My initial reaction was also one of "wow, that's stupid", but presumably the bullet is fired by a combination of the firing pin (so, the holder of the weapon still has control) plus the radio signal. So, I don't think that guns will spontaneously go off just b/c someone guessed the right key -- you still need to pull the trigger.
Seen the right way, it's classic two-factor authentication.
Yes, my assumption is that it will need to be in the gun to explode as well. However, this is still a pretty bad idea, IMO. Think about a society where the government demands that all civilian weapons are configured in this way. They support the right to bear arms, so nobody feels their rights are bing infringed. Then, after some nonsense, the people decide it's time for a revolution. The government finally oversteps its bounds, decides not to hold an election, whatever. The vast majority of people agree that the government needs to be replaced, and there is no longer a peaceful option.
What does the government do? Turn on some radio jammers on the civialian ammunition frequency. The revolution suddenly becomes a well trained government army versus a bunch of people with small gun shaped clubs.
Likewise, a bank robber can use a radio jammer to deactivate the security guard's weapons. The first street gang to hire a ham radio guy can turn a turf war into a massacre.
I'm sorry, but this radio controlled ammunition seems like a bad idea in a lot of cases. It effectively solves the problem of somebody stealing my bullets and loading them in their gun. Is this a common issue? Do many people die because thugs break into their homes, empty the victim's loaded gun, and then use the bullets in an unauthorised weapon?
It's theft is it? Has anyone here ever been to a trade show and taken the free swag without ever buying the product promoted on said swag? Have you accepted free posters & whatnot from an auto show without later buying a Ferrari or Porshe?
Did you ever accepted the free t-shirts that newspapers and other companies hand out on campuses, at sporting events, concerts, etc. all over the country without later purchasing the goods or services they promote?
Then you sir, are a thief. None of that swag was free for those companies. And you should be charged.
It's theft when the person I took it from says it is theft. Not before, not after. My room mate bought eggs. I used one of his eggs in my cooking night before last. It was not my egg, and it was not theft because he was cool with it. No police man can come in and say it was theft if my room mate disagrees. If my room mate had told me not to take any of his eggs, then it would be theft, regardless of whether or not police would bother to arrest me for the theft of one egg.
Now, the guy that is the subject of this article was taking bandwidth. He wasn't just passively recieving EM radiation. (So, the analogies about watching TV in a shop window or reading a book by the light coming out of the shop window don't apply. If I walk past a shop window, it don't deprive anybody of more of less light depending on whether my eyes are open or closed.) This guy was using the internet connection, and thus slowing down browsing for other people. He was actively depriving them of a finite, tangible resource. As soon as the coffe shop said to stop, and he kept doing it, it was theft. They even had police tell him to go away, and that he wasn't welcome. He came back, knowing that he was taking absolutely without permission. That's theft.
I think it may be more complicated than his simply using an open access point. According to the article, this guy had previously been asked by the police to move along and stop using their wireless network. Thus, he didn't just stop his truck and find an open network that seemed to be inviting him in. Rather, he was continuing to use a network that he had been instructed at least once he was not welcome to use. Even if you hold that a network's being open is generally reasonable permission to use it, this guy knew he did not have permission.
Yes, I think this is key. If I am driving around, and I happen apon an open access point, then it is reasonable for me to assume I have permission to use it, and it is reasonable for me to check my email and be on my way. Likewise, if I go to an internet address in my web browser, and I happen to connect to an Apache server on port 80, then I can reasonably assume that it is okay for me to read that web page.
Some people may disagree with me about it being reasonable to assume that I have permission to use the open access point. But, I think we can all agree that using it is ambiguous. It isn't clearly disallowed. But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission. By using the access point, I am willfully doing something that I know isn't allowed. I'd put it in the same moral category as breaking encryption keys on a closed WAP, or trying to hack into a webpage with password protection. The owner of the resource has clearly done something to make it clear that permission is not granted.
At that point, arresting the belligerent son of a bitch is probably perfectly justified.
