Google advertises all over the place. They store your mail for an indeterminate period of time.
They link your gmail account cookie to your google account cookie, which is linked to various advertising streams.
Do you think TV is free? Really? Ever heard of commercials?
TV is a deployment method for commercial advertising. It's at breaks (standard commercials). It's during TV shows, with in show spots for products.. such as actors pumping various products. It's at the bottom of the screen, with dancing advertising logos and such, while you watch the show!
This is not free. This is an arrangement between two entities. You watch our shows, and we try to sell you things. Clearly your time has value, you watching has value, and that is why TV is on the air. It isn't on the air to be 'free'.
That is, unless you think that 'free' means 'no hard currency was exchanged'. If you do, then I suppose you help your friends move for 'free', and the beer and pizza after isn't compensation?
Gmail is not different. It isn't free. Google is making a PROFIT on this -- or if not, it will be. It will make money by examining the relationships between people that use gmail. It will make money by examining those relationships, and what you search for on the web. It will make the same money, by looking at those relationships, your financial data (Google finance), the places you search for on Google Maps, the apps you download with Andoird/Gphone, the people you call in your gphone, and on and on and on.
Google has become the largest depository of human interaction. They span more than email and searches. They know who you are in contact with, who you buy from, and the list goes on and on.
Further, they store this information for an indeterminate period of time.
Whether or not you like this, whether or not you approve, it is what you pay for using their service.
Essentially your argument is "You should not be using the full speed your modem provides".
That's all you're arguing. I could saturate that speed using torrents, using edonkey, using netflix, using youtube, simply clicking on a download link for a webpage, or even updating security patches to a new XP box! It's an invalid argument, hands down.
Plain and simple, Bell oversells its bandwidth. Most dialup ISPs used to have a 1/10 ratio when selling to subscribers. Good ISPs used to have 1/5. I suspect Bell is somewhere in the 1/1000 range, or even 1/10000.
If Bell was *really* concerned about their client's experience, they'd use packet shaping to ensure that P2P had a *lower priority* over SIP and other protocols. They don't, however, because they have a vested interest in ensuring that bandwidth heavy traffic is not used on their network, because:
1) it competes with all of their other businesses! Bandwidth usage = competition with TV, Video downloads, etc 2) it would require them to invent in technology upgrades 3) it makes sure that other ISPs can not compete with Bell as effectively
Keep in mind that there is almost NO competition here in Canada. If Bell was *competing* for subscribers, they'd to their best to ensure that their service was better than the next door over. They don't, because their only competition is the cable company, who also does not compete.
After all, with only two players in the market, why compete?
The same sits true for cellular services in this country, which is replied to with absurd statements of how we are 'spread out'. Absurd, the have a few low-grade, old tech towers strung in the open places, but other than that, our population density is just as high as any place else.
This is about a lack of competition, pure and simple.
The problem is, that this *is* about network neutrality as well.
What happens when someone wants to start offering cable TV over the net? It's already started, and that's much more bandwidth intensive than P2P. It is also completely legal, to boot! In Canada, you can rebroadcast OTA TV without paying anyone a dime, currently.
What happens when someone starts to offer live video streaming, aka movie downloading, legally?
Heck, what about video game patches, add ons, downloads of Linux distros, etc, etc, etc. All of these are entirely legal, and all of them can use P2P.
Bell's silly contention is that P2P somehow causes severe bandwidth issues. In reality, they take objection to ALL bandwidth intensive applications. They've stated so in the past, with comments like "only 5% of users use P2P, everyone else only checks their email and views a few webpages a night". To them, a "few webpages" means looking at Google news, and barely using anything bandwidth intensive like YouTube. The real issue here is that Bell vastly oversells its bandwidth.
Throttling in *any way* causes issues with Network Neutrality. An ISP is a pipe. Provide $x bandwidth, with $y data cap, and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. Anything else is entirely, completely, and fully dishonest.
Hell, Bell and Rogers sell movie rentals, TV access, cable and the like. To them, any way they can make bandwidth intensive applications look bad, is a big, massive boon to their business.
It isn't a big deal that it is a patent. The US government spends billions (trillions?) per year, in R&D, and on everything from warfare to space travel to disease control.
There is no reason the government should not pass a bill, that states that any such patent as this (safety, public good), could have a value assigned to them by an arbitrator. Once assigned, the state would buy the patent, and release it for all phones in the US to use.
Other governments could do the same.
R&D costs, ideas are important, and compensation should be paid. At market value.
First, you're full of crap. I've filled out 'transfer of ownership' forms, and that's that.
Regardless, why on earth would it matter if you have a piece of paper showing title for your car?
I don't have a piece of paper showing that my TV is mine, yet it is. The same goes for about 1000 other piece of property that I own. I show ownership through possession, and through lack of contest over ownership, and through sales receipts (hand written or otherwise).
