Plus, the political ideas are different. In Toronto, the subway is free on New Years. Maybe they will lose some money but they will make millions of people happy and could save some lives from drunk driving. Isn't that what the government is for? To spend a little money at the right time to make people happy, help build community and protect individuals? Brilliant!
I have never seen a US city consider making public services free on a holiday. It seems almost like it is opposed to the core values of much of the US.
Portland, Oregon has been offering free light rail and bus rides on New Years Eve for decades. There is a news article about the most recent event here.
I'm not trying to contradict your argument, just pointing out the rare exception. I have lived in the US all of my life and you have highlighted a number of cultural issues that I don't care for either.
My advice is to save your money. As other people have observed, the police are unlikely to investigate your stolen laptop even if you give them the name, phone number and home address of the thief.
While working for an ISP last year I was contacted by a corporation using laptop tracking software because their stolen laptop had phoned home from one of our IP addresses. When the investigating officer found out that the laptop had been spotted in Portland, Oregon, he declined to even contact the local police. The Portland police have a well established reputation for ignoring the "small" stuff, like large-scale car theft rings, and aren't the least bit interested in a case involving a single laptop.
Since the ISP had a privacy policy that didn't allow subscriber information to be released without a subpoena, I could not tell the laptop owner anything about the subscriber whose premises apparently held the laptop. Besides, maybe he just had an open wireless network? Even so, assuming the subscriber was the thief, and assuming you were willing to kick his door in and take the laptop back... well, OJ has recently demonstrated that this is probably not the smart thing to do.
I keep hearing talking heads on the media saying that even if they had discovered the damage right away, they couldn't have saved the astronauts, and frankly, I do not believe that.
I'm sure they couldn't have saved them if they'd followed all of their precious beauracratic processes and procedures - but then, they couldn't have saved Apollo 13 that way either. I have confidence that the shuttle astronauts could have and would have been saved through feverish application of a couple of humanities best traits: ingenuity and perseverance.
My main gripe is that they confuse the Internet with Unix. So an entire chapter is devoted to Usenet. That was written before spam, I'm sure the author would be able to write even more vitriol in that category.
For most people, the internet WAS Usenet, and the vast majority of the systems that made up the internet (and Usenet) ran UNIX. Heck, most of the routers were UNIX systems. Given that, it was only natural to use the two terms interchangeably.
Am I the only one who thinks this reasoning is flawed? When I buy on the internet, I do my pre-purchase research on the internet too. I get much more reliable and more complete information about the products I'm interested in from the internet than I ever could from a sales-droid in a store. In fact, I usually do my research on the internet even when I'm going to buy from a local store.
As I've pointed out to friends before, after some minimum wage sales-droid sold them something that was the best thing since sliced bread.... if the droid knew what he was talking about, he'd have a real job, he wouldn't be working sales.
I think this concept that people will waste the stores time and THEN go buy on the internet is a fallacy.
I read the article, and it looks like one big whine to me, that could be summed up as "Some other small social group stomped the arbitrary phrase that my small social group created." Ho hum, so what? I had never heard that phrase until I read it today in Slashdot.
Unlike some other posters who also commented on this story, I do believe the polls that claim 70%+ support for the war among americans. I run in a number of real life social circles, and some of these social circles are rabidly anti-war. They make the same claims about made up polls and mass media conspiracies. The funny thing is, most of these people choose to include only other liberals in their group of friends. A side effect of that choice is that they don't have any friends who support the war. That side effect of their personal choices gives them a very skewed view of overall public opinion. I'm not so selective of friends, and I know far more people who support the war than who oppose it.
I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough.
That's not how the military would use a weapon like this. Instead, they'd have several 747s, and they'd keep one or more aloft at all times. It's not designed to shoot ICBMs down in the descent/re-entry phase, but to shoot down most any missile in the ascent phase soon after launch.
I have played with it a bit, and it seemed to work, but I haven't actually used it for gaming yet.  It didn't seem as simple to configure and use as some of the windoze voice comm programs, though.
I've been on the same quest for the last couple of months -- ever since I decided to fly to my clan's next big LAN party in Salt Lake City. I'm not taking a monitor, but I'm definitely taking my own computer. If I didn't, I'd end up spending hours reconfiguring somebody elses computer to match my normal setup.
I recently acquired the carcass to my Mom's old
HP Pavilion 4455. It's bigger than I had hoped for, but it's smaller than my mini-tower game systems. The case has just enough room for a microATX board with 1 AGP, 2 PCI and 1 ISA slots. It has one 5.25" bay for the CDROM, a 3.5" bay for the floppy, and the hard drive bolts vertically to the front of the case. It also has a pathetic sound/modem board that I promptly discarded. I'm going to give it a test run with the original motherboard, a Celeron 500 and a GeForce2 GTS video card. If that's not good enough for Tribes 2, I'll dump that motherboard and buy a newer P3 capable MATX motherboard -- I'm pretty sure a standard MATX board will fit in the case. I'd rather do Athlon but I can't find an MATX Athlon board
I'd prefer to build my own LAN party system from scratch but I haven't been able to find empty cases this small anywhere. It seems like there's a niche market here that somebody could fill -- I've got a lot of friends that would also like to build or buy a small LAN party system without paying the premium for a laptop. I'm looking forward to the time when prices on LCD monitors come down -- those are perfect for LAN party systems, but they're still too expensive for most gamers.
