Running as root would be just as stupid (something Ubuntu does not have one do by default but I believe Mac does?)
What Macs and newer Linux distros, Ubuntu included, do is make the first user created on the system a "computer administrator". Only such a "computer administrator" can install software outside the home directory or change system settings and all such activities are password prompted. Unless that password is supplied for administrative actions, these users have no more privilege than regular users.
It isn't perfect. A nasty could run in the background as that user and silently sniff for that password but such attacks aren't common. It is fairly common practice to mitigate that on Linux systems by forbidding software to execute from the home directories. That would be possible on OS X as well but doesn't seem to be a very common practice.
Re:You can get almost 100 miles from an S10
on
DIY Hybrid Car Kit
·
· Score: 1
Since you have an entire truck bed to play with, why not chuck one of those home AC generators back there? You'd have a parallel hybrid that you could risk exceeding your nominal range with and you would only have to start that motor if you needed to recharge in an out of the way place.
Such a genny wouldn't have the grunt to propel the truck I expect but it would still be good for recharging if you had to drive to an out of the way place.
Sure but we aren't talking about a legal action; we are talking about an angry consumer letter. Just 'cause you're angry doesn't mean you should say everything you're thinking. Flat out telling somebody you are going to pirate moves you from the customer box to the criminal box. Not a good way to make an impression.
Note well, I don't agree with abusive DRM (damn far from it). My point is about communicating and getting your recipient to actually consider what you have to say.
Your emails would have more force if you explained you'd never buy it or even better will spend money with their competitors rather than pay them money. When you threaten to pirate, that is the only thing they are going to see or consider. Tagging yourself a pirate means you weren't apt to be a customer in their eyes anyway. You are also threatening to combat a wrong with wrong. The corporation may be faceless but a human probably reads your mail at some point and such a statement isn't morally impressive.
Diesel trains have operated purely off electrics with a generator being turned by a diesel for decades now. Lately GE has taken the obvious step of adding regenerative braking, batteries, and a controller to their Evolution series. Now whether all that will scale down........
What pray tell is? We don't take matters into our own hands because society puts cooler heads in charge of doing something truly just. It doesn't always work perfectly but I agree with you that it is better than everyone running around wreaking revenge. There are Eastern European societies where half the town lives in hiding because extended families are carrying grudges. But in this case, society did absolutely nothing. This guy got a commit murder free card.
Just how philosophical are most of us going to be if it was our wife or kid? I could see condemning the bat wielder if anything at all was done. Say the guy got a light sentence or not found guilty. But here nothing. Not only has society completely failed, society refuses to rectify that failure. I suppose it is high-minded in some sense to just lump it but I'm just not seeing it.
The problem here is that cancer or not he should have faced retribution from society. A sick guy commits murder and a judge doesn't call him on it because he's sick. Now I don't know about you but I think that is just sick and I'd have a hard time condemning someone who used a baseball bat in such a case. If on the jury, I'd find such a one guilty but would hang that sucker cold if anything other than token punishment were proposed.
Think about it. Would you truly feel so philosophical about it if someone near and dear to you were murdered and the murderer got off scott free on a sympathy vote?
I hope multiprocessing is one of them. It annoys me to no end to have a bad tab kill a 7 or 8 tab session. Tabs/windows and plugins need to be isolated from each other. Even IE6 for all it's other faults got that right.
Anyone have nightmares about being tied up in a dark room when all the sudden this whistly theme starts playing and Smilin' Bob walks in the room. And of course there is that cheeky little wave before the real horror starts.
The version I heard had them peeing off a building. The first one exclaims "3rd floor!" as the other one is hopping from foot to foot. "What are you doing ?!?" asked the first one.
You sir are a true American. I see all these poofters saying "Well go where there isn't a HOA then!" The problem of course is that HOAs will be foisted on us all one way or another. I'm sure there are many places where the only homes within reasonable distance of any kind of reasonable job are all HOA. That makes proliferation of these obnoxious extra-legal organizations a real problem and a group of people in dire need of a reality check and I'm glad there are people with backbone like the OP who will supply that reality check.
Neither Obama or McCain does very well on the issues we care about like Net Neutrality, security theatre by DHS, the Patriot Act, letting the MAFIAA have whatever they want etc. It's too late for this election because what nerds need to do first is make themselves felt as bloc that will fund this candidate or that or votes for this candidate or that based on the things that are important to use.
We also need something like GeekPAC but with a more public image friendly name that actually works to serve as a set of faces politicians learn to associate with these issues. Politicians fear groups like the NRA and AARP. We have the numbers and the dollars to inspire that same sort of respect. It is a matter of leadership.
