> 2) Plant a tree. Picket outside fur factories and SUV dealerships. Teach a neighborhood child how to play the piano. Read to your kid. Make love to your wife.
"OK, buddy, I made love to your wife. Now did you use that time I freed up to code up my frickin' MAME/DVD/DiVX set-top box or not?"
From the article:
>Part 2 The Art of the Attacker
* Chapter 2 When Innocuous Information Isn't
* Chapter 3 The Direct Attack: Just Asking for It * Chapter 4 Building Trust * Chapter 5 "Let Me Help You" * Chapter 6 "Can You Help Me?" * Chapter 7 Phony Sites and Dangerous Attachments * Chapter 8 Using Sympathy, Guilt and Intimidation * Chapter 9 The Reverse Sting
From the poster: > Doesn't the US DCMA NOT allow for tools that bypass security? I wonder how soon it will be before someone tries to use the DCMA against
someone who used social engineering.
Don't worry, rumors to the effect that we're going to pass laws to extend DMCA to new areas happen all the time, they're pretty innocuous. Why don't you support us? We're just trying to make good laws, just like you're trying to make good code. If you're confused, that's OK, we've seen that before, let us help you with that.
We're working with Senator Hollings (D-Dis), and we're considering new and novel approaches to promote consumer use of broadband. Can you help us help him to promote the use of consumer broadband?
He's taken an awful lot of hard knocks lately over the SSSCA, er, CBDTPA, and some people in the halls of power (and some who have really big guns!) think it's partially Slashdot's fault and are kinda cheezed about it. But neither bill had a chance to be passed, and Senator Hollings (D-Dis) knew it when he put them forward. Surely an honest geek can make up for misunderstanding the Senator's intention, can't he?
Did you know that Senator Hollings (D-Dis) is starting up a brand-new 2600 chapter in Washington, DC? Why not come to our first meeting and say hello!
> Real Has been dead to me since they released Realplayer G2. Realplayer 5 was reliable, simple, small, and unintrusive. Since they released G2, it's been a downward spiral of overbloat, Adware and Spyware
Does anyone have an actual list of all the (current and historical) DLLs for all the Real codecs?
I'd like to have a complete list of what codecs are out there, or a way to figure out what codec is required by a specific.RM file.
I'm pretty sure you can just shovel new codecs into the appropriate subirectories of C:\Program Files\Common File\Real\ and continue to use Realplayer 5.
Problem with this approach is that every few months, they make their encoder require a new codec. No real quality improvements that I've seen, but any files created with the encoder produce the lovely "I need to 0wn0r j00r b0x0r to play this file" message that doesn't even tell you what codec it wants. (Upgrade? No frickin' way, just gimme the damn DLL!)
The larger problem is that the encoder comes from people who've drunk RealKoolAid. So of course they "upgrade", and as a result, everyone else has to follow along. *sigh*
(I suppose I could just install 'doze and Real on an expendable drive, but that's a lot of work if someone reading this already has a complete list of codecs;-)
> So, really, they're triumphantly announcing that the speed of the light is somewhere between 0.7 c and 1.2 c, and just supposing it has to be c for everything to make sense. >Physicists have been accused of being loose with rigour, but this is really stretching it.
Warning: Science humor approaching:
"0.7c - 1.2c? That may be loose for physicists, but most astronomers would give their left nut to have error bars that narrow!"
> "The order of universal forces, from strongest to weakest, is Electomagnetic, Strong, Weak, and Gravitational. So gravity, you see, is the weakest force in the universe." > > Try telling Sonny Bono that.
Au contraire! Blunt force trauma is all about electromagnetsm. (I suppose there are a few places where it's also about electroweak interactions, but that's a hell of a lot more trauma than I care to talk about. *g*:)
At any rate, gravitational forces had accelerated Sonny pretty gently, and he was doing just fine until electrostatic forces from a nearby tree intervened.
Sonny was a silly clam (silly clam? I repeat myself) who tried to make the electrons in his body occupy the same space as the electrons in aforementioned tree. (For a guy who claimed to be a great physicist, L. Ron Hubbard sure didn't teach his disciples much about the Pauli Exclusion principle or Van der Waals forces.) Sonny Bono's failure to grasp rudimentary physics can be seen as yet another case of evolution in action.
> In no industry are workers careers valued less than in engineering fields.
*coffeespew*
Why yes, I've just realized it! You're right! This industry absolutely does not value its employees. It's the worst industry in the world! I mean, my employer - who provides me with the coffee I spewed, the keyboard and 21" monitor on which I spewed it, and the T1 through which I described said coffeespewing to the world, obviously hates me and exists solely to make my life miserable for as long as I sit in this comfy chair (OH NO! NOT THE COMFY CHAIR!) with full lumbar support.
Harrumph. I'm going to hang out with those Mexican guys on the street corner, and go pick berries in a field for minimum wage for 8 hours a shift. Thanks to Beloved Leader Kim-Jong-Chavez, I now get 15 minutes off, twice a day, and an extra 15 minutes for lunch! But at least it's only backbreaking work for 8 hours a day, not 12. (Of course, if I was physically able to, I wouldn't be allowed to work a 12-hour shift even if I wanted to get in some extra hours to feed my family, because that might take jobs away from other Union Brothers!) Yes sir, bring on those Union jobs in Unionized industries, because those are the industries where workers' careers are valued! I wonder if United Airlines is hiring?
> I'm imagining this book as written by a latter-years Robert A. Heinlein.
Oh, please, someone do Heinlein!
I've got two I whipped up.
From the world of dumb management texts, I offer a parody of "Who Moved My Cheese", and from bad sci-fi the series of "Gor", uh, "novels".
