And while we're at it, let's burn any books that have the word master or slave in it. Dictionarys, Mark Twain, anything written by the founding fathers. Oh, and we'll definitely need to burn all the bibles too. Let's just pretend those words don't exist anymore.
Good, I'm glad to see LA County is moving forward into the 18th century.
I'm not a big fan of super computers. I mean, it's kind of cool, but to me, it's just throwing a whole bunch of computers at the problem, more or less.
That being the case, why aren't distributed apps considered as part of the Super Computer list? I mean, SETI@Home has got to be far and away, #1 in terms of computing power. Granted, it's not in 1 integrated piece of hardware, and Berkeley doesn't own all the hardware, but I still think these things ought to be considered, at least to make it more realistic about who actually has the most computing power.
By reading this posting, you implicitly agree that all code you have written in the past, are writing now and in the future belongs to me. I would appreciate it if you just zipped up all your code and sent it along. Thanks.
It's funny that I had recently been considering doing this myself. In my case, I was just going to set up a script on a web site that would send the mail and have it set so that once a month it would notify me that I have, say 2 weeks, to reply, or it will send the e-mail. I basically keep it from sending it by replying to the e-mail once a month, and once I go a month without replying, it assumes I'm dead and sends the e-mail.
I don't really care for the fact that their service requires you to somehow leave a notification otherwise. I mean, they need to find out your dead somehow, but I like my method better. Also, the cost is ridiculous. I could set up a service to do this and charge a hell of a lot less.
I would guess since it's biological that the hydrogen would be the result of breaking down the carbon dioxide using some sort of hydrocarbon which would release hydrogen as part of the byproduct. I doubt it converts the oxygen or the carbon directly into hydrogen. That would be quite a feat.
I don't really care about the morality of this. Frankly, from a scientific point of view: Cool! On the other hand, what does concern me was this quote:
The project was funded in part by the Department of Energy, which hopes to create microbes that would capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, produce hydrogen or clean the environment.
Okay, so let's assume we do something like this, with the perfectly innocent intention of cleaning up some level of carbon dioxide. Okay, well you're counting on the virus to reproduce, but what if it gets out of control? It eats up ALL the carbon dioxide. All the trees and plants suffocate and die, but that might not happen before the atmosphere goes up in flames since that carbon dioxide is being turned into hydrogen.
Maybe not a likely event, but my concerns are a bit more on the practical side. Frankly, I'm all for creating new forms of life and bringing back extinct ones, just for the coolness of it. I just hope we don't go doing something foolish, which we always seem to manage to do.
And what Critics of the Critics of the Critics of of the Critics of the Critics the FCC Rule Miss (I think there are two of them), is that the Critics of the Critics are talking a bunch of gibberish.
Actually, at least for those in the more humid climates (we victims of the notorious cd-eating fungus), it's a matter of defective discs. The problem isn't cracks or damage. The problem is that the two polycarbonate layers are not attached in an airtight manner. I would assume that even without the fungus, eventually humidity will cause oxidation anyway. In the case of the fungus, the fungus generally enters from the outer edge or the spindle hole, though microscopic openings between the polycarbonate layer.
So, all I want for christmas is CDRs with a proper sealing of the polycarbonate layers.
What's really sad about it is that this isn't really the kind of volume that's going to get the much attention. You're talking about a company with almost 14 million shares outstanding, and 45% of the shares are held by insiders, but the trades are of 5000 and 10,000 shares. That's just a drop in the bucket.
That doesn't mean some of these guys aren't raking in some nice money, but it's just not a massive amount.
You'll never better humanity by spending money on technology.
Yeah, you're right. All that money spent on medical research, artificial hearts, pace makers, water purification technology, improved crop yields due to improved pesticides in third world countries, penicillin, what a total waste of time and money.
Faster transistors would enable the creation of faster computers and video games
Wow, as long as it's being done for something important like video games. I thought they may be pissing away their money on something stupid and useless like bettering humanity.
Call me paranoid but I wonder if those 40,000 'volunteers' are even aware that they have agreed to install monitoring software on their computer and that someone is checking everything they do.
Of note is that 92 percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, which may create an interesting problem for historians and archaeologists of the future.
They fail to mention that also of note is that 99% of that informations is in the form of pr0n! That's a lot!
This is something I don't get. Astronauts have been telling congressmen since the beginning of the space program three things:
1: Going into space is necessary
2: Going into space is dangerous
3: They understand it's dangerous and they're willing to take the risks
What part does the government not understand. Space is never going to be safe. Just as going underwater in a submarine is never going to be safe. Comparatively speaking, of course. In both places you're in a very hostile environment to life (or at least our kind of life).
Every astronaut knows the dangers better than any congressman (except maybe John Glenn), and they're willing to do the job anyway. Why? Because it's necessary if we want to advance ourselves as a species. It's part of what humans do.
