One of the earliest clip-fed systems was Tippmann's SMG-60. It was a select-fire paintgun that used clips loaded with five-round stripper-clips. Third-party suppliers would sell catch-bags to collect the valuable stripper clips as they fed through the system. The possitive-feed system was needed to keep up with the full auto mechanism - gravity feed simply wasn't fast enough at the time. I won't go far in to the merrits of the SMG-60 beyond that it was an interesting paintgun and now a bit of a collector's item. Its tech was mostly abandoned.
Another reasonably successful commercial gun using a, more or less, clip system was the ATS TS1 (which has spawned a series of updated models). This paintgun has a forward hopper slung under the barrel and doubling as a grip. It feeds paintballs to a very obvious clip. The clip itself holds something like 25rnds and feeds the paintgun through a kind of converyer belt system. It is also available in select fire and semi-auto only models. Again - the technology is unique to this marker.
There are also a series of trainer and "sidearm" paintguns out there. They tend to be limited to between 10 and 25 rnds and spring-fed. Usually semi-auto and often pistols (though I understand there are some M-16 replicas that are sold solely to training facilities).
Modern feed systems these days are still gravity fed. The difference is that they use agitators and sensors to keep the well stocked with paintballs. These kinda-almost-positive feed systems are required by today's fast-paced semi-auto paintguns who boast rates of fire that meet full-auto paintguns... assuming the human trigger finger can keep it up.
Semi-auto paintguns are found solely in the realm of scenario games... if even there.
When it comes down to it, clip fed systems are not really required. Paintballs are round; they don't need to be chambered in any particular way. Gravity feed works rather well assuming the paintgun is being held more or less upright and the feed system has been appropriately designed (which is a given in most modern paintguns). Agitated feeders help keep those feeds going. And finally, gravity fed hoppers are able to hold considerably more rounds than any clip system - unless you get in to drums which I understand induce considerable problems of their own.
Up until a couple of months ago I enjoyed playing laser tag with my sons. After 9/11 I realized that (a) the Army uses this stuff in training (b) my boys only have a couple of years until they have to register for the draft.
Most of my paintball experience has been around active duty military members. Military training and paintball have suprisingly little to do with each other.
To begin with, I had a non-combatant role in the US Air Force. I fixed electronics systems on aircraft. I would get annual training on an M16 - probably so that I don't end up using it as a club if the unthinkable happens and I actually have to USE one (and then we're all in pretty serious trouble anyway). My entire team was, mostly, non-combatants. We took top positions in each tournament we played. These tournaments included teams consisting solely of combat-trained individuals.
One of those teams were a great group of Army guys in K-Town (hey HAWGs). We would drive over for weekend pick-up games with their group on their paintball area. It was common to hear them complain about the previous weeks' field training and how they were glad to be playing some paintball to get away from all that.
Lets go back over that point. Paintball was a break from military training. The game was a break from, as close as the Army could get, the real thing.
Sure - military and police units do use paintball equipment for limited training. There's something psycologically distinct about solid projectiles flying around compared to laser light beams. But when paintball is used, it involves very specific scenarios and sometimes unique equipment.
And then there's the danger of picking up bad habits. A piece of plywood or a bush makes adequate paintball cover. It offers little aid against a firearm.
I'd like to point out that our paintball team in Germany used paintball tactics. Combat tactics (used by a lot of teams with combat-trained members) didn't fare well in paintball and I'm sure paintball tactics wouldn't work well on a battlefield.
There have been a range of articles going over the "war" nature of paintball. Something about the simulated danger of the activity. Tapping our desire for adrenaline, conflict, and aggressive nature. I've pondered about it too. But in the end its all academic.
Paintball is simply fun. Its a game. And while it may have some simularity to more martial issues, that comparison is simular to those that can be made of chess or risk. Heck. Sports such as kendo or fencing have truer ties to martial arts than paintball. And even those ties are shadows.
Our crew signed up for a gadget tourney in Germany in the early '90s. It was pretty much the standard tourney, however, the rules allowed for non-standard devices with official approval. Sure, there would be radios, grenades, etc. But our group wanted something special. We wanted something absurd.
One of the guys noted he had access to a retired water-based fire extinguisher. We gleefully hashed out some ideas on what kind of mixture could be used for our device and called the tournament officials. After explaining our plan, we got the OK. The paint-thrower was a go!
Or rather - it would have been a go if we had ever gotten around to actually trying it out. We never did anything with the idea. But come tournament time, the rumors had spread. The Eifel Blitzkriegers had a paint thrower.
We would deny its existance to all inquiring visits to our team's camp the night before, and during, the tournament. But this only changed the device's status from wild-card curiosity to obviously highly effective secret weapon. Each game, onlookers waiting for the unveiling.
Well, we were lame. The most exciting thing we had was the standard consumer grade hands-free radios. Which we used to great effect.
Seems we had 2 frequencies available and one of those frequencies were in use by our opponents during the final playoff for the tournament. While setting up for the final showdown, we listened in on the opposition; spying on their plans. During the initial confrontation, we helped them redistribute their skirmish line by calling for reinforcements where none were needed. After a few rounds of beefing up one flank or the other (and trying to lessen their burdon with well-placed shots on their team), they finally caught on. Thats when we simply keyed mikes and chattered away - effectively jamming their comms system they had become amazingly dependant on.
We won. I can't say that the non-existant paint thrower didn't help. Maybe there was a psycological effect. And our little stint in signal intel / electronic warefare gave us an edge.
But in the end, just good 'ole solid paint slinging won the day.