(The difference between good science fiction and bad sci-fi is that Heinlein is worthy of parody. Gor is worthy only of parody...) At any rate, permission hereby granted to reproduce freely worldwide; this text is in the public domain:
WHO MOVED MY RING?
(Scene: The Shire)
Sam: "I'm bored of running around the Shire! Let's run somewhere else!"
Frodo: "Hey, check out this neat-o Ring! Let's take it to Mordor!"
Sam: "Yeah! Mordor sounds cool! Let's run to Mordor!"
Frodo: "How are we gonna get there?"
Sam: "Rivendell, Moria, wherever, who cares, let's go!"
(Scene: An empty room with a sign reading "ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL, AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM!")
Sauron: "Face it, Gollum, it's *gone*. You've got to work up some courage and send out some Nazgul if you're going to find it. It's out there somewhere in Middle Earth."
Gollum: "But itsss preciousssss to me... it wasss heeree... Those nasssststy Hobbitsses running around Middle Earth, it'sss all their fault, nassssty theiving hobbitsses..."
Sauron: "Huh? I wasn't listening, I was busily inscribing pithy sayings like 'IF YOU ARE AN EVIL OVERLORD SHAPED LIKE A BIG FIERY EYEBALL, RINGS COME TO YOU' on the Eastern face of Mount Doom."
Gollum: "It means if we waitsses long enough, we will gets our precioussss back from those nassty hobbitses?"
Sauron: "No, you fool, it means *I* might, but *you* still have get out there and look for the damn Ring yourself!"
Gollum: "But you says I can findsses my precioussss too?"
Sauron: "Of course! You were Smeagol once, no? You've changed before, you can change again!"
Gollum: "Yessssss! I can embraccccce channnnnges oncccce again! I can findsss my preciousssss!"
Sauron: "That's the spirit, Gollum me boy!"
(Gives Gollum a hearty, encouraging slap on the back.)
Gollum: "Yesssss!"
(Exits, with a sign taped to his back, reading as follows:
"IF YOU ARE NOT AN EVIL OVERLORD, YOU CAN STILL FIND RING BY CRAWLING OVER BARE ROCK FOR A THOUSAND MILES")
Sauron: "Man, I love this job!"
FELLOWSHIP OF GOR!
Frodo: "I will take and bear you, Ring, for it is your purpose to be taken and borne by a Hobbit!"
Ring: "Yes, take and bear me, Frodo, for it is my purpose to be taken by a Hobbit!"
Frodo: "Now I shall chain you to myself, for you are my Ring, and it is your purpose to be chained to me at all times!"
Ring: "Yes! Bind me with chains, for I am your Ring, and it is my purpose to be chained to you at all times!"
Frodo: "Now I shall carry you to Mordor, because you were made to be taken to Mordor!"
Ring: "Yes, please, Master Frodo! Take me to Mordor, because I was made to be taken to Mordor!"
Frodo: "Now I shall cast you into the fires of Mount Doom and destroyed in the fires in which you were forged, for it is my desire that you be cast into the fires of
Mount Doom!"
Ring: "Now you will... HEY! WAIT ONE GODDAMN MINUTE, THERE! FIRES? DOOM? SAFEWORD! SAFEWORD, GODDAMNIT!"
> Coming soon: legislation requiring access to any U.S. hosted site to be logged and stored for at least 72 hours.
Why bother? Pass legislation that requires ISPs log all traffic instead. They're more likely to comply with such a law (and unlike most laws, such as the anti-spamming and anti-telemarketing laws, this is a law where the Government does want compliance!) than end users.
Better yet - why burden the ISP with the added expenses (and bad PR!) of logkeeping at all? This solution would require no new laws; it'd merely have HomeSec allocate a portion of its budget to install a packet sniffer with a hella-fast RAID array at the chokepoints - and log the URLs (and SMTP headers, and USENET headers, and P2P requests, and Freenet requests) themselves.
China's doing it all wrong - the way to deal with threats to internal security isn't to block citizens' access to information, it's to allow access to information - and log the hell out of it!
I mean, knowing that Xin Sixpack typed "Falun Gong" at google.com and got blocked when he tried to visit the front page of some website isn't nearly as useful as letting him go to the site, and then watching every click he makes, to find out what (specifically) he's interested in.
> If long distance faxing did not cost anything to the sender, then we'd all be getting spam via fax from China. US laws mean nothing to spammers.
We'd be getting spam via fax from China - for US businesses. And those are who would be fined under the TCPA.
The problem isn't the law, it's the lack of enforcement.
> Hell, there is nary a US provider that will carry a major spammer.
Level3? Verio? (Awright, maybe Verio doesn't count as US-based:) Worldcon/uu.not? AT&T? Sprint? Dude, what the ring-tailed rambling fuck have you been smoking for the past 8 years?
On Slashdot, you can get a (+5, Insightful) for that, but I dare you to try and slip something like that past news.admin.net-abuse.email. Bring your asbestos underwear and be prepared to find out what (-6, Couldn't Find His Ass With Two Hands And A Team Of Sherpa Guides) feels like.
> They want to, quote: "identify foreign terrorists" - what rubbish. They KNOW you are American citizen, not even a suspect foreigner - yet want to know what you buy, where you travel - everything. They want to profile you, [... ]
So, this is a bad thing? That is, do you think only foreigners should be profiled for possible links to terrorism?
Before you answer that -- a "no" pretty much implies that you believe US citizens ought to get a free pass to commit terrorist acts, simply by virtue of their citizenship.
> They can also check your outgoings match your income and that you are paying enough tax. What do you think all this privacy invasion is for? The War on Terrorism? You poor dupe.
