Or you could create a business, that slowly churns in the coin.
Or you could make a movie like Blair Witch, using about $5 of pocket change and some cigarettes, a scrap of tent and some gasoline, and make way more money than you'd ever make measuring stocks. Just don't make a sequel.:P
Stocks are mere gambling, imho. The house always wins...
The stock market is frail, and a fool's playpen. I remember hearing a story about a huge media barron, before the stock market crash that led to the great depression. The mogul was standing in this elevator and overheard busboys talking about how they were going to start playing the stocks. The millionaire immediately sold everything when he got to the office. His reasoning was that if two people who had no money were playing stocks, that they were a sign that the whole system was at fault and doomed. I forget who this person was, so if anyone remembers... hehe feel free to say.
The guy's logic is correct even to this day, imho. The big companies that go public hope that an infusion of cash will make them more profitable, but it usually ends up that they get to take a break on stockholder's money for a while until it's deadline time again and they have to scramble to make product/service X work.
The whole system is wrong.
Look at all the ads for investing these days. They all suggest that you trust them to make you money, and they have as selling points, how easy it is to make money. The easier it is, the more moot it is, imho.
There is no easier way than hard work.
Glitches are bound to happen. Remember when the grid went down this past summer? I would have suspected major losses then, but somehow it wasn't that bad?
If a hacker can get 8,000,000 VISA accounts, anything can happen. The fact that spammers exist in abundance just increases the probability of a crack being ready soon. Because Yahoo's protection scheme isn't open source, I still think it's only a matter of time before a gaping hole is found.
My point above is that it's only a matter of time before we have to scrap the email system and start over -- because of spam.
But how am I going to get my special penis enlargement information now? And what about that family matter I am resolving with Mr. Mobotu?
In all seriousness, I think this is a good idea. But, sadly, it's going to be cracked. Domain keys can be forged, and that will be the first thing that these spam servers will be focussing on right now. They'll set up a Yahoo acct and monitor traffic to see what the domain keys look like. They will then duplicate the acks and be back in business. It's only a matter of time.
This is a good step, no doubt. It is just that we should be looking at ways of putting spammers out of business, too. Hit their wallets, not their tech. Tech can always be worked around, especially by dubious people.
Instead of domain keys, I had a different idea that might work a lot better.
What if nobody sent email over the Internet?
Today we have the ability to use web forms to pass messages back and forth to other users on the same service. With that option, the server admin would be able to flag spammers and ban them. If you wanted to message another user of another server, you could type in their location as USERNAME@DOMAIN, and that would queue to be sent in batch to the other server after authentication.
No outside contact. No spam. One message per customer. If you send more than a certain number of messages in a day, they are held as possible spam.
Privacy goes out the window, but hey... it's not like there is any privacy in non-encrypted email anyway.
I for one welcome our Linux booze-mixing Overloards.
Re:It's not a coincidence
on
NYT on Game Mods
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
When I was interviewed by the New York Times about the mod I'm doing, I was shocked at how much of the interview was left out. So I'm doing a feature with MTV magazine about it, and forgive me if I'm having some faith.:)
My point is that the NYT doesn't know much about modding. They only know what they can see, and that's a wall of information. They don't have good resources for tapping into something like modding. Part of that is our fault, because there isn't a central information base for modding anymore, and there hasn't been since Slipgate Central was shut down. NYT wouldn't know what Allstar CTF was, and they would likely think that Zoid was a little toy.
But patiently, with time, maybe the rest of the world will get it, when it comes to mods. Until then, we have to make do and we have to try and keep working towards that connection.
I see only one of two possible immediate outcomes to all of these music services going up at the same time:
1. The collapse of the RIAA's scare-tactics business model for coercion to expensive copyright, and a change in how people listen and contribute to the music industry.
2. The total destruction of all online music sales, as all said businesses compete eachother out of existence.
In either case, the indies will be getting a *huge* increase in power, wealth and the ability to remain flexible to meet market demand and handle new distribution opportunities.
I think this is really good for everyone... especially when you consider that most of the traditional corporations have mission statements like: "Our goal is to competently build virtual data to allow us to conveniently disseminate quality content for 100% customer satisfaction", and compare that line of thought to the mission of indy music, which is more along the lines of "create the best, most innovative music and get a huge fan base, because we ROCK!"
