I worked at one of the largest credit card banks, and I looked at people's credit everyday. The score you are referring to is a 'FICO' score, which is computed, as the teller told you "by a computer"... It takes in an impossible amount of data, not only payments made to other creditors but even WHAT you charged: I guess charging $400 for a new DVD player is less risky than charging $400 for your taxes.
The point is these scores are not the end-all to-be-all. Next time tell the teller that if they want your business, they should give you the 'A' credit regardless of what some obscure and obfuscated algorithm developed by a bank says.
Well, what I realized as I was looking through the comments is that more people prefer the spammer to be fined than jailed. What's the chance, however, that the spammer has any money? Would you spam if you had any money? I think a jail sentence is OK, but I don't know about 7 years.
The R rating was seen as low for Saving Private Ryan. I read a review on it in 'USA Today' (a bulwark of the journalistic community) and it said that for all intents and purposes, it was an NC-17 film due to the violence, but the MPAA moved it to an R rating because of the film's artistic integrity (and Spielberg directed it).
Re:more games, different games
on
Gifts For Geeks
·
· Score: 2
Settlers of Catan is far and away one of the most brutally addictive games I've ever played. Basically, the jist of the game is that you and at least two others are settlers on an island, vieing vor its resources (grain, brick, coal, wool, wood). You start out with a small town and eventually build trade roads leading to other small towns, all of which border lands with said resources. You can try and block others with your roads, cooperate with another weak player to destroy the strong opposition, and send out thieves to steal resources from the other settlements. It's part politics, part economics, and with all the devious fun of Monopoly without having to wait forever after 80% of the property is bought. Games only last about 30-60 minutes, depending on how good you are. If anyone is into board games, I HIGHLY recommend it.
Let's not forget DOA2, which looks the same on the PS2 and the DC (with the exception of the boss level which added motion blur on the PS2). I've heard praise about Tekken Tag Tournament, but I really personally never enjoyed any of the Tekken games. The fighting engine seemed a bit too slow and clumsy. Namco's DOA2 (the Japanese Limited Edition) on the other hand, is the game I've spent the most time playing on my DC. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (a direct port if the PSX game, mind you) is excellent as well.
By the time I get tired of the DC the NGC or the X-Box will be out. Since I already have a DVD player, I won't be needing a PS2.
Actually, Slashdot kind of helps us determine whic stories are "good" and which aren't, content-wise. On the bottom of each description on the front page it says something like '86 of 213' comments or something to that extent. I usually tend to read stories with high positively moderated comments (I browse at 2). So a good way to ignore stories is to avoid writeups that sound sensationalistic or have something like ('12 of 450 comments') on the bottom (an exaggeration).
If all that was stolen was credit card numbers, then that's not necessarily a big deal. By Federal law you're only responsible for the first $50 of any fraud committed against you, and most banks cover that responsibility for you. Yes, it's still AOLs fault, but a stolen credit card number isn't a big hassle if you deal with the fraud as soon as you see it happen and you act accordingly.
I'm at my university's lab right now, on a Win98 machine, and they are still using Netscape 4.7. I still switch over to IE just because that is what I am used to (I don't even have Netscape installed on the 2K box). "In general" I still find less problems with IE than Netscape, although it did give me an error a few minutes ago. Thankfully for Netscape fans (Linux advocates take note), most people here in the University use Netscape because that's what they were shown during freshman orientation and that's what came on the Network Connection CD that everyone gets for free at the beginning of the year. Until that changes, NS will remain a stronghold in these institutions.
Spanish has always had problems with intermixing languages. Ask any native Spanish speakers living in the US; for better or for worse, they or someone they know speaks 'Spanglish.' I saw a lot of this when I lived in Puerto Rico, where someone asked me, "Vas a celebrar Crij-ma?" (read: "Will you celebrate Christmas?"). But it's ridiculous to think that any major language will "disappear"... look at Latin, that's been dead in society for hundreds of years, but still being (at least studied) by academics.
Where I see a REAL problem is with Germany. Use of English in their language is becoming increasingly hip. I was there this summer and about 6 years before that, and the amount of English phrases, words, and idioms being pushed on the German people largely by the media and entertainment industry is astounding. The cool thing to do was to attend the special screenings of American films that weren't dubbed... Radio advertises "Top Hits Today" and one of the major ice-cream brands in "Manhattan Ice Cream" which runs the absolutely funniest commercials with the worst American stereotypes. I also worked in a small firm for that summer, and mostly everyone knew a few phrases of business English, because they knew very well that that was THE language being used, even if they were to communicate with clients from China, Pakistan, or Canada.
