Oh, mod points are so hard to come by. Well they might be for you seeing as how you are a troll AC. Are you one of those guys that got modded to 0 one too many times and now you are just posting as an AC so you can be a full time dickhead?
Well, on one hand, it's the fed's money, so they can pretty much do what they want with it. It's pretty lame to make that money conditional based on these filters, but when someone is giving you free money, you're pretty much in their house.
On the other hand, libraries should be allowed to deal with such things in their own way. I volunteered at a public libary for awhile, and their policy was to cruise by the terminals to shoulder surf the users. If we saw pornography, we were to turn off the monitor and inform them that surfing pr0n was not allowed and if they continued they would have to get off the computer. If they raised a stink all we had to do was point to the police station right out the window.
Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
Or it could be that the teeny boppers are running out of disposable income and everyone else knows the music sucks ass. I haven't heard any new decent material on the radio for a long time. Everyone is trying to sound either like Blink 182 or Britney. I think the music industry is starting to feel the backlash of homogenization and the one-size-fits-all mentality. I hope I'm right, because I would love to taste the irony that the RIAA and Clear Channel are on the path to mutual destruction at each others' hands.
It was Newt Gingrich's mom. Connie Chung asked during the interview what Newt thought of Hillary Clinton, but Newt's mom hesitated. So Connie leans in close and says, "well why don't you tell me, just between you and me?", so Newt's mom says "Bitch", and Connie turns around and tells the world. Public opinion turned majorly sour on Connie Chung, and it wasn't long before CBS fired her ass.
Mostly the whole thing was the result of the public view that Newt's mom was victimized by an unscrupulous reporter. Unfortunately I never read the NYT article because I refuse to register, but from the thread provided in this article it seems Deacon was made to look like a total loser in the newspaper.
I don't really feel sorry for him though. Only one thing can happen when you are living your life in an MMPORG and a newspaper wants to talk to you about your "hobby". It's like the popular kids asking who your favorite X-Man is. The chances are pretty good they don't want to know, and only want to make you look like an idiot. Well newspapers are the same way. If I were in Deacon's position I would have told them to shove off.
The entire system seems to revolve around the assumption that spam programs are being used, and they are only attempting to send the mail once. But don't spammers still take over open relays and send their mail though those? If so, those relays would hold the spam and continue to retry sending it, thus passing by this filter. But if you were to combine this program with a well-maintaned blacklist, it would probably cut down on a great deal of spam. All in all, I think this guy has the right idea. Spam must be fought at the server level.
Dammit, I'm trying to post an analysis of what I found about about these systems, but slashdot keeps punking me whining about garbage like junk characters and too few characters per line. I freakin give up.
Slashdot editors: Rely on moderators to cut down on problems like this, not catch-all algorithms. sheesh.
The wheel, powered flight, the telephone - these were important developments about which one could get excited.
All of these things were considered novelties at one point. The Army at one time scoffed at the airplane. The car was a toy for the rich, as were telephones (ever think about who got the first telephone? Who to call, who to call...)
The same can be said of, oh, the fax machine, air conditioning, television, cell phones, and, dare I say it - the personal computer. The man who wrote the article does not understand that "frivolous" inventions can lead to great ones with huge and widespread practical applications.
My handwriting totally sucks anyway. Chicken scratch/doctor style. I've had people I've handwritten letters to write me back and request that I do it in typing from then on.
Fine with me, as I can type a hell of a lot faster than I write...I am probably capable of 90-100wpm.
As far as notes and such, I just use standard block characters, as it's already been established that nobody can read my handwriting. Most people can read those.:)
Taking all this into account, I fail to see why it's a big deal that cursive is a dying art. As it becomes more and more impractical, that's what you would expect should happen. The same teachers complaining about the disapperance of cursive writing are probably the same ones that insist that only typed book reports be turned in.
What a load of crap. This is one of those things that when you think about it too much a bunch of false lines of logic get drawn and you come up with a nonsensical answer. Either that or 3DMark is trying to avoid a lawsuit from nVidia, which no doubt has been threatened.
The point of a benchmark is to test dissimilar systems against common references to get an idea of how they perform against each other in such a way that you have an apples to apples comparison.
If 3DMark writes their program in a way that allows optimization paths for a specific GPU, then it is no longer a benchmark.
