That new Woolworth's logo looks to me like a peeled apple skin, which is a part of the apple you throw away to avoid wax, pesticides, filth, etc. Coincidences? Maybe not.
Why doesn't Google immediately release Google Voice to Cydia/Icy? (Yes, I know that Google will release a web-only version of Google voice, but a built in version has the advantage that all of the GUI pages are permanently cached.) I would download and install it in an instant!
Apple has already shown bad faith towards Google in iTunes App Store, why should Google care if it hurts Apple's feeling but supporting App Store alternatives? Google already supports Mobile Terminal Google code project for jail broken iPhones/iTouches, so the precedent is there.
More and more companies are looking to Apple as an example on how to lock down their platforms. Expect other companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.) to start doing the same type of lockdown with their devices/OS. So, unless you plan on living in a cave the rest of your life counting your toes, boycotting flagship tech companies is not practical. The only real solution is to legalize and strengthen fair use, so that jail breaking and other DRM circumvention is completely legal and encouraged.
Once you jailbreak an iPhone and iPod Touch, it becomes an awesome portable Unix device. I have jailbroken nearly a dozen iPhones/iPodTouches for friends and family, and tell everyone to do the same.
I am still very disappointed that Google did not release their Google Voice app onto the Cydia, Icy, and other alternative app stores.
The US and other governments should also declare Apple's App Store to be an illegal monopoly for their platform and force Apple to allow other app stores to work without jailbreaking/hacking their devices.
Unfortunately there does not appear to be any open source full disk encryption options for MacOSX on the primary boot drive. TrueCrypt's MacOSX port does not provide the full-disk encryption support that it provides for its Windows & Linux ports.
In fact, on MacOSX, one cannot even use TrueCrypt to encrypt one's home directory, without having to be forced to first log in as another user to mount the TrueCrypt image and remained logged in while the original user is logged into their encrypted home directory on the mounted image.
There are proprietary closed source options for MacOSX full disk encryption, but I would not trust any of them unless I can examine the source and compile it myself.
Consider the iPhone, which despite being so crippled, a developer can still create and compile some native application for it, and install it via iTunes store or jailbreak.
Google has decided TO BAN ALL NATIVE APPLICATIONS for its Android phones, and only allow Java.
http://code.google.com/android/kb/general.html Q: Can I write code for Android using C/C++?
A: Android only supports applications written using the Java programming language at this time.
As a crypto developer, this means that my applications, which deal with complex CPU intensive cryptography that are not fully supported by any Java libraries, will never run on Android, even though I can port them to the iPhone, Windows Mobile, PalmOS, etc.
In addition, Android devices are only allowed to have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) resolution displays, which is half the screen resolution of the iPhone HVGA (320x480). Some Microsoft Windows Mobile phone even have full VGA (480x640) or WVGA (480x800) displays. This will also limit the usefulness and functionality of applications running on Android compared those other smart phones.
At least WinVista and WinXP users have several full disk encryption options, including the opensource TrueCrypt.
But Mac users are out of luck, since no opensource full disk encryption exists for the MacOSX. Neither TrueCrypt or Apple's FileVault support full disk encryption on MacOSX. The only option is the closed source Check Point Full Disk Encryption product.
But if it is not opensource, then I personally would not trust it not to have back doors, especially since multinational corporations left-right-and-center have been falling all over themselves to help the US and other governments spy on the general population.
Seriously though, what practical use is there for an old 8bit Apple II architecture? There are very inexpensive 32bit system on chip architectures (including MIPS - Lexra) in that price range that can at least run embedded Linux (uClinux).
I fully encrypt my laptop drive, since it carries lots of secret corporate data and IP, and fully back it up at the office, so I am not too worried about theft of the hardware.
I am however scared that at an US airport, or at the airport of some other repressive regime, I may be forced to hand over my laptop, and then detained for not providing the decryption password. Keep in mind that if I am forced to reveal the contents of my laptop, that I can be sued by shareholders (for leaking IP) and business partners (for breaking NDA), I can lose my business relationships and hence my income, and I potentially be charged for breaking EU (and other) directives on data protection.
