Re:Had it for a while now too
on
Wi-Fi Toys
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I agree that the book seems like a rehash of previous material I've seen on the web. Not to mention if you've had any previous work experience with RF then most of this book will probably feel very amature in nature. But then I guess that's okay considering its amature RF modders that the book is focused towards.
This is exactly what I was thinking. And these sort of punishments shouldn't be limited just to spammers. I know they're not, but how often do you really see community-service and probation as a punishement, except for the super-rich, actors, or sports figures who happen to get busted for things like DUI.
Proportionality be damned. They're out for blood and need to make an example of him. What I have been wondering is why spammers even need to spend time in jail. Wouldn't a large fine be in order and serve the same purpose? Do we really need more non-violent criminals crowding up our jails and costing taxpayers even more money?
I think alot of it is the perception of value. If someone is considering buying a new CD or a DVD, and both cost about the same, the usual sale goes to the DVD as it's perceived to be a better value. After all, a movie costs close to $100M for a blockbuster these days. A CD doens't cost nearly as much to make, hence the ever increasing sales of DVDs. The only was to increase the sales of CDs in this sort of competition is to lower the price. Like the article eluded to, some of the lost CD sales are directly attributed to the competition between CDs and DVDs. Like the saying goes, "Perception becomes reality unless challenged by the truth".
"The nForce4 is really little more than an nForce3, but with a much deeper feature set. Of course SLI will likely be the big selling point this year...hopefully. I say "hopefully," because thinking back on the nForce3 Ultra launch, we saw many moons between the nForce3 reference board and actual retail samples from motherboard makers. Not to belittle all of the progress that has made it into the new nForce4 feature sets, but I have a feeling that those goodies will not be selling many nForce4 retail motherboards, at least not this year."
There you go. When will they be available, and how big of an impact is SLI going to be in the coming months for gamers? However, when you think about it the NF4 is being sold to gamers in general and only a small percentage will be able to afford the dual 6800s to populate these boards like they were in tended, in SLI. Looking back at 3dfx's version of SLI and how few of the folks in the communitiy actually used it, I fear this will just be a rehash of a good idea that is prohibitively expensive for most. If this turns out to be the case, NVidia could have just wasted a lot of money on a useless feature. And if that is true, lets hope they've got better monetary reserves that 3dfx did. Then again I don't think that'll be a problem for NVidia.
"One user even reported that his PayPal Debit card was getting refused!"
This is why real banking institutions have such stringent operational guidelines set down my the federal government in regards to information systems. This should serve as a hearty wake-up call to a great many people that have fallen under the impression that Paypal is a "real" bank, when in fact they are not.
It seems to me that US just wanted to have their little war.
No, it just means the current administration wanted to have their war. Not one person I know who actually has a coherent thought in their head thinks the war was justified on the basis of the adminstration's viewpoint of "just trust us". First is was "WMD", then it was "Freeing the Iraqi people". It just smacks of the defense used in the OJ trial--just keep playing different cards until one of them works. Anywho, the simple truth is now becoming evident to the extent of this administrations lies and the only people who would vote for Bush are the sheeple that buy into the propaganda. However, were there good things that came from the war? Absolutely, the world is less one evil dictator and a people freed of his tyranny. But let me make one point absolutely clear: Any good that came from this war was a mere side effect of capitalistic greed and a warped sense of personal revenge on Bush's part.
Call me crazy, but I was always under the impression that the news was supposed to be impartial and it was their jobs to report the facts as they are (not steeped in political bullshit as things are today). As it is we've got news outlets in the US these days that are so biased, not to mention blatant about it, that I cannot even look at popular news agencies (Fox, LA times, NY times, Washington times, etc) without disbelief and contempt. Its truly sad that its come to this.
Of course I'm probably just being a cynical centralist.
With the right controls, I'd welcome this. Whenever my family and friends head to Cedar Point, we always take 2-way radios to keep in touch (emergencies, when its time to eat, etc). They really help out though when you can't find someone at 4 PM where we're all supposed to be meeting for dinner. Well, with these little kiosks, we can leave the radios at home and have one less thing to worry about losing on a ride. Just pop onto a kiosk and see where they're at. Most likly they're STILL in line for (insert newest ride here) and that they're not going anywhere any time soon.
