Other than stuff already mentioned, I have my Knoppix homedir in a compressed file on my USB drive. I boot the Knoppix CD with the USB drive installed and the argument: knoppix=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img and my desktop is set up.
sender stored message makes sender accessible
on
Replacing SMTP?
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· Score: 2
If the sender has to store the message, then suddenly they have to be accessible.
That's important. A reachable IP makes identification easier. Besides, the sender is also responsible for storage and bandwidth, and those are costs I can bear for my personal correspondents, but that would move spam a little further from free.
The question is a better one than I thought when I first read it. Although it doesn't sound like IM2000 can guarantee a low enough level of spam by itself, I would not only install a new client, but actually serve a new protocol if it was a way of delivering email without spam.
Wow! That's the most interesting thing in the article, if true.
It's also a problem that will recur in any public cooperative effort. SETI@home has to essentially double their work because they know that it is possible that a large percentage of their results are crap. The problem is guaranteed to be worse if someone profits by poisoning.
The only answer I know of is validation. As I understand it, SETI@home ensures that any dataset is processed by at least two different nodes. I assume one problem with Trustic was that there's no time for validation. By the time you've validated that an address is evil, the parasite has moved on.
I'd love to hear what makes Trustic unfixable. It sounds like Trustic's "trust network" model (weighs contributions from trusted members more) didn't work, but the difference between not working and insurmountable is interesting.
I thought it was common knowledge that neckties impaired vision slightly, at least while they are being worn.
The explanation I was given was that the impaired blood flow interfered with oxygen transport to the rods & cones, but apparently this hypothesis hadn't been tested.
Anyone else heard this before? I heard it from my dad, who was doing perception research about forty years ago. Sadly, my father has glaucoma now. This means I'm at risk for glaucoma, so I'll be especially careful about my collar & tie.
So, you've _never_ touched an electric fence? Have you ever gotten a shock from one? Your cousins don't have that experience.
It sounds like your city cousins were displaying a healthy curiousity. They know it shouldn't damage them in a lasting sense, and wonder how powerful it is.
The first time I encountered a stun gun, I pressed it to my arm & tried it out. I knew I wouldn't damage myself, but now I've got a better idea of exactly what it does and how powerful it is. I don't think it was stupid. It hurt. Big deal. I knew it would, and I also knew it shouldn't do any lasting harm.
I agree though, even adults are too sheltered today. My camcorder didnt' really need a warning against using it in the tub, did it? However, this can be countered with some of the techniques people mention below.
I keep thinking of a friend of mine who told his kids: "Saying 'I just didn't think' isn't ever good enough."
I think you used the wrong data for your calculation. 22% is only the difference between the underwater dilation of the Sea Gypsies and the normal European minimum. But the article also mentions that most people's pupils dilate when they go underwater, so other people's eyes aren't anywhere near their minimum. The difference is much larger than 22%. Besides, they aren't acheiving perfect focus, only better focus.
A 2mm pinhole seems big, but it is enough to make a significant difference in acuity. I'm pretty blind without my glasses, but I can significantly improve my resolution by making a crude pinhole lens by circling my index finger to a near pinhole of a few millimeters. Try it, if you wear glasses. It's surprising how well it works, especially considering how large the aperture is, and how far it is from circular. Looking through my imaginary monocle also makes me look extra strange.
I wonder if this explains some of the believers in the Bates Method of vision improvement. They believe that you can learn to see better without your glasses, although Bates' original model of the eye is mechanically wrong. Perhaps they aren't completely wrong. They also recommend gazing at the sun as sunbathing for the eyes. That could initiate the dilation. Unfortunately, UV exposure also causes cataracts.
I'm curious as to whether this phenomenon appears anywhere else. It seems to me that families of pearl divers or people who dive for food in other parts of the world should display this too. If not, I'd wonder why.
sarcasm or irony, truth and nihilism
on
Isn't It Ironic?
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· Score: 4, Funny
Sarcasm isn't rhetorical irony? Merriam-Webster make it sound a lot like it. "...2a the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning" That doesn't sound like sarcasm at all, does it? That also fits with the first definition in the Guardian article.
