It's bizarre--and more than a little sad--that someone would pose as a UPS guy to tell an elaborate fabrication that gains him nothing.
Of what use is fame in an anonymous forum like Slashdot? No one knows--or much cares--who another Slashdotter is (unless it's Cmdr Taco). Any fleeting "fame" that such a person might gain from such an exploit doesn't even attach to the real person who originated it.
Mind you, I like to fsck with people's minds as much as the next guy but it's almost invariably with the goal of getting people to think critically, not just for the sake of fscking with them.
Nor am I the type to go out of my way to judge someone but that Mr. UPS you describe there--he's just pathetic.
And where the hell do you plug in all those drives? I've never seen any motherboard with more than four IDE connectors. Even a cheap IDE controller card will only add four additional IDE channels. I suppose you could add FOUR cheap IDE cards but I'm not sure how well the chipset would resolve any bus mastering conflicts
And how much does it cost for a case big enough to mount 24 drives. It's hard enough just finding a case with enough slots to mount ten (e.g., eight RAID, one boot, and one CD burner).
Conceptually, it could work but I'd need to see a more detailed spec before I'd be convinced.
I helped out some neighbors with a cable modem problem.
They gave me a nice bottle of wine and a $50 gift certificate to a wine shop.
Then they had a friend of theirs give me a $90/hr contract job configuring a couple of media center servers. That was an on-site job at a digital media company that I wrapped up in three hours. As I was finishing up that job, they picked me up for two days' worth of video production consulting, also at $90/hr.
All in all, 25 minutes of blowing away bogus browser extensions netted me about a grand and a half.
Okay, news is news, I guess. It's not so much that I have an issue with this story breaking in The Economist as I do with it breaking only in The Economist rather than in one (or more) reputable, dedicated, peer-reviewed science publications. Even consumer-friendly science pubs like SciAm and Science News would be all over this story if there were solid empirical science behind it (I subscribe and they're not). The way it's presented here is a little too close to the conspiracy-theorist fringe.
If I want that sort of thing, I'll watch Fox News, thanks.
So, say I live in Portland (OR)... What if I drove across the river (that would be the Columbia for all of you who've never heard of Lewis & Clark) to Vancouver (WA) and buy a car there? Sure, I'll have to pay sales tax, but my car won't have a GPS unit, so I'll never have to pay "mileage" tax.
And another thing: who pays for all the road use incurred by out-of-state drivers--like all of the people who live in Vancouver who drive across the river (same river--Columbia) to go shopping in Portland where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax?
Better still, live in Vancouver, buy a car in Portland (thus skipping sales tax), drive it back to Vancouver to rip out the GPS unit (where it's not a crime to rip out a GPS unit) and then drive across the river (Columbia again) to go shopping in Portland, where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax!
And the 12-year-old will forget in fifteen minutes that an adult had to ask for technical help from a kid; hell, the kid probably answers half a dozen tech questions every day!:)
I don't know why I even bother responding to such an obvious Troll, but I'm going to anyway. No doubt, I'll stumble over some specifics (corrections/refinements are welcome), but here goes...
Firstly, you should read more posts; most of them actually make fun of the concept of using The Matrix as any kind of meaningful vehicle for proselytizing.
Look, if you want to think that the bible is some kind of repository of moral rectitude, be my guest. But don't make the mistake of believing that it's infallible. The only people I've ever met who think every word in the bible is the literal truth are people who have yet to read any significant portion of it. As to the Noachian flood myths, study some geology. Absent that, read some more informed sources.
Your third point suffers from a number of misconceptions. First of all (and any number of Cosmologists can explain this far better and more accurately than I can), no one says that the Big Bang theory disproves the existence of god; what it does tell us is that the universe has a definite starting point and that the origins of the earth, planet, sun, stars, and other celestial bodies (which, BTW, we are able to observe but whose existence is conspicuously absent from the bible) are derivatives of physical constants set in motion by the big bang, thus eliminating the need for constant divine intervention (as described in Genesis--actually, described twice in Genesis, in accounts that differ significantly).
