The chip is useful in retail because at checkout all items pass within 6 inches of the scanner as they travel along the belt. Even if they manage to finally inpliment the often touted "scan an entire basked at once", you're still only talking a range of two feet from any side.
For inventory even thhough you still need to take a scanner near all the merchandice, you eliminate the human factor of erroneous counting. You also get to know excatly which items are in the store.
In retail an most inventory control situations there's no need for any range longer than 5 feet. That would allow most workers to count things on the top shelf by just extending their arm and pulling the trigger.
Most of the freeways in the Phoenix Metro area are "wired". You can visit the ADOT web site and watch the maps of average traffic flow speeds on the freeways. You can also see the traffic camera video and what the roadway signs are displaying. All of that is accomplised with (among other things) a network of radar transievers. In this area they look like small solar panels, about 1 foot square, except they are pointed at the ground. The devices are usually hidden behind the large overead road signs, or along the horizontal arms of light poles.
I haven't use a radar detector in about 15 years because of all the false alarms. IIRC it got to the point where I didn't even consider the X band detection to be of any use, every detection was a "false alarm" from roadway radar, door openers, other detectors, etc. The only real "threats" were from the K and Ka bands.
Laser is a whole other story, why detect it when you are completely legal in jamming it. The FDA regulated lasers, not the FCC.
IANAL, but I have done some study in criminal justice and had actual experience with some of these things in several states:
No. If you are walking out of a store and any of these things happen you can simply ignore it and walk away:
1. An alarm goes off because a security tag was not removed/deactivated 2. An employee asks to see your receipt 3. Anyone asks you to please step back in the store or open a package for inspection
Most state laws require a store employee to witness a suspected thief take an item from the shelf/display, conseal it and leave the store without paying for the item. They (in most states) must witness this entire chain of events without loosing visual contact with the suspected thief. The visual part can be multiple employees coordinated via radio, or a network of cameras or a combination.
Unless a person stops you, identifies themselves and states that you are under arrest/detention for suspision of shoplifting, you may leave the store. If you refuse to cooperate you can be physically restrained and possibly charged with resisting arrest later. Anyone can arrest anyone in most any state, it's called citizen's arrest, and usually has all the legal force of a police arrest. If you attempt one you'd best have damned good probable cause and know EXACTLY what your state/local laws require you to do and say.
Any attempt to detain you outside those rules is seen as, at best, unlawful detention, and up to kidnapping.
If you refuse to cooperate, the store can refuse to allow you entry or service at a later time, but they can't do anything about the current situation.
I do this all the time: Home Depot's security tags frequently are not deactivated, and I just keep walking. I also refuse the "can I see your reciept" offers at all stores except CostCo. Because CostCo is a private "club", refusing the check means they could revoke my membership.
Probably not. As part of the inventory control function each tag would likely contain a unique serial number. The checkout/POS systems would not add an item to a receipt if the serial number were not known in the inventory system. This would not be an issue for many items like cans of soup or corn flakes. It would only be for durable items that you tend to carry with you like clothing.
And the issue here is that the RFID tags are not necessary to enable this technology. All you have to do is place a narrow-beam motion sensor near the things you want to protect. When the sensor detects motion, an image is snapped. The best way to do this is to use a dispenser of sorts, where a spring automatically moves all the blades forward when you remove one. Every time the sensor at the front detects a package is removed, a picture is snapped.
Those are two ways to do that without RFID. You could also use a camera connected to a computer that looks for motion in the small area contained by the product; you could use lasers, ultrasound/sonar; or any of several other techiques.
This is not an RFID issue. It is not a privacy issue. (you have no reasonale expectation of privacy in an open and publicly accessable place, especially when that place is another's private property).
Since these chips can contain up to 2KB of information on them they could contain actual temperatures for washing, rinsing and drying, as well as tumble agressiveness, and specific dry-cleaning chemicals to use or not use. A washing machine might refuse (or question) to wash a "dry-clean-only" garment at 200F (for instance). Your dryer would be extra careful to not cause your sweaters to shrink.
The tags could also contain information about color and intensity, such that no longer would a red garment turn an entire load of whites to pink. The machine would refuse to perform the wash, or perform it at color-safe settings.
In an advanced world, these RFID chips could be writeable so the garment could keep track of how many times it has been laundered.
No the tags are encased in glass or a strong polymyr like lexan or arcylic. They are waterproof and imperveous to most human-safe chemicals like soap, detergents, cleaners, etc.
No you could not. The RFID tag transmission range is no more than about 10 feet for the type of tag in question, and that is with a very powerful "reader" unit.
You simply can not scan someone's posessions from outside the home.
From Apple's specifications web site in the "mini-tower" biege G3 entry:
DIMMs must be: 3.3 volt(V) unbuffered, 64-bit wide, 168-pin 100MHz/10ns cycle time or faster
From the PC100 specs: 100MHz/CL=2 3.3v unbuffered, 64bit 168pin,
Where exactly is the difference? Where are you reading specs for a G3 that uses 5v memory?
