From the: Who-needs-a-woman-when-you-have-a-video-card dept.
Ok, quick Geek Test: If, upon reading this news post (despite the ditzy title), you did not instantly gasp, shiver, or become aroused, you are NOT a geek. Period.
Which sort of answers my question to my friend after we watched FF for the first time. Is this the top of our abilities in CG? Or was it a matter of the producers saying, "Um...no. We can do a LOT better, but we'd have to wait 100 years for it to build/animate/render instead of 2, so we cut it down to size."
If that is the case, then it's just a matter of BBF (Bigger, Better, Faster (tm)) in terms of hardware before we see something twice as good as FF. Otherwise, if this is the height of skill we have, then we're talking development of new technologies and methods of doing this sort of detail before we see something else come out.
I'm no graphics expert, so maybe someone can answer that question for me. At any rate, the movie still made me shiver. Now I can watch it on my desktop...at 2.5fps, not.4 (dipstick)
From the: I-prefer-to-cuddle-my-own-hard-drive,-thanks dept.
This is not a big surprise, really. Palmtops, laptops, eMachineish types of computers are coming out all over. Cheap, working, closed-case machines for the masses. And the trend will continue, I think....but I think there are other issues at work here.
First, raise your hand if you like to upgrade your machines. Lots? Good. Next, raise your hand if you enjoy upgrading your mother's aunt's sister's machine. No? "But it's soooo slow!" Imagine. She's had it since 1996 and thinks it's slow. I'm flabbergasted.
The point is this: These compact, $300ish, throwaway machines are practical for the masses of lusers in the world looking for a quick, working desktop/Internet PC. They don't care about upgrades, and if it's only $300, so what? Trash it, get another. And there are a lot of us geeks out there who would rather NOT worry about having to try to upgrade it.
Now, I don't know about you, but there's nothing more satisfying than having a good night of tinkering with my hardware. (computer, you sick mind) I'll gladly pay the little extra to get cards that aren't integrated, to get 45 case fans all at the same time, to see the lights dim when my new 540,000RPM hard drive spins up. It's a disease, and I'm infected. And you know what? The machines run great. They just do. Maybe it's the love, maybe it's the time, maybe it's because I know every inch of it. I need my hardware fix. Or repair. Or upgrade. And as long as there's a demand for such systems that allow this, they'll be there.
I think we'll see these disposables before long. But there will be a chasm: disposables for lusers, tweakables for the elite.
This is exactly what we need on the 'net for us sysadmins to read. Failure stories. Why? You don't learn much from success stories, because things worked the first time.
"Welcome to the HOWTO. My setup worked the first time. Why didn't yours?"
Granted, noone wants to see stuff on the 'net go down (and we're glad you're back,/.) But writeups like this one and Steve Gibson's at GCR about the DDOS attacks are priceless. They show what people have tried, what hasn't worked, what did work, and definately where to start the next time.
Really, what Linux (and other geek subjects) need is to have a Great Book of Failure Stories -- writeups like these that detail horrible outages, downtimes, misconfigurations, security hacks, etc., so that we all can learn from other's mistakes.
From the: Damn-that's-neat-but-what's-the-point dept.
Wow! That's some neat physics (only a part of which I understand). But really do you think we'll need to get anywhere near these sizes and amounts?
The time will come when the theory has advanced far enough that we'll drop the Von-Neumian-style of doing computing and go with something a bit more, shall I say, better? The human brain certainly doesn't have anything near those figures of capacity, and it's about 1-2kg, occupies about 1 L^3 of space.
And I don't know about you, but I LOVE the graphics. They are kicking some major ARSE. The refresh rate could be a bit higher, though, I still get blurry vision when stumbling home from the bar.:)
I can't imagine a competitor going to one of your clients and asking for the disk with the source code on it, you know.
Ah, but this is exactly what they would do. And our clients, in their naivete, would cheerfully give it to them. (as they have no idea about computers/software/etc, they just use it because they have to.)
But you have a good point. I guess an important point, as well, is that we don't actually sell our software, we lease it to our clients. When they decide to stop having us as their software people, we go in and delete it from their drives. Barbaric? Perhaps, but it provides some interesting revenue streams for us. Plus, due to the nature of the software, without regular updates, it's worthless.
So, I guess my point is, what legal complications would we be involving ourselves in if we were to make available the source code to our clients for a product they don't actually own?
