So I getting sick of the snide comments. The submitter is definitely NOT A TROLL! I don't claim to be a hacker or an ubergeek but I'm kind of sick of the unprofessional nature of the Slashdot crowd.
Not to be a troll either or anything, but... why do you think the Slashdot crowd is supposed to be professional? Slashdot is just an overgrown blog populated by a slightly more tech-savvy subset of the regular population. It's more like a subway in Silicon Valley than it is like your average board room. If you expect professionalism, you should be asking a professional, not a random group of geeks (many of whom may be youngsters, BTW).
Oh man, this part of the thread is really bugging me.
That said, there is some evidence that it is more of a behavioral disorder than a "chemical" disorder like schizophrenia. That would indicate that it is the result of poor parenting and a lack of discipline.
There's no such distinction as "chemical" vs. "non-chemical" disorders. Frankly, nobody knows what exactly causes (or better, "triggers") schizophrenia, though vulnerability to developing schizophrenia seems to have a genetic component. Frankly, ADHD may be exactly like schizophrenia -- you're either vulnerable or not, and something triggers it or it is never triggered.
Either way, even if ADHD were shown to be entirely caused by experience, we still would not know exactly what kind of experiences resulted in ADHD. The whole "lax parenting" thing is still just pop psychology. I could just as easily say that a child who does not learn to pay attention except when forced to is a victim of overly strict parenting, or something else like malnutrition or an accidental (mild) poisoning.
As far as this being a behavioral problem and not a "chemical" disorder, consider the following.
[various evidence deleted]
On the other hand, changes in the brain can occur due to experience. Consider the shrinkage of the hippocampus which is theorized to be responsible for PTSD. This shrinkage is thought to be caused by excessive stress. Or, consider what malnutrition does to the developing brain. So all this evidence that the brains of ADHD sufferers are different from "normal" brains does not prove that ADHD is an organic illness either. Perhaps the differences in the brains of ADHD sufferers are caused by some experience (e.g. malnutrition, some sort of traumatic event, or, yes, parenting style).
In any event, how the fsck did our current generations end up being the only ones in history with ADD/ADHD? (rhetorical question)
Irregardless of whether or not that question is rhetorical, I'd like to answer it.:)
Remember that throughout history, people have been known to go into trance states, in which shake vigorously and babble in strange tougues. Once upon a time, in some cultures, this was thought to be a message from the Gods. Nowadays it's called epilepsy. Why the difference? Because you can't make a living being a "messenger of the Gods" anymore.:) More accurately, this sort of thing is now detrimental to one's life rather than beneficial. Combined with the fact that a seizure at a bad time can be fatal, epilepsy is now considered to be a disease. "Now" referring to only the last hundred years or so. The condition existed long before that, but the idea that it is a disease is relatively recent.
As for ADD/ADHD, there have probably always been people who are hyperactive and have a hard time paying attention. In many cases, this is normal behavior, e.g. 4-year-olds! Furthermore, there is certainly a range of ability to pay attention and hyperactivity in the normal population. However, for some people, the problem is much worse than that. Remember that the last "D" in both of those names is "disorder". If a person is having such a _severe_ problem that they think there must be something wrong with them, they go see the appropriate type of doctor. In this case, probably a psychiatrist. Over the years, as many psychiatrists saw people with a similar problem with paying attention, and as they talked to other psychiatrists, published research on these people with some sort of attentional problem, and generally spread the idea that there is some sort of attentional condition out there which is causing people problems, the workgroups which create the text of the DSM decided to add this condition to the manual.
My point is that adding a condition to the DSM does not "cause" the disease to exist. Rather, it gives an official name, a set of expected symptoms, and a method of diagnosis for a condition which has already been seen in the world many times. Basically, it standardizes the condition. From that point on, when a psychiatrist who has never seen a person with ADHD before sees a patient who describes ADHD-like symptoms, information on what this condition could be and how to diagnose and treat it is at the doctor's fingertips. This also means that for the first time, we can say that people "have ADHD", which is why we're the only generation in history which has it!
