Competition from another cable company, if not Verizon, would be nice.
Competition in the telco/broadband industry would be nice no matter where it is. Even then, everything is not always rosey. For example, I have a choice between an overpriced cable company or Bell South ADSL. Bell South charges less, but you get less speed, crappy customer service, more outages, etc. Two choices and they are both overpriced for what I get? No, give me some real competition.
Probably one that is launched from space, possibly the ISS. In the past there has been talk about a space launch platform in orbit. It is potentially much cheaper and easier to go from Earth to orbit to the moon than straight from Earth to the moon. Of course, this depends on us developing better propulsion systems.
The basic idea is that we can use existing technology to get into orbit, then have a new spacecraft that does not need to be able to enter the atmosphere and land -- it only "flies" in space. This allows extreme flexibility in design and mission capability since it doesn't need wings, those pesky tiles, huge engines, etc.
All materials required for the survival of men living on the moon would have to come from Earth.
If men can live on the ISS for many months at a time, I am sure they could at least do the same on the moon. Basically, you need food, water, and air. Two of those can be recycled. Food would be the only issue, but I imagine it would not be tough to find room to build a big enough kitchen on the moon;-)
I agree that a Mars mission is far more promising in terms of advancing our species and science. But the moon has advantages. Like I said, its proximity makes travel easier, especially in an emergency. I forget the mission number but one of the Apollos had a ruptured oxygen tank and barely made it back to Earth safely. On a Mars mission, with a year or two travel time, they would have died for certain. Refilling supplies is a much shorter trip. This means it is cheaper and emergencies are easier to handle.
The government will find ways to screw this up. By going to the moon first they can make their mistakes and learn from them before going to Mars. Mars is for sure a much more important goal. My point is just that the moon is a step along the way.
Going to Mars seems to be a popular idea. Before we try establishing a permanent base on Mars, even unmanned, I think we need to prove ourselves by going back to the moon AND staying there. I.e., establish a moon base, even a small one.
Obviously the moon is much closer. More importantly, we don't need to worry about the synchronization of our orbits. The moon is always roughly the same distance away from us no matter what day of the year it is. This makes it a much easier target to hit than Mars no matter what time it is.
Let's EAT the children of the managers of companies that advertise using spam!
I used to use MyCheckFree to pay some bills online, then I received a spam from them from SilverPop, a "legitimate" spammer. I say "legitimate" because I had no problem contacting a person at the company, their information was correct, etc. Anyway, I wound up bitching both companies out and canceling my account. I did not eat their children, but I did take a bite out of their income.
I see no reason why human ingenuity is supposed to freeze at the point this technology is released...
I see a reason: DMCA. It won't stop people, but it will chill public disclosure and freedom of speech, as we know from experience. It can stop the knowledge from reaching a critical mass. People who would circumvent DRM and Trusted Computing are a minority, and if the DMCA can keep it that way, we will never reach critical mass and stop DRM and TC.
Or maybe Steam would say "your hardware configuration appears to be inadequate to provide you with a satisfying gameplay experience."
Games already have this ability. DirectX and OpenGL both provide an application (setup program and the game itself) a list of hardware and its capabilities. Neverwinter Nights, for example, now requires (as of the second expansion) a certain level of hardware T&L. DirectX reports if the hardware supports it, and I hear (i.e. I haven't seen for myself) that it will not run if your hardware is not good enough.
Trusted Computing would, if anything, stop you from running the game if it detected it was pirated. As of now you usually are able to illegally copy a game and at least play it on a LAN or single player, since it won't authenticate the key against a master server while offline. Trusted Computing could take this a step further.
I wonder if Trusted Computing could be applied to SMTP to help stop spammers. The problem with spam is the internet's email system has no accountability and, often enough, little or no SMTP authentication (some ISPs filter by IP, but there is no login).
The Slashdot community always says we need digital signing of all emails. While I trust Trusted Computing about as much as I trust John Ashcroft, it just might be a step toward stopping spam.
Nobody could walk in without a card key, but sure, drive your car(bomb) right into the garage for $20/day.
