Indeed it is. In fact, you will sometimes here the professor refer to his headcrab as "heady" (Hedy). A cute name, and a tribute to a real female geek... although I'm not sure a defanged neutered brain-suching sci-fi alien is all that complimentary:-)
What's always irritated me about the school system is the push to have students work for free. There are many "work experience" programs out there that require this. Certainly there's nothing wrong with having a student work in his/her arena of choice, but requiring that he or she as a volunteer only (no paycheque) is pretty unreasonable.
If I student can only get the work on a volunteer basis, fine. If he/she is able to get paid for it, even better! A lot of places will give the students some form of bonus in lieu of pay (ski passes for working at a ski-hill, etc) but it seems to me that the overall concept makes it rather easy to take advantage of young people for free labour.
I think you misinterpreted. The reference was not to spontaneously losing data, but rather due to a particular circumstance or failure. For example, many databases feature the ability to confirm, roll-back, and otherwise validity various transactions to a strong degree. Not if, for some reason, your server had an error/failure or a network glitch occured, you might lose data or get corrupt data. A good database may have ways to detect and/or correct this, whereas a lesser one might not.
I haven't played with much DB work in the last few years, so I'm a bit out-of-touch feature-wise. My understanding is that in terms of not losing data, PostgreSQL was better than mysql, Mysql was faster, but as the move on they're evening out on those fields.
Is there a side-by-side comparison of major databases (including the open-source postgre, mysql) where one can see where in the featuresets each lacks/wins?
Well, the solution to this is simple. MS controls the patch and update cycle for previous windows generations. If it ain't broke... they can break it enough that it becomes inconvenient to not upgrade.
Back in the old days, moving up from 98 to XP was definately an upgrade. In terms of the OS itself there were more features, better memory management, and less crashes. Awhile after the whole RPC-call virus debacle came about, but overall XP is a better OS.
I simply cannot see the same being true for Vista. It's a pig on resources. It hinders the user with DRM and WGA, sometimes disabling legit users. Other than looking different (again at a cost of CPU/RAM), it really doesn't offer me more than XP, except for perhaps a better security model (yet to be proven) which overall seems to be in many ways a hinderance over a help.
The biggest thing that's going to push Vista over XP is as Microsoft does its best to kill off any updates/features/fixes in the old OS. No new DirectX layers, less patches for various things, and perhaps in the end less hardware support.
The submission appears to be saying that the RIAA doesn't like being countersued
The question is not so much whether they will be unhappy if they are countersued, but rather if they register the possibility of such (and the damages it represents) as a possible restraint on the reckless pursuit of inproperly substantiated lawsuits.
So in short, the answer is:
Dislike: Of course
Fear: No so much indication of this yet.
The problem with some areas of major cities - and I have had this problem in downtown Vancouver (a short ferry ride away from Victoria) - is that it is sometimes hard to find a place to use the washroom, and not just if you're drunk. There's quite often issues with addicts etc using the washroom facilities to shoot up in private, so many establishments will have the washrooms locked, requiring you get a key at the front desk. Quite often, they will also require you to make a purchase beforehand.
Now normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but when you really really need to take a leak (perhaps that venti-sized Starbucks apple cider just kicked in 15 minutes later) having to wait in line to be serviced in order to get the can really sucks. I haven't quite had an incident where I have been unable to make it, but it's come close enough that things have gone from the level of "unconfortable" to well near painful. I remember the days when it wasn't a big deal to stop at the corner store if you needed to take a leak, now half of them don't even *have* public washrooms. And again, I'm not talking about being drunk and needing to pee, just needing to go with some pressing urgency
Holding in one's bladder does enough to reduce mobility. I could see how those with some mobility disablement etc would find these devices very useful.
What I wonder is why these reactions would be bad for your microwave. Does it cause the device to draw too much power? Is it backfeeding, or it is just more a concern of setting small fires up in the microwave?
