Finding planets this way is a really haphazard way of doing it. Stars rarely line up well enough to make gravitational lensing really viable as a method of detecting another planet. Another method they've been using is watching the Doppler shift of a selected star. Any star with an object revolving around it exibits a regular 'wobble' in the shift. Make a guess at the mass of the star, apply some centuries old math to it, and voila! You know how many objects are orbiting the star, how massive they are and how far away from the star!.
Mindstorms are great! I no longer need a degree in electronics or mechanical engineering! Now not only can I built a Mindstorms case that will dissassemble itself whenever I need to swap out hardware, I can built my next garage door with them, too. Perhaps a Mindstorms controlled tractor-mower? Sit in the shade and steer the mower around like a video game! An army of Mindstorm-enhanced appliances, from the ashtray that empties itself to the 'Fridge-buddy' that retrieves me another cool Guinness on demand; All controlled from the comfort of the Mindstorm chair.( complete with 21 inch monitor, self adjusting keyboard and autovariable cushion firmness!! )
This makes me mad. Now with the new Amiga apparently shelved as a relic of hype media and misguided R+D, we'll never find out what goes on behind the cloak and dagger routine at Transmeta.
But what really makes me peeved is that we will have to live with the honoured name 'Amiga' plastered on what amount to WebTV clones. 'Information Appliance' is just a nice way of saying 'We'll sell you this non-upgradeable, inflexible unit, and you'll need our $479 Appliance Exchange Unit, and you'll have to pay us $29.99 a month to connect to our Information Appliance Network'. Could I expect anything less from GW2K?
Throwing away a hungry market for the new Amiga can hardly be considered a good move. Getting our hopes up with a fantastic media trip and then delivering the news that they've decided to toss out the whole idea in favor of a media 'buzzword' amounts to user rape in my opinion.
I really wanted one of the new machines, if only for the fact I could look my co-workers in the eye and tell them 'my Amiga can beat the pants off your cruddy PII.'
I'm glad that Phrack is still around. In the early years of my education, it always seemed to open my eyes to some new aspect of hack politics, electronics or technique. I think Phrack was partly responsible for my major and career. It pulled me away from 'Chuck Yeager's Air Trainer' and made me poke around the TCP/IP stack, caused me to do random scans of Tymnet, and to bend many a VAX to my will. Without Phrack, I might have taken up a worthless profession like Marketing.
Okay, now this is getting out of hand. A proposed system to force us to rate everything publically accessable on the Internet? I am honestly afraid of my rights now. Granted, Germany does have a strong law against hate speech, and Australia does have a stringent anti-porn policy, but censoring the whole net because of a few non-progressive nations borders on Global Big-Brotherism.
So far this week, I've seen the government infringe my right to watch what I want on TV (warning and censor bleeps on Springer) watch the movies I want ( clips and airbrushing of Eyes Wide Shut) hear what I want, (tried buying an album with a 'parental advisory' at a chain music store without first showing them my ID) and now they want to make my internet browsing decisions too?
Are there any Militia groups in Michigan looking for new members? I'm a fair shot with a rifle and have my own fatigues and sidearm.
'This post has been rated Anti-american, inflammatory, and unsuitable for any thinking adult'
I wonder how they got permission from Army requisitions to buy an Apple..
I must say that any step away from Microsoft is a good one. Although BSD/Apache would probably handle the load better than the Apple (as would Linux) the Apple is a valid choice when looking for a webserver to serve static pages. I also see a little bit of the 'security through obscurity' showing here; Not too many people run Apples of this caliber, therefore less people will try to hack them, therefore fewer exploits will be discovered, therefore the server is more secure.
Hmm.. Pulsed DC tesla coil, eh? I read of a scheme a few years back (in a ham radio mag) about some fellow trying to phase-lock a magnetron tube pulled from a microwave, for a cheap high-power transmitter. Had to discontinue work when it started blinking out the radio and causing the C64 in the next room to freeze. That would seem to be a more compact way of doing it than the varied stages of step-up transformers and soda can sized fluid filled capacitors.. The schematics and stuff were in one of the 84-85 issues of QST. (it had an artists rendition of future ARRL antenna farm on the cover. I had it on my desk for years because it also had an article on simple analog modems.) Anyone else remember it?
