Electronic waste is a huge part of our community in the United States and as a result a lot of recycling centers and other facilities have cropped up to try to handle it. Since I work for them, the first place I'd check to locate a facility near me is EARTH911, there is even a computer recycling section being floated right now: Computer Components Recycling.
In many cases they will be reuse and donation centers, or something like ACT; in the end anything that gives these items a longer lifespan in the community or puts them to different use than ending up in a landfill is a step in good direction.
Yes. Initially I found PJ to be an instant turn-off.
Why? Possibly because my entire childhood has been tainted by Disney and I find anthropomorphic animals to be downright stupid, especially in what seemed to be a SciFi game. A little bit of playing, though, and I got over that immediate suspension-breaking issue. Especially after I met the orphans--well, actually, most especially after meeting the Mamago rhinos.
Even if he is a pig, PJ is still a card. He has a personality that lights up the room and I found it easy to ignore the animal appearances of many of the characters after I was drawn further into the story.
PJ still did create a major hurdle. I actually put the game down for almost a month after trying to play the demo and seeing PJ jump into the scene. That coupled with getting killed by the beginning boss fight because I didn't have a good grasp of the controls yet--which is sad because that fight is actually extraordinarily easy.
Once I finally swallowed the hook--the opening fight and its mysterious implications--and got onto using my camera, suddenly the game became the best thing in the world. The detective work and gotta-snap-em-all nature of the camera compelled me onwards to explore, wind through the story line, and ultimately kept me entranced. All in spite of my aversion to the cartoon animal characters.
No. In the end, a private organization is demanding money from the manufacturer under penalty of law if certain sepcific conditions are met. The manufacturer is choosing (they don't technically have to do this, you know) to pass that cost on to you (only if you choose to buy the product) in the form of a marked-up price.
It's the penalty of law put in place by the government body that makes it a tax. It doesn't matter to whom the money goes, these demands aren't put forth by this private organization, they've been put forth into law by the government body.
So the manufacturer can choose not to pass the tax along; the local gas station can choose to pay sales tax for me. This possibility doesn't suddenly not make that a tax either.
Nice bolding. Funny that the bold didn't highlight the law portion of all this, seeing as how laws are created by government bodies and thus tends to underline the original argument.
Point 3 - He can determine where it's coming from by using NetStumbler on a laptop. He can establish using a signal strength analysis which apartment it's coming from (if he's lucky anyway - when the cops went after Mitnick, they couldn't trace his cell phone directly to his apartment, so they had to finesse determing which apartment he was in - without a proper warrant, I might add.)
Well, the entirety of my counter-argument rested on my ignorance about how easy it is to determine exactly where a signal is coming from. Which, I realize--knowing how to do triangulation--shouldn't be hard at all.
I'm not about to say that using someone else's bandwidth without permission isn't in some way ethically improper.
The biggest problem that I have with the insecure network comes because people not even in the apartments can access it. That warranted on this notable fact should not and must not permit anyone else to blatantly invade someone else's privacy on the whim of "someone who isn't supposed to is accessing our network!" It wasn't about why didn't someone lock their door; it more has to do with the precision of targeting an apartment (and therefore the occupants) as being the perpetrators.
Of course, I am still rather dubious about a slumlord who can't seem to spend the time to lock up his WAP and also has radio/wireless triangulation tools at the ready to catch interlopers. Although, that sort of deliberate pettiness is exactly what makes the world go 'round, I guess.
I specifically stated that this would be the building manager in a building where Wi-Fi access is charged for to each tenant using it.
In such a case, the building manager is entirely within his rights under your contract to demand that you not access the building access point without paying.
While he cannot search your room, he can have your ass evicted if you fail to comply with the terms of the building contract. It's exactly the same as if you were deliberately flooding your apartment regularly.
No. Even the comparison to flooding the apartment is spurious.
If the tenant fought this eviction and it went to court several things would come out: (1) most Wi-Fi Access Points can be set up with MAC Address filters--why didn't the building manager just get people to sign up and give him the MAC Address they were going to connect with? (2) there are lots of Wi-Fi solutions that involve a sign-in process via a username/password page, (3) this building manager sees a new MAC Address appear on the Wi-Fi but there are too many places that it could have come from (this is wireless, after all) he has no cause to intrude on the privacy of his tenants nor threaten them with an offense he cannot even properly prove suspicion of.
