Foo: What about security?... And this doesn't even begin to cover eavesdropping. Bar: From the description, this thing works just like Esso Speedpass dongles, in that, the thing needs to be within around 2 cm ( 1 inch ) for it to trigger and transmit the needed data/
However, when Mobil first introduced the Speedpass, they also had a "Car Tag" version (still mentioned in the FAQ). It was larger, and mounted on the back window near the fuel cap. All you had to do was pull up to the pump, and an antenna above the pump would do the work. That implies an active distance of 6-10 feet, with a greatly increased vulnerability to eavesdropping.
I haven't seen the antennas lately, and this page implies that they stopped deploying the car tag after the Mobil/Exxon merger -- except in New Jersey, where mandatory full service would reduce the problem of tag spoofing.
The only way anyone could eavesdrop on or steal your CC number using this system is if he has his hands in your pants.
True with the keychain dongle, not true with the Car Tag version. And even if I were willing to use a Speedpass, I'd steer clear of the new Speedpass-enabled Timex Watch! Like the song says: Beware, beware of the handshake / That hides the snake...
Citibank paid me (but offline not going away)
on
Paperless Billing?
·
· Score: 1
I think the more likely scenario is that they'll start charging you for a paper bill and offer to let you do it online for free.
That would seem to be the case, except that most of the Real World doesn't know.pdf from PCP, and will throw a fit if someone tells them they'll get charged extra for paying bills the way they've always done. Once again, Neo-Luddism is a Good Thing.
In the other direction, I *did* get a $5 credit from Citibank for switching to paperless. It was no problem -- I'd been paying online for more than a year before I decided to go for it. The only catch was that I had to stay paperless for ~6 months before you got the credit. It was a token amount -- less than 5% of what I was paying in interest (ouch!), but it's the thought that counts.
I went paperless with Verizon Wireless for a different reason -- I was getting 20+ pages of billing each month, and got tired of shredding it. Interestingly, the wireless co's seem to charge extra for "detailed billing" -- but cellular is "new tech", so there's no "way it was done before" to get in their way.
On the other hand, back a few years ago, I tried going paperless with a bill -- don't remember which. Back then, though, I didn't have a budget and racked up mucho late fees by forgetting to pay on time. Paperless is cool, but if there's *any* chance you'll forget to pay, avoid paperless like teh plague.
The system uses vehicles equipped with transponder tags as vehicle probes. The main source of vehicle probes are commuters using the "EZ-Tag" automatic toll collection system installed by the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA). Transponder tag readers are placed at 1 to 5 mile intervals along freeways and HOV lanes. Each reader senses probe vehicles as they pass a reader station and transmits the time and location of the probes to a central computer over a telephone line. As the probe vehicles pass through successive AVI readers, software calculates average travel times and speeds for a roadway segment. The averages are made available to software which provides the data for the Houston TranStar web site.
The confusion with traditional technology is understandable, since Houston is mentioned as the first to use AVI instead of pressure/magnetic/optical systems, each of which has the major drawback that they can't actually tell how fast any one car travels from point A to point B (where A and B are miles apart).
On the same site, though, is a cool rail corridor real-time map, which probably uses optical sensors. I was watching it one time as a "train" appeared to go back and forth between two crossings... I figure the "train" was more likely a stray dog triggering the sensors.
If your anti-static bag is not available, store it in your tin-foil hat. Same effect.
Actually, the North Texas Tollway Authority distributes (or used to distribute) their TollTags wrapped in foil. But I was an "early adopter", so they may have upgraded to anti-static bags now.
In Houston, Texas, the highway department has placed transponders all over the highway system... not just on the tollways, but on the freeways as well. This data is used to create very cool real-time maps of traffic conditions.
Since the transponders are compatible with other Amtech/TransCore systems, even vehicles from Oklahoma, Dallas, and other cities help keep the map up to date. In fact, the Dallas and Houston tollway systems are now interconnected -- the same tag will let you cruise through both systems.
