Since the merger, i've watched less and less, down to about 30 minutes a week.
I think that's about the same for me, too. My 30 minutes is comprised of TSS minus the first 15 minutes (all the "what's coming up on the show", homophobic Kevin humor, some banter about some Hollywood-related thing), the 10 minutes they devote to celebrity interviews, and the 10 minutes of increasingly useless tips and/or their Mystery Bag thing, PLUS the parts of X-Play that aren't the commercial break. I watch all of X-Play, since I enjoy the reviews, even if I'll never play the game they're reviewing.
Seriously, add an inexpensive docking station, and this would be the ultimate ultracompact laptop.
You may have a cheaper solution with an old laptop or desktop running a VNC client and connecting to a VNC server on the Zaurus. A specially-engineered new docking station may cost more than older full-featured technology.
Otherwise, I'm almost certain your Mom would understand how to use KDE in about five minutes. You should let her try (do the Knoppix!) sometime.
Speaking as someone who just switched mom and dad over to Linux from WinXP, I can say that I wholeheartedly agree.
I started out with Knoppix, to show them how things look, to make sure their hardware was detected, etc. (They had a WinXP-specific scanner that they're replacing with a $51 purchase. Not a bad price for peace of mind.)
After a backup/export of data from the Windows apps, I installed Mandrake 10.0, set them up with Crossover Office for Quicken, and imported mom's Family Tree Maker GEDCOM files for use in GRAMPS.
They found all the card games and Frozen Bubble on their own, and they also figured out how to print pictures without me showing them.
Keep in mind, these are the same people have no idea where they save their files - they certainly weren't WinXP tweakers, and they often say vague things like, "I can't connect to Comcast" when they really mean, "I reset my Home Page in Mozilla, and now it goes to a site that isn't www.comcast.net"
In my experience, people with little computer ability are more likely to see rapid benefits from having someone clueful set them up with a Linux machine. Plus, if you're their designated support person, you don't need to worry about them needing root priviliges in order to run certain userland apps; you don't need to fear trojans or worms; you can easily and securely do things on their machine from the comfort of your own house, just by running an ssh daemon.
You figure viable bionic hands may be, what, less than 50 years away? Maybe 30? How hard would it be (in concept) to interface a holographic scan of a known signature sample with your hand's control mechanism, and get it to generate an exact copy of, or an acceptable deviation from, someone else's signature?
We may not have the tech to exploit it in front of someone at the moment, but I can't imagine a laboratory-style exploit is far off.
This kind of revelation about how to protect against forgery ends up defining the victory conditions a lot better, giving attackers a clearer target.
Anyone want to take bets on how soon we'll see an article on an industrious group of technologists who modified a plotter to make automated signatures that cannot be detected as forgeries?
All computer systems involved in patient care (and paper tracking as well) are forced to go through governmental processes for design, documentation and testing. These regulations add weeks, if not months, to system changes, regardless of change scope.
Mind you, my particular experience with medical device development ended about 3 years ago, but we were developing an application suite that was to be deployed on another computer-assisted surgery platform. The FDA told us that there was no need to go through the entire Verification, Validation, and Testing process, since it was "just a software change to an existing hardware platform."
Mind you, we didn't take advantage of that, but this is the type of understanding you're dealing with when the FDA tries to regulate computers.
Mind you I saw this on TV - who knows if it's true or ethical or what. But there's a crossbreed called a Labradoodle (Labrador / Poodle mix) that is a "designer breed" for people with allergies. Poodles don't shed, apparently, and, well, people like Labradors better. Google it and see what you can find.
Street maps are considered to be a terrorist aid, since they enable terrorists to find buildings.
Street maps will be banned, and to render older street maps obsolete (and therefore ineffective), existing street names will be randomly shuffled around.
This doesn't bode well. I don't think they'd be pouring this much money into it if they didn't also consider it a proof-of-concept for locking down regular consumers.
"While clever QA management can minimize the burden somewhat, the complexity of multi-platform support is beyond the reach of most development organizations."
Wow, the Mozilla developers could really learn something from Microsoft here. Maybe they should contact MS and ask how they can switch from a build environment that supports 10(*) or more platforms to one that just supports Win32.
While they're at it, maybe the IE core team can help them out with how to introduce Mozilla features that allow arbitrary, hidden software to be easily and automatically installed on the user's machine.