It is a great thing that the mainstream media is embracing GNU projects, but I thing that forcing them (the errant journalists) to read a breif 'GNU/FSF/Linux primer' before publication would be a good idea.
A note to Stallman: Take a Valium, wash it down with a few shots of Absolut, (not too much now, we don't need you dead) and sleep off the rage of the HURDs virtual media invisibility. Linux was below the radar screens for years, and is now up in a big way. HURD may well be the next Linux..
A thought before I go.. We should embrace GPG, for not only is is a good bit of code, but it may well be our best way of fighting the current stupid encryption laws. By making sure everyone, everywhere can get their hands on it, it nullifies the need for such a law, and I hope the US government realizes this..
Now, I'm not piling on here, but Katz has written a glowing review of a so-so site. Although it (yankees.com) illustrates the RIGHT way for companies to make an web entrance, it does not deserve so much praise as it has been given. Slow, requires one too many plug-ins and obviously intended for the corporate type on a T3. He could have easily rounded out the article with 'visits' to other noteworthy first-entries, and actually contrasted them with a working definition of 'shovelware'. I saw quite a few good corp sites go up in the early days, and calling them all shovelware and dismissing them as the 'wrong way to do new media' is a crock. 'New Media'? That is in itself a crock. There is no mistake that mainstream news companies have not enlarged their web-presence, but it because of good business sense and not ineptitude. They make a great deal of money throught the traditional outlets, and what sensible company wants to spend shareholder dividends playing with the infant idea of web-presence? It will not give them a stellar new source of income, and it is inexcuasbly high priced.
While most posters have ballyhooed the 9-9-99 'bug', I have to relate the problem a company I have worked for ran into. They still use an document database running on an ancient 386. During Y2k testing for the 9/9/99 bug, the in-house server software that allows users to access the database remotely started to intermittantly dump. A bunch of the IS people sat down to discuss replacement / rollback / recode. While mulling over the possibility of rollback, one of the passing users chimed in. "You guys can't mess with the date, it would screw up our age number." There wasn't an age field. They made her show them. Some of the users were filling in the l_date field, intended for lease-end date, with the date the master lease became effective. As a result, a field that indicated days until lease end had a large negative number. When they had set the date to September 8th, one of the leases signed back in '82 managed to hit -9999 days until termination. Unfortunatly, when the machine rolled to the 9th, the field hit -10000, and it would no longer fit into the five char string. Every time someone looked at that particular lease, (which was often enough) the machine segfaulted.
Thank you for correcting me! I was only confident in that the mitochondrial mutation rate was an order different from that of the average cell. It has been a few years since my one course in genetics. One question though; Wouldn't the prodigious mutation rate be a detremental factor when determining maternal ancestry, in that with the comparably limited pool of information and the high mutation resulting in sports or fallback? I've heard quite a few different results on the timespan of 'Mitochondrial Eve', and seriously wonder how accurate any possible answer could be.
C'mon guys! Cut the good Commander some slack! When he sees a good link, he has a duty to post it.. He can't go second guessing the other ops and mamby-pamby-ing around. The story fits the/. profile exactly (RedHat, interview, etc).
Mitochondria are cellular components that produce energy for the cell. The best scientific guess on their origin is that they were one invasive bacteria, but they enhanced some cellular function and evolved into a symbiotic role within the cell. As decendants of cells, they carry their own unique DNA and RNA sequences. Their DNA data set is much smaller than that of the host cell, mutates at a slower rate, and is only passed down the female line. The scientists are running into the part of the mitochondrial mechanism that ensures that mtDNA is passed along the female line. Simply, the mitochondria of the host egg are more numerous and better equipped to deal with intruding foreign mitochondria. It will only be a matter of time before scientists flood the host egg with healthy mitochondria from the cell(s) to be cloned, or deal with them by removal much in the way they deal with the nucleus..
It looks like Apple is trying to break into corporate businesses again. I seem to remember them pushing Apple-only networks a few years back, with IIsi and IIfx machines.. Now don't get me wrong, Apple makes a good product, and the promise of built-in wireless connectivity offers an easy 'in' for startups with no existing infrastructure. HOWEVER, I see very little appeal to companies with existing networks. Why?