Well, if your improvement is visibile to the user, then what prevents your competitor from just copying your ideas? After all if they have a lot of money they can re-implement the same features.
True, true. But with our software, it's not the interfaces we're worried about, it's the algorithms. The algorithms that compute the same things that the other guy's software does (just better) are the meat'n'potatoes.
But if you GPL-ed your code, then the competitor could snatch it and use it, but as soon as they wanted to sell their product they would have to release their own source as well. Do you think they would do that?
It seems to me that GPL protects you better than keeping your code secret.
A good, excellent point. And I guess that brings up my next question: Why would a company like us risk our business ventures and put our trust in the GPL when (as far as I know) it has seen little to no court time? Yeah, there's been one or two cases where it has been upheld, but there's no way I'd convince our CEO that it was a good idea. I'm curious for comments on this.
If I paid someone to write code for me, I'd expect to be given the source as well as the binary.
The only reply I have to this (and don't get me confused....I'm a large advocate of the open-source movement) is from the perspective of a small software company, the idea of open source can be very scary.
Here's my example: I work at a small-town Iowa computer firm. We create software in the health industry where competition is tight and our tiny company is certainly overshadowed by many 'big dogs'. We have many good, new ideas on how to make our software do the job for our clients cleaner and better. However, if we don't watch it, we could release a product and one of our larger competitors could easily and quickly copy our idea, exploit it, and make a fortune.
Yes, I hear you out there. Sue! Copyright law! Patents! I agree. And, in theory, that would work. But we're so small of a company that legal action against one of our major competitors would drain company resources to the point of bankruptcy. If a larger company were to infringe on our rights and we took them to court, all they would have to do is some legal filibustering for awhile and it would drain us dry, even if they didn't win.
To that end, then, open source is still a scary idea for us. If we were to publish our code, it would instantly be snatched up and exploited. So, we stick to writing proprietary code and avoiding GPL'ed software altogether. This is fine, we've been doing it for years, but obviously there are a lot of good GPLed ideas out there and my own ethics would LOVE to go open source.
How does this interfere with business? OH, WAIT A MINUTE. It interferes with Mr. Bill Gates's business and profits! Oooops. This must be legislated away!
Certainly I don't think that Mr. Gates' monstrous company would suffer from a little dose of code sharing, but on a smaller scale, I can sympathize and say that yes, sometimes that's the only way we can make profits is to stay closed source.
I started as a summer intern answering tech support calls for the company where I'm currently employed. Granted, tech support stunk sometimes, but this company has a very good attitude about it.
Instead of tech and software support being the sub-department of everything, it is our main business. Sure, we develop and sell software, but the support of that software is where our money is made and our company excels. Why? We have a good attitude about it. The customer is right, the customer deserves quality for their money, and the customer deserves to be treated like a human.
As a result, our clients are known to us by name. I can tell you funny stories about at least a dozen of our clients, by name and city and facility name, either in their personal lives (which we frequently hear about) or their business lives. Until you've spent an hour on the phone with a printer problem, half of the time fixing the problem, the other half discussing the client's new granddaughter, you haven't really had a good tech support experience.
Are our clients receiving more than they pay for? We like to think so. They tend to think so, also. Good biz practice? Well...that can be debated. But I know one thing: Our support staff go home happy and content. And that's worth a lot.
These speakers, if they come about well enough, will be used in places where they're needed, and not in places where competing technology kicks more ass. It's pretty much that way anywhere with any product. I see the following good uses for these:
Computer speakers inside the monitor/laptop screen. Handy, space conservative, and powered by the monitor. Not great sound, but for sound effects and watching CNN live it should be fine.
Center channel speakers on a 5.1 surround system. Get one of these on the screen of the TV and you have the perfect center channel speaker placement. Heck, get really innovative and have several over the surface of the TV, and you can get conversations between two people sounding like they are coming from either side (not that stereo technology doesn't do a lot of this already)
Quick-'n'-easy party-hardy materials. Small, portable CD/MP3 player and a small bag of rollup speakers. Set player ontop of empty beer case, unroll speakers, stick to wall with stickytack, and wha-lah! Instant tunes.
Applications where sound is wanted but conditions are rough: On rafts, boats, skis, snowboards, umbrellas, patios, bathtubs, showers, underpants...you get the picture.
