LOL, I had put a 10$ deposit down and pre-ordered it at a local Software Etc in 1997 or 1998. Last year I got into an arguement with them for my deposit back.
Tom Golisano (Founder of payroll company PayChex, worth over 10 Billion) borrowed 1,500$ of a relative's money to found his company. He had a good plan, worked hard, did the right thing and look what happened.
Bill Gates got lucky, he invested 80,000 in buying a hastily put together OS to resell for a higher price. Little did he know how much that initial 80,000 would grow. Right place, right time, and alittle bit of business smarts got him where he is.
Larry Ellison created Oracle because he believed in the relational database. He founded a company around it, ran it right, and now his biggest worry is why won't customs let his fighter jets in. Woe to be him, eh?
Even the venerable Sam Walton (Who if alive would be worth over 100 billion) started out with one retail store. Difference was his stores were ran better than anyone elses. Look at how K-Mart fell from grace so quickly. Do the mega-store better than Wal-Mart and you'll be rich too.
The bottom line is some of this people came from money, others started with nothing.
But the fact is that they got where they are today. THAT is what the "American dream" is, and we are fortunate to live in a country where our names could be on that list one day.
Who knows, maybe tommorrow a lightbulb will go off in your head and you'll think of a way of doing something innovative or different.
This is the icing on the cake, it's kinda late so I guess that's my excuse for forgetting to type it..
While leaving Burbank my "friend" had purchased a kitchen utensil set. Upon packing the luggage my "friend" looked at the 8 inch chef knife and said.. "Damn I'm gonna have to ship this back or give it away cause there's no shot in hell this is getting let on the plane in my carry-on." His brother says Ah give it a shot, if its a no-go let security confiscate it.
Needless to say, my "friend's" bag went through the X-Ray machine, and the attendant didn't even give it a glance. Remember he is flagged for extra security.. regardless of the 8 inch knife on the X-Ray, the bag has to be checked by FAA policy!!! His bag was never opened and he boarded the plane and landed with the obvious contraband aboard. But I dare the 90 year old woman to try to board with a nail clipper.
So not only was he flagged as a security risk, but he sucessfully boarded the plane with an 8 inch chef knife without anyone giving him a second glance! Of course he had no mal-intents but the whole incident shocked my pilot friend and he was furious as it showed how really terrible airport security is, and how easy a terrorist can smuggle stuff in if a regular passenger (who was flagged a terrorist!!) can get by without trying to circumvent any security.
Same thing happened to me at JFK. Ever since taking a one-way flight to Florida for a prolonged business trip, every flight I've been on I've been labeled "SSSS." I think it stands for Super Secret Squirrel Security.. I'm not sure. Anyway I get to cut the long lines at regular security so I don't care if they think I'm a terrorist.
The usual procedure is to stamp the ticket and punch a hole into the ticket to prove that the SSSS security check was made. After my very thorough SSSS check which involved unzipping my carry on and looking under one shirt, I got my ticket stamped but no hole. I'm about to board the plane when they say I can't get on because I only have the stamp.. not the hole.
Mind you, the hole IS A REGULAR CIRCULAR PUNCH HOLE CREATED BY A 1.99 STAPLES HOLE PUNCHER.
Of course I had to walk 900 feet back to the checkpoint, as this magical punchhole proved I was clean and not a terrorist. Kinda scary, no?
Also upon flying out of Burbank airport, flagged my usual terroristic SSSS, I asked which line is for SSSS security. To which the "guard" replied "Oh we don't do that here, just go through regular."
Now of course I know that I am no terrorist, but what about others who may be? When I told a close friend who is a pilot for United about that, he freaked out and said theyd be in huge trouble if the FAA ever found out.
Needless to say the whole airport security thing is a facade of false security, regulated by mystic punch holes, dimwitted workers, and innane flagged policies - He took a one-way flight!!! He's a terrorist lets do extra security on him for the next 30 flights!!" When of course anyone looking to cause trouble would just book round trip..
