I only really saw a couple of problems with the animation in this movie:
1)Blending and realism of CGI in the end planet scene - not to mention the scale problem of the Titan behind the two main characters at the end. (It was _far_ too small in size.) The blending was fine most of the time until the end of the movie.
2) I say _most_ of the time because the film had the same problem that most American(TM) animated films have when trying to portray actual human movement. Anime has human movement downpat most of the time but can't seem to get an "american" face drawn right for some reason. Whereas American animation always seems to have body motion problems with their characters. Add this problem to the "clean" lines of a CGI world and you get the idea - the movements aren't "in tune" with the CGI environment and in _most_ cases aren't even all that human.
Until these factors get better, especially the second one, American animation is pretty much going to lag in favor of Japanese Anime - no matter how half-dollar-sized the eyes are or red-gaping-hole-without-teeth mouthed the anime characters are.
My first contact with DP was at a SCI-FI convention where they showed tapes "re-dubbed" by a company called Pinesalad Productions. Imagine MST3K'ing Dirty Pair with American sex jokes, and whatnot and you'll get the idea. It wasn't anywhere near accurate but it was hilarious!
Those where what started me really on Anime. Sure they were horrible but I think it's way too high an expectation of most anime to be intelligent. Look at Aika (Aieka?) Naked Mission - it wasn't serious anime, not with a panty shot every 30 - 45 seconds (yes we timed it), but it was great fun to sit back with popcorn and watch!
Here it is guys. Here's the chance you've been waiting for. I've seen tons of posts saying basically "I'll fight them if they come to my door/portal/site!" Now you have the chance.
You knew this was coming. You knew it would happen eventually. Now stand up and do what needs to be done.
1) Slashdot should not have to remove "any" comments any more than an existing paper magazine should. (Some magazines occasionally have crossed the line - but if they can print a retraction in tiny letters on some back page so can Slashdot.;-)
2) Microsoft should be made somehow (I don't know how - any ideas?) to pay for trying - IN THE MIDST OF THEIR ANTI-COMPETITION BATTLE - to silence information about something they're working on. To this end I suggest sending letters and e-mail to the Justice Department regarding this recent behavior.
In the interest of standing up for what's right I give Slashdot permission to contact me as needed regarding anything that I may have seen or heard on Slashdot. I give no such permission to Microsoft under any circumstances.
Q: I want to copy the MP3s from my PJB-100 back to my PC. How do I do that? A: You cannot. To ensure that the PJB-100 complies with the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), It is not possible to retrieve the MP3 files from the PJB-100. You should physically posess each CD that you transfer to the PJB-100, or have rights to the material you download from the Internet.
Does anybody know if this is a firmware limitation or a software one? (If it's firmware I can't imagine the firmware staying un-hacked for long to remove it as it's the biggest "suck" feature on this box.)
Marketing department regardless - would you rather have them think correctly about the situation or would you want them to continue as they are doing?
I don't mind giving out free ideas if they help get people (that's what companies are made up of) moving in the right direction.
Besides - if I'm not mistaken it's the open source movement that feels sharing information and ideas is a good solution to any problem? I'm just following that.;-)
I respectfully announce to you that I will, in protest of your actions concerning the modification of your Netpliance hardware and software, not only fail to purchase one of the systems in question but I will also, in a negative connotation, inform any contacts I have in the Information Technology field concerning the truth of the issue and that they should not purchase your product. I will also inform such contacts that they should inform others of the true state of affairs concerning your product.
Your actions to forbid users to alter, in reality upgrade, the item purchased from you goes against the spirit in which computer systems and the Internet are used. Time and time again user friendly systems have been produced that are stagnant and inflexible with regards to hardware and software upgrades. Time and time again such systems have failed. They have failed because the manufacturer failed to take into account the desire for flexibility that new users develop when they become proficient at utilizing the system in the basic configuration. They also failed by forcing the user to purchase a completely different product in addition to the item he/she originally purchased. These actions have consistently spelled death for any product marketed in such a fashion. Repeatedly.
