Each country has its own education policy... they'd never accept the OLPC if it imposed its own educational curricula. There's no such thing as a "neutral" educational material...
I know what you're thinking, but no, not even for math!... during the years of military government here in Argentina it was forbidden to teach through Sets theory. It became the norm later, when democracy returned.... Even without that craziness, there are a lot of ways to approach math.
ActiveX is an interation of the COM technology, which provides components at the system level. In that respect it's similar to Java Beans (AFAIK), OpenOffice's internal component architecture (forgot it's name), Firefox's internal component architecture (XPCOM), and others.... Granted, it's almost a MS-only technology (because of lack of popular ports of the architecture for other OSs), but it's a good solid serious technology that got a bad name because of a general lack of understanding of what ActiveX means in the context of the browser.
Also, you don't implement "calculations" in ActiveX... it's just an architectural wrapper on standard objects or procedures... so any calculation-intentsive app should be easy to port to an alternate component or object architecture.
There's a very cool british TV program called "The Real Hustle" in which they perform popular cons with a hidden camera and then explain them.
In one episode they show how a waiter can hide a card reader stuck to the side of their leg or under an apron and swipe it after purposely dropping it to the floor and then either picking it up or cleaning it. In this cases the waiters were using the portable reader that goes to your table, and they still were able to steal data.
* Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager.
So instead of MS pushing its own browser you'd have MS pushing all kinds of software from their own private repository...... it doesn't sound any better. There's no way it would ever be fair and "democratic".
Firefox is not just a browser either... it's based on the Mozilla Platform, which is a whole framework used to support other applications (the Songbird media player, Komodo IDE, and others). Now, IE is based on COM which is a component framework which exists at the OS level... so whatever component IE is based on can be shared all over. The Mozilla platform, on the other hand and AFAIK, is based on XPCOM which is very similar, but is not integrated with the OS, so independent instances of the framework (Songbird and Firefox, for example) don't share components or anything.
I did quite a bit of development using the IE browser component and other related COM objects (the MS XML API, ActiveScript, etc.) and found it quite helpful. They're very reusable and convenient.
I don't know about you... but I wouldn't like eating in a restroom either. Restrooms might be clean (not all of them are) but they still usually smell like shit (or air freshner, which normally is not all that better).
The main thing is that it's not nice sending people to breastfeed to a small space all by themselves. If you're sitting at the table with the breastfeeding person you probably can work things out with them... if you're in another table it's pretty easy to look the other way.
The phpbb forum I administer fell victim to spammers more than a year ago so I tried a bunch of MODs that implemented a couple of changes to foil attempts of automatically registering. Spam slowed down a bit, but still was strong enough to be a problem... it seems that whatever script spammers use to post in phpBB already implements most standard MODs.
PhpBBs own Captcha is no good either...... So what I did was implement my own validation, which requires to enter a fixed word ("Dragon") in a text box. It's not a captcha... it simply states "Enter the word 'dragon':" in plain text. That did the trick and spammers completely dissapeared from the forum.... So as long as you're not running a high profile site, a custom mod should be enough.
Like the cost of licenses for Windows in 11 submarines will be anything close to 22m...... there are other costs in IT beyond licenses, and open source software doesn't always mean cheaper all across the board.
I really don't know much about IPv6, but as I heard it should mean the end to NAT schemes... so, I'm worried by the possibility that I'll need an IP address asigned by my ISP for every device. Is that so? Because I then can easily see the "10 IPv6 addresses", "20 IPv6 addresses", and "100 IPv6 addresses" plans as the ultimate money making scheme.
I make a living as a programmer... and do acting, singing, and cooking as well but not professionaly.
I don't want to live as an actor, struggling to pay the rent by doing bit pieces and commercials, nor the equivalent work as a musician, nor busting my ass in 14 hour days in a commercial kitchen... yet I somewhat enjoy a good programmer's grunt work. But certainly, I'd love to be able to have my same lifestyle by acting, singing or cooking and just program as a hobby.
I'm thankful that my ability to program allows me to partake in other activities without the pressure of making money out of them.
In Argentina we've had universal ID cards for as long as I know. They have a number, address, fingerprint and a photograph.
The main problem with them here, I think, is that asking for you ID number is taking for granted for all manner of things. You need to give your ID number for:
- Voting - Any and all official paperwork - Banking transactions - All credit card purchases - All contests and sweepstakes - Registering when going into a building - Subscribing to magazines, fidelity clubs, etc.... and basically, your personal ID is the de-facto standard database ID for any data related to a person.... that means that were all this data connected in a single database, it'd give a pretty good picture of what you're up to in life. Like Facebook for law enforcement and criminals. The only thing that keeps us from living in a Big Brother state is Argentina's lack of well stored digital records for most things. Most of the things I mentioned are kept in paper, thrown into a big room somewhere, and never referenced.
