The youtube thing that Symantec put up really, really bothers me. Sure, they did a good job of blocking out the website they are going to, and trying to block other information from keeping script kiddies from accessing the same pages.
However, when you can watch them scroll through forums, and see usernames as unique as the ones that are present, all someone has to do is to throw the username into google, and immediately get the damn forums with the hacking toolkit. Quickly scrolling through that particular website, it seems several of the "toolkits" posted have been backdoored with some other virus or trojan, so even trying to build one means you get infected. Sure, anyone who tries to actually use that stuff is just going to wind up getting what they reserve, but even so, it bothers me.
I really, really wish companies would stop thinking they are "clever" and showing people how easy it is to access this crap in order to scare them into buying their magical products.
The author of this article acts as though this is something new. Apple has a LONG standing policy of not commenting on products before they are released, beyond what has been published on their web page. Even the information that IS posted is done so with a huge grain of salt saying "these features are subject to change without notice." The author of this article acts like Apple's refusal to answer these questions is something new. Its NOT. Its very, very rare that they will start talking about features before a product is shipping. Even once a product has shipped, its bloody impossible to get them to comment beyond the specs posted on their web pages.
The article's author acts like these are the biggest questions of all time, and he must get an answer or it just means the support isn't there and the world will end. Quite honestly guy, you're not that important. Their marketing and public relations teams aren't about to drop their long standing policy of not commenting on products before they ship. They don't want to piss of Steve Jobs and get fired from their job any more then you'd want to get fired from your job. Know why they haven't called you back? They NEVER call back when people ask these kinds of questions. If they answer one person's questions, 50 more people start calling and trying to get info as well. Get over yourself. Seriously. You're not that important.
Google, in light of these statements, I'd like to make a feature suggestion. I already have an account to log in, preferences to set on which articles I want to see and where they are displayed at for the page.
For the love of god, please, please give me the ability to filter out articles by news organization.
Nothing makes me madder then to click to nytimes.com, read half of a 2 page article, and then be required to register and sign up for an account to read the second half of my story. Half the time, the second page is nothing more then a paragraph that could have easily fit on the first page. It would please me to no end to be able to filter some of these assholes out myself. Sure, I can (and at this point, have) route nytimes.com to a bad IP in my hosts file so they won't load anyway. However, I'd be perfectly happy to simply have them removed from my results, along with several others. Anyone else requiring payment for their articles or "free registration" come to mind..
Please, make it happen! There have to be some Google employees that read Slashdot comments...
The US isn't worried about maximizing the return on the SOR. The whole point of the Strategic Oil Reserve is that there are some very critical components of our country that completely dependent on oil right now to work. The SOR is the US' contingency plan for when oil does run out. Access to the public will be cut off far, far quicker then anyone realizes. The bulk of the reserve will be used for running planes, tanks, and anything else considered to be "vital to the interests of the United States."
The general population, IE you and me, are NOT very high on that list for some strange reason.. A government "by the people, for the people" vanished long ago.
The reason Apple killed the clones is that the clones were killing Apple. Apple spent millions of dollars in R&D, and the clone makers were licensing the software from Apple for pennies on the dollar spent in R&D. Apple was going under, slowly but surly.
It wasn't until they went back to designing the software to sell only their hardware that they became viable again. This is precisely the reason they are going after Psystar. Apple doesn't make beans from selling software licenses. The *only* reason they have been developing OS X is to help sell hardware. THEIR hardware. They recoup the software development costs by selling the hardware. The margins on the hardware are far, far better then they are on software, and Apple knows this. From experience.
People wonder why they are going after Psystar tooth and nail? It's simple. They have to. Apple has no desire whatsoever of going back to the days where they spend millions of dollars developing the software to have some no-name, piece of shit company like Psystar steal their development time and slap it on a $300 PC Beige box and pay apple $5 in licensing fees, and then field the support calls from people who are mad that OS X also crashes when you run it on the same piece of shit hardware that makes windows crash all of the time.
I'm not saying an XML file is the same as an application.
What I am saying, and let me be very clear on this, is that Palm needs to write their own software to sync their media player, and not be too lazy or incompetent to write their own software. Let me say it again, because apparently I haven't made my point clear:
PALM IS EITHER TOO LAZY OR INCOMPETENT TO WRITE THEIR OWN (COMPLETELY ITUNES COMPATIBLE) SOFTWARE TO SYNC THEIR OWN DAMN MEDIA PLAYER LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY OUT THERE.
