Oh right, I've heard the paranoid "RFID in our moniez!!" rants before so I assumed you were in the tinfoil hat brigade! The fact that you used a valid final point made me think you were for real - if you even try to withdraw more than a couple of grand here in the UK (and you don't do it often) then the teller is meant to ask you what its for! For you own freaking money!!
The sad thing in that RFID in our cash and face recognition in all cameras is just a matter of the technology getting there. When it's cheap and works good enough, it'll be implemented.
But all Intel is doing is refining a known process. A new technology like this is more like the initial invention of printing integrated circuits using lithography where all the real world implications were unknown.
I'm also not your regular geek like the Slashdot crowd are. I have found the geek lifestyle to be very empty and unfulfilling.
I don't recall hearing about anyone doing a study as to what constitutes the normal/.er. What's your Slash Quotient? How many standard deviations out is that? If you find this so empty and unfulfilling, what are you even doing posting here?
No, you can't. The graphics hardware is locked down, remember? That $100 gets you full hardware access.
I wish the PS3 were doing better but it's clearly the case that MS is building a better platform. $100/yr is nothing even if you're just treating it as a hobby.
I don't see why the parent is modded funny; I haven't really seen this discussed. By MSs own admission all the launch consoles are at risk of failure, hence the $1bn writeoff. In the first year there were tails of a 30% failure rate and MS was doing massive damage control and not really admitting anything.
Given that so many 360s have failed, how many are really out in the wild?
Good to know they plan to ditch their mentality about making their own graphic processor again. So many millions wasted on develop their own thing only to have the X360 match their performance with an off-the-shelf chip... that was a huge waste.
The PS3 RSX uses a part from Nvidia that's roughly equal to a 7900GTX. If anything the 360's graphics part is more off the wall what with the tiny 10MB framebuffer which is the reason why so many new releases are running at below 720p.
I think Sony intended for developers to use the SPEs on the Cell to make up for the fact that the graphics hardware has a less powerful shader hardware. In the even though it seems like most developers aren't bothering to do that, after all why would you when your title will sell less on that platform anyway?
Not to worry. Those little strip now have RFID tags in them so they can tack your use of money as well. They use face recognition software at all atms to track what you take out and then just track where the money goes.
Neither of those statements are true. The EU is looking into putting RFID tags on Euro notes but I don't think it has happened yet - it's far too expensive. Face recognition technology isn't that advanced yet either, plus most cameras used in ATMs are very low quality. Why bother with face recognition anyway? Just assume that it's the cardholder doing the transaction.
Plus if you buy too much with just cash you will just red flag yourself. Actually they use the term "person of interest".
This is true. If you try to put a large amount of money into a bank you'll attract attention, that's why criminals set themselves up in business these days in something cash based like market trading of electronics.
I know several people who read The Sun, none of them treat it as a source of news. The only reason The Sun survives is because of it has the best football coverage (apparently, I only really care about F1).
On a flight from Gatwick to Helsinki about a month ago I saw an Eee PC running Vista. It beggars belief that the user thought it was a good idea to do that, but they did.
No. When I'm using Windows I've got automatic updates turned on.
If MS were to release something I wanted via WU (unlikely as I only reboot into Windows for gaming) when that falls squarely into the "installing an application" category anyway and you'd expect a UAC prompt for that, just like an update in Linux asks me for my password so it can use sudo. WU hardly counts as using the web, it's a system update tool.
Seriously, most cinemas round here are so cheap you'd have to just be running late and not had time to hit a machine. Anecdotally, Chip & Pin hasn't done much to reduce to level of card fraud, so most people just pay for small transactions like this in cash.
I've just copied & pasted this from a post I made in the previous discussion about whether physical distribution will survive.
I've never been able to actually find that quote [that they'll release a free activation tool], which is generally attributed to Gabe. I find it hard to believe that they would actually do that however as firms go bust when they become unable to meet their financial obligations. In just about every jurisdiction ever destroying your most valuable assets before defaulting on all your debts is considered criminal and I don't think the directors of Valve would be prepared to do jail time for us.
