My friend who works at the Medical Sciences building of a major university got a call from the U's IT department, who in turn got a call from the U's lawyers, who in turn got a call from the good ol' MPAA. Apparently someone in the building was sharing movies illegally (is there really any other way?). Not sure what the repercussions are yet, since this happened 3 days ago. My friend feels kinda bad about it, seeing as he was the one who suggested installing Kazaa Lite.
Seeing as the week would then be 10 days, it would be feasible to add another day to the 2-day weekend we currently enjoy. If you do the math, 28.6% of our current week is on the weekends. If we had 3 days for the weekend, that would be 30%. You know what that means... 1.4% more time to play Diablo/Neverwinter/Quake/.
They would have to make it illegal to have hardware that would cooperate with the software of your choice.
Microsoft is well on their way to making hardware do this by itself. Then, all they have to do is invest a little more in America (ie: buy a few more Congressmen) and, voila, every computer in America has one of these suckers. Goodbye Linux. Goodbye ability to do whatever you want with your own music.
Sure, some of these technologies would work in other/industrial sectors, but there is one glaring problem: Where does the self-sufficient electricity come from?
In a vehicle, one of the largest sources of unused AND recoverable energy is in braking. That's how we (I was on the UW team) bumped up the fuel efficiency of the Moolander. If you remember back to high-school physics, you probably had a few lessons in electricity. Our teacher brought in a simple generator attached to a light bulb. The generator (a simple motor) was hand-turned. What we learned was that Lenz's Law produced a force opposite to the force applied to the hand crank. Apply that to a hefty motor in a truck and change the hand crank to rotating wheels (that bring with them the inertia of a couple thousand pounds) and you have yourself regenerative braking.
I can't really see an industrial method of recovering this energy.
Well, I think I have something of an authority on this issue. I was on the UW team for the fall semester (and the whole year before that). Things have gotten, shall we say, busy lately.
To answer your question, "Ah, but what did it *cost*?" I would say last year's Moolennium (same deal, only it was a Chevy Suburban) cost somewhere around $500k. Yeah, yeah, that's a bit on the expensive side, but don't forget it's a prototype. We calculated that the final product, should it be mass-produced, would cost about $2000-3000 extra. Unfortunately, the battery pack we used would have to be replaced somewhere around the 65k mile mark, costing an extra $600-1000. But hey, that's what Congressionally approved subsidies are for. But don't forget about that fuel economy. Under ideal conditions, we got the truck going at about 33 mpg (stock is 12!).
Upon reading the article, I learned that the first nano-related products are sunscreen and hair dye. I thought: "How exactly is this 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters'"?!?
Then I realized the self-evident. I'm one of those tries-to-be-cool-by-dying-my-hair nerds. The sunscreen? I'm as pale as a ghost, so even though I hate the sun, I can now bear it!
I am currently a student in Computer Science and also looking for an IT position, so I think your predicament is quite similar to mine. Here's what I think:
Self-Education: This basically entails buying a crapload of books from the neighborhood B&N, reading them cover to cover, and practicing everything in a real-world situation (ie: don't just read the examples.... do them!). Suggestions for good books: anything in the "The Complete Reference" series by Osborne, Hacking Linux Exposed, Hacking Exposed, etc.
Programming Languages: OK, you don't need to learn Java (probably). So you don't have to go to college for that. I, unfortunately, had to learn that dumb language. But if you're going to be a sysadmin, learn some scripting languages, like perl, vbscript, etc. Perl for a *nix environment, but you'd be surprised how useful a junk script in vbscript can be. You just have to really know the language to crank out some good code.
Start small: Don't expect to get root access during the interview. You will, invariably, go through the "System Analyst" stage wherever you work. Whether you go to college or not will affect how long that stage is: If you have a diploma, your superiors will automatically have more trust in you. Otherwise, you're a "college dropout," even if you never applied for college.
Vendor Certificates: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE these!! They are worth absolutely nothing to the savvy Admin, but are worth their weight in gold to an ignorant corporate exec. Speaking from personal experience here... My client gave me crap jobs, but trusted his nephew because he was MCSE certified. After meeting him one day, I knew that two of him wouldn't equal the abilities I had. Sucked for me, though, because I didn't have that certificate.
