Yea, you can talk about the "gigs and gigs" of DiVX out there...heck, you could even move on and talk about the terabytes upon terabytes upon terabytes of MP3s as well.
It doesn't matter. $$ wins. TKO. Go to jail. Fatality.
"Open standards" mean nothing to businesses.
--Geek walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Geek: "MP3."
CEO: "Why?"
Geek: "Because everyone uses it."
CEO: "So it's not ours to control?"
Geek: --Laughs and snorts
CEO: "Leave and never come back."
--Bill Gates walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Bill: "WMA."
CEO: "Why?"
Bill: "It's hard to pirate. You save $$."
CEO: "Also?"
Bill: "New technology. People have it, you play it. You get $$."
CEO: "And?"
Bill: --Dumps shitload of money on boardroom table.
CEO: "Okay then."
Corporations won't be able to control DiVX. Corporations won't be able to control MP3. But they can control WMA, since WMA is owned by one of their fellow corporations. It doesn't matter how widely it's used. What matters is how much $$ is to be made.
The SSSCA itself is unconstitutional. The argument is plain and simple.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
So, the government has the exclusive right to secure copyright. Enforcing copyright? Nope. If you look at Paragraph 401 of US Copyright Law, 1978, the owner of the copyright is required to initiate enforcement of the copyright by issuing some kind of declaration of infraction.
Plain and simple...the government cannot aid in the enforcement of a copyright UNTIL the enforcement has been begun by the copyright owner.
Now, relating this to Microsoft and their "DRM OS," there's nothing that says that some 3rd party can't aid in enforcing the copyright. HOWEVER, depending on how you interpret the law, the forced limitation on copyrighted material DOES infringe on the definition of "ownership."
As it's been said by now, according to Copyright Law, the ownership of a copyright and the ownership of the copyrighted material are mutually exclusive. Anotherwords, the ownership of a copyright DOES NOT INCLUDE ownership of the copyrighted material IN ANY WAY (Para. 202). Microsoft's limitation through digital encryption of the material when the material is owned by someone other than Microsoft directly conflicts with Para. 202.
A good example: say I purchase a book to read from a bookstore, but the book print is too small. I then go to Target to purchase a magnifying lamp so I can read the book. Microsoft is basically trying to say that it would be illegial for me to use the reading lamp to read the book unless the reading lamp was purchased from Microsoft itself.
Sorry, Microsoft, but if I own the music, I OWN the music. Your limitation of my EXCLUSIVE OWNERSHIP of the music is illegal.
Most end up knowing that they will clean up the mess, because "The top guys like Microsoft so much - it has so many features."
Show the "top guys" the article about Microsoft finally getting around to patching their browser. Make sure you highlight this text from the article:
Until the patch is available from Microsoft, Pynnonen said concerned users can temporarily disable IE's ability to download files.
Explain to them that if they want to 4) Clean up the mess, while the mess is being cleaned up, they need to stop their downloading of mysterious files off the internet.
Try to mix in some economic terms: "Boss, in order that we may obtain greater reliability through Microsoft's web browser, Microsoft says that we need to disable part of the function of the web browser itself, aka sacrificing our productivity in order to maintain stability."
Alright, so I admit, I was a little curious about how dumb people are with their passwords so I tried the search. It's simply amazing how careless people are with their security...
Here was a simple document found using the exact search method listed above that is just the Minutes from some board meeting. In it, they actually LISTED a website to log into as well as the password required to get in! Right in the minutes! The website is no longer available, so I'll actually post the text from the minutes...
Minutes of the Gulliver Meeting at Carlton Library 17.8.01
...
7. Assessment of database products
B_ spoke briefly about the online tool that is an outcome of work done at Monash University for Libraries online, he will make the URL available so that evaluation of the usefulness of the tool may commence.
The tool is at http://130.194.38.42
Password admin
Talk about careless. Even if you're positive that the minutes document won't be posted on the web, you certainly don't go and actually write it onto something that will be distributed to the public! A hard copy (aka paper) of access to a server is just as dangerous as it being stored online.
The problem is that people don't realize that it's not save to distribute private information through ANY public medium.
...telling a prospective CS grad to go for his Ph.D in CS or telling him to start a porn site.
From what I get, the exact reason why he loves Computer Science so much was the freedom to code for himself (intrinsic motivation, as a psych major would say). There's something fulfilling about taking your own time to code your own tool. It may be something as silly as watching a ball bounce around the screen to something as complex as writing an OS in x86 assembly, but it motivates people. Suddenly you stick them in a college environment where the emphasis is not on, "What you want, when you want it," but instead, "Here's the schedule we have to maintain and it's your job to keep up with it." You can't choose your pace, and what's worse, you're following someone elses priorities.
So for Pete's sake, don't tell him to go and get a Ph.D in something he's lost interest him. You're only scraping away whatever interest he has left in CS.
Here's what you do: go back to your schedule of learning. Don't let others dictate your methods of learning. The fact of the matter is that you DO have that sheet of paper in your hand that says you're a CS major. Leave it at that, and try to rekindle (if a spark still remains) you're enjoyment for CS by doing it as a hobby rather than a priority.
Honestly, this is normal. Most of my friends in college in the CS field who went into it because they loved it as a hobby ended up despising it in the end. Those I know who started fresh in the program because it intreagued them (who didn't fail their first 100 level class) enjoyed it to the end. Again, I think it just has to deal with how you learned CS in the first place...if you spent years of studying it on your own time at your own pace, it gets annoying to have someone else tell you that you now have to face priorities.
This reminds me of the one Simpsons' scene...
on
TV Networks Sue ReplayTV
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· Score: 4, Flamebait
...the one where Grandpa Simpson is complaining about how young kids keep trying to get something free for doing nothing. He then walks into the Social Security office and scremes to the clerk, "Gimme Gimme Gimme!"
Here's the deal. You want to get TV for free, you have to pay the price. I'm not talking about the cost of your cable bill here folks...very little of that actually goes to ABC or CBS. That money is for the cost of operations with your TV company. That's why Showtime, HBC, etc. charge money for their channels, since they don't show nearly as many advertisements during their programming. That price is commercials.
Sure, you're have every right to skip over the advertising if you want (now that it's almost instantly possible to do so). Yet what happens when advertising executives realize that no one is watching their adds anymore? They're going to pull funding from you favorite TV channels. Then how are CBS, ABC, FOX,... going to fund their businesses? One of two options...either they aren't, or they are going to move the commercials directly into the TV programming, just like they have already with football and the World Series.
If you think the business model is wrong, then you are right. They will have to change it. But don't go crying to me when they stick ad promos even further into your face, because that is the only way that they can get money without charging you a dime.
