Actually, one of the better "what viruses, trojans, etc. are and how to secure your computer against them" books I've read mentioned an early example of a compression virus - the program had virus-like delivery, but for the purpose of Stacker/DoubleSpace-style disk compression. When a new drive was detected, it would spread - AFTER asking, politely, if you wanted the new volume compressed. Main advantage of it over the more common systems was that it was user-invisible. Main disadvantages - it's difficult to get paid for a self-replicating program, and having to have the compression/decompression code on every disk made the gains less valuable on smaller disk sizes.
Actually, a viral virus scanner might be kinda neat... if only for the irony!
Re:Moderate parent: Conspiracy Theory
on
Yahoo Buying Inktomi
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Ah, but all of those functions are still involved with the concept of "searching". Google's engine is not *just* a web search tool, but an information organization tool!
You know those "Extra Care", "Shopper's Club", etc cards most drugstores/groceries have nowadays? I've got a bunch... with NO name information.
Y'see, lots of those stores leave the cards out by the cashier's register, to make it easier for the clerk to hand 'em over. Swiped all of them when they weren't looking. Hey, they have no right to my info, but I have a dislike of unneeded lying (which is the other obvious option).
Hopefully, they'll eventually figure out what Radio Shack has: people will figure out what's up and lie, rendering the information useless... so why bother collecting it?
Like the old saw that says that saving your theory of solipism for posterity defeats the point, I see some flaws in his thinking.
I won't argue that the human brain has room for improvement - the downside of relying on natural selection for your design is you're only guaranteed to get something that works, not something that works as well as possible.
I *do* disagree on the maintence issue - most of that is needed by the body as a whole, not just the brain. Compare to a car or a jet airplane - both need considerably more maintinance than a human to last even ten years in good shape; humans are *self-repairing* to a point. Even sleep isn't really "downtime", it's shifting that meat computer into a different operating mode in order to better process certain kinds of data, if what I've read on the subject is accurate.
The main point is if the brain is just a very complex ALICE-style bot, how did he come up with the creative idea that his brain is an ALICE-style bot? Sure, maybe the brain is fooling itself, but a difference that makes no difference is equal to NO DIFFERENCE. Maybe every cat actually barks when they speak, but if all I ever hear is "meow" it doesn't matter. Maybe my brain is just a very complex piece of pattern matching software, but it seems to work okay to me.
All in all, I can't discount his brillance, but he reminds me of a PhD-bearing lady of my aquaintence who was convinced the CIA had infected her computer because it did things without her telling her. (Meanwhile, WinXP's built in task scheduler went about defragging her hard drive...*roll eyes*)
In the US, actual voters form a minority of citizens. If we got a sizable portion of geeks and Slashdot readers to vote, it probably WOULD make a dent. Most geeks do have non-geek friends they can try to convince, as well. The essential problem of geeks caring about things that mean fuck-all remains, of course.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Re:...overanalysis? (Mage in a Nutshell)
on
Mage The Ascension
·
· Score: 1
Quite the opposite. The Matrix is Mage when the Technocracy wins, with Neo and crew being the remains of the Traditions (namely, the Virtual Adepts).
--
These are *MY* opinions.
They'd better sue all those MUDs out there that provide essentially the same thing, just not as pretty... oh, and don't forget suing Slashdot, since time I'm reading Slashdot is time I'm not playing EverQuest.
Break, give me.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
If thats true, then why is napster over run by mainstream songs. Do a search on any top forty hit song and you get 100+ hits back on THAT
SONG. And yet, there are well known artist out there and you can't get 100 hits on ALL their songs together
Of course, silly. I consider myself to have some fairly unique and unusual tastes in music, but you will find a few top 40 songs on my computer... but not the rest of that groups/artist's album. Yet, those top 40 songs form the minority of my mp3 collection; most of it is hard-to-find stuff. But in the end, a search on those top 40 songs will pop up the ONE song that a million people have, whereas searches for quality stuff that only appeals to, say, %10 of the music-listening population will get... you guessed it, about ten percent of the hits.
I certainly don't consider having the one song morally wrong. it's no different than me taping that MASSIVELY OVERPLAYED song off the radio. (And for everything else, I either own the CD and use mp3s as a medium of convenience or you can't *find* a CD).
