I use a backpack made by Jansport specifically designed to secure laptops (they make a bunch; get one with the big computer safe) for moving around when i don't want to advertise the fact that I've got an expensive laptop. But my favorite bags come from a company called Tenba (www.tenba.com), which used to be best known for its photographer's bags. I've had two of their computer bags over the past 15 years (yes, they wear forever; the only reason I replaced the first one five years ago is I couldn't get some gum off of it). My advice: Get a briefcase bag with the computer safe (many different sizes) and pay the extra 20 bucks to get them to sew little hooks on the top and bottom so you can attach a backpack harness on it if you want to; it'll double as conserative briefcase or hip, comfortable, and convenient backpack. Tenba bags are notable for the wide variety of modification possible, using special modules you can add in to the bag, such as specific compartments for large camera lenses, etc. Definitely worth a look. Whenever I sling my Tenba backpack style on the subway someone always asks me where I got it (I don't believe they sell in stores, just trade shows and the Web).
This is new because of the digital rights managment built in to the Creative Labs product. The idea is that content developers will release specialized versions of their products for devices like this because the property owners can be "assured" that their wares will not be redistributed. This relieves the user of the need to understand how to reconstitute media into a form that will run on the device. It will be interesting to see whether this approach is successful, but I see a real chicken and egg problem here: IP owners won't create specialized content for a small market and consumers won't buy crippled devices without content available.
I believe the ability of the political process to truly restrict Fair Use (in the long term, at least) with new laws is ultimately limited, given the relationship of Fair Use to the First Amendment. The Supreme Court created Fair Use based on free speech concerns; given this pedigree, it's likely that the SC would overturn any attempt to restrict Fair Use based purely on economic protectionism. (Yeah, this is a convervative court, in every sense of the word, but that just makes it harder for them to ignore precedent)>
That's great, assuming you never, ever, plan to visit the United States or any nation that would roll over on an extradition request.
Honestly, the idea that just because you're out of some nation state's reach right at this moment is only reassuring to somebody on life support. If some legal entity *really* wants you, they post a sizeable reward, and a sub-group of people called bounty hunters swings into action (yeah, Lucas didn't make up that term just for the movie).
As several other posters have noted, eMachines offers zippy laptops well under $2000 (under $1500 with rebates from Best Buy). I've been running a model M6805 since January; it's my eighth laptop and it's by far the best I've had (including Apple, Compaq, Dell, and HP). Memory board shorted out in March -- cause it wouldn't be a computer if I didn't have to have it repaired/returned within the first 90 days -- and had to ship it back for remplacement, but turnaround time was 48 hours. Other than that, it's been a perfect machine. It's the very first time I can play current games on my laptop. With its exceptionally fine and wide screen, the 6805 is both big and heavy (comes close to 10 pounds), but it's a good tradeoff; I'm also running dual boot with SUSE 9.1 with no major problems except power management is funky under Linux. Here are the specs:
deon 9600 mobility graphics solution, DVD/CD-RW, wireless and more. Here are the full specs:
Display: 15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution) Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3000+ Processor 64-bit Architecture operates at 1.800 GHz
System Bus uses HyperTransport(TM)
Technology operating at 1600 MHz 1 MB L2 Cache Memory: 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2700) Hard Drive: 60 GB HDD Optical Drives: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (24x24x24 CD-RW; 8x Max. DVD-ROM); Media Reader (Compact Flash, Micro Drive, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro) Video: ATI® RADEON(TM) 9600 Discrete Graphics with built in 64MB Video RAM Sound: PC2001 Compliant AC '97 Audio Built-in Stereo Speakers Modem: 56K* ITU V.92 Fax/Modem Network: Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN (up to 54Mbps); 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet Pointing Device: Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Zone Battery: 8-cell Lithium-ion (Li-ion) Dimensions: 1.6"h x 14.0"w x 10.4"d Weight: 7.5 lbs. (8.65 total travel weight) Internet: AOL 3 month membership included, click here for details Ports/Other: 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 IEEE 1394, 1 VGA External Connector, 1 S-Video Out, Microphone In, Headphone/Audio Out, 1 PCMCIA Slot (Card Bus type I or type II) Pre-Installed Software: Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft Money 2004, Encarta Online, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader(TM), Microsoft Media Player, Real Player, PowerDVD, Internet Explorer, Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator (DVD Edition), BigFix®, MSN®, CompuServe®, AOL 9.0 (with 3 months membership included**), Norton AntiVirus 2004 (90 day complimentary subscription)
No problems with current/power or TV display (including Japanese DVDs) running a Japanese PS2 here in the states. At least none for me. I have no idea if this is "bad" for the TV or the PS2.
