Honestly, I'm seriously interested in this and I want to hear from you guys what (if anything) you do
to evade that kind of surveillance...
Personally I used to work for a European card processing company, i.e. the people who operate the terminal
network and supply the hardware and then route the terminal traffic to all the major creditcard acquirers
and of course the national debit card scheme as well as operate nationwide loyalty card schemes. I know exactly
what kind of data goes over those wires and ever since I have never touched a loyalty card again nor used
any plastic when I could be using cash.
OVER HERE IN EUROPE with a loyalty card the merchant gets a list of whatever you purchased and an identity to mach it up with.
Whenever you swipe your card, the network company, the credit card company and/or your bank know where you shopped
(account-details / PAN, terminal-id(location), time of day, amount, in fact with the terminal-id we can tell in which
checkout lane you were and get the right surveillance tape). And whereas it is forbidden in Europe to match up
card number / PAN (Personal Account Number) details (but which I'm sure the big guys do anyway) I doubt that
is much of a problem in the US.
Personally I have pulled out of that system as much as I could. I refuse to use loyalty cards and I pay in cash
whatever I can and when I have to give my name and address to anyone I have a phoney address to give out to them.
At least over here they don't want to see your ID just because they're trying to wheedle marketing data out of people.
What are you up against? What do you do about it?
I wrote: "Most people that bought the previous generations of PPC Macs bought them because they wanted OSX. A lot of people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture Desktop or Notebook. Each and every one of these people bought a MAC."
You replied: "How you can not understand this is beyond me. This is brain dead simple. People did not buy Macs because of the Power architecture. Are you forgetting who the Mac audience is? They're people who don't know jack about the computer industry, not geeks who know the differences between x86, Power or Sparc architectures."
I think you failed to properly parse the following information elements: "MOST people... bought them because they wanted OSX". (emphasis added). and "A LOT OF people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture..."
I'm not going to get started on set theory here.
I understand fully well that (MOST!) people who use a MAC OSX are not especially savvy technology-wise and they bought it because it appealed to them for non-technical reasons.
"To review, Apple went Intel so that Apple could actually sell hardware again. No one wants a slow computer, and PowerPC chips are slow in comparison to Intel's chips. I have an Intel Mac, it screams compared to my PowerPC Mac. Apple also doesn't want to have to hold up shipments ever again because the CPU's aren't ready. Or downgrade the speed of its computers because of sudden yield problems."
While it indeed true that Power Architecture implementations are as of yet not available beyond the kitchen microwave clock ranges intel integer toasters exceed, try not to confuse pure integer throughput with the overall performance of the chip or the entire computer system. Aside from clocking a bunch of bad ideas hobbled together lightningly fast the way Intel does, there's a lot to be said for L1/L2 caching, bus bandwidth but also instruction set efficency which really boosts or retards the performance of any chip. As far as the complete computer system is concerned performance generally stands and falls with the the bandwidth on I/O busses (IDE vs. SCSI for ex.), amount of main storage, speed of aux storage, offloading specific work to dedicated processors such as GPUs etc. etc.
"If you truly believe that Apple will be going back to the PowerPC architecture then you must come from straight out of DumbFuckIstan."
Obviously we tend to take a slightly broader view here in PPC-Dumbfuckistan. BTW a colleague of yours objected to pretty much the same issues you did but he somehow worked his way around calling me an idiot.
It is indeed kind of late for this but still:
They switched from the regular high glucose beverage to the aspartame version. I don't see the
levels of caffeine intake changing much here. This is not the way to get Aspartame off the hook.
If they wanted to sell more hardware then why of all things are they experimenting with Intel?
Most people that bought the previous generations of PPC Macs bought them because they wanted OSX. A lot of people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture Desktop or Notebook. Each and every one of these people bought a MAC.
No matter what, however people will find ways of getting Intel-OSX to run on and with non-Apple hardware whether Apple keeps the platform sources to themselves or not, VMWare and other hypervisors come to mind.
It's the same old story told over and over, Apple just lost a fortune all thanks to Intel for stooping and trying to pick up a few pennies that were laying on the street. They'll wise up and the next generation of Macs will again be PowerPC machines, and even if not PowerPC then anything but Intel. Depend on it.
I'm in no way disappointed, AC, everybody has their own reality tunnel
Personally I find these facts compelling:
1. They call themselves Sun [Microsystems Inc.]. 2. They have a symbol that reminds of a swastika for a logo 3. The Swastika has been a symbol for the sun as far back as Babylon and is probably even much older than that
I for my part still like to believe that the Solar[is] Elites:-) are playing word games here but hey don't bother processing this if your cultural operating system doesn't support it. (See Terence McKenna for an explanation what a "cultural operating system" might be).
Opensolaris is often referred to as ON and it looks like even the fellow Slashdot Mason couldn't resist the temptation
with the title "Opensolaris One Year On". The designation ON appears quiet often on their site such as in
"ON Copyright Notice"
"TOI for ON Developers"
and on a dozen other places.
I like to think that the designation 'ON' that appears all over the Opensolaris pages refers to Heliopolis, the CITY OF THE SUN,
in fact I'm pretty sure it does.
Check out the relevant Wikipedia article on Heliopolis:
The city's Egyptian name (shown in hieroglyphs, right, transliterated wnw), is often transcribed as Iunu (literally "[place of] pillars"), and was often written in Greek as On, and in biblical Hebrew as Ôn and wen.
(Interestingly enough, firefox showed the Greek and hebrew glyphs as the latin characters 'On' when I previewed this on slashdot)
One thing I know for sure, any endeavor with such a powerful sigil as the Sun can only succeed.
once more and posted this under my real name. Not the first time this happened and I'm not really
upset about it because like I said this article is just another advertisement. Remember the many
Windows Vista articles we had the past two weeks, more ads disguised as content.