Or like one of the buildings where I work: there is a drive-through loop by the main doors that is blocked with removable metal lanyards. A terrorist could simply drive up on the lawn, bypass the lanyards, and destroy the building. Oh no, I can't drive on the grass to destroy the building! That is just too wrong of a thing to do!
Re:I would If I could ;]
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
To bad many sites are disallowing special characters for fear of sql injection attacks.
This is a shame, since it is a *very* easy fix (store MD5 hashes, not plaintext, or escape the string before storing it) and it only inconveniences users. Oh well. A simple text file on my hard drive fixes that problem:-)
My ideas of the security world was it was more darwinistic then that. The good ideas survive because they work, the bad ones never get put into a final patch.
If all software were open-source, this would be true. But who knows how Windows security is handled on the inside, for example? Yes, we know the security sucks, but we do not know why. The bad ideas keep propogating and there are no sanity checks.
Are we increasing security too much, so that the users circumvent it?
Simply increasing security is not the problem: the real problem is knee-jerk reactions that miss the mark and annoy users rather than provide actual security. People (politicians, corporate America, etc) try to look good by implementing new security measures, but fail to put any thought into what is needed to be effective.
And this prohibition does not seem to be of any use whatsoever, unless South is paranoid about spies...
As other posters pointed out, yes, they are paranoid about spies. But there is another reason.
South Korea knows about all the bad stuff going on in North Korea. But they want to be reunified so badly that they (the government, at least) are willing to pretend the detention camps, starvation, drugs, etc. don't exist. South Korea is democratic, but its citizens are highly discouraged from talking about any of the bad things going on. Free speech? No. But what about the USA PATRIOT act and the DMCA? Democracy does not equal freedom as we know all too well.
Unfortunately, the South Koreans are just as delusional as Kim Jong Il if they believe that if they ignore the problem it will go away.
Anyway, the thing about not emailing North Koreans is not specific to email. South Koreans are, for the most part, forbidden from talking to North Koreans in most circumstances. Newspaper articles quoting Northern refugees are highly censored. Refugees from the North to the South are repatriated, and obviously put to work in their death camps that produce merchandise for Wal-Mart et al., if not put to death.
The promise of a free, democratic, reunified Korea is very faint. I doubt it will ever happen, even when Kim Jong Il loses the war of attrition.
Doctor Donald E. Knuth is a professor at Stanford. Right now he is working on his books, The Art of Computer Programming. He has three of about five volumes done so far. Very good books, well worth the $150 price even if you don't get them on sale.
What's beyond me is why don't we hear a great number of people (regular users) complaining about this waste of disk space...
Most users use what came preinstalled on their computer from the factory, or if they ever do install/upgrade Windows, just click the pretty dialog boxes until the setup program is done. Windows XP does not even give you an option of what to install anymore. Previous versions did, but not XP. You have to go back after the install and manually (un)install OS applications in the control panel. Even then the selection is slim picking compared to previous versions of Windows. Most people don't know there is tons of useless crap installed, despite the systray that takes up half of the taskbar.
With new computers shipping with oodles of space, why would they complain? Hell, I have a 60 GB hard drive on my Windows XP box (patched up and locked down thank you very much) and 40 GB on my Linux box, and neither one is even at 50% capacity. And I have a lot of stuff installed on both machines.
Don't listen to people who would infring on your rights by pidgon hole you into a "consumer" with a machine that is not alowed to do what it can on an internet that was not designed to have master and slave machines. What they are telling you is stupid and outrageous.
I believe strongly in an open internet, where everybody has a chance to be heard, where everyone has opportunity to do what they want without hurting anyone else. I oppose any effort to turn the internet into television, i.e. a one-way medium where we are told everything.
If paying for hosting gives me extra rights under this law, I am not about to complain. Before the national DNC registry went live I was a part of a state DNC registry. I had no problem quoting the law to telemarketers and informing them of my intentions to file a lawsuit when warranted. If I can wrap my hands around one spammer's throat with this law and sue them successfully, I will be quite happy to add my drop to the bucket. Every little bit helps.
