I was fortunate to live near a Xerox campus in the 1980s. The techs would go to a customer site, diagnose Xerox Star problems down to th FRU (which was typically an entire board), replace said FRU, then dump the 'bad' boards in a giant bin. Once a month you could go to the Xerox field service office and buy stuff out of the bin for a buck a board. I and my friends built several CP/M boxes out of these boards (they were mostly Z80 based) complete with 8" floppies. I remember that one of mine had a fancy switching power supply mounted with rubber bands and toothpicks, and a voice synthesizer built up from Radio Shack parts hangng off of a parallel port. That's back when home computing was actually interesting...
I was fortunate to live near a Xerox campus in the 1980s. The techs would go to a customer site, diagnose Xerox Star problems down to th FRU (which was typically an entire board), replace said FRU, then dump the 'bad' boards in a giant bin. Once a month you could go to the Xerox field service office and buy stuff out of the bin for a buck a board. I and my friends built several CP/M boxes out of these boards (they were mostly Z80 based) complete with 8" floppies. I remember that one of mine had a fancy switching power supply mounted with rubber bands and toothpicks, and a voice synthesizer built up from Radio Shack parts hangng off of a parallel port. That's back when home comuting was actually interesting...
What's holding me back? Nothing. I read 50 to 60 books a year on my Palm T3. It's more convenient to carry around my T3 than a stack of books. I can read a chapter while waiting on the subway to arrive, or while waiting for a friend. I can have an author's entire body of work in one place, read them in order, and bookmark passages that I want to refer back to later. I find it's easier on my eyes than a paper book, and I can turn on auto-scrolling and read without even moving.
Perry
The difference is that this isn't a legally declared war. If it were, the administration could simply carry out search and seizure on the citizens and property of the United States as a military action and not have to deal with messy things like the Bill of Rights. The Bush administration uses the so-called War on Terror as a smoke screen to do anything it damn well pleases, confident that anyone who opposes them can be labeld un-patriotic.
If this is just a new set of root servers for DNS, then it isn't much of a story. There have for a long time existed DNS servers outside of the 'standard' set that provide domain names in their own space. it takes a little extra effort to use them, but once it hits IP it's just a 32-bit address. Even if there are Chinese characters in the domain name, using the IP address will be enough for delivery.
On the other hand, if the Chinese intend to disconnect from the global internet and start doling out duplicate IP addresses, we're in a bit of trouble.
Pair the NSLU2 (The Slug) with one or more Netgear MP101s (available on eBay for under $50) and Twonkyvision's Media Server, and you've got a cheap media center. Add a wireless router and beam MP3s all over your house. I like Acomdata's drive enclosures because they're fanless...dead quiet drives, dead quiet slug.
Interesting that ArsTechnica is down right now...it's weathered many a slashdot storm in the past. Think Bush bothered with the court order to pull the plug, or did the black helicopters simpy swoop down at the ISP?
I was at the meeting mentioned in the article. What struck me most was that there was significant confusion in the minds of most, including some of the panelists, between an open standard and open source. Several times during the 2+ hours the discussion came back to procurement costs, and it was clear that many in the room see this issue as: "Should the Commonwealth buy Microsoft's office software, or someone elses?"
Linda Hamel did a great job of trying to get the room to focus on the standard. Quinn's analogy of differently colored Legos was not bad but he didn't follow through to use it to explain why an open standard is important. Bob Sproull of SUN had the best analogy, which was that he could design a telephone with any sized buttons he wanted, but because there are telcom standards he could always plug it into the wall and it would work.
And, unfortunately, the discussion was thrown completely off track by the inclusion of Judy Brewer from the W3C whose just kept repeating that whatever it was we were talking about had to be "accessible". Apart from wasting valuable time it also served to furher muddy the minds of the participants as to whether we were talking about software or a standard format.
Quinn and his department are for some reason under a lot of pressure from the Secretary of State's office to back down, and I give him and Linda and the rest of his staff a lot of credit for trying to do the right thing. Personally I think that this meeting was a step backward.
What's really a slap in the face is that Tulane has announced that their NCAA participation will not be interrupted. Football, basketball, and other mindless sporting activies are obviously more valuable than academic studies. This is an incredible insult to the 180+ faculty who are losing their jobs, and to the remaining faculty and student body.
Yes! One of the first large systems I worked on ran Multics on a set of Honeywell H6000s. A lot of the folks in the lab installed cookie monster just for fun, and there were several, some rather risque, variants.
As I recall one of us also discovered that you could send nonprintable characters directly to a terminal via some system call or another, and we used to literally ring each others' bells until a truce was called.
I've had a NetGear MP100 for several months and love it. While it does audio only right now, I use it with both Shoutcast streams and the Rhapsody service. There are UPnP servers for both Linux and Windows.
My biggest requirement was to listen to streaming MP3s via Shoutcast, which works just fine. I love getting ready for work in the morning while listening to Mix 94 Geneva...
The best part of the article was that the email address and phone number for the Seattle PI reporter, Kristin, was included at the bottom of the report. I know it's common for press releases to do this, but in this case it just makes me shake my head...
The movie's being released in IMAX format on the same day...well worth the effort to see it on the big screen. I watched Reloaded at the New England Aquarium IMAX last week, sat dead center. Digital-sharp and 12 kiloWatts of sound.