Learn from the Best: Read the BOFH pages Then do the opposite. It also provides the side-effect of telling funny anecdotes to co-workers.
In essence, college gives you perks and accelerates your career. But don't forget it subtracts 4 years from the start. If you don't have the financial means to easily go to college, it's probably not worth it. Well, there are the females, too. Can't forget about the co-eds.
But this is what I said: After much deliberation and consulting with peers, I have decided not to apply for any position with Microsoft. It seems as though my conscience has gotten the best of me. Having been exposed to many of Microsoft's exploits through slashdot.org, I find it very difficult for me to work for a company I so vehemently disagree with. Complete ignorance of personal security and privacy, overly monopolistic actions, and inferior products are just a few of the reasons why I have made this decision. It looks as though the only way I would work for Microsoft would be after a complete overhaul of the company structure - something I highly doubt a corporation of such magnitude would do for a single programmer.
And yes, that was a direct quote from my email to the recruiter. Talk about burning bridges.
After reading all the posts at my threshold, I was appalled to see a significant lack of 'interesting' or 'informative' comments. This is a serious problem for certain people, and just because you don't experience it yourself doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
My grandmother suffers from a psychosomatic disease that makes her very ill when around certain things (i.e. televisions, CRTs, anything with a strong or synthetic odor, etc.). She has been unable for many years now to watch an entire 30 minute TV show without turning the set off during commercials. But like I said, it's purely psychosomatic... in her head.
For example, a few years ago, our family bought her a computer for Christmas. Very slow, very lacking of features, but it allows for email, word processing, and checking of stocks, which is all she needs or ever will need. Problem was, it had a CRT, so she never used it. Ever. So as the LCD screens began coming out, I thought a change of monitors would let her use the computer. Prefacing the purchase of the LCD with information about how the screen doesn't emit the "harmful electrons" that TVs use, she agreed that it might be worth a try. Making sure that a return policy was in effect for the purchase, I bought the LCD and installed it at her house for a test run. She was able to use it without any problems and did not feel sick at all. "Sick," by the way, does not mean feeling a simple headache. We're talking shaking of extremities, loss of strength, vomiting. Even though it has been assumed (and probably proven) that electron emission has no harmful effects, my grandma doesn't care. As long as she thinks it's emitting stuff at her, she will get sick. Tell her it works like a LCD (my explanation to her: thousands of tiny light bulbs arranged in a pattern. just miniature versions of the ones that light your house), and she's completely fine.
So please, take this seriously. Our family has had to deal with it for years now. Say what you will about the author of the article, but people do suffer from the so-called electro-pollution. Even though it may be all in their minds.
First of all, it's believed that these other dimensions are so-called "curled up," meaning that there is some sort of circular attribute to them. Taking this into account, I remembered viewing that website and put some ideas together:
Think of what the author said in terms of particle physics. He/She looked into a world where photons moved in a circular fashion. If the radius was big, it'd be just like our current universe. If it was small, we wouldn't be able to see much beyond our point of view.
What I'm trying to say is that photons move in the three orthonormal dimensions, and change coordinates with respect to the fourth dimension. Duh. Everyone knows that. But what if there were some other particles (Higgs boson, perhaps?) that function similarly, only on these "curled-up" dimensions? The reference to the website was made simply to introduce the reader to a circular/spherical coordinate system. My comments following the link asked the reader to reduce the radius of said coordinate system.
I wonder if this can shed some light on the subject. It talks about modeling a universe where light naturally travels at a fixed radius rather than a straight line. Assuming the radius to be extremely large, the proposed universe would act quite similarly to ours. Assuming an extremely small radius (small as in atomic-level) and I think we may be hitting upon the door of the next dimensions.
Think of it... In a world where light traveled in a fixed radius of one meter, you would see the back of your head if nothing is in the way. And, it would seem, that your head is 6.28 meters away from you. Problem is, you wouldn't be able to see beyond that one-meter radius circle. Now, what if that radius was shrunk to the atomic level... you wouldn't be able to see beyond the circle(sphere?) that the fixed radius spans. Obviously, your eye is way too large to detect that kind of precision.
Thoughts anyone?
