One of my favorite PC games of all time was MDK. It's one of those games that wasn't really revolutionary in any one particular way. The graphics weren't the prettiest even by the standards of the time, but they were still rather slick.
After you play through the first few levels, you sit back and think to youself, "Wow, that was fun. Gimme more." I downloaded the demo one morning before going to school and played about 30 minutes of it. The rest of the day was spent reliving those excellent 30 minutes over and over again.
There was an MDK 2, but IIRC, it wasn't done by Shiny and far less memorable. The original was a twisted, bizarre world with amusing enemies that could crush you dead if you took a wrong step.
David Perry, if you're out there, we want another MDK!
I don't know if these are part of DoD procedure but they should be.
I don't know about the other security classifications, but for Secret, these aren't part of our procedures.
Get rid of floppies, CDs, USB or anything else that allows I/O.
We have floppies and CDs for our classified systems. No special formatting or encryption, they just have "Secret" labels on them which tells us that we have to handle them just like any other classified media, with one exception: you can't put a Secret disk into a non-classified computer. If you do, there will be hell to pay and that machine suddenly becomes classified Secret as well. Other than that, the rest is pure common sense. Keep them under positive personal control when not stored in a safe, don't give unauthorized personel access to them, and keep detailed inventories. You have to have *some* way of getting data into and out of the machine. A network connection is a far bigger no-no than removable media as bits are a lot harder to account for than physical media.
The main point that I was trying to communicate was that DoD regulations make *people* the focal point of security, not the devices. If you can't trust your people, then all the security technology in the world is useless.
But you still need to detect for any signals leaking out of a room.
We don't do this either. Mostly because any entity who wants the data badly enough has far easier and less expensive ways of gaining access to it. Murder, for instance. Our classified systems reside on a secured military base, in a secured building, in a secured room. Most secret data processing that the DoD does is in likewise locations. I don't know if there are any procedures for emergency processing of secure data in an insecure environment, but I would imagine they're nothing special... just common sense and keen situational awareness.
As a US Air Force member who handles information and uses computers classified as Secret, I can tell you that there's no physical difference between a Secret machine and an ordinary one. If vendors are telling you that they can build a DoD Secret classified computer, then they are simply blowing smoke up your ass.
DoD classifications are all about policy, paperwork, and regulations. Not fancy computers. Most people, when they hear of DoD classifications and security clearances, are quick to imagine black vans, polygraph tests, and high-tech datacenters protected better than Fort Knox. Honestly, that's all a bunch of nonsense. All of the classified systems that I've used were just ordinary computers from ordinary manufacturers.
In my current workplace, we have a standard Gateway PC with a removable hard disk and a few Panasonic Toughbooks. Nothing special at all. The only visible difference between these and the regular office PCs is that they have red stickers all over them that say "Secret" and the fact that we are not to process Secret data on the unclassified PCs and vice versa. The Gateway machine can only be connected to SIPRNET (google it) and the Toughbooks are never connected to any network. That's it. No crazy combination case locks, no biometric devices, no odd software. They all run Windows for crying out loud.
If it is your job to configure a computer to the equivalent of DoD's Secret classification (I know you don't work for DoD or you'd already have people showing you how), I'd recommend getting whatever kind of computer will fit your needs.
Then start looking at writing mountains of policies. The first thing you have to do is restrict physical access. This can be done by putting the machine in a locked room with no windows. A laptop would be even easier... just get a GSA-approved safe and keep it in there when it's not in use. Obviously, you would never, ever, ever connect it to any network, period. All the data going in and out should be on CDRs or USB keys and should be accountable somehow. Figure out who needs to have access to it and if they can be trusted. Be sure to emphasize that failure to follow proper security procedures is grounds for immediate termination, whether any information was compromised or not. Ensure that whenever the machine is used, there are never less than two people present. Create an emergency checklist of what to do if the building catches fire, for instance.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head, you'll probably be able to envision a lot more with some careful thought. Good luck.
Obviously hoarding engineers and paying them well is something that the rest of the industry isn't doing so why shouldn't they resent Google?
This has been my point all along. The status quo in business these days is to treat your shareholders like gods and your employees like dirt. And (you have to admit) the vast majority of these big companies bring NOTHING AT ALL useful to society.
Now here comes Google. They bring out products that people (and businesses, but mostly people) want, charge little or nothing for them, treat their employees well, and encourage innovation both within the company and in the external community.
And by Dog, they're making a killing at it. The other companies are both jealous and fearful at the same time. Jealous of Google's rampant success and fearful that their labor pool will come to realize that a comfortable, encouraging, and challenging workplace isn't just a fool's dream.
What goes up must come down of course, but my only hope is that Google can stay perched at the top long enough that their way of doing business erodes to some degree the modern business status quo.
Well, yes and no. I too used to poo-poo the "instant messengers" until I was forced to use AOLIM (not the real AOLIM of course, Gaim instead) for work. I use both IRC and IM, but for completely separate purposes.
