in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs...that should be dealt the harsh sentences
This is, however, a very good point. Being a retard and letting something loose beyond your control is one thing, deliberately making a bid to own/disrupt as many machines online you can for purposes of blackmail/theft/etc is another.
We can't overlook the impact of these dumb kids, and certainly should such abuse become more prevalent they should be dealt with in increasing harshness to act as a deterrent...
However, the biggest problems I've seen are not dumb kids that let loose something bigger than they expect.
Dumb kids tend to take out unpatched, insecure, or non-fault-tolerant systems.
Those same systems are the target of focussed criminals who will bring them down to collect a ransom, take over them for illegal uses, or attempt to steal from them every last piece of your personal info.
In short, dumb teenagers like this create viruses which are definately an annoyance and a potentially huge disruption, but the organized crime gangs are the ones that are killing the internet by making it a dangerous businessplace.
Sure, the robot can pluck some notes. But how about style. How about how the note is held just right, or the slide along the fret... or a million other things that make music an true artform.
However, shareholders etc do tend to look at rapidly falling profit margins. If MS were to drop noticable in profitability this year over last they might show some concerns.
Yes, but they are selling the phones - in original boxes - without indicating that they are crippled. When I bought my audiovox phone it came just the same as any audiovox phones, except with the logos of my provider on the start screens, and feature-crippled.
They are not selling me model X of a phone, as model X should have the features indicated per that model. It's like buying a car that can only be filled with gas from the dealership because of a special intake... sure it makes the dealer money but it's very scummy and probably illegal to do so.
when you're in a business meeting or I hear your stupid 50-Cent ringtone from across the office ten times a day
Agreed. When one is in a business meeting or public/quiet place, the phone should be in etiquette (quiet) mode
I think you're a f***ing pretentious tool
Different strokes for different folks. You don't think that looking down on other people because of their cellphone is a bit pretenious?
In fact, the same thing goes if you have those stupid "cell phone covers/faces". Not to mention, if you're one of those assholes with the stupid wallpaper on their cell "desktop".
Some people find anything not normal offensive. Do you have a closet full of white dress shirts and beige slacks, perchance?
all phones should be crippled to not allow customized ringtones, period - except for a handful of pre-selected ones.
Most of my friends have a similar phone to mine, having an original ringtone ensures that I know when it's *my* phone ringing... I do try to choose not-too-loud/inoffensive ones.
I do tend to find 50-cent ringtones blasting at full volume annoying, but an editorialized comment replete with profanity and pointless whining IMHO is much worse...
I'd take your analogy one step further; its more like walking into a shop and having the generic product thrown in your face. Thats REALLY not going to make me want to shop there
It's not the shop you're visiting that's throwing up the ad though. It's like walking into K-Mart, and having an advertising campaigner for Wal-Mart step in front of the door with a big Wal-Mart banner advertising various better prices on toilet paper (whether or not you are actually there to buy toilet paper).
I won't even mention the cleavage-bearing atrocity that was XII, but if you want a game with a primary female character, check out Final Fantasy VI (aka US FF III on the SNES, etc).
The main character was a woman (Terra), and she ended up being pretty kickass. There were also some supporting female characters... well one good supporting character anyhow as Celes kicked ass.
I remember being a little shocked at the idea of an RPG with a female lead - not that I'm gender biased but it just wasn't a common thing. Overall FFVI turned out to be my favorite of all Final Fantasy games though, a fact I found had little to do with the gender of the main character and a lot to do with the plot and development of characters overall.
Sounds like a good use for a P2P-type protocol. It could gather listing in a bittorrent-like format, wherein the first few are seeded from the main server and then share the listing with new clients.
The OS is going to be at least somewhat compatible with other OS's to be somewhat useful. I should also have specialized input devices for people with hearing or vision deficiencies, and probably be compatible with modern X86 hardware (unless you plan on starting everything from scratch).
Since visual input plays a huge part in interfacing with a modern OS and/or software, you're probably not going to need software compatability. You would need, however, to make the document formats compatible with say office, or a standard XML format, etc.
Still, an OS redesign is a big task. It might be better to go with an existing OS.
