I agree with both of you, patching is a much better solution. However, for those of us who don't have a patch, you've got to find a work-around.
AS for SMTP servers going bonkers, I don't see how that can happen if you blacklist the DNS entry at your end such that if it returns wrongly, it'll get klined.
I often ask myself "what would be the most elegant solution to this problem?". To this, I believe the best elegant solution would be to simply blacklist verisign on your routers and add a static route translating their ip address to one that won't route, like 255.255.255.255 or 192.168.1.1. YOu can also use ACL's to accomplish the same, or firewalls.
As for error generation, if you've got DNS redirection on your router (like on my cisco I can tell it to take one DNS name and rediect it to another, or take on IP and redirect it to a DNS name), you can redirect the DNS name to a fictional one, like
For those of you who don't have pretty routers, use the windows hosts file to do the same with DNS and IP redirection on your boxen.
I'v got a feeling that if enough admins and ISP's blacklist their domain, they'll either get the message, or start trying to change IP's and whatnot. Inwhich case I believe ICANN will get real pissed at them dodging our blacklist for buisness.
If you don't want to practice and put in the time to get good(which tends to make you decent at a number of games when you get good at one), then stick to single player games. There's simply no way you're going to be able to go out and have a good time in FPS games without spending some time learning a game well. Expect to, especially when the game is as difficult as tribes, get your ass handed to you on silver platter for the first few months, and that's if you're putting in a few hours a night and you've got the talent. I know a guy in my clan who is 40 somethin years old, a retired marine and he's k3wl as fsck, but even after years of tribes he can't mid air a guy jetting up and down. He can do other things and be a sneaky bastard but he can't mid air people consistantly (last time I played with him, that is).
There simply is no multiplayer FPS game that exists that doesn't have the skilled players and cheats and clans (whom almost all usually cheat to some degree, usually the highest clans either don't cheat at all or cheat like a mofo with custom stuff). That's the reality of it.
With that said, there are some excellent single player games out there like morrowind (if you've got the super powerful hardware) or Deus Ex, Chrome, and a couple others. There are also some low-skill multiplayer games like planetside, halo, and everquest that are designed for someone like yourself, but obviously some have a monthly fee. (I'm taking this in comparison to high skill games like tribes, BF1942, and to a lesser extent Q3, UT2K3, Natural selection, etc).
It's unfortunate, however, that CEO's don't realize that they don't have a god given right to be CEO just like their underlings don't have the right to the job they've got. A person has a god given right to breath and work for a living. They don't have the god given right to be dependant on someone else, they have the god given right to be independant of anyone else. This works both ways; CEO's are dependant on their workers, and their workers are dependant on the CEO's.
In a society, this changes because we work together for a goal. Nothing great was ever achieved by a lone human, but by many people working together. So we do have the god given right to be a part of that society, and workers have the god given right to, if they are loyal and work hard, to live a decent life and to have a loyal CEO. As soon as the CEO begins screwing around with that, it's time to either leave or replace him. Personally, I'd choose the leave, and I'd try to take as many people with me as I can.
Imagine if the entire 20 man tech support department of a medium sized company up and left. Decided to not show up for work and go job hunting for other jobs. It'd cause all chaos within that company. It's hard to find good work, it's even harder to replace your tech department on short notice. It'd cause a real big headache for administration, and might even take down the entire company depending on how expensive the mistake is.
Use a p2p system, there's no centralized point under control by anyone. Just one secure, open source model that gets implemented and is hard to hack. Plus, with paper ballots, and that kind of a system where the votes are tallied by thousands of voting machines, anyone can check the votes in their area without a problem. Use good encryption, trustable maintainers and goverment certification, and you've got a strong basis for something most techies would trust.
And generally, unfounded baseless claims to defend microsoft are also written by "users". Now, I usually don't read most of the comments on slashdot because most people are insane, but that's besides the point. Some of those claims have good evidence, and Microsoft has a history of being downright immoral to it's customers and people in general. Anyone who refutes that fact has some reading to do; you can start with their antitrust suite and move on up to the crap they pull with their eula's to start.
Saying "I trust X news source for my info" is a big bowl of bullshit. You've got to look at what the big media, local media, crazy media, and witnesses say nowadays because neither of them can be trusted. BBC says one thing, and if you trust them you wouldn't know Mydoom was written by spammers for spamming purposes. I'v found times when 5 websites give different statistics, different quotes, and different images of the same story and you've got to learn to put it all together.
Stephan Evans: Hey, lets post up an article bashing linux, saying SCO has envoked the wraith of the linux zealots!
Manager: Great idea, we'll throw it up tonight.
*1 day later and a post on slashdot later*
Netadmin: Steve, I think I can explain why the e-mails down. See Betsy? The one that's melted out of the rack and is cuttently bubbling on the floor? Yes, I didn't know that was possible either, but evidently it is. You might be careful with what you say in the future you insensitive clod! Besty ver 2.0 is coming in next week, and I don't want to lose her to the wraith of the linux community.
nah, unpentium would be 15, which is phosphorus. Phosphorus starts on fire when exposed to air, and anyone who has a palamino knows the similarities. Remove the heatsink and phrooomph!
