Yeah, that's about right. If you are a shitty programmer you'll end up making less. I don't think getting a job right out of college for a "demeaning" $25k is something anyone can complain about (give or take for metro area).
Once you get out there and network, another job will come your way. I have a friend who graduated with honors from a big name electrical engineering college (Rice) and he's 10 months out of school and working for $30K and happy.
It's tough out there. The solice of course is that if you're making 55k a year you're going to be doing $55k a year worth of work. Do you really want to jump headlong into 80 hours a week, on call, etc?
It's not 1994 anymore, you have to work for your money, even in the computing business...
Actually, they make more money writing tickets, even taking the cost of employing people to write tickets into account. As for time and complaints, I've never seen a municipal office that wasn't perfectly willing to let you waste your time complaining to them...
Not to single you out, but this statement really brings up an interesting sheeplike tendency that we all seem to have--the acceptance that when the government is maximixing "profit" like a corporation it's ok to not have the most efficient solution. I mean, really, since when is the fucking parking bureau's goal to make money over simply regulate the parking supply in an efficient manner? There are hundreds of examples throughout the government but really, it doesn't make sense. The practical solution would be a computerized parking system that can really help parking problems in the city. It would be simple to enforce maximum parking restrictions, even if people "roll" up a spot or around the block. There are dozens of benefits. Really, we should be coming up with solutions to minimize the number of parking patrol people, who burn fuel, etc. and minimize tickets written which cost money to process. The problem is that there is a pipeline of power in any government organzation, and the more inefficient a department, the more money they get to control and thus the director and employees are paid more. It just seems like they don't work for us people anymore. *sigh*
What if you got the magnet out of the way so you are only using the forward force and the backwards force gets "missed"?
Because if you designed the motor in the right way, you could have it so one force vector from a magnet is applied to the tangent of the outer ring of rotation while the other equal opposite vector is directed into the outer body of the motor. Then it's simply a matter of getting the magnet "out of the way" as the rotor comes around, then back in the way at the exact moment to maximize that force on the tangent.
With a strong enough, light enough magnet and efficient enough servos, you could make a difference in power on the drive shaft greater than the input electricity. Of course the permanent magnet will loose energy in the process but you'll be using up magnets instead of electricity. Thus magnets become a source of fuel, to a certain extent.
And although there is not a lot of energy in a magnet (even the super strong ones), you are using them in a highly efficient manner. At a high enough frequency in a small enough device, this could be very useful.
See my reply, I think we have the same idea here..
The energy required to move the magnets in and out (so they push when they are down, coming near other opposite magnets, and pulled away before they push the other side, in the wrong direction) is not necessarily more than the force they can impart because there are two separate directions of force.
One, up and down, is a small force required to move the magnet in and out of influence.
The other is imparted to the tangent of the outside circle of revolution and it's opposite might be a sleeve or tube or something the magnet is in (and fixed to the outer body of the motor).
As I stated, if the magnets have a sufficient field density (power to weight), it might just work... And of course, the higher frequency you can get the thing at, the more efficient it becomes...
I was thinking, if it were possible to turn a magnetic rotor into a certain position using a motor, then cut the power to the motor, then allow a permanent magnet to divert the rotor further in it's current direction of motion, then remove the magnet on the outside so it does not subsequently impede the motion of the rotor by repulsion in the wrong direction, apply power, rinse, repeat, it might be possible to achieve an output from the magnetic repulsion.
However, you have to take into account the energy required to move the magnets in and out of the influence zone.
I dunno, it might be possible, and at least make the motor more efficient.
The problem is that everyone is thinking with a closed mind, that the magnet somehow needs to be "turned off" if it ever pushes something in a circle so that when the thing comes around the other side of the magnet it doesn't get repelled in an equal fashion. But what if you just moved the thing out of the way, using a cam or maybe a servo. Using springs and very efficient servos, you could possibly get more benefit from the additional magnetic force than you lose powering the servos up and down (to move the magnetic booster in and out when it needs to be). If you have a REALLY REALLY powerful yet extremely lightweight magnet.
