Does the Belkin Router send me Spam? NO. Recently a group of privacy advocates have targeted Belkin Routers, claiming that Belkin Routers equipped with Parental Control send spam, unwanted advertisements and spyware to computers. 1. Belkin Parental Control Content Filtering is promoted on our 802.11g Wireless Router packages as an added value service included with purchase. Parental Control filtering enables our customers to block access from their network to specific websites; it is a content filter, nothing more. 2. During the installation process, the router produces a web page asking the owner of the router if they want to sign up for a free six-month trial of Belkin Parental Control, similar to common online product registration requests. 3. The Parental Control registration page is not spam, adware or spyware. It is part of the setup process of the router. It does not "hi-jack" the browser. 4. Belkin routers do not install spyware or adware, nor does Belkin have the ability to advertise to our customers using our routers as a conduit. 5. If a customer clicks "No Thanks" on the first prompt, the registration page for Parental Control signup will no longer appear. Additional Information: - The "No Thanks" button is not a trick button that will install spyware, etc. on the computer. If a customer is uneasy clicking "No Thanks" in the web page, to stop the reminder, you can navigate to the Internal web page of the Router, click on Parental Control and select "Don't Remind me Every 8 hours". This will stop the web page from ever being displayed again. - If the browser window is closed without clicking "No Thanks", it will be displayed again after 8 hours has elapsed. Please note that this is not a browser pop-up, this means that the Parental Control web page will only be displayed if the user opens the browser. Again, Clicking "No Thanks" will stop the web page from being displayed. We sincerely hope that this information provides an explanation that meets your needs, if for any reason you would like to contact Belkin directly, please email your concerns to Kannynmc@belkin.com Regards, Kannyn MacRae Business Unit Manager, Networking Belkin Corporation
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/cornish.htm (not my site, just the first mirror I could find)
I'm sure some of you have seen this, but most of you haven't. It's a device which uses aluminum as the 'storage medium' for energy. It was patented back in 1988 in Cornish, England. The original website (layo.com) no longer exists, but you can find many mirrors to the pages.
At first glance, you'll think the process is straight hydrolysis, but it's not. Pure aluminum wire (abundant in supply as welding wire today) is fed against a spinning aluminum drum. An 18Kv differential is maintained across the interface between the wire and the drum. The entire apparatus is immersed in plain old H2O.
From my admittedly lacking understanding chemically, the aluminum and the O2 bind, liberating H2 as a gas. Here's the formula they give at the websites:
2al+3h2o ---- A12 + 3H2
I know the numbers don't add up, and I know the oxygen seems to disappear, but I'm sure it's a typo. Certainly there's some slashdot expert out there can correct it.
The apparatus was supposedly test by none other than BMW back in 1981 with positive results:
"The unit as present assembled in a 2000cc car produced sufficient gas to power the engine continuously.
The aluminum consumption averaged out at 180 cm per minute over a 70 minute test run."
This device may solve the energy storage problem with excellent safety aspects, since only a small amount of H2 gas is maintained in the device at any time. The world is very experienced at taking refining aluminum, so it could easily be recycled back into the process at fueling time. Basically, you would put a wire canister and some water in your car to 'fuel up'.
I've tried for a while to find a way to develop this as a product, but I simply don't have the time. Therefore I urge the slashdot community to develop this, OPEN SOURCE even.:)
Let me give you a little history lesson on EQ. Verant brought the game out and said something akin to "up to 1000" or "over 1000" players per world. Then during release it went to averaging 1200, then Verant upped the published numbers to 1500. Then as the servers started averaging 1500+, they revised the figures once again to "1500-1800". Now the servers are all averaging 1800-1900, regularly 2000+, and everyone is complaining. They won't even respond to the posts now about overcrowding. They put up ONE new server in approximately six weeks, yet they gain 80-100 new customers a DAY. They are hoping the EXPANSION will help cure the overcrowding problem, by expanding the world size by approximately 1/3. Of course, they'll then update the figure to 2000-2400, since they're expanding the world, and the servers will quickly average 2600-2800. They don't want to invest additional money for servers, they don't want to invest additional money for bandwidth. They believe that EQ has run it's lifecycle peak, and are therefore waiting for people to start going away to other online games. From my own personal perspective, I believe they make more money off of getting a new customer, pissing them off, then that customer quitting and a new customer signing up (that's 2x $40 for the game) than they do from that customer staying and playing for a year. But in this instance, Verant has lost all respect from me and from a LARGE portion of the EQ gaming community. Head over to their message boards