Anyway... enjoy my confusing little weird story, I already spotted two or three typos and grammar
mistakes in it too but who cares. Just one thing for the real "geek" inside us all:
Check out Sun's T1000/T2000 servers. Each of its SPARC CPU's has eight cores and they deliver a wallop
of computing power.
It was dark when Madchen came home into her appartment. While she fumbled for the light switch she heard the hoarse breathing of Goober. Dammit! Madchen thought, why can't he go out on his own. With the lights on Madchen let out a sigh of dismay. "Oh dammit Goober! Look at what you did to the couch!". Goober's brown eyes locked on to hers and he asked "What Goober Couch do?" his voice a mixture of squealing tires and the dark bass sound of a v8 motor. "Why look! You got all the gravy over the couch!". Goober turned and looked at the couch and without another word began licking the gravy stains. Goober preferred cold meals but Madchen had to have some hot food at least once a day. She headed of the kitchen still voicing her upset but Goober chose not to listen even though he could hear her as if she was sitting in the living room with her. He knew he had upset her again with something trivial as food stains on the couch. When Madchen had her dinner fixed she came back into the living room and flopped down next Goober on the sofa, immediately digging into her chicken with steaming hot rice. Goober asked, "Goober have chicken?". Madchen silently glared at him and replied "Goober have chicken bones: IF he asks for them in a full sentence". "Oh Goody! Good! Good!" Goober exulted rowing happily rowing with his arms and making the odd sounds he always made when he's happy. Madchen was wolving her meal down ravenously. Goober said "Goober had rat today!". Madchen stopped. "That's I had a rat today, Gobber. Where did you find a rat, goober?". Goober looked at her and said "Not here. When dark Goober had fun on street, found it, hit it hard and then eat it. It is quick but very fun. You should do it too. Good for you too" Madchen laughed quietly and went back to her food. Goober had his good sides and she didn't call him Goober for nothing. He had introduced himself as "Good Bear" the day she first met him. The Army research people didn't mind her calling him what she wanted as long as she shared the appartment with him and didn't get eaten. Goober didn't mind either. He sometimes eyed Madchen's shapely thighs speculatively but until now she always bought him off with steak.
We've somehow gotten to used to the word "China" in our headlines to really see how preposterous this is. This is really outragerous because basically, they might as well be saying:
Google committed to Nazi Business
Snowgen writes "Despite this week's earlier story that hinted Google may consider pulling out of Germany over the topic of censorship, Reuters is now quoting Sergey Brin as saying that 'Google Inc. is committed to doing business in Germany despite criticism the company has faced for abiding by Nazi censorship restrictions.'" More from the article: "Brin told a small group of invited journalists: 'I think it's perfectly reasonable to do something different. Say, OK, let's stand by the principle against censorship and we won't actually operate there... That's an alternative path. It's not the one we've chosen to take right now'."
(btw whoever comes up with "I invoke Godwin's law"... Fuck you, okay ):
Okay. So we're not here into alternate reality stuff of the kind like what if we hadn't gone to war with Nazi Germany. Even though Brin is fabulating about "Alternative Paths" etc. However what we should really be into is the following:
The chinese governments and the chinese elites are not the kind of people we should aid.
1. They have killed twenty million of their citizens in their "culture revolution" alone.
2. They execute people after fifteen minutes in court and nowadays even for petty crimes such as theft.
It used to be they did that in stadiums by shooting people. Nowadays they have execution vans manned by
two policemen, one judge, one court clerk and the executioner.
3. They are underselling our businesses and crippling our economy. Even though most of the shit we get
to buy at Walmart or Target is made in China, nobody here works for 15 cents/hour.
4. Most of the merchandise Cosco (Chinese Overseas Company) sells over here is made in Laogai prison
camps were millions of people slave for free and don't even get those 15 cents an hour
Fiendy switched from the high glucose version (high levels of sugar act neurotoxic too incidentally) of the beverage to the high aspartame version.
The Caffeine content did not change. I'd suggest you read what people have say before giving them a kneejerk reaction.
The day will come that there wont be an US anymore
on
Back to the Bunker
·
· Score: 1
and that's a fact. Someday it will be gone. They know that too and after whatever catastrophe hits, rolls over the land and slaughters most of the population, they expect to come back to the surface, armed to the teeth to rule over the survivors.
I know where they have a special bunker here in the area and I know a lot of chlorinated public swimming pools where they have those metal bottles of chlorine gas:-)
I posted this yesterday and it got promptly modded down to -1, TROLL. My Karma however is excellent and usually if slashdot notices me I get
modded up. In fact, I have accrued in the past two weeks at least ten karma points which I can afford to spend on this issue if I have to.
First of all, it's fairly obvious that the event itself is an advertisement in of itself. Of course there is the geek issue itself with
200 liters of diet coke blowing sky high but it is probably also another slow news day. But that is not what I wanted to tell people about.
If there is _anything_ you should know about Donald Rumsfeld and his (intimate) relationship to Diet Coke and Menthos, it's that besides
ordering torture in Abu Ghraib (oh which he also did, he even wrote "Make sure this happens!" in handwriting on the orders), he was the
CEO of the company that discovered and forced ASPARTAME into the market into thousands+ food products (both solid and liquid) past the
FDA and objects and studies that show that Aspartame is potentially carcinogenic and certainly a neurotoxin (and not only when heated
like when they put it into cookies etc. it turns into Methyl alcohol).
