As soon as someone says "We need X amount of money to do Y", you have to look into exactly who they are and why they need it and what they'll do with it. Those Kickstarter projects that are basically "We'd like to make an indie game that does X" really annoy me. You do? Bugger off and do it then!
I'm one of those developers who is saying "I need X to do Y". Who also just happens to be working on an indie game. Who also just happens to be using Kickstarter to fund our second stage of development. You know why I know what resources I need? I've been working in the startup industry for the last 25 years.
Kickstarter is fairly picky about projects they let in. These days you have to either talk a good game, or really show a working proof of concept. Yeah, a few stinkers get through, but I've backed 21 projects so far, and not a single one has failed (admitedly only 3 are software). YMMV, but don't assume a group of developers are full of it because they're using Kickstarter as a funding option. It's an excellent way to guage interest and spur innovation, even if you've never heard of them before.
Look at the project, determine if it *is* possible based on it's merits and the current technology available, investigate the people involved as much as possible and treat it like a high risk investment that might just get you a t-shirt and a nifty piece of software.
Sure the ROMs are running in an emulator on a modern machine, but nothing beats a game of Mule with some friends for nostalgia.
Pulling out an old computer and seeing if I could get a pre-1.0 linux kernel loaded was what I did up until the hardware was finally recycled. Ahh, the days when command line skills really made the geek.
Okay, black boxing is out, but looking over old copies of 2600 is a walk down memory lane.
As a member of the military who has no fear of asking logical questions of his superiors, I asked my Communications Officer why this "ban" was being instated (it hadn't been instated at the time). The answer I recieved was that it was against the UCMJ to look at the material.
That answer is a gross over simplification of the truth, but it is essentially true. As a member of the armed forces, we are required to safeguard the secrets of the United States and prevent their dissemination. Therefore the simple act of viewing one of those documents in a non-secure manner without need to know represents a security spillage, and is essentially against the UCMJ.
As to the *reasoning* behind this, honestly? It probably has more to do with keeping DoD computers free of this material than keeping DoD employee's minds frees of this material. The.gov is trying to limit the spillage as much as possible. Doing a proper scrub is an incredibly costly and time consuming process, now multiply that across the hundreds of thousands of computers owned by the DoD... All of us soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen know exactly what's going on over there, spilled documents or not.
The MMO called A Tale in the Desert fits the bill very well. The level of competition varies, but it is an incredibly social game, very player driven, and requires a lot of cooperation to be successful. There is no violence of any sort, at least not when I was playing. It's the perfect environment for those people that have the urge to let their inner trade-skiller out.
Actually, the police didn't handle things appropriately. At least from how the video looked. The first thing they needed to do after they told him to chill out and got such an antagonistic response, was drop him to the deck and cuff him, they had more than enough personnel to handle the situation without escalating the level of force. For those of you that are familiar with the "Use of Force Continuum", you'll notice that they skipped a major step in the Third Level of force (Control Holds & Restraints, the part where they actually cuff him) and jumped right up to the Fifth Level of force (Temporary Incapacitation, which includes tasers). The situation would have ended very quickly if they just cuffed him when they had his face on the floor, they could have picked him up and strong armed him out the back of the hall, and this incident wouldn't have been nearly as interesting to the media.
I just got out of training on exactly this type of situation (as a law enforcement officer), so I'm not just talking out of my rear. By the book, they used excessive force. However the caveat here is that every situation is different, particularly if you're the person trying to keep things calm.
If you're looking for low volume (2 - 10 units), you're going to end up paying close to retail. That's just how it works.
For medium volume (25+ units) talk to the guys at http://www.servercase.com/... They've been really helpful to me in the past.
For larger volumes (100+) talk directly with VIA, they have always been extremely helpful in working with the little guys (in my experience), and if you're actually building a product, or developing something nifty with their boards you can generally get direct access with their devs and help in marketting the products. Hell, they even payed for us to go to COMDEX and CES to show off our EPIA based products, not exactly the typical response from a big company ya' know?