So, even if your silly complaints about title paperwork were correct, they are meaningless, since no one would have logged title.
Yes, you are smelling toner. That's why alerts recently went out about the air quality issues, in workplaces, due to the use of laser printers. It's also why laser printer manufacturers are striving to find a way to reduce the pollution via filters and other means.
In Canada, there are all of 2 months when 'extra heat' is wasted. Three if you live in the South of the country. As well, during those 2 or 3 months, the days are also the longest! One seldom uses lights when it is light out from 4am to 10pm!
Note, I'm talking about populated areas too.. if we discuss our North.. well, there are all of 2 weeks where extra heat is wasted... and 24 hour days.
So, CFLs essentially have almost zero benefit here, but also have additional disposal and cleanup costs. CFLs are, basically, *bad* for the environment in our case. They cost the environment more to make, and they cost more to recycle / dispose of.
I'd say that the same argument could be made for many Northern US States... with diminishing effects as one travels South. I haven't done the math, but clearly there is a point in the US where the use of CFLs flips, from a benefit to a bane.
Except that soy is dangerous to a group of people as well. Many people are allergic to it.
It's one thing to put it in food, which you can buy or not buy. It's another to hide it in a product that will be gassing this all over the place.
Frankly, soy based toner is the scariest thing in the world to me. I don't know anyone that's actually allergic to toner, but you can sure as hell smell it in the air!
Well, yeah actually trying to *do* anything on C64 beyond playing games was a form of masochism.
What I think the parent poster is looking for is something closer to a Natural Langauge Interface (the "holy grail" of all computing).
Of course we still can't even come close to that today, but Google tries pretty hard. It has "did you mean?", a bunch of conversions, and a variety of other rarely used features all crammed into one search box.
And, this is the worst thing Google has ever done.
I've searched for "Joe" and had "Joesph" come back as responses. Yes, in quotes.
I've searched for "board" and had "wood" come back.
Ever try to search for something with dashes in it?
Used to be that Google searched for precise spellings of words, with precise spacing, with dashes as dashes, and names as names.
Now, if I know "Joe Bergson" lives in California.. but has moved, I have to also look at all aliases for 'Joe', even though I don't want it.
Of course, these features change on a day to day basis.
These days, it seems that Google now only gives you 2 answers, in some cases, then defaults to what you actually searched for. However, in many cases it just responds with whatever it pleases.
It's literally *impossible* to search for many things, efficiently now.
Gee, thanks Google!
As with all things, they should switch to an expert mode, and a 'the user doesn't really know what they want, so let's interpret all things (much of the time, wrong) for them' mode.
First, I'll just lightly mention HOW SLOW AND HOW MUCH OF A MEMORY HOG FIREFOX IS. Fix this first!
Then, next, how about you PRESERVE PRIVACY AT ALL TIMES! How about there is an "everything inane, off! now!! mode!!!"?
How about you never send me suggestions on what I'm looking for? How about you never go to anywhere but the precise address I type in the address bar, or fail?
I mean, good grief. It's been said. ADD ONS!
You know what really pisses me off? You know what is the end of all ends?
These boneheads dropped Mozilla, because it was 'too bloated'. They then started firefox, to FOCUS ON MEMORY USAGE AND SPEED, WITH A MINIMALISTIC APPROACH!!
Then these hosers turn right around, an start cramming all this crap back in!
Meanwhile, people that actually prefer slimmed down features, now have to use Mozilla.. which was resurrected by people that liked an inclusive browser in the first place!?
Android is not about t-mobile, or a cell phone, or any some such.
Not only has the G1 been rooted (making the lockout of the dev phones strange), but there will also be other devices.
Can you imagine an Android laptop without root? Is Google essentially stating that all 'copy protected' apps will be unusable for all but cell phones, and locked down ones at that?
I own a normal, non-dev G1. I am not a t-mobile customer.
I can't buy paid apps.
Why? Google won't say why, won't respond to questions on this. It makes little sense.. but it seems that their current restrictions (what country you can buy from) are based upon whether or not you are a t-mobile customer, and in what country.
I haven't (yet) heard of anyone being able to buy apps, without a t-mobile sim. Can anyone refute this?
[quote]It's not uncommon for there to be a story on the news about someone who's died or suffered massive head trauma after being punched in the face once (usually outside a bar). Never underestimate the damage that can be caused by someone falling and hitting their head on pavement. Letting the courts decide on the punishment makes it much less likely the perpetrator will come to unintended harm (although our prison system isn't exactly perfect).[/quote]
Don't underestimate the number of people that beat each other senseless daily. It actually isn't that common for people to get hurt in a moderate beating, it's just that the news makes it appear as if every beating results in such. Frankly, you're more likely to be in a car accident and die, than you are to get hurt from a beating.