So basically, you're not going to need "video" drivers, but you will need an interface with specific hardware for the blind, various document formats, storage/printing devices, etc etc
A poster linked an article under this topic but I can't find it at the moment... it basically outlines how movie studios get away with not paying taxes, rights-costs, etc by hiding under the veil of "losses" so that a movie, despite grossing millions, appears to be non-profitable.
Movie studio tax processes are a lot more shady than your standard business tax writeoffs, and they don't follow GAAP
I don't see that there was really a big need for WW to apologize for taking so long, because really he didn't. I remember the original questions thread, and that a great number of the more intelligent questions were answered by him in-thread. People would write responses such as "Will, dude, if you keep answering in-post you'll ruin the ask-slashdot responses section"
Giving a little time worked out nicely, more going on in his life adds some more recent personal anecdotes and opinions.
Cheers WW, you might not have had all the teenage girls drooling over you but you've got a lot of fans that admire you in both genders.
Actually, the cows was one of the ones that somewhat sounded 3d. The jungle and train demos always seemed to generally sound like a train and some bass coming from up front. Really, to make those realistic I'd expect to hear birdcalls around me, or a train pulling out in front with a whistle/horn from behind, etc...
I've no personal preference for or against PJ, but the down-and-out is that this is just a case of a guy getting his due. A contract was made, an amount was promise, and therefore he is owed what was agreed upon.
Whether the contract is for $10,000 or $10,000,000 is not of an issue, and it's not greedy to be unsatisfied with less than he was promised. It might be a little less necessary than the guy that needs $10,000 to pay his mortgage/etc, but no less due to him.
Let's face it. While the little-big-guys might be getting screwed, the ones that are getting screwed the worst are us. Yes, us, the taxpayers. All that tricky accounting and flagrant disregard for accepted or even legal procedure ends up bypassing the taxman. If the studios actually paid the taxes imagine how much they'd add to tax revenue?
Well, one of the problems I've had with theatres (and that I've heard voiced quite often on slashdot) is that it seems the quality really isn't that good. Often, it isn't as good as a well-dimensioned + laid-out room with a good surround system.
The "surround sound" test that precedes movies in most theatres I find quite sad. You get some bass, perhaps a stereo effect, but nothing all that surroundish. Maybe it's just the tests that suck, but I get more realistic environment out of my computer with an SBLive! playing doom3 or half-life...
Not entirely true. Some of the people who steal laptops often find that stealing information (such as saved passwords/etc for banking info, financial spreadsheets, etc) can be more profitable than stealing the laptop itself.
Of course, they can initially unplug the ethernet... but if you were to leave a desktop link that said "banking and financials" which actually linked to an IP-logging website, you might be good. Or perhaps a Dial-up-network connection for "banking" that called your cellphone (then you can get the caller through call-ID).
And as far as logging an IP address from MSN... how did you manage that, since traffic is routed through the MSN server...?
My roomate has been really into games such as Cactus Bruce and others such as Zuma etc. Shareware isn't dead, there are tons of little addicting games out there, many which allow you to try for awhile before buying.
The failing point is often the hardware though. It will install fine if you have an NVidia card or possibly an ATI... but with others it can be pretty hit-and-miss.
Cedega has never liked my Epia's Unichrome cards (even for games that seem usable - though not spectacular - in windows)... and I'd bet that it sucks equally on Intel/etc cards.
Actually, if you're using an ATI card you won't be doing too badly. They are making linux drivers which seem to be improving over time. There are issues with the drivers and they aren't as good as the NVidia ones, but then again even my windows ATI drivers have done some pretty funky things before.
Now, for other craptacular cards such as the various intel, etc brands... you're going to be in trouble indeed. Many laptops and onboard video sets use them. They don't perform well in windows, and - in my experience - are even more troublesome (and unsupported) in 'nix thus far.
. I tell you that 1-4 you win, 5 and 6 are mine. I'll give you even odds, so the edge is definitely yours. But the stakes are *everything you own*, and you only get to roll *once*.
They already have a lottery like that. It's called marriage, but the stakes are for about half.