Even though the article was lacking in what anyone could consider detail, hell I would even hesitate to call it an article, one of the points in this research is for the recycling of oxygen and water, its not just about food.
Plants do an incredible job of purifying and recycling both air and water, and because of the growth rate and adaptability of many plants I think their problem will actually be in stemming the tide of mutation. Life evolves to fill whichever niche it can. And plants do it very very rapidly.
In fact, I'm willing to bet that out of the 3 choices, using the plants as a food source will be the last thing they do. They're much more valuable generating oxygen, as they do that through their entire lifespan, and are generally only suitable for eating near the end of their lifespan. It's much easier to tweak the size of your algea garden to produce more oxygen than it is to order new parts from home when you're several million km away from the nearest UPS store.
# of people in profession: 200 Average hours per week: 65 Average starting salary: $60,000 Average salary after 5 years: N/A Average salary after 10 to 15 years: N/A
In my experience "N/A" usually means "An embarassingly large amount"
As for another space MMO, Eve Online is set to release their first expansion, Shiva, within a month or so. Shiva represents a massive change to the game, adding a ton of new features, and I find it unique that a game company would release such a major upgrade to their product for free to their subscribers. While I dunno about linux/mac clients, Eve is definately a unique game, the simple facts that its beautiful, runs well on low hardware systems, and the UI is extremely clean keeps me very happy.
If you're an Elite fan, or even a Tradewars fan you'll get hooked on this game.
I had a really long rant, got down to the end and realized I could sum it up really easily.
Your idea of marketing is also very 1999. The fact of the matter is, Google News is not generating new sources of revenue. It's not bringing *new* customers. It's not another avenue for advertisers, and it's not directly enhancing an already existing product.
Frankly, marketing is used to sell new or existing products. If Google News is marketing they need to fire their marketing department because they're only reaching people who are *already* sold on the Google brand. People like you and I.
No, I don't buy it in the slightest. Google News went beta to the public so that the nerds could beat the crap out of it, and help the Google guys find the bugs. It's staying in beta, or will be shelved because it can't stand on its own and generate revenue. Honestly thats the simplest explanation.
In my experience, the only time a company reports or admits to something like this as being a marketing ploy is when they've screwed up somewhere big and are trying to pull an Enron or a SCO. I have a bit more faith in Google:)
Sounds like you're stuck in 1999. That's very much a dotcom sensibility. Use funds from other departments/projects to feed the loss leader until it magically generates revenue.
IMHO I'm *glad* the guys at Google haven't taken it out of beta yet. It shows they've learned from the stupidity of the dotcom bubble, and are unwilling to threaten the rest of their organization until each and every project can stand on its own.
And before you start yelling about how much money Google may or may not have, the sentiment of banking on "brand value" for companies that are largely based on IP with no (or few) physical products is dangerous these days. In fact its always been dangerous. And when it comes down to the SEC, "good will" and "brand value" appear in their reports, but not on the balance sheets, at least none that I've seen.
Google is making a smart move. The R&D they did for Google News is applicable to other products in their core offering, its not a loss. Throwing it out onto the market before it can generate revenue on its own will immediately generate a loss for them on their balance sheets.
[jedi mindtrick]This is not the dotcom you are looking for. Move along.[/jedi mindtrick]
Well, it takes all kinds. As is true with any media these days, it's the bad stuff that hits the first page of the papers, and the good stuff that is tucked away on page 52. There are a lot of things that military organizations do that are good things that nobody cares about. The same is true for any organization, civilian or otherwise. Nobody cares to hear about the team of devs that stays late to meet a deadline, they only care to hear about the CEO that has been taking his mistress out to dinner on company funds. No, it's not the same thing as killing and raping, but you're talking about far less than 1% of the people in the military. And admitedly, that percentage is fucked up and wrong and need to be lobotomized for the good of humankind, but those same people are in civilian populations as well. In fact a major grocery store near where I live hired a known sex offender, and only caught the fact after the police arrested him at the store for raping a boy in bathroom. He admited to having done it at least once a week for the 6 months he had worked there.
