`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
In other words, the DMCA requires that programmers be able to access parts of a computer program "to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs" (i.e. porting a windows program to linux). If that access isn't provided then the programmer can legally circumvent a technological measure that controls access to the essential parts of that program for the purposes of porting.
I say we should rally the EFF and call them on it.
Of course I never drink the stuff. Have you ever tried Moxie?
(shudders at the memory)
It started off merely terrible, kind of like someone took the freakish creation of a terrible collision between two Dr. Pepper and Root Beer factories. Weird, overly sweet, and just...wrong - your brain gets two signals for two tastes at *same time*. It's what I imagine spicy ice cream would be like.
But it didn't stop there, oh no! Next came the aftertaste. I swallowed the stuff...the look of evil glee on my brother's face put me off a bit...and egad! It's like Moxie, rather than passing on quietly like an 18-Wheeler downshifting 20 feet away at 60 miles an hour, laughs and says, "Ha! You think I am rid of that easily??" and unleashs this hideous acidic taste sensation that coats your throat, mouth, tongue...and it won't go away! Five anonizing minutes, and two bottles of water, later it finally faded into ignorability.
Huh. It seems like my family (vicious band wars in Dad's office) has been using a variation of this technique for years - I had no idea we were close to the perfect RB release:-). Our method lacks the punch but gets points for style.
The rubberband will be firing from your right hand, but you need both to load it.
Make your right hand into a fist; now extend your pinky finger into a hook
loop the rubberband onto the "hook"
close your fist - holding one end of the rubberband to your palm with your pinky
extend your thumb vertically (into a thumbs-up) and loop the other end of the rubberband around your thumb (which will remain vertical)
point your index finger and extend the rubberband past your thumb and place the end of the rubberband on that finger.
To fire just point at your target and open your pinky.:-)
You should now have a rubberband held at one end by your pinky, wrapped around your thumb, with the other end on the end of your index finger (looking just like one of those "hand" guns we all made as children). It is possible to load up another rubberband on your left hand, or put multiple bands on each hand but that interferes with their trajectory.
Sure the tech is cool and the potential is huge, but that makes no difference when the professors don't know how to use them!
For some strange reason UNC purchased a few smartboards but apparently neglected to teach its professors what they were, what they could do, and how to do it. I have had no less than four classes in one of the new smartboard rooms (which are also fully equiped with a dvd player, a vcr, a five speaker multimedia setup, a laptop (for the smartboard software and the web), and cable tv - all tied into a nifty touch screen interface on the podium and ALL un-used except for the vcr sometimes. All of the professors use it like a regular whiteboard, even to the point of projecting outlines onto the screen and then highlighting them with a regular dry erase marker.
I've used the smartboards at a campus technology demo, and I think they could be a fantastic resource, but they are currently going nowhere.
Should you? I'm glad you asked those questions in parantheses, I suggest you find some good books on the subject. Try King Phillip's War by Drake, and Cherokee Removal by Perdue for starters.
You should take class about Native American societies, or at least read an authoritative work on the subject. The Iroquois people did indeed participate in the kind of 'genetic cleansing' that Europeans were also guilty of - granted both cleansings were directly or indirectly the result of viral warfare.
Let me explain, when European explorers started to settle and explore in North America they brought diseases with them that the Native population had been isolated from for centuries, if not millenia. These diseases wreaked tremendous havoc on the Natives - killing up 98% of the population! Often these deaths would occur after explorers (or a ship with an infected crewman sailing up the Ohio river) had past. When subsequent settlers would follow they would find the land almost empty of Natives, this led to the rise of the "virgin land" myth that claimed that the New World was underused, practically devoid of a Native population, and was ripe for the picking. Even the Puritans who settled in what would become New England took the fact that Native villages whose former population was dead in their streets was a sign from God that he was clearing out the country for his believers.
Ok ok, enough digressing. Now, The Iroquois people had a particular empassioned ritual called a Mourning War. When a member of their tribe was killed they would enter into this war against the tribe that had killed their citizen and exact retribution - sometimes capturing a member of the opposing tribe to serve as a substitute for the fallen, sometimes killing the one that had killed their person, or just killing someone in the opposing tribe.
