I know quite a few programmers who use Macs because, well, if you're developing code on a remote server, might as well use the system you like, and they like Macs better. Go to DEFCON or HOPE or any of those, and you'll see quite a high percentage of Powerbooks out there.
3. Mac = OS X all the time now, for new machines. 4. What? Of course they are. Saying "UNIX is for X" and "Mac isn't for X" is, in fact, mutually exclusive since Mac IS UNIX.
There's a population of PC users that does nothing but get IE viruses and play solitaire. I don't think that has much to do with the ability of a PC to be useful.
The 27 million donation was also a one-time thing. Hasn't been repeated.
I was more making the point that its absurd that they spend that much money on Chess City, and that little on aid to their "palestinian brethren", and yet complain loudly about the conditions their palestinian brethren live in. Saudi Arabia is guilty of this too; in fact, all of the ME Arab states are.
Compulsory contributions are crap, but the fact remains - oil production in the UAE *is* nationalized already, though the national government has partnered with foreign firms. It provides the majority of government revenue. It isn't tithed, because it goes straight to the government. So yes, my complaints are valid - the government is spending a metric ass-tonne on Chess City, money it made not from tithes but from oil, and yet doesn't support their own region's refugees. Far be it from me to suggest that before countries complain about the treatment of a refugee, they might wish to up their own
Yes, they provide free health care to their citizens. And I'll give the UAE credit - Sheikh Zayed has proposed to establish Zayed City in Gaza, a 3600-apartment project, at $160 million, including infrastructure.
But still. 500k while still mouthing support of an organization is hypocritical when you blow 2.6 billion on Chess City.
Well, they pledged to give $500,000 to UNRWA in 2003. And 2002. And 2001.
Considering that UNRWA deals with a problem much closer to home, and that they're spending 2.6 BILLION dollars on Chess City, I think its fair to expect a little bit more than a half-million for UNRWA.
(The $27 million donation in 2002? Came from UAE Red Crescent, not from the UAE.)
Please, misunderstand my point a little bit more. Although I phrased it badly, I admit.
In relation to *games*, the subject at hand, if you buy a Mac, you've *at the start* said "This machine is not solely for gaming." By choosing a Mac, you've decided that there are other things that are more important than the ability to play every game on the market. If you want a machine solely for gaming, you buy a PC. If you want a machine for both work and gaming, you can choose either, but if you choose a Mac you've chosen to set gaming as a lesser priority. And the vast majority of office machines are bought with video cards inferior to those on a Mac (eMac comes with a Radeon 9200, most entry-level Dells at similar price points come with integrated graphics), so that point is pretty silly as well. Since Macs are UNIX these days, you made yet another weird point that makes no sense.
Consider my post in the context of discussing gaming machines. No one buys a Mac as a gaming machine.
Honestly, Windows users who are using Windows firewall with 'stealth' mode aren't running anything where they're going to have "users". The only people attempting to reach them are crackers and skiddies.
As to netops, again, we're not talking core net routers. We're talking leaf nodes, and I'd note that the networks generally diagnose through the physical layer (talking to the cable/DSL modem) and not through the computer.
For *users*, this is actually a valid thing to do. Its basically a tarpit trap - anything that makes an attacker's mass attacks slow down can't really be viewed as bad if it doesn't interfere with the majority of legit uses.
Yeah, but I still won't be able to run ProTools (without crashing), Final Cut, or any of the other apps that actually let me get some work done.
Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.
No. The Predicta is obsolete. It can't display HDTV. I assume it doesn't have an s-video input; for that matter, I assume its only inputs are 300 and 75 ohm antenna wire. Its already obsolete; modifying it to accept modern video signals fed to a modern video screen makes it significantly less so.