From my (perhaps uninformed) perspective, when you're frying an egg or a slice 'o' bacon, the object is obsorbing the energy/heat from the microwave. Perhaps the grapes or tinfoil etc are emitting energy, but unless that actually gives a surge back into the components of the microwave how does that cause lasting damage?
Deflecting something from a particular course is likley a lot easier than setting it on to a specific new course. All you need is a big enough push (or bigger) to ensure it missing hitting (for example) Earth. Now to have it hit a particular target, you would need much more exact placing and timing of an explosion/rocket/etc.
Bubble bobble is a bit dated now, but still fun and engaging. If you can somehow find it, bubble-bobble two is also multiplayer (I think up to 4), has some more up-to-date graphics+sound, and is as equally addicting as the original.
I once had a bad cassette dirty up my tape heads, and the player wouldn't work for videos until I got it cleaned. More recently, I bought a bunch of cheap VHS movies. When I put one of them in, it again dirtied my heads and now the picture and sound are distorted for all the tapes. I'll need to get a tape cleaner again.
At least scratched DVD's don't cause the player to mess up with your next movie, though I suppose you could have a cracked disk explode or just accumulate dust on the laser lense over time.
Ever notice that railroad tracks tend to have some space between the different segments of rail? Depending on the season, it allows for the metal to expand or contract due to heat. In the winter, the metal tracks will shrink a little bit and contract. In the summer heat, the tracks will expand a bit.
Same thing with a hard drive, if a metallic part is stuck inside, then sometime freezing the sucker will cause the bearing or whatever to schrink just enough that it becomes unjammed. Now if the bearing is screwed, your drive will run into issues once it heats up+expands again. In some cases it will give you extra lifetime your drive, but for any failed drive I'd recommend replacement as soon as the data is recovered sufficiently.
If "Credit Agency X" reports you as being unreliable due to actions "Y" and "Z", and you did not commit said actions, could that not be construed as libel or defamation?
It falls pretty damn close to the definition in Webster's dictionary of law:
Communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person
When I can't take out a mortgage because credit reporting company X has informed them I am a risk due to debt management, is that not defamation by the preceeding definition?
I tend to get my spams in pairs to two seperate addresses. Both come from the same sender (name) with the same subject. Sometimes I get 3-4 of the same email, sent to my various email aliases.
Setting up a system that checks the dupes and blacklists the sender (or the title) would work. Personally I'd prefer one that holds emails for about 1 minute, parses them for duplicates between various accounts, and then for the spammy multimessages it nukes all the copies.
Tell them you think somebody is trying to hack into your website for the purpose of installing illegal pornography then?
Reminds me of story I heard.
An old man calls 9-1-1 and says that two men are trying to break into his shed and steal from him.
9-1-1 says that all the police in the area are tied up right now, but they'll send somebody in 45 minutes to an hour.
Man says that the crooks are there right now committing the act, but they'll be gone in one hour
Operator gets annoyed with man and says there's nothing she can do
Man tells her to have a nice day and hangs up
3 minutes later, the man calls back and tells the police not to worry about the crooks.
Operator says "oh, why not. Have they left already."
Man says, "well no, since you weren't coming I just grabbed my shotgun and took care of them both myself"
Not five minutes after that, several police cars skid to a halt in front of the man's house. They catch the burglars, alive, still trying to steal stuff from the shed. The man is confronted about his call as the police thought they were responding to a shooting.
Man says, well it seems to me that when a crime is being committed, you guys don't show up. But when a man defends his own property it doesn't take you long to get here.
So far as I know, the many was charged with something or other for lying to 9-1-1, but later acquitted. But it goes to show that many times cops would rather be "busy" with their traffic tickets or whatever else than deal with somebody being robbed.
It's a combination of the uniform and the attitude that garners respect. If I pass a police officer, in most cases I'll usually be polite enough to tip my hat and say hi. If a few officers in life for a coffee, I might be obliged to let them ahead since they have an important job to do.
