I'm not big on purchasing games, but MOO I and II are definately ones I've loved. In fact, its kind of strange this came up, because I loaded the original MOO onto my PC a few days ago, and I've been readdicted! Playing the Psilons is so much fun, using my repulsor beams along with my tri-focus weapons at 3x range. It was produced in 1995 I believe, and it STILL draws my attention. Excellent strategy game.
I enjoyed MOO II because of the technology update, but also the new rules and stuff were a GOOD addition. Someone here KNOWS how to make a game, and KNOWS how to make sequels!
I read the article and haven't had a chance to read the discussion chain, but this is quite an interesting article. Usually, someone talks to the Microsoft marketing drones, and then writes down everything they say as near fact. In this case, the writer did a complete 180 and balanced Microsoft's comments with views from other sources.
I'm sure that Microsoft is NONE TOO PLEASED at this type of reporting. If this were to become an actual trend, they might be forced to tone down some of their rhetoric.
That's my vote. Part economic, part diplomatic, part military. Of course, the problem with using a well known game is that they'd get cheat ideas from the net.:)
But, as I've read, aren't they having enough trouble with REAL cellphones in foreign countries that are filling up the landfills? Imagine what these things would do.
I think it was Wired or News.Com that did a story on this (and didn't Slashdot link to it?) regarding a woman who patented her idea for a cell phone that was made on a flexible PCB. It has no display, but was very cheap to make, and great for use as disposable / giveaway / low cost cellular phones. Didn't they then mention the idea of including them in Happy Meals?:)
Well, the price quoted back then was a bit cheaper... $2 to create? But I'm not surprised to see them at $10. If it catches on, it'll be a landfill hell.
But its a cute idea, and you have to love it.
I'd think somewhere towards the top of the list would be the Government. Or, you could, creatively, say that Windows is its own top threat... nothing sells the competition like a bad product. Or bad business practices. So, in a way, Microsoft Corporation is a good candidate as a top threat to Windows.
I read it as interesting concerning Oracle/Sun that they "are second-tier rivals because I think that server sales are our biggest potential short-term return". I think *potential* is the key word here. Lots of potential. Not a lot of opportunity.
FWIW, Solaris has a (extra purchase) workload manager that'll do exactly that. You divide the system up into shares, and say what groups get what shares of resources (memory, cpu, io). Then you can drill down further into individual users. And if there are idle resources in one group, because you're using shares and not percentages, they can be used by other groups.
Maybe I'm missing something here. You've got a very big (assumed) planet in one solar system. In another, you've got one planet that orbits at twice the speed of another. Maybe I've watched too much television, but this really doesn't strike me as something mind blowing, or what have I missed?
Now, if you tell me that's a Dyson's Sphere around a sun in a binary system, you've got my attention!
Imagine that Company X acquires information from Company Y with a contract that says it will only be used to certain purposes. Now Company X goes out of business. Company Z buys the information from Company X in bankruptcy.
IAMAL, but it would seem that Company Z wouldn't then have the right to use the information for whatever purposes they want. The same would seem to go for a contract/agreement where the customer provides information to Company X. Company Z may have bought it, but there should be nothing that they can do with it, because it is outside the terms of the agreement.
At least, that seems like natural law. It would appear to hold some water, though.
I'm sure there are the 'free enterprise/make money fast' types out there that would say this is a complete travesty of justice. Certain parts of a company shouldn't be deemed 'off limits'. In a way, I almost think they're right. Someone *could* buy the customer list, but they should be bound to the conditions that it was compiled under, which means that it can't be used.
The sad thing is that this probably happens all the time, just this was a high enough profile case to be caught.
UUNet's policy used to be "if you were as big as us, you could peer with us for free". Of course, that policy was pretty good, except for the fact that nobody is as big as UUNet. So now, after realizing that they were no longer the darlings of the peering world, they've lowered their standards.
Kind of odd, but it sounds like the dating practices of some people I know. Therefore, I offer the theory that peering is like dating, and UUNet *really hates* a blind date.
Put the pieces together, willyah?
on
What is 'IT'?
·
· Score: 2
Okay. We have a lot of clues here, looking at the +3 posts and above. I'm going to take a shot at synthesising them.