Some people may say that the WAP was broadcasting radio waves into his vehicle, so he had the right to do whatever he wants with them. I'll agree to a point, but I don't think that makes it acceptable to use the WAP. Passively monitoring and analysing the radio waves that enter your property is, IMO, reasonable. I wouldn't do it, and I would consider it morally wrong, but I don't think that monitoring unencrypted radio transmissions should be illegal. If you steal a credit card number or something, *that* may well be illegal. But, I think that making it illegal to tune a radio is a horrible precident. Even so, tuning a radio is different from tying up CPU time of somebody else's WAP, and using bandwidth from their network connections. You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested.
Bah -- I refuse to use IE. I just use ftp.exe to get it. It may not usually be rational. But, It has been necessary once or twice. Last time was when Comcast installed their junkware on a Windows laptop. IE couldn't access the Internet, but ftp.exe could, and eventually, so could firefox.
These are fine ideas, and I'd like them on my phone. However, they won't stop the one asshole who feels it's his right to talk during the movie. The only ways to stop this person (short of summary execution) are blocking the signal completely, or a variation of #1 where the phone vibrates and tells you the number that called, but won't allow you to actually talk to that person and instead sends them to voice mail. Something like this would have to be forced upon people by legislation most likely.
Well, in my experience, no faraday cage will significantly effect the assholes, unless you lock them inside the cage. That's what ushers are for. Escort the assholes out. If they refuse to go, call the cops.
Basically, my point is that a complete block will negatively effect the courteous people. But, blocking cell phone signals isn't a solution for jackasses. There were jackasses before there were cell phones. Likewise, with teenagers making out in the back of the theater, etc. I think the solution for those people has to be one of boots on the ground, trying to effect the culture a bit. If we rely on technology too much, then: a - I'll never be able to call 911 in a burning theater, until the fire gets fire enough to take out the equipment. b - the assholes will feel even more entitled to be assholes anywhere they are physically able. "This restaurant doesn't have a cell phone jammer, so I can talk really really loud like an asshat there."
Giving people consequences for being an asshat (i.e. being willing to call the cops) will, IMHO, do more. In my previous post, I only talked about the technological aspect, but I didn't intend to imply that it was a complete solution.
I'd be mighty angry if I was at the movies, and the babysitter couldn't call me and let me know that my children had hurt themselves and was in ICU at the hospital. Sure, I set the phone to vibrate, but beyond that, if somebody calls me, I want to know about it.
People have been dealing with that just fine since pagers first started coming out. When you go to the theater, you leave your pager with an attendant, and he records where you're sitting..... if something happens, they come in to get you, you LEAVE, and use the phone. All without disturbing anybody else.
Well, the problem with this is that I *don't* want to be bothered by 90% of calls I might get while in the Theater, so it would be bad to have some attendant come get me just because an old buddy from high school wants to know if I want to get in on a game of ultimate frisbee, or something. If I have my phone on vibrate, I can see who it is, and ignore it for the 90% of cases. Then, if it is important, I can walk out of the theater to talk. IMHO, we need to related technical solutions.
1 - The theater does need a way to tell the phone that it is in a theater. But, this shouldn't be a signal jammer! It should just tell the phone to automatically flip to vibrate mode. Also, there should be some really mild ring tones available for phones. Something like the sound of a person gently coughing, rather than the super horrible samba MIDI shite that they ship with the phones.
2 - I should have an easy way to semi-acknowledge a call. For example, I get a call during a show, so I open the phone, and then press a button which starts playing back a message along the lines of "The person you have called has picked up the phone, but is unable to speak at the moment. Please standby until the person you have called is able to speak to you. It should only be a moment."
Perhaps, these could even be linked up, so that if I open the phone in a theater, it automatically puts the person on hold, and plays the standby message, until I push a button to start the conversation when I get out of the theater.
They didn't, because it's not possible. No version of Windows supports Autorun from anything other than a CD.
Not especially useful, but you could autorun from a harddrive in Win95. Not especially useful, but it was easy enough. Double clicking on the drive letter would do whatever you wanted, instead of opening it in Explorer. Of course, it wasn't much of a security concern, as you would have had to have pretty intimate access to a machine to install a hard drive in it, anyway...
I've been pretty pleased with it. Add in a wiki for letting other family members post miscellaneous stories and whatnot. I found it easy to setup, and it does everything I need.
