...hate living in Ohio. So far this year, they've given my SSN away to crooks, gave the guy that lost it less than a slap on the wrist, then wasted taxpayer money on a 'fix' for it, and now this.
Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to be in a rural area with this excellent local phone company which has just started laying fiber all around town (which provides IPTV). Time Warner has sent a drone to my house three times trying to switch me to their shitty service. One of them actually claimed that I wouldn't be able to use their service because of the digital switchover!
I liked this title better:
"Mars Rover Investigates Steamy Martian Past"
But on a serious note, those rovers continually prove they were one of the best investments NASA ever made.
There are condsiderably more Mech pilots in the MW universe than there were Jedi during the timeline of SWG. (I've only played MW2 and 4, never messed with the tabletop game, so maybe something is different there-is a 'jockey' a special type of pilot?).
I really don't see the problem by making everyone a Mech pilot...let NPCs be the tank and helicopter cannon fodder. I honestly think it would translate well into a MMO. Lots of parts and upgrades to buy and get as drops, large number of worlds, tons of storyline, etc. The only thing that would be a challenge would be to determine how much and how to implement the RPG elements (if any, but almost all decent MMOs have them to an extent)...restrict weapons/chasis to level/rank, add abilities, lancemates, etc. Lots of options there, too.
Obviously you watch too much TV, if you think the American weight average is double everyone else. Just because you see extreme cases all the time doesn't mean that everyone in America is like that. We don't have THAT many bulemic movie stars to throw the curve off that much...we're at least 3 or 4 times fatter than the rest of the world, not just double. Sheesh.
PCGamer subscriber for over 10 years now...each one read cover-to-cover...on the toilet. My laptop is too cumbersome to comfortably use there (but it's definately doable).
Well worth $20/year (I stopped getting the CD once I got broadband).
The DRM is how they trap subscribers, I think. Notice this part of the article:
The company says that last drop was expected, because kids stop using the service during the summer.
That's because the college students at schools Napster has agreements with (no doubt by scaring them with file-sharing legal FUD) are FORCED to pay for a Napster subscription as a part of their technology fees and since they don't take classes during the summer, those subscriptions stop. It's not because they stop using the service, it's because they don't have to pay for it anymore. And the small percentage who used the service all of a sudden have hundreds or thousands of songs that no longer play and they are tricked into paying the subscription fee to keep listening to them.
That's all fine and dandy for the Wii, but for the DS it's not so simple. The sad thing here is I think Nintento is missing the opportunity for a new product.
What a lot of these 3rd party cartridges do for the DS do is allow people to (aside from copying DS/GBA games) play music and movies, and have PDA functionality. They also allow users to play NES, SNES, etc games on them as well.
Many of these cards sell for $80+ (or do once you add the removable flash memory). If they were smart, they would take a page from the Wii's online service, sell a cartridge for $20 that allows you to buy and download old NES/SNES games with Nintento points like you can on the Wii. They could also sell a cartridge with a flash memory slot and allow it to do multimedia playback.
Young says he was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade.
It may just be me, but automating a machine that fires explosives that isn't designed to be automated just sounds like a Bad Idea(TM).
It's been done. Apparently the names were relativaly localized and present only from a few districts, so only a few representatives recieved complaints.
I want someone's head on a plate. Maybe not the intern, but someone should be kicked out the door.
Myself, my brother, and my mother all got notices our names were on that list. Being a recent colledge graduate starting out into the workforce, having a credit monitoring service is a pain in the ass due to all the new lines of credit I am opening, along with student loan repayments. My brother is still in college 5 hours away in Pittsburgh, and really doesn't need to be concerned by things like that either. My mother, while fairly well off, has a very tight budget and stresses out enough over simple stuff as it is, and now she worries about this every other day.
And we're just three of thousands going through this. And these morons pass the buck, and all that is doled out is a slap on the wrist. Disgusting, even moreso when I realize that I am still paying these idiots every week with my tax dollars.
So user ID doesn't mean you know everything? Wow. (Admittedly mine is huge, but mostly because I've never botherd to make an account until recently...so I never judge based on UID).
I'd say the majority (at least 80%) of Slashdot regulars know and despise Jack Thompson. It started with that trial, but he has been an annoying wart on the video game industry's toe ever since then, constantly proclaiming how video game violence is destroying society, etc. He has also been in a couple good squabbles with the guys that run Penny Arcade. And since you may not be in the 80%+ of regulars who know who they are, then I'll just sum it up by saying they are probably the most-read video game webcomic on the net, to the point that they have a pretty substantial video game expo every year.
