Re:I'm very leery of this wrt Second Amendment rig
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Hacking Biology
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· Score: 1
Relax, this is open source genome hacking. You simply take their modifications, add a few of your own tweaks to make your own super soldiers. Maybe give them some of those funky regenerative characteristics of a starfish so when they get blown apart they regenerate themselves, or the hearing capabilities of a dog so you can speak with at a frequency higher than the hearing range of "normal" humans. Or even make them hermaphrodites so you don't need to make two different types to have a sustainable population.
Of course, you do the last suggestion, I'm not responsible if you make them overly horny and have them take over humanity thanks to their exponential birth rates.
Good thing they bought that insurance policy.
on
Mir Deathwatch
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· Score: 1
Reading through the multitude of articles, I noticed that there were 26 tuna boats that were in the area of the fall. Now, is it just me, or would it be a pretty decent idea to get out of the area if a flaming, speeding, hunk of metal is coming into your area.
Of course, I guess you could just buy a helluvalotta pillows =3
How do you define censorware? Is it mandatory to block peacefire.org? Do you need to have closed blocking list?
I'd assume that you simply need to have a user-updatable mechanism for blocking objectionable sites.
Why not have a GPL'd censorware that has an open, user-modifiable block-list? (Why am I
asking all these questions?)
Most people who subscribe to the GPL philosophy disagree with censorware, so it'll be difficult to find developers. Other than that, there should be few roadblocks.
Could a simple firewall blocking all documents that had one of the seven dirty words(tm) in them, classify as censorware?
A simple firewall couldn't, but it would be possible. However it would be difficult as two things would need to be put into place. First one is that the filter would have to be run as a proxy server and the web browser, etc would have to be set up to route connections through the proxy instead of directly out. Second one is you would have to set up a process to constantly monitor the connections for attempts to circumvent the firewall, and kill process that do try to circumvent.
The other way to do it would be to do some heavy kernel hacking to place the filters in the network driver and constantly sniff packets.
Let me preface this by saying that I respect copyright, and feel that creators deserve a limited period of time to enjoy sole profits from their works. However, it's become obvious that special intrests have corrupted the copyright system to insure that they can receive sole benefits for long after our founding fathers intended. My question for you is twofold: How long do you feel is an appropriate amount of time for copyright protection, and is there legislation pending to fix the problem with copyright?
Sure, to us in the tech field, the biotech revolution, to use your example, seems slow-paced, but that's because we're watching it happen. To the common man on the street, who doesn't hear about these advances very often, he's amazed that the scientists were able to do it that easily, simply because he didn't see the piles of rejected ideas that were unfeasable.
If you go back far enough and read the right histories, you'll find few Archimedes type incedents and more of a lifetime of anonymous research finally reaching a payoff.
You can get an full-sized portable keyboard for most palms. Now, I haven't used it to any great extend myself (the handwriting recognition is actually halfway decent), but it seems like it has a pretty good feel to it.
You shouldn't expect permanence from a technology that's still in it's infancy. Back in the early days of magnetic media there was also a problem with the data not lasting very long. By the time you can buy a 50TB hard drive using this technology, I'm sure they'll have the reliability issues worked out.
Usually the older games have better gameplay and interfaces though. Take my favorite scapegoat for this point, Sid Meyer's Railroad Tycoon. The original, in it's ~1990 interface was easy to use, fun, and addictive. Flash forward a few years to Railroad Tycoon II. The interface is much less intuitive; I finally gave up after a while of playing with it, as much as I loved the original. Just because a game has a few years under it's belt doesn't mean it is no longer relevant.
Probably the wrong assumption. As the site has been downed due to unknown circumstances (probably not slashdotting, though), I can only throw out wild guesses of my own. The article probably deals with the technical details of P2P without getting into the storm of controversy surrounding the uses of said technology. Of course, can't tell until the site gets back up.
Although, I'm starting to wonder if sitehosts will soon start advertising that they can survive a slashdotting as part of their promotional spiel.
One little problem there...you don't absorb the characteristics of the things you eat. If animals were able to do that, then quite a few of us would be walking around with four chambered stomachs and chewing cud.
I guess it's back to the GM paranoia drawing board for you.
Simple 'nuff...Have the coffee cam server archive photos for the last 24 hours. That'll catch the dastardly fiend who is shirking his community responsibility
Back in it's day, this was truly a clever hack. I mean, setting up a camera on the communal coffee pot rocks; you don't have to drag your butt halfway across the building to just to find an empty coffee pot. My hat goes off to these guys.
