Yeah, and you stupid anonymous cow forgot to include your name -> no way to show anyone it was you -> no bragging rights for you. Pretty pointless to make a FP as anonymous cow, don't you think? Ahh well, coward or stupid cow, who cares.
Sorry, nice idea in theory, but I sincerely hope it never takes off.
Second that. Producing more crap to fight crap leaves only losers.
Knowing how sneaky spam operations work (zombie networks etc.), I think that filtering/counter measures will never truly solve the spam problem, and that an effective solution will be economics-based.
One reason for the huge amounts of spam is that each single message has on average very little value for the recipient, and IMHO a good approach would be to increase that value. In a way: help spammers to reach an interested audience in a more targeted, specific way. So that not 1 in a million, but eg. 1 of every 50 mails sent produce a paying customer. Less effort for the spammer, less traffic, less annoyance, basically a win-win for everyone.
For that, you would need a way for recipients to 'advertise' what they're interested in: how many messages they want to receive, product types, type of organisations they'd like to hear from etc. Maybe in a system similar to publishing a PGP key or the "Geek Code". If a recipient has a way of indicating that (s)he is interested in viagra pills, then a spammer/advertiser can focus on that group, instead of spamming a huge amount of random people. Something that lets you tell 'the world' what you consider useful (or not) to find in your inbox, so that spammers/advertisers don't need to bother millions of uninterested folks to find a dozen customers. This would also put the burden of finding customers (selecting a target audience) on the spammer, instead of on the recipient (spam filtering). Ofcourse you could devise such a system in 1001 ways (preferably highly automated). Food for ongoing research...
That exact same problem is happening over here in Japan.
And the reason for a total ban on cameraphones in some Arab state(s).
The way they are combating it is by having the devices make a sound when a picture or video is being taken.
Or having the flash enabled by default. A clear 'click' only alerts a victim in a quiet environment like a changing room, but does nothing when used in a disco or on a noisy street.
Pretty useless if you ask me. As with most 'features' that are meant to keep users honest (copy protection, scanners/printers/software that recognise dollars bills, etc): If the user is honest to start with, such a feature has no added value, at best doesn't bother the user. Dishonest users will quickly find ways around it. With the technology getting smaller/cheaper all the time, the potential for abuse grows right alongside with intended uses.
Wherever you place the line in defining a 'compromised system', truth is: once defined, anything that crosses the definition, means breakage, and once broken, a single or a dozen occurences is just more of the same.
As a user, I regard my system to fail when:
It fails to provide a function I expect it to provide, like when it hangs, or program calculates incorrect results
Info I expect to remain on my system, leaks out unintentionally
From that view, spyware, worms and vulnerabilities are essentially the same thing, as soon as they cause any of the above. A leak is a leak, and only 1 is enough (erhh, too much). Period.
"Apple and Microsoft are only going to get impulsive buyers who buy just because there is a famous name on it."
That would be roughly the same 90% customer group currently using Wintel/IE systems, right?
"They won't encourage informed consumers, however they might annoy them."
That would be the remaining 10%, using open source software & reading/.
Uninformed maybe, insignificant? NO. Most consumers don't care about details, just take what is presented to them. Give'm a PC with Windows pre-installed on it, they'll use it. Give'm Firefox and lable it "internet", they'll use it. Give'm an iPod with U2 songs on it, they'll love it.
I for one would welcome any new DVD-like format, if it just offers more storage capacity per disc (or $). And reliable recording. But my guess is consumers are really sick of all the format wars as seen with DVD.
I'm also very fond of the small 8 cm. discs. They fit in your pocket nicely. With PC equipment getting smaller/more powerful all the time, one of the things holding back small formfactor PC's is the size of optical drives/discs. In the past, the small capacity of 8 cm. discs may have been a good argument for keeping those, but with multiple GB.'s storage on even these small discs, that argument isn't so strong anymore. I would welcome it if some manufacturer had the balls to produce a 8 cm. disc only optical drive (about floppy-drive sized), and build an extra small PC around that. Think Nintendo GameCube style, but PC-compatible.
From the article: "VMD is a high quality format with unparalleled built-in copyright protection.."
And then there's the DRM issue. With DVD, it doesn't actually prevent consumers from copying/converting discs, but what if this changes? I wouldn't be willing to sink ANY money in it if that were the case.
