I agree, and I bet you'd love to learn that the IRS is actually an illegal and unconstitutional organization that behaves like the mafia when you don't do what they tell you to (pay them illegal taxes). Just watch this to see what I am talking about:
Actually there is no such law for ANY taxes in the USA! Everyone just assumes there is one! And the IRS goons come after you if you don't pay taxes which kind of gets the population to file taxes out of fear, but in actual fact the IRS is constitutionally ILLEGAL! If you think I'm kidding, check this out:
"if you already pay your taxes as the law requires all of us"...
Actually there is no such law at all. Everyone just assumes there is one! And the IRS goons come after you if you don't pay taxes, but in actual fact the IRS is constitutionally ILLEGAL! If you think I'm kidding, check this out:
Will somebody please tell Microsoft to STOP WASTING MY F****** SCREEN SPACE!!!!!! I want smaller icons... MUCH smaller, not bigger ones.
First thing I did in XP is convert everything to windows classic mode due to slightly smaller icons on screen, start menus & control panel, same with fonts. On a side rant, I am also not impressed at all with LCD screens that run at very lame fixed resolutions.
Due to all of this, I had to recently spend $1,000 on a Samsung 24" LCD screen that would run 1920x1200 just so I could recover some of the screen space I used to have back in Windows 95 running on a 19" CRT at 1600x1200. My CRT finally died after 7 long years and no computer store was selling 21" CRTs anymore *cry*
My recent forced upgrade at work from Outlook 2001 to 2003 also kind of ticked me off as Microsoft loves to waste my screen space and make just about every row FATTER than ever before. The control panel in windows XP even in classic mode is a complete waste of screen space. Also run the Services icon and you can see what I am talking about.
Yo Microsoft, make your graphic shit smaller, not bigger. Or fine make it bigger, but also give us 20/20 vision people the option to use smaller icons, fonts etc - MUCH smaller.
Info sharing of criminal records amongst boarder officials = Good Getting denied entry because of a single life mistake you made 30 years ago when you were young, foolish and smoking too much pot = Bad
Mr. Obvious says: There should be some International agreed upon time limits as to how far back "relatively minor" crime convictions can go before you are denied entry. Better yet, have a scale. I.e. If you were a Nazi leader 40 years ago... yes you are still fucked. If you killed someone by accident while drinking & driving... 20 years. If you stole a chocolate bar from the grocery store...2 years. If you were a free-lance Microsoft marketing enthusiast (aka. DoD member)... we should make you wait 5 minutes while we lay out the red carpet for you.
I'm not that ignorant of the judicial system, I just think it's a bit silly to consider a malicious thought to be punishable by law. If you know anything about meditation and what thoughts actually are and specifically where they come from, then you would know that thousands of unintentional thoughts pass through your mind each day - many malicious in content. Some carried out, most not. This is true of 99.9999% of the population. Humans actually have very few INTENTIONAL thoughts... and even if those are malicious they are still not acts carried out.
There should be no punishable difference between taking something from the sidewalk without forethought or intent, and pre-mediatated thought & wilful intent to take something from the sidewalk (or store or whatever). The end action is the same. What happens before is irrelivent and goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" ideal. Man is gifted with mind, man is also gifted with choice. Mind is extremely rarely under man's control... but few men can ignore that they do not have choice of action.
To my understanding one is supposed to go to jail or be fined because of one's malicious ACTS, not thoughts... if it was based on thoughts, only Jesus and Budha would be standing outside the jail cell with the rest of the world behind bars. LOL
What a funny world we live in, indeed a Divine Comedy!
=================== DrinkOrDie (DoD) was an underground software cracking and warez trading network during the 1990s, shut down by a major raid in 2001.
DrinkOrDie was founded in 1993 in Moscow by a Russian with the handle "deviator" and a friend who went by the code name "CyberAngel." By 1995, the group was global. One of its earliest major accomplishments was the Internet release of Windows 95 two weeks before Microsoft released the official version. It is also known for its DoD DVD Speed Ripper released in 1999 shortly before DeCSS. The activity of the DoD group diminished after 1996, and they were not considered major players in the warez scene by 2000. The DrinkOrDie network is considered criminal for copyright infringement. As a rule, they made no financial profit from their activities.
The DoD network primarily consisted of university undergraduates, but was supported by software company employees, who would leak copies of software and other digital media. DoD also received such files indirectly, from other networks.
[edit] Member raids In 2001 the group was busted in an FBI operation called Operation Buccaneer. At the time, DrinkOrDie had two leaders, one in the United States and another in Australia.
The Australian leader Hew Raymond Griffiths 40 (from Bateau Bay on the Central Coast), known by his screenname "Bandido", has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement, and has been involved in legal action in Australia. As of March 2005, Griffiths has lost an appeal against extradition to the United States, to face charges under US copyright laws.
The American leader John Sankus Jr. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known by his screename "eriFlleH" (HellFire spelled backwards), was convicted and sentenced to 46 months. Sankus was also a member of the group HARM at the time of his arrest.
The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit in the UK also arrested eight members residing in Britain. Two of those arrested were charged and convicted for Conspiracy to Defraud, Alex Bell of Grays, Essex and Steven Dowd of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside.
