When you get down to it, most distros are using the same things under the hook. No one is busting out with special kernels, or what not. People who try to say that they are superiour because they use __ distro are basically just being elitist idiots who feel proud because they use it. This is akin to being pompous and proud about being able to code in assembly while making fun of perl programmers. While there is a difference, actually feeling superior since you use ___ is like being a blind zealot. Its a piece of software, not you; you are not the software, so unless you programmed the software, feeling superior because you use it is rather stupid. If you made the software, be proud of your abilities, but don't go mouthing off other people because they think differently. A knowledgable linux user will be able to secure a Redhat box as well as a Debian box. The paths to get to those goals may be different, but the end result is the same.
Yes, its quite simple. Graphics take time, time = money. For a busy graphic designer, every second saved can in the long-run mean increased productivity. These people can often be on extremely tight schedules so having the equipment up to par is important. Keep in mind though, I am not saying graphic designers update their equipment every time apple releases a new model, but most places try not to fall behind the curve too much.
People are stupid. Large groups of people are stupider. Large groups of stupid people fueled by passive entertainment with beautiful people are stupidest. Its a tiered approach...
A quick overview of sound; all sounds are comprised of varying frequency, and amplitude pressure waves. A sound dampener 'listens' to a sound, and emits it 180 degrees out of phase. This means the crests and troughs of the 2 waves are overlapped, negating one another.
The main issue to be overcome is direction and such that shifts the pitch of sounds coming from a computer. Unless you are using a very high quality, wide pickup mic (which are rather expensive), you are probably not going to be able to get enough sound precision to be able to get the damper working effectively. Also, positioning the mic would take a while to get the best location for maximal damping effect for overall sound. This is still work checking out though cause it may yield greater results than I think it will. However, most computer users do not have high quality mics in the first place (and a $20 mic wont cut it). The more mics used, the more effective this would be due to wider sound coverage.
Thank you for clarifying, I was not aware that fell under the header of infowarfare; you are quite right that electronic tampering with vital utilities and such would be disasterous and would yield high effectiveness with little effort.
While 'information warfare' is important and all, I am far more worried bout regular warfare with guns, bombs, gas, and viruses than a couple downed routers. While the Iraqis could do damage, I do not think they could do anymore damage than any other enterprising cracker, hacker, or DDOS kiddie. Unless they are developing all new exploits that are 100% unknown by anyone else, the amount of damage they could do is not anything unusual compared to any other malicious group of people. I think people should focus on filtering out biochemical weapons and such from entering our country than a couple rouge packets. When all is said and done, security is in the hands of the adminstrators who are hopefully competentant to do their job if anything happens.
Its a matter of simple math for priorities:
DDOS attacks and such : Millions/Billions of dollars lost, productivity set back by several days, economy wobbles a little.
Chem/bio/nuclear weapon goes off in USA: thousands/millions killed, economy enters danger zones due to intense fears, world economy really shakes, martial law, major restrictions in freedom.
Personally, Id rather we loose millions/billions of dollars than see thousands/millions die. Keep in mind though, attacking (with real weapons) information-routing centers is a whole other matter and could be just as bad.
I am rather interested to know what thousands of people are so obsessed by Ellen Feis when all she did was pretty much act like a stupid teenager with a computer. Maybe its just me, but acting like an ignorent teen with a computer who says 'like' and is pretty much completely average overall (according to her performance) is not really something I aspire to. Is there some detail I am missing. I don't watch TV (but have seen the ad online), and this looked like standard 'stupid advertisement' with some decent writing. Honestly, the way people are obsessed by her is disturbing; I, like any geek, look up to certain people, but I have never been obsessed by someone to this degree, and especially just because they emulated dumb teen. Can anyone rationally explain this phenominon(sp)?
