What bugs me about the futurists of the past, is when they predicted that all the work would be done by machines. And now it's come true, to a certain extent. As a result, unemployment is soaring, and job security is plummetting. What made them think that the people who paid for the machines would give all their profits away to their layed off workforce?
Any real pirates who want to distribute MS Office, will just rename the file on their ftp servers to something obfuscated as soon as they cotton on to this scripting lark.
The funny part is that the IP addresses given in these threats, 80% of the time, are IP addresses that do not have computers on them... and never have. We have a few subnets still reserved for future expansion, never been used...
The only reason the show is going to be 'respun' after Sarah leaves is because she's the title character and a Buffyless Buffy has to be called something else.
Why can't buffy have her face eaten off by some evil undead creatures, and have to go to a plastic surgery clinic. In the meantime, they could hold auditions for the next series. They could eat her throat too, requiring extensive reconstructive surgery of her voice box. And while she's in plastic surgery anyway, she may as well get her breasts enlarged.
I agree. MS has been using a subscription based business model for ever, but it has been a covert one - forcing users against their will to periodically upgrade to the latest version. The catch is that with every new version they have to make it look snazzier by adding cool new features, when what is really needed is better reliability. Bug fixes don't shift units, though because the customer expects the software to work perfectly, and bug fixes should be provided for free. As a result, the software tends to get more bloated and unreliable. If Microsoft were ever to create the perfect OS, they would go out of business, because nobody would want to upgrade. Under a subscrition licensing scheme, though, they would in theory have the incentive to make the quality of the product as high as possible - it would be good for business.
This is probably over-optimistic of course. With MS being in league with satan and all, its probably just a way to screw more money out of people, and Sun are just turning to the dark side to avoid oblivion. The business model isn't really ethical in the first place IMHO, but anyone who is suddenly complaining about the new subscription scheme has been burying their heads in the sand up until now. MS are just being honest, which is sort of positive, I think
The interface is awful, the game is deliberately user-hostile, and you die constantly in ways you can't possibly prevent (boulder trap on level 1, for instance).
A bit too realistic perhaps?;-)
Re:That's not really the problem.
on
NYT on RFID Tags
·
· Score: 1
Now, let's take the paranoia to a slightly higher level. Let's suppose that stores share their RFID and customer databases with trustworthy groups like, NSA CIA, FBI, SpamKing marketing. Suddenly You and your panties are trackable in every store you go to, or security checkpoint you pass through or toll booth you drive through. Now you can't go anywhere without the beadie little eye of some agency watching you at all times.
But this would be a good thing, because you could achieve complete anonymity just by microwaving your y-fronts. Much better than having an RFID embedded under your skin which you couldn't microwave.
Microsoft will respond to to this insult by releasing "Microsoft Internet Explorer Yosemite Sam Edition", which will deface the opera corporate website in a witty manner. Except it'll have a bug, and will also deface the KDE webiste. The konqueror team will respond in their next version by replacing every 'c' on the MSN website with a 'k'. Microsoft will take this as an assult from the open source community, and will render the mascots on both the KDE and Mozilla sites with comedy spectacles and moustaches. Lynx users will be served graphics only versions of MSN with lots of frames. Mozilla will respond in kind, by rendering MSN upside down. Applewill by default not be able to provide a browser which does not offend anybody, and will be reluctantly drawn into the frey. It will be the browser wars all over again, but this time more bitter, and somehow, more hilarious. It will escalate out of control, until the entire internet is rendered and defaced in a comical fashion. Internet Obfuscation Protcol (IOP) will become an ECMA standard, but each browser will maintain its own incompatible version. Everyone will go back to using phones and fax machines.
Anybody that's purchasing a virtual house with real money must have a little too much time and money on their hands
So its OK to defraud someone, as long as the're rich?
It seems to me that real lawsuits and cases should take precedent and perhaps be more strict, than virtual ones where the victims seem somewhat luxurious
This is a real lawsuit, because the victim was swindled out of real money in the real world. You could argue that selling some one a company which doesn't really exist is a "virtual crime", but not many people would agree with you. Personally, I have little sympathy for the victim, but she's still a victim.
Spammers will be able to compile email lists from the telephone directory, promting everyone to go ex-directory, and rendering the phone book obsolete
A symbiosis will be encouraged between email spam and phone spam
Telephone numbers will be available all over the internet, even if they are ex-directory
Changing your phone/fax number will require changing your email address, and vice versa
Moving to a different region will require a change of email address, thus rendering an obvious advantage of email irrelevant
Of course there are advantages as well, but I'm feeling cynical today. Is it just me, or does this plan seem a little naive? A bit like ten years ago, when the internet was going to solve all the problems of the world overnight, and make everyone suddenly nicer.
