People get so upset when a free online service wants to make money off of freely submitted data. Gee. Who woulda thunk it? Maybe the question is really: Are there ANY on line services that are required for Life, Liberty, and the pursuit or happiness?
As for "social network" anonymity: There was a time people social networked by going to churches, clubs, and various events IN PERSON. Security? There was once a group of individuals who dedicated their fortunes, life, liberty and sacred honor to found a new nation. You can read their signatures on the Declaration of Independence.
Yes, 64-bit Firefox has been available for ages. I've been running it since SLAMD64 11 and Slackware64 13.x. The beta 64-bit Adobe Flash has been around since then as well in one preview form or another. I am currently using Flash 10.3 beta x86_64 with Slackware64 13.37 - with no significant issues. The new Flash 11 is now beta with full GNU/Linux x86_64 support. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplatformruntimes/flashplayer11/
In the spirit of the/. community, I haven't had time to read all the posts but that wont stop me from opining.
My family has used Openoffice for years since I simply can't afford M$ Office (4 licenses, and piracy would be "unethical"). I needed something file compatibel with M$ for work and the kids' school (talk about "vendor lock-in").
I just dumped Openoffice 3.2 instead of upgrading.
Long live Libreoffice! I just installed LibreOffice 3.3.0 Beta2 (3.2.99 from git) via AlienBOB's build (Thanks buddy!) for Slackware64 13.1. It is faster, leaner, cleaner, and opens M$ Office docs that OO.o was having issues with (my employer still uses M$ everywhere). I am impressed.
So instead of whining and gabbing inanely about the merits of, or lack thereof, of M$, Oracle or http://www.documentfoundation.org/, give it a test drive. Vote for the software project that JUST WORKS by using it!
I'll have to try the DD hack - I haven't played WC1 and WC2 in a heck of a long time. I loved the whole series. For especially WC Prophecy, I play in all its Glide API glory via zeckensack's Glide wrapper http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/index.html and a bunch of patches and high resolution fixes from http://www.wcnews.com/index.shtml using WinXP.
I switched to the glide wrapper when my antique Voodoo 12MB 3D pass through card bit the dust. At the time I used a AMD Athlon slot A 800Mhz and Geforce256 DDR and the glide wrapper was a life saver for my Glide games.
Lets not dance around the fundamental issue. The Utopian ideal of a paperless office will never materialize until we can agree on a universal data standard. With paper, we can still read the records of the Roman Empire, Ancient China and Ancient Egypt. Even if today's modern languages fall to extinction a thousand years from now, we can still recover the paper based history. Any electronic records would be lost. I have 8 inch and 5 1/4 floppy discs from a CP/M Z80 S100 system I used back in the early eighties that are now essentially unreadable (fortunately I have paper print outs!). Unless we have a universal standard, and get one soon, the "computer revolution" era will be a black hole to future generations.
On the other hand, maybe we don't want future generations to study the conversation on slashdot.....
We've heard this song and dance before and smacks of special accounting practices. It is true that Corporate entities will have thousands of "installs," but it is also true that they did not pay full price for all those licenses. I am not inclined to call those captive users a fully functional Windows user base. I suppose if one counts every Windows version installed since Windows 286....
[Nearly] every PC shipped has an OS installed but does that mean all of those OS are in use? How many get stripped off and replaced? Upgraded?
I suppose if one counts every Windows version installed since Windows 286....
IMHO, the DCMA (and DRM) have nothing to do with protection of intellectual property or protection of the hard work of starving artists. It is about censorship and control. Unfortunately, that is what the USA is all about these days: King Cash and Fascist Dictatorship.
As to cash, of course a company or corporation will steal from the artist if it can (e.g "contract") and try to gain a monopoly on distribution and use to enhance profits. Hence, we have laws and regulations.
Unfortunately, the current Fascist Regime is also all about greed, censorship and control in trampling not only over The Constitution but also dismantling the regulations that benefit the common people. In my admittedly limited understanding, copywrites and patents were meant to be limited monopolies for limited periods of time to benefit the original artist/inventor and then to enter the public domain for the good of all. When does anything enter the public domain anymore?
And don't even get me started an a rant about Fair Use. If some putz sues me because my son plays a tune at a concert (for which he does not get paid as he is a student giving a recital), I'm dusting off the shotgun...
