Lasershoppe.com Laser: >100mW (one tested was 191!) Thinkgeek.com Laser: 5mW
Yes... there is a 20x difference in power here (about 38x with the tested one). While lasers in general can be harmful, the one this guy is selling should really be considered a weapon.
Also worth noting about the lasershoppe one: "this laser is not legal to use in public."
Well they may have already known about them - but this list just screams "look at me! look at me!"... so these will draw even more attention now. Plus, having a list like this may say to MPAA/etc that these are the "good" ones that people are recommending and then they may figure out which ones to go after first.
So this is the "unofficial" one... but it's authorized? Or rather, they want you to report any other ones as not being authorized? Authorized by who? The same people who say it's unofficial?
YAMHILL, Ore. - There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school dropout and self-taught computer chip designer.
Ms. Ellsworth has squeezed the entire circuitry of a two-decade-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single chip, which she has tucked neatly into a joystick that connects by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore 64 - the same as the computer system - her device can run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzles games from the early 1980's, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.
She has also included five hidden games and other features - not found on the original Commodore computer - that only a fellow hobbyist would be likely to appreciate. For instance, someone who wanted to turn the device into an improved version of the original machine could modify it to add a keyboard, monitor and disk drive.
Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month; since then it has been sold through QVC's Web site. Frank Landi, president of Mammoth, said he expected the joystick would be distributed next year by bigger toy and electronics retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us. "To me, any toy that sells 70,000 in a day on QVC is a good indication of the kind of reception we can expect," he said.
Ms. Ellworth's first venture into toy making has not yet brought her great wealth - she said she is paid on a consulting basis at a rate that is competitive for her industry - "but I'm having fun," she said, and she continues with other projects in circuit design as a consultant.
Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)
More significant, perhaps, is that in an era of immensely complicated computer systems, huge factories and design teams that stretch across continents, Ms. Ellsworth is demonstrating that the spirit that once led from Silicon Valley garages to companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer can still thrive.
"She's a pure example of following your interests and someone who won't accept that you can't do it," said Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first portable PC and an original member of the Homebrew Computer Club. "She is someone who can do it and do it brilliantly."
Ms. Ellsworth said that chip design was an opportunity to search for elegance in simplicity. She takes her greatest pleasure in examining a complex computer circuit and reducing it in cost and size by cleverly reusing basic electronic building blocks.
It is a skill that is as much art as science, but one that Ms. Ellsworth has perfected, painstakingly refining her talent by plunging deeply into the minutiae of computer circuit design.
Recently she interrupted a conversation with a visitor in her home to hunt in between the scattered circuit boards and components in her living room for a 1971 volume, "MOS Integrated Circuits," which she frequently consults. The book concerns an earlier chip technology based on fewer transistors than are used today. "I look for older texts," she said. "A real good designer needs to know how the old stuff works."
Several years ago Ms. Ellsworth cornered Stephen Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, at a festival for vintage Apple computers and badgered him for the secrets of his Apple I
I don't think I've seen any false-positives since about 0.7 - but it does miss some emails now and then, so it's not really 100% success rate, but really, what is?
But I do see your point... however, you also have to understand that with Thunderbird, you're not really running a separate application to filter your spam (or running anything on your server for it) - this is just a free email client that does it's own filtering.
Though as I said, I'm quite satisfied. And of course, your mileage may vary.
No, I totally agree with the practice. Just found it interesting that the people selling were already trying to cover their asses. But yes, they certainly have a large enough userbase to do as they wish at this point.
I just did a quick search and most of the things I saw were a couple gold pieces or something and the people were strictly claiming in the auction that the "item" is property of Blizzard and that the person is paying for the time to gather it and process the transaction...
I wonder what Blizzard thinks of that? Still bad, I assume?
Doesn't seem very slow to me, but I'm opening it on a 2.8ghz w/ 1gb ram. Do you have an older system? Any extensions/themes installed? Have you tried to recreate the profile?
That may be why they call it an emulator. I've actually played around with it a bit, but it's no where near ready for people to be going and downloading it to use OS X. Plus, you actually need to have a copy of an OS X install CD - it doesn't just come with it or anything.
I'd "ditto" that if I could. I just found out about this program a couple weeks ago and I think it's pretty powerful. At times it is a bit slow an clunky. But it has a nice interface and it is VERY good at removing items in memory/that are running.
