Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark is number one on my favorite books of all time. You will find that due to the way the essays are ordered, it is a bit difficult to get started, but fortunately, you can read the chapters in any order.
If you only read 3 things in the book, read the introduction, The chapter: "The Dragon in My Garage" and the Chapter: "The Baloney Detection Kit."
The rest is gravy. I did find that the first chapter on UFO's was very hard to get through, but Dragon and Baloney are the true gems of the work. There are other good essays near the end of the book as well.
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
"It's not like I'm using," Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.
Sparring is more dynamic than wooden dummies. The wooden dummy does not provide the user with actual combat experience. The wooden dummy trains form, speed, and reaction. I'm sure your Sifu will agree with me. Regardless, the product is being advertised as an alternative to a sparring partner, which I disagree with.
I agree that it cannot fully replace a human sparring partner, maybe someday, but certanly not now. The wooden dummy does train exactly what you mention, I also find that it trains power in technique - that is, you can follow through will full power with proper technique, an d not hurt either yourself, or the dummy. (If you make a mistake in your form (i.e. improper angle of fist and knuckles) it HURTS. (As an aside, the first time I was given the dummy to use, within the first 5 min, I had "counterpunched" my right bicep quite severely on one of the arms with improper foot position. That was not fun.)
I would like an active partner that I could just go full out on though. I have sparred with the gear etc, but even then, I cant use eye jabs, groin grabs/strikes (even if they have a cup) elbow strikes to the face, joint breaks etc. So, I agree. It cannot supplant a sparring partner, but I would like something "lively" that I can go full out on without worrying about actually hurting someone.
I have not seen how Gollum was created. Note that mechanical movements involve a lot more than what you have in mind -- it is not just software nor is it motion capture. To determine movement, a processor requires image frames. If the algorithm requires 5 frames to determine movement with a camera running at 60FPS, that is already 1/12 of a second. Motors also need to ramp up. If image processing is used for "dodging", then their claim that the dummy can dodge punches is unlikely.
Andy Serkis wore a body suit with positioning markers, and his body movements were tracked in real time by computers and cameras. Additional animation was required, but the movement of his "avatar" covered every joint and bone in his body in real time to an accuracy more than required for a computer to manipulate a sparring partner.
As for motors, I believe that this uses solinoids which do not need to ramp up - but there are even motors that can outperform human muscles in this regard, but they are currently expensive. Indeed, if you put enough power into the proper motor type, it could probably hit hard and fast enough to kill. (Which is not something one would want) The drawback would be the mass of this android. It needs to be light enough to be human like when you hit it, and not be a block of iron. (Although that might make for interesting training - I have trained with people that I thought were made of Iron... One guy who was a body builder and 250 lbs comes to mind...)
There is a few reasons why I doubt the usefulness of this robot.
There are a few reasons why I like this robot, and had considered the idea myself before:
1) To develop an "android" with "human-like" combative movements is unlikely at this point in time. The Actroid shown in the videos here is quite advanced in mimicing human motions, but the movements are very jerky and the motor control is very obvious.
I have trained for 9 years in Wing Chun, and one of my training aids has been a wooden dummy. It does not move unless you hit it, and even then, while it can help with your form, it cannot activly strike you. So what if the android is jerky at this time? It moves better than a hunk of wood! Plus, untrained combatants move in a very jerky and telegraphing fashion. Trained opponents do not. I would choose to practice with an android that I could hit as hard as a wooden dummy. After all, I cannot go full out on a training opponent as I would injure them. I cannot injure a wooden dummy, and if this andoid is build correctly, I doubt you would be able to.
2) The previous point leads to another problem. Training with a mechnical dummy is detrimental to gaining actual combat experience. The "android" will , no doubt, move in a series of jerky movements predefined by state machines. A human fighter flows from one move to another. The android can't help replicate real combat unless it has physics and advanced algorithms programmed into it. Also, the android shown in the picture seems to be stationary. Boxing and martial arts is very dynamic, so the android serves more like a game than a serious combat trainer.
