Back in the early days, most computer viruses came from eastern Europe, and largely from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Some virus experts said this was because these viruses were intended to disable or at least inconvenience Soviet infrastructure, as a practical form of resistance.
So it's not like the concept is exactly new or different; it's just been extended to a wider target (and I doubt we're the only country such with a dedicated hacker group).
"I would also love it if my firewall and antivirus protection could be offloaded to another processor."
Hey, can that be done? I mean, is there a way to specify that "all THIS shit runs on THAT processor" --??
Someone who knows CPU architecture kindly holler if I'm making up nonsense, but ISTM it might be more efficient to relegate all the "everyday background stuff" to one area, so the rest of the CPU(s) *never* has to deal with it.
On my WinBoxen, I have the tweak set to "Prevent applications from stealing focus" and Mozilla STILL does it. Makes me wonder what it's doing that it really shouldn't be.
1) Don't use cleaner disks that have the little brushes; they can knock the head out of alignment. As a last-ditch for a dead drive, you might try one of the cleaner PADS, but even so that is not something to do with a working drive.
2) Make sure the case has positive air pressure inside (simplest way is to have one more intake fan, placed at least halfway up the case, than it does outflow fans), to keep air flowing OUT through the various drive orifices. I live in the dusty desert with house cats, and even so, thanks to their intake fans, my systems stay nearly white-glove clean inside.
3) Make sure the case has good cooling; some CDRWs are extremely heat-sensitive.
4) If you smoke, quit. Cig smoke residue is very hard on computer components. (Damp ocean air isn't much better.)
5) DON'T put labels on burned disks; there is no way you can align them exactly enough to avoid throwing the disk out of balance, and that can eventually damage the drive's alignment.
As to personal experiences:
ALL Yamaha CDRWs I've seen to date (20 so far, both SCSI and IDE) have died prematurely, due to overheating that eventually warps the laser out of alignment.
But otherwise, they're pretty damned durable. Right now in everyday use I have:
Plus a whole bunch of CDROMs (Panasonic, Sony, various generics) in other boxes, that date back as far as 1994, and still work. Also, I've *never* seen ANY LiteOn unit go bad, and most clone dealers will say the same.
The only optical drives I've had die were three Yamaha CDRWs (see above), and one ancient Panasonic 2x (1994) that lost its drive belt at age 6, tho it still worked otherwise.
I agree that GoDaddy's website is amazingly stinky, and in fact I've complained about it to them many times... but as a registrar, I've been very happy with their service -- including Real Human customer service (that once even helped fix a problem that wasn't actually their fault).
Since I only have to visit the site once or twice a year, I manage to survive using it.:)
I had a possibly similar problem about a year ago -- when I used a for-really Earthlink POP, I could not reach my [redirected] domains, but when I used a leased POP, no problem.
Between traceroute and helpful folks at GoDaddy, the problem was resolved -- seems one particular server at ELN was blocked due to being on some blackhole list. ELN got notified, server got fixed, I got a phone call from ELN and an email from GoDaddy both explaining the problem; everybody happy.
[laughing] No wonder it was slow even compared to my shitty dialup:) Nice job, tho. The few shots I looked at are seriously, um, classy. {Sending URL to a friend, who will waste far too much time admiring 'em all:)
ISTM that even if you can't bring yourself to hand over the domain and website, a reasonable compromise might be to just let the domain and hosting expire, then leave it up to her as to what she wants to do with it.
You can't recover from a bad relationship until you get rid of all the associated baggage:)
Perhaps appropriately considering the topic to hand, I misread that as "I suppose you could walk in and ask the building manager if he/she could take you to the roof and throw [the JumpDomain dude] off";)
I've been using GoDaddy for four years now, and have been nothing but thrilled with the service. They've even helped fix a problem that wasn't really their fault, but rather was due to a misconfigulated server at my ISP.
