It is no surprise that there is a ready supply of hardware, since this is the home of the famous MIT Flea market, where you can buy anything imaginable, and a few things that aren't. the Fleas market is open every month during the warm weather months, and you can get some truly wild stuff there.
I might even consider building a UFO from parts I can scrounge up from there.
Obviously, I do not think this is going to work. There are no many permutations, that is nothing else, it would let through the more perverted stuff, such as the fetish material, S&M stuff with heavy leather.
This may ultimately require an AI unit to do it correctly. If we do not corrupt the poor thing first with all that pr0n.:P
I wonder when there will be a big fat pipe going from western europe to east asia that does not depend on the USA.
Routing through the mideast is a little dicey given the political instability.
The infrastructure costs make a fat pipe via siberia a real pain.
The point is simply redundancy, as well as opening up the net to other areas of the world. a fat pipe going through that part of the world would help this out tremendously.
Of course, the lunatic fringe is worried that this is a manufactured crisis, greasing the skids for a setting aside of various rights of the American People, and maybe even a declaration of martial law.
all rather unbelievable, and disturbing.
My main concern is the scalability of the various voting solutions. and the need to have a method to properly validate results. Thus original documents seem to be vital, in order to at least be maintain in unaltered form the original actions of the voters. While there is no doubt that small electronic communities can handle
the voting process well, in large communities those with vested interests have too great a temptation to try and monkey with the system. I believe that the technology will take a generation or two to become viable, probably via a quantum security system.
In the meantime, there are too many scary scenarios possible, many that play into the hands of the lunatic fringe, and many that justify paranoia, protected by the shear audacity and unbelievableness of the scheme.
It sounds like someone who has the advantadge of the web to do the research, but who has a certain basic cluelessness so that he misses the point.
Why this would happen has so many possibilities that I hestitate to speculate. I suspect that we will see more of this with people with politically correct holes in their education (among other things), but who knows?
Well, the point seems to be, if you are one of the lucky few who struck it rich, what are you going to do?
everyone pisses and moans about the things wrong in a city, or a society, or something. They bitch alot. Now what happens when you find that you might be able to something about at least something. not everything, but something.
all the not so lucky folks in the internet lottery moan cause they lost out, and because they don't have the money to party with. and maybe they are jealous (just a small chance, maybe)
sometimes what a city might need would be a good club, or an art scene or something. After all, you do not want to have a city like SF with all of the cultural resources of Midland Texas (the onetime small town home of George W. Bush).
Not to disrepect small towns, but there is a reason why folks often want to leave a small town. often there is just plain nothing to do.
Now why would anyone bother trying to do something about it?
I think this is a good thing(tm) and they certainly have my respect, not that they need it or that it matters....
I have often compared Microsoft products to the equivalent of Fords or Chevies, mass market products that are sometimes greatly flawed, but sometimes acceptable for a specific intended purpose. (note for example, the Ford Pinto for the example of a flawed product)
Now, in the automobile market, the inherent costs of the product slowed the speed of market penetration, allowing regional brands to develop. In the computer software market the speed of market penetration has tended to suppress the development of alternate brands (but not completely). But the products are usually mass market.
I view the Microsoft development tools in the same way - lots of flashy marketing hype, some admittedly good things, but there are many other packages that provide equal or better options. I do not compare Microsoft to a Mercedes or a Jaguar, or even a Volvo. It's a Fnord or Chevy.
An Honorable Man(tm) would look at the results, and admit that everything considered, those votes probably should have gone to Al Gore. And an Honorable Man(tm) would say, "based on the obvious truth of the matter, you win Al". This is something that requires true depth of character, and and personal integrity to principles. We all "know" that George W. Bush is a Honorable Man(tm). These are the things that GWB ran on. So it looks like,
if GWB upholds his principles, he looses the election, and thus deserves to win.
if GWB betrays his pricinples, he wins the election, and thus deserves to loose.
[as seen on a bulletin board in Fermi Lab]
"Never apply a Star Trek Solution to a Babylon 5 problem"
I'm beginning to lean towards the shoot them in the face solution.
I understand. the advantage is that the small fry cannot go over seas. and other countries may get into the act.