Part of the problem with "actual" training experience, at least with Wing Chun, is that most of the techniques I have learned are not "sparring safe". Sure, I have sparred often, but the most effective techniques would cause grevious injury on a partner if practiced full out. Hence the existance of the wooden dummy, which again, does not move. If you train your muscle memory for "point sparring" in a real fight, you will tend to hit with point-sparring force, which does almost no damage (unless it is an eye-jab). You need to train to hit an opponent with real force to have a real effect.
3) The article claims that the android can dodge punches. I say that it can't. It takes a fist less than a quarter of a second to travel from the ready position to the opponent's face. The microprocessor needs to do image processing to realize that the fist is moving towards a specific area, which will require many image frames before it can actually determine the fist movements. And even if the microprocessor was able to act fast enough, I haven't seen any motors that can rotate fast enough.
I disagree. No matter how fast you may think your fists are, that microprocessor is considerably faster. Do you know how fast the scanning method scans for movement? Did you see how Gollum was created for LOTR? If the camera is running at a slow 60Hz, that is faster than the human eye, and you can certanly get faster response times.
4) Cost. A stepping side-kick has tremedous amount of force. If a kick can knock a human 10 feet back, I doubt that the android can sustain its working condition after numerous attacks. When it breaks down, how much would it cost to get it serviced?
A stepping side kick has a tremendous amount of force indeed - this only looks like it was designed for boxing, but when it gets beyond that, I have no doubt that a suitable amount of steel within the skeleton can handle any side kick. Have you ever tried to kick a well made wooden dummy? A side kick does nothing to it, and it is made of wood. I have seen very think PVC dummies that even the most powerful sidekick could not damage. The only areas that I would have cause for concern on this is the joint articulation - and that could be engineered properly too. After all, I am willing to bet that the ball joints on your car take more "hits" than your elbows do, and a car ball joint i
I misread the title, and thought it was Ziff Davies and not Znet. As soon as I saw that an image flashed through my mind: "John Dvorak endorses Richard Stallman's philosphy as hell has frozen over."
Excellent, if you live in a coastal city, you'll get to know that you have 20 minutes left to live...
According to the SAS Survival manual by John Weisman - if a Tsunami is inbound your best defense is to be over 1km inland or 100ft above sea level.
In many (not all) places you would have time to do either of these. You also have the option of quickly heading out to sea as the Tsunami only has effects at shallow depths (right by the coastline). So, an additional 20 min could indeed save a huge number of lives.
I would also add, that you might not be safe even 1km inland if you were withing a natural "funnel" like a trianglar river delta with highlands on each side...
Republicans and Democrats aren't the same, and we don't need a third party. We just need a government that gives a shit about civil rights.
I never really understood this aspect of the American political system, perhaps it is because I am Canadian, and I have so many parties to choose from - especially in the upcoming election we are about to have...
If you are in the U.S. it seems to me that you can choose either the left, or the right. There is no middle ground. Indeed, the terminology in the states only supports "left" or "right" no "up, down" or anything else. It is my feeling that a whole host of problems result from this aspect of the system. Yes, I am biased, but IMO, the 2 party system is horrifically broken. IIRC there were other parties in the U.S. earlier, I think that the Moose party was one, but I have not looked into U.S. political history in some time.
I guess I just feel that if I had a choice of Repulican, or Democrat, and I did not like either I would not even bother to vote. To me, it represents a lack of choice, and therefore a lack of freedom. But then again, I live in a society that has multiple party freedom.
I play Half Life 2 deathmatch, and my "spray" is animated, of a (real) woman lifting her shirt and her boobs jiggling out.
Big deal.
However, whenever I use this spray, some gamer, obviously male, stops and gawks at the boobies. Therefore, I shoot him in the head.
You could say she has a killer body.
Seriously though, men look because we are MEN, and sadly, not all men want intelligent women, and we buy most of the games. It would be nice if intelligent female characters (with normal proportions) could attract more female gamers. But I doubt it. The types of games we play (as men) have a disproportionate ratio of men to women. Some of that is social, some of it is genetics.
