Puzzle Pirates has been developed in Java. This has given Three Rings a lot of advantages, in particular being able to run on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying this makes it awesome, or that Java rules, or that it couldn't be done another way, or that cross-platform Java doesn't have its problems, etc. etc. etc. I'm just shedding some light on how it was "published at the same time for PC, Mac and Linux," by quoting directly from the FAQ.
Interesting, thanks for the link. Gates wanted to meet with President da Silva of Brazil last week in Davos to work things out. The story you linked to said that they did meet in Davos two years ago, but didn't mention if they met this time. From eWeek, The Open-Source Challenge:
Competitive pressure intensifies when whole countries move toward open-source platforms and applications. Brazil is following the example of China in embracing Linux both for government workers and citizens. This year, Brazil plans to subsidize the purchase by lower-income individuals of PCs running Linux and 25 other open-source programs. Last year, Microsoft sued Sergio Amadeu, the head of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's National Institute of Technology, when he compared Microsoft to a drug pusher; in 2003, the Brazilian government signed a letter of intent with IBM to boost Brazil's use of Linux. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates reportedly was seeking a meeting with President da Silva at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland.
I wasn't able to find out if they met this time or not, but if they did, I guess they didn't work it out. They certainly didn't see eye to eye on economic policies discussed at the conference last week... From the World Peace Herald:
Chirac urged leaders to charge levies on cross-border financial transactions and tax air and ship transport fuel -- an idea backed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva. But the idea met with short shrift from most Davos panelists Thursday. "How long would it take to get an international tax in place? Five years? Ten years? How many lives would be lost in that time?" asked Gates.
It will be interesting to see if Brazil stands firm in their stance supporting open source, instead of caving in like many governments before them (Mexico, Peru, Israel come to mind). If they don't back down, it will set a strong example for other developing (and developed, for that matter) countries to follow.
Bob Parsons, the owner of GoDaddy.com, posted info on his blog about taking out a Super Bowl ad. Cost of 30 seconds is $2.4 million, with about an extra million in production costs. But, unlike some of the tech companies advertising in the 2000 Super Bowl, it sounds like this cost will not be a problem for them even if the ad is not very successful. Here are some excerpts from the post:
Now, some facts about Go Daddy:
-- snip --
5. Go Daddy has no debt and no equipment leases. Except for the monthly rent we pay for our buildings (which we made the decision to lease), the company has no debt service or lease payments. 6. Our sales this year were over $100 million. If we do nothing different (other than continue to promote our business the way we have been) our sales for 2005 should be about $170 million. 7. The company will continue to have substantial cash reserves even after paying for the Super Bowl ad.
-- snip --
Here's the answers to some questions I've been asked by reporters and others, since it became known that Go Daddy is going to have a Super Bowl ad:
Q. How do you know that the Super Bowl ad will work for Go Daddy? A. There are no guarantees. I don't know if it will work.
Q. Is the Super Bow ad a one shot deal? A. Not really. We will be following up our Super Bowl ad with an extensive advertising campaign that will embrace television, radio and print.
Q. Do you expect to earn your investment back? A. Not immediately and maybe never. What the Super Bowl ad will do is to lay the ground work for better recognition of our follow up campaign.
Q. What if the Super Bowl ad doesn't work at all? What will happen to Go Daddy? A. You can be sure that I certainly want to see it work, but if it doesn't work at all we'll be just fine. The entire ad production costs and airtime have been paid for out of cash reserves earned last year. Many company owners would have taken this cash out of the company for themselves as a dividend. Not me. (What follows is the line that was misquoted by Brand Autopsy) I'd rather have a Super Bowl ad.
Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system also makes it possible for malicious code to spread, in part because it was designed to allow so many functions.
Arggh. I guess the reason other non-dominant operating systems are more secure is that they weren't "designed to allow so many functions."
Spurred on by your additional info, I poked around to find out more about shh. I took a look at a Sonic Hedgehog page at Davidson College. I was surprised to find out that shh gets its name from the video game character. "The first two homologues of hedgehog were named after species of hedgehog and the third was named after the video game character (Gilbert, 2000)."
A press release over at the University of Chicago Hospitals site elaborated: "Researchers found three different versions of the "hedgehog" gene but only two kinds of real hedgehogs, so they named the third gene after the cartoon character."
