As I see it, this is good for two things.
1. The spammer stops spamming.
2. Starts a trend of spam not being profitable
Not really, they'll probably continue business, just under a different name. That's the problem with modern corporate structure. When individuals become shielded from liability, there's little to no accountability.
And you can thank the Bush administration (which one? both!) for helping that process along.
'A Virginia federal court awarded America Online nearly $7 million in damages
Great, now they have to collect it. Given that the losing party will probably declare (financial) bankruptcy to avoid paying, it's probably a lost cause. As we all know, much like the Catholic church, spammers declared themselves morally bankrupt a long time ago.
Looks like we found the answer to today's Ask Slashdot:
Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?"
From the article: The other curious aspect of yesterday's release is the use of Secret Service agents in the bust. The Secret Service, we naively presumed, was employed to protect high-ranking elected officials[*]. Perhaps this is a further indication of who's really in charge.®
It would be less disappointing with no aliens...
on
Taken?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
No, you're right. Taken isn't *bad*. But it's not really science fiction, either, which is why it's disappointing. It's a mainstream piece of entertainment that leverages the public's knowledge of the modern mythology of the space alien in order to tell the stories of a few families torn apart and brought together, sometimes all at once, by the tribulations of the 20th century. That's not a bad idea, per se. But sometimes while watching Taken you've got to wonder if it might not be better if they just took the aliens out of it altogether.
But there is an interesting possibility arriving from the PC world: clusters. PC hardware is so staggeringly cheap that it's becomming viable to run enterprise applications accross clusters of PC's, viewing each PC as un-reliable and likely to fail.
Take google for example. Their software flags failed units, brings them offline, and once a week they go pull them out of the racks and replace them. I believe google builds their own, but for less agressive businesses you could just buy enough dell to tolerate as many failures as needed, boxing them up and shipping them back to dell when they go south. Heck, dell will likely send you back an upgraded unit anyhow, so you get a rolling upgrade:P.
Just like the network guys learned the lesson of ensuring end to end reliability accross an unreliable network using TCP/IP, some companies are realizing that reliable computing can be enabled by clusters of pc's. It's a shame the free software/open source crowd hasn't rallied around this more... supporting this at the OS level could prove very powerful.
For a good example of what I mean, compare Traakan's SAN systems to more traditional products, like from EMC.
"If you see somebody in an airport in London, or someplace down in Peru or something, and you see an Apple tag on their bag, or an Apple T-shirt, it's like the Deadheads... you have an instant friend," Chris Espinosa, one of Apple's earliest employees, told Stanford Library. "Most likely, you share something very core to your being with this person, which is a life outlook, a special vision."
It could just as easily say this: "If you see somebody in an airport in London, or someplace down in Peru or something, and you see a gay pride sticker on their bag, or a rainbow gay pride T-shirt, it's like the Deadheads... you have an instant friend," Chris Espinosa, one of Apple's earliest employees, told Stanford Library. "Most likely, you share something very core to your being with this person, which is a life outlook, a special vision."
I think the similarity is very telling, given that apple's logo used to be rainbow-colored...
Moreover, they use the term 'optical' which pretty much implies the visible spectrum.
Maybe, but they never really say anything about it. Given that 'optical' can mean "utilizing light-sensitive devices", and the general vagueness of the article, it's more likely they're just trying to call the tech something that sounds "neat".
It's a consulting business that does system integration work.
Really? Judging by this portion of their website, I'd say it's more likely a fifteen-year-old trying to parlay his limited linux experience into a business, so he can avoid having to go to college, like regular people:
We've hosted servers for interactive games such as Starsiege Tribes for years. We've been following role-playing games with more in-depth interaction for some time, and now host Sphere servers... Our game-hosting rates start at $100/month.
Slashdot Mirror
As I see it, this is good for two things.
1. The spammer stops spamming.
2. Starts a trend of spam not being profitable
Not really, they'll probably continue business, just under a different name. That's the problem with modern corporate structure. When individuals become shielded from liability, there's little to no accountability.
And you can thank the Bush administration (which one? both!) for helping that process along.
'A Virginia federal court awarded America Online nearly $7 million in damages
Great, now they have to collect it. Given that the losing party will probably declare (financial) bankruptcy to avoid paying, it's probably a lost cause. As we all know, much like the Catholic church, spammers declared themselves morally bankrupt a long time ago.
Looks like we found the answer to today's Ask Slashdot:
Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?"
In Soviet Russia, YOU spy on MUSIC INDUSTRY!
From the article:
The other curious aspect of yesterday's release is the use of Secret Service agents in the bust. The Secret Service, we naively presumed, was employed to protect high-ranking elected officials[*]. Perhaps this is a further indication of who's really in charge.®
Uhh... no.. actually, the Secret Service was created to track down counterfeiters.
No, you're right. Taken isn't *bad*. But it's not really science fiction, either, which is why it's disappointing. It's a mainstream piece of entertainment that leverages the public's knowledge of the modern mythology of the space alien in order to tell the stories of a few families torn apart and brought together, sometimes all at once, by the tribulations of the 20th century. That's not a bad idea, per se. But sometimes while watching Taken you've got to wonder if it might not be better if they just took the aliens out of it altogether.
I swear I saw advertisements for DirecTV DSL just the other day. Is this sudden or what?