EVERY car that is to be DOT approved must have several crash tests (Frontal, side impact, etc) to prove the occupants would be safe in the event of a crash. The reason many limited edition sports cars from Europe were never sold here is the companies could not afford to crash several of their 200k+++ machines to get approval. If Bill Gates had let 2-3 959's crash and the crash dummies proved the cars were safe, then it would have been easier to get DOT approval.
The first few paragraphs offer some details on what was developed...
Then for the rest of the article there is just information on Meganet's business health. Looks more like they're trying to spur investing into the company rather than offer details on how the product works.
Until the source code is published and subjected to peer review like PGP was, then and only then can it be deemed "secure." Until then I'll be running PGP on my computer powered by cold-fusion generated electricity =)
US vs other Nations
on
DSL Rising
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Many areas of the US can't get DSL service due to their distance from the phone company central office. So they are left with no choice but to get cable, if it's availible.
I fell into this category, as even though DSL was availible in my town (a suburb outside of NYC), I was wayyyy too far from the central office to get DSL. Only just recently did my local cable supplier begin offering broadband.
In smaller countries with more concentrated populations, more people live within the appropriate distance from the central office. Hence the larger amount of people with DSL service.
Adding the 3% to the bill if the customer is paying by credit card is a sure way to piss off the credit card company. They might even revoke your ability to accept credit cards. I know of many restaurants in NY which rather than take the 3% loss on transactions (which at busy places can cost tens of thousands at the end of the year), have an ATM installed on site. Wanna pay by CC? Sure, go use the ATM. Now instead of losing 3% on the sale, the business gains $1.00 (other $1.00 goes to ATM vendor).
Any industry where the government has the nerve to charge a 20 to 30 dollar tax every month on your cell phone bill is undeserving of my money anyway.
There was an article in a local NYC newpaper about how most of the "special" taxes for 911 and such don't even goto their intended causes. I don't call em, I don't use em; and I won't until the pricing structure is totally revamped.
If they implement mandatory crypto backdoors, all it will do is FUTURE programs will have backdoors. Congress can't send out some massive cosmic ray which instantly patches a backdoor into every existing copy of PGP. The genie is already out of the bottle, there is absolutely no way to implement any form of crypto regulation which will stop "bad guys," it will just prevent the "good people" from having safe cryto.
Not only that, but can you imagine the havoc that would occur on society should the backdoor ever fall into the public domain? Now THAT would be a terrorist attack that cripples all important telecommunication.
Sure sounds like a good idea reading about it but it's totally unpractical. He wants to aim for the desktop, which means he's gonna have to go for the average user. Since windows comes "free" on all mainstream PCs today, the average user will never ever have the need to run a windows clone.
Sure, us geeky people will have fun messing around with it, but we already have our joys in running unixes.
If you sue, you *Might* get your money, but it's not worth it. The legal fees will only further harm an already cash strapped business model. You might get your money now, but you'll bring down the 10 sites they sponsor with it.
Remember these ad based companies are starving, they don't have much cash on hand at all. This is a very drastic decision for them and they wouldn't be doing it if it wasnt an absolute necessity.
My advice is take the lower money and be happy you're getting anything at all. This is a very rough time for banner ad companies
Never did I say that the actual crackers who broke in should not be prosecuted. I said the people responsible for the negligence in allowing the security breach should be held responsible.
If I buy CD's from CDNow, I am entrusting them with my personal information. They are the trusted keepers of my credit card number. If, by negligence, someone is able to steal my credit card number, they should be held legally responsible. Of course if a hacker breaks in using a previously unknown bug they cannot be held responsible. However, in cases like this, where a fix was availible for two years, they company SHOULD be held responsible if my personal information is compromised.
To liken to your child care analogy, lets look at a day care center. If the day care center states all workers undergo an extensive background check (much like an e-commerce site guarantees your personal information security), and a convicted child molester ends up working there, they should be held responsible if he molests children at the day care center. The center is TRUSTED with the SAFE care of your child, much like an e-commerce company is TRUSTED with the SAFETY of your credit card number.