Apple was not required to write their own XML file that gets updated right along with their binary file database. They could have said screw you to their competitors, and actually locked people into iTunes using a binary file that no one else could read without reverse engineering Apple's software. Instead, they made an easy way for someone to pull all of the information out of iTunes, and sync it to their own device instead of using iTunes.
Instead of Palm doing the right thing, and not being a bunch of slimy, incompetent, lazy fucks, they instead are stealing Apple's code, and using it to pretend they are an iPod, violating the USB specs that Palm already agreed to obey.
Instead of writing their own syncing software (and gee, let me digress for a moment. Palm has a history of writing really, really, really crappy syncing software. Its no wonder they want to use iTunes), they need to piggy back on someone elses work, because they are either too incompetent or too lazy to write their own software. Every other media player out there was capable of doing it. Every other media player allows people to sync their iTunes content directly to their player.
Why isn't palm? Right. Because they can't be bothered too. Because they are idiots. Because they are incompetent. Because putting that much development and Q&A work into an application takes money they can't afford to spend right now. Because they are getting trounced by Apple who finally made an easy to use application that works for most people, and can't afford to compete with Apple on a level playing field.
So, instead of putting their own resources into Q&A and testing and support, they need to pull this kind of bullshit, and when it stops working, they blame Apple, because Apple "broke" syncing with something that was never designed to support palm's piece of junk hardware to begin with.
Reading the XML file doesn't support playlists? Really?
There sure is lots of information under the following headings in my XML file for some reason (brackets have been altered to get past the HTML tag filter):
Please be quiet if you don't know what you are talking about. There really is no excuse for palm being too lazy or incompetent to develop their own syncing software.
For starters, how about we repeal that idiotic, asinine "No child left behind" act, that does absolutely nothing of the sort. The only reason this passed is because of the name. Everyone thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea!".
Know what this thing really did? It penalizes those schools with the lowest test scores. If your students can't make the grades, it means you lose some of your funding.
My ex girlfriend teaches at a school that serves the lowest income demographic in my area. She had recently graduated from college and this was the only teaching job she could get anything remotely in the local area, and she still had to beat lots of other applicants. Kids come into the school not knowing how to read basic words or do any arithmetic from families with parents that are spending more time selling drugs in the evenings then they are with their kids. The school, surprisingly enough, was already one of the lowest funded schools in the area, and had some of the lowest scores in the area before it passed.
When "No child left behind" passed, know what it did? It cut the schools funding even further, when they already didn't have enough money for books and other things. The school is so overcrowded that several classrooms are actually "temporary" buildings that have been present for years. The principal started yelling more at teachers about bringing test scores up and having less money to do it with, upsetting the faculty. They didn't have enough money for school supplies. My ex started having to buy (some) of her own paper to use for class projects and other things because funding was so short. Some of the few decent teachers the school had left decided on early retirement or other career changes because they became so fed up with it.
The net result, of course, is that the students scores have not improved, they are losing good faculty left and right because everyone is tired of the crap, and their funding isn't getting any better because neither are the scores. Nice, big, circular cluster-****. Last I had heard, morale was at an all time low and things aren't getting any better.
"No child left behind". Right. As one semi-famous teacher would put it, "Crack is bad, mmmmm'k?"
I just found out you are one of the companies that are using massive's massively annoying advertising technology to deliver ads in game. This is unacceptable, I'm not going to pay $100 for a game where I am going to constantly have advertisements thrown at me.
I've just cancelled my guitar hero 5 pre order (which was going to ship out tomorrow). Glad I found out about this now. Just how many in game ads does it take to equal that $100? I don't know myself, but i bet you do. And its probably not a trivial number.
Here's a news flash. WE DO NOT WANT THIS CRAP, AND WE ESPECIALLY DONT WANT TO PAY FOR IT.
Between the DRM, the fact that I will need to buy this game *3* times to fully enjoy it, and, oh yes, you're getting rid of one of the things that made Starcraft so much fun (LAN Play), there's no way in hell I'm going to support this game as it has been announced. Take the extra time, get your act in order, and convert all of these pissed off customers into paying customers and change these things that are infuriating so many people.