Perhaps the distinction is making an argument, or trying to point out a truth, rather than just a cheap joke. Some intention or belief at the bottom of it that carries it from a joke to an actual argument.
To me, that's the interesting part of this discussion of irony. I think many of these misuses of the word are defensible, using one definition or the other, but the thing that I find troublesome is that so often this claim of irony is accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge any sincere belief.
Mocking everything isn't irony. I think the modern (arguably inaccurate) idea of irony, with its affectation of nihilism, is a really interesting starting point for a social discussion. People will brag about what they don't believe, but won't talk about what they do believe, or display art that they pretend that they would be ashamed to really enjoy.
I think the problem is that people don't know what they believe. They don't even know that they believe anything. The canned answers are inadequate, but they manage neither to rationalize and complete these for themselves, or to find other things to believe in. They believe incoherent and contradictory things, and pretend belief in nothing. Unfortunately, believing nothing is just as useless a way to go through life as believing everything.
There is an attack that is often made on skeptics. "Oh, you don't believe in anything." However, the skeptics I know have unusually strong beliefs, and understand that their beliefs have implications in the world they live in. That is what makes them skeptics.
In this vein, there was a great article in Spy magazine about a decade ago on "irony". It even had Chevy Chase grinning on the cover and making the quote symbol with his fingers. I'll have to dig that up again.
I think this quote expresses it beautifully: Simpsons, Homerpalooza Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool. Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude? Teen1: I don't even know anymore.
Without qualification. The only difference between you or me, and Mark McGwire is practice. Now that's simple nonsense. I'm over the hill for most professional sports. Those old players who retire just haven't practiced enough I guess. I never said practice was unneccessary, just that there are circumstances where practice is not enough. I'm never going to be a great baseball player, no matter how much I practice. That bothers me not at all. We all have our limitations, and they vary. Practice only goes so far. That was my point, but if you believe otherwise, then I have no interest in arguing with you.
Excuse culture? I ask for no excuse, and make no excuse. I avoided no responsibility. I'm accountable for and satisfied with my life & actions. I said I was working two jobs for years on end. I wasn't complaining. I demonstrated that I didn't live a lazy lifestyle. What I did was discover some ways to change my behavior once I realized my problem wasn't laziness. If those things bother you, well then too bad that you're a busybody. You asked for perspectives and I replied.
You should learn a little more about mental health and the brain. We know more than you realize. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand depression, for instance.
Depression is not severe unhappiness. Many depressed people have valid reasons for being unhappy. Certainly cause needs to be addressed. However, the description in the DSM includes attempted suicide.
It's not just that chemical imbalance causes depression, (although there are cases where it is demonstrated that it does) but that when a person is a danger to themselves they require emergency intervention. Fortunately depression often resolves itself within a fairly short time, and drugs can be useful to keep the patient from committing suicide or otherwise aggravating the depression in the short term. Or are those suicides just part of the excuse culture?
Many psychiatric disorders begin to appear in or just following adolescence. Probably your friend is really sick. Maybe by listening to him you could help him with the circumstances he's trying to deal with. A girl? Of course. What else is worth getting depressed over? People matter.
All my life I thought I was just lazy, and that's why I never did my homework. I tested as extremely smart after all, so why else didn't I ever get it done? Flunked out of State college. Just weak & lazy. My parents were kind & supportive, but I knew what my problem was.
Funny though, that as a grownup without any sort of college degree I had lots of crappy jobs. Often I had two jobs at once to make ends meet. For years, I'd work full-time at my stupid job, and then go to my other stupid job. It didn't bother me much. It was what I had to do.
When I read Driven to Distraction, it occured to me that maybe I wasn't lazy, and that there were lots of other ADD traits that were familiar.
Once I started to keep the idea of ADD in mind, and at least intermittently take my medicine, my life improved vastly.
I'm still a little skeptical in many cases because it seems awfully easy, and I certainly hate to see little kids on powerful drugs.
To address your analogy: There are people who can't hit a baseball worth a damn.They can practice, but they won't ever be good at it.