If an e-commerce company has admins who spend their time playing mindsweeper and cybering on ICQ while totally ignoring their networks security, they are negligent and should be held responsible for blantant security breaches. There are thousands of "network admins" who don't know their ass from their elbow in network security, who got their MCSE from the back of a newspaper, working at these companies. And it's scary that we entrust our personal information to incompetant people. That's why companies should be held accountable for security breaches.
The article says the crackers used an exploit in NT where the patch was availible for TWO YEARS on Microsoft's web site. If you run an e-commerce company and don't use readily availible patches, you DESERVE to get cracked by one of these retards.
The people that run the site should also be ARRESTED for putting their customers personal information in jeopardy. Incompetence is no excuse. What are the admins getting paid to do? Most cracks come from the sheer laziness and cluelessness on the part of the network admins.
Crackers don't use brand-new, not yet on bug-traq exploits, they are a bunch of kids using cracks ages old where the patches to fix it are readily availible. Keep your system up to date, or don't bother putting it on the internet, cause you will and do deserve to get cracked.
Not only do they protect the president, they have to fight anything that undermine's United States currency.. counterfeiting, credit card fraud, large money laundering, etc.
Target any small ISP with legal threats and they'll likely do the same, no matter the country.
Many smaller ISP's survive on extremely small profit margins and cannot afford any legal battles. When faced with thousands in legal fees alone compared to gaining your 19.95, it's obvious what the choice will be.
However some admins do have a clue and will stand up to groundless legal threats. Just have to find an ISP that wil.
An example is the aolsucks.org saga from awhile back. 3+ years ago AOL filed suit against the website for it's comments on AOL's service. They demanded the hosting ISP remove the site. Luckily the ISP saw their was no legal ground for AOL to stand for and stood up to them. And AOL backed down =)
Advice: Just find an ISP that has the balls to stand up and you'll be ok =)
Once one copy is released to the web, it doesn't matter how much money the company has, how many lawyers, how many lawsuits, there is no way they can stop people from having it.
It's the same thing we saw in the DeCSS case, and the same thing we will see in future cases.
This is the Internet, the land of the free. Enjoy it =)
3 to 5 years for a software patent is an utterly unreasonable proposal made by amazon. It guarantees whatever "technology" that is patented is obselete by the time the patent expires.
The fast moving software industry cannot be bogged down with patents, most will already agree.
But there is *some* need to protect truly unique ideas.
Instead of 3-5 years, why not let software patents last 6 to 9 months? It's enough to allow the inventors of any "innovations" gain from their idea for a good portion of time before others are allowed to copy it. The user base of this idea will be well established in 6-9 months.
A commitee of software industry personel would oversee all new patents to determine if they are truly *unique* and *original*. Current patent judges are ill-equipted to determine originality of software patents.
That's just one proposal.
Anyone else have ideas on making software patents palatable?
A common misconception is that Linux GUI's are hard too use. For what the average user does, this is a very false statement.
Most people use only 3-5 of the icons on their Windows desktop, without ever delving into any of the menus. AOL, Word, Internet Explorer is all they know.
For most people, it's all they need to know.
So when we talk of usability of Linux GUIs, there is nothing "hard" about starting Linux programs from the GUI. What gives average users trouble is installing the actual program.
For Windows most installers automatically put the icons on the desktop and the user never has to worry about fiddling with any settings.
There is an immense number of technical things going on with the installation of a Windows program, but the user never ever sees it. DLLs are copied,.ini's are created, and the monster known as the registry is altered.
The same should also work for installing Linux programs. Install scripts which hide the ugly technical stuff from the user, place an icon on the desktop, and thats all.
Instead of a "better" GUI, Linux needs a better install procedere which lets the user click and go.
Slashdot Mirror
"Contests/Games of skill", with a prize, are NOT allowed in Florida.
LOL, I had put a 10$ deposit down and pre-ordered it at a local Software Etc in 1997 or 1998. Last year I got into an arguement with them for my deposit back.
Holds up a mirror?
Tom Golisano (Founder of payroll company PayChex, worth over 10 Billion) borrowed 1,500$ of a relative's money to found his company. He had a good plan, worked hard, did the right thing and look what happened.