Yeah, it's self-serving and perhaps borderline unethical. But it's not illegal (yet) and if they want to make a sight that uses IE features they can't guarantee are supported in other browers, that's their call.
You're right, and we face this on the internet every day. Say I visit a site that says that to view the site, I need Macromedia Shockwave. Well, if I really want to view the site, I'll download Macromedia Shockwave. If I want to say, "Screw that...I'm not going to give Macromedia the edge in my WWW viewing," that's my right as well.
But here's the problem: Microsoft isn't saying, "Hey, we use special things here, and if you want to view the webpage, you need this special software." No, Redmond's saying this:
"We do identify the string from the browser, and the only issue that we have is that the Opera browser doesn't support the latest XHTML standard," said Visse. "So we do suggest to those users that they go download a browser that does support the latest standards."
Well, let's just go visit Mozilla.org's website for a second...if you look here, you'll read at the top of the page that, Mozilla has good support for XML. Several World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendations and drafts from the XML family of specifications are supported, as well as other related technologies.
So, Mozilla supports XHTML, but for some strange reason, msn.com says it doesn't. As Chris Farley would say, "Hmm...That's a mystery!"
Oh, this is good! Check this out... Okay, folks, here's the kicker. While I was looking around at this, a thought occured to me. Let's just go down and check out www.w3c.org and see if the guys who made the standards actually say that MSN is playing by their rules. So, this lead me to W3's Validation site, where I typed in www.msn.com into the XHTML validation field, here's what I got in return (abridged, but the key points are there)...
Below are the results of checking this document for XML well-formedness and validity.
...(four errors listed, but omitted for space)
Sorry, this document does not validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.
If you use CSS in your document, you should also check it for validity using the W3C CSS Validation Service.
---
But nothing, nothing comes close to just proving how dirty Microsoft is playing than this statement right here at the bottom of the page: (- character used to show XHTML script included in webpage)
---
Below is the source input I used for this validation:
1: -?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?--!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"--html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Attention: Web Browser Upgrade Required to View MSN.com-/title--base href="http://go.msn.com/"/>Attention: Web Browser Upgrade Required to View MSN.com
If you are seeing this page, we have detected that the browser that you are using will not render MSN.com correctly. Additionally, you'll see the most advanced functionality of MSN.com only with the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer or MSN Explorer. If you wish to visit MSN.com, please select the appropriate download link below.
Can you believe this? MSN actually told the W3C standard comittee that their own standards did not work with MSN! That's a laugh riot right there.
So, Case in Point: If Microsoft were to flat out say, "Hey! We don't care about you guys with the other browsers! Our website only looks good with IE and that's the way it's going to be," then I'd grumble and go on with my business. But Microsoft says that they're conforming to the standards presented in XHTML by W3C, when in fact W3C says that www.msn.com does not comply with their standards.
...to a video that our computer club watched over and over again in high school because it was so dumb it was funny. The video was called "Don't Copy that Floppy." Man, I wish I had that video so I could make it to an AVI and distribute it on the internet.
Basically, guy and gal were playing this "really cool" computer game on a Mac, when gal says "man, I wish I had that game. That is so cool." Guy says "Oh, no problem. I'll make you a copy." Suddenly, this black "rapper" jumps out of the computer screen and does the "Don't Copy that Floppy" rap. It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life, because it made absolutely no sense and the setup of the "storyline" is so manipulated it's pathetic.
Anyway, in trying to make some kind of point out of this, ever since the internet has given way to the bending of copyright protection issues, corporations have been constantly trying to put out propaganda all over to try and reign things in. It never works, but don't tell corporate America that! (Otherwise, our high school computer club would have stopped making copies of games a long time ago).
the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era
I should have gotten one from Radio Shack. Not only would it have been free, but I could have probably sold it ten years from know on eBay for hundreds of dollars, when everyone else, who was too dumb to see it's true potential as a collector's item, threw it away.
I'll file charges in michigan (my home state) against them where any hacking is considered a felony.
Article 6, Section 2 :
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Anotherwords, no matter what the laws of the state of Michigan say, because this is a federal bill, it beats out any laws that Michigan, Oregon, Idaho, or any other state have to say on the subject.
Translation for the man on the streetcorner: bullshit or no bullshit, it's legit.
Oh please...a network that's unhackable?
on
GOVNET In the Works
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· Score: 3, Interesting
That's like saying there's a wire that's not bendable.
Okay, let's figure this thing out. Government wants to separate themselves completely from the WWW. This means that they need to lay their own network of wires.
Let's figure out this deductively:
Step #1: Wireless: If they are dumb enough to use satellite communication for networking, all it would take is someone to go driving along in their van with a good enough receiver who knows where a receiver would be along the network, park their van close by, and tap into the mainframe with a large enough receiver. Honestly, there's no way you can completely guard an entire "wireless airspace." If they use hard cable...
Step #2: Cable: My assumption would be that they'd lay cable instead. Alright, no problem. Play the game by the network's rules (just like phreakers did back in the 70s and 80s)...find a line and tap into it. Again, all it would take is for someone to figure out that one of those cables is the GOVNET cable (or someone obtain a map of the GOVNET network...even if it's classified, I'm sure one would leak out eventually). Even if it's out in the middle of the Utah desert, all someone would need is a shack and an electric pole running nearby the cable and he could easily break into the data stream.
Of course, I'm sure that GOVNET would also be using some style of encryption (hopefully...I want to assume that they would hire technicians that are THAT ignorant, but they do pay $1000 for a toilet seat, so who knows what bozos they'll hire). But even so, the point is that once you have some way of tapping into the line itself, you could broadcast it however you like to the surrounding region with a wireless tranceiver (heck, go for 802.11b... give us all a chance).
I probably don't have all my wireless networking tools correct, but the point I'm trying to make still stands out: any network can be physically broken into, since it cannot all be guarded throughout the US. And after it's physically compromised, it's just a matter of time before we see Bush on GOVNET VidConference Viewer v1.0!
I can just see the history of this company as soon as they get their IPO. It's not the stock values that I'm worried about. PayPal is one online entity that actually has their shit together. They have the backing of the strongest commercial online market, eBay. Although there are other third-party online payment options out there, PayPal has emerged as one of the most viable, most stable ways to transfer money safely using the third-party option. So, what's so bad?
Just look at Microsoft's business plan over the last comple years and where it's going. IE --> Passport -->.NET --> ??? Basically, PayPal is going to do one of two things for Microsoft: they're either going to fit in nicely with the strategies of Passport and.NET, or they're going to stand in Microsoft's way. I tend to support the latter.