P.S. Everybody who has a general moral objection to psychiatric drugs can just go to hell. While there, read Mark Vonnegut's _Eden Express_.
Yup. Odds aren't all that is important. Logical best interests are often misrepresented. A buck isn't a thousand.
The difference between a buck and a thousand becomes qualitative in addition to quantitative because those extra few orders of magnitude can change your life. That's not irrational.
Would I risk my home to invest in a double or nothing bet that I had a 55% chance of winning? No. Even though the odds are in my favor, the downside is too ugly. Someone in a less expensive part of the world, or with more resources, might choose differently.
Don't bet more than you can afford to lose. Almost everybody understands that. There is a converse, and I think it probably goes something like this: Have fun and bet on the longshot if it's money you'd never miss.
People will act perversely with small amounts of money, especially for the chance at a life changing amount.
Will I buy a dollar lottery ticket? Occasionally. I'd probably be making more of a social contribution by handing that dollar to a street person, but the chance for a life changing amount of money might be worth a dollar.
Please note, the use of the word "chance" in the previous argument is misleading and only a poor example. Buying a lottery ticket does not significantly increase your odds of winning.
Grade inflation is also a result of marginal schools that disallow teachers from failing students.
These schools don't have to do that very often, because they ensure that they hire teachers who are sufficiently agreeable in the first place. A quote from a student about such a teacher at such a school: "He was a great guy. He wanted to be everybody's friend. He just wasn't a teacher."
Misuse of teacher evaluations can make it worse too.
This is why I reccomend the BOFH series to new system administrators. You can just laugh, or you can think about privacy violations, user abuse etcetera. Like Dilbert for the corporate world, but less whiny.
I like the idea of using fiction to teach, but so often it just ends up being smarmy. I'd like to try it myself, but balancing an agenda with the demands of a good story is hard. Just ask Goofus & Gallant.
I'll look for the book, and the publisher Syngress.
The company you refer to is Sapient Solutions LLC out of Boise Idaho. They are not the publically traded consulting firm Sapient, but a much smaller company.
I just wanted to clear that up because there are a lot of people who'll hear Sapient and think SAPE.
Now I have to go try that with a couple of my albums.
I wonder if he could see the music, or if he had something like a sharpened fingernail or perhaps a grain of sand on a fingertip. That might be an easier way to do that trick, but hopefully it wasn't just a trick.
I once cut a drinking straw off at an angle, and dropped the point into the groove of one of my records to play it at a very low volume (and Lo-Fi.)
Why is no-one producing no-contact turntables with semiconductor lasers? Is it just that vinyl is too small a market now?
What business are they in? Sure code review is hard, but that doesn't make it optional. They just wanted to be parasites & make money off of Linux, but they accidentally gave away their own stuff because they're incompetent? Gee, it must suck to be that stupid.
They are, or were, an OS software company. Then they decided to sell someone else's OS software that they got free. If code review is too hard for them, then they shouldn't be selling an entire Linux distribution, but should stick to the far easier task of writing software that no-one with a choice will use.
This isn't a danger to the GPL, because it isn't unique to the GPL. Other licenses can work similarly. If you give your own shit away accidentally because you didn't look in the box before you did so, you still lose.
Unfortunately one implication of this is that some very large companies may want to avoid the Linux distro business, if they don't know what they own.
I had felt that IBM could prove their "support for Linux" by promptly suing SCO into a smoking hole in the ground, but Novell beat them to the punch.
As an admin, I've always heard good things about Netware, but I've never gotten around to exploring it. This is a great reminder to check it out.
I'm already a fan of IBM. I like their traditional engineering bent. I appreciate their support for Linux. I don't begrudge them making good money at it. But, dear IBM, It's not too late for you to complete the humiliation of the criminal management at SCO. After all, they're threatening to terminate your AIX licenses.
Nice article Bruce. I must be a geek, if this was my first laugh of the day.
Now it is possible to collect your own spinal fluid, and even examine it yourself under a microscope at home. saving money as well as providing both education and entertainment. Additional money can be saved by using a drill bit in place of a large bore needle but this technique requires a little more cleanup afterwards.