"Your squad mates" are *everywhere*. And just like in the military it's our duty to report those people so that appropriate action can be taken. The military does not brush that kind of stuff under the carpet anymore, they take it very seriously, in part because they should, and in part because everyone is watching their actions. And rightly so, the military needs to be accountable for it's actions.
Yes, much of the crap the military is doing is based around screwed up politics. But the only way for that to change is to have smart people making the right decisions, and frankly, the best way to change the system is from within.
Now I *do* have qualms about killing people, brown or otherwise, which is why my job is not one that involves that. However, I do believe that there is a need for the military, and that I can make a difference in the world by being a representation of the kind of people I want leading the world.
To discount the fact that the military is a viable option for some people, and to consider myself, or anyone else that goes that way insane is short sighted and ignorant. I am actively doing my part to change the system, in the best way I know how, from within, while you just complain about it. Thank you for staying home.
This is probably going to get my flamed to hell, but screw it.
Join the military. Frankly, that's where the.gov is spending all the money. As a college grad, you start out with a rank increase, there are programs where they will pay off your loans. Add to that the fact that they will train you in the practical application of your skills, they'll pay you to continue going to school while you're in the military, and unless you're a total screw up you've got a fair paying job for at least 4 to 6 years. And it really is fair paying, as you get a paycheck, a housing allowance, and a food allowance, not to mention a whole crap load of other potential bonuses like extra pay for knowing a second language.
The.mil of today isn't like the.mil of 10 years ago. When I started out in the IT industry the thought of the military was not even on my radar. After 2 years of being unemployed from the IT industry I started to really stretch my idea of what was acceptable and did a lot of research, and frankly, as a second career, the military really isn't all that bad as long as you aren't infantry. It's the only place where I can make a living, go back to school, and not be penalized by management for it.
And to be honest, with the discussions flying around about reinstating the draft, it's a great way to avoid being drafted;)
Has to be one of my fave video game music tracks. In fact any game that bears even a remote resemblence to Mule has me "boink-a-dink-a"ing the soundtrack while I play. If you're familiar with the game, then the "boink-a-dink-a" comment won't sound quite as odd it would otherwise. Well, okay, it still sounds odd, but hey...
I fully agree, burning bridges is definately a bad thing. I don't know where I heard it, but when dealing with PHBs I always remember that management is like a tree full of monkeys, managers look down and see a bunch of smiling faces looking up at them. Employees look up and see a bunch of assholes. Unless you're really lucky it's always going to be this way.
However, if I were going to quit in style...... I would get up onto my bosses desk, squat, and leave a nice big steaming pile of crap on his desk before walking out the door. Its one of those thoughts that gets me through the day;)
I believe you're thinking of Corbis, a stock photo agency.
His investment company is called Cascade Investment LLC, and needless to say, he's all over the place.
Some other investments of his (or at least of cascade investment):
ICOS Corporation
Teledesic
Corixa
Seattle Genetics
Pain Therapeutics
Alaska Air
Boca Resorts
Liberty Satelite and Technology
Canadian National Railway
Otter Tail Power
Schnitzer Steel Industries
Avista Corp
Cox Communications
Newport News
Like I said, he's all over the place, steel companies, medical companies, stock photo agencies. I'm sure that there are a lot more companies not listed here. Having lived in Seattle for the last 14 years I keep hearing of both Cascade and Vulcan (Allen's pet money sink) investing in some random crap on what seems a daily basis.
The above informatio is of course stolen from the results of random and assorted Google searches. How apropros.
Links to the above sites and resources are left as an exercise of the reader.
Why does this seem absurdly simple? Because it is. A proof of concept for this idea could be developed by even a moderately "okay" programmer in just about any language.
Oddly enough, I speak from experience, being both an okay programmer, and having done almost exactly this in the past using perl. We were gathering 30 to 60 second samples of tracks off of audio CDs at different offsets (dependant upon the type of music) for online streaming. CDs came in one side of the process, were ripped, sampled, and converted to various formats.