Google has a lot of backing because they've always found a way to make money and keep people's trust. MS isn't going to win this the way they won netscape. They've got 3 options
1: Buy it out, inwhich case everyone'll know and stop using it if the search results begin to get biased and reports start flooding in that they're not being honest about their results.
2: Smush it out, inwhich case they'll use some immoral and probably illegal method of defeating google such as incorperating things into the eula's in their new patches like "you agree not to use google.com" and enforcing it with software, or simply hire some black ops and destroy the building itself or completly screw their search engine up. They've also got patent portfolios they can use to play with google, or they can win the SCO lawsuite, really piss off some nerds, and then sue google for IP fraud and run them into bankruptsy.
3: Play it out. They can build something that can compete with and beat google, and if they at any point faulter and become dishonest, we'll still have google around to do searching on.
This isn't the same battle as IE Vs Netscape. We're talking about something on the internet for one, and for two it's a completly different tech. Frankly I think MS is dillusional if they think they'll be able to smush out google like they did to Netscape. Few people actually ran out and baught winxp when it first came out, fewer still are going to run out in droves and buy whatever they're releasing next especially with all the talk of lockdown.
Forget it's anyone for a moment. What the patent office has been doing is granting patents to anyone who wants them for just about anything and letting the legal system sort out any quarells. This has a bad effect on smaller buisnesses, who can't afford to go into litigation that bigger corperations can afford to go into.
So, naturally the big guys are able to screw over the smaller guys if they need to, and we've seen bad decisions in the past as well as small companies go out of buisness due to the cost of litigation.
So, as much as I hate seeing microsoft getting sued over stupid patent infringement, I also hate microsoft deciding to threaten lawsuites if people use open source software and funding SCO. It goes with the territory of pirate ship corperations. The big guys make huge patent portfolios to compete and crush competition legally, and smaller compediters get one or two patents here and there and good lawers will keep the big guys in check. Disturb this balance in favor of either side and you lose the cohesion it has, which is part of the reason I don't like this action. If the patent office wants to do some good, they shouldn't be letting the legal system sort out their work, they should be doing their job in the first place.
Often, this lawsuit has been hailed as Eolas doing what our goverment couldn't, so tell me what's so wrong about them getting what they deserve? Personally, I'd like to see them and every other company on the fortune 500 go up in flames with the captians and investors and proper buisness law be instituted so we don't have the opression of big buisness ever again anywhere in the world. Money is power, and if a company can get enough of it they can abuse it. Power corrupts, not because power is bad but because one individual can now change another in any way they deem fit. Absolute power corrups absolutely. Therefore, Money corrupts, absolute money corrups absolutely.
I'm of the opinion that information about me shouldn't be given away for money or respect, dignity, etc. This is why I shop with cash and refuse to give my real name and address at stores. I do this for one simple reason.
I understand the value of my privacy.
Much like the idea of understanding the value of a doller, people have been taught not to value themselves or to identify themselves not as people but as machines. "Hi, my name is Daine, I'm an accountant". "This is rodnet, our resident computer server". "Hi, my name is rob, my major is computer technology" "Hello, this is bogboy, he's going to become our new accounting server".
Infact, it was found long ago that when you asked someone to define another person, they'd systemize that person (clothing, hair color, eyes, how they act, etc) and this destroys what was already in place; the fact that they never ever had been asked this question before. The ignorance to the question of what makes a person up is the definition of human, when we don't think about things in these terms we become more human and less machine like.
So we've taken the first step of quantifying people as machines and getting them to indentify themselves and eachother, at first glance, as machines. The second step to slavery is to then get them to accept the fact that an accountant of x dynamics gets paid y salary. A very predictable and a very useful social convention, skinner would be proud.
In any case, this experiment also shows something more disturbing which is that people will put a monentary value on a part of themselves. The information about my weight is worth x dollers, which directly or indirectly correlates with a given metric. It isn't the metric that matters, so much as it's the fact someone will quantify themselves with money.
Firstly, if you watch the news and do research, you know how to watch out for and avoid bad food. I just had to throw out a couple of chickens last night that came from perdue in hong kong because of the virus outbreak. I'd rather be paranoid than sick.
Secondly, A big sign in the door that says "Beef sold from X date to X date is poisonous and has BSE return it!", in addition to getting the tv news, radio news, and newspaper to cover your recall as well as having it published in local papers is good enough. If you want to go the extra mile, put fliers up on people's doors warning them of the danger. I don't want some company contacting me to tell me some meat I just baught is bad, it leaves the door open for abuses such as advertising.
So are they justified in doing this? I consider it a nice gesture of breaking their agreement with their customers to tell them the food they just sold them is poisonous. Frankly, I'd expect them to be more responsable and take some initiave. If your chicken comes from china that just had an outbreak of a bad virus that kills humans, I'd go ahead and find all the chicken in my store that came from china and dump it then goto the american growers and restock. I wouldn't wait like a greedy dumass and wait until the goverment says "you've got to recall that". It's more expensive, but in the long run you don't risk spreading a disease that can kill your customers and yourself. What about all the people who baught meat who don't have those cards? Are they only going to warn the people who have cards?