One fellow here on slashdot even got all excited about how safe Aspartame is but this time let's not get into that. Instead let's just
keep in mind that Donald Rumsfeld the man that is calling the shots in Pentagon, brought us Aspartame to swallow pretty much whether we want
or not (it's like I said in thousands of food items). Now that would be disturbing enough in itself but did you know that Donald Rumsfeld
was also the CEO of the company that created the "Tamiflu" antivirus drug which governments world-wide are stockpiling against the impending
bird-flu epidemic (where did that vanish to, the same place "SARS" went?) and HE IS PERSONALLY MAKING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of it even now
as you are reading this. Interesting enough here's what a German health officials had to say about Tamiflu: "Even though this drug has not
been extensively tested, we are operating under the premise that it is effective".
So here's the article from yesterday:
"What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?"
You get amazing and insane amounts of Aspartame. Now people have been at it warning about Aspartame for years now (it's a poison that attacks nerve ends, when heated such as in baked products etc. it will decompose into methyl alcohol which is another strong neurotoxin)... don't just take my word for it, you're sitting in front of a computer connected to the internet. Look it up.
And while you're at it, in case you're wondering why I'm calling it the Donald Rumsfeld Aspartame Death Cocktail, well Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. He discovered its sweet taste serendipitously when he licked his finger, which had accidentally become contaminated with aspartame.
Safety testing indicated aspartame may cause brain tumors in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed as FDA commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes. Citing data from a single Japanese study that had not been available to the members of the PBOI, Hayes approved aspartame for use in dry goods. [1] In 1983 FDA further approved aspartame for use in carbonated beverages,
"Although Rummy is just about as evil as they come and the FDA approval process is unfair, I still trust Aspartame."
It's your body. If you would stand in line for a free, totally unnecessary radiation treatment thinking that it isn't a big deal and could even be healthy, that's fine. I would still go out of my once to tell you that what you're about to do is the worst thing you could do to yourself but if you in turn started citing studies by radiation equipment manufacturers and others that have a vested interest there, then I would just smile politely and walk away. You can do whatever you want to yourself for all I care and you don't have to listen. That's your privilege. However that privilege ends where other people get hurt because you've been proselytizing to them.
Approximately 10% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into methanol... in the small intestine. Most of the methanol is absorbed and quickly converted into formaldehyde. Some scientists believe that the methanol cannot be a problem because: (a) there is not enough methanol absorbed to cause toxicity, (b) methanol and formaldehyde are already a by-product of human metabolism, and (c) there is more methanol in some alcoholic beverages and
fruit juices than is derived from aspartame ingestion. (Wikipedia)
Right! People have been _extremely_ rarely observed going into convulsions and dying on the sidewalk all because of a scant few hundred micro- to milligrams per kilogram of body weight of Formaldehyde, Methanol and all the other wonderful metabolic by products. They die in hospitals after years of consumption and exposure, cancer surgery, radiation and chemical treatment. You (and whover you copied that text from) are patently leaving out the dimension of time here.
See also: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1218049 4&query_hl=2
See also a.gov site on the subject when "evil Rummy" is calling the shots here.
Phenylalanine is an amino acid commonly found in foods.[...]Research indicates that Phenylalanine can be an effective part of an overall program to fight chronic pain and depression in some cases, including the mood swings of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Some sources contend that it can increase energy and mental alertness. So it's a natural amino acid that can function as a CNS stimulant. It can't hurt you any more then the caffene already in the pop, as long as you don't abuse it. (Even stronger CNS stimulants like amphetamines are fairly safe as long as you use a small enough quantity of them and maintain a normal sleep cycle).
Right. As a matter of fact Phenylalanie (Aspartam) does have analgetic (painkilling) properties. I wonder if Paracetamol (Tylenol) tasted just as sweet whether people would be gurgling that instead? As far as the stimulating effect on the CNS (Central Nervous System:-)) is concerned, I'll agree that any beneficial effects there are only marginal.
Aspartic acid is an amino acid commonly found in foods. Approximately 40% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into aspartic acid. A lot of FUD has been drummed up about aspartic acid being an "excitotoxin". I really is just one of the 20 natural proteinogenic amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins.
Interesting. Did you know that some of the most deadliest toxines in nature such as the venom of the Black Mamba are really just proteins and building blocks of proteins?[..]
Animal studies HAVE found aspartame to be cancer causing, but no major human study has. Lab rats live a maximum of 1.5 - 2 years (provided they are not forcefed with aspartame). Humans have a considerably higher life expectancy... even when exposed to aspartame. Add to that the obvious lack of interest in conducting such studies.
"What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?"
You get amazing and insane amounts of Aspartame. Now people have been at it
warning about Aspartame for years now (it's a poison that attacks nerve ends, when
heated such as in baked products etc. it will decompose into methyl alcohol which
is another strong neurotoxin)... don't just take my word for it, you're sitting in front of
a computer connected to the internet. Look it up.
And while you're at it, in case you're wondering why I'm calling it the Donald Rumsfeld
Aspartame Death Cocktail, well
Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. He discovered its sweet taste serendipitously when he licked his finger, which had accidentally become contaminated with aspartame.
Safety testing indicated aspartame may cause brain tumors in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed as FDA commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes. Citing data from a single Japanese study that had not been available to the members of the PBOI, Hayes approved aspartame for use in dry goods. [1] In 1983 FDA further approved aspartame for use in carbonated beverages, and for use in other beverages, baked goods, and confections in 1993. It happened that from 1977 to 1985 Donald Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle. In 1996, the FDA removed all restrictions from aspartame allowing it to be used in all foods.
But that's not the only thing caper Donald Rumsfeld has pulled off in all this years. His most recent exploit is the Bird Flu hysteria and a virtually unproven drug called 'Tamiflu' which is said to cause flu symptoms in the first place.
