Check out Printbill. It provides a fair way to bill printjobs. Basically, when you print a job, it scans the document and analyzes the amount of ink that is actually used. Then, it charges the user for cost of the ink and the paper. If the user has a sufficient quota to cover the job, it'll print it.
It's designed to be used in a pre-pay system. But it's all in perl, so you could easily hack it to support other methods (i.e. email them a bill at the end of the semester, etc.)
Additionally.. the ads could have been targetted towards parents. The Focus is a relatively low-end car (doesn't go too fast, good gas mileage, fairly safe, etc)... it's a good young-driver's car. This ad could be a glorified "kid tasted, mother approved" type of thing.
The "CRT radiation" snooping that the was referred to is commonly called "TEMPEST". The basic idea, which you seem to be aware of, is to detect the RF signals that are emitted from any electronic device.
There is a common misconception that the use of an LCD will prevent the ability of gov't agencies from detecting the signals. This is NOT true. LCDs DO infact emit electro-magnettic noise (just like LCDs,etc.) The difference is that LCDs are lower power and can't be easily read from as great a distance as a CRT. So in a since, you're correct, if "evil people" use LCDs, it'd be slightly more difficult to detect, but not impossible by ANY means!
Additionally, who cares if they use an LCD. All the other components are emitting EMI. The keyboard can be read; the disk access can be intercepted; the switch/hub in the room can be read, etc.
I've seen this technology demonstrated. A laptop, running on batteries, had it's LCD redisplayed on a CRT that was 40 feet away. Yeah, 40 feet isn't that far... but then again, if there's a bug in your room, you're up the creek, etc.
If you wanna see some products that have been secured against emitting EMI (and are thus significantly less vulnerable to TEMPEST attacks) check out http://www.hetrasecure.com/. Enjoy!
- when installing a new bulb, go to extreme measures to avoid touching the bulb directly; use a piece of clothe, etc. The reason is that the oil on your skin will stick to the bulb, and when heated with cause a non-uniform distribution of heat which causes the bulbs to die more quickly
- turn the projector off if it won't be needed for a while. It's easy to forget, but don't leave the projector running if it won't be in use for a while. This seems like a silly thing to say, but a lot of people forget about how fragile the bulbs in the projector are.
anybody remember Anne Tomlinson?? The (imaginary??) girl that caused big problems with slashdot a few months back?? Wonder if there's any relation... >=)
Then it's not a problem, because if a browser ignores CSS, your page should still look perfect. CSS affects style, not structure or usability. Style sheets are a nice thing, but also totally expendable and can be safely ignored (or replaced with the user's own style sheet). If you've got a web page that depends on your style sheet, then you're doing something bizarre
In theory, you're absolutely correct; stylesheets should have no impact on structure or useablity. In practice, certain browsers (e.g. Netscape) will do retarded things as a result of stylesheets.
For example. I was testing a page that had the following: a table (3 columns wide, and 9 columns tall) filled with thumbnails to other pages (each thumbnail was an img tag embedded in an anchor (link) tag). Because I used a style="border: 1px solid gray" inside the img tag, Netscapde decided to totally wreek havoc on the layout of the table. Yes, I had closed all my td, tr, and table tags. Andy by "wreek havoc", I mean that the table did not resemble anything close to a 3x9 box.
So, while I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that certain browsers do funny things with CSS and it's not the perfect solution either.
I agree. Refer to it as "adult entertainment". It's not like you're sitting there "enjoying yourself" all day. There is a lot of technical work that could be done: content management systems, caching systems, payment processing/secure transaction processing, user account management software, etc.
I worked for a Miami-based company that provided Spanish content; I speak enough Spanish to say "I need a beer". I had NOTHING to do with content... just like you (most likely) won't either. My day was spent developing utilities, games, etc for the website and making life easier for the content editors.
The adult entertainment business is a BIG market online. There's a load of bandwidth being used and a load of money to be made/lost. Even though the content is kinda embarrassing (for lack of a better word), it's still a big business that requires strong technology and skilled programmers.
But in the movie, they'd had that ship for about 30-40 years, right? So, in that time, perhaps they'd managed to decode/understand it's computer architecture(yeah, that's a hell of a hack, but it'd fall under DOD (which implies deep pockets)). Perhaps they'd even developed and means to compile programs for the system.
All you see in the movie is that Jeff's character says something lame like "that's a brilliant idea... catch a cold... narf". Perhaps in the meantime (between that scene, and the "next morning"), he'd had time to consult with some of the staff (especially those responsible for writing code for the system), and manged to develop a virus for the architecture.
