"And what authority has this tribunal got?" said Polly coldly.
"Thousands of men under arms," said Clogston.
"Sorry. The trouble is, when you say to a general 'You and whose army?' he just has to point out of the window."
As far as I am concerned, you are somewhat right:
I usually don't sleep much, because I tend to stay up late and (like many others AFAIK) also like to program/work at night when it is quiet everywhere around me (even did it in the (shared) office: it is a lot easier to program if there aren't six other people talking around you..).
Anyway, I don't fit the usual programmer-cliche as I'm a software developer/CS-student that neither drinks coffee/cola/etc. nor smokes.
Instead I got addicted to eat chocolate (often while working; don't keep snacks near my computer!) as it helps to stay awake, to concentrate in general and as it works as stress relief and/by(?) triggering the "human pleasure system".
=> lots of work, stress, depressed thoughts, whatever
=> less sleep, greater chocolate intake
=> far to much calories..
Sadly, it's a great way to relax for me before (or even instead!) going to bed: reading a book,/., Fark or whatever whlie eating some chocolate..:-(
1) they raise the price of samsung monitor
2) they wait inspection before applying Samsung sticker to monitor and send those that fail to other brand
3) they use a certain definition of "dead pixel"
AFAI know/would translate, "dead pixel" might mean _really_dead_, not stuck to one color;
I haven't seen displays with really dead pixels - displays with pixels stuck to one color OTOH were/are far more common
4) Also, the production process is verly likely to have improved over the last years, so maybe it doesn't cost them that much, especially if they are covering only really dead pixels (->3)
As i mentioned in a "sibling post":
You are forced to pay, but you aren't allowed to copy if there is any kind of copyright protection involved (crappy CD protection your burner might already ignore, Macrovision, CSS,..).
And: "VG Wort" only covers written art and pictures, so it simply entitles you to scan and print your own (!but not a downloaded e-book!) bought Harry Potter book for personal use..yeah, most people do something like that on a daily basis..
For music and movies you still have to pay other "VG"s..
The *sweet* thing about German copyright law and this taxes:
The lobby groups are active in buying copyright law updates, since last year very successful
Yes, you were allowed to make some private copies for yourself and famuily/close friends, because you pay taxes for CDs, printers, scanners and whatnot
BUT since September you may only do so if there is no "copy protection" on the media - and most CDs (in Germany) and DVDs (CSS counts as _copy_ protection) are "protected", so you might not even have the right to make a backup..;
I think in "pre-digital-age" you were even allowed (because of the taxes) to make a copy of a rented VHS for yourself, despite all the stupid FBI-Warnings etc
You are not allowed anymore to circumvent copy protection, to offer software that does it (CloneCD for example, various DVD-backup solutions) or to describe how to do it (DMCA, anyone?)
Since September ou are not sllowed to make a copy from "obviously illegal sources" (introduced to cover P2P)
The "VG Wort" mentioned here covers only written works like books and pictures - for copying music there is another "VG" who collects additional taxes..
If you really want to vomit, read their proposals for the next changes, like the power to request customer information for IP adresses from ISPs..
As a footnote: the movie industry has used lots of pressure on shops and video stores to forbid the import of non-RC2-DVDs (you can't buy/rent them anywhere anymore). There are sometimes price differences that you could order an RC1-DVD-player from amazon.com with your RC1-DVDs and pay less than buying the RC2-DVDs in Germany.
Example: just waiting for the 4th season of Angel;
RC1: ~42 Euros from playusa.com(+possible customs and German VAT (16%))
RC2: 110-120(!) Euros, depending on the shops..
Not-A-Flame-More-A-PSA:
One thing that Non-USAsians don't like about some Americans is a sometimes met "Pavel Chekovish"-attitude "everything cool must be an American invention".
I remember that high school exchange student from Italy that was asked "do you have pizza in Italy?"..;-)
i just tried to install PG on my Linux router.
So far (~1 hour), it only maxes my CPU usage (iptaples-restore)
Anyway, I did look into you blocklist file in the meantime and was wondering about some (most?) of the entries - they seemed somewhat stupid to me.
For example: loads of schools and universities are on that list (I would expect lot of P2P users there), also embassies and some other funny looking entries.
It looks to me as if the list contains a random collection of all institutions that might have relations to a government.