(Again from the relevant Wikipedia article on Tamiflu:
Oseltamivir was the first orally active neuraminidase inhibitor commercially developed. It is a prodrug, which is hydrolysed hepatically to the active metabolite, the free carboxylate of oseltamivir (GS4071). It was developed by Gilead Sciences and is currently marketed by Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) under the trade name Tamiflu. It is generally available by prescription only.
[...]
In November, 2005, U.S. president George W. Bush requested that Congress fund $7.1 billion in emergency spending for flu pandemic prepardness (the Senate had already passed an $8.1 billion bill)[12]. Bush's plan included $1.4 billion for government purchases of antiviral drugs[13].
Some commentators (e.g., [14]) question the motives of the U.S. government's endorsement and planned purchase of oseltamivir, noting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's close ties to Gilead Sciences, rightsholder to the oseltamivir patent. Rumsfeld is a former chairman of Gilead, and federal disclosure forms indicate that he owns between USD$5 million and USD$25 million in Gilead stock (Schwartz 2005 [15]). The rise in Gilead's share prices from USD$35 to USD$57 per share will have added between USD$2.5 million to USD$15.5 million to Rumsfeld's net worth.
Go figure. Look, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're interested then start digging. Rumsfeld is a good start.
Oh and I guess since the entire "happening" as well as the media coverage that went with it is just one elaborate ad for
Coca Cola and Mentos at least on slashdot I think it just backfired on them.
Actually that's a good question now
on
Lenovo To Shun Linux
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I personally own a Thinkpad T41 I purchased in 2004 and posted here about they way the
socket of it's powersupply came off this last christmas and what a hassle I had to go
through to get that fixed. Now a couple of days ago I talked to a friend of mine (who
I had recommend a T41 myself for shame) and he told me his plug had come loose too.
If you ask me quality took a nose-dive down even before IBM sold to Lenovo probably in
the full knowledge that quality was bound to deteriorate even further so why bother.
A product built using cheap labor is one thing as most electronics nowadays are but
using even cheaper parts manufactured in the chinese forced labor camps are another.
I will not buy anything from Lenovo, ever.
I want a rugged notebook that doesn't come apart, whose screen stays up (and doesn't have
to fixed with tape like I saw one of my colleagues to with his Fujitsu Siemens) even after
a year of use, the powersocket of which doesn't come loose and so forth?
Who makes notebooks like that, today?
You're right. Transmitter locations have been known for decades and anybody who knows his way around on the
airwaves can pinpoint them. Some even have international call signs. And the same thing pretty much applies
to the "internet numbers station". At traceroute will at least tell you from what country it is coming
from. Use Echelon to get the exact location details.
You get those 6 Mbit downstream, X Mbit upstream between your DSL modem and the line card at the carrier. Some DSL modems actually tell you how a lot about the connection:
ADSL-State: ADSL Active Mode: ADSL Manufacturer: ADSL Modems Inc. DSL-Version: 1.0 ADSL Carrier Equipment Manufacturer: Texas Instruments DSL-Version: 1.0
I have 2Mbit downstream and 192 KB upstream (I know my upstream sucks).
So looking at what my modem tells me I'm doing fine here. However that's just the raw interface speed. That has not much bearing on the kind of performance I can expect downloading from some server on the internet. First of all it's all my traffic goes through four routers at my provider. I have no idea what kind of bandwidth is available in the internal network of my provider but I'm sure that they favor business customers over home customers. Then my packets leave my ISP and then it's up to all the networks on the way to that server, including how much CPU, IO and network bandwidth in general at that server is used up. You might want to look at those 2/3/6Mbit whatever Mbit you've been promised as the theoretic maximum. BTW, the highest download rate I ever achieved with 2Mbit downstream was 220Kb/s that 1.6 Mbits which is not bad but that was coming from an internal server at my ISP.
You're right. I should have thought of that. The number man could be sitting outside a hotel with a laptop on his knees recording the numbers for later decryption in a more secure place. But still, there's two way communication going on between the laptop and the internet numbers station and chances are vastly improved of apprehending him. Even more so if he regularily goes online through the major wireless providers they have at hotels and with all the cameras around nowadays.
Personally as an ELODUM (Expendable Letters Organization Drugtrafficking Underling Minion) I would be really upset having to use this, I would want to get my orders on shortwave where I can sit at home with my earphones on.
I know it's the first thing that comes to mind but I'm sure They can monitor who calls ("tunes into") that phone number regularily. Broadcasts are anonymous and many people own shortwave radios, VOIP can be traced to a subscriber so what gives?
Part of the way to become rich is not to give away money because you feel morally obligated. If I had been stupid enough to signup for Vonage stock then I would still wait and see what they do before actually buying. By the looks of it they're going under. If they go under then a bunch of threats are most likely all we'll ever hear of this again. On the off chance that they do survive and I see they do have enough life in them to kick me hard enough and are getting set to do it, then and _only then_ will I pay.
You can sink your moral dross in that dark and murky orifice where Vonage will soon connect to. If the stock had soared and Vonage turned around and sold hat a higher price then _if_ it is profitable for me to kick their face with my left boot and their balls with my right, then I'd do that as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, I'm seriously interested in this and I want to hear from you guys what (if anything) you do to evade that kind of surveillance... Personally I used to work for a European card processing company, i.e. the people who operate the terminal network and supply the hardware and then route the terminal traffic to all the major creditcard acquirers and of course the national debit card scheme as well as operate nationwide loyalty card schemes. I know exactly what kind of data goes over those wires and ever since I have never touched a loyalty card again nor used any plastic when I could be using cash. OVER HERE IN EUROPE with a loyalty card the merchant gets a list of whatever you purchased and an identity to mach it up with. Whenever you swipe your card, the network company, the credit card company and/or your bank know where you shopped (account-details / PAN, terminal-id(location), time of day, amount, in fact with the terminal-id we can tell in which checkout lane you were and get the right surveillance tape). And whereas it is forbidden in Europe to match up card number / PAN (Personal Account Number) details (but which I'm sure the big guys do anyway) I doubt that is much of a problem in the US. Personally I have pulled out of that system as much as I could. I refuse to use loyalty cards and I pay in cash whatever I can and when I have to give my name and address to anyone I have a phoney address to give out to them. At least over here they don't want to see your ID just because they're trying to wheedle marketing data out of people. What are you up against? What do you do about it?