On a slightly ironic note, looking at the banner ad (yeah, I look at them from time to time, but I never inhale), I see, you guessed it, the ad for the webcam that TG's pushing. Coincidence, I think not!
Well, most video game consoles use higher-end graphics chips that are also used elsewhere in the industry; Sony is/was planning to sell a system with 4 PS2 processors in it as a graphics workstation. It's simply that the consumer-level hardware is so cheap and common that they can do most of the work there - it's easier to port to a more rare system when you can migrate a lot of stuff from a more common one.
I was either half asleep or on crack when I wrote that comment, and wasn't as clear as I should have been. I'm better now, though.
Read the ACs comment and my reply below. Basically, they can put aimster's feet to the fire and put the screws on them to enforce their ToS for everyone. Industries that can buy laws/lawyers and to a decent extent popular opinion are nothing to be trifled with.
That's the point I was trying to make (and missing by about 20-30 light years:) ). This could be a device used to force Aimster's hand one way or another and have a good ol' battle amongst lawyers.
And they don't need to invest too much in order to perform a little covert action. All they need are a couple songs, not their entire label. If they are as chickenshit of everything internet as it seems, it would be a small price to pay.
Now, I'd like to preface this by saying that I am not a napster user; and if it weren't for the fact that this is a legal battle, could care less if they fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. However, this great hack of the legal system deserves applause. However, this could backfire
Judging from the number of people searching through the logs of Napster to see if protected content has been traded, it is possible that a few RIAA people in the right circles could destroy it. All they need to do is have a few people with mp3s sit back and let themselves get invited in the trading circles/whatever, and then a few months later sue them claiming that they're violating the ToS by opening the files. Now, they probably wouldn't sue everyone, just a few high enough profile people in the aimster circles to shake everyone up. All without the unwashed hands defense
You don't like the rules of a certain DNS heirarchy, start your own. Los Angeles has it's own TLD, so you can to. You can have all the rules you want, and you can tell people to slag off if they want. There is nothing magical about TLDs.
Lemme go get a shovel, 'cuz that's one helluva lot of bullshit. Allow me to refute
1. Before MS came along, computers were unaffordable. Now we all reap the benefits of a computer in every home.
So the Apple II, the TI99/A, the CBM Vic-20, the CBM-64, they were what, chopped liver?
2. MS have consistently brought down prices - they cut prices in the spreadsheet market; they are producing software that is cheaper than what was their before. And they're still doing it. MS Sql Server, which is at least on a par with Oracle, is much cheaper than it, and thus benefits consumers that way.
Do Lotus 123 and Visicalc ring a bell? And as for your claim that SQL server is so great, why does eBay, who is in a partnership with microsoft, use Sun servers for their databases?
3. Believe it or not, Microsoft actually do produce good software. Certainly Windows 3.1 wasn't very stable, but in 1992 what competition was there? Certainly not Linux. And even given that, if you ask me if I want my secretary on the current state of the art Linux, or on Windows 3.1 and Word 2, I'll bet you a dollar to a hundred that she'll be more effective on Windows 3.1
OS/2 was available back then, and if it weren't such a memory hog (it thrashed on less than 8 megs), it would have mopped the floor with Windows 3.1; it was a better working environment.
I'd also be willing to take that bet. Give me a couple hours and an empty partition and I'll have a computer set up that would give a Windows 98 desktop a good run for the money, let alone Win 3.1
4. Microsoft have benefitted the US economy. It really has. Compared with the UK, for instance, the strength of the US IT industry is vast - and much of this strength is due to Microsoft.
I'll agree that the US has a much stronger IT sector, but that's more because of lower taxes and less government intrusion. If microsoft were not to have existed, you would still see a very strong IT sector; there would still be a great want to hack.
5. Nearly all opposition to MS comes from jealous competitors. Netscape have been beaten fair-and-square by MS, for instance - just compare Netscape 6 with MSIE, for instance. This just backs up my point - Microsoft software is of
exceptional quality. They hire the best programmers because they can afford to, and they release top software. Word beats anything else on the market, and as a usable OS, so does Windows (and on stability, Windows 2000 ranks pretty highly to). Combine this with easy administration - the idiot in my office is in charge of DNS administration, which he can easily do using MS DNS manager, because it's just point, right click/properties. He'd have no chance with Bind.
