Really, what else is there to say? If a person is so unstable that they're going to imitate a game or a movie, you need to look back earlier to the real cause of their problem. Such a person went over the edge long ago and would probably react negatively to pretty much any random stimuli.
Seriously, a good deathmatch in doom would let these guys blow off a lot of heat so they could get back to doing real work. I worry about people who don't relax enough.
It's also a filter used by many employers. If you didn't bother with college, why should the employer bother with you? You, as a non-collegiate are far more likely to be a waste of time for an interview than a college grad. Of course there are exceptions, but no one wants to dig through a pile of rubbish just because there *might* be a gem in there. This might be less of an issue in silicon valley where tech jobs ads make up the bulk of local newspapers, but will certainly hurt you if you ever find yourself in a more discriminating environment where the employer has more luxury to pick and choose.
>There is a small possibility that the RIAA will succeed in its attempt to ban MP3 >players, evidenced by its lawsuit against Diamond Multimedia, which makes the Rio player.
and 4 machines even cheaper by much more than a quad CPU board? IMO, clustering single CPU machines is a better choice than attempting to pack a single machine with more CPUs. Besides for the same expense, you'll be able to build a bigger cluster (more total CPUs, and therefore computationally more powerful) of single CPU machines than if you attempt to build one big massive parallel machine. Maybe there's some tremendous advantage of SMP over clustering (like Beowulf) which I am not seeing. Feel free to bash me about for my ignorange.
From the sketchy article it would appear that he was turned in by someone where he works. All this hype about MS embedding tracking features into Office is just bunk.
Tamagotchis? People felt for them when they died.
on
Robotic Dogs
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· Score: 1
I picked up one of these things when they were really being hyped. I thought it was an interesting novelty. It was actually fun to watch it grow. And if you took better care of it, it grew into better forms. When I saw it Monday after accidentally leaving it at work over the weekend and seeing that ghost floating over the grave, I actually did feel a little bit sad. It died because of me.
Which reminds me, I should put some new batteries in my Tamagotchi. It's been dead (literally) for some time now.
How is it neutron bombs are more evil?
on
Nerd Dream Home?
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· Score: 1
I've heard this a lot, that weapons which kill life but do not destroy infrastructure are somehow more evil than weapons which still kill people but destroy everything else in the area too. I don't get it. Either way they're dead.
By this thinking, ordinary guns must be uniquely evil too since they can kill a person but leave all their possessions (wallet, shoes, etc.) intact. Where's the international ban on these?
I thought it was pretty nifty at the time. Put in your money, a hatch opens, and a 7-inch diameter pizza slides out into the microwave, the hatch closes and 2 minutes later, presto! You have some really awful tasting pizza. Still I ate a few more, just for the sheer thrill of using this contraption!:)
The lawyers griped about this but little more. So, is posting letters (paper ones of email) without the other party stating an opinion beforehand,
(1) Prohibited by law (2) Always in bad taste (3) Always explicitly permitted
Same question, but if the letter/email already contains words to the effect that, "permission to reveal the contents of this letter/email to others is not given." Is publically posting the letter/email now
(1) Prohibited by law (2) Always in bad taste (3) Always explicitly permitted
The FCC, for example, prohibits you from divulging the contents of anything you might hear on a scanner (radio) without the parties' permission (bordcast and amateur radio excepted).
I still want to be able to see who lowered or raised a comment's score. Yes, this means revealing the list of moderators' names, but until there's accountability among moderators, abuses will be more frequent.
ajax.org was a good example of exactly where companies do not have any business messing around..org should be left to simple first come, first serve, even if the registrant has no trademark and someone else with a tracemark wants the domain. COMpanies belong on.com. Unfortunately,.net has been so perverted from its original use (gateway/connectivity/backbone sites) that it's virtually another.com. Only.org still maintains a different "feel", i.e., pbs.org, and of course.edu.
Drop record industry sites from search DB.
on
Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit?
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· Score: 1
Other search engines should do the same and drop record industry sites from their search engine databases. Let the record industry webmasters explain to their bosses why hits have fallen way off.
'Net needs official common carrier status now!
on
Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit?
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· Score: 2
So serch engines must make a legal determination as to wheather a search is permissible or not before executing it? Harumph.
It looks like not only ISPs and the USENET sites, but search engine sites too are in dire need of common carrier status. Otherwise too many sites will start self-stifiling thenselves rather than risk lawsuits thus diminishing freedom on the 'net. This would be a bad thing, IMO.
