This last weekeend XP w/SP2 on my work laptop suddenly forgot where the boot volume was on a reboot. (Stop 0xED if your interested) I had 2 AV progs, 3 Anti-Spyware progs, and nothing was installed that absolutely wasn't needed.
Upon re-install, the machine is up and running again. I can find no evidence of hardware failure on the system.
Meanwhile, my personal machine, in 6 YEARS, running Linux, has NEVER hung. It's a personal machine, and doesn't have anything really important on it, so I'm not particularly careful with it. Despite my carelessness, it just keeps chugging along.
Yes, XP blue-screens less than 98/ME did. But it does Blue screen.
It's meant as a training device, specifically designed for military use. The military leads a VERY different life from you and I.
From the limited information (image) provided, the equipment used here is not significantly, if any, larger or heavier than standard equipment carried in the field by our military on a daily basis. In fact, it looks right inline with what is "humped" on any given day.
Also, this is meant as a training device, not an augmentation to the standard load. Training devices should be close to, if not a little bit heavier, the weight of what is carried in the field. Using Ultra-light equipment in training makes for exhausted soldiers in the field.
The HMD looks roughly equivalent to standard issue Night Vision Goggles. The battery pack is MUCH lighter than a standard rucksack (though that could easily remedied:-) ). The weapon looks a bit off. (Hopefully, it's balanced out to approximate a loaded M16).
The real questions are durability, usability, and cost. Durability: When a soldier must dive for cover to avoid being "shot" by the virtual enemy, the HMD shouldn't shatter in his eyes. It should "simply" keep working, as designed.
Usability: Most military training equipment requires no more than an 8th grade education to operate. (Yes, that is the actual standard) Soldiers don't have time in the middle of combat to try and remember which key sequence to push to get the weapon to fire. Press the button and BOOM.
Cost: This equipment looks to be aimed at small squad tactics. A couple of thousand dollars per soldier is not out of line for this type of equipment. Not budgeted dollars, but actual cost. Budget is a whole different ballgame.
In the US, the Social Security Number (SSN) is your "primary key". It's how everyone, the government, banks, employers, credit bureaus, etc keep track of you and your information.
From a statistical point of view, it's who you are.
Given a SSN, the name to which it belongs, and the most recently known address, anyone can now pretend to be you. Billy Bad Guy can now get a loan in your name. Billy can purchase a car.
You are the one that is billed, not Billy.
With 145k identities (yeah.... right... only 145k out of 220 million) Billy is an instant Billionaire. All he has do to is get to a country with no extradition to the US, and begin living the life of luxury on your (or the Banks) dime.
The laws are getting better about protecting individuals once they have proven they are a victim. The trick is proving it wasn't you that bought that Lear jet on a janitors salary.
Don't want calls from a bill collector faking it as TQPC? Use a firewall. Find out what subnet / IP range they are calling from and block it.
Better yet, setup a freely available VOIP PBX solution, and drop them into a never-ending honeypot. Let 'em play with that for a while.
Or... If you can find out what service they are using, shoot an email off to them about how you're not interested in purchasing a book. Use your imagination. Could be fun.
VOIP puts the control into your hands.
The other solution would be to pay your f'ckn bills.:-P
No... what we've been asking for is for Microsoft to fix the OS internally, so that spyware / adware / virii have a more difficult time of getting ahold of a machine.
Put a Win box on the internet. Wait 15 min.
BAM! "You've got spywware!"
This is what we've been screaming about.
Besides, releasing a fix to a broken system for free is not abusing a monopoly. And yes, I do consider allowing other programs (spyware, virii) to auto-install / auto-forward themselves to be a broken system.
Imagine Ford or GM releasing a vehicle that just randomly swerves left/right. Now they want to sell you a fix for it.
Knew it was coming. You're correct. You don't need to install a good percentage of the tools that are actually ported to windows.
I'm just saying the Cygwin team has done me a HUGE favor in collecting handy utilities in one place, and that it's not possible / practical to install cygwin.
The point is that you can sit at any windows machine, which may not necessarily be your own, and have a decent set of utilities to use.
I personaly work on many machines on any given day. The majority of which I do not own. I'm not "allowed" by my customer to go and just start throwing applications onto their system willy-nilly.
With this, I can work on any machine, using a shell I know, (bash), have a functional Xserver available, and access to a bajillion other GNU utilities without ever installing a single app.
Ever needed to tail a file in windows? It's there. Yes, there is a tail app for windows, and it's free. The point here is that this doesn't need to be installed. Grep? same thing.
Just boot to a LiveCD distro, you say? But I need to see what's happening on this Virii / Spyware ridden hunk o' junk while it's running windows.
Could I build my own suite? Yeah... but why would I? This has what I need.
This reminds me of the "A vote for Nader is taking a vote away from Gore" argument the Gore camp was throwing around.
"That dog won't hunt"
A vote for Linux is a vote for Linux. Each and every competitor must stand on it's own merits. If Sun, HP, et al are losing customers, it is because their customers see an advantage in their competitors product. Evolve to meet the demand or die...
Slashdot Mirror
Damnit, you made Dew shoot out my nose!
As a matter of fact, yes.
This last weekeend XP w/SP2 on my work laptop suddenly forgot where the boot volume was on a reboot. (Stop 0xED if your interested) I had 2 AV progs, 3 Anti-Spyware progs, and nothing was installed that absolutely wasn't needed.
Upon re-install, the machine is up and running again. I can find no evidence of hardware failure on the system.
