This system might also be hackable, such that people can preserve their privacy and not be listened in on from hundreds of feet away.
You simply have a microphone near your mouth, sample it, and repeat the sound out of a speaker with slight echoes with randomised delays. There must be something that could interfere with the process they use to "zoom in" on a particular sound source. Maybe if you can measure the distance to the listening device, it would be possible to manipulate the frequency of sounds you are making so as to create a standing wave or something that would cause the microphones to be overloaded or to hear nothing..... shit, maybe the tech that drives noise cancelling headphones could be used here? Who you are speaking to gets an earpiece with unedited sound piped to them, and speakers on your lapels kick out anti-sound so eavesdroppers hear nothing.
So now in public, you just need to have strings of randomised flashing IR LEDs illuminating your face, so CCTV has a hard time capturing your image, and now something to mess with your voice so that The Man cannot listen in too! If you are thinking "paranoid fucker", I am thinking what the fuck business is it of people to listen in on me? And that's a rhetorical question: I don't need to be told to think of the children, etc..
Last year I paid $210,000 in taxes on income of $635,000. Are you saying I didn't pay enough?
Even though I am on minimum wage working here, part time, at McDonalds, I too think you are paying too much tax. I say this because I know that if I work hard enough I will become a millionaire, and I wouldn't want to pay loads of tax if I were^W^W^W when I become rich.
It's probably because there seems to be a hard core of very *loud* Americans who yell (figuratively, online) at the top of their voices about how any renewable power is no good. They also yell loudly about how $INSERT_EFFICIENT_TECHNOLOGY is no good, too. It's almost as if they think being energy inefficient is something to be proud of.
They have mod points too:
(Score:1, Troll) by Alioth (221270)
I got the wrong end of the stick about the location service. What is offered on the back of our certificate is what they call "locate", but in reality for 17.95UKP for 8 years you get free[1] changes of address on the identichip system, free holiday address recording, a free email reminding you to check your details (FFS!), and a find a vet service (for the terminally stupid who can't even cope with the Yellow Pages).
But have they put this locate service on the back of the certificate so people might think what I did, that the chip alone doesn't mean an effort will be made to return your lost animal?
The identification and location service doesn't do anything as sophisticated as GPS. The chip can report the animal's body temperature though, I think. Better for the dog than sticking a thermometer up its arse!
[1] I fucking hate it when companies call shit free, but is only available if you pay for it. Hardly free! The word to use is "included", not "free". Mobile phone operators are the worst for promoting their services with lavish use of free, but only in exchange for money.
The identichip certificate for our dog just happens to be out, and I have looked at it due to this story.
It appears that identichip also sell an animal locating service, and they promote it on the back of the certificate. This might partially explain why the guy has been having problems (assuming his chip is done by the same organisation) - he may well have the dog chipped for identification, but doesn't have the locating service?
Oh yeah, they charge an annual fee for the location service too. And lets be honest, when people get their dog chipped they want to be buying the ability to get their animal back if it goes missing, not a simple identification method. No doubt if you get your animal chipped by identichip, but don't pay for the location service, if a vet or charity find your missing dog, ID it, and try to return it to you, identichip will not hand over the data - hiding behind the DPA. If you do pay for the location service, no doubt they still don't hand over the data but contact the registered owner to say vet X has your pet.
WTF is the use of being able to ID an animal, but not be able to get it back? To me, this looks like another fucking business exploiting people by selling a basic service that is useless, and then providing what the customer actually would want as a premium service.
Maybe just putting a dog-tag on the collar, or greyhound style tattoos is a better idea?
Our dog has been re-homed, and so came with the chip pre-installed. In the future, I will be very much thinking twice about getting an animal chipped if it means that I still have to pay an annual fee for location. I don't do business with companies that have bullshit practices.
If it was going to be a facility for government continuation against a nuclear strike, not putting in a Faraday cage when the place was being built would be rather short sighted. Though if they are expanding the facility, the cage might not be complete.
It's like watching a show on TV... and having every 3rd ad be the *SAME EXACT FUGGIN AD*. Makes me *NOT* buy something.
