> We better shut off the electric grid. No, big brother performed an experiment with this recently and it wasn't a success.
Seriously though, after shutting down wifi there would still leave plenty of radio waves scattered around (public radio, GSM, airline communications, weather satelites,...).
I'm not saying that these parents shouldn't worry, but they're being a bit biased. The same parents are happily using cellphones and will probably see their kids using them (or even give them as a birthday present) as soon as they turn teens.
Features such as special ink, paper, strip and watermark have been common for decades in many countries. I couldn't help thinking 'is that all?'
Mod parent up please, for the excellent description of many other possible security features. I'd like to mention a few that are implemented by Euro notes.
All euro notes have a hologram; also, each note has a print on it that is complemented by a perfectly aligned print on the other side of the note, only properly visible against light.
Before pushing the longevity drug, please make sure that it does not make the user infertile. Actually, after a certain age, that might be a desireable side effect.
A lot of people have been asking about whether MS's latest decisions regarding MSN will affect us. Here's the general information on what they're doing.
MS has decided that everyone should upgrade to MSN version 5.0 or higher. MSN v5 is the first to use their MSN Protocol v8, which is the first to use SSL for login. Now, we know how to login over this. This is not hard, and we will be supporting MSNP9, the latest version of the protocol, soon.
However, upgrading to this does not guarantee us anything. Whereas previously, Microsoft has let third party clients connect, they now require a license for doing so. They still encourage clients to connect to their network, so with any luck, we can work something out. If not, people may find a way to connect anyway, but the legalities of this are pretty obvious. Key words: "Intellectual Property" and "DMCA."
We cannot give a yes or a no to the question, "Will Gaim continue to work after October 15th?" (Which, btw, is the day that third party clients not using MSNP8 or higher will be unable to connect). We will do our best, but if it comes down to it, we will drop MSN support. If you have a lot of friends on MSN, perhaps it's the time to migrate them. Get them to install Gaim;) Then they can continue to talk to their MSN friends, but move to Jabber or another protocol.
I must be confused, prolly cause I didn't follow the entire soap series. Help me get this straight.
First SCO terminated IBM's license. Then IBM said, "You can't, the license is perpetual" Now several weeks later, SCO says "Seriously, we *REALLY* terminate your license." So now IBM is going to have to explain them again?
One of my biggest annoyances (after the obvious of resolving dependencies and simply not getting things to work) is the lack of *examples* in the f manual.
Sure, all options are explained there, having a real life example could often save a lot of time.
People on the do-not-call list are on there because they're not interested in buying products from telemarketers. Most likely they'll say NO to any call they would still get.
As a result telemarketers can now focus on calling the people who *do* want to receive calls from telemarketers. As they will spend less time calling people who aren't interested, a higher percentage of their potential customers will say YES, so more profit to them. How exactly is this going to cost two million jobs?
Considering the fact that open source software is often not commercial, it doesn't sound strange to me that release dates are not very strict. As there often is no budget, there is no maximum allowed time that may be spent on the feature set. Thus, software is released whenever the planned features have been built in, rather than cutting the desired feature set to fit the release date.
It being an open format might help gaining acceptance, as happened with.png (although some popular commercial browsers have flakey support).
It's going to be a long, long struggle against the de facto industry standard, even though projects like sodipodi might help it.
Not everyone understands why following standards is important. The countless broken pages I've seen because somebody decided that using JavaScript was much cooler than using HTML that actually worked... Also, I've seen many companies giving up on flash sites in favor of a simple (but OK looking) HTML-based site that works. I guess the success of the standard depends less on the technology than to the way it is applied.
Dr Kanazawa theorises after a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output. So much for genius and crime. Of course, 'Honey, can you take out the garbage?' in the middle of a creative genius brainwave doesn't help, nor does "you're always busy with that world domination project of yours!"
It was called a Nutri- Matic Drinks Synthesizer, and he had encountered it before.
