I think the better approach would be to create a FireFox extension that allowed you to see the name of a layer when you mouse over it, with a "block this floating layer on this site" right-click option.
Granted, random names will still be a problem, but that's a lot of extra work just to show floaters to someone that won't click on them anyway. At least they'll suffer a little.
I believe it is an issue of knowledge. Specifically, with RFID and RFID-like technologies that do not require physical contact or personal interaction (like a PIN or swipe) it is conceivable that your information can be read at a distance* without your knowledge.
Does that mean the VISA card in this article is going to allow someone to drain your bank account because you walked too close to a vendor's shop? Not necessarily. However, consider this:
1. The "secure" WiFi protocols have all been beaten; 2. The "close-range" of bluetooth has been increased to over 1/4 of a mile by use of a shotgun-style antenna; 3. In general, people continue to use these technologies even if they are informed of the flaws, because they do not want to lose the convenience (or believe that "if it was really insecure, they wouldn't be able to sell it" or "It won't happen to me").
So do I think that a card like this will eventually be cracked, and will eventually be used to spy or steal from people (successfully or not**)? Yes. Yes I do.
*Here, "a distance" could be a few feet, or could be across a street through a shop window using a shotgun antenna (see bluetooth example).
**Here, I refer to the idea that someone who did this in bulk would likely get caught, and if they got caught it would not be a successful theft; then again, people steal checks and forge transactions to pay their utility bills all the time, and are rarely prosecuted for this provided the dollar amounts are small.
I don't remember where I read the article, but back when USB2 was brand new, a comparison was done -- the end result was that speeds were comparable, although FireWire was slightly faster and required less CPU overhead (something about FireWire being handled by a separate card, but USB2 being partially CPU-driven).
My memory could be faulty, of course, so your takeaway should be this: not much speed difference.
I posted a comment to this effect elsewhere several weeks ago, and on either here or MetaFilter (can't remember) a few days ago -- and I was just thinking it was a good idea, no info or rumors.
If this comes true, do I get to call myself a prophet, or just really good at spotting the obvious?
I won't say whether this is real or not, as I obviously have no idea.
I will, however, say this: check out the TZero electric car, which has a range equivalent to my Nissan Sentra 1.8* and supercar-like performance using an onboard pack of Li-Ion laptop batteries.
Now reduce the number of batteries (and associated cost) by 2/3, and add the ability to charge it up in a few minutes. While still not practical for daily use (still no A/C or windows), you've now got something you could drive from LA to Las Vegas, play a single slot machine, "fill up" the batteries in a hurry, then drive back.
Less weight, long range, short recharging time -- those are the three things electric car manufacturers have been hoping for.
*Note that the TZero model on their front page, and currently for sale, does NOT have the Li-Ion batteries to my knowledge, and so has a shorter posted range (100mi); the model in the linked page above, however, carries Li-Ion batteries and traveled 245 miles to Vegas without stopping (and with some range left).
**Note: this post does not explicitly endorse the use of electric cars in any way, shape or form, and was written from the point of view of the technology only. No need to start a side war about electrics vs others.
My true concern is ensuring that the firm I contract will be professional, cooperative, timely and will ultimately deliver their services as promised.
If that's really what you're after, look for an established and stable company that works on a "fixed-time, fixed-price" model, and keep an eye on any existing vendors that you want to have involved with the project.
Speaking from first-hand experience, the "fixed-time, fixed-price" model (done correctly) does more than help deliver what you want on time and on budget; it also forces everyone involved to do the proper amount of planning up front (the proper amount being significantly more than usual).
It also means that if your business and budget requirements are not reasonable, the project will end before you get past the planning stage, and you will burn very little money. Contrast that to finding out you won't get what you want (or you will have a larger bill) near the end when it's too late to turn back, and you can see the attraction.