Bill Gates got lucky, he invested 80,000 in buying a hastily put together OS to resell for a higher price. Little did he know how much that initial 80,000 would grow. Right place, right time, and alittle bit of business smarts got him where he is.
Larry Ellison created Oracle because he believed in the relational database. He founded a company around it, ran it right, and now his biggest worry is why won't customs let his fighter jets in. Woe to be him, eh?
Even the venerable Sam Walton (Who if alive would be worth over 100 billion) started out with one retail store. Difference was his stores were ran better than anyone elses. Look at how K-Mart fell from grace so quickly. Do the mega-store better than Wal-Mart and you'll be rich too.
The bottom line is some of this people came from money, others started with nothing.
But the fact is that they got where they are today. THAT is what the "American dream" is, and we are fortunate to live in a country where our names could be on that list one day.
Who knows, maybe tommorrow a lightbulb will go off in your head and you'll think of a way of doing something innovative or different.
Yes Virginia, you can be a billionaire too.
This is the icing on the cake, it's kinda late so I guess that's my excuse for forgetting to type it..
While leaving Burbank my "friend" had purchased a kitchen utensil set. Upon packing the luggage my "friend" looked at the 8 inch chef knife and said.. "Damn I'm gonna have to ship this back or give it away cause there's no shot in hell this is getting let on the plane in my carry-on." His brother says Ah give it a shot, if its a no-go let security confiscate it.
Needless to say, my "friend's" bag went through the X-Ray machine, and the attendant didn't even give it a glance. Remember he is flagged for extra security.. regardless of the 8 inch knife on the X-Ray, the bag has to be checked by FAA policy!!! His bag was never opened and he boarded the plane and landed with the obvious contraband aboard. But I dare the 90 year old woman to try to board with a nail clipper.
So not only was he flagged as a security risk, but he sucessfully boarded the plane with an 8 inch chef knife without anyone giving him a second glance! Of course he had no mal-intents but the whole incident shocked my pilot friend and he was furious as it showed how really terrible airport security is, and how easy a terrorist can smuggle stuff in if a regular passenger (who was flagged a terrorist!!) can get by without trying to circumvent any security.
Same thing happened to me at JFK. Ever since taking a one-way flight to Florida for a prolonged business trip, every flight I've been on I've been labeled "SSSS." I think it stands for Super Secret Squirrel Security.. I'm not sure. Anyway I get to cut the long lines at regular security so I don't care if they think I'm a terrorist.
The usual procedure is to stamp the ticket and punch a hole into the ticket to prove that the SSSS security check was made. After my very thorough SSSS check which involved unzipping my carry on and looking under one shirt, I got my ticket stamped but no hole. I'm about to board the plane when they say I can't get on because I only have the stamp.. not the hole.
Mind you, the hole IS A REGULAR CIRCULAR PUNCH HOLE CREATED BY A 1.99 STAPLES HOLE PUNCHER.
Of course I had to walk 900 feet back to the checkpoint, as this magical punchhole proved I was clean and not a terrorist. Kinda scary, no?
Also upon flying out of Burbank airport, flagged my usual terroristic SSSS, I asked which line is for SSSS security. To which the "guard" replied "Oh we don't do that here, just go through regular."
Now of course I know that I am no terrorist, but what about others who may be? When I told a close friend who is a pilot for United about that, he freaked out and said theyd be in huge trouble if the FAA ever found out.
Needless to say the whole airport security thing is a facade of false security, regulated by mystic punch holes, dimwitted workers, and innane flagged policies - He took a one-way flight!!! He's a terrorist lets do extra security on him for the next 30 flights!!" When of course anyone looking to cause trouble would just book round trip..
EVERY car that is to be DOT approved must have several crash tests (Frontal, side impact, etc) to prove the occupants would be safe in the event of a crash. The reason many limited edition sports cars from Europe were never sold here is the companies could not afford to crash several of their 200k+++ machines to get approval. If Bill Gates had let 2-3 959's crash and the crash dummies proved the cars were safe, then it would have been easier to get DOT approval.
The first few paragraphs offer some details on what was developed...