Of course, the privacy implications of this convenience have been obvious from the beginning. If you have the need or desire for true anonymity, though, you're not in the market for a (non-disposable) cell phone or a TollTag anyway.
If I remember correctly many people on the left are blaming the Bush administration for using that exact logic to defend some of the more controversial aspects of the Patriot act. Also, it has echos of Machivelli's "the end justifies the means"
You're right -- that's a serious problem with my logic, if I *expect* to be exonerated.
But in the extreme case (preventing a murder by committing the crime of trespassing), I would hope a reasonable person would be willing to suffer the consequences for the greater good. I save a life, but I have to spend six weeks of my own in jail? Fair trade.
I'm not sure everyone sees the world that way, though. I'm glad 911 emergency calls are free on cell phones... but I'd *still* call 911 even if they charged, if it were an emergency.
IMHO: The Bush administration wants to rescue the neighbor's wife, get all the credit, and hope nobody sees that they drove a bulldozer through the wall, shot the tiger, and found nothing but an old copy of Hustler.
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
I'm sure the subject has been discussed before, but what if the original hacker is caught? It's clear that the information "stolen" is of critical importance in the debate over the trustworthiness of Diebold, and electronic voting in general. But will that hacker be able to use the importance of his/her discovery as a mitigating factor in court?
It seems like a parallel situation would be this: My neighbor has a tall fence, topped with electrified razor wire, plastered with "NO TRESPASSING" signs, and a tiger prowling the grounds for added security. I suspect that he is planning to commit a crime on his property -- say I've heard he's planning to kill his wife for the insurance money. If I ignore the signs, scale the wall, avoid the tiger, and take pictures of his detailed murder plans (which he conveniently leaves on his dining room table), I may prevent Ms. Neighbor's untimely demise.
Am I guilty of trespassing? And even if I am, was it worth it? I'd say yes -- I'd commit a small crime to prevent a much larger one. Was the Diebold hacker thinking along those lines? Or were they just out for a walk with the tiger?
Everyone's seen the writing on the wall and it says "POTS is dead, long live the packet!"
I'm looking for a huge shakeout a la the dot-com boom/bust -- because everyone's jumping in to the VoIP market. Here's an example:
An outfit with the unwieldy company/website name of media-streams USA, Inc. set up (at no small cost) at a recent Microsoft Office launch seminar, and passed out business-card CDs of their presentation. I asked in passing about states regulating VoIP, and the response was "Good luck regulating a packet!"
But the website is little more than a rather generic-looking site (nice dolphin, though) with a lot of buzzwords and not a lot of "why I need this". The CD's label features another short selection of buzzwords, including "Future-proof". What the heck is that supposed to mean? And to top it all off, they misspelled the name of their company's city ! Spellnig doesn't count on Slashdot, but in the real world, 100% perfect is a requirement, not a goal.
I don't expect these VoIP cowboys to survive past the initial early-adopter phase. They'll either be gobbled up, or go out of business, or rarely, become the next [insert corporate success story here]. Don't buy stock just yet.
One question about PET scans. I understand (mostly from other comments in the discussion) that radioisotope compounds that tend to accumulate in tumors are injected into the body. These isotopes generate positrons that are detected by the scanner.
But if they're generating positrons, what happens when the resulting positrons happen to encounter electrons? Is there enough energy released to help with the treatment, or is the energy negligible, or do the positive and negative charges prevent most collisions?
(Must resist urge to discuss Cmdr. Data's "positronic" brain...)
'Security Warning' dialog box that tells you 'you are about to go to an address containing a username'
I consider myself "clueful", but this actually saved me some embarassment. I clicked a link in Eudora -- looked semi-legit, but was actually a hidden link with text of "ebay.com". Opera displayed the "Security Warning", saving me from giving the bastards a hit that might have confirmed my email address.
However, the warning was pretty cryptic. If I didn't know that the URL format allows "username:password@domain.tld", I probably wouldn't have known what the heck Opera was trying to tell me. The warning is going to have to be pretty severe to undo the scammers' human engineering.