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Not according to this essay, or indeed any source I've been able to find in ten minutes of Google-searching that has actual research and scholarship to back it up. If I had some of my books handy, I'd go through and do a nice essay-style citations, but I trust you know how to use a search engine.
The explanation certainly makes sense; if it directly lifted from English it would be called some variation of "animation", allowing for Japanese pronounciation. the French/Japanese connection makes more sense, again allowing for pronounciation.
I've been an anime fan from way back. (Not just Japanese anime, of course - and if you think non-Japanese anime is a contradiction, well, the word's a loan-word via French for "animation". Works for me.)
The total otaku who insist doggedly that their favorite masterpieces be completely unsullied are, IMO, full of it. Translation is *never* enough; literal translations are dry and lifeless. Localizations are what are required; one must smooth the differences in the two languages/cultures involved, especially when they are as different as Japanese and English/American culture. It burns me even more when I hear rants on how "Americans are not worthy of this art" - well, a country that invented the concept of virtual dating games, Pokemon, and the schoolgirl fetish has more than a few things to answer for itself. We're all fscked up equally; the difference is HOW.
That said, I hate the Serena/Usagi thing. "Bunny" is a perfectly good English name. Makes the character sound like a ditz, but... well... duh.
It's completely true that King is selling the written equivilent of a hamburger. So? He ADMITS IT HIMSELF! He has said before in at least one interview that the majority of his work is a Big Mac for the mind.
Sure he wants more money (only a fool writes for anything but, &etc)... but I bet he also wants less bullshit from a publisher. I'm not a big fan of his work other than the Dark Tower books, but I can respect his rationale. -- These are *MY* opinions.
It's true enough that many factors may be causing this increase, not just Napster. I could definitely see why this study would say one thing yet the music industry's would say another. Music enthusiasts who use Napster intelligently will often add a user to their 'hot list' and browse what's available, thus increasing exposure. These folks are not likely to purchase CDs from local stores, because most of what they want is mail-order or net-order only. Such a person buys more music, but it's not the music that the big boys care about.
I'll be honest and say *I* have not bought a CD lately, but that's due to lack of spare fundage in the first place, not a lack of desire.
-- These are *MY* opinions.
Fun Fact About Magneto That Blows Katz's Mind
on
Slashdot Meets X-Men
·
· Score: 1
As mentioned a million times before, Magneto isn't supposed to be hated. In fact, the comic has had no fewer than two plot lines exploring this - one is an alternate-universe where Xavier dies before the X-men are formed and Magneto, filled with remorse, forms the X-men and tries to live by Xavier's ideals. (He figures out a way to "deactivate" Rogue's power and marries her, too.)
<P>The other one had his mind wiped and his body youthened; he joined the X-men for a time without ANY knowledge of his past.
God never "intended" for me to have 20/20 vision, yet I have a reasonable mockup of it, thanks to corrective lenses. If you can do it, it is implicitly 'allowed'.
Enough philosophy, though; I *really* doubt everyone will become the same through genetic engineering. It's about as likely as everyone choosing to dress exactly the same. Except for the correction of genuine 'defects' (who WANTS poor vision, or a genetic disease, etc) I think humanity will remain as varied as ever - moreso infact.
One day, instead of dyeing their hair, or getting piercings, or wearing certain styles of clothing, teenagers will rewrite their genes. I myself wouldn't mind some intriguing alterations - heck, splice in some chlorophyll and plop me under a sunlamp while I'm at work, and I'll never eat again.
Try turning off javascript in your web browser. If the owner of the pr0n/warez site you are looking at happens to use a funky JS menu, just look at the source - javascript isn't exactly rocket science.
Very true, but it's also obvious. It doesn't mean that some steps shouldn't be taken in this direction, however - you've got to walk before you run and other such cliches.
Maybe it's just because I'm an out-of-shape geek, but I know *I* break into a sweat when I'm banging around a multi-hundred pount piece of equipment. The combination of strength and finesse required to tilt a pinball machine yet not set off the tilt detector is something else entirely.
No, it's not like running laps, but it's not sitting on your ass, either.
... why you turn the friggin' filename extensions on under Windoze. If I saw something like foo.avi.exe, you'd be damned sure I wouldn't try running it.