Maybe I'm too naive or my tinfoil had fell off, but I don't see the **AA sniffing from the British embassy or from every random college in Germany;
OTOH maybe it's not that big of a loss because I think that lots of universiies etc. are disabling P2P on their networks (due to legal fears or simply bandwith issues).
But really: my first thought (seeing only "edu", "university", "schule", "hochsschule",..) was that this list was some sort of "white list"..
I also think that API-questions like "is the method called getSessionId() or getSessionID()" are totally stupid and since I'm using an IDE with auto completion of method names would be somewhat hard to answer for me, too;
but to be fair to your interviewer:
the question about methods in Serializable isn't that stupid, because Serializable is well known for having no methods at all, being the prime example for a pure marker interface.
Maybe a better question would have been: "..and do you know why most of the awt/swing classes don't implement Serializable, although this Interface does not contain any methods?"
or: "do you know why your Session values should implement Serializable, although this Interface does not contain any methods?"
That is not that far fetched; last year there was an experiment at the Freie Universität Berlin about possible physiological and psycholocigal effects of (long time ) space travel.
I googled for an english article
about the experiment.
Some customers of the mobile phone provider "O2" got bills with a lot of "outgoing voicemail" connections to one certain telephone number. That number was used by the authorities to record the customers calls - so warning the suspects that they were under observation. According to some spokesperson of "O2" the reason was an erroneous software update.
Some comments about things you hated, maybe interesting for others. 1) Camera angle:
If you have an updated version, you can type "unlock camera" (IIRC) in the debug/command/whatisitcalled line to change the camera angels with Page Up/Down 3) Henchman AI/equipment:
* Is better in the expansion packs (at least in HoU, don't know about SoU)
* There are some modules that had their own henchman-equipment-mechanism ("A Call For Heroes"-series comes to mind, at least in the third I noticed it..) 8) Equipment level restrictions can be unlocked by setting "Single Player ItemLevelRestrictions=0" to "1" in nwnplayer.ini (I didn't mind them)
I have to add my thumbs up: I really enjoyed playing them, they are really, really great and charming. I can't even say what I like most: characters, story, ideas, humor, details, references, lovely realisation..
Hmm. "Excrucio Eternum"..didn't know that one yet..seems now I have a reason for fixing the broken 3D acceleration with my current X Server - after I finish "Monstrous Regiment", as there mustn't be a discworld novel I haven't read.
If you are interesred in Plankalkül, check this out. You can even play the chess game;-)
Also, there are a lot more resources linked there, including pics of the remains of the original machines an some rebuilds.
Main page is here
I don't know about the connection;reading the articles on heise:
(- AFAIK Phatbot uses Sasser backdoors as one of many spreading options and is not a real derivative)
- according to German police the phatbot author was one of four people they were investigating because of hints they got from "US authorities"
- the Sasser author was caught because of a phone call of (someone close to the author) to Microsoft:
the caller was claiming to know the Sasser-author and offered some code snippets as "proof";
then Microsoft contacted the authorities
- both have been arrested yesterday evening, so there was not much time between the arrests
- the arrests and investigations in both cases were made by different LKAs ("county police departments": Niedersachsen (Sasser) and Baden Wuerttemberg(Phatbot)
- it was said by LKA Baden Wuerttemberg that there were no direct links known between both suspects, but both LKAs announced a close cooperation in further investigations
I would consider it fair if they had to take the discs back. Eventually they will take them back, but sadly, they don't have to. I read about some shops being that nice with crippled DVDs or CDs that were not marked as "copy protected".
On a NWN-related side note: One can download a "without CD crack" directly from Bioware;-)
The Linux version doesn't need the CD at all, just copy your windows install (symlinking some stuff like saved games or modules dir saves HD space) and run bioware's small "fixinstall" program.
The german c't computer magazine has created a database sometime ago. It doesn't only list CDs, there is also information about the used copy protection and how well different players/drives can handle those (UN-)CDs.
I think the project was started because of the growing number of "protected" CDs especially in Germany, as the music industry is convinced to get away with it here, due to the lack of organizations like ACLU (related (german) article here).
Slashdot Mirror
Please.
The koalas were simply taking a nap in the kangaroos' bags.
You have to be resourceful if you have only one boat for that many animals!
"And what authority has this tribunal got?" said Polly coldly.
"Thousands of men under arms," said Clogston.
"Sorry. The trouble is, when you say to a general 'You and whose army?' he just has to point out of the window."
