Read up on the Wright brothers some time. They were losing pilots (and planes) at an alarming rate.
A large number of the losses were caused by pilots (barnstormers) trying to show off. The Wrights and others were constantly trying to figure out how to prevent this before bad press killed aviation.
Now we have enough experience in aerodynamics and control theory to say something *is* dangerous, and you get in a huff about some guy's "attitude" for pointing out the dangers.
Dreams and experimentation belong in the lab, not in PR stunts. Tools can be dangerous. Sometimes reality hurts.
The only case where I really cared about driver compatibility was once where the I/O card we had in the lab was distributed with DOS drivers (the company since disappeared). Unfortunately, these particular drivers only worked under Win98 and older - all poorly supported versions of Windows. As a result, we ended up having to buy all new cards in order to upgrade. At least if we had the source we could have tried porting the drivers...
Whoopee about an.EXE running under multiple versions of Windows. I can download a large number of *nix programs, compile, and run under numerous flavors of Linux, BSD, and other OS's. In fact, most are already precompiled for the favorite distros. Office suites, window managers, scientific apps, LaTeX... its all available.
As far as development goes, my limited experience has found Linux to be much nicer. Under Windows, you have to download the whole DirectX SDK (100s of MBs) just to capture frames from a webcam. This also requires the use of VisualC++. Under Linux, simply compile the apropriate USB modules and you're ready to go.
but "after a year and a half of C#" sounds a whole lot like "as an early-adopter MS fanboy"... How long has C# been available?
As someone who lived through the whole Java storm, your logic sounds just as reasonable as the early-adopter Java folks saying, "I'm sure that C++ is quite well designed in many ways and would have improved my productivity in a manner similar to Java, but I ended up with Java. Such is life."
At least with Java, Sun was committed from the get go (even if it hurt the language) to have cross-platform support. This was the baby which was supposed to make Solaris a viable platform by making more programs available for it. With C#/.NET, MS has *no* commitment to cross-platform support. "I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps" sounds like a pipe dream to me.
I used it with mixed success. At first, it seemed great. Then something happened and files wouldn't play. When I uninstalled it, RealPlayer wouldn't work -or- uninstall correctly. Finally I found the command-line method of uninstalling RealPlayer (which cleaned up the registry, I think).
After that, I reinstalled RealPlayer and gave up. Although it was cool playing Real files in non-Real players for a while.
With a book, at least you have something physical to keep/scribble in/burn.
With an electronic text (please - they're NOT books), the publisher's distribution costs are negligible, but I expect book prices would only drop by 10-20%. The rest is now pure profit for the publisher.
Rant 1: Last year, I bought a decent DSP book for about $90 used. My friend bought a whole shelf of books (including that one) new for about $50... in India, and then brought them back here. Same goes for my friend from Malaysia. In fact, almost every international student I have studied with has commented on the high price of books here. Clearly, the costs of publication are not a significant chunk of the price to the American student. Electronic publication will eliminate the publication costs, but I doubt it will affect price as much.
Rant 2: Why is India fast becoming an engineering superpower? Well, I bet affordable books helps a fair deal.
Unfortunately, to most home users, having a virus affect an "unpriviledged" user is equivalent to having a rooted box.
'rm -rf $HOME/*' maliciously placed in some shell startup script would probably result in the user reformatting their Linux box just as they now format their Windows boxes.
Its only where you want to keep one user from harming another user's files that permissions really shine. Yes, file permissions may stop malicious software from easily poisoning the base system, but they do nothing to protect the actual user. For that, all users (Windows or Linux) must rely on safe practices (especially backups).
Besides, in the home setting, the user *is* the admin and can easily override sanity to install the cool (spyware) rpm's he just found. Just like how Windows users install so much spyware.
It'd refuse to eject the evidence. Then it would send an alert to Disney Land Police using a wireless uplink. Eisner would then contact the local police, letting them know that they need not interfere as Disney takes care of things.
That, or it would reveal a hidden animation instructing your children call 1-800-havefun to collect a reward - for turning you in!
Under the latest version, this feature is hidden under "Personalize Windows Update". It won't do anything until you "scan for updates". Then it lists the updates by exact name - you can't avoid future Media Player updates if there aren't any waiting right now.
