Sigh I miss the days when AOL gave a free Floppy Disk every day on your doorstep. That way you just take it Re-Format it and you have extra storage. When they went to CD's it was a sad day for me. They could have at least made them on CD-R so I can burn a new partition on it to store stuff.
I tried that theory, too, but after a while it became clear that either AOL used low-quality crappy floppies or the USPS didn't care much about them in transit (or both), given I kept getting bad sectors out of them when I reformatted them.
I was picturing a 1950s-era monster movie poster or trailer, myself.
"Coming this fall to a theater near YOU! They're terrible... they're horrible... they're GASTROPODS!" "Oh no! The snails have just taken Fort Lauderdale! Hurry! We've only got a few months to evacuate before they eventually get to Miami! The airport will be moderately more busy!" "Giant snails are invading Florida! Where did they come from? What do they want? How many more will eventually perish in the lethargic onslaught, given enough time? Find out this fall in... DAY OF THE SNAIL!"
Claiming the parties' were engaged in 'obstreperous and cantankerous conduct', he said that the lawsuit was part of 'a business strategy that appears to have no end.'
Motorola lawyer: Yeah. Apple lawyer: And? Judge:*long pause**deep sigh* Very well. *gets up, starts walking towards lawyers* I believe, at this point, I am legally permitted, by the great State of Florida, to dope-slap the both of you. Not only am I permitted to do so, I may be legally required as well, something I am not about to question. Please turn around.
Human teeth from mouse kidneys. Because why the hell not? Next week, we'll start on our project to make alligator spleens from parrot intestines. Time permitting, there's always the cheetah-bones-from-elephant-skin plan or the one where we make dog fur from jellyfish stingers. If we get enough funding, we might be able to complete our magnum opus, recreating the heart of a triceratops from the colon of a neanderthal!
Red Hat* -> Slackware -> FreeBSD** -> Gentoo + Kubuntu
*: Before RHEL existed. **: Okay, fine, that's not Linux, but that's still what replaced Slack on that particular box.
My current server and desktop are both Gentoo, while my laptop is Kubuntu (hence the +). No, there's no particular logical progression, really. Each just looked neat as I came across them.
As someone who likes to play games, a prototype cartridge only really has value to me if it's a beta or otherwise different version from the released game or for an obscure game that never actually got released (i.e. the English version of Mother 1 (colloquially: Earthbound Zero), which was translated and localized, but had the plug pulled at the last second before NOA released it). Apart from tossing it in a display case and inviting people to come stare at it for a few seconds, what would be the purpose of a prototype cart of one of the most popular games of the NES era? To me, it sounds like it has the same amount of novelty as the gold cases: "Yes, it's the same program as the game everyone else has... but this one's in a funny-looking prototype case!"
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Because you're getting tired of Quarter Pounders With Cheese and you wanted to experience the Royale With Cheese that Jules and Vincent were talking about?
Btw, to those who don't know who Tim Schafer is, he was the Lead Designer on Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. Ron Gilbert, who is also on the team, is the guy who designed Monkey Island. This is the stuff of legends, people. I never thought this could ever happen.. Kickstarter really works!
Eh... Granted, times may be different, as may be these people, and I'd love to see this work, but I believe gamers said the same thing about John Romero and Tom Hall when Ion Storm came about...
I'd agree with you, but in the eons that have passed in this, the post-TaoPhoenix's-post era, it's become entirely irrelevant. Just like the first half of my post, in this post-Captain-Spam's-first-half-of-his-post era.
Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
I'd agree with you except for the part about having a message. I still can't figure out what they were protesting other than the fact that some people have a shitload more money than other people. As for those rich people getting their money in ethically challenged ways... well that's not particularly new, nor is it ever going to change.
I wish they actually had some conception of what they want other than, what they don't want. I guess you have to start somewhere, but movements that don't have specific goals are ripe for other people to either ignore or worse to co-opt into their own scheme to gain power "to help The People".
It took them a while (probably relating to them catching on that the media wasn't understanding them at all), but I think they finally stabilized on protesting the "socialized risk, privatized profit" sort of thing that modern businesses were getting away with (redundant emphasis on think). That is, the bits where the banks that committed blatant fraud but whose managers got off with a slap on the wrist at worst, massive bailout loans at best, etc, etc.
