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So the reviewer knew the author well enough to co-present 4 years prior to the book. Don't you think that should be disclosed? All the reviewer does is tells us that this book should be on our "required reading list."

Looking at some of the reviewer's prior reviews, there's this one that was rated a 9. I'm a CISO, have that book, and found it unreadable. It's nothing but an introduction to project management and risk assessments - skills that any CISO should have acquired years before being promoted to a C-level securit executive. Oh, and the reviewer who gave it the glowing review is thanked in the forward. I'm sure there's more, but I think this is enough to raise serious questions about this guy's credibility.

I guess if you don't have the brains of a Schneier, Cheswick, or Bellovin, the next best thing to get your name out there is to write these "book reviews."

This type of mass organized rape happened in the colonial wars as well, like the European wars in Kosovo by the Serbs, Berlin by the Russians and the Germans everywhere. Using sexual violence as a weapon of terror on an industrial scale is a modern invention, before in Africa men would go kidnap "warbrides" and bring them back to their people as trophies. They did not tape them with a jagged piece of glass till they could not longer hold in their piss. The Belgians were monsters and unleashed a type of violence that Africa had never seen before. The article linked does not do the subject justice, if you want to understand why setting up such a wide disparity economically and militarily between those who would acquiesce or participate in the brutality and those who have their hands chopped off and their vaginas ripped apart read this.

Unfortunately only 20% of those people pay for the game (this figure seems reasonable sadly).

Why does 20% seem reasonable? That seems vastly unreasonable to my be like 80+%.

It results in a worse experience for all gamers

This is a false assertions based on false assumptions. Though, the premise is true if the games industry was under the attack that you described. That is not the case, however.

Instead people stick with what they know can make money - boring MMORPGs

This statement is true, regardless of piracy or any other destructible market forces. This is simply how all markets work, or perhaps even a definition of "market" as in: a group of people who want something. If there's a market for MMO games, you can be sure that said market will be flooded with MMO games. Which is what's happening.

If people didn't want to play MMO's, then there would be no market, regardless of pirates.

This is what happens because of pirates actions.

Wrong. Nolan Bushnell once called Atari "pirates" -> "Jackels". These where the people who would copy Atari games and resell them. This was far greater a problem for Atari in the late 70's than most game developers face today. These "Jackels" not only copied Atari games, but then sold and competed directly against Bushnell's Atari in the market place, not just preventing a sale from the person who's doing the pirating, but then taking away sales other potential customers. In some case, these "Jackels" sold nearly 2x as many systems/games than Atari sold due to manufacturing and distribution problems, as well as poor legal legal precedence (the fact that Nolan didn't properly protect some early works games)

Yet, Atari exploded in growth by out innovating their competition. While the "Jackels" were trying to create more "Pong" games, Atari started creating tank and racing games, among other things. Though, Bally/Midway was legitimately competing with Atari at the time and in some cases, had more successful games.

Atari had a very interesting history, you can read about it in "The Ultimate History of Video Games". An excellent booking I'm reading through ATM.

Yet, by your very own theory, this would be impossible because of pirating. Clearly is is not and clearly you extremely over estimate the impact of modern day "pirating" as well as how market forces work.

Pirates don't make crappy games. Nor is all "pirating" immoral. In fact, you could make an analogy to "Robin Hood". With vendor lock in (look at Shadowrun and Halo 2 being "Visa only") and specific corporate forces trying to intentionally keep supply down, despite demand, to squeeze endless profits out of consumers in "unfair" practices, only shows that consumers *need* a way to fight back. Part of pirating is with regards to this.

Does my pirated copy of FFVII effect Square-Enix's sales? No. Would I have bought a copy if it was available. Sure. So, why doesn't Square-Enix have FFVII available for download off their website? Why is my only "legal" option to buy a resell game for $100 (which Square-Enix sees no profit from)?

In truth, "pirating" is only a very small part of the market and of that small portion, only part of that is "bad" piracy. People who are pirating to make a profit from someone else, opposed to those who are doing it out of recourse of non-consumer friendly practices.

It's time to stop calling these people pirates and start coming them part of a "Rebellion". "Rebels" is a far better term for what most call "pirates" these days.

As with any market, there are many variables that determine one's "buy point", price is only one portion of that. Availability. Ownership. Test Drive. Those are all determinate of whether a person will rebel or not against the establishment.