Because most of the field strength is going to be pushing along the tangent of the circumference of rotation, the additional energy used to move the magnet in and out could be less than the force applied to the rotating corresponding magnet (again, assuming that the magnet is more powerful and can exert more force than it takes to move it in or out) Again, remember that the in and out motion has nothing to do with it, because most of the energy is to the tangent of the circumference of rotation. Therefore the magnet "booster", when "extended" "pushes back" against the motor housing rather than the servo (and since it can't go anywhere, that magnetic force is briefly applied to the magnetic rotor, repelling it)...
Then the magnet is withdrawn as the rotor comes around the other side.
Now if you had a lot of magnetic segments all around the rotor, and a lot of magnets on the outside, and you could get the whole thing working on a very high frequency, you might actually have something there.
I dunno, I wish I had the ability to illustrate this better, but it seems like a good idea. You guys do see what I'm saying--the servos use energy, but not to push the rotor, they just drop the magnet at the right time to impart a force tangent to the circumference of rotation (like steam hitting the edge of a turbine.)
It's fairly obvious in this case that the person was doing something illegal because pedestrians don't become a cloud of red mist when all parties involved are behaving themselves. Now, it would become an issue of privacy if the guy got hit at say 45kph because it would be on the fine line between purposeful killing and trying to miss. I mean, sometimes you can't hit the brake in time, but at least he wasn't driving recklesslessy. I don't think it sets a dangerous precedent. Really, the only way this case would be dangerous is if people THINK it sets a precendent. Really, the guy was going about 100kph OVER the speedlimit and vaporized someone. They didn't NEED the black box for the conviction, it was just icing.
Most of the digital signs in Utah and Nevada are manufactured by YESCO. They used to have an outdoor media department but it was just bought (like last month) by Clearchannel. So YESCO provided me with the following information (since they don't really care):
I've worked for 2 companies now in Las Vegas that used their signs. The software and hardware used is pretty basic. They use a cell phone modem in the actual sign with a PPP server behind it. We dial in using Dial-Up networking on a 56k modem.
Then there's a little console app which is used to upload the new stuff. I'm not sure if it connects to the sign computer with plain old FTP or something more secure. It might be worth a look, now that I think about it.
There are a number of little files. The signs graphics are usually just a few frames of bitmaps and then there's a script to schedule the playing of the files on the sign, what transitions to use, etc.
That's about it.
So basically, if I wanted to play with some billboards, I would start with an actual physical inspection, then do WiFI as suggested above. Then, start wardialing cellphone exchanges using that CdC PALM PILOT wardialing program which you can stick in one of those airport or hotel phone jacks. When you find some probables, attempt to create PPP connections. You might be able to get away with a guest account or it might take a while. We had at least one with no password.
The signs in front of Vegas Hotels are a very different story. Everything was hardwired in on it's own separate network, no WiFi, no nothing. You'd have to have physical access to the Sign or the Console which is located in the most secure room in the casino besides the vault (computer room..) The Signs themselves are all alarmed to prevent tampering. It would be a gold hack though, and there has to be one out there.
I'm not messing with it though;) I'd prefer to not have my legs broken.
If a power outage might be prevented by shedding some load (turning out power to some people), no company wants to step up to the plate and be the one to turn out the power to their customers.
Maybe like a lottery system that gets drawn at the beginning of each day randomly and sent to each utility. Or a disk that gets sent ahead of time that has the rotation on it and an offset so you'd never need to do it again.
Basically, if the fit hits the shan then a notification goes out to every utility, they check their entry and if they're number 1, they turn off. No compromise.
COSMO There I was in prison, and, one day I help a couple of nice older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turn out to be...let us say "good family men".
BISHOP Organized crime?
COSMO Heh. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized. Anyway, they arranged for me to get an early release from my "unfortunate incarceration" and I began to perform a variety of services.