TV ads are booked weeks (often months) in advance. This decision could have been in the works for a while.
Send me a check in the mail for whatever you want plus 5% commission and shipping charges and I'll send you back your buy.
You are aware, of course, that packages are opened and searched at the border, and your Canadian friends would probably end up paying the tax anyway.
Soo... you're lazy?
Fuck yeah I'm lazy. Why should watching TV be work? Isn't it the opiate of the masses?
I don't know about you, but I don't like having to look up information about my opiate's schedule.
Damn, too bad it doesn't run Photoshop. We all know running Photoshop is the way to unleash the real power of the PowerPC chip.
I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm sorry that you happen to remember Madonna videos from 15 years ago
And I'm sorry if you happen to remember her video from last month.
But then I realized, of course, that we're living in a Material World.
Does this mean Steve Jobs is a Material Girl?
With great tornado in a can comes great responsibility.
But, isn't 250MHz just a little slow for mpeg4/divx encoding?
You've obviously fallen for the Wintel zealots' Megahertz Myth. A 250Mhz machine with a PowerPC processor is more powerful than a dual 3Ghz Xeon machine, in every benchmark. (Photoshop *cough* *cough* Photoshop).
Want proof? just step a little closer to Jobs' reality distortion field.
The DMCA controls YOU!
In Soviet Russia we imagen a beowulf cluster of these...
In Soviet Russia, Beowulf imagines a cluster of YOU!
Yeah, to be fair, they should have compared two machines in the same price range:
$4160 Apple PowerMac G4
2x 1.25 GHz G4 (166 MHz FSB)
2 GB DDR RAM (2 GB max)
120 GB Ultra ATA HD
Apple DVD-RW Superdrive
NVidia GeForce4 Ti 128 MB
AGP4X slot
(4) 64/33 PCI slots
Integrated Gb LAN
Integrated Firewire
OS X
$4128 BOXX Technologies 3DBOXX S5i
2x 2.4 GHz (P4) Xeon (533 MHz FSB) (2x 2.8 GHz available at higher cost)
2 GB DDR RAM (2 DIMMS free, 12 GB Max)
120 GB Ultra ATA HD
DVD+RW/-RW/-CDRW Combo Drive
NVidia GeForce4 Ti4600 128 MB
AGP8x Pro slot
(1) 64/133 PCI-X slot
(2) 64/100 PCI-X slots
(2) 32/33 PCI slots
Integrated Gb LAN
Integrated USB2
add-on Firewire
WinXP Pro
But there is an interesting possibility arriving from the PC world: clusters. PC hardware is so staggeringly cheap that it's becomming viable to run enterprise applications accross clusters of PC's, viewing each PC as un-reliable and likely to fail.
:P.
Take google for example. Their software flags failed units, brings them offline, and once a week they go pull them out of the racks and replace them. I believe google builds their own, but for less agressive businesses you could just buy enough dell to tolerate as many failures as needed, boxing them up and shipping them back to dell when they go south. Heck, dell will likely send you back an upgraded unit anyhow, so you get a rolling upgrade
Just like the network guys learned the lesson of ensuring end to end reliability accross an unreliable network using TCP/IP, some companies are realizing that reliable computing can be enabled by clusters of pc's. It's a shame the free software/open source crowd hasn't rallied around this more... supporting this at the OS level could prove very powerful.
For a good example of what I mean, compare Traakan's SAN systems to more traditional products, like from EMC.
"If you see somebody in an airport in London, or someplace down in Peru or something, and you see an Apple tag on their bag, or an Apple T-shirt, it's like the Deadheads ... you have an instant friend," Chris Espinosa, one of Apple's earliest employees, told Stanford Library. "Most likely, you share something very core to your being with this person, which is a life outlook, a special vision."
... you have an instant friend," Chris Espinosa, one of Apple's earliest employees, told Stanford Library. "Most likely, you share something very core to your being with this person, which is a life outlook, a special vision."
It could just as easily say this:
"If you see somebody in an airport in London, or someplace down in Peru or something, and you see a gay pride sticker on their bag, or a rainbow gay pride T-shirt, it's like the Deadheads
I think the similarity is very telling, given that apple's logo used to be rainbow-colored...
I'm all up for paying $1.95-$3.95/month to Slashdot if it can keep you around.
Maybe they should do what Time Warner is doing, and make Slashdot free only to AOL subscribers.
Moreover, they use the term 'optical' which pretty much implies the visible spectrum.
Maybe, but they never really say anything about it. Given that 'optical' can mean "utilizing light-sensitive devices", and the general vagueness of the article, it's more likely they're just trying to call the tech something that sounds "neat".
This sounds a little strange to me since you would need a line of site with no obsticals in the way to use this.
X-rays are light energy, and they don't seem to have a problem passing through.. well.. you, among other things.
Nice to see the Slashdot Advertising policy in full effect.
The normal kind.
Then why refer to himself as "we"? Is he British royalty?
It's a consulting business that does system integration work.
... Our game-hosting rates start at $100/month.
Really? Judging by this portion of their website, I'd say it's more likely a fifteen-year-old trying to parlay his limited linux experience into a business, so he can avoid having to go to college, like regular people:
We've hosted servers for interactive games such as Starsiege Tribes for years. We've been following role-playing games with more in-depth interaction for some time, and now host Sphere servers