I'd say that only someone who really, really knows what they're doing would even put a username:password in the URL. Along with correcting this NUL-terminated string bug, I'd suggest Microsoft should add (yet another) configuration option:"Allow usernames in URLs". And it should be False by default.
Just try to ignore the fact that the fastest way to reach the widest possible audience, and also the best way, happens to lie in the realm of the lowly web developer
You're right, of course! I reach 500-700 individuals daily on my web site. And thanks to Google AdSense, I'm now raking in... about 25c, on a good day (though technically, I'm not supposed to tell you that).
On the other hand, probably a couple hundred people in the world have ever used my software, and not a single one knows my name. But I do see my name ever two weeks where it counts... not in lights, but in black text on a tamper-proof background, in the "Pay To:" field of my paycheck.
IIRC, AC's don't see.sigs. You have to be logged in to see the signature lines.
And there seem to be a lot of folks that don't know that changing your.sig in "Preferences" changes it for all messages ever posted.
If the AC wants a description of the.sig, I'd recommend Wikipedia: Slashdot Trolling Phenomena describes the "why", and Shock Sites describes the "how". That will prevent the need to run to the nearest emergency eyewash station.
Well, I've been at my current job 8 years, exclusively VB. Before that, it was a bit over a year doing mostly VB (along with a proprietary DOS-based language), and for a bit under a year before that I was hacking around in between C on the VAX. So maybe +/-10 years would have been more accurate?
But then, this is Slashdot, not a job interview. On an application, of course, I'd put 15 years VB experience and 5 years using Windows 2000. Since that's what they'd require.:)
"HTML Applications (HTAs) are full-fledged applications," the page reads. "These applications are trusted and display only the menus, icons, toolbars, and title information that the Web developer creates. In short, HTAs pack all the power of Microsoft Internet Explorer--its object model, performance, rendering power, protocol support, and channel-download technology--without enforcing the strict security model and user interface of the browser."
So it's yet another way for Microsoft to let people call themselves "programmers", without actually having to write code. Big deal.
I've spent 10+ years writing VB code, and I'm sure everyone will agree that there's a difference -- even in "high level" languages -- between throwing together something that will compile vs. designing a tool that does what your client needs done. Especially when "what your client needs" != "what your client requests".
As for the security issues... when they say "these applications are trusted", the question is "by whom?" I see another way for skr1pt k1dd1es to invade systems, since all you need to do is convince one non-tech-savvy corporate VP to "trust" that message that says "I Love You, click here!". It's not like J0(ann)3 HaXX0r will be deterred by EULAs and patents.
It's VBScript all over again. What good is a programming tool when security best practices suggest you turn it off?
In fact, Microsoft's patent is great news. Hopefully, nobody will be tempted to license the "technology" (read: virus portal) for any other OS.
SCO has admitted that its action is designed to shore up sagging sales by wringing revenue out of its rights to Unix, an older operating system from which [something is missing here] Linux was derived.
Shouldn't the blank be filled in by the words "SCO contends"? As in, "Unix, an older operating system from which SCO contends Linux was derived."
I thought the whole point of the defense against SCO is that Linux is Unix-like, but *not* "derived" from Unix. Unless I'm wrong (a frequent situation), the newspaper article has swallowed a little too much FUD today.
I remember the same thing, from way back when (early 80s?). It might have been in one of the early novels.
That sounds like the right timing. The only SW novel I ever read was Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which featured a scene where Luke and Leia wake up in each other's arms. Or rather, Leia wakes up first, to find Luke's arm around her, and gently moves it without disturbing Luke. This would have been before ROTJ, of course, and was about like the kiss in ESB -- enough to throw us off the scent, but not enough to make us go "EEEEWWWW!" later on.
The only other things I remember from Splinter:
* A short, furry critter that saves the day despite being mortally injured.
* Luke can tune his lightsaber blade down to a short, thin blade, ideal for cutting through a deadbolt.
* Vader shows up, but darned if I can remember anything he does.