Everyone has seen that "partnerships" with Microsoft don't work out. AOL certainly proved this fact well. Basically, Microsoft either assimilates or annihilates anything in the way of it's "business strategies." I truly do not believe that Microsoft will try to partner with PayPal in trying to create a personal e-business market for the average Joe. Granted, they haven't announced this strategy directly, but just look at things for a second.
We all know that.NET is Microsoft's solution for merging personal computing with internet applications. We also know that Microsoft has been working on integrating Microsoft Passport within their operating system as the way to encrypt personal information needed for any website. Add the two together, kneed in the fact that companies have been trying for the past five years to merge internet and business, sprinkle with Microsoft's many attempts to turn the desktop into an internet appliance, and we have a very good hypothesis for where Microsoft wants you to go tomorrow...using your own computer for your personal business needs. Sure, they might not be the actual car dealers, office warehouses, or grocery stores that want to sell you the goods, but they certainly want to be the gateway of that transaction.
So, enter into the ring another contender as the gateway of personal commerce online, aka PayPal, and Microsoft has someone ready to duke it out with. Unless something bad occurs over at Redmond in the next year or so, PayPal's going to be fighting one huge battle with Redmond's executives (and I wouldn't be surprised if Redmond's lawyers also get into the ring waving around a couple patent papers as well).
Theme Song: Sucked. Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Ship: Nice design, though I honestly want to just have someone on the show explain why they picked that design for Star Fleet (circular disk, engines in the rear). If this is their first big star-ship, then at least tell me why they built it the way they did.
Crew: Interesting, but I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a clash between everyone's feelings toward each other. They all get along like compadres. Even the Vulcan science officer had little trouble getting along with the captain. Half of the storylines in Original Series/TNG/DS9 were about clashes between the crew. There's also little racial difference between them all. I mean, they're all Americanized people. At least Czechov had an accent.
Crew Chemistry: Gee, am I detecting a resurected Kirk/McCoy relationship in the captain and his science officer? At least McCoy knew when to add "colorful metaphors" when they were needed. It seems like Bacula just doesn't get the timing right (perhaps he could use some guidance from the South Park writers...can you imagine him yelling out to his crew, "Kick Ass!", and "Respect my Authorita!" to the Klingons?).
Storyline: Wait, there was a storyline I had to follow? Sorry...I had too many images of rubbing petroleum jelly all over some hot woman's back and behind. Ever since I saw some peculiar protrusions thrusting out of the Vulcan's undershirt I lost all sense of storyline.
Hot chick: Well, at least they got one thing right. Ever since Councelor Troi, this has been an absolute must. Voyager got it right in the second half of their run with Seven. At least they were able to keep some of my attention off the storyline and on the Jolene Blalock.
All in all: give me about a month to see if they can go somewhere with their setup. They've put in some good potential, and I'd like to see something come of it. But the key I would say is that Bacula has GOT to get an edge. Come on...Kirk, Sisqo, Picard, and Janeway all had veins popping out of their foreheads at one time or another in the show. Bacula's gotta do his part as well to continue the captain's legacy.
Theme Song: Sucked. Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Ship: Nice design, though I honestly want to just have someone on the show explain why they picked that design for Star Fleet (circular disk, engines in the rear). If this is their first big star-ship, then at least tell me why they built it the way they did.
Crew: Interesting, but I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a clash between everyone's feelings toward each other. They all get along like compadres. Even the Vulcan science officer had little trouble getting along with the captain. Half of the storylines in Original Series/TNG/DS9 were about clashes between the crew. There's also little racial difference between them all. I mean, they're all Americanized people. At least Czechov had an accent.
Crew Chemistry: Gee, am I detecting a resurected Kirk/McCoy relationship in the captain and his science officer? At least McCoy knew when to add "colorful metaphors" when they were needed. It seems like Bacula just doesn't get the timing right (perhaps he could use some guidance from the South Park writers...can you imagine him yelling out to his crew, "Kick Ass!", and "Respect my Authorita!" to the Klingons?).
Storyline: Wait, there was a storyline I had to follow? Sorry...I had too many images of rubbing petroleum jelly all over some hot woman's back and behind. Ever since I saw some peculiar protrusions thrusting out of the Vulcan's undershirt I lost all sense of storyline.
Hot chick: Well, at least they got one thing right. Ever since Councelor Troi, this has been an absolute must. Voyager got it right in the second half of their run with Seven. At least they were able to keep some of my attention off the storyline and on the Jolene Blalock.
All in all: give me about a month to see if they can go somewhere with their setup. They've put in some good potential, and I'd like to see something come of it. But the key I would say is that Bacula has GOT to get an edge. Come on...Kirk, Sisqo, Picard, and Janeway all had veins popping out of their foreheads at one time or another in the show. Bacula's gotta do his part as well to continue the captain's legacy.
Careful about targeting one source...
on
Our New Pearl Harbor
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· Score: 5, Insightful
This was our main subject in Psych class today at college, and our professor was especially worried about it.
Our professor is an Egyptian and an active Muslim. She was especially worried because everyone here in America associates BinLaden with the Islamic faith. It's as far from the truth as possible. BinLaden calls himself a "Fundamentalist Muslim," but has been denounced by Muslims throughout the world. She made us understand (and everyone should understand this before they point fingers) is that Palestineans / Arabs / Egyptians / whatever race or religion of people in the Middle East does not support the terrorist view of "If you kill Americans, you get into the life beyond." She was praying that the people behind the attack wern't Muslims, because the traditional Muslim faiths don't condone killing others. Unfortunately for her and us, though, our only image of the Muslim faith is BinLaden carrying out his attacks in the name of religion. It puts such a heavy burden on her here in the United States, since no one understands the fundamentals of the Muslim faith.
We should not go out on a witch hunt, because we are not sure yet who did it. But even more, people need to understand that these are INDIVIDUALS. They are INDIVIDUAL ACTS. They DO NOT represent any race of people, any religion of people, or any country of people.
So, you would define smart as admitting defeat to the competition where you were once ready to pass in the race?
Here's the problem: AMD's been whoopin Intel in the benchmarks, so Intel fires back by overrating it's processors. It's so dumb, it works, because consumers are dumb. So, even though Intel's P4 machines cost $400 more to make just to get the same performance, they're attracting customers who take that number and sleep soundly with it at night knowing it's.6 bigger than AMD's number.
AMD's own problem is that by doing this, they admit defeat to Intel and say, "Even though we want to get out of your shadow, we're going to play the game by your rules, because you still are the market leader."
