Hell, before you even get to the search results for tulips or plain tulip, Google is so kind as to link to the dmoz tulips category, which has plenty of appropriate sites.
2.) I've bought stuff from online computer stores dozens of times, each time with credit cards, and I've never had a single erroneous charge. Of course, I always make sure to check out the place before hand, and I'm always a bit leery when the price is too good.
3.) Those AMEX cards are good for a month, which means they have a month to rack up as many charges as they can.
4.) Your account information was not stolen; you gave it to them. You also give that same information to a pimply-faced teenager earning minimum wage every time you charge to your card in a "normal" store.
I'm not saying a little paranoia isn't healthy -- obviously I practice it myself -- but to be honest, the best and only truly effective way to protect against credit card theft is to review your bill carefully.
You know, I've heard that explanation before, and I'd like to believe that Freenet gets better. However, it's not that I'm shutting down my node because it's slow; I shut it down because I'm not using it. I've got a dynamic IP and a power bill, so I doubt others are making much use of my node.
Meh. The actual problem with Freenet is that there just isn't enough worthwhile content on it. I've shown my friends Freenet and babbled on about how cool it is that it's totally anonymous and all that jazz, but the first thing they ask is "how fast can I download stuff?" Of course, by "stuff", they typically mean all the sorts of things the MPAA and RIAA don't want you to have.
So I have to explain that, well, there isn't really any "stuff" on Freenet at this point, and frankly if there were, it'd take forever and a day to complete, if you managed to find a node with all the data. But, like, there are all these sites that basically just link to each other, though occaisionally there's a site with some Dilbert cartoons that don't load. Oh, and did I mention browsing Freenet sites makes your $50/month broadband feel slower than a 14.4 modem?
OTOH, I'm all for the concept of Freenet. Every major release I set up a node and run it for a few days to see if it's gotten any better, but I end up shutting it off.
To back this guy up, it's called Minor in Possession and the severity and enforcement depends greatly on where you live. I'm more familar with it as it applies to alcohol and college parties, but in most places if they've got for alcohol, they've probably got it for tobacco.
IIRC for libel/slander you have to show a negative effect on your reputation or that the accusation cost you business or other quantifiable damage. Also, I think there's some provision that the person making the claim has to know it's false. Frankly, if they let you sue for that, then everyone who has ever been acquitted of a crime would have a suit; that's why the news always refers to "the accused" and "the defendant" as opposed to "the criminal".
On a side note, who decided that we need separate words for oral and printed false accusations that damage a person's reputation? Is it really all that important to know that someone wrote the claim rather than speaking it? What if they said it, then wrote it down? What if they were reading from a prepared statement? What if they said it and somebody else wrote it down? What if they were saying the words aloud as they wrote? Does it matter? NO! Stupid English.
Interestingly enough, though every definition for libel mentions that it involves written communication, slander apparently can be used to refer to both if you don't want to use the legal definition. I have made my decision. From now on, no more libeling! Here's to slandering!
I thought the issue there was that even if you have the CD, you can't prove that you own it. The entire premise of the system is you put your CD in once and listen to it later. I believe the RIAA was afraid that people would swap legitimate CDs and use the Beam-It software to make "copies".
Of course, this is much worse than what people can do already with a hundred blank discs and a friend's CD collection...
By declaring the answer "two-point-nothing", you are declaring it a whole number. Ask me what the 64,143,532nd digit of two is and I can tell you without a second thought. This is what I call infinite precision.
As for your speedometer, it approximates your speed with a whole number. Its measurement is very imprecise, and usually inaccurate. The number it gives, though it is not a precise approximation or measurement, is a very precise number.
I wonder what makes a person a scientist. I've met doctors, biologists, and engineers who all do very scientific work, but the only group of people I've met that actually call themselves scientists are the computer sort, to which such distinctions actually are important.
Well, to be pendantic, 2 is also the more precise answer, because, as a whole number, it implies an infinite degree of precision. Perhaps 1.9999 would be a better example of your point.
One, as others have pointed out, solar systems can still run on a cloudy day. Two, they have battery backups. Three, poor weather conditions effect all the teams (pretty much) equally.
The problem is, any time some new technology comes out that improves solar efficiency, every team has to have it or they have no chance. These cars are already ridiculously expensive, and if you let the teams go hog wild, the winner would by decided by their budget rather than talent or effort -- well, more than it is already.
