If you want to buy this "FOB", which is functionally identical to RSA's SecureID token, you can purchase it from PayPal, that calls it "Security Key" for an introductory flat $5, no shipping, or from VeriSign, that calls it "VIP Security Token" for $30 plus $6 shipping.
Um... not to put too fine a point on it, but how many of us are *experts* in the fields covered on Slashdot? Many are, I know, and I'm grateful for their comments. There is a place for everyone to be involved in a discussion, expert or not, but arrogance is what usually generates the flames. As long as one is not arrogant they should be welcomed to any discussion.
Regarding Bobby Fischer, I don't know the man except by reputation, and in his early years he was phenomenal at chess. But I know about mental illness, and "not guilty by reason of insanity" comes to mind for him. What he said was vile in the extreme, but should be attributed to his illness and not the man.
I would say that the duty falls on the media to not report these things in great detail, only to say that he was mentally ill and unfortunately used his fame to say things that were inappropriate in the extreme. Someone with Tourette's Syndrome would also be expected to say things that were inappropriate in the extreme, and would most likely *not* be quoted in the media.
Back when I depended on my Palm III for keeping track of my schedule and contacts, I also stored credit card numbers and passcodes etc. that needed to be secure. I purchased a product called OnlyMe which allowed pseudo-graphical entry of passwords. They encouraged you to enter a password using a series of strokes without lifting your stylus. From their site:
To allow extremely quick and easy password input, OnlyMe's keys allow you to "press" them without lifting your stylus from the surface of the device! You may choose a password composed of keys that allow you to enter the password as one, quick sweep of the stylus - a single gesture of your own design. This quick sweep of the stylus may start from or go outside the bounds of the OnlyMe "window."... For a high level of security, we recommend that you use two gestures of at least four keys each. With this level of security, an intruder's best bet for accessing your data is to contract with someone with specialized knowledge to access the device's memory.
FWIW, IANAC but I estimate that using their two-gesture recommendation would result in something over 2 million possible passwords. This is a great piece of software and well worth $20 for anybody still using one of these for anything important.
It's a small conceptual leap to go from this 1998 stroke-based password idea to the present idea of drawing a picture to capture strokes which are then turned into a password. Looks like prior art to me!
Okay, so this movie existed. But it was bad enough that it should never have existed! But then we wouldn't have it to kick around. Oh, it's so confusing!!
There is a lengthy article in The Standard Times here with great detail about the whole thing and how it came down. As usual, the kid got attention, started embellishing the story, and the whole thing came crashing down.
I can't believe that ANYBODY thinks a government beaurocracy is the most efficient way to administer a resource like the Internet? Quoted from the article:
Hendon is also adamant: "The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."
Since when do governments "only [get] involved where they need to be"??? Is that the lesson that history teaches? Can we point to other examples of grass-roots resources like this where they were working fine, but some top-level coalition of governmental entities took control and things got even better? Or even just didn't get worse?? I think not! What is the problem they are wanting to solve? What have these other countries not been able to do because of ICANN? It's just a power grab of the most egregious kind. Should UPS or FedEx be taken over by the UN or the EU? They are also critical services to business. Think about this, people!!
I have a Rio Carbon, and I LOVE it!! I went out to the stores and compared all the MP3 players I could find, including the iPod and the iPod-Mini, and the Carbon won hands down. It is very easy to use, very sexy to look at and handle, has a 5GB hard drive (the iPod Mini had 4), and handles the AAC compression used by Audible.com. (I have a long commute and love to listen to books.) The iPod is just another MS Windows. They weren't even really there first, but they have good marketing. (How many Rio, or any other MP3 player for that matter, ads have you seen on TV?) The old rule states: "Perception drives the market. Marketing drives perception." And marketing takes big bucks like Micro$oft and Apple have to throw around. The Rio Carbon is a great MP3 player, and I hope mine lasts a long, long time. (A couple of years at least!)
