"Attention! Please be advised that, by your entry upon these premises, you are consenting to being photographed, and having your ugly likeness used in a filthy motion picture, and for other purposes.."
Now all you need is the "store greeter" loudly announcing this every few minutes as people enter the store.
*I* for one would like to see Lee Ving or Exene Cervenka hired as the friendly helpful greeter at my local Boarders, but I think that might scare a few people away...
Re:um, yeah, whatever
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is no indication of what the distance this kind of thing is capable of. Does anyone know? Is it the same as a DSL line from the phone company?
Well, let us presume that it is about the same as what the phone company offers, which is around 17,500 ft. (NOTE: This max distance is not the limit of transmission, but rather about as far as the phone company feels they can guaranty to provide the minimum data rate. They could extend service, but would not be able to provide a stable data rate above their minimum.) So, what happens if you live 30,500 feet away or even 18,000 ft away. Either way you aren't getting DSL. Unless you use Robert's idea and hook into a friend. Then you all of a sudden can have a distance from the C.O. of up to 35,000 ft (and even further if you don't care about 384k minimum).
And, what about sharing the costs with someone. Let's say that you and your friend are *both* within range and could otherwise get DSL. Rather than both of you getting basic DSL with variable IP's for 50$/month, one of you can get enhanced (5 *fixed* IP's) for 65$/month, tack on the dry pair art 15$, and split the costs. This makes it 10$ *less* each and both of you get 2.5 *fixed* IP's.
And you have the added bouns of fraggin' the crap out of one another from your own homes without having to packup your server and tote it anywhere.
Look, if "they" can figure out key entry by change in time between keystrokes, you just have to enter a bit of noise in the equation.
Simple solution: Just enter in all of you password with the left hand. That will infuse half of the keyboard with extra time noise as you search for keys that are unfamiliar to half of your typing insturments.
Oh,... wait... BAD IDEA. I think too many people here are already proficient at typing with one hand...
Well, I didn't suggest that they *still* hold the stock, but that they couldn't sell it for a period, and *even* if they still held it, it wasn't worth that much in the big picture.:)
But, seriously: Do you have links for the time frame and point that they were shorted on? Your comment seems to suggest that it was well before Aug '00.
I am a little curious and I looked (until I lost interest) and didn't find specific info. [It is much easier to ask someone for info...] Thnx.
Apple's Market cap is 6.4 *BILLION*.
Microsoft "invested" $150 million in Apple in 1997 as a function of settlement for M$ dicking around with Apple and their tech. (Out of that $150M, 2/3 of it was for licensing.)
For their money, they picked up 150,000 shares of Apple stock that they couldn't sell until 8/5/00.
There was one split that I know of prior to the sell point, which was a 2:1 split, which means that MS would hold 300,000 shares. If they still hold it (can't find records to indicate that they do) at current price puts it at about $5.4M in stock. (If you take a high point in the stock after they were able to sell, it would have been about $18M worth of stock. But I don't know if any/all has been sold in the last year.)
So, no matter how you look at it, $5Million out of $6.4BILLION is a drop in the bucket. (For Apple. A pico-drop for MicroSoft.) Hardly what anyone would call "a large portion."
(Oh, and M$'s stock jumped nearly the cost of the investment in Apple when the news was made public. Of course.)
Not true. One my of laptops is a Mac (PBG3) and I use it all of the time. It is up for months (with exceptions for reboots after software installs) without crashing.
Much better than my NT (4.0SP6) box which is good for about 3 weeks or my 98SE (running 2 apps and one of them is IE) which can't seem to go for more than about 2-3 days before it crashes. (I don't leave the Linux box on long enough to test uptime. I suspect it would have not these troubles.)
No one else has mentioned these (they aren't sold through the usual stores) so I thought I would bring them up. I am running a few of these and they have all been good machines.
Panasonic makes a line of "ruggedized" laptops called ToughBooks. They have shock-mounted drives, flexible mounts between case and MoBo, sealed keyboards (liquid resistant), and a magnesium case. A lot have built-in wireless (CDPD) and a few are built-in their own case. THe 37 is 1" thick, under 5lbs and has a touchscreen.