Now, as for why _so many_ people seem to have ADHD/ADD... What I described may not be 100% accurate (I Am Not A Psychiatrist, though I do work in the field, and I have a DSM-IV-TR right here with me), but it's approximately how the system is intended to work. From the point of view of someone who knows nothing about psychiatry, it may look like the APA is coming up with new diseases with no particular logic or reason. Furthermore, depending on how carefully you read the DSM (if you bother to actually read it at all, rather than just reading a summary in the popular press) the descriptions of some conditions may seem fairly broad, such that all kinds of people could have them. The problem with this way of thinking is that last "D" again. Severity is the difference. Psychiatrists are doctors; they are supposed to be seeing people who have problems (how often do people go to their psychiatrists for a "check up"?) Even then, the DSM criteria for ADHD and the like are more strict than some people seem to think. However, who knows how good your psychiatrist is? As human beings, they've been known to make mistakes. Furthermore, I suspect that many parents exaggerate their child's symptoms (e.g. a kid who gets D's is "doing horribly in school and can never pay attention" when in fact he just hates school, wants to be a musician when he grows up, and spends a little too much time in class chatting with the other guys in his band). Thus way too many people, especially kids, end up being diagnosed with ADHD.
That's just my take on the situation. Again, I Am Not A Psychiatrist.
The problem is that the heatsink is just dumping heat into the cavity of your case
As compared to a fan, which blows magic pixie dust on the heat to make it go away.:) Seriously, though, if the card isn't overheating without a fan, then the fan is basically just generating more heat.
Notice, by the way, where that heat pipe sends some of the heat from the GPU. It transfers it to the large heatsink on the "bottom" of the card. In a standard case, the "bottom" of the AGP video card is closer to the rear case fan. In a case with two rear fans, the "bottom" heatsink might be directly in the path of the airflow to the lower fan (which presumably blows that hot air out of the case). Compare this to a videocard with a fan on it. Aside from the nVidia card you mentioned, the air blown over the heatsink is just scattered over the area below the video card. It seems to me that a heat pipe actually moves some of the heat into an area where the case airflow can get rid of it better, whereas the hot air coming from a fan doesn't get distributed in such a useful manner.
have you ever seen a vending machine which takes hundreds?
Every day. Come to Vegas, baby.
Okay, fair enough.:)
I admit, I'm talking out my ass, but money-laundering doesn't typically handle a million bucks per whack. A few thousand, or even 20 - 50 grand maybe.
Yeah, but that's still a lot of $100 bills at a time (assuming that these ATMs take hundreds), presumably inserted one at a time. And you just know the machine will spit some of them back out. I'm still not convinced that this is a very practical tool for money laundering. Inserting $1000 in hundreds isn't so bad, but 20K in $20s would be a killer.
I dunno... trying to stick a million dollars' worth of bills (even hundreds) into one of these machines would take an awfully long time. And that assumes that they even take large bills - have you ever seen a vending machine which takes hundreds, or even fifties? More than likely, these ATMs will only be useful for relatively small transactions.
You're losing me here. If I enter a postcard contest or a phone contest, I wouldn't have to buy Microsoft postcards or a Microsoft telephone. This contest requires that you own a computer running Microsoft Windows, i.e., a purchase, no?
My point was that the law doesn't say that you can't be forced to buy _something_ to participate in a contest. Every contest requires you to buy something, even if just an envelope, yet they're still legal. Rather the law says that you can't be forced to buy a _gamepiece_, and neither MSN Messenger nor MS Windows is a gamepiece. For that matter, neither is the required computer, or the required network connection, or any other requirement for participating. If anything these are contest restrictions along the lines of "The winner must be present at the time of the drawing to be eligible," which are also perfectly legal.
But if you have to purchase their OS (one way or another) in order to use said software . . . Purchase, once-removed, is okay?
Sure, why not?
Consider this: to enter by mail, you need to buy envelopes and some kind of writing implement. To enter by calling a toll-free number you need a phone (or to pay for a pay phone). To enter this MS contest, you have to own a computer. My point is that you can't enter any contest of this type without buying something "once-removed". The only thing that the law prohibits is making people buy a _gamepiece_, because that turns the contest into a lottery, and there are laws prohibiting most lotteries (they're a form of gambling).
MS Windows (and MacOS) are not gamepieces. They are part of the system for notifying winners. Requiring the winner to use MSN Messenger is more akin to requiring the winner of a drawing to be present at the time of the drawing even if they registered in advance, or requiring that the winner be contactable by phone (which requires them to own a phone and have phone service). There's nothing illegal about that.
Most giveaways are explicitly required to have rules that allow people to be eligible to win without purchasing a product. If such a rule applies to this contest, they'll have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing Windows, won't they?
An informational column in a local newsweekly recently mentioned these laws. It stated that the purpose of these laws is to prevent illegal lotteries. Any contest in which you must buy a gamepiece to participate is considered a lottery. Thus the "no purchase necessary" and "for a free gamepiece, write..." on soda giveaways and the like are designed to comply with that law.