Also, Spy Sweeper is another good one to check out.
I'm losing faith in Spybot, but with other programs coming out there, that's ok.
While I understand that the firewall, Firefox, and Thunderbird are just "usage" apps... if it takes you 4 OTHER applications to remain clean with no problems, you need to review your browsing habits.
I have never had a spyware/virus problem that I didn't initiate on purpose (i test spyware removal tools sometimes). I don't see why people run so many applications like this... WHAT DO YOU DO to get so much crap that requires 4 applications to remove?
Ditto on the cookies. I know people that are just paranoid about them and I'd like to beat them with a large stick.
As far as immunize. I can attest that it does, in fact, work. I usually keep my machine immunized for every day use (even though I use Firefox). A few times, wanting to test some spyware-removal apps, I'll try to infect my machine.
Once or twice in doing that, I forgot to de-immunize and was totally unable to install some of the spyware apps I was trying to get. Then I did an "undo immunization" and they installed right away.
Conclusion: yes, it does work for some things. But as always, your mileage may vary.
I wouldn't recommend anything Yahoo to anyone - especially their toolbar. As someone else above me said, it has been known to not remove certain spyware apps that Yahoo is associated with. Don't use that crap - get a real program to remove it, not a toolbar.
Slashdot Mirror
That's great. I was pointing out exactly what the difference is... and that yes, you can burn out your eye with it.
Ok... let's compare.
Lasershoppe.com Laser: >100mW (one tested was 191!)
Thinkgeek.com Laser: 5mW
Yes... there is a 20x difference in power here (about 38x with the tested one). While lasers in general can be harmful, the one this guy is selling should really be considered a weapon.
Also worth noting about the lasershoppe one: "this laser is not legal to use in public."
What about the 10 yr old who said he "played this" on his cell phone... (referring to Defender)?
Why does a 10 yr old have a cell phone? That's the part I'm stuck on.
which is now offline
:)
And redirects to google.
At least they don't have to worry about being slashdotted now.
Well they may have already known about them - but this list just screams "look at me! look at me!" ... so these will draw even more attention now. Plus, having a list like this may say to MPAA/etc that these are the "good" ones that people are recommending and then they may figure out which ones to go after first.
One of my favorites is on that list ... and now I fear for it's existence. :(
That was probably the least intelligent part of that FAQ.
So this is the "unofficial" one... but it's authorized? Or rather, they want you to report any other ones as not being authorized? Authorized by who? The same people who say it's unofficial?
I'm confused...
damnit - i really did mean to post as AC ...
Enjoy:
YAMHILL, Ore. - There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school dropout and self-taught computer chip designer.
Ms. Ellsworth has squeezed the entire circuitry of a two-decade-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single chip, which she has tucked neatly into a joystick that connects by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore 64 - the same as the computer system - her device can run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzles games from the early 1980's, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.
She has also included five hidden games and other features - not found on the original Commodore computer - that only a fellow hobbyist would be likely to appreciate. For instance, someone who wanted to turn the device into an improved version of the original machine could modify it to add a keyboard, monitor and disk drive.
Sold by Mammoth Toys, based in New York, for $30, the Commodore 64 joystick has been a hot item on QVC this Christmas season, selling 70,000 units in one day when it was introduced on the shopping channel last month; since then it has been sold through QVC's Web site. Frank Landi, president of Mammoth, said he expected the joystick would be distributed next year by bigger toy and electronics retailers like Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us. "To me, any toy that sells 70,000 in a day on QVC is a good indication of the kind of reception we can expect," he said.
Ms. Ellworth's first venture into toy making has not yet brought her great wealth - she said she is paid on a consulting basis at a rate that is competitive for her industry - "but I'm having fun," she said, and she continues with other projects in circuit design as a consultant.
Her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of "retro" personal computer enthusiasts, as well as broad respect among the insular world of the original computer hackers who created the first personal computers three decades ago. (The term "hacker" first referred to people who liked to design and create machines, and only later began to be applied to people who broke into them.)
More significant, perhaps, is that in an era of immensely complicated computer systems, huge factories and design teams that stretch across continents, Ms. Ellsworth is demonstrating that the spirit that once led from Silicon Valley garages to companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer can still thrive.