1)Having to slap in a primo expensive G4 to play nurse maid to all the wireless Iwhacks.
2)The learning curve associated with making these 'alien' machines behave on a traditional UNIX/NT network.
3)The high-price as compared to a traditional x86 PC.
4)The cost of training and new Apple-knowledgable IT/IS staff.
5)Software development costs. You can't chuck a working bit of in-house software because Marketing wants Iwhacks..
I did a rust case a while back, albeit accedentally. Phosphoric acid solution on the plate next to the computer case hyperboiled and sprayed the case.. Looked even cooler after a week, when the incorrectly neutralized acid ate holes in the case.. Another good one I've done is the wall-mounted Beowolf. Twelve wall-mounted P100s.. Used nylon bearings as spacers and screwed the bugger up with drywall screws.. I currently have one system that consists of a Baby-AT and a dinky power supply mounted inside a Mead Data Systems 300 baud modem.. People look at me queerly when they see it on the desk next to the Olivetti Xenix box I have.. However the best one I've ever seen was made out of a discarded 8-track player.. The fellow fit an ATX MB inside while managing to keep the 8-track functional..
The online computing middle-ages are over. I can't say that I won't miss them a little, though. I wasn't a real fan of Prodigy, although I did use it for a time. One poster recalled his 300 baud acoustic modem, another his amber monochrome Herc display. We all have moments like these. For me, it was poking around Michnet until the sun came up. Swearing like a sailor and checking the cups whenever the line noise got bad, frantically tapping the RC clock on my 12 mhz V-20 when the display blanked.(it usually didn't help) I remember marvelling at Unix chat (You mean I can ask somebody on another terminal to talk to me! ) and almost wetting myself when they made the wonders of SprintNET available. (Wow! I can now email Steve Jobs and tell him the IIc sucks!) There are still days I wish I could sit down at a 8k Atari and prod at the Tymnet gateway. It was so much simpler, so comparitivly innocent. BTW, Text-mode Compuserve is still available, though not officially I imagine. All of you Compuserve users can still fire up Telix or ProComm and browse the forums like you did in the days of 8088 processors and 1200 baud speed limits. Dial the access # up in your comm prog, enter your ID ( xxxxx.xxx, no/go:pppconnect!) and you're there!
All these 2D representations of the 'net got me back to a thought I had in the days of Mosiac (while playing Doom). 3D interactive browsers, a'la Harmony, but without the learning curve associated with Hyper-G servers.
Slapped out a dirty specifications file for such a creature, and it does not look hard to implement.
Random thoughts: 3d interactive browser.
1. must be able to interact with standard HTTP/FTP/NFS/SMB servers. 2. Must function over a dialup connection 3. Must be portable and extensible 4. While true 3d interaction would be nice, must work with only a mouse and monitor.
Render standard text displays on cubes or planes, render links as radiating transparent lines. Use some sort of force mechanism (link lines have elasticity, whereas pages have an repulsive force. ) to place pages in the display. Link lookup/display should be done ahead of time, using a priority scheduling system. Timeouts should be enforced tightly.
Lookup/display sequence.
Convention: A link is just that, a HREF; A page is a link whose images and formatting info have been pulled and displayed. IF; Images and Formatting information
General rules for retrieval: Links will not have IF pulled until all links have been followed to the limit of recursion, and IF will be pulled in order of proximity to the user.
Start link is retrieved and all outbound links are extracted. Each outbound link is retrieved, in a sort of 'call them all' way. Recurse. Each of the links on each link is pulled and called. Recurse until recursion limit is reached. Retreive IF from start link.. Display start page and link lines. . Begin to retreive IF from the first order links, and display them as available. Recurse.
Implement a link/image hash table and cache to prevent redundant link following and redundant image retrieval.
Now comes the hard part. Rendering all these pages as textures on polygons.
I know that it is plausible, but would I be duplicating someone elses efforts? Is there such a beast? And if I were to code one, are there available 3d rendering libraries that would make it easier on me? Additionally, would anyone but me use it? Remove the sadomasochistic spam reference and let me know..