So perhaps if you'd checked Slashdot since you created your account, you might have known who this guy is and not made a fool of yourself. I will give you some credibility on the fact that this might deserve to be under video games instead of politics...but that's about it.
The following are the system requirements for each platform.
Windows
-------
Operating Systems
- Windows 98
- Windows 98 SE
- Windows ME
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000 - Windows XP (Recommended)
- Windows Vista
Is that a subtle bash against Vista? Or is it just my expectation of the open source commnity to knock a MS product whenever possible? Yeah, I know it probably means they just more thoroughly test XP compatibility, but I wouldn't be paranoid if I didn't question it.
Actually 16GB of flash memory probably costs more than a HDD. My guess is battry life and size are the reasons for sticking with flash. A HDD version later on wouldn't suprise me though. And for the people thinking about skype and whatnot...I don't think they even said if it has a microphone...it looks like it does not from the spec page.
They have a board of directors who make almost all the decisions now. All the subscribers do is vote on the directors. I don't think they have voted on any business decisions since the 70's.
I live in a city of about 10,000 people. Off to the west about 5-10 miles, there is a much smaller town called Wabash (100 people or so) that has had their own subscriber-owned telephone company since about 1910 called Wabash Mutual Telephone. Both towns are about an hour drive from anything that remotely resembles a city. Wabash Mutual picked up a fanchise from Bright.Net and began offering dial-up in the early nineties, until our cable company, Adelphia, finally began offering our first broadband access in 2000 (aside from sattelite).
Verizon now offers its crappiest DSL service possible (128k/96k for $20+phone), and Time Warner, which bought Adelphia, offers the standard overpriced Cable Internet, $45 w/cable $50 without.
Now the little subscriber-owned telephone company of about 800 telephone and 2000 dial-up subscribers began to lay fiber in our town. They have about 15% coverage now, and will likely have 80% in 2-3 years.
They do operate a bit like DSL...1 yr contract (only $100 ETF though), and massive discounts if you get phone service, but not required. If you get a lower package, no phone is a bit cheaper, but with higher internet packages, having the phone makes it cheaper. The internet service is dedicated and currently starts at 1M/512kb, up to 5M/2M, with plans for 10, 20 and 30M soon. They can actually povide 1GB to their office, but naturally you can't get that speed directly to the internet. They also provide IPTV over these lines. They are able to get this through a state-based small telecom cooperative.
Of the areas Wabash Mutual covers, they have 80% of the residents subscribed. You can get basic Phone, TV (locals) and Internet for $66....add the basic 50-channel compliment and you're at $88 If you just want the 5/2 pipe, it's about 40 cents cheaper to get it with the phone, for $70 per month. Toss the expanded cable package on top of that for $38, and you've just beat the $115 for the same package TW offers, except without the phone and a non-dedicated internet line.
So, it is possible for small telecoms to take on the big ones...at least in rural areas. I'm sure it's more expensive to lay fiber in a city, but if you count suburbs, it's very possible for small telecoms to penetrate a large percentage of the big telecom's business. Enough to get things changed.
Actually it requires 3 different 'server roles' that can be installed on separate servers or the same one. (there are two more optional roles too, one of these, the Edge Transport Role must be installed on a separate server, preferrably outside the domain for security purposes) It depends on the number of clients you have if you need multiple servers to handle the processing load.
And as far as smiplicity, you can just hit "Typical Installation" and it will install the required 3 roles and only ask for basic information. Then you just create mail rules and mailboxes, which you'd have to do with any e-mail system. Naturally, every network is different and you may have to do further customization or troubleshooting, but in a standard environment it's usually not necessary.
I'll admit I have not used Notes from the admin side, nor used any version of it for about 4 years. The places I used it at were a few retail locations (I was never personally impressed with the program), so possibly it is preferred from supporting a lot of remote users, but this was before RPC over HTTP in Outlook as well. The people I work with in IT used Notes several years ago and often use it as a humorous comparison to some other piece of software, essentially refering to how much they disliked the program.
Oh, and who gave the mindless Linux fanboy mod points? It's not my fault Linux is not the best solution for everything.
Actually their end goal is to charge everyone per second for every media playback, whistled/hummed tune, movie reference/quote, looking at a sign advertising their media, up to and including every personal thought about their media.
But for now they'll settle for this...total control of crappy, unimaginitive content doesn't happen overnight afterall...it takes many nights of boozing up senators, tropical vacations, and 4,000 sq. ft. summer homes before that can happen.
I never said it was my personal opinion. It is the results from the raw data from the NHTSA's report.
