Thanks for the commentary. For some reason, after I read the article I didn't quite get the design freedom point, or why the hell you would want to have self-actuating fasteners. I mean, to the average joe, I'm sure they'd say, "For the love of God, it's just a screw! Leave it alone!"
But anyone who's worked on a car to any appreciable degree knows what a PITA it can be to get to some of the screws and bolts, and that's definitely something I can relate to.
If this technology can be applied so that I don't have to contort myself all up in the engine block, then yes, I agree; bring them on.
But certainly the fears about manufacturers trying to enforce their own agendas to lock in customers is something that will have to be addressed, as well as preventing mischief with automobile self-dissassembly. But I think that the latter could be relatively easily handled.
If Best Buy tried to drive a truck through your living room and steal your TV, go for it. Best Buy may be trying to rip you off, but they sure as hell didn't drive a truck through your house on purpose.
All of you guys are completely missing my point. It's not whether it's morally right, but that there will be no civil actions against the anti-419er because it is a waste of money and court time, as well as a stupid idea for the scammer, to prosecute any of the documented anti-scams.
And for the issue of criminal charges, the anti-scammer hasn't committed any violent offenses, unlike the implied actions of suicide bombing, or assault that occurs during a bank robbery. It's an exaggeration to compare his crime to an actions involving violent offenses or forceful entry (breaking and entering).
He's probably guilty of a few criminal offenses, but in light of the lack of personal gain I am willing to bet Mike's $80 that no district attorney (not because of any legal grounds, but because of their common sense) would prosecute this guy's offense(s).
BTW, in Texas, it's only a Class B misdemeanor if he were convicted, as opposed to a felony as some of the above suggested actions are.
It's a reverse scam, but not for personal gain
on
419 Scammer Gets Scammed
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Several commenters have expressed concern that what this guy is doing is equally wrong, and that he could risk getting sued.
Besides the previously mentioned unlikeliness of any sort of extradition, the article made clear that all proceeds from these reverse scams go to a children's charity. Therefore he's clearly not doing this for personal gain.
I'm would guess that as long as this type of thing doesn't become a serious epidemic, there's no reason the reverse scammers would receive an adverse judgement. Besides, someone has to lodge a complaint against this activity, and who's gonna do that?
The words "niche market" come to mind. They are obviously targeting a very specific audience: people who want to play games, but who want to feel safe and moral while doing so.
I disagree. All kinds of people play all kinds of nonviolent games. As you pointed out, Online games sites such as Yahoo Games is quite popular and if I had to guess, NOT a niche market by any means.
The point is that this audience probably does not play these [nonviolent, etc.] games because it wants to feel safe and moral, but because there IS a broad market for [nonviolent, etc.] games.
We've seen that (at least mostly) nonviolent games reach even the "hardcore" market and become very popular. Here's a list of a few of my favorites:
the Simcity series
Super Mario Brothers
Any racing games
There's also this other game called "Dance Dance Revolution" which I hear is becoming popular.;-)
Oh, and for the record, I was also once an avid FPS player. UT, Tribes 2 and CS were my favorites back when I had time.
>> And no, I do not agree they define us as people.
> I never said they do.
Explain this, please?
>>> Violence and sexual behaviour are facts of life, and are two of the things which most actively define ourselves and our surroundings.
I think it's logical to conclude that "ourselves" means "us [as people]."
1920x1080 is an interlaced format. If you watched TV on your monitor at this resolution, you'd have to perform deinterlacing, which causes information to be lost anyways, so it's basically like downsampling. I would go with the 720p resolution of 1280x720 which is not interlaced.
Therefore, a 1280 wide resolution would be recommended.
I seem to recall hearing that if a lithium ion battery begins to not keep its charge as well as it used to, it's not a physical effect as with NiCd or NiMH, but a result of the battery-charging microcontroller sort of getting confused over time at exactly where it is in the battery charging process. That is, it thinks it's completely full, but really it's not.