You are incorrect. Evolution is a theory based on the Scientific Method. As such it is definitely (1) Observable, (2) Measurable and (3) Repeatable. A Scientific Theory is not some idle speculation or unproven idea. Rather it is a model to explain and test specific natural phenomena.
In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory. Commonly, a large number of more specific hypotheses may be logically bound together by just one or two theories. As a general rule for use of the term, theories tend to deal with much broader sets of universals than do hypotheses, which ordinarily deal with much more specific sets of phenomena or specific applications of a theory.
a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.
The Theory of Evolution is not the same theory today as it was when Darwin proposed it over 150 years. A theory is dynamic and is modified/adjusted as new data becomes available.
Religion, in my opinion, just breeds stupidity, greed, self righteousness, and and fanaticism. The Founding Fathers on the United Stares of America were all very devote Christians, yet they saw fit to leave religion out of Government and Schools.
1. No one ever get fire for choosing Microsoft.
2. MSIE is the only browser guaranteed to be on every MS OS box.
...and I hate the damn thing. Highly annoying. I have noticed, however, that more and more sites are becoming more "compliant" in that Firefox, et al, work better than MSIE. Of course, I also deal with way too many people who look at me as though I am completely nuts when I mention switching browsers ("What's a browser?).
Nothing is more lucrative to a fascist regime than fear. It all about cash. It really doesn't matter is the technology/idea is sensible or feasible as long as its lucrative for the contractor and his political "buddy".
A while back a USA leader gave a speech during a time of crisis:
"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."
The USA has not had such a leader in a Very Long Time.
But fundamentally, the PEOPLE must force the politicians to do the right thing. Unfortunately, this is longer the case in the USA.
I concur. This is a good list of the dawn of personal computing. I disagree with other posters about vintage mainframes and minicomputers (such as PDP/11) since they were not widely accessible. For those system not available, emulators are a good choice:
It is important to keep the history alive. Although for us old timers, it just seems like yesterday, many youngsters do not realize the history of their shiny new laptops, etc.
Linux isn't - FreeBSD is. They have their own kernel, C library, and toolchain if you use TenDRA.
True. I have FreeBSD iso here somewhere but haven't yet had a chance to give it a whirl. Of course, my rant was directed at linux fanboys (of whom I am one) and not the Unix flavors. I do have enough spare parts about so maybe...
Basically, I searched the world over for an open source alternative to a proprietary OS that is simple and allows me to use the computer as the tool it is meant to be. As a computer hobbyist, sure I could fiddle and play with it all day; but as a user, I just gotta get shit done...Heck maybe I'll just stick with Slackware. After 10+ yrs I can set it up on anything.
It just rankles me that the open source world is so busy with maximizing choice that we spend more time playing with the OS (i.e "distro") than actually using the computer for anything. Oh, and don't get me started on the binary vs. compile-it-all-from-source and the "evils" of ever trying to make a living using open source.
Anyway, time to recompile the kernel..why? BECAUSE I CAN!
Not another "how I installed and rated distro X." We are all doomed.
"LINUX" will never go mainstream for the home and this FA proves it yet again:
1. Linux doesn't exist as on OS - its just a kernel.
2. Fragmentation - too many distros with few standards or cooperation
3. linux fanboys think their fav distro is the "be-all and end-all" of existence
4. Its too hard for users to simply run the apps they want
5. package management sucks
6. hardware support sucks
I could go on and and on. Whoop dee doo...so he got debian "kinda-sorta" running on an old thinkpad. Whoopie.
What OS do I run, you ask? MS Windows 2000 and XP. Because they are true standardized OS with software and hardware support.
What Linux distro for speed and stability? Slackware. Because it is faster, more stable and has the best hardware compatibility there is among distros, and package management is simple, if simplistic. And believe it or not, a motivated novice can figure out how to edit a few text config files.
So I see the FA (and the linked distro comparison) and raise him 2 thinkpads, 2 compaqs, 4+ desktops ranging from Pentium266MMX to PII400 to PIII900 to AMD64. The only hardware issue was the laptops' Winmodens and those infrared ports. Oh and a cheap Leadtek Winfast TV card with MythTV. Everything else works "out of the box," especially Firefox and Thunderbird.
The energy of 2 photons are abosorbed by the dyes to reach the appropriate molecular energy state. This type of optical spectroscopy has been known for a very long time. Aren't there are physical chemists in teh slashdot audience?