Anyone else notice the peculiarity of the list at the beginning of Culp @ Microsoft? Let's see....
Code RedMicrosoft worm.
LionLinux worm
SadmindSolaris worm that affected Microsoft OS's (*ack* if you can call them OS's!)
RamenLinux worm
NimdaMicrosoft worm
Now that means that a "representative" list of worms would contain 50% Microsoft worms, 40% Linux worms, and 10% Solaris worms. It's good to see Microsoft presenting a legitimate picture of what's going on. C'mon!! Windows practically breeds worms! Linux has had how many? 4, 5? Morris, Ramen, Lion, Adore. That's all I can come up with. Now, do I start listing the Microsoft worms (not to mention virii)?...
-------------
All your sig are belong to us.
Re:Destroy all Islam. Kill all Muslims.
on
Parrot: For Real
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
*sigh* What a sorry state our world is in. It seems as though this person is hiding behind the same curtain as those who perpetrated the crime: "Anonymous Coward."
Keep making remarks such as this, and you shall experience the mounting anger our Arabic and Western Asian bretheren have for so long now.
It's people like you, who lash out in such stereotypical ways, that make me believe in the inevitable demise of our great country. Poor form, old chap. Poor form.
btw, i'm white, so don't think for one second that i'm trying to defend 'my own people.' i'm simply defending my brothers and sisters in humanity, of which you obviously shouldn't belong.
1. When is the deadline for giving you all my money and killing my family as a sacrifice?
2. I'm not a huge fan of sugary drinks. Do I still have to drink the kool-aid(tm)?
3. Why is everyone wearing black? And what's with everyone having the same shoes?
<sig>Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.</sig>
You mere heathens only think you can acheive full disclosure. I, however, have created the world's greatest vulnerability, and no one has found it yet! What is even better is that I have since morphed it into a Trojan, appearing harmless. Corporations and individuals alike have been lulled to think that not only is my beloved exploit helpful, but worth paying for! Muahahahaha!
But alas, my foothold on world domination has been slowly diminishing due to an unforseen (and very unintentional) fix. It goes by many names, but usually ends in "NIX". These "pioneers" will turn back. There is no doubt in my mind. They will soon yearn for my little friend's features, inadvertantly sending large sums of cash my way. You sorry souls...
-bg
If you are familiar with quantam mechanics (and I suggest you all read up on it... fascinating subject), you would know that there are (currently) 6 quarks, 6 leptons, and a number of "force carrying" particles. I forgot how many of those. As of now, we have most of these identified and independantly observed (please don't argue about semantics on independant quarks). One particle, however, stands out: the graviton. Although predicted, it has never been observed. Now hold that thought...
Particle physics theorists tend to come up with some pretty wild ideas about how all of that mumbo-jumbo is related. One such theory is GUTs: the Grand Unification Theories. It states that to every particle, there is a "cousin" particle. A few examples= top quark : photon:: top squark : photino. Could this experiment have found the gravitino before having found the graviton?
And what about anti-particles... We can produce anti-quarks. Not many of them, but we know they exist.
Merging that idea with gravitons / anti-gravitons is a bit trickier. It would take a bit of hand-waving to predict anti-force carriers. NOTE: an anti-particle is not the same as the "cousin" particle described above.
Just a thought.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Does m$ really think that ActiveX will replace java? Having taken one semester of java programming at the university level, I realize that java has much more potential in the ways of security. It has less ability to manipulate local files, and more ability to be a self-contained app.
ActiveX, on the other hand, was practically built to utilize m$ propreitary code, as well as interact with the local HDD. Can you say "Welcome Trojans!"?
Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.
OK, we've got to clarify a few things. Like bits, bytes, and protocols.
Bit: a 1 or a 0. Binary. No surprise there.
Byte: a set of 8 bits. In decimal, it ranges from 0 to 255 (typically). In hex, 00 - FF.
I will eventually get around to protocols... Now we know that the byterate of a 56k modem is 56000 / 8, or 7000 bytes/sec. (The prefix "kilo," by the way means 1024, not 1000 like in grams or those punks at HDD manufacturers.)