You will pay a bit more, but that is the price form a more rugged machine...
Just want to second the thought of buying an extended warranty (No matter who makes your laptop).
I would never buy an extended warranty for a desktop, but I carry my laptops with me everywhere I go. That is *too* many bumps, slight drops, etc. that the laptops are subjected to. Cables get plugged and unplugged serveral times everyday. Things are going to get knocked loose and little problems are going to pop up. The warranty is going to pay for itself after the first service.
Damn, I'm not sure if I should do this as I don't want to see this place slashdotted and all of the good stuff picked over, but here goes... (I trust you guys to leave some cool parts for me.)
I grew up in Los Alamos, NM, and am used to being in the shadow of the Lab. It is very much a "company town." As you would expect, LANL gets all of the cool toys and when it gets better toys, a lot of the stuff goes out to salvage. One of the town's more "colorful" residents, Ed Grothus, has been going to the Lab's salvage sales for decades and collecting anything he can get his hands on. He has *warehouses* full, and has collected the best bits into a "showroom" (read: a converted ex-supermarket that is stacked floor to ceiling with mounds of oscilliscopes, heaps of cable, PDP-11's, crates of microscopes, piles of office chairs, racks of test equipment, slides of test detonations, etc.) that he calls the Black Hole.
It is *quite* something to see and enough to make any geek drool. *THIS* is the place to hold _Junkyard Wars_.
I found this article on it. [NOTE: Author claims Black Hole was around since '69. Not true. The building was a "Shop & Go" (?? been a few years) until sometime after I graduated. I don't think he was open to the public (he did sell privately to movie makers and the like) until the supermarket was "converted".]
I wish I had some of my photos of the place on-line to show y'all.
There is a documentary out there that Ed sat me down to watch last time I was there called "Atomic Ed and the Black Hole" that gives you some pretty good glimpses into some of the stuff he has there. I have heard from friends that the film is in a few film festivals around the country.
Los Alamos Sales Company Inc. : +1 (505) 662 7438.
From the article: the decentralization of the Internet and thus lack of control by any group of operators promotes its lack of reliability and responsibility.
Isn't this voice just the kind of thing that Microsoft is drooling for?
If Cringely is right, then Micro$oft is *just* the company to step up to the plate and make a new internet (TCP/MS) and save us all.
A CD that you don't know can damage your audio equipment being knowingly sold???
From the story:
Sony has secretly tested Cactus by treating several thousand CDs sold recently in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but the system was not set to cause damage on this occasion.
and
While acknowledging that it may seem "unacceptable" to harm consumers' equipment deliberately, he adds, "It's 'sweat engineering'. We can add extra lines of defence as people use new attacks."
See. Sony is really just a nice guy and they don't want to harm your system. But, if you *insist* on being one of those evil people that copy their disks, you are going to leave them no choice but to whap you upside da head with a damaging CD. So it will be your fault for forcing them to do this. (And, if they have to do this "It is going to hurt them a lot more than it will hurt you...")
So, Sony is acting like North Korea, firing a missle over Japan. They want us to know that they have a big stick and can use it "as people use new attacks."
Hmmmm... Why the Czech Republic and Slovakia? Small markets that might be easier to test in. I can't imagine that there would be that much piracy there in the first place. But then again, I think Sony can expect fewer class action lawsuits.
Uh, that might be of "official" servers (ie, commercial sites that are run by IT staff), but what about all of the personal sites/servers out there?
IIRC, doesn't win2k do a default instal of IIS with the service on? (Thought I read that some where, but I don't run Win2k, so I can't verify.) This means that there are plenty of machines that are vunerable and their owners don't know it.
According to stats collected by CAIDA, the top 4 identifiable infected domains, with over 7% of the infections, are home.com (cable), rr.com (cable),t-dialin.net (? dial-up?), and pacbell.net (dial-up and DSL). Add in a few more to the list and you are above 10%.
The way I read this, most of those companies are geared to home and individual users (or fairly small businesses). These people are *NOT* Apache customers (otherwise they wouldn't be infected) but nor would they be the kind to purchase Apache. They are small businesses (home business) or home users that either have a cute web site up for their friends, or don't even know they have IIS running.
