Re:Magnetic Sensors Can't See my Plastic Pontiac
on
Sensors Gone Wild
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· Score: 1
They may not see your car, but take a look at https://mows.aiag.org/source/3/actionline/2001/09_ September/september01_p16.pdf for a cheerful view of tracking and identifying cars by a radio transmitter built into the tires.
I faintly recall a slashdot discussion on this topic a while back, but I don't see it now. Probably just my poor search skills...
The fact that the government is not allowing free exchange of information is nothing new. However, doing so without classifying the material is just plain lame. The lowest level of classified material isn't Secret, it is Confidential, which definition meets the stated reasons for preventing publishing of these reports. A similar example of material classified Confidential would be information related to the theory and practical applications of Nuclear Power on navy ships (it's classified as Confidential-Noforn Not releasable to Foreign Nationals).
It seems to me that if the government wants to prevent free spread of the knowledge, just classify the report Confidential-Noforn. Note that this effectively makes it a dead report, as fellow researchers will no longer be able to gain from it's insights.
This court decision is a fine thing... but it's not hitting the root of the problem. The punitive damages should be also directed towards the company who *pays* the spammer to send out this junk. If the spammer also happens to be the company who is selling the goods, well that's just too bad for them... shoot them with both barrels!
There is now a (small) reason for spammers to consider a different line of work. It's time to make the scummy companies, who use the services of spammers, fear for their pocketbooks.
Who knows, maybe after a few companies get hit with fines for hiring spammers, they'll start to fade away or go back to bulk mailing. It's like jailing people who hire hitmen to kill their spouses for the insurance. Sure, we put the hitman behind bars when we find them... but we also put away the scum who solicited the murder.
Damn, how I hate spam! And that pink imitation meat stuff is pretty disgusting too!
It may not be a battery (although some battering may have been involved), but there's an extreme example of a methane source for fuel cell at that goat site (ya all know the URL by heart... and if you don't, then you're really lucky or really new to/.).
**disclaimer** Just because it's offensive doesn't mean it isn't funny.
If this new system were in place, we'd be able to guess as to what you were watching based on the ads you received.
Hmm, wonderbra and ky jelly... that'd be either pron or Sex in the City. Or is there a difference?
I forsee embarrasing situations where someone invites his buddies over for the ballgame, and they tease him about the ads for women's clothing which appear because of his watching history.
And just think of the government investigations which will occur... "Senator, according to records from the Overseeing Cable Company, you watched 36 straight hours of television which involved sex outside of marriage, and frequently chose to watch programming which promoted destruction of wildlife reserves. What is your response to these charges?"
For reliable connections, LEMO connectors are hard to beat. They are multi-pin, polarized, lock in place very securely, and are virtually indestructable.
To attach them to equipment, you put the connector partway into the hole, turn until it goes in freely, and then shove it in fully (it clicks to lock). To remove it, you pull on the casing of the connector, and it releases smoothly. Sweet design for working in cramped areas where the connector plug isn't visible.
Having been in the nuclear navy, I can recall many days which consisted of continuous work for 24 or more straight hours (drills, training, cleaning, operating a nuclear power plant, troubleshooting electronic equipment, etc). I remember sometimes being so tired that I would be hallucinating, but still trying to safely operate a nuclear reactor.
It's a shame that the sleep deprivation findings from the commercial nuclear industry can't be transferred to the Navy Nuclear Power Program. It's amazing that there aren't more navy nuclear accidents considering the working conditions and hours.
Re:Scramjets, Bionic Eyes and Ears, Nicole Kidman.
on
Still More Bionic Eyes
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· Score: 1
Besides the obligatory "sharks with frickin' laser beams...?"
talk about a leading question... sheesh!
I use a credit card company which has done this to me. A while back, they lost a class action lawsuit for baiting and switching (promising to lower interest rates for mew cardholders and then lowering their rates by insignificant amounts (.05% sticks in my mind). They ended up paying out a huge amount to cardholders. I seem to recall getting several hundred dollars from the settlement.
About 6 months after the class action lawsuit, they sent me a notice in my bill which stated that if I did nothing, then I would automatically lose my right to be a member of any class action suits against them. Further use of my card would be considered my consent to such changes. If I wished to retain my right to participate in any future class action suits, send a letter with a specific phrase in it, to an address other than the normal billing address. Responses sent in the included payment envelope would not be valid. A little information card (too small to fit my information legibly) had to be filled out and included with the letter.
I jumped through their hoops, including writing a letter stating that I wouldn't willingly give up my rights. About 6 months later, here comes another notice that they are going to remove my class action rights unless I jump through hoops again. I once again sent them a letter that I wanted to retain my rights to participate in class action suits.
Recently, I received yet another of these arbitration agreement/class action exclusion letters (just do nothing... your rights will e automatically removed). I thought about sending them a letter stating I was serving notice to them that from then on, my interest rate would be 0.0% and that their sending me a bill the next month would constitute their acceptance of my terms, but I figured that after being forced to pay back millions of bucks they probably don't have any sense of humor.