[quote]Also, you speak as if morals are an absolute truth, shared by everyone. That's not the case. I don't understand why you're surprised not everybody shares your moral code, i.e. that beating someone is justified purely because they beat someone else first.
It would appear that most people responding to your post have a moral belief that they are not responsible for (or possibly not capable of) determining an appropriate punishment for other people. Or they believe that such acts of vigilante justice quickly lead to a mob mentality, which frequently results in amoral behaviour. Or simply that the idea of intentional harming others is abhorrent to them, and something they would only do under dire circumstances. Not everybody enjoys beating people up, after all.[/quote]
Odd. You appear to think that beating someone, is something I would enjoy. Far from it. However, seeing an old woman, laying on the ground with blood and bruises covering her, I would definitely beat the living tar out of whomever did said act. I would get no more enjoyment out of such an act, than one gets pulling nose hairs.
[quote]Finally, by living within most western societies, you are agreeing to be bound by the rule of law.[/quote]
No, I am not agreeing to any such thing. I was born here, and I live here. I obey my own morals, regardless of any laws around me. I have not given oath or word that I would abide by any law or regulation. These have been imposed upon me.
Really? Why do you have doubts? What are your doubts?
It is interesting that when I spoke of morals and law, almost everyone responded about how the legal system was intended to mitigate revenge, or how the act spoken of above was an act of revenge, and on and on. However, absolutely no direct moralizing was done on that specific act.
Morals exist in parallel with the law. Law tries to be moral, but only succeeds by chance. It's too arbitrarily stated, to broad to truly be moral.. and some laws are indeed immoral.
Morals always exist. They exist if there is no rule of law. If there are no courts, if there is anarchy, if you live in a country without government or local rule of law. One must keep a discussion of law *out* of any discussion of morals, whereas when one discusses law they should always try to mimic morals (for example, at creation time).
Now, I did not state in any terms that beating the tar out of someone would be legal. Of course in my case cited above, it is not, and that is the whole *point*. It is, however, a *moral* act.
Frankly, I find it utterly surprising that anyone would find 'beating the tar out of someone' to be a problem. Certainly, said thug would likely get 5-10 years in jail for beating an old woman and then stealing her purse. Beating the tar out of someone =! killing them, or leaving them for dead, therefore general worst case would be a few weeks or perhaps months of pain. Frankly, any thug thinking about such, would be wise to consider himself *lucky*.
You certainly touched on it and I'll add my bit here, focusing entirely and only on that last sentence fragment.
The entire logic and reasoning behind that fragment is quite questionable. Frankly, I have to wonder about the character of the person that wrote it. To them, it would appear, the only reason people do not do wrong things, is because they are afraid of the ramifications of their actions. Put another way, the logic of that sentence fragment states that the only reason people do not slit your throat, steal your car, and rape your wife, is because they fear the backlash of their actions.
A person that employs such logic would therefore clearly steal from you, if they knew there would be absolutely no backlash. That is, if they were positive there was no way to be caught, and quite confident of it. This is called "an asshole". A person without any moral fiber.
A person with true moral fiber does not act based upon the laws, but acts based upon his code of ethics at all times. For example, it is clear that beating the living tar out of someone that just viciously beat and stole a purse from an old woman, is a very moral act. It is also quite illegal, unless that person is physically threatening you at the time. One is moral, one is legal.
Also, I am sure that a good number of people on slashdot feel it is quite valid to kick the living tar out of someone that has acted in an extremely inappropriate fashion. Of course, this is also illegal. Morals and legality are often the same, but equating laws to morals is not valid, ever.
So, I take a strong stand against someone discussing going to jail, as if someone looks at the possible jail sentence they might receive, decides if the act is worth that price, and the commits the crime. This is what that sentence fragment states. A better sentence fragment would be:
"there would seem to be quite a leap between risking blacklisting from Google, and killing someone in cold blood"
to watching what you say, as one Sun Microsystems executive describes:'It's not unusual to be the only woman at a meeting, she says, and because of that, there's often a tendency to remain silent unless you think you have something really remarkable to say. "As one member of a small group, you feel you have no right to be mediocre... You're not just representing yourself; you're representing [females] with a capital F.'" See, that's the problem.
Everyone, get this through your heads.
1) Women and Men are NOT equal. 2) Women accel at some things, and Men accel at other things. This is true when we speak in averages. 3) The entire freaking point of "equal rights", is that while average differences do exist, that does not indicate the qualifications or ability of any individual, be it male or female.
So, when ever a woman tries to "speak for Females everywhere", she's absolutely nuts. The same, of course, is true of men doing the same for their sex. Each woman is an individual, with individual capabilities. Some women, although a much smaller percentage of women than men, accel at technical jobs.
