If by real you mean a natural language, then I don't have any great suggestions, although I know that French is much more regular and has a smaller vocabulary.
On the other hand Lojban is a real language. Like esperanto, Lojban is regular (the rules of the language have no exceptions), but it has only 6 vowels, 12 consonants, and 3 semi-letters. Other benefits are an unambiguous grammer based on principles of logic, culturally neutral, simple to learn, and it uses phonetic spelling.
It's pretty simple, but when I build a new house (or any new building for that matter) I will make sure that there's an adequate and sensible system of conduit and access for installing cable later - whether it's CAT-6, coax, or fibre.
That, plus I'm going to make darn sure the electrical system is beefy. Nothing bugs me more than running my PC, stereo, cell charger, desk lamp, room lamp and occasion other goodies off one power bar in my bedroom.
I think each room should have at least 1 or 2 outlets per wall, with at most 2 outlets per breaker. I'd probably go for 20A everywhere, too (if you're speaking North American 110V systems, that is).
This topic is one that is already being seriously considered by librarians and historians.
The USA's Library of CongressPreservation Reformatting Division is digitizing many items for preservation, and you can be sure that they're concerned that the digital preservation will be at least as effective as the original (analog, paper, whatever) form.
One of the current projects of the Research Libraries Group is data preservation. The RLG is an international group formed originally by Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities and The New York Public Library in 1975, with current members from academia, government archives, public and private sector historical organizations.
A google search on digital data preservation gives plenty more linkage to groups actively looking at the issues involved in digital storage.
Of course, there is still a huge volume of personal and corporate data that will no doubt degrade to dust. For that, we all need to take the approach of wiredog to keep our personal data accessible by refreshing the media as technology advances.
Naturally, since this is Slashdot, all of this has been already covered. This article was a particularly good treatment of the topic and was posted as a followup to an older Ask Slashdot.
Really, how different will it be if the future only has the preserved personal effects and communications of an insignificant fraction of the general population? Today, archeologists make a career out of extrapolating whole civilizations out of building foundations and shards of pottery.
So, with a little care, I'm confident that my own data will be happily accessible as long as I need it. After that, the future will take care of itself.
so why doesn't somebody write an exploit for the "massive security hole" in IE mentioned here earlier today that will put a textfile in some or all directories of a victim system with a little message like
Microsoft Windows has many security flaws, one of which allowed this file to be created here without your permission. Nothing else has been done, but other files could have been deleted or modified without your knowledge. Please contact Microsoft and demand that they replace your defective copy of Windows (at their expense).
Note that Microsoft posted a security update on 2001-03-29 addressing this flaw, but that update was also flawed. It only works for certain versions of Internet Explorer, and erroneously claims the update isn't needed when it actually is. To apply the update you are also forced to download a different version of Internet Explorer, since Microsoft has chosen not to fix this flaw in most versions of their products.
Don't be content with paying exorbitant prices for low quality software.
It could be even dandier if such a virus made the locations of such text notices somewhat random, and had a stock of several different messages to choose from.
A really nice one would be to stick a little executable with some scary splash screen in an obscure directory, and then add a shortcut to the Startup folder or the RunOne key in HKEY/Local Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/. The file could delete itself after it ran.
It's too bad that something like is probably illegal, since it's about the only way most people would ever have a chance to clue in to MS's mistakes.
so why doesn't somebody write an exploit for this "massive security hole" that will put a textfile in every directory of a victim system with a little message like
Microsoft Windows has many security flaws, one of which allowed this file to be created here without your permission. Nothing else has been done, but other files could have been deleted or modified without your knowledge. Please contact Microsoft and demand that they replace your defective copy of Windows (at their expense).
Note that Microsoft posted a security update on 2001-03-29 addressing this flaw, but that update was also flawed. It only works for certain versions of Internet Explorer, and erroneously claims the update isn't needed when it actually is. To apply the update you are also forced to download a different version of Internet Explorer, since Microsoft has chosen not to fix this flaw in most versions of their products.
Don't be content with paying exorbitant prices for low quality software.
It could be even dandier if such a virus made the locations of such text notices somewhat random, and had a stock of several different messages to choose from.
A really nice one would be to stick a little executable with some scary splash screen in an obscure directory, and then add a shortcut to the Startup folder or the RunOne key in HKEY/Local Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/. The file could delete itself after it ran.
It's too bad that something like is probably illegal, since it's about the only way most people would ever have a chance to clue in to MS's mistakes.
A few weeks ago Burt Rutan came to my far corner of the earth to give a lecture on innovation. One of the most enlightening comments he made was about quality control. He said the rule in his companies is
Never defend the product
He believes that this is one reason why his small aerospace company has a consistently high safety record while turning out completely new (and often revolutionary) designs every year. You'll remember Rutan from the 1980's round the world non-stop plane Voyager II (I think).