Ummm--no. The "FP" in "FPGA" stands for "field-programmable", and it is field programmability that I'm arguing against. Field programmability usually means that I, the user, need to do something to the device.
"Field programmable" does not mean that you have to program it, any more than it means that you have to design it. The most common way of programming an FPGA is from a PROM chip on board. FPGAs are used as much in applications where ASICs are too expenensive as where field programmability is actually needed, if not more. If your digital camera manufacturer expects that you load an FPGA bitstream from your PC everytime you switch it on then, well, you should have read some reviews before you parted with your cash. Anyway, what's better, a device which is buggy and can't be upgraded, or a device which is buggy and can be upgraded? If you think traditional hardware designs are bug-proof, or can be exhaustively tested to ensure reliability, I'm sorry to dissapoint you. Hardware is generally as reliable as it is, because most firms are very good at hardware test and qualification, and there are well developed methodologies. This doesn't mean that bugs don't slip through. (Hint: don't buy the really cheap stuff)
My stand on this would be NO, because I couldn't do jack shit for it incase something doesn't work. From a software developers point of view it's essential that you can trust your platform (os and compiler) and most importantly if you think there's bugs there, you can look it up from the source and try finding it. I doubt that I'd have the possibility of doing so with programmable hardware.
Actually, the reverse is true. FPGAs are primarily designed inhouse. I've never heard of anyone shipping a preprogrammed FPGA as a stand alone product, there's no point - FPGA designs are invariably shipped as embeddable cores, either in HDL or EDIF netlists, both of which are effectively non-free open source (ARM use this model quite successfully). The same is not true for say, an i386. As for testing, most FPGAs have built in JTAG support, and are certainly no more difficult to test than ASICs.
The xilinx parts are for embedded systems, and have no real benefits for your average PC user (hence they can market them them for $$$).
Look here for genuinely cool FPGA technology. They use transputer based technology to implement parallel algorithms in, well, parallel. The demos are very impressive - real time raytracing @50MHz anyone?
Using an FPGA does not in any way require "weird driver CDs". Nor do they prevent the hardware developers from implementing clean well defined, standard interfaces. In fact hardware implemented in an FPGA is no different from the users point of view from hardware implemented any other way, or from embedded software running on a micro-controller for that matter.
If your USB peripherals didn't work properly, its because they were poorly designed. This has nothing to do with the choice of using an FPGA to implement the interface.
To say that hardware engineers are immitating the mistakes of software engineers is ridiculous, (although obviously some are making the same mistakes). Is it therefore perfectly acceptable for software engineers to implement poorly designed interfacesand neglect testing and quality control? I don't think so, but perhaps we have become numb to this issue. Bad engineering is bad engineering. The choice of using FPGAs for an emerging standard is good engineering, because if the standard changes before maturing the hardware does not then become instantly obsolete. This is why FPGAs are popular in mobile telecoms base stations, and rightly so. Being able to upgrade hardware is a good thing. Releasing an immature design is bad, both in hardware and software.
Modelsim have been supporting linux for some time. As for free tools, Alliance EDA provide a stripped down version of their simulator for free, but its not as sophisticated.
I don't know of anything in traditional philosophies or religions that really corresponds to the heat death of the universe.
Apparently there is a norse myth that predicts "Fimbulwinter" - an everlasting winter at the end of the world. But then I read this in a 2000AD comic strip, so I can't guarantee its validity;-)
Its about time. Getting rid of all the obsolete hardware on PCs is long overdue. Hopefully, PS2, RS232 and centronics ports will follow closely. USB is a much better solution for connecting peripherals. Really need a RS232 port? Just buy a USB to RS232 adapter. Better still, find a better solution.
Floppies are long overdue to be replaced. 1.44MB is just not enough these days to ferry files between PCs, and a rescue CD can hold a lot more tools than a rescue floppy. Not to mention that magnteic storage can easily get corrupted.
I think the most important thing about linux is that the underlying system is free and open. The real problem with MS (for example;-) is that they can use there platform to effectively blackmail people into not using alternatives, hence stifling creativity etc, etc. But commercial apps on the whole should be a good thing, because they should have to be worth paying for, and more importantly, they give people jobs.
I would really like to see a symbiosis between free and commercial apps, which keeps the commercial guys playing fair, while still providing quality software. Once this fashion for selling upgrades by locking users into your product is done away with, the commercial industry will be much more beneficial. I hope OSS software is starting to make this happen, and I think MS is a big help here.
This would be a great way to use up all those old nukes from the cold war, would massively advance space exploration, and would fire peoples imaginations for generations.
