Gah, all sorts of silly idea on how to make a person be unable to mount a drive RW. It's called a hardware jumper, people, and it's on most hard drives. We don't need to get all convulted here with kernel modules and whatnot.
If you were really clever, you could find an old case with a turbo switch, and hook that up to the read-only jumper. Tada, to write to disk you have to physically turn the turbo button off.
And, yes, as far as I know you can remove and add the jumper while the drive is running, but if you can't you can easily power it down in linux with hdparm.
Yes, but at least you don'thave to worry about cleaning up the disks after you've been hacked. You just take the disk to another machine, modify whatever let them in, and reboot the box. No reformat, no reinstall, no nothing, you just have to figure out who they got in, close the hole, and you can keep using the same disk.
Of course, no one would have to accept the spam, we would still run blacklists like normal...it'd be like a tax on the stupid! Or, alternately, if they don't pay the tax, we'll have a reason to have them arrested.
Re:Loki didn't work, but other things might:
on
Last Word on Loki
·
· Score: 1
Oh, and I forgot to add: the great thing about using a PC as a console is...floppy drives for saved games.;)
And, of course, you could always still install the game like normal.
Re:Loki didn't work, but other things might:
on
Last Word on Loki
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It would be rather stupid to use X on that CD. The correct thing to do would be to use SDL, and then they can use ggi.
Looking at a Linux distribution to find out how many files you need is about as silly as looking at hypothetical bootable-into-Quake3 CD and saying 'But my windows directory takes up 250 megs'! Linux strips down just as much as DOS does.
I've personally ran Linux on 120 meg drives, and that install was fully usuably, which the 'linux distro' on the CD does not need to be. We're talking one statically linked binary here, no libraries, no/bin, and no X.
It would be trivial to fit most of this on a floppy, not to mention a CD. They have boot linux floppies that have a ton of stuff the game CD does not need, and nothing it doesn't, except the statically-linked game.
Now, swap is tricky, but, you don't really need it. Most game binaries are not more then 10 megs. You just need an intelligent way to load files yourself when you need them, from the CD. While this sounds like a lot of work, it would make the game run faster even without swap, so it's a smart idea anyway.
And under normal conditions, they are able to find it, by themselves. It seems sensible to distinguish between machines which need intervention to fuel them, and machines which can harvest their own energy from the environment -- ask any nanotechnologist. A "self-sustaining" machine of this kind would not be a perpetual motion machine (which the inventor explicitly says his machine is not), but it would be bloody useful.
So, you're suggesting the machine can go out and get more energy? What are you suggesting?
As far as I know, only the police can violate search warrent rules. If you tape record someone else, it might be, or might not be, illegal, and only if it's illegal, you can't use it as evidence.
In other words, while it is inadmissible for police to listen with a cup against the wall, assuming it is legal for you to do it, it's not inadmissible.
And you can legally program your computer to do whatever the heck you want. (Technically, I guess, you could violate the DMCA if you installed keyboard logging software and captured their passords, but that's a fairly crazy occurance.) If you want to have your computer email your microphone recordings to you every day or so, it's perfectly legal. And as long as it is legal, it's admissible. (Of course, I'm not sure about the legal status of recordings in general in a court of law...)
Frankly, I find that a hilarious idea. And you can do the same with email and 'My Documents'. And be sure to delete/alter things subtly and randomly.
And I don't see why it would be illegal for you to have it call up a 1-900 number. While a lawyer could argue that it's 'theft of their phone service', what the hell did they expect when they hooked in a phone line? If you had sold the machine, than it would clearly be fraud and theft, but (as far as they can know) that's the intended purpose of the stolen machine, to rack up a large phone bill. For all they know, this machine is sold with a large 'Too low a phone bill? Try this machine, it dials long distance lines while you sleep!'.
However, some of the things people are recomending are not a good idea. Calling 911 and hanging up is probably illegal, and programming a machine to do it doesn't make it any more legal. Calling them up and playing a recording message is...well, 'you' are reporting a theft, so that's a weird gray area. It would probably be better to get a middleman in there somewhere, though. If you remove all middlemen from the process, you, the programmer, are in trouble if it does illegal things.
Erm, I don't know what a horse has to do with anything, but, no, they are not self-sustaining. They require outside energy to continue to live.
And I can't imagine what other definations you use. Anything that doesn't use energy from the outside is self-sustaining, and impossible unless you invent some sort of fictionless surface.
Substaining means, literally, 'what causes it to run' and 'self-sustaining' means that it causes itself to run.