My roommate is actually a member of Cal Poly'sSolar Car Team (website waay out-dated, beware). I'm incredibly surprised to find out they're in the race. I haven't seen my roommate since school ended, but at that time they were rushing like mad to put the car together and my roommate didn't think they'd make it. They decided to scrap their old car and build an entirely new one for this race, but they didn't get started until this year.
The funny part is that I've met the guys who work on it, I've seen their work shed, and it really killed the awe of seeing a solar-powered car. The whole thing seems pretty simple when you think about it. It's a car frame with some solar cells attached to a motor. Well, it's not that simple but it's close. I can't comment on the other cars, but about the most complex system they have in the car is the motor control and diagnostics (basically, a digital speedometer).
Of course, I don't mean to take away from anyone's accomplishments. I know for a fact that my roommate and the rest of the team (well, the active ones) put a lot of time and effort into the car, on top of and occaisionally in spite of their coursework. I can't wait to see how the race turns out. Go Poly!
Uhm, but see, if you send them a check for 7 cents, they'll send you a bill for the other 199,993 cents. And if you feel particularly inclined to spend the time and money to divide that $2,000 fee into 28,572 seperate checks, you probably have enough time and money to do something effective with it, like lobbying congress or contributing to the EFF.
An interesting thought people seem to be missing here is US citizens looking to breach security, not for political reasons, but for personal gain. Imagine such a system being set up at the IRS. A few simple modifications and one lucky programmer gets a million dollar refund check. Honestly, I think that kind of attack is more probable and harder to detect or prevent.
I can't remember if ctrl-alt-del worked to bypass the screen saver in Win95 (though I doubt it), but I know it never worked in Win98. The more effective way to do it is to burn a CD with a simple program that kills the screen saver. Unless the user actively searched out and disabled autorun, which is a much bigger safety/security hole that comes enabled on all Windows systems, it works flawlessly.
Of course, as others have mentioned, if you've got physical access to a machine, it's insecure. While I'm thinking about it XP and 2k have autorun enabled by default; I wonder how they handle autorun security when the computer is locked.
The problem is that Company A simply cannot rely on software developers to be rational and agree to terms on a new license. Anyone could create an open source project specifically to force the company that owns the patent to give it up or stop using OSS software. The legal department of any company with software patents (Apple, IBM, etc.) will make sure no software with this license makes its way into any of their products. This only prevents a lot of companies with good intentions from contributing to open source software.
If Company A uses OSS Product B, and then several months later OSS Product C uses and abuses Company A's patent, then they have to drop Product B, even if it has nothing to do with their patent or Product C. Competitors could open source their software (on proprietary hardware), and Company A couldn't do anything without losing their investment in Product B. Effectively, this prevents any company using any software with theses licenses from enforcing any software patents.
This is, of course, the desired effect, but you can be sure that any company with a software patent or any company that thinks they may in the future have a software patent will avoid this stuff like the plague.
In any case, if the user is persuaded to enter a command or install a trojan, forcing them to type the root password first makes no difference.
In Windows land, if you run one of the "relatively secure" OS's (NT, 2k, XP) and limit use of the Administrator account, many applications which have no business with admin rights and don't need them require you to run them with full access. They're just poorly written -- the exact kind of thing you don't want to run with root powers. But users get tired of doing Windows' version of su so often they might as well be running root. That's always been Windows' real stability problem; it's not the OS so much as the stupid applications people install.
No, I mentioned FireWire/USB2.0 because older computers and many new motherboards don't come with a controller built in. So, you buy a PCI controller for cheap rather than replacing your motherboard. My computer works just fine as it is. I'd rather buy a $15 card than a $2000 computer every time Apple registers a new trademark.
All these built in systems add to the cost of a new system as well. If I have perfectly good cards from an old system, I don't need to pay for them again.
NIC, SCSI, TV tuner, sound card, Newq Drive pass through, video card (AGP, I admit).
Granted, some of these things could be built in, but do you want to upgrade your computer every time some new standard comes out (FireWire, Airport/WiFi, USB2.0, ATA133, Serial ATA, and so on)? Or if you already have the necessary cards, what sense is there in buying a more expensive integrated mobo? You and Apple may deem that the average customer doesn't need more than three, but I only care about what I need, and what I might need soon enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Try ResellerRatings before you try Pricewatch. Pricegrabber is also pretty nice in that has both on one site.
The third link in a search for tulips returns The New York Botanical Garden's page on tulips. The fourth is a link to a page on planting tulips.
Hell, before you even get to the search results for tulips or plain tulip, Google is so kind as to link to the dmoz tulips category, which has plenty of appropriate sites.
In conclusion, you may continue to ph33r Google.
