Comment Re:Reduce gun violence? (Score 3, Insightful) 436
BS
He's a man and not a king and as such he has no more entitlement to personal safety than anyone else.
Comment Re:Storm (Score 1) 8
Thunder, lightning, and intermittent power - not too bad.
Barns tumbling down - now we're talking a storm. Are tornadoes common or not down there?
I presume that the lay of the land is a bit different in Georgia than Iowa - a little more "closed" where you can't see very far anyway - that would bother me.
I've been out storm spotting a few times in the last few years (usually get called out 4-5 times per summer) and I've seen skies that were truly scary a handful of times (scary enough to warrant a call home to get everyone downstairs).
Barns tumbling down - now we're talking a storm. Are tornadoes common or not down there?
I presume that the lay of the land is a bit different in Georgia than Iowa - a little more "closed" where you can't see very far anyway - that would bother me.
I've been out storm spotting a few times in the last few years (usually get called out 4-5 times per summer) and I've seen skies that were truly scary a handful of times (scary enough to warrant a call home to get everyone downstairs).
Comment Re:Storm (Score 1) 8
If it's the first time they've run the storm siren, how often do you get exciting weather?
Comment I am also "represented" by such views (Score 1) 5
Senator Harkin (50% Iowa-D; 50% Bahamas) is also behind the push for reimposing the fairness doctrine.
How Do You Stay Upbeat Amidst the Idiocy? 442
Techdirt has a wonderful summary of how hard it is sometimes to stay upbeat when faced with some of the complete idiocy that intelligent, tech-savvy readers often have to deal with in their day-to-day lives. While the frustration will probably never go away, nor will the news calling attention to it, it does seem that opening people's eyes to problems helps things move in the right direction, so keep it up. "Yes, we're in the midst of a brutal financial mess — but that won't stop innovation. Yes, incumbent forces, with short-sighted plans and a desire to hold back the tides are annoying and disruptive (not in a good way) in the short run. But even they are finding they can't hold back progress. Robert Friedel has a wonderful book called A Culture of Improvement that details how we, as a society, are constantly looking to improve on what we already have. We add ideas and ingenuity to old concepts and build something better — not because of the desire to grab some "intellectual property," but because of the desire to improve our own lot, to build a better tool that we want to use. Incumbent short-sighted players have been able to hinder and harm progress, but they can't keep it down completely. That culture of improvement can't be stopped entirely."
Comment good car accessory (Score 1) 2
I've got an older model of that - it gives a lot of good information.
Feed U.S./Canadian Dispute over Border Crossing Procedures (schneier.com)
Submission + - Water Vapor More Important Than Carbon Dioxide?
An anonymous reader writes: University of Wisconsin climatologist Reid Bryson has argued that the climate is changing but carbon dioxide is not the main cause. According to Bryson, water vapor absorbs 80% of the heat from the Earth's surface, and carbon dioxide absorbs only 0.08%. He believes that computer models that predict future climate put too much emphasis on carbon dioxide and not enough on water vapor and cloud coverage. Ice core studies show atmospheric carbon dioxide tracking closely with temperatures, but also show that carbon dioxide changes follow temperature changes, rather than lead. Bryson blames the long-term natural variation of the climate for our current warming: 'All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it's absurd. Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air.'
Submission + - First ever national email archive to be created
os2man writes: "The Email Britain campaign, which will run throughout May, asks the British public to make email history by forwarding a memorable or significant email from their sent mail or inbox, for inclusion in a digital archive that will be stored at the British Library for future generations. To contribute to the Email Britain archive, sent your mails to email@emailbritain.co.uk or visit http://www.newhotmail.co.uk/emailbritain for more information. Emails should be submitted under one of the following categories which should be typed into the subject box of the email: Blunders, Life Changing Emails, Complaints, Spam, Love and Romance, Humour, Everyday Emails, News, World Around You, Tales from Abroad."
Journal SPAM: Possible Interpretation: Baysian Evasion - Lovely 4
Possible Interpretation: living life to its fullest One man's junk is another man's treasure Like father like son It ain't over till it's over
Possible Interpretation: Finishing a task quickly is not about rushing Truth will out A cobbler formed the shape of shoes on a wooden foot shaped last If it lasted long he was happy
Those who play bowls must look out for rubbers If something can go wrong, it will (Murphy's Law) The more you Know, the more you know you don't Know
Microsoft Invents Split Screen PC 348
An anonymous reader writes "New technology from Microsoft Research India in Bangalore could end the waiting game in offices with limited computers. Researchers are developing software that splits a computer screen in two halves, each side with its own operating system, desktop, applications, cursor and keyboard." Mom! Timmy is on my side of the screen again!