The building manager is certainly within his rights to demand that people not access the Wi-Fi without paying. He is not within his rights to invade the privacy of every tenant within range of the Wi-Fi if an unknown MAC Address suddenly appears on the network nor threaten eviction on baseless offenses.
The opening paragraph reminds me of a fiction book, Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen. Wherein exists technologies that do vast mathematical computations by way of people acting as logic gates and functions. Much in the way that computers worked as described in that paragraph.
As for everyone else who isn't surprised, this has been an interesting "easter egg" of a bug that I discovered by accident while writing my second book. A sentence that included the words "you're married" is marked as grammatically incorrect and the correction prompts me to change it to "you is."
I have used this example ever since of why people should really be aware of the actual rules of grammar and not just rely on any program to do it for them. For natural language processing, even simple syntax, nothing beats another natural language speaker (yet.)
When CDs were first introduced, this finite limitation was built in to the media, as there was no easy way to copy it.
So, when CDs were first introduced tape recorders with input jacks miraculously vanished from the face of the planet, thus removing the ease of making cassette tape copies of CDs to distribute to friends.
A portion of the article discusses people not liking individual lines, or certain concepts put forth in the movies (as if removing them will bring back that segment of the population.)
It's going to be hard for our filmmakers to continue to make unfettered documentaries when they know going in that 10 percent of the market" will reject them.
That's wonderful. So, if these Creationists really want to avoid things which injure their sensitive sensibilities about the beginnings of the world -- why would they watch these films in the first place?
The arguments that the film should be passed purely because it's going to bruise the sensitivity of a segment of the population is understandable to me; this is a capitalist effort and must make money. Demographics is going to pull any media around like a ball on a string when it's all about making money. IMAX isn't a museum created for the public good.
Now if a museum had made this sort of decision, I would have a much bigger gripe about it.
I especially loved the ending of the article where it is suggested that the science of a film is not in opposition to Creation but instead suggests the "how it was done." Sure, a god could have created the Earth, but what says it didn't do it using the mechanisms that we've uncovered with science?
This would make a strong point, except thy buddy in the seat next to thee can also randomly gesticulate, make false statements about the roadway, distractingly gesture for the driver to look at objects outside of regular vision... furthermore, a passenger might not notice danger, blind passengers aren't equal to having a cell phone.
The fact that a passenger can warn of immanent danger doesn't make them "safer" than a cell phone conversation.
I have a feeling that in actuality the fact that passengers don't tend to pose this sort of a threat is that an active object in peripheral vision, which makes talking noises, is easier to "tune out" than a cell phone conversation because the person holding the conversation does not need to imagine/visualize the body language of whom they are speaking to.
Even passengers behind (out of vision) can be seen in the rear-view mirror with breif glances, their movements and gesticulations make distinct noises against the vehicle's interior, they have a "presence" that doesn't need to be visualized or imagined and thus doesn't take the driver's complete "vision" away from the road.
Fortunately for America the oft lauded crime-drama about forensic scientists, CSI has done an episode which involved a criminal who was such one Chimera. For anyone who is really curious about plot-twisting speculation one CSI episode already asked the question. The episode in question is Bloodlines.
And of course, one of my particular passions is marine biology:
There are also some marine critters which exibit both plant and animal charcteristics. Although referred to also as Chimera, this I've generally known to be a misuse as most of the dual-animals are colonies.
Anyone who has watched Minority Report recalls advertisements that were tailored for an individual person after a laser scanned their retina.
How about take it in a different direction and instead have a store's computers realize that a person is looking at a particular item and produce the proper advertisement to intice them to buy it. Since anyone who has ever window shopped the first things that our eyes fall on are (1) the most glittery and attention getting items and (2) things that we might actually want, or have wanted.
This sort of technology, if swift enough, could give advertisers that extra edge to actually hit primary target audiences who might need that extra push to finally buy their product.
As an ex-paramedic it actually came in extremely handy when someone was wearing a medic alert bracelet. Several times it lead to a more rapid diagnoisis of the scene based on the bracelet's warning and the obvious symptomology.
In all, we weren't permitted to frisk a person and get their wallet unless we could prove a probably reason for doing so. A card in the pocket or the wallet would have proven no help to us. Once and a while the police would tell us about one (when they'd been on the scene first and arrested someone who seized) but more often than not we didn't know about it.