But wait! What about the protocols? Well, due to the nature of TCP/IP, you can factor out an average of one bit per byte for packet headers. This means that, of the 56000 bits/sec available, only about 49000 are usable. Therefore, 6125 bytes/sec can be used by the user. And from that, 6125 turns into 5.98 theoretical kilobytes per second. of pure, raw data.
That, of course, is assuming that there is no line noise, no FCC regulations limiting DL speeds, and no compression (which can be used very effectively with.txt,.html, etc. files.)
I, on the other hand, choose to use cable, since the absurdly high number of carrier loops (read: really big resistors) between me and the CO caused me to connect at 26400 bits/sec with a 56k.
Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.
Did you know that a fusion reaction releases far less energy than what is being explored at Fermilab, CERN, and (soon to be) SSC? Basically, by accelerating protons and anti-protons in opposite directions (not difficult to do, since they would naturally accelerate in opposite directions in a magnetic field) and smashing them together, you fully put Einstein's E=mc^2 equation to use. All mass goes into a whole crapload of energy. Harnessing that energy? Still working on that. Creating the anti-protons? Very time consuming. But, all in all, very doable in the not-so-near future.
Compare that to a fusion reaction. Sure, E=mc^2 still works, but it's not really what it seems to be... You see, the m is actually change in m! And in fusion, you change about 1% of mass into pure energy. Fission, by the way is worse, at about 0.1% efficient. And don't bother about fossil fuels. They're about 1 millionth of a percent.
If you want to know more... I suggest you check out "The God Particle" by Leon Lederman (Nobel Prize winner in physics and former director of Fermilab).
peace out.
UW-Madison is actually working on something similar. Sure, it's no black hole laptop, but it is quantum computing.
Remember... It's not paranoia if they're really after you.
While some people question the feasibility of this system to exist on the BIOS ROM (ie, too many components), remember the most important aspect of this phoenixNet script: Windows (98). While its not confirmed that it can run on other flavors of Windows (good god, I used flavors and windows in the same sentence), we must assume that ME is also compatible. 2000 and XP are a bit of a stretch.
Next, take into acount the piss-poor(it's all relative) networking capabilities of Windows. I wouldn't doubt that there is some file somewhere in the Windows OS that acts as a flag for a network connection.
After that, there's the network device. Windows, once again, stores all that info in the registry. Tricky part is understanding it. Couple hundred kilobytes can do that, along with cloning the driver info. All this stored on the new, practically empty (but still corrupted by M$) HDD.
And finally, the actual code to execute the "phone home" portion. Low level communication via TCP/IP isn't that hard, if you know how to construct packets from scratch. A few more kilobytes can take care of the initial handshake + serial #. The rest of the program can be run on the HDD.
See? It's not that difficult. Give some BIOS engineers this project for a few weeks, and they'll spit out the same thing. Nevermind the ethics, because as my Econ 301 teacher used to say: "In order for capitalism to thrive, greed must be considered 'good.'"
Yay capitalism!
----
O Viespatie! Vel Desreles! Man bloga.
O man, Sausage again! I'm sick of it.
Slashdot Mirror
My friend who works at the Medical Sciences building of a major university got a call from the U's IT department, who in turn got a call from the U's lawyers, who in turn got a call from the good ol' MPAA. Apparently someone in the building was sharing movies illegally (is there really any other way?). Not sure what the repercussions are yet, since this happened 3 days ago. My friend feels kinda bad about it, seeing as he was the one who suggested installing Kazaa Lite.
Seeing as the week would then be 10 days, it would be feasible to add another day to the 2-day weekend we currently enjoy. If you do the math, 28.6% of our current week is on the weekends. If we had 3 days for the weekend, that would be 30%. You know what that means... 1.4% more time to play Diablo/Neverwinter/Quake/.
Microsoft is well on their way to making hardware do this by itself. Then, all they have to do is invest a little more in America (ie: buy a few more Congressmen) and, voila, every computer in America has one of these suckers. Goodbye Linux. Goodbye ability to do whatever you want with your own music.
Sure, some of these technologies would work in other/industrial sectors, but there is one glaring problem: Where does the self-sufficient electricity come from?