When the Iroquois tribe was slaughtered by smallpox and other nasty diseases, the tribe entered into a Mourning War out of grief and loss and indiscriminately slaughtered their neighboring tribes until King Phillip's War disrupted the region. Now take a look at a South Carolinian tribe (sorry, I don't recall their name) - they captured and made slaves of tribes to the south and southwest, later making a business out of it by selling slaves to the Europeans.
None of this is to excuse the Europeans, but the relationship between the multitude of Native Tribes and the differing nationalities of the Europeans was MUCH more complicated than an exploiter/exploited dichotomy. esult of viral warfare. Let me explain, when European explorers started to settle and explore in North America they brought diseases with them that the Native population had been isolated from for centuries, if not millenia. These diseases wreaked tremendous havoc on the Natives - killing up 98% of the population! Often these deaths would occur after explorers (or a ship with an infected crewman sailing up the Ohio river) had past. When subsequent settlers would follow they would find the land almost empty of Natives, this led to the rise of the "virgin land" myth that claimed that the New World was underused, practically devoid of a Native population, and was ripe for the picking. Even the Puritans who settled in what would become New England took the fact that Native villages whose former population was dead in their streets was a sign from God that he was clearing out the country for his believers.
Ok ok, enough digressing. Now, The Iroquois people had a particular empassioned ritual called a Mourning War. When a member of their tribe was killed they would enter into this war against the tribe that had killed their citizen and exact retribution - sometimes capturing a member of the opposing tribe to serve as a substitute for the fallen, sometimes killing the one that had killed their person, or just killing someone in the opposing tribe. When the Iroquois tribe was slaughtered by smallpox and other nasty diseases, the tribe entered into a Mourning War out of grief and loss and indiscriminately slaughtered their neighboring tribes until King Phillip's War disrupted the region. Now take a look at a South Carolinian tribe (sorry, I don't recall their name) - they captured and made slaves of tribes to the south and southwest, later making a business out of it by selling slaves to the Europeans. None of this is to excuse the Europeans, but the relationship between the multitude of Native Tribes and the differing nationalities of the Europeans was MUCH more complicated than an exploiter/exploited dichotomy. Though in some cases, like the Cherokee removal of the 1830's, that relationship is practically right on. You just can't speak of the Native population as a cohesive group with one ideology, method of governing, culture, etc. Before the coming of Europeans there were 12,000 languages spoken in North America that we know of, of course the sound, grammer, and vocabulary of practically all of those languages is now, sadly, lost to us. The Tribes of North America were as, or more, varied than the countries of Europe (which, I assume, you already know not to group as one culture even though you seemed to indicate such in your posting).
The adventure series died. Look at the latest Kings Quest, or Quest for Glory V. No one bought them.
They need to make it have an incredible plot like a Resident Evil-type game, or a FPS.
Wait a minute...incredible plot like Resident Evil? Residient Evil? Or an FPS? An FPS???. Gosh sure, I guess RE had an incredible plot. I sure didn't see the plot twist that the Umbrella Corp. was evil and creating progressively tougher baddies the farther into the house you got. Or Quake2, that had a great plot...yep...it sure did - Hurry Hurry! The robo-dogs are gonna kill me unless I get this red key for some reason. Even Half-life didn't pretend that the basis of the game was its plot. RE, Half-Life...they sold atmosphere and Cool Factor (tm); Quake2 sold rocket launchers and Spiff Factor (tm).
I would love if if Adventure games made a comeback, I bought both the latest Kings Quest and Quest for Glory V, as well as Monkey Island 3, Gabriel Knight 3, and Grim Fandango.
Of course if everyone were like me then adventure games would rule the market instead of the latest point n' click pixel mover, and adventure gaming companies would realize that their games are fun they way they are (were) and have no need to pointlessly enter the 3d realm. Ah well....