Restricting your giveaway to users of a certain product is probably not covered by such laws. If this giveaway were only for MSN subscribers, for example, that would hardly be illegal, would it? (IANAL, of course)
Besides, you could just as easily argue that they have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing a computer, couldn't you? If MS does have to comply with any lottery laws, they'll probably implement a mail-in method ("please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to...").
Re:The problem with this approach
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Inkblot Passwords
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, but 50^8 is:
1427247692705959881058285969449495136382746624 That makes the odds of guessing the password astronomically low.
Actually, it's 39062500000000. Note that your number doesn't end in a zero.:) You calculated 8^50 by mistake.
Either way, the problem is that a password cracking program can search through that space in a reasonable amount of time. 50^8, representing 50 possible words for each of 8 inkblots, is about equal to 2^45. A single computer trying every possible password would find the right password in, what, a week or two? Under circumstances in which you had this much time to work (e.g. decoding an encrypted file which you have a copy of) the password can be found using brute force.
Well duh, that keeps unautorized users off your network. Yeah it's crackable, but IPSec does nothing for lower-layer security. IPSec was designed for a different purpose than WEP If you want a secure network, use both.
I've noticed lately that some wireless cards and access points are starting to come out with support for AES encryption. I understand that this basically just substitutes a better encryption algorithm (AES rather than RC4) as the default packet encryption. It should do the job for network-level security.
Of course, not every piece of 802.11(whatever) hardware supports AES, so there may be backwards-compatibility issues. I understand that AES is computationally intensive enough to require hardware support (e.g. it can't just be added by a firmware upgrade). But if you're starting from scratch, could AES-compatible hardware be the way to go? Does anyone know more about this?
The nuns of the Missionaries of Charity believed two abandoned buildings in New York City would make ideal homeless shelters. The city agreed and offered to sell the building for one dollar each. Yet the shelter project faltered: the city's bureaucracy imposed such expensive remodeling requirements on the buildings that the shelter plans were scrapped.
Yeah, if the nuns had just used those buildings, and then they collapsed on the homeless folks, then there would be no more homeless folks. Problem solved!
While I agree that some laws are stupid, or are applied stupidly, I also think that pundits like this get away with murder by only telling half the story. You read this stuff and think "What idiots!" until you actually have to deal with a situation like this and realize what a complex situation it is.
But of course, most people don't think about that. They buy these books, get their nice little feeling of superiority for being "smarter" than the people they read about, and go buy the next book without ever thinking the situation through. Like addicts, I tell 'ya. Meanwhile, I bet the reality of even one of these stories would take more pages to describe that any of these books even have.
They've been advertising this WiFi thing on their webpage for about a month now.
The rest of that letter is more interesting. Here are some excerpts:
In addition, we also plan to support IPv6 [editor's note: !!!], multiple connections for bonding or redundancy, individual customer firewall options, improvement of peer-to-peer applications such as video conferencing and application sharing, and, eventually, relatively advanced applications such as IP multi-cast through the last mile. Of course, we will always place an emphasis on assuring the fundamental network reliability and performance our members require.
[snip]
Many of you have tried our new and much improved Web-based Email service. You may have noticed this service also includes Calendaring, Reminders (via cell phone, email) and much more. I am excited to announce today that we will soon add a service option to allow true shared calendaring for Business-Class members.
[snip]
Although VoIP (Voice over IP) has been, in our opinion, a bit over-hyped for the past few years, we believe that the technology and service has advanced to the point that it is now a viable alternative phone service for many people. Accordingly, we are exploring a Voice over IP solution that will allow Speakeasy customers to use their broadband connection to make local and long distance calls. More details to come as we complete Beta trials and determine cost and features.
The United States has treaties with Mexico and Canada that lay out a framework for coordination of radio and television licensing. You can't just hop across the border and build a 1 MW radio station on any frequency you like.
If it's not already illegal, this should be, especially if there is no notice of any particular size informing the user that the change is present.
No problem. Just pay with a credit card from a bank which has "different policies" about reimbursing merchants:
"Yes, I know that it's a VISA card, but unlike VISA Corp. our bank's policy is to refrain from paying the merchants who accept our charge cards. We find that this makes us more profitable, and increases customer satisfaction. Have a nice day." *CLICK*
I think its really rude to force your office to use Linux desktops when they so obviously don't want to use them. Using computers isn't easy for most people. You seriously screw with their productivity when you force them to use KDE or OpenOffice or whatever. What if they have a home computer thats running Windows and MS Office? All of a sudden they come into work and now sharing files is no longer a non-event.
