In short, if a server is not sure that the message has been passed along to another server, it assumes it has not been, and will try again / return to sender / etc.
There are a few misleading facts people are throwing around here.
1 - The traditional method of rejecting email is to return a message to the sender if the user cannot be found. Exactly how this is done depends on the mail servers involved.
2 - The article is referring to messages blocked because they contain viruses. This is a sticky issue... if we just drop the message, we have sort of violated the system stated above. We also agree that returning the virus attachment itself is wrong. The problem is these emails like with Sobig.F that are ONLY viruses, and have no actual value, where all headers are forged. It would be fair for an antivirus scanner to drop these messages into the void and not respond.. but as long as it knows they are such an email with no real content.
However, all the obnoxious tourists I've encountered who ruined my airplane ride by flashing their big toes and stomping around the airplane, talking too loudly, and getting drunk were Americans.
I know they were american because they were happily telling anyone who would listen all about how great America was.
Yes, computers deal in voltages, but only two voltages. The logic we design in those computers, at the lowest, fundamental level, is based on a decision of whether any individual signal is at one voltage, or another. There is no third state.
The idea is that if we work in ternary, or other multi voltage based system, (which implies we need the math and logic to design the system around), we can get more processing done with the same amount of silicon.
The base of the logic is not pointless at all.. the binary logic we talk about is *exactly* what the computer uses at the lowest level, each individual component is deisgned to work around a binary system. Moving to another system means different components... it is by no means arbitrary.
I thought "perfect pitch" referred to an above average ability to discern small changes in pitch.
I knew a guy who could sit 30 rows back in the theater, listen to a note on the grand piano, any note, and tell you what one it was. Furthermore, if you plucked a guitar string, he could tell you what note it was, and how far out of tune it was, with an uncanny accuracy.
Was he a great prodigal singer? No... though I suppose such a talent would come in handy as a singer.
Singing in tune and perfect pitch have little to do with each other....
Maybe instead of having a peacable conversation, you were actually ranting like a loon in a public place?
I have a hard time believing any police officer in Canada would threaten you with verbal assault because he overheard a conversation.
We don't bust people on immigration; you are not required to prove citizenship on the street in canada, nor are you required to carry papers. If they suspected you were in the country illegally, they could hold you until you proved otherwise.. but they'd be wide open to a lawsuit if they didn't have a good reason.
I'm willing to bet you were probably a lot more obnoxious and loud (read: American) than you let on.
yeah. If you want to look at it as pure Ghz... intel is always going to be cheaper.
Now, I'm not going to tell you "Ghz is a myth" and that macs are faster.. because it's not technically true.. but...
I'd tell you how I prefer my 800Mhz G3 mac over the 2 Ghz P4 sitting next to me, how I get more work done and am more productive with the mac.... but you'll probably still feel like you are buying "less" of a computer because it's not 2Ghz.
Perhaps it's just how one works with the mac.. If I did cpu intensive work all day, then certainly a faster computer would make me more productive. As it is, I do mostly administration... so I don't really need a super fast bleeding edge computer... and the user experience is the same whether it's fast or not on a mac.
So in a way, yeah, it is a slower computer for the money.. a slower computer on which I get more work done, and am much happier using... and if I get more work done, and am less frustrated... isnt' that worth more money?
We are used to expensive workstations... however...
My mac is by far the cheapest computer I've ever owned.
(I found that aside from games, I really have no need for a dual 2Ghz G5.. I use an 800Mhz ibook. Long battery life, (Like I really can get 4 hours out of it) small size, just the right features for a notebook.))
Hmm. I double bracketed that. That's nerdy.
As for the dock.. it sure is sweet.. but I think it's got more to do with how applications are packaged and how the gui works overall than the dock itself... I mean we have similar docks in unix, and none of them feel as useful, even though they do the same thing more or less.
Around any pair of orbiting bodies are what we call the Lagrange points... points of relative stability where gravitational forces balance out.