Anyway, he said that if we start defending our work it becomes harder to find flaws and make necessary design changes. Cultivating a culture of healthy self-criticism frees a design team to make needed design changes. Finding flaws in somebody else's design isn't attacking them, but helping them. Reminds me of what I read a while back on the shuttle's SW development process.
I was immediately caught by this idea and wonder how much it would help quality in a software development environment.
Of course, the difficulty in convincing clients that you will NOT provide a mid-project QA report... I think he had comments an issue something like this too, but I forget...
I wanted to post to an earlier story to say how glad I am to live in Canada and be able to watch 3 different Olympic networks on plain old basic cable (CBC, NBC, and TSN).
I just couldn't believe how annoying it was to watch the women's triathalon, taped on NBC with the stupid scripted commentary read by somebody who sounded like he just came from an audition for a daytime drama. What a relief to be able to switch 3 channels down the dial and see the men's triathalon live, with real sports commentators, really commenting on the sport being shown, live, in real-time.
It's like NBC is trying to make the Olympics into a made-for-tv miniseries. Ugh. I'm offended.
So add my voice to the chorus of "Hoorah for CBC".
Oh, and here is CBC's web coverage of the results from Sydney. While you're at it, also check out results from TSN, Canada's sports network.
Yikes-o man! Get the latest drivers, stat! I have a Celery 333 with 64 MB RAM and an 16MB AGP TNT 1, and I get close to 40 fps at 800x600 using OpenGL or Direct3D in Unreal and Q3. It doesn't drop much below 25 or 30 fps even when the action heats up...
BTW, thanks for the cool info on the power consumption.
James M. Atkinson, president and senior engineer of the Boston-based Granite Island Group, a technical counterintelligence firm, said computer logs show that Mafiaboy was looking for a "script" program and asking for information and assistance in IRC chat rooms last summer about how he can launch a denial-of-service attack
James M. Atkinson is a communications engineer, security consultant, and instructor with a reputation for designing and installing some of the most powerful secure communications systems used by both government agencies and major corporations.
...
He is also a prolific computer programmer with over 142 published software titles ranging from accounting packages and databases to TSCM, cryptographic, signals intelligence and electronic warfare software.
Mr. Atkinson has been trained by the U.S. Government in Intelligence, Covert Operations, Technical Surveillance, and Cryptanalysis; and is a graduate of the Defense Intelligence School with extensive field experience.
A military veteran with eight years of service, followed by several years of employment with a U.S. intelligence agency, and holds a Top Secret security clearance.
James M. Atkinson is one of a small number of people who have been formally certified and trained by the NSA as a TEMPEST Engineer, and Cryptographic Technician. He has extensive experience with the design and development of SIGINT systems to exploit and/or control compromising emanations. Additionally, he has many hours of experience working deep inside highly classified U.S. and NATO cryptographic, communications, and computer systems.
...
Also, he maintains the worlds largest private reference library regarding technical surveillance devices, and TSCM protocols used internationally. Included in this library is a computerized database of almost a quarter million eavesdropping devices. This computerized database includes complex mathematic models which permit the evaluation and analysis of eavesdropping devices.
In addition to a strong background in intelligence operations and electronics he also has extensive training in tactical operations, including Instructor and Master Instructor certifications for: Pistol, Shotgun, Rifle, Sniper Weapons Systems, Assault Weapons, Grenade Launchers, Chemical Weapons, Explosive Breaching, Stun and Distraction Devices, Straight/Expandable and Riot Baton, Non Lethal Use of Force, Specialty Impact Munitions, Riot Control, Vehicle Operations, and related tactical subjects.
Didn't somebody already mention that April Fool's is long past? Or is this the real life James Bond? What I can't figure out is why he's so eager to publicize his credentials... if I were he, I would imagine it would be more profitable to be invisible...
Here's an interesting quote: James M. Atkinson has completed more Formal Technical Training (from Apple) than anyone else we have on record. - Apple Computer Training Department, Austin TX, Fall 1995
And the kicker: In order to remain proficient, Mr. Atkinson attends at least 500 hours of formal security and technical training each year (a average of one day a week). He has currently completed over 12,500 hours of advanced security and technical training with industry leaders such as: Microsoft, Apple, AT&T, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Digital, Watkins Johnson, Hewlett Packard, Northern Telecom, Rolm, Cisco, IBM, Motorola, Toshiba, and dozens of others (including multiple government schools).
He must be a God. (Or maybe he has a really boring life).
Well, of course it will be a tradeoff, but probably not a bad one. Even with signal processed receiver arrays used to "aim" Arecibo, it's still limited by physical geography in a lot of ways. Needless to say, building another 300-meter instrument (at another latitude, for instance) would cost much much more than several dozen or even hundred commodity dishes with custom ultra-low noise preamps and receivers.