Cool -- but where can I find a tiny gaming box?
on
Portable Linux Box
·
· Score: 1
This is similar to the HP e-pc. It's not what I'm looking for, though.
I'm big into network games, and I want a small system that I can easily tote to LAN parties or to friends houses. I haven't been able to find anything that fits the bill. Neither the Nano PC or the e-pc will work because of the lack of good 3D graphics, or an AGP slot. (The i810 3D graphics decelerator is laughable.)
What I'm looking for would be in a slightly larger package, and have the following features:
P3 or Athlon CPU
AGP graphics slot
At least 128MB RAM
Integrated sound with headphone port
Integrated network
Internal HD, at least 18GB (so I can dual boot Linux and that other OS)
CDROM or DVD-ROM drive
USB ports
In other words, I want something virtually identical to the Nano PC, except for the addition of an AGP video slot. I know you can't do that with the i810 chipset, but I'd rather have it based on an Athlon anyway.
Has anybody seen such an animal in the wild?
I've also been looking for smaller desktop cases to build my own small system with, but I haven't been able to find any at all. Every desktop case I've found, on the web or in shops, is huge, with lots of drive bays I don't need. They're actually bigger than the mini-tower I use for my gaming system now.
I don't like this ruling, but I think it's probably "right" in the eyes of the DMCA. On the other hand, I think the judge missed a perfect opportunity to apply some real Solomonesque justice here. There is clearly an enormous desire on the part of the consuming public to be able to download music via the web. The RIAA and friends have been unable or unwilling to meet this demand, and thus companies like MP3.com and Napster have appeared to fill the vacuum. I think the ideal resolution for this court case would have been to find MP3.com guilty as charged, but set aside the damages until the RIAA supplied a viable, approved method of distributing digital music via the web.
I'm in total agreement here -- Lego Mindstorms is an ideal way to start a child with programming. The only drawback I can see is the expense.
The programming environment that comes with the system is a very simple GUI that runs under windoze. That programming environment is fairly limited, and your child will probably outgrow it fairly quickly. Once that happens, you can introduce him or her to the more advanced methods available to program the system, including Visual BASIC, pbForth and the various Gnu compilers under *NIX using legOS.
Slashdot Mirror
The Blockly Maze Demo is fun, and simple, but it won't occupy the kids for all that long.
(Somebody already posted about Scratch, which seems to have a similar programming interface but is more mature.)
Plus, the political ideas are different. In Toronto, the subway is free on New Years. Maybe they will lose some money but they will make millions of people happy and could save some lives from drunk driving. Isn't that what the government is for? To spend a little money at the right time to make people happy, help build community and protect individuals? Brilliant!
I have never seen a US city consider making public services free on a holiday. It seems almost like it is opposed to the core values of much of the US.
Portland, Oregon has been offering free light rail and bus rides on New Years Eve for decades. There is a news article about the most recent event here.
I'm not trying to contradict your argument, just pointing out the rare exception. I have lived in the US all of my life and you have highlighted a number of cultural issues that I don't care for either.
My advice is to save your money. As other people have observed, the police are unlikely to investigate your stolen laptop even if you give them the name, phone number and home address of the thief.
While working for an ISP last year I was contacted by a corporation using laptop tracking software because their stolen laptop had phoned home from one of our IP addresses. When the investigating officer found out that the laptop had been spotted in Portland, Oregon, he declined to even contact the local police. The Portland police have a well established reputation for ignoring the "small" stuff, like large-scale car theft rings, and aren't the least bit interested in a case involving a single laptop.
Since the ISP had a privacy policy that didn't allow subscriber information to be released without a subpoena, I could not tell the laptop owner anything about the subscriber whose premises apparently held the laptop. Besides, maybe he just had an open wireless network? Even so, assuming the subscriber was the thief, and assuming you were willing to kick his door in and take the laptop back... well, OJ has recently demonstrated that this is probably not the smart thing to do.
I keep hearing talking heads on the media saying that even if they had discovered the damage right away, they couldn't have saved the astronauts, and frankly, I do not believe that.
I'm sure they couldn't have saved them if they'd followed all of their precious beauracratic processes and procedures - but then, they couldn't have saved Apollo 13 that way either. I have confidence that the shuttle astronauts could have and would have been saved through feverish application of a couple of humanities best traits: ingenuity and perseverance.
My main gripe is that they confuse the Internet with Unix. So an entire chapter is devoted to Usenet. That was written before spam, I'm sure the author would be able to write even more vitriol in that category.
For most people, the internet WAS Usenet, and the vast majority of the systems that made up the internet (and Usenet) ran UNIX. Heck, most of the routers were UNIX systems. Given that, it was only natural to use the two terms interchangeably.