Oh, I see. US citizens ought to be able to commit tax evasion without fear of getting caught too. Gr00vy!
(Hey, I'm for anything that reduces the amount of tax I pay -- but if you work for a salary, your opportunities for tax evasion are pretty limited. How about pulling for tax cuts instead of tax evasion, so everyone can benefit? Hey, that's what the government might even be trying to do with tomorrow's stimulus package:-)
> Therefore, it is not that the prolitariate own exactly nothing, ("have nothing to lose but their chains") but that their only means of livelyhood is in their strength and intelligence, as they do not own the machinery (so to speak) for themselves.
Machinery?
Machinery?
In Marx's time - fair enough. The point I was making (and that you completely failed to grasp) was that for the tech industry, that grey goo between your ears is the physical means of production of software.
Without the grey goo, that dual Athlon on your desk is worthless - regardless of whether you brought your laptop in for the weekend, or whether it's purchased for you by your boss.
If you claim that you don't own the grey goo between your ears, more's the pity for you.
>There were IDMS/Natural programmers in the 1980's who had a similar attitude. They knew the
hot technology of the day, commanded top salaries, and believed it was all due to their inherent skills in negotiating these top salaries. >[...]
> If all you have is the "grey matter between your ears", you are just another mass of unemployed protoplasm once your skills are obsolete. What is so valuable now will soon be worthless. The fact you are so good at it now makes you LESS trainable in the next new technology.
Last time I checked, the grey matter between my ears was capable of assimilating and storing data about new technologies, not just rehashing the technologies with which it grew up.
When I spoke of my "skills" and "grey matter", I didn't mean my mad buzzword-of-the-day skillz, I meant my brain's ability to acquire new skills and solve problems.
Sounds like the IDMS/Natural programmers of which you speak failed to use their grey matter properly, because they failed to realize what it was for.
> Look, when you go in to try to get a job, or ask for a raise, or whatever, you're sitting across the desk from someone who has the collective power of an entire corporation behind him. You, on the other hand, have... just you. Unions, labor laws, etc. are a way to address this imbalance. What's the problem?
I'll bite.
I have... just me. My skills. My experience. My mind. Umm... whoa, dude, maybe I'm not that powerless after all!
I wouldn't be sitting across the desk from that guy unless I had something he wanted. Something he needed. Otherwise he'd be doing something else, something more profitable than talking to me.
I wouldn't be sitting in that guy's cubicle now if he didn't have something I wanted.
I'm coming from the capitalist side, but you can look at it from the view of left-wing politics if you like -- the tech industry is probably the first time in history in which the workers can truly say they own the means of production, namely the individual globs of grey stuff in their skulls.
The problem for wannabe-Marxists (I'm not implying you're one, just pointing it out) is that the grey stuff doesn't belong to a collective - it belongs to individuals. The proof of that comes every time you look at the wide disparities of productivity between programmers - some suck, some are adequate, some are great, and some are gurus.
To me, those factors lead me to conclude that individual bargaining, not collective bargaining, the "right" (in both the moral and the practical sense) way to negotiate wages, at least in the tech industry.
> My point is that, although Indian labor may be cheaper on an hourly basis, how many more man-hours does it take to get the job done? By the time I left, the amount of money saved through overseas development was little to none. All that had been accomplished was a 50% staff attrition through layoffs or people, like myself, who saw the impending doom and jumped ship before the axe fell.
Economic Darwinism in action. It's what happens whenever a company abandons the merit principle in hiring.
If we had easier permanent immigration ("green card"), employers wouldn't need the H-1B as a stepping-stone to being able to bring a talented worker in on a permanent basis.
Also, if we didn't have the H-1B stepping-stone mentality, employers wouldn't put up with the hassles. They'd hire the best person - American or otherwise.
Likewise, wage devaluation wouldn't be a factor, as foreigners would be able to demand wages comparable to Americans, because any employer that failed to pay real market wages would soon find itself unable to hire.
Americans win. Foreigners win. Companies win. Pity that free labor markets will never happen, but hey, it's nice to dream.
> Doesn't it seem like letting the employer and employee work out how much money the job will pay is a much better system than having some bureaucracy decide what the prevailing wage is and binding everyone to that?
Hallelujah, someone finally sees the light!
The sick thing is that H-1B "prevailing wage" determination is a walk in the park compared to what's required for a green card - that is, real immigration.
For an H-1B, you fax DOL and say "We're paying him $X. What's the prevailing wage?", and if they say "under $X", you can hire him. (Well, you can hire him in a few months when INS gets around to taking your paperwork off the shelf.)
For a green card, you go through a "recruitment" process. Due to a stupid law passed for political purposes (but I repeat myself), the "fast track" is nearly as slow as the "slow track" - an employer can expect to spend at least six months, and more likely, over a year, before being able to prove to the Department of Labor that there are no Americans qualified to take the job.
Then it's another 6 months with INS, and another 6 months with a consular office, before the worker can actually get his/her green card.
Total time from "we want to hire this d00d" to "d00d gets his first paycheck as a green card holder" is typically 2-3 years.
> Or is there something about being born outside the borders of the United States that makes wage negotiations inherently evil?
What you appear to understand, and what the government fails to understand, is that if any employer is willing to put up with all of the above -- and $1000-$3000 in fees to the government plus another $2000-5000 for the services of an immigration lawyer -- they've already decided that this person is the best for the job.
So why then, do we have things like "no qualified Americans" (leaving aside the absurdity of demanding, by law, that a company prove a negative) being found in multi-year hiring practices? Well, because in the green card biz (as opposed to the H-1B biz), you as an employer are not allowed to hire the best person for the job. If the job says "requires degree", an American with an MCSE and a B.Sc. with the ink still wet on it, gets the job - even if the guy you want to hire has 10 years experience. The merit principle is turned upside-down. (Which is just fine if you're an AFL-CIO union goon, but kinda sucks if you're an employer who wants some talent.)
