With larger wattages you have better signal strength, meaning the modulations can be done at finer granularity. As such, more bits can be packed into a given interval of the signal.
Example: audio is a simple amplitude modulation air-compression signal. At 256 levels of granularity, you're using 8-bits per sample. At 64k levels of granulatiry, you're using 16-bits per sample.
That's where the log2 in Shannon's equation comes from. The higher the signal to noise, the more data you can pack in.
But that's not what this is about. This particular scheme works in a way to filter out noise that simply doesn't fit a given signature. It does this by a special antenna, and probably some sort of FFT analysis on the firmware end. My guess is that it produces/picks up only signals that produce a 1/2 Nyquist + 3i/4 Nyquist low voltage peak. Since simple sine waves don't produce this, and nor does noise (noise produces a relatively consistant FFT sig, focused mostly on the low end), one could pack a lot of data into those low-end side channels, by merely calibrating the FFT to nyquist on the carrier.
Ok, ok, I know that SOUNDS simple, but it's not as. It does take some clever detection routines to grab it. Personally I think this guy's a genius. It's easy to say "Hey! I coulda thought of that," after the fact. It's hard to actually think of it before hearing about it on Slashdot.
Of course the number of paralell middle men in a P2P-based VoIP reduces the number of points of failure. For example, the worst problem I've ever had with skype is a few clicks here and there.
Another attempt to squelch innovation that will just redirect homebrew efforts in the direction of circumvention. Call me when they shut down eMule/aMule/xMule, Kademlia, or BitTorrent (or BitSpirit (BT/Kad-like subsystem), for that matter).
I'm bored of this stupid timeline... you know: P2P services arise RIAA/MPAA kills one P2P piracy increases due to consumers being pissed off that the RIAA/MPAA has no respect for their rights (or their tastes... this summer had nothing good in the theatres aside from the Guide, you know) RIAA/MPAA freaks and claims P2P services are to blame, inviting legislation/technology that fucks fair use while not doing any real good P2P piracy increses, for much the same reasons as before, while homebrew programmers work around the new legislation/technology RIAA/MPAA freaks P2P piracy increses
A quote from a relevant link of the article: "We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading...it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me... [peer-to-peer networking] is either going to be legal, or it isn't going to exist."
- Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
You're right, Dianne. But you haven't quite gotten the point. Unregulated, P2P users were still buying good CDs. But every time new anti-p2p legislation is enacted, new anti-circumvention technology added, and for each p2p site shut down, it alienates the Industries from their customers. Each time, the animosity that was once limited to the tech-savvy grows ever outward into people who'd never have thought bad of their content providers.
There are easy ways to fix this; one is to stop with the lawsuits. Worst. Press. Ever. Another is to start producing quality. People won't want to steal that which is actually worth paying for. The real item is to fix copyright law. 95 years past the original author's death is rediculous. How about 15 years past initial release? If I knew I could, for example, download episodes of the original Battlestar Galactia without legal repercussions, I might reconsider downloding Sci Fi's Season 2 DV cap that's floating on Bittorrent.
This law doesn't matter to anyone with a brain. A TV card with an offending chip can be "repaired" by anyone determined enough. You'd have to integrate your crap into the DAC and MPEG-4 encoders of every device, then hope someone doesn't hack the controls out of the software, or that someone doesn't make an open source version, fully functional (and easily modified), on the premise of interoperability.
Yeah, release the drivers for linux in closed source code. Someone will build ones for their amiga system and claim interoperability. Release for amiga, and you'll have the BeOS people doing it. Do BeOS, and there's a few flavors of BSD that would be clean. BeOS covered? How about Minix? You're not going to win here without spending a few billion in development, and then you'll still lose to those who don't cower under a legal premise and have names like "Thundulator". The term is "Unenforcable", or, in colloquial terms, "Useless fuck of a law".
Meanwhile, the cycle's going to go on until either the MPAA/RIAA have run out of money to throw at the problem, due to the combination of lack of consumers willing to pay to be fucked in the ass, or until they basically cow under - and eat what crumbs consumers will give them AFTER the content creators have been paid - like the good little middle-management fucktards they are.
In conclusion, Dianne is partially right. Their either will be legal AND free P2P, or there won't be an RIAA/MPAA. Actually, I'm kinda pushing for both.