Yeah, but then M$ will do their usual gay shit to get the common folks on the bandwagon. Offer them 100 free song downloads with the purchase of a new license. By the time they've gotten done with that, the DRM comes into play but it's too late. They aren't going to throw away their free gift--they're going to throw away their freedom.
It used to be that a reporter was there, got the facts and then got the feeling too. But I guess with all the information these days, there's no way people could do everything. Still, it's just going to seem unhuman when one day a news story is a few lines of XML:
And the "reporter" is just a software program that turns that into a readable "story". Then you can choose how you want the news displayed, with various schema. Like if you're in a good mood, you can put in the happy schema and it doesn't mention anything about deaths, or you're feeling morbid and you want the names and pictures of the dead bodies you can enable morbid mode.. Everything they can get is encoded in the stream, and you're your own filter.
I actually kindof like this idea, actually. Because then I can filter my own shit and of course meet people I trust and view their filters and not have to worry about the corporate spin that commercial news will eternally have.
I enjoyed your comments immensely. I'm in a band and it's really amazing what little you have to do to make a decent living as a musician. But you have to DO IT. And you have to practice.
I think there is a rather large open niche for businesses who are willing to offer reasonable help to musicians to help them make money, not the huge bucks but, you know, a living wage.
All the big labels are interested in is raping the artist to move plastic. The end.
Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
I say we say "fuck it" to email and redesign the whole system. A centralized model, run by the postal service. Thus, the order is restored. The government can impose proper restrictions and regulations, and spammers will be held responsible for their actions. All at the price of a little freedom and privacy that's mostly a farce anyway, considering the FBI spent a little over 500 million on Carnivoring the entire net under the guise of the U.S. Patriot act. Get real people. There's no need to fight. You've been controlled your entire life, and you've never even known it. The solution to spam is simple. More laws, more regulation by the system. Otherwise it's us against them, and it's just soooo inconvenient to have to delete a few spams. As the parent post says, fighting it will just make it worse..
If you are a privacy advocate and you're lazy, you deserve to suffer. If you really value your rights and freedom you have to do something sometimes. In this case, you either fight the spam with local mail filters, live with it, or wait for the government to run the mail service and ban public/private SMTP networking.. This is the only real solution, as the parent poster so eloquently has proven. W.A.S.T.E.
Atollo, #1 Toy for 2003 in Consumer Reports! #1 Place to Get Atollo:
At.30 a share. Right after 9/11/01 it shot up to like 1.80. I just bought some more at.35
Stuff like this is enevitable. It makes sense and I think it will make everyone's life a lot simpler. However, the potential for abuse is there, just like with anything. Yes, it's turning you into more of a machine, but so is using the internet, etc. You don't think people are tracking your movements on the 'net???!
People who get paranoid over this stuff need to realize it's already over, it's already done. The world has changed. Now it's either keep up or get left behind.
"Al Queda". PFT! We just declared war on a 1.8 BILLION person nation. That is monumentally stupid. Beware of war-mongers--they are in this business strictly for themselves.
Now you can dress up those boring towers with beautiful gold or silver speaker "bracelets". Made of real metal, these lovely rings will spice up any decor.
Put an end to you boring life, with Speaker Bracelets!
Maybe the OS or whatever could note what other applications and files you have open at the same time as this other file. Then it would generate links to other files and apps all the time. Like say you always bring up the tax table when you're editing your order database, the computer could take a note of that and based on percentages keep an internal list of the files you're most likely to need. Then when you're about to do a search, it'll pop up the 25 most likely files as well as your likely search results. Hmm, it's almost brilliant.
It is ridiculous to accept that a lightning strike could knock out the grid, or the transmission system is over stressed. There are many redundant fault, limit and Voltage-Surge Protection safeguards and related instrumentation and switchgear installed at the distribution centers and sub stations along the Power Grid that would have tripped to prevent or otherwise divert such a major outage.
