Ok, they are still a little expensive (~$400) but I know you can get 1GB USB flash drives already. You can fit the whole knoppix CD on that. Even better, you can change it slightly so that the home directory gets stored on the flash drive.
Think of it, a bootable linux distro complete with data storage built in.
If you run the internet connection wizard, it often does turn on the firewall by default. Many people turn it off again, since it blocks the ability to share files on a home network.
Thankfully for me, I have a linux box act as my router/firewall.
Also, for those that can't keep a machine online long enough to patch it: Download the patch and burn it to CD on a protected system. Remove infected system from the network. Install patch. Plug back into network.
1) Robots will take all the jobs, most people will be out of work.
or
2) Robots will take over some jobs, and more jobs will be created to replace them.
Am I the only fool who might hope that in the future, when we have robots to do most menial tasks, we will free ourselves from capitalistic slavery and live in a society without money? Like in Star Trek, where currency has been eliminated but there are still numerous positions for people to apply their talents the way they like.
I would rather spend my time being creative, but these pesky bills force me to spend most of my time helping other people who don't know how to use computers.
IE6 is the last STANDALONE version. There will be future versions of IE, but only built into an OS (and not downloadable seperately).
I don't think IE6 will be the last "Standalone Version", If you can truly call anything as integrated into Windows as IE a standalone program. The exact information is that it is the last version that will support older (win9x) OSes. Newer versions will require some better version of windows, probably 2000 or better, but that is just a guess on my part.
In other words you are not charging a fair price. Well in terms of MS charging only 50US for an OS in contrast to the regular 299 USD is definitely price dumping.
You can't really compare two prices that are arbitrarily defined by one company to determine the 'fair market price'. Price dumping is selling something below cost. Determining the cost of software is difficult. You have a large amount for development, which is fixed. In most people's opinion, $99 for windows is inflated (OEM price), especially since much of a release of windows is based on existing code. If anything, $50 is simply a more reasonable market price.
Then again, most people believe that Office is a part of windows. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Office Pro is where Microsoft makes it's real money these days. That and Corporate licenses.
I don't know what it is like for other companies, but the store I work for is allowed to sell OEM copies of Windows with any piece of hardware. It must be sold with hardware, but the hardware can be anything, from a can of air, to a bag of screws. Microsoft doesn't care that much if random home users buy an OEM version. They'd rather make the $99 on that then have them pirate it. The $250+ price is an idiot tax. It's not like Microsoft isn't making enough money.
I work for a growing company called PC Club. We sell machines, and offer Redhat preinstalled on any of our machines. Many people who come in asking about a new computer just don't know what they'd do if they didn't have Windows. They complain about how high Microsoft's prices are, but they still shell out $99 for XP Home, and often more for Professional edition and/or office.
In the past three months I've sold exactly one machine with linux on it that I expected the user to keep and use linux. All the rest people reformat and install a cracked corporate edition on.
For linux to reach the non-technical public, it needs to be so easy to use that anyone can. Most people are baffled by a new version of windows, let alone a new operating system entirely.
I don't really see this as being a "one-time-pad" at all. You have a key that generates a pad, but the transfer of that key is just as vulnerable as any other encryption system.
Sounds like the passing of the key is hidden behind a proprietary protocol, that will only be safe for as long as the protocol remains secret. Once someone reverse engineers it. Encryption specialists learned back in WWII that the only way to have a good encryption system is to make an algorithim that is hard to break even after someone knows what the algorithim is. Secrecy never lasts forever.
Re: Here's the first thing I did when I downloaded
on
Nethack 3.4.0
·
· Score: 1
Thought I'd give the new riding features a try, here's what happened:
58 5 Elwin-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 1. Slipped while mounting a saddled Red. - [16]
Guess I'll need to practice that a bit first.
Those guys at google are smart
on
Google Juice
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
They know that what makes them the best search engine is that they are based directly on what is on the web itself, not what people paid them to say. So while this method will work for a while, they will come up a way to fix it. Many posters have already suggested some reasonable methods.
I have to say the strength of google is its fluidity. Remember when google told us microsoft was "more evil than satan himself"? Now it seems that CNN talking about microsoft has taken that title.
I can't believe someone hasn't said this yet, but come on, you could make a Beowuld cluster out of these! Ducks for cover.
Although since it has support for the PS2 controller, it might be worth using the thing to emulate all my favorite NES games... For the first time ever, all the Final Fantasy games on one console!
