The interesting questions are: will it be compatible to the 3Com - so the 3Com applications can run? According to this report from Reuters, it licenses the PalmOS and is seen by 3Com as a way to sell more of its Palm software.
Actually, editing the Windows hosts file may not work if you connect through a firewall/proxy. At least that's the case here at work -- DNS lookups appear to be done by the proxy. Ping, tracert, etc. all access the hosts file, but the browser (both MSIE and Netscape are going through the proxy).
Now, if I could just get a few minutes of unsupervised access on the machine that the proxy is sitting on...
The aging factor may come into play here. At least one of the specimens is a pup, and it also depends on the average life span of the animals, how late in life they breed, etc. If the first generations lived long enough to produce one or two litters, then it stands a chance of working.
Hmmm... every time I see someone driving along with a mobile phone pressed to their ear, I can't help but wonder if a device like this could find some use. If the pulse is directable, and has a limited range, it could just work.
Re:Surveillance is the key...
on
Smart Dust
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· Score: 1
Would nanites of this size be large enough to deliver a biological payload? Remote-controlled, precise plague-bearers?
I don't think so -- it would be too hard to control where they go. Either they would have to rely on wind (human-provided or natural) to move around, or some other delivery mechanism, to get to their desired targets. No matter how small they are, they can't break the laws of physics, which means that they've got to expend energy to move, and this would seriously affect their range of deployment. In most cases, it would prove to be more effecient to choose some other means of delivery. I'm not saying that some bright minds won't come up with new propulsion methods (magnetic, laser, etc), but at least for now I don't think we have to worry about this aspect of the devices.
I have to agree -- mostly. When the network goes down, these boxes are no better than paperweights. On the other hand, I took a look at the kinds of work I do, and a large part of it is done over our intranet. Sure, if the network goes down, my PC will still work, but the only thing I'll actually get done is work on improving my FreeCell stats.
Actually, it's probably not in the board manufacturers' best interests to unify. They would certainly see some benefit from it, but each time a new standard is developed, then anyone who wants a new CPU has to get a new MB. It would be interesting to see some numbers on how many people would put off a CPU purchase because they couldn't use their old MB.
But on the other hand, consumers won't get too much use out of the older MB's with newer CPU's, as bus and memory speeds increase. If your old MB doesn't support the higher bus speed of the new CPU's, you'll need another MB anyway. And at that point, who cares what socket format it has anyway?
Actually, the thing that most annoyed me about the notice posted by MS was about how quickly they reacted. Waiting several hours after a problem of this severity is reported and verified, and then patting yourself on the back for reacting quickly is not ethical behaviour.
Also, they were quoted on CNN (I think) that none of their users had complained, so they hoped that the effect was minimal. I know that I, for one, sent an email informing them of the problem, and urging them to take it down until it could be fixed.
My suggestion for MS? Come out and admit that they screwed up, and badly. A little honesty would go a long way.
At least 3 ports of GCC for Win32 exist: 1) CygWin, which uses an emulation layer, but is useful for quickly porting *nix code to a windows cmd-line app. 2) Jan-Jaap's Mingw port based on the gcc 2.8x chain. 3) Mingw based on gcc-2.95, available here.
That's certainly your right to decide whether to write open source for MS-xx or not. I for one, would prefer to see good software produced for the masses. Period. For me, usability is the key -- if it's not usable and no one is in fact using it, then why bother writing it and opening the source.
There's a very good chance that the forged information will be used/accepted by other services. When you log out from Hotmail, you get a screen showing you what services that Passport is logging you out of.
As an American currently living in the Czech Republic, I see a lot different spin on the news than that that shows up in the American media. And I fully believe that if the Czech government was more technically cognizant, we'd be in big trouble (they just *started* on Y2K this February and have allocated the whopping sum of 25 million crowns ~= $700000 to complete it).
East European servers couldn't handle it as well... http://www.zatmenislunce.cz/ stopped responding about a half hour before it went through Prague (only about 90% here...)
As long as you don't re-register and accept the new terms of service, they should still be covered under the old TOS. You submitted the material to Geocities, not Yahoo, and Geocities cannot transfer rights to the material that it never had in the first place. Hence, for you to make any changes, you'll have to "accept" the new TOS.
