A certain portion of noise seems to come from badly-shielded line/mic/aux inputs on the card itself. Disabling these on the volume control (when I'm not playing a CD, or recording) actually reduced noise quite a bit.
Yes, these are other sources of noise as well, quite often depending on what you have running in your box, but I've found that using a decent speaker cable on my not-so-expensive SBLive give me nice clean sound in most occasions.
Anyone ever notice that a lot of noise comes from CD-ROM drives? I wonder if it's an issue with the tiny little cables on the line->aux cable, or just travelling interference in the box? It's also not a bad idea to move your soundcard as far away from other devices (say, bottommost PCI slot, away from video card, etc) as you can.
USB audio I've looked at... but I think it's probably most suited to somebody who does mixing on the go, and/or laptop users.
It depends on how closely the games tied to the GPU. My games work equally well on an ATI or NVidia card in windows, no reason the same shouldn't apply on a console. Now, it could be that they have to do a little modification to make it run right, or that not all old games will be quite exactly same as X-box #1, but ah well.
That being said, I wonder how many people here would go for an X-box anyhow? The current game linup isn't great anyhow, much better stuff on other consoles, though perhaps this will change for X-2.
Might be a good slashdot poll:
Preferred console:
a) Gamecube
b) Playstation 2
c) X-box
d) X-box (but I run linux)
e) Atari 2500 rules!
Webmail interfaces will end up using SMTP when the actual mail goes out to another server. POP3/IMAP are often also part of the equation, as mail webmailers simply grab from a pop3/IMAP account (squirrelmail uses IMAP).
I'm wondering why an outgoing SMTP server is even needed though. I can telnet straight to my mail recipient and clank out a manual message - no outgoing server required.
Since google hasn't really done anything to warrant not using it (and we really shouldn't be so paranoid as to assume they will) I could see a project like this becoming useful in terms of specialized searches.
How about a network of Linux or developer sites? Yes, there is google linux, but I have at times found it lacking (especially when I get a slew of German/Japanese sites and it doesn't always give me the language filter option).
How about sites that index restaurants,etc? Perhaps they would benefit more from a searchable index without a visible initial ranking (so customers don't bitch). Live in Eastern LA and want to grab Greek? use blahblahfoodsearch.com and look up "+italian +greek +take-out"
Eventually, specialized sites could cater to a niche, rather than taking on something the scope of google (with its no-doubt massive servers) straight away
Survival of the strongest wouldn't be a good thing for geeks. Surviving High School is hard enough as it is. Of course, it could mean that the really brainy ones would come up with all sorts of unique and interesting technological devices to defeat their adversaries. Maybe a home-made taser or something like that, build from recycled motherboard and PSU capacitors...
But Canadian Polar Bear diamonds are mined up in North America, are of a high-quality cut, and are becoming both more popular and more available (as production ramps up).
That the have Pacman on their hitlist, if only due to the fact that it is extemely old and many many clones have since been made (whether legit or not nonwithstanding).
I've just been thinking, that if they've decided to include 20-year-old+ video games in their hitlists, how many screwed up keywords will they have in there. I mean, 20+ years of movie/game/etc title keywords is a whole lot of stuff that could be incorrectly tagged as a false positive.
Hell, are there any common words not used in the last X years of cheesy movie/game titles?
May if we're lucky the ISP's will take this as an action against the RIAA/MPAA. Sorting out that crap could soon get to be just as much a chore as spam, except it might be harder to figure out which lawsuitbot hits are really going to be pursued.
They told me it depends on whether there is a pre-existing NDA between me (or the company I work for) and the sender (or the company they work for). If there is, then I must abide by the terms and conditions of that NDA
If there was a pre-existing NDA, though, then you probably wouldn't be able to post this to a public area without running the risk of getting in trouble anyways (at least by the way many NDA's work). Having the "privacy" addendum to the email wouldn't change it either way.
Lawyer: We have no chance, I'd say that we have 42 left before IBM takes us down completely
SCO exec: Huh, 42 what? Hours, weeks
Lawyer: 41...40...39...
Just as a side-question: Do you know if the GPS feature functioned while the phone was off, or just when it is on? If the latter, I'd assume that with most phones one could forego the lead and just turn the thing off.
Oh, and congratulations on the procreation thing, I hear it's quite fun
Is this going to drag out? I mean, every day we hear more and more of this. As it gets bigger, it's more likely to sit in court for awhile, hanging as a shadow over Linux, SCO, and IBM (the latter being the legal/monentary drain).