Have you ever looked at the way most magazines review games? They don't ever rate something very low, usually no lower than a 70% or so. This is because if they do, the company won't send them more games, and won't advertise in them. Which is why whenever I see a game review in a magazine, I subtract 70 and divide by 30 to find the real precentage.
The thing is, a virtual world is still that, virtual. Somebody, somewhere, has spent a lot of time and money to create, maintain, and serve it. Any virtual world run by a corporation will be like a small country run by that corporation. If you don't like the rules of that world, find another one. As the technology becomes more widespread, there will be hundreds to choose from. If you want more rights on your favorite virtual world, you have to appeal to its owners.
Now, at some point public worlds will be created, which will be run as a public service by the government. At that point the government will be able to grant all the virtual rights it wants.
Eventually it may be possible to make a virtual world that doesn't have a central server, and runs distributed (like SETI@home). Then it would be a cooperative virtual world, where every participant would have an equal say. But until then, what is done on a private network is entirely up to the people running the network.
>>Why can't I legally play an imported PS2 game (which I probably paid a goodly premium for) on a modded PS2? I've voided my warranty if I mod the PS2, Sony still gets their money from the original software sale, the reseller gets their money from the sale to me, and I get to try to decipher the hirigana and kanjii in a vain attempt to understand just what the heck it is I've bought. Seems like everyone gets what they want in this circumstance.
>Because under Section 17 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988 you specifically have no intrinsic right to make a transient copy even if that transient copy is necessary for the use of the product - that is, reading the contents of a CD into memory is unauthorised copying. It is assumed that you are implicitly granted permission from the copyright holder when you purchase the product, but as of yesterday's ruling this is assumed to only apply to the country where you bought it. As a result, you are legally permitted to import a game for personal use, but copying that game into your system's memory in order to play it is illegal unless the copyright holder specifically grants you permission to do so.
I know I'm not a lawyer, but how does a case in the UK set a precedent for US laws?
Since hear in the US at least, I remember connectix was not crushed by sony. That case has a lot more to do with the legality of mod chips in the US than this one does.
If.uk.co or.com *always* went to a page run by a non-profit group that simply listed vendors and possibly had competitive price checking scripts, those types of domains certainly would be of use.
.com is meant for businesses. Translation: if it has a.com address, it means it wants to make money off of you. Somehow.
.org is for organizations, and where non-profit places should be. Too bad everyone wants a.com, and only a few people (like freshmeat) bother with the.org
I don't know where you are living, but where I am at the only radio station that I can get in town that isn't owned by Clear Channel Radios is Public Broadcasting and the local college station. Really makes me want wireless ethernet in my car so I can play music from my collection at home...
"The idea is to let someone give a much more personal gift," says RichFX CEO Tal Kerret
You see, this way, people don't need to know anything about the other person. Just pick a random gift, and let them exchange it for whatever they want. Very personal indeed!
I don't think there are many programmers out there that didn't have to take a year of physics or so. The real problem is that the game publishers don't want to spend the development time on real physics (usually). When the people paying the programmers say 'spend a few weeks making the physics better' then we'll have good physics in games. It is much more a matter of desire (and unrealistic deadlines) than capabilities.
Twelve Arbiters
Eleven Science Vessels
Ten Ultralisks
Nine Battlecruisers
Eight Archons Burning
Seven Zerglings Swarming
Six Zealots Fighting
Five Newborn Queens!
Four Hydralisks
Three Marines
Two Terran Wraiths
And a brand new SCV!
The really sad thing is this, the most commonly pirated songs are the ones you hear played over and over again on the radio. Popularity has far more to do with exposure and familiarity than quality. Ever get a song stuck in your head after hearing it on the radio and then had to go find a copy of it? That's how they drive sales, its just now the cheapscates pirate. But it would be interesting to see how effectively they brainwash the masses.
Dependent on tools we don't understand? I thought we were at that stage a long time ago.
Different versions of
the same tool may work better than others, even though nobody quite understands why.
I've seen different copies of the same version of Microsoft Office work better on different machines.
But seriously folks, hasn't this plot been discussed in a ton of old science fiction novels or star trek episodes? That computers/robots/whatever will evolve beyond our control and kill/enslave us all? Hell, Terminator had that plot.
This is just another type of evolutionary programming, which people have been playing around with for years. I've seen some interesting things come out of evolving assembly programs (Tierra Project), but you can still take a look at the code generated and work it out. For large projects that may be a monumental task (like dissasmbling Windows), but it is theoretically possible. Even if it does things in strange ways that may be difficult to understand, it is still just a big array of logic gates.