The raids were initiated after information was given to United States Customs by longtime member and co-leader James Cudney, known as Bcrea8tiv; Blah-. Once turned informant, Cudney spent 18 months working undercover for US Customs, logging conversations in chat rooms and channels visited on IRC. Through an arrangement with US Customs, Cudney was paid $104 an hour.
Also charged and convicted were:
Christopher Tresco age 23, of Boston, Massachusetts, who used the screename "bigrar", pled guilty May 28, 2002 to conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws, and was sentenced to 33 months of jail time. Tresco was also a member of Rise in Superior Couriering (RiSC). Tresco at the time of his arrest was the Systems Administrator for the MIT Economics department. Barry Erickson age 35, of Eugene, Oregon, who used the screename "radsl", pled guilty on May 2, 2002 to one felony count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws, and was sentenced to a term of 33 months, with three years of probation to follow. Erickson was a systems engineer at Symantec Corporation and provided prerelease software to DoD and RiSCiSO. He was also a founding member of Parents On 'Puterz (POPZ) a warez group that specialized in the release of children's learning software and games. David Grimes age 25, of Arlington, Texas, who used the screename "chevelle", pled guilty on March 4, 2002 to one felony count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws. Grimes was a computer engineer at Check Point Software. Grimes supplied Check Point firewall software to DrinkOrDie on at least two occasions, and he operated an FTP site
"face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement"
ok first of all, since when is it a crime to think about doing something bad? Surely you've all thought at some point in your lives of killing at least one of your parents... even if only for a few brief seconds. Has the thought-police arrived?!
"... and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement"
1 count? 1 count ?????? We're talking about the freggin leader of DoD. The warez group that's been around forever and ever since the early BBS days... They easily push Gigs & Gigs each day of 0-day warez...and the leader is being acused of 1 count of copyright infringment? That's *ucked up right there. I mean what's the strategy here... acuse him only of copying 1 software so he doesn't get credit (from his peer warez buddies)for the MILLIONS he has actually highly likely copied?
Anyway dude, all I can say dude, is thanks for all the warez, and hope they take it easy on you!
Billy Gates should be bailing you out, because you did millions of $ in free marketing on his behalf.
I made this amazing water car once that went 300mpg with zero emmisions, but it stopped working as soon as anybody got in it. It was the weirdest thing. Now I understand that it was my quantum flux capacitor that was creating all the problems the whole time.
FTFA: "We should be making something that looks a lot more like gasoline. We should be making something that looks a lot more like diesel"... And this helps our Global Warming problem how?
Adeptus
Just because somebody sells something successfuly, doesn't mean their product is great. I know it seems to defy logic, but there's countless historical examples of this (BetaMax, MS Windows, etc). Most people in the world are followers, not leaders.
The primary reason it has sold so many units is because they managed to make it a fashion statement and people love to feed their Egos & have status amongst their peer groups.
Apple stuff is nearly always overpriced for what they offer. Especially accessories for the ipod. $50 CDN for a piece of plastic to cover my 80GB ipod that I paid $399 for and that is not scratch resistant? $14.99 for a white colored sound splitter that I can buy at radio shack for $2.99 (already with 60% markup) - erm... no thanks!
I returned by 80GB ipod 2 weeks of trying to use it in a sensible way. Did you know that ipods only support 2 video formats (both of them MAC formats) and that you have to shove every video you want to load on a 80 GB hard drive into a single folder without the ability to create sub-folders? Frankly, I got tired of converting 300 videos I wanted to load on the ipod and then having to scroll through 300 items to get to the video I wanted. That's just a retarded user interface. Not to mention DRM restrictions. Extremely annoying iTunes (Anapod software has had huge sales because Apple's default software sucks).
iPOD - It looks cool but is way over priced, and way too restrictive and software is ultra-annoying for PC users.
iPod this, iPod that... come on people get with the program.
The iPod sucks compared to other platforms (i.e. Creative Zen Vision W), and its software is very annoying (MAC software that is not intuitive on a PC) and highly restrictive (DRM, can't create folders in Video ipod, iTunes, etc). The only thing it has going for it is its stylish hardware and huge marketing campaign.
Quite frankly, it's time to change the tune! (pun intended)
If they go out far enough to risk attaining originals from movie theatres, pre-screeners or whatever; what's stopping them from purchasing these online videos through a public unprotected wi-fi connection using a fake credit card & name?
Then who cares whom it's registered to... and no cracking required. KISS
This is Microsoft's chance to really make a difference in the world, if only they had the vision:
I say they offer a free game with every X-box called "People's Liberation Game!" whereby you start out as a student rallying for votes to establish an opposition political party inside the Chinese government. To win the game you have achieve certain goals:
1) Cause enough of a movement to establish a democracy 2) Rally enough votes to be elected 3) Win a majority vote & become prime minister/president 4) Pass Human rights related laws that will:
a) Grant its citizens freedom of speech
b) Provide fair wages to its citizens
c) End the propogation / lies machine (this is the toughest one, even the USA/CNN is struggling with this) 5) After major internal issues are resolved, invest 50 billion dollars to restore all 6000+ Tibet temples previously destroyed by agressive chinese take over - 10 year project. The Labour work force is to be consituted primarily of soliders & ex-Chinese leaders who allowed harsh criminal acts to take place during take over - like raping & killing 1 (1 million people) out of every 6 Tibetans over the last 40 years. 6) Once the resotration work is done, an additional 10 billion is granted to fly all the Tibetan's back to their homeland and provide them with the freedom & people they once had & help them get a start on their lives. 7) Free the REAL Panchen Lama (Tibet's #2 spiritual/political leader after the Dai Lai Lama) 8) Internationally declare in writting that Tibet is its own sovereign nation, that China profusely appologizes for the genoside it has created and state that Tibet's citizens are now truly Liberated (from the oppression of the Chinese).
