I think they may have stopped doing this, but as recently as 1 year ago, you could register a name and NEVER PAY FOR IT!
It would be months, sometimes years, before the name became available again, and you could use it until then.
We used to always register strange names--without paying for them--for parties. For example if someone left the company, we'd get "GOOD-LUCK-ON-YOUR-NEW-JOB-FRED.COM" or whatever, post our party pictures there, and NEVER pay for it. And it would last for quite some time before NSI took it away.
The downside of this is that people who register and sit on reams of names never had to pay for them. I mean, it's one thing if they had to shell out $70 a pop to register yes-on-xxx.com, no-on-xxx.com, and hope there's a buyer, but when they're not paid up, it's a little annoying.
I don't think it's malice, the software at NSI just must be poor at tracking these things. I hope this lawsuit sheds some light on the matter.
I worked for a DOTCOM for one year, and it was the year of "Community".
They hired all these kids with green hair and studs through their tounges who wanted to put up "community sites" that made no business sense. Places where we'd need 1-2 paid staffers for ever 10-20 members. And of course it all was free.
The market spoke, of course, and now the Community Sites are all dropping like flies. The reasons: Only FREAKS want their social life to be on-line, and NOBODY WILL PAY FOR IT. So it's a bad business.
But the fact is that the chip inside the CueCat is a Hyundai GMS97C56H, which is an 8051 work-alike.
THIS IS THE TROUBLE WITH SLASHDOT. PEOPLE MAKE UP THINGS LIKE "THey Must Be using a PIC inside. Traa la la I love my Macintosh" when it's easy enough to crack open the CueCat and LOOK AT THE CHIP WITH YOUR OWN TWO EYES
Also, this chip is MUCH CHEAPER than a comparable PIC. Of course, if they had better engineers, they may have been able to use a CHEAPER PROCESSOR in their.
There's an optical assembly, two LEDs and a
pinhole sensor.
There's a CPU (a 8051 workalike) and a serial EPROM, a crystal, and a power supply to regulate the keyboard power. About 15 passive components are on the board, too.
And then there's the cable and connectors and custom case
I'd be very surprised if these only cost $3.00 apiece. I'd estimate it, minimum, around $7 or $8 just for parts and assembly.
My Cue:Cat came UNSOLICITED. I never looked at the software, I took the hardware out of the box (there was no agreement on it) and started playing with it. Then I searched for CueCat on the web and got some software on it. I enhanced it and put it up on my web site. (I actually received two of the devices, the other one I used for parts. I needed a spare keyboard connector and some IR LEDs!)
I can't imagine how a company could send you something UNSOLICITED (Wired sold their mailing list) and then hold you accountable for misusing it. They may have a better case against folks who purposefully went to Radio Shack to get one, but what about the poor saps who had one handed to them UNSOLICITED?
I probably should take WIRED MAGAZINE to court for getting me mixed up with this!
Forget about stealing movies (something I find distateful!), I want MP4 in my TiVo!
This may be the technology that will bring TiVo's down enough in price to be an integral part of every TV set.
I've got a 55GB TiVo (thanks to info I found on slashdot!) that's only good for about 50+ hours of basic-quality video. If the compression were, even 2-3 times better, I'd be a lot happier.
I can remember, at least 5 years ago, we were all warned to get our apps ready for the next great Mach-based Apple OS that was going to change the world. Apple demanded that we port all our software to run native in it. I'm glad we didn't! It would have been a multi-million dollar boondoggle.
And before that, there was Pink/Taligent!
I'll believe it when I can buy it. 'Til then, I'll keep my Windows 2K and Linux boxes. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a stable, nice-looking **nix platform with lots of commercial app support. I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for Apple again.
(What ever happened to Apple ][ forever? Steve Jobs promised me!)
I certainly don't think the "hackers" are innocent, either! They should rot in hell, too.
But the company that hires cheap, young, inexperienced programmers should also be responsible, perhaps even CRIMINALLY repsonsible, just as much as the hacker is.
When it's usually their own damn fault for hiring BAD PROGRAMMERS and ENGINEERS!
Since I don't know the details of WU, I won't comment on that, but let's talk about IKEA!
IKEA was cracked because you could do any query against their database by changing parameters in their URL.
Fortunately, a QA company caught this before it was too late.
IKEA has NO RIGHT TO BE IN BUSINESS. PERIOD.
They try to save a few nickels by hiring CHEAP PROGRAMMERS and it's their own FAULT.
p
I hope IKEA and Western Union both go OUT OF BUSINESS.
MAC HEADS are so down on Intel hardware. It's got a great price/performance ratio, when you consider the system (CPU + Motherboard).
A conversation with a typical MAC HEAD goes like this:
Me: "Why don't you like intel processors?"
