Amen Brother. I stopped writing cursive in 6th grade. Why? Because I thought that my cursive was too loopy and curved, looked like a girls writing. My printing was much more technical looking, lots of hard lines and 90 degree angles. In other words, A MAN'S HANDWRITING. I stuck with that to this day, and every time I write my grandma a birthday card, she tells me how much she loves my printing. And as a added bonus, she can actually see if I spelled my words correctly.
Who cares if you write or print, as long as you convey the meaning of your text clearly to the reader. Ever wonder why no one uses that cursive font?
Initially i thought that this was a good thing. If a bunch of geeks like me are out there watching the same shows as I am and those numbers are being represented to the stations then maybe I wouldn't have to start watching a show, think it's good, and then wonder what happened to it (firefly).
However, should the stations use this information in the same manner as they use the neilson stuff (which I assume is regulated in distribution somehow) then what's to keep some production company from buying a bunch of Tivos and having them record their shows, or paying Tivo users to record and play a show (not necessarily watch it). say for 5 bucks, record a show and play it while your taking a nap or something.
So I am both interested and worried. But for the most part, I think it would take a large number of cheaters to offset that of the legitimate watchers.
I think the interesting comparison between OSs in the future is going to be how much freedom they allow you. With all the hype about the DRM in Longhorn, and incklings of it in OSX, and absolute freedom in Linux, it will be interesting to see if quality/stability becomes less importiant than the freedom to do what you want.
Don't you mean the huge leap in quality between Windows 98 and Windows ME, as if anyone could call ME a quality product.
No, I mean the huge leap in quality of all their products over time. ME sucked, but other than that I think there is a steady increase in quality in each product line. And I consider 2000 and XP to be in the same line as 98/ME since they are considered replacements.
Like it or not, Windows is improving all the time, just look at the leap in quality between Windows 98 and 2000 alone. This is a company that is doing some good stuff and getting their act together.
I still use Linux for development, because it's a better platform for what I need to do. But I think it's a good thing that there may be difficult decisions in the future about what platform to use. If there is only one hands down winner, then who's driving the innovation. OSX, Linux, MS. All these have become very viable platofrms and users of each one are benifiting from the competition.
Now if we could just get MS to compete on software quality and features alone instead of legal rangeling to rid itself of it's competitors. That whole SCO thing scares me a bit.
It's good. But what keeps a spammer from registering an email for the purpose of sending a set of spam and defeating the whitelist. Seems like there would need to be some sort of governing process that measures the rate of emails and drops those who break the threashold. Of course, then you have the instances where someone sends a legitimate batch of email and get's kicked. just some thoughts.
This is the first book in the timeline. Cryptonomicon is related (as are the characteres therein) but comes after Quicksilver time wise. So this is the prequel to Cryptonomicon basically.
If this thing is half as good as Cryptonomicon, it will be worth reading IMHO...
I'm curious, with our politician's email addresses easially available on literally hundreds of web sites, how much spam do they already receive? Does anyone work for a politician and can tell us how much trash they get on a regular basis?
I don't understand how they plan to enforce stuff like this that is provided on the internet based on a state or even federal law? There will always be places to host this stuff, in this case the grad student was able to host this illegal content in the Netherlands. So is our government spinning it's wheels trying to enforce something that it can never physically enforce? Isn't there more pressing matters to worry about?
If we keep this up, pretty soon companies in countries with reasonable laws pertaining to this type of information are going to start charging Americans an arm and a leg to host their stuff!
yea yea yea, there's a lot of "stupid kid, do your homework, love your parents" stuff going around here. and I totally agree...
BUT. This is a serious security concern. In todays world, there is no excuse for lazy password policy and non-encrypted personal informaion flowing over the web. This Pinnicle company needs to get it's shit together because 1 simple hack (which will probably happen now that it's been on/.) and that company can roll over and die.
I'm a lot like that travolta guy. Once, I cracked a website that had 128 bit encryption (I could tell cause it was advertised all over the page). I cracked it by randomly typing in passwords until I got it right. Then I told everyone that I popped the firewall and droped a logic bomb. Then, later, 2 OC3 trucks pulled up (thats some serious bandwidth) and I used a really sweet computer with like 9 monitors to write a virus using the new MS visual rubics cube code language (it's part of that whole.NET thing).
But thats just like one day. Most of the time I just drive around in my ferrari and say buzzwords. Oh, and once I got to see Hally Berrys boobs.