Bonus chapters & follow-ups include: 9) Admitting that the Incidents in Tinneman Square happened 10) Stop brain washing their students in school 11) Allow freedom of religion including the serene practice of Falun Gong 12) Take down the Chinese Firewall
Perhaps if Microsoft could get a few elected officials to play & "win" this game, they could start getting a sense of what 'Liberation' really is.
From a (torrent-happy) end-users perspective, CAPACITY IS KING!
I'd hardly buy any hardware based on the fact that it can finally store 2 or 3 hours of video from some particular codec (H.264 in this case). These days they come out with a new codec every other week it seems - so it would be silly to buy hardware based on some software spec that is bound to change. Once they figure out that its possible to mass produce hardware capable for 2 or 3 or 10 times the capacity, somebody will invent a codec for that I'm sure... even if the older codecs would work just fine.
I don't know about you guys, but when I walk into Futureshop (Canadian electronics store), I am not at all impressed by any of the flat screen TV sets. Be it LCD or Plasma. I think the TV market has a looooong way to go before they reach the resolutions & crispness of older CRT computer monitors.
But there's a few hurdles: 1) Requires Fiber to the home from Cable provider (how else you gonna stream multi-gigabit/sec video?) 2) Requires huge-ass disks (i.e. 10 layer Blue-Ray+) 3) Requires players that support this.
One last little prediction. I have a feeling this format war is going to carry on for quite a while yet... because TV / Video is nowhere near its threshold potential in terms of quality, and manufacturers product cycle is faster and faster... that's why in the space of 2 or 3 years, we've gone from DVD to HD-DVD, to BlueRay, and now to multi-layer of each platform with no end in sight.
It's not porn that's going to decide the winner of the format war this time. It's capacity... because capacity determines max quality from the video industry's perspective, and from users like me, it translates to max storage per disk which also means convinience.
1) They make electric cars that they then destroy ('who killed the electric car') - Ford 2) They make hybrids that are butt ugly and significantly more expensive to buy - Honda 3) Now there's the electric sports car whose starting price is a huge $92K - GM 4) And now Ford comes back with a blinding bright silver coloured futuristic SUV-like car that is the ugliest so far. -Ford
Hey... why not just take your best selling car, don't change the look or colours, and put in an alternative engine that joe average can actually afford... sell a few million of these, then go ahead and make your luxury alternative fuel cars... but hey, if the whole point is to minimize pollution, why not make your first target a car that will sell in large quantities so you can have the most impact?
Also please don't try to sell us on Hydrogen cars, when the electric one (in 'who killed the electric car' movie) Ford EV-1 seemed to work perfectly fine. We want 100% non fossil fuel, non-arabic fuel dependant cars that are environmentally friendly, and affordable by the masses. Thank you!
And lastly, please stop wasting time on flashy prototypes that never hit the road now or in 10 years. Just make a simple car that works and is affordable TODAY!
"There's no way to archive the messages is there?" - YES there is. Most IM's today allow for archiving, Yahoo even does it by default archiving every message - a bad idea from a security perspective, so in fact it does it in extreme.
"Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?" - Sort of, it's automatically done for you. Yahoo provides a search option to search within the archive.
"How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?" - Easy, after you finished your search, you just copy/paste it into little IM windows of whom you want to forward it to, or alternatively copy/paste it into some technology they called "e-mail".
Jokes aside, IM is an awesome tool for the home user. In the top 3 I would say. Web, Email & IM are pretty much the most used software for most home users these days. In the Enterprise, especially the large Enterprise (not a star trek reference), I can see it as a tool that if opened to the world (i.e. anybody can message you at any time on any subject) it will likely make you less focused on your work and therefore less productive. IM still needs to mature a lot in the Enterprise - I'd suggest starting out with some piloting options from a focus group to determine how IM might be useful & a positive technology (if at all) in your company. Such a study might be followed by development of co-herent user policies with "how-to and when-to" tidbits, as well as actual back-end management suite with group-policy like controls to enforce those policies. I think the missing piece these days is mature back-end management software.
1. Apple will launch a new ipod that will have most or all of the following features:
a) Widescreen movie playing & screen on ipod
b) FM receiver (not just transmitter)
c) Plays most popular video formats (a la Creative Zen) instead of just trying to lock users into MP4 & MOV "Apple" & quicktime crap formats.
d) Provide faster & different types of interconnects to the ipod such as:
-WiFi (b,g & n)... ok that last one is a wishful thinking
-Wimax
-"infrared" red light projecting keyboard, so people can interact better with software & turn it into the smallest laptop ever.
-infrared output at various frequencies, so we can turn ipod into a remote control for TVs
-power adaptor connector, so we dont have to pay for overpriced USB2 to AC converters
-Firewire (latest high speed verison)
-ON/OFF button, so batteries don't drain slowly
-Allow for easy physical access to battery & hard drive, for end-user replacement
NOTE TO APPLE: Don't do these and Zune and/or Creative Zen will become the new "ipod" of choice!