Mac Head: "They only have four registers!"
...as if the Mac Head I'm talking to that uses his mac to tweak GIFs all day for some website cares about the instruction set of the machine. I mean, does it matter if there's it can only XOR and BNE, as long as it runs all your software fast enough?
That being said, I think Apple wasted a lot of time being slave to its oddball processors.
And on a related topic:: Just think how much money they would have saved, for example, if they supported PC standard Mice and Keyboards? They could have leveraged CHEAP chipsets and still slapped their own nice case on them.
...the "computer scientist" who implemented
that encryption scheme for them! The encrypted string should have made it all the way to thier servers, and then they could do the redirect! That way, the scanner would merely pass the encrypted code from the bar code to the redirect server.
This is just a symptom, of course, of the Internet lowering standards for everyone! It's exteremely hard to find decent computer folk these days. Kids with "CS" degrees (or dropout dotcom wannabes) can cut and paste Java, JavaScript, and HTML, but have no Idea how do develop robust systems.
--
ib
...as it is a step backwards. No VM, no memory protection between processes, and no multitasking. (On my brand-new Mac G4, nothing runs when the mouse button is down!)
I have no biases--I've got NT5, Linux, and an Mac g4 sitting side by side on the desk. Linux and NT5 are an order of magnitude more stable than the Mac, and much easier to develop software for--one mistake doesn't bring down the whole OS.
I think Linux will kill the Mac, not Microsoft!
--
ib
I have fond memories of the Old SCO! The Santa Cruz name was great! It conjured the image of hippie dope-smoking surfer dudes, which they were.
They had a hot tub in their old building; I remember seeing the engineers walking naked through the hall to get to/from the hot tub!
Those green-haired, dotcommers of today think *they're* cool--they should have seen the SCO of 12 years ago. That place rocked!
--
ib
VPNs have nothing to do with NAT or multiple users sharing a connection.
VPN provides a secure end-to-end connection over the internet.
The only reason they would prohibit this is so they can monitor what you're doing!
I love Remarq! It made USENET useful again, and I'll miss it.
What's significant about this is that it's time for companies to shut down well-executed products that make no business sense.
I suspect you'll see a similar shut-down of free homepage sites (many of them, including Geocities have been "rotting" lately), and free photo hosting sites.
Without any way to make money, it's just not worth running these!
Because APPLE GIVES THE MACHINES AWAY! They have someone that checks the "In production" listings in Variety, and goes down to the studios with a trunkful of Macintoshes.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be months, sometimes years, before the name became available again, and you could use it until then.
We used to always register strange names--without paying for them--for parties. For example if someone left the company, we'd get "GOOD-LUCK-ON-YOUR-NEW-JOB-FRED.COM" or whatever, post our party pictures there, and NEVER pay for it. And it would last for quite some time before NSI took it away.
The downside of this is that people who register and sit on reams of names never had to pay for them. I mean, it's one thing if they had to shell out $70 a pop to register yes-on-xxx.com, no-on-xxx.com, and hope there's a buyer, but when they're not paid up, it's a little annoying.
I don't think it's malice, the software at NSI just must be poor at tracking these things. I hope this lawsuit sheds some light on the matter.
--- Speaking only for myself,
C'mon folks, you got $13M for this heap 'o Perl Scripts you call Slashdot. Take the time and care to fix things right, or leave them alone.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Suck my dick, fartcatcher.
--- Speaking only for myself,
And what you'll find in the VCR is the MOTOR, not the PIC!
C'mon, slashdot! Your standards are slipping.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Now if he had this thing in the 40s and held it for ransom, it may have been worth something!
--- Speaking only for myself,
I live near Apple HQ, and I'm sick and tired of the Apple cultists. They're as bad as any other religous cult.
--- Speaking only for myself,
They hired all these kids with green hair and studs through their tounges who wanted to put up "community sites" that made no business sense. Places where we'd need 1-2 paid staffers for ever 10-20 members. And of course it all was free.
The market spoke, of course, and now the Community Sites are all dropping like flies. The reasons: Only FREAKS want their social life to be on-line, and NOBODY WILL PAY FOR IT. So it's a bad business.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Actually, nobody had mentioned Nazis yet. Typically, these discussions degenerate to calling people Nazis. I'm surprised it hasn't.
--- Speaking only for myself,
But the fact is that the chip inside the CueCat is a Hyundai GMS97C56H, which is an 8051 work-alike.
THIS IS THE TROUBLE WITH SLASHDOT. PEOPLE MAKE UP THINGS LIKE "THey Must Be using a PIC inside. Traa la la I love my Macintosh" when it's easy enough to crack open the CueCat and LOOK AT THE CHIP WITH YOUR OWN TWO EYES
Also, this chip is MUCH CHEAPER than a comparable PIC. Of course, if they had better engineers, they may have been able to use a CHEAPER PROCESSOR in their.
