Please quit it with the cheezy news about 'new' storage breakthroughs. We don't need an 8-layer dvd clone right now, because regular DVD-R's still aren't affordable and the drives are rather sucky, just like the first few CD-R's from ten years ago. Once the standard DVD-R hardware hits that mass production point where it becomes as cheap and easy as current CD-RW drives, then these guys will be more than welcome to extend the format, but until then they will just be reinventing the wheel.
If I want 40gb's of space, I'll buy a 79$ hard drive, not a 799$ FMD burner (expect the media to be expensive too). You'll say this will appeal to businesses who need large backup systems ? They still have tape drives, that are getting faster and bigger year after year and don't pose too many problems. Why bother inventing a product that is neither cheaper nor better than what we already have ?
If a business wants to avoid workplace violence, maybe they should start at the root of things and try to reduce stress levels in the work environment. Gun or no gun, when someone snaps it gets real ugly real quick, and most of the time the employer is to blame for imposing long hours, overloaded schedules, bad managers, etc. Good people don't go bad just on a whim, they need to be pushed to it, against their will.
... for there is no system on this planet that can withstand the impact of being slashdotted. Especially when it relates to privacy, encryption and networking (in no particular order). They're gonna fall flat on their collective asses if they ever try to pull this off.
I've been receiving opt-in spam from Dataplay for over two years now. Almost every month they send out a lengthy e-mail full of the same buzz-speak : "DataPlay will rock, DataPlay will roll, DataPlay swallows." They still don't have a product, not even a prototype. This looks like some idiot's attempt to attract easy capital back in the days of the great V.C. boom. Now he's probably just trying to suck up whatever's left after the crash.
Well, here in Quebec, we get 4mbps down (schweet), 128kbit up (yucky).. only 35$ canadian (approx. 22$ USD). Now if only they offered faster upstream, I'd marry my cable modem:)
VIA can produce all the cpu it likes, I won't be buying any of them. If they still can't produce a stable motherboard chipset after years of research and practice, then how could they manage a completely functional x86 processor core ? I don't think they can do it well enough to chew into Intel.
And if they DO slap it on the Echo, the rest of us will just be laughing even harder at those poor mindless Echo owners who still haven't realized that there are many nicer cars in the same price range that actually have some visibility through the side and rear windows.
For the record, I don't hate Toyota, perhaps only because they made the NSX. For compact cars, I just love my Ford Focus ZX3. The fuel economy is very nice, and the engine has plenty of spare power for swift city driving. And it doesn't have emotions, but I do wish it would snap pictures of any attractive female pedestrians, so I could concentrate more on the road:)
Would it be possible to screw these telemarketing companies by simply having your home phone number forwarded to your cell ? It sounds deceptively simple but why not ?
Even if you have an onboard SCSI, it will still go through the PCI bus. They just plug it right on the motherboard and route a few bus lines directly into the chip, which isn't much different that if it were housed on its own board in a slot. They don't give each onboard component a private bus, that would be hell to implement consistently and it would also probably require funky drivers to 'unlearn' the ways of the PCI bus. Just not gonna happen.
Just think for a moment.. say you have an ad, be it a banner across the top of your screen, or perhaps a cleverly inserted texture inside the game itself. How do banners usually work ? You see them, you click on them. Now will you really want to jump out of your deeply absorbing RPG just to see what kind of crap some retailer wants to shove down your throat ? no. I'm assuming the advertisers have enough smarts to figure this out too. I rest my case.
Um.. buddy.. that kind of business already exists. Up here in Ottawa we call it OEMexpress, run by some asian dude with a heavy accent. It's basically a warehouse with a couple of incompetent techs running the cash registers. They outsell everyone else tenfold, mainly because they always outprice them by a few bucks. Just don't expect any support beyond replacement/refund if the part doesn't work.
Actually, in comparison with the other shops, the service is fairly decent. They won't play dirty and say "we can replace it, but you'll have to wait 6 weeks", they just swap the dead stuff and send you off to rebuild your box minutes later.
Every computer store was doing things in reverse : big/high-visibility floor space and talented staff (high overhead), ass-fuck name brands and retail prices, no geeks in sight. We were all too busy bartering things in the local newsgroups and ordering discount gear from ebayers. Only the ignorant masses would buy an overpriced piece of low-end junk from those shops. When this guy opened up sometime last year, it was a revolutionary concept : Low overhead, low prices, happy geeks. Happier geeks buying lots of parts from the asian guy, building systems and reselling for a reasonable profit. I wouldn't even mind sending my mom over to pick up a few components, but I'd probably give her a detailed part list. "I want a video card" just wouldn't cut it. "I want an Asus V7700 64mb deluxe" will yield much more satisfying results.