Nope. That wikipedia article talks about a completely different technology that didn't pan out. The full title of this one is:
"Two-Photon 3D Optical Data Storage via Fluorescence Modulation of an Efficient Fluorene Dye by a Photochromic Diarylethene", Advanced Materials, 2006, 18, 2910-2914.
The keys here is "2 photon" and "3-D". no pits and the whole volume is used to store data I did similar nonlinear optical research back in the 80s - although not for data storage but rather polymer structure and optical properties.
Pardon me if I missed seeing a reference to the PLOT10 library in this discussion. Used to be THE lib for TEKTRONIX terminals (line perinter then color CRT) for graphics anything. Wrote some stuff for plots in C and fortran for data surfaces way back (Z80 CP/M, and later IBM PC), as it was ported as a general purpose lib, to graph on a flat bed pen plotter and CRT (Hercules monochrome graphics adapter). Also, I seem to recall a few geeks simulation Rubik's Cube and Enterprise (Dammit Jim, the Original Series!) on a Tektronix Color CRT when I was a wee lad in college (pre IBM PC). You should be able to google for the source or for a compatible port.
and then there's http://plplot.sourceforge.net/ as well. (includs the classic "Lena" demo pic)
I've got some code here somwhere's....hmm.....now what did I do with those 8 inch floppies and drive.....
--
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'" -Isaac Asimov
Slashdot Mirror
People get so upset when a free online service wants to make money off of freely submitted data. Gee. Who woulda thunk it? Maybe the question is really: Are there ANY on line services that are required for Life, Liberty, and the pursuit or happiness? As for "social network" anonymity: There was a time people social networked by going to churches, clubs, and various events IN PERSON. Security? There was once a group of individuals who dedicated their fortunes, life, liberty and sacred honor to found a new nation. You can read their signatures on the Declaration of Independence.
....This place has got everything.....
Yes, 64-bit Firefox has been available for ages. I've been running it since SLAMD64 11 and Slackware64 13.x. The beta 64-bit Adobe Flash has been around since then as well in one preview form or another. I am currently using Flash 10.3 beta x86_64 with Slackware64 13.37 - with no significant issues. The new Flash 11 is now beta with full GNU/Linux x86_64 support. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplatformruntimes/flashplayer11/
...Nothing more to see here. Move along...
In the spirit of the /. community, I haven't had time to read all the posts but that wont stop me from opining.
My family has used Openoffice for years since I simply can't afford M$ Office (4 licenses, and piracy would be "unethical"). I needed something file compatibel with M$ for work and the kids' school (talk about "vendor lock-in").
I just dumped Openoffice 3.2 instead of upgrading.
Long live Libreoffice! I just installed LibreOffice 3.3.0 Beta2 (3.2.99 from git) via AlienBOB's build (Thanks buddy!) for Slackware64 13.1. It is faster, leaner, cleaner, and opens M$ Office docs that OO.o was having issues with (my employer still uses M$ everywhere). I am impressed.
So instead of whining and gabbing inanely about the merits of, or lack thereof, of M$, Oracle or http://www.documentfoundation.org/, give it a test drive. Vote for the software project that JUST WORKS by using it!
I'll have to try the DD hack - I haven't played WC1 and WC2 in a heck of a long time. I loved the whole series. For especially WC Prophecy, I play in all its Glide API glory via zeckensack's Glide wrapper http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/index.html and a bunch of patches and high resolution fixes from http://www.wcnews.com/index.shtml using WinXP. I switched to the glide wrapper when my antique Voodoo 12MB 3D pass through card bit the dust. At the time I used a AMD Athlon slot A 800Mhz and Geforce256 DDR and the glide wrapper was a life saver for my Glide games.
Popcorn? Butter? I'm confused...
There's only one way to kill a zombie....
Which alcohol? As a chemical class, there are many alcohols and not all are miscible with water.
Is it too much to ask for rigorous specificity in a science article?
oh wait...for this crowd there is only ONE kind of alcohol....