I'd like to think I am savvy enough to do that kind of thing too. But I know my memory isn't perfect (and be aware of anyone who ever claims to have a good memory - they ironically tend to have forgotten about the things they have forgotten), so I know that I will get some details wrong.
But when spammers (all advertisers are spammers) spam your face with a product name, and you think fuck buying widget X, you might forget that they pissed you off with their marketing methods. If you remember the product name, then the ad has been at least a partial success.
Adverts are designed to influence our purchasing habits, and they are most effective when we don't notice them effecting us. Why do I buy certain products? Is it because I like the products, or is it because they have spammed my face, and so I haven't tried competing products? I dunno, but I may well be making decisions that I think are in my interest, but actually are not. And I don't like being manipulated.
My solution, block all adverts, everywhere. TFA was useful as it provided a couple of links and names of advertising companies. That's a few more domains blacklisted in NoScript and Adblock. I mute the TV when adverts come on, not that I watch huge amounts of it - so many programmes are ruined by product placement or other veiled adverts, or shit like the glorification of consumerism, war, or other tools of rampant capitalism (not that tame local shop bullshit that most internet economists seem to subscribe to). Commercial radio tends to all by much of a muchness (bland pop music), but if I do listen to it, it'll be turned down when the ads come on. Though to be fair, I do this when DJs prattle on too. I try to ignore billboards, but how much does consciously trying not to think about an advert count as thinking about it? I don't frequent seriously nasty commercial establishments, like McDonalds, unless I need a shit when I'm out. When going to somewhere like a mall, I go straight to the shop I want to go to, get what I need, back to the car and home. None of that browsing, which tends to be a metaphor for impulse shopping.
Some shops even have little TVs playing adverts on permanent loops. I pull the mains lead out the back of them, if one is close when I go in and out of a shop.
"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising: kill yourself". - Bill Hicks
What do you expect? Most of the people advocating Steam will have probably spent quite a bit of money through the thing. They don't want to think they have wasted, or even risked, their time and money on a something that has the ability to whip away their purchases at a moment's notice (I dunno if Steam can do this, but that's generally what DRM does when it decides the user isn't authorised, or goes wrong).
I once had a big argument with a guy who was convinced that whilst software frequently has bugs, DRM mechanisms didn't. Pointing out that DRM mechanisms routinely get by passed, due to their bugs, didn't matter. He was convinced that copy protection mechanisms work, and he must have been convinced by PR, advertising, or anecdotes on the internet from fanboys. Or the desire not to have to face the fact he had paid for products with the ability to break themselves.
Buyer's remorse is unpleasant, and people will go to quite some lengths to avoid the possibility of it.
Also, you have to trust the optional submission isn't buggy, and does what the user wants. Yeah, that's clutching at straws, but I can think of at least one instance of proprietary software privacy raping when it shouldn't have been. Real, years ago, was "accidentally" uniquely identifying installations of its player when it declared them anonymous.
The data collected via crash reports and update checking mechanisms could have commercial worth to the vendor. They have a financial interest in possibly misleading the user as to exactly what the update checks or crash reports do.
So, you gave up on bugfixes and new features for MP3Tag because they added an optional update checking mechanism...
Yes, yes I did avoid bugfixes and new features, as the principle of privacy is more important to me.
The choices are use an old version of the software, use a current version and live with a lower level of privacy (the application notified the developer each time the application was run, IIRC), or use a different product. As I quite like MP3Tag, I took the first choice, though have been keeping my eyes peeled for something to fit category 3.
MP3Tag, even though it is freeware, isn't OSS. I would rather use Free software whenever possible these days. The more software has features that possibly benefit the developer or publisher more than the user, the more I step away from using their products at all.
A developer doesn't want support questions from users on old versions, and an update mechanism helps push users onto the new versions. For for-profit entities, the fewer versions the user base are using, the lower the support costs.
and Microsoft is violating your privacy because they offer you the option to send a report if an application crashes.
An option that is ticked by default, in not a simple to find place. Any declaration of privacy compromise will be hidden away in pages of legalese that very few people read, and fewer understand.
