since no-one's shipping Linux based censorware and most libraries aren't set up for managing proxy-based ones - a side effect of this is going to mean that you aren't going to see any Linux-based public terminals in libraries.....
Fortunately those 30 minute time slots that libraries dole out are just about the right time to do a quite redhat install.....
I'm slightly far-sighted (or long-sighted for those in other countries) - do these things cause eyestrain? - or do they somehow get your eyes to focus at infinity>
How did this happen? The leading electronics companies couldn't agree on what formats to include, and the FCC simply caved in to corporate big brother, and included them all.
Well it's not as silly as all that - basicly all those standards are variations on a couple of themes and because they're all digital with enough gates and software you can do basicly anything - and since the sets are all going to be digital then so long as they build good enough scalers/filters into the sets then we can make any format look OK on almost any sized screen.
The important thing they did do was force the TV guys to finally agree to square pixels - otherwise we'd have had a really painfull TV/Computer convergence.
I predict that within 3 years we will all become armchair 'experts' on scalers - or at least at looking at a TV in the store and judging the artifacts - adverts will tout the number of taps, bits of precision, etc etc all to a public who will just buy the thing with the bigest number.
You've probably heard a big fuss about 'set top boxes' - basicly the idea is that the electronics that do smart stuff like understand all those different formats and do the pretty scaling are going to sit in a box you can replace fairly easily while the TV's just a big expensive monitor (this way you can also get a set top box to use with your old-type TV).
Of course they also want your set-top box to be your web/mail client so they can sell you a net connection thru your cable and a game console so you can lease games and a TiVo/VCR and....
But then what we all need are open-source set-top boxes so we can download the latest TV goodies into them.
how about 64-bit kernel time - so we can start implementing those future file systems with an end-of-time that's way way out there - I know we have untill 2038.... but then 40 odd years ago in 1960 people were putting 2 digit dates in their cobol and look where it got us.....
writing and literacy for the masses (I'm talking about the quill here)...
But the electric hand drier? they don't even work right. Although I did once see one of those optically trigered ones with a sign "for a word from place 1$ in the slot below".... it sounded just like him
I know the uplink on DSL is slower but this seems perfect for someone who want to put up an NT based server (or router:-) - you don't have to look at the ads if the monitor's been detached
well if they can't ban people copying them (and we all know this is true - and surely they do too) then what are they trying to protect? It could only be 2 things:
decryption (ie who is allowed to build players) - maybe they want to force everyone to join the DVD/MPEG patent pool?
encryption (ie who can create DVDs) - maybe they want to protect the people who master to DVD or the film studios themselves?
Anyway enough paranoia - one thing to realise - the 'net makes a lot of tradition ways to distribute media obsolete - there are a lot of people out there who make big bucks distributing music, software, movies/video, books... you name it there's an industry out there which exists purely for the the purpose of taking a (big) cut while getting stuff on to media and into our houses.
All these people are obsolete - most of them probably don't know it yet - they are going to fight like hell for their piece of the pie as it starts to get smaller.
'Copyright' was a usefull law when setting up a printing press and typesetting a book were a large capital investment - you could lose it if you got caught - but when anyone can toss something through a provate xerox machine in their house it's a prettyuseless law. The same thing that happened with paper and xeroxes is happening now with most of the traditional media and the net. It's going to change the world and whether the people making money off the old ways like it or not they are toast in the long run.
What we do need to find is a way for artists (musicians, actors, directors, writers, programmers) - people who make the stuff that goes ON the media - to make money off of their labors. Without the middle men we will all prosper and grow - consumers will cheaper products, artists will get a bigger cut (100%!).
The problem is how can we do this - how can we start a different way to pay for stuff - one that's fair for everyone? (and open source - that I think IS hard). There are alternate payment mechanisms out there already (www.kagi.com is one that's been very successfull for small programmers)
Maybe it's time we get a bit proactive about demanding better thought out I/O solutions for our systems.
In particular I want to make sure that future I/O controllers handle scatter-loaded pages well - this means some sort of MMU/TLB type structure in the I/O interface (either a fully fledged page table walker or a unibus-adaptor style software managed mapper) - these always seem to get added on after the fact (for example AGP's GART that doesn't handle cache coherency well). The problem is that such an object isn't part of a bus interface protocol - it's part of an interface chip and it's going to be a different, complex register interface for every manufacturer - the manufacturers are going to provide drivers for WinXX - Linux (and other OSs) are going to have to write drivers for all of them - we need either a standard piece of hardware (register interface) or a BIOS flexible enough to be used by all potential client OSs.
On the OS side we need to be thinking ahead too - I'm also looking forward to seeing closed-box computers - they're going to get smaller and cheaper, there's no reason why I should have these monster computer boxes all over my room - what it costs to make an enclosure EMI proof is amazing - I want sealed ones - a whole bunch of little ones that I can plug new stuff in to upgrade - want a faster CPU - replace the old one - it's just a box with a CPU and memory - want more disk - buy a new box, drop it on the desk and plug it in (don't reboot - why would we want to do that), want to watch DVD? bring the TV from the other room, plug it in. We're starting to see some of this with USB - we're going to see more in the coming year with Bluetooth.... devices that appear while they are close to their hosts and disappear as they move away - I suspect that this technology is going to become ubiquitous for things like headsets, laptops, PDAs, maybe even printers.