(*) Technically, I suppose the Mozilla team builds for 3 platforms (Win32, OS X, and Linux) which does probably limit the amount of QA testing required, but this is still usually 3x as many as the Microsoft people deal with, and the build system enables at least 7 more platforms on top of that.
1) You don't need to use supervisors as references. They're generally pretty useless to comment on technical skills, anyway. I've never listed a supervisor as a reference, and it's never been a problem.
2) If your company got rid of you because of this, it sounds like they were gunning for you anyway and used this as an opportunity. Maybe you stirred things up there, and they didn't like the fact that you didn't think like them.
3) Please stop posting this stuff over and over again. You're not telling people anything they don't already know.
4) Good luck in your job search.
I suppose there isn't a substantial market for media playing devices only, so even if you don't listen to radio at all, you're still paying for the R&D that went into it.
You're right, but each vendor evolved this feature set on their own, and it evolved to maximize profit based on what most people actually wanted. If any vendors tried to compete by selling a radio-only unit and a CD-only unit, they must have discovered that they couldn't make profit that way.
My problem is when some organization outside this industry forces changes that only they want to make. Consumers will end up paying for features they at least don't care about and at most do not want. There is no informed consumer who will seek out the broken technology, and vendors who implement the broken technology first will actually lose market share to those who have put it off.
Plus, I doubt this technology would result in higher prices.
If it doesn't raise prices, then the RIAA hurts the electronics industry, because the electronics industry will have to eat the money that brought the broken features to market. If it does raise prices, then the RIAA hurts the consumers. Either way, this is a move that hurts everyone but the RIAA.
The increase in R&D required for this is extremely small.
I'm not an EE, but I will say that even minor changes to an embedded system have to be tested thoroughly, since the only viable option to fix a defect is to recall the units, and that is very expensive. The alternative is to spend a percentage of the estimated cost of recall on testing, to avoid the need to do a recall. That could still be big bucks.
Plus, the companies would have to change their internal documentation (especially a big deal if they use the ISO 9002 snake oil) and processes to take the new feature into account.
And all of this is for a feature that won't make consumers want to buy their product more.
Why would you buy broken equipment then? Spend your money elsewhere. Nobody's forcing you to go out and buy a crippled digital receiver.
In consumer-grade (i.e. non-competition-grade) car audio, I've never seen the option of buying one CD/DVD/MP3 unit and a separate radio unit. You have to buy a combo, since that's what the industry makes.
So if I want a digital music (MP3 of N years from now) player for my car, even if I don't listen to the radio, I'll probably have to buy a unit (N years from now when our current radio is obsolete) that includes a digital radio that's been broken according to RIAA specifications. And I, the consumer, have to pay for part of the cost of the R&D that went into making this technology.
The only issue I see is that if the RIAA gets its way, it'll mean manufacturers have to research, develop, and produce solutions to the RIAA's "problem" and end up costing me money when I buy their broken equipment.
The content of the articles, regardless of correctness, are sufficient to generate a giant interest in viewing the articles and participating in the forums. Has it occurred to anyone that what they write is secondary to their possible goal of load-testing a new server setup? What better way is there to do it?
I bought CrossOver Office so that I could run Quicken 2002 Deluxe in Linux better than I could with WineX. I was very happy with it, but I noticed that Quicken 2003 and 2004 deluxe don't seem to work well, even if people can get them installed.
Is this an instance of a software maker (Intuit, in this case) trying to make changes specifically to thwart Linux portability efforts, or are they just legitimately evolving their code base in a way that makes it harder to maintain portability?
So what is it? Conspiracy or legitimate evolution?
Keeping the shows just means they'll have shows with the same name. Even though there are 100 positions in the new network for TechTV people willing to relocate to LA, there's no way to predict who will end up hosting what shows.
Why not put PayPal inbetween? That way you can't be charged...
Do you really believe that? I used Paypal to buy something from eBay, and the product never arrived. I had dozens of emails back and forth with the "seller", claiming it was on its way, but he never provided a tracking number.
You'd think PayPal would only need this email exchange to refund my money, right? WRONG. Of about $100, I got $5 back from PayPal, even though PayPal admitted the seller was clearly in the wrong.
I had to go through my credit card to get the rest back.
If credit cards are not common in Germany, perhaps you can help change that by getting one:)
"...the access to the whole or any part of a computer system without right."
That doesn't sound unreasonable. If you have no right to be on a system, you shouldn't intrude. It won't prevent security consultants or sysadmins from using it to probe for weaknesses in friendly systems.