Games offer unrealistic women because it sells - although I thought that the first Lara Croft WAS intelligent compared to anything that had come before...
As it is, I will still use my boobie spray, and get myself boobie kills.
We look forward to having you back, by the way! While there are those here on/. who opposed the war, politically, I think we all wished you (and all the other soldiers there) nothing but the best. Our thanks for a difficult job.
One can oppose the war without opposing the individuals fighting in it. The soldiers are in Iraq because they were ordered to be. They are given orders, and do their best to carry them out. They should not be disrespected for that, indeed, they should be commended.
However, if the leaders have issued bad orders, then the soldiers and the army suffers. One can oppose the decisions of these leaders and the result, yet still want the troops to return home unharmed.
Enough of my customers don't understand REGULAR DNS, nevermind secure DNS. The only way that this is likely to be adopted is to have the top level name servers eventually require the secure extensions. I doubt, however, that that will happen.
As it is now, I have my users going to their registrars and "deleting the 'A' records because: "There is no A on my website."
As buying it implies intended use that is not covered by warranty--- and denying the claim entirely.
And this, IMO is fair. After all, if you flash it, and you brick it, and then you try to warranty it, you are really cheating Linksys. They are telling you, Hey we will support you UNLESS YOU DO X. So you do X it breaks, and then you claim warranty? That is duplicitous.
It would be like backing over it in your car, and then saying "I dunno what when wrong with it.." The only difference being that Linksys could tell if you backed over it in your car, in this case they cannot. Linksys is a company that exists to make a profit. Bricking your router by doing something non-warranty safe and getting a replacement is unfair to Linksys - big faceless corporation or not.
The question I've had for a while is whether or not I can as a distributor legaly hack a linksys router and drop our own distro on it, and give those out to customers. At a much more affordable price.
I dont see why NOT, once you own the router, you can back over it in your car if you want to. Just dont expect any kind of support from Linksys - but for your hardware dollar savings, the lack of warranty support will likely be worth it.
Use DD-WRT instead of Sevasoft's version. Sevasoft is acting overly paranoid and kicking users off their forums. While Sevasoft should be entitled to payment for their work, their behavior is awful.
Try dd-wrt over sevasoft - version.22 has great QoS (Version.23 is still beta)
It's great that Linksys released the source, but it's not because they wanted to. They got caught using GPL code and were forced to open it or deal with lawsuits.
This is true, and I knew it prior to buying - but that does not change the fact that they HAVE released the code, and look at what has happened - if you check out their downloads page there is MORE than just the WRT54G in there, and they have even rolled some of the hacks back into the official releases. The GPL contains the clauses it does so companies do exactly what Linksys has done.
Linksys has probably found that opening the source has been advantageous to them - think about it, the latest version even specifies linux by appending an "L" after the model name.
So whether their intent initally was to obey the GPL or not, they do now, and I will support them. Again, I suspect they have found opening the source has been very benificial to them.
Can you run an MTA on it? An X server? And if you could, why? Doesn't that go against the "let the firewall be the firewall and not host a bunch of other crap on it"?
Fair point, but it is more than a firewall, it is ALSO a router. The stock version does not, for example support SNMP (yes, I know about the problems with SNMP) - and, as another poster pointed out, you can custom script IPTables on it. Heck, you can even run SNORT on it, and who knows, possibly HOGWASH.
But lets say you do use it for a mail server, or apache or something else. It consumes VERY little power compared to a PC. It has (at the very least) a 200 mhz MIPS processor. This is more than enough to compensate for light jobs - why pay the power bill on a large PC when you can have a much smaller device to boot? Have you noticed how much room this thing takes up compared to a PC? It also has no fans - it is silent. It lasts FOREVER if you put it on a UPS supply!:)
If you really wanted a good, cheap firewall, check out Smoothwall. Get a $10 crappy PC.. throw in 2 NE2000 (or similar) ISA based NICs (you've probably thrown them away before.. I have). Then you have a very VERY useful firewall, that DOES a helluva lot more than these little failure prone Linksys devices.
