There is nothing stopping an enterprising consumer from setting up a DocFICO. Bascially a MedFICO in reverse, where the consumers would rate the doctors on their skills and possibly number of malpractice suits filed against them. Perhaps, something like this is needed to even the playing field.
But lets not forget that Medicine, like any other business, is a business, and the way that businesses stay afloat is by providing a service (or product) that paying customers will want. That being the case, someone found that there was a business need for doctors to rate their potential patients ability to pay. In the end, from a purely business perspective, this is not much different than Credit Card companies rating their customers ability to repay their loans. Perhaps, this is morally not the ideal path for us to be taking...
I'm the author of LiarLiar, an open source Voice Stress detector. Over the years, I've had several offers from various individuals and companies to further develop or improve upon the software. If you develop software that has enough demand, you may be able to offer support services for your software. Don't expect to get rich, or even be able to make a living for that matter.
The most important thing to keep in mind is, make sure you have a backup source of income. Either a job or something else, as it is unlikely that you will be able to make enough supporting an open source project, unless it becomes very popular.
You've got to be kidding me! I am surprised the designers of this vehicle are based in California, because something like this would never work here. With the oversupply of Soccer Mom's behind the wheels of a giant SUV chatting away on their cell phones, this is surely a death trap.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for high MPG cars. I personally am considering the 2009 Jetta TDI which gets a combined 50+ MPG, which is better MPG than most Hybrid vehicles without the huge markup in price and weight for the battery technology. And it has the added bonus of being designed for the Autobahn with 5 star crash ratings and based upon a tried and true technology..
According to ABC News and several other news outlets, authorities have tracked the hacker attacks back to China.
This is not too surprising, since several recent high profile hacker attacks have originated from china targeting various countries around the world. It's nothing new that China is continuing to hack into our top secret and sensitive installations.
In the coming days, you can expect China to adamantly deny any involvment, just as they have when earlier this year the German, UK, Australian and US governments have accused them of hacking into top secret installations.
Don't forget: PDFLib - The standard (and powerful) PDF Library for PHP5 PDFLib Lite - The OpenSource version of the above FPDI - Imports existing PDF documents into FPDF
PDFLib Lite is a great tool for dynamically creating PDF documents on the FLY with PHP. Or, FPDF & FPDI if you don't mind a slight performance hit.
It's quite interesting that these German researchers are mapping pieces of the brain; however, even if they were to map the entire human brain, first, we still do not know how to perfectly simulation the biological processes occuring in the brain. Yes, we are able to simulate a single neuron, or small clumps of neurons; however, the dynamics of simulating billions of interconnected neurons is not fully understood.
Second, even if we were able to map the entire human brain and run a perfect simulation, the computing power of today cannot handle this complex task in real time.
The creation of the myspace account is probably not illegal; however, an adult having intimate conversations with a minor (apparently this girl thought that the fake boy was her boyfriend) is probably illegal depending upon what was said; however, being that the adult in this case is a female, she will probably not be prosecuted; however, if this were a 40 Yr old man posing as a 14 Yr old boy to have intimate chats with a 13 Yr old girl, you can bet your ass he'd be in jail right now.
You mean HotSexy18YrOld from Adult Friend Finder is not real?? I'm devastated!
While I don't agree with what these parents have done.. its being done every day on the internet. 95% of the profiles you see are probably fake to some degree
Has this happened to you or anyone you know? If not, stop the fearmongering.
Yes. This happened to a friend of mine who was recently divorced from his wife. It was a bitter divorce, and she started posting on message boards about her "cheating" husband who was going out cheating on her while she stayed at home taking care of their two kids. She happily left out any mention of them being divorced.
Needless to say, the response was overwhelming... in favor of her. He didn't know what she had done until he started getting harrassing phone calls, emails, etc. They even called his employer and told his employer what a dick he was. He was eventually let go for some "unrelated" reason.
It was only after a few weeks that he found out what his ex had done, and that there were hoards of internet people posting his name/address/phone and pictures for everyone to see and by this point, the damage had been done. Exactly what his ex-wife had planned...
