Actually, another advancement has been made that some view better than DPBB boards. By flashing a card unlooper device with some new code, it can be turned into a card programmer that can bypass said area on the card.
I'm not advocating theft in any way, but I found this to be amazing, that rogue codewarriors had enough diligence to be able to figure a way around what everyone (Hughes included) thought was permanent.
If you ask me, the main goal of wiping out the H cards was because it simply became too easy to pirate the service - my estimate is at least 100,000+ people were pirating DirecTV this way. It is still impossible to use these cards as they were before, but they can now be used in emulation set-ups. Most people don't want to be bothered to do that though, and the population of people who will do that is a small enough number for Hughes to be able to call their H card strike a success, because at most there will be 5,000-10,000 people using said emulation setups.
This has actually been around for a while. Down south, specifically West Virginia, vehicles were required by law (referred to as The Governor's Law iirc) to have a computer installed that would cut acceleration if driven too fast. An uncle of mine had a truck where if he went 90 mph, all of a sudden the gas pedal would be useless until the speed dropped to about 65.
I may not be entirely correct, as I can't remember all the details, but this was a few years ago. Anyone that has heard of this besides me?
...I don't know that this'll still ever replace the real thing. No matter how good machine translation gets, it's still going to be off. I work for a company that does translation stuff, besides babelfish, we're one of the other 3 in the world with machine translation engines. By and large they're still incredibly inaccurate - in terms of documents they have great use because the individual can interpret the translation, but to carry on a conversation through this style translation can be very tricky, simply because so many things can be interpreted so many ways, which may not be noticed by the fluent speaker (imagine having a conversation about one topic but the translation ends up making it a different yet still valid conversation to the fluent person. what's the point? as far as each person knows you've had two separate conversations)
At least not as far as I know. I work for a language learning company and by and large there's not a huge market at all for language software, let alone under specific OS'. We've done primarily Win32 and Mac stuff, but I'd say the two biggest reasons are (1) by and large linux doesn't have a strong enough place in the "common household" (our biggest market) and (2) if under linux it would generally be understood that the company would make little money for the work, which just doesn't fly, simply because of the sheer size of the undertaking (you go ahead and master different discs of English speakers learning French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, Chinese, Russian. Making *one* distro would probably be more feasible, but a total of 13 separate discs for one product is a bit tougher) I guess the main thing would lead to cost, since every language tool we make (including machine translation) is made by us, we need to balance costs somehow, I'm assuming other companies are the same way.
Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World) realized this error - in the book The Lost World he corrected this as sort of an aside - not only would dinosaurs be forced to hold their heads horizontally due to blood flow, but also due to balance. The example given in the book was of a suspension bridge - in order for these dinosaurs to simply stand, they would have to have their long necks horizontal to balance out against their long and heavy tails.
From what I know, Verizon has one giant queue right now. The school I attend is waiting at spot 80,000 or so to get crappy T1's removed, and many ISPs (especially Adelphia cable) are stuck getting customer complaints while everyone waits for Verizon to fix fiber channels. It looks as though things might not be completely figured out until December or so.
I'm playing around with the source to BeAIM (AIM for BeOS, for those of you who didn't know) and FAIM is used throughout. FAIM (again for those who don't know) is interpretation libraries based on packets sent to the OSCAR server for AIM. Well FAIM in terms of the author hasn't been updated since roughly June 1999, and even in that specification, there is info on how to link up AOL and ICQ, apparently the OSCAR servers have had the ability for some time.
...US First gone homicidal! However, I really like the idea - robotics is a field that, AFAIK, is kind of pushed aside. Adding this entertainment element may push more interest into robotics - whether it be for things like prosthetic limbs, or all-out war. The field of robotics IMO is what the next technological push may be towards (ie Bioengineering, AI, and the like).
Funny, I don't remember saying I have lots of experience, and yes, I mean next school year. I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to this, I guess I'm just bored, because you've obviously run out of ideas since you're now attacking me, not my argument.
Actually, I've written quite a bit of code, I'm a CS major, sophomore in college. One thing I've learned is that you're supposed to write the best code you can first time around. What I meant by my post is that NVidia seems to constantly pull a new rabbit out of the hat with each driver release - like, "Hey, I didn't know we could do THAT with just a driver update!" It just strikes me as odd that people who've been using their Nvidia-based cards got "mediocre" performance out of them when they first came out, and it gets better with each driver update. Why wasn't it up to this magic performance level to begin with, and then have that base improved upon? Don't misinterpret my words - obviously driver updates are intended to improve functionality, but compare a GTS running original drivers to one using the aboslute latest 6.xx drivers, and notice the stunning performance differences. My understanding is that the gap should be at least a little smaller.