And really, if you look at it, going to space is probably safer than it was to pack all your stuff in a wagon and head west of the Mississippi back in the 1800s, but people did it, because that's what people do.
Going into space certainly won't get safer if we don't keep going. Man, this stuff just really irks me.
So much for getting any work done tomorrow. I live in southern Mexico where electricity is sketchy on a good day. In fact, just about a week ago I had a transformer explode about 20 meters in front of me. I think it's safe to say that tomorrow I should stay inside and unplug the computer. Bummer.
I don't normally put a lot of stock in the Yahoo message boards as they relate to stocks, but in this case it's at least mildly interesting. I didn't do an exact count, but since the trading day began, it's looking something like several hundred strong sells vs 3 strong buys, at least, in the posts. That's got to be at least somewhat telling.
Man, I'd kill to have a wad of cash to short SCO right now.
Okay, let's all try to follow this. It's really quite simple.
SCO's argument is that GPL is violates the constitution (I assume they mean the Constitution of the United States, but maybe they mean the SCO constitution 'cause that would make more sense) and copyright laws. They don't really explain why, but I figure because it's a license that allows people to use software, it's therefore invalid??? Okay, whatever, but let's just assume that's it, 'cause that's kind of their argument, if there's any sense to be made here.
So, let's go on their assumption that licenses that allow people to use software are invalid, violate the constitution, blah blah blah. Then SCO's licenses are invalid, violate the constitution, blah blah blah.
I think the MPAA and RIAA really ought to jump on the bandwagon with SCO. With that kind of money and power put towards this kind of argument, everything will be free within months. Cool!
You know, a lot of people have been complaining about the slash and burn of the Amazon rain forest, but I think people are really just thinking ahead and trying to make more oil. You guys are so short-sighted.
I wrote a book ages ago about Windows File Formats. Included in the book was some code which was written by a third party. I obtained permission from the code's author to put it in the book, but it was very clearly copyrighted by the author of the code, both in the code, and in the book.
So Intel is working on a product and they just swipe up the code out of the book, never ask for permission or anything, and use it in a commercial product (VTune). The author of the code, of course, was furious. He approached Intel. They blew him off. He had reverse engineered their code. He could produce an exact replica of the binary with his own code using the MS C compiler.
He never got anything out of Intel. I suppose he could have hired attorneys, but he wasn't a wealthy guy. He couldn't find attorneys to take it without cash up front. So my question is: How do watermarks help him? I mean the guy could put the binaries side-by-side, and there was no question, it was his code.
Your code is as protected as the lawyer you can afford...
I can't believe this article actually made it through. Did you guys read it? Come on. Slashdot has hit a new low here.
This is the lamest comparison of SCSI and IDE I've ever seen. A mail directory woopie. Hell, you can find some IDE drives that are faster than SCSI drives and vice versa. There's so much more involved than simply reading a lot of files or reading big file.
This doesn't even go into the variety of SCSI types nor the variety of IDE types. Both have a number of flavors and testing two or even three drives against one another is hardly conclusive.
Where SCSI really outperforms IDE is in multi-user environments, such as a file server or database server. SCSI's ability to offload work from the CPU, queue requests, and so forth make it much better for multi-user environments.
I have some software that will damn near kill an IDE drive because it creates a number of threads that perform a good deal of database work. On a SCSI drive that, for this kind of test (the one mentioned in teh article), might underperform IDE, would actually outperform on my software simply because of the way it works.
Man, I'm honestly so disappointed in Slashdot for posting this story. Slashdot has had much better SCSI vs. IDE comparisons in the past. I'd post one, but the Slashdot search is down and trying to find one on Google has prooven fruitless. Get your site together guys.
Look, I hate to say it, but I've kind of been looking for this capability in a file system. So much so that recently I had been thinking of writing software to do something along these lines.
In particular what I'm looking for (and maybe other people are too), is a file system where it's easy to find files. I don't mean finding them by the name, but by content, and not just text, but graphics, executeable, you name it. For example, I have tons of pictures from my digital camera, scattered into different directories, on different drives. I'd like to be able to query for example, "photo me sophie" and get back all pictures of Sophie and myself.
Now, admittedly, this would also add on some responsibility to tag keywords to the files, and I've thought of ways of doing that as well (for example, applying keywords associated with a directory automatically to files placed in the directory).
I haven't worked out all the kinks, but to me, being able to find stuff quickly in file systems that are continually growing would be a huge bonus.
I take it back. It's been around since the 1907. Who's going to patent the automobile because the design has changed so much since Ford build his cars.
Slashdot Mirror
And while we're at it, let's burn any books that have the word master or slave in it. Dictionarys, Mark Twain, anything written by the founding fathers. Oh, and we'll definitely need to burn all the bibles too. Let's just pretend those words don't exist anymore.
