Well, after one hour, the bid will be $50 and the ask will be $72. So in the next hour, sell orders will start coming in around $50. Which is a fairer price than $72. Eventually, the market will find a price and orders will get executed.
Of course an hour is an exaggerated example, but milliseconds is crazy.
I thought dinosaurs had never existed in the first place, and their bones had been planted into the soil by God to test our faith? Now you've got me all confused...
So even if we had complete dinosaur DNA, that would not be enough to recreate them because they also need to receive certain chemicals at specific times during embryo growth? (which would come from the mother dinosaur or the composition of the egg, I presume).
I really hope someone exploits that backdoor plugin and takes control of thousands of computers that have it installed. Just to set an example to all game companies using this sort of DRM rootkit crap. Maybe let them all send out spam to all their contacts saying that their computer was compromised because they had installed a Ubisoft game.
Yep, I experienced the click of death as well, put the drive into the freezer, took it out, started copying data untill it started clicking again, back into the freezer, back out again, copied some more, etcetera. I never worried about condensation, but that must have been beginner's luck. I managed to copy the entire drive in about four reading sessions between freezes. Afterwards I opened it up and saw that it actually contained a little bag of salt inside the case. I don't know if all drives have those.
I tried the same with an entire laptop some years later (not the click of death, just lots of read errors so it didn't even boot up anymore), it didn't make that much of a difference but didn't seem to hurt either. It seemed to have slightly less read errors when cold, but that may have been just my imagination.
For fuck's sake, am I the only one who knows how hard drives work? (...) pretty sure they're a vacuum.
No, you are definitely not "one who knows how hard drives work":-)
Ever noticed the little air hole? And ever heard about drive heads riding on a cushion of air? Sure, they're sealed pretty well against dust (the air hole has a fancy filter on it so only air can get through) but they're definitely not vacuum and not even hermetically sealed.
At least one drive I opened had a little bag of salt in it to keep the air inside dry.
I was thinking more of the funny science fiction novel "Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde where people get healed by being shown certain colors (and can even overdose on certain pleasure-inducing colors). Maybe not so far-fetched after all? It's quite amazing how many seemingly absurd elements of that story start to make sense after a while, I can't wait for part 2 and 3.
(note: I did not mean "fifty shades of grey" which is an entirely different book that appears to be more popular for some reason)
I've got an inflatable beach ball that says that it must only be used in shallow water. So we can't use it in our garden unless it's raining very hard.
Also, it must only be used under surveillance (do we have to get one of those CCTVs?), and we can't play with the ball unless there's at least one minor present, because "the minor must touch the bottom".
The other side of that coin is that there is a well-established black market for weapons already - so by further restricting them you only give more power to the people who will buy them anyway.
Would this person have been able to get his four guns and an enormous amount of ammo from the black market? Personally, I wouldn't even know who to talk to and would be afraid to go to the places where this black market stuff is sold. Maybe through friends who know other friends, but they'd probably ask too many questions and I wouldn't be comfortable doing it. And online on some shady site? Don't think so. If I did that in Belgium, I wouldn't be surprised if the cops showed up instead of the package. Actually, I would be surprised if I did receive the goods without problems.
Real gangsters, obviously, will always have access to this sort of weapons. But they are less likely to start shooting randomly in a theater or high school. And I know that as a home owner you might want to protect yourself from real gangsters, but a simple handgun will be more than enough for that purpose.
What if instead we can work on better identifying underlying root causes and risk factors? In that way we can try to address them - obviating the need to lock people up at all.
But what could have been done to "identify" and "address" the root causes in this case? He was a brilliant student, just a bit quiet, but lots of us are. If someone starts shooting random people because he or she doesn't like mondays, how are you going to predict and/or avoid that? Mandatory medication for quiet people? I know I'm exaggerating, but really, what can you do?
Except, maybe, making it a little harder to get those guns? A relatively low threshold might have been sufficient. Getting a licence, for example. That doesn't keep people from protecting themselves, but it may keep a relatively uninitiated student from going that extra mile, especially since it's not so anonymous anymore. Going into a shop and saying "I would like to buy that gun" is a lot easier than going to a government agency and saying "I would like to follow a course and get a licence for firearms for this or that purpose, here's my name and address" (and possibly, in that case, talk to some sort of psychologist first).
Locking people up based on just a psychological profile seems to me to be a bad idea. And this particular person, a very bright student, probably would have aced such tests anyway. Psychiatrists are notorious for misdiagnosing people, locking up sane people and letting pedophiles and serial killers walk free. And when would he have been tested anyway? Should all people have such a test once a year?
The way I see it, the biggest problem is that anyone can walk into a store and buy an assault rifle. Not just a hunting rifle or a handgun for personal defense (which already require a license in most countries), but the kind of weapon that is intended for actual warfare. I'll probably get modded down for this, but for Europeans this is quite unbelievable. So if there's anything you want to change to what you have now, maybe start there.