I do not know what people are acting all surprised. What MS says and what MS knows are two very seperate things. Why do you think they say Linux is a competitor to be watched? Yea, they say 'MS software is better for xyz reasons, yatta yatta' but you better be damn sure that privately they are analyzing their competition inside and out. The first way to get raped by your competition is to ignore it. The second is to assume that you are automatically better than the competition, product quality wise. If a company is dishonest in its internal evaluations of its products against their competition, they will merely alienate their customers even more due to poor design decisions. Remember, MS has a shitload of investors, so going out publicly saying 'our product is subpar to unix' would result in their stocks playing a rollercoaster game. Never mistake self-honesty with PR.
Business is business. Its not like you said, 'Oh sure, I will do skilled computer work for you for free.' Send her an invoice at your hourly rate, and thats it. This question is kinda pointless as it seems an open & shut case, but are there other details missing? Otherwise, its simple service -> payment scenerio.
While this study may be mostly true, psychocematic (sp) healing is a reality though it does not apply to everything. Having a great outlook on life while you have Ebola Ziare is not going to increase your survival rate merely since the virus is extremely deadly and powerful. With something lesser though like a flu, cold, etc, it does help since your body is equiped to deal with the problem in the first place. Cancer is serious; even now we do not fully understand it, and it is not as simple as cells attacking foreign cells in your body. This mental healing seems to apply best when the person sick already has an edge over the ailment. While this is by no means an exact science, do not discredit it merely because 1 study said so for 1 particular problem. There is no garentee that this study is totally correct either, so be skeptical on all levels.
This sounds more like some simple user-made bug fixes via configs & file alterations than an actual patch that alters any binaries. Anyone know? That link to the patch is getting smacked down.
I know two people who have done this, one was socially inept and the other was 'normal' for a geek. The socially inept one was not a very nice person IMO, and treated other people with contempt and was generally apathetic towards others. The online schooling sure did not help this as he only got worst (I hung out with the individuals in an IRC channel) with time. The other guy is fine and is currently going to a university.
I definitely see your point and agree with it, but it depends largely upon the person involved, whether they have the mental maturity to get something out of it. Even though I hated HS and most of the people in it, it has helped me deal with people in college (who, guess what, come from HS, its the same deal), and thus the real world. If this is being use as an emotional shield, that is unhealthy and could screw you in the long run, regardless of educational benefits. The best way to deal with the 'real world' is to experience it as soon as possible and realize how it works. Those who jump in after a life of non-interaction usually end up screwed in some way, whether it be drug binging or in general just not being able to make any friends.
Completely disregarding his statements regarding the OS being irrelevant, and such, this 'totally-3D' thing is rediculous. Personally, I do 3D work along with 2D media (images, video). These tasks are all very CPU, memory, and video card intensive. So now if I was working on modelling a character, and had to interact with the system, the whole thing would crawl to a halt since it has to draw all its pretty 3D effects and what not. No thanks, I'll stick with my little 2D based window managers since they do their job and do not rape system resources at the same time. This 3D-interface stuff is straight out of the movies and will not be a reality until our hardware (esp videocards) gets a serious upgrade to be able to handle that plus our main applications. And quite frankly, whats so great about a 'stream of 3D documents'? Seems like meaningless fluff just to make the idea sound futuristic and sleek.
In this animation book I have, the writer (the guy who animated Roger Rabbit, I forget his hame off hand), demonstrated how a walk can characterize a person. He sited an example where he saw a man walking behind a wall, with just his head showing above the wall as he walked. The man's head did not bob up and down, and the animator decided that the man had to be gay. If you've ever noticed someone walking 'elegantly', they glide more than walk. He ran up to the man to find out if his assumption was correct (never mind the non-PC nature of the observation) and found he was right. Thats a good indicator of how much you can learn about people through simple observation of their movement.
I personally have not read the comics concerned, but had discussions of this with a friend who is an avid comic collector/reader. He said that whenever Batman has battled Superman in the comics, Batman usually comes out on top due to his cleverness and possession of a bit of kyptonite.