Depending on how poorly designed the ATM is, it may not know it is out of cash until some poor slob tries to withdraw $40 and it realizes it only had $20 left. It technically wasn't out of cash before (the last transaction 20 minutes ago for $40 may have gone through fine), but now it is out and knows it, and so now the warning is displayed.
When a company does nothing but to give lies, damn lies, and then more lies when they are queried on this kind of thing, stop trusting anything that they say. Comcast is about as transparent as a brick. I think most Slashdot users know better then to take in the swine that Comcast regularly spews out of their corporate mouths in the name of customer retention. I'm sorry, but some random person making a new Slashdot account and posting an "official" response doesn't do it for me.
Their LAWYERS went to CONGRESS and LIED. They went to their entire customer base AND LIED. And then changed their policies with nothing more then a "Who, us?" reaction. "Reasonable network management" MY ASS. Don't trust anything these idiots say.
With that being said, seeing how no one has been able to reproduce so far, I think they are in the clear.
I ran into this same thing with Command and Conquer: Generals. During single player missions, you get medals for different things. The "Ultimate honor" is a medal for completing every EA game against the maximum number of hard opponents. Even if you complete the objective, you never get the medal. EA still hasn't patched it to this day, even w/the expansion pack Zero: hour afaik. Cosmetic only but still annoying.
The problem here (and the reason why India wants this exception) is because they have a very limited domestic supply of uranium. By doing this, we're letting them buy as much uranium as they need for their domestic supply. It's great that we're restricting them to using the uranium for civilian use only, but it just means that they can divert 100% of domestic uranium production to weapons production.
And by the way, that "consenting to international oversight of nuclear facilities" that you so helpfully bolded only applies to facilities of their own choosing...
That's right. They can say "oh, we make our nuclear weapons over here, so you're not allowed to inspect that one" and there is NOTHING we can do about it. That increased inspection regime suddenly doesn't sound so important, does it?
This is a very, very terrible idea from a very, very terrible government. This waiver should have *never* been put in place, it just paves the way for other countries later on to request the same exemptions. Why do we have the NSG and the non-proliferation treaty at all any more if we're just going to stomp on it at our whim and leisure?
The cheapest route to go would be the DD-WRT firmware that other people have mentioned, although then you get into some issues that many people want to avoid.
Personally, I was very happy with the DGL-4300 router from D-Link. It will let you specify QoS settings, and it also lets you prioritize certain games and certain applications, and will also let you be computer specific.
I originally got the router because I was actually hogging my own bandwidth. Before the router, capping my bandwidth via an FTP download or torrent would lag everything else. Now, I prioritized my games and I can maintain a 60 ms ping in an online FPS game while capping out my download at several mbit per second. What really really impressed me was that D-Link has the ports and protocols preprogrammed in for a large variety of games and applications, including bittorent.
The same thing sounds like it can be done via the DD-WRT firmware, just possibly not quite as elegantly. D-Link also has a new 802.11n GameFuel router (the DGL-4300 I use is 802.11b/g only) but all of the prices I have found on the N router so far have been really, really ridiculously high.
The poster below is correct; Apple has several models of both computers:
13" 2.0 Ghz White Macbook 13" 2.2 Ghz White Macbook 13" 2.2 Ghz Black Macbook
15" 2.2 Ghz Macbook Pro 15" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro 17" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro
Each one has a separate marketing part number and get recorded separately during sales. The thing to keep in mind is that there are still probably a lot less models available then Dell or Acer or Hp machines, and so the numbers are still likely to be artificially inflated but not as much as the OP indicates.
Back in the days of DOS 5 and 6, freeing up this much memory really was a big deal. I was trying to run some BBS software at one point (I want to say Renegade, however its been a very, very long time). The program refused to run without something like over 500K of conventional memory available, maybe more, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do to get it available.
After lots of research, I found an advanced book that talked about a small 'bug' in MS-DOS' EMM386.EXE extended memory manager. EMM386 had a flag that let you include specific blocks of memory to include. For some reason, if you tacked on the A000 memory range, rather then adding this block into extended memory, it would tack it onto the end of conventional memory. Even better, any available sequential block after A000 could also be included, and it would get added as conventional memory as well as long as it was not in use.
This was hit or miss, as some systems part of the AXXX memory range was being used by the actual video card. However, IIRC more advanced video cards didn't touch this portion of memory any more. The result? Adding something like the following to config.sys:
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.SYS I=A000-AFFFF
Tacked on quite a bit of extra conventional memory. There was nothing like running the command to show memory usage (and its been too long, I don't even remember what this was at this point) and seeing >750K of conventional memory available and being used.
