From the article: "The compromised machines are controlled by a 'botmaster'... If that command-and-control is disabled, all the machines in that botnet become useless to the botmaster."
Somewhere, there is a joke that begins with the quote "I AM TEH BOTMASTER!" and ends with the quote "AND I AM TEH GATEKEEPER!", but alas, I cannot figure it out right now.
The reason I decided to leave had to do with my specific experiences..
"Specific experience" with Microsoft eh?? I had one of those before! Like the time I switched over to that other non-really-real search engine company and the CEO started making monkey noises (something about "I love this company!!! RAWR!!") and throwing a chair around the room.
So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.
Fantastic! I've always thought copious amounts of caffeine and an anonymous method of browsing for porn were meant for ubergeeks like myself, but now that my *grandma* can do it as well, that's just fantastic!
You Know You Are A Geek when a/. story with the name "New Ion Engine Being Tested" makes you nearly drop the beer and wonder how a defunct game company is producing new engines.
Nonetheless, I blame John Romero for my own confusion and/or angst, because it makes me feel better.:p
I tried this out when I was a OOH SHINY!
Somewhere in the Army, someone is just now figuring out that chrome on the grenade pin might have been a bad idea...
Ok, I'm not one to defend surveys much if at all given that many of them are biased and not done correctly, but the reasoning you mentioned is simply flawed. Surveys are not meant to be done on the entire population, because polling 280 million Americans would be an impossible and unfeasible task.
Surveys take a sample of the population to be polled and use that as a representative measure of the rest of the population. The sample size then is given a confidence interval of +/- percentage points (usually 5%) that indicate the accuracy of the poll, within a reasonable standard deviation. In English, this means that polls aren't 100% accurate, but a properly done survey should be accurate within 5% of the acutal figure the majority of the time.
Selecting a random sample from the population is often the hardest part of any survey, but can be done correctly. To flat out say that using samples means that the data is irrelevant is completely inaccurate.
I used Netflix when they first came out, as I thought it was a very novel idea and one worth trying. It worked great until I ran into the same problems that everyone else did - delays with new movies, being pushed into the far reaches of the queue and other inconveniences. I quit Netflix due to their growing pains, but didn't have a ton of animosity toward them. Having been in the business world, I understand that sometimes you can shoot yourself in the foot with success when demand exceeds capacity.
Recently, I was given a Netflix subscription again and noticed that they've gone through substantial upgrades, added new features and have none of the same queue problems that I exeprienced before. To me, this shows the maturation of the company, because they have the resources now to meet their customer base, given that they are now a very profitable company with the means.
I don't think Blockbuster is going to go kaput over the issue, because there will always be people who prefer a brick and mortar video store or you'll have an occasion where you can't wait a few days in the mail for a video. For this, Blockbuster is king. However, the cost of running a B&M operation like Blockbuster far surpasses an online only entity like Netflix, where store space, rent, maintenance, employees and the like are no longer issues. This means that Netflixs' margins are simply leaps ahead of what Blockbuster could even hope to achieve in their wildest dreams.
So can Blockbuster compete with Netflix? I think the answer is on the walls to everyone. I think this is exactly why Blockbuster tossed everything (and the kitchen sink) against Netflix, because they saw the picture and it didn't look pretty.
Do I think Blockbuster is going to bite the bullet? Not at all. Do I think Netflix will take a giant cut of of their market and force Blockbuster to resign itself to a B&M only operation with limited expansion abilities? Very much so.
From the article: "A prototype of the scanner, called MONSTIR..."
Ok, even though I have somewhat of a background in usability and marketing, I don't think I need to point out what may be a funny point in selling this technology...
Doc: Ok ma'am, things might look GRIM, but don't worry, we're going to attach our newest, greatest technology to your baby's head and blast the little meatbag with rays to get a good look at what is going on!
Mother: Um.. this sounds a little unsafe..
Doc: Don't worry, with a name like "MONSTER", what could go wrong?!
I think only a trained sociologist will probably have a good idea on the link between the Japanese and their fascination (or in this case, level of comfort) with robots.