I believe that the outage was caused by the MSblaster, or its mutation, which was besieged upon the respective vulnerability in certain control and monitoring systems (SCADA and otherwise) running MS 2000 or XP, located different points along the Grid. Some of these systems are accessible via the Internet, while others are accessible by POTS dialup, or private Frame relay and dedicated connectivity.
Being an old PLC automation and control hack let me say that there is a very good plausibility that the recent East Coast power outage was due to an attack by an MBlaster variant on the SCADA system at the power plant master terminal, or more likely at several of the remote terminal units "RTU". SCADA runs under Win2000 / XP and the telemetry to the RTU is accessible via the Internet.
- From what I recall SCADA based monitoring and control systems were installed at many water / sewer processing, gas and oil processing, and hydro-electric plants.
I also believe that yesterdays flooding of a generator sub- facility in Philadelphia was also due to an MBlaster variant attack on the SCADA or similarly Win 2000 / XP based system.
To make things worst, the Web Interface is MS ActiveX. Now lets see, how can one craft an ActiveX vuln vector into the blaster?
Oh, and for the wardrivers, SCADA can be access via wireless connections on the road... puts a new perspective on sniffing around sewer plants.
It is also reasonable to assume that we could have a similar security threat regarding those system (SCADA and otherwise based on MS 2000 or XP) involved in the control, data acquisition, and maintenance of other critical infrastructure, such as inter/intra state GAS Distribution, Nuclear Plant Monitoring, Water and Sewer Processing, and city Traffic Control. IMO
I think we will see a lot of finger pointing by government agencies, Utilities, and politicians for the Grid outage, until someone confess to the security dilemma and vulnerabilities in the systems which are involved in running this critical infrastructure.
Regardless of whether the Grid outage can be attributed to the blaster or its variant, this is not entirely a Microsoft problem, as it reeks of poor System Security Engineering practiced by the Utility Companies, and associated equipment and technology suppliers.
Nonetheless, the incident will cause lots of money to be earmarked by the US and Canadian Governments, to be spent in an attempt to solve the problem, or more specfically calm the public.
This incident should be fully investigated, and regulations passed to ensure that the Utility companies and their suppliers develop and implement proper safeguards that will help prevent or at least significantly mitigate the effects of such a catastrophe.
Conversely, I do not want to see our Government directly involved in yet another "business", which has such a controlling impact over our individual lives.
What's scary about this is it represents the rise of copyright bounty hunters. Empowering off-duty rednecks and their wives with automatic scanning software/robots which then provide them with a list of possibilities. They then notify the recipient and probably the affected software company. If the threat is real, the software company pays the bounty hunter a reward for his/her efforts.
You'll see these places staffed with the same dicks who run collection agencies. And naturally the mob ties will fall into place also. Horray for the USA, we're all doomed. Again.
Sorry to whore this out here, but has anyone actually looked at the patch? I mean, this affects a rather important part of the Windows operating system. RPC is used for interprocess communication, named pipes, etc. Couldn't the CIA or something put a bug in it that will forward everything you cut and paste, type, send, etc. to some other entity? And what better way to get the masses to install it than a little worm to exploit a hole they purposely left open?
Furthermore, Microsoft paid out $520M only yesterday due to patent infringement with a component in MSIE.
I mean, I'm all patched up, so I know I'm safe but.. oh shit.. the shutdown timer just popped up! Microsoft must be reading what I'm typing. If only I can do this thing quick enough. OH FUCK I have to wait 20 seconds from the time I hit the reply button til when I press submit and it's getting down near 1 nowwwww
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that's about right. If you are a shitty programmer you'll end up making less. I don't think getting a job right out of college for a "demeaning" $25k is something anyone can complain about (give or take for metro area).
Once you get out there and network, another job will come your way. I have a friend who graduated with honors from a big name electrical engineering college (Rice) and he's 10 months out of school and working for $30K and happy.
