test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by nemesis-lists＠icequake.net

Dick, > I wouldn't either. I'm not sure that you can go and get an education anymore. > ... > Back when I was in high school, a score of 800 on one or the other of the > SAT's was a rare event that didn't occur every year in a school system in a > city of half-a-million or so. Nowadays, with the obviously much-lowered > standards, it happens all the time. I really don't see how this follows. Students are scoring higher on standardized exams, thus the standards must "obviously" be much-lowered. Without having proof to the contrary, Occam's Razor would suggest that the explanation to higher overall scores on standardized tests would simply be "a better overall quality of education today". After all, if students are learning more and thus scoring higher on standardized tests, well, what more does that mean than that the standardized tests are doing what they are designed for (as demographic tools) and are representative of the increase in students' learning? Without proof, we cannot assume either way. So if you would like to make an argument about education quality in the US today, back it up with facts, otherwise it just sounds like "In my day" geezer-ranting. -- Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>, icq=10317253

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by mythtech＠mac.com

>Without proof, we cannot assume either way. So if you would like to >make an argument about education quality in the US today, back it up with >facts, >otherwise it just sounds like "In my day" geezer-ranting. I can tell you the school system I went thru has significantly lowered it standards for grades, while at the same time INCREASING their requirments of what you are taught. I have a nephew going thru the same schools I attended (even has many of the same teachers), and I see what he is learning, and how it reflects to his grades. He is taught more than I was at his level... BUT, failure to know the stuff doesn't result in matching low grades. At least in this school system, it looks like they just won't give a kid lower than a C... no matter what. But they are definitly teaching more than they were when I attended... so things like standardized tests may result in higher average scores, since some of that higher learning probably sinks in to a good percentage of the kids. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

Apple-1 Auction conclusion

by mythtech＠mac.com

>Prob'ly not, since he presumably only runs Unix. Wait... isn't Richard also the guy that said he has no need for any Unix machine? And that Unix isn't good for anything except $250k programs? Or am I mixing up thread posts? -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

suggestions on BBC Micro, voltage converter, PAL monitor (in US)?

by cdl＠proxima.ucsd.edu

> From: "Carlini, Antonio" <Antonio.Carlini(a)riverstonenet.com> > To: "'classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org'" <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> > Subject: RE: suggestions on BBC Micro, voltage converter, PAL monitor (in > US)? > Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 12:09:05 -0700 > > >Can you get UK to Euro AC adapters there? I've only seen the round > >plugs with two pins, and the sorta ground lug. > > There are (cheap) travel adapters that allow you > to plug UK appliances into various > worldwide connectors. I don't have one to > hand to check, but I do know some of them > can cope with a hairdryer - whether that's > enough to not catch light when trying > to feed an early beeb with the > varnish-stripping PSU is not > clear to me :-) There are two kinds of travel adapters. The ones for low-power gadgets less than 50 watts, which use a transformer. The ones for high-power gadgets like hair dryers or clothes irons, which just use a half-wave diode rectifier, and figure that they are letting only half the power through. The second kind is not recommended for anything electronic. :-) It even says so on the package. carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu

22 years, 8 months

OT (way OT) SAT: (was Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format))

by PasserM＠umkc.edu

The SAT, at least, has been rescaled, resulting in older scores being equivalent to newer scores about 100 points greater. Even without an explicit rescaling, standards could have been lowered by virtue of the questions themselves having become less challenging. -----Original Message----- From: Ryan Underwood [mailto:nemesis-lists@icequake.net] Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 5:06 PM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format) Dick, > I wouldn't either. I'm not sure that you can go and get an education > anymore. ... Back when I was in high school, a score of 800 on one or > the other of the SAT's was a rare event that didn't occur every year > in a school system in a city of half-a-million or so. Nowadays, with > the obviously much-lowered standards, it happens all the time. I really don't see how this follows. Students are scoring higher on standardized exams, thus the standards must "obviously" be much-lowered. Without having proof to the contrary, Occam's Razor would suggest that the explanation to higher overall scores on standardized tests would simply be "a better overall quality of education today". After all, if students are learning more and thus scoring higher on standardized tests, well, what more does that mean than that the standardized tests are doing what they are designed for (as demographic tools) and are representative of the increase in students' learning? Without proof, we cannot assume either way. So if you would like to make an argument about education quality in the US today, back it up with facts, otherwise it just sounds like "In my day" geezer-ranting. -- Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>, icq=10317253