That said though, for anyone familiar with Japan or having lived there before, those that live in the city have a very, very different way of life than in places like the United States. The pace of life is faster, the population density is higher and there is a generally an absurd amount of strangers that you pass by on a daily basis. The fast, brisk level of interaction required to perform your daily tasks with others is just an automated response after awhile. It's no surprise to me that Japan is the leader in automation, simply due to this constant barrage of hit-and-run interaction.
I would venture that the Japanese have simply become accustom to automated systems and technology, having evolved around the idea of using non-human tools to help them throughout the day. If you asked another person in a fast paced city such as New York or LA versus a slower city like Austin or Memphis on their opinion toward robots, I would imagine you get a correlation between pace of life and comfort level with robots (or automation).
Tantric IT you say? I practice the art of Solitare, where my goal is to furiously sneak as many sessions during the day as possible without my boss walking in by surprise.
I say it leads to higher daily satisfaction and motor coordination.
This is a hardcopy book to be sold in bookstores to normal people.
Sir, I take grave offense at your implication that the slashdot crowd is not normal! In fact, I challenge you to a roll of 1d20 post-haste. Draw your sword, knave!
At the end all the oems flock to the company that can mass manufacture.
Not to be the one to bring out the capitalistic ball and chain here, but we are talking about businesses here, aren't we? It would really not make sense for a large company like NEC to simply go with AMD unless it helped NEC; not because AMD is a better chip.
It could be anything from supply, price margins, architecture, who knows.. but NEC is simply doing what they think is the right choice.
At least this will make people happy as when Digital Universe posts an article with incorrect information, someone can actually sue a corporation with money that has a static location.
Fantastic! We at goatse.cx can finally slap any would be Wikipedia snubs with libel if they dare call our art mere "shock" factor for internet trolls!
There's been a lot of postings about this tournament being bunk due to a lot of misconceptions about the game of poker. As a successful poker player of quite a few years and also a geek, I do believe I have an informed opinion here when I say that A) poker is profitable B) poker bots can and have been created C) the effort to code a high level poker bot is incredibly, incredibly difficult.
A team at the University of Alberta has been working on with a poker research group that has been researching and coding poker bots for years. One look at their page should tell you that there is definitely some high level thinking and analysis required to develop a poker bot. More importantly, is that fact that they *have* delivered a bot called Poki Poker that has an impressive record at beating human opponents in 1 vs 1 heads-up matches. Brian Alspach, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at Simon Fraser University has also contributed numerous publications to the field, giving credence to the fact that there is a genuine science behind creating an AI that can play good poker.
So, before anyone else spouts off about poker being a game of chance or poker bots being mindless hundred line pieces of code, please do your research. A lot of people have worked very hard on this subject to simply have it dismissed as beneath them. Just ask yourself this: If you could create a poker bot so easily, one that could generate at the very least, a poker bot that made $2/hr playing the low limit games, what would stop you from launching thousands of these bots upon the online world? Because unlike a human, you can replicate a bot innumerable times, which in this case would be the equivalent of finding the goose that lays golden eggs. If you understand this, you may begin to understand why there is so much interest in the creation of poker bots..
Parent is somewhat right. Bluffing can be an integral part of the game, depending on the format of the game being played, along with the limit played (amount of cash wagered).
In a high stakes game or no-limit game, bluffing is very common, because every bet and action often involves a significant amount of money and little mistakes over the course of a session can end up costing large sums of money. Thus, bluffing becomes a viable weapon in these game formats because you can use your opponents' fear of making mistakes against him.
However, in a small stakes game, bluffing is often close to impossible, as many players are simply put, unbluffable. With the current poker boom, the skill level of the average player has decreased considerably; often causing poorly skilled players to play hands in a very losing fashion, such as showing Ace high at the showdown. Against these type of players, a bluff is generally quite ineffective and a losing proposition, since the theory behind bluffing is to force your opponent to fold a better hand. Thus, when your opponent simply does not fold, the point becomes moot.
