My guess is that they (Best Buy) cross referenced the name they read from my credit card to one of the bulk mail lists they purchased for marketing purposes. The letter was addressed to me 'or current resident' and inside was information about how my player with this new firmware update could download Netflix movies. The update CD itself was for my specific model (BD-P2550).
The other possibility is that they cross-referenced my in store purchase via the card number to a previous on-line purchase from their web store (which would have included a shipping address). In either case, the mag stripe of my card (in an otherwise anonymous transaction) was used to make the connection, and four months later a package with a firmware update arrives at my house.
One word: Keychain. Nothing says "Geek" like some RAM in your pocket with your keys. SIMMs already have wholes that most of those little steel ball chain keychains fit through, no modification required.
SIMM??? Real geeks would use a SIPP! Of course you would have to be careful picking up your keys. A pin under the fingernail is never pleasant.
When I went to high school I sat down and read the rules and guidelines book the district gives to the parents. No one was expected to read it, but I was bored and wanted to see how I could manipulate the system
The district specifically prohibits students from bring recording devices to campus. In fact a few students at another school (in another southern California district) brought a video camera into class to prove how awful the teachers were. They made a joint out of oregano and smoked in it the back and video taped it. They released the tape to the public just to show how they *could* have gotten away with smoking pot in class. The district had a similar rule and had the student's suspended for it. Mind you they were not suspended for smoking, but for bring and using a recording device.
Before the Slashdot effect kicks in and everyone starts screaming about back doors lets look at the facts. 1.2 million dollars will be pumped into the development of Linux. That's quite a few man-hours that will be contributed to an open source project to enhance its security and capabilities.
Now lets look at other times a joint commercial/NSA endeavor has taken place, DES. The standard was published in January 1977 and no major cryptographic break has been discovered yet save brute force (I hardly consider linear cryptanalysis a real threat).
Personally I am a little more worried about NAI's involvement than the NSA's .
Explain exactly what the hell having a 24-port switch has to do with multicasting
Absolutely nothing, and that's my point. What do 8 headless boxes have to do with multicasting? Nothing.
You didn't check the technical specifications on the equipment they are using. They have 8 Athlon machines plugged into a Intel 410T Ethernet switch. This switch does not provide anything beyond level 2 switching (based on MAC address). Their setup is identical to what you would find in a small office or computer lab, save 7 of the machines are headless.
Now lets look at this fellow's question:
I would
really like to use that system for testing multicasting applications.
However, I do not know what would be the best way to use the cluster for
multicasting purposes. Has anyone experimented with this before? What
might be the best multicasting application to use to be able to fully utilize
the power of the cluster?
His question is similar to asking "I have a waffle iron and I want to look into the effects of microwave energy on the human eye". The tools have nothing to do with the application. If he had been familiar with the subject area he would have known that. He might be able to use it for load testing, but I am sure others have more important uses for it (like distributed/parallel processing).
First I would not call 8 Athlon 650 machines a "High Performance Computing system", also if you check all the machines are plugged into a singe 24-port switch. Where does the multi-casting come into play? Your testbed was designed for distributed computing, not mult-casting. I have to assume you just started in your lab. Go talk to your professor and read up on the material before asking for Slashdot to help you out.
Who ever put this site together knew what they were doing. They made the 100kbs intro so cool you don't mind watching it over and over again as you try to get the %#@$@ quicktime movie to download. Too bad the 300kbs lacks this feature.
It's not just the raw datarate, but also how well you are connected. A good indicator would be how fast a download can take place from several key points on the Internet (CNET, Microsoft, eBay, etc)
Also don't neglect latency and reliability (how many hours of downtime per month average where downtime is the inability to talk to approximately half the Internet).
P.S. I get 640kbits/sec down and 272kbits/sec up on my Qwest DSL. Connectivity is excellent, often better than my T3 at work.
Has anyone else noticed the clever deployment of chemical and other non-conventional weapons under the guise of "non-lethal weaponry"? Any government that deploys these systems will have fewer inhibitions opposing aggressive action against another society. The rationalization "We are not killing or permanently maiming anyone so its okay" needs to stop now. How can the users of these systems ensure that there are no innocent people in the crowd being attacked? How can they be sure there are no children present? They can't, and since no one will be killed, the are unlikely to care.