I have put PC100 DIMMS in both machines (desktop and mini-tower) in CPU speeds of 233 to 333 and PC100 has worked in each one of them. In my experience, there is zero reason to spend extra money on anything claiming to be "special" or "proprietary" Mac G3 memory.
A web site defacement on a Linux machine is probably not a problems with Linux, but a problem with Apache, ncFTP (or UWFTPD or any of the others), SAMBA, Sendmail, or anoy of the other projects that people tend to run on top of Linux.
There is already a way to make cheap diamonds. It's done every day. They are called "industrial diamonds" and are grown in labs. The grown diamonds are created for their strength, not their color or clarity. They are used as abrasives, and as tips for precision cutting blades. DeBeers I think couldn't care less about this market.
There are also other companies that have developed processes to grow gem grade and sized diamonds that are in almost every way indisiguishable from a "natural" diamond. These processess in particular are what led DeBeers to start laser coding their diamonds for authenticity. Growing gem grade diamonds scares the jeebies out of DeBeers, and they will either make it illegal, or find some dubious means to crush any attempts at it.
"Researchers at MIT have solved the mystery of how water striders propel themselves across water surfaces..."
Umm, I learned this in 6th grade. It's a simple matter of surface tension and surface area. This was the same day I learned about the meniscus formed when you fill a glass to the brim with water.
Firs,t your comments makes little to no sense. Second, if you are trying to say what I think you are saying, that's not what I said or suggested.
I'm saying that there are no inherently "bad" words, only arbitrary reaction to them. There are contexts in which the most innocuous of words can be used that will cause as much reaction.
To give a somewhat mild example:
"I'm going to tear your guts out and stuff them up your ass" is in all ways equivilant to "I shall eviscerate you and coerce the mass such that it will be contained within your rectum".
no, nigger is not offensive. I hear black people use it all the time. You can't have it both ways... either the word is offensive or it is not. If the group to which the word is supposedly offensive USE the word in reference to each other, then it can't be considered offensive.
Historically the word 'god' has been used to "fuck with so many people for so long, you can't escape the evil behind it", yet very few consider it to be offensive. The same with slavery, you can utter that word just about anywhere without issue. So I think your context for the choice of what is offensive either: a) is at best riddled with so many exceptions that is't not a useful rule b) has nothing to do with the root cause of the arbitrary selections
I don't find it offensive that a doll won't curse. I find it idiodic and offensive that people are so moronic about certain groupings of sounds.
Why would most people find it obscene to say "fuck", yet will see a movie with the word "shag" in the title, or use the word "frig" in casual conversation? The three words mean exactly the same thing.
Why is it so "bad" to reference a thing or concept with one word, but perfectly okay to reference it another way.
Why (for another example) do parents teach kids to ask to "go poo poo", or "potty", but would throw histerics if the kid said "crap". It's all the same thing people! Same exact meaning, just a different grouping of sounds.
As for the word "cocksucker", perhaps you don't find "phalluslicker" offensive? Same meaning either way.
Why do we have an entire vocabulary that is considered "offensive", yet any of the words have at least three exact synonyms that are perfectly acceptable in everyday use?
Interesting view. Where did the AppleWorks coders go? Did Clarus eat them? You did leave out the "Safari Internet Explorer:, though that isn't technically part of Office.
I'm REALLY waiting for Apple to get on the ball and do something with MySQL at the core of the system. Instead of storing all preferences, playlists, etc in all those small files that they keep coming up with new file formats for, they could just throw everything in to databases. There's little more work involved with getting the XML plist data from a database than a stand-alone file. Then moving all your prefs from one system to another could be as simple as dumping the DB from one system to CDR and importing it to another system. I think it would also make roving profiles easier, especially if there were a feature to combine these databases on a centralized server. Al in all it would sort of be like the Windows Registry, but done well.
On top of that a user friendly MySQL client would make a wonderful component to the iLife application suite. The new app would be a data warehouse where you could just drop all your miscellaneous notes for things, sound bites, video clips, emails, files, etc. The database would be searchable and cross-linkable. You know, for all those silly little things you put in the stickies notes and all those text clippings floating around the desktop.
"The point is that Mac OS X boxes can get root'ed and Apple releases updates to prevent this periodically."
You miss the point in reply. Mac OS X out of the box CAN'T get root'ed because the root account is disabled. The only way (I know of) to enable it is through the GUI. You must launch "NetInfo Manager", then authenticate as an administrator. You can then choose the option to enable the root account and enter a password.
Along with the root account being disabled, just about every server/service not necessary for the GUI is diabled. CUPS is perhaps the only thing running by default that's even close to being remotely exploitable.