As for the vendor thing, it is fairly common for existing vendors to poison the relationship with consultants to prevent them from becoming the new standard vendor, even if the services being provided only overlap slightly. If the consultant is good, this won't make the project crash and burn, but it is important to know where the trouble is coming from. So keep an eye out, and keep a representative around for all vendor-consultant contact.
I would love to tell you the name of the company that I work for, as we are very good at delivering services as you have described them, but I don't feel that would be appropriate here. If you look for a strong reputation, professionalism, stability (growing, profitable and tons of cash on hand), and adherence to the fixed-time, fixed-price model, you'll likely find us on your own.:)
Q. what do you do if the only entertainment you can get comes with costs/restrictions that you consider unreasonable?
A. make your own entertainment.
I'm not kidding; if you stop watching TV and whatnot, then you'll suddenly find you have a TON of free time. Mass-market entertainment works because it allows you to pass a great deal of time that would otherwise be boring.
The thing is, there are lots of things you -- yes, YOU -- have always meant to do, but never felt like you had time for. If you can't motivate yourself to do those things when you're bored (i.e., when you would normally watch TV) then consider the possibility that you don't really want to do them...and if you usually watch TV when you're too tired to do anything else, then go to bed.
If you stick with the plan, soon you'll find yourself feeling like your life is full, because you'll be filling in the gaps with things that genuinely entertain you, in a way that TV never can.
Not much to do? What about building a dollhouse out of balsa wood? Or learning to play the Ukulele?
I'm not being critical; I know raising kids is hard, and my wife and I are about to have twins, so I'll soon be learning the reality instead of considering the theoretical.
That said, TV -is- a timesuck, and if you stop watching, you'll spend a lot of time looking around bored...so then all you need to do is say to yourself "well, perhaps I should start a task that I normally don't have time for, and see how it goes."
Heck, that's how I ended up remodeling my bathroom...
Reading his comment again (after reading yours), I'd say he meant that he doesn't record over-the-air broadcasts -- but that means he can still record cable and satellite.
Now, I don't know if he was trying to be funny, or if the broadcast flag really does apply only to over-the-air broadcasts (and not satellite/cable ones); I'll leave that for you to figure out.:)
Let's face it: if folks in France were doing this for all of their books, wouldn't folks in the US start saying "boy, we'd better do the same thing, or we'll be left behind"? 'Cuz that's all they're doing.
One of the biggest things cable TV companies had to do in order to gain their monopoly on providing services was provide "Local Origination" programming and "Public Access" facilities. Essentially, they had to televise local events (parades, town hall meetings, stuff like that) and provide gear, training and cablecast time for anyone -- ANYONE -- in the community to create television programs.
Sadly, "Local Origination" programming was often the first to go, and "Public Access" programming quickly became a joke in most communities. Still, at least the communities got SOMETHING.
With this no-muni-broadband thing, I am curious to know: are the companies offering something in return (free access/equipment to libraries and the local Y, or to low-income people) or are they bold enough to just insist on "all for me/none for you"?
Once upon a time we used to adjust 20+ monitors in a television control room manually by following these steps:
1. Send colorbars from the same source (if possible) to all the monitors;
2. Kick each monitor into blue-only mode, which turns off the green and red guns;
3. Adjust the contrast, brightness, tint and color (saturation) so that all the bars look the same;
(You see, color bars are set up so that, when viewed on the blue gun only, adjusting the tint adjusts the brightness of two bars in opposite directions, the brightness another two bars, and so on. To adjust the contrast, you twiddle the contrast knob and look at the two associated bars -- one gets brighter, one gets dimmer. You set it such that the two bars appear to be the same brightness. Repeat for the other controls.)
4. Pop out of blue mode, and all the monitors look essentially the same. Piece of cake.
Of course, computer monitors don't come with a blue-only mode, and I believe even component monitors pull the sync signal off of green, so you couldn't just unplug the red and green.