In a vehicle, one of the largest sources of unused AND recoverable energy is in braking. That's how we (I was on the UW team) bumped up the fuel efficiency of the Moolander. If you remember back to high-school physics, you probably had a few lessons in electricity. Our teacher brought in a simple generator attached to a light bulb. The generator (a simple motor) was hand-turned. What we learned was that Lenz's Law produced a force opposite to the force applied to the hand crank. Apply that to a hefty motor in a truck and change the hand crank to rotating wheels (that bring with them the inertia of a couple thousand pounds) and you have yourself regenerative braking.
I can't really see an industrial method of recovering this energy.
Well, I think I have something of an authority on this issue. I was on the UW team for the fall semester (and the whole year before that). Things have gotten, shall we say, busy lately.
To answer your question, "Ah, but what did it *cost*?" I would say last year's Moolennium (same deal, only it was a Chevy Suburban) cost somewhere around $500k. Yeah, yeah, that's a bit on the expensive side, but don't forget it's a prototype. We calculated that the final product, should it be mass-produced, would cost about $2000-3000 extra. Unfortunately, the battery pack we used would have to be replaced somewhere around the 65k mile mark, costing an extra $600-1000. But hey, that's what Congressionally approved subsidies are for. But don't forget about that fuel economy. Under ideal conditions, we got the truck going at about 33 mpg (stock is 12!).
"Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes"
Then I realized the self-evident. I'm one of those tries-to-be-cool-by-dying-my-hair nerds. The sunscreen? I'm as pale as a ghost, so even though I hate the sun, I can now bear it!
In essence, college gives you perks and accelerates your career. But don't forget it subtracts 4 years from the start. If you don't have the financial means to easily go to college, it's probably not worth it. Well, there are the females, too. Can't forget about the co-eds.
but I'll just go change my pants now. Wow.
But this is what I said:
After much deliberation and consulting with peers, I have decided not to apply for any position with Microsoft. It seems as though my conscience has gotten the best of me. Having been exposed to many of Microsoft's exploits through slashdot.org, I find it very difficult for me to work for a company I so vehemently disagree with. Complete ignorance of personal security and privacy, overly monopolistic actions, and inferior products are just a few of the reasons why I have made this decision. It looks as though the only way I would work for Microsoft would be after a complete overhaul of the company structure - something I highly doubt a corporation of such magnitude would do for a single programmer.
And yes, that was a direct quote from my email to the recruiter. Talk about burning bridges.
After reading all the posts at my threshold, I was appalled to see a significant lack of 'interesting' or 'informative' comments. This is a serious problem for certain people, and just because you don't experience it yourself doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
My grandmother suffers from a psychosomatic disease that makes her very ill when around certain things (i.e. televisions, CRTs, anything with a strong or synthetic odor, etc.). She has been unable for many years now to watch an entire 30 minute TV show without turning the set off during commercials. But like I said, it's purely psychosomatic... in her head.
For example, a few years ago, our family bought her a computer for Christmas. Very slow, very lacking of features, but it allows for email, word processing, and checking of stocks, which is all she needs or ever will need. Problem was, it had a CRT, so she never used it. Ever. So as the LCD screens began coming out, I thought a change of monitors would let her use the computer. Prefacing the purchase of the LCD with information about how the screen doesn't emit the "harmful electrons" that TVs use, she agreed that it might be worth a try. Making sure that a return policy was in effect for the purchase, I bought the LCD and installed it at her house for a test run. She was able to use it without any problems and did not feel sick at all. "Sick," by the way, does not mean feeling a simple headache. We're talking shaking of extremities, loss of strength, vomiting. Even though it has been assumed (and probably proven) that electron emission has no harmful effects, my grandma doesn't care. As long as she thinks it's emitting stuff at her, she will get sick. Tell her it works like a LCD (my explanation to her: thousands of tiny light bulbs arranged in a pattern. just miniature versions of the ones that light your house), and she's completely fine.
So please, take this seriously. Our family has had to deal with it for years now. Say what you will about the author of the article, but people do suffer from the so-called electro-pollution. Even though it may be all in their minds.
First of all, it's believed that these other dimensions are so-called "curled up," meaning that there is some sort of circular attribute to them. Taking this into account, I remembered viewing that website and put some ideas together:
Think of what the author said in terms of particle physics. He/She looked into a world where photons moved in a circular fashion. If the radius was big, it'd be just like our current universe. If it was small, we wouldn't be able to see much beyond our point of view.