Sure, there are other ways of causing damage, there was a weirdo here in Belgium who attacked a day care center armed only with knives, but I don't think there's a sensible way to screen people to avoid this sort of thing without locking up thousands of innocent people.
It's easy to blame an individual or his methods but we should really ask ourselves why is our society producing these people? Or why aren't we discovering ill folks and getting them the help they need or if necessary confining them?
So you are suggesting that everyone should be psychologically profiled and, if his profile doesn't match "normal" standards (too quiet, not social enough), we put him behind bars? Without a trial of course, just based on the opinion of the psychologist. Because he might be dangerous.
- Apple makes a new product that is way more environmentally friendly than previous models. Less toxic materials, efficient construction, etcetera. The only problem is that it's hard to take apart, but that shouldn't matter since Apple will do the recycling for you at no charge. Who cares whether they're easy or hard to take apart as long as Apple does it? Apple can probably afford the extra dollar or so to unglue a battery. They're likely to be saving more than that in initial construction by using glue instead of drilling holes and putting in screws anyway. - EPEAT doesn't see it that way: Thou shalt use screws or be screwed. - Apple cannot get EPEAT to change their mind even though they can show their product to be environmentally superior. It doesn't matter, the rules are the rules and the rules say screws. - Apple says: "screw EPEAT and their screwy screw rules" and decides to use its own users as lobbyists. They cancel all EPEAT certifications for all their products in a move Steve Jobs would have been proud of. - Since Hell hath no fury like a Mac user forced to use Windows, you can rest assured that Mac users in organisations forced to buy EPEAT-certified products will complain massively. Rules will be bent and then changed. EPEAT will have to adapt or risk being replaced by some new standard.
Apparently the spirit of Steve Jobs is alive and well at Apple.
And if -- ghod forbid -- we discover a way to make the vacuum unstable, then we might learn how to make one really big boom. Just one, because it will consume the entire universe, but that one will be REALLY BIG.
There's a theory which states that this has already happened.
If I were an investor in a company that's going down the drain like that, and the CEO said there's nothing wrong with the company, I would be very, very scared.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, after one hour, the bid will be $50 and the ask will be $72. So in the next hour, sell orders will start coming in around $50. Which is a fairer price than $72. Eventually, the market will find a price and orders will get executed.
Of course an hour is an exaggerated example, but milliseconds is crazy.
Dragons did exist, the bible says so, But there is no bones or fossils after them.
He probably used those to make the dinosaur bones.
I didn't know rhinoceroses laid eggs?
So he was just making free publicity for his resort?
If you give me a couple of billion dollars, I'll get you a pony! Anything else?
You're writing on Slashdot and expecting someone to WTFM?
I thought dinosaurs had never existed in the first place, and their bones had been planted into the soil by God to test our faith? Now you've got me all confused...
So even if we had complete dinosaur DNA, that would not be enough to recreate them because they also need to receive certain chemicals at specific times during embryo growth? (which would come from the mother dinosaur or the composition of the egg, I presume).
I really hope someone exploits that backdoor plugin and takes control of thousands of computers that have it installed. Just to set an example to all game companies using this sort of DRM rootkit crap. Maybe let them all send out spam to all their contacts saying that their computer was compromised because they had installed a Ubisoft game.
Yep, I experienced the click of death as well, put the drive into the freezer, took it out, started copying data untill it started clicking again, back into the freezer, back out again, copied some more, etcetera. I never worried about condensation, but that must have been beginner's luck. I managed to copy the entire drive in about four reading sessions between freezes. Afterwards I opened it up and saw that it actually contained a little bag of salt inside the case. I don't know if all drives have those.
I tried the same with an entire laptop some years later (not the click of death, just lots of read errors so it didn't even boot up anymore), it didn't make that much of a difference but didn't seem to hurt either. It seemed to have slightly less read errors when cold, but that may have been just my imagination.
For fuck's sake, am I the only one who knows how hard drives work? (...) pretty sure they're a vacuum.
No, you are definitely not "one who knows how hard drives work" :-)
Ever noticed the little air hole? And ever heard about drive heads riding on a cushion of air? Sure, they're sealed pretty well against dust (the air hole has a fancy filter on it so only air can get through) but they're definitely not vacuum and not even hermetically sealed.
At least one drive I opened had a little bag of salt in it to keep the air inside dry.
I thought the NSA was able to read hard drives that had been overwritten with zeros?
So, step 1: overwrite with zeros...
I was thinking more of the funny science fiction novel "Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde where people get healed by being shown certain colors (and can even overdose on certain pleasure-inducing colors). Maybe not so far-fetched after all? It's quite amazing how many seemingly absurd elements of that story start to make sense after a while, I can't wait for part 2 and 3.
(note: I did not mean "fifty shades of grey" which is an entirely different book that appears to be more popular for some reason)
I've got an inflatable beach ball that says that it must only be used in shallow water. So we can't use it in our garden unless it's raining very hard.
Also, it must only be used under surveillance (do we have to get one of those CCTVs?), and we can't play with the ball unless there's at least one minor present, because "the minor must touch the bottom".