What makes you think I forced anyone to change? I just worked there.
Besides, computer skills were part of the job description -- the "office" in question was a research lab. Most of our data analysis software ran on Linux! Using the same Linux systems for other things (e-mail, word processing) just made sense.
See, sometimes when you start a new job, you have to learn new skills. If you can't manage to learn those skills in a reasonable time, you should quit (or be fired!), or come up with a good alternative solution. Anyone who wasn't capable of working with the equipment in the lab, including the computers, shouldn't have been working there. Unfortunately, some people never did get used to the Linux systems. Their problem, not mine.
As for you NDPTAL85, next time you complain, get the whole story first! You had no clue what kind of office I was talking about or what kind of position I held in that office, yet you made up a scenario and complained about my behavior in that made-up scenario. That's just dumb. So don't do it again.
Now, in this case we can put in a nice Linux firewall (or appliance) for a very low cost. Since we are using Firebird, we have the *option* of using Linux as the OS as FB is cross platform. But, I would still need to replace their Exchange Server, Anitivirus software and several off the shelf business apps( which are the biggest challenge of all)
The thought of replacing Windows desktops with Linux is a fantasy. But,we can continue the creep with servers.
Replacing servers is generally easier since fewer machines need to be replaced, because fewer applications need to be replaced, and because fewer people use them directly (e.g. less retraining needed), and because the interactions which users have with servers tend to be simpler. Also, Linux really does have clear advantages on the server (e.g. lesser hardware requirements, wider variety of software, better security), whereas on the desktop there aren't so many clear advantages (stability used to be one, but newer commercial OSes are pretty good about that).
Migrating people to desktop Linux is a major pain, sure. I have worked on a job where Linux was the standard desktop, though a couple of Windows machines were available, and many people ended up trying their hardest to use the Windows machines whenever possible. Anything new is a hard sell, since people are used to having things a specific way (likewise, the lone Mac fan on that particular job insisted on using the office's lone Mac, which worked out well:).
What it boils down to is this: you must get software which meets your needs. Costs are an important but secondary consideration. Retraining falls under costs. For example, if you absolutely need all of the functionality of MS Office, then suggesting OpenOffice (or anything else, commercial or otherwise) is a mistake. If, on the other hand, you only need functionality comparable to OpenOffice, then paying hundreds of dollars a seat (theoretically:) for MS Office is a mistake, especially since the retraining is pretty minimal for a word-processor. Follow that line of reasoning and mix and match OSS and Commercial software as appropriate to your needs. Instead of thinking in terms of replacing every commercial program with OSS, think in terms of looking for alternatives to the obvious commercial solution which may be advantageous for other reasons (e.g. cheaper, more secure, been around longer). That's my advice.
Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source
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Technology Buying Slump
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Now, suppose that I am the manager of a company and I want to do all that, to SAVE me money, but I want everything I had before. Unreasonable? Nope, I am a typical customer.
Question is, can it be done??
I don't know enough about enterprise-level applications to properly answer your challenge, but I would like to make one point. There are two possible ways to interpret your challenge: as a Forced upgrade or as a Non-Forced upgrade.
Consider a Non-Forced upgrade. Unless you're willing to accept significant downtime, any kind of software switch will involve a hardware switch as well. As the article suggests, few companies are willing to spend that kind of money anymore. "Minimize risk", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and so on. Add the cost of new hardware to the cost of the time spent switching, and I bet it would be near-impossible to save money. That's a very hard challenge. Note that it's just as hard for closed-source products as for open ones, though!
On the other hand, what if you were Forced to change hardware? What if you actually need to upgrade, due to capacity issues, support issues (you're using NT4...), dead or truly obsolete hardware, or the like. Let's add up the cost of W2K Server, Exchange, IIS, AntiVirus, etc. and compare _that_ to the Open Source solution. This is a much easier challenge. If the software exists, I bet that this one can be achieved.
6 streams on 100mhz chip, lol! P100 can barely do 1 hq mp3 stream..
You're completely right, of course. Not only is 2% probably an underestimate (caching has something to do with it) but I bet that modern mp3 players support SSE, and that's helping to keep the CPU usage low.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait a second, 1 billion is a lot of IPs.
It's enough for ~15% of the people on this planet to get 1 more IP.
So I getting sick of the snide comments. The submitter is definitely NOT A TROLL! I don't claim to be a hacker or an ubergeek but I'm kind of sick of the unprofessional nature of the Slashdot crowd.