Perhaps in that aliens society, every"one" trusts each other and there is no need for security (like there is on any *NIX system, etc), and thus the concept of a computer virus was beyond their comprehension. So, in "fact", it might have been possible for them to have created a virus by building on the technology which they had time to analize over the years.
Of course, it was a kinda lame movie... so I'm probably going out on a limb here. =)
Personally, if you've already contacted the seller on ebay to see if they know and that failed. You could ask for a refund or give negative feekback for selling a bum drive (if you can't use it with compatible equipment, it's dead in my book). But as a last resort, you could always try a big hefty magnet to zap it. I don't know how that would affect any eeprom or anything of that sort, but it's a good last resort.
off topic like... this is sorta where the term "riding shotgun" comes from. In the old days of stage-coaches, when they had to ride though dangerous passes, they'd have two people up front. One person would "steer" the horses and one person would keep an eye out for the bad guys with a shotgun in hand.
The OOP course at my school (which is geared towards students that already have a Java background) uses the following books:
"Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML" by Melier Page-Jones. This is book that covers software design using UML.
"Object-Oriented Software Design & Construction with Java" by Dennis Kafura. The title pretty much summarizes the book.
UML is a good tool for teaching OOP, in my opinion. It helps to illustrate concepts that can be difficult to understand trough code alone. Dynamic Binding is a good example of this.
I currently TA for our intro to comp. sci course (which uses Java). A lot of students get hung up on the difference between between an instance variable and class attribute/behavior(i.e. non-static vs. static members and methods). If they already have a background in C, concepts such as conditionals and looping won't be a big deal. Concepts such as "actions are being performed on an object" may.
It's really benificial to explain extending as "is a special type of" and composition as "has a". Anyways... I'm babbling... but those are both pretty good books. Email me if you're interested in other issues.
I have one of these; they're pretty neat. First of all, they can maintain time for about 2 weeks without being worn/moving. They store energy in a small capacitor, but when it gets low it only ticks every other second to conserve power. It's pretty sweet
No way with the car companies... they like making the money off the replacement parts. Henry Ford was once caught saying something like "I'd give my cars away for free if I could have a legal monopoly on replacement parts".
There was an article in one of those car magazines showing what it would cost to build a $25k Ford Explorer from parts... about $65k. The auto companies love it when you resell cars because older cars usually need some work AND you have buy another car to replace it (and somewhere, somebody buys a new car to replace their old one).
Going along with that same idea, make sure that anything you show them is in solid, working condition. Don't get eager and demonstrate a beta-quality product. Make sure that what you show them is something that demonstrates the good points of linux (just like selling anything else).
I also agree with the slow migration tactic... Start with a few servers (like print servers, etc.) Allow your admins to have time to configure/setup "stuff"... let them get really intimate with linux and grow to understand it. Once you have it in place here and there, migrate the person at the switchboard to linux (they only play solitaire and surf the web anyways), etc.
Perhaps by "software company" they mean "software only company." DEC also makes hardware... MS didn't get into the hardware game (if you count mice and keyboards) until fairly recently.
Science fair.. heh.. the whole point is to see who can BS the best.
I went to the International Science and Engineering Fair (it's sponsored by Intel.. the prizes are HUGE (i.e. 10-50k$)) in May '98. I had some lame-ass project (but that's not the point).
The team next to me (I wouldn't be suprised if some of them read/.) had written an "operating environment". Basically, you boot the computer, their logo "interOS" is displayed, and then you're dropped to a nice little file-manager-type tool to manipulate files.
Basically, all they had done was written a proggy in one of MS's nice Visual languages (C++ or Basic) that allowed them to move/copy/rename/delete files on the system. It was out a little before win98 was released and had a feature that was similar to activeDesktop (i.e. the desktop looked like a webpage, etc.)
It also supported voice recognition, and was compatible with all windows-based software programs... (sounds pretty impressive so far...)
Oh, they also had a few really thick notebooks worth of code...
All the judges that came by were amazed (and to tell you the truth, I was very impressed at first).... But after listening to their pitch about 30 times (my booth was next to theirs), I started noticing things.
Firstly, they stated that "it used MS.dlls". Also, it crashed once and I noticed that ScanDisk started up automatically (hrmm...). So, actually, it's really just running Windows.
Their voice recognition was just IBMs voice-rec software. Kinda getting lame...
