I realize I'm the most jaded guy on/. but do you honestly believe the average laptop thief cares about your data ?
These aren't corporate spies, these are half-brained teenagers and/or urban trash who probably run home, hook it up to the internet and hit MySpace to tell all their peeps about their "new" laptop.
Hanlon said it best: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
If you think Phoenix is that smart, well I have a bunch of bridges to sell you.
This isn't the first security gimmick they've deployed. They've had the internet version of this sort of thing for years now (Computrace / Lojack). It's a software client that runs in the taskbar, Windows-only, that triggers the BIOS kill bit.
I wouldn't be surprised if this "new" cell-based feature were just a new client app working with the same kill bit as the old ones. That makes it easier to develop and deploy, since it would only require trivial changes in the BIOS code that can be implemented on any machine, regardless of vintage.
So.... the UK decided to expand its claim, and that automatically grants them such rights ?
If my neighbor claimed his deed suddenly extends halfway through my living room, I'd tell him to fuck off, and if he tried to make use of that land, I'd make him fuck off.
Has anyone played Tabula Rasa ? I've only heard of it, mostly due to Richard Garriott's involvement, but I don't know any players. From reading the write-ups, it sounds a lot like Sony's PlanetSide, with some anime RPG elements bolted on.
PlanetSide never really got big enough, so there wasn't enough action to keep things interesting. There's really no fun in being the only guy on the continent, capping base after base without resistance.
If Tabula Rasa suffered the same fate, well... sucks but that's just what happens. That's the problem with MMOs, you need to build up hype before they launch, else it's a false start and it never goes anywhere after that.
Today we can't renovate without a permit, tomorrow we won't be able to commute without an outdoor permit, and eventually we won't be able to think without a permit.
Sure, there might be well-meaning justifications for many of these arbitrary restrictions, but the fact remains that they were enacted in response to the actions of a small group of crazies. How many people do you know who are bomb-throwing terrorists ? I'm going to tell it flat out: I'm the craziest person I know. I don't blow shit up (but sometimes I'd like to). I don't run over pedestrians (but sometimes I'd like to). Frankly, I'd nuke 90% of Earth's population if I had the opportunity. Does that make me a terrorist ? Should I be locked up for all the things I haven't done, but joke about in my trademark ha-ha-only-serious manner ? Should everyone else be restrained, monitored, taxed and judged, just in case they might be misanthropes like myself ?
FUCK NO!
Life is dangerous. It is almost certainly less dangerous today than it was before, not because we had less bombs, but because everything was a little less refined. Human curiosity constantly pushes forward in the fields of engineering, medicine, and just plain human interaction - getting along better with each other. Racism isn't as bad as it used to be, things like that. We still have idiots with guns and trucks and buzzcuts, we still have hateful bigots and greedy crooks and angry cultists, but they've always been there. They didn't just beam down from Jupiter, we just notice them more because the whole world is connected. This whole mess is a distortion due to mass media's ever-invasive presence in our lives, and the will of certain militaristic leaders being forced upon the masses for personal gain.
I don't feel less safe today than I did ten years ago, neither should anyone else. Save for the actions of a few tyrannical fools and short-sighted thugs, humanity is evolving and every day is a step forward. Law is not the future. Crime is not the future. Understanding is the future.
The problem is the law doesn't stop crime from happening, it simply gives it a name, and gives people an easy guilt-free device to lay blame on others. The only difference between law and religion is that lawyers are rarely child molesters - they prefer hookers.
The fundamental problem with telecoms is they were once a luxury, but today they are a commodity. Pretty much everyone in the civilized world has one or more connections, be it via phone, internet or wireless link. By that virtue, it would make sense to socialize the telecom industry. We all use it, might as well own it!
The math is deceptively simple: Figure out how much it costs to maintain the network, divide that by the number of consumers, and if the result exceeds what you pay over that same period, then you socialize and save the difference.