While I realize that snap-decisions are a bad thing, any prediction on when this will end? I really won't care to hear about SCO vs IBM 2 years from now, I'm just hoping to see SCO get rung out in court like a wet towel.
As for the claims of "Unsubstantiated Allegations", I'd predict several pot-calling-kettle-black remarks, but what else does SCO have left to say? Anything less than a claim of "we're 100% right" and their precarious litte boat of flimflamery will start to sink.
IBM's got a nuclear submarine and SCO is going to claim an impenetrable hull and depth charges. Really all they've got is a fishing tug and a few pointy rocks they can drop in hopes of a hit.
Remember the "big lie" concept. The longer you keep a little lie secret, the more bigger lies it can spawn. It's just a matter of time before SCO makes such a public joke of themself that their little boat goes down like it hit an iceberg...
The main reason I bought a PS2 was to play Final Fantasy X, because I'm a huge fan of the series. FFX-2 may prove my investment in the PS2 to be good, since I've yet to find another PlayStation 2 game that I like (although I can also play my older PS Final Fantasy games on it).
Now, why can't GC support these games? NES and SNES both had good SquareSoft games, so why not the later systems (granted N64 sucked on storage because of the card-form as opposed to disc-form).
I may consider getting a GameCube, after the prices have dipped a bit more and a few other games come out, because I like the other games such as Metroid, Zelda, etc. But really, why should I have to by 2-3 different consoles to do this (hell, while I'm ranting, why not bring out FF9+ on PC, they can't be that hard to port). Games make the console, and I think Nintendo was a bit behind on this, but I also wonder why there seems to be a current exclusiveness to titles that really could be cross-platform.
Hell, if I could get FFX on GC today, I'd probably sell my PS2 version and just get a "cube" - I just want my games, the console itself doesn't matter except for clutter/money issues with owning several.
Legitimate access to the server may not imply legitimate access to the same data. While it's generally stupid to house lesser apps on a critical-data server, it is entirely possible that this user had certain rights to the server, but wasn't supposed to be able to access the specific information which was taken.
Programs that have to be messed around with in several different areas in order to configure (in particular for firewalling).
NFS is a good example (Devbian flavour):
You need to edit the init scripts to specify fixed ports
You need to make sure it is compiled as a module, so you can specify the module parameter for lockd to fix it at a firewall-friendly port
Running with the above 2.4.18+ kernels seem to bug out in compiling the module, until I edited filesystems.c
Various IPtables rules to allow the ports that have been assigned
IPtables itself can be a real pain. While enabling a port is quite easy, dealing with semi-dynamic port assignments, NAT, etc is a royal pain in the ass.
What would be nice is some config tool (maybe ZoneAlarm-esque) that you could enable to prompt when a program tries to open a port, and then have it add the appropriate firewall entry. That, or simply allow specific programs to use ports as they see fit.
I accidentally left a hole like this on a server I was working with once. I'd actually had checks to ensure such a thing didn't happen, but disabled then when I was debugging and forgot to uncomment the code (dumb dumb dumb). Luckily, that particular server didn't have anything overly special, though the ability to view users in the passwd file (which contained fullnames) was annoying.
I must say that I greatly appreciated when somebody informed me of the hole, though I felt like an idiot afterwards. Not everybody is an asshole about such things. I'd expect also that there would be some form of sysadmin that you might be able to contact (anonymously or otherwise), and he might appreciate it more than perhaps an exec who has no clue about security.
One of the big issues may be that it brings real-world problems to the game-world. Money brings conflict, how about if Sony gets sued by a player who lost his supposed "valued at $150" item because of a game glitch. How about the players that are on for profiteering that go after somebody in real-life, because his game character kicked their asses and took their weapons (or knocked 'em down a few levels, whatever).
I think that at this time it's best to keep the games as games, and leave the e-commerce to the e-commerce sites. Money brings in a whole lot of its own problems.
For the cellphone manufacturers: Make phones with tracking/etc as an option. If you generally prefer privacy, but have an accident of sorts (and are, one would hope, at least coherent enough to push of button) allow the "trackable mode" on the cellphone to be an option
For cellphone users: There's a big button the phone called "off." As long as you're not expecting a call, you can just turn the damn thing back on when you need to dial out. If you're still paranoid, yank the battery or get a lead-lined case/signal-scrambler or something.
While the wired version of this mouse may be cool, I'll let a few others buy the wireless before I go out and grab one. Microsoft's last venture with the "Wireless Blue Mouse" was a horrible flop... the thing ate my batteries down weekly, and wouldn't work more than 3" from the receiver (hell, sometimes right beside the receiver it didn't register clicks).