I am addressing the "spamhaus" type operation where a spammer sets up servers of their own. These vary from sending equally disgusting scams, to simply being sources of marketing mailings from people who didn't actually opt-in.
Hmm. There might be a bit of a distinction between, say, a pyramid scheme and an offer to buy a product. One is more offensive than the other. But ultimately - spam is spam. It doesn't matter what the message is - its the method of delivery that's at issue.
This anti-spam feeling that's been generally favored on the net since CyberPromotions first attempted to "legitimize" the spam industry is the same attitude that makes it hard for later attempts to flourish. Once a "spamhaus" is identified, it begins to find itself slowly cut off from the rest of the Internet.
Spammers will attempt to use other methods. These outfits seem to be just as organized as a "spamhaus" who pays for and uses its own resources. I would suspect the information displayed on the Behind Enemy Lines site is fairly representative of the players in the spam game.
In short, it doesn't really matter who is spamming and how they're getting it out. The fact is, they ARE getting it out. And they will continue to find additional ways to spam unless they loose the incentive to do it. And that incentive isn't just pure joy. They're after money.
Why can't you go after the source of the spam? Do you have an example case?
I'm not saying don't go after the (apparent) source at all. Certainly, this needs to be done. But we can't expect this to continue to be effective. Because spammers are trying harder and harder to mask themselves, or otherwise use hit-and-run tactics, we're not always going find the source in a spam's headers.
How do you block spamming tools? Many of those tools are also useful for legitimate (confirmed opt-in) mass mailings and even mailing lists that many open source developers use.
I should have used more detail on this point. "Spam tools" raises some interesting issues. First, my actual meaning wasn't just spam mailer applications (although they did come to mind). My main thought was towards services such as dynamic DNS and web hosting set up with the intent to provide resources for spammers.
Mass mailer tools are a different matter. Some of these are being sold as spam tools. These are the most damaging. Not because of the spam being sent with them - after all, there are a lot of tools that can be used to spam. But because the sites selling these tools are often full of misleading statements that attempt to add an air of legitimacy to the practice. This only encourages the uninitiated to invest in this "business", convincing them that they're just a step away from easy financial freedom. But because of the issues with censorship, etc I worry that blocking a site that advertising the "Spaminator 2000" software suite does more damage than good (unless that site has been advertised via a spam campaign).
The perception that comes across when this is done is that a few people are trying to block the spam from the masses. They still believe they are providing "valuable product/market/service information" to the masses, and will just seek some way to avoid the "problem" of MAPS.
I've kept this point to the end since I've been pondering over it a bit. I both agree and (I think) disagree with you.
If I understand your point correctly, you're stating that while a smaller selection of admins and anti-spammers take action, spammers believe they're simply being targeted by a vocal minority. In fact, we need a larger percentage of end users to take action and prove that spammers are not welcomed and their messages are not wanted. That would curb the desire to spam. Until that time, spammers will simply circumvent the latest attempts to stop them.
I agree that spammers will continue to find new avenues and methods to practice their trade. And in a previous post I mused over what kind of statistics would be generated if all ISPs offered their customers a choice between filtered and non-filtered email service.
However, I disagree that spammers would discontinue their ways if presented with this evidence. If you look at the portraits of Rodona Garst in the Behind Enemy Lines site, you'll notice a slew of those inspirational posters. Spammers are success-oriented. They have convinced themselves that spamming will in itself, or in part, provide them with that success. In some cases, spammers even go to great length to defend their activities as acceptable, even welcomed. This is despite the ample evidence to the contrary in the form of ISP AUP's, spam-free service commercials, legislative activity, anti-spam activities and tools, and a wealth of internet history that dates back to 1994's first usenet spamming by lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel.
Spammers have either convince themselves that their actions are accptable, or they simply do not care. I suspect the later.
In any case, spamming is business. Whether spamming works or not, its attraction is its perceived cost vs return. Until spamming becomes cost prohibitive (running out of money was mentioned and I agree there) people will continue to spam.
Why is MAPS blocking web sites? I want SPAM to be blocked, not web sites. I don't get SPAM from web sites, I get SPAM from mail servers.
I would like to hear more on this from those who are involved with anti-spam efforts, and are therefore keep a closer eye on spammer activities. Having said that, I've noticed a few things that I find interesting.
Spamming is not an accepted activity and thus, spammers must resort to great measures to continue their trade. Lucky for them, one doesn't have to maintain a presence to spam. Its a very hit-and-run activity. Spammers therefore use a variety of resources - incorrectly configured mail relays, throw-away accounts, and stolen accounts.
Blocking email servers helps limit the damage from questionable business contracts and misconfigured relays. It might even put pressure on those who provide easy access to throw-away accounts... though usually the damage is already done. It does very little to prevent the damage done with stolen accounts using otherwise valid resources.
So if you can't go after the source of the spam, the only thing left to target is the spam's goal. The item being advertised (and likely the real source of the spam since most activities are being conducted by, or for-hire by, those being advertised). If that involves a web site (or another spammer resource), you point that site out and allow the community that uses the MAPS service to block it - essentially shunning it from the shared network. And by doing so, attempt to remove (or at least limit) the incentive to spam (and in some cases, some of the tools that help spammers).
So that might explain the reason that anti-spam efforts would extend beyond email servers. But this activity also brings forward a whole slew of other questions; power-plays, censorship, etc.
This was another one of the spurious claims of the internet revolution.
Yep. And I want to say it was DoubleClick that began to push this (though I don't have links to back that up). It was a really stupid thing to do.
On the second note, I'm actually not referring to the cost of a ticket. I meant the box office takes reported weekly on those movies. They're not all blow-out winners. But there's often a good return on the investment.