2. Apple will start to make products & specifically software that are not overly dumbed down (i.e. provide advanced modes), because if they don't most PC users (windows/linux) will remain PC users.
3. Stop over pricing their dumbed down and highly restricted (annoying) hardware/software. Only fashion fools with fundamentalist mentalities and too many dollar bills in their pockets buy apple everything year after year.
4. FIX your very very lame iTUNES... no I do NOT want to SYNCH my entire PC's MP3s & Videos to my ipod. Also, I want to create my own folders on the ipod, not live with the choices you make for me. Turn off that annoying advertisement to sell me songs from your store that I could care less about. Please learn something (ideally a LOT) from the folks over at Anapod (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/)
5. Do Keep up your inovation and teach microsoft a few more lessons where possible (i.e. how to design nice looking physical & software gui's).
... Imagine the Blue-ray version!///...Imagine the dual-sided Blue-ray version!///...Imagine a bewolf.. no wait that doesn't apply, unless it's in Russia.
If you think about your question, Data Centres have the same kind of requirements. Often they are not manned, yet admins need to keep very close tabs on floods, fires, temperature levels etc. So how do they do it? The install HVAC / Environmental monitor kind of devices & hook them up to an IP network. These devices can also email you, page you, or even call you with a pre-recorded message of what's wrong.
Isn't this what routers already can do for the past ohhh 7+ years? Why is Micro$oft spending time & resources in implementing something on a server that is actually the job of something at the network layer? Also "shaping entire subnets" is not doable from a server, the only thing that can traffic shape an entire subnet is the router that actually controls all packets going in and out of the subnet... a server at the edge can't control other IP device's traffic in the same subnet.
Microsoft should first fix their internal OS issues before spreading their ambitions into #1) Areas they are not experts in #2) Areas that are much lower on the OSI layer.
The function of an OS should be to provide stability & functionality to the applications that depend upon it. Trying to control all network traffic is going outside of that scope and I have doubts it can ever do a better job than a router.
Ultimately I would like to see MS & Network vendors work together. MS can allow users to MARK (QoS) the packets for specific applications, but then let the routers do the bandwidth shaping. This to me makes a heck of a lot more sense.
Disease is the resulting karma after you have habitually or continuously done something that goes against what is natural, or if you have performed some really negative action against another (living thing) in the past - whether the action took place in this life time, or in a previous one.
To steer away from religious or spiritual beliefs, let us assume that this disease is the result of something you did (wrong) in this life time to yourself. If this is the case, then please consider the appearance of the disease to be a message telling you that you have to change your ways or things will either get worse and potentially become irreversable (which is now the case). But just because it is irreversable (arthritis), it does not mean that you should just carry on doing what you you enjoy - in particular things that may aggrevate your new disease - like playing video games.
Life is about learning and growing up (not just physically), but also psychologically, and spiritually. It is time for the (psychological) adult-child to face his problems and deal with them in a responsible way.
Believe it or not, it is not important or even possible for the body to remain conditioned to that of a young healthy person until old-age death; what is important is that you start taking responsibility for your bad habits (i.e. possibly spending too much time of your precious life playing video games or whatever your case may be - ANALYSE YOURSELF!). Beyond this it is also important that you face reality - that life is not about sustaining the body, it is not about pleasure, and unfortunately for the masses only old age and suffering can trigger this consideration for them. Mid life crisis is a very common western trigger... unfortunately many lack the maturity to even face their own reality then.
So in conclusion, there is no need to dispair - a lot of good can come out of this disease of yours. This is not an optimistic statement, this is a true statement if you can some how grow up (psychologically & spiritually). But if you try to further agrevate your disease or escape its clue by playing more video games, in another 10 years or so, you will find yourself with yet another problem or the same one further aggrivated and this cycle may carry on until one day you are deep in suffering and become a very bitter old man.
Give up video games, and start living in the real world.
What they should have done was increased Microsoft's software by a magnitude of 497 Euros (for pro) and 280 Euros... PER COPY THAT IS SOLD... that would devistate their sales, and more important the spread of their software and in general would sure add up to a lot more than some obscure 497Million Euros and 280Million Euros, that has no tie to volumes sold.
But hey I have a heart... I would even settle for the EU to charge them 25% of that fine, and give 10% of the proceedings to Open Source Linux... maybe.. maaaaaybe then Microsoft would change its ways. LOL
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, and I bet you'd love to learn that the IRS is actually an illegal and unconstitutional organization that behaves like the mafia when you don't do what they tell you to (pay them illegal taxes). Just watch this to see what I am talking about:
YOUTUBE trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPypDaXfIV8 [youtube.com]
Download the full movie torrent from here:
http://btjunkie.org/search?q=Freedom+to+Fascism [btjunkie.org]
Pass this on to ALL your friends...
Actually there is no such law for ANY taxes in the USA! Everyone just assumes there is one! And the IRS goons come after you if you don't pay taxes which kind of gets the population to file taxes out of fear, but in actual fact the IRS is constitutionally ILLEGAL! If you think I'm kidding, check this out:
YOUTUBE trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPypDaXfIV8 [youtube.com]
Download the full movie torrent from here:
http://btjunkie.org/search?q=Freedom+to+Fascism [btjunkie.org]
"if you already pay your taxes as the law requires all of us"...