Of course she was seen as the victim, and he ended up having to change his number and get a new job. To this day, he still gets the occasional harrassing letter or email
Poor guy, I'd hate to be in his shoes... but this goes to show that posting a heart-tugging story along with contact information of the accused, whether it be true or false, is more than enough to cause trouble for this person... Yeah.. and in this case, information wanted to be free! haha!
T-Mobile has great hardware on their hands. But this phone could have been so much more... if... and only if...
They had used apple's Iphone software... and since the software wasn't designed by Apple, but instead by big bad microsoft, it sucks!
Personally, I am getting sick of the argument that everything that Apple does is the work of God. While I admit, the Iphone introduced some better concepts in UI, it still has no SDK, is locked, and will be bricked by apple if you try to unlock it. It is a closed platform that is strongly controlled by the almighty Apple.
Had Apple released the Shadow with Windows Mobile, the author of this article would have found some way to justify Apples actions.
I used to get $1.00 charges on my credit card that would go unnoticed for a few months. When I checked the company, they had a website that stated something to the effect:
"If you received a charge to your credit card for us, it is for services that we provided and it is not a fradulent charge."
Now, I never have purchased anything from this company, and even though the total charges were less than $3, I reported it to my credit card company. Some of these fraudulent companies can be very deceptive.
A good friend of mine bought a Sony Digital Camera back in 2001 or 2002 at Frys. I was there with him when he bought it, when we got home and he unwrapped it, the Camera was missing, only the manuals, packing material and drivers were there. The Camera was missing. We went back to Fry's and tried to explain the camera was missing from the box. The CSR people basically didn't believe us and told us to get lost. My friend ended up writing a letter to the CEO himself. Surprisingly, he got a response (a form letter) that basically said they are sorry, but there is nothing that Fry's can do.
I know I've shopped at fry's many times, and Fry's has a reputation of putting returned products back on the shelves. I've heard many stories about how people would buy a GeForce 8500GT video card and after opening the package, would find an older 6500 or something to that effect.
In the original article, the defense expert concludes that its likely Operator Error. I have to agree with him, anti-aircraft batteries are not like an AK-47... There is a detailed procedure the highly trained operators must follow to ensure proper startup and operation. As much as conspiracy theory buffs would like to say that Robocop predicted this, more than likely, this can be attributed to simple human error. Nonetheless, it still is a tragedy.
While its interesting to find a workaround to the great firewall of China, one has to remember that it is illegal for a Chinese citizen to violate the Firewall. Furthermore, if you, as a foreigner are visiting China, it is just as illegal for you to bypass the Chinese Firewall.. If the authorities find out, you will likely face severe penalties. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it to read Slashdot or Ars RSS feeds, while you are on vacation in China? Perhaps you should wait till you get back, so you dont find yourself rotting away in a Chinese Prison.
I used to work at TomTom Mobility Solutions in Berlin, Germany. Mobility Solutions is basically the R&D Department at TomTom. At TomTom, there is a distinct separation between the groups that develop the Map Uploading/Updating software and our team, which developed and researched new routing algorithms for the actual hardware. There was yet another Team based in Edinburough that developed the UI and software for the devices. While there is communication between the teams, they are in fact separate entities. The R&D Team I was in had no control over what platform the map updating software ran on. In fact, it was a management decision.
So there you have it...just because the devices run Linux, and the fact that our whole R&D Dept developed in Linux and ran Linux on our desktops, doesn't mean that it makes financial sense for them to put resources to develop and linux version of the map uploading software.
A poorly programmed Java application can leak memory too. The culprit is likely not C++; the culprit is more likely poor programming practices or programming errors.
Using a different password for each site is the ultimate in security; however, without a password manager of some sort, it becomes too difficult to manage such a large list of passwords. Thankfully, OSS password managers such as Revelation and Figaro Password Manager exist! Personally, I use revelation; however, both are excellent pieces of software!