Yeah, that's great until the sites that you want to read go the way of the dodo because they depend on the click-throughs that their ads generate and that you're eliminating because you're more intent on preventing something from showing up than you are on actually getting the content you need.
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Take a look at the world around you. On television, you see advertising, unless you're watching a premium service that you pay for, like HBO or pay-per-view. On radio, you see advertising unless you're listening to a station like NPR which is funded through user donations (and during fund drives, fundraising pleas work just like advertisements).
One of the worse things to happen to the Internet advertising industry was the "click-through". Somehow, advertising is not effective online unless it generates an immediate responce. In all other, more traditional, forms of media advertising... there is no such immediate responce demand. You don't have advertising campaigns scrapped because there were no phone calls within 5 minutes of a TV or Radio add spot. Advertising simply does not work that way.
In trying to attract advertising funds away from older media formats, Internet advertisers have set themselves up to some all-but-impossible to meet requirements. Its no wonder they're failing.
On an unrelated note... you noted the increased advertising showing up in theatres. We all get to hear about box office takes. I find it hard to believe advertising in theatres is required to offset the cost of those movies. Its showing up simply because we've become used to advertisements and the theatre offers a captive audience. In short, theatres do it because they CAN, not because they MUST.
Re:Ads are not necessarily bad...
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Ads are not necessarily bad...
...it's just the implementation of some of them that everyone hates.
I agree. I don't mind an ad. I don't mind animated gifs, within reason (none of that flashing or whirling). But I hate stupid java tricks and Flash animations - they're considerably heavier in both proc time and bandwidth. And, of course, I'll block anything that attempts to track me.
I can only hope OSDN doesn't go this direction along with the larger ads.
Terrorism is starting to become a buzzword, but it is a state of combat (a step below guerilla warfare) where you have the finances and a small group of men to do some small damages, but not enough to do "hit and run tactics" (guerilla warfare).
I believe you're missing a really important distinction here. Terrorism, in the common context used these days, involves civilian targets that have no military significance. That's the distinction which labels most acts of terrorism a crime.
That's not to say terrorism, in the most stringent definition, isn't used as a part of military operations. Special operations involving non-conventional warfare often deals with creating confusion, chaos, and terror within enemy ranks. Guerilla warfare is definately involved in that tactic.
The attack on the WTC was definately terrorism, the crime. I have a harder time labeling attacks on the Pentagon and military housing in Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia as criminal acts. Even if all those attacks were, in fact, attacks.
I completely agree that Nimda has even less to do with terrorism. Sure, there is some level damage involved. But an attack does not make a criminal act of terrorism.
I would say that some viruses ARE terrorism. What about the big ol' DDoS we had a year or so ago? It was a smallish group targetting a list of victims for political means. Sounds like terrorism to me.
Terrorism Ter"ror*ism, n. Cf. F. terrorisme.
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. --Jefferson.
So are you telling me you're taking the phrase "phear me" seriously?
ISPs should just put their MAPS usage in their TOS, or even (if possible) allow the user to choose MAPS or not for their email accounts.
This touches on a point that occured to me while reading the EFF newsletter. It would be nice to have some enduser preference statistics.
Anti-spam activists are often portrayed as some kind of out-of-touch net-nazi brotherhood by SPAMers and their supporters. They apparently hate commercial use of the internet and are hell-bent on depriving normal internet users from valuable information that they really want. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from reading some SPAMer's writing on the issue.
Oddly enough, I haven't ran in to one customer, co-worker, or client thats said "I wish I got more valuable information about marketing oportunities and special offers in my inbox". They usually say "I hate spam. How do I stop it?"
It would be interesting to give endusers the choice between protected/shielded/MAPS'd/etc service and wide-open email. I suspect it would provide data contrary to the SPAMer's points.
OK, here's a good ISP idea: just add a header to the mail saying that the ISP tagged the email as being MAPS-blacklisted. X-ISP-MAPS-Found, or something like that. Then the user could very easily configure their client to drop mail with that header, or not.
I've worked for a company that did this with their corporate mail environment. Works pretty good, if you know what to look for (and they did a good job to educate their people about the system).
However, that does nothing to protect the ISP and the user from the burdon of the email. They still take a hit when dealing with this undesired traffic. Even if it does allow a hook to automatically deal with it without human intervention.
Most gated commumities build their own roads, so they aren't public. The roads were paid for by the people living there.( which is why they are generally in good shape, too) .
And oddly enough, most ISPs build their own networks and servers, and pay for traffic to/from their backbone provider. These services are paid for by the ISP's customers.
...the car will also take pictures when it determines the atmosphere inside is a happy one...
And when parked and it detects a sharp increase in cabin temperature, heavier breathing, and increased heartbeats in its passangers, it establishes a wireless link, enables a webcam and establishes a credit card gateway that charges $3/min.
I too despise those idiotic X10 ads. But isn't it curious that everybody knows the name X10? They've attracted our attention and have created a very high profile brand name. Sounds like pretty good marketing to me.
Actually, a few years ago... and before the blitz of annoying adds, X10 devices were often subjects of slashdot stories. Cool little devices that do various neat things. And they weren't that expensive. Gadgeteer's delight.
Now, it seems that the only time X10 is mentioned on slashdot its about their annoying adds.
You tell me. Is moving a perfect customer base (gadget-loving geeks) from a focus on a product to a focus on an advertising campaign all that good of a move?
We've all heard that the phrase "there's no such thing as bad publicity." I'm sure there are industries where this is true. However, I can't see how the message "avoid buying this product, whatever it is" is really going to help hardware sales.
