Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.
Wearly I sit here, pain and misery my only companions.
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
1) don't use windows, for chrissakes. how many people out there in the world don't know that there are alternatives? is it really that many? is apple's media saturation here in the bay area completely nonexistent anywhere else?
Do they know that Mac is free from spyware? Has there been any news reports saying Mac users don't get hit by spyware? Does Apple use this as a selling point?
The masses don't know one OS from another... a Mac is just another machine, one they feel, in their ignorance would get just as mucked up as their Windows machine.
I was wondering, did I read the same article as the submitter? Ogg was mentioned... once? Oh, and there was a little gif which said Ogg. Not anywhere near what I'd call "a healthy dosage of ogg".
But then maybe I just don't know what a healthy dosage might be. Could it be that seeing Ogg mentioned three times in an article could be fatal?
see other post on this on why he would be taxes in USA
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135801&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=123&mode=thread&pid=1133784 3#11337996
He'll be taxed on the income in Japan since he is still a Japanese citizen; thus he's exempt from US taxes on that income thanks to the Income Tax treaty signed by the US and Japan early last year.
Using the IRS tax calculator the total income tax on 8 Million comes to: $2,778,720. Thats assuming it is recorded as earned income and/or dividends and that royalties are not recorded as something else. That puts him in the %34.7 tax bracket which is the highest one the USA currently has. It's also more than double what I am paying at %14.2.
Completely irrelevant, since it's a Japanese engineer suing a Japanese company in the Japanese courts.
Even if it did happen in the US, it wouldn't be taxed at the 34.7% bracket since it's not salaried income, but taxed much higher like annual bonuses, closer to 50%. Or perhaps since it's court ordered it'd fall into some other obscure tax category and also be taxed near 50%.
Should robots eat? Should they excrete?
Sorry but these are questions of social mannerisms, not ethics. And I hope the second one is NOT used socially.
Agreed, these aren't really ethical questions. The question of whether we *should* design robots that mimic the human form is an ethical question if you believe in the divinity of humans. I suppose that one could make an ethical argument out of all the questions the author asks if you're a fundamentalist.
Even the robot carrying a weapon is not an ethical debate; the robot only does what he's programmed; if the criteria matches for pulling the trigger then it pulls the trigger, and the programmer is the one who's responsible (regardless what the anti-gun lobby says, the gun itself is not responsible for killing).
If they were located in the same place as our own Sun - at the centre of the Solar System - the stars would stretch out further than the orbit of Jupiter!
Wait a minute... the Earth's not the center of the Solar System???
Personally I don't see the big privacy issue. Yahoo [like hotmail and gmail] transfer your email from the client to their server via plaintext HTTP. Then it's sent through a dozen other boxes in plaintext, etc...
There is hardly any consideration of privacy there.
There is privacy if no on is reading the mail. There is no *security* as the mail is being transferred in plaintext, but security and privacy are not one and the same.
Blackberries encrypt the data on the device, send it to the cellular network, to blackberry and back, IIRC (I believe blackberry acts as the routing between the different networks hostings its devices - i.e, nextel vs tmobile, etc)
But as we saw in this article the blackberry can be logged at the server as well. So if the hacker is at the server the blackberry wouldn't have helped either.
As soon as a human gets on the line, say the exact same message they use right back. "I may record this call for quality control purposes".... I've had a "monitor" on their side cut in suddenly and say something along the lines of "no, you may not, this call has ended, goodbye"
I've found most places do hang up if I say I will record the conversation; I think most support techs are instructed to inform the caller they cannot record the conversation and to end the call unless it is not recorded.
I used to tell telemarketers that the call would be recorded and they always hung up.
Interestingly enough, porn is also one of those areas that does a better job of exploiting the potentials of a given technology. Where else do you see the ability for multiple camera angles within a film other than in a technology demo?
Oh, you must be buying the good porn off the top shelf. The ones from the discount $5.99 bin barely have usable menus, missing soundtracks... or... um that's what I hear...
I only took a curory glance at the article before it was/.ed, but I did not see any attempt at analyzing how many of the additional items found by MSAS were false positives. This seems like pretty vital information.
Wouldn't that depend on who's defining a "false" positive? Hell, MS Antispyware could just be counting the total number of files, subtracting out Windows + Office + Outlook related files and calling everything else "spyware".
Anyway, they should also have run it the opposite way; run MS Antispyware first, then run Spybot and Ad-Aware to see what MS Antispyware *misses*.
I took a fresh, clean image, browsed lyric sites for TWO minutes, then ran MS Antispyware. It identified three spyware, but could only remove two. Spybot S&D couldn't remove the third, but Ad-Aware did. Not a very thorough test, but still shows it'll take more than just MS antispyware to clean a system.
