Possibly your ISP is blocking port 80 inbound, as a lot of broadband providers started doing when Code Red et al was rampant... the vast majority of the attempts I get are on port 80, I rarely am port-scanned (and I no longer log the activity anyway; the novelty wore off quickly).
Very true. I worked a temp job doing warranty repairs on Gatway PCs (and wouldn't recommend a Gateway to my worst enemy). Sadly, since the Gateway Country stores don't employ any computer literate people, over half of the systems we were to "repair" involved popping in the restore CD.
But at the time (a few months back), I'd say about 10% of them were Klez-related (in order to tell the user what was wrong, we had to do a diagnosis including virus scan as a first step).
As well, my dad has restored his PC a multitude of times in the 3 years he's had it. He of course thinks it's because Microsoft sucks, or "that new MSN upgrade broke my system", but in reality I think it's because he'll download anything and everything he can get his hands on (he just loves that Bonzi buddy thing... ugh)
My point simply being that most of them probably didn't even know they were infected/exploited (I'm sure most don't read the paperwork we sent back). These statistics come from where, exactly? How many joe-sixpack users, who have already been ridiculed by their geek friends, are going to admit in a survey that they were stupid enough to click on the attachment against everyone's advice?
I just have to wonder where the stats come from. If it's from Wired readers, I'd say it's skewed as their average reader-base is probably a bit more savvy than average.
Saying that unprotected windows machines go un-hacked is rediculous. Just look at your server logs (if you run a web server). How many automated hack attemps do you see? quite a few.
And since Code-Red, Nimda, etc use a semi-random IP selection routine, attempting to stay close to the current IP, home cable/DSL networks are the most affected. My DSL still logs around 80-100 attempts on port 80 per day (keeping in mind Nimda tries several variations per attempt).
Also, the majority affected aren't aware that they are even running a web server at all, much less that they're infected (and spreading infection). To this day, I can go to each IP in my logs, and see the IIS default page on the vast majority (indicating they aren't running IIS for a reason, and likely aren't aware that it's there).
Finally, I just want to say that just because not everyone has been exploited, should mean that we should look at the situation any lighter. The Code Red thing should have been a serious wake-up call to Microsoft. Same with iloveyou, melissa, et al. These things were highly public, and should have been viewed as a major fiasco. Maybe the scene has toned down in the last year or so, sure, but that doesn't mean we should just not worry about it. Hopefully not too many people will read the Wired article and become more lax in their practices...
Here is where I started. I'd never known the full story, and did some Googling that landed me there first.
I then modified my search to "Chernobyl Disaster" (with quotes) and found lots of information.
One site that explains quite a bit can be found here. If (like me) you don't know much about nuclear power, see his Nuclear FAQ linked at the top of that page.
I don't recall all of the other links I read; I followed a few from the Google results, and followed link after link from there. But the Stanford page is pretty informative IMO.
...from the last i heard, it could collapse at any time, sending radioactive material half way around the world.
The first part of the plan is to re-enforce the current structure (specifically the stack that could potentially collapse). From some reports I've read, it seems it's not nearly as unstable as was thought when the 10-year report was made (1996).
Anyone know why they are NOT building the new structor to keep radioactivity in?
I thought they were. They will be sliding the arc-shaped thing over top of the area in four chunks. One end will be sealed off, and the other (which meets Reactor #3) will be closed off somehow. I couldn't find specifics on how that will be done, or whether it will be completely sealed or what.
There's a river that flows nearby as well, and a wall was constructed underground about 30 meters deep to prevent (or reduce?) contamination. I also read that they don't want to do any digging near the site, to avoid uncovering any radioactive material; the "rails" (lack of better word) that the arc will slide on will be mostly above-ground.
Basically I got bored and did a ton of reading about the whole Chernobyl disaster. Interesting stuff...
The tearing I was refering to wasn't the usual partial frame stuff (so maybe I used the wrong term) it was the the inability of the display to update an entire frame if too many of the pixels had to change.
I wasn't even aware of this problem. Is this a power consumption issue (changing too many pixels would draw too much current in that instant)? Or an issue that is easily solved by adding a bit more memory/processing to the LCD?
My only LCD experience is my laptop, which has a crappy Trident chip in it. The chip is slow enough that its own problems would mask out any that the display itself caused.
In either case, I guess that would still be called tearing, or at least would have the same perceived effect. I guess it's entirely possible that the Plasma display has this issue (though for $10k I'd hope not)...
Any opions on Plasma vs. Single Chip DLP with Color Wheel?
My own theory (with nothing to back it up) is that language is required.
Honestly I don't think this has anything to do with it. Language only comes into play when you play back spoken (or read) memories. Actions or events are not remembered by a textual description -- you remember sights, sounds, smells, and other data. Sometimes you remember more details, sometimes less. For example, you may remember spoken words, or you may only remember hearing a soft voice (but not remember what was said).
Early memories are difficult because during that time your brain isn't fully developed. As seems to be established elsewhere in the comments, painful (physically) memories are more likely to stick, even at an early age, but likely this applies to any valuable learning experience.
My earliest memory is probably when I was 3 or 4, taking an empty toilet paper roll and putting it into the circular hole on a Domino sugar box, pretending that the assembly was a camera. I'm not sure why I remember that specifically.
Another interesting note: replaying that memory I can clearly see the word "Domino" on the box -- even though obviously at the time I couldn't read it, nor do I believe I actually stored the information (shapes of letters I have yet to learn, etc). Rather, memories become distorted later, as we tend to fill in missing gaps. I always remember remembering the memory that way (that's a mouth full), but I'm sure at some point it must've been just a "box with hole in front", later recognized for what I later knew it to be.