Government-regulated private business makes sense when the market is small (relative to the general populace), since competition can benefit the consumer in that scenario. Once you reach critical mass, competition vanishes.
Actually I run my games at 1920x1200, and it's the 320mb.
I'm still hitting the GPU's limits, but the averages are higher / smoother. On the X2, I used to get a fair bit of stuttering whenever something "happened" in-game, be it a big explosion or other game event.
I specifically remember Lost Planet, which chugged on my X2 anytime one of those huge bugs was on-screen, while the same scenes ran perfectly on my Quad without hesitation. I'm sure part of that improvement comes from the increased memory bandwidth, going from DDR1-400 to DDR2-1000, making texture swaps less noticeable.
I'm not disagreeing with you, my GPU didn't magically get faster, but you can't describe a gaming system just by identifying the edge cases. Most of the time you're somewhere in the middle, and that's where improvements are most noticeable.
You're absolutely right. My tiny perl script eats up resources while Vista uses absolutely none, as has been demonstrated in all the benchmarks so far:P/sarcasm
Sure, but how much time do you spend loading apps vs using them ?
If you get such a tremendous benefit from the anticipatory caching of certain files, it is trivial to write a script that does the exact same thing on bootup. I have an astoundingly dumb yet effective Perl script that reads my Firefox directory every few seconds, to keep it in the disk cache. Firefox launches *instantly*. It would be quite simple to write such an app for Windows XP, that runs in the background and monitors disk activity just like Vista does, without all the overhead.
I don't know about you, but I've never had a good encounter with police. I don't have a criminal record of any sort, but they have never been helpful when I was the "victim", but they have certainly been forceful when I was the "cash cow".
Too many laws, too many cops. A large police force needs a lot of money to fund the operation, so they fire up a zillion little bylaws to nickel and dime everyone in town. They're not actually reducing the crime level, they're just maximizing the number of "taxable" crimes.
For example, in my city there is no such thing as "just jaywalking", there is "jaywalking, reckless endangerment, and failure to obey a crossing signal". What shouldn't even be a crime in 99% of cases becomes a $500 trio of bullshit, of which half is funneled into "administrative fees".
You know, in comparison the TSA doesn't sound so bad. I don't get nervous and hostile around those guys, unlike city police, because I know the TSA, despite being annoying and pointless, will not find anything against me. A cop will go out of their way to dig up dirt.
Do not anger the/b/tards, for they are unsubtle and quick to anger! If you can't look at the thread and immediately recognize Slashdot groupthink, you should probably NOT be on the internets.
You foolishly assume the police gives a fuck about you.
They don't. Video evidence or not, they just don't care. They work a shit job, for shit money, and get treated like shit by large swathes of society for being "party poopers". Do you sincerely believe they will take special interest in your well-being and put their own at risk to chase down small-time hoodlums ?
Ya but he didn't do anything nerdy. He's just another MBA asshat like all the other people we've been taught to despise. His only claim to fame is playing the stock game, and poorly at that. He just got reeeeeeeeally lucky.
The main difference between Mark Cuban and the Powerball winners, is Mark Cuban was born with his ass where his mouth should be.
i haven't the faintest idea as to why anything this guy ever did is of any interest to slashdot
Your summary of his life's contributions is accurate, but this is Slashdot. We lost all the good editors years ago, so this garbage is all we get anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize I'm the most jaded guy on /. but do you honestly believe the average laptop thief cares about your data ?
These aren't corporate spies, these are half-brained teenagers and/or urban trash who probably run home, hook it up to the internet and hit MySpace to tell all their peeps about their "new" laptop.
Hanlon said it best: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
If you think Phoenix is that smart, well I have a bunch of bridges to sell you.
This isn't the first security gimmick they've deployed. They've had the internet version of this sort of thing for years now (Computrace / Lojack). It's a software client that runs in the taskbar, Windows-only, that triggers the BIOS kill bit.