So perhaps this advice isn't helpful. But if anyone out there is trying to calibrate TV monitors...well, glad I could help.;)
Yeah, there's at least one bug in Thunderbird's address book handling that has been around for over four years (from Mozilla project) and has yet to be fixed -- if you add a person's name to a mailing list, you've now got two distinct unique copies of their information, and updating it in one place doesn't update it in the other. It's the single reason why my wife can't ditch her existing (cludgy and overladen) PIM software in favor of Thunderbird and Sunbird.
>Something that is boring will lose peoples interest as well as something that is difficult to navigate
Ah, but if something is easy to navigate and simple (yet attractive), boring doesn't enter into it. Web sites don't have to "do" anything except be appealing on the eyes and easy to use, so that users can find what they need without thinking about it.
Consider that Warren Buffet site. If style sheets were used to make to tweak the font, colors and layout into something attractive (but boring), it could present a very professional image, and do so for very little money.
Of course, it would help if they got rid of those ads at the bottom as well. What's up with that?
Oh good! Someone finally wrote a book about something I already know. Heh.
Seriously, though, both of my siblings are librarians, and when I do web design single-handedly I always get complements on how straightforward and useable -- yet attractive -- my web sites are. It truly is wonderful how quickly you can publish a useful and attractive site for very little money if you keep your priorities straight.
They need to sell out to Apple, so that Apple can make the boxes prettier, tie it into iTunes (manage your video files in iTunes, complete with shuffle!) and let you store your aac files on the box itself.
Or not. I still like my DirecTiVo just the way it is.
There's an interesting idea: perhaps there should be an effort to develop a core set of hardware that is Linux-compatible with rock-solid drivers, then sell those as Linux Boxen the way Apple does. The big difference, of course, would be that you are still free to run Desktop Linux on other machines, but this would be a great way to get newbies involved.
Oh, wait. Linspire and Desktop/LX are already doing this.
Oh, wait. OSX is now cheaper than ever, thanks to the MacMini.
Nevermind. Perhaps we just need a "these specific hardware devices are ROCK SOLID and FULLY SUPPORTED" list instead. Anyone know of one?
I've actually thought about this a lot; as a non-programmer, I'm always trying to find a way to contribute to open-source projects. In general, are teams receptive to a person who says "Hey, I can't help you code, but I can write and maintain fabulous documentation"? I'd hate to offend anyone...
I had a long economic model of how this might break down, but I have deleted it in favor of something everyone might read.
If this plan goes into effect, and all else remains equal:
1. A few drivers of inefficient vehicles will likely drive more, until they are paying approximately the same fees as before;
2. A few drivers of efficient vehicles will likely drive less, until they are paying approximately the same fees as before;
3. A few drivers of efficient vehicles who could barely afford the exact number of miles they need to drive each day will no longer be able to drive, and will stop driving/paying fees.
Most people in the short term will remain unchanged, and in the long term fuel-efficiency will be slightly less desirable as people replace their vehicles.
So short term, I suspect you'll see a very slight reduction in revenues and congestion, and a very slight increase in gas consumption.
In the long term, however, I suspect you'll see a levelling off of revenues and congestion, but a continued increase in gas consumption as some people move to less-efficient vehicles.
Someone earlier suggested this was probably being driven by the gas companies; my (admittedly non-expert) analysis suggests they might be right.
>"We have to block port 25, email viruses are bad" sez the ISP"
For what it's worth, there's an easy solution that my ISP uses that (if they wanted to) these companies could also implement.
My ISP blocked port 25, but sent out a warning in advance, and said "notify us if you want to keep it unblocked, but be aware that we'll ping your server once in a while to make sure it's not an oper relay."
Slashdot Mirror
I think the better approach would be to create a FireFox extension that allowed you to see the name of a layer when you mouse over it, with a "block this floating layer on this site" right-click option.
Granted, random names will still be a problem, but that's a lot of extra work just to show floaters to someone that won't click on them anyway. At least they'll suffer a little.
