Personally, I was kind of waiting for the X-Box for hacking purposes. The standard CPU makes a lot more sense to hack than the custom CPUs in both the Playstation 2 and GameCube (although the GameCube's games seem to look the pretiest of them all).
Also, if reports are correct, you will soon be able to buy a new Dreamcast for $49.99. That's a nice bit of pocket change for a little system that can run a variant of BSD.
Re:My view: against encryption, for saving lives
on
Blaming Encryption
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· Score: 2
"You sacrificing your own freedom will make no difference whatsoever"
Give me hard proof that there is justification to this statement. This kind of anti-rhetoric seems to put up on Slashdot at a regular basis.
Quite frankly, does this make any sense at all? Wouldn't they need an updated EULA on all their server products not to use them to spread disseminating information about Microsoft? Their messaging products like Windows Messenger? They're media products like Media Player (imagine a WPA file with the words "All your software belongs to Microsoft" being said over and over again).
Personally, I would take this "first-hand account" with a grain of salt. I'd also be interested to see if someone can find the EULA for FrontPage 2002 online (most of them are).
In the meantime, we can just say anti-Microsoft stuff using W2K servers, IIS, with the pages written with Notepad, if this is the case.
My view: against encryption, for saving lives
on
Blaming Encryption
·
· Score: 2
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd gladly give up some of my security in encryption, or give up encryption entirely, to save another person's life. That's what I consider to be a priority. I just want my vote to be counted in the (predominantly crypto-loving) Slashdot community.
And from the opinion polls on the street, most American would gradly give up a number of perceived "freedoms", so I'm not alone. Crypto-lovers are fighting a losing battle.
Standards and quality are nice and all, but the real story (according to GameSpot, which I will agree with in this case) is that EA felt the Sims "Hot Date" expansion for "The Sims" was too close to the principal ideas behind "SimsVille", and thus "SimsVille" was canned.
Do the math: profit made by producing a completely new title, versus continuing product sales on one of the more successful mass media games in history? EA makes a ton of money off of each expansion sale, because the assumption (and the requirement is) the person already owns "The Sims". Buy the original game for $40-50, each update for $20-30 each... it adds up.
It's really too bad, because SimsVille looked innovative on a number of fronts (I like the new "cartoony" graphics -- kind of reminds me of the innovation behind Sega's Jet Grind Radio). Profits have won out, though (this and "The Sims Online" -- two proven moneymakers).
Linux provides a very good and easy to use booting facility using Lilo. On the dual OS desktop unit that had an existing Windows 2000 installation, the desktop boots to Linux and a menu appears: I can select Linux (now my default) or Windows."
From personal experience getting NT/2000 and Linux to dualboot properly for many years, I have to say this statement is a bit of a misnomer. RedHat 7.1 clearly doesn't create a dualboot properly with NT (Disk Druid barely recognizes that the drive is NTFS!) The author comes off as making it sound easy to dual boot between the two completely different OS's, whereas doing anything close with 2000/XP today is a bitch and a half.
My best experience is to simply make a boot floppy for Linux and load as necessary. No muss, no fuss. Until one of these distros properly configures lilo, anyhow.
I'll make the same argument I've made with many privacy advocates in the past few days: you wouldn't be griping if you were here. Seeing a plane crash into a building on TV is one thing. Seeing it across the river (I live in NJ) is another.
There is a current mini-poll going on at CNN that asks "Would you trade in some of your personal freedom to be safer from terrorists?" From being in the area, watching 5,000 people die, and hearing constant new stories from friends and neighbors about their dead relatives, I can honestly say "I would gladly agree with giving up some of my freedom".
In fact, this is an issue that has gotten me angry before. These hotheads parade around in real life and online, waiving their "free speech" stickers, and they don't have an ounce or inkling of what really happened here. People have said to me, moronically, "I'd rather be dead than lose my free speech." I have to say, honestly, "What good is free speech if you're DEAD?"
"This is the very beginning of the process. The story erroneously implies it's finished. It's not."
Unfortunately, it is. Flamebait as it might be, very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore. That means an equal few are using its components. Add to that the advances Microsoft has made with IE in Pocket PC 2.0 (full Media Player functionality) and this particular open source team is, unfortunately, playing catchup.