Not to be a troll either or anything, but... why do you think the Slashdot crowd is supposed to be professional? Slashdot is just an overgrown blog populated by a slightly more tech-savvy subset of the regular population. It's more like a subway in Silicon Valley than it is like your average board room. If you expect professionalism, you should be asking a professional, not a random group of geeks (many of whom may be youngsters, BTW).
Oh man, this part of the thread is really bugging me.
That said, there is some evidence that it is more of a behavioral disorder than a "chemical" disorder like schizophrenia. That would indicate that it is the result of poor parenting and a lack of discipline.
There's no such distinction as "chemical" vs. "non-chemical" disorders. Frankly, nobody knows what exactly causes (or better, "triggers") schizophrenia, though vulnerability to developing schizophrenia seems to have a genetic component. Frankly, ADHD may be exactly like schizophrenia -- you're either vulnerable or not, and something triggers it or it is never triggered.
Either way, even if ADHD were shown to be entirely caused by experience, we still would not know exactly what kind of experiences resulted in ADHD. The whole "lax parenting" thing is still just pop psychology. I could just as easily say that a child who does not learn to pay attention except when forced to is a victim of overly strict parenting, or something else like malnutrition or an accidental (mild) poisoning.
As far as this being a behavioral problem and not a "chemical" disorder, consider the following.
[various evidence deleted]
On the other hand, changes in the brain can occur due to experience. Consider the shrinkage of the hippocampus which is theorized to be responsible for PTSD. This shrinkage is thought to be caused by excessive stress. Or, consider what malnutrition does to the developing brain. So all this evidence that the brains of ADHD sufferers are different from "normal" brains does not prove that ADHD is an organic illness either. Perhaps the differences in the brains of ADHD sufferers are caused by some experience (e.g. malnutrition, some sort of traumatic event, or, yes, parenting style).
In any event, how the fsck did our current generations end up being the only ones in history with ADD/ADHD? (rhetorical question)
:)
:) More accurately, this sort of thing is now detrimental to one's life rather than beneficial. Combined with the fact that a seizure at a bad time can be fatal, epilepsy is now considered to be a disease. "Now" referring to only the last hundred years or so. The condition existed long before that, but the idea that it is a disease is relatively recent.
Irregardless of whether or not that question is rhetorical, I'd like to answer it.
Remember that throughout history, people have been known to go into trance states, in which shake vigorously and babble in strange tougues. Once upon a time, in some cultures, this was thought to be a message from the Gods. Nowadays it's called epilepsy. Why the difference? Because you can't make a living being a "messenger of the Gods" anymore.
As for ADD/ADHD, there have probably always been people who are hyperactive and have a hard time paying attention. In many cases, this is normal behavior, e.g. 4-year-olds! Furthermore, there is certainly a range of ability to pay attention and hyperactivity in the normal population. However, for some people, the problem is much worse than that. Remember that the last "D" in both of those names is "disorder". If a person is having such a _severe_ problem that they think there must be something wrong with them, they go see the appropriate type of doctor. In this case, probably a psychiatrist. Over the years, as many psychiatrists saw people with a similar problem with paying attention, and as they talked to other psychiatrists, published research on these people with some sort of attentional problem, and generally spread the idea that there is some sort of attentional condition out there which is causing people problems, the workgroups which create the text of the DSM decided to add this condition to the manual.
My point is that adding a condition to the DSM does not "cause" the disease to exist. Rather, it gives an official name, a set of expected symptoms, and a method of diagnosis for a condition which has already been seen in the world many times. Basically, it standardizes the condition. From that point on, when a psychiatrist who has never seen a person with ADHD before sees a patient who describes ADHD-like symptoms, information on what this condition could be and how to diagnose and treat it is at the doctor's fingertips. This also means that for the first time, we can say that people "have ADHD", which is why we're the only generation in history which has it!
Now, as for why _so many_ people seem to have ADHD/ADD... What I described may not be 100% accurate (I Am Not A Psychiatrist, though I do work in the field, and I have a DSM-IV-TR right here with me), but it's approximately how the system is intended to work. From the point of view of someone who knows nothing about psychiatry, it may look like the APA is coming up with new diseases with no particular logic or reason. Furthermore, depending on how carefully you read the DSM (if you bother to actually read it at all, rather than just reading a summary in the popular press) the descriptions of some conditions may seem fairly broad, such that all kinds of people could have them. The problem with this way of thinking is that last "D" again. Severity is the difference. Psychiatrists are doctors; they are supposed to be seeing people who have problems (how often do people go to their psychiatrists for a "check up"?) Even then, the DSM criteria for ADHD and the like are more strict than some people seem to think. However, who knows how good your psychiatrist is? As human beings, they've been known to make mistakes. Furthermore, I suspect that many parents exaggerate their child's symptoms (e.g. a kid who gets D's is "doing horribly in school and can never pay attention" when in fact he just hates school, wants to be a musician when he grows up, and spends a little too much time in class chatting with the other guys in his band). Thus way too many people, especially kids, end up being diagnosed with ADHD.