Having said that, Steam is making Valve huge sums of money so they're not likely to go bust. Even if they do, Steam is only worth so much because it's running as a going concern, shutting it down would destroy its value.
We don't own games on Steam, we purchase subscriptions. Read the subscriber agreement. A new owner might decide to charge a pound for downloading the games more than five times, for example. Under UK (and I think EU) law if you make unfavourable changes to a contract you have to let the other party opt out. I'd take that to mean a full refund for everything I've purchased but we all know if Steam ended up with a new owner with that mindset they'd make a refund process very difficult.
Most (but not all) cinemas here in the UK give you a seat number with your ticket. It's not enforced in any real sense, even when the theatre is packed people are cool about you taking "their" seat if you're just trying to sit closer to friends and they can still fit together with their crew.
Of course this idea is pointless because most people pay for the cinema in cash.
For one, I don't believe Windows was originally designed to be a multi-user OS, was it? Everything it does that pretends to be has been an afterthought kludge. I honestly don't know if this is the case with NT-based systems so feel free to correct me.
Rest of your comment was tl;dr btw, so I'm only replying to this.
NT is multi-user from the ground up. The problem is that a lot of Windows software can trace its heritage to back when Windows was single user and so expects to be able to do all sorts of privileged things, like write to the Program Files directory.
MS needs to stand firm on the security improvements in Vista. Application writers need to stop assuming they can do privileged things. You should get a UAC prompt when you install and that should be the end of it, in that regard MS could streamline the install process so that the cases where you get multiple UAC prompts (e.g. UAC for install, UAC afterwards to confirm the app can listen on a port, etc) are handled more gracefully.
Well, I appreciate it in the cool "I've got more money and free time than sense" aspect of pointlessly modifying hardware, I just don't have that much free time.
A computer the size of a Mac Mini with that much storage space is basically a media-centre. If you're prepared to spend time with tools then you might as well build it yourself; if you want OS X build a hackintosh.
And yes, this is my UID. I signed up on the day user accounts were announced. It was quite controversial at the time (Oh noes! Wot about are privacies!!) but was necessary because people were abusing the honour system and pretending to be other people.
they'll all be downloaded, probably on every play.
That would only happen if video games become massive relative to whatever storage medium is used inside the next-next(-next)-gen consoles. I don't see how that could be the case considering that you can currently buy 1.5TB drives and games currently stand at 50GB.
The jump from cart to CD was approximately a 10x increase in size, DVD was about 8 times and Blu-ray is about 6 times. If anything the relative increase is decreasing with each generation but assuming it stays solid at 6 times the next-next-gen games will be 1.8TB which is just barely beyond the current maximum HD size.
Hard disk media (flash or winchester) will obviously increase to far beyond that size within the next 15yrs. Blu-ray may even get that large as 1.5TB BD would take 30 layers and there are currently 16 layer prototypes. Of course, when home fibre connections are commonplace it'll just be a matter of using fibre kit that can communicate over multiple wavelengths of light, so that'll be getting faster too.
I think the current model of large local storage media combined with fast network connections will persist due to the factors I've outlined.
Why would you ever want to do this? Mac hardware is targeted at specific niches, if you don't fit the niche then you're wasting your money buying the hardware. You'd be better off just using a couple of external HDs and hiding them out of view if you want that much storage on your Mac Mini - it'd only be marginally more expensive than this project and you'd still have a DVD drive.
Sorry, there is absolutely zero proof that it is more insightful. It sounds good, but that's it.
Religious people once had this idea that "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" as a way to justify all the horrible suffering that God allows, then Voltaire wrote Candide.
Actually, the opposite is often true. Satire may work like a safety valve. People who discharge their pent-up emotions through satire rarely take their anger to the streets.
Now who's making claims without evidence? In my (obviously personal) experience, all the best lefties I've met stage demos, organise campaigns and attend political comedy nights.
After a bit of head-scratching, I think I see your point. American companies and individuals aren't allowed to transfer technology to Cuba via a third party or country meaning they could be sued for violation in some other country. That would mean nobody in the USA could safely use or distribute GPL software outside of the USA.
