There's a great quote in the DC Comics series, "The Hacker Files", where the protagonist says something to the effect of: "There are two things I hate - one is passwords, and the other is locks".
There most certainly IS a kung-fu quality to the hack. Here's an example for you; You can read a book on lockpicking - there's even a great classic reference, the MIT Guide to Lockpicking. It will explain all the theory behind basic pin tumbler locks, and make you very knowledgable of their exploits. Now, go buy the crappiest lock you can find and try to pick it.
(ignore the zen chapter in the lockpicking guide)
The innate "feel" of the systems that gives you the gut feeling on where to look for exploits; ways you can collide complex systems together to give you a desired result; etc etc etc are only gained through hundreds and thousands of hours spent playing and understanding intimiately the system in question.
Print.google... scholar.google.. talk.google
on
Has Google Peaked?
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· Score: 1
Think of all the information in publishing house catalogs that can't be easily accessed (by easily; I mean instantly, not free).
Print.google, when it was up for the beta, had the promise of offering instant access to books.
Images.google works, and works well. News.google.
Google is just getting started; there's soo much information out there and no really great way to access it all on a whim - except, that is, google. Making the world's knowledge available instantly is what google is about, and they're doing a great job. Nobody else has even come close.
Nobody likes you when you're mopping the floor with everybody else, but that's exactly what google is doing.
Solar would be stupid to take mobile.. but assuming you are not being a complete nomad, you can just leave a panel charging up a battery while you're gone someplace - mana from heaven.
You've got to be kidding me.. or trolling.. badly
on
Rio Brand Closes Doors
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· Score: 2, Insightful
If oil prices get to the point where computer equipment gets prohibitive - here's a news flash for you - you're not going to be worrying about a $1500 iPod, you're going to be worrying about not starving to death, freezing, or being killed by a roving mob.
People amaze me. Disposable computing, indeed.
Go recycle some paper and compost some peels. That'll help. Not.
I haven't had it crash on me, but I certainly wouldn't suggest people rush out to start using it as their main WM. It's just not ready yet. There are tons of features that still need to be implemented before it's usuable full time.
I remember hearing this around release 12 or 13.. several years ago.
One thing I also remember is the first time I saw E - it was running on a sparc box of some type, I assume locally - and my jaw hit the floor, as all I'd seen previously would have been windows 98 or Slowaris.
I -do- hope Raster sticks with it and puts a stamp on something that could be a platform, because there is a lot of good stuff in there.
I believe what the poster intended was: "Soldiers need the capacity to kill people" - not that there is a pathological MURDER DEATH KILL theme to the ranks. They need good tools.
Soldiers kill people - that's why they're there, that's why they have those boom-sticks. Who they are told to kill and where is a matter for polticians, representing (hopefully) their country's and citizen's best interests. Armies impose the will of others onto people who do not agree via deadly force. They are the force arm of governments, who maintain a monopoly on violence. This is pretty basic stuff, but washed over in fuzzy recruitment campiegns and oft misunderstood here.
Although your interpretation of his remarks does shed some light on your own concerns.
Human conflict is as old as the ages but for the past few generations the reality of such has been removed from the experience of most people. In matters of war, I want my side to have the best, biggest, and most effective killing technology available. I also want my government to use said killing technology as an absolute last recourse.
Your average 100hp car, motorbike, whatever, puts out about 75,000W - 75kW. This is at an efficiency of maybe 25% if you are lucky. So there's 300kW of power right there - so you can blow through a lot of juice on that little car of yours.
Now, my poison of choice is turbocharged 4 bangers that make about 300hp, give or take how it's feeling on any one day. 300hp at a 25% efficiency figure, which is HIGH - is about 900kW, or almost a MEGAWATT of energy. I guess that's why I burn through gas so fast on lapping days!