And I may be the only one, but while I can see the appeal of it as an example of 50s design, I personally find it ugly and would not allow it in my home.
a) The cable provider is probably a primary and not a secondary. Primaries are chosen based on two things: audience and transmitter power. Obviously, transmitter power only applies to broadcast stations. Cable systems are probably (not having worked in TV, I wouldn't know) primaries, based on their viewer numbers and the fact that it'd be easy to use them as a good distribution to a large geographic area with more regularity than a broadcast primary. Thus, you'd need to inject the message into the message-passing front end, which means it would need to be perceived as coming from an authoritative source for whatever you were trying to send.
b) Sure, you can override that 50 kilowatt clear channel (as opposed to Clear Channel) AM station with a 5W transmitter if you can get 5 feet from the antenna. Where's the antenna? Odds are its on property you have no access to. Its probably not easily accessible, and the antenna for the receiver isn't a huge, easy to spot thing, either. Maybe if you had inside info as to its location, but even there, the secondary is going to human-check (unless its an automated station). Every location is a much bigger proposal than you're passing it off as.
Well, I spent 4 years DJing at a radio station, as well as doing some engineering.
We had a hard enough time getting our DJs to remember to trigger the *required* EAS tests, and the incoming alerts (weather, Amber, etc.), much less getting them to remember to approve a made up one with weird info.
Speaking as one of those people riding a pedal bicycle in the city, yes, you pretty much need to be crazy. You're sharing the road with people driving vehicles weighing 100 times as much as yours, driving 2-3 times faster than you, who not only don't really want to share the road with you but many of whom actively resent your presence. Since the city hasn't gotten around to putting in bike lanes/wide enough lanes, you're probably sharing a lane with a car, and that car is likely to get frustrated when your acceleration and top speed aren't as high as his.
Yeah, we pretty much have to be crazy to be willing to put ourselves in this much risk. On the other hand, its fun, and tends to reduce the health effects of pizza and beer after work to nil.
Safety numbers for vehicle safety are usually quoted in accidents per vehicle mile, not total accidents. AFAIK, in per mile numbers, semis do considerably better than SUVs, and I believe better than cars in general.
That's quite possibly the best solution to the problem I've ever heard.
Need an SUV? Get a commercial license, drive carefully at all times.
Don't want to go through with getting a CDL? Too bad for you, no commercial vehicles. Buy a light truck that's actually a light truck (Ranger, S-10, etc.) if you want to drive something bigger than a car.
Apparently you didn't know, because kinetic energy is 1/2 the mass times the *square* of the velocity. Velocity is far more important in crashes than mass.
A heavy SUV carries proportionally more energy at speed than a smaller car, but also has proportionally more structure for the energy to be dissipated in.
It isn't impossible to design a safe SUV. However, the real problem will always be that while a SUV-SUV crash and a car-car crash are probably, on average, of roughly equal safety, a SUV-car crash is always going to be more dangerous for the car, and for reasons having little to do with energy dissipation and a lot to do with impact geometry.
"poseurs driving a Chevy Tahoe in drag" s/b "people driving anything motorized that requires parking more complex than a U-lock, a chain, and a bike hoop"
Yes, its based on low-speed modem transmissions over public airwaves. What wasn't mentioned is:
The low-speed transmissions are done by 'primary' stations, who have big transmitters. 'Secondary' stations choose primary stations to monitor, and retransmit the alerts the primary stations transmit.
The low-speed transmissions are done on their broadcast frequency.
So, you know what you need to exploit this? Locally, you need to know which local station(s) is/are primary, and a transmitter big enough to override the monitored signal, or a group of transmitters big enough to override the monitored signal at each of the monitoring antennas.
Nationally, you would need to do this for EVERY primary station.
It isn't perfect, but its actually pretty reasonable security. A far bigger threat would be someone who could inject a believable warning into the primary systems, and even there, I'm not so certain its really a worry (see: 1970s NORAD mistake that no one broadcast).
One of the nice things about some of our comms (AM, FM, some of the simpler digital modulation methods) is that the receiver is *cheap* and can therefore be small and ubiquitous. Smart networks won't be cheap and won't be small.
I was thinking of a non-lethal electric fence - a shock designed to warn "Stay the hell away", not to harm. Similarly, something designed to inflict minor injury but not to maim/kill might be legal if signage is posted (including a non-lettering graphic) and the deterrent is behind measures obviously designed to restrict illegitimate access. The courts have ruled that if the person on your property is trespassing/ordinary license (not invited, in other words), you have essentially no duty of care in regards to their safety.
A trap that is clearly visible/marked is what I'm talking about. Making it obvious there's danger if you break in. I think that might cover your bases.