I bring up the Seattle incident not to compare the two on a 1-to-1 basis but to demonstrate that even the US resorts to strong measures to keep a lid on protest movements.
If you were to *read* that book, and many others on the subject, you will understand that the CCP didn't order the deaths of any protestors. Their failing was not controlling their army effectively.
But anyhoo, you could say that the Seattle protestors were just as noble as the Tianamen protestors. Read that bit of my post, or better yet books!, about how the students only took a "noble" stance to justify their actions.
While they weren't looting and vandalizing they were effectively shutting down cities across the nation with anarcharnistic intent.
The movement wasn't exactly pro-democracy, it was anti-communist and anti-establishment. Which was easily equated to pro-US government democracy by CNN and the like.
A short summary of the Tianamen "incident" of 1989:
Originally it was a popular protest by students to restore the honor of CCP Secretary Hu Yaobang after his death. He was sympathetic to the growing democratic movement and was forced to resign (dishonorably) in 1987.
The request was denied and a hardline editoral was published which led to further protests.
As the movement grew larger and larger, and more and more out of control, it was moralized by the advancement of anti-corruption in the government. So they could be said to be disruptive for a morally correct reason.
The protests turned into a series of hunger strikes, and sympathetic protests in many other major cities.
The protests grew stronger and stronger, leading to the paralysis of the cities' normal operation.
During all this the CCP was split on the proper action to take. But they could tolerate such disruption only so much, and were fearful that this activity would grow so much that it woud lead to another cultural revolution.
By the time the cities had been "occupied" for more than a month, hard measures were decided upon.
The students were asked to peacefully leave, but they refused. During the month of protest their movement had become more and more radical, any moderate protest leaders had been driven out and removed from positions of power.
The government greatly wanted a calm ending to this movement but could see no other recourse but to forcefully remove the protestors, which turned quite ugly due to the radical nature of the protest by then and an overreaction by the army.
Any sort of pro-democratic spin on the movement was *only* added as part of a positive spin to win support and demonstrate that they (the students) were justified in their activity. But it was really more anarchy than democracy that the movement was representative of.
The CCP, whether through indecision, fear of bad press, or other factors, was incredibly patient with the protest. Can you really imagine any country allowing its cities to be occupied by a hostile, anti-government protest? Check out the story of the US reaction to the WTO protests in Seattle.
But don't just listen to me, go to your local library and check out some books on the subject. The excellent "Tianamen Papers" just came out last February, which documents much of the party actions that I've just described.
Acutally if you replace Fascism with Communism and Communism with Socialism then you get a correct statement. Socialism is the economic system upon which Communism is based, Fascism doesn't enter into the argument.
BTW, of course Communism has *something* to do with brainwashing but so does every other form of government. Regard the King as intellectually superior, regard the King as God, praise the market and competition as the leveling field of society, praise human integrety and goodwill as the leveling field of society: it's all gotta be indoctrinated as an ideal somehow which can be equated with "brainwashing".
I don't think so. In this scenario you've already stated that you are recording the conversation. You don't necesecarily have to say that you are recording the conversation on this or that recorder. Should the officer confiscate what he *assumes* to be the only recorder has no bearing on the fact that you said the conversation was being recorded.
Heck, the valley can't be all *that* great. Especially when viewing it from the inside of a homeless shelter. Most of these people are in a much better position than many homeless, some have methods of transportation and even contacts within those that are still affluent. So use the transportation, borrow a little money (50-100 bucks would be enough for gas and a little food), and strike out for better pickings.
As Americans are we somehow immune to the forced relocalization to those areas with enough jobs to live off of? Or maybe former dot-com wealth and the dream of recapturing it is a powerful enough lure to trap them there.
Well there are a ton of ways to make money that have nothing to do with the computer industry (directly). True, working outside of your field of expertise would probably be less enjoyable but, as far as these people are concerned, they might be a little more economically viable.
Working odd jobs (waiting tables, doing dishes, etc) may not be glamourous but it can get the rent paid and spare time can be used to research how to best "get back in the game".