"The next exploit could be in something as common as Safari (default web browser)"
That would not be a virus, that would be a trojan. Trojans require uninformed users to do something silly like run code from an unknown source. Apple's update system prevents that. The fact is here also that a: root is disabled in the default install b: the users don't run at even the admin level by default. So if you were to launch a trojan it could ONLY ravage your own home directory and perhaps be used in DDOS attacks, spam, worm propigation and exploit searches. To be successful at that, the thing would probably need to save off a binary executable and fork it as a background BSD process.
I consider trojans to be more on the level of having physical access to the machine (just you do it by proxy). A trojan is not a remote expoit, not a virus and not a worm. The simplest way to catch them is to have a process check for any files having their execute bit(s) toggled and prompt for authority. that would pretty much leave an interprited type trojar in Perl or TCSH, which can be run without the execute bits being set.
Where are these RFIDs with personal information going to come from? We're talking about manufacturers and retailers using these things to better control inventory and shipping costs.
In any case, a single RFID can contain up to 16Kb of (2KB) of information, more than enough to fit your name SSN, address, phone, DOB, driving license, criminal history, description and perhaps a small photo or a fingerprint. But we're not talking about that. No-one is saying you should have an RFID implanted with personal information on it. In fact at this point, it's illegal (in the U.S.) to do such a thing to a human.
What the manufacturers, distributors and retailers want is at most for each item to carry an RFID with it's UPC/SKU and perhaps a unique serial number (for that code, the numbers themselves may be re-used across different products). NOTHING in that chip will identify you, the store or the distributor directly. Anyone who could use a scanner to "see" what you'd purchased could just as easily watch you make the purchase in the store. Noone will be able to sit outside your home and scan for RFIDs to see if you own something worth stealing. As I've mentioned in another thread on this topic, in a retail environment the RFID chip would need to be limited to a maximum transmission range of about 2 feet in open air to eliminate cross-chatter between checkout scanners. The range of the chips can be controlled by the size of their antenna (how much RF they take in, and how much they put out).
I am plenty paranoid. But RFID tags just don't return any echo on my radar. Even if it did, I'd MUCH rather coordinate my efforts to things like fighting the DMCA, Patriot Act and the adoption of Cristianity as the official government religion.
Traffic hitting the server isn't the problem, the network load is the problem. Changing the server to a new IP doesn't solve the problem of the inbound traffic being routed to the network.
As stated in the article, they can effectively filter out the offending traffic because it always uses the same source port.
This is now the severalth (sure, that's a word, isn't it)story about RFID tags used in general consumer merchandise. Most all reactions I've seen are negativbe toward this use. Most seem to cite a fear of being tracked or having their purchased remembered by the retailer.
Let me start by laying out what I know about RFID chips/tags: 1. they have a transmission range measured in inches, to a maximum of a few feet 2. they require a specialized unit to send out the RF pulse that "activates" and reads the tag 3. the information stored in them is generally programmed at manufacture. (there are r/w tags, but they seem about as useful as putting the bar-code or price on a label with a pencil) 4. reading the RFIDs in bulk is a tenuous affair at best and certainly expensive.
Specifically regarding #1, I can't locate any exact numbers for range, all the companies just say "short, medium or long" range. But the examples they give seem to represent that even "long range" is highly relative and still means only 2 to 4 feet, perhaps as much as 10 feet. In a retail situation the range would probably need to be two feet or less.
So given that information, I can't begin to figure out what everyone is so upset about regarding the use of RFIDs in retail items. They don't enable anything you can't do already, they just make it faster and more reliable. They don't store any personal information, they can't be read in bulk from any significant distance.
What do these tags represent that is so heinous that public demonstrations are called for to prevent their use?
This will be the third (I recall) time I've tried to have a reasonable discussion about this, and am hoping this time I'll get something more than FUD back. Please state your reasons in a clear, legible hand. I promise to read them all . The winner wil go back to K-PAX with me.
I don't understand why people are all pissy about this. Microsoft built a private system for communication, they allowed/tolerated anyone connecting to the network with any compatible client up to this point.
MS, obviously, incurs a cost for maintaining this network/service. They have also been at the forefront of any legal liability for activity on the service. The chat rooms may be virtual, but the computers and bandwidth they use are quite real. They are now seeking to fix these two problems by: 1. Limiting who can connect and how 2. Probably charging a fee for third party clients
If you think this is a bad thing for MS to be doing then let me ask you this: Do you allow just anyone to walk in to your home unannounced, without permission and do whatever they want? Why should MS (or the cable or telephone company) be any different? Private property is private property.
If the government thinks the property would be better used in the public interest, they can condemn the property and pay a fair and reasonable price for it as compensation.
A big part of the problem is that the "Linux Community" is not the cause of your frustrations. The Linux community is responsible only for the kernel code. The people that need to be united are the myriad of open source developers that provide 95% of the software you use on your system. Much of that software is from GNU, a lot from more-or-less standalone projects like Apache, KDE, XFree86 and the like.
It's about like asking the people who build toasters, mops, automobiles and orange juice to all get together and find a way to work together and make all their products interact in a standard way. It just won't happen.