Deep stuff... but I think my example is similar to the language thing. Certainly you could have remembered some event, without necessarily remembering (or understanding) what may have been spoken at the time. If you (re)learn the language, it's possible that memories may pop up, but I would believe this to be the result of hearing a word/phraze that has a memory associated with it -- NOT the result of your brain suddenly understanding certain data that it has stored.
I wasn't so much refering to professional use; I simply meant for playing around with video editing. I know if I had that kind of money to blow on a TV monitor, I'd also have a pretty bad-ass PC, and the two would inevitably end up connected:)
Perhaps I wouldn't "edit" video on such a screen, but it'd be a great test screen for visual effects, etc, to get the full experience you can't get in a window...
LCDs are currently too damn slow and you get frame tearing (perhaps this has changed recently)
Plasma isn't LCD, and from what (little) I know about it, it's a very different technology. As a result, I believe Plasma displays are very fast, though I've not personally used them enough to say for sure.
As for tearing, I don't understand how LCD is any different in this regard. Tearing is a result of the display refreshing while you're changing/updating video memory; eg, you're changing it as it's reading it.
Perhaps you mean LCD television displays, where (unlike normal TVs) there is some video memory in use, etc... but either way, it's easily solved by syncing the video updates with the VBI (called "vsync")...
Now I've seen the third page. What's with this:...plasma displays are limited to displaying 16.7 million colours, so very subtle transitions tend to be more "stepped" in appearance under close inspection.
Mind you he mentioned playing a DVD -- in other words, an MPEG video. Try this on *any* television and see how colors are limited. This is akin to using an MP3 file to test high-end speakers. Remember, guys, DVD is highly compressed, and in a high-action scene you can even see typical MPEG artifacts.
Anyway, show me a plasma display that looks like it's "stepping" when showing compressed MPEG video, and I'll show you some KLH studio monitors that sound "swishy" with a 128k MP3:p
Seriously, that site is pretty poorly designed, it dosn't display right on an 800px screen.
The review is pretty bad too (well, the first two pages anyhow - lost interest waiting for the third page to load).
He describes the speakers as having "a tiny little 1-1/4" diameter woofer on the rear of the speakers which gives them a little bit of Bass" - which from the picture appears to be a port. I don't want to know what a 1.25 inch "woofer" would sound like:p
He also goes on for a full page about the speakers, mostly mentioning that an "audiophile" wouldn't use them. I know very few people who use the speakers in their television -- especially anyone with $10k to blow on the TV alone...
The article makes a lot of little technical errors, and complains about things like short speaker wires, mentions that "your first stop should be at the local electronics store to pick up a good set of shielded composite input cables if your DVD player supports this standard". Composite? I really do hope he meant Component...
Whats the point of a 42 inch plasma screen with such low resolution?
It's for television viewing. It is not really intended for use as a PC monitor, but would be really great for video editing applications IMO.
Why not just use a projector?
Have you seen a plasma display? Have you seen a projector? I'm guessing the answer to one of these is no... there's a serious difference. The Plasma displays are as accurate as an LCD (as far as pixel positioning) because, like LCD, the pixels are physically in place. At the same time, they have the brightness of a CRT.
Projection has much less accuracy; it's similar to CRT, except that it's much easier to be knocked out of alignment (and much harder to align). I know they've improved over the years, but I still don't like projection in any form...
The plasma displays aren't that new, I've seen these before; not the Samsung model, but Philips has had one for about a year now, and it runs about $7,000. I've seen them in stores (Circuit City specifically; drooled all over it in person), and the airport in Atlanta has several of them used for advertisements (Sony - so wasteful)... one store in our local mall has 7 of them in various places, playing MTV (what a waste of all those lovely expensive plasma pixels) along with several CRTs and a Bose sound system...
That is part of the problem with letting end user types filter spam...
This is why I like Bayesian filtering, as it's completely user-dependant. Meaning each user defines what he/she defines as "Junk".
I use Yahoo mail, and it's "Bulk Mail" filtering uses BrightMail. It blocks all mailings from RedHat -- ones I signed up for -- and yet lets mail from "notifications@mailsweeps.com" through.
Mozilla mail, OTOH (version 1.3a) with Bayesian filtering has been flawless. The first few days I tried it, it had a few false positives. After a week, no false positives but a couple missed SPAMs. Now (a month later) it seems to be about 100% accurate. Because it learns what *I* consider to be SPAM, and only I.
It's so simple it's pathetic. See the "Plan for Spam" link, it's a good read if you haven't read it. Now, hopefully the next Moz release will actually mark the Spam as "read", and move it to a "Junk" folder (now it only marks it as Junk -- it still plays the new mail notification, etc). I would trust it to move my SPAM to a Junk folder, where perhaps once a day I would verifiy that no false positives were found. After a while, I'd probably just trust it's judgement.
Key being that it's based on *you* -- it finds word patterns in what you consider to be SPAM, and bases it on noone else's judgement; it's completely personalized, and IMO the only solution (as far as client-side filtering goes anyway). For me, it's the solution I've been looking for. Now I just hope the Moz team completes the feature nicely (which I trust they will).
I happen to agree that the bandwidth eaten by spam is the ultimate problem...
For me personally, bandwidth isn't an issue. I'm on DSL, my servers are locked up tight and not contributing to the problem... for me, the problem is that 95% of the time my "New Mail" alert goes off, it's all SPAM. I don't care about the bandwidth issues; doesn't affect my home connection much, and doesn't affect my server's connection at all. It's my time.
My solution? Well, I haven't found a perfect solution, but (given that bandwidth isn't my main concert) Mozilla's bayessian (sp?) filtering is working well so far. Hopefully the next major Moz release will handle this better.