I'm not a radio astronomer, but it seems this will lower the entry barrier and put serious deep sky work in reach of a lot more researchers. Maybe these commodity arrays won't replace big dishes, but they certainly have the potential to accelerate research in radio astronomy.
Worship this hard copy! Printers worked day and night, bakkinaday, to make this information available! Um, hello, it's about the information, not the format. I'm sure few authors cared more about the text formatting of their books than about how many people received the author's ideas.
the 'net is a community thing, too. And much more so than a library, IMO. The net certainly provokes more social interaction than scouring for books at a library does.
I think that many people have yet to realize the great, immense potential of the interconnectedness of things. I know it was a significant paradigm shift when I began to think of the net as a global conversation; where the cost of distributing and assembling information drops dramatically, and the potential knowledge and experience base one individual can tap into is exponentially larger than previously possible in many areas.
I think there is general agreement here that Luddism is rarely useful. So the question is, what can we do to educate others?
Where do I start?! I should just keep my mouth shut, but I can't resist...
Tell me. As a consumer, how will i be any better off with Microsoft being sued? Driving the costs up because of lawsuits? Fragmenting a stable market with many more buggy programs?
Well, tell me, as a consumer, how much worse off are we because MS used their monopoly to crush companies like Netscape and many others that would have brought choice and lowered prices in consumer software?
I don't understand how people can pick at microsoft for writing the OS and the Applications...But my opinion is, let them exist. Let the CONSUMER Choose. NOT a lawyer. I feel you are doing the BIGGEST Injustice by making my choices for me in court.
Well, you may be a little preturbed that you may not be able to get Win2002 at the same level of quality and low cost that you're used to, but what about the injustice to all those people who couldn't choose their OS or browser because MS effectively blackmailed PC suppliers and bought out or crushed competitors.
The real beef is not that MS writes an OS or applications, remember, but that they use their monopoly position in the OS market to unfairly compete. If this is in fact true (that's Judge Jackson's job) then they deserve to be punished for robbing the consumer of potential better and cheaper options.
Sure some of you don't like the "Windows Tax" when you buy a new PC. But for the average consumer, why would they want to go out and choose something else that there friends or neighboors don't use? Why would someone want to choose something that is Niche when they can choose something that is a standard?
I just don't see how that is relevant. The point is not that MS is standard. Everybody agrees they are (at least for Joe Average). The problem is that they use their position to effectively prevent Joe Average from having options and choice.
I would feel sorry for the thousands of employees, the foundations that Gates supports, the 5,000+ college students that could loose scholarships, the grants and donations to the city and areas of which microsoft works (redmond receives lots of support from microsoft).
Sure MS gives money to lots of worthy causes. What they give back, though, is a tiny portion of what consumers never should have spent. Just think of all the scholarships, grants, libraries and public projects that could have been supported if instead of buying thousands of site licenses for MS-everything, universities, schools, and municipalities everywhere could have had access to standards-based interoperable PC OS's, which would have allowed cheaper and better application software. Think of all the developer man-years that have been chewed up in porting applications to stay compatible with each obscure API change in MS software.
Sure this is all hypothetical. We'll never know what could have been. The point is that many people believe that MS forced the market down the road we're on by unfair business practices.
You have always had a right to choice. I'm just curios why you think it is YOUR right to make my choice now?
I'm not making your choice. I just don't want MS to make my choice for me.
I believe the rights of the consumer belong to the consumer,
Somebody mentioned older Pro Tools hardware available cheaply, but I don't know if that's usable without the Digidesign software.
I think most pro applications and users would be covered by the brands above. I know the basement hobbiest may not go for those cards, but I think most people coming from a music/studio background will.
Are these brands supported under *nix? It's hard enough getting stable drivers for some pro cards for NT or 9x. I don't imagine that there's the audio equivalent of the gaming industry pushing manufacturers to release hardware specs so that open drivers can be written by the community.
I have to think that driver support for the pro audio cards will be a critical issue in the near term... I would even consider getting involved in this type of project over the summer once I'm finished school (12 days until I finish classes for my EE!!).
I don't think will be a problem at all! Look at switches and crossovers on current tracks:
switches mechanically connect different sets of tracks.
crossovers provide non-mechanical places for tracks to cross.
It's easy to imagine the WIG analogues. Since the vertical wings guide the trains by following the side rails of the tracks, implement WIG switches and crossovers like this:
switch: have movable side rails that either slide horizontally to connect one track to two or more (kind of like the chute on the back of a cement truck), or else raise and lower vertically to open or close certain paths
crossover: simply connect the tracks, and leave no walls where they intersect. Just like any road intersection. It will be a control task to ensure no two trains enter the intersection at the same time, but there's nothing new about that. Assuming the train is much long than it is wide, then it only has to be travelling fairly straight for the crossing to be no problem at all.
