Somewhat off topic (Slashdot would probably reject it, so I'll just put it right here instead) but nonetheless very interesting, is a news announcement on the Chessbase.com website that:
China Communications Corporation... has been set up in partnership with China Daily, one of the biggest Internet portals in China. The goal is to launch the world's most comprehensive online business database, which will be equipped with a proprietary search engine to provide information on tens of millions of businesses located throughout America, China and the rest of the world. The search engine, which is currently being patented worldwide, uses Artificial Intelligence technology to interpret the meaning of words and provide more relevant and in-depth results than conventional searches.
"Acoona's Artificial Intelligence Technology will elevate Search Engine performance to a new unprecedented level," said Eckhard Pfeiffer former CEO of Compaq Computer and Chairman of China Communications Corp.'s Board of Consultants.
Acoona will launch in the US and China in December 2004.
If successful, could this be a Google killer, or do you think Google already has this well in hand?
Right after the motor/pump manufactured by a small UK company called Pursuit Dynamics (PSDMF) was first discussed here on Slashdot (I cannot find the original Slashdot thread) in January 2003, I purchased 5,000 shares of Pursuit Dynamics for $3,308. Today those 5,000 shares are worth $12,250.:-)
"Ah, but doesn't it just smack of those 80's calculator watches that everybody seemed to have simply because they could?"
You mean like THIS one for $399.99? I misplaced the manual for my Casio CFX-200 scientific calculator watch a few days ago and in the process of looking for a manual on the web, I ran across the Ebay advertisement above for one of those 80's calculator watches. To the best of my knowledge, no one has manufactured a scientific calculator watch (try finding one!) since Casio made the CFX-200. Mine is serial number 579857.:-)
Amazing! For some reason I assumed the FireFox toolbars couldn't be moved around because they didn't have an IE style "handle", but the apparently they don't need them. The toolbars move around quite nicely just by clicking inside one! Thank you very much for the tip NuShrike.:-)
Give me detachable and configurable toolbars like IE6 has, and I'll switch to Mozilla or FireFox in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I cannot configure FireFox 0.9 to have everything in the first two rows like IE6. FireFox requires three rows (including the bookmarks toolbar) and about 3.5 cm of vertical space, whereas IE6 requires less than 2.5 cm of vertical screen space (on my particular screen of course with each window maximized). I can arrange all the same information (Menu, URL, and Googlebar in the first row, and the icons and links in the second row). In short, all the space in the top row to the right of FireFox's menu is wasted.
Something tells me the people at NASA are already as gung-ho as can be about exploring the universe, and the only things holding them back are money and politics (bad politics = public thinks "money is being wasted on space exploration" = decreased funding).
Well said. I wish I had some mod points to give you. I used to work at an "FFRDC" (JPL) and can tell you from personal experience that most of the scientists and engineers work there primarily because of their interest in exploring space rather than anything else. IMHO what they need is less bureaucracy, and less politically motivated and more honest schedule and budget planning during the initial project planning phase. When I joined JPL the place was mostly ran by scientists and engineers, but by the time I left 26 years later it seemed to be mostly run by administrators with business degrees instead of science diplomas.
I still laugh about the time during the turn of the last century when a bureaucratic proclamation was decreed that all JPL computers shall pass year 2000 compliance tests and have compliance stickers affixed to them. At the time I was doing the programming for a pair of embedded rad-hard 8051 family microcontrollers that were part of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Apparently no one told the division bean counter in charge of the Y2000 compliance program that the proclamation only applied to desktop computers and workstations. Since I was the sole programmer for the SIU flight computers (the 8051's), she sent me a sticker with instructions to run JPL's Y2000 compliance test software on them and to affix the compliance stickers to the computers. I got a great laugh out of this and so did the other people on the project - at first. I sent the bean counter pictures of the flight equipment in the clean room that contained the rack of JPL designed and built SRTM electronics (which included the 8051's in question), and explained that the microcontrollers did not run Windows (nor did they have any operating system at all other than what I had written!), and they did not even have a floppy disk drive in which to insert the Y2000 compliance testing software. Furthermore, the only "clock" they used was a real time clock interrupt whose software counter overflowed every 10 milliseconds, and that even if we did want to affix the compliance stickers to the flight computers, the stickers would have to be tested for outgassing, flammability, etc. It was great fun for awhile, even though it wasted a lot of my time.
I assumed that would be the end of it, and I ignored further entreaties and threats from the bean counter. Eventually my supervisor inquired about it because the issue wouldn't die, and unbelievably it ultimately escalated to two or three management levels above me, until finally someone in the program office (the people who designate money for projects) got involved and made the issue go away by getting a special waiver for us. The fact that such an idiotic issue should ever have arisen at all is totally astounding, especially since hundreds of man hours were probably wasted during the full course of events on this one issue. It boggles the mind.