Now, go back to the good ol' days, and MS was actually competing nicely with logitech for mice. They actually did have some good hardware then (decent keyboards too). In short, wait until a few reviews come out before you go and grab one, but don't bash it just because it's MS because they do have some decent hardware, and at least you can expect the OS to support the crazy little features it might have.
What's the signal-to-noise or error ratio in this though? At 33.6, would it be a really buggy 33.6, or is that the rate after error-correction?
The big problem I could see with this is the crosstalk you would experience. Even wi-fi has problems with large clusters of devices interfering with each other, would not FM in lower bandwidth be even worse, not to mention the encryption issue?
Is this just a local law, or one that's in a lot of states. Is such material OK, except in the form of comics?
I'm wondering as to the particulars of this law, as selling an X-rated comic book (which I'm assuming didn't touch the fringes of underage-looking characters or whatever) to an adult is not a crime in most areas, and certainly not here in Canada. How can the US uphold such a law, or is it just Texas?
What really gets me is that the store doesn't get busted for carrying the material, but the clerk does. The cop that pulled this bust should be ashamed of himself, railroading an unsuspecting clerk like that.
BM is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction stopping SCO from shipping its software
I'm guessing that in the end, this will be a big number, but perhaps IBM will go for a settlement that involves SCO execs, bricks, and deep water.
Seriously, if anything this whole fiasco is probably as much good publicity for IBM as it is bad to SCO. IBM gets to lay on the smack-down, and they end up looking very much like a hero in the eyes of the linux users/developers.
A big difference here is that the 'net is more of an interactive medium than a television. With TV, you have a fixed number of channels, with pre-scheduled programs, etc. The commercials float with the regular programming, so you use them to schedule a visit to the washroom, food, etc
On the 'net, you are in control of where you go. Links can be clicked through in a comfortable fashion, and anything that interrupts that is, well, an interruption. In this sense, it's something more like a dynamic magazine or newspaper: you can skip over the ads, or if they are really obtrusive (say, stapled an article you really want) rip them out. In-line ads aren't bad, and frankly I don't mind clicking on stuff from "thinkgeek" etc that I find interesting. Having to physically click through something that I find annoying non-useful is not productive to me, and wastes my time.
Slashdot Mirror
A certain portion of noise seems to come from badly-shielded line/mic/aux inputs on the card itself. Disabling these on the volume control (when I'm not playing a CD, or recording) actually reduced noise quite a bit.
Yes, these are other sources of noise as well, quite often depending on what you have running in your box, but I've found that using a decent speaker cable on my not-so-expensive SBLive give me nice clean sound in most occasions.
Anyone ever notice that a lot of noise comes from CD-ROM drives? I wonder if it's an issue with the tiny little cables on the line->aux cable, or just travelling interference in the box? It's also not a bad idea to move your soundcard as far away from other devices (say, bottommost PCI slot, away from video card, etc) as you can.
USB audio I've looked at... but I think it's probably most suited to somebody who does mixing on the go, and/or laptop users.
It depends on how closely the games tied to the GPU. My games work equally well on an ATI or NVidia card in windows, no reason the same shouldn't apply on a console. Now, it could be that they have to do a little modification to make it run right, or that not all old games will be quite exactly same as X-box #1, but ah well.
That being said, I wonder how many people here would go for an X-box anyhow? The current game linup isn't great anyhow, much better stuff on other consoles, though perhaps this will change for X-2.
Might be a good slashdot poll:
Preferred console:
a) Gamecube
b) Playstation 2
c) X-box
d) X-box (but I run linux)
e) Atari 2500 rules!
Webmail interfaces will end up using SMTP when the actual mail goes out to another server. POP3/IMAP are often also part of the equation, as mail webmailers simply grab from a pop3/IMAP account (squirrelmail uses IMAP).
I'm wondering why an outgoing SMTP server is even needed though. I can telnet straight to my mail recipient and clank out a manual message - no outgoing server required.
Since google hasn't really done anything to warrant not using it (and we really shouldn't be so paranoid as to assume they will) I could see a project like this becoming useful in terms of specialized searches.
How about a network of Linux or developer sites? Yes, there is google linux, but I have at times found it lacking (especially when I get a slew of German/Japanese sites and it doesn't always give me the language filter option).