That's just my take on the situation. Again, I Am Not A Psychiatrist.
The problem is that the heatsink is just dumping heat into the cavity of your case
:) Seriously, though, if the card isn't overheating without a fan, then the fan is basically just generating more heat.
As compared to a fan, which blows magic pixie dust on the heat to make it go away.
Notice, by the way, where that heat pipe sends some of the heat from the GPU. It transfers it to the large heatsink on the "bottom" of the card. In a standard case, the "bottom" of the AGP video card is closer to the rear case fan. In a case with two rear fans, the "bottom" heatsink might be directly in the path of the airflow to the lower fan (which presumably blows that hot air out of the case). Compare this to a videocard with a fan on it. Aside from the nVidia card you mentioned, the air blown over the heatsink is just scattered over the area below the video card. It seems to me that a heat pipe actually moves some of the heat into an area where the case airflow can get rid of it better, whereas the hot air coming from a fan doesn't get distributed in such a useful manner.
Well, these guys have taken the idea, put some math behind it to find the optimal can size...
:)
Which, conveniently, is exactly the same size as a regular Pingles can! (Which explains why they only cost 19.95.
...one sentence at a time?
The Trinity Test Site. Only open a few times a year, your chance to see where the first atomic bomb was tested.
Bring _strong_ sunscreen.
have you ever seen a vending machine which takes hundreds?
:)
Every day. Come to Vegas, baby.
Okay, fair enough.
I admit, I'm talking out my ass, but money-laundering doesn't typically handle a million bucks per whack. A few thousand, or even 20 - 50 grand maybe.
Yeah, but that's still a lot of $100 bills at a time (assuming that these ATMs take hundreds), presumably inserted one at a time. And you just know the machine will spit some of them back out. I'm still not convinced that this is a very practical tool for money laundering. Inserting $1000 in hundreds isn't so bad, but 20K in $20s would be a killer.
'nuff said
I dunno... trying to stick a million dollars' worth of bills (even hundreds) into one of these machines would take an awfully long time. And that assumes that they even take large bills - have you ever seen a vending machine which takes hundreds, or even fifties? More than likely, these ATMs will only be useful for relatively small transactions.
You're losing me here. If I enter a postcard contest or a phone contest, I wouldn't have to buy Microsoft postcards or a Microsoft telephone. This contest requires that you own a computer running Microsoft Windows, i.e., a purchase, no?
My point was that the law doesn't say that you can't be forced to buy _something_ to participate in a contest. Every contest requires you to buy something, even if just an envelope, yet they're still legal. Rather the law says that you can't be forced to buy a _gamepiece_, and neither MSN Messenger nor MS Windows is a gamepiece. For that matter, neither is the required computer, or the required network connection, or any other requirement for participating. If anything these are contest restrictions along the lines of "The winner must be present at the time of the drawing to be eligible," which are also perfectly legal.
But if you have to purchase their OS (one way or another) in order to use said software . . . Purchase, once-removed, is okay?
Sure, why not?
Consider this: to enter by mail, you need to buy envelopes and some kind of writing implement. To enter by calling a toll-free number you need a phone (or to pay for a pay phone). To enter this MS contest, you have to own a computer. My point is that you can't enter any contest of this type without buying something "once-removed". The only thing that the law prohibits is making people buy a _gamepiece_, because that turns the contest into a lottery, and there are laws prohibiting most lotteries (they're a form of gambling).
MS Windows (and MacOS) are not gamepieces. They are part of the system for notifying winners. Requiring the winner to use MSN Messenger is more akin to requiring the winner of a drawing to be present at the time of the drawing even if they registered in advance, or requiring that the winner be contactable by phone (which requires them to own a phone and have phone service). There's nothing illegal about that.
Most giveaways are explicitly required to have rules that allow people to be eligible to win without purchasing a product. If such a rule applies to this contest, they'll have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing Windows, won't they?
An informational column in a local newsweekly recently mentioned these laws. It stated that the purpose of these laws is to prevent illegal lotteries. Any contest in which you must buy a gamepiece to participate is considered a lottery. Thus the "no purchase necessary" and "for a free gamepiece, write..." on soda giveaways and the like are designed to comply with that law.