I just remember this joke...
Q. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? A. Tri-lingual.
Q. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? A. B-lingual.
Q. What do you call a person who speaks one language? A. American!
Recorded human history spans thousands of years. Yet, most of the large inventions have come within the past 200 years or so, and are appearing at an accelerating pace. In the Good(tm) side, we are making leaps and bounds in communication technologies, medicine, space exploration, on the Bad(tm) side we have increasingly terrifying nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction, and a lot of the the things that were Good(tm) are now considered to some to be Bad(tm) (internet "hackers", possible human cloning).
Where, in these two thousand years, have been the real advances? Have we advanced in art? Have we advanced in morality? With some exceptions (slavery, dueling), we are still doing the same terrible things (and wonderful things) that happenned a thousand years ago: human affection, understanding, expression, jealousy, adultery, rebellion. This is not something that's going to change.
What is interesting is seeing how these technological and scientific advances are dealt with by us, and how we will face up to these challenges. In the near future, I see human cloning becoming a hot topic. It's just a matter of time before it happens (I guess).
To me this looks a bit sketchy... Last time I checked Sega didn't outsource the code for the Sega Master System for use in home electronics. Then again, I might be wrong.
Take a look at Gamechoice Club's DVD page, found here. They sell, among other things, the Dantax 9001 (US$279) which plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, and MP3 CD-rs and CD-RWs. They also have a Sony DTS system ($460) that's rather small and sits upright. Mind you, all these DVD players are code free (Region 0), so you can play most DVDs on them, no matter what region they are from.
I haven't personally interacted with Gamechoice Club (which is in Hong Kong), although they seem to have an OK reputation and have some absolutely cool stuff, like a a handheld Duo R X for the PC Engine.
Well, consider the fact that there's no way to describe a color without using other colors... That is to say, one can't describe what the color blue looks like to a blind person. By the same token, if everyone had shifted color wheels, there would be no way to prove it. Imagine a conversation between a regular trichromat and a shifted trichromat.
Regular: So, you like Slashdot's colors? (thinking it's a type of green) Shifted: It's beautiful! A green similar to that you'd find in a pond! (in reality his "green" is an orange... that is, even a pond looks orange to him)
This of course leades to philosophical questions such as "Do we really all see in the same colors?"
Unless you can show some sort of research that would show that the revote would be a huge statistical deviation from the previous I still feel that we should do a revote.
Well, what concerns me is what will happen to the 100,000 Nader voters. Is it possible that they will now vote differently, knowing that their vote counts "more" now that they are part of a VERY close state?
As "magnaminous" as these events where, let us not forget that Jessee Jackson walked around Philadelphia offering homeless people cigarettes in exchange for their voter registration.
Actually Florida exit polls showed about 60-70% of Nader votres would've voted for Gore had Nader not been around, with 25% saying they wouldn't have voted, and the rest (less than 20%) saying they would've voted for Bush. So while all 100,000 votes didn't get "lost" to Nader, we can assume a good 50 to 70 thousand were, and that's a lot larger than the slim thousand-or-so margin that the current winner in Fla. enjoys.
Either way, it's "fuzzy math." Maybe next time they should lock the ballot boxes in an iron-clad lockbox, a lockbox.
There's something to be said that more people know the name of Robin Hood than John the King of England, or Richard the Lionheart, or the person(s) that killed him.
Sure, what he did may not have worked per se, but his name is known widely hundreds of years later, even to the people that didn't see the animated Disney movie.
I completely agree... I would rather just mark "Neither" on the ballot and walk away
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father yesterday. He asked me who I was voting for and I said, "Nader!"
He looked at me and said, "You can't do that, you have to pick either Gore or Bush." And then I realized he heard me said 'Neither' not 'Nader'.
Whiskey? I hope you drink the good stuff (Jameson's).
I know there was a discussion here on/. a while ago, and the two differing arguments went like this:
"I don't need drugs to code well. I am a geek and that lifwstyle values intelligence, etc. something that drugs do not affect positively."
Or, on the other hand...
"I use drugs when I do (or don't code). It helps me experiment with the boundaries of consciousness, and I think that pushing the boundaries is something geeks do well."