This inflexibility, it seems, also extends to your choice to bind a Netpliance purchaser to your Internet provider service. This action is analogous to a buyer of an automobile being required to drive only on a particular set of roads "sanctioned" by the manufacturer of the automobile or to use a tollbooth to leave his driveway. Just from casual observation this relationship is openly hostile to the purchaser in that their choices are being removed from them. In effect your policy is stating that the user need only know or use what you tell them to and that by purchasing their product they have no free will of their own nor deserve any respect for such. A company so openly disrespectful of it's customers would normally be closed down by consumer advocacy groups. Whether you change your policy enough to avoid that remains to be seen.
I suggest you alter your policies to reflect several different ideas:
1) Respect for the user and his/her intelligence and spirit. Without this you will fail to achieve ANY good sales and your products will be returned to you eventually - either through your return department or through, in the worst case, a court of law.
2) User upgradability of hardware and software. Without this you will fail to keep customers for any real amount of time and eventually, through word of mouth and other forms of communication, you will have none. See point 1 again.
3) Advanced user compatibility:
a) Without this your product will only be bought by new users who will eventually move on to a more powerful product and hand your product to another new user. This is a losing game. There will be a point at which current new users cease to purchase your product because an advanced user has given them an existing unit of your manufacture. The sales of even your new models will slow down because of your failure to allow for use by advanced users.
b) Advanced users will not purchase your product for themselves and will be more likely to fail to recommend your product to others because of the idea that "Well, new users should really get something 'real' that they will use to become better users." New users, in most cases, only stay new users for a very short period of time before they become more advanced and increase the number/range of their abilities. Failing to take that into account will kill you every time.
c) Advanced users are often of a mind to learn more and more - as are most people. To this end they will often purchase a product "just to see what we can do with it". It is this mentality, and mainly this mentality, that is the reason your company exists in the first place. Without this mentality and the ability to act on it NOT ONE PIECE of the computer industry, including your company, would exist. Indeed probably nothing more than simple machines would probably be in existence and we would probably be living in an agrarian dark age with no major means of support. In preventing this you are setting the example to others of a path that will cut our own throats technologically and stagnate the very lifeblood of your company and others.
I suggest the following changes:
1) Offer a Netpliance device that perhaps costs a small amount more but can be easily used with any Internet service without modification but offer your service as an option. This will cover purchases to new users who already have an Internet Service Provider but would like to use your product.
2) Offer a bundled Netpliance device that has a "discount" for using your Internet Service Provider. This will be attractive to new users who want a simple "plug and go" system. Perhaps make a deal with AOL for "bring your own access" connections to their services.
3) Offer a plain Netpliance device that has no warranty and is a little more expensive than the version purchased for use with the customer's own Internet Service Provider but also has no restrictions on what can be done with it. This device will appeal to the advanced user who wishes to purchase your product for use in some capacity that you have not yet foreseen.
Making these three changes will cover all users regardless of type and experience level and also allow you to charge different prices for your product thus making more money on it.
The choice is yours - stagnate and die or expand and live.
My only problem with this argument is that if the average Linux user is a fair bit better with computers then Joe Q Public and the average Linux developer is a LOT better then Joe Q Public.. Why the hell is Joe Q Public the target audience all of a sudden?
The reason that Joe Public is the target is that people using Linux want to remove other unstable OSs that shall remain nameless. The whole point of using Linux is having a stable operating system. Now what this means is that we want this more stable operating system to become more widely accepted that it already is because we want to see the whole situation of "OS-land" stabilize because we've already see what an unstable operating system does to users and we don't want that. To make this more widely accepted we have to make it popular for the average "Joe" so that he likes it and uses it. This means making it easier for him to use. (I know there's an argument here for making the user smarter but look at the current crop of government education ideas - outcome based education and such - and you'll see that that task will be tougher than making Linux easier to use. It's easier to code Linux than to code a person.;-)
Joe Q Public is a term used by both the companies that want to sell Linux and the people who just want to destroy M$. But are we ever going to appeal to JQU? When the OS is written by hobbyists for hobbyists? By hackers for hackers?
C was written by hackers and it spread across the land so to speak. The point is that almost anything in computers today is based on something that was "hacked" at some earlier period of time. Just because it was written by hackers (a horribly mis-used term today - ugh!) doesn't mean that we want it to stay just with hackers. Linux is screaming to be used on the desktop eventually just because it's far more stable than most things. For that matter I can't think of anything that is more stable at the moment.