This is because, *gasp*, women have different brains then men. Surprisingly, a pair of tits isn't all that differs a woman from a man.
So, to all you ladies in the audience, just be yourself. Don't try to speak for women everywhere. Don't hold back, just be YOU. Excel with the gifts you have.
Frankly, if everyone of every ethnic background and physical sex just did this, most silly problems would eventually vanish.
The problem though, is that citing your sources is not enough... because most sources are cited by Wikipedias from the net! It's sort of akin to asking 50 people around you, what they think is right, and calling that fact!
There are countless, endless, unending cases of big media getting things wrong, yet again and again this is what I see cited as sources!
Ah well, what's the point. Wikipedia for wikipedians.:/
(That was an insult, btw, and I sort of apologise. Perhaps you aren't a wikipedian.. I hope.)
"Now sure, this is the ultimate in paranoia. First, you would require complete complacency on the part of those designing NIC chips, and in many cases this is even done by contracted IC Design firms. There are just too many people involved to have some form of high level conspiracy, allowing for the ultimate in government control."
Second, yes... Linux and other open sauce variants make this inordiantely difficult. However, imagine a world where Linux did not appear? All it would require is the passing of a few laws, orders from the certain organizations, and Windows would pass on such packets without you ever seeing them.
Of course, in such a world, perhaps NIC cards can speak to each other directly over the PCI bus? No, it's not impossible. If you control the NIC chip, you control the BIOs, you control the system bus, you control all. The level of control we're talking about, after all, is the power to dictate to computer manufacturers to do "what they are told".
Really, if you control the hardware, the software follows....
Yes, but most routers aren't designed by some team of "dudes" in a basement somewhere, selling snake oil.
Frankly, I wouldn't buy some no-name, discount router either. I'll stick with the big names, or at least names I know and can trust, or from companies that I see handle security issues. Unfortunately, many of the stores selling this discount crap should be shot... I have no faith that a router without any reasonable documentation, and without and real mention of how to get to the homepage, is going to listen to and perform security updates on a timely basis.
So, sure.. a router, a crappy router definitely, is an equal risk. That doesn't detract from *this* risk. As well, up until now, we haven't really had to worry about such a beast in a PCI slot of a computer. That can wreak its own special breed of havock, when you think of it.
I've always wondered if there was a world-wide conspiracy with NICs and key points on the net. Naturally, if you wanted to analyze all traffic that existed (yes, yes... imagine the CPU power required for that!) the place one would start would be the NIC!
I'm just referring to packets that are tagged, and when the packets are tagged as such, the NIC effectively ignores them if not specifically destined for its MAC (making same packets impossible to detect even with a hub and another box with a same nic). One could have NICs send out detailed, compressed data concerning addresses and ports, and perhaps even a complete duplicate dump of data being sent to a specific host, if requested remotely.
Now sure, this is the ultimate in paranoia. First, you would require complete complacency on the part of those designing NIC chips, and in many cases this is even done by contracted IC Design firms. There are just too many people involved to have some form of high level conspiracy, allowing for the ultimate in government control.
However, we now have a NIC that is effectively a machine of its own, making it inordinately simple for all sorts of black hat shenanigans. Even if one were to trust the company, a card like this, if exploitable remotely, would be great to set up a nice little monitoring station and even a spam relay on. How would you detect it, if you're a simple user and you don't have another Linux box or firewall to detect the traffic outgoing? Firewalls are also effectively useless (unless in a locked down state that few put them in) once a box is allowed access to NAT. There are simple ways to punch holes through firewall, and using NAT, keep them open with little traffic.
Of course, one could also just phone home every few hours anyhow.
Frankly, while I *like* real hardware NICs, I at least trust that Intel's 100% hardware NIC is going to be relatively unexploitable. It's a single purpose device, so you're not going to be (I hope!) easily loading a trojan on there.
This thing however? It sounds like you could load anything on that "NIC".
Stay away. We don't even know anything about this *company*, let alone it's security review process for the software running the NIC.
Re:Are they better, or just different?
on
eSATA Connectors
·
· Score: 1
Tell me about it. Current SATA connectors are horrible in some situations. I've actually had situations where I've had to use a glue gun to literally keep the connectors from coming off on their own.
Certainly, two stories about cheap student pricing for Microsoft products will help M$ quite a bit... even with the humour assigned to the first story. Microsoft _really_ _really_ _really_ wants students to buy their products, and then use them for the rest of their lives.
What better place to advertise than on slashdot?
Alternatively, perhaps we've seen some monkeying with the new story posting moderation system? How many M$ employees does it take to get news stories in place?
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't FREE, people.
Google advertises all over the place. They store your mail for an indeterminate period of time.
They link your gmail account cookie to your google account cookie, which is linked to various advertising streams.
