It's easy to tell a slashdot newbie. They make offtopic comments about people making lame jokes.
You are an idiot. I am co-author of one of the most popular ray-tracing packages available today. I eat this stuff for breakfast, and FYI, I am VERY knowlegable about the subject. I chose to comment in a humorous vein, to make the topic, oh, maybe a little less _boring_ for everyone.
Scooby: Get a sense of humour and/or a life. Mods: +5 Insightful?? The crack must be flowing heavy today!
This is a Horrible Idea
on
RFID MasterCard
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Once again, just because something can be done, it has been, totally without regard to whether or not it is actually a _good_ idea.
RFID's on personal ID's or credit cards have to be a security nightmare. How easy would it be to hide a collection device under a bus or train seat and collect ID's for a whole day or two?
Not to mention that a transmitter generates EM fields, which might be strong enough to erase your other mag-stripe cards in proximity.
RFID technology is now getting into the "buzzword" phase of electronic manufacturing/production, it's now cheap and common enough to start getting idiotic designers thinking "gee, wouldn't it be neat if we put an RFID in...". The same thing happened to microprocessors in the mid-80's, and we started seeing truly idiotic applications, uP-based Toasters, Staplers, Golf Tees, etc.
Funny you should say that. Half-bad is about the term I'd use when half the players out there won't play a disc with a open session on it. A lot of them won't, nor will a lot of commercial CD players.
I hope this really means that the thing closes the sessions but writes it in one shot. If it really leaves sessions open that is a definitely a source of problems with playback compatibility.
I think the biggest complaint was they they developed an incompatible standard, tried to force the industry to use their standard, and then tried to force all the chip and motherboard makers to pay them royalties to use it.
This does smack of McBride and SCO, though. Develop/acquire an (arguably) inferior product, then try to extort everyone who uses it, and sue everyone else who doesn't.
Actually they have already done this with a speaker. A gas makes a pretty blue flame, and by inserting electrodes into the base of the flame, and modulating it with a voltage, it causes the shape of the flame to change. This emits sound as it moves the air around the plasma jet.
Several designs for these have been written up and have even produced comercially in Europe. U.S. Safety laws have prevented them from being sold in Amercia, however some enterprising scientists have built their own for fun.
If the surface or volume of the plasma ball can conduct, it can be used as a radiator of RF, one that can have its shape dynamically changed by the above technique.
Sounds very similar to what has already happened in the Medical "industry". Doctor's malpractice insurance is through the roof, and they are required to carry it so that crumbs like the legal firm of "Scumbag, Ambulance & Chasers" can stay in business airing their awful TV commercials. Net result is the doctors pay out the ass, and in turn we pay out the ass, with absolutely no social benefit (except to the lawyers and insurance co's).
I quite agree. I get about 10-20 emails a day, and at least 90% are for pecker pills, or from colleges that can't spell.
Funny you should mention that...
on
The Blues for LEDs
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Just the other day, one of my friends just got a new Nextel and the mobile DC cigarette lighter plug has this annoyingly bright Blue LED on it. He's pissed, says it totally destroys his night vision and it's about 100x brighter than it needs to be to verify the cigarette lighter adapter is bottomed out.
I remember when Blue LED's were first introduced in the April 1 issue of Byte Magazine (sometime around 1987 IIRC) as an April Fool's joke! Finally, two or three years later they were actually invented!
This brings to mind a cool exhibit in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. In one of the stairwells (not the one with the slices of human body, nor the one with the Focault Pendulum!) there are these really cool mechanical demonstrators you power with a hand-crank.
One has square gears - the two gears mesh so that the apex of one hits the center side of the other and vice-versa as they go. The center of mass (axis of rotation) never moves. They also have elliptical gears that do the same thing.
There are other fascinating things there that transfer motion; screws, rods, axles, etc. Even a replica of Hero's Aleopile (sp?) steam engine, but the thing I remember most is those incongruous square gears!
