Yes, there are some socially responsible HW companies out there. But the main question is not Who is responsible?, but How are they responsible?.
Are they good on the Environment? To their workers? Racially diversified? Community Consious? (You get the idea.) No single company can be 100% in all those areas, but some can come close. What you need to do is get a list of what's most important to you. A search over at google (http://www.google.com) for "Socially responsible companies -investment" will point you to several sites about companies that are/are not responsible. Also, take a look at http://www.bsr.org for about a googleplex of "Responsibility Categories".
That's the point! (And how/why it won't be used for very long as a pirate distribution channel). As soon as the copyright owners get a clue (When? I don't know), they will start legitemate Freenet servers, and start distributing bogus copies of their materials (SW/Movies/MP3s, etc) Once Joe User gets burned too many times when downloading "This weeks popular artist", but in fact gets an Oral Roberts sermon on theft, they will stop using it and go back to their old/trusted distribution schemes
Why isn't Warner Bothers, etc. Doing this already?
So, does that mean it's time to buy Futures in Canadian Real Estate?
CSG_SurferDude
Breakup Imminent? (Quick analysis)
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
Hmmm, Historically the biggest violaters of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act have had Structural remedies involved (The breakup of the company). For instance, AT&T, Standard Oil, and (That big aluminum company right before WWII whose name I have forgotten). So, there is a precedent for a breakup.
Of course, last year MS (intentionally?) changed departments around internally in what was a transparent attempt to make a structural remedy much harder.
So, the question is not What penalties will MS get?, but How will the company be broken up?
My personal bet is
Operating Systems
Applications
Everything else they own.
But the question then becomes, "What's an application?
So, in order to slow down the number of folks trying to download from my machine, I need to set my speed to a T1?;-)
Slowest Dang T1 I've ever seen!
CSG_SurferDude
But there are still problems with it....
on
Gnutella v.56 Out?
·
· Score: 3
Unfortunately, there are still WAY too many problems with Gnutella.
Searches still hit every machine on the network. A significant portion of my bandwidth goes to dealing with all the fools looking for Star Wars, The Matrix, Sex, Porn, P0rn,.mpg,.avi, and Debbie does Dallas! This situation will only get worse as more and more folks use this software. This can only be solved by some kind of centralized search server (ala Nappy), or a distributed set of search servers (Fast Machines on Fast connections "Volunteer" to ast as a search server.)
Some kind of Bandwidth throttling is Necessary. Having 14 folks downloading from my poor little PC at the wrong end of a 33.6 connection is silly. Unfortunately, Setting my speed to 28K on Gnutella doesn't do much. You would think these folks would abort the transfer when the transfer rate goes to 0.1 K/s, but no......
Gnutella needs some better regular expressions, and some way of limiting responces by filesize, connection rate, etc.
Some kind of chat mechanism is needed. I saw too many folks using the "search history" as a chat mechanism. (Talk about Chat lag.)
A better Time-Out mechanism is still needed. If I don't start downloading in 5 seconds, the transfer rate is going to be too slow to bother with. (This should be, of course, user definable.)
CSG_SurferDude
Re:Future Incompatabilities?
on
Intel Roadmap
·
· Score: 3
Who would want to upgrade just part of their system? By the time I start thinking about a new CPU, everything else in the case is old also. It's not just CPUs that need upgrading, it's RAM, Disk, Cache, DVD, etc.
For example, my last computer (When I bought it), had a Whopping 40 megs of ram, and a 1X cd, and a Huge 1.3 Gig hard drive.
The next computer I bought had a PIII-650, 13 Gig Drive, DVD, and 128 Megs of RAM. Not quite as cool (real-time adjusted), but I'm married with 3 kids now. None the less, I expect this box to get through the next 3-4 years before I start lusting after that P-5-2000 with a Gig of Ram and a 500 Gig Hard Drive.
Yes, but you all missed the press release this morning from MS...