A few friends of mine ran into the same wall. They had burned a box full of RedHat CD's for a local install-fest, and only ended up giving away half of the hundred they had burned. Now who wants to sit on fifty RH CDs? They tossed up an auction at ebay, (I think they were asking cost of media plus shipping). Later in the day, one of them gets mail from someone at RedHat asking that they clarify that the RH cds they were offering were not the boxed set, that the language they had used was intentionally misleading, and that ebay had been notified of his possible fraudulent attempt. They had not referred to the CDs as 'Official'; In fact, all the entry at ebay had said was "RedHat on CD-R. Complete distribution, correctly burned, with jewel cases." Ebay took no action, and they ended getting rid of all of them. I can see that RH's intent was to protect consumers from people offering 'Full RedHat' sets and then mailing bad burns. (as happens from time to time, usually through ignorance) When something like that happens, it isn't just a stain on RedHat, but on us all as members of the Linux community. What newbie will trust 'those hackers that ripped me off'? What is he going to say to his friends; that he was fooled by his own ignorance, or that he was cheated by some Linux hacker?
I used (for a time) a pair of NEC Versa laptops much in the same fashion. Snapped the display hinge off, then velcro'ed the newly flattened unit to the wall... After installing an ethernet card, internal null modem (Solder globs and wire) and Linux they worked great for 'Emergency terminals' (Had a simple C prog check for connect on the serial port, and if not, started X and VNC. I chose Linux because of the LOW memory footprint and the fact X could run the display at the highest resolution. Windows 3.11+32s would also work)
There are quite a few ways to redirect a DOS console to the serial port, and VNC/Back Orifice both run reliably and speedily from a Windows desktop.
Unfortunatly, if you were hoping to use the displays as monitors, forget it. If you really want to try, go out and find any Heath/Zenith 386. I'll send you the schematic.
If you're just looking for a smallish monitor, I'd check out trade shows. I've had luck with the VGA units they use on FedEx boxes. (And at 7x9x9 and under three pounds, they'll fit on any bench, no matter how congested.) Plus they'll do 800x600 if you keep it under @63hz, and will probably only set you back a tenner.
I have used RW sporadically for major backups, and I have no complaints, as the discs are always stored in a cool, dark place. However, I have noticed a high ( 10-15% ) failure rate on frequently used and abused media. (This is versus a 2-5% observed failure rate of R media) Of course, I am exceedingly paranoid during the creation/burn process; alcohol wipes, Air-in-a-can, and don't even think of breaking the seal until absolutly needed. Additionally, some brands or RW media (Ricoh) have a much, much shorter lifespan than others (Memorex), while others (TDK) never completly fail and only acquire more 'quirks' along their lifespan.
Thge game wasn't even worth pirating, even from an end-user standpoint! Alley19 bit so badly I was pissed that I wasted a half hour of bandwidth on it.. If GT wants to pirate a game, they could at least have picked a decent one and mede some real money..
First thing this morning, I get a question via ICQ about the ac kernel source distributed with S.u.S.E. On the way to work, I pick up a book. You're given grand kudos for having lent extensive technical expertise to the author while he was writing it. Two hours later, I am told your patch fixed an intermittant development box that I had hacked for a week to no avail. After lunch, I am asked by some junior exec what exactly v4l is, and why did IS propose to use it for teleconferences. Now I'm home. What's the lead article on/.?? "Ask Alan Cox"
Are you stalking me?
No, seriously. This really was my day. Where do you get the endless energy? (and is it available in finer drug-stores everywhere?)
Whew! I need to get me one of these! Seriously. If other smallish ISP's can get together and exploit this, mabye they can give cable companies a run for their money. A meg.5 upstream will crush those mamby-pamby 'upload bandwidth' restrictions you inevitably run into with cable service, and even at the best of times you're not getting that much downstream pull. Plus it 'sounds' portable. I'm a DC-inverter and a roll of copper tape away from a Camaro that'll do 10Mb in less than my 0-60.
