article : bugmetnot is your friend
in order to take off , they had to turn the engine off, then adjust the ailerons. then switch the engine on again.
Then they to adjust the flaps - adjust flaps, turn off engine, restart engine.
When it comes into land, they had to extend the landing gear, turn the engine off and start it up again, but unfortunately, the latest variant of MyDoom (version 15.E for flying XP things) had gotten into it, so the plane flew off to Russia.
"sometimes a drag and drop into firefox would toss a url, but the page wouldnt load? other time i would get an error, other times nothing would happen" hint: get a three button mouse. highlight a url with the left button pressed down. you can then paste using the middle mouse button.