If he's anything like a good counting horse, he starts "counting" and reads the humans' reactions around him. If the animal pauses often, or moves a bit toward one thing, then another, in turn, instead of going directly to the correct choice, this is probably what's happening.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
(hmm, he asked me something, I know that tone of voice, I COULD GET A CARROT OUT OF THIS!) clop, clop, clop, pause, (he tensed up, I can't stop yet...) clop, pause (he just relaxed! if I stop now, he'll give me the carrot!) stop.
Who better to conserve this resource than businessmen like myself who rely on the supply of script kiddies for our livelihood?
The real threat of script kiddie extinction comes from those who consider them worthless pests, and would undertake campaigns of wholesale extermination. We, on the other hand, consider ourselves the stewards of this tasty natural resource.
Yes, 31337 |\/|337 Enterprises is environmentally friendly. We run a script kiddie breed and release program based on artificial insemination (even under ideal breeding conditions, the poor creatures seem to lack the basic instincts for reproduction, but gathering the necessary samples has never been a problem).
(Okay, so we just spam AOL accounts with links to |-|/\X0R1N@ +001Z sites, but the end result is the same; would you want to handle script kiddie genetic material?)
They were really great when they came out. It was like a CD-player the size of a pager.
They were at least as cool as pocket MP3 players are now.
If only they were cheaper, and you could buy minidiscs as easily and cheaply as CDs (instead of having to own a CD-player, plus a minidisc recorder, plus a portable minidisc player, buy the CD, then buy a minidisc blank - definitely a rich man's toy that way)...
You have a responsibility to protect yourself, and when you set up a system that other people rely on, you have a responsibility to protect the system for them.
My favorite comparison to the ILOVEYOU problem is: if you built a subway system that broke down whenever some kid painted graffiti on any of the walls, who would be responsible? The ignorant kid who commits an act of vandalism which takes little effort and can be done in secret? Or the responsible adults who knowingly built a system that can't tolerate graffiti?
Any system which can be destroyed by the petty vandalism of a child was effectively destroyed by its designers.
In a world with billions of people, you have to assume that a certain percentage will do damage just for the fun of it, if it's easy enough. If you're responsible for security and you don't make it too hard for them to do it, you're as much to blame as the person who does it.
I'm used to fiddling with things in Linux to get them to work, but RealPlayer seriously sucks.
Essentially no documentation, it doesn't even tell you the command to run. The service area of their website doesn't even want to admit that a Linux version exists.
On my system (x86, Redhat 6.0, fairly vanilla but with an uncommon window manager, as if that should matter), it just doesn't work. No core dump, no error message, no zombie processes, it just does nothing. WTF?
Anyone else have this problem? Anyone know how to fix it?
I've been searching all over the place, and I can't seem to find any info. Plenty of stuff on little glitches, but no flat-out failures like I'm facing.
Shareware sets a price, often a ridiculously high one chosen on the premise that only a tiny percentage of users will pay ($50 for a simple utility with a nice interface is pretty typical; I don't know about you, but I rarely have $50 just kicking around to give away). If people are willing to pay a little, but not that much, you get nothing. If people are willing to pay more, you lose out on the extra they would offer. Also, most shareware in the past (and present) doesn't have a convenient way to pay.
I suspect that pretty much everyone who uses the software wouldn't care about parting with a quarter or fifty cents, and most would give several dollars for a product they use often. Wealthy individuals or companies would likely be willing to pay a lot to get special attention paid to their bug/wish lists (look, here's a wad of cash, there's more where that came from if you make these changes).
There's pretty much nothing to make people pay for any software. The risk of being caught and punished is virtually nonexistant. Copying is easy and cheap.
Those who pay do so because they believe that it would be wrong not to, ultimately because if everybody did it, the products wouldn't exist. I believe that if you give people more freedom and control in this process, they will respond appropriately, and protect their own interests.
The penalty for not paying (or paying too little) is: being ignored by the mass-market buskers when they choose what to make. Broad appeal isn't always necessary, appeal to a profitable market is.
Mass-market busking is not appropriate for non-reproducable products and services, for obvious reasons. Things like HTML text, computer programs, and recorded music are special products that have unlimited supply once created. The only influence the user needs is over what is produced, and they could gain this influence by rewarding (with donations) the behavior which benefits them, effectivly training the system to serve them.
Puts the lie to some molecular nanotech propaganda
on
Desktop Biofactories
·
· Score: 4
This thing will be useful. Lots of the molecular nanotechnology people have been saying that micromachinery will never be useful.
It looks more and more like we'll be going down one step at a time, not just suddenly building a molecular assembler with chemical processes and AFMs. Like Feynman thought: build one little set of hands, use that to build a smaller set of hands, until you've got one built out of atoms.