To end this comment with an annoying platitude:
If your life plan hits a bump, slowdown, broken bridge, whatever; don't spin your wheels trying to charge forward. Change your perspective, change your plans, try something else. Life isn't a script, it's ad-libbed all the way.
I agree that the/. effect can be extremely hard on a network (it's quite like DoS attack now), but there are things you can do on the server side to compensate (somewhat) for it.
How about a script that (after the 2nd or 3rd try in under a minute) blocks that IP address? After some length of time (12, 24 hours?) that IP address could be removed from the "blocked" list.
Or disabling the slashdot "link", blocking requests to that direct link, and putting a.txt file in the directory advising users of an updated location. That way/.'ers will assume that the site has already been slashdotted and most won't go further into it, but others who are actually meant to get the software will probably go the extra step to grab it. et cetera, et cetera
It's been said before but it's worth saying again,
Textfiles.com is a terrific repository of a ton of the ol' BBS files. Go on and check out the coffee faq, woo!
Getting offtopic, but how about the game Hacker? It was an old 5.25 inch disk game for the 286/386. You put in the disk and the game started up at a login prompt for some system you were supposed to break into.
Heh, I bet that game wouldn't go over so well nowadays.:-)
"They look like first generation 3D cards did, with a texture slapped on something that resembles a circle."
Well sure, that's because that's what it is. Space is all a hoax and the back of the moon is cardboard and plywood.
"Methinks they could use a wee bit of FSAA around the edges there!"
FSAA == full screen anti aliasing. How would you apply that to the edges of the moon in that image exactly? And if it's already pixelated, anti aliasing it will just cover up (badly) the jagged edges and make for one fuzzy photo. What you want is more pixels.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah it would be good if their engine is running. ;-)
DMCA(f) reads:
`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
In other words, the DMCA requires that programmers be able to access parts of a computer program "to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs" (i.e. porting a windows program to linux). If that access isn't provided then the programmer can legally circumvent a technological measure that controls access to the essential parts of that program for the purposes of porting.
I say we should rally the EFF and call them on it.
Why yes, it was. I think the episode was called "Trilogy of Error." Certainly one of my top five favorite episodes too.
Of course I never drink the stuff. Have you ever tried Moxie?
(shudders at the memory)
It started off merely terrible, kind of like someone took the freakish creation of a terrible collision between two Dr. Pepper and Root Beer factories. Weird, overly sweet, and just...wrong - your brain gets two signals for two tastes at *same time*. It's what I imagine spicy ice cream would be like.
But it didn't stop there, oh no! Next came the aftertaste. I swallowed the stuff...the look of evil glee on my brother's face put me off a bit...and egad! It's like Moxie, rather than passing on quietly like an 18-Wheeler downshifting 20 feet away at 60 miles an hour, laughs and says, "Ha! You think I am rid of that easily??" and unleashs this hideous acidic taste sensation that coats your throat, mouth, tongue...and it won't go away! Five anonizing minutes, and two bottles of water, later it finally faded into ignorability.
Ahhh...Moxi not Moxie. Dang.
"Inflammable means flammable?! Boy, what a country."
- Dr. Nick Riviera, The Simpsons: "A Trilogy of Error"
The rubberband will be firing from your right hand, but you need both to load it.
You should now have a rubberband held at one end by your pinky, wrapped around your thumb, with the other end on the end of your index finger (looking just like one of those "hand" guns we all made as children). It is possible to load up another rubberband on your left hand, or put multiple bands on each hand but that interferes with their trajectory.
Sure the tech is cool and the potential is huge, but that makes no difference when the professors don't know how to use them!
For some strange reason UNC purchased a few smartboards but apparently neglected to teach its professors what they were, what they could do, and how to do it. I have had no less than four classes in one of the new smartboard rooms (which are also fully equiped with a dvd player, a vcr, a five speaker multimedia setup, a laptop (for the smartboard software and the web), and cable tv - all tied into a nifty touch screen interface on the podium and ALL un-used except for the vcr sometimes. All of the professors use it like a regular whiteboard, even to the point of projecting outlines onto the screen and then highlighting them with a regular dry erase marker.