It's tough out there. The solice of course is that if you're making 55k a year you're going to be doing $55k a year worth of work. Do you really want to jump headlong into 80 hours a week, on call, etc?
It's not 1994 anymore, you have to work for your money, even in the computing business...
Actually, they make more money writing tickets, even taking the cost of employing people to write tickets into account. As for time and complaints, I've never seen a municipal office that wasn't perfectly willing to let you waste your time complaining to them...
Not to single you out, but this statement really brings up an interesting sheeplike tendency that we all seem to have--the acceptance that when the government is maximixing "profit" like a corporation it's ok to not have the most efficient solution. I mean, really, since when is the fucking parking bureau's goal to make money over simply regulate the parking supply in an efficient manner? There are hundreds of examples throughout the government but really, it doesn't make sense. The practical solution would be a computerized parking system that can really help parking problems in the city. It would be simple to enforce maximum parking restrictions, even if people "roll" up a spot or around the block. There are dozens of benefits. Really, we should be coming up with solutions to minimize the number of parking patrol people, who burn fuel, etc. and minimize tickets written which cost money to process. The problem is that there is a pipeline of power in any government organzation, and the more inefficient a department, the more money they get to control and thus the director and employees are paid more. It just seems like they don't work for us people anymore. *sigh*
What if you got the magnet out of the way so you are only using the forward force and the backwards force gets "missed"?
Because if you designed the motor in the right way, you could have it so one force vector from a magnet is applied to the tangent of the outer ring of rotation while the other equal opposite vector is directed into the outer body of the motor. Then it's simply a matter of getting the magnet "out of the way" as the rotor comes around, then back in the way at the exact moment to maximize that force on the tangent.
With a strong enough, light enough magnet and efficient enough servos, you could make a difference in power on the drive shaft greater than the input electricity. Of course the permanent magnet will loose energy in the process but you'll be using up magnets instead of electricity. Thus magnets become a source of fuel, to a certain extent.
And although there is not a lot of energy in a magnet (even the super strong ones), you are using them in a highly efficient manner. At a high enough frequency in a small enough device, this could be very useful.
See my reply, I think we have the same idea here..
The energy required to move the magnets in and out (so they push when they are down, coming near other opposite magnets, and pulled away before they push the other side, in the wrong direction) is not necessarily more than the force they can impart because there are two separate directions of force.
One, up and down, is a small force required to move the magnet in and out of influence.
The other is imparted to the tangent of the outside circle of revolution and it's opposite might be a sleeve or tube or something the magnet is in (and fixed to the outer body of the motor).
As I stated, if the magnets have a sufficient field density (power to weight), it might just work... And of course, the higher frequency you can get the thing at, the more efficient it becomes...
I was thinking, if it were possible to turn a magnetic rotor into a certain position using a motor, then cut the power to the motor, then allow a permanent magnet to divert the rotor further in it's current direction of motion, then remove the magnet on the outside so it does not subsequently impede the motion of the rotor by repulsion in the wrong direction, apply power, rinse, repeat, it might be possible to achieve an output from the magnetic repulsion.
However, you have to take into account the energy required to move the magnets in and out of the influence zone.
I dunno, it might be possible, and at least make the motor more efficient.
The problem is that everyone is thinking with a closed mind, that the magnet somehow needs to be "turned off" if it ever pushes something in a circle so that when the thing comes around the other side of the magnet it doesn't get repelled in an equal fashion. But what if you just moved the thing out of the way, using a cam or maybe a servo. Using springs and very efficient servos, you could possibly get more benefit from the additional magnetic force than you lose powering the servos up and down (to move the magnetic booster in and out when it needs to be). If you have a REALLY REALLY powerful yet extremely lightweight magnet.
