You know, these are tense times... people are fraught with the notions of
impending cataclysm at the hands of bio/chemical terror... or worse... What can be done about this?
Exploitation!
"The Hotel Sanctuary"
Yes that's right, throw in with seed money, renovate the hell out of the
place, add rooms, a five star chief... a nice club... "spa"...
and then book the hell out of it and horrifically inflated prices! No...
seriously out of line prices... I mean Macaulay Caulkin (the home alone kid)
levels of exploitation here...
Tag line: "Your Own little Camp David!"
A shining beacon of capitalism during our nation's darkest hours. This
is why we enjoy twenty-four hour grocery stores and a nation of connected roads
damnit, this my friends, is the American way.
Why do you think thats insane? The DOJ case is about some illegal business practices microsoft has been using in the past. The DOJ wants to punish microsoft for the damage this has caused (rightfully since it's illegal) and make sure it doesn't happen again.
Valid points, yet I guess my ethical (if certainly not legal) reasoning would be: Because in this instance, Microsoft is being rewarded.
If it has been, or is in the process of being, established that Microsoft used unfair and illegal means to advance itself into a position that they have become a (the?) predominate supplier of software to the U.S. government, then perhaps that relationship should be re-evaluated.
The fact that it goes on un-inspected is, yes, a bit insane to me.
But then who cares what I think? Just another schmuck voter am I.
Dude, i loved BeOS as well, I hate Microsoft, and i am writing this on a G4 running OS 10.1...
Apple had more to do with killing BeOS then M$ did. Remember what happened when apple rolled out the G3? yeah that's right, it refused implicately to share or allow data that was instrumental in porting BeOS on up to the new proccessors... BeOS had a lot of momentem at the time and i believe it was build 2.4 or 2.5 I was running on my 8600 at the time.
When apple shanked them on the G4 it was the begining of the end, they switched gears to port it to x86, the BeOS box took a dump... momentum shifted and everything came undone....
It took as long as last saturday for me to actually use my Mac as my main box again.
and i don't care that it is fingers he are talking about, 10 individual fingers on a phone as tiny as any nokia is not only embarassing, but impractical.
a rudimentary stylus pane and something like graphitti would be infinately more practical.
i for one would stear clear of any appliance that wanted me to learn some obscure dvorkian-esque ten fingered gymnastics to enter in "John Walsh - Home".
I sympathize with people that want to see a better interface implimented so they can text message, but this is hokie, regaurdless of the of the two patents and the $50,000 VC and the writeup in MSNBC...
in the words of Steve Martin, "That was shit one, this is shit two..."
I was so tempted to hit that "Add to cart" button.
...i was as well, until i realized that is a little more then i am paying monthly for my BMW 540i. though the beemer was not offered in "stealth Black"...
<P> forgive me for being a mister poopie pants here, because I realize how cool this thing is. Coming from a strong publishing background, there have been times I would have given my arm for one of these.</P>
<P> But unless you are doing CAD/CAM or publishing , imagine how tiny your icons are going to look at 3840x2400... that is a huge expanse of desktop. Not to mention our beloved porn, hell 800x600 pictures of Anna K bending over will be postage stamp sized... can't even appreciate image....</P>
<P> Since I haven't seen specs for the included PCI graphics card, I am going to go ahead and assume Nvidia had nothing to do with it, so don't get your Quake III ya-yas in a lather....</P>
<P> So basically, you spend the 16k+ and then you? I guess you gloat like a son of a bitch while running six applications at the same time, all in their own little piece of screen real estate....</P>
<P> Oh yeah, photography, the Nikon thing... yeah, that too..</P>
yeah, i messed up... i was going to make up some bullshit about shipping and handling and tax and a graphics card that could drive it. but nah, i just had clumsy fingers.
The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle
Could a missile fired from sub orbit on an (relatively) inexpensive platform such as this one, actually knock out a satellite?
Yes I realize that the missile would have to be expensive enough with it's payload and whatever guidance it would need to find it's target.
But if these things can be made as cheaply as they say, I wonder if small governments (okay i am sicking of typing the "T" word) could use this kind of technology to cause a lot of mayhem.