I wrote: "Most people that bought the previous generations of PPC Macs bought them because they wanted OSX. A lot of people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture Desktop or Notebook. Each and every one of these people bought a MAC."
... bought them because they wanted OSX". (emphasis added).
You replied: "How you can not understand this is beyond me. This is brain dead simple. People did not buy Macs because of the Power architecture. Are you forgetting who the Mac audience is? They're people who don't know jack about the computer industry, not geeks who know the differences between x86, Power or Sparc architectures."
I think you failed to properly parse the following information elements:
"MOST people
and
"A LOT OF people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture..."
I'm not going to get started on set theory here.
I understand fully well that (MOST!) people who use a MAC OSX are not especially savvy technology-wise and they bought it because
it appealed to them for non-technical reasons.
"To review, Apple went Intel so that Apple could actually sell hardware again. No one wants a slow computer, and PowerPC chips are slow in comparison to Intel's chips. I have an Intel Mac, it screams compared to my PowerPC Mac. Apple also doesn't want to have to hold up shipments ever again because the CPU's aren't ready. Or downgrade the speed of its computers because of sudden yield problems."
While it indeed true that Power Architecture implementations are as of yet not available beyond the kitchen microwave clock ranges intel
integer toasters exceed, try not to confuse pure integer throughput with the overall performance of the chip or the entire
computer system. Aside from clocking a bunch of bad ideas hobbled together lightningly fast the way Intel does, there's a lot to be said
for L1/L2 caching, bus bandwidth but also instruction set efficency which really boosts or retards the performance of any chip. As far as
the complete computer system is concerned performance generally stands and falls with the the bandwidth on I/O busses (IDE vs. SCSI for ex.),
amount of main storage, speed of aux storage, offloading specific work to dedicated processors such as GPUs etc. etc.
"If you truly believe that Apple will be going back to the PowerPC architecture then you must come from straight out of DumbFuckIstan."
Obviously we tend to take a slightly broader view here in PPC-Dumbfuckistan. BTW a colleague of yours objected to pretty much the same issues
you did but he somehow worked his way around calling me an idiot.
It is indeed kind of late for this but still: They switched from the regular high glucose beverage to the aspartame version. I don't see the levels of caffeine intake changing much here. This is not the way to get Aspartame off the hook.
Sir, wouldn't you agree that comparing Mac OSX, Linux and Solaris is like comparing, Apples, Pears and Oranges with another?
If they wanted to sell more hardware then why of all things are they experimenting with Intel?
Most people that bought the previous generations of PPC Macs bought them because they wanted OSX. A lot of people bought them too because all they wanted was a Power Architecture Desktop or Notebook. Each and every one of these people bought a MAC.
No matter what, however people will find ways of getting Intel-OSX to run on and with non-Apple hardware whether Apple keeps the platform sources to themselves or not, VMWare and other hypervisors come to mind.
It's the same old story told over and over, Apple just lost a fortune all thanks to Intel for stooping and trying to pick up a few pennies that were laying on the street. They'll wise up and the next generation of Macs will again be PowerPC machines, and even if not PowerPC then anything but Intel. Depend on it.
I'm in no way disappointed, AC, everybody has their own reality tunnel
:-) are playing word games here but hey
Personally I find these facts compelling:
1. They call themselves Sun [Microsystems Inc.].
2. They have a symbol that reminds of a swastika for a logo
3. The Swastika has been a symbol for the sun as far back as Babylon and is probably even much older than that
I for my part still like to believe that the Solar[is] Elites
don't bother processing this if your cultural operating system doesn't support it. (See Terence McKenna for an
explanation what a "cultural operating system" might be).
Opensolaris is often referred to as ON and it looks like even the fellow Slashdot Mason couldn't resist the temptation with the title "Opensolaris One Year On". The designation ON appears quiet often on their site such as in "ON Copyright Notice"
"TOI for ON Developers"
and on a dozen other places.
I like to think that the designation 'ON' that appears all over the Opensolaris pages refers to Heliopolis, the CITY OF THE SUN, in fact I'm pretty sure it does.
Check out the relevant Wikipedia article on Heliopolis:
The city's Egyptian name (shown in hieroglyphs, right, transliterated wnw), is often transcribed as Iunu (literally "[place of] pillars"), and was often written in Greek as On, and in biblical Hebrew as Ôn and wen.
(Interestingly enough, firefox showed the Greek and hebrew glyphs as the latin characters 'On' when I previewed this on slashdot)
One thing I know for sure, any endeavor with such a powerful sigil as the Sun can only succeed.
Your making it sound like these people are special. They're puppets. I'd rather meet their masters.
once more and posted this under my real name. Not the first time this happened and I'm not really upset about it because like I said this article is just another advertisement. Remember the many Windows Vista articles we had the past two weeks, more ads disguised as content. Anyway... enjoy my confusing little weird story, I already spotted two or three typos and grammar mistakes in it too but who cares. Just one thing for the real "geek" inside us all: Check out Sun's T1000/T2000 servers. Each of its SPARC CPU's has eight cores and they deliver a wallop of computing power.
