Get educated and start bitching. Where do you think the largest computers and data storage is located? And what do you think happens to all that data? Who you call and when. What you spend you money on and when. Your bank account. Any registrations or organizations you might belong to. There are algorithms at work that are profiling a lot more than you buying habits at Amazon. Like I said, privacy is pretty much dead. And a whole lot of your right to it has been taken under the guise of "fightin' terra".
I too would like to see such a list. Unfortunately, I would guess it is quite short. I really wish my own country was on it, but I am afraid that while it used to be, it sure isn't now.
Under the Bush administration they are state secrets. Anyone who doesn't think their online activities pass through some great filter looking for whatever threat du jour that George's paranoia deems a menace need to think twice.
Right to privacy is only a memory. A memory getting more and more faint every day.
I can't say for sure but nVidia has Linux drivers. Maybe your 8800s are supported. Also, you don't have to be exclusively Linux or Windows. You can dual boot. As you move to the Linux side and into the light, you can go for cards that are supported - ATI has opened up their specs to the open source community.
As far as DX10 is concerned, the reviews I've seen say that it is having trouble. Maybe MS will speed it up and fix some of the problems, but it's on their schedule. Some of the demos have been pretty nice looking tho.
And Linux is great for home e-mail, surfing, photo editing with GIMP, etc. There are astronomy programs, games, all sorts of stuff. You might find you really like it. Plus, I never do anything online or financial with my Windows box. As I said above - it's too risky. Too many trojans, keyloggers, spyware, etc.
One more thing - you mentioned what if something went drastically wrong. In Windows, your option is pretty much limited to reinstalling from scratch. So if you had to reinstall Linux from scratch, how much of a difference is that really?
But the fact is that under Linux you don't have so many programs hooking themselves into the OS to even cause the same kinds of problems as under Windows. Also, it's a more advanced topic, but under Linux, you can separate out your personal files (your home directory) from the OS. That way, if you did have to reinstall the OS, the next time you log in, your experience is like you never left. This also makes backing up easier.
The reality, though, is that you reinstall Linux rarely. Windows you have to reinstall much more frequently.
And the last thing - Linux is FREE. Windows is not. And you can install it on as many computers as you want. No phoning home. No stealth installs. No crap.
A few things to consider if you really would like to explore Linux - you can dual boot. You don't have to give up your Windows system to start checking Linux out. Linux can make room on your hard drive (assuming you have enough free space) and you can switch back and forth between them with just a reboot. (there are other ways too with virtualization but you can Google more info if that might interest).
As for no guarantee your PC could even run Linux, just download and burn (or just buy) a "live CD". A live CD is a CD you just boot from and it boots your computer up in Linux. During boot it will check hardware and you can see for yourself if it finds everything natively. If it doesn't, keep in mind that you can search the web for whatever hardware and Linux and see if drivers might be available. You would be surprised how much hardware is well supported under Linux although there are holes. Another thing about a live CD - since it is running from the CD, don't be put off by the slowness. Running from the CD will be much slower than if it was installed. If you have a lot of RAM, it may not seem that slow but CDs are much slower than hard drives. All you are doing is seeing what it looks like and if/how it will run on your computer.
As for Wine, it supposedly works pretty good but it may not support what you want to run. If you are wanting to run Windows programs under Linux, check out Crossover Office from Codeweavers. I use it to run Microsoft Office under Linux and it works perfectly. (I spend much more time now in Open Office though) So do a number of other supposedly Windows-only programs. But if you dual boot, you can always just run whatever you want under Windows but do your long haul stuff under Linux. You will probably be a lot safer doing anything requiring good security under Linux than under Windows. I never order anything online or do any financial stuff in Windows. It's just too risky.
ANd about upgrading to run Linux - not necessary. If your computer was running OK with Windows, it will seem quite peppy under Linux. Windows is a memory and resource hog. Linux is not. Anyone with a computer that now can't run Vista ought to take a look at running Linux instead. They will get what feels like a new computer and get a very nice OS at the same time.