sometime and read how the "powers that be" treat their customers. Here's a good example. The stats (Agility, Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, etc etc) that exist in the game are listed in the manual as affecting certain attributes and characteristics of gameplay. You would think that increasing your Dexterity would increase your to-hit percentage, right? And increasing your Agility would increase your dont-get-hit percentage? And you would figure that anything specifically listed in the manual would be "gospel" right? Turns out that the manual listed Dexterity as a good attribute for casters, for the reason being that it would reduce Interruptions (you get hit and lose your concentration while casting a spell - if you have higher dex, you would ignore the affect and continue casting). One day, the Verant PR guy Gordon Wrynn/Abashi slipped up and responded with Dex doesn't affect casters. Oh boy, big mistake. He kept the players in the dark up until then, but now he responded and let at least one cat out of the bag. Torrents of messages followed, and the worse it got, the more tightlipped Verant got about the situation. They claimed they didn't have as much "creative control" over the published Player's Guide as they had wished. But the downloaded manual on the hard drive contains the same info? So then came "well, why can't you patch the manual to reflect the real situation?" Then they followed up with this gem: ----------- >>>If it's not accurate, patch it. If you believe it's accurate, say so. Stop dancing around behind the "we don't want to spoil the game" answer. The only patch I'd do to the stats information in the everquest_manual.txt would be to remove that section. However, there's quite a few other things in the manual that could use an update. That update is being written now, so it wouldn't make much sense to do an incomplete update of the manual. -Gordon ----------------- So instead of actually telling the players how the stats affect their character (AND REMEMBER, THOSE STATS ARE DECIDED AT CHARACTER CREATION, AND ARE **NOT** MODIFIABLE), they thought the most prudent action would be to take all references of stats out of the manual. This is only one example of the way Verant treats their "customers". You have been forewarned.
Slashdot Mirror
What about those spider-web of antennae known as house wiring?
You can't realistically shield everything in the current state of the power distribution network...
And the rest of the world, since it's hard to talk to someone on UWB who still has old equipment...
From the article, it appears the Japanese already have decided to kill this system.
e ws /jn0208.htm
http://www.jarl.or.jp/English/4_Library/A-4-1_N
Maybe our lawmakers could have their aides read up on why?
Yeah, it works. The question is, at what cost?
Do you really know what the amateur radio community does for the public, rtp?
Being near a hot unshielded antenna lead of sufficient power output is bad news...
Does the Belkin Router send me Spam? NO.
Recently a group of privacy advocates have targeted Belkin Routers, claiming that Belkin
Routers equipped with Parental Control send spam, unwanted advertisements and
spyware to computers.
1. Belkin Parental Control Content Filtering is promoted on our 802.11g
Wireless Router packages as an added value service included with purchase.
Parental Control filtering enables our customers to block access from their
network to specific websites; it is a content filter, nothing more.
2. During the installation process, the router produces a web page asking the
owner of the router if they want to sign up for a free six-month trial of Belkin
Parental Control, similar to common online product registration requests.
3. The Parental Control registration page is not spam, adware or spyware. It is
part of the setup process of the router. It does not "hi-jack" the browser.
4. Belkin routers do not install spyware or adware, nor does Belkin have the
ability to advertise to our customers using our routers as a conduit.
5. If a customer clicks "No Thanks" on the first prompt, the registration page
for Parental Control signup will no longer appear.
Additional Information:
- The "No Thanks" button is not a trick button that will install spyware, etc. on the
computer. If a customer is uneasy clicking "No Thanks" in the web page, to stop
the reminder, you can navigate to the Internal web page of the Router, click on
Parental Control and select "Don't Remind me Every 8 hours". This will stop the
web page from ever being displayed again.
- If the browser window is closed without clicking "No Thanks", it will be
displayed again after 8 hours has elapsed. Please note that this is not a browser
pop-up, this means that the Parental Control web page will only be displayed if
the user opens the browser. Again, Clicking "No Thanks" will stop the web page
from being displayed.
We sincerely hope that this information provides an explanation that meets your needs, if
for any reason you would like to contact Belkin directly, please email your concerns to
Kannynmc@belkin.com
Regards,
Kannyn MacRae
Business Unit Manager, Networking
Belkin Corporation
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/cornish.htm
:)
(not my site, just the first mirror I could find)
I'm sure some of you have seen this, but most of you haven't. It's a device which uses aluminum as the 'storage medium' for energy. It was patented back in 1988 in Cornish, England. The original website (layo.com) no longer exists, but you can find many mirrors to the pages.