The problem is that I work extensively with banks and I cannot allow banking data to be leaked, nor can I allow sensitive and very valuable corporate IP to be given to potential competitors of a country that I am visiting or passing through.
Unfortunately, I need to have all of the IP on the laptop, since I often work on the data-centers of various banks worldwide, behind all of the firewalls, and these data-centers do not typically allow any type of Internet access. In addition, I would not feel safe putting 100% of the corporate IP and banking data on a public Internet server in my office, just so I can remote download 200GB or so onto a blank laptop, using a slow and/or expensive hotel Internet connection, everytime I fly, just so I can work in a remote location.
It is bad enough that countries (US, UK, Japan,...) are already fingerprinting foreigners. It looks like the days of international business travel will soon be over.
I agree that Apple has decided to cripple the iPhone to the point that even with the SDK, it is useless, especially for business.
However, Google's Android OS is not and will never be a replacement for the iPhone or any other powerful smartphones, especially those running Windows Mobile. Consider:
http://code.google.com/android/kb/general.html Q: Can I write code for Android using C/C++?
A: Android only supports applications written using the Java programming language at this time. Google has decided that developers cannot write powerful native binary applications for Android phone, which is important for high performance cryptographically secure applications. How is Apple any worse than Google which only allows interpreted programs, when since the launch of the iPhone, developers could always write Javascript interpreted programs, and now even some native ones as well through the iStore?
As a Unix (NetBSD, Linux, & MacOSX) person, I hate to say this, but so far Microsoft is the good guy here, since their smartphones and Windows Mobile devices have the least restrictions for third party applications and developers.
Another problem with Android is that all of the proposed new phones (none of which have been released yet) for it will only have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) displays, which is literally half of the HVGA (320x480) display of the iPhone which has been available for more than half a year. This will make Android much harder to use for web surfing, office apps, etc. than the iPhone, or even Microsoft Windows Mobile phones, some of which have WVGA (800x480) displays.
Don't get me wrong, I love the look, feel, shape, sleekness, GUI, and interface of the iPhone and iPod touch. It blows everything else away. But as a business tool, Apple has decided too crippled its devices to the point that of being useless, especially when compared the uglier and bulky Windows Mobile phones.
S&H Green Stamps (also called Green Shield Stamps) were a form of trading stamps popular in the United States between the 1930s and early 1980s. They were a rewards program operated by the Sperry and Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelly Hutchinson. During the 1960s, the rewards catalog printed by the company was the largest publication in the United States and the company issued three times as many stamps as the U.S. Postal Service. Customers would receive stamps at the checkout counter of supermarkets, department stores, and gas stations among other retailers, which could be redeemed for products in the catalog.
Here in Japan, if you are not a Japanese citizen, then you will be fingerprinted when you enter immigration at any port of entry.
Even if you try to refuse and try to leave immigration to depart Japan, the Japanese authorities will forceable fingerprint you, and then likely throw you in jail before deporting you. The Japanese authorities will also throw you in jail if you do anything with your fingerprints, such as dyes, acid, or pineapple juice, or tamper with the fingerprint readers. Unless all of your finger tips are heavily and permanently scarred, you will be fingerprinted and incarcerated until they grow back. So your choice is either to submit willingly and be fingerprinted or object and suffer incarceration (including beatings/torture by authorities) and still be fingerprinted.
The really bad thing here, is that the corrupt Japanese government awarded the contract to collect the "foreigner" biometric data to the corrupt criminal organization Accenture (renamed Arthur Andersen) which did the falsified books for Enron and Worldcom. Accenture won the bid to collect the data for only (JPY)$100,000, approximately (USD)$900. You can bet that the Accenture paid the Japanese government a lot of money under the table in order to resell the biometric data to interested parties.
I would not be surprised if US authorities, and other countries as well, will do the same thing to force their own citizens as well as foreigners, to submit to fingerprinting and other biometric collection. And that sooner or later, you will not be able to opt out. I wonder if Accenture is also maintaining the new FBI biometric database.