What I'm trying to say is that photons move in the three orthonormal dimensions, and change coordinates with respect to the fourth dimension. Duh. Everyone knows that. But what if there were some other particles (Higgs boson, perhaps?) that function similarly, only on these "curled-up" dimensions? The reference to the website was made simply to introduce the reader to a circular/spherical coordinate system. My comments following the link asked the reader to reduce the radius of said coordinate system.
I wonder if this can shed some light on the subject. It talks about modeling a universe where light naturally travels at a fixed radius rather than a straight line. Assuming the radius to be extremely large, the proposed universe would act quite similarly to ours. Assuming an extremely small radius (small as in atomic-level) and I think we may be hitting upon the door of the next dimensions.
Think of it... In a world where light traveled in a fixed radius of one meter, you would see the back of your head if nothing is in the way. And, it would seem, that your head is 6.28 meters away from you. Problem is, you wouldn't be able to see beyond that one-meter radius circle. Now, what if that radius was shrunk to the atomic level... you wouldn't be able to see beyond the circle(sphere?) that the fixed radius spans. Obviously, your eye is way too large to detect that kind of precision.
Thoughts anyone?
- An "appliance I can't do without"
- An algorithm loved by all
- Goes great with steak
- A favorite display device of many
What is this wonderous gift of all gifts?!? Why CowbowNeal, of course! Get 'em while they're hot!- Code RedMicrosoft worm.
- LionLinux worm
- SadmindSolaris worm that affected Microsoft OS's (*ack* if you can call them OS's!)
- RamenLinux worm
- NimdaMicrosoft worm
Now that means that a "representative" list of worms would contain 50% Microsoft worms, 40% Linux worms, and 10% Solaris worms. It's good to see Microsoft presenting a legitimate picture of what's going on. C'mon!! Windows practically breeds worms! Linux has had how many? 4, 5? Morris, Ramen, Lion, Adore. That's all I can come up with. Now, do I start listing the Microsoft worms (not to mention virii)?...-------------
All your sig are belong to us.
*sigh* What a sorry state our world is in. It seems as though this person is hiding behind the same curtain as those who perpetrated the crime: "Anonymous Coward."
Keep making remarks such as this, and you shall experience the mounting anger our Arabic and Western Asian bretheren have for so long now.
It's people like you, who lash out in such stereotypical ways, that make me believe in the inevitable demise of our great country. Poor form, old chap. Poor form.
btw, i'm white, so don't think for one second that i'm trying to defend 'my own people.' i'm simply defending my brothers and sisters in humanity, of which you obviously shouldn't belong.
1. When is the deadline for giving you all my money and killing my family as a sacrifice? 2. I'm not a huge fan of sugary drinks. Do I still have to drink the kool-aid(tm)? 3. Why is everyone wearing black? And what's with everyone having the same shoes?
<sig>Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.</sig>
You mere heathens only think you can acheive full disclosure. I, however, have created the world's greatest vulnerability, and no one has found it yet! What is even better is that I have since morphed it into a Trojan, appearing harmless. Corporations and individuals alike have been lulled to think that not only is my beloved exploit helpful, but worth paying for! Muahahahaha! But alas, my foothold on world domination has been slowly diminishing due to an unforseen (and very unintentional) fix. It goes by many names, but usually ends in "NIX". These "pioneers" will turn back. There is no doubt in my mind. They will soon yearn for my little friend's features, inadvertantly sending large sums of cash my way. You sorry souls... -bg
If you are familiar with quantam mechanics (and I suggest you all read up on it... fascinating subject), you would know that there are (currently) 6 quarks, 6 leptons, and a number of "force carrying" particles. I forgot how many of those. As of now, we have most of these identified and independantly observed (please don't argue about semantics on independant quarks). One particle, however, stands out: the graviton. Although predicted, it has never been observed. Now hold that thought... Particle physics theorists tend to come up with some pretty wild ideas about how all of that mumbo-jumbo is related. One such theory is GUTs: the Grand Unification Theories. It states that to every particle, there is a "cousin" particle. A few examples= top quark : photon :: top squark : photino. Could this experiment have found the gravitino before having found the graviton?