You now no longer have an idea of how fast the card REALLY runs as there is no guarantee that game writers will use GPU-specific optimizations. It's the same thing as MMX...Nobody sees the benefits if it's not hardcoded into the program, so what's the point if being uberfast in a benchmark if you won't necessarily see the same results in the real world?
The problem is this is not a federal case; it's a civil suit. At issue is not whether the law was broken, but who the jury thinks is the bigger dork. My money's on Babs.
This shouldn't be news, this is how things should be. The reason I dropped out of college was because I coudn't learn anything in it because all they threw at me were equations and useless information and expect me to spit it back out on a test. The real world works much differently. As Morpheus says: Some rules can be bent; others can be broken. Case in point: How much time do the consultant admins among you spend cleaning up after MCSE's? Most MCSE's are prime examples of what happens when you unleash a strictly book-educated student into the real world. Just as stupidly, most companies think the piece of paper instantly qualifies them to work on the systems. Funny how it works that way with diplomas, too.
If my Athlon can break CSS, I'm pretty sure the whizbang AI computers 1000 years from now will be able to do it too:)
I see your point though, and the problems you speak of will no doubt take place within 50 years. Take for instance the Library of Congress. They are known for archiving copyrighted works. So if they are all DRM'ed and the DMCA makes it illegal to break it, what then? Kiss this chapter in history goodbye.
But not to worry, the said AI computers can combine the works of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell and make a pretty good reconstruction.
I mostly agree with you, but I wouldn't go so far as to tag all MMPORG players as losers.
Personally, I hate the damned things. But I also have friends who enjoy them, just not quite as much as your buddy at RIT.
The rationale for MMPORG playing is the same as it is for regular gaming. Yeah, it's a waste of time. That's the point. Gaming helps me unwind. Now if I started playing 24/7 and not putting it down except to eat and go to work, or even lose my job because of it, that's when we get into where it's a big problem.
Most of the accounts I've read or seen of major MMPORG addiction revolve around the quintessential geek who is ignored in most aspects of life. I think MMPORGs give them a way to become a badass and be looked up to by everyone...Well, at least by everyone in the game. So yeah, if you knock down that house of cards you're going to blow a few neurons in their heads. The moderate players will probably still be pretty pissed off though. Of course, I find the hackers' shenanigans hilarious since I don't fall into either category!:)
The days of $80,000/year for tapping out less complicated HTML than you see in the comments on Slashdot, sipping cappucinos, and a free scooter to ride around work are gone, so naturally the base of people who thought they could make a quick buck in IT are vanishing. It's just that knee-jerk go-where-the-money-is phenomenon getting a correction.
It's like that Kingston Memory thing a few years ago. The owners had hidden away a stack of cash to give a very special Christmas bonus to their employees. Even the janitors walked away with $20,000 bonuses. When that made the news, they were inundated by phone calls for employment. Well, the bonuses haven't been made public since then, and where are the calls now? The same thing happened to IT. Nobody hears about it anymore, and if they do it's usually bad news, so nobody cares. Now the only people left are the ones who really love it. Those people will get the true rewards, because they are always growing and learning even though the tough times, and as such will always have a leg up on the noobs who show up when they smell money.
I know I'm in the minority here, but the slippery slope and big brother aside, how bad are these things, really?
Lurking around a bit, I noted that many people are saying "How come nobody's been told about these things? Is it a CONSPIRACY?" I doubt it.
This so-called "black box" is nothing but the OBDII diagnostics module, which every car built after 1996 has. It keeps track of how just about every subsystem in your car is functioning, as well as realtime statistics such as speed, RPM, temperature, mixture, etc. For a complete list of general error codes, take a look at these pages:
When "Check Engine" comes on, OBDII has detected a failure in one of these subsystems and logged it. Your dealer plugs their computer into the diagnostics port, finds out what the error is, and fixes the problem (usually), and clears the code. The site I referenced for the error codes, Scantool has circuit specs and software you can use to access this data. The downside is that there are three OBDII protocols, and with this system you need a separate module to read each one. There are other places you can go to get a universal reader, but prices are usually pretty expensive. The upshot is that's it's relatively cheap, and if you like electronics and want to build it yourself it's even cheaper. Autozone stopped doing the free OBD scans, so I used this little project as an excuse to learn how to print my own PCB and have my own diagnostics card for when I need it. Also a big plus is that the software source code is available.