Can't happen here in Illinois, either. Our labor laws are exactly the same in that respect, but they were doing it, anyway.
There was an investigation after his complaint, and they did pay him some token number of hours of overtime as penalty, and they had to stop the hour shuffling. But that was just at that particular store, and it's happening all over this area at many other stores. Unless someone there complains, they continue to get away with it.
You know, I had forgotten that part 'til you mentioned it; Yes my buddy also did tell me about the managers grabbing his commissions as well.
They would write up all the expensive sales themselves after the lowly employees had spent an hour answering some customer's inane questions and demonstrating the product to them (basically making the sale for them).
First of all, poor working stiffs don't get an "employment contract". They get "employment". Their rights are spelled out quite distinctly by the federal and state labor boards. Salaried folks have no such protections and are "employed at will" as the term goes - anything they agree to holds (unless outright illegal) and if you don't like it, here's the door.
Second, if you've been following this thread, the whole point is it's illegal even if agreed to and "contract signed" by both parties.
Third, it was my roommate, not me, I was talking about.
A former roommate used to work at the local Radio Shack. He told me what they were doing was making him work 15 hours one week and 60 the other. Since RS uses a 2-week pay period, the total hours for the 2 weeks were under 80, so no paid overtime. This is illegal as all hell. I told him this and he contacted the labor board in our state and filed a report. The law (at least here in my state) requires employers to pay non-exempt employees overtime for any time past 40 hours _per week_, irrespective of whatever pay periods the employer may use. I was also told that most of the other RS's in the area were also pulling this crap.
That's a nice tidbit of information - the name of the mechanical shark being Bruce; it's no doubt why the main shark character in "Finding Nemo" was also named Bruce.
IMHO, the last decent movie Spielberg did was "Schindler's List" - No Hollywood explosions, just a real story, well told.
I used to work for Sun Electric (now Snap-On), designing engine and emission diagnostic analyzers.
The "secret" diagnostic codes are published. The Chilton's repair guides for cars list the error codes for each car and manufacturer. Also, the factory service manuals for those cars have the codes and their meanings listed.
I love Cadillacs, though, because you can press "OFF" and "WARMER" on the Climate Control panel and it will list the codes on the display there! Then you can do the repairs at home yourself!
You can also go buy a $500.00 Snap-on ALDL analyzer (Assembly Line Diagnostic Link) and it will list the codes too. The newer vehicles call this OBD-2 (Onboard Diagnostics, V2).
Finally, there is some software out there (Payware, IIRC) that will list the codes on a PC or laptop, but you need to build an RS-232 to ALDL level converter for it (or buy the software with the appropriate dongle).
In the heyday of the Video Arcade, "The Excuse Booth" was one of the coin-op manufacturer's attempts to bring this to the public.
It was a sealed closet-like booth (similar to the 4-for a dollar foto booths), soundproofed with carpeting on the inside, a seat board, and a payphone. There was also a control panel and coin acceptor for the background sound.
The backgrounds were provided by a bank of 8-Track type cartridges (actually they were the professional recording/radio studio type ones), and were fed through a reasonably high fidelity audio system to speakers in the booth. There were 12 or 16 or so backgrounds, Office, Jail, Streetcorner, Bar, Party, etc. A dollar would get you 5 minutes or so of background sound.
I used to work for one of the major Video Arcade manufacturers in a former life, and we got one in to evaluate. I can't remember who made it exactly, but we analyzed all the competition's stuff anyway. After that, it sat around the warehouse for a long time and just got used by various engineers for smoking joints in;)
Slashdot Mirror
It's easy to tell a slashdot newbie. They make offtopic comments about people making lame jokes.
You are an idiot. I am co-author of one of the most popular ray-tracing packages available today. I eat this stuff for breakfast, and FYI, I am VERY knowlegable about the subject. I chose to comment in a humorous vein, to make the topic, oh, maybe a little less _boring_ for everyone.