I know I don't understand legalese, nor the inner workings of Windows, or other proprietary products, so I act sceptically about anything that is said.
It's insane that stuff like that get's modded up.
What is insane is how the user is seen as secondary to the desires of the developer[1], or the business' interests, and that people accept this shit situation!
[1] Though a simple utility can be someone's pet project. As much as users might bitch, its is ultimately up to the developer how the application works, and what features are there or not. The user is free to walk away when they like.
Yeap, the integrated spyware in many applications, mostly proprietary ones, is one of the worst things about current software.
The spyware is usually presented to the user as some hand-holding feature, like update checks, or crash reporting. This article does demonstrate though that at least 1 proprietary vendor does get and look at data that could be potentially private. What if IE crashes on a private website, like an intranet or password protected www site for a few friends? MS will get at least some of that data, it looks like.
The article presents the story in the context of nasty hackers (but I think they took out the bit about the hackers being paedo-terr'ist hackers), which is exploiting most users' naivete. The users don't realise that if the baddies can have their privacy violated, the goodies can too. Proper journalism would have addressed this, but ZDNet is just another example of an industry rag trying to promote the industry as wonderful.
The possible extra info leaked when things like crash reporting and update checks are performed has always been enough for me to turn off features like those, or even avoid products with those features. eg MP3Tag gained an update check mechanism, I removed the application and installed the oldest version without the spyware.
Which is why all people who work for, or are involved in anyway with a corporation, should be in a union. They level the playing field. Yes, it means you are stooping to the same level as the corporations in some regards, but if you don't you will always be fucked over.
The coup corporations have pulled is to convince the middle class, and most of the working class, not to unionise. How that coup works is why this post will probably get modded down.
**A fatal exception 0E has occurred at blah:blah in VXD....**
Re:try running Windows 95 on modern hardware...
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
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· Score: 1
Yeap, 2000 was the pinnacle of MS products. Since then they have been focusing even more on attracting new users to computers, and as a consequence the amount of shiny-shiny and hand holding has sky rocketed.
2000 pro never had remote desktop, but the server versions did. I used to use 2000 server as my desktop OS for a good while, because it was essentially the same as 2000 pro, but with the useful feature of terminal services. I used to connect to the TS from work so that I could surf, IRC, usenet, etc. from work, without incriminating applications or data on my work PC.
My work Win 95 machine, in the 300MHz days, was coaxed into running for about 30 days without a reboot. By then it was unusable though, I remember icons on the screen all being corrupted, you could barely start any applications due to lack of resources. I can't remember if I purposefully rebooted it in the end, or if it crashed.
9x did not do stability, but it did mean that when sat in front of a 9x machine you wouldn't get stuck at the office late. 2 minutes before home time, a quick double ctrl-alt-del and it would be a case of "fucking Windows has crashed again. Oh well, might as well go home, 'cause I can do anything without the computer working". You can't get away with that any more, every day. Maybe once a month. The PHBs have wised-up to the fact that most computers don't appear to be as shit as they used to be. Windows is of course as shit as it used to be, just in different ways.
Just remembered another 95 PC in the same office, connected up to a client's network for support, that went really strange one day, the clock started going too quickly. I think it was going about 4 times faster than it should, and seeing the clock spinning too fast was utterly hilarious. The machine seemed to be working fine otherwise though. A reboot cleared it, and I never saw Windows do that again... that was the kind of craziness you got with 9x!.
Re:I look just like Buddy Holly
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Windows 95 Turns 15
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· Score: 2, Interesting
WTF is Freudian?
Kids don't get taught about psychology, and industry and state doesn't talk about psychology, because psychology is the science that is abused to create PR, propaganda, and advertising. If the people knew about psychology (and even things like what a Freudian slip is, or who Freud was), then they would be much less effected by PR, propaganda, and advertising.
I think those crackpots Scientologists oppose psychology too because if people understood psychology, they would be able to spot the brainwashing.
I thought I recognised the name Gimmelwald. After a bit of Wikipedia'ing, it is where I thought, in the Lauterbrunnen valley. And what a valley that is, classic U shaped glacial valley.