At first glance, you'll think the process is straight hydrolysis, but it's not. Pure aluminum wire (abundant in supply as welding wire today) is fed against a spinning aluminum drum. An 18Kv differential is maintained across the interface between the wire and the drum. The entire apparatus is immersed in plain old H2O.
From my admittedly lacking understanding chemically, the aluminum and the O2 bind, liberating H2 as a gas. Here's the formula they give at the websites:
2al+3h2o ---- A12 + 3H2
I know the numbers don't add up, and I know the oxygen seems to disappear, but I'm sure it's a typo. Certainly there's some slashdot expert out there can correct it.
The apparatus was supposedly test by none other than BMW back in 1981 with positive results:
"The unit as present assembled in a 2000cc car produced sufficient gas to power the engine continuously.
The aluminum consumption averaged out at 180 cm per minute over a 70 minute test run."
This device may solve the energy storage problem with excellent safety aspects, since only a small amount of H2 gas is maintained in the device at any time. The world is very experienced at taking refining aluminum, so it could easily be recycled back into the process at fueling time. Basically, you would put a wire canister and some water in your car to 'fuel up'.
I've tried for a while to find a way to develop this as a product, but I simply don't have the time. Therefore I urge the slashdot community to develop this, OPEN SOURCE even.
Zondar
Only one I've seen worth the code it's written in:
http://www.docsware.com/docsboot/index.html
Written in assembly, from what I can tell. None of the commercial bloat-code that seems to be popular these days.
I've used this one for a few years. If you find an OS this thing can't boot, write the author and he'll add it.
Zondar
Maybe that whole "fair use" thing caught his eye?
http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum4/HT ML/024094.html
Let me give you a little history lesson on EQ. Verant brought the game out and said something akin to "up to 1000" or "over 1000" players per world. Then during release it went to averaging 1200, then Verant upped the published numbers to 1500. Then as the servers started averaging 1500+, they revised the figures once again to "1500-1800". Now the servers are all averaging 1800-1900, regularly 2000+, and everyone is complaining. They won't even respond to the posts now about overcrowding. They put up ONE new server in approximately six weeks, yet they gain 80-100 new customers a DAY. They are hoping the EXPANSION will help cure the overcrowding problem, by expanding the world size by approximately 1/3. Of course, they'll then update the figure to 2000-2400, since they're expanding the world, and the servers will quickly average 2600-2800. They don't want to invest additional money for servers, they don't want to invest additional money for bandwidth. They believe that EQ has run it's lifecycle peak, and are therefore waiting for people to start going away to other online games. From my own personal perspective, I believe they make more money off of getting a new customer, pissing them off, then that customer quitting and a new customer signing up (that's 2x $40 for the game) than they do from that customer staying and playing for a year. But in this instance, Verant has lost all respect from me and from a LARGE portion of the EQ gaming community. Head over to their message boards sometime and read how the "powers that be" treat their customers. Here's a good example. The stats (Agility, Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, etc etc) that exist in the game are listed in the manual as affecting certain attributes and characteristics of gameplay. You would think that increasing your Dexterity would increase your to-hit percentage, right? And increasing your Agility would increase your dont-get-hit percentage? And you would figure that anything specifically listed in the manual would be "gospel" right? Turns out that the manual listed Dexterity as a good attribute for casters, for the reason being that it would reduce Interruptions (you get hit and lose your concentration while casting a spell - if you have higher dex, you would ignore the affect and continue casting). One day, the Verant PR guy Gordon Wrynn/Abashi slipped up and responded with Dex doesn't affect casters. Oh boy, big mistake. He kept the players in the dark up until then, but now he responded and let at least one cat out of the bag. Torrents of messages followed, and the worse it got, the more tightlipped Verant got about the situation. They claimed they didn't have as much "creative control" over the published Player's Guide as they had wished. But the downloaded manual on the hard drive contains the same info? So then came "well, why can't you patch the manual to reflect the real situation?" Then they followed up with this gem: ----------- >>>If it's not accurate, patch it. If you believe it's accurate, say so. Stop dancing around behind the "we don't want to spoil the game" answer. The only patch I'd do to the stats information in the everquest_manual.txt would be to remove that section. However, there's quite a few other things in the manual that could use an update. That update is being written now, so it wouldn't make much sense to do an incomplete update of the manual. -Gordon ----------------- So instead of actually telling the players how the stats affect their character (AND REMEMBER, THOSE STATS ARE DECIDED AT CHARACTER CREATION, AND ARE **NOT** MODIFIABLE), they thought the most prudent action would be to take all references of stats out of the manual. This is only one example of the way Verant treats their "customers". You have been forewarned.