I don't know if its a good idea to be actively cooperating with the Northern Alliance.
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First of all the US shouldn't be kingmaker in any country.
I like to think the US has gotten better at this. Our past history has a few grand mistakes where we attempted to put a ruler in place. We've had a chance to do it recently, and we wisely held back.
Kuwait was wide open for our own implementation of a democractic government. Yet the old, and decidedly NOT democratic, government holds Kuwait again (albeit a very friendly ally). We could have done a lot more with Iraq. We definately had the ability to wipe out Iraq's armed forces and remove its governing body. But that would have lead to considerable other issues (such as power vacuums and all the problems with a puppet gov't).
I am hopefull that although Al'Qaeda will spin it differently, the US will avoid some of the problems with this kind of situation by supporting forces native to the area (it might be worth noting that the Taliban are seen as invaders by the Norther Alliance - they did come from Pakistan). The Northern Alliance has expressed hope of uniting other resistance factions and the exiled King to form a new government. This would be a decentralized government - going back to past history where local governments were the only stable leadership nestled in the harsh terrain of Afghanistan.
Let's not kid ourselves too much, though. Those involved in the Northern Alliance didn't have a splotless history when they held power over Afghanistan before the Taliban. But they have publically admited to making mistakes and stated a desire to learn from the past and form a new government, rather than re-institute the past.
Time will tell if they get their chance and if they're sincere. And if the general Arab world is accepting.
Of course, we know the much smaller faction of fundamentalist extreemists won't be happy unless it is extreemists in power.
In short, I can't see there being very many users at all who have a current version of PGP and chose *not* to send their key into the keyserver -- it's just that tightly integrated.
Our group was pushing the Corporate populas towards PGP as a standard desktop app. And for it to become a commonly used app, at that. We were actually making some progress. And that's when people began asking (if not demanding) the company's key server.
The company had an "official" internal key server at one time. There was even a DNS entry for it still. In actuality, this keyserver had been a side project on an individual's Solaris desktop machine. He had become burdened with other tasks and the keyserver fell in to disrepair until it had been taken offline. We didn't have the time / funding to deal with it either.
Our suggestion was to use the excellent network of public key servers in the meantime. It was odd. People were rather horrified at the idea. Public keyservers was just too scarry. No ammount of discussion would change their minds. They needed a nice, safe internal one or no key server at all would do.
We scored a hit in getting PGP out there. But I suspect it was an overall miss by somehow failing to educate the population on what they had.
4. Geek factor. It is oh, so cool to be able to 'sign' an email, and advertise your public key.
That sparks up a bit of paranoia that might be interesting to discuss.
I maintain at least 1 active keypair. I put it out on distributed key server groups. I post it on web servers. I use it to encrypt private communications.
But I use it very sparingly when it comes to signing email. I have to see a really good reason to verify who I am before I sign anything. If paranoia causes one to take up using PGP, its an even more selective paranoia that causes one to not use all its potential.
So why am I so paranoid? After watching the subpoenas fly a couple of years ago, I've decided that I'd prefer to make it a little more difficult to prove any bad attitude really is mine. Granted, there's other ways to try and link email to an individual. But why make it a habit to provide that trail for every mail list post, friendly banter, and interoffice discussion message you fire off?
And that's a really important point - a majority of our (or at least mine) email is of a fire-and-forget, trivial nature. Its less a written letter and more a verbal conversation encapsulated in text. Without the bandwidth hit of wav file attachments. In this informal environment, things are often said... or ideas expressed... that one would not set to a permanent record. Yet email, and other forms of electronic communication, have an odd way of sticking around far beyond its intended life.
Do you really need to give a lawyer the means to prove them came from you? And sure, there are other ways to link an email to an individual. But I'd prefer to make anyone giving me a hard time jump through those extra hoops.
As a side note, memo and file retention policies existed well before email became an indispensable tool to business. Email only compounds the problem these policies were really designed to address (and no, storage of files isn't the real issue here). With the lines slowly fading between personal and professional data, it might be worthwhile to think about your own home shredder and review your own document retention policy.
Of course - this all doesn't cover the real reason all this signing happens. Geek appeal. That's easy to handle. Include your PGP Key ID and fingerprint in your.sig and business cards. Stylish and practical, with a bit of geek attitude.
The core of this, and every other conflict, is the soldier. The core of any operation involving taking ground and holding it, or in denying that ground to an enemy, is the infantry. Poor, thankless, cold, and tired infantry. Some poor shmuck (possibly quite well educated nowadays) a long way from home, in a nasty situation, with some people out to kill him and maybe some friends he's trying to keep alive. And hoping he'll get out in one piece and hoping he'll have dry socks.
During one of the press breifings, a minor fact suddenly stood out. There was discussion over what targets were being selected. It was noted that Taliban troops had been targeted in the northern area of Afghanistan. It seems Taliban forces had massed there in responce to a push from the Northern Alliance. The speaker pointed out that this showed the importance of ground troops in the area. You need ground forces to cause enemy forces to mass and provide a suitable target for air attack.
Rewind a bit there.
Note that the ground forces being referred to were not US or British forces. It was Afghanistan rebels.
Granted - US special forces have been in the area for some time. They've been collecting intel, doing recon, and possibly interfacing with Northern Alliance representatives. But the grunt work is being done by Afghanistan nationals. The US and British forces are supplying the "force multiplyer".
This is an important point. US troops may eventually contribute to a ground war, but it will be important that Afghanistan rebel forces will be taking leading roles in unseating the Taliban government. Just as it was important that the Kuwait military be the first to roll in to Kuwait City.
Total crap.... soldiers shoot and kill things... they dont save anything.