So green card processing times for talented folks are prohibitive. (The government's own swivel service hiring procedures take over a year, so I suppose they figured that was good enough for the tech industry. Idiots.)
As a result of prohibitive green card times, employers demanded something a little more realistic, and as such, the H-1B process came in - most H-1Bs and their employers view the H-1B as a stepping stone to the green card. It allows the employer to get some work out of the prospective hire, and the employee to get paid, while they spend the next 2-4 years waiting for the green card.
But as soon as everyone viewed an H-1B as a stepping-stone to a green card, the abuses started, on both sides: employers using H-1Bs as "cheap" labor (because the "prevailing wage" was being raised in "government time" while market salaries were being raised in "internet time"), and employees used H-1Bs as stepping stones - with the intent of leaving their (dirty rotten evil using-me-for-cheap-labor) employer as soon as legally permissible after getting a green card.
The H-1B and green card debacle can be explained very simply as yet another case of governments boldly passing interventions in the free market that encourage yet more problems that require yet more government intervention.
While I'm not an immigration hawk, and I deeply loathe the AFL-CIO for its anti-capitalist stance on almost everything, the H-1B program serves the purposes of no one.
Scrap INS. Scrap the H-1B. Scrap labor certification. If Apu Sixpack can do the job better than Joe Sixpack, and Apu is being paid the market wage for his geographical area, and Fred CEO wants to hire Apu, let him hire Apu.
No 3-year, $5000 processes involving lawyers and three layers of bureaucrats. Why can't the government learn to keep its fucking hands off private businesses so they can do what they were designed to do - making profits for their shareholders by hiring the best people for the job?
Word to the government - the taxes you impose on our profits are what you need to keep yourselves fat and happy. You need us more than we need you. (And to bring it back to immigration policy -- that, more than anything, is why jobs are being outsourced to India.)
> Jan 11, 1660: Not much happening today. Lost one o my kids in the bog.
> Jan 12, 1660: Damne bog ate my dog. Off to the pub for a pint.
> Jan 13, 1660: Walking back from the pub early this morn, almost fell into the bog.
> Jan 14, 1660: Good Lord.. the Mayor fell into the bog. Presumed lost. Kenny Axeblood wants to take over. 'Aye' I say. > Jan 15, 1660: God hates our wee village; Kenny Axeblook walked into the bog and disappeared from our sight. We think it's that woman with the wart. Off to burn her. > Jan 16, 1660: Burnt the witch and threw her remains into the bog.
Jan 17, 1660: 1) Elected new mayor in the bog. He fell into the bog before he could be sworn in. Burnt another witch. That witch burned down, fell over, and then sank into the bog, but the third witch stayed up!
Jan 18, 1660: 2) In pagan Denmark, bogs fall into you!
> Don't get traces of it on your clothes or skin, or you'll be treated to a continuous snap-crackle-pop of microscopic explosions (quite annoying).
s/annoying/funny/g
When I was a sprogling, Dad brought home some goodies, and I made a wee bit too much (i.e. probably not much more than a gram!), and the stuff on the edges of the filter paper I'd laid out in the middle of the garage blew up before the stuff in the middle had dried out, thereby splattering the floor with really tiny droplets of still-wet stuff and fragments of filter paper.
I was out of the garage (waiting for it to dry) when it went off. After hearing the *boom* and seeing the filter paper shreds all over the garage, I grabbed a broom and started to sweep up... snap-crackle-pop! I still remember Dad and I both laughing our asses off, while Mom just stood there, shaking her head at us.
Seriously - NI3 can be fun in small quantities. But as the poster said, (1) SMALL quantities, a few crystals at most, (2) always take safety precuations like safety goggles, disposable coat, no long hair, etc, and (3) if you're sharing the joys of chem with your kids, supervise them, and train them to take safety precuations too.
As others have said, and as I'll repeat, there's no such thing as being too safe. No fume hood? Some experiments don't get done, and some reagents don't get bought. Period. That's what your imagination, and a pencil, paper, and calculator, are for, and it applies whether you're doing it yourself, or with your kids.
> 1.2 Find a way to keep it edible for months on end
Plaster the hull with ground beef and use the water as radiation shielding. Upon re-entry and landing, celebrate the successful mission with barbecue! w00t!
(OK, that doesn't solve the launch cost problem, as much of the water is wasted upon cooking, er, re-entry, but I'm saying it could be done.)
Alternate solution: Sterilize it on the ground at Earth. (Using it for radiation shielding helps here too, come to think of it.)
Upon landing, dump the beef, unsealed, all around the landing site. If it rots, you've got no hamburgers for the duration of the mission, but the resulting Nobel Prize is a pretty good consolation. (Only glitch here is that Mars Dust probably isn't as good a filler as breadcrumbs.)
Re:I'll never give up my veal, veggie-boy
on
Lab-Grown Steak
·
· Score: 2
> The end of veal [veal.org]? No way! I likes my veal to come from real baby cows. I wont take no test-tube veal substitute!
ROFLMAO.
OK, I love veal. Carve it off a baby cow, pound it flat, sear it in a pan, deglaze the pan of roasting juices by splashing down some cream, white whine, and mushrooms, bring it the hell on.
But what makes veal so delicate and tender is that the calf doesn't move long enough to build up any real muscle structure. It sounds to me like vat-veal would be even more tender and veal-like than real-deal-veal. Vat-veal would probably be like carving it up as soon as it pops outa the womb!