Submission + - Is the One-Size-Fits-All Database Dead?
jlbrown writes: "In a new benchmarking paper (http://nms.csail.mit.edu/~stavros/pubs/osfa.pdf), MIT professor Mike Stonebraker and colleagues demonstrate that specialized databases can have dramatic performance advantages (factor of 10 or higher) over traditional databases in four areas: text processing, data warehousing, stream processing, and scientific and intelligence applications. The paper includes some interesting "apples to apples" performance comparisons between commercial implementations of specialized architectures and relational databases in two areas: data warehousing and stream processing.
From the paper: 'A single code line will succeed whenever the intended customer base is reasonably uniform in their feature and query requirements. One can easily argue this uniformity for business data processing. However, in the last quarter century, a collection of new markets with new requirements has arisen. In addition, the relentless advance of technology has a tendency to change the optimization
tactics from time to time.'"
From the paper: 'A single code line will succeed whenever the intended customer base is reasonably uniform in their feature and query requirements. One can easily argue this uniformity for business data processing. However, in the last quarter century, a collection of new markets with new requirements has arisen. In addition, the relentless advance of technology has a tendency to change the optimization
tactics from time to time.'"
SCO Bankruptcy "Imminent, Inevitable" 234
mattaw writes "From analysis by Groklaw it seems that SCO may owe Novell nearly all the SCOSource licensing fees, and has been hiding the fact for 3 years. Imminent. Inevitable. Bankruptcy. Those are the words from Novell's lawyers. Perhaps the IBM/SCO case could close earlier than planned? Perhaps we can finally be rid of this specter once and for all?"
Submission + - Petition opposes UK vehicle tracking scheme
An anonymous reader writes: An e-petition to scrap the British government's proposed vehicle tracking and road pricing scheme has attracted some 158,000 signatories so far. Under the proposed plan, vehicles in Britain would be outfitted with a sattelite tracking box and road tax would be calculated based on actual road usage. The Register has a more detailed story about it. What sets this petition apart from similar online petitions is that it sits on the British PM's official e-petitions site. While the site goes to some length to point out that e-petitions shouldn't be regarded as a quasi-referendum or representative of public opinion, its interesting nonetheless to see British motorists making use of such a device to get their views on vehicle tracking across to government officials.
Submission + - Which Asterisk or other VoIP System to Deploy?
ubercombatwombat writes: Which Asterisk or other VoIP System to Deploy?
I am probably going to get flamed a bit here. 9 NOV 2006 I have a meeting to discuss an Asterisk based phone system for a new elementary school. I am the network admin for the district.
Currently, we are one migrating from a T-1 based Nortel (option 61, 2 x option 11 and 7 x Norstar 8x32's, for those who care) to 1GB Data fiber and a 2nd pair per site-to allow simple(r) copper to fiber for the split T-1/Norstar's. We also just got a 10MB (scalable to 100MB) connect to the Internet. I can keep the VoIP basically on a seperate network if need be as well.
So, here are the questions I have come up with:
What do I install? Are there there Asterisk vendors that are available and have enough experience?
Keep in mind that E911 is priority one for any brand or type. No exceptions. Otherwise, the field is fairly open.
I see it two ways. 1) A Cisco system or Shortel system — Education budgets vary wildly from year to year and reoccurring cost have to be kept down.
2) Hybrid of Cisco, Snom or Polycom handsets with a custom Asterisk box with good third party support. I see a few options such as Fonality or Digium. There are a few online companies I would consider — kerryg, various Aussies and UncleWard if he were for hire.
Hardware support we can handle fine.
So, what and who? I won't go there without third party support.
Trixbox may or may not be what I use. I have had systems going 24/7 for over a year and am very happy but the products future is unclear just now.
I'd love to get some advice.
I am probably going to get flamed a bit here. 9 NOV 2006 I have a meeting to discuss an Asterisk based phone system for a new elementary school. I am the network admin for the district.
Currently, we are one migrating from a T-1 based Nortel (option 61, 2 x option 11 and 7 x Norstar 8x32's, for those who care) to 1GB Data fiber and a 2nd pair per site-to allow simple(r) copper to fiber for the split T-1/Norstar's. We also just got a 10MB (scalable to 100MB) connect to the Internet. I can keep the VoIP basically on a seperate network if need be as well.
So, here are the questions I have come up with:
What do I install? Are there there Asterisk vendors that are available and have enough experience?
Keep in mind that E911 is priority one for any brand or type. No exceptions. Otherwise, the field is fairly open.
I see it two ways. 1) A Cisco system or Shortel system — Education budgets vary wildly from year to year and reoccurring cost have to be kept down.
2) Hybrid of Cisco, Snom or Polycom handsets with a custom Asterisk box with good third party support. I see a few options such as Fonality or Digium. There are a few online companies I would consider — kerryg, various Aussies and UncleWard if he were for hire.
Hardware support we can handle fine.
So, what and who? I won't go there without third party support.
Trixbox may or may not be what I use. I have had systems going 24/7 for over a year and am very happy but the products future is unclear just now.
I'd love to get some advice.