There may be other issues (like widths of the tracks - but that issue hasn't stopped multi-lane highways from enter most urban areas; you just get creative in where you put them) but the switching and crossovers should be the same as currently tracks, just on a slightly larger scale.
Your reply is interesting and thoughful. Though I don't agree on all points, I respect your point of view.
Every passing moment in our life is a differing viewpoint so why not spirituality itself. I personally believe in God but God to me is a giant 'Son, you don't know squat!' sign board hanging over my head rather than a deity I worship.
Well, I can't be sure if you mean by the above that you believe in a literal diety, or just a ruling principle which guides your intellectual life, but I'll assume for the moment it's the former.
I totally agree that we don't know squat. This then leaves us two options. Either God (who we both believe exists) doesn't want to know us, and is therefore unknowable (since, being God, he/it can create the universe such that we will never find a way to observe of interact with him/it), or God must take the initiative to make some 'intrusion' into the natural universe so that we can communicate with him.
This is where honest truth-seekers start running into ancient 'holy' texts. There are some pretty simple and logical assumptions you can make if a God were trying to communicate with humanity:
the communication would probably form a pattern throughout history so that we could access it
it would be recorded, and in everyday language so that we could translate, access and comprehend it
deal with some tough issues like morality and post-death, and so show up in areas typically considered religious
not depend primarily on personal feelings, emotion, individual revelation etc (these things are easily misinterpreted, confused, affected by the pizza we ate last night etc)
make some bizarre claims about being from 'beyond' and perhaps have an authoritative or exclusive tone
it would probably affect us strongly
Upon consideration it seems that there may be some candidates which fit this description.
Anyway, it is up to us individually to decide if such a supernatural communication has occured, but I think it is valuable to recognize that honest truth-seekers come from all backgrounds. A serious attempt can be made to decide if God exists, without resorting to dogma.
For the record, I have decided that God does indeed exist and that He HAS communicated to us throughout history as recorded in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. I believe that Jesus Christ was God in human form, and provided a way for us to bridge the gap between us and God. You can agree, or disagree as your conscience dictates. If you would like to discuss it more, feel free to email me privately.
Christopher
(Observant readers may have noticed I made a bit of a jump from 'supernatural being' to a diety with personal characteristics - 'him' or 'her' as opposed to 'it' or 'the force'. I think its a reasonable simplification for the point I'm trying to make. Also, those of you who looked at my earlier web-reference to www.christian-thinktank.com might recognize some of the above points from the authors "slow-paced, low key argument" which I highly recommend you read fully.)
I've watched the movie "Contact" about a month ago, and the religious zealots infuriated me
They infuriated me too... such flat characters who missed most of the subtantial issues involved.
...whatever the scientific challenge is, there's always some bible-buggers who will find something against it...
On a rational point of view, IMHO, religion has mostly led to destruction, murders and such...
Yeah, that statement may have a basis in truth, but it says NOTHING to the issue of whether there there is anything beyond the natural universe, whether there is any intelligence in the 'beyondness' and whether such potential 'beyondness' has had any substantial interaction with what we experience with our five senses.
...because Human Evolution has proved antique beliefs are complete bullshit. Remember Gallileo. Remember the Inquisition. Remember also most christian organizations didn't say a word when the Nazis were developing and using Zyklon B to exterminate the Jews. Remember how the American government tested nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on its own citizens, although they keep swearing by a "god" in their very constitution
Very Bad Things, all those, to be sure. What does that have to say about the truth-claims of any religion? Or any belief system for that matter?
...religions have that nasty tendency to only protect what may serve them best...
Well, in that case, I suggest that you avoid religion and instead seek truth. I'll warn you though. If you're open minded, you're going to run into a lot of those funny, religious-type historical documents that some religions claim are 'holy' or 'from beyond this universe'. You might even find that some of them stand up to modern 'scientific' evaluation quite admirably (but this is off-topic enough already. For more info check out http://www.christian-thinktank.com).
I leave religion to those who refuse to admit the very facts that run the Universe.
Well, I think most people who know me would agree that I 'admit the very facts that run the Universe' yet I don't throw away religion wholesale (though if you want to get technical you have to look carefully at how the word 'fact' is defined, which can get quite messy, leading into some deep epistimological debates which begin to make agnosticism and nihilism look attractive).
If your main point was that religion isn't very related to a scientific administrator getting a bit of publicity about some gene-splicing plans, I'd have to agree with you. However, your venom seems to indicate something more, which seems suspiciously like close-mindedness to me... perhaps YOU are afraid of what you might find out if you took a serious look at the beliefs behind some religions?