Currently (1.3a) it marks SPAM as "Junk" mail automatically. After only a few days it easily recognized SPAM. After a week there have been NO false positives. After 2 weeks it seems to be dead-on accurate.
Hopefully the next Moz release will let me do more with it (such as NOT playing my "New Mail" sound, marking them read, moving them to a Junk folder, etc). So far 1.3a is showing serious promise, at least in the filtering part. It uses Bayessian filtering (based on the Plan for Spam article linked above -- a good read if you haven't seen it), and is quite good so far. I would personally be happy if, using the Mozilla current implementation, I could never see mail Mozilla sees as "Junk" mail.
My point was simply that for me, bandwidth isn't the problem -- and I run several (not open-relay) mail servers -- rather, the problem is the time I spend manually filtering SPAM from real mail (running several domains). Bayessian filtering is perfect, as it's based on the individual user. It's what got me to try Mozilla mail again in the first place (first time since M12), and already, just having it mark them as "Junk", it's saved me a ton of time.
I picked up an AIW 7500 not long ago myself, and was very much disappointed with it's 3D performance. It wasn't much better than the 32 meg Voodoo3 it replaced (4-year old PCI card). I wound up putting the ATI in my Linux media box (MPlayer works nicely with the TV/S-Video outputs).
I believe the problem is that the 7500 doesn't use the Radeon chipset, rather it's a Rage 128 that's been relabeled (that's my understanding -- I could easily be mistaken).
So I finally broke down and got the ti4600, and am extremely happy with it (I run two monitors, so replacing two Voodoo3's with one new card was pretty neat). Of course now my CPU seems just that much slower, not to mention I now have almost as much video RAM as system RAM...
WashPost doesn't even ask for your email addy. Just basic demo info. I'm more upset about that ad bar at the bottom of the page I keep having to close. That is a PITA.
I'm not sure I understand. I followed the link in the article, and it's not asking me for any info (nor do I see any ad bar that is closable)...
I feel so left out... but seriously, perhaps it's an IE thing (or Flash or some other junk I have disabled)? I'm using Mozilla 1.3a, JavaScript and Cookies enabled...
But then we've been listening to massively degraded music for years!
The thing is audio that has been processed (dynamics processing, equalization, etc) still contains the properties of "normal" sound. Same with low-quality speakers, tape recordings, etc. There are still many things that aren't perceived conciously by the human ear/brain.
Audio compression techniques strip out everything that's not conciously perceived, so all that is left is what we as humans perceive as "sound". It's giving us only the information we need, and none of the extra.
The article proposes that, while we don't perceive the information that is being stripped out, the brain may need that information in some way. Calibration is certainly a possibility.
We're very good at working around distortions of sound to pick out useful information.
This is the very part of the brain that relies on having such distortions present in order to keep itself calibrated. What we're talking about here is systematically stripping out all extra noise and information, keeping only the minimum necessary for the brain to perceive the sounds.
So basically, we're subjecting ourselves to "perfect" sound (eg, sound that doesn't need the brain to do such filtering, etc). After a lot of this, I could easily see the brain slowly losing its ability to do said filtering. You actually come to rely on the CODEC doing it for you. Is this proven? No, but that's the point of the paper: to bring the idea up, since noone has thought of it before that I'm aware of.
If I listen to a cheap CD player (older one, with lots of clock-jitter) with headphones for a while, everything sounds odd for a bit afterwords. I couldn't perceive anything wrong with the CD player, but I know that higher-quality ones didn't have that effect on me (really none made in the last decade do).
I do listen to MP3 music quite a lot, and the only effect it has on me is I can spot such encoding easily (eg, on the radio). I've come to easily be able to "tune in" to the sound of MP3 et al.
So anyway, I think the article is good. Others mentioned the poor grammer -- but the guy is (likely) not a native English speaker. Ignore the "rules", and read the actual message, and you realize that he sounds like a reasonably intelligent person. And it's not a thesis, just an idea being thrown out there -- one that I hadn't heard of or thought about myself.
Give it a good read, ignoring the grammar, and really understand what is being said -- mostly that it's not about hearing "degraded audio", but hearing "unnatural" audio on a consistant basis, audio which contains only what we perceive as sound, and none of the overhead that may, possibly, be necessary for our hearing to stay in check.
Call this a technicality if you want, but I notice there is NO mention there of "read the license," just "Agree to the license"
Call this a technicality, but "Agree to the license" (your quote) implies that one understands, and thus has read (or otherwise interpreted) the license. But that's not what the instructions say -- they say "Click 'I Agree'", which does in fact prove your point. I'm just not sure how the quote morphed into something that counters the very point you were trying to make.
Just because there's a EULA doesn't mean it's not an invasion of privacy, even if it's legally OK.
Possibly, but that's not what I was pointing out. The point of my post stands: whoever submitted it didn't do much research, or distorted the facts to get a rise out of the Slashdot crowd. I quote:
There is no mention of a opt in/opt out agreement when the cd is inserted on the website...
Yet visiting the link in the article, and clicking on "New to Bandlink" gives the information I originally quoted. It's also mentioned in the FAQs (the same FAQ that his "favorite quote" comes from), and the Support area.
In my opinion, having to click "I Agree" is more than enough "opt in" here. From here, the fact that usage data will be compiled for statistical and marketing reasons is pretty much obvious, even if you don't read the EULA. It's common practice, and has been for quite some time (before the Internet). Anyone actually concerned about privacy and data usage will have read the EULA. Joe Sixpack won't, and doesn't care. Really, nothing new here.
Hard to imagine this person would have received a "personal demonstration" that didn't include the above procedure, or at least mention it. Having just read more of the web site, maybe the poster viewed the Flash demo (I have not), and decided to call it a "personal demonstration"? I wonder...