Slashdot Mirror
The interesting questions are: will it be compatible to the 3Com - so the 3Com applications can run?
According to this report from Reuters, it licenses the PalmOS and is seen by 3Com as a way to sell more of its Palm software.
Actually, editing the Windows hosts file may not work if you connect through a firewall/proxy. At least that's the case here at work -- DNS lookups appear to be done by the proxy. Ping, tracert, etc. all access the hosts file, but the browser (both MSIE and Netscape are going through the proxy).
Now, if I could just get a few minutes of unsupervised access on the machine that the proxy is sitting on...
The aging factor may come into play here. At least one of the specimens is a pup, and it also depends on the average life span of the animals, how late in life they breed, etc. If the first generations lived long enough to produce one or two litters, then it stands a chance of working.
Hmmm... every time I see someone driving along with a mobile phone pressed to their ear, I can't help but wonder if a device like this could find some use. If the pulse is directable, and has a limited range, it could just work.
Would nanites of this size be large enough to deliver a biological payload? Remote-controlled, precise plague-bearers?
I don't think so -- it would be too hard to control where they go. Either they would have to rely on wind (human-provided or natural) to move around, or some other delivery mechanism, to get to their desired targets. No matter how small they are, they can't break the laws of physics, which means that they've got to expend energy to move, and this would seriously affect their range of deployment. In most cases, it would prove to be more effecient to choose some other means of delivery. I'm not saying that some bright minds won't come up with new propulsion methods (magnetic, laser, etc), but at least for now I don't think we have to worry about this aspect of the devices.
I have to agree -- mostly. When the network goes down, these boxes are no better than paperweights. On the other hand, I took a look at the kinds of work I do, and a large part of it is done over our intranet. Sure, if the network goes down, my PC will still work, but the only thing I'll actually get done is work on improving my FreeCell stats.
Actually, it's probably not in the board manufacturers' best interests to unify. They would certainly see some benefit from it, but each time a new standard is developed, then anyone who wants a new CPU has to get a new MB. It would be interesting to see some numbers on how many people would put off a CPU purchase because they couldn't use their old MB.
But on the other hand, consumers won't get too much use out of the older MB's with newer CPU's, as bus and memory speeds increase. If your old MB doesn't support the higher bus speed of the new CPU's, you'll need another MB anyway. And at that point, who cares what socket format it has anyway?
Actually, the thing that most annoyed me about the notice posted by MS was about how quickly they reacted. Waiting several hours after a problem of this severity is reported and verified, and then patting yourself on the back for reacting quickly is not ethical behaviour.
Also, they were quoted on CNN (I think) that none of their users had complained, so they hoped that the effect was minimal. I know that I, for one, sent an email informing them of the problem, and urging them to take it down until it could be fixed.
My suggestion for MS? Come out and admit that they screwed up, and badly. A little honesty would go a long way.
That's certainly your right to decide whether to write open source for MS-xx or not. I for one, would prefer to see good software produced for the masses. Period. For me, usability is the key -- if it's not usable and no one is in fact using it, then why bother writing it and opening the source.
There's a very good chance that the forged information will be used/accepted by other services. When you log out from Hotmail, you get a screen showing you what services that Passport is logging you out of.
Despite the fact that people have been living up there, it's really quite amazing to me that it managed to avoid the "big" disaster.
As an American currently living in the Czech Republic, I see a lot different spin on the news than that that shows up in the American media. And I fully believe that if the Czech government was more technically cognizant, we'd be in big trouble (they just *started* on Y2K this February and have allocated the whopping sum of 25 million crowns ~= $700000 to complete it).
This whole idea sounds way too familiar...
East European servers couldn't handle it as well... http://www.zatmenislunce.cz/ stopped responding about a half hour before it went through Prague (only about 90% here...)
when I had that old M6502-based Kim-1 with 1 KB of RAM...
As long as you don't re-register and accept the new terms of service, they should still be covered under the old TOS. You submitted the material to Geocities, not Yahoo, and Geocities cannot transfer rights to the material that it never had in the first place. Hence, for you to make any changes, you'll have to "accept" the new TOS.
Yep... I had already fired off a few emails, and was getting ready to post a link to that page.