1and1.com also registers domains; I use them for my web hosting, and have been equally happy with their service -- you get a Real Clueful Human Response to support queries. So one hopes that their domain registry service is similarly responsive.
One can foresee an agreement to the effect of "you, the cable-and-ISP company, will be allowed access to this here prime content for television, if and only if you throttle all your cable-modem users down to a point where downloading TV shows takes Way Too Long To Be Practical". So the cable company that also provides cable-ISP access has to choose between video content for their cable-TV business, or happy cable-modem users.
Given the system of protected monopolies that cable and telephone systems are under, this could happen, despite laws regarding illegal leverage of a monopoly and restraint of trade.
My mom used to do this with long distance providers. She got really good at getting them to cut her a $100 check every couple months, just so she'd stay with 'em, or come back from whoever gave her the previous bri^H^H incentive.
Lobbyists. Well-paid lobbyists. Oh, and well-greased congresscritters.
To continue my analogy above (ISPs=highways, users=drivers)... if the highway dept. is made responsible for catching people who are driving home from a bank robbery, then EVERY driver will have to be stopped at the roadblock, because one of 'em MIGHT be a bank robber, and woe unto the highway dept. that accidentally lets one through.
Of course, the flip side of the lawsuit is when a truck carrying emergency supplies (legitimate media or software, especially timebound business stuff) is delayed or confiscated by the roadblock. Then who do you sue -- the highway department? the business partners in the roadblock agreement?? the manufacturer of the roadblock???
ISPs are like highway departments; they each maintain a stretch of highway (internet), which is used in common by a lot of drivers (users).
And the fact that you happen to be driving home from robbing a bank (downloading naughtyware) IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF THE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT (ISP), nor of the Society For the Prevention of Road Noise (the **AA and their kin), nor of the bank that got robbed (the infringed artist).
Crime is the business of the *police* (gee, it's STILL the business of the *police* in cyberspace, imagine that), not of any common carrier, business association, or individual.
Actually, you make my point for me:) I don't believe there is any such thing as "psychological addiction" either. In my observation, even if an addictive behaviour *starts* as a purely mental exercise, it soon becomes an *inability to function without* the associated endorphin rush (just because a psycho-active chemical is self-generated doesn't make it any less an addiction). This is especially evident with obsessive-compulsives and paranoid schizophrenics (types I've had the misfortune to know a number of), where doing self-comforting behaviours induces production of the associated brain chemical. The self-comforting behaviour can be very simple and obvious (lining up all the cans on the shelf) or it can be more complex (gaming or gambling to the exclusion of "having a life").
It can also manifest as a sort of addiction to pain, where the person can't enjoy food unless it's so spicy that eating it hurts, or where they can't seem to do their work unless constantly overstressed, etc. Repetitive pain and/or stress lead to a self-defensive release of soothing brain chemicals, and *that* is what the person is actually addicted to, since by that point, they *can't function without it*.
Rigid fun-hating Puritanism is, in my observation, a sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the self-hurting/self-comforting behaviour is built from trying to control or castigate others (akin to why some people get off on finding fault and punishing others). In simpler language, they're control freaks, because that's the only way they have of "feeling good" (generating the right brain chemicals), even if they mis-identify the sensation as "feeling righteous".
OCD is due to a brain chemical dysfunction, and can be treated with drugs. I've known some OCD sufferers who became almost normal when properly medicated, and ceased having panic attacks when prevented from doing whatever was their addictive behaviour(s).
As to "addiction to news" -- consider it a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and all becomes clear.:)
Same concept I was muttering about up above, except... does that say $6.95 *each*?? I just tried an ordinary bread bag and it worked fine, for about 2 cents.
So how about a *disposable* baggie around the keyboard? See my post above where I actually test the concept with the first plastic bag that came to hand, and find it works well enough (and I'm a fast, light-touch typist). Same for mice, which can't be much cleaner than keyboards.