If DRM on next-gen optical discs really does become a barrier for consumers, I might start looking to grey import some equipment/discs using non-DRM including China-developed format.
Don't forget to mention that this 1kB of memory *of course* included video memory with a worst case requirement of 768 bytes (24x32)
What video memory? The ZX81 generates screen output something like this: an interrupt routine eating 75% CPU time feeds character data to hardware shift registers, that produce a line of black&white dots on the screen. Repeat (carefully timed) until screen is done, and then remaining 25% CPU time (vertical blank period) is left for doing useful work until new TV frame begins.
It also had "fast mode" that did away with this, leaving snow on the TV screen (but at a 4x gain in processing speed!). I always loved this machine for its wonderful use of the limited hardware. You can even build your own, or personally type in a flicker-free space invaders clone on it.
Still used for things like controlling model trains or stepper motors, or re-built by programming the entire machine's function into a FPGA. Note: color in screenshot on last link is surely not on original hardware...
so now trees around the world can breathe easier knowing punch cards & tape are obsolete
On the contrary. One of the promises of computers once was, that they would do away with much paperwork, and thus save paper. Time has shown that this is true in some respects, but computers also add bigtime to paper use. Think easy printing of e-mails received or PDF's found on the web, book shelves filled with 600+ page programming manuals...
Many people still prefer reading hardcopy over computerscreens (and with good reason), and good/cheap 'electronic paper' has yet to hit the market.
Yes, and it's getting even better: just wait until spammers find a cheap (to them) way of broadcasting such 1-minute 'infomercials'...
Get your phone number listed in the wrong place -> throw away your phone.
Re: Case-sensitive search takes more effort?
on
Google Index Doubles
·
· Score: 1
I think you are the confused one.
No confusion here, but misunderstanding perhaps. For clarification, let me summarise:
jez9999 writes he/she would like to 1) "search the web" for exact match '#windows EFNET'. Obviously a massive amount of work, impossible for quick search queries.
Google uses an index, which is updated/refreshed every so many weeks, and only contains a very limited/filtered subset of "the web". Logical, this is the whole point of using an index.
PsychoSlashDot writes that Google's index works in a way that doesn't allow search 1)
Erasmus Darwin proposes to do traditional search, and then use 2) retrieved subset of Google's index to do full-text search 1) on. I think it's very important to make a distinction here between 2) this subset of Google's index, and 3) the actual web content that this subset of Google's index refers to. 2) would be quickly accessible to Google, although using it differently could require major changes in Google's hardware/software infrastructure. To do full-text search on 3), you'd have to actually retrieve/process the web content itself, which could get huge task quickly, if search doesn't involve very small number of search results.
I think we can agree that 3) can be regarded very time-consuming, but that 2) may be possible, or not (ask Google).
cavemanf16's comment may have been meant to point this out (valid point), but what cavemanf16 actually wrote (CRM app stuff), says that full-text search becomes way more expensive if you include case-sensitivity. That is plain nonsense.
Searching subset of web-content found in Google's index (3) maybe too much work for Google, but maybe adding case-sensitive or punctuation search within subset of Google's index (2) IS do-able. Again, only Google knows.
Also, I'd rather wait a couple more weeks (or months) for a game than to get it right now but have to patch it because it's really buggy or missing promised features.
You could say that as well for any other new app, not just games, right? Market pressure ensures that a hit/succesful product is often described as "the first product to make it onto the market that is good enough". If it's late, another product will be first, and what comes after that is 'redundant'. If it's not "good enough", another, better product will take its place later on. But it doesn't need to be perfect to be succesful.
And then there's timed events like expo's, Christmas shopping period, the introduction of new types of hardware etc. Delay until the next year/the next expo, and the competition will step in. Such timing IS very significant in today's worldwide, fast-paced market.
Re: Case-sensitive search takes more effort?
on
Google Index Doubles
·
· Score: 1
What you guys don't realize is the orders of magnitude higher that it takes to perform the whole "capitalized/not capitalized" search
I beg your pardon? You didn't ever follow any basic programming courses, did you? What you're saying is nonsense.