Spirituality has to evolve along with life itself...
That might be true, if we were making up spirituality ourselves, though I would tend to be suspicious of spirituality like that more so than 'normal' spirituality. One would think if any version of spirituality out there actually were true, it would somehow transcend time...
This fascination for religious dogmas is so dangerous it blinds people from seeing what humankind is missing.
I might be tempted to rephrase that as:
This fascination for anti-religious dogma is so dangerous it blinds people from seeing what humankind is missing.
Instead I'll just leave with a few questions to ponder...
Why do people claim to belong to a group, and yet not truly exemplify the beliefs that group professes? (insert 'be religious', 'be scientific', 'be dedicated to truth' or 'be open-minded' for 'belong to a group')
Why do we judge groups based on the actions of the visible few whose actions don't always align with what those groups believe?
Why do we insist on referring to 'religion', 'science', and 'progress' as monolithic entities having their own will? What about individuals, beliefs, truth, evidence, individual responsibility and morality?
I dunno, maybe this doesn't make sense to anybody but me - it just seems some anti-religious people are just as (blindly) zealous as the religious zealots...
The idea is to have each client do the work it's best suited for, and to distribute the load more evenly. Bandwidth could be a problem, but I think a lot of the data could be "tokenized" somewhat once references have been established, and some compression would probably help.
This is probably obvious, but it's not only computational load that would be more evenly distributed. With some knowledge of the preferred routes of various levels of the net hierarchy, the traffic of the spidering could be more contained to small areas of the network.
Far flung links could be handled at higher levels and passed down to other spidering nodes closer to the link target (from a routing perspective). This would mean a little more computation overhead somewhere but I imagine it wouldn't be too bad. The benefits of distributed spidering seem to me quite attractive...
On the other hand, if it really was that feasible, wouldn't one of the Big Boys take it up, or is it too much hassle to develop a business model for a search engine based on volunteer spiders?
No great perks here, but because of the time zone (GMT + 330) the first public showing anywhere was actually here in St. John's Newfoundland, at 12:01 AM May 19 NDT, or 10:31 PM May 18 EST. Of course, I was there...
Slashdot Mirror
I can get 256 MB DIMMS for $75 Canadian dollars, so the way I figure it a gigabyte of RAM shouldn't run you more than $200 USD or so.
Maybe $400 was a typo?
If by real you mean a natural language, then I don't have any great suggestions, although I know that French is much more regular and has a smaller vocabulary.
On the other hand Lojban is a real language. Like esperanto, Lojban is regular (the rules of the language have no exceptions), but it has only 6 vowels, 12 consonants, and 3 semi-letters. Other benefits are an unambiguous grammer based on principles of logic, culturally neutral, simple to learn, and it uses phonetic spelling.
Christopher
It's pretty simple, but when I build a new house (or any new building for that matter) I will make sure that there's an adequate and sensible system of conduit and access for installing cable later - whether it's CAT-6, coax, or fibre.
That, plus I'm going to make darn sure the electrical system is beefy. Nothing bugs me more than running my PC, stereo, cell charger, desk lamp, room lamp and occasion other goodies off one power bar in my bedroom.
I think each room should have at least 1 or 2 outlets per wall, with at most 2 outlets per breaker. I'd probably go for 20A everywhere, too (if you're speaking North American 110V systems, that is).
Christopher
Nothing new, but it's always sad when some poor guy's website gets a casual mention on Slashdot's front page. Not 5 minutes and the site was hosed.
Read the cached version here.
This topic is one that is already being seriously considered by librarians and historians.
The USA's Library of Congress Preservation Reformatting Division is digitizing many items for preservation, and you can be sure that they're concerned that the digital preservation will be at least as effective as the original (analog, paper, whatever) form.
One of the current projects of the Research Libraries Group is data preservation. The RLG is an international group formed originally by Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities and The New York Public Library in 1975, with current members from academia, government archives, public and private sector historical organizations.
A google search on digital data preservation gives plenty more linkage to groups actively looking at the issues involved in digital storage.
Of course, there is still a huge volume of personal and corporate data that will no doubt degrade to dust. For that, we all need to take the approach of wiredog to keep our personal data accessible by refreshing the media as technology advances.
Naturally, since this is Slashdot, all of this has been already covered. This article was a particularly good treatment of the topic and was posted as a followup to an older Ask Slashdot.
Really, how different will it be if the future only has the preserved personal effects and communications of an insignificant fraction of the general population? Today, archeologists make a career out of extrapolating whole civilizations out of building foundations and shards of pottery.
So, with a little care, I'm confident that my own data will be happily accessible as long as I need it. After that, the future will take care of itself.
am I missing something here?
Yeah, all players have to guess simultaneously.
