nVidia like to announce things well in advance of shipment in order to convince people to wait. This is perfect timing to keep those gamers from scooping up the 9700s for the Christmas season.
Make note that nVidia announced the nForce 2 way back in July and you still can't buy them.
With business practices like that, I like to take my dollar to the competition. ATI is very good about keeping products hush-hush until they are close to shipment. I wouldn't expect the FX anytime soon.
So the prices of the 4600s won't be dropping as a result of nVidia announcing something that won't be on shelves until next spring.
Your ISPs job is to provide you an internet connection that you pay for - it is NOT their job to secure your computer for you.
On that note, how does one secure a Microsoft OS when the cableco does not allow hardware firewalls? Certainly, there are software firewalls available, but these are not ideal (and often compromised by executables found in email - I wouldn't be surprised if the WMS spam was broadcast by such an email). So the cableco gives you a connection, tells you to secure it, but then they won't support it when you plug in a firewall.
In any event, the incident occured when I was building a PC for my brother. I had plugged the PC directly into the cable modem in order to test some software that didn't like the NAT on the router.
My point is that most geeks certainly know how to secure a box. However, most average Joe's do not. I once found a friend's PC loaded with warez because they had left anonymous FTP open. After fixing the problem, I recommended a router. This was installed for only a short while before the cableco asked them to remove it - there was an outage and they called support... one of the first questions was about the router.
But anyway - I called inquired to tech support only because the SPAM was wrong in the first place. Just because I know how to protect myself against it doesn't mean the cableco shouldn't help the average Joe do something about it. Perhaps they could at least build a good document on securing ones PC.
The other day, I got spam via my 'windows messaging service' - someone on my cable modem subnet is sending me pop-up spam with the 'net send' command (Windows only). Obviously this is easy to disable (for someone who knows how to) but...
WTF?
I took a screen shot which indicated time/date AND IP but the cableco tech morons said that they couldn't do anything about it? Right... How about revoking access? Perhaps it was the cableco themselves selling this service?
I think this is a bad correlation. At the same time drives are getting more dense and/or smaller, more people are using them.
I work in tech support for a company where the population has been largely fixed (so it doesn't matter if the rest of the world is using more than usual - I have my own data). I have LOTS of hard drives going through my hands so I'm familiar with failure rates. They have been increasing. Certainly, there are lots more drives out there, but they are failing at a higher rate.
In years past, it was easier to deal with tech support if you could let the drive "speak" to the technician on the other end of the phone. Usually, the techs were button monkeys that didn't realize that *I already knew* the drive was bad and needed to be replaced. So in the end, I'd usually just power up the drive and give it a few good whacks on the counter. Then I'd call up support and put the phone up to the drive. This reduced call times to only a couple minutes rather than the typical 20 - 30 minutes that it took the monkey to run through the flow chart.
Me: Here THAT? It's broken! Tech: Your shipping address, sir?
Today's drives don't take much whacking as they are much more delicate. This is also evident by IBM's new Thinkpad Shock Absorber (page 2, feature #5). With my old Thinkpad, I once (forgive me...) had a near car accident while it was powered up. The damn thing flew across the car and smacked into the dash with nary a problem. It still works today.
Tip: for the new one year warranty's, just buy two drives and mirror them. Whack one at 10 months and the next at 11.
As drives have gotten smaller/increased data density, they've become increasingly unreliable. I'm pretty sure this coincides with the new 1 year warranties (versus the older 3 year standard warranties).
Distribute the bandwidth and leverage redundancy (in the music, that is). Your average big-label radio station plays like, what.. 30 songs per day? In ogg or mp3, that is trivial. Create a time-synch'ed streaming format for broadcasting digitally-compressed, pre-stored music, and you've toppled the RIAA.
Hell, you could probably get a week's worth on a bootable CD. Pop it in that old PC that's collecting dust in the closet and then hook it up to some low-powered amateur broadcasting equipment.
If any real number of people started participating, then this would be huge.