Actually there is no such law at all. Everyone just assumes there is one! And the IRS goons come after you if you don't pay taxes, but in actual fact the IRS is constitutionally ILLEGAL! If you think I'm kidding, check this out:
YOUTUBE trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPypDaXfIV8 [youtube.com]
Download the full movie torrent from here:
http://btjunkie.org/search?q=Freedom+to+Fascism [btjunkie.org]
Pass this on to ALL your friends...
YOUTUBE trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPypDaXfIV8
Download the full movie torrent from here:
http://btjunkie.org/search?q=Freedom+to+Fascism
Adeptus
Will somebody please tell Microsoft to STOP WASTING MY F****** SCREEN SPACE!!!!!! I want smaller icons... MUCH smaller, not bigger ones.
First thing I did in XP is convert everything to windows classic mode due to slightly smaller icons on screen, start menus & control panel, same with fonts. On a side rant, I am also not impressed at all with LCD screens that run at very lame fixed resolutions.
Due to all of this, I had to recently spend $1,000 on a Samsung 24" LCD screen that would run 1920x1200 just so I could recover some of the screen space I used to have back in Windows 95 running on a 19" CRT at 1600x1200. My CRT finally died after 7 long years and no computer store was selling 21" CRTs anymore *cry*
My recent forced upgrade at work from Outlook 2001 to 2003 also kind of ticked me off as Microsoft loves to waste my screen space and make just about every row FATTER than ever before.
The control panel in windows XP even in classic mode is a complete waste of screen space. Also run the Services icon and you can see what I am talking about.
Yo Microsoft, make your graphic shit smaller, not bigger. Or fine make it bigger, but also give us 20/20 vision people the option to use smaller icons, fonts etc - MUCH smaller.
Thanks, and asta-la-vista.
Adeptus
Info sharing of criminal records amongst boarder officials = Good
Getting denied entry because of a single life mistake you made 30 years ago when you were young, foolish and smoking too much pot = Bad
Mr. Obvious says: There should be some International agreed upon time limits as to how far back "relatively minor" crime convictions can go before you are denied entry. Better yet, have a scale. I.e. If you were a Nazi leader 40 years ago... yes you are still fucked. If you killed someone by accident while drinking & driving... 20 years. If you stole a chocolate bar from the grocery store...2 years. If you were a free-lance Microsoft marketing enthusiast (aka. DoD member)... we should make you wait 5 minutes while we lay out the red carpet for you.
Adeptus
Hi, I'm not anonymous, I'm Adeptus :P
I'm not that ignorant of the judicial system, I just think it's a bit silly to consider a malicious thought to be punishable by law. If you know anything about meditation and what thoughts actually are and specifically where they come from, then you would know that thousands of unintentional thoughts pass through your mind each day - many malicious in content. Some carried out, most not. This is true of 99.9999% of the population. Humans actually have very few INTENTIONAL thoughts... and even if those are malicious they are still not acts carried out.
There should be no punishable difference between taking something from the sidewalk without forethought or intent, and pre-mediatated thought & wilful intent to take something from the sidewalk (or store or whatever). The end action is the same. What happens before is irrelivent and goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" ideal. Man is gifted with mind, man is also gifted with choice. Mind is extremely rarely under man's control... but few men can ignore that they do not have choice of action.
To my understanding one is supposed to go to jail or be fined because of one's malicious ACTS, not thoughts... if it was based on thoughts, only Jesus and Budha would be standing outside the jail cell with the rest of the world behind bars. LOL
What a funny world we live in, indeed a Divine Comedy!
Adeptus
The informative Karmawhore Wikipedia Link on DoD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DrinkOrDie
For actual links in the text below, go to Wikipedia above.
===================
DrinkOrDie (DoD) was an underground software cracking and warez trading network during the 1990s, shut down by a major raid in 2001.
DrinkOrDie was founded in 1993 in Moscow by a Russian with the handle "deviator" and a friend who went by the code name "CyberAngel." By 1995, the group was global. One of its earliest major accomplishments was the Internet release of Windows 95 two weeks before Microsoft released the official version. It is also known for its DoD DVD Speed Ripper released in 1999 shortly before DeCSS. The activity of the DoD group diminished after 1996, and they were not considered major players in the warez scene by 2000. The DrinkOrDie network is considered criminal for copyright infringement. As a rule, they made no financial profit from their activities.
The DoD network primarily consisted of university undergraduates, but was supported by software company employees, who would leak copies of software and other digital media. DoD also received such files indirectly, from other networks.
[edit] Member raids
In 2001 the group was busted in an FBI operation called Operation Buccaneer. At the time, DrinkOrDie had two leaders, one in the United States and another in Australia.
The Australian leader Hew Raymond Griffiths 40 (from Bateau Bay on the Central Coast), known by his screenname "Bandido", has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement, and has been involved in legal action in Australia. As of March 2005, Griffiths has lost an appeal against extradition to the United States, to face charges under US copyright laws.
The American leader John Sankus Jr. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known by his screename "eriFlleH" (HellFire spelled backwards), was convicted and sentenced to 46 months. Sankus was also a member of the group HARM at the time of his arrest.