Do you think TV is free? Really? Ever heard of commercials?
TV is a deployment method for commercial advertising. It's at breaks (standard commercials). It's during TV shows, with in show spots for products.. such as actors pumping various products. It's at the bottom of the screen, with dancing advertising logos and such, while you watch the show!
This is not free. This is an arrangement between two entities. You watch our shows, and we try to sell you things. Clearly your time has value, you watching has value, and that is why TV is on the air. It isn't on the air to be 'free'.
That is, unless you think that 'free' means 'no hard currency was exchanged'. If you do, then I suppose you help your friends move for 'free', and the beer and pizza after isn't compensation?
Gmail is not different. It isn't free. Google is making a PROFIT on this -- or if not, it will be. It will make money by examining the relationships between people that use gmail. It will make money by examining those relationships, and what you search for on the web. It will make the same money, by looking at those relationships, your financial data (Google finance), the places you search for on Google Maps, the apps you download with Andoird/Gphone, the people you call in your gphone, and on and on and on.
Google has become the largest depository of human interaction. They span more than email and searches. They know who you are in contact with, who you buy from, and the list goes on and on.
Further, they store this information for an indeterminate period of time.
Whether or not you like this, whether or not you approve, it is what you pay for using their service.
Free? Hell no!
Essentially your argument is "You should not be using the full speed your modem provides".
That's all you're arguing. I could saturate that speed using torrents, using edonkey, using netflix, using youtube, simply clicking on a download link for a webpage, or even updating security patches to a new XP box! It's an invalid argument, hands down.
Plain and simple, Bell oversells its bandwidth. Most dialup ISPs used to have a 1/10 ratio when selling to subscribers. Good ISPs used to have 1/5. I suspect Bell is somewhere in the 1/1000 range, or even 1/10000.
If Bell was *really* concerned about their client's experience, they'd use packet shaping to ensure that P2P had a *lower priority* over SIP and other protocols. They don't, however, because they have a vested interest in ensuring that bandwidth heavy traffic is not used on their network, because:
1) it competes with all of their other businesses! Bandwidth usage = competition with TV, Video downloads, etc
2) it would require them to invent in technology upgrades
3) it makes sure that other ISPs can not compete with Bell as effectively
Keep in mind that there is almost NO competition here in Canada. If Bell was *competing* for subscribers, they'd to their best to ensure that their service was better than the next door over. They don't, because their only competition is the cable company, who also does not compete.
After all, with only two players in the market, why compete?
The same sits true for cellular services in this country, which is replied to with absurd statements of how we are 'spread out'. Absurd, the have a few low-grade, old tech towers strung in the open places, but other than that, our population density is just as high as any place else.
This is about a lack of competition, pure and simple.
The problem is, that this *is* about network neutrality as well.
What happens when someone wants to start offering cable TV over the net? It's already started, and that's much more bandwidth intensive than P2P. It is also completely legal, to boot! In Canada, you can rebroadcast OTA TV without paying anyone a dime, currently.
What happens when someone starts to offer live video streaming, aka movie downloading, legally?
Heck, what about video game patches, add ons, downloads of Linux distros, etc, etc, etc. All of these are entirely legal, and all of them can use P2P.
Bell's silly contention is that P2P somehow causes severe bandwidth issues. In reality, they take objection to ALL bandwidth intensive applications. They've stated so in the past, with comments like "only 5% of users use P2P, everyone else only checks their email and views a few webpages a night". To them, a "few webpages" means looking at Google news, and barely using anything bandwidth intensive like YouTube. The real issue here is that Bell vastly oversells its bandwidth.
Throttling in *any way* causes issues with Network Neutrality. An ISP is a pipe. Provide $x bandwidth, with $y data cap, and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. Anything else is entirely, completely, and fully dishonest.
Hell, Bell and Rogers sell movie rentals, TV access, cable and the like. To them, any way they can make bandwidth intensive applications look bad, is a big, massive boon to their business.
Come now.
It isn't a big deal that it is a patent. The US government spends billions (trillions?) per year, in R&D, and on everything from warfare to space travel to disease control.
There is no reason the government should not pass a bill, that states that any such patent as this (safety, public good), could have a value assigned to them by an arbitrator. Once assigned, the state would buy the patent, and release it for all phones in the US to use.
Other governments could do the same.
R&D costs, ideas are important, and compensation should be paid. At market value.
Good grief.
First, you're full of crap. I've filled out 'transfer of ownership' forms, and that's that.
Regardless, why on earth would it matter if you have a piece of paper showing title for your car?
I don't have a piece of paper showing that my TV is mine, yet it is. The same goes for about 1000 other piece of property that I own. I show ownership through possession, and through lack of contest over ownership, and through sales receipts (hand written or otherwise).