But it can be very effectively counterfeited :-) (See Balance of Power )

Better still, Atari Flashback 2.

It totally amazed me that these console systems are still on sale after 30 years, but make great entertainment for a 80's themed party.

Haven't you seen the Jakks Atari classics 10 games in a joystick? They have miniaturised the console electronics so that you get a whole Atari 2600 system plus 10 games (Gravitar, Asteroids, Real Sports Volleyball, Centipede, Adventure, Pong, Missile Command, Breakout, Yars' Revenge and Circus Atari) all in a single joystick.

Bombing crap in order to make the enemy scared is terrorism.

Then all war is terrorism, and there's no need for the word "terrorism."

That's just idiocy.

Close. In fact, there is a distinction. "Terrorist" is the word used by governments to describe private individuals who use force in the same way as governments always have.

Governments resent that: they feel that killing thousands or millions of people is their job, and should be left exclusively to them. No one likes to lose a monopoly.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Government-R-J-Rummel/dp/1560009276/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218301290&sr=1-1

It's not the same. Women are just tired from exertion. For men, "make me sleep" chemicals (I forget the name, shoot me) flood the brain after orgasm.

That was my point exactly. It's common knowledge that men get a flood of chemicals after an orgasm (one of which is called Prolactin and is sleep-inducting). And it's uncommon knowledge that women get the same exact quantity of Prolactin going into their system and get the same exact urge to sleep than men do.

I was just trying to correct this common knowledge myth.

It is called marketing, and, while considered a naughty word on Slashdot, I do recommend Marketing for Dummies, which I find puts things in perspective about what marketing really is (not every company is a lying, cheating, robbing Microsoft).

If the topic interests you at all, check out Michael Flynn's Firestar series. Near-future science fiction. I contend that it's the best sci-fi series ever written. No, these aren't affiliate links.

http://www.amazon.com/Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812530063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218256538&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Star-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542991/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Lodestar-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542967/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812561848/ref=pd_sim_b_1

If the topic interests you at all, check out Michael Flynn's Firestar series. Near-future science fiction. I contend that it's the best sci-fi series ever written. No, these aren't affiliate links.

http://www.amazon.com/Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812530063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218256538&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Star-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542991/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Lodestar-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542967/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812561848/ref=pd_sim_b_1

If the topic interests you at all, check out Michael Flynn's Firestar series. Near-future science fiction. I contend that it's the best sci-fi series ever written. No, these aren't affiliate links.

http://www.amazon.com/Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812530063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218256538&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Star-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542991/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Lodestar-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542967/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812561848/ref=pd_sim_b_1

If the topic interests you at all, check out Michael Flynn's Firestar series. Near-future science fiction. I contend that it's the best sci-fi series ever written. No, these aren't affiliate links.

http://www.amazon.com/Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812530063/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218256538&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Star-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542991/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Lodestar-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812542967/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars-Firestar-Michael-Flynn/dp/0812561848/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Intermediates like Rowling (and sorry, but no she's not as good as people gushing over her like to think) do the opposite: they just cut off and sit back on the eternal "it's copyrighted forever" bandwagon.

In general I agree, but not with this. Even after Rowlings made it big she kept writing. She wrote at least 7 books. On Amazon's first page of results searching for Rowlings there are 6 individual books she wrote. And though she can live comfortably the rest of her life, she's one of the UK's wealthiest people, without ever writing another book I believe she will write more, she didn't have to write the last ones.

Falcon

The author started out his military career as a grunt at boot camp. He ended up teaching at West Point. Now, he is a psychologist.

His point is that our society is very good at teaching people to kill. What we are not good at is dealing with the aftermath.

The fact that one of the armed services is acknowledging there is a problem and trying to do something about it is a step in the right direction.

You can find this book at your library. It's well worth reading.

Heh, the way people get rich is to be price whores, or just not buy shit that doesn't _make_ money (stocks, properties, tools) at all. If someone is paying $45 for a cable, they probably didn't become rich, the were born that way.

There are two books I would like to recommend to you: Basic English Grammar and Basic Economics.

Heh, the way people get rich is to be price whores, or just not buy shit that doesn't _make_ money (stocks, properties, tools) at all. If someone is paying $45 for a cable, they probably didn't become rich, the were born that way.

There are two books I would like to recommend to you: Basic English Grammar and Basic Economics.