I know you said they named them after things in the hedgehog family, so I assumed there must be an actual "sonic hedgehog" to go along with the Indian and desert hedgehog. No less likely that the animal would have a crazy name than the protein, I figured. My ignorance shows once again...
And Halo-, looks like you had a point about biologists, physicists, and computer geeks assigning crazy names to things.
I doubt any of the labels think their sales will drop by 20% if Wal-Mart stops selling CDs altogether. But they obviously think they would drop significantly, or they wouldn't be worried.
Also, people do buy music from Wal-Mart because they happen to be in the store at the time. Wal-Mart is a part of many people's weekly itinerary; other outlets for music, less so. Labels want their music to be where people are shopping, as this increases the likelihood that they will buy some.
People won't necessarily go out of their way to buy a CD, but they might be more likely to buy if it is for sale where they are already shopping anyway. I think the fact that Wal-Mart, a general merchandiser, accounts for 20% of CD sales, attests to that fact.
The article mentions that Wal-Mart could stop selling CDs altogether, and their sales would be relatively unaffected.
"While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. 'If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them,' says another label executive. 'This keeps me awake at night.'"
So what happens when the publishers don't sell to Wal-Mart?
"...Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games."
So, not as easy for the labels as it seems. If Wal-Mart "will not be taken seriously as a place to get music," they can move on with other things, having made an example of the labels to others who might try the same tactic.
What you want is the Pocket Vault by Chameleon Network. It was covered in March in this Slashdot story. It is not available yet, but they are taking preorders. It is $179 with a 25% preorder discount. They said in March 2004 that it should be available in January 2005, but who knows...
From the website: The Pocket Vault System replaces a consumer's conventional wallet and stores an entire wallet's contents in digital form (credit, ATM, identification, physical and network access, membership, discount cards), in a stand-alone device or integrated into PDAs and mobile phones. The Pocket Vault programs a single, "morphing" Chameleon Card to emulate the characteristics of any magnetic stripe, barcode or smart card that the user selects. The Pocket Vault and Chameleon Card are useable everywhere (brick & mortar and online), and are completely compatible with all existing point-of-sale terminals.
The Pocket Vault has an integrated fingerprint reader to protect the owner's personal data and the Chameleon Card is blank until programmed and self-erases after 15 minutes - reducing the issues of card or device theft. The Pocket Vault connects to the Pocket Vault System via the Internet (and will synchronize wirelessly in later versions)...
Notice the cheap recycled cardboard in the fourth generation packaging where there was styrofoam in the third edition packaging. This was definitely a cut corner because I really did think the styrofoam was awesome before
Yeah, it totally blew my iPod experience for those three seconds it took me to remove the iPod from its box and throw away the cardboard, instead of throwing away nice shiny styrofoam. Let's go back to having a few million pieces of awesome styrofoam in the garbage, that totally r0x0r!!!
[...] They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same [...]
I also remember seeing "triple-dub" in an old Wired magazine in the Jargon Watch section....here it is from July 1995. It is very sad that I actually remembered that.
At least $2.6 billion is less than the old chestnut of putting one cent on the first square, two on the second, four on the third... and continuing to double for all 64 squares.
I guess that would be (2^64) - 1 cents, or $184,467,440,737,095,516.15.
That's $184,467.4 billion. They are only paying $2.6 billion. So, that's a savings of $184,464.8 billion.
What a bargain!
United Nations != International Court of Justice
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 1
Who modded parent Insightful? The page linked to in the parent post talks about a ruling by the International Court of Justice at The Hauge, not the United Nations. The U.S. disagreeing with the International Court of Justice is not the same as disrespecting the United Nations.
The UN is mentioned in the article, however:
"It may complicate the process, it could distract from the political work at hand, I know there's been talk about taking this back to the UN," [US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher] said.
"We don't think there's a need for a General Assembly action at this point."
Meanwhile Arab governments are pressing for an urgent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to call for the destruction of the barrier.
Isn't it obvious from reading the article that the action by the International Court of Justice is now prompting talk of action in the UN? Wouldn't it therefore follow that these are two separate institutions? Yes, very Insightful post by the parent.
Now, the question of whether the U.S. is doing the right thing in the Israeli wall/fence/barrier/whatever issue is a completely valid one. And, it may also be (most certainly is) true that the U.S. does indeed disrespect the UN. But please, site something relevant next time.