Tell me then, what's going to happen when the 64-bit processors start coming out? Is AMD going to I-rate (Itanium-rate) their processors, even though the Itanium is a newly-designed processor that only emulates x86 instructions while the Sledgehammer computates them directly? That's just going to make us even more i-rate (excuse the pun).
AMD has the money and the processor to get themselves out of Intel's shadow. But so far, I have only seen one real commercial that AMD set forth (two years ago) to punch the Athlon hard. It only ran for about a month, and made them look wierd (is technology supposed to be about a gameshow where if you lose, you get hit by a train?). If AMD wants to remain in Intel's shadow, they should go ahead and follow a P-rating system. But if they truly want to become their own company and actually compete, they need drop this charade and start promoting how well their processors do, rather than what they're rated at.
Flat out. That's the problem with computers these days is that the salesmen don't know the inside of the computer from the outside.
Example: Back when Intel started making S370 Celerons, I went and asked a computer store clerk if it was Slot1 or S370. He said it was slot1. "All the older socket processors are too out of date and just don't perform as well." After going back home and looking on the internet to find out that the computer was a S370 rather than Slot1, I didn't trust that salesman again.
I figgured I'd try again last week with the Pentium IVs. I found another sales clerk and acted like a potential college student needing a computer for college. I asked him which was the fastest processor. "Oh, hands down, the Pentium IV! I mean, they just released a 1.8GHz chip, when all AMD has is a 1.3 GHz chip." I figured I'd play this out..."But is it worth the money? I mean, that Athlon system is $400 cheaper!" His response? "Well, if you need the cheaper system for college, pick the Athlon. But if you really want those games to shine, pick the Pentium IV. All that money is for the faster processor and faster memory." I just had to get out of there before I blew my top over his faster memory claim with RAMBUS.
Look at it this way: If you're ever gonna go out and buy a car, look over the lots to see what you like and what looks nice. But for crying out loud, NEVER take for granted what the dealers say, because they're out there to sell. If you want to know how the things honestly perform, find someone who already owns one and ask them! Or go to your local mechanic (everyone should have one, just like everyone should have a neighborhood geek whenever they need help with their computer) and ask them what they think about that specific model car.
That's why Cyrix and Intel both have to crank out these pathetic "P" ratings in order to satisfy market competition. The people who sell the products in the stores have no other choice.
If you can grab the edge from the competitors by using the extra 50W to grab an extra 100MHz out of the processor, you're going to flow as much juice through that processor as you can.
Look at the VIA C3 (aka the Cyrix III)...a 700MHz chip that takes so little voltage that you can almost run it without a heat sink (almost...which says quite a lot compared to these 5 lb. heat sinks on the P4). So? No one's buying it. Even if it had the biggest battleship of a FPU (though it doesn't), the fact that they're not running the processor fast enough to save energy is not going to sell the processor.
If someone could come up with a power transformer which charges 1000W into the computer case just so that you can get an extra 200-300MHz out of your processor, people would buy it.
...of old BBS days. Back 7 years ago when 28.8 was a luxury, there were a lot of BBS users who were shelling out the $150 for that luxury so their download of shareware DOOM could take 18 minutes rather than 3 hours.
The problem that came up with sysops was that too many people who still had the 2400 modems were taking too long online, hogging the precious nodes from other users. One BBS here in town decided to ban all 2400 baud users. After a flood of complaints (about 300 posts that day from 30 users) from users who had 2400 modems, he thought twice and kept them on, but limited them to 30 minutes online, rather than the traditional 60. Course, the ironic thing was that about 3/4ths of the users had only 2400 baud modems.
But it actually worked. After the initial complaints of, "I don't have the time to download DOOM," and "I can't play LORD, TradeWars, Ursurper, and BRE all in the same day anymore. My planet in TW was conquered because I couldn't defend it that day," things actually worked out. The 2400 users stopped erroneous downloads and playing all the games at once. They just realized that they couldn't do it with the modem they had.
Of course, the problem on the internet is that there isn't some sysop watching over traffic, but it's instead being shoved down our throats. I agree, there should be a way to stop anyone without anything less than ISDN to download files larger than 25 or 30MB. It's also insane that RealAudio and Quiktime offer streaming for "56K modems" when it requires at least an ISDN line to take that much data in at once. I can't stream with those programs, and I assume that most everyone else can't either with a 56K line.
Industry is the main cause of blame, but users should share some of it too. After finding out that their line is too slow, most should realize that they shouldn't continue to try.
Passer-by: "Hello, police? Yea, I was driving by KMart when I noticed that the doors have been broken off of the front of the building. You might want to get someone over before the place gets robbed."
Police: "Stay there for a while sir and watch things until we arive."
<I>15 Minutes later...</I>
Passer-by: "I'm glad you made it. I was getting tired and..."
Police: "You're under arrest for theft and breaking and entering."
Yea, that makes a lot of sense.
My favorite experience...
on
Dorm Storm?
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
I'm sure this has happened to a lot of techies out there, but I have to say it, because I was ready to explode with laughter when it happened.
We got a call from one of the new freshmen coming in saying that he couldn't connect to the network. We asked the usual round of questions..."Did you follow the guidelines on the 'Network Instalation' sheet?" "Is everything plugged in...is the network cord plugged from the wall jack to the Network card in your computer?" "Is your computer on and running?" He was getting insulted, because he said he came from a high school that was "pretty high tech, at least compared to here." So, I got sent over as a tech.
I got there, didn't get anything other than the DHCP error messages that said that it couldn't find a network to obtain an IP address. So, I checked the back of the computer quick, saw that things were plugged in, then ran to the room with the hubs to check that his line was connected. It was, and so I ran a line check to make sure it was the correct line. That too passed the test. I didn't hear of any other complaints from anyone else saying that they couldn't connect, so I figured that the NIC was probably bad. I opened up the computer and was about to take out the card when I removed the cable from the NIC, only to notice that it was simple phone cable, not an ethernet cable. I told this to the freshman, and got a "well, it fit in just fine, so it must have been the right cable" response.
As soon as I left his room, I exploded in laughter and laughed all the way back to the CS department.
Who truly needs a dictionary...
on
Netscape 6.1
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· Score: 3, Funny
...when we send and receive e-mails like this daily:
duuuuudes!
i's got net61 its 31337 way sweeeeeeeeeeeet
emails cool n i lik its grphx
ttfn l8r
It's emails like that that make Webster turn in his grave.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, you can talk about the "gigs and gigs" of DiVX out there...heck, you could even move on and talk about the terabytes upon terabytes upon terabytes of MP3s as well.
It doesn't matter. $$ wins. TKO. Go to jail. Fatality.
"Open standards" mean nothing to businesses.
--Geek walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Geek: "MP3."
