When I read the summary I immediately thought, what a good idea, this will prevent a lot of accidental killings in the home.
Then I read the comments, most of which seem to say it's a bad idea because it the gun might fail when you actually need to shoot somebody.
It reminded me of the recent fatal shooting of Dimebag Darrel (Pantera guitarist) at a gig in Ohio (IIRC). My first thought was that if guns weren't so readily available, it might not have happened. Then it occurred to me that many Americans probably thought, if everyone in the audience had a gun it might not have happened.
. what the activation looks like (i.e. what does the user see?) . how it works behind the scenes (some kind of key exchange to decrypt vital files?) . how the cracks try to get around it
I've not been following this, and searching for "half life 2 crack" gets me only to dubious warez sites.
2. "terminal client" wi-fi receiver -> DVI adapter. Receives screen update, converts to video signal, transmits over DVI to a connected monitor.
Then you could have flat panels with receivers hung all over the house with sessions open on the central server. (In particular I'd like one near my drum kit, so I can access MP3s, look at tabs, etc).
After all, in terms of simple loss of life, cars kill about the same number of people every year as a jumbo jet going down with all hands, and we accept that as necessary.
In all probability there will be an explosion of music download services, followed by consolidation into one or two dominant players. I don't think price differentiation will play a big role in the long term. What will probably make the most difference -- and allow multiple services to exist -- is labels exclusively licensing their tracks to one service or another. Seen another way, this means the most likely service providers in the long run are the (major) labels themselves, because the cost of running a music download site is low (primarily a marketing cost). Indies will probably prefer to continue to license their tracks to third-party stores, although I'd like to see them set up co-operatives.
We might see aggregators, sites that allow you to transparently purchase from multiple stores. However, this doesn't seem to be very prevalent in other "obvious" areas, e.g. search engines that submit your query to google, jeeves etc and then present a single result? They may exist, but they're not popular.
Is there a way to find out in advance whether you're on one of these retarded lists? I'm heading out the States at some point, if I can avoid spurious cavity searches at the airport by using a middle initial, that would be good.
OT... There was a funny anecdote in some Star Trek memoir I read about the green aliens. The SFX team were painting the chicks green, but whenever the developed film came back it wasn't green enough. So they'd up the green in the paint and do it again.
After a few rounds of this they went to the guys developing the film and they were like, "What?! It took us HOURS to correct the green tint off your film!"
Ugh, in the UK it's even more backward. Typical broadband is ADSL, 512kbps down, 256 up, at about US $36. It gets much more expensive if you want more.
Of course, much of this is BT dragging its heels because it likes those nice profitable dial-up and ISDN connections, thankyou very much.
*sigh* If we hadn't privatised them, we could force them to work for the broader social good. Oh well. Now we can snarl at them while they ignore us.
Both would be awesome if converted into libraries used by other programs.
Hear hear! There are so many great programs that are really just front-ends for some service, and yet aren't implemented as such. A classic example is netpbm, a great set of image manipulation programs to crop, rotate, convert formats etc - just the kind of operations that would be perfect in a general-purpose image manipulation library. But alas, all the logic is bound up in the program.
In the article they constantly refer to "the labels", meaning the big 5 mega labels. But I would say that only 1% of the music I buy is big-label music, the rest is from indies like Season of Mist, Candlelight, Relapse etc, who still have a pretty much traditional operating model as far as I can tell.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the alternative music industry is doing just fine, it's just the big labels who chase the mega profits that are imploding.
Could it be that China is doing this for internal reasons? If, in their economy, the Government has a big say in defining standards, could they be doing this so as to fashion them according to their own agenda just as corps do in the West (e.g. have a "censorship" bit in their protocols)?
It'll serve it's purpose. Unless you are planning not to bother going to see it, which as geeks and nerds, I frankly don't believe.
I very much am not planning to go to the cinema and see it. I gave up on the Matrix after the second part, and given that I almost walked out of the Phantom Menace, I really have no interest in part 3. Why would I bother? For the inane plot? For the utterly bland characters? For the effects?
Slashdot Mirror
When I read the summary I immediately thought, what a good idea, this will prevent a lot of accidental killings in the home.
Then I read the comments, most of which seem to say it's a bad idea because it the gun might fail when you actually need to shoot somebody.
It reminded me of the recent fatal shooting of Dimebag Darrel (Pantera guitarist) at a gig in Ohio (IIRC). My first thought was that if guns weren't so readily available, it might not have happened. Then it occurred to me that many Americans probably thought, if everyone in the audience had a gun it might not have happened.
Also note, in other small form-factor PC news, that UK co Armari are now shipping the iwill zmaxdp dual-opteron SFF PC:
overview
customise
The Sonos System includes a handheld "Controller" system, based on a Hitachi SoC (system-on-chip) with an SH-4 processor core.