L2 is, I believe, opposite the Sun on the other side of earth... I am unsure if it would be in shadow, as I'm not sure of the distance... but something sitting there will have a year the same length as the earth.
This is due to the earth's gravity added to the suns.. effectively something at L2 feels like it's orbiting a heavier mass, so it can orbit faster to keep up.
There are four other lagrange points... one towards the sun (where the SOHO solar observation satellite lives), (L1)
One on the opposite side of the Sun from us (always behind the sun from our point of view, so that's where the hidden planet X is)
And two ahead and behind our orbit, sort of (google up a diagram). these are sometiems called "Trojan points"... asteroids are found orbiting these points by Jupiter, Mars... not at earth, though large concentrations of dust have been found gathered there.
I think a lot of armchair critics who think real unix users would never use OS X would be surprised to know just how many seasoned Unix admins now use OS X on their main workstation by choice, as well as how many seasoned linux people at conferences are starting to show up with apple laptops running OS X. There is a reason they like it, and it's not because it's pretty.
IT's not a unix compatability layer.. it's more the other way around.. The MacOS desktop and the underlying system are built on the BSD core, with extensions for some stuff like quartz (the low level graphics engine), etc....
Some pople seem to feel that tha'ts what Apple means by Unix in OSX.. that it's like cygwin, tacked on so they can say it's UNIX. It's nothing of the sort.. it's out and out unix, plus other stuff.
Process control happens like unix. PS will list all the processes, and I don't mean by some hack that makes it look kind of the same like cygwin uses. You can boot OSX without the graphic desktop... and you are left with.. unix. Looks like unix, smells like unix.. I don't see in what way it's not unix, other than the Open Group wanting some money.
as a fellow elite unix user, who has used, professionally, everything from Xenix in the olden days to Irix, SunOS 4.x, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, *BSD, and Linux..... and now uses OS X. Heavily....
If you ask me what Unix means, I can tell you that on one hand, it means whatever the Open Group says it means. I can also tell you on the other hand that nobody really gives 2 shits in the real world what the Open Group says. To us, unix means Linux, unix means *BSD, unix means Irix, unix means Solaris, and unix does NOT mean Windows NT with Cygwin. they are making money off a trademark. Whether something is certified Unix by the Open Group makes no difference to my purchase decision, or anything else... SCO UnixWARE was out and out unix, and it is perhaps the worst unix on earth to use.. and I don't mean because of Sco's latest charades... it's crap.
It's not MacOS with a unix like shell.. and it's not like cygwin with bloated, slow libraries emulating unix system calls. Yes, there are some things that are missing... the file system layout IS standard, the API is VERY standard, minus a few calls, and the windowing system is irrelevant. Mine has a full X implementation, built by apple for OSX.. what exactly is the problem? The shell isn't unix-like, it's BASH. Or CSH. OR any other shell you like. The filesystem layout is standard, with addons for some apple stuff. I have no problem finding every traditional unix tool I want, where I expect it to be. A non standard kernel? Who determines what's standard? Seems to work fine on the hardware for me.
If you want to go by the open group's distinctions, sure, OS X is not Unix. Neither is Linux. Neither are several other systems out there. Does anybody professionaly really care, other than being able to look smart and tell you who holds the unix trademark? Nope.
If I use a regular phone, dial a regular phone number, and talk to someone who is also using a real phone.. is it still not a phone call?
How do you figure vonage's local phone service is different than a normal phone service? this isn't about ip to ip voice chat.. it's about real phone service.
Internet radio is not radio.. it's a differnet thing, agreed... but Vonage's VOIP service is real, honest-to-god phone service. You get a real phone number, use a real telephone, and can make and receive real phone calls to and from anyhwere in the world. In any way you want to look at it, vonage is a REAL PHONE COMPANY.
This is not about packets. It's about a service that integrates with the standard, regulated telco network.
This is not about voice over the internet, it's about a telephone service.. the fact that it uses the internet as a transport is incidental.
If they offfered the same service via some kind of newfangled radio or satellite service, they would be subject to the same argument.
is let them be on equal footing. I'm not suggesting de-regulating the phone company.. just those aspects that compete directly with vonage offering voip service.