Because most of the field strength is going to be pushing along the tangent of the circumference of rotation, the additional energy used to move the magnet in and out could be less than the force applied to the rotating corresponding magnet (again, assuming that the magnet is more powerful and can exert more force than it takes to move it in or out) Again, remember that the in and out motion has nothing to do with it, because most of the energy is to the tangent of the circumference of rotation. Therefore the magnet "booster", when "extended" "pushes back" against the motor housing rather than the servo (and since it can't go anywhere, that magnetic force is briefly applied to the magnetic rotor, repelling it)...
Then the magnet is withdrawn as the rotor comes around the other side.
Now if you had a lot of magnetic segments all around the rotor, and a lot of magnets on the outside, and you could get the whole thing working on a very high frequency, you might actually have something there.
I dunno, I wish I had the ability to illustrate this better, but it seems like a good idea. You guys do see what I'm saying--the servos use energy, but not to push the rotor, they just drop the magnet at the right time to impart a force tangent to the circumference of rotation (like steam hitting the edge of a turbine.)
It's fairly obvious in this case that the person was doing something illegal because pedestrians don't become a cloud of red mist when all parties involved are behaving themselves. Now, it would become an issue of privacy if the guy got hit at say 45kph because it would be on the fine line between purposeful killing and trying to miss. I mean, sometimes you can't hit the brake in time, but at least he wasn't driving recklesslessy. I don't think it sets a dangerous precedent. Really, the only way this case would be dangerous is if people THINK it sets a precendent. Really, the guy was going about 100kph OVER the speedlimit and vaporized someone. They didn't NEED the black box for the conviction, it was just icing.
Most of the digital signs in Utah and Nevada are manufactured by YESCO. They used to have an outdoor media department but it was just bought (like last month) by Clearchannel. So YESCO provided me with the following information (since they don't really care):
;) I'd prefer to not have my legs broken.
I've worked for 2 companies now in Las Vegas that used their signs. The software and hardware used is pretty basic. They use a cell phone modem in the actual sign with a PPP server behind it. We dial in using Dial-Up networking on a 56k modem.
Then there's a little console app which is used to upload the new stuff. I'm not sure if it connects to the sign computer with plain old FTP or something more secure. It might be worth a look, now that I think about it.
There are a number of little files. The signs graphics are usually just a few frames of bitmaps and then there's a script to schedule the playing of the files on the sign, what transitions to use, etc.
That's about it.
So basically, if I wanted to play with some billboards, I would start with an actual physical inspection, then do WiFI as suggested above. Then, start wardialing cellphone exchanges using that CdC PALM PILOT wardialing program which you can stick in one of those airport or hotel phone jacks. When you find some probables, attempt to create PPP connections. You might be able to get away with a guest account or it might take a while. We had at least one with no password.
The signs in front of Vegas Hotels are a very different story. Everything was hardwired in on it's own separate network, no WiFi, no nothing. You'd have to have physical access to the Sign or the Console which is located in the most secure room in the casino besides the vault (computer room..) The Signs themselves are all alarmed to prevent tampering. It would be a gold hack though, and there has to be one out there.
I'm not messing with it though
All the ease of use of Unix running on the stability of Windows.
If a power outage might be prevented by shedding some load (turning out power to some people), no company wants to step up to the plate and be the one to turn out the power to their customers.
Maybe like a lottery system that gets drawn at the beginning of each day randomly and sent to each utility. Or a disk that gets sent ahead of time that has the rotation on it and an offset so you'd never need to do it again.
Basically, if the fit hits the shan then a notification goes out to every utility, they check their entry and if they're number 1, they turn off. No compromise.
Then at least it's fair for all the companies.
COSMO
There I was in prison, and, one day I help a couple of nice older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turn out to be...let us say "good family men".
BISHOP
Organized crime?
COSMO
Heh. Don't kid yourself. It's not that organized. Anyway, they arranged for me to get an early release from my "unfortunate incarceration" and I began to perform a variety of services.
Yeah, but then M$ will do their usual gay shit to get the common folks on the bandwagon. Offer them 100 free song downloads with the purchase of a new license. By the time they've gotten done with that, the DRM comes into play but it's too late. They aren't going to throw away their free gift--they're going to throw away their freedom.