I remember a portion of the book "Nano" that mercilessly, and utterly without class, mocked the efforts of the micromachinery crowd, taking special effort to make fun of the "three little gears" (an electrostatic motor and two gears driven by it). I don't know if this outburst was the fact that they were building mechanisms, while the nanotech people were still only doing simulations, but I thought it was completely uncalled-for.
Nanotechnology will be an incredible revolution in technology, but advances in microtechnology are not only useful in themselves, but IMHO essential to the development of nanotechnology. I remember one thing a nanotech researcher said that convinced me of this: he said that they thought they had built a wire and some diodes, but they couldn't hook them to anything, so they just couldn't tell.
BTW, they're actually performing tasks on the micrometer scale, to be fair. Think: a human is built at the meter scale, and one can work at the millimeter scale. This thing is built at the millimeter scale, and it can move things around to micrometer accuracy. I'm sure a nanotech assembler would be at least micrometer across, but you wouldn't call it "microtechnology" because of that.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that exactly how the human body naturally prevents cancer?
Yes, deadly cancer usually happens when the immune system can't recognize the difference between the cancerous cells and the healthy ones. After all, they can only examine it at a chemical level. I mean, why doesn't your immune system destroy moles? They're not healthy, normal tissue.
Doctors (and their machines), on the other hand, can step back further than the chemical level, and recognize an unhealthy and unnatural growth from its shape and location.
You can be killed by a benign tumor, if it's in the wrong place and big enough. When a tumor goes malignant, that means that it's releasing cells that take root in other parts of the body, sprouting more tumors wherever they land; either through one growing in just the wrong place, or the cumulative weakening of all sorts of organs being interfered with, it kills you. If you can weed out tiny tumors by the hundred, as quickly as they sprout up, you remove the sources of new seed cells. Do it for long enough, and well enough, and not only will you keep the tumors from killing the patient, but sooner or later, there won't be enough sources of seed cells to keep new tumors sprouting up, and the patient is cured.
I was talking about a little arm on the end of a needle, or a whole flexible needle made the same way. Nothing about free floating, robots with self-contained power and control systems. You don't have to navigate capillaries or lymph paths to cut out little tumors, you just have to avoid cutting up important nerves and large blood vessels. The body can heal the little punctures itself.
I also never referred to them as "microbots". The robots I was imagining are big floor models containing a top-of-the-line modern computer and with one or more "microscalpel syringes" mounted on robotic arms about the size of human arms.
I've long felt that the final cure for cancer will be a persistent weeding strategy: detect every tiny tumor as it gets started, and cut it out ASAP.
Tiny robotic implements like this, which can be built onto the tip of a needle (or better yet, a "tentacle" needle using the same technology that can flex and move around important nerves and blood vessels, so it can safely penetrate to any place in the body) and can function in conductive fluids (like in the human body), are probably the most important missing component to implement automated tumor weeding.
It could also have very important applications in cleaning out blood vessels (much finer than our current "balloon" and "burner" methods).
This kind of microtechnology could provide many of the health benefits expected from nanotechnology. This could be the key to pushing the average life expectancy past 100 years.
...have trouble remembering what it was like to have a POT connection?
I was running on a 19.2K modem right up until I got a cable connection (maybe a year ago). I didn't see any reason to pay for the upgrade to a 28.8K modem, let alone those newfangled 56K models. Now it seems bizarre and unnatural when a web page doesn't load instantly (except from/. -- then I'm just happy when it loads at all).
Oddly enough, I only started using Lynx after I got my fast connection...
Slashdot Mirror
...would I ask myself that as an AC?
You can watch the TV ads here.
(preview first, preview first, preview first; then double-check to make sure you put everything you wanted)
[/ slaps self with double-barrelled haddock]
You can watch the TV ads here.
This is the relevant one.
"I will give you $20 for one!"
-Pip
You know, I wouldn't be surprised. This has happened before.
Anyone else remember the "The Fun Is Back" campaign?
Remember, folks, It doesn't get older - it gets better!
How does a parrot count items?
If he's anything like a good counting horse, he starts "counting" and reads the humans' reactions around him. If the animal pauses often, or moves a bit toward one thing, then another, in turn, instead of going directly to the correct choice, this is probably what's happening.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
(hmm, he asked me something, I know that tone of voice, I COULD GET A CARROT OUT OF THIS!)
clop,
clop,
clop,
pause,
(he tensed up, I can't stop yet...)
clop,
pause
(he just relaxed! if I stop now, he'll give me the carrot!)
stop.
"That's a good horse, here's your carrot!"