--
Yahma BlastProxy - Anonymous & Secure web browsing ProxyStorm - Anonymous & Secure web browsing LiarLiar - Open Source Voice Stress Analysis & Lie Detection Software
Anonymizer had too many restrictions on which sites you could browse. We've had better web proxy alternatives with fewer restrictions for years... BlastProxy and ProxyStorm are two web based anonymous proxies that I often use.
Other networks, such as Tor allow users, who are willing to install additional software components, browse anonymously. Although, nothing really beats the convienence of the web proxies!
Even small scale simulations of the brain, based upon the not so biologically plausible model of a neural network produce Interesting Results. It is likely that a much smaller scale model of the rat brain, when fully understood, would produce intelligent results as well.
Often, when browsing from work, you don't need 100% anonyminity. Its not like you are logging onto your bank accounts from work, but you often want to visit a site that you don't want your employer to know about. For this reason, I use two fast anonymous web proxies. The First offers quick anonymous browsing (good enough for work) without any additional software to install. The Second has a simpler/cleaner interface.
Did you know that the XOR function was patented and earned the Patent Holder countless millions until it recently expired? are also patented!? This patent was actually enforced in 1994 to stop the sale of the Amiga Computer in the USA after Commodore stopped paying royalties on the patent. The XOR function was used to move the cursor around the screen.
Patents on algorithms and software should be disallowed.. as these types of patents are ripe for abuse!
Yahma ProxyStorm - An anonymous, free, apache based proxy server.
Hopefully this points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are both economical and widely used.
I'm sorry... but while this teenagers work is certainly commendable and nothing to sneeze at (in fact, Large engineering firms such as Siemens seem to take an interest in him). His work does nothing to further research in the field. Non-sustaining fusion reactors have been around for decades, and its been widely known how to build one for at least 20 years. For most people, the cost is the limiting factor. Why would you want to spend $50k-100k on something that uses more energy than it produces?
Now when we finally get a sustainable fusion reaction that produces more energy that it uses, that would be something to write about!
Yahma ProxyStorm - An apache based anonymous proxy service.
Slashdot Mirror
There is nothing stopping an enterprising consumer from setting up a DocFICO. Bascially a MedFICO in reverse, where the consumers would rate the doctors on their skills and possibly number of malpractice suits filed against them. Perhaps, something like this is needed to even the playing field.
But lets not forget that Medicine, like any other business, is a business, and the way that businesses stay afloat is by providing a service (or product) that paying customers will want. That being the case, someone found that there was a business need for doctors to rate their potential patients ability to pay. In the end, from a purely business perspective, this is not much different than Credit Card companies rating their customers ability to repay their loans. Perhaps, this is morally not the ideal path for us to be taking...
I'm the author of LiarLiar, an open source Voice Stress detector. Over the years, I've had several offers from various individuals and companies to further develop or improve upon the software. If you develop software that has enough demand, you may be able to offer support services for your software. Don't expect to get rich, or even be able to make a living for that matter.
The most important thing to keep in mind is, make sure you have a backup source of income. Either a job or something else, as it is unlikely that you will be able to make enough supporting an open source project, unless it becomes very popular.
You've got to be kidding me! I am surprised the designers of this vehicle are based in California, because something like this would never work here. With the oversupply of Soccer Mom's behind the wheels of a giant SUV chatting away on their cell phones, this is surely a death trap.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for high MPG cars. I personally am considering the 2009 Jetta TDI which gets a combined 50+ MPG, which is better MPG than most Hybrid vehicles without the huge markup in price and weight for the battery technology. And it has the added bonus of being designed for the Autobahn with 5 star crash ratings and based upon a tried and true technology..
According to ABC News and several other news outlets, authorities have tracked the hacker attacks back to China.
This is not too surprising, since several recent high profile hacker attacks have originated from china targeting various countries around the world. It's nothing new that China is continuing to hack into our top secret and sensitive installations.
In the coming days, you can expect China to adamantly deny any involvment, just as they have when earlier this year the German, UK, Australian and US governments have accused them of hacking into top secret installations.
The Chinese government have been doctoring photos for political reasons at least since the 1940's.