I suppose it doesn't really change the resulting effect, though.
I just realized that I was answering with something the article poster probably already knows.
As far as how you might be able to use an existing library to extend other libraries, It seems like you should be able to save the first x bytes of http (mp3) data to a local temp file and then have the pre-existing id3 library run over that data. I would think that this doesn't necessarily require root.
That's the problem -- it could be at the end, requiring you to spin through all x bytes (most likely megs) until you get to the end.
Yeah, that could be true, but if it's not within say, the first 100KB, then the smart thing to do is to stop trying to find it and just return an error.
If it's not at the beginning, you could then use byte ranges to try to fast forward to the end and guess that it will be within the last say, 50 KB of the end.
It seems like it shouldn't be that hard. You just initiate the HTTP transfer and then cancel it as soon as you have as much data as you need.
I haven't actually done it, but speaking as a server operator, when I look through my server logs, you see some hits that end with status code 499, meaning that the transfer was aborted. So you just have the client software you're writing close the HTTP connection after it locates the end of the ID3 tag. It's probably not 100% efficient, but obviously a lot better than reading the whole MP3 file.
I'm assuming you're doing this in C/C++, but I'll try to do a prototype in perl.
I'm in the process of writing weblog software (that I call GMPP). Who knows; maybe with enough unhappy movabletype users, I might actually get somewhere!
muahahaha.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the commentary. For some reason, after I read the article I didn't quite get the design freedom point, or why the hell you would want to have self-actuating fasteners. I mean, to the average joe, I'm sure they'd say, "For the love of God, it's just a screw! Leave it alone!"
But anyone who's worked on a car to any appreciable degree knows what a PITA it can be to get to some of the screws and bolts, and that's definitely something I can relate to.
If this technology can be applied so that I don't have to contort myself all up in the engine block, then yes, I agree; bring them on.
But certainly the fears about manufacturers trying to enforce their own agendas to lock in customers is something that will have to be addressed, as well as preventing mischief with automobile self-dissassembly. But I think that the latter could be relatively easily handled.
Doesn't a piezoelectric device cause vibration? Wouldn't that be bad for a stable picture?
If Best Buy tried to drive a truck through your living room and steal your TV, go for it. Best Buy may be trying to rip you off, but they sure as hell didn't drive a truck through your house on purpose.
All of you guys are completely missing my point. It's not whether it's morally right, but that there will be no civil actions against the anti-419er because it is a waste of money and court time, as well as a stupid idea for the scammer, to prosecute any of the documented anti-scams.
And for the issue of criminal charges, the anti-scammer hasn't committed any violent offenses, unlike the implied actions of suicide bombing, or assault that occurs during a bank robbery. It's an exaggeration to compare his crime to an actions involving violent offenses or forceful entry (breaking and entering).
He's probably guilty of a few criminal offenses, but in light of the lack of personal gain I am willing to bet Mike's $80 that no district attorney (not because of any legal grounds, but because of their common sense) would prosecute this guy's offense(s).
BTW, in Texas, it's only a Class B misdemeanor if he were convicted, as opposed to a felony as some of the above suggested actions are.
Several commenters have expressed concern that what this guy is doing is equally wrong, and that he could risk getting sued.
Besides the previously mentioned unlikeliness of any sort of extradition, the article made clear that all proceeds from these reverse scams go to a children's charity. Therefore he's clearly not doing this for personal gain.
I'm would guess that as long as this type of thing doesn't become a serious epidemic, there's no reason the reverse scammers would receive an adverse judgement. Besides, someone has to lodge a complaint against this activity, and who's gonna do that?
Missiles launch you
r satellite.
Whenever I play DDR, I think about stomping on my boss's body repeatedly to the tunes of hardcore dance tracks.
When the beats really pick up, I think about using the little colored arrows to do unspeakable things* to him, too.
How's that for violence?
* I don't know what "unspeakable things" means to you, but I meant "put on a happy light show."