Instead of obsessing about how unlockable features prevents you from having you your fun try thinking of them as spreading the fun over a longer period of time.
No. Respectfully, I won't think of it that way. Often times, I only really like 1 or 2 game modes. For example, in a game like Time Splitters, I tend to go for Capture the Flag with a bunch of bots in Arcade mode. As far as I'm concerned, I shouldn't have to play through X hours of story mode, and Y hours of challenge mode before I can play my Capture the Flag. Some of it, I find just frustrating. I am not a hardcore gamer -- I am one of those people who occasionally likes to kill half an hour after work.
Now, that said, I don't have a fundamental opposition to having *some* unlockable content. As long as I have, say, greater than 50% of the stuff I want to do (In my case, 50 % of the CTF maps, and a sufficient quantity of available bots.) then having some extra unlockable "bonus" items is fine. And, the last 10% of unlockables can be really hard to get, just for the hardcore gamers. I just won't ever see that 10%.
However, in, say a racing game... Sometimes you will see a game that basically only allows you to race a station wagon and a mini cooper at the start of the game. It's slow and boring. You have to play through like 500 hours to get to the sports cars. You have to unlock every one of the other 200 cars before you get to the ones you actually want to race with. That's just customer abuse. I just want to have my fantasy of racing a fast sports car. That's why I bought the game. For the *fun*. Making me do slow boring races in the station wagon is *not* "adding to gameplay." It's just making sure that everybody with a life never has any fun at all with the game.
So, to sum up my rant... Starting with only a station wagon is bad. Starting with a sports car, but being able to unlock another sports car -- that is fine. It's fun with an incentive. Likewise, starting with two playable maps, and 1 available bot is bad. Starting with 16 maps, and having another 10 to unlock is fun with an incentive. Customer abude is not a good thing.
First, there is a LOT to HIPPA to understand. People often think any discussion of their medical history is a violation. The truth is you sign a lot over when you sign HIPPA wavers. For instance, the right for your care giver to discuss anything about you with any other potential care giver (often)...you want this, trust me.
One of the areas that does continually suprise me is that medical records are stored, transmitted and displayed all in clear text. Some of the major manufacturers of the healthcare software often use FTP (not Sftp) to exchange records with their customers. Even internally with in a hospital, records are transmitted from one system to another in clear text.
I work in a field which deals with HIPAA. We sometimes recieve emails from other organisations which contain sensitive information. The author of the email sometimes just declares "This is a secure email" and says that any response on the sensitive subject must also be sent securely. Unfortunately, I've never found anything at all out of the ordinary about those emails that are declared to be secure. We don't have any decruption software on our mail server, or anything. We have no idea what causes these people to believe that they are sending things securely.
But, I honestly believe that at least some subset of them somehow believe they are doing something. So, ignorance is a huge huge danger. Most of the people who deal with secure information just have no background at all in security, and no idea what they are doing with the information.
I try to explain to my users that "Email is like sending mail in a see-though envelope." It seems to get the point across more directly than trying to talk about plaintext and encryption. They actively *don't* want to learn about that stuff, so any effort to explain it, no matter how simple, tends to be a failure.
So, don't expect that FTP and the like will be going away any time soon. Assume that all your personal information is out there, readily available to anybody who takes an interest. Assume everybody who deals with your personal information means well, but also assume that they have all the capacity to protect you information as a dim witted monkey who had his skull smashed in with a gold brick.
I didn't see anything here. I'm currently running Firefox under Windows.
I do have NoScript installed. That tends to kill a lot of the bother. I have no idea why NoScript isn't part of the standard install. I just won't browse the web without it anymore.
I think a computer program would do more harm than good by giving you a false sense of proficiency.
Even with a false sense of proficiency, you would at least have confidence. I've studied improvisational acting quite a bit, so if I press myself, I can usually fake confidence. When you seem confident, even with no real social skill, things do tend to go more smoothly. I still hate most social settings, especially if there are lots of people around, but a tool to help build up confidence at basic social interaction would be a huge help. So, I can see a place for "social training" edutainment. Personally, I'd probably buy a copy.