It's not like anyone can steer the direction of Linux. Well, I shouldn't say that. Companies like Red Hat, hiring hackers to make Gnome.. That's steering Linux in a way. But at the same time, it's still a level above the competition in complexity and configurability. Why? Because Joe Q User isn't who's downloading and installing it.
I disagree about steering Linux. If you look at how things are set up a large group of voices could submit items to the lists and get them implemented if they wanted. That's the way Linux is set up. It's designed to be developed in the sort of controlled chaos, as it were, which is created by several different voices talking at once. The voices that are saying the same things or are louder than the others get their stuff "heard" and the others don't. Does this make it more technical? Absolutely. Does this mean we want it to be less technical for Joe User? Absolutely.
Here it comes again - "The Holy War Against Dumbing Down Linux!"
Unfortunately what the crusaders don't understand is that the average person needs a gradient of learning that Linux just doesn't give them yet.
If you look at several examples from society (pick your own as almost anything learnt fits this criterial) people will most easily pick up something that starts out very light. Eventually they'll move to a higher/heavier configuration/situation but in the beginning they don't want that.
Listen very closely so you understand the situation: The current crop of Linux users almost certainly (by their own admission) consists of exceptions to the normal rules of people.
Before you start heating up my asbestos underware think about it. How many of you are users that can grep a file properly or edit one using vi? How many of you are users that understand networking at a base level? How many of you are users that work in the technology fields?
Add all these things up and you'll find that the average Linux user is smarter or faster or more knowledgable than Joe Public. Remember - Joe Public is who we're shooting at as a target user for Linux. Despite what you may want to convince yourself - until Linux accepts and is accepted by the average guy on the street it will have a very hard time expanding beyond the geek circle.
I know some of you don't want to believe that it will die if it doesn't grow but look at the way this world works - if something doesn't grow then it shrinks. No matter what you do you can never make anything totally stable. The minute it stops growing it shrinks. Period. So if Linux is to survive it must grow. To grow beyond its current limits it will have to accept Joe User and give him something that he can use without being too "high-level". A good GUI (which we've got several candidates for) is a step in the right direction but modes of user operation with scaled complexity would be better.
What's going on here! I submitted a link to this item on two separate occasions and it was never posted! Here's the most recent comment I made about it. Not to mention the fact that I submitted the original article more than two months ago!
What do you have to do? Be a "Friend of Slashdot" before something gets posted? Go ahead - moderate me down! I don't care!
He'd probably be better off with some sort of audio/sonic frequency although I'm sure it's going to be hard getting any bandwidth underwater due to the variance and properties of the medium involved.
What would he use though? I'm sure he could look at some of the de-classified Navy documents for pointers - they've been working on things of this nature for years AFAK.
"Ya know if they did create the ethernet wrapper for the internal IBM network card channel you could probably run 10,000 virtual Beowulf clusters and run Linux distributed apps on them! Probably play Quake Arena well too!"
So if you have a little time and you're using Linux *anyway*, go ahead and get the Free S/WAN patches so that you can encrypt the link, and then only route packets coming over the encrypted link. Since Free S/WAN can do things using RSA keys to restrict who connects to the routable network, you can keep potential ne'er do wells tucked neatly into their own little subnet where they can't access anything else.
Ok but how much performance do you lose when encrypting the link? Is it enough to drop you to a 1mb/s from the ideal 11mb/s?
In my opinion, this is still not even close to comparing in cost to the WebGear Aviators. $179 for one pc-card, and $70 for an adapter to install it in a desktop? You have to be kidding me. The WebGear for $139 (just about anyplace) gets you *two* cards, and *two* adapters. Considering that in some places you might make the landlord upset if you start drilling holes and running cables, this makes the WebGear Aviators almost competitive with 10base-T. (Or at least it does if you think costing well over twice as much is supposed to be competitive)
Regardless, the price of all this style hardware is still IMHO a little out of the average person's price range. And as far as landlords go - if you can find one that is a little computer savvy he will probably accept wiring the house/apartment for a network as an "enhancement" to his establishment. Unfortunately it would also allow him to charge more for rent.;-)
For each channel it sends a request for an Access Point operating on the channel with a specific network name. The Access Point will only respond if it's network name is the same. If you don't know the network name of the Access Point, any attempts "connect" to it will be futile.