What happened in Japan was very different. The technicians were very poorly trained. Several of them did not have enough formal schooling, or even enough to know that the nuclear material suddenly "glowing" was a Very Bad Thing.
They were also mixing in the wrong tank, one specifically not designed for mixing radioactive elements. They were supposed to be using a special tank that was formed to prevent a critical mass from forming, but it was too awkward to use and they were under time constraints and were using a different container.
Unfortunately, this particular container was surrounded by a layer of water which bounced the neutrons back into the mixture and helped it go critical. All in all, a very, very stupid thing to do.
For anyone interested in reading more on this, there is a great timeline of what the public was told (and weren't told available here:
Briefly looking through the page, it looks like the solution went critical (there was an ongoing uncontrollable chain reaction) from Sep 30th, 1999 through the 31st and was eventually stopped early on Oct 1st. They had an ongoing chain reaction for well over 24 hours and you can see from the timeline how long it took for the public to be informed...
I would strongly urge people to look for other alternatives besides Kensington. I have used several revisions of their mice, and used to swear by their products. I recently purchased an ExpertMouse, and was using it for several months with no problems.
One day I was cleaning out my computer room, throwing away a bunch of old paperwork that wasn't being used, and I found the product manual for the mouse. I noticed a sticker on the back of the manual saying that the mouse cord contained products known to cause cancer (I believe it was lead), and to make sure to wash your hands after handling the mouse.
Up to this point, I had been carting the mouse to and from work every day because I liked it so much, and not washing my hands after handling it each time. Now, seriously, who in the hell uses lead in a mouse cord?!?!?!
I used to swear by this company, they had provided great service in the past, but I can't accept their current manufacturing processes.
This has got to be the biggest travesty of justice that I've ever seen in my life. "The punishment did not fit the crime." EXCUSE ME?! We have record labels trying to sue private individuals for $150,000+ in damages for 1 song on a $15 CD, and THIS is the punishment that didn't fit the crime? Obstruction of justice in a governmental probe and lying to investigators about a classified information leak is not worthy of prison time? What the hell?!?!?!
The only thing I have to say here is something that has already been said numerous times over the last few years.
Even if the service is being purchased from, say, EarthLink instead of AT&T, the initial connection is still going through AT&T's backbone. Now, it may branch off at some point relatively soon into EarthLink's backbone network, but the initial data is still going through part of AT&T's infrastructure.
Do you really believe that AT&T is going to bypass their FBI/NSA-mandated sniffing kit just because you're paying a different ISP for your connection? Remember, in this example EarthLink is still paying wholesale prices to AT&T for using their last mile hardware and other services. IMHO AT&T wouldn't have *any* problem with still redirecting a copy of your traffic to their NSA kit before passing it along to EarthLink's backbone.
And even if not, remember the Carnivore/EarthLink stink from a while back? EarthLink was eventually able to convince a judge that they didn't need to have "Carnivore / SBS-100" (or whatever the hell its named now) on their network because they already had the technology in place to do what the NSA/FBI needed to be done without their hardware that was screwing up their network. Once they had a court order they could provide all of the data the govt wanted using their own kit.
The problem is that if you've discovered a security hole; chances are someone else has as well. Just because a problem hasn't been reported to your company doesn't mean that it is unknown.
History shows that there are lots of black hats that will sit on security breaches/expploits/bugs/etc and exploit them for their own end rather then reporting them to a company. Breaches in security should be patched as soon as they are discovered. If 1 person found the bug/hole/exploit/whatever, that means another person can find it as well. There's nothing there about having to report it to a vendor once found by either person.
One thing a lot of people seemed to have missed is that the official John Lennon bus now has an Apple logo on the front side (and has for at least a few weeks if not more):
Slashdot Mirror
The youtube thing that Symantec put up really, really bothers me. Sure, they did a good job of blocking out the website they are going to, and trying to block other information from keeping script kiddies from accessing the same pages.
However, when you can watch them scroll through forums, and see usernames as unique as the ones that are present, all someone has to do is to throw the username into google, and immediately get the damn forums with the hacking toolkit. Quickly scrolling through that particular website, it seems several of the "toolkits" posted have been backdoored with some other virus or trojan, so even trying to build one means you get infected. Sure, anyone who tries to actually use that stuff is just going to wind up getting what they reserve, but even so, it bothers me.