And don't let the supposed complexity of Linux fool you and keep you away. It isn't that complex. In Windows you just can't do a lot of stuff or they make the decisions for you. In Linux, you can do pretty much whatever you want. In Linux, everything is file based. You have config files and such that you just edit to make changes. Nothing is hidden from you. A lot of the internals are best accessed on the command line once you get more familiar but you can also admin the machine from the GUI if you want. As you get more experienced, you'll want to learn the command line though - much more efficient and really easier. Or you can stick to the GUI and pretend you are just running a really stable and fast version of Windows. You don't have to dig into the guts of Linux if you don't want to. It's just that you can if you would like.
But Linux is a lot easier to try out and use than a lot of people imagine. It's why it is growing so much in user base recently. Give a live CD a try and see for yourself. That's the best way to experience it.
"I'd rather not let her have any way to get interested in my life again."
Same here. My ex was actually mildly stalking. The last thing I would ever do is to post lots of details of my private life so she could monitor me from the comfort of her home.
The situation is much worse for women and children. People browse those sites looking for victims and can use everything people post in them against them.
You are probably safer just leaving all the curtains to your house/apartment wide open 24 hours a day.
If I want to submit my resume some where, I'll e-mail it. It's much more targeted and doesn't leave you so exposed.
I tried in another post to convey the same thing. Passive RFID tags do not really emit anything. All they do is modulate their impedance to the RF signal which the scanning circuit sees as changes in impedance to its own antenna.
It's not unlike the drag on a generator/alternator when you connect or disconnect a load across it.
The transmitter scanning circuit supplies the power the RFID tag needs to operate in the RF field emitted by the scanner. While the RFID tag is powered up by the RF field, the transmitter encodes whatever commands it needs to send and the RFID tag "listens".
Once the command is received, the RFID tag, still being powered by the scanner's RF field, modulates the field by shorting or not shorting out its antenna.
Circuitry in the transmitter converts these impedance changes into logic ones and zeros which are then interpreted/decoded to read out whatever was encoded by the RFID tag.
The (passive) RFID tag really doesn't emit anything. Any power absorbed is simply converted to heat. The only RF that tissues are exposed to is that of the scanning transmitter. There may be some really minor RF re-emitted by the RFID circuitry but that is no different than what your computer might emit - just high frequency noise that is going to be far weaker than the RF imposed by the RFID tag scanner.
So, once again - passive RFID tags do not transmit.
RFID does not emit radio signals. It absorbs them selectively and the RFID scnner/transmitter senses the change to the emitted field to know what the RFID is saying. But the RFID tag (passive tags) just basically sit there and alternately go high impedance or short out their antennas to convey information. They get their power from the RF signal itself.
What if the President of the US personally transports a nuclear weapon to your house, keys in the activation codes and blows it up with you standing there beside it? What would you do then?
For our ruling idiot George "Dubya" Bush to do that, the activation code would have to be something too simple -- like "abc123".
Yeah - It's like the propellor on the front of the Bell XP-59A Airacomet. Everyone knows that after we captured the Red October, we got the goods on the caterpillar drive technology and don't need props anymore...
Others have faced the fact that we might as well stick around and try to fight it. If we lose, everyone in the world loses, since we now have "one remaining super-power" and there's no longer a safe haven anywhere. So our choice isn't really to find a better place. Our choice is to fight it where we can, or ignore it and hope it'll go away.
The USA is only a superpower in a very few remaining ways. We have a crapload of nuclear weapons and that's getting close to being about it. Oh yeah - we make the best movies and have great football and basketball players. Great race cars too. And we are now the second-largest producer of greenhouse gasses (second to China),
It isn't just the Bush administration -- although they have done a lot to finish us off. Clinton looked the other way or actively encouraged outsourcing. Bush Sr. and Reagan were the ones that really got the ball rolling for the part that the government can play.