The only failue I have had with one of these so far is that I left the office router on top of one of my CRT's and it started going haywire. I could not figure out why - until I realized being on top of the CRT I was causing it to overheat. The office router runs dd-wrt, and since we have 2 offices, and when the second office phones with problems, instead of running next door, I use SSH. (Sadly, it is usually someone accidentally tripping over the power cord...):p
And yes, I used to love the Linksys hardware, but now I have a pile of dead ones from my clients and from personal use. Smoothwall is running and -ZERO- failures as of yet. as long as you dont let it overheat (or run something that is going to wear out the ram), I would guess that one of these would be just as reliable - if not moreso - than a smoothwall PC. (Zero moving parts)
I wish I had the chutzpah to do it. I'm staring at that unit right now. My big concern with it is if it fails for whatever reason it's probably fried, and I honestly can't afford another one right now. Any cheerful words concerning how easy it was or something like that might convince me to push the red button, but I haven't done it yet...
Just do a little reasearch on your specific model, so you know exactly which version you have. Then, install dd-wrt for your model of router. In fact, if you post your exact model of router here I am fairly certain a kindly slashdotter will give you the specific version required. (As long as they are not trolling, heck, if you reply to this I will even tell you what specific version of dd-wrt binary you need) I have flashed a number of WRT's, each with dd-wrt and the directions here are the best:
I bought the WRT54G ver 1.1 because of its hackability, at the time I was using a Microsoft router (I got it for $10, so I used that) but I bought the Linksys because of the neato factor. Then, I ended up ditching the MS router, because the Linksys with updated firmware is just the bomb. I told all my friends, one, a consultant, began buying WRT54G's for his customers because he could remote SSH into them and open ports etc to maintain their systems. It gave all kinds of flexibility.
I reccomended this model to everyone I knew - we use them at work now, and employees at work have bought them now on my reccomendation. I sent linksys an email thanking them for the GPLed version, and letting Linksys know I was reccomending this model to people.
I was dissapointed with the recent story of the non-linux version, however, with the release of the GL version, I am very impressed by Linksys indeed. Yes, it will probably cost a little more due to the better ram, but hey, I WANT the better ram! (Still seriously considering the flashcard hack...)
For those who care, my router runs:
dd-wrt version.22 WRTBlog Uses SMB to save information to one of my network machines Uses SNMP and MRTG (on network machine) to monitor bandwith (on top of bwlog)
These are worthy additions to your WRT. I am considering purchasing another and running kismet on it for wardrivng.:p
-- So, thank you Linksys, for releasing the source, and maintaining the WRT line.
I have been looking for either a DIY FM transmitter for the pc, or an inexpensive one that I can increase the range on. I remember an older slashdot story that had one that was something on the order of 2 watts, but googling has turned up very little (so far I have found extraneous FM devices, and all the PC based ones are mostly irrelevant results.)
Therefore, just in time for Christmas, the perfect slashdot article!:)
I looked at that test, and it was annoying. I doubt I could have got 100% on it, yet, I have never been nailed by phishing spam.
What was annoying? I was supposed to judge the validity of the emails from a jpeg - not from looking at the acutal links on the email. I mean, if I get an email from my bank, and the URL that they send me is NOT the same as my banks - then I know it is phishing spam. I do this because I can tell by the domain/subdomain in the links - not by how the mail "looks".
Having said that, I have barely seen mails from my OWN bank, but many phishing spams from others.
Looking at the URL (and understanding how domains and subdomains work) certanly helps with phishing spam - not just knowing that "your passw3rd hazz expireddc" is probably not valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark is number one on my favorite books of all time. You will find that due to the way the essays are ordered, it is a bit difficult to get started, but fortunately, you can read the chapters in any order.
If you only read 3 things in the book, read the introduction, The chapter: "The Dragon in My Garage" and the Chapter: "The Baloney Detection Kit."
The rest is gravy. I did find that the first chapter on UFO's was very hard to get through, but Dragon and Baloney are the true gems of the work. There are other good essays near the end of the book as well.
