I live in a different country. The ads actively put me off and make me opposed to the product in question. And incidentally, I have no use whatsoever for the thing being advertised.
They're not effective. Pervasive, yes... but certainly not effective.
Erm... have you actually looked around an XP installation lately?
Open My Computer (which is hidden in the Start Menu if you haven't specifically enabled it on the desktop already). Open the C:. Note that it says that you shouldn't be messing around in there in the first place!
The idea is that Joe User isn't meant to look around inside the computer at all, even on the user-friendly oh-so-Winderful.
So why not just introduce the same level of obscurity to the user level of 'Phobe-Linux?
All the configuration folders in ~ are hidden anyway (with preceding periods in the directory name), so all they'd need to see are the non-hidden contents of their home directories...
While I was in my first serious tech support job, I asked my supervisor/middle manager whether I should buy one of the new big hard drives or a CD burner. He said to me, "oh, forget the burner. Buy one of those big hard drives. You'll get lost in all that 4 gig of space!"
:-/
(Even sadder, this is a true story... Which is easier to transport to one or many machines: a plastic disc or a hard drive? Would that I had thought this when I first heard it...)
Note the sequence near the end where the black and white (!) footage of all
the spied-on OSS coders is rebroadcast.
You have about two seconds to note that there's one shot of a guy with his
feet up, keyboard on his lap (angled body bottom-left, feet top-right, if
randomly dysfunctional photo-memory is up today; footage is taken as if camera
is in ceiling to his right behind him).
Note the colour (in the otherwise completely greyscale footage) of the hat.
Note that it's not green or blue. Or cyan or yellow or black.
(Now if only the other shots'd had swirly thing and a chameleon as well...)
I'd love to discuss the physics, the possibilities, the philosophies, the
consequences, the implications, the new experimental sciences, theoretical
physics finally becoming valid experimental science, that could be spawned
from this. Could spend a week on this easy. Been hooked on time travel science
and fiction since years before I owned a computer.
But that bit about "there would be government laws" to regulate time travel...
... you can hardly trust a government to deal with nuclear weapons. You can
hardly trust a government to deal with conventional weapons. You can hardly
trust a government to do anything outside their own self-interest, limited
only (and hardly) by the potential of their public accountability...
It would be more than wonderful to think that this would be physically possible.
Just the physics alone is mindblowingly cool. The possibility of making macroscopic
experiments with quantum physics. Is "Time like a river", do observations
create copies of universes or are they all already there, does Schroedinger's
Cat have millions of millions of kittens? Real Life imitating Art.
But for the love of mercy... we complain about business and government taking
over the Internet (spoken as someone in his 13th year online). But...
I found this little gem
on George W. Bush,
<http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html
>. Read that; about nuclear weapons, the environment, human and animal
health, sciences, civil rights, information freedom and privacy... and that's
all just this year. Say what you will, but IMO, considering position, power,
behaviour, record and reputation: George W. Bush is one of the most dangerous
people in all history.
Now: go watch "TimeCop" (and Jean-Claude gets a sudden ratings boost from
video rentals all around the world:-) ).
Then ask yourself if you'd REALLY let the Government regulate Time Travel.
Now, having scared everybody sufficiently... is there some page somewhere that discusses the science in more detail? Preferably with a catch-up primer for the less well informed, please?
- Bill Gates, possibly the most hated being in the entire world of technology;
- His statement, that from now on, Microsoft will focus on security, implying their software will be secure;
- The possibility that maybe, just maybe, this might not be lip service or a smoke screen;
- The number of both hackers and crackers who'll stand up and take this as one frickin' huge challenge for the fun of it?
Writing the code to translate is cool, but my coding is rusty, so I did the decoding by:
Exporting the PDF as RTF
Reading the RTF into a word processor
Substituting the appropriate letter for each of the base-4 strings
But the math problem is trivial and can be done with pen and paper in about thirty seconds. Bearing in mind the decoded message has already been posted...
SPOILER WARNING...
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
...
Don't bother writing a program or anything, or even using a multi-precision calculator. Recognise that the summation can be done by adding opposing pairs, then a single multiplication.
My only complaint is that the site must be slashdotted and I couldn't submit the solution. Sure, I live in Australia and can't really use a scholarship to U.Lethbridge (too late anyway, I know...)... but it just would've been fun. Sigh.
Slashdot Mirror
Effective?
I live in a different country.
The ads actively put me off and make me opposed to the product in question.
And incidentally, I have no use whatsoever for the thing being advertised.
They're not effective. Pervasive, yes... but certainly not effective.
Erm... have you actually looked around an XP installation lately?