IRC's defining characteristic is that you have to connect to a server and join a subject-related channel in order to chat with anyone. With IM, you sign onto one global network and then you can chat with whomever you want as long as you know their screenname. IRC is used for talking to people that I've never met, but share at least one common interest. IRC is ideal for, say, getting software support or yakking on about the latest Star Trek movie with complete strangers.
My IM buddy list, by contrast, is composed entirely of people that I know personally outside of cyberspace. It's good for tossing quick messages and having short coversations with friends, family, and business associates that I wouldn't ordinarily bother to call.
When this kind of bill gets passed we need to pay to get weather information.
Correction: You need to pay twice. Through tax dollars, you already have paid for the weather data to be collected and analyzed by the NWS. If the bill passes, the only way to get weather information would be to go through one of the weather repackagers and pay (via money or ads) again.
Continued religious worship of the Mac/Apple, solid positioning to compete as a Wintel alternative (as much as it is), and plain anti-MS sentiment are the bulk of Apple purchases.
Wrong. In my job, our Apple-using customers are none of those that you mentioned. The real world has far less drama in it than you think it does. All of the people that I know that have a Mac bought it because they don't want to have to deal with flaky hardware, buggy software, or annoying viruses when all they want to do is check their email and play the occasional game of solitare in peace. Or because Macs are all they've ever used and they don't see any point in switching to Windows. Or because they like the shiny interface and sleek design of the exterior. Or they're your average geek that just wants a nice system for doing work on the road. Whatever.
You need to get over your opinion that Mac people are cultists. It is simply not any more true than saying that southerners are hicks or that Honda-buyers are ricers. Pay attention to the people using Macs in real life as opposed to the random idiots you happen to see online.
You may not care, but many people already think modern packaged foods (and society in general) has become too bland, mediocre and homogenous,
You pegged it. My family has a few sportsmen and farmers in it. I was practically raised on food that had been caught, shot, raised, or grown locally and let me tell you, the quality of it is easily 5 times better than anything you could ever buy at the store. The fish tastes more like fish and less like decay. Steaks are tender, no matter how you cook them. Corn-fed hamburger has almost zero fat and the bacon doesn't even compare.
I think Tcl is a great beginner's language because it balances a shallow learning curve with a quite a lot of power. (More than most expect before they've tried it.) Although I hardly ever program, I've dabbled in C, C++, Java, VisualBasic, and Python, but Tcl was the only language that I felt at home with. I was writing useful programs (GUI programs, even) within 2 hours of discovering its existance.
A lot of OSS folks are put off by it's blindingly simple syntax:
[command] [arguments]
But this shouldn't be an issue in a beginning programmer's class, because your aim is to teach programming, not the subtle nuances of a particular C-sytle syntax. Once they understand basic programming concepts, then show them how other programs do it. Another huge bonus is that Tcl has a very helpful and friendly community behind it. Try sending your students to comp.lang.c or some of the other communities on the net and they'll probably be discouraged from programming ever again.
Why did the Sony Playstation crush the N64? Because you can copy easily for the Playstation. Copying a cartridge is just too much hastle to be worth it.
I agree with your post except for this point. The PSX beat the N64 long before copying PSX discs became popular/easy.
The GBA and NDS have flash carts and cart copiers, but when you compare them to the entire GBA/NDS market, hardly anyone owns them. The PS2 and XBox both have ways you can illegally copy games, but it's the same story for them.
Sure, lots of people installed modchips in their PSX systems, but the unwashed masses would rather plop down money for game after game rather than try to mess with soldering a chip inside their unit and then countless hours afterward finding and downloading illegal games. Thus, from an end-user's standpoint, the media itself really had nothing to do with which system to purchase.
Most importantly, Sony attracted more developers to the PSX than Nintendo could with the N64. Look at the N64 blockbusters... most of them were developed by or for Nintendo themselves. Sony on the other hand were able to sign on developers left and right because they had a much more flexible (if slightly less powerful) console, their licensing terms were far better than Nintendo's, and the games' media were not hideously expensive to mass produce.
That last reason is the biggest reason that the N64 stank in comparison to the PSX. Nintendo tried to make up for it and fix most of their mistakes with the GameCube, but just weren't able to lure away developers who had already signed onto sweet deals for the PS2 and XBox.
I'd love for cell phone prices to come down a little bit. Hopefully this brings the prices down, but if software gets more expensive, it may be a wash.
For me, price of cell phones themselves have never been the barrier to getting one. (For crying out loud, I just bought a $200 iRiver.) The barrier has always been the draconian service providers. Sure, cell phones may be convenient, but they assrape you on the service.
Our current landline bill is $42 per month with no long distance. If we need to call out of town, we have Sam's Club calling cards which work out to about $0.023 per minute. (No, that isn't a typo.) We get unlimited free incoming calls and no matter when we place outgoing calls, we still only pay $42/month and $0.023/minute for long distance. In addition, I'm told at the start of each call how many minutes are left on the card and I don't get penalized a gazillion dollars for accidentally going past the allotted minutes. If I'm unhappy with my phone service (say I go VoIP or something), I simply cancel the line and throw away the card.