CEO: "Why?"
Geek: "Because everyone uses it."
CEO: "So it's not ours to control?"
Geek: --Laughs and snorts
CEO: "Leave and never come back."
--Bill Gates walks into Sony's board room.
CEO: "What should we support with our CD player?"
Bill: "WMA."
CEO: "Why?"
Bill: "It's hard to pirate. You save $$."
CEO: "Also?"
Bill: "New technology. People have it, you play it. You get $$."
CEO: "And?"
Bill: --Dumps shitload of money on boardroom table.
CEO: "Okay then."
Corporations won't be able to control DiVX. Corporations won't be able to control MP3. But they can control WMA, since WMA is owned by one of their fellow corporations. It doesn't matter how widely it's used. What matters is how much $$ is to be made.
The SSSCA itself is unconstitutional. The argument is plain and simple.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
So, the government has the exclusive right to secure copyright. Enforcing copyright? Nope. If you look at Paragraph 401 of US Copyright Law, 1978, the owner of the copyright is required to initiate enforcement of the copyright by issuing some kind of declaration of infraction.
Plain and simple...the government cannot aid in the enforcement of a copyright UNTIL the enforcement has been begun by the copyright owner.
Now, relating this to Microsoft and their "DRM OS," there's nothing that says that some 3rd party can't aid in enforcing the copyright. HOWEVER, depending on how you interpret the law, the forced limitation on copyrighted material DOES infringe on the definition of "ownership."
As it's been said by now, according to Copyright Law, the ownership of a copyright and the ownership of the copyrighted material are mutually exclusive. Anotherwords, the ownership of a copyright DOES NOT INCLUDE ownership of the copyrighted material IN ANY WAY (Para. 202). Microsoft's limitation through digital encryption of the material when the material is owned by someone other than Microsoft directly conflicts with Para. 202.
A good example: say I purchase a book to read from a bookstore, but the book print is too small. I then go to Target to purchase a magnifying lamp so I can read the book. Microsoft is basically trying to say that it would be illegial for me to use the reading lamp to read the book unless the reading lamp was purchased from Microsoft itself.
Sorry, Microsoft, but if I own the music, I OWN the music. Your limitation of my EXCLUSIVE OWNERSHIP of the music is illegal.
Most end up knowing that they will clean up the mess, because "The top guys like Microsoft so much - it has so many features."
Show the "top guys" the article about Microsoft finally getting around to patching their browser. Make sure you highlight this text from the article:
Until the patch is available from Microsoft, Pynnonen said concerned users can temporarily disable IE's ability to download files.
Explain to them that if they want to 4) Clean up the mess, while the mess is being cleaned up, they need to stop their downloading of mysterious files off the internet.
Try to mix in some economic terms: "Boss, in order that we may obtain greater reliability through Microsoft's web browser, Microsoft says that we need to disable part of the function of the web browser itself, aka sacrificing our productivity in order to maintain stability."
That should get their attention.
Alright, so I admit, I was a little curious about how dumb people are with their passwords so I tried the search. It's simply amazing how careless people are with their security...
Here was a simple document found using the exact search method listed above that is just the Minutes from some board meeting. In it, they actually LISTED a website to log into as well as the password required to get in! Right in the minutes! The website is no longer available, so I'll actually post the text from the minutes...
Minutes of the Gulliver Meeting at Carlton Library 17.8.01
...
7. Assessment of database products
B_ spoke briefly about the online tool that is an outcome of work done at Monash University for Libraries online, he will make the URL available so that evaluation of the usefulness of the tool may commence.
The tool is at http://130.194.38.42
Password admin
Talk about careless. Even if you're positive that the minutes document won't be posted on the web, you certainly don't go and actually write it onto something that will be distributed to the public! A hard copy (aka paper) of access to a server is just as dangerous as it being stored online.
The problem is that people don't realize that it's not save to distribute private information through ANY public medium.
...ahem...
Those who write like karma-whores,
Get (+1) on karma scores.
Those who read those words of whit,
Reply to it with posts of shit.
Thank you.
...if they got rid of the pathetic crash error that happens whenever one uses the tab key to jump from one data field to the next?
.95 right now, and had to restart Mozilla as well as restart the .96 download due to that bug.
Man, that bug makes me so angry. I'm using
...telling a prospective CS grad to go for his Ph.D in CS or telling him to start a porn site.
From what I get, the exact reason why he loves Computer Science so much was the freedom to code for himself (intrinsic motivation, as a psych major would say). There's something fulfilling about taking your own time to code your own tool. It may be something as silly as watching a ball bounce around the screen to something as complex as writing an OS in x86 assembly, but it motivates people. Suddenly you stick them in a college environment where the emphasis is not on, "What you want, when you want it," but instead, "Here's the schedule we have to maintain and it's your job to keep up with it." You can't choose your pace, and what's worse, you're following someone elses priorities.
So for Pete's sake, don't tell him to go and get a Ph.D in something he's lost interest him. You're only scraping away whatever interest he has left in CS.
Here's what you do: go back to your schedule of learning. Don't let others dictate your methods of learning. The fact of the matter is that you DO have that sheet of paper in your hand that says you're a CS major. Leave it at that, and try to rekindle (if a spark still remains) you're enjoyment for CS by doing it as a hobby rather than a priority.
Honestly, this is normal. Most of my friends in college in the CS field who went into it because they loved it as a hobby ended up despising it in the end. Those I know who started fresh in the program because it intreagued them (who didn't fail their first 100 level class) enjoyed it to the end. Again, I think it just has to deal with how you learned CS in the first place...if you spent years of studying it on your own time at your own pace, it gets annoying to have someone else tell you that you now have to face priorities.
...the one where Grandpa Simpson is complaining about how young kids keep trying to get something free for doing nothing. He then walks into the Social Security office and scremes to the clerk, "Gimme Gimme Gimme!"
... going to fund their businesses? One of two options...either they aren't, or they are going to move the commercials directly into the TV programming, just like they have already with football and the World Series.
Here's the deal. You want to get TV for free, you have to pay the price. I'm not talking about the cost of your cable bill here folks...very little of that actually goes to ABC or CBS. That money is for the cost of operations with your TV company. That's why Showtime, HBC, etc. charge money for their channels, since they don't show nearly as many advertisements during their programming. That price is commercials.
Sure, you're have every right to skip over the advertising if you want (now that it's almost instantly possible to do so). Yet what happens when advertising executives realize that no one is watching their adds anymore? They're going to pull funding from you favorite TV channels. Then how are CBS, ABC, FOX,
If you think the business model is wrong, then you are right. They will have to change it. But don't go crying to me when they stick ad promos even further into your face, because that is the only way that they can get money without charging you a dime.