There's an entire group of people in a little Middle East nation called Kuwait who'd disagree. Likewise, entire swaths of Europe (who still hold a perspective of not-so-distant history) are also likely to disagree.
I do agree that, ultimately, our armed forces are focused on breaking things and killing people. That ugly fact should not be forgotten. But you're kidding yourself if you believe that's their only purpose.
What I meant is, you don't (yet) hear Kodak or Polaroid moan and whine about how easy it is to scan argentic photographs with a scanner to view them on your screen, proposing that photo prints be moired to avoid scanning, or asking scanner manufacturers to embed watermark recognition in scanner's firmware to block scanning of copyrighted photos.
There's a big difference between Kodak or Polaroid and those the RIAA represent. Kodak isn't producing IP. They produce media with which IP can be created. Granted - they might see a niche market in producing some of the watermark tech in their digital products.
A better example of someone with a vested interest in photograph IP is Playboy.
But... here we have an OS which is accused of being monolithic (Windows) yet it's also being criticized because there's more than one way to launch a program?
My first reaction was exactly that. But then it dawned on me that there's another way to look at this.
Say you're running Windows and need to launch Program X. There are 7 (I think that was the number used) different places you may have to look to run that app. Sometimes there's more than one way to launch the app - sometimes there's just the one. This means there's potential for a user to have to hunt around before they're able to figure out how to launch the app.
Having said that - I would agree that having only ONE way to do something isn't a plus. One standard way would be good. But giving power users additional ways would be my choice. I'd be a bit miffed if the only way to launch an app was through the Start button (or its equivilant).
The instant the first GPL-involved programmer went to work for these companies, they began making money off of someone else's freely given work. The incentive for these guys to continue working for free vanished around the same time. Would you continue to code for free if you knew a group of half a dozen guys were fiddling with your code for $50K a year?
So if I understand the argument properly, the Open Source community is full of sour grapes?
I fail to see what someone's income (and where that income is derived) has to do with it. How does a coder being paid to contribute to a project take away from that project?
Of course - I could understand other issues. If those coders were taking the project in a direction that the origional author(s) disagreed with. If there was a feeling that a company with deep pockets was somehow hijacking the code base. And then, of course, there's the possibility that a company one resents is making use of one's work.
You've got all kinds of axes to grind with VA Linux, don't you Bowie?:)
Sometimes I wonder if the biggest test of the GPL would be if Microsoft embraced it (as unlikely to happen as that is). Would those who flock to Linux and GPL projects abandon them because they're seen as tainted? Or would things go along as normal - maybe a bit faster with some of Microsoft's resources going towards contributing code?
I'd like to think that GPL developers aren't so shallow as to allow Microsoft's presence to derail their work. Whether they like their new contributers or not.
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Another reasonably successful commercial gun using a, more or less, clip system was the ATS TS1 (which has spawned a series of updated models). This paintgun has a forward hopper slung under the barrel and doubling as a grip. It feeds paintballs to a very obvious clip. The clip itself holds something like 25rnds and feeds the paintgun through a kind of converyer belt system. It is also available in select fire and semi-auto only models. Again - the technology is unique to this marker.
There are also a series of trainer and "sidearm" paintguns out there. They tend to be limited to between 10 and 25 rnds and spring-fed. Usually semi-auto and often pistols (though I understand there are some M-16 replicas that are sold solely to training facilities).
Modern feed systems these days are still gravity fed. The difference is that they use agitators and sensors to keep the well stocked with paintballs. These kinda-almost-positive feed systems are required by today's fast-paced semi-auto paintguns who boast rates of fire that meet full-auto paintguns... assuming the human trigger finger can keep it up.
Semi-auto paintguns are found solely in the realm of scenario games... if even there.
When it comes down to it, clip fed systems are not really required. Paintballs are round; they don't need to be chambered in any particular way. Gravity feed works rather well assuming the paintgun is being held more or less upright and the feed system has been appropriately designed (which is a given in most modern paintguns). Agitated feeders help keep those feeds going. And finally, gravity fed hoppers are able to hold considerably more rounds than any clip system - unless you get in to drums which I understand induce considerable problems of their own.
Most of my paintball experience has been around active duty military members. Military training and paintball have suprisingly little to do with each other.
To begin with, I had a non-combatant role in the US Air Force. I fixed electronics systems on aircraft. I would get annual training on an M16 - probably so that I don't end up using it as a club if the unthinkable happens and I actually have to USE one (and then we're all in pretty serious trouble anyway). My entire team was, mostly, non-combatants. We took top positions in each tournament we played. These tournaments included teams consisting solely of combat-trained individuals.
One of those teams were a great group of Army guys in K-Town (hey HAWGs). We would drive over for weekend pick-up games with their group on their paintball area. It was common to hear them complain about the previous weeks' field training and how they were glad to be playing some paintball to get away from all that.
Lets go back over that point. Paintball was a break from military training. The game was a break from, as close as the Army could get, the real thing.
Sure - military and police units do use paintball equipment for limited training. There's something psycologically distinct about solid projectiles flying around compared to laser light beams. But when paintball is used, it involves very specific scenarios and sometimes unique equipment.
And then there's the danger of picking up bad habits. A piece of plywood or a bush makes adequate paintball cover. It offers little aid against a firearm.
I'd like to point out that our paintball team in Germany used paintball tactics. Combat tactics (used by a lot of teams with combat-trained members) didn't fare well in paintball and I'm sure paintball tactics wouldn't work well on a battlefield.
There have been a range of articles going over the "war" nature of paintball. Something about the simulated danger of the activity. Tapping our desire for adrenaline, conflict, and aggressive nature. I've pondered about it too. But in the end its all academic.
