Re:Less challenges on the moon?
on
US Plans Lunar Motel
·
· Score: 2, Informative
When I used to weld for a living (MIG), the gas used was 90%+ nitrogen and a few % argon, and was basically for cooling iirc. The inertness of the cooling gas is so you can control the weld temperature more exactly (oxygen would increase the heat of the weld, while hydrogen would just burn). It's surprisingly easy to blow holes in steel when it's only a couple of millimetres thick.
All the tips for MIG welders are made of copper, and so is the spool wire, so if you run them without a cooling gas they melt together and you get no work done. All the welders I used, used currents approaching 160A.
As far as I know, nitrogen was the main constituent of the gas because it is plentiful and therefore cheap.
"Windows Vista -- It just works"
"Windows Vista -- Heh heh"
"Windows Vista -- What choice have you got ?"
"Windows Vista -- Where do you think you're going ?"
In the UK, a larger proportion of total marks in any subject is being awarded for course work. ie, the stuff they did during the year while they were preparing for the exam. This is absolute bollox !
In real life, bleating that you did something good 2 months ago isn't going to help you solve the problem you are facing now ! Similarly, more and more exams are using multiple choice systems for the answers. well, I'm sorry, either you know it or you don't. You can take an "educated" guess when the answer is written in front of you - real life isn't like that.
Consequently people are leaving schools thinking that they've learned a few subjects, when all they've done is memorise a few aspects. Utterly useless in the workplace. and it seems to spread into all their other dealings where they are expected to think and evolve solutions. People take a driving test, and then drive that way for the rest of their life, except they get worse as they forget what they learned. The test is to demonstrate a basic and safe understanding of driving. It is the minimum not the be all and end all. But they have the certificate so that's all they ever aspire to.
As for laptops in the classroom, well that is just exacerbating the problem, unless you can touch type without looking at the screen, and are highly skilled at it, then you aren't listening to the tutor at all. The only reason you are taking the "notes" is to cram them the night before the exam. Which means you aren't learning, or understanding, just parroting someone elses thoughts. And then political pressure arises because so many people are so average, that they lower the standards so that people feel better.
And so the cycle goes. It's amusing that the UK govt. is now talking about streaming different ability levels in schools. They're the ones who abolished it in the first place !. No one was allowed to be any better than anyone else, so they all had to take the same courses in the same classes. Now they reap the consequences.
When I did maths at school, calculators were only allowed if you were in the top stream, ie you had demonstrated that you could do it in your head anyway. These days, calculators are required for all pupils. They can't add, subtract, multiply or do division of even simple problems without a gadget to do it for them. That sucks, and they are worse off for it, and so are we.
As another poster pointed out, the govt. doesn't want an educated population, because they might actually realise what's being done to them. It amuses me that all these kids with their degrees are worthless in the real world, but it doesn't matter because they all end up in the "service industry" ie office workers. And they think they're clever. As long as they've got a shiny BMW and the latest TV and HiFi they think they are the dogs bollux. In actual fact the govt. has them by the bollux, because they can't do anything else.
One server with dual (or even triple) DVB-T cards and a lot of disk space plus net access.
3 mini itx boxes with small hard drives and ethernet.
The DVB-T cards would most likely be the Nebula DigiTV which you can set up so that as long as a machine has the software installed, it can receive its signal from the main box. Great. A small box in each room to receive the signal over the LAN plus browse the net, do email, watch movies and recordings saved on the servers drives.
Admittedly, the prices for some of the miniITX setups are quite high at the moment, but if you don't need a full pc in each room, why have one ?
The only problem (for me anyway) is that the Nebula software is Windows specific. Apparently you can get the card working under linux, but I haven't got a setup to play with to test the networking yet.
Another nice thing about the Nebula cards, is that because they transmit the whole multiplex over the network, even with only one card installed, you could still watch a different channel on one of the "slave" boxes (as long as that channel is in the same multiplex as the server is tuned to). I think you can even record a whole multiplex at once, and then select which channel you require at viewing time.
Any analogue only tuner card is a bad idea, because all TV is going to be switched to digital sooner than you think. Here in the UK, they start turning off the analogue signal next year, but I've been receiving digital broadcasts for over 2 years now. I don't think it's worth spending money on something that will be obsolete in less than 2 years. My Hauppage WinTV USB DVB tuner works pretty well, if I had a better signal it would be perfect.
* Short Answer: KnoppMyth is Knoppix optimized for MythTV.
* Long Answer: Our vision is a distribution that makes it trivial to setup a set-top box.
We've included everything that believe is needing to reach this goal.
And, in fact, the developers use this distribution on their own PVR's.
Yeah, like really good drivers don't need seat belts, or really good sailors don't need lifeboats/life preservers.