Now if I run into an officer who is being a dick, or breaking the law, then he doesn't deserve my respect any more than any other jerk does. I think that's what's being discussed here, rather than disrespecting good people doing their job and a service to the community.
Your assumption is that the person connecting to the network is more tech-savvy than the person running the unsecured network. The problem is that both are "noobs" so to speak, and the fact is that many wireless softwares will automatically latch onto a nearby wireless connection (usually the strongest) without asking or informing the user.
Where I used to live, we had quite a few wireless networks open in the area. We also had two of our open (open for our friends, but the SSID wasn't broadcast, and I monitored the usage). At one point, however, I discovered that when something interfered with the signal (usually the cordless phone) windows would lose the connection, dump it, and automagically switch to a neighbour's wireless without asking. I've heard of Macs doing the same thing. Now I'm not a computing noob, but the fact is that even when I told it not to, the damn software would still jump around like a rabbit on steroids.
Combine this with people like my grandparents or even friends my age, who don't understand the internet or computers much at all. For them, things just work. If you have an internet connection with your new Dell, well it might be from the Dell people as a service that came with the laptop... not that you're leeching your neighbours wireless.
Now if he was told to stay off the wireless and didn't take reasonable measures I could understand this. The owner should have taken measures to secure his wireless as well. An open lot is the responsibility of the owner to fence after all, so why not a virtual private space?
Say for just the fun of it have some blueprints for making bombs then on the same table have a postcard with the parliment buildings on it.
So what exactly does it take before it's alright for them to arrest this woman or search her computer? Does she have to have key areas circles in the blueprint and "bomb" written beside them. The equivilent to a note saying she's going to bomb the building? Do they have to wait until she's in the building with a bunch of explosives and lead balls strapped to her back?
Seriously, while I think we should be very wary to differentiate between thoughcrime and actual crime, and I definately think authorities are prone to abusing their power lately, at some point you have to draw the line and accept that the people in question were in fact planning a crime.
I suppose the question is, where do we draw that line? It's a pretty hard one to define really.
Offer a consistently superior contract. In the OS business would, offer a consistently superior product for free, and charge for a good service contract.
Now, I'm familiar enough with the series that I'm quite likely to buy this game, however looking at the box art it shows that at least in some arenas an extremely underwhelming effort was made to promote this game. Perhaps it's just the local copies I have seen, but the case art seems to be simply a resized image with no blending or filtering. That is to say, looking at it anywhere up close shows pixellated edges and jags.
Perhaps it's only the local copies, but something seems horribly wrong. If it weren't for the fact that these copies are selling on retail shelves, I would think that they were actually rip-offs or black-market cheap copies.
Can anyone else confirm the massive pixellation on the box-art? Certainly when that is the first thing consumers see on shelves one would think a bit more care could have been put into it, but again perhaps these are rushed pre-copies or something like that??
To properly translate all the nuances of some languages actually requires a lot of skill, and sometimes translating can be ask much interpreting as anything. Granted, this is something a human could handle better than a machine, but the problem is that humans also have a bias. Yes, there have been cases wherein human translation has caused problems because of bias or even due to being outright wrong.
I reminds me of the old joke:
Guard: Now tell me where you hid the money, or you will suffer
Translator: Tell him where the money is, or you will suffer
Prisoner: I'll never speak
Translator: He says he won't tell you
Guard: *putting gun to prisoner's head* Tell him I will blow his brains out if he doesn't tell me immediately
Translator: He will shoot you in the head unless you tell him now
Prisoner: I buried a million dollars under the floorboards in the old woodshed
Translator: *pauses* He says you don't have the guts to shoot him...
Actually, in most cases you could duplicate the design to your heart's content. You can't sell new toasters with the existing design though, and/or especially not with the same brand as your original toaster.