Theft is defined a mugger taking a wallet from someone. Taking something from someone by force. I go and download a movie, I'm not taking anything. It's like going into a store, taking out a nanolathing machine, setting it up next to a pot of flowers and replicating the pot of flowers then walking off with your pot of flowers and nanolathing machine. Store doesn't lose a pot of flowers, it doesn't lose anything at all. The only way they can proove they lose something is for you to say "If it weren't for the replicator, I would buy the pot of flowers", and the 5th amendment protects us from implicating outselves I believe.
Is it rude to walk into a store and replicate a pot of flowers? You betcha. But not illegal nor should it be illegal. However, the store would be well within it's rights to ban the use of nano-lathing equipment that can replicate products on it's premisise. You've also got to wonder about the affordability of the pot of flowers, quality, etc. You expect a lot more for $10 than you do for free. Most of the movies I'v got I wouldn't spend $1 on, they aren't worth that to me. Most people think a music CD should be $3, and a movie should be $5. Not $15 and $30. But that's besides the point.
From now on, don't get copy right law and theft mixed up like so many misleaded people do. Applying old systems of thought to new things tends to completly ruin those new systems. If the original creaters of the internet had copyright in mind, we wouldn't have the internet. The RIAA and MPAA likes to call people thiefs and pirates because it sounds good and to get mislead people such as yourself to go on "your a theif, evil evil thief" namecalling rampages to shun the file sharers and warez hounds. Do I think it's bad thing to do? Hell yes, but unfortunatly I think the major corperations have already ruined many buisnesses by making file sharing a victomless crime. People don't differentiate between software and music made by a multimillion doller cartel and a small company in europe; it's all the same to them.
In all honesty, they want to protect their bottom line and increase profitability. I frankly have no mercy or respect for cartels or monopolies. Profiteering corperations are dangerous enough as it is to all life on this planet; the ones who can sit on and control the resources are even worse. Few people working in them are bad beans, but I suppose when you can blackmail a person into doing what you want them to do (do this or you're fired) you've got a lot of power.
For that matter, why should I even goto those websites that have manditory video advertising on them?
Their idea is going to fail for 5 reasons
1: Bandwidth. Firstly, dialup users are screwed. Secondly, Per MB users are screwed, and finally, ISP's get swamped with delivering advertising get screwed.
2: Getting it to work. I'v got proxomitron, beat it and every other hackers idea to block your annoying advertising. It will not "play regardless of pop-up blocking". Stopping popups has nothing to do with stoping video from playing.
3: Choice. How many sites are on the internet? If you play video advertising I find annoying, I'll goto another, it's that simple. Homestarrunner spread by word of mouth, not by being posted on slashdot one day. All good internet sites spread in this way, and in this way they'll be defeated.
4: Storage. Am I going to store hundreds of useless advertisements in my browser cache? You'd have more luck sucking on a cactus to get water out of it.
5: DRM. Inevitably, their going to have to ensure that the advertisments are being seen. So, you get into an arms race ending with draconian control.
Go out and get a program named "Proxomitron". Most of the websites it was hosted on were DDOSed out of existance because it is the bane of all advertising on the internet, cept for a few so you'll have to search for it on google or preferable on a p2p app. It is superior to all ad blocking software available. It uses customisable, scriptable filters that block advertising by becoming a proxy server for your computer. (you redirect all of your browser options to 127.0.0.1). It can also emulate different browsers, so you can tell your bank you're actually IE and not Mozilla or Opera.
As for the flash, it has a flash killer that will replace a flash animation with a link to the flash animation that lets you see the animation when pressed.
And throw it up on a p2p app if you do find a download. It's in need of hosts and bandwidth.
Linux was designed for people who know what they are doing, and eventually it'll evolve into something any idiot can use. I believe in the next year that'll happen even more than it has. We'll see some standardized linux distro's coming out that are better than windows xp.
And what happens if the soldiers turn out to be too good? I don't like the war in iraq, and the only good reason we haven't seen more protests (as if there weren't enough already) is because of the relativally low casualty rate. Look at the casualty rate on the iraqi side, tens of thousands of people have been killed, for our 500 losses so far. Even though most of the iraqi army never mobilized and was ordered to surrender or run in circles without cover, you've still got to wonder at what point does a soldier get too good.
Or what happens if it desensitizes soldiers to the point that their slight paranoia turns to burning down whole villages? The life of a person shouldn't be equated to action/reaction and logic entirely. These are people, and if our soldiers loose their humanity so will the people they are protecting.
You forgot a few things in your honesty, as I'm sure I'll forget a few from mine.
1: Microsoft has been convicted of antitrust violations. Hence why.net can't be used by linux programmers.
2: Blaster.
3: Many linux groups are still nitpicky crazy people who instead of agreeing and copromising, they bicker. Even more are lazy, or greedy, or just plain stupid.
4: Open source people see Microsoft's code signing as a way to enact DRM, which is a polite way of saying they want total world domination. Many linux guru's like the idea of code signing, they just don't like Microsoft and they have good reasons.
5: Linux, netware, and other operating systems are still used for servers more often than Microsoft's software. MS's software is only used on desktops because everyone knows it. I'v used KDE on suse 8.1, it works well for anyone accept power users and I see no reason for ma n' pa to spend $300 on a new copy of winxp so they can check their e-mail.