Hmm. With mod-chip installation and what-not hovering at about $100 bucks (obviously you save quite a bit if you do it yourself) it seems you resolve that issue legally by simply purchasing a machine designed for a different market for just a bit more money. For instance, years ago I bought a Japanese PS2. (I'm not recommending this as a solution; just wanted to point out that, from the retailers perspective, this is really just a money issue).
In the United States, long-term structural businesses leases -- typically for an office or shop in any structure from a one-story to a skyscraper -- top out at 99 years, oftentimes because of state law. For instance, Alabama limits leases to a maximum of 99 years. So the 100 year domain name extension is in line with that rule-of-thumb.
That certainly makes much more sense. I taught at the the National Defense University this past summer and was looking at using SOCOM in the classroom for that same sort of purpose.
Army ROTC (no, I did not later serve; it was more of a test run for me ). There was a range built underneath the bleachers of the old Sugar Bowl stadium, which had been largely abandoned after the Superdome was built in New Orleans. Actually, I'm at Purdue now getting an advanced degree and there's a shooting team here as well.
Yeah, I suppose some people believe that's the case. But I remember some years ago interviewing an "expert" who claimed the Corps was using Doom to train shooters, and I challenged him to name the facility and program where that was taking place (he named a base, which, when I checked it out, was not doing so). He kept insisting that U.S. Marines were learning how to shoot using Doom, which is nuts, because you simply *cannot* get anything about shooting from a game that doesn't let you sight your target. This guy knew weapons, but it eventually became clear that even had never even seen Doom, much less played it, or he wouldn't have made the claim.
Hmm. I've shot bow too (but I'm not an archer). Agree with you that bow is aimed above your target; pistol/rifle rifle typically have target sitting right on top of properly calibrated sights. But I always assumed that was due to velocity/distance involved. That is, firing at a distant target, rifle/pistol as well have to aim higher....
I agree that you'll never learn to properly aim a firearm via first person shooter; in fact this is one of my primary arguments against those loons who say Doom and its ilk teach kids how to shoot. No sights = no training.
I have, however, actually taught people to sight using a light gun. The sighting is somewhat less accurate than you'd get with a real weapon (light guns are more charitable), but you can definitely learn the principles of accurate shooting. I hadn't fired a weapon in nearly 20 years, but was impressing the hell out of my future father-in-law three months ago using a heavy frame 22 pistol, something I largely attribute to continued practice with light guns over the years (although the fact that I was on the pistol team in college may have had something to do with it).
"We're not talking about the real world here. We're talking about games. And I absolutely do want there to be guaranteed no cheating in games. I think Palladium will be great for this."
I'd argue that games are clearly a part of the real world. But the point of my question is, would you accept the benefits of no cheating in games (and various other benefits) via Palladium if Palladium could also be used to do Very Bad Things (TM)?
Action Replay cheats on XBox are based on save game data stored on the XBox hard drive. One way of fixing this issue is storing the data on the MS servers using the encrypted transmission channel built in to XBox Live.
Note that there's a little sidebar on Action Replay cheating on XBox Live that runs with the Merc article.
And you raise a question I asked a number of people, but didn't squeeze into the article for space reasons: Would you want to live in a world where you could never cheat? (For those of you following along, poltical scientists call this the lure of fascism: If you give me absolute control of your environment, I can eliminate crime, or at least unofficial crime). One facet of this question has do with things like ability; why shouldn't, for instance, people with disabilities be able to play a game with a handicap (no pun intended). A more interesting question has to do with control of the next electronic environment. Look at XBox Live as a test run of Microsoft's secure computing initiative. In this version, you can install Linux, which, as one Microsoft manager told me, was quite surprising to the guys in Redmond. You can bet they 'll make it much harder to do such things next time. And if they're successful at building a cheatproof -- or, more interestingly, hackproof system -- what does that mean for the future of computing, and for life in general?
Always pleased when something I publish doesn't get posted on slashdot with lots of "wotta moron" comments...
yeah, but most people aren't running XBox Live. I guess it's possible that MS could say that the next generation box will require high speed access to work at all, but that seems unlikely.
Nice as an option, but frankly running any kind of a feed from my xBox in the living to my PC in my office and back to my TV next to the Xbox would be somewhat problematic. (Okay, at the moment I am back in a dorm room with my laptop scraping up against my TV/XBox/TiVo, but you get my point...)
over the past week for a story on cheating online that's running Monday in the SJMN. Some tidbits: One fellow told me that MS folks were "extremely surprised" by the Linux hacks. Another fellow told me that the hard drive has been "critical" for pushing patches down the pipe.