5 bucks that the troops don't find it and accidentally liberate Ireland instead?
As far as I am concerned, you are somewhat right:
/., Fark or whatever whlie eating some chocolate.. :-(
I usually don't sleep much, because I tend to stay up late and (like many others AFAIK) also like to program/work at night when it is quiet everywhere around me (even did it in the (shared) office: it is a lot easier to program if there aren't six other people talking around you..).
Anyway, I don't fit the usual programmer-cliche as I'm a software developer/CS-student that neither drinks coffee/cola/etc. nor smokes.
Instead I got addicted to eat chocolate (often while working; don't keep snacks near my computer!) as it helps to stay awake, to concentrate in general and as it works as stress relief and/by(?) triggering the "human pleasure system".
=> lots of work, stress, depressed thoughts, whatever
=> less sleep, greater chocolate intake
=> far to much calories..
Sadly, it's a great way to relax for me before (or even instead!) going to bed: reading a book,
If you don't mind the German descriptions you can get the same (and a few more) picturesh tm
n ing-e.htm
on the German site (has a different IP, so should work as a mirror):
http://www.thetropical-islands.com/fotos-opening.
(English version (with less pics) is also available:
http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/engl/fotos-ope
1) they raise the price of samsung monitor
2) they wait inspection before applying Samsung sticker to monitor and send those that fail to other brand
3) they use a certain definition of "dead pixel"
AFAI know/would translate, "dead pixel" might mean _really_dead_, not stuck to one color;
I haven't seen displays with really dead pixels - displays with pixels stuck to one color OTOH were/are far more common
4) Also, the production process is verly likely to have improved over the last years, so maybe it doesn't cost them that much, especially if they are covering only really dead pixels (->3)
As i mentioned in a "sibling post":
You are forced to pay, but you aren't allowed to copy if there is any kind of copyright protection involved (crappy CD protection your burner might already ignore, Macrovision, CSS,..).
And: "VG Wort" only covers written art and pictures, so it simply entitles you to scan and print your own (!but not a downloaded e-book!) bought Harry Potter book for personal use..yeah, most people do something like that on a daily basis..
For music and movies you still have to pay other "VG"s..
As a footnote: the movie industry has used lots of pressure on shops and video stores to forbid the import of non-RC2-DVDs (you can't buy/rent them anywhere anymore). There are sometimes price differences that you could order an RC1-DVD-player from amazon.com with your RC1-DVDs and pay less than buying the RC2-DVDs in Germany.
Example: just waiting for the 4th season of Angel;
RC1: ~42 Euros from playusa.com(+possible customs and German VAT (16%))
RC2: 110-120(!) Euros, depending on the shops..
Well, not to fuel the flames, but to give my 2 cents about your list of American inventions:
- personal computer: yes, likely
- computer: depends on your definition of computer..probably not
- light bulb: certainly not
- sewing machines: didn't know shit about their invention, but it seems that they weren't an American invention
Not-A-Flame-More-A-PSA:One thing that Non-USAsians don't like about some Americans is a sometimes met "Pavel Chekovish"-attitude "everything cool must be an American invention".
I remember that high school exchange student from Italy that was asked "do you have pizza in Italy?"..
i just tried to install PG on my Linux router. So far (~1 hour), it only maxes my CPU usage (iptaples-restore) .
Anyway, I did look into you blocklist file in the meantime and was wondering about some (most?) of the entries - they seemed somewhat stupid to me.
For example: loads of schools and universities are on that list (I would expect lot of P2P users there), also embassies and some other funny looking entries
It looks to me as if the list contains a random collection of all institutions that might have relations to a government.
Maybe I'm too naive or my tinfoil had fell off, but I don't see the **AA sniffing from the British embassy or from every random college in Germany; OTOH maybe it's not that big of a loss because I think that lots of universiies etc. are disabling P2P on their networks (due to legal fears or simply bandwith issues).
But really: my first thought (seeing only "edu", "university", "schule", "hochsschule",..) was that this list was some sort of "white list"..
I also think that API-questions like "is the method called getSessionId() or getSessionID()" are totally stupid and since I'm using an IDE with auto completion of method names would be somewhat hard to answer for me, too;
but to be fair to your interviewer:
the question about methods in Serializable isn't that stupid, because Serializable is well known for having no methods at all, being the prime example for a pure marker interface.