I was going to replace RH9 with FreeBSD, but now I'm not sure whether to install 4.10 or 5.2.1 over the Linux partition. I seem to recall seeing a discussion about the 4.9 fork, but don't recall the details. Wasn't it about post v4.9 FreeBSD including some proprietary software or something?
"...then road building and maintenance should be paid entirely by tolls or fuel taxes."
But instead the money paid in tolls and fuel taxes is siphoned off into the state's General Account spending fund and spent on things entirely unrelated to road maintenance and repair (at least in California).
Yes. Once a key is revoked it cannot be reinstated however. Theoretically whoever had compromised my private key (and knew my passphrase) could revoke my key, but that wouldn't be of much benefit to them. In fact, whenever I create a new key pair I usually generate a revocation notice at the same time, but save it on my computer instead of sending it to a keyserver. That way, if I should ever forget my passphrase or am otherwise unable to create a revocation notice, I can always send the revocation notice I had previously created. It's all in the PGP FAQ's.
What's a keychain?
A local list of the public keys you keep on your own computer (as opposed to remotely on a keyserver). It's like an address book, except that it contains the public keys of your correspondents.
What's a public key?
A key you make public so that others can send messages to you. Likewise, others make their own public key known to you (or to the public in general) so you can encrypt messages to them.
A private key?
The key you need in order to decode the messages others have encrypted using your public key.
What do I do if my private key is compromised?
Generate a new private and public key. Send a revocation notice to the public keys server(s) you use and notify all your correspondents of your public key change.
I use an older version of a free program called Password Safe and keep lots of backup copies of it's data file on floppies, etc. With the (ugly) newer version you can also print out a hardcopy.
...and when they are convenced, how willing will they be to give up their SUV's?
Why should we have to give up our luxuries? Just put enough nuclear plants on-line to generate electricity so cheaply that it gradually displaces oil fired facilities and powers practically everything that doesn't move. That would reduce America's dependence on oil so much that the price of oil would drop enough to provide cheap gasoline for SUV's!;-)
Note: I don't drive an SUV, and in fact I have a 4 Kw photovoltaic "net-metered" array on the roof that generates about half of the electricity I consume (it uses the power grid as a giant storage battery!); however, I think it's fair to say that the attitude of a typical "greenie" is for everyone to sacrifice and use less. All else being equal, I would much rather increase production and produce more, so that everyone could have as much of everything they want very inexpensively. Sacrifice that is pointless and unnecessary is without virtue.
I'm still looking for a good "natural" style contoured keyboard with decent tactile feel and WITHOUT A NUMERIC KEYPAD (or with a detachable numeric keypad, or one located on the left side of the keyboard). I never use the numeric keypad and it takes up desk space where I would otherwise like to put my mouse. Virtually everyone uses a mouse, but I suspect few people (except perhaps accountants) ever use the numeric pad. The mouse would be much easier to use if it could be located closer to the keyboard where the numeric keypad resides.
... it's a completely normal credit card transaction. They'd only notice a problem if they tried to charge your card twice.
Actually, that is in fact a minor problem that you need to be aware. It turns out that some companies actually do in fact submit their charges twice. The first time is simply to verify that the credit card number is real and not overlimit, etc, but no money is transferred and the "test" debit automatically disappears in three or four days. Later on when they're ready to ship whatever you ordered, they charge your account for real, and transfer money out of your account. If they put through the actual debit thru shortly after the "test" debit, you will indeed see a debit amount equal to up to twice the amount of your actual purchase.
I couldn't understand what was going on until I discussed it with the folks at MBNA, and they tell me it's common practice. There is even a special name for the first fake "test" charge to verify that your credit card number is valid (although I forget what it's called). My solution was to usually (except for very large purchases) allow a credit limit of twice the value of my actual purchase. The alternative is to try to explain to the retailer why they must only put the charge through once.
Not if you use MBNA'a "ShopSafe" credit card service. Please note that I have no vested interest in MBNA whatsoever, except as a happy customer. If you have a regular MBNA credit card, what MBNA does is provide software you can install on your computer that automatically connects up to their credit card "NetAccess" service (you have to log in with name and password each time) and lets you generate "disposable" credit card numbers as needed (much like Spamex.com does with their disposable email address service that I also use:-).