This reminds me of the Battle School Simulations in Ender's Game.

Which kind of makes sense, as when I'm watching the news, with all their cut panes, I think I'm reading a damn comic book come to life.

When I buy a $19.95 cable off newegg, I can't afford to pay $45.00 for it locally.

Why buy fixed length cat 5 at all when you can get 100 feet and a bunch of connectors for the same price and make your own? On the other hand there is this alternative:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I1X6PM/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/104-9303095-4559920

Actually you can do better than that. At the very end of a game of go, many areas are completely disconnected from the others. It is then possible to assign a mathematical value to them using game theory; see Berlekamp's work

That's the thing that's always fascinated me about Go. It is essentially an extremely simple game gone terribly, terribly wrong. It's got about as many rules as Yahtzee, but is played on a 19x19 board. Compare that to Chess which has a pretty large (8x8) board, but has far more rules.

I'm no expert on computer game programming, but I think that's where some of the difficulty comes into play when building these guys. Chess has a nearly unlimited number of outcomes, however having those sets of rules helps. For example, of the 32 pieces, 16 of them are essentially limited to one space in front of them. In Go, however, the lack of rules means that you're left with the simple mathematical monstrosity of an enormous board.

The book The Immortal Game, aside from being an excellent read, goes into depth about computer programs playing chess, as well as Go and Checkers.

If you look back at why unions starter (1920s, 1930s)[....]

Um, no. You got modded to 4: Insightful and you're just talking out your ear.

Unions peaked in their "power" in the 20's. Get it right.

The main tool (maybe the only real tool) that unions had in their "arsenal" was the strike. That is what hit the owners in the only place they had any feeling - the pocketbook.

Once that was off the table (made illegal), the whole arrangement was bought and sold, IMO.

You (and everyone else too) should look into it. It's actually a pretty interesting history. There's a lot out there to read on the subject, but a good, concisce place to start reading is this encyclopedia. I recommend the hardcopy - check your local library - but it appears there's a free online version available here. There's a Table of Contents, so start where you want, but this chapter would be as good a place as any.

A final set of notes with regard to the anti-union whining (from someone who's never been a member of one):
1) The company got saddled with a union for a reason - it's not something done on a whim
2) If there's a good reason, they can get unsaddled just about as easily.
3) For new employees, a) it's all voluntary (free to look elsewhere, right?) and b) there's a good chance the job they're applying for was only there (or only worth getting) due to past unionization.
4) A union is in theory supposed to be membership based. If your company is picking up part or all of your tab and you're not seeing all the benefits you'd expect, I'd stop wondering why and make the arrangements as a union to start paying all your own dues - I'm sure your fellow union-ites (or whatever you're called) could see the logic in that if i had to come to a vote.
5) Bad Analogy for the above: You pay $50/month for 50 channels of cable, but you're surprised that 1/3 of what you're paying for is not the content, but the advertisements between the content. Kinda like actually paying $50/month but only getting 20 days of service. On the other hand, pay $15/month for one channel (a la HBO, Showtime) you get the real deal, straight up - $15 for 30 days of service. Sounds to me like you have a "basic cable" union, but the propaganda in your head makes you expect a "real deal HBO" union.
6) One of my favorite sayings (that I think I actually coined): There's something wrong with everything that's popular. Unions and Capitalism are not exceptions.

Good luck!
-Matt

Requires Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office.

If you are lazy, maybe.
1 copy of standard linux distribution (free)
1 copy of wine (free)
Power point viewer from microsoft (free)

Requires Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office.

If you are lazy, maybe.
1 copy of standard linux distribution (free)
1 copy of wine (free)
Power point viewer from microsoft (free)

Why would anyone want to Pirate the Olympic broadcasts?

You must be new here allow me to explain. First and foremost a vast majority of the money holding populace are simple rubes. The profits to be made from a relatively poor and uneducated populace such as China has is not to be underestimated. This is common in the United States of America, such as Yellow Ribbons once found on the vast majority of the SUV driving public. Themselves unlikely to formulate even a remotely insightful or articulate statement as to the conflict responsible for it's re-adoption. Taking advantage of the rubes can also happen on a much more local level for when the Boise Broncos won the 2007 Fiesta Bowl the local news industry was elated to find it's self in a constant self gratification stroke fest as it replayed the admittedly exciting game over and over. Including a year later. Wal-Mart also jumped into the fray to hawk a commemorative DVD with all associated Bronco's paraphernalia located conveniently nearby. It was given the same status in the store as a new Hannah Montanna release for many months after. Just think if China pulls some big wins, the populace is going to eat it up.