The "Stirling engine" is just too silly and I'm going to throw it out. However, the meaning of IT post sounds plausable. The USPTO patenet listings seems to have some clues. I picked "human transporter" as the most viable entire-product listed. Then there's the Ginger post about what Ginger could mean. An editor (in the linked story) called it a "personal hovering craft". All this seems to jive (and go back and read that patent!). "Metro" and "Pro" seem like good names for transportation devices or some sort.
There's too much mention about "irregular surfaces" and "stairs" and what not, and the thought of people suspended below helicopter blades frightens me so much that I'm going to wager that it is NOT a helicopter. But I believe it is a personal (one-person) hovercraft type device (no doubt, with a novel approach) that has controls like a scooter [or motorcycle] (which allow for leaning), plus a joystick control and a height adjustment control.
The thought of thousands of people with this would jive with what was said about city regulations. With all the current craze over the scooter fad, yeah, I could see people buying them in droves at the right price, and it sounds far more entertaining than the stock of a previous employeer that I have sitting around doing nothing.
Summary: It's a one person transportation device that does not rely on standard locomotion (which makes it cool) such as a motor driven wheel to move you from point A to B. (Of course, I wonder how good the brakes are!)
Anyone ever play the game Paranoia by West End Games? Did you ever get the R&D Catalog that had novel inventions such as the "papercut chainsaw" and the "I scream cone"? Well, if so, you'll remember IT. What is IT? You mean, you don't have IT? I WANT IT! PLEASE! Tell me where I can get IT! All your enemies already have IT! [In this case, IT was a handheld computer device that could wipe out any enemy as reliably as any other R&D device in Paranoia. Which is to say, rarely.] Anyone care to join me in some More Treasonous Songs About Food Vats?
The "download stopped in progress" really doesn't say a whole lot. How much was transfered before it was shut off? 1mb? 1gb? Quite a bit could be could be transferred in just a matter of minutes. The follow-up question should be, of the amount was transferred, how many of those show potential evidence of fraud, versus those which were not transferred?
Seems to me that we're missing some fairly obvious numbers here. The fact that a very small number show evidence of fraud does not interest me as much as the percentage of the database transferred.
For what it was worth, this wasn't the first time I found something I wrote on another site. This happened with another page of mine on arcade game components. Things went quite a bit different that time.
A web site in England copied the work. My emails to them were completely ignored, and I was getting absolutely nowhere. It was, yet again, a commercial web. They were selling arcade games, parts, and service. It wasn't worth going all-out to try to do something about a site in a foreign country. Normally, this would have been the end of the story.
Luckily, I wasn't alone. I had posted my article under the Open Content License, which is a GNUish license for text documents. I explained my problem to them, and they went to bat for me, and actually got the offending site to give in!
If you personally publish information online, and you don't want to see it ripped and commercially exploited, I can easily recommend this method over going it alone.
And going it alone is tough. I can only imagine that, without the help of the Slashdot discussion forum, and its readers, my complaint would have ignored my complaint and the content would have stayed.
The explanation I hear for this in a corporate environment is, "Why ruin their weekend when there isn't much they can do in the way of finding a job?". I guess that isn't *quite* true, though.
I was written an email that encouraged me to summarize what has just happened in a single message so everything is clear. The evidence that I am the original author should be overwhelming at this point. Here goes.
L. Ron McKenzie points out that the person who submitted the story (rdir) and defended its authenticity would seem to be the administrative and technical contact of the site which has the review.
There are also the posts (#1, #2, and #3) which point to the date being changed from 12/29/00 to 3/29/00 in the published article... after the authenticity of the article was questioned. Of course, the story doesn't make any sense at all with the date and the CPU speeds changed.
Dustpuppy correctly points out the difference in writing styles between the reviews. A nice non-technical investigation of the situation. Thanks.
And there are numerous posts, such as this, which point out strange similarites between the reviews on Reviewboard and those written by people on Epinions. And a credibility check betweem the alleged author and myself. This recently posted thread seems to be pretty damning, too.
I think at this point, the plantiff rests his case. And I'm going to be. 'Night, Slashdot. And thanks for those who were looking for the truth who helped me prove my case. I appreciate it.
Yes, it takes hours. (Score:1)
by redir (philip@ferreira.net) on Saturday April 24, @07:56AM EDT
(User Info) http://www.reviewboard.com
This is too funny. Thanks for the good research! Nice how redir posted some messages with his address for the redir alias as the administrative contact of Reviewboard Magazine! If this doesn't clinch things, what does?