Someone asks me, "Hey do you know a good Sci Fi novel?"
I respond, "Yeah, [insert novel here]. It's got [this plot device] and [that plot device], and is really [adjective]. It's also got [non-standard plot device], kind of amazing to fit into Sci Fi. Ooh, and there's [twist] near the end, just to keep you guessing"
Have I violated fair use by passing on my derivative knowledge? No.
Now, if I scan my library in, instead, and index it, is this not similar to memorizing it?
Ok, so google serves ads with it. Let's look beyond the law here into the realm of coasean negotiation. This is, simplisticly, a field of civil economics where two parties negotiate with one another to dicuss damages, benefits, etc, to determine the total social benefit of a project. First assume that there is no cache function for book searches (books aren't going to change every few weeks. Additionally, note that Google Print doesn't have the Cache feature.).
The vocal parties in this situation are a number of publishing companies and Google. Small numbers == without trasaction costs. Government intervention is not required unless an agreement can't be reached, in which case the only intervention is a government order that one be reached, or the government will reach one for them, at cost.
Costs: all to Google. Google is paying for the rackspace, the servers, the book scanners (human and hardware), and the bandwidth to pull off this project, as well as individual copies of the books Google scans.
Benefits: Google gets ad hits. Publishers theoretically sell more books (users discover books they have not previously bought). The public (the silent negotiator here) gets the best card-catalog in history. A number of third-party hackers get free copies of books by building exploitation scripts for the indexer. I'm a programmer, and I can tell you that this would be a lot of programming work, would not be very accurate, would take a very long time to actually download a book, and could be easily recognized by Google's servers.
Rule in effect: Property rights go to the publishers.
Under Coasean negotiation, Google would pay the publishers for the right to use the books. This is pretty much covered by the last bit of "Costs", since fair use includes the right to have a copy of the books.
In other words, the Publishing companies are being greedy, and fighting for monies they're already getting.
Ever thought what would happen if Microsoft did Mac's route?
Rather than develop their own new kernel, they provided support for linux and moved to a linux kernel; built their own window server and manager from scratch and hired people to work on the Wine project.
- Create a single music solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS to music applications to TV experience.
- Create a single photo solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS thumbnails to previewing full screen to editing in a photo applications.
Actually, these are both there already. Sound in general, as well as video, are all handled byty a group of libraries common to most Linux platform audio and video software. I do think, for example, that Kaffiene and amaroK could be integrated, but their functionality is so disparate that I don't think its necessary. Meanwhile, on the back-end, Kaffiene uses xine. As does Totem. (why all three come installed in Knoppix is beyond me; maybe they were just trying to find ways of filling that 4G of DVD).
Right now there are dozens and perhaps even hundreds of different Linux distributions. Each one has its own quirks, bugs and issues. Linux is currently an idea it's not a brand. There doesn't seem to be a central floodgate to dictate the standard interface. Each distribution creates its own icons, interface elements, configurations and sometimes even their own shell. To gain momentum some level of standardization is necessary to be called "Linux."
Linux is the name of the kernel. I run Debian, and the specific distribution is Knoppix. Some people run Gentoo, some people run Red Hat, some people run Slackware. Each distribution, like you said, has it's points and problems. Most of these points and problems have to do with the preferred method of software management. Apt works for me.
Part of the fragmentation problem for Linux is that the fragmentation forces a problem for software installation. Users are forced to untar, un-gzip, copy, configure and sometimes compile in order to properly install software.
Again, Apt works for me. I haven't had to untar and compile anything except my own software (and its dependant libraries on occasion).
Just.. I realize you're not actually asking much, but it definately seems you're asking from the wrong context. Desktop linux is not a windows replacement. It's a windows alternative. It seems strange, but we're not actually out to kill microsoft... just to not contribute to them.
They might, they might not. I've just done my part by writing my congressman and senator via EFF.
The creative end of hollywood are usually pretty bad, but often enough wonderful to merit its existence. The business end of hollywood is continuously, and I say this meaning every single syllable, attempting to lay steaming miles of putrid shit upon its customer base.
Yeah, once again, reasons to stick to the use of [insert current p2p software here].