Thanks it's much clearer now however I still think someone will probably find a hole in it eventually.
As far as WEP is concerned... WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. The idea it to try to make the wireless LAN just as secure as a wired LAN. WEP is a standard aspect of the 802.11 spec. If you want to find out more about it, visit the web site of your favorite wireless ethernet provider and search the technical documents for it.
I'll definitely check into this to find out more.
Yes there is plenty of time that people are willing to put into cracking networks, but don't you think you'd get suspicious if a "meter reader" spent numerous hours every day "testing" his new laptop in front of your meter?
I would but I still think Joe Public could be fooled this way. But then Joe Public probably wouldn't be setting up a wireless network at home either. Point taken. Maybe I'm just being a little paranoid about the subject. (Not hard for me - I run an NT network at the office. Talk about holes!;-)
I can understand that it would be hard to do without knowing the network name but as a counter point/question people crack networks without knowing their names don't they? On top of that quite a few of those compromised systems from the latest DDOS attacks prove the time/effort is there to be put into cracking a network for use later.
Remember that a good portion of cracking a network/system can be simple social engineering. It would not be beyond believability for a cracker to stand in the backyard dressed as a "meter reader" with his brand new laptop "testing" the meter.;-)
On the second part I know nothing of this WEP encryption of which you speak so if you could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.
Touching on the matter of security: Would setting these networks up mean that we'd have to worry about somebody standing outside the house and hacking the network inside? I know someone else asked about packet level encryption but how much would we lose in throughput with that versus having the network secure?
Also, (to emit a few random paranoia particles), couldn't the government just do drive-by monitoring of personal networks? (Slowly of course so as not "break" the connection.) Or even worse set up a large receiver station! (Yes I know it would also pick up everyone's microwaves but the government's been known to build larger annoyances - see Echelon.) I personally wouldn't want that!
Would there be any way for us to protect our data?
The root of the problem is that most "human interface gurus" design for the novice user. The trouble is that no one is a novice user for very long.
I agree and have said before that we need to create modes of use not just modes of installation for different levels of users. Doing this should allow a fairly simple transition from a "newbie" to a "general user" (not the same thing) then to a person who feels comfortable administrating their own system.
If we want Linux to be in the Joe Sixpack market we need to provide a bridge from the newbie to the administrator.
(BTW I know there are some of you that say that Joe Sixpack should not be running Linux. I disagree! Linux should be run by everybody that can run it simply because it's incredibly more stable than other OS! That "sixpackability" is exactly why a variable level of operability is needed.)
IANAS but isn't that basically what existing solar cells do? Link As I understand it the electrons are "freed" by the combination of the two chemical substances when exposed to light. Or am I completely botched on the subject?
Pardon my general science ignorance but couldn't the production of hydrogen also be done with a DC current produced by solar power and then fed through water? (Sorry old data records on general chemistry class have bit-migrated. *grin*)
Or is the amount of current needed per amount of hydrogen produced not workable?
That's all someone had to tell me. (And I appreciate you doing so.) I'm new to posting on/. so things like this particular rule are things I might miss on first glance.
But telling me that and flaming me ALA "You need to get a life." are two different things.
SO because I actually have time to post for once due to a lull in my sysadmin duties I have no life?
My life is just fine thank you. If it were someone else more well known posting 10 or more times to this group you would probably not complain so why am I getting flamed here?
I respect your right to post when and where you want - please respect mine.
You're probably dead-on here. For instance I can see a modified hydrogen phone being used as a shaped charge to de-pressurize the plane. Use a half-dozen and you could concievably blow out a large section by "perfing" the surrounding material until it separates.
But then you could also concievably use a knife hidden in a PDA case to threaten the pilot too. No technology is without some risk. It's our personal ethics and responsibility that allow us to use it without killing ourselves wholesale. (Industrial pollution and nuke threat not withstanding.)
Slashdot Mirror
I only really saw a couple of problems with the animation in this movie:
1)Blending and realism of CGI in the end planet scene - not to mention the scale problem of the Titan behind the two main characters at the end. (It was _far_ too small in size.) The blending was fine most of the time until the end of the movie.
