Perhaps a solution is this: start up a company to insure credit card #s from theft. The way this works is this: if someone steals a # from a merchant who pays premiums to this company, every # in the merchant's db receives an instant settlement for $50.
The premium would be a function of how much sales the company makes by cc. Granted, this would be passed on to the customers, but the merchant is free to put a "Your credit card number is protected by {INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]" logo on their site, and they receive a listing on the insurer's website.
Obviously, the insurance company is going to make the premiums dependent on the extent of security precautions. In other words, if the merchant doesn't even change the database default password, then their premiums'll be sky-high and either the company goes under more quickly or it charges exorbitant prices to cover the premiums. Meanwhile, a company that employs a good security guy who secures the servers (keeping up with all the tricks of the trade) pays next to nil in fees, thus giving them lower prices.
Build the security into the price of what you buy online, in other words.
There are a few cases where the movie is better than the source material (be it play, short story, or novel). In the case of over-long "technothrillers" (*cough* Tom Clancy *cough*), the films they make are at least as good as the books, because they can remove a lot of the extraneous bullsh*t that the author tacked on and no editor would stand against him.
Also, a number of the Bond films make improvements on the Ian Fleming sources (imho). From Russia With Love, for instance, in the literary form, features only two groups, MI6/Bond and SMERSH/Red Grant (with Tatiana sort of caught in the middle). The film adds intrigue by throwing SPECTRE into the mix.
And in Goldfinger, Ian Fleming himself, said that they improved the novel with the screenplay (Fleming died just after Goldfinger wrapped filming).
The three eighties Bonds that took both title and plot points from Bond short stories (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and The Living Daylights) all did an amazing job of stitching together several disparate short stories and improving them through packaging.
With any sort of consulting business, there is this question of conflioct of interest. There are two solutions to this that immediately strike me.
One: if you're the hirer of the consultant, get a second opinion. Ask another consultant. Check the media. Determine if the consultant is recommending this because it's good for you or if he/she's recommending it because it's good for him/her.
My second idea is more theoretical than anything else. Charge clients an annual fee for your services, regardless of what they do with your advice. This removes a lot of COI questions, imo.
Being sold in a box is not the sole means of making software commercial. Granted, that level of commoditization of the market that was seen with the advent of the personal computer some 25 years has spurred unprecedented growth in commercial software. And in the early days of PCs, huge amounts of software was taken from source published in magazines, etc. or traded at usergroups.
But, in the 54 years since ENIAC, personal computers have been around for slightly less than half of that. The way it worked was this: you bought an IBM or UNIVAC and they would program it for you (say to do insurance calculations). They effectively sold the software as part of the hardware. Would Travelers give AETna (actually, its predecessor company) their source? Not likely.
Yes, the early days of the PC were very free-software-ish, but to consider the history of computing to have started with the PC is to ignore over half the history of "modern" computing.
I've been known to dabble in screenwriting (it's been about 5 years or so since I caught the bug), and an idea hit me recently: the film equivalent of open source!
If screenplays can be considered source code for movies, then the OS movie is definitely this: any writer who wants to contribute scenes to a screenplay can. Once the draft is satisfactory (ie ready for release), a film could be made and distributed.
I mean, why couldn't this set up work?
As to GPL'ing films, now that's very interesting...
Well if lines upon lines of C and assembler don't keep you warm at night, then what will?...
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
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· Score: 1
My thoughts exactly. To equate Democracy with Liberty is to fall prey to a fallacy. Yet that's what we've been told. Since at least WWI, the US has justified wars on the basis of "We're making the world safe for Democracy", when the more proper statement would have included Liberty or Freedom.
For instance, we're told that Democracy aids Liberty and vice versa. That's not quite true. If one believes in Democracy above all else, then one must accept Adolf Hitler and his actions during the 1930's and 1940's. He was elected with far less fraud than what is alleged in Florida.
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
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· Score: 3
For what it's worth, Hoover was never elected. He was appointed in the 20's, and because he had dirt on all the Presidents (basically up until Gerald Ford) was kept around.
And, as has been posted earlier, MLK was not trying to unseat the government. He was seeking greater political, economic, and social equality for blacks, not overthrow of the governemnt (or any political office, for that matter...)
The various Employee Stock Ownership systems in existence (one example is stock options) also serve to at least combine shareholder, management, and employee interests. There's nothing stopping community groups from doing this and getting a say in the affairs of a company. Maybe this is why Ralph Nader owns a fair amount of stock in the largest of the globalized oil companies: Royal Dutch Shell.
Re:Why pay money for anonymous information?
on
Clever Girl Bess
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· Score: 1
the psychological manipulation of children. No wonder the DOD is so interested.