Actually, that thinking is starting to change. It is true that the young and especially the very young learn faster and tend to be more flexible. However, it turns out that older minds are more flexible than you give them credit for. Google up neuroplasticity.
The following is an article about a prototype prosthetic for people who have lost all or most of their inner ear function. Accelerometers in a helmet measure sway forces and convey that information to an electrode strip placed on the tongue. The sensation is of fizzing bubbles moving back and forth across the tongue.
For some patients, the results were quite dramatic and this makes sense if you think about it. In the real world, you do have old people who learn to cope with trauma both mental and physical and with a world largely changed from where they grew up. Others successfully assimilate into foreign culture and language. We can do this because we are intelligent adaptable beings and we need not be utterly ruled by what we learned as young people.
Farnsworth fusors are also used as a laboratory source of neutrons. For that application it only matters that they produce sufficient neutrons of the required energy.
If you're careful, you can run XP on a 500mhz system comfortably.
True. I've found that it helps to have at least 384MB RAM though it really wakes up with 512. You'll also want to "adjust for best performance" in the System Properties. That makes XP resemble Windows 2000 visually which is much better at scaling down than even XP.
Nothing radical here although we are in a somewhat low volume period. At worst, our domain sees ~70,000/day. At the moment we're getting ~/22,000/day. It isn't uncommon to see any point between those two extremes.
As far as having a good "taster", Id did pretty well with this. With say DOOM, you knew up front that the game would have a total of three episodes. Id let you play pretty much the first third of the game free. Hell, their demos even had some replay value. As it turned out, their clueful use of shareware pretty much made them back then.
Of course, not all games are as episodic but it you could draw some rules of thumb from it. A first time player casually making his way through DOOM's first 9 levels will take about 1.5 to 3 hours to do it. So it seems you have to give a quality experience for at least that amount of time to start some buzz going and of course the paid portion of the game has to maintain that quality so you'll tell your friends and blogs that the rest of the game is worth paying for.
I'd also suggest not continually have the player running into physical barriers and what not that aren't present in the payware version. Just structure the demo such that the game can be experienced for that critically addictive amount of time. Building in nags and frustrations will keep your prospective customer from getting hooked and wanting more. Rather you need an end that takes some period of time to encounter whether it be "level 9" or a decently far extent of a game universe. A game using the hub and spoke system should supply a quest or two say.
We can draw a parallel from the serialized stories of yesteryear. A good solid first installment is what is needed to get the reader caring about the story and characters. The "gotta know" sets in so the rest are bought.
Also, if a critical driver fails (such as a keyboard driver - and for this, it doesn't need to crash), the stability of the core operating system is moot for most people, since they need to reboot the system to get the driver working again. (I experienced this with an OEM "Multimedia keyboard" driver, and know how to correct it.) The same applies to the display driver - if you don't see anything on the screen, you can't do much with your system.
If the machine still has network access then you can regain control of it that way. I've recovered from the NVidia driver hosing up by restarting the login manager with ssh. Of course, this was on Linux where X is more loosely coupled to the system.
I suppose if RDC or VNC is running you could regain control that way depending on how badly the display system is screwed up. If nothing else, ssh can still be installed on a Windows system. That would allow a proper restart as opposed to just cutting the power.
I said about the earlier story that I wouldn't consider Foxconn kit because we use Linux based utilities to restore and troubleshoot Windows systems. Since they are acting to fix the issues, I have no reason to disqualify their stuff out of hand anymore.
I had a workaround script for this that takes down and brings back up the tunnel and bridge I was using for VirtualBox. I haven't needed to use it since upgrading to the latest and greatest.
I suspect a lot of people do what I do. I have ShowTime/HBO/etc. I just wait for movies to show up on the premium channels and watch them then. About once every three years or so there is something that will actually get me out to a theatre like Lord Of The Rings. The rest of the time I couldn't be fussed to either go to a theatre OR download it. Even cheap and legal downloads are currently more trouble than it would be worth to me.
They wouldn't have to do all of that. They could do well enough if they supported Linux to the same extent that they support OS X. And they would have to do it with the same level of commitment. No sneaky 3 version behind bullshit and no sneaky make-the-Linux-version-work-like-ass. If MS had been split like it should have been, that probably would have happened. An "MS Applications" company would have no reason to be hostile to Linux anyway even if they didn't have Linux versions. But the MS OS+MS Apps company we have now is almost incapable of resisting the urge to go for lock-in.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, just contemplating the whole idea of DNA when it's really just a wet, sloppy pile of chemicals blows my mind.
Maybe that's the problem "everybody else" has with us:
http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html
Norton actually has a "Removal Tool" for peeling their crap off a system.