I don't see how it can be legitimate to require customers to repeatedly opt out losing their rights. The whole sordid affair seems like a good candidate for another class action lawsuit, but the persons most affected have lost their rights to class action redress.
I've been using the Cybergenie system for several years. It uses multiple handsets with individual mailboxes, and hooks seamlessly into Outlook (I know...). An additional feature is that I can call my home phone and have it read emails from my inbox. Like most text to speech converters it has some problems, but overall it works quite well.
You can pick up the complete system off Ebay for about $120 (search for Cybergenie), and there is an updated driver set (3.0) which allows use with WinXP. The manufacturer went out of business several years ago, so there isn't any warrenty. There is a large user base for support, including a dedicated MSN newsgroup (just do a google search for Cybergenie to get links).
It works well, and is relatively inexpensive, and links into my email inbox. Good enough for me.
When I went to choose my DSL provider, I looked at the restrictions they would provide on my usage (servers, etc).
http://www.easystreet.com/services/easydsl/enthusi ast.html was my choice... look at their terms! As long as you aren't spamming others, hosting open relays, or cracking other people's systems (in short, as long as you are being a responsible net citizen), they don't care what you do with the service they provide.
As a side note, I've called their tech support at all hours of the day and night and never had to wait more than a couple of rings (not minutes... rings). Very helpful people.
That's what ISPs should be doing to get my business... providing what I need, at a reasonable price, and not bugging me about how I choose to use the bandwidth.
Like a lot of folks, you are missing the *intent* with which he accessed the computer. It's one thing to surf web pages served by a computer belonging to someone else, which are intended to be publicly accessed. It's another thing entirely to use a recently publicized exploit to gain root access to someone's computer without their approval.
The proper analogy would be driving down the street until you spot a house with newspapers piled up on the porch (indicating that the house is probably unguarded/unoccupied), and then going around back and breaking a window to enter and eat the food.
Results are important, but let's not confuse the fact that the kid was unable to use his illicit root access due to configuration of the honeypot and his own ineptitude. He intended to break in... he didn't just accidently stumble into root mode.
Hmm, my perspective is that if someone trespasses into my house uninvited (because the lock I have is not pick-proof, or by breaking a window, or some other overt method of bypassing my wishes), it's not an issue of my lock/security being inadequate. It's an issue of some kid not respecting my rights. Locks are to keep out the honest people. For others, there are other deterrents.
I do think this kid isn't going to be doing much 3l33t playing for a while... his mommy is probably going to spank him (figuratively) for the hassles this is causing her, once she understands what he was trying to do.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a simple workstation install of BSD. While I had it connected outside my firewall getting packages via FTP, some kiddie rooted it and started sending out mass emails from my IP. Needless to say, I was *not* a happy camper. I'm just glad that no complaints were filed with my ISP.
I think having this kid wash cars for the local Windows Users Group members would be appropriate.
I have to agree with you about the quality of dye sub printing vs inkjet. I have an HP Photosmart 1100 inkjet printer which I use for printing documents and rough draft images. When I want to print out the good pictures, I use a Tektronix Phaser 480X Dye Sublimation pre-proofer that I picked up off Ebay for $202.00 (including supplies). This prints out to 12X18 inches with outstanding quality. In terms of photo printing, this is definitely the most bang for the buck. By printing multiple smaller prints on a page (easily accomplished with most photo editing programs), my cost per print is much cheaper than any store can match. I also have a Phaser 450 printer which produces Dye-sub printouts (with quality similar to the 480x), but I tend to use the 480 more often.
If you're looking to make long term storage prints, or to distribute copies to friends/family, I highly recommend looking for a used dye sub printer on Ebay... they are cheap and have excellent output quality.
Slashdot Mirror
I faintly recall a slashdot discussion on this topic a while back, but I don't see it now. Probably just my poor search skills...
Life is like a deck of cards...
In space... no-one can hear your hard-drive scream.
It seems to me that if the government wants to prevent free spread of the knowledge, just classify the report Confidential-Noforn. Note that this effectively makes it a dead report, as fellow researchers will no longer be able to gain from it's insights.
There is now a (small) reason for spammers to consider a different line of work. It's time to make the scummy companies, who use the services of spammers, fear for their pocketbooks.
Who knows, maybe after a few companies get hit with fines for hiring spammers, they'll start to fade away or go back to bulk mailing. It's like jailing people who hire hitmen to kill their spouses for the insurance. Sure, we put the hitman behind bars when we find them... but we also put away the scum who solicited the murder.
Damn, how I hate spam! And that pink imitation meat stuff is pretty disgusting too!
Honest officer, I haven't been drinking. That hip flask on the passenger's seat ... it's to recharge the battery in my laptop. Really! Honest!
**disclaimer** Just because it's offensive doesn't mean it isn't funny.
Actually that's the whole point (by analogy, at least)! Make a cluster of nodes to allow spontaneous and on the fly rebuilding of a flexible network.