Allright, now that I'm off my tangent, I'll get back to the original subject. It's pure conjecture to guess why the realtime statistics are put in a rolling log for 5 seconds. Could it be a deal with insurance companies? Maybe the computer averages the saved statistics to determine if there's an event? Maybe the orgininal intent was for safety? Who knows?
But remember the data not only can be used against you (which won't happen, you are all safe drivers, right??), but also to exonerate you if the other driver tries to set you up.
And in the article, I didn't see any uses of the logs I particularly disagreed with. If your drunk ass is doing 120mph and you kill two teenage girls, maybe you need to be put in the cooler for awhile.
Well, if any of you have ever driven across the US, it would be apparent that there is a whole lot of nothing out there. However, note that it is possible to bridge long distances with 802.11. Take note of the HPWren map. They've got a wireless node 45 miles away from their base tower, and they use off-the-shelf gear operating in the ISM band. In some places they have repeater radios powered by solar panels by day and batteries by night. Surely something like that could be utilized in such a project mentioned in the article, but who would put up the money to set up some of these stations and insure they don't get vandalized or destroyed by bad weather? Such repeater stations would be required, especially if you want to get that signal to the California coast. We have some, erm, minor obstacles.
Anything is possible with enough thought and money. I have no doubt that under such a project, major networks could be constructed in metropolitan areas. Yes, it can be done with Pringles cans. I have constructed one myself and the gain I get out of it rivals most commercial antennas, except for a parabolic.
The biggest hurdle that this project has to overcome is awareness, getting people out of "that's cool" mode and getting them to do something, bridging the huge distances, and getting the signal over mountains. Other than that, it's a piece of cake:)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, mod points are so hard to come by. Well they might be for you seeing as how you are a troll AC. Are you one of those guys that got modded to 0 one too many times and now you are just posting as an AC so you can be a full time dickhead?
Well, on one hand, it's the fed's money, so they can pretty much do what they want with it. It's pretty lame to make that money conditional based on these filters, but when someone is giving you free money, you're pretty much in their house.
On the other hand, libraries should be allowed to deal with such things in their own way. I volunteered at a public libary for awhile, and their policy was to cruise by the terminals to shoulder surf the users. If we saw pornography, we were to turn off the monitor and inform them that surfing pr0n was not allowed and if they continued they would have to get off the computer. If they raised a stink all we had to do was point to the police station right out the window.
From the Washington Post article:
"The DVD CCA has never tried to reach the VideoLAN team about our development of the libdvdcss library," developer Sam Hocevar wrote in an e-mail.
3....2....1.....
That is why I mod before I post. Dumbass.
Funny as hell, thanks for that. You have my modpoint :)
Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
Or it could be that the teeny boppers are running out of disposable income and everyone else knows the music sucks ass. I haven't heard any new decent material on the radio for a long time. Everyone is trying to sound either like Blink 182 or Britney. I think the music industry is starting to feel the backlash of homogenization and the one-size-fits-all mentality. I hope I'm right, because I would love to taste the irony that the RIAA and Clear Channel are on the path to mutual destruction at each others' hands.
It was Newt Gingrich's mom. Connie Chung asked during the interview what Newt thought of Hillary Clinton, but Newt's mom hesitated. So Connie leans in close and says, "well why don't you tell me, just between you and me?", so Newt's mom says "Bitch", and Connie turns around and tells the world.
Public opinion turned majorly sour on Connie Chung, and it wasn't long before CBS fired her ass.
Mostly the whole thing was the result of the public view that Newt's mom was victimized by an unscrupulous reporter. Unfortunately I never read the NYT article because I refuse to register, but from the thread provided in this article it seems Deacon was made to look like a total loser in the newspaper.
I don't really feel sorry for him though. Only one thing can happen when you are living your life in an MMPORG and a newspaper wants to talk to you about your "hobby". It's like the popular kids asking who your favorite X-Man is. The chances are pretty good they don't want to know, and only want to make you look like an idiot. Well newspapers are the same way. If I were in Deacon's position I would have told them to shove off.
The entire system seems to revolve around the assumption that spam programs are being used, and they are only attempting to send the mail once. But don't spammers still take over open relays and send their mail though those? If so, those relays would hold the spam and continue to retry sending it, thus passing by this filter.