Kudos to Edward Tufte for providing good detailed constructive criticism on the iPhone, including specific examples of improvements. I hope that Apple will pay attention to the FREE ADVICE that Tufte is giving and incorporate it into their next iPhone firmware update. I am sure that the UI advice that Apple pays for is likely not as good.
Personally as a product developer myself, I would welcome such good detailed constructive criticism for free from a UI guru such as Tufte. Remember that there are all innovation is based on prior innovation, so it is good to have analysis done on existing products in order to improve on future versions.
BTW, on a side note, I hope that someone at Slashdot deletes the offences racist postings above.
I cannot believe that this report does not include Japan's treatment legal "foreigners", including visitors, long term & permanent residents. Since late November, all of the these "foreigners" in Japan are now forced to be fingerprinted. Even worse, the corrupt Japanese government awarded the contract to collect the "foreigner" biometric data to the corrupt criminal organization Accenture (renamed Arthur Andersen) which did the falsified books for Enron and Worldcom. Accenture won the bid to collect the data for only (JPY)$100,000, approximately (USD)$900. You can bet that the Accenture paid the Japanese government a lot of money under the table in order to resell the biometric data to interested parties.
Maybe other countries should start fingerprinting Japanese visitors and residents, and then sell the biometric data to those Nigerian scammers.
This fingering of "foreigners" is even worse considering that Japan is the only first world nation not to have any anti-discrimination legislation, and legal "foreigners" in Japan are not even afforded even the mere basic of protection under the law. (Foreigners in Japan do have any Habeas Corpus and can be tortured in prison for up to 21 days. Testimony by foreigners in Japan has been ruled inadmissible in court, since there are not considered to be human by the Japanese ministry of Justice.)
Thank you! Finally an excuse to eat more chocolate! After all, nothing makes one feel better than chocolate, and feeling better boosts your immune system and prevents colds.
If they need volunteers for a chocolate study to prove its ability to prevent colds, sign me up!
I own a desktop Mac and would be willing to buy a MacBook today, which are reasonable priced, if only there was a sub-notebook model available which is weighs less than 2.5 pounds.
But, Apple still refuses to make (or contract out) sub-notebooks for their MacBook line. The smallest & lightest MacBook available is the 13 inch 5 pound model, which is too big and heavy for frequent flyers and daily public transit commuters. Not everyone needs a full-size desktop replacement. I still can't understand why Apple won't even contract out a MacBook sub-notebook to Sony, Panasonic, JVC/Asus, Fujitsu, etc.?
So until Apple changes its weight-lifting policy, I would be more willing to buy a copy of OSX and use a crack so that I can use it with full GUI on my ix86 sub-notebook.
NetBSD is not dying. It is getting better and better with new features and improvements being added all of the time. In addition to steady developments, Google summers have really boasted NetBSD.
I guess for some, having a lightweight, decent, and stable OS that does what it is suppose to do not enough. Admittedly their are many needed userland applications, epecially commercial applications that won't run on NetBSD. But if that was my primary concern than I would only run Windows XP. And when it comes to userland opensource, nothing beats PKGSRC. Especially when compaired to Linux equilibrants like SuSE yast.
When you ask the average person, all that they care about is the bells and wistle in the window manager and not much else. Think aqua in MacOSX or aero in WinVista.
All of the major card networks (VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, etc.) in every region now have a strict policy that online gaming sites require a valid gaming/casino licence from the jurisdiction they are based in, and must specify the gaming merchant category code 7995 in every authorization request. Merchant banks that do not enforce this rule with their gaming merchants risk losing their card membership. No bank wants to loss its VISA or Mastercard membership. Card networks are also banning the use of quasi-cash merchants from being used to hide gaming transactions.
If the US wants to stop its population from using online gaming sites, all that they have to do is dictate that the issuing banks in their country simply decline all authorization attempts which contain the 7995 category code. The US banks can also look at the merchant country codes, so that it can allow US based gaming sites like horse betting (which is legal in American but illegal in many countries) to be authorized, while still declining the overseas gaming sites.
Problem solved, since the vast majority of people using any type of Internet commerce, including online gaming, pay directly or indirectly with their credit cards.
