To invoke Godwin's Law, Nazi Germany did. Operation Bernhard was intended to flood the UK with very good fake pound notes (which were very simple to begin with at the time).
Also, someone stated somewhere that during the early years of Soviet Russia, Czarist-Russian style banknotes printed the government in order to give the impression the economic fracas was due to past policy.
> Ahem, where exactly are you going to get the paper >to print it on? US currency paper has a special >cotton content that you can't get in the states, >even by special order. And what about the "security >stripe"? Nope, sorry.
Remove ink from a legitimate low-denomination note, print with higher denomination. This works because US currency holds consistent size across denominations.
The security stripe is not present in older notes (pre-1990 I believe). Forge notes of series 1977.
>Right now, they are running with 4 different chassis for pretty much all their cars.
They can do better.
Consider: Sell the engine, perhaps covered with a bonnet, on a platform, with bodies that bolt on behind the engine. If I'm willing to take a large platform, I should be able to get a New Beetle with a 16-cylinder engine.
Better yet: one basic platform, strechable with 'leaves' like a dining table.
Final idea: Why is there no interest in cars designed like minature rubber-tired trains? Buy a two-seat driver's compartment, and you can couple anything from a 60hp to a 300hp engine wagon in front, plus trailer beds, passenger compartments with 2, 4, or 6 seats, or special-interest compartments (ie a refrigerated box) behind the driver.
If the vehicles were articulated, turning radius would be impressive, the kids stay sealed away from Mom and Dad, plus, the component would be perfect for rental (hire out a 200hp engine instead of a 75hp when you're going to use a small truck to move something heavy
>Companies have a right to make money to sustain >their employees' lives.
Well then, perhaps those companies also have the right to a clue:
the razor-blade model doesn't work for every business. It makes sense when there is something legitimately disposable. It makes sense to have the film cameras recycled, because there's a disposable part to be replaced. Not so here.
> No, the parent question to yours was better. We >want the FBI to investigate people who can >accurately predict this. Either they find someone >who is connected or they find someone who can help >them predict in the future.
Except how 'accurate' can predictions be? Nobody would be stupid enough to enter their exact terror plan (fourteen thousand angry hamsters released into the Supreme Court on 5/16/2004 at 6.20 pm) as a future, so all you'd have are vague targets (terror attack in northeast US in between 1/1 and 6/30/2004). Such categories are so wide as to hit many guesses just by dumb luck.
Realistically, you could probably at least break even just by covering 'terror attack somewhere' for every six-month period from now on. Does that mean you have any connection to the terror?
>Final Fantasy VII on the PSP (would not surprise me >as a "launch title" - that would ensure a million >sales right there)
Why? The people who want to play FF7 have bought it for the PC, or can buy a PSX at $40 or so and a used copy for $15. Why will they pay $200 for the console and $40 for the game to play it on a small screen, especially when it really needs a decently-sized monitor to enjoy with the bizarre UI.
Sterilize 90% of the population. Within a few generations, earth population drops to a sustainable number. Maybe 200 million, 500 million?
These people can then enjoy a really good (Canada or US or EU style) quality of life. And they can do so indefinitely because they aren't overdrafting the environment.
>Kind of reminds me of the Steam Locamotive >vendors...Baldwin Locamotive works (1831-1915).
I'm sorry, this is hopelessly OT, but Baldwin lasted WELL past 1915. They even produced several classes of relatively unsuccessful diesel-electric locomotives in the WWII period.
However, you are correct in asserting that they were buried by the march of technology. In many ways, they continued to apply steam-locomotive thinking (a long slate of one-off designs when other manufacturers headed towards standardzation)
Ironically, their problem was the opposite of the content-industry problem. The railroads were happy enough to buy thousands of essentially identical GP9s, but content-producers have to deal with the fact that users want more flexibility with their purchases.
>What is the actual, practical impact on you of DRM?
I fairly regularly update my hardware.
Many DRM schemes assume "different machine == someone else's machine." In a little over a year, I had three significantly different mainboards. Do I want my DRM-crippled data to break at least 3 times as a result? Fixing broken data is a very real cost in productivity.