(meanwhile, it's good that XXAA can hold the companies that make p2p software responsible for individuals' infringement. The P2P software will remain open source, and these fuckers will be chasing after ghosts for the remainder of their industry's lifespan.
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I think I'm going to stick to using KOffice.
Hey, look. A European country is doing something stupid and pointless - loudly - for what are obviously political reasons. I'll bet next they ignore the public's notes completely and do what they intended to do in the first place.
Another day in politics, another steaming pile of PR. </bland>
Doesn't this article just basically say that the same percentage of women as men watch Sci-Fi (IE: there are, generallly, 51% women and 49% men in the world, thus a 51/49 split between male / female fans is pretty normal), or, moreover, that it's become genderistically mainstream (no longer strictly a male demographic)
Hmmm... Probably not. However, I would suggest not downloading and running any exe files from unknown sources. Unlike the idiots usin AIM who've been hit with this.
But you know what? I'm not going to be frightened by a worm or virus until someone writes one that works via bittorrent.
IE: The worm is a compact, surreptitious BT/Kademlia client. There are distributions of the nasty part built for Win32, OSX, and Linux, floating on the torrentstream. The nasty part can be any size, and has constantly updated exploit code for numerous pluggable targets (for example, you, as the virus writer, could add a torrented executable for exploiting a new bug in filezilla server, or in Apache, etc.) The virus core would download this and run it on the local machine. It could even be "smart", and detect the target machine's servers before getting and running the exploit. Once the exploit is run at the target machine, it uploads the BT client virus core for the appropriate architecture, and the process starts again.
One could use the usual tools for preventing detection and removal: polymorphic code, torrential code (code that is split on function barriers and resorted in random order on a per-spread basis), multiple copies, Knowing your Permissions (IE: run itself as user X, make user X root/admin, set permissions so that only user X can know the executable and process exist.) Persistent regression (IE: making sure that the executable is in the startup files of the OS) Trojaning, masking (encoding the executable and running itself via a decoder program)...
Y'all should be happy I don't write virii. I've been fighting with them so long, I think I'd be pretty good at it...
I wonder what the obstacles to making a retrovirus to "enforce" this mutation in human patients would be.
Seriously. The treatment for advanced HIV would be something like, "Ok, here's your injection. That's going to take about a week to take its course, during which you'll be slightly ill. Since you've got the AIDS, it'll be pretty bad, but you'll be in hospital. After that, it will take approximately seven years for you body to fully replace it's cells. During this time, you may have the occasional relapse; don't hesitate to call us if you're feeling ill. You will, however, be permanently immune to HIV after that point."
Actually, ensuring that a nuke will work only takes two machines - one low-end and one high-end.
The low-end one is the ballistic tragectory calculator. That's at home base. Don't get me wrong, it has to know weather patterns, trigonometry, physical law, airline routes, satellite tracking, etc. I think maybe a 500MHz machine could handle it.
The high-end one goes on the missile itself, and handles local tracking, GPS, etc, in real time. Local tracking should be done via passive radar and visual detection (what takes the hard work). GPS is for hitting your target. You've got a bit of leeway, as you're essentially swatting flies with a hand-grenade (cue monty python reference here). Local tracking is for avoiding annoying things like interception missiles, airplanes, etc, that might mitigate the damage done (exploding a nuke in the air may not kill everyone in the expected radius, you know). Probably a 3GHz machine could handle this, but I'd go as low as 2.0.
No, you don't really need a 64k paralell processing behemoth. You just need a paired computer for each missile (they could likely even stay in communication with a matched set of encryption keys. Keep 'em guessing, you know?)
Generally when a government "gives up" power, it's because the power has turned into a liability. The dissolusion of the British Empire was because, for what having an empire got them, it was also a political headache - both from foreign powers, and from the english population. When India won its independance, it was because they were sending people and resources to deal with a population that simply refused to play ball with them - thus providing no return. Eventually they gave up.
The American revolution worked the same way, but for different reasons. Basically, the British government, at the time, was busy defending itself from the French. As such, it couldn't afford to send troops half-way around the world to rule people who didn't want their rule (No, we did not kick the brits' asses. We just picked a very good time to be disobediant.)