We no longer have the brightest kids or the best schools. We are saddled with huge debt. We have systematically dismantled our manufacturing base through outsourcing and have handed China the keys to just about every technology. Our cities are rotting from the inside. Our bridges are crumbling. We import tainted food. Our science has been corrupted by right-wing insiders in the funding agencies. We have a government bought and paid for by special interests. We are mired in a war that is consuming our economy and our military while only increasing the odds that we will be the target of more terrorist attacks. We couldn't stand even a single day of a national gasoline shortage. And our government is having to borrow even more money to pour into the mortgage industry to try to keep it from tipping the whole economy into recession or worse - depression.
We are about as close to a has-been superpower as you can get. We are precariously balanced. And the Bush administration is doing nothing to pull us back from the brink. No national priorities. No encouragement to drive smaller cars. No tarrifs to stop the hemorraging of money to China or the middle east.
It just doesn't look good for this country. No progress is being made on any front critical to our survival. But golly, the George sure does like to party at his ranch. Didn't Nero do something similar?
No budget to work with. Few quality (i.e. expensive) employees. No wonder they are dissatisfied with innovation.
If they want innovation, they need to understand not all ideas pay out. It's not unlike venture capital - it takes money to make money and not everything hits paydirt.
As long as CEOs keep wanting to do this crap on the cheap, they will be dissatisfied with the results.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. Here is the web page: http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue/162 and Trolltech's web site:
http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/index
Get educated and start bitching. Where do you think the largest computers and data storage is located? And what do you think happens to all that data? Who you call and when. What you spend you money on and when. Your bank account. Any registrations or organizations you might belong to. There are algorithms at work that are profiling a lot more than you buying habits at Amazon. Like I said, privacy is pretty much dead. And a whole lot of your right to it has been taken under the guise of "fightin' terra".
I too would like to see such a list. Unfortunately, I would guess it is quite short. I really wish my own country was on it, but I am afraid that while it used to be, it sure isn't now.
Algorithms, as closely guarded as state secrets
Under the Bush administration they are state secrets. Anyone who doesn't think their online activities pass through some great filter looking for whatever threat du jour that George's paranoia deems a menace need to think twice.
Right to privacy is only a memory. A memory getting more and more faint every day.
With Chinese pilots like Wang Wei, I think the moon is safe... |-)
When was the last time anyone heard about an ANFO bomb going off somewhere anyway?
Uh, 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
Maybe he really is 14 years old... ;-)
I can't say for sure but nVidia has Linux drivers. Maybe your 8800s are supported. Also, you don't have to be exclusively Linux or Windows. You can dual boot. As you move to the Linux side and into the light, you can go for cards that are supported - ATI has opened up their specs to the open source community.
As far as DX10 is concerned, the reviews I've seen say that it is having trouble. Maybe MS will speed it up and fix some of the problems, but it's on their schedule. Some of the demos have been pretty nice looking tho.
And Linux is great for home e-mail, surfing, photo editing with GIMP, etc. There are astronomy programs, games, all sorts of stuff. You might find you really like it. Plus, I never do anything online or financial with my Windows box. As I said above - it's too risky. Too many trojans, keyloggers, spyware, etc.
One more thing - you mentioned what if something went drastically wrong. In Windows, your option is pretty much limited to reinstalling from scratch. So if you had to reinstall Linux from scratch, how much of a difference is that really?
But the fact is that under Linux you don't have so many programs hooking themselves into the OS to even cause the same kinds of problems as under Windows. Also, it's a more advanced topic, but under Linux, you can separate out your personal files (your home directory) from the OS. That way, if you did have to reinstall the OS, the next time you log in, your experience is like you never left. This also makes backing up easier.
The reality, though, is that you reinstall Linux rarely. Windows you have to reinstall much more frequently.
And the last thing - Linux is FREE. Windows is not. And you can install it on as many computers as you want. No phoning home. No stealth installs. No crap.
A few things to consider if you really would like to explore Linux - you can dual boot. You don't have to give up your Windows system to start checking Linux out. Linux can make room on your hard drive (assuming you have enough free space) and you can switch back and forth between them with just a reboot. (there are other ways too with virtualization but you can Google more info if that might interest).