I really, really wish companies would stop thinking they are "clever" and showing people how easy it is to access this crap in order to scare them into buying their magical products.
The author of this article acts as though this is something new. Apple has a LONG standing policy of not commenting on products before they are released, beyond what has been published on their web page. Even the information that IS posted is done so with a huge grain of salt saying "these features are subject to change without notice." The author of this article acts like Apple's refusal to answer these questions is something new. Its NOT. Its very, very rare that they will start talking about features before a product is shipping. Even once a product has shipped, its bloody impossible to get them to comment beyond the specs posted on their web pages.
The article's author acts like these are the biggest questions of all time, and he must get an answer or it just means the support isn't there and the world will end. Quite honestly guy, you're not that important. Their marketing and public relations teams aren't about to drop their long standing policy of not commenting on products before they ship. They don't want to piss of Steve Jobs and get fired from their job any more then you'd want to get fired from your job. Know why they haven't called you back? They NEVER call back when people ask these kinds of questions. If they answer one person's questions, 50 more people start calling and trying to get info as well. Get over yourself. Seriously. You're not that important.
Google, in light of these statements, I'd like to make a feature suggestion. I already have an account to log in, preferences to set on which articles I want to see and where they are displayed at for the page.
For the love of god, please, please give me the ability to filter out articles by news organization.
Nothing makes me madder then to click to nytimes.com, read half of a 2 page article, and then be required to register and sign up for an account to read the second half of my story. Half the time, the second page is nothing more then a paragraph that could have easily fit on the first page. It would please me to no end to be able to filter some of these assholes out myself. Sure, I can (and at this point, have) route nytimes.com to a bad IP in my hosts file so they won't load anyway. However, I'd be perfectly happy to simply have them removed from my results, along with several others. Anyone else requiring payment for their articles or "free registration" come to mind..
Please, make it happen! There have to be some Google employees that read Slashdot comments...
The US isn't worried about maximizing the return on the SOR. The whole point of the Strategic Oil Reserve is that there are some very critical components of our country that completely dependent on oil right now to work. The SOR is the US' contingency plan for when oil does run out. Access to the public will be cut off far, far quicker then anyone realizes. The bulk of the reserve will be used for running planes, tanks, and anything else considered to be "vital to the interests of the United States."
The general population, IE you and me, are NOT very high on that list for some strange reason.. A government "by the people, for the people" vanished long ago.
The reason Apple killed the clones is that the clones were killing Apple. Apple spent millions of dollars in R&D, and the clone makers were licensing the software from Apple for pennies on the dollar spent in R&D. Apple was going under, slowly but surly.
It wasn't until they went back to designing the software to sell only their hardware that they became viable again. This is precisely the reason they are going after Psystar. Apple doesn't make beans from selling software licenses. The *only* reason they have been developing OS X is to help sell hardware. THEIR hardware. They recoup the software development costs by selling the hardware. The margins on the hardware are far, far better then they are on software, and Apple knows this. From experience.
People wonder why they are going after Psystar tooth and nail? It's simple. They have to. Apple has no desire whatsoever of going back to the days where they spend millions of dollars developing the software to have some no-name, piece of shit company like Psystar steal their development time and slap it on a $300 PC Beige box and pay apple $5 in licensing fees, and then field the support calls from people who are mad that OS X also crashes when you run it on the same piece of shit hardware that makes windows crash all of the time.
Get it now?
I'm not saying an XML file is the same as an application.
What I am saying, and let me be very clear on this, is that Palm needs to write their own software to sync their media player, and not be too lazy or incompetent to write their own software. Let me say it again, because apparently I haven't made my point clear:
PALM IS EITHER TOO LAZY OR INCOMPETENT TO WRITE THEIR OWN (COMPLETELY ITUNES COMPATIBLE) SOFTWARE TO SYNC THEIR OWN DAMN MEDIA PLAYER LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY OUT THERE.
Apple was not required to write their own XML file that gets updated right along with their binary file database. They could have said screw you to their competitors, and actually locked people into iTunes using a binary file that no one else could read without reverse engineering Apple's software. Instead, they made an easy way for someone to pull all of the information out of iTunes, and sync it to their own device instead of using iTunes.