OK, maybe the milk-feeding part adds to the flavor too. I dunno. But I do know I'm not writing off vat-grown meat until I've tried myself a plate of it. *G*
> I hate when I respond to something I think I understand, and then find out I didn't.
Oops, so do I.
I didn't RTFA and blindly assumed that the link tags I quoted were the proposed "standard" to "redesign" the back button. D'oh!
So LART duly accepted, and as for the View->Show/Hide->Site Navigation bar that uses the <link> tags, there's always the even simpler option just not to use the site navbar on sites that abuse it.
> Mozilla has an "up, next, previous, first, last, etc" set of buttons that you can use to browse an ordered set of pages. go to the magic cauldron [tuxedo.org] for an example. The html listed below makes this work and (i believe...) is part of the html 4 standard. > >[link HREF="magic-cauldron-3.html" REL=next] > [link HREF="magic-cauldron-1.html" REL=previous] > [link HREF="magic-cauldron.html#toc2" REL=contents]
With "big_ad_page.html" being "Hah! You thought disabling Javashit could disable popups and interstitials! Thanks to 'standars', all your back button are belong to us!"
Slashdot Mirror
"OK, buddy, I made love to your wife. Now did you use that time I freed up to code up my frickin' MAME/DVD/DiVX set-top box or not?"
>Part 2 The Art of the Attacker
* Chapter 2 When Innocuous Information Isn't
* Chapter 3 The Direct Attack: Just Asking for It
* Chapter 4 Building Trust
* Chapter 5 "Let Me Help You"
* Chapter 6 "Can You Help Me?"
* Chapter 7 Phony Sites and Dangerous Attachments
* Chapter 8 Using Sympathy, Guilt and Intimidation
* Chapter 9 The Reverse Sting
From the poster:
> Doesn't the US DCMA NOT allow for tools that bypass security? I wonder how soon it will be before someone tries to use the DCMA against someone who used social engineering.
Don't worry, rumors to the effect that we're going to pass laws to extend DMCA to new areas happen all the time, they're pretty innocuous. Why don't you support us? We're just trying to make good laws, just like you're trying to make good code. If you're confused, that's OK, we've seen that before, let us help you with that.
We're working with Senator Hollings (D-Dis), and we're considering new and novel approaches to promote consumer use of broadband. Can you help us help him to promote the use of consumer broadband?
He's taken an awful lot of hard knocks lately over the SSSCA, er, CBDTPA, and some people in the halls of power (and some who have really big guns!) think it's partially Slashdot's fault and are kinda cheezed about it. But neither bill had a chance to be passed, and Senator Hollings (D-Dis) knew it when he put them forward. Surely an honest geek can make up for misunderstanding the Senator's intention, can't he?
Did you know that Senator Hollings (D-Dis) is starting up a brand-new 2600 chapter in Washington, DC? Why not come to our first meeting and say hello!
Does anyone have an actual list of all the (current and historical) DLLs for all the Real codecs?
I'd like to have a complete list of what codecs are out there, or a way to figure out what codec is required by a specific .RM file.
I'm pretty sure you can just shovel new codecs into the appropriate subirectories of C:\Program Files\Common File\Real\ and continue to use Realplayer 5.
Problem with this approach is that every few months, they make their encoder require a new codec. No real quality improvements that I've seen, but any files created with the encoder produce the lovely "I need to 0wn0r j00r b0x0r to play this file" message that doesn't even tell you what codec it wants. (Upgrade? No frickin' way, just gimme the damn DLL!)
The larger problem is that the encoder comes from people who've drunk RealKoolAid. So of course they "upgrade", and as a result, everyone else has to follow along. *sigh*
(I suppose I could just install 'doze and Real on an expendable drive, but that's a lot of work if someone reading this already has a complete list of codecs ;-)
>Physicists have been accused of being loose with rigour, but this is really stretching it.
Warning: Science humor approaching:
"0.7c - 1.2c? That may be loose for physicists, but most astronomers would give their left nut to have error bars that narrow!"
>
> Try telling Sonny Bono that.
Au contraire! Blunt force trauma is all about electromagnetsm. (I suppose there are a few places where it's also about electroweak interactions, but that's a hell of a lot more trauma than I care to talk about. *g* :)
At any rate, gravitational forces had accelerated Sonny pretty gently, and he was doing just fine until electrostatic forces from a nearby tree intervened.
Sonny was a silly clam (silly clam? I repeat myself) who tried to make the electrons in his body occupy the same space as the electrons in aforementioned tree. (For a guy who claimed to be a great physicist, L. Ron Hubbard sure didn't teach his disciples much about the Pauli Exclusion principle or Van der Waals forces.) Sonny Bono's failure to grasp rudimentary physics can be seen as yet another case of evolution in action.
*coffeespew*
Why yes, I've just realized it! You're right! This industry absolutely does not value its employees. It's the worst industry in the world! I mean, my employer - who provides me with the coffee I spewed, the keyboard and 21" monitor on which I spewed it, and the T1 through which I described said coffeespewing to the world, obviously hates me and exists solely to make my life miserable for as long as I sit in this comfy chair (OH NO! NOT THE COMFY CHAIR!) with full lumbar support.
Harrumph. I'm going to hang out with those Mexican guys on the street corner, and go pick berries in a field for minimum wage for 8 hours a shift. Thanks to Beloved Leader Kim-Jong-Chavez, I now get 15 minutes off, twice a day, and an extra 15 minutes for lunch! But at least it's only backbreaking work for 8 hours a day, not 12. (Of course, if I was physically able to, I wouldn't be allowed to work a 12-hour shift even if I wanted to get in some extra hours to feed my family, because that might take jobs away from other Union Brothers!) Yes sir, bring on those Union jobs in Unionized industries, because those are the industries where workers' careers are valued! I wonder if United Airlines is hiring?