Basically, what they'd done is written a small app that they were running as their shell (instead of explorer.exe).
It really didn't do to much... but they could sell the hell out of it... the judges were in awe.
In the end, they won the grand-prize (a shitload of cash, free trip to see the nobel prize ceremony, etc, etc). And all for what? There were _tons_ of projects there... certainly there were more deserving projects. (not that mine was any good... but that's another story)
hmm.. i can see how this would work based on the games from the mid-eighties (pacman...
Yeah, if video games really affect kids can you imagine the result of Pacman. We'd all be hanging out in dark places, eating pills, and listening to electronic music... =P
dude... the Crusoe is a form of RISC chip. The guy who developed the concept of VLIW (very long instruction word), the same guy who suggested that RISC offers better performance over CISC, is one of the founders of Transmeta.
Crusoe is like a "super tiny number of operations" chip. It supports more advanced operations in a software layer around the chip (and that's why it can emulate an x86 chip). Of course it also optimizes as it goes.. but that's outside the scope of what we're discussing...
So, no.. crusoe is not a "power-hog compared to many RISC processors".. it should fall in the lower end of the spectrum of similiarly performing RISC chips...
If they supplied a room and board, I'd be up for it. There's already government housing in the area at Patrick Air Force Base... I don't know how occupied they are, but perhaps the gov't can make an allocation for volunteers. From the road, they look like reasonable houses/duplexes... and they're accross the road from the Ocean (and that's always cool). I'm sure you could fit a small gaggle of geeks into one of these (we've all had roommates before, right?)
Given some food and perhaps a small clothing/entertainment allowance (money that could easily be obtained through private sponsorship and public fundraising), I'd be up for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I so wish i had some mod points.... that was the funniest thing i've ever read...
That was the coolest thing i've ever read... might have to fark with that this summer... thanks for the link..
-Andy
Check out Printbill. It provides a fair way to bill printjobs. Basically, when you print a job, it scans the document and analyzes the amount of ink that is actually used. Then, it charges the user for cost of the ink and the paper. If the user has a sufficient quota to cover the job, it'll print it.
It's designed to be used in a pre-pay system. But it's all in perl, so you could easily hack it to support other methods (i.e. email them a bill at the end of the semester, etc.)
-Andy
Additionally.. the ads could have been targetted towards parents. The Focus is a relatively low-end car (doesn't go too fast, good gas mileage, fairly safe, etc)... it's a good young-driver's car. This ad could be a glorified "kid tasted, mother approved" type of thing.
-Andy
The "CRT radiation" snooping that the was referred to is commonly called "TEMPEST". The basic idea, which you seem to be aware of, is to detect the RF signals that are emitted from any electronic device.
There is a common misconception that the use of an LCD will prevent the ability of gov't agencies from detecting the signals. This is NOT true. LCDs DO infact emit electro-magnettic noise (just like LCDs,etc.) The difference is that LCDs are lower power and can't be easily read from as great a distance as a CRT. So in a since, you're correct, if "evil people" use LCDs, it'd be slightly more difficult to detect, but not impossible by ANY means!
Additionally, who cares if they use an LCD. All the other components are emitting EMI. The keyboard can be read; the disk access can be intercepted; the switch/hub in the room can be read, etc.
I've seen this technology demonstrated. A laptop, running on batteries, had it's LCD redisplayed on a CRT that was 40 feet away. Yeah, 40 feet isn't that far... but then again, if there's a bug in your room, you're up the creek, etc.
If you wanna see some products that have been secured against emitting EMI (and are thus significantly less vulnerable to TEMPEST attacks) check out http://www.hetrasecure.com/. Enjoy!
-Andy
Isn't it "proletarian" and not "protaganist"??? I know it's been a while since I read 1984... but I'm pretty sure it's "prole"... =)
Two tips to make the bulbs last longer:
- when installing a new bulb, go to extreme measures to avoid touching the bulb directly; use a piece of clothe, etc. The reason is that the oil on your skin will stick to the bulb, and when heated with cause a non-uniform distribution of heat which causes the bulbs to die more quickly
- turn the projector off if it won't be needed for a while. It's easy to forget, but don't leave the projector running if it won't be in use for a while. This seems like a silly thing to say, but a lot of people forget about how fragile the bulbs in the projector are.
anybody remember Anne Tomlinson?? The (imaginary??) girl that caused big problems with slashdot a few months back?? Wonder if there's any relation... >=)
Then it's not a problem, because if a browser ignores CSS, your page should still look perfect. CSS affects style, not structure or usability. Style sheets are a nice thing, but also totally expendable and can be safely ignored (or replaced with the user's own style sheet). If you've got a web page that depends on your style sheet, then you're doing something bizarre
In theory, you're absolutely correct; stylesheets should have no impact on structure or useablity. In practice, certain browsers (e.g. Netscape) will do retarded things as a result of stylesheets.