I am sick and tired of politicians in one country expecting to regulate Internet activity of other countries, using broad extra-territorial legislation. This is impossible for online merchants and banks to enforce, especially since many countries have laws that contradict each other. Should we ban online sales of electronics globally, because they are illegal in North Korea? What about alcohol that is illegal in some Islamic countries? What about mediciations, mod chip, etc.? Even non-physical online software and services, including proxy agents, news & political websites, adult entertainment, etc. are banned in many countries.
Oh, I just can't wait until airlines decide to save money on flights by forcing passengers into suspended animation, under the guise of preventing terrorism, just so they can stack people in boxes as cargo.
Airlines don't worry much about the health effects of passengers when they cut back on fresh air and increased the percentage of stale recirculated air. So I doubt that airlines will care about the health effects of passengers that are forced to undergo suspended animation.
It would be nice if Apple was less focused on the US car driving market and considered releasing a sub-notebook (<0.9kg) for those of us that walk, fly, and/or use public transit, and need to always carry around a computer. I have desktop computers with large displays at home and work, so I don't need to lug around a monstrosity, when I need a computer during commute and when traveling, just something small that easily fits in my purse.
As a frequent business traveler, I have been buying and using small Intel based Japanese sub-notebooks for 8 years, and would love to buy a Apple notebook that can run MacOSX, especially now that I can use bootcamp to multiboot other OS's as well. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Maybe Apple should licence an OQO or similar sized device and port their OS to it, if they aren't interested in building a sub-notebook from scratch.
Tell me about it. My e-mail servers receive thousands of spam messages per day from Yahoo. It looks like the spammers have figured out a way to automatically create new Yahoo e-mail accounts and send out lots of spam messages.
If I was Yahoo I would do the following: make it much harder to get new e-mail accounts and/or limit them like Google GMail, and limit each account to a max of 40 messages per day.
If Yahoo does not get its act together and limit spam that originates from their servers, many including myself, will be forced to blacklist Yahoo in our anti-spam filters. (I already blacklist Hotmail for this reason.)
Both NetBSD and OpenBSD are great platforms and each have their benefits. Prehaps it is time for OpenBSD to join into NetBSD.
I realized that people said and did bad things in the past, but come on, let by-gones be by-gones. We are all adults and time heals old wounds.
There must be a way to convince the OpenBSD and NetBSD core developers to work together.
Maybe I am just a wishful thinker.
240x240 screen won't support most PocketPC apps.
on
Treo 700w Review
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The small 240x240 display prevents the Treo 700w from properly running nearly most PocketPC applications that require a min 240x320 resolution. When the previous Treo 650 (Palm) phone has a 320x320 display, I cannot understand why Treo would downgrade the display on their new phone.
On my Audiovox PPC-4100 PocketPC phone, I run numerous third party PocketPC applications that won't work properly on the Treo 700w. I can't live without these apps, especially when I travel.
Mapopolis(GPS maps of North America & Western Europe with realtime turn-by-turn navigation)
WorldMate Pro(instantly download worldwide weather and currency exchange)
Pocket Universe(astronomy maps of the sky from any location)
Ephemeris(worldwide moon and sun tracker)
AventGo(automatically download hundreds of pages of news and other info when you sync to read offline, if only slashdot had an AventGo channel)
Japan2Go & China2Go(talking English to Japanese and Chinese phase dictionary)
Eval(best scientific calculator for PocketPC
Pocket Slides(displays my PowerPoint presentations with full animation on my phone
PocketLingo(English dictionary & Thesaurus)
vxUtil(excellent network utility with NTP, ping, traceroute, password generator, etc.)
I am sick and tired of waiting for a single webpage to resolve and load/submit content to/from different domains. If I visit a slashdot.org webpage, I do not want my browser to load banner adds from remote advertisers or send cookies/pings to them. I have no problem with slashdot and other websites deploying their own banner ads, as long as there come from the same servers as the webpages. There is nothing wrong with websites can submiting their server logs to advertisers, as proof of traffic revenue.
Google proved that local (non-remote) text banner ads can be profitable.