Satire is generally more insightful and incisive than reality, that's why people in power hate it so much and dictatorial regimes work so hard to suppress it. It's even more the case when the establishment has screwed up in a massive way like the current situation.
In fact political satire feeds on the failings of those in power to such a degree that it's often not funny when the government appears to be doing OK. Rory Bremner was at his peak during the Major years but lost his bite whilst Alastair Campbell was managing to keep Blair looking like the messiah; now there are plenty of easy pickings about he's funny again.
Maybe in the land of the free you can do absolutely nothing wrong and still end up out on your arse, most other countries value the freedom to live in a house though. TBH the housing act here in the UK makes it hard enough to evict even if you're not paying a penny, but hey ho. I've never had a landlord who wasn't a lying, cheating, tax-evading piece of scum.
o EXPORTING TO CUBA - Except for publications, other informational materials (such as CDs and works of art), certain donated food, and certain goods licensed for export or re-export by the U.S. Department of Commerce (such as medicine and medical supplies, food, and agricultural commodities), no products, technology, or services may be exported from the United States to Cuba, either directly or through third countries, such as Canada or Mexico. This prohibition includes dealing in or assisting the sale of goods or commodities to or from Cuba, even if done entirely offshore. Such brokering is considered to be dealing in property in which Cuba has an interest. Provision of consulting services is also prohibited. Thus, no U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien, wherever located, and no foreign subsidiary or branch of a U.S. organization may export products, technology, or services to Cuba or to any Cuban national, wherever they may be located, or broker the sale of goods or commodities to or from Cuba or any Cuban national.
But in any case I think restrictions placed on you due to sanctions are probably exempt, I mean, how can a court award damages for GPL violation because you refused to do something criminal?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh right, I've heard the paranoid "RFID in our moniez!!" rants before so I assumed you were in the tinfoil hat brigade! The fact that you used a valid final point made me think you were for real - if you even try to withdraw more than a couple of grand here in the UK (and you don't do it often) then the teller is meant to ask you what its for! For you own freaking money!!
The sad thing in that RFID in our cash and face recognition in all cameras is just a matter of the technology getting there. When it's cheap and works good enough, it'll be implemented.
But all Intel is doing is refining a known process. A new technology like this is more like the initial invention of printing integrated circuits using lithography where all the real world implications were unknown.
I'm also not your regular geek like the Slashdot crowd are. I have found the geek lifestyle to be very empty and unfulfilling.
I don't recall hearing about anyone doing a study as to what constitutes the normal /.er. What's your Slash Quotient? How many standard deviations out is that? If you find this so empty and unfulfilling, what are you even doing posting here?
No, you can't. The graphics hardware is locked down, remember? That $100 gets you full hardware access.
I wish the PS3 were doing better but it's clearly the case that MS is building a better platform. $100/yr is nothing even if you're just treating it as a hobby.
I don't see why the parent is modded funny; I haven't really seen this discussed. By MSs own admission all the launch consoles are at risk of failure, hence the $1bn writeoff. In the first year there were tails of a 30% failure rate and MS was doing massive damage control and not really admitting anything.
Given that so many 360s have failed, how many are really out in the wild?
Good to know they plan to ditch their mentality about making their own graphic processor again. So many millions wasted on develop their own thing only to have the X360 match their performance with an off-the-shelf chip... that was a huge waste.
The PS3 RSX uses a part from Nvidia that's roughly equal to a 7900GTX. If anything the 360's graphics part is more off the wall what with the tiny 10MB framebuffer which is the reason why so many new releases are running at below 720p.
I think Sony intended for developers to use the SPEs on the Cell to make up for the fact that the graphics hardware has a less powerful shader hardware. In the even though it seems like most developers aren't bothering to do that, after all why would you when your title will sell less on that platform anyway?
Not to worry. Those little strip now have RFID tags in them so they can tack your use of money as well. They use face recognition software at all atms to track what you take out and then just track where the money goes.