Ever seen those minecraft ALU's and other computing devices? Build a real life version of one of those!
The other side of that coin is that there is a well-established black market for weapons already - so by further restricting them you only give more power to the people who will buy them anyway.
Would this person have been able to get his four guns and an enormous amount of ammo from the black market? Personally, I wouldn't even know who to talk to and would be afraid to go to the places where this black market stuff is sold. Maybe through friends who know other friends, but they'd probably ask too many questions and I wouldn't be comfortable doing it. And online on some shady site? Don't think so. If I did that in Belgium, I wouldn't be surprised if the cops showed up instead of the package. Actually, I would be surprised if I did receive the goods without problems.
Real gangsters, obviously, will always have access to this sort of weapons. But they are less likely to start shooting randomly in a theater or high school. And I know that as a home owner you might want to protect yourself from real gangsters, but a simple handgun will be more than enough for that purpose.
What if instead we can work on better identifying underlying root causes and risk factors? In that way we can try to address them - obviating the need to lock people up at all.
But what could have been done to "identify" and "address" the root causes in this case? He was a brilliant student, just a bit quiet, but lots of us are. If someone starts shooting random people because he or she doesn't like mondays, how are you going to predict and/or avoid that? Mandatory medication for quiet people? I know I'm exaggerating, but really, what can you do?
Except, maybe, making it a little harder to get those guns? A relatively low threshold might have been sufficient. Getting a licence, for example. That doesn't keep people from protecting themselves, but it may keep a relatively uninitiated student from going that extra mile, especially since it's not so anonymous anymore. Going into a shop and saying "I would like to buy that gun" is a lot easier than going to a government agency and saying "I would like to follow a course and get a licence for firearms for this or that purpose, here's my name and address" (and possibly, in that case, talk to some sort of psychologist first).
Locking people up based on just a psychological profile seems to me to be a bad idea. And this particular person, a very bright student, probably would have aced such tests anyway. Psychiatrists are notorious for misdiagnosing people, locking up sane people and letting pedophiles and serial killers walk free. And when would he have been tested anyway? Should all people have such a test once a year?
The way I see it, the biggest problem is that anyone can walk into a store and buy an assault rifle. Not just a hunting rifle or a handgun for personal defense (which already require a license in most countries), but the kind of weapon that is intended for actual warfare. I'll probably get modded down for this, but for Europeans this is quite unbelievable. So if there's anything you want to change to what you have now, maybe start there.
Sure, there are other ways of causing damage, there was a weirdo here in Belgium who attacked a day care center armed only with knives, but I don't think there's a sensible way to screen people to avoid this sort of thing without locking up thousands of innocent people.
It's easy to blame an individual or his methods but we should really ask ourselves why is our society producing these people? Or why aren't we discovering ill folks and getting them the help they need or if necessary confining them?
So you are suggesting that everyone should be psychologically profiled and, if his profile doesn't match "normal" standards (too quiet, not social enough), we put him behind bars? Without a trial of course, just based on the opinion of the psychologist. Because he might be dangerous.
Slashdot would become a pretty quiet place...
Before the second tower fell? We started before the planes even took off!
Or just a simple "Samsung did not copy the iPad. No really. A judge said so" and then two side-by-side pictures.
He was just making a joke about the phrase "Users shouldn't have week passwords".
But you are right, of course. Frequent password changes are not good for security.
Here's what I think the reason is:
- Apple makes a new product that is way more environmentally friendly than previous models. Less toxic materials, efficient construction, etcetera. The only problem is that it's hard to take apart, but that shouldn't matter since Apple will do the recycling for you at no charge. Who cares whether they're easy or hard to take apart as long as Apple does it? Apple can probably afford the extra dollar or so to unglue a battery. They're likely to be saving more than that in initial construction by using glue instead of drilling holes and putting in screws anyway.
- EPEAT doesn't see it that way: Thou shalt use screws or be screwed.
- Apple cannot get EPEAT to change their mind even though they can show their product to be environmentally superior. It doesn't matter, the rules are the rules and the rules say screws.
- Apple says: "screw EPEAT and their screwy screw rules" and decides to use its own users as lobbyists. They cancel all EPEAT certifications for all their products in a move Steve Jobs would have been proud of.
- Since Hell hath no fury like a Mac user forced to use Windows, you can rest assured that Mac users in organisations forced to buy EPEAT-certified products will complain massively. Rules will be bent and then changed. EPEAT will have to adapt or risk being replaced by some new standard.
Apparently the spirit of Steve Jobs is alive and well at Apple.
But didn't the DMCA make it illegal to reverse engineer code without permission?
And if -- ghod forbid -- we discover a way to make the vacuum unstable, then we might learn how to make one really big boom. Just one, because it will consume the entire universe, but that one will be REALLY BIG.
There's a theory which states that this has already happened.
If I were an investor in a company that's going down the drain like that, and the CEO said there's nothing wrong with the company, I would be very, very scared.