No cell phone "plan" can or ever will touch that. I kept hoping that as cell phones gained wider acceptance, competition would cause prices to approach something affordable, but that hasn't happenend. Go look around at the ridiculous plans they offer and you'll note that they're all basically identical. The only difference is that one company may have plans that average $5 more per month, but come with 100 more minutes, etc. Note that all of the fees and penalties that you'll have to pay usually aren't presented up-front before you sign up except perhaps on a very long and dense sheet of fine-print paper. Finally, with cell phones, you're not just buying a phone, you're not just subscribing to a service, you're signing a contract which you cannot get out of easily. Decide you aren't happy with the service after a month? Tough luck, because you still have 11 months left to pay for whether you use the phone or not.
I beg of you, fellow Slashdotters (most of who must statistically have a cell phone), please explain to me how cell phones managed to penetrate so much of the market with policies like this? Is it really worth $40-$200 per month plus minutes for the convenience of having your work, socializing, or even your own thoughts interrupted by anyone at any time? Is it more a matter of "whoops, everyone else has got one of these, why shouldn't I"?
Please explain it to me as I admittedly just don't get it.
Hmm, well no ill will was ever intended, it just looked a bit strange and I wondered if there was more to it. I'll take you at your word in the absence of any actual evidence that would support my wild theories.;)
TractorJector writes "It is no secret that the competition for global domination in the operating system market has moved from the desktop to the living room couch.
I was about to say, "No, TractorJector didn't write that. It was cut and pasted verbatim from the first sentence of the article. Have the common decency blah blah blah." But hmm, now this is odd. It seems that every Slashdot story that TractorJector has submitted has been a Mad Penguin article by Christian Einfeldt.
Christian Einfeldt, if you are indeed TractorJector or are affiliated with Mad Penguin in some way, please have the monads to disclose in your Slashdot submissions that you're the one who wrote the article. Really, it's okay to pimp your own stuff one the web. Everybody does it now that blogging is the current fashion. But submitting the articles under a pseudonym (especially ones with naive editors, like Slashdot) is just a wee bit underhanded and deceitful.
2, 3. Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them.
No, not always. Stores have rebates on items all the time. Best Buy was (possibly still is) the worst because all their advertisting and store shelves displayed the price of items minus the rebate. You had to look quite closely to figure out which items' prices included rebates and which didn't.
Also, a lot of stores are starting to lose business based on the amount of growing negative public opinion of rebates. I read something about Best Buy awhile back vowing to get rid of "confusing rebates", but it looks like that never happened. Staples revamped their whole rebate process so that now, when you buy something with a rebate, you simply visit some website, type in a rebate number from your receipt, and they send you the check. There's still a pretty big wait before you actually get the check, but at least they can't disqualify your rebate for some asinine reason like you didn't put the +4 extension on your zip code.
A lot of people talk about "ease of use" when it comes to Windows. From your average user's point of view, perhaps windows is easy to use in that it doesn't take much brain power to install an application from a CD and then run it by double-clicking an icon the desktop. But ease of use comes to a halt quickly when you try to do anything much more advanced than that.
Example: Yesterday, I was charged with installing printer drivers on Windows XP for a network-connected printer. This should really be child's play, but even the latest and greatest Microsoft printing system turned the whole experience a long, drawn-out nightmare. I'd get the drivers installed and the port configured, but when I tried to print a test page, Windows would only say that there was an error printing. That's it. No offer to explain the details, no log messages to examine, nothing. Just "Sorry pal, the whole thing just doesn't work. Please try again." By the end of it, I was pining for CUPS. It ended up being a 3-hour job.
This is generally typical of my Windows experiences. I'm very thankful that most of my work is Linux/BSD administration. Even though the software can still be buggy and/or difficult to understand sometimes, at least you know *why* things fail and can google for leads to a solution.
Al-Qaeda is simply not the only group in the world that is out to kill people. They may be the one that the so-called western world should be most concerned with, but to say that they're the only terrorist group killing people is just wrong.
You're indeed correct and I realized that the statement needed qualifying only after it was already posted. Guess I should have previewed one last time.
The real al-Qaeda, imo, has been eliminated. Granted, due to some colossal failures Osama has not been captured, but I do not think that he has any ability to control the people who claim to be in al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, he does not need to control them, he only has to influence them via propaganda. That's got to be the hardest part of battling al-Qaeda and similar extremist groups... you can't uncover organized groups by following links because the links simply don't exist.
We criticize terrorists for choosing violence over speech to make their point. Then we take away their ability to speak.
A bit of googling would reveal hundreds, maybe thousands of web sites promoting hate and violence against some group of people or another. Many have been online for a very long time. Al-Qaeda is unique in that they're the only group currently organizing to act on their promises. It's not their ability to speak that's causing concern, it's their open willingness to kill innocent people.