Basically, I don't think it's very good to push forward the idea that techies use drugs more than the general population; there's enough misrepresentation as it is. Well, the LA Times covers the issue smartly: "But the combination of excessive wealth, driving ambition and a youthful sense of invulnerability has created fertile ground for some of society's most expensive, and dangerous, highs."
Mind you, this isn't really concerning techies as it is concerning those involved in the recent stock boom that happens to be related to technology. But I can guarantee you that a lot of those people "running rampant" on drugs are marketing execs as well. I think the only reason techies are involved is because they are part of this boom. The same would've happened if we created a New Economy based on turnips or hovercraft. You'd see a lotta botanists/farmers or physicists/engineers high on goofballs.
In fact, iSONEws's NFO files don't even have the serials in them anymore. The serials are the ONLY thing that you could argue are harmful about NFOs; after all, that is a registration number that is being distributed. Take, for example, the NFO file for Maxim's 'The Sims':
No need to copy the crack over, the crack has been repacked into the cabs, the crack also works in windows 2000. Enjoy.
When you install, you will be asked to enter a serial Number, use:
If you have something you think you can contribute with...
Now, they mention that a serial was included in the NFO, but no serial information exists in iSONews's posting of the NFO. So there is nothing illegal.If anything, it's helpful. A good 50% of the information in the NFO is Maxim's own ad copy about the game.
Slashdot Mirror
If you know what you're doing, you encode at 256kbps or above...
The point is these scores are not the end-all to-be-all. Next time tell the teller that if they want your business, they should give you the 'A' credit regardless of what some obscure and obfuscated algorithm developed by a bank says.
Well, what I realized as I was looking through the comments is that more people prefer the spammer to be fined than jailed. What's the chance, however, that the spammer has any money? Would you spam if you had any money? I think a jail sentence is OK, but I don't know about 7 years.
The R rating was seen as low for Saving Private Ryan. I read a review on it in 'USA Today' (a bulwark of the journalistic community) and it said that for all intents and purposes, it was an NC-17 film due to the violence, but the MPAA moved it to an R rating because of the film's artistic integrity (and Spielberg directed it).
Settlers of Catan is far and away one of the most brutally addictive games I've ever played. Basically, the jist of the game is that you and at least two others are settlers on an island, vieing vor its resources (grain, brick, coal, wool, wood). You start out with a small town and eventually build trade roads leading to other small towns, all of which border lands with said resources. You can try and block others with your roads, cooperate with another weak player to destroy the strong opposition, and send out thieves to steal resources from the other settlements. It's part politics, part economics, and with all the devious fun of Monopoly without having to wait forever after 80% of the property is bought. Games only last about 30-60 minutes, depending on how good you are. If anyone is into board games, I HIGHLY recommend it.
By the time I get tired of the DC the NGC or the X-Box will be out. Since I already have a DVD player, I won't be needing a PS2.
Weird considering the original Hellmouth stories were some of the ones with the most posts on Slashdot.
Actually, Slashdot kind of helps us determine whic stories are "good" and which aren't, content-wise. On the bottom of each description on the front page it says something like '86 of 213' comments or something to that extent. I usually tend to read stories with high positively moderated comments (I browse at 2). So a good way to ignore stories is to avoid writeups that sound sensationalistic or have something like ('12 of 450 comments') on the bottom (an exaggeration).
If all that was stolen was credit card numbers, then that's not necessarily a big deal. By Federal law you're only responsible for the first $50 of any fraud committed against you, and most banks cover that responsibility for you. Yes, it's still AOLs fault, but a stolen credit card number isn't a big hassle if you deal with the fraud as soon as you see it happen and you act accordingly.
I'm at my university's lab right now, on a Win98 machine, and they are still using Netscape 4.7. I still switch over to IE just because that is what I am used to (I don't even have Netscape installed on the 2K box). "In general" I still find less problems with IE than Netscape, although it did give me an error a few minutes ago. Thankfully for Netscape fans (Linux advocates take note), most people here in the University use Netscape because that's what they were shown during freshman orientation and that's what came on the Network Connection CD that everyone gets for free at the beginning of the year. Until that changes, NS will remain a stronghold in these institutions.