The FCC actually allows low-powered FM broadcasts for amateur radio stations. Why not create a streaming standard that would allow P2P leveraging? For example, if I had a radio stream and an open standard for broadcasting that stream, complete with time-synchronization, then it wouldn't be too difficult to allow thousands of amateur-radio broadcasters to blanket an area, or an entire country, with that broadcast.
But wait - there's more...
Because a song only needs to be downloaded once and stored, there is no need for massive bandwidth once some good variety has been witnessed by a paticular broadcaster. At that point, the broadcast node only needs to worry about anticipating new music (obvious a continuous process) but perhaps a CD or DVD based distribution could be accomodated for those with slow connections (or broadband providers that don't like this on their network).
So there you have it. Obviously, the 'distribution' is a bit crippled but this would be ideal for a low-budget station. Perhaps there could be a standard bootable CD ISO available for a day's rotation... That hardware in the closet is starting to look better and better, eh?
My question is- Why not save yourself 1 1/2 hrs and possibly a buck and drive to the video store? The only thing I can think of is no late fees.
Well,
It is inconvenient now... But when Microsoft builds this capability into set-top-boxes, it will become very popular. Didja wonder why the nForce2 chipset has *two* network cards built-in? Because Microsoft's new all-in-one set-top-box will allow built in routing capabilities. They'll likely have 802.11x in there somewhere. So, basically, the movie will download to your set-top-box and you'll be able to watch it like PPV.
But get this - think about the P2P capability of sharing downloads with your neighbors on the same subnet. This eliminates the need for the publisher to provide the bandwidth. Essentially - a secure Napster model, provided that they *can* secure it. So the movies are distributed to a few boxes and then they replicate. With good enough AI, the box could anticipate your viewing habbits and get movies before you order them. If successful, DVDs are eliminated and MS has another proprietary DirectX module.
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll... um... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
1) Buy out all the radio stations 2) Raise the barriers to artists who don't "sell out" 3) Screw over the consumers 4) 5) Profit!
Moderated to funny? This could be a great moneymaker if/when the hardware is cheaper, and high-speed access is more common
It could be a *real* money maker for the CableCo if "DRM" was not such a bad word these days. Seriously...
Imagine, for a second, that the CableCo was able to build a capable set-top-box with secure digital rights management. They build in a DVD player, cable modem, VoIP and ethernet/wireless routing capabilities. They put a set-top-box in every subscriber's house for free.
At the command of the the subscriber, the box then downloads music, TV shows, PPV movies, video games, etc. To save the CableCo's bandwidth, all non-provate media is shared with others on the subnet. Because of the wireless ethernet capabilities, the local area is blanketted with wireless internet service and VoIP. 802.11x phones become cheap and widely used. People use thier phones for accessing their media collection.
Et cetera...
But, since the computer is not secure, this will never happen.
Columbia House will be selling these things with a hundred movies pre-installed for a penny. All that one needs to do is buy another six over the course of three years (*).
(*) Movie-of-the-month will automatically be downloaded unless you send back this reader service card indicating that you do not want to receive it. Tax, shipping and handling extra.
That is the first mistake that people make when trying to understand Microsoft. They don't sell software but, rather, they sell you the right to use it for a preset amount of time.
Businesses do not have the right to transfer licenses - we saw that with the Kmart fiasco. Now that the licenses are tied to hardware, consumers do not have the right to keep their MS software when they buy a new PC.
So really, one can only rent the software. This is where the DOJ went wrong - they need to force MS to license users and not hardware or legal entities.
"Hi - thank you from ordering from Dell. To finalize your order, please give me your Microsoft Windows and Office license numbers and we can eliminate that cost for you right now."
or better yet, slashdot should start a feature dedicated to worthwhile distributed computing projects.
Why not lobby for distributed and P2P features right in the Linux kernel itself?