Until now, the DMCA has been battling independant developers and companies that bend under the smallest pressure. It may be very interesting to see MS take on the DMCA, cause we all know how they practically bitchslapped the US justice system. This might just be what we need, ironically...
Just to preface this: I've only read te first page of the article, the second seems to not be available at the moment...
I use Microsoft products as a home consumer (joystick, steering wheel, mouse, Windows XP, and an XBox). I do most of my programming work on a Linux box.
I do feel like MS treats business customers differently than it does home consumers however. For example, the company that I am working for is currently undergoing a MS audit where they are treated almost like a bunch of thieves and the general theme of the audit is "We know you are stealing something, where is it?" And for that, I hate them. They could handle it better and provide better service rather than just trying to pry more money out of our cold dead hands...
However, as a home user I have been very pleased, especially with the customer service. My XBox broke last week, they shipped me a box with an Airborne shipping label. I boxed it up, shipped it out and they fixed it same day and next dayed it back to me. 2 days! I was amazed and impressed, try to get that kind of service out of Sony... And it was all totally free.
So if MS would spend the same kind of efforts to please their business customers as they do their home customers, they would be in a much brighter place corporate wise. Why don't they do this? Well, I think it's pretty simple, cause it is very easy to take a lot of money from a big company, much easier than it is to take a little money from some guy sitting at home trying to play his Xbox.
This is nothing but an example of how someone who is inclined to be addicted to something behaves. "Oh, we hate Sony, they are so mean to abuse us like this" blah blah blah. Well, believe it or not, you're the one with the power, take you money and do something else then and stop bitching about a stupid game. And don't give me that "Everquest is like crack" BS, I know you won't suffer any physical hardships by quitting. Be an adult and take responsibility for your own actions, Sony has nothing to do with the fact that you have let yourself become addicted to a stupid game...
All the major java compilers have a flag to alert the user when he/she is using deprecated methods.
This is true, however, better to use the non-depricated methods instead and if your reference is old, you won't be able to tell.
If you start/started with 1.2 or later, the number of deprecated methods you are likely to see or have to migrate is in reality very small.
I actually started with 1.1.6 and purchased an API book (stupid). Well, when 1.2 came out there was something like 2000 new classes and my books were totally useless. Since then, you are correct, very few depricated methods. But the book experience made me bitter:)
I'm been tasked with Java development lately (and unfortunatly). In my experience, you buy a book detailing the Java API, then in half a year, it changes and your book is out of date and you can't use it for fear that you might end up using a depricated method. Just buy a java programming concepts book (but even these fade quickly) and use the Javadoc to get your API info. Spend the rest on movie tickets to support the MPAA (oops, did I say that?)
But they should use the technology that is already available to them to hedge the piracy of movies and TV shows.
For example, why doesn't FOX/CBS/(Insert network here) provide their shows online after the first airing on TV? Put some commercials in there to cover the costs and let people stream them. Or you can just let them download them and share them, who cares, you made money by leaving the commercials in, or providing internet-only commercials to your customers. And same goes for movies, say let people download them after the video is released with extra commercials in there or something.
I know that I would love to go to fox.com and download the Futurama I missed rather than lurking around on IRC for a week trying to download it, and especially in the case of movies... Commercials? Hey, if they can provide me with that content, I can deal with the commercials, and if I like the movie, I'll go buy the DVD anyway.
Just a thought, although this would piss off the Blockbusters of the world, but it's all about dealing with the changes, not about preventing them...
I know they are trying to sell this thing to the post office and security forces.
First of all, if you are lucky enough to have a job that let's you keep in shape while doing it, why the hell would you want to throw away your fitness to ride around on a gay little scooter. I'm glad this thing costs an arm and a leg, the higher price will keep people from making fun of fat americans...
To me, this is like something that would only be useful if you lost the power to convery youself to a destination.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen Brother. I stopped writing cursive in 6th grade. Why? Because I thought that my cursive was too loopy and curved, looked like a girls writing. My printing was much more technical looking, lots of hard lines and 90 degree angles. In other words, A MAN'S HANDWRITING. I stuck with that to this day, and every time I write my grandma a birthday card, she tells me how much she loves my printing. And as a added bonus, she can actually see if I spelled my words correctly.