So, what about me? I pay for web hosting, and I provide services to my wife. The hosting account is in my name, charged to my credit card. I allow her access to email hosted on that server. Am I an Internet Access Service?
Movies make a run through theaters. While not all of them are blockbusters that rake in massive quantities of dough, the majority of them pull enough money in to recoup production costs as well as at least modest profit. The DVD sales, despite marketing and production costs of their own, are, for the most part, gravy.
Music sales are a bit different. There is no theater run. There are just CDs. That is the record company's only chance to recoup production costs and make a profit. I won't even bring up profits for the musicians or concerts, since that's a whole different can of worms.
Something is wrong with this system. But it will not be fixed anytime soon. Clowngress has different priorities than the voters it represents. Hell, most of the voters are not all that enlightened about the real issues. They get their information from television, i.e. the entertainment industry.
WalMart doesn't have low-low prices everyday because they like you. They've got these prices because they can pressure businesses into cutting their prices so low they barely make anything.
I don't like Wal-Mart for several reasons. The two biggest are their support of sweatshop labor (what we don't know won't hurt you) and their treatment of employees (39 hours per week? NO HEALTH BENEFITS FOR YOU!). Like it or not, they are an example of successful capitalism. If that is at someone else's expense, oh well. That is the nature of the best. Survival of the fittest and all that.
...seems like they target areas where they think there is alot of profit, and try to take some fat out of it.
They do this even without house brands. For example, take a look through their medical/hygiene aisles. Even their name brand stuff is cheaper. Although I will say that Sam's Choice cola tastes like ass and doesn't go nearly as well with whiskey as Coke.
In case you live in a hole, Sam's is owned by Wal-Mart and they sell a lot of the same house brands.
Slashdot Mirror
"It looks like the prices for broadband Internet are headed towards $20-30/month range"
And AOL dialup will still cost $24.99 a month.
You can fool all of the people some of the time or some of the people all of the time...
Competition from another cable company, if not Verizon, would be nice.
Competition in the telco/broadband industry would be nice no matter where it is. Even then, everything is not always rosey. For example, I have a choice between an overpriced cable company or Bell South ADSL. Bell South charges less, but you get less speed, crappy customer service, more outages, etc. Two choices and they are both overpriced for what I get? No, give me some real competition.
Applo 13. They made a blockbuster movie out of it.
I knew there was a problem on this mission but I couldn't remember if it was the launchpad fire or the busted oxygen tank.
So, what rocket can be used instead?
Probably one that is launched from space, possibly the ISS. In the past there has been talk about a space launch platform in orbit. It is potentially much cheaper and easier to go from Earth to orbit to the moon than straight from Earth to the moon. Of course, this depends on us developing better propulsion systems.
The basic idea is that we can use existing technology to get into orbit, then have a new spacecraft that does not need to be able to enter the atmosphere and land -- it only "flies" in space. This allows extreme flexibility in design and mission capability since it doesn't need wings, those pesky tiles, huge engines, etc.
All materials required for the survival of men living on the moon would have to come from Earth.
If men can live on the ISS for many months at a time, I am sure they could at least do the same on the moon. Basically, you need food, water, and air. Two of those can be recycled. Food would be the only issue, but I imagine it would not be tough to find room to build a big enough kitchen on the moon ;-)
I agree that a Mars mission is far more promising in terms of advancing our species and science. But the moon has advantages. Like I said, its proximity makes travel easier, especially in an emergency. I forget the mission number but one of the Apollos had a ruptured oxygen tank and barely made it back to Earth safely. On a Mars mission, with a year or two travel time, they would have died for certain. Refilling supplies is a much shorter trip. This means it is cheaper and emergencies are easier to handle.
The government will find ways to screw this up. By going to the moon first they can make their mistakes and learn from them before going to Mars. Mars is for sure a much more important goal. My point is just that the moon is a step along the way.
Going to Mars seems to be a popular idea. Before we try establishing a permanent base on Mars, even unmanned, I think we need to prove ourselves by going back to the moon AND staying there. I.e., establish a moon base, even a small one.