Unless you can control the kernel, libraries, APIs, GUI and core applications there's no hope of any "easy" system.
My concern is that being a good coder is not enough for writing GUI applications these days...
Perhaps that is the case with Windows, but if an OS is executed well with solid and flexible APIs and GUI widgets, then as a coder you shouldn't need to do ANY graphics work. Isn't that the whole IDEA of an operating system: to provide core services so that programmers don't have to continually re-invent the weel?
I've never written a GUI application for Windows, but I have written one for Mac OS X. My app had all the style you find in the OS because I was using the stock OS widgets, just drag and drop (or hand code the objects if you like). To aid this seamless transition from OS to application, Apple has a set of "Human Interface Guidelines" that detail where things should be, what they should say, and how they should behave.
If Window's programmers are having to code interface widgets by hand for each application they create, then that might explain a lot about the usibility and learning curves people so often complain about.
If you haven't ever done it, play with the Apple Developer Tools (visit a local Apple store if you have to). You can build an entire GUI for an application (including operating menus, cut/paste, window operation, etc) in just a few minutes without writing a single line of code. Later you just plug in the logic of the program and away you go.
The RAM in the beige G3s is (AFAIK) standard PC100. At least I purchase standard PC100 memory, install it and it works fine. I have two machines maxed out at 768MB of PC100.
Instead of a CPU upgrade card, consider reading the forums on xlr8yourmac. There's some simple jumper settings you can make to overclock the biege G3 system. I've got my stock 333 running at 375 and my stock 233 running at 275. That's 12% and 18% increase in processing speed respectively (for free). In both cases the bus speed is also faster so I get more data moving. I created a chart to help me when I overclock one of these machines (I've done 6 now). My tower has been overclocked for over two years without issue.
Video card upgrade is imperitive for OS X performance. Even the Radeon 7000 PCI that I picked (up when support for my VooDoo 5/5500 went away) is kick-ass compared to the stock video chip. Get two cards, because a dual (or more) headed machine is a dream (I've got 2 21" monitors on mine). Each display driven by a separate card will give you better performance than driving both displays from the same video card.
Skip the IDE card. There are better uses for the PCI slot. Unless you are doing multi-stream video editing (not on a 266 G3 you aren't), or are running a RAID. The average drive on the market only sustains about 40MB/s, and that is just barely beyond the 33MB/s of the stock IDE chipset. The on-board controllers will support up to 120GB drives, and you can put in 3 of them while still using the CD-ROM. I personally have a SCSI(8G) and two IDE(40G & 120G) drives in my tower. I also have access to another 30 or so Gig over my network on various systems thoughout the house. While on the subject of drives... rip out the stock CD-ROM drive and replace it with a CDRW. OS X will use a 3rd party drive without problems if you get a "popular" one. I use and IDE version of the Yamaha EZ2100. You'll need this because OS X refuses to recognize the built-in floppy drive and some sort of removable storage is vital (IMO). (BTW: take out the floppy and you can put in a 4th hard disk internally (mounting screws? What are those?)
Upgrading the Ethernet probably won't get you much. The CPU in a beige box will have a tough time doing much with the data at a very much higher bit rate. You'd never get close to 100Mb/s utilization with the thing. Unless you have a network file server on your LAN, the stock 10bT is more than enough for web surfing on anything less than a DS3.
Instead of the Ethernet install a Firewire/USB card. This will enable a whole world of upgrades to you: mice, keyboards, audio/video input/output, storage, printers, scanners, cameras. etc.
I'm planning on getting a G5 just as soon as my miserable employment/financial situation improves enough to allow it, but for now my Beige G3 does everything I ask of it on a daily basis all while running the setiathome program in the background. I'm just now starting to run in to games that don't play at all: The new UnReal engine kills the machine. I get like 1FPS on my setup.
In all, the Beige G3 tower is handling things remarkably well for a machine that was built in mid-1998
In short my advice would be to install: video, Firewire and perhaps more video. Max the ram and try overclocking
Presidents don't make or pass laws. Congress does. The President has the ability to PREVENT a law being passed by veto power, but even then Congress can override the veto and pass the bill in to law.
Despite what the media and public have spun the office in to, the Presidency is actually a rather weak and limited office. The fact is the most people like the idea of a dicatatorship or a monarchy, where only one person is in charge, so they impose this illusion on to the President. Even when he is an idiot (which is frequently the case).
Fact is, that Congress runs the country, they make the laws, they choose where the money comes from, they choose where the money goes, they choose who the President can appoint to certain positions.
Powers of the President according to the Constitution: 1.Commander in Chief 2.make Treaties 3.nominate Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court 4.fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate 5.time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union
That's it. Those are all the powers given the President in Article II. There's nothing about making laws, declaring wars, or If yo uread the text yourself you'll find that even those limited powers often rely on concurrence of Congress before being acted upon.