I am the only user on my box at home, and I still use a seperate root account. It prevents me from deleting my own files for one thing. If I really need to keep something safe, I chown it root:root and its safe from me, my scripts, and any other interference. I can still read the files, but I can't modify them, and that's useful. There have been a few times when I've emptied the wastebasket in gnome, and seen things fly past that I didn't put in there (intentionally). No more (I hope).
I run RH and Fedora too. I tried Ubuntu back when everybody started raving about its first release. I even got them to send me some Official cds with the live and the install versions.
Unfortunately (for them) none of the 10 live cds I received would boot on my Vaio XP home SP2 laptop or my win98 desktop, it would just skip straight through to windows.
I know for a fact it was a problem with Ubuntus disks for two reasons.
1) I downloaded and burned my own copies of the Ubuntu Live cd, which worked fine on the Vaio (no, I didn't burn them on the laptop, they were done in FC and win98) and
2)knoppix, gnoppix, Freesbie, Insert and many others all work fine on the Vaio and the desktop.
Being a helpful sort of chap, I submitted a bug to the Ubuntu people, and all they seemed to want was for me to fix it for them. I mentioned all the other live cds that DID work, and the fact that the problem seemed to be with their burn process, but to no avail.
Did anybody else get a bunch of bum disks ? (It was version 4.10)
I was left wondering how many people took the plunge to try linux for the first time and it didn't even boot !
To be honest, even the self burned disks left me feeling unhappy about the distro. If you are familiar with the way Gnome has been going recently, ie. dumbing the interface down, then let me tell you, Ubuntu 4.10 was ahead of its time. There were more options and programs available on a copy of Damn Small Linux !
Who is this user "root" and why do they need their connection limit raised ?
Usually root is the last user you want dbase/web serving software running as ! Create and run as a more restricted user, so if the thing gets hacked, at least all is not lost.
I make a point of not upgrading to the last update until the next new version is out. I just upgraded from FC3 to FC4 about 2 weeks ago. I'm not completely unhappy with FC4 but among other things, certain icons have gone missing in Gnome, virtually all the panel apps went missing, Gdesklets broke, the weather panel applet doesn't have forecasts for my area anymore and the pop email applets went missing. That last one was a bugger, as I have about 5 different addys I need to keep an eye on. I ended up with Mail Notification 2.0 which is not the same thing at all. For one thing it can't perform seperate actions according to which mailbox has mail:(
On the plus side, my 400GB LVM volume didn't get lost in the upgrade, so I should be grateful;-)
Oh, I upgraded using yum BTW and it all went fine. IIRC, you have to install the later version kernel first, then reboot, then run yum, so that it gets the correct distribution. Here's the how-to I followed.
When FC6 comes out, I'll take a look at upgrading to FC5.
f you then throw out those 100 years, and go back from 1800 to 1500, how much change was there in 300 years? Someone invents gunpowder and that is the major catalyst of change.
Er, the chinese invented gunpowder around about the 8th century.
and you seem to forget that between 1500 and 1800 there was a thing called the industrial revolution ! Things like the steam engine and mass production were invented, but I guess they are only small things, leading as they do, directly to the modern day economy. And what about Isaac Newton ? I guess nothing he did changed the face of the world. Or Copernicus, Da Vinci, Vasco Da Gama, Columbus etc. I don't have time to list all the inventions such as the clockwork time piece, without which we wouldn't have longitude for example.
You seem to forget that the rate of change today, is due to the massive calculating power provided by computers, which has only really come to bear in the last 40 to 50 years.
Re:Fat Tire is a great beer...
on
Green Geek Beer
·
· Score: 1
Really, let's see -
(Coming from Yourshire in England, I'm usually a bit tired when it comes to sampling beers not brewed within 50 miles of where I was born...)
or
(Coming from Yourshire in England, I'm usually a bit cautious when it comes to sampling beers not brewed within 50 miles of where I was born...)
Now which one makes sense in the context ?
Sampling means trying something out - so being tired while trying something out doesn't make sense, while being cautious while trying something out does.
If you have any sense of course.
Re:Sounds like typical video game designers...
on
Playing The Escape
·
· Score: 1
I think one possible use of the rewritable disks would be in bootable disks, like knoppix et al.
while the write speeds are still low compared to hard disks, and the access times would suck, it would be nice to be able to boot a disk on any computer, and be able to save all your work on that same disk. Beats having to work with only web based documents, or leaving small images on the local hard drive.
I can imagine a time when you could go to a net cafe (for example) and the pc you hired didn't have a hard disk at all, just a HD rewriter. You bring your own OS and leave no traces (incriminating or otherwise).
I guess this is possible now with DVD-RAM but the available space is a bit limited.