I'm not suggesting regulating vonage at all.. I'm suggesting that on some level what vonage is offering is the same as what the telco is offering, and therefore, they should fall under the same regulation with regards to that particular service.. and that very well may mean no regulation.. ie: let the traditional telco be flexible with it's local offerings as well.
VoIP doens't mean "Any voice service on the internet". VoIP is a specific set of protocols for providing integration with the telephone system via IP.
What Vonage offers is a box that you plug a telephone into, get a real telephone number, and make real telephone calls to and from. It is no more or less a telephone than the telephone you use in your house hooked up to your phone company.. the only difference is the backhaul.
So.. rather than saying "Should vonage be regulated"... the question should be "What is different about Vonage that they should not be bound by the regulation the phone company is? Could the phone company start giving you a cisco VOIP box, a DSL line, and thereby avoid regulation? You bet they can't, cause they are the phone company.. why should Vonage be able to offer something the phone company cannot legally offer?
It's minnesota's decision to make because Vonage is offering phone service to Minnesotans.
I mean, this isn't about just "voice over internet".... it's about a phone service that happens to use the net.
So... either they should have to follow regulations like any other phone company..... OR... the phone companies should be released from their regulatory obligations, at least with respect to the voip providers, so they can operate on equal footing.
But... let's say it was something else.. like you pried it off on a table using your hands.. and it spilled by accident because your 90 pound rottweiler decided to tackle-hug you at the same time. And it spilled, and caused 3rd degree burns over most of your lower left arm and hand, instantly burning away the skin and doing severe muscle damage. Let's say you had to go to the hospital and have a series of skin grafts, and were basically in excruciating pain for weeks, and disfigured for life.
Now, let's say you find out that that coffee was considerably hotter than every other restaurant would serve coffee, perhaps that's why you didn't treat it with as much respect.
ie: People know coffee is hot, yes.. but they do not treat coffee the same way they would treat boiling hot water. We know there is a distinct difference in the level of danger to our persons.
She didnt' sue cause she got a little burn, she sued cause she was burned extremely severely..
IBM will win. SCO will have nothing left to complain about. After they are done with IBM, (or IBM is done with them), one of two things will happen.
SCO will be gone.
SCO will start suing other linux companies, at which point a whole pile of BSD and Linux developers will, for the first time in history, join together in one of the largest class action software lawsuits ever, and accuse SCO of stealing code from both of them.
They aren't saying they are going to war against text messaging, or communications.. they are just saying somsething that is most likely true: the reason they are not grossing as high a profit as they would have is because of instant communications. They aren't saying it's a war with communication, just stating that it's a factor that affects their business model.
Though I'm sure none of us would be surprised if they DID try to make communication about a movie illegal, that's not what they are doing.
Think about it.. it IS true... instant communication affects their business model, which involves getting as many people in on opening weekend on pure hype...
Is that people become better photographers without really realiizing it.
The instant feedback you get causes you to automatically start taking better pictures, and you may not even realize it. With film, you have to wait for your photos to develop.. and then you ahve to think back about how you took the picture, settings, the lighting, etc... with instant feedback, you make those associations automatically.
Betting on casino games, no, there is no way to win.. the odds ARE in favor of the house. The exception would be Blackjack, where, if you can get away with counting, you can actually tilt the odds slightly in your favor. Current casino practices make this not worth the effort. Online blackjack is a different story, as there is no deck involved.. it's usually an infinite deck.
The parent poster is correct... it IS possible to make money off informed gambling.. he's talking about SPORTS betting, not casino games... you see, when you bet on sports, you aren't betting against the house(bookie)... you are betting against other players... the bookie tries to get equal action on both sides of any given wager... and takes a percentage.