Talk about a revolution in children's books. Pages that have speakers right in them. neat-o.:)
They're not likely to please the audiophile in your midst for hi-fi applications, and anyone watching something like Matrix on them should be shot. But they'll have their (rather vertical) niche and work great....I think it's cool!:)
Power of the Russians
Glory of the Skies
Oldest of man's Satellites
You have inspired the dreams of thousands
Fulfilled the hopes of many
Brightened the eyes of millions
Your trip is now finished
Your journey complete
You have done well
We salute you.
I'm disturbed by this. The small (but growing) sector of the computer community who are hobbyists interested in collecting and maintaining "vintage" computer systems have relied for years upon the fact that HTML standards are backwards compatible. Sure, for my main browsing I don't use my Macintosh SE, but I can, and that simple fact is just cool as all heck. (to me)
I can't run many things on these old computers....you can't play DOOM on my AT&T 6300, I can't play movies on my TI99/4A, and I can't play MP3s on my Mac SE/30. But the simple, basic, root protocols and standards of the Internet still work. Email. Telnet. FTP. HTTP. News. Take these away, and you take away a lot of usefulness in our hobby, our older machines, and our enjoyment.
So when will the "new standards" of the telnet protocol push our text consoles into oblivion? I rue that day.
DO take care not to dissolve a bunch of these handy-dandy packing nuts in water all at once. I've managed to plug up a drain very tightly due to my efforts in trying to dissolve a bunch. Take them slow and easy, through a garbage disposal if you have the ability.
Remember, these things are starch. Starch (like potatoes, rice, etc) plugs drains if not given lots of water.
Request for Comments:
To be Numbered
A Standard for the Transmission of Encrypted IP Datagrams on WASP
Status of this Memo
This memo describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of
IP datagrams on WASP (Wide-Area Sperm Protocol). This specification is primarily
useful wooded areas. This is an experimental, not
recommended standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Overview and Rational
WASP transmissions offer encryption with the complexity of DNA encoding with the
convenience of naturally-occuring encoding methods via reproductive methods.
The connection topology is limited to any vessel which may carry the
encrypted datagrams; however, encryption and decryption of the data must
be done within the confines of the reproductive genitalia of a WASP
carrier. Thusly, the throughput of data is limited
to the ability of the WASP to make the necessary connections with other
WASPs during the transmission interval. Note that high-bandwidth transmissions
are not recommended, as the carrier may die from repeated use and packets will
be lost.
Frame Format
The IP datagram is submitted in the form of a complex protein strand which the
WASP ingests. This is then translated into a DNA fragment in the SM (Sperm Module)
and encrypted by the bacterial cultures within the host carrier. Transmission
may then commence. During transmission, various system messages may be transmitted
via broadcast datagrams. Some of these possible messages are:
"0100: SYSTEM: HONEY HAVE YOU COME YET?"
"0233: SYSTEM: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE POKING THAT THING!"
"0355:/dev/penile0: Device not responding"
"0556: module 'p0rn' not found: Unable to continue"
Upon transmission to the receiving host, the datagram is decrypted using similar methods
and produces the requested result.
Discussion
Transmission quality of service (QoS) is dependent upon the level of low-lighting
and available singular-typed WASP carriers. High transmission rates are most often found
in alleys behind popular adult establishments and in dorm rooms of universities.
Security Considerations
Security is guaranteed by the complex encoding system; however, precautions should be
made to keep such transmissions away from RAID devices, as this could cause premature
data loss. Other outside influences, such as TROJAN viruses, may keep the data from reaching
its intended recipient.
It seems to me that the bulk of "beautiful code" which is produced today is that which is still written in an editor at a low level to be compiled on the fly or to do low-level, system-admin type of stuffs. (IE: Perl, shell, etc.)
Since making it through the scads of OOP methodologies and theories in college, I have seen little to nothing in the way of high-level (C++, Java, Smalltalk, PowerScript) languages that come even close to the pure genius of a nicely written Perl function.
Is it just me, or have our fancy compilers and IDEs and methodologies removed from us that intricate, complicated, horribly frustrating task of doing low-level, compact work that now we rarely see something of beauty? When was the last time you read some good assembly that just made you smile because it was so damn clever?
Swiss watches still sell well because they have something that the $5 digital watch from Wal-mart doesn't. Intricacy of the parts, the beauty of the syncronization of movement, the pure elegance in physics.