It could be even dandier if such a virus made the locations of such text notices somewhat random, and had a stock of several different messages to choose from.
A really nice one would be to stick a little executable with some scary splash screen in an obscure directory, and then add a shortcut to the Startup folder or the RunOne key in HKEY/Local Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/. The file could delete itself after it ran.
It's too bad that something like is probably illegal, since it's about the only way most people would ever have a chance to clue in to MS's mistakes.
Oh well...
It could be even dandier if such a virus made the locations of such text notices somewhat random, and had a stock of several different messages to choose from.
A really nice one would be to stick a little executable with some scary splash screen in an obscure directory, and then add a shortcut to the Startup folder or the RunOne key in HKEY/Local Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/. The file could delete itself after it ran.
It's too bad that something like is probably illegal, since it's about the only way most people would ever have a chance to clue in to MS's mistakes.
Oh well...
Never defend the product
He believes that this is one reason why his small aerospace company has a consistently high safety record while turning out completely new (and often revolutionary) designs every year. You'll remember Rutan from the 1980's round the world non-stop plane Voyager II (I think).
Anyway, he said that if we start defending our work it becomes harder to find flaws and make necessary design changes. Cultivating a culture of healthy self-criticism frees a design team to make needed design changes. Finding flaws in somebody else's design isn't attacking them, but helping them. Reminds me of what I read a while back on the shuttle's SW development process.
I was immediately caught by this idea and wonder how much it would help quality in a software development environment.
Of course, the difficulty in convincing clients that you will NOT provide a mid-project QA report... I think he had comments an issue something like this too, but I forget...
Christopher
I just couldn't believe how annoying it was to watch the women's triathalon, taped on NBC with the stupid scripted commentary read by somebody who sounded like he just came from an audition for a daytime drama. What a relief to be able to switch 3 channels down the dial and see the men's triathalon live, with real sports commentators, really commenting on the sport being shown, live, in real-time.
It's like NBC is trying to make the Olympics into a made-for-tv miniseries. Ugh. I'm offended.
So add my voice to the chorus of "Hoorah for CBC".
Oh, and here is CBC's web coverage of the results from Sydney. While you're at it, also check out results from TSN, Canada's sports network.
Yikes-o man! Get the latest drivers, stat! I have a Celery 333 with 64 MB RAM and an 16MB AGP TNT 1, and I get close to 40 fps at 800x600 using OpenGL or Direct3D in Unreal and Q3. It doesn't drop much below 25 or 30 fps even when the action heats up...
BTW, thanks for the cool info on the power consumption.
Christopher
James M. Atkinson, president and senior engineer of the Boston-based Granite Island Group, a technical counterintelligence firm, said computer logs show that Mafiaboy was looking for a "script" program and asking for information and assistance in IRC chat rooms last summer about how he can launch a denial-of-service attack
From Granite Island Group website, Mr. Atkinson's qualifications:
Reminds me of this college application essay.
Didn't somebody already mention that April Fool's is long past? Or is this the real life James Bond? What I can't figure out is why he's so eager to publicize his credentials... if I were he, I would imagine it would be more profitable to be invisible...
Here's an interesting quote:
James M. Atkinson has completed more Formal Technical Training (from Apple) than anyone else we have on record.
- Apple Computer Training Department, Austin TX, Fall 1995
And the kicker:
In order to remain proficient, Mr. Atkinson attends at least 500 hours of formal security and technical training each year (a average of one day a week). He has currently completed over 12,500 hours of advanced security and technical training with industry leaders such as: Microsoft, Apple, AT&T, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Digital, Watkins Johnson, Hewlett Packard, Northern Telecom, Rolm, Cisco, IBM, Motorola, Toshiba, and dozens of others (including multiple government schools).
He must be a God. (Or maybe he has a really boring life).
Sheesh. Am I the only one who laughed at this?
Well, of course it will be a tradeoff, but probably not a bad one. Even with signal processed receiver arrays used to "aim" Arecibo, it's still limited by physical geography in a lot of ways. Needless to say, building another 300-meter instrument (at another latitude, for instance) would cost much much more than several dozen or even hundred commodity dishes with custom ultra-low noise preamps and receivers.
I'm not a radio astronomer, but it seems this will lower the entry barrier and put serious deep sky work in reach of a lot more researchers. Maybe these commodity arrays won't replace big dishes, but they certainly have the potential to accelerate research in radio astronomy.
Worship this hard copy! Printers worked day and night, bakkinaday, to make this information available! Um, hello, it's about the information, not the format. I'm sure few authors cared more about the text formatting of their books than about how many people received the author's ideas.
the 'net is a community thing, too. And much more so than a library, IMO. The net certainly provokes more social interaction than scouring for books at a library does.