Up untill now we've require people to shut off the power and open a box in order to stuff a card into a slot when we add new functionality to a computer - I think that in the future that will be the exception (maybe only for memory upgrades) rather than the rule.
Rambus is strictly limited in distance it can cover (the article is talking about 10,000 ft buses, rambus is really limited to a few inches). For this reason while it maymake a great memory bus (esp for big memory systems with lots of banks) it's not going to make a good I/O bus.
It also doesn't support multiple masters so the host would have to poll I/O devices to get data, or have other external pins to control data flow
can it move data at (or close to) DRAM transfer speeds?
can you hot-pug things into it?
how many things can you plug into it?
how is it clocked? - probably the most important - clock skew between multiple wires on a bus severely limits max clock speed over long distances - while a single self-clocked data stream can go on for almost forever [or untill the bits smear together]
I'm not trying to be unkind, but just think of what could happen if kids get the idea that even gays can get this kind of prestige. This is the kind of thing that destroys the foundation of America: our families.
In our family they are just that - family - my kids see the gay and lesbian family members and friends as no different than anyone else - like any kids they respect the people their parents do. Oh yeah and my son's best friend at school has 2 moms.
The world has changed - it's not going back to the dark ages of bigotry and repression.
As for knowing gay hackers, I've never met one. I suppose they must exist, probably out in California. But I wouldn't want to encourage my sons to become like them.
We even have a lesbian hacker in our circle of close friends - if my son (or daughter) becomes as good a programmer as her I'll be a proud father
Me, I'm all set with my '72 Mercedes 240D, which has almost as much carrying capacity of a Hummer, and a lot more class. Armaments are wanting though. I'll have to mount a custom potato cannon on the roof.
Hah - my solar powered electric motor scooter will keep running for years longer than your monstrosity.... and my spud gun will continue to defend me long after you run out of hairspray for your cannon...... mind you potatos are going to be worth their weight in gold.... people will be lining up to be shot at......
You really can access their web pages by side-stepping the front pages, even start to open an account on-line (I had no desire to actually finish the process)... at one point it midst mention of Quicken adn other stuff it wanted me to 'download an application' - I decided not to thinking I'd get some M$ code.... then realized it was a PDF file.... oh - an old fashioned account application.....
But the best part was on their page entitled "About Encryption":
For a 40-bit key there are 240 possible different combinations. For a 128-bit key (the level of encryption that Citibank requires) there are 2128 possible different combinations.
"Ooooh.... 2128 possible combinations - the power of large numbers will keep me safe..... no one will guess my key".... after the fit of sarchasm subsided I realised that some bonehead web designer who knows nothing about encryption had dropped a "^" or two
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately those 30 minute time slots that libraries dole out are just about the right time to do a quite redhat install .....
beleive it or not - Karl Marx (the same guy who said the capitalists would take over the world - for a while - so far he's been right :-)
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions" .... extra points for knowing the original author of the quote (see followup ....)
I'm slightly far-sighted (or long-sighted for those in other countries) - do these things cause eyestrain? - or do they somehow get your eyes to focus at infinity>
Well it's not as silly as all that - basicly all those standards are variations on a couple of themes and because they're all digital with enough gates and software you can do basicly anything - and since the sets are all going to be digital then so long as they build good enough scalers/filters into the sets then we can make any format look OK on almost any sized screen.
The important thing they did do was force the TV guys to finally agree to square pixels - otherwise we'd have had a really painfull TV/Computer convergence.
I predict that within 3 years we will all become armchair 'experts' on scalers - or at least at looking at a TV in the store and judging the artifacts - adverts will tout the number of taps, bits of precision, etc etc all to a public who will just buy the thing with the bigest number.
You've probably heard a big fuss about 'set top boxes' - basicly the idea is that the electronics that do smart stuff like understand all those different formats and do the pretty scaling are going to sit in a box you can replace fairly easily while the TV's just a big expensive monitor (this way you can also get a set top box to use with your old-type TV).
Of course they also want your set-top box to be your web/mail client so they can sell you a net connection thru your cable and a game console so you can lease games and a TiVo/VCR and ....
But then what we all need are open-source set-top boxes so we can download the latest TV goodies into them.
heh - that's funny and ironic - arch-net-Luddite Cliff's not only making money selling stuff on the web but now he's been slashdotted.
not your father's century ....
yup - instant world-wide 25% Linux market share
you mean I could buy a large piece of MicroSoft software ... and actually end up paying what it's really worth?
how about 64-bit kernel time - so we can start implementing those future file systems with an end-of-time that's way way out there - I know we have untill 2038 .... but then 40 odd years ago in 1960 people were putting 2 digit dates in their cobol and look where it got us .....
Maybe it's time for an open-source settop box OS/browser ......
oops should have said "for a word from [insert name of fave politico here] place 1$ in the slot below"
But the electric hand drier? they don't even work right. Although I did once see one of those optically trigered ones with a sign "for a word from place 1$ in the slot below" .... it sounded just like him
What can we in the linux community do to make Linux more accessible and available to kids in schools?