Part of what draws me so deep into TMBG's music is the deeper meanings that your lyrics instill in myself. Although all lyrics by any artist may be taken many ways, it has always seemed to me that TMBG's lyrics promote thinking deeper about the song, its meaning, and the feelings of the songwriter.
In a world where much of the new, "popular" music coming out (Spears, Aguilera, Martin, et al) which promotes the "party time" atmosphere and "think with your crotch, not with your mind" mentality, how does TMBG shape their mission in songwriting and performances to keep their unique, mind-intensive style going? How do you keep from falling into that "lesser-meaning-lyrics" groove?
On a side note, when are you coming back to Iowa?:) Thanks for answering!
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Can we expect the 2.4 baby source by Christmas? I'm curious, was the baby on time? Or early? I can't imagine early. Anyone ever heard of a kernel developer producing early?:)
Nonetheless, congratulations to Linus on his most recent successful compile. Now let's just hope he remembered to include CONFIG_POTTYTRAIN_EASY in the makefile.
One of the great delusions of the consumer era is that donating is better than throwing out. It's true, to some
extent, but you're making the assumption that people want your old crap
I think a good attitude towards the situation is: "Try to donate it or give it away. If that doesn't work, recycle or dispose of properly."
The thing I see most often is that people don't even THINK of trying to give it away or donate it, they just head it towards the trash can. The only reason I own a very nice Apple//e computer is because my uncle just happened to hear from my father that I collect computers. Otherwise, this nice little collectors item would have been buried in a deep hole on an Iowa farm along with a bunch of other garbage. I'd like to see such situations be fewer.
When I said, "for the cost of shipping" I meant that hobbyists will often gladly pay the shipping if you will donate the parts for free to them. I didn't mean to imply that they would require the business to pay the shipping.
Good idea if your parts are broken. However, if they're not, consider donating or selling them to someone who wants them. There are TONS of computer collectors out there that would LOVE to take computers off your hands for the cost of shipping, provided they work. The older, the better. There's several Computer Shelters [1][2] and other "low end" computer sites [3] that have hobbyists just searching for parts and machines. There are listservs, Vintage Computer Organizations and, of course, the effervescent Obsolete Computer Museum site.
If nothing else, please forward messages of machines available for pickup or shipping to: computershelter@computershelter.org
and I'll be happy to pass them on to hobbyists who would love to take them off your hands. Some of use the computers for our collections and to learn about older technologies, some of us clean them up and give them to children and impovershed families in our area to give them a piece of technology.
If it's broken, dispose of properly. But if it isn't, please donate and keep them in use!
From the: Didn't-you-watch-the-browser-X-files? dept.
Is it just me, really? I'm a Netscape fan, I'll admit it. But this release of Netscape 6 has had me feeling queasy each step of the way. Reviews have been poor, the interface is clunky, the bugs have been numerous....
...does it seem like a bad software nightmare to anyone else? I would like to have faith in this, really I would. I'm just finding a lack of.....solidarity in their methods and procedures, I guess. You know, it was NETSCAPE 3!, NETSCAPE 3 GOLD!, NETSCAPE 4.X!, and now it's: netscape6??? This isn't a software release, this is a software leak.
Excuse me? Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?
In exactly the same way, I cannot do productive work in the morning hours. Instead, I read/. and other webpages, email, and think about things I need to do. But I am not a morning person, yet I have to be into work about 8-8:30ish.
I have some flex in that. Most employees here are required to be in from 7:30-4:30 or 5. That is because they are support staff and our support hours for our software are 7:30-5pm. If they aren't here, calls don't get answered, people get upset. However, I'm a programmer; the calls and customers don't rely upon my skills directly. Therefore, it's entirely acceptable for me to come in later if it suits me better.
The reason I really can't "flex" more than 30 minutes or so is because the other employees look down upon me for it. Even if I stay till 5:30 or 6 to get my hours in, they still feel resentment at the fact that I come in later some days. I think part of the goal of making flex time work well is educating your employees on why flex time is being used and what it does for your employees and company as a whole. I know I would be much happier if I was able to flex more than I do and not have people upset with me.
Slashdot Mirror
From the: Who-needs-a-woman-when-you-have-a-video-card dept.
.4 (dipstick)
Ok, quick Geek Test: If, upon reading this news post (despite the ditzy title), you did not instantly gasp, shiver, or become aroused, you are NOT a geek. Period.