Flash is scripted through ActionScript, which is (at least was, before ActionScript 3.0) basically JavaScript (or a slight variation of it). The Mozilla Platform (used for Firefox, Thunderbird, Songbird, Komodo IDE, etc.) is integrated and can be extended with Javascript. VXML (Voice XML) which is a language for specification of interactive telephony applications uses Javascript in a similar way to webpages. AFAIK HD-DVD uses javascript as well.
If you have Windows chances are you have the Windows Scripting Shell (WSH) installed, which includes two programs (WScript.exe and cscript.exe) which can be used to execute Javascript and VBScript files in the shell for various tasks).
I myself have programmed many systems which host Microsoft's JS parser (ActiveScript) allowing me to control various low-level objects through js scripts, in the same way that scripts in web pages allow you to control objects in the DOM, ActiveX objects, etc. Just hours ago I made a js script which accesses a database and sends an e-mail with some tabulated data. Once, in a robotics class at my university, we had to write a program that would control a robot (Khepera) from the computer... I did a full COM wrapper to the robot's API, which allowed me to program the behavior through Javascript... at first I got a few laughs and snickers from my choice of language, but I was the only one that could test changes without recompiling my program.
If the operator can record the DTMF tones you enter through the phone, then he can play it back to the machine or use recognition software or hardware to figure out the digits.
I work programming interactive telephone applications (IVR) and have been asked many times to hash PIN numbers, which is the biggest joke ever... since 4 or 6 digits PINs are trivial to figure out by hashing all possible numbers.
However, in this case, the password is actually a word... it's meant to be spoken over the phone, so it's no surprise it's stored as plain text.
I normally develop on a WAMP stack (WAMP = Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP) specially built for developers that can be set up very quickly through an installer. After the site is done I can move it almost seamlessly to a LAMP stack. I also have a VMWare with Ubuntu set up for any cases in which I need an actual LAMP... but I hardly ever need it... which is good, since it hogs much more resources (quite a chunk of RAM) and is slower to boot up.
So... Drizzle not being supported under windows sucks.
It's not just Microsoft... those bastards at IBM haven't patched my OS/2 Warp in a long time, and I'm afraid of catching some sort of malware. I fear for my Lantastic server and my FidoNet points (my GoldEd is constantly showing pop-up ANSI ads).
The easiest way to get a screen capture in Windows is to get a handle to the "desktop window", access its' DC (device context) and save it as a BMP (or whatever format you can write to)... but I assume that the overlay layer wouldn't be captured because the DC exists at windows-ui-graphics level (i.e. it's slow).... Capturing a frame off of a video playing in the overlay layer it's probably no big mistery... I assume you could intercept it through the DirectShow API... or whichever graphics layer gives access to the overlay layer.
I don't know if it's possible or easy to compose the windows (i.e. DC) layer with the overlay layer to provide a complete screen capture... but it's certainly extra programming and extra hassle. No surprise they didn't do it.
It'd be trivial to implement an alarm that sets off if the computer doesn't send a periodical signal. I'm not saying that that solves all possible problems... but I don't think that's neither the biggest nor an actual problem of using windows in medical monitors.
AKAIK the DVD plays in an "overlay" layer... it's not rendered to the player's window like normal windows graphics but it's rather placed on top of it (in a similar fashion to directX, I assume). That would explain why screen captures (which must work at windows UI graphic level) don't capture DVD or divX frames.
Well... that's not how politics work in Argentina.
First of all, voting is mandatory... second, we have a lot of people who have no education, live in poverty and depend on charismatic leaders who belong to some populist party... third, it's a well know fact that in political events, pickets and rallies most of the participants are "paid" to participate and support the party. The payment varies... but usually is some sort of favor. At the present time, one of the most usual ways to make someone support your party is through the control of welfare plans... so, the payment actually comes from taxpayers... small towns can be easily controlled through the assignment of these plans. Small elections can be easily fixed in this way... I don't know how much impact this kind of thing has in national elections.
Another very very simple and economic way in which the vote is coerced is that in some poor neighborhoods a party will have a truck pick up the people to take them voting... once they go in to the voting room the vote is secret, but the mix of good will, ignorance and fear is enough to skew the results.
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Each country has its own education policy... they'd never accept the OLPC if it imposed its own educational curricula. There's no such thing as a "neutral" educational material...
I know what you're thinking, but no, not even for math! ... during the years of military government here in Argentina it was forbidden to teach through Sets theory. It became the norm later, when democracy returned. ... Even without that craziness, there are a lot of ways to approach math.