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The chip is useful in retail because at checkout all items pass within 6 inches of the scanner as they travel along the belt.
Even if they manage to finally inpliment the often touted "scan an entire basked at once", you're still only talking a range of two feet from any side.
For inventory even thhough you still need to take a scanner near all the merchandice, you eliminate the human factor of erroneous counting. You also get to know excatly which items are in the store.
In retail an most inventory control situations there's no need for any range longer than 5 feet. That would allow most workers to count things on the top shelf by just extending their arm and pulling the trigger.
Most of the freeways in the Phoenix Metro area are "wired". You can visit the ADOT web site and watch the maps of average traffic flow speeds on the freeways. You can also see the traffic camera video and what the roadway signs are displaying.
All of that is accomplised with (among other things) a network of radar transievers. In this area they look like small solar panels, about 1 foot square, except they are pointed at the ground. The devices are usually hidden behind the large overead road signs, or along the horizontal arms of light poles.
I haven't use a radar detector in about 15 years because of all the false alarms. IIRC it got to the point where I didn't even consider the X band detection to be of any use, every detection was a "false alarm" from roadway radar, door openers, other detectors, etc.
The only real "threats" were from the K and Ka bands.
Laser is a whole other story, why detect it when you are completely legal in jamming it. The FDA regulated lasers, not the FCC.
IANAL, but I have done some study in criminal justice and had actual experience with some of these things in several states:
No. If you are walking out of a store and any of these things happen you can simply ignore it and walk away:
1. An alarm goes off because a security tag was not removed/deactivated
2. An employee asks to see your receipt
3. Anyone asks you to please step back in the store or open a package for inspection
Most state laws require a store employee to witness a suspected thief take an item from the shelf/display, conseal it and leave the store without paying for the item. They (in most states) must witness this entire chain of events without loosing visual contact with the suspected thief. The visual part can be multiple employees coordinated via radio, or a network of cameras or a combination.
Unless a person stops you, identifies themselves and states that you are under arrest/detention for suspision of shoplifting, you may leave the store. If you refuse to cooperate you can be physically restrained and possibly charged with resisting arrest later. Anyone can arrest anyone in most any state, it's called citizen's arrest, and usually has all the legal force of a police arrest. If you attempt one you'd best have damned good probable cause and know EXACTLY what your state/local laws require you to do and say.
Any attempt to detain you outside those rules is seen as, at best, unlawful detention, and up to kidnapping.
If you refuse to cooperate, the store can refuse to allow you entry or service at a later time, but they can't do anything about the current situation.
I do this all the time: Home Depot's security tags frequently are not deactivated, and I just keep walking. I also refuse the "can I see your reciept" offers at all stores except CostCo. Because CostCo is a private "club", refusing the check means they could revoke my membership.
Probably not. As part of the inventory control function each tag would likely contain a unique serial number. The checkout/POS systems would not add an item to a receipt if the serial number were not known in the inventory system.
This would not be an issue for many items like cans of soup or corn flakes. It would only be for durable items that you tend to carry with you like clothing.
And the issue here is that the RFID tags are not necessary to enable this technology.
All you have to do is place a narrow-beam motion sensor near the things you want to protect. When the sensor detects motion, an image is snapped.
The best way to do this is to use a dispenser of sorts, where a spring automatically moves all the blades forward when you remove one. Every time the sensor at the front detects a package is removed, a picture is snapped.
Those are two ways to do that without RFID. You could also use a camera connected to a computer that looks for motion in the small area contained by the product; you could use lasers, ultrasound/sonar; or any of several other techiques.
This is not an RFID issue. It is not a privacy issue. (you have no reasonale expectation of privacy in an open and publicly accessable place, especially when that place is another's private property).
Since these chips can contain up to 2KB of information on them they could contain actual temperatures for washing, rinsing and drying, as well as tumble agressiveness, and specific dry-cleaning chemicals to use or not use. A washing machine might refuse (or question) to wash a "dry-clean-only" garment at 200F (for instance).
Your dryer would be extra careful to not cause your sweaters to shrink.
The tags could also contain information about color and intensity, such that no longer would a red garment turn an entire load of whites to pink. The machine would refuse to perform the wash, or perform it at color-safe settings.
In an advanced world, these RFID chips could be writeable so the garment could keep track of how many times it has been laundered.
No the tags are encased in glass or a strong polymyr like lexan or arcylic. They are waterproof and imperveous to most human-safe chemicals like soap, detergents, cleaners, etc.
No you could not.
The RFID tag transmission range is no more than about 10 feet for the type of tag in question, and that is with a very powerful "reader" unit.
You simply can not scan someone's posessions from outside the home.
From Apple's specifications web site in the "mini-tower" biege G3 entry:
,
DIMMs must be: 3.3 volt(V) unbuffered, 64-bit wide, 168-pin 100MHz/10ns cycle time or faster
From the PC100 specs: 100MHz/CL=2 3.3v unbuffered, 64bit 168pin
Where exactly is the difference? Where are you reading specs for a G3 that uses 5v memory?