Restricting your giveaway to users of a certain product is probably not covered by such laws. If this giveaway were only for MSN subscribers, for example, that would hardly be illegal, would it? (IANAL, of course)
Besides, you could just as easily argue that they have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing a computer, couldn't you? If MS does have to comply with any lottery laws, they'll probably implement a mail-in method ("please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to...").
Yes, but 50^8 is:
:) You calculated 8^50 by mistake.
1427247692705959881058285969449495136382746624
That makes the odds of guessing the password astronomically low.
Actually, it's 39062500000000. Note that your number doesn't end in a zero.
Either way, the problem is that a password cracking program can search through that space in a reasonable amount of time. 50^8, representing 50 possible words for each of 8 inkblots, is about equal to 2^45. A single computer trying every possible password would find the right password in, what, a week or two? Under circumstances in which you had this much time to work (e.g. decoding an encrypted file which you have a copy of) the password can be found using brute force.
'... Virtual PC for Mac will be available through standard Microsoft channels of distribution.'
No, they're just going to mediocre it to death.
I don't see the inconsistency here.
How will it handle, "how u 2 day?"?
Isn't that technically a data (de)compression issue, rather than a translation issue?
Perhaps someone should start writing libunIM about now?
"You use WEP?!"
Well duh, that keeps unautorized users off your network. Yeah it's crackable, but IPSec does nothing for lower-layer security. IPSec was designed for a different purpose than WEP If you want a secure network, use both.
I've noticed lately that some wireless cards and access points are starting to come out with support for AES encryption. I understand that this basically just substitutes a better encryption algorithm (AES rather than RC4) as the default packet encryption. It should do the job for network-level security.
Of course, not every piece of 802.11(whatever) hardware supports AES, so there may be backwards-compatibility issues. I understand that AES is computationally intensive enough to require hardware support (e.g. it can't just be added by a firmware upgrade). But if you're starting from scratch, could AES-compatible hardware be the way to go? Does anyone know more about this?
The nuns of the Missionaries of Charity believed two abandoned buildings in New York City would make ideal homeless shelters. The city agreed and offered to sell the building for one dollar each. Yet the shelter project faltered: the city's bureaucracy imposed such expensive remodeling requirements on the buildings that the shelter plans were scrapped.
Yeah, if the nuns had just used those buildings, and then they collapsed on the homeless folks, then there would be no more homeless folks. Problem solved!
While I agree that some laws are stupid, or are applied stupidly, I also think that pundits like this get away with murder by only telling half the story. You read this stuff and think "What idiots!" until you actually have to deal with a situation like this and realize what a complex situation it is.
But of course, most people don't think about that. They buy these books, get their nice little feeling of superiority for being "smarter" than the people they read about, and go buy the next book without ever thinking the situation through. Like addicts, I tell 'ya. Meanwhile, I bet the reality of even one of these stories would take more pages to describe that any of these books even have.
They've been advertising this WiFi thing on their webpage for about a month now.
The rest of that letter is more interesting. Here are some excerpts:
In addition, we also plan to support IPv6 [editor's note: !!!], multiple connections for bonding or redundancy, individual customer firewall options, improvement of peer-to-peer applications such as video conferencing and application sharing, and, eventually, relatively advanced applications such as IP multi-cast through the last mile. Of course, we will always place an emphasis on assuring the fundamental network reliability and performance our members require.
[snip]
Many of you have tried our new and much improved Web-based Email service. You may have noticed this service also includes Calendaring, Reminders (via cell phone, email) and much more. I am excited to announce today that we will soon add a service option to allow true shared calendaring for Business-Class members.
[snip]
Although VoIP (Voice over IP) has been, in our opinion, a bit over-hyped for the past few years, we believe that the technology and service has advanced to the point that it is now a viable alternative phone service for many people. Accordingly, we are exploring a Voice over IP solution that will allow Speakeasy customers to use their broadband connection to make local and long distance calls. More details to come as we complete Beta trials and determine cost and features.
Interesting, eh?
The United States has treaties with Mexico and Canada that lay out a framework for coordination of radio and television licensing. You can't just hop across the border and build a 1 MW radio station on any frequency you like.
Some people do it anyway.
If it's not already illegal, this should be, especially if there is no notice of any particular size informing the user that the change is present.