The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit in the UK also arrested eight members residing in Britain. Two of those arrested were charged and convicted for Conspiracy to Defraud, Alex Bell of Grays, Essex and Steven Dowd of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside.
The raids were initiated after information was given to United States Customs by longtime member and co-leader James Cudney, known as Bcrea8tiv; Blah-. Once turned informant, Cudney spent 18 months working undercover for US Customs, logging conversations in chat rooms and channels visited on IRC. Through an arrangement with US Customs, Cudney was paid $104 an hour.
Also charged and convicted were:
Christopher Tresco age 23, of Boston, Massachusetts, who used the screename "bigrar", pled guilty May 28, 2002 to conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws, and was sentenced to 33 months of jail time. Tresco was also a member of Rise in Superior Couriering (RiSC). Tresco at the time of his arrest was the Systems Administrator for the MIT Economics department.
Barry Erickson age 35, of Eugene, Oregon, who used the screename "radsl", pled guilty on May 2, 2002 to one felony count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws, and was sentenced to a term of 33 months, with three years of probation to follow. Erickson was a systems engineer at Symantec Corporation and provided prerelease software to DoD and RiSCiSO. He was also a founding member of Parents On 'Puterz (POPZ) a warez group that specialized in the release of children's learning software and games.
David Grimes age 25, of Arlington, Texas, who used the screename "chevelle", pled guilty on March 4, 2002 to one felony count charging conspiracy to violate the criminal copyright laws. Grimes was a computer engineer at Check Point Software. Grimes supplied Check Point firewall software to DrinkOrDie on at least two occasions, and he operated an FTP site
"face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement"
... even if only for a few brief seconds. Has the thought-police arrived?!
ok first of all, since when is it a crime to think about doing something bad? Surely you've all thought at some point in your lives of killing at least one of your parents
"... and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement"
1 count? 1 count ?????? We're talking about the freggin leader of DoD. The warez group that's been around forever and ever since the early BBS days... They easily push Gigs & Gigs each day of 0-day warez...and the leader is being acused of 1 count of copyright infringment? That's *ucked up right there. I mean what's the strategy here... acuse him only of copying 1 software so he doesn't get credit (from his peer warez buddies)for the MILLIONS he has actually highly likely copied?
Anyway dude, all I can say dude, is thanks for all the warez, and hope they take it easy on you!
Billy Gates should be bailing you out, because you did millions of $ in free marketing on his behalf.
Adeptus
I have a feeling they're going to title this protocol: RFC 1149-I (I for Interstellar / Interplanetary)
r s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carrie
Adeptus
I made this amazing water car once that went 300mpg with zero emmisions, but it stopped working as soon as anybody got in it. It was the weirdest thing. Now I understand that it was my quantum flux capacitor that was creating all the problems the whole time.
Adeptus
FTFA: "We should be making something that looks a lot more like gasoline. We should be making something that looks a lot more like diesel" ... And this helps our Global Warming problem how?
Adeptus
Just because somebody sells something successfuly, doesn't mean their product is great. I know it seems to defy logic, but there's countless historical examples of this (BetaMax, MS Windows, etc). Most people in the world are followers, not leaders.
The primary reason it has sold so many units is because they managed to make it a fashion statement and people love to feed their Egos & have status amongst their peer groups.
Apple stuff is nearly always overpriced for what they offer. Especially accessories for the ipod. $50 CDN for a piece of plastic to cover my 80GB ipod that I paid $399 for and that is not scratch resistant? $14.99 for a white colored sound splitter that I can buy at radio shack for $2.99 (already with 60% markup) - erm... no thanks!
I returned by 80GB ipod 2 weeks of trying to use it in a sensible way. Did you know that ipods only support 2 video formats (both of them MAC formats) and that you have to shove every video you want to load on a 80 GB hard drive into a single folder without the ability to create sub-folders? Frankly, I got tired of converting 300 videos I wanted to load on the ipod and then having to scroll through 300 items to get to the video I wanted. That's just a retarded user interface. Not to mention DRM restrictions. Extremely annoying iTunes (Anapod software has had huge sales because Apple's default software sucks).
iPOD - It looks cool but is way over priced, and way too restrictive and software is ultra-annoying for PC users.
Adeptus
iPod this, iPod that... come on people get with the program.
The iPod sucks compared to other platforms (i.e. Creative Zen Vision W), and its software is very annoying (MAC software that is not intuitive on a PC) and highly restrictive (DRM, can't create folders in Video ipod, iTunes, etc). The only thing it has going for it is its stylish hardware and huge marketing campaign.
Quite frankly, it's time to change the tune! (pun intended)
Adeptus
If they go out far enough to risk attaining originals from movie theatres, pre-screeners or whatever; what's stopping them from purchasing these online videos through a public unprotected wi-fi connection using a fake credit card & name?
Then who cares whom it's registered to... and no cracking required.
KISS
This is Microsoft's chance to really make a difference in the world, if only they had the vision:
I say they offer a free game with every X-box called "People's Liberation Game!" whereby you start out as a student rallying for votes to establish an opposition political party inside the Chinese government. To win the game you have achieve certain goals:
1) Cause enough of a movement to establish a democracy
2) Rally enough votes to be elected
3) Win a majority vote & become prime minister/president
4) Pass Human rights related laws that will:
a) Grant its citizens freedom of speech
b) Provide fair wages to its citizens
c) End the propogation / lies machine (this is the toughest one, even the USA/CNN is struggling with this)
5) After major internal issues are resolved, invest 50 billion dollars to restore all 6000+ Tibet temples previously destroyed by agressive chinese take over - 10 year project. The Labour work force is to be consituted primarily of soliders & ex-Chinese leaders who allowed harsh criminal acts to take place during take over - like raping & killing 1 (1 million people) out of every 6 Tibetans over the last 40 years.