Jason interviewed me, but I doubt my footage was included. My board was too small and not terribly noteworthy, though I was one of a very small group that ran 2AM-BBS software. (Kudos to Neil Clark, Chris Gorman, and Tom Vogel.) And DesqView (remember that??) to run two lines. Ah, Rivendell, I remember ye well. Jason worked very, very hard, at great personal cost, to try and document this lost phase of online community building. The internet has done to BBSes what the Interstate Highway system did to Route 66. In the immortal words of DeForest Kelley, "She's DEAD, Jim!"
I wish there was higher than +5!! As a sysop I can totally relate to this!! I really miss the microcosm and sense of community. Ah, well. I was interview by Jason, but I doubt my interview is in the final version. I ran a VERY small board, on 2AM-BBS software. Ah, the good old days.
Aaargh!! I JUST this week received in the mail my 9.1 CDs!! I sent an email to SUSE to see if they would offer me the 9.2 CDs for free. Other distros have done this. "If a new version comes out within 30 days of the version you just bought then you get the new one gratis." I hope they do that! Anybody know if they will?
Ok, then does this mean that I can finally remove the DRM from the Audible.com files that I PURCHASED and cannot play on MY non-DRM MP3 player? I use the almost-useless little Otis player because I have to (or buy an iPod, which I can't afford) and I'd much rather have these files in an MP3 (or OGG) format. I do not have a Mac or an iPod so I hope they generalize this for the rest of us.
In my admittedly cursory review of the main LinuxBIOS site (here) and of the article I was unable to find anything about using it to boot other operating systems besides Linux. Can I buy a compatible mobo, put the LinuxBIOS on it, and then run Windows? I'm still running dual-boot for now and would need this.
Oh, NO! That book was too long by at least half. It has prevented me from reading other books by NS that have been recommended to me. I have a hard-cover copy that I wish I'd never wasted good money on. I never buy hard-cover sci-fi, but the crypto angle so intrigued me, I bought it. I really like his premise, I like much of his plot that relates (much does not relate!) but he writes like a first-time teenaged writer who is impressed with his writing abilities. Ugh!!
I too listened to the Audible.com version of this book and while I found the book to be okay, with a few memorable bits, the ending ruined the book for me. You have to read the entire book before you have the whole picture of "what happened" and then it abruptly ends, and I mean abruptly. Most books have peaks and valleys of the plot while things happen, tension is created, then resolved. There is none of that in this book. Within the first few pages we know/deduce WHAT happened to the world that ended it "as we know it", but the big tension of this book is that you don't know WHY until you are almost finished with the book. But there's no "climax", only information. And the final scene is not climactic or even particularly meaningful. Here, I'll tell you the scene, and knowing it does not in the least spoil anything. The final scene is the main character coming out from behind a tree and the author writes, "Zero hour. Time to go." but you have no idea what "zero hour" could mean, or where the main character is going, or even why, and the story just stops like the author hit some word limit. It is so open-ended that you feel cheated and like you just wasted all those hours. It's like somebody tore the book in half and you didn't know it until you hit the spot where there's nothing more to the book. This technique works okay for a short story, but not one that is 10 hours long. Don't waste your time unless you have a lot of time to waste and don't care about what happens at the end. You'll never know.
This was talked about on Slashdot here back on July 18, 1999. There is mention of licensing by a company called Lydstrom that are no longer on the net so I assume they are dead. There is a legal filing from March of 2000 here from a company called e.Digital where they are licensing the PAC (or EPAC) technology from Lucent, but the rest of their site does not indicate their use of this in any of their products. The compression algorithm appears to be totally proprietary to Lucent, inherited from Bell Labs, so it's probably of no real interest to most Slashdotters.
I've read before about how fish and tadpoles and even frogs "rain from the heavens" in some places, and it's clear that this happens. This article could bring into question some of the "evidence" that archeologists find that they claim points to an area being underwater. If enough fish and frogs and now plankton rain down in an area over time, and this stuff sort of piles up, how would they be able to tell if there was really marine life there, or if is simply an artifact of this weird kind of rain that is filled with this sh.. er... stuff? And what about tornadoes and hurricans and such that can carry mountains of this kind of debris??