Additionally, I know of no "two-second rule" in the big bang theory; last I heard, we had refined our knowledge of the big bang process down to a few milliseconds. And there is no mention in any cosmology I have ever read that mentions any atoms rubbing together. In fact, most physical cosmolgies posit a super-dense mass of subatomic particles that is several orders of magnitude more dense than atomic structures. As to the period of time before the big bang, there you enter some interesting territory. Interesting from a philosophical standpoint, not from a physical one, however. There is no way for us to observe what may or may not have occurred "beyond" the "big bang barrier", thus, anything that may or may not have existed "before" that moment is essentially meaningless to us.
And please, please don't ever revert to the 'a theory is not a law' chestnut; it's embarrassing to have to explain something so rudimentary. a hypothesis and a theory are not the same thing. A hypothesis is a guess. In science, a hypothesis is a guess about how something works. A theory is an understanding of how something works, backed up by testing and observation. In science, "theory" and "law" mean essentially the same thing. We prefer the term "theory" because it is more precise than "law." We cannot, for example, know every possible permutation of the Special Theory of Relativity--they're infinite. We can say with a fair degree of certainty, however, that the relativity principle combined with the Maxwell equations demonstrates that E=mc^2. Mass graves in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are testament to this fact.
Fourthly, the existence of religious themes in popular entertainment demonstrates precisely nothing about the extent to which religion was "a great part of the writers' lives growing up." Frankly, I think the Matrix is a horrible example of religious allegory. Neo (and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar) killed scores of people whose only crime was not knowing that they were victims of an elaborate deception. Now,
Actually, in film-production-land, 72 seconds is easy to come up with; standard 35mm/70mm runs at 24fps. Figure you've got a margin of error of half a second either way, you can trim or pad scenes by just a few frames on either end until you end up with 1716-1740 frames.
I don't know that I agree with the "72 seconds" thesis, but achieving that result is a relatively trivial exercise.
Thank you for correcting the author's revolting version of the blessing. Irish Cream and sambuca, indeed... Barbarian!
BTW, I'm sure you know that the Spider has moved on to Sulawesi (formerly known as Celebes Kolossi) and Bushmill's 1608. And don't forget to sugar the rim!:)
Actually, if you read his introduction, you'll notice that he "started with MIDI-only" gear and has gradually migrated to Mac/Logic Audio, which is, oddly enough, a hybrid DAW/sequencer. Assuming that he still has a pile of MIDI gear, it's entirely reasonable to presume that he's looking for a platform that will handle both. I would venture a guess that he, like many working composers, vaguely refers to the whole MIDI/audio package as a DAW.
Aside from a dwindling pool of folk musicians and Scholzian synth-free-zone nazis, most of the working musicians I know need MIDI and DAW capabilities in a single package. Cubase and Sonar, both of which I have used extensively, do an incredible job of integrating the two realms in creative and fliexible ways (mind you, I started back in the multi-track reel-to-reel days, so just about everything available is orders of magnitude more powerful than what I started with!). To say that 'hybrid' interfaces suffer from that is puzzling. Given the widespread need to synchronize MIDI and audio, how else would you go about it?
For either type of platform, I have found AudioForums and ProRec.com to be thorough resources for PC, Mac, audio I/O, outboard gear, MIDI, instruments, plugins, and every-damned-thing else that you could ever want to know about building a studio. Except Linux...
...and when you get tired of sitting in a boring, gloomy basement office, it's nice to have a secure WLAN so you can take the laptop upstairs to a sunny room or even out on the deck to work for a while.
1.) If you do not live in the state of Washington, don't bother to email Gov. locke; he doesn't care about your opinion.
2.) If you do live in the state of Washington, there's probably not much point emailing Gov. Locke, anyway; the bill has passed unanimously in both the house and the senate. No governor is going to intentionally alienate 100% of his constituency.
OTOH, I'd feel better if his office had not declined to comment about his position...
So how is listening to the radio not the exact same "stealing" as listening to MP3s?