>What about inability to trade music around? I >guess this could be an issue for some (I know >some people that lend CDs out left and right), >but I don't. At least for me, this really doesn't >affect me.ear the tying of content to a fragile medium
Also, there's no reason anymore to be tied to a recording-storage medium with a finite life. CDs aren't that durable. I don't want to pay $20 every time I damage one because I can't make a backup or rip what I can from the damaged disc.
We're already seeing the blowback of this problem. How many of us have boxes of Commodore 1541-format discs we can't readily rescue from dying media because of copy-protection?
You might consider purchasing a 'North American Rail Pass' for your trip. It costs somewhere around USD 650, for a month of travel in.us and.ca. The restrictions are fairly minimal-- I think essentially "you must visit both countries, and can't backtrack more than four times" May work well with backpacking-- I can see scheduling travel to reduce the time spent in hostels.
-Trains are cool in and of themselves. I'd personally love to try to spot every class of locomotive presently in use for passenger service.
-Often, they stop in interesting places. Washington DC Union Station is fascinating (essentially a terminus for the standard railways, the local subway, and a small mall in one historic building), and very centrally located for the cool government-oriented things to see (if you can arrange a tour of Congress through a Congressional office, it's pretty good) Rail's also good value for small-town destinations that would be expensive by air.
This is definitely on my lifetime to-do list.
Other interesting sites might include visiting a Mint (Denver or Philadelphia) or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the banknote production house-- Washington D. C.), but I think tours are less available recently.
>However, if the payments are made automatic, a >different problem takes over: People aren't >culturally ready for having their money spent, by a >computer, on their behalf. Never mind that every >time their thermostat turns on, it's spending their >money -- that's sufficiently hidden from the users.
Part of this is because the costs are fairly predictable.
For example, you can expect your electric bill to be somewhere between $300 and $400 a month in August for a certain 2000 square foot house in August (airconditioning running 24/7)
It won't be $40. It won't be $800.
Most of the cost is fairly fixed-- you're paying for the fridge, probably running the oven within x and y days in a month, and the airconditioner, the same amount most every year. If I keep my air-conditioner at 76 instead of 78, it costs only a few dollars more. Same if I leave a PC on.
The Internet is not the same. To accomplish a task may require viewing one page, or 500. Plus, distractions come in bigtime. I might view 0 online comics a month, 30 if I'm keeping up with daily issues, or 400 if I want to read the archives.
Does elaborate copy-protection actually seem to reduce the occurance of unauthorized copying? In the first era of copy-protection, people would actually choose unauthorized copies even when they might have bought the legitimate versions to avoid the copy-protection hassles. Does this still apply? I'd bet there are many people who are running 'Corporate' Windows XP releases because they don't want to futz with activation, even if they would have bought the retail version.
Re:I bet retailers will fight tooth and nail...
on
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>Orsound-activated toilets, so when someone lets go >a big wet one, they don't have to be reminded to >reach behind to "courtesy flush".
There are self-flushing toilets. I think they're based on detection of a person arriving or leaving. For some reason, they're installed in a lot of casinos locally.
Why would adding ink cause an ink-meter system to fail? Does the petrol gauge on the car fail when you add gas? No. They use a float. They don't try to estimate horsepower-hours and consumption from that.
Why can't the printer makers do the same? I could see a system based on the changing electrical characteristics of the ink supply as it diminishes (ie: ink bridges a pair of contacts, and the circuit's resistance changes as the bridge occurs further and further down the contacts)
>Personally, I wish more PC manufacturers would get >a clue and adopt some of the space saving features >of laptops and produce smaller desktop models. In >most cases, people don't need the environmentally >questionable batteries in laptops, they just want >something that isn't heavy and awkward.
The ECS Desknote is exactly what you want. It's a battery-free laptop that's often dead-cheap and sold customized by small shops.
I believe they even introduced a display-free model.
Aside: I don't see the big appeal. A slightly bigger case means you don't have to compromise on cooling and expandability, and often means much better value for money (fast 3.5" hard discs instead of 2.5", normal easily-replacable IDE devices, a PCI slot or two). Plus, laptop keyboards and pointing apparatuses suck.