BTW, as a patient I'd have doubts about any ER that forced doctors to wear ties. You're there to save my wretched life, not to make a fashion statement.
Just wiping it down doesn't help much. But how about a plastic bag, made of something akin to Glad Wrap that would tend to cling to the keys? that way touch typists could have tactile feedback, yet the cover would be cheap and DISPOSABLE.
As a proof of concept, I am typing this message with my keyboard inside a bread bag. Since it's not a good fit, it's hardly ideal, but I find that I can type just as well as before, and it doesn't have any of that icky lack of "touch" that membrane keyboards and hard plastic covers have.
BTW, methinks they should also check out hospital mice and trackballs; I'd bet they get quite filthy down under the buttons (never mind the usual gunk around the ball itself). A mouse should also function perfectly well inside a semi-fitted plastic bag.
[goes off, RTFAs] I don't see this as a "home builder", but rather, if it can be got down to consumer price points, a sort of robotic concrete pumper that anyone could use to build simple garden walls and the like, without having to mess with framing.
One thing I *don't* see in the article is how it deals with reinforcing. UNreinforced concrete isn't even allowed as a home construction material, because concrete cracks easily (in fact, most concrete cracks *as* it cures), and if not reinforced, the cracked pieces tend to do nasty things like fall down entirely. So how does it deal with putting rebar in the walls it makes?
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the early days, most computer viruses came from eastern Europe, and largely from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Some virus experts said this was because these viruses were intended to disable or at least inconvenience Soviet infrastructure, as a practical form of resistance.
So it's not like the concept is exactly new or different; it's just been extended to a wider target (and I doubt we're the only country such with a dedicated hacker group).
And did anyone else immediately hear "United Network Command for Law Enforcement" ??
Great, now I have this image of the early church officials modding various writings as "Off-Topic", and "Flamebait" :)
Ah, okay. Thanks!
"I would also love it if my firewall and antivirus protection could be offloaded to another processor."
Hey, can that be done? I mean, is there a way to specify that "all THIS shit runs on THAT processor" --??
Someone who knows CPU architecture kindly holler if I'm making up nonsense, but ISTM it might be more efficient to relegate all the "everyday background stuff" to one area, so the rest of the CPU(s) *never* has to deal with it.
Well, maybe the Tyan Thunder i7520 series, and whatever Tyan develops for the dual-core Pentiums :)
(I love my Tyan motherboards! Wonderful stability.)
On my WinBoxen, I have the tweak set to "Prevent applications from stealing focus" and Mozilla STILL does it. Makes me wonder what it's doing that it really shouldn't be.
1) Don't use cleaner disks that have the little brushes; they can knock the head out of alignment. As a last-ditch for a dead drive, you might try one of the cleaner PADS, but even so that is not something to do with a working drive.
2) Make sure the case has positive air pressure inside (simplest way is to have one more intake fan, placed at least halfway up the case, than it does outflow fans), to keep air flowing OUT through the various drive orifices. I live in the dusty desert with house cats, and even so, thanks to their intake fans, my systems stay nearly white-glove clean inside.
3) Make sure the case has good cooling; some CDRWs are extremely heat-sensitive.
4) If you smoke, quit. Cig smoke residue is very hard on computer components. (Damp ocean air isn't much better.)
5) DON'T put labels on burned disks; there is no way you can align them exactly enough to avoid throwing the disk out of balance, and that can eventually damage the drive's alignment.
As to personal experiences:
ALL Yamaha CDRWs I've seen to date (20 so far, both SCSI and IDE) have died prematurely, due to overheating that eventually warps the laser out of alignment.
But otherwise, they're pretty damned durable. Right now in everyday use I have:
-- Plextor 24x CDRW (2001)
-- LiteOn 52x CDRW (2002)
-- LiteOn 48x CDRW (2002) -- has burned over 1000 disks (with occasional all-day marathons).