I think that many people have yet to realize the great, immense potential of the interconnectedness of things. I know it was a significant paradigm shift when I began to think of the net as a global conversation; where the cost of distributing and assembling information drops dramatically, and the potential knowledge and experience base one individual can tap into is exponentially larger than previously possible in many areas.
I think there is general agreement here that Luddism is rarely useful. So the question is, what can we do to educate others?
Where do I start?! I should just keep my mouth shut, but I can't resist...
Tell me. As a consumer, how will i be any better off with Microsoft being sued? Driving the costs up because of lawsuits? Fragmenting a stable market with many more buggy programs?
Well, tell me, as a consumer, how much worse off are we because MS used their monopoly to crush companies like Netscape and many others that would have brought choice and lowered prices in consumer software?
I don't understand how people can pick at microsoft for writing the OS and the Applications...But my opinion is, let them exist. Let the CONSUMER Choose. NOT a lawyer. I feel you are doing the BIGGEST Injustice by making my choices for me in court.
Well, you may be a little preturbed that you may not be able to get Win2002 at the same level of quality and low cost that you're used to, but what about the injustice to all those people who couldn't choose their OS or browser because MS effectively blackmailed PC suppliers and bought out or crushed competitors.
The real beef is not that MS writes an OS or applications, remember, but that they use their monopoly position in the OS market to unfairly compete. If this is in fact true (that's Judge Jackson's job) then they deserve to be punished for robbing the consumer of potential better and cheaper options.
Sure some of you don't like the "Windows Tax" when you buy a new PC. But for the average consumer, why would they want to go out and choose something else that there friends or neighboors don't use? Why would someone want to choose something that is Niche when they can choose something that is a standard?
I just don't see how that is relevant. The point is not that MS is standard. Everybody agrees they are (at least for Joe Average). The problem is that they use their position to effectively prevent Joe Average from having options and choice.
I would feel sorry for the thousands of employees, the foundations that Gates supports, the 5,000+ college students that could loose scholarships, the grants and donations to the city and areas of which microsoft works (redmond receives lots of support from microsoft).
Sure MS gives money to lots of worthy causes. What they give back, though, is a tiny portion of what consumers never should have spent. Just think of all the scholarships, grants, libraries and public projects that could have been supported if instead of buying thousands of site licenses for MS-everything, universities, schools, and municipalities everywhere could have had access to standards-based interoperable PC OS's, which would have allowed cheaper and better application software. Think of all the developer man-years that have been chewed up in porting applications to stay compatible with each obscure API change in MS software.
Sure this is all hypothetical. We'll never know what could have been. The point is that many people believe that MS forced the market down the road we're on by unfair business practices.
You have always had a right to choice. I'm just curios why you think it is YOUR right to make my choice now?
I'm not making your choice. I just don't want MS to make my choice for me.
I believe the rights of the consumer belong to the consumer,
Well, you got that right at least.
Back to schoolwork - see ya!
As for soundcards, I'm not heavy into PC-based recording, but I know names like Creative and Turtle Beach are NOT the choice picks.
There's a report on PC sound cards at PC AV Tech that does some real quantitative comparisons, and includes some pro cards. The summary is here.
As for brands, start with
Somebody mentioned older Pro Tools hardware available cheaply, but I don't know if that's usable without the Digidesign software.
I think most pro applications and users would be covered by the brands above. I know the basement hobbiest may not go for those cards, but I think most people coming from a music/studio background will.
Are these brands supported under *nix? It's hard enough getting stable drivers for some pro cards for NT or 9x. I don't imagine that there's the audio equivalent of the gaming industry pushing manufacturers to release hardware specs so that open drivers can be written by the community.
I have to think that driver support for the pro audio cards will be a critical issue in the near term... I would even consider getting involved in this type of project over the summer once I'm finished school (12 days until I finish classes for my EE!!).
Still, I'd love for somebody to correct me.
Christopher
It's easy to imagine the WIG analogues. Since the vertical wings guide the trains by following the side rails of the tracks, implement WIG switches and crossovers like this:
There may be other issues (like widths of the tracks - but that issue hasn't stopped multi-lane highways from enter most urban areas; you just get creative in where you put them) but the switching and crossovers should be the same as currently tracks, just on a slightly larger scale.
Every passing moment in our life is a differing viewpoint so why not spirituality itself. I personally believe in God but God to me is a giant 'Son, you don't know squat!' sign board hanging over my head rather than a deity I worship.
Well, I can't be sure if you mean by the above that you believe in a literal diety, or just a ruling principle which guides your intellectual life, but I'll assume for the moment it's the former.
I totally agree that we don't know squat. This then leaves us two options. Either God (who we both believe exists) doesn't want to know us, and is therefore unknowable (since, being God, he/it can create the universe such that we will never find a way to observe of interact with him/it), or God must take the initiative to make some 'intrusion' into the natural universe so that we can communicate with him.