Batman is unique that he does not have super powers, but is a razer honed human in terms of his abilities, and has many very cool gadgets for any situation that may arise. He might not be able to fly at will, shoot lasers out of his eyes, move like lightening, or be able to manipulate the physics forces around him, but he's one clever, *determined* bastard. When I think of revenge in the justice sense, Batman is the image that comes to mind. He is a dark, human superhero that fights for very human reasons.
I dont even consider BMX XXX a game. Its a pure and simple money grab. The publisher apparently figured this:
1. Gamers are stupid, horney males.
2. Games like violence.
3. Combine these and then we get the best of both worlds.
4. We will put the BMX title on it so that people who bought the BMX racing title will now buy this and figure its just as good.
5. We like money, gamers like tits, guns, and bikes, so everyone is happy!
Using games as a reflection of real-life violence is getting old. We have all watched this week the various screwed up problems around the world, from the Chechen music-hall siege, israeli-palestinian killings, etc etc. For some reason people are convinced video games are a source of violence, but interestingly enough I doubt the people involved in the above mentioned conflicts even give a shit about video games, let alone play them.
1. People are often motivated to kill others for strong emotional reasons.
2. Video games are like play-acting (cowboys & indians, cops & robbers): they resemble their real-life counterparts, but only a mentally deranged person would confuse the two. Little kids recognize the difference.
3. People have inherit violent tendancies, the right series of circumstances will bring this out no matter what. This is different for each person.
4. Proper manipulation of those tendancies results in violence. In the case of Columbine, the constant being picked upon was the catalyst.
5. Violence is often commited to achieve a goal. Video games do not give you a goal that transfers to real life; their goals are usually narrow and simple. Ie, kill all the monsters, fight the boss badguy, etc. The person would have to provide their own seperate goal to be able to kill because of a video game since the game's goals do not transfer very well to RL.
6. Trying to summarize a person's actions through one attribute/action is piss poor, and is akin to saying that people are stupid robots that are completely predictable. History shows that humans are about as predictable as electrons.
7. If a person is determined to kill because of a video game, it is irrelevant that the catalyst was a video game as that person has already shown mental instability and thus is not valid as a reference. The idea being here someone determined to be stupid will be stupid no matter what.
It is good that these types of debates go on, but at this point how does this even matter? We all know Rosen is not going to be like, "Oh, I was wrong after all, music should be free for all." And nor is the opposite party going to say, "Damn, we are horrible people for stealing those poor people's livelyhoods from them."
No one is going to change their position. On top of that, this nice little debate is more or less useless. None of those students are congress people, and Berman is has shown his resolve. Nothing has changed in that exchange; we are still hurtling towards an unknown conclusion which this debate does nothing to address or even pretends to address. In the end, the students went and drank some beers and the 'big-wigs' went back home to their legal documents. This is an intellectual excersize and shows zero results other than some transcriptions and a couple webpages. We would be better off sending mailings to our representatives than listening to some nice, feel-good debate that made Rosen look foolish for a couple minutes.
When I was working for a designer lighting manufacturer as a network admin, we were currently in the process of moving our manufacturing process out of Germany over to China, for the simple reason that it was A LOT cheaper. Now, this isn't even electronics, merely simple electrical work w/ designer casings. However, I noted many a time that the German versions were much higher quality than the Chinese varients, though the Chinese ones were often 2x - 4x less expensive, though not 2x worst than the German ones. As far as electronics go, this is not surprising, but quality control is a MAJOR issue here. Things like Abit's exploding/leaking capacitors and such are signs of shoddy parts. There is NO point to buying something for 1/2 the price if you are going to have to RMA it in under a year.
