I dunno what everyone's worried about. I mean, it says encryption...not like, product key and verification crap. If Valve was actually worried about it, then they would have put some 128-bit, maybe even 256-bit single-key encryption in there, stuff which would never feasibly be broken. Now of course, that assumes the scheme only has one working key, which if they did do it like a product key thing, wouldn't work.
But, at least, if I was valve...encrypt a seperate copy for each player, with an id to identify which key valve needs to give that player when they buy the game.::shrug:: Practically unbreakable. I don't know if that's feasible under steam either, but my point is that all it takes is some easily found strong encryption (gnupg stuff, even) to make this practically uncrackable until the game is released.
lol, do your calculations first before making wild claims, I'm assuming 32-bit color, and 30 frames per second...which the frame rate at least is probably on the low-end: (1920*1080 * 4 bytes per pixel * 30 frames per second)
You'd need 3 of these discs to store a two and a half hour movie in the format you said. Sure, these discs are massive, but don't underestimate the size of a movie...it's practically impossible at this stage of technology to work with raw video.
BTW, if you're planning on storing the video raw, why use variable bitrate? Why not just store the audio raw as well? Raw audio is actually manageable at least.
Dude, when's the last time you've seen someone *seriously* using a voice recognition system, or anything other than a qwerty keyboard?...'Nuff said, you need to stuff this question away for a few years.
BTW, hand writing recognition? *cough* talk about slow as heck -- there's no way hand-writing recognition would replace typing, like, ever, it takes way too long to write something.
Dude...you're living in a dream world if you think linux doesn't violate any patents. How long have you been reading slashdot? There's been all sorts of articles about "Microsoft granted patent on double click" or that sorta thing. I'm quite confident that linux violates quite a few patents, though I've never done a search myself. I'm also quite confident that MS Windows violates quite a few patents (they're in some law suits now about it).
"They know Linux doesn't violate any patents. If this were not the case, providing such insurance would be a terrible idea " Do you think car insurance companies provide insurance knowing that people don't get into accidents? No, the idea is that the majority of people who are paying for the insurance will not need it, but having that insurance will help them secure support within the company for migrating to linux. Both companies benefit from linux insurance. This is especially true considering that, if I get sued over patents for using a commercial product, such as windows or oracle or something, you can bet that the creator of those products would step forward and help me defend myself. With linux there is no one to do that, unless you're subscribing to a particular distribution that might or might not have the money for it. This is why larger companies don't need insurance for running commercial software, but it's quite helpful when running open source software.
I welcome the option of getting insurance for running open source software, as the major effect it'll have is to encourage big business to switch.
Ahh, according to another poster, I'm not and now that I think about it, it does make sense that it'd send an ICMP response to a closed port.
The thing about increasing security is only partly true. Encrypting a time stamp and stuff would make the protocol more secure, but the idea is to have something which is amazingly simple, so that there are very few bugs, and close to no exploits for it, as an extra layer for the real security which should be implemented into the daemon that this one is covering for.
After reading the other responses to my post, I do like the port knocking idea. Hiding a daemon is a good thing, and using UDP just exposes another daemon, unlike port knocking.
I do appreciate the advantages of port knocking, but I was under the impression that there's no such thing as open/closed UDP ports if you're not on that box. Is there an ICMP or other response to let boxes know that UDP ports are closed when something is sent to them? I just assumed that there was no response by default to UDP, and if there was no response from the daemon that watched for the UDP string, then it'd be the same thing.
But no, using encryption on the UDP daemon would be making it more complex, very similar to the encrypted port knocking sequence, I wasn't going to suggest that solution, because I understand that the goal is to hide the daemon from anyone that's looking for it. I thought that listening to a UDP port would do that, but apparently I was wrong?
Correct. The OS fingerprint isn't really even that hard to fake. Read the nmap man page if you're curious, it explains a bit more about it. It basically just has to do with how quickly, and in what way the ip layer responds to different things. (I've not looked at the link in the article so I dunno if it explains OS fingerprinting at all, or if it just says that the new port knocking implementation implements it)
Well, as another poster pointed out, if someone sniffs what ports you're connecting to, then it would be simple to replay that knock. That's the reason you need a security level underneath it, and shouldn't rely on port knocking unless it's a changing sequence (like the one-time pad idea also mentioned in the post).
I'm not quite sure how the OS detection is supposed to help. Maybe you could customize things for different OSes? As long as port knocking schemes are implemented on two OSes, you could let the port knocker determine which OS you're connecting from, and connect to a specific service depending upon it. I don't really see any other use for the OS-dependent port knocking, but it's something that's cool, and not been done before, so I guess it's news-worthy.
The specific example the parent to your comment cited was sending a string to a UDP port. I believe he understands the advantages of port knocking, which you explained unnecessarily. UDP is connectionless, and as far as I can tell, there's not much difference between sending a standard string to UDP to tell the OS to open up the port to you, and port knocking for the same purpose. However, the differences in implementation are vast. UDP is already implemented, whereas these port knocking solutions are still in development. UDP is probably going to be a lot easier to implement without interfacing with the system firewall, hence a lot simpler, and not introducing bugs into your firewall system. About the only advantage port knocking might have over a UDP string is exactly that -- It lays on top of your firewall instead of underneath it, but I'm not quite sure that that would have any advantages whatsoever.
"If people use words the way they want then won't they hit a wall if applying for a job or filling in important documents as they travel through life?"