Prediction: 2006, Microsoft/BMG merger?
No Crap.
It used to be that a reporter was there, got the facts and then got the feeling too. But I guess with all the information these days, there's no way people could do everything. Still, it's just going to seem unhuman when one day a news story is a few lines of XML:
And the "reporter" is just a software program that turns that into a readable "story". Then you can choose how you want the news displayed, with various schema. Like if you're in a good mood, you can put in the happy schema and it doesn't mention anything about deaths, or you're feeling morbid and you want the names and pictures of the dead bodies you can enable morbid mode.. Everything they can get is encoded in the stream, and you're your own filter.
I actually kindof like this idea, actually. Because then I can filter my own shit and of course meet people I trust and view their filters and not have to worry about the corporate spin that commercial news will eternally have.
I enjoyed your comments immensely. I'm in a band and it's really amazing what little you have to do to make a decent living as a musician. But you have to DO IT. And you have to practice.
I think there is a rather large open niche for businesses who are willing to offer reasonable help to musicians to help them make money, not the huge bucks but, you know, a living wage.
All the big labels are interested in is raping the artist to move plastic. The end.
Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
I say we say "fuck it" to email and redesign the whole system. A centralized model, run by the postal service. Thus, the order is restored. The government can impose proper restrictions and regulations, and spammers will be held responsible for their actions. All at the price of a little freedom and privacy that's mostly a farce anyway, considering the FBI spent a little over 500 million on Carnivoring the entire net under the guise of the U.S. Patriot act. Get real people. There's no need to fight. You've been controlled your entire life, and you've never even known it. The solution to spam is simple. More laws, more regulation by the system. Otherwise it's us against them, and it's just soooo inconvenient to have to delete a few spams. As the parent post says, fighting it will just make it worse..
If you are a privacy advocate and you're lazy, you deserve to suffer. If you really value your rights and freedom you have to do something sometimes. In this case, you either fight the spam with local mail filters, live with it, or wait for the government to run the mail service and ban public/private SMTP networking.. This is the only real solution, as the parent poster so eloquently has proven. W.A.S.T.E.
Atollo, #1 Toy for 2003 in Consumer Reports!
#1 Place to Get Atollo:
At .30 a share. Right after 9/11/01 it shot up to like 1.80. I just bought some more at .35
Stuff like this is enevitable. It makes sense and I think it will make everyone's life a lot simpler. However, the potential for abuse is there, just like with anything. Yes, it's turning you into more of a machine, but so is using the internet, etc. You don't think people are tracking your movements on the 'net???!
People who get paranoid over this stuff need to realize it's already over, it's already done. The world has changed. Now it's either keep up or get left behind.
Wow, Hitler, THAT sounds like liberty and justice for all!
Mantis Markup Language (MML). Then they got bought by Lycos, fired, etc.
Windows is always 5 years behind.. *sigh*
Check it out here..
"Al Queda". PFT! We just declared war on a 1.8 BILLION person nation. That is monumentally stupid. Beware of war-mongers--they are in this business strictly for themselves.
Hm, lets see:
AS SEEN ON TV! SPEAKER BRACLETS!
Now you can dress up those boring towers with beautiful gold or silver speaker "bracelets". Made of real metal, these lovely rings will spice up any decor.
Put an end to you boring life, with Speaker Bracelets!
Only $19.95.
Enter your credit card number:
If you play a loud tone at precisely 19.35hz it makes women extremely horny.
Regarding context:
Maybe the OS or whatever could note what other applications and files you have open at the same time as this other file. Then it would generate links to other files and apps all the time. Like say you always bring up the tax table when you're editing your order database, the computer could take a note of that and based on percentages keep an internal list of the files you're most likely to need. Then when you're about to do a search, it'll pop up the 25 most likely files as well as your likely search results. Hmm, it's almost brilliant.