The fact is, for a small business with not many staff, Microsoft software allows them to compete with the big guys - they can offer ISP provision, because they don't need highly paid admins. This is great news for the economy and great news for them.
Netscape 6 is pretty much crap, I'll give you that. It was based on Alpha test grade software with some of the more critical bugs ironed out; they should have waited for Mozilla to stabilize a bit more before they forked off. I don't have too much with ms DNS manager, so I can't comment too much on that, other than saying that Bind was designed more for a larger organization with a sizable amount of systems. Other DNS solutions for Unix/Linux exist for smaller setups. I'll even refute that an MS shop is the always the best solution for a small business. The company I work for has a "traditional" unix server/dumb terminal setup for most of the office uses; it has a lower cost, higher reliability and higher efficiency than a desktop solution.
6. The fact is, as I have stated, there is a lot of jealousy and resentment out there - whereas the truth is that Microsoft produce damn fine software, and their very low prices (believe me - just check the price of a spreadsheet 20 years ago), mean that although they have a monopoly, that has come through selling good software at low prices and therefore high volume.
Once again, almost right. Spreadsheet prices have remained pretty much constant - ~$100 for a standalone program, I just checked. Microsoft got big because they got lucky; the first company IBM approached to handle the OS was overly arrogant so IBM went elsewhere. Being in the right place at the right time, and selling an average product got them where they are.
So, in short, losing microsoft would do very little to the economy, unlike what you think. Refute me if you want, I can stand behind my words
These aren't going to be used in place of electrons, they're probably going to be used in the memory portions of a quantum computer. Remember, too, that quantum computers are still mostly well-funded thought experiments, and they're experimenting with what would be useful once they finally do build one.
A buckyball is the short name for the molecule given the name Buckminsterfullerine. This molecule usually consists of pure carbon and is spherical shaped. The molecules got their name from their resemblance to the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller (think soccer balls). Some of the interesting properties are that these molecules are superstable, and one of the things they're thought they'd be useful in is nuclear waste storage.
I have a feeling this is a troll, but...
They still do, but they use it sparingly, simply because it takes a long time to code. You can save a lot of time by hand-optimizing all the loops and instructions. The fastest mp3 encoders, for example, use extensive assembler in order to help speed up the process. Most of the really ugly, time consuming algorithms are done in assembler, because if you're running a loop a few million times, shaving off a few clocks per loop can really add up. Code monkeys may not use assembly, but the systems programmers still use it.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, you do the last suggestion, I'm not responsible if you make them overly horny and have them take over humanity thanks to their exponential birth rates.
Of course, I guess you could just buy a helluvalotta pillows =3
The other way to do it would be to do some heavy kernel hacking to place the filters in the network driver and constantly sniff packets.
Either way, it's a lot of work
Let me preface this by saying that I respect copyright, and feel that creators deserve a limited period of time to enjoy sole profits from their works. However, it's become obvious that special intrests have corrupted the copyright system to insure that they can receive sole benefits for long after our founding fathers intended. My question for you is twofold: How long do you feel is an appropriate amount of time for copyright protection, and is there legislation pending to fix the problem with copyright?
If you go back far enough and read the right histories, you'll find few Archimedes type incedents and more of a lifetime of anonymous research finally reaching a payoff.
You can get an full-sized portable keyboard for most palms. Now, I haven't used it to any great extend myself (the handwriting recognition is actually halfway decent), but it seems like it has a pretty good feel to it.
You shouldn't expect permanence from a technology that's still in it's infancy. Back in the early days of magnetic media there was also a problem with the data not lasting very long. By the time you can buy a 50TB hard drive using this technology, I'm sure they'll have the reliability issues worked out.
abandongames.com seems to have a lot of abandonware on it. Seems that a lot of the stuff on there is semi-legal, so download at your own risk.
Usually the older games have better gameplay and interfaces though. Take my favorite scapegoat for this point, Sid Meyer's Railroad Tycoon. The original, in it's ~1990 interface was easy to use, fun, and addictive. Flash forward a few years to Railroad Tycoon II. The interface is much less intuitive; I finally gave up after a while of playing with it, as much as I loved the original. Just because a game has a few years under it's belt doesn't mean it is no longer relevant.
Although, I'm starting to wonder if sitehosts will soon start advertising that they can survive a slashdotting as part of their promotional spiel.