To a degree your argument makes sense. But also look at it from the government's point of view. Jon Stewart interviewed Fareed Zakaria (click to watch) a few days ago on The Daily Show. Fareed appears to be an expert on the things which drive terrorism in general and al-Qaeda in particular. Currently, there's no evidence that the group that staged the bombings in London were actually linked to the "official" al-Qaeda group at all. They were in fact probably just "disaffected youths" who took al-Qaeda's idealogies to heart and acted on them. Right now authorities are seeing much more activity from these tiny unaffiliated groups than from al-Qaeda itself and these are the groups that they're having the toughest time countering.
How to stop them? Cut off their information and inspiration. This of course would probably not magically cure disaffected young Muslims in Europe. Fareed Zakaria says in the interview that the best and possibly only way to stop Muslim extremism in Europe is for policy-makers, leaders, and citizens to actually sit down and figure out how to better integrate Muslims into predominantly white cultures. <cynicism>Of course, this won't happen as people 'round the whole earth are generally opposed to actually thinking and working to change things for anyone but themselves.</cynicism>
Perhaps more importantly (and more obviously), shutting down the sites is also meant to be a bit of a psychological strike. If someone's interested in al-Qaeda and they visit 12 websites out there promoting it, they're bound to come to the conclusion that the group is active and gaining strength, making it a much more attractive "club" to join. On the other hand, if all of the sudden the same person notices that all the al-Qaeda sites have gone missing, it raises suspicion that the group's control is slipping, even if nobody's been arrested or charged with a crime in real life.
In the end, this won't stop al-Qaeda members from communicating with each other and spreading propaganda, it just pushes them underground a tiny bit further.
Also, doing all this cutting and extending of wires on a Mac Mini is just, well, kinda dumb. I mean, sheesh... The Mini is small, unobtrusive, and attractive. This is the LAST computer you'd feel the need to hide underneath a cabinet. If you're going to hide a computer in the cabinetry, at least make it a homebrew unit or something.
Here in Lansing, a new cybercafe called Gone Wired opened up a few months ago. It's probably too early to judge whether they are a success or not, but they offer free wifi and judging from the amount of foot-traffic I see, they can't be hurting too badly.
In the end, I don't think free wifi has much to do with the overall profitability of a cafe business. All you really need for wifi are decent broadband, a flexible router, and an access point. Much more important are location, atmosphere, and product quality in that order. You only need to be concerned with table-squatters if the cafe is really jumping AND space is at a premium. At that point, they can probably be ticketed for loitering or something if they refuse to either buy a beverage or leave when asked politely. If idiots are hogging bandwidth with p2p, then simply spend a little extra cash and man-hours to configure a firewall that can penalize bandwidth hogs.
The Gone Wired Cafe offers free wifi, but charges some insane amount if you use their computers. I wouldn't even bother with more than 2 or 3 cafe-owned stations depending on the size of the venue, as I've only ever seen one person use one in the dozens of trips that I've made to the place. (Obviously, it would be idiotic to spend top dollar on brand-new computers when almost any old PC will browse the web just fine these days. KDE in Kiosk mode would be excellent for this, btw.)
Most of your customers are going to have enough common decency to buy a drink before settling down to use your wifi. Our local LUG meets at Gone Wired and this is something of an unwritten rule among us. (We have an agreement with the managers that lets us bring our own pizza, of course.) The drinks are a tad expensive, but free wifi makes up for it. We wouldn't be meeting at the cafe and buying drinks if the wireless internet access wasn't free. And we are far from the only computer-oriented group that meets there.
Bottom line: free wifi will definitely help rather than hinder as long as long as the rest of the business is kept in line as well. I'd recommend telling your business man to give the owners of Gone Wired (linked above) a call. From what I can tell, they're pretty friendly and would probably be happy to lend some advice as long as he doesn't plan to set up shop in Lansing.:P
My first try would be Win98SE and K-Meleon. I remember how slow even Win95 was on 8MB of memory, so maybe that's not an adequate option.
You could also try installing an extremely minimal version of either Linux or BSD, along with a stipped-down X and try to run Dillo or Links. The latter will do SSL and graphics if setup just right.
The hardest part won't be giving it away. The hardest part will be finding someone that will actually put it to good use. I mean, if you just take every request at face value, a lot of them are probably just nobodies who want a free SMP system. (I know this, because I pondered the same thing for a nanosecond or two.)
What you ought to do is find an active open source project where developer access to an SMP system would be useful. Good candidates are the Linux kernel and the BSD's, as well as number-crunching, desktop environments, and multimedia applications. Perferably it should be a project who's work you admire or use on a daily basis. Join their mailing list, lurk for awhile, and try to figure out who's who. Then post your offer to one of their mailing lists. Then and only then, offer your system to someone who you know to be a proven member of the community that has contributed a significant amount of code in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future.
This is probably the best way to ensure that your gift ends up in the right hands.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my favorite PC games of all time was MDK. It's one of those games that wasn't really revolutionary in any one particular way. The graphics weren't the prettiest even by the standards of the time, but they were still rather slick.
