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Well, since we're being nitpicky: "alot" isn't a word at all.

Similarly, a string of characters like :-) (such that they resemble a face when rotated) usually means, "I'm making a joke or other humorous statement," on these intertubes of ours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon
http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/emoticons.html
http://www.muller-godschalk.com/emoticon.html

Then when I want to college (this wasn't much before every freshman was issued an email account and web space at orientation -- things snowballed really quickly) someone told me that there was a way to send messages by computers to other schools, for free. I went down to the bowels of the CS building and a moss-covered grad student gave me a Bitnet address that looked like the volume of the earth in cubic centimeters. In hindsight, the whole episode was like something out of Harry Potter.

This Xfce review: http://www.computeruser.com/articles/2406,4,43,1,0 601,05.html seems to second some of what I was fumbling at.

Didn't swatch introduce something like that "for people who communicate over the internet" in the '90s?

Maybe they were too early and now there might be a new audience for that idea?

(just found a link explaining swatch internet time and what is swatch internet time)

Moral of the story: Make wi-fi free and charge $10 for a beverage.

Charging $10 for drinks wouldn't be needed. To make it easy for a qick calculation, say the cafe is open 10 hours and sells 50 items an hour. That comes out to 500 items a day, adding 5 cents per item will mean $25 per day or using 30 days per month $750 per month in extra income. On to costs of providing the service. Say a server setup with WiFi is $2000, though an actual system should cost much less. Next is the internet access, again for ease say it's $100 per month. Next you need someone to maintain the system. If you're lucky there may be a 2600 meeting, User Groupmeeting, or other meetings can be found in the area where a person who's capable can be found that will be willing to maintain the system for say $500 per month. Including the system cost the first 14 month's cost would be $10,200 and revenue $10,500. By the fourteenth month the system is paid for and there after is extra profit. Now if sales increases the system will be paid off earlier. Of course this may not include all of the costs being as it was quick but the point is that it doesn't take $10 drinks to pay for WiFi service.

Here's an idea for head position tracking hardware: put a bunch of bright balls around the outside of a helmet, and have the person surrounded by a handful of cameras.

Better yet would be the use of tiny gyroscopes like this that provide 6DOF, although this one doesn't. No need for worn optical cues and cameras. There is also this product that has 3DOF, which claims to "have metallic interference virtually eliminated". I presume it is some kind of magnetic tracker that isn't as vulnerable to the weaknesses of normal magnetic motion tracking methods, which I think the grandparent poster is referring to.

The method you are mentioning using bright balls and cameras are optical motion trackers. Magnetic ones have advantages over optical ones. Optical ones have other disadvantages, and don't normally work in real-time, so they wouldn't be viable for head position tracking for virtual reality.

A REAL comparison would be nice.

Here is a review of the linux offerings and another. One more.

What I understand, freedom of expression is guaranteed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of fronteirs."
[emphasis added]. So if there is any nation that is not a part of the United Nations, sure, imposing these restrictions on the freedom of the government of these nations would be imposing their own beliefs on these other cultures. This does not sound like what these people are doing, however. There is no excuse whatsoever for government censorship by any government who is a member of the United Nations(this means you, China, United States of America, and Canada).

Sure, one may argue that the United Nations may be unnecessary, outdated, completely irrelevent or otherwise, but as it stands today, we are obligated to fufil our part of the bargain, despite how sometimes we may disagree with it, or alternatively, decline membership to the United Nations and become a Rogue State, with none of the protections to you that The Declaration provides.

These guys sound down-right nuts, though. If a dictator is willing to kill thousands of his own people, what makes you think they won't assasinate you, if you actively mess with them? Kudos to their efforts.

...and here I thought all these messages were from people using MS Outlook with voice recognition turned on.

It looks like MS Office has found a way to spread it's
gibberish by posting as an AC to /.

I'm surprised I hadn't noticed earlier.

Yes, we Americans have "our own" date and time system that isn't metric. (Same with the rest of the world, by the way, except for those idiots at Swatch who just want to sell more cheesy plastic watches.) So I guess we're a bunch of assholes who are too damn stupid to figure out metrics, right??