[insert visions of KGB agents hunting down russian spammers]
Well. there is always the following option, as posted on Segfault back in april 99:
Mafia Don Announces New Anti-Spam Venture
As the NSA and FBI fear, traditional crime organizations have been incorporating high-tech communication
into their organizations. Although Janet Reno was quoted stating "This is law enforcement's worst
nightmare.", techies around the world are sure to be pleased with one New York Syndicate's new venture.
It all started when Don Dominiqi signed onto his AOL account last Monday morning. His inbox was filled with
"Make Money Fast", "Viagra On-Line", and "Teenybopper Web Sex" ads. Lost amidst the drivel was an
important note detailing a non-taxed shipment of Marlboros, which were later confiscated by the BATF.
Little did he know, as he shouted "Bring me the left hand of this f*cking gutterslime!" what would become
of it all.
Later that same day, Billy "Run!" Brutekowski and Larry "My Eyes!" Plucker cornered the pasty-faced
offender of the Family in a small cyber cafe in Grenich Village. "This was by far the creepiest place the Boss
has ever sent us." stated Billy, who only spoke on condition of anonymity. "Everyone in this place looked
pale and sickly, like they had already been 'spoken to'. We asked for this punk, and several people quickly
pointed him out. Most of the scum we find in gin joints aren't so quick to finger one of their own," Billy
continued.
"He must not watch much TV, because this sh*t didn't even flinch when we came to the corner he was
hiding in," Larry proceeded to relate. "We dropped this sheet of paper the Boss had given us on his table
and he says 'So you guys want to make money fast, eh?' He puts out his and says to give him $20. This
scrawny little dirtball tells me to give him $20!" Larry was quite agitated at this part in his story, and his
description of how Sammy Spammer's hand fell off was quite garbled.
Billy continued, "Up till now, this was a routine visit. We was just being playful. The weird sh*t began when
we tried to leave." "This pimply faced kid blocks the door as we try to leave, and I'm thinking to myself
'Great, a f*cking Karate Kid hero. He just stand there, and then he hands me a $5 bill." Billy pulls out the
$5, and holds it like it is his first quarter from his favorite grandmother. "They lined up after that, and we
had $175 in 'tips' when we left the joint."
Later that day the Don himself visited the café, unwilling to believe the story. Although the details are
unclear, sources at the café indicate that the Don has hired them to build and host a new Anti-Spam site.
Through a SSL transaction system, the site will accept spam complaints and credit card donations towards
'solutions to problems'. Multiple complaints against the same spammer are added to the total until an
acceptable solution has been found.
Larry tells us that a typical $250 solution is a broken hand, and for $2000 all anyone ever sees again of 'the
problem' are his shoes.
The URL is to be announced next week, and the cyber café's phones have been jammed with requests for more information.
"We'll send out between 5 (million) and 20 million emails at a time and take a lot of heat from people whining and complaining."
as I noted, no clue at all.
This is why I support the idea of a spammers license. This point of the spammers license is not to legalize spam. The point is to get a legal address where they can be billed for spam, and make it legal to bill the spammers for the traffic at each step of the chain, including the recipient. Enforce the collection via you favorite government agencies - say the IRS and the ATF for example (take your pick). Sufficiently high billing rates would make it rather unprofitable.
.
"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem"
Well, there is definitely enough meat there at Votescam.com to convince me that the information technology that runs the vote counting etc *should* be open source.
but then again, politicians have never made anything like that all that easy.
as it has been said:
"Neve apply a Star Trek Solution to a Babylon 5 Problem"
(Seen on a bulletin board in Fermi Lab)
after all, what kinds of links would you get from everyone who worked at Microsoft? or Sun? Would there naturally be a corporate bias in the culture.
or a regional bias, or whatever....
what you would probably need would also be some rating by the internet age of the person (how long have the been online) because the people who have been around awhile probably have a more useful collection.
and I also wonder how different this is from advertiser tracking of where you go by cookies.
the best combination might be to combine cookie tracking with an internet search engine database. but there are drawbacks here as well.
If you sit back and do nothing, and give everyone else the freedom to do what they want, want happens? All those people who want to meddle and interfere and shove their solutions down *your* throat will be the ones who *will* participate and shove their solutions down *your* throat. Then *you* bitch about it.
