Rather than spend $300 I think most people use RTL2832U/E4000 based TV tuners. Typically these have a tuning range from 60-ish MHz up to 1 - 2 GHz depending on the specifics of the design.
Sadly, the chips used are getting scarce these days so the price of the products (available from your favourite chinese website) is going up. But it still beats $300 by a long, long way.
His most heinous crime was to embarrass the US government and to show that the security on a lot of the defense computers was paper-thin to non-existent.
On top of that, he demonstrated that it was simple, to the point of trivial to gain access to them and the information they contained. He was never going to be given a fair trial in the USA (as nobody who is extradited to the US ever gets - the cost of mounting a legal defence in the country makes that impossible) and was going to be part of a show trial to make an example of.
The biggest tragedy in this whole sorry episode is that it went on for so long and the next biggest tragedy is that so many other people were extradited to the USA and became victims of it's imprisonment (I nearly said "justice") system.
Your argument only works in the case where Linux is the only operating system. Both terms of the argument (GNU/Linux, OS's and GPU suppliers) are equally interchangable. Although where one party is weaker in it's market share: either GPUs or O/S, then that one is obviously at a disadvantage and needs the other more than it's needed, itself.
That view needs modifying to "They think it's been worth it, so far.
Once they start feeling they have been put at a disadvantage, there are two ways they could go: they could either have a flash of insight and start a programme to rehabilitate themselves, or they could decide that a kick in the nuts like this tips the balance and makes it not worth the effort of supporting their graphics cards any further - after all, it's only Linux: no big deal.
I doubt that Nvidia will hurt too much from pulling out of the Linux market - the question is, will the Linux users feel the same about losing a graphics supplier?
I'd suggest you start with a fume extractor and fire extinguisher
After that just buy stuff as you need it. You don't appear to know what your needs will be, so there's little point in trying to second-guess what you'll be doing. Therefore find a few good, punctual, well-stocked suppliers and keep their catalogs handy.
Reducing your petrol consumption means that the US will finally start to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions - whether you wanted to or not. Can't argue with global economics.
And that urban sprawl was only possible because of the low petrol prices. Now the realisation that the whole model was unsupportable is slowly beginning to be revealed.
Yes. On the assumption that the goal of a trrrist is not to blow stuff up, but to create an environment of fear, then anything that makes it easier to create false positives is simply playing into their hands.
The only effect this would have would be to create an "OMG, there are several baddies a day trying to blow up aircraft" which would increase the demand for security and restrictions. That in turn makes it easier for the bad guys (and the security companies - sometimes it's difficult to tell who's benefiting most) to pursue their goals.
Have a look at the Quantum Zeno Effect which is both one of the scariest and most awesome pieces of experimental quantum physics around. Just in case your Google is broken, the experiment stops the random decay of unstable particles by continually measuring their state. Since the cat is just an allegory for these sorts of particles, the experiment has already been done - yes you can prevent a random (quantum) event by taking continuous measurements.
You don't need this thought experiment any more - as *real* physics cruised past these mind games decades ago.
It's difficult to engage an enemy when they're 50,000km away (and the only part of the "ship" that's visible is small amount of IR from its power source that isn't even pointed in your direction). When the amount of fuel needed to change course is huge: either because of massive vehicles, or high velocities, the whole idea becomes impossible.
At best you might just be able to make some sort of directed energy weapon work effectively (if you can aim to hit an unknown sized target from halfway to the Moon), or possibly some sort of shotgun type projectiles. But at the sort of distances involved, your target for any sort of physical contact weapon would have so much warning that their usefulness would be small.
Managing a problem (or person) is different from fixing it. If you merely manage a problem, the problem is still there - you simply find ways to work around it (or him / her).
In a small company, productivity is the most important attribute: the "brilliant" bit.
As a company grows, having a good team becomes more important. So the "jerk" part starts to override the brilliance.
After that the BJ stops being a useful asset and starts to be a liability. The liability will start to fester just when you company is at its most vulnerable - as it starts to grow. The BJ is more likely to scare off talented new people (possibly by accident, possib;y because they're seen as a threat or a challenge to the BJ's position) and to become a bottleneck.
It may be emotionally hard to drop one of a company's founding employees, but making tough choices is one part of growing the business to maturity. Best get rid of them when the complaints start coming in from other people in the company (and before they leave of their own accord, with all your proprietary information, to start up a rival on their own). The longer you wait, the worse it gets.