One word of advice, deal with raw audio for the sampling process, I've always found it much easier to deal with, and it gives you a lot of options on the output side for reencoding.
Come to think of it, just grabbing 10 minute samples every hour on the purely electronics side wouldn't be difficult either, but you're more likely to be able to find someone who can write code rather than someone who can modify your recorders:)
For governments, using secure protocols, worker training, and machine patching are *not* enough. Just because a network is secure doesn't not mean that it's not going to be targetted for an attack.
By utilizing this wallpaper, or other such technologies, the effectively prevent the outside world from even knowning that a potential ingress point exists. This is a very important distinction, and effectively the same thing as physically securing outside data and phone lines coming into a facility. An attacker is more likely to turn away from a possible ingress point if it's totally inaccessible.
Additionally, it also prevents someone from setting up an access point in a van (down by the river), and connecting to it from within the building for the removal of secure data.
This level of security is a bit nuts when applied to the average user. However, context is everything, and you must take into account that this is a solution created by the government (well, a contractor), for government use. You know the two examples I gave above are exactly what they were considering.
IMHO this is a really pointless question. It's like asking if it's necessary to learn keyboarding skills (ie making music using the keys on a piano) when we have so many other methods for digitally creating music.
No, it's not necessary per se, in that other methods are readily available, however it's damn helpful to know. The speed and accuracy with which you can make music is greatly enhanced by knowing how the instrument is utilized. The same is true for the good 'ol QWERTY keyboard.
That's pretty much what I'm doing. I fit into the bottom tier of the requirements (cept for memory), and while I really *want* to go out and buy it, I'm not going to go anywhere before making sure it's actually playable.
Slashdot Mirror
As soon as someone says "We need X amount of money to do Y", you have to look into exactly who they are and why they need it and what they'll do with it. Those Kickstarter projects that are basically "We'd like to make an indie game that does X" really annoy me. You do? Bugger off and do it then!
I'm one of those developers who is saying "I need X to do Y". Who also just happens to be working on an indie game. Who also just happens to be using Kickstarter to fund our second stage of development. You know why I know what resources I need? I've been working in the startup industry for the last 25 years.
Kickstarter is fairly picky about projects they let in. These days you have to either talk a good game, or really show a working proof of concept. Yeah, a few stinkers get through, but I've backed 21 projects so far, and not a single one has failed (admitedly only 3 are software). YMMV, but don't assume a group of developers are full of it because they're using Kickstarter as a funding option. It's an excellent way to guage interest and spur innovation, even if you've never heard of them before.
Look at the project, determine if it *is* possible based on it's merits and the current technology available, investigate the people involved as much as possible and treat it like a high risk investment that might just get you a t-shirt and a nifty piece of software.
Contact the original owner, and extort them for $50k. It worked so well for Anonymous and Symantec.
Sure the ROMs are running in an emulator on a modern machine, but nothing beats a game of Mule with some friends for nostalgia.
Pulling out an old computer and seeing if I could get a pre-1.0 linux kernel loaded was what I did up until the hardware was finally recycled. Ahh, the days when command line skills really made the geek.
Okay, black boxing is out, but looking over old copies of 2600 is a walk down memory lane.
As a member of the military who has no fear of asking logical questions of his superiors, I asked my Communications Officer why this "ban" was being instated (it hadn't been instated at the time). The answer I recieved was that it was against the UCMJ to look at the material.
.gov is trying to limit the spillage as much as possible. Doing a proper scrub is an incredibly costly and time consuming process, now multiply that across the hundreds of thousands of computers owned by the DoD... All of us soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen know exactly what's going on over there, spilled documents or not.
That answer is a gross over simplification of the truth, but it is essentially true. As a member of the armed forces, we are required to safeguard the secrets of the United States and prevent their dissemination. Therefore the simple act of viewing one of those documents in a non-secure manner without need to know represents a security spillage, and is essentially against the UCMJ.