These people are the ones that don't know about the updates and couldn't care (but can't figure out why their Quake latency is so high).
So, I am a little afraid about this "slice of the pie." Not only is it potentially bigger than the "official server" base, but also is it less informed, and more of a potential threat.
[What happens if Steve Gibson's WinXP concerns are correct and insecure software is being put in the hands of every Joe/Jane User that allows for/facilitates massive global attacks? (I realize that Steve's issue is slightly different, but I bring it up here as it illustrates that the nature of the "pie" is shifting.)]
I think that if/when PVRs go mainstream you'll see commercials specifically targeted to catch your eye at 20x.
Odd. I had the same idea. (#225) Wanna open an Ad Agency with me to do this very thing? We could rake it in. Too bad we missed all of the dot com investment capital that was being given away like so much Halloween candy...
Watching TiVo a few months ago, it occured to me that Madison Avenue just needs to get smarter with the ads. I usually skip the ads by moving to the second scan rate (I don't know what x speed multiplier that is off the top of my head.) and I suspect that most other TiVo users FF at the same rate (First one is too slow. Last one is too fast (I'm the Goldilocks of FF.), requires one more button push and is harder to stop at the right point. (For those that don't have TiVo, it backs up the view point some ammount when dropping out of FF, not at all like a VCR would.))
But I am still stuck watching some portion of the Ad as every Xth frame is displayed.
All advertisers need to do is shoot/edit commercials with this in mind. Keep certain images on screen for some duration after one another, such that at higher speed scan, the sequence produces and ad of its own.
Rather like those _Mad Magazine_ fold-ins that show one image, but once folded produce another. In this case, the ad will be "time-folded" to produce a mini-ad.
I realize that there are some problems with doing this (ensuring a common start point, etc.) but a little bit of creativity and it can be done...
I have been an AOL member since they bought the Personal Services area of AppleLink and made a on-line service out of it (I was within the first 2500 subscribers they had). I have also had internet accounts for *much* longer. I have kept both all of this time.
I understand that there are plenty of things *not* to like about AOL. But that being said, it still has some advantages. Anytime I am out of the country, I have had NO trouble getting a TCP connection via AOL. It is pretty much global. One account and I can connect anywhere I need to. (my service level is the 10$/month BYOI) My other broadband ISP offers dial-ups in the US only.
With the advent of browser-based mail readers (still a recent event in my frame-work) this might not matter *as* much, but you can pretty well go to just about any computer out there and find AOL installed on it. This means friends' houses in other parts of the country, this means cyber cafes, this means libraries -- All usually have AOL on them. I can set filters on my normal mail when I know I will be travelling and don't want to be bothered with a laptop (one more thing to lug around or be stolen) and bounce important mail to my AOL account. I have *NO* configuration (NO SMTP/POP settings to change) to do on someone else's machine. (CyberCafes don't like you messing with their machine.)
And most importantly, there are people who aren't techies but would like some internet access. (Let's call this the "Grandma Function.") Sure they can do a whole lot more with a real ISP, but A) they don't know how, B) they wouldn't know what they are missing, and C) they couldn't care less. For them, AOL is a perfect solution. No configuration of the TCP/IP stack. Just click a button and you are on the "Internet." IF this person buys a newer machine at some point, migration is a breeze as most of the data is server side.
If they want a more reliable network, let them build one. Keep their damn hands off of the internet. I have been kicking around on the 'net since, well... before it was "The Internet" and I can't say a lot of the changes have been for the better. (And I think most old-timers would agree, to one degree or another. It is easy to be satisfied with the status quo and adverse to change.) Let the 'net drop back to academic uses.
If business needs a better solution, then have them create TCP/BP (Business Packets). They can concoct their own standards (Or as more likely - standard*s*.)Let's see how robust of a system(s) they come up with when deprived of the organic development that made the internet possible (and was a direct product of the openess of academia and research).
I'm sure that AOL/Time Warner, WorldCom, etc would *love* to provide the infrastructure and Porn can finance the whole thing.
And best of all, that gets the AOLer's off th net....