I was talking about this part:
A 'safe' life isn't worth living.
This seems to be pointing to the concept of, "If you don't have anything to hide you won't mind me looking over your shoulder." This idea is just wrong. (just look over someone's shoulder for 5 minutes if you want to get an idea of why it is wrong. Yes, I know that concept, but that is not what I meant.
I was stating that the vast majority people who break minor laws live at normal addresses and can be reached without any difficulty, either via a subpoena or a mailed ticket. What this would help catch is people that 'roam', or move from place to place with friends or family, generally within a lower-income community. It would also help catch those on the run.
You're focusing on similar systems and worst-case scenario abuses. You act like no information control policy will ever be implemented and wide-spread spying will ensue. You need to be realistic when you weigh out pros and cons, look at the system as it exists today, and consider the LIKELY abuses, not the full worst-case abuses. Acually let's compare some worst-case scnarios: Which would you prefer? A few thousand speeding tickets or a child who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, which could have been prevented with a system like this? I don't think the government is ever going to kill or rape anyone with this.
There are thousands of ways the government can abuse data from us, but only a few are ever exploited, and this one pales in comparison to many of those. Yes, the government often bumbles things, but you try to trust it to a degree or you may live with a needless paranoid fear in the back of your head.
Wow. What post were you reading? Obviously not mine.
I never mentioned speed cameras. These devices aren't currently being used to detect speeders. Sure, that functionality could be added, but then it isn't much different than the many speed cameras already in place. That's a different argument altogether, and yes, I would agree that speed cameras and red-light cameras are primarily used for revenue generation. I personally drive at least 5mph over the speed limit (10+ on freeways) unless I know it is a heavily policed area, so I'm not concerned about being more 'safe'. (Also for the record, stating your personal opinions as absolute fact is not a good idea.)
And as I mentioned in a reply to someone else, people who aren't trying to actively hide themselves are probably not going to be impacted by this. They won't need to catch them on the roads, they will just go to your home address if they catch you doing something like littering or jaywalking. A system like this can really only be effective/efficient to catch major offenders like the car thieves and people that cannot easily be located at a street address.
Also as I mentioned in my other reply, there is almost never a perfect solution. There will be pros and cons, and I personally think the number of car thieves and violent criminals that can be caught greatly outweighs the cons of such a system.
Slashdot Mirror
...hate living in Ohio. So far this year, they've given my SSN away to crooks, gave the guy that lost it less than a slap on the wrist, then wasted taxpayer money on a 'fix' for it, and now this.
Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to be in a rural area with this excellent local phone company which has just started laying fiber all around town (which provides IPTV). Time Warner has sent a drone to my house three times trying to switch me to their shitty service. One of them actually claimed that I wouldn't be able to use their service because of the digital switchover!
I liked this title better: "Mars Rover Investigates Steamy Martian Past" But on a serious note, those rovers continually prove they were one of the best investments NASA ever made.
There are condsiderably more Mech pilots in the MW universe than there were Jedi during the timeline of SWG. (I've only played MW2 and 4, never messed with the tabletop game, so maybe something is different there-is a 'jockey' a special type of pilot?).
I really don't see the problem by making everyone a Mech pilot...let NPCs be the tank and helicopter cannon fodder. I honestly think it would translate well into a MMO. Lots of parts and upgrades to buy and get as drops, large number of worlds, tons of storyline, etc. The only thing that would be a challenge would be to determine how much and how to implement the RPG elements (if any, but almost all decent MMOs have them to an extent)...restrict weapons/chasis to level/rank, add abilities, lancemates, etc. Lots of options there, too.
Obviously you watch too much TV, if you think the American weight average is double everyone else. Just because you see extreme cases all the time doesn't mean that everyone in America is like that. We don't have THAT many bulemic movie stars to throw the curve off that much...we're at least 3 or 4 times fatter than the rest of the world, not just double. Sheesh.
PCGamer subscriber for over 10 years now...each one read cover-to-cover...on the toilet. My laptop is too cumbersome to comfortably use there (but it's definately doable).
Well worth $20/year (I stopped getting the CD once I got broadband).
I disagree. You are stupid.
The company says that last drop was expected, because kids stop using the service during the summer.
That's because the college students at schools Napster has agreements with (no doubt by scaring them with file-sharing legal FUD) are FORCED to pay for a Napster subscription as a part of their technology fees and since they don't take classes during the summer, those subscriptions stop. It's not because they stop using the service, it's because they don't have to pay for it anymore. And the small percentage who used the service all of a sudden have hundreds or thousands of songs that no longer play and they are tricked into paying the subscription fee to keep listening to them.