Scenario:
You install the now-getting-more-user-friendly Linux distro of the month on Grandma's PC. During installation, you are prompted to "use this PC's free time for GNU distributed/p2p assistance?". After answering affirmatively, you can then select a worthy cause such as protein folding or even delegate access to a centralized Linux group who could then use it for open-source fundraising / what not.
The P2P thing is a whole 'nother mess but I suppose that if someone implemented P2P sharing/mirroring on an open source level and then created an approval procedure required to (legally) have a file submission mass-mirrored to millons of PCs world-wide.
I'd pay twice as much for the service just to keep it alive.
Don't worry about satellite radio as the providers have some large pockets to draw upon - the auto makers. Next year, GM will offer the service as standard equipment on some of the vehicles - with a free year of service. If only a small percentage renew, then the satellite providers will be listening to satellite disco. If a significant percentage renew, then you are looking at a threat to FM.
On that note, with all these satellite head units running around in the new autos, it would make financial sense to provide some publically funded stations free-of-charge. That would be the largest opportunity.
Slashdot Mirror
Time to buy a Ti4600 :)
Not necessarily...
nVidia like to announce things well in advance of shipment in order to convince people to wait. This is perfect timing to keep those gamers from scooping up the 9700s for the Christmas season.
Make note that nVidia announced the nForce 2 way back in July and you still can't buy them.
With business practices like that, I like to take my dollar to the competition. ATI is very good about keeping products hush-hush until they are close to shipment. I wouldn't expect the FX anytime soon.
So the prices of the 4600s won't be dropping as a result of nVidia announcing something that won't be on shelves until next spring.
But short of that they have no way of knowing.
TCP/IP Fingerprinting
Most routers run a BSD variant and will return an identifiable fingergerprint.
Your ISPs job is to provide you an internet connection that you pay for - it is NOT their job to secure your computer for you.
On that note, how does one secure a Microsoft OS when the cableco does not allow hardware firewalls? Certainly, there are software firewalls available, but these are not ideal (and often compromised by executables found in email - I wouldn't be surprised if the WMS spam was broadcast by such an email). So the cableco gives you a connection, tells you to secure it, but then they won't support it when you plug in a firewall.
In any event, the incident occured when I was building a PC for my brother. I had plugged the PC directly into the cable modem in order to test some software that didn't like the NAT on the router.
My point is that most geeks certainly know how to secure a box. However, most average Joe's do not. I once found a friend's PC loaded with warez because they had left anonymous FTP open. After fixing the problem, I recommended a router. This was installed for only a short while before the cableco asked them to remove it - there was an outage and they called support... one of the first questions was about the router.
But anyway - I called inquired to tech support only because the SPAM was wrong in the first place. Just because I know how to protect myself against it doesn't mean the cableco shouldn't help the average Joe do something about it. Perhaps they could at least build a good document on securing ones PC.
Here's a new one for you:
The other day, I got spam via my 'windows messaging service' - someone on my cable modem subnet is sending me pop-up spam with the 'net send' command (Windows only). Obviously this is easy to disable (for someone who knows how to) but...
WTF?
I took a screen shot which indicated time/date AND IP but the cableco tech morons said that they couldn't do anything about it? Right... How about revoking access? Perhaps it was the cableco themselves selling this service?
I think this is a bad correlation. At the same time drives are getting more dense and/or smaller, more people are using them.
I work in tech support for a company where the population has been largely fixed (so it doesn't matter if the rest of the world is using more than usual - I have my own data). I have LOTS of hard drives going through my hands so I'm familiar with failure rates. They have been increasing. Certainly, there are lots more drives out there, but they are failing at a higher rate.
In years past, it was easier to deal with tech support if you could let the drive "speak" to the technician on the other end of the phone. Usually, the techs were button monkeys that didn't realize that *I already knew* the drive was bad and needed to be replaced. So in the end, I'd usually just power up the drive and give it a few good whacks on the counter. Then I'd call up support and put the phone up to the drive. This reduced call times to only a couple minutes rather than the typical 20 - 30 minutes that it took the monkey to run through the flow chart.