Neither of those statements are true. The EU is looking into putting RFID tags on Euro notes but I don't think it has happened yet - it's far too expensive. Face recognition technology isn't that advanced yet either, plus most cameras used in ATMs are very low quality. Why bother with face recognition anyway? Just assume that it's the cardholder doing the transaction.
Plus if you buy too much with just cash you will just red flag yourself. Actually they use the term "person of interest".
This is true. If you try to put a large amount of money into a bank you'll attract attention, that's why criminals set themselves up in business these days in something cash based like market trading of electronics.
I know several people who read The Sun, none of them treat it as a source of news. The only reason The Sun survives is because of it has the best football coverage (apparently, I only really care about F1).
On a flight from Gatwick to Helsinki about a month ago I saw an Eee PC running Vista. It beggars belief that the user thought it was a good idea to do that, but they did.
No. When I'm using Windows I've got automatic updates turned on.
If MS were to release something I wanted via WU (unlikely as I only reboot into Windows for gaming) when that falls squarely into the "installing an application" category anyway and you'd expect a UAC prompt for that, just like an update in Linux asks me for my password so it can use sudo. WU hardly counts as using the web, it's a system update tool.
Seriously, most cinemas round here are so cheap you'd have to just be running late and not had time to hit a machine. Anecdotally, Chip & Pin hasn't done much to reduce to level of card fraud, so most people just pay for small transactions like this in cash.
I've just copied & pasted this from a post I made in the previous discussion about whether physical distribution will survive.
I've never been able to actually find that quote [that they'll release a free activation tool], which is generally attributed to Gabe. I find it hard to believe that they would actually do that however as firms go bust when they become unable to meet their financial obligations. In just about every jurisdiction ever destroying your most valuable assets before defaulting on all your debts is considered criminal and I don't think the directors of Valve would be prepared to do jail time for us.
Having said that, Steam is making Valve huge sums of money so they're not likely to go bust. Even if they do, Steam is only worth so much because it's running as a going concern, shutting it down would destroy its value.
We don't own games on Steam, we purchase subscriptions. Read the subscriber agreement. A new owner might decide to charge a pound for downloading the games more than five times, for example. Under UK (and I think EU) law if you make unfavourable changes to a contract you have to let the other party opt out. I'd take that to mean a full refund for everything I've purchased but we all know if Steam ended up with a new owner with that mindset they'd make a refund process very difficult.
Most (but not all) cinemas here in the UK give you a seat number with your ticket. It's not enforced in any real sense, even when the theatre is packed people are cool about you taking "their" seat if you're just trying to sit closer to friends and they can still fit together with their crew.
Of course this idea is pointless because most people pay for the cinema in cash.
For one, I don't believe Windows was originally designed to be a multi-user OS, was it? Everything it does that pretends to be has been an afterthought kludge. I honestly don't know if this is the case with NT-based systems so feel free to correct me.
Rest of your comment was tl;dr btw, so I'm only replying to this.
NT is multi-user from the ground up. The problem is that a lot of Windows software can trace its heritage to back when Windows was single user and so expects to be able to do all sorts of privileged things, like write to the Program Files directory.
MS needs to stand firm on the security improvements in Vista. Application writers need to stop assuming they can do privileged things. You should get a UAC prompt when you install and that should be the end of it, in that regard MS could streamline the install process so that the cases where you get multiple UAC prompts (e.g. UAC for install, UAC afterwards to confirm the app can listen on a port, etc) are handled more gracefully.
I never see UAC whilst browsing the web. Why would you?
Actually yea, those Lacie lego bricks would probably look good stacked at the side. I'm sure there are alternatives too!
Time to go out and drink! W00t for Friday!
Well, I appreciate it in the cool "I've got more money and free time than sense" aspect of pointlessly modifying hardware, I just don't have that much free time.
A computer the size of a Mac Mini with that much storage space is basically a media-centre. If you're prepared to spend time with tools then you might as well build it yourself; if you want OS X build a hackintosh.