Redmond, WAMicroSoft announced today the formation of the Windows 2003 team. Bill Gates said "Windows 2003 will be the best release of Windows ever." He also claimed that "Windows 2003 will use 40 gigabytes of Hard Disk space in order to give the users more of what they want, which as we all know, are pictures of all those Babe-Watch chicks!" As a concession to the Linux community, Mr Gates also stated "We will also be including a selection of Natalie Portman Pictures as well, ".
As a side note to the whole certification issue, SAGE, A subgroup of Usenix, has been working on the Unix Systems Administrator Certification for several years now. The legal issues are hard, as well as even the basic issues of What do you certify?
These organizations are professional thrid party groups that are not tied to any particular vendor, and will carry much more weight in the industry than any vendor specific "Certification". (IMHO)
When will all these new toys become affordable to the masses? Right now, all these toys are in the "high-Tech/Geek toy" market/price range. I want one that costs as much as my set of Furbys did.
The point of the books isn't "Dummy's guide to programming", it's "Wizards guide to smart programming". 98% of all programmers don't ever need to know what's in these books. It's for that 2% of us who for one reason or another can't use the standard sort libraries, and need to know (intimately) what the different sort strategies and implementations are, and when and WHY to use one over another.
For instance, do you know when to use a bubble sort instead of some variant of a binary tree sort? Didn't think so. And why, in certain cases, you would RATHER use a bubble sort than anything else? What's a stable vs an unstable sort? Most programmers don't care. But the use of the proper sort routine can speed up your program so that it runs in 1-5% of the time it might with a different sort routine.
There are two points here that most everyone here seems to be missing....
Point 1) These kits are NOT meant for us, they are meant for kids. Granted that a large number of these kits are being bought by GLU (Geeks Like Us), the majority of them are being purchased by parents for Geeks-In-Training. Think back to when you were 12. This would have been the coolest present. That's the market where this toy is being sold.
As such, it is well worth their time to work on MS versions of the software, just like it is worth it to all the game designers out there. MS pc's rule the home market. (Sad, but true.)
Point 2) Books are a good thing. And while you can find most of this information on the web someplace, a book is still the best choice of media for non-time dependent information. You can write on it, scribble in it, bookmark it, read it in the bathroom, or read it in bed under the covers with your flashlight (And just how many of us remember doing that!;-)
Books are also good in terms of information density. And both of these books are rather dense. (good signal to noise, etc.) It is much easier (for me at least) to skip around these books than to go flipping through web pages...
As a side note, Mindstorms is not as cool as any of the Motorola (68XX derivative), Intel (80XX Derivative), or PIC derivative robots out there, but it is easier to get started with Mindstorms than any of the other alternatives that require soldering and a basic knowledge of electronics and programming.
CSG_SurferDude
Imagine a picture of a MadCat on a Surfboard HERE!
I hate to date myself (but I will) but way back when, we got to add lines to feed the line-eater on our posts, and filled them with all sorts of vague (and not so vague) references to selling drugs, bombing buildings, etc. in the belief that there was some computer somewhere snarfing down all our messages.
Now I find out it's true. I am not sure if I should be happy or sad. From The Jargon Dictionary
NSA line eater n. The National Security Agency trawling program sometimes assumed to be reading the net for the U.S. Government's spooks. Most hackers describe it as a mythical beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and many believe in acting as though it exists just in case. Some netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear materials', `Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in their sig blocks in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and overload the creature. The GNU version of EMACS actually has a command that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious anarcho-verbiage into your edited text.
There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words from telephone trunks. This one was making the rounds in the late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition needs of such a project. On the basis of mass-storage costs alone it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just let them listen in. Speech-recognition technology can't do this job even now (1993), and almost certainly won't in this millennium, either. The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this Big Brotherly affair. The letter writer then revealed his actual agenda by offering --- at an amazing low price, just this once, we take VISA and MasterCard --- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof gangs of the world to get on with their business.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, there are some socially responsible HW companies out there. But the main question is not Who is responsible?, but How are they responsible?.