XML is text (Which is IMHO very sad - I'm longing for a binary XML, that would be cool:)
You might want to look at Fast Infoset. From the linked article on java.sun.com:
The Fast Infoset standard draft (currently being developed as joint work by ISO/IEC JTC 1 and ITU-T) specifies a binary format for XML infosets that is an efficient alternative to XML. An instance of this binary format is called a fast infoset document. Fast infoset documents are analogous to XML documents. Each has a physical form and an XML infoset. Fast infoset documents are, given the results presented, faster to serialize and parse, and smaller in size, than the equivalent XML documents. Thus, fast infoset documents may be used whenever the size and processing time of XML documents is an issue.
You might want to check out VoicePulse. They have a program called VoicePulse Connect! that is for people who just need a SIP and IAX connection.
They have some setup information for Asterisk in their knowledge base, you might want to check that out. Not sure if this is exactly what you need, but it might be worth a look.
Will Amazon.com transfer information about me? As required by law, Amazon.com will transfer to the campaign(s) to which you contribute your name and address (your credit card billing address) and the date and amount of your contribution.
For campaigns that may accept federal matching funds, Amazon.com will also send the type of credit card you use (e.g., Visa) and the last four digits of your credit card number.
The campaigns then will send a report including this information about you and about other contributors, no matter by what means (e.g., by mail or telephone) they contributed, to the Federal Election Commission ("FEC"). The FEC eventually publishes each contributor's name and address, the campaign supported, and the dates and amounts of the contribution, but not any credit card information.
For further information, see the privacy policies posted on the campaigns' web sites.
Amtrak has worked hand in hand with the DEA to target supposed drug couriers. From EPIC-DIGEST April 11, 2001:
Amtrak Sharing Rider Information, Profit from Seizures, with DEA
Amtrak is providing the DEA with ticketing information about passengers in an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs. DEA agents have direct access to an Amtrak computer that contains information on passenger names, origination points, destinations, and payment information. In exchange for access to the database, Amtrak receives 10% of whatever seizures the DEA makes using the information.
Amtrak Helps DEA Hunt Drug Couriers, Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 2001. (Ed.: link broken)
Amtrak shares passenger info with DEA for drug prosecutions, Declan McCullagh's politechbot.com, April 11, 2001.
So, the airlines aren't the only ones turning over passenger data to the government; Amtrak has been doing it even before 9/11. Their willingness to give up information for cash in the past leads me to believe they will likely do so in the future. And where does a huge chunk of their cash come from? The federal government (about $1 billion last year).
You might think that Amtrak could be tempted to give up a lot of passenger data in return for $1 billion. Well, what if the feds doubled that? Senator Olympia Snowe (R) wants to raise Amtrak's funding to $2 billion a year over the next six years, with an additional $48 billion for maintenance and new construction. It's probably just coincidence that Snowe introduced a bill (S. 1599) pushing for "the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct a study of the feasibility of implementing a program for the full screening of passengers, baggage, and cargo on Amtrak trains, and for other purposes." The best part is section 1.b, which says:
PILOT PROGRAM- As part of the study under subsection (a), the Secretary shall conduct a pilot program of random security screening of passengers and baggage at 5 of the 10 busiest passenger rail stations served by Amtrak (measured by the average number of boardings of Amtrak passenger trains) and at up to five additional rail stations served by Amtrak that are selected by the Secretary. In selecting the additional train stations the Secretary shall attempt to achieve a distribution of participating stations in terms of geographic location and size.
I mentioned this in a post about "Japan's War on E-Waste" back in July, but it seems to fit here also...
IBM offers a PC recycling service in the U.S. for $30. The PC can be from any manufacturer. It doesn't actually need to be a complete PC, it could be different parts and peripherals. They seem to charge by the shipped box, not by the system. They donate the system to "Gifs in Kind" if it qualifies. The service is offered on their Web store.
The machines are sent to Envirocycle, an electronic recycler. When you pay the 30 bucks, you get a prepaid UPS shipping label to send it there. You load your equipment into your own box (up to 26x26x26) and drop it off at a UPS dropoff location. If you fill out the included donation form, they will send you back a donation confirmation form you can use for tax purposes (if your machine qualifies). There is a lot more info in the FAQ.
IBM also has info on recycling IBM products in other countries, but I didn't get a chance to read through all the info, so I don't know if they have comparable programs in other countries or not.