I can tell you exactly why the DOD is interested: recruitment. With the exception of the Marines, none of the branches of the military have met their recruiting goals for years. The odds are, the DOD wants to know what sites teenargers are visiting so they can buy banner ads, and possibly make their own recruitment sites more like the popular sites with that crowd. Example: if they discover that 16 year-olds like sites with gobs of Flash, then navyjobs.com could be redesigned to make more use of Flash.
Re:This is the problem not the solution
on
Nazis on Napster
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· Score: 1
While the present German Government is undoubtedly more benign than its regrettable predecessors it seems they share an incapability of tolerating dissenting voices.
I believe the Germans are required by international law to prohibit the Nazis from operating. I think it was one of the terms under which Germany (East and West) was/were allowed to form their own governments. To stop banning the Nazis would require the US, France, Great Britain, and Russia to sign off, I believe.
Then who the hell controls it? You'd have tons of people broadcasting over eachother, others just trying to scramble other peopel.
Simple answer: nobody. If a station has a problem with being jammed, they simply sue the jammer.
And remeber, it was the FCC that wanted to grant the licenses, and congress that shot them down.
The thing is, none of this would ever happen if there wasn't an FCC.
One thing to remember is that most of the broadcasting regulations haven't been touched in decades. Technology has advanced far beyond the 1950's, folks. Receivers are far more advanced then they were. There could easily be two to three times the number of stations on the dial, thanks to digital tuners and other such advances. The radio is still largely ruled by obscenity laws that haven't changed since the 1960's. Stations with shock jocks routinely pay fines for breaking the obscenity laws (and they don't even use the seven dirty words). The whole body of broadcast regulation needs to be reviewed, in view of what modern tech is doing.
Basically, it's very easy for a Congressional committees to sneak a clause into a bill that has nothing to do with the gist of the bill. Then the Rules Committee (in the House) can decide to designate the bill as one to be voted up or down as a whole, with no modifications accepted. This is how a lot of pork gets sneaked into the budget.
You essentially put the other members of Congress into a bind: either vote against legislation they have to vote for to get reelected, or vote for a section they disagree with.
Slashdot Mirror
There this 760MP based board from Tyan shown in the article. Only four DIMM's though...
There seems to be an ISA slot on the board of this VIA board referenced in the article (for a Cyrix CPU, no less).
The premium would be a function of how much sales the company makes by cc. Granted, this would be passed on to the customers, but the merchant is free to put a "Your credit card number is protected by {INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]" logo on their site, and they receive a listing on the insurer's website.
Obviously, the insurance company is going to make the premiums dependent on the extent of security precautions. In other words, if the merchant doesn't even change the database default password, then their premiums'll be sky-high and either the company goes under more quickly or it charges exorbitant prices to cover the premiums. Meanwhile, a company that employs a good security guy who secures the servers (keeping up with all the tricks of the trade) pays next to nil in fees, thus giving them lower prices.
Build the security into the price of what you buy online, in other words.
In other words, the Bond films may or may not be considered Hollywood, depending on how broadly you cast your net.
There are a few cases where the movie is better than the source material (be it play, short story, or novel). In the case of over-long "technothrillers" (*cough* Tom Clancy *cough*), the films they make are at least as good as the books, because they can remove a lot of the extraneous bullsh*t that the author tacked on and no editor would stand against him.
Also, a number of the Bond films make improvements on the Ian Fleming sources (imho). From Russia With Love, for instance, in the literary form, features only two groups, MI6/Bond and SMERSH/Red Grant (with Tatiana sort of caught in the middle). The film adds intrigue by throwing SPECTRE into the mix.
And in Goldfinger, Ian Fleming himself, said that they improved the novel with the screenplay (Fleming died just after Goldfinger wrapped filming).
The three eighties Bonds that took both title and plot points from Bond short stories (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and The Living Daylights) all did an amazing job of stitching together several disparate short stories and improving them through packaging.
And if they run Solaris, they've already made the right decision, and there's no need to change?
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that he who advocates war on spammers is spamming /. ?
Why would windows themers be angry about this... the themes are for KDE and other X window managers/desktops.
One: if you're the hirer of the consultant, get a second opinion. Ask another consultant. Check the media. Determine if the consultant is recommending this because it's good for you or if he/she's recommending it because it's good for him/her.
My second idea is more theoretical than anything else. Charge clients an annual fee for your services, regardless of what they do with your advice. This removes a lot of COI questions, imo.
Being sold in a box is not the sole means of making software commercial. Granted, that level of commoditization of the market that was seen with the advent of the personal computer some 25 years has spurred unprecedented growth in commercial software. And in the early days of PCs, huge amounts of software was taken from source published in magazines, etc. or traded at usergroups.