I can hear the same song a bazillion times and not pay a dime. The only obvious differences are that: 1.) I get to pick which song I hear a bazillion times. 2.)I get to decide when the song starts and stops.
Compared to the audio quality of the original CD, MP3s are not much better than the quality of an FM broadcast.
Some days I feel like excessive greed has turned this country to shit...
Hmm... So, let's extrapolate your argument to human interaction, just to see what happens.
You're saying that the WLAN owner has a responsibility to secure his WAP (a point with which I agree whole-heartedly). If, however, he happens to be ignorant of WEP security or happens to be sufficiently technically-challenged such that configuring WEP security is beyond his capability (an altogether reasonable assumption--many people lack specific knowledge of commonplace tasks, rebuilding a car engine or wiring a light fixture, for example), then using his bandwidth without his express permission is tantamount to taking advantage of a disability.
Would you similarly consider it acceptable for someone to swindle a child out of her allowance money simply because he has more life experience?
I agree completely that all individuals in society have a fair obligation to act responsibly. I am of the opinion, however, that responsible action means not just refraining from taking advantage of people who lack ability, but actively protecting them.
Trademark infringement falls outside of the scope of the argument; the corporate names already exist, therefore they're viable and legal business names. Likewise, false advertising falls under a completely different category of discussion; advertisements are not business names.
If we were to grant the supposition that business names should be somehow limited, the only way to even open the door to such legislation without inviting a first amendment challenge (and it would certainly fail such a challenge, anyway) would be to make it apply universally, not solely to a subset of commerce.
If that were the case, then all business names would have to accurately reflect the main business of a corporation, would it not? Where would that leave corporations with nonsense names such as Qwest, Comcast, KFC, Transmeta, etc.? And what happens if a corporation changes focus? Where would that leave companies like R.J. Reynolds (and who cares what happens to R.J. Reynolds, anyway?), Dow, and General Electric? Would it even be legal to use a family name as a corporate name?
That's the other thing about zealots: they just don't get irony...
Inflammatory remarks aside, empirical data is pretty hard to argue with. Frankly, I'm surprised; I always thought that Adobe software was optimized for Motorola processors and then ported to run on x86 architecture.
Well, there's another thing I've been wildly wrong about for years...
So does an ethanol-powered laptop become more unstable, the more ethanol it consumes? The last thing I need is my laptop getting all slobbery and telling me how much it loves me and then puking a spreadsheet all over the keyboard.
So, between this technology and Intel's new overclock-prevention technology, are we giong to have some sort of computer cops pulling over laptops?
"Do you know how fast you were going back there, Sparky? Whoa! What's that I smell? Step out of the car, please. I'm going to need you to draw a straight line..."
There are an awful lot of salaried, non-manangement people who've been working bazillions of hours of unpaid overtime.
AFAIK, this is fully permitted by law; overtime pay is specified in the terms of their employment contracts.
If you know of a specific federal law that mandates pay, regardless of exempt status, I (and 60 million other salary-slaves) would certainly appreciate a link to the relevant law.
Re:"Bush's War" at ends with "The War On Terror"
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 0
Do you really think Bush (who, BTW, looks uncannily like a Rhesus monkey when he reads from that TelePrompTer) is going to finish the job and then just walk away from one of the richest oilfields in the whole freakin' world?!?
Why the hell do you think he started this whole thing in the first place?
My god, it's breathtaking how blissfully un-cynical so many of my fellow Americans are.
Perhaps I malign unfairly; perhaps they all just want to believe that We Are Right to the point that they would willingly blind themselves to the obvious.
Speaking for myself, though, I think I would prefer flat-out apathy to this kind of self-delusion.
Face it, we're there for one reason and one reason only: OIL.
Slashdot Mirror
It's bizarre--and more than a little sad--that someone would pose as a UPS guy to tell an elaborate fabrication that gains him nothing.
Of what use is fame in an anonymous forum like Slashdot? No one knows--or much cares--who another Slashdotter is (unless it's Cmdr Taco). Any fleeting "fame" that such a person might gain from such an exploit doesn't even attach to the real person who originated it.