I have put PC100 DIMMS in both machines (desktop and mini-tower) in CPU speeds of 233 to 333 and PC100 has worked in each one of them. In my experience, there is zero reason to spend extra money on anything claiming to be "special" or "proprietary" Mac G3 memory.
A web site defacement on a Linux machine is probably not a problems with Linux, but a problem with Apache, ncFTP (or UWFTPD or any of the others), SAMBA, Sendmail, or anoy of the other projects that people tend to run on top of Linux.
There is already a way to make cheap diamonds. It's done every day. They are called "industrial diamonds" and are grown in labs. The grown diamonds are created for their strength, not their color or clarity. They are used as abrasives, and as tips for precision cutting blades. DeBeers I think couldn't care less about this market.
There are also other companies that have developed processes to grow gem grade and sized diamonds that are in almost every way indisiguishable from a "natural" diamond. These processess in particular are what led DeBeers to start laser coding their diamonds for authenticity. Growing gem grade diamonds scares the jeebies out of DeBeers, and they will either make it illegal, or find some dubious means to crush any attempts at it.
"Researchers at MIT have solved the mystery of how water striders propel themselves across water surfaces..."
Umm, I learned this in 6th grade. It's a simple matter of surface tension and surface area. This was the same day I learned about the meniscus formed when you fill a glass to the brim with water.
Firs,t your comments makes little to no sense. Second, if you are trying to say what I think you are saying, that's not what I said or suggested.
I'm saying that there are no inherently "bad" words, only arbitrary reaction to them. There are contexts in which the most innocuous of words can be used that will cause as much reaction.
To give a somewhat mild example:
"I'm going to tear your guts out and stuff them up your ass"
is in all ways equivilant to
"I shall eviscerate you and coerce the mass such that it will be contained within your rectum".
no, nigger is not offensive. I hear black people use it all the time. You can't have it both ways... either the word is offensive or it is not.
If the group to which the word is supposedly offensive USE the word in reference to each other, then it can't be considered offensive.
Historically the word 'god' has been used to "fuck with so many people for so long, you can't escape the evil behind it", yet very few consider it to be offensive. The same with slavery, you can utter that word just about anywhere without issue. So I think your context for the choice of what is offensive either:
a) is at best riddled with so many exceptions that is't not a useful rule
b) has nothing to do with the root cause of the arbitrary selections
I don't find it offensive that a doll won't curse. I find it idiodic and offensive that people are so moronic about certain groupings of sounds.
Why would most people find it obscene to say "fuck", yet will see a movie with the word "shag" in the title, or use the word "frig" in casual conversation? The three words mean exactly the same thing.
Why is it so "bad" to reference a thing or concept with one word, but perfectly okay to reference it another way.
Why (for another example) do parents teach kids to ask to "go poo poo", or "potty", but would throw histerics if the kid said "crap". It's all the same thing people! Same exact meaning, just a different grouping of sounds.
As for the word "cocksucker", perhaps you don't find "phalluslicker" offensive? Same meaning either way.
Why do we have an entire vocabulary that is considered "offensive", yet any of the words have at least three exact synonyms that are perfectly acceptable in everyday use?
Interesting view. Where did the AppleWorks coders go? Did Clarus eat them?
You did leave out the "Safari Internet Explorer:, though that isn't technically part of Office.
I'm REALLY waiting for Apple to get on the ball and do something with MySQL at the core of the system. Instead of storing all preferences, playlists, etc in all those small files that they keep coming up with new file formats for, they could just throw everything in to databases. There's little more work involved with getting the XML plist data from a database than a stand-alone file. Then moving all your prefs from one system to another could be as simple as dumping the DB from one system to CDR and importing it to another system. I think it would also make roving profiles easier, especially if there were a feature to combine these databases on a centralized server.
Al in all it would sort of be like the Windows Registry, but done well.
On top of that a user friendly MySQL client would make a wonderful component to the iLife application suite. The new app would be a data warehouse where you could just drop all your miscellaneous notes for things, sound bites, video clips, emails, files, etc. The database would be searchable and cross-linkable. You know, for all those silly little things you put in the stickies notes and all those text clippings floating around the desktop.
"The point is that Mac OS X boxes can get root'ed and Apple releases updates to prevent this periodically."
You miss the point in reply. Mac OS X out of the box CAN'T get root'ed because the root account is disabled.
The only way (I know of) to enable it is through the GUI. You must launch "NetInfo Manager", then authenticate as an administrator. You can then choose the option to enable the root account and enter a password.
Along with the root account being disabled, just about every server/service not necessary for the GUI is diabled. CUPS is perhaps the only thing running by default that's even close to being remotely exploitable.
"The next exploit could be in something as common as Safari (default web browser)"
That would not be a virus, that would be a trojan. Trojans require uninformed users to do something silly like run code from an unknown source. Apple's update system prevents that.