And what about anti-particles... We can produce anti-quarks. Not many of them, but we know they exist. Merging that idea with gravitons / anti-gravitons is a bit trickier. It would take a bit of hand-waving to predict anti-force carriers. NOTE: an anti-particle is not the same as the "cousin" particle described above. Just a thought. Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Does m$ really think that ActiveX will replace java? Having taken one semester of java programming at the university level, I realize that java has much more potential in the ways of security. It has less ability to manipulate local files, and more ability to be a self-contained app. ActiveX, on the other hand, was practically built to utilize m$ propreitary code, as well as interact with the local HDD. Can you say "Welcome Trojans!"?
Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.
OK, we've got to clarify a few things. Like bits, bytes, and protocols. .txt, .html, etc. files.)
I, on the other hand, choose to use cable, since the absurdly high number of carrier loops (read: really big resistors) between me and the CO caused me to connect at 26400 bits/sec with a 56k.
Bit: a 1 or a 0. Binary. No surprise there.
Byte: a set of 8 bits. In decimal, it ranges from 0 to 255 (typically). In hex, 00 - FF.
I will eventually get around to protocols... Now we know that the byterate of a 56k modem is 56000 / 8, or 7000 bytes/sec. (The prefix "kilo," by the way means 1024, not 1000 like in grams or those punks at HDD manufacturers.) But wait! What about the protocols? Well, due to the nature of TCP/IP, you can factor out an average of one bit per byte for packet headers. This means that, of the 56000 bits/sec available, only about 49000 are usable. Therefore, 6125 bytes/sec can be used by the user. And from that, 6125 turns into 5.98 theoretical kilobytes per second. of pure, raw data. That, of course, is assuming that there is no line noise, no FCC regulations limiting DL speeds, and no compression (which can be used very effectively with
Remember, it's not paranoia if they're really after you.
Did you know that a fusion reaction releases far less energy than what is being explored at Fermilab, CERN, and (soon to be) SSC? Basically, by accelerating protons and anti-protons in opposite directions (not difficult to do, since they would naturally accelerate in opposite directions in a magnetic field) and smashing them together, you fully put Einstein's E=mc^2 equation to use. All mass goes into a whole crapload of energy. Harnessing that energy? Still working on that. Creating the anti-protons? Very time consuming. But, all in all, very doable in the not-so-near future. Compare that to a fusion reaction. Sure, E=mc^2 still works, but it's not really what it seems to be... You see, the m is actually change in m! And in fusion, you change about 1% of mass into pure energy. Fission, by the way is worse, at about 0.1% efficient. And don't bother about fossil fuels. They're about 1 millionth of a percent. If you want to know more... I suggest you check out "The God Particle" by Leon Lederman (Nobel Prize winner in physics and former director of Fermilab). peace out.
UW-Madison is actually working on something similar. Sure, it's no black hole laptop, but it is quantum computing. Remember... It's not paranoia if they're really after you.
While some people question the feasibility of this system to exist on the BIOS ROM (ie, too many components), remember the most important aspect of this phoenixNet script: Windows (98). While its not confirmed that it can run on other flavors of Windows (good god, I used flavors and windows in the same sentence), we must assume that ME is also compatible. 2000 and XP are a bit of a stretch. Next, take into acount the piss-poor(it's all relative) networking capabilities of Windows. I wouldn't doubt that there is some file somewhere in the Windows OS that acts as a flag for a network connection. After that, there's the network device. Windows, once again, stores all that info in the registry. Tricky part is understanding it. Couple hundred kilobytes can do that, along with cloning the driver info. All this stored on the new, practically empty (but still corrupted by M$) HDD. And finally, the actual code to execute the "phone home" portion. Low level communication via TCP/IP isn't that hard, if you know how to construct packets from scratch. A few more kilobytes can take care of the initial handshake + serial #. The rest of the program can be run on the HDD. See? It's not that difficult. Give some BIOS engineers this project for a few weeks, and they'll spit out the same thing. Nevermind the ethics, because as my Econ 301 teacher used to say: "In order for capitalism to thrive, greed must be considered 'good.'" Yay capitalism! ---- O Viespatie! Vel Desreles! Man bloga.
O man, Sausage again! I'm sick of it.