Lets not dance around the fundamental issue. The Utopian ideal of a paperless office will never materialize until we can agree on a universal data standard. With paper, we can still read the records of the Roman Empire, Ancient China and Ancient Egypt. Even if today's modern languages fall to extinction a thousand years from now, we can still recover the paper based history. Any electronic records would be lost. I have 8 inch and 5 1/4 floppy discs from a CP/M Z80 S100 system I used back in the early eighties that are now essentially unreadable (fortunately I have paper print outs!). Unless we have a universal standard, and get one soon, the "computer revolution" era will be a black hole to future generations. On the other hand, maybe we don't want future generations to study the conversation on slashdot.....
We've heard this song and dance before and smacks of special accounting practices. It is true that Corporate entities will have thousands of "installs," but it is also true that they did not pay full price for all those licenses. I am not inclined to call those captive users a fully functional Windows user base. I suppose if one counts every Windows version installed since Windows 286....
[Nearly] every PC shipped has an OS installed but does that mean all of those OS are in use? How many get stripped off and replaced? Upgraded?
I suppose if one counts every Windows version installed since Windows 286....
IMHO, the DCMA (and DRM) have nothing to do with protection of intellectual property or protection of the hard work of starving artists. It is about censorship and control. Unfortunately, that is what the USA is all about these days: King Cash and Fascist Dictatorship.
As to cash, of course a company or corporation will steal from the artist if it can (e.g "contract") and try to gain a monopoly on distribution and use to enhance profits. Hence, we have laws and regulations.
Unfortunately, the current Fascist Regime is also all about greed, censorship and control in trampling not only over The Constitution but also dismantling the regulations that benefit the common people. In my admittedly limited understanding, copywrites and patents were meant to be limited monopolies for limited periods of time to benefit the original artist/inventor and then to enter the public domain for the good of all. When does anything enter the public domain anymore?
And don't even get me started an a rant about Fair Use. If some putz sues me because my son plays a tune at a concert (for which he does not get paid as he is a student giving a recital), I'm dusting off the shotgun...
You are incorrect. Evolution is a theory based on the Scientific Method. As such it is definitely (1) Observable, (2) Measurable and (3) Repeatable. A Scientific Theory is not some idle speculation or unproven idea. Rather it is a model to explain and test specific natural phenomena.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory:
In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory. Commonly, a large number of more specific hypotheses may be logically bound together by just one or two theories. As a general rule for use of the term, theories tend to deal with much broader sets of universals than do hypotheses, which ordinarily deal with much more specific sets of phenomena or specific applications of a theory.
or more simply: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=theory
a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.
The Theory of Evolution is not the same theory today as it was when Darwin proposed it over 150 years. A theory is dynamic and is modified/adjusted as new data becomes available.
Religion, in my opinion, just breeds stupidity, greed, self righteousness, and and fanaticism. The Founding Fathers on the United Stares of America were all very devote Christians, yet they saw fit to leave religion out of Government and Schools.
Web cam support? Who the heck wants to watch people sitting around in their underwear?
Oh, wait...
1. No one ever get fire for choosing Microsoft.
...and I hate the damn thing. Highly annoying. I have noticed, however, that more and more sites are becoming more "compliant" in that Firefox, et al, work better than MSIE. Of course, I also deal with way too many people who look at me as though I am completely nuts when I mention switching browsers ("What's a browser?).
2. MSIE is the only browser guaranteed to be on every MS OS box.
FYI in case anyone needs to know and can't find it. It is available for a bunch of OS flavors. Highly recommended.
http://www.wireshark.org/Nothing is more lucrative to a fascist regime than fear. It all about cash. It really doesn't matter is the technology/idea is sensible or feasible as long as its lucrative for the contractor and his political "buddy".
A while back a USA leader gave a speech during a time of crisis:
"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."
The USA has not had such a leader in a Very Long Time.
But fundamentally, the PEOPLE must force the politicians to do the right thing. Unfortunately, this is longer the case in the USA.
I concur. This is a good list of the dawn of personal computing. I disagree with other posters about vintage mainframes and minicomputers (such as PDP/11) since they were not widely accessible. For those system not available, emulators are a good choice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator
http://www.emulator-zone.com/
These sites have good descriptions of the history and the classics (my favorites at top):
http://oldcomputers.net/
http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
http://www.vintage-computer.com/
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/
http://www.computercloset.org/
http://www.sinasohn.com/clascomp/
It is important to keep the history alive. Although for us old timers, it just seems like yesterday, many youngsters do not realize the history of their shiny new laptops, etc.