They could take all the recently obsolete PCs in the world, strap on solar panels and an antenna made from an old whisky tin with gaffer tape, install linux, mesh software and a wifi card, and send them into random orbits with a giant steam catapult. Problem solved. Then they could spend their budget on new spaceships, so the rest of us could go up and play.
A set of standard images could be used, like "this_site_is_located_next_to_a_sewage_outlet.gif" , or "the_trees_in_this_neighbourhood_ar_particularly_n ice.gif". This way, we could save the world without updating our browsers.
Slashdot Mirror
What bugs me about the futurists of the past, is when they predicted that all the work would be done by machines. And now it's come true, to a certain extent. As a result, unemployment is soaring, and job security is plummetting. What made them think that the people who paid for the machines would give all their profits away to their layed off workforce?
Any real pirates who want to distribute MS Office, will just rename the file on their ftp servers to something obfuscated as soon as they cotton on to this scripting lark.
...or so you thought. Bwuahahahahaaaaa.
Why can't buffy have her face eaten off by some evil undead creatures, and have to go to a plastic surgery clinic. In the meantime, they could hold auditions for the next series. They could eat her throat too, requiring extensive reconstructive surgery of her voice box. And while she's in plastic surgery anyway, she may as well get her breasts enlarged.
I agree. MS has been using a subscription based business model for ever, but it has been a covert one - forcing users against their will to periodically upgrade to the latest version. The catch is that with every new version they have to make it look snazzier by adding cool new features, when what is really needed is better reliability. Bug fixes don't shift units, though because the customer expects the software to work perfectly, and bug fixes should be provided for free. As a result, the software tends to get more bloated and unreliable. If Microsoft were ever to create the perfect OS, they would go out of business, because nobody would want to upgrade. Under a subscrition licensing scheme, though, they would in theory have the incentive to make the quality of the product as high as possible - it would be good for business.
This is probably over-optimistic of course. With MS being in league with satan and all, its probably just a way to screw more money out of people, and Sun are just turning to the dark side to avoid oblivion. The business model isn't really ethical in the first place IMHO, but anyone who is suddenly complaining about the new subscription scheme has been burying their heads in the sand up until now. MS are just being honest, which is sort of positive, I think
A bit too realistic perhaps? ;-)
But this would be a good thing, because you could achieve complete anonymity just by microwaving your y-fronts. Much better than having an RFID embedded under your skin which you couldn't microwave.
"Warning: Too many connections in /usr/local/www/ratgeber/screenshots/image.php on line 2"
Nothing like a good dose of irony to end the working day!
Microsoft will respond to to this insult by releasing "Microsoft Internet Explorer Yosemite Sam Edition", which will deface the opera corporate website in a witty manner. Except it'll have a bug, and will also deface the KDE webiste. The konqueror team will respond in their next version by replacing every 'c' on the MSN website with a 'k'. Microsoft will take this as an assult from the open source community, and will render the mascots on both the KDE and Mozilla sites with comedy spectacles and moustaches. Lynx users will be served graphics only versions of MSN with lots of frames. Mozilla will respond in kind, by rendering MSN upside down. Applewill by default not be able to provide a browser which does not offend anybody, and will be reluctantly drawn into the frey. It will be the browser wars all over again, but this time more bitter, and somehow, more hilarious. It will escalate out of control, until the entire internet is rendered and defaced in a comical fashion. Internet Obfuscation Protcol (IOP) will become an ECMA standard, but each browser will maintain its own incompatible version. Everyone will go back to using phones and fax machines.
Anybody that's purchasing a virtual house with real money must have a little too much time and money on their hands
So its OK to defraud someone, as long as the're rich?
It seems to me that real lawsuits and cases should take precedent and perhaps be more strict, than virtual ones where the victims seem somewhat luxurious
This is a real lawsuit, because the victim was swindled out of real money in the real world. You could argue that selling some one a company which doesn't really exist is a "virtual crime", but not many people would agree with you. Personally, I have little sympathy for the victim, but she's still a victim.
Spammers will be able to compile email lists from the telephone directory, promting everyone to go ex-directory, and rendering the phone book obsolete
A symbiosis will be encouraged between email spam and phone spam
Telephone numbers will be available all over the internet, even if they are ex-directory
Changing your phone/fax number will require changing your email address, and vice versa
Moving to a different region will require a change of email address, thus rendering an obvious advantage of email irrelevant
Of course there are advantages as well, but I'm feeling cynical today. Is it just me, or does this plan seem a little naive? A bit like ten years ago, when the internet was going to solve all the problems of the world overnight, and make everyone suddenly nicer.
...a good reason to upgrade my machine to IPv6 - Not
Is a $diety a $deity who doesn't eat much?
Ummm--no. The "FP" in "FPGA" stands for "field-programmable", and it is field programmability that I'm arguing against. Field programmability usually means that I, the user, need to do something to the device.