Open My Computer (which is hidden in the Start Menu if you haven't specifically enabled it on the desktop already). Open the C:. Note that it says that you shouldn't be messing around in there in the first place!
The idea is that Joe User isn't meant to look around inside the computer at all, even on the user-friendly oh-so-Winderful.
So why not just introduce the same level of obscurity to the user level of 'Phobe-Linux?
All the configuration folders in ~ are hidden anyway (with preceding periods in the directory name), so all they'd need to see are the non-hidden contents of their home directories...
P.
While I was in my first serious tech support job, I asked my supervisor/middle manager whether I should buy one of the new big hard drives or a CD burner. He said to me, "oh, forget the burner. Buy one of those big hard drives. You'll get lost in all that 4 gig of space!"
:-/
(Even sadder, this is a true story... Which is easier to transport to one or many machines: a plastic disc or a hard drive? Would that I had thought this when I first heard it...)
"AntiTrust"'s page at IMDB ...
Not just jokes aimed (specifically) at Microsoft.
[POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD! Avert your eyes!]
Note the sequence near the end where the black and white (!) footage of all the spied-on OSS coders is rebroadcast.
You have about two seconds to note that there's one shot of a guy with his feet up, keyboard on his lap (angled body bottom-left, feet top-right, if randomly dysfunctional photo-memory is up today; footage is taken as if camera is in ceiling to his right behind him).
Note the colour (in the otherwise completely greyscale footage) of the hat.
Note that it's not green or blue. Or cyan or yellow or black.
(Now if only the other shots'd had swirly thing and a chameleon as well...)
I'd love to discuss the physics, the possibilities, the philosophies, the consequences, the implications, the new experimental sciences, theoretical physics finally becoming valid experimental science, that could be spawned from this. Could spend a week on this easy. Been hooked on time travel science and fiction since years before I owned a computer.
... you can hardly trust a government to deal with nuclear weapons. You can
hardly trust a government to deal with conventional weapons. You can hardly
trust a government to do anything outside their own self-interest, limited
only (and hardly) by the potential of their public accountability...
:-) ).
But that bit about "there would be government laws" to regulate time travel...
It would be more than wonderful to think that this would be physically possible. Just the physics alone is mindblowingly cool. The possibility of making macroscopic experiments with quantum physics. Is "Time like a river", do observations create copies of universes or are they all already there, does Schroedinger's Cat have millions of millions of kittens? Real Life imitating Art.
But for the love of mercy... we complain about business and government taking over the Internet (spoken as someone in his 13th year online). But...
I found this little gem on George W. Bush,
<http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html >. Read that; about nuclear weapons, the environment, human and animal health, sciences, civil rights, information freedom and privacy... and that's all just this year. Say what you will, but IMO, considering position, power, behaviour, record and reputation: George W. Bush is one of the most dangerous people in all history.
Now: go watch "TimeCop" (and Jean-Claude gets a sudden ratings boost from video rentals all around the world
Then ask yourself if you'd REALLY let the Government regulate Time Travel.
Now, having scared everybody sufficiently... is there some page somewhere that discusses the science in more detail? Preferably with a catch-up primer for the less well informed, please?
That is when Joe Schmoe will understand you just can't copy people like you can copy a CD
Yes you can. They just have to be Sony's clones of Celine Dion to start with...
Mmm... weak particle accelerators... is there anything they can't do?
:-)
Has anybody considered...
- Bill Gates, possibly the most hated being in the entire world of technology;
- His statement, that from now on, Microsoft will focus on security, implying their software will be secure;
- The possibility that maybe, just maybe, this might not be lip service or a smoke screen;
- The number of both hackers and crackers who'll stand up and take this as one frickin' huge challenge for the fun of it?
Wabbit Season, Duck Season, renewed Micwosoft Season?
Writing the code to translate is cool, but my coding is rusty, so I did the decoding by:
Exporting the PDF as RTF
Reading the RTF into a word processor
Substituting the appropriate letter for each of the base-4 strings
But the math problem is trivial and can be done with pen and paper in about thirty seconds. Bearing in mind the decoded message has already been posted...
SPOILER WARNING...
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
...
Don't bother writing a program or anything, or even using a multi-precision calculator. Recognise that the summation can be done by adding opposing pairs, then a single multiplication.
1 + 1e6 = (1e6)+1.
0.5e6 + (0.5e6)+1 also = (1e6)+1.
Then just multiply it by 5e5. Paper and pen.
My only complaint is that the site must be slashdotted and I couldn't submit the solution. Sure, I live in Australia and can't really use a scholarship to U.Lethbridge (too late anyway, I know...)... but it just would've been fun. Sigh.
P.