As to the *reasoning* behind this, honestly? It probably has more to do with keeping DoD computers free of this material than keeping DoD employee's minds frees of this material. The
The MMO called A Tale in the Desert fits the bill very well. The level of competition varies, but it is an incredibly social game, very player driven, and requires a lot of cooperation to be successful. There is no violence of any sort, at least not when I was playing. It's the perfect environment for those people that have the urge to let their inner trade-skiller out.
http://www.atitd.com/
Actually, the police didn't handle things appropriately. At least from how the video looked. The first thing they needed to do after they told him to chill out and got such an antagonistic response, was drop him to the deck and cuff him, they had more than enough personnel to handle the situation without escalating the level of force. For those of you that are familiar with the "Use of Force Continuum", you'll notice that they skipped a major step in the Third Level of force (Control Holds & Restraints, the part where they actually cuff him) and jumped right up to the Fifth Level of force (Temporary Incapacitation, which includes tasers). The situation would have ended very quickly if they just cuffed him when they had his face on the floor, they could have picked him up and strong armed him out the back of the hall, and this incident wouldn't have been nearly as interesting to the media.
I just got out of training on exactly this type of situation (as a law enforcement officer), so I'm not just talking out of my rear. By the book, they used excessive force. However the caveat here is that every situation is different, particularly if you're the person trying to keep things calm.
Now if only they would make controller-proof televisions. And walls. And innocent passersby. Oh, and windows too.
...think I might have a bit of an issue here...
If you're looking for low volume (2 - 10 units), you're going to end up paying close to retail. That's just how it works.
... They've been really helpful to me in the past.
For medium volume (25+ units) talk to the guys at http://www.servercase.com/
For larger volumes (100+) talk directly with VIA, they have always been extremely helpful in working with the little guys (in my experience), and if you're actually building a product, or developing something nifty with their boards you can generally get direct access with their devs and help in marketting the products. Hell, they even payed for us to go to COMDEX and CES to show off our EPIA based products, not exactly the typical response from a big company ya' know?
N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL
Okay, it may sound corny, but even with relatively low numbers, it still gives me hope that there is someone out there smart enough to leave us alone.
Even though the article was lacking in what anyone could consider detail, hell I would even hesitate to call it an article, one of the points in this research is for the recycling of oxygen and water, its not just about food.
Plants do an incredible job of purifying and recycling both air and water, and because of the growth rate and adaptability of many plants I think their problem will actually be in stemming the tide of mutation. Life evolves to fill whichever niche it can. And plants do it very very rapidly.
In fact, I'm willing to bet that out of the 3 choices, using the plants as a food source will be the last thing they do. They're much more valuable generating oxygen, as they do that through their entire lifespan, and are generally only suitable for eating near the end of their lifespan. It's much easier to tweak the size of your algea garden to produce more oxygen than it is to order new parts from home when you're several million km away from the nearest UPS store.
In my experience "N/A" usually means "An embarassingly large amount"
As for another space MMO, Eve Online is set to release their first expansion, Shiva, within a month or so. Shiva represents a massive change to the game, adding a ton of new features, and I find it unique that a game company would release such a major upgrade to their product for free to their subscribers. While I dunno about linux/mac clients, Eve is definately a unique game, the simple facts that its beautiful, runs well on low hardware systems, and the UI is extremely clean keeps me very happy.
If you're an Elite fan, or even a Tradewars fan you'll get hooked on this game.
Subscribers who wish to sign up for Shiva testing can do so here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/shiva.asp
Feature list of Shiva: http://www.eve-online.com/features/shiva/
Screenshots are also available in the forums under the Shiva Testing category.
I had a really long rant, got down to the end and realized I could sum it up really easily.
:)
Your idea of marketing is also very 1999. The fact of the matter is, Google News is not generating new sources of revenue. It's not bringing *new* customers. It's not another avenue for advertisers, and it's not directly enhancing an already existing product.
Frankly, marketing is used to sell new or existing products. If Google News is marketing they need to fire their marketing department because they're only reaching people who are *already* sold on the Google brand. People like you and I.