Oh, please, someone do Heinlein!
I've got two I whipped up.
From the world of dumb management texts, I offer a parody of "Who Moved My Cheese", and from bad sci-fi the series of "Gor", uh, "novels".
(The difference between good science fiction and bad sci-fi is that Heinlein is worthy of parody. Gor is worthy only of parody...) At any rate, permission hereby granted to reproduce freely worldwide; this text is in the public domain:
WHO MOVED MY RING?
(Scene: The Shire)
Sam: "I'm bored of running around the Shire! Let's run somewhere else!"
Frodo: "Hey, check out this neat-o Ring! Let's take it to Mordor!"
Sam: "Yeah! Mordor sounds cool! Let's run to Mordor!"
Frodo: "How are we gonna get there?"
Sam: "Rivendell, Moria, wherever, who cares, let's go!"
(Scene: An empty room with a sign reading "ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL, AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM!")
Sauron: "Face it, Gollum, it's *gone*. You've got to work up some courage and send out some Nazgul if you're going to find it. It's out there somewhere in Middle Earth."
Gollum: "But itsss preciousssss to me... it wasss heeree... Those nasssststy Hobbitsses running around Middle Earth, it'sss all their fault, nassssty theiving hobbitsses..."
Sauron: "Huh? I wasn't listening, I was busily inscribing pithy sayings like 'IF YOU ARE AN EVIL OVERLORD SHAPED LIKE A BIG FIERY EYEBALL, RINGS COME TO YOU' on the Eastern face of Mount Doom."
Gollum: "It means if we waitsses long enough, we will gets our precioussss back from those nassty hobbitses?"
Sauron: "No, you fool, it means *I* might, but *you* still have get out there and look for the damn Ring yourself!"
Gollum: "But you says I can findsses my precioussss too?"
Sauron: "Of course! You were Smeagol once, no? You've changed before, you can change again!"
Gollum: "Yessssss! I can embraccccce channnnnges oncccce again! I can findsss my preciousssss!"
Sauron: "That's the spirit, Gollum me boy!"
(Gives Gollum a hearty, encouraging slap on the back.)
Gollum: "Yesssss!"
(Exits, with a sign taped to his back, reading as follows:
"IF YOU ARE NOT AN EVIL OVERLORD, YOU CAN STILL FIND RING BY CRAWLING OVER BARE ROCK FOR A THOUSAND MILES")
Sauron: "Man, I love this job!"
FELLOWSHIP OF GOR!
Frodo: "I will take and bear you, Ring, for it is your purpose to be taken and borne by a Hobbit!"
Ring: "Yes, take and bear me, Frodo, for it is my purpose to be taken by a Hobbit!"
Frodo: "Now I shall chain you to myself, for you are my Ring, and it is your purpose to be chained to me at all times!"
Ring: "Yes! Bind me with chains, for I am your Ring, and it is my purpose to be chained to you at all times!"
Frodo: "Now I shall carry you to Mordor, because you were made to be taken to Mordor!"
Ring: "Yes, please, Master Frodo! Take me to Mordor, because I was made to be taken to Mordor!"
Frodo: "Now I shall cast you into the fires of Mount Doom and destroyed in the fires in which you were forged, for it is my desire that you be cast into the fires of Mount Doom!"
Ring: "Now you will... HEY! WAIT ONE GODDAMN MINUTE, THERE! FIRES? DOOM? SAFEWORD! SAFEWORD, GODDAMNIT!"
Why bother? Pass legislation that requires ISPs log all traffic instead. They're more likely to comply with such a law (and unlike most laws, such as the anti-spamming and anti-telemarketing laws, this is a law where the Government does want compliance!) than end users.
Better yet - why burden the ISP with the added expenses (and bad PR!) of logkeeping at all? This solution would require no new laws; it'd merely have HomeSec allocate a portion of its budget to install a packet sniffer with a hella-fast RAID array at the chokepoints - and log the URLs (and SMTP headers, and USENET headers, and P2P requests, and Freenet requests) themselves.
China's doing it all wrong - the way to deal with threats to internal security isn't to block citizens' access to information, it's to allow access to information - and log the hell out of it! I mean, knowing that Xin Sixpack typed "Falun Gong" at google.com and got blocked when he tried to visit the front page of some website isn't nearly as useful as letting him go to the site, and then watching every click he makes, to find out what (specifically) he's interested in.
We'd be getting spam via fax from China - for US businesses. And those are who would be fined under the TCPA.
The problem isn't the law, it's the lack of enforcement.
> Hell, there is nary a US provider that will carry a major spammer.
Level3? Verio? (Awright, maybe Verio doesn't count as US-based :) Worldcon/uu.not? AT&T? Sprint? Dude, what the ring-tailed rambling fuck have you been smoking for the past 8 years?
On Slashdot, you can get a (+5, Insightful) for that, but I dare you to try and slip something like that past news.admin.net-abuse.email. Bring your asbestos underwear and be prepared to find out what (-6, Couldn't Find His Ass With Two Hands And A Team Of Sherpa Guides) feels like.
So, this is a bad thing? That is, do you think only foreigners should be profiled for possible links to terrorism?
Before you answer that -- a "no" pretty much implies that you believe US citizens ought to get a free pass to commit terrorist acts, simply by virtue of their citizenship.
> They can also check your outgoings match your income and that you are paying enough tax. What do you think all this privacy invasion is for? The War on Terrorism? You poor dupe.