Hey remember all those completely and hopelessly out of work Russian PhD CS
grads sitting around and starving and writing strong crypto software for the
Russian Mafia? You might even have heard that the Russian Mafia is always looking
to explore new business ideas and strategy.
Well hell wouldn't this be a great business opportunity for both of them?Call
it RMBM (Russian Mafia Business Machines), and then build cheap super-clusters
and turnkey code for "specialized" clients. The possibilities are
endless.
This is where you get them now: Support. You sell them the machines at a 25%
markup and then charge a ridiculous annual service agreement.
From the presentation:
"Using "borrowed" Post-CCCP Mi-8TV assault/commando choppers
RMBM support staff can be deployed to your corner of the desert in a matter
of hours! Lets see IBM match that! Not even Larry Ellison and his personal Mig
can touch that! (canned laugh track)"
Should I worry that practically anyone can now build a supercomputer?
Yes, you should probably worry that practically anyone can build a supercomputer. But you could mitigate all that fear with the fact that not practically anyone can whip up software that takes full advantage of it.
Thank god there isn't any off the shelf "missile trajectory" software in the CDW catalog. you would hope that any society that can whip together motivated coders to write such code already has access to some pretty spiffy kit.
(yeah i said "kit"... and I'm from Chicago... I feel like such a wanker.)
Fundamental to the American philosophy is that the United States was born from the chaos of feudal, tyrannical European governments. That governments (by nature) are predisposed to tyranny and that we must be ever vigilant to insure our Great Experiment never falls to it.
The problem it seems most of us have with all this anti-privacy legislations and initiatives, is that we are all dubious as to how these new laws would/could be applied to protecting this nation from harm. Moreover we are conditioned by our history and by our civics education that all invasive legislation is by default, suspect.
So what our lawmakers need to remember is our Ben Franklin. Benjamin Franklin was of the opinion that the public would not scoff at higher taxation as long as the government demonstrated where and how the money was spent. (i.e., better roads, lighted streets, etc... etc...)
Honestly, if I were presented with data that clearly and comprehensively demonstrated how new electronic surveillance/internet snooping laws would protect and save thousands of American women and children. Well I would have no recourse as a good citizen not to support it fully.
Show us how this legislation will protect our liberties instead of supplanting them. And it better be a fine presentation. Assure us that like, wire tapping of phone, the Constitution and the Supreme Court will be intrinsic to the exercise, constantly monitoring for abuse.
Then demonstrate boldly and inarguably how without these laws we are vulnerable.
Only then will the specter of George Orwell and Joe McCarthy be dispelled.
My guess is that they can't do it. They cannot demonstrate clearly how the lack of these new laws imperils our citizens. It is momentum that is driving this train. I resent as well as we all do that the fed are using FUD to ram these laws under-inspected and under-debated.
We need to discuss:
1. Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers - (perhaps by adding promotional messages about the launch of various new systems)
Hey! Tired of not paying for music? Well Time/Warner has a service for you!
2. A PR campaign
"The RIAA: Not as bad as cancer, well okay maybe just a little."
3. We will share the latest legal strategies and RIAA's thinking on options
"Ten billion on legal death corps trumps Ten Million in venture capital money"
Please plan on attending. I am cautious about sending alternates because we need people who have the ability to make decisions and commit to spending.
Um no. As a matter of fact after the cold war a KGB official once said that the most brilliant thing the CIA did was to promote the myth that they were inept, thereby throwing off both the enemy and the American public as to how frighteningly slick and well orchestrated they really were...
i don't recall that coming up though. Don't go to bed angry, friend.
agreed, completely. It is hard assets (read : human intelligence assets) that we needed, but you notice this is why the CIA isn't pounding the drum for carniviour, it's the FBI.
The CIA wants more James Bond, not More Larry Ellison. actually that is too glib. what they want is the ability to fund and maintain deep cover assets or agents like we used did in the cold war. Actually have our guys in the bathroom stalls next to the terrorists, complaining about the quality of the toilet paper.
Snail-mail has been surveilled since J. Edgar Hoover was trying on his first set
of pumps and as for the bathroom surveillance... well here you go dude
Seriously though. Can anyone out there say why this is so expensive?