Instead of Palm doing the right thing, and not being a bunch of slimy, incompetent, lazy fucks, they instead are stealing Apple's code, and using it to pretend they are an iPod, violating the USB specs that Palm already agreed to obey.
Instead of writing their own syncing software (and gee, let me digress for a moment. Palm has a history of writing really, really, really crappy syncing software. Its no wonder they want to use iTunes), they need to piggy back on someone elses work, because they are either too incompetent or too lazy to write their own software. Every other media player out there was capable of doing it. Every other media player allows people to sync their iTunes content directly to their player.
Why isn't palm? Right. Because they can't be bothered too. Because they are idiots. Because they are incompetent. Because putting that much development and Q&A work into an application takes money they can't afford to spend right now. Because they are getting trounced by Apple who finally made an easy to use application that works for most people, and can't afford to compete with Apple on a level playing field.
So, instead of putting their own resources into Q&A and testing and support, they need to pull this kind of bullshit, and when it stops working, they blame Apple, because Apple "broke" syncing with something that was never designed to support palm's piece of junk hardware to begin with.
Kidding? You're the one that's got to be kidding.
Reading the XML file doesn't support playlists? Really?
There sure is lots of information under the following headings in my XML file for some reason (brackets have been altered to get past the HTML tag filter):
(key)Playlists(/key) ...
(array)
(dict)
(key)Name(/key)(string)Library(/string)
(key)Master(/key)(true/)
(key)Playlist ID(/key)(integer)8378(/integer)
(key)Playlist Persistent ID(/key)(string)F71331C9D57061AB(/string)
(key)Visible(/key)(false/)
(key)All Items(/key)(true/)
(key)Playlist Items(/key)
Please be quiet if you don't know what you are talking about. There really is no excuse for palm being too lazy or incompetent to develop their own syncing software.
For starters, how about we repeal that idiotic, asinine "No child left behind" act, that does absolutely nothing of the sort. The only reason this passed is because of the name. Everyone thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea!".
Know what this thing really did? It penalizes those schools with the lowest test scores. If your students can't make the grades, it means you lose some of your funding.
My ex girlfriend teaches at a school that serves the lowest income demographic in my area. She had recently graduated from college and this was the only teaching job she could get anything remotely in the local area, and she still had to beat lots of other applicants. Kids come into the school not knowing how to read basic words or do any arithmetic from families with parents that are spending more time selling drugs in the evenings then they are with their kids. The school, surprisingly enough, was already one of the lowest funded schools in the area, and had some of the lowest scores in the area before it passed.
When "No child left behind" passed, know what it did? It cut the schools funding even further, when they already didn't have enough money for books and other things. The school is so overcrowded that several classrooms are actually "temporary" buildings that have been present for years. The principal started yelling more at teachers about bringing test scores up and having less money to do it with, upsetting the faculty. They didn't have enough money for school supplies. My ex started having to buy (some) of her own paper to use for class projects and other things because funding was so short. Some of the few decent teachers the school had left decided on early retirement or other career changes because they became so fed up with it.
The net result, of course, is that the students scores have not improved, they are losing good faculty left and right because everyone is tired of the crap, and their funding isn't getting any better because neither are the scores. Nice, big, circular cluster-****. Last I had heard, morale was at an all time low and things aren't getting any better.
"No child left behind". Right. As one semi-famous teacher would put it, "Crack is bad, mmmmm'k?"
Dear Activision,
I just found out you are one of the companies that are using massive's massively annoying advertising technology to deliver ads in game. This is unacceptable, I'm not going to pay $100 for a game where I am going to constantly have advertisements thrown at me.
I've just cancelled my guitar hero 5 pre order (which was going to ship out tomorrow). Glad I found out about this now. Just how many in game ads does it take to equal that $100? I don't know myself, but i bet you do. And its probably not a trivial number.
Here's a news flash. WE DO NOT WANT THIS CRAP, AND WE ESPECIALLY DONT WANT TO PAY FOR IT.
Dear Blizzard,
Between the DRM, the fact that I will need to buy this game *3* times to fully enjoy it, and, oh yes, you're getting rid of one of the things that made Starcraft so much fun (LAN Play), there's no way in hell I'm going to support this game as it has been announced. Take the extra time, get your act in order, and convert all of these pissed off customers into paying customers and change these things that are infuriating so many people.
Thanks,
A potential customer (one of many).