Slashdot Mirror
Tonight at 11: Smith family mysteriously receives 4,627 pieces of mail in one day. Sources cite the 'hardcopy Slashdot effect'.
I was fortunate to live near a Xerox campus in the 1980s. The techs would go to a customer site, diagnose Xerox Star problems down to th FRU (which was typically an entire board), replace said FRU, then dump the 'bad' boards in a giant bin. Once a month you could go to the Xerox field service office and buy stuff out of the bin for a buck a board. I and my friends built several CP/M boxes out of these boards (they were mostly Z80 based) complete with 8" floppies. I remember that one of mine had a fancy switching power supply mounted with rubber bands and toothpicks, and a voice synthesizer built up from Radio Shack parts hangng off of a parallel port. That's back when home computing was actually interesting...
I was fortunate to live near a Xerox campus in the 1980s. The techs would go to a customer site, diagnose Xerox Star problems down to th FRU (which was typically an entire board), replace said FRU, then dump the 'bad' boards in a giant bin. Once a month you could go to the Xerox field service office and buy stuff out of the bin for a buck a board. I and my friends built several CP/M boxes out of these boards (they were mostly Z80 based) complete with 8" floppies. I remember that one of mine had a fancy switching power supply mounted with rubber bands and toothpicks, and a voice synthesizer built up from Radio Shack parts hangng off of a parallel port. That's back when home comuting was actually interesting...
I work a block from the Franklin grave...I'll go check.
I was surprised to see info about the consulting firm that I work for, which is privately held (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=collaborative +consulting), including pictures of our officers.
Perry
What's holding me back? Nothing. I read 50 to 60 books a year on my Palm T3. It's more convenient to carry around my T3 than a stack of books. I can read a chapter while waiting on the subway to arrive, or while waiting for a friend. I can have an author's entire body of work in one place, read them in order, and bookmark passages that I want to refer back to later. I find it's easier on my eyes than a paper book, and I can turn on auto-scrolling and read without even moving. Perry
The difference is that this isn't a legally declared war. If it were, the administration could simply carry out search and seizure on the citizens and property of the United States as a military action and not have to deal with messy things like the Bill of Rights. The Bush administration uses the so-called War on Terror as a smoke screen to do anything it damn well pleases, confident that anyone who opposes them can be labeld un-patriotic.
Perry
If this is just a new set of root servers for DNS, then it isn't much of a story. There have for a long time existed DNS servers outside of the 'standard' set that provide domain names in their own space. it takes a little extra effort to use them, but once it hits IP it's just a 32-bit address. Even if there are Chinese characters in the domain name, using the IP address will be enough for delivery.
On the other hand, if the Chinese intend to disconnect from the global internet and start doling out duplicate IP addresses, we're in a bit of trouble.
Pair the NSLU2 (The Slug) with one or more Netgear MP101s (available on eBay for under $50) and Twonkyvision's Media Server, and you've got a cheap media center. Add a wireless router and beam MP3s all over your house. I like Acomdata's drive enclosures because they're fanless...dead quiet drives, dead quiet slug.
Perry
I was at the meeting mentioned in the article. What struck me most was that there was significant confusion in the minds of most, including some of the panelists, between an open standard and open source. Several times during the 2+ hours the discussion came back to procurement costs, and it was clear that many in the room see this issue as: "Should the Commonwealth buy Microsoft's office software, or someone elses?" Linda Hamel did a great job of trying to get the room to focus on the standard. Quinn's analogy of differently colored Legos was not bad but he didn't follow through to use it to explain why an open standard is important. Bob Sproull of SUN had the best analogy, which was that he could design a telephone with any sized buttons he wanted, but because there are telcom standards he could always plug it into the wall and it would work. And, unfortunately, the discussion was thrown completely off track by the inclusion of Judy Brewer from the W3C whose just kept repeating that whatever it was we were talking about had to be "accessible". Apart from wasting valuable time it also served to furher muddy the minds of the participants as to whether we were talking about software or a standard format. Quinn and his department are for some reason under a lot of pressure from the Secretary of State's office to back down, and I give him and Linda and the rest of his staff a lot of credit for trying to do the right thing. Personally I think that this meeting was a step backward.
What's really a slap in the face is that Tulane has announced that their NCAA participation will not be interrupted. Football, basketball, and other mindless sporting activies are obviously more valuable than academic studies. This is an incredible insult to the 180+ faculty who are losing their jobs, and to the remaining faculty and student body.
Yes! One of the first large systems I worked on ran Multics on a set of Honeywell H6000s. A lot of the folks in the lab installed cookie monster just for fun, and there were several, some rather risque, variants. As I recall one of us also discovered that you could send nonprintable characters directly to a terminal via some system call or another, and we used to literally ring each others' bells until a truce was called.
I've had a NetGear MP100 for several months and love it. While it does audio only right now, I use it with both Shoutcast streams and the Rhapsody service. There are UPnP servers for both Linux and Windows.
My biggest requirement was to listen to streaming MP3s via Shoutcast, which works just fine. I love getting ready for work in the morning while listening to Mix 94 Geneva...
The best part of the article was that the email address and phone number for the Seattle PI reporter, Kristin, was included at the bottom of the report. I know it's common for press releases to do this, but in this case it just makes me shake my head...
The movie's being released in IMAX format on the same day...well worth the effort to see it on the big screen. I watched Reloaded at the New England Aquarium IMAX last week, sat dead center. Digital-sharp and 12 kiloWatts of sound.