"with the intent of obtaining computer data or other dishonest intent"
In the context of having already been declared an offense, it at least seems to be worded in a way to avoid overlap with non-evil security-related activities...
It occurs to me that there may be technology to make robots appear to be human before there is technology to make them act human. Do you feel there's a need to pressure the industry to make sure their robots only appear as human as they behave, so that people do not have incorrect expectations about what the machines can do?
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I think that's about the same for me, too. My 30 minutes is comprised of TSS minus the first 15 minutes (all the "what's coming up on the show", homophobic Kevin humor, some banter about some Hollywood-related thing), the 10 minutes they devote to celebrity interviews, and the 10 minutes of increasingly useless tips and/or their Mystery Bag thing, PLUS the parts of X-Play that aren't the commercial break. I watch all of X-Play, since I enjoy the reviews, even if I'll never play the game they're reviewing.
You may have a cheaper solution with an old laptop or desktop running a VNC client and connecting to a VNC server on the Zaurus. A specially-engineered new docking station may cost more than older full-featured technology.
According to the OpenZaurus page their new 3.5.1 release works with your PDA:
If I were you, I'd read the release notes before upgrading. There were enough unresolved issues that I'm choosing to wait to upgrade from OZ 3.3.5.
Speaking as someone who just switched mom and dad over to Linux from WinXP, I can say that I wholeheartedly agree.
I started out with Knoppix, to show them how things look, to make sure their hardware was detected, etc. (They had a WinXP-specific scanner that they're replacing with a $51 purchase. Not a bad price for peace of mind.)
After a backup/export of data from the Windows apps, I installed Mandrake 10.0, set them up with Crossover Office for Quicken, and imported mom's Family Tree Maker GEDCOM files for use in GRAMPS.
They found all the card games and Frozen Bubble on their own, and they also figured out how to print pictures without me showing them.
Keep in mind, these are the same people have no idea where they save their files - they certainly weren't WinXP tweakers, and they often say vague things like, "I can't connect to Comcast" when they really mean, "I reset my Home Page in Mozilla, and now it goes to a site that isn't www.comcast.net"
In my experience, people with little computer ability are more likely to see rapid benefits from having someone clueful set them up with a Linux machine. Plus, if you're their designated support person, you don't need to worry about them needing root priviliges in order to run certain userland apps; you don't need to fear trojans or worms; you can easily and securely do things on their machine from the comfort of your own house, just by running an ssh daemon.
We may not have the tech to exploit it in front of someone at the moment, but I can't imagine a laboratory-style exploit is far off.
This kind of revelation about how to protect against forgery ends up defining the victory conditions a lot better, giving attackers a clearer target.
Anyone want to take bets on how soon we'll see an article on an industrious group of technologists who modified a plotter to make automated signatures that cannot be detected as forgeries?
Mind you, my particular experience with medical device development ended about 3 years ago, but we were developing an application suite that was to be deployed on another computer-assisted surgery platform. The FDA told us that there was no need to go through the entire Verification, Validation, and Testing process, since it was "just a software change to an existing hardware platform."
Mind you, we didn't take advantage of that, but this is the type of understanding you're dealing with when the FDA tries to regulate computers.
If anyone's played Starwars Galaxies, they know that it's hard to interact with any aliens if your ping is too high.
Mind you I saw this on TV - who knows if it's true or ethical or what. But there's a crossbreed called a Labradoodle (Labrador / Poodle mix) that is a "designer breed" for people with allergies. Poodles don't shed, apparently, and, well, people like Labradors better. Google it and see what you can find.
Street maps will be banned, and to render older street maps obsolete (and therefore ineffective), existing street names will be randomly shuffled around.
This doesn't bode well. I don't think they'd be pouring this much money into it if they didn't also consider it a proof-of-concept for locking down regular consumers.
There seems to be no indication of this on Sigma's website, but I filled out an inquiry on their site a few days ago, just to see. No response yet...
(Damn ambiguous terminology)
Wow, the Mozilla developers could really learn something from Microsoft here. Maybe they should contact MS and ask how they can switch from a build environment that supports 10(*) or more platforms to one that just supports Win32.
While they're at it, maybe the IE core team can help them out with how to introduce Mozilla features that allow arbitrary, hidden software to be easily and automatically installed on the user's machine.
(*) Technically, I suppose the Mozilla team builds for 3 platforms (Win32, OS X, and Linux) which does probably limit the amount of QA testing required, but this is still usually 3x as many as the Microsoft people deal with, and the build system enables at least 7 more platforms on top of that.