Linux is a hobbyist system, impossible for the vast majority of users to safely configure and operate.
The Apple products are excellent, though fantastically overpriced. When my Compaq laptop died last month, I thought about spending money on one of the new Apple laptops (my current Apple laptop is quite slow) but quickly found the new eMachines with the mobile 64-bit Athlon chip plus a Radeon 9600 card for less than half of what a similar Apple would have cost me. It's not reasonable to tell people they need to spend twice as much money when they could largely solve the malware problem by running a viris scanner and using alternatives to IE and Outlook.
The New York Times, like most large papers, offers its stories to other publications via the wire, which these days is just an FTP server. When I broke a big story, my byline appeared in papers all over the world.
Java uses a sandbox. But Javascript does not. Many gurus, like Ed Felten of Princeton, keep Javascript (which incidentally is not really related to Java; Javascript was named as a marketing ploy) turned off. I've tried that, but too many sites use JS.
-No, but it's a nice thing to mention if it contains nickle in the alloy... so nickle sensitive individuals can avoid it. In the same vein, it would be nice if -videogames mentioned if there was significant strobe lighting.
-Nice, yes. But legally necessary? Probably not, nor should it be. We could do a lot of things that are nice, but taking into account each and every special case would be overwhelming.
The law respectfully disagrees. If you sell products that contain peanuts, and do not label the product as containing peanuts, and someone with a peanut allergy consumes that product and is injured or dies, you are liable. Period. It is not reasonable, or necessary, for anyone who suffers from strobe-induced seizures to avoid videogames -- or traffic lights, plays, emergency lighting, television, and movies for that matter -- because the people who provide those products/services either adjust them to avoid killing people, or warn people that, at that particular venue, effects are used that when viewed by certain individuals might trigger a seizure. Failure to do so would clearly expose one to liability, at least in the United States. Under New York law, for example, you could easily be criminally prosecuted under first degree assault, Penal law 120.10, sub 3: Circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life by recklessly engaging in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious physical injury to another person. (Note that criminal law is not generally applicable to corporate behavior, but damn, you could definitely see some exposure in a lawsuit...)
Slashdot Mirror
I use a backpack made by Jansport specifically designed to secure laptops (they make a bunch; get one with the big computer safe) for moving around when i don't want to advertise the fact that I've got an expensive laptop. But my favorite bags come from a company called Tenba (www.tenba.com), which used to be best known for its photographer's bags. I've had two of their computer bags over the past 15 years (yes, they wear forever; the only reason I replaced the first one five years ago is I couldn't get some gum off of it). My advice: Get a briefcase bag with the computer safe (many different sizes) and pay the extra 20 bucks to get them to sew little hooks on the top and bottom so you can attach a backpack harness on it if you want to; it'll double as conserative briefcase or hip, comfortable, and convenient backpack. Tenba bags are notable for the wide variety of modification possible, using special modules you can add in to the bag, such as specific compartments for large camera lenses, etc. Definitely worth a look. Whenever I sling my Tenba backpack style on the subway someone always asks me where I got it (I don't believe they sell in stores, just trade shows and the Web).
This is new because of the digital rights managment built in to the Creative Labs product. The idea is that content developers will release specialized versions of their products for devices like this because the property owners can be "assured" that their wares will not be redistributed. This relieves the user of the need to understand how to reconstitute media into a form that will run on the device. It will be interesting to see whether this approach is successful, but I see a real chicken and egg problem here: IP owners won't create specialized content for a small market and consumers won't buy crippled devices without content available.
I believe the ability of the political process to truly restrict Fair Use (in the long term, at least) with new laws is ultimately limited, given the relationship of Fair Use to the First Amendment. The Supreme Court created Fair Use based on free speech concerns; given this pedigree, it's likely that the SC would overturn any attempt to restrict Fair Use based purely on economic protectionism. (Yeah, this is a convervative court, in every sense of the word, but that just makes it harder for them to ignore precedent)>
That's great, assuming you never, ever, plan to visit the United States or any nation that would roll over on an extradition request.
Honestly, the idea that just because you're out of some nation state's reach right at this moment is only reassuring to somebody on life support. If some legal entity *really* wants you, they post a sizeable reward, and a sub-group of people called bounty hunters swings into action (yeah, Lucas didn't make up that term just for the movie).
