What does it mean when I see an Asterisk following a user's ID number?
You may have noticed user IDs with an asterisk after them, like: John Doe (12345) *. The asterisk means that this user is a subscriber to Slashdot. They have shelled out some coin to help keep Slashdot running. They get assorted extra features for helping support the site, including the asterisk and the glorious bragging rights that go along with it. If you are logged in, you can use this information to assign a bonus or penalty to their default comment score. Or disable it outright. It's really up to you.
my good old crt can run 120 hz in 1280x1024. So, when can a field of grass like that, with two armies crushing each other with human-like face animation of pain can be redendered at that speed so I can run some nice little 3d shutter glass ? =)
Yes, there was CD-drives before. But they were only audio cds at first. It took a long time before you actually had something coming on CDs, and even longer before you could burn a CD... I remember looking at that 8K$ (Can) 2X burner and hoping one day I could buy one.. =)
If you had a smaller HD than the CD, that mean you didn't invest in your HD. I got a Creative Labs 2X CD-drive ( I think it was middle 94) and I already had 2 540MB (no, not in raid =) ) & 1 280MB drive and not long afterward I got a fireball 1080..
Also, they didn't replaced the floppies, they replaced the 100mb zip drives and we were already talking of 1gb jazz drive at that time with some lucky people actually saving for them.
Bioforge was one of the first game I remember buying coming on a CD =)
Notice that (as was said before) the patent expired a few years ago in most country and anyway, they were only going after "compressor", meaning apps that allow to save a file as a gif, starting from another file type.
from gnu.org: The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan patent expired on 20 June 2004 and in Canada it expired on 7 July 2004. The U.S. IBM patent expires 11 August 2006,
No, it's not just a downgraded internet. If you've read the content you should have noted that they are using VPN, standing for Virtual Private Networking.
What they are doing is creating an encrypted web. When you connect to the server, it is SUPPOSED not to be login what you are doing, and just redirect your packets as a normal one, except that you reach that node with an encrypted packet: you can't be sniffed and it's not possible to know what you are doing with it externally. Internally, this is a completely different thing though, and that's where it require a bit of trust in the server you use.
As long as the server is really not logging anything, no one inside that web can know who you are outside of it. There is one thing slowing it, that's the harsh penalty of the bandwidth usage. Let's say you and your friend are both using this,and leave close next to each other. You usually were sending your homeworks by email, but once it was stolen and you've been reprimanded for that, so you decide to use that secure channel to send it over.
You meet your friend in an irc chat room, exchange some private information to make sure it's indeed your friend, and process to send that 40MB powerpoint file. Usually, since you have 100KBps upstream, it takes like 6-7 minutes. But now, that data is encrypted and sent to your server. It then span half of that small web, passing through many ADSL / cable / potl modem and is then sent through your friend server up to him, at 1.4KBps (Speed being of the slowest part)
It's great that no one out of that net can know what you are sending, to who you are sending it or what it is but those inside node need to be trusted and speed isn't exactly high..
Even there, if all the nodes were connected to "logged" routers, it could probably be possible to make a correlation between the packets and find who is the source, and who is the destination, but it would not help in recovering the data.
All in all, it's a nice idea, but far from perfect.
Pros: Potentially powerful, has serious marketing muscle behind it Cons: Serious questions about games and support, can the X-Box survive a DOJ breakup?
Yes, that was almost 5 years ago... Why are you talking of every 2 years ? I don't like Microsoft, and I dislikes console even more. But what I hate most, that's those "like fact" sentences.
I'm currently typing on a 6 years old computer. Well it hasn't reached 6 years exactly yet but it was bought in '99. That thing is able to play counter strike source !!! at a fast enough FPS to get plenty of kills;) And it's running winxp.
It's only a P3-500, with a Geforce 2 in it. Got enough of ram though. I don't know what on the web could be slow with that 350mhz one... Flash animation with a sucky video card & not enough ram ?
