Note to NetWare users: General Support is Coming to an End
2 March 2010 - 5:11pm
novell.com

This will come as no surprise, since they've been talking about it for awhile. On March 7, 2010, NetWare will end its phase of general support. Extended support will be available between March 8, 2010 and March 7, 2012. For three years after that, until March 7, 2015, customers may utilize Novell's self-support resources...

.

In fact, if I asked this to a 100 engineers, I'd really expect that at least 99 of them will immediately ask "why the fuck would you want to do that!?". And the one who doesn't probably works at a harddisk manufacturer.

And yet the who doesn't is PRECISELY who you want to be talking to - the other 99 have NOTHING to offer you.

.

This wasn't my experience but I guess I'm atypical. I'm self-taught, but in 1987 I bought the 3 extant volumes of Knuth's Art of Computer Programming. You don't need calculus to understand the math, just limits. I can't imagine its taking YEARS for the average person to learn the concept of limits

Off the top of my head - as a first-order approximation - I'd guess that you have an IQ of 140+ [certainly at least 135; very doubtful that it's any lower than 130].

We're talking about trying to teach this stuff to people with IQs down around 120 - maybe even as low as 115 [in a worst-case scenario].

Those folks can't teach themselves Knuth - they have to have it spoonfed to them, over the course of many, many semesters.

And even then, it's doubtful that they'll ever get much beyond HTML or Visual Basic.

You could teach people all they need to know about big O and common algorithms in an afternoon.

Sorry, but I gotta call B.S. on that one.

You need YEARS of mathematical training to grok this stuff.

Have you ever tried teaching college level programming to recent American high school graduates?

I have had young adults [some already with bachelor's degrees who were coming back to school to brush up] who couldn't reliably compute anything in Base-16 [hexadecimal].

They need the better part of a decade's worth of intensive mathematics training to get to the point that they could really grok the difference between what goes into a "slow" O(n^2) algorithm and its "fast" O(nlog[n]) counterpart.

And let's face it, lots of people doing basic HTML or VBA [Visual Basic for Applications] probably don't have sufficiently high IQs to make that transition.

And even if they do have sufficiently high IQs, then summoning the self-discipline [not to mention just the spare time] to tackle this stuff is going to require a really formidable application of the will.

Which is not to say that it can't be done, but the odds are definitely stacked against them.

I'd say you need to learn enough mathematics to get an appreciation for what goes into the discovery of an O(nlog[n]) algorithm -vs- its [naive] O(n^2) counterpart.

The problem is that you need to know just an incredible amount of graduate level mathematics to even get a sense of what the Fourier Transform is all about before you can have any sense of awe at how a Fast Fourier Transform would be an improvement over a [naive] "Slow" Fourier Transform.

Heck, I don't know if you can even get a good feeling for the structure of a fast sorting algorithm without having a really strong grounding in infinite series, and that probably requires at least a couple of semesters of Advanced Calculus.

If ever there were a /. post which deserved to modded up to "Score: 6", then this is it.

Americans who still bother to pay taxes in this day and age are both fools and slaves to the charlatans who run outfits like Tesla [and Goldman-Sachs].

Anyone for a French Revolution?

Google just can't seem to go Big Brother soon enough.

Is this a hole nobody knew about or a hole nobody but the people who knew about it knew about, and those people weren't talking?

The only public figure in American society who had anything remotely insightful to say in the last twenty years or so:
.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don't know.

.

In general, the UMA phone will attach to whichever "medium" gives it the stronger signal [either the cellphone tower using true GSM, or else the WiFi hotspot, using UMA = GSM over IP over 802.11g].

And TMobile charges EXACTLY the same rate for GSM [cellphone tower] minutes as for UMA [WiFi hotspot] minutes.

UMA is not quite the same thing as VOIP.

UMA is GSM over IP over 802.11g.

So the signal is broken down as:

[GSM packets encapsulated within IP packets encapsulated within 802.11g packets] -> WiFi Hotspot -> Some other Medium -> IP CLOUD -> POTS/PSTN bridge -> POTS/PSTN

It's similar to VOIP in that you go into the IP CLOUD and then cross over a bridge into POTS/PSTN, but the UMA network keeps track of you as a cell phone, and [* if everything goes well *] allows you to transtion [* fairly seemlessly *] between an 802.11g WiFi hotspot and a cellphone tower, depending on which has the stronger signal.

You can think of UMA as being roughly the same as VOIP, but with the added on-the-fly mobility of a cellphone.

I'm making several points.

1) UMA gives you the flexiblity of using EITHER a cell phone tower OR a WiFi access point - whichever is giving you the stronger signal.

2) T-Mobile has outstanding prepaid plans for as low as $0.10 per minute.

With 1), you have VASTLY more options for connectivity to insure usability - if you are way out in the middle of nowhere, but the Forest Ranger's Station has WiFi, then you can make the call; if you are deep in the bowels of a large building, with no cell tower penetration, but plenty of WiFi hotspots, then you can make the call.

And with 2), you don't have to invest in some obscene monthly phone plan [e.g. (12 X $100/mo = $1200 per year) X 2 years = $2400 commitment]. Instead, you just get a TMobile SIM card, purchase some minutes, and start using the phone when and only when you want to use it.

And your GSM [cell phone tower] minutes are charged at exactly the same rate as your UMA [802.11g WiFi] minutes.

You can get older UMA phones on eBay for as little as $25, a TMobile SIM card activation kit costs $6.99, and you can get 400 minutes for $50 [$0.125 per minute]. So for much less than $100 [including S&H], you are up and running with the most modern & redundant phone technology in the world, and you haven't made any commitment to some ridiculously onerous monthly plan.

why use UMA over 802.11 for .10 a minute when you can use GSM for .10 a minute?

When you live out in the boonies and you have spotty cell tower coverage but excellent broadband coverage.

When you are travelling on the interstate, and there are no cell towers for miles, but the Rest Stop has WiFi.

When you are visiting a state park/national forest/national park with no cell tower coverage, but which has a WiFi hotspot in the Visitor's Center or the Ranger's Station.

When you are deep in the bowels of a large building and have zero cell tower penetration but WiFi hotspots around every corner.

Etc etc etc.

Again: Once you've experienced UMA with prepaid $0.10 plans, you will NEVER go back to $100/month [$1200/year] rip-offs.

Once you have used T-Mobile and UMA at $0.10 per minute, you will NEVER go back to standard plans.

UMA is basically "GSM over IP over 802.11g", and it allows you to make GSM cellphone calls [billed at a standard $0.10 per minute] from any publically accessible WiFi hotspot.

I'd buy an older UMA phone off of eBay, and purchase a $50 [$0.125] or $100 [$0.10] prepaid plan from T-Mobile, and say goodbye to monthly fees forever.

You have heard of this thing called the NEA, right?

And you are familiar with our looming demographic catastrophe, right?

I mean, come on, be serious.

.

None of us seriously expected 747s to invert on crossing the International Date Line, as some more fevered commentators speculated, nor did we expect nuclear power stations to destabilize.

Software Bug Halts F-22 Flight
Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 25 2007, @06:35PM
it.slashdot.org

On Feb. 11, twelve Raptors flying from Hawaii to Japan were forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed all of the F-22s' on-board computers as they crossed the international date line. The delay in arrival in Japan was previously reported, with rumors of problems with the software. CNN television, however, this morning reported that every fighter completely lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. They reportedly had to turn around and follow their tankers by visual contact back to Hawaii...

.