I'm a fan, but not a fanboy, so I haven't kept up with Star Wars 'canon'. But for some reason, I've always remembered hearing that Darth Vader would become the Man in the Iron Lung in a battle with Obi-Wan in some sort of volcano-like setting.
Was that alluded to in one of the SW novels, did Lucas say it back in the '80s, or am I psychic (as opposed to psychotic)?
(BTW, easy decision whether to read the spoiler synopsis. I know the story outline will be far superior to the movie itself, so there's nothing lost.)
Re:No such thing as a Linux beginner?
on
Linux Power Tools
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· Score: 1
I would like to thank you for the link to that used computer site.
No problem! I found the joint thanks to a Slashdot article, myself. Their $70 laptops were pretty appealing, but we went for the $35 desktop instead.
Customer service was excellent -- I couldn't find the shipping costs, so I included a note asking them to contact me if the shipping was above $20. They called the next morning, less than an hour after they opened. It's $27.50 shipping, BTW, which seems to be a standard rate -- but it includes testing and packaging, which I found to be excellent.
Re:looking for a good windows to linux book.
on
Linux Power Tools
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I would like to find a book more suited to transitioning from windows to Linux
While looking for Knoppix hints, I ran across a page by the author of something called Moving to Linux, subtitled "Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye." It purports to do what you're asking for, but I haven't bought it and don't know anyone who has, so YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Just add the military to your email blacklist.
Oh, man! Now how will I be able to join the Navy?
On the other hand, we'll always have Xanadu.
Foo: What about security? ... And this doesn't even begin to cover eavesdropping.
Bar: From the description, this thing works just like Esso Speedpass dongles, in that, the thing needs to be within around 2 cm ( 1 inch ) for it to trigger and transmit the needed data/
However, when Mobil first introduced the Speedpass, they also had a "Car Tag" version (still mentioned in the FAQ). It was larger, and mounted on the back window near the fuel cap. All you had to do was pull up to the pump, and an antenna above the pump would do the work. That implies an active distance of 6-10 feet, with a greatly increased vulnerability to eavesdropping.
I haven't seen the antennas lately, and this page implies that they stopped deploying the car tag after the Mobil/Exxon merger -- except in New Jersey, where mandatory full service would reduce the problem of tag spoofing.
The only way anyone could eavesdrop on or steal your CC number using this system is if he has his hands in your pants.
True with the keychain dongle, not true with the Car Tag version. And even if I were willing to use a Speedpass, I'd steer clear of the new Speedpass-enabled Timex Watch! Like the song says:
Beware, beware of the handshake / That hides the snake...
I think the more likely scenario is that they'll start charging you for a paper bill and offer to let you do it online for free.
.pdf from PCP, and will throw a fit if someone tells them they'll get charged extra for paying bills the way they've always done. Once again, Neo-Luddism is a Good Thing.
That would seem to be the case, except that most of the Real World doesn't know
In the other direction, I *did* get a $5 credit from Citibank for switching to paperless. It was no problem -- I'd been paying online for more than a year before I decided to go for it. The only catch was that I had to stay paperless for ~6 months before you got the credit. It was a token amount -- less than 5% of what I was paying in interest (ouch!), but it's the thought that counts.
I went paperless with Verizon Wireless for a different reason -- I was getting 20+ pages of billing each month, and got tired of shredding it. Interestingly, the wireless co's seem to charge extra for "detailed billing" -- but cellular is "new tech", so there's no "way it was done before" to get in their way.
On the other hand, back a few years ago, I tried going paperless with a bill -- don't remember which. Back then, though, I didn't have a budget and racked up mucho late fees by forgetting to pay on time. Paperless is cool, but if there's *any* chance you'll forget to pay, avoid paperless like teh plague.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/66 89/
Not on-topic to the discussion, but related to the parent post.
I cut-and-pasted the URL and hit Enter, before seeing that it was split by the lameness filter. "Oh, crap," I think.
ThinkGeek had no problem... this URL == this URL.