Mind you, I like to fsck with people's minds as much as the next guy but it's almost invariably with the goal of getting people to think critically, not just for the sake of fscking with them.
Nor am I the type to go out of my way to judge someone but that Mr. UPS you describe there--he's just pathetic.
And where the hell do you plug in all those drives? I've never seen any motherboard with more than four IDE connectors. Even a cheap IDE controller card will only add four additional IDE channels. I suppose you could add FOUR cheap IDE cards but I'm not sure how well the chipset would resolve any bus mastering conflicts
And how much does it cost for a case big enough to mount 24 drives. It's hard enough just finding a case with enough slots to mount ten (e.g., eight RAID, one boot, and one CD burner).
Conceptually, it could work but I'd need to see a more detailed spec before I'd be convinced.
I helped out some neighbors with a cable modem problem.
:)
They gave me a nice bottle of wine and a $50 gift certificate to a wine shop.
Then they had a friend of theirs give me a $90/hr contract job configuring a couple of media center servers. That was an on-site job at a digital media company that I wrapped up in three hours. As I was finishing up that job, they picked me up for two days' worth of video production consulting, also at $90/hr.
All in all, 25 minutes of blowing away bogus browser extensions netted me about a grand and a half.
So always be nice to your neighbors!
The Economist?
Okay, news is news, I guess. It's not so much that I have an issue with this story breaking in The Economist as I do with it breaking only in The Economist rather than in one (or more) reputable, dedicated, peer-reviewed science publications. Even consumer-friendly science pubs like SciAm and Science News would be all over this story if there were solid empirical science behind it (I subscribe and they're not). The way it's presented here is a little too close to the conspiracy-theorist fringe.
If I want that sort of thing, I'll watch Fox News, thanks.
My wife is looking at me oddly because I can't stop laughing at this.
So, say I live in Portland (OR)... What if I drove across the river (that would be the Columbia for all of you who've never heard of Lewis & Clark) to Vancouver (WA) and buy a car there? Sure, I'll have to pay sales tax, but my car won't have a GPS unit, so I'll never have to pay "mileage" tax.
And another thing: who pays for all the road use incurred by out-of-state drivers--like all of the people who live in Vancouver who drive across the river (same river--Columbia) to go shopping in Portland where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax?
Better still, live in Vancouver, buy a car in Portland (thus skipping sales tax), drive it back to Vancouver to rip out the GPS unit (where it's not a crime to rip out a GPS unit) and then drive across the river (Columbia again) to go shopping in Portland, where they get dirt-cheap gas and don't have to pay sales tax!
And the 12-year-old will forget in fifteen minutes that an adult had to ask for technical help from a kid; hell, the kid probably answers half a dozen tech questions every day! :)
A black rectangle? If it was the VChip, the entire signal would be blocked, not obscured by a black rectangle.
I think you're barking up the wrong tree; you should look at the captioning.
I don't know why I even bother responding to such an obvious Troll, but I'm going to anyway. No doubt, I'll stumble over some specifics (corrections/refinements are welcome), but here goes...
Firstly, you should read more posts; most of them actually make fun of the concept of using The Matrix as any kind of meaningful vehicle for proselytizing.
As to your second point, the bible repeatedly proves itself wrong.
Look, if you want to think that the bible is some kind of repository of moral rectitude, be my guest. But don't make the mistake of believing that it's infallible. The only people I've ever met who think every word in the bible is the literal truth are people who have yet to read any significant portion of it. As to the Noachian flood myths, study some geology. Absent that, read some more informed sources.
Your third point suffers from a number of misconceptions. First of all (and any number of Cosmologists can explain this far better and more accurately than I can), no one says that the Big Bang theory disproves the existence of god; what it does tell us is that the universe has a definite starting point and that the origins of the earth, planet, sun, stars, and other celestial bodies (which, BTW, we are able to observe but whose existence is conspicuously absent from the bible) are derivatives of physical constants set in motion by the big bang, thus eliminating the need for constant divine intervention (as described in Genesis--actually, described twice in Genesis, in accounts that differ significantly).