For example. I was testing a page that had the following: a table (3 columns wide, and 9 columns tall) filled with thumbnails to other pages (each thumbnail was an img tag embedded in an anchor (link) tag). Because I used a style="border: 1px solid gray" inside the img tag, Netscapde decided to totally wreek havoc on the layout of the table. Yes, I had closed all my td, tr, and table tags. Andy by "wreek havoc", I mean that the table did not resemble anything close to a 3x9 box.
So, while I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that certain browsers do funny things with CSS and it's not the perfect solution either.
I agree. Refer to it as "adult entertainment". It's not like you're sitting there "enjoying yourself" all day. There is a lot of technical work that could be done: content management systems, caching systems, payment processing/secure transaction processing, user account management software, etc.
I worked for a Miami-based company that provided Spanish content; I speak enough Spanish to say "I need a beer". I had NOTHING to do with content... just like you (most likely) won't either. My day was spent developing utilities, games, etc for the website and making life easier for the content editors.
The adult entertainment business is a BIG market online. There's a load of bandwidth being used and a load of money to be made/lost. Even though the content is kinda embarrassing (for lack of a better word), it's still a big business that requires strong technology and skilled programmers.
-just a though
Ok, I'm totally going to get flamed for this...
But in the movie, they'd had that ship for about 30-40 years, right? So, in that time, perhaps they'd managed to decode/understand it's computer architecture(yeah, that's a hell of a hack, but it'd fall under DOD (which implies deep pockets)). Perhaps they'd even developed and means to compile programs for the system.
All you see in the movie is that Jeff's character says something lame like "that's a brilliant idea... catch a cold... narf". Perhaps in the meantime (between that scene, and the "next morning"), he'd had time to consult with some of the staff (especially those responsible for writing code for the system), and manged to develop a virus for the architecture.
Perhaps in that aliens society, every"one" trusts each other and there is no need for security (like there is on any *NIX system, etc), and thus the concept of a computer virus was beyond their comprehension. So, in "fact", it might have been possible for them to have created a virus by building on the technology which they had time to analize over the years.
Of course, it was a kinda lame movie... so I'm probably going out on a limb here. =)
Personally, if you've already contacted the seller on ebay to see if they know and that failed. You could ask for a refund or give negative feekback for selling a bum drive (if you can't use it with compatible equipment, it's dead in my book). But as a last resort, you could always try a big hefty magnet to zap it. I don't know how that would affect any eeprom or anything of that sort, but it's a good last resort.
off topic like... this is sorta where the term "riding shotgun" comes from. In the old days of stage-coaches, when they had to ride though dangerous passes, they'd have two people up front. One person would "steer" the horses and one person would keep an eye out for the bad guys with a shotgun in hand.
Don't forget that there's a version of IE for Solaris. ;-) Check MS's site... it's there.
-Andy
The OOP course at my school (which is geared towards students that already have a Java background) uses the following books:
"Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Design in UML" by Melier Page-Jones. This is book that covers software design using UML.
"Object-Oriented Software Design & Construction with Java" by Dennis Kafura. The title pretty much summarizes the book.
UML is a good tool for teaching OOP, in my opinion. It helps to illustrate concepts that can be difficult to understand trough code alone. Dynamic Binding is a good example of this.
I currently TA for our intro to comp. sci course (which uses Java). A lot of students get hung up on the difference between between an instance variable and class attribute/behavior(i.e. non-static vs. static members and methods). If they already have a background in C, concepts such as conditionals and looping won't be a big deal. Concepts such as "actions are being performed on an object" may.
It's really benificial to explain extending as "is a special type of" and composition as "has a". Anyways... I'm babbling... but those are both pretty good books. Email me if you're interested in other issues.
-Andy
I have one of these; they're pretty neat. First of all, they can maintain time for about 2 weeks without being worn/moving. They store energy in a small capacitor, but when it gets low it only ticks every other second to conserve power. It's pretty sweet
No way with the car companies... they like making the money off the replacement parts. Henry Ford was once caught saying something like "I'd give my cars away for free if I could have a legal monopoly on replacement parts".