I am not a pacifist. With a gun comes a responsibility. The person using the gun realizes that they are taking the life of the person they are attacking. The society that sends them into battle must realize this as well.
Non-lethal weaponry is not new, America has used it for decades for the punish slaves. Instead of whips, we have a "directed energy weapon". The point of these weapons is not to kill, just to make them wish they were dead.
The last thing America needs is more enemies. Take a moment to think about what you would do if someone from France came to your work and burned your skin until you fell on the floor in a fetal position. Would you retaliate? How would you do it? If we start torturing others, they will return to torture us through terrorism.
Ironically I am graduating from a school in Utah this April, and one of my larger considerations in choosing where to work is my social life. I have a lot of friends here, but I need a change of scenery (Utah has its own culture that can begin to wear on you, I am still waiting for people here to figure out what their turn signal is for)
My greatest fear is going to work somewhere and not finding good social opportunities. You know its fun hanging out with the guys, but there is more to life than LAN parties, albeit not much;^). Keep in mind the male/female ratio in the IT field is way out of balance, not that I would recommend office romances, but there is nothing worse than a pickle party. Besides women have their own unique way of keeping life interesting.
-
"Not that I would say women have no character, but that they have a new character every day." (I don't remember the author)
Dallas Semiconductor Corporation Announces Death of C.V. Prothro, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO(see link)
This happened a while ago, but some of the avid Dallas Semi fans on/. may not have heard yet (Dallas Semiconductors products are a popular among hardware hackers). Maxim will acquire Dallas Semi (based on their product line this looks like a good match). It will be interesting to see what direction they will move after the acquisition.
True, you would not need a full-blown GPS engine, but you would need a sizeable portion of one. For sake of argument, lets say you just wanted to identify which hemisphere you are in (this can be done by identifying which satellites signals can be detected, no phase comparison needed to identify the exact location).
You would need an antenna capable of receiving the signal, the necessary amplifiers, at least one CDMA correlator, and a microprocessor to drive the show. You would need to find at least one satellite and then download the satellites almanac (keep in mind GPS satellites are no geo-synchronous). From the almanac downloaded from the satellite, and the satellites PN number you could computer a rough idea (probably about 300 miles, I would have to look closer at the specs) of where you are.
What more would you need for a full-blown GPS? Just multiplex the use of the one correlator, and keep track of the relative locations in the PN code. That's mainly just software. So cost wise, there isn't much difference. Sorry.
GPS won't work? Why? Ever try using a GPS unit inside your house? If you have a metal roof you are SOL, and if you have ever tried using a cheap GPS, they are lucky to lock on even under a clear sky.
National broadcast signal? How hard would it be for me to either a) block the signal by clipping the antenna so it does not know where its at, or b) jam the signal so none of my nebigors equipment knows where its at. If the unit must know where its at so it can operate all my nebigors will complain when someone jams it, and if it will default to functional then a pair of wire cutters should do the trick.
As a former game developer I have my own views on the topic. The process of game creation falls on those who are willing and hopefully qualified. Yes artist draw, programmers program, and the sound guy makes sounds, but there is much more to a game than that. The creative process of designing a game can use the talents of any of the above, or even someone fully devoted to game design (a writer). On more than one occasion we would form unofficial design groups. Someone (often an artist) would come up with a new idea for a game and we would sit around and bounce ideas off each other. As a programmer I was able to offer input regarding what is possible, what is not, and what can be done but not on our budget;). Members of the group could contribute new ideas, or replacements for ideas that are not feasible.
On the issue of level design, anyone with the right mindset can do it providing they can master the tools needed. It is not uncommon to have a non-technical and non-artist do level design. I once had my kid brother do some work on one. We had non-critical object placement done by our secretary for another title. The important part is being able to create a realistic environment that is pleasing and that works. Once I had an artist develop 3-D models for a driving game, and she drew all the lines on the road about 3 feet long as they appear to a driver. If you get out and measure them they are actually 20+ feet long. This just proves the point you need the right mindset to create good levels, and artistic talent does not necessarily qualify you.