6: Coding tools for linux exist that are open source and that work well. Not everyone is coding in C..Net isn't unique.
7: Linux is known for it's efficiency. On a server, efficiency > ease of use. Ms's software was designed for idiots, Linux was designed for people who know what they are doing. Linux is for the person who says "my powersupply blew out last storm, I'll replace the fuse and see if it works" whereas microsoft is for people that say "computer doesn't work = replace computer".
I see progress in for both linux and windows. I see more mind-blowing applications coming out for linux next year and I also see the first idiot proof interfaces coming into being. I don't see microsoft living upto their security bullshit, which they've had several years to implement but haven't. You can say "they're getting better" all you want, but is their security really better than it was in 2000? I see more DRM being brought into play, and it being either accepted or rejected on an individual basis. Ultamatly, in 10 years, I see microsoft becoming a linux distibutor, weither announced or unannounced.
Money was designed to streamline the process of trade, and in the process, it has devalued valued things. Your grandma's china set that she used to serve you guys when you were kids will sell for $200, but the value of that object is greater than $200. The very fact that you put a value on the object devalues emotions and feelings into numbers of value, which can be compaired to other things. Is one kid more valuable than the other?
Are you supposed to base your everyday decisions on this value system? A value system that reduces humans into numbers for which they base their logical decisions on.
It is virtually impossible to live in our society without money. But you still get your paycheck handed to you by a human being and many places you get to see your boss and talk with them if it's a good job. Money itself is already abusive to humanity, biometric identification serves to make it much more abusive, especially if the one on the other end of that device wants to be abusive.
Sometimes it's better to actually trust your workers than it is to treat next to feedlot swine. Read The Art Of War, it has a lot of buisness sense in it if you read it. Companies like Microsoft implement the same tactics, even though they are considered horrible for the economy.
I just know some scientist is going to see what it does when he pisses in the little jars and viles and tubes, just to confuse the robot and see what it does. I know I would.
School and work is designed to make us bored, so that we are good consumers and obedient slaves. Those who don't comply are conviently given drugs so that it's easier for them to comply. Read some of john taylor gatto's work, coupled with books about teaching techniques and you'll get a better understanding of this. Add to this nuerotoxins and hormones in your food, floride in the drinking water, and a bunch of other stuff that's really bad for people to be taking in and you've got to wonder how the fsck they function.
Most people diagnosed with ADD don't actually have ADD, same goes for ADHD. Anyone who constantly daydreams in class can be said to have ADD, but most people do that because class is boring. They benefit from a more structured independant learning enviroment with the ability to deviate to the hearts content. For example, if they want to learn electronics, buy a electronics book and lab book and lab equipment and set em' up. Most ADD kids will spend a few hours on that, then go off to do something else like read or play videogames, then come back and toy some more with the electronics kit. The deviation comes in when they begin unsoldering parts from broken electronics and building new things. Or they go into a different field of electronics, like building microcomputers that can interface with a moniter. Eventually, they'll get bored with the electronics, and give them something else. Physics book, physics lab manuel, physics lab kit, go nuts. Most school systems have absolutly no deviation allowed, and they teach you slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly. With an electronics book, you get taught as fast as you can read.
That's how I work. I play natural selection for a few hours, have things I'v got to do once a day like check the news and shower. I study for a bit as well, I'v got long term projects such as cleaning my room (don't laugh, yours is worse) and building computer parts for my box. I do odd's n' ends stuff like fixing people's computers for fun (and to a lesser extent, profit).
1: Scanning your palm turns you from a human being with feelings, rights, privelages, and the whole 9 yards into data on a computer. Don't believe me? Why do bosses cut pay to make more themselves? Because they don't care about you as you're only a machine, a robot. Not a human. This is also why many companies fail, because people are treated and trained to be machines instead of thinking, caring and most importantly, complete individuals.
2: Identification with which fraud can't be commited with is a good thing, if you trust the people you're giving the information too. Now, ask yourself after contragate and watergate and mkultra, do you trust the us goverment? Do you trust a food supplier that sells food prooven to cause millions of people to die every year?
3: Say biometrics becomes the de-facto way of buying and selling stuff, and nobody checks the people at the top for abuse. You don't suppose you'll get fired because they know on Jan 10, 2004 you baught a coca-cola product. The runamok corperate culture is as funny as it is dangerous, especially when it can get students suspended for wearing a pepsi shirt on coca-cola day.
Casino's are instances of organized crime
on
RFID Casino Chips
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· Score: 1
They work with probability in order to take your money, inotherwords, all games in a casino are in favor of the house winning as far as probability is conserned. Some people creat countermeasures and exploit the games and win millions from the casino's, and this is the reason why if you win too much too often or in any way show you're a little too lucky, you'll get banned from all casino's in las vegas and thrown onto their blacklist.
So, am I suprised they'd use RFID? No, I'm frankly suprised they're still in buisness and people haven't smarted up.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with both of you, patching is a much better solution. However, for those of us who don't have a patch, you've got to find a work-around.
