And still the US government would have us believe that NK has a cadre of "elite hackers" responsible for Sony instead of the much more plausible and believable "inside job" by disgruntled employees -- especially as it would have taken months to download the terabytes of data that they claim was stolen.
They've been going on about the "elite" hackers North Korea has supposedly trained and deployed, but now they supposedly made an amateur mistake like not covering their trail through proxies?
Shit, man, the US "intelligence" services just provide more and more comedy for the world as time goes on... what a freakin' JOKE.
There's another name for what Amazon has done that the rest of the civilized world uses: "Pyramid Scam".
Instead of turning a profit selling products or services, they sell stock to pay off the existing stockholders. Then they sell more stock to pay off those shareholders.
The problem with pyramid scams is eventually you run out of potential shareholders to bilk, you still haven't turned a profit, the whole damned thing comes crashing down, and everybody loses their shirt except the guy at the top of the pyramid: Bezos.
I paid $700-odd dollars (Canadian) for a Lenovo laptop with HD Realtek chipset that does 192/24 output. It sounds great once configured correctly, and plays back HD media just fine.
I can not for the life of me fathom how Sony can think anyone will pay $1200 for less than $50 worth of parts. The Walkman and Sony names aren't worth shit any more. They're no longer "premium" products, and they never did have a good reputation in the audiophile markets.
Except DDOS attacks aren't "mass protests." They're a few individuals in control of massive botnets.
And they are an attack on the general public, a hallmark of terrorist activity. They're not targetting individuals, they're targetting everybody who uses the attacked service.
If you think DDOS attacks have only been "in the past couple days", you haven't been paying attention to the tech news for oh, maybe FIFTEEN YEARS.
And that happens to have included government sites, hospitals, and other important infrastructure that is life threatening, not just having a financial impact.
It's time we started charging those who launch DDOS attacks with "terrorism". They impact the entire public community of their target, with widespread damages and effects to both the user and provider of the DDOS'd services. Lock the bastards up when they're caught for far, FAR longer than happens now.:(
Because of my definition, I can see God's guts spread out all over the night sky on a daily basis. So technically, I would claim that I *have* "seen God."
I choose to define "God" as the intelligence/life force of the universe itself. Seeing as that's something that can never be seen nor measured, there's no proving nor disproving it. It's simply the way *I* choose to look at things.
That's not to say that I believe in "man in the sky" mythos. My definition is different than that of traditional religions.
The same goes for anyone arguing about the existence of God. Before you can argue about existence, you first have to agree with each other as to what the theoretical God *is* that you're trying to prove/disprove. Good luck getting different theologies to agree on that point.:P
Ten years can be a long time if you've got the cash and a "core business" to eek out existence on. As long as there is a need for new mainframes for the banking industry, IBM will be around. I think they're going to shrink a lot, though.
Oracle isn't going anywhere. They're too entrenched.
Apple's market will shrink rather than grow, primarily due to their failure to really innovate. Let's face it, they've been tweaking and fiddling for over five years now rather than coming out with anything new or earth shattering. But they've got the cash to buy an entire nation (or two), so they'll still be around.
The same goes for Microsoft. They've got sufficient cash and resources to hang on for a long time, even if their core markets are shrinking. Let's face it -- basic business functionality will always be needed, even if it isn't glamourous and exciting. They'll continue to lose market share to tablets and smell phones in the consumer markets, and will re-focus on their core business of serving business customers.
Uber, Lyft, and the like are going to encounter some rude shocks from the courts in the near future, and their business models will be declared illegal. It's already happening in a lot of districts.
Google Plus will finally get the axe in 2-3 years, but Google itself will continue along it's merry way.
Twitter will shrink dramatically or disappear entirely as the video capabilities of higher bandwidth and newer/denser technologies make written dialogue even more irrelevant than it is today.
Facebook will still be around, and bigger than ever. They've made a couple of smart investments, and if those play out, they're going to grow their market substantially with them (especially on the VR front -- think virtual meetings, markets, and presentations.)
The real shock is going to be the death of the PC. With the advent of higher resolution virtual displays and augmented reality glasses, the need for a physical screen will finally wane and the PC will be replaced by a bluetooth keyboard and mouse talking to that virtual hardware.