Not in Microsoft lingo. They call that a retail product. (And apparently Apple too with the Leopard upgrade 'blues' I've been hearing about)
Yes, but will in Soviet Russia, will it blend me?
That's all fine and dandy for the Wii, but for the DS it's not so simple. The sad thing here is I think Nintento is missing the opportunity for a new product.
What a lot of these 3rd party cartridges do for the DS do is allow people to (aside from copying DS/GBA games) play music and movies, and have PDA functionality. They also allow users to play NES, SNES, etc games on them as well.
Many of these cards sell for $80+ (or do once you add the removable flash memory). If they were smart, they would take a page from the Wii's online service, sell a cartridge for $20 that allows you to buy and download old NES/SNES games with Nintento points like you can on the Wii. They could also sell a cartridge with a flash memory slot and allow it to do multimedia playback.
From here:
Young says he was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade.
It may just be me, but automating a machine that fires explosives that isn't designed to be automated just sounds like a Bad Idea(TM).
It's been done. Apparently the names were relativaly localized and present only from a few districts, so only a few representatives recieved complaints.
I want someone's head on a plate. Maybe not the intern, but someone should be kicked out the door. Myself, my brother, and my mother all got notices our names were on that list. Being a recent colledge graduate starting out into the workforce, having a credit monitoring service is a pain in the ass due to all the new lines of credit I am opening, along with student loan repayments. My brother is still in college 5 hours away in Pittsburgh, and really doesn't need to be concerned by things like that either. My mother, while fairly well off, has a very tight budget and stresses out enough over simple stuff as it is, and now she worries about this every other day. And we're just three of thousands going through this. And these morons pass the buck, and all that is doled out is a slap on the wrist. Disgusting, even moreso when I realize that I am still paying these idiots every week with my tax dollars.
So user ID doesn't mean you know everything? Wow. (Admittedly mine is huge, but mostly because I've never botherd to make an account until recently...so I never judge based on UID).
I'd say the majority (at least 80%) of Slashdot regulars know and despise Jack Thompson. It started with that trial, but he has been an annoying wart on the video game industry's toe ever since then, constantly proclaiming how video game violence is destroying society, etc. He has also been in a couple good squabbles with the guys that run Penny Arcade. And since you may not be in the 80%+ of regulars who know who they are, then I'll just sum it up by saying they are probably the most-read video game webcomic on the net, to the point that they have a pretty substantial video game expo every year.
So perhaps if you'd checked Slashdot since you created your account, you might have known who this guy is and not made a fool of yourself. I will give you some credibility on the fact that this might deserve to be under video games instead of politics...but that's about it.
Is that a subtle bash against Vista? Or is it just my expectation of the open source commnity to knock a MS product whenever possible? Yeah, I know it probably means they just more thoroughly test XP compatibility, but I wouldn't be paranoid if I didn't question it.
Actually 16GB of flash memory probably costs more than a HDD. My guess is battry life and size are the reasons for sticking with flash. A HDD version later on wouldn't suprise me though. And for the people thinking about skype and whatnot...I don't think they even said if it has a microphone...it looks like it does not from the spec page.
They have a board of directors who make almost all the decisions now. All the subscribers do is vote on the directors. I don't think they have voted on any business decisions since the 70's.
I live in a city of about 10,000 people. Off to the west about 5-10 miles, there is a much smaller town called Wabash (100 people or so) that has had their own subscriber-owned telephone company since about 1910 called Wabash Mutual Telephone. Both towns are about an hour drive from anything that remotely resembles a city. Wabash Mutual picked up a fanchise from Bright.Net and began offering dial-up in the early nineties, until our cable company, Adelphia, finally began offering our first broadband access in 2000 (aside from sattelite).
Verizon now offers its crappiest DSL service possible (128k/96k for $20+phone), and Time Warner, which bought Adelphia, offers the standard overpriced Cable Internet, $45 w/cable $50 without.
Now the little subscriber-owned telephone company of about 800 telephone and 2000 dial-up subscribers began to lay fiber in our town. They have about 15% coverage now, and will likely have 80% in 2-3 years.
They do operate a bit like DSL...1 yr contract (only $100 ETF though), and massive discounts if you get phone service, but not required. If you get a lower package, no phone is a bit cheaper, but with higher internet packages, having the phone makes it cheaper. The internet service is dedicated and currently starts at 1M/512kb, up to 5M/2M, with plans for 10, 20 and 30M soon. They can actually povide 1GB to their office, but naturally you can't get that speed directly to the internet. They also provide IPTV over these lines. They are able to get this through a state-based small telecom cooperative.