Yep, that's only as difficult as making the bank computers round off those extra portions of a penny into your bank account.
It's not stealing; it's like the take-a-penny tray in the Seven-Eleven.
I disagree. All kinds of people play all kinds of nonviolent games. As you pointed out, Online games sites such as Yahoo Games is quite popular and if I had to guess, NOT a niche market by any means.
The point is that this audience probably does not play these [nonviolent, etc.] games because it wants to feel safe and moral, but because there IS a broad market for [nonviolent, etc.] games.
We've seen that (at least mostly) nonviolent games reach even the "hardcore" market and become very popular. Here's a list of a few of my favorites:
the Simcity series
Super Mario Brothers
Any racing games
There's also this other game called "Dance Dance Revolution" which I hear is becoming popular. ;-)
Oh, and for the record, I was also once an avid FPS player. UT, Tribes 2 and CS were my favorites back when I had time.
>> And no, I do not agree they define us as people.
> I never said they do.
Explain this, please?
>>> Violence and sexual behaviour are facts of life, and are two of the things which most actively define ourselves and our surroundings.
I think it's logical to conclude that "ourselves" means "us [as people]."
1920x1080 is an interlaced format. If you watched TV on your monitor at this resolution, you'd have to perform deinterlacing, which causes information to be lost anyways, so it's basically like downsampling. I would go with the 720p resolution of 1280x720 which is not interlaced.
Therefore, a 1280 wide resolution would be recommended.
The class, Introduction to Cybernetics, included Huffman coding and some basic neural network stuff, but never once did he call it Huffman Coding.
I imagine that him calling it "Huffman Coding" would be a bit like going to China and asking where to eat Chinese food.
I seem to recall hearing that if a lithium ion battery begins to not keep its charge as well as it used to, it's not a physical effect as with NiCd or NiMH, but a result of the battery-charging microcontroller sort of getting confused over time at exactly where it is in the battery charging process. That is, it thinks it's completely full, but really it's not.
I suppose it doesn't really change the resulting effect, though.
The findings seem similar to this slashdot article referencing this article about the findings of Garfinkel and Shelat.
But what they need to do is spend less time patenting the TODO list and spend more time shortening it.
The Studios are already distributing incomplete copies over the internet. That's Overpeer for you.
I just realized that I was answering with something the article poster probably already knows.
As far as how you might be able to use an existing library to extend other libraries, It seems like you should be able to save the first x bytes of http (mp3) data to a local temp file and then have the pre-existing id3 library run over that data. I would think that this doesn't necessarily require root.
Yeah, that could be true, but if it's not within say, the first 100KB, then the smart thing to do is to stop trying to find it and just return an error.
If it's not at the beginning, you could then use byte ranges to try to fast forward to the end and guess that it will be within the last say, 50 KB of the end.
So actually, the code isn't worth posting. It's pretty much as I said it. Read until you have a valid ID3 tag, and then break the socket connection.
Yeah, so you're right. 499 is just the code my server puts in the logs when a connection gets aborted.
It seems like it shouldn't be that hard. You just initiate the HTTP transfer and then cancel it as soon as you have as much data as you need.
I haven't actually done it, but speaking as a server operator, when I look through my server logs, you see some hits that end with status code 499, meaning that the transfer was aborted. So you just have the client software you're writing close the HTTP connection after it locates the end of the ID3 tag. It's probably not 100% efficient, but obviously a lot better than reading the whole MP3 file.
I'm assuming you're doing this in C/C++, but I'll try to do a prototype in perl.
I'm in the process of writing weblog software (that I call GMPP). Who knows; maybe with enough unhappy movabletype users, I might actually get somewhere! muahahaha.
Thomas Edison was a Genius!! Lighting through air. So much better than lighting through wood.
I recommend the new low-power LED lighting. It's expensive, but it's mega-awesome.
All right, definitely a good point.
If it makes you feel any better, I bothered to find out.