When I buy I CD, I own a CD. I should be able to do whatever I want with the contents, except selling off duplicates or claiminging them as my own.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed it is. In fact, you will sometimes here the professor refer to his headcrab as "heady" (Hedy). A cute name, and a tribute to a real female geek... although I'm not sure a defanged neutered brain-suching sci-fi alien is all that complimentary :-)
What's always irritated me about the school system is the push to have students work for free. There are many "work experience" programs out there that require this. Certainly there's nothing wrong with having a student work in his/her arena of choice, but requiring that he or she as a volunteer only (no paycheque) is pretty unreasonable.
If I student can only get the work on a volunteer basis, fine. If he/she is able to get paid for it, even better! A lot of places will give the students some form of bonus in lieu of pay (ski passes for working at a ski-hill, etc) but it seems to me that the overall concept makes it rather easy to take advantage of young people for free labour.
I think you misinterpreted. The reference was not to spontaneously losing data, but rather due to a particular circumstance or failure. For example, many databases feature the ability to confirm, roll-back, and otherwise validity various transactions to a strong degree. Not if, for some reason, your server had an error/failure or a network glitch occured, you might lose data or get corrupt data. A good database may have ways to detect and/or correct this, whereas a lesser one might not.
I haven't played with much DB work in the last few years, so I'm a bit out-of-touch feature-wise. My understanding is that in terms of not losing data, PostgreSQL was better than mysql, Mysql was faster, but as the move on they're evening out on those fields.
Is there a side-by-side comparison of major databases (including the open-source postgre, mysql) where one can see where in the featuresets each lacks/wins?
Well, the solution to this is simple. MS controls the patch and update cycle for previous windows generations. If it ain't broke... they can break it enough that it becomes inconvenient to not upgrade.
Back in the old days, moving up from 98 to XP was definately an upgrade. In terms of the OS itself there were more features, better memory management, and less crashes. Awhile after the whole RPC-call virus debacle came about, but overall XP is a better OS.
I simply cannot see the same being true for Vista. It's a pig on resources. It hinders the user with DRM and WGA, sometimes disabling legit users. Other than looking different (again at a cost of CPU/RAM), it really doesn't offer me more than XP, except for perhaps a better security model (yet to be proven) which overall seems to be in many ways a hinderance over a help.
The biggest thing that's going to push Vista over XP is as Microsoft does its best to kill off any updates/features/fixes in the old OS. No new DirectX layers, less patches for various things, and perhaps in the end less hardware support.
And a lot of people don't want to be tasered themselves by cops with itchy trigger fingers.
Yeah, I will happily record, report, and stand witness against officers' indiscretions. I do not, however, want to become one of the victims.
The submission appears to be saying that the RIAA doesn't like being countersued
The question is not so much whether they will be unhappy if they are countersued, but rather if they register the possibility of such (and the damages it represents) as a possible restraint on the reckless pursuit of inproperly substantiated lawsuits.
So in short, the answer is:
Dislike: Of course
Fear: No so much indication of this yet.
The problem with some areas of major cities - and I have had this problem in downtown Vancouver (a short ferry ride away from Victoria) - is that it is sometimes hard to find a place to use the washroom, and not just if you're drunk. There's quite often issues with addicts etc using the washroom facilities to shoot up in private, so many establishments will have the washrooms locked, requiring you get a key at the front desk. Quite often, they will also require you to make a purchase beforehand.
Now normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but when you really really need to take a leak (perhaps that venti-sized Starbucks apple cider just kicked in 15 minutes later) having to wait in line to be serviced in order to get the can really sucks. I haven't quite had an incident where I have been unable to make it, but it's come close enough that things have gone from the level of "unconfortable" to well near painful. I remember the days when it wasn't a big deal to stop at the corner store if you needed to take a leak, now half of them don't even *have* public washrooms. And again, I'm not talking about being drunk and needing to pee, just needing to go with some pressing urgency
Holding in one's bladder does enough to reduce mobility. I could see how those with some mobility disablement etc would find these devices very useful.
What I wonder is why these reactions would be bad for your microwave. Does it cause the device to draw too much power? Is it backfeeding, or it is just more a concern of setting small fires up in the microwave?
