afterstep used to have a similar feature (maybe it still has it? haven't used it in a while), which I loved, and was one of the things I missed the most when migrating to WindowMaker. I've since become used to WindowMaker's "one-dimensional" paging which is also pretty good; I still use AfterStep's ctrl+arrow convention for switching (WM's default is shift+ctrl+arrow).
There's absolutely *nothing* in the GPL itself preventing Microsoft from releasing proprietary Linux software. It didn't stop Corel, StarDivision/Sun or Netscape, so WHY should it stop Microsoft?
If your point is that Microsoft won't port to Linux, an already very popular platform, because they want to keep their posture that the GPL is evil, even though to anyone who understands it it's obvious that the fact that the OS is under the GPL doesn't imply apps for it also have to be GPL, then perhaps you should have been clearer about it. Because now this will degenerate into a completely off-topic thread about why Microsoft is/isn't kept from Linux development by the GPL.
What's interesting here is what they *stand* to lose if their current strategy backfires. In an ideal world the corps spend billions in their control-freak initiatives. Then both users and artists reject this; users refuse to let themselves be controlled and artists find other ways to make their product available to users. Then the corps go bust and you'll have hillary rosen sitting on the sidewalk weeping and wondering why it didn't work.
It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that their intent is NOT so much to stop piracy; if someone really wants a song (or an album) without paying for it, as long as there's a way for the person to *hear* the actual sound, there will be a way to make "unauthorized" copies of it. Granted, quality might suffer a bit, but then again, if you're really that cheap, you won't mind a bit.
What's going to happen is they're going to alienate legitimate users into not buying their products.
man, if the people in charge of these topics can't figure out how to get out of the MS Word trap, then what kind of fate awaits the ecosystem and those poor animals? (meaning the feathery or furry ones with teeth, claws, beaks and stuff like that, not the drooling idiots who think the keyboard is only useful for typing stuff into word).
Well, back when AMD bought NexGen, they trashed NexGen's plans for intel-incompatible dsp-like instructions for their next processor (what was to later become the AMD K6) and licensed Intel's MMX instruction set instead. While not a complete architecture, AMD did choose to license a competitor's instructions.
Take the ATRAC psycho-acoustic compression scheme used for minidiscs, where the quality is virtually indistinguishable from that of a CD. A minidisc stores 140 MB of raw data, so that means a bitrate of approximately 256 kbps. So compression can give good results, if you use an adequate bitrate and a quality encoder. There's no reason for MP3 files to NOT sound good, too; of course, if you're talking of a 128kbps rip of a complex orchestral recording, you're gonna suffer a loss, but the same piece encoded at 320kbps will hardly be distinguishable from the real thing.
Unless of course, you're talking about one of those freak audiophiles who spend 30 grand on a bizantine rig which can only play vinyl LPs...
there's this thing called a "book" which is sort of like a magazine but with no pictures and more pages. On my last trip I read 2 books while flying and I didn't get bored at all. Give it a try, hey, they even sell books at the airport's newsshop.
Yeah, and let's enable the database so that you can point your cue::cat at the book's barcode and up pops the relevant page with information about which book you're reading.
Sounds like those old 486's would make decent terminals for a linux terminal server (LTSP). Just put one big badass server on the lab, install LTSP, and presto - every 486 has a login manager screen, users log in and apps get run on the server, displayed on each workstation - works like a charm.
I can tell you demoing LTSP has never failed to leave people drooling, and while the server should be a big machine (by Linux standards, you probably DON'T need 16 GB RAM, 8 processors and 1 TB of disk space), the clients themselves can be as lowly as necessary (as long as they can boot a Linux kernel, have a compatible graphics card, NIC and mouse, you're all set).