Old computer can do a lot if they are kept in good condition, and had been conceived with good hardware (yes, that geforce 2 was added later on when it hit a very low price, replacing a TNT video card)
Have you seen GTA:SA on a good TV ? Have you seen Resident Evil 4 on a good TV ? I'm talking the kind of TV you can connect your computer DVI output on and play in widescreen. Far Cry, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 look amazing. Playing NFS Underground 2 on it is incredible.
Now, a friend of yours bring his console to show you his favorite game.. Both of you will notice the VERY LOW QUALITY that they render on. XBox, GameCube or PS2, none of them give a good quality render "out of the box". Perhaps you can buy some GPU update for them somewhere but I never heard about it;)
That low quality isn't that apparent on a 27" TV but when your DVI is connected at 720p you see the difference.
On the stability issue, when did you really had a crash in a game ? I've not for the six months I've had my current computer, neither with the current geforce 6 nor with the previous geforce 4...
the bandwidth problem is not for legitimate mail, but rather for spammers that uses comprimised computers to send email (and thus have unlimited/free bandwidth) and will simply keep swarming all the servers implementing this, thus generating a very high CPU load (per request) along with a very big return payload... No ISP will want to run a 32 opteron cluster just to generate the required images. And don't tell me about reusing them, HE!
Beginning in 2006, Take2 will have exclusive rights among third-party publishers to develop and market simulation, arcade and manager-style baseball video games...
How can Take2 have the exclusive right to develop and market simulation, blah blah baseball game ? Someone actually owns a patent of the baseball game and has signed an exclusivity contract to allow people to play it ???
Please explain how is that stopping anyone from developping a new baseball game!
What binds the actual button as being an acceptance of the contract ? The contract itself.. and if you don't accept it, I don't see any law anywhere that would force it down on you;) this is just like clicking next..
If you think I'm bad, then just get a program that click randomly on the screen for you, and launch it until it get the install right =)
What I mean is that if you don't agree to the agreement, nothing stop you from clicking on the I accept button, since it means nothing because you haven't agreed to it and nothing force you not to click on that button.. Is that clearer now ??
The point I'm trying to make is that while the EULA may be a contract, it's only required that I agree to its terms before installing and using it, not at the point of sale before purchasing it. Now naturally, IANAL, but tell me, am I wrong?
You said that you need to agree to the term to continue the installation... BUT... What is freaking forcing you to agree to the terms to continue the installation ? If you don't agree to the term, nothing stop you from installing this program, since you don't agree with the term that require you to agree with the term to install it.. and so, you are ok to install it!
Well, dunno if I said that one right in english.. I might have to write it again =)
The terms state that you need to agree with them to start the installation and leave if you disagree. If I disgree, I am not bound by those terms and then nothing stops me from installing it. Guess that's better stated. So, they can't stop me from installing it except by not selling me the product in the first place and I will NEVER be bound by any EULA except if I chose to be.
Mostly say that the site is unaccessible from 3 location in the world, and 4 from the US, then lots of people concluded that only the US citizens "inland" could see the site.. I rather concluded that they might have blocked countries where the density of US citizens is low.. or botnet computer is high
How are you sure that those exact countries are blocked. I'm from Québec city, in Québec, Canada, and I can see that site just fine. So must do many countries where there is a relatively high percentage of US voters present, that haven't voted using the anticipation method last week..
I guess they don't want to loose cash for advertising to useless (for them) people.. Just requiring Akamai solution is a proof that they have to serve a lot of people at once..
quote: (uptime measured in days before memory hogging caused a reboot)
I guess that's not windows since I've been running apache + mysql + php on a server from 1st june to last week. I had to reboot since I was feeling that I would receive some attacks if I would not do the updates.. (Logs where starting to show unusual request trying to run scripts from forbidden locations)
Oh yeah, the server handled in average over 700K php scripts run per day and it only got 512mb of ram...
Slashdot Mirror
What does it mean when I see an Asterisk following a user's ID number?