It claimed to produce the widest possible range of drinks personally matched to the tastes and metabolism of whoever cared to use it. When put to the test, however, it invariably produced a plastic cup filled with a liquid which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
He attempted to reason with the thing.
'Tea,' he said.
'Share and Enjoy,' the machine replied and provided him with yet another cup of the sickly liquid.
Here in Portugal, there was a glitch in the database system handling social security information. Data was lost, it took a bit over a year before I finally received the welfare I applied for when I lost my job. Like most people, I didn't have a years' worth of financial backup.
As a programmer, I tend to blame this kind of situation on poor design. Quick hacks are often rewarded over proper solutions that take a few weeks to implement. Legacy systems, especially big old complex ones, have a tendency to evolve to a point of being almost unmaintainable. Backup tapes are used to solve the unreliability problem, instead as of a last resort to reach for when everything else fails.
Governmental systems are rarely stable. Every few years, a new government is installed and laws change, programmers are replaced, and soon little is left of the original design. There is too much risk in starting over with a fresh, proper design, so the status quo maintains. Once in a while, a backup tape is unreadable and disaster is inevitable.
a few days ago I was contemplating cutting of 4 fingers on each hand so I could count in binary. Well leaving 2 fingers would actually get you ternary: 0,1,2,10,11,12,... But I suspect it would never work. How would you cut the fingers of your second hand?
There are more sides to browser innovation than the (end-)user interface. From a programmer's point of view, browsers are great for navigating the net, sure, but we still have relatively little control over what pages will look like on different browsers.
This is perhaps most notable in fonts; for text, currently we're basically stuck with fonts as common as courier, times and arial/helvetica, for other fonts most web designers reach for graphics. This has a few drawbacks: graphics eat up a lot of bandwidth, and of course babelfish won't translate them.
Two more possible causes. If I work on a project for my employer, it is done with the tools of their choice (ASP for example), which sometimes requires to twist code in misterious ways to make it work.
Second, starting over from scratch is often not an option in closed source, and sometimes building along on ill-designed legacy software needs dirty hacks to make things work.
When I work on a project for myself, I use the tools that best help me to do the job, and I have the freedom to start over from scratch if new insights require so. Sure enough, using sub-optimal tools and 'dirty hacks' leave more room for bugs. Especially dirty hacks give bugs of the hard-to-find kind the opportunity to sneak in.
Keep up the good work then! I've seen myself in a similar situation, feeling linux wasn't ready for my needs yet. However, with me changing to a job as Linux techie and definitely also because of recent developments, I found myself using my former OS less and less-- recently I completely got rid of it cause I don't need anything else anymore. Good luck!
I'm not from the US, but it seems to me setting up a 'do not spam' list is pretty basic. Just put all the names on there. Anyone who doesn't want in, raise your hand and say 'aye'.
Censorship is never foolproof. Especially after people have seen The Matrix part 1, they're gonna want to see Reloaded and Revolutions.
I suspect there's gonna be a vivid black market on this one. Once the DVD is out there's always Amazon, and I'm also sure good quality copies will show up for download online around that time. As long as some people over there keep thinking for themselves, there will be hope.
By giving the stack away, maybe we can stop everyone obsessing over how to format the bits on the wire, and get them writing applications instead.
So very true. Standardizing in one area may slow down innovation in *that* area, but by doing so, speed up innovation in another area that depends on it.
In Europe all banknotes have a strip of metallic/holographic material on them. Even in dim lighting conditions, this should be perfectly visible and is relatively difficult to copy (at least not with regular copier machines/inkjets).
I've never seen plastic notes, but they probably feel different from paper ones? Printing liquid on plastic should be pretty hard with an inkjet, has anyone tried this?
If bank notes can be realistically counterfeited with simple consumer electronics, it sounds to me like the notes are obsolete.
Slashdot Mirror
> We better shut off the electric grid.
No, big brother performed an experiment with this recently and it wasn't a success.
Seriously though, after shutting down wifi there would still leave plenty of radio waves scattered around (public radio, GSM, airline communications, weather satelites,...).