The bookie sets his odds based fundamentally on how he thinks people are going to bet... if the game is percieved by the public to be a 1:1 game, the bookie will place the same odds on both sides winning... ideally, he wants an equal dollar value in bets on both sides, so no matter who wins, he has no risk. If twice as many people are betting one side, regardless of how the bookie thinks the game will turn out, he will change the odds to try to get more action on the other side. Now, it gets far more complicated than this, and bookies sometimes DO take risks with the house money based on their own experience and knowledge of the games... but in principle, that's how it works.
So.. how do professional sports bettors make money? They spend a LOT of time analyzing the particular sport they are interested in... they know it inside out, backwards and fordwards.. they are doing the same thing the bookies do.. analyzing the game to calculate what they think the odds should be. Then, they find a bookie who's posted odds are NOT the same as their own calculations... and they wager on it. It's kind of like the stock market... buying and selling risk, in a way.
Your roulette system onll works on paper if you have a HUGE bankroll, and no table limits... witih each loss you double the amount needed in the next roll, and the amount risked.. that's a geometric progression, and NOBODY can keep paying into that for long. Think grains of rice on a chessboard.
If you said: You can win at roulette if you have infinite money to spend, and no table limits and an infinite number of spins... yes, you can keep betting until at some point you are UP, and therefore, won... but that's not how it really works.
Winning at sports gambling is not like winning at the casino... it's more like winning at the stock market. You make predictions, and if you are good at it, better than those you are betting against, you will win. This is not like saying there is some magic system to winning at the casino... but an informed person who understands their sport CAN make money betting on it.
I thought 802.11b and friends were not CSMA/CD but CSMA/CA. That's collision avoidance, not collision detection. CD is done electrically in ethernet.. the voltage on the line is wrong if there is a collision.. a transmitter can know immediately via feedback if it's caused a collision.
In wireless, we don't have this... instead you re-transmit packets that get lost, and you try to avoid collisions in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
The email system is considered reliable. Why?
In short, if a server is not sure that the message has been passed along to another server, it assumes it has not been, and will try again / return to sender / etc.
There are a few misleading facts people are throwing around here.
1 - The traditional method of rejecting email is to return a message to the sender if the user cannot be found. Exactly how this is done depends on the mail servers involved.
2 - The article is referring to messages blocked because they contain viruses. This is a sticky issue... if we just drop the message, we have sort of violated the system stated above. We also agree that returning the virus attachment itself is wrong. The problem is these emails like with Sobig.F that are ONLY viruses, and have no actual value, where all headers are forged. It would be fair for an antivirus scanner to drop these messages into the void and not respond.. but as long as it knows they are such an email with no real content.
How does the two armies problem play into this?
This is true.
However, all the obnoxious tourists I've encountered who ruined my airplane ride by flashing their big toes and stomping around the airplane, talking too loudly, and getting drunk
were Americans.
I know they were american because they were happily telling anyone who would listen all about how great America was.
Yes, computers deal in voltages, but only two voltages. The logic we design in those computers, at the lowest, fundamental level, is based on a decision of whether any individual signal is at one voltage, or another. There is no third state.
The idea is that if we work in ternary, or other multi voltage based system, (which implies we need the math and logic to design the system around), we can get more processing done with the same amount of silicon.
The base of the logic is not pointless at all.. the binary logic we talk about is *exactly* what the computer uses at the lowest level, each individual component is deisgned to work around a binary system. Moving to another system means different components... it is by no means arbitrary.
I thought "perfect pitch" referred to an above average ability to discern small changes in pitch.
I knew a guy who could sit 30 rows back in the theater, listen to a note on the grand piano, any note, and tell you what one it was. Furthermore, if you plucked a guitar string, he could tell you what note it was, and how far out of tune it was, with an uncanny accuracy.
Was he a great prodigal singer? No... though I suppose such a talent would come in handy as a singer.
Singing in tune and perfect pitch have little to do with each other....
Maybe instead of having a peacable conversation, you were actually ranting like a loon in a public place?
I have a hard time believing any police officer in Canada would threaten you with verbal assault because he overheard a conversation.
We don't bust people on immigration; you are not required to prove citizenship on the street in canada, nor are you required to carry papers. If they suspected you were in the country illegally, they could hold you until you proved otherwise.. but they'd be wide open to a lawsuit if they didn't have a good reason.