There was an article in one of those car magazines showing what it would cost to build a $25k Ford Explorer from parts... about $65k. The auto companies love it when you resell cars because older cars usually need some work AND you have buy another car to replace it (and somewhere, somebody buys a new car to replace their old one).
-Andy
Going along with that same idea, make sure that anything you show them is in solid, working condition. Don't get eager and demonstrate a beta-quality product. Make sure that what you show them is something that demonstrates the good points of linux (just like selling anything else).
I also agree with the slow migration tactic... Start with a few servers (like print servers, etc.) Allow your admins to have time to configure/setup "stuff"... let them get really intimate with linux and grow to understand it. Once you have it in place here and there, migrate the person at the switchboard to linux (they only play solitaire and surf the web anyways), etc.
Perhaps by "software company" they mean "software only company." DEC also makes hardware... MS didn't get into the hardware game (if you count mice and keyboards) until fairly recently.
-Andy
This can be easily implimented using good CSS. CSS supports things like "border-bottom", etc. I don't see where your argument holds.
-Andy
Science fair.. heh.. the whole point is to see who can BS the best.
/.) had written an "operating environment". Basically, you boot the computer, their logo "interOS" is displayed, and then you're dropped to a nice little file-manager-type tool to manipulate files.
.dlls". Also, it crashed once and I noticed that ScanDisk started up automatically (hrmm...). So, actually, it's really just running Windows.
I went to the International Science and Engineering Fair (it's sponsored by Intel.. the prizes are HUGE (i.e. 10-50k$)) in May '98. I had some lame-ass project (but that's not the point).
The team next to me (I wouldn't be suprised if some of them read
Basically, all they had done was written a proggy in one of MS's nice Visual languages (C++ or Basic) that allowed them to move/copy/rename/delete files on the system. It was out a little before win98 was released and had a feature that was similar to activeDesktop (i.e. the desktop looked like a webpage, etc.)
It also supported voice recognition, and was compatible with all windows-based software programs... (sounds pretty impressive so far...)
Oh, they also had a few really thick notebooks worth of code...
All the judges that came by were amazed (and to tell you the truth, I was very impressed at first).... But after listening to their pitch about 30 times (my booth was next to theirs), I started noticing things.
Firstly, they stated that "it used MS
Their voice recognition was just IBMs voice-rec software. Kinda getting lame...
Basically, what they'd done is written a small app that they were running as their shell (instead of explorer.exe).
It really didn't do to much... but they could sell the hell out of it... the judges were in awe.
In the end, they won the grand-prize (a shitload of cash, free trip to see the nobel prize ceremony, etc, etc). And all for what? There were _tons_ of projects there... certainly there were more deserving projects. (not that mine was any good... but that's another story)
So, moral of the story... He who BSes best, wins.
-Andy
hmm.. i can see how this would work based on the games from the mid-eighties (pacman...
Yeah, if video games really affect kids can you imagine the result of Pacman. We'd all be hanging out in dark places, eating pills, and listening to electronic music... =P
wow.. a local celeb.. =)
Bruce, what are you up to now-a-days?? I read your articles in Embedded Linux Journal (they were good)... are you still doing Debian development?
-Andy
dude... the Crusoe is a form of RISC chip. The guy who developed the concept of VLIW (very long instruction word), the same guy who suggested that RISC offers better performance over CISC, is one of the founders of Transmeta.
Crusoe is like a "super tiny number of operations" chip. It supports more advanced operations in a software layer around the chip (and that's why it can emulate an x86 chip). Of course it also optimizes as it goes.. but that's outside the scope of what we're discussing...
So, no.. crusoe is not a "power-hog compared to many RISC processors".. it should fall in the lower end of the spectrum of similiarly performing RISC chips...
-Andy
I think you may have a point...
If they supplied a room and board, I'd be up for it. There's already government housing in the area at Patrick Air Force Base... I don't know how occupied they are, but perhaps the gov't can make an allocation for volunteers. From the road, they look like reasonable houses/duplexes... and they're accross the road from the Ocean (and that's always cool). I'm sure you could fit a small gaggle of geeks into one of these (we've all had roommates before, right?)
Given some food and perhaps a small clothing/entertainment allowance (money that could easily be obtained through private sponsorship and public fundraising), I'd be up for it.
Maybe I'm asking too much.. i dunno