Why is slashdot so anti-RFID, anyways?
I believe it is an issue of knowledge. Specifically, with RFID and RFID-like technologies that do not require physical contact or personal interaction (like a PIN or swipe) it is conceivable that your information can be read at a distance* without your knowledge.
Does that mean the VISA card in this article is going to allow someone to drain your bank account because you walked too close to a vendor's shop? Not necessarily. However, consider this:
1. The "secure" WiFi protocols have all been beaten;
2. The "close-range" of bluetooth has been increased to over 1/4 of a mile by use of a shotgun-style antenna;
3. In general, people continue to use these technologies even if they are informed of the flaws, because they do not want to lose the convenience (or believe that "if it was really insecure, they wouldn't be able to sell it" or "It won't happen to me").
So do I think that a card like this will eventually be cracked, and will eventually be used to spy or steal from people (successfully or not**)? Yes. Yes I do.
*Here, "a distance" could be a few feet, or could be across a street through a shop window using a shotgun antenna (see bluetooth example).
**Here, I refer to the idea that someone who did this in bulk would likely get caught, and if they got caught it would not be a successful theft; then again, people steal checks and forge transactions to pay their utility bills all the time, and are rarely prosecuted for this provided the dollar amounts are small.
Gee, I thought that sometimes comments on Slashdot were snippy; then I got a gander at the comments on betanews. What a bunch of children.
I don't remember where I read the article, but back when USB2 was brand new, a comparison was done -- the end result was that speeds were comparable, although FireWire was slightly faster and required less CPU overhead (something about FireWire being handled by a separate card, but USB2 being partially CPU-driven).
My memory could be faulty, of course, so your takeaway should be this: not much speed difference.
I posted a comment to this effect elsewhere several weeks ago, and on either here or MetaFilter (can't remember) a few days ago -- and I was just thinking it was a good idea, no info or rumors.
If this comes true, do I get to call myself a prophet, or just really good at spotting the obvious?
I won't say whether this is real or not, as I obviously have no idea.
I will, however, say this: check out the TZero electric car, which has a range equivalent to my Nissan Sentra 1.8* and supercar-like performance using an onboard pack of Li-Ion laptop batteries.
Now reduce the number of batteries (and associated cost) by 2/3, and add the ability to charge it up in a few minutes. While still not practical for daily use (still no A/C or windows), you've now got something you could drive from LA to Las Vegas, play a single slot machine, "fill up" the batteries in a hurry, then drive back.
Less weight, long range, short recharging time -- those are the three things electric car manufacturers have been hoping for.
*Note that the TZero model on their front page, and currently for sale, does NOT have the Li-Ion batteries to my knowledge, and so has a shorter posted range (100mi); the model in the linked page above, however, carries Li-Ion batteries and traveled 245 miles to Vegas without stopping (and with some range left).
**Note: this post does not explicitly endorse the use of electric cars in any way, shape or form, and was written from the point of view of the technology only. No need to start a side war about electrics vs others.
My true concern is ensuring that the firm I contract will be professional, cooperative, timely and will ultimately deliver their services as promised.
:)
If that's really what you're after, look for an established and stable company that works on a "fixed-time, fixed-price" model, and keep an eye on any existing vendors that you want to have involved with the project.
Speaking from first-hand experience, the "fixed-time, fixed-price" model (done correctly) does more than help deliver what you want on time and on budget; it also forces everyone involved to do the proper amount of planning up front (the proper amount being significantly more than usual).
It also means that if your business and budget requirements are not reasonable, the project will end before you get past the planning stage, and you will burn very little money. Contrast that to finding out you won't get what you want (or you will have a larger bill) near the end when it's too late to turn back, and you can see the attraction.
As for the vendor thing, it is fairly common for existing vendors to poison the relationship with consultants to prevent them from becoming the new standard vendor, even if the services being provided only overlap slightly. If the consultant is good, this won't make the project crash and burn, but it is important to know where the trouble is coming from. So keep an eye out, and keep a representative around for all vendor-consultant contact.