Sure!:) Name the place. Nekrull is going to have his own line of books soon. Nothing to buy there yet, but in a few months... maybe! And we may trick Gary Gygax into editing them, after he gets done with his MMORPG stuff.:)
Re:Nice, but dangerous.
on
Javascrypt
·
· Score: 1
Yeah there are some things that are best to be on the safe side with. Chances are, if you are going to encrypt something, you'll want to be sure it's foolproof. I'm sure that some exploits will come up with this method in the next month or so. That active-x idea is one for sure, and another is to mock up another site *like* this and just change the sourcecode to steal the data.
Maybe *THIS* site is safe, for now, but how long before others do up a joke site that uses the js here but pumps your data to a backend db for kicks?
Think AC. Think. When do you call encryption in a website? Transactions. Passwords use hashing, not enc... so just financial stuff, really. I guess some places encrpyt user data, but I'd just as soon as obfuscate it with base64 and some slipping.
Not really needed if you're over SSL & HTTPS, just if you want to keep ISP eyes away from your stuff. A discussion site doesn't really need to worry about that.
so like: $this = md5($pass); mailpass($pass); userpass($this);// stuffs password in db
Then when the user signs in: if($dbpass != md5(getpass($post_pass))) die('wrong pass dude');
Not likely to even notice that one.
Re:Nice, but dangerous.
on
Javascrypt
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
I think you would find it obvious. You post things to slashdot like:
"omg, why don't you like me??? i made you my friend! i'm sorry i called you homosexual."
That's why I said to grab it and use it on your own computer at home. Download it all to a directory or something.
Considering that I wear a foil hat, so don't be mad, ok? I still think it's not a good idea. I just don't trust Javascript.
At first glance, it looks dangerous. However, after considering what you've said, it appears that it all does run offline locally. The form doesn't clickthrough to his server. It has an onclick value that triggers the javascript. Cool.
I would still prefer to encrypt everything using PHP & MySQL. It's faster, and not so limited as web forms.
Nice, but dangerous.
on
Javascrypt
·
· Score: -1, Insightful
How many of you will put your sensitive data in his site?
I recommend grabbing the js and html yourself, so you can understand it. I don't recommend putting anything sensitive in this guy's site, because he can read it, and because it's not over a HTTPS or SSL connection, so can anyone else.
Here are the source files, for your reading pleasure. Also, I recommend using this offline, if you get it, or over SSL and HTTPS. I would personally prefer encrypting using PHP & MySQL, so that it's all behind the scenes.
Bios changes to "trustworthy computing" make me just as scared as when my wife and I went car shopping at Gan Chev Olds and they said "Trust Me. This is a great deal!". Boy did I ever get screwed on that "deal". *sigh*
Since when does it make sense to switch the onus for security to hardware?
Oh I knew it was time to buy a Mac! With Doom 3 being fully supported on Mac on launch, it's going to be hard for people to criticize Mac for a lack of games. As soon as Uncle Sam rubs his greedy hands together, to try and get all our secrets, it's time for a switch, IMHO. I'm developing my open source Doom 3 project on a Mac, so I'll be playing on one too. Maybe once Doom 3 is on Mac, the next generation of Id-engine-spinoffs will make for a slaughterhouse of new games for Mac, too!
$50,000 for a desk. And we wonder why people starve everywhere. Ok, it was Healy's desk, but still! Yeah it's moon rock, but sometime in the future, we'll look back at this and wonder where the moon went. They we'll remember that we carted it off for sale at flea markets everywhere. Moon rock or not... it's dirt! If it had magical properties to it, or had some kind of purpose, I could see the point. I don't get diamonds, either. Or gold for that matter. Why this human obsession with stuff from the ground? I'm more into digital rarities, like the newest game or software. That's what I value... not dirt, or minerals. But to each, their own, I guess, eh?
I would have to know my Lat/Long to do this. I don't have GPS, so how am I going to find out? In order for society to grow forward and advance into a new tech era, it would be smart if we knew where things were -- exactly, at all times. I'd say that we're currently in the positioning stone age. Still a ton of things to do yet!
I envision a society that has many virtual road signs and better targeting systems, so you can have autopiolot in cars. Cars could move faster with this tech, and we could have more leasure time on the ride to work. I'd love to play Doom 5 on the 401. This would also eliminate traffic jams because your car would know the path of least resistance, compared to all the ohter cars.
That'd make the landscape more appealing to look at and you could turn off advertising. Knowing where things are would be a lot easier with a better standard, too.
I see your point. Long/Lat is enough I guess, eh? Would be nice to have mine calculated from my current machine. Anyone know of a GPS software prog that works over the internet from your machine? See my point?