Maybe I'm wrong, but...
If quality is what counts (you said they make quality products) then why is there a new card every 6 months or less? Also, why new drivers nearly every week?
There are two ways this could be viewed:
1. They're keeping everything up-to-date, because they realize how impatient us computer ners are (hehe)
2. They're simply trying to always stay one step ahead by constantly barraging everyone with new products
It would seem to me that the wisest choice would be to release a solid card with solid drivers, rather than a card plagued with incompatibility issues and drivers that constantly improve performance on each release.
Just curious - What do you mean "3Dfx still doesn't do AGP"?
My only guess could be you're referring to the Voodoo5 5500 not operating faster than the standard 66 MHz for the AGP slot. This is because of how the Voodoo5 uses SLI on-board. I can't remember the details, but I know the reason it doesn't take advantage of 2x/4x is because AGP doesn't like multiple processors, at least in the way 3Dfx did it.
Just wanted to say, I've found when visiting non-english sites that FreeTranslation works better than the Fish. http://www.freetranslation.com for those interested.
...for being a good BS artist at times too. Granted this isn't always the best approach, but it can certainly help.
What I mean is this:
Within reason, make yourself appear to be very needed. Obviously you must use caution because if you go too far outside the "BS Boundaries" you will be spotted. While being casual and amiable, play down any little problems they may ask you about during the interview. Only do this if you are confident you are correct, of course. If you create an air of genius about yourself, those interviewing will probably think it too.
Or I could be entirely wrong...hehe...follow this advice at your own risk.
As many have already said, it looks like the RIAA has great controlling interest already. Buying from non-RIAA labels isn't going to do much to them.
What I would suggest instead is along the much-proposed lines of a purchase freeze. That is, they won't care to see revenues slightly rise on no-name labels, but they WILL care when their own revenues take a hit.
Unfortunately though, this still won't prove a whole lot. What I mean is even if everyone were to stop buying CDs, that wouldn't make the RIAA collectively go "Wow, we're making no money now, so let's give everything away for free!"
As has been said on/. before, those within this community are largely what the RIAA cares least about - sure a band like Incubus is great, with a gold album, but that doesn't even compare to the N*Sync, Britney Spears, etc pop culture that goes multi-platinum in the first week of release. That is who the RIAA cares about, and unfortunately those people are also the ones who care least about getting lowered prices or more freedom in the market.
The whole webbug thing seems similar to software cracking to me, in a way. Here's what I mean:
A program comes out, has a "Enter Serial to Register" function. Someone dupes it. Author learns of this, fixes it, releases new version. Sure enough, new version is defeated as well.
Now the Webbug side of it:
It was proposed to make browsers more defensive. But would that really solve anything? Just as the developer tried to make his software more defensive it was still defeated.
My point is this:
No matter what, some 'webbugging' is always going to find a way to track (or try and track) everyone and what they do.
This one falls into the "Questionable Legality" area, but here's what me and some friends did Junior year of High School: Played with Commander Keen Yes, that's right, although we did this in our offtime. We played the actual game (the first one) and then proceeded to try and understand how it worked. When all was said and done, we (a group of about 5) had a rudimentary level changer made, after tabulating what each hex value within the file might do. Most programmers will remember that the idea of alteration was what drew them in in the beginning - when you first saw Hello, World on the screen, you were sucked in by the sheer knowledge of being able to make the computer do *exactly* what you wanted it to. Granted, things grow much more for programmers from there, but for learning high school level students, a good place to begin is with something they already know, not just trying to fabricate something they don't care about.
I've been around Slashdot for a while now, and I've noticed something. First off, I'll agree with most everyone in saying this guy's article has little merit, but in my experience here's what I've seen with this community: Linux articles (esp. ones like this) are almost *instantly* trashed right off the bat, while any troll who has an article saying basically nothing more than "Micro$oft sux" is almost always praised. I don't mean to pick out MS in that example (and for the last time people, it is an S not a $) it just seems rather immature to me at times that opposition is instantly shot down like that. My 2 cents...
IANAL (as usual) but as far as I know, the law states that receiving airwaves is legal, but receiving encrypted airwaves then decrypting them isn't.