And yes, this is my UID. I signed up on the day user accounts were announced. It was quite controversial at the time (Oh noes! Wot about are privacies!!) but was necessary because people were abusing the honour system and pretending to be other people.
they'll all be downloaded, probably on every play.
That would only happen if video games become massive relative to whatever storage medium is used inside the next-next(-next)-gen consoles. I don't see how that could be the case considering that you can currently buy 1.5TB drives and games currently stand at 50GB.
The jump from cart to CD was approximately a 10x increase in size, DVD was about 8 times and Blu-ray is about 6 times. If anything the relative increase is decreasing with each generation but assuming it stays solid at 6 times the next-next-gen games will be 1.8TB which is just barely beyond the current maximum HD size.
Hard disk media (flash or winchester) will obviously increase to far beyond that size within the next 15yrs. Blu-ray may even get that large as 1.5TB BD would take 30 layers and there are currently 16 layer prototypes. Of course, when home fibre connections are commonplace it'll just be a matter of using fibre kit that can communicate over multiple wavelengths of light, so that'll be getting faster too.
I think the current model of large local storage media combined with fast network connections will persist due to the factors I've outlined.
Why would you ever want to do this? Mac hardware is targeted at specific niches, if you don't fit the niche then you're wasting your money buying the hardware. You'd be better off just using a couple of external HDs and hiding them out of view if you want that much storage on your Mac Mini - it'd only be marginally more expensive than this project and you'd still have a DVD drive.
Sorry, there is absolutely zero proof that it is more insightful. It sounds good, but that's it.
Religious people once had this idea that "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" as a way to justify all the horrible suffering that God allows, then Voltaire wrote Candide.
Actually, the opposite is often true. Satire may work like a safety valve. People who discharge their pent-up emotions through satire rarely take their anger to the streets.
Now who's making claims without evidence? In my (obviously personal) experience, all the best lefties I've met stage demos, organise campaigns and attend political comedy nights.
After a bit of head-scratching, I think I see your point. American companies and individuals aren't allowed to transfer technology to Cuba via a third party or country meaning they could be sued for violation in some other country. That would mean nobody in the USA could safely use or distribute GPL software outside of the USA.
Of course neither of us is a lawyer, right?
Don't feed the AC trolls. We all know space western is one of the most interesting and under-used genres - Cowboy Bebop anyone?
Satire is generally more insightful and incisive than reality, that's why people in power hate it so much and dictatorial regimes work so hard to suppress it. It's even more the case when the establishment has screwed up in a massive way like the current situation.
In fact political satire feeds on the failings of those in power to such a degree that it's often not funny when the government appears to be doing OK. Rory Bremner was at his peak during the Major years but lost his bite whilst Alastair Campbell was managing to keep Blair looking like the messiah; now there are plenty of easy pickings about he's funny again.
Maybe in the land of the free you can do absolutely nothing wrong and still end up out on your arse, most other countries value the freedom to live in a house though. TBH the housing act here in the UK makes it hard enough to evict even if you're not paying a penny, but hey ho. I've never had a landlord who wasn't a lying, cheating, tax-evading piece of scum.
You didn't even try did you? From the overview of sanctions:
o EXPORTING TO CUBA - Except for publications, other informational materials
(such as CDs and works of art), certain donated food, and certain goods licensed
for export or re-export by the U.S. Department of Commerce (such as medicine and
medical supplies, food, and agricultural commodities), no products, technology,
or services may be exported from the United States to Cuba, either directly or
through third countries, such as Canada or Mexico. This prohibition includes
dealing in or assisting the sale of goods or commodities to or from Cuba, even
if done entirely offshore. Such brokering is considered to be dealing in
property in which Cuba has an interest. Provision of consulting services is
also prohibited. Thus, no U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien, wherever
located, and no foreign subsidiary or branch of a U.S. organization may export
products, technology, or services to Cuba or to any Cuban national, wherever
they may be located, or broker the sale of goods or commodities to or from Cuba
or any Cuban national.
But in any case I think restrictions placed on you due to sanctions are probably exempt, I mean, how can a court award damages for GPL violation because you refused to do something criminal?