Additionally, I know of no "two-second rule" in the big bang theory; last I heard, we had refined our knowledge of the big bang process down to a few milliseconds. And there is no mention in any cosmology I have ever read that mentions any atoms rubbing together. In fact, most physical cosmolgies posit a super-dense mass of subatomic particles that is several orders of magnitude more dense than atomic structures. As to the period of time before the big bang, there you enter some interesting territory. Interesting from a philosophical standpoint, not from a physical one, however. There is no way for us to observe what may or may not have occurred "beyond" the "big bang barrier", thus, anything that may or may not have existed "before" that moment is essentially meaningless to us.
And please, please don't ever revert to the 'a theory is not a law' chestnut; it's embarrassing to have to explain something so rudimentary. a hypothesis and a theory are not the same thing. A hypothesis is a guess. In science, a hypothesis is a guess about how something works. A theory is an understanding of how something works, backed up by testing and observation. In science, "theory" and "law" mean essentially the same thing. We prefer the term "theory" because it is more precise than "law." We cannot, for example, know every possible permutation of the Special Theory of Relativity--they're infinite. We can say with a fair degree of certainty, however, that the relativity principle combined with the Maxwell equations demonstrates that E=mc^2. Mass graves in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are testament to this fact.
Fourthly, the existence of religious themes in popular entertainment demonstrates precisely nothing about the extent to which religion was "a great part of the writers' lives growing up." Frankly, I think the Matrix is a horrible example of religious allegory. Neo (and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar) killed scores of people whose only crime was not knowing that they were victims of an elaborate deception. Now,
Actually, in film-production-land, 72 seconds is easy to come up with; standard 35mm/70mm runs at 24fps. Figure you've got a margin of error of half a second either way, you can trim or pad scenes by just a few frames on either end until you end up with 1716-1740 frames.
I don't know that I agree with the "72 seconds" thesis, but achieving that result is a relatively trivial exercise.
Thank you for correcting the author's revolting version of the blessing.
:)
Irish Cream and sambuca, indeed... Barbarian!
BTW, I'm sure you know that the Spider has moved on to Sulawesi (formerly known as Celebes Kolossi) and Bushmill's 1608. And don't forget to sugar the rim!
Cheers!
Actually, if you read his introduction, you'll notice that he "started with MIDI-only" gear and has gradually migrated to Mac/Logic Audio, which is, oddly enough, a hybrid DAW/sequencer. Assuming that he still has a pile of MIDI gear, it's entirely reasonable to presume that he's looking for a platform that will handle both. I would venture a guess that he, like many working composers, vaguely refers to the whole MIDI/audio package as a DAW.
Aside from a dwindling pool of folk musicians and Scholzian synth-free-zone nazis, most of the working musicians I know need MIDI and DAW capabilities in a single package. Cubase and Sonar, both of which I have used extensively, do an incredible job of integrating the two realms in creative and fliexible ways (mind you, I started back in the multi-track reel-to-reel days, so just about everything available is orders of magnitude more powerful than what I started with!). To say that 'hybrid' interfaces suffer from that is puzzling. Given the widespread need to synchronize MIDI and audio, how else would you go about it?
For either type of platform, I have found AudioForums and ProRec.com to be thorough resources for PC, Mac, audio I/O, outboard gear, MIDI, instruments, plugins, and every-damned-thing else that you could ever want to know about building a studio. Except Linux...
...and when you get tired of sitting in a boring, gloomy basement office, it's nice to have a secure WLAN so you can take the laptop upstairs to a sunny room or even out on the deck to work for a while.
1.) If you do not live in the state of Washington, don't bother to email Gov. locke; he doesn't care about your opinion.
2.) If you do live in the state of Washington, there's probably not much point emailing Gov. Locke, anyway; the bill has passed unanimously in both the house and the senate. No governor is going to intentionally alienate 100% of his constituency.
OTOH, I'd feel better if his office had not declined to comment about his position...
So how is listening to the radio not the exact same "stealing" as listening to MP3s?