Am I the only one here on Slashdot who's fed up with the knee-jerk America bashing???

So that explains this.

CA NA DA

well, canada is significantly ahead of the states in broadband penetration in general. source for that statement is here. other source here. there are two reasons for this:

1. there's government programs. look at the canadian gov'ts "broadband for rural and northern areas" program: it's here. even saskatchewan, which has a reputation for being behind the curve has a program to get broadband across the province in three years. it's here. so, reason one: government money.
2. there's competition! in canada if you can get cable tv and phone service you probably have two choices for broadband. the tv and phone companies want to expand into rural areas to get the first-to-market jump on the other guy. so, reason two: competition.

The problem with DC [and the reason it wasn't implemented] was that it has a problem travelling long distances. After a certain distance, voltage drops off. So you would need a transmission station every couple of miles. Which will be very costly.

AC vs DC debate

This isn't news -- it's a daily occurence. However, netizens and hackers find break-ins newsworthy when the database is larger and/or more sensitive. The greater the target's security investment, the greater the challenge. You can bet that copies of this database have already been tarballed, bzipped and scp'd to 50 countries.

If you place first in a 500 lap race, there is more associated with that victory than a shorter 100 lap race. Why? Time investment necessary to be victorious, equipment and bandwidth required. Concentration needed. Similarly, if a company has stateful inspection firewalls, network and host-based intrusion detection, regular vulnerability assessment and a proactive group of sysadmins and security experts protecting the network -- and you can still break in -- that's newsworthy. Good examples of truly newsworthy break-ins would be Yahoo! News Hacked, and FBI Investigating Qualcomm Hacker.

Here we have an article about yet another internal employee that was layed off and screwed around with the databases in retaliation (YAIETWLOASAWTDIR). Sure it's a problem, but it is not insurmountable. Just how common is this problem? Check out my recent blog entry, "Sacked staff turn to sabotage because they still have access."

All cellphones have some encryption to prevent anyone with an antenna from listening in. I'm pretty sure GSM has been broken, but there is at least a small hurdle to overcome to listen in.

I think you are talking about Netscape spying on its users not IE. It's an honest mistake. All of the evil corps start looking the same after a while.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission gave his blessing on Wednesday to an emerging technology that would provide high-speed Internet service through power lines.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell toured a house in suburban Maryland that had been set up to showcase the new service, which transmits e-mail, Web pages, telephone service and other data over the existing power grid and through standard electrical outlets.

In the living room, Powell listened to an Internet radio broadcast and watched the movie "Ice Age" on a flat-screen 42-inch television streaming from another computer miles away.

...it's still reasonable to encourage people to use a more appropriate word instead of morphing the meaning of a similar but different word.

morphing: A gradual animated transformation from one image into another, partially accomplished by moving certain points in the first image to corresponding points in the second image, in stages.

Anger over broadband limits

Why's my cell phone melting?

NCTA Weighs In on IP Telephony

FBI Seeks Hacker of eBay Users' Info

Labels battle to hold onto DMCA win

Western Digital to Launch 10,000rpm Desktop HDD 11th Feb

On the trail of a stolen Tablet PC

Game on for cable

Mail-order drug suppliers under gun

Two panels to monitor Pentagon's spy project

In Europe, Microsoft faces tough sell

Intel to discuss Manitoba and GPS efforts at IDF

More unrest seen among tech workers

Anger over broadband limits

Why's my cell phone melting?