Meh, I did not feel like flipping through for that. It was easier to get the opening. :p
To Case:
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
"It's not like I'm using," Case heard someone say, as he shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there for a week and never hear two words in Japanese.
Sparring is more dynamic than wooden dummies. The wooden dummy does not provide the user with actual combat experience. The wooden dummy trains form, speed, and reaction. I'm sure your Sifu will agree with me. Regardless, the product is being advertised as an alternative to a sparring partner, which I disagree with.
I agree that it cannot fully replace a human sparring partner, maybe someday, but certanly not now. The wooden dummy does train exactly what you mention, I also find that it trains power in technique - that is, you can follow through will full power with proper technique, an d not hurt either yourself, or the dummy. (If you make a mistake in your form (i.e. improper angle of fist and knuckles) it HURTS. (As an aside, the first time I was given the dummy to use, within the first 5 min, I had "counterpunched" my right bicep quite severely on one of the arms with improper foot position. That was not fun.)
I would like an active partner that I could just go full out on though. I have sparred with the gear etc, but even then, I cant use eye jabs, groin grabs/strikes (even if they have a cup) elbow strikes to the face, joint breaks etc. So, I agree. It cannot supplant a sparring partner, but I would like something "lively" that I can go full out on without worrying about actually hurting someone.
I have not seen how Gollum was created. Note that mechanical movements involve a lot more than what you have in mind -- it is not just software nor is it motion capture. To determine movement, a processor requires image frames. If the algorithm requires 5 frames to determine movement with a camera running at 60FPS, that is already 1/12 of a second. Motors also need to ramp up. If image processing is used for "dodging", then their claim that the dummy can dodge punches is unlikely.
Andy Serkis wore a body suit with positioning markers, and his body movements were tracked in real time by computers and cameras. Additional animation was required, but the movement of his "avatar" covered every joint and bone in his body in real time to an accuracy more than required for a computer to manipulate a sparring partner.
As for motors, I believe that this uses solinoids which do not need to ramp up - but there are even motors that can outperform human muscles in this regard, but they are currently expensive. Indeed, if you put enough power into the proper motor type, it could probably hit hard and fast enough to kill. (Which is not something one would want) The drawback would be the mass of this android. It needs to be light enough to be human like when you hit it, and not be a block of iron. (Although that might make for interesting training - I have trained with people that I thought were made of Iron... One guy who was a body builder and 250 lbs comes to mind...)
There is a few reasons why I doubt the usefulness of this robot.
There are a few reasons why I like this robot, and had considered the idea myself before:
1) To develop an "android" with "human-like" combative movements is unlikely at this point in time. The Actroid shown in the videos here is quite advanced in mimicing human motions, but the movements are very jerky and the motor control is very obvious.
I have trained for 9 years in Wing Chun, and one of my training aids has been a wooden dummy. It does not move unless you hit it, and even then, while it can help with your form, it cannot activly strike you. So what if the android is jerky at this time? It moves better than a hunk of wood! Plus, untrained combatants move in a very jerky and telegraphing fashion. Trained opponents do not. I would choose to practice with an android that I could hit as hard as a wooden dummy. After all, I cannot go full out on a training opponent as I would injure them. I cannot injure a wooden dummy, and if this andoid is build correctly, I doubt you would be able to.
2) The previous point leads to another problem. Training with a mechnical dummy is detrimental to gaining actual combat experience. The "android" will , no doubt, move in a series of jerky movements predefined by state machines. A human fighter flows from one move to another. The android can't help replicate real combat unless it has physics and advanced algorithms programmed into it. Also, the android shown in the picture seems to be stationary. Boxing and martial arts is very dynamic, so the android serves more like a game than a serious combat trainer.
Part of the problem with "actual" training experience, at least with Wing Chun, is that most of the techniques I have learned are not "sparring safe". Sure, I have sparred often, but the most effective techniques would cause grevious injury on a partner if practiced full out. Hence the existance of the wooden dummy, which again, does not move. If you train your muscle memory for "point sparring" in a real fight, you will tend to hit with point-sparring force, which does almost no damage (unless it is an eye-jab). You need to train to hit an opponent with real force to have a real effect.