Here's a thought: if none of the tech companies license the tech to make the players, then we wouldn't have to worry about these crap copy protection schemes and BS laws (i.e. DMCA) in the first place. Maybe its time for a grassroots campain. Not to lobby our congresscritters mind you, but to let the tech companies that would be making the players know that we simply won't buy them if they're produced. This way it doesn't get bought into (licensing) and its killed at the source. Its effectively what did in DIVX, and I see no reason it won't work this time around.
Buy a foreign card. That will help add a little pressure to the American tech companies to stick up for us *little people*. When they start getting hit where it counts because of stupid legislation maybe next time they'll think twice about caving in so easily.
Complex passwords do not have to be difficult to remember, if you can make sense of them. For example, take something you can easily remember, such as "Slashdot". Now convert that into a strong password by substituting number and special characters for certain letters: $L@SHD0t. Simple enough. Its not just a random string of characters like some of the password generators use, but its unique enough that its tough to crack. The reason you'd want to change it in 90 days is presumably because computing power has gotten to the point that a strong 8 character password such as the one above can be cracked after a certain amount of time. By changing the password at the 90 day point you mitigate the risk of the password being cracked in the same timeframe the password would be in use.
This is truly a shame for anyone but the media conglomerates.
I bought a copy of DVD X Copy just in hopes that more people would just to spite the media giants that were against it, but alas it wasn't enough. I guess the upside is that there are freeware tools just as good, if not better, that can allow Americans to have their rights and use them too.
It would be interesting if their administration adopted a non-logging policy similar to some of the privacy-oriented ISPs available today.
Would the school district be held accountable for the assumed guilt of the infringement, or would it still fall to the people that did it, even though the FBI wouldn't be able to pinpoint them? After all, the school district did have the user agreements, regardless of whether or not they logged all the traffic.
"Everyone here seems to only be concerned with moving forward and having online music stores as soon as possible... what they don't realize is that because of the DRM we are moving BACKWARD. All the freedoms that we HAD with regular retail don't exist with the online stores, and already music companies are starting to experiment with DRM on regular CDs."
It about time somebody brought up this point. All too often people have been accepting more and more restrictive means of entertainment. Its a slippery slope that should not have ever been started. Unfortunately its too late and it seems from my point of view that until we hit rock bottim and the general public starts scratching their heads asking "how come I can't copy this song to my CD so I can play it in the car/work/other computer?" we won't see any real progress. My bet is that it'll happen because of PVRs, not DRM on CDs or online music stores. Once PVRs go mainstream and finally supplant VCRs, then and only then will people on a wide enough scale start bitching for not having the same capabilities as they did with their VCRs. Technology is supposed to move forward, not backward. And Joe Users nows that more restrictions = not as good. The proof is in the pudding: My 54 year old technophobe mother was rather pissed when she tried to copy a DVD with her VCR so she could take a copy to watch at my aunts house (who doesn't have a DVD player yet).
And to piggyback on this idea, how long are we going to endure region-encoding and encryption on DVDs?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that the book seems like a rehash of previous material I've seen on the web. Not to mention if you've had any previous work experience with RF then most of this book will probably feel very amature in nature. But then I guess that's okay considering its amature RF modders that the book is focused towards.
This is exactly what I was thinking. And these sort of punishments shouldn't be limited just to spammers. I know they're not, but how often do you really see community-service and probation as a punishement, except for the super-rich, actors, or sports figures who happen to get busted for things like DUI.
Proportionality be damned. They're out for blood and need to make an example of him. What I have been wondering is why spammers even need to spend time in jail. Wouldn't a large fine be in order and serve the same purpose? Do we really need more non-violent criminals crowding up our jails and costing taxpayers even more money?
Why is the parent post rated "Funny"? Its actually a sad truth that a ton of unemployed ITers are being faced with.
I think alot of it is the perception of value. If someone is considering buying a new CD or a DVD, and both cost about the same, the usual sale goes to the DVD as it's perceived to be a better value. After all, a movie costs close to $100M for a blockbuster these days. A CD doens't cost nearly as much to make, hence the ever increasing sales of DVDs. The only was to increase the sales of CDs in this sort of competition is to lower the price. Like the article eluded to, some of the lost CD sales are directly attributed to the competition between CDs and DVDs. Like the saying goes, "Perception becomes reality unless challenged by the truth".
Chalk one up for the good guys. Good guys: 3 Bad greedy companies: 10,003
This is why real banking institutions have such stringent operational guidelines set down my the federal government in regards to information systems. This should serve as a hearty wake-up call to a great many people that have fallen under the impression that Paypal is a "real" bank, when in fact they are not.
http://domainsbyproxy.com/
Nuff said.