Real life is for people who can't handle half-life!
Hmm, wonderbra and ky jelly... that'd be either pron or Sex in the City. Or is there a difference?
I forsee embarrasing situations where someone invites his buddies over for the ballgame, and they tease him about the ads for women's clothing which appear because of his watching history.
And just think of the government investigations which will occur... "Senator, according to records from the Overseeing Cable Company, you watched 36 straight hours of television which involved sex outside of marriage, and frequently chose to watch programming which promoted destruction of wildlife reserves. What is your response to these charges?"
To attach them to equipment, you put the connector partway into the hole, turn until it goes in freely, and then shove it in fully (it clicks to lock). To remove it, you pull on the casing of the connector, and it releases smoothly. Sweet design for working in cramped areas where the connector plug isn't visible.
Unfortunately, they are also very expensive.
It's a shame that the sleep deprivation findings from the commercial nuclear industry can't be transferred to the Navy Nuclear Power Program. It's amazing that there aren't more navy nuclear accidents considering the working conditions and hours.
Besides the obligatory "sharks with frickin' laser beams...?" talk about a leading question... sheesh!
Which brings up the old "is that a laser pen in your pocket, or are you just really happy to see me?" joke.
About 6 months after the class action lawsuit, they sent me a notice in my bill which stated that if I did nothing, then I would automatically lose my right to be a member of any class action suits against them. Further use of my card would be considered my consent to such changes. If I wished to retain my right to participate in any future class action suits, send a letter with a specific phrase in it, to an address other than the normal billing address. Responses sent in the included payment envelope would not be valid. A little information card (too small to fit my information legibly) had to be filled out and included with the letter.
I jumped through their hoops, including writing a letter stating that I wouldn't willingly give up my rights. About 6 months later, here comes another notice that they are going to remove my class action rights unless I jump through hoops again. I once again sent them a letter that I wanted to retain my rights to participate in class action suits.
Recently, I received yet another of these arbitration agreement/class action exclusion letters (just do nothing... your rights will e automatically removed). I thought about sending them a letter stating I was serving notice to them that from then on, my interest rate would be 0.0% and that their sending me a bill the next month would constitute their acceptance of my terms, but I figured that after being forced to pay back millions of bucks they probably don't have any sense of humor.
I don't see how it can be legitimate to require customers to repeatedly opt out losing their rights. The whole sordid affair seems like a good candidate for another class action lawsuit, but the persons most affected have lost their rights to class action redress.
It's not an abortion... it's a hard reset!
You can pick up the complete system off Ebay for about $120 (search for Cybergenie), and there is an updated driver set (3.0) which allows use with WinXP. The manufacturer went out of business several years ago, so there isn't any warrenty. There is a large user base for support, including a dedicated MSN newsgroup (just do a google search for Cybergenie to get links).
It works well, and is relatively inexpensive, and links into my email inbox. Good enough for me.
Bad idea, unless they are using this fab for Research. For production, this process is not at all ready for prime time. It's a cool lab trick, though.
And of course those processors would not efficiently run KDE, as they are optimized for Gnome...
I crack myself up sometimes... which is good, as others sometimes fail to appreciate my humor.
To quote the UCMJ, "penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense."
http://www.easystreet.com/services/easydsl/enthusi ast.html was my choice... look at their terms! As long as you aren't spamming others, hosting open relays, or cracking other people's systems (in short, as long as you are being a responsible net citizen), they don't care what you do with the service they provide.
As a side note, I've called their tech support at all hours of the day and night and never had to wait more than a couple of rings (not minutes... rings). Very helpful people.
That's what ISPs should be doing to get my business... providing what I need, at a reasonable price, and not bugging me about how I choose to use the bandwidth.
Like a lot of folks, you are missing the *intent* with which he accessed the computer. It's one thing to surf web pages served by a computer belonging to someone else, which are intended to be publicly accessed. It's another thing entirely to use a recently publicized exploit to gain root access to someone's computer without their approval.
The proper analogy would be driving down the street until you spot a house with newspapers piled up on the porch (indicating that the house is probably unguarded/unoccupied), and then going around back and breaking a window to enter and eat the food.
Results are important, but let's not confuse the fact that the kid was unable to use his illicit root access due to configuration of the honeypot and his own ineptitude. He intended to break in... he didn't just accidently stumble into root mode.
I do think this kid isn't going to be doing much 3l33t playing for a while... his mommy is probably going to spank him (figuratively) for the hassles this is causing her, once she understands what he was trying to do.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a simple workstation install of BSD. While I had it connected outside my firewall getting packages via FTP, some kiddie rooted it and started sending out mass emails from my IP. Needless to say, I was *not* a happy camper. I'm just glad that no complaints were filed with my ISP.
I think having this kid wash cars for the local Windows Users Group members would be appropriate.
If you're looking to make long term storage prints, or to distribute copies to friends/family, I highly recommend looking for a used dye sub printer on Ebay... they are cheap and have excellent output quality.