Then for the rest of the article there is just information on Meganet's business health. Looks more like they're trying to spur investing into the company rather than offer details on how the product works.
Until the source code is published and subjected to peer review like PGP was, then and only then can it be deemed "secure." Until then I'll be running PGP on my computer powered by cold-fusion generated electricity =)
Many areas of the US can't get DSL service due to their distance from the phone company central office. So they are left with no choice but to get cable, if it's availible.
I fell into this category, as even though DSL was availible in my town (a suburb outside of NYC), I was wayyyy too far from the central office to get DSL. Only just recently did my local cable supplier begin offering broadband.
In smaller countries with more concentrated populations, more people live within the appropriate distance from the central office. Hence the larger amount of people with DSL service.
Adding the 3% to the bill if the customer is paying by credit card is a sure way to piss off the credit card company. They might even revoke your ability to accept credit cards.
I know of many restaurants in NY which rather than take the 3% loss on transactions (which at busy places can cost tens of thousands at the end of the year), have an ATM installed on site. Wanna pay by CC? Sure, go use the ATM. Now instead of losing 3% on the sale, the business gains $1.00 (other $1.00 goes to ATM vendor).
It'd be a Hack-O-Lantern =)
Imagine a pumpkin patch^H^H^H^H^H^H^H beowulf cluster of these =)
Any industry where the government has the nerve to charge a 20 to 30 dollar tax every month on your cell phone bill is undeserving of my money anyway.
There was an article in a local NYC newpaper about how most of the "special" taxes for 911 and such don't even goto their intended causes. I don't call em, I don't use em; and I won't until the pricing structure is totally revamped.
If they implement mandatory crypto backdoors, all it will do is FUTURE programs will have backdoors. Congress can't send out some massive cosmic ray which instantly patches a backdoor into every existing copy of PGP. The genie is already out of the bottle, there is absolutely no way to implement any form of crypto regulation which will stop "bad guys," it will just prevent the "good people" from having safe cryto.
Not only that, but can you imagine the havoc that would occur on society should the backdoor ever fall into the public domain? Now THAT would be a terrorist attack that cripples all important telecommunication.
Looking at the NYC skyline this morning was horrifying. I first learned of the attack on the radio, I was in shock and couldn't believe it...
Until I looked across the water and saw a huge cloud of smoke covering the area where the WTC once stood. It was a utterly eerie sight.
Sure sounds like a good idea reading about it but it's totally unpractical. He wants to aim for the desktop, which means he's gonna have to go for the average user. Since windows comes "free" on all mainstream PCs today, the average user will never ever have the need to run a windows clone.
Sure, us geeky people will have fun messing around with it, but we already have our joys in running unixes.
If you sue, you *Might* get your money, but it's not worth it. The legal fees will only further harm an already cash strapped business model. You might get your money now, but you'll bring down the 10 sites they sponsor with it.
Remember these ad based companies are starving, they don't have much cash on hand at all. This is a very drastic decision for them and they wouldn't be doing it if it wasnt an absolute necessity.
My advice is take the lower money and be happy you're getting anything at all. This is a very rough time for banner ad companies
Never did I say that the actual crackers who broke in should not be prosecuted. I said the people responsible for the negligence in allowing the security breach should be held responsible.
If I buy CD's from CDNow, I am entrusting them with my personal information. They are the trusted keepers of my credit card number. If, by negligence, someone is able to steal my credit card number, they should be held legally responsible. Of course if a hacker breaks in using a previously unknown bug they cannot be held responsible. However, in cases like this, where a fix was availible for two years, they company SHOULD be held responsible if my personal information is compromised.
To liken to your child care analogy, lets look at a day care center. If the day care center states all workers undergo an extensive background check (much like an e-commerce site guarantees your personal information security), and a convicted child molester ends up working there, they should be held responsible if he molests children at the day care center. The center is TRUSTED with the SAFE care of your child, much like an e-commerce company is TRUSTED with the SAFETY of your credit card number.