Isn't that the Dreamcast CPU?
I wonder if the graphics driver updates are in response to Carmack's comments about Mac graphics, and are a prelude to a Mac Doom 3.
Can anyone post a summary of:
. what the activation looks like (i.e. what does the user see?)
. how it works behind the scenes (some kind of key exchange to decrypt vital files?)
. how the cracks try to get around it
I've not been following this, and searching for "half life 2 crack" gets me only to dubious warez sites.
Here's what I want:
1. "terminal server" wi-fi transmitter. Sends out compressed screen update (like RDP, VNC).
2. "terminal client" wi-fi receiver -> DVI adapter. Receives screen update, converts to video signal, transmits over DVI to a connected monitor.
Then you could have flat panels with receivers hung all over the house with sessions open on the central server. (In particular I'd like one near my drum kit, so I can access MP3s, look at tabs, etc).
That's the executive pay more than taken care of, now they can get nice fat "performance"-related bonuses too!
Ah, just kidding, they're doing good stuff.
(d) none of this addresses the root of the problem, namely, excessive energy consumption in the West
After all, in terms of simple loss of life, cars kill about the same number of people every year as a jumbo jet going down with all hands, and we accept that as necessary.
US Highway deaths 2003 - 42,643 source
Airbus A380 (due 2006) - 555 passengers source
In all probability there will be an explosion of music download services, followed by consolidation into one or two dominant players. I don't think price differentiation will play a big role in the long term. What will probably make the most difference -- and allow multiple services to exist -- is labels exclusively licensing their tracks to one service or another. Seen another way, this means the most likely service providers in the long run are the (major) labels themselves, because the cost of running a music download site is low (primarily a marketing cost). Indies will probably prefer to continue to license their tracks to third-party stores, although I'd like to see them set up co-operatives.
We might see aggregators, sites that allow you to transparently purchase from multiple stores. However, this doesn't seem to be very prevalent in other "obvious" areas, e.g. search engines that submit your query to google, jeeves etc and then present a single result? They may exist, but they're not popular.
Chucklesome bumper sticker mentioned by someone on Slashdot...
"Eschew Obfuscation"
Is there a way to find out in advance whether you're on one of these retarded lists? I'm heading out the States at some point, if I can avoid spurious cavity searches at the airport by using a middle initial, that would be good.
An update on this:
Apparently, the judge held that the disputed fallwell.com was 'nearly identical' to the registered trademark 'Jerry Falwell.'
I heard this is going to be an Oceania-only release. Any news when it'll be available in Eurasia?
Clear Channel owns tons of radio stations. Clear Channel also operates a concert promotion arm as well.
Slightly OT - I've started to notice how many billboards here in London (UK) are owned by ClearChannel. (Presumably the same CC?)
This is actually not the first video these guys have posted. It's been an ongoing project, and they've documented previous attempts also.
Here is footage of an early, MS-DOS based version. (Believe it or not MS-DOS is still used for many embedded systems.)
After a few rounds of this they went to the guys developing the film and they were like, "What?! It took us HOURS to correct the green tint off your film!"
Ugh, in the UK it's even more backward. Typical broadband is ADSL, 512kbps down, 256 up, at about US $36. It gets much more expensive if you want more.
Of course, much of this is BT dragging its heels because it likes those nice profitable dial-up and ISDN connections, thankyou very much.
*sigh* If we hadn't privatised them, we could force them to work for the broader social good. Oh well. Now we can snarl at them while they ignore us.
I'm still looking for a mini-itx rack case that isn't so deep. Maybe 20cm or so. (For a musician's rack setup.)
Hear hear! There are so many great programs that are really just front-ends for some service, and yet aren't implemented as such. A classic example is netpbm, a great set of image manipulation programs to crop, rotate, convert formats etc - just the kind of operations that would be perfect in a general-purpose image manipulation library. But alas, all the logic is bound up in the program.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the alternative music industry is doing just fine, it's just the big labels who chase the mega profits that are imploding.
With multiple monitors, X11 applications now seem to start in the primary monitor rather than in the leftmost monitor.
I've found a good test
image
for this technology.
Could it be that China is doing this for internal reasons? If, in their economy, the Government has a big say in defining standards, could they be doing this so as to fashion them according to their own agenda just as corps do in the West (e.g. have a "censorship" bit in their protocols)?
I very much am not planning to go to the cinema and see it. I gave up on the Matrix after the second part, and given that I almost walked out of the Phantom Menace, I really have no interest in part 3. Why would I bother? For the inane plot? For the utterly bland characters? For the effects?