But if you were to combine this program with a well-maintaned blacklist, it would probably cut down on a great deal of spam.
All in all, I think this guy has the right idea. Spam must be fought at the server level.
Dammit, I'm trying to post an analysis of what I found about about these systems, but slashdot keeps punking me whining about garbage like junk characters and too few characters per line. I freakin give up.
Slashdot editors: Rely on moderators to cut down on problems like this, not catch-all algorithms. sheesh.
Exactly. Case in point, from the article:
The wheel, powered flight, the telephone - these were important developments about which one could get excited.
All of these things were considered novelties at one point. The Army at one time scoffed at the airplane. The car was a toy for the rich, as were telephones (ever think about who got the first telephone? Who to call, who to call...)
The same can be said of, oh, the fax machine, air conditioning, television, cell phones, and, dare I say it - the personal computer. The man who wrote the article does not understand that "frivolous" inventions can lead to great ones with huge and widespread practical applications.
My handwriting totally sucks anyway. Chicken scratch/doctor style. I've had people I've handwritten letters to write me back and request that I do it in typing from then on.
:)
Fine with me, as I can type a hell of a lot faster than I write...I am probably capable of 90-100wpm.
As far as notes and such, I just use standard block characters, as it's already been established that nobody can read my handwriting. Most people can read those.
Taking all this into account, I fail to see why it's a big deal that cursive is a dying art. As it becomes more and more impractical, that's what you would expect should happen. The same teachers complaining about the disapperance of cursive writing are probably the same ones that insist that only typed book reports be turned in.
Well, now that Geocaching is going underground, I guess now would be a good time to start my warez CD cache.
"Photoshop 6.0: 117'30.244" 34'10.005"
"Microsoft Office: 117'59.125" 33'43.257"
"Lotza MP3'z: 117'30.474" 34'40.423"
What a load of crap. This is one of those things that when you think about it too much a bunch of false lines of logic get drawn and you come up with a nonsensical answer. Either that or 3DMark is trying to avoid a lawsuit from nVidia, which no doubt has been threatened.
The point of a benchmark is to test dissimilar systems against common references to get an idea of how they perform against each other in such a way that you have an apples to apples comparison.
If 3DMark writes their program in a way that allows optimization paths for a specific GPU, then it is no longer a benchmark.
You now no longer have an idea of how fast the card REALLY runs as there is no guarantee that game writers will use GPU-specific optimizations. It's the same thing as MMX...Nobody sees the benefits if it's not hardcoded into the program, so what's the point if being uberfast in a benchmark if you won't necessarily see the same results in the real world?
The problem is this is not a federal case; it's a civil suit. At issue is not whether the law was broken, but who the jury thinks is the bigger dork. My money's on Babs.
This shouldn't be news, this is how things should be. The reason I dropped out of college was because I coudn't learn anything in it because all they threw at me were equations and useless information and expect me to spit it back out on a test. The real world works much differently. As Morpheus says: Some rules can be bent; others can be broken.
Case in point: How much time do the consultant admins among you spend cleaning up after MCSE's? Most MCSE's are prime examples of what happens when you unleash a strictly book-educated student into the real world. Just as stupidly, most companies think the piece of paper instantly qualifies them to work on the systems. Funny how it works that way with diplomas, too.
If my Athlon can break CSS, I'm pretty sure the whizbang AI computers 1000 years from now will be able to do it too :)
I see your point though, and the problems you speak of will no doubt take place within 50 years. Take for instance the Library of Congress. They are known for archiving copyrighted works. So if they are all DRM'ed and the DMCA makes it illegal to break it, what then? Kiss this chapter in history goodbye.
But not to worry, the said AI computers can combine the works of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell and make a pretty good reconstruction.
I mostly agree with you, but I wouldn't go so far as to tag all MMPORG players as losers.
:)
Personally, I hate the damned things. But I also have friends who enjoy them, just not quite as much as your buddy at RIT.
The rationale for MMPORG playing is the same as it is for regular gaming. Yeah, it's a waste of time. That's the point. Gaming helps me unwind. Now if I started playing 24/7 and not putting it down except to eat and go to work, or even lose my job because of it, that's when we get into where it's a big problem.