PDFLib - The standard (and powerful) PDF Library for PHP5
PDFLib Lite - The OpenSource version of the above
FPDI - Imports existing PDF documents into FPDF
PDFLib Lite is a great tool for dynamically creating PDF documents on the FLY with PHP. Or, FPDF & FPDI if you don't mind a slight performance hit.
It's quite interesting that these German researchers are mapping pieces of the brain; however, even if they were to map the entire human brain, first, we still do not know how to perfectly simulation the biological processes occuring in the brain. Yes, we are able to simulate a single neuron, or small clumps of neurons; however, the dynamics of simulating billions of interconnected neurons is not fully understood.
Second, even if we were able to map the entire human brain and run a perfect simulation, the computing power of today cannot handle this complex task in real time.The creation of the myspace account is probably not illegal; however, an adult having intimate conversations with a minor (apparently this girl thought that the fake boy was her boyfriend) is probably illegal depending upon what was said; however, being that the adult in this case is a female, she will probably not be prosecuted; however, if this were a 40 Yr old man posing as a 14 Yr old boy to have intimate chats with a 13 Yr old girl, you can bet your ass he'd be in jail right now.
You mean HotSexy18YrOld from Adult Friend Finder is not real?? I'm devastated!
While I don't agree with what these parents have done.. its being done every day on the internet. 95% of the profiles you see are probably fake to some degree
Yes. This happened to a friend of mine who was recently divorced from his wife. It was a bitter divorce, and she started posting on message boards about her "cheating" husband who was going out cheating on her while she stayed at home taking care of their two kids. She happily left out any mention of them being divorced.
Needless to say, the response was overwhelming... in favor of her. He didn't know what she had done until he started getting harrassing phone calls, emails, etc. They even called his employer and told his employer what a dick he was. He was eventually let go for some "unrelated" reason.
It was only after a few weeks that he found out what his ex had done, and that there were hoards of internet people posting his name/address/phone and pictures for everyone to see and by this point, the damage had been done. Exactly what his ex-wife had planned...
Of course she was seen as the victim, and he ended up having to change his number and get a new job. To this day, he still gets the occasional harrassing letter or email
Poor guy, I'd hate to be in his shoes... but this goes to show that posting a heart-tugging story along with contact information of the accused, whether it be true or false, is more than enough to cause trouble for this person... Yeah.. and in this case, information wanted to be free! haha!
To summarize the article:
T-Mobile has great hardware on their hands. But this phone could have been so much more... if... and only if...
They had used apple's Iphone software... and since the software wasn't designed by Apple, but instead by big bad microsoft, it sucks!
Personally, I am getting sick of the argument that everything that Apple does is the work of God. While I admit, the Iphone introduced some better concepts in UI, it still has no SDK, is locked, and will be bricked by apple if you try to unlock it. It is a closed platform that is strongly controlled by the almighty Apple.
Had Apple released the Shadow with Windows Mobile, the author of this article would have found some way to justify Apples actions.
"If you received a charge to your credit card for us, it is for services that we provided and it is not a fradulent charge."
Now, I never have purchased anything from this company, and even though the total charges were less than $3, I reported it to my credit card company. Some of these fraudulent companies can be very deceptive.
A good friend of mine bought a Sony Digital Camera back in 2001 or 2002 at Frys. I was there with him when he bought it, when we got home and he unwrapped it, the Camera was missing, only the manuals, packing material and drivers were there. The Camera was missing. We went back to Fry's and tried to explain the camera was missing from the box. The CSR people basically didn't believe us and told us to get lost. My friend ended up writing a letter to the CEO himself. Surprisingly, he got a response (a form letter) that basically said they are sorry, but there is nothing that Fry's can do. I know I've shopped at fry's many times, and Fry's has a reputation of putting returned products back on the shelves. I've heard many stories about how people would buy a GeForce 8500GT video card and after opening the package, would find an older 6500 or something to that effect.
You are expressly prohibited from viewing the HTML source of this post. I own the copyright on this post and all the HTML code.