Well the actual costs run a couple hundred bucks per unit. But with the excess funds the FBI can build that "mind scanner" satellite that they have been hankering for since Clinton futzed with the budget. and those X-ray Foster Grants they sport don't come cheap.
Say that i was a terrorist... i would think twice before using e-mail or other tech to convey messages.. especially now i know they use this privacy invading crap....
well then, the FBI would score that as a win... denying an enemy a method of communication and forcing them to use "lotek" is a benifeciary result.. they would assume the homing pigeon problem was a whole 'nother program
Durring all of this hullaballoo about Carnivour and the FBI's right to hamfistedly and indiscriminatly monitor packet traffic, i don't once recall it being writtin.
"oh yeah and they're easier to get then wire-tap warrants, if these damn things were cheaper it would be green lights all the way bay-bee" -Special Agent Trent Squarenuts.
Evil tech exists, evil tech is being deployed and the guys that want to see it installed usually don't shop with coupons.
Apple did not include a preference panel inclosed inside of Microsoft Explorer 5.1. in this panel there is an option called: "download functions" if you deselect the two buttons that say, "Automatically decode MacBinary files" and also "Automatically decode BinHex files"... well then guess what? Microsoft Explorer 5.1 will not automatically decode MacBinaries and BinHex files.
then this whole ugly sorded amazingly complicated and far reaching breech will be gone.
Stupid Apple.
no, you don't need root access to the preferance control panel.
yeah you beat me to the punch but that was pretty much exactly what i was thinking...
"how come something that can be changed with two simple radio button clicks is being broadcast as a gapeing titanic scale hole in Max OS 10.1 security..."
Had i posted it first though, i would have tossed in some. "For Shame!" as well, especially after reading all the kneejerk anti-Mac anti-BSD trolls and their retarded comments.
I wanted more accurate numbers but when I tried to price the damn phone + plan + contract on Voicestream's website I realized that their little shopping cart prog refuses to give you a running total... I got to the point where I would have had to enter a credit card and agree to terms and they still never let me know what exactly this was costing me. That really sucks. Okay rough guesses:
Motorola phone (that you probably didn't want) 169.99
PDA data plan (that you don't want because you have a Palm or linux on PDA) 19.99
Voice plan (that you don't want because you like the cell you have) 19.99
Compaq ipaq H3635 (because if you have to run WinCE... ) 499.99
Extra battery, mobile charger. (guess) 89.99
Comes out to: $799.95
So for almost a grand I can pretty much have my porno spam beamed straight to the metra train on the way to work... yeah I guess I could also pull down Slashdot as well so that I could keep current about glove input devices as well. True...
I think I am just gonna keep my ugly clumsy Palm VII
But the phone does come with a built in FM tuner. So maybe I am just being a bitch about the whole thing.
First of all good call on the Santa Cruz, it's a really decent part; It costs
much, sounds fantastic and it takes up far less resources on Windows boxes (lay
off you bastards, I like ALL the games).
I just built another game box using the SC and pulled myCambridge
Soundworks DTT3500s (5.1 digital) off the other box that was using the SoundBlaster
Live! Platinum. Even without the optical out the versa jack/din digital worked
great and really sounds magnificent. I would hazard to say that the DTT3500s
sound better for music and games on the Turtle beach part then did on Creative
Labs part.
Now the other part of the story... so since Klipsch is releasing 500watt ProMedia
5.1s, the 400 watt 4.1 version is much cheaper, so I lit out to BestBuy (of
all freaking places) and picked up a set. The Klipsch ProMedia 4.1s are the best speakers I have ever heard for the money.
Yeah, you can get some Polk Audios or B&Ws or whatever and spend $600 per
speaker and have sound engineers come over and dance a little audio geek dance
or whatever...
But I am telling you this; find a store that has a good return policy on Klipsch
ProMedia 4.1, after listening to them you will not be taking them back.
Or you could wait and check into the ProMedia 5.1s that, from what I understand,
take the product to an entirely higher stratum.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, these are tense times... people are fraught with the notions of impending cataclysm at the hands of bio/chemical terror... or worse...
What can be done about this?
Exploitation!