Paintball is simply fun. Its a game. And while it may have some simularity to more martial issues, that comparison is simular to those that can be made of chess or risk. Heck. Sports such as kendo or fencing have truer ties to martial arts than paintball. And even those ties are shadows.
One of the guys noted he had access to a retired water-based fire extinguisher. We gleefully hashed out some ideas on what kind of mixture could be used for our device and called the tournament officials. After explaining our plan, we got the OK. The paint-thrower was a go!
Or rather - it would have been a go if we had ever gotten around to actually trying it out. We never did anything with the idea. But come tournament time, the rumors had spread. The Eifel Blitzkriegers had a paint thrower.
We would deny its existance to all inquiring visits to our team's camp the night before, and during, the tournament. But this only changed the device's status from wild-card curiosity to obviously highly effective secret weapon. Each game, onlookers waiting for the unveiling.
Well, we were lame. The most exciting thing we had was the standard consumer grade hands-free radios. Which we used to great effect.
Seems we had 2 frequencies available and one of those frequencies were in use by our opponents during the final playoff for the tournament. While setting up for the final showdown, we listened in on the opposition; spying on their plans. During the initial confrontation, we helped them redistribute their skirmish line by calling for reinforcements where none were needed. After a few rounds of beefing up one flank or the other (and trying to lessen their burdon with well-placed shots on their team), they finally caught on. Thats when we simply keyed mikes and chattered away - effectively jamming their comms system they had become amazingly dependant on.
We won. I can't say that the non-existant paint thrower didn't help. Maybe there was a psycological effect. And our little stint in signal intel / electronic warefare gave us an edge.
But in the end, just good 'ole solid paint slinging won the day.
This anti-spam feeling that's been generally favored on the net since CyberPromotions first attempted to "legitimize" the spam industry is the same attitude that makes it hard for later attempts to flourish. Once a "spamhaus" is identified, it begins to find itself slowly cut off from the rest of the Internet.
Spammers will attempt to use other methods. These outfits seem to be just as organized as a "spamhaus" who pays for and uses its own resources. I would suspect the information displayed on the Behind Enemy Lines site is fairly representative of the players in the spam game.
In short, it doesn't really matter who is spamming and how they're getting it out. The fact is, they ARE getting it out. And they will continue to find additional ways to spam unless they loose the incentive to do it. And that incentive isn't just pure joy. They're after money.
I'm not saying don't go after the (apparent) source at all. Certainly, this needs to be done. But we can't expect this to continue to be effective. Because spammers are trying harder and harder to mask themselves, or otherwise use hit-and-run tactics, we're not always going find the source in a spam's headers. I should have used more detail on this point. "Spam tools" raises some interesting issues. First, my actual meaning wasn't just spam mailer applications (although they did come to mind). My main thought was towards services such as dynamic DNS and web hosting set up with the intent to provide resources for spammers.Mass mailer tools are a different matter. Some of these are being sold as spam tools. These are the most damaging. Not because of the spam being sent with them - after all, there are a lot of tools that can be used to spam. But because the sites selling these tools are often full of misleading statements that attempt to add an air of legitimacy to the practice. This only encourages the uninitiated to invest in this "business", convincing them that they're just a step away from easy financial freedom. But because of the issues with censorship, etc I worry that blocking a site that advertising the "Spaminator 2000" software suite does more damage than good (unless that site has been advertised via a spam campaign).
I've kept this point to the end since I've been pondering over it a bit. I both agree and (I think) disagree with you.If I understand your point correctly, you're stating that while a smaller selection of admins and anti-spammers take action, spammers believe they're simply being targeted by a vocal minority. In fact, we need a larger percentage of end users to take action and prove that spammers are not welcomed and their messages are not wanted. That would curb the desire to spam. Until that time, spammers will simply circumvent the latest attempts to stop them.
I agree that spammers will continue to find new avenues and methods to practice their trade. And in a previous post I mused over what kind of statistics would be generated if all ISPs offered their customers a choice between filtered and non-filtered email service.
However, I disagree that spammers would discontinue their ways if presented with this evidence. If you look at the portraits of Rodona Garst in the Behind Enemy Lines site, you'll notice a slew of those inspirational posters. Spammers are success-oriented. They have convinced themselves that spamming will in itself, or in part, provide them with that success. In some cases, spammers even go to great length to defend their activities as acceptable, even welcomed. This is despite the ample evidence to the contrary in the form of ISP AUP's, spam-free service commercials, legislative activity, anti-spam activities and tools, and a wealth of internet history that dates back to 1994's first usenet spamming by lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel.
Spammers have either convince themselves that their actions are accptable, or they simply do not care. I suspect the later.
In any case, spamming is business. Whether spamming works or not, its attraction is its perceived cost vs return. Until spamming becomes cost prohibitive (running out of money was mentioned and I agree there) people will continue to spam.
Spamming is not an accepted activity and thus, spammers must resort to great measures to continue their trade. Lucky for them, one doesn't have to maintain a presence to spam. Its a very hit-and-run activity. Spammers therefore use a variety of resources - incorrectly configured mail relays, throw-away accounts, and stolen accounts.
Blocking email servers helps limit the damage from questionable business contracts and misconfigured relays. It might even put pressure on those who provide easy access to throw-away accounts... though usually the damage is already done. It does very little to prevent the damage done with stolen accounts using otherwise valid resources.