"Everything you own" is really a relative proposition... you might not play it against your neighbour but how about if the other player were, say, Bill Gates?
The problem here isn't necessarily the odds of winning, it's the cost of admission. Sure I might win against Bill in a game of dice, but if the cost to play is an initial $500,000 I couldn't even afford to enter... which is why the little guy gets screwed when the courts become an arena for the rich.
That being said, what do they lose if they represent themselves? If they aren't making the product it ain't going anywhere... a show of force might even make the opposing company
While I definately think that parents should be the first-line defense against such things, and pay attention to what their children are up to, we do have to be a bit realistic about this. If little Billy has turned his room into a factory and is making bomb materials, collecting rifles, and preparing to be a front-page news article... parents should notice. However, kids can be extremely good at hiding things. Wires and batteries etc, "oh mom, that's a science project for school," or perhaps dad just thinks he's got a bright kid with an inquisitive mind. Certainly some of the things I fiddled around with could have *looked* dangerous.
Now when it gets down to video games, if mom won't buy it, borrow it from Johnny down the street. Kids will get what they want. However, I do believe that my PS2 had a feature to lock down games based on an internal rating... how about that but with an adjustable scale setting? Better than yet, since passwords are a pain in the ass... that is *one* time I could see a specially coded dongle being actually useful (with the password as backup). Dongle is USB port, allow games of content "X"... no dongle, no game, no matter if Billy bought it from the store himself somehow or borrowed it from Johnny.
At the end of the day, you should still have a decent awareness of what your kids are up, but banning violent games is no more intelligent than banning adult magazines. Each has their place, and while it might not harm your kid if he manages to snag your copy of Playboy, you should probably be aware if he gets to the point where he is downloading "extreme hardcore" online with your credit card...
Slashdot Mirror
in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs ...that should be dealt the harsh sentences
This is, however, a very good point. Being a retard and letting something loose beyond your control is one thing, deliberately making a bid to own/disrupt as many machines online you can for purposes of blackmail/theft/etc is another.
We can't overlook the impact of these dumb kids, and certainly should such abuse become more prevalent they should be dealt with in increasing harshness to act as a deterrent...
However, the biggest problems I've seen are not dumb kids that let loose something bigger than they expect.
Dumb kids tend to take out unpatched, insecure, or non-fault-tolerant systems.
Those same systems are the target of focussed criminals who will bring them down to collect a ransom, take over them for illegal uses, or attempt to steal from them every last piece of your personal info.
In short, dumb teenagers like this create viruses which are definately an annoyance and a potentially huge disruption, but the organized crime gangs are the ones that are killing the internet by making it a dangerous businessplace.
Sure, the robot can pluck some notes. But how about style. How about how the note is held just right, or the slide along the fret... or a million other things that make music an true artform.
Is there a counter or something similar where you can see the current download count. It'd be interesting to see how fast it changes...
However, shareholders etc do tend to look at rapidly falling profit margins. If MS were to drop noticable in profitability this year over last they might show some concerns.
Yes, but they are selling the phones - in original boxes - without indicating that they are crippled. When I bought my audiovox phone it came just the same as any audiovox phones, except with the logos of my provider on the start screens, and feature-crippled.
They are not selling me model X of a phone, as model X should have the features indicated per that model. It's like buying a car that can only be filled with gas from the dealership because of a special intake... sure it makes the dealer money but it's very scummy and probably illegal to do so.
when you're in a business meeting or I hear your stupid 50-Cent ringtone from across the office ten times a day
Agreed. When one is in a business meeting or public/quiet place, the phone should be in etiquette (quiet) mode
I think you're a f***ing pretentious tool
Different strokes for different folks. You don't think that looking down on other people because of their cellphone is a bit pretenious?
In fact, the same thing goes if you have those stupid "cell phone covers/faces". Not to mention, if you're one of those assholes with the stupid wallpaper on their cell "desktop".
Some people find anything not normal offensive. Do you have a closet full of white dress shirts and beige slacks, perchance?
all phones should be crippled to not allow customized ringtones, period - except for a handful of pre-selected ones.