Titanium scratches easier than most glasses. Of the three most used varieties (sapphire, mineral crystal and acrylic) only acrylic is softer than titanium (gotta love those cheap digital watches which are so scratched you can no longer see the time). Altough both mineral crystal and sapphire are more brittle (IE more prone to breaking when being hit really hard), they're also much much harder (IE not prone to get scratched).
interestingly, titanium is also more brittle than steel (IE less flexible).
Watches are some of the most common consumer goods available in titanium. Citizen is the largest titanium watch maker in the world.
A concern with titanium watches is that, while they're light and strong, they also tend to scratch more easily than steel. This is a concern because in time a titanium watch will look more battered than a stainless steel one. Citizen actually claims to have a process to reduce titanium's "softness" (can't recall if it's an alloy or a special coating), thus reducing this problem.
jabber: much more than just IM
on
Programming Jabber
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Jabber's site clearly states that if all you want is being able to chat with your friends in ICQ, Yahoo, AIM, MSN and/or IRC, then Jabber is probably not what you need, and they do indeed recommend trillian as a good choice. If you want a Free alternative, Everybuddy might be worth a look.
The problems with proprietary IM networks come, precisely, from those networks' desire to remain proprietary. Witness the self-blocking efforts AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and ICQ perform on each other, which, inevitably, hit free clients designed to connect to those networks. Jabber's transports are no exception; if AOL decides to block MSN Messenger by altering its protocol, we're gonna get hit too.
Jabber's ability to access other IM networks is to be seen as a "bonus feature", probably not the main reason to use Jabber. Jabber excels at letting an organization (not necessarily a company, but a group of individuals and/or machines) in need of communication, do just that, communicate, using well-documented protocols, Free software, and self-maintained infrastructure. Granted, maintaining a Jabber server is not too easy (but it's not impossible either), but the knowledge that you're not subject to the whims of AOL, Microsoft and whatnot, plus the sheer number of client software available to suit every user's needs (there's TONS of Jabber clients, I settled for Shaolo on Linux and JIM on Windows) make Jabber an intriguing option for those in need of serious communication.
Actually, that's not the only purpose. It's also capable of simulating nuclear material degradation, enabling better disposal and/or storage techniques for existing, no longer useful material. Also, future, faster computers (such as the petaflops machine being planned by Sandia National Labs, Compaq and Applera) will be used for genetic engineering and other biology-related research. Naysayers will think "bio weapons", then again, I guess you can find evil intent everywhere if you just look hard enough.
it gracefully handles the slashdot effect. 15 minutes after the story was posted, the site is still responding snappily. If the sub business doesn't work, they can seek work as webmasters. Or maybe they WERE webmasters before the bust?
The basis for this story was on slashdot almost a month ago. A repeat? something derived from the previous story's information? the key point here is Bernstein's paper on factoring huge numbers, about which some people have commented, and which appears to "work out" on a mathematical level.
Taco said in an IRC Q&A question that the value of comments is questionable. Therefore, the reason to post any stories on slashdot is, of course, to get us to see their new ads.
my guess is you'll be needing to budget a lot of spare parts for your computers, manly CPU and power supply fans, which will not enjoy being submerged in chalk dust. That's assuming you don't mind about hygiene because if you do, you'll also need to think about maintenance for your computers.
Oh, sure, and next thing we know the US sends aircraft carriers and bombs the hell out of whatever southamerican or asian country for "harboring terrorists" and providing server hosting for the bnetd project.
Mine is a Seiko 5, was US $130, after spending $30 on a black leather strap because the included bracelet pinched my wrist hairs. Seiko 5's, when new, range in price from maybe 70 to over 200 bucks.
Citizen and Orient also make new automatics in this price range; I had my eye set on a US $160 orient automatic, titanium with display back, but I went for the Seiko because I like the brand better.
Also, someone mentioned vintage watches which are a good way to get a good automatic at great value.
Finally, as someone also mentioned, you could justify spending maybe a thousand dollars on a good automatic watch (among those in the know, $1000 is not considered a lot of money for a watch), knowing that the watch is likely to outlast you.