I generate a new credit card number for each and every Internet transaction, and the MBNA ShopSafe software lets me set the maximum amount that can be debited to each disposable credit card number as well as the expiration date (up to one year in the future). The way I handle PayPal is to generate a disposable credit card number with an expiration date of one year and a reasonable credit limit (say $500 for example, or whatever you want). If I were to ever want to rescind my credit card information from PayPal, I do not even have to contact PayPal at all - I just start up the ShopSafe software and tell it to delete the particular disposable credit card number that I provided to PayPal so that no further charges can be charged to that account number. I'm very surprised that as far as I know, MBNA is the only one who provides this type of service, so they have no competition in this area.
The photovoltaic array on my roof supplies about 40% of the power I use. I'ts "net metered" so the excess power generated during the day is fed back into the power grid and makes my electric meter run backwards!:-)
As of a year or so ago when my MSDN Universal subscription expired, the MSDN version of XP did have activation keys, but they were good for up to ten activations.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft purchased a license from SCO early on, ostensibly because they have some sort of Unix interfacing or development tools that run on Windows.
You mean like THIS one for $399.99? I misplaced the manual for my Casio CFX-200 scientific calculator watch a few days ago and in the process of looking for a manual on the web, I ran across the Ebay advertisement above for one of those 80's calculator watches. To the best of my knowledge, no one has manufactured a scientific calculator watch (try finding one!) since Casio made the CFX-200. Mine is serial number 579857. :-)
Amazing! For some reason I assumed the FireFox toolbars couldn't be moved around because they didn't have an IE style "handle", but the apparently they don't need them. The toolbars move around quite nicely just by clicking inside one! Thank you very much for the tip NuShrike. :-)
-- Ron
P.S.
I have everything on two bars.
That's the most eloquent post I have ever read on Slashdot.
Give me detachable and configurable toolbars like IE6 has, and I'll switch to Mozilla or FireFox in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I cannot configure FireFox 0.9 to have everything in the first two rows like IE6. FireFox requires three rows (including the bookmarks toolbar) and about 3.5 cm of vertical space, whereas IE6 requires less than 2.5 cm of vertical screen space (on my particular screen of course with each window maximized). I can arrange all the same information (Menu, URL, and Googlebar in the first row, and the icons and links in the second row). In short, all the space in the top row to the right of FireFox's menu is wasted.
Well said. I wish I had some mod points to give you. I used to work at an "FFRDC" (JPL) and can tell you from personal experience that most of the scientists and engineers work there primarily because of their interest in exploring space rather than anything else. IMHO what they need is less bureaucracy, and less politically motivated and more honest schedule and budget planning during the initial project planning phase. When I joined JPL the place was mostly ran by scientists and engineers, but by the time I left 26 years later it seemed to be mostly run by administrators with business degrees instead of science diplomas.
I still laugh about the time during the turn of the last century when a bureaucratic proclamation was decreed that all JPL computers shall pass year 2000 compliance tests and have compliance stickers affixed to them. At the time I was doing the programming for a pair of embedded rad-hard 8051 family microcontrollers that were part of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Apparently no one told the division bean counter in charge of the Y2000 compliance program that the proclamation only applied to desktop computers and workstations. Since I was the sole programmer for the SIU flight computers (the 8051's), she sent me a sticker with instructions to run JPL's Y2000 compliance test software on them and to affix the compliance stickers to the computers. I got a great laugh out of this and so did the other people on the project - at first. I sent the bean counter pictures of the flight equipment in the clean room that contained the rack of JPL designed and built SRTM electronics (which included the 8051's in question), and explained that the microcontrollers did not run Windows (nor did they have any operating system at all other than what I had written!), and they did not even have a floppy disk drive in which to insert the Y2000 compliance testing software. Furthermore, the only "clock" they used was a real time clock interrupt whose software counter overflowed every 10 milliseconds, and that even if we did want to affix the compliance stickers to the flight computers, the stickers would have to be tested for outgassing, flammability, etc. It was great fun for awhile, even though it wasted a lot of my time.
I assumed that would be the end of it, and I ignored further entreaties and threats from the bean counter. Eventually my supervisor inquired about it because the issue wouldn't die, and unbelievably it ultimately escalated to two or three management levels above me, until finally someone in the program office (the people who designate money for projects) got involved and made the issue go away by getting a special waiver for us. The fact that such an idiotic issue should ever have arisen at all is totally astounding, especially since hundreds of man hours were probably wasted during the full course of events on this one issue. It boggles the mind.
I wish I had some mod points so I could mod the parent up. Using "" is a great idea!