Besides, evolving systems aren't very good at making general computing systems, but can be very handy at solving specific problems. You won't see these things replacing Intel chips, they'll be much more task specific. Actually I'd be surprised if they ever made it beyond academic curiosity, it's hard to be certain of reliability if it isn't well-engineered.
What happens when you turn your head 90 degrees so you can look next to yourself in a game. Sounds pretty limiting for gaming, unless you
have a nice 4 monitor setup.
I've tested this product before, it scales the motion so that you don't need to move your head very far. By the time you reach the edge of the screen you can turn around two or three times in counter-strike. Every once in a while you need to shift yourself back over, but not very often.
The alignment process can't be too comfortable if you have something attached to your head. You can't move around in your chair.
The dot is very light weight and once you've had it on for a few minutes its easy to forget about it. The alignment process takes a total of five seconds, and so if you shift far in your chair then you just trigger it to realign. That part of the driver was working very well when I last saw it.
I'd much rather have something that can watch my eyeballs, but then again, while I'm reading a webpage, my mouse would continually be hovering over the text I'm reading.
There are precise eye tracking devices available, in fact this company has one that they sell to disabled people. But that kind of device has a price tag around $2000. They designed the dot tracker to be much cheaper: $50-$100 was the price estimate I heard when I was testing for them. (Side note: with a really precise eye tracking system, you don't need a mouse cursor. You know where you are looking, right? That's
really cool to work with.) So while the dot tracker isn't the answer for total VR, it's pretty good and reasonably affordable.
The one place I think this device will be really handy is for console systems. The main reason I wouldn't ever want to play Quake/Half-Life/Any other 3D shooter on a PS2 or other system is the lack of a mouse. But I've played counter-strike using this for looking and a gravis game pad for movement and everything else, and that works very well.
Sites don't get high traffic volume from search engine hits. They get it for having content. A person might wander in once from a search engine, but unless there is something there worth reading, they won't come back and they won't tell their friends. Sometimes I find something new and interesting doing a search, but most of the sites I visit regularly (slashdot, pvponline, penny-arcade, sluggy, to name a few) are all sites I heard about directly from people I know. They all feature unique content that keeps me coming back to see what is new. And I recommend them to friends that I think would like them. Your site happens to have no original content, is mostly full of ads and links to show us how much we can spend at Amazon, and gave me no reason to ever come back or tell my friends about it. Fan sites can get a lot of attention, but only if the devoted fan spends some time puting useful or interesting information on the site, and spends time updating it regularly instead of trying to increase his hit count by complaining about it at other sites.
I keep seeing people saying stuff like "People want to watch movies on a TV, not cramped in front of a computer monitor." That's very true, but that is something that will change very quickly. First off, TV out on a computer is becoming more common, I have been using my computer as a DVD player for as long as I've been watching DVDs. I use a long extension cable to send the output downstairs to my actual TV, and this beautiful wireless keyboard to control it. Works just as well for any kind of video on computer.
Second, my friend and neighbor has a much bigger monitor than my TV, so often we prefer to watch things on his screen becuase not only is it bigger, but it's much better resolution (especially when we want to read subtitles on anime, which we often can't buy on DVD so we get it DIVX from friends).
So no, these setups aren't conventional, and may not be common yet, but for those of us poor college students where the choice is buy a good TV or a good computer, and I get so much more use out of a computer, I couldn't imagine wasting a bunch of money buying a stand alone DVD player and huge TV, when I could spend less money and upgrade my monitor instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Why bother waiting?
Ok, they are still a little expensive (~$400) but I know you can get 1GB USB flash drives already. You can fit the whole knoppix CD on that. Even better, you can change it slightly so that the home directory gets stored on the flash drive.
Think of it, a bootable linux distro complete with data storage built in.
If you run the internet connection wizard, it often does turn on the firewall by default. Many people turn it off again, since it blocks the ability to share files on a home network.
Thankfully for me, I have a linux box act as my router/firewall.
Also, for those that can't keep a machine online long enough to patch it: Download the patch and burn it to CD on a protected system. Remove infected system from the network. Install patch. Plug back into network.
Everyone is either saying:
1) Robots will take all the jobs, most people will be out of work.
or
2) Robots will take over some jobs, and more jobs will be created to replace them.