Well, Redir... oops, I mean, "anonymous coward", let's say the article was updated at the date of republishing (a day or two ago?). Isn't funny how it was "updated" to a processor that hasn't been released for the E10k? It looks like a person who knows nothing about Sun products took the 480mhz information off of the Epinions E450 review and thought it also applied to the E10k.
Anyone who knows Sun equipment knows that the E10k is the last to receive the latest and greatest. It is always released first for the lower-end servers.
Let's see a copy of your many emails, headers completely intact. BTW, it *is* funny how when I write a message to the editor, I get a reply back from "dollardude" and it comes back through "mail.easymo.com".:)
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Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 19:19:50 -0500
To: Josh McCormick (jmccorm@galaxy.galstar.com)
From: Dollar Dude
Subject: Re: MY WORK WAS PLAGIARIZED BY "CHRIS CHABOT"
In-Reply-To:
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Status: ORr
I bet, however this review has been on our site for over 2 months. You have
a lot of sand to come to us and say you wrote this. Our review was posted
10/25/2000 at 1:57p.m. We moved it to the front cover of the site for a
promotion we are doing on our server section.
At 05:57 PM 1/3/01 -0600, you wrote:
>RBMAG:
>
>I'm writing to you because it appears that a review that I wrote about the
>Sun Ultra Enterprise 10000 was completely plagiarized and placed on your
>site. Please visit the following URL:
>
>http://www.epinions.com/enth-review-41-2D0E2BF6-3 A 4C813E-prod2
>
>Now visit the review on your site:
>
>http://www.reviewboard.com/Section/Cover/E10k
>
>Look just a little bit TOO FAMILIAR? I should know. I wrote the thing in
>the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.
>
>I couldn't be MORE UPSET.
Please see my earlier thread on this article. The article has been alterend since its original submission to Slashdot. Here's the clinching proof:
he E10k frame is capable of holding up to 16 system boards, with a minimum of 4 boards. Each system board can hold four CPUs (480mhz), 4GB RAM (4 banks of 1GB), and either 4 SBUS devices, or 2 PCI devices. (Note: in the future, this *may* support faster CPUs, 2x higher memory density, and 3 PCI devices per system board, specs are as of 03/29/2000)
For starters, 480mhz processors aren't even available NOW for the E10k, and only the E450. See this Sun Specifications for the E10kpage for verification.
At this point, it should be pretty clear which is the original article and which is the changed one. BTW, if the people at Slashdot save a copy of the web pages before they post it, then check their original copy. You'll find that the date was really "12/29/00" at the review site, and not the "3/29/00" that it is now.
It doesn't make sense that a site would say that 480mhz processors are available in March when they aren't even available now. Not to mention the 2x density RAM that wasn't even announced for the lower-end servers at that point.
This story is a plagairism of my original work, and I am COMPLETELY DISGUSTED at the theft of my work.
I want to thank you, Firebus, for the final proof. All the sudden, the dates change in the article from 12/29/00 to 3/29/00. (Which didn't REDIR say the date from "the editor" that the original article was published was 3/21/00?). I have a copy saved to disk, but of course, since it is from me, it is not reliable. I'd love to see several third parties with it.
BTW, the 480mhz processors for the E10k aren't even available now. See the Sun specification site for details.. Also funny how he knew about Sun's 2x higher memory densitry (which also is not yet supported on the E10k) in March, long before it was available for the lower-end servers.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not big on purchasing games, but MOO I and II are definately ones I've loved. In fact, its kind of strange this came up, because I loaded the original MOO onto my PC a few days ago, and I've been readdicted! Playing the Psilons is so much fun, using my repulsor beams along with my tri-focus weapons at 3x range. It was produced in 1995 I believe, and it STILL draws my attention. Excellent strategy game.
I enjoyed MOO II because of the technology update, but also the new rules and stuff were a GOOD addition. Someone here KNOWS how to make a game, and KNOWS how to make sequels!
I read the article and haven't had a chance to read the discussion chain, but this is quite an interesting article. Usually, someone talks to the Microsoft marketing drones, and then writes down everything they say as near fact. In this case, the writer did a complete 180 and balanced Microsoft's comments with views from other sources.
I'm sure that Microsoft is NONE TOO PLEASED at this type of reporting. If this were to become an actual trend, they might be forced to tone down some of their rhetoric.
That's my vote. Part economic, part diplomatic, part military. Of course, the problem with using a well known game is that they'd get cheat ideas from the net. :)
But, as I've read, aren't they having enough trouble with REAL cellphones in foreign countries that are filling up the landfills? Imagine what these things would do.