I'm willing to bet you were probably a lot more obnoxious and loud (read: American) than you let on.
Cool. Go build one. Scientific fame awaits you.
The problem is not floating, the problem is walking... propulsion....
yeah. If you want to look at it as pure Ghz... intel is always going to be cheaper.
Now, I'm not going to tell you "Ghz is a myth" and that macs are faster.. because it's not technically true.. but...
I'd tell you how I prefer my 800Mhz G3 mac over the 2 Ghz P4 sitting next to me, how I get more work done and am more productive with the mac.... but you'll probably still feel like you are buying "less" of a computer because it's not 2Ghz.
Perhaps it's just how one works with the mac.. If I did cpu intensive work all day, then certainly a faster computer would make me more productive. As it is, I do mostly administration... so I don't really need a super fast bleeding edge computer... and the user experience is the same whether it's fast or not on a mac.
So in a way, yeah, it is a slower computer for the money.. a slower computer on which I get more work done, and am much happier using... and if I get more work done, and am less frustrated... isnt' that worth more money?
Yeah, I'd say you nailed it.
We are used to expensive workstations... however...
My mac is by far the cheapest computer I've ever owned.
(I found that aside from games, I really have no need for a dual 2Ghz G5.. I use an 800Mhz ibook. Long battery life, (Like I really can get 4 hours out of it) small size, just the right features for a notebook.))
Hmm. I double bracketed that. That's nerdy.
As for the dock.. it sure is sweet.. but I think it's got more to do with how applications are packaged and how the gui works overall than the dock itself... I mean we have similar docks in unix, and none of them feel as useful, even though they do the same thing more or less.
Around any pair of orbiting bodies are what we call the Lagrange points... points of relative stability where gravitational forces balance out.
L2 is, I believe, opposite the Sun on the other side of earth... I am unsure if it would be in shadow, as I'm not sure of the distance... but something sitting there will have a year the same length as the earth.
This is due to the earth's gravity added to the suns.. effectively something at L2 feels like it's orbiting a heavier mass, so it can orbit faster to keep up.
There are four other lagrange points... one towards the sun (where the SOHO solar observation satellite lives), (L1)
One on the opposite side of the Sun from us (always behind the sun from our point of view, so that's where the hidden planet X is)
And two ahead and behind our orbit, sort of (google up a diagram). these are sometiems called "Trojan points"... asteroids are found orbiting these points by Jupiter, Mars... not at earth, though large concentrations of dust have been found gathered there.
I think a lot of armchair critics who think real unix users would never use OS X would be surprised to know just how many seasoned Unix admins now use OS X on their main workstation by choice, as well as how many seasoned linux people at conferences are starting to show up with apple laptops running OS X. There is a reason they like it, and it's not because it's pretty.
I think you haven't used OS X.
IT's not a unix compatability layer.. it's more the other way around.. The MacOS desktop and the underlying system are built on the BSD core, with extensions for some stuff like quartz (the low level graphics engine), etc....
Some pople seem to feel that tha'ts what Apple means by Unix in OSX.. that it's like cygwin, tacked on so they can say it's UNIX. It's nothing of the sort.. it's out and out unix, plus other stuff.
Process control happens like unix. PS will list all the processes, and I don't mean by some hack that makes it look kind of the same like cygwin uses. You can boot OSX without the graphic desktop... and you are left with.. unix. Looks like unix, smells like unix.. I don't see in what way it's not unix, other than the Open Group wanting some money.
Okay Mr. Elite Unix User....
as a fellow elite unix user, who has used, professionally, everything from Xenix in the olden days to Irix, SunOS 4.x, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, *BSD, and Linux..... and now uses OS X. Heavily....