The FB concept might be OK for leisure use by people who use it simply for entertainment. But when you pay for a software package you do so in the expectation that the commercial product will be an investment, that will reward you or save more than it cost by letting you get stuff done quickly and reliably.
So far as collaboration goes - forget it. I don't want to have to fork-out for a piece of software and then be dependent on other people "collaborating" in order to achieve my goals. When I pay for software I want it to do all the stuff I need doing, not some group of strangers who may, or may not, have a clue.
A tiny and cheap computer to aid in kids education.
Oh really, it's time this manifestly bogus myth was put to rest. If you want to educate children about programming you simply load an app onto the PCs that are everywhere in schools. You don't create a brand new little computer that needs an HD-TV to display AND extra an keyboard and mouse before it can do anything.
If the intended audience really was the poor and the underprivileged (even in "rich" countries) the additional hardware needed to use Pis in any meaningful number requires a school to make an enormous investment in TVs or LCD screens in addition to the screens they already have for their PCs. And no, you can't share screens, as that just makes the far more versatile PC unusable when it's screenless.
The only educational value of the RPi, that I can see, is to illustrate all its shortcoming, to teach electronics students how NOT to design an embedded / industrial computer.
A good point. Far too high a proportion of charity money goes on running (any) charity, rather than bringing benefits to it's intended recipients. Anything that can streamline a charity, reduce the number of people it employs and improve efficiency will do more good than simply adding to their income.
if kept under good chain-of-custody conditions with multiple, independent observers, they [voting machines] can be very secure
But they fail at the first, most basic step. While there is almost always a process that "proves" they are secure, there is no visible, tangible way that they can be seen to be secure. There is nothing physical that happens after the button is pressed or the selection made. There is no "thing" that the voter can point to and say" that's my vote - I did that".
So all you have with a machine is a (large) number of people making selections, some "magic" happens and a result is declared. I have to say, that simply isn't a democratic process as there is no way to follow the process of voting on an individual basis. To use a phrase from pulp cop shows: there's no chain of evidence.
That's where the electronic system fails the voter. Democracy is not seen to be done.
Most small businesses happily hire freelancers, whether in the EU or elsewhere. Any freelancer, really. It's a matter of picking up your phone or meeting the customer in person to present yourself.
Not a single chance - except maybe in the moves. The same movies where you can always park right outside the building you're visiting. Where the person you need to see just walks in through the door as you're about to leave. Where.... well you get the picture.
The cold hard reality is that for a lot of "europe" the under-25's unemployment rate is well over 25% and that includes stacking shelves, washing cars and cleaning toilets. There is no chance whatsoever of some kid just out of secondary school walking in to a programming job - unless they happen to be related to the boss.
In fact no small business on the planet will give any "phone time" to cold callers of the "gizza job" variety. If they did, they'd never have time to do any work, themselves. Those SMEs that do have any need for casual IT work generally give it to a relative of the employees: Fred's son/daughter who does a bit of work during the holidays - never to some unknown who says "I wanna be an IT freelancer".
Sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody has ever, in the history of computing, just "picked up the phone to discuss your potential needs for IT help?". It just never happens - except in the movies.
in the UK a contractor's daily rate will be more than double that of a permanent employee
Only when you look at it superficially - i.e. comparing the hourly rate with an annual salary. Once you cost in all the benefits of being a permy: paid holiday (25 days + 8 bank holidays), pension, sick pay, training (o.k. that's in just for laughs), not getting told on friday afternoon that you're no longer needed. Plus the freelancer's cost of accountancy, running the business, doing their VAT + expenses in their own (unpaid) time, time without work and driving all over the country for interviews.
When all that is taken into account, the difference is much, much less than it first appears. Generally reckon on the freelancer's rate in £££s per hour being the equivalent of a permies salary in 1000's per year.
I truly have to wonder why this [ needing a degree + experience ] has become the norm in IT.
The answer is simple: it weeds out a lot of potential candidates.
IT work is a cushy number. There's almost no way to gauge the effectiveness of a worker (how to you quantify their creativity?). You spend your working day seated, not having to speak to the public, out of the weather, with little in the way of professional standards to meet and with very few restrictions of how you work.
Because of that, everyone who can't get a job in other sectors is attracted to IT and therefore if there weren't any barriers to entry, every HR department would be flooded wit worthless applications from all directions.