Dvorak's infamous predictions: DVD
on
Calling Out TiVo
·
· Score: 1
I attended a TOOLS conference (sponsored by Interactive Software Engineering, the originators of the Eiffel programming language) a couple of years ago, and John Dvorak was one of the keynote speakers. While his talk was entertaining, one thing that he ranted and raved about was how ridiculous the DVD was in general, and how useless it was in a computer. He made a big deal out of how it was going to die quickly and disappear forever, that it was way too hard to use (huh?) and was useless because you couldn't write to it. So much insight!
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I bought one from them just before posting my first message. Perhaps it's not available in your area/jurisdiction?
If you want to buy this "FOB", which is functionally identical to RSA's SecureID token, you can purchase it from PayPal, that calls it "Security Key" for an introductory flat $5, no shipping, or from VeriSign, that calls it "VIP Security Token" for $30 plus $6 shipping.
Um... not to put too fine a point on it, but how many of us are *experts* in the fields covered on Slashdot? Many are, I know, and I'm grateful for their comments. There is a place for everyone to be involved in a discussion, expert or not, but arrogance is what usually generates the flames. As long as one is not arrogant they should be welcomed to any discussion.
Regarding Bobby Fischer, I don't know the man except by reputation, and in his early years he was phenomenal at chess. But I know about mental illness, and "not guilty by reason of insanity" comes to mind for him. What he said was vile in the extreme, but should be attributed to his illness and not the man.
I would say that the duty falls on the media to not report these things in great detail, only to say that he was mentally ill and unfortunately used his fame to say things that were inappropriate in the extreme. Someone with Tourette's Syndrome would also be expected to say things that were inappropriate in the extreme, and would most likely *not* be quoted in the media.
It's a small conceptual leap to go from this 1998 stroke-based password idea to the present idea of drawing a picture to capture strokes which are then turned into a password. Looks like prior art to me!
Okay, so this movie existed. But it was bad enough that it should never have existed! But then we wouldn't have it to kick around. Oh, it's so confusing!!
There is a lengthy article in The Standard Times here with great detail about the whole thing and how it came down. As usual, the kid got attention, started embellishing the story, and the whole thing came crashing down.
I can't believe that ANYBODY thinks a government beaurocracy is the most efficient way to administer a resource like the Internet? Quoted from the article:
Hendon is also adamant: "The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."
Since when do governments "only [get] involved where they need to be"??? Is that the lesson that history teaches? Can we point to other examples of grass-roots resources like this where they were working fine, but some top-level coalition of governmental entities took control and things got even better? Or even just didn't get worse?? I think not! What is the problem they are wanting to solve? What have these other countries not been able to do because of ICANN? It's just a power grab of the most egregious kind. Should UPS or FedEx be taken over by the UN or the EU? They are also critical services to business. Think about this, people!!
I have a Rio Carbon, and I LOVE it!! I went out to the stores and compared all the MP3 players I could find, including the iPod and the iPod-Mini, and the Carbon won hands down. It is very easy to use, very sexy to look at and handle, has a 5GB hard drive (the iPod Mini had 4), and handles the AAC compression used by Audible.com. (I have a long commute and love to listen to books.) The iPod is just another MS Windows. They weren't even really there first, but they have good marketing. (How many Rio, or any other MP3 player for that matter, ads have you seen on TV?) The old rule states: "Perception drives the market. Marketing drives perception." And marketing takes big bucks like Micro$oft and Apple have to throw around. The Rio Carbon is a great MP3 player, and I hope mine lasts a long, long time. (A couple of years at least!)
Jason interviewed me, but I doubt my footage was included. My board was too small and not terribly noteworthy, though I was one of a very small group that ran 2AM-BBS software. (Kudos to Neil Clark, Chris Gorman, and Tom Vogel.) And DesqView (remember that??) to run two lines. Ah, Rivendell, I remember ye well. Jason worked very, very hard, at great personal cost, to try and document this lost phase of online community building. The internet has done to BBSes what the Interstate Highway system did to Route 66. In the immortal words of DeForest Kelley, "She's DEAD, Jim!"
I wish there was higher than +5!! As a sysop I can totally relate to this!! I really miss the microcosm and sense of community. Ah, well. I was interview by Jason, but I doubt my interview is in the final version. I ran a VERY small board, on 2AM-BBS software. Ah, the good old days.