There's plenty of watch information on the net, visit timezone for tons of information and discussion forums.
I faced the same dilemma a few months ago, when my casio databank broke (the damn thing was chromed but made of plastic so it broke).
I realised that most of the databank's functionality was already duplicated in my Palm V, and since the Palm is much more comfortable, I didn't use the watch for data keeping anymore.
So I figured I'd get a "unix philosophy" watch. That is, a watch that does one thing, and does it well.
Since what a watch does is tell time, I got a simple, analog, automatic watch (that's mechanical, not a single electronic component inside). This baby tells the time with acceptable accuracy (+15 seconds a day, which sounds pathetic, but I still need to have it adjusted), doesn't need to be wound (hence the "automatic"), and, unlike quartz watches, will withstand an EMP blast, will keep working on extremely cold weather, and will never need a battery. Additionally, this one is made of steel (i made sure of that after the fiasco with the casio) so chances of me breaking it are pretty slim. And hey, it only cost 100 bucks!
Seriously, the thrill of having more functionality on your wrist than on your desktop computer will probably fade with age. *i'm getting old*
The "ask slashdot" law of answers to backup-related questions:
Any discussion about backup solutions of ANY kind will turn into a flamewar about whether current, huge, cheap hard disks are better for backup than tapes.
Remember when AMD launched the K5, Cyrix and IBM had the 6x86? they developed a naming scheme to better compare their processors' performance with Intel's, since they were touted as being more powerful at any given MHz that an equivalent Intel processor at that same speed.
Hence we had beauties like the IBM/Cyrix 6x86-PR150+, a performance rating equivalent or better than a 150-MHz Intel Pentium.
yet all these processors died a horrible death (AMD's were just superseded by the K6 series) and everyone went back to MHz.
Maybe when AMD is established in everybody's mind as the performance leader, they'll start giving MHz again, and Intel will have to devise an "AR" or AMD Rating, so that they can specify to the public that their 2 GHz processors have an AR of 1500, meaning they're as fast (ONLY as fast) as a 1.5 GHz AMD processor.
Slashdot Mirror
afterstep used to have a similar feature (maybe it still has it? haven't used it in a while), which I loved, and was one of the things I missed the most when migrating to WindowMaker. I've since become used to WindowMaker's "one-dimensional" paging which is also pretty good; I still use AfterStep's ctrl+arrow convention for switching (WM's default is shift+ctrl+arrow).
Wrong assumption. I don't have one. Also, while it's hard to know someone else's number, it's not 100% impossible.
Maybe your concept of "the world" means "USA" or something like that?
There's absolutely *nothing* in the GPL itself preventing Microsoft from releasing proprietary Linux software. It didn't stop Corel, StarDivision/Sun or Netscape, so WHY should it stop Microsoft?
If your point is that Microsoft won't port to Linux, an already very popular platform, because they want to keep their posture that the GPL is evil, even though to anyone who understands it it's obvious that the fact that the OS is under the GPL doesn't imply apps for it also have to be GPL, then perhaps you should have been clearer about it. Because now this will degenerate into a completely off-topic thread about why Microsoft is/isn't kept from Linux development by the GPL.
What's interesting here is what they *stand* to lose if their current strategy backfires. In an ideal world the corps spend billions in their control-freak initiatives. Then both users and artists reject this; users refuse to let themselves be controlled and artists find other ways to make their product available to users. Then the corps go bust and you'll have hillary rosen sitting on the sidewalk weeping and wondering why it didn't work.
It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that their intent is NOT so much to stop piracy; if someone really wants a song (or an album) without paying for it, as long as there's a way for the person to *hear* the actual sound, there will be a way to make "unauthorized" copies of it. Granted, quality might suffer a bit, but then again, if you're really that cheap, you won't mind a bit.