1.) Yes, I am the king, thank you.
2.) I've bought stuff from online computer stores dozens of times, each time with credit cards, and I've never had a single erroneous charge. Of course, I always make sure to check out the place before hand, and I'm always a bit leery when the price is too good.
3.) Those AMEX cards are good for a month, which means they have a month to rack up as many charges as they can.
4.) Your account information was not stolen; you gave it to them. You also give that same information to a pimply-faced teenager earning minimum wage every time you charge to your card in a "normal" store.
I'm not saying a little paranoia isn't healthy -- obviously I practice it myself -- but to be honest, the best and only truly effective way to protect against credit card theft is to review your bill carefully.
You know, I've heard that explanation before, and I'd like to believe that Freenet gets better. However, it's not that I'm shutting down my node because it's slow; I shut it down because I'm not using it. I've got a dynamic IP and a power bill, so I doubt others are making much use of my node.
Meh. The actual problem with Freenet is that there just isn't enough worthwhile content on it. I've shown my friends Freenet and babbled on about how cool it is that it's totally anonymous and all that jazz, but the first thing they ask is "how fast can I download stuff?" Of course, by "stuff", they typically mean all the sorts of things the MPAA and RIAA don't want you to have.
So I have to explain that, well, there isn't really any "stuff" on Freenet at this point, and frankly if there were, it'd take forever and a day to complete, if you managed to find a node with all the data. But, like, there are all these sites that basically just link to each other, though occaisionally there's a site with some Dilbert cartoons that don't load. Oh, and did I mention browsing Freenet sites makes your $50/month broadband feel slower than a 14.4 modem?
OTOH, I'm all for the concept of Freenet. Every major release I set up a node and run it for a few days to see if it's gotten any better, but I end up shutting it off.
To back this guy up, it's called Minor in Possession and the severity and enforcement depends greatly on where you live. I'm more familar with it as it applies to alcohol and college parties, but in most places if they've got for alcohol, they've probably got it for tobacco.
IIRC for libel/slander you have to show a negative effect on your reputation or that the accusation cost you business or other quantifiable damage. Also, I think there's some provision that the person making the claim has to know it's false. Frankly, if they let you sue for that, then everyone who has ever been acquitted of a crime would have a suit; that's why the news always refers to "the accused" and "the defendant" as opposed to "the criminal".
On a side note, who decided that we need separate words for oral and printed false accusations that damage a person's reputation? Is it really all that important to know that someone wrote the claim rather than speaking it? What if they said it, then wrote it down? What if they were reading from a prepared statement? What if they said it and somebody else wrote it down? What if they were saying the words aloud as they wrote? Does it matter? NO! Stupid English.
Interestingly enough, though every definition for libel mentions that it involves written communication, slander apparently can be used to refer to both if you don't want to use the legal definition. I have made my decision. From now on, no more libeling! Here's to slandering!
I thought the issue there was that even if you have the CD, you can't prove that you own it. The entire premise of the system is you put your CD in once and listen to it later. I believe the RIAA was afraid that people would swap legitimate CDs and use the Beam-It software to make "copies".
Of course, this is much worse than what people can do already with a hundred blank discs and a friend's CD collection...
By declaring the answer "two-point-nothing", you are declaring it a whole number. Ask me what the 64,143,532nd digit of two is and I can tell you without a second thought. This is what I call infinite precision.
As for your speedometer, it approximates your speed with a whole number. Its measurement is very imprecise, and usually inaccurate. The number it gives, though it is not a precise approximation or measurement, is a very precise number.
I wonder what makes a person a scientist. I've met doctors, biologists, and engineers who all do very scientific work, but the only group of people I've met that actually call themselves scientists are the computer sort, to which such distinctions actually are important.
Assertion One: Two is a whole number.
Assertion Two: By definition, whole numbers are infinitely precise.
If you take issue with either of these assertions, I would be very interested to see your explanation.
Someone care to look up the efficiency of lightbulbs?
On a side note, I once built a flashlight for the blind. I'm dead serious.
Well, to be pendantic, 2 is also the more precise answer, because, as a whole number, it implies an infinite degree of precision. Perhaps 1.9999 would be a better example of your point.
One, as others have pointed out, solar systems can still run on a cloudy day. Two, they have battery backups. Three, poor weather conditions effect all the teams (pretty much) equally.
The problem is, any time some new technology comes out that improves solar efficiency, every team has to have it or they have no chance. These cars are already ridiculously expensive, and if you let the teams go hog wild, the winner would by decided by their budget rather than talent or effort -- well, more than it is already.