Oh, I see. US citizens ought to be able to commit tax evasion without fear of getting caught too. Gr00vy!
(Hey, I'm for anything that reduces the amount of tax I pay -- but if you work for a salary, your opportunities for tax evasion are pretty limited. How about pulling for tax cuts instead of tax evasion, so everyone can benefit? Hey, that's what the government might even be trying to do with tomorrow's stimulus package :-)
Machinery?
Machinery?
In Marx's time - fair enough. The point I was making (and that you completely failed to grasp) was that for the tech industry, that grey goo between your ears is the physical means of production of software.
Without the grey goo, that dual Athlon on your desk is worthless - regardless of whether you brought your laptop in for the weekend, or whether it's purchased for you by your boss.
If you claim that you don't own the grey goo between your ears, more's the pity for you.
>[...]
> If all you have is the "grey matter between your ears", you are just another mass of unemployed protoplasm once your skills are obsolete. What is so valuable now will soon be worthless. The fact you are so good at it now makes you LESS trainable in the next new technology.
Last time I checked, the grey matter between my ears was capable of assimilating and storing data about new technologies, not just rehashing the technologies with which it grew up.
When I spoke of my "skills" and "grey matter", I didn't mean my mad buzzword-of-the-day skillz, I meant my brain's ability to acquire new skills and solve problems.
Sounds like the IDMS/Natural programmers of which you speak failed to use their grey matter properly, because they failed to realize what it was for.
> hmm...
> You work for AT&T dont you?
What, you think his comment narrowed it down? As if there's a telecom company that isn't universally-hated? :)
I'll bite.
I have... just me. My skills. My experience. My mind. Umm... whoa, dude, maybe I'm not that powerless after all!
I wouldn't be sitting across the desk from that guy unless I had something he wanted. Something he needed. Otherwise he'd be doing something else, something more profitable than talking to me.
I wouldn't be sitting in that guy's cubicle now if he didn't have something I wanted.
I'm coming from the capitalist side, but you can look at it from the view of left-wing politics if you like -- the tech industry is probably the first time in history in which the workers can truly say they own the means of production, namely the individual globs of grey stuff in their skulls.
The problem for wannabe-Marxists (I'm not implying you're one, just pointing it out) is that the grey stuff doesn't belong to a collective - it belongs to individuals. The proof of that comes every time you look at the wide disparities of productivity between programmers - some suck, some are adequate, some are great, and some are gurus.
To me, those factors lead me to conclude that individual bargaining, not collective bargaining, the "right" (in both the moral and the practical sense) way to negotiate wages, at least in the tech industry.
Economic Darwinism in action. It's what happens whenever a company abandons the merit principle in hiring.
If we had easier permanent immigration ("green card"), employers wouldn't need the H-1B as a stepping-stone to being able to bring a talented worker in on a permanent basis.
Also, if we didn't have the H-1B stepping-stone mentality, employers wouldn't put up with the hassles. They'd hire the best person - American or otherwise.
Likewise, wage devaluation wouldn't be a factor, as foreigners would be able to demand wages comparable to Americans, because any employer that failed to pay real market wages would soon find itself unable to hire.
Americans win. Foreigners win. Companies win. Pity that free labor markets will never happen, but hey, it's nice to dream.
Hallelujah, someone finally sees the light!
The sick thing is that H-1B "prevailing wage" determination is a walk in the park compared to what's required for a green card - that is, real immigration.
For an H-1B, you fax DOL and say "We're paying him $X. What's the prevailing wage?", and if they say "under $X", you can hire him. (Well, you can hire him in a few months when INS gets around to taking your paperwork off the shelf.)
For a green card, you go through a "recruitment" process. Due to a stupid law passed for political purposes (but I repeat myself), the "fast track" is nearly as slow as the "slow track" - an employer can expect to spend at least six months, and more likely, over a year, before being able to prove to the Department of Labor that there are no Americans qualified to take the job. Then it's another 6 months with INS, and another 6 months with a consular office, before the worker can actually get his/her green card.
Total time from "we want to hire this d00d" to "d00d gets his first paycheck as a green card holder" is typically 2-3 years.
> Or is there something about being born outside the borders of the United States that makes wage negotiations inherently evil?
What you appear to understand, and what the government fails to understand, is that if any employer is willing to put up with all of the above -- and $1000-$3000 in fees to the government plus another $2000-5000 for the services of an immigration lawyer -- they've already decided that this person is the best for the job.
So why then, do we have things like "no qualified Americans" (leaving aside the absurdity of demanding, by law, that a company prove a negative) being found in multi-year hiring practices? Well, because in the green card biz (as opposed to the H-1B biz), you as an employer are not allowed to hire the best person for the job. If the job says "requires degree", an American with an MCSE and a B.Sc. with the ink still wet on it, gets the job - even if the guy you want to hire has 10 years experience. The merit principle is turned upside-down. (Which is just fine if you're an AFL-CIO union goon, but kinda sucks if you're an employer who wants some talent.)
So green card processing times for talented folks are prohibitive. (The government's own swivel service hiring procedures take over a year, so I suppose they figured that was good enough for the tech industry. Idiots.) As a result of prohibitive green card times, employers demanded something a little more realistic, and as such, the H-1B process came in - most H-1Bs and their employers view the H-1B as a stepping stone to the green card. It allows the employer to get some work out of the prospective hire, and the employee to get paid, while they spend the next 2-4 years waiting for the green card.
But as soon as everyone viewed an H-1B as a stepping-stone to a green card, the abuses started, on both sides: employers using H-1Bs as "cheap" labor (because the "prevailing wage" was being raised in "government time" while market salaries were being raised in "internet time"), and employees used H-1Bs as stepping stones - with the intent of leaving their (dirty rotten evil using-me-for-cheap-labor) employer as soon as legally permissible after getting a green card.