Read this today:
It is ridiculous to accept that a lightning strike could knock out the grid, or the transmission system is over stressed. There are many redundant fault, limit and Voltage-Surge Protection safeguards and related instrumentation and switchgear installed at the distribution centers and sub stations along the Power Grid
that would have tripped to prevent or otherwise divert such a major outage.
I believe that the outage was caused by the MSblaster, or its mutation, which was besieged upon the respective vulnerability in certain control and monitoring systems (SCADA and otherwise) running MS 2000 or XP, located
different points along the Grid. Some of these systems are accessible via the Internet, while others are accessible by POTS dialup, or private Frame relay and dedicated connectivity.
Being an old PLC automation and control hack let me say that there is a very good plausibility that the recent East Coast power outage was due to an attack by an MBlaster variant on the SCADA system at the power plant master terminal, or more likely at several of the remote terminal units "RTU". SCADA runs under Win2000 / XP and
the telemetry to the RTU is accessible via the Internet.
- From what I recall SCADA based monitoring and control systems were installed at many water / sewer processing, gas and oil processing, and hydro-electric plants.
I also believe that yesterdays flooding of a generator sub- facility in Philadelphia was also due to an MBlaster variant attack on the SCADA or similarly Win 2000 / XP based system.
To make things worst, the Web Interface is MS ActiveX. Now lets see, how can one craft an ActiveX vuln vector into the blaster?
Oh, and for the wardrivers, SCADA can be access via wireless connections on the road... puts a new perspective on sniffing around sewer plants.
It is also reasonable to assume that we could have a similar security threat regarding those system (SCADA and otherwise based on MS 2000 or XP) involved in the control, data acquisition, and maintenance of other critical infrastructure, such as inter/intra state GAS Distribution, Nuclear Plant Monitoring, Water and Sewer
Processing, and city Traffic Control. IMO
I think we will see a lot of finger pointing by government agencies, Utilities, and politicians for the Grid outage, until someone confess to the security dilemma and vulnerabilities in the systems which are involved in running this critical infrastructure.
Regardless of whether the Grid outage can be attributed to the blaster or its variant, this is not entirely a Microsoft problem, as it reeks of poor System Security Engineering practiced by the Utility Companies, and associated equipment and technology suppliers.
Nonetheless, the incident will cause lots of money to be earmarked by the US and Canadian Governments, to be spent in an attempt to solve the problem, or more specfically calm the public.
This incident should be fully investigated, and regulations passed to ensure that the Utility companies and their suppliers develop and implement proper safeguards that will help prevent or at least significantly mitigate the
effects of such a catastrophe.
Conversely, I do not want to see our Government directly involved in yet another "business", which has such a controlling impact over our individual lives.
What's scary about this is it represents the rise of copyright bounty hunters. Empowering off-duty rednecks and their wives with automatic scanning software/robots which then provide them with a list of possibilities. They then notify the recipient and probably the affected software company. If the threat is real, the software company pays the bounty hunter a reward for his/her efforts.
You'll see these places staffed with the same dicks who run collection agencies. And naturally the mob ties will fall into place also. Horray for the USA, we're all doomed. Again.
Sorry to whore this out here, but has anyone actually looked at the patch? I mean, this affects a rather important part of the Windows operating system. RPC is used for interprocess communication, named pipes, etc. Couldn't the CIA or something put a bug in it that will forward everything you cut and paste, type, send, etc. to some other entity? And what better way to get the masses to install it than a little worm to exploit a hole they purposely left open?
Furthermore, Microsoft paid out $520M only yesterday due to patent infringement with a component in MSIE.
I mean, I'm all patched up, so I know I'm safe but.. oh shit.. the shutdown timer just popped up! Microsoft must be reading what I'm typing. If only I can do this thing quick enough. OH FUCK I have to wait 20 seconds from the time I hit the reply button til when I press submit and it's getting down near 1 nowwwww
I love the Powerglove. It's so bad.