2) I say _most_ of the time because the film had the same problem that most American(TM) animated films have when trying to portray actual human movement. Anime has human movement downpat most of the time but can't seem to get an "american" face drawn right for some reason. Whereas American animation always seems to have body motion problems with their characters. Add this problem to the "clean" lines of a CGI world and you get the idea - the movements aren't "in tune" with the CGI environment and in _most_ cases aren't even all that human.
Until these factors get better, especially the second one, American animation is pretty much going to lag in favor of Japanese Anime - no matter how half-dollar-sized the eyes are or red-gaping-hole-without-teeth mouthed the anime characters are.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
I personally like Dirty Pair.
My first contact with DP was at a SCI-FI convention where they showed tapes "re-dubbed" by a company called Pinesalad Productions.
Imagine MST3K'ing Dirty Pair with American sex jokes, and whatnot and you'll get the idea. It wasn't anywhere near accurate but it was hilarious!
Those where what started me really on Anime. Sure they were horrible but I think it's way too high an expectation of most anime to be intelligent. Look at Aika (Aieka?) Naked Mission - it wasn't serious anime, not with a panty shot every 30 - 45 seconds (yes we timed it), but it was great fun to sit back with popcorn and watch!
The Tick - "Spoon!"
More food for the DOJ cannons. Speak up! Contact them here: microsoft.atr.usdoj.gov
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Here it is guys. Here's the chance you've been waiting for.
;-)
I've seen tons of posts saying basically "I'll fight them if they come to my door/portal/site!" Now you have the chance.
You knew this was coming. You knew it would happen eventually. Now stand up and do what needs to be done.
1) Slashdot should not have to remove "any" comments any more than an existing paper magazine should. (Some magazines occasionally have crossed the line - but if they can print a retraction in tiny letters on some back page so can Slashdot.
2) Microsoft should be made somehow (I don't know how - any ideas?) to pay for trying - IN THE MIDST OF THEIR ANTI-COMPETITION BATTLE - to silence information about something they're working on. To this end I suggest sending letters and e-mail to the Justice Department regarding this recent behavior.
In the interest of standing up for what's right I give Slashdot permission to contact me as needed regarding anything that I may have seen or heard on Slashdot. I give no such permission to Microsoft under any circumstances.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
From the PJB FAQ:
Q: I want to copy the MP3s from my PJB-100 back to my PC. How do I do that? A: You cannot. To ensure that the PJB-100 complies with the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), It is not possible to retrieve the MP3 files from the PJB-100. You should physically posess each CD that you transfer to the PJB-100, or have rights to the material you download from the Internet.
Does anybody know if this is a firmware limitation or a software one?
(If it's firmware I can't imagine the firmware staying un-hacked for long to remove it as it's the biggest "suck" feature on this box.)
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Marketing department regardless - would you rather have them think correctly about the situation or would you want them to continue as they are doing?
;-)
I don't mind giving out free ideas if they help get people (that's what companies are made up of) moving in the right direction.
Besides - if I'm not mistaken it's the open source movement that feels sharing information and ideas is a good solution to any problem? I'm just following that.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Dear Netpliance,
I respectfully announce to you that I will, in protest of your actions concerning the modification of your Netpliance hardware and software, not only fail to purchase one of the systems in question but I will also, in a negative connotation, inform any contacts I have in the Information Technology field concerning the truth of the issue and that they should not purchase your product. I will also inform such contacts that they should inform others of the true state of affairs concerning your product.
Your actions to forbid users to alter, in reality upgrade, the item purchased from you goes against the spirit in which computer systems and the Internet are used. Time and time again user friendly systems have been produced that are stagnant and inflexible with regards to hardware and software upgrades. Time and time again such systems have failed. They have failed because the manufacturer failed to take into account the desire for flexibility that new users develop when they become proficient at utilizing the system in the basic configuration. They also failed by forcing the user to purchase a completely different product in addition to the item he/she originally purchased. These actions have consistently spelled death for any product marketed in such a fashion. Repeatedly.
This inflexibility, it seems, also extends to your choice to bind a Netpliance purchaser to your Internet provider service. This action is analogous to a buyer of an automobile being required to drive only on a particular set of roads "sanctioned" by the manufacturer of the automobile or to use a tollbooth to leave his driveway. Just from casual observation this relationship is openly hostile to the purchaser in that their choices are being removed from them. In effect your policy is stating that the user need only know or use what you tell them to and that by purchasing their product they have no free will of their own nor deserve any respect for such. A company so openly disrespectful of it's customers would normally be closed down by consumer advocacy groups. Whether you change your policy enough to avoid that remains to be seen.