3) The article claims that the android can dodge punches. I say that it can't. It takes a fist less than a quarter of a second to travel from the ready position to the opponent's face. The microprocessor needs to do image processing to realize that the fist is moving towards a specific area, which will require many image frames before it can actually determine the fist movements. And even if the microprocessor was able to act fast enough, I haven't seen any motors that can rotate fast enough.
I disagree. No matter how fast you may think your fists are, that microprocessor is considerably faster. Do you know how fast the scanning method scans for movement? Did you see how Gollum was created for LOTR? If the camera is running at a slow 60Hz, that is faster than the human eye, and you can certanly get faster response times.
4) Cost. A stepping side-kick has tremedous amount of force. If a kick can knock a human 10 feet back, I doubt that the android can sustain its working condition after numerous attacks. When it breaks down, how much would it cost to get it serviced?
A stepping side kick has a tremendous amount of force indeed - this only looks like it was designed for boxing, but when it gets beyond that, I have no doubt that a suitable amount of steel within the skeleton can handle any side kick. Have you ever tried to kick a well made wooden dummy? A side kick does nothing to it, and it is made of wood. I have seen very think PVC dummies that even the most powerful sidekick could not damage. The only areas that I would have cause for concern on this is the joint articulation - and that could be engineered properly too. After all, I am willing to bet that the ball joints on your car take more "hits" than your elbows do, and a car ball joint i
Great, all we need now are robots looking in mirrors wondering if their butt is too big...
Already got one of those thanks.
I misread the title, and thought it was Ziff Davies and not Znet. As soon as I saw that an image flashed through my mind: "John Dvorak endorses Richard Stallman's philosphy as hell has frozen over."
Scary that.
A slashbot that stopped radioactive dupes would be great.
(Note, if someone has already made this comment, and therefore, my comment is a dupe, the robot could have prevented that too... Maybe a robot mod?)
(I think I am going to end up in Troll hell for this one. Ah well, been over 5 years since I have had a comment at -1...)
Excellent, if you live in a coastal city, you'll get to know that you have 20 minutes left to live...
According to the SAS Survival manual by John Weisman - if a Tsunami is inbound your best defense is to be over 1km inland or 100ft above sea level.
In many (not all) places you would have time to do either of these. You also have the option of quickly heading out to sea as the Tsunami only has effects at shallow depths (right by the coastline). So, an additional 20 min could indeed save a huge number of lives.
I would also add, that you might not be safe even 1km inland if you were withing a natural "funnel" like a trianglar river delta with highlands on each side...
Republicans and Democrats aren't the same, and we don't need a third party. We just need a government that gives a shit about civil rights.
I never really understood this aspect of the American political system, perhaps it is because I am Canadian, and I have so many parties to choose from - especially in the upcoming election we are about to have...
If you are in the U.S. it seems to me that you can choose either the left, or the right. There is no middle ground. Indeed, the terminology in the states only supports "left" or "right" no "up, down" or anything else. It is my feeling that a whole host of problems result from this aspect of the system. Yes, I am biased, but IMO, the 2 party system is horrifically broken. IIRC there were other parties in the U.S. earlier, I think that the Moose party was one, but I have not looked into U.S. political history in some time.
I guess I just feel that if I had a choice of Repulican, or Democrat, and I did not like either I would not even bother to vote. To me, it represents a lack of choice, and therefore a lack of freedom. But then again, I live in a society that has multiple party freedom.
Ouch.
Had similar things when using really crappy ssh/telnet programs too. Thank god for Putty.
I wonder if it is abusing him NOW.
Wonder if Andrew will cite that entry or not?
I play Half Life 2 deathmatch, and my "spray" is animated, of a (real) woman lifting her shirt and her boobs jiggling out.
Big deal.
However, whenever I use this spray, some gamer, obviously male, stops and gawks at the boobies. Therefore, I shoot him in the head.
You could say she has a killer body.