-- Acer 50x CDROM (2000)
-- Mitsumi 4x CDROM (1995)
-- LiteOn 16x DVD (2002)
Plus a whole bunch of CDROMs (Panasonic, Sony, various generics) in other boxes, that date back as far as 1994, and still work. Also, I've *never* seen ANY LiteOn unit go bad, and most clone dealers will say the same.
The only optical drives I've had die were three Yamaha CDRWs (see above), and one ancient Panasonic 2x (1994) that lost its drive belt at age 6, tho it still worked otherwise.
I agree that GoDaddy's website is amazingly stinky, and in fact I've complained about it to them many times... but as a registrar, I've been very happy with their service -- including Real Human customer service (that once even helped fix a problem that wasn't actually their fault).
:)
Since I only have to visit the site once or twice a year, I manage to survive using it.
I had a possibly similar problem about a year ago -- when I used a for-really Earthlink POP, I could not reach my [redirected] domains, but when I used a leased POP, no problem.
Between traceroute and helpful folks at GoDaddy, the problem was resolved -- seems one particular server at ELN was blocked due to being on some blackhole list. ELN got notified, server got fixed, I got a phone call from ELN and an email from GoDaddy both explaining the problem; everybody happy.
[laughing] No wonder it was slow even compared to my shitty dialup :) Nice job, tho. The few shots I looked at are seriously, um, classy. {Sending URL to a friend, who will waste far too much time admiring 'em all :)
ISTM that even if you can't bring yourself to hand over the domain and website, a reasonable compromise might be to just let the domain and hosting expire, then leave it up to her as to what she wants to do with it.
:)
You can't recover from a bad relationship until you get rid of all the associated baggage
Perhaps appropriately considering the topic to hand, I misread that as "I suppose you could walk in and ask the building manager if he/she could take you to the roof and throw [the JumpDomain dude] off" ;)
I've been using GoDaddy for four years now, and have been nothing but thrilled with the service. They've even helped fix a problem that wasn't really their fault, but rather was due to a misconfigulated server at my ISP.
1and1.com also registers domains; I use them for my web hosting, and have been equally happy with their service -- you get a Real Clueful Human Response to support queries. So one hopes that their domain registry service is similarly responsive.
That's a damned good point.
One can foresee an agreement to the effect of "you, the cable-and-ISP company, will be allowed access to this here prime content for television, if and only if you throttle all your cable-modem users down to a point where downloading TV shows takes Way Too Long To Be Practical". So the cable company that also provides cable-ISP access has to choose between video content for their cable-TV business, or happy cable-modem users.
Given the system of protected monopolies that cable and telephone systems are under, this could happen, despite laws regarding illegal leverage of a monopoly and restraint of trade.
That sounds like something that oughta be done just on General Principles ;)
:)
As to the "impolite but non-libelous" return message to the RIAA, perhaps something direct and to the point, like "Go fuck yourself"
My mom used to do this with long distance providers. She got really good at getting them to cut her a $100 check every couple months, just so she'd stay with 'em, or come back from whoever gave her the previous bri^H^H incentive.
True... so, copyright infringement is the business of the *lawyers*, in cyberspace or out of it. It STILL ain't the highway dept. or ISP's business.
:/
Tho since they've done gone and criminalized it via the DMCA and other evil legislation, might as well just call the cops and cut the middleman
Lobbyists. Well-paid lobbyists. Oh, and well-greased congresscritters.
... if the highway dept. is made responsible for catching people who are driving home from a bank robbery, then EVERY driver will have to be stopped at the roadblock, because one of 'em MIGHT be a bank robber, and woe unto the highway dept. that accidentally lets one through.
To continue my analogy above (ISPs=highways, users=drivers)
Of course, the flip side of the lawsuit is when a truck carrying emergency supplies (legitimate media or software, especially timebound business stuff) is delayed or confiscated by the roadblock. Then who do you sue -- the highway department? the business partners in the roadblock agreement?? the manufacturer of the roadblock???