Simply playing with semantics won't get you a perpetual motion machines, and 'self-sustaining machines' is a perpetual motion machine. I challenge you to find a machine that will power itself forever that isn't one.
I'm sitting next to a box a lot smaller than a dryer that can power three lightbulbs for more than a day. It's called a UPS, for those of you not in the know, and I've personally seen this one power two computers for 12+ hours and only drop halfway down chargewise.
If I got a big metal box, and stuck ten of these things in it, I could completely trump this guy. I'd have it run for a week! And mine would run 'on' a watch battery, and, at the end, send enough current thorough it to blow it up! Then, to finish the demonstration, I'd have it electrocute one of the 'reporters' who fall for this kind of crap.
Just because they say they aren't claiming to be perpetual motion, doesn't mean they aren't, in fact, claiming it. A quote from the article: 'Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a self-sustaining unit which at the same time provides surplus electrical energy'
A self-sustaining unit that provides any sort of extra energy is, tada, a perpetual motion machine. (Technically, any self-substaining unit by itself is one, without providing any extra energy, but, while that's slightly more possible than one that does, it's not anywhere near as useful.)
They basically said 'This isn't a flatblade screwdriver. It's a device with one end intending to fit into the groove in the head of a screw, and a handle on the other end which lets you turn it, which then turns the screw.'
Dude, shorting out a battery to start it is the dumbest thing imaginable.;) If you want to heat a car battery up, just turn on all the accessories in the car and crank it a few times.
Trying to heat up a battry by shorting it is like trying to heat up uranium by banging it against other uranium pieces. It's a good way to electocute yourself, blow up your battery, or just fry the car's electical system.
No, batteries run out of certain chemicals. But in a technical sense, that's what a windup clock does, it works until the spring 'wears out' and becomes unusable.
Of course, you can 'refurbish' the spring by winding the stem.;)
Sarcasm is usually a form of verbal irony, intended to be hurtful or when speaking bitterly. Sarcasm can also technically be, although it's not usually used that way, any satirical biting or rude remark. 'Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!' is technically sarcasm. Many of The Onion's stories, while all the facts are true, are sarcastic.
Most verbal irony that is opposite in meaning to what you actually mean is sarcasm, as you usually won't get it interpeted as sarcasm unless you say it in a satirical voice. Technically, deadpan deliviers, while often funnier than sarcasm, are not sarcastic.
But, you know, I don't really care, and meanings of words change over times.;)
I'm sorry, but it is. It 'confused' fascism and whatever it is the Chinese government is, causing something like 50% of the posts here to be corrections to that one word, and it implied the (presumably) United States government controlled the flow of information without giving any evidence or even examples, causing 25% of the comments to defend this random US bashing and 25% to agree with it.
This article is a troll, pure and simple, and people should stop responding to it.
Now I'm going to get moderated down. Again. Hopefully this time it will by by the real moderators, instead of the editors.
It's amazing how many people think America has no culture, when in fact the problem is that America has the default culture. It's just so pervasive that no one see it, it is 'normal' behavior, whereas all other countries have a different culture compared to it.
A gun's primary purpose is to inflict severe wounds. Most people will not reap the benefits of inflicting severe wounds
It really amazes me people think that. You know, almost every time a gun is 'used' in regard to another human being, it's used to threaten them. It's amazingly obvious to me.
Guns are not used to just walk up and shot other people, except by idiots, and those idiots could have used a knife just as well, because if you're going to just walk up and kill someone without warning, you'll usually get away with it, even if you use a friggin baseball bat. You just *thwap* them when they aren't looking.
People seem to be completely unable to seperate 'injurying people' and 'threatening to injury people', and it's starting to annoy me.
Pulling a gun on someone is to threaten to shoot them if they don't do what you say. Having a gun visible is to threaten to shoot people who _______, presumably people around you will figure it out. Having a concealed weapons law is to introduce the idea that everyone will shoot people who _______, etc.
This is a completely different concept than inflicting wounds on people. You don't need a gun to inflict wounds. You need a gun to threaten to (easily) inflict wounds on the other person.
And don't bother trying to figure out if this post is pro- or anti-gun-control. It's not. I'm just getting sick of people not grasping the entire point of guns. Guns are not to inflict harm, they are to threaten to inflict harm. Killing people is easy. Threatening them is hard without guns, most people won't stand there forever while you hold a knife against their throat.