Me: Here THAT? It's broken!
Tech: Your shipping address, sir?
Today's drives don't take much whacking as they are much more delicate. This is also evident by IBM's new Thinkpad Shock Absorber (page 2, feature #5). With my old Thinkpad, I once (forgive me...) had a near car accident while it was powered up. The damn thing flew across the car and smacked into the dash with nary a problem. It still works today.
Tip: for the new one year warranty's, just buy two drives and mirror them. Whack one at 10 months and the next at 11.
Cheetos,
swordboy
I've noticed one thing -
As drives have gotten smaller/increased data density, they've become increasingly unreliable. I'm pretty sure this coincides with the new 1 year warranties (versus the older 3 year standard warranties).
Laptop drives especially...
The bandwidth alone is going to be astronomical.
No it isn't.
Distribute the bandwidth and leverage redundancy (in the music, that is). Your average big-label radio station plays like, what.. 30 songs per day? In ogg or mp3, that is trivial. Create a time-synch'ed streaming format for broadcasting digitally-compressed, pre-stored music, and you've toppled the RIAA.
Hell, you could probably get a week's worth on a bootable CD. Pop it in that old PC that's collecting dust in the closet and then hook it up to some low-powered amateur broadcasting equipment.
If any real number of people started participating, then this would be huge.
decentralized streaming radio
I've had just this very idea. It goes like this:
The FCC actually allows low-powered FM broadcasts for amateur radio stations. Why not create a streaming standard that would allow P2P leveraging? For example, if I had a radio stream and an open standard for broadcasting that stream, complete with time-synchronization, then it wouldn't be too difficult to allow thousands of amateur-radio broadcasters to blanket an area, or an entire country, with that broadcast.
But wait - there's more...
Because a song only needs to be downloaded once and stored, there is no need for massive bandwidth once some good variety has been witnessed by a paticular broadcaster. At that point, the broadcast node only needs to worry about anticipating new music (obvious a continuous process) but perhaps a CD or DVD based distribution could be accomodated for those with slow connections (or broadband providers that don't like this on their network).
So there you have it. Obviously, the 'distribution' is a bit crippled but this would be ideal for a low-budget station. Perhaps there could be a standard bootable CD ISO available for a day's rotation... That hardware in the closet is starting to look better and better, eh?
My question is- Why not save yourself 1 1/2 hrs and possibly a buck and drive to the video store? The only thing I can think of is no late fees.
...oh, wait...
Well,
It is inconvenient now... But when Microsoft builds this capability into set-top-boxes, it will become very popular. Didja wonder why the nForce2 chipset has *two* network cards built-in? Because Microsoft's new all-in-one set-top-box will allow built in routing capabilities. They'll likely have 802.11x in there somewhere. So, basically, the movie will download to your set-top-box and you'll be able to watch it like PPV.
But get this - think about the P2P capability of sharing downloads with your neighbors on the same subnet. This eliminates the need for the publisher to provide the bandwidth. Essentially - a secure Napster model, provided that they *can* secure it. So the movies are distributed to a few boxes and then they replicate. With good enough AI, the box could anticipate your viewing habbits and get movies before you order them. If successful, DVDs are eliminated and MS has another proprietary DirectX module.
DirectTV
I do have to say that a blue LED mouse looks about 10X cooler than a red one.
Here's Why
After reading this article yesterday, I pondered changing the LED in my mouse. Has slashdot implmented some sort of psychic cookies or something?
...the question is, will my games run faster on FreeBSD?
I dunno but SSH runs great on my headless nForce firewall.
w00t!
Actually,
It looks like their web server is using Windows...
Connection to the Vision network via anything other than a Vision enabled phone is a violation of the new TOS.
No it doesn't.
I suspect they're engaged on some wacko conspiracy: "Do as much as we can to lose money and then blame it on customers. And then, once we've reached bottom, we'll ... um ... well, we haven't figured that part out yet. Our goal is to simply piss off consumers, hit bottom, and then blame folks."