ISPs have already had all their hardware siezed because 'illegal material' was found stored on servers. This has to stop before it gets worse.
I want a machine installed into my skull!
on
Wearable PCs
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· Score: 2
Forget wearable. I want a machine small enough to implant right into my skull with a 'heads up' display inside my eyeball. Just think, engineers could pack their device with formulas and tables; doctors with medical reference data; programmers with man pages; students with next week's test answers; all quickly searchable. Recording ability would be nice too. You'd be able to show what really happened to cause that fender bender. The unit could recharge via an induction charger built right into your pillow. Data could be downloaded into the unit in the charger too or via optical input (just look at a display and hit 'download'). None of this is to say the device should be able to control its host in any way. Just a way to keep a small useful reference library in your head. Add a 'net connection and keep up with Slashdot live and everywhere!
Not only is this more MS slanted stuff from ZD, it rings of Godwin's Law, which should be extended to include references or comparisone to Microsoft and it's overlord Bill Gates. There is, of course, only one proper response to a troll. Drumroll please....
I like this growing trend of machines, and hopefully soon, whole systems coming pre-installed with linux. It means they can't use win-modems and win-printers, but will have to use the real deal instead.
It's a extremely stripped down, simplified (to the point of barfing) replacement shell for windows with big on-screen buttons to run a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics program, etc. No control panels. No DOS shells. No nothing that could in any way allow the user to screw up the OS in any way. Turns your PC into a kiosk appliance; a toaster with just about as much control.
Apple took a stab at this too. Their's was called "AtEase"
% cd/tmp % tar -xzf office-linux-6.6.6-tar.gz %./office-install ERROR: Office for Linux can only be installed by the superuser. % su Password: ******** %./office-install Installing Microsoft Office for Linux... Checking for installed components... Verifying available disk space... [...] Installation complete. Your machine will not be restarted so the changes can take effect. Executing: shutdown -h now [...] (*Machine reboots*) [...] Updating ESCD... Verifying DMI pool data...
Opening a package or clicking buttons does not constitute a contract and no one has *ever* been prosecuted for violating these types of licenses. All the "software raids" you hear about every now and then about company X having Y thousand copies of unlicensed software are busted because they stole (no new laws here) or because they violated NDAs (bearing real signatures on real paper) not because they violated meaningless shrink wrap agreements.
A non-proprietary file format becoming a standard? Oh.. my.. God.. It scares them to death. The lack of rigid control. The lack of royalty fees. They want something like DIVX so they can enforce their pay-per-thought programs. Failing that, they'll at least want something like the DVD format (with region locking, macrovision crap, etc. to restrict the end users). Ever wonder why there's no digital output jacks on DVD players and TVs with digital inputs? This would result in better picture quality and can be done with current tech. The reason: the mere-potential for piracy.
Anyone wanna bet that if the Redbook audio format for CDs was just being developped today that it would have copy protection and region locking garbage wedged into it?
Alternic and Netscape's "Smart Browsing"
on
NSI Loses Records
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· Score: 1
Alternic is a true alternative DNS registry. Just tell your machine to use alternic as a nameserver and you're up and running. That Internic has a monopoly on domain registration is just by convention. If everyone switched to alternic in droves, NSI would quickly find itself useless.
Netscape's "Smart Browsing" feature is a quasi-name server. If you type "foobar" in the location bar it will try http://www.foobar.com/. It you type "Whitehouse", it now takes you to http://www.whitehouse.gov/ much to the chagrin of whitehouse.com (a porno site), who used to get directed to. If netscape were to set up a true DNS registry of its own, supporting many new TLDs, and made it the default name server on its browser (falling back to conventional DNS if a lookup fails) it could effectively take over a large percentage of Internic's business.
As an example, Netscape could modify its browser to use their own server for DNS lookups by default (the user could change it later if desired). Netscape's own DNS server could support Cool New TLDs and pass anything it doesn't trap out to conventional DNS servers. This could result in massive segments of internet users migrating to a new DNS provider and new domain naming scheme. This might be sufficient to make NSI want to be competitive and to change their evil ways.:)
Oh yeah, MS could do this with IE too, so maybe this isn't such a good idea.
The PC maker can claim that the price is for the whole system and that you can no more refund just the OS anymore than you can refund just the floppy drive or the case. The PC maker can give you the choice of keep the whole system with windows or return the whole system with windows. Since this choice complies with the EULA. The user is out of luck. It sucks but I don't see any to get a refund for just windows unless you buy it separately in the first place, in which case the anit-MS buyer would never buy to begin with.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, what else is there to say? If a person is so unstable that they're going to imitate a game or a movie, you need to look back earlier to the real cause of their problem. Such a person went over the edge long ago and would probably react negatively to pretty much any random stimuli.