Here, have a short, weird story instead:
It was dark when Madchen came home into her appartment. While she fumbled for the light switch
she heard the hoarse breathing of Goober. Dammit! Madchen thought, why can't he go out on his
own. With the lights on Madchen let out a sigh of dismay. "Oh dammit Goober! Look at what you
did to the couch!". Goober's brown eyes locked on to hers and he asked "What Goober Couch do?"
his voice a mixture of squealing tires and the dark bass sound of a v8 motor. "Why look! You
got all the gravy over the couch!". Goober turned and looked at the couch and without another
word began licking the gravy stains.
Goober preferred cold meals but Madchen had to have some hot food at least once a day. She headed
of the kitchen still voicing her upset but Goober chose not to listen even though he could hear
her as if she was sitting in the living room with her. He knew he had upset her again with
something trivial as food stains on the couch. When Madchen had her dinner fixed she came back
into the living room and flopped down next Goober on the sofa, immediately digging into her
chicken with steaming hot rice. Goober asked, "Goober have chicken?". Madchen silently glared
at him and replied "Goober have chicken bones: IF he asks for them in a full sentence".
"Oh Goody! Good! Good!" Goober exulted rowing happily rowing with his arms and making the odd sounds
he always made when he's happy. Madchen was wolving her meal down ravenously. Goober said
"Goober had rat today!". Madchen stopped. "That's I had a rat today, Gobber. Where did you find a
rat, goober?". Goober looked at her and said "Not here. When dark Goober had fun on street, found it,
hit it hard and then eat it. It is quick but very fun. You should do it too. Good for you too"
Madchen laughed quietly and went back to her food. Goober had his good sides and she didn't call him
Goober for nothing. He had introduced himself as "Good Bear" the day she first met him. The Army
research people didn't mind her calling him what she wanted as long as she shared the appartment with
him and didn't get eaten. Goober didn't mind either. He sometimes eyed Madchen's shapely thighs
speculatively but until now she always bought him off with steak.
I have already flogged my back bloody for this.
Google committed to Nazi Business Snowgen writes "Despite this week's earlier story that hinted Google may consider pulling out of Germany over the topic of censorship, Reuters is now quoting Sergey Brin as saying that 'Google Inc. is committed to doing business in Germany despite criticism the company has faced for abiding by Nazi censorship restrictions.'" More from the article: "Brin told a small group of invited journalists: 'I think it's perfectly reasonable to do something different. Say, OK, let's stand by the principle against censorship and we won't actually operate there
Okay. So we're not here into alternate reality stuff of the kind like what if we hadn't gone to war with Nazi Germany. Even though Brin is fabulating about "Alternative Paths" etc. However what we should really be into is the following:
The chinese governments and the chinese elites are not the kind of people we should aid.
1. They have killed twenty million of their citizens in their "culture revolution" alone.
2. They execute people after fifteen minutes in court and nowadays even for petty crimes such as theft. It used to be they did that in stadiums by shooting people. Nowadays they have execution vans manned by two policemen, one judge, one court clerk and the executioner.
3. They are underselling our businesses and crippling our economy. Even though most of the shit we get to buy at Walmart or Target is made in China, nobody here works for 15 cents/hour.
4. Most of the merchandise Cosco (Chinese Overseas Company) sells over here is made in Laogai prison camps were millions of people slave for free and don't even get those 15 cents an hour
Of course you can "own" a number. We owned 0x26a long before the last ice age and let's see someone try to get it away from us.
Fiendy switched from the high glucose version (high levels of sugar act neurotoxic too incidentally) of the beverage to the high aspartame version. The Caffeine content did not change. I'd suggest you read what people have say before giving them a kneejerk reaction.
and that's a fact. Someday it will be gone. They know that too and
:-)
after whatever catastrophe hits, rolls over the land and slaughters
most of the population, they expect to come back to the surface,
armed to the teeth to rule over the survivors.
I know where they have a special bunker here in the area and I know a
lot of chlorinated public swimming pools where they have those metal
bottles of chlorine gas
I posted this yesterday and it got promptly modded down to -1, TROLL. My Karma however is excellent and usually if slashdot notices me I get modded up. In fact, I have accrued in the past two weeks at least ten karma points which I can afford to spend on this issue if I have to. First of all, it's fairly obvious that the event itself is an advertisement in of itself. Of course there is the geek issue itself with 200 liters of diet coke blowing sky high but it is probably also another slow news day. But that is not what I wanted to tell people about.
If there is _anything_ you should know about Donald Rumsfeld and his (intimate) relationship to Diet Coke and Menthos, it's that besides ordering torture in Abu Ghraib (oh which he also did, he even wrote "Make sure this happens!" in handwriting on the orders), he was the CEO of the company that discovered and forced ASPARTAME into the market into thousands+ food products (both solid and liquid) past the FDA and objects and studies that show that Aspartame is potentially carcinogenic and certainly a neurotoxin (and not only when heated like when they put it into cookies etc. it turns into Methyl alcohol).
One fellow here on slashdot even got all excited about how safe Aspartame is but this time let's not get into that. Instead let's just keep in mind that Donald Rumsfeld the man that is calling the shots in Pentagon, brought us Aspartame to swallow pretty much whether we want or not (it's like I said in thousands of food items). Now that would be disturbing enough in itself but did you know that Donald Rumsfeld was also the CEO of the company that created the "Tamiflu" antivirus drug which governments world-wide are stockpiling against the impending bird-flu epidemic (where did that vanish to, the same place "SARS" went?) and HE IS PERSONALLY MAKING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of it even now as you are reading this. Interesting enough here's what a German health officials had to say about Tamiflu: "Even though this drug has not been extensively tested, we are operating under the premise that it is effective".