Besides the "dumb" marketing guys probably have a second brand-name for the product that is focused on the non-voyeur, legitimate side of the market.
I mentioned in another post that the X10 ads *did* have some effect on me. They did make me curious about the wireless cameras - I could think of many uses for one of them.
While I would never purchase anything from X10, if they had a similar product under another company name, it's possible I'd purchase one, thinking to myself X10's ads did nothing but drive me to their competitors, not realizing it's the same company...
I guess I'll do some research before I buy something like that. Though realistically I don't need a wireless camera. I think those ads had more effect on me than I had realized...
Did you write them so they know that you're not buying their product and why?
I didn't, and I won't. It's not worth my time.
If a company has enough people telling them that their internet marketing firm is causing them to lose sales, they'll find a different marketing firm.
But the point is, I don't think they are losing sales. They don't care about the few of us who conciously choose to avoid their products, but rather the many who probably are purchasing these cameras.
Sure it pisses people off (what doesn't?) but in the end the bottom line is all that matters to these companies.
Perhaps a less obnoxious and obtrusive one that might just go buy a google ad and then focus on making the company web page informative and useful.
Hm. Everyone I know who uses the Internet knows who X10 is (they make those neat little cameras!). Most of them (non-geeks) have never heard of Google. Obviously the path they chose got their name in front of a lot of people (possibly *all* of the people who use the 'net)...
Sad thing is, most of the non-geeks, while they do know who X10 is and what those little cameras are, they don't usually remember where they heard about them. IOW they don't remember the annoying popup ads at all, and the fact that it interrupted their web surfing countless times will have no bearing on any purchasing decision.
So the popup ads -- while very annoying to you and I -- were highly effective.
Interesting you posted that sig in a thread about advertising right before Christmas.
That's a good point. I've followed many.sig links from here over the years, but have never clicked on a banner or other flashy advertisement. There's something about text ads I tend to trust more.
Probably because when using text, you have to get my attention without flashy colors. Instead, you have to tell me why I should click the link, usually by telling me what you are advertising.
And animated GIFs with text don't work; usually when I first look at one, it's in the middle of the cycle, and thus I'd have to wait for it to loop back around to even understand the text. But again a text link forces you to really think about the text that will appear, and IMO makes for a much better advertisement.
Heck, Google is probably the only place I've ever clicked on ads -- "Sponsored Links". Not because I was tricked, but because they seemed relevant to what I was looking for.
I will never use Orbitz to buy plane tickets, because they put popup ads pretty much *everywhere* and their TV ads are *really fscking annoying*.
Just like I won't ever purchase an X10 product. Before Mozilla supported popup blocking, I was very sick of their ads. It seemed everywhere I went, I was informed about this stupid wireless camera.
Of course I really would like to get one, but it will be from a different company if I ever do. So in a way, the ad had some affect on me (I didn't care about wireless cameras prior to that), but I will conciously avoid X10. Let's just hope they don't change their name...
That is unfortunate. Mozilla is one of the best open source examples available in my opinion. It's something anyone can identify with, and (if installed and configured properly) can run Java, Flash, and everything the typical MSIE user needs (or thinks they need).
OpenOffice is another great example, and I'm glad to see it on the list. But Mozilla is usually the first real-world example I give people when discussing open source. It's really easy to name reasons Mozilla is better than IE, and they are things the user understands (disabling popups for example). I can't think of many reasons to support OpenOffice aside from open standards, which the typical Win user won't care about...
Though the price difference between MS Office and OpenOffice is enough of a clincher in many cases:)
As much as I love Linux, I have to admit, I ran FreeBSD on a desktop for a while and it impressed the hell out of me. X11/Gnome and Mozilla ran at least 3x faster on the same machine, and under the heaviest loads it was still always responsive. It was the only system I ever trusted to burn a CD while I continued to do other things (under Windows and Linux, I tend to leave the box alone during burning).
Of course back in the 2.2 days, when 2.4 was on its way, 2.4 was touted as being better able to recover from heavy loads. We ran several Linux web servers, and a bad CGI (or a good/.ing) was too easily able to cause a downward spiral, ending in an inevitable hard reset.
2.4 improved that significantly, and even my home boxes noticed the difference. Another poster mentioned a new scheduler finally going into 2.6, so perhaps this will improve even further. Whether it will be as solid as FreeBSD or not, any improvement will still be great...
I'll take a 6.5 KB pure digital download over a 6.5 KB analog modem download any day.
Actualy the only "pure digital" download would be ISDN or a T1, etc. Typical "broadband" does go through a D/A and A/D conversion.
DSL is very similar to dialup (modulated tones representing data), just at much higher frequencies, around 1 MHz. Cable modems convert to an analog signal that's sent over TV subcarriers. Ethernet is similar to DSL, only again with even higher frequencies and two pairs of wires (for full duplex)...
It's not the A/D conversion itself that causes the serious latency. It's the fact that the bandwidth (frequency bandwidth here) is very low with POTS. The signal goes through yet another A/D and D/A conversion in most cases, via the phone system, and is limited to under 4 kHz with 8 bits resolution.
But I agree with your point anyway: I'd much rather get a 6.5KB/s download on my DSL than dialup. I was stuck on dialup again for a day when the DSL was out, and I do NOT miss it (just try surfing web pages while that 6.5K download is going).
Slashdot Mirror
Possibly your ISP is blocking port 80 inbound, as a lot of broadband providers started doing when Code Red et al was rampant... the vast majority of the attempts I get are on port 80, I rarely am port-scanned (and I no longer log the activity anyway; the novelty wore off quickly).
because they don't notice these viruses.