I wouldn't be surprised if this "new" cell-based feature were just a new client app working with the same kill bit as the old ones. That makes it easier to develop and deploy, since it would only require trivial changes in the BIOS code that can be implemented on any machine, regardless of vintage.
So.... the UK decided to expand its claim, and that automatically grants them such rights ?
If my neighbor claimed his deed suddenly extends halfway through my living room, I'd tell him to fuck off, and if he tried to make use of that land, I'd make him fuck off.
Has anyone played Tabula Rasa ? I've only heard of it, mostly due to Richard Garriott's involvement, but I don't know any players. From reading the write-ups, it sounds a lot like Sony's PlanetSide, with some anime RPG elements bolted on.
PlanetSide never really got big enough, so there wasn't enough action to keep things interesting. There's really no fun in being the only guy on the continent, capping base after base without resistance.
If Tabula Rasa suffered the same fate, well... sucks but that's just what happens. That's the problem with MMOs, you need to build up hype before they launch, else it's a false start and it never goes anywhere after that.
What if hell froze over, pigs flew, and Bush found WMDs in Iraq ?
Yeah. Not gonna happen.
It doesn't matter what color the puppet is, when there's still a shit-stained hand up its ass.
A little perspective yourself!
Today we can't renovate without a permit, tomorrow we won't be able to commute without an outdoor permit, and eventually we won't be able to think without a permit.
Sure, there might be well-meaning justifications for many of these arbitrary restrictions, but the fact remains that they were enacted in response to the actions of a small group of crazies. How many people do you know who are bomb-throwing terrorists ? I'm going to tell it flat out: I'm the craziest person I know. I don't blow shit up (but sometimes I'd like to). I don't run over pedestrians (but sometimes I'd like to). Frankly, I'd nuke 90% of Earth's population if I had the opportunity. Does that make me a terrorist ? Should I be locked up for all the things I haven't done, but joke about in my trademark ha-ha-only-serious manner ? Should everyone else be restrained, monitored, taxed and judged, just in case they might be misanthropes like myself ?
FUCK NO!
Life is dangerous. It is almost certainly less dangerous today than it was before, not because we had less bombs, but because everything was a little less refined. Human curiosity constantly pushes forward in the fields of engineering, medicine, and just plain human interaction - getting along better with each other. Racism isn't as bad as it used to be, things like that. We still have idiots with guns and trucks and buzzcuts, we still have hateful bigots and greedy crooks and angry cultists, but they've always been there. They didn't just beam down from Jupiter, we just notice them more because the whole world is connected. This whole mess is a distortion due to mass media's ever-invasive presence in our lives, and the will of certain militaristic leaders being forced upon the masses for personal gain.
I don't feel less safe today than I did ten years ago, neither should anyone else. Save for the actions of a few tyrannical fools and short-sighted thugs, humanity is evolving and every day is a step forward. Law is not the future. Crime is not the future. Understanding is the future.
Since you appear to be rather level-headed yourself, why post AC ? Fuck, Twitter has 10 accounts and he doesn't sound half as smart as you do.
The problem is the law doesn't stop crime from happening, it simply gives it a name, and gives people an easy guilt-free device to lay blame on others. The only difference between law and religion is that lawyers are rarely child molesters - they prefer hookers.
Or, you know, we could just drop offenders off the network.
I don't give a crap what people do to their PCs, as long as they don't mess with mine. Nuke them right at the switch if you can!
Worst.
Photoshop.
Ever.
The fundamental problem with telecoms is they were once a luxury, but today they are a commodity. Pretty much everyone in the civilized world has one or more connections, be it via phone, internet or wireless link. By that virtue, it would make sense to socialize the telecom industry. We all use it, might as well own it!
The math is deceptively simple: Figure out how much it costs to maintain the network, divide that by the number of consumers, and if the result exceeds what you pay over that same period, then you socialize and save the difference.