That said, I neither care enough nor have a cruel enough sense of humor (or enough money to pay a lawyer) to test my theories in court.
Stop referring to the high voltage one as a trap, please. It wasn't. It was a legit reason for HV in his car, he didn't intend it as a trap, it was intended to power a large transmitter. This is like saying if somebody lifts my lawnmower up and cuts their hand off on the blade I have a lawnmower man-trap.
If that is the law, how do you explain the legality of barbed-wire and electrified fencing?
I would assume that the track is simply not covered under standard policies, and that *if* you want track insurance (I assume the track has their own to cover damage caused to their facilities by drivers, while leaving damage caused to their car to the driver to deal with) you have to pay extra for that. However, it might not be required (private road, therefore no insurance requirement, unless the vehicle is still under some form of loan/lease, in which case the lessor/loan holder probably requires it). Either way, it shouldn't affect your base auto insurance rate.
Actually, his wasn't a man-trap; I remember the post to which you referred. He was a ham op who used a high-voltage power supply to power a transmitter. Since he'd marked it as dangerous and properly locked it to prevent use by anyone who wasn't malificent, he was in the clear.
Similarly, if you locked your car and posted about the mantrap, its hard to argue that you weren't trying to prevent anyone from hazarding their health if they were acting legally. The question becomes, is it legal to use force in the defense of your vehicle? It's legal to use electrified or barbed fencing, without even posting a sign (well, in the case of barbed, I believe you have to post for electrified). I suspect a signed and locked man-trap, such that in order to activate it the trappee would have to be acting illegally, is probably legit. However, I would assume that if you were using it intentionally it would have to be at minimum force necessary to dissuade the illegal act the trap is designed to prevent.
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You're sort of a tool, aren't ya?
I know quite a few programmers who use Macs because, well, if you're developing code on a remote server, might as well use the system you like, and they like Macs better. Go to DEFCON or HOPE or any of those, and you'll see quite a high percentage of Powerbooks out there.
3. Mac = OS X all the time now, for new machines.
4. What? Of course they are. Saying "UNIX is for X" and "Mac isn't for X" is, in fact, mutually exclusive since Mac IS UNIX.
There's a population of PC users that does nothing but get IE viruses and play solitaire. I don't think that has much to do with the ability of a PC to be useful.
The 27 million donation was also a one-time thing. Hasn't been repeated.
I was more making the point that its absurd that they spend that much money on Chess City, and that little on aid to their "palestinian brethren", and yet complain loudly about the conditions their palestinian brethren live in. Saudi Arabia is guilty of this too; in fact, all of the ME Arab states are.
Compulsory contributions are crap, but the fact remains - oil production in the UAE *is* nationalized already, though the national government has partnered with foreign firms. It provides the majority of government revenue. It isn't tithed, because it goes straight to the government. So yes, my complaints are valid - the government is spending a metric ass-tonne on Chess City, money it made not from tithes but from oil, and yet doesn't support their own region's refugees. Far be it from me to suggest that before countries complain about the treatment of a refugee, they might wish to up their own
Yes, they provide free health care to their citizens. And I'll give the UAE credit - Sheikh Zayed has proposed to establish Zayed City in Gaza, a 3600-apartment project, at $160 million, including infrastructure.
But still. 500k while still mouthing support of an organization is hypocritical when you blow 2.6 billion on Chess City.
No, we mean like Windows and CP/M.
Linux is back there with writing straight to the iron. (I kid, I kid... it's at least as good as DOS.)
Well, they pledged to give $500,000 to UNRWA in 2003. And 2002. And 2001.
Considering that UNRWA deals with a problem much closer to home, and that they're spending 2.6 BILLION dollars on Chess City, I think its fair to expect a little bit more than a half-million for UNRWA.
(The $27 million donation in 2002? Came from UAE Red Crescent, not from the UAE.)
Please, misunderstand my point a little bit more. Although I phrased it badly, I admit.