Am I the only fool who might hope that in the future, when we have robots to do most menial tasks, we will free ourselves from capitalistic slavery and live in a society without money? Like in Star Trek, where currency has been eliminated but there are still numerous positions for people to apply their talents the way they like.
I would rather spend my time being creative, but these pesky bills force me to spend most of my time helping other people who don't know how to use computers.
I don't think IE6 will be the last "Standalone Version", If you can truly call anything as integrated into Windows as IE a standalone program. The exact information is that it is the last version that will support older (win9x) OSes. Newer versions will require some better version of windows, probably 2000 or better, but that is just a guess on my part.
As it is, I like my cross-platform Opera anyway.
You can't really compare two prices that are arbitrarily defined by one company to determine the 'fair market price'. Price dumping is selling something below cost. Determining the cost of software is difficult. You have a large amount for development, which is fixed. In most people's opinion, $99 for windows is inflated (OEM price), especially since much of a release of windows is based on existing code. If anything, $50 is simply a more reasonable market price.
Then again, most people believe that Office is a part of windows. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Office Pro is where Microsoft makes it's real money these days. That and Corporate licenses.
I don't know what it is like for other companies, but the store I work for is allowed to sell OEM copies of Windows with any piece of hardware. It must be sold with hardware, but the hardware can be anything, from a can of air, to a bag of screws. Microsoft doesn't care that much if random home users buy an OEM version. They'd rather make the $99 on that then have them pirate it. The $250+ price is an idiot tax. It's not like Microsoft isn't making enough money.
In the past three months I've sold exactly one machine with linux on it that I expected the user to keep and use linux. All the rest people reformat and install a cracked corporate edition on.
For linux to reach the non-technical public, it needs to be so easy to use that anyone can. Most people are baffled by a new version of windows, let alone a new operating system entirely.
I don't really see this as being a "one-time-pad" at all. You have a key that generates a pad, but the transfer of that key is just as vulnerable as any other encryption system.
Sounds like the passing of the key is hidden behind a proprietary protocol, that will only be safe for as long as the protocol remains secret. Once someone reverse engineers it. Encryption specialists learned back in WWII that the only way to have a good encryption system is to make an algorithim that is hard to break even after someone knows what the algorithim is. Secrecy never lasts forever.
Thought I'd give the new riding features a try, here's what happened:
58 5 Elwin-Kni-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 1. Slipped while mounting a saddled Red. - [16]
Guess I'll need to practice that a bit first.
They know that what makes them the best search engine is that they are based directly on what is on the web itself, not what people paid them to say. So while this method will work for a while, they will come up a way to fix it. Many posters have already suggested some reasonable methods.
I have to say the strength of google is its fluidity. Remember when google told us microsoft was "more evil than satan himself"? Now it seems that CNN talking about microsoft has taken that title.
What exactly is the point of this?
I can't believe someone hasn't said this yet, but come on, you could make a Beowuld cluster out of these! Ducks for cover.
Although since it has support for the PS2 controller, it might be worth using the thing to emulate all my favorite NES games... For the first time ever, all the Final Fantasy games on one console!
I bought a Japanese PS/2 the moment they started selling
The Japanese PS2 Linux kit has been out for a very long time now, if you don't have a US PS2, the US Linux kit won't do you much good.
Have you ever looked at the way most magazines review games? They don't ever rate something very low, usually no lower than a 70% or so. This is because if they do, the company won't send them more games, and won't advertise in them. Which is why whenever I see a game review in a magazine, I subtract 70 and divide by 30 to find the real precentage.
The thing is, a virtual world is still that, virtual. Somebody, somewhere, has spent a lot of time and money to create, maintain, and serve it. Any virtual world run by a corporation will be like a small country run by that corporation. If you don't like the rules of that world, find another one. As the technology becomes more widespread, there will be hundreds to choose from. If you want more rights on your favorite virtual world, you have to appeal to its owners.
Now, at some point public worlds will be created, which will be run as a public service by the government. At that point the government will be able to grant all the virtual rights it wants.
Eventually it may be possible to make a virtual world that doesn't have a central server, and runs distributed (like SETI@home). Then it would be a cooperative virtual world, where every participant would have an equal say. But until then, what is done on a private network is entirely up to the people running the network.
>Because under Section 17 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988 you specifically have no intrinsic right to make a transient copy even if that transient copy is necessary for the use of the product - that is, reading the contents of a CD into memory is unauthorised copying. It is assumed that you are implicitly granted permission from the copyright holder when you purchase the product, but as of yesterday's ruling this is assumed to only apply to the country where you bought it. As a result, you are legally permitted to import a game for personal use, but copying that game into your system's memory in order to play it is illegal unless the copyright holder specifically grants you permission to do so.