Now that is geek genius at work. A simple concept, but what other sites have thought of it, hmmm?
and those aren't really data transponders, but simply series of electromagnetic coils in the road bed
No, Houston really is using the toll transponders to track traffic.
From the "How It Works" page:
The system uses vehicles equipped with transponder tags as vehicle probes. The main source of vehicle probes are commuters using the "EZ-Tag" automatic toll collection system installed by the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA). Transponder tag readers are placed at 1 to 5 mile intervals along freeways and HOV lanes. Each reader senses probe vehicles as they pass a reader station and transmits the time and location of the probes to a central computer over a telephone line. As the probe vehicles pass through successive AVI readers, software calculates average travel times and speeds for a roadway segment. The averages are made available to software which provides the data for the Houston TranStar web site.
The confusion with traditional technology is understandable, since Houston is mentioned as the first to use AVI instead of pressure/magnetic/optical systems, each of which has the major drawback that they can't actually tell how fast any one car travels from point A to point B (where A and B are miles apart).
On the same site, though, is a cool rail corridor real-time map, which probably uses optical sensors. I was watching it one time as a "train" appeared to go back and forth between two crossings... I figure the "train" was more likely a stray dog triggering the sensors.
Finally, I know how that song goes!
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of Cerritos, rising up throught the air
Now I know where to go on my next road trip!
If your anti-static bag is not available, store it in your tin-foil hat. Same effect.
Actually, the North Texas Tollway Authority distributes (or used to distribute) their TollTags wrapped in foil. But I was an "early adopter", so they may have upgraded to anti-static bags now.
Just a random bit of trivia...
In Houston, Texas, the highway department has placed transponders all over the highway system... not just on the tollways, but on the freeways as well. This data is used to create very cool real-time maps of traffic conditions.
Since the transponders are compatible with other Amtech/TransCore systems, even vehicles from Oklahoma, Dallas, and other cities help keep the map up to date. In fact, the Dallas and Houston tollway systems are now interconnected -- the same tag will let you cruise through both systems.
Of course, the privacy implications of this convenience have been obvious from the beginning. If you have the need or desire for true anonymity, though, you're not in the market for a (non-disposable) cell phone or a TollTag anyway.
If I remember correctly many people on the left are blaming the Bush administration for using that exact logic to defend some of the more controversial aspects of the Patriot act. Also, it has echos of Machivelli's "the end justifies the means"
You're right -- that's a serious problem with my logic, if I *expect* to be exonerated.
But in the extreme case (preventing a murder by committing the crime of trespassing), I would hope a reasonable person would be willing to suffer the consequences for the greater good. I save a life, but I have to spend six weeks of my own in jail? Fair trade.
I'm not sure everyone sees the world that way, though. I'm glad 911 emergency calls are free on cell phones... but I'd *still* call 911 even if they charged, if it were an emergency.
IMHO: The Bush administration wants to rescue the neighbor's wife, get all the credit, and hope nobody sees that they drove a bulldozer through the wall, shot the tiger, and found nothing but an old copy of Hustler.
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
I'm sure the subject has been discussed before, but what if the original hacker is caught? It's clear that the information "stolen" is of critical importance in the debate over the trustworthiness of Diebold, and electronic voting in general. But will that hacker be able to use the importance of his/her discovery as a mitigating factor in court?
It seems like a parallel situation would be this: My neighbor has a tall fence, topped with electrified razor wire, plastered with "NO TRESPASSING" signs, and a tiger prowling the grounds for added security. I suspect that he is planning to commit a crime on his property -- say I've heard he's planning to kill his wife for the insurance money. If I ignore the signs, scale the wall, avoid the tiger, and take pictures of his detailed murder plans (which he conveniently leaves on his dining room table), I may prevent Ms. Neighbor's untimely demise.
Am I guilty of trespassing? And even if I am, was it worth it? I'd say yes -- I'd commit a small crime to prevent a much larger one. Was the Diebold hacker thinking along those lines? Or were they just out for a walk with the tiger?