Very true. I worked a temp job doing warranty repairs on Gatway PCs (and wouldn't recommend a Gateway to my worst enemy). Sadly, since the Gateway Country stores don't employ any computer literate people, over half of the systems we were to "repair" involved popping in the restore CD.
But at the time (a few months back), I'd say about 10% of them were Klez-related (in order to tell the user what was wrong, we had to do a diagnosis including virus scan as a first step).
As well, my dad has restored his PC a multitude of times in the 3 years he's had it. He of course thinks it's because Microsoft sucks, or "that new MSN upgrade broke my system", but in reality I think it's because he'll download anything and everything he can get his hands on (he just loves that Bonzi buddy thing... ugh)
My point simply being that most of them probably didn't even know they were infected/exploited (I'm sure most don't read the paperwork we sent back). These statistics come from where, exactly? How many joe-sixpack users, who have already been ridiculed by their geek friends, are going to admit in a survey that they were stupid enough to click on the attachment against everyone's advice?
I just have to wonder where the stats come from. If it's from Wired readers, I'd say it's skewed as their average reader-base is probably a bit more savvy than average.
Saying that unprotected windows machines go un-hacked is rediculous. Just look at your server logs (if you run a web server). How many automated hack attemps do you see? quite a few.
And since Code-Red, Nimda, etc use a semi-random IP selection routine, attempting to stay close to the current IP, home cable/DSL networks are the most affected. My DSL still logs around 80-100 attempts on port 80 per day (keeping in mind Nimda tries several variations per attempt).
Also, the majority affected aren't aware that they are even running a web server at all, much less that they're infected (and spreading infection). To this day, I can go to each IP in my logs, and see the IIS default page on the vast majority (indicating they aren't running IIS for a reason, and likely aren't aware that it's there).
Finally, I just want to say that just because not everyone has been exploited, should mean that we should look at the situation any lighter. The Code Red thing should have been a serious wake-up call to Microsoft. Same with iloveyou, melissa, et al. These things were highly public, and should have been viewed as a major fiasco. Maybe the scene has toned down in the last year or so, sure, but that doesn't mean we should just not worry about it. Hopefully not too many people will read the Wired article and become more lax in their practices...
Care to share some links?
Here is where I started. I'd never known the full story, and did some Googling that landed me there first.
I then modified my search to "Chernobyl Disaster" (with quotes) and found lots of information.
One site that explains quite a bit can be found here. If (like me) you don't know much about nuclear power, see his Nuclear FAQ linked at the top of that page.
I don't recall all of the other links I read; I followed a few from the Google results, and followed link after link from there. But the Stanford page is pretty informative IMO.
...from the last i heard, it could collapse at any time, sending radioactive material half way around the world.
The first part of the plan is to re-enforce the current structure (specifically the stack that could potentially collapse). From some reports I've read, it seems it's not nearly as unstable as was thought when the 10-year report was made (1996).
Anyone know why they are NOT building the new structor to keep radioactivity in?
I thought they were. They will be sliding the arc-shaped thing over top of the area in four chunks. One end will be sealed off, and the other (which meets Reactor #3) will be closed off somehow. I couldn't find specifics on how that will be done, or whether it will be completely sealed or what.
There's a river that flows nearby as well, and a wall was constructed underground about 30 meters deep to prevent (or reduce?) contamination. I also read that they don't want to do any digging near the site, to avoid uncovering any radioactive material; the "rails" (lack of better word) that the arc will slide on will be mostly above-ground.
Basically I got bored and did a ton of reading about the whole Chernobyl disaster. Interesting stuff...
The tearing I was refering to wasn't the usual partial frame stuff (so maybe I used the wrong term)
it was the the inability of the display to update an entire frame if too many of the pixels had to change.
I wasn't even aware of this problem. Is this a power consumption issue (changing too many pixels would draw too much current in that instant)? Or an issue that is easily solved by adding a bit more memory/processing to the LCD?
My only LCD experience is my laptop, which has a crappy Trident chip in it. The chip is slow enough that its own problems would mask out any that the display itself caused.
In either case, I guess that would still be called tearing, or at least would have the same perceived effect. I guess it's entirely possible that the Plasma display has this issue (though for $10k I'd hope not)...
Any opions on Plasma vs. Single Chip DLP with Color Wheel?
You lost me on this one. DLP? Color Wheel?
My own theory (with nothing to back it up) is that language is required.
Honestly I don't think this has anything to do with it. Language only comes into play when you play back spoken (or read) memories. Actions or events are not remembered by a textual description -- you remember sights, sounds, smells, and other data. Sometimes you remember more details, sometimes less. For example, you may remember spoken words, or you may only remember hearing a soft voice (but not remember what was said).
Early memories are difficult because during that time your brain isn't fully developed. As seems to be established elsewhere in the comments, painful (physically) memories are more likely to stick, even at an early age, but likely this applies to any valuable learning experience.
My earliest memory is probably when I was 3 or 4, taking an empty toilet paper roll and putting it into the circular hole on a Domino sugar box, pretending that the assembly was a camera. I'm not sure why I remember that specifically.
Another interesting note: replaying that memory I can clearly see the word "Domino" on the box -- even though obviously at the time I couldn't read it, nor do I believe I actually stored the information (shapes of letters I have yet to learn, etc). Rather, memories become distorted later, as we tend to fill in missing gaps. I always remember remembering the memory that way (that's a mouth full), but I'm sure at some point it must've been just a "box with hole in front", later recognized for what I later knew it to be.
Deep stuff... but I think my example is similar to the language thing. Certainly you could have remembered some event, without necessarily remembering (or understanding) what may have been spoken at the time. If you (re)learn the language, it's possible that memories may pop up, but I would believe this to be the result of hearing a word/phraze that has a memory associated with it -- NOT the result of your brain suddenly understanding certain data that it has stored.