As for no guarantee your PC could even run Linux, just download and burn (or just buy) a "live CD". A live CD is a CD you just boot from and it boots your computer up in Linux. During boot it will check hardware and you can see for yourself if it finds everything natively. If it doesn't, keep in mind that you can search the web for whatever hardware and Linux and see if drivers might be available. You would be surprised how much hardware is well supported under Linux although there are holes. Another thing about a live CD - since it is running from the CD, don't be put off by the slowness. Running from the CD will be much slower than if it was installed. If you have a lot of RAM, it may not seem that slow but CDs are much slower than hard drives. All you are doing is seeing what it looks like and if/how it will run on your computer.
As for Wine, it supposedly works pretty good but it may not support what you want to run. If you are wanting to run Windows programs under Linux, check out Crossover Office from Codeweavers. I use it to run Microsoft Office under Linux and it works perfectly. (I spend much more time now in Open Office though) So do a number of other supposedly Windows-only programs. But if you dual boot, you can always just run whatever you want under Windows but do your long haul stuff under Linux. You will probably be a lot safer doing anything requiring good security under Linux than under Windows. I never order anything online or do any financial stuff in Windows. It's just too risky.
ANd about upgrading to run Linux - not necessary. If your computer was running OK with Windows, it will seem quite peppy under Linux. Windows is a memory and resource hog. Linux is not. Anyone with a computer that now can't run Vista ought to take a look at running Linux instead. They will get what feels like a new computer and get a very nice OS at the same time.
And don't let the supposed complexity of Linux fool you and keep you away. It isn't that complex. In Windows you just can't do a lot of stuff or they make the decisions for you. In Linux, you can do pretty much whatever you want. In Linux, everything is file based. You have config files and such that you just edit to make changes. Nothing is hidden from you. A lot of the internals are best accessed on the command line once you get more familiar but you can also admin the machine from the GUI if you want. As you get more experienced, you'll want to learn the command line though - much more efficient and really easier. Or you can stick to the GUI and pretend you are just running a really stable and fast version of Windows. You don't have to dig into the guts of Linux if you don't want to. It's just that you can if you would like.
But Linux is a lot easier to try out and use than a lot of people imagine. It's why it is growing so much in user base recently. Give a live CD a try and see for yourself. That's the best way to experience it.
"I'd rather not let her have any way to get interested in my life again."
Same here. My ex was actually mildly stalking. The last thing I would ever do is to post lots of details of my private life so she could monitor me from the comfort of her home.
The situation is much worse for women and children. People browse those sites looking for victims and can use everything people post in them against them.
You are probably safer just leaving all the curtains to your house/apartment wide open 24 hours a day.
If I want to submit my resume some where, I'll e-mail it. It's much more targeted and doesn't leave you so exposed.
If you want to see what RFID tags can do when hit with enough RF energy...
t ml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/180304_RFID_article.h
Wow - people with glass eyes are really in trouble, huh?
I tried in another post to convey the same thing. Passive RFID tags do not really emit anything. All they do is modulate their impedance to the RF signal which the scanning circuit sees as changes in impedance to its own antenna.
It's not unlike the drag on a generator/alternator when you connect or disconnect a load across it.
The transmitter scanning circuit supplies the power the RFID tag needs to operate in the RF field emitted by the scanner. While the RFID tag is powered up by the RF field, the transmitter encodes whatever commands it needs to send and the RFID tag "listens".
Once the command is received, the RFID tag, still being powered by the scanner's RF field, modulates the field by shorting or not shorting out its antenna.
Circuitry in the transmitter converts these impedance changes into logic ones and zeros which are then interpreted/decoded to read out whatever was encoded by the RFID tag.
The (passive) RFID tag really doesn't emit anything. Any power absorbed is simply converted to heat. The only RF that tissues are exposed to is that of the scanning transmitter. There may be some really minor RF re-emitted by the RFID circuitry but that is no different than what your computer might emit - just high frequency noise that is going to be far weaker than the RF imposed by the RFID tag scanner.