What's going to happen is they're going to alienate legitimate users into not buying their products.
man, if the people in charge of these topics can't figure out how to get out of the MS Word trap, then what kind of fate awaits the ecosystem and those poor animals? (meaning the feathery or furry ones with teeth, claws, beaks and stuff like that, not the drooling idiots who think the keyboard is only useful for typing stuff into word).
There are countries in which piracy is far greater than in the US. Any accounts on how the BSA works in these countries?
BSA = BullShit Alliance
Well, back when AMD bought NexGen, they trashed NexGen's plans for intel-incompatible dsp-like instructions for their next processor (what was to later become the AMD K6) and licensed Intel's MMX instruction set instead. While not a complete architecture, AMD did choose to license a competitor's instructions.
Take the ATRAC psycho-acoustic compression scheme used for minidiscs, where the quality is virtually indistinguishable from that of a CD. A minidisc stores 140 MB of raw data, so that means a bitrate of approximately 256 kbps. So compression can give good results, if you use an adequate bitrate and a quality encoder. There's no reason for MP3 files to NOT sound good, too; of course, if you're talking of a 128kbps rip of a complex orchestral recording, you're gonna suffer a loss, but the same piece encoded at 320kbps will hardly be distinguishable from the real thing.
Unless of course, you're talking about one of those freak audiophiles who spend 30 grand on a bizantine rig which can only play vinyl LPs...
there's this thing called a "book" which is sort of like a magazine but with no pictures and more pages. On my last trip I read 2 books while flying and I didn't get bored at all. Give it a try, hey, they even sell books at the airport's newsshop.
Yeah, and let's enable the database so that you can point your cue::cat at the book's barcode and up pops the relevant page with information about which book you're reading.
Ain't it easier to just look at the cover??
Sounds like those old 486's would make decent terminals for a linux terminal server (LTSP). Just put one big badass server on the lab, install LTSP, and presto - every 486 has a login manager screen, users log in and apps get run on the server, displayed on each workstation - works like a charm.
I can tell you demoing LTSP has never failed to leave people drooling, and while the server should be a big machine (by Linux standards, you probably DON'T need 16 GB RAM, 8 processors and 1 TB of disk space), the clients themselves can be as lowly as necessary (as long as they can boot a Linux kernel, have a compatible graphics card, NIC and mouse, you're all set).
interestingly, titanium is also more brittle than steel (IE less flexible).
Watches are some of the most common consumer goods available in titanium. Citizen is the largest titanium watch maker in the world.
A concern with titanium watches is that, while they're light and strong, they also tend to scratch more easily than steel. This is a concern because in time a titanium watch will look more battered than a stainless steel one. Citizen actually claims to have a process to reduce titanium's "softness" (can't recall if it's an alloy or a special coating), thus reducing this problem.
The problems with proprietary IM networks come, precisely, from those networks' desire to remain proprietary. Witness the self-blocking efforts AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and ICQ perform on each other, which, inevitably, hit free clients designed to connect to those networks. Jabber's transports are no exception; if AOL decides to block MSN Messenger by altering its protocol, we're gonna get hit too.
Jabber's ability to access other IM networks is to be seen as a "bonus feature", probably not the main reason to use Jabber. Jabber excels at letting an organization (not necessarily a company, but a group of individuals and/or machines) in need of communication, do just that, communicate, using well-documented protocols, Free software, and self-maintained infrastructure. Granted, maintaining a Jabber server is not too easy (but it's not impossible either), but the knowledge that you're not subject to the whims of AOL, Microsoft and whatnot, plus the sheer number of client software available to suit every user's needs (there's TONS of Jabber clients, I settled for Shaolo on Linux and JIM on Windows) make Jabber an intriguing option for those in need of serious communication.
Actually, that's not the only purpose. It's also capable of simulating nuclear material degradation, enabling better disposal and/or storage techniques for existing, no longer useful material.