Which sort of answers my question to my friend after we watched FF for the first time. Is this the top of our abilities in CG? Or was it a matter of the producers saying, "Um...no. We can do a LOT better, but we'd have to wait 100 years for it to build/animate/render instead of 2, so we cut it down to size."
If that is the case, then it's just a matter of BBF (Bigger, Better, Faster (tm)) in terms of hardware before we see something twice as good as FF. Otherwise, if this is the height of skill we have, then we're talking development of new technologies and methods of doing this sort of detail before we see something else come out.
I'm no graphics expert, so maybe someone can answer that question for me. At any rate, the movie still made me shiver. Now I can watch it on my desktop...at 2.5fps, not
From the: I-prefer-to-cuddle-my-own-hard-drive,-thanks dept.
This is not a big surprise, really. Palmtops, laptops, eMachineish types of computers are coming out all over. Cheap, working, closed-case machines for the masses. And the trend will continue, I think....but I think there are other issues at work here.
First, raise your hand if you like to upgrade your machines. Lots? Good. Next, raise your hand if you enjoy upgrading your mother's aunt's sister's machine. No? "But it's soooo slow!" Imagine. She's had it since 1996 and thinks it's slow. I'm flabbergasted.
The point is this: These compact, $300ish, throwaway machines are practical for the masses of lusers in the world looking for a quick, working desktop/Internet PC. They don't care about upgrades, and if it's only $300, so what? Trash it, get another. And there are a lot of us geeks out there who would rather NOT worry about having to try to upgrade it.
Now, I don't know about you, but there's nothing more satisfying than having a good night of tinkering with my hardware. (computer, you sick mind) I'll gladly pay the little extra to get cards that aren't integrated, to get 45 case fans all at the same time, to see the lights dim when my new 540,000RPM hard drive spins up. It's a disease, and I'm infected. And you know what? The machines run great. They just do. Maybe it's the love, maybe it's the time, maybe it's because I know every inch of it. I need my hardware fix. Or repair. Or upgrade. And as long as there's a demand for such systems that allow this, they'll be there.
I think we'll see these disposables before long. But there will be a chasm: disposables for lusers, tweakables for the elite.
This is exactly what we need on the 'net for us sysadmins to read. Failure stories. Why? You don't learn much from success stories, because things worked the first time.
/.) But writeups like this one and Steve Gibson's at GCR about the DDOS attacks are priceless. They show what people have tried, what hasn't worked, what did work, and definately where to start the next time.
"Welcome to the HOWTO. My setup worked the first time. Why didn't yours?"
Granted, noone wants to see stuff on the 'net go down (and we're glad you're back,
Really, what Linux (and other geek subjects) need is to have a Great Book of Failure Stories -- writeups like these that detail horrible outages, downtimes, misconfigurations, security hacks, etc., so that we all can learn from other's mistakes.
From the: Damn-that's-neat-but-what's-the-point dept.
:)
Wow! That's some neat physics (only a part of which I understand). But really do you think we'll need to get anywhere near these sizes and amounts?
The time will come when the theory has advanced far enough that we'll drop the Von-Neumian-style of doing computing and go with something a bit more, shall I say, better? The human brain certainly doesn't have anything near those figures of capacity, and it's about 1-2kg, occupies about 1 L^3 of space.
And I don't know about you, but I LOVE the graphics. They are kicking some major ARSE. The refresh rate could be a bit higher, though, I still get blurry vision when stumbling home from the bar.
I can't imagine a competitor going to one of your clients and asking for the disk with the source code on it, you know.
Ah, but this is exactly what they would do. And our clients, in their naivete, would cheerfully give it to them. (as they have no idea about computers/software/etc, they just use it because they have to.)
But you have a good point. I guess an important point, as well, is that we don't actually sell our software, we lease it to our clients. When they decide to stop having us as their software people, we go in and delete it from their drives. Barbaric? Perhaps, but it provides some interesting revenue streams for us. Plus, due to the nature of the software, without regular updates, it's worthless.
So, I guess my point is, what legal complications would we be involving ourselves in if we were to make available the source code to our clients for a product they don't actually own?
Well, if your improvement is visibile to the user, then what prevents your competitor from just copying your ideas? After all if they have a lot of money they can re-implement the same features.
True, true. But with our software, it's not the interfaces we're worried about, it's the algorithms. The algorithms that compute the same things that the other guy's software does (just better) are the meat'n'potatoes.