Imagine what a 200hp SUV making a horrible 15% efficiency is sucking back there cruising down the highway, eh? How many cars are on the road? Now, for s*its and giggles, work out how many 1MW windmills you'd need to make up the energy consumption assuming a daily use a 1h for all 230,000,000 vehicles on the road in the USA in 2000.
This makes that piddly little 1kW supply - which, by the way, is probably operating near 80% efficiency - look piddly in comparison. It's almost a joke.
Similar figures work for things like air conditioning systems - just massive amounts of energy.
Energy is VERY cheap right now. It is imperative that we make use of that cheap energy to discover new ways to make more energy, before some very nasty problems appear in the next 20 years. Conservation is not an option anymore, nor are current forms of green power. We need something more like a miracle to fuel the economies into 2030 and beyond.
EA has also ruined formula 1 sims.. there hasn't been an updated F1 simulator in a long time because EA holds all the rights, and their last offering just plain sucked IMHO. Grand Prix 4 and others are hamstrung because EA holds the exlusive rights to the new car designs, tracks, etc.
Why would they do anything BUT incremental improvements, and squeeze a pile more profits out of their investment? Whatcha gunna do? Complain? Write your own? Hahaha.
Here's to waiting, because it's all you can do. I wish FIA / NFL / Insert major player here would think of these things, but I guess those cheques are pretty big.
My TiBook had great battery life. 4 hours of use. Nice.
My 1ghz 15" Albook is lucky to manage 2.5hrs, and that's with a new battery. Perhaps the 12" model with a smaller screen might be a little better.
I've considered going back to a older TiBook running linux, not OSX, for long trips on the road with frequent battery use. I wish Apple would address this; I suspect it is a problem borne out of the choice and clock rate of chip. I'll be very happy when a intel mobile is available - if I don't get a T21 thinkpad or something first.
Does that make you feel all rosy and happy inside?
I would be very dissapointed if that ever happened.. if we as a race can't get our shit together and need to orbit nuclear weapons (pointing DOWN, or perhaps tangentally to our orbit).. then we probably deserve what we get. Unfortunately I don't see many scenarios playing out to prevent this.
It's not going to start with nuclear weapons, but that's how it ends. I'm sure lots of great work on focusing x-ray and gamma ray radiation in a vaccum will come out of it.
Japan's nationalist superstitions were no match for American science.
I'm not sure if irony is what I am looking for here.. but it given there's been an article on Intelligent Design seemingly every week, perhaps that is something to reflect on.
[quote] The reason is very simple if you are an atheist or any other form of moral relativist including those folks who go around trying to sport the claim that 'in the end all religions are equal' you cannot answer this question:
I don't plan to upgrade from windows 2000 anytime soon at all. My design softwares I use work great under 2000; it's amazingly stable; all my games work for it, and I don't think any developers are going to ditch 2000 anytime soon; there's no compelling reason for me to move to 64 bit in the next year or two - I'd be better served with a great big honkin RAID setup.. so..
who cares? I'm running firefox now anyway.
I'm hoping to avoid the whole XP situation altogether, hope Longhorn/Vista falls flat on it's ass, and then move to a OSX / Windows 2000 hybrid solution on a beastly powermac in 2006 - something I would not have considered prior to the switch in platforms.
If I was MS, I'd be moderatly concerned. I know a lot of companies have no interest in moving from 2000 because it works, and works well.
Would such a stink be caused over fairly benign sexual content in a game - and a game called GRAND THEFT AUTO, where apparently it is perfectly acceptable to run down the street with a minigun blowing away cops and law enforcement with abandon - but throw in a blowjob, and the world is ending!
HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!
The only thing that would make this more amusing.. is if it was a homosexual mod for the game; I can imagine they'd be burning copies of the game in the Fry's parking lot. Makes me wish I had the time to hack something like that together.. oh my.
It's a game for adults, not kids. Is this not crystal clear? Slippery slope, people..
I'd love for governments to try this one. Are they going to require liscencing and permits for compilers next? How about 3D libraries? Make large gate count FPGAs registered munitions? Haha.. er.. I guess with Intel's new DRM bios that might not be so funny.