;)
You may have noticed user IDs with an asterisk after them, like: John Doe (12345) *. The asterisk means that this user is a subscriber to Slashdot. They have shelled out some coin to help keep Slashdot running. They get assorted extra features for helping support the site, including the asterisk and the glorious bragging rights that go along with it. If you are logged in, you can use this information to assign a bonus or penalty to their default comment score. Or disable it outright. It's really up to you.
So, yes, he is a subscriber
my good old crt can run 120 hz in 1280x1024. So, when can a field of grass like that, with two armies crushing each other with human-like face animation of pain can be redendered at that speed so I can run some nice little 3d shutter glass ? =)
I don't think I'd be complaining much... ;)
Yes, there was CD-drives before. But they were only audio cds at first. It took a long time before you actually had something coming on CDs, and even longer before you could burn a CD... I remember looking at that 8K$ (Can) 2X burner and hoping one day I could buy one .. =)
If you had a smaller HD than the CD, that mean you didn't invest in your HD. I got a Creative Labs 2X CD-drive ( I think it was middle 94) and I already had 2 540MB (no, not in raid =) ) & 1 280MB drive and not long afterward I got a fireball 1080..
Also, they didn't replaced the floppies, they replaced the 100mb zip drives and we were already talking of 1gb jazz drive at that time with some lucky people actually saving for them.
Bioforge was one of the first game I remember buying coming on a CD =)
Notice that (as was said before) the patent expired a few years ago in most country and anyway, they were only going after "compressor", meaning apps that allow to save a file as a gif, starting from another file type. from gnu.org: The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan patent expired on 20 June 2004 and in Canada it expired on 7 July 2004. The U.S. IBM patent expires 11 August 2006,
Try to find something on a 400GB tape... You will see, it takes a few hours, at best :(
to buy the expansion pack : it will bring the size to the equivalent of the ncharge & will boost performance over it...
;)
that's your call
And that's also why I used most .. I use many different browser and I don't remember using one without that option in a while ...
That's why most browser have a "down" arrow next to the back button: you can get back as many page as required to get out of the loop !
No, it's not just a downgraded internet. If you've read the content you should have noted that they are using VPN, standing for Virtual Private Networking.
What they are doing is creating an encrypted web. When you connect to the server, it is SUPPOSED not to be login what you are doing, and just redirect your packets as a normal one, except that you reach that node with an encrypted packet: you can't be sniffed and it's not possible to know what you are doing with it externally. Internally, this is a completely different thing though, and that's where it require a bit of trust in the server you use.
As long as the server is really not logging anything, no one inside that web can know who you are outside of it. There is one thing slowing it, that's the harsh penalty of the bandwidth usage. Let's say you and your friend are both using this,and leave close next to each other. You usually were sending your homeworks by email, but once it was stolen and you've been reprimanded for that, so you decide to use that secure channel to send it over.
You meet your friend in an irc chat room, exchange some private information to make sure it's indeed your friend, and process to send that 40MB powerpoint file. Usually, since you have 100KBps upstream, it takes like 6-7 minutes. But now, that data is encrypted and sent to your server. It then span half of that small web, passing through many ADSL / cable / potl modem and is then sent through your friend server up to him, at 1.4KBps (Speed being of the slowest part)
It's great that no one out of that net can know what you are sending, to who you are sending it or what it is but those inside node need to be trusted and speed isn't exactly high..
Even there, if all the nodes were connected to "logged" routers, it could probably be possible to make a correlation between the packets and find who is the source, and who is the destination, but it would not help in recovering the data.
All in all, it's a nice idea, but far from perfect.
Hehum...
X - the quintessential variable
by 32_Footsteps,
in Games
, Jun 30, 2000
Pros: Potentially powerful, has serious marketing muscle behind it
Cons: Serious questions about games and support, can the X-Box survive a DOJ breakup?
Yes, that was almost 5 years ago... Why are you talking of every 2 years ? I don't like Microsoft, and I dislikes console even more. But what I hate most, that's those "like fact" sentences.
I'm currently typing on a 6 years old computer. Well it hasn't reached 6 years exactly yet but it was bought in '99. That thing is able to play counter strike source !!! at a fast enough FPS to get plenty of kills ;) And it's running winxp.