Another possibilty would be true use anywhere software. You wouldn't need to write for any particular market segment anymore, as you would provide the software and OS on the same bootable disk, great for corporate desktops or front of house applications.
I realise this idea will be shot down in flames for various reasons, but I still think it has merits. For example you could have MoviX or GeexBoX AND 40 or 50 movies all on the same disk.
Slashdot Mirror
I decided then exactly whose side I wasn't on.
So George, you'd better come and get me !
I find that 802.11b is fine for streaming divx/xvid files. HD content may be different of course.
(laugh, it's funny)
paradigm, you gotta have a paradigm !
All the tips for MIG welders are made of copper, and so is the spool wire, so if you run them without a cooling gas they melt together and you get no work done. All the welders I used, used currents approaching 160A.
As far as I know, nitrogen was the main constituent of the gas because it is plentiful and therefore cheap.
That's nothing - normal keyboards won't be supported, all data will have to be entered UP L L L R DOWN UP UP DOWN DOWN R L FIRE !
"Windows Vista -- It just works"
"Windows Vista -- Heh heh"
"Windows Vista -- What choice have you got ?"
"Windows Vista -- Where do you think you're going ?"
Wireless video sender ?
Ok 4 words - TV out, 5.1 surround.
Oh alright then, 9 words - Computer, TV out, 5.1 surround, 84" screen, projector, bed !
My xp laptop updates fine and I never go to the windows update page, I leave it up to XPs automatic update in the SP2 "security center".
In real life, bleating that you did something good 2 months ago isn't going to help you solve the problem you are facing now ! Similarly, more and more exams are using multiple choice systems for the answers. well, I'm sorry, either you know it or you don't. You can take an "educated" guess when the answer is written in front of you - real life isn't like that.
Consequently people are leaving schools thinking that they've learned a few subjects, when all they've done is memorise a few aspects. Utterly useless in the workplace. and it seems to spread into all their other dealings where they are expected to think and evolve solutions. People take a driving test, and then drive that way for the rest of their life, except they get worse as they forget what they learned. The test is to demonstrate a basic and safe understanding of driving. It is the minimum not the be all and end all. But they have the certificate so that's all they ever aspire to.
As for laptops in the classroom, well that is just exacerbating the problem, unless you can touch type without looking at the screen, and are highly skilled at it, then you aren't listening to the tutor at all. The only reason you are taking the "notes" is to cram them the night before the exam. Which means you aren't learning, or understanding, just parroting someone elses thoughts. And then political pressure arises because so many people are so average, that they lower the standards so that people feel better.
And so the cycle goes. It's amusing that the UK govt. is now talking about streaming different ability levels in schools. They're the ones who abolished it in the first place !. No one was allowed to be any better than anyone else, so they all had to take the same courses in the same classes. Now they reap the consequences.
When I did maths at school, calculators were only allowed if you were in the top stream, ie you had demonstrated that you could do it in your head anyway. These days, calculators are required for all pupils. They can't add, subtract, multiply or do division of even simple problems without a gadget to do it for them. That sucks, and they are worse off for it, and so are we.
As another poster pointed out, the govt. doesn't want an educated population, because they might actually realise what's being done to them. It amuses me that all these kids with their degrees are worthless in the real world, but it doesn't matter because they all end up in the "service industry" ie office workers. And they think they're clever. As long as they've got a shiny BMW and the latest TV and HiFi they think they are the dogs bollux. In actual fact the govt. has them by the bollux, because they can't do anything else.
</RANT>
(breathe....)
One server with dual (or even triple) DVB-T cards and a lot of disk space plus net access.
3 mini itx boxes with small hard drives and ethernet.
The DVB-T cards would most likely be the Nebula DigiTV which you can set up so that as long as a machine has the software installed, it can receive its signal from the main box. Great. A small box in each room to receive the signal over the LAN plus browse the net, do email, watch movies and recordings saved on the servers drives.
Admittedly, the prices for some of the miniITX setups are quite high at the moment, but if you don't need a full pc in each room, why have one ?
The only problem (for me anyway) is that the Nebula software is Windows specific. Apparently you can get the card working under linux, but I haven't got a setup to play with to test the networking yet.
Another nice thing about the Nebula cards, is that because they transmit the whole multiplex over the network, even with only one card installed, you could still watch a different channel on one of the "slave" boxes (as long as that channel is in the same multiplex as the server is tuned to). I think you can even record a whole multiplex at once, and then select which channel you require at viewing time.
All I'm waiting for really is the right price.
Any analogue only tuner card is a bad idea, because all TV is going to be switched to digital sooner than you think. Here in the UK, they start turning off the analogue signal next year, but I've been receiving digital broadcasts for over 2 years now. I don't think it's worth spending money on something that will be obsolete in less than 2 years. My Hauppage WinTV USB DVB tuner works pretty well, if I had a better signal it would be perfect.