ActiveX is an interation of the COM technology, which provides components at the system level. In that respect it's similar to Java Beans (AFAIK), OpenOffice's internal component architecture (forgot it's name), Firefox's internal component architecture (XPCOM), and others. ... Granted, it's almost a MS-only technology (because of lack of popular ports of the architecture for other OSs), but it's a good solid serious technology that got a bad name because of a general lack of understanding of what ActiveX means in the context of the browser.
Also, you don't implement "calculations" in ActiveX... it's just an architectural wrapper on standard objects or procedures... so any calculation-intentsive app should be easy to port to an alternate component or object architecture.
There's a very cool british TV program called "The Real Hustle" in which they perform popular cons with a hidden camera and then explain them.
In one episode they show how a waiter can hide a card reader stuck to the side of their leg or under an apron and swipe it after purposely dropping it to the floor and then either picking it up or cleaning it. In this cases the waiters were using the portable reader that goes to your table, and they still were able to steal data.
So instead of MS pushing its own browser you'd have MS pushing all kinds of software from their own private repository... ... it doesn't sound any better. There's no way it would ever be fair and "democratic".
Firefox is not just a browser either... it's based on the Mozilla Platform, which is a whole framework used to support other applications (the Songbird media player, Komodo IDE, and others). Now, IE is based on COM which is a component framework which exists at the OS level... so whatever component IE is based on can be shared all over. The Mozilla platform, on the other hand and AFAIK, is based on XPCOM which is very similar, but is not integrated with the OS, so independent instances of the framework (Songbird and Firefox, for example) don't share components or anything.
I did quite a bit of development using the IE browser component and other related COM objects (the MS XML API, ActiveScript, etc.) and found it quite helpful. They're very reusable and convenient.
I don't know about you... but I wouldn't like eating in a restroom either. Restrooms might be clean (not all of them are) but they still usually smell like shit (or air freshner, which normally is not all that better).
The main thing is that it's not nice sending people to breastfeed to a small space all by themselves. If you're sitting at the table with the breastfeeding person you probably can work things out with them... if you're in another table it's pretty easy to look the other way.
The phpbb forum I administer fell victim to spammers more than a year ago so I tried a bunch of MODs that implemented a couple of changes to foil attempts of automatically registering. Spam slowed down a bit, but still was strong enough to be a problem... it seems that whatever script spammers use to post in phpBB already implements most standard MODs.
PhpBBs own Captcha is no good either... ... So what I did was implement my own validation, which requires to enter a fixed word ("Dragon") in a text box. It's not a captcha... it simply states "Enter the word 'dragon':" in plain text. That did the trick and spammers completely dissapeared from the forum. ... So as long as you're not running a high profile site, a custom mod should be enough.
> man winword
Like the cost of licenses for Windows in 11 submarines will be anything close to 22m... ... there are other costs in IT beyond licenses, and open source software doesn't always mean cheaper all across the board.
The world needs a war cookie jar... you can go off to war as long as you put a dollar in the jar for every dollar spent in warfare.
I really don't know much about IPv6, but as I heard it should mean the end to NAT schemes... so, I'm worried by the possibility that I'll need an IP address asigned by my ISP for every device. Is that so? Because I then can easily see the "10 IPv6 addresses", "20 IPv6 addresses", and "100 IPv6 addresses" plans as the ultimate money making scheme.
I'm off to patent a Playboy subscription that can be locked by parents to only contain interviews and other informative articles.
So, should they distribute under a more restricted license in order to show everyone how open they are?
I make a living as a programmer... and do acting, singing, and cooking as well but not professionaly.
I don't want to live as an actor, struggling to pay the rent by doing bit pieces and commercials, nor the equivalent work as a musician, nor busting my ass in 14 hour days in a commercial kitchen... yet I somewhat enjoy a good programmer's grunt work. But certainly, I'd love to be able to have my same lifestyle by acting, singing or cooking and just program as a hobby.
I'm thankful that my ability to program allows me to partake in other activities without the pressure of making money out of them.
In Argentina we've had universal ID cards for as long as I know. They have a number, address, fingerprint and a photograph.
The main problem with them here, I think, is that asking for you ID number is taking for granted for all manner of things. You need to give your ID number for:
- Voting ... and basically, your personal ID is the de-facto standard database ID for any data related to a person. ... that means that were all this data connected in a single database, it'd give a pretty good picture of what you're up to in life. Like Facebook for law enforcement and criminals. The only thing that keeps us from living in a Big Brother state is Argentina's lack of well stored digital records for most things. Most of the things I mentioned are kept in paper, thrown into a big room somewhere, and never referenced.
