The electronic voting system was mentioned several times in the press, but I've seen no details of who ran it and how it was verified (and how counts might be independently verified if the result was contested).
The recent whoring to MS was over sharing of databases - there was no mention of voting systems in that announcement, and in any case it'll be years before it works well enough to matter (if it ever does), judging from the last few government software debacles.
You don't really want lossless compression - the information density of text on a page is so low that PNG-style encoding comes out pretty poor.
Acrobat does quite good compression of scanned pages using a Fax-style (run length encoded) method. This works well unless you have greyscale (rather than line art) images.
What you need is a compression method that is tuned to the characteristics of text : not as complex as irregular patterns (use PNG) and without the smooth transitions common in photographs (use JPEG).
The upcoming standard for text compression is JBIG. This somewhere between a raster compression and OCR. It generates a table of encoded images that correspond to the font in use, then encodes the differences between those library templates and the actual scanned image in order to get spacings and other variations correct. Note that it doesn't actually OCR : it just recognises that the page is made up of a large number of regularly-spaced cells containing a relatively small number of basic shapes. There's some open-source work on JBIG : check google for JBIG-KIT. JBIG also recognises that a page may contain regions where a different compression method is more appropriate (pictures in the text) and switches as necessary.
There was a thread on sci.electronics on this a while ago - one suggestion was that a jammer should imitate a base station. Operating at low power, it would fail to complete the call negotiation. The phone would then try again, but always at low power because the base was close at hand.
But annotating a contract (including deleting every word in it) before you sign it is perfectly reasonable. If the vendor is fool enough to trust a poorly-written computer program to protect his interests in such a transaction, he's the loser.
I don't think MS are trying to decide whether to put a TCP/IP stack in - they're trying to make sure there isn't a way to root the box over the net.
Given their track record, that can't be easy : but there's not a lot of point defending the hardware against non-approved CDs if the first net game they release falls to a buffer overflow, is there?
You add to the marketshare count, but after a few months the games publishers realise that you're not buying any games (and MS don't get any royalties). So they stop developing, and MS have to scrape egg off their face.
However, you can get almost as good a result by simply not buying the consoles. After they've sat on the shelves for months and been dumped for $50, MS have lost a lot of money, too.
And Flextronics, who probably spent a huge amount setting up a line to build the things and don't have a clawback contract, will have gone bust.
SCART carries both RGB and composite (it can also carry SVideo by using some RGB pins). He probably snipped something that made the TV use RGB mode : it reverted to composite and the green was gone.
In fact, he converted his nice RGB cable into a nasty composite one:-)
Of course they sell faster : with 5 games to choose from instead of 200, every x-box owner will buy every game. There just aren't many owners, so the total sell remains small.
What is it, exactly, that you're paying for ? Since Crossover is apparently based on Wine, what is it that you get extra that isn't open source ? Could it ever be open, or is it a means to get around some NDA ?
Yes, but the apps already built for the old API will still work, and the new dlls or development systems that require the new API will take a while to filter through (how long between the releases of Photoshop 6 and 7 ?). By which time, Wine can catch up again.
No, a TFT monitor is an LCD (i.e. a light gate with individual holes for each colour of each pixel). It differs from cheaper LCDs in that it has an active switching element (Thin Film Transistor) mounted on the glass at every pixel.
Other types switch the cells using a complex multi-level drive waveform in X any Y directions which result in a large polarizing voltage on selected cells and a small voltage on others. The low duty cycle required to multiplex all those pixels has the disadvantage of low contrast.
I'm interested in setting up a filtering system that ACCEPTS mail only from senders I'm willing to hear from - a whitelist instead of a blacklist.
Any other sender would get a bounce message (if their reply address worked) and an invitation to use a short-lived temporary address, or a unique keyword in the subject line.
Mail to this temporary address would get through, and could be used to arrange for that sender to be on my 'whitelist' but would rapidly expire to ensure it would be useless if it got onto a spam list.
This can obviously be set up with procmail and a bit of scripting, but does such a system already exist ? Any major flaws ?
Slashdot Mirror
The electronic voting system was mentioned several times in the press, but I've seen no details of who ran it and how it was verified (and how counts might be independently verified if the result was contested).
The recent whoring to MS was over sharing of databases - there was no mention of voting systems in that announcement, and in any case it'll be years before it works well enough to matter (if it ever does), judging from the last few government software debacles.
You don't really want lossless compression - the information density of text on a page is so low that PNG-style encoding comes out pretty poor.
Acrobat does quite good compression of scanned pages using a Fax-style (run length encoded) method. This works well unless you have greyscale (rather than line art) images.
What you need is a compression method that is tuned to the characteristics of text : not as complex as irregular patterns (use PNG) and without the smooth transitions common in photographs (use JPEG).
