Sure, Libranet tries to save some money by charging a download fee and what do you do? Post their website on Slashdot. Better make that price $20 now.:p
Opportunity cost is the formal term for what many of the comments are mentioning. O'Reilly must have made the decision that all the time and money going into supporting the software division would have (or will) make the company more money applied elsewhere.
I've been using gnome-help (I think that's the name, or gnome-help-browser) Which lets you look up man pages, info pages, and gnome help pages in a browser like environment with clickable x-ref. Its got quirks but generally works ok. The syntax it uses is:
man:
info:
I've been meaning to get into the code to try to fix some of the annoying things I find about it.
I don't know what your core interests are, but I chose Aerospace Engineering. The reason I mention this is people get into CompSci and CompEng just because they like computers and playing with them. If that your overriding interest then CompSci/Eng is fine for you. But if you are at all interested in playing with wider technology in general then you may want to look into one of the more traditional engineering disciplines -- making sure throughout your education that you get more than the required computer/electronics skills.
Although not for everyone, for me, Aerospace was great. It's very cross disciplinary major. I learned structures, electronics, aerodynamics, mechanics, thermodynamics, materials, computer programming, and I'm sure a few more areas that I'm forgetting right now.
After graduation, I got into aerospace systems simulations with several Aerospace defense companies and then a computer games programming company using its games for defense simulation.
I've worked everything from software simulations, hardware-in-the-loop simulations all in very computer intensive environments. But I've also gotten to go and see missile launches at flight test ranges, and play with Big-Robot-Arms (tm) with aerospace hardware mounted on them. It's been a lot of fun.
Sigh.. maybe I'm getting too cynical, but I just see this as the politicians way of making sure the entertainment industry pays their share of political contributions. I like the idea of campaign finance reform, but don't know if it will just push the money through different channels. I've been thinking that increased transparency as to who donates might help.
Right, when you drive on the roads, you don't expect privacy in your own vehicle. Oh, hmm... wait, you do?
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in your vehicle, to the extent that police officers need to observe probable cause before they search your vehicle. Is there an analagous situation for computers? I certainly expect privacy on my computer. (Wether thats legally enforceable is another question)
So when I put my computer onto a publically funded school network, is there a case to be made that I have reasonable privacy rights unless I'm driving dangerously (i.e. eating up massive bandwidth or pinging every machine on the school net...)
Why don't the monitor manufacturers implement some form of analog anti-aliasing on the monitor side? They could sell "gaming" monitors with a FSAA button on them.:)
Whenever groupware is discussed, the capabilites get tied to implementation specifics apps. I would be happy if we could just get some standard data exchange formats defined so that I can share appointment/contact/planning data between my PDA, desktop (linux/MS), web interface, etc. without hassling too much with data formats for application settings. Get that working, then start discussing more sophisticated group ware.
PS. iCAL and reefknot look like interesting projects
Umm.. before anyone tries that theory out. The G ratings your describing are for near-instantaneous shock levels, and are not all that difficult to generate -- especially when dropping onto hard surfaces.
This algorithm is based on the chinese fortune cookie amusement generation algorithm:
1) Read fortune
2) Add the phrase "in bed" the end of the fortune.
Web patent generation algorithm:
1) Read previous patent
2) Add the phrase "on the web"
3) Mask in legalese
4) Apply for shiny new patent
MEMS have uses outside of networking that haven't been mentioned. There are MEMS acceleration and turn rate sensors, as well as research looking at MEMS for wing surfaces to control airflow transitions from laminar to turbulent. I'm sure I'm leaving out many more...
What I like is the idea of providing smart access logs. Instead of filtering out sites altogether, scan the sites and flag possible offenders to the parents. I'm not sure how this would fit into your particular smart card scheme, but I've long wondered why this isn't a commercially availiable solution for library and home access.
I'm also a big believer in letting these parents define their own filters or get filters from groups they agree with. If they side with the fundamentalist christian right, let them use a filter that flags whatever they want, just let me define/apply my own standards.
1) The thing that bugs me is that cheaper missions are fine from an engineering standpoint as long as they're so much cheaper that a failed missions can just be relaunched. Unfortunately, the political spin is that failure dooms a given project permanently so we end up with mission hardware that must succeed 99.99999999% of the time. Note that this hardware is then probably several orders of magnitude more expensive than hardware that succeeds 99.9% of the time.
That leads to 2)
Why doesn't NASA ever seem to re-use their hardware designs? They spend huge amounts of money developing different mission profiles/hardware for each mission. We would still have lots to learn if we launched and landed many more mars rovers all over mars.. And the cost per mission would drop significantly and it would reduce the politcal cost of failure. "Gee, one failed, it's a good thing we planned for 10 of these things, statistically, one was going to fail anyway..."
It's just depressing that at this point in the development of human civilization, our progress is more limited by our own psychology more than our technical cabability.
Yup.. Reduced crime rates. According to FBI statistics, rates of serious teenage crime peaked in 1992 and have been dropping since. Notable in this information is that Mortal Combat was released in 1992, Doom in 1993, Quake 1996, etc, etc.