Most of my friends have a similar phone to mine, having an original ringtone ensures that I know when it's *my* phone ringing... I do try to choose not-too-loud/inoffensive ones.
I do tend to find 50-cent ringtones blasting at full volume annoying, but an editorialized comment replete with profanity and pointless whining IMHO is much worse...
I'd take your analogy one step further; its more like walking into a shop and having the generic product thrown in your face. Thats REALLY not going to make me want to shop there
It's not the shop you're visiting that's throwing up the ad though. It's like walking into K-Mart, and having an advertising campaigner for Wal-Mart step in front of the door with a big Wal-Mart banner advertising various better prices on toilet paper (whether or not you are actually there to buy toilet paper).
I won't even mention the cleavage-bearing atrocity that was XII, but if you want a game with a primary female character, check out Final Fantasy VI (aka US FF III on the SNES, etc).
The main character was a woman (Terra), and she ended up being pretty kickass. There were also some supporting female characters... well one good supporting character anyhow as Celes kicked ass.
I remember being a little shocked at the idea of an RPG with a female lead - not that I'm gender biased but it just wasn't a common thing. Overall FFVI turned out to be my favorite of all Final Fantasy games though, a fact I found had little to do with the gender of the main character and a lot to do with the plot and development of characters overall.
Sounds like a good use for a P2P-type protocol. It could gather listing in a bittorrent-like format, wherein the first few are seeded from the main server and then share the listing with new clients.
The OS is going to be at least somewhat compatible with other OS's to be somewhat useful. I should also have specialized input devices for people with hearing or vision deficiencies, and probably be compatible with modern X86 hardware (unless you plan on starting everything from scratch).
Since visual input plays a huge part in interfacing with a modern OS and/or software, you're probably not going to need software compatability. You would need, however, to make the document formats compatible with say office, or a standard XML format, etc.
Still, an OS redesign is a big task. It might be better to go with an existing OS.
So basically, you're not going to need "video" drivers, but you will need an interface with specific hardware for the blind, various document formats, storage/printing devices, etc etc
Darn misplaced modifiers... should have read:
:-)
"but you've got many fans and admirers of either gender"
Of course I'm sure you knew that, but nevertheless enjoyed correcting me
A poster linked an article under this topic but I can't find it at the moment... it basically outlines how movie studios get away with not paying taxes, rights-costs, etc by hiding under the veil of "losses" so that a movie, despite grossing millions, appears to be non-profitable.
Movie studio tax processes are a lot more shady than your standard business tax writeoffs, and they don't follow GAAP
I don't see that there was really a big need for WW to apologize for taking so long, because really he didn't. I remember the original questions thread, and that a great number of the more intelligent questions were answered by him in-thread. People would write responses such as "Will, dude, if you keep answering in-post you'll ruin the ask-slashdot responses section"
Giving a little time worked out nicely, more going on in his life adds some more recent personal anecdotes and opinions.
Cheers WW, you might not have had all the teenage girls drooling over you but you've got a lot of fans that admire you in both genders.
Actually, the cows was one of the ones that somewhat sounded 3d. The jungle and train demos always seemed to generally sound like a train and some bass coming from up front. Really, to make those realistic I'd expect to hear birdcalls around me, or a train pulling out in front with a whistle/horn from behind, etc...
I've no personal preference for or against PJ, but the down-and-out is that this is just a case of a guy getting his due. A contract was made, an amount was promise, and therefore he is owed what was agreed upon.
Whether the contract is for $10,000 or $10,000,000 is not of an issue, and it's not greedy to be unsatisfied with less than he was promised. It might be a little less necessary than the guy that needs $10,000 to pay his mortgage/etc, but no less due to him.
Let's face it. While the little-big-guys might be getting screwed, the ones that are getting screwed the worst are us. Yes, us, the taxpayers. All that tricky accounting and flagrant disregard for accepted or even legal procedure ends up bypassing the taxman. If the studios actually paid the taxes imagine how much they'd add to tax revenue?
Well, one of the problems I've had with theatres (and that I've heard voiced quite often on slashdot) is that it seems the quality really isn't that good. Often, it isn't as good as a well-dimensioned + laid-out room with a good surround system.