The cloud bubble will finally burst wide open when the US tries to pull the same shit on corporate data that they're doing with email and Microsoft right now. The near violent rejection of US policies by the world that results will cause several corporations to leave the US just to survive, and Bush 47 will be left to wonder what happened to the empire and practice his fiddle.
Lenovo will continue to grow, while HP/Compaq shrinks due to their abysmal build quality and lack of innovation.
Samsung will level off as the market for Android devices becomes saturated, but with their product range, they'll still be a healthy company.
Keep an eye on Chinese companies, as their currency takes over more and more of the international markets from the US dollar and it becomes more and more convenient to deal directly with the Chinese.
When we played, it was a far more social game than any of the electronic equivalents. A good dungeon master would let you try creative solutions for problems that weren't pre-programmed, sometimes throwing the game into entirely uncharted territory. More importantly, your team-mates were characters with personality, not just players with supporting stats.
How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was.:)
I learned to type on a manual typewriter, so the black switches are far from hard to press for me. Even the IBM Model M keyboard switches had more resistance if memory serves correctly (how I regret giving mine to a buddy years ago -- he's *still* using it -- and I pulled it from the "junk room" at work in 1989!)
I forget the brand name of my keyboard, but I sprang for a cheap one with Cherry MX Black switches. It's been going for over a year now, which means it's already outlasted any membrane keyboards I've bought over the past few years. By around June or July, it will have paid for itself.
Unlike the membrane switches, this thing never misses a keystroke.:D
Slashdot Mirror
I am deeply disturbed that this bigoted crap is moderated "Insightful."
I won't host your child porn for you.
Copyright violations are not criminal actions that qualify for extradition. The cases are civil.
And without any of the snoops who monitor the NK traffic streams noticing for all those months to boot.
And still the US government would have us believe that NK has a cadre of "elite hackers" responsible for Sony instead of the much more plausible and believable "inside job" by disgruntled employees -- especially as it would have taken months to download the terabytes of data that they claim was stolen.
They've been going on about the "elite" hackers North Korea has supposedly trained and deployed, but now they supposedly made an amateur mistake like not covering their trail through proxies?
Shit, man, the US "intelligence" services just provide more and more comedy for the world as time goes on... what a freakin' JOKE.
There's another name for what Amazon has done that the rest of the civilized world uses: "Pyramid Scam".
Instead of turning a profit selling products or services, they sell stock to pay off the existing stockholders. Then they sell more stock to pay off those shareholders.
The problem with pyramid scams is eventually you run out of potential shareholders to bilk, you still haven't turned a profit, the whole damned thing comes crashing down, and everybody loses their shirt except the guy at the top of the pyramid: Bezos.
Only in America would a company that has never turned a profit be considered "wildly successful."
I paid $700-odd dollars (Canadian) for a Lenovo laptop with HD Realtek chipset that does 192/24 output. It sounds great once configured correctly, and plays back HD media just fine.
I can not for the life of me fathom how Sony can think anyone will pay $1200 for less than $50 worth of parts. The Walkman and Sony names aren't worth shit any more. They're no longer "premium" products, and they never did have a good reputation in the audiophile markets.
Personally, I use WebMD for information about something after I or a friend have been diagnosed. I guess I'm not "most people." :P
Except DDOS attacks aren't "mass protests." They're a few individuals in control of massive botnets.
And they are an attack on the general public, a hallmark of terrorist activity. They're not targetting individuals, they're targetting everybody who uses the attacked service.
If you think DDOS attacks have only been "in the past couple days", you haven't been paying attention to the tech news for oh, maybe FIFTEEN YEARS.
And that happens to have included government sites, hospitals, and other important infrastructure that is life threatening, not just having a financial impact.
Ok. Indian culture has been around a long time. We get that.
But outrageous claims like this just make them look like attention seeking IDIOTS.
It's time we started charging those who launch DDOS attacks with "terrorism". They impact the entire public community of their target, with widespread damages and effects to both the user and provider of the DDOS'd services. Lock the bastards up when they're caught for far, FAR longer than happens now. :(
Apparently catering to alcoholics is big business. :(
Of course God can take care of that leak. After all, Jesus was a carpenter!