"Field programmable" does not mean that you have to program it, any more than it means that you have to design it. The most common way of programming an FPGA is from a PROM chip on board. FPGAs are used as much in applications where ASICs are too expenensive as where field programmability is actually needed, if not more. If your digital camera manufacturer expects that you load an FPGA bitstream from your PC everytime you switch it on then, well, you should have read some reviews before you parted with your cash. Anyway, what's better, a device which is buggy and can't be upgraded, or a device which is buggy and can be upgraded? If you think traditional hardware designs are bug-proof, or can be exhaustively tested to ensure reliability, I'm sorry to dissapoint you. Hardware is generally as reliable as it is, because most firms are very good at hardware test and qualification, and there are well developed methodologies. This doesn't mean that bugs don't slip through. (Hint: don't buy the really cheap stuff)
My stand on this would be NO, because I couldn't do jack shit for it incase something doesn't work. From a software developers point of view it's essential that you can trust your platform (os and compiler) and most importantly if you think there's bugs there, you can look it up from the source and try finding it. I doubt that I'd have the possibility of doing so with programmable hardware.
Actually, the reverse is true. FPGAs are primarily designed inhouse. I've never heard of anyone shipping a preprogrammed FPGA as a stand alone product, there's no point - FPGA designs are invariably shipped as embeddable cores, either in HDL or EDIF netlists, both of which are effectively non-free open source (ARM use this model quite successfully). The same is not true for say, an i386. As for testing, most FPGAs have built in JTAG support, and are certainly no more difficult to test than ASICs.
The xilinx parts are for embedded systems, and have no real benefits for your average PC user (hence they can market them them for $$$).
Look here for genuinely cool FPGA technology. They use transputer based technology to implement parallel algorithms in, well, parallel. The demos are very impressive - real time raytracing @50MHz anyone?
Using an FPGA does not in any way require "weird driver CDs". Nor do they prevent the hardware developers from implementing clean well defined, standard interfaces. In fact hardware implemented in an FPGA is no different from the users point of view from hardware implemented any other way, or from embedded software running on a micro-controller for that matter.
If your USB peripherals didn't work properly, its because they were poorly designed. This has nothing to do with the choice of using an FPGA to implement the interface.
To say that hardware engineers are immitating the mistakes of software engineers is ridiculous, (although obviously some are making the same mistakes). Is it therefore perfectly acceptable for software engineers to implement poorly designed interfacesand neglect testing and quality control? I don't think so, but perhaps we have become numb to this issue. Bad engineering is bad engineering. The choice of using FPGAs for an emerging standard is good engineering, because if the standard changes before maturing the hardware does not then become instantly obsolete. This is why FPGAs are popular in mobile telecoms base stations, and rightly so. Being able to upgrade hardware is a good thing. Releasing an immature design is bad, both in hardware and software.
Modelsim have been supporting linux for some time. As for free tools, Alliance EDA provide a stripped down version of their simulator for free, but its not as sophisticated.
Apparently there is a norse myth that predicts "Fimbulwinter" - an everlasting winter at the end of the world. But then I read this in a 2000AD comic strip, so I can't guarantee its validity ;-)
Floppies are long overdue to be replaced. 1.44MB is just not enough these days to ferry files between PCs, and a rescue CD can hold a lot more tools than a rescue floppy. Not to mention that magnteic storage can easily get corrupted.
I think the most important thing about linux is that the underlying system is free and open. The real problem with MS (for example ;-) is that they can use there platform to effectively blackmail people into not using alternatives, hence stifling creativity etc, etc. But commercial apps on the whole should be a good thing, because they should have to be worth paying for, and more importantly, they give people jobs.
I would really like to see a symbiosis between free and commercial apps, which keeps the commercial guys playing fair, while still providing quality software. Once this fashion for selling upgrades by locking users into your product is done away with, the commercial industry will be much more beneficial. I hope OSS software is starting to make this happen, and I think MS is a big help here.
This would be a great way to use up all those old nukes from the cold war, would massively advance space exploration, and would fire peoples imaginations for generations.
gives us, the gamers, full freedom to do whatever we want to do - You mean running about a building fraggin as amny people as possible?
They could take all the recently obsolete PCs in the world, strap on solar panels and an antenna made from an old whisky tin with gaffer tape, install linux, mesh software and a wifi card, and send them into random orbits with a giant steam catapult. Problem solved. Then they could spend their budget on new spaceships, so the rest of us could go up and play.
A set of standard images could be used, like "this_site_is_located_next_to_a_sewage_outlet.gif" , or "the_trees_in_this_neighbourhood_ar_particularly_n ice.gif". This way, we could save the world without updating our browsers.