I would recommend getting a group together with everyone involved. The programmers to give technical advice, artists are typically very creative and they are great for sketches, and gamers (hopefully your artists and programmers are also hardcore gamers). Always remember who you are creating this game for, and don't forget, if you don't love it, they probably won't either.
It's not the technology, it's the human using it. Ever wonder why almost all paper is the same size (8.5x11, A4, legal 8.5x14)? It due to ergonomics. There are certain sizes we can work with easily, and those are the sizes that are either targeted or selected by market forces. Good example, the handheld computers. Palm devices have done wonderfully. Why? They can fit in a pocket and can be held in one hand and used in the other. The other handheld computers did poorly because they were too large to fit into a pocket, and they needed a surface to be used comfortably. (Well actually, I would like to meet someone who could comfortably type on those keyboard, but that's another story).
Back to the question: Why credit card sized? Simple. Its easy to hold either with the fingertips or in a fist, its easy to carry, it would fit in a pocket or a wallet, they are lite enough not to be noticeable. Most people could carry one or two of these to work with no effort. I would like to see you do that with a standard hard drive, or a zip disk, or even a floppy disk.
I was in a class where they were broadcasting the lecture to Hawaii over the Internet. Although it sounds like a snappy new application for the Internet, their efforts were misdirected.
Frequently there were equipment problems, network problems, and the latency was ridiculous. The lag and audio quality was so bad the students in Hawaii hardly ever asked questions. How would you like to come to class to see a message written on the board by the TA saying "Sorry, we can't get NetMeeting working today."
A better approach would be to send the audio portion using POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). If you figure how much each student pays in tuition and divide it by the number of lectures he or she attends, the price of the phone call is nothing. Even if you were paying a dollar a minute you still come out a head, keep in mind 30 or so students were attending remotely. One lecture missed due to technical issues means hundreds of dollars in wasted tuition.
2 years ago (February of 1999 to be exact) I purchased a Zip drive through Onsale.com. Onsale.com merged with Egghead.com, and then egghead had their site hacked. Egghead sent me an e-mail regarding the matter (which I ignored because I never have had any business directly with them) and they also told my bank. My bank promptly killed my credit card as a security measure (without telling me of course).
I discovered the problem when I tried to buy my textbooks using my card. Luckily my bank agreed to reactivate my account for 30 minutes to allow me to purchase my books and they are in the process of sending me a new card. Apparently they killed the ATM function of my card for good measure as well. To make matters worse my grandfather passed away yesterday and not having a credit card made it VERY difficult to get a plane ticket home (I ended up using my younger brothers card).
I would like to see a class action suit filed against egghead.com for the trouble they have caused the public. I made the purchase two years ago form another company. Why do they have my credit card number on file? What was that number doing on a machine accessible from the Internet. Egghead.com has a lot to answer for.
Now I have to ask, did they ever fix the bugs in TW2000? Can we still pull off the CargoTran Bug? (I loved that one) What about planet cloning? (dangerous but impressive). Me an my brother had a system going for exploiting the CT bug. (We found the nearest trading posts to the starbase, then I could clear them out, then my brother would log in and clear them out to reset the 'last bad guy to steal from us and get caught' field, then I would hit them again).
BTW The gambling game in the bar cheats. If he/she/it/whatever gets a zero card, its discarded and he/she/it/whatever will draw another card. So their odds of a zero is 1/100 but yours are 1/10.
Ok... about 1200 games, current bid at about $16,000 for the system, and note that the reserve is NOT YET MET. So each of these used games is selling for about $13.33 each. Thats pretty good money for games this old.
I have to admit, it is an impressive collection. Also if you figure you play each game for 2 hours, and play 8 hours a day, it would take you about a year to play them all. Impressive.
Of course its hard to put a price on fulfilling a childhood fantasy like this one.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is that they (Best Buy) cross referenced the name they read from my credit card to one of the bulk mail lists they purchased for marketing purposes. The letter was addressed to me 'or current resident' and inside was information about how my player with this new firmware update could download Netflix movies. The update CD itself was for my specific model (BD-P2550).
The other possibility is that they cross-referenced my in store purchase via the card number to a previous on-line purchase from their web store (which would have included a shipping address). In either case, the mag stripe of my card (in an otherwise anonymous transaction) was used to make the connection, and four months later a package with a firmware update arrives at my house.