Maybe a better question would have been:
"..and do you know why most of the awt/swing classes don't implement Serializable, although this Interface does not contain any methods?"
or:
"do you know why your Session values should implement Serializable, although this Interface does not contain any methods?"
Hell, he gets married for christ sakes. ;-)
Hey, can you blame him?
Who should marry James Bond if not Emma Peel
btw:
Dalton totally looks like he would flip out and start killing people at any moment
I think that fits nicely in "Licence to Kill".
That is not that far fetched; last year there was an experiment at the Freie Universität Berlin about possible physiological and psycholocigal effects of (long time ) space travel.
I googled for an english article about the experiment.
AFAIK they have something like Hometrainers and stuff up there to slow that effect down - or they had to power their batteries by cycling ;-)
That happened in Germany two years ago :-)
Some customers of the mobile phone provider "O2" got bills with a lot of "outgoing voicemail" connections to one certain telephone number.
That number was used by the authorities to record the customers calls - so warning the suspects that they were under observation.
According to some spokesperson of "O2" the reason was an erroneous software update.
Two year old (german)article at heise.de and a follow up.
Some comments about things you hated, maybe interesting for others.
1) Camera angle:
If you have an updated version, you can type "unlock camera" (IIRC) in the debug/command/whatisitcalled line to change the camera angels with Page Up/Down
3) Henchman AI/equipment:
* Is better in the expansion packs (at least in HoU, don't know about SoU)
* There are some modules that had their own henchman-equipment-mechanism ("A Call For Heroes"-series comes to mind, at least in the third I noticed it..)
8) Equipment level restrictions can be unlocked by setting "Single Player ItemLevelRestrictions=0" to "1" in nwnplayer.ini (I didn't mind them)
I have to add my thumbs up: I really enjoyed playing them, they are really, really great and charming. I can't even say what I like most: characters, story, ideas, humor, details, references, lovely realisation..
;-)
Hmm. "Excrucio Eternum"..didn't know that one yet..seems now I have a reason for fixing the broken 3D acceleration with my current X Server - after I finish "Monstrous Regiment", as there mustn't be a discworld novel I haven't read.
Reading'n'stuff followed by playing'n'stuff
Pictures of the Z1
Or some of his scanned notes, or other stuff, linked here at the site of the Zuse Institute
If you are interesred in Plankalkül, check this out. You can even play the chess game ;-)
Also, there are a lot more resources linked there, including pics of the remains of the original machines an some rebuilds. Main page is here
I don't know about the connection;reading the articles on heise:
(- AFAIK Phatbot uses Sasser backdoors as one of many spreading options and is not a real derivative)
- according to German police the phatbot author was one of four people they were investigating because of hints they got from "US authorities"
- the Sasser author was caught because of a phone call of (someone close to the author) to Microsoft:
the caller was claiming to know the Sasser-author and offered some code snippets as "proof";
then Microsoft contacted the authorities
- both have been arrested yesterday evening, so there was not much time between the arrests
- the arrests and investigations in both cases were made by different LKAs ("county police departments": Niedersachsen (Sasser) and Baden Wuerttemberg(Phatbot)
- it was said by LKA Baden Wuerttemberg that there were no direct links known between both suspects, but both LKAs announced a close cooperation in further investigations
I would consider it fair if they had to take the discs back.
;-)
Eventually they will take them back, but sadly, they don't have to.
I read about some shops being that nice with crippled DVDs or CDs that were not marked as "copy protected".
On a NWN-related side note:
One can download a "without CD crack" directly from Bioware
The Linux version doesn't need the CD at all, just copy your windows install (symlinking some stuff like saved games or modules dir saves HD space) and run bioware's small "fixinstall" program.
Instructions here
1>Call you company mikerowesoft
2>sell it to microsoft
3> Sell Microsoft's letters to you on ebay
(Current bid: US $3,751.00)
4>profit!!!
Gates plans to trap humanity in his own MS Matrix
;-)
You mean like that?
It seems that you can (still) get him his own aircraft carrier!
..and don't forget to book it as advertising costs :)
The german c't computer magazine has created a database sometime ago.
It doesn't only list CDs, there is also information about the used copy protection and how well different players/drives can handle those (UN-)CDs.
Database
I think the project was started because of the growing number of "protected" CDs especially in Germany, as the music industry is convinced to get away with it here, due to the lack of organizations like ACLU (related (german) article here).