Yeah, and the 1.3 billion Chinese all laugh at the paltry 80 million Filippinos.;)
BTW, not everyone in the Philippines can speak English, they have two offical languages, Tagalog and English. Presumably, some of them can only speak one of those, or they wouldn't have both.
But, anyway, 80 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Asia. Forget China, the Philippines are tied with friggin Vietnam populationwise.;) (Though I do have to admit that they probably have more computers.;) )
I for one am with you. We better get some sort of public apology here or I'm out of here. This is completely insane. WE are supposed to be the moderators, and this is just an abuse of the system to keep us from moderating comments how we want.
What's even funnier is that they've started modding down on-topic posts in this thread, presumably to keep the parent from being seen.
You're just not allowed to tempt fate like that. Unbreakable software, unsinkable ships, childproof caps, foolproof plans, unbreakable encryption, etc. They'll all fail instantly to live up to their promise. Not only that, they usually fail worse then their 'breakable' counterparts. An unsinkable ship will not only sink, it will sink with not enough life boats, a childproof cap will instantly be openable by children, but won't be openable by adults, etc.
I'm expecting Terry Pratchett to write a book about this any day now, it's right up his alley.
(I decided to post in this thread, even though it undoes all my moderation, as moderating appears to be a completely pointless action anymore.)
Too lazy to code it, but what you should do is allocate the array one bigger then it needs to be, then you can put 0 into 100, 99 into 0, 1 into 99, 98 into 1, etc. At the end you just throw away 0.
Mwhahahaha. One less copy per loop!
Of course, none of this makes any sense for a seven item array, the correct way to do that is to just make another frickin array and copy it.;)
Slashdot Mirror
If you were really clever, you could find an old case with a turbo switch, and hook that up to the read-only jumper. Tada, to write to disk you have to physically turn the turbo button off.
And, yes, as far as I know you can remove and add the jumper while the drive is running, but if you can't you can easily power it down in linux with hdparm.
Yes, but at least you don'thave to worry about cleaning up the disks after you've been hacked. You just take the disk to another machine, modify whatever let them in, and reboot the box. No reformat, no reinstall, no nothing, you just have to figure out who they got in, close the hole, and you can keep using the same disk.
Of course, no one would have to accept the spam, we would still run blacklists like normal...it'd be like a tax on the stupid! Or, alternately, if they don't pay the tax, we'll have a reason to have them arrested.
And, of course, you could always still install the game like normal.
Looking at a Linux distribution to find out how many files you need is about as silly as looking at hypothetical bootable-into-Quake3 CD and saying 'But my windows directory takes up 250 megs'! Linux strips down just as much as DOS does.
I've personally ran Linux on 120 meg drives, and that install was fully usuably, which the 'linux distro' on the CD does not need to be. We're talking one statically linked binary here, no libraries, no /bin, and no X.
It would be trivial to fit most of this on a floppy, not to mention a CD. They have boot linux floppies that have a ton of stuff the game CD does not need, and nothing it doesn't, except the statically-linked game.
Now, swap is tricky, but, you don't really need it. Most game binaries are not more then 10 megs. You just need an intelligent way to load files yourself when you need them, from the CD. While this sounds like a lot of work, it would make the game run faster even without swap, so it's a smart idea anyway.
So, you're suggesting the machine can go out and get more energy? What are you suggesting?
It could work on a university network.
In other words, while it is inadmissible for police to listen with a cup against the wall, assuming it is legal for you to do it, it's not inadmissible.
And you can legally program your computer to do whatever the heck you want. (Technically, I guess, you could violate the DMCA if you installed keyboard logging software and captured their passords, but that's a fairly crazy occurance.) If you want to have your computer email your microphone recordings to you every day or so, it's perfectly legal. And as long as it is legal, it's admissible. (Of course, I'm not sure about the legal status of recordings in general in a court of law...)
Frankly, I find that a hilarious idea. And you can do the same with email and 'My Documents'. And be sure to delete/alter things subtly and randomly.
And I don't see why it would be illegal for you to have it call up a 1-900 number. While a lawyer could argue that it's 'theft of their phone service', what the hell did they expect when they hooked in a phone line? If you had sold the machine, than it would clearly be fraud and theft, but (as far as they can know) that's the intended purpose of the stolen machine, to rack up a large phone bill. For all they know, this machine is sold with a large 'Too low a phone bill? Try this machine, it dials long distance lines while you sleep!'.