Actually, another advancement has been made that some view better than DPBB boards. By flashing a card unlooper device with some new code, it can be turned into a card programmer that can bypass said area on the card.
I'm not advocating theft in any way, but I found this to be amazing, that rogue codewarriors had enough diligence to be able to figure a way around what everyone (Hughes included) thought was permanent.
If you ask me, the main goal of wiping out the H cards was because it simply became too easy to pirate the service - my estimate is at least 100,000+ people were pirating DirecTV this way. It is still impossible to use these cards as they were before, but they can now be used in emulation set-ups. Most people don't want to be bothered to do that though, and the population of people who will do that is a small enough number for Hughes to be able to call their H card strike a success, because at most there will be 5,000-10,000 people using said emulation setups.
This has actually been around for a while. Down south, specifically West Virginia, vehicles were required by law (referred to as The Governor's Law iirc) to have a computer installed that would cut acceleration if driven too fast.
An uncle of mine had a truck where if he went 90 mph, all of a sudden the gas pedal would be useless until the speed dropped to about 65.
I may not be entirely correct, as I can't remember all the details, but this was a few years ago. Anyone that has heard of this besides me?
...I don't know that this'll still ever replace the real thing. No matter how good machine translation gets, it's still going to be off. I work for a company that does translation stuff, besides babelfish, we're one of the other 3 in the world with machine translation engines. By and large they're still incredibly inaccurate - in terms of documents they have great use because the individual can interpret the translation, but to carry on a conversation through this style translation can be very tricky, simply because so many things can be interpreted so many ways, which may not be noticed by the fluent speaker (imagine having a conversation about one topic but the translation ends up making it a different yet still valid conversation to the fluent person. what's the point? as far as each person knows you've had two separate conversations)
At least not as far as I know. I work for a language learning company and by and large there's not a huge market at all for language software, let alone under specific OS'. We've done primarily Win32 and Mac stuff, but I'd say the two biggest reasons are (1) by and large linux doesn't have a strong enough place in the "common household" (our biggest market) and (2) if under linux it would generally be understood that the company would make little money for the work, which just doesn't fly, simply because of the sheer size of the undertaking (you go ahead and master different discs of English speakers learning French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, Chinese, Russian. Making *one* distro would probably be more feasible, but a total of 13 separate discs for one product is a bit tougher) I guess the main thing would lead to cost, since every language tool we make (including machine translation) is made by us, we need to balance costs somehow, I'm assuming other companies are the same way.
Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World) realized this error - in the book The Lost World he corrected this as sort of an aside - not only would dinosaurs be forced to hold their heads horizontally due to blood flow, but also due to balance. The example given in the book was of a suspension bridge - in order for these dinosaurs to simply stand, they would have to have their long necks horizontal to balance out against their long and heavy tails.
From what I know, Verizon has one giant queue right now. The school I attend is waiting at spot 80,000 or so to get crappy T1's removed, and many ISPs (especially Adelphia cable) are stuck getting customer complaints while everyone waits for Verizon to fix fiber channels. It looks as though things might not be completely figured out until December or so.
I'm playing around with the source to BeAIM (AIM for BeOS, for those of you who didn't know) and FAIM is used throughout. FAIM (again for those who don't know) is interpretation libraries based on packets sent to the OSCAR server for AIM. Well FAIM in terms of the author hasn't been updated since roughly June 1999, and even in that specification, there is info on how to link up AOL and ICQ, apparently the OSCAR servers have had the ability for some time.
...US First gone homicidal! However, I really like the idea - robotics is a field that, AFAIK, is kind of pushed aside. Adding this entertainment element may push more interest into robotics - whether it be for things like prosthetic limbs, or all-out war. The field of robotics IMO is what the next technological push may be towards (ie Bioengineering, AI, and the like).
Funny, I don't remember saying I have lots of experience, and yes, I mean next school year. I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to this, I guess I'm just bored, because you've obviously run out of ideas since you're now attacking me, not my argument.