Good, I'm glad to see LA County is moving forward into the 18th century.
I'm not a big fan of super computers. I mean, it's kind of cool, but to me, it's just throwing a whole bunch of computers at the problem, more or less.
That being the case, why aren't distributed apps considered as part of the Super Computer list? I mean, SETI@Home has got to be far and away, #1 in terms of computing power. Granted, it's not in 1 integrated piece of hardware, and Berkeley doesn't own all the hardware, but I still think these things ought to be considered, at least to make it more realistic about who actually has the most computing power.
Just my little rant.
By reading this posting, you implicitly agree that all code you have written in the past, are writing now and in the future belongs to me. I would appreciate it if you just zipped up all your code and sent it along. Thanks.
It's funny that I had recently been considering doing this myself. In my case, I was just going to set up a script on a web site that would send the mail and have it set so that once a month it would notify me that I have, say 2 weeks, to reply, or it will send the e-mail. I basically keep it from sending it by replying to the e-mail once a month, and once I go a month without replying, it assumes I'm dead and sends the e-mail.
I don't really care for the fact that their service requires you to somehow leave a notification otherwise. I mean, they need to find out your dead somehow, but I like my method better. Also, the cost is ridiculous. I could set up a service to do this and charge a hell of a lot less.
Note to self: Add this to your todo list.
I would guess since it's biological that the hydrogen would be the result of breaking down the carbon dioxide using some sort of hydrocarbon which would release hydrogen as part of the byproduct. I doubt it converts the oxygen or the carbon directly into hydrogen. That would be quite a feat.
I don't really care about the morality of this. Frankly, from a scientific point of view: Cool! On the other hand, what does concern me was this quote:
The project was funded in part by the Department of Energy, which hopes to create microbes that would capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, produce hydrogen or clean the environment.
Okay, so let's assume we do something like this, with the perfectly innocent intention of cleaning up some level of carbon dioxide. Okay, well you're counting on the virus to reproduce, but what if it gets out of control? It eats up ALL the carbon dioxide. All the trees and plants suffocate and die, but that might not happen before the atmosphere goes up in flames since that carbon dioxide is being turned into hydrogen.
Maybe not a likely event, but my concerns are a bit more on the practical side. Frankly, I'm all for creating new forms of life and bringing back extinct ones, just for the coolness of it. I just hope we don't go doing something foolish, which we always seem to manage to do.
And what Critics of the Critics of the Critics of of the Critics of the Critics the FCC Rule Miss (I think there are two of them), is that the Critics of the Critics are talking a bunch of gibberish.
Actually, at least for those in the more humid climates (we victims of the notorious cd-eating fungus), it's a matter of defective discs. The problem isn't cracks or damage. The problem is that the two polycarbonate layers are not attached in an airtight manner. I would assume that even without the fungus, eventually humidity will cause oxidation anyway. In the case of the fungus, the fungus generally enters from the outer edge or the spindle hole, though microscopic openings between the polycarbonate layer.
So, all I want for christmas is CDRs with a proper sealing of the polycarbonate layers.
For one thing, humidity causes the clue to come off
I for one think this is crucial point in the SCO law suits. Someone needs to get SCO some dehumidifiers so that their clues won't keep coming off.
What's really sad about it is that this isn't really the kind of volume that's going to get the much attention. You're talking about a company with almost 14 million shares outstanding, and 45% of the shares are held by insiders, but the trades are of 5000 and 10,000 shares. That's just a drop in the bucket.
That doesn't mean some of these guys aren't raking in some nice money, but it's just not a massive amount.
I grasp it, and I should have said "betterment of humanity." That would have been more accurate, but you're picking nits like the other apes.
You'll never better humanity by spending money on technology.
Yeah, you're right. All that money spent on medical research, artificial hearts, pace makers, water purification technology, improved crop yields due to improved pesticides in third world countries, penicillin, what a total waste of time and money.
Faster transistors would enable the creation of faster computers and video games
Wow, as long as it's being done for something important like video games. I thought they may be pissing away their money on something stupid and useless like bettering humanity.
Call me paranoid but I wonder if those 40,000 'volunteers' are even aware that they have agreed to install monitoring software on their computer and that someone is checking everything they do.
I agreed to what??? No, you can't have my liver!
Of note is that 92 percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, which may create an interesting problem for historians and archaeologists of the future.
They fail to mention that also of note is that 99% of that informations is in the form of pr0n! That's a lot!
This is something I don't get. Astronauts have been telling congressmen since the beginning of the space program three things:
1: Going into space is necessary
2: Going into space is dangerous
3: They understand it's dangerous and they're willing to take the risks
What part does the government not understand. Space is never going to be safe. Just as going underwater in a submarine is never going to be safe. Comparatively speaking, of course. In both places you're in a very hostile environment to life (or at least our kind of life).