Last time I tried (~ a year ago), I had poor success with this. As I remember, I told Update that I didn't want some stuff. A couple months later, these items reappeared. I didn't take the time to figure out the exact reason - whether the files changed name/version or whether this was due to a new version of Windows Update - but this left a bad impression.
I don't want to tell WinUpdate not to offer a particular file, I want it to not pre-select whole classes of files. Too many of the pre-selected "critical updates" are for stuff I don't use (like MDAC and Outlook Express).
I apologize for attacking you earlier; I misunderstood your position. This misunderstanding sparked my personal peeve against the idea that it is illegal for someone to seek freedom.
Now, to step back onto the soapbox: Unfortunately, many people do oppose all immigration, and they are often the ones who establish immigration policies. If someone wants to risk their life to leave their country and come here, then let them.
One common example of screwed up INS regulations: Most foreign college students can't legally work off campus; as a result the non-rich ones either get stuck as cheap labor for housing or the cafeteria - or they get cheated by the restaurant owner they try working for. I've personally seen both happen during my college years.
A nice side effect of legalizing all immigration is that there is then no such thing as an illegal immigrant. This will by definition kill the smuggling trade, and then we can easily prosecute any company abusing any laborers in America. All that's needed is to abolish quotas and a few similar restrictions; the rest of the system seems mostly functional.
laissez faire - the true foundation of capitalism and conservative politics
How many generations ago did they immigrate? 3? 4?... 6? Probably not more than that.
I bet you don't even know.
Did you not notice that America came out of both WWI and WWII stronger than we went in? Why? There is a lot of evidence pointing at the immigrants who came here shortly before and even during these outbreaks.
What have immigrants done for America? Chinese labor laid much of the tracks for the first transcontinental railroad. German labor worked the Pennsylvania coal mines (my family's heritage). Tesla brought us AC electricity. European WWII engineers founded the US atomic and rocket/space programs.
To this day, many of the brightest professors in US universities were born overseas.
In fact, there are too many major contributions to list, considering that most Americans are not Native Americans (e.g. American Indians).
Breaking that rant to answer your question, shipping immigrants back to Cuba or China or Columbia or any other horribly inhumane repressive government is a great crime to these people, to our country, and to all of humanity. How much harm could these people cause us? Not much. How much benefit could they bring? Everything.
This message brought to you by a classically trained, free-market-loving, death-penalty-supporting, conservative pig.
So, instead of SpamAssassin simply blocking your incoming junk mail, it should also send out bogus contact info/sign up for fake stuff?
Brings new meaning to the concept of a Spam-bot...
Anybody care to write one?
The only problem I see is that the spammers could then prosecute you for forged identity/ misuse of computer equipment...
Instead of doing a dictionary-style counter attack (which could accidentally frame someone), we would have to use the same name-mangling as the spammers use...
Example counter-spam: Dear Sir: Please sign me up for 9en1s 3nlar6ement! Name: B0gus B0b Address: 12-34 Stat St, Washington UL 12345 Email: anon_tip@fbi.gov
Hopefully, the fake @fbi.gov email will get them in even more hot water...:) Hopefully it won't also get us in trouble.:(
Yes, sex is a fundamental part of life; on might call it the essence of "be fruitful and multiply".
Yes, many people use "dirty" as a euphemism for immoral and impure.
No, many people who say sex is dirty do not believe it is dirty in their own relationship, because they are married.
You see, the dirty part comes not from the act, but from the intent. Porn is designed to evoke lust, not commitment. Many religions believe that sexual pleasure was designed to strengthen the bond between spouses, but porn weakens it. Therefore, sex on the internet is dirty, while sex in the master bedroom is not...
When most people pay a deposit, they will feel like they rightfully purchased the camera. Hence, you are actually encouraging people to keep the cameras.
I'm an electrical engineer; a chemist could give a better explanation of what's happening.
Source of reactor info: http://jlnlabs.imars.com/cfr/html/cfrtiny2. htm
Experimental setup: Place tungsten welding rods in a corrosive solution of NaHCO3. Use a AC/DC rectifier to convert wall current to a high DC potential across the rods. Measure the input energy using a power meter. Calculate the output energy by measuring the evaporated water and increase in heat (like you would with a cheapo calorimeter). Compare.
Test and analysis: Run the system for approximately 3 minutes. Note that, as the rods corrode, their conductance goes down, bringing down the Wattage as well.