You say you're from "Europe" (does that just mean you were born in a european country, but have moved elsewhere - or that you are a legal resident and intend to work in a european country? the difference matters and is huge). Assuming you are hoping to get a job in a european country you need to be aware of the employment laws where ever you are.
You cannot expect to say "I've just finished my secondary education.... I think I'll become a freelance programmer". Nobody will touch you. The first thing you need is experience. The second thing you need is more experience. After that, you need to demostrate a good, long, relaible history of producing successful results in sectors that have lots of vacancies.
You will also find that in some european countries, no company will hire you directly as the employment and tax laws could make the company liable if you fail to pay your taxes. The company could also find that i'ts taken on an employee, and that you have employment rights (long holiday entitlements - 25 days paid, min. , sick pay, pension, and/or that you are unsackable if you "contract" there for too long.
The first thing yo need to do is research the laws in your country, get a degree, get some experience and then consider whether the eceonomic situation in 3 or 5 years time is suitable for a freelance worker.
The one thing Linux does not need is more applications - how many DVD rippers or MP3 players does one desktop O/S need (BTW, the answer is: just 1. But it needs to work intuitively, simply and flawlessly - not attributes Linux apps are known for).
What Linux needs is professionally designed and written apps. Ones that preserve a "look", a common and familiar set of controls and deep, deep integration. It would also be nice if there was documentation, starting with an idiot's guide and going all the way up to "this is how to modify the automated test suite" (and to actually HAVE an automated test, and acceptance suite).
However, we'll never get to that level while the distributions are reliant on hobbyists writing code because they like to, then tossing it over "the wall" and calling it a Linux application. That's what distinguishes Linux and the apps it comes distributed with from commercial operating systems and the apps people are willing (and, admitttedly, have to) pay for. The old excuse of: hey, don't complain, it's free! is no help whatsoever when the time-cost of getting some downloaded junk to work is far higher than the price of a piece of commercial quality software.
What this means is that the support dept's favourite saying "switch it off and on again" won't work. If this takes off, they'll have to actually start diagnosing and fixing software faults.
On the upside, maybe then we'll get better quality software.... no, I didn't think so either.
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Sadly, the chips used are getting scarce these days so the price of the products (available from your favourite chinese website) is going up. But it still beats $300 by a long, long way.
We know what dangers this sort of thing can lead to
On top of that, he demonstrated that it was simple, to the point of trivial to gain access to them and the information they contained. He was never going to be given a fair trial in the USA (as nobody who is extradited to the US ever gets - the cost of mounting a legal defence in the country makes that impossible) and was going to be part of a show trial to make an example of.
The biggest tragedy in this whole sorry episode is that it went on for so long and the next biggest tragedy is that so many other people were extradited to the USA and became victims of it's imprisonment (I nearly said "justice") system.
Your argument only works in the case where Linux is the only operating system. Both terms of the argument (GNU/Linux, OS's and GPU suppliers) are equally interchangable. Although where one party is weaker in it's market share: either GPUs or O/S, then that one is obviously at a disadvantage and needs the other more than it's needed, itself.
Apparently they think it is worth it,
That view needs modifying to "They think it's been worth it, so far.
Once they start feeling they have been put at a disadvantage, there are two ways they could go: they could either have a flash of insight and start a programme to rehabilitate themselves, or they could decide that a kick in the nuts like this tips the balance and makes it not worth the effort of supporting their graphics cards any further - after all, it's only Linux: no big deal.
I doubt that Nvidia will hurt too much from pulling out of the Linux market - the question is, will the Linux users feel the same about losing a graphics supplier?
After that just buy stuff as you need it. You don't appear to know what your needs will be, so there's little point in trying to second-guess what you'll be doing. Therefore find a few good, punctual, well-stocked suppliers and keep their catalogs handy.
Why are they doing that [closing refineries that aren't economic to run] ? So there can artificially limit supply and drive up price.
Congratulations - that's free-market capitalism for you.
The simple answer is to pile into oil and petrochemical stocks and take your share of the bonanza.
Reducing your petrol consumption means that the US will finally start to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions - whether you wanted to or not. Can't argue with global economics.
Learn to take the bus.