A domain lockdown security feature would insure that all content (images, cookies, pings, plugins, javascript, java, etc.) on a webpage could only access the same server that webpage is hosted on. It would help with privacy concerns, reduce bandwidth, and speed-up web browsing.
elevators that can also go diagonal & horizont
on
Maglev Elevators by 2008?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Without any cables or other signifigant moving parts, a mag-lev elevator can move in 3D, in diagonal and horizontal shafts in addition to vertical shafts. In fact, without cables, a mag-lev shaft can easily pass from one building to another.
In fact with proper computer controls, several mag-lev elevators can be placed in the same shaft, and an elevator can switch from one shaft to another.
Although this won't be useful for a traditional tall skinny building, wide building complexes would benefit. Think 3D!
Looks like Slashdot will have to stop people from posting customer reviews in its comments section. Or alternatively pay $$$ or relocate to another country.
United States of America, the new Taliban of Intellectual Property. Just another case of Americans undermining their own country, lets hope other countries don't follow suite. Quite sad really.:(
Slashdot Mirror
That new Woolworth's logo looks to me like a peeled apple skin, which is a part of the apple you throw away to avoid wax, pesticides, filth, etc.
Coincidences? Maybe not.
Why doesn't Google immediately release Google Voice to Cydia/Icy? (Yes, I know that Google will release a web-only version of Google voice, but a built in version has the advantage that all of the GUI pages are permanently cached.) I would download and install it in an instant!
Apple has already shown bad faith towards Google in iTunes App Store, why should Google care if it hurts Apple's feeling but supporting App Store alternatives? Google already supports Mobile Terminal Google code project for jail broken iPhones/iTouches, so the precedent is there.
More and more companies are looking to Apple as an example on how to lock down their platforms. Expect other companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.) to start doing the same type of lockdown with their devices/OS. So, unless you plan on living in a cave the rest of your life counting your toes, boycotting flagship tech companies is not practical. The only real solution is to legalize and strengthen fair use, so that jail breaking and other DRM circumvention is completely legal and encouraged.
Once you jailbreak an iPhone and iPod Touch, it becomes an awesome portable Unix device. I have jailbroken nearly a dozen iPhones/iPodTouches for friends and family, and tell everyone to do the same.
I am still very disappointed that Google did not release their Google Voice app onto the Cydia, Icy, and other alternative app stores.
The US and other governments should also declare Apple's App Store to be an illegal monopoly for their platform and force Apple to allow other app stores to work without jailbreaking/hacking their devices.
Unfortunately there does not appear to be any open source full disk encryption options for MacOSX on the primary boot drive. TrueCrypt's MacOSX port does not provide the full-disk encryption support that it provides for its Windows & Linux ports. In fact, on MacOSX, one cannot even use TrueCrypt to encrypt one's home directory, without having to be forced to first log in as another user to mount the TrueCrypt image and remained logged in while the original user is logged into their encrypted home directory on the mounted image.
There are proprietary closed source options for MacOSX full disk encryption, but I would not trust any of them unless I can examine the source and compile it myself.
Google has decided TO BAN ALL NATIVE APPLICATIONS for its Android phones, and only allow Java.
As a crypto developer, this means that my applications, which deal with complex CPU intensive cryptography that are not fully supported by any Java libraries, will never run on Android, even though I can port them to the iPhone, Windows Mobile, PalmOS, etc.
In addition, Android devices are only allowed to have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) resolution displays, which is half the screen resolution of the iPhone HVGA (320x480). Some Microsoft Windows Mobile phone even have full VGA (480x640) or WVGA (480x800) displays. This will also limit the usefulness and functionality of applications running on Android compared those other smart phones.
At least WinVista and WinXP users have several full disk encryption options, including the opensource TrueCrypt.
But Mac users are out of luck, since no opensource full disk encryption exists for the MacOSX. Neither TrueCrypt or Apple's FileVault support full disk encryption on MacOSX. The only option is the closed source Check Point Full Disk Encryption product.
But if it is not opensource, then I personally would not trust it not to have back doors, especially since multinational corporations left-right-and-center have been falling all over themselves to help the US and other governments spy on the general population.