Obviously the moon is much closer. More importantly, we don't need to worry about the synchronization of our orbits. The moon is always roughly the same distance away from us no matter what day of the year it is. This makes it a much easier target to hit than Mars no matter what time it is.
Let's EAT the children of the managers of companies that advertise using spam!
I used to use MyCheckFree to pay some bills online, then I received a spam from them from SilverPop, a "legitimate" spammer. I say "legitimate" because I had no problem contacting a person at the company, their information was correct, etc. Anyway, I wound up bitching both companies out and canceling my account. I did not eat their children, but I did take a bite out of their income.
I see no reason why human ingenuity is supposed to freeze at the point this technology is released...
I see a reason: DMCA. It won't stop people, but it will chill public disclosure and freedom of speech, as we know from experience. It can stop the knowledge from reaching a critical mass. People who would circumvent DRM and Trusted Computing are a minority, and if the DMCA can keep it that way, we will never reach critical mass and stop DRM and TC.
Or maybe Steam would say "your hardware configuration appears to be inadequate to provide you with a satisfying gameplay experience."
Games already have this ability. DirectX and OpenGL both provide an application (setup program and the game itself) a list of hardware and its capabilities. Neverwinter Nights, for example, now requires (as of the second expansion) a certain level of hardware T&L. DirectX reports if the hardware supports it, and I hear (i.e. I haven't seen for myself) that it will not run if your hardware is not good enough.
Trusted Computing would, if anything, stop you from running the game if it detected it was pirated. As of now you usually are able to illegally copy a game and at least play it on a LAN or single player, since it won't authenticate the key against a master server while offline. Trusted Computing could take this a step further.
I wonder if Trusted Computing could be applied to SMTP to help stop spammers. The problem with spam is the internet's email system has no accountability and, often enough, little or no SMTP authentication (some ISPs filter by IP, but there is no login).
The Slashdot community always says we need digital signing of all emails. While I trust Trusted Computing about as much as I trust John Ashcroft, it just might be a step toward stopping spam.
Nobody could walk in without a card key, but sure, drive your car(bomb) right into the garage for $20/day.
Or like one of the buildings where I work: there is a drive-through loop by the main doors that is blocked with removable metal lanyards. A terrorist could simply drive up on the lawn, bypass the lanyards, and destroy the building. Oh no, I can't drive on the grass to destroy the building! That is just too wrong of a thing to do!
To bad many sites are disallowing special characters for fear of sql injection attacks.
This is a shame, since it is a *very* easy fix (store MD5 hashes, not plaintext, or escape the string before storing it) and it only inconveniences users. Oh well. A simple text file on my hard drive fixes that problem :-)
My ideas of the security world was it was more darwinistic then that. The good ideas survive because they work, the bad ones never get put into a final patch.
If all software were open-source, this would be true. But who knows how Windows security is handled on the inside, for example? Yes, we know the security sucks, but we do not know why. The bad ideas keep propogating and there are no sanity checks.
Are we increasing security too much, so that the users circumvent it?
Simply increasing security is not the problem: the real problem is knee-jerk reactions that miss the mark and annoy users rather than provide actual security. People (politicians, corporate America, etc) try to look good by implementing new security measures, but fail to put any thought into what is needed to be effective.
And this prohibition does not seem to be of any use whatsoever, unless South is paranoid about spies...
As other posters pointed out, yes, they are paranoid about spies. But there is another reason.
South Korea knows about all the bad stuff going on in North Korea. But they want to be reunified so badly that they (the government, at least) are willing to pretend the detention camps, starvation, drugs, etc. don't exist. South Korea is democratic, but its citizens are highly discouraged from talking about any of the bad things going on. Free speech? No. But what about the USA PATRIOT act and the DMCA? Democracy does not equal freedom as we know all too well.
Unfortunately, the South Koreans are just as delusional as Kim Jong Il if they believe that if they ignore the problem it will go away.
Anyway, the thing about not emailing North Koreans is not specific to email. South Koreans are, for the most part, forbidden from talking to North Koreans in most circumstances. Newspaper articles quoting Northern refugees are highly censored. Refugees from the North to the South are repatriated, and obviously put to work in their death camps that produce merchandise for Wal-Mart et al., if not put to death.