No problem. Just pay with a credit card from a bank which has "different policies" about reimbursing merchants:
"Yes, I know that it's a VISA card, but unlike VISA Corp. our bank's policy is to refrain from paying the merchants who accept our charge cards. We find that this makes us more profitable, and increases customer satisfaction. Have a nice day." *CLICK*
I think its really rude to force your office to use Linux desktops when they so obviously don't want to use them. Using computers isn't easy for most people. You seriously screw with their productivity when you force them to use KDE or OpenOffice or whatever. What if they have a home computer thats running Windows and MS Office? All of a sudden they come into work and now sharing files is no longer a non-event.
What makes you think I forced anyone to change? I just worked there.
Besides, computer skills were part of the job description -- the "office" in question was a research lab. Most of our data analysis software ran on Linux! Using the same Linux systems for other things (e-mail, word processing) just made sense.
See, sometimes when you start a new job, you have to learn new skills. If you can't manage to learn those skills in a reasonable time, you should quit (or be fired!), or come up with a good alternative solution. Anyone who wasn't capable of working with the equipment in the lab, including the computers, shouldn't have been working there. Unfortunately, some people never did get used to the Linux systems. Their problem, not mine.
As for you NDPTAL85, next time you complain, get the whole story first! You had no clue what kind of office I was talking about or what kind of position I held in that office, yet you made up a scenario and complained about my behavior in that made-up scenario. That's just dumb. So don't do it again.
Now, in this case we can put in a nice Linux firewall (or appliance) for a very low cost. Since we are using Firebird, we have the *option* of using Linux as the OS as FB is cross platform. But, I would still need to replace their Exchange Server, Anitivirus software and several off the shelf business apps( which are the biggest challenge of all)
:).
:) for MS Office is a mistake, especially since the retraining is pretty minimal for a word-processor. Follow that line of reasoning and mix and match OSS and Commercial software as appropriate to your needs. Instead of thinking in terms of replacing every commercial program with OSS, think in terms of looking for alternatives to the obvious commercial solution which may be advantageous for other reasons (e.g. cheaper, more secure, been around longer). That's my advice.
The thought of replacing Windows desktops with Linux is a fantasy. But,we can continue the creep with servers.
Replacing servers is generally easier since fewer machines need to be replaced, because fewer applications need to be replaced, and because fewer people use them directly (e.g. less retraining needed), and because the interactions which users have with servers tend to be simpler. Also, Linux really does have clear advantages on the server (e.g. lesser hardware requirements, wider variety of software, better security), whereas on the desktop there aren't so many clear advantages (stability used to be one, but newer commercial OSes are pretty good about that).
Migrating people to desktop Linux is a major pain, sure. I have worked on a job where Linux was the standard desktop, though a couple of Windows machines were available, and many people ended up trying their hardest to use the Windows machines whenever possible. Anything new is a hard sell, since people are used to having things a specific way (likewise, the lone Mac fan on that particular job insisted on using the office's lone Mac, which worked out well
What it boils down to is this: you must get software which meets your needs. Costs are an important but secondary consideration. Retraining falls under costs. For example, if you absolutely need all of the functionality of MS Office, then suggesting OpenOffice (or anything else, commercial or otherwise) is a mistake. If, on the other hand, you only need functionality comparable to OpenOffice, then paying hundreds of dollars a seat (theoretically
Now, suppose that I am the manager of a company and I want to do all that, to SAVE me money, but I want everything I had before. Unreasonable? Nope, I am a typical customer.
Question is, can it be done??
I don't know enough about enterprise-level applications to properly answer your challenge, but I would like to make one point. There are two possible ways to interpret your challenge: as a Forced upgrade or as a Non-Forced upgrade.
Consider a Non-Forced upgrade. Unless you're willing to accept significant downtime, any kind of software switch will involve a hardware switch as well. As the article suggests, few companies are willing to spend that kind of money anymore. "Minimize risk", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and so on. Add the cost of new hardware to the cost of the time spent switching, and I bet it would be near-impossible to save money. That's a very hard challenge. Note that it's just as hard for closed-source products as for open ones, though!
On the other hand, what if you were Forced to change hardware? What if you actually need to upgrade, due to capacity issues, support issues (you're using NT4...), dead or truly obsolete hardware, or the like. Let's add up the cost of W2K Server, Exchange, IIS, AntiVirus, etc. and compare _that_ to the Open Source solution. This is a much easier challenge. If the software exists, I bet that this one can be achieved.
6 streams on 100mhz chip, lol! P100 can barely do 1 hq mp3 stream..
You're completely right, of course. Not only is 2% probably an underestimate (caching has something to do with it) but I bet that modern mp3 players support SSE, and that's helping to keep the CPU usage low.