That mountain face you are talking about is very possibly the north face of the Eiger. The description of hundreds of metres of vertical rock, and the fact that a local only knew of 1 person to have climbed it screams the Eiger to me. Have a look at some of the pictures on that WP article, and they will probably be familiar.... an amazingly beautiful part of the world.
But, but, but..... Iran is bad, mmmkay. The TV told me!
Anyway....
The kinda irony with this nuclear power plant is that uranium fission for electricity was commercialised partly due to a side effect: the production of plutonium. I think I am right in saying that there is more thorium in the Earth's crust than uranium, thorium is more easily available, it is fissionable, and doesn't produce the same pollutants (or explosives, if you want to look at it like that) that the fission of uranium does.
If the west doesn't want countries producing nuclear weapons, why not help them with a thorium based fission plant? Or perhaps the ownership of nuclear weapons isn't the whole story?
The west actually seems to want to keep countries down economically, any way they can (you can't be rich, unless there are poor). Energy freedom is a major thing for human civilisations.
Technology is supposed to be improving our lives. Why, then, are we accepting uses of it that do not improve our lives and only serve the interests of publishing and marketing companies?
Because those groups have some of the loudest voices in our societies, and drown out any alternative point of view with their message of "consumer, consume, consume". Everyone is susceptible to be manipulated by this kind of thing, some more than others. Some a lot more than others.
Ok, never having had a need for using Flash, I'm kinda curious what that different purpose is?
Say you want to make a banner advert that stands out, Flash is your answer. Not only can you do animations, but sounds too!
Say you want to provide information about your business, its services or products, but you don't want potential customers to be able to use that data? Like being able to copy/paste it, so they could perhaps do a comparison in a spreadsheet, or format the data how they like to present to whoever will sign off the costs. Flash is great for this.
Say you want to make a clone of a game that's been around for 20 years. Yeap, Flash means that not only can you recreate an old game on a new computer, you can make that computer perform like a 20 year old computer too!
Say you are a fucking tool who wants to implement a DRM'd up website? Yeap, the makers of Flash make all sorts of promises about Flash, like you can allow users to view something, but not copy it. Yes, Flash allows you to break the laws of physics! (Or something).
What if you have no respect of other's privacy? Flash can be used to track and trend users across the web. And say those pesky commie Linux users come along and do things like tell people to delete their cookies, Flash enables you to recreate those cookies, and so the tracking doesn't stop. Flash also allows you to find out even more about the user's computer than the browser will reveal by default, or through the use of javascript.
Say you want to spend lots of money on a brand new computer, even though you already have a perfectly working one? Flash is great that in that security holes are not fixed in the older versions, and newer versions do not necessarily work on older computers. So Flash is great for helping you empty your wallet, either into the IT industry's coffers, or into the bank account of someone from a country very few people could find on a map.
You are right, reboot is a shite term. It's clearly just marketing bollocks.
Reset would be a much more accurate, but reset kind of implies that it (a TV series) was done wrong in the past. If the old series' DVDs are still on the shelves, you don't want to do that!
Taking a word from the world of tech means there isn't much baggage of extra meaning to most people that "reset" does have. Apart from to geeks like you and I who hear shit like "Batman has been rebooted", and cringe.
Ever wonder why performance reviews are fucking ridiculous and you can never meet all of your "benchmarks"?
Often the person deciding if you have met your benchmarks has their own benchmark of coming up with reasons to deny employees pay rises. It'll probably be called something like "operating at or below budget".
This goes on right up a corporation, until you get to the very top with their $x00,000 bonuses, as there is no one higher to keep them in check.
Perhaps if the system didn't work like this, fewer people would walk off with everything from stationery to corporate secrets?
Best cock-up I saw was a computer room with a 4ft under-floor void. There should have been a 4 inch void, but there was a major cock-up between architects and builders. The floor panels sat on some spookily-sized pillars (which must have been specially made) and the IT staff actually put some servers under the floor.
Slashdot Mirror
This system might also be hackable, such that people can preserve their privacy and not be listened in on from hundreds of feet away.