"How about the connection between me having a copy of an email on my PC and 'inability to change stuff without a trail'..." Well, there is no connection there. As RockyMountain said, "Encryption without signature is deniable -- you can't prove the statement is authentic, so it's useless as a trail. With a signed document, you have proof that the trail is authentic, they can't deny it."
So, let's say Company X sends you an encrypted bill like you want. OK, great, nobody was able to read it in transit because of the encryption. You later notice one of these discrepancies you were talking about where they have "changed stuff."
To prove that Company X changed stuff, you are going to have to prove a difference between the email bill they sent you and the new bill. Now, how are you going to prove that the emailed bill was indeed created by Company X? Maybe Company X will say that you made up the email bill yourself, just so you could bilk them out of some cash.
If the bill had been digitally signed, you could PROVE the bill had come from Company X. Without this proof, you don't have a trail. Without a trail, Company X's "inability to change stuff without a trail" goes away.
This all started because you didn't want an encrypted Web page, you wanted an encrypted email instead. So, if you don't care about being able to prove the authenticity of the bill, why not just do a "File/Save" of the Web page? This might give you what you want; you'll have a copy of the bill in HTML form, and it will have been transmitted in an encrypted form, since it is an encrypted Web page. Or, just print it out!
Slashdot Mirror
From the Installation FAQ:
Puzzle Pirates has been developed in Java. This has given Three Rings a lot of advantages, in particular being able to run on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying this makes it awesome, or that Java rules, or that it couldn't be done another way, or that cross-platform Java doesn't have its problems, etc. etc. etc. I'm just shedding some light on how it was "published at the same time for PC, Mac and Linux," by quoting directly from the FAQ.
Interesting, thanks for the link. Gates wanted to meet with President da Silva of Brazil last week in Davos to work things out. The story you linked to said that they did meet in Davos two years ago, but didn't mention if they met this time. From eWeek, The Open-Source Challenge :
Competitive pressure intensifies when whole countries move toward open-source platforms and applications. Brazil is following the example of China in embracing Linux both for government workers and citizens. This year, Brazil plans to subsidize the purchase by lower-income individuals of PCs running Linux and 25 other open-source programs. Last year, Microsoft sued Sergio Amadeu, the head of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's National Institute of Technology, when he compared Microsoft to a drug pusher; in 2003, the Brazilian government signed a letter of intent with IBM to boost Brazil's use of Linux. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates reportedly was seeking a meeting with President da Silva at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland.
I wasn't able to find out if they met this time or not, but if they did, I guess they didn't work it out. They certainly didn't see eye to eye on economic policies discussed at the conference last week... From the World Peace Herald:
Chirac urged leaders to charge levies on cross-border financial transactions and tax air and ship transport fuel -- an idea backed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva. But the idea met with short shrift from most Davos panelists Thursday. "How long would it take to get an international tax in place? Five years? Ten years? How many lives would be lost in that time?" asked Gates.
It will be interesting to see if Brazil stands firm in their stance supporting open source, instead of caving in like many governments before them (Mexico, Peru, Israel come to mind). If they don't back down, it will set a strong example for other developing (and developed, for that matter) countries to follow.
Bob Parsons, the owner of GoDaddy.com, posted info on his blog about taking out a Super Bowl ad. Cost of 30 seconds is $2.4 million, with about an extra million in production costs. But, unlike some of the tech companies advertising in the 2000 Super Bowl, it sounds like this cost will not be a problem for them even if the ad is not very successful. Here are some excerpts from the post:
Now, some facts about Go Daddy:
-- snip --
5. Go Daddy has no debt and no equipment leases. Except for the monthly rent we pay for our buildings (which we made the decision to lease), the company has no debt service or lease payments.
6. Our sales this year were over $100 million. If we do nothing different (other than continue to promote our business the way we have been) our sales for 2005 should be about $170 million.
7. The company will continue to have substantial cash reserves even after paying for the Super Bowl ad.
-- snip --
Here's the answers to some questions I've been asked by reporters and others, since it became known that Go Daddy is going to have a Super Bowl ad:
Q. How do you know that the Super Bowl ad will work for Go Daddy?
A. There are no guarantees. I don't know if it will work.
Q. Is the Super Bow ad a one shot deal?
A. Not really. We will be following up our Super Bowl ad with an extensive advertising campaign that will embrace television, radio and print.