Seriously though, what practical use is there for an old 8bit Apple II architecture? There are very inexpensive 32bit system on chip architectures (including MIPS - Lexra) in that price range that can at least run embedded Linux (uClinux).
I fully encrypt my laptop drive, since it carries lots of secret corporate data and IP, and fully back it up at the office, so I am not too worried about theft of the hardware.
...) are already fingerprinting foreigners. It looks like the days of international business travel will soon be over.
I am however scared that at an US airport, or at the airport of some other repressive regime, I may be forced to hand over my laptop, and then detained for not providing the decryption password. Keep in mind that if I am forced to reveal the contents of my laptop, that I can be sued by shareholders (for leaking IP) and business partners (for breaking NDA), I can lose my business relationships and hence my income, and I potentially be charged for breaking EU (and other) directives on data protection.
The problem is that I work extensively with banks and I cannot allow banking data to be leaked, nor can I allow sensitive and very valuable corporate IP to be given to potential competitors of a country that I am visiting or passing through.
Unfortunately, I need to have all of the IP on the laptop, since I often work on the data-centers of various banks worldwide, behind all of the firewalls, and these data-centers do not typically allow any type of Internet access. In addition, I would not feel safe putting 100% of the corporate IP and banking data on a public Internet server in my office, just so I can remote download 200GB or so onto a blank laptop, using a slow and/or expensive hotel Internet connection, everytime I fly, just so I can work in a remote location.
It is bad enough that countries (US, UK, Japan,
However, Google's Android OS is not and will never be a replacement for the iPhone or any other powerful smartphones, especially those running Windows Mobile. Consider: http://code.google.com/android/kb/general.html
Q: Can I write code for Android using C/C++?
A: Android only supports applications written using the Java programming language at this time. Google has decided that developers cannot write powerful native binary applications for Android phone, which is important for high performance cryptographically secure applications. How is Apple any worse than Google which only allows interpreted programs, when since the launch of the iPhone, developers could always write Javascript interpreted programs, and now even some native ones as well through the iStore?
As a Unix (NetBSD, Linux, & MacOSX) person, I hate to say this, but so far Microsoft is the good guy here, since their smartphones and Windows Mobile devices have the least restrictions for third party applications and developers.
Another problem with Android is that all of the proposed new phones (none of which have been released yet) for it will only have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) displays, which is literally half of the HVGA (320x480) display of the iPhone which has been available for more than half a year. This will make Android much harder to use for web surfing, office apps, etc. than the iPhone, or even Microsoft Windows Mobile phones, some of which have WVGA (800x480) displays.
Toshiba G900
Softbank X01T
Don't get me wrong, I love the look, feel, shape, sleekness, GUI, and interface of the iPhone and iPod touch. It blows everything else away. But as a business tool, Apple has decided too crippled its devices to the point that of being useless, especially when compared the uglier and bulky Windows Mobile phones.
Here in Japan, if you are not a Japanese citizen, then you will be fingerprinted when you enter immigration at any port of entry.
Even if you try to refuse and try to leave immigration to depart Japan, the Japanese authorities will forceable fingerprint you, and then likely throw you in jail before deporting you. The Japanese authorities will also throw you in jail if you do anything with your fingerprints, such as dyes, acid, or pineapple juice, or tamper with the fingerprint readers. Unless all of your finger tips are heavily and permanently scarred, you will be fingerprinted and incarcerated until they grow back. So your choice is either to submit willingly and be fingerprinted or object and suffer incarceration (including beatings/torture by authorities) and still be fingerprinted.
The really bad thing here, is that the corrupt Japanese government awarded the contract to collect the "foreigner" biometric data to the corrupt criminal organization Accenture (renamed Arthur Andersen) which did the falsified books for Enron and Worldcom. Accenture won the bid to collect the data for only (JPY)$100,000, approximately (USD)$900. You can bet that the Accenture paid the Japanese government a lot of money under the table in order to resell the biometric data to interested parties.
I would not be surprised if US authorities, and other countries as well, will do the same thing to force their own citizens as well as foreigners, to submit to fingerprinting and other biometric collection. And that sooner or later, you will not be able to opt out. I wonder if Accenture is also maintaining the new FBI biometric database.