It's near impossible to go grab "COBOL for Dummies"

http://www.amazon.com/COBOL-Dummies-Arthur-Griffith/dp/0764502980

I suspect that BLu-Ray price is going away:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=blu-ray&x=0&y=0

In fact, the Transformers 2 disc set is more expensive on DVD...by 4 cents:)

That looks quite painful for the left-handed crowd. I prefer this mouse since it is equally comfortable in each hand and has very high resolution.

For more information, see Kaminsky's power point presentation.

Requires Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office.

For more information, see Kaminsky's power point presentation.

Requires Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office.

Maybe because you are ignorantly trying to say that because they are black hats they should not be called hackers. The term hacker can be appropriately used to describe anyone with above-average knowledge on a subject and a desire to explore and tinker, usually outside the confines of what is expected or desired. Maybe you can educate yourself a little better before complaining on slashdot, Try reading some Kevin Mitnick, Michal Zalewski, or if nothing else Wikipedia.

Maybe because you are ignorantly trying to say that because they are black hats they should not be called hackers. The term hacker can be appropriately used to describe anyone with above-average knowledge on a subject and a desire to explore and tinker, usually outside the confines of what is expected or desired. Maybe you can educate yourself a little better before complaining on slashdot, Try reading some Kevin Mitnick, Michal Zalewski, or if nothing else Wikipedia.

This kind of thinking turns up way too often. The titanium oxide exists in nature as such and as a catalyst remains unchanged for ever. You can't beat that.

The same silly thinking comes up with power plants. Oh but it takes a lot of energy to mine such and such. BS! You can read:

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Energy-Society-David-Pimentel/dp/0870813862

They have nice tables on how much energy you invest into most technologies to get another amount of energy out, and guess what you always get more out. Just some look worse than others like biofuels and nuclear energy (sniff, my nuclear fanboyism just got demolished)

Just as a side note if you can't quantify your gut feel read up on it and prevent yourself from sounding silly.

From the first comment here: http://www.amazon.com/MacGyver-Complete-Season-Charles-Correll/dp/B000CNESLW

5.) Second Chance First aired: 10/16/1989
In China,Macgyver and his old friend Jesse Colton help with a Phoenix Foundation funded hospital for sick children. While there,they discover a gang stealing supplies (including a dialysis machine vital to the survival of a girl name Susie) from the hospital,and something even more surprising: a Amerasian boy who is the son of Jesse Colton. A son he never knew he had. When he and Mac find out the boy helped the gangsters steal the supplies,they must get them back,before Susie dies....

laying down fertilizer on their lawn, and shipping cut grass to landfills - leaving grass where it is provides the new grass with its own fertilizer.

Kinda, sorta. Mostly leaving cut grass where it is leaves you with a lawn choked with decaying grass. It takes a fairly thick layer to actually compost.

No, you really do want to leave it there. According to that link, leaving your grass clippings there actually helps to decompose thatch. I read in the Scott's lawn care book that mulching doesn't contribute to thatch and is recommended.

writing that nitrates can be worse than NOx (NO, NO2 and others)

What's wrong with writing the truth? Nitrates are poisonous in quantity, and even below toxic levels can cause algal and bacterial blooms in water and soil - blooms which can and do crowd out other organisms from the ecosystem.

No, nitrates have nothing to do with algal blooms

Who knows if this thing will work out, but it would be amusing if it did. In histrilogy beginning with Red Mars , Kim Stanley Robinson had interplanetary journeys being trimmed down to such short lengths only a couple of hundred years from now, and KSR's work tried hard to be scientifically plausible.

And we got cheap personal computing because IBM took the decision to set up a skunkworks to design an open architecture PC - disruptive technology.

You might want to read the history of the IBM PC. IBM made the model 5150 with an open architecture because they did not want to invest too much money in the project. The published BIOS specs allowed other companies to reverse engineer the BIOS and make clones. This was certainly not the intent of IBM, as represented by the fact that they came up with the proprietary micro-channel design (be sure to read the "market share" section) as an attempt to recapture the market.