Seriously though, men look because we are MEN, and sadly, not all men want intelligent women, and we buy most of the games. It would be nice if intelligent female characters (with normal proportions) could attract more female gamers. But I doubt it. The types of games we play (as men) have a disproportionate ratio of men to women. Some of that is social, some of it is genetics.
Games offer unrealistic women because it sells - although I thought that the first Lara Croft WAS intelligent compared to anything that had come before...
As it is, I will still use my boobie spray, and get myself boobie kills.
We look forward to having you back, by the way! While there are those here on /. who opposed the war, politically, I think we all wished you (and all the other soldiers there) nothing but the best. Our thanks for a difficult job.
One can oppose the war without opposing the individuals fighting in it. The soldiers are in Iraq because they were ordered to be. They are given orders, and do their best to carry them out. They should not be disrespected for that, indeed, they should be commended.
However, if the leaders have issued bad orders, then the soldiers and the army suffers. One can oppose the decisions of these leaders and the result, yet still want the troops to return home unharmed.
Enough of my customers don't understand REGULAR DNS, nevermind secure DNS. The only way that this is likely to be adopted is to have the top level name servers eventually require the secure extensions. I doubt, however, that that will happen.
As it is now, I have my users going to their registrars and "deleting the 'A' records because: "There is no A on my website."
As buying it implies intended use that is not covered by warranty--- and denying the claim entirely.
And this, IMO is fair. After all, if you flash it, and you brick it, and then you try to warranty it, you are really cheating Linksys. They are telling you, Hey we will support you UNLESS YOU DO X. So you do X it breaks, and then you claim warranty? That is duplicitous.
It would be like backing over it in your car, and then saying "I dunno what when wrong with it.." The only difference being that Linksys could tell if you backed over it in your car, in this case they cannot. Linksys is a company that exists to make a profit. Bricking your router by doing something non-warranty safe and getting a replacement is unfair to Linksys - big faceless corporation or not.
The question I've had for a while is whether or not I can as a distributor legaly hack a linksys router and drop our own distro on it, and give those out to customers. At a much more affordable price.
I dont see why NOT, once you own the router, you can back over it in your car if you want to. Just dont expect any kind of support from Linksys - but for your hardware dollar savings, the lack of warranty support will likely be worth it.
Use DD-WRT instead of Sevasoft's version. Sevasoft is acting overly paranoid and kicking users off their forums. While Sevasoft should be entitled to payment for their work, their behavior is awful.
.22 has great QoS (Version .23 is still beta)
Try dd-wrt over sevasoft - version
It's great that Linksys released the source, but it's not because they wanted to. They got caught using GPL code and were forced to open it or deal with lawsuits.
This is true, and I knew it prior to buying - but that does not change the fact that they HAVE released the code, and look at what has happened - if you check out their downloads page there is MORE than just the WRT54G in there, and they have even rolled some of the hacks back into the official releases. The GPL contains the clauses it does so companies do exactly what Linksys has done.
Linksys has probably found that opening the source has been advantageous to them - think about it, the latest version even specifies linux by appending an "L" after the model name.
So whether their intent initally was to obey the GPL or not, they do now, and I will support them. Again, I suspect they have found opening the source has been very benificial to them.
Can you run an MTA on it? An X server? And if you could, why? Doesn't that go against the "let the firewall be the firewall and not host a bunch of other crap on it"?
:)
.. throw in 2 NE2000 (or similar) ISA based NICs (you've probably thrown them away before .. I have). Then you have a very VERY useful firewall, that DOES a helluva lot more than these little failure prone Linksys devices.
:p
Fair point, but it is more than a firewall, it is ALSO a router. The stock version does not, for example support SNMP (yes, I know about the problems with SNMP) - and, as another poster pointed out, you can custom script IPTables on it. Heck, you can even run SNORT on it, and who knows, possibly HOGWASH.
But lets say you do use it for a mail server, or apache or something else. It consumes VERY little power compared to a PC. It has (at the very least) a 200 mhz MIPS processor. This is more than enough to compensate for light jobs - why pay the power bill on a large PC when you can have a much smaller device to boot? Have you noticed how much room this thing takes up compared to a PC? It also has no fans - it is silent. It lasts FOREVER if you put it on a UPS supply!