I was going to replace RH9 with FreeBSD, but now I'm not sure whether to install 4.10 or 5.2.1 over the Linux partition. I seem to recall seeing a discussion about the 4.9 fork, but don't recall the details. Wasn't it about post v4.9 FreeBSD including some proprietary software or something?
But instead the money paid in tolls and fuel taxes is siphoned off into the state's General Account spending fund and spent on things entirely unrelated to road maintenance and repair (at least in California).
Yes. Once a key is revoked it cannot be reinstated however. Theoretically whoever had compromised my private key (and knew my passphrase) could revoke my key, but that wouldn't be of much benefit to them. In fact, whenever I create a new key pair I usually generate a revocation notice at the same time, but save it on my computer instead of sending it to a keyserver. That way, if I should ever forget my passphrase or am otherwise unable to create a revocation notice, I can always send the revocation notice I had previously created. It's all in the PGP FAQ's.
You mean like Mordac ?
A local list of the public keys you keep on your own computer (as opposed to remotely on a keyserver). It's like an address book, except that it contains the public keys of your correspondents.
What's a public key?
A key you make public so that others can send messages to you. Likewise, others make their own public key known to you (or to the public in general) so you can encrypt messages to them.
A private key?
The key you need in order to decode the messages others have encrypted using your public key.
What do I do if my private key is compromised?
Generate a new private and public key. Send a revocation notice to the public keys server(s) you use and notify all your correspondents of your public key change.
I use an older version of a free program called Password Safe and keep lots of backup copies of it's data file on floppies, etc. With the (ugly) newer version you can also print out a hardcopy.
Why should we have to give up our luxuries? Just put enough nuclear plants on-line to generate electricity so cheaply that it gradually displaces oil fired facilities and powers practically everything that doesn't move. That would reduce America's dependence on oil so much that the price of oil would drop enough to provide cheap gasoline for SUV's! ;-)
Note: I don't drive an SUV, and in fact I have a 4 Kw photovoltaic "net-metered" array on the roof that generates about half of the electricity I consume (it uses the power grid as a giant storage battery!); however, I think it's fair to say that the attitude of a typical "greenie" is for everyone to sacrifice and use less. All else being equal, I would much rather increase production and produce more, so that everyone could have as much of everything they want very inexpensively. Sacrifice that is pointless and unnecessary is without virtue.
Followed shortly by, "Reformat your drive and reinstall the Operating System."
I for one have never quite understood your paranoia about the government.
For starters how about my own "Government Murders" webpage?
Actually, that is in fact a minor problem that you need to be aware. It turns out that some companies actually do in fact submit their charges twice . The first time is simply to verify that the credit card number is real and not overlimit, etc, but no money is transferred and the "test" debit automatically disappears in three or four days. Later on when they're ready to ship whatever you ordered, they charge your account for real, and transfer money out of your account. If they put through the actual debit thru shortly after the "test" debit, you will indeed see a debit amount equal to up to twice the amount of your actual purchase.
I couldn't understand what was going on until I discussed it with the folks at MBNA, and they tell me it's common practice. There is even a special name for the first fake "test" charge to verify that your credit card number is valid (although I forget what it's called). My solution was to usually (except for very large purchases) allow a credit limit of twice the value of my actual purchase. The alternative is to try to explain to the retailer why they must only put the charge through once.
Patience, grasshopper. ;-)
Not if you use MBNA'a "ShopSafe" credit card service. Please note that I have no vested interest in MBNA whatsoever, except as a happy customer. If you have a regular MBNA credit card, what MBNA does is provide software you can install on your computer that automatically connects up to their credit card "NetAccess" service (you have to log in with name and password each time) and lets you generate "disposable" credit card numbers as needed (much like Spamex.com does with their disposable email address service that I also use :-).
I generate a new credit card number for each and every Internet transaction, and the MBNA ShopSafe software lets me set the maximum amount that can be debited to each disposable credit card number as well as the expiration date (up to one year in the future). The way I handle PayPal is to generate a disposable credit card number with an expiration date of one year and a reasonable credit limit (say $500 for example, or whatever you want). If I were to ever want to rescind my credit card information from PayPal, I do not even have to contact PayPal at all - I just start up the ShopSafe software and tell it to delete the particular disposable credit card number that I provided to PayPal so that no further charges can be charged to that account number. I'm very surprised that as far as I know, MBNA is the only one who provides this type of service, so they have no competition in this area.
The photovoltaic array on my roof supplies about 40% of the power I use. I'ts "net metered" so the excess power generated during the day is fed back into the power grid and makes my electric meter run backwards! :-)
As of a year or so ago when my MSDN Universal subscription expired, the MSDN version of XP did have activation keys, but they were good for up to ten activations.