You're right, and we face this on the internet every day. Say I visit a site that says that to view the site, I need Macromedia Shockwave. Well, if I really want to view the site, I'll download Macromedia Shockwave. If I want to say, "Screw that...I'm not going to give Macromedia the edge in my WWW viewing," that's my right as well.
But here's the problem: Microsoft isn't saying, "Hey, we use special things here, and if you want to view the webpage, you need this special software." No, Redmond's saying this:
"We do identify the string from the browser, and the only issue that we have is that the Opera browser doesn't support the latest XHTML standard," said Visse. "So we do suggest to those users that they go download a browser that does support the latest standards."
Well, let's just go visit Mozilla.org's website for a second...if you look here, you'll read at the top of the page that, Mozilla has good support for XML. Several World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendations and drafts from the XML family of specifications are supported, as well as other related technologies.
So, Mozilla supports XHTML, but for some strange reason, msn.com says it doesn't. As Chris Farley would say, "Hmm...That's a mystery!"
Oh, this is good! Check this out...
Okay, folks, here's the kicker. While I was looking around at this, a thought occured to me. Let's just go down and check out www.w3c.org and see if the guys who made the standards actually say that MSN is playing by their rules. So, this lead me to W3's Validation site, where I typed in www.msn.com into the XHTML validation field, here's what I got in return (abridged, but the key points are there)...
URL: www.msn.com
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content Length: 1462
Detected Character Encoding: utf-8
Document Type: XHTML 1.0 Strict
Below are the results of checking this document for XML well-formedness and validity.
...(four errors listed, but omitted for space)
Sorry, this document does not validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.
If you use CSS in your document, you should also check it for validity using the W3C CSS Validation Service.
---
But nothing, nothing comes close to just proving how dirty Microsoft is playing than this statement right here at the bottom of the page: (- character used to show XHTML script included in webpage)
---
Below is the source input I used for this validation:
1: -?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?--!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"--html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Attention: Web Browser Upgrade Required to View MSN.com-/title--base href="http://go.msn.com/"
If you are seeing this page, we have detected that the browser that you are using will not render MSN.com correctly. Additionally, you'll see the most advanced functionality of MSN.com only with the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer or MSN Explorer. If you wish to visit MSN.com, please select the appropriate download link below.
- Internet Explorer for Windows
- Internet Explorer for Macintosh
- MSN Explorer for Windows
©2001 Microsoft Corporation.ÂÂAll rights reserved.Terms of UseAdvertiseTRUSTe Approved Privacy StatementGetNetWise---
Can you believe this? MSN actually told the W3C standard comittee that their own standards did not work with MSN! That's a laugh riot right there.
So, Case in Point: If Microsoft were to flat out say, "Hey! We don't care about you guys with the other browsers! Our website only looks good with IE and that's the way it's going to be," then I'd grumble and go on with my business. But Microsoft says that they're conforming to the standards presented in XHTML by W3C, when in fact W3C says that www.msn.com does not comply with their standards.
This is outright monopolization at it's worst.
...to a video that our computer club watched over and over again in high school because it was so dumb it was funny. The video was called "Don't Copy that Floppy." Man, I wish I had that video so I could make it to an AVI and distribute it on the internet.
Basically, guy and gal were playing this "really cool" computer game on a Mac, when gal says "man, I wish I had that game. That is so cool." Guy says "Oh, no problem. I'll make you a copy." Suddenly, this black "rapper" jumps out of the computer screen and does the "Don't Copy that Floppy" rap. It's the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life, because it made absolutely no sense and the setup of the "storyline" is so manipulated it's pathetic.
Anyway, in trying to make some kind of point out of this, ever since the internet has given way to the bending of copyright protection issues, corporations have been constantly trying to put out propaganda all over to try and reign things in. It never works, but don't tell corporate America that! (Otherwise, our high school computer club would have stopped making copies of games a long time ago).
the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era
I should have gotten one from Radio Shack. Not only would it have been free, but I could have probably sold it ten years from know on eBay for hundreds of dollars, when everyone else, who was too dumb to see it's true potential as a collector's item, threw it away.
I'll file charges in michigan (my home state) against them where any hacking is considered a felony.
Article 6, Section 2 :
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Anotherwords, no matter what the laws of the state of Michigan say, because this is a federal bill, it beats out any laws that Michigan, Oregon, Idaho, or any other state have to say on the subject.
Translation for the man on the streetcorner: bullshit or no bullshit, it's legit.
That's like saying there's a wire that's not bendable.
... give us all a chance).
Okay, let's figure this thing out. Government wants to separate themselves completely from the WWW. This means that they need to lay their own network of wires.
Let's figure out this deductively:
Step #1: Wireless: If they are dumb enough to use satellite communication for networking, all it would take is someone to go driving along in their van with a good enough receiver who knows where a receiver would be along the network, park their van close by, and tap into the mainframe with a large enough receiver. Honestly, there's no way you can completely guard an entire "wireless airspace." If they use hard cable...
Step #2: Cable: My assumption would be that they'd lay cable instead. Alright, no problem. Play the game by the network's rules (just like phreakers did back in the 70s and 80s)...find a line and tap into it. Again, all it would take is for someone to figure out that one of those cables is the GOVNET cable (or someone obtain a map of the GOVNET network...even if it's classified, I'm sure one would leak out eventually). Even if it's out in the middle of the Utah desert, all someone would need is a shack and an electric pole running nearby the cable and he could easily break into the data stream.
Of course, I'm sure that GOVNET would also be using some style of encryption (hopefully...I want to assume that they would hire technicians that are THAT ignorant, but they do pay $1000 for a toilet seat, so who knows what bozos they'll hire). But even so, the point is that once you have some way of tapping into the line itself, you could broadcast it however you like to the surrounding region with a wireless tranceiver (heck, go for 802.11b
I probably don't have all my wireless networking tools correct, but the point I'm trying to make still stands out: any network can be physically broken into, since it cannot all be guarded throughout the US. And after it's physically compromised, it's just a matter of time before we see Bush on GOVNET VidConference Viewer v1.0!
I blurted out, "Uh oh."
.NET --> ??? Basically, PayPal is going to do one of two things for Microsoft: they're either going to fit in nicely with the strategies of Passport and .NET, or they're going to stand in Microsoft's way. I tend to support the latter.