My roommate is actually a member of Cal Poly's Solar Car Team (website waay out-dated, beware). I'm incredibly surprised to find out they're in the race. I haven't seen my roommate since school ended, but at that time they were rushing like mad to put the car together and my roommate didn't think they'd make it. They decided to scrap their old car and build an entirely new one for this race, but they didn't get started until this year.
The funny part is that I've met the guys who work on it, I've seen their work shed, and it really killed the awe of seeing a solar-powered car. The whole thing seems pretty simple when you think about it. It's a car frame with some solar cells attached to a motor. Well, it's not that simple but it's close. I can't comment on the other cars, but about the most complex system they have in the car is the motor control and diagnostics (basically, a digital speedometer).
Of course, I don't mean to take away from anyone's accomplishments. I know for a fact that my roommate and the rest of the team (well, the active ones) put a lot of time and effort into the car, on top of and occaisionally in spite of their coursework. I can't wait to see how the race turns out. Go Poly!
Uhm, but see, if you send them a check for 7 cents, they'll send you a bill for the other 199,993 cents. And if you feel particularly inclined to spend the time and money to divide that $2,000 fee into 28,572 seperate checks, you probably have enough time and money to do something effective with it, like lobbying congress or contributing to the EFF.
An interesting thought people seem to be missing here is US citizens looking to breach security, not for political reasons, but for personal gain. Imagine such a system being set up at the IRS. A few simple modifications and one lucky programmer gets a million dollar refund check. Honestly, I think that kind of attack is more probable and harder to detect or prevent.
I can't remember if ctrl-alt-del worked to bypass the screen saver in Win95 (though I doubt it), but I know it never worked in Win98. The more effective way to do it is to burn a CD with a simple program that kills the screen saver. Unless the user actively searched out and disabled autorun, which is a much bigger safety/security hole that comes enabled on all Windows systems, it works flawlessly.
Of course, as others have mentioned, if you've got physical access to a machine, it's insecure. While I'm thinking about it XP and 2k have autorun enabled by default; I wonder how they handle autorun security when the computer is locked.
The problem is that Company A simply cannot rely on software developers to be rational and agree to terms on a new license. Anyone could create an open source project specifically to force the company that owns the patent to give it up or stop using OSS software. The legal department of any company with software patents (Apple, IBM, etc.) will make sure no software with this license makes its way into any of their products. This only prevents a lot of companies with good intentions from contributing to open source software.
If Company A uses OSS Product B, and then several months later OSS Product C uses and abuses Company A's patent, then they have to drop Product B, even if it has nothing to do with their patent or Product C. Competitors could open source their software (on proprietary hardware), and Company A couldn't do anything without losing their investment in Product B. Effectively, this prevents any company using any software with theses licenses from enforcing any software patents.
This is, of course, the desired effect, but you can be sure that any company with a software patent or any company that thinks they may in the future have a software patent will avoid this stuff like the plague.
In any case, if the user is persuaded to enter a command or install a trojan, forcing them to type the root password first makes no difference.
In Windows land, if you run one of the "relatively secure" OS's (NT, 2k, XP) and limit use of the Administrator account, many applications which have no business with admin rights and don't need them require you to run them with full access. They're just poorly written -- the exact kind of thing you don't want to run with root powers. But users get tired of doing Windows' version of su so often they might as well be running root. That's always been Windows' real stability problem; it's not the OS so much as the stupid applications people install.
Uh huh. In CBS' piece on American Idol, did they happen to mention when it was on? How many pieces did they do on Survivor when it was popular?
I have never sucked a cock, although as a teenager I probably tried to reach my own.
"Probably"? Wouldn't you know better than anyone?
No, I mentioned FireWire/USB2.0 because older computers and many new motherboards don't come with a controller built in. So, you buy a PCI controller for cheap rather than replacing your motherboard. My computer works just fine as it is. I'd rather buy a $15 card than a $2000 computer every time Apple registers a new trademark.
All these built in systems add to the cost of a new system as well. If I have perfectly good cards from an old system, I don't need to pay for them again.
My computer:
NIC, SCSI, TV tuner, sound card, Newq Drive pass through, video card (AGP, I admit).
Granted, some of these things could be built in, but do you want to upgrade your computer every time some new standard comes out (FireWire, Airport/WiFi, USB2.0, ATA133, Serial ATA, and so on)? Or if you already have the necessary cards, what sense is there in buying a more expensive integrated mobo? You and Apple may deem that the average customer doesn't need more than three, but I only care about what I need, and what I might need soon enough.