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
It knows about all the regkeys, services, and files their various products employ. Might be worth a shot.
Running as root would be just as stupid (something Ubuntu does not have one do by default but I believe Mac does?)
What Macs and newer Linux distros, Ubuntu included, do is make the first user created on the system a "computer administrator". Only such a "computer administrator" can install software outside the home directory or change system settings and all such activities are password prompted. Unless that password is supplied for administrative actions, these users have no more privilege than regular users.
It isn't perfect. A nasty could run in the background as that user and silently sniff for that password but such attacks aren't common. It is fairly common practice to mitigate that on Linux systems by forbidding software to execute from the home directories. That would be possible on OS X as well but doesn't seem to be a very common practice.
Since you have an entire truck bed to play with, why not chuck one of those home AC generators back there? You'd have a parallel hybrid that you could risk exceeding your nominal range with and you would only have to start that motor if you needed to recharge in an out of the way place.
Such a genny wouldn't have the grunt to propel the truck I expect but it would still be good for recharging if you had to drive to an out of the way place.
Of course the additional weight is a concern.
Sure but we aren't talking about a legal action; we are talking about an angry consumer letter. Just 'cause you're angry doesn't mean you should say everything you're thinking. Flat out telling somebody you are going to pirate moves you from the customer box to the criminal box. Not a good way to make an impression.
Note well, I don't agree with abusive DRM (damn far from it). My point is about communicating and getting your recipient to actually consider what you have to say.
Your emails would have more force if you explained you'd never buy it or even better will spend money with their competitors rather than pay them money. When you threaten to pirate, that is the only thing they are going to see or consider. Tagging yourself a pirate means you weren't apt to be a customer in their eyes anyway. You are also threatening to combat a wrong with wrong. The corporation may be faceless but a human probably reads your mail at some point and such a statement isn't morally impressive.
Diesel trains have operated purely off electrics with a generator being turned by a diesel for decades now. Lately GE has taken the obvious step of adding regenerative braking, batteries, and a controller to their Evolution series. Now whether all that will scale down ........
What pray tell is? We don't take matters into our own hands because society puts cooler heads in charge of doing something truly just. It doesn't always work perfectly but I agree with you that it is better than everyone running around wreaking revenge. There are Eastern European societies where half the town lives in hiding because extended families are carrying grudges. But in this case, society did absolutely nothing. This guy got a commit murder free card.
Just how philosophical are most of us going to be if it was our wife or kid? I could see condemning the bat wielder if anything at all was done. Say the guy got a light sentence or not found guilty. But here nothing. Not only has society completely failed, society refuses to rectify that failure. I suppose it is high-minded in some sense to just lump it but I'm just not seeing it.
The problem here is that cancer or not he should have faced retribution from society. A sick guy commits murder and a judge doesn't call him on it because he's sick. Now I don't know about you but I think that is just sick and I'd have a hard time condemning someone who used a baseball bat in such a case. If on the jury, I'd find such a one guilty but would hang that sucker cold if anything other than token punishment were proposed.
Think about it. Would you truly feel so philosophical about it if someone near and dear to you were murdered and the murderer got off scott free on a sympathy vote?
I hope multiprocessing is one of them. It annoys me to no end to have a bad tab kill a 7 or 8 tab session. Tabs/windows and plugins need to be isolated from each other. Even IE6 for all it's other faults got that right.
Anyone have nightmares about being tied up in a dark room when all the sudden this whistly theme starts playing and Smilin' Bob walks in the room. And of course there is that cheeky little wave before the real horror starts.
The version I heard had them peeing off a building. The first one exclaims "3rd floor!" as the other one is hopping from foot to foot. "What are you doing ?!?" asked the first one.
"Dodging traffic!"
You sir are a true American. I see all these poofters saying "Well go where there isn't a HOA then!" The problem of course is that HOAs will be foisted on us all one way or another. I'm sure there are many places where the only homes within reasonable distance of any kind of reasonable job are all HOA. That makes proliferation of these obnoxious extra-legal organizations a real problem and a group of people in dire need of a reality check and I'm glad there are people with backbone like the OP who will supply that reality check.
Neither Obama or McCain does very well on the issues we care about like Net Neutrality, security theatre by DHS, the Patriot Act, letting the MAFIAA have whatever they want etc. It's too late for this election because what nerds need to do first is make themselves felt as bloc that will fund this candidate or that or votes for this candidate or that based on the things that are important to use.
We also need something like GeekPAC but with a more public image friendly name that actually works to serve as a set of faces politicians learn to associate with these issues. Politicians fear groups like the NRA and AARP. We have the numbers and the dollars to inspire that same sort of respect. It is a matter of leadership.