However, some of the things people are recomending are not a good idea. Calling 911 and hanging up is probably illegal, and programming a machine to do it doesn't make it any more legal. Calling them up and playing a recording message is...well, 'you' are reporting a theft, so that's a weird gray area. It would probably be better to get a middleman in there somewhere, though. If you remove all middlemen from the process, you, the programmer, are in trouble if it does illegal things.
I wasn't talking about drawing voltage to crank the car, I was talking about heating a battery up by using it.
And I can't imagine what other definations you use. Anything that doesn't use energy from the outside is self-sustaining, and impossible unless you invent some sort of fictionless surface.
Substaining means, literally, 'what causes it to run' and 'self-sustaining' means that it causes itself to run.
Simply playing with semantics won't get you a perpetual motion machines, and 'self-sustaining machines' is a perpetual motion machine. I challenge you to find a machine that will power itself forever that isn't one.
If I got a big metal box, and stuck ten of these things in it, I could completely trump this guy. I'd have it run for a week! And mine would run 'on' a watch battery, and, at the end, send enough current thorough it to blow it up! Then, to finish the demonstration, I'd have it electrocute one of the 'reporters' who fall for this kind of crap.
A self-sustaining unit that provides any sort of extra energy is, tada, a perpetual motion machine. (Technically, any self-substaining unit by itself is one, without providing any extra energy, but, while that's slightly more possible than one that does, it's not anywhere near as useful.)
They basically said 'This isn't a flatblade screwdriver. It's a device with one end intending to fit into the groove in the head of a screw, and a handle on the other end which lets you turn it, which then turns the screw.'
Trying to heat up a battry by shorting it is like trying to heat up uranium by banging it against other uranium pieces. It's a good way to electocute yourself, blow up your battery, or just fry the car's electical system.
Of course, you can 'refurbish' the spring by winding the stem. ;)
Most verbal irony that is opposite in meaning to what you actually mean is sarcasm, as you usually won't get it interpeted as sarcasm unless you say it in a satirical voice. Technically, deadpan deliviers, while often funnier than sarcasm, are not sarcastic.
But, you know, I don't really care, and meanings of words change over times. ;)
If I place this flat sheet of metal on the ground, and hold this other sheet two inches up, and let go of the second...pow! ;)
Okay, I want an explaination of why that was off-topic.
This article is a troll, pure and simple, and people should stop responding to it.
Now I'm going to get moderated down. Again. Hopefully this time it will by by the real moderators, instead of the editors.
It's amazing how many people think America has no culture, when in fact the problem is that America has the default culture. It's just so pervasive that no one see it, it is 'normal' behavior, whereas all other countries have a different culture compared to it.
It really amazes me people think that. You know, almost every time a gun is 'used' in regard to another human being, it's used to threaten them. It's amazingly obvious to me.
Guns are not used to just walk up and shot other people, except by idiots, and those idiots could have used a knife just as well, because if you're going to just walk up and kill someone without warning, you'll usually get away with it, even if you use a friggin baseball bat. You just *thwap* them when they aren't looking.
People seem to be completely unable to seperate 'injurying people' and 'threatening to injury people', and it's starting to annoy me.
Pulling a gun on someone is to threaten to shoot them if they don't do what you say. Having a gun visible is to threaten to shoot people who _______, presumably people around you will figure it out. Having a concealed weapons law is to introduce the idea that everyone will shoot people who _______, etc.
This is a completely different concept than inflicting wounds on people. You don't need a gun to inflict wounds. You need a gun to threaten to (easily) inflict wounds on the other person.
And don't bother trying to figure out if this post is pro- or anti-gun-control. It's not. I'm just getting sick of people not grasping the entire point of guns. Guns are not to inflict harm, they are to threaten to inflict harm. Killing people is easy. Threatening them is hard without guns, most people won't stand there forever while you hold a knife against their throat.
BTW, not everyone in the Philippines can speak English, they have two offical languages, Tagalog and English. Presumably, some of them can only speak one of those, or they wouldn't have both.
But, anyway, 80 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Asia. Forget China, the Philippines are tied with friggin Vietnam populationwise. ;) (Though I do have to admit that they probably have more computers.;) )
What's even funnier is that they've started modding down on-topic posts in this thread, presumably to keep the parent from being seen.
I'm expecting Terry Pratchett to write a book about this any day now, it's right up his alley.
(I decided to post in this thread, even though it undoes all my moderation, as moderating appears to be a completely pointless action anymore.)
Don't forget Borland backing down.
Mwhahahaha. One less copy per loop!
Of course, none of this makes any sense for a seven item array, the correct way to do that is to just make another frickin array and copy it. ;)