Meanwhile, my personal machine, in 6 YEARS, running Linux, has NEVER hung. It's a personal machine, and doesn't have anything really important on it, so I'm not particularly careful with it. Despite my carelessness, it just keeps chugging along.
Yes, XP blue-screens less than 98/ME did. But it does Blue screen.
I think you're missing the point.
:-) ). The weapon looks a bit off. (Hopefully, it's balanced out to approximate a loaded M16).
This isn't meant to "take off big time".
It's meant as a training device, specifically designed for military use. The military leads a VERY different life from you and I.
From the limited information (image) provided, the equipment used here is not significantly, if any, larger or heavier than standard equipment carried in the field by our military on a daily basis. In fact, it looks right inline with what is "humped" on any given day.
Also, this is meant as a training device, not an augmentation to the standard load. Training devices should be close to, if not a little bit heavier, the weight of what is carried in the field. Using Ultra-light equipment in training makes for exhausted soldiers in the field.
The HMD looks roughly equivalent to standard issue Night Vision Goggles. The battery pack is MUCH lighter than a standard rucksack (though that could easily remedied
The real questions are durability, usability, and cost.
Durability: When a soldier must dive for cover to avoid being "shot" by the virtual enemy, the HMD shouldn't shatter in his eyes. It should "simply" keep working, as designed.
Usability: Most military training equipment requires no more than an 8th grade education to operate. (Yes, that is the actual standard)
Soldiers don't have time in the middle of combat to try and remember which key sequence to push to get the weapon to fire. Press the button and BOOM.
Cost: This equipment looks to be aimed at small squad tactics. A couple of thousand dollars per soldier is not out of line for this type of equipment. Not budgeted dollars, but actual cost. Budget is a whole different ballgame.
--
mm
Schwartz' team hopes to overcome this problem and begin testing in humans within the next four years.
Gee, where do I sign up? </sarcasm>
--
mm
Two Words. Identity Theft.
In the US, the Social Security Number (SSN) is your "primary key". It's how everyone, the government, banks, employers, credit bureaus, etc keep track of you and your information.
From a statistical point of view, it's who you are.
Given a SSN, the name to which it belongs, and the most recently known address, anyone can now pretend to be you. Billy Bad Guy can now get a loan in your name. Billy can purchase a car. You are the one that is billed, not Billy.
With 145k identities (yeah.... right... only 145k out of 220 million) Billy is an instant Billionaire. All he has do to is get to a country with no extradition to the US, and begin living the life of luxury on your (or the Banks) dime.
The laws are getting better about protecting individuals once they have proven they are a victim. The trick is proving it wasn't you that bought that Lear jet on a janitors salary.
Want a link to the details? Here ya go:
What Are Identity Theft And Identity Fraud?
Whaddya mean your question was rhetorical?
--
<Insert Funny Sig Here>
mm
"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said.
I wonder if we could all drive West (or would it be east) for 2.68 microseconds at the same time to counter the change.
*shrug*
Here is the real beauty of VOIP.
:-P
Don't want calls from a bill collector faking it as TQPC? Use a firewall. Find out what subnet / IP range they are calling from and block it.
Better yet, setup a freely available VOIP PBX solution, and drop them into a never-ending honeypot. Let 'em play with that for a while.
Or... If you can find out what service they are using, shoot an email off to them about how you're not interested in purchasing a book. Use your imagination. Could be fun.
VOIP puts the control into your hands.
The other solution would be to pay your f'ckn bills.
No... what we've been asking for is for Microsoft to fix the OS internally, so that spyware / adware / virii have a more difficult time of getting ahold of a machine.
/right. Now they want to sell you a fix for it.
Put a Win box on the internet. Wait 15 min.
BAM! "You've got spywware!"
This is what we've been screaming about.
Besides, releasing a fix to a broken system for free is not abusing a monopoly.
And yes, I do consider allowing other programs (spyware, virii) to auto-install / auto-forward themselves to be a broken system.
Imagine Ford or GM releasing a vehicle that just randomly swerves left
Doesn't seem right.
Knew it was coming. You're correct. You don't need to install a good percentage of the tools that are actually ported to windows.
I'm just saying the Cygwin team has done me a HUGE favor in collecting handy utilities in one place, and that it's not possible / practical to install cygwin.
I work on many machines with no usb port. Your solution does not work for me. This does.
Just because you have no use for this doesn't mean it's not useful.
The point is that you can sit at any windows machine, which may not necessarily be your own, and have a decent set of utilities to use.
I personaly work on many machines on any given day. The majority of which I do not own. I'm not "allowed" by my customer to go and just start throwing applications onto their system willy-nilly.
With this, I can work on any machine, using a shell I know, (bash), have a functional Xserver available, and access to a bajillion other GNU utilities without ever installing a single app.
Ever needed to tail a file in windows? It's there. Yes, there is a tail app for windows, and it's free. The point here is that this doesn't need to be installed. Grep? same thing.
Just boot to a LiveCD distro, you say? But I need to see what's happening on this Virii / Spyware ridden hunk o' junk while it's running windows.
Could I build my own suite? Yeah... but why would I? This has what I need.
Kudos and my thanks to the Cygwin team.
This reminds me of the "A vote for Nader is taking a vote away from Gore" argument the Gore camp was throwing around.
"That dog won't hunt"
A vote for Linux is a vote for Linux. Each and every competitor must stand on it's own merits. If Sun, HP, et al are losing customers, it is because their customers see an advantage in their competitors product. Evolve to meet the demand or die...
Darwinistic Capitalism... mmm mmm... Gotta Luv It!