AS for SMTP servers going bonkers, I don't see how that can happen if you blacklist the DNS entry at your end such that if it returns wrongly, it'll get klined.
I often ask myself "what would be the most elegant solution to this problem?". To this, I believe the best elegant solution would be to simply blacklist verisign on your routers and add a static route translating their ip address to one that won't route, like 255.255.255.255 or 192.168.1.1. YOu can also use ACL's to accomplish the same, or firewalls.
. ARGH"
As for error generation, if you've got DNS redirection on your router (like on my cisco I can tell it to take one DNS name and rediect it to another, or take on IP and redirect it to a DNS name), you can redirect the DNS name to a fictional one, like
"www.this.dns.name.doesn't.exist.net.com.org.bleg
For those of you who don't have pretty routers, use the windows hosts file to do the same with DNS and IP redirection on your boxen.
I'v got a feeling that if enough admins and ISP's blacklist their domain, they'll either get the message, or start trying to change IP's and whatnot. Inwhich case I believe ICANN will get real pissed at them dodging our blacklist for buisness.
If you don't want to practice and put in the time to get good(which tends to make you decent at a number of games when you get good at one), then stick to single player games. There's simply no way you're going to be able to go out and have a good time in FPS games without spending some time learning a game well. Expect to, especially when the game is as difficult as tribes, get your ass handed to you on silver platter for the first few months, and that's if you're putting in a few hours a night and you've got the talent. I know a guy in my clan who is 40 somethin years old, a retired marine and he's k3wl as fsck, but even after years of tribes he can't mid air a guy jetting up and down. He can do other things and be a sneaky bastard but he can't mid air people consistantly (last time I played with him, that is).
There simply is no multiplayer FPS game that exists that doesn't have the skilled players and cheats and clans (whom almost all usually cheat to some degree, usually the highest clans either don't cheat at all or cheat like a mofo with custom stuff). That's the reality of it.
With that said, there are some excellent single player games out there like morrowind (if you've got the super powerful hardware) or Deus Ex, Chrome, and a couple others. There are also some low-skill multiplayer games like planetside, halo, and everquest that are designed for someone like yourself, but obviously some have a monthly fee. (I'm taking this in comparison to high skill games like tribes, BF1942, and to a lesser extent Q3, UT2K3, Natural selection, etc).
You are a steriotypical case of an extremly paranoid techie.
It's unfortunate, however, that CEO's don't realize that they don't have a god given right to be CEO just like their underlings don't have the right to the job they've got. A person has a god given right to breath and work for a living. They don't have the god given right to be dependant on someone else, they have the god given right to be independant of anyone else. This works both ways; CEO's are dependant on their workers, and their workers are dependant on the CEO's.
In a society, this changes because we work together for a goal. Nothing great was ever achieved by a lone human, but by many people working together. So we do have the god given right to be a part of that society, and workers have the god given right to, if they are loyal and work hard, to live a decent life and to have a loyal CEO. As soon as the CEO begins screwing around with that, it's time to either leave or replace him. Personally, I'd choose the leave, and I'd try to take as many people with me as I can.
Imagine if the entire 20 man tech support department of a medium sized company up and left. Decided to not show up for work and go job hunting for other jobs. It'd cause all chaos within that company. It's hard to find good work, it's even harder to replace your tech department on short notice. It'd cause a real big headache for administration, and might even take down the entire company depending on how expensive the mistake is.
Use a p2p system, there's no centralized point under control by anyone. Just one secure, open source model that gets implemented and is hard to hack. Plus, with paper ballots, and that kind of a system where the votes are tallied by thousands of voting machines, anyone can check the votes in their area without a problem. Use good encryption, trustable maintainers and goverment certification, and you've got a strong basis for something most techies would trust.
And generally, unfounded baseless claims to defend microsoft are also written by "users". Now, I usually don't read most of the comments on slashdot because most people are insane, but that's besides the point. Some of those claims have good evidence, and Microsoft has a history of being downright immoral to it's customers and people in general. Anyone who refutes that fact has some reading to do; you can start with their antitrust suite and move on up to the crap they pull with their eula's to start.
Saying "I trust X news source for my info" is a big bowl of bullshit. You've got to look at what the big media, local media, crazy media, and witnesses say nowadays because neither of them can be trusted. BBC says one thing, and if you trust them you wouldn't know Mydoom was written by spammers for spamming purposes. I'v found times when 5 websites give different statistics, different quotes, and different images of the same story and you've got to learn to put it all together.
Stephan Evans: Hey, lets post up an article bashing linux, saying SCO has envoked the wraith of the linux zealots!
Manager: Great idea, we'll throw it up tonight.
*1 day later and a post on slashdot later*
Netadmin: Steve, I think I can explain why the e-mails down. See Betsy? The one that's melted out of the rack and is cuttently bubbling on the floor? Yes, I didn't know that was possible either, but evidently it is. You might be careful with what you say in the future you insensitive clod! Besty ver 2.0 is coming in next week, and I don't want to lose her to the wraith of the linux community.
nah, unpentium would be 15, which is phosphorus. Phosphorus starts on fire when exposed to air, and anyone who has a palamino knows the similarities. Remove the heatsink and phrooomph!