Case-sensitive searching is just EXACT comparison of text strings, if you compare:
"Joe JingleheiMerScHmIdT" with
"Joe JinGleheiMerScHmIdT"
there's no match, because the "G" doesn't match "g". This kind of searching is easy, simple & fast. Case-INsensitive comparison just means filtering the strings through "make all uppercase" or "make all lowercase" (or other filters) before doing the comparison. This is EXTRA work, but for most applications, insignificant (fast, simple & easy as well).
A long while back our CRM application was consistently getting hung on queries that involved customer first/last name combinations because it WAS capitalization sensitive.
You're confusing the programming technique itself with a badly coded implementation (your CRM app).
The physical principles for optical discs are fairly simple basically. The difficulty is not that, but in how to use it practically. As in: how to get a working device, what materials to use, how to make it small, how to mass-produce it cheap, how to produce media for it, how to make -R and -RW types of media, how to produce media that record reliably & last. And then there's error correction, logical disc formats, OS support, updating CD-burning apps, etc. etc. All this takes time.
With shorter wavelengths, you can create smaller structures, packing more data on a disc. But to make that work, you also need the mechanics to support this. Moving a read/write head +/- 1 mm. is easy, moving it +/- 1 micron is not so easy. Maybe it will be much harder to produce mechanics that can accurately track such tiny structures, as they get smaller.
Where is the likely end for optical media?
2 words: "disruptive technology". As in: something else than optical discs as we know them. Candidates: cheap flash-like memory, nanotechnology,....
I'd love to buy a computer that was manufactured in a not-environmentally-hostile manner.
There was some research done on how useful it is to recycle computer equipment (for materials). Conclusion: energy costs of recycling weigh heavier than the benefit of turning the materials back into new products. From an environmental perspective, it helps most to just keep old equipment working as long as possible.
For about a year and a half, I ran an old Pentium box as router/firewall. The most costly thing over that period: hardware? No (pocketmoney). Software? No (a few floppy discs w/ free software). Energy! The electricity for running the box 24/7 over that period topped other costs.
After that, I sold the box for similar use elsewhere. So what if I had used an energy-efficient dedicated router, and dumped the old box for recycling?
The dedicated router would have to be produced new, taking a lot of energy & costing me $$
The old box would have become trash right away, cost lots of energy to recycle, and not around for resale.
So looking back, the advice above makes sense.
However, with our current technology, that is not possible.
Maybe not, but you can make optimal use of equipment, give it a useful task for as long as possible, and have it recycled after use. Specialised companies are quite good at recycling electronic equipment. BTW. I think it's bad to throw computers in landfills anyway. When natural resources become scarce and recycling processes are refined, computer waste may turn into a very good source for materials like copper, lead, gold, etc.
"So which is it? Is data easily destroyed or is it not?"
Sure - you just have to physically destroy ALL copies of the data. So it just depends on your ability to get your hands on every single copy.
If you have everything on a HD, destroying the platter(s) itself is enough. For CD/DVD's, zapping them for a few seconds in a microwave (fun!) ought to do it. But if you have written some popular software, or a naked picture of your girlfriend got posted on/. - forget it, it'll be around somewhere till the end of your days.
It's fun to think of data lifecycle as total number of copies around. Take popular OS, say Windows 95. Before release, somewhere in 1994, only beta's/previews. Then, at some point, it 'goes gold'. A couple of masters, then more for reproduction, and weeks or months after that, millions of copies. After some years, all over the world, tens or hundreds of millions of computer uses have a copy, or know someone that does. A couple of years later, new OS version, computers/HD's get trashed, CD's are stuffed away or land in the garbage. Number of total copies drops, and many years later, maybe only some enthousiasts, or computer museum still have a copy. Special language versions disappear first, and maybe, some day, THE last copy of Win95 gets lost/destroyed? Who knows....
In general, the more unique the data is, and the more difficult/impossible it would be to re-create, the more careful you should be with remaining copies.
Spammers deserve a solid punishment, IMHO. They waste people's time, one of the most precious things people have. Maybe just a few seconds per mail, but multiplied by millions (at least, maybe hundreds of millions).
They waste network bandwidth, most of which is paid by others. Server capacity is wasted with spam-filtering. Admins, developers & home users have to waste time on writing/deploying anti-spam software.