I'm not saying that these parents shouldn't worry, but they're being a bit biased. The same parents are happily using cellphones and will probably see their kids using them (or even give them as a birthday present) as soon as they turn teens.
What's more likely to cause brain tumors?
Features such as special ink, paper, strip and watermark have been common for decades in many countries. I couldn't help thinking 'is that all?'
Mod parent up please, for the excellent description of many other possible security features. I'd like to mention a few that are implemented by Euro notes.
All euro notes have a hologram; also, each note has a print on it that is complemented by a perfectly aligned print on the other side of the note, only properly visible against light.
Before pushing the longevity drug, please make sure that it does not make the user infertile.
Actually, after a certain age, that might be a desireable side effect.
I suppose you could hook it up to a cable modem via ethernet, home PC on the other ethernet and use the modem for dial-in access?
A lot of people have been asking about whether MS's latest decisions regarding MSN will affect us. Here's the general information on what they're doing.
;) Then they can continue to talk to their MSN friends, but move to Jabber or another protocol.
MS has decided that everyone should upgrade to MSN version 5.0 or higher. MSN v5 is the first to use their MSN Protocol v8, which is the first to use SSL for login. Now, we know how to login over this. This is not hard, and we will be supporting MSNP9, the latest version of the protocol, soon.
However, upgrading to this does not guarantee us anything. Whereas previously, Microsoft has let third party clients connect, they now require a license for doing so. They still encourage clients to connect to their network, so with any luck, we can work something out. If not, people may find a way to connect anyway, but the legalities of this are pretty obvious. Key words: "Intellectual Property" and "DMCA."
We cannot give a yes or a no to the question, "Will Gaim continue to work after October 15th?" (Which, btw, is the day that third party clients not using MSNP8 or higher will be unable to connect). We will do our best, but if it comes down to it, we will drop MSN support. If you have a lot of friends on MSN, perhaps it's the time to migrate them. Get them to install Gaim
> scientists in Massachusetts had previously
> mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar
> attempt
Of course they must've gotten the cow eggs by mixing Cow and Chicken.
I must be confused, prolly cause I didn't follow the entire soap series. Help me get this straight.
First SCO terminated IBM's license. Then IBM said, "You can't, the license is perpetual" Now several weeks later, SCO says "Seriously, we *REALLY* terminate your license." So now IBM is going to have to explain them again?
One of my biggest annoyances (after the obvious of resolving dependencies and simply not getting things to work) is the lack of *examples* in the f manual. Sure, all options are explained there, having a real life example could often save a lot of time.
People on the do-not-call list are on there because they're not interested in buying products from telemarketers. Most likely they'll say NO to any call they would still get. As a result telemarketers can now focus on calling the people who *do* want to receive calls from telemarketers. As they will spend less time calling people who aren't interested, a higher percentage of their potential customers will say YES, so more profit to them. How exactly is this going to cost two million jobs?
Considering the fact that open source software is often not commercial, it doesn't sound strange to me that release dates are not very strict. As there often is no budget, there is no maximum allowed time that may be spent on the feature set. Thus, software is released whenever the planned features have been built in, rather than cutting the desired feature set to fit the release date.
It being an open format might help gaining acceptance, as happened with .png (although some popular commercial browsers have flakey support).
It's going to be a long, long struggle against the de facto industry standard, even though projects like sodipodi might help it.
Not everyone understands why following standards is important. The countless broken pages I've seen because somebody decided that using JavaScript was much cooler than using HTML that actually worked... Also, I've seen many companies giving up on flash sites in favor of a simple (but OK looking) HTML-based site that works. I guess the success of the standard depends less on the technology than to the way it is applied.
Dr Kanazawa theorises after a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output. So much for genius and crime. Of course, 'Honey, can you take out the garbage?' in the middle of a creative genius brainwave doesn't help, nor does "you're always busy with that world domination project of yours!"