I suggest you alter your policies to reflect several different ideas:
1) Respect for the user and his/her intelligence and spirit. Without this you will fail to achieve ANY good sales and your products will be returned to you eventually - either through your return department or through, in the worst case, a court of law.
2) User upgradability of hardware and software. Without this you will fail to keep customers for any real amount of time and eventually, through word of mouth and other forms of communication, you will have none. See point 1 again.
3) Advanced user compatibility:
a) Without this your product will only be bought by new users who will eventually move on to a more powerful product and hand your product to another new user. This is a losing game. There will be a point at which current new users cease to purchase your product because an advanced user has given them an existing unit of your manufacture. The sales of even your new models will slow down because of your failure to allow for use by advanced users.
b) Advanced users will not purchase your product for themselves and will be more likely to fail to recommend your product to others because of the idea that "Well, new users should really get something 'real' that they will use to become better users." New users, in most cases, only stay new users for a very short period of time before they become more advanced and increase the number/range of their abilities. Failing to take that into account will kill you every time.
c) Advanced users are often of a mind to learn more and more - as are most people. To this end they will often purchase a product "just to see what we can do with it". It is this mentality, and mainly this mentality, that is the reason your company exists in the first place. Without this mentality and the ability to act on it NOT ONE PIECE of the computer industry, including your company, would exist. Indeed probably nothing more than simple machines would probably be in existence and we would probably be living in an agrarian dark age with no major means of support. In preventing this you are setting the example to others of a path that will cut our own throats technologically and stagnate the very lifeblood of your company and others.
I suggest the following changes:
1) Offer a Netpliance device that perhaps costs a small amount more but can be easily used with any Internet service without modification but offer your service as an option. This will cover purchases to new users who already have an Internet Service Provider but would like to use your product.
2) Offer a bundled Netpliance device that has a "discount" for using your Internet Service Provider. This will be attractive to new users who want a simple "plug and go" system. Perhaps make a deal with AOL for "bring your own access" connections to their services.
3) Offer a plain Netpliance device that has no warranty and is a little more expensive than the version purchased for use with the customer's own Internet Service Provider but also has no restrictions on what can be done with it. This device will appeal to the advanced user who wishes to purchase your product for use in some capacity that you have not yet foreseen.
Making these three changes will cover all users regardless of type and experience level and also allow you to charge different prices for your product thus making more money on it.
The choice is yours - stagnate and die or expand and live.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
My only problem with this argument is that if the average Linux user is a fair bit better with computers then Joe Q Public and the average Linux developer is a LOT better then Joe Q Public.. Why the hell is Joe Q Public the target audience all of a sudden?
;-)
The reason that Joe Public is the target is that people using Linux want to remove other unstable OSs that shall remain nameless. The whole point of using Linux is having a stable operating system. Now what this means is that we want this more stable operating system to become more widely accepted that it already is because we want to see the whole situation of "OS-land" stabilize because we've already see what an unstable operating system does to users and we don't want that. To make this more widely accepted we have to make it popular for the average "Joe" so that he likes it and uses it. This means making it easier for him to use. (I know there's an argument here for making the user smarter but look at the current crop of government education ideas - outcome based education and such - and you'll see that that task will be tougher than making Linux easier to use. It's easier to code Linux than to code a person.
Joe Q Public is a term used by both the companies that want to sell Linux and the people who just want to destroy M$. But are we ever going to appeal to JQU? When the OS is written by hobbyists for hobbyists? By hackers for hackers?
C was written by hackers and it spread across the land so to speak. The point is that almost anything in computers today is based on something that was "hacked" at some earlier period of time. Just because it was written by hackers (a horribly mis-used term today - ugh!) doesn't mean that we want it to stay just with hackers. Linux is screaming to be used on the desktop eventually just because it's far more stable than most things. For that matter I can't think of anything that is more stable at the moment.
It's not like anyone can steer the direction of Linux. Well, I shouldn't say that. Companies like Red Hat, hiring hackers to make Gnome.. That's steering Linux in a way. But at the same time, it's still a level above the competition in complexity and configurability. Why? Because Joe Q User isn't who's downloading and installing it.