The "surround sound" test that precedes movies in most theatres I find quite sad. You get some bass, perhaps a stereo effect, but nothing all that surroundish. Maybe it's just the tests that suck, but I get more realistic environment out of my computer with an SBLive! playing doom3 or half-life...
Not entirely true. Some of the people who steal laptops often find that stealing information (such as saved passwords/etc for banking info, financial spreadsheets, etc) can be more profitable than stealing the laptop itself.
Of course, they can initially unplug the ethernet... but if you were to leave a desktop link that said "banking and financials" which actually linked to an IP-logging website, you might be good. Or perhaps a Dial-up-network connection for "banking" that called your cellphone (then you can get the caller through call-ID).
And as far as logging an IP address from MSN... how did you manage that, since traffic is routed through the MSN server...?
My roomate has been really into games such as Cactus Bruce and others such as Zuma etc. Shareware isn't dead, there are tons of little addicting games out there, many which allow you to try for awhile before buying.
The failing point is often the hardware though. It will install fine if you have an NVidia card or possibly an ATI... but with others it can be pretty hit-and-miss.
Cedega has never liked my Epia's Unichrome cards (even for games that seem usable - though not spectacular - in windows)... and I'd bet that it sucks equally on Intel/etc cards.
Actually, if you're using an ATI card you won't be doing too badly. They are making linux drivers which seem to be improving over time. There are issues with the drivers and they aren't as good as the NVidia ones, but then again even my windows ATI drivers have done some pretty funky things before.
Now, for other craptacular cards such as the various intel, etc brands... you're going to be in trouble indeed. Many laptops and onboard video sets use them. They don't perform well in windows, and - in my experience - are even more troublesome (and unsupported) in 'nix thus far.
That's like saying "if you want to play video games why buy an X-box when the N64 is so much cheaper."
BSD - Servers at work
Linux - General Desktop
Windows - Games, and other media software that doesn't have comparable offerings on alternative OS's
It's not just what people are used to... sometimes it's the only thing that will do the job as the need it done.
. I tell you that 1-4 you win, 5 and 6 are mine. I'll give you even odds, so the edge is definitely yours. But the stakes are *everything you own*, and you only get to roll *once*.
They already have a lottery like that. It's called marriage, but the stakes are for about half.
"Everything you own" is really a relative proposition... you might not play it against your neighbour but how about if the other player were, say, Bill Gates?
The problem here isn't necessarily the odds of winning, it's the cost of admission. Sure I might win against Bill in a game of dice, but if the cost to play is an initial $500,000 I couldn't even afford to enter... which is why the little guy gets screwed when the courts become an arena for the rich.
That being said, what do they lose if they represent themselves? If they aren't making the product it ain't going anywhere... a show of force might even make the opposing company
While I definately think that parents should be the first-line defense against such things, and pay attention to what their children are up to, we do have to be a bit realistic about this. If little Billy has turned his room into a factory and is making bomb materials, collecting rifles, and preparing to be a front-page news article... parents should notice. However, kids can be extremely good at hiding things. Wires and batteries etc, "oh mom, that's a science project for school," or perhaps dad just thinks he's got a bright kid with an inquisitive mind. Certainly some of the things I fiddled around with could have *looked* dangerous.
Now when it gets down to video games, if mom won't buy it, borrow it from Johnny down the street. Kids will get what they want. However, I do believe that my PS2 had a feature to lock down games based on an internal rating... how about that but with an adjustable scale setting? Better than yet, since passwords are a pain in the ass... that is *one* time I could see a specially coded dongle being actually useful (with the password as backup). Dongle is USB port, allow games of content "X"... no dongle, no game, no matter if Billy bought it from the store himself somehow or borrowed it from Johnny.
At the end of the day, you should still have a decent awareness of what your kids are up, but banning violent games is no more intelligent than banning adult magazines. Each has their place, and while it might not harm your kid if he manages to snag your copy of Playboy, you should probably be aware if he gets to the point where he is downloading "extreme hardcore" online with your credit card...
I wonder what the icon for that would be? A frothing mug (free, as in beer)? Maybe we could take suggestions/submissions.