Depending on how poorly designed the ATM is, it may not know it is out of cash until some poor slob tries to withdraw $40 and it realizes it only had $20 left. It technically wasn't out of cash before (the last transaction 20 minutes ago for $40 may have gone through fine), but now it is out and knows it, and so now the warning is displayed.
Simple answer: Don't.
When a company does nothing but to give lies, damn lies, and then more lies when they are queried on this kind of thing, stop trusting anything that they say. Comcast is about as transparent as a brick. I think most Slashdot users know better then to take in the swine that Comcast regularly spews out of their corporate mouths in the name of customer retention. I'm sorry, but some random person making a new Slashdot account and posting an "official" response doesn't do it for me.
Their LAWYERS went to CONGRESS and LIED. They went to their entire customer base AND LIED. And then changed their policies with nothing more then a "Who, us?" reaction. "Reasonable network management" MY ASS. Don't trust anything these idiots say.
With that being said, seeing how no one has been able to reproduce so far, I think they are in the clear.
This time.
I ran into this same thing with Command and Conquer: Generals. During single player missions, you get medals for different things. The "Ultimate honor" is a medal for completing every EA game against the maximum number of hard opponents. Even if you complete the objective, you never get the medal. EA still hasn't patched it to this day, even w/the expansion pack Zero: hour afaik. Cosmetic only but still annoying.
The problem here (and the reason why India wants this exception) is because they have a very limited domestic supply of uranium. By doing this, we're letting them buy as much uranium as they need for their domestic supply. It's great that we're restricting them to using the uranium for civilian use only, but it just means that they can divert 100% of domestic uranium production to weapons production.
And by the way, that "consenting to international oversight of nuclear facilities" that you so helpfully bolded only applies to facilities of their own choosing...
That's right. They can say "oh, we make our nuclear weapons over here, so you're not allowed to inspect that one" and there is NOTHING we can do about it. That increased inspection regime suddenly doesn't sound so important, does it?
This is a very, very terrible idea from a very, very terrible government. This waiver should have *never* been put in place, it just paves the way for other countries later on to request the same exemptions. Why do we have the NSG and the non-proliferation treaty at all any more if we're just going to stomp on it at our whim and leisure?
The cheapest route to go would be the DD-WRT firmware that other people have mentioned, although then you get into some issues that many people want to avoid.
Personally, I was very happy with the DGL-4300 router from D-Link. It will let you specify QoS settings, and it also lets you prioritize certain games and certain applications, and will also let you be computer specific.
I originally got the router because I was actually hogging my own bandwidth. Before the router, capping my bandwidth via an FTP download or torrent would lag everything else. Now, I prioritized my games and I can maintain a 60 ms ping in an online FPS game while capping out my download at several mbit per second. What really really impressed me was that D-Link has the ports and protocols preprogrammed in for a large variety of games and applications, including bittorent.
Screenshot of the interface
The same thing sounds like it can be done via the DD-WRT firmware, just possibly not quite as elegantly. D-Link also has a new 802.11n GameFuel router (the DGL-4300 I use is 802.11b/g only) but all of the prices I have found on the N router so far have been really, really ridiculously high.
The poster below is correct; Apple has several models of both computers:
13" 2.0 Ghz White Macbook
13" 2.2 Ghz White Macbook
13" 2.2 Ghz Black Macbook
15" 2.2 Ghz Macbook Pro
15" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro
17" 2.4 Ghz Macbook Pro
Each one has a separate marketing part number and get recorded separately during sales. The thing to keep in mind is that there are still probably a lot less models available then Dell or Acer or Hp machines, and so the numbers are still likely to be artificially inflated but not as much as the OP indicates.
Back in the days of DOS 5 and 6, freeing up this much memory really was a big deal. I was trying to run some BBS software at one point (I want to say Renegade, however its been a very, very long time). The program refused to run without something like over 500K of conventional memory available, maybe more, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do to get it available.
After lots of research, I found an advanced book that talked about a small 'bug' in MS-DOS' EMM386.EXE extended memory manager. EMM386 had a flag that let you include specific blocks of memory to include. For some reason, if you tacked on the A000 memory range, rather then adding this block into extended memory, it would tack it onto the end of conventional memory. Even better, any available sequential block after A000 could also be included, and it would get added as conventional memory as well as long as it was not in use.