It was called a Nutri- Matic Drinks Synthesizer, and he had encountered it before. It claimed to produce the widest possible range of drinks personally matched to the tastes and metabolism of whoever cared to use it. When put to the test, however, it invariably produced a plastic cup filled with a liquid which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. He attempted to reason with the thing. 'Tea,' he said. 'Share and Enjoy,' the machine replied and provided him with yet another cup of the sickly liquid.
It's like sex... make one mistake, support it for the rest of your life.
Here in Portugal, there was a glitch in the database system handling social security information. Data was lost, it took a bit over a year before I finally received the welfare I applied for when I lost my job. Like most people, I didn't have a years' worth of financial backup. As a programmer, I tend to blame this kind of situation on poor design. Quick hacks are often rewarded over proper solutions that take a few weeks to implement. Legacy systems, especially big old complex ones, have a tendency to evolve to a point of being almost unmaintainable. Backup tapes are used to solve the unreliability problem, instead as of a last resort to reach for when everything else fails. Governmental systems are rarely stable. Every few years, a new government is installed and laws change, programmers are replaced, and soon little is left of the original design. There is too much risk in starting over with a fresh, proper design, so the status quo maintains. Once in a while, a backup tape is unreadable and disaster is inevitable.
a few days ago I was contemplating cutting of 4 fingers on each hand so I could count in binary. ... But I suspect it would never work. How would you cut the fingers of your second hand?
Well leaving 2 fingers would actually get you ternary: 0,1,2,10,11,12,
There are more sides to browser innovation than the (end-)user interface. From a programmer's point of view, browsers are great for navigating the net, sure, but we still have relatively little control over what pages will look like on different browsers. This is perhaps most notable in fonts; for text, currently we're basically stuck with fonts as common as courier, times and arial/helvetica, for other fonts most web designers reach for graphics. This has a few drawbacks: graphics eat up a lot of bandwidth, and of course babelfish won't translate them.
Two more possible causes. If I work on a project for my employer, it is done with the tools of their choice (ASP for example), which sometimes requires to twist code in misterious ways to make it work.
Second, starting over from scratch is often not an option in closed source, and sometimes building along on ill-designed legacy software needs dirty hacks to make things work.
When I work on a project for myself, I use the tools that best help me to do the job, and I have the freedom to start over from scratch if new insights require so. Sure enough, using sub-optimal tools and 'dirty hacks' leave more room for bugs. Especially dirty hacks give bugs of the hard-to-find kind the opportunity to sneak in.
> Today SCO chewed off it's own arm
It's just a flesh wound...
Keep up the good work then! I've seen myself in a similar situation, feeling linux wasn't ready for my needs yet. However, with me changing to a job as Linux techie and definitely also because of recent developments, I found myself using my former OS less and less-- recently I completely got rid of it cause I don't need anything else anymore. Good luck!
I'm not from the US, but it seems to me setting up a 'do not spam' list is pretty basic. Just put all the names on there. Anyone who doesn't want in, raise your hand and say 'aye'.
Censorship is never foolproof. Especially after people have seen The Matrix part 1, they're gonna want to see Reloaded and Revolutions. I suspect there's gonna be a vivid black market on this one. Once the DVD is out there's always Amazon, and I'm also sure good quality copies will show up for download online around that time. As long as some people over there keep thinking for themselves, there will be hope.
Duh they said pinguins, everybody knows Donald isn't a pinguin...
By giving the stack away, maybe we can stop everyone obsessing over how to format the bits on the wire, and get them writing applications instead.
So very true. Standardizing in one area may slow down innovation in *that* area, but by doing so, speed up innovation in another area that depends on it.
In Europe all banknotes have a strip of metallic/holographic material on them. Even in dim lighting conditions, this should be perfectly visible and is relatively difficult to copy (at least not with regular copier machines/inkjets).
I've never seen plastic notes, but they probably feel different from paper ones? Printing liquid on plastic should be pretty hard with an inkjet, has anyone tried this?
If bank notes can be realistically counterfeited with simple consumer electronics, it sounds to me like the notes are obsolete.