So if you can't go after the source of the spam, the only thing left to target is the spam's goal. The item being advertised (and likely the real source of the spam since most activities are being conducted by, or for-hire by, those being advertised). If that involves a web site (or another spammer resource), you point that site out and allow the community that uses the MAPS service to block it - essentially shunning it from the shared network. And by doing so, attempt to remove (or at least limit) the incentive to spam (and in some cases, some of the tools that help spammers).
So that might explain the reason that anti-spam efforts would extend beyond email servers. But this activity also brings forward a whole slew of other questions; power-plays, censorship, etc.
Yep. And I want to say it was DoubleClick that began to push this (though I don't have links to back that up). It was a really stupid thing to do.
On the second note, I'm actually not referring to the cost of a ticket. I meant the box office takes reported weekly on those movies. They're not all blow-out winners. But there's often a good return on the investment.
One of the worse things to happen to the Internet advertising industry was the "click-through". Somehow, advertising is not effective online unless it generates an immediate responce. In all other, more traditional, forms of media advertising... there is no such immediate responce demand. You don't have advertising campaigns scrapped because there were no phone calls within 5 minutes of a TV or Radio add spot. Advertising simply does not work that way.
In trying to attract advertising funds away from older media formats, Internet advertisers have set themselves up to some all-but-impossible to meet requirements. Its no wonder they're failing.
On an unrelated note... you noted the increased advertising showing up in theatres. We all get to hear about box office takes. I find it hard to believe advertising in theatres is required to offset the cost of those movies. Its showing up simply because we've become used to advertisements and the theatre offers a captive audience. In short, theatres do it because they CAN, not because they MUST.
I agree. I don't mind an ad. I don't mind animated gifs, within reason (none of that flashing or whirling). But I hate stupid java tricks and Flash animations - they're considerably heavier in both proc time and bandwidth. And, of course, I'll block anything that attempts to track me.
I can only hope OSDN doesn't go this direction along with the larger ads.
I believe you're missing a really important distinction here. Terrorism, in the common context used these days, involves civilian targets that have no military significance. That's the distinction which labels most acts of terrorism a crime.
That's not to say terrorism, in the most stringent definition, isn't used as a part of military operations. Special operations involving non-conventional warfare often deals with creating confusion, chaos, and terror within enemy ranks. Guerilla warfare is definately involved in that tactic.
The attack on the WTC was definately terrorism, the crime. I have a harder time labeling attacks on the Pentagon and military housing in Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia as criminal acts. Even if all those attacks were, in fact, attacks.
I completely agree that Nimda has even less to do with terrorism. Sure, there is some level damage involved. But an attack does not make a criminal act of terrorism.
Terrorism Ter"ror*ism, n. Cf. F. terrorisme.
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. --Jefferson.
So are you telling me you're taking the phrase "phear me" seriously?
This touches on a point that occured to me while reading the EFF newsletter. It would be nice to have some enduser preference statistics.
Anti-spam activists are often portrayed as some kind of out-of-touch net-nazi brotherhood by SPAMers and their supporters. They apparently hate commercial use of the internet and are hell-bent on depriving normal internet users from valuable information that they really want. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from reading some SPAMer's writing on the issue.
Oddly enough, I haven't ran in to one customer, co-worker, or client thats said "I wish I got more valuable information about marketing oportunities and special offers in my inbox". They usually say "I hate spam. How do I stop it?"
It would be interesting to give endusers the choice between protected/shielded/MAPS'd/etc service and wide-open email. I suspect it would provide data contrary to the SPAMer's points.
However, that does nothing to protect the ISP and the user from the burdon of the email. They still take a hit when dealing with this undesired traffic. Even if it does allow a hook to automatically deal with it without human intervention.
And oddly enough, most ISPs build their own networks and servers, and pay for traffic to/from their backbone provider. These services are paid for by the ISP's customers.
My immediate reaction is screaming at the dashboard "don't drive angry! Don't drive angry!"
They'll h4x0r your toaster with a Denial of Toast attack.
Actually, a few years ago... and before the blitz of annoying adds, X10 devices were often subjects of slashdot stories. Cool little devices that do various neat things. And they weren't that expensive. Gadgeteer's delight.
Now, it seems that the only time X10 is mentioned on slashdot its about their annoying adds.
You tell me. Is moving a perfect customer base (gadget-loving geeks) from a focus on a product to a focus on an advertising campaign all that good of a move?
We've all heard that the phrase "there's no such thing as bad publicity." I'm sure there are industries where this is true. However, I can't see how the message "avoid buying this product, whatever it is" is really going to help hardware sales.
I like to think the US has gotten better at this. Our past history has a few grand mistakes where we attempted to put a ruler in place. We've had a chance to do it recently, and we wisely held back.
Kuwait was wide open for our own implementation of a democractic government. Yet the old, and decidedly NOT democratic, government holds Kuwait again (albeit a very friendly ally). We could have done a lot more with Iraq. We definately had the ability to wipe out Iraq's armed forces and remove its governing body. But that would have lead to considerable other issues (such as power vacuums and all the problems with a puppet gov't).
I am hopefull that although Al'Qaeda will spin it differently, the US will avoid some of the problems with this kind of situation by supporting forces native to the area (it might be worth noting that the Taliban are seen as invaders by the Norther Alliance - they did come from Pakistan). The Northern Alliance has expressed hope of uniting other resistance factions and the exiled King to form a new government. This would be a decentralized government - going back to past history where local governments were the only stable leadership nestled in the harsh terrain of Afghanistan.
Let's not kid ourselves too much, though. Those involved in the Northern Alliance didn't have a splotless history when they held power over Afghanistan before the Taliban. But they have publically admited to making mistakes and stated a desire to learn from the past and form a new government, rather than re-institute the past.