"The Hotel Sanctuary"
Yes that's right, throw in with seed money, renovate the hell out of the place, add rooms, a five star chief... a nice club... "spa"... and then book the hell out of it and horrifically inflated prices! No... seriously out of line prices... I mean Macaulay Caulkin (the home alone kid) levels of exploitation here...
Tag line: "Your Own little Camp David!"
A shining beacon of capitalism during our nation's darkest hours. This is why we enjoy twenty-four hour grocery stores and a nation of connected roads damnit, this my friends, is the American way.
Why do you think thats insane? The DOJ case is about some illegal business practices microsoft has been using in the past. The DOJ wants to punish microsoft for the damage this has caused (rightfully since it's illegal) and make sure it doesn't happen again.
Valid points, yet I guess my ethical (if certainly not legal) reasoning would be: Because in this instance, Microsoft is being rewarded.
If it has been, or is in the process of being, established that Microsoft used unfair and illegal means to advance itself into a position that they have become a (the?) predominate supplier of software to the U.S. government, then perhaps that relationship should be re-evaluated.
The fact that it goes on un-inspected is, yes, a bit insane to me.
But then who cares what I think? Just another schmuck voter am I.
I would advocate that governments only use open source projects...
the fact that the DoJ was supposedly at war with M$, while at the same time handing over some of M$'s largest contracts seems insane...
I would almost call it a chuch/state issue...
Dude, i loved BeOS as well, I hate Microsoft, and i am writing this on a G4 running OS 10.1...
Apple had more to do with killing BeOS then M$ did. Remember what happened when apple rolled out the G3? yeah that's right, it refused implicately to share or allow data that was instrumental in porting BeOS on up to the new proccessors... BeOS had a lot of momentem at the time and i believe it was build 2.4 or 2.5 I was running on my 8600 at the time.
When apple shanked them on the G4 it was the begining of the end, they switched gears to port it to x86, the BeOS box took a dump... momentum shifted and everything came undone....
It took as long as last saturday for me to actually use my Mac as my main box again.
and i don't care that it is fingers he are talking about, 10 individual fingers on a phone as tiny as any nokia is not only embarassing, but impractical.
a rudimentary stylus pane and something like graphitti would be infinately more practical.
i for one would stear clear of any appliance that wanted me to learn some obscure dvorkian-esque ten fingered gymnastics to enter in "John Walsh - Home".
I sympathize with people that want to see a better interface implimented so they can text message, but this is hokie, regaurdless of the of the two patents and the $50,000 VC and the writeup in MSNBC...
in the words of Steve Martin, "That was shit one, this is shit two..."
I was so tempted to hit that "Add to cart" button.
...i was as well, until i realized that is a little more then i am paying monthly for my BMW 540i. though the beemer was not offered in "stealth Black"...
The IBM LCD will do 3840x2400
<P> forgive me for being a mister poopie pants here, because I realize how cool this thing is. Coming from a strong publishing background, there have been times I would have given my arm for one of these.</P>
<P> But unless you are doing CAD/CAM or publishing , imagine how tiny your icons are going to look at 3840x2400... that is a huge expanse of desktop. Not to mention our beloved porn, hell 800x600 pictures of Anna K bending over will be postage stamp sized... can't even appreciate image....</P>
<P> Since I haven't seen specs for the included PCI graphics card, I am going to go ahead and assume Nvidia had nothing to do with it, so don't get your Quake III ya-yas in a lather....</P>
<P> So basically, you spend the 16k+ and then you? I guess you gloat like a son of a bitch while running six applications at the same time, all in their own little piece of screen real estate....</P>
<P> Oh yeah, photography, the Nikon thing... yeah, that too.
yeah, i messed up... i was going to make up some bullshit about shipping and handling and tax and a graphics card that could drive it. but nah, i just had clumsy fingers.
it only costs 18K
The primary goal is development of reusable launch technology that leads next to a high altitude sub-orbital rocket vehicle
Could a missile fired from sub orbit on an (relatively) inexpensive platform such as this one, actually knock out a satellite?
Yes I realize that the missile would have to be expensive enough with it's payload and whatever guidance it would need to find it's target.
But if these things can be made as cheaply as they say, I wonder if small governments (okay i am sicking of typing the "T" word) could use this kind of technology to cause a lot of mayhem.