They make e-mail, a very useful internet resource, a lot less useful, and I view that as a form of vandalism.
Much of their work is done by breaking into other people's computers (zombie networks), which in itself is illegal in many places. Not to speak of other uses (DDoS attacks etc.) spammers may have for zombie networks they control.
Users don't want spam, there are laws against this, and even in the face of all this, spammers continue with their business on a massive scale.
So sorry, but they deserve every punishment they get.
That someone managed to find yet another flaw in IE. You'd think that after the number of bugs found in IE so far, it would be about 100% bug-free by now. But duhhh... I guess that's too optimistic.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -Donald E. Knuth
I.e. when you say "click that link", and they ask "which (mouse) button"?, you know you're in trouble...
Yeah that's a dumb question... I would ask "click what link?".
Maybe you were pointing with your finger? Sorry, I couldn't see that, only read your comment.
He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and you stupid anonymous cow forgot to include your name -> no way to show anyone it was you -> no bragging rights for you. Pretty pointless to make a FP as anonymous cow, don't you think? Ahh well, coward or stupid cow, who cares.
Second that. Producing more crap to fight crap leaves only losers.
Knowing how sneaky spam operations work (zombie networks etc.), I think that filtering/counter measures will never truly solve the spam problem, and that an effective solution will be economics-based.
One reason for the huge amounts of spam is that each single message has on average very little value for the recipient, and IMHO a good approach would be to increase that value. In a way: help spammers to reach an interested audience in a more targeted, specific way. So that not 1 in a million, but eg. 1 of every 50 mails sent produce a paying customer. Less effort for the spammer, less traffic, less annoyance, basically a win-win for everyone.
For that, you would need a way for recipients to 'advertise' what they're interested in: how many messages they want to receive, product types, type of organisations they'd like to hear from etc. Maybe in a system similar to publishing a PGP key or the "Geek Code". If a recipient has a way of indicating that (s)he is interested in viagra pills, then a spammer/advertiser can focus on that group, instead of spamming a huge amount of random people. Something that lets you tell 'the world' what you consider useful (or not) to find in your inbox, so that spammers/advertisers don't need to bother millions of uninterested folks to find a dozen customers. This would also put the burden of finding customers (selecting a target audience) on the spammer, instead of on the recipient (spam filtering). Ofcourse you could devise such a system in 1001 ways (preferably highly automated). Food for ongoing research...
And the reason for a total ban on cameraphones in some Arab state(s).
The way they are combating it is by having the devices make a sound when a picture or video is being taken.
Or having the flash enabled by default. A clear 'click' only alerts a victim in a quiet environment like a changing room, but does nothing when used in a disco or on a noisy street.
Pretty useless if you ask me. As with most 'features' that are meant to keep users honest (copy protection, scanners/printers/software that recognise dollars bills, etc): If the user is honest to start with, such a feature has no added value, at best doesn't bother the user. Dishonest users will quickly find ways around it. With the technology getting smaller/cheaper all the time, the potential for abuse grows right alongside with intended uses.
Sorry Tux, but you receiving awards at the Oscars? Please nooo....
Answer: only 1
Wherever you place the line in defining a 'compromised system', truth is: once defined, anything that crosses the definition, means breakage, and once broken, a single or a dozen occurences is just more of the same.
As a user, I regard my system to fail when:
- It fails to provide a function I expect it to provide, like when it hangs, or program calculates incorrect results
- Info I expect to remain on my system, leaks out unintentionally
From that view, spyware, worms and vulnerabilities are essentially the same thing, as soon as they cause any of the above. A leak is a leak, and only 1 is enough (erhh, too much). Period.What, you mean somebody would notice?
That would be roughly the same 90% customer group currently using Wintel/IE systems, right?
"They won't encourage informed consumers, however they might annoy them."
That would be the remaining 10%, using open source software & reading /.
Uninformed maybe, insignificant? NO. Most consumers don't care about details, just take what is presented to them. Give'm a PC with Windows pre-installed on it, they'll use it. Give'm Firefox and lable it "internet", they'll use it. Give'm an iPod with U2 songs on it, they'll love it.