Some people are able to learn normal social behavior as children. Some of us simply never managed. (How the hell do the 90%+ of people who learn 'appropriate' eye contact actually learn it? It doesn't seem to be an inherent thing, because different cultures have different norms for eye contact, but it's something that is basically never taught! If I could get training on normal eye contact, I think it'd help quite a bit...)
* Mario RPG for the SNES didn't have real-time battles (very nitpicky, but the game was turn based to the core)
It's been ages since I played, but timing had something to do with the battles. They weren't exactly real time, but they weren't purely turn based, either. Something about pushing a button at the right moment during an attack to double the power. I don't recall exactly.
The first student to post totally fictitious accounts of something "objectionable" will be up.
Should be no end of fun for the kids, and I rather suspect that the first several lawyers' fees will end up paid by the district too.
Indeed... If I was in the school district, I would start a blog, just so I could tell the story of how I used my army of robots to nuke New Tokyo, or something. Then, I would post that I shot Kennedy using my time machine. Then, I would post that I had a glass of wine. I'd love to see them try to engage in any serious disciplinary action based on a single unverified piece of heresay without any corroborating evidence. Certainly, the student has no expectation of privacy. The school has the authority to read any blog they want. But, if they want to actually do anything as a result, they deserve to have their asses handed to them.
Imagine a world where you can go hook yourself into a robotic control chamber and somewhere on the other side of the world, your robotic counterpart begins to walk around, talk, do things, all based on your brainwaves.
Meanwhile, video from teh robot's 'eye' are transmitted to a 3d viewer in front of your face.
Forget star-rek transporters. Thisi s the next best (and plausible) thing.
Very bad implications for crime and terrorism, though.
I don't know that it would be that bad for crime and terrorism. Sure, the robot could carry a bomb, but it would also be a relatively expensive piece of equipment that most private citizens wouldn't own. I imagine companies owning the bots and control booths. Then, people just rent out bots for day trips, or business meetings, etc. Imagine the benefits to tourism, and rapid emergency response. The most qualified experts could "be" at the scene of a disaster in moments. Every firefighter in the country could take over every robot in a city if there was a bombing, etc.
New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on Plainfields. There are many other Plainfields like it, but this one is mine.;)
Clue: it's in the CHICAGO Sun-Times.
Further clue: from TFA - "Joliet Police".
I live near there - Plainfield is where the big Tornado disaster occurred about 12-13 years ago.
Wacky. One of my best friends moved from Wheaton to Plainfield at the start of High School, so I spent quite a bit of time in that neck of the woods. It's been a few years, but from what I remember of Plainfield, I can understand why the administration would invest so much time and effort into harrassing this kid. There just wasn't anything else to do in that town!;)
I don't think my friend specifically mentioned any major issues with the High School at that time, but it was a pretty strange small town sort of place, and I can totally believe some person with no actual authority would decide to abuse it completely because he is the king of his little hill. (See also, Tuttle OK...)
The best thing about Plainfield was the fact that the captain of their High School scholastic bowl team was a very pleasant and attractive young lady. One of my top five favorite teams to play against in Illinois at that time.:)
Re:By the sound of it, they will be using optics
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Looking for Life in Light
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· Score: 3, Informative
I am guessing that they are talking about optical observations, since it appears to be an extra-atmospheric telescope they are designing. However, at those distances, how can they discern the difference between the shine from a planet and the light given off by the star(s) near the planet? I would think that we observe the earthshine from small enough distances that we can see it in spite of the Sun. I am curious how this would work for distant bodies.
I haven't studied the specifics, but when I hear about similar ideas, irt usually goes something along the lines of starting by just looking at the star. Based on the spectrum, the star has so much oxygen, so much hydrogen, etc. Then, calculate when the planet passes in front of the star. Then, see how the starlight changes. If there is a spike in the apparent amount of hydrogen indicated by the spectrum of the starlight whenever the planet passes in front, then the planet probably has a lot of hydrogen, and so forth.
Funny how the article doesn't specifically mention actual storage capacity... Just vague physical dimensions.