But if you GPL-ed your code, then the competitor could snatch it and use it, but as soon as they wanted to sell their product they would have to release their own source as well. Do you think they would do that?
It seems to me that GPL protects you better than keeping your code secret.
A good, excellent point. And I guess that brings up my next question: Why would a company like us risk our business ventures and put our trust in the GPL when (as far as I know) it has seen little to no court time? Yeah, there's been one or two cases where it has been upheld, but there's no way I'd convince our CEO that it was a good idea. I'm curious for comments on this.
If I paid someone to write code for me, I'd expect to be given the source as well as the binary.
The only reply I have to this (and don't get me confused....I'm a large advocate of the open-source movement) is from the perspective of a small software company, the idea of open source can be very scary.
Here's my example: I work at a small-town Iowa computer firm. We create software in the health industry where competition is tight and our tiny company is certainly overshadowed by many 'big dogs'. We have many good, new ideas on how to make our software do the job for our clients cleaner and better. However, if we don't watch it, we could release a product and one of our larger competitors could easily and quickly copy our idea, exploit it, and make a fortune.
Yes, I hear you out there. Sue! Copyright law! Patents! I agree. And, in theory, that would work. But we're so small of a company that legal action against one of our major competitors would drain company resources to the point of bankruptcy. If a larger company were to infringe on our rights and we took them to court, all they would have to do is some legal filibustering for awhile and it would drain us dry, even if they didn't win.
To that end, then, open source is still a scary idea for us. If we were to publish our code, it would instantly be snatched up and exploited. So, we stick to writing proprietary code and avoiding GPL'ed software altogether. This is fine, we've been doing it for years, but obviously there are a lot of good GPLed ideas out there and my own ethics would LOVE to go open source.
How does this interfere with business? OH, WAIT A MINUTE. It interferes with Mr. Bill Gates's business and profits! Oooops. This must be legislated away!
Certainly I don't think that Mr. Gates' monstrous company would suffer from a little dose of code sharing, but on a smaller scale, I can sympathize and say that yes, sometimes that's the only way we can make profits is to stay closed source.
You know who's going to jump on this, don't you?
Charmin
Combine it with Playboy and you have a whole new protocol: PTP (Porn via TP)
HONEY?! What the *hell* were you looking at???
From the gosh-not-ANOTHER-customer dept.
I started as a summer intern answering tech support calls for the company where I'm currently employed. Granted, tech support stunk sometimes, but this company has a very good attitude about it.
Instead of tech and software support being the sub-department of everything, it is our main business. Sure, we develop and sell software, but the support of that software is where our money is made and our company excels. Why? We have a good attitude about it. The customer is right, the customer deserves quality for their money, and the customer deserves to be treated like a human.
As a result, our clients are known to us by name. I can tell you funny stories about at least a dozen of our clients, by name and city and facility name, either in their personal lives (which we frequently hear about) or their business lives. Until you've spent an hour on the phone with a printer problem, half of the time fixing the problem, the other half discussing the client's new granddaughter, you haven't really had a good tech support experience.
Are our clients receiving more than they pay for? We like to think so. They tend to think so, also. Good biz practice? Well...that can be debated. But I know one thing: Our support staff go home happy and content. And that's worth a lot.
These speakers, if they come about well enough, will be used in places where they're needed, and not in places where competing technology kicks more ass. It's pretty much that way anywhere with any product. I see the following good uses for these:
- Computer speakers inside the monitor/laptop screen. Handy, space conservative, and powered by the monitor. Not great sound, but for sound effects and watching CNN live it should be fine.
- Center channel speakers on a 5.1 surround system. Get one of these on the screen of the TV and you have the perfect center channel speaker placement. Heck, get really innovative and have several over the surface of the TV, and you can get conversations between two people sounding like they are coming from either side (not that stereo technology doesn't do a lot of this already)
- Quick-'n'-easy party-hardy materials. Small, portable CD/MP3 player and a small bag of rollup speakers. Set player ontop of empty beer case, unroll speakers, stick to wall with stickytack, and wha-lah! Instant tunes.
- Applications where sound is wanted but conditions are rough: On rafts, boats, skis, snowboards, umbrellas, patios, bathtubs, showers, underpants...you get the picture.
- Talk about a revolution in children's books. Pages that have speakers right in them. neat-o.