This works in corporate situations as well. When Shell was going to dispose of the Brent Spar oil rig (with full governmental permission, I might add) through deep-sea sinkage, Greenpeace was able to (with Shell's misguided help - Shell fired Greenpeacers off the rig with water cannons that make firehoses look like territorial pissing) get press attention, sparking a large-scale European boycott. Their decision had become a problem. They ended up making the rig into a pier at an inordinate cost - but less than that of a continued boycott.
You want to fix copyright law? I'm not talking about just the DMCA, I'm talking about copyright law in general.
Complain. Loudly. Convince your friends, convince anyone who'll listen. Then ignore the law itself. And when the feds come, let them take you, and complain loudly in court. Appeal. Appeal again. And again. Essentially, do your part to make sure that enforcing copyright law in the face of modern technology is so prohibitively expensive - both to the corporations who attempt to enforce it and to the government who must deliberate trials - that it either fades into the realm of "blue laws", or it is repealed outright.
While you're waiting, fill senators' mailboxes with e-mail concerning your right to use a song that was written before you were born, or to use a cartoon that's been around since before your parents were born. CC those e-mails to the top mofos of the MPAA, RIAA, book publishers, magazine editors, news agencies, and any other content creator or media outlet you can think of. You'll cost them a few bills in time and bandwidth, and maybe - if you're a well-spoken orator - you might even change a mind or two.
This is a war. This is a battle for public knowledge, and the freedom of that knowledge. This is a fight to bring public domain back where it belongs - 17 years behind content creation.
Me? I'm going to go watch a movie. I mean, I don't really have that much time on my hands.
Of course, neither do most of you, which is why the DMCA is here to stay.
I've often wondered... What defines one as "Bona Fide"?
Such as a release that will be shared only with "bona fide" developers? Or someone being treated as a "bona fide" journalist? How can one verify bonafication?
Heh. Coward. You'll not get anywhere without taking risks.
If his decision blew up in his face, he'd be fired. It's that kind of pressure that gives you incentive to do it right.
Unless you lack faith in your skills. All the risk lay in what you can break and what you don't consider. So, migration should happen one service at a time, with load-sharing between the old and new servers, and logging (so as to catch breaks before they're fully implemented). Ass covered. Next, Consider Everything. What ports are open on this server? What other services depend on it?
In other words, no, you can't just drop-in replace a windows solution with an OSS one. However, if you can migrate individual servers from MS to OSS, one at a time, watching all the way (which is, by the way, what the term "Server Migration" means), then you can make it painless and unnotable to your users (if you've the need to migrate, they're probably getting a little down time anyway).
Finally, as long as you can keep the Big Boss from noticing until he says one day, "Hmm, are our computers feeling perky today, or is it just me?", then you're in the clear. IE: the best way to avoid catastrophic failure is to not put your system in a situation where it's possible (save for the usual Acts of God: flood, lightning, hot magma, etc).
The real good thing is that he's under the impression that compters have been "taken over" by the techies.
You know, 'cos programmers and hardware developers weren't the ones who invented and built the damn things, and aren't the ones working fervently to dumb them down to the point where humanists can use them.
Either way, it's a generic mpeg-4 decoder. I wonder how much hacking would be necessary to get this puppy to play AVI encapsulated DivX/XviD/MS MPEG-4/WMV/etc. I mean, other than writing a support wrapper for the format, what else would need to be done?
Well, you may speak and write IEEE -52 English, but I speak and write ANSI -12 English.
The problems with standards compliance become apparent at the points where the standards overlap. Support for reading and understanding every standard for a given format are then required. For example, Openoffice can read and understand many, many dialects of "document".
Interestingly enough, my computer can print a variety of "standard" latin alphabets, including versions such as "Times New Roman" and "Bitstream Vera Sans".
Slashdot Mirror
*ahem*
With larger wattages you have better signal strength, meaning the modulations can be done at finer granularity. As such, more bits can be packed into a given interval of the signal.
Example: audio is a simple amplitude modulation air-compression signal. At 256 levels of granularity, you're using 8-bits per sample. At 64k levels of granulatiry, you're using 16-bits per sample.
That's where the log2 in Shannon's equation comes from. The higher the signal to noise, the more data you can pack in.