So here's the article from yesterday:
"What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?"
You get amazing and insane amounts of Aspartame. Now people have been at it warning about Aspartame for years now (it's a poison that attacks nerve ends, when heated such as in baked products etc. it will decompose into methyl alcohol which is another strong neurotoxin)... don't just take my word for it, you're sitting in front of a computer connected to the internet. Look it up.
And while you're at it, in case you're wondering why I'm calling it the Donald Rumsfeld Aspartame Death Cocktail, well Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. He discovered its sweet taste serendipitously when he licked his finger, which had accidentally become contaminated with aspartame.
(taken from the Wikipeida Aspartame article)
Safety testing indicated aspartame may cause brain tumors in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed as FDA commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes. Citing data from a single Japanese study that had not been available to the members of the PBOI, Hayes approved aspartame for use in dry goods. [1] In 1983 FDA further approved aspartame for use in carbonated beverages,
"Although Rummy is just about as evil as they come and the FDA approval process is unfair, I still trust Aspartame."
.gov site on the subject when "evil Rummy" is calling the shots here.
:-)) is concerned, I'll agree that any beneficial effects there are only marginal.
... even when exposed to aspartame. Add to that the obvious lack of interest in conducting such studies.
It's your body. If you would stand in line for a free, totally unnecessary radiation treatment thinking that it isn't a big deal and could even be healthy, that's fine. I would still go out of my once to tell you that what you're about to do is the worst thing you could do to yourself but if you in turn started citing studies by radiation equipment manufacturers and others that have a vested interest there, then I would just smile politely and walk away. You can do whatever you want to yourself for all I care and you don't have to listen. That's your privilege. However that privilege ends where other people get hurt because you've been proselytizing to them.
Approximately 10% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into methanol... in the small intestine. Most of the methanol is absorbed and quickly converted into formaldehyde. Some scientists believe that the methanol cannot be a problem because: (a) there is not enough methanol absorbed to cause toxicity, (b) methanol and formaldehyde are already a by-product of human metabolism, and (c) there is more methanol in some alcoholic beverages and fruit juices than is derived from aspartame ingestion. (Wikipedia)
Right! People have been _extremely_ rarely observed going into convulsions and dying on the sidewalk all because of a scant few hundred micro- to milligrams per kilogram of body weight of Formaldehyde, Methanol and all the other wonderful metabolic by products. They die in hospitals after years of consumption and exposure, cancer surgery, radiation and chemical treatment. You (and whover you copied that text from) are patently leaving out the dimension of time here.
See also: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1218049 4&query_hl=2 See also a
Phenylalanine is an amino acid commonly found in foods.[...]Research indicates that Phenylalanine can be an effective part of an overall program to fight chronic pain and depression in some cases, including the mood swings of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Some sources contend that it can increase energy and mental alertness. So it's a natural amino acid that can function as a CNS stimulant. It can't hurt you any more then the caffene already in the pop, as long as you don't abuse it. (Even stronger CNS stimulants like amphetamines are fairly safe as long as you use a small enough quantity of them and maintain a normal sleep cycle).
Right. As a matter of fact Phenylalanie (Aspartam) does have analgetic (painkilling) properties. I wonder if Paracetamol (Tylenol) tasted just as sweet whether people would be gurgling that instead? As far as the stimulating effect on the CNS (Central Nervous System
Aspartic acid is an amino acid commonly found in foods. Approximately 40% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into aspartic acid. A lot of FUD has been drummed up about aspartic acid being an "excitotoxin". I really is just one of the 20 natural proteinogenic amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins.
Interesting. Did you know that some of the most deadliest toxines in nature such as the venom of the Black Mamba are really just proteins and building blocks of proteins?[..] Animal studies HAVE found aspartame to be cancer causing, but no major human study has. Lab rats live a maximum of 1.5 - 2 years (provided they are not forcefed with aspartame). Humans have a considerably higher life expectancy
But that's one
"What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?"
You get amazing and insane amounts of Aspartame. Now people have been at it warning about Aspartame for years now (it's a poison that attacks nerve ends, when heated such as in baked products etc. it will decompose into methyl alcohol which is another strong neurotoxin)... don't just take my word for it, you're sitting in front of a computer connected to the internet. Look it up.
And while you're at it, in case you're wondering why I'm calling it the Donald Rumsfeld Aspartame Death Cocktail, well Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. He discovered its sweet taste serendipitously when he licked his finger, which had accidentally become contaminated with aspartame.
(taken from the Wikipeida Aspartame article)
Safety testing indicated aspartame may cause brain tumors in rats; as a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not approve its use as a food additive in the United States for many years. In 1980, the FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) consisting of independent advisors charged with examining the purported relationship between aspartame and brain cancer. The PBOI concluded that aspartame does not cause brain damage, but it recommended against approving aspartame at that time, citing unanswered questions about cancer in laboratory rats. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan appointed as FDA commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes. Citing data from a single Japanese study that had not been available to the members of the PBOI, Hayes approved aspartame for use in dry goods. [1] In 1983 FDA further approved aspartame for use in carbonated beverages, and for use in other beverages, baked goods, and confections in 1993. It happened that from 1977 to 1985 Donald Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle. In 1996, the FDA removed all restrictions from aspartame allowing it to be used in all foods.
But that's not the only thing caper Donald Rumsfeld has pulled off in all this years. His most recent exploit is the Bird Flu hysteria and a virtually unproven drug called 'Tamiflu' which is said to cause flu symptoms in the first place.
