We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." - Carl Sagan
This search engine will most likely be used in existing and coming versions of Internet Explorer. You know, the one 90%+ of the population seem to use.
But go ahead and block the spider so your site won't be listed, it's of course your choice.:-S
If I'd want to boycott it for some childish reason, I'd just not visit their site.
I don't think he was completely full of shit, since I agree with the DVD Forum being the standardizing body when it comes to DVD discs, and not a random group of companies deciding to form an alliance and push their format. Although I can understand if they wish to call their format a standard.
I could compare the DVD Forum to the W3C, where the DVD+RW Alliance could be Microsoft and any henchmen that follows their path. Not that I dislike any companies behind the DVD+RW Alliance; just picked Microsoft for the sake of the web standard comparison since they have a lot of own "standards" in this field.
I don't think it's a coincidence that your PS2 and XBOX happen to like DVD-R mostly too.
Having said that, I agree that you should stick to what works as well. If DVD+R worked everywhere, and DVD-R not really everywhere, I would've went for DVD+R instead.
Why don't they just skip straight to gamma-ray DVDs? Sure, you'd have to wear a radiation suit to watch Return of the King, but that's a small price to pay for ultra-high capacity, right?
Gamma rays you say?
But if I skip the suit, I'll become the incredible Hulk when I hear about Darl McBride!
I think that sounds much more cool than staying like a sad geek posting on Slashdot when hearing about the same McBride.
Only drives specifically designed to support Blu-Ray discs can play them.
Long answer:
Blu-Ray discs are just "recordable discs", and not DVD discs, since they don't adhere to the DVD specification. HD-DVD discs do on the other hand, and I think they were designed with more backwards compatibility in mind. It might be possible to use tricks on those, like storing "DVD" information in one layer that's backwards compatible and "HD-DVD" in another. Then your "old" DVD player could "see" the DVD information and not even know it's reading from a HD-DVD disc. That's speculation though, but I think there might at least be a small chance things could work with HD-DVD's.
I guess that's why I'm using only DVD-R discs today. DVD+R won't play in my DVD player and when I asked about why it didn't support it, the salesman said that DVD+R isn't the standard, and while DVD-R was supported on basically all DVD players, not all supported DVD+R.
And since I don't want to decide when I buy the discs if I should have DVD movies on them or data, I simply don't bother with DVD+R at all since DVD-R works with both on all standalone DVD players (as long as they support recordable discs of course).
I wonder if Blu-Ray will face the same destiny: unsupported by next generation DVD players => only widely useful for data storage => impossible to use as a generic format => don't bother with them at all.
There's a slight difference from today though -- Blu-Ray will get a higher capacity than the standardized HD-DVD format. That will make it interesting to see where things go, since Blu-Ray isn't compatible with the existing DVD spec which HD-DVD is, possibly making it harder to create combo drives like the DVD+/-R drives. I doubt I'd use Blu-Ray though even with that advantage, if I can't play burned DVD's on my standalone player.
Maybe Sony will get into the same situation as Hewlett-Packard (and more?) currently seems to be in. I recently saw a laptop from HP with a DVD writer that *only* supported DVD+R. Since they want to push their format. Of course, everyone I know saw that as a major disadvantage, and they might even have lost customers for it.
They never changed the name for fun before, but because of unfortunate trademark problems. They've since learned their lesson and Firefox is now a registered trademark. It won't change anytime soon, not even to "Mozilla Browser", as far as I know.
Doesn't sound like the heritage I would like to learn from:-)
Come on, it beats even Linux hands down in the remote exploit area! I can't say I know a single person that had his DOS boxed hacked into remotely. I guess it's because of this there was no DOS firewalls! Who needs them when it has rock solid network security!?
Therefore, the amount of active users should affect the precision of the filtering, since it's the users who report the spam. Since Gmail has relatively few users right now, the filtering might be relatively poor in comparison to what it will become. At least that's what my sense of logic tells me now.
For the record... Currently, I have 0 ham reported as spam, 7 spam reported as spam, and 1 spam reported as ham. Not many know of my Gmail address at all yet.
XP's "faster boot time" is an illusion. It takes XP a long time to complete booting... it just brings up the login dialog and lets you start logging in before it's finished booting.