No, I don't buy it in the slightest. Google News went beta to the public so that the nerds could beat the crap out of it, and help the Google guys find the bugs. It's staying in beta, or will be shelved because it can't stand on its own and generate revenue. Honestly thats the simplest explanation.
In my experience, the only time a company reports or admits to something like this as being a marketing ploy is when they've screwed up somewhere big and are trying to pull an Enron or a SCO. I have a bit more faith in Google
Sounds like you're stuck in 1999. That's very much a dotcom sensibility. Use funds from other departments/projects to feed the loss leader until it magically generates revenue.
IMHO I'm *glad* the guys at Google haven't taken it out of beta yet. It shows they've learned from the stupidity of the dotcom bubble, and are unwilling to threaten the rest of their organization until each and every project can stand on its own.
And before you start yelling about how much money Google may or may not have, the sentiment of banking on "brand value" for companies that are largely based on IP with no (or few) physical products is dangerous these days. In fact its always been dangerous. And when it comes down to the SEC, "good will" and "brand value" appear in their reports, but not on the balance sheets, at least none that I've seen.
Google is making a smart move. The R&D they did for Google News is applicable to other products in their core offering, its not a loss. Throwing it out onto the market before it can generate revenue on its own will immediately generate a loss for them on their balance sheets.
[jedi mindtrick]This is not the dotcom you are looking for. Move along.[/jedi mindtrick]
Well, it takes all kinds. As is true with any media these days, it's the bad stuff that hits the first page of the papers, and the good stuff that is tucked away on page 52. There are a lot of things that military organizations do that are good things that nobody cares about. The same is true for any organization, civilian or otherwise. Nobody cares to hear about the team of devs that stays late to meet a deadline, they only care to hear about the CEO that has been taking his mistress out to dinner on company funds. No, it's not the same thing as killing and raping, but you're talking about far less than 1% of the people in the military. And admitedly, that percentage is fucked up and wrong and need to be lobotomized for the good of humankind, but those same people are in civilian populations as well. In fact a major grocery store near where I live hired a known sex offender, and only caught the fact after the police arrested him at the store for raping a boy in bathroom. He admited to having done it at least once a week for the 6 months he had worked there.
"Your squad mates" are *everywhere*. And just like in the military it's our duty to report those people so that appropriate action can be taken. The military does not brush that kind of stuff under the carpet anymore, they take it very seriously, in part because they should, and in part because everyone is watching their actions. And rightly so, the military needs to be accountable for it's actions.
Yes, much of the crap the military is doing is based around screwed up politics. But the only way for that to change is to have smart people making the right decisions, and frankly, the best way to change the system is from within.
Now I *do* have qualms about killing people, brown or otherwise, which is why my job is not one that involves that. However, I do believe that there is a need for the military, and that I can make a difference in the world by being a representation of the kind of people I want leading the world.
To discount the fact that the military is a viable option for some people, and to consider myself, or anyone else that goes that way insane is short sighted and ignorant. I am actively doing my part to change the system, in the best way I know how, from within, while you just complain about it. Thank you for staying home.
This is probably going to get my flamed to hell, but screw it.
.gov is spending all the money. As a college grad, you start out with a rank increase, there are programs where they will pay off your loans. Add to that the fact that they will train you in the practical application of your skills, they'll pay you to continue going to school while you're in the military, and unless you're a total screw up you've got a fair paying job for at least 4 to 6 years. And it really is fair paying, as you get a paycheck, a housing allowance, and a food allowance, not to mention a whole crap load of other potential bonuses like extra pay for knowing a second language.
.mil of today isn't like the .mil of 10 years ago. When I started out in the IT industry the thought of the military was not even on my radar. After 2 years of being unemployed from the IT industry I started to really stretch my idea of what was acceptable and did a lot of research, and frankly, as a second career, the military really isn't all that bad as long as you aren't infantry. It's the only place where I can make a living, go back to school, and not be penalized by management for it.
;)
Join the military. Frankly, that's where the
The
And to be honest, with the discussions flying around about reinstating the draft, it's a great way to avoid being drafted
I'm in Boink-a-dink-a heaven! The SKA version is *particularly* cool.