Actually, that thinking is starting to change. It is true that the young and especially the very young learn faster and tend to be more flexible. However, it turns out that older minds are more flexible than you give them credit for. Google up neuroplasticity.
The following is an article about a prototype prosthetic for people who have lost all or most of their inner ear function. Accelerometers in a helmet measure sway forces and convey that information to an electrode strip placed on the tongue. The sensation is of fizzing bubbles moving back and forth across the tongue.
http://www.medigraphic.com/pdfs/plasticidad/prn-2005/prn051_2f.pdf
For some patients, the results were quite dramatic and this makes sense if you think about it. In the real world, you do have old people who learn to cope with trauma both mental and physical and with a world largely changed from where they grew up. Others successfully assimilate into foreign culture and language. We can do this because we are intelligent adaptable beings and we need not be utterly ruled by what we learned as young people.
Farnsworth fusors are also used as a laboratory source of neutrons. For that application it only matters that they produce sufficient neutrons of the required energy.
If you're careful, you can run XP on a 500mhz system comfortably.
True. I've found that it helps to have at least 384MB RAM though it really wakes up with 512. You'll also want to "adjust for best performance" in the System Properties. That makes XP resemble Windows 2000 visually which is much better at scaling down than even XP.
Nothing radical here although we are in a somewhat low volume period. At worst, our domain sees ~70,000/day. At the moment we're getting ~/22,000/day. It isn't uncommon to see any point between those two extremes.
As far as having a good "taster", Id did pretty well with this. With say DOOM, you knew up front that the game would have a total of three episodes. Id let you play pretty much the first third of the game free. Hell, their demos even had some replay value. As it turned out, their clueful use of shareware pretty much made them back then.
Of course, not all games are as episodic but it you could draw some rules of thumb from it. A first time player casually making his way through DOOM's first 9 levels will take about 1.5 to 3 hours to do it. So it seems you have to give a quality experience for at least that amount of time to start some buzz going and of course the paid portion of the game has to maintain that quality so you'll tell your friends and blogs that the rest of the game is worth paying for.
I'd also suggest not continually have the player running into physical barriers and what not that aren't present in the payware version. Just structure the demo such that the game can be experienced for that critically addictive amount of time. Building in nags and frustrations will keep your prospective customer from getting hooked and wanting more. Rather you need an end that takes some period of time to encounter whether it be "level 9" or a decently far extent of a game universe. A game using the hub and spoke system should supply a quest or two say.
We can draw a parallel from the serialized stories of yesteryear. A good solid first installment is what is needed to get the reader caring about the story and characters. The "gotta know" sets in so the rest are bought.
Also, if a critical driver fails (such as a keyboard driver - and for this, it doesn't need to crash), the stability of the core operating system is moot for most people, since they need to reboot the system to get the driver working again. (I experienced this with an OEM "Multimedia keyboard" driver, and know how to correct it.) The same applies to the display driver - if you don't see anything on the screen, you can't do much with your system.
If the machine still has network access then you can regain control of it that way. I've recovered from the NVidia driver hosing up by restarting the login manager with ssh. Of course, this was on Linux where X is more loosely coupled to the system.
I suppose if RDC or VNC is running you could regain control that way depending on how badly the display system is screwed up. If nothing else, ssh can still be installed on a Windows system. That would allow a proper restart as opposed to just cutting the power.
I said about the earlier story that I wouldn't consider Foxconn kit because we use Linux based utilities to restore and troubleshoot Windows systems. Since they are acting to fix the issues, I have no reason to disqualify their stuff out of hand anymore.
California just had a quake. Let's not cause another one.
I had a workaround script for this that takes down and brings back up the tunnel and bridge I was using for VirtualBox. I haven't needed to use it since upgrading to the latest and greatest.
I suspect a lot of people do what I do. I have ShowTime/HBO/etc. I just wait for movies to show up on the premium channels and watch them then. About once every three years or so there is something that will actually get me out to a theatre like Lord Of The Rings. The rest of the time I couldn't be fussed to either go to a theatre OR download it. Even cheap and legal downloads are currently more trouble than it would be worth to me.
They wouldn't have to do all of that. They could do well enough if they supported Linux to the same extent that they support OS X. And they would have to do it with the same level of commitment. No sneaky 3 version behind bullshit and no sneaky make-the-Linux-version-work-like-ass. If MS had been split like it should have been, that probably would have happened. An "MS Applications" company would have no reason to be hostile to Linux anyway even if they didn't have Linux versions. But the MS OS+MS Apps company we have now is almost incapable of resisting the urge to go for lock-in.