As such, it would actually be easier to create a bot that plays low-stakes poker, as a non-bluff game involves simple math, decision trees and a bit of fuzzy logic. What it is not however, is a game of chance, as it is still a profitable game that has edges to be exploited.
This has been a bit off topic, but I wanted to clear up the notion that poker comes down to chance, when there is very solid mathematical theory behind it.
The "catch" is that unlike house games, the casino is only in the business of taking a percentage of the winnings in poker, known as the rake. In poker, since you are playing against your peers, if you are able to achieve a winning percentage greater than the house rake (commonly around 5-10%), then you are still a profitable poker player.
In the poker world, the common standard for a profitable, solid player is to earn two big bets per hour, which covers both the casino rake and tip. In a $3/$6 texas hold'em limit game for example, the big bet is $6, which equals a $12/hr wage for a solid player. Online, where you not only do not have to pay a tip to the dealer, but also generally pay a lower rake and play about 150% more hands per hour than in a brick and mortar casino, it's very well possible to win nearly twice what you would by playing online.
Thus, the only "catch" here is that by creating a successful poker bot that can play as well as a solid human, it may very well upheave the online poker industry as a whole. After all, if you could spawn near unlimited instances of an application that could pull in a meager $2/hr playing the $0.50/$1 low limit tables, that still means an insane amount of money. Whether or not it's legal.. that's another issue.
Actually, the entire point of the new patent is to combat search engine spam. By taking away the ability of black hat SEOs to game their engine, Google is effectively trying to put the bad SEOs out of business. As a result, if anything, you should get less spam in the future as these black hats realize that their link flooding, blog spamming and guerilla SEO tactics no longer work like they used to.
Ok, ok, so that's what I'd like to believe, as I realize that penis pill spammers are still able to sell sugar placebos to masses of insecure males for $40 a bottle, so there's no reason to believe that small web operators will see through the lies as well. But hey, at least the quality of the Google results will be better?
The problem is that many of the online gambling and online poker operations are not based in the United States, as it is against the low. More often that not then, the site operators establish their operations in small Caribbean islands and the Isle of Man. As a result, the small island governments are almost aways incapable of handling a large scale international investigation, but at the same time, the FBI cannot get involved because there was no crime committed on US soil.
Now, the knee-jerk reaction is to say that the site operators are getting what they deserve for establing off-shore operations and not paying taxes, but that wouldn't be the whole story either. The true fact is that while practically all of the gambling operators are owned and run by US citizens, almost all of those operations want to be regulated by the government and pay taxes as well. Why? Because of exact situations like these with the DDoSers. Between loosing the shirt off your back and paying taxes, one of the options starts to look a lot more business smart.
It's a weird world when one of the most profitable online industries that pays little to no tax is also the one most wants to be regulated and taxed at the end of the day. Given the context of the industry however, it can be easily summed up in one easy notion: protection fee. Having the protection of the laws of the US government far outweighs being knocked over, cheated or swindled by the legions of DDoSers, fraudsters and governments that the industry has to deal with.
Ambiguities about the morals of gambling aside, if a $2 billion dollar industry that most believe is here to stay wants to come ashore and be taxed and regulated, as a US citizen, I for one would welcome the tax benefits.
Slashdot Mirror
You think this will let my employer figure out where that memory leak is coming from?! You can't trace me! I've got... TraceBuster!
(Ok that was seriously cheesy, but I relive the golden days of my youth by quoting movies with Marky Mark apparently. *sob*)
Pop: Windows
Alternative: Linux
Rock: BSD
Jazz: Mac
Country: Solaris
William Hung: Pick any above. Set root/admin password to PASSWORD. Mission accomplished.
From the article: "The compromised machines are controlled by a 'botmaster' ... If that command-and-control is disabled, all the machines in that botnet become useless to the botmaster."
Somewhere, there is a joke that begins with the quote "I AM TEH BOTMASTER!" and ends with the quote "AND I AM TEH GATEKEEPER!", but alas, I cannot figure it out right now.