In relation to *games*, the subject at hand, if you buy a Mac, you've *at the start* said "This machine is not solely for gaming." By choosing a Mac, you've decided that there are other things that are more important than the ability to play every game on the market. If you want a machine solely for gaming, you buy a PC. If you want a machine for both work and gaming, you can choose either, but if you choose a Mac you've chosen to set gaming as a lesser priority. And the vast majority of office machines are bought with video cards inferior to those on a Mac (eMac comes with a Radeon 9200, most entry-level Dells at similar price points come with integrated graphics), so that point is pretty silly as well. Since Macs are UNIX these days, you made yet another weird point that makes no sense.
Consider my post in the context of discussing gaming machines. No one buys a Mac as a gaming machine.
From the get-go, your TV is *capable* of displaying HD resolution. A Predicta is not.
ProTools crashes on the PC. No one uses it on the PC if they can at all avoid it.
Final Cut doesn't run on the PC.
Everyone who uses those, which is a pretty good cross-section of A/V production, uses a Mac.
Or did you just not read my comment and respond with something you thought would make you sound smart?
Right, because only gay people are allowed to have a fucking sense of style, yeah?
I think its ugly. I don't put ugly things in my house. Do you? I mean, beyond your boyfriend?
Honestly, Windows users who are using Windows firewall with 'stealth' mode aren't running anything where they're going to have "users". The only people attempting to reach them are crackers and skiddies.
As to netops, again, we're not talking core net routers. We're talking leaf nodes, and I'd note that the networks generally diagnose through the physical layer (talking to the cable/DSL modem) and not through the computer.
For *users*, this is actually a valid thing to do. Its basically a tarpit trap - anything that makes an attacker's mass attacks slow down can't really be viewed as bad if it doesn't interfere with the majority of legit uses.
Yeah, but I still won't be able to run ProTools (without crashing), Final Cut, or any of the other apps that actually let me get some work done.
Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.
Right, because there certainly aren't Dells that ship with 128MB of memory and Windows XP.
No. The Predicta is obsolete. It can't display HDTV. I assume it doesn't have an s-video input; for that matter, I assume its only inputs are 300 and 75 ohm antenna wire. Its already obsolete; modifying it to accept modern video signals fed to a modern video screen makes it significantly less so.
And I may be the only one, but while I can see the appeal of it as an example of 50s design, I personally find it ugly and would not allow it in my home.
a) The cable provider is probably a primary and not a secondary. Primaries are chosen based on two things: audience and transmitter power. Obviously, transmitter power only applies to broadcast stations. Cable systems are probably (not having worked in TV, I wouldn't know) primaries, based on their viewer numbers and the fact that it'd be easy to use them as a good distribution to a large geographic area with more regularity than a broadcast primary. Thus, you'd need to inject the message into the message-passing front end, which means it would need to be perceived as coming from an authoritative source for whatever you were trying to send.
b) Sure, you can override that 50 kilowatt clear channel (as opposed to Clear Channel) AM station with a 5W transmitter if you can get 5 feet from the antenna. Where's the antenna? Odds are its on property you have no access to. Its probably not easily accessible, and the antenna for the receiver isn't a huge, easy to spot thing, either. Maybe if you had inside info as to its location, but even there, the secondary is going to human-check (unless its an automated station). Every location is a much bigger proposal than you're passing it off as.
Well, I spent 4 years DJing at a radio station, as well as doing some engineering.
We had a hard enough time getting our DJs to remember to trigger the *required* EAS tests, and the incoming alerts (weather, Amber, etc.), much less getting them to remember to approve a made up one with weird info.
Speaking as one of those people riding a pedal bicycle in the city, yes, you pretty much need to be crazy. You're sharing the road with people driving vehicles weighing 100 times as much as yours, driving 2-3 times faster than you, who not only don't really want to share the road with you but many of whom actively resent your presence. Since the city hasn't gotten around to putting in bike lanes/wide enough lanes, you're probably sharing a lane with a car, and that car is likely to get frustrated when your acceleration and top speed aren't as high as his.
Yeah, we pretty much have to be crazy to be willing to put ourselves in this much risk. On the other hand, its fun, and tends to reduce the health effects of pizza and beer after work to nil.
Safety numbers for vehicle safety are usually quoted in accidents per vehicle mile, not total accidents. AFAIK, in per mile numbers, semis do considerably better than SUVs, and I believe better than cars in general.
That's quite possibly the best solution to the problem I've ever heard.