Google has a lot of backing because they've always found a way to make money and keep people's trust. MS isn't going to win this the way they won netscape. They've got 3 options
1: Buy it out, inwhich case everyone'll know and stop using it if the search results begin to get biased and reports start flooding in that they're not being honest about their results.
2: Smush it out, inwhich case they'll use some immoral and probably illegal method of defeating google such as incorperating things into the eula's in their new patches like "you agree not to use google.com" and enforcing it with software, or simply hire some black ops and destroy the building itself or completly screw their search engine up. They've also got patent portfolios they can use to play with google, or they can win the SCO lawsuite, really piss off some nerds, and then sue google for IP fraud and run them into bankruptsy.
3: Play it out. They can build something that can compete with and beat google, and if they at any point faulter and become dishonest, we'll still have google around to do searching on.
This isn't the same battle as IE Vs Netscape. We're talking about something on the internet for one, and for two it's a completly different tech. Frankly I think MS is dillusional if they think they'll be able to smush out google like they did to Netscape. Few people actually ran out and baught winxp when it first came out, fewer still are going to run out in droves and buy whatever they're releasing next especially with all the talk of lockdown.
Forget it's anyone for a moment. What the patent office has been doing is granting patents to anyone who wants them for just about anything and letting the legal system sort out any quarells. This has a bad effect on smaller buisnesses, who can't afford to go into litigation that bigger corperations can afford to go into.
So, naturally the big guys are able to screw over the smaller guys if they need to, and we've seen bad decisions in the past as well as small companies go out of buisness due to the cost of litigation.
So, as much as I hate seeing microsoft getting sued over stupid patent infringement, I also hate microsoft deciding to threaten lawsuites if people use open source software and funding SCO. It goes with the territory of pirate ship corperations. The big guys make huge patent portfolios to compete and crush competition legally, and smaller compediters get one or two patents here and there and good lawers will keep the big guys in check. Disturb this balance in favor of either side and you lose the cohesion it has, which is part of the reason I don't like this action. If the patent office wants to do some good, they shouldn't be letting the legal system sort out their work, they should be doing their job in the first place.
Often, this lawsuit has been hailed as Eolas doing what our goverment couldn't, so tell me what's so wrong about them getting what they deserve? Personally, I'd like to see them and every other company on the fortune 500 go up in flames with the captians and investors and proper buisness law be instituted so we don't have the opression of big buisness ever again anywhere in the world. Money is power, and if a company can get enough of it they can abuse it. Power corrupts, not because power is bad but because one individual can now change another in any way they deem fit. Absolute power corrups absolutely. Therefore, Money corrupts, absolute money corrups absolutely.
Not information value, monentary value.
I'm of the opinion that information about me shouldn't be given away for money or respect, dignity, etc. This is why I shop with cash and refuse to give my real name and address at stores. I do this for one simple reason.
I understand the value of my privacy.
Much like the idea of understanding the value of a doller, people have been taught not to value themselves or to identify themselves not as people but as machines. "Hi, my name is Daine, I'm an accountant". "This is rodnet, our resident computer server". "Hi, my name is rob, my major is computer technology" "Hello, this is bogboy, he's going to become our new accounting server".
Infact, it was found long ago that when you asked someone to define another person, they'd systemize that person (clothing, hair color, eyes, how they act, etc) and this destroys what was already in place; the fact that they never ever had been asked this question before. The ignorance to the question of what makes a person up is the definition of human, when we don't think about things in these terms we become more human and less machine like.
So we've taken the first step of quantifying people as machines and getting them to indentify themselves and eachother, at first glance, as machines. The second step to slavery is to then get them to accept the fact that an accountant of x dynamics gets paid y salary. A very predictable and a very useful social convention, skinner would be proud.
In any case, this experiment also shows something more disturbing which is that people will put a monentary value on a part of themselves. The information about my weight is worth x dollers, which directly or indirectly correlates with a given metric. It isn't the metric that matters, so much as it's the fact someone will quantify themselves with money.
Firstly, if you watch the news and do research, you know how to watch out for and avoid bad food. I just had to throw out a couple of chickens last night that came from perdue in hong kong because of the virus outbreak. I'd rather be paranoid than sick.
Secondly, A big sign in the door that says "Beef sold from X date to X date is poisonous and has BSE return it!", in addition to getting the tv news, radio news, and newspaper to cover your recall as well as having it published in local papers is good enough. If you want to go the extra mile, put fliers up on people's doors warning them of the danger. I don't want some company contacting me to tell me some meat I just baught is bad, it leaves the door open for abuses such as advertising.
So are they justified in doing this? I consider it a nice gesture of breaking their agreement with their customers to tell them the food they just sold them is poisonous. Frankly, I'd expect them to be more responsable and take some initiave. If your chicken comes from china that just had an outbreak of a bad virus that kills humans, I'd go ahead and find all the chicken in my store that came from china and dump it then goto the american growers and restock. I wouldn't wait like a greedy dumass and wait until the goverment says "you've got to recall that". It's more expensive, but in the long run you don't risk spreading a disease that can kill your customers and yourself. What about all the people who baught meat who don't have those cards? Are they only going to warn the people who have cards?