If you did, you'd know that it's nigh impossible to do. Aiming at an old piece of industry architecture, an old windmill or whatever and at a distance of more than 200 meters hitting that damn thing is nothing to be taken lightly. You simply don't know in which direction to move the pointer, as you got no clue if the dot is lower, higher, left or right of the target. Waving around a bit nets you a small blink when you hit it, but you can never stop your movement fast enough to keep it there.
You're right; if you're trying to keep the target painted while waiting for the incoming bomber, or waiting to squeeze off a round, yeah, it's much more difficult because you have keep the target lit. But it's trivial to point any laser at a target and hit it briefly, to sweep the laser across the cockpit windows. Which is pretty much what happened and why it's not really a terrorist plot but some idiot with a laser pointer. Yeah, if it were terrorists you'd expect a more sophisticated mounted platform that allows for constant illumination of the cockpit to prevent the pilots from looking out.
No mid or long range shooter would like to give out his position that easily or have his target know what's coming, long before a single shot is fired...
...which is why military laser targeting systems aren't in the visible spectrum.
Every seat has an outlet. No other cafe in the area can boast that kind of setup. I dont believe it costs us very much more as far as operating expenses go, but it does increase our profits as we get a lot of customers who come to our establishment because we have such great access.
Thanks! I haven't been there, but I'll stop by if I'm ever out that way.
I use my laptop at the local coffee shop all the time. I realize it costs *something*, so while I'm there I'll buy a couple cups of coffee and some snacks. Still, the ability to plug in makes me a frequent customer, so I'm more likely to stop there and give them my business even when I'm not jacked in.
The next version of Windows will have things that only their spyware removal program is able to remove, due to restrictions that the OS places on letting third party programs modify things..
Next version? Windows already does this. Thanks to ActiveX, spyware can install itself to places a locked down user has no rights, and thus the user can't use 3rd party tools to clean w/o logging in w/ administrative rights. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
The only tool I'd accept from Microsoft as an anti-spyware tool is one that removes IE and ActiveX...
Maybe I missed the point. How does someone aim a laser into a cockpit unless they have a laser sight on their rifle with a high powered scope and are using the scope to aim the thing?
The whole point of a laser mounted on a weapon is that you don't *need* to aim the weapon. The laser is adjusted so you only need to point the weapon towards the target; when you see the laser "dot" on the target, you fire. With a novelty laser pointer, or the industrial one this guy was using, you just wave it around in the general direction until you see the laser "illuminate" the target; it's trivial to do.
Consumers get pissed and either (a) stop buying movies or (b) buy another player (I'm betting b)
(c) Consumers hear from friends that Buddy Cop Movie #83 can be downloaded from the intarweb, and join the P2P masses. Vow never to pay for another physical DVD again.
A PDA with a camera. You take a picture of a sign, it OCRs it and reads you the sign in whatever language you speak.
The camera would help a lot. I rented a camera phone and emailed pictures to my friend who translated it for me. Of course it depended on my friend be available, so the OCR and translation would be cool.
It seems that lately a lot of stuff has started to regress to older tech. Steam power...
So when we finally get portable fusion reactors, will it be "old tech" since it's been happening on the sun for billions of years?
Yes, it's steam. It's superheated steam used to turn a turbine. Pretty much the same technology used in nuclear power plants. Of course power plant turbines turn at a constant speed to deliver constant power, which is why this is a new use for a steam turbine.
... hand labor being of higher value craftsmanship
Hand craftsmanship has always been valued over mass produced items by those who see quality as more than the sum of the parts... and are willing to pay more for such quality. We've always been around and will always be. Perhaps the dominance of Walmart has made more people turn towards supporting local artists and craftsmen, but it's certainly not a new fad.
I can see it now, the robot spends all it's energy every day hunting flies to sustain itself and can't ever find time to surveil the battlefield.
On the other hand, as a backpacker, I'd love to have a couple of these flying around me during black fly season. They don't have to fight, just fly around my head and catch flies. They can sit fat dumb and happy all night if they want, as long as they keep the flies off me during the day.
Think how this would help researchers in the field as well. They'd allow an archeologist to actually concentrate on his work instead of swat flies. Allow field work in the yukon without bio suits.
is a lot of money for the "same" pet to piss all over the carpet.
I'll just go down to the pound and get a pet for $20 to piss all over the carpet, thanks.
That's what I'd do, and pocket the other $49,980. Maybe pay half to an "independent" 3rd party run DNA tests to confirm the clone.
Slashdot Mirror
I started reading it two weeks ago. I'm still on chapter one but I'll finish it next week, I swear...
The lost Huygens trasmissions:
Funny, how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.
Wearly I sit here, pain and misery my only companions.