As several other posters have noted, eMachines offers zippy laptops well under $2000 (under $1500 with rebates from Best Buy). I've been running a model M6805 since January; it's my eighth laptop and it's by far the best I've had (including Apple, Compaq, Dell, and HP). Memory board shorted out in March -- cause it wouldn't be a computer if I didn't have to have it repaired/returned within the first 90 days -- and had to ship it back for remplacement, but turnaround time was 48 hours. Other than that, it's been a perfect machine. It's the very first time I can play current games on my laptop. With its exceptionally fine and wide screen, the 6805 is both big and heavy (comes close to 10 pounds), but it's a good tradeoff; I'm also running dual boot with SUSE 9.1 with no major problems except power management is funky under Linux. Here are the specs:
deon 9600 mobility graphics solution, DVD/CD-RW, wireless and more. Here are the full specs:
Display: 15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution)
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3000+ Processor
64-bit Architecture operates at 1.800 GHz
System Bus uses HyperTransport(TM)
Technology operating at 1600 MHz
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory: 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2700)
Hard Drive: 60 GB HDD
Optical Drives: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (24x24x24 CD-RW; 8x Max. DVD-ROM); Media Reader (Compact Flash, Micro Drive, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro)
Video: ATI® RADEON(TM) 9600 Discrete Graphics with built in 64MB Video RAM
Sound: PC2001 Compliant AC '97 Audio
Built-in Stereo Speakers
Modem: 56K* ITU V.92 Fax/Modem
Network: Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN (up to 54Mbps); 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Pointing Device: Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Zone
Battery: 8-cell Lithium-ion (Li-ion)
Dimensions: 1.6"h x 14.0"w x 10.4"d
Weight: 7.5 lbs. (8.65 total travel weight)
Internet: AOL 3 month membership included, click here for details
Ports/Other: 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 IEEE 1394, 1 VGA External Connector, 1 S-Video Out, Microphone In, Headphone/Audio Out, 1 PCMCIA Slot (Card Bus type I or type II)
Pre-Installed Software: Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft Money 2004, Encarta Online, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader(TM), Microsoft Media Player, Real Player, PowerDVD, Internet Explorer, Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator (DVD Edition), BigFix®, MSN®, CompuServe®, AOL 9.0 (with 3 months membership included**), Norton AntiVirus 2004 (90 day complimentary subscription)
Nice quotes from directors and scholars (if I do say so myself...)
l a- 121601dvd.story?coll=la-home-todays-times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
No problems with current/power or TV display (including Japanese DVDs) running a Japanese PS2 here in the states. At least none for me. I have no idea if this is "bad" for the TV or the PS2.
Hmm. With mod-chip installation and what-not hovering at about $100 bucks (obviously you save quite a bit if you do it yourself) it seems you resolve that issue legally by simply purchasing a machine designed for a different market for just a bit more money. For instance, years ago I bought a Japanese PS2. (I'm not recommending this as a solution; just wanted to point out that, from the retailers perspective, this is really just a money issue).
Sorry, should have said typically top out at 99 years.
In the United States, long-term structural businesses leases -- typically for an office or shop in any structure from a one-story to a skyscraper -- top out at 99 years, oftentimes because of state law. For instance, Alabama limits leases to a maximum of 99 years. So the 100 year domain name extension is in line with that rule-of-thumb.
That certainly makes much more sense. I taught at the the National Defense University this past summer and was looking at using SOCOM in the classroom for that same sort of purpose.
Army ROTC (no, I did not later serve; it was more of a test run for me ). There was a range built underneath the bleachers of the old Sugar Bowl stadium, which had been largely abandoned after the Superdome was built in New Orleans. Actually, I'm at Purdue now getting an advanced degree and there's a shooting team here as well.
Yeah, I suppose some people believe that's the case. But I remember some years ago interviewing an "expert" who claimed the Corps was using Doom to train shooters, and I challenged him to name the facility and program where that was taking place (he named a base, which, when I checked it out, was not doing so). He kept insisting that U.S. Marines were learning how to shoot using Doom, which is nuts, because you simply *cannot* get anything about shooting from a game that doesn't let you sight your target. This guy knew weapons, but it eventually became clear that even had never even seen Doom, much less played it, or he wouldn't have made the claim.
Hmm. I've shot bow too (but I'm not an archer). Agree with you that bow is aimed above your target; pistol/rifle rifle typically have target sitting right on top of properly calibrated sights. But I always assumed that was due to velocity/distance involved. That is, firing at a distant target, rifle/pistol as well have to aim higher....
I agree that you'll never learn to properly aim a firearm via first person shooter; in fact this is one of my primary arguments against those loons who say Doom and its ilk teach kids how to shoot. No sights = no training.