I disagree about steering Linux. If you look at how things are set up a large group of voices could submit items to the lists and get them implemented if they wanted. That's the way Linux is set up. It's designed to be developed in the sort of controlled chaos, as it were, which is created by several different voices talking at once. The voices that are saying the same things or are louder than the others get their stuff "heard" and the others don't. Does this make it more technical? Absolutely. Does this mean we want it to be less technical for Joe User? Absolutely.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Here it comes again - "The Holy War Against Dumbing Down Linux!"
Unfortunately what the crusaders don't understand is that the average person needs a gradient of learning that Linux just doesn't give them yet.
If you look at several examples from society (pick your own as almost anything learnt fits this criterial) people will most easily pick up something that starts out very light. Eventually they'll move to a higher/heavier configuration/situation but in the beginning they don't want that.
Listen very closely so you understand the situation: The current crop of Linux users almost certainly (by their own admission) consists of exceptions to the normal rules of people.
Before you start heating up my asbestos underware think about it. How many of you are users that can grep a file properly or edit one using vi? How many of you are users that understand networking at a base level? How many of you are users that work in the technology fields?
Add all these things up and you'll find that the average Linux user is smarter or faster or more knowledgable than Joe Public. Remember - Joe Public is who we're shooting at as a target user for Linux. Despite what you may want to convince yourself - until Linux accepts and is accepted by the average guy on the street it will have a very hard time expanding beyond the geek circle.
I know some of you don't want to believe that it will die if it doesn't grow but look at the way this world works - if something doesn't grow then it shrinks. No matter what you do you can never make anything totally stable. The minute it stops growing it shrinks. Period. So if Linux is to survive it must grow. To grow beyond its current limits it will have to accept Joe User and give him something that he can use without being too "high-level". A good GUI (which we've got several candidates for) is a step in the right direction but modes of user operation with scaled complexity would be better.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
"RANT mode on"
What's going on here!
I submitted a link to this item on two separate occasions and it was never posted! Here's the most recent comment I made about it. Not to mention the fact that I submitted the original article more than two months ago!
What do you have to do? Be a "Friend of Slashdot" before something gets posted?
Go ahead - moderate me down! I don't care!
"RANT mode off"
The Tick - "Spoon!"
He'd probably be better off with some sort of audio/sonic frequency although I'm sure it's going to be hard getting any bandwidth underwater due to the variance and properties of the medium involved.
What would he use though? I'm sure he could look at some of the de-classified Navy documents for pointers - they've been working on things of this nature for years AFAK.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Here it is - the obligatory Beowulf post:
;-)
"Ya know if they did create the ethernet wrapper for the internal IBM network card channel you could probably run 10,000 virtual Beowulf clusters and run Linux distributed apps on them! Probably play Quake Arena well too!"
Enjoy!
The Tick - "Spoon!"
So if you have a little time and you're using Linux *anyway*, go ahead and get the Free S/WAN patches so that you can encrypt the link, and then only route packets coming over the encrypted link. Since Free S/WAN can do things using RSA keys to restrict who connects to the routable network, you can keep potential ne'er do wells tucked neatly into their own little subnet where they can't access anything else.
;-)
Ok but how much performance do you lose when encrypting the link? Is it enough to drop you to a 1mb/s from the ideal 11mb/s?
In my opinion, this is still not even close to comparing in cost to the WebGear Aviators. $179 for one pc-card, and $70 for an adapter to install it in a desktop? You have to be kidding me. The WebGear for $139 (just about anyplace) gets you *two* cards, and *two* adapters. Considering that in some places you might make the landlord upset if you start drilling holes and running cables, this makes the WebGear Aviators almost competitive with 10base-T. (Or at least it does if you think costing well over twice as much is supposed to be competitive)
Regardless, the price of all this style hardware is still IMHO a little out of the average person's price range. And as far as landlords go - if you can find one that is a little computer savvy he will probably accept wiring the house/apartment for a network as an "enhancement" to his establishment. Unfortunately it would also allow him to charge more for rent.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
For each channel it sends a request for an Access Point operating on the channel with a specific network name. The Access Point will only respond if it's network name is the same. If you don't know the network name of the Access Point, any attempts "connect" to it will be futile.