Where I see a REAL problem is with Germany. Use of English in their language is becoming increasingly hip. I was there this summer and about 6 years before that, and the amount of English phrases, words, and idioms being pushed on the German people largely by the media and entertainment industry is astounding. The cool thing to do was to attend the special screenings of American films that weren't dubbed... Radio advertises "Top Hits Today" and one of the major ice-cream brands in "Manhattan Ice Cream" which runs the absolutely funniest commercials with the worst American stereotypes. I also worked in a small firm for that summer, and mostly everyone knew a few phrases of business English, because they knew very well that that was THE language being used, even if they were to communicate with clients from China, Pakistan, or Canada.
I just remember this joke...
Q. What do you call a person who speaks three languages?
A. Tri-lingual.
Q. What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A. B-lingual.
Q. What do you call a person who speaks one language?
A. American!
Where, in these two thousand years, have been the real advances? Have we advanced in art? Have we advanced in morality? With some exceptions (slavery, dueling), we are still doing the same terrible things (and wonderful things) that happenned a thousand years ago: human affection, understanding, expression, jealousy, adultery, rebellion. This is not something that's going to change.
What is interesting is seeing how these technological and scientific advances are dealt with by us, and how we will face up to these challenges. In the near future, I see human cloning becoming a hot topic. It's just a matter of time before it happens (I guess).
Take a look at Gamechoice Club's DVD page, found here. They sell, among other things, the Dantax 9001 (US$279) which plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, and MP3 CD-rs and CD-RWs. They also have a Sony DTS system ($460) that's rather small and sits upright. Mind you, all these DVD players are code free (Region 0), so you can play most DVDs on them, no matter what region they are from.
I haven't personally interacted with Gamechoice Club (which is in Hong Kong), although they seem to have an OK reputation and have some absolutely cool stuff, like a a handheld Duo R X for the PC Engine.
Regular: So, you like Slashdot's colors? (thinking it's a type of green)
Shifted: It's beautiful! A green similar to that you'd find in a pond! (in reality his "green" is an orange... that is, even a pond looks orange to him)
This of course leades to philosophical questions such as "Do we really all see in the same colors?"
http://www.rendell.uk.co/gol/tm.htm is the correct link... It didn't seem slashdotted to me. Must've been fixed quickly.
Well, what concerns me is what will happen to the 100,000 Nader voters. Is it possible that they will now vote differently, knowing that their vote counts "more" now that they are part of a VERY close state?
As "magnaminous" as these events where, let us not forget that Jessee Jackson walked around Philadelphia offering homeless people cigarettes in exchange for their voter registration.
No, but we don't complain when The Register talks excessively about the UK.
Either way, it's "fuzzy math." Maybe next time they should lock the ballot boxes in an iron-clad lockbox, a lockbox.
Sure, what he did may not have worked per se, but his name is known widely hundreds of years later, even to the people that didn't see the animated Disney movie.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father yesterday. He asked me who I was voting for and I said, "Nader!"
He looked at me and said, "You can't do that, you have to pick either Gore or Bush." And then I realized he heard me said 'Neither' not 'Nader'.
I knew a guy that bit into aluminum cans and sucked the beer like a vampire. It frightened the ladies.
I know there was a discussion here on /. a while ago, and the two differing arguments went like this:
"I don't need drugs to code well. I am a geek and that lifwstyle values intelligence, etc. something that drugs do not affect positively."
Or, on the other hand...
"I use drugs when I do (or don't code). It helps me experiment with the boundaries of consciousness, and I think that pushing the boundaries is something geeks do well."
Basically, I don't think it's very good to push forward the idea that techies use drugs more than the general population; there's enough misrepresentation as it is. Well, the LA Times covers the issue smartly: "But the combination of excessive wealth, driving ambition and a youthful sense of invulnerability has created fertile ground for some of society's most expensive, and dangerous, highs."
Mind you, this isn't really concerning techies as it is concerning those involved in the recent stock boom that happens to be related to technology. But I can guarantee you that a lot of those people "running rampant" on drugs are marketing execs as well. I think the only reason techies are involved is because they are part of this boom. The same would've happened if we created a New Economy based on turnips or hovercraft. You'd see a lotta botanists/farmers or physicists/engineers high on goofballs.
I thought everyone knew the Moon belonged to Radio Shack.
Now, they mention that a serial was included in the NFO, but no serial information exists in iSONews's posting of the NFO. So there is nothing illegal.If anything, it's helpful. A good 50% of the information in the NFO is Maxim's own ad copy about the game.
I don't see what's wrong.