Usually simply odd behavior wouldn't end us up called. Most of the time complains of discomfort or pain the police would take a person to the hospital. Major trama or seizure were usually necessary for us to show up, one of those "untransportable" cases.
I myself wear a Medic Alert bracelet now that I'm ill.
In accordance with U.S. Law we are obligated to warn you that this device can be used in illegal activities such as Breaking & Entering, Public Defacement, and even Murder. We urge you to maintain usage of this tool (crowbar) in only legally sanctioned activities and remain aware of and avoid these illegal activities.
There are a good deal of games out there that don't center on the main character being some sort of object (female ones I'm speaking of here.) Such as The Longest Journey, Septerra Core, Zanzaria: Beyond the Hidden Portal.
I myself tend to gravitate towards these sorts of games so I'm more keenly aware of it. Of course, the fact that I virtually live on the Women Gamers 'zine could change my bias, but they are out there.
I'm afraid that I'm at a loss to reply on the front of "male characters as objects" commentary, but then again, I guess that I haven't trained myself to look for it.
I'm a Michigan resident currently but my primary e-mail server resides squarely in Arizona. Needless to say, I'm wondering how this law could be interpreted about situations like that. 1) It only addresses half the problem, and it's not the important half. It does nothing to ease the burden on the mail servers that must transport the spammer's trash.
I agree wholeheartedly with this comment, but it really needs to be leveraged with your comment in number two. As mentioned in other posts many mailer servers are able to prematurely reject an email once they've received the subject line and drop the connexion and the rest of the content.
However, added to the second concern dropping possibly spam emails at the relay or e-mail server just reduces the amount of damage done. Spam itself may yet become a worse threat to the Internet than it is if bulk mailers believe they have a ligitimate right to send ungodly amounts of data across unsuspecting networks, even if the bulk of it is blocked on the other side by those who don't want it.
I've seen enough articles about "Law May Ligitimize Spam" and as much as I believe that companies should be permitted to advertise, I firmly do NOT believe that they have the right to inconvinience people who do not want part of their advertisements by doing so!
Legislation perhaps should exist also to protect ISPs and bandwidth resellers who are suffering because of the behavior of Spammers in sending it.
I think that I have to agree--the composting post really didn't fit. Though I especially liked the bit where someone posted something about "what did he use the rotting vegitation to power his computer?"
That's it! Next time lets get a post about an automulcher. A system that stirs the heap automatically, keeps track of pH levels in the heap, and regulates temperatures (even if it starts snowing outside.) Of course, it would have to be a geek project--but I'll bet that an article about industrial composting (I know it exists somewhere.)
Bleh. While this excursion was interesting--and it's true that it's funny that a geek went outside--but I myself think that composting is a worthwhile project.
Look at it. While it doesn't involve computers it does involve a little bit of a construction project, and there is a bit of science to it. In fact there are multiple types of composting. I found a good site (below) that lists through them.
http://www.earth911.org/master.asp?s=lib&a=organ ic s/organics.asp
I especially like the picture for Vermiculture (eew worms.)
Failing to realize that a hax0r that has obtained access to a webserver who has been able to deface web pages may also have gained a beach-head into the network itself.
If management is using this "defacement detector" to feel safe they are creating themselves an entirely false sense of security. Not all intruders are going to deface the web page; they might be much more interested in activities more clandestine.
What the poster described was a situation where people not completely in the know want to treat a single symptom without examining what the possible affects of the disease might be. If they really are ignoring the poster's push to plug holes -- they are in for quite a bit more hot water.
In the case of MSN messenger I assume that the client keep some sort of a connexion open with the central messenging server.
The messenging server could use that communication/control channel to ask the MSN messenger to make a new connexion to it for these extra services.
Giving the client the ability to pick and choose whom it wants to talk to on the outside, where it is the one initiating communication prevents unnessary information about the internal network from leaking out and keeps most Firewalling paradigms intact.
How did this Internet surveys even get off of the ground? While MSN and Yahoo are certainly two of the most prominent search-engines around I myself still shun Yahoo because of its commercialism and MSN because I never know if I can trust the outcome of what I'm searching for.