Slashdot Mirror
Finding planets this way is a really haphazard way of doing it. Stars rarely line up well enough to make gravitational lensing really viable as a method of detecting another planet. Another method they've been using is watching the Doppler shift of a selected star. Any star with an object revolving around it exibits a regular 'wobble' in the shift. Make a guess at the mass of the star, apply some centuries old math to it, and voila! You know how many objects are orbiting the star, how massive they are and how far away from the star!.
Mindstorms are great! I no longer need a degree in electronics or mechanical engineering! Now not only can I built a Mindstorms case that will dissassemble itself whenever I need to swap out hardware, I can built my next garage door with them, too. Perhaps a Mindstorms controlled tractor-mower? Sit in the shade and steer the mower around like a video game! An army of Mindstorm-enhanced appliances, from the ashtray that empties itself to the 'Fridge-buddy' that retrieves me another cool Guinness on demand; All controlled from the comfort of the Mindstorm chair.( complete with 21 inch monitor, self adjusting keyboard and autovariable cushion firmness!! )
This makes me mad. Now with the new Amiga apparently shelved as a relic of hype media and misguided R+D, we'll never find out what goes on behind the cloak and dagger routine at Transmeta.
But what really makes me peeved is that we will have to live with the honoured name 'Amiga' plastered on what amount to WebTV clones. 'Information Appliance' is just a nice way of saying 'We'll sell you this non-upgradeable, inflexible unit, and you'll need our $479 Appliance Exchange Unit, and you'll have to pay us $29.99 a month to connect to our Information Appliance Network'. Could I expect anything less from GW2K?
Throwing away a hungry market for the new Amiga can hardly be considered a good move. Getting our hopes up with a fantastic media trip and then delivering the news that they've decided to toss out the whole idea in favor of a media 'buzzword' amounts to user rape in my opinion.
I really wanted one of the new machines, if only for the fact I could look my co-workers in the eye and tell them 'my Amiga can beat the pants off your cruddy PII.'
I'm glad that Phrack is still around. In the early years of my education, it always seemed to open my eyes to some new aspect of hack politics, electronics or technique. I think Phrack was partly responsible for my major and career. It pulled me away from 'Chuck Yeager's Air Trainer' and made me poke around the TCP/IP stack, caused me to do random scans of Tymnet, and to bend many a VAX to my will. Without Phrack, I might have taken up a worthless profession like Marketing.
Thank you, Phrack!!
Viva le Phrack!
Okay, now this is getting out of hand. A proposed system to force us to rate everything publically accessable on the Internet? I am honestly afraid of my rights now. Granted, Germany does have a strong law against hate speech, and Australia does have a stringent anti-porn policy, but censoring the whole net because of a few non-progressive nations borders on Global Big-Brotherism.
So far this week, I've seen the government infringe my right to watch what I want on TV (warning and censor bleeps on Springer) watch the movies I want ( clips and airbrushing of Eyes Wide Shut) hear what I want, (tried buying an album with a 'parental advisory' at a chain music store without first showing them my ID) and now they want to make my internet browsing decisions too?
Are there any Militia groups in Michigan looking for new members? I'm a fair shot with a rifle and have my own fatigues and sidearm.
'This post has been rated Anti-american, inflammatory, and unsuitable for any thinking adult'
I wonder how they got permission from Army requisitions to buy an Apple..
I must say that any step away from Microsoft is a good one. Although BSD/Apache would probably handle the load better than the Apple (as would Linux) the Apple is a valid choice when looking for a webserver to serve static pages.
I also see a little bit of the 'security through obscurity' showing here; Not too many people run Apples of this caliber, therefore less people will try to hack them, therefore fewer exploits will be discovered, therefore the server is more secure.
Hmm.. Pulsed DC tesla coil, eh? I read of a scheme a few years back (in a ham radio mag) about some fellow trying to phase-lock a magnetron tube pulled from a microwave, for a cheap high-power transmitter. Had to discontinue work when it started blinking out the radio and causing the C64 in the next room to freeze. That would seem to be a more compact way of doing it than the varied stages of step-up transformers and soda can sized fluid filled capacitors.. The schematics and stuff were in one of the 84-85 issues of QST. (it had an artists rendition of future ARRL antenna farm on the cover. I had it on my desk for years because it also had an article on simple analog modems.) Anyone else remember it?