Anyway: Prohibition of alcohol gave us 150 proof home distilled gin.. Prohibition of cocaine powder and coca leaves gave us crack cocaine.. prohibition of opium gave is Heroin and Oxycontin; prohibition of marijuana gave us hydroponic weed and hashish.
What will prohibition of video games bring? I'm kinda curious to find out, aren't you?
Any second-tier engineering school has enough information catalogged on paper to recreate most of the engineering accomplishments since the 18th century. There are thousands of these schools on this continent alone; we've come a long way from the days of the library of alexandria.
Digital media is much more robust than it's analog equivilant because it can be copied instantly. That's what makes your palm better than a black book; the sync cradle.
Regarding your observations on the petroleum age, you might be at least partially correct there - suburbs are not a sustainable model. There's enough coal to turn the sky black on the planet, so I wouldn't worry too much just yet.
More likely, you are overestimating the value of your experiences and contribution to the future. I'm pretty sure the 25th century isn't going to be too concerned with pictures of my car. Pr0n, otoh..
Microsoft will not pull officeX. By providing office for the mac, they instantly put a stake through the heart of those who would be willing to offer competition, like OpenOffice. Do you really think Apple couldn't whip something up of equal caliber?
Second, have you seen the price for OfficeX? It makes MS a very pretty penny.
If OSX gains widespread acceptance, then M$ will tie office into that and laugh all the way to the bank. Switching the OS you work on is one thing, moving millions of dollars in customized excel spreadsheets and related training quite another.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a great quote in the DC Comics series, "The Hacker Files", where the protagonist says something to the effect of: "There are two things I hate - one is passwords, and the other is locks".
There most certainly IS a kung-fu quality to the hack. Here's an example for you; You can read a book on lockpicking - there's even a great classic reference, the MIT Guide to Lockpicking. It will explain all the theory behind basic pin tumbler locks, and make you very knowledgable of their exploits. Now, go buy the crappiest lock you can find and try to pick it.
(ignore the zen chapter in the lockpicking guide)
The innate "feel" of the systems that gives you the gut feeling on where to look for exploits; ways you can collide complex systems together to give you a desired result; etc etc etc are only gained through hundreds and thousands of hours spent playing and understanding intimiately the system in question.
Think of all the information in publishing house catalogs that can't be easily accessed (by easily; I mean instantly, not free).
Print.google, when it was up for the beta, had the promise of offering instant access to books.
Images.google works, and works well. News.google.
Google is just getting started; there's soo much information out there and no really great way to access it all on a whim - except, that is, google. Making the world's knowledge available instantly is what google is about, and they're doing a great job. Nobody else has even come close.
Nobody likes you when you're mopping the floor with everybody else, but that's exactly what google is doing.
Solar would be stupid to take mobile.. but assuming you are not being a complete nomad, you can just leave a panel charging up a battery while you're gone someplace - mana from heaven.
If oil prices get to the point where computer equipment gets prohibitive - here's a news flash for you - you're not going to be worrying about a $1500 iPod, you're going to be worrying about not starving to death, freezing, or being killed by a roving mob.
People amaze me. Disposable computing, indeed.
Go recycle some paper and compost some peels. That'll help. Not.
I haven't had it crash on me, but I certainly wouldn't suggest people rush out to start using it as their main WM. It's just not ready yet. There are tons of features that still need to be implemented before it's usuable full time.
I remember hearing this around release 12 or 13.. several years ago.
One thing I also remember is the first time I saw E - it was running on a sparc box of some type, I assume locally - and my jaw hit the floor, as all I'd seen previously would have been windows 98 or Slowaris.
I -do- hope Raster sticks with it and puts a stamp on something that could be a platform, because there is a lot of good stuff in there.