...must...find...ROM...
/me screams "Be Free!" as his MULE runs off
Has to be one of my fave video game music tracks. In fact any game that bears even a remote resemblence to Mule has me "boink-a-dink-a"ing the soundtrack while I play. If you're familiar with the game, then the "boink-a-dink-a" comment won't sound quite as odd it would otherwise. Well, okay, it still sounds odd, but hey...
I fully agree, burning bridges is definately a bad thing. I don't know where I heard it, but when dealing with PHBs I always remember that management is like a tree full of monkeys, managers look down and see a bunch of smiling faces looking up at them. Employees look up and see a bunch of assholes. Unless you're really lucky it's always going to be this way.
;)
However, if I were going to quit in style...... I would get up onto my bosses desk, squat, and leave a nice big steaming pile of crap on his desk before walking out the door. Its one of those thoughts that gets me through the day
I believe you're thinking of Corbis, a stock photo agency.
His investment company is called Cascade Investment LLC, and needless to say, he's all over the place.
Some other investments of his (or at least of cascade investment):
ICOS Corporation
Teledesic
Corixa
Seattle Genetics
Pain Therapeutics
Alaska Air
Boca Resorts
Liberty Satelite and Technology
Canadian National Railway
Otter Tail Power
Schnitzer Steel Industries
Avista Corp
Cox Communications
Newport News
Like I said, he's all over the place, steel companies, medical companies, stock photo agencies. I'm sure that there are a lot more companies not listed here. Having lived in Seattle for the last 14 years I keep hearing of both Cascade and Vulcan (Allen's pet money sink) investing in some random crap on what seems a daily basis.
The above informatio is of course stolen from the results of random and assorted Google searches. How apropros.
Links to the above sites and resources are left as an exercise of the reader.
Why does this seem absurdly simple? Because it is. A proof of concept for this idea could be developed by even a moderately "okay" programmer in just about any language.
:)
Oddly enough, I speak from experience, being both an okay programmer, and having done almost exactly this in the past using perl. We were gathering 30 to 60 second samples of tracks off of audio CDs at different offsets (dependant upon the type of music) for online streaming. CDs came in one side of the process, were ripped, sampled, and converted to various formats.
One word of advice, deal with raw audio for the sampling process, I've always found it much easier to deal with, and it gives you a lot of options on the output side for reencoding.
Come to think of it, just grabbing 10 minute samples every hour on the purely electronics side wouldn't be difficult either, but you're more likely to be able to find someone who can write code rather than someone who can modify your recorders
I agree, this is part of a security solution.
For governments, using secure protocols, worker training, and machine patching are *not* enough. Just because a network is secure doesn't not mean that it's not going to be targetted for an attack.
By utilizing this wallpaper, or other such technologies, the effectively prevent the outside world from even knowning that a potential ingress point exists. This is a very important distinction, and effectively the same thing as physically securing outside data and phone lines coming into a facility. An attacker is more likely to turn away from a possible ingress point if it's totally inaccessible.
Additionally, it also prevents someone from setting up an access point in a van (down by the river), and connecting to it from within the building for the removal of secure data.
This level of security is a bit nuts when applied to the average user. However, context is everything, and you must take into account that this is a solution created by the government (well, a contractor), for government use. You know the two examples I gave above are exactly what they were considering.
IMHO this is a really pointless question. It's like asking if it's necessary to learn keyboarding skills (ie making music using the keys on a piano) when we have so many other methods for digitally creating music.
No, it's not necessary per se, in that other methods are readily available, however it's damn helpful to know. The speed and accuracy with which you can make music is greatly enhanced by knowing how the instrument is utilized. The same is true for the good 'ol QWERTY keyboard.
That's pretty much what I'm doing. I fit into the bottom tier of the requirements (cept for memory), and while I really *want* to go out and buy it, I'm not going to go anywhere before making sure it's actually playable.
Change your name, and switch to a "skills" based resume rather than an experience based one...