- Stu
Am I the only one who thinks this reasoning is flawed? When I buy on the internet, I do my pre-purchase research on the internet too. I get much more reliable and more complete information about the products I'm interested in from the internet than I ever could from a sales-droid in a store. In fact, I usually do my research on the internet even when I'm going to buy from a local store.
As I've pointed out to friends before, after some minimum wage sales-droid sold them something that was the best thing since sliced bread.... if the droid knew what he was talking about, he'd have a real job, he wouldn't be working sales.
I think this concept that people will waste the stores time and THEN go buy on the internet is a fallacy.
I read the article, and it looks like one big whine to me, that could be summed up as "Some other small social group stomped the arbitrary phrase that my small social group created." Ho hum, so what? I had never heard that phrase until I read it today in Slashdot.
Unlike some other posters who also commented on this story, I do believe the polls that claim 70%+ support for the war among americans. I run in a number of real life social circles, and some of these social circles are rabidly anti-war. They make the same claims about made up polls and mass media conspiracies. The funny thing is, most of these people choose to include only other liberals in their group of friends. A side effect of that choice is that they don't have any friends who support the war. That side effect of their personal choices gives them a very skewed view of overall public opinion. I'm not so selective of friends, and I know far more people who support the war than who oppose it.
I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough.
That's not how the military would use a weapon like this. Instead, they'd have several 747s, and they'd keep one or more aloft at all times. It's not designed to shoot ICBMs down in the descent/re-entry phase, but to shoot down most any missile in the ascent phase soon after launch.
Their General and Administration office is about a block from my office!
;-)
I think I'll get my bat and go for a little walk.
How about Speak Freely for Unix?
I have played with it a bit, and it seemed to work, but I haven't actually used it for gaming yet.  It didn't seem as simple to configure and use as some of the windoze voice comm programs, though.
I've been on the same quest for the last couple of months -- ever since I decided to fly to my clan's next big LAN party in Salt Lake City. I'm not taking a monitor, but I'm definitely taking my own computer. If I didn't, I'd end up spending hours reconfiguring somebody elses computer to match my normal setup.
I recently acquired the carcass to my Mom's old HP Pavilion 4455. It's bigger than I had hoped for, but it's smaller than my mini-tower game systems. The case has just enough room for a microATX board with 1 AGP, 2 PCI and 1 ISA slots. It has one 5.25" bay for the CDROM, a 3.5" bay for the floppy, and the hard drive bolts vertically to the front of the case. It also has a pathetic sound/modem board that I promptly discarded. I'm going to give it a test run with the original motherboard, a Celeron 500 and a GeForce2 GTS video card. If that's not good enough for Tribes 2, I'll dump that motherboard and buy a newer P3 capable MATX motherboard -- I'm pretty sure a standard MATX board will fit in the case. I'd rather do Athlon but I can't find an MATX Athlon board
I'd prefer to build my own LAN party system from scratch but I haven't been able to find empty cases this small anywhere. It seems like there's a niche market here that somebody could fill -- I've got a lot of friends that would also like to build or buy a small LAN party system without paying the premium for a laptop. I'm looking forward to the time when prices on LCD monitors come down -- those are perfect for LAN party systems, but they're still too expensive for most gamers.
This is similar to the HP e-pc. It's not what I'm looking for, though.
I'm big into network games, and I want a small system that I can easily tote to LAN parties or to friends houses. I haven't been able to find anything that fits the bill. Neither the Nano PC or the e-pc will work because of the lack of good 3D graphics, or an AGP slot. (The i810 3D graphics decelerator is laughable.)
What I'm looking for would be in a slightly larger package, and have the following features:
In other words, I want something virtually identical to the Nano PC, except for the addition of an AGP video slot. I know you can't do that with the i810 chipset, but I'd rather have it based on an Athlon anyway.
Has anybody seen such an animal in the wild?
I've also been looking for smaller desktop cases to build my own small system with, but I haven't been able to find any at all. Every desktop case I've found, on the web or in shops, is huge, with lots of drive bays I don't need. They're actually bigger than the mini-tower I use for my gaming system now.
I don't like this ruling, but I think it's probably "right" in the eyes of the DMCA. On the other hand, I think the judge missed a perfect opportunity to apply some real Solomonesque justice here. There is clearly an enormous desire on the part of the consuming public to be able to download music via the web. The RIAA and friends have been unable or unwilling to meet this demand, and thus companies like MP3.com and Napster have appeared to fill the vacuum. I think the ideal resolution for this court case would have been to find MP3.com guilty as charged, but set aside the damages until the RIAA supplied a viable, approved method of distributing digital music via the web.
I'm in total agreement here -- Lego Mindstorms is an ideal way to start a child with programming. The only drawback I can see is the expense.
The programming environment that comes with the system is a very simple GUI that runs under windoze. That programming environment is fairly limited, and your child will probably outgrow it fairly quickly. Once that happens, you can introduce him or her to the more advanced methods available to program the system, including Visual BASIC, pbForth and the various Gnu compilers under *NIX using legOS.
There's also a web page at http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics/ that has links to lots of other programming environments for Mindstorms.
Here's my interpretation:
The Justice Department has taken the fun out of Bill's favorite toy, so he's not going to play with it anymore. ;-)