Actually it would be awful for video editing...
:)
I wasn't so much refering to professional use; I simply meant for playing around with video editing. I know if I had that kind of money to blow on a TV monitor, I'd also have a pretty bad-ass PC, and the two would inevitably end up connected
Perhaps I wouldn't "edit" video on such a screen, but it'd be a great test screen for visual effects, etc, to get the full experience you can't get in a window...
LCDs are currently too damn slow and you get frame tearing (perhaps this has changed recently)
Plasma isn't LCD, and from what (little) I know about it, it's a very different technology. As a result, I believe Plasma displays are very fast, though I've not personally used them enough to say for sure.
As for tearing, I don't understand how LCD is any different in this regard. Tearing is a result of the display refreshing while you're changing/updating video memory; eg, you're changing it as it's reading it.
Perhaps you mean LCD television displays, where (unlike normal TVs) there is some video memory in use, etc... but either way, it's easily solved by syncing the video updates with the VBI (called "vsync")...
Now I've seen the third page. What's with this: ...plasma displays are limited to displaying 16.7 million colours, so very subtle transitions tend to be more "stepped" in appearance under close inspection.
:p
Mind you he mentioned playing a DVD -- in other words, an MPEG video. Try this on *any* television and see how colors are limited. This is akin to using an MP3 file to test high-end speakers. Remember, guys, DVD is highly compressed, and in a high-action scene you can even see typical MPEG artifacts.
Anyway, show me a plasma display that looks like it's "stepping" when showing compressed MPEG video, and I'll show you some KLH studio monitors that sound "swishy" with a 128k MP3
Seriously, that site is pretty poorly designed, it dosn't display right on an 800px screen.
:p
The review is pretty bad too (well, the first two pages anyhow - lost interest waiting for the third page to load).
He describes the speakers as having "a tiny little 1-1/4" diameter woofer on the rear of the speakers which gives them a little bit of Bass" - which from the picture appears to be a port. I don't want to know what a 1.25 inch "woofer" would sound like
He also goes on for a full page about the speakers, mostly mentioning that an "audiophile" wouldn't use them. I know very few people who use the speakers in their television -- especially anyone with $10k to blow on the TV alone...
The article makes a lot of little technical errors, and complains about things like short speaker wires, mentions that "your first stop should be at the local electronics store to pick up a good set of shielded composite input cables if your DVD player supports this standard". Composite? I really do hope he meant Component...
Whats the point of a 42 inch plasma screen with such low resolution?
It's for television viewing. It is not really intended for use as a PC monitor, but would be really great for video editing applications IMO.
Why not just use a projector?
Have you seen a plasma display? Have you seen a projector? I'm guessing the answer to one of these is no... there's a serious difference. The Plasma displays are as accurate as an LCD (as far as pixel positioning) because, like LCD, the pixels are physically in place. At the same time, they have the brightness of a CRT.
Projection has much less accuracy; it's similar to CRT, except that it's much easier to be knocked out of alignment (and much harder to align). I know they've improved over the years, but I still don't like projection in any form...
The plasma displays aren't that new, I've seen these before; not the Samsung model, but Philips has had one for about a year now, and it runs about $7,000. I've seen them in stores (Circuit City specifically; drooled all over it in person), and the airport in Atlanta has several of them used for advertisements (Sony - so wasteful)... one store in our local mall has 7 of them in various places, playing MTV (what a waste of all those lovely expensive plasma pixels) along with several CRTs and a Bose sound system...
That is part of the problem with letting end user types filter spam...
This is why I like Bayesian filtering, as it's completely user-dependant. Meaning each user defines what he/she defines as "Junk".
I use Yahoo mail, and it's "Bulk Mail" filtering uses BrightMail. It blocks all mailings from RedHat -- ones I signed up for -- and yet lets mail from "notifications@mailsweeps.com" through.
Mozilla mail, OTOH (version 1.3a) with Bayesian filtering has been flawless. The first few days I tried it, it had a few false positives. After a week, no false positives but a couple missed SPAMs. Now (a month later) it seems to be about 100% accurate. Because it learns what *I* consider to be SPAM, and only I.
It's so simple it's pathetic. See the "Plan for Spam" link, it's a good read if you haven't read it. Now, hopefully the next Moz release will actually mark the Spam as "read", and move it to a "Junk" folder (now it only marks it as Junk -- it still plays the new mail notification, etc). I would trust it to move my SPAM to a Junk folder, where perhaps once a day I would verifiy that no false positives were found. After a while, I'd probably just trust it's judgement.
Key being that it's based on *you* -- it finds word patterns in what you consider to be SPAM, and bases it on noone else's judgement; it's completely personalized, and IMO the only solution (as far as client-side filtering goes anyway). For me, it's the solution I've been looking for. Now I just hope the Moz team completes the feature nicely (which I trust they will).
I happen to agree that the bandwidth eaten by spam is the ultimate problem...
For me personally, bandwidth isn't an issue. I'm on DSL, my servers are locked up tight and not contributing to the problem... for me, the problem is that 95% of the time my "New Mail" alert goes off, it's all SPAM. I don't care about the bandwidth issues; doesn't affect my home connection much, and doesn't affect my server's connection at all. It's my time.
My solution? Well, I haven't found a perfect solution, but (given that bandwidth isn't my main concert) Mozilla's bayessian (sp?) filtering is working well so far. Hopefully the next major Moz release will handle this better.
Currently (1.3a) it marks SPAM as "Junk" mail automatically. After only a few days it easily recognized SPAM. After a week there have been NO false positives. After 2 weeks it seems to be dead-on accurate.