Also, future, faster computers (such as the petaflops machine being planned by Sandia National Labs, Compaq and Applera) will be used for genetic engineering and other biology-related research. Naysayers will think "bio weapons", then again, I guess you can find evil intent everywhere if you just look hard enough.
it gracefully handles the slashdot effect. 15 minutes after the story was posted, the site is still responding snappily. If the sub business doesn't work, they can seek work as webmasters. Or maybe they WERE webmasters before the bust?
The basis for this story was on slashdot almost a month ago. A repeat? something derived from the previous story's information? the key point here is Bernstein's paper on factoring huge numbers, about which some people have commented, and which appears to "work out" on a mathematical level.
Taco said in an IRC Q&A question that the value of comments is questionable. Therefore, the reason to post any stories on slashdot is, of course, to get us to see their new ads.
yeah only your newton is about 4 times bigger than palm handhelds, and it weighs a whole pound.
The newton was way ahead of its time, too much for its own good.
my guess is you'll be needing to budget a lot of spare parts for your computers, manly CPU and power supply fans, which will not enjoy being submerged in chalk dust. That's assuming you don't mind about hygiene because if you do, you'll also need to think about maintenance for your computers.
Oh, sure, and next thing we know the US sends aircraft carriers and bombs the hell out of whatever southamerican or asian country for "harboring terrorists" and providing server hosting for the bnetd project.
Dont you love bullies?
Mine is a Seiko 5, was US $130, after spending $30 on a black leather strap because the included bracelet pinched my wrist hairs. Seiko 5's, when new, range in price from maybe 70 to over 200 bucks.
Citizen and Orient also make new automatics in this price range; I had my eye set on a US $160 orient automatic, titanium with display back, but I went for the Seiko because I like the brand better.
Also, someone mentioned vintage watches which are a good way to get a good automatic at great value.
Finally, as someone also mentioned, you could justify spending maybe a thousand dollars on a good automatic watch (among those in the know, $1000 is not considered a lot of money for a watch), knowing that the watch is likely to outlast you.
There's plenty of watch information on the net, visit timezone for tons of information and discussion forums.
I faced the same dilemma a few months ago, when my casio databank broke (the damn thing was chromed but made of plastic so it broke).
I realised that most of the databank's functionality was already duplicated in my Palm V, and since the Palm is much more comfortable, I didn't use the watch for data keeping anymore.
So I figured I'd get a "unix philosophy" watch. That is, a watch that does one thing, and does it well.
Since what a watch does is tell time, I got a simple, analog, automatic watch (that's mechanical, not a single electronic component inside). This baby tells the time with acceptable accuracy (+15 seconds a day, which sounds pathetic, but I still need to have it adjusted), doesn't need to be wound (hence the "automatic"), and, unlike quartz watches, will withstand an EMP blast, will keep working on extremely cold weather, and will never need a battery. Additionally, this one is made of steel (i made sure of that after the fiasco with the casio) so chances of me breaking it are pretty slim. And hey, it only cost 100 bucks!
Seriously, the thrill of having more functionality on your wrist than on your desktop computer will probably fade with age. *i'm getting old*
The "ask slashdot" law of answers to backup-related questions:
Any discussion about backup solutions of ANY kind will turn into a flamewar about whether current, huge, cheap hard disks are better for backup than tapes.
Remember when AMD launched the K5, Cyrix and IBM had the 6x86? they developed a naming scheme to better compare their processors' performance with Intel's, since they were touted as being more powerful at any given MHz that an equivalent Intel processor at that same speed.
Hence we had beauties like the IBM/Cyrix 6x86-PR150+, a performance rating equivalent or better than a 150-MHz Intel Pentium.
yet all these processors died a horrible death (AMD's were just superseded by the K6 series) and everyone went back to MHz.
Maybe when AMD is established in everybody's mind as the performance leader, they'll start giving MHz again, and Intel will have to devise an "AR" or AMD Rating, so that they can specify to the public that their 2 GHz processors have an AR of 1500, meaning they're as fast (ONLY as fast) as a 1.5 GHz AMD processor.