What is wrong with this picture?
If you do not take responsibility for your life and your environment, political or otherwise, you become one of Kosh's pebbles ("The avalanche has begun, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" - B5)
The solution sadly, is not to isolate yourself in the cubicle or hole up in the hills. The solutions is to be involved, to grow your influence and power for the things you care about. This does not just include technology issues, but things like personal freedom, your friends and family, etc.
well, I know that even on a regular screen, *depending on the monitor*, I can tell the differance between 72 fps and 90 fps or so...
after that, it is all sort of gravy, depending on the other bells and whistles and effects and such....
seriously, even for regular applications, some monitors look worse at "standard frame rates" compared to others....
not that it matters *that* much...[smile]
Re:More than a couple:
on
D&D Trailer
·
· Score: 2
Shall we make a list of all suicides by Christians each year?
and compare the percentages?
What are the odds that a) it's a wash, or b) the percentages are the wrong way?
Mir International Historic Site
on
Mir Lives
·
· Score: 2
If this keeps up, I can imagine that in a hundred years or so, someone is going to urge that we preserve Mir as a historic site for the tourists. We'll just have to tow it up a little higher.
This also would be a good platform for studying the deterioration of materials in space, (never mind the fungi on board).
the evil communists?
the evil capitalists? the evil bankers? the evil entrepenuers? the evil republicans? the evil democrats? the evil programmers? the evil politicians? the evil racial groups? the evil microserfs? the evil hackers? the evil open source people? the evil............
I found earlier versions of their program to be a little flaky (save early and often) and sometimes did not meet the real architectural expectations of some folks (certain popular styles like Victorian were missing elements), because it was designed/coded in Germany.
Their file format is proprietary as well, so exporting to quake, etc would be a real pain.
Super scale the house so that you are the size of a small child (say 3 years old). Now add the rocket launchers, etc. You go around shooting up all the other kids
the boss of the level would be your parents.
(god, i'm getting to be a sicko this morning... must be the caffeine shortage0
Slashdot Mirror
I might even consider building a UFO from parts I can scrounge up from there.
This may ultimately require an AI unit to do it correctly. If we do not corrupt the poor thing first with all that pr0n. :P
Routing through the mideast is a little dicey given the political instability. The infrastructure costs make a fat pipe via siberia a real pain.
The point is simply redundancy, as well as opening up the net to other areas of the world. a fat pipe going through that part of the world would help this out tremendously.
all rather unbelievable, and disturbing.
My main concern is the scalability of the various voting solutions. and the need to have a method to properly validate results. Thus original documents seem to be vital, in order to at least be maintain in unaltered form the original actions of the voters. While there is no doubt that small electronic communities can handle the voting process well, in large communities those with vested interests have too great a temptation to try and monkey with the system. I believe that the technology will take a generation or two to become viable, probably via a quantum security system.
In the meantime, there are too many scary scenarios possible, many that play into the hands of the lunatic fringe, and many that justify paranoia, protected by the shear audacity and unbelievableness of the scheme.
Why this would happen has so many possibilities that I hestitate to speculate. I suspect that we will see more of this with people with politically correct holes in their education (among other things), but who knows?
The result was a piece of music, a performance, that had never existed before, done are a tempo that had more punch and groove.
This worked out really well. But now I have a bit of music that is something the original artist never recorded.
Who owns the copyright to that, and how would it sort out according to this proposed technology?
Well, the point seems to be, if you are one of the lucky few who struck it rich, what are you going to do?
everyone pisses and moans about the things wrong in a city, or a society, or something. They bitch alot. Now what happens when you find that you might be able to something about at least something. not everything, but something.
all the not so lucky folks in the internet lottery moan cause they lost out, and because they don't have the money to party with. and maybe they are jealous (just a small chance, maybe)
sometimes what a city might need would be a good club, or an art scene or something. After all, you do not want to have a city like SF with all of the cultural resources of Midland Texas (the onetime small town home of George W. Bush).
Not to disrepect small towns, but there is a reason why folks often want to leave a small town. often there is just plain nothing to do.