Who cares if you write or print, as long as you convey the meaning of your text clearly to the reader. Ever wonder why no one uses that cursive font?
Initially i thought that this was a good thing. If a bunch of geeks like me are out there watching the same shows as I am and those numbers are being represented to the stations then maybe I wouldn't have to start watching a show, think it's good, and then wonder what happened to it (firefly).
However, should the stations use this information in the same manner as they use the neilson stuff (which I assume is regulated in distribution somehow) then what's to keep some production company from buying a bunch of Tivos and having them record their shows, or paying Tivo users to record and play a show (not necessarily watch it). say for 5 bucks, record a show and play it while your taking a nap or something.
So I am both interested and worried. But for the most part, I think it would take a large number of cheaters to offset that of the legitimate watchers.
Troy
Good point.
I think the interesting comparison between OSs in the future is going to be how much freedom they allow you. With all the hype about the DRM in Longhorn, and incklings of it in OSX, and absolute freedom in Linux, it will be interesting to see if quality/stability becomes less importiant than the freedom to do what you want.
Anyway, thanks!
Don't you mean the huge leap in quality between Windows 98 and Windows ME, as if anyone could call ME a quality product.
No, I mean the huge leap in quality of all their products over time. ME sucked, but other than that I think there is a steady increase in quality in each product line. And I consider 2000 and XP to be in the same line as 98/ME since they are considered replacements.
Like it or not, Windows is improving all the time, just look at the leap in quality between Windows 98 and 2000 alone. This is a company that is doing some good stuff and getting their act together.
I still use Linux for development, because it's a better platform for what I need to do. But I think it's a good thing that there may be difficult decisions in the future about what platform to use. If there is only one hands down winner, then who's driving the innovation. OSX, Linux, MS. All these have become very viable platofrms and users of each one are benifiting from the competition.
Now if we could just get MS to compete on software quality and features alone instead of legal rangeling to rid itself of it's competitors. That whole SCO thing scares me a bit.
Troy
It's good. But what keeps a spammer from registering an email for the purpose of sending a set of spam and defeating the whitelist. Seems like there would need to be some sort of governing process that measures the rate of emails and drops those who break the threashold. Of course, then you have the instances where someone sends a legitimate batch of email and get's kicked. just some thoughts.
This is the first book in the timeline. Cryptonomicon is related (as are the characteres therein) but comes after Quicksilver time wise. So this is the prequel to Cryptonomicon basically.
If this thing is half as good as Cryptonomicon, it will be worth reading IMHO...
And really, it wasn't all that hilarious either...
I'm curious, with our politician's email addresses easially available on literally hundreds of web sites, how much spam do they already receive? Does anyone work for a politician and can tell us how much trash they get on a regular basis?
I don't understand how they plan to enforce stuff like this that is provided on the internet based on a state or even federal law? There will always be places to host this stuff, in this case the grad student was able to host this illegal content in the Netherlands. So is our government spinning it's wheels trying to enforce something that it can never physically enforce? Isn't there more pressing matters to worry about?
If we keep this up, pretty soon companies in countries with reasonable laws pertaining to this type of information are going to start charging Americans an arm and a leg to host their stuff!
yea yea yea, there's a lot of "stupid kid, do your homework, love your parents" stuff going around here. and I totally agree...
/.) and that company can roll over and die.
BUT. This is a serious security concern. In todays world, there is no excuse for lazy password policy and non-encrypted personal informaion flowing over the web. This Pinnicle company needs to get it's shit together because 1 simple hack (which will probably happen now that it's been on
Who is the fool?
One who ruins his reputation as a credible news source by posting false stories once a year?
or
One who believes the false stories?
Looks like one of our guys is on the inside. Caught him on film. He's infiltrated the war team. Check him out, in the background by the TV...
See it here
I'm a lot like that travolta guy. Once, I cracked a website that had 128 bit encryption (I could tell cause it was advertised all over the page). I cracked it by randomly typing in passwords until I got it right. Then I told everyone that I popped the firewall and droped a logic bomb. Then, later, 2 OC3 trucks pulled up (thats some serious bandwidth) and I used a really sweet computer with like 9 monitors to write a virus using the new MS visual rubics cube code language (it's part of that whole .NET thing).
But thats just like one day. Most of the time I just drive around in my ferrari and say buzzwords. Oh, and once I got to see Hally Berrys boobs.
Now this could be interesting...