Q. Do you expect to earn your investment back?
A. Not immediately and maybe never. What the Super Bowl ad will do is to lay the ground work for better recognition of our follow up campaign.
Q. What if the Super Bowl ad doesn't work at all? What will happen to Go Daddy?
A. You can be sure that I certainly want to see it work, but if it doesn't work at all we'll be just fine. The entire ad production costs and airtime have been paid for out of cash reserves earned last year. Many company owners would have taken this cash out of the company for themselves as a dividend. Not me. (What follows is the line that was misquoted by Brand Autopsy) I'd rather have a Super Bowl ad.
- Bombardier's Hot Wheel On November 12th, 2003 with 358 comments
and its obligatory dupe about two weeks later (things moved slower back then):- Bombardier's Embrio: Sexier Segway? On November 30th, 2003 with 339 comments
From Bombardier itself, here is their press release from July 9, 2003:From the article:
Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system also makes it possible for malicious code to spread, in part because it was designed to allow so many functions.
Arggh. I guess the reason other non-dominant operating systems are more secure is that they weren't "designed to allow so many functions."
Spurred on by your additional info, I poked around to find out more about shh. I took a look at a Sonic Hedgehog page at Davidson College. I was surprised to find out that shh gets its name from the video game character. "The first two homologues of hedgehog were named after species of hedgehog and the third was named after the video game character (Gilbert, 2000)."
A press release over at the University of Chicago Hospitals site elaborated: "Researchers found three different versions of the "hedgehog" gene but only two kinds of real hedgehogs, so they named the third gene after the cartoon character."
I know you said they named them after things in the hedgehog family, so I assumed there must be an actual "sonic hedgehog" to go along with the Indian and desert hedgehog. No less likely that the animal would have a crazy name than the protein, I figured. My ignorance shows once again...
And Halo-, looks like you had a point about biologists, physicists, and computer geeks assigning crazy names to things.
I was giving Google Scholar a whirl, and found this scholarly paper from 1998 at the bottom of my search page:
.
Sonic hedgehog is essential to foregut development
These days, foregut development is more from playing Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, I suppose...
I don't believe it either--if he really had one of these jackets, he could have run the wires better than this.
I doubt any of the labels think their sales will drop by 20% if Wal-Mart stops selling CDs altogether. But they obviously think they would drop significantly, or they wouldn't be worried.
Also, people do buy music from Wal-Mart because they happen to be in the store at the time. Wal-Mart is a part of many people's weekly itinerary; other outlets for music, less so. Labels want their music to be where people are shopping, as this increases the likelihood that they will buy some.
People won't necessarily go out of their way to buy a CD, but they might be more likely to buy if it is for sale where they are already shopping anyway. I think the fact that Wal-Mart, a general merchandiser, accounts for 20% of CD sales, attests to that fact.
The article mentions that Wal-Mart could stop selling CDs altogether, and their sales would be relatively unaffected.
"While Wal-Mart represents nearly twenty percent of major-label music sales, music represents only about two percent of Wal-Mart's total sales. 'If they got out of selling music, it would mean nothing to them,' says another label executive. 'This keeps me awake at night.'"
So what happens when the publishers don't sell to Wal-Mart?
"...Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart's CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games."
So, not as easy for the labels as it seems. If Wal-Mart "will not be taken seriously as a place to get music," they can move on with other things, having made an example of the labels to others who might try the same tactic.
What you want is the Pocket Vault by Chameleon Network. It was covered in March in this Slashdot story. It is not available yet, but they are taking preorders. It is $179 with a 25% preorder discount. They said in March 2004 that it should be available in January 2005, but who knows...
From the website:
The Pocket Vault System replaces a consumer's conventional wallet and stores an entire wallet's contents in digital form (credit, ATM, identification, physical and network access, membership, discount cards), in a stand-alone device or integrated into PDAs and mobile phones. The Pocket Vault programs a single, "morphing" Chameleon Card to emulate the characteristics of any magnetic stripe, barcode or smart card that the user selects. The Pocket Vault and Chameleon Card are useable everywhere (brick & mortar and online), and are completely compatible with all existing point-of-sale terminals.
The Pocket Vault has an integrated fingerprint reader to protect the owner's personal data and the Chameleon Card is blank until programmed and self-erases after 15 minutes - reducing the issues of card or device theft.