Why are we impressed with any of this? If any of us had a virtual unlimited budget like these people, we could do a HELL of a lot more and not to mention do it ourselves. Quite frankly, people who throw a shitload of money at a problem/issue to solve it do not impress me. Someone who solves the problem in a both effecient AND practical manner are much more impressive. If Joe Millionare has the sickest network on the east coast, it is not because he is especially clever, intelligent, or anything else, it is because he hired a buncha techs to do it for him. Lets stick with admiring 'real' people doing 'real' stuff. Anyone with a crapload of money can do this sorta stuff. Slashdot should know this better than anyone.
Oh yea, I should mention that if you are going to ban a player, whether by IP, CDkey-ID, or MAC address, you are banning them. A ban is a ban; if your goal is to keep that player off the server, how is that 'going too far'? One does not 'kinda' ban someone, you either do or don't bother at all. Its the same concept as an IRC channel: there are multiple ways to ban someone, using different nick/user/host options. Each of these has different properties, but in the end they are all doing the same thing, which is stopping the banned person(s) from joining the channel. If you are going to do something, you might as well do it to completion.
This has been going on for a while, though without MAC addresses, a much simpler system. Most multiplayer games thesedays come with a CD-Key thats authenticated by a central server whenever you play a game. The CDkey usually has a unique ID strapped to it that is publically accessible by admins or players. You ban the ID, they cannot connect to the game without changing their CDkey (which means either buying a new copy or finding another cdkey that works online, neither are 'easy'). If MAC addresses can be changed, then as soon as a couple of like-minded gamers find out about that, you can count on their being a guide on how to do it for gamers eventually. The best way handle this is on both a MAC, and CDkey-ID level. Ban their MAC, and ban their ID, that will stop all but the most determined/knowledgable.
This is pretty much stating what we already know. What it does not touch upon however is that Valve seems unwilling to leave CS (or HL alone). Now, do not get me wrong, Valve has been a great developer, especially when it comes to mod makers; very few companies have done what they have done with their mod community. Nonetheless, its growing irritating to constantly hear about all this updates and new versions of CS when the company's original new flagship product has seemed to dissappear. The product I speak of is Team Fortress 2, which was supposed to come out a while back, but has all but dissappeared off the planet. Everyonce in a while you might hear a slight peep from Valve with the letters TF2 in them, but its next to nothing ('We are working on it'). CS is good, I still play it, but it is definitely time for something new. They should continue supporting HL, but in a much more limited way, and start moving towards a point release patch. Riding on the success of the last game you made 4 years ago gets a little old after a while. I do not mean this literally, but its annoying that they talked about TF2 like it was going to revolutionize (yea, its hype, but hey, it looked cool) multiplayer FPS games, but now all they're giving us is addons to Half-Life, which as I said is 4 years old, going on 5. This is all pretty much hopeless since CS still kills all other multiplayer fps games in terms of pure amounts of players & servers; where there is a demand, the publishers will go. I hope this isn't the result of Sierra's pressure, but from the attitudes of the Valve dev team that does not seem to be so.
In case you are unaware, when the first proposals were made by the engineer responsible for the B2 stealth bomber, everyone said "Theres no damn way that thing is leaving the ground. That thing can't fly." I have to say, the Bird of Prey looks even more so like this. I am curious as to how it generates the lift required with such small wings. Usually, if you look at any aircraft, the wings are atleast 1/3rd - 2/3rds of the entire size of the craft (size comparison wise). The wings are tiny, along with the fact that they are nothing like traditional wings with the sharp angle mid-wing. You could say its wide, which helps, but I do not think this is the case as the bottom of the fuselage, according to those pictures, does not seem to have any characteristics required to generate lift. I think I speak for us all when I say seeing a video of this thing in action would be pretty impressive, and no doubt interesting. Due to the more narrow design, it looks as if its manuevering capabilities are much greater than that of the B2, which made VERY wide turns. Anyone have links to further details?