I'm not saying this kind of business is the future. We still need rich ignorant fucks to buy overpriced gear en-masse, if we want the companies to have enough leeway to cater to the exceptional tastes of us tweak-freaks.
Well... starting up your own indie-Napster is certainly possible but will be sued into the ground as soon as it becomes more than a "Just-us-buddies" service. I wouldn't say Napster is the pimp, rather they're the whore. They will charge users, give a good chunk of that money to the RIAA and other fuckheads, then spend what's left on angel dust to help cope with the guilt.
The big problem, as we all know, is that Napster is centralized. Centralized means there's just one weak point to smash (with lawyers) and everything comes down fast and hard.
LIDAR is also the new gadgetry used by traffic police to catch speeders. Since it's a laser, it isn't really susceptible to jamming or long-range detection, as was possible with Radar guns. Cops love it because it increases their revenue stream, I hate it because it's only widening the gap between law and police. It's still nice to see this annoying stuff finally being used for something helpful for a change.
Actually, if Real could be talked into closing their doors, maybe I wouldn't need to reboot my box every time some idiot friend shows me an RM movie. Heck, I'd be happy if they just discontinued the RealPlayer and admitted that they're really just out to sell our souls for more cocaine and prostitutes.
This one's easy : New York Mayor Giuliani absolutely hates Rage and their mindset. He's closed down many of their public shows and harassed them very generously.
All of you free speech advocates should be aware that Rage's message is one of freedom from the dirty hands of corporate rule and corrupt leaders. They never go too far with their lyrics, their intent is to expose the crooked and hang them out to dry, for the better of society and justice. I'll go out on a limb here and say that they would even support government if it were done right, which it obviously isn't.
Well firstly, "Big Man With A Gun" is about a different gun . And then, "The Day The World Went Away" is so darned mellow and depressing, it's about the personal "world" that exists only within one's mind, not the world that we would call Planet Earth.
But really I'm just guessing the reviewers simply don't know about these NiN tunes, mainly because they aren't nearly as mainstream as "Head Like A Hole", which was the first to be widely played across North America, and probably still to this day the most visible tune to NiN-haters, even shadowing "Perfect Drug".
Which is just fine, because we'll feel that much more sneaky when we re-enable the feature through clever tinkering. It is merely a software-supported "do-not-copy" flag since the actual image data sneaks its way in somehow, and if you're really desperate to record something, you can always pass it through a VCR or other tuner-like device to make it appear on a different channel, which should be enough to bypass the protection.
There are plenty of possible solutions to the "kickback" problem:
1. Have heavy-yet-retractable rubber-coated feet that set down whenever the bot is ready to strike, lending more resistive grip.
2. Use a counter-gyro system, where there would be another heavy weight on a much stronger rotor, being spun in reverse direction as the weapon strikes, nullifying some of the kickback.
3. Use a vertically spinning weapon instead, spinning toward the enemy (downward), with a solid base on the rear end to keep from flipping backwards.
4. Remove all moving parts, install 400lbs of iron footing, use a really big gun:)
The flipside is good for LU - think how much extra effort it would be to forge a ticket.
Untrue. It would make it even easier (and cheaper). Instead of requiring a relatively expensive gadget to read and write magstripes from a PC, the only thing a guy now needs to forge a ticket is a common circuit board with a low-profile PIC, flashed with appropriate code to emulate a real card. While currently not too popular, some crafty freaks have done this with satellite receivers and those famous 'H' cards.
If this whole "Smart Card" craze spreads to more uses, then today's bleeding-edge hardware crackers will be tomorrow's mainstream neighborhood pirates. Just like Pay-TV blackboxes were "the shiznit" fifteen years ago.
I hate to burst you guys' (gals'?) bubble, but for many things, Delphi/Kylix/Pascal is much simpler to code than C. Just like VB is quicker to write than VC (for simple stuff). Just like PHP is simpler than Java Servlets but equally limited.
Let me give you an example you can't refute : C++ is easier than assembler for nearly everything. Nearly. See the pattern here ? By definition, higher level languages should be easier to code for than low level languages. C is a rather low level language, VB is a high level language, and Pascal sits somewhere in between balancing simplicity with functionality. Kylix is cloned from Delphi, and Delphi is based upon Pascal, therefore Kylix code is _usually_ easier to write than its equivalent graphical C code.
Well then, in the true nature of Ogg, which was created to work around the licensing issues of MP3, we should perhaps come up with a competitive 5.1 codec ? Something to complement DivX in a clean and legally free way.
Slashdot Mirror
Please quit it with the cheezy news about 'new' storage breakthroughs. We don't need an 8-layer dvd clone right now, because regular DVD-R's still aren't affordable and the drives are rather sucky, just like the first few CD-R's from ten years ago. Once the standard DVD-R hardware hits that mass production point where it becomes as cheap and easy as current CD-RW drives, then these guys will be more than welcome to extend the format, but until then they will just be reinventing the wheel.