If it's for tape, it depends on how long and wide it is. They give the denisty, so you can compute how much a particular tape size would hold... If it is about 6 Gbits per square inch, and is made into half inch tape that is ten feet long, then it'll be about 60 square inches, which is about 45 GBytes. If it is about 750 feet, which seems pretty realistic, then it'd be something like 3 TBytes per tape.
I've probably scrwed up the math, but I'm sure you get the idea.
I disagree with Merril Lynch analysis on this, Nintendo has always had a profit on all the consoles they've sold. To compete with the others, I expect around a $300 retail price around Thanksgiving, which will be dropped around President's Day or Memorial Day to somewhere around $250.
While it's true that Nintendo is reported to make a profit on the console hardware, it should be pointed out that every previous console has launched at $200. Even N64, which was much more powerful (though had less storage) than the competing Playstation or Saturn consoles. Sure, with inflation, $200 buys less now than it did in 1985 for most things. Even so, I think they may decode to go for $200 again.
Hey man, some of us *like* Tux Racer. Seriously, if there was an easy no soldering way to run my own code on an X360, I'd probably get one. It'd make a pretty slick little media center PC, among other things.
I do 3d development under Linux using OpenSceneGraph. I can personally attest to the fact that 3d acceleration works under Linux. framebuffer
Why the hell you want to use framebuffer with a spiffed up card is beyond me but yes, nVidia has a framebuffer driver, and here's a walkthruough: here
2d & video out
Haven't used it personally but I have friends who do. Again, same driver code is shared between Windows and Linux.
I think you missed the poster's point...
Whiney Mac Fanboy wrote:
So goddamn what? Here's a cluestick for you - Linux can do a helluva lot more then windows. When nvidia's driver supports accelerated 3d, framebuffer, 2d & video out, across all platforms I might be impressed.
See, he wasn't saying that nVidia's driver didn't support accelerated 3D. He said it didn't support it *on all platforms.* This is significant for some of us. Some of us run BSD, or any number of other OS/CPU combinations. An Open Source driver would be very beneficial for some of us. It could also be bundled with our favorite distribution, so everything would fit right in, and I wouldn't have to bother downloading the nvidia driver deparately from my OS. Not all the world is a Linux PC or a Windows PC. (Or, IA64...) nVidia does a respectable job of supporting non Win32 platforms, but that doesn't mean that it's perfect.
they are able to provide "lifetime cancer protection"
I see, so the protection lasts right until they die... from cancer. I think Aleve can do this just as well:)
Hell, thermonuclear explosions are almost a certain lifetime prevention of cancer if you are close enough to enjoy the full effect. Lifetime may be measured in femtoseconds, but you won't get cancer before you get turned into a cloud of expanding miscellaneous non specific matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, my assumption is that it will need to be in the gun to explode as well. However, this is still a pretty bad idea, IMO. Think about a society where the government demands that all civilian weapons are configured in this way. They support the right to bear arms, so nobody feels their rights are bing infringed. Then, after some nonsense, the people decide it's time for a revolution. The government finally oversteps its bounds, decides not to hold an election, whatever. The vast majority of people agree that the government needs to be replaced, and there is no longer a peaceful option.
What does the government do? Turn on some radio jammers on the civialian ammunition frequency. The revolution suddenly becomes a well trained government army versus a bunch of people with small gun shaped clubs.
Likewise, a bank robber can use a radio jammer to deactivate the security guard's weapons. The first street gang to hire a ham radio guy can turn a turf war into a massacre.
I'm sorry, but this radio controlled ammunition seems like a bad idea in a lot of cases. It effectively solves the problem of somebody stealing my bullets and loading them in their gun. Is this a common issue? Do many people die because thugs break into their homes, empty the victim's loaded gun, and then use the bullets in an unauthorised weapon?
It's theft when the person I took it from says it is theft. Not before, not after. My room mate bought eggs. I used one of his eggs in my cooking night before last. It was not my egg, and it was not theft because he was cool with it. No police man can come in and say it was theft if my room mate disagrees. If my room mate had told me not to take any of his eggs, then it would be theft, regardless of whether or not police would bother to arrest me for the theft of one egg.