The H-1B and green card debacle can be explained very simply as yet another case of governments boldly passing interventions in the free market that encourage yet more problems that require yet more government intervention.
While I'm not an immigration hawk, and I deeply loathe the AFL-CIO for its anti-capitalist stance on almost everything, the H-1B program serves the purposes of no one.
Scrap INS. Scrap the H-1B. Scrap labor certification. If Apu Sixpack can do the job better than Joe Sixpack, and Apu is being paid the market wage for his geographical area, and Fred CEO wants to hire Apu, let him hire Apu.
No 3-year, $5000 processes involving lawyers and three layers of bureaucrats. Why can't the government learn to keep its fucking hands off private businesses so they can do what they were designed to do - making profits for their shareholders by hiring the best people for the job?
Word to the government - the taxes you impose on our profits are what you need to keep yourselves fat and happy. You need us more than we need you. (And to bring it back to immigration policy -- that, more than anything, is why jobs are being outsourced to India.)
> Jan 12, 1660: Damne bog ate my dog. Off to the pub for a pint.
> Jan 13, 1660: Walking back from the pub early this morn, almost fell into the bog.
> Jan 14, 1660: Good Lord.. the Mayor fell into the bog. Presumed lost. Kenny Axeblood wants to take over. 'Aye' I say.
> Jan 15, 1660: God hates our wee village; Kenny Axeblook walked into the bog and disappeared from our sight. We think it's that woman with the wart. Off to burn her.
> Jan 16, 1660: Burnt the witch and threw her remains into the bog.
Jan 17, 1660: 1) Elected new mayor in the bog. He fell into the bog before he could be sworn in. Burnt another witch. That witch burned down, fell over, and then sank into the bog, but the third witch stayed up!
Jan 18, 1660: 2) In pagan Denmark, bogs fall into you!
Jan 19, 1660: ...
Jan 20, 1660: 3) ...geld!
I suppose hearing "Now look here, plaintiff, you give me any of that juris-my-diction crap..." would be a dead giveaway?
s/annoying/funny/g
When I was a sprogling, Dad brought home some goodies, and I made a wee bit too much (i.e. probably not much more than a gram!), and the stuff on the edges of the filter paper I'd laid out in the middle of the garage blew up before the stuff in the middle had dried out, thereby splattering the floor with really tiny droplets of still-wet stuff and fragments of filter paper.
I was out of the garage (waiting for it to dry) when it went off. After hearing the *boom* and seeing the filter paper shreds all over the garage, I grabbed a broom and started to sweep up... snap-crackle-pop! I still remember Dad and I both laughing our asses off, while Mom just stood there, shaking her head at us.
Seriously - NI3 can be fun in small quantities. But as the poster said, (1) SMALL quantities, a few crystals at most, (2) always take safety precuations like safety goggles, disposable coat, no long hair, etc, and (3) if you're sharing the joys of chem with your kids, supervise them, and train them to take safety precuations too.
As others have said, and as I'll repeat, there's no such thing as being too safe. No fume hood? Some experiments don't get done, and some reagents don't get bought. Period. That's what your imagination, and a pencil, paper, and calculator, are for, and it applies whether you're doing it yourself, or with your kids.
Well, if someone had eaten their eggs a few decades ago, the resulting film couldn't have been taken, right?
So what are you waiting for, go eat your eggs already!
In Soviet Russia, little earthenware alfalfa sprouts grow cows!
Plaster the hull with ground beef and use the water as radiation shielding. Upon re-entry and landing, celebrate the successful mission with barbecue! w00t!
(OK, that doesn't solve the launch cost problem, as much of the water is wasted upon cooking, er, re-entry, but I'm saying it could be done.)
Alternate solution: Sterilize it on the ground at Earth. (Using it for radiation shielding helps here too, come to think of it.) Upon landing, dump the beef, unsealed, all around the landing site. If it rots, you've got no hamburgers for the duration of the mission, but the resulting Nobel Prize is a pretty good consolation. (Only glitch here is that Mars Dust probably isn't as good a filler as breadcrumbs.)
ROFLMAO.
OK, I love veal. Carve it off a baby cow, pound it flat, sear it in a pan, deglaze the pan of roasting juices by splashing down some cream, white whine, and mushrooms, bring it the hell on.
But what makes veal so delicate and tender is that the calf doesn't move long enough to build up any real muscle structure. It sounds to me like vat-veal would be even more tender and veal-like than real-deal-veal. Vat-veal would probably be like carving it up as soon as it pops outa the womb!
OK, maybe the milk-feeding part adds to the flavor too. I dunno. But I do know I'm not writing off vat-grown meat until I've tried myself a plate of it. *G*
Oops, so do I.
I didn't RTFA and blindly assumed that the link tags I quoted were the proposed "standard" to "redesign" the back button. D'oh!
So LART duly accepted, and as for the View->Show/Hide->Site Navigation bar that uses the <link> tags, there's always the even simpler option just not to use the site navbar on sites that abuse it.
>
>[link HREF="magic-cauldron-3.html" REL=next]
> [link HREF="magic-cauldron-1.html" REL=previous]
> [link HREF="magic-cauldron.html#toc2" REL=contents]
Huh? The way I read it, I see:
[link HREF="big_ad_page.html" REL=next]
[link HREF="big_ad_page.html" REL=previous]
[link HREF="big_ad_page.html" REL=contents]
With "big_ad_page.html" being "Hah! You thought disabling Javashit could disable popups and interstitials! Thanks to 'standars', all your back button are belong to us!"