Welcome to the new world order.
Kudos to Edward Tufte for providing good detailed constructive criticism on the iPhone, including specific examples of improvements. I hope that Apple will pay attention to the FREE ADVICE that Tufte is giving and incorporate it into their next iPhone firmware update. I am sure that the UI advice that Apple pays for is likely not as good.
Personally as a product developer myself, I would welcome such good detailed constructive criticism for free from a UI guru such as Tufte. Remember that there are all innovation is based on prior innovation, so it is good to have analysis done on existing products in order to improve on future versions.
BTW, on a side note, I hope that someone at Slashdot deletes the offences racist postings above.
I cannot believe that this report does not include Japan's treatment legal "foreigners", including visitors, long term & permanent residents. Since late November, all of the these "foreigners" in Japan are now forced to be fingerprinted. Even worse, the corrupt Japanese government awarded the contract to collect the "foreigner" biometric data to the corrupt criminal organization Accenture (renamed Arthur Andersen) which did the falsified books for Enron and Worldcom. Accenture won the bid to collect the data for only (JPY)$100,000, approximately (USD)$900. You can bet that the Accenture paid the Japanese government a lot of money under the table in order to resell the biometric data to interested parties.
Maybe other countries should start fingerprinting Japanese visitors and residents, and then sell the biometric data to those Nigerian scammers.
This fingering of "foreigners" is even worse considering that Japan is the only first world nation not to have any anti-discrimination legislation, and legal "foreigners" in Japan are not even afforded even the mere basic of protection under the law. (Foreigners in Japan do have any Habeas Corpus and can be tortured in prison for up to 21 days. Testimony by foreigners in Japan has been ruled inadmissible in court, since there are not considered to be human by the Japanese ministry of Justice.)
Thank you! Finally an excuse to eat more chocolate! After all, nothing makes one feel better than chocolate, and feeling better boosts your immune system and prevents colds.
If they need volunteers for a chocolate study to prove its ability to prevent colds, sign me up!
Alicia.
I own a desktop Mac and would be willing to buy a MacBook today, which are reasonable priced, if only there was a sub-notebook model available which is weighs less than 2.5 pounds.
But, Apple still refuses to make (or contract out) sub-notebooks for their MacBook line. The smallest & lightest MacBook available is the 13 inch 5 pound model, which is too big and heavy for frequent flyers and daily public transit commuters. Not everyone needs a full-size desktop replacement. I still can't understand why Apple won't even contract out a MacBook sub-notebook to Sony, Panasonic, JVC/Asus, Fujitsu, etc.?
So until Apple changes its weight-lifting policy, I would be more willing to buy a copy of OSX and use a crack so that I can use it with full GUI on my ix86 sub-notebook.
NetBSD is not dying. It is getting better and better with new features and improvements being added all of the time. In addition to steady developments, Google summers have really boasted NetBSD.
I guess for some, having a lightweight, decent, and stable OS that does what it is suppose to do not enough. Admittedly their are many needed userland applications, epecially commercial applications that won't run on NetBSD. But if that was my primary concern than I would only run Windows XP. And when it comes to userland opensource, nothing beats PKGSRC. Especially when compaired to Linux equilibrants like SuSE yast.
When you ask the average person, all that they care about is the bells and wistle in the window manager and not much else. Think aqua in MacOSX or aero in WinVista.
Alicia.
All of the major card networks (VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, etc.) in every region now have a strict policy that online gaming sites require a valid gaming/casino licence from the jurisdiction they are based in, and must specify the gaming merchant category code 7995 in every authorization request. Merchant banks that do not enforce this rule with their gaming merchants risk losing their card membership. No bank wants to loss its VISA or Mastercard membership. Card networks are also banning the use of quasi-cash merchants from being used to hide gaming transactions.
If the US wants to stop its population from using online gaming sites, all that they have to do is dictate that the issuing banks in their country simply decline all authorization attempts which contain the 7995 category code. The US banks can also look at the merchant country codes, so that it can allow US based gaming sites like horse betting (which is legal in American but illegal in many countries) to be authorized, while still declining the overseas gaming sites.