This is easily predicted. Resistance (R) is roughly proportional to the rod corrosion. Current (I) equals the applied voltage (V) divided by the resistance; I=V/R. Power (P) is P=I^2*R; for our system, P=(V/R)^2*R=V^2/R. Therefore, as R goes up, the input power goes down. This agrees with the experiment.
The "researcher" then makes several obvious mistakes in calculating the output energy. First, he ignores the effect of the NaHCO3, and pretends the rods were dipped in pure water. Second, he forgets to subtract the 6mL of evaporated water from the 150mL of water that rose in temperature. He also ignores the chemical effect of eating away at the tungsten rods.
His experiment does show more energy output than input, and I believe his numbers are roughly accurate (barring the mistakes outlined above).
My analysis: This experiment shows that exothermic chemical reactions exist. Other famous examples of exothermic chemical reactions which corrode metal are Energizer and Duracell batteries. Burning a match is also characteristically similar.
His experiment has nothing to do with nuclear reactions. Just chemical ones.
but it looks to me like your friend's "reactor" is a simple corrosion mechanism. By placing a high DC voltage across the two terminals, he can eat away the metal from one (in this case, tungsten). As his own data shows, there is no nulcear radiation coming from his experiments; just light and heat. He just wrapped some college chemistry experiments in a container and called it a reactor.
Yes, many of us know how nuclear power plants work. No, he doesn't have one.
Yeah, but I don't trust this $9,700 bidder. Its hard to imagine that someone who joined EBay on April Fool's day 2003 and has no history is reliable. He's probably assuming someone else will bid higher.
In fact, the last real bidder was macjedi. I wonder what his bid was.
Slashdot Mirror
Read up on the Wright brothers some time. They were losing pilots (and planes) at an alarming rate.
A large number of the losses were caused by pilots (barnstormers) trying to show off. The Wrights and others were constantly trying to figure out how to prevent this before bad press killed aviation.
Now we have enough experience in aerodynamics and control theory to say something *is* dangerous, and you get in a huff about some guy's "attitude" for pointing out the dangers.
Dreams and experimentation belong in the lab, not in PR stunts. Tools can be dangerous. Sometimes reality hurts.
and a few fingerprints.
No ID required.
See? Wasn't that easy?
No need to detain anyone.
I think he meant something more like
(1+prime)^((1+prime)^(1+prime))
but even this gives low values
(prime=4% yields only 4.3%)
I like my Slackware.
Gentoo is a new thing so it has a lot of hype right now. Slackware has *just worked* nicely for years.
The only case where I really cared about driver compatibility was once where the I/O card we had in the lab was distributed with DOS drivers (the company since disappeared). Unfortunately, these particular drivers only worked under Win98 and older - all poorly supported versions of Windows. As a result, we ended up having to buy all new cards in order to upgrade. At least if we had the source we could have tried porting the drivers...
.EXE running under multiple versions of Windows. I can download a large number of *nix programs, compile, and run under numerous flavors of Linux, BSD, and other OS's. In fact, most are already precompiled for the favorite distros. Office suites, window managers, scientific apps, LaTeX... its all available.
Whoopee about an
As far as development goes, my limited experience has found Linux to be much nicer. Under Windows, you have to download the whole DirectX SDK (100s of MBs) just to capture frames from a webcam. This also requires the use of VisualC++. Under Linux, simply compile the apropriate USB modules and you're ready to go.
but "after a year and a half of C#" sounds a whole lot like "as an early-adopter MS fanboy"... How long has C# been available?
As someone who lived through the whole Java storm, your logic sounds just as reasonable as the early-adopter Java folks saying, "I'm sure that C++ is quite well designed in many ways and would have improved my productivity in a manner similar to Java, but I ended up with Java. Such is life."
At least with Java, Sun was committed from the get go (even if it hurt the language) to have cross-platform support. This was the baby which was supposed to make Solaris a viable platform by making more programs available for it. With C#/.NET, MS has *no* commitment to cross-platform support. "I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps" sounds like a pipe dream to me.
Who's left to prosecute?
I used it with mixed success. At first, it seemed great. Then something happened and files wouldn't play. When I uninstalled it, RealPlayer wouldn't work -or- uninstall correctly. Finally I found the command-line method of uninstalling RealPlayer (which cleaned up the registry, I think).