You simply have a microphone near your mouth, sample it, and repeat the sound out of a speaker with slight echoes with randomised delays. There must be something that could interfere with the process they use to "zoom in" on a particular sound source. Maybe if you can measure the distance to the listening device, it would be possible to manipulate the frequency of sounds you are making so as to create a standing wave or something that would cause the microphones to be overloaded or to hear nothing..... shit, maybe the tech that drives noise cancelling headphones could be used here? Who you are speaking to gets an earpiece with unedited sound piped to them, and speakers on your lapels kick out anti-sound so eavesdroppers hear nothing.
So now in public, you just need to have strings of randomised flashing IR LEDs illuminating your face, so CCTV has a hard time capturing your image, and now something to mess with your voice so that The Man cannot listen in too! If you are thinking "paranoid fucker", I am thinking what the fuck business is it of people to listen in on me? And that's a rhetorical question: I don't need to be told to think of the children, etc..
Last year I paid $210,000 in taxes on income of $635,000. Are you saying I didn't pay enough?
Even though I am on minimum wage working here, part time, at McDonalds, I too think you are paying too much tax. I say this because I know that if I work hard enough I will become a millionaire, and I wouldn't want to pay loads of tax if I were^W^W^W when I become rich.
It's probably because there seems to be a hard core of very *loud* Americans who yell (figuratively, online) at the top of their voices about how any renewable power is no good. They also yell loudly about how $INSERT_EFFICIENT_TECHNOLOGY is no good, too. It's almost as if they think being energy inefficient is something to be proud of.
They have mod points too:
(Score:1, Troll)
by Alioth (221270)
I got the wrong end of the stick about the location service. What is offered on the back of our certificate is what they call "locate", but in reality for 17.95UKP for 8 years you get free[1] changes of address on the identichip system, free holiday address recording, a free email reminding you to check your details (FFS!), and a find a vet service (for the terminally stupid who can't even cope with the Yellow Pages).
But have they put this locate service on the back of the certificate so people might think what I did, that the chip alone doesn't mean an effort will be made to return your lost animal?
The identification and location service doesn't do anything as sophisticated as GPS. The chip can report the animal's body temperature though, I think. Better for the dog than sticking a thermometer up its arse!
[1] I fucking hate it when companies call shit free, but is only available if you pay for it. Hardly free! The word to use is "included", not "free". Mobile phone operators are the worst for promoting their services with lavish use of free, but only in exchange for money.
The identichip certificate for our dog just happens to be out, and I have looked at it due to this story.
It appears that identichip also sell an animal locating service, and they promote it on the back of the certificate. This might partially explain why the guy has been having problems (assuming his chip is done by the same organisation) - he may well have the dog chipped for identification, but doesn't have the locating service?
Oh yeah, they charge an annual fee for the location service too. And lets be honest, when people get their dog chipped they want to be buying the ability to get their animal back if it goes missing, not a simple identification method. No doubt if you get your animal chipped by identichip, but don't pay for the location service, if a vet or charity find your missing dog, ID it, and try to return it to you, identichip will not hand over the data - hiding behind the DPA. If you do pay for the location service, no doubt they still don't hand over the data but contact the registered owner to say vet X has your pet.
WTF is the use of being able to ID an animal, but not be able to get it back? To me, this looks like another fucking business exploiting people by selling a basic service that is useless, and then providing what the customer actually would want as a premium service.
Maybe just putting a dog-tag on the collar, or greyhound style tattoos is a better idea?
Our dog has been re-homed, and so came with the chip pre-installed. In the future, I will be very much thinking twice about getting an animal chipped if it means that I still have to pay an annual fee for location. I don't do business with companies that have bullshit practices.
If it was going to be a facility for government continuation against a nuclear strike, not putting in a Faraday cage when the place was being built would be rather short sighted. Though if they are expanding the facility, the cage might not be complete.
It's like watching a show on TV... and having every 3rd ad be the *SAME EXACT FUGGIN AD*. Makes me *NOT* buy something.