If you really wanted a good, cheap firewall, check out Smoothwall. Get a $10 crappy PC
The only failue I have had with one of these so far is that I left the office router on top of one of my CRT's and it started going haywire. I could not figure out why - until I realized being on top of the CRT I was causing it to overheat. The office router runs dd-wrt, and since we have 2 offices, and when the second office phones with problems, instead of running next door, I use SSH. (Sadly, it is usually someone accidentally tripping over the power cord...)
And yes, I used to love the Linksys hardware, but now I have a pile of dead ones from my clients and from personal use. Smoothwall is running and -ZERO- failures as of yet. as long as you dont let it overheat (or run something that is going to wear out the ram), I would guess that one of these would be just as reliable - if not moreso - than a smoothwall PC. (Zero moving parts)
I wish I had the chutzpah to do it. I'm staring at that unit right now. My big concern with it is if it fails for whatever reason it's probably fried, and I honestly can't afford another one right now. Any cheerful words concerning how easy it was or something like that might convince me to push the red button, but I haven't done it yet...
Just do a little reasearch on your specific model, so you know exactly which version you have. Then, install dd-wrt for your model of router. In fact, if you post your exact model of router here I am fairly certain a kindly slashdotter will give you the specific version required. (As long as they are not trolling, heck, if you reply to this I will even tell you what specific version of dd-wrt binary you need) I have flashed a number of WRT's, each with dd-wrt and the directions here are the best:
dd-wrt flashing guide
If you are paranoid make certain to wait the two min suggested after clicking the upload, and then ok buttons. That is it, you are good to go.
The link I meant to post for dd-wrt (IMO the best firmware for the WRT, mostly because of Sevasofts treatment of customers)
http://www.dd-wrt.com/
dd-wrt
I bought the WRT54G ver 1.1 because of its hackability, at the time I was using a Microsoft router (I got it for $10, so I used that) but I bought the Linksys because of the neato factor. Then, I ended up ditching the MS router, because the Linksys with updated firmware is just the bomb. I told all my friends, one, a consultant, began buying WRT54G's for his customers because he could remote SSH into them and open ports etc to maintain their systems. It gave all kinds of flexibility.
.22
:p
I reccomended this model to everyone I knew - we use them at work now, and employees at work have bought them now on my reccomendation. I sent linksys an email thanking them for the GPLed version, and letting Linksys know I was reccomending this model to people.
I was dissapointed with the recent story of the non-linux version, however, with the release of the GL version, I am very impressed by Linksys indeed. Yes, it will probably cost a little more due to the better ram, but hey, I WANT the better ram! (Still seriously considering the flashcard hack...)
For those who care, my router runs:
dd-wrt version
WRTBlog
Uses SMB to save information to one of my network machines
Uses SNMP and MRTG (on network machine) to monitor bandwith (on top of bwlog)
These are worthy additions to your WRT. I am considering purchasing another and running kismet on it for wardrivng.
-- So, thank you Linksys, for releasing the source, and maintaining the WRT line.
I have been looking for either a DIY FM transmitter for the pc, or an inexpensive one that I can increase the range on. I remember an older slashdot story that had one that was something on the order of 2 watts, but googling has turned up very little (so far I have found extraneous FM devices, and all the PC based ones are mostly irrelevant results.)
:)
Therefore, just in time for Christmas, the perfect slashdot article!
I looked at that test, and it was annoying. I doubt I could have got 100% on it, yet, I have never been nailed by phishing spam.
What was annoying? I was supposed to judge the validity of the emails from a jpeg - not from looking at the acutal links on the email. I mean, if I get an email from my bank, and the URL that they send me is NOT the same as my banks - then I know it is phishing spam. I do this because I can tell by the domain/subdomain in the links - not by how the mail "looks".
Having said that, I have barely seen mails from my OWN bank, but many phishing spams from others.
Looking at the URL (and understanding how domains and subdomains work) certanly helps with phishing spam - not just knowing that "your passw3rd hazz expireddc" is probably not valid.