So, even if your silly complaints about title paperwork were correct, they are meaningless, since no one would have logged title.
Yes, you are smelling toner. That's why alerts recently went out about the air quality issues, in workplaces, due to the use of laser printers. It's also why laser printer manufacturers are striving to find a way to reduce the pollution via filters and other means.
Pfft, can't smell toner, wtf!
By God, yes he has!!!
So, yeah, use CFLs.
This makes zero sense in many parts of the world.
In Canada, there are all of 2 months when 'extra heat' is wasted. Three if you live in the South of the country. As well, during those 2 or 3 months, the days are also the longest! One seldom uses lights when it is light out from 4am to 10pm!
Note, I'm talking about populated areas too.. if we discuss our North.. well, there are all of 2 weeks where extra heat is wasted... and 24 hour days.
So, CFLs essentially have almost zero benefit here, but also have additional disposal and cleanup costs. CFLs are, basically, *bad* for the environment in our case. They cost the environment more to make, and they cost more to recycle / dispose of.
I'd say that the same argument could be made for many Northern US States... with diminishing effects as one travels South. I haven't done the math, but clearly there is a point in the US where the use of CFLs flips, from a benefit to a bane.
Trees are a renewable resource. Using trees is essentially not environmentally harmful, as long as replacements are planted on cut.
Except that soy is dangerous to a group of people as well. Many people are allergic to it.
It's one thing to put it in food, which you can buy or not buy. It's another to hide it in a product that will be gassing this all over the place.
Frankly, soy based toner is the scariest thing in the world to me. I don't know anyone that's actually allergic to toner, but you can sure as hell smell it in the air!
Bah!
"Try YDL with Fluxbox, you'll see."
or.. maybe you mean?
"Why Micorsoft is ruling my universes Update!
if you click on that then Ill tell you I promise try it and youll see."
Heh.
http://www.l8r.net/geraldholmes.freeyellow.com/
Well, yeah actually trying to *do* anything on C64 beyond playing games was a form of masochism.
What I think the parent poster is looking for is something closer to a Natural Langauge Interface (the "holy grail" of all computing).
Of course we still can't even come close to that today, but Google tries pretty hard. It has "did you mean?", a bunch of conversions, and a variety of other rarely used features all crammed into one search box.
And, this is the worst thing Google has ever done.
I've searched for "Joe" and had "Joesph" come back as responses. Yes, in quotes.
I've searched for "board" and had "wood" come back.
Ever try to search for something with dashes in it?
Used to be that Google searched for precise spellings of words, with precise spacing, with dashes as dashes, and names as names.
Now, if I know "Joe Bergson" lives in California.. but has moved, I have to also look at all aliases for 'Joe', even though I don't want it.
Of course, these features change on a day to day basis.
These days, it seems that Google now only gives you 2 answers, in some cases, then defaults to what you actually searched for. However, in many cases it just responds with whatever it pleases.
It's literally *impossible* to search for many things, efficiently now.
Gee, thanks Google!
As with all things, they should switch to an expert mode, and a 'the user doesn't really know what they want, so let's interpret all things (much of the time, wrong) for them' mode.
I more than second this.
First, I'll just lightly mention HOW SLOW AND HOW MUCH OF A MEMORY HOG FIREFOX IS. Fix this first!
Then, next, how about you PRESERVE PRIVACY AT ALL TIMES! How about there is an "everything inane, off! now!! mode!!!"?
How about you never send me suggestions on what I'm looking for? How about you never go to anywhere but the precise address I type in the address bar, or fail?
I mean, good grief. It's been said. ADD ONS!
You know what really pisses me off? You know what is the end of all ends?
These boneheads dropped Mozilla, because it was 'too bloated'. They then started firefox, to FOCUS ON MEMORY USAGE AND SPEED, WITH A MINIMALISTIC APPROACH!!
Then these hosers turn right around, an start cramming all this crap back in!
Meanwhile, people that actually prefer slimmed down features, now have to use Mozilla.. which was resurrected by people that liked an inclusive browser in the first place!?
HELLO!
Oh, and other thing.
Android is not about t-mobile, or a cell phone, or any some such.
Not only has the G1 been rooted (making the lockout of the dev phones strange), but there will also be other devices.
Can you imagine an Android laptop without root? Is Google essentially stating that all 'copy protected' apps will be unusable for all but cell phones, and locked down ones at that?
This is going to be the minority of devices...
I own a normal, non-dev G1. I am not a t-mobile customer.
I can't buy paid apps.
Why? Google won't say why, won't respond to questions on this. It makes little sense.. but it seems that their current restrictions (what country you can buy from) are based upon whether or not you are a t-mobile customer, and in what country.
I haven't (yet) heard of anyone being able to buy apps, without a t-mobile sim. Can anyone refute this?