The Pocket Vault connects to the Pocket Vault System via the Internet (and will synchronize wirelessly in later versions)...
Notice the cheap recycled cardboard in the fourth generation packaging where there was styrofoam in the third edition packaging. This was definitely a cut corner because I really did think the styrofoam was awesome before
Yeah, it totally blew my iPod experience for those three seconds it took me to remove the iPod from its box and throw away the cardboard, instead of throwing away nice shiny styrofoam. Let's go back to having a few million pieces of awesome styrofoam in the garbage, that totally r0x0r!!!
From the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 6:
[...] They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same [...]
This clause is sometimes put forward by congressmen to try to avoid tickets, since they are "going to and returning from" their sessions. See Sen. Robert Byrd: Invoking an ancient rule to avoid a modern law to find out more.
- "vey vey vey" - said in Austrian accent
- "triple-dub dot"
- "w-cube"
- "wubble-u"
- "web dot"
- "dub dub dub dot"
- "wubba dot"
- "wibble"
- "trip-dub"
- "dubya"
- "we-three"
- "wawawa"
- "sextuple u" or just "sex u"
- "wah wah wah"
- "wuhwuhwuhdot"
- "wubba wubba wubba"
I also remember seeing "triple-dub" in an old Wired magazine in the Jargon Watch section.At least $2.6 billion is less than the old chestnut of putting one cent on the first square, two on the second, four on the third... and continuing to double for all 64 squares.
I guess that would be (2^64) - 1 cents, or $184,467,440,737,095,516.15.
That's $184,467.4 billion.
They are only paying $2.6 billion.
So, that's a savings of $184,464.8 billion.
What a bargain!
Who modded parent Insightful? The page linked to in the parent post talks about a ruling by the International Court of Justice at The Hauge, not the United Nations. The U.S. disagreeing with the International Court of Justice is not the same as disrespecting the United Nations.
The UN is mentioned in the article, however:
"It may complicate the process, it could distract from the political work at hand, I know there's been talk about taking this back to the UN," [US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher] said.
"We don't think there's a need for a General Assembly action at this point."
Meanwhile Arab governments are pressing for an urgent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to call for the destruction of the barrier.
Isn't it obvious from reading the article that the action by the International Court of Justice is now prompting talk of action in the UN? Wouldn't it therefore follow that these are two separate institutions? Yes, very Insightful post by the parent.
Now, the question of whether the U.S. is doing the right thing in the Israeli wall/fence/barrier/whatever issue is a completely valid one. And, it may also be (most certainly is) true that the U.S. does indeed disrespect the UN. But please, site something relevant next time.
XML is text (Which is IMHO very sad - I'm longing for a binary XML, that would be cool :)
You might want to look at Fast Infoset. From the linked article on java.sun.com:
The Fast Infoset standard draft (currently being developed as joint work by ISO/IEC JTC 1 and ITU-T) specifies a binary format for XML infosets that is an efficient alternative to XML. An instance of this binary format is called a fast infoset document. Fast infoset documents are analogous to XML documents. Each has a physical form and an XML infoset. Fast infoset documents are, given the results presented, faster to serialize and parse, and smaller in size, than the equivalent XML documents. Thus, fast infoset documents may be used whenever the size and processing time of XML documents is an issue.
You might want to check out VoicePulse. They have a program called VoicePulse Connect! that is for people who just need a SIP and IAX connection.
They have some setup information for Asterisk in their knowledge base, you might want to check that out. Not sure if this is exactly what you need, but it might be worth a look.
Workstations 'Dirtier Than Toilets'
Best line from the featurette--"...lots of U.S. Robotics technology starts to malfunction around me..."
Reminds me of my early days online.
February 24
MS May Be Forced To Sell Stripped-Down OS In EU
From the FAQ:
Will Amazon.com transfer information about me?
As required by law, Amazon.com will transfer to the campaign(s) to which you contribute your name and address (your credit card billing address) and the date and amount of your contribution.
For campaigns that may accept federal matching funds, Amazon.com will also send the type of credit card you use (e.g., Visa) and the last four digits of your credit card number.
The campaigns then will send a report including this information about you and about other contributors, no matter by what means (e.g., by mail or telephone) they contributed, to the Federal Election Commission ("FEC"). The FEC eventually publishes each contributor's name and address, the campaign supported, and the dates and amounts of the contribution, but not any credit card information.