The problem with laptops is a "why bother?" question.
I can replace my very large tower with an equivalently performing laptop. However, I like a 19" CRT, so that's extra. I want the printer permanently attached. I want a TV tuner. I want a decent keyboard and pointing device. I want a real modem. By the time I'm done, the laptop is solidly anchored in place by 40 or 50 cables, so I have, in effect, a $2000 replacement for a $600 desktop computer.
I like the laptop (also a PII Thinkpad, ironically) as a supplement to the desktop. I can play Zangband quietly in a comfy chair. Where there's wireless, I can let it fight with keeping Mozilla and Zangband in memory together. I can take quick notes. But for the heavy-duty use, the desktop does everything, but cheaper.
>A computer is an appliance, as many of us are apt >to forget. It's important to remember that it's >more useful when you can move it from room to >room without difficulty.
>And it's much more efficient for Australia Post to >work out how to get the letter to it's ultimate >destination from there, than for the USPS to try >and work out the best airport to use to get a >letter to Wagga Wagga, NSW.
OTOH, if you have 10,000 letters for New South Wales, then it does make sense to do some "pre-routing". The letters are delivered faster, which looks good for them. It may also be more efficient to fly half your letters to a place 12,000km away, and half to a place 15,000km away, than sending them all to one centre 15,000km away.
>whereas a scheme that completely replaces the >full human readable address, with nearly >unmemorisable number, is preferable
The benefit is that it's fixed-width and context-independent. If you want to convert everyone's postcode to a fixed width, that also solves the problem and allows your solution, and you no longer have to check "This is a US postcode, "L" is not a valid entry."
>a mixture of identical (but slightly rejigged) >concepts and completely alien ones, to serve a >benefit to a practical purpose that is marginal, >at best
I'd love to see us all on GMT. Can we get that at least?
>After all the sending country doesn't care where >postcode 'Potts Point NSW 2011 Australia' is they >just need to send it to Australia. After it gets >here then the Australia Post service can worry >about where '2011' is.
Okay. That's real efficient. Let's send all the mail to arrive in Australia to one location-- say Tasmania-- and let them figure it out and ship it from there.
> If they want "universal" code why not just pre- >or post- pend the two letter country code on the >code. So it becomes AU-2011. or US-90211. That's >universal, and unique. And simple and HUMAN >READABLE.
Problem is that you don't have anything remotely convinent about that.
U. S. postcodes are 5 or 9 figures. Canadian and UK ones are six letters and numbers, possibly 7 in some places, and . Australian ones are apparently 4 numbers. Russian ones IIRC are six numbers.
You can't make a pretty box in a form that swallows 'em all neatly (look how many online forms have specific-width boxes so when you fill in the postcode it's full, and you still have to parse the code part way to figure out that US-410054 is not a valid choice.
2. Throwaway laptop. I used a 486, then a PII. If it's stolen, I'm only out 300 bucks, but it's definitely hefty enough for wireless surfing. Wireless card.
3. Laser printer. Samsung makes some nice cheap ones, that are fast and cheap to operate. Since some schools are charging obscene prices to print (8 cents a page at local university... and you have to use their stored-value system... when you can print at home for 5 or less), this is practical, plus you don't have to queue.
I don't know of a BIOS that needs the main alphabetic area.
Most operations are done with arrows, +/-/pageup/pagedown/return and a few function keys. The primary exception is setting hard-disc type, if it doesn't autodetect.
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To invoke Godwin's Law, Nazi Germany did. Operation Bernhard was intended to flood the UK with very good fake pound notes (which were very simple to begin with at the time).
Also, someone stated somewhere that during the early years of Soviet Russia, Czarist-Russian style banknotes printed the government in order to give the impression the economic fracas was due to past policy.
> Ahem, where exactly are you going to get the paper >to print it on? US currency paper has a special >cotton content that you can't get in the states, >even by special order. And what about the "security >stripe"? Nope, sorry.
Remove ink from a legitimate low-denomination note, print with higher denomination. This works because US currency holds consistent size across denominations.