Hopefully the next Moz release will let me do more with it (such as NOT playing my "New Mail" sound, marking them read, moving them to a Junk folder, etc). So far 1.3a is showing serious promise, at least in the filtering part. It uses Bayessian filtering (based on the Plan for Spam article linked above -- a good read if you haven't seen it), and is quite good so far. I would personally be happy if, using the Mozilla current implementation, I could never see mail Mozilla sees as "Junk" mail.
My point was simply that for me, bandwidth isn't the problem -- and I run several (not open-relay) mail servers -- rather, the problem is the time I spend manually filtering SPAM from real mail (running several domains). Bayessian filtering is perfect, as it's based on the individual user. It's what got me to try Mozilla mail again in the first place (first time since M12), and already, just having it mark them as "Junk", it's saved me a ton of time.
I picked up an AIW 7500 not long ago myself, and was very much disappointed with it's 3D performance. It wasn't much better than the 32 meg Voodoo3 it replaced (4-year old PCI card). I wound up putting the ATI in my Linux media box (MPlayer works nicely with the TV/S-Video outputs).
I believe the problem is that the 7500 doesn't use the Radeon chipset, rather it's a Rage 128 that's been relabeled (that's my understanding -- I could easily be mistaken).
So I finally broke down and got the ti4600, and am extremely happy with it (I run two monitors, so replacing two Voodoo3's with one new card was pretty neat). Of course now my CPU seems just that much slower, not to mention I now have almost as much video RAM as system RAM...
WashPost doesn't even ask for your email addy. Just basic demo info. I'm more upset about that ad bar at the bottom of the page I keep having to close. That is a PITA.
I'm not sure I understand. I followed the link in the article, and it's not asking me for any info (nor do I see any ad bar that is closable)...
I feel so left out... but seriously, perhaps it's an IE thing (or Flash or some other junk I have disabled)? I'm using Mozilla 1.3a, JavaScript and Cookies enabled...
But then we've been listening to massively degraded music for years!
The thing is audio that has been processed (dynamics processing, equalization, etc) still contains the properties of "normal" sound. Same with low-quality speakers, tape recordings, etc. There are still many things that aren't perceived conciously by the human ear/brain.
Audio compression techniques strip out everything that's not conciously perceived, so all that is left is what we as humans perceive as "sound". It's giving us only the information we need, and none of the extra.
The article proposes that, while we don't perceive the information that is being stripped out, the brain may need that information in some way. Calibration is certainly a possibility.
We're very good at working around distortions of sound to pick out useful information.
This is the very part of the brain that relies on having such distortions present in order to keep itself calibrated. What we're talking about here is systematically stripping out all extra noise and information, keeping only the minimum necessary for the brain to perceive the sounds.
So basically, we're subjecting ourselves to "perfect" sound (eg, sound that doesn't need the brain to do such filtering, etc). After a lot of this, I could easily see the brain slowly losing its ability to do said filtering. You actually come to rely on the CODEC doing it for you. Is this proven? No, but that's the point of the paper: to bring the idea up, since noone has thought of it before that I'm aware of.
If I listen to a cheap CD player (older one, with lots of clock-jitter) with headphones for a while, everything sounds odd for a bit afterwords. I couldn't perceive anything wrong with the CD player, but I know that higher-quality ones didn't have that effect on me (really none made in the last decade do).
I do listen to MP3 music quite a lot, and the only effect it has on me is I can spot such encoding easily (eg, on the radio). I've come to easily be able to "tune in" to the sound of MP3 et al.
So anyway, I think the article is good. Others mentioned the poor grammer -- but the guy is (likely) not a native English speaker. Ignore the "rules", and read the actual message, and you realize that he sounds like a reasonably intelligent person. And it's not a thesis, just an idea being thrown out there -- one that I hadn't heard of or thought about myself.
Give it a good read, ignoring the grammar, and really understand what is being said -- mostly that it's not about hearing "degraded audio", but hearing "unnatural" audio on a consistant basis, audio which contains only what we perceive as sound, and none of the overhead that may, possibly, be necessary for our hearing to stay in check.
They have addressed this issue in the FAQ. Anyway it seems like it will be a pretty cool movie -- too bad I have to wait until July to see it :(
Call this a technicality if you want, but I notice there is NO mention there of "read the license," just "Agree to the license"
Call this a technicality, but "Agree to the license" (your quote) implies that one understands, and thus has read (or otherwise interpreted) the license. But that's not what the instructions say -- they say "Click 'I Agree'", which does in fact prove your point. I'm just not sure how the quote morphed into something that counters the very point you were trying to make.
Just because there's a EULA doesn't mean it's not an invasion of privacy, even if it's legally OK.
Possibly, but that's not what I was pointing out. The point of my post stands: whoever submitted it didn't do much research, or distorted the facts to get a rise out of the Slashdot crowd. I quote:
There is no mention of a opt in/opt out agreement when the cd is inserted on the website...
Yet visiting the link in the article, and clicking on "New to Bandlink" gives the information I originally quoted. It's also mentioned in the FAQs (the same FAQ that his "favorite quote" comes from), and the Support area.
In my opinion, having to click "I Agree" is more than enough "opt in" here. From here, the fact that usage data will be compiled for statistical and marketing reasons is pretty much obvious, even if you don't read the EULA. It's common practice, and has been for quite some time (before the Internet). Anyone actually concerned about privacy and data usage will have read the EULA. Joe Sixpack won't, and doesn't care. Really, nothing new here.
Hard to imagine this person would have received a "personal demonstration" that didn't include the above procedure, or at least mention it. Having just read more of the web site, maybe the poster viewed the Flash demo (I have not), and decided to call it a "personal demonstration"? I wonder...
So it's nothing more than some Auto-Run software. Which makes sense, I can't imagine any other way a CD would just magically contact a remote host.