Theft is defined a mugger taking a wallet from someone. Taking something from someone by force. I go and download a movie, I'm not taking anything. It's like going into a store, taking out a nanolathing machine, setting it up next to a pot of flowers and replicating the pot of flowers then walking off with your pot of flowers and nanolathing machine. Store doesn't lose a pot of flowers, it doesn't lose anything at all. The only way they can proove they lose something is for you to say "If it weren't for the replicator, I would buy the pot of flowers", and the 5th amendment protects us from implicating outselves I believe.
Is it rude to walk into a store and replicate a pot of flowers? You betcha. But not illegal nor should it be illegal. However, the store would be well within it's rights to ban the use of nano-lathing equipment that can replicate products on it's premisise. You've also got to wonder about the affordability of the pot of flowers, quality, etc. You expect a lot more for $10 than you do for free. Most of the movies I'v got I wouldn't spend $1 on, they aren't worth that to me. Most people think a music CD should be $3, and a movie should be $5. Not $15 and $30. But that's besides the point.
From now on, don't get copy right law and theft mixed up like so many misleaded people do. Applying old systems of thought to new things tends to completly ruin those new systems. If the original creaters of the internet had copyright in mind, we wouldn't have the internet. The RIAA and MPAA likes to call people thiefs and pirates because it sounds good and to get mislead people such as yourself to go on "your a theif, evil evil thief" namecalling rampages to shun the file sharers and warez hounds. Do I think it's bad thing to do? Hell yes, but unfortunatly I think the major corperations have already ruined many buisnesses by making file sharing a victomless crime. People don't differentiate between software and music made by a multimillion doller cartel and a small company in europe; it's all the same to them.
In all honesty, they want to protect their bottom line and increase profitability. I frankly have no mercy or respect for cartels or monopolies. Profiteering corperations are dangerous enough as it is to all life on this planet; the ones who can sit on and control the resources are even worse. Few people working in them are bad beans, but I suppose when you can blackmail a person into doing what you want them to do (do this or you're fired) you've got a lot of power.
For that matter, why should I even goto those websites that have manditory video advertising on them?
Their idea is going to fail for 5 reasons
1: Bandwidth. Firstly, dialup users are screwed. Secondly, Per MB users are screwed, and finally, ISP's get swamped with delivering advertising get screwed.
2: Getting it to work. I'v got proxomitron, beat it and every other hackers idea to block your annoying advertising. It will not "play regardless of pop-up blocking". Stopping popups has nothing to do with stoping video from playing.
3: Choice. How many sites are on the internet? If you play video advertising I find annoying, I'll goto another, it's that simple. Homestarrunner spread by word of mouth, not by being posted on slashdot one day. All good internet sites spread in this way, and in this way they'll be defeated.
4: Storage. Am I going to store hundreds of useless advertisements in my browser cache? You'd have more luck sucking on a cactus to get water out of it.
5: DRM. Inevitably, their going to have to ensure that the advertisments are being seen. So, you get into an arms race ending with draconian control.
Go out and get a program named "Proxomitron". Most of the websites it was hosted on were DDOSed out of existance because it is the bane of all advertising on the internet, cept for a few so you'll have to search for it on google or preferable on a p2p app. It is superior to all ad blocking software available. It uses customisable, scriptable filters that block advertising by becoming a proxy server for your computer. (you redirect all of your browser options to 127.0.0.1). It can also emulate different browsers, so you can tell your bank you're actually IE and not Mozilla or Opera.
As for the flash, it has a flash killer that will replace a flash animation with a link to the flash animation that lets you see the animation when pressed.
And throw it up on a p2p app if you do find a download. It's in need of hosts and bandwidth.
Linux was designed for people who know what they are doing, and eventually it'll evolve into something any idiot can use. I believe in the next year that'll happen even more than it has. We'll see some standardized linux distro's coming out that are better than windows xp.
Coca-cola, happy subconscience suggestion!
Combine this with sound rifles, through-wall sonics and lasers...mmm scarrry.
And what happens if the soldiers turn out to be too good? I don't like the war in iraq, and the only good reason we haven't seen more protests (as if there weren't enough already) is because of the relativally low casualty rate. Look at the casualty rate on the iraqi side, tens of thousands of people have been killed, for our 500 losses so far. Even though most of the iraqi army never mobilized and was ordered to surrender or run in circles without cover, you've still got to wonder at what point does a soldier get too good.
Or what happens if it desensitizes soldiers to the point that their slight paranoia turns to burning down whole villages? The life of a person shouldn't be equated to action/reaction and logic entirely. These are people, and if our soldiers loose their humanity so will the people they are protecting.
You forgot a few things in your honesty, as I'm sure I'll forget a few from mine.
.net can't be used by linux programmers.
.Net isn't unique.
1: Microsoft has been convicted of antitrust violations. Hence why
2: Blaster.
3: Many linux groups are still nitpicky crazy people who instead of agreeing and copromising, they bicker. Even more are lazy, or greedy, or just plain stupid.
4: Open source people see Microsoft's code signing as a way to enact DRM, which is a polite way of saying they want total world domination. Many linux guru's like the idea of code signing, they just don't like Microsoft and they have good reasons.