There's a reason why AOL hasn't switched its users over to Netscape, and it has very little to do with licensing agreements with MS. They need a *fully-functional, fully-crashproof* browser to put on a multitude of devices. Microsoft took 5.5 tries to get it right, Netscape is up to 6 but unfortunately threw out a lot of code in the process. Reinventing the wheel can be difficult when you're up against a multibillion dollar company.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Netscape/Mozilla project is important, if for no other reason than competition. MS finally got an OS stable (Windows 2000) when they were beginning to lose share in the server market. As long as there is *some* alternative to IE, there will be improvements in both software packages. Until that happens, though, I will be using IE when I'm on a Windows box.
One thing free speech advocates don't seem to consider is the relative proximity of the events to the measures being taken. There's something inherent in freedom: you have to know how to use it. Yes, I'm free to say what I feel like. Others are free to kill people down their street. It's when YOUR freedom impedes on ANOTHER'S freedom do you get these thorny issues.
Personally, I don't think anyone who was in the immediate area (I live in NJ) would even come close to arguing that we can take a break from the violent images in the media. We have been inundated lately -- a virtual information overload of the sights and sounds of the WTC -- and I for one look to turn the media off at the end of the day. I DON'T think it's unreasonable at all to take a break for a week or two from this stuff. We are NOT losing our civil liberties, NO ONE has proposed this as a permanent "solution". It's a matter of being respectful to those who have too much pain to deal with already.
I mean, hell, I even changed the "blood" setting in Perfect Dark to "paintball" the last few days playing it. Do I really need to see more blood?
I don't think given the situation right now, and the situation in the future, that we even have a choice in this. If the FBI wants to install monitoring software at AOL's base in Virgina, and they have a court order to do so, for how long can the goverment actually be stopped?
And personally, I can't imagine anyone who was in those buildings, even privacy advocates, arguing against limited monitoring for the foreseeable future. If terrorist militant plans to kill 5,000 people could be averted by a simple keyword search, I'd gladly "trade-in" some of my freedom.
No, YOU'RE wrong. I find absolutely *no reason* to have extraneous violent images in the media given the situation this week. I've had to stare at broadcasts day in and day out, I've had to hear thousands of stories, and every day I drive home (I live in NJ) I have to see a cloud of smoke still rising from New York. Enough is enough.
I'm not saying that games like this should not be released. I believe in constitutional free speech as much as the next guy. However, as a measure of free speech you are supposed to determine whether or not your speech can negatively affect those around you, and are given the option to exercise restraint. I can absolutely guarantee you that no one who was in NY on Tuesday will want to see anything *close* to more bloodshed.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that a first-person shooter download is a bit macabre to be released THIS WEEK. I can still see the smoke rising from NY on my drive home from work. What the hell is iD thinking?
Uh, normally I tolerate and even defend Katz, but he's way off on a few counts. For example, in New Jersey I haven't seen a single morgue, and I live in Rutherford, within eye-shot of the carnage. I go to work near Fort Lee, and that's about as close as you can get to NY from Jersey without being in NY. No morgues. The only thing even close is the rescue site set up in Giants' stadium parking lot (which I could literally walk to).
Outside of this, however, I think a small body count is going to be unreasonable. The estimates today (5,000) seem correct. 20,000, as some places were saying, is far too many. I knew a number of people who got out, and 20,000 would be close to half the building's capacity. Unfortunately, "body count" is a vague term. Many bodies have been incinerated, and there have been more body parts found than actual bodies (gruesomely enough).
I think the worse thing is driving on the NJ Turnpike, looking up at the skyline, and NOT making the same comment everyone else made (that there's a hole in the skyline). That there's still smoke is what scares me. A manmade disaster still billowing smoke 2.5 days later. And a slightly acrid smell, even from here. It's amazingly close to home.
this was an email i sent to a friend in college. i'm from rutherford, nj, a few miles out of the city, within view of what happened today.