After you play through the first few levels, you sit back and think to youself, "Wow, that was fun. Gimme more." I downloaded the demo one morning before going to school and played about 30 minutes of it. The rest of the day was spent reliving those excellent 30 minutes over and over again.
There was an MDK 2, but IIRC, it wasn't done by Shiny and far less memorable. The original was a twisted, bizarre world with amusing enemies that could crush you dead if you took a wrong step.
David Perry, if you're out there, we want another MDK!
I don't know if these are part of DoD procedure but they should be.
I don't know about the other security classifications, but for Secret, these aren't part of our procedures.
Get rid of floppies, CDs, USB or anything else that allows I/O.
We have floppies and CDs for our classified systems. No special formatting or encryption, they just have "Secret" labels on them which tells us that we have to handle them just like any other classified media, with one exception: you can't put a Secret disk into a non-classified computer. If you do, there will be hell to pay and that machine suddenly becomes classified Secret as well. Other than that, the rest is pure common sense. Keep them under positive personal control when not stored in a safe, don't give unauthorized personel access to them, and keep detailed inventories. You have to have *some* way of getting data into and out of the machine. A network connection is a far bigger no-no than removable media as bits are a lot harder to account for than physical media.
The main point that I was trying to communicate was that DoD regulations make *people* the focal point of security, not the devices. If you can't trust your people, then all the security technology in the world is useless.
But you still need to detect for any signals leaking out of a room.
We don't do this either. Mostly because any entity who wants the data badly enough has far easier and less expensive ways of gaining access to it. Murder, for instance. Our classified systems reside on a secured military base, in a secured building, in a secured room. Most secret data processing that the DoD does is in likewise locations. I don't know if there are any procedures for emergency processing of secure data in an insecure environment, but I would imagine they're nothing special... just common sense and keen situational awareness.
As a US Air Force member who handles information and uses computers classified as Secret, I can tell you that there's no physical difference between a Secret machine and an ordinary one. If vendors are telling you that they can build a DoD Secret classified computer, then they are simply blowing smoke up your ass.
DoD classifications are all about policy, paperwork, and regulations. Not fancy computers. Most people, when they hear of DoD classifications and security clearances, are quick to imagine black vans, polygraph tests, and high-tech datacenters protected better than Fort Knox. Honestly, that's all a bunch of nonsense. All of the classified systems that I've used were just ordinary computers from ordinary manufacturers.
In my current workplace, we have a standard Gateway PC with a removable hard disk and a few Panasonic Toughbooks. Nothing special at all. The only visible difference between these and the regular office PCs is that they have red stickers all over them that say "Secret" and the fact that we are not to process Secret data on the unclassified PCs and vice versa. The Gateway machine can only be connected to SIPRNET (google it) and the Toughbooks are never connected to any network. That's it. No crazy combination case locks, no biometric devices, no odd software. They all run Windows for crying out loud.
If it is your job to configure a computer to the equivalent of DoD's Secret classification (I know you don't work for DoD or you'd already have people showing you how), I'd recommend getting whatever kind of computer will fit your needs.
Then start looking at writing mountains of policies. The first thing you have to do is restrict physical access. This can be done by putting the machine in a locked room with no windows. A laptop would be even easier... just get a GSA-approved safe and keep it in there when it's not in use. Obviously, you would never, ever, ever connect it to any network, period. All the data going in and out should be on CDRs or USB keys and should be accountable somehow. Figure out who needs to have access to it and if they can be trusted. Be sure to emphasize that failure to follow proper security procedures is grounds for immediate termination, whether any information was compromised or not. Ensure that whenever the machine is used, there are never less than two people present. Create an emergency checklist of what to do if the building catches fire, for instance.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head, you'll probably be able to envision a lot more with some careful thought. Good luck.
Obviously hoarding engineers and paying them well is something that the rest of the industry isn't doing so why shouldn't they resent Google?
This has been my point all along. The status quo in business these days is to treat your shareholders like gods and your employees like dirt. And (you have to admit) the vast majority of these big companies bring NOTHING AT ALL useful to society.
Now here comes Google. They bring out products that people (and businesses, but mostly people) want, charge little or nothing for them, treat their employees well, and encourage innovation both within the company and in the external community.
And by Dog, they're making a killing at it. The other companies are both jealous and fearful at the same time. Jealous of Google's rampant success and fearful that their labor pool will come to realize that a comfortable, encouraging, and challenging workplace isn't just a fool's dream.
What goes up must come down of course, but my only hope is that Google can stay perched at the top long enough that their way of doing business erodes to some degree the modern business status quo.
and IRC from 1988 still beats them hands down.
Well, yes and no. I too used to poo-poo the "instant messengers" until I was forced to use AOLIM (not the real AOLIM of course, Gaim instead) for work. I use both IRC and IM, but for completely separate purposes.
IRC's defining characteristic is that you have to connect to a server and join a subject-related channel in order to chat with anyone. With IM, you sign onto one global network and then you can chat with whomever you want as long as you know their screenname. IRC is used for talking to people that I've never met, but share at least one common interest. IRC is ideal for, say, getting software support or yakking on about the latest Star Trek movie with complete strangers.