(Again from the relevant Wikipedia article on Tamiflu:
Oseltamivir was the first orally active neuraminidase inhibitor commercially developed. It is a prodrug, which is hydrolysed hepatically to the active metabolite, the free carboxylate of oseltamivir (GS4071). It was developed by Gilead Sciences and is currently marketed by Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) under the trade name Tamiflu. It is generally available by prescription only.
[...]
In November, 2005, U.S. president George W. Bush requested that Congress fund $7.1 billion in emergency spending for flu pandemic prepardness (the Senate had already passed an $8.1 billion bill)[12]. Bush's plan included $1.4 billion for government purchases of antiviral drugs[13]. Some commentators (e.g., [14]) question the motives of the U.S. government's endorsement and planned purchase of oseltamivir, noting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's close ties to Gilead Sciences, rightsholder to the oseltamivir patent. Rumsfeld is a former chairman of Gilead, and federal disclosure forms indicate that he owns between USD$5 million and USD$25 million in Gilead stock (Schwartz 2005 [15]). The rise in Gilead's share prices from USD$35 to USD$57 per share will have added between USD$2.5 million to USD$15.5 million to Rumsfeld's net worth.
Go figure. Look, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're interested then start digging. Rumsfeld is a good start. Oh and I guess since the entire "happening" as well as the media coverage that went with it is just one elaborate ad for Coca Cola and Mentos at least on slashdot I think it just backfired on them.
I personally own a Thinkpad T41 I purchased in 2004 and posted here about they way the socket of it's powersupply came off this last christmas and what a hassle I had to go through to get that fixed. Now a couple of days ago I talked to a friend of mine (who I had recommend a T41 myself for shame) and he told me his plug had come loose too. If you ask me quality took a nose-dive down even before IBM sold to Lenovo probably in the full knowledge that quality was bound to deteriorate even further so why bother. A product built using cheap labor is one thing as most electronics nowadays are but using even cheaper parts manufactured in the chinese forced labor camps are another. I will not buy anything from Lenovo, ever. I want a rugged notebook that doesn't come apart, whose screen stays up (and doesn't have to fixed with tape like I saw one of my colleagues to with his Fujitsu Siemens) even after a year of use, the powersocket of which doesn't come loose and so forth? Who makes notebooks like that, today?
really pan out. This one we will lay to rest right next to DIVX (the Best Buy / Circuit City PayPerView player).
You're right. Transmitter locations have been known for decades and anybody who knows his way around on the airwaves can pinpoint them. Some even have international call signs. And the same thing pretty much applies to the "internet numbers station". At traceroute will at least tell you from what country it is coming from. Use Echelon to get the exact location details.
You get those 6 Mbit downstream, X Mbit upstream between your DSL modem and the line card
:-)
at the carrier. Some DSL modems actually tell you how a lot about the connection:
ADSL-State: ADSL Active
Mode: ADSL
Manufacturer: ADSL Modems Inc.
DSL-Version: 1.0
ADSL Carrier Equipment
Manufacturer: Texas Instruments
DSL-Version: 1.0
Line capacity kBit/s 6816 1112
ATM-rate kBit/s 2304 224
Payload-rate kBit/s 2087 203
Latencymode interleaved interleaved
Latency ms 16 16
Frame Coding Rate kBit/s 32 32
FEC Coding Rate kBit/s 160 32
Trellis Coding Rate kBit/s 364 68
Negotation fixed fixed
Signal/Squelch dB 28 28
Line attenuation dB 23 21
Status 4ebc 6
LOS LOF FEC CRC NCD HEC
CPE 0 0 26 0 1 0
COE 0 0 0 0 5 0
I have 2Mbit downstream and 192 KB upstream (I know my upstream sucks).
So looking at what my modem tells me I'm doing fine here. However that's
just the raw interface speed. That has not much bearing on the kind of
performance I can expect downloading from some server on the internet.
First of all it's all my traffic goes through four routers at my provider.
I have no idea what kind of bandwidth is available in the internal network
of my provider but I'm sure that they favor business customers over home
customers. Then my packets leave my ISP and then it's up to all the networks
on the way to that server, including how much CPU, IO and network bandwidth
in general at that server is used up. You might want to look at those
2/3/6Mbit whatever Mbit you've been promised as the theoretic maximum. BTW,
the highest download rate I ever achieved with 2Mbit downstream was 220Kb/s
that 1.6 Mbits which is not bad but that was coming from an internal server at
my ISP.
Hope I shed some light on this mystery
You're right. I should have thought of that. The number man could be sitting outside a hotel with a laptop on his knees recording the numbers for later decryption in a more secure place. But still, there's two way communication going on between the laptop and the internet numbers station and chances are vastly improved of apprehending him. Even more so if he regularily goes online through the major wireless providers they have at hotels and with all the cameras around nowadays. Personally as an ELODUM (Expendable Letters Organization Drugtrafficking Underling Minion) I would be really upset having to use this, I would want to get my orders on shortwave where I can sit at home with my earphones on.
I know it's the first thing that comes to mind but I'm sure They can monitor who calls ("tunes into") that phone number regularily. Broadcasts are anonymous and many people own shortwave radios, VOIP can be traced to a subscriber so what gives?
Part of the way to become rich is not to give away money because you feel morally obligated. If I had been stupid enough to signup for Vonage stock then I would still wait and see what they do before actually buying. By the looks of it they're going under. If they go under then a bunch of threats are most likely all we'll ever hear of this again. On the off chance that they do survive and I see they do have enough life in them to kick me hard enough and are getting set to do it, then and _only then_ will I pay.
You can sink your moral dross in that dark and murky orifice where Vonage will soon connect to. If the stock had soared and Vonage turned around and sold hat a higher price then _if_ it is profitable for me to kick their face with my left boot and their balls with my right, then I'd do that as well.
I don't like you attitude gowen.