The IBM PC was a Black Swan. Gate's brilliance was in the way he structured his DOS license agreement with IBM. IBM had a royalty free right to distribute it with every PC they built. Gates retained the right to sell it to any other vendor, none of which existed at the time. The IBM people thought the idea of clones was far fetched, evidently. The clone market turned out to be enormous, which was great for Microsoft, but also recognize Gates couldn't be certain that it would be. IBM doesn't do anything disruptive intentionally. Their customers don't like disruptive things, and they don't like disruptive things. Like most companies, they try to stay in Mediocristan. Desktop linux is from Mediocristan, as is Vista. Embedded and server hosted linux is from Extremistan, as is Windows NT and Mac OS on the iPhone.

If you think my view has some merit, you might want to reconsider this statement:

The other is of course its decision to support Linux.

Most people don't want to know what an OS is. Like a PVR - switch it on - and it works. Linux will succeed when the big boys start marketing it, just like the 'swill beers' that now dominate the world markets.

The advertisers of the eee pc or the new Atom netbooks don't make a big deal of the fact that there's no Windows in the box. "Like a PVR - switch it on - and it works." You are right that most people don't care to know and that is perhaps more insightful than I would have expected from your post. I would say you're very perceptive. I would expect that the lack of spyware and viruses on the PCs after six months will only be considered a pleasant bonus.

You have to remember, this system works for the original design specification. The only reason there is a problem is that the fiscal situation dropped a requirements bomb onto the IT organization. This would be a problem if the thing was running on Java/Oracle or whatever your favorite brand of system sugar is.

This is the type of problem known as The Black Swan It's tough to plan for requirements that emanate from a situation never seen before.

The last two CC books I read were by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow.

I never heard of Charles Stross but Cory Doctorow blogs and can sell ads. His book "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" is copyrighted as is "Little Brother".

The last two CC books I read were by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow.

I never heard of Charles Stross but Cory Doctorow blogs and can sell ads. His book "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" is copyrighted as is "Little Brother".

I would have thought this would be better.

Burn to new CD.

No need! This is the absolute GREATEST optical disk repair device that I've found! It'll even repair cracked disks!

Should have been scored as informative, instead of funny.

They've already made a version of this for about $30 that plays Commodore 64 games:

http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-64-Games-One-Joystick/dp/B000701CSM

They're cheap and easy to make in part because all the hardware is known.

The thing to remember is that they are trying to make a *teaching computer* to teach basic OS and programming concepts, not a first computer to enter the modern world.

Simichrome is the best buffing paste.

Apply gently a small amount on the scratch and buff with small and firm movements with a clean flannel cloth.

Burn to new CD.

No need! This is the absolute GREATEST optical disk repair device that I've found! It'll even repair cracked disks!

Have had good luck using this stuff, a piece of chamois, and some elbow grease. Good on all kinds of plastics, not just CDs/DVDs.

http://www.amazon.com/Novus-Polish-Plastic-Scratch-Remover/dp/B000B4Q9Y6

M is also used in the advertising industry for thousands. For example, the cost of an ad buy can be given in thousands of impressions, known as CCM (cost per thousand).

I have a tube tester for which the schematic used "M" where we would now use "k" and "Meg" where we would now use "M." As you can see in the picture, it contains a roll chart of different types of tubes and the settings to use to determine whether they're any good. A few years ago, I tried to puzzle out a way to test tubes not listed in the chart by pulling their operating characteristics from a manual and somehow converting that to tester settings. I never did get that figured out, and the weird results I was getting by thinking that "4.7M" meant 4.7 million instead of 4700 didn't help any.

(The schematic is dated April 1940. When the electronics industry switched over to the units it uses now, I don't know. Where my copy of Terman (3rd ed., 1947) gives component values at all, resistances tend not to be abbreviated. It may have been published during a transitional period, and the decision was made to not abbreviate so as to avoid confusion.)

I was sort of hoping that Unreal would lead the way, but the large number of Quake II engine licensees,lingering holdouts for software renderers, and a large population of fairly crappy 3D cards held things back. People also wanted more dark 'n' gritty - this was the '90s, remember what comic books looked like? :)

Criminals were sent to the Americas as well as Australia. There was a lot of voluntary migration later but to say that the europeans didn't send *anyone* is just incorrect.

I suggest some reading is in order.