But that's not what this is about. This particular scheme works in a way to filter out noise that simply doesn't fit a given signature. It does this by a special antenna, and probably some sort of FFT analysis on the firmware end. My guess is that it produces/picks up only signals that produce a 1/2 Nyquist + 3i/4 Nyquist low voltage peak. Since simple sine waves don't produce this, and nor does noise (noise produces a relatively consistant FFT sig, focused mostly on the low end), one could pack a lot of data into those low-end side channels, by merely calibrating the FFT to nyquist on the carrier.
Ok, ok, I know that SOUNDS simple, but it's not as. It does take some clever detection routines to grab it. Personally I think this guy's a genius. It's easy to say "Hey! I coulda thought of that," after the fact. It's hard to actually think of it before hearing about it on Slashdot.
Of course the number of paralell middle men in a P2P-based VoIP reduces the number of points of failure. For example, the worst problem I've ever had with skype is a few clicks here and there.
Another attempt to squelch innovation that will just redirect homebrew efforts in the direction of circumvention. Call me when they shut down eMule/aMule/xMule, Kademlia, or BitTorrent (or BitSpirit (BT/Kad-like subsystem), for that matter).
... [peer-to-peer networking] is either going to be legal, or it isn't going to exist."
I'm bored of this stupid timeline... you know:
P2P services arise
RIAA/MPAA kills one
P2P piracy increases due to consumers being pissed off that the RIAA/MPAA has no respect for their rights (or their tastes... this summer had nothing good in the theatres aside from the Guide, you know)
RIAA/MPAA freaks and claims P2P services are to blame, inviting legislation/technology that fucks fair use while not doing any real good
P2P piracy increses, for much the same reasons as before, while homebrew programmers work around the new legislation/technology
RIAA/MPAA freaks
P2P piracy increses
A quote from a relevant link of the article:
"We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading...it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me
- Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
You're right, Dianne. But you haven't quite gotten the point.
Unregulated, P2P users were still buying good CDs. But every time new anti-p2p legislation is enacted, new anti-circumvention technology added, and for each p2p site shut down, it alienates the Industries from their customers. Each time, the animosity that was once limited to the tech-savvy grows ever outward into people who'd never have thought bad of their content providers.
There are easy ways to fix this; one is to stop with the lawsuits. Worst. Press. Ever. Another is to start producing quality. People won't want to steal that which is actually worth paying for. The real item is to fix copyright law. 95 years past the original author's death is rediculous. How about 15 years past initial release? If I knew I could, for example, download episodes of the original Battlestar Galactia without legal repercussions, I might reconsider downloding Sci Fi's Season 2 DV cap that's floating on Bittorrent.
This law doesn't matter to anyone with a brain. A TV card with an offending chip can be "repaired" by anyone determined enough. You'd have to integrate your crap into the DAC and MPEG-4 encoders of every device, then hope someone doesn't hack the controls out of the software, or that someone doesn't make an open source version, fully functional (and easily modified), on the premise of interoperability.
Yeah, release the drivers for linux in closed source code. Someone will build ones for their amiga system and claim interoperability. Release for amiga, and you'll have the BeOS people doing it. Do BeOS, and there's a few flavors of BSD that would be clean. BeOS covered? How about Minix? You're not going to win here without spending a few billion in development, and then you'll still lose to those who don't cower under a legal premise and have names like "Thundulator". The term is "Unenforcable", or, in colloquial terms, "Useless fuck of a law".
Meanwhile, the cycle's going to go on until either the MPAA/RIAA have run out of money to throw at the problem, due to the combination of lack of consumers willing to pay to be fucked in the ass, or until they basically cow under - and eat what crumbs consumers will give them AFTER the content creators have been paid - like the good little middle-management fucktards they are.
In conclusion, Dianne is partially right. Their either will be legal AND free P2P, or there won't be an RIAA/MPAA. Actually, I'm kinda pushing for both.
Ok, so does this mean I can't say "Bush sucks big hairy donkey balls" on my blog anymore?
Ok, consider this:
Say I memorize my library of books.
Someone asks me, "Hey do you know a good Sci Fi novel?"
I respond, "Yeah, [insert novel here]. It's got [this plot device] and [that plot device], and is really [adjective]. It's also got [non-standard plot device], kind of amazing to fit into Sci Fi. Ooh, and there's [twist] near the end, just to keep you guessing"
Have I violated fair use by passing on my derivative knowledge? No.