Hey remember all those completely and hopelessly out of work Russian PhD CS grads sitting around and starving and writing strong crypto software for the Russian Mafia? You might even have heard that the Russian Mafia is always looking to explore new business ideas and strategy.
Well hell wouldn't this be a great business opportunity for both of them?Call it RMBM (Russian Mafia Business Machines), and then build cheap super-clusters and turnkey code for "specialized" clients. The possibilities are endless.
This is where you get them now: Support. You sell them the machines at a 25% markup and then charge a ridiculous annual service agreement.
From the presentation:
"Using "borrowed" Post-CCCP Mi-8TV assault/commando choppers RMBM support staff can be deployed to your corner of the desert in a matter of hours! Lets see IBM match that! Not even Larry Ellison and his personal Mig can touch that! (canned laugh track)"
I don't know, maybe not.
Should I worry that practically anyone can now build a supercomputer?
Yes, you should probably worry that practically anyone can build a supercomputer. But you could mitigate all that fear with the fact that not practically anyone can whip up software that takes full advantage of it.
Thank god there isn't any off the shelf "missile trajectory" software in the CDW catalog. you would hope that any society that can whip together motivated coders to write such code already has access to some pretty spiffy kit.
(yeah i said "kit"... and I'm from Chicago... I feel like such a wanker.)
Yeah i am bored and read these, and you can too.
Fundamental to the American philosophy is that the United States was born from the chaos of feudal, tyrannical European governments. That governments (by nature) are predisposed to tyranny and that we must be ever vigilant to insure our Great Experiment never falls to it.
The problem it seems most of us have with all this anti-privacy legislations and initiatives, is that we are all dubious as to how these new laws would/could be applied to protecting this nation from harm. Moreover we are conditioned by our history and by our civics education that all invasive legislation is by default, suspect.
So what our lawmakers need to remember is our Ben Franklin. Benjamin Franklin was of the opinion that the public would not scoff at higher taxation as long as the government demonstrated where and how the money was spent. (i.e., better roads, lighted streets, etc... etc...)
Honestly, if I were presented with data that clearly and comprehensively demonstrated how new electronic surveillance/internet snooping laws would protect and save thousands of American women and children. Well I would have no recourse as a good citizen not to support it fully.
Show us how this legislation will protect our liberties instead of supplanting them. And it better be a fine presentation. Assure us that like, wire tapping of phone, the Constitution and the Supreme Court will be intrinsic to the exercise, constantly monitoring for abuse.
Then demonstrate boldly and inarguably how without these laws we are vulnerable.
Only then will the specter of George Orwell and Joe McCarthy be dispelled.
My guess is that they can't do it. They cannot demonstrate clearly how the lack of these new laws imperils our citizens. It is momentum that is driving this train. I resent as well as we all do that the fed are using FUD to ram these laws under-inspected and under-debated.
We need to discuss: 1. Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers - (perhaps by adding promotional messages about the launch of various new systems)
Hey! Tired of not paying for music? Well Time/Warner has a service for you!2. A PR campaign
"The RIAA: Not as bad as cancer, well okay maybe just a little."3. We will share the latest legal strategies and RIAA's thinking on options
"Ten billion on legal death corps trumps Ten Million in venture capital money"Please plan on attending. I am cautious about sending alternates because we need people who have the ability to make decisions and commit to spending.
"I hope you are paying attention..."Best regards,
"I am warning you."Hilary
"Not Satan, no"Um no. As a matter of fact after the cold war a KGB official once said that the most brilliant thing the CIA did was to promote the myth that they were inept, thereby throwing off both the enemy and the American public as to how frighteningly slick and well orchestrated they really were...
i don't recall that coming up though. Don't go to bed angry, friend.
agreed, completely. It is hard assets (read : human intelligence assets) that we needed, but you notice this is why the CIA isn't pounding the drum for carniviour, it's the FBI.
The CIA wants more James Bond, not More Larry Ellison. actually that is too glib. what they want is the ability to fund and maintain deep cover assets or agents like we used did in the cold war. Actually have our guys in the bathroom stalls next to the terrorists, complaining about the quality of the toilet paper.