The upcoming standard for text compression is JBIG. This somewhere between a raster compression and OCR. It generates a table of encoded images that correspond to the font in use, then encodes the differences between those library templates and the actual scanned image in order to get spacings and other variations correct. Note that it doesn't actually OCR : it just recognises that the page is made up of a large number of regularly-spaced cells containing a relatively small number of basic shapes. There's some open-source work on JBIG : check google for JBIG-KIT. JBIG also recognises that a page may contain regions where a different compression method is more appropriate (pictures in the text) and switches as necessary.
"For example, if the worm encounters the address user@abc123.com it will attempt to send email via the server smtp.abc123.com."
That's pretty dumb. How often is that going to work ? Aren't virus writers clever enough to use the proper method ?
Don't you just love teenagers and their toys ?
I wonder if they ever get bored, swimming around in their barrels.
There was a thread on sci.electronics on this a while ago - one suggestion was that a jammer should imitate a base station. Operating at low power, it would fail to complete the call negotiation. The phone would then try again, but always at low power because the base was close at hand.
What important calls ?
I've survived perfectly happily for many years before the invention of mobile phones - why on earth should they suddenly become essential ?
If I've got an 'important' call to make (once a year ?) I can use a payphone.
It's _NOT_ 'wallah'
It's VOILA.
But annotating a contract (including deleting every word in it) before you sign it is perfectly reasonable. If the vendor is fool enough to trust a poorly-written computer program to protect his interests in such a transaction, he's the loser.
I don't think MS are trying to decide whether to put a TCP/IP stack in - they're trying to make sure there isn't a way to root the box over the net.
Given their track record, that can't be easy : but there's not a lot of point defending the hardware against non-approved CDs if the first net game they release falls to a buffer overflow, is there?
> about Linux being "a proper OS" - how many games are available on it?
That's an interesting perspective. The success of a gaming platform is usually inversely related to the capabilities of its OS.
Wouldn't you rather choose the 2 games yourself instead of getting the cheapest, worst games they can get away with ?
You add to the marketshare count, but after a few months the games publishers realise that you're not buying any games (and MS don't get any royalties). So they stop developing, and MS have to scrape egg off their face.
However, you can get almost as good a result by simply not buying the consoles. After they've sat on the shelves for months and been dumped for $50, MS have lost a lot of money, too.
And Flextronics, who probably spent a huge amount setting up a line to build the things and don't have a clawback contract, will have gone bust.
> didn't know you could do it via pin snipping.
:-)
SCART carries both RGB and composite (it can also carry SVideo by using some RGB pins). He probably snipped something that made the TV use RGB mode : it reverted to composite and the green was gone.
In fact, he converted his nice RGB cable into a nasty composite one
Steve Roberts.
http://www.microship.com/ - geek heaven on the water.
Of course they sell faster : with 5 games to choose from instead of 200, every x-box owner will buy every game. There just aren't many owners, so the total sell remains small.
Depends how your accounting works : if you spend 40 billion, you have to get that back, too, before there's REALLY a profit.
Only Win32 and Mac ?
You've forgotten PS/2 - surely many more units than Mac, and well suited to AOL's market.
No, the common input mechanism seems to be to mix down to 5.75MHz with a cable TV tuner.
What is it, exactly, that you're paying for ? Since Crossover is apparently based on Wine, what is it that you get extra that isn't open source ? Could it ever be open, or is it a means to get around some NDA ?
Yes, but the apps already built for the old API will still work, and the new dlls or development systems that require the new API will take a while to filter through (how long between the releases of Photoshop 6 and 7 ?). By which time, Wine can catch up again.
That's one way of filtering the spam out !
That paper also mentions (section 6.3) the possibility of reading daat from the flashing LEDs on modems. So who beat who to the idea ?
No, a TFT monitor is an LCD (i.e. a light gate with individual holes for each colour of each pixel). It differs from cheaper LCDs in that it has an active switching element (Thin Film Transistor) mounted on the glass at every pixel.
Other types switch the cells using a complex multi-level drive waveform in X any Y directions which result in a large polarizing voltage on selected cells and a small voltage on others. The low duty cycle required to multiplex all those pixels has the disadvantage of low contrast.
Note the BBC's subheading for the article - "Security through censorship"
I'm interested in setting up a filtering system that ACCEPTS mail only from senders I'm willing to hear from - a whitelist instead of a blacklist.
Any other sender would get a bounce message (if their reply address worked) and an invitation to use a short-lived temporary address, or a unique keyword in the subject line.
Mail to this temporary address would get through, and could be used to arrange for that sender to be on my 'whitelist' but would rapidly expire to ensure it would be useless if it got onto a spam list.
This can obviously be set up with procmail and a bit of scripting, but does such a system already exist ? Any major flaws ?