.NET is Microsoft's solution for merging personal computing with internet applications. We also know that Microsoft has been working on integrating Microsoft Passport within their operating system as the way to encrypt personal information needed for any website. Add the two together, kneed in the fact that companies have been trying for the past five years to merge internet and business, sprinkle with Microsoft's many attempts to turn the desktop into an internet appliance, and we have a very good hypothesis for where Microsoft wants you to go tomorrow...using your own computer for your personal business needs. Sure, they might not be the actual car dealers, office warehouses, or grocery stores that want to sell you the goods, but they certainly want to be the gateway of that transaction.
I can just see the history of this company as soon as they get their IPO. It's not the stock values that I'm worried about. PayPal is one online entity that actually has their shit together. They have the backing of the strongest commercial online market, eBay. Although there are other third-party online payment options out there, PayPal has emerged as one of the most viable, most stable ways to transfer money safely using the third-party option. So, what's so bad?
Just look at Microsoft's business plan over the last comple years and where it's going. IE --> Passport -->
Everyone has seen that "partnerships" with Microsoft don't work out. AOL certainly proved this fact well. Basically, Microsoft either assimilates or annihilates anything in the way of it's "business strategies." I truly do not believe that Microsoft will try to partner with PayPal in trying to create a personal e-business market for the average Joe. Granted, they haven't announced this strategy directly, but just look at things for a second.
We all know that
So, enter into the ring another contender as the gateway of personal commerce online, aka PayPal, and Microsoft has someone ready to duke it out with. Unless something bad occurs over at Redmond in the next year or so, PayPal's going to be fighting one huge battle with Redmond's executives (and I wouldn't be surprised if Redmond's lawyers also get into the ring waving around a couple patent papers as well).
The essentials of a good Star Trek:
Theme Song: Sucked. Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Ship: Nice design, though I honestly want to just have someone on the show explain why they picked that design for Star Fleet (circular disk, engines in the rear). If this is their first big star-ship, then at least tell me why they built it the way they did.
Crew: Interesting, but I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a clash between everyone's feelings toward each other. They all get along like compadres. Even the Vulcan science officer had little trouble getting along with the captain. Half of the storylines in Original Series/TNG/DS9 were about clashes between the crew. There's also little racial difference between them all. I mean, they're all Americanized people. At least Czechov had an accent.
Crew Chemistry: Gee, am I detecting a resurected Kirk/McCoy relationship in the captain and his science officer? At least McCoy knew when to add "colorful metaphors" when they were needed. It seems like Bacula just doesn't get the timing right (perhaps he could use some guidance from the South Park writers...can you imagine him yelling out to his crew, "Kick Ass!", and "Respect my Authorita!" to the Klingons?).
Storyline: Wait, there was a storyline I had to follow? Sorry...I had too many images of rubbing petroleum jelly all over some hot woman's back and behind. Ever since I saw some peculiar protrusions thrusting out of the Vulcan's undershirt I lost all sense of storyline.
Hot chick: Well, at least they got one thing right. Ever since Councelor Troi, this has been an absolute must. Voyager got it right in the second half of their run with Seven. At least they were able to keep some of my attention off the storyline and on the Jolene Blalock.
All in all: give me about a month to see if they can go somewhere with their setup. They've put in some good potential, and I'd like to see something come of it. But the key I would say is that Bacula has GOT to get an edge. Come on...Kirk, Sisqo, Picard, and Janeway all had veins popping out of their foreheads at one time or another in the show. Bacula's gotta do his part as well to continue the captain's legacy.
The essentials of a good Star Trek:
Theme Song: Sucked. Come on, I need the orchestra with the powerful brass about ready to blow my ear drums away. Something new. Not some recycled theme song written by a recycled band.
Ship: Nice design, though I honestly want to just have someone on the show explain why they picked that design for Star Fleet (circular disk, engines in the rear). If this is their first big star-ship, then at least tell me why they built it the way they did.
Crew: Interesting, but I was hoping for at least a little bit more of a clash between everyone's feelings toward each other. They all get along like compadres. Even the Vulcan science officer had little trouble getting along with the captain. Half of the storylines in Original Series/TNG/DS9 were about clashes between the crew. There's also little racial difference between them all. I mean, they're all Americanized people. At least Czechov had an accent.
Crew Chemistry: Gee, am I detecting a resurected Kirk/McCoy relationship in the captain and his science officer? At least McCoy knew when to add "colorful metaphors" when they were needed. It seems like Bacula just doesn't get the timing right (perhaps he could use some guidance from the South Park writers...can you imagine him yelling out to his crew, "Kick Ass!", and "Respect my Authorita!" to the Klingons?).
Storyline: Wait, there was a storyline I had to follow? Sorry...I had too many images of rubbing petroleum jelly all over some hot woman's back and behind. Ever since I saw some peculiar protrusions thrusting out of the Vulcan's undershirt I lost all sense of storyline.
Hot chick: Well, at least they got one thing right. Ever since Councelor Troi, this has been an absolute must. Voyager got it right in the second half of their run with Seven. At least they were able to keep some of my attention off the storyline and on the Jolene Blalock.
All in all: give me about a month to see if they can go somewhere with their setup. They've put in some good potential, and I'd like to see something come of it. But the key I would say is that Bacula has GOT to get an edge. Come on...Kirk, Sisqo, Picard, and Janeway all had veins popping out of their foreheads at one time or another in the show. Bacula's gotta do his part as well to continue the captain's legacy.
...but this quote needs to be said.
"An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness."
--Margaret Atwood
This was our main subject in Psych class today at college, and our professor was especially worried about it.
Our professor is an Egyptian and an active Muslim. She was especially worried because everyone here in America associates BinLaden with the Islamic faith. It's as far from the truth as possible. BinLaden calls himself a "Fundamentalist Muslim," but has been denounced by Muslims throughout the world. She made us understand (and everyone should understand this before they point fingers) is that Palestineans / Arabs / Egyptians / whatever race or religion of people in the Middle East does not support the terrorist view of "If you kill Americans, you get into the life beyond." She was praying that the people behind the attack wern't Muslims, because the traditional Muslim faiths don't condone killing others. Unfortunately for her and us, though, our only image of the Muslim faith is BinLaden carrying out his attacks in the name of religion. It puts such a heavy burden on her here in the United States, since no one understands the fundamentals of the Muslim faith.
We should not go out on a witch hunt, because we are not sure yet who did it. But even more, people need to understand that these are INDIVIDUALS. They are INDIVIDUAL ACTS. They DO NOT represent any race of people, any religion of people, or any country of people.
I just hope people can find a way to understand.
So, you would define smart as admitting defeat to the competition where you were once ready to pass in the race?
.6 bigger than AMD's number.