(This data paraphrashed from an editorial in the LA Times, "Punishing Teens to Protect Them", June 11, 2000
Unfortunately, the LA Times has already put the article into their archives or I'd link to it.
Ahh, but what you neglect to mention is that the number of traffic accidents in California also fell during that period -- much to the consternation of the hand-wringers who were predicting mass chaos on the roads.
Personally, I think Saudi Arabia is driving the price as high as they can without triggering effects of increased interest/research into alternative energy technologies. The politics in OPEC are interesting because hitting that price point is the goal of all of the members. IMHO, that's why you'll see Saudi Arabia leading increasing production while countries like Venezuela opposing it. (Because V. is at capacity production and can maximize short term profit by not having prices lowered)
Ahhh... armchair analysis BS, nothing quite like it.
Taxes are also inevitable. They should be lower than for bricks and mortar, but they are necessary for cities, counties, and states to pay for basic services such as roads (used by UPS to deliver your goods), rail (ditto), airports (ditto), police (to arrest the fraud mongsters), jails (to lock up the Free Net activists in), and courts (to find them guilty and protect the monied interests from having their credit cards stolen). They should be really low for small business and startups, to encourage creation of new things, but not for big companies.
I have some problems with this. How are you going to differentiate a bricks-and-mortar company from a "net" company. In the long run, its like trying to differentiate between companies that operate with and without telephones.
Further, its a mistake to levy specific taxes on net transactions. If someone is making money, then that profit is already taxed. "Net" companies have to have a physical component somewhere. Nevermind that the delivery service also gets paid, and most likely has some warehouses, trucks in your locality. I pay a phone utility tax, the ISP I connect to pays local taxes. How about services that don't require any public infrastructure? If a sign a loan with a bank should that get taxed?
If your local town/state thinks its losing revenue, it should be asking itself why its local businesses can't sell to the rest of the world. Not how do I levy additional taxes my own residents.
I agree with trying to encourage startups, but the best way to do that is to not add yet another obstacle in their startup -- i.e. figuring out how to pay all these taxes to various different localities, or wading through tax laws to find out if my particular tranaction is taxed.
Slashdot Mirror
5 bucks for whoever can implement the deCSS algo in that space!
Sure, Libranet tries to save some money by charging a download fee and what do you do? Post their website on Slashdot. Better make that price $20 now. :p
Opportunity cost is the formal term for what many of the comments are mentioning. O'Reilly must have made the decision that all the time and money going into supporting the software division would have (or will) make the company more money applied elsewhere.
I've been using gnome-help (I think that's the name, or gnome-help-browser) Which lets you look up man pages, info pages, and gnome help pages in a browser like environment with clickable x-ref. Its got quirks but generally works ok. The syntax it uses is:
man:
info:
I've been meaning to get into the code to try to fix some of the annoying things I find about it.
I don't know what your core interests are, but I chose Aerospace Engineering. The reason I mention this is people get into CompSci and CompEng just because they like computers and playing with them. If that your overriding interest then CompSci/Eng is fine for you. But if you are at all interested in playing with wider technology in general then you may want to look into one of the more traditional engineering disciplines -- making sure throughout your education that you get more than the required computer/electronics skills.
Although not for everyone, for me, Aerospace was great. It's very cross disciplinary major. I learned structures, electronics, aerodynamics, mechanics, thermodynamics, materials, computer programming, and I'm sure a few more areas that I'm forgetting right now.
After graduation, I got into aerospace systems simulations with several Aerospace defense companies and then a computer games programming company using its games for defense simulation.
I've worked everything from software simulations, hardware-in-the-loop simulations all in very computer intensive environments. But I've also gotten to go and see missile launches at flight test ranges, and play with Big-Robot-Arms (tm) with aerospace hardware mounted on them. It's been a lot of fun.
Sigh.. maybe I'm getting too cynical, but I just see this as the politicians way of making sure the entertainment industry pays their share of political contributions. I like the idea of campaign finance reform, but don't know if it will just push the money through different channels. I've been thinking that increased transparency as to who donates might help.
Right, when you drive on the roads, you don't expect privacy in your own vehicle. Oh, hmm ... wait, you do?
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in your vehicle, to the extent that police officers need to observe probable cause before they search your vehicle. Is there an analagous situation for computers? I certainly expect privacy on my computer. (Wether thats legally enforceable is another question)
So when I put my computer onto a publically funded school network, is there a case to be made that I have reasonable privacy rights unless I'm driving dangerously (i.e. eating up massive bandwidth or pinging every machine on the school net...)
Why don't the monitor manufacturers implement some form of analog anti-aliasing on the monitor side? They could sell "gaming" monitors with a FSAA button on them. :)
Whenever groupware is discussed, the capabilites get tied to implementation specifics apps. I would be happy if we could just get some standard data exchange formats defined so that I can share appointment/contact/planning data between my PDA, desktop (linux/MS), web interface, etc. without hassling too much with data formats for application settings. Get that working, then start discussing more sophisticated group ware.
PS. iCAL and reefknot look like interesting projects
Umm.. before anyone tries that theory out. The G ratings your describing are for near-instantaneous shock levels, and are not all that difficult to generate -- especially when dropping onto hard surfaces.