6) Once the resotration work is done, an additional 10 billion is granted to fly all the Tibetan's back to their homeland and provide them with the freedom & people they once had & help them get a start on their lives.
7) Free the REAL Panchen Lama (Tibet's #2 spiritual/political leader after the Dai Lai Lama)
8) Internationally declare in writting that Tibet is its own sovereign nation, that China profusely appologizes for the genoside it has created and state that Tibet's citizens are now truly Liberated (from the oppression of the Chinese).
Bonus chapters & follow-ups include:
9) Admitting that the Incidents in Tinneman Square happened
10) Stop brain washing their students in school
11) Allow freedom of religion including the serene practice of Falun Gong
12) Take down the Chinese Firewall
Perhaps if Microsoft could get a few elected officials to play & "win" this game, they could start getting a sense of what 'Liberation' really is.
Adeptus
From a (torrent-happy) end-users perspective, CAPACITY IS KING!
n _Video
I'd hardly buy any hardware based on the fact that it can finally store 2 or 3 hours of video from some particular codec (H.264 in this case). These days they come out with a new codec every other week it seems - so it would be silly to buy hardware based on some software spec that is bound to change. Once they figure out that its possible to mass produce hardware capable for 2 or 3 or 10 times the capacity, somebody will invent a codec for that I'm sure... even if the older codecs would work just fine.
I don't know about you guys, but when I walk into Futureshop (Canadian electronics store), I am not at all impressed by any of the flat screen TV sets. Be it LCD or Plasma. I think the TV market has a looooong way to go before they reach the resolutions & crispness of older CRT computer monitors.
UHDV is a starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_High_Definitio
But there's a few hurdles:
1) Requires Fiber to the home from Cable provider (how else you gonna stream multi-gigabit/sec video?)
2) Requires huge-ass disks (i.e. 10 layer Blue-Ray+)
3) Requires players that support this.
One last little prediction. I have a feeling this format war is going to carry on for quite a while yet... because TV / Video is nowhere near its threshold potential in terms of quality, and manufacturers product cycle is faster and faster... that's why in the space of 2 or 3 years, we've gone from DVD to HD-DVD, to BlueRay, and now to multi-layer of each platform with no end in sight.
It's not porn that's going to decide the winner of the format war this time. It's capacity... because capacity determines max quality from the video industry's perspective, and from users like me, it translates to max storage per disk which also means convinience.
Adeptus
I don't get these alternative car initiatives...
1) They make electric cars that they then destroy ('who killed the electric car') - Ford
2) They make hybrids that are butt ugly and significantly more expensive to buy - Honda
3) Now there's the electric sports car whose starting price is a huge $92K - GM
4) And now Ford comes back with a blinding bright silver coloured futuristic SUV-like car that is the ugliest so far. -Ford
Hey... why not just take your best selling car, don't change the look or colours, and put in an alternative engine that joe average can actually afford... sell a few million of these, then go ahead and make your luxury alternative fuel cars... but hey, if the whole point is to minimize pollution, why not make your first target a car that will sell in large quantities so you can have the most impact?
Also please don't try to sell us on Hydrogen cars, when the electric one (in 'who killed the electric car' movie) Ford EV-1 seemed to work perfectly fine. We want 100% non fossil fuel, non-arabic fuel dependant cars that are environmentally friendly, and affordable by the masses. Thank you!
And lastly, please stop wasting time on flashy prototypes that never hit the road now or in 10 years. Just make a simple car that works and is affordable TODAY!
Thanks,
Adeptus
Umm...Say what?
"There's no way to archive the messages is there?"
- YES there is. Most IM's today allow for archiving, Yahoo even does it by default archiving every message - a bad idea from a security perspective, so in fact it does it in extreme.
"Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?"
- Sort of, it's automatically done for you. Yahoo provides a search option to search within the archive.
"How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?"
- Easy, after you finished your search, you just copy/paste it into little IM windows of whom you want to forward it to, or alternatively copy/paste it into some technology they called "e-mail".
Jokes aside, IM is an awesome tool for the home user. In the top 3 I would say. Web, Email & IM are pretty much the most used software for most home users these days. In the Enterprise, especially the large Enterprise (not a star trek reference), I can see it as a tool that if opened to the world (i.e. anybody can message you at any time on any subject) it will likely make you less focused on your work and therefore less productive. IM still needs to mature a lot in the Enterprise - I'd suggest starting out with some piloting options from a focus group to determine how IM might be useful & a positive technology (if at all) in your company. Such a study might be followed by development of co-herent user policies with "how-to and when-to" tidbits, as well as actual back-end management suite with group-policy like controls to enforce those policies. I think the missing piece these days is mature back-end management software.
just my 2 cents.