:)
They're not likely to please the audiophile in your midst for hi-fi applications, and anyone watching something like Matrix on them should be shot. But they'll have their (rather vertical) niche and work great....I think it's cool!To a Star:
Power of the Russians
Glory of the Skies
Oldest of man's Satellites
You have inspired the dreams of thousands
Fulfilled the hopes of many
Brightened the eyes of millions
Your trip is now finished
Your journey complete
You have done well
We salute you.
Rest in Peace
Mir
23 March 2001
From the My-8086-can-out-browse-your-8086 dept.
I'm disturbed by this. The small (but growing) sector of the computer community who are hobbyists interested in collecting and maintaining "vintage" computer systems have relied for years upon the fact that HTML standards are backwards compatible. Sure, for my main browsing I don't use my Macintosh SE, but I can, and that simple fact is just cool as all heck. (to me)
I can't run many things on these old computers....you can't play DOOM on my AT&T 6300, I can't play movies on my TI99/4A, and I can't play MP3s on my Mac SE/30. But the simple, basic, root protocols and standards of the Internet still work. Email. Telnet. FTP. HTTP. News. Take these away, and you take away a lot of usefulness in our hobby, our older machines, and our enjoyment.
So when will the "new standards" of the telnet protocol push our text consoles into oblivion? I rue that day.
2001-03-27 07:35:22
Ya know, I want to see Dick Clark count this one down.
DO take care not to dissolve a bunch of these handy-dandy packing nuts in water all at once. I've managed to plug up a drain very tightly due to my efforts in trying to dissolve a bunch. Take them slow and easy, through a garbage disposal if you have the ability.
Remember, these things are starch. Starch (like potatoes, rice, etc) plugs drains if not given lots of water.
To be Numbered
A Standard for the Transmission of Encrypted IP Datagrams on WASP
Status of this Memo
This memo describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of IP datagrams on WASP (Wide-Area Sperm Protocol). This specification is primarily useful wooded areas. This is an experimental, not recommended standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Overview and Rational
WASP transmissions offer encryption with the complexity of DNA encoding with the convenience of naturally-occuring encoding methods via reproductive methods. The connection topology is limited to any vessel which may carry the encrypted datagrams; however, encryption and decryption of the data must be done within the confines of the reproductive genitalia of a WASP carrier. Thusly, the throughput of data is limited to the ability of the WASP to make the necessary connections with other WASPs during the transmission interval. Note that high-bandwidth transmissions are not recommended, as the carrier may die from repeated use and packets will be lost.
Frame Format
The IP datagram is submitted in the form of a complex protein strand which the WASP ingests. This is then translated into a DNA fragment in the SM (Sperm Module) and encrypted by the bacterial cultures within the host carrier. Transmission may then commence. During transmission, various system messages may be transmitted via broadcast datagrams. Some of these possible messages are:
- "0100: SYSTEM: HONEY HAVE YOU COME YET?"
- "0233: SYSTEM: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE POKING THAT THING!"
- "0355:
/dev/penile0: Device not responding"
- "0556: module 'p0rn' not found: Unable to continue"
Upon transmission to the receiving host, the datagram is decrypted using similar methods and produces the requested result.Discussion
Transmission quality of service (QoS) is dependent upon the level of low-lighting and available singular-typed WASP carriers. High transmission rates are most often found in alleys behind popular adult establishments and in dorm rooms of universities.
Security Considerations
Security is guaranteed by the complex encoding system; however, precautions should be made to keep such transmissions away from RAID devices, as this could cause premature data loss. Other outside influences, such as TROJAN viruses, may keep the data from reaching its intended recipient.
Is that a Cray SuperCluster vibrating in your jeans pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
From the: Borland-has-nothing-on-Van-Gogh dept.
It seems to me that the bulk of "beautiful code" which is produced today is that which is still written in an editor at a low level to be compiled on the fly or to do low-level, system-admin type of stuffs. (IE: Perl, shell, etc.)
Since making it through the scads of OOP methodologies and theories in college, I have seen little to nothing in the way of high-level (C++, Java, Smalltalk, PowerScript) languages that come even close to the pure genius of a nicely written Perl function.
Is it just me, or have our fancy compilers and IDEs and methodologies removed from us that intricate, complicated, horribly frustrating task of doing low-level, compact work that now we rarely see something of beauty? When was the last time you read some good assembly that just made you smile because it was so damn clever?