If they can do all that, then they likely won't suffer too much from the slashdot effect. That is unless, enough of us get our grubbies on their 2.8meg PNG map from Nov 23...
I know it's a LGL map, but wouldn't it be cooler to position connections on a mock surface of our planet? That might actually be something to behold. These maps just appear to be link/traffic pointers or something to that effect.
So when are one of us nerds going to invent a better way to tell what geographical location is associated with what IP/URL? Servers could have a kind of location grid address. That'd be neat. That way you could tell how far your data was going, and where. You could avoid posting in certain countries, or try to post in others. The flipside would be that it would cut back on privacy and the anonymity that makes the web special. Wouldn't it be kinda scary if your IP told people where to find you? I can think of a few angry gamers that might want to do me in, I don't know about you!!!
Trillian works great for all my needs. IRC! Man that's where it's at. What bothers me, greatly I might add, is that while the majors like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola are busy selling IM at whatever cost their last meeting brainfarted, it is highly probable that most non-nerd people think this is the way to go. They are 0wn3d by the marketspae'k, and it's trendy so hey, cool, they love it. And there's money in it for companies to gain money per character of text, or per 32byte-max transfer. (or is it 255? tee hee)
The pundits of chargeable IM services socialize the use of the service, as a Freudian brainwash, by forming IM parties with other-sexy-trendy-phone-pundits, and I sit back wondering what the fuck is happening to the world; it should be all free, or at least the cost of hardware. It's obviously a ploy to put a price on a few bytes of data, and slap a carriage charge on top of it. Which is why I'm not at all surprised this Microsoft guy, PETER FORD (from the interview) is talking about IM. It seems that the fancier the names of the new protocols are, the more money it's going to cost. But it's mumbo-jumbo to the end user, who would gladly fork over the cash just to make it go away (and just work). That's what these pundits are counting on.
One part of the article I found interesting was the design of voice mail. I agree. It would be better to build the message at the sender's location and *then* send it.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no better ROI than genius.
:P
You could be like the guys who invented ICQ.
Or you could create a business, that slowly churns in the coin.
Or you could make a movie like Blair Witch, using about $5 of pocket change and some cigarettes, a scrap of tent and some gasoline, and make way more money than you'd ever make measuring stocks. Just don't make a sequel.
Stocks are mere gambling, imho. The house always wins...
This reminds me of a nugget.
The stock market is frail, and a fool's playpen. I remember hearing a story about a huge media barron, before the stock market crash that led to the great depression. The mogul was standing in this elevator and overheard busboys talking about how they were going to start playing the stocks. The millionaire immediately sold everything when he got to the office. His reasoning was that if two people who had no money were playing stocks, that they were a sign that the whole system was at fault and doomed. I forget who this person was, so if anyone remembers... hehe feel free to say.
The guy's logic is correct even to this day, imho. The big companies that go public hope that an infusion of cash will make them more profitable, but it usually ends up that they get to take a break on stockholder's money for a while until it's deadline time again and they have to scramble to make product/service X work.
The whole system is wrong.
Look at all the ads for investing these days. They all suggest that you trust them to make you money, and they have as selling points, how easy it is to make money. The easier it is, the more moot it is, imho.
There is no easier way than hard work.
Glitches are bound to happen. Remember when the grid went down this past summer? I would have suspected major losses then, but somehow it wasn't that bad?
If a hacker can get 8,000,000 VISA accounts, anything can happen. The fact that spammers exist in abundance just increases the probability of a crack being ready soon. Because Yahoo's protection scheme isn't open source, I still think it's only a matter of time before a gaping hole is found.
My point above is that it's only a matter of time before we have to scrap the email system and start over -- because of spam.
But how am I going to get my special penis enlargement information now? And what about that family matter I am resolving with Mr. Mobotu?
In all seriousness, I think this is a good idea. But, sadly, it's going to be cracked. Domain keys can be forged, and that will be the first thing that these spam servers will be focussing on right now. They'll set up a Yahoo acct and monitor traffic to see what the domain keys look like. They will then duplicate the acks and be back in business. It's only a matter of time.
This is a good step, no doubt. It is just that we should be looking at ways of putting spammers out of business, too. Hit their wallets, not their tech. Tech can always be worked around, especially by dubious people.
Instead of domain keys, I had a different idea that might work a lot better.
What if nobody sent email over the Internet?