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Raymond Moyers [mailto:rmoyers@nop.org] > you mean those systems that eschew the command line by > makeing the function it provided impossible ? Touche' > Unix is superior *because* it retained the command line. > the Unix GUI is also superior, because it is network transparent. Ok, well, I would argue that Unix is superior to windows because what architecture Unix has is much more well implemented that the windows architecture. Having a command-line is, of course, very helpful in trying to do real work with a computer, but I don't' know whether I'd give it as a point of superiority. > > Allmost 99% of unix is based on the main frame model of computing > > where you have 50 people all say text editing with the same editor > > and 3 people running a program in the background. > Ok so you dont know anything about unix, thats what you are > saying here. Not exactly, I think he's saying that Unix acts like a multi-user system. ;) Of course, I could be way off, but I wouldn't argue if that's the case. > > The windows model is based on personal computers with > crappy hardware > > that you have 100% of the system to yourself. > How does that differ from my unix boxes ? i certainly have them all > to myself. If your unix boxes are based on crappy hardware, I feel sorry for you. Honestly, the real difference is that on a Unix system, in order to make the system treat you as if you're the only user in the world, you've got to make some "adjustments." That's as it should be. > > I would like to see a 3rd system, one where the concept of > information > > can be shared and that gives you a standard toolkit for > both character > > and bitmaped displays > That is an oxymoron, even tho what unix has now makes this look > like what is happening. This is hard to interpret. The runes tell me that this might either mean that he'd like a standard set of APIs for controlling both textual and graphical windows. That's kind of an interesting idea, and if that's the case, take a look at Oberon (the programming environment). They also mention that he could be speaking of separate standard APIs, a standard for each type of screen. If that's the case, I'd say NeXT had this for a while. :) X11 is interesting, but the NeXT GUI is much more efficient and coherent than most X11 systems, AFAICT. The major exception in X11 being SGI's IndigoMagic environment, which is wonderful. > Gimp dont translate to a tty very well, but an xterm is certainly the > bitmapped representation of the tty. True, but it's certainly possible to make a graphical terminal, and a standard set of escape sequences. This has been done a few times, with acceptable results. > and the bitmapped display is network transparent, making it superior > to everything else, 2 CPUs or a farm of 4000 boxes, you I'm still going to mention NeXTSTEP as an exception here. "Superior to everything else" is a dangerous statement. Network transparency is nice, of course, and NeXT has that too. > Unix already has this X11 is a standard you can run your sun apps > your irix apps your freebsd apps all on the GUI of your linux box all > at once. and last time i looked, all the other systems have adopted > our plumbing, not the other way around. Of course, if you have this, why not use the GUI of your SGI ;) > eh ? what would be wrong with a nice large 4096 x 3192 screen > with whatever size fonts you desire ? and the ability to populate > that screen with the workload of a whole stack of boxes. Indeed. I wonder this often, myself. > to the microset winblows can provide. unix has point and > click too, but it isnt implimented stupidly. Well, that depends on your definition of "point and click." I certainly have Unix systems that do it, by any definition, but it's harder to find a Unix machine that does it according to the definition of most end users. It can be done very well, and still not dumb the machine down. It has been done on SGI, NeXT, and AT&T's "UnixPC" to name a few, but I wouldn't consider what most Unix systems come with (CDE -- Yuck, or for linux GNOME "Please wait while we redraw the screen...") worth bothering to use. > So utopian brainwashed fiction writers are now your authority > on such things .. Well, the only thing wrong with a utopia is that it's not possible to sustain for any length of time. In conclusion, I'm all for criticism of windows, but please note that Unix is not perfect either. It's just better ;) There are many things that Unix could learn from other systems. Access controls, privleges, for instance. -- and it could certainly learn what not to do, and how to market itself from any microshaft product. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