So, once again - passive RFID tags do not transmit.
RFID does not emit radio signals. It absorbs them selectively and the RFID scnner/transmitter senses the change to the emitted field to know what the RFID is saying. But the RFID tag (passive tags) just basically sit there and alternately go high impedance or short out their antennas to convey information. They get their power from the RF signal itself.
Microsoft's was only a demo / prototype too. Northrup-Grumman's is being delivered commercially.
And NG is going to have filed patents. Guaranteed. I just hope their filings pre-date Microsoft's.
It will be interesting to see if which came first - the FAA touch table or Microsoft's desktop computer.
God I hope it was the FAA touch table. It would be too funny to see MS get blown out of the water after their big splash with that thing.
For those who missed it, this is a reference to "Logan's run".
It's also a reference to "Total Recall" if you yank it out of your nose and it is a spherical red ball. Pretty sure it flashed too.
What if the President of the US personally transports a nuclear weapon to your house, keys in the activation codes and blows it up with you standing there beside it? What would you do then?
For our ruling idiot George "Dubya" Bush to do that, the activation code would have to be something too simple -- like "abc123".
I hope the cracking community tears this one apart.
This deserves to be made 100% useless.
Yeah - It's like the propellor on the front of the Bell XP-59A Airacomet. Everyone knows that after we captured the Red October, we got the goods on the caterpillar drive technology and don't need props anymore...
Others have faced the fact that we might as well stick around and try to fight it. If we lose, everyone in the world loses, since we now have "one remaining super-power" and there's no longer a safe haven anywhere. So our choice isn't really to find a better place. Our choice is to fight it where we can, or ignore it and hope it'll go away.
The USA is only a superpower in a very few remaining ways. We have a crapload of nuclear weapons and that's getting close to being about it. Oh yeah - we make the best movies and have great football and basketball players. Great race cars too. And we are now the second-largest producer of greenhouse gasses (second to China),
It isn't just the Bush administration -- although they have done a lot to finish us off. Clinton looked the other way or actively encouraged outsourcing. Bush Sr. and Reagan were the ones that really got the ball rolling for the part that the government can play.
We no longer have the brightest kids or the best schools. We are saddled with huge debt. We have systematically dismantled our manufacturing base through outsourcing and have handed China the keys to just about every technology. Our cities are rotting from the inside. Our bridges are crumbling. We import tainted food. Our science has been corrupted by right-wing insiders in the funding agencies. We have a government bought and paid for by special interests. We are mired in a war that is consuming our economy and our military while only increasing the odds that we will be the target of more terrorist attacks. We couldn't stand even a single day of a national gasoline shortage. And our government is having to borrow even more money to pour into the mortgage industry to try to keep it from tipping the whole economy into recession or worse - depression.
We are about as close to a has-been superpower as you can get. We are precariously balanced. And the Bush administration is doing nothing to pull us back from the brink. No national priorities. No encouragement to drive smaller cars. No tarrifs to stop the hemorraging of money to China or the middle east.
It just doesn't look good for this country. No progress is being made on any front critical to our survival. But golly, the George sure does like to party at his ranch. Didn't Nero do something similar?
Well, heck, ya'll gotta knowed that iff'n ya'll don't support our troops, ya'll is un-'Merican, raght?
I know it sounds like that's got nuthin' to do with the CIA combin' threw all them fi-nan-chial transactshuns but it does. I swears it does.
We gotta hunt them terr'ists everwhere they are fownd! I give up my freedumbs so's I can be safe from terra!
No budget to work with. Few quality (i.e. expensive) employees. No wonder they are dissatisfied with innovation.
If they want innovation, they need to understand not all ideas pay out. It's not unlike venture capital - it takes money to make money and not everything hits paydirt.
As long as CEOs keep wanting to do this crap on the cheap, they will be dissatisfied with the results.
It depends on what your definition of "is" is...
-- Bill Clinton