NCTA Weighs In on IP Telephony

FBI Seeks Hacker of eBay Users' Info

Labels battle to hold onto DMCA win

Western Digital to Launch 10,000rpm Desktop HDD 11th Feb

On the trail of a stolen Tablet PC

Game on for cable

Mail-order drug suppliers under gun

Two panels to monitor Pentagon's spy project

In Europe, Microsoft faces tough sell

Intel to discuss Manitoba and GPS efforts at IDF

More unrest seen among tech workers

CS Monitor (thumbs-up)

Nature (ho-hum)

Computer User (thumbs-way-up)

Uhhhh no. Linux and Windows run on desktop computers, but you need to buy a macintosh to run MacOS. Think about it. There are a multitude of options for desktops machines, but Windows first, Linux second, and perhaps OS/2 or something way down the list. Geeks, such as you and I, read desktop computer and immediately come up with an image of what this could and could not include. However, ZDnet is not written for geeks, it is written for (perhaps the geekier side) of the general public. Hence, when they use the term desktop computer, they are referencing a simpler definition, that includes Macintoshes. The main idea in the article is that Linux is surpassing Mac OS in popularity, which is still important, even if they don't use terms the way we would like to hear them. Think about it.

You can get many references to satellite internet access latency by doing a quick search in google. My numbers might have been a little off, but even at 1/10th of my original numbers, it still makes things like gaming, VoIP, teleconferencing, etc... (and even most VPNs) pretty much unusable (again, there are many references to this already of google).

http://www.t1-t3-dsl-line.com/page/43/
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/2106,2,1,2,06 01,02.html
http://www.dslreports.com/speed

If you have time to kill:
Hang out at your local shop a few times, buy some small accessories / parts to keep them pacified. Drag along an Alpha geek friend sometime just to listen in and see if the shop knows what they're doing. Once a while glance towards the workshop. Go on a Saturday, or anytime its busy. If all the customers in the place seem like idiots and/or are complaining about "where's the any key?!!," go somewhere else.

If you have a high school geek child, you might also have them ask around school. Geek children trapped in suburbia usually have a decent idea of local shops, and it'll double as bonding time away from .

And pick up a copy of a localized computer magazine like Computer User. There's a good amount of useful info in there, and they have annual awards such as "Best Non-Corporate Retail Store" or some euphemism like that.

The small computer stores are just like bike shops, skate shops, etc. Use appropriate judgement.

Perhaps the problem is your definition of "Mission Critical" Here is another one that might do the job better.

What would you rather have: Big business protecting shitty copy protection schemes with stupid laws or big business employing effective copy protection, maybe even coercing their friends in the Senate to force hardware manufacturers to hard code some kind of copy protection into the hardware we've all come to depend on?

I don't know about you guys, but If I had to pick, I'd take the former. Don't get me wrong, I hate the DMCA just as much as the next guy, but the alternatives are frightening.

I wouldn't doubt that it could take 20 years for a manned Mars flight. If you knoe the history of the moon shots you know that it's a damn miracle that they ever worked at all. Just shove some guys into a tin can and blast them off into space! Yes, it was super cool and it did turn out great. But they technology that was used really wasn't up to the task. It was they men and women who were behind the metal and machines that made it possible. And I honestly don't know if we have any people like that around anymore. A good reason for this can be seen in this article published in the May issue of ComputerUser.

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I wouldn't doubt that it could take 20 years for a manned Mars flight. If you knoe the history of the moon shots you know that it's a damn miracle that they ever worked at all. Just shove some guys into a tin can and blast them off into space! Yes, it was super cool and it did turn out great. But they technology that was used really wasn't up to the task. It was they men and women who were behind the metal and machines that made it possible. And I honestly don't know if we have any people like that around anymore. A good reason for this can be seen in this article published in the May issue of ComputerUser.

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• The difference between a web page and spam is that I ask for one and am tricked into taking the other.
• The difference between porn and spam is that porn is a type of content that can come through any delivery medium; spam, whether the content is bible verses or hot teens, is a method of abusing a delivery medium.
• The difference between changing the channel and installing spam filters is the difference between moving to a quieter area of a public park and installing bars on my windows to keep people from climbing in.
• And so on, ad nauseam.

Where the heck did you come up with that?

sigh.

Not to mention the fact that there are only a small number of people at the FBI capable of installing and monitoring a Carnivore box.

That's why they only want to have to do it once.

I find that very hard to believe since the FBI has to get a judge to give a court order specifying particular user information and a set time period every time a Carnivore box is deployed.

Actually they just permanently deploy it once, then they need a court order to use it. Of course, since there's no auditing, no one will ever know if they're obeying that.