How about sites that index restaurants,etc? Perhaps they would benefit more from a searchable index without a visible initial ranking (so customers don't bitch). Live in Eastern LA and want to grab Greek? use blahblahfoodsearch.com and look up "+italian +greek +take-out"
Eventually, specialized sites could cater to a niche, rather than taking on something the scope of google (with its no-doubt massive servers) straight away
Survival of the strongest wouldn't be a good thing for geeks. Surviving High School is hard enough as it is. Of course, it could mean that the really brainy ones would come up with all sorts of unique and interesting technological devices to defeat their adversaries. Maybe a home-made taser or something like that, build from recycled motherboard and PSU capacitors...
But Canadian Polar Bear diamonds are mined up in North America, are of a high-quality cut, and are becoming both more popular and more available (as production ramps up).
That the have Pacman on their hitlist, if only due to the fact that it is extemely old and many many clones have since been made (whether legit or not nonwithstanding).
I've just been thinking, that if they've decided to include 20-year-old+ video games in their hitlists, how many screwed up keywords will they have in there. I mean, 20+ years of movie/game/etc title keywords is a whole lot of stuff that could be incorrectly tagged as a false positive.
Hell, are there any common words not used in the last X years of cheesy movie/game titles?
May if we're lucky the ISP's will take this as an action against the RIAA/MPAA. Sorting out that crap could soon get to be just as much a chore as spam, except it might be harder to figure out which lawsuitbot hits are really going to be pursued.
They told me it depends on whether there is a pre-existing NDA between me (or the company I work for) and the sender (or the company they work for). If there is, then I must abide by the terms and conditions of that NDA
If there was a pre-existing NDA, though, then you probably wouldn't be able to post this to a public area without running the risk of getting in trouble anyways (at least by the way many NDA's work). Having the "privacy" addendum to the email wouldn't change it either way.
Don't worry, the editors have got it covered.
This article will be up and running fine again for Monday's dupe.
Lawyer: We have no chance, I'd say that we have 42 left before IBM takes us down completely
SCO exec: Huh, 42 what? Hours, weeks
Lawyer: 41...40...39...
Just as a side-question: Do you know if the GPS feature functioned while the phone was off, or just when it is on? If the latter, I'd assume that with most phones one could forego the lead and just turn the thing off.
Oh, and congratulations on the procreation thing, I hear it's quite fun
Is this going to drag out? I mean, every day we hear more and more of this. As it gets bigger, it's more likely to sit in court for awhile, hanging as a shadow over Linux, SCO, and IBM (the latter being the legal/monentary drain).
While I realize that snap-decisions are a bad thing, any prediction on when this will end? I really won't care to hear about SCO vs IBM 2 years from now, I'm just hoping to see SCO get rung out in court like a wet towel.
As for the claims of "Unsubstantiated Allegations", I'd predict several pot-calling-kettle-black remarks, but what else does SCO have left to say? Anything less than a claim of "we're 100% right" and their precarious litte boat of flimflamery will start to sink.
IBM's got a nuclear submarine and SCO is going to claim an impenetrable hull and depth charges. Really all they've got is a fishing tug and a few pointy rocks they can drop in hopes of a hit.
Remember the "big lie" concept. The longer you keep a little lie secret, the more bigger lies it can spawn. It's just a matter of time before SCO makes such a public joke of themself that their little boat goes down like it hit an iceberg...
The main reason I bought a PS2 was to play Final Fantasy X, because I'm a huge fan of the series. FFX-2 may prove my investment in the PS2 to be good, since I've yet to find another PlayStation 2 game that I like (although I can also play my older PS Final Fantasy games on it).
Now, why can't GC support these games? NES and SNES both had good SquareSoft games, so why not the later systems (granted N64 sucked on storage because of the card-form as opposed to disc-form).
I may consider getting a GameCube, after the prices have dipped a bit more and a few other games come out, because I like the other games such as Metroid, Zelda, etc. But really, why should I have to by 2-3 different consoles to do this (hell, while I'm ranting, why not bring out FF9+ on PC, they can't be that hard to port). Games make the console, and I think Nintendo was a bit behind on this, but I also wonder why there seems to be a current exclusiveness to titles that really could be cross-platform.
Hell, if I could get FFX on GC today, I'd probably sell my PS2 version and just get a "cube" - I just want my games, the console itself doesn't matter except for clutter/money issues with owning several.
Legitimate access to the server may not imply legitimate access to the same data. While it's generally stupid to house lesser apps on a critical-data server, it is entirely possible that this user had certain rights to the server, but wasn't supposed to be able to access the specific information which was taken.