If you're a meteorologist. :)
"Soldiers need to kill people"
I believe what the poster intended was: "Soldiers need the capacity to kill people" - not that there is a pathological MURDER DEATH KILL theme to the ranks. They need good tools.
Soldiers kill people - that's why they're there, that's why they have those boom-sticks. Who they are told to kill and where is a matter for polticians, representing (hopefully) their country's and citizen's best interests. Armies impose the will of others onto people who do not agree via deadly force. They are the force arm of governments, who maintain a monopoly on violence. This is pretty basic stuff, but washed over in fuzzy recruitment campiegns and oft misunderstood here.
Although your interpretation of his remarks does shed some light on your own concerns.
Human conflict is as old as the ages but for the past few generations the reality of such has been removed from the experience of most people. In matters of war, I want my side to have the best, biggest, and most effective killing technology available. I also want my government to use said killing technology as an absolute last recourse.
Enough with the people who don't get scale, ok?
t atistics_annual_report/2001/html/chapter_03.html)
Your average 100hp car, motorbike, whatever, puts out about 75,000W - 75kW. This is at an efficiency of maybe 25% if you are lucky. So there's 300kW of power right there - so you can blow through a lot of juice on that little car of yours.
Now, my poison of choice is turbocharged 4 bangers that make about 300hp, give or take how it's feeling on any one day. 300hp at a 25% efficiency figure, which is HIGH - is about 900kW, or almost a MEGAWATT of energy. I guess that's why I burn through gas so fast on lapping days!
Imagine what a 200hp SUV making a horrible 15% efficiency is sucking back there cruising down the highway, eh? How many cars are on the road? Now, for s*its and giggles, work out how many 1MW windmills you'd need to make up the energy consumption assuming a daily use a 1h for all 230,000,000 vehicles on the road in the USA in 2000.
(http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_s
This makes that piddly little 1kW supply - which, by the way, is probably operating near 80% efficiency - look piddly in comparison. It's almost a joke.
Similar figures work for things like air conditioning systems - just massive amounts of energy.
Energy is VERY cheap right now. It is imperative that we make use of that cheap energy to discover new ways to make more energy, before some very nasty problems appear in the next 20 years. Conservation is not an option anymore, nor are current forms of green power. We need something more like a miracle to fuel the economies into 2030 and beyond.
EA has also ruined formula 1 sims.. there hasn't been an updated F1 simulator in a long time because EA holds all the rights, and their last offering just plain sucked IMHO. Grand Prix 4 and others are hamstrung because EA holds the exlusive rights to the new car designs, tracks, etc.
Why would they do anything BUT incremental improvements, and squeeze a pile more profits out of their investment? Whatcha gunna do? Complain? Write your own? Hahaha.
Here's to waiting, because it's all you can do. I wish FIA / NFL / Insert major player here would think of these things, but I guess those cheques are pretty big.
My TiBook had great battery life. 4 hours of use. Nice.
My 1ghz 15" Albook is lucky to manage 2.5hrs, and that's with a new battery. Perhaps the 12" model with a smaller screen might be a little better.
I've considered going back to a older TiBook running linux, not OSX, for long trips on the road with frequent battery use. I wish Apple would address this; I suspect it is a problem borne out of the choice and clock rate of chip. I'll be very happy when a intel mobile is available - if I don't get a T21 thinkpad or something first.
www.freemarcemery.com
PDA's sync. Paper doesn't.
Useless for notes in engineering though - to hard to draw nice diagrams on anything I've ever seen electronic (equations too).
Does that make you feel all rosy and happy inside?
.. then we probably deserve what we get. Unfortunately I don't see many scenarios playing out to prevent this.
I would be very dissapointed if that ever happened.. if we as a race can't get our shit together and need to orbit nuclear weapons (pointing DOWN, or perhaps tangentally to our orbit)
It's not going to start with nuclear weapons, but that's how it ends. I'm sure lots of great work on focusing x-ray and gamma ray radiation in a vaccum will come out of it.