Need an SUV? Get a commercial license, drive carefully at all times.
Don't want to go through with getting a CDL? Too bad for you, no commercial vehicles. Buy a light truck that's actually a light truck (Ranger, S-10, etc.) if you want to drive something bigger than a car.
Apparently you didn't know, because kinetic energy is 1/2 the mass times the *square* of the velocity. Velocity is far more important in crashes than mass.
A heavy SUV carries proportionally more energy at speed than a smaller car, but also has proportionally more structure for the energy to be dissipated in.
It isn't impossible to design a safe SUV. However, the real problem will always be that while a SUV-SUV crash and a car-car crash are probably, on average, of roughly equal safety, a SUV-car crash is always going to be more dangerous for the car, and for reasons having little to do with energy dissipation and a lot to do with impact geometry.
"poseurs driving a Chevy Tahoe in drag" s/b "people driving anything motorized that requires parking more complex than a U-lock, a chain, and a bike hoop"
Yes, its based on low-speed modem transmissions over public airwaves. What wasn't mentioned is:
The low-speed transmissions are done by 'primary' stations, who have big transmitters. 'Secondary' stations choose primary stations to monitor, and retransmit the alerts the primary stations transmit.
The low-speed transmissions are done on their broadcast frequency.
So, you know what you need to exploit this? Locally, you need to know which local station(s) is/are primary, and a transmitter big enough to override the monitored signal, or a group of transmitters big enough to override the monitored signal at each of the monitoring antennas.
Nationally, you would need to do this for EVERY primary station.
It isn't perfect, but its actually pretty reasonable security. A far bigger threat would be someone who could inject a believable warning into the primary systems, and even there, I'm not so certain its really a worry (see: 1970s NORAD mistake that no one broadcast).
Smarter = more expensive. Always.
One of the nice things about some of our comms (AM, FM, some of the simpler digital modulation methods) is that the receiver is *cheap* and can therefore be small and ubiquitous. Smart networks won't be cheap and won't be small.
I was thinking of a non-lethal electric fence - a shock designed to warn "Stay the hell away", not to harm. Similarly, something designed to inflict minor injury but not to maim/kill might be legal if signage is posted (including a non-lettering graphic) and the deterrent is behind measures obviously designed to restrict illegitimate access. The courts have ruled that if the person on your property is trespassing/ordinary license (not invited, in other words), you have essentially no duty of care in regards to their safety.
A trap that is clearly visible/marked is what I'm talking about. Making it obvious there's danger if you break in. I think that might cover your bases.
That said, I neither care enough nor have a cruel enough sense of humor (or enough money to pay a lawyer) to test my theories in court.
Stop referring to the high voltage one as a trap, please. It wasn't. It was a legit reason for HV in his car, he didn't intend it as a trap, it was intended to power a large transmitter. This is like saying if somebody lifts my lawnmower up and cuts their hand off on the blade I have a lawnmower man-trap.
If that is the law, how do you explain the legality of barbed-wire and electrified fencing?
I would assume that the track is simply not covered under standard policies, and that *if* you want track insurance (I assume the track has their own to cover damage caused to their facilities by drivers, while leaving damage caused to their car to the driver to deal with) you have to pay extra for that. However, it might not be required (private road, therefore no insurance requirement, unless the vehicle is still under some form of loan/lease, in which case the lessor/loan holder probably requires it). Either way, it shouldn't affect your base auto insurance rate.
Actually, his wasn't a man-trap; I remember the post to which you referred. He was a ham op who used a high-voltage power supply to power a transmitter. Since he'd marked it as dangerous and properly locked it to prevent use by anyone who wasn't malificent, he was in the clear.
Similarly, if you locked your car and posted about the mantrap, its hard to argue that you weren't trying to prevent anyone from hazarding their health if they were acting legally. The question becomes, is it legal to use force in the defense of your vehicle? It's legal to use electrified or barbed fencing, without even posting a sign (well, in the case of barbed, I believe you have to post for electrified). I suspect a signed and locked man-trap, such that in order to activate it the trappee would have to be acting illegally, is probably legit. However, I would assume that if you were using it intentionally it would have to be at minimum force necessary to dissuade the illegal act the trap is designed to prevent.