The actual self puncture process can be difficult. It's much easier if you can find an assistant to help out. (We avoid the word friend, because anyone who would help you do this is not your friend.)
You might consider using compact flash or a similar medium instead of a HDD. That'll be low power. Otherwise, you might power the device over some of the spare pairs in the ethernet cable. Some telco stuff is implemented that way.
The truly obsolete are likely not to be online. If they're still using... Say original Lotus123 or something older, it's likely that they are keeping what works, but may not bother reading e-info.com. How do you reach out to them? Massive newspaper classified ad campaign? Radio advertising? Maybe we should put the message on Pogs or Burma Shave signs.
I haven't seen anything about manufacturing costs, so maybe I'm not answering your question, but in use:
In traffic lights, a burned out bulb is a hazard, and expensive to change.
Brake lights and taillights are dangerous to lose, and they get shaken around. That's why in many cars if your brake or taillights go out, your dash lights go out too as a reminder.
Flashlights are typically low temperature bulbs where incandescents are more inefficient, especially after the battery voltage starts to drop off. Besides, they get dropped, so LEDs are a win there too.
Fluorescents are the most effecient, but for household lighting I don't like their color or sixty Hertz visible hum. (Any specific recommendations for a compact fluorescent that has a good color & a nice ballast that doesn't flicker sixty times a second?)
I saw a nice use of LEDs in a remote campsite. There were solar collectors on the roof of the bathroom, and little banks of a few LEDs that lit the bathrooms at night.
An LED seems smaller, but the incandescent in a mini-maglite puts out much more light than a white LED of the same size.
Yardley also wrote a great crypto book, banned by its very own act of congress, called _The American Black Chamber_ but some say he's a better storyteller than historian. I want to find a copy of his poker book.
Philosophy students ridicule it too. That's where I heard it. In fact, I've since discovered that it is intentionally ridiculous. As such, it was unfair to call it a classic of metaphysics.
The phrase appears to originate in ridicule of St. Thomas Aquinas. To say that Aquinas was addressing matters of conciousness in general is generous. He wrote in particular about the nature of angels.
Thomas Aquinas on _Whether an Angel is Altogether Incorporeal_ at: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/105001.htm
Perhaps I should have said: "The mockery of metaphysics 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' is the canonical meaningless question." That is less kind to metaphysics than I meant to be, though. My intention was not to insult metaphysics, but to argue that religion does not illuminate science. By using that phrase, I inadvertently insulted those most likely to disagree with me.
Just what we need in our democratic government. Another Czar.
It's good that she's from industry too, but not one of those irritating people who in addition to working in industry, also dedicate personal efforts to changing public policy, like Schneier or Lessig.
Industry is under-represented in our government. Besides, those people must be fools, since nothing worthwhile is done for free.
Oh, a sarcasm detector; that's a real useful invention.
Davies refers to, but never explicitly states one particular point: Most of the multiverse theories are inherently untestable, because we're completely isolated from the other universes. These are theories that don't predict or even suggest anything. How meaningless can you get?
This is a good general point. Solipsism is uninteresting. Subjectivism & deconstructivism are often taken to similar absurd extremes by stupid people, including respected critics.
He makes the analogy between theology & these scientific non-explanations. Religion is personally very meaningful, but metaphysics isn't science. Consequently a classic metaphysical question, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is the canonical meaningless question.
The word that springs to mind is sophomoric. It reminds me of High School, when one friend asked another "What if you're really insane & just dreaming all of this?" The answer was of course, "So what? You've gotta pretty much live your life the same way anyway."
It's too much trouble for MS to keep track of their own licenses. If it's too much trouble for them, why should we bother?
This is habitually distributing unlicensed software. It specifically says it's unlicensed, and the reps are too lazy to provide real licenses. The college Dean's response was right.
Keeping track of licenses is a huge pain. In a large company that has acquired other companies, it becomes nearly impossible. Nonetheless, we're acccountable to the BSA for everything without exception. It's too much trouble for MS to bother paying any attention to licenses though.
This is laziness bordering on incompetence. I don't know why I'm surprised.