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i'm sure that you've heard, seen, and read your fill about the wtc attack today, but i thought i should let you know that rutherford, nj itself seems to be fine, if not eerily quiet and quite surreal. on my way home into work around 8:50 am the radio stated that a plane had crashed into the first of the trade centers, and everyone on I-95 north (the road to the george washington bridge) came to a halt. i was at work for about 2 hours, relaying information (we were one of the few groups in the company with access to the web). around 11:00 am i drove home, and alongside the nj turnpike you could see much of new york covered in a low, semicircular cloud of smoke. people were actually parking their cars on the shoulders, stopping to stare at the city while their radios were on. a couple of eerie sights: I-95 N, when I came back down I-95 S en route to the turnpike, had absolutely no one on it. i've never seen it so desolate. all major crossings into ny were closed, and they appeared to be diverting traffic in nj away from the major interstates. i'm sure tomorrow will be a mess. a couple of incidents were, like i said, eerily close to home. the route 3 exit for the lincoln tunnel was sectioned off with red cones, although no one was even attempting to go on it. i took a walk with carrie this evening (i had seen enough). she said that from ridge road she could see the smoke cloud, and i was inclined to believe her from what i saw on the turnpike. in front of rutherford's city hall, a message on the main board asked for donated blood. i heard an airplane fly overhead after the lockdown on air traffic, and tonight carrie pointed out a few lights blinking in the sky. obviously, if they were airplanes they were military ones. it's all very surreal. i imagine tomorrow will get back to normal somewhat, but i can't imagine how i'm going to even get to work. we knew someone in the trade center who apparently got out safely, and for that we are thankful. while the schools in nj weren't closed today (they were in ny) i'm sure a number of relatives from rutherford school kids will be missing tomorrow morning. hopefully no other buildings will collapse like wt 7 which did early tonight.
"Everyone in Silicon Valley will probably be there when Linus Torvalds lectures on "The Origins of Linux" in Mountain View, California on Wednesday, September 19, 2001 at 6 PM. It's bound to be interesting, so sign up early!"
"from the on-the-seventh-day-he-rested dept."
*Sigh* Well, it is a religion.
I miss the days when operating systems ran programs, and weren't political statements.
It's particularly interesting to read that Fischer played until his ranking was significantly high enough to be deemed a Master, then fell off the face of the earth.
I don't know how chess rankings are determined, but I know that in other ranking systems (for online games, for example) the rank is based on playing players of the same caliber or better. In a rudimentary example, if you are ranked 2nd and you beat the player who's ranked 1st, you become 1st.
However, one of the problems of this design is that once someone becomes 1st, they no longer really have to play. Since no one can challenge their ranking, no one else can reach the top spot anymore. I've noticed people doing this in, of all things, Unreal Tournament. The top players win a few key matches against higher players, then sit tight for the rest of their stay at the top. The only thing that prevents them from staying on the top forever is that the records are purged quarterly.
Again, I don't know how chess rankings work, but if they're similar one has to ask whether or not Bobby simply didn't want to play at the risk of losing.
Uh, it is emulated. Windows XP has both thunking calls for Win16 apps, and a virtual DOS machine for DOS apps. By default, no direct calls to hardware are allowed in an NT system.
"The problem is quitte simple that there isn't a problem at all."
Also, not to mention that it IS simply a toy, after all. You mention "Mindstorms" to the average Joe on the street and they have no idea what you are talking about. You mention "copying music" and they probably would.
And Texas Instruments position in the computer world is what, now? Going from Cosby-endorsed home computers and thousands of Speak and Spells in children's hands to selling a few small lines of embedded processors.
"Anyone who fails to have more than one layer of precaution on their system has a bit more to worry about."
Except if it's a home machine with no personal/financial information on it, is connected to a cable line that can't do any damage sending data up its 128K upstream, and is running a few rudimentary firewall, you don't have much to worry about. Some people take their security WAY too seriously.
"I don't think it's that bad, since the infection can be easily detected"
Uh, if I remember correctly, all you had to do to find out if you had the Code Red worm was look for a text file in the root of your machine. That, and there was an executable for people too brainless to do so. How was Code Red not "easily detectable"?
I remember hearing when I first went to Boston College (for a year) that it was one of the "top ten drinking schools". My first reaction was, "I wonder how they determine that?" My second was a look of puzzlement when my honors professor said one of the libaries used to be an actual pub. 8|
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I was kind of waiting for the X-Box for hacking purposes. The standard CPU makes a lot more sense to hack than the custom CPUs in both the Playstation 2 and GameCube (although the GameCube's games seem to look the pretiest of them all).
Also, if reports are correct, you will soon be able to buy a new Dreamcast for $49.99. That's a nice bit of pocket change for a little system that can run a variant of BSD.
Give me hard proof that there is justification to this statement. This kind of anti-rhetoric seems to put up on Slashdot at a regular basis.
Personally, I would take this "first-hand account" with a grain of salt. I'd also be interested to see if someone can find the EULA for FrontPage 2002 online (most of them are).
In the meantime, we can just say anti-Microsoft stuff using W2K servers, IIS, with the pages written with Notepad, if this is the case.
And from the opinion polls on the street, most American would gradly give up a number of perceived "freedoms", so I'm not alone. Crypto-lovers are fighting a losing battle.