Swiss watches still sell well because they have something that the $5 digital watch from Wal-mart doesn't. Intricacy of the parts, the beauty of the syncronization of movement, the pure elegance in physics.
Part of what draws me so deep into TMBG's music is the deeper meanings that your lyrics instill in myself. Although all lyrics by any artist may be taken many ways, it has always seemed to me that TMBG's lyrics promote thinking deeper about the song, its meaning, and the feelings of the songwriter.
:) Thanks for answering!
In a world where much of the new, "popular" music coming out (Spears, Aguilera, Martin, et al) which promotes the "party time" atmosphere and "think with your crotch, not with your mind" mentality, how does TMBG shape their mission in songwriting and performances to keep their unique, mind-intensive style going? How do you keep from falling into that "lesser-meaning-lyrics" groove?
On a side note, when are you coming back to Iowa?
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:)
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Can we expect the 2.4 baby source by Christmas? I'm curious, was the baby on time? Or early? I can't imagine early. Anyone ever heard of a kernel developer producing early? :)
Nonetheless, congratulations to Linus on his most recent successful compile. Now let's just hope he remembered to include CONFIG_POTTYTRAIN_EASY in the makefile.
One of the great delusions of the consumer era is that donating is better than throwing out. It's true, to some extent, but you're making the assumption that people want your old crap
//e computer is because my uncle just happened to hear from my father that I collect computers. Otherwise, this nice little collectors item would have been buried in a deep hole on an Iowa farm along with a bunch of other garbage. I'd like to see such situations be fewer.
I think a good attitude towards the situation is: "Try to donate it or give it away. If that doesn't work, recycle or dispose of properly."
The thing I see most often is that people don't even THINK of trying to give it away or donate it, they just head it towards the trash can. The only reason I own a very nice Apple
A clarification of the above...
When I said, "for the cost of shipping" I meant that hobbyists will often gladly pay the shipping if you will donate the parts for free to them. I didn't mean to imply that they would require the business to pay the shipping.
From the: Make-your-neighbor-child-giddy dept.
Good idea if your parts are broken. However, if they're not, consider donating or selling them to someone who wants them. There are TONS of computer collectors out there that would LOVE to take computers off your hands for the cost of shipping, provided they work. The older, the better. There's several Computer Shelters [1] [2] and other "low end" computer sites [3] that have hobbyists just searching for parts and machines. There are listservs, Vintage Computer Organizations and, of course, the effervescent Obsolete Computer Museum site.
If nothing else, please forward messages of machines available for pickup or shipping to: computershelter@computershelter.org and I'll be happy to pass them on to hobbyists who would love to take them off your hands. Some of use the computers for our collections and to learn about older technologies, some of us clean them up and give them to children and impovershed families in our area to give them a piece of technology.
If it's broken, dispose of properly. But if it isn't, please donate and keep them in use!
From the: Didn't-you-watch-the-browser-X-files? dept.
...does it seem like a bad software nightmare to anyone else? I would like to have faith in this, really I would. I'm just finding a lack of.....solidarity in their methods and procedures, I guess. You know, it was NETSCAPE 3!, NETSCAPE 3 GOLD!, NETSCAPE 4.X!, and now it's: netscape6??? This isn't a software release, this is a software leak.
Is it just me, really? I'm a Netscape fan, I'll admit it. But this release of Netscape 6 has had me feeling queasy each step of the way. Reviews have been poor, the interface is clunky, the bugs have been numerous....
Excuse me? Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?
In exactly the same way, I cannot do productive work in the morning hours. Instead, I read /. and other webpages, email, and think about things I need to do. But I am not a morning person, yet I have to be into work about 8-8:30ish.
I have some flex in that. Most employees here are required to be in from 7:30-4:30 or 5. That is because they are support staff and our support hours for our software are 7:30-5pm. If they aren't here, calls don't get answered, people get upset. However, I'm a programmer; the calls and customers don't rely upon my skills directly. Therefore, it's entirely acceptable for me to come in later if it suits me better.
The reason I really can't "flex" more than 30 minutes or so is because the other employees look down upon me for it. Even if I stay till 5:30 or 6 to get my hours in, they still feel resentment at the fact that I come in later some days. I think part of the goal of making flex time work well is educating your employees on why flex time is being used and what it does for your employees and company as a whole. I know I would be much happier if I was able to flex more than I do and not have people upset with me.