Here's my 5 predi...wishlist
1. Apple will launch a new ipod that will have most or all of the following features:
a) Widescreen movie playing & screen on ipod
b) FM receiver (not just transmitter)
c) Plays most popular video formats (a la Creative Zen) instead of just trying to lock users into MP4 & MOV "Apple" & quicktime crap formats.
d) Provide faster & different types of interconnects to the ipod such as:
-WiFi (b,g & n)... ok that last one is a wishful thinking
-Wimax
-"infrared" red light projecting keyboard, so people can interact better with software & turn it into the smallest laptop ever.
-infrared output at various frequencies, so we can turn ipod into a remote control for TVs
-power adaptor connector, so we dont have to pay for overpriced USB2 to AC converters
-Firewire (latest high speed verison)
-ON/OFF button, so batteries don't drain slowly
-Allow for easy physical access to battery & hard drive, for end-user replacement
NOTE TO APPLE: Don't do these and Zune and/or Creative Zen will become the new "ipod" of choice!
2. Apple will start to make products & specifically software that are not overly dumbed down (i.e. provide advanced modes), because if they don't most PC users (windows/linux) will remain PC users.
3. Stop over pricing their dumbed down and highly restricted (annoying) hardware/software. Only fashion fools with fundamentalist mentalities and too many dollar bills in their pockets buy apple everything year after year.
4. FIX your very very lame iTUNES... no I do NOT want to SYNCH my entire PC's MP3s & Videos to my ipod. Also, I want to create my own folders on the ipod, not live with the choices you make for me. Turn off that annoying advertisement to sell me songs from your store that I could care less about. Please learn something (ideally a LOT) from the folks over at Anapod (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/)
5. Do Keep up your inovation and teach microsoft a few more lessons where possible (i.e. how to design nice looking physical & software gui's).
Thanks,
Adeptus
... Imagine the Blue-ray version! /// ...Imagine the dual-sided Blue-ray version! /// ...Imagine a bewolf.. no wait that doesn't apply, unless it's in Russia.
If you think about your question, Data Centres have the same kind of requirements. Often they are not manned, yet admins need to keep very close tabs on floods, fires, temperature levels etc. So how do they do it? The install HVAC / Environmental monitor kind of devices & hook them up to an IP network. These devices can also email you, page you, or even call you with a pre-recorded message of what's wrong.
http://www.sensaphone.com/ims-4000.html
Good luck!
Adeptus
Isn't this what routers already can do for the past ohhh 7+ years? Why is Micro$oft spending time & resources in implementing something on a server that is actually the job of something at the network layer? Also "shaping entire subnets" is not doable from a server, the only thing that can traffic shape an entire subnet is the router that actually controls all packets going in and out of the subnet... a server at the edge can't control other IP device's traffic in the same subnet.
Microsoft should first fix their internal OS issues before spreading their ambitions into #1) Areas they are not experts in #2) Areas that are much lower on the OSI layer.
The function of an OS should be to provide stability & functionality to the applications that depend upon it. Trying to control all network traffic is going outside of that scope and I have doubts it can ever do a better job than a router.
Ultimately I would like to see MS & Network vendors work together. MS can allow users to MARK (QoS) the packets for specific applications, but then let the routers do the bandwidth shaping. This to me makes a heck of a lot more sense.
Adeptus.
Disease is the resulting karma after you have habitually or continuously done something that goes against what is natural, or if you have performed some really negative action against another (living thing) in the past - whether the action took place in this life time, or in a previous one.
To steer away from religious or spiritual beliefs, let us assume that this disease is the result of something you did (wrong) in this life time to yourself. If this is the case, then please consider the appearance of the disease to be a message telling you that you have to change your ways or things will either get worse and potentially become irreversable (which is now the case). But just because it is irreversable (arthritis), it does not mean that you should just carry on doing what you you enjoy - in particular things that may aggrevate your new disease - like playing video games.
Life is about learning and growing up (not just physically), but also psychologically, and spiritually. It is time for the (psychological) adult-child to face his problems and deal with them in a responsible way.
Believe it or not, it is not important or even possible for the body to remain conditioned to that of a young healthy person until old-age death; what is important is that you start taking responsibility for your bad habits (i.e. possibly spending too much time of your precious life playing video games or whatever your case may be - ANALYSE YOURSELF!). Beyond this it is also important that you face reality - that life is not about sustaining the body, it is not about pleasure, and unfortunately for the masses only old age and suffering can trigger this consideration for them. Mid life crisis is a very common western trigger... unfortunately many lack the maturity to even face their own reality then.
So in conclusion, there is no need to dispair - a lot of good can come out of this disease of yours. This is not an optimistic statement, this is a true statement if you can some how grow up (psychologically & spiritually). But if you try to further agrevate your disease or escape its clue by playing more video games, in another 10 years or so, you will find yourself with yet another problem or the same one further aggrivated and this cycle may carry on until one day you are deep in suffering and become a very bitter old man.
Give up video games, and start living in the real world.
What they should have done was increased Microsoft's software by a magnitude of 497 Euros (for pro) and 280 Euros... PER COPY THAT IS SOLD... that would devistate their sales, and more important the spread of their software and in general would sure add up to a lot more than some obscure 497Million Euros and 280Million Euros, that has no tie to volumes sold.
But hey I have a heart... I would even settle for the EU to charge them 25% of that fine, and give 10% of the proceedings to Open Source Linux... maybe.. maaaaaybe then Microsoft would change its ways. LOL