The security stripe is not present in older notes (pre-1990 I believe). Forge notes of series 1977.
>Right now, they are running with 4 different chassis for pretty much all their cars.
They can do better.
Consider: Sell the engine, perhaps covered with a bonnet, on a platform, with bodies that bolt on behind the engine. If I'm willing to take a large platform, I should be able to get a New Beetle with a 16-cylinder engine.
Better yet: one basic platform, strechable with 'leaves' like a dining table.
Final idea: Why is there no interest in cars designed like minature rubber-tired trains? Buy a two-seat driver's compartment, and you can couple anything from a 60hp to a 300hp engine wagon in front, plus trailer beds, passenger compartments with 2, 4, or 6 seats, or special-interest compartments (ie a refrigerated box) behind the driver.
If the vehicles were articulated, turning radius would be impressive, the kids stay sealed away from Mom and Dad, plus, the component would be perfect for rental (hire out a 200hp engine instead of a 75hp when you're going to use a small truck to move something heavy
>Companies have a right to make money to sustain >their employees' lives.
Well then, perhaps those companies also have the right to a clue:
the razor-blade model doesn't work for every business. It makes sense when there is something legitimately disposable. It makes sense to have the film cameras recycled, because there's a disposable part to be replaced. Not so here.
>They claim you can delete pictures you think are >bad... kinda hard to do that with film.
A model for that:
Manual film advance.
The 'delete' button punches a hole in the current frame, and subtracts 1 from the counter.
When the counter gets to 25, the mechanism jams.
Overload the camera with film (perhaps 30-40 exposures) to cover deletes.
>"What? It's just metal."
No. In the style of Kryten of Red Dwarf, you use it to mix milkshakes.
> No, the parent question to yours was better. We >want the FBI to investigate people who can >accurately predict this. Either they find someone >who is connected or they find someone who can help >them predict in the future.
Except how 'accurate' can predictions be? Nobody would be stupid enough to enter their exact terror plan (fourteen thousand angry hamsters released into the Supreme Court on 5/16/2004 at 6.20 pm) as a future, so all you'd have are vague targets (terror attack in northeast US in between 1/1 and 6/30/2004). Such categories are so wide as to hit many guesses just by dumb luck.
Realistically, you could probably at least break even just by covering 'terror attack somewhere' for every six-month period from now on. Does that mean you have any connection to the terror?
>Final Fantasy VII on the PSP (would not surprise me >as a "launch title" - that would ensure a million >sales right there)
Why? The people who want to play FF7 have bought it for the PC, or can buy a PSX at $40 or so and a used copy for $15. Why will they pay $200 for the console and $40 for the game to play it on a small screen, especially when it really needs a decently-sized monitor to enjoy with the bizarre UI.
I have a different take.
Sterilize 90% of the population. Within a few generations, earth population drops to a sustainable number. Maybe 200 million, 500 million?
These people can then enjoy a really good (Canada or US or EU style) quality of life. And they can do so indefinitely because they aren't overdrafting the environment.
>Kind of reminds me of the Steam Locamotive >vendors...Baldwin Locamotive works (1831-1915).
I'm sorry, this is hopelessly OT, but Baldwin lasted WELL past 1915. They even produced several classes of relatively unsuccessful diesel-electric locomotives in the WWII period.
However, you are correct in asserting that they were buried by the march of technology. In many ways, they continued to apply steam-locomotive thinking (a long slate of one-off designs when other manufacturers headed towards standardzation)
Ironically, their problem was the opposite of the content-industry problem. The railroads were happy enough to buy thousands of essentially identical GP9s, but content-producers have to deal with the fact that users want more flexibility with their purchases.
>What is the actual, practical impact on you of DRM?
I fairly regularly update my hardware.
Many DRM schemes assume "different machine == someone else's machine." In a little over a year, I had three significantly different mainboards. Do I want my DRM-crippled data to break at least 3 times as a result? Fixing broken data is a very real cost in productivity.