:)
BTW: A hackable one of these would be cool.
Well, the price quoted back then was a bit cheaper... $2 to create? But I'm not surprised to see them at $10. If it catches on, it'll be a landfill hell. But its a cute idea, and you have to love it.
How can I learn more about you?
I read it as interesting concerning Oracle/Sun that they "are second-tier rivals because I think that server sales are our biggest potential short-term return". I think *potential* is the key word here. Lots of potential. Not a lot of opportunity.
The eClliner has all these features, yet it doesn't have a simple back massage? I wonder what kind of market they were trying to hit.
FWIW, Solaris has a (extra purchase) workload manager that'll do exactly that. You divide the system up into shares, and say what groups get what shares of resources (memory, cpu, io). Then you can drill down further into individual users. And if there are idle resources in one group, because you're using shares and not percentages, they can be used by other groups.
Now, if you tell me that's a Dyson's Sphere around a sun in a binary system, you've got my attention!
IAMAL, but it would seem that Company Z wouldn't then have the right to use the information for whatever purposes they want. The same would seem to go for a contract/agreement where the customer provides information to Company X. Company Z may have bought it, but there should be nothing that they can do with it, because it is outside the terms of the agreement.
At least, that seems like natural law. It would appear to hold some water, though.
The sad thing is that this probably happens all the time, just this was a high enough profile case to be caught.
Kind of odd, but it sounds like the dating practices of some people I know. Therefore, I offer the theory that peering is like dating, and UUNet *really hates* a blind date.
The "Stirling engine" is just too silly and I'm going to throw it out. However, the meaning of IT post sounds plausable. The USPTO patenet listings seems to have some clues. I picked "human transporter" as the most viable entire-product listed. Then there's the Ginger post about what Ginger could mean. An editor (in the linked story) called it a "personal hovering craft". All this seems to jive (and go back and read that patent!). "Metro" and "Pro" seem like good names for transportation devices or some sort.
There's too much mention about "irregular surfaces" and "stairs" and what not, and the thought of people suspended below helicopter blades frightens me so much that I'm going to wager that it is NOT a helicopter. But I believe it is a personal (one-person) hovercraft type device (no doubt, with a novel approach) that has controls like a scooter [or motorcycle] (which allow for leaning), plus a joystick control and a height adjustment control.
The thought of thousands of people with this would jive with what was said about city regulations. With all the current craze over the scooter fad, yeah, I could see people buying them in droves at the right price, and it sounds far more entertaining than the stock of a previous employeer that I have sitting around doing nothing.
Summary: It's a one person transportation device that does not rely on standard locomotion (which makes it cool) such as a motor driven wheel to move you from point A to B. (Of course, I wonder how good the brakes are!)
Anyone ever play the game Paranoia by West End Games? Did you ever get the R&D Catalog that had novel inventions such as the "papercut chainsaw" and the "I scream cone"? Well, if so, you'll remember IT. What is IT? You mean, you don't have IT? I WANT IT! PLEASE! Tell me where I can get IT! All your enemies already have IT! [In this case, IT was a handheld computer device that could wipe out any enemy as reliably as any other R&D device in Paranoia. Which is to say, rarely.] Anyone care to join me in some More Treasonous Songs About Food Vats?
The "download stopped in progress" really doesn't say a whole lot. How much was transfered before it was shut off? 1mb? 1gb? Quite a bit could be could be transferred in just a matter of minutes. The follow-up question should be, of the amount was transferred, how many of those show potential evidence of fraud, versus those which were not transferred?
Seems to me that we're missing some fairly obvious numbers here. The fact that a very small number show evidence of fraud does not interest me as much as the percentage of the database transferred.
For what it was worth, this wasn't the first time I found something I wrote on another site. This happened with another page of mine on arcade game components. Things went quite a bit different that time.
A web site in England copied the work. My emails to them were completely ignored, and I was getting absolutely nowhere. It was, yet again, a commercial web. They were selling arcade games, parts, and service. It wasn't worth going all-out to try to do something about a site in a foreign country. Normally, this would have been the end of the story.
Luckily, I wasn't alone. I had posted my article under the Open Content License, which is a GNUish license for text documents. I explained my problem to them, and they went to bat for me, and actually got the offending site to give in!
If you personally publish information online, and you don't want to see it ripped and commercially exploited, I can easily recommend this method over going it alone.