Slashdot Mirror
When you get down to it, most distros are using the same things under the hook. No one is busting out with special kernels, or what not. People who try to say that they are superiour because they use __ distro are basically just being elitist idiots who feel proud because they use it. This is akin to being pompous and proud about being able to code in assembly while making fun of perl programmers. While there is a difference, actually feeling superior since you use ___ is like being a blind zealot. Its a piece of software, not you; you are not the software, so unless you programmed the software, feeling superior because you use it is rather stupid. If you made the software, be proud of your abilities, but don't go mouthing off other people because they think differently. A knowledgable linux user will be able to secure a Redhat box as well as a Debian box. The paths to get to those goals may be different, but the end result is the same.
Yes, its quite simple. Graphics take time, time = money. For a busy graphic designer, every second saved can in the long-run mean increased productivity. These people can often be on extremely tight schedules so having the equipment up to par is important. Keep in mind though, I am not saying graphic designers update their equipment every time apple releases a new model, but most places try not to fall behind the curve too much.
People are stupid. Large groups of people are stupider. Large groups of stupid people fueled by passive entertainment with beautiful people are stupidest. Its a tiered approach...
Here is how noise-dampening works:
A quick overview of sound; all sounds are comprised of varying frequency, and amplitude pressure waves. A sound dampener 'listens' to a sound, and emits it 180 degrees out of phase. This means the crests and troughs of the 2 waves are overlapped, negating one another.
The main issue to be overcome is direction and such that shifts the pitch of sounds coming from a computer. Unless you are using a very high quality, wide pickup mic (which are rather expensive), you are probably not going to be able to get enough sound precision to be able to get the damper working effectively. Also, positioning the mic would take a while to get the best location for maximal damping effect for overall sound. This is still work checking out though cause it may yield greater results than I think it will. However, most computer users do not have high quality mics in the first place (and a $20 mic wont cut it). The more mics used, the more effective this would be due to wider sound coverage.
Thank you for clarifying, I was not aware that fell under the header of infowarfare; you are quite right that electronic tampering with vital utilities and such would be disasterous and would yield high effectiveness with little effort.
While 'information warfare' is important and all, I am far more worried bout regular warfare with guns, bombs, gas, and viruses than a couple downed routers. While the Iraqis could do damage, I do not think they could do anymore damage than any other enterprising cracker, hacker, or DDOS kiddie. Unless they are developing all new exploits that are 100% unknown by anyone else, the amount of damage they could do is not anything unusual compared to any other malicious group of people. I think people should focus on filtering out biochemical weapons and such from entering our country than a couple rouge packets. When all is said and done, security is in the hands of the adminstrators who are hopefully competentant to do their job if anything happens.
Its a matter of simple math for priorities:
DDOS attacks and such : Millions/Billions of dollars lost, productivity set back by several days, economy wobbles a little.
Chem/bio/nuclear weapon goes off in USA: thousands/millions killed, economy enters danger zones due to intense fears, world economy really shakes, martial law, major restrictions in freedom.
Personally, Id rather we loose millions/billions of dollars than see thousands/millions die. Keep in mind though, attacking (with real weapons) information-routing centers is a whole other matter and could be just as bad.
I am rather interested to know what thousands of people are so obsessed by Ellen Feis when all she did was pretty much act like a stupid teenager with a computer. Maybe its just me, but acting like an ignorent teen with a computer who says 'like' and is pretty much completely average overall (according to her performance) is not really something I aspire to. Is there some detail I am missing. I don't watch TV (but have seen the ad online), and this looked like standard 'stupid advertisement' with some decent writing. Honestly, the way people are obsessed by her is disturbing; I, like any geek, look up to certain people, but I have never been obsessed by someone to this degree, and especially just because they emulated dumb teen. Can anyone rationally explain this phenominon(sp)?