1) You don't need to use supervisors as references. They're generally pretty useless to comment on technical skills, anyway. I've never listed a supervisor as a reference, and it's never been a problem. 2) If your company got rid of you because of this, it sounds like they were gunning for you anyway and used this as an opportunity. Maybe you stirred things up there, and they didn't like the fact that you didn't think like them. 3) Please stop posting this stuff over and over again. You're not telling people anything they don't already know. 4) Good luck in your job search.
I'm a happy emacs user, so I'm not emacs-bashing, but damn. Maybe it is a little bloated :)
Not really.
I suppose there isn't a substantial market for media playing devices only, so even if you don't listen to radio at all, you're still paying for the R&D that went into it.
You're right, but each vendor evolved this feature set on their own, and it evolved to maximize profit based on what most people actually wanted. If any vendors tried to compete by selling a radio-only unit and a CD-only unit, they must have discovered that they couldn't make profit that way.
My problem is when some organization outside this industry forces changes that only they want to make. Consumers will end up paying for features they at least don't care about and at most do not want. There is no informed consumer who will seek out the broken technology, and vendors who implement the broken technology first will actually lose market share to those who have put it off.
Plus, I doubt this technology would result in higher prices.
If it doesn't raise prices, then the RIAA hurts the electronics industry, because the electronics industry will have to eat the money that brought the broken features to market. If it does raise prices, then the RIAA hurts the consumers. Either way, this is a move that hurts everyone but the RIAA.
The increase in R&D required for this is extremely small.
I'm not an EE, but I will say that even minor changes to an embedded system have to be tested thoroughly, since the only viable option to fix a defect is to recall the units, and that is very expensive. The alternative is to spend a percentage of the estimated cost of recall on testing, to avoid the need to do a recall. That could still be big bucks.
Plus, the companies would have to change their internal documentation (especially a big deal if they use the ISO 9002 snake oil) and processes to take the new feature into account.
And all of this is for a feature that won't make consumers want to buy their product more.
In consumer-grade (i.e. non-competition-grade) car audio, I've never seen the option of buying one CD/DVD/MP3 unit and a separate radio unit. You have to buy a combo, since that's what the industry makes.
So if I want a digital music (MP3 of N years from now) player for my car, even if I don't listen to the radio, I'll probably have to buy a unit (N years from now when our current radio is obsolete) that includes a digital radio that's been broken according to RIAA specifications. And I, the consumer, have to pay for part of the cost of the R&D that went into making this technology.
The only issue I see is that if the RIAA gets its way, it'll mean manufacturers have to research, develop, and produce solutions to the RIAA's "problem" and end up costing me money when I buy their broken equipment.
The content of the articles, regardless of correctness, are sufficient to generate a giant interest in viewing the articles and participating in the forums. Has it occurred to anyone that what they write is secondary to their possible goal of load-testing a new server setup? What better way is there to do it?
Is this an instance of a software maker (Intuit, in this case) trying to make changes specifically to thwart Linux portability efforts, or are they just legitimately evolving their code base in a way that makes it harder to maintain portability?
So what is it? Conspiracy or legitimate evolution?
Keeping the shows just means they'll have shows with the same name. Even though there are 100 positions in the new network for TechTV people willing to relocate to LA, there's no way to predict who will end up hosting what shows.
You see, I have one of those Epson Female Printers and everytime I buy a heterosexual male robot, it keeps trying to "interface" with my printer...
Do you really believe that? I used Paypal to buy something from eBay, and the product never arrived. I had dozens of emails back and forth with the "seller", claiming it was on its way, but he never provided a tracking number.
You'd think PayPal would only need this email exchange to refund my money, right? WRONG. Of about $100, I got $5 back from PayPal, even though PayPal admitted the seller was clearly in the wrong.
I had to go through my credit card to get the rest back.
If credit cards are not common in Germany, perhaps you can help change that by getting one :)
That doesn't sound unreasonable. If you have no right to be on a system, you shouldn't intrude. It won't prevent security consultants or sysadmins from using it to probe for weaknesses in friendly systems.
"with the intent of obtaining computer data or other dishonest intent"
In the context of having already been declared an offense, it at least seems to be worded in a way to avoid overlap with non-evil security-related activities...
It occurs to me that there may be technology to make robots appear to be human before there is technology to make them act human. Do you feel there's a need to pressure the industry to make sure their robots only appear as human as they behave, so that people do not have incorrect expectations about what the machines can do?