Japan's nationalist superstitions were no match for American science.
I'm not sure if irony is what I am looking for here.. but it given there's been an article on Intelligent Design seemingly every week, perhaps that is something to reflect on.
unfortunate choice of domain on slashdot. :)
[quote]
The reason is very simple if you are an atheist or any other form of moral relativist including those folks who go around trying to sport the claim that 'in the end all religions are equal' you cannot answer this question:
"why truth?"
[/quote]
Why not?
I don't plan to upgrade from windows 2000 anytime soon at all. My design softwares I use work great under 2000; it's amazingly stable; all my games work for it, and I don't think any developers are going to ditch 2000 anytime soon; there's no compelling reason for me to move to 64 bit in the next year or two - I'd be better served with a great big honkin RAID setup.. so..
who cares? I'm running firefox now anyway.
I'm hoping to avoid the whole XP situation altogether, hope Longhorn/Vista falls flat on it's ass, and then move to a OSX / Windows 2000 hybrid solution on a beastly powermac in 2006 - something I would not have considered prior to the switch in platforms.
If I was MS, I'd be moderatly concerned. I know a lot of companies have no interest in moving from 2000 because it works, and works well.
Would such a stink be caused over fairly benign sexual content in a game - and a game called GRAND THEFT AUTO, where apparently it is perfectly acceptable to run down the street with a minigun blowing away cops and law enforcement with abandon - but throw in a blowjob, and the world is ending!
HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!
The only thing that would make this more amusing.. is if it was a homosexual mod for the game; I can imagine they'd be burning copies of the game in the Fry's parking lot. Makes me wish I had the time to hack something like that together.. oh my.
It's a game for adults, not kids. Is this not crystal clear? Slippery slope, people..
These guys seem to have it figured out.. I don't think they'll tell you the secret though.
When I ask what they want it for, it is usually 'oh, you know, Word'. My reaction is usually, go get an electronic typewriter and save yourself £800..
Yeah, because there are no benefits at all to a modern word processor like Word. Stabbing your own industry in the foot?
Maybe this was meant to be funny?
I'd love for governments to try this one. Are they going to require liscencing and permits for compilers next? How about 3D libraries? Make large gate count FPGAs registered munitions? Haha.. er.. I guess with Intel's new DRM bios that might not be so funny.
Anyway: Prohibition of alcohol gave us 150 proof home distilled gin.. Prohibition of cocaine powder and coca leaves gave us crack cocaine.. prohibition of opium gave is Heroin and Oxycontin; prohibition of marijuana gave us hydroponic weed and hashish.
What will prohibition of video games bring? I'm kinda curious to find out, aren't you?
Any second-tier engineering school has enough information catalogged on paper to recreate most of the engineering accomplishments since the 18th century. There are thousands of these schools on this continent alone; we've come a long way from the days of the library of alexandria.
Digital media is much more robust than it's analog equivilant because it can be copied instantly. That's what makes your palm better than a black book; the sync cradle.
Regarding your observations on the petroleum age, you might be at least partially correct there - suburbs are not a sustainable model. There's enough coal to turn the sky black on the planet, so I wouldn't worry too much just yet.
More likely, you are overestimating the value of your experiences and contribution to the future. I'm pretty sure the 25th century isn't going to be too concerned with pictures of my car. Pr0n, otoh..
If they can be revoked, then guess what - they ain't rights. Food for thought.
Game Boy Advance... not bad hadware, not broke, and last time I checked widely sold.
Microsoft will not pull officeX. By providing office for the mac, they instantly put a stake through the heart of those who would be willing to offer competition, like OpenOffice. Do you really think Apple couldn't whip something up of equal caliber?
Second, have you seen the price for OfficeX? It makes MS a very pretty penny.
If OSX gains widespread acceptance, then M$ will tie office into that and laugh all the way to the bank. Switching the OS you work on is one thing, moving millions of dollars in customized excel spreadsheets and related training quite another.