Aquilino says that new copy-protected CDs will still play in all the normal places - car stereos, home and portable players - but when inserted into a CD-ROM, attempts at ripping software to copy the files or access the directories on the disc will fail.
Nah, I'll bet it's some new age crap, Christian Deathmetal, or Country/Western.
Wasn't there some article out a few months ago about the new Charley Pride (or was it some other C/W singer I wouldn't know from adam) using some new copy-protection system?
Over-partied? Certainly this article ended up on the wrong site.
I *just* got back from DefCon, and am catching up on all of the news when this article caught my eye. All throughout the hotel at DefCon, RedBull was *everywhere.* (Not only at every food station and every bar, but they even had their own booth by the pool.)
I cannot tell you how many RedBull & vodkas were pounded throughout the weekend, but on Saturday night alone I think I had 4. Considering what the place looked like at 5:30am, I would say "Over-partied" is right on the mark.
Slashdot Mirror
Now all you need is the "store greeter" loudly announcing this every few minutes as people enter the store.
*I* for one would like to see Lee Ving or Exene Cervenka hired as the friendly helpful greeter at my local Boarders, but I think that might scare a few people away...
Well, let us presume that it is about the same as what the phone company offers, which is around 17,500 ft. (NOTE: This max distance is not the limit of transmission, but rather about as far as the phone company feels they can guaranty to provide the minimum data rate. They could extend service, but would not be able to provide a stable data rate above their minimum.)
So, what happens if you live 30,500 feet away or even 18,000 ft away. Either way you aren't getting DSL. Unless you use Robert's idea and hook into a friend. Then you all of a sudden can have a distance from the C.O. of up to 35,000 ft (and even further if you don't care about 384k minimum).
And, what about sharing the costs with someone. Let's say that you and your friend are *both* within range and could otherwise get DSL. Rather than both of you getting basic DSL with variable IP's for 50$/month, one of you can get enhanced (5 *fixed* IP's) for 65$/month, tack on the dry pair art 15$, and split the costs. This makes it 10$ *less* each and both of you get 2.5 *fixed* IP's.
And you have the added bouns of fraggin' the crap out of one another from your own homes without having to packup your server and tote it anywhere.
IBM's PowerPC processor will be the engine for the console
Does this mean that people can start porting LinuxPPC to it? Or how about Mandrake Lite(tm)?
(Not-at-all)Seriously, the PS2 people shouldn't be the only gamers with an alt OS...
Simple solution: Just enter in all of you password with the left hand. That will infuse half of the keyboard with extra time noise as you search for keys that are unfamiliar to half of your typing insturments.
Oh,... wait... BAD IDEA. I think too many people here are already proficient at typing with one hand...
Well, I didn't suggest that they *still* hold the stock, but that they couldn't sell it for a period, and *even* if they still held it, it wasn't worth that much in the big picture. :)
But, seriously: Do you have links for the time frame and point that they were shorted on? Your comment seems to suggest that it was well before Aug '00.
I am a little curious and I looked (until I lost interest) and didn't find specific info. [It is much easier to ask someone for info...]
Thnx.
Not even close to the truth.
Apple's Market cap is 6.4 *BILLION*.
Microsoft "invested" $150 million in Apple in 1997 as a function of settlement for M$ dicking around with Apple and their tech. (Out of that $150M, 2/3 of it was for licensing.)
For their money, they picked up 150,000 shares of Apple stock that they couldn't sell until 8/5/00. There was one split that I know of prior to the sell point, which was a 2:1 split, which means that MS would hold 300,000 shares. If they still hold it (can't find records to indicate that they do) at current price puts it at about $5.4M in stock.
(If you take a high point in the stock after they were able to sell, it would have been about $18M worth of stock. But I don't know if any/all has been sold in the last year.)
So, no matter how you look at it, $5Million out of $6.4BILLION is a drop in the bucket. (For Apple. A pico-drop for MicroSoft.) Hardly what anyone would call "a large portion."
(Oh, and M$'s stock jumped nearly the cost of the investment in Apple when the news was made public. Of course.)
No, no, no. You got it all wrong--That's a *safety feature* to protect your motherboard from being fried by the Palm, not a flaw...