The fact is here also that a: root is disabled in the default install b: the users don't run at even the admin level by default. So if you were to launch a trojan it could ONLY ravage your own home directory and perhaps be used in DDOS attacks, spam, worm propigation and exploit searches. To be successful at that, the thing would probably need to save off a binary executable and fork it as a background BSD process.
I consider trojans to be more on the level of having physical access to the machine (just you do it by proxy). A trojan is not a remote expoit, not a virus and not a worm. The simplest way to catch them is to have a process check for any files having their execute bit(s) toggled and prompt for authority. that would pretty much leave an interprited type trojar in Perl or TCSH, which can be run without the execute bits being set.
Where are these RFIDs with personal information going to come from? We're talking about manufacturers and retailers using these things to better control inventory and shipping costs.
In any case, a single RFID can contain up to 16Kb of (2KB) of information, more than enough to fit your name SSN, address, phone, DOB, driving license, criminal history, description and perhaps a small photo or a fingerprint. But we're not talking about that.
No-one is saying you should have an RFID implanted with personal information on it. In fact at this point, it's illegal (in the U.S.) to do such a thing to a human.
What the manufacturers, distributors and retailers want is at most for each item to carry an RFID with it's UPC/SKU and perhaps a unique serial number (for that code, the numbers themselves may be re-used across different products). NOTHING in that chip will identify you, the store or the distributor directly.
Anyone who could use a scanner to "see" what you'd purchased could just as easily watch you make the purchase in the store. Noone will be able to sit outside your home and scan for RFIDs to see if you own something worth stealing.
As I've mentioned in another thread on this topic, in a retail environment the RFID chip would need to be limited to a maximum transmission range of about 2 feet in open air to eliminate cross-chatter between checkout scanners. The range of the chips can be controlled by the size of their antenna (how much RF they take in, and how much they put out).
I am plenty paranoid. But RFID tags just don't return any echo on my radar. Even if it did, I'd MUCH rather coordinate my efforts to things like fighting the DMCA, Patriot Act and the adoption of Cristianity as the official government religion.
Traffic hitting the server isn't the problem, the network load is the problem.
Changing the server to a new IP doesn't solve the problem of the inbound traffic being routed to the network.
As stated in the article, they can effectively filter out the offending traffic because it always uses the same source port.
This is now the severalth (sure, that's a word, isn't it)story about RFID tags used in general consumer merchandise. Most all reactions I've seen are negativbe toward this use. Most seem to cite a fear of being tracked or having their purchased remembered by the retailer.
Let me start by laying out what I know about RFID chips/tags:
1. they have a transmission range measured in inches, to a maximum of a few feet
2. they require a specialized unit to send out the RF pulse that "activates" and reads the tag
3. the information stored in them is generally programmed at manufacture. (there are r/w tags, but they seem about as useful as putting the bar-code or price on a label with a pencil)
4. reading the RFIDs in bulk is a tenuous affair at best and certainly expensive.
Specifically regarding #1, I can't locate any exact numbers for range, all the companies just say "short, medium or long" range. But the examples they give seem to represent that even "long range" is highly relative and still means only 2 to 4 feet, perhaps as much as 10 feet. In a retail situation the range would probably need to be two feet or less.
So given that information, I can't begin to figure out what everyone is so upset about regarding the use of RFIDs in retail items. They don't enable anything you can't do already, they just make it faster and more reliable. They don't store any personal information, they can't be read in bulk from any significant distance.
What do these tags represent that is so heinous that public demonstrations are called for to prevent their use?
This will be the third (I recall) time I've tried to have a reasonable discussion about this, and am hoping this time I'll get something more than FUD back. Please state your reasons in a clear, legible hand. I promise to read them all . The winner wil go back to K-PAX with me.
I don't understand why people are all pissy about this.
Microsoft built a private system for communication, they allowed/tolerated anyone connecting to the network with any compatible client up to this point.
MS, obviously, incurs a cost for maintaining this network/service. They have also been at the forefront of any legal liability for activity on the service. The chat rooms may be virtual, but the computers and bandwidth they use are quite real. They are now seeking to fix these two problems by:
1. Limiting who can connect and how
2. Probably charging a fee for third party clients
If you think this is a bad thing for MS to be doing then let me ask you this:
Do you allow just anyone to walk in to your home unannounced, without permission and do whatever they want? Why should MS (or the cable or telephone company) be any different? Private property is private property.
If the government thinks the property would be better used in the public interest, they can condemn the property and pay a fair and reasonable price for it as compensation.
A big part of the problem is that the "Linux Community" is not the cause of your frustrations. The Linux community is responsible only for the kernel code.
The people that need to be united are the myriad of open source developers that provide 95% of the software you use on your system. Much of that software is from GNU, a lot from more-or-less standalone projects like Apache, KDE, XFree86 and the like.
