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User: The+Andersor

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  1. National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis/Baltimore on Ask Slashdot: Science Sights To See? · · Score: 1

    The National Cryptologic Museum in the Baltimore/Annapolis area is a pretty cool site to see. I remember going there in high school... I also remember being one of the very few kids who enjoyed it, so it must be geeky!

  2. Longer Lasting Memory? on Apple Adds Memory Randomization To Leopard · · Score: 1

    I've read that many solid state forms of memory (Flash, etc) have a limited lifespan in terms of the number of writes performed on an individual memory address. I also understand that this life cycle is very large, but could this be a way to balance the load on a given memory address over time? Would that then suggest that Apple will follow suit with (I forget who it was) who released a laptop with a Flash based drive instead of a spinning disk HD?

  3. Camera vs Video Software on Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter · · Score: 1

    Dozens of posts so far and no one has pointed out that the camera seems to have nothing to do with this recognition at all. It's the computer (and its software) to which the camera is attached (even via a network when applicable) that is the important part of this puzzle. Casino's employ tons of security staff to watch the dozens of security screens/cameras. The same is true for police and DOT's also employ tons of people to watch their screens. These people are being paid to "interpret" the images that they see. This new development has nothing to do with the cameras, but rather the software on the attached computer that interprets the video images from the many cameras.

  4. Re:[Nearly] Pointless Hack on Lego Mindstorms + Lasers · · Score: 1

    Agreed. I teach Robotics using the Lego Mindstorms (we still use the RCX's) and this is truly a waste of a light sensor. I've seen lasers used with these Lego kits before, but they actually detected objects beyond the range of any other sensor on the market (even the ultrasonic proximity sensors from Mindsensors and HiTechnic). Of course the objects had to be covered in a specific reflective material, but still a lot cooler than this hack. He may as well have simply taped the laser pointer to the arm of the robot instead of wasting a perfectly good light sensor...

  5. Dupe? How about a DRMPA? on Sony to Settle Spyware Suit with Downloads? · · Score: 1

    It seems ScuttleMonkey and CmdrTaco need to communicate a little better...

    Posted previously by CmdrTaco on December 29th:

    "Sony BMG and a group of class action lawyers have reached a provisional settlement in the U.S. Sony rootkit class actions. Sony will pay cash compensation and give away free downloads from a choice of music download services including Apple iTunes as part of the deal. The settlement includes a host of restrictions on future Sony DRM use, which Michael Geist argues provides the starting point for a future Digital Rights Management Protection Act."


    In fact, the previous post delves deeper into the issue by suggesting that this might be that start of a bigger DRM Protection Act, much more valuable than just reporting (a week later) the proposed settlement. I like the closing line of Geist's argument the best...

    "Rather than pushing for protection for DRMs, it is apparent that we need protection from DRMs and DRMPA would be a smart step in that direction. Such a statute would be the best legacy of the Sony rootkit fiasco."

  6. Re:Motorcycle Maintena, New Machine, and Just For on A Programmer's Bookshelf · · Score: 1

    Oops, the subject should have read... Motorcycle Maintenance, New Machine, and Just For Fun

  7. Motorcycle Maintena, New Machine, and Just For Fun on A Programmer's Bookshelf · · Score: 1

    My own personal bookshelf includes a multitude of Java textbooks and references (I'm a high school CS teacher), one of which is programming.java by Decker and Hirshfield which was my college textbook in CS 141 and 142 and good ole HamTech. I also have my other college texts: Structured Computer Organization by Tanenbaum, Fundamentals of Sequential and Parallel Algorithms by Berman and Paul, Programming Languages by Sethi, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell and Norvig and a handful of reference materials (Learning GNU Emacs, Java in a Nutshell, C++ for Java Programmers, The Practice of Programming, and Learning the UNIX Operating System). But by far, the two books that I have in my collection that I would recommend are Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Persig and Soul of a New Machine by Kidder. Both were required reading in college CS courses, the profs in the dept thought that if we were to graduate with a CS degree, these were two books that we needed to read, they were right. Excellent books, and something more interesting as a gift than a reference book. The third book to suggest would be Just For Fun by Torvalds and Diamond. While I haven't read it myself yet, I thought it would be helpful to include two suggestions of books that I have read and one that is on my wish list...

  8. Re:Mail.app subscriptions? on Apple Announces Tiger Release Date · · Score: 1

    How about Conferences in FirstClass? FirstClass is great for our school environment, but I would love to be using Mail for all of that. I realize that Mail probably won't be able to work with things like the Home Page Folder in FirstClass, but I can live with that if I can just get our Faculty Info and Campus News conferences to show up in Mail...

  9. Moogle? on Setting up a High-Tech Language School? · · Score: 2, Informative


    Has anyone used Moogle?

    Don't you mean Moodle, the online educational tool similar to Blackboard or WebCT? Moodle can be a great tool to assist the classroom experience; we're testing it out in my department and will hopefully deploy it throughout our private prep school for the next academic year.

  10. Abstinence may suck, but it works! on Handling User Grown Machines on a Large Network? · · Score: 1

    We used SOPHOS at my college and simply refused to allow a student machine on the campus network until SOPHOS was installed on it and set up to get its virus definitions from our central source. We gave every student a CD with a simple double click installer that did everything for them. Once they ran the installer the last step of the installer was to notify the IT dept with a bit of machine info so that we could allow their machine to function on the network. And to solve the question about what happens when you reinstall Windows is solved by SOPHOS as it is able to generate a daily report of all machines on the network that are not running SOPHOS. When we found a machine not on the network that wasn't using SOPHOS, we would simply disallow all connections to and from that machine, no matter what network jack they plugged into. We also sent them an email (knowing they would use a friends computer to check their email before they called us) informing them that in order to restore their service they would need to bring their machine to us and have SOPHOS installed and setup to run full-time. If they didn't call us in a day, we called them and left them the same friendly message. After the initial onslaught of machines in Sept, we dealt with about 3-5 machines per week that did not have SOPHOS running. I should mention that this was a small college on a hill with about 1700 students, so it may not be the answer for everyone, but it certainly worked well for us!