"She's a pure example of following your interests and someone who won't accept that you can't do it," said Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the first portable PC and an original member of the Homebrew Computer Club. "She is someone who can do it and do it brilliantly."
Ms. Ellsworth said that chip design was an opportunity to search for elegance in simplicity. She takes her greatest pleasure in examining a complex computer circuit and reducing it in cost and size by cleverly reusing basic electronic building blocks.
It is a skill that is as much art as science, but one that Ms. Ellsworth has perfected, painstakingly refining her talent by plunging deeply into the minutiae of computer circuit design.
Recently she interrupted a conversation with a visitor in her home to hunt in between the scattered circuit boards and components in her living room for a 1971 volume, "MOS Integrated Circuits," which she frequently consults. The book concerns an earlier chip technology based on fewer transistors than are used today. "I look for older texts," she said. "A real good designer needs to know how the old stuff works."
Several years ago Ms. Ellsworth cornered Stephen Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, at a festival for vintage Apple computers and badgered him for the secrets of his Apple I
I don't think I've seen any false-positives since about 0.7 - but it does miss some emails now and then, so it's not really 100% success rate, but really, what is?
But I do see your point... however, you also have to understand that with Thunderbird, you're not really running a separate application to filter your spam (or running anything on your server for it) - this is just a free email client that does it's own filtering.
Though as I said, I'm quite satisfied. And of course, your mileage may vary.
I never thought I'd get to use it... but... RTFA jackass. Don't just see a question and post something about it. Answer: http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2004/122004spamsid e6.html
I find that Mozilla's Thunderbird has excellent anti-spam control. That's just from my own "testing" though...
I like to consider it:
Questionably
Absent
The Gameboy is for all Portables - which the PSP is... so it fits just fine.
No, I totally agree with the practice. Just found it interesting that the people selling were already trying to cover their asses. But yes, they certainly have a large enough userbase to do as they wish at this point.
I just did a quick search and most of the things I saw were a couple gold pieces or something and the people were strictly claiming in the auction that the "item" is property of Blizzard and that the person is paying for the time to gather it and process the transaction...
I wonder what Blizzard thinks of that? Still bad, I assume?
No NYT reg warning?! No soul giving? No FRR?
Doesn't seem very slow to me, but I'm opening it on a 2.8ghz w/ 1gb ram. Do you have an older system? Any extensions/themes installed? Have you tried to recreate the profile?
Mmm... since 1.0PR - new, pretty icons!
Having something like AdBlock probably doesn't help their click % for Firefox either.
Hooray for extensions!
That said, PearPC != OS X.
That may be why they call it an emulator. I've actually played around with it a bit, but it's no where near ready for people to be going and downloading it to use OS X. Plus, you actually need to have a copy of an OS X install CD - it doesn't just come with it or anything.
I'd "ditto" that if I could. I just found out about this program a couple weeks ago and I think it's pretty powerful. At times it is a bit slow an clunky. But it has a nice interface and it is VERY good at removing items in memory/that are running.
Also, Spy Sweeper is another good one to check out.
I'm losing faith in Spybot, but with other programs coming out there, that's ok.
While I understand that the firewall, Firefox, and Thunderbird are just "usage" apps... if it takes you 4 OTHER applications to remain clean with no problems, you need to review your browsing habits.
I have never had a spyware/virus problem that I didn't initiate on purpose (i test spyware removal tools sometimes). I don't see why people run so many applications like this... WHAT DO YOU DO to get so much crap that requires 4 applications to remove?
Ditto on the cookies. I know people that are just paranoid about them and I'd like to beat them with a large stick.
As far as immunize. I can attest that it does, in fact, work. I usually keep my machine immunized for every day use (even though I use Firefox). A few times, wanting to test some spyware-removal apps, I'll try to infect my machine.
Once or twice in doing that, I forgot to de-immunize and was totally unable to install some of the spyware apps I was trying to get. Then I did an "undo immunization" and they installed right away.
Conclusion: yes, it does work for some things. But as always, your mileage may vary.
I wouldn't recommend anything Yahoo to anyone - especially their toolbar. As someone else above me said, it has been known to not remove certain spyware apps that Yahoo is associated with. Don't use that crap - get a real program to remove it, not a toolbar.