Now, the guy that is the subject of this article was taking bandwidth. He wasn't just passively recieving EM radiation. (So, the analogies about watching TV in a shop window or reading a book by the light coming out of the shop window don't apply. If I walk past a shop window, it don't deprive anybody of more of less light depending on whether my eyes are open or closed.) This guy was using the internet connection, and thus slowing down browsing for other people. He was actively depriving them of a finite, tangible resource. As soon as the coffe shop said to stop, and he kept doing it, it was theft. They even had police tell him to go away, and that he wasn't welcome. He came back, knowing that he was taking absolutely without permission. That's theft.
Yes, I think this is key. If I am driving around, and I happen apon an open access point, then it is reasonable for me to assume I have permission to use it, and it is reasonable for me to check my email and be on my way. Likewise, if I go to an internet address in my web browser, and I happen to connect to an Apache server on port 80, then I can reasonably assume that it is okay for me to read that web page.
Some people may disagree with me about it being reasonable to assume that I have permission to use the open access point. But, I think we can all agree that using it is ambiguous. It isn't clearly disallowed. But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission. By using the access point, I am willfully doing something that I know isn't allowed. I'd put it in the same moral category as breaking encryption keys on a closed WAP, or trying to hack into a webpage with password protection. The owner of the resource has clearly done something to make it clear that permission is not granted.
At that point, arresting the belligerent son of a bitch is probably perfectly justified.
Some people may say that the WAP was broadcasting radio waves into his vehicle, so he had the right to do whatever he wants with them. I'll agree to a point, but I don't think that makes it acceptable to use the WAP. Passively monitoring and analysing the radio waves that enter your property is, IMO, reasonable. I wouldn't do it, and I would consider it morally wrong, but I don't think that monitoring unencrypted radio transmissions should be illegal. If you steal a credit card number or something, *that* may well be illegal. But, I think that making it illegal to tune a radio is a horrible precident. Even so, tuning a radio is different from tying up CPU time of somebody else's WAP, and using bandwidth from their network connections. You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested.
Bah -- I refuse to use IE. I just use ftp.exe to get it. It may not usually be rational. But, It has been necessary once or twice. Last time was when Comcast installed their junkware on a Windows laptop. IE couldn't access the Internet, but ftp.exe could, and eventually, so could firefox.
Well, in my experience, no faraday cage will significantly effect the assholes, unless you lock them inside the cage. That's what ushers are for. Escort the assholes out. If they refuse to go, call the cops.
Basically, my point is that a complete block will negatively effect the courteous people. But, blocking cell phone signals isn't a solution for jackasses. There were jackasses before there were cell phones. Likewise, with teenagers making out in the back of the theater, etc. I think the solution for those people has to be one of boots on the ground, trying to effect the culture a bit. If we rely on technology too much, then:
a - I'll never be able to call 911 in a burning theater, until the fire gets fire enough to take out the equipment.
b - the assholes will feel even more entitled to be assholes anywhere they are physically able. "This restaurant doesn't have a cell phone jammer, so I can talk really really loud like an asshat there."
Giving people consequences for being an asshat (i.e. being willing to call the cops) will, IMHO, do more. In my previous post, I only talked about the technological aspect, but I didn't intend to imply that it was a complete solution.
Well, the problem with this is that I *don't* want to be bothered by 90% of calls I might get while in the Theater, so it would be bad to have some attendant come get me just because an old buddy from high school wants to know if I want to get in on a game of ultimate frisbee, or something. If I have my phone on vibrate, I can see who it is, and ignore it for the 90% of cases. Then, if it is important, I can walk out of the theater to talk. IMHO, we need to related technical solutions.
1 - The theater does need a way to tell the phone that it is in a theater. But, this shouldn't be a signal jammer! It should just tell the phone to automatically flip to vibrate mode. Also, there should be some really mild ring tones available for phones. Something like the sound of a person gently coughing, rather than the super horrible samba MIDI shite that they ship with the phones.
2 - I should have an easy way to semi-acknowledge a call. For example, I get a call during a show, so I open the phone, and then press a button which starts playing back a message along the lines of "The person you have called has picked up the phone, but is unable to speak at the moment. Please standby until the person you have called is able to speak to you. It should only be a moment."