I'm also very fond of the small 8 cm. discs. They fit in your pocket nicely. With PC equipment getting smaller/more powerful all the time, one of the things holding back small formfactor PC's is the size of optical drives/discs. In the past, the small capacity of 8 cm. discs may have been a good argument for keeping those, but with multiple GB.'s storage on even these small discs, that argument isn't so strong anymore. I would welcome it if some manufacturer had the balls to produce a 8 cm. disc only optical drive (about floppy-drive sized), and build an extra small PC around that. Think Nintendo GameCube style, but PC-compatible.
From the article: "VMD is a high quality format with unparalleled built-in copyright protection .."
And then there's the DRM issue. With DVD, it doesn't actually prevent consumers from copying/converting discs, but what if this changes? I wouldn't be willing to sink ANY money in it if that were the case.
If DRM on next-gen optical discs really does become a barrier for consumers, I might start looking to grey import some equipment/discs using non-DRM including China-developed format.
You're just imagining this sig is here. It isn't, really.
What video memory? The ZX81 generates screen output something like this: an interrupt routine eating 75% CPU time feeds character data to hardware shift registers, that produce a line of black&white dots on the screen. Repeat (carefully timed) until screen is done, and then remaining 25% CPU time (vertical blank period) is left for doing useful work until new TV frame begins.
It also had "fast mode" that did away with this, leaving snow on the TV screen (but at a 4x gain in processing speed!). I always loved this machine for its wonderful use of the limited hardware. You can even build your own, or personally type in a flicker-free space invaders clone on it.
Still used for things like controlling model trains or stepper motors, or re-built by programming the entire machine's function into a FPGA. Note: color in screenshot on last link is surely not on original hardware...
On the contrary. One of the promises of computers once was, that they would do away with much paperwork, and thus save paper. Time has shown that this is true in some respects, but computers also add bigtime to paper use. Think easy printing of e-mails received or PDF's found on the web, book shelves filled with 600+ page programming manuals...
Many people still prefer reading hardcopy over computerscreens (and with good reason), and good/cheap 'electronic paper' has yet to hit the market.
Paper-less office, anyone?
Get your phone number listed in the wrong place -> throw away your phone.
No confusion here, but misunderstanding perhaps. For clarification, let me summarise:
jez9999 writes he/she would like to 1) "search the web" for exact match '#windows EFNET'. Obviously a massive amount of work, impossible for quick search queries.
Google uses an index, which is updated/refreshed every so many weeks, and only contains a very limited/filtered subset of "the web". Logical, this is the whole point of using an index.
PsychoSlashDot writes that Google's index works in a way that doesn't allow search 1)
Erasmus Darwin proposes to do traditional search, and then use 2) retrieved subset of Google's index to do full-text search 1) on. I think it's very important to make a distinction here between 2) this subset of Google's index, and 3) the actual web content that this subset of Google's index refers to. 2) would be quickly accessible to Google, although using it differently could require major changes in Google's hardware/software infrastructure. To do full-text search on 3), you'd have to actually retrieve/process the web content itself, which could get huge task quickly, if search doesn't involve very small number of search results.
I think we can agree that 3) can be regarded very time-consuming, but that 2) may be possible, or not (ask Google).
cavemanf16's comment may have been meant to point this out (valid point), but what cavemanf16 actually wrote (CRM app stuff), says that full-text search becomes way more expensive if you include case-sensitivity. That is plain nonsense.
Searching subset of web-content found in Google's index (3) maybe too much work for Google, but maybe adding case-sensitive or punctuation search within subset of Google's index (2) IS do-able. Again, only Google knows.
You could say that as well for any other new app, not just games, right? Market pressure ensures that a hit/succesful product is often described as "the first product to make it onto the market that is good enough". If it's late, another product will be first, and what comes after that is 'redundant'. If it's not "good enough", another, better product will take its place later on. But it doesn't need to be perfect to be succesful.
And then there's timed events like expo's, Christmas shopping period, the introduction of new types of hardware etc. Delay until the next year/the next expo, and the competition will step in. Such timing IS very significant in today's worldwide, fast-paced market.
I beg your pardon? You didn't ever follow any basic programming courses, did you? What you're saying is nonsense.