Now, if I scan my library in, instead, and index it, is this not similar to memorizing it?
Ok, so google serves ads with it. Let's look beyond the law here into the realm of coasean negotiation. This is, simplisticly, a field of civil economics where two parties negotiate with one another to dicuss damages, benefits, etc, to determine the total social benefit of a project. First assume that there is no cache function for book searches (books aren't going to change every few weeks. Additionally, note that Google Print doesn't have the Cache feature.).
The vocal parties in this situation are a number of publishing companies and Google. Small numbers == without trasaction costs. Government intervention is not required unless an agreement can't be reached, in which case the only intervention is a government order that one be reached, or the government will reach one for them, at cost.
Costs: all to Google. Google is paying for the rackspace, the servers, the book scanners (human and hardware), and the bandwidth to pull off this project, as well as individual copies of the books Google scans.
Benefits: Google gets ad hits. Publishers theoretically sell more books (users discover books they have not previously bought). The public (the silent negotiator here) gets the best card-catalog in history. A number of third-party hackers get free copies of books by building exploitation scripts for the indexer. I'm a programmer, and I can tell you that this would be a lot of programming work, would not be very accurate, would take a very long time to actually download a book, and could be easily recognized by Google's servers.
Rule in effect: Property rights go to the publishers.
Under Coasean negotiation, Google would pay the publishers for the right to use the books. This is pretty much covered by the last bit of "Costs", since fair use includes the right to have a copy of the books.
In other words, the Publishing companies are being greedy, and fighting for monies they're already getting.
The article seems to finish off with, "Don't bother with these unless you want to overclock"
Which makes sense... or not. I'd just buy 533 ram and be done with it.
The real question is: can I buy 533MHz ram and run it slower with lower latencies?
Ever thought what would happen if Microsoft did Mac's route?
Rather than develop their own new kernel, they provided support for linux and moved to a linux kernel; built their own window server and manager from scratch and hired people to work on the Wine project.
*shakes head*
god... I'm living in a dream world.
- Create a single music solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS to music applications to TV experience.
- Create a single photo solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS thumbnails to previewing full screen to editing in a photo applications.
Actually, these are both there already. Sound in general, as well as video, are all handled byty a group of libraries common to most Linux platform audio and video software. I do think, for example, that Kaffiene and amaroK could be integrated, but their functionality is so disparate that I don't think its necessary. Meanwhile, on the back-end, Kaffiene uses xine. As does Totem. (why all three come installed in Knoppix is beyond me; maybe they were just trying to find ways of filling that 4G of DVD).
Right now there are dozens and perhaps even hundreds of different Linux distributions. Each one has its own quirks, bugs and issues. Linux is currently an idea it's not a brand. There doesn't seem to be a central floodgate to dictate the standard interface. Each distribution creates its own icons, interface elements, configurations and sometimes even their own shell. To gain momentum some level of standardization is necessary to be called "Linux."
Linux is the name of the kernel. I run Debian, and the specific distribution is Knoppix. Some people run Gentoo, some people run Red Hat, some people run Slackware. Each distribution, like you said, has it's points and problems. Most of these points and problems have to do with the preferred method of software management. Apt works for me.
Part of the fragmentation problem for Linux is that the fragmentation forces a problem for software installation. Users are forced to untar, un-gzip, copy, configure and sometimes compile in order to properly install software.
Again, Apt works for me. I haven't had to untar and compile anything except my own software (and its dependant libraries on occasion).
Just.. I realize you're not actually asking much, but it definately seems you're asking from the wrong context. Desktop linux is not a windows replacement. It's a windows alternative. It seems strange, but we're not actually out to kill microsoft... just to not contribute to them.
They might, they might not. I've just done my part by writing my congressman and senator via EFF.
The creative end of hollywood are usually pretty bad, but often enough wonderful to merit its existence. The business end of hollywood is continuously, and I say this meaning every single syllable, attempting to lay steaming miles of putrid shit upon its customer base.
Yeah, once again, reasons to stick to the use of [insert current p2p software here].
(meanwhile, it's good that XXAA can hold the companies that make p2p software responsible for individuals' infringement. The P2P software will remain open source, and these fuckers will be chasing after ghosts for the remainder of their industry's lifespan.