I do not know what people are acting all surprised. What MS says and what MS knows are two very seperate things. Why do you think they say Linux is a competitor to be watched? Yea, they say 'MS software is better for xyz reasons, yatta yatta' but you better be damn sure that privately they are analyzing their competition inside and out. The first way to get raped by your competition is to ignore it. The second is to assume that you are automatically better than the competition, product quality wise. If a company is dishonest in its internal evaluations of its products against their competition, they will merely alienate their customers even more due to poor design decisions. Remember, MS has a shitload of investors, so going out publicly saying 'our product is subpar to unix' would result in their stocks playing a rollercoaster game. Never mistake self-honesty with PR.
Business is business. Its not like you said, 'Oh sure, I will do skilled computer work for you for free.' Send her an invoice at your hourly rate, and thats it. This question is kinda pointless as it seems an open & shut case, but are there other details missing? Otherwise, its simple service -> payment scenerio.
While this study may be mostly true, psychocematic (sp) healing is a reality though it does not apply to everything. Having a great outlook on life while you have Ebola Ziare is not going to increase your survival rate merely since the virus is extremely deadly and powerful. With something lesser though like a flu, cold, etc, it does help since your body is equiped to deal with the problem in the first place. Cancer is serious; even now we do not fully understand it, and it is not as simple as cells attacking foreign cells in your body. This mental healing seems to apply best when the person sick already has an edge over the ailment. While this is by no means an exact science, do not discredit it merely because 1 study said so for 1 particular problem. There is no garentee that this study is totally correct either, so be skeptical on all levels.
This sounds more like some simple user-made bug fixes via configs & file alterations than an actual patch that alters any binaries. Anyone know? That link to the patch is getting smacked down.
I know two people who have done this, one was socially inept and the other was 'normal' for a geek. The socially inept one was not a very nice person IMO, and treated other people with contempt and was generally apathetic towards others. The online schooling sure did not help this as he only got worst (I hung out with the individuals in an IRC channel) with time. The other guy is fine and is currently going to a university.
I definitely see your point and agree with it, but it depends largely upon the person involved, whether they have the mental maturity to get something out of it. Even though I hated HS and most of the people in it, it has helped me deal with people in college (who, guess what, come from HS, its the same deal), and thus the real world. If this is being use as an emotional shield, that is unhealthy and could screw you in the long run, regardless of educational benefits. The best way to deal with the 'real world' is to experience it as soon as possible and realize how it works. Those who jump in after a life of non-interaction usually end up screwed in some way, whether it be drug binging or in general just not being able to make any friends.
Completely disregarding his statements regarding the OS being irrelevant, and such, this 'totally-3D' thing is rediculous. Personally, I do 3D work along with 2D media (images, video). These tasks are all very CPU, memory, and video card intensive. So now if I was working on modelling a character, and had to interact with the system, the whole thing would crawl to a halt since it has to draw all its pretty 3D effects and what not. No thanks, I'll stick with my little 2D based window managers since they do their job and do not rape system resources at the same time. This 3D-interface stuff is straight out of the movies and will not be a reality until our hardware (esp videocards) gets a serious upgrade to be able to handle that plus our main applications. And quite frankly, whats so great about a 'stream of 3D documents'? Seems like meaningless fluff just to make the idea sound futuristic and sleek.
- If you thought this was real: silly monkey, pay attention next time.
- If you thought this was real and proceeded to post with that assumption: you have shown the way of the dumb monkey.
- If you thought this was real and flamed as a result: dumb ass.
- You understood this was humorous and proceeded to flame for that reason: kill yourself.
In this animation book I have, the writer (the guy who animated Roger Rabbit, I forget his hame off hand), demonstrated how a walk can characterize a person. He sited an example where he saw a man walking behind a wall, with just his head showing above the wall as he walked. The man's head did not bob up and down, and the animator decided that the man had to be gay. If you've ever noticed someone walking 'elegantly', they glide more than walk. He ran up to the man to find out if his assumption was correct (never mind the non-PC nature of the observation) and found he was right. Thats a good indicator of how much you can learn about people through simple observation of their movement.