Of the areas Wabash Mutual covers, they have 80% of the residents subscribed. You can get basic Phone, TV (locals) and Internet for $66....add the basic 50-channel compliment and you're at $88 If you just want the 5/2 pipe, it's about 40 cents cheaper to get it with the phone, for $70 per month. Toss the expanded cable package on top of that for $38, and you've just beat the $115 for the same package TW offers, except without the phone and a non-dedicated internet line.
So, it is possible for small telecoms to take on the big ones...at least in rural areas. I'm sure it's more expensive to lay fiber in a city, but if you count suburbs, it's very possible for small telecoms to penetrate a large percentage of the big telecom's business. Enough to get things changed.
Actually it requires 3 different 'server roles' that can be installed on separate servers or the same one. (there are two more optional roles too, one of these, the Edge Transport Role must be installed on a separate server, preferrably outside the domain for security purposes) It depends on the number of clients you have if you need multiple servers to handle the processing load.
And as far as smiplicity, you can just hit "Typical Installation" and it will install the required 3 roles and only ask for basic information. Then you just create mail rules and mailboxes, which you'd have to do with any e-mail system. Naturally, every network is different and you may have to do further customization or troubleshooting, but in a standard environment it's usually not necessary.
I'll admit I have not used Notes from the admin side, nor used any version of it for about 4 years. The places I used it at were a few retail locations (I was never personally impressed with the program), so possibly it is preferred from supporting a lot of remote users, but this was before RPC over HTTP in Outlook as well. The people I work with in IT used Notes several years ago and often use it as a humorous comparison to some other piece of software, essentially refering to how much they disliked the program.
Oh, and who gave the mindless Linux fanboy mod points? It's not my fault Linux is not the best solution for everything.
As much as it's fun to knock Microsoft products, there's really not anything that compares to Exchange.
Actually their end goal is to charge everyone per second for every media playback, whistled/hummed tune, movie reference/quote, looking at a sign advertising their media, up to and including every personal thought about their media.
But for now they'll settle for this...total control of crappy, unimaginitive content doesn't happen overnight afterall...it takes many nights of boozing up senators, tropical vacations, and 4,000 sq. ft. summer homes before that can happen.
I'm waiting on the American adult film makers....Japanese porn is censored :-(
I was talking about this part:
A 'safe' life isn't worth living.
This seems to be pointing to the concept of, "If you don't have anything to hide you won't mind me looking over your shoulder." This idea is just wrong. (just look over someone's shoulder for 5 minutes if you want to get an idea of why it is wrong. Yes, I know that concept, but that is not what I meant.
I was stating that the vast majority people who break minor laws live at normal addresses and can be reached without any difficulty, either via a subpoena or a mailed ticket. What this would help catch is people that 'roam', or move from place to place with friends or family, generally within a lower-income community. It would also help catch those on the run.
You're focusing on similar systems and worst-case scenario abuses. You act like no information control policy will ever be implemented and wide-spread spying will ensue. You need to be realistic when you weigh out pros and cons, look at the system as it exists today, and consider the LIKELY abuses, not the full worst-case abuses. Acually let's compare some worst-case scnarios: Which would you prefer? A few thousand speeding tickets or a child who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, which could have been prevented with a system like this? I don't think the government is ever going to kill or rape anyone with this.
There are thousands of ways the government can abuse data from us, but only a few are ever exploited, and this one pales in comparison to many of those. Yes, the government often bumbles things, but you try to trust it to a degree or you may live with a needless paranoid fear in the back of your head.
Wow. What post were you reading? Obviously not mine.
I never mentioned speed cameras. These devices aren't currently being used to detect speeders. Sure, that functionality could be added, but then it isn't much different than the many speed cameras already in place. That's a different argument altogether, and yes, I would agree that speed cameras and red-light cameras are primarily used for revenue generation. I personally drive at least 5mph over the speed limit (10+ on freeways) unless I know it is a heavily policed area, so I'm not concerned about being more 'safe'. (Also for the record, stating your personal opinions as absolute fact is not a good idea.)
And as I mentioned in a reply to someone else, people who aren't trying to actively hide themselves are probably not going to be impacted by this. They won't need to catch them on the roads, they will just go to your home address if they catch you doing something like littering or jaywalking. A system like this can really only be effective/efficient to catch major offenders like the car thieves and people that cannot easily be located at a street address.
Also as I mentioned in my other reply, there is almost never a perfect solution. There will be pros and cons, and I personally think the number of car thieves and violent criminals that can be caught greatly outweighs the cons of such a system.