AS/400s in the Champaign area

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Thompson [mailto:thompson@mail.athenet.net] > CISC 9404 and 9402's that I have seen typically have crappy 150MB oem > Tandberg QIC tape drives. Supposedly they are very finicky with their > SCSI-I. I never bothered to do much with mine. > The disk drives (if not too small to be useful) can be > reformatted to 512 > byte sectors and used elsewhere. I am using an IBM 0661 now from an > AS/400 in a Netbsd DECstation 5000/260 as a second drive. As I said, this thing has two EMC RAID boxes in it. The drives in there are 80-pin SCA type SCSI disks. It also seems to have a tape library of unknown pedigree. It's also worth mentioning that I talked to a friend who used to work for this company that had the AS/400, and he had this to say: ----- oh, what can I tell you about it? Not much, like I said, i never monkeyed with it. It was a monstrous huge thing, a good 15 years old, I think. There was twinax wire running throughout the building, from when the staff had to access it via dumb terminals. Later they stuck a NIC on it somehow, and got TCP/IP running on it, I think, because the staff had a telnet-like client for hooking up to it. ----- Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

apology

by nemesis-lists＠icequake.net

I just hit a wrong key in my mailer and accidentally cc:d an entire copy of today's digest to the list. :( Sorry! *dodges hate-mail and flames* -- Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>, icq=10317253

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dave McGuire [mailto:mcguire@neurotica.com] > Oh Christ. Yes, progress...with Perl...to completely unreadable, > unmaintainable, unbearably slow code. No, thanks. You'll appreciate this message which I sent to a few people on Friday. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); ' ---------- Well, I had a moment of boredom today, and in the interest of science, I decided to see whether output from the system random number generator might make a valid Perl script. Session follows: webserv:~/sla_html/cgi-bin$ dd if=/dev/random of=./test bs=1024 count=1024 0+1024 records in 0+1024 records out webserv:~/sla_html/cgi-bin$ perl -c test Unrecognized character \271 at test line 1. syntax error at test2 line 1, near "/." Bareword found where operator expected at test2 line 4, near ")c" (Missing operator before c?) In string, @k now must be written as \@k at test2 line 6, near "I p&`}@ \.%+ Kj&D :X" j Bt1@k" Bareword found where operator expected at test2 line 13, near "?xVr" (Might be a runaway multi-line ?? string starting on line 6) (Missing operator before Vr?) Bareword found where operator expected at test2 line 14, near "%^g" (Missing operator before g?) Can't find string terminator "`" anywhere before EOF at test2 line 15. <Looks like I'll have to repair some syntax errors on the part of the random number generator...> <After correcting some "obvious syntax errors"...> webserv:~/sla_html/cgi-bin$ perl -c test2 test2 syntax OK webserv:~/sla_html/cgi-bin$ cat test2 #RW/.Z eF9g #j1G=qj #)c.Q #/c!*B_/; #h^?I p(@&) .%+; Kj; #X" j" Bt(@k); TON; \?xVr?; #E%g; Nb_('P'); ~cgu b^O^ s/$T//; $S3X=vU gx/A/ <Now that's pretty impressive> Chris

22 years, 8 months

suggestions on BBC Micro, voltage converter, PAL monitor (in US)?

by Antonio.Carlini＠riverstonenet.com

>If the power supply is switching, they ususally rectify the line votage >and go from there. In which case the frequency has no bearing.. Never having had either a broken beeb or a broken cub monitor, I have no idea whether they care about the frequency or not. It's unlikely, but you never know ... One or other of the PDPs used to derive some sort of rough clock from the input frequency. You told it whether it was running 50Hz or 60Hz so it could adjust appropriately. >Can you get UK to Euro AC adapters there? I've only seen the round >plugs with two pins, and the sorta ground lug. There are (cheap) travel adapters that allow you to plug UK appliances into various worldwide connectors. I don't have one to hand to check, but I do know some of them can cope with a hairdryer - whether that's enough to not catch light when trying to feed an early beeb with the varnish-stripping PSU is not clear to me :-) Antonio

22 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2002