I personally have not read the comics concerned, but had discussions of this with a friend who is an avid comic collector/reader. He said that whenever Batman has battled Superman in the comics, Batman usually comes out on top due to his cleverness and possession of a bit of kyptonite.
Batman is unique that he does not have super powers, but is a razer honed human in terms of his abilities, and has many very cool gadgets for any situation that may arise. He might not be able to fly at will, shoot lasers out of his eyes, move like lightening, or be able to manipulate the physics forces around him, but he's one clever, *determined* bastard. When I think of revenge in the justice sense, Batman is the image that comes to mind. He is a dark, human superhero that fights for very human reasons.
I dont even consider BMX XXX a game. Its a pure and simple money grab. The publisher apparently figured this:
1. Gamers are stupid, horney males.
2. Games like violence.
3. Combine these and then we get the best of both worlds.
4. We will put the BMX title on it so that people who bought the BMX racing title will now buy this and figure its just as good.
5. We like money, gamers like tits, guns, and bikes, so everyone is happy!
Using games as a reflection of real-life violence is getting old. We have all watched this week the various screwed up problems around the world, from the Chechen music-hall siege, israeli-palestinian killings, etc etc. For some reason people are convinced video games are a source of violence, but interestingly enough I doubt the people involved in the above mentioned conflicts even give a shit about video games, let alone play them.
1. People are often motivated to kill others for strong emotional reasons.
2. Video games are like play-acting (cowboys & indians, cops & robbers): they resemble their real-life counterparts, but only a mentally deranged person would confuse the two. Little kids recognize the difference.
3. People have inherit violent tendancies, the right series of circumstances will bring this out no matter what. This is different for each person.
4. Proper manipulation of those tendancies results in violence. In the case of Columbine, the constant being picked upon was the catalyst.
5. Violence is often commited to achieve a goal. Video games do not give you a goal that transfers to real life; their goals are usually narrow and simple. Ie, kill all the monsters, fight the boss badguy, etc. The person would have to provide their own seperate goal to be able to kill because of a video game since the game's goals do not transfer very well to RL.
6. Trying to summarize a person's actions through one attribute/action is piss poor, and is akin to saying that people are stupid robots that are completely predictable. History shows that humans are about as predictable as electrons.
7. If a person is determined to kill because of a video game, it is irrelevant that the catalyst was a video game as that person has already shown mental instability and thus is not valid as a reference. The idea being here someone determined to be stupid will be stupid no matter what.
It is good that these types of debates go on, but at this point how does this even matter? We all know Rosen is not going to be like, "Oh, I was wrong after all, music should be free for all." And nor is the opposite party going to say, "Damn, we are horrible people for stealing those poor people's livelyhoods from them."
No one is going to change their position. On top of that, this nice little debate is more or less useless. None of those students are congress people, and Berman is has shown his resolve. Nothing has changed in that exchange; we are still hurtling towards an unknown conclusion which this debate does nothing to address or even pretends to address. In the end, the students went and drank some beers and the 'big-wigs' went back home to their legal documents. This is an intellectual excersize and shows zero results other than some transcriptions and a couple webpages. We would be better off sending mailings to our representatives than listening to some nice, feel-good debate that made Rosen look foolish for a couple minutes.
When I was working for a designer lighting manufacturer as a network admin, we were currently in the process of moving our manufacturing process out of Germany over to China, for the simple reason that it was A LOT cheaper. Now, this isn't even electronics, merely simple electrical work w/ designer casings. However, I noted many a time that the German versions were much higher quality than the Chinese varients, though the Chinese ones were often 2x - 4x less expensive, though not 2x worst than the German ones. As far as electronics go, this is not surprising, but quality control is a MAJOR issue here. Things like Abit's exploding/leaking capacitors and such are signs of shoddy parts. There is NO point to buying something for 1/2 the price if you are going to have to RMA it in under a year.