I mean, that's a decent thing to protest and all, but it's clear these kids don't understand the concept of "you never get a second chance to make a first impression". Maybe if they got their intent clear first off rather than assuming that everyone just intrinsically KNEW what they meant, things might be different, but they led with a muddy, contradictory message, and that's what everyone's going to remember about them. They've got a much harder road ahead of them if they hope to change anything.
Honestly, I can't imagine it'll be that huge an implication. Just because it'll be legal doesn't at all mean Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony need to make it easy, nor does it stop them from ruining old jailbreak methods with new firmware, like what they do now, to whatever effectiveness it does.
It just means fewer people get arrested for it. And I don't think I've heard about many arrests in that area lately.
Whatever the odds, some of the data we send over ssh and ssl today should remain private for a century, and we simply can't guarantee secrecy anymore using the algorithms with which we have become complacent.
If I may, I would like to quote the MC Frontalot song, "Secrets From The Future":
You can't hide secrets from the future with math, you can try, but I'll bet that in the future they laugh at the half-assed schemes and algorithms amassed to enforce cryptographs in the past.
The rest of the song does a pretty good job of explaining exactly how absurd the entire concept of keeping data private, long-term (like, say, a century as suggested, or even twenty years when RSA is theorized to fall), entirely using encryption algorithms. Brings up points like how nobody's going to care about things like your shopping habits (as embarrassing as they may be), credit card transactions from cards expired twenty years previous, sensitive SSH streams decades old, etc. And that it's a moot point anyway, as it's impossible to predict technology out that far, so it's more than a bit futile to count on math to protect things on a time scale like that.
Best of all, your secret: nothing extant could extract it By 2025 a children's Speak & Spell could crack it.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently revealed that he is now leading Google's efforts to ready a driverless car for the consumer market, but one big, publicly-unanswered question is: Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles?
In my opinion, it's a sad, sad reflection of our current technological atmosphere that "Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles?" is the big, publicly-unanswered question, far ahead of, say, "How is it going to work?", "What infrastructure will need to be in place for it to work?", "How much will it cost?", "What sort of services and/or functionality will it supply?", or "What's the underlying technology?", each of which are either vital considerations to the actual functioning of the car or just would be really really interesting and cool to know.
Hell, the fact that it even rates above "What are the legal ramifications of such a device?" or more specifically "How are road laws going to change with these devices on the road?" paints a picture I don't think anyone commissioned.
But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision, and I'm not sure why so many people are having fun at his expense when everything he asked for seemed perfectly reasonable.
It's his tone, not the content. These days, in our times of bully hating, if you 'sound' arrogant, then it is enough for people to not like you, even if you're actually the nicest guy in the world.
But Steve Jobs, as we have learned AND as we have known while he was alive, was a grade-A arrogant self-centered narcissistic megalomaniac asshole, straight up, openly and proudly, without any regrets or concern for anyone who wasn't him or — heaven forbid — disagreed with him, and people not only liked him, they worshipped the very ground he walked on. How does that fit in your model?
Slashdot Mirror
Same type of stuff. Anyone ever run yowlines on their startup-sequence?
No, but I frequently wonder if I'm having fun yet.
So, being quite cynical about such things, in what way would a proof of this conjecture allow him to make more money?
Philanthropy and advancing science are good, but my first thoughts is that if someone can prove this he stands to make massive amounts of money.
You know the old jokes about rich people paying bums on the street to fight for their own amusement? Well, extend that to mathematicians.
Sigh I miss the days when AOL gave a free Floppy Disk every day on your doorstep. That way you just take it Re-Format it and you have extra storage. When they went to CD's it was a sad day for me. They could have at least made them on CD-R so I can burn a new partition on it to store stuff.
I tried that theory, too, but after a while it became clear that either AOL used low-quality crappy floppies or the USPS didn't care much about them in transit (or both), given I kept getting bad sectors out of them when I reformatted them.
I was picturing a 1950s-era monster movie poster or trailer, myself.
"Coming this fall to a theater near YOU! They're terrible... they're horrible... they're GASTROPODS!"