" What is KnoppMyth?
* Short Answer: KnoppMyth is Knoppix optimized for MythTV.
* Long Answer: Our vision is a distribution that makes it trivial to setup a set-top box.
We've included everything that believe is needing to reach this goal.
And, in fact, the developers use this distribution on their own PVR's.
What is Knoppix?
* See http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
What is MythTV?
* See http://mythtv.org/
Cool! So does this run completely from the CD?
* No. You can use the CD as a frontend, but KnoppMyth must be installed to the hard drive.
Will it ever run completely from the CD?
* Maybe. "
So you can't test it unless you install it.
I believe the OP was asking about a live cd that had a hard drive install as an option.
I am the only user on my box at home, and I still use a seperate root account. It prevents me from deleting my own files for one thing. If I really need to keep something safe, I chown it root:root and its safe from me, my scripts, and any other interference. I can still read the files, but I can't modify them, and that's useful. There have been a few times when I've emptied the wastebasket in gnome, and seen things fly past that I didn't put in there (intentionally). No more (I hope).
Could somebody please pass me the soap ? and a little more hot water ? Aaah that's better, thanks !
Unfortunately (for them) none of the 10 live cds I received would boot on my Vaio XP home SP2 laptop or my win98 desktop, it would just skip straight through to windows.
I know for a fact it was a problem with Ubuntus disks for two reasons.
1) I downloaded and burned my own copies of the Ubuntu Live cd, which worked fine on the Vaio (no, I didn't burn them on the laptop, they were done in FC and win98)
and
2)knoppix, gnoppix, Freesbie, Insert and many others all work fine on the Vaio and the desktop.
Being a helpful sort of chap, I submitted a bug to the Ubuntu people, and all they seemed to want was for me to fix it for them. I mentioned all the other live cds that DID work, and the fact that the problem seemed to be with their burn process, but to no avail.
Did anybody else get a bunch of bum disks ? (It was version 4.10)
I was left wondering how many people took the plunge to try linux for the first time and it didn't even boot !
To be honest, even the self burned disks left me feeling unhappy about the distro. If you are familiar with the way Gnome has been going recently, ie. dumbing the interface down, then let me tell you, Ubuntu 4.10 was ahead of its time. There were more options and programs available on a copy of Damn Small Linux !
(or perhaps there is, but for those for whom it is necessary it's already too late.)
Usually root is the last user you want dbase/web serving software running as !
Create and run as a more restricted user, so if the thing gets hacked, at least all is not lost.
On the plus side, my 400GB LVM volume didn't get lost in the upgrade, so I should be grateful ;-)
Oh, I upgraded using yum BTW and it all went fine. IIRC, you have to install the later version kernel first, then reboot, then run yum, so that it gets the correct distribution. Here's the how-to I followed.
When FC6 comes out, I'll take a look at upgrading to FC5.
and you seem to forget that between 1500 and 1800 there was a thing called the industrial revolution ! Things like the steam engine and mass production were invented, but I guess they are only small things, leading as they do, directly to the modern day economy. And what about Isaac Newton ? I guess nothing he did changed the face of the world. Or Copernicus, Da Vinci, Vasco Da Gama, Columbus etc. I don't have time to list all the inventions such as the clockwork time piece, without which we wouldn't have longitude for example.
You seem to forget that the rate of change today, is due to the massive calculating power provided by computers, which has only really come to bear in the last 40 to 50 years.
(Coming from Yourshire in England, I'm usually a bit tired when it comes to sampling beers not brewed within 50 miles of where I was born...)
or
(Coming from Yourshire in England, I'm usually a bit cautious when it comes to sampling beers not brewed within 50 miles of where I was born...)
Now which one makes sense in the context ?
Sampling means trying something out - so being tired while trying something out doesn't make sense, while being cautious while trying something out does.
If you have any sense of course.
Fingerprinting, armed guards, intrusive searches ...</troll>
while the write speeds are still low compared to hard disks, and the access times would suck, it would be nice to be able to boot a disk on any computer, and be able to save all your work on that same disk. Beats having to work with only web based documents, or leaving small images on the local hard drive.
I can imagine a time when you could go to a net cafe (for example) and the pc you hired didn't have a hard disk at all, just a HD rewriter. You bring your own OS and leave no traces (incriminating or otherwise).
I guess this is possible now with DVD-RAM but the available space is a bit limited.
Another possibilty would be true use anywhere software. You wouldn't need to write for any particular market segment anymore, as you would provide the software and OS on the same bootable disk, great for corporate desktops or front of house applications.
I realise this idea will be shot down in flames for various reasons, but I still think it has merits. For example you could have MoviX or GeexBoX AND 40 or 50 movies all on the same disk.