My IM buddy list, by contrast, is composed entirely of people that I know personally outside of cyberspace. It's good for tossing quick messages and having short coversations with friends, family, and business associates that I wouldn't ordinarily bother to call.
When this kind of bill gets passed we need to pay to get weather information.
Correction: You need to pay twice. Through tax dollars, you already have paid for the weather data to be collected and analyzed by the NWS. If the bill passes, the only way to get weather information would be to go through one of the weather repackagers and pay (via money or ads) again.
Continued religious worship of the Mac/Apple, solid positioning to compete as a Wintel alternative (as much as it is), and plain anti-MS sentiment are the bulk of Apple purchases.
Wrong. In my job, our Apple-using customers are none of those that you mentioned. The real world has far less drama in it than you think it does. All of the people that I know that have a Mac bought it because they don't want to have to deal with flaky hardware, buggy software, or annoying viruses when all they want to do is check their email and play the occasional game of solitare in peace. Or because Macs are all they've ever used and they don't see any point in switching to Windows. Or because they like the shiny interface and sleek design of the exterior. Or they're your average geek that just wants a nice system for doing work on the road. Whatever.
You need to get over your opinion that Mac people are cultists. It is simply not any more true than saying that southerners are hicks or that Honda-buyers are ricers. Pay attention to the people using Macs in real life as opposed to the random idiots you happen to see online.
You may not care, but many people already think modern packaged foods (and society in general) has become too bland, mediocre and homogenous,
You pegged it. My family has a few sportsmen and farmers in it. I was practically raised on food that had been caught, shot, raised, or grown locally and let me tell you, the quality of it is easily 5 times better than anything you could ever buy at the store. The fish tastes more like fish and less like decay. Steaks are tender, no matter how you cook them. Corn-fed hamburger has almost zero fat and the bacon doesn't even compare.
I think Tcl is a great beginner's language because it balances a shallow learning curve with a quite a lot of power. (More than most expect before they've tried it.) Although I hardly ever program, I've dabbled in C, C++, Java, VisualBasic, and Python, but Tcl was the only language that I felt at home with. I was writing useful programs (GUI programs, even) within 2 hours of discovering its existance.
A lot of OSS folks are put off by it's blindingly simple syntax:
[command] [arguments]
But this shouldn't be an issue in a beginning programmer's class, because your aim is to teach programming, not the subtle nuances of a particular C-sytle syntax. Once they understand basic programming concepts, then show them how other programs do it. Another huge bonus is that Tcl has a very helpful and friendly community behind it. Try sending your students to comp.lang.c or some of the other communities on the net and they'll probably be discouraged from programming ever again.
Why did the Sony Playstation crush the N64? Because you can copy easily for the Playstation. Copying a cartridge is just too much hastle to be worth it.
I agree with your post except for this point. The PSX beat the N64 long before copying PSX discs became popular/easy.
The GBA and NDS have flash carts and cart copiers, but when you compare them to the entire GBA/NDS market, hardly anyone owns them. The PS2 and XBox both have ways you can illegally copy games, but it's the same story for them.
Sure, lots of people installed modchips in their PSX systems, but the unwashed masses would rather plop down money for game after game rather than try to mess with soldering a chip inside their unit and then countless hours afterward finding and downloading illegal games. Thus, from an end-user's standpoint, the media itself really had nothing to do with which system to purchase.
Most importantly, Sony attracted more developers to the PSX than Nintendo could with the N64. Look at the N64 blockbusters... most of them were developed by or for Nintendo themselves. Sony on the other hand were able to sign on developers left and right because they had a much more flexible (if slightly less powerful) console, their licensing terms were far better than Nintendo's, and the games' media were not hideously expensive to mass produce.
That last reason is the biggest reason that the N64 stank in comparison to the PSX. Nintendo tried to make up for it and fix most of their mistakes with the GameCube, but just weren't able to lure away developers who had already signed onto sweet deals for the PS2 and XBox.
The matrix is a prime example. My question is why didnt they just use wireless (WiMAX or the like)?
I think they did. Don't you remember the most clever, inspirational, and brilliant line in the whole movie?
"This is where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix."
I don't think that really works. You can't make someone know less by just telling them something.
From TFA: "This obviously cannot happen classically, but let me try to explain why it can happen quantumly."
I'd love for cell phone prices to come down a little bit. Hopefully this brings the prices down, but if software gets more expensive, it may be a wash.
For me, price of cell phones themselves have never been the barrier to getting one. (For crying out loud, I just bought a $200 iRiver.) The barrier has always been the draconian service providers. Sure, cell phones may be convenient, but they assrape you on the service.
Our current landline bill is $42 per month with no long distance. If we need to call out of town, we have Sam's Club calling cards which work out to about $0.023 per minute. (No, that isn't a typo.) We get unlimited free incoming calls and no matter when we place outgoing calls, we still only pay $42/month and $0.023/minute for long distance. In addition, I'm told at the start of each call how many minutes are left on the card and I don't get penalized a gazillion dollars for accidentally going past the allotted minutes. If I'm unhappy with my phone service (say I go VoIP or something), I simply cancel the line and throw away the card.