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
1) don't use windows, for chrissakes. how many people out there in the world don't know that there are alternatives? is it really that many? is apple's media saturation here in the bay area completely nonexistent anywhere else?
Do they know that Mac is free from spyware? Has there been any news reports saying Mac users don't get hit by spyware? Does Apple use this as a selling point?
The masses don't know one OS from another... a Mac is just another machine, one they feel, in their ignorance would get just as mucked up as their Windows machine.
I was wondering, did I read the same article as the submitter? Ogg was mentioned... once? Oh, and there was a little gif which said Ogg. Not anywhere near what I'd call "a healthy dosage of ogg".
But then maybe I just don't know what a healthy dosage might be. Could it be that seeing Ogg mentioned three times in an article could be fatal?
see other post on this on why he would be taxes in USA http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135801&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=123&mode=thread&pid=1133784 3#11337996
He'll be taxed on the income in Japan since he is still a Japanese citizen; thus he's exempt from US taxes on that income thanks to the Income Tax treaty signed by the US and Japan early last year.
Using the IRS tax calculator the total income tax on 8 Million comes to: $2,778,720. Thats assuming it is recorded as earned income and/or dividends and that royalties are not recorded as something else. That puts him in the %34.7 tax bracket which is the highest one the USA currently has. It's also more than double what I am paying at %14.2.
Completely irrelevant, since it's a Japanese engineer suing a Japanese company in the Japanese courts.
Even if it did happen in the US, it wouldn't be taxed at the 34.7% bracket since it's not salaried income, but taxed much higher like annual bonuses, closer to 50%. Or perhaps since it's court ordered it'd fall into some other obscure tax category and also be taxed near 50%.
Should robots eat? Should they excrete?
Sorry but these are questions of social mannerisms, not ethics. And I hope the second one is NOT used socially.
Agreed, these aren't really ethical questions. The question of whether we *should* design robots that mimic the human form is an ethical question if you believe in the divinity of humans. I suppose that one could make an ethical argument out of all the questions the author asks if you're a fundamentalist.
Even the robot carrying a weapon is not an ethical debate; the robot only does what he's programmed; if the criteria matches for pulling the trigger then it pulls the trigger, and the programmer is the one who's responsible (regardless what the anti-gun lobby says, the gun itself is not responsible for killing).
If they were located in the same place as our own Sun - at the centre of the Solar System - the stars would stretch out further than the orbit of Jupiter!
Wait a minute... the Earth's not the center of the Solar System???
Personally I don't see the big privacy issue. Yahoo [like hotmail and gmail] transfer your email from the client to their server via plaintext HTTP. Then it's sent through a dozen other boxes in plaintext, etc... There is hardly any consideration of privacy there.
There is privacy if no on is reading the mail. There is no *security* as the mail is being transferred in plaintext, but security and privacy are not one and the same.
Blackberries encrypt the data on the device, send it to the cellular network, to blackberry and back, IIRC (I believe blackberry acts as the routing between the different networks hostings its devices - i.e, nextel vs tmobile, etc)
But as we saw in this article the blackberry can be logged at the server as well. So if the hacker is at the server the blackberry wouldn't have helped either.
One of the companies, Global Net Ventures, is based in the UK. How is the US FTC going to charge them?
My guess is send them a bill with a link to PayPal.
As soon as a human gets on the line, say the exact same message they use right back. "I may record this call for quality control purposes".... I've had a "monitor" on their side cut in suddenly and say something along the lines of "no, you may not, this call has ended, goodbye"
I've found most places do hang up if I say I will record the conversation; I think most support techs are instructed to inform the caller they cannot record the conversation and to end the call unless it is not recorded.
I used to tell telemarketers that the call would be recorded and they always hung up.
If it is wrong to call my AP LINKSYS when it's a Netgear with WPA running then I don't want to be right.
What difference does it make? The MAC address still shows it's a Netgear.
Interestingly enough, porn is also one of those areas that does a better job of exploiting the potentials of a given technology. Where else do you see the ability for multiple camera angles within a film other than in a technology demo?
Oh, you must be buying the good porn off the top shelf. The ones from the discount $5.99 bin barely have usable menus, missing soundtracks... or... um that's what I hear...
I only took a curory glance at the article before it was /.ed, but I did not see any attempt at analyzing how many of the additional items found by MSAS were false positives. This seems like pretty vital information.
Wouldn't that depend on who's defining a "false" positive? Hell, MS Antispyware could just be counting the total number of files, subtracting out Windows + Office + Outlook related files and calling everything else "spyware".
Anyway, they should also have run it the opposite way; run MS Antispyware first, then run Spybot and Ad-Aware to see what MS Antispyware *misses*.