Everyone's seen the writing on the wall and it says "POTS is dead, long live the packet!"
I'm looking for a huge shakeout a la the dot-com boom/bust -- because everyone's jumping in to the VoIP market. Here's an example:
An outfit with the unwieldy company/website name of media-streams USA, Inc. set up (at no small cost) at a recent Microsoft Office launch seminar, and passed out business-card CDs of their presentation. I asked in passing about states regulating VoIP, and the response was "Good luck regulating a packet!"
But the website is little more than a rather generic-looking site (nice dolphin, though) with a lot of buzzwords and not a lot of "why I need this". The CD's label features another short selection of buzzwords, including "Future-proof". What the heck is that supposed to mean? And to top it all off, they misspelled the name of their company's city ! Spellnig doesn't count on Slashdot, but in the real world, 100% perfect is a requirement, not a goal.
I don't expect these VoIP cowboys to survive past the initial early-adopter phase. They'll either be gobbled up, or go out of business, or rarely, become the next [insert corporate success story here]. Don't buy stock just yet.
One question about PET scans. I understand (mostly from other comments in the discussion) that radioisotope compounds that tend to accumulate in tumors are injected into the body. These isotopes generate positrons that are detected by the scanner.
But if they're generating positrons, what happens when the resulting positrons happen to encounter electrons? Is there enough energy released to help with the treatment, or is the energy negligible, or do the positive and negative charges prevent most collisions?
(Must resist urge to discuss Cmdr. Data's "positronic" brain...)
'Security Warning' dialog box that tells you 'you are about to go to an address containing a username'
I consider myself "clueful", but this actually saved me some embarassment. I clicked a link in Eudora -- looked semi-legit, but was actually a hidden link with text of "ebay.com". Opera displayed the "Security Warning", saving me from giving the bastards a hit that might have confirmed my email address.
However, the warning was pretty cryptic. If I didn't know that the URL format allows "username:password@domain.tld", I probably wouldn't have known what the heck Opera was trying to tell me. The warning is going to have to be pretty severe to undo the scammers' human engineering.
I'd say that only someone who really, really knows what they're doing would even put a username:password in the URL. Along with correcting this NUL-terminated string bug, I'd suggest Microsoft should add (yet another) configuration option:"Allow usernames in URLs". And it should be False by default.
Just try to ignore the fact that the fastest way to reach the widest possible audience, and also the best way, happens to lie in the realm of the lowly web developer
You're right, of course! I reach 500-700 individuals daily on my web site. And thanks to Google AdSense, I'm now raking in... about 25c, on a good day (though technically, I'm not supposed to tell you that).
On the other hand, probably a couple hundred people in the world have ever used my software, and not a single one knows my name. But I do see my name ever two weeks where it counts... not in lights, but in black text on a tamper-proof background, in the "Pay To:" field of my paycheck.
Tough choice!
Foo: Well, I've been at my current job 8 years, exclusively VB.
Bar: How can you look at yourself in the mirror without vomiting?
Taping my paycheck stub above the soap dish helps enormously.
you probably turned off viewing signatures
.sigs. You have to be logged in to see the signature lines.
.sig in "Preferences" changes it for all messages ever posted.
.sig, I'd recommend Wikipedia: Slashdot Trolling Phenomena describes the "why", and Shock Sites describes the "how". That will prevent the need to run to the nearest emergency eyewash station.
IIRC, AC's don't see
And there seem to be a lot of folks that don't know that changing your
If the AC wants a description of the
Or maybe it just *feels* like ten years..
:)
Well, I've been at my current job 8 years, exclusively VB. Before that, it was a bit over a year doing mostly VB (along with a proprietary DOS-based language), and for a bit under a year before that I was hacking around in between C on the VAX. So maybe +/-10 years would have been more accurate?
But then, this is Slashdot, not a job interview. On an application, of course, I'd put 15 years VB experience and 5 years using Windows 2000. Since that's what they'd require.