No cell phone "plan" can or ever will touch that. I kept hoping that as cell phones gained wider acceptance, competition would cause prices to approach something affordable, but that hasn't happenend. Go look around at the ridiculous plans they offer and you'll note that they're all basically identical. The only difference is that one company may have plans that average $5 more per month, but come with 100 more minutes, etc. Note that all of the fees and penalties that you'll have to pay usually aren't presented up-front before you sign up except perhaps on a very long and dense sheet of fine-print paper. Finally, with cell phones, you're not just buying a phone, you're not just subscribing to a service, you're signing a contract which you cannot get out of easily. Decide you aren't happy with the service after a month? Tough luck, because you still have 11 months left to pay for whether you use the phone or not.
I beg of you, fellow Slashdotters (most of who must statistically have a cell phone), please explain to me how cell phones managed to penetrate so much of the market with policies like this? Is it really worth $40-$200 per month plus minutes for the convenience of having your work, socializing, or even your own thoughts interrupted by anyone at any time? Is it more a matter of "whoops, everyone else has got one of these, why shouldn't I"?
Please explain it to me as I admittedly just don't get it.
Hmm, well no ill will was ever intended, it just looked a bit strange and I wondered if there was more to it. I'll take you at your word in the absence of any actual evidence that would support my wild theories.
TractorJector writes "It is no secret that the competition for global domination in the operating system market has moved from the desktop to the living room couch.
I was about to say, "No, TractorJector didn't write that. It was cut and pasted verbatim from the first sentence of the article. Have the common decency blah blah blah." But hmm, now this is odd. It seems that every Slashdot story that TractorJector has submitted has been a Mad Penguin article by Christian Einfeldt.
Christian Einfeldt, if you are indeed TractorJector or are affiliated with Mad Penguin in some way, please have the monads to disclose in your Slashdot submissions that you're the one who wrote the article. Really, it's okay to pimp your own stuff one the web. Everybody does it now that blogging is the current fashion. But submitting the articles under a pseudonym (especially ones with naive editors, like Slashdot) is just a wee bit underhanded and deceitful.
2, 3. Rebates are offered by the manufacturer, not the store. Take it up with them.
No, not always. Stores have rebates on items all the time. Best Buy was (possibly still is) the worst because all their advertisting and store shelves displayed the price of items minus the rebate. You had to look quite closely to figure out which items' prices included rebates and which didn't.
Also, a lot of stores are starting to lose business based on the amount of growing negative public opinion of rebates. I read something about Best Buy awhile back vowing to get rid of "confusing rebates", but it looks like that never happened. Staples revamped their whole rebate process so that now, when you buy something with a rebate, you simply visit some website, type in a rebate number from your receipt, and they send you the check. There's still a pretty big wait before you actually get the check, but at least they can't disqualify your rebate for some asinine reason like you didn't put the +4 extension on your zip code.
A lot of people talk about "ease of use" when it comes to Windows. From your average user's point of view, perhaps windows is easy to use in that it doesn't take much brain power to install an application from a CD and then run it by double-clicking an icon the desktop. But ease of use comes to a halt quickly when you try to do anything much more advanced than that.
Example: Yesterday, I was charged with installing printer drivers on Windows XP for a network-connected printer. This should really be child's play, but even the latest and greatest Microsoft printing system turned the whole experience a long, drawn-out nightmare. I'd get the drivers installed and the port configured, but when I tried to print a test page, Windows would only say that there was an error printing. That's it. No offer to explain the details, no log messages to examine, nothing. Just "Sorry pal, the whole thing just doesn't work. Please try again." By the end of it, I was pining for CUPS. It ended up being a 3-hour job.
This is generally typical of my Windows experiences. I'm very thankful that most of my work is Linux/BSD administration. Even though the software can still be buggy and/or difficult to understand sometimes, at least you know *why* things fail and can google for leads to a solution.
In the late 90's there were quite a few sites that refused to display for any version of Netscape.
I simply didn't visit those sites.
Animated Unicorns.
Al-Qaeda is simply not the only group in the world that is out to kill people. They may be the one that the so-called western world should be most concerned with, but to say that they're the only terrorist group killing people is just wrong.
You're indeed correct and I realized that the statement needed qualifying only after it was already posted. Guess I should have previewed one last time.
The real al-Qaeda, imo, has been eliminated. Granted, due to some colossal failures Osama has not been captured, but I do not think that he has any ability to control the people who claim to be in al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, he does not need to control them, he only has to influence them via propaganda. That's got to be the hardest part of battling al-Qaeda and similar extremist groups... you can't uncover organized groups by following links because the links simply don't exist.
We criticize terrorists for choosing violence over speech to make their point. Then we take away their ability to speak.
A bit of googling would reveal hundreds, maybe thousands of web sites promoting hate and violence against some group of people or another. Many have been online for a very long time. Al-Qaeda is unique in that they're the only group currently organizing to act on their promises. It's not their ability to speak that's causing concern, it's their open willingness to kill innocent people.