Every astronaut knows the dangers better than any congressman (except maybe John Glenn), and they're willing to do the job anyway. Why? Because it's necessary if we want to advance ourselves as a species. It's part of what humans do.
And really, if you look at it, going to space is probably safer than it was to pack all your stuff in a wagon and head west of the Mississippi back in the 1800s, but people did it, because that's what people do.
Going into space certainly won't get safer if we don't keep going. Man, this stuff just really irks me.
So much for getting any work done tomorrow. I live in southern Mexico where electricity is sketchy on a good day. In fact, just about a week ago I had a transformer explode about 20 meters in front of me. I think it's safe to say that tomorrow I should stay inside and unplug the computer. Bummer.
I don't normally put a lot of stock in the Yahoo message boards as they relate to stocks, but in this case it's at least mildly interesting. I didn't do an exact count, but since the trading day began, it's looking something like several hundred strong sells vs 3 strong buys, at least, in the posts. That's got to be at least somewhat telling.
Man, I'd kill to have a wad of cash to short SCO right now.
Okay, let's all try to follow this. It's really quite simple.
SCO's argument is that GPL is violates the constitution (I assume they mean the Constitution of the United States, but maybe they mean the SCO constitution 'cause that would make more sense) and copyright laws. They don't really explain why, but I figure because it's a license that allows people to use software, it's therefore invalid??? Okay, whatever, but let's just assume that's it, 'cause that's kind of their argument, if there's any sense to be made here.
So, let's go on their assumption that licenses that allow people to use software are invalid, violate the constitution, blah blah blah. Then SCO's licenses are invalid, violate the constitution, blah blah blah.
I think the MPAA and RIAA really ought to jump on the bandwagon with SCO. With that kind of money and power put towards this kind of argument, everything will be free within months. Cool!
You know, a lot of people have been complaining about the slash and burn of the Amazon rain forest, but I think people are really just thinking ahead and trying to make more oil. You guys are so short-sighted.
I wrote a book ages ago about Windows File Formats. Included in the book was some code which was written by a third party. I obtained permission from the code's author to put it in the book, but it was very clearly copyrighted by the author of the code, both in the code, and in the book.
So Intel is working on a product and they just swipe up the code out of the book, never ask for permission or anything, and use it in a commercial product (VTune). The author of the code, of course, was furious. He approached Intel. They blew him off. He had reverse engineered their code. He could produce an exact replica of the binary with his own code using the MS C compiler.
He never got anything out of Intel. I suppose he could have hired attorneys, but he wasn't a wealthy guy. He couldn't find attorneys to take it without cash up front. So my question is: How do watermarks help him? I mean the guy could put the binaries side-by-side, and there was no question, it was his code.
Your code is as protected as the lawyer you can afford...
I can't believe this article actually made it through. Did you guys read it? Come on. Slashdot has hit a new low here.
This is the lamest comparison of SCSI and IDE I've ever seen. A mail directory woopie. Hell, you can find some IDE drives that are faster than SCSI drives and vice versa. There's so much more involved than simply reading a lot of files or reading big file.
This doesn't even go into the variety of SCSI types nor the variety of IDE types. Both have a number of flavors and testing two or even three drives against one another is hardly conclusive.
Where SCSI really outperforms IDE is in multi-user environments, such as a file server or database server. SCSI's ability to offload work from the CPU, queue requests, and so forth make it much better for multi-user environments.
I have some software that will damn near kill an IDE drive because it creates a number of threads that perform a good deal of database work. On a SCSI drive that, for this kind of test (the one mentioned in teh article), might underperform IDE, would actually outperform on my software simply because of the way it works.
Man, I'm honestly so disappointed in Slashdot for posting this story. Slashdot has had much better SCSI vs. IDE comparisons in the past. I'd post one, but the Slashdot search is down and trying to find one on Google has prooven fruitless. Get your site together guys.
Look, I hate to say it, but I've kind of been looking for this capability in a file system. So much so that recently I had been thinking of writing software to do something along these lines.
In particular what I'm looking for (and maybe other people are too), is a file system where it's easy to find files. I don't mean finding them by the name, but by content, and not just text, but graphics, executeable, you name it. For example, I have tons of pictures from my digital camera, scattered into different directories, on different drives. I'd like to be able to query for example, "photo me sophie" and get back all pictures of Sophie and myself.
Now, admittedly, this would also add on some responsibility to tag keywords to the files, and I've thought of ways of doing that as well (for example, applying keywords associated with a directory automatically to files placed in the directory).
I haven't worked out all the kinks, but to me, being able to find stuff quickly in file systems that are continually growing would be a huge bonus.
I take it back. It's been around since the 1907. Who's going to patent the automobile because the design has changed so much since Ford build his cars.
Isn't this what a teletype and all those other typewriter/printer communication devices did? I mean come on.