The promise of a free, democratic, reunified Korea is very faint. I doubt it will ever happen, even when Kim Jong Il loses the war of attrition.
Doctor Donald E. Knuth is a professor at Stanford. Right now he is working on his books, The Art of Computer Programming. He has three of about five volumes done so far. Very good books, well worth the $150 price even if you don't get them on sale.
The Art of Computer Programming.
Home page at Stanford.
Messaging built into the OS isn't exactly new... think syslog.
How about Windows (MSN) Messenger?
What's beyond me is why don't we hear a great number of people (regular users) complaining about this waste of disk space...
Most users use what came preinstalled on their computer from the factory, or if they ever do install/upgrade Windows, just click the pretty dialog boxes until the setup program is done. Windows XP does not even give you an option of what to install anymore. Previous versions did, but not XP. You have to go back after the install and manually (un)install OS applications in the control panel. Even then the selection is slim picking compared to previous versions of Windows. Most people don't know there is tons of useless crap installed, despite the systray that takes up half of the taskbar.
With new computers shipping with oodles of space, why would they complain? Hell, I have a 60 GB hard drive on my Windows XP box (patched up and locked down thank you very much) and 40 GB on my Linux box, and neither one is even at 50% capacity. And I have a lot of stuff installed on both machines.
Don't listen to people who would infring on your rights by pidgon hole you into a "consumer" with a machine that is not alowed to do what it can on an internet that was not designed to have master and slave machines. What they are telling you is stupid and outrageous.
I believe strongly in an open internet, where everybody has a chance to be heard, where everyone has opportunity to do what they want without hurting anyone else. I oppose any effort to turn the internet into television, i.e. a one-way medium where we are told everything.
If paying for hosting gives me extra rights under this law, I am not about to complain. Before the national DNC registry went live I was a part of a state DNC registry. I had no problem quoting the law to telemarketers and informing them of my intentions to file a lawsuit when warranted. If I can wrap my hands around one spammer's throat with this law and sue them successfully, I will be quite happy to add my drop to the bucket. Every little bit helps.
Actually, most artist contracts state that the ARTIST has to pay the recording costs.
And this payment comes in the form of an advance payment from, guess who? The record company. In the end it all comes from the same pot of money.
So, what about me? I pay for web hosting, and I provide services to my wife. The hosting account is in my name, charged to my credit card. I allow her access to email hosted on that server. Am I an Internet Access Service?
And if you think of it, it is just a mini-revolution: we are being opressed by our government and have to get rid of that opression.
When was the last time you contacted any of your Congressmen about the problems you perceive in the system, and provided a solution?
Movies make a run through theaters. While not all of them are blockbusters that rake in massive quantities of dough, the majority of them pull enough money in to recoup production costs as well as at least modest profit. The DVD sales, despite marketing and production costs of their own, are, for the most part, gravy.
Music sales are a bit different. There is no theater run. There are just CDs. That is the record company's only chance to recoup production costs and make a profit. I won't even bring up profits for the musicians or concerts, since that's a whole different can of worms.
Something is wrong with this system. But it will not be fixed anytime soon. Clowngress has different priorities than the voters it represents. Hell, most of the voters are not all that enlightened about the real issues. They get their information from television, i.e. the entertainment industry.
WalMart doesn't have low-low prices everyday because they like you. They've got these prices because they can pressure businesses into cutting their prices so low they barely make anything.
I don't like Wal-Mart for several reasons. The two biggest are their support of sweatshop labor (what we don't know won't hurt you) and their treatment of employees (39 hours per week? NO HEALTH BENEFITS FOR YOU!). Like it or not, they are an example of successful capitalism. If that is at someone else's expense, oh well. That is the nature of the best. Survival of the fittest and all that.
They do this even without house brands. For example, take a look through their medical/hygiene aisles. Even their name brand stuff is cheaper. Although I will say that Sam's Choice cola tastes like ass and doesn't go nearly as well with whiskey as Coke.
In case you live in a hole, Sam's is owned by Wal-Mart and they sell a lot of the same house brands.