Slashdot Mirror
Other than stuff already mentioned, I have my Knoppix homedir in a compressed file on my USB drive. I boot the Knoppix CD with the USB drive installed and the argument:
knoppix=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img
and my desktop is set up.
If the sender has to store the message, then suddenly they have to be accessible.
That's important. A reachable IP makes identification easier. Besides, the sender is also responsible for storage and bandwidth, and those are costs I can bear for my personal correspondents, but that would move spam a little further from free.
The question is a better one than I thought when I first read it. Although it doesn't sound like IM2000 can guarantee a low enough level of spam by itself, I would not only install a new client, but actually serve a new protocol if it was a way of delivering email without spam.
Wow! That's the most interesting thing in the article, if true.
It's also a problem that will recur in any public cooperative effort. SETI@home has to essentially double their work because they know that it is possible that a large percentage of their results are crap. The problem is guaranteed to be worse if someone profits by poisoning.
The only answer I know of is validation. As I understand it, SETI@home ensures that any dataset is processed by at least two different nodes. I assume one problem with Trustic was that there's no time for validation. By the time you've validated that an address is evil, the parasite has moved on.
I'd love to hear what makes Trustic unfixable. It sounds like Trustic's "trust network" model (weighs contributions from trusted members more) didn't work, but the difference between not working and insurmountable is interesting.
I thought it was common knowledge that neckties impaired vision slightly, at least while they are being worn.
The explanation I was given was that the impaired blood flow interfered with oxygen transport to the rods & cones, but apparently this hypothesis hadn't been tested.
Anyone else heard this before? I heard it from my dad, who was doing perception research about forty years ago. Sadly, my father has glaucoma now. This means I'm at risk for glaucoma, so I'll be especially careful about my collar & tie.
So, you've _never_ touched an electric fence? Have you ever gotten a shock from one? Your cousins don't have that experience.
It sounds like your city cousins were displaying a healthy curiousity. They know it shouldn't damage them in a lasting sense, and wonder how powerful it is.
The first time I encountered a stun gun, I pressed it to my arm & tried it out. I knew I wouldn't damage myself, but now I've got a better idea of exactly what it does and how powerful it is. I don't think it was stupid. It hurt. Big deal. I knew it would, and I also knew it shouldn't do any lasting harm.
I agree though, even adults are too sheltered today. My camcorder didnt' really need a warning against using it in the tub, did it? However, this can be countered with some of the techniques people mention below.
I keep thinking of a friend of mine who told his kids:
"Saying 'I just didn't think' isn't ever good enough."
I think you used the wrong data for your calculation. 22% is only the difference between the underwater dilation of the Sea Gypsies and the normal European minimum. But the article also mentions that most people's pupils dilate when they go underwater, so other people's eyes aren't anywhere near their minimum. The difference is much larger than 22%. Besides, they aren't acheiving perfect focus, only better focus.
A 2mm pinhole seems big, but it is enough to make a significant difference in acuity. I'm pretty blind without my glasses, but I can significantly improve my resolution by making a crude pinhole lens by circling my index finger to a near pinhole of a few millimeters. Try it, if you wear glasses. It's surprising how well it works, especially considering how large the aperture is, and how far it is from circular. Looking through my imaginary monocle also makes me look extra strange.
I wonder if this explains some of the believers in the Bates Method of vision improvement. They believe that you can learn to see better without your glasses, although Bates' original model of the eye is mechanically wrong. Perhaps they aren't completely wrong. They also recommend gazing at the sun as sunbathing for the eyes. That could initiate the dilation. Unfortunately, UV exposure also causes cataracts.
I'm curious as to whether this phenomenon appears anywhere else. It seems to me that families of pearl divers or people who dive for food in other parts of the world should display this too. If not, I'd wonder why.
Sarcasm isn't rhetorical irony? Merriam-Webster make it sound a lot like it. "...2a the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning" That doesn't sound like sarcasm at all, does it? That also fits with the first definition in the Guardian article.
Perhaps the distinction is making an argument, or trying to point out a truth, rather than just a cheap joke. Some intention or belief at the bottom of it that carries it from a joke to an actual argument.