If I want 40gb's of space, I'll buy a 79$ hard drive, not a 799$ FMD burner (expect the media to be expensive too). You'll say this will appeal to businesses who need large backup systems ? They still have tape drives, that are getting faster and bigger year after year and don't pose too many problems. Why bother inventing a product that is neither cheaper nor better than what we already have ?
If a business wants to avoid workplace violence, maybe they should start at the root of things and try to reduce stress levels in the work environment. Gun or no gun, when someone snaps it gets real ugly real quick, and most of the time the employer is to blame for imposing long hours, overloaded schedules, bad managers, etc. Good people don't go bad just on a whim, they need to be pushed to it, against their will.
um, I think you forgot that Acura is Toyota's luxury name.. just like Mercury is Ford's luxury name.. same cars, different options.. bah.
... for there is no system on this planet that can withstand the impact of being slashdotted. Especially when it relates to privacy, encryption and networking (in no particular order). They're gonna fall flat on their collective asses if they ever try to pull this off.
I've been receiving opt-in spam from Dataplay for over two years now. Almost every month they send out a lengthy e-mail full of the same buzz-speak : "DataPlay will rock, DataPlay will roll, DataPlay swallows." They still don't have a product, not even a prototype. This looks like some idiot's attempt to attract easy capital back in the days of the great V.C. boom. Now he's probably just trying to suck up whatever's left after the crash.
Well, here in Quebec, we get 4mbps down (schweet), 128kbit up (yucky).. only 35$ canadian (approx. 22$ USD). Now if only they offered faster upstream, I'd marry my cable modem :)
VIA can produce all the cpu it likes, I won't be buying any of them. If they still can't produce a stable motherboard chipset after years of research and practice, then how could they manage a completely functional x86 processor core ? I don't think they can do it well enough to chew into Intel.
And if they DO slap it on the Echo, the rest of us will just be laughing even harder at those poor mindless Echo owners who still haven't realized that there are many nicer cars in the same price range that actually have some visibility through the side and rear windows.
:)
For the record, I don't hate Toyota, perhaps only because they made the NSX. For compact cars, I just love my Ford Focus ZX3. The fuel economy is very nice, and the engine has plenty of spare power for swift city driving. And it doesn't have emotions, but I do wish it would snap pictures of any attractive female pedestrians, so I could concentrate more on the road
Check out's Peugeot's self-cleaning FAP (particle filter).
What about a self-cleaning FAP-FAP-FAP ?
Would it be possible to screw these telemarketing companies by simply having your home phone number forwarded to your cell ? It sounds deceptively simple but why not ?
However, some voice modems (specifically, those with the Rockwell chipset) can be programmed to emit pure tones of any frequency.
You mean those cheap sound cards with a phone jack where the line-out should be ?
*rimshot*
Even if you have an onboard SCSI, it will still go through the PCI bus. They just plug it right on the motherboard and route a few bus lines directly into the chip, which isn't much different that if it were housed on its own board in a slot. They don't give each onboard component a private bus, that would be hell to implement consistently and it would also probably require funky drivers to 'unlearn' the ways of the PCI bus. Just not gonna happen.
Does that mean that a Real Life comes with a RealCouch, RealPillows, RealDoll and RealSpeakers ? Would that make you a RealPlayer ?
Just think for a moment.. say you have an ad, be it a banner across the top of your screen, or perhaps a cleverly inserted texture inside the game itself. How do banners usually work ? You see them, you click on them. Now will you really want to jump out of your deeply absorbing RPG just to see what kind of crap some retailer wants to shove down your throat ? no. I'm assuming the advertisers have enough smarts to figure this out too. I rest my case.
Um.. buddy.. that kind of business already exists. Up here in Ottawa we call it OEMexpress, run by some asian dude with a heavy accent. It's basically a warehouse with a couple of incompetent techs running the cash registers. They outsell everyone else tenfold, mainly because they always outprice them by a few bucks. Just don't expect any support beyond replacement/refund if the part doesn't work.
Actually, in comparison with the other shops, the service is fairly decent. They won't play dirty and say "we can replace it, but you'll have to wait 6 weeks", they just swap the dead stuff and send you off to rebuild your box minutes later.
Every computer store was doing things in reverse : big/high-visibility floor space and talented staff (high overhead), ass-fuck name brands and retail prices, no geeks in sight. We were all too busy bartering things in the local newsgroups and ordering discount gear from ebayers. Only the ignorant masses would buy an overpriced piece of low-end junk from those shops. When this guy opened up sometime last year, it was a revolutionary concept : Low overhead, low prices, happy geeks. Happier geeks buying lots of parts from the asian guy, building systems and reselling for a reasonable profit. I wouldn't even mind sending my mom over to pick up a few components, but I'd probably give her a detailed part list. "I want a video card" just wouldn't cut it. "I want an Asus V7700 64mb deluxe" will yield much more satisfying results.