1) Buy out all the radio stations
2) Raise the barriers to artists who don't "sell out"
3) Screw over the consumers
4)
5) Profit!
Hint: if you want stuff in my tree, make me trust you.
That's gonna be one for the quote book ten years from now...
this could help move more and more users to use alternate messaging utilities
In other news, corporate phone bills are on the rise.
Moderated to funny? This could be a great moneymaker if/when the hardware is cheaper, and high-speed access is more common
It could be a *real* money maker for the CableCo if "DRM" was not such a bad word these days. Seriously...
Imagine, for a second, that the CableCo was able to build a capable set-top-box with secure digital rights management. They build in a DVD player, cable modem, VoIP and ethernet/wireless routing capabilities. They put a set-top-box in every subscriber's house for free.
At the command of the the subscriber, the box then downloads music, TV shows, PPV movies, video games, etc. To save the CableCo's bandwidth, all non-provate media is shared with others on the subnet. Because of the wireless ethernet capabilities, the local area is blanketted with wireless internet service and VoIP. 802.11x phones become cheap and widely used. People use thier phones for accessing their media collection.
Et cetera...
But, since the computer is not secure, this will never happen.
Columbia House will be selling these things with a hundred movies pre-installed for a penny. All that one needs to do is buy another six over the course of three years (*).
(*) Movie-of-the-month will automatically be downloaded unless you send back this reader service card indicating that you do not want to receive it. Tax, shipping and handling extra.
MS is in the business of selling software.
That is the first mistake that people make when trying to understand Microsoft. They don't sell software but, rather, they sell you the right to use it for a preset amount of time.
Businesses do not have the right to transfer licenses - we saw that with the Kmart fiasco. Now that the licenses are tied to hardware, consumers do not have the right to keep their MS software when they buy a new PC.
So really, one can only rent the software. This is where the DOJ went wrong - they need to force MS to license users and not hardware or legal entities.
"Hi - thank you from ordering from Dell. To finalize your order, please give me your Microsoft Windows and Office license numbers and we can eliminate that cost for you right now."
A HREF="http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/d ncalrt.htm">Do Not Call Registry Initiative
Only a matter of time before Big Business buys this one out.
But Porche?
Make note that this Porsche has nothing to do with the Porsche auto manufacturer other than a family name.
or better yet, slashdot should start a feature dedicated to worthwhile distributed computing projects.
Why not lobby for distributed and P2P features right in the Linux kernel itself?
Scenario:
You install the now-getting-more-user-friendly Linux distro of the month on Grandma's PC. During installation, you are prompted to "use this PC's free time for GNU distributed/p2p assistance?". After answering affirmatively, you can then select a worthy cause such as protein folding or even delegate access to a centralized Linux group who could then use it for open-source fundraising / what not.
The P2P thing is a whole 'nother mess but I suppose that if someone implemented P2P sharing/mirroring on an open source level and then created an approval procedure required to (legally) have a file submission mass-mirrored to millons of PCs world-wide.
There is money in there somewhere...
I'd pay twice as much for the service just to keep it alive.
Don't worry about satellite radio as the providers have some large pockets to draw upon - the auto makers. Next year, GM will offer the service as standard equipment on some of the vehicles - with a free year of service. If only a small percentage renew, then the satellite providers will be listening to satellite disco. If a significant percentage renew, then you are looking at a threat to FM.
On that note, with all these satellite head units running around in the new autos, it would make financial sense to provide some publically funded stations free-of-charge. That would be the largest opportunity.
$0.02
WHIOS PetsWarehouse.com
Administrative Contact
Robert Novak-> bob@petswarehouse.com
Pets Warehouse
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Phone 631-789-5400
Fax 631.789.9340
the article doesn't really have any technical details
And it doesn't have pictures, either. I want to see just how well this works!
Errr...Ummm... Wait...