The only effect this would have would be to create an "OMG, there are several baddies a day trying to blow up aircraft" which would increase the demand for security and restrictions. That in turn makes it easier for the bad guys (and the security companies - sometimes it's difficult to tell who's benefiting most) to pursue their goals.
Meh, it's already been done experimentally
Have a look at the Quantum Zeno Effect which is both one of the scariest and most awesome pieces of experimental quantum physics around. Just in case your Google is broken, the experiment stops the random decay of unstable particles by continually measuring their state. Since the cat is just an allegory for these sorts of particles, the experiment has already been done - yes you can prevent a random (quantum) event by taking continuous measurements.
You don't need this thought experiment any more - as *real* physics cruised past these mind games decades ago.
It's difficult to engage an enemy when they're 50,000km away (and the only part of the "ship" that's visible is small amount of IR from its power source that isn't even pointed in your direction). When the amount of fuel needed to change course is huge: either because of massive vehicles, or high velocities, the whole idea becomes impossible.
At best you might just be able to make some sort of directed energy weapon work effectively (if you can aim to hit an unknown sized target from halfway to the Moon), or possibly some sort of shotgun type projectiles. But at the sort of distances involved, your target for any sort of physical contact weapon would have so much warning that their usefulness would be small.
rather than actually doing some "management",
Managing a problem (or person) is different from fixing it. If you merely manage a problem, the problem is still there - you simply find ways to work around it (or him / her).
In a small company, productivity is the most important attribute: the "brilliant" bit.
As a company grows, having a good team becomes more important. So the "jerk" part starts to override the brilliance.
After that the BJ stops being a useful asset and starts to be a liability. The liability will start to fester just when you company is at its most vulnerable - as it starts to grow. The BJ is more likely to scare off talented new people (possibly by accident, possib;y because they're seen as a threat or a challenge to the BJ's position) and to become a bottleneck.
It may be emotionally hard to drop one of a company's founding employees, but making tough choices is one part of growing the business to maturity. Best get rid of them when the complaints start coming in from other people in the company (and before they leave of their own accord, with all your proprietary information, to start up a rival on their own). The longer you wait, the worse it gets.
Yes, this is so blindingly obvious that the only surprise is that people are still asking the question.
The FB concept might be OK for leisure use by people who use it simply for entertainment. But when you pay for a software package you do so in the expectation that the commercial product will be an investment, that will reward you or save more than it cost by letting you get stuff done quickly and reliably.
So far as collaboration goes - forget it. I don't want to have to fork-out for a piece of software and then be dependent on other people "collaborating" in order to achieve my goals. When I pay for software I want it to do all the stuff I need doing, not some group of strangers who may, or may not, have a clue.
A tiny and cheap computer to aid in kids education.
Oh really, it's time this manifestly bogus myth was put to rest. If you want to educate children about programming you simply load an app onto the PCs that are everywhere in schools. You don't create a brand new little computer that needs an HD-TV to display AND extra an keyboard and mouse before it can do anything.
If the intended audience really was the poor and the underprivileged (even in "rich" countries) the additional hardware needed to use Pis in any meaningful number requires a school to make an enormous investment in TVs or LCD screens in addition to the screens they already have for their PCs. And no, you can't share screens, as that just makes the far more versatile PC unusable when it's screenless.
The only educational value of the RPi, that I can see, is to illustrate all its shortcoming, to teach electronics students how NOT to design an embedded / industrial computer.
A good point. Far too high a proportion of charity money goes on running (any) charity, rather than bringing benefits to it's intended recipients. Anything that can streamline a charity, reduce the number of people it employs and improve efficiency will do more good than simply adding to their income.
if kept under good chain-of-custody conditions with multiple, independent observers, they [voting machines] can be very secure
But they fail at the first, most basic step. While there is almost always a process that "proves" they are secure, there is no visible, tangible way that they can be seen to be secure. There is nothing physical that happens after the button is pressed or the selection made. There is no "thing" that the voter can point to and say" that's my vote - I did that".
So all you have with a machine is a (large) number of people making selections, some "magic" happens and a result is declared. I have to say, that simply isn't a democratic process as there is no way to follow the process of voting on an individual basis. To use a phrase from pulp cop shows: there's no chain of evidence.
That's where the electronic system fails the voter. Democracy is not seen to be done.
Most small businesses happily hire freelancers, whether in the EU or elsewhere. Any freelancer, really. It's a matter of picking up your phone or meeting the customer in person to present yourself.