To a degree your argument makes sense. But also look at it from the government's point of view. Jon Stewart interviewed Fareed Zakaria (click to watch) a few days ago on The Daily Show. Fareed appears to be an expert on the things which drive terrorism in general and al-Qaeda in particular. Currently, there's no evidence that the group that staged the bombings in London were actually linked to the "official" al-Qaeda group at all. They were in fact probably just "disaffected youths" who took al-Qaeda's idealogies to heart and acted on them. Right now authorities are seeing much more activity from these tiny unaffiliated groups than from al-Qaeda itself and these are the groups that they're having the toughest time countering.
How to stop them? Cut off their information and inspiration. This of course would probably not magically cure disaffected young Muslims in Europe. Fareed Zakaria says in the interview that the best and possibly only way to stop Muslim extremism in Europe is for policy-makers, leaders, and citizens to actually sit down and figure out how to better integrate Muslims into predominantly white cultures. <cynicism>Of course, this won't happen as people 'round the whole earth are generally opposed to actually thinking and working to change things for anyone but themselves.</cynicism>
Perhaps more importantly (and more obviously), shutting down the sites is also meant to be a bit of a psychological strike. If someone's interested in al-Qaeda and they visit 12 websites out there promoting it, they're bound to come to the conclusion that the group is active and gaining strength, making it a much more attractive "club" to join. On the other hand, if all of the sudden the same person notices that all the al-Qaeda sites have gone missing, it raises suspicion that the group's control is slipping, even if nobody's been arrested or charged with a crime in real life.
In the end, this won't stop al-Qaeda members from communicating with each other and spreading propaganda, it just pushes them underground a tiny bit further.
Also, doing all this cutting and extending of wires on a Mac Mini is just, well, kinda dumb. I mean, sheesh... The Mini is small, unobtrusive, and attractive. This is the LAST computer you'd feel the need to hide underneath a cabinet. If you're going to hide a computer in the cabinetry, at least make it a homebrew unit or something.
Here in Lansing, a new cybercafe called Gone Wired opened up a few months ago. It's probably too early to judge whether they are a success or not, but they offer free wifi and judging from the amount of foot-traffic I see, they can't be hurting too badly.
In the end, I don't think free wifi has much to do with the overall profitability of a cafe business. All you really need for wifi are decent broadband, a flexible router, and an access point. Much more important are location, atmosphere, and product quality in that order. You only need to be concerned with table-squatters if the cafe is really jumping AND space is at a premium. At that point, they can probably be ticketed for loitering or something if they refuse to either buy a beverage or leave when asked politely. If idiots are hogging bandwidth with p2p, then simply spend a little extra cash and man-hours to configure a firewall that can penalize bandwidth hogs.
The Gone Wired Cafe offers free wifi, but charges some insane amount if you use their computers. I wouldn't even bother with more than 2 or 3 cafe-owned stations depending on the size of the venue, as I've only ever seen one person use one in the dozens of trips that I've made to the place. (Obviously, it would be idiotic to spend top dollar on brand-new computers when almost any old PC will browse the web just fine these days. KDE in Kiosk mode would be excellent for this, btw.)
Most of your customers are going to have enough common decency to buy a drink before settling down to use your wifi. Our local LUG meets at Gone Wired and this is something of an unwritten rule among us. (We have an agreement with the managers that lets us bring our own pizza, of course.) The drinks are a tad expensive, but free wifi makes up for it. We wouldn't be meeting at the cafe and buying drinks if the wireless internet access wasn't free. And we are far from the only computer-oriented group that meets there.
Bottom line: free wifi will definitely help rather than hinder as long as long as the rest of the business is kept in line as well. I'd recommend telling your business man to give the owners of Gone Wired (linked above) a call. From what I can tell, they're pretty friendly and would probably be happy to lend some advice as long as he doesn't plan to set up shop in Lansing.
My first try would be Win98SE and K-Meleon. I remember how slow even Win95 was on 8MB of memory, so maybe that's not an adequate option.
You could also try installing an extremely minimal version of either Linux or BSD, along with a stipped-down X and try to run Dillo or Links. The latter will do SSL and graphics if setup just right.
The hardest part won't be giving it away. The hardest part will be finding someone that will actually put it to good use. I mean, if you just take every request at face value, a lot of them are probably just nobodies who want a free SMP system. (I know this, because I pondered the same thing for a nanosecond or two.)
What you ought to do is find an active open source project where developer access to an SMP system would be useful. Good candidates are the Linux kernel and the BSD's, as well as number-crunching, desktop environments, and multimedia applications. Perferably it should be a project who's work you admire or use on a daily basis. Join their mailing list, lurk for awhile, and try to figure out who's who. Then post your offer to one of their mailing lists. Then and only then, offer your system to someone who you know to be a proven member of the community that has contributed a significant amount of code in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future.
This is probably the best way to ensure that your gift ends up in the right hands.