Problem solved, since the vast majority of people using any type of Internet commerce, including online gaming, pay directly or indirectly with their credit cards.
I am sick and tired of politicians in one country expecting to regulate Internet activity of other countries, using broad extra-territorial legislation. This is impossible for online merchants and banks to enforce, especially since many countries have laws that contradict each other. Should we ban online sales of electronics globally, because they are illegal in North Korea? What about alcohol that is illegal in some Islamic countries? What about mediciations, mod chip, etc.? Even non-physical online software and services, including proxy agents, news & political websites, adult entertainment, etc. are banned in many countries.
Oh, I just can't wait until airlines decide to save money on flights by forcing passengers into suspended animation, under the guise of preventing terrorism, just so they can stack people in boxes as cargo.
Airlines don't worry much about the health effects of passengers when they cut back on fresh air and increased the percentage of stale recirculated air. So I doubt that airlines will care about the health effects of passengers that are forced to undergo suspended animation.
It would be nice if Apple was less focused on the US car driving market and considered releasing a sub-notebook (<0.9kg) for those of us that walk, fly, and/or use public transit, and need to always carry around a computer. I have desktop computers with large displays at home and work, so I don't need to lug around a monstrosity, when I need a computer during commute and when traveling, just something small that easily fits in my purse.
As a frequent business traveler, I have been buying and using small Intel based Japanese sub-notebooks for 8 years, and would love to buy a Apple notebook that can run MacOSX, especially now that I can use bootcamp to multiboot other OS's as well. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Maybe Apple should licence an OQO or similar sized device and port their OS to it, if they aren't interested in building a sub-notebook from scratch.
Tell me about it. My e-mail servers receive thousands of spam messages per day from Yahoo. It looks like the spammers have figured out a way to automatically create new Yahoo e-mail accounts and send out lots of spam messages.
If I was Yahoo I would do the following: make it much harder to get new e-mail accounts and/or limit them like Google GMail, and limit each account to a max of 40 messages per day.
If Yahoo does not get its act together and limit spam that originates from their servers, many including myself, will be forced to blacklist Yahoo in our anti-spam filters. (I already blacklist Hotmail for this reason.)
Alicia.
Both NetBSD and OpenBSD are great platforms and each have their benefits. Prehaps it is time for OpenBSD to join into NetBSD.
I realized that people said and did bad things in the past, but come on, let by-gones be by-gones. We are all adults and time heals old wounds.
There must be a way to convince the OpenBSD and NetBSD core developers to work together.
Maybe I am just a wishful thinker.
On my Audiovox PPC-4100 PocketPC phone, I run numerous third party PocketPC applications that won't work properly on the Treo 700w. I can't live without these apps, especially when I travel.
I am sick and tired of waiting for a single webpage to resolve and load/submit content to/from different domains. If I visit a slashdot.org webpage, I do not want my browser to load banner adds from remote advertisers or send cookies/pings to them. I have no problem with slashdot and other websites deploying their own banner ads, as long as there come from the same servers as the webpages. There is nothing wrong with websites can submiting their server logs to advertisers, as proof of traffic revenue.
Google proved that local (non-remote) text banner ads can be profitable.
A domain lockdown security feature would insure that all content (images, cookies, pings, plugins, javascript, java, etc.) on a webpage could only access the same server that webpage is hosted on. It would help with privacy concerns, reduce bandwidth, and speed-up web browsing.
Without any cables or other signifigant moving parts, a mag-lev elevator can move in 3D, in diagonal and horizontal shafts in addition to vertical shafts. In fact, without cables, a mag-lev shaft can easily pass from one building to another.
In fact with proper computer controls, several mag-lev elevators can be placed in the same shaft, and an elevator can switch from one shaft to another.
Although this won't be useful for a traditional tall skinny building, wide building complexes would benefit. Think 3D!
Looks like Slashdot will have to stop people from posting customer reviews in its comments section. Or alternatively pay $$$ or relocate to another country.
:(
United States of America, the new Taliban of Intellectual Property. Just another case of Americans undermining their own country, lets hope other countries don't follow suite. Quite sad really.