I've used the smartboards at a campus technology demo, and I think they could be a fantastic resource, but they are currently going nowhere.
Should you? I'm glad you asked those questions in parantheses, I suggest you find some good books on the subject. Try King Phillip's War by Drake, and Cherokee Removal by Perdue for starters.
You should take class about Native American societies, or at least read an authoritative work on the subject. The Iroquois people did indeed participate in the kind of 'genetic cleansing' that Europeans were also guilty of - granted both cleansings were directly or indirectly the result of viral warfare.
Let me explain, when European explorers started to settle and explore in North America they brought diseases with them that the Native population had been isolated from for centuries, if not millenia. These diseases wreaked tremendous havoc on the Natives - killing up 98% of the population! Often these deaths would occur after explorers (or a ship with an infected crewman sailing up the Ohio river) had past. When subsequent settlers would follow they would find the land almost empty of Natives, this led to the rise of the "virgin land" myth that claimed that the New World was underused, practically devoid of a Native population, and was ripe for the picking. Even the Puritans who settled in what would become New England took the fact that Native villages whose former population was dead in their streets was a sign from God that he was clearing out the country for his believers.
Ok ok, enough digressing. Now, The Iroquois people had a particular empassioned ritual called a Mourning War. When a member of their tribe was killed they would enter into this war against the tribe that had killed their citizen and exact retribution - sometimes capturing a member of the opposing tribe to serve as a substitute for the fallen, sometimes killing the one that had killed their person, or just killing someone in the opposing tribe.
When the Iroquois tribe was slaughtered by smallpox and other nasty diseases, the tribe entered into a Mourning War out of grief and loss and indiscriminately slaughtered their neighboring tribes until King Phillip's War disrupted the region.
Now take a look at a South Carolinian tribe (sorry, I don't recall their name) - they captured and made slaves of tribes to the south and southwest, later making a business out of it by selling slaves to the Europeans.
None of this is to excuse the Europeans, but the relationship between the multitude of Native Tribes and the differing nationalities of the Europeans was MUCH more complicated than an exploiter/exploited dichotomy. esult of viral warfare. Let me explain, when European explorers started to settle and explore in North America they brought diseases with them that the Native population had been isolated from for centuries, if not millenia. These diseases wreaked tremendous havoc on the Natives - killing up 98% of the population! Often these deaths would occur after explorers (or a ship with an infected crewman sailing up the Ohio river) had past. When subsequent settlers would follow they would find the land almost empty of Natives, this led to the rise of the "virgin land" myth that claimed that the New World was underused, practically devoid of a Native population, and was ripe for the picking. Even the Puritans who settled in what would become New England took the fact that Native villages whose former population was dead in their streets was a sign from God that he was clearing out the country for his believers.
Ok ok, enough digressing. Now, The Iroquois people had a particular empassioned ritual called a Mourning War. When a member of their tribe was killed they would enter into this war against the tribe that had killed their citizen and exact retribution - sometimes capturing a member of the opposing tribe to serve as a substitute for the fallen, sometimes killing the one that had killed their person, or just killing someone in the opposing tribe.
When the Iroquois tribe was slaughtered by smallpox and other nasty diseases, the tribe entered into a Mourning War out of grief and loss and indiscriminately slaughtered their neighboring tribes until King Phillip's War disrupted the region.
Now take a look at a South Carolinian tribe (sorry, I don't recall their name) - they captured and made slaves of tribes to the south and southwest, later making a business out of it by selling slaves to the Europeans.
None of this is to excuse the Europeans, but the relationship between the multitude of Native Tribes and the differing nationalities of the Europeans was MUCH more complicated than an exploiter/exploited dichotomy. Though in some cases, like the Cherokee removal of the 1830's, that relationship is practically right on. You just can't speak of the Native population as a cohesive group with one ideology, method of governing, culture, etc. Before the coming of Europeans there were 12,000 languages spoken in North America that we know of, of course the sound, grammer, and vocabulary of practically all of those languages is now, sadly, lost to us. The Tribes of North America were as, or more, varied than the countries of Europe (which, I assume, you already know not to group as one culture even though you seemed to indicate such in your posting).