Until now, the DMCA has been battling independant developers and companies that bend under the smallest pressure. It may be very interesting to see MS take on the DMCA, cause we all know how they practically bitchslapped the US justice system. This might just be what we need, ironically...
Just to preface this: I've only read te first page of the article, the second seems to not be available at the moment...
I use Microsoft products as a home consumer (joystick, steering wheel, mouse, Windows XP, and an XBox). I do most of my programming work on a Linux box.
I do feel like MS treats business customers differently than it does home consumers however. For example, the company that I am working for is currently undergoing a MS audit where they are treated almost like a bunch of thieves and the general theme of the audit is "We know you are stealing something, where is it?" And for that, I hate them. They could handle it better and provide better service rather than just trying to pry more money out of our cold dead hands...
However, as a home user I have been very pleased, especially with the customer service. My XBox broke last week, they shipped me a box with an Airborne shipping label. I boxed it up, shipped it out and they fixed it same day and next dayed it back to me. 2 days! I was amazed and impressed, try to get that kind of service out of Sony... And it was all totally free.
So if MS would spend the same kind of efforts to please their business customers as they do their home customers, they would be in a much brighter place corporate wise. Why don't they do this? Well, I think it's pretty simple, cause it is very easy to take a lot of money from a big company, much easier than it is to take a little money from some guy sitting at home trying to play his Xbox.
This is nothing but an example of how someone who is inclined to be addicted to something behaves. "Oh, we hate Sony, they are so mean to abuse us like this" blah blah blah. Well, believe it or not, you're the one with the power, take you money and do something else then and stop bitching about a stupid game. And don't give me that "Everquest is like crack" BS, I know you won't suffer any physical hardships by quitting. Be an adult and take responsibility for your own actions, Sony has nothing to do with the fact that you have let yourself become addicted to a stupid game...
"This will allow them to be used in rescue missions, cave exploration and possibly even on Mars."
Or by microsoft for advertising purposes!
It's quite embarassing when the only argument you can make against my comment is that I spelled a word wrong...
Good points... My comments below:
:)
All the major java compilers have a flag to alert the user when he/she is using deprecated methods.
This is true, however, better to use the non-depricated methods instead and if your reference is old, you won't be able to tell.
If you start/started with 1.2 or later, the number of deprecated methods you are likely to see or have to migrate is in reality very small.
I actually started with 1.1.6 and purchased an API book (stupid). Well, when 1.2 came out there was something like 2000 new classes and my books were totally useless. Since then, you are correct, very few depricated methods. But the book experience made me bitter
Save it for LOTR TTT...
I'm been tasked with Java development lately (and unfortunatly). In my experience, you buy a book detailing the Java API, then in half a year, it changes and your book is out of date and you can't use it for fear that you might end up using a depricated method. Just buy a java programming concepts book (but even these fade quickly) and use the Javadoc to get your API info. Spend the rest on movie tickets to support the MPAA (oops, did I say that?)
Not to mention that most business turn this damn thing off. It've very easy to broadcast messages to the entire domain and can be very annoying...
I remember once in college, every computer on the campus got a pop up that said...
"Ralphs Computer has lost connection with the UPS"
But they should use the technology that is already available to them to hedge the piracy of movies and TV shows.
For example, why doesn't FOX/CBS/(Insert network here) provide their shows online after the first airing on TV? Put some commercials in there to cover the costs and let people stream them. Or you can just let them download them and share them, who cares, you made money by leaving the commercials in, or providing internet-only commercials to your customers. And same goes for movies, say let people download them after the video is released with extra commercials in there or something.
I know that I would love to go to fox.com and download the Futurama I missed rather than lurking around on IRC for a week trying to download it, and especially in the case of movies... Commercials? Hey, if they can provide me with that content, I can deal with the commercials, and if I like the movie, I'll go buy the DVD anyway.
Just a thought, although this would piss off the Blockbusters of the world, but it's all about dealing with the changes, not about preventing them...
Troy
I know they are trying to sell this thing to the post office and security forces.
First of all, if you are lucky enough to have a job that let's you keep in shape while doing it, why the hell would you want to throw away your fitness to ride around on a gay little scooter. I'm glad this thing costs an arm and a leg, the higher price will keep people from making fun of fat americans...
To me, this is like something that would only be useful if you lost the power to convery youself to a destination.
Does that mean we'll start getting PC's in our cereal boxes???