I have, however, actually taught people to sight using a light gun. The sighting is somewhat less accurate than you'd get with a real weapon (light guns are more charitable), but you can definitely learn the principles of accurate shooting. I hadn't fired a weapon in nearly 20 years, but was impressing the hell out of my future father-in-law three months ago using a heavy frame 22 pistol, something I largely attribute to continued practice with light guns over the years (although the fact that I was on the pistol team in college may have had something to do with it).
"We're not talking about the real world here. We're talking about games. And I absolutely do want there to be guaranteed no cheating in games. I think Palladium will be great for this."
I'd argue that games are clearly a part of the real world. But the point of my question is, would you accept the benefits of no cheating in games (and various other benefits) via Palladium if Palladium could also be used to do Very Bad Things (TM)?
Action Replay cheats on XBox are based on save game data stored on the XBox hard drive. One way of fixing this issue is storing the data on the MS servers using the encrypted transmission channel built in to XBox Live.
Note that there's a little sidebar on Action Replay cheating on XBox Live that runs with the Merc article.
-dave
And you raise a question I asked a number of people, but didn't squeeze into the article for space reasons: Would you want to live in a world where you could never cheat? (For those of you following along, poltical scientists call this the lure of fascism: If you give me absolute control of your environment, I can eliminate crime, or at least unofficial crime). One facet of this question has do with things like ability; why shouldn't, for instance, people with disabilities be able to play a game with a handicap (no pun intended). A more interesting question has to do with control of the next electronic environment. Look at XBox Live as a test run of Microsoft's secure computing initiative. In this version, you can install Linux, which, as one Microsoft manager told me, was quite surprising to the guys in Redmond. You can bet they 'll make it much harder to do such things next time. And if they're successful at building a cheatproof -- or, more interestingly, hackproof system -- what does that mean for the future of computing, and for life in general?
Always pleased when something I publish doesn't get posted on slashdot with lots of "wotta moron" comments...
-dave
yeah, but most people aren't running XBox Live. I guess it's possible that MS could say that the next generation box will require high speed access to work at all, but that seems unlikely.
Nice as an option, but frankly running any kind of a feed from my xBox in the living to my PC in my office and back to my TV next to the Xbox would be somewhat problematic. (Okay, at the moment I am back in a dorm room with my laptop scraping up against my TV/XBox/TiVo, but you get my point...)
over the past week for a story on cheating online that's running Monday in the SJMN. Some tidbits: One fellow told me that MS folks were "extremely surprised" by the Linux hacks. Another fellow told me that the hard drive has been "critical" for pushing patches down the pipe.
Linux is a hobbyist system, impossible for the vast majority of users to safely configure and operate.
The Apple products are excellent, though fantastically overpriced. When my Compaq laptop died last month, I thought about spending money on one of the new Apple laptops (my current Apple laptop is quite slow) but quickly found the new eMachines with the mobile 64-bit Athlon chip plus a Radeon 9600 card for less than half of what a similar Apple would have cost me. It's not reasonable to tell people they need to spend twice as much money when they could largely solve the malware problem by running a viris scanner and using alternatives to IE and Outlook.
The New York Times, like most large papers, offers its stories to other publications via the wire, which these days is just an FTP server. When I broke a big story, my byline appeared in papers all over the world.
Java uses a sandbox. But Javascript does not. Many gurus, like Ed Felten of Princeton, keep Javascript (which incidentally is not really related to Java; Javascript was named as a marketing ploy) turned off. I've tried that, but too many sites use JS.
-No, but it's a nice thing to mention if it contains nickle in the alloy... so nickle sensitive individuals can avoid it. In the same vein, it would be nice if -videogames mentioned if there was significant strobe lighting.
-Nice, yes. But legally necessary? Probably not, nor should it be. We could do a lot of things that are nice, but taking into account each and every special case would be overwhelming.
The law respectfully disagrees. If you sell products that contain peanuts, and do not label the product as containing peanuts, and someone with a peanut allergy consumes that product and is injured or dies, you are liable. Period. It is not reasonable, or necessary, for anyone who suffers from strobe-induced seizures to avoid videogames -- or traffic lights, plays, emergency lighting, television, and movies for that matter -- because the people who provide those products/services either adjust them to avoid killing people, or warn people that, at that particular venue, effects are used that when viewed by certain individuals might trigger a seizure. Failure to do so would clearly expose one to liability, at least in the United States. Under New York law, for example, you could easily be criminally prosecuted under first degree assault, Penal law 120.10, sub 3: Circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life by recklessly engaging in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes serious physical injury to another person. (Note that criminal law is not generally applicable to corporate behavior, but damn, you could definitely see some exposure in a lawsuit...)