And going it alone is tough. I can only imagine that, without the help of the Slashdot discussion forum, and its readers, my complaint would have ignored my complaint and the content would have stayed.
The explanation I hear for this in a corporate environment is, "Why ruin their weekend when there isn't much they can do in the way of finding a job?". I guess that isn't *quite* true, though.
L. Ron McKenzie points out that the person who submitted the story (rdir) and defended its authenticity would seem to be the administrative and technical contact of the site which has the review.
There are also the posts (#1, #2, and #3) which point to the date being changed from 12/29/00 to 3/29/00 in the published article... after the authenticity of the article was questioned. Of course, the story doesn't make any sense at all with the date and the CPU speeds changed.
Dustpuppy correctly points out the difference in writing styles between the reviews. A nice non-technical investigation of the situation. Thanks.
And there are numerous posts, such as this, which point out strange similarites between the reviews on Reviewboard and those written by people on Epinions. And a credibility check betweem the alleged author and myself. This recently posted thread seems to be pretty damning, too.
I think at this point, the plantiff rests his case. And I'm going to be. 'Night, Slashdot. And thanks for those who were looking for the truth who helped me prove my case. I appreciate it.
by redir (philip@ferreira.net) on Saturday April 24, @07:56AM EDT
(User Info) http://www.reviewboard.com
This is too funny. Thanks for the good research! Nice how redir posted some messages with his address for the redir alias as the administrative contact of Reviewboard Magazine! If this doesn't clinch things, what does?
Anyone who knows Sun equipment knows that the E10k is the last to receive the latest and greatest. It is always released first for the lower-end servers.
Let's see a copy of your many emails, headers completely intact. BTW, it *is* funny how when I write a message to the editor, I get a reply back from "dollardude" and it comes back through "mail.easymo.com". :)
From dollardude@cwicweb.com Wed Jan 3 18:21:20 2001r d.com)
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Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 19:19:50 -0500
To: Josh McCormick (jmccorm@galaxy.galstar.com)
From: Dollar Dude
Subject: Re: MY WORK WAS PLAGIARIZED BY "CHRIS CHABOT"
In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Status: ORr
I bet, however this review has been on our site for over 2 months. You have a lot of sand to come to us and say you wrote this. Our review was posted 10/25/2000 at 1:57p.m. We moved it to the front cover of the site for a promotion we are doing on our server section.
At 05:57 PM 1/3/01 -0600, you wrote:
>RBMAG:3 A 4C813E-prod2
>
>I'm writing to you because it appears that a review that I wrote about the
>Sun Ultra Enterprise 10000 was completely plagiarized and placed on your
>site. Please visit the following URL:
>
>http://www.epinions.com/enth-review-41-2D0E2BF6-
>
>Now visit the review on your site:
>
>http://www.reviewboard.com/Section/Cover/E10k
>
>Look just a little bit TOO FAMILIAR? I should know. I wrote the thing in
>the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.
>
>I couldn't be MORE UPSET.
An accreddited site, by who? Kind of like the guy who who the article who is at a site with 100's of E10ks? Please.
he E10k frame is capable of holding up to 16 system boards, with a minimum of 4 boards. Each system board can hold four CPUs (480mhz), 4GB RAM (4 banks of 1GB), and either 4 SBUS devices, or 2 PCI devices. (Note: in the future, this *may* support faster CPUs, 2x higher memory density, and 3 PCI devices per system board, specs are as of 03/29/2000)
For starters, 480mhz processors aren't even available NOW for the E10k, and only the E450. See this Sun Specifications for the E10kpage for verification.
Now, go read my view at Epinions about the Sun Enterprise 10000.
At this point, it should be pretty clear which is the original article and which is the changed one. BTW, if the people at Slashdot save a copy of the web pages before they post it, then check their original copy. You'll find that the date was really "12/29/00" at the review site, and not the "3/29/00" that it is now.
It doesn't make sense that a site would say that 480mhz processors are available in March when they aren't even available now. Not to mention the 2x density RAM that wasn't even announced for the lower-end servers at that point.
This story is a plagairism of my original work, and I am COMPLETELY DISGUSTED at the theft of my work.
BTW, the 480mhz processors for the E10k aren't even available now. See the Sun specification site for details.. Also funny how he knew about Sun's 2x higher memory densitry (which also is not yet supported on the E10k) in March, long before it was available for the lower-end servers.