It is a great thing that the mainstream media is embracing GNU projects, but I thing that forcing them (the errant journalists) to read a breif 'GNU/FSF/Linux primer' before publication would be a good idea.
A note to Stallman: Take a Valium, wash it down with a few shots of Absolut, (not too much now, we don't need you dead) and sleep off the rage of the HURDs virtual media invisibility.
Linux was below the radar screens for years, and is now up in a big way. HURD may well be the next Linux..
A thought before I go.. We should embrace GPG, for not only is is a good bit of code, but it may well be our best way of fighting the current stupid encryption laws. By making sure everyone, everywhere can get their hands on it, it nullifies the need for such a law, and I hope the US government realizes this..
Now, I'm not piling on here, but Katz has written a glowing review of a so-so site. Although it (yankees.com) illustrates the RIGHT way for companies to make an web entrance, it does not deserve so much praise as it has been given. Slow, requires one too many plug-ins and obviously intended for the corporate type on a T3. He could have easily rounded out the article with 'visits' to other noteworthy first-entries, and actually contrasted them with a working definition of 'shovelware'. I saw quite a few good corp sites go up in the early days, and calling them all shovelware and dismissing them as the 'wrong way to do new media' is a crock. 'New Media'? That is in itself a crock. There is no mistake that mainstream news companies have not enlarged their web-presence, but it because of good business sense and not ineptitude. They make a great deal of money throught the traditional outlets, and what sensible company wants to spend shareholder dividends playing with the infant idea of web-presence? It will not give them a stellar new source of income, and it is inexcuasbly high priced.
While most posters have ballyhooed the 9-9-99 'bug', I have to relate the problem a company I have worked for ran into. They still use an document database running on an ancient 386. During Y2k testing for the 9/9/99 bug, the in-house server software that allows users to access the database remotely started to intermittantly dump. A bunch of the IS people sat down to discuss replacement / rollback / recode. While mulling over the possibility of rollback, one of the passing users chimed in. "You guys can't mess with the date, it would screw up our age number." There wasn't an age field. They made her show them. Some of the users were filling in the l_date field, intended for lease-end date, with the date the master lease became effective. As a result, a field that indicated days until lease end had a large negative number. When they had set the date to September 8th, one of the leases signed back in '82 managed to hit -9999 days until termination. Unfortunatly, when the machine rolled to the 9th, the field hit -10000, and it would no longer fit into the five char string. Every time someone looked at that particular lease, (which was often enough) the machine segfaulted.
The users were punished.
Thank you for correcting me! I was only confident in that the mitochondrial mutation rate was an order different from that of the average cell. It has been a few years since my one course in genetics. One question though; Wouldn't the prodigious mutation rate be a detremental factor when determining maternal ancestry, in that with the comparably limited pool of information and the high mutation resulting in sports or fallback? I've heard quite a few different results on the timespan of 'Mitochondrial Eve', and seriously wonder how accurate any possible answer could be.
C'mon guys! Cut the good Commander some slack! When he sees a good link, he has a duty to post it.. He can't go second guessing the other ops and mamby-pamby-ing around. The story fits the
Quit being flamebait over such a slight slip!
Some background:
Mitochondria are cellular components that produce energy for the cell. The best scientific guess on their origin is that they were one invasive bacteria, but they enhanced some cellular function and evolved into a symbiotic role within the cell.
As decendants of cells, they carry their own unique DNA and RNA sequences. Their DNA data set is much smaller than that of the host cell, mutates at a slower rate, and is only passed down the female line. The scientists are running into the part of the mitochondrial mechanism that ensures that mtDNA is passed along the female line. Simply, the mitochondria of the host egg are more numerous and better equipped to deal with intruding foreign mitochondria. It will only be a matter of time before scientists flood the host egg with healthy mitochondria from the cell(s) to be cloned, or deal with them by removal much in the way they deal with the nucleus..
I must say that you offer a comprehensive counterpoint. :)
It looks like Apple is trying to break into corporate businesses again. I seem to remember them pushing Apple-only networks a few years back, with IIsi and IIfx machines.. Now don't get me wrong, Apple makes a good product, and the promise of built-in wireless connectivity offers an easy 'in' for startups with no existing infrastructure.