Most of the accounts I've read or seen of major MMPORG addiction revolve around the quintessential geek who is ignored in most aspects of life. I think MMPORGs give them a way to become a badass and be looked up to by everyone...Well, at least by everyone in the game. So yeah, if you knock down that house of cards you're going to blow a few neurons in their heads. The moderate players will probably still be pretty pissed off though. Of course, I find the hackers' shenanigans hilarious since I don't fall into either category!
Novell is good for something after all!
I'm guessing those ants don't like LAN parties.
The days of $80,000/year for tapping out less complicated HTML than you see in the comments on Slashdot, sipping cappucinos, and a free scooter to ride around work are gone, so naturally the base of people who thought they could make a quick buck in IT are vanishing. It's just that knee-jerk go-where-the-money-is phenomenon getting a correction.
It's like that Kingston Memory thing a few years ago. The owners had hidden away a stack of cash to give a very special Christmas bonus to their employees. Even the janitors walked away with $20,000 bonuses. When that made the news, they were inundated by phone calls for employment. Well, the bonuses haven't been made public since then, and where are the calls now?
The same thing happened to IT. Nobody hears about it anymore, and if they do it's usually bad news, so nobody cares. Now the only people left are the ones who really love it. Those people will get the true rewards, because they are always growing and learning even though the tough times, and as such will always have a leg up on the noobs who show up when they smell money.
Initially they will generate shock waves by shooting bullets at photonic crystals.
Who says science isn't fun?
That's a great idea...Segways in GTA! Except blowing away the people riding them decreases your wanted level.
Well you could always start selling self destructing DVD's!
I know I'm in the minority here, but the slippery slope and big brother aside, how bad are these things, really?
Lurking around a bit, I noted that many people are saying "How come nobody's been told about these things? Is it a CONSPIRACY?" I doubt it.
This so-called "black box" is nothing but the OBDII diagnostics module, which every car built after 1996 has. It keeps track of how just about every subsystem in your car is functioning, as well as realtime statistics such as speed, RPM, temperature, mixture, etc. For a complete list of general error codes, take a look at these pages:
Chassis
Body
Powertrain
Network
When "Check Engine" comes on, OBDII has detected a failure in one of these subsystems and logged it. Your dealer plugs their computer into the diagnostics port, finds out what the error is, and fixes the problem (usually), and clears the code. The site I referenced for the error codes, Scantool has circuit specs and software you can use to access this data. The downside is that there are three OBDII protocols, and with this system you need a separate module to read each one. There are other places you can go to get a universal reader, but prices are usually pretty expensive.
The upshot is that's it's relatively cheap, and if you like electronics and want to build it yourself it's even cheaper. Autozone stopped doing the free OBD scans, so I used this little project as an excuse to learn how to print my own PCB and have my own diagnostics card for when I need it. Also a big plus is that the software source code is available.
Allright, now that I'm off my tangent, I'll get back to the original subject. It's pure conjecture to guess why the realtime statistics are put in a rolling log for 5 seconds. Could it be a deal with insurance companies? Maybe the computer averages the saved statistics to determine if there's an event? Maybe the orgininal intent was for safety? Who knows?
But remember the data not only can be used against you (which won't happen, you are all safe drivers, right??), but also to exonerate you if the other driver tries to set you up.
And in the article, I didn't see any uses of the logs I particularly disagreed with. If your drunk ass is doing 120mph and you kill two teenage girls, maybe you need to be put in the cooler for awhile.
Well, if any of you have ever driven across the US, it would be apparent that there is a whole lot of nothing out there. However, note that it is possible to bridge long distances with 802.11.
:)
Take note of the HPWren map. They've got a wireless node 45 miles away from their base tower, and they use off-the-shelf gear operating in the ISM band. In some places they have repeater radios powered by solar panels by day and batteries by night. Surely something like that could be utilized in such a project mentioned in the article, but who would put up the money to set up some of these stations and insure they don't get vandalized or destroyed by bad weather?
Such repeater stations would be required, especially if you want to get that signal to the California coast. We have some, erm, minor obstacles.
Anything is possible with enough thought and money. I have no doubt that under such a project, major networks could be constructed in metropolitan areas. Yes, it can be done with Pringles cans. I have constructed one myself and the gain I get out of it rivals most commercial antennas, except for a parabolic.
The biggest hurdle that this project has to overcome is awareness, getting people out of "that's cool" mode and getting them to do something, bridging the huge distances, and getting the signal over mountains. Other than that, it's a piece of cake