Scooby: Get a sense of humour and/or a life.
Mods: +5 Insightful?? The crack must be flowing heavy today!
That has to beat mowing it!
Once again, just because something can be done, it has been, totally without regard to whether or not it is actually a _good_ idea.
...". The same thing happened to microprocessors in the mid-80's, and we started seeing truly idiotic applications, uP-based Toasters, Staplers, Golf Tees, etc.
RFID's on personal ID's or credit cards have to be a security nightmare. How easy would it be to hide a collection device under a bus or train seat and collect ID's for a whole day or two?
Not to mention that a transmitter generates EM fields, which might be strong enough to erase your other mag-stripe cards in proximity.
RFID technology is now getting into the "buzzword" phase of electronic manufacturing/production, it's now cheap and common enough to start getting idiotic designers thinking "gee, wouldn't it be neat if we put an RFID in
History repeats itself once again.
Funny you should say that. Half-bad is about the term I'd use when half the players out there won't play a disc with a open session on it. A lot of them won't, nor will a lot of commercial CD players.
I hope this really means that the thing closes the sessions but writes it in one shot. If it really leaves sessions open that is a definitely a source of problems with playback compatibility.
I think the biggest complaint was they they developed an incompatible standard, tried to force the industry to use their standard, and then tried to force all the chip and motherboard makers to pay them royalties to use it.
This does smack of McBride and SCO, though. Develop/acquire an (arguably) inferior product, then try to extort everyone who uses it, and sue everyone else who doesn't.
Actually they have already done this with a speaker. A gas makes a pretty blue flame, and by inserting electrodes into the base of the flame, and modulating it with a voltage, it causes the shape of the flame to change. This emits sound as it moves the air around the plasma jet.
Several designs for these have been written up and have even produced comercially in Europe. U.S. Safety laws have prevented them from being sold in Amercia, however some enterprising scientists have built their own for fun.
If the surface or volume of the plasma ball can conduct, it can be used as a radiator of RF, one that can have its shape dynamically changed by the above technique.
Acutally, they're only showing 4 a week. They aren't showing the Futurama/Family Guy reruns on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.
Sounds very similar to what has already happened in the Medical "industry". Doctor's malpractice insurance is through the roof, and they are required to carry it so that crumbs like the legal firm of "Scumbag, Ambulance & Chasers" can stay in business airing their awful TV commercials. Net result is the doctors pay out the ass, and in turn we pay out the ass, with absolutely no social benefit (except to the lawyers and insurance co's).
Yeah, amazing. That's like saying "News Flash: Bill Gates Loves Money. Film at 11".
I quite agree. I get about 10-20 emails a day, and at least 90% are for pecker pills, or from colleges that can't spell.
Just the other day, one of my friends just got a new Nextel and the mobile DC cigarette lighter plug has this annoyingly bright Blue LED on it. He's pissed, says it totally destroys his night vision and it's about 100x brighter than it needs to be to verify the cigarette lighter adapter is bottomed out.
I remember when Blue LED's were first introduced in the April 1 issue of Byte Magazine (sometime around 1987 IIRC) as an April Fool's joke! Finally, two or three years later they were actually invented!
This brings to mind a cool exhibit in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. In one of the stairwells (not the one with the slices of human body, nor the one with the Focault Pendulum!) there are these really cool mechanical demonstrators you power with a hand-crank.
One has square gears - the two gears mesh so that the apex of one hits the center side of the other and vice-versa as they go. The center of mass (axis of rotation) never moves. They also have elliptical gears that do the same thing.
There are other fascinating things there that transfer motion; screws, rods, axles, etc. Even a replica of Hero's Aleopile (sp?) steam engine, but the thing I remember most is those incongruous square gears!
That's cool if that's what you signed up for. It's not when the situation is forced on you by a schnook manager.
Can't happen here in Illinois, either. Our labor laws are exactly the same in that respect, but they were doing it, anyway.