HOWEVER, I see very little appeal to companies with existing networks. Why?
1)Having to slap in a primo expensive G4 to play nurse maid to all the wireless Iwhacks.
2)The learning curve associated with making these 'alien' machines behave on a traditional UNIX/NT network.
3)The high-price as compared to a traditional x86 PC.
4)The cost of training and new Apple-knowledgable IT/IS staff.
5)Software development costs. You can't chuck a working bit of in-house software because Marketing wants Iwhacks..
I did a rust case a while back, albeit accedentally. Phosphoric acid solution on the plate next to the computer case hyperboiled and sprayed the case.. Looked even cooler after a week, when the incorrectly neutralized acid ate holes in the case.. Another good one I've done is the wall-mounted Beowolf. Twelve wall-mounted P100s.. Used nylon bearings as spacers and screwed the bugger up with drywall screws.. I currently have one system that consists of a Baby-AT and a dinky power supply mounted inside a Mead Data Systems 300 baud modem.. People look at me queerly when they see it on the desk next to the Olivetti Xenix box I have.. However the best one I've ever seen was made out of a discarded 8-track player.. The fellow fit an ATX MB inside while managing to keep the 8-track functional..
The online computing middle-ages are over. I can't say that I won't miss them a little, though. I wasn't a real fan of Prodigy, although I did use it for a time. One poster recalled his 300 baud acoustic modem, another his amber monochrome Herc display. We all have moments like these. For me, it was poking around Michnet until the sun came up. Swearing like a sailor and checking the cups whenever the line noise got bad, frantically tapping the RC clock on my 12 mhz V-20 when the display blanked.(it usually didn't help) I remember marvelling at Unix chat (You mean I can ask somebody on another terminal to talk to me! ) and almost wetting myself when they made the wonders of SprintNET available. (Wow! I can now email Steve Jobs and tell him the IIc sucks!) There are still days I wish I could sit down at a 8k Atari and prod at the Tymnet gateway. It was so much simpler, so comparitivly innocent. BTW, Text-mode Compuserve is still available, though not officially I imagine. All of you Compuserve users can still fire up Telix or ProComm and browse the forums like you did in the days of 8088 processors and 1200 baud speed limits. Dial the access # up in your comm prog, enter your ID ( xxxxx.xxx, no /go:pppconnect!) and you're there!
All these 2D representations of the 'net got me back to a thought I had in the days of Mosiac (while playing Doom). 3D interactive browsers, a'la Harmony, but without the learning curve associated with Hyper-G servers.
Slapped out a dirty specifications file for such a creature, and it does not look hard to implement.
Random thoughts: 3d interactive browser.
1. must be able to interact with standard HTTP/FTP/NFS/SMB servers.
2. Must function over a dialup connection
3. Must be portable and extensible
4. While true 3d interaction would be nice, must work with only a mouse and monitor.
Render standard text displays on cubes or planes, render links as radiating transparent lines. Use some sort of force mechanism (link lines have elasticity, whereas pages have an repulsive force. ) to place pages in the display. Link lookup/display should be done ahead of time, using a priority scheduling system.
Timeouts should be enforced tightly.
Lookup/display sequence.
Convention: A link is just that, a HREF; A page is a link whose images and formatting info have been pulled and displayed. IF; Images and Formatting information
General rules for retrieval: Links will not have IF pulled until all links have been followed to the limit of recursion, and IF will be pulled in order of proximity to the user.
Start link is retrieved and all outbound links are extracted.
Each outbound link is retrieved, in a sort of 'call them all' way.
Recurse. Each of the links on each link is pulled and called.
Recurse until recursion limit is reached.
Retreive IF from start link..
Display start page and link lines. .
Begin to retreive IF from the first order links, and display them as available.
Recurse.
Implement a link/image hash table and cache to prevent redundant link following and redundant image retrieval.
Now comes the hard part. Rendering all these pages as textures on polygons.
I know that it is plausible, but would I be duplicating someone elses efforts? Is there such a beast? And if I were to code one, are there available 3d rendering libraries that would make it easier on me? Additionally, would anyone but me use it? Remove the sadomasochistic spam reference and let me know..