Aaargh!! I JUST this week received in the mail my 9.1 CDs!! I sent an email to SUSE to see if they would offer me the 9.2 CDs for free. Other distros have done this. "If a new version comes out within 30 days of the version you just bought then you get the new one gratis." I hope they do that! Anybody know if they will?
Ok, then does this mean that I can finally remove the DRM from the Audible.com files that I PURCHASED and cannot play on MY non-DRM MP3 player? I use the almost-useless little Otis player because I have to (or buy an iPod, which I can't afford) and I'd much rather have these files in an MP3 (or OGG) format. I do not have a Mac or an iPod so I hope they generalize this for the rest of us.
In my admittedly cursory review of the main LinuxBIOS site (here) and of the article I was unable to find anything about using it to boot other operating systems besides Linux. Can I buy a compatible mobo, put the LinuxBIOS on it, and then run Windows? I'm still running dual-boot for now and would need this.
Oh, NO! That book was too long by at least half. It has prevented me from reading other books by NS that have been recommended to me. I have a hard-cover copy that I wish I'd never wasted good money on. I never buy hard-cover sci-fi, but the crypto angle so intrigued me, I bought it. I really like his premise, I like much of his plot that relates (much does not relate!) but he writes like a first-time teenaged writer who is impressed with his writing abilities. Ugh!!
I too listened to the Audible.com version of this book and while I found the book to be okay, with a few memorable bits, the ending ruined the book for me. You have to read the entire book before you have the whole picture of "what happened" and then it abruptly ends, and I mean abruptly. Most books have peaks and valleys of the plot while things happen, tension is created, then resolved. There is none of that in this book. Within the first few pages we know/deduce WHAT happened to the world that ended it "as we know it", but the big tension of this book is that you don't know WHY until you are almost finished with the book. But there's no "climax", only information. And the final scene is not climactic or even particularly meaningful. Here, I'll tell you the scene, and knowing it does not in the least spoil anything. The final scene is the main character coming out from behind a tree and the author writes, "Zero hour. Time to go." but you have no idea what "zero hour" could mean, or where the main character is going, or even why, and the story just stops like the author hit some word limit. It is so open-ended that you feel cheated and like you just wasted all those hours. It's like somebody tore the book in half and you didn't know it until you hit the spot where there's nothing more to the book. This technique works okay for a short story, but not one that is 10 hours long. Don't waste your time unless you have a lot of time to waste and don't care about what happens at the end. You'll never know.
This was talked about on Slashdot here back on July 18, 1999. There is mention of licensing by a company called Lydstrom that are no longer on the net so I assume they are dead. There is a legal filing from March of 2000 here from a company called e.Digital where they are licensing the PAC (or EPAC) technology from Lucent, but the rest of their site does not indicate their use of this in any of their products. The compression algorithm appears to be totally proprietary to Lucent, inherited from Bell Labs, so it's probably of no real interest to most Slashdotters.
That was Augustus Gloop, IIRC.
I've read before about how fish and tadpoles and even frogs "rain from the heavens" in some places, and it's clear that this happens. This article could bring into question some of the "evidence" that archeologists find that they claim points to an area being underwater. If enough fish and frogs and now plankton rain down in an area over time, and this stuff sort of piles up, how would they be able to tell if there was really marine life there, or if is simply an artifact of this weird kind of rain that is filled with this sh.. er... stuff? And what about tornadoes and hurricans and such that can carry mountains of this kind of debris??
I attended a TOOLS conference (sponsored by Interactive Software Engineering, the originators of the Eiffel programming language) a couple of years ago, and John Dvorak was one of the keynote speakers. While his talk was entertaining, one thing that he ranted and raved about was how ridiculous the DVD was in general, and how useless it was in a computer. He made a big deal out of how it was going to die quickly and disappear forever, that it was way too hard to use (huh?) and was useless because you couldn't write to it. So much insight!
Your sig is not right.
It's not a valid Haiku.
Haiku's five sev'n five.
Sorry. I couldn't resist.