Ever since I first discovered AltaVista I used it over Yahoo. Then, ever since I discovered Google I used it over Altavista. One would expect that as an Internet user "matured" they would move away from gaudy directory services and see the appeal of a less complex and more raw interface that brings them more direct information like Google.
I find it extremely hard to believe that Google didn't show up in the top two of "mature" Internet users.
(Of course being able to set my language to Gaelic on Google didn't hurt either.)
Slashdot Mirror
I blame the first Intel Pentium processor.
Yes.
Electronic waste is a huge part of our community in the United States and as a result a lot of recycling centers and other facilities have cropped up to try to handle it. Since I work for them, the first place I'd check to locate a facility near me is EARTH911, there is even a computer recycling section being floated right now: Computer Components Recycling.
In many cases they will be reuse and donation centers, or something like ACT; in the end anything that gives these items a longer lifespan in the community or puts them to different use than ending up in a landfill is a step in good direction.
Hello boys and girls, it's half-remembered-quotes-from-books-we-loved time!
"So, why don't you just arrest him?"
"He's a sovereign."
"Okay, declare war on him then."
"Bad idea: he's also a nuclear power."
"Please wait while I find the keys... Oops, I dropped them. Oh there they are. Now unlocking the dungeon." *Music plays* Antman appears!
Yes. Initially I found PJ to be an instant turn-off.
Why? Possibly because my entire childhood has been tainted by Disney and I find anthropomorphic animals to be downright stupid, especially in what seemed to be a SciFi game. A little bit of playing, though, and I got over that immediate suspension-breaking issue. Especially after I met the orphans--well, actually, most especially after meeting the Mamago rhinos.
Even if he is a pig, PJ is still a card. He has a personality that lights up the room and I found it easy to ignore the animal appearances of many of the characters after I was drawn further into the story.
PJ still did create a major hurdle. I actually put the game down for almost a month after trying to play the demo and seeing PJ jump into the scene. That coupled with getting killed by the beginning boss fight because I didn't have a good grasp of the controls yet--which is sad because that fight is actually extraordinarily easy.
Once I finally swallowed the hook--the opening fight and its mysterious implications--and got onto using my camera, suddenly the game became the best thing in the world. The detective work and gotta-snap-em-all nature of the camera compelled me onwards to explore, wind through the story line, and ultimately kept me entranced. All in spite of my aversion to the cartoon animal characters.
He should have just called it the StrawBerry.
So the manufacturer can choose not to pass the tax along; the local gas station can choose to pay sales tax for me. This possibility doesn't suddenly not make that a tax either.
Nice bolding. Funny that the bold didn't highlight the law portion of all this, seeing as how laws are created by government bodies and thus tends to underline the original argument.
I'm not about to say that using someone else's bandwidth without permission isn't in some way ethically improper.
The biggest problem that I have with the insecure network comes because people not even in the apartments can access it. That warranted on this notable fact should not and must not permit anyone else to blatantly invade someone else's privacy on the whim of "someone who isn't supposed to is accessing our network!" It wasn't about why didn't someone lock their door; it more has to do with the precision of targeting an apartment (and therefore the occupants) as being the perpetrators.
Of course, I am still rather dubious about a slumlord who can't seem to spend the time to lock up his WAP and also has radio/wireless triangulation tools at the ready to catch interlopers. Although, that sort of deliberate pettiness is exactly what makes the world go 'round, I guess.
If the tenant fought this eviction and it went to court several things would come out: (1) most Wi-Fi Access Points can be set up with MAC Address filters--why didn't the building manager just get people to sign up and give him the MAC Address they were going to connect with? (2) there are lots of Wi-Fi solutions that involve a sign-in process via a username/password page, (3) this building manager sees a new MAC Address appear on the Wi-Fi but there are too many places that it could have come from (this is wireless, after all) he has no cause to intrude on the privacy of his tenants nor threaten them with an offense he cannot even properly prove suspicion of.
The building manager is certainly within his rights to demand that people not access the Wi-Fi without paying. He is not within his rights to invade the privacy of every tenant within range of the Wi-Fi if an unknown MAC Address suddenly appears on the network nor threaten eviction on baseless offenses.
The opening paragraph reminds me of a fiction book, Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen. Wherein exists technologies that do vast mathematical computations by way of people acting as logic gates and functions. Much in the way that computers worked as described in that paragraph.