It's only a P3-500, with a Geforce 2 in it. Got enough of ram though. I don't know what on the web could be slow with that 350mhz one... Flash animation with a sucky video card & not enough ram ?
Old computer can do a lot if they are kept in good condition, and had been conceived with good hardware (yes, that geforce 2 was added later on when it hit a very low price, replacing a TNT video card)
have you tried using it for anywhere else than the US ?
:)
At least GMaps, as a beta, already have a very good quality representation of Canada
Have you seen GTA:SA on a good TV ? Have you seen Resident Evil 4 on a good TV ? I'm talking the kind of TV you can connect your computer DVI output on and play in widescreen. Far Cry, Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 look amazing. Playing NFS Underground 2 on it is incredible. Now, a friend of yours bring his console to show you his favorite game .. Both of you will notice the VERY LOW QUALITY that they render on. XBox, GameCube or PS2, none of them give a good quality render "out of the box". Perhaps you can buy some GPU update for them somewhere but I never heard about it ;)
That low quality isn't that apparent on a 27" TV but when your DVI is connected at 720p you see the difference.
On the stability issue, when did you really had a crash in a game ? I've not for the six months I've had my current computer, neither with the current geforce 6 nor with the previous geforce 4 ...
the bandwidth problem is not for legitimate mail, but rather for spammers that uses comprimised computers to send email (and thus have unlimited/free bandwidth) and will simply keep swarming all the servers implementing this, thus generating a very high CPU load (per request) along with a very big return payload... No ISP will want to run a 32 opteron cluster just to generate the required images. And don't tell me about reusing them, HE!
Beginning in 2006, Take2 will have exclusive rights among third-party publishers to develop and market simulation, arcade and manager-style baseball video games...
How can Take2 have the exclusive right to develop and market simulation, blah blah baseball game ? Someone actually owns a patent of the baseball game and has signed an exclusivity contract to allow people to play it ???
Please explain how is that stopping anyone from developping a new baseball game!
What binds the actual button as being an acceptance of the contract ? The contract itself.. and if you don't accept it, I don't see any law anywhere that would force it down on you ;) this is just like clicking next ..
If you think I'm bad, then just get a program that click randomly on the screen for you, and launch it until it get the install right =)
What I mean is that if you don't agree to the agreement, nothing stop you from clicking on the I accept button, since it means nothing because you haven't agreed to it and nothing force you not to click on that button.. Is that clearer now ??
Well, dunno if I said that one right in english
The terms state that you need to agree with them to start the installation and leave if you disagree. If I disgree, I am not bound by those terms and then nothing stops me from installing it. Guess that's better stated. So, they can't stop me from installing it except by not selling me the product in the first place and I will NEVER be bound by any EULA except if I chose to be.
That's your flash player : either uninstall this crap (preferred method) or update it!
See other comments & netcraft site ;)
.. or botnet computer is high
Mostly say that the site is unaccessible from 3 location in the world, and 4 from the US, then lots of people concluded that only the US citizens "inland" could see the site.. I rather concluded that they might have blocked countries where the density of US citizens is low
How are you sure that those exact countries are blocked. I'm from Québec city, in Québec, Canada, and I can see that site just fine. So must do many countries where there is a relatively high percentage of US voters present, that haven't voted using the anticipation method last week..
I guess they don't want to loose cash for advertising to useless (for them) people.. Just requiring Akamai solution is a proof that they have to serve a lot of people at once..
quote: (uptime measured in days before memory hogging caused a reboot)
...
I guess that's not windows since I've been running apache + mysql + php on a server from 1st june to last week. I had to reboot since I was feeling that I would receive some attacks if I would not do the updates.. (Logs where starting to show unusual request trying to run scripts from forbidden locations)
Oh yeah, the server handled in average over 700K php scripts run per day and it only got 512mb of ram
I got an old P3-500, with 384MB of ram and NO, it doesn't swap when I move between mozilla / IE / visual studios / (gaim/ssh/sftp) / file explorer.
;)
you got something bad on your comp