Snail-mail has been surveilled since J. Edgar Hoover was trying on his first set of pumps and as for the bathroom surveillance... well here you go dude
Seriously though. Can anyone out there say why this is so expensive?
Well the actual costs run a couple hundred bucks per unit. But with the excess funds the FBI can build that "mind scanner" satellite that they have been hankering for since Clinton futzed with the budget. and those X-ray Foster Grants they sport don't come cheap.
Say that i was a terrorist... i would think twice before using e-mail or other tech to convey messages.. especially now i know they use this privacy invading crap....
well then, the FBI would score that as a win... denying an enemy a method of communication and forcing them to use "lotek" is a benifeciary result.. they would assume the homing pigeon problem was a whole 'nother program
But was that ever an issue, price?
Durring all of this hullaballoo about Carnivour and the FBI's right to hamfistedly and indiscriminatly monitor packet traffic, i don't once recall it being writtin.
"oh yeah and they're easier to get then wire-tap warrants, if these damn things were cheaper it would be green lights all the way bay-bee" -Special Agent Trent Squarenuts.
Evil tech exists, evil tech is being deployed and the guys that want to see it installed usually don't shop with coupons.
Apple did not write Microsoft Explorer 5.1, no
Apple did not include a preference panel inclosed inside of Microsoft Explorer 5.1. in this panel there is an option called: "download functions" if you deselect the two buttons that say, "Automatically decode MacBinary files" and also "Automatically decode BinHex files"... well then guess what? Microsoft Explorer 5.1 will not automatically decode MacBinaries and BinHex files.
then this whole ugly sorded amazingly complicated and far reaching breech will be gone.
Stupid Apple.
no, you don't need root access to the preferance control panel.
no.
yeah you beat me to the punch but that was pretty much exactly what i was thinking...
"how come something that can be changed with two simple radio button clicks is being broadcast as a gapeing titanic scale hole in Max OS 10.1 security..."
Had i posted it first though, i would have tossed in some. "For Shame!" as well, especially after reading all the kneejerk anti-Mac anti-BSD trolls and their retarded comments.
good call, good post.
I wanted more accurate numbers but when I tried to price the damn phone + plan + contract on Voicestream's website I realized that their little shopping cart prog refuses to give you a running total... I got to the point where I would have had to enter a credit card and agree to terms and they still never let me know what exactly this was costing me. That really sucks. Okay rough guesses:
Motorola phone (that you probably didn't want) 169.99
PDA data plan (that you don't want because you have a Palm or linux on PDA) 19.99
Voice plan (that you don't want because you like the cell you have) 19.99
Compaq ipaq H3635 (because if you have to run WinCE... ) 499.99
Extra battery, mobile charger. (guess) 89.99
Comes out to: $799.95
So for almost a grand I can pretty much have my porno spam beamed straight to the metra train on the way to work... yeah I guess I could also pull down Slashdot as well so that I could keep current about glove input devices as well. True...
I think I am just gonna keep my ugly clumsy Palm VII
But the phone does come with a built in FM tuner. So maybe I am just being a bitch about the whole thing.
First of all good call on the Santa Cruz, it's a really decent part; It costs much, sounds fantastic and it takes up far less resources on Windows boxes (lay off you bastards, I like ALL the games).
I just built another game box using the SC and pulled myCambridge Soundworks DTT3500s (5.1 digital) off the other box that was using the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum. Even without the optical out the versa jack/din digital worked great and really sounds magnificent. I would hazard to say that the DTT3500s sound better for music and games on the Turtle beach part then did on Creative Labs part.
Now the other part of the story... so since Klipsch is releasing 500watt ProMedia 5.1s, the 400 watt 4.1 version is much cheaper, so I lit out to BestBuy (of all freaking places) and picked up a set. The Klipsch ProMedia 4.1s are the best speakers I have ever heard for the money. Yeah, you can get some Polk Audios or B&Ws or whatever and spend $600 per speaker and have sound engineers come over and dance a little audio geek dance or whatever...
But I am telling you this; find a store that has a good return policy on Klipsch ProMedia 4.1, after listening to them you will not be taking them back. Or you could wait and check into the ProMedia 5.1s that, from what I understand, take the product to an entirely higher stratum.