Completely! One of my favorite books. I think Stross mentions in the afterword that he borrowed the robot-company chain idea from someone, but I doubt it was originally conceived of in Python. Of course, if someone did this, it'd be immediately tagged as violating the IP of a flash trading bot company...
I use a Zip-Linq USB multi-head charging cable. About $10 most places, and you can get heads for just about anything. Fits in a very small bag.
Currently I charge with it: Nintendo DS PSP Nokia e61i Nokia LD-1W GPS Bluetooth headset (anything with USB Mini-B) iPod 5th gen (anything with standard USB)
The power source is either a laptop, desktop, cigarette lighter USB adapter, or a USB wall-power converter.
I had to order the e61i head, model "NK2", from the mfr, but that was easy enough. I also have a 9-volt booster tip; I believe the charger itself is 5v.
Seriously, this is straight out of "Martian Time-Slip". True, Dick imagined autism as an inability to comprehend time & space in the same manner as others, but the robotic perception-offset helper is still a pretty awesome idea. From 1964.
There's another few discs I like to keep with me, not so much against system failure but against "OS rot": a copy of Norton Ghost, and a ghost image of my XP partition, made just after install of the system and my favorite apps. A split copy of the image will fit on 2 4.5GB DVDs. Sometimes I don't bother and just put the image on a 2.5" USB-HD enclosure I carry.
If you adopt a good filesystem architecture, keeping your personal files on a separate partition, you can blast the ghost back into the boot partition whenever Windows starts puking on device drivers or doing whatever crufty XP behavior drives you nuts.
Ghost isn't free, and this takes DVDs to work, but it allows me to bounce my XP every month or so, making it work pretty smoothly. Also, I'm guessing M$ doesn't really condone this sort of Windows usage - software activation makes the technique a little hinky.
Anyone know of a cheap-as-free alternative to Ghost for this solution? The key functionality would be image splitting to disc sizes, bootability of the app itself, and boot drivers for CD/DVD drives and HD enclosures.
Given the need for natural language processing in many real-world applications, not just AI and database engineering contexts, would a bit of formal linguistics be appropriate for a CS degree? I don't have such a degree, so I'm also wondering if CS departments have a way of handling these subjects under their own mantle.
Who knows? I've heard about a big new fab in Germany, but you'd need to know a lot more about AMD's overhead/holdings/cash/stock to really say they're being fiscally cocky. My thought was more in response to people who want to say that AMD will replace Intel; I think the sheer difference in scale between the two companies makes that very unlikely. Intel's share is so much larger than AMD's, it affords interesting methods of competition, hence my idea.
I've been thinking recently: what if Intel, realizing it had made serious errors in architecture and pricing from which it could not readily recover, decided to effectively feign death and allow its competitors to get hazardously cocky?
AMD overextending itself in an attempt to grab lots of market-share from Intel could prove very damaging when Intel 'gets it right again', such as with the Conroe exploding all expectations. An Intel offering that relies on sheer quality, rather than extortionate market dealing, could wreck AMD's edge and turn all their forward-thinking investment into a Sisyphean debt load.
It seems to me, given that the major problem being attachments to emails, and education not a particularly forthcoming or effective solution, that perhaps more intelligent software is the answer.
Has anyone seen an Exchange-like system wherein attachments are subjected to a time-sensitive stripping process? Such as: User A sends User B (or Group B) a 10MB PowerPoint. The file remains in the inboxes of Group B for 5 days, after which it is stripped from the email, perhaps leaving behind a 'attachment has been stripped, contact IT to retrieve it from tape backup' message. Visual cueing in the inbox itself could warn users of impending attachment expiry, and simple help text could encourage them to make and use local copies of the file.
I strip my own attachments to keep my Exchange box light, but it would be nice to suggest a better solution to my IT department.
Slashdot Mirror
Completely! One of my favorite books. I think Stross mentions in the afterword that he borrowed the robot-company chain idea from someone, but I doubt it was originally conceived of in Python. Of course, if someone did this, it'd be immediately tagged as violating the IP of a flash trading bot company...