It's about like asking the people who build toasters, mops, automobiles and orange juice to all get together and find a way to work together and make all their products interact in a standard way. It just won't happen.
Unless you can control the kernel, libraries, APIs, GUI and core applications there's no hope of any "easy" system.
Perhaps that is the case with Windows, but if an OS is executed well with solid and flexible APIs and GUI widgets, then as a coder you shouldn't need to do ANY graphics work. Isn't that the whole IDEA of an operating system: to provide core services so that programmers don't have to continually re-invent the weel?
I've never written a GUI application for Windows, but I have written one for Mac OS X. My app had all the style you find in the OS because I was using the stock OS widgets, just drag and drop (or hand code the objects if you like). To aid this seamless transition from OS to application, Apple has a set of "Human Interface Guidelines" that detail where things should be, what they should say, and how they should behave.
If Window's programmers are having to code interface widgets by hand for each application they create, then that might explain a lot about the usibility and learning curves people so often complain about.
If you haven't ever done it, play with the Apple Developer Tools (visit a local Apple store if you have to). You can build an entire GUI for an application (including operating menus, cut/paste, window operation, etc) in just a few minutes without writing a single line of code. Later you just plug in the logic of the program and away you go.
The RAM in the beige G3s is (AFAIK) standard PC100. At least I purchase standard PC100 memory, install it and it works fine. I have two machines maxed out at 768MB of PC100.
Instead of a CPU upgrade card, consider reading the forums on xlr8yourmac. There's some simple jumper settings you can make to overclock the biege G3 system. I've got my stock 333 running at 375 and my stock 233 running at 275. That's 12% and 18% increase in processing speed respectively (for free). In both cases the bus speed is also faster so I get more data moving. I created a chart to help me when I overclock one of these machines (I've done 6 now). My tower has been overclocked for over two years without issue.
Video card upgrade is imperitive for OS X performance. Even the Radeon 7000 PCI that I picked (up when support for my VooDoo 5/5500 went away) is kick-ass compared to the stock video chip.
Get two cards, because a dual (or more) headed machine is a dream (I've got 2 21" monitors on mine). Each display driven by a separate card will give you better performance than driving both displays from the same video card.
Skip the IDE card. There are better uses for the PCI slot. Unless you are doing multi-stream video editing (not on a 266 G3 you aren't), or are running a RAID. The average drive on the market only sustains about 40MB/s, and that is just barely beyond the 33MB/s of the stock IDE chipset. The on-board controllers will support up to 120GB drives, and you can put in 3 of them while still using the CD-ROM. I personally have a SCSI(8G) and two IDE(40G & 120G) drives in my tower. I also have access to another 30 or so Gig over my network on various systems thoughout the house.
While on the subject of drives... rip out the stock CD-ROM drive and replace it with a CDRW. OS X will use a 3rd party drive without problems if you get a "popular" one. I use and IDE version of the Yamaha EZ2100. You'll need this because OS X refuses to recognize the built-in floppy drive and some sort of removable storage is vital (IMO). (BTW: take out the floppy and you can put in a 4th hard disk internally (mounting screws? What are those?)
Upgrading the Ethernet probably won't get you much. The CPU in a beige box will have a tough time doing much with the data at a very much higher bit rate. You'd never get close to 100Mb/s utilization with the thing. Unless you have a network file server on your LAN, the stock 10bT is more than enough for web surfing on anything less than a DS3.
Instead of the Ethernet install a Firewire/USB card. This will enable a whole world of upgrades to you: mice, keyboards, audio/video input/output, storage, printers, scanners, cameras. etc.
I'm planning on getting a G5 just as soon as my miserable employment/financial situation improves enough to allow it, but for now my Beige G3 does everything I ask of it on a daily basis all while running the setiathome program in the background. I'm just now starting to run in to games that don't play at all: The new UnReal engine kills the machine. I get like 1FPS on my setup.
In all, the Beige G3 tower is handling things remarkably well for a machine that was built in mid-1998
In short my advice would be to install: video, Firewire and perhaps more video. Max the ram and try overclocking
Okay, some more facts:
Presidents don't make or pass laws. Congress does. The President has the ability to PREVENT a law being passed by veto power, but even then Congress can override the veto and pass the bill in to law.
Despite what the media and public have spun the office in to, the Presidency is actually a rather weak and limited office. The fact is the most people like the idea of a dicatatorship or a monarchy, where only one person is in charge, so they impose this illusion on to the President. Even when he is an idiot (which is frequently the case).
Fact is, that Congress runs the country, they make the laws, they choose where the money comes from, they choose where the money goes, they choose who the President can appoint to certain positions.
Powers of the President according to the Constitution:
1.Commander in Chief
2.make Treaties
3.nominate Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court
4.fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate
5.time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union
That's it. Those are all the powers given the President in Article II.
There's nothing about making laws, declaring wars, or
If yo uread the text yourself you'll find that even those limited powers often rely on concurrence of Congress before being acted upon.