This was hit or miss, as some systems part of the AXXX memory range was being used by the actual video card. However, IIRC more advanced video cards didn't touch this portion of memory any more. The result? Adding something like the following to config.sys:
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.SYS I=A000-AFFFF
Tacked on quite a bit of extra conventional memory. There was nothing like running the command to show memory usage (and its been too long, I don't even remember what this was at this point) and seeing >750K of conventional memory available and being used.
Ahh, memories...
What happened in Japan was very different. The technicians were very poorly trained. Several of them did not have enough formal schooling, or even enough to know that the nuclear material suddenly "glowing" was a Very Bad Thing.
l
They were also mixing in the wrong tank, one specifically not designed for mixing radioactive elements. They were supposed to be using a special tank that was formed to prevent a critical mass from forming, but it was too awkward to use and they were under time constraints and were using a different container.
Unfortunately, this particular container was surrounded by a layer of water which bounced the neutrons back into the mixture and helped it go critical. All in all, a very, very stupid thing to do.
For anyone interested in reading more on this, there is a great timeline of what the public was told (and weren't told available here:
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/tokai.htm
Briefly looking through the page, it looks like the solution went critical (there was an ongoing uncontrollable chain reaction) from Sep 30th, 1999 through the 31st and was eventually stopped early on Oct 1st. They had an ongoing chain reaction for well over 24 hours and you can see from the timeline how long it took for the public to be informed...
I would strongly urge people to look for other alternatives besides Kensington. I have used several revisions of their mice, and used to swear by their products. I recently purchased an ExpertMouse, and was using it for several months with no problems.
One day I was cleaning out my computer room, throwing away a bunch of old paperwork that wasn't being used, and I found the product manual for the mouse. I noticed a sticker on the back of the manual saying that the mouse cord contained products known to cause cancer (I believe it was lead), and to make sure to wash your hands after handling the mouse.
Up to this point, I had been carting the mouse to and from work every day because I liked it so much, and not washing my hands after handling it each time. Now, seriously, who in the hell uses lead in a mouse cord?!?!?!
I used to swear by this company, they had provided great service in the past, but I can't accept their current manufacturing processes.
This has got to be the biggest travesty of justice that I've ever seen in my life. "The punishment did not fit the crime." EXCUSE ME?! We have record labels trying to sue private individuals for $150,000+ in damages for 1 song on a $15 CD, and THIS is the punishment that didn't fit the crime? Obstruction of justice in a governmental probe and lying to investigators about a classified information leak is not worthy of prison time? What the hell?!?!?!
The only thing I have to say here is something that has already been said numerous times over the last few years.
IMPEACH BUSH
Even if the service is being purchased from, say, EarthLink instead of AT&T, the initial connection is still going through AT&T's backbone. Now, it may branch off at some point relatively soon into EarthLink's backbone network, but the initial data is still going through part of AT&T's infrastructure.
Do you really believe that AT&T is going to bypass their FBI/NSA-mandated sniffing kit just because you're paying a different ISP for your connection? Remember, in this example EarthLink is still paying wholesale prices to AT&T for using their last mile hardware and other services. IMHO AT&T wouldn't have *any* problem with still redirecting a copy of your traffic to their NSA kit before passing it along to EarthLink's backbone.
And even if not, remember the Carnivore/EarthLink stink from a while back? EarthLink was eventually able to convince a judge that they didn't need to have "Carnivore / SBS-100" (or whatever the hell its named now) on their network because they already had the technology in place to do what the NSA/FBI needed to be done without their hardware that was screwing up their network. Once they had a court order they could provide all of the data the govt wanted using their own kit.
The problem is that if you've discovered a security hole; chances are someone else has as well. Just because a problem hasn't been reported to your company doesn't mean that it is unknown.
History shows that there are lots of black hats that will sit on security breaches/expploits/bugs/etc and exploit them for their own end rather then reporting them to a company. Breaches in security should be patched as soon as they are discovered. If 1 person found the bug/hole/exploit/whatever, that means another person can find it as well. There's nothing there about having to report it to a vendor once found by either person.
And damn it feels good to be a gangster!
Watch out; like everything in Vista you'll probably need to confirm your choice 5 or 6 times in the process, too. For once that may be a good thing..
One thing a lot of people seemed to have missed is that the official John Lennon bus now has an Apple logo on the front side (and has for at least a few weeks if not more):
:)
http://www.jlsc.com/bus/
Image is about halfway down the page.
I wonder what exactly the terms of this settlement were?