From my (perhaps uninformed) perspective, when you're frying an egg or a slice 'o' bacon, the object is obsorbing the energy/heat from the microwave. Perhaps the grapes or tinfoil etc are emitting energy, but unless that actually gives a surge back into the components of the microwave how does that cause lasting damage?
Deflecting something from a particular course is likley a lot easier than setting it on to a specific new course. All you need is a big enough push (or bigger) to ensure it missing hitting (for example) Earth. Now to have it hit a particular target, you would need much more exact placing and timing of an explosion/rocket/etc.
Bubble bobble is a bit dated now, but still fun and engaging. If you can somehow find it, bubble-bobble two is also multiplayer (I think up to 4), has some more up-to-date graphics+sound, and is as equally addicting as the original.
I once had a bad cassette dirty up my tape heads, and the player wouldn't work for videos until I got it cleaned. More recently, I bought a bunch of cheap VHS movies. When I put one of them in, it again dirtied my heads and now the picture and sound are distorted for all the tapes. I'll need to get a tape cleaner again.
At least scratched DVD's don't cause the player to mess up with your next movie, though I suppose you could have a cracked disk explode or just accumulate dust on the laser lense over time.
Ever notice that railroad tracks tend to have some space between the different segments of rail? Depending on the season, it allows for the metal to expand or contract due to heat. In the winter, the metal tracks will shrink a little bit and contract. In the summer heat, the tracks will expand a bit.
Same thing with a hard drive, if a metallic part is stuck inside, then sometime freezing the sucker will cause the bearing or whatever to schrink just enough that it becomes unjammed. Now if the bearing is screwed, your drive will run into issues once it heats up+expands again. In some cases it will give you extra lifetime your drive, but for any failed drive I'd recommend replacement as soon as the data is recovered sufficiently.
You actually make a very good point.
If "Credit Agency X" reports you as being unreliable due to actions "Y" and "Z", and you did not commit said actions, could that not be construed as libel or defamation?
It falls pretty damn close to the definition in Webster's dictionary of law:
Communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person
When I can't take out a mortgage because credit reporting company X has informed them I am a risk due to debt management, is that not defamation by the preceeding definition?
I tend to get my spams in pairs to two seperate addresses. Both come from the same sender (name) with the same subject. Sometimes I get 3-4 of the same email, sent to my various email aliases.
Setting up a system that checks the dupes and blacklists the sender (or the title) would work. Personally I'd prefer one that holds emails for about 1 minute, parses them for duplicates between various accounts, and then for the spammy multimessages it nukes all the copies.
Tell them you think somebody is trying to hack into your website for the purpose of installing illegal pornography then?
Reminds me of story I heard.
An old man calls 9-1-1 and says that two men are trying to break into his shed and steal from him.
9-1-1 says that all the police in the area are tied up right now, but they'll send somebody in 45 minutes to an hour.
Man says that the crooks are there right now committing the act, but they'll be gone in one hour
Operator gets annoyed with man and says there's nothing she can do
Man tells her to have a nice day and hangs up
3 minutes later, the man calls back and tells the police not to worry about the crooks.
Operator says "oh, why not. Have they left already."
Man says, "well no, since you weren't coming I just grabbed my shotgun and took care of them both myself"
Not five minutes after that, several police cars skid to a halt in front of the man's house. They catch the burglars, alive, still trying to steal stuff from the shed. The man is confronted about his call as the police thought they were responding to a shooting.
Man says, well it seems to me that when a crime is being committed, you guys don't show up. But when a man defends his own property it doesn't take you long to get here.
So far as I know, the many was charged with something or other for lying to 9-1-1, but later acquitted. But it goes to show that many times cops would rather be "busy" with their traffic tickets or whatever else than deal with somebody being robbed.
find / -exec chmod 777 {} \; /*
or
chmod -R 777
p.s. what's your IP address?
It's a combination of the uniform and the attitude that garners respect. If I pass a police officer, in most cases I'll usually be polite enough to tip my hat and say hi. If a few officers in life for a coffee, I might be obliged to let them ahead since they have an important job to do.