What's the roadblock's cyberspace analog? most likely it'll be a part of "Trusted Computing" http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html.
ISPs are like highway departments; they each maintain a stretch of highway (internet), which is used in common by a lot of drivers (users).
And the fact that you happen to be driving home from robbing a bank (downloading naughtyware) IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF THE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT (ISP), nor of the Society For the Prevention of Road Noise (the **AA and their kin), nor of the bank that got robbed (the infringed artist).
Crime is the business of the *police* (gee, it's STILL the business of the *police* in cyberspace, imagine that), not of any common carrier, business association, or individual.
Actually, you make my point for me :) I don't believe there is any such thing as "psychological addiction" either. In my observation, even if an addictive behaviour *starts* as a purely mental exercise, it soon becomes an *inability to function without* the associated endorphin rush (just because a psycho-active chemical is self-generated doesn't make it any less an addiction). This is especially evident with obsessive-compulsives and paranoid schizophrenics (types I've had the misfortune to know a number of), where doing self-comforting behaviours induces production of the associated brain chemical. The self-comforting behaviour can be very simple and obvious (lining up all the cans on the shelf) or it can be more complex (gaming or gambling to the exclusion of "having a life").
:)
It can also manifest as a sort of addiction to pain, where the person can't enjoy food unless it's so spicy that eating it hurts, or where they can't seem to do their work unless constantly overstressed, etc. Repetitive pain and/or stress lead to a self-defensive release of soothing brain chemicals, and *that* is what the person is actually addicted to, since by that point, they *can't function without it*.
Rigid fun-hating Puritanism is, in my observation, a sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where the self-hurting/self-comforting behaviour is built from trying to control or castigate others (akin to why some people get off on finding fault and punishing others). In simpler language, they're control freaks, because that's the only way they have of "feeling good" (generating the right brain chemicals), even if they mis-identify the sensation as "feeling righteous".
OCD is due to a brain chemical dysfunction, and can be treated with drugs. I've known some OCD sufferers who became almost normal when properly medicated, and ceased having panic attacks when prevented from doing whatever was their addictive behaviour(s).
As to "addiction to news" -- consider it a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and all becomes clear.
Same concept I was muttering about up above, except ... does that say $6.95 *each*?? I just tried an ordinary bread bag and it worked fine, for about 2 cents.
So how about a *disposable* baggie around the keyboard? See my post above where I actually test the concept with the first plastic bag that came to hand, and find it works well enough (and I'm a fast, light-touch typist). Same for mice, which can't be much cleaner than keyboards.
:)
BTW, as a patient I'd have doubts about any ER that forced doctors to wear ties. You're there to save my wretched life, not to make a fashion statement.
Love the tagline
Just wiping it down doesn't help much. But how about a plastic bag, made of something akin to Glad Wrap that would tend to cling to the keys? that way touch typists could have tactile feedback, yet the cover would be cheap and DISPOSABLE.
As a proof of concept, I am typing this message with my keyboard inside a bread bag. Since it's not a good fit, it's hardly ideal, but I find that I can type just as well as before, and it doesn't have any of that icky lack of "touch" that membrane keyboards and hard plastic covers have.
BTW, methinks they should also check out hospital mice and trackballs; I'd bet they get quite filthy down under the buttons (never mind the usual gunk around the ball itself). A mouse should also function perfectly well inside a semi-fitted plastic bag.
[goes off, RTFAs] I don't see this as a "home builder", but rather, if it can be got down to consumer price points, a sort of robotic concrete pumper that anyone could use to build simple garden walls and the like, without having to mess with framing.
One thing I *don't* see in the article is how it deals with reinforcing. UNreinforced concrete isn't even allowed as a home construction material, because concrete cracks easily (in fact, most concrete cracks *as* it cures), and if not reinforced, the cracked pieces tend to do nasty things like fall down entirely. So how does it deal with putting rebar in the walls it makes?