Here's the problem: AMD's been whoopin Intel in the benchmarks, so Intel fires back by overrating it's processors. It's so dumb, it works, because consumers are dumb. So, even though Intel's P4 machines cost $400 more to make just to get the same performance, they're attracting customers who take that number and sleep soundly with it at night knowing it's
AMD's own problem is that by doing this, they admit defeat to Intel and say, "Even though we want to get out of your shadow, we're going to play the game by your rules, because you still are the market leader."
Tell me then, what's going to happen when the 64-bit processors start coming out? Is AMD going to I-rate (Itanium-rate) their processors, even though the Itanium is a newly-designed processor that only emulates x86 instructions while the Sledgehammer computates them directly? That's just going to make us even more i-rate (excuse the pun).
AMD has the money and the processor to get themselves out of Intel's shadow. But so far, I have only seen one real commercial that AMD set forth (two years ago) to punch the Athlon hard. It only ran for about a month, and made them look wierd (is technology supposed to be about a gameshow where if you lose, you get hit by a train?). If AMD wants to remain in Intel's shadow, they should go ahead and follow a P-rating system. But if they truly want to become their own company and actually compete, they need drop this charade and start promoting how well their processors do, rather than what they're rated at.
Salesmen
Flat out. That's the problem with computers these days is that the salesmen don't know the inside of the computer from the outside.
Example: Back when Intel started making S370 Celerons, I went and asked a computer store clerk if it was Slot1 or S370. He said it was slot1. "All the older socket processors are too out of date and just don't perform as well." After going back home and looking on the internet to find out that the computer was a S370 rather than Slot1, I didn't trust that salesman again.
I figgured I'd try again last week with the Pentium IVs. I found another sales clerk and acted like a potential college student needing a computer for college. I asked him which was the fastest processor. "Oh, hands down, the Pentium IV! I mean, they just released a 1.8GHz chip, when all AMD has is a 1.3 GHz chip." I figured I'd play this out..."But is it worth the money? I mean, that Athlon system is $400 cheaper!" His response? "Well, if you need the cheaper system for college, pick the Athlon. But if you really want those games to shine, pick the Pentium IV. All that money is for the faster processor and faster memory." I just had to get out of there before I blew my top over his faster memory claim with RAMBUS.
Look at it this way: If you're ever gonna go out and buy a car, look over the lots to see what you like and what looks nice. But for crying out loud, NEVER take for granted what the dealers say, because they're out there to sell. If you want to know how the things honestly perform, find someone who already owns one and ask them! Or go to your local mechanic (everyone should have one, just like everyone should have a neighborhood geek whenever they need help with their computer) and ask them what they think about that specific model car.
That's why Cyrix and Intel both have to crank out these pathetic "P" ratings in order to satisfy market competition. The people who sell the products in the stores have no other choice.
If you can grab the edge from the competitors by using the extra 50W to grab an extra 100MHz out of the processor, you're going to flow as much juice through that processor as you can.
Look at the VIA C3 (aka the Cyrix III)...a 700MHz chip that takes so little voltage that you can almost run it without a heat sink (almost...which says quite a lot compared to these 5 lb. heat sinks on the P4). So? No one's buying it. Even if it had the biggest battleship of a FPU (though it doesn't), the fact that they're not running the processor fast enough to save energy is not going to sell the processor.
If someone could come up with a power transformer which charges 1000W into the computer case just so that you can get an extra 200-300MHz out of your processor, people would buy it.
...of old BBS days. Back 7 years ago when 28.8 was a luxury, there were a lot of BBS users who were shelling out the $150 for that luxury so their download of shareware DOOM could take 18 minutes rather than 3 hours.
The problem that came up with sysops was that too many people who still had the 2400 modems were taking too long online, hogging the precious nodes from other users. One BBS here in town decided to ban all 2400 baud users. After a flood of complaints (about 300 posts that day from 30 users) from users who had 2400 modems, he thought twice and kept them on, but limited them to 30 minutes online, rather than the traditional 60. Course, the ironic thing was that about 3/4ths of the users had only 2400 baud modems.
But it actually worked. After the initial complaints of, "I don't have the time to download DOOM," and "I can't play LORD, TradeWars, Ursurper, and BRE all in the same day anymore. My planet in TW was conquered because I couldn't defend it that day," things actually worked out. The 2400 users stopped erroneous downloads and playing all the games at once. They just realized that they couldn't do it with the modem they had.
Of course, the problem on the internet is that there isn't some sysop watching over traffic, but it's instead being shoved down our throats. I agree, there should be a way to stop anyone without anything less than ISDN to download files larger than 25 or 30MB. It's also insane that RealAudio and Quiktime offer streaming for "56K modems" when it requires at least an ISDN line to take that much data in at once. I can't stream with those programs, and I assume that most everyone else can't either with a 56K line.
Industry is the main cause of blame, but users should share some of it too. After finding out that their line is too slow, most should realize that they shouldn't continue to try.
Passer-by: "Hello, police? Yea, I was driving by KMart when I noticed that the doors have been broken off of the front of the building. You might want to get someone over before the place gets robbed."
Police: "Stay there for a while sir and watch things until we arive."
<I>15 Minutes later...</I>
Passer-by: "I'm glad you made it. I was getting tired and..."
Police: "You're under arrest for theft and breaking and entering."
Yea, that makes a lot of sense.
I'm sure this has happened to a lot of techies out there, but I have to say it, because I was ready to explode with laughter when it happened.
We got a call from one of the new freshmen coming in saying that he couldn't connect to the network. We asked the usual round of questions..."Did you follow the guidelines on the 'Network Instalation' sheet?" "Is everything plugged in...is the network cord plugged from the wall jack to the Network card in your computer?" "Is your computer on and running?" He was getting insulted, because he said he came from a high school that was "pretty high tech, at least compared to here." So, I got sent over as a tech.
I got there, didn't get anything other than the DHCP error messages that said that it couldn't find a network to obtain an IP address. So, I checked the back of the computer quick, saw that things were plugged in, then ran to the room with the hubs to check that his line was connected. It was, and so I ran a line check to make sure it was the correct line. That too passed the test. I didn't hear of any other complaints from anyone else saying that they couldn't connect, so I figured that the NIC was probably bad. I opened up the computer and was about to take out the card when I removed the cable from the NIC, only to notice that it was simple phone cable, not an ethernet cable. I told this to the freshman, and got a "well, it fit in just fine, so it must have been the right cable" response.
As soon as I left his room, I exploded in laughter and laughed all the way back to the CS department.
...when we send and receive e-mails like this daily:
duuuuudes!
i's got net61 its 31337 way sweeeeeeeeeeeet
emails cool n i lik its grphx
ttfn l8r
It's emails like that that make Webster turn in his grave.