Time will tell if they get their chance and if they're sincere. And if the general Arab world is accepting.
Of course, we know the much smaller faction of fundamentalist extreemists won't be happy unless it is extreemists in power.
Our group was pushing the Corporate populas towards PGP as a standard desktop app. And for it to become a commonly used app, at that. We were actually making some progress. And that's when people began asking (if not demanding) the company's key server.
The company had an "official" internal key server at one time. There was even a DNS entry for it still. In actuality, this keyserver had been a side project on an individual's Solaris desktop machine. He had become burdened with other tasks and the keyserver fell in to disrepair until it had been taken offline. We didn't have the time / funding to deal with it either.
Our suggestion was to use the excellent network of public key servers in the meantime. It was odd. People were rather horrified at the idea. Public keyservers was just too scarry. No ammount of discussion would change their minds. They needed a nice, safe internal one or no key server at all would do.
We scored a hit in getting PGP out there. But I suspect it was an overall miss by somehow failing to educate the population on what they had.
That sparks up a bit of paranoia that might be interesting to discuss.
I maintain at least 1 active keypair. I put it out on distributed key server groups. I post it on web servers. I use it to encrypt private communications.
But I use it very sparingly when it comes to signing email. I have to see a really good reason to verify who I am before I sign anything. If paranoia causes one to take up using PGP, its an even more selective paranoia that causes one to not use all its potential.
So why am I so paranoid? After watching the subpoenas fly a couple of years ago, I've decided that I'd prefer to make it a little more difficult to prove any bad attitude really is mine. Granted, there's other ways to try and link email to an individual. But why make it a habit to provide that trail for every mail list post, friendly banter, and interoffice discussion message you fire off?
And that's a really important point - a majority of our (or at least mine) email is of a fire-and-forget, trivial nature. Its less a written letter and more a verbal conversation encapsulated in text. Without the bandwidth hit of wav file attachments. In this informal environment, things are often said... or ideas expressed... that one would not set to a permanent record. Yet email, and other forms of electronic communication, have an odd way of sticking around far beyond its intended life.
Do you really need to give a lawyer the means to prove them came from you? And sure, there are other ways to link an email to an individual. But I'd prefer to make anyone giving me a hard time jump through those extra hoops.
As a side note, memo and file retention policies existed well before email became an indispensable tool to business. Email only compounds the problem these policies were really designed to address (and no, storage of files isn't the real issue here). With the lines slowly fading between personal and professional data, it might be worthwhile to think about your own home shredder and review your own document retention policy.
Of course - this all doesn't cover the real reason all this signing happens. Geek appeal. That's easy to handle. Include your PGP Key ID and fingerprint in your
During one of the press breifings, a minor fact suddenly stood out. There was discussion over what targets were being selected. It was noted that Taliban troops had been targeted in the northern area of Afghanistan. It seems Taliban forces had massed there in responce to a push from the Northern Alliance. The speaker pointed out that this showed the importance of ground troops in the area. You need ground forces to cause enemy forces to mass and provide a suitable target for air attack.
Rewind a bit there.
Note that the ground forces being referred to were not US or British forces. It was Afghanistan rebels.
Granted - US special forces have been in the area for some time. They've been collecting intel, doing recon, and possibly interfacing with Northern Alliance representatives. But the grunt work is being done by Afghanistan nationals. The US and British forces are supplying the "force multiplyer".
This is an important point. US troops may eventually contribute to a ground war, but it will be important that Afghanistan rebel forces will be taking leading roles in unseating the Taliban government. Just as it was important that the Kuwait military be the first to roll in to Kuwait City.
There's an entire group of people in a little Middle East nation called Kuwait who'd disagree. Likewise, entire swaths of Europe (who still hold a perspective of not-so-distant history) are also likely to disagree.
I do agree that, ultimately, our armed forces are focused on breaking things and killing people. That ugly fact should not be forgotten. But you're kidding yourself if you believe that's their only purpose.
There's a big difference between Kodak or Polaroid and those the RIAA represent. Kodak isn't producing IP. They produce media with which IP can be created. Granted - they might see a niche market in producing some of the watermark tech in their digital products.
A better example of someone with a vested interest in photograph IP is Playboy.
My first reaction was exactly that. But then it dawned on me that there's another way to look at this.
Say you're running Windows and need to launch Program X. There are 7 (I think that was the number used) different places you may have to look to run that app. Sometimes there's more than one way to launch the app - sometimes there's just the one. This means there's potential for a user to have to hunt around before they're able to figure out how to launch the app.
Having said that - I would agree that having only ONE way to do something isn't a plus. One standard way would be good. But giving power users additional ways would be my choice. I'd be a bit miffed if the only way to launch an app was through the Start button (or its equivilant).
So if I understand the argument properly, the Open Source community is full of sour grapes?
I fail to see what someone's income (and where that income is derived) has to do with it. How does a coder being paid to contribute to a project take away from that project?
Of course - I could understand other issues. If those coders were taking the project in a direction that the origional author(s) disagreed with. If there was a feeling that a company with deep pockets was somehow hijacking the code base. And then, of course, there's the possibility that a company one resents is making use of one's work.
You've got all kinds of axes to grind with VA Linux, don't you Bowie?
Sometimes I wonder if the biggest test of the GPL would be if Microsoft embraced it (as unlikely to happen as that is). Would those who flock to Linux and GPL projects abandon them because they're seen as tainted? Or would things go along as normal - maybe a bit faster with some of Microsoft's resources going towards contributing code?
I'd like to think that GPL developers aren't so shallow as to allow Microsoft's presence to derail their work. Whether they like their new contributers or not.