Seriously, a good deathmatch in doom would let these guys blow off a lot of heat so they could get back to doing real work. I worry about people who don't relax enough.
It's also a filter used by many employers. If you didn't bother with college, why should the employer bother with you? You, as a non-collegiate are far more likely to be a waste of time for an interview than a college grad. Of course there are exceptions, but no one wants to dig through a pile of rubbish just because there *might* be a gem in there. This might be less of an issue in silicon valley where tech jobs ads make up the bulk of local newspapers, but will certainly hurt you if you ever find yourself in a more discriminating environment where the employer has more luxury to pick and choose.
From the article:
>There is a small possibility that the RIAA will succeed in its attempt to ban MP3
>players, evidenced by its lawsuit against Diamond Multimedia, which makes the Rio player.
Um, didn't the RIAA LOSE this lawsuit?
and 4 machines even cheaper by much more than a quad CPU board? IMO, clustering single CPU machines is a better choice than attempting to pack a single machine with more CPUs. Besides for the same expense, you'll be able to build a bigger cluster (more total CPUs, and therefore computationally more powerful) of single CPU machines than if you attempt to build one big massive parallel machine. Maybe there's some tremendous advantage of SMP over clustering (like Beowulf) which I am not seeing. Feel free to bash me about for my ignorange.
Sure, you can add a PCMCIA modem for Linux, buy why not use what's already built in if you can, and keep a PCMCIA slot free to boot?
Also, some laptops, *cough* *cough* *compaq* *cough*, have CDROM drives with nonstandard software interfaces that Linux will not fully recognize.
From the sketchy article it would appear that he was turned in by someone where he works. All this hype about MS embedding tracking features into Office is just bunk.
I picked up one of these things when they were really being hyped. I thought it was an interesting novelty. It was actually fun to watch it grow. And if you took better care of it, it grew into better forms. When I saw it Monday after accidentally leaving it at work over the weekend and seeing that ghost floating over the grave, I actually did feel a little bit sad. It died because of me.
Which reminds me, I should put some new batteries in my Tamagotchi. It's been dead (literally) for some time now.
I've heard this a lot, that weapons which kill life but do not destroy infrastructure are somehow more evil than weapons which still kill people but destroy everything else in the area too. I don't get it. Either way they're dead.
By this thinking, ordinary guns must be uniquely evil too since they can kill a person but leave all their possessions (wallet, shoes, etc.) intact. Where's the international ban on these?
I thought it was pretty nifty at the time. Put in your money, a hatch opens, and a 7-inch diameter pizza slides out into the microwave, the hatch closes and 2 minutes later, presto! You have some really awful tasting pizza. Still I ate a few more, just for the sheer thrill of using this contraption! :)
The lawyers griped about this but little more. So, is posting letters (paper ones of email) without the other party stating an opinion beforehand,
(1) Prohibited by law
(2) Always in bad taste
(3) Always explicitly permitted
Same question, but if the letter/email already contains words to the effect that, "permission to reveal the contents of this letter/email to others is not given." Is publically posting the letter/email now
(1) Prohibited by law
(2) Always in bad taste
(3) Always explicitly permitted
The FCC, for example, prohibits you from divulging the contents of anything you might hear on a scanner (radio) without the parties' permission (bordcast and amateur radio excepted).
I still want to be able to see who lowered or raised a comment's score. Yes, this means revealing the list of moderators' names, but until there's accountability among moderators, abuses will be more frequent.
ajax.org was a good example of exactly where companies do not have any business messing around. .org should be left to simple first come, first serve, even if the registrant has no trademark and someone else with a tracemark wants the domain. COMpanies belong on .com. Unfortunately, .net has been so perverted from its original use (gateway/connectivity/backbone sites) that it's virtually another .com. Only .org still maintains a different "feel", i.e., pbs.org, and of course .edu.
Other search engines should do the same and drop record industry sites from their search engine databases. Let the record industry webmasters explain to their bosses why hits have fallen way off.
So serch engines must make a legal determination as to wheather a search is permissible or not before executing it? Harumph.
It looks like not only ISPs and the USENET sites, but search engine sites too are in dire need of common carrier status. Otherwise too many sites will start self-stifiling thenselves rather than risk lawsuits thus diminishing freedom on the 'net. This would be a bad thing, IMO.