I would love to tell you the name of the company that I work for, as we are very good at delivering services as you have described them, but I don't feel that would be appropriate here. If you look for a strong reputation, professionalism, stability (growing, profitable and tons of cash on hand), and adherence to the fixed-time, fixed-price model, you'll likely find us on your own.
Good luck.
Spextorming?
Tangential comment:
Q. what do you do if the only entertainment you can get comes with costs/restrictions that you consider unreasonable?
A. make your own entertainment.
I'm not kidding; if you stop watching TV and whatnot, then you'll suddenly find you have a TON of free time. Mass-market entertainment works because it allows you to pass a great deal of time that would otherwise be boring.
The thing is, there are lots of things you -- yes, YOU -- have always meant to do, but never felt like you had time for. If you can't motivate yourself to do those things when you're bored (i.e., when you would normally watch TV) then consider the possibility that you don't really want to do them...and if you usually watch TV when you're too tired to do anything else, then go to bed.
If you stick with the plan, soon you'll find yourself feeling like your life is full, because you'll be filling in the gaps with things that genuinely entertain you, in a way that TV never can.
Not much to do? What about building a dollhouse out of balsa wood? Or learning to play the Ukulele?
I'm not being critical; I know raising kids is hard, and my wife and I are about to have twins, so I'll soon be learning the reality instead of considering the theoretical.
That said, TV -is- a timesuck, and if you stop watching, you'll spend a lot of time looking around bored...so then all you need to do is say to yourself "well, perhaps I should start a task that I normally don't have time for, and see how it goes."
Heck, that's how I ended up remodeling my bathroom...
What do you think happens once all of the TV stations convert to digital and stop broadcasting the analog stations?
I've got a whole idea for a novel that will answer this question. Luckily, I'm too lazy to write it.
Reading his comment again (after reading yours), I'd say he meant that he doesn't record over-the-air broadcasts -- but that means he can still record cable and satellite.
:)
Now, I don't know if he was trying to be funny, or if the broadcast flag really does apply only to over-the-air broadcasts (and not satellite/cable ones); I'll leave that for you to figure out.
A child of a friend of mine, at the time around 3 years old, one announced while watching TV "Mommy, turn off the TV -- It's making me stupid."
Clever kid, eh?
Slashdot: Blackmail for nerds, extortion that matters.
Let's face it: if folks in France were doing this for all of their books, wouldn't folks in the US start saying "boy, we'd better do the same thing, or we'll be left behind"? 'Cuz that's all they're doing.
One of the biggest things cable TV companies had to do in order to gain their monopoly on providing services was provide "Local Origination" programming and "Public Access" facilities. Essentially, they had to televise local events (parades, town hall meetings, stuff like that) and provide gear, training and cablecast time for anyone -- ANYONE -- in the community to create television programs.
Sadly, "Local Origination" programming was often the first to go, and "Public Access" programming quickly became a joke in most communities. Still, at least the communities got SOMETHING.
With this no-muni-broadband thing, I am curious to know: are the companies offering something in return (free access/equipment to libraries and the local Y, or to low-income people) or are they bold enough to just insist on "all for me/none for you"?
Once upon a time we used to adjust 20+ monitors in a television control room manually by following these steps:
;)
1. Send colorbars from the same source (if possible) to all the monitors;
2. Kick each monitor into blue-only mode, which turns off the green and red guns;
3. Adjust the contrast, brightness, tint and color (saturation) so that all the bars look the same;
(You see, color bars are set up so that, when viewed on the blue gun only, adjusting the tint adjusts the brightness of two bars in opposite directions, the brightness another two bars, and so on. To adjust the contrast, you twiddle the contrast knob and look at the two associated bars -- one gets brighter, one gets dimmer. You set it such that the two bars appear to be the same brightness. Repeat for the other controls.)