After that, I reinstalled RealPlayer and gave up. Although it was cool playing Real files in non-Real players for a while.
I might try RealAlternative again some time.
With a book, at least you have something physical to keep/scribble in/burn.
With an electronic text (please - they're NOT books), the publisher's distribution costs are negligible, but I expect book prices would only drop by 10-20%. The rest is now pure profit for the publisher.
Rant 1:
Last year, I bought a decent DSP book for about $90 used. My friend bought a whole shelf of books (including that one) new for about $50... in India, and then brought them back here. Same goes for my friend from Malaysia. In fact, almost every international student I have studied with has commented on the high price of books here. Clearly, the costs of publication are not a significant chunk of the price to the American student. Electronic publication will eliminate the publication costs, but I doubt it will affect price as much.
Rant 2:
Why is India fast becoming an engineering superpower? Well, I bet affordable books helps a fair deal.
any decent fan would have the The Hobbit along with LotR (4 books)
Really devoted fans also read the Silmarillion.
Unfortunately, to most home users, having a virus affect an "unpriviledged" user is equivalent to having a rooted box.
'rm -rf $HOME/*' maliciously placed in some shell startup script would probably result in the user reformatting their Linux box just as they now format their Windows boxes.
Its only where you want to keep one user from harming another user's files that permissions really shine. Yes, file permissions may stop malicious software from easily poisoning the base system, but they do nothing to protect the actual user. For that, all users (Windows or Linux) must rely on safe practices (especially backups).
Besides, in the home setting, the user *is* the admin and can easily override sanity to install the cool (spyware) rpm's he just found. Just like how Windows users install so much spyware.
It wouldn't self destruct...
It'd refuse to eject the evidence. Then it would send an alert to Disney Land Police using a wireless uplink. Eisner would then contact the local police, letting them know that they need not interfere as Disney takes care of things.
That, or it would reveal a hidden animation instructing your children call 1-800-havefun to collect a reward - for turning you in!
Paranoid? Nahh...
Under the latest version, this feature is hidden under "Personalize Windows Update". It won't do anything until you "scan for updates". Then it lists the updates by exact name - you can't avoid future Media Player updates if there aren't any waiting right now.
Last time I tried (~ a year ago), I had poor success with this. As I remember, I told Update that I didn't want some stuff. A couple months later, these items reappeared. I didn't take the time to figure out the exact reason - whether the files changed name/version or whether this was due to a new version of Windows Update - but this left a bad impression.
I don't want to tell WinUpdate not to offer a particular file, I want it to not pre-select whole classes of files. Too many of the pre-selected "critical updates" are for stuff I don't use (like MDAC and Outlook Express).
I apologize for attacking you earlier; I misunderstood your position. This misunderstanding sparked my personal peeve against the idea that it is illegal for someone to seek freedom.
Now, to step back onto the soapbox:
Unfortunately, many people do oppose all immigration, and they are often the ones who establish immigration policies. If someone wants to risk their life to leave their country and come here, then let them.
One common example of screwed up INS regulations:
Most foreign college students can't legally work off campus; as a result the non-rich ones either get stuck as cheap labor for housing or the cafeteria - or they get cheated by the restaurant owner they try working for. I've personally seen both happen during my college years.
A nice side effect of legalizing all immigration is that there is then no such thing as an illegal immigrant. This will by definition kill the smuggling trade, and then we can easily prosecute any company abusing any laborers in America. All that's needed is to abolish quotas and a few similar restrictions; the rest of the system seems mostly functional.
laissez faire - the true foundation of capitalism and conservative politics
How many generations ago did they immigrate? 3? 4? ... 6? Probably not more than that.
I bet you don't even know.
Did you not notice that America came out of both WWI and WWII stronger than we went in? Why? There is a lot of evidence pointing at the immigrants who came here shortly before and even during these outbreaks.
What have immigrants done for America?
Chinese labor laid much of the tracks for the first transcontinental railroad. German labor worked the Pennsylvania coal mines (my family's heritage). Tesla brought us AC electricity. European WWII engineers founded the US atomic and rocket/space programs.
To this day, many of the brightest professors in US universities were born overseas.
In fact, there are too many major contributions to list, considering that most Americans are not Native Americans (e.g. American Indians).