This is where honest truth-seekers start running into ancient 'holy' texts. There are some pretty simple and logical assumptions you can make if a God were trying to communicate with humanity:
Upon consideration it seems that there may be some candidates which fit this description.
Anyway, it is up to us individually to decide if such a supernatural communication has occured, but I think it is valuable to recognize that honest truth-seekers come from all backgrounds. A serious attempt can be made to decide if God exists, without resorting to dogma.
For the record, I have decided that God does indeed exist and that He HAS communicated to us throughout history as recorded in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. I believe that Jesus Christ was God in human form, and provided a way for us to bridge the gap between us and God. You can agree, or disagree as your conscience dictates. If you would like to discuss it more, feel free to email me privately.
Christopher
(Observant readers may have noticed I made a bit of a jump from 'supernatural being' to a diety with personal characteristics - 'him' or 'her' as opposed to 'it' or 'the force'. I think its a reasonable simplification for the point I'm trying to make. Also, those of you who looked at my earlier web-reference to www.christian-thinktank.com might recognize some of the above points from the authors "slow-paced, low key argument" which I highly recommend you read fully.)
They infuriated me too... such flat characters who missed most of the subtantial issues involved.
On a rational point of view, IMHO, religion has mostly led to destruction, murders and such...
Yeah, that statement may have a basis in truth, but it says NOTHING to the issue of whether there there is anything beyond the natural universe, whether there is any intelligence in the 'beyondness' and whether such potential 'beyondness' has had any substantial interaction with what we experience with our five senses.
Very Bad Things, all those, to be sure. What does that have to say about the truth-claims of any religion? Or any belief system for that matter?
Well, in that case, I suggest that you avoid religion and instead seek truth. I'll warn you though. If you're open minded, you're going to run into a lot of those funny, religious-type historical documents that some religions claim are 'holy' or 'from beyond this universe'. You might even find that some of them stand up to modern 'scientific' evaluation quite admirably (but this is off-topic enough already. For more info check out http://www.christian-thinktank.com).
I leave religion to those who refuse to admit the very facts that run the Universe.
Well, I think most people who know me would agree that I 'admit the very facts that run the Universe' yet I don't throw away religion wholesale (though if you want to get technical you have to look carefully at how the word 'fact' is defined, which can get quite messy, leading into some deep epistimological debates which begin to make agnosticism and nihilism look attractive).
If your main point was that religion isn't very related to a scientific administrator getting a bit of publicity about some gene-splicing plans, I'd have to agree with you. However, your venom seems to indicate something more, which seems suspiciously like close-mindedness to me... perhaps YOU are afraid of what you might find out if you took a serious look at the beliefs behind some religions?
Spirituality has to evolve along with life itself...
That might be true, if we were making up spirituality ourselves, though I would tend to be suspicious of spirituality like that more so than 'normal' spirituality. One would think if any version of spirituality out there actually were true, it would somehow transcend time...
This fascination for religious dogmas is so dangerous it blinds people from seeing what humankind is missing.
I might be tempted to rephrase that as:
Instead I'll just leave with a few questions to ponder...- Why do people claim to belong to a group, and yet not truly exemplify the beliefs that group professes? (insert 'be religious', 'be scientific', 'be dedicated to truth' or 'be open-minded' for 'belong to a group')
- Why do we judge groups based on the actions of the visible few whose actions don't always align with what those groups believe?
- Why do we insist on referring to 'religion', 'science', and 'progress' as monolithic entities having their own will? What about individuals, beliefs, truth, evidence, individual responsibility and morality?
I dunno, maybe this doesn't make sense to anybody but me - it just seems some anti-religious people are just as (blindly) zealous as the religious zealots...Christopher
How about we spend our time helping debug apps that we like and are really useful to us, rather than volunteer once again as beta testers for M$?
There are hundreds and thousands of people out there who will give their time to Bill for free. I am not one of them.
Christopher
This is probably obvious, but it's not only computational load that would be more evenly distributed. With some knowledge of the preferred routes of various levels of the net hierarchy, the traffic of the spidering could be more contained to small areas of the network.
Far flung links could be handled at higher levels and passed down to other spidering nodes closer to the link target (from a routing perspective). This would mean a little more computation overhead somewhere but I imagine it wouldn't be too bad. The benefits of distributed spidering seem to me quite attractive...
On the other hand, if it really was that feasible, wouldn't one of the Big Boys take it up, or is it too much hassle to develop a business model for a search engine based on volunteer spiders?
Christopher
No great perks here, but because of the time zone (GMT + 330) the first public showing anywhere was actually here in St. John's Newfoundland, at 12:01 AM May 19 NDT, or 10:31 PM May 18 EST. Of course, I was there...