Why do American writers keep making movies and TV shows about ancient Eastern stuff? It's all about the mystique and occultism of a religion not your own; The Christian references in Eva and Lain(and other anime) are roughly equal to an American writer placing a scene in an ancient temple with a Buddhist statue, although better done. (Certainly, both Shinto Buddhism and Christianity/Judism/Islam have their share of weird-ass shit in their history and mythology.)
(a) Ogg is free in the beer and speech senses. This is important for reasons that have long been discussed.
(b) Ogg is *better* than MP3; while Joe Blow may not care, audiophiles and musicians most certainly will, and it is they who count; musicians are the ones who MAKE music, after all. Just hack up a Winamp plugin and Joe will be happy enough.
(c) Ogg is a better name than MP3. em-pee-three is another damnable three-letter-acronym; Ogg sounds cool. Millions of Pratchett fans will give it instant name recognition, even if it has no relation in fact.
All the talk about MP3's "mindshare" doesn't matter too much - the average end-luser will go along with whatever the nearest alpha geek says.
English was no more "forced" on the world than TCP/IP was "forced" onto the world. The Internet started in America. Thus, things were made English-and-American-centric. When non-Americans cared to join, it was easier for those people to join, rather than the ENITRE FRIGGIN' NET to change.
Does it mean that attempts to make the Internet more global are bad? Of course not. But claiming that English-centric codes were 'forced' on people just because they followed the path of least resistance is kind of silly. It's like claiming that the Japanese are 'forcing' me to learn Japanese should I care to go to Japan.
That said, English is a better choice for economy compared to, say, Chinese. Compare 26 characters, plus punctuation, to thousands of discrete characters. It's not a concern now, but once it was.
There's more than just Napster. Someone else has mentioned another one (although I don't recall the name and am too lazy to look it up right now...). There's also CuteMX (by the people who brought you CuteFTP), Hotline, and of course, IRC is a super set of the functionality present in Napster, save a search function.
There's probably even more that I'm not familar with, but I think the point is made: It's not about Napster, it's about the concept of easy-to-use global file sharing. Previous methods work, but are a bitch to use or to find specific things. The ones that allow one to share any damn file they want, as opposed to JUST mp3s, will be sue-proof.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, one of the better "what viruses, trojans, etc. are and how to secure your computer against them" books I've read mentioned an early example of a compression virus - the program had virus-like delivery, but for the purpose of Stacker/DoubleSpace-style disk compression. When a new drive was detected, it would spread - AFTER asking, politely, if you wanted the new volume compressed. Main advantage of it over the more common systems was that it was user-invisible. Main disadvantages - it's difficult to get paid for a self-replicating program, and having to have the compression/decompression code on every disk made the gains less valuable on smaller disk sizes.
Actually, a viral virus scanner might be kinda neat... if only for the irony!
Ah, but all of those functions are still involved with the concept of "searching". Google's engine is not *just* a web search tool, but an information organization tool!
You know those "Extra Care", "Shopper's Club", etc cards most drugstores/groceries have nowadays? I've got a bunch... with NO name information.
Y'see, lots of those stores leave the cards out by the cashier's register, to make it easier for the clerk to hand 'em over. Swiped all of them when they weren't looking. Hey, they have no right to my info, but I have a dislike of unneeded lying (which is the other obvious option).
Hopefully, they'll eventually figure out what Radio Shack has: people will figure out what's up and lie, rendering the information useless... so why bother collecting it?
Like the old saw that says that saving your theory of solipism for posterity defeats the point, I see some flaws in his thinking.
I won't argue that the human brain has room for improvement - the downside of relying on natural selection for your design is you're only guaranteed to get something that works, not something that works as well as possible.
I *do* disagree on the maintence issue - most of that is needed by the body as a whole, not just the brain. Compare to a car or a jet airplane - both need considerably more maintinance than a human to last even ten years in good shape; humans are *self-repairing* to a point. Even sleep isn't really "downtime", it's shifting that meat computer into a different operating mode in order to better process certain kinds of data, if what I've read on the subject is accurate.
The main point is if the brain is just a very complex ALICE-style bot, how did he come up with the creative idea that his brain is an ALICE-style bot? Sure, maybe the brain is fooling itself, but a difference that makes no difference is equal to NO DIFFERENCE. Maybe every cat actually barks when they speak, but if all I ever hear is "meow" it doesn't matter. Maybe my brain is just a very complex piece of pattern matching software, but it seems to work okay to me.