>What about inability to trade music around? I >guess this could be an issue for some (I know >some people that lend CDs out left and right), >but I don't. At least for me, this really doesn't >affect me.ear the tying of content to a fragile medium
Also, there's no reason anymore to be tied to a recording-storage medium with a finite life. CDs aren't that durable. I don't want to pay $20 every time I damage one because I can't make a backup or rip what I can from the damaged disc.
We're already seeing the blowback of this problem. How many of us have boxes of Commodore 1541-format discs we can't readily rescue from dying media because of copy-protection?
You might consider purchasing a 'North American Rail Pass' for your trip. It costs somewhere around USD 650, for a month of travel in .us and .ca. The restrictions are fairly minimal-- I think essentially "you must visit both countries, and can't backtrack more than four times" May work well with backpacking-- I can see scheduling travel to reduce the time spent in hostels.
-Trains are cool in and of themselves. I'd personally love to try to spot every class of locomotive presently in use for passenger service.
-Often, they stop in interesting places. Washington DC Union Station is fascinating (essentially a terminus for the standard railways, the local subway, and a small mall in one historic building), and very centrally located for the cool government-oriented things to see (if you can arrange a tour of Congress through a Congressional office, it's pretty good) Rail's also good value for small-town destinations that would be expensive by air.
This is definitely on my lifetime to-do list.
Other interesting sites might include visiting a Mint (Denver or Philadelphia) or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the banknote production house-- Washington D. C.), but I think tours are less available recently.
>However, if the payments are made automatic, a >different problem takes over: People aren't >culturally ready for having their money spent, by a >computer, on their behalf. Never mind that every >time their thermostat turns on, it's spending their >money -- that's sufficiently hidden from the users.
Part of this is because the costs are fairly predictable.
For example, you can expect your electric bill to be somewhere between $300 and $400 a month in August for a certain 2000 square foot house in August (airconditioning running 24/7)
It won't be $40.
It won't be $800.
Most of the cost is fairly fixed-- you're paying for the fridge, probably running the oven within x and y days in a month, and the airconditioner, the same amount most every year. If I keep my air-conditioner at 76 instead of 78, it costs only a few dollars more. Same if I leave a PC on.
The Internet is not the same. To accomplish a task may require viewing one page, or 500. Plus, distractions come in bigtime. I might view 0 online comics a month, 30 if I'm keeping up with daily issues, or 400 if I want to read the archives.
Does elaborate copy-protection actually seem to reduce the occurance of unauthorized copying? In the first era of copy-protection, people would actually choose unauthorized copies even when they might have bought the legitimate versions to avoid the copy-protection hassles. Does this still apply? I'd bet there are many people who are running 'Corporate' Windows XP releases because they don't want to futz with activation, even if they would have bought the retail version.
>Orsound-activated toilets, so when someone lets go >a big wet one, they don't have to be reminded to >reach behind to "courtesy flush".
There are self-flushing toilets. I think they're based on detection of a person arriving or leaving. For some reason, they're installed in a lot of casinos locally.
Stupid question:
Why would adding ink cause an ink-meter system to fail? Does the petrol gauge on the car fail when you add gas? No. They use a float. They don't try to estimate horsepower-hours and consumption from that.
Why can't the printer makers do the same? I could see a system based on the changing electrical characteristics of the ink supply as it diminishes (ie: ink bridges a pair of contacts, and the circuit's resistance changes as the bridge occurs further and further down the contacts)
>Personally, I wish more PC manufacturers would get >a clue and adopt some of the space saving features >of laptops and produce smaller desktop models. In >most cases, people don't need the environmentally >questionable batteries in laptops, they just want >something that isn't heavy and awkward.
The ECS Desknote is exactly what you want. It's a battery-free laptop that's often dead-cheap and sold customized by small shops.
I believe they even introduced a display-free model.
Aside: I don't see the big appeal. A slightly bigger case means you don't have to compromise on cooling and expandability, and often means much better value for money (fast 3.5" hard discs instead of 2.5", normal easily-replacable IDE devices, a PCI slot or two). Plus, laptop keyboards and pointing apparatuses suck.
The problem with laptops is a "why bother?" question.