Yes, it was Best Buy who shipped the update DVD, not Samsung. But still... an update service who ships updates to you based on your mag stripe. Scary.
Didn't Future Crew have a pixel based 3-D effect towards the end of the Unreal demo? Its was really cool for its time.
SIMM??? Real geeks would use a SIPP! Of course you would have to be careful picking up your keys. A pin under the fingernail is never pleasant.
The district specifically prohibits students from bring recording devices to campus. In fact a few students at another school (in another southern California district) brought a video camera into class to prove how awful the teachers were. They made a joint out of oregano and smoked in it the back and video taped it. They released the tape to the public just to show how they *could* have gotten away with smoking pot in class. The district had a similar rule and had the student's suspended for it. Mind you they were not suspended for smoking, but for bring and using a recording device.
If they run it like my school runs our IT department this is a scary proposition.
Now lets look at other times a joint commercial/NSA endeavor has taken place, DES. The standard was published in January 1977 and no major cryptographic break has been discovered yet save brute force (I hardly consider linear cryptanalysis a real threat).
Personally I am a little more worried about NAI's involvement than the NSA's .
Absolutely nothing, and that's my point. What do 8 headless boxes have to do with multicasting? Nothing.
You didn't check the technical specifications on the equipment they are using. They have 8 Athlon machines plugged into a Intel 410T Ethernet switch. This switch does not provide anything beyond level 2 switching (based on MAC address). Their setup is identical to what you would find in a small office or computer lab, save 7 of the machines are headless.
Now lets look at this fellow's question:
I would really like to use that system for testing multicasting applications. However, I do not know what would be the best way to use the cluster for multicasting purposes. Has anyone experimented with this before? What might be the best multicasting application to use to be able to fully utilize the power of the cluster?
His question is similar to asking "I have a waffle iron and I want to look into the effects of microwave energy on the human eye". The tools have nothing to do with the application. If he had been familiar with the subject area he would have known that. He might be able to use it for load testing, but I am sure others have more important uses for it (like distributed/parallel processing).
First I would not call 8 Athlon 650 machines a "High Performance Computing system", also if you check all the machines are plugged into a singe 24-port switch. Where does the multi-casting come into play? Your testbed was designed for distributed computing, not mult-casting. I have to assume you just started in your lab. Go talk to your professor and read up on the material before asking for Slashdot to help you out.
Who ever put this site together knew what they were doing. They made the 100kbs intro so cool you don't mind watching it over and over again as you try to get the %#@$@ quicktime movie to download. Too bad the 300kbs lacks this feature.
Also don't neglect latency and reliability (how many hours of downtime per month average where downtime is the inability to talk to approximately half the Internet).
P.S. I get 640kbits/sec down and 272kbits/sec up on my Qwest DSL. Connectivity is excellent, often better than my T3 at work.
I am not a pacifist. With a gun comes a responsibility. The person using the gun realizes that they are taking the life of the person they are attacking. The society that sends them into battle must realize this as well.
Non-lethal weaponry is not new, America has used it for decades for the punish slaves. Instead of whips, we have a "directed energy weapon". The point of these weapons is not to kill, just to make them wish they were dead.
The last thing America needs is more enemies. Take a moment to think about what you would do if someone from France came to your work and burned your skin until you fell on the floor in a fetal position. Would you retaliate? How would you do it? If we start torturing others, they will return to torture us through terrorism.
My greatest fear is going to work somewhere and not finding good social opportunities. You know its fun hanging out with the guys, but there is more to life than LAN parties, albeit not much ;^). Keep in mind the male/female ratio in the IT field is way out of balance, not that I would recommend office romances, but there is nothing worse than a pickle party. Besides women have their own unique way of keeping life interesting.
- "Not that I would say women have no character, but that they have a new character every day." (I don't remember the author)
At least this time it was not done twice in the same day.
This happened a while ago, but some of the avid Dallas Semi fans on /. may not have heard yet (Dallas Semiconductors products are a popular among hardware hackers). Maxim will acquire Dallas Semi (based on their product line this looks like a good match). It will be interesting to see what direction they will move after the acquisition.