Not a single chance - except maybe in the moves. The same movies where you can always park right outside the building you're visiting. Where the person you need to see just walks in through the door as you're about to leave. Where .... well you get the picture.
The cold hard reality is that for a lot of "europe" the under-25's unemployment rate is well over 25% and that includes stacking shelves, washing cars and cleaning toilets. There is no chance whatsoever of some kid just out of secondary school walking in to a programming job - unless they happen to be related to the boss.
In fact no small business on the planet will give any "phone time" to cold callers of the "gizza job" variety. If they did, they'd never have time to do any work, themselves. Those SMEs that do have any need for casual IT work generally give it to a relative of the employees: Fred's son/daughter who does a bit of work during the holidays - never to some unknown who says "I wanna be an IT freelancer".
Sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody has ever, in the history of computing, just "picked up the phone to discuss your potential needs for IT help?". It just never happens - except in the movies.
in the UK a contractor's daily rate will be more than double that of a permanent employee
Only when you look at it superficially - i.e. comparing the hourly rate with an annual salary. Once you cost in all the benefits of being a permy: paid holiday (25 days + 8 bank holidays), pension, sick pay, training (o.k. that's in just for laughs), not getting told on friday afternoon that you're no longer needed. Plus the freelancer's cost of accountancy, running the business, doing their VAT + expenses in their own (unpaid) time, time without work and driving all over the country for interviews.
When all that is taken into account, the difference is much, much less than it first appears. Generally reckon on the freelancer's rate in £££s per hour being the equivalent of a permies salary in 1000's per year.
I truly have to wonder why this [ needing a degree + experience ] has become the norm in IT.
The answer is simple: it weeds out a lot of potential candidates.
IT work is a cushy number. There's almost no way to gauge the effectiveness of a worker (how to you quantify their creativity?). You spend your working day seated, not having to speak to the public, out of the weather, with little in the way of professional standards to meet and with very few restrictions of how you work.
Because of that, everyone who can't get a job in other sectors is attracted to IT and therefore if there weren't any barriers to entry, every HR department would be flooded wit worthless applications from all directions.
You say you're from "Europe" (does that just mean you were born in a european country, but have moved elsewhere - or that you are a legal resident and intend to work in a european country? the difference matters and is huge). Assuming you are hoping to get a job in a european country you need to be aware of the employment laws where ever you are.
You cannot expect to say "I've just finished my secondary education .... I think I'll become a freelance programmer". Nobody will touch you. The first thing you need is experience. The second thing you need is more experience. After that, you need to demostrate a good, long, relaible history of producing successful results in sectors that have lots of vacancies.
You will also find that in some european countries, no company will hire you directly as the employment and tax laws could make the company liable if you fail to pay your taxes. The company could also find that i'ts taken on an employee, and that you have employment rights (long holiday entitlements - 25 days paid, min. , sick pay, pension, and/or that you are unsackable if you "contract" there for too long.
The first thing yo need to do is research the laws in your country, get a degree, get some experience and then consider whether the eceonomic situation in 3 or 5 years time is suitable for a freelance worker.
The one thing Linux does not need is more applications - how many DVD rippers or MP3 players does one desktop O/S need (BTW, the answer is: just 1. But it needs to work intuitively, simply and flawlessly - not attributes Linux apps are known for).
What Linux needs is professionally designed and written apps. Ones that preserve a "look", a common and familiar set of controls and deep, deep integration. It would also be nice if there was documentation, starting with an idiot's guide and going all the way up to "this is how to modify the automated test suite" (and to actually HAVE an automated test, and acceptance suite).
However, we'll never get to that level while the distributions are reliant on hobbyists writing code because they like to, then tossing it over "the wall" and calling it a Linux application. That's what distinguishes Linux and the apps it comes distributed with from commercial operating systems and the apps people are willing (and, admitttedly, have to) pay for. The old excuse of: hey, don't complain, it's free! is no help whatsoever when the time-cost of getting some downloaded junk to work is far higher than the price of a piece of commercial quality software.
If they'd said they couldn't do the job for a couple of weeks they'd have been made honourary life members of the plumbers union.
What this means is that the support dept's favourite saying "switch it off and on again" won't work. If this takes off, they'll have to actually start diagnosing and fixing software faults.
On the upside, maybe then we'll get better quality software .... no, I didn't think so either.