To me, that's the interesting part of this discussion of irony. I think many of these misuses of the word are defensible, using one definition or the other, but the thing that I find troublesome is that so often this claim of irony is accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge any sincere belief.
Mocking everything isn't irony. I think the modern (arguably inaccurate) idea of irony, with its affectation of nihilism, is a really interesting starting point for a social discussion. People will brag about what they don't believe, but won't talk about what they do believe, or display art that they pretend that they would be ashamed to really enjoy.
I think the problem is that people don't know what they believe. They don't even know that they believe anything. The canned answers are inadequate, but they manage neither to rationalize and complete these for themselves, or to find other things to believe in. They believe incoherent and contradictory things, and pretend belief in nothing. Unfortunately, believing nothing is just as useless a way to go through life as believing everything.
There is an attack that is often made on skeptics. "Oh, you don't believe in anything." However, the skeptics I know have unusually strong beliefs, and understand that their beliefs have implications in the world they live in. That is what makes them skeptics.
In this vein, there was a great article in Spy magazine about a decade ago on "irony". It even had Chevy Chase grinning on the cover and making the quote symbol with his fingers. I'll have to dig that up again.
I think this quote expresses it beautifully:
Simpsons, Homerpalooza
Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Teen1: I don't even know anymore.
Without qualification. The only difference between you or me, and Mark McGwire is practice. Now that's simple nonsense. I'm over the hill for most professional sports. Those old players who retire just haven't practiced enough I guess. I never said practice was unneccessary, just that there are circumstances where practice is not enough. I'm never going to be a great baseball player, no matter how much I practice. That bothers me not at all. We all have our limitations, and they vary. Practice only goes so far. That was my point, but if you believe otherwise, then I have no interest in arguing with you.
Excuse culture? I ask for no excuse, and make no excuse. I avoided no responsibility. I'm accountable for and satisfied with my life & actions. I said I was working two jobs for years on end. I wasn't complaining. I demonstrated that I didn't live a lazy lifestyle. What I did was discover some ways to change my behavior once I realized my problem wasn't laziness. If those things bother you, well then too bad that you're a busybody. You asked for perspectives and I replied.
You should learn a little more about mental health and the brain. We know more than you realize. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand depression, for instance.
Depression is not severe unhappiness. Many depressed people have valid reasons for being unhappy. Certainly cause needs to be addressed. However, the description in the DSM includes attempted suicide.
It's not just that chemical imbalance causes depression, (although there are cases where it is demonstrated that it does) but that when a person is a danger to themselves they require emergency intervention. Fortunately depression often resolves itself within a fairly short time, and drugs can be useful to keep the patient from committing suicide or otherwise aggravating the depression in the short term. Or are those suicides just part of the excuse culture?
Many psychiatric disorders begin to appear in or just following adolescence. Probably your friend is really sick. Maybe by listening to him you could help him with the circumstances he's trying to deal with. A girl? Of course. What else is worth getting depressed over? People matter.
All my life I thought I was just lazy, and that's why I never did my homework. I tested as extremely smart after all, so why else didn't I ever get it done? Flunked out of State college. Just weak & lazy. My parents were kind & supportive, but I knew what my problem was.
Funny though, that as a grownup without any sort of college degree I had lots of crappy jobs. Often I had two jobs at once to make ends meet. For years, I'd work full-time at my stupid job, and then go to my other stupid job. It didn't bother me much. It was what I had to do.
When I read Driven to Distraction, it occured to me that maybe I wasn't lazy, and that there were lots of other ADD traits that were familiar.
Once I started to keep the idea of ADD in mind, and at least intermittently take my medicine, my life improved vastly.
I'm still a little skeptical in many cases because it seems awfully easy, and I certainly hate to see little kids on powerful drugs.
To address your analogy: There are people who can't hit a baseball worth a damn.They can practice, but they won't ever be good at it.
P.S. Everybody who has a general moral objection to psychiatric drugs can just go to hell. While there, read Mark Vonnegut's _Eden Express_.
Yup. Odds aren't all that is important. Logical best interests are often misrepresented. A buck isn't a thousand.
The difference between a buck and a thousand becomes qualitative in addition to quantitative because those extra few orders of magnitude can change your life. That's not irrational.