Oh slashdot, help me out here.
.. only worth something if they can be verified and are accurate with a sample that has as few biases (sp?) as possible.
Nonsense! I believe biases are inherent and actually beneficial, as all opinions end up leaning to one side or the another anyways!
Ok, break time over, now back to work on these pesky Diebold machines...
The reason I decided to leave had to do with my specific experiences..
:)
"Specific experience" with Microsoft eh?? I had one of those before! Like the time I switched over to that other non-really-real search engine company and the CEO started making monkey noises (something about "I love this company!!! RAWR!!") and throwing a chair around the room.
I love specifics
So easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks.
... (pause)...
Fantastic! I've always thought copious amounts of caffeine and an anonymous method of browsing for porn were meant for ubergeeks like myself, but now that my *grandma* can do it as well, that's just fantastic!
OH GOD, MY EYES!!!
You Know You Are A Geek when a /. story with the name "New Ion Engine Being Tested" makes you nearly drop the beer and wonder how a defunct game company is producing new engines.
:p
Nonetheless, I blame John Romero for my own confusion and/or angst, because it makes me feel better.
... a galaxy so big we couldn't see it before ...
I knew Orion was hiding something in that belt of his!
I tried this out when I was a OOH SHINY! Somewhere in the Army, someone is just now figuring out that chrome on the grenade pin might have been a bad idea...
Ok, I'm not one to defend surveys much if at all given that many of them are biased and not done correctly, but the reasoning you mentioned is simply flawed. Surveys are not meant to be done on the entire population, because polling 280 million Americans would be an impossible and unfeasible task.
/rant
Surveys take a sample of the population to be polled and use that as a representative measure of the rest of the population. The sample size then is given a confidence interval of +/- percentage points (usually 5%) that indicate the accuracy of the poll, within a reasonable standard deviation. In English, this means that polls aren't 100% accurate, but a properly done survey should be accurate within 5% of the acutal figure the majority of the time.
Selecting a random sample from the population is often the hardest part of any survey, but can be done correctly. To flat out say that using samples means that the data is irrelevant is completely inaccurate.
I used Netflix when they first came out, as I thought it was a very novel idea and one worth trying. It worked great until I ran into the same problems that everyone else did - delays with new movies, being pushed into the far reaches of the queue and other inconveniences. I quit Netflix due to their growing pains, but didn't have a ton of animosity toward them. Having been in the business world, I understand that sometimes you can shoot yourself in the foot with success when demand exceeds capacity.
Recently, I was given a Netflix subscription again and noticed that they've gone through substantial upgrades, added new features and have none of the same queue problems that I exeprienced before. To me, this shows the maturation of the company, because they have the resources now to meet their customer base, given that they are now a very profitable company with the means.
I don't think Blockbuster is going to go kaput over the issue, because there will always be people who prefer a brick and mortar video store or you'll have an occasion where you can't wait a few days in the mail for a video. For this, Blockbuster is king. However, the cost of running a B&M operation like Blockbuster far surpasses an online only entity like Netflix, where store space, rent, maintenance, employees and the like are no longer issues. This means that Netflixs' margins are simply leaps ahead of what Blockbuster could even hope to achieve in their wildest dreams.
So can Blockbuster compete with Netflix? I think the answer is on the walls to everyone. I think this is exactly why Blockbuster tossed everything (and the kitchen sink) against Netflix, because they saw the picture and it didn't look pretty.
Do I think Blockbuster is going to bite the bullet? Not at all. Do I think Netflix will take a giant cut of of their market and force Blockbuster to resign itself to a B&M only operation with limited expansion abilities? Very much so.
From the article: "A prototype of the scanner, called MONSTIR..."
Ok, even though I have somewhat of a background in usability and marketing, I don't think I need to point out what may be a funny point in selling this technology...
Doc: Ok ma'am, things might look GRIM, but don't worry, we're going to attach our newest, greatest technology to your baby's head and blast the little meatbag with rays to get a good look at what is going on!
Mother: Um.. this sounds a little unsafe..