I can hear the same song a bazillion times and not pay a dime. The only obvious differences are that:
1.) I get to pick which song I hear a bazillion times.
2.)I get to decide when the song starts and stops.
Compared to the audio quality of the original CD, MP3s are not much better than the quality of an FM broadcast.
Some days I feel like excessive greed has turned this country to shit...
I can just see it now: animated banner ads...
- ...in magazines.
What's next? Flash 'animations' in newspapers?Hmm... So, let's extrapolate your argument to human interaction, just to see what happens.
You're saying that the WLAN owner has a responsibility to secure his WAP (a point with which I agree whole-heartedly). If, however, he happens to be ignorant of WEP security or happens to be sufficiently technically-challenged such that configuring WEP security is beyond his capability (an altogether reasonable assumption--many people lack specific knowledge of commonplace tasks, rebuilding a car engine or wiring a light fixture, for example), then using his bandwidth without his express permission is tantamount to taking advantage of a disability.
Would you similarly consider it acceptable for someone to swindle a child out of her allowance money simply because he has more life experience?
I agree completely that all individuals in society have a fair obligation to act responsibly. I am of the opinion, however, that responsible action means not just refraining from taking advantage of people who lack ability, but actively protecting them.
Trademark infringement falls outside of the scope of the argument; the corporate names already exist, therefore they're viable and legal business names. Likewise, false advertising falls under a completely different category of discussion; advertisements are not business names.
If we were to grant the supposition that business names should be somehow limited, the only way to even open the door to such legislation without inviting a first amendment challenge (and it would certainly fail such a challenge, anyway) would be to make it apply universally, not solely to a subset of commerce.
If that were the case, then all business names would have to accurately reflect the main business of a corporation, would it not? Where would that leave corporations with nonsense names such as Qwest, Comcast, KFC, Transmeta, etc.? And what happens if a corporation changes focus? Where would that leave companies like R.J. Reynolds (and who cares what happens to R.J. Reynolds, anyway?), Dow, and General Electric? Would it even be legal to use a family name as a corporate name?
Oh god, is there going to be a raft of "look and feel" litigation for piano keyboards now?
That's the other thing about zealots: they just don't get irony...
Inflammatory remarks aside, empirical data is pretty hard to argue with.
Frankly, I'm surprised; I always thought that Adobe software was optimized for Motorola processors and then ported to run on x86 architecture.
Well, there's another thing I've been wildly wrong about for years...
I'm not sure this is the right format for that kind of discussion...
So does an ethanol-powered laptop become more unstable, the more ethanol it consumes? The last thing I need is my laptop getting all slobbery and telling me how much it loves me and then puking a spreadsheet all over the keyboard.
So, between this technology and Intel's new overclock-prevention technology, are we giong to have some sort of computer cops pulling over laptops?
"Do you know how fast you were going back there, Sparky? Whoa! What's that I smell? Step out of the car, please. I'm going to need you to draw a straight line..."
zarqman, you rock! If I had mod points, I'd give 'em all to you!
This is some excellent material you've found. Perhaps you could share some links with us? Please?
There are an awful lot of salaried, non-manangement people who've been working bazillions of hours of unpaid overtime.
AFAIK, this is fully permitted by law; overtime pay is specified in the terms of their employment contracts.
If you know of a specific federal law that mandates pay, regardless of exempt status, I (and 60 million other salary-slaves) would certainly appreciate a link to the relevant law.
Do you really think Bush (who, BTW, looks uncannily like a Rhesus monkey when he reads from that TelePrompTer) is going to finish the job and then just walk away from one of the richest oilfields in the whole freakin' world?!?
Why the hell do you think he started this whole thing in the first place?
My god, it's breathtaking how blissfully un-cynical so many of my fellow Americans are.
Perhaps I malign unfairly; perhaps they all just want to believe that We Are Right to the point that they would willingly blind themselves to the obvious.
Speaking for myself, though, I think I would prefer flat-out apathy to this kind of self-delusion.
Face it, we're there for one reason and one reason only: OIL.