"Oh no! The snails have just taken Fort Lauderdale! Hurry! We've only got a few months to evacuate before they eventually get to Miami! The airport will be moderately more busy!"
"Giant snails are invading Florida! Where did they come from? What do they want? How many more will eventually perish in the lethargic onslaught, given enough time? Find out this fall in... DAY OF THE SNAIL!"
Claiming the parties' were engaged in 'obstreperous and cantankerous conduct', he said that the lawsuit was part of 'a business strategy that appears to have no end.'
Motorola lawyer: Yeah.
Apple lawyer: And?
Judge: *long pause* *deep sigh* Very well. *gets up, starts walking towards lawyers* I believe, at this point, I am legally permitted, by the great State of Florida, to dope-slap the both of you. Not only am I permitted to do so, I may be legally required as well, something I am not about to question. Please turn around.
"Windfarm Sickness"? Lame.
"Don Quixote Syndrome"? Much better.
Human teeth from mouse kidneys. Because why the hell not? Next week, we'll start on our project to make alligator spleens from parrot intestines. Time permitting, there's always the cheetah-bones-from-elephant-skin plan or the one where we make dog fur from jellyfish stingers. If we get enough funding, we might be able to complete our magnum opus, recreating the heart of a triceratops from the colon of a neanderthal!
He then went on to proclaim the 'absolutely breakneck pace' of innovation in the smartphone industry [...]
In that each smartphone manufacturer is using the patent system in new and innovative ways as a legal bludgeon to break each other's necks, right?
For me, it went something like:
Red Hat* -> Slackware -> FreeBSD** -> Gentoo + Kubuntu
*: Before RHEL existed.
**: Okay, fine, that's not Linux, but that's still what replaced Slack on that particular box.
My current server and desktop are both Gentoo, while my laptop is Kubuntu (hence the +). No, there's no particular logical progression, really. Each just looked neat as I came across them.
Just to clarify, in case anyone jumped to the same conclusion I did at first:
Scientists Record Signal Of Distant Black Hole Consuming A Star
Not:
Scientists Record Signal Of Distant Black-Hole-Consuming Star
Minor difference.
As someone who likes to play games, a prototype cartridge only really has value to me if it's a beta or otherwise different version from the released game or for an obscure game that never actually got released (i.e. the English version of Mother 1 (colloquially: Earthbound Zero), which was translated and localized, but had the plug pulled at the last second before NOA released it). Apart from tossing it in a display case and inviting people to come stare at it for a few seconds, what would be the purpose of a prototype cart of one of the most popular games of the NES era? To me, it sounds like it has the same amount of novelty as the gold cases: "Yes, it's the same program as the game everyone else has... but this one's in a funny-looking prototype case!"
The underlying question is why, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you eat at a McDonald's in France?
Because you're getting tired of Quarter Pounders With Cheese and you wanted to experience the Royale With Cheese that Jules and Vincent were talking about?
You are aware that the 80386 processor (what Windows 3.1 was designed for), which was 32-bit, was first released in '85, right?
Note to a specific age group of Slashdot readers: You are aware exactly how old that fact I just presented makes us feel, right? *sigh*
Fuck yeah!
Btw, to those who don't know who Tim Schafer is, he was the Lead Designer on Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. Ron Gilbert, who is also on the team, is the guy who designed Monkey Island. This is the stuff of legends, people. I never thought this could ever happen.. Kickstarter really works!
Eh... Granted, times may be different, as may be these people, and I'd love to see this work, but I believe gamers said the same thing about John Romero and Tom Hall when Ion Storm came about...
I'd agree with you, but in the eons that have passed in this, the post-TaoPhoenix's-post era, it's become entirely irrelevant. Just like the first half of my post, in this post-Captain-Spam's-first-half-of-his-post era.
I was going to go with "Snipin's a good job, mate. Challengin' work, out of doors, and besides, the chip in my head says so!"
How are we supposed to play 3D pinball in the server room now?
Wait, you DON'T have a real, physical pinball table in your server room?
Well, there was some rejoicing. Deutsche Telekom still wants out of the US market, so we can sort of expect to be treated like second-class citizens for a while until the inevitable occurs and either T-Mobile sinks entirely or someone ELSE buys them out.