You would need an antenna capable of receiving the signal, the necessary amplifiers, at least one CDMA correlator, and a microprocessor to drive the show. You would need to find at least one satellite and then download the satellites almanac (keep in mind GPS satellites are no geo-synchronous). From the almanac downloaded from the satellite, and the satellites PN number you could computer a rough idea (probably about 300 miles, I would have to look closer at the specs) of where you are.
What more would you need for a full-blown GPS? Just multiplex the use of the one correlator, and keep track of the relative locations in the PN code. That's mainly just software. So cost wise, there isn't much difference. Sorry.
National broadcast signal? How hard would it be for me to either a) block the signal by clipping the antenna so it does not know where its at, or b) jam the signal so none of my nebigors equipment knows where its at. If the unit must know where its at so it can operate all my nebigors will complain when someone jams it, and if it will default to functional then a pair of wire cutters should do the trick.
This scheme will never work.
If they can make a GPS engine cheap enough to throw into a VCR to enable this scheme I think I will buy one just for the engine ;)
On the issue of level design, anyone with the right mindset can do it providing they can master the tools needed. It is not uncommon to have a non-technical and non-artist do level design. I once had my kid brother do some work on one. We had non-critical object placement done by our secretary for another title. The important part is being able to create a realistic environment that is pleasing and that works. Once I had an artist develop 3-D models for a driving game, and she drew all the lines on the road about 3 feet long as they appear to a driver. If you get out and measure them they are actually 20+ feet long. This just proves the point you need the right mindset to create good levels, and artistic talent does not necessarily qualify you.
I would recommend getting a group together with everyone involved. The programmers to give technical advice, artists are typically very creative and they are great for sketches, and gamers (hopefully your artists and programmers are also hardcore gamers). Always remember who you are creating this game for, and don't forget, if you don't love it, they probably won't either.
Back to the question: Why credit card sized? Simple. Its easy to hold either with the fingertips or in a fist, its easy to carry, it would fit in a pocket or a wallet, they are lite enough not to be noticeable. Most people could carry one or two of these to work with no effort. I would like to see you do that with a standard hard drive, or a zip disk, or even a floppy disk.
Frequently there were equipment problems, network problems, and the latency was ridiculous. The lag and audio quality was so bad the students in Hawaii hardly ever asked questions. How would you like to come to class to see a message written on the board by the TA saying "Sorry, we can't get NetMeeting working today."
A better approach would be to send the audio portion using POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). If you figure how much each student pays in tuition and divide it by the number of lectures he or she attends, the price of the phone call is nothing. Even if you were paying a dollar a minute you still come out a head, keep in mind 30 or so students were attending remotely. One lecture missed due to technical issues means hundreds of dollars in wasted tuition.
2 years ago (February of 1999 to be exact) I purchased a Zip drive through Onsale.com. Onsale.com merged with Egghead.com, and then egghead had their site hacked. Egghead sent me an e-mail regarding the matter (which I ignored because I never have had any business directly with them) and they also told my bank. My bank promptly killed my credit card as a security measure (without telling me of course). I discovered the problem when I tried to buy my textbooks using my card. Luckily my bank agreed to reactivate my account for 30 minutes to allow me to purchase my books and they are in the process of sending me a new card. Apparently they killed the ATM function of my card for good measure as well. To make matters worse my grandfather passed away yesterday and not having a credit card made it VERY difficult to get a plane ticket home (I ended up using my younger brothers card). I would like to see a class action suit filed against egghead.com for the trouble they have caused the public. I made the purchase two years ago form another company. Why do they have my credit card number on file? What was that number doing on a machine accessible from the Internet. Egghead.com has a lot to answer for.
NASA has known the answer to this since the end of the cold war... FUNDING
BTW The gambling game in the bar cheats. If he/she/it/whatever gets a zero card, its discarded and he/she/it/whatever will draw another card. So their odds of a zero is 1/100 but yours are 1/10.
I have to admit, it is an impressive collection. Also if you figure you play each game for 2 hours, and play 8 hours a day, it would take you about a year to play them all. Impressive.
Of course its hard to put a price on fulfilling a childhood fantasy like this one.