If you ask me what Unix means, I can tell you that on one hand, it means whatever the Open Group says it means. I can also tell you on the other hand that nobody really gives 2 shits in the real world what the Open Group says. To us, unix means Linux, unix means *BSD, unix means Irix, unix means Solaris, and unix does NOT mean Windows NT with Cygwin. they are making money off a trademark. Whether something is certified Unix by the Open Group makes no difference to my purchase decision, or anything else... SCO UnixWARE was out and out unix, and it is perhaps the worst unix on earth to use.. and I don't mean because of Sco's latest charades... it's crap.
It's not MacOS with a unix like shell.. and it's not like cygwin with bloated, slow libraries emulating unix system calls. Yes, there are some things that are missing... the file system layout IS standard, the API is VERY standard, minus a few calls, and the windowing system is irrelevant. Mine has a full X implementation, built by apple for OSX.. what exactly is the problem? The shell isn't unix-like, it's BASH. Or CSH. OR any other shell you like. The filesystem layout is standard, with addons for some apple stuff. I have no problem finding every traditional unix tool I want, where I expect it to be. A non standard kernel? Who determines what's standard? Seems to work fine on the hardware for me.
If you want to go by the open group's distinctions, sure, OS X is not Unix. Neither is Linux. Neither are several other systems out there. Does anybody professionaly really care, other than being able to look smart and tell you who holds the unix trademark? Nope.
If I use a regular phone, dial a regular phone number, and talk to someone who is also using a real phone.. is it still not a phone call?
How do you figure vonage's local phone service is different than a normal phone service? this isn't about ip to ip voice chat.. it's about real phone service.
Internet radio is not radio.. it's a differnet thing, agreed...
but Vonage's VOIP service is real, honest-to-god phone service. You get a real phone number, use a real telephone, and can make and receive real phone calls to and from anyhwere in the world. In any way you want to look at it, vonage is a REAL PHONE COMPANY.
This is not about packets. It's about a service that integrates with the standard, regulated telco network.
This is not about voice over the internet, it's about a telephone service.. the fact that it uses the internet as a transport is incidental.
If they offfered the same service via some kind of newfangled radio or satellite service, they would be subject to the same argument.
is let them be on equal footing. I'm not suggesting de-regulating the phone company.. just those aspects that compete directly with vonage offering voip service.
I'm not suggesting regulating vonage at all.. I'm suggesting that on some level what vonage is offering is the same as what the telco is offering, and therefore, they should fall under the same regulation with regards to that particular service.. and that very well may mean no regulation.. ie: let the traditional telco be flexible with it's local offerings as well.
VoIP doens't mean "Any voice service on the internet". VoIP is a specific set of protocols for providing integration with the telephone system via IP.
What Vonage offers is a box that you plug a telephone into, get a real telephone number, and make real telephone calls to and from. It is no more or less a telephone than the telephone you use in your house hooked up to your phone company.. the only difference is the backhaul.
So.. rather than saying "Should vonage be regulated"... the question should be "What is different about Vonage that they should not be bound by the regulation the phone company is? Could the phone company start giving you a cisco VOIP box, a DSL line, and thereby avoid regulation? You bet they can't, cause they are the phone company.. why should Vonage be able to offer something the phone company cannot legally offer?
It's minnesota's decision to make because Vonage is offering phone service to Minnesotans.
I mean, this isn't about just "voice over internet".... it's about a phone service that happens to use the net.
So... either they should have to follow regulations like any other phone company..... OR... the phone companies should be released from their regulatory obligations, at least with respect to the voip providers, so they can operate on equal footing.
But... let's say it was something else.. like you pried it off on a table using your hands.. and it spilled by accident because your 90 pound rottweiler decided to tackle-hug you at the same time. And it spilled, and caused 3rd degree burns over most of your lower left arm and hand, instantly burning away the skin and doing severe muscle damage. Let's say you had to go to the hospital and have a series of skin grafts, and were basically in excruciating pain for weeks, and disfigured for life.
Now, let's say you find out that that coffee was considerably hotter than every other restaurant would serve coffee, perhaps that's why you didn't treat it with as much respect.
ie: People know coffee is hot, yes.. but they do not treat coffee the same way they would treat boiling hot water. We know there is a distinct difference in the level of danger to our persons.