Actually, I've written quite a bit of code, I'm a CS major, sophomore in college. One thing I've learned is that you're supposed to write the best code you can first time around. What I meant by my post is that NVidia seems to constantly pull a new rabbit out of the hat with each driver release - like, "Hey, I didn't know we could do THAT with just a driver update!" It just strikes me as odd that people who've been using their Nvidia-based cards got "mediocre" performance out of them when they first came out, and it gets better with each driver update. Why wasn't it up to this magic performance level to begin with, and then have that base improved upon? Don't misinterpret my words - obviously driver updates are intended to improve functionality, but compare a GTS running original drivers to one using the aboslute latest 6.xx drivers, and notice the stunning performance differences. My understanding is that the gap should be at least a little smaller.
Maybe I'm wrong, but...
If quality is what counts (you said they make quality products) then why is there a new card every 6 months or less? Also, why new drivers nearly every week?
There are two ways this could be viewed:
1. They're keeping everything up-to-date, because they realize how impatient us computer ners are (hehe)
2. They're simply trying to always stay one step ahead by constantly barraging everyone with new products
It would seem to me that the wisest choice would be to release a solid card with solid drivers, rather than a card plagued with incompatibility issues and drivers that constantly improve performance on each release.
Just curious - What do you mean "3Dfx still doesn't do AGP"?
My only guess could be you're referring to the Voodoo5 5500 not operating faster than the standard 66 MHz for the AGP slot. This is because of how the Voodoo5 uses SLI on-board. I can't remember the details, but I know the reason it doesn't take advantage of 2x/4x is because AGP doesn't like multiple processors, at least in the way 3Dfx did it.
Just wanted to say, I've found when visiting non-english sites that FreeTranslation works better than the Fish. http://www.freetranslation.com for those interested.
...for being a good BS artist at times too. Granted this isn't always the best approach, but it can certainly help.
What I mean is this:
Within reason, make yourself appear to be very needed. Obviously you must use caution because if you go too far outside the "BS Boundaries" you will be spotted. While being casual and amiable, play down any little problems they may ask you about during the interview. Only do this if you are confident you are correct, of course. If you create an air of genius about yourself, those interviewing will probably think it too.
Or I could be entirely wrong...hehe...follow this advice at your own risk.
As many have already said, it looks like the RIAA has great controlling interest already. Buying from non-RIAA labels isn't going to do much to them.
/. before, those within this community are largely what the RIAA cares least about - sure a band like Incubus is great, with a gold album, but that doesn't even compare to the N*Sync, Britney Spears, etc pop culture that goes multi-platinum in the first week of release. That is who the RIAA cares about, and unfortunately those people are also the ones who care least about getting lowered prices or more freedom in the market.
What I would suggest instead is along the much-proposed lines of a purchase freeze. That is, they won't care to see revenues slightly rise on no-name labels, but they WILL care when their own revenues take a hit.
Unfortunately though, this still won't prove a whole lot. What I mean is even if everyone were to stop buying CDs, that wouldn't make the RIAA collectively go "Wow, we're making no money now, so let's give everything away for free!"
As has been said on
The whole webbug thing seems similar to software cracking to me, in a way.
Here's what I mean:
A program comes out, has a "Enter Serial to Register" function. Someone dupes it. Author learns of this, fixes it, releases new version. Sure enough, new version is defeated as well.
Now the Webbug side of it:
It was proposed to make browsers more defensive. But would that really solve anything? Just as the developer tried to make his software more defensive it was still defeated.
My point is this:
No matter what, some 'webbugging' is always going to find a way to track (or try and track) everyone and what they do.
This one falls into the "Questionable Legality" area, but here's what me and some friends did Junior year of High School: Played with Commander Keen Yes, that's right, although we did this in our offtime. We played the actual game (the first one) and then proceeded to try and understand how it worked. When all was said and done, we (a group of about 5) had a rudimentary level changer made, after tabulating what each hex value within the file might do. Most programmers will remember that the idea of alteration was what drew them in in the beginning - when you first saw Hello, World on the screen, you were sucked in by the sheer knowledge of being able to make the computer do *exactly* what you wanted it to. Granted, things grow much more for programmers from there, but for learning high school level students, a good place to begin is with something they already know, not just trying to fabricate something they don't care about.
I've been around Slashdot for a while now, and I've noticed something. First off, I'll agree with most everyone in saying this guy's article has little merit, but in my experience here's what I've seen with this community: Linux articles (esp. ones like this) are almost *instantly* trashed right off the bat, while any troll who has an article saying basically nothing more than "Micro$oft sux" is almost always praised. I don't mean to pick out MS in that example (and for the last time people, it is an S not a $) it just seems rather immature to me at times that opposition is instantly shot down like that. My 2 cents...