Government-regulated private business makes sense when the market is small (relative to the general populace), since competition can benefit the consumer in that scenario. Once you reach critical mass, competition vanishes.
so to prevent this, laws were made. in modern countries, you cant buy more than a certain defined area of land.
And so, God created the corporation to overcome this puny little hurdle.
Actually I run my games at 1920x1200, and it's the 320mb.
I'm still hitting the GPU's limits, but the averages are higher / smoother. On the X2, I used to get a fair bit of stuttering whenever something "happened" in-game, be it a big explosion or other game event.
I specifically remember Lost Planet, which chugged on my X2 anytime one of those huge bugs was on-screen, while the same scenes ran perfectly on my Quad without hesitation. I'm sure part of that improvement comes from the increased memory bandwidth, going from DDR1-400 to DDR2-1000, making texture swaps less noticeable.
I'm not disagreeing with you, my GPU didn't magically get faster, but you can't describe a gaming system just by identifying the edge cases. Most of the time you're somewhere in the middle, and that's where improvements are most noticeable.
You're absolutely right. My tiny perl script eats up resources while Vista uses absolutely none, as has been demonstrated in all the benchmarks so far :P /sarcasm
Sure, but how much time do you spend loading apps vs using them ?
If you get such a tremendous benefit from the anticipatory caching of certain files, it is trivial to write a script that does the exact same thing on bootup. I have an astoundingly dumb yet effective Perl script that reads my Firefox directory every few seconds, to keep it in the disk cache. Firefox launches *instantly*. It would be quite simple to write such an app for Windows XP, that runs in the background and monitors disk activity just like Vista does, without all the overhead.
I don't know about you, but I've never had a good encounter with police. I don't have a criminal record of any sort, but they have never been helpful when I was the "victim", but they have certainly been forceful when I was the "cash cow".
Too many laws, too many cops. A large police force needs a lot of money to fund the operation, so they fire up a zillion little bylaws to nickel and dime everyone in town. They're not actually reducing the crime level, they're just maximizing the number of "taxable" crimes.
For example, in my city there is no such thing as "just jaywalking", there is "jaywalking, reckless endangerment, and failure to obey a crossing signal". What shouldn't even be a crime in 99% of cases becomes a $500 trio of bullshit, of which half is funneled into "administrative fees".
You know, in comparison the TSA doesn't sound so bad. I don't get nervous and hostile around those guys, unlike city police, because I know the TSA, despite being annoying and pointless, will not find anything against me. A cop will go out of their way to dig up dirt.
QUICK NOTE TO SLASHDOTTER #864651:
Do not anger the /b/tards, for they are unsubtle and quick to anger! If you can't look at the thread and immediately recognize Slashdot groupthink, you should probably NOT be on the internets.
KTHXBAI!
You foolishly assume the police gives a fuck about you.
They don't. Video evidence or not, they just don't care. They work a shit job, for shit money, and get treated like shit by large swathes of society for being "party poopers". Do you sincerely believe they will take special interest in your well-being and put their own at risk to chase down small-time hoodlums ?
You don't work in the support industry, my guess...
harnessing P2P for infrastructure
You mean Redswoosh ? The bittorrent clone he sold to Akamai, shortly before launching a crusade against all P2P traffic ?
Yeah, quite the genius alright. I can't want to read his new book "My Cuban is bigger than yours"
Ya but he didn't do anything nerdy. He's just another MBA asshat like all the other people we've been taught to despise. His only claim to fame is playing the stock game, and poorly at that. He just got reeeeeeeeally lucky.
The main difference between Mark Cuban and the Powerball winners, is Mark Cuban was born with his ass where his mouth should be.
i haven't the faintest idea as to why anything this guy ever did is of any interest to slashdot
Your summary of his life's contributions is accurate, but this is Slashdot. We lost all the good editors years ago, so this garbage is all we get anymore.
It's not mind blowing, it's business as usual.
Just because one person gets caught, doesn't mean the other half-million stock scammers are going to turn themselves in.
*WHOOSH*