I know the uplink on DSL is slower but this seems perfect for someone who want to put up an NT based server (or router :-) - you don't have to look at the ads if the monitor's been detached
- decryption (ie who is allowed to build players) - maybe they want to force everyone to join the DVD/MPEG patent pool?
- encryption (ie who can create DVDs) - maybe they want to protect the people who master to DVD or the film studios themselves?
Anyway enough paranoia - one thing to realise - the 'net makes a lot of tradition ways to distribute media obsolete - there are a lot of people out there who make big bucks distributing music, software, movies/video, booksAll these people are obsolete - most of them probably don't know it yet - they are going to fight like hell for their piece of the pie as it starts to get smaller.
'Copyright' was a usefull law when setting up a printing press and typesetting a book were a large capital investment - you could lose it if you got caught - but when anyone can toss something through a provate xerox machine in their house it's a prettyuseless law. The same thing that happened with paper and xeroxes is happening now with most of the traditional media and the net. It's going to change the world and whether the people making money off the old ways like it or not they are toast in the long run.
What we do need to find is a way for artists (musicians, actors, directors, writers, programmers) - people who make the stuff that goes ON the media - to make money off of their labors. Without the middle men we will all prosper and grow - consumers will cheaper products, artists will get a bigger cut (100%!).
The problem is how can we do this - how can we start a different way to pay for stuff - one that's fair for everyone? (and open source - that I think IS hard). There are alternate payment mechanisms out there already (www.kagi.com is one that's been very successfull for small programmers)
In particular I want to make sure that future I/O controllers handle scatter-loaded pages well - this means some sort of MMU/TLB type structure in the I/O interface (either a fully fledged page table walker or a unibus-adaptor style software managed mapper) - these always seem to get added on after the fact (for example AGP's GART that doesn't handle cache coherency well). The problem is that such an object isn't part of a bus interface protocol - it's part of an interface chip and it's going to be a different, complex register interface for every manufacturer - the manufacturers are going to provide drivers for WinXX - Linux (and other OSs) are going to have to write drivers for all of them - we need either a standard piece of hardware (register interface) or a BIOS flexible enough to be used by all potential client OSs.
On the OS side we need to be thinking ahead too - I'm also looking forward to seeing closed-box computers - they're going to get smaller and cheaper, there's no reason why I should have these monster computer boxes all over my room - what it costs to make an enclosure EMI proof is amazing - I want sealed ones - a whole bunch of little ones that I can plug new stuff in to upgrade - want a faster CPU - replace the old one - it's just a box with a CPU and memory - want more disk - buy a new box, drop it on the desk and plug it in (don't reboot - why would we want to do that), want to watch DVD? bring the TV from the other room, plug it in. We're starting to see some of this with USB - we're going to see more in the coming year with Bluetooth .... devices that appear while they are close to their hosts and disappear as they move away - I suspect that this technology is going to become ubiquitous for things like headsets, laptops, PDAs, maybe even printers.
Up untill now we've require people to shut off the power and open a box in order to stuff a card into a slot when we add new functionality to a computer - I think that in the future that will be the exception (maybe only for memory upgrades) rather than the rule.
It also doesn't support multiple masters so the host would have to poll I/O devices to get data, or have other external pins to control data flow
In our family they are just that - family - my kids see the gay and lesbian family members and friends as no different than anyone else - like any kids they respect the people their parents do. Oh yeah and my son's best friend at school has 2 moms.
The world has changed - it's not going back to the dark ages of bigotry and repression.
As for knowing gay hackers, I've never met one. I suppose they must exist, probably out in California. But I wouldn't want to encourage my sons to become like them.
We even have a lesbian hacker in our circle of close friends - if my son (or daughter) becomes as good a programmer as her I'll be a proud father
What's that got to do with them having great minds? being great hackers? I know lots of gay hackers - it has nothing to do with how well they code.
Hopefully we will have left this sort of bigotry in the old millenium (ending in just under a year - you have that long to shape up :-)
Turing has to be in there
maybe M. Curie, Einstein, the guy who invented 0 (maybe that was the previous millenium
Hah - my solar powered electric motor scooter will keep running for years longer than your monstrosity .... and my spud gun will continue to defend me long after you run out of hairspray for your cannon ...... mind you potatos are going to be worth their weight in gold .... people will be lining up to be shot at ......
2 way
is ham all private or is it also commercial?
Private
is ham radio sort of like a bbs type community?
yes - but often with an RF techy orientation (you get to build your own gear)
do you meet new people on ham radio or talk to ones you meat in real life?
both
what kind of transmit ranges are possible?
worldwide
But the best part was on their page entitled "About Encryption":
For a 40-bit key there are 240 possible different combinations. For a 128-bit key (the level of encryption that Citibank requires) there are 2128 possible different combinations.
"Ooooh .... 2128 possible combinations - the power of large numbers will keep me safe ..... no one will guess my key" .... after the fit of sarchasm subsided I realised that some bonehead web designer who knows nothing about encryption had dropped a "^" or two