She didnt' sue cause she got a little burn, she sued cause she was burned extremely severely..
SCO will lose, and be bankrupt because of it.
IBM will win.
SCO will have nothing left to complain about. After they are done with IBM, (or IBM is done with them), one of two things will happen.
SCO will be gone.
SCO will start suing other linux companies, at which point a whole pile of BSD and Linux developers will, for the first time in history, join together in one of the largest class action software lawsuits ever, and accuse SCO of stealing code from both of them.
They aren't saying they are going to war against text messaging, or communications.. they are just saying somsething that is most likely true: the reason they are not grossing as high a profit as they would have is because of instant communications. They aren't saying it's a war with communication, just stating that it's a factor that affects their business model.
Though I'm sure none of us would be surprised if they DID try to make communication about a movie illegal, that's not what they are doing.
Think about it.. it IS true... instant communication affects their business model, which involves getting as many people in on opening weekend on pure hype...
Is that people become better photographers without really realiizing it.
The instant feedback you get causes you to automatically start taking better pictures, and you may not even realize it. With film, you have to wait for your photos to develop.. and then you ahve to think back about how you took the picture, settings, the lighting, etc... with instant feedback, you make those associations automatically.
Seems to make sense to me. What part disagrees with you?
Betting on casino games, no, there is no way to win.. the odds ARE in favor of the house. The exception would be Blackjack, where, if you can get away with counting, you can actually tilt the odds slightly in your favor. Current casino practices make this not worth the effort. Online blackjack is a different story, as there is no deck involved.. it's usually an infinite deck.
The parent poster is correct... it IS possible to make money off informed gambling.. he's talking about SPORTS betting, not casino games... you see, when you bet on sports, you aren't betting against the house(bookie)... you are betting against other players... the bookie tries to get equal action on both sides of any given wager... and takes a percentage.
The bookie sets his odds based fundamentally on how he thinks people are going to bet... if the game is percieved by the public to be a 1:1 game, the bookie will place the same odds on both sides winning... ideally, he wants an equal dollar value in bets on both sides, so no matter who wins, he has no risk. If twice as many people are betting one side, regardless of how the bookie thinks the game will turn out, he will change the odds to try to get more action on the other side. Now, it gets far more complicated than this, and bookies sometimes DO take risks with the house money based on their own experience and knowledge of the games... but in principle, that's how it works.
So.. how do professional sports bettors make money? They spend a LOT of time analyzing the particular sport they are interested in... they know it inside out, backwards and fordwards.. they are doing the same thing the bookies do.. analyzing the game to calculate what they think the odds should be. Then, they find a bookie who's posted odds are NOT the same as their own calculations... and they wager on it.
It's kind of like the stock market... buying and selling risk, in a way.
Your roulette system onll works on paper if you have a HUGE bankroll, and no table limits... witih each loss you double the amount needed in the next roll, and the amount risked.. that's a geometric progression, and NOBODY can keep paying into that for long. Think grains of rice on a chessboard.
If you said: You can win at roulette if you have infinite money to spend, and no table limits and an infinite number of spins... yes, you can keep betting until at some point you are UP, and therefore, won... but that's not how it really works.
Winning at sports gambling is not like winning at the casino... it's more like winning at the stock market. You make predictions, and if you are good at it, better than those you are betting against, you will win. This is not like saying there is some magic system to winning at the casino... but an informed person who understands their sport CAN make money betting on it.
I thought 802.11b and friends were not CSMA/CD but CSMA/CA. That's collision avoidance, not collision detection. CD is done electrically in ethernet.. the voltage on the line is wrong if there is a collision.. a transmitter can know immediately via feedback if it's caused a collision.
In wireless, we don't have this... instead you re-transmit packets that get lost, and you try to avoid collisions in the first place.
but the point of Macrovision wasn't to prevent playback.. it was to prevent recording.
You should be able to play a macrovision signal on a TV just fine. If you try to record it on a VCR, however, it'll come out all messed up.