Breaking that rant to answer your question, shipping immigrants back to Cuba or China or Columbia or any other horribly inhumane repressive government is a great crime to these people, to our country, and to all of humanity. How much harm could these people cause us? Not much. How much benefit could they bring? Everything.
This message brought to you by a classically trained, free-market-loving, death-penalty-supporting, conservative pig.
So, instead of SpamAssassin simply blocking your incoming junk mail, it should also send out bogus contact info/sign up for fake stuff?
:) Hopefully it won't also get us in trouble. :(
Brings new meaning to the concept of a Spam-bot...
Anybody care to write one?
The only problem I see is that the spammers could then prosecute you for forged identity/ misuse of computer equipment...
Instead of doing a dictionary-style counter attack (which could accidentally frame someone), we would have to use the same name-mangling as the spammers use...
Example counter-spam:
Dear Sir:
Please sign me up for 9en1s 3nlar6ement!
Name: B0gus B0b
Address: 12-34 Stat St, Washington UL 12345
Email: anon_tip@fbi.gov
Hopefully, the fake @fbi.gov email will get them in even more hot water...
Yes, sex is a fundamental part of life; on might call it the essence of "be fruitful and multiply".
Yes, many people use "dirty" as a euphemism for immoral and impure.
No, many people who say sex is dirty do not believe it is dirty in their own relationship, because they are married.
You see, the dirty part comes not from the act, but from the intent. Porn is designed to evoke lust, not commitment. Many religions believe that sexual pleasure was designed to strengthen the bond between spouses, but porn weakens it. Therefore, sex on the internet is dirty, while sex in the master bedroom is not...
When most people pay a deposit, they will feel like they rightfully purchased the camera. Hence, you are actually encouraging people to keep the cameras.
Here's the data sheets.
I'm an electrical engineer; a chemist could give a better explanation of what's happening.
. htm
Source of reactor info:
http://jlnlabs.imars.com/cfr/html/cfrtiny2
Experimental setup:
Place tungsten welding rods in a corrosive solution of NaHCO3. Use a AC/DC rectifier to convert wall current to a high DC potential across the rods. Measure the input energy using a power meter. Calculate the output energy by measuring the evaporated water and increase in heat (like you would with a cheapo calorimeter). Compare.
Test and analysis:
Run the system for approximately 3 minutes. Note that, as the rods corrode, their conductance goes down, bringing down the Wattage as well.
This is easily predicted. Resistance (R) is roughly proportional to the rod corrosion. Current (I) equals the applied voltage (V) divided by the resistance; I=V/R. Power (P) is P=I^2*R; for our system, P=(V/R)^2*R=V^2/R. Therefore, as R goes up, the input power goes down. This agrees with the experiment.
The "researcher" then makes several obvious mistakes in calculating the output energy. First, he ignores the effect of the NaHCO3, and pretends the rods were dipped in pure water. Second, he forgets to subtract the 6mL of evaporated water from the 150mL of water that rose in temperature. He also ignores the chemical effect of eating away at the tungsten rods.
His experiment does show more energy output than input, and I believe his numbers are roughly accurate (barring the mistakes outlined above).
My analysis:
This experiment shows that exothermic chemical reactions exist. Other famous examples of exothermic chemical reactions which corrode metal are Energizer and Duracell batteries. Burning a match is also characteristically similar.
His experiment has nothing to do with nuclear reactions. Just chemical ones.
but it looks to me like your friend's "reactor" is a simple corrosion mechanism. By placing a high DC voltage across the two terminals, he can eat away the metal from one (in this case, tungsten). As his own data shows, there is no nulcear radiation coming from his experiments; just light and heat. He just wrapped some college chemistry experiments in a container and called it a reactor.
Yes, many of us know how nuclear power plants work. No, he doesn't have one.
Take a look at the bottom of the bid history page... The seller seems to have been taking an active role and cancelling obvious fakes.
Yeah, but I don't trust this $9,700 bidder. Its hard to imagine that someone who joined EBay on April Fool's day 2003 and has no history is reliable. He's probably assuming someone else will bid higher.
In fact, the last real bidder was macjedi. I wonder what his bid was.
Gimme some time; I'm generating one to match that message. ;)
I've got the somewhat depressing
"Slashdot | Failure Is Always an Option"
Thinking of of Slashdot as !Failure (Slashdot==success) is painful to me.
Surely there are better things in life?