If an e-commerce company has admins who spend their time playing mindsweeper and cybering on ICQ while totally ignoring their networks security, they are negligent and should be held responsible for blantant security breaches. There are thousands of "network admins" who don't know their ass from their elbow in network security, who got their MCSE from the back of a newspaper, working at these companies. And it's scary that we entrust our personal information to incompetant people. That's why companies should be held accountable for security breaches.
The article says the crackers used an exploit in NT where the patch was availible for TWO YEARS on Microsoft's web site. If you run an e-commerce company and don't use readily availible patches, you DESERVE to get cracked by one of these retards.
The people that run the site should also be ARRESTED for putting their customers personal information in jeopardy. Incompetence is no excuse. What are the admins getting paid to do? Most cracks come from the sheer laziness and cluelessness on the part of the network admins.
Crackers don't use brand-new, not yet on bug-traq exploits, they are a bunch of kids using cracks ages old where the patches to fix it are readily availible. Keep your system up to date, or don't bother putting it on the internet, cause you will and do deserve to get cracked.
Not only do they protect the president, they have to fight anything that undermine's United States currency.. counterfeiting, credit card fraud, large money laundering, etc.
1) Final fantasy 9 came out last week. He just got the game now he's gonna sell it? He's just listing games
2) Even more damaging... Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was NEVER released! Project was announced but cancelled
3) He's got lots of crappy Neo-Geo games listed, but none of the more famous and "better" ones, like street fighter and Samarai showdown 1.
4) User has zero feedback
Target any small ISP with legal threats and they'll likely do the same, no matter the country.
Many smaller ISP's survive on extremely small profit margins and cannot afford any legal battles. When faced with thousands in legal fees alone compared to gaining your 19.95, it's obvious what the choice will be.
However some admins do have a clue and will stand up to groundless legal threats. Just have to find an ISP that wil.
An example is the aolsucks.org saga from awhile back. 3+ years ago AOL filed suit against the website for it's comments on AOL's service. They demanded the hosting ISP remove the site. Luckily the ISP saw their was no legal ground for AOL to stand for and stood up to them. And AOL backed down =)
Advice: Just find an ISP that has the balls to stand up and you'll be ok =)
Once one copy is released to the web, it doesn't matter how much money the company has, how many lawyers, how many lawsuits, there is no way they can stop people from having it.
It's the same thing we saw in the DeCSS case, and the same thing we will see in future cases.
This is the Internet, the land of the free. Enjoy it =)
3 to 5 years for a software patent is an utterly unreasonable proposal made by amazon. It guarantees whatever "technology" that is patented is obselete by the time the patent expires.
The fast moving software industry cannot be bogged down with patents, most will already agree.
But there is *some* need to protect truly unique ideas.
Instead of 3-5 years, why not let software patents last 6 to 9 months? It's enough to allow the inventors of any "innovations" gain from their idea for a good portion of time before others are allowed to copy it. The user base of this idea will be well established in 6-9 months.
A commitee of software industry personel would oversee all new patents to determine if they are truly *unique* and *original*. Current patent judges are ill-equipted to determine originality of software patents.
That's just one proposal.
Anyone else have ideas on making software patents palatable?
>>Given Apple's emphasis on ergonomics
Ha! Obiviously the author never used an iMac Mouse.
A common misconception is that Linux GUI's are hard too use. For what the average user does, this is a very false statement.
.ini's are created, and the monster known as the registry is altered.
Most people use only 3-5 of the icons on their Windows desktop, without ever delving into any of the menus. AOL, Word, Internet Explorer is all they know.
For most people, it's all they need to know.
So when we talk of usability of Linux GUIs, there is nothing "hard" about starting Linux programs from the GUI. What gives average users trouble is installing the actual program.
For Windows most installers automatically put the icons on the desktop and the user never has to worry about fiddling with any settings.
There is an immense number of technical things going on with the installation of a Windows program, but the user never ever sees it. DLLs are copied,
The same should also work for installing Linux programs. Install scripts which hide the ugly technical stuff from the user, place an icon on the desktop, and thats all.
Instead of a "better" GUI, Linux needs a better install procedere which lets the user click and go.