I took a fresh, clean image, browsed lyric sites for TWO minutes, then ran MS Antispyware. It identified three spyware, but could only remove two. Spybot S&D couldn't remove the third, but Ad-Aware did. Not a very thorough test, but still shows it'll take more than just MS antispyware to clean a system.
If you did, you'd know that it's nigh impossible to do. Aiming at an old piece of industry architecture, an old windmill or whatever and at a distance of more than 200 meters hitting that damn thing is nothing to be taken lightly. You simply don't know in which direction to move the pointer, as you got no clue if the dot is lower, higher, left or right of the target. Waving around a bit nets you a small blink when you hit it, but you can never stop your movement fast enough to keep it there.
...which is why military laser targeting systems aren't in the visible spectrum.
You're right; if you're trying to keep the target painted while waiting for the incoming bomber, or waiting to squeeze off a round, yeah, it's much more difficult because you have keep the target lit. But it's trivial to point any laser at a target and hit it briefly, to sweep the laser across the cockpit windows. Which is pretty much what happened and why it's not really a terrorist plot but some idiot with a laser pointer. Yeah, if it were terrorists you'd expect a more sophisticated mounted platform that allows for constant illumination of the cockpit to prevent the pilots from looking out.
No mid or long range shooter would like to give out his position that easily or have his target know what's coming, long before a single shot is fired...
Every seat has an outlet. No other cafe in the area can boast that kind of setup. I dont believe it costs us very much more as far as operating expenses go, but it does increase our profits as we get a lot of customers who come to our establishment because we have such great access.
Thanks! I haven't been there, but I'll stop by if I'm ever out that way.
I use my laptop at the local coffee shop all the time. I realize it costs *something*, so while I'm there I'll buy a couple cups of coffee and some snacks. Still, the ability to plug in makes me a frequent customer, so I'm more likely to stop there and give them my business even when I'm not jacked in.
I borrow. Sometimes with interest!
I'm not leeching either. My laptop is helping to heat the establishment, providing extra light, and some background noise.
The next version of Windows will have things that only their spyware removal program is able to remove, due to restrictions that the OS places on letting third party programs modify things..
Next version? Windows already does this. Thanks to ActiveX, spyware can install itself to places a locked down user has no rights, and thus the user can't use 3rd party tools to clean w/o logging in w/ administrative rights. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
The only tool I'd accept from Microsoft as an anti-spyware tool is one that removes IE and ActiveX...
Maybe I missed the point. How does someone aim a laser into a cockpit unless they have a laser sight on their rifle with a high powered scope and are using the scope to aim the thing?
The whole point of a laser mounted on a weapon is that you don't *need* to aim the weapon. The laser is adjusted so you only need to point the weapon towards the target; when you see the laser "dot" on the target, you fire. With a novelty laser pointer, or the industrial one this guy was using, you just wave it around in the general direction until you see the laser "illuminate" the target; it's trivial to do.
Consumers get pissed and either (a) stop buying movies or (b) buy another player (I'm betting b)
(c) Consumers hear from friends that Buddy Cop Movie #83 can be downloaded from the intarweb, and join the P2P masses. Vow never to pay for another physical DVD again.
A PDA with a camera. You take a picture of a sign, it OCRs it and reads you the sign in whatever language you speak.
The camera would help a lot. I rented a camera phone and emailed pictures to my friend who translated it for me. Of course it depended on my friend be available, so the OCR and translation would be cool.
It seems that lately a lot of stuff has started to regress to older tech. Steam power...
... hand labor being of higher value craftsmanship
So when we finally get portable fusion reactors, will it be "old tech" since it's been happening on the sun for billions of years?
Yes, it's steam. It's superheated steam used to turn a turbine. Pretty much the same technology used in nuclear power plants. Of course power plant turbines turn at a constant speed to deliver constant power, which is why this is a new use for a steam turbine.
Hand craftsmanship has always been valued over mass produced items by those who see quality as more than the sum of the parts... and are willing to pay more for such quality. We've always been around and will always be. Perhaps the dominance of Walmart has made more people turn towards supporting local artists and craftsmen, but it's certainly not a new fad.
I can see it now, the robot spends all it's energy every day hunting flies to sustain itself and can't ever find time to surveil the battlefield.
On the other hand, as a backpacker, I'd love to have a couple of these flying around me during black fly season. They don't have to fight, just fly around my head and catch flies. They can sit fat dumb and happy all night if they want, as long as they keep the flies off me during the day.
Think how this would help researchers in the field as well. They'd allow an archeologist to actually concentrate on his work instead of swat flies. Allow field work in the yukon without bio suits.
is a lot of money for the "same" pet to piss all over the carpet. I'll just go down to the pound and get a pet for $20 to piss all over the carpet, thanks.
That's what I'd do, and pocket the other $49,980. Maybe pay half to an "independent" 3rd party run DNA tests to confirm the clone.