In the original article, the defense expert concludes that its likely Operator Error. I have to agree with him, anti-aircraft batteries are not like an AK-47... There is a detailed procedure the highly trained operators must follow to ensure proper startup and operation. As much as conspiracy theory buffs would like to say that Robocop predicted this, more than likely, this can be attributed to simple human error. Nonetheless, it still is a tragedy.
While its interesting to find a workaround to the great firewall of China, one has to remember that it is illegal for a Chinese citizen to violate the Firewall. Furthermore, if you, as a foreigner are visiting China, it is just as illegal for you to bypass the Chinese Firewall.. If the authorities find out, you will likely face severe penalties. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it to read Slashdot or Ars RSS feeds, while you are on vacation in China? Perhaps you should wait till you get back, so you dont find yourself rotting away in a Chinese Prison.
I used to work at TomTom Mobility Solutions in Berlin, Germany. Mobility Solutions is basically the R&D Department at TomTom. At TomTom, there is a distinct separation between the groups that develop the Map Uploading/Updating software and our team, which developed and researched new routing algorithms for the actual hardware. There was yet another Team based in Edinburough that developed the UI and software for the devices. While there is communication between the teams, they are in fact separate entities. The R&D Team I was in had no control over what platform the map updating software ran on. In fact, it was a management decision.
So there you have it...just because the devices run Linux, and the fact that our whole R&D Dept developed in Linux and ran Linux on our desktops, doesn't mean that it makes financial sense for them to put resources to develop and linux version of the map uploading software.
A poorly programmed Java application can leak memory too. The culprit is likely not C++; the culprit is more likely poor programming practices or programming errors.
Using a different password for each site is the ultimate in security; however, without a password manager of some sort, it becomes too difficult to manage such a large list of passwords. Thankfully, OSS password managers such as Revelation and Figaro Password Manager exist! Personally, I use revelation; however, both are excellent pieces of software!
--Yahma
BlastProxy - Anonymous & Secure web browsing
ProxyStorm - Anonymous & Secure web browsing
LiarLiar - Open Source Voice Stress Analysis & Lie Detection Software
Anonymizer had too many restrictions on which sites you could browse.
We've had better web proxy alternatives with fewer restrictions for years... BlastProxy and ProxyStorm are two web based anonymous proxies that I often use.
Other networks, such as Tor allow users, who are willing to install additional software components, browse anonymously. Although, nothing really beats the convienence of the web proxies!
Even small scale simulations of the brain, based upon the not so biologically plausible model of a neural network produce Interesting Results. It is likely that a much smaller scale model of the rat brain, when fully understood, would produce intelligent results as well.
Often, when browsing from work, you don't need 100% anonyminity. Its not like you are logging onto your bank accounts from work, but you often want to visit a site that you don't want your employer to know about. For this reason, I use two fast anonymous web proxies. The First offers quick anonymous browsing (good enough for work) without any additional software to install. The Second has a simpler/cleaner interface.
"Made in China" has always been analogous to crappy quality and cheap parts. Looks like this satellite is no different!
Did you know that the XOR function was patented and earned the Patent Holder countless millions until it recently expired? are also patented!? This patent was actually enforced in 1994 to stop the sale of the Amiga Computer in the USA after Commodore stopped paying royalties on the patent. The XOR function was used to move the cursor around the screen.
Patents on algorithms and software should be disallowed.. as these types of patents are ripe for abuse!
Yahma
ProxyStorm - An anonymous, free, apache based proxy server.
I'm sorry... but while this teenagers work is certainly commendable and nothing to sneeze at (in fact, Large engineering firms such as Siemens seem to take an interest in him). His work does nothing to further research in the field. Non-sustaining fusion reactors have been around for decades, and its been widely known how to build one for at least 20 years. For most people, the cost is the limiting factor. Why would you want to spend $50k-100k on something that uses more energy than it produces?
Now when we finally get a sustainable fusion reaction that produces more energy that it uses, that would be something to write about!
Yahma
ProxyStorm - An apache based anonymous proxy service.