[quote]It's not uncommon for there to be a story on the news about someone who's died or suffered massive head trauma after being punched in the face once (usually outside a bar). Never underestimate the damage that can be caused by someone falling and hitting their head on pavement. Letting the courts decide on the punishment makes it much less likely the perpetrator will come to unintended harm (although our prison system isn't exactly perfect).[/quote]
Don't underestimate the number of people that beat each other senseless daily. It actually isn't that common for people to get hurt in a moderate beating, it's just that the news makes it appear as if every beating results in such. Frankly, you're more likely to be in a car accident and die, than you are to get hurt from a beating.
[quote]Also, you speak as if morals are an absolute truth, shared by everyone. That's not the case. I don't understand why you're surprised not everybody shares your moral code, i.e. that beating someone is justified purely because they beat someone else first.
It would appear that most people responding to your post have a moral belief that they are not responsible for (or possibly not capable of) determining an appropriate punishment for other people. Or they believe that such acts of vigilante justice quickly lead to a mob mentality, which frequently results in amoral behaviour. Or simply that the idea of intentional harming others is abhorrent to them, and something they would only do under dire circumstances. Not everybody enjoys beating people up, after all.[/quote]
Odd. You appear to think that beating someone, is something I would enjoy. Far from it. However, seeing an old woman, laying on the ground with blood and bruises covering her, I would definitely beat the living tar out of whomever did said act. I would get no more enjoyment out of such an act, than one gets pulling nose hairs.
[quote]Finally, by living within most western societies, you are agreeing to be bound by the rule of law.[/quote]
No, I am not agreeing to any such thing. I was born here, and I live here. I obey my own morals, regardless of any laws around me. I have not given oath or word that I would abide by any law or regulation. These have been imposed upon me.
Really? Why do you have doubts? What are your doubts?
It is interesting that when I spoke of morals and law, almost everyone responded about how the legal system was intended to mitigate revenge, or how the act spoken of above was an act of revenge, and on and on. However, absolutely no direct moralizing was done on that specific act.
Morals exist in parallel with the law. Law tries to be moral, but only succeeds by chance. It's too arbitrarily stated, to broad to truly be moral.. and some laws are indeed immoral.
Morals always exist. They exist if there is no rule of law. If there are no courts, if there is anarchy, if you live in a country without government or local rule of law. One must keep a discussion of law *out* of any discussion of morals, whereas when one discusses law they should always try to mimic morals (for example, at creation time).
Now, I did not state in any terms that beating the tar out of someone would be legal. Of course in my case cited above, it is not, and that is the whole *point*. It is, however, a *moral* act.
Frankly, I find it utterly surprising that anyone would find 'beating the tar out of someone' to be a problem. Certainly, said thug would likely get 5-10 years in jail for beating an old woman and then stealing her purse. Beating the tar out of someone =! killing them, or leaving them for dead, therefore general worst case would be a few weeks or perhaps months of pain. Frankly, any thug thinking about such, would be wise to consider himself *lucky*.
You certainly touched on it and I'll add my bit here, focusing entirely and only on that last sentence fragment.
The entire logic and reasoning behind that fragment is quite questionable. Frankly, I have to wonder about the character of the person that wrote it. To them, it would appear, the only reason people do not do wrong things, is because they are afraid of the ramifications of their actions. Put another way, the logic of that sentence fragment states that the only reason people do not slit your throat, steal your car, and rape your wife, is because they fear the backlash of their actions.
A person that employs such logic would therefore clearly steal from you, if they knew there would be absolutely no backlash. That is, if they were positive there was no way to be caught, and quite confident of it. This is called "an asshole". A person without any moral fiber.
A person with true moral fiber does not act based upon the laws, but acts based upon his code of ethics at all times. For example, it is clear that beating the living tar out of someone that just viciously beat and stole a purse from an old woman, is a very moral act. It is also quite illegal, unless that person is physically threatening you at the time. One is moral, one is legal.
Also, I am sure that a good number of people on slashdot feel it is quite valid to kick the living tar out of someone that has acted in an extremely inappropriate fashion. Of course, this is also illegal. Morals and legality are often the same, but equating laws to morals is not valid, ever.
So, I take a strong stand against someone discussing going to jail, as if someone looks at the possible jail sentence they might receive, decides if the act is worth that price, and the commits the crime. This is what that sentence fragment states. A better sentence fragment would be:
"there would seem to be quite a leap between risking blacklisting from Google, and killing someone in cold blood"
Everyone, get this through your heads.
1) Women and Men are NOT equal.
2) Women accel at some things, and Men accel at other things. This is true when we speak in averages.
3) The entire freaking point of "equal rights", is that while average differences do exist, that does not indicate the qualifications or ability of any individual, be it male or female.