Perhaps, these could even be linked up, so that if I open the phone in a theater, it automatically puts the person on hold, and plays the standby message, until I push a button to start the conversation when I get out of the theater.
Not especially useful, but you could autorun from a harddrive in Win95. Not especially useful, but it was easy enough. Double clicking on the drive letter would do whatever you wanted, instead of opening it in Explorer. Of course, it wasn't much of a security concern, as you would have had to have pretty intimate access to a machine to install a hard drive in it, anyway...
I use a gallery2 on my server. Check it out here : http://gallery.menalto.com/
I've been pretty pleased with it. Add in a wiki for letting other family members post miscellaneous stories and whatnot. I found it easy to setup, and it does everything I need.
No. Respectfully, I won't think of it that way. Often times, I only really like 1 or 2 game modes. For example, in a game like Time Splitters, I tend to go for Capture the Flag with a bunch of bots in Arcade mode. As far as I'm concerned, I shouldn't have to play through X hours of story mode, and Y hours of challenge mode before I can play my Capture the Flag. Some of it, I find just frustrating. I am not a hardcore gamer -- I am one of those people who occasionally likes to kill half an hour after work.
Now, that said, I don't have a fundamental opposition to having *some* unlockable content. As long as I have, say, greater than 50% of the stuff I want to do (In my case, 50 % of the CTF maps, and a sufficient quantity of available bots.) then having some extra unlockable "bonus" items is fine. And, the last 10% of unlockables can be really hard to get, just for the hardcore gamers. I just won't ever see that 10%.
However, in, say a racing game... Sometimes you will see a game that basically only allows you to race a station wagon and a mini cooper at the start of the game. It's slow and boring. You have to play through like 500 hours to get to the sports cars. You have to unlock every one of the other 200 cars before you get to the ones you actually want to race with. That's just customer abuse. I just want to have my fantasy of racing a fast sports car. That's why I bought the game. For the *fun*. Making me do slow boring races in the station wagon is *not* "adding to gameplay." It's just making sure that everybody with a life never has any fun at all with the game.
So, to sum up my rant... Starting with only a station wagon is bad. Starting with a sports car, but being able to unlock another sports car -- that is fine. It's fun with an incentive. Likewise, starting with two playable maps, and 1 available bot is bad. Starting with 16 maps, and having another 10 to unlock is fun with an incentive. Customer abude is not a good thing.
I work in a field which deals with HIPAA. We sometimes recieve emails from other organisations which contain sensitive information. The author of the email sometimes just declares "This is a secure email" and says that any response on the sensitive subject must also be sent securely. Unfortunately, I've never found anything at all out of the ordinary about those emails that are declared to be secure. We don't have any decruption software on our mail server, or anything. We have no idea what causes these people to believe that they are sending things securely.
But, I honestly believe that at least some subset of them somehow believe they are doing something. So, ignorance is a huge huge danger. Most of the people who deal with secure information just have no background at all in security, and no idea what they are doing with the information.
I try to explain to my users that "Email is like sending mail in a see-though envelope." It seems to get the point across more directly than trying to talk about plaintext and encryption. They actively *don't* want to learn about that stuff, so any effort to explain it, no matter how simple, tends to be a failure.
So, don't expect that FTP and the like will be going away any time soon. Assume that all your personal information is out there, readily available to anybody who takes an interest. Assume everybody who deals with your personal information means well, but also assume that they have all the capacity to protect you information as a dim witted monkey who had his skull smashed in with a gold brick.
I didn't see anything here. I'm currently running Firefox under Windows.
I do have NoScript installed. That tends to kill a lot of the bother. I have no idea why NoScript isn't part of the standard install. I just won't browse the web without it anymore.
Even with a false sense of proficiency, you would at least have confidence. I've studied improvisational acting quite a bit, so if I press myself, I can usually fake confidence. When you seem confident, even with no real social skill, things do tend to go more smoothly. I still hate most social settings, especially if there are lots of people around, but a tool to help build up confidence at basic social interaction would be a huge help. So, I can see a place for "social training" edutainment. Personally, I'd probably buy a copy.