But, in the 54 years since ENIAC, personal computers have been around for slightly less than half of that. The way it worked was this: you bought an IBM or UNIVAC and they would program it for you (say to do insurance calculations). They effectively sold the software as part of the hardware. Would Travelers give AETna (actually, its predecessor company) their source? Not likely.
Yes, the early days of the PC were very free-software-ish, but to consider the history of computing to have started with the PC is to ignore over half the history of "modern" computing.
If screenplays can be considered source code for movies, then the OS movie is definitely this: any writer who wants to contribute scenes to a screenplay can. Once the draft is satisfactory (ie ready for release), a film could be made and distributed.
I mean, why couldn't this set up work?
As to GPL'ing films, now that's very interesting...
Well if lines upon lines of C and assembler don't keep you warm at night, then what will?...
For instance, we're told that Democracy aids Liberty and vice versa. That's not quite true. If one believes in Democracy above all else, then one must accept Adolf Hitler and his actions during the 1930's and 1940's. He was elected with far less fraud than what is alleged in Florida.
There's a very interesting article on this topic at Liberzine.
And, as has been posted earlier, MLK was not trying to unseat the government. He was seeking greater political, economic, and social equality for blacks, not overthrow of the governemnt (or any political office, for that matter...)
This certainly isn't Ancient, but it's Free.
As to Accepted, well that's another matter entirely.
[Myself, I'll be sticking to PHP...]
The various Employee Stock Ownership systems in existence (one example is stock options) also serve to at least combine shareholder, management, and employee interests. There's nothing stopping community groups from doing this and getting a say in the affairs of a company. Maybe this is why Ralph Nader owns a fair amount of stock in the largest of the globalized oil companies: Royal Dutch Shell.
the psychological manipulation of children. No wonder the DOD is so interested.
I can tell you exactly why the DOD is interested: recruitment. With the exception of the Marines, none of the branches of the military have met their recruiting goals for years. The odds are, the DOD wants to know what sites teenargers are visiting so they can buy banner ads, and possibly make their own recruitment sites more like the popular sites with that crowd. Example: if they discover that 16 year-olds like sites with gobs of Flash, then navyjobs.com could be redesigned to make more use of Flash.
While the present German Government is undoubtedly more benign than its regrettable predecessors it seems they share an incapability of tolerating dissenting voices.
I believe the Germans are required by international law to prohibit the Nazis from operating. I think it was one of the terms under which Germany (East and West) was/were allowed to form their own governments. To stop banning the Nazis would require the US, France, Great Britain, and Russia to sign off, I believe.
Of course, I could be wrong...
Then who the hell controls it? You'd have tons of people broadcasting over eachother, others just trying to scramble other peopel.
Simple answer: nobody. If a station has a problem with being jammed, they simply sue the jammer.
And remeber, it was the FCC that wanted to grant the licenses, and congress that shot them down.
The thing is, none of this would ever happen if there wasn't an FCC.
One thing to remember is that most of the broadcasting regulations haven't been touched in decades. Technology has advanced far beyond the 1950's, folks. Receivers are far more advanced then they were. There could easily be two to three times the number of stations on the dial, thanks to digital tuners and other such advances. The radio is still largely ruled by obscenity laws that haven't changed since the 1960's. Stations with shock jocks routinely pay fines for breaking the obscenity laws (and they don't even use the seven dirty words). The whole body of broadcast regulation needs to be reviewed, in view of what modern tech is doing.
Basically, it's very easy for a Congressional committees to sneak a clause into a bill that has nothing to do with the gist of the bill. Then the Rules Committee (in the House) can decide to designate the bill as one to be voted up or down as a whole, with no modifications accepted. This is how a lot of pork gets sneaked into the budget.
You essentially put the other members of Congress into a bind: either vote against legislation they have to vote for to get reelected, or vote for a section they disagree with.
Since the 1920s, the government has taken the position that it owns the airwaves, and the FCC essentialy rents them to broadcasters.
The logic is that they're not preventing you from speaking, just not providing you with a venue ro speak.
My view is that the FCC should be abolished. Anyone should be able to braodcast what ever the hell they please.
Yeah, but then again can you imagine what the trees would look like, if there were precompiled binaries?
. 18/i686/rtl8139/via82cxxx/nvidiavanta/noscsi/...
sound appetizing?
Does ftp://ftp.us.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/2.2
Sorry about posting what ghad been posted in another post. Note to self: read earlier reponses before replying...
I always thought they named it the DX4 to imply that it was twice as fast as the DX2.
Yeah, a DX4-75 must be more than twice as fast as the DX2-66... hehehehe
The 386DX was, IIRC, the 32-bit bus 386 (the SX only had a 16-bit bus). The 387 was the numeric coprocessor.