ISPs have already had all their hardware siezed because 'illegal material' was found stored on servers. This has to stop before it gets worse.
Forget wearable. I want a machine small enough to implant right into my skull with a 'heads up' display inside my eyeball. Just think, engineers could pack their device with formulas and tables; doctors with medical reference data; programmers with man pages; students with next week's test answers; all quickly searchable. Recording ability would be nice too. You'd be able to show what really happened to cause that fender bender. The unit could recharge via an induction charger built right into your pillow. Data could be downloaded into the unit in the charger too or via optical input (just look at a display and hit 'download'). None of this is to say the device should be able to control its host in any way. Just a way to keep a small useful reference library in your head. Add a 'net connection and keep up with Slashdot live and everywhere!
Not only is this more MS slanted stuff from ZD, it rings of Godwin's Law, which should be extended to include references or comparisone to Microsoft and it's overlord Bill Gates. There is, of course, only one proper response to a troll. Drumroll please....
<*plonk!*>
All Hail Sir Troll of Slashdot!
I like this growing trend of machines, and hopefully soon, whole systems coming pre-installed with linux. It means they can't use win-modems and win-printers, but will have to use the real deal instead.
Bob is to Windows what Duplo Blocks are to Legos.
It's a extremely stripped down, simplified (to the point of barfing) replacement shell for windows with big on-screen buttons to run a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics program, etc. No control panels. No DOS shells. No nothing that could in any way allow the user to screw up the OS in any way. Turns your PC into a kiosk appliance; a toaster with just about as much control.
Apple took a stab at this too. Their's was called "AtEase"
% cd /tmp ./office-install ./office-install
% tar -xzf office-linux-6.6.6-tar.gz
%
ERROR: Office for Linux can only be installed by the superuser.
% su
Password: ********
%
Installing Microsoft Office for Linux...
Checking for installed components...
Verifying available disk space...
[...]
Installation complete. Your machine will not be restarted so the changes can take effect.
Executing: shutdown -h now
[...]
(*Machine reboots*)
[...]
Updating ESCD...
Verifying DMI pool data...
Starting Windows 98...
Opening a package or clicking buttons does not constitute a contract and no one has *ever* been prosecuted for violating these types of licenses. All the "software raids" you hear about every now and then about company X having Y thousand copies of unlicensed software are busted because they stole (no new laws here) or because they violated NDAs (bearing real signatures on real paper) not because they violated meaningless shrink wrap agreements.
A non-proprietary file format becoming a standard? Oh.. my.. God.. It scares them to death. The lack of rigid control. The lack of royalty fees. They want something like DIVX so they can enforce their pay-per-thought programs. Failing that, they'll at least want something like the DVD format (with region locking, macrovision crap, etc. to restrict the end users). Ever wonder why there's no digital output jacks on DVD players and TVs with digital inputs? This would result in better picture quality and can be done with current tech. The reason: the mere-potential for piracy.
Anyone wanna bet that if the Redbook audio format for CDs was just being developped today that it would have copy protection and region locking garbage wedged into it?
Alternic is a true alternative DNS registry. Just tell your machine to use alternic as a nameserver and you're up and running. That Internic has a monopoly on domain registration is just by convention. If everyone switched to alternic in droves, NSI would quickly find itself useless.
Netscape's "Smart Browsing" feature is a quasi-name server. If you type "foobar" in the location bar it will try http://www.foobar.com/. It you type "Whitehouse", it now takes you to http://www.whitehouse.gov/ much to the chagrin of whitehouse.com (a porno site), who used to get directed to. If netscape were to set up a true DNS registry of its own, supporting many new TLDs, and made it the default name server on its browser (falling back to conventional DNS if a lookup fails) it could effectively take over a large percentage of Internic's business.
As an example, Netscape could modify its browser to use their own server for DNS lookups by default (the user could change it later if desired). Netscape's own DNS server could support Cool New TLDs and pass anything it doesn't trap out to conventional DNS servers. This could result in massive segments of internet users migrating to a new DNS provider and new domain naming scheme. This might be sufficient to make NSI want to be competitive and to change their evil ways. :)
Oh yeah, MS could do this with IE too, so maybe this isn't such a good idea.
The PC maker can claim that the price is for the whole system and that you can no more refund just the OS anymore than you can refund just the floppy drive or the case. The PC maker can give you the choice of keep the whole system with windows or return the whole system with windows. Since this choice complies with the EULA. The user is out of luck. It sucks but I don't see any to get a refund for just windows unless you buy it separately in the first place, in which case the anit-MS buyer would never buy to begin with.