I guess it's back to the GM paranoia drawing board for you.
Simple 'nuff...Have the coffee cam server archive photos for the last 24 hours. That'll catch the dastardly fiend who is shirking his community responsibility
On a slightly ironic note, looking at the banner ad (yeah, I look at them from time to time, but I never inhale), I see, you guessed it, the ad for the webcam that TG's pushing. Coincidence, I think not!
You want to go multi-user, you know.
Also, it's got a lot to do with the hack value.
Read the ACs comment and my reply below. Basically, they can put aimster's feet to the fire and put the screws on them to enforce their ToS for everyone. Industries that can buy laws/lawyers and to a decent extent popular opinion are nothing to be trifled with.
And they don't need to invest too much in order to perform a little covert action. All they need are a couple songs, not their entire label. If they are as chickenshit of everything internet as it seems, it would be a small price to pay.
Judging from the number of people searching through the logs of Napster to see if protected content has been traded, it is possible that a few RIAA people in the right circles could destroy it. All they need to do is have a few people with mp3s sit back and let themselves get invited in the trading circles/whatever, and then a few months later sue them claiming that they're violating the ToS by opening the files. Now, they probably wouldn't sue everyone, just a few high enough profile people in the aimster circles to shake everyone up. All without the unwashed hands defense
Doh! Damn advertisers, confusing me and all. IHBFBAA
You don't like the rules of a certain DNS heirarchy, start your own. Los Angeles has it's own TLD, so you can to. You can have all the rules you want, and you can tell people to slag off if they want. There is nothing magical about TLDs.
RTA. The rule change only affects people who apply for new .orgs. Anyone with a .org already will keep their .org
So the Apple II, the TI99/A, the CBM Vic-20, the CBM-64, they were what, chopped liver?
Do Lotus 123 and Visicalc ring a bell? And as for your claim that SQL server is so great, why does eBay, who is in a partnership with microsoft, use Sun servers for their databases?
OS/2 was available back then, and if it weren't such a memory hog (it thrashed on less than 8 megs), it would have mopped the floor with Windows 3.1; it was a better working environment.
I'd also be willing to take that bet. Give me a couple hours and an empty partition and I'll have a computer set up that would give a Windows 98 desktop a good run for the money, let alone Win 3.1
I'll agree that the US has a much stronger IT sector, but that's more because of lower taxes and less government intrusion. If microsoft were not to have existed, you would still see a very strong IT sector; there would still be a great want to hack.
Netscape 6 is pretty much crap, I'll give you that. It was based on Alpha test grade software with some of the more critical bugs ironed out; they should have waited for Mozilla to stabilize a bit more before they forked off. I don't have too much with ms DNS manager, so I can't comment too much on that, other than saying that Bind was designed more for a larger organization with a sizable amount of systems. Other DNS solutions for Unix/Linux exist for smaller setups. I'll even refute that an MS shop is the always the best solution for a small business. The company I work for has a "traditional" unix server/dumb terminal setup for most of the office uses; it has a lower cost, higher reliability and higher efficiency than a desktop solution.
Once again, almost right. Spreadsheet prices have remained pretty much constant - ~$100 for a standalone program, I just checked. Microsoft got big because they got lucky; the first company IBM approached to handle the OS was overly arrogant so IBM went elsewhere. Being in the right place at the right time, and selling an average product got them where they are.
So, in short, losing microsoft would do very little to the economy, unlike what you think. Refute me if you want, I can stand behind my words
These aren't going to be used in place of electrons, they're probably going to be used in the memory portions of a quantum computer. Remember, too, that quantum computers are still mostly well-funded thought experiments, and they're experimenting with what would be useful once they finally do build one.
A buckyball is the short name for the molecule given the name Buckminsterfullerine. This molecule usually consists of pure carbon and is spherical shaped. The molecules got their name from their resemblance to the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller (think soccer balls). Some of the interesting properties are that these molecules are superstable, and one of the things they're thought they'd be useful in is nuclear waste storage.
I have a feeling this is a troll, but...
They still do, but they use it sparingly, simply because it takes a long time to code. You can save a lot of time by hand-optimizing all the loops and instructions. The fastest mp3 encoders, for example, use extensive assembler in order to help speed up the process. Most of the really ugly, time consuming algorithms are done in assembler, because if you're running a loop a few million times, shaving off a few clocks per loop can really add up. Code monkeys may not use assembly, but the systems programmers still use it.