I'd like to think I am savvy enough to do that kind of thing too. But I know my memory isn't perfect (and be aware of anyone who ever claims to have a good memory - they ironically tend to have forgotten about the things they have forgotten), so I know that I will get some details wrong.
But when spammers (all advertisers are spammers) spam your face with a product name, and you think fuck buying widget X, you might forget that they pissed you off with their marketing methods. If you remember the product name, then the ad has been at least a partial success.
Adverts are designed to influence our purchasing habits, and they are most effective when we don't notice them effecting us. Why do I buy certain products? Is it because I like the products, or is it because they have spammed my face, and so I haven't tried competing products? I dunno, but I may well be making decisions that I think are in my interest, but actually are not. And I don't like being manipulated.
My solution, block all adverts, everywhere. TFA was useful as it provided a couple of links and names of advertising companies. That's a few more domains blacklisted in NoScript and Adblock. I mute the TV when adverts come on, not that I watch huge amounts of it - so many programmes are ruined by product placement or other veiled adverts, or shit like the glorification of consumerism, war, or other tools of rampant capitalism (not that tame local shop bullshit that most internet economists seem to subscribe to). Commercial radio tends to all by much of a muchness (bland pop music), but if I do listen to it, it'll be turned down when the ads come on. Though to be fair, I do this when DJs prattle on too. I try to ignore billboards, but how much does consciously trying not to think about an advert count as thinking about it? I don't frequent seriously nasty commercial establishments, like McDonalds, unless I need a shit when I'm out. When going to somewhere like a mall, I go straight to the shop I want to go to, get what I need, back to the car and home. None of that browsing, which tends to be a metaphor for impulse shopping.
Some shops even have little TVs playing adverts on permanent loops. I pull the mains lead out the back of them, if one is close when I go in and out of a shop.
"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising: kill yourself".
- Bill Hicks
What do you expect? Most of the people advocating Steam will have probably spent quite a bit of money through the thing. They don't want to think they have wasted, or even risked, their time and money on a something that has the ability to whip away their purchases at a moment's notice (I dunno if Steam can do this, but that's generally what DRM does when it decides the user isn't authorised, or goes wrong).
I once had a big argument with a guy who was convinced that whilst software frequently has bugs, DRM mechanisms didn't. Pointing out that DRM mechanisms routinely get by passed, due to their bugs, didn't matter. He was convinced that copy protection mechanisms work, and he must have been convinced by PR, advertising, or anecdotes on the internet from fanboys. Or the desire not to have to face the fact he had paid for products with the ability to break themselves.
Buyer's remorse is unpleasant, and people will go to quite some lengths to avoid the possibility of it.
Nice to think being a muppet is worth modding up.
Also, you have to trust the optional submission isn't buggy, and does what the user wants. Yeah, that's clutching at straws, but I can think of at least one instance of proprietary software privacy raping when it shouldn't have been. Real, years ago, was "accidentally" uniquely identifying installations of its player when it declared them anonymous.
The data collected via crash reports and update checking mechanisms could have commercial worth to the vendor. They have a financial interest in possibly misleading the user as to exactly what the update checks or crash reports do.
So, you gave up on bugfixes and new features for MP3Tag because they added an optional update checking mechanism...
Yes, yes I did avoid bugfixes and new features, as the principle of privacy is more important to me.
The choices are use an old version of the software, use a current version and live with a lower level of privacy (the application notified the developer each time the application was run, IIRC), or use a different product. As I quite like MP3Tag, I took the first choice, though have been keeping my eyes peeled for something to fit category 3.
MP3Tag, even though it is freeware, isn't OSS. I would rather use Free software whenever possible these days. The more software has features that possibly benefit the developer or publisher more than the user, the more I step away from using their products at all.
A developer doesn't want support questions from users on old versions, and an update mechanism helps push users onto the new versions. For for-profit entities, the fewer versions the user base are using, the lower the support costs.
and Microsoft is violating your privacy because they offer you the option to send a report if an application crashes.
An option that is ticked by default, in not a simple to find place. Any declaration of privacy compromise will be hidden away in pages of legalese that very few people read, and fewer understand.