--- Speaking only for myself,
There's an optical assembly, two LEDs and a pinhole sensor.
There's a CPU (a 8051 workalike) and a serial EPROM, a crystal, and a power supply to regulate the keyboard power. About 15 passive components are on the board, too.
And then there's the cable and connectors and custom case
I'd be very surprised if these only cost $3.00 apiece. I'd estimate it, minimum, around $7 or $8 just for parts and assembly.
--- Speaking only for myself,
I can't imagine how a company could send you something UNSOLICITED (Wired sold their mailing list) and then hold you accountable for misusing it. They may have a better case against folks who purposefully went to Radio Shack to get one, but what about the poor saps who had one handed to them UNSOLICITED?
I probably should take WIRED MAGAZINE to court for getting me mixed up with this!
--- Speaking only for myself,
This may be the technology that will bring TiVo's down enough in price to be an integral part of every TV set.
I've got a 55GB TiVo (thanks to info I found on slashdot!) that's only good for about 50+ hours of basic-quality video. If the compression were, even 2-3 times better, I'd be a lot happier.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Many cases are complicated. It think it's pompous to presume that [computer] technolgy cases are more complicated than any others.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Lately, slashdot has become a gossip center for half-truths and propaganda for Mac/Linux zealots.
The editorial policy has been slipping for the past six months or so.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Right! They put their website together with the Allen wrench included in the box!
--- Speaking only for myself,
And before that, there was Pink/Taligent!
I'll believe it when I can buy it. 'Til then, I'll keep my Windows 2K and Linux boxes. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a stable, nice-looking **nix platform with lots of commercial app support. I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for Apple again.
(What ever happened to Apple ][ forever? Steve Jobs promised me!)
--- Speaking only for myself,
But the company that hires cheap, young, inexperienced programmers should also be responsible, perhaps even CRIMINALLY repsonsible, just as much as the hacker is.
--- Speaking only for myself,
IKEA was cracked because you could do any query against their database by changing parameters in their URL.
Fortunately, a QA company caught this before it was too late.
IKEA has NO RIGHT TO BE IN BUSINESS. PERIOD. They try to save a few nickels by hiring CHEAP PROGRAMMERS and it's their own FAULT. p I hope IKEA and Western Union both go OUT OF BUSINESS.
--- Speaking only for myself,
A conversation with a typical MAC HEAD goes like this:
Me: "Why don't you like intel processors?"
Mac Head: "They only have four registers!"
...as if the Mac Head I'm talking to that uses his mac to tweak GIFs all day for some website cares about the instruction set of the machine. I mean, does it matter if there's it can only XOR and BNE, as long as it runs all your software fast enough?
That being said, I think Apple wasted a lot of time being slave to its oddball processors. And on a related topic:: Just think how much money they would have saved, for example, if they supported PC standard Mice and Keyboards? They could have leveraged CHEAP chipsets and still slapped their own nice case on them.
--- Speaking only for myself,
This is just a symptom, of course, of the Internet lowering standards for everyone! It's exteremely hard to find decent computer folk these days. Kids with "CS" degrees (or dropout dotcom wannabes) can cut and paste Java, JavaScript, and HTML, but have no Idea how do develop robust systems. -- ib
--- Speaking only for myself,
I have no biases--I've got NT5, Linux, and an Mac g4 sitting side by side on the desk. Linux and NT5 are an order of magnitude more stable than the Mac, and much easier to develop software for--one mistake doesn't bring down the whole OS.
I think Linux will kill the Mac, not Microsoft! -- ib
--- Speaking only for myself,
I have fond memories of the Old SCO! The Santa Cruz name was great! It conjured the image of hippie dope-smoking surfer dudes, which they were. They had a hot tub in their old building; I remember seeing the engineers walking naked through the hall to get to/from the hot tub! Those green-haired, dotcommers of today think *they're* cool--they should have seen the SCO of 12 years ago. That place rocked! -- ib
--- Speaking only for myself,
VPNs have nothing to do with NAT or multiple users sharing a connection. VPN provides a secure end-to-end connection over the internet. The only reason they would prohibit this is so they can monitor what you're doing!
--- Speaking only for myself,
What's significant about this is that it's time for companies to shut down well-executed products that make no business sense.
I suspect you'll see a similar shut-down of free homepage sites (many of them, including Geocities have been "rotting" lately), and free photo hosting sites. Without any way to make money, it's just not worth running these!
--- Speaking only for myself,
Because APPLE GIVES THE MACHINES AWAY! They have someone that checks the "In production" listings in Variety, and goes down to the studios with a trunkful of Macintoshes.
--- Speaking only for myself,