Are they good on the Environment? To their workers? Racially diversified? Community Consious? (You get the idea.) No single company can be 100% in all those areas, but some can come close. What you need to do is get a list of what's most important to you. A search over at google (http://www.google.com) for "Socially responsible companies -investment" will point you to several sites about companies that are/are not responsible. Also, take a look at http://www.bsr.org for about a googleplex of "Responsibility Categories".
CSG_SurferDude
And that's just Mr. Pone's MP3 Archives!
And you thought nobody would get the reference! ;-)
CSG_SurferDude
(Off topic, but oh well.)
Somebody moderate the parent to this post up, it was acutally funny!!!
That's the point! (And how/why it won't be used for very long as a pirate distribution channel).
As soon as the copyright owners get a clue (When? I don't know), they will start legitemate Freenet servers, and start distributing bogus copies of their materials (SW/Movies/MP3s, etc) Once Joe User gets burned too many times when downloading "This weeks popular artist", but in fact gets an Oral Roberts sermon on theft, they will stop using it and go back to their old/trusted distribution schemes
Why isn't Warner Bothers, etc. Doing this already?
CSG_SurferDude
CSG_SurferDude
So, does that mean it's time to buy Futures in Canadian Real Estate?
CSG_SurferDude
Hmmm, Historically the biggest violaters of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act have had Structural remedies involved (The breakup of the company). For instance, AT&T, Standard Oil, and (That big aluminum company right before WWII whose name I have forgotten). So, there is a precedent for a breakup.
Of course, last year MS (intentionally?) changed departments around internally in what was a transparent attempt to make a structural remedy much harder.
So, the question is not What penalties will MS get?, but How will the company be broken up?
My personal bet is
But the question then becomes, "What's an application?
CSG_SurferDude
So, in order to slow down the number of folks trying to download from my machine, I need to set my speed to a T1? ;-)
Slowest Dang T1 I've ever seen!
CSG_SurferDude
Unfortunately, there are still WAY too many problems with Gnutella.
CSG_SurferDude
Who would want to upgrade just part of their system? By the time I start thinking about a new CPU, everything else in the case is old also. It's not just CPUs that need upgrading, it's RAM, Disk, Cache, DVD, etc.
For example, my last computer (When I bought it), had a Whopping 40 megs of ram, and a 1X cd, and a Huge 1.3 Gig hard drive.
The next computer I bought had a PIII-650, 13 Gig Drive, DVD, and 128 Megs of RAM. Not quite as cool (real-time adjusted), but I'm married with 3 kids now. None the less, I expect this box to get through the next 3-4 years before I start lusting after that P-5-2000 with a Gig of Ram and a 500 Gig Hard Drive.
And tell me, Just why do you think Moderators Suck!? Where's Eliza when you really need her? CSG_SurferDude
Yes, but you all missed the press release this morning from MS...
Redmond, WA MicroSoft announced today the formation of the Windows 2003 team. Bill Gates said "Windows 2003 will be the best release of Windows ever." He also claimed that "Windows 2003 will use 40 gigabytes of Hard Disk space in order to give the users more of what they want, which as we all know, are pictures of all those Babe-Watch chicks!" As a concession to the Linux community, Mr Gates also stated "We will also be including a selection of Natalie Portman Pictures as well, ".
CSG_SurferDude
As a side note to the whole certification issue, SAGE, A subgroup of Usenix, has been working on the Unix Systems Administrator Certification for several years now. The legal issues are hard, as well as even the basic issues of What do you certify?
Other certification programs are from SANS and from Linux Professional Institute
These organizations are professional thrid party groups that are not tied to any particular vendor, and will carry much more weight in the industry than any vendor specific "Certification". (IMHO)
(BTW: FUML Rocks!)
Sure, Movie reviews are cool once in a while.
But, A This movie came out months ago.
B The movie sucked.
C The movie has little/nothing to do with News for Nerds, News that Matters
If you want to do movie reviews, PLEASE at least do current ones.
CSG_SurferDude
But the real question is....