Do the math: profit made by producing a completely new title, versus continuing product sales on one of the more successful mass media games in history? EA makes a ton of money off of each expansion sale, because the assumption (and the requirement is) the person already owns "The Sims". Buy the original game for $40-50, each update for $20-30 each... it adds up.
It's really too bad, because SimsVille looked innovative on a number of fronts (I like the new "cartoony" graphics -- kind of reminds me of the innovation behind Sega's Jet Grind Radio). Profits have won out, though (this and "The Sims Online" -- two proven moneymakers).
"Booting with Lilo
Linux provides a very good and easy to use booting facility using Lilo. On the dual OS desktop unit that had an existing Windows 2000 installation, the desktop boots to Linux and a menu appears: I can select Linux (now my default) or Windows."
From personal experience getting NT/2000 and Linux to dualboot properly for many years, I have to say this statement is a bit of a misnomer. RedHat 7.1 clearly doesn't create a dualboot properly with NT (Disk Druid barely recognizes that the drive is NTFS!) The author comes off as making it sound easy to dual boot between the two completely different OS's, whereas doing anything close with 2000/XP today is a bitch and a half.
My best experience is to simply make a boot floppy for Linux and load as necessary. No muss, no fuss. Until one of these distros properly configures lilo, anyhow.
There is a current mini-poll going on at CNN that asks "Would you trade in some of your personal freedom to be safer from terrorists?" From being in the area, watching 5,000 people die, and hearing constant new stories from friends and neighbors about their dead relatives, I can honestly say "I would gladly agree with giving up some of my freedom".
In fact, this is an issue that has gotten me angry before. These hotheads parade around in real life and online, waiving their "free speech" stickers, and they don't have an ounce or inkling of what really happened here. People have said to me, moronically, "I'd rather be dead than lose my free speech." I have to say, honestly, "What good is free speech if you're DEAD?"
Unfortunately, it is. Flamebait as it might be, very few people are actually *using* Netscape/Mozilla anymore. That means an equal few are using its components. Add to that the advances Microsoft has made with IE in Pocket PC 2.0 (full Media Player functionality) and this particular open source team is, unfortunately, playing catchup.
There's a reason why AOL hasn't switched its users over to Netscape, and it has very little to do with licensing agreements with MS. They need a *fully-functional, fully-crashproof* browser to put on a multitude of devices. Microsoft took 5.5 tries to get it right, Netscape is up to 6 but unfortunately threw out a lot of code in the process. Reinventing the wheel can be difficult when you're up against a multibillion dollar company.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Netscape/Mozilla project is important, if for no other reason than competition. MS finally got an OS stable (Windows 2000) when they were beginning to lose share in the server market. As long as there is *some* alternative to IE, there will be improvements in both software packages. Until that happens, though, I will be using IE when I'm on a Windows box.
Boy, a buffer overflow during that would be a bitch.
Personally, I don't think anyone who was in the immediate area (I live in NJ) would even come close to arguing that we can take a break from the violent images in the media. We have been inundated lately -- a virtual information overload of the sights and sounds of the WTC -- and I for one look to turn the media off at the end of the day. I DON'T think it's unreasonable at all to take a break for a week or two from this stuff. We are NOT losing our civil liberties, NO ONE has proposed this as a permanent "solution". It's a matter of being respectful to those who have too much pain to deal with already.
I mean, hell, I even changed the "blood" setting in Perfect Dark to "paintball" the last few days playing it. Do I really need to see more blood?
And personally, I can't imagine anyone who was in those buildings, even privacy advocates, arguing against limited monitoring for the foreseeable future. If terrorist militant plans to kill 5,000 people could be averted by a simple keyword search, I'd gladly "trade-in" some of my freedom.
I'm not saying that games like this should not be released. I believe in constitutional free speech as much as the next guy. However, as a measure of free speech you are supposed to determine whether or not your speech can negatively affect those around you, and are given the option to exercise restraint. I can absolutely guarantee you that no one who was in NY on Tuesday will want to see anything *close* to more bloodshed.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that a first-person shooter download is a bit macabre to be released THIS WEEK. I can still see the smoke rising from NY on my drive home from work. What the hell is iD thinking?
Outside of this, however, I think a small body count is going to be unreasonable. The estimates today (5,000) seem correct. 20,000, as some places were saying, is far too many. I knew a number of people who got out, and 20,000 would be close to half the building's capacity. Unfortunately, "body count" is a vague term. Many bodies have been incinerated, and there have been more body parts found than actual bodies (gruesomely enough).