As for everyone else who isn't surprised, this has been an interesting "easter egg" of a bug that I discovered by accident while writing my second book. A sentence that included the words "you're married" is marked as grammatically incorrect and the correction prompts me to change it to "you is."
http://img109.exs.cx/img109/9936/youis4pz.gif
I have used this example ever since of why people should really be aware of the actual rules of grammar and not just rely on any program to do it for them. For natural language processing, even simple syntax, nothing beats another natural language speaker (yet.)
When CDs were first introduced, this finite limitation was built in to the media, as there was no easy way to copy it.
So, when CDs were first introduced tape recorders with input jacks miraculously vanished from the face of the planet, thus removing the ease of making cassette tape copies of CDs to distribute to friends.
A portion of the article discusses people not liking individual lines, or certain concepts put forth in the movies (as if removing them will bring back that segment of the population.)
It's going to be hard for our filmmakers to continue to make unfettered documentaries when they know going in that 10 percent of the market" will reject them.
That's wonderful. So, if these Creationists really want to avoid things which injure their sensitive sensibilities about the beginnings of the world -- why would they watch these films in the first place?
The arguments that the film should be passed purely because it's going to bruise the sensitivity of a segment of the population is understandable to me; this is a capitalist effort and must make money. Demographics is going to pull any media around like a ball on a string when it's all about making money. IMAX isn't a museum created for the public good.
Now if a museum had made this sort of decision, I would have a much bigger gripe about it.
I especially loved the ending of the article where it is suggested that the science of a film is not in opposition to Creation but instead suggests the "how it was done." Sure, a god could have created the Earth, but what says it didn't do it using the mechanisms that we've uncovered with science?
The fact that a passenger can warn of immanent danger doesn't make them "safer" than a cell phone conversation.
I have a feeling that in actuality the fact that passengers don't tend to pose this sort of a threat is that an active object in peripheral vision, which makes talking noises, is easier to "tune out" than a cell phone conversation because the person holding the conversation does not need to imagine/visualize the body language of whom they are speaking to.
Even passengers behind (out of vision) can be seen in the rear-view mirror with breif glances, their movements and gesticulations make distinct noises against the vehicle's interior, they have a "presence" that doesn't need to be visualized or imagined and thus doesn't take the driver's complete "vision" away from the road.
A lovely medical conditiion, indeed.
For Pop Culture references (OMG, spoiler maybe.):
Fortunately for America the oft lauded crime-drama about forensic scientists, CSI has done an episode which involved a criminal who was such one Chimera. For anyone who is really curious about plot-twisting speculation one CSI episode already asked the question. The episode in question is Bloodlines.
And of course, one of my particular passions is marine biology:
There are also some marine critters which exibit both plant and animal charcteristics. Although referred to also as Chimera, this I've generally known to be a misuse as most of the dual-animals are colonies.
How about take it in a different direction and instead have a store's computers realize that a person is looking at a particular item and produce the proper advertisement to intice them to buy it. Since anyone who has ever window shopped the first things that our eyes fall on are (1) the most glittery and attention getting items and (2) things that we might actually want, or have wanted.
This sort of technology, if swift enough, could give advertisers that extra edge to actually hit primary target audiences who might need that extra push to finally buy their product.
As an ex-paramedic it actually came in extremely handy when someone was wearing a medic alert bracelet. Several times it lead to a more rapid diagnoisis of the scene based on the bracelet's warning and the obvious symptomology.
In all, we weren't permitted to frisk a person and get their wallet unless we could prove a probably reason for doing so. A card in the pocket or the wallet would have proven no help to us. Once and a while the police would tell us about one (when they'd been on the scene first and arrested someone who seized) but more often than not we didn't know about it.
Usually simply odd behavior wouldn't end us up called. Most of the time complains of discomfort or pain the police would take a person to the hospital. Major trama or seizure were usually necessary for us to show up, one of those "untransportable" cases.
I myself wear a Medic Alert bracelet now that I'm ill.
In accordance with U.S. Law we are obligated to warn you that this device can be used in illegal activities such as Breaking & Entering, Public Defacement, and even Murder. We urge you to maintain usage of this tool (crowbar) in only legally sanctioned activities and remain aware of and avoid these illegal activities.