I use a Zip-Linq USB multi-head charging cable. About $10 most places, and you can get heads for just about anything. Fits in a very small bag.
Currently I charge with it:
Nintendo DS
PSP
Nokia e61i
Nokia LD-1W GPS
Bluetooth headset (anything with USB Mini-B)
iPod 5th gen (anything with standard USB)
The power source is either a laptop, desktop, cigarette lighter USB adapter, or a USB wall-power converter.
http://www.pcaccessories.org/ZipLinq-USB-Cell-Phone-Charger-I/M/B0000UI2KU.htm
I had to order the e61i head, model "NK2", from the mfr, but that was easy enough. I also have a 9-volt booster tip; I believe the charger itself is 5v.
PHILIP K. DICK DID IT! PHILIP K. DICK DID IT!
Seriously, this is straight out of "Martian Time-Slip". True, Dick imagined autism as an inability to comprehend time & space in the same manner as others, but the robotic perception-offset helper is still a pretty awesome idea. From 1964.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time-Slip
Like most, I carry Knoppix, and I've had good luck with the System Rescue CD.
There's another few discs I like to keep with me, not so much against system failure but against "OS rot": a copy of Norton Ghost, and a ghost image of my XP partition, made just after install of the system and my favorite apps. A split copy of the image will fit on 2 4.5GB DVDs. Sometimes I don't bother and just put the image on a 2.5" USB-HD enclosure I carry.
If you adopt a good filesystem architecture, keeping your personal files on a separate partition, you can blast the ghost back into the boot partition whenever Windows starts puking on device drivers or doing whatever crufty XP behavior drives you nuts.
Ghost isn't free, and this takes DVDs to work, but it allows me to bounce my XP every month or so, making it work pretty smoothly. Also, I'm guessing M$ doesn't really condone this sort of Windows usage - software activation makes the technique a little hinky.
Anyone know of a cheap-as-free alternative to Ghost for this solution? The key functionality would be image splitting to disc sizes, bootability of the app itself, and boot drivers for CD/DVD drives and HD enclosures.
A little off-topic, but:
Given the need for natural language processing in many real-world applications, not just AI and database engineering contexts, would a bit of formal linguistics be appropriate for a CS degree? I don't have such a degree, so I'm also wondering if CS departments have a way of handling these subjects under their own mantle.
Sure, if I was saying it was true. I'm just floating an idea here. :)
Who knows? I've heard about a big new fab in Germany, but you'd need to know a lot more about AMD's overhead/holdings/cash/stock to really say they're being fiscally cocky. My thought was more in response to people who want to say that AMD will replace Intel; I think the sheer difference in scale between the two companies makes that very unlikely. Intel's share is so much larger than AMD's, it affords interesting methods of competition, hence my idea.
I've been thinking recently: what if Intel, realizing it had made serious errors in architecture and pricing from which it could not readily recover, decided to effectively feign death and allow its competitors to get hazardously cocky?
AMD overextending itself in an attempt to grab lots of market-share from Intel could prove very damaging when Intel 'gets it right again', such as with the Conroe exploding all expectations. An Intel offering that relies on sheer quality, rather than extortionate market dealing, could wreck AMD's edge and turn all their forward-thinking investment into a Sisyphean debt load.
It seems to me, given that the major problem being attachments to emails, and education not a particularly forthcoming or effective solution, that perhaps more intelligent software is the answer.
Has anyone seen an Exchange-like system wherein attachments are subjected to a time-sensitive stripping process? Such as: User A sends User B (or Group B) a 10MB PowerPoint. The file remains in the inboxes of Group B for 5 days, after which it is stripped from the email, perhaps leaving behind a 'attachment has been stripped, contact IT to retrieve it from tape backup' message. Visual cueing in the inbox itself could warn users of impending attachment expiry, and simple help text could encourage them to make and use local copies of the file.
I strip my own attachments to keep my Exchange box light, but it would be nice to suggest a better solution to my IT department.
Spara