Why are we impressed with any of this? If any of us had a virtual unlimited budget like these people, we could do a HELL of a lot more and not to mention do it ourselves. Quite frankly, people who throw a shitload of money at a problem/issue to solve it do not impress me. Someone who solves the problem in a both effecient AND practical manner are much more impressive. If Joe Millionare has the sickest network on the east coast, it is not because he is especially clever, intelligent, or anything else, it is because he hired a buncha techs to do it for him. Lets stick with admiring 'real' people doing 'real' stuff. Anyone with a crapload of money can do this sorta stuff. Slashdot should know this better than anyone.
Oh yea, I should mention that if you are going to ban a player, whether by IP, CDkey-ID, or MAC address, you are banning them. A ban is a ban; if your goal is to keep that player off the server, how is that 'going too far'? One does not 'kinda' ban someone, you either do or don't bother at all. Its the same concept as an IRC channel: there are multiple ways to ban someone, using different nick/user/host options. Each of these has different properties, but in the end they are all doing the same thing, which is stopping the banned person(s) from joining the channel. If you are going to do something, you might as well do it to completion.
This has been going on for a while, though without MAC addresses, a much simpler system. Most multiplayer games thesedays come with a CD-Key thats authenticated by a central server whenever you play a game. The CDkey usually has a unique ID strapped to it that is publically accessible by admins or players. You ban the ID, they cannot connect to the game without changing their CDkey (which means either buying a new copy or finding another cdkey that works online, neither are 'easy'). If MAC addresses can be changed, then as soon as a couple of like-minded gamers find out about that, you can count on their being a guide on how to do it for gamers eventually. The best way handle this is on both a MAC, and CDkey-ID level. Ban their MAC, and ban their ID, that will stop all but the most determined/knowledgable.
This is pretty much stating what we already know. What it does not touch upon however is that Valve seems unwilling to leave CS (or HL alone). Now, do not get me wrong, Valve has been a great developer, especially when it comes to mod makers; very few companies have done what they have done with their mod community. Nonetheless, its growing irritating to constantly hear about all this updates and new versions of CS when the company's original new flagship product has seemed to dissappear. The product I speak of is Team Fortress 2, which was supposed to come out a while back, but has all but dissappeared off the planet. Everyonce in a while you might hear a slight peep from Valve with the letters TF2 in them, but its next to nothing ('We are working on it'). CS is good, I still play it, but it is definitely time for something new. They should continue supporting HL, but in a much more limited way, and start moving towards a point release patch. Riding on the success of the last game you made 4 years ago gets a little old after a while. I do not mean this literally, but its annoying that they talked about TF2 like it was going to revolutionize (yea, its hype, but hey, it looked cool) multiplayer FPS games, but now all they're giving us is addons to Half-Life, which as I said is 4 years old, going on 5. This is all pretty much hopeless since CS still kills all other multiplayer fps games in terms of pure amounts of players & servers; where there is a demand, the publishers will go. I hope this isn't the result of Sierra's pressure, but from the attitudes of the Valve dev team that does not seem to be so.
In case you are unaware, when the first proposals were made by the engineer responsible for the B2 stealth bomber, everyone said "Theres no damn way that thing is leaving the ground. That thing can't fly." I have to say, the Bird of Prey looks even more so like this. I am curious as to how it generates the lift required with such small wings. Usually, if you look at any aircraft, the wings are atleast 1/3rd - 2/3rds of the entire size of the craft (size comparison wise). The wings are tiny, along with the fact that they are nothing like traditional wings with the sharp angle mid-wing. You could say its wide, which helps, but I do not think this is the case as the bottom of the fuselage, according to those pictures, does not seem to have any characteristics required to generate lift. I think I speak for us all when I say seeing a video of this thing in action would be pretty impressive, and no doubt interesting. Due to the more narrow design, it looks as if its manuevering capabilities are much greater than that of the B2, which made VERY wide turns. Anyone have links to further details?