;-)
Thanks it's much clearer now however I still think someone will probably find a hole in it eventually.
As far as WEP is concerned... WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy. The idea it to try to make the wireless LAN just as secure as a wired LAN. WEP is a standard aspect of the 802.11 spec. If you want to find out more about it, visit the web site of your favorite wireless ethernet provider and search the technical documents for it.
I'll definitely check into this to find out more.
Yes there is plenty of time that people are willing to put into cracking networks, but don't you think you'd get suspicious if a "meter reader" spent numerous hours every day "testing" his new laptop in front of your meter?
I would but I still think Joe Public could be fooled this way. But then Joe Public probably wouldn't be setting up a wireless network at home either. Point taken. Maybe I'm just being a little paranoid about the subject. (Not hard for me - I run an NT network at the office. Talk about holes!
The Tick - "Spoon!"
I can understand that it would be hard to do without knowing the network name but as a counter point/question people crack networks without knowing their names don't they? On top of that quite a few of those compromised systems from the latest DDOS attacks prove the time/effort is there to be put into cracking a network for use later.
;-)
Remember that a good portion of cracking a network/system can be simple social engineering. It would not be beyond believability for a cracker to stand in the backyard dressed as a "meter reader" with his brand new laptop "testing" the meter.
On the second part I know nothing of this WEP encryption of which you speak so if you could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Touching on the matter of security: Would setting these networks up mean that we'd have to worry about somebody standing outside the house and hacking the network inside?
I know someone else asked about packet level encryption but how much would we lose in throughput with that versus having the network secure?
Also, (to emit a few random paranoia particles), couldn't the government just do drive-by monitoring of personal networks? (Slowly of course so as not "break" the connection.)
Or even worse set up a large receiver station! (Yes I know it would also pick up everyone's microwaves but the government's been known to build larger annoyances - see Echelon.) I personally wouldn't want that!
Would there be any way for us to protect our data?
The Tick - "Spoon!"
The root of the problem is that most "human interface gurus" design for the novice user. The trouble is that no one is a novice user for very long.
I agree and have said before that we need to create modes of use not just modes of installation for different levels of users. Doing this should allow a fairly simple transition from a "newbie" to a "general user" (not the same thing) then to a person who feels comfortable administrating their own system.
If we want Linux to be in the Joe Sixpack market we need to provide a bridge from the newbie to the administrator.
(BTW I know there are some of you that say that Joe Sixpack should not be running Linux. I disagree! Linux should be run by everybody that can run it simply because it's incredibly more stable than other OS! That "sixpackability" is exactly why a variable level of operability is needed.)
The Tick - "Spoon!"
IANAS but isn't that basically what existing solar cells do? Link
As I understand it the electrons are "freed" by the combination of the two chemical substances when exposed to light. Or am I completely botched on the subject?
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Thanks! I figured there was a problem with the process but I wasn't sure what it was.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Pardon my general science ignorance but couldn't the production of hydrogen also be done with a DC current produced by solar power and then fed through water? (Sorry old data records on general chemistry class have bit-migrated. *grin*)
Or is the amount of current needed per amount of hydrogen produced not workable?
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Fair 'nuf.
/. so things like this particular rule are things I might miss on first glance.
That's all someone had to tell me. (And I appreciate you doing so.) I'm new to posting on
But telling me that and flaming me ALA "You need to get a life." are two different things.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
SO because I actually have time to post for once due to a lull in my sysadmin duties I have no life?
My life is just fine thank you. If it were someone else more well known posting 10 or more times to this group you would probably not complain so why am I getting flamed here?
I respect your right to post when and where you want - please respect mine.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
Back up now.
The Tick - "Spoon!"
The Matrix here we come!
*grin*
The Tick - "Spoon!"
You're probably dead-on here. For instance I can see a modified hydrogen phone being used as a shaped charge to de-pressurize the plane. Use a half-dozen and you could concievably blow out a large section by "perfing" the surrounding material until it separates.
But then you could also concievably use a knife hidden in a PDA case to threaten the pilot too. No technology is without some risk. It's our personal ethics and responsibility that allow us to use it without killing ourselves wholesale. (Industrial pollution and nuke threat not withstanding.)
The Tick - "Spoon!"