Doc: Don't worry, with a name like "MONSTER", what could go wrong?!
I think only a trained sociologist will probably have a good idea on the link between the Japanese and their fascination (or in this case, level of comfort) with robots.
That said though, for anyone familiar with Japan or having lived there before, those that live in the city have a very, very different way of life than in places like the United States. The pace of life is faster, the population density is higher and there is a generally an absurd amount of strangers that you pass by on a daily basis. The fast, brisk level of interaction required to perform your daily tasks with others is just an automated response after awhile. It's no surprise to me that Japan is the leader in automation, simply due to this constant barrage of hit-and-run interaction.
I would venture that the Japanese have simply become accustom to automated systems and technology, having evolved around the idea of using non-human tools to help them throughout the day. If you asked another person in a fast paced city such as New York or LA versus a slower city like Austin or Memphis on their opinion toward robots, I would imagine you get a correlation between pace of life and comfort level with robots (or automation).
My 0.02 hypothesis at least.
Tantric IT you say? I practice the art of Solitare, where my goal is to furiously sneak as many sessions during the day as possible without my boss walking in by surprise.
I say it leads to higher daily satisfaction and motor coordination.
Jeez, they should implementing testing for qualifications to moderate.
... er.. oh f^#@..
What? Nonsense! rand() is a perfectly acceptable function for user selection and software security!
This is a hardcopy book to be sold in bookstores to normal people.
.. er.. ok fine, you win.
Sir, I take grave offense at your implication that the slashdot crowd is not normal! In fact, I challenge you to a roll of 1d20 post-haste. Draw your sword, knave!
At the end all the oems flock to the company that can mass manufacture. Not to be the one to bring out the capitalistic ball and chain here, but we are talking about businesses here, aren't we? It would really not make sense for a large company like NEC to simply go with AMD unless it helped NEC; not because AMD is a better chip. It could be anything from supply, price margins, architecture, who knows.. but NEC is simply doing what they think is the right choice.
At least this will make people happy as when Digital Universe posts an article with incorrect information, someone can actually sue a corporation with money that has a static location.
Fantastic! We at goatse.cx can finally slap any would be Wikipedia snubs with libel if they dare call our art mere "shock" factor for internet trolls!
Signed, The Taker
Yes. But now almost 10% of those comply with regulations!
/victory
But more importantly, can that 10% help me improve my manhood by 200%... because if so..
There's been a lot of postings about this tournament being bunk due to a lot of misconceptions about the game of poker. As a successful poker player of quite a few years and also a geek, I do believe I have an informed opinion here when I say that A) poker is profitable B) poker bots can and have been created C) the effort to code a high level poker bot is incredibly, incredibly difficult.
A team at the University of Alberta has been working on with a poker research group that has been researching and coding poker bots for years. One look at their page should tell you that there is definitely some high level thinking and analysis required to develop a poker bot. More importantly, is that fact that they *have* delivered a bot called Poki Poker that has an impressive record at beating human opponents in 1 vs 1 heads-up matches. Brian Alspach, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at Simon Fraser University has also contributed numerous publications to the field, giving credence to the fact that there is a genuine science behind creating an AI that can play good poker.
So, before anyone else spouts off about poker being a game of chance or poker bots being mindless hundred line pieces of code, please do your research. A lot of people have worked very hard on this subject to simply have it dismissed as beneath them. Just ask yourself this: If you could create a poker bot so easily, one that could generate at the very least, a poker bot that made $2/hr playing the low limit games, what would stop you from launching thousands of these bots upon the online world? Because unlike a human, you can replicate a bot innumerable times, which in this case would be the equivalent of finding the goose that lays golden eggs. If you understand this, you may begin to understand why there is so much interest in the creation of poker bots..
Parent is somewhat right. Bluffing can be an integral part of the game, depending on the format of the game being played, along with the limit played (amount of cash wagered).
In a high stakes game or no-limit game, bluffing is very common, because every bet and action often involves a significant amount of money and little mistakes over the course of a session can end up costing large sums of money. Thus, bluffing becomes a viable weapon in these game formats because you can use your opponents' fear of making mistakes against him.