Malcom in the Middle is pretty hilarious, but one show isn't enough to run a network on...just look at UPN.
The adventure series died. Look at the latest Kings Quest, or Quest for Glory V. No one bought them.
They need to make it have an incredible plot like a Resident Evil-type game, or a FPS.
Wait a minute...incredible plot like Resident Evil? Residient Evil? Or an FPS? An FPS???. Gosh sure, I guess RE had an incredible plot. I sure didn't see the plot twist that the Umbrella Corp. was evil and creating progressively tougher baddies the farther into the house you got. Or Quake2, that had a great plot...yep...it sure did - Hurry Hurry! The robo-dogs are gonna kill me unless I get this red key for some reason. Even Half-life didn't pretend that the basis of the game was its plot. RE, Half-Life...they sold atmosphere and Cool Factor (tm); Quake2 sold rocket launchers and Spiff Factor (tm).
I would love if if Adventure games made a comeback, I bought both the latest Kings Quest and Quest for Glory V, as well as Monkey Island 3, Gabriel Knight 3, and Grim Fandango.
Of course if everyone were like me then adventure games would rule the market instead of the latest point n' click pixel mover, and adventure gaming companies would realize that their games are fun they way they are (were) and have no need to pointlessly enter the 3d realm. Ah well....
I bring up the Seattle incident not to compare the two on a 1-to-1 basis but to demonstrate that even the US resorts to strong measures to keep a lid on protest movements.
If you were to *read* that book, and many others on the subject, you will understand that the CCP didn't order the deaths of any protestors. Their failing was not controlling their army effectively.
But anyhoo, you could say that the Seattle protestors were just as noble as the Tianamen protestors. Read that bit of my post, or better yet books!, about how the students only took a "noble" stance to justify their actions.
While they weren't looting and vandalizing they were effectively shutting down cities across the nation with anarcharnistic intent.
The movement wasn't exactly pro-democracy, it was anti-communist and anti-establishment. Which was easily equated to pro-US government democracy by CNN and the like.
Okay, you twisted my arm...
A short summary of the Tianamen "incident" of 1989:
Originally it was a popular protest by students to restore the honor of CCP Secretary Hu Yaobang after his death. He was sympathetic to the growing democratic movement and was forced to resign (dishonorably) in 1987.
The request was denied and a hardline editoral was published which led to further protests.
As the movement grew larger and larger, and more and more out of control, it was moralized by the advancement of anti-corruption in the government. So they could be said to be disruptive for a morally correct reason.
The protests turned into a series of hunger strikes, and sympathetic protests in many other major cities.
The protests grew stronger and stronger, leading to the paralysis of the cities' normal operation.
During all this the CCP was split on the proper action to take. But they could tolerate such disruption only so much, and were fearful that this activity would grow so much that it woud lead to another cultural revolution.
By the time the cities had been "occupied" for more than a month, hard measures were decided upon.
The students were asked to peacefully leave, but they refused. During the month of protest their movement had become more and more radical, any moderate protest leaders had been driven out and removed from positions of power.
The government greatly wanted a calm ending to this movement but could see no other recourse but to forcefully remove the protestors, which turned quite ugly due to the radical nature of the protest by then and an overreaction by the army.
Any sort of pro-democratic spin on the movement was *only* added as part of a positive spin to win support and demonstrate that they (the students) were justified in their activity. But it was really more anarchy than democracy that the movement was representative of.
The CCP, whether through indecision, fear of bad press, or other factors, was incredibly patient with the protest. Can you really imagine any country allowing its cities to be occupied by a hostile, anti-government protest? Check out the story of the US reaction to the WTO protests in Seattle.
But don't just listen to me, go to your local library and check out some books on the subject. The excellent "Tianamen Papers" just came out last February, which documents much of the party actions that I've just described.