NFS is a good example (Devbian flavour):
IPtables itself can be a real pain. While enabling a port is quite easy, dealing with semi-dynamic port assignments, NAT, etc is a royal pain in the ass.
What would be nice is some config tool (maybe ZoneAlarm-esque) that you could enable to prompt when a program tries to open a port, and then have it add the appropriate firewall entry. That, or simply allow specific programs to use ports as they see fit.
I accidentally left a hole like this on a server I was working with once. I'd actually had checks to ensure such a thing didn't happen, but disabled then when I was debugging and forgot to uncomment the code (dumb dumb dumb). Luckily, that particular server didn't have anything overly special, though the ability to view users in the passwd file (which contained fullnames) was annoying.
I must say that I greatly appreciated when somebody informed me of the hole, though I felt like an idiot afterwards. Not everybody is an asshole about such things. I'd expect also that there would be some form of sysadmin that you might be able to contact (anonymously or otherwise), and he might appreciate it more than perhaps an exec who has no clue about security.
One of the big issues may be that it brings real-world problems to the game-world. Money brings conflict, how about if Sony gets sued by a player who lost his supposed "valued at $150" item because of a game glitch. How about the players that are on for profiteering that go after somebody in real-life, because his game character kicked their asses and took their weapons (or knocked 'em down a few levels, whatever).
I think that at this time it's best to keep the games as games, and leave the e-commerce to the e-commerce sites. Money brings in a whole lot of its own problems.
Yes, you caught me:
s/BM/IBM/
And while we're at it
s/SCO/Evil but stupid Org/gi
For the cellphone manufacturers: Make phones with tracking/etc as an option. If you generally prefer privacy, but have an accident of sorts (and are, one would hope, at least coherent enough to push of button) allow the "trackable mode" on the cellphone to be an option
For cellphone users: There's a big button the phone called "off." As long as you're not expecting a call, you can just turn the damn thing back on when you need to dial out. If you're still paranoid, yank the battery or get a lead-lined case/signal-scrambler or something.
While the wired version of this mouse may be cool, I'll let a few others buy the wireless before I go out and grab one. Microsoft's last venture with the "Wireless Blue Mouse" was a horrible flop... the thing ate my batteries down weekly, and wouldn't work more than 3" from the receiver (hell, sometimes right beside the receiver it didn't register clicks).
Now, go back to the good ol' days, and MS was actually competing nicely with logitech for mice. They actually did have some good hardware then (decent keyboards too). In short, wait until a few reviews come out before you go and grab one, but don't bash it just because it's MS because they do have some decent hardware, and at least you can expect the OS to support the crazy little features it might have.
What's the signal-to-noise or error ratio in this though? At 33.6, would it be a really buggy 33.6, or is that the rate after error-correction?
The big problem I could see with this is the crosstalk you would experience. Even wi-fi has problems with large clusters of devices interfering with each other, would not FM in lower bandwidth be even worse, not to mention the encryption issue?
Is this just a local law, or one that's in a lot of states. Is such material OK, except in the form of comics?
I'm wondering as to the particulars of this law, as selling an X-rated comic book (which I'm assuming didn't touch the fringes of underage-looking characters or whatever) to an adult is not a crime in most areas, and certainly not here in Canada. How can the US uphold such a law, or is it just Texas?
What really gets me is that the store doesn't get busted for carrying the material, but the clerk does. The cop that pulled this bust should be ashamed of himself, railroading an unsuspecting clerk like that.
BM is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction stopping SCO from shipping its software
I'm guessing that in the end, this will be a big number, but perhaps IBM will go for a settlement that involves SCO execs, bricks, and deep water.
Seriously, if anything this whole fiasco is probably as much good publicity for IBM as it is bad to SCO. IBM gets to lay on the smack-down, and they end up looking very much like a hero in the eyes of the linux users/developers.
A big difference here is that the 'net is more of an interactive medium than a television. With TV, you have a fixed number of channels, with pre-scheduled programs, etc. The commercials float with the regular programming, so you use them to schedule a visit to the washroom, food, etc
On the 'net, you are in control of where you go. Links can be clicked through in a comfortable fashion, and anything that interrupts that is, well, an interruption. In this sense, it's something more like a dynamic magazine or newspaper: you can skip over the ads, or if they are really obtrusive (say, stapled an article you really want) rip them out. In-line ads aren't bad, and frankly I don't mind clicking on stuff from "thinkgeek" etc that I find interesting. Having to physically click through something that I find annoying non-useful is not productive to me, and wastes my time.