5: Linux, netware, and other operating systems are still used for servers more often than Microsoft's software. MS's software is only used on desktops because everyone knows it. I'v used KDE on suse 8.1, it works well for anyone accept power users and I see no reason for ma n' pa to spend $300 on a new copy of winxp so they can check their e-mail.
6: Coding tools for linux exist that are open source and that work well. Not everyone is coding in C.
7: Linux is known for it's efficiency. On a server, efficiency > ease of use. Ms's software was designed for idiots, Linux was designed for people who know what they are doing. Linux is for the person who says "my powersupply blew out last storm, I'll replace the fuse and see if it works" whereas microsoft is for people that say "computer doesn't work = replace computer".
I see progress in for both linux and windows. I see more mind-blowing applications coming out for linux next year and I also see the first idiot proof interfaces coming into being. I don't see microsoft living upto their security bullshit, which they've had several years to implement but haven't. You can say "they're getting better" all you want, but is their security really better than it was in 2000? I see more DRM being brought into play, and it being either accepted or rejected on an individual basis. Ultamatly, in 10 years, I see microsoft becoming a linux distibutor, weither announced or unannounced.
Money was designed to streamline the process of trade, and in the process, it has devalued valued things. Your grandma's china set that she used to serve you guys when you were kids will sell for $200, but the value of that object is greater than $200. The very fact that you put a value on the object devalues emotions and feelings into numbers of value, which can be compaired to other things. Is one kid more valuable than the other?
Are you supposed to base your everyday decisions on this value system? A value system that reduces humans into numbers for which they base their logical decisions on.
It is virtually impossible to live in our society without money. But you still get your paycheck handed to you by a human being and many places you get to see your boss and talk with them if it's a good job. Money itself is already abusive to humanity, biometric identification serves to make it much more abusive, especially if the one on the other end of that device wants to be abusive.
Sometimes it's better to actually trust your workers than it is to treat next to feedlot swine. Read The Art Of War, it has a lot of buisness sense in it if you read it. Companies like Microsoft implement the same tactics, even though they are considered horrible for the economy.
I just know some scientist is going to see what it does when he pisses in the little jars and viles and tubes, just to confuse the robot and see what it does. I know I would.
School and work is designed to make us bored, so that we are good consumers and obedient slaves. Those who don't comply are conviently given drugs so that it's easier for them to comply. Read some of john taylor gatto's work, coupled with books about teaching techniques and you'll get a better understanding of this. Add to this nuerotoxins and hormones in your food, floride in the drinking water, and a bunch of other stuff that's really bad for people to be taking in and you've got to wonder how the fsck they function.
Most people diagnosed with ADD don't actually have ADD, same goes for ADHD. Anyone who constantly daydreams in class can be said to have ADD, but most people do that because class is boring. They benefit from a more structured independant learning enviroment with the ability to deviate to the hearts content. For example, if they want to learn electronics, buy a electronics book and lab book and lab equipment and set em' up. Most ADD kids will spend a few hours on that, then go off to do something else like read or play videogames, then come back and toy some more with the electronics kit. The deviation comes in when they begin unsoldering parts from broken electronics and building new things. Or they go into a different field of electronics, like building microcomputers that can interface with a moniter. Eventually, they'll get bored with the electronics, and give them something else. Physics book, physics lab manuel, physics lab kit, go nuts. Most school systems have absolutly no deviation allowed, and they teach you slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly. With an electronics book, you get taught as fast as you can read.
That's how I work. I play natural selection for a few hours, have things I'v got to do once a day like check the news and shower. I study for a bit as well, I'v got long term projects such as cleaning my room (don't laugh, yours is worse) and building computer parts for my box. I do odd's n' ends stuff like fixing people's computers for fun (and to a lesser extent, profit).
1: Scanning your palm turns you from a human being with feelings, rights, privelages, and the whole 9 yards into data on a computer. Don't believe me? Why do bosses cut pay to make more themselves? Because they don't care about you as you're only a machine, a robot. Not a human. This is also why many companies fail, because people are treated and trained to be machines instead of thinking, caring and most importantly, complete individuals.
2: Identification with which fraud can't be commited with is a good thing, if you trust the people you're giving the information too. Now, ask yourself after contragate and watergate and mkultra, do you trust the us goverment? Do you trust a food supplier that sells food prooven to cause millions of people to die every year?
3: Say biometrics becomes the de-facto way of buying and selling stuff, and nobody checks the people at the top for abuse. You don't suppose you'll get fired because they know on Jan 10, 2004 you baught a coca-cola product. The runamok corperate culture is as funny as it is dangerous, especially when it can get students suspended for wearing a pepsi shirt on coca-cola day.
They work with probability in order to take your money, inotherwords, all games in a casino are in favor of the house winning as far as probability is conserned. Some people creat countermeasures and exploit the games and win millions from the casino's, and this is the reason why if you win too much too often or in any way show you're a little too lucky, you'll get banned from all casino's in las vegas and thrown onto their blacklist.
So, am I suprised they'd use RFID? No, I'm frankly suprised they're still in buisness and people haven't smarted up.