So, when ever a woman tries to "speak for Females everywhere", she's absolutely nuts. The same, of course, is true of men doing the same for their sex. Each woman is an individual, with individual capabilities. Some women, although a much smaller percentage of women than men, accel at technical jobs.
This is because, *gasp*, women have different brains then men. Surprisingly, a pair of tits isn't all that differs a woman from a man.
So, to all you ladies in the audience, just be yourself. Don't try to speak for women everywhere. Don't hold back, just be YOU. Excel with the gifts you have.
Frankly, if everyone of every ethnic background and physical sex just did this, most silly problems would eventually vanish.
The problem though, is that citing your sources is not enough... because most sources are cited by Wikipedias from the net! It's sort of akin to asking 50 people around you, what they think is right, and calling that fact!
There are countless, endless, unending cases of big media getting things wrong, yet again and again this is what I see cited as sources!
Ah well, what's the point. Wikipedia for wikipedians.
(That was an insult, btw, and I sort of apologise. Perhaps you aren't a wikipedian.. I hope.)
First, keep in mind I stated:
"Now sure, this is the ultimate in paranoia. First, you would require complete complacency on the part of those designing NIC chips, and in many cases this is even done by contracted IC Design firms. There are just too many people involved to have some form of high level conspiracy, allowing for the ultimate in government control."
Second, yes... Linux and other open sauce variants make this inordiantely difficult. However, imagine a world where Linux did not appear? All it would require is the passing of a few laws, orders from the certain organizations, and Windows would pass on such packets without you ever seeing them.
Of course, in such a world, perhaps NIC cards can speak to each other directly over the PCI bus? No, it's not impossible. If you control the NIC chip, you control the BIOs, you control the system bus, you control all. The level of control we're talking about, after all, is the power to dictate to computer manufacturers to do "what they are told".
Really, if you control the hardware, the software follows....
Yes, but most routers aren't designed by some team of "dudes" in a basement somewhere, selling snake oil.
Frankly, I wouldn't buy some no-name, discount router either. I'll stick with the big names, or at least names I know and can trust, or from companies that I see handle security issues. Unfortunately, many of the stores selling this discount crap should be shot... I have no faith that a router without any reasonable documentation, and without and real mention of how to get to the homepage, is going to listen to and perform security updates on a timely basis.
So, sure.. a router, a crappy router definitely, is an equal risk. That doesn't detract from *this* risk. As well, up until now, we haven't really had to worry about such a beast in a PCI slot of a computer. That can wreak its own special breed of havock, when you think of it.
I've always wondered if there was a world-wide conspiracy with NICs and key points on the net. Naturally, if you wanted to analyze all traffic that existed (yes, yes... imagine the CPU power required for that!) the place one would start would be the NIC!
I'm just referring to packets that are tagged, and when the packets are tagged as such, the NIC effectively ignores them if not specifically destined for its MAC (making same packets impossible to detect even with a hub and another box with a same nic). One could have NICs send out detailed, compressed data concerning addresses and ports, and perhaps even a complete duplicate dump of data being sent to a specific host, if requested remotely.
Now sure, this is the ultimate in paranoia. First, you would require complete complacency on the part of those designing NIC chips, and in many cases this is even done by contracted IC Design firms. There are just too many people involved to have some form of high level conspiracy, allowing for the ultimate in government control.
However, we now have a NIC that is effectively a machine of its own, making it inordinately simple for all sorts of black hat shenanigans. Even if one were to trust the company, a card like this, if exploitable remotely, would be great to set up a nice little monitoring station and even a spam relay on. How would you detect it, if you're a simple user and you don't have another Linux box or firewall to detect the traffic outgoing? Firewalls are also effectively useless (unless in a locked down state that few put them in) once a box is allowed access to NAT. There are simple ways to punch holes through firewall, and using NAT, keep them open with little traffic.
Of course, one could also just phone home every few hours anyhow.
Frankly, while I *like* real hardware NICs, I at least trust that Intel's 100% hardware NIC is going to be relatively unexploitable. It's a single purpose device, so you're not going to be (I hope!) easily loading a trojan on there.
This thing however? It sounds like you could load anything on that "NIC".
Stay away. We don't even know anything about this *company*, let alone it's security review process for the software running the NIC.
Tell me about it. Current SATA connectors are horrible in some situations. I've actually had situations where I've had to use a glue gun to literally keep the connectors from coming off on their own.
That's utterly horrible, and damned lame.
Certainly, two stories about cheap student pricing for Microsoft products will help M$ quite a bit... even with the humour assigned to the first story. Microsoft _really_ _really_ _really_ wants students to buy their products, and then use them for the rest of their lives.
What better place to advertise than on slashdot?
Alternatively, perhaps we've seen some monkeying with the new story posting moderation system? How many M$ employees does it take to get news stories in place?