A few friends of mine ran into the same wall. They had burned a box full of RedHat CD's for a local install-fest, and only ended up giving away half of the hundred they had burned. Now who wants to sit on fifty RH CDs? They tossed up an auction at ebay, (I think they were asking cost of media plus shipping). Later in the day, one of them gets mail from someone at RedHat asking that they clarify that the RH cds they were offering were not the boxed set, that the language they had used was intentionally misleading, and that ebay had been notified of his possible fraudulent attempt. They had not referred to the CDs as 'Official'; In fact, all the entry at ebay had said was "RedHat on CD-R. Complete distribution, correctly burned, with jewel cases." Ebay took no action, and they ended getting rid of all of them. I can see that RH's intent was to protect consumers from people offering 'Full RedHat' sets and then mailing bad burns. (as happens from time to time, usually through ignorance) When something like that happens, it isn't just a stain on RedHat, but on us all as members of the Linux community. What newbie will trust 'those hackers that ripped me off'? What is he going to say to his friends; that he was fooled by his own ignorance, or that he was cheated by some Linux hacker?
I used (for a time) a pair of NEC Versa laptops much in the same fashion. Snapped the display hinge off, then velcro'ed the newly flattened unit to the wall... After installing an ethernet card, internal null modem (Solder globs and wire) and Linux they worked great for 'Emergency terminals'
(Had a simple C prog check for connect on the serial port, and if not, started X and VNC. I chose Linux because of the LOW memory footprint and the fact X could run the display at the highest resolution. Windows 3.11+32s would also work)
There are quite a few ways to redirect a DOS console to the serial port, and VNC/Back Orifice both run reliably and speedily from a Windows desktop.
Unfortunatly, if you were hoping to use the displays as monitors, forget it. If you really want to try, go out and find any Heath/Zenith 386. I'll send you the schematic.
If you're just looking for a smallish monitor, I'd check out trade shows. I've had luck with the VGA units they use on FedEx boxes. (And at 7x9x9 and under three pounds, they'll fit on any bench, no matter how congested.) Plus they'll do 800x600 if you keep it under @63hz, and will probably only set you back a tenner.
I have used RW sporadically for major backups, and I have no complaints, as the discs are always stored in a cool, dark place. However, I have noticed a high ( 10-15% ) failure rate on frequently used and abused media. (This is versus a 2-5% observed failure rate of R media) Of course, I am exceedingly paranoid during the creation/burn process; alcohol wipes, Air-in-a-can, and don't even think of breaking the seal until absolutly needed. Additionally, some brands or RW media (Ricoh) have a much, much shorter lifespan than others (Memorex), while others (TDK) never completly fail and only acquire more 'quirks' along their lifespan.
Bah.. You're just delusional if you think you were first..
Thge game wasn't even worth pirating, even from an end-user standpoint! Alley19 bit so badly I was pissed that I wasted a half hour of bandwidth on it.. If GT wants to pirate a game, they could at least have picked a decent one and mede some real money..
Alan;
/.?? "Ask Alan Cox"
First thing this morning, I get a question via ICQ about the ac kernel source distributed with S.u.S.E. On the way to work, I pick up a book. You're given grand kudos for having lent extensive technical expertise to the author while he was writing it. Two hours later, I am told your patch fixed an intermittant development box that I had hacked for a week to no avail. After lunch, I am asked by some junior exec what exactly v4l is, and why did IS propose to use it for teleconferences.
Now I'm home. What's the lead article on
Are you stalking me?
No, seriously. This really was my day. Where do you get the endless energy? (and is it available in finer drug-stores everywhere?)
Whew! I need to get me one of these! Seriously. If other smallish ISP's can get together and exploit this, mabye they can give cable companies a run for their money. A meg.5 upstream will crush those mamby-pamby 'upload bandwidth' restrictions you inevitably run into with cable service, and even at the best of times you're not getting that much downstream pull. Plus it 'sounds' portable. I'm a DC-inverter and a roll of copper tape away from a Camaro that'll do 10Mb in less than my 0-60.