I've got a website for you to visit, carambola.
http://www.womengamers.com
There are a good deal of games out there that don't center on the main character being some sort of object (female ones I'm speaking of here.) Such as The Longest Journey, Septerra Core, Zanzaria: Beyond the Hidden Portal.
I myself tend to gravitate towards these sorts of games so I'm more keenly aware of it. Of course, the fact that I virtually live on the Women Gamers 'zine could change my bias, but they are out there.
I'm afraid that I'm at a loss to reply on the front of "male characters as objects" commentary, but then again, I guess that I haven't trained myself to look for it.
I'm a Michigan resident currently but my primary e-mail server resides squarely in Arizona. Needless to say, I'm wondering how this law could be interpreted about situations like that.
1) It only addresses half the problem, and it's not the important half. It does nothing to ease the burden on the mail servers that must transport the spammer's trash.
I agree wholeheartedly with this comment, but it really needs to be leveraged with your comment in number two. As mentioned in other posts many mailer servers are able to prematurely reject an email once they've received the subject line and drop the connexion and the rest of the content.
However, added to the second concern dropping possibly spam emails at the relay or e-mail server just reduces the amount of damage done. Spam itself may yet become a worse threat to the Internet than it is if bulk mailers believe they have a ligitimate right to send ungodly amounts of data across unsuspecting networks, even if the bulk of it is blocked on the other side by those who don't want it.
I've seen enough articles about "Law May Ligitimize Spam" and as much as I believe that companies should be permitted to advertise, I firmly do NOT believe that they have the right to inconvinience people who do not want part of their advertisements by doing so!
Legislation perhaps should exist also to protect ISPs and bandwidth resellers who are suffering because of the behavior of Spammers in sending it.
Amerist.
Ugh, ugly "green theme" indeed! ;)
I think that I have to agree--the composting post really didn't fit. Though I especially liked the bit where someone posted something about "what did he use the rotting vegitation to power his computer?"
That's it! Next time lets get a post about an automulcher. A system that stirs the heap automatically, keeps track of pH levels in the heap, and regulates temperatures (even if it starts snowing outside.) Of course, it would have to be a geek project--but I'll bet that an article about industrial composting (I know it exists somewhere.)
Or how about composting worm robots! (eew.)
Amerist.
Bleh. While this excursion was interesting--and it's true that it's funny that a geek went outside--but I myself think that composting is a worthwhile project.
n ic s/organics.asp
Look at it. While it doesn't involve computers it does involve a little bit of a construction project, and there is a bit of science to it. In fact there are multiple types of composting. I found a good site (below) that lists through them.
http://www.earth911.org/master.asp?s=lib&a=orga
I especially like the picture for Vermiculture (eew worms.)
Worse problem.
Failing to realize that a hax0r that has obtained access to a webserver who has been able to deface web pages may also have gained a beach-head into the network itself.
If management is using this "defacement detector" to feel safe they are creating themselves an entirely false sense of security. Not all intruders are going to deface the web page; they might be much more interested in activities more clandestine.
What the poster described was a situation where people not completely in the know want to treat a single symptom without examining what the possible affects of the disease might be. If they really are ignoring the poster's push to plug holes -- they are in for quite a bit more hot water.
Amerist.
In the case of MSN messenger I assume that the client keep some sort of a connexion open with the central messenging server.
The messenging server could use that communication/control channel to ask the MSN messenger to make a new connexion to it for these extra services.
Giving the client the ability to pick and choose whom it wants to talk to on the outside, where it is the one initiating communication prevents unnessary information about the internal network from leaking out and keeps most Firewalling paradigms intact.
Amerist
How did this Internet surveys even get off of the ground? While MSN and Yahoo are certainly two of the most prominent search-engines around I myself still shun Yahoo because of its commercialism and MSN because I never know if I can trust the outcome of what I'm searching for.
Ever since I first discovered AltaVista I used it over Yahoo. Then, ever since I discovered Google I used it over Altavista. One would expect that as an Internet user "matured" they would move away from gaudy directory services and see the appeal of a less complex and more raw interface that brings them more direct information like Google.
I find it extremely hard to believe that Google didn't show up in the top two of "mature" Internet users.
(Of course being able to set my language to Gaelic on Google didn't hurt either.)
Amerist.