All in all, I can't discount his brillance, but he reminds me of a PhD-bearing lady of my aquaintence who was convinced the CIA had infected her computer because it did things without her telling her. (Meanwhile, WinXP's built in task scheduler went about defragging her hard drive...*roll eyes*)
They've "got it" since a little after many /. readers were first eating solid foods. :)
--
These are *MY* opinions.
In the US, actual voters form a minority of citizens. If we got a sizable portion of geeks and Slashdot readers to vote, it probably WOULD make a dent. Most geeks do have non-geek friends they can try to convince, as well. The essential problem of geeks caring about things that mean fuck-all remains, of course.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Quite the opposite. The Matrix is Mage when the Technocracy wins, with Neo and crew being the remains of the Traditions (namely, the Virtual Adepts).
--
These are *MY* opinions.
They'd better sue all those MUDs out there that provide essentially the same thing, just not as pretty... oh, and don't forget suing Slashdot, since time I'm reading Slashdot is time I'm not playing EverQuest. Break, give me.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Slayers, Record of Lodoss War, Princess Mononoke are all good fantasy-themed works.
Lots of good sci-fi, too. Battle Angel, Neon Genesis Evangelion... you can't throw a rock without hitting decent science fiction.
Above all else, though, I definitely recommend Rail of the Star; it's kind of a Japanese Schindler's List, only animated.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Of course, silly. I consider myself to have some fairly unique and unusual tastes in music, but you will find a few top 40 songs on my computer... but not the rest of that groups/artist's album. Yet, those top 40 songs form the minority of my mp3 collection; most of it is hard-to-find stuff. But in the end, a search on those top 40 songs will pop up the ONE song that a million people have, whereas searches for quality stuff that only appeals to, say, %10 of the music-listening population will get... you guessed it, about ten percent of the hits.
I certainly don't consider having the one song morally wrong. it's no different than me taping that MASSIVELY OVERPLAYED song off the radio. (And for everything else, I either own the CD and use mp3s as a medium of convenience or you can't *find* a CD).
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Not according to this essay, or indeed any source I've been able to find in ten minutes of Google-searching that has actual research and scholarship to back it up. If I had some of my books handy, I'd go through and do a nice essay-style citations, but I trust you know how to use a search engine.
The explanation certainly makes sense; if it directly lifted from English it would be called some variation of "animation", allowing for Japanese pronounciation. the French/Japanese connection makes more sense, again allowing for pronounciation.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
The total otaku who insist doggedly that their favorite masterpieces be completely unsullied are, IMO, full of it. Translation is *never* enough; literal translations are dry and lifeless. Localizations are what are required; one must smooth the differences in the two languages/cultures involved, especially when they are as different as Japanese and English/American culture. It burns me even more when I hear rants on how "Americans are not worthy of this art" - well, a country that invented the concept of virtual dating games, Pokemon, and the schoolgirl fetish has more than a few things to answer for itself. We're all fscked up equally; the difference is HOW.
That said, I hate the Serena/Usagi thing. "Bunny" is a perfectly good English name. Makes the character sound like a ditz, but... well... duh.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
It's completely true that King is selling the written equivilent of a hamburger. So? He ADMITS IT HIMSELF! He has said before in at least one interview that the majority of his work is a Big Mac for the mind.
Sure he wants more money (only a fool writes for anything but, &etc)... but I bet he also wants less bullshit from a publisher. I'm not a big fan of his work other than the Dark Tower books, but I can respect his rationale.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
It's true enough that many factors may be causing this increase, not just Napster. I could definitely see why this study would say one thing yet the music industry's would say another. Music enthusiasts who use Napster intelligently will often add a user to their 'hot list' and browse what's available, thus increasing exposure. These folks are not likely to purchase CDs from local stores, because most of what they want is mail-order or net-order only. Such a person buys more music, but it's not the music that the big boys care about.