"HTML Applications (HTAs) are full-fledged applications," the page reads. "These applications are trusted and display only the menus, icons, toolbars, and title information that the Web developer creates. In short, HTAs pack all the power of Microsoft Internet Explorer--its object model, performance, rendering power, protocol support, and channel-download technology--without enforcing the strict security model and user interface of the browser."
So it's yet another way for Microsoft to let people call themselves "programmers", without actually having to write code. Big deal.
I've spent 10+ years writing VB code, and I'm sure everyone will agree that there's a difference -- even in "high level" languages -- between throwing together something that will compile vs. designing a tool that does what your client needs done. Especially when "what your client needs" != "what your client requests".
As for the security issues... when they say "these applications are trusted", the question is "by whom?" I see another way for skr1pt k1dd1es to invade systems, since all you need to do is convince one non-tech-savvy corporate VP to "trust" that message that says "I Love You, click here!". It's not like J0(ann)3 HaXX0r will be deterred by EULAs and patents.
It's VBScript all over again. What good is a programming tool when security best practices suggest you turn it off?
In fact, Microsoft's patent is great news. Hopefully, nobody will be tempted to license the "technology" (read: virus portal) for any other OS.
motley fool is only slightly more credible than slashdot in regards to investment advice. :/
You adverstise, they suggest your stock. Sad but true
Memo to Darl: Call Hsia @ Fool.com re: advertising.
Is it a dupe post if he's duplicating himself?
.sig are no lie.
In fact, if you check out the Journal, you can see that the poster's name and
The only question now: has he/she patented "Ugh, gross! [insert OS punch line]" as a business model yet? After all, we all know how it works:
1. Troll
2. ???
3. PROFIT!
SCO has admitted that its action is designed to shore up sagging sales by wringing revenue out of its rights to Unix, an older operating system from which [something is missing here] Linux was derived.
Shouldn't the blank be filled in by the words "SCO contends"? As in, "Unix, an older operating system from which SCO contends Linux was derived."
I thought the whole point of the defense against SCO is that Linux is Unix-like, but *not* "derived" from Unix. Unless I'm wrong (a frequent situation), the newspaper article has swallowed a little too much FUD today.
I remember the same thing, from way back when (early 80s?). It might have been in one of the early novels.
That sounds like the right timing. The only SW novel I ever read was Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which featured a scene where Luke and Leia wake up in each other's arms. Or rather, Leia wakes up first, to find Luke's arm around her, and gently moves it without disturbing Luke. This would have been before ROTJ, of course, and was about like the kiss in ESB -- enough to throw us off the scent, but not enough to make us go "EEEEWWWW!" later on.
The only other things I remember from Splinter:
* A short, furry critter that saves the day despite being mortally injured.
* Luke can tune his lightsaber blade down to a short, thin blade, ideal for cutting through a deadbolt.
* Vader shows up, but darned if I can remember anything he does.
I'm a fan, but not a fanboy, so I haven't kept up with Star Wars 'canon'. But for some reason, I've always remembered hearing that Darth Vader would become the Man in the Iron Lung in a battle with Obi-Wan in some sort of volcano-like setting.
Was that alluded to in one of the SW novels, did Lucas say it back in the '80s, or am I psychic (as opposed to psychotic)?
(BTW, easy decision whether to read the spoiler synopsis. I know the story outline will be far superior to the movie itself, so there's nothing lost.)
I would like to thank you for the link to that used computer site.
No problem! I found the joint thanks to a Slashdot article, myself. Their $70 laptops were pretty appealing, but we went for the $35 desktop instead.
Customer service was excellent -- I couldn't find the shipping costs, so I included a note asking them to contact me if the shipping was above $20. They called the next morning, less than an hour after they opened. It's $27.50 shipping, BTW, which seems to be a standard rate -- but it includes testing and packaging, which I found to be excellent.
I would like to find a book more suited to transitioning from windows to Linux
While looking for Knoppix hints, I ran across a page by the author of something called Moving to Linux , subtitled "Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye." It purports to do what you're asking for, but I haven't bought it and don't know anyone who has, so YMMV.