Check this out.
http://kirtas-tech.com/
The following packages will be REMOVED: openoffice-de-en 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 1254 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 307MB disk space will be freed.
I think I'm going to stick to using KOffice.
"80MB Memory Requirements"
Not heard drive.
In other words, when you run an OOo app, it loads the Entirety of OOo into ram. Not a happy thing.
I'd say "Troll", but perhaps "Insightful"... cos you apparently know you're trolling.
Of course, with your sig, I'd be more likely to say "Spam".
Hey, look. A European country is doing something stupid and pointless - loudly - for what are obviously political reasons. I'll bet next they ignore the public's notes completely and do what they intended to do in the first place.
Another day in politics, another steaming pile of PR.
</bland>
Doesn't this article just basically say that the same percentage of women as men watch Sci-Fi (IE: there are, generallly, 51% women and 49% men in the world, thus a 51/49 split between male / female fans is pretty normal), or, moreover, that it's become genderistically mainstream (no longer strictly a male demographic)
Hmmm... Probably not. However, I would suggest not downloading and running any exe files from unknown sources. Unlike the idiots usin AIM who've been hit with this.
...
But you know what? I'm not going to be frightened by a worm or virus until someone writes one that works via bittorrent.
IE: The worm is a compact, surreptitious BT/Kademlia client. There are distributions of the nasty part built for Win32, OSX, and Linux, floating on the torrentstream. The nasty part can be any size, and has constantly updated exploit code for numerous pluggable targets (for example, you, as the virus writer, could add a torrented executable for exploiting a new bug in filezilla server, or in Apache, etc.) The virus core would download this and run it on the local machine. It could even be "smart", and detect the target machine's servers before getting and running the exploit. Once the exploit is run at the target machine, it uploads the BT client virus core for the appropriate architecture, and the process starts again.
One could use the usual tools for preventing detection and removal: polymorphic code, torrential code (code that is split on function barriers and resorted in random order on a per-spread basis), multiple copies, Knowing your Permissions (IE: run itself as user X, make user X root/admin, set permissions so that only user X can know the executable and process exist.) Persistent regression (IE: making sure that the executable is in the startup files of the OS) Trojaning, masking (encoding the executable and running itself via a decoder program)
Y'all should be happy I don't write virii. I've been fighting with them so long, I think I'd be pretty good at it...
mmmmm... recombinant virus....
I wonder what the obstacles to making a retrovirus to "enforce" this mutation in human patients would be.
Seriously. The treatment for advanced HIV would be something like, "Ok, here's your injection. That's going to take about a week to take its course, during which you'll be slightly ill. Since you've got the AIDS, it'll be pretty bad, but you'll be in hospital. After that, it will take approximately seven years for you body to fully replace it's cells. During this time, you may have the occasional relapse; don't hesitate to call us if you're feeling ill. You will, however, be permanently immune to HIV after that point."
Actually, ensuring that a nuke will work only takes two machines - one low-end and one high-end.
The low-end one is the ballistic tragectory calculator. That's at home base. Don't get me wrong, it has to know weather patterns, trigonometry, physical law, airline routes, satellite tracking, etc. I think maybe a 500MHz machine could handle it.
The high-end one goes on the missile itself, and handles local tracking, GPS, etc, in real time. Local tracking should be done via passive radar and visual detection (what takes the hard work). GPS is for hitting your target. You've got a bit of leeway, as you're essentially swatting flies with a hand-grenade (cue monty python reference here). Local tracking is for avoiding annoying things like interception missiles, airplanes, etc, that might mitigate the damage done (exploding a nuke in the air may not kill everyone in the expected radius, you know). Probably a 3GHz machine could handle this, but I'd go as low as 2.0.
No, you don't really need a 64k paralell processing behemoth. You just need a paired computer for each missile (they could likely even stay in communication with a matched set of encryption keys. Keep 'em guessing, you know?)
Generally when a government "gives up" power, it's because the power has turned into a liability. The dissolusion of the British Empire was because, for what having an empire got them, it was also a political headache - both from foreign powers, and from the english population. When India won its independance, it was because they were sending people and resources to deal with a population that simply refused to play ball with them - thus providing no return. Eventually they gave up.