When will all these new toys become affordable to the masses? Right now, all these toys are in the "high-Tech/Geek toy" market/price range. I want one that costs as much as my set of Furbys did.
CSG_SurferDude
That's what you get for not having a T1 to the house. ;-)
Maybe now you'll listen when all your geek friends tell you not to buy something.
CSG_SurferDude
Wasting time at work again!
Nope, missed it by about 2 seconds.
The point of the books isn't "Dummy's guide to programming", it's "Wizards guide to smart programming". 98% of all programmers don't ever need to know what's in these books. It's for that 2% of us who for one reason or another can't use the standard sort libraries, and need to know (intimately) what the different sort strategies and implementations are, and when and WHY to use one over another.
For instance, do you know when to use a bubble sort instead of some variant of a binary tree sort? Didn't think so. And why, in certain cases, you would RATHER use a bubble sort than anything else? What's a stable vs an unstable sort? Most programmers don't care. But the use of the proper sort routine can speed up your program so that it runs in 1-5% of the time it might with a different sort routine.
And why yes, I am a sort geek.
In all of this, I do not know which is funnier, either A) Transmeta is being /.'ed, or B) that /. is being /.'ed!
Isn't there a mirror of Transmeta someplace?
>>>>>>CSG_SurferDude
Imagine a picture of a MadCat riding a surfboard here!
There are two points here that most everyone here seems to be missing....
Point 1) These kits are NOT meant for us, they are meant for kids. Granted that a large number of these kits are being bought by GLU (Geeks Like Us), the majority of them are being purchased by parents for Geeks-In-Training. Think back to when you were 12. This would have been the coolest present. That's the market where this toy is being sold.
As such, it is well worth their time to work on MS versions of the software, just like it is worth it to all the game designers out there. MS pc's rule the home market. (Sad, but true.)
Point 2) Books are a good thing. And while you can find most of this information on the web someplace, a book is still the best choice of media for non-time dependent information. You can write on it, scribble in it, bookmark it, read it in the bathroom, or read it in bed under the covers with your flashlight (And just how many of us remember doing that! ;-)
Books are also good in terms of information density. And both of these books are rather dense. (good signal to noise, etc.) It is much easier (for me at least) to skip around these books than to go flipping through web pages...
As a side note, Mindstorms is not as cool as any of the Motorola (68XX derivative), Intel (80XX Derivative), or PIC derivative robots out there, but it is easier to get started with Mindstorms than any of the other alternatives that require soldering and a basic knowledge of electronics and programming.
CSG_SurferDude
Imagine a picture of a MadCat on a Surfboard HERE!
Geez, and here I was thinking it was safe to read slashdot! PLEASE! NO MORE Y2K STORIES!!!!!!
CSG_SurferDude
Interestingly enough, they have their ping port open, and my ping to them is averaging 167 ms.
pings to the other few sites that still have their ping port open range between 67 and 111 ms.
I wonder why their server is so slow...
I hate to date myself (but I will) but way back when, we got to add lines to feed the line-eater on our posts, and filled them with all sorts of vague (and not so vague) references to selling drugs, bombing buildings, etc. in the belief that there was some computer somewhere snarfing down all our messages.
Now I find out it's true. I am not sure if I should be happy or sad. From The Jargon Dictionary
NSA line eater n. The National Security Agency trawling program sometimes assumed to be reading the net for the U.S. Government's spooks. Most hackers describe it as a mythical beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and many believe in acting as though it exists just in case. Some netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear materials', `Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in their sig blocks in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and overload the creature. The GNU version of EMACS actually has a command that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious anarcho-verbiage into your edited text.
There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words from telephone trunks. This one was making the rounds in the late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition needs of such a project. On the basis of mass-storage costs alone it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just let them listen in. Speech-recognition technology can't do this job even now (1993), and almost certainly won't in this millennium, either. The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this Big Brotherly affair. The letter writer then revealed his actual agenda by offering --- at an amazing low price, just this once, we take VISA and MasterCard --- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof gangs of the world to get on with their business.
NSA_LINE.HTML