Solution? Disable auto-run (which I do anyway), or in this particular case, don't accept the license agreement...
They also mention this a lot:
My first thought was that they could easily combine so-called "copy protection" with phoning-home, but at least with Bandlink this is not the case.
Besides the "dumb" marketing guys probably have a second brand-name for the product that is focused on the non-voyeur, legitimate side of the market.
I mentioned in another post that the X10 ads *did* have some effect on me. They did make me curious about the wireless cameras - I could think of many uses for one of them.
While I would never purchase anything from X10, if they had a similar product under another company name, it's possible I'd purchase one, thinking to myself X10's ads did nothing but drive me to their competitors, not realizing it's the same company...
I guess I'll do some research before I buy something like that. Though realistically I don't need a wireless camera. I think those ads had more effect on me than I had realized...
Did you write them so they know that you're not buying their product and why?
I didn't, and I won't. It's not worth my time.
If a company has enough people telling them that their internet marketing firm is causing them to lose sales, they'll find a different marketing firm.
But the point is, I don't think they are losing sales. They don't care about the few of us who conciously choose to avoid their products, but rather the many who probably are purchasing these cameras.
Sure it pisses people off (what doesn't?) but in the end the bottom line is all that matters to these companies.
Perhaps a less obnoxious and obtrusive one that might just go buy a google ad and then focus on making the company web page informative and useful.
Hm. Everyone I know who uses the Internet knows who X10 is (they make those neat little cameras!). Most of them (non-geeks) have never heard of Google. Obviously the path they chose got their name in front of a lot of people (possibly *all* of the people who use the 'net)...
Sad thing is, most of the non-geeks, while they do know who X10 is and what those little cameras are, they don't usually remember where they heard about them. IOW they don't remember the annoying popup ads at all, and the fact that it interrupted their web surfing countless times will have no bearing on any purchasing decision.
So the popup ads -- while very annoying to you and I -- were highly effective.
Interesting you posted that sig in a thread about advertising right before Christmas.
.sig links from here over the years, but have never clicked on a banner or other flashy advertisement. There's something about text ads I tend to trust more.
That's a good point. I've followed many
Probably because when using text, you have to get my attention without flashy colors. Instead, you have to tell me why I should click the link, usually by telling me what you are advertising.
And animated GIFs with text don't work; usually when I first look at one, it's in the middle of the cycle, and thus I'd have to wait for it to loop back around to even understand the text. But again a text link forces you to really think about the text that will appear, and IMO makes for a much better advertisement.
Heck, Google is probably the only place I've ever clicked on ads -- "Sponsored Links". Not because I was tricked, but because they seemed relevant to what I was looking for.
I will never use Orbitz to buy plane tickets, because they put popup ads pretty much *everywhere* and their TV ads are *really fscking annoying*.
Just like I won't ever purchase an X10 product. Before Mozilla supported popup blocking, I was very sick of their ads. It seemed everywhere I went, I was informed about this stupid wireless camera.
Of course I really would like to get one, but it will be from a different company if I ever do. So in a way, the ad had some affect on me (I didn't care about wireless cameras prior to that), but I will conciously avoid X10. Let's just hope they don't change their name...
Do my eyes decieve me?
Read the text -- the Windows software shown is for updating the flash via a Windows box. It specifically mentions connecting a serial port, etc...
That is unfortunate. Mozilla is one of the best open source examples available in my opinion. It's something anyone can identify with, and (if installed and configured properly) can run Java, Flash, and everything the typical MSIE user needs (or thinks they need).
:)
OpenOffice is another great example, and I'm glad to see it on the list. But Mozilla is usually the first real-world example I give people when discussing open source. It's really easy to name reasons Mozilla is better than IE, and they are things the user understands (disabling popups for example). I can't think of many reasons to support OpenOffice aside from open standards, which the typical Win user won't care about...
Though the price difference between MS Office and OpenOffice is enough of a clincher in many cases
As much as I love Linux, I have to admit, I ran FreeBSD on a desktop for a while and it impressed the hell out of me. X11/Gnome and Mozilla ran at least 3x faster on the same machine, and under the heaviest loads it was still always responsive. It was the only system I ever trusted to burn a CD while I continued to do other things (under Windows and Linux, I tend to leave the box alone during burning).
/.ing) was too easily able to cause a downward spiral, ending in an inevitable hard reset.
Of course back in the 2.2 days, when 2.4 was on its way, 2.4 was touted as being better able to recover from heavy loads. We ran several Linux web servers, and a bad CGI (or a good
2.4 improved that significantly, and even my home boxes noticed the difference. Another poster mentioned a new scheduler finally going into 2.6, so perhaps this will improve even further. Whether it will be as solid as FreeBSD or not, any improvement will still be great...
I'll take a 6.5 KB pure digital download over a 6.5 KB analog modem download any day.
Actualy the only "pure digital" download would be ISDN or a T1, etc. Typical "broadband" does go through a D/A and A/D conversion.
DSL is very similar to dialup (modulated tones representing data), just at much higher frequencies, around 1 MHz. Cable modems convert to an analog signal that's sent over TV subcarriers. Ethernet is similar to DSL, only again with even higher frequencies and two pairs of wires (for full duplex)...
It's not the A/D conversion itself that causes the serious latency. It's the fact that the bandwidth (frequency bandwidth here) is very low with POTS. The signal goes through yet another A/D and D/A conversion in most cases, via the phone system, and is limited to under 4 kHz with 8 bits resolution.
But I agree with your point anyway: I'd much rather get a 6.5KB/s download on my DSL than dialup. I was stuck on dialup again for a day when the DSL was out, and I do NOT miss it (just try surfing web pages while that 6.5K download is going).