Today we have the ability to use web forms to pass messages back and forth to other users on the same service. With that option, the server admin would be able to flag spammers and ban them. If you wanted to message another user of another server, you could type in their location as USERNAME@DOMAIN, and that would queue to be sent in batch to the other server after authentication.
No outside contact. No spam. One message per customer. If you send more than a certain number of messages in a day, they are held as possible spam.
Privacy goes out the window, but hey... it's not like there is any privacy in non-encrypted email anyway.
Yeah this is just in time for LotR, RotK.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these! Mmmmm, happy drinking! :)
I for one welcome our Linux booze-mixing Overloards.
When I was interviewed by the New York Times about the mod I'm doing, I was shocked at how much of the interview was left out. So I'm doing a feature with MTV magazine about it, and forgive me if I'm having some faith. :)
My point is that the NYT doesn't know much about modding. They only know what they can see, and that's a wall of information. They don't have good resources for tapping into something like modding. Part of that is our fault, because there isn't a central information base for modding anymore, and there hasn't been since Slipgate Central was shut down. NYT wouldn't know what Allstar CTF was, and they would likely think that Zoid was a little toy.
But patiently, with time, maybe the rest of the world will get it, when it comes to mods. Until then, we have to make do and we have to try and keep working towards that connection.
(checks crystal ball)
I see only one of two possible immediate outcomes to all of these music services going up at the same time:
1. The collapse of the RIAA's scare-tactics business model for coercion to expensive copyright, and a change in how people listen and contribute to the music industry.
2. The total destruction of all online music sales, as all said businesses compete eachother out of existence.
In either case, the indies will be getting a *huge* increase in power, wealth and the ability to remain flexible to meet market demand and handle new distribution opportunities.
I think this is really good for everyone... especially when you consider that most of the traditional corporations have mission statements like: "Our goal is to competently build virtual data to allow us to conveniently disseminate quality content for 100% customer satisfaction", and compare that line of thought to the mission of indy music, which is more along the lines of "create the best, most innovative music and get a huge fan base, because we ROCK!"
Sure! :) :)
Name the place. Nekrull is going to have his own line of books soon. Nothing to buy there yet, but in a few months... maybe! And we may trick Gary Gygax into editing them, after he gets done with his MMORPG stuff.
Yeah there are some things that are best to be on the safe side with. Chances are, if you are going to encrypt something, you'll want to be sure it's foolproof. I'm sure that some exploits will come up with this method in the next month or so. That active-x idea is one for sure, and another is to mock up another site *like* this and just change the sourcecode to steal the data.
Maybe *THIS* site is safe, for now, but how long before others do up a joke site that uses the js here but pumps your data to a backend db for kicks?
Think AC. Think. When do you call encryption in a website? Transactions. Passwords use hashing, not enc... so just financial stuff, really. I guess some places encrpyt user data, but I'd just as soon as obfuscate it with base64 and some slipping.
// stuffs password in db
Not really needed if you're over SSL & HTTPS, just if you want to keep ISP eyes away from your stuff. A discussion site doesn't really need to worry about that.
so like:
$this = md5($pass);
mailpass($pass);
userpass($this);
Then when the user signs in:
if($dbpass != md5(getpass($post_pass))) die('wrong pass dude');
Not likely to even notice that one.
I think you would find it obvious. You post things to slashdot like:
"omg, why don't you like me??? i made you my friend! i'm sorry i called you homosexual."
That speaks for itself.
That's why I said to grab it and use it on your own computer at home. Download it all to a directory or something.
Considering that I wear a foil hat, so don't be mad, ok? I still think it's not a good idea. I just don't trust Javascript.
At first glance, it looks dangerous. However, after considering what you've said, it appears that it all does run offline locally. The form doesn't clickthrough to his server. It has an onclick value that triggers the javascript. Cool.
I would still prefer to encrypt everything using PHP & MySQL. It's faster, and not so limited as web forms.
How many of you will put your sensitive data in his site?
I recommend grabbing the js and html yourself, so you can understand it. I don't recommend putting anything sensitive in this guy's site, because he can read it, and because it's not over a HTTPS or SSL connection, so can anyone else.
Here are the source files, for your reading pleasure. Also, I recommend using this offline, if you get it, or over SSL and HTTPS. I would personally prefer encrypting using PHP & MySQL, so that it's all behind the scenes.
Bios changes to "trustworthy computing" make me just as scared as when my wife and I went car shopping at Gan Chev Olds and they said "Trust Me. This is a great deal!". Boy did I ever get screwed on that "deal". *sigh*
Since when does it make sense to switch the onus for security to hardware?