There was an investigation after his complaint, and they did pay him some token number of hours of overtime as penalty, and they had to stop the hour shuffling. But that was just at that particular store, and it's happening all over this area at many other stores. Unless someone there complains, they continue to get away with it.
You know, I had forgotten that part 'til you mentioned it; Yes my buddy also did tell me about the managers grabbing his commissions as well.
They would write up all the expensive sales themselves after the lowly employees had spent an hour answering some customer's inane questions and demonstrating the product to them (basically making the sale for them).
... And that "position" would be that of the goatse guy :P
First of all, poor working stiffs don't get an "employment contract". They get "employment". Their rights are spelled out quite distinctly by the federal and state labor boards. Salaried folks have no such protections and are "employed at will" as the term goes - anything they agree to holds (unless outright illegal) and if you don't like it, here's the door.
Second, if you've been following this thread, the whole point is it's illegal even if agreed to and "contract signed" by both parties.
Third, it was my roommate, not me, I was talking about.
A former roommate used to work at the local Radio Shack. He told me what they were doing was making him work 15 hours one week and 60 the other. Since RS uses a 2-week pay period, the total hours for the 2 weeks were under 80, so no paid overtime. This is illegal as all hell. I told him this and he contacted the labor board in our state and filed a report. The law (at least here in my state) requires employers to pay non-exempt employees overtime for any time past 40 hours _per week_, irrespective of whatever pay periods the employer may use. I was also told that most of the other RS's in the area were also pulling this crap.
I didn't know Aliyah the Singer was a Nobel Prize winner!
(Comes from not reading the articles, ever!)
That's a nice tidbit of information - the name of the mechanical shark being Bruce; it's no doubt why the main shark character in "Finding Nemo" was also named Bruce.
IMHO, the last decent movie Spielberg did was "Schindler's List" - No Hollywood explosions, just a real story, well told.
It says they licenced the Source, all rights, etc. Well, what about derivative works? :P
I used to work for Sun Electric (now Snap-On), designing engine and emission diagnostic analyzers.
The "secret" diagnostic codes are published. The Chilton's repair guides for cars list the error codes for each car and manufacturer. Also, the factory service manuals for those cars have the codes and their meanings listed.
I love Cadillacs, though, because you can press "OFF" and "WARMER" on the Climate Control panel and it will list the codes on the display there! Then you can do the repairs at home yourself!
You can also go buy a $500.00 Snap-on ALDL analyzer (Assembly Line Diagnostic Link) and it will list the codes too. The newer vehicles call this OBD-2 (Onboard Diagnostics, V2).
Finally, there is some software out there (Payware, IIRC) that will list the codes on a PC or laptop, but you need to build an RS-232 to ALDL level converter for it (or buy the software with the appropriate dongle).
Exactly.
News at 11: U.S. Army drafts entire country of India!
Yeah, I know - I submitted the story at 8:10AM this morning. It took the "ediots" 4 hours to decide that it was news, after all...
Was the exact same idea.
;)
In the heyday of the Video Arcade, "The Excuse Booth" was one of the coin-op manufacturer's attempts to bring this to the public.
It was a sealed closet-like booth (similar to the 4-for a dollar foto booths), soundproofed with carpeting on the inside, a seat board, and a payphone. There was also a control panel and coin acceptor for the background sound.
The backgrounds were provided by a bank of 8-Track type cartridges (actually they were the professional recording/radio studio type ones), and were fed through a reasonably high fidelity audio system to speakers in the booth. There were 12 or 16 or so backgrounds, Office, Jail, Streetcorner, Bar, Party, etc. A dollar would get you 5 minutes or so of background sound.
I used to work for one of the major Video Arcade manufacturers in a former life, and we got one in to evaluate. I can't remember who made it exactly, but we analyzed all the competition's stuff anyway. After that, it sat around the warehouse for a long time and just got used by various engineers for smoking joints in