Now, you're better off with an mp3 player.
[TheDullBlade is crushed under a pile of 10,000 penguins that inexplicably falls from the ceiling]
...arm in arm, holding cups of wine, clearly drunk off their asses (red-nosed and singing or something stupid like that).
...you want to be talking about "sticky keys" in this thread?
Great for those AutoeroticBondageLine text chat sessions.
(backstory)
I think some moderator appreciates the idea you just gave him.
"Hmm, this guy is a real deep thinker, I never even considered the implications of being able to type in goatporn.com with one hand."
Who better to conserve this resource than businessmen like myself who rely on the supply of script kiddies for our livelihood?
The real threat of script kiddie extinction comes from those who consider them worthless pests, and would undertake campaigns of wholesale extermination. We, on the other hand, consider ourselves the stewards of this tasty natural resource.
Yes, 31337 |\/|337 Enterprises is environmentally friendly. We run a script kiddie breed and release program based on artificial insemination (even under ideal breeding conditions, the poor creatures seem to lack the basic instincts for reproduction, but gathering the necessary samples has never been a problem).
(Okay, so we just spam AOL accounts with links to |-|/\X0R1N@ +001Z sites, but the end result is the same; would you want to handle script kiddie genetic material?)
They were really great when they came out. It was like a CD-player the size of a pager.
They were at least as cool as pocket MP3 players are now.
If only they were cheaper, and you could buy minidiscs as easily and cheaply as CDs (instead of having to own a CD-player, plus a minidisc recorder, plus a portable minidisc player, buy the CD, then buy a minidisc blank - definitely a rich man's toy that way)...
The supply of script kiddies is, for all intents and purposes, infinite.
The question is, what can we do with them?
To answer this kind of question, I usually start by asking, what are they made of?
Script kiddies are made of meat.
So the next time your system is compromised by a script kiddie, track him back to his lair, and get a fresh freezer-fill of long pork.
If you lack the butchering skills, please contact my organization: 31337 |\/|337 Enterprises, and let us take care of the messy details.
(sung to a 50's jingle tune)
"If you've got a H/\X0R1NG problem that's got you beat,
we'll do the hacking at 31337 |\/|337."
You have a responsibility to protect yourself, and when you set up a system that other people rely on, you have a responsibility to protect the system for them.
My favorite comparison to the ILOVEYOU problem is: if you built a subway system that broke down whenever some kid painted graffiti on any of the walls, who would be responsible? The ignorant kid who commits an act of vandalism which takes little effort and can be done in secret? Or the responsible adults who knowingly built a system that can't tolerate graffiti?
Any system which can be destroyed by the petty vandalism of a child was effectively destroyed by its designers.
In a world with billions of people, you have to assume that a certain percentage will do damage just for the fun of it, if it's easy enough. If you're responsible for security and you don't make it too hard for them to do it, you're as much to blame as the person who does it.
Text chat is much cheaper than voice chat.
I'm used to fiddling with things in Linux to get them to work, but RealPlayer seriously sucks.
Essentially no documentation, it doesn't even tell you the command to run. The service area of their website doesn't even want to admit that a Linux version exists.
On my system (x86, Redhat 6.0, fairly vanilla but with an uncommon window manager, as if that should matter), it just doesn't work. No core dump, no error message, no zombie processes, it just does nothing. WTF?
Anyone else have this problem? Anyone know how to fix it?
I've been searching all over the place, and I can't seem to find any info. Plenty of stuff on little glitches, but no flat-out failures like I'm facing.
Shareware sets a price, often a ridiculously high one chosen on the premise that only a tiny percentage of users will pay ($50 for a simple utility with a nice interface is pretty typical; I don't know about you, but I rarely have $50 just kicking around to give away). If people are willing to pay a little, but not that much, you get nothing. If people are willing to pay more, you lose out on the extra they would offer. Also, most shareware in the past (and present) doesn't have a convenient way to pay.
I suspect that pretty much everyone who uses the software wouldn't care about parting with a quarter or fifty cents, and most would give several dollars for a product they use often. Wealthy individuals or companies would likely be willing to pay a lot to get special attention paid to their bug/wish lists (look, here's a wad of cash, there's more where that came from if you make these changes).
There's pretty much nothing to make people pay for any software. The risk of being caught and punished is virtually nonexistant. Copying is easy and cheap.
Those who pay do so because they believe that it would be wrong not to, ultimately because if everybody did it, the products wouldn't exist. I believe that if you give people more freedom and control in this process, they will respond appropriately, and protect their own interests.
The penalty for not paying (or paying too little) is: being ignored by the mass-market buskers when they choose what to make. Broad appeal isn't always necessary, appeal to a profitable market is.