For further information, see the privacy policies posted on the campaigns' web sites.
Amtrak Sharing Rider Information, Profit from Seizures, with DEA
Amtrak is providing the DEA with ticketing information about passengers in an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs. DEA agents have direct access to an Amtrak computer that contains information on passenger names, origination points, destinations, and payment information. In exchange for access to the database, Amtrak receives 10% of whatever seizures the DEA makes using the information.
- Amtrak Helps DEA Hunt Drug Couriers, Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 2001. (Ed.: link broken)
- Amtrak shares passenger info with DEA for drug prosecutions, Declan
- Your Rights Online: Keeping DEA In The Loop About Amtrak Travelers, Slashdot, April 15, 2001.
- Amtrak 'Sharing' Information With D.E.A., New York Times, April 15, 2001 (registration required).
So, the airlines aren't the only ones turning over passenger data to the government; Amtrak has been doing it even before 9/11. Their willingness to give up information for cash in the past leads me to believe they will likely do so in the future. And where does a huge chunk of their cash come from? The federal government (about $1 billion last year).McCullagh's politechbot.com, April 11, 2001.
You might think that Amtrak could be tempted to give up a lot of passenger data in return for $1 billion. Well, what if the feds doubled that? Senator Olympia Snowe (R) wants to raise Amtrak's funding to $2 billion a year over the next six years, with an additional $48 billion for maintenance and new construction. It's probably just coincidence that Snowe introduced a bill (S. 1599) pushing for "the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct a study of the feasibility of implementing a program for the full screening of passengers, baggage, and cargo on Amtrak trains, and for other purposes." The best part is section 1.b, which says:
PILOT PROGRAM- As part of the study under subsection (a), the Secretary shall conduct a pilot program of random security screening of passengers and baggage at 5 of the 10 busiest passenger rail stations served by Amtrak (measured by the average number of boardings of Amtrak passenger trains) and at up to five additional rail stations served by Amtrak that are selected by the Secretary. In selecting the additional train stations the Secretary shall attempt to achieve a distribution of participating stations in terms of geographic location and size.
I feel safer already!
I mentioned this in a post about "Japan's War on E-Waste" back in July, but it seems to fit here also...
IBM offers a PC recycling service in the U.S. for $30. The PC can be from any manufacturer. It doesn't actually need to be a complete PC, it could be different parts and peripherals. They seem to charge by the shipped box, not by the system. They donate the system to "Gifs in Kind" if it qualifies. The service is offered on their Web store.
The machines are sent to Envirocycle, an electronic recycler. When you pay the 30 bucks, you get a prepaid UPS shipping label to send it there. You load your equipment into your own box (up to 26x26x26) and drop it off at a UPS dropoff location. If you fill out the included donation form, they will send you back a donation confirmation form you can use for tax purposes (if your machine qualifies). There is a lot more info in the FAQ.
IBM also has info on recycling IBM products in other countries, but I didn't get a chance to read through all the info, so I don't know if they have comparable programs in other countries or not.
"How about the connection between me having a copy of an email on my PC and 'inability to change stuff without a trail'..." Well, there is no connection there. As RockyMountain said, "Encryption without signature is deniable -- you can't prove the statement is authentic, so it's useless as a trail. With a signed document, you have proof that the trail is authentic, they can't deny it."
So, let's say Company X sends you an encrypted bill like you want. OK, great, nobody was able to read it in transit because of the encryption. You later notice one of these discrepancies you were talking about where they have "changed stuff."
To prove that Company X changed stuff, you are going to have to prove a difference between the email bill they sent you and the new bill. Now, how are you going to prove that the emailed bill was indeed created by Company X? Maybe Company X will say that you made up the email bill yourself, just so you could bilk them out of some cash.
If the bill had been digitally signed, you could PROVE the bill had come from Company X. Without this proof, you don't have a trail. Without a trail, Company X's "inability to change stuff without a trail" goes away.
This all started because you didn't want an encrypted Web page, you wanted an encrypted email instead. So, if you don't care about being able to prove the authenticity of the bill, why not just do a "File/Save" of the Web page? This might give you what you want; you'll have a copy of the bill in HTML form, and it will have been transmitted in an encrypted form, since it is an encrypted Web page. Or, just print it out!