I'd agree with you except for the part about having a message. I still can't figure out what they were protesting other than the fact that some people have a shitload more money than other people. As for those rich people getting their money in ethically challenged ways... well that's not particularly new, nor is it ever going to change.
I wish they actually had some conception of what they want other than, what they don't want. I guess you have to start somewhere, but movements that don't have specific goals are ripe for other people to either ignore or worse to co-opt into their own scheme to gain power "to help The People".
It took them a while (probably relating to them catching on that the media wasn't understanding them at all), but I think they finally stabilized on protesting the "socialized risk, privatized profit" sort of thing that modern businesses were getting away with (redundant emphasis on think ). That is, the bits where the banks that committed blatant fraud but whose managers got off with a slap on the wrist at worst, massive bailout loans at best, etc, etc.
I mean, that's a decent thing to protest and all, but it's clear these kids don't understand the concept of "you never get a second chance to make a first impression". Maybe if they got their intent clear first off rather than assuming that everyone just intrinsically KNEW what they meant, things might be different, but they led with a muddy, contradictory message, and that's what everyone's going to remember about them. They've got a much harder road ahead of them if they hope to change anything.
Honestly, I can't imagine it'll be that huge an implication. Just because it'll be legal doesn't at all mean Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony need to make it easy, nor does it stop them from ruining old jailbreak methods with new firmware, like what they do now, to whatever effectiveness it does.
It just means fewer people get arrested for it. And I don't think I've heard about many arrests in that area lately.
The fictional ones have balls the size of watermelons.
Huh, I always wondered why Peach put up with Mario's odd fascination with magic outfits and such...
Whatever the odds, some of the data we send over ssh and ssl today should remain private for a century, and we simply can't guarantee secrecy anymore using the algorithms with which we have become complacent.
If I may, I would like to quote the MC Frontalot song, "Secrets From The Future":
You can't hide secrets from the future
with math, you can try, but I'll bet that in the future
they laugh at the half-assed schemes and algorithms
amassed to enforce cryptographs in the past.
The rest of the song does a pretty good job of explaining exactly how absurd the entire concept of keeping data private, long-term (like, say, a century as suggested, or even twenty years when RSA is theorized to fall), entirely using encryption algorithms. Brings up points like how nobody's going to care about things like your shopping habits (as embarrassing as they may be), credit card transactions from cards expired twenty years previous, sensitive SSH streams decades old, etc. And that it's a moot point anyway, as it's impossible to predict technology out that far, so it's more than a bit futile to count on math to protect things on a time scale like that.
Best of all, your secret: nothing extant could extract it
By 2025 a children's Speak & Spell could crack it.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently revealed that he is now leading Google's efforts to ready a driverless car for the consumer market, but one big, publicly-unanswered question is: Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles?
In my opinion, it's a sad, sad reflection of our current technological atmosphere that "Who exactly owns the intellectual property behind the highly-touted vehicles?" is the big, publicly-unanswered question, far ahead of, say, "How is it going to work?", "What infrastructure will need to be in place for it to work?", "How much will it cost?", "What sort of services and/or functionality will it supply?", or "What's the underlying technology?", each of which are either vital considerations to the actual functioning of the car or just would be really really interesting and cool to know.
Hell, the fact that it even rates above "What are the legal ramifications of such a device?" or more specifically "How are road laws going to change with these devices on the road?" paints a picture I don't think anyone commissioned.
But there's nothing in his tour rider that deserves derision, and I'm not sure why so many people are having fun at his expense when everything he asked for seemed perfectly reasonable.
It's his tone, not the content. These days, in our times of bully hating, if you 'sound' arrogant, then it is enough for people to not like you, even if you're actually the nicest guy in the world.
But Steve Jobs, as we have learned AND as we have known while he was alive, was a grade-A arrogant self-centered narcissistic megalomaniac asshole, straight up, openly and proudly, without any regrets or concern for anyone who wasn't him or — heaven forbid — disagreed with him, and people not only liked him, they worshipped the very ground he walked on. How does that fit in your model?
All I was wondering was if U2 was called in to discuss the proceedings...