Not true. One my of laptops is a Mac (PBG3) and I use it all of the time. It is up for months (with exceptions for reboots after software installs) without crashing.
Much better than my NT (4.0SP6) box which is good for about 3 weeks or my 98SE (running 2 apps and one of them is IE) which can't seem to go for more than about 2-3 days before it crashes.
(I don't leave the Linux box on long enough to test uptime. I suspect it would have not these troubles.)
Panasonic makes a line of "ruggedized" laptops called ToughBooks. They have shock-mounted drives, flexible mounts between case and MoBo, sealed keyboards (liquid resistant), and a magnesium case. A lot have built-in wireless (CDPD) and a few are built-in their own case. THe 37 is 1" thick, under 5lbs and has a touchscreen.
You will pay a bit more, but that is the price form a more rugged machine...
I would never buy an extended warranty for a desktop, but I carry my laptops with me everywhere I go. That is *too* many bumps, slight drops, etc. that the laptops are subjected to. Cables get plugged and unplugged serveral times everyday. Things are going to get knocked loose and little problems are going to pop up. The warranty is going to pay for itself after the first service.
I grew up in Los Alamos, NM, and am used to being in the shadow of the Lab. It is very much a "company town." As you would expect, LANL gets all of the cool toys and when it gets better toys, a lot of the stuff goes out to salvage. One of the town's more "colorful" residents, Ed Grothus, has been going to the Lab's salvage sales for decades and collecting anything he can get his hands on. He has *warehouses* full, and has collected the best bits into a "showroom" (read: a converted ex-supermarket that is stacked floor to ceiling with mounds of oscilliscopes, heaps of cable, PDP-11's, crates of microscopes, piles of office chairs, racks of test equipment, slides of test detonations, etc.) that he calls the Black Hole.
It is *quite* something to see and enough to make any geek drool. *THIS* is the place to hold _Junkyard Wars_.
I found this article on it. [NOTE: Author claims Black Hole was around since '69. Not true. The building was a "Shop & Go" (?? been a few years) until sometime after I graduated. I don't think he was open to the public (he did sell privately to movie makers and the like) until the supermarket was "converted".]
I wish I had some of my photos of the place on-line to show y'all.
There is a documentary out there that Ed sat me down to watch last time I was there called "Atomic Ed and the Black Hole" that gives you some pretty good glimpses into some of the stuff he has there. I have heard from friends that the film is in a few film festivals around the country.
Los Alamos Sales Company Inc. : +1 (505) 662 7438.
Isn't this voice just the kind of thing that Microsoft is drooling for?
If Cringely is right, then Micro$oft is *just* the company to step up to the plate and make a new internet (TCP/MS) and save us all.
heh..heh..heh... MicroSoft... "reliability"..."responsibility"... heh...
From the story:
and
See. Sony is really just a nice guy and they don't want to harm your system. But, if you *insist* on being one of those evil people that copy their disks, you are going to leave them no choice but to whap you upside da head with a damaging CD. So it will be your fault for forcing them to do this. (And, if they have to do this "It is going to hurt them a lot more than it will hurt you...")
So, Sony is acting like North Korea, firing a missle over Japan. They want us to know that they have a big stick and can use it "as people use new attacks."
Hmmmm... Why the Czech Republic and Slovakia? Small markets that might be easier to test in. I can't imagine that there would be that much piracy there in the first place. But then again, I think Sony can expect fewer class action lawsuits.
______
IIRC, doesn't win2k do a default instal of IIS with the service on? (Thought I read that some where, but I don't run Win2k, so I can't verify.) This means that there are plenty of machines that are vunerable and their owners don't know it.
According to stats collected by CAIDA, the top 4 identifiable infected domains, with over 7% of the infections, are home.com (cable), rr.com (cable),t-dialin.net (? dial-up?), and pacbell.net (dial-up and DSL). Add in a few more to the list and you are above 10%.
The way I read this, most of those companies are geared to home and individual users (or fairly small businesses). These people are *NOT* Apache customers (otherwise they wouldn't be infected) but nor would they be the kind to purchase Apache. They are small businesses (home business) or home users that either have a cute web site up for their friends, or don't even know they have IIS running.