I'll be honest and say *I* have not bought a CD lately, but that's due to lack of spare fundage in the first place, not a lack of desire.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
As mentioned a million times before, Magneto isn't supposed to be hated. In fact, the comic has had no fewer than two plot lines exploring this - one is an alternate-universe where Xavier dies before the X-men are formed and Magneto, filled with remorse, forms the X-men and tries to live by Xavier's ideals. (He figures out a way to "deactivate" Rogue's power and marries her, too.)
<P>The other one had his mind wiped and his body youthened; he joined the X-men for a time without ANY knowledge of his past.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
God never "intended" for me to have 20/20 vision, yet I have a reasonable mockup of it, thanks to corrective lenses. If you can do it, it is implicitly 'allowed'.
Enough philosophy, though; I *really* doubt everyone will become the same through genetic engineering. It's about as likely as everyone choosing to dress exactly the same. Except for the correction of genuine 'defects' (who WANTS poor vision, or a genetic disease, etc) I think humanity will remain as varied as ever - moreso infact.
One day, instead of dyeing their hair, or getting piercings, or wearing certain styles of clothing, teenagers will rewrite their genes. I myself wouldn't mind some intriguing alterations - heck, splice in some chlorophyll and plop me under a sunlamp while I'm at work, and I'll never eat again.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Try turning off javascript in your web browser. If the owner of the pr0n/warez site you are looking at happens to use a funky JS menu, just look at the source - javascript isn't exactly rocket science.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Very true, but it's also obvious. It doesn't mean that some steps shouldn't be taken in this direction, however - you've got to walk before you run and other such cliches.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Maybe it's just because I'm an out-of-shape geek, but I know *I* break into a sweat when I'm banging around a multi-hundred pount piece of equipment.
The combination of strength and finesse required to tilt a pinball machine yet not set off the tilt detector is something else entirely.
No, it's not like running laps, but it's not sitting on your ass, either.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
... why you turn the friggin' filename extensions on under Windoze. If I saw something like foo.avi.exe, you'd be damned sure I wouldn't try running it.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Why do American writers keep making movies and TV shows about ancient Eastern stuff? It's all about the mystique and occultism of a religion not your own; The Christian references in Eva and Lain(and other anime) are roughly equal to an American writer placing a scene in an ancient temple with a Buddhist statue, although better done. (Certainly, both Shinto Buddhism and Christianity/Judism/Islam have their share of weird-ass shit in their history and mythology.)
--
These are *MY* opinions.
... It must be R'leyh! Start the gibbering now!
--
These are *MY* opinions.
Some points to bring up:
(a) Ogg is free in the beer and speech senses. This is important for reasons that have long been discussed.
(b) Ogg is *better* than MP3; while Joe Blow may not care, audiophiles and musicians most certainly will, and it is they who count; musicians are the ones who MAKE music, after all. Just hack up a Winamp plugin and Joe will be happy enough.
(c) Ogg is a better name than MP3. em-pee-three is another damnable three-letter-acronym; Ogg sounds cool. Millions of Pratchett fans will give it instant name recognition, even if it has no relation in fact.
All the talk about MP3's "mindshare" doesn't matter too much - the average end-luser will go along with whatever the nearest alpha geek says.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
English was no more "forced" on the world than TCP/IP was "forced" onto the world. The Internet started in America. Thus, things were made English-and-American-centric. When non-Americans cared to join, it was easier for those people to join, rather than the ENITRE FRIGGIN' NET to change.
Does it mean that attempts to make the Internet more global are bad? Of course not. But claiming that English-centric codes were 'forced' on people just because they followed the path of least resistance is kind of silly. It's like claiming that the Japanese are 'forcing' me to learn Japanese should I care to go to Japan.
That said, English is a better choice for economy compared to, say, Chinese. Compare 26 characters, plus punctuation, to thousands of discrete characters. It's not a concern now, but once it was.
--
These are *MY* opinions.
There's more than just Napster. Someone else has mentioned another one (although I don't recall the name and am too lazy to look it up right now...). There's also CuteMX (by the people who brought you
CuteFTP), Hotline, and of course, IRC is a super set of the functionality present in Napster, save a search function.
There's probably even more that I'm not familar with, but I think the point is made: It's not about Napster, it's about the concept of easy-to-use global file sharing. Previous methods work, but are a bitch to use or to find specific things. The ones that allow one to share any damn file they want, as opposed to JUST mp3s, will be sue-proof.
--
These are *MY* opinions.