Linux isn't - FreeBSD is. They have their own kernel, C library, and toolchain if you use TenDRA.
True. I have FreeBSD iso here somewhere but haven't yet had a chance to give it a whirl. Of course, my rant was directed at linux fanboys (of whom I am one) and not the Unix flavors. I do have enough spare parts about so maybe...
Basically, I searched the world over for an open source alternative to a proprietary OS that is simple and allows me to use the computer as the tool it is meant to be. As a computer hobbyist, sure I could fiddle and play with it all day; but as a user, I just gotta get shit done...Heck maybe I'll just stick with Slackware. After 10+ yrs I can set it up on anything.
It just rankles me that the open source world is so busy with maximizing choice that we spend more time playing with the OS (i.e "distro") than actually using the computer for anything. Oh, and don't get me started on the binary vs. compile-it-all-from-source and the "evils" of ever trying to make a living using open source.
Anyway, time to recompile the kernel..why? BECAUSE I CAN!
Not another "how I installed and rated distro X." We are all doomed.
..end of rant..
"LINUX" will never go mainstream for the home and this FA proves it yet again:
1. Linux doesn't exist as on OS - its just a kernel.
2. Fragmentation - too many distros with few standards or cooperation
3. linux fanboys think their fav distro is the "be-all and end-all" of existence
4. Its too hard for users to simply run the apps they want
5. package management sucks
6. hardware support sucks
I could go on and and on. Whoop dee doo...so he got debian "kinda-sorta" running on an old thinkpad. Whoopie.
What OS do I run, you ask? MS Windows 2000 and XP. Because they are true standardized OS with software and hardware support.
What Linux distro for speed and stability? Slackware. Because it is faster, more stable and has the best hardware compatibility there is among distros, and package management is simple, if simplistic. And believe it or not, a motivated novice can figure out how to edit a few text config files.
So I see the FA (and the linked distro comparison) and raise him 2 thinkpads, 2 compaqs, 4+ desktops ranging from Pentium266MMX to PII400 to PIII900 to AMD64. The only hardware issue was the laptops' Winmodens and those infrared ports. Oh and a cheap Leadtek Winfast TV card with MythTV. Everything else works "out of the box," especially Firefox and Thunderbird.
The original article isn't using holographic tech. Two-photon fluorescence spectroscopy used in the article is in a different non-linear optical process. Take a look:n
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_absorptio
http://belfield.cos.ucf.edu/storage.html
The "two-photon" refers to the type of optical spectrosopy - not manipulating individual photons.
see:n
http://belfield.cos.ucf.edu/storage.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_absorptio
The energy of 2 photons are abosorbed by the dyes to reach the appropriate molecular energy state. This type of optical spectroscopy has been known for a very long time. Aren't there are physical chemists in teh slashdot audience?
Nope. That wikipedia article talks about a completely different technology that didn't pan out. The full title of this one is: "Two-Photon 3D Optical Data Storage via Fluorescence Modulation of an Efficient Fluorene Dye by a Photochromic Diarylethene", Advanced Materials, 2006, 18, 2910-2914. The keys here is "2 photon" and "3-D". no pits and the whole volume is used to store data I did similar nonlinear optical research back in the 80s - although not for data storage but rather polymer structure and optical properties.
Pardon me if I missed seeing a reference to the PLOT10 library in this discussion. Used to be THE lib for TEKTRONIX terminals (line perinter then color CRT) for graphics anything. Wrote some stuff for plots in C and fortran for data surfaces way back (Z80 CP/M, and later IBM PC), as it was ported as a general purpose lib, to graph on a flat bed pen plotter and CRT (Hercules monochrome graphics adapter). Also, I seem to recall a few geeks simulation Rubik's Cube and Enterprise (Dammit Jim, the Original Series!) on a Tektronix Color CRT when I was a wee lad in college (pre IBM PC). You should be able to google for the source or for a compatible port.
m l
http://www.gaeinc.com/plot10.htm
http://www.cvrti.utah.edu/~macleod/docs/pscont.ht
http://www.ill.fr/Computing/pgplotSS.html
and then there's http://plplot.sourceforge.net/ as well. (includs the classic "Lena" demo pic)
I've got some code here somwhere's....hmm.....now what did I do with those 8 inch floppies and drive.....
--
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'" -Isaac Asimov