Some people are able to learn normal social behavior as children. Some of us simply never managed. (How the hell do the 90%+ of people who learn 'appropriate' eye contact actually learn it? It doesn't seem to be an inherent thing, because different cultures have different norms for eye contact, but it's something that is basically never taught! If I could get training on normal eye contact, I think it'd help quite a bit...)
Indeed... If I was in the school district, I would start a blog, just so I could tell the story of how I used my army of robots to nuke New Tokyo, or something. Then, I would post that I shot Kennedy using my time machine. Then, I would post that I had a glass of wine. I'd love to see them try to engage in any serious disciplinary action based on a single unverified piece of heresay without any corroborating evidence. Certainly, the student has no expectation of privacy. The school has the authority to read any blog they want. But, if they want to actually do anything as a result, they deserve to have their asses handed to them.
I don't know that it would be that bad for crime and terrorism. Sure, the robot could carry a bomb, but it would also be a relatively expensive piece of equipment that most private citizens wouldn't own. I imagine companies owning the bots and control booths. Then, people just rent out bots for day trips, or business meetings, etc. Imagine the benefits to tourism, and rapid emergency response. The most qualified experts could "be" at the scene of a disaster in moments. Every firefighter in the country could take over every robot in a city if there was a bombing, etc.
You missed a hyphen between the 0 and the d4y. Heck, can't you even spell and use proper punctuation in your 'leet?
Wacky. One of my best friends moved from Wheaton to Plainfield at the start of High School, so I spent quite a bit of time in that neck of the woods. It's been a few years, but from what I remember of Plainfield, I can understand why the administration would invest so much time and effort into harrassing this kid. There just wasn't anything else to do in that town!
I don't think my friend specifically mentioned any major issues with the High School at that time, but it was a pretty strange small town sort of place, and I can totally believe some person with no actual authority would decide to abuse it completely because he is the king of his little hill. (See also, Tuttle OK...)
The best thing about Plainfield was the fact that the captain of their High School scholastic bowl team was a very pleasant and attractive young lady. One of my top five favorite teams to play against in Illinois at that time.
I haven't studied the specifics, but when I hear about similar ideas, irt usually goes something along the lines of starting by just looking at the star. Based on the spectrum, the star has so much oxygen, so much hydrogen, etc. Then, calculate when the planet passes in front of the star. Then, see how the starlight changes. If there is a spike in the apparent amount of hydrogen indicated by the spectrum of the starlight whenever the planet passes in front, then the planet probably has a lot of hydrogen, and so forth.
I thought PERL would be illegal in England because nobody has a decryption key available to give to the government!
Somebody mod this guy up -- The 1024 res one is the one I'm downloading, so I hope the torrent gets slashdotted! :)
If it's for tape, it depends on how long and wide it is. They give the denisty, so you can compute how much a particular tape size would hold... If it is about 6 Gbits per square inch, and is made into half inch tape that is ten feet long, then it'll be about 60 square inches, which is about 45 GBytes. If it is about 750 feet, which seems pretty realistic, then it'd be something like 3 TBytes per tape.
I've probably scrwed up the math, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Hey man, some of us *like* Tux Racer. Seriously, if there was an easy no soldering way to run my own code on an X360, I'd probably get one. It'd make a pretty slick little media center PC, among other things.
I think you missed the poster's point...
Whiney Mac Fanboy wrote:
See, he wasn't saying that nVidia's driver didn't support accelerated 3D. He said it didn't support it *on all platforms.* This is significant for some of us. Some of us run BSD, or any number of other OS/CPU combinations. An Open Source driver would be very beneficial for some of us. It could also be bundled with our favorite distribution, so everything would fit right in, and I wouldn't have to bother downloading the nvidia driver deparately from my OS. Not all the world is a Linux PC or a Windows PC. (Or, IA64...) nVidia does a respectable job of supporting non Win32 platforms, but that doesn't mean that it's perfect.
Hell, thermonuclear explosions are almost a certain lifetime prevention of cancer if you are close enough to enjoy the full effect. Lifetime may be measured in femtoseconds, but you won't get cancer before you get turned into a cloud of expanding miscellaneous non specific matter.