Yes, you're right about that. I'm not saying that *individuals* should use the language how they want. I'm saying that society as a whole *will* use the language how they want. If that means changing the meaning of the word irony, I don't think there's any stopping them. But individuals in society are still expected to know how to communicate with the different levels of society, such as businesses, or in casual settings, etc. If one hasn't put forth the effort to learn how today's society expects writing in a formal situation, then that reflects badly on that individual, but I don't think it's a comment on evolution of language at all. Formal speak, and casual speak have been quite different for quite a while, and it's the same way in most languages.
That's interesting about the creating words thing. Did the professors accept that you used a word you created? Could they figure out what it meant? Or was it more just an exercise in etymology?(I think that's the right word. study of the sources of words is what I meant)
I'm not really trying to give any rules that need to be followed or anything. I just don't think it's right to straight up tell someone they're wrong in their usage of a word, when it's the same way that the majority of the society uses it. Maybe saying something like "It's not technically right" or "Well, it's sort of evolved to mean that, but what it's supposed to mean is..." And I also think it's completely pointless to do so on slashdot. Most readers have heard the fact that irony means something different than what most people think it does at some point before, and either don't care to know, or already know and don't care.
Heheh, I don't really have much to say about the different country's languages. I think it just means that British English and American English will continue to become less alike.
Did you know, in China, there was one origin for their language, along with a writing system. But the writing system wasn't phonetic (it was based solely on meaning), and there was no standard way to sound out things in text. Now, as a result of that, there are over a thousand different 'dialects' of the chinese language, and the majority of them cannot understand each other. If you learn mandarin, the most used dialect, you can only speak with about 20% (that was the number I last heard, I think) of actual Chinese people. The different regions developed mostly seperately, and hence, their languages evolved differently. I'm sure it also has to do with the few people who did travel not speaking it correctly, but yea, I think the whole British English and American English thing would've ended up similar to that, if it weren't for the internet and such telecommunication devices.
Thanks for the longest exchange I've had on slashdot so far, it's quite an interesting discussion.
Yes, just let words evolve. That's what they do anyway. You don't have to play catch, the people at Webster's do. The dictionary is a guideline, not a mandate. The way that people speak the language tells the dictionary what to print, not the other way around. Did you know "ain't" is in most dictionaries now? Now you can correct people: It *wasn't* a word.
Languages will evolve no matter what people do about it. There is no stopping it, it's something that happens, just like there's no stopping people from enjoying cheap pop music, or stopping people from voting for George Bush Jr. because he seems like a nice guy, or whatever. Intellectuals have always been somewhat disconnected from society, and this is one issue in which intellectuals will always be somewhat disconnected. They say "Hey, don't screw up the language", whereas, in reality, the language has been getting 'screwed up' since it's inception.
It's good to know the current proper meaning of a word, and it can be good to correct people when they think a word means something completely different than what it does...but irony is understood by most in a way contrary to the literary term, and by correcting them, you're essentially pushing them away from modern usage of the word; Correct people so that they can be understood better, not just because it's what may be technically 'correct'. If you really have a problem with using a word 'incorrectly', just try not to use the word...and be understanding when someone uses the modern definition of it, as opposed to the literary definition.
It's not because *one* person doesn't feel like paying attention, it's because society as a whole is using that word differently than how the dictionaries say it should be.
You say "Just because someone doesn't feel like paying attention in english class, why should...", I say "Just because someone over 200 years ago thought a word should be used this way, why should we listen?"
Conversation may be more ambiguous twenty-five years from now, but that's the way it is, and you correcting the 50-100 or so people you're going to correct on slashdot is not going to slow that down any. Even if it is an important word in a literary sense, I don't think the meaning of the word irony changing will cause some big catastrophe on our society, or even that anyone outside of college or the literary studies will notice.
The jist of your argument is "This is how it's always been, why should we change it? Losing words sucks and all" which, to me at least, doesn't hold much water. The purpose of language is communication. Communication in the present, not with the people who created the word irony, or have used it in its traditional sense. The majority of people in today's society (at least in the US, I don't know if it's similarly changing in Britain or not) think the word irony means what you're saying it doesn't. A language isn't defined by it's dictionary, it's defined by the people who speak it, and how it's spoken, and your definition of the word irony is quickly becoming obsolete. Languages always evolve, and this is one aspect of the English language evolving.
I pretty much feel the same way about the word 'Hacker', RMS, and others are wasting their time trying to revive this word, no matter how much sentimental value they may have in it.
Overall, a valid 'Ask Slashdot'. But one thing bugs me. "More points of failure." I guess that's technically true, but I'd think having half of your data saved is better than having all of it lost -- I fail to see how having more drives is a bad thing when it comes to reliability.
Simply having a patent doesn't mean it's valid. The USPTO does a small search for previous art, but it *doesn't* do a search to see if it infringes on other patents. Getting granted a patent isn't giving the permission to use what's described in it, it's getting permission to tell others not to, and possibly have the US government agree with you. Any patent granted can still be shot down by a court. There are a lot of invalid patents currently held, and the major reason why they've not been invalidated officially is because there's not been a lawsuit where they've come under the scope.
For all intents and purposes, a patent is only useful for threats or for beginning a lawsuit until it's been challenged and upheld in a court. BTW, if the patent is valid, then lots of times the other party will determine that on their own (with their legal team), and settle out of court.
The patents like this that microsoft holds, like that double-click patent that everyone talks about, will probably never be actually used, unless they *really* *really* need it. Which I'd doubt will happen.
Racism - The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
He never said they were worse, or better. He never said that there weren't exceptions. He was making a generalization. And I don't think there's one argument you could make that would convince anyone that, in general, the Japanese way of thinking is not different than the American way of thinking. *You* are being overly PC.