I know I don't understand legalese, nor the inner workings of Windows, or other proprietary products, so I act sceptically about anything that is said.
It's insane that stuff like that get's modded up.
What is insane is how the user is seen as secondary to the desires of the developer[1], or the business' interests, and that people accept this shit situation!
[1] Though a simple utility can be someone's pet project. As much as users might bitch, its is ultimately up to the developer how the application works, and what features are there or not. The user is free to walk away when they like.
Yeap, the integrated spyware in many applications, mostly proprietary ones, is one of the worst things about current software.
The spyware is usually presented to the user as some hand-holding feature, like update checks, or crash reporting. This article does demonstrate though that at least 1 proprietary vendor does get and look at data that could be potentially private. What if IE crashes on a private website, like an intranet or password protected www site for a few friends? MS will get at least some of that data, it looks like.
The article presents the story in the context of nasty hackers (but I think they took out the bit about the hackers being paedo-terr'ist hackers), which is exploiting most users' naivete. The users don't realise that if the baddies can have their privacy violated, the goodies can too. Proper journalism would have addressed this, but ZDNet is just another example of an industry rag trying to promote the industry as wonderful.
The possible extra info leaked when things like crash reporting and update checks are performed has always been enough for me to turn off features like those, or even avoid products with those features. eg MP3Tag gained an update check mechanism, I removed the application and installed the oldest version without the spyware.
Which is why all people who work for, or are involved in anyway with a corporation, should be in a union. They level the playing field. Yes, it means you are stooping to the same level as the corporations in some regards, but if you don't you will always be fucked over.
The coup corporations have pulled is to convince the middle class, and most of the working class, not to unionise. How that coup works is why this post will probably get modded down.
More like c:\con\con\grtlns.w95
**A fatal exception 0E has occurred at blah:blah in VXD....**
Yeap, 2000 was the pinnacle of MS products. Since then they have been focusing even more on attracting new users to computers, and as a consequence the amount of shiny-shiny and hand holding has sky rocketed.
2000 pro never had remote desktop, but the server versions did. I used to use 2000 server as my desktop OS for a good while, because it was essentially the same as 2000 pro, but with the useful feature of terminal services. I used to connect to the TS from work so that I could surf, IRC, usenet, etc. from work, without incriminating applications or data on my work PC.
My work Win 95 machine, in the 300MHz days, was coaxed into running for about 30 days without a reboot. By then it was unusable though, I remember icons on the screen all being corrupted, you could barely start any applications due to lack of resources. I can't remember if I purposefully rebooted it in the end, or if it crashed.
9x did not do stability, but it did mean that when sat in front of a 9x machine you wouldn't get stuck at the office late. 2 minutes before home time, a quick double ctrl-alt-del and it would be a case of "fucking Windows has crashed again. Oh well, might as well go home, 'cause I can do anything without the computer working". You can't get away with that any more, every day. Maybe once a month. The PHBs have wised-up to the fact that most computers don't appear to be as shit as they used to be. Windows is of course as shit as it used to be, just in different ways.
Just remembered another 95 PC in the same office, connected up to a client's network for support, that went really strange one day, the clock started going too quickly. I think it was going about 4 times faster than it should, and seeing the clock spinning too fast was utterly hilarious. The machine seemed to be working fine otherwise though. A reboot cleared it, and I never saw Windows do that again... that was the kind of craziness you got with 9x!.
WTF is Freudian?
Kids don't get taught about psychology, and industry and state doesn't talk about psychology, because psychology is the science that is abused to create PR, propaganda, and advertising. If the people knew about psychology (and even things like what a Freudian slip is, or who Freud was), then they would be much less effected by PR, propaganda, and advertising.
I think those crackpots Scientologists oppose psychology too because if people understood psychology, they would be able to spot the brainwashing.
I thought I recognised the name Gimmelwald. After a bit of Wikipedia'ing, it is where I thought, in the Lauterbrunnen valley. And what a valley that is, classic U shaped glacial valley.