God will just make the rain stop sooner or later, the leak will dry up, and viola -- problem solved.
'tis a bloody MIRACLE, I tell ya, a MIRACLE! :P :P :P
Because of my definition, I can see God's guts spread out all over the night sky on a daily basis. So technically, I would claim that I *have* "seen God."
I choose to define "God" as the intelligence/life force of the universe itself. Seeing as that's something that can never be seen nor measured, there's no proving nor disproving it. It's simply the way *I* choose to look at things.
That's not to say that I believe in "man in the sky" mythos. My definition is different than that of traditional religions.
The same goes for anyone arguing about the existence of God. Before you can argue about existence, you first have to agree with each other as to what the theoretical God *is* that you're trying to prove/disprove. Good luck getting different theologies to agree on that point. :P
Ten years can be a long time if you've got the cash and a "core business" to eek out existence on. As long as there is a need for new mainframes for the banking industry, IBM will be around. I think they're going to shrink a lot, though.
Oracle isn't going anywhere. They're too entrenched.
Apple's market will shrink rather than grow, primarily due to their failure to really innovate. Let's face it, they've been tweaking and fiddling for over five years now rather than coming out with anything new or earth shattering. But they've got the cash to buy an entire nation (or two), so they'll still be around.
The same goes for Microsoft. They've got sufficient cash and resources to hang on for a long time, even if their core markets are shrinking. Let's face it -- basic business functionality will always be needed, even if it isn't glamourous and exciting. They'll continue to lose market share to tablets and smell phones in the consumer markets, and will re-focus on their core business of serving business customers.
Uber, Lyft, and the like are going to encounter some rude shocks from the courts in the near future, and their business models will be declared illegal. It's already happening in a lot of districts.
Google Plus will finally get the axe in 2-3 years, but Google itself will continue along it's merry way.
Twitter will shrink dramatically or disappear entirely as the video capabilities of higher bandwidth and newer/denser technologies make written dialogue even more irrelevant than it is today.
Facebook will still be around, and bigger than ever. They've made a couple of smart investments, and if those play out, they're going to grow their market substantially with them (especially on the VR front -- think virtual meetings, markets, and presentations.)
The real shock is going to be the death of the PC. With the advent of higher resolution virtual displays and augmented reality glasses, the need for a physical screen will finally wane and the PC will be replaced by a bluetooth keyboard and mouse talking to that virtual hardware.
The cloud bubble will finally burst wide open when the US tries to pull the same shit on corporate data that they're doing with email and Microsoft right now. The near violent rejection of US policies by the world that results will cause several corporations to leave the US just to survive, and Bush 47 will be left to wonder what happened to the empire and practice his fiddle.
Lenovo will continue to grow, while HP/Compaq shrinks due to their abysmal build quality and lack of innovation.
Samsung will level off as the market for Android devices becomes saturated, but with their product range, they'll still be a healthy company.
Keep an eye on Chinese companies, as their currency takes over more and more of the international markets from the US dollar and it becomes more and more convenient to deal directly with the Chinese.
It was called "role playing" instead of "roll playing" for a reason. :)
When we played, it was a far more social game than any of the electronic equivalents. A good dungeon master would let you try creative solutions for problems that weren't pre-programmed, sometimes throwing the game into entirely uncharted territory. More importantly, your team-mates were characters with personality, not just players with supporting stats.
How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)
I agree. He wins "the geekiest nerd" contest for this one. Big time. :)
However will I notify the world if I fart?
I learned to type on a manual typewriter, so the black switches are far from hard to press for me. Even the IBM Model M keyboard switches had more resistance if memory serves correctly (how I regret giving mine to a buddy years ago -- he's *still* using it -- and I pulled it from the "junk room" at work in 1989!)
I forget the brand name of my keyboard, but I sprang for a cheap one with Cherry MX Black switches. It's been going for over a year now, which means it's already outlasted any membrane keyboards I've bought over the past few years. By around June or July, it will have paid for itself.
Unlike the membrane switches, this thing never misses a keystroke. :D