However, in a small stakes game, bluffing is often close to impossible, as many players are simply put, unbluffable. With the current poker boom, the skill level of the average player has decreased considerably; often causing poorly skilled players to play hands in a very losing fashion, such as showing Ace high at the showdown. Against these type of players, a bluff is generally quite ineffective and a losing proposition, since the theory behind bluffing is to force your opponent to fold a better hand. Thus, when your opponent simply does not fold, the point becomes moot.
As such, it would actually be easier to create a bot that plays low-stakes poker, as a non-bluff game involves simple math, decision trees and a bit of fuzzy logic. What it is not however, is a game of chance, as it is still a profitable game that has edges to be exploited.
This has been a bit off topic, but I wanted to clear up the notion that poker comes down to chance, when there is very solid mathematical theory behind it.
The "catch" is that unlike house games, the casino is only in the business of taking a percentage of the winnings in poker, known as the rake. In poker, since you are playing against your peers, if you are able to achieve a winning percentage greater than the house rake (commonly around 5-10%), then you are still a profitable poker player.
In the poker world, the common standard for a profitable, solid player is to earn two big bets per hour, which covers both the casino rake and tip. In a $3/$6 texas hold'em limit game for example, the big bet is $6, which equals a $12/hr wage for a solid player. Online, where you not only do not have to pay a tip to the dealer, but also generally pay a lower rake and play about 150% more hands per hour than in a brick and mortar casino, it's very well possible to win nearly twice what you would by playing online.
Thus, the only "catch" here is that by creating a successful poker bot that can play as well as a solid human, it may very well upheave the online poker industry as a whole. After all, if you could spawn near unlimited instances of an application that could pull in a meager $2/hr playing the $0.50/$1 low limit tables, that still means an insane amount of money. Whether or not it's legal.. that's another issue.
Actually, the entire point of the new patent is to combat search engine spam. By taking away the ability of black hat SEOs to game their engine, Google is effectively trying to put the bad SEOs out of business. As a result, if anything, you should get less spam in the future as these black hats realize that their link flooding, blog spamming and guerilla SEO tactics no longer work like they used to.
Ok, ok, so that's what I'd like to believe, as I realize that penis pill spammers are still able to sell sugar placebos to masses of insecure males for $40 a bottle, so there's no reason to believe that small web operators will see through the lies as well. But hey, at least the quality of the Google results will be better?
The problem is that many of the online gambling and online poker operations are not based in the United States, as it is against the low. More often that not then, the site operators establish their operations in small Caribbean islands and the Isle of Man. As a result, the small island governments are almost aways incapable of handling a large scale international investigation, but at the same time, the FBI cannot get involved because there was no crime committed on US soil. Now, the knee-jerk reaction is to say that the site operators are getting what they deserve for establing off-shore operations and not paying taxes, but that wouldn't be the whole story either. The true fact is that while practically all of the gambling operators are owned and run by US citizens, almost all of those operations want to be regulated by the government and pay taxes as well. Why? Because of exact situations like these with the DDoSers. Between loosing the shirt off your back and paying taxes, one of the options starts to look a lot more business smart. It's a weird world when one of the most profitable online industries that pays little to no tax is also the one most wants to be regulated and taxed at the end of the day. Given the context of the industry however, it can be easily summed up in one easy notion: protection fee. Having the protection of the laws of the US government far outweighs being knocked over, cheated or swindled by the legions of DDoSers, fraudsters and governments that the industry has to deal with. Ambiguities about the morals of gambling aside, if a $2 billion dollar industry that most believe is here to stay wants to come ashore and be taxed and regulated, as a US citizen, I for one would welcome the tax benefits.
Throwing geeks off track is damn dirty business!
:)
Case in point that last email virus I got.. what was it called... oh yes:
MyDuke3D - Hate deadlines, Love Hype? Keep repeating 'Forever!' until people start thinking 'Whenever!'