That mountain face you are talking about is very possibly the north face of the Eiger. The description of hundreds of metres of vertical rock, and the fact that a local only knew of 1 person to have climbed it screams the Eiger to me. Have a look at some of the pictures on that WP article, and they will probably be familiar.... an amazingly beautiful part of the world.
But, but, but..... Iran is bad, mmmkay. The TV told me!
Anyway....
The kinda irony with this nuclear power plant is that uranium fission for electricity was commercialised partly due to a side effect: the production of plutonium. I think I am right in saying that there is more thorium in the Earth's crust than uranium, thorium is more easily available, it is fissionable, and doesn't produce the same pollutants (or explosives, if you want to look at it like that) that the fission of uranium does.
If the west doesn't want countries producing nuclear weapons, why not help them with a thorium based fission plant? Or perhaps the ownership of nuclear weapons isn't the whole story?
The west actually seems to want to keep countries down economically, any way they can (you can't be rich, unless there are poor). Energy freedom is a major thing for human civilisations.
I've seen lots of adverts for similar books in paper books before (usually right at then end of the book).
AdBlock for books.
Technology is supposed to be improving our lives. Why, then, are we accepting uses of it that do not improve our lives and only serve the interests of publishing and marketing companies?
Because those groups have some of the loudest voices in our societies, and drown out any alternative point of view with their message of "consumer, consume, consume". Everyone is susceptible to be manipulated by this kind of thing, some more than others. Some a lot more than others.
Ok, never having had a need for using Flash, I'm kinda curious what that different purpose is?
Say you want to make a banner advert that stands out, Flash is your answer. Not only can you do animations, but sounds too!
Say you want to provide information about your business, its services or products, but you don't want potential customers to be able to use that data? Like being able to copy/paste it, so they could perhaps do a comparison in a spreadsheet, or format the data how they like to present to whoever will sign off the costs. Flash is great for this.
Say you want to make a clone of a game that's been around for 20 years. Yeap, Flash means that not only can you recreate an old game on a new computer, you can make that computer perform like a 20 year old computer too!
Say you are a fucking tool who wants to implement a DRM'd up website? Yeap, the makers of Flash make all sorts of promises about Flash, like you can allow users to view something, but not copy it. Yes, Flash allows you to break the laws of physics! (Or something).
What if you have no respect of other's privacy? Flash can be used to track and trend users across the web. And say those pesky commie Linux users come along and do things like tell people to delete their cookies, Flash enables you to recreate those cookies, and so the tracking doesn't stop. Flash also allows you to find out even more about the user's computer than the browser will reveal by default, or through the use of javascript.
Say you want to spend lots of money on a brand new computer, even though you already have a perfectly working one? Flash is great that in that security holes are not fixed in the older versions, and newer versions do not necessarily work on older computers. So Flash is great for helping you empty your wallet, either into the IT industry's coffers, or into the bank account of someone from a country very few people could find on a map.
You are right, reboot is a shite term. It's clearly just marketing bollocks.
Reset would be a much more accurate, but reset kind of implies that it (a TV series) was done wrong in the past. If the old series' DVDs are still on the shelves, you don't want to do that!
Taking a word from the world of tech means there isn't much baggage of extra meaning to most people that "reset" does have. Apart from to geeks like you and I who hear shit like "Batman has been rebooted", and cringe.
Ever wonder why performance reviews are fucking ridiculous and you can never meet all of your "benchmarks"?
Often the person deciding if you have met your benchmarks has their own benchmark of coming up with reasons to deny employees pay rises. It'll probably be called something like "operating at or below budget".
This goes on right up a corporation, until you get to the very top with their $x00,000 bonuses, as there is no one higher to keep them in check.
Perhaps if the system didn't work like this, fewer people would walk off with everything from stationery to corporate secrets?
No shit I don't own the copyright. I don't own the copyright on this post.
Yes, you do. From the bottom of every Slashdot page:
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Best cock-up I saw was a computer room with a 4ft under-floor void. There should have been a 4 inch void, but there was a major cock-up between architects and builders. The floor panels sat on some spookily-sized pillars (which must have been specially made) and the IT staff actually put some servers under the floor.
Was Nigel Tufnel the architect?