I'm not saying this kind of business is the future. We still need rich ignorant fucks to buy overpriced gear en-masse, if we want the companies to have enough leeway to cater to the exceptional tastes of us tweak-freaks.
Well... starting up your own indie-Napster is certainly possible but will be sued into the ground as soon as it becomes more than a "Just-us-buddies" service. I wouldn't say Napster is the pimp, rather they're the whore. They will charge users, give a good chunk of that money to the RIAA and other fuckheads, then spend what's left on angel dust to help cope with the guilt.
The big problem, as we all know, is that Napster is centralized. Centralized means there's just one weak point to smash (with lawyers) and everything comes down fast and hard.
LIDAR is also the new gadgetry used by traffic police to catch speeders. Since it's a laser, it isn't really susceptible to jamming or long-range detection, as was possible with Radar guns. Cops love it because it increases their revenue stream, I hate it because it's only widening the gap between law and police. It's still nice to see this annoying stuff finally being used for something helpful for a change.
Actually, if Real could be talked into closing their doors, maybe I wouldn't need to reboot my box every time some idiot friend shows me an RM movie. Heck, I'd be happy if they just discontinued the RealPlayer and admitted that they're really just out to sell our souls for more cocaine and prostitutes.
This one's easy : New York Mayor Giuliani absolutely hates Rage and their mindset. He's closed down many of their public shows and harassed them very generously.
All of you free speech advocates should be aware that Rage's message is one of freedom from the dirty hands of corporate rule and corrupt leaders. They never go too far with their lyrics, their intent is to expose the crooked and hang them out to dry, for the better of society and justice. I'll go out on a limb here and say that they would even support government if it were done right, which it obviously isn't.
Well firstly, "Big Man With A Gun" is about a different gun . And then, "The Day The World Went Away" is so darned mellow and depressing, it's about the personal "world" that exists only within one's mind, not the world that we would call Planet Earth.
But really I'm just guessing the reviewers simply don't know about these NiN tunes, mainly because they aren't nearly as mainstream as "Head Like A Hole", which was the first to be widely played across North America, and probably still to this day the most visible tune to NiN-haters, even shadowing "Perfect Drug".
Which is just fine, because we'll feel that much more sneaky when we re-enable the feature through clever tinkering. It is merely a software-supported "do-not-copy" flag since the actual image data sneaks its way in somehow, and if you're really desperate to record something, you can always pass it through a VCR or other tuner-like device to make it appear on a different channel, which should be enough to bypass the protection.
There are plenty of possible solutions to the "kickback" problem :
:)
1. Have heavy-yet-retractable rubber-coated feet that set down whenever the bot is ready to strike, lending more resistive grip.
2. Use a counter-gyro system, where there would be another heavy weight on a much stronger rotor, being spun in reverse direction as the weapon strikes, nullifying some of the kickback.
3. Use a vertically spinning weapon instead, spinning toward the enemy (downward), with a solid base on the rear end to keep from flipping backwards.
4. Remove all moving parts, install 400lbs of iron footing, use a really big gun
The flipside is good for LU - think how much extra effort it would be to forge a ticket.
Untrue. It would make it even easier (and cheaper). Instead of requiring a relatively expensive gadget to read and write magstripes from a PC, the only thing a guy now needs to forge a ticket is a common circuit board with a low-profile PIC, flashed with appropriate code to emulate a real card. While currently not too popular, some crafty freaks have done this with satellite receivers and those famous 'H' cards.
If this whole "Smart Card" craze spreads to more uses, then today's bleeding-edge hardware crackers will be tomorrow's mainstream neighborhood pirates. Just like Pay-TV blackboxes were "the shiznit" fifteen years ago.
I hate to burst you guys' (gals'?) bubble, but for many things, Delphi/Kylix/Pascal is much simpler to code than C. Just like VB is quicker to write than VC (for simple stuff). Just like PHP is simpler than Java Servlets but equally limited.
Let me give you an example you can't refute : C++ is easier than assembler for nearly everything. Nearly. See the pattern here ? By definition, higher level languages should be easier to code for than low level languages. C is a rather low level language, VB is a high level language, and Pascal sits somewhere in between balancing simplicity with functionality. Kylix is cloned from Delphi, and Delphi is based upon Pascal, therefore Kylix code is _usually_ easier to write than its equivalent graphical C code.
Well then, in the true nature of Ogg, which was created to work around the licensing issues of MP3, we should perhaps come up with a competitive 5.1 codec ? Something to complement DivX in a clean and legally free way.