Case-sensitive searching is just EXACT comparison of text strings, if you compare:
"Joe JingleheiMerScHmIdT" with
"Joe JinGleheiMerScHmIdT"
there's no match, because the "G" doesn't match "g". This kind of searching is easy, simple & fast. Case-INsensitive comparison just means filtering the strings through "make all uppercase" or "make all lowercase" (or other filters) before doing the comparison. This is EXTRA work, but for most applications, insignificant (fast, simple & easy as well).
A long while back our CRM application was consistently getting hung on queries that involved customer first/last name combinations because it WAS capitalization sensitive.
You're confusing the programming technique itself with a badly coded implementation (your CRM app).
With shorter wavelengths, you can create smaller structures, packing more data on a disc. But to make that work, you also need the mechanics to support this. Moving a read/write head +/- 1 mm. is easy, moving it +/- 1 micron is not so easy. Maybe it will be much harder to produce mechanics that can accurately track such tiny structures, as they get smaller.
Where is the likely end for optical media?
2 words: "disruptive technology". As in: something else than optical discs as we know them. Candidates: cheap flash-like memory, nanotechnology, ....
You're assuming MSFT still pushes out Office by 2k13? Hell no, Tux won't let that happen!
That's nothing. I'm typing this comment from my refurbished Sinclair ZX81...
There was some research done on how useful it is to recycle computer equipment (for materials). Conclusion: energy costs of recycling weigh heavier than the benefit of turning the materials back into new products. From an environmental perspective, it helps most to just keep old equipment working as long as possible.
For about a year and a half, I ran an old Pentium box as router/firewall. The most costly thing over that period: hardware? No (pocketmoney). Software? No (a few floppy discs w/ free software). Energy! The electricity for running the box 24/7 over that period topped other costs.
After that, I sold the box for similar use elsewhere. So what if I had used an energy-efficient dedicated router, and dumped the old box for recycling?
- The dedicated router would have to be produced new, taking a lot of energy & costing me $$
- The old box would have become trash right away, cost lots of energy to recycle, and not around for resale.
So looking back, the advice above makes sense.However, with our current technology, that is not possible.
Maybe not, but you can make optimal use of equipment, give it a useful task for as long as possible, and have it recycled after use. Specialised companies are quite good at recycling electronic equipment. BTW. I think it's bad to throw computers in landfills anyway. When natural resources become scarce and recycling processes are refined, computer waste may turn into a very good source for materials like copper, lead, gold, etc.
Sure - you just have to physically destroy ALL copies of the data. So it just depends on your ability to get your hands on every single copy.
If you have everything on a HD, destroying the platter(s) itself is enough. For CD/DVD's, zapping them for a few seconds in a microwave (fun!) ought to do it. But if you have written some popular software, or a naked picture of your girlfriend got posted on /. - forget it, it'll be around somewhere till the end of your days.
It's fun to think of data lifecycle as total number of copies around. Take popular OS, say Windows 95. Before release, somewhere in 1994, only beta's/previews. Then, at some point, it 'goes gold'. A couple of masters, then more for reproduction, and weeks or months after that, millions of copies. After some years, all over the world, tens or hundreds of millions of computer uses have a copy, or know someone that does. A couple of years later, new OS version, computers/HD's get trashed, CD's are stuffed away or land in the garbage. Number of total copies drops, and many years later, maybe only some enthousiasts, or computer museum still have a copy. Special language versions disappear first, and maybe, some day, THE last copy of Win95 gets lost/destroyed? Who knows....
In general, the more unique the data is, and the more difficult/impossible it would be to re-create, the more careful you should be with remaining copies.
They waste network bandwidth, most of which is paid by others. Server capacity is wasted with spam-filtering. Admins, developers & home users have to waste time on writing/deploying anti-spam software.
They make e-mail, a very useful internet resource, a lot less useful, and I view that as a form of vandalism.
Much of their work is done by breaking into other people's computers (zombie networks), which in itself is illegal in many places. Not to speak of other uses (DDoS attacks etc.) spammers may have for zombie networks they control.
Users don't want spam, there are laws against this, and even in the face of all this, spammers continue with their business on a massive scale. So sorry, but they deserve every punishment they get.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -Donald E. Knuth
Yeah that's a dumb question... I would ask "click what link?".
Maybe you were pointing with your finger? Sorry, I couldn't see that, only read your comment.
He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Resistance is futile - you will be eaten