The American revolution worked the same way, but for different reasons. Basically, the British government, at the time, was busy defending itself from the French. As such, it couldn't afford to send troops half-way around the world to rule people who didn't want their rule (No, we did not kick the brits' asses. We just picked a very good time to be disobediant.)
This works in corporate situations as well. When Shell was going to dispose of the Brent Spar oil rig (with full governmental permission, I might add) through deep-sea sinkage, Greenpeace was able to (with Shell's misguided help - Shell fired Greenpeacers off the rig with water cannons that make firehoses look like territorial pissing) get press attention, sparking a large-scale European boycott. Their decision had become a problem. They ended up making the rig into a pier at an inordinate cost - but less than that of a continued boycott.
You want to fix copyright law? I'm not talking about just the DMCA, I'm talking about copyright law in general.
Complain. Loudly. Convince your friends, convince anyone who'll listen. Then ignore the law itself. And when the feds come, let them take you, and complain loudly in court. Appeal. Appeal again. And again. Essentially, do your part to make sure that enforcing copyright law in the face of modern technology is so prohibitively expensive - both to the corporations who attempt to enforce it and to the government who must deliberate trials - that it either fades into the realm of "blue laws", or it is repealed outright.
While you're waiting, fill senators' mailboxes with e-mail concerning your right to use a song that was written before you were born, or to use a cartoon that's been around since before your parents were born. CC those e-mails to the top mofos of the MPAA, RIAA, book publishers, magazine editors, news agencies, and any other content creator or media outlet you can think of. You'll cost them a few bills in time and bandwidth, and maybe - if you're a well-spoken orator - you might even change a mind or two.
This is a war. This is a battle for public knowledge, and the freedom of that knowledge. This is a fight to bring public domain back where it belongs - 17 years behind content creation.
Me? I'm going to go watch a movie. I mean, I don't really have that much time on my hands.
Of course, neither do most of you, which is why the DMCA is here to stay.
I've often wondered... What defines one as "Bona Fide"?
Such as a release that will be shared only with "bona fide" developers? Or someone being treated as a "bona fide" journalist? How can one verify bonafication?
*looks at Alyssa Mack*
*looks at crotch*
Oh, is THAT what they mean... Well, duh.
Heh. Coward. You'll not get anywhere without taking risks.
If his decision blew up in his face, he'd be fired. It's that kind of pressure that gives you incentive to do it right.
Unless you lack faith in your skills. All the risk lay in what you can break and what you don't consider. So, migration should happen one service at a time, with load-sharing between the old and new servers, and logging (so as to catch breaks before they're fully implemented). Ass covered. Next, Consider Everything. What ports are open on this server? What other services depend on it?
In other words, no, you can't just drop-in replace a windows solution with an OSS one. However, if you can migrate individual servers from MS to OSS, one at a time, watching all the way (which is, by the way, what the term "Server Migration" means), then you can make it painless and unnotable to your users (if you've the need to migrate, they're probably getting a little down time anyway).
Finally, as long as you can keep the Big Boss from noticing until he says one day, "Hmm, are our computers feeling perky today, or is it just me?", then you're in the clear. IE: the best way to avoid catastrophic failure is to not put your system in a situation where it's possible (save for the usual Acts of God: flood, lightning, hot magma, etc).
I for one say farewell to our HTTP overlords and welcome the prosperity brought upon us by our new P2P overlords.
The real good thing is that he's under the impression that compters have been "taken over" by the techies.
You know, 'cos programmers and hardware developers weren't the ones who invented and built the damn things, and aren't the ones working fervently to dumb them down to the point where humanists can use them.
Either way, it's a generic mpeg-4 decoder. I wonder how much hacking would be necessary to get this puppy to play AVI encapsulated DivX/XviD/MS MPEG-4/WMV/etc. I mean, other than writing a support wrapper for the format, what else would need to be done?
Well, you may speak and write IEEE -52 English, but I speak and write ANSI -12 English.
The problems with standards compliance become apparent at the points where the standards overlap. Support for reading and understanding every standard for a given format are then required. For example, Openoffice can read and understand many, many dialects of "document".
Interestingly enough, my computer can print a variety of "standard" latin alphabets, including versions such as "Times New Roman" and "Bitstream Vera Sans".