These people are the ones that don't know about the updates and couldn't care (but can't figure out why their Quake latency is so high).
So, I am a little afraid about this "slice of the pie." Not only is it potentially bigger than the "official server" base, but also is it less informed, and more of a potential threat.
[What happens if Steve Gibson's WinXP concerns are correct and insecure software is being put in the hands of every Joe/Jane User that allows for/facilitates massive global attacks? (I realize that Steve's issue is slightly different, but I bring it up here as it illustrates that the nature of the "pie" is shifting.)]
______
Odd. I had the same idea. (#225)
Wanna open an Ad Agency with me to do this very thing? We could rake it in. Too bad we missed all of the dot com investment capital that was being given away like so much Halloween candy...
______
Local news is 80% "Puppies Down Wells" and "Kittens Stuck in Trees."
*FOX* Local news is "When Puppies Down Wells Attack" and "Kittens Stuck in Trees Who Rob Banks."
______
But I am still stuck watching some portion of the Ad as every Xth frame is displayed.
All advertisers need to do is shoot/edit commercials with this in mind. Keep certain images on screen for some duration after one another, such that at higher speed scan, the sequence produces and ad of its own.
Rather like those _Mad Magazine_ fold-ins that show one image, but once folded produce another. In this case, the ad will be "time-folded" to produce a mini-ad.
I realize that there are some problems with doing this (ensuring a common start point, etc.) but a little bit of creativity and it can be done...
______
I have also had internet accounts for *much* longer. I have kept both all of this time.
I understand that there are plenty of things *not* to like about AOL. But that being said, it still has some advantages.
Anytime I am out of the country, I have had NO trouble getting a TCP connection via AOL. It is pretty much global. One account and I can connect anywhere I need to. (my service level is the 10$/month BYOI) My other broadband ISP offers dial-ups in the US only.
With the advent of browser-based mail readers (still a recent event in my frame-work) this might not matter *as* much, but you can pretty well go to just about any computer out there and find AOL installed on it. This means friends' houses in other parts of the country, this means cyber cafes, this means libraries -- All usually have AOL on them.
I can set filters on my normal mail when I know I will be travelling and don't want to be bothered with a laptop (one more thing to lug around or be stolen) and bounce important mail to my AOL account. I have *NO* configuration (NO SMTP/POP settings to change) to do on someone else's machine. (CyberCafes don't like you messing with their machine.)
And most importantly, there are people who aren't techies but would like some internet access. (Let's call this the "Grandma Function.") Sure they can do a whole lot more with a real ISP, but A) they don't know how, B) they wouldn't know what they are missing, and C) they couldn't care less. For them, AOL is a perfect solution. No configuration of the TCP/IP stack. Just click a button and you are on the "Internet."
IF this person buys a newer machine at some point, migration is a breeze as most of the data is server side.
______
If business needs a better solution, then have them create TCP/BP (Business Packets). They can concoct their own standards (Or as more likely - standard*s*.)Let's see how robust of a system(s) they come up with when deprived of the organic development that made the internet possible (and was a direct product of the openess of academia and research).
I'm sure that AOL/Time Warner, WorldCom, etc would *love* to provide the infrastructure and Porn can finance the whole thing.
And best of all, that gets the AOLer's off th net....
______
______
Does this mean that you are talking about
openNSYNC
freeNSYNC
netNSYNC
liNuSYNC
etc?
Sorry. I couldn't resist...
______
______
Aquilino says that new copy-protected CDs will still play in all the normal places - car stereos, home and portable players - but when inserted into a CD-ROM, attempts at ripping software to copy the files or access the directories on the disc will fail.
______
Wasn't there some article out a few months ago about the new Charley Pride (or was it some other C/W singer I wouldn't know from adam) using some new copy-protection system?
Could this be it?
______
I *just* got back from DefCon, and am catching up on all of the news when this article caught my eye. All throughout the hotel at DefCon, RedBull was *everywhere.* (Not only at every food station and every bar, but they even had their own booth by the pool.)
I cannot tell you how many RedBull & vodkas were pounded throughout the weekend, but on Saturday night alone I think I had 4. Considering what the place looked like at 5:30am, I would say "Over-partied" is right on the mark.
______