Now why would anyone bother trying to do something about it?
I think this is a good thing(tm) and they certainly have my respect, not that they need it or that it matters....
Now, in the automobile market, the inherent costs of the product slowed the speed of market penetration, allowing regional brands to develop. In the computer software market the speed of market penetration has tended to suppress the development of alternate brands (but not completely). But the products are usually mass market.
I view the Microsoft development tools in the same way - lots of flashy marketing hype, some admittedly good things, but there are many other packages that provide equal or better options. I do not compare Microsoft to a Mercedes or a Jaguar, or even a Volvo. It's a Fnord or Chevy.
very useful for those angry about their service. .
if GWB upholds his principles, he looses the election, and thus deserves to win.
if GWB betrays his pricinples, he wins the election, and thus deserves to loose.
[as seen on a bulletin board in Fermi Lab]
"Never apply a Star Trek Solution to a Babylon 5 problem"
Looks like a Babylon 5 problem to me ....
I understand. the advantage is that the small fry cannot go over seas. and other countries may get into the act.
[insert visions of KGB agents hunting down russian spammers]
Well. there is always the following option, as posted on Segfault back in april 99:
This is why I support the idea of a spammers license. This point of the spammers license is not to legalize spam. The point is to get a legal address where they can be billed for spam, and make it legal to bill the spammers for the traffic at each step of the chain, including the recipient. Enforce the collection via you favorite government agencies - say the IRS and the ATF for example (take your pick). Sufficiently high billing rates would make it rather unprofitable.
.
"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem"
but then again, politicians have never made anything like that all that easy.
as it has been said:
"Neve apply a Star Trek Solution to a Babylon 5 Problem"
(Seen on a bulletin board in Fermi Lab)
after all, what kinds of links would you get from everyone who worked at Microsoft? or Sun? Would there naturally be a corporate bias in the culture.
or a regional bias, or whatever....
what you would probably need would also be some rating by the internet age of the person (how long have the been online) because the people who have been around awhile probably have a more useful collection.
and I also wonder how different this is from advertiser tracking of where you go by cookies.
the best combination might be to combine cookie tracking with an internet search engine database. but there are drawbacks here as well.
[shrug]
If you sit back and do nothing, and give everyone else the freedom to do what they want, want happens? All those people who want to meddle and interfere and shove their solutions down *your* throat will be the ones who *will* participate and shove their solutions down *your* throat. Then *you* bitch about it.
What is wrong with this picture?
If you do not take responsibility for your life and your environment, political or otherwise, you become one of Kosh's pebbles ("The avalanche has begun, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" - B5)
The solution sadly, is not to isolate yourself in the cubicle or hole up in the hills. The solutions is to be involved, to grow your influence and power for the things you care about. This does not just include technology issues, but things like personal freedom, your friends and family, etc.
Anyhow, who am I to tell you what to do?
it is *only* your life ...
after that, it is all sort of gravy, depending on the other bells and whistles and effects and such....
seriously, even for regular applications, some monitors look worse at "standard frame rates" compared to others....
not that it matters *that* much ...[smile]
and compare the percentages?
What are the odds that a) it's a wash, or b) the percentages are the wrong way?
This also would be a good platform for studying the deterioration of materials in space, (never mind the fungi on board).
I found earlier versions of their program to be a little flaky (save early and often) and sometimes did not meet the real architectural expectations of some folks (certain popular styles like Victorian were missing elements), because it was designed/coded in Germany.
Their file format is proprietary as well, so exporting to quake, etc would be a real pain.
the boss of the level would be your parents.
(god, i'm getting to be a sicko this morning... must be the caffeine shortage0
hrmmmmmm
post offices, obviously....
Maybe certain public buildings like City Hall (TM), and other facilities where useless bureaucrats are stored and warehoused.
In Boston, this happens to be the Boston Housing Authority. Your city may be different.
and you know some sicko is going to suggest the local high school.
. . . or historic locations like Dealy (sp?) Plaza in Dallas where Kennedy was shot.
Extra Points for finding the politicians!
(It was just a joke, dammit! HEY watchit with those handcuffs .... OUCH!)
exactly.
I hope they at least left in the chain saw....