Would I risk my home to invest in a double or nothing bet that I had a 55% chance of winning? No. Even though the odds are in my favor, the downside is too ugly. Someone in a less expensive part of the world, or with more resources, might choose differently.
Don't bet more than you can afford to lose. Almost everybody understands that. There is a converse, and I think it probably goes something like this: Have fun and bet on the longshot if it's money you'd never miss.
People will act perversely with small amounts of money, especially for the chance at a life changing amount.
Will I buy a dollar lottery ticket? Occasionally. I'd probably be making more of a social contribution by handing that dollar to a street person, but the chance for a life changing amount of money might be worth a dollar.
Please note, the use of the word "chance" in the previous argument is misleading and only a poor example. Buying a lottery ticket does not significantly increase your odds of winning.
Grade inflation is also a result of marginal schools that disallow teachers from failing students.
These schools don't have to do that very often, because they ensure that they hire teachers who are sufficiently agreeable in the first place. A quote from a student about such a teacher at such a school: "He was a great guy. He wanted to be everybody's friend. He just wasn't a teacher."
Misuse of teacher evaluations can make it worse too.
Humor and negative example are pretty commonm.
This is why I reccomend the BOFH series to new system administrators. You can just laugh, or you can think about privacy violations, user abuse etcetera. Like Dilbert for the corporate world, but less whiny.
I like the idea of using fiction to teach, but so often it just ends up being smarmy. I'd like to try it myself, but balancing an agenda with the demands of a good story is hard. Just ask Goofus & Gallant.
I'll look for the book, and the publisher Syngress.
The company you refer to is Sapient Solutions LLC out of Boise Idaho. They are not the publically traded consulting firm Sapient, but a much smaller company.
I just wanted to clear that up because there are a lot of people who'll hear Sapient and think SAPE.
Now I have to go try that with a couple of my albums.
I wonder if he could see the music, or if he had something like a sharpened fingernail or perhaps a grain of sand on a fingertip. That might be an easier way to do that trick, but hopefully it wasn't just a trick.
I once cut a drinking straw off at an angle, and dropped the point into the groove of one of my records to play it at a very low volume (and Lo-Fi.)
Why is no-one producing no-contact turntables with semiconductor lasers? Is it just that vinyl is too small a market now?
What business are they in? Sure code review is hard, but that doesn't make it optional. They just wanted to be parasites & make money off of Linux, but they accidentally gave away their own stuff because they're incompetent? Gee, it must suck to be that stupid.
They are, or were, an OS software company. Then they decided to sell someone else's OS software that they got free. If code review is too hard for them, then they shouldn't be selling an entire Linux distribution, but should stick to the far easier task of writing software that no-one with a choice will use.
This isn't a danger to the GPL, because it isn't unique to the GPL. Other licenses can work similarly. If you give your own shit away accidentally because you didn't look in the box before you did so, you still lose.
Unfortunately one implication of this is that some very large companies may want to avoid the Linux distro business, if they don't know what they own.
I had felt that IBM could prove their "support for Linux" by promptly suing SCO into a smoking hole in the ground, but Novell beat them to the punch.
As an admin, I've always heard good things about Netware, but I've never gotten around to exploring it. This is a great reminder to check it out.
I'm already a fan of IBM. I like their traditional engineering bent. I appreciate their support for Linux. I don't begrudge them making good money at it. But, dear IBM, It's not too late for you to complete the humiliation of the criminal management at SCO. After all, they're threatening to terminate your AIX licenses.
Nice article Bruce. I must be a geek, if this was my first laugh of the day.
But especially: Thanks Novell!
An admin looking forward to NetWare 7.
Now it is possible to collect your own spinal fluid, and even examine it yourself under a microscope at home. saving money as well as providing both education and entertainment. Additional money can be saved by using a drill bit in place of a large bore needle but this technique requires a little more cleanup afterwards.
The actual self puncture process can be difficult. It's much easier if you can find an assistant to help out. (We avoid the word friend, because anyone who would help you do this is not your friend.)