- Any and all official paperwork
- Banking transactions
- All credit card purchases
- All contests and sweepstakes
- Registering when going into a building
- Subscribing to magazines, fidelity clubs, etc.
Flash is scripted through ActionScript, which is (at least was, before ActionScript 3.0) basically JavaScript (or a slight variation of it). The Mozilla Platform (used for Firefox, Thunderbird, Songbird, Komodo IDE, etc.) is integrated and can be extended with Javascript. VXML (Voice XML) which is a language for specification of interactive telephony applications uses Javascript in a similar way to webpages. AFAIK HD-DVD uses javascript as well.
If you have Windows chances are you have the Windows Scripting Shell (WSH) installed, which includes two programs (WScript.exe and cscript.exe) which can be used to execute Javascript and VBScript files in the shell for various tasks).
I myself have programmed many systems which host Microsoft's JS parser (ActiveScript) allowing me to control various low-level objects through js scripts, in the same way that scripts in web pages allow you to control objects in the DOM, ActiveX objects, etc. Just hours ago I made a js script which accesses a database and sends an e-mail with some tabulated data. Once, in a robotics class at my university, we had to write a program that would control a robot (Khepera) from the computer... I did a full COM wrapper to the robot's API, which allowed me to program the behavior through Javascript... at first I got a few laughs and snickers from my choice of language, but I was the only one that could test changes without recompiling my program.
If the operator can record the DTMF tones you enter through the phone, then he can play it back to the machine or use recognition software or hardware to figure out the digits.
I work programming interactive telephone applications (IVR) and have been asked many times to hash PIN numbers, which is the biggest joke ever... since 4 or 6 digits PINs are trivial to figure out by hashing all possible numbers.
However, in this case, the password is actually a word... it's meant to be spoken over the phone, so it's no surprise it's stored as plain text.
Parent's linked PDF is:
Bypassing Browser Memory Protections
Setting back browser security by 10 years
Alexander Sotirov
Mark Dowd
it apparently is the discussed paper. Mod parent up please, it's +1 very interesting.
I normally develop on a WAMP stack (WAMP = Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP) specially built for developers that can be set up very quickly through an installer. After the site is done I can move it almost seamlessly to a LAMP stack. I also have a VMWare with Ubuntu set up for any cases in which I need an actual LAMP... but I hardly ever need it... which is good, since it hogs much more resources (quite a chunk of RAM) and is slower to boot up. So... Drizzle not being supported under windows sucks.
It's not just Microsoft... those bastards at IBM haven't patched my OS/2 Warp in a long time, and I'm afraid of catching some sort of malware. I fear for my Lantastic server and my FidoNet points (my GoldEd is constantly showing pop-up ANSI ads).
The easiest way to get a screen capture in Windows is to get a handle to the "desktop window", access its' DC (device context) and save it as a BMP (or whatever format you can write to)... but I assume that the overlay layer wouldn't be captured because the DC exists at windows-ui-graphics level (i.e. it's slow). ... Capturing a frame off of a video playing in the overlay layer it's probably no big mistery... I assume you could intercept it through the DirectShow API... or whichever graphics layer gives access to the overlay layer.
I don't know if it's possible or easy to compose the windows (i.e. DC) layer with the overlay layer to provide a complete screen capture... but it's certainly extra programming and extra hassle. No surprise they didn't do it.
It'd be trivial to implement an alarm that sets off if the computer doesn't send a periodical signal. I'm not saying that that solves all possible problems... but I don't think that's neither the biggest nor an actual problem of using windows in medical monitors.
AKAIK the DVD plays in an "overlay" layer... it's not rendered to the player's window like normal windows graphics but it's rather placed on top of it (in a similar fashion to directX, I assume). That would explain why screen captures (which must work at windows UI graphic level) don't capture DVD or divX frames.
Well... that's not how politics work in Argentina.
First of all, voting is mandatory... second, we have a lot of people who have no education, live in poverty and depend on charismatic leaders who belong to some populist party... third, it's a well know fact that in political events, pickets and rallies most of the participants are "paid" to participate and support the party. The payment varies... but usually is some sort of favor. At the present time, one of the most usual ways to make someone support your party is through the control of welfare plans... so, the payment actually comes from taxpayers... small towns can be easily controlled through the assignment of these plans. Small elections can be easily fixed in this way... I don't know how much impact this kind of thing has in national elections.
Another very very simple and economic way in which the vote is coerced is that in some poor neighborhoods a party will have a truck pick up the people to take them voting... once they go in to the voting room the vote is secret, but the mix of good will, ignorance and fear is enough to skew the results.
I'm not telling you how it "could" be done... I'm telling you how it's actually been done.
BTW, coca leaves are not consumed in most of Argentina... just the north. Wikipedia is your friend.