I can replace my very large tower with an equivalently performing laptop. However, I like a 19" CRT, so that's extra. I want the printer permanently attached. I want a TV tuner. I want a decent keyboard and pointing device. I want a real modem. By the time I'm done, the laptop is solidly anchored in place by 40 or 50 cables, so I have, in effect, a $2000 replacement for a $600 desktop computer.
I like the laptop (also a PII Thinkpad, ironically) as a supplement to the desktop. I can play Zangband quietly in a comfy chair. Where there's wireless, I can let it fight with keeping Mozilla and Zangband in memory together. I can take quick notes. But for the heavy-duty use, the desktop does everything, but cheaper.
>A computer is an appliance, as many of us are apt >to forget. It's important to remember that it's >more useful when you can move it from room to >room without difficulty.
My computer is on casters. Problem solved.
phoenix.gov
(Phoenix, Arizona)
>It's also not a very good snow shovel.
You know what makes a great snow shovel?
WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS. The huge box can pick up a surprising amount of snow once you remove the discs and documentation.
OTOH, I was really disappointed with using FreeBSD to cook my crispy bacon.
>Are there any ARM notebooks?
I believe there was a RISCOS-based laptop... the Acorn A4 as I recall.
>Wasn't the C-64 luggable in Osborne sewing machine >format rather than notebook?
There was a 'Commodore LCD' built as a prototype... laptopy.
Also, I believe a PA-RISC laptop existed... given the size of the 712-series mainboard, I could easily see wedging something into a laptop shape.
>And it's much more efficient for Australia Post to >work out how to get the letter to it's ultimate >destination from there, than for the USPS to try >and work out the best airport to use to get a >letter to Wagga Wagga, NSW.
OTOH, if you have 10,000 letters for New South Wales, then it does make sense to do some "pre-routing". The letters are delivered faster, which looks good for them. It may also be more efficient to fly half your letters to a place 12,000km away, and half to a place 15,000km away, than sending them all to one centre 15,000km away.
>whereas a scheme that completely replaces the >full human readable address, with nearly >unmemorisable number, is preferable
The benefit is that it's fixed-width and context-independent. If you want to convert everyone's postcode to a fixed width, that also solves the problem and allows your solution, and you no longer have to check "This is a US postcode, "L" is not a valid entry."
>a mixture of identical (but slightly rejigged) >concepts and completely alien ones, to serve a >benefit to a practical purpose that is marginal, >at best
I'd love to see us all on GMT. Can we get that at least?
>After all the sending country doesn't care where >postcode 'Potts Point NSW 2011 Australia' is they >just need to send it to Australia. After it gets >here then the Australia Post service can worry >about where '2011' is.
Okay. That's real efficient. Let's send all the mail to arrive in Australia to one location-- say Tasmania-- and let them figure it out and ship it from there.
> If they want "universal" code why not just pre- >or post- pend the two letter country code on the >code. So it becomes AU-2011. or US-90211. That's >universal, and unique. And simple and HUMAN >READABLE.
Problem is that you don't have anything remotely convinent about that.
U. S. postcodes are 5 or 9 figures. Canadian and UK ones are six letters and numbers, possibly 7 in some places, and . Australian ones are apparently 4 numbers. Russian ones IIRC are six numbers.
You can't make a pretty box in a form that swallows 'em all neatly (look how many online forms have specific-width boxes so when you fill in the postcode it's full, and you still have to parse the code part way to figure out that US-410054 is not a valid choice.
1. Good desktop.
2. Throwaway laptop. I used a 486, then a PII. If it's stolen, I'm only out 300 bucks, but it's definitely hefty enough for wireless surfing. Wireless card.
3. Laser printer. Samsung makes some nice cheap ones, that are fast and cheap to operate. Since some schools are charging obscene prices to print (8 cents a page at local university... and you have to use their stored-value system... when you can print at home for 5 or less), this is practical, plus you don't have to queue.
I don't know of a BIOS that needs the main alphabetic area.
Most operations are done with arrows, +/-/pageup/pagedown/return and a few function keys. The primary exception is setting hard-disc type, if it doesn't autodetect.