You might consider using compact flash or a similar medium instead of a HDD. That'll be low power. Otherwise, you might power the device over some of the spare pairs in the ethernet cable. Some telco stuff is implemented that way.
The truly obsolete are likely not to be online. If they're still using... Say original Lotus123 or something older, it's likely that they are keeping what works, but may not bother reading e-info.com. How do you reach out to them? Massive newspaper classified ad campaign? Radio advertising? Maybe we should put the message on Pogs or Burma Shave signs.
As always, it depends on the use.
I haven't seen anything about manufacturing costs, so maybe I'm not answering your question, but in use:
In traffic lights, a burned out bulb is a hazard, and expensive to change.
Brake lights and taillights are dangerous to lose, and they get shaken around. That's why in many cars if your brake or taillights go out, your dash lights go out too as a reminder.
Flashlights are typically low temperature bulbs where incandescents are more inefficient, especially after the battery voltage starts to drop off. Besides, they get dropped, so LEDs are a win there too.
Fluorescents are the most effecient, but for household lighting I don't like their color or sixty Hertz visible hum. (Any specific recommendations for a compact fluorescent that has a good color & a nice ballast that doesn't flicker sixty times a second?)
The LED geeks know LEDs aren't always better as far as power consumption goes.
http://www.pioneernet.net/optoeng/LED_FAQ.html#Q7
http://misty.com/people/don/lede.html
I saw a nice use of LEDs in a remote campsite. There were solar collectors on the roof of the bathroom, and little banks of a few LEDs that lit the bathrooms at night.
An LED seems smaller, but the incandescent in a mini-maglite puts out much more light than a white LED of the same size.
Yardley also wrote a great crypto book, banned by its very own act of congress, called _The American Black Chamber_ but some say he's a better storyteller than historian. I want to find a copy of his poker book.
Philosophy students ridicule it too. That's where I heard it. In fact, I've since discovered that it is intentionally ridiculous. As such, it was unfair to call it a classic of metaphysics.
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The phrase appears to originate in ridicule of St. Thomas Aquinas. To say that Aquinas was addressing matters of conciousness in general is generous. He wrote in particular about the nature of angels.
Phrase origin at:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_132.htm
Thomas Aquinas on _Whether an Angel is Altogether Incorporeal_ at:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/105001.htm
Perhaps I should have said: "The mockery of metaphysics 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' is the canonical meaningless question." That is less kind to metaphysics than I meant to be, though. My intention was not to insult metaphysics, but to argue that religion does not illuminate science. By using that phrase, I inadvertently insulted those most likely to disagree with me.
Just what we need in our democratic government. Another Czar.
It's good that she's from industry too, but not one of those irritating people who in addition to working in industry, also dedicate personal efforts to changing public policy, like Schneier or Lessig.
Industry is under-represented in our government. Besides, those people must be fools, since nothing worthwhile is done for free.
Oh, a sarcasm detector; that's a real useful invention.
Davies refers to, but never explicitly states one particular point: Most of the multiverse theories are inherently untestable, because we're completely isolated from the other universes. These are theories that don't predict or even suggest anything. How meaningless can you get?
This is a good general point. Solipsism is uninteresting. Subjectivism & deconstructivism are often taken to similar absurd extremes by stupid people, including respected critics.
He makes the analogy between theology & these scientific non-explanations. Religion is personally very meaningful, but metaphysics isn't science. Consequently a classic metaphysical question, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" is the canonical meaningless question.
The word that springs to mind is sophomoric. It reminds me of High School, when one friend asked another "What if you're really insane & just dreaming all of this?" The answer was of course, "So what? You've gotta pretty much live your life the same way anyway."
It's too much trouble for MS to keep track of their own licenses. If it's too much trouble for them, why should we bother?
This is habitually distributing unlicensed software. It specifically says it's unlicensed, and the reps are too lazy to provide real licenses. The college Dean's response was right.
Keeping track of licenses is a huge pain. In a large company that has acquired other companies, it becomes nearly impossible. Nonetheless, we're acccountable to the BSA for everything without exception. It's too much trouble for MS to bother paying any attention to licenses though.
This is laziness bordering on incompetence. I don't know why I'm surprised.