Hey what about me? Am I being denied the possibility of a life on Mars? Evolution intentionally deprived me of my autonomy!
Acutally if you replace Fascism with Communism and Communism with Socialism then you get a correct statement. Socialism is the economic system upon which Communism is based, Fascism doesn't enter into the argument.
BTW, of course Communism has *something* to do with brainwashing but so does every other form of government. Regard the King as intellectually superior, regard the King as God, praise the market and competition as the leveling field of society, praise human integrety and goodwill as the leveling field of society: it's all gotta be indoctrinated as an ideal somehow which can be equated with "brainwashing".
I don't think so. In this scenario you've already stated that you are recording the conversation. You don't necesecarily have to say that you are recording the conversation on this or that recorder. Should the officer confiscate what he *assumes* to be the only recorder has no bearing on the fact that you said the conversation was being recorded.
Heck, the valley can't be all *that* great. Especially when viewing it from the inside of a homeless shelter. Most of these people are in a much better position than many homeless, some have methods of transportation and even contacts within those that are still affluent. So use the transportation, borrow a little money (50-100 bucks would be enough for gas and a little food), and strike out for better pickings.
As Americans are we somehow immune to the forced relocalization to those areas with enough jobs to live off of? Or maybe former dot-com wealth and the dream of recapturing it is a powerful enough lure to trap them there.
Well there are a ton of ways to make money that have nothing to do with the computer industry (directly). True, working outside of your field of expertise would probably be less enjoyable but, as far as these people are concerned, they might be a little more economically viable.
Working odd jobs (waiting tables, doing dishes, etc) may not be glamourous but it can get the rent paid and spare time can be used to research how to best "get back in the game".
To end this comment with an annoying platitude:
If your life plan hits a bump, slowdown, broken bridge, whatever; don't spin your wheels trying to charge forward. Change your perspective, change your plans, try something else. Life isn't a script, it's ad-libbed all the way.
I agree that the /. effect can be extremely hard on a network (it's quite like DoS attack now), but there are things you can do on the server side to compensate (somewhat) for it.
.txt file in the directory advising users of an updated location. That way /.'ers will assume that the site has already been slashdotted and most won't go further into it, but others who are actually meant to get the software will probably go the extra step to grab it. et cetera, et cetera
How about a script that (after the 2nd or 3rd try in under a minute) blocks that IP address? After some length of time (12, 24 hours?) that IP address could be removed from the "blocked" list.
Or disabling the slashdot "link", blocking requests to that direct link, and putting a
So that world in Planetfall was actually Earth of the future? :-)
SEENIK VISTA
Xis stuneeng vuu uf xee Kalamontee Valee kuvurz oovur fortee skwaar miilz uf xatfaamus tuurist spot. Xee larj bildeeng at xee bend in xee Gulmaan Rivur iz xee formur pravincul kapitul bildeeng.
I guess I have to say something. Sooo...go visit Lileks. Dogs think we can read their minds!
It's been said before but it's worth saying again, Textfiles.com is a terrific repository of a ton of the ol' BBS files. Go on and check out the coffee faq, woo!
Getting offtopic, but how about the game Hacker? It was an old 5.25 inch disk game for the 286/386. You put in the disk and the game started up at a login prompt for some system you were supposed to break into.
:-)
Heh, I bet that game wouldn't go over so well nowadays.
yep, it's titled (oddly enough) "We Want a Rock" and is off of their 1990 Flood CD.
Try roller coaster :-)
"They look like first generation 3D cards did, with a texture slapped on something that resembles a circle."
Well sure, that's because that's what it is. Space is all a hoax and the back of the moon is cardboard and plywood.
"Methinks they could use a wee bit of FSAA around the edges there!"
FSAA == full screen anti aliasing. How would you apply that to the edges of the moon in that image exactly? And if it's already pixelated, anti aliasing it will just cover up (badly) the jagged edges and make for one fuzzy photo. What you want is more pixels.
Riiiight, what about Dave Scott? He's the only athlete to win the ironman triathlon more than twice (6 times actually) and he is indeed a vegetarian.