4. Pop out of blue mode, and all the monitors look essentially the same. Piece of cake.
Of course, computer monitors don't come with a blue-only mode, and I believe even component monitors pull the sync signal off of green, so you couldn't just unplug the red and green.
So perhaps this advice isn't helpful. But if anyone out there is trying to calibrate TV monitors...well, glad I could help.
Yeah, there's at least one bug in Thunderbird's address book handling that has been around for over four years (from Mozilla project) and has yet to be fixed -- if you add a person's name to a mailing list, you've now got two distinct unique copies of their information, and updating it in one place doesn't update it in the other. It's the single reason why my wife can't ditch her existing (cludgy and overladen) PIM software in favor of Thunderbird and Sunbird.
>Something that is boring will lose peoples interest as well as something that is difficult to navigate
Ah, but if something is easy to navigate and simple (yet attractive), boring doesn't enter into it. Web sites don't have to "do" anything except be appealing on the eyes and easy to use, so that users can find what they need without thinking about it.
Consider that Warren Buffet site. If style sheets were used to make to tweak the font, colors and layout into something attractive (but boring), it could present a very professional image, and do so for very little money.
Of course, it would help if they got rid of those ads at the bottom as well. What's up with that?
Oh good! Someone finally wrote a book about something I already know. Heh.
Seriously, though, both of my siblings are librarians, and when I do web design single-handedly I always get complements on how straightforward and useable -- yet attractive -- my web sites are. It truly is wonderful how quickly you can publish a useful and attractive site for very little money if you keep your priorities straight.
They need to sell out to Apple, so that Apple can make the boxes prettier, tie it into iTunes (manage your video files in iTunes, complete with shuffle!) and let you store your aac files on the box itself.
Or not. I still like my DirecTiVo just the way it is.
There's an interesting idea: perhaps there should be an effort to develop a core set of hardware that is Linux-compatible with rock-solid drivers, then sell those as Linux Boxen the way Apple does. The big difference, of course, would be that you are still free to run Desktop Linux on other machines, but this would be a great way to get newbies involved.
Oh, wait. Linspire and Desktop/LX are already doing this.
Oh, wait. OSX is now cheaper than ever, thanks to the MacMini.
Nevermind. Perhaps we just need a "these specific hardware devices are ROCK SOLID and FULLY SUPPORTED" list instead. Anyone know of one?
I've actually thought about this a lot; as a non-programmer, I'm always trying to find a way to contribute to open-source projects. In general, are teams receptive to a person who says "Hey, I can't help you code, but I can write and maintain fabulous documentation"? I'd hate to offend anyone...
I had a long economic model of how this might break down, but I have deleted it in favor of something everyone might read.
If this plan goes into effect, and all else remains equal:
1. A few drivers of inefficient vehicles will likely drive more, until they are paying approximately the same fees as before;
2. A few drivers of efficient vehicles will likely drive less, until they are paying approximately the same fees as before;
3. A few drivers of efficient vehicles who could barely afford the exact number of miles they need to drive each day will no longer be able to drive, and will stop driving/paying fees.
Most people in the short term will remain unchanged, and in the long term fuel-efficiency will be slightly less desirable as people replace their vehicles.
So short term, I suspect you'll see a very slight reduction in revenues and congestion, and a very slight increase in gas consumption.
In the long term, however, I suspect you'll see a levelling off of revenues and congestion, but a continued increase in gas consumption as some people move to less-efficient vehicles.
Someone earlier suggested this was probably being driven by the gas companies; my (admittedly non-expert) analysis suggests they might be right.
>"We have to block port 25, email viruses are bad" sez the ISP"
For what it's worth, there's an easy solution that my ISP uses that (if they wanted to) these companies could also implement.
My ISP blocked port 25, but sent out a warning in advance, and said "notify us if you want to keep it unblocked, but be aware that we'll ping your server once in a while to make sure it's not an oper relay."