Mass-market busking is not appropriate for non-reproducable products and services, for obvious reasons. Things like HTML text, computer programs, and recorded music are special products that have unlimited supply once created. The only influence the user needs is over what is produced, and they could gain this influence by rewarding (with donations) the behavior which benefits them, effectivly training the system to serve them.
This thing will be useful. Lots of the molecular nanotechnology people have been saying that micromachinery will never be useful.
It looks more and more like we'll be going down one step at a time, not just suddenly building a molecular assembler with chemical processes and AFMs. Like Feynman thought: build one little set of hands, use that to build a smaller set of hands, until you've got one built out of atoms.
I remember a portion of the book "Nano" that mercilessly, and utterly without class, mocked the efforts of the micromachinery crowd, taking special effort to make fun of the "three little gears" (an electrostatic motor and two gears driven by it). I don't know if this outburst was the fact that they were building mechanisms, while the nanotech people were still only doing simulations, but I thought it was completely uncalled-for.
Nanotechnology will be an incredible revolution in technology, but advances in microtechnology are not only useful in themselves, but IMHO essential to the development of nanotechnology. I remember one thing a nanotech researcher said that convinced me of this: he said that they thought they had built a wire and some diodes, but they couldn't hook them to anything, so they just couldn't tell.
BTW, they're actually performing tasks on the micrometer scale, to be fair. Think: a human is built at the meter scale, and one can work at the millimeter scale. This thing is built at the millimeter scale, and it can move things around to micrometer accuracy. I'm sure a nanotech assembler would be at least micrometer across, but you wouldn't call it "microtechnology" because of that.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't that exactly how the human body naturally prevents cancer?
Yes, deadly cancer usually happens when the immune system can't recognize the difference between the cancerous cells and the healthy ones. After all, they can only examine it at a chemical level. I mean, why doesn't your immune system destroy moles? They're not healthy, normal tissue.
Doctors (and their machines), on the other hand, can step back further than the chemical level, and recognize an unhealthy and unnatural growth from its shape and location.
You can be killed by a benign tumor, if it's in the wrong place and big enough. When a tumor goes malignant, that means that it's releasing cells that take root in other parts of the body, sprouting more tumors wherever they land; either through one growing in just the wrong place, or the cumulative weakening of all sorts of organs being interfered with, it kills you. If you can weed out tiny tumors by the hundred, as quickly as they sprout up, you remove the sources of new seed cells. Do it for long enough, and well enough, and not only will you keep the tumors from killing the patient, but sooner or later, there won't be enough sources of seed cells to keep new tumors sprouting up, and the patient is cured.
That's the theory anyway. I hope it works.
I was talking about a little arm on the end of a needle, or a whole flexible needle made the same way. Nothing about free floating, robots with self-contained power and control systems. You don't have to navigate capillaries or lymph paths to cut out little tumors, you just have to avoid cutting up important nerves and large blood vessels. The body can heal the little punctures itself.
I also never referred to them as "microbots". The robots I was imagining are big floor models containing a top-of-the-line modern computer and with one or more "microscalpel syringes" mounted on robotic arms about the size of human arms.
This means the world is one step closer to all problems being software problems!
Robots in all sizes, for all purposes, which only we understand and control...
Our plans for world domination are coming to fruition. We will be like gods!
No! We have surpassed the gods themselves!
Muahahahaha!
[TheDullBlade is struck by lightning, leaving a smoking pair of boots and a sickening burnt meat smell]
Damn it, if bitchslapping is okay, why can't they have a kuro5hin-style policy of just tearing out all of the completely OT posts?
I've long felt that the final cure for cancer will be a persistent weeding strategy: detect every tiny tumor as it gets started, and cut it out ASAP.
Tiny robotic implements like this, which can be built onto the tip of a needle (or better yet, a "tentacle" needle using the same technology that can flex and move around important nerves and blood vessels, so it can safely penetrate to any place in the body) and can function in conductive fluids (like in the human body), are probably the most important missing component to implement automated tumor weeding.
It could also have very important applications in cleaning out blood vessels (much finer than our current "balloon" and "burner" methods).
This kind of microtechnology could provide many of the health benefits expected from nanotechnology. This could be the key to pushing the average life expectancy past 100 years.
...have trouble remembering what it was like to have a POT connection?
/. -- then I'm just happy when it loads at all).
I was running on a 19.2K modem right up until I got a cable connection (maybe a year ago). I didn't see any reason to pay for the upgrade to a 28.8K modem, let alone those newfangled 56K models. Now it seems bizarre and unnatural when a web page doesn't load instantly (except from
Oddly enough, I only started using Lynx after I got my fast connection...