I know I'm not a lawyer, but how does a case in the UK set a precedent for US laws?
Since hear in the US at least, I remember connectix was not crushed by sony. That case has a lot more to do with the legality of mod chips in the US than this one does.
If .uk.co or .com *always* went to a page run by a non-profit group that simply listed vendors and possibly had competitive price checking scripts, those types of domains certainly would be of use.
.com address, it means it wants to make money off of you. Somehow.
.com, and only a few people (like freshmeat) bother with the .org
.com is meant for businesses. Translation: if it has a
.org is for organizations, and where non-profit places should be. Too bad everyone wants a
Even in media you have a choice of radio...
I don't know where you are living, but where I am at the only radio station that I can get in town that isn't owned by Clear Channel Radios is Public Broadcasting and the local college station. Really makes me want wireless ethernet in my car so I can play music from my collection at home...
"The idea is to let someone give a much more personal gift," says RichFX CEO Tal Kerret
You see, this way, people don't need to know anything about the other person. Just pick a random gift, and let them exchange it for whatever they want. Very personal indeed!
Eleven Science Vessels
Ten Ultralisks
Nine Battlecruisers
Eight Archons Burning
Seven Zerglings Swarming
Six Zealots Fighting
Five Newborn Queens!
Four Hydralisks
Three Marines
Two Terran Wraiths
And a brand new SCV!
Get it here.
Different versions of the same tool may work better than others, even though nobody quite understands why.
I've seen different copies of the same version of Microsoft Office work better on different machines.
But seriously folks, hasn't this plot been discussed in a ton of old science fiction novels or star trek episodes? That computers/robots/whatever will evolve beyond our control and kill/enslave us all? Hell, Terminator had that plot.
This is just another type of evolutionary programming, which people have been playing around with for years. I've seen some interesting things come out of evolving assembly programs (Tierra Project), but you can still take a look at the code generated and work it out. For large projects that may be a monumental task (like dissasmbling Windows), but it is theoretically possible. Even if it does things in strange ways that may be difficult to understand, it is still just a big array of logic gates.
Besides, evolving systems aren't very good at making general computing systems, but can be very handy at solving specific problems. You won't see these things replacing Intel chips, they'll be much more task specific. Actually I'd be surprised if they ever made it beyond academic curiosity, it's hard to be certain of reliability if it isn't well-engineered.
I've tested this product before, it scales the motion so that you don't need to move your head very far. By the time you reach the edge of the screen you can turn around two or three times in counter-strike. Every once in a while you need to shift yourself back over, but not very often.
The alignment process can't be too comfortable if you have something attached to your head. You can't move around in your chair.
The dot is very light weight and once you've had it on for a few minutes its easy to forget about it. The alignment process takes a total of five seconds, and so if you shift far in your chair then you just trigger it to realign. That part of the driver was working very well when I last saw it.
I'd much rather have something that can watch my eyeballs, but then again, while I'm reading a webpage, my mouse would continually be hovering over the text I'm reading.
There are precise eye tracking devices available, in fact this company has one that they sell to disabled people. But that kind of device has a price tag around $2000. They designed the dot tracker to be much cheaper: $50-$100 was the price estimate I heard when I was testing for them. (Side note: with a really precise eye tracking system, you don't need a mouse cursor. You know where you are looking, right? That's really cool to work with.) So while the dot tracker isn't the answer for total VR, it's pretty good and reasonably affordable.
The one place I think this device will be really handy is for console systems. The main reason I wouldn't ever want to play Quake/Half-Life/Any other 3D shooter on a PS2 or other system is the lack of a mouse. But I've played counter-strike using this for looking and a gravis game pad for movement and everything else, and that works very well.
Second, my friend and neighbor has a much bigger monitor than my TV, so often we prefer to watch things on his screen becuase not only is it bigger, but it's much better resolution (especially when we want to read subtitles on anime, which we often can't buy on DVD so we get it DIVX from friends).
So no, these setups aren't conventional, and may not be common yet, but for those of us poor college students where the choice is buy a good TV or a good computer, and I get so much more use out of a computer, I couldn't imagine wasting a bunch of money buying a stand alone DVD player and huge TV, when I could spend less money and upgrade my monitor instead.