Since slashdot rumors sometimes prove true, I thought I'd try to start a good one...
This algorithm is based on the chinese fortune cookie amusement generation algorithm:
;)
1) Read fortune
2) Add the phrase "in bed" the end of the fortune.
Web patent generation algorithm:
1) Read previous patent
2) Add the phrase "on the web"
3) Mask in legalese
4) Apply for shiny new patent
(Note: This method is patent pending....
'nuff said.
MEMS have uses outside of networking that haven't been mentioned. There are MEMS acceleration and turn rate sensors, as well as research looking at MEMS for wing surfaces to control airflow transitions from laminar to turbulent. I'm sure I'm leaving out many more...
would perhaps be to get together with Matrox?
I'd like to see a change in copyright laws to make them more consumer and artist friendly.
I figure this goes in the unlimited category since it costs to brib... er.. lobby the politicians.
What I like is the idea of providing smart access logs. Instead of filtering out sites altogether, scan the sites and flag possible offenders to the parents. I'm not sure how this would fit into your particular smart card scheme, but I've long wondered why this isn't a commercially availiable solution for library and home access.
I'm also a big believer in letting these parents define their own filters or get filters from groups they agree with. If they side with the fundamentalist christian right, let them use a filter that flags whatever they want, just let me define/apply my own standards.
1) The thing that bugs me is that cheaper missions are fine from an engineering standpoint as long as they're so much cheaper that a failed missions can just be relaunched. Unfortunately, the political spin is that failure dooms a given project permanently so we end up with mission hardware that must succeed 99.99999999% of the time. Note that this hardware is then probably several orders of magnitude more expensive than hardware that succeeds 99.9% of the time.
That leads to 2)
Why doesn't NASA ever seem to re-use their hardware designs? They spend huge amounts of money developing different mission profiles/hardware for each mission. We would still have lots to learn if we launched and landed many more mars rovers all over mars.. And the cost per mission would drop significantly and it would reduce the politcal cost of failure. "Gee, one failed, it's a good thing we planned for 10 of these things, statistically, one was going to fail anyway..."
It's just depressing that at this point in the development of human civilization, our progress is more limited by our own psychology more than our technical cabability.
... is a cover for a distibuted encryption cracking effort put on by the NSA.
:P
Sniff, sniff.. hmm, smells like troll to me.
Yup.. Reduced crime rates. According to FBI statistics, rates of serious teenage crime peaked in 1992 and have been dropping since. Notable in this information is that Mortal Combat was released in 1992, Doom in 1993, Quake 1996, etc, etc.
(This data paraphrashed from an editorial in the LA Times, "Punishing Teens to Protect Them", June 11, 2000
Unfortunately, the LA Times has already put the article into their archives or I'd link to it.
Ahh, but what you neglect to mention is that the number of traffic accidents in California also fell during that period -- much to the consternation of the hand-wringers who were predicting mass chaos on the roads.
Personally, I think Saudi Arabia is driving the price as high as they can without triggering effects of increased interest/research into alternative energy technologies. The politics in OPEC are interesting because hitting that price point is the goal of all of the members. IMHO, that's why you'll see Saudi Arabia leading increasing production while countries like Venezuela opposing it. (Because V. is at capacity production and can maximize short term profit by not having prices lowered)
Ahhh... armchair analysis BS, nothing quite like it.
Personally I like the Ruby series. But ZBS is a great company. They put out a lot of radio dramas that I really enjoy listening to.
Does anyone really care what OS the Wyse/IBM/NCR ATM/bank terminal is running? Wyse doesn't hence its 'own op..sys
Given Microsoft's history on security, reliability. Yes!
"Your bank balance has changed. Please reboot the ATM for your deposit to take effect."
Taxes are also inevitable. They should be lower than for bricks and mortar, but they are necessary for cities, counties, and states to pay for basic services such as roads (used by UPS to deliver your goods), rail (ditto), airports (ditto), police (to arrest the fraud mongsters), jails (to lock up the Free Net activists in), and courts (to find them guilty and protect the monied interests from having their credit cards stolen). They should be really low for small business and startups, to encourage creation of new things, but not for big companies.
I have some problems with this. How are you going to differentiate a bricks-and-mortar company from a "net" company. In the long run, its like trying to differentiate between companies that operate with and without telephones.
Further, its a mistake to levy specific taxes on net transactions. If someone is making money, then that profit is already taxed. "Net" companies have to have a physical component somewhere. Nevermind that the delivery service also gets paid, and most likely has some warehouses, trucks in your locality. I pay a phone utility tax, the ISP I connect to pays local taxes. How about services that don't require any public infrastructure? If a sign a loan with a bank should that get taxed?
If your local town/state thinks its losing revenue, it should be asking itself why its local businesses can't sell to the rest of the world. Not how do I levy additional taxes my own residents.
I agree with trying to encourage startups, but the best way to do that is to not add yet another obstacle in their startup -- i.e. figuring out how to pay all these taxes to various different localities, or wading through tax laws to find out if my particular tranaction is taxed.