I could write a better MySpace clone in the space of a weekend. However, nobody would use it. Why? Because it's not "MySpace."
Sorry, someone already beat you to it. It's called FaceBook. Since FaceBook now allows anyone to create an account, the only real differences between FaceBook and MySpace are (1) the layout (FaceBook lets you enter... data. Period. Not styles. Not background sounds.) and (2) the "privacy" settings based on networks (of course, none of the info put up on such a site is really private, it's just how easy it is for the common user to search the info).
The article is about Serenity, not Firefly. I know Serenity is a continuation of Firefly, but it happens to not contain any part of the Ballad of Serenity (strangely enough). I agree with the other posters who said the correct ref would be "Can't stop the signal."
BTW, I don't think caching and DRM are compatible.
Sure they are. Company distributes video file encrypted with AES (or another block cipher) and keep the AES key secret. Anyone can download that file. The company has some DRM scheme such that an asymmetric key is generated such that the DRM utility on the customer's computer is only one with access to the private key. The user pays the company and then the company encrypts the key for the video file with the user's key and sends it off. This key may be stored in a key file or may just be put into the video file as metadata along with the title, etc. It doesn't matter because the key is only usable by that one user. (The decrypted key is never stored on the hard drive and is carefully protected when in memory.) As I understand it, this essentially is how MS's WMV (and WMA?) encryption currently works (in terms of process, not specific algorithms). You can look up details on the WMV protection, which is documented to some extent, but, as far as I know, not cracked.
Uh, no. Maybe it is a stupid buzzword, but podcast does actually mean something.
Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically, using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.
The BitTorrent protocol makes it nearly impossible to download a file without uploading. The more a client uploads, the more the rest of the swarm is willing to upload to that client. If the client uploads nothing at all... it is entirely possible that that client would never receive the full file. At least, it would take a few orders of magnitude longer to download.
The GP suggested checking to see if the.xxx domain and.com domain referred to the same server. Naturally, you could buy google.xxx and point it at Google's servers, but it would not be the same as what you said. Then again, maybe porn sites which want to make themselves easy to block (i.e. don't want to look like they are trying to show porn to minors), could simply have all of their sites redirect to.xxx sites, which could be trivially blocked by a filter. That is, sex.com would be accessible, but it would just redirect to sex.xxx which would not be. As to whether such filters should actually be used, that's not my call. I do not think it is unreasonable for a parent to attempt to filter their child's internet access. After all, the child will find a way around it eventually.:)
To make myself clear,.xxx could not and will never be useful for blocking all porn, but it could at least help.
Actually, this comment makes good points, although I am not sure I agree with the high cost/oversight idea. I suppose domains having a specific usage and oversight to ensure they are actually used that way is reasonable, although it does not seem to happen much on web currently.
I would not be so sure about that. The younger generation is certainly more able to use computers and perfectly able to handle MySpace, e-mail, IM, flash games, and maybe some music/TV/movie piracy, but... that's about it. I am looking at high school and college age kids - a bit older than the kids you reference - who seem completely unwilling to figure out how to do something on a computer on their own: that is, by clicking stuff until something works;). Instead, they will just decide they cannot do it and possibly ask someone else, like me, how to do it. This is not necessarily bad. Perhaps it just means better user interfaces are needed, as a lot of the posts on this article suggest, but simply waiting for the next generation and expecting them to all be able to understand any interface you throw at them is overly optimistic.
Not not enforced by law, but your point stands: most places voluntarily enforce the suggested age restrictions of the MPAA movie ratings. The same is not true for the ESRB's game ratings. Or maybe those ratings are just not as well known or as well accepted.
DOS had RAM disk support. I usually had one enabled whenever I was using DOS. If I remember correctly, the command was ramdisk. I believe that still worked in Windows 9x, although I do not remember. The lack of built-in RAM disk support in Windows NT certainly surprised me too. Maybe someone will reply to this post and tell me I just have not found it, but Google comes up with a lot of third party solutions, so I doubt it. Of course, on Linux you can always just use tmpfs, although tmpfs is not like a normal RAM disk in that when it runs out of space instead of paging it simply starts deleting files. According to the wiki page, ramfs is the Linux filesystem for a normal ram disk.
Don't forget that (5 == "5 UNION SELECT secret FROM..."), null == 0 == "" == false, "a" == 4 == true; generally you just have to be on your toes.
Correct, the semantics of == are different in PHP than in most other C-like languages. The operator you are looking for is ===. As a further note, I usually explicitly cast values to int if expect them to be integers, so random strings just become zero.
Yes, the WiiMote and nunchuk both have triple-axis accelerometers and can sense a full 6-axes of motion (3-axes of rotation). There was a press release posted a while ago on Planet GameCube about Nintendo's partnership with the company providing them... I don't remember the name.
I'm sure Nintendo would have loved to have used an ultrasonic positioning method for the Wiimote if they could. The whole sensor bar thing sounds like it does actually work quite well, but it is, well, messy. I assume the reason is cost. How much can you get one of those ultrasonic controllers for? Can you hook up four of them without interference problems? What about 16 of them? I'm serious, it sounds like a much better tech for this application, so there must be something wrong with it that Nintendo choose not to use it.