Call me crazy, but I was always under the impression that the news was supposed to be impartial and it was their jobs to report the facts as they are (not steeped in political bullshit as things are today). As it is we've got news outlets in the US these days that are so biased, not to mention blatant about it, that I cannot even look at popular news agencies (Fox, LA times, NY times, Washington times, etc) without disbelief and contempt. Its truly sad that its come to this.
Of course I'm probably just being a cynical centralist.
http://gallery.menalto.com/modules.php?op=modload& name=News&file=index
With the right controls, I'd welcome this. Whenever my family and friends head to Cedar Point, we always take 2-way radios to keep in touch (emergencies, when its time to eat, etc). They really help out though when you can't find someone at 4 PM where we're all supposed to be meeting for dinner. Well, with these little kiosks, we can leave the radios at home and have one less thing to worry about losing on a ride. Just pop onto a kiosk and see where they're at. Most likly they're STILL in line for (insert newest ride here) and that they're not going anywhere any time soon.
Here's a thought: if none of the tech companies license the tech to make the players, then we wouldn't have to worry about these crap copy protection schemes and BS laws (i.e. DMCA) in the first place. Maybe its time for a grassroots campain. Not to lobby our congresscritters mind you, but to let the tech companies that would be making the players know that we simply won't buy them if they're produced. This way it doesn't get bought into (licensing) and its killed at the source. Its effectively what did in DIVX, and I see no reason it won't work this time around.
Heres a direct link to the MP3 of Mark Hamill's comments.
Am I the only one thinking this will be DoA like WAP was for mobile devices?
A more simple alternative? Disable it in BIOS.
Actually, it lost to the electrons holding the earth together.
Buy a foreign card. That will help add a little pressure to the American tech companies to stick up for us *little people*. When they start getting hit where it counts because of stupid legislation maybe next time they'll think twice about caving in so easily.
You can't steal what's being given away for free.
Complex passwords do not have to be difficult to remember, if you can make sense of them. For example, take something you can easily remember, such as "Slashdot". Now convert that into a strong password by substituting number and special characters for certain letters: $L@SHD0t. Simple enough. Its not just a random string of characters like some of the password generators use, but its unique enough that its tough to crack. The reason you'd want to change it in 90 days is presumably because computing power has gotten to the point that a strong 8 character password such as the one above can be cracked after a certain amount of time. By changing the password at the 90 day point you mitigate the risk of the password being cracked in the same timeframe the password would be in use.
This is news how? There shouldn't be a single geek out there that hasn't been aware of this for months now.
This is truly a shame for anyone but the media conglomerates.
I bought a copy of DVD X Copy just in hopes that more people would just to spite the media giants that were against it, but alas it wasn't enough. I guess the upside is that there are freeware tools just as good, if not better, that can allow Americans to have their rights and use them too.
It would be interesting if their administration adopted a non-logging policy similar to some of the privacy-oriented ISPs available today.
Would the school district be held accountable for the assumed guilt of the infringement, or would it still fall to the people that did it, even though the FBI wouldn't be able to pinpoint them? After all, the school district did have the user agreements, regardless of whether or not they logged all the traffic.
"Everyone here seems to only be concerned with moving forward and having online music stores as soon as possible... what they don't realize is that because of the DRM we are moving BACKWARD. All the freedoms that we HAD with regular retail don't exist with the online stores, and already music companies are starting to experiment with DRM on regular CDs."
It about time somebody brought up this point. All too often people have been accepting more and more restrictive means of entertainment. Its a slippery slope that should not have ever been started. Unfortunately its too late and it seems from my point of view that until we hit rock bottim and the general public starts scratching their heads asking "how come I can't copy this song to my CD so I can play it in the car/work/other computer?" we won't see any real progress. My bet is that it'll happen because of PVRs, not DRM on CDs or online music stores. Once PVRs go mainstream and finally supplant VCRs, then and only then will people on a wide enough scale start bitching for not having the same capabilities as they did with their VCRs. Technology is supposed to move forward, not backward. And Joe Users nows that more restrictions = not as good. The proof is in the pudding: My 54 year old technophobe mother was rather pissed when she tried to copy a DVD with her VCR so she could take a copy to watch at my aunts house (who doesn't have a DVD player yet).
And to piggyback on this idea, how long are we going to endure region-encoding and encryption on DVDs?