Oh I knew it was time to buy a Mac! With Doom 3 being fully supported on Mac on launch, it's going to be hard for people to criticize Mac for a lack of games. As soon as Uncle Sam rubs his greedy hands together, to try and get all our secrets, it's time for a switch, IMHO. I'm developing my open source Doom 3 project on a Mac, so I'll be playing on one too. Maybe once Doom 3 is on Mac, the next generation of Id-engine-spinoffs will make for a slaughterhouse of new games for Mac, too!
Damn! Foiled again. :)
$50,000 for a desk. And we wonder why people starve everywhere. Ok, it was Healy's desk, but still! Yeah it's moon rock, but sometime in the future, we'll look back at this and wonder where the moon went. They we'll remember that we carted it off for sale at flea markets everywhere. Moon rock or not... it's dirt! If it had magical properties to it, or had some kind of purpose, I could see the point. I don't get diamonds, either. Or gold for that matter. Why this human obsession with stuff from the ground? I'm more into digital rarities, like the newest game or software. That's what I value... not dirt, or minerals. But to each, their own, I guess, eh?
I would have to know my Lat/Long to do this. I don't have GPS, so how am I going to find out? In order for society to grow forward and advance into a new tech era, it would be smart if we knew where things were -- exactly, at all times. I'd say that we're currently in the positioning stone age. Still a ton of things to do yet!
I envision a society that has many virtual road signs and better targeting systems, so you can have autopiolot in cars. Cars could move faster with this tech, and we could have more leasure time on the ride to work. I'd love to play Doom 5 on the 401. This would also eliminate traffic jams because your car would know the path of least resistance, compared to all the ohter cars.
That'd make the landscape more appealing to look at and you could turn off advertising. Knowing where things are would be a lot easier with a better standard, too.
I'm not in Belleville, but it says I am. See my point?
I see your point. Long/Lat is enough I guess, eh? Would be nice to have mine calculated from my current machine. Anyone know of a GPS software prog that works over the internet from your machine? See my point?
"Also only took them 252.68 hours to complete."
If they can do all that, then they likely won't suffer too much from the slashdot effect. That is unless, enough of us get our grubbies on their 2.8meg PNG map from Nov 23...
"Mapping engine status: Stalled (Damn Slashdot Bastards!)"
I know it's a LGL map, but wouldn't it be cooler to position connections on a mock surface of our planet? That might actually be something to behold. These maps just appear to be link/traffic pointers or something to that effect.
So when are one of us nerds going to invent a better way to tell what geographical location is associated with what IP/URL? Servers could have a kind of location grid address. That'd be neat. That way you could tell how far your data was going, and where. You could avoid posting in certain countries, or try to post in others. The flipside would be that it would cut back on privacy and the anonymity that makes the web special. Wouldn't it be kinda scary if your IP told people where to find you? I can think of a few angry gamers that might want to do me in, I don't know about you!!!
Freudian Brainwash: what marketing agents do when they mix marketing with psychology; they trick you to doing things that will make them profit.
Trillian works great for all my needs. IRC! Man that's where it's at. What bothers me, greatly I might add, is that while the majors like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola are busy selling IM at whatever cost their last meeting brainfarted, it is highly probable that most non-nerd people think this is the way to go. They are 0wn3d by the marketspae'k, and it's trendy so hey, cool, they love it. And there's money in it for companies to gain money per character of text, or per 32byte-max transfer. (or is it 255? tee hee)
The pundits of chargeable IM services socialize the use of the service, as a Freudian brainwash, by forming IM parties with other-sexy-trendy-phone-pundits, and I sit back wondering what the fuck is happening to the world; it should be all free, or at least the cost of hardware. It's obviously a ploy to put a price on a few bytes of data, and slap a carriage charge on top of it. Which is why I'm not at all surprised this Microsoft guy, PETER FORD (from the interview) is talking about IM. It seems that the fancier the names of the new protocols are, the more money it's going to cost. But it's mumbo-jumbo to the end user, who would gladly fork over the cash just to make it go away (and just work). That's what these pundits are counting on.
One part of the article I found interesting was the design of voice mail. I agree. It would be better to build the message at the sender's location and *then* send it.
I can't stop thinking about the one when BtC had about a hundred smokes in his mouth and he's going Aaaaack Thppppt!
Geez that was funny stuff.