Now if I run into an officer who is being a dick, or breaking the law, then he doesn't deserve my respect any more than any other jerk does. I think that's what's being discussed here, rather than disrespecting good people doing their job and a service to the community.
Your assumption is that the person connecting to the network is more tech-savvy than the person running the unsecured network. The problem is that both are "noobs" so to speak, and the fact is that many wireless softwares will automatically latch onto a nearby wireless connection (usually the strongest) without asking or informing the user.
Where I used to live, we had quite a few wireless networks open in the area. We also had two of our open (open for our friends, but the SSID wasn't broadcast, and I monitored the usage). At one point, however, I discovered that when something interfered with the signal (usually the cordless phone) windows would lose the connection, dump it, and automagically switch to a neighbour's wireless without asking. I've heard of Macs doing the same thing. Now I'm not a computing noob, but the fact is that even when I told it not to, the damn software would still jump around like a rabbit on steroids.
Combine this with people like my grandparents or even friends my age, who don't understand the internet or computers much at all. For them, things just work. If you have an internet connection with your new Dell, well it might be from the Dell people as a service that came with the laptop... not that you're leeching your neighbours wireless.
Now if he was told to stay off the wireless and didn't take reasonable measures I could understand this. The owner should have taken measures to secure his wireless as well. An open lot is the responsibility of the owner to fence after all, so why not a virtual private space?
Say for just the fun of it have some blueprints for making bombs then on the same table have a postcard with the parliment buildings on it.
So what exactly does it take before it's alright for them to arrest this woman or search her computer? Does she have to have key areas circles in the blueprint and "bomb" written beside them. The equivilent to a note saying she's going to bomb the building? Do they have to wait until she's in the building with a bunch of explosives and lead balls strapped to her back?
Seriously, while I think we should be very wary to differentiate between thoughcrime and actual crime, and I definately think authorities are prone to abusing their power lately, at some point you have to draw the line and accept that the people in question were in fact planning a crime.
I suppose the question is, where do we draw that line? It's a pretty hard one to define really.
Offer a consistently superior contract. In the OS business would, offer a consistently superior product for free, and charge for a good service contract.
Now, I'm familiar enough with the series that I'm quite likely to buy this game, however looking at the box art it shows that at least in some arenas an extremely underwhelming effort was made to promote this game. Perhaps it's just the local copies I have seen, but the case art seems to be simply a resized image with no blending or filtering. That is to say, looking at it anywhere up close shows pixellated edges and jags.
Perhaps it's only the local copies, but something seems horribly wrong. If it weren't for the fact that these copies are selling on retail shelves, I would think that they were actually rip-offs or black-market cheap copies.
Can anyone else confirm the massive pixellation on the box-art? Certainly when that is the first thing consumers see on shelves one would think a bit more care could have been put into it, but again perhaps these are rushed pre-copies or something like that??
To properly translate all the nuances of some languages actually requires a lot of skill, and sometimes translating can be ask much interpreting as anything. Granted, this is something a human could handle better than a machine, but the problem is that humans also have a bias. Yes, there have been cases wherein human translation has caused problems because of bias or even due to being outright wrong.
I reminds me of the old joke:
Guard: Now tell me where you hid the money, or you will suffer
Translator: Tell him where the money is, or you will suffer
Prisoner: I'll never speak
Translator: He says he won't tell you
Guard: *putting gun to prisoner's head* Tell him I will blow his brains out if he doesn't tell me immediately
Translator: He will shoot you in the head unless you tell him now
Prisoner: I buried a million dollars under the floorboards in the old woodshed
Translator: *pauses* He says you don't have the guts to shoot him...
Actually, in most cases you could duplicate the design to your heart's content. You can't sell new toasters with the existing design though, and/or especially not with the same brand as your original toaster.
When I buy I CD, I own a CD. I should be able to do whatever I want with the contents, except selling off duplicates or claiminging them as my own.