I think the worse thing is driving on the NJ Turnpike, looking up at the skyline, and NOT making the same comment everyone else made (that there's a hole in the skyline). That there's still smoke is what scares me. A manmade disaster still billowing smoke 2.5 days later. And a slightly acrid smell, even from here. It's amazingly close to home.
this was an email i sent to a friend in college. i'm from rutherford, nj, a few miles out of the city, within view of what happened today.
-
i'm sure that you've heard, seen, and read your fill about the wtc attack today, but i thought i should let you know that rutherford, nj itself seems to be fine, if not eerily quiet and quite surreal. on my way home into work around 8:50 am the radio stated that a plane had crashed into the first of the trade centers, and everyone on I-95 north (the road to the george washington bridge) came to a halt. i was at work for about 2 hours, relaying information (we were one of the few groups in the company with access to the web). around 11:00 am i drove home, and alongside the nj turnpike you could see much of new york covered in a low, semicircular cloud of smoke. people were actually parking their cars on the shoulders, stopping to stare at the city while their radios were on. a couple of eerie sights: I-95 N, when I came back down I-95 S en route to the turnpike, had absolutely no one on it. i've never seen it so desolate. all major crossings into ny were closed, and they appeared to be diverting traffic in nj away from the major interstates. i'm sure tomorrow will be a mess. a couple of incidents were, like i said, eerily close to home. the route 3 exit for the lincoln tunnel was sectioned off with red cones, although no one was even attempting to go on it. i took a walk with carrie this evening (i had seen enough). she said that from ridge road she could see the smoke cloud, and i was inclined to believe her from what i saw on the turnpike. in front of rutherford's city hall, a message on the main board asked for donated blood. i heard an airplane fly overhead after the lockdown on air traffic, and tonight carrie pointed out a few lights blinking in the sky. obviously, if they were airplanes they were military ones. it's all very surreal. i imagine tomorrow will get back to normal somewhat, but i can't imagine how i'm going to even get to work. we knew someone in the trade center who apparently got out safely, and for that we are thankful. while the schools in nj weren't closed today (they were in ny) i'm sure a number of relatives from rutherford school kids will be missing tomorrow morning. hopefully no other buildings will collapse like wt 7 which did early tonight.
chris
"from the on-the-seventh-day-he-rested dept."
*Sigh* Well, it is a religion.
I miss the days when operating systems ran programs, and weren't political statements.
I don't know how chess rankings are determined, but I know that in other ranking systems (for online games, for example) the rank is based on playing players of the same caliber or better. In a rudimentary example, if you are ranked 2nd and you beat the player who's ranked 1st, you become 1st.
However, one of the problems of this design is that once someone becomes 1st, they no longer really have to play. Since no one can challenge their ranking, no one else can reach the top spot anymore. I've noticed people doing this in, of all things, Unreal Tournament. The top players win a few key matches against higher players, then sit tight for the rest of their stay at the top. The only thing that prevents them from staying on the top forever is that the records are purged quarterly.
Again, I don't know how chess rankings work, but if they're similar one has to ask whether or not Bobby simply didn't want to play at the risk of losing.
Note to self: do not accept bug reports from people who can't speak English. :)
Uh, it is emulated. Windows XP has both thunking calls for Win16 apps, and a virtual DOS machine for DOS apps. By default, no direct calls to hardware are allowed in an NT system.
Also, not to mention that it IS simply a toy, after all. You mention "Mindstorms" to the average Joe on the street and they have no idea what you are talking about. You mention "copying music" and they probably would.
And Texas Instruments position in the computer world is what, now? Going from Cosby-endorsed home computers and thousands of Speak and Spells in children's hands to selling a few small lines of embedded processors.
Except if it's a home machine with no personal/financial information on it, is connected to a cable line that can't do any damage sending data up its 128K upstream, and is running a few rudimentary firewall, you don't have much to worry about. Some people take their security WAY too seriously.
Uh, if I remember correctly, all you had to do to find out if you had the Code Red worm was look for a text file in the root of your machine. That, and there was an executable for people too brainless to do so. How was Code Red not "easily detectable"?
I remember hearing when I first went to Boston College (for a year) that it was one of the "top ten drinking schools". My first reaction was, "I wonder how they determine that?" My second was a look of puzzlement when my honors professor said one of the libaries used to be an actual pub. 8|
...in ASCII. :) Come on, you know someone has done it.