Exactly, they would have to rewrite the games to determine if the Wiimote was pointing at an object instead of simply being able to check if the light gun senses light when that object is lit up. It is not a simple drop-in fix. Their devs are busy with getting new games done for launch, and the other VC games they just have to drop the ROM file in. Anyway, you will notice a lot of classics missing from the initial VC line-up. Nintendo doesn't want to be selling VC games at launch.
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I don't know about you, but my hard drive can store quite a few Pico bytes. ;)
I thought Tempest was based on reading the video RAM at a distance, not the monitor?
Okay, I did not know that. Thanks for the correction.
The article is about Serenity, not Firefly. I know Serenity is a continuation of Firefly, but it happens to not contain any part of the Ballad of Serenity (strangely enough). I agree with the other posters who said the correct ref would be "Can't stop the signal."
Why would anyone rip the Netflix stream which will probably be significantly lower quality than what is already available on various p2p networks?
Because, naturally, the hacker knowing about the child porn laws, would store his collection on his own computer.
This just in: Slashdot user irc.goatse.cx troll (593289) cares about his public image.
Seriously, you make good points, but with that comment when posting with that nick you were asking for it.
Okay, I guess it is easier to get around those protections on BitTorrent than I thought. Thanks for the link.
The BitTorrent protocol makes it nearly impossible to download a file without uploading. The more a client uploads, the more the rest of the swarm is willing to upload to that client. If the client uploads nothing at all... it is entirely possible that that client would never receive the full file. At least, it would take a few orders of magnitude longer to download.
Idiot, of course it didn't work!
The command is "Tea, Earl Grey, hot". Duh.
The GP suggested checking to see if the .xxx domain and .com domain referred to the same server. Naturally, you could buy google.xxx and point it at Google's servers, but it would not be the same as what you said. Then again, maybe porn sites which want to make themselves easy to block (i.e. don't want to look like they are trying to show porn to minors), could simply have all of their sites redirect to .xxx sites, which could be trivially blocked by a filter. That is, sex.com would be accessible, but it would just redirect to sex.xxx which would not be. As to whether such filters should actually be used, that's not my call. I do not think it is unreasonable for a parent to attempt to filter their child's internet access. After all, the child will find a way around it eventually. :)
To make myself clear, .xxx could not and will never be useful for blocking all porn, but it could at least help.
Actually, this comment makes good points, although I am not sure I agree with the high cost/oversight idea. I suppose domains having a specific usage and oversight to ensure they are actually used that way is reasonable, although it does not seem to happen much on web currently.
I would not be so sure about that. The younger generation is certainly more able to use computers and perfectly able to handle MySpace, e-mail, IM, flash games, and maybe some music/TV/movie piracy, but... that's about it. I am looking at high school and college age kids - a bit older than the kids you reference - who seem completely unwilling to figure out how to do something on a computer on their own: that is, by clicking stuff until something works ;). Instead, they will just decide they cannot do it and possibly ask someone else, like me, how to do it. This is not necessarily bad. Perhaps it just means better user interfaces are needed, as a lot of the posts on this article suggest, but simply waiting for the next generation and expecting them to all be able to understand any interface you throw at them is overly optimistic.
Strangely, if you set your e-mail client to notify you of new e-mails within 5 seconds, it's just as distracting.
Not not enforced by law, but your point stands: most places voluntarily enforce the suggested age restrictions of the MPAA movie ratings. The same is not true for the ESRB's game ratings. Or maybe those ratings are just not as well known or as well accepted.
DOS had RAM disk support. I usually had one enabled whenever I was using DOS. If I remember correctly, the command was ramdisk. I believe that still worked in Windows 9x, although I do not remember. The lack of built-in RAM disk support in Windows NT certainly surprised me too. Maybe someone will reply to this post and tell me I just have not found it, but Google comes up with a lot of third party solutions, so I doubt it. Of course, on Linux you can always just use tmpfs, although tmpfs is not like a normal RAM disk in that when it runs out of space instead of paging it simply starts deleting files. According to the wiki page, ramfs is the Linux filesystem for a normal ram disk.
But it's highly themeable. ;)
Correct, the semantics of == are different in PHP than in most other C-like languages. The operator you are looking for is ===. As a further note, I usually explicitly cast values to int if expect them to be integers, so random strings just become zero.
Uh, wasn't that supposed to happen in 2006? I'll believe it when I see it.
Yes, the WiiMote and nunchuk both have triple-axis accelerometers and can sense a full 6-axes of motion (3-axes of rotation). There was a press release posted a while ago on Planet GameCube about Nintendo's partnership with the company providing them... I don't remember the name.
I'm sure Nintendo would have loved to have used an ultrasonic positioning method for the Wiimote if they could. The whole sensor bar thing sounds like it does actually work quite well, but it is, well, messy. I assume the reason is cost. How much can you get one of those ultrasonic controllers for? Can you hook up four of them without interference problems? What about 16 of them? I'm serious, it sounds like a much better tech for this application, so there must be something wrong with it that Nintendo choose not to use it.
Well, at least it is 480p, not 480i. Not that most people will hook up component cables. I certainly will... to my 720p display.
Exactly, they would have to rewrite the games to determine if the Wiimote was pointing at an object instead of simply being able to check if the light gun senses light when that object is lit up. It is not a simple drop-in fix. Their devs are busy with getting new games done for launch, and the other VC games they just have to drop the ROM file in. Anyway, you will notice a lot of classics missing from the initial VC line-up. Nintendo doesn't want to be selling VC games at launch.