I don't agree with this. Windows 2000 does the same thing (starts a shitload of stuff after you've logged in), in addition to a much slower boot time. And all services in Windows XP do start before the login. That's the whole point with services as opposed to stuff in Autorun.
You're confusing these developers with Sharman Networks. The Kazaa developer team has absolutely nothing to do with spyware, and is only responsible of creating innovative software.
Does Skype have a business plan? Is there spyware/adware/malware?
No one has detected any spyware or anything that contacts ad servers etc in the Windows version.
The business plan:
"During the beta period Skype is free and helps us to refine and improve our product. Eventually, some features and services of Skype will require a paid subscription or prepayment. Our ambition is to keep the basic functionality of Skype (PC to PC calls) free forever. More information will be provided once our beta program is complete."
the DOCTYPE tag, even if it isn't completely applicable to the standard, can be used as a sign to the browser to be either fully standards compliant or backwards-compatible
This was one of the new features of Internet Explorer 6. It changes its CSS box model and more to be more standards compliant if you use a doctype. It enters quirks mode when using certain doctypes or none at all.
Maybe one day this could be almost as successful as MS Passport.... which wouldn't be too hard, considering Passport was a flop. Only Microsoft seem to use it, and that was far from their intention.
Considering Microsoft's laziness at create a damn good piece of software just for the heck of it (and not for profits), I guess they'll just remove online support for it.:-) A quick and easy fix for security holes.:-P
Slashdot Mirror
"Reflections on a Mote of Dust
Image of Earth captured by Voyager 1
We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." - Carl Sagan
Are you on crack??
:-S
This search engine will most likely be used in existing and coming versions of Internet Explorer. You know, the one 90%+ of the population seem to use.
But go ahead and block the spider so your site won't be listed, it's of course your choice.
If I'd want to boycott it for some childish reason, I'd just not visit their site.
It would be interesting to see how it looked like meanwhile it was in the ring system?
Or when it was nearby enough to see the massive amounts of rocks inside.
Or didn't it pass through the actual rings?
"Plutonium power source and controversy".
:-P
Yeah, it's horrible how many Saturnians it might kill while in duty.
This product will fail!
:-P
"Who cares", said the music companies, applauding the fact that it at least didn't support formats without DRM.
I don't think he was completely full of shit, since I agree with the DVD Forum being the standardizing body when it comes to DVD discs, and not a random group of companies deciding to form an alliance and push their format. Although I can understand if they wish to call their format a standard.
I could compare the DVD Forum to the W3C, where the DVD+RW Alliance could be Microsoft and any henchmen that follows their path. Not that I dislike any companies behind the DVD+RW Alliance; just picked Microsoft for the sake of the web standard comparison since they have a lot of own "standards" in this field.
I don't think it's a coincidence that your PS2 and XBOX happen to like DVD-R mostly too.
Having said that, I agree that you should stick to what works as well. If DVD+R worked everywhere, and DVD-R not really everywhere, I would've went for DVD+R instead.
Why don't they just skip straight to gamma-ray DVDs? Sure, you'd have to wear a radiation suit to watch Return of the King, but that's a small price to pay for ultra-high capacity, right?
Gamma rays you say?
But if I skip the suit, I'll become the incredible Hulk when I hear about Darl McBride!
I think that sounds much more cool than staying like a sad geek posting on Slashdot when hearing about the same McBride.
Short answer:
Only drives specifically designed to support Blu-Ray discs can play them.
Long answer:
Blu-Ray discs are just "recordable discs", and not DVD discs, since they don't adhere to the DVD specification. HD-DVD discs do on the other hand, and I think they were designed with more backwards compatibility in mind. It might be possible to use tricks on those, like storing "DVD" information in one layer that's backwards compatible and "HD-DVD" in another. Then your "old" DVD player could "see" the DVD information and not even know it's reading from a HD-DVD disc. That's speculation though, but I think there might at least be a small chance things could work with HD-DVD's.
I guess that's why I'm using only DVD-R discs today. DVD+R won't play in my DVD player and when I asked about why it didn't support it, the salesman said that DVD+R isn't the standard, and while DVD-R was supported on basically all DVD players, not all supported DVD+R.
And since I don't want to decide when I buy the discs if I should have DVD movies on them or data, I simply don't bother with DVD+R at all since DVD-R works with both on all standalone DVD players (as long as they support recordable discs of course).
I wonder if Blu-Ray will face the same destiny: unsupported by next generation DVD players => only widely useful for data storage => impossible to use as a generic format => don't bother with them at all.
There's a slight difference from today though -- Blu-Ray will get a higher capacity than the standardized HD-DVD format. That will make it interesting to see where things go, since Blu-Ray isn't compatible with the existing DVD spec which HD-DVD is, possibly making it harder to create combo drives like the DVD+/-R drives. I doubt I'd use Blu-Ray though even with that advantage, if I can't play burned DVD's on my standalone player.
Maybe Sony will get into the same situation as Hewlett-Packard (and more?) currently seems to be in. I recently saw a laptop from HP with a DVD writer that *only* supported DVD+R. Since they want to push their format. Of course, everyone I know saw that as a major disadvantage, and they might even have lost customers for it.
They never changed the name for fun before, but because of unfortunate trademark problems. They've since learned their lesson and Firefox is now a registered trademark. It won't change anytime soon, not even to "Mozilla Browser", as far as I know.
I checked that one and (not?) surprisingly I was redirected to an advertising company... :-P
So at least some IQ domains have been registered.
Doesn't sound like the heritage I would like to learn from :-)
Come on, it beats even Linux hands down in the remote exploit area! I can't say I know a single person that had his DOS boxed hacked into remotely. I guess it's because of this there was no DOS firewalls! Who needs them when it has rock solid network security!?
Therefore, the amount of active users should affect the precision of the filtering, since it's the users who report the spam. Since Gmail has relatively few users right now, the filtering might be relatively poor in comparison to what it will become. At least that's what my sense of logic tells me now.
For the record... Currently, I have 0 ham reported as spam, 7 spam reported as spam, and 1 spam reported as ham. Not many know of my Gmail address at all yet.
No, whoever thought up "CTRL-ALT-DEL" is the bastard.
:-P (credit for it goes to David Bradley of IBM)
Hmm... Why?
It's a perfectly sensible combination since you shouldn't be able to hit the keys accidentally, and are therefore separated from each other.
But you probably blurted it out because you thought it was a Microsoft innovation.
that he's been ALT-F4'ed?
;-)
RTFA
He just escaped.
SCO isn't suing its consumers. It's suing companies that use a competing product that they claim infringes on their property.
OK, suing potential customers. Happy now?
That's of course just as bad too.
XP's "faster boot time" is an illusion. It takes XP a long time to complete booting... it just brings up the login dialog and lets you start logging in before it's finished booting.
I don't agree with this. Windows 2000 does the same thing (starts a shitload of stuff after you've logged in), in addition to a much slower boot time. And all services in Windows XP do start before the login. That's the whole point with services as opposed to stuff in Autorun.
Latency poor? It's practically instant across Sweden at least. Did you even test this software?
The "guys who made Kazaa" didn't include spyware. Sharman Networks did when they aquired it. They also changed the EULA.
The folks that introduced spyware EULAs
You're confusing these developers with Sharman Networks. The Kazaa developer team has absolutely nothing to do with spyware, and is only responsible of creating innovative software.
Memory Refresher:
KaZaA sold to Sharman Networks
Does Skype have a business plan? Is there spyware/adware/malware?
No one has detected any spyware or anything that contacts ad servers etc in the Windows version.
The business plan:
"During the beta period Skype is free and helps us to refine and improve our product. Eventually, some features and services of Skype will require a paid subscription or prepayment. Our ambition is to keep the basic functionality of Skype (PC to PC calls) free forever. More information will be provided once our beta program is complete."
Unless they added it in the Linux version -- no.
This was one of the new features of Internet Explorer 6. It changes its CSS box model and more to be more standards compliant if you use a doctype. It enters quirks mode when using certain doctypes or none at all.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnie60/ht
Maybe one day this could be almost as successful as MS Passport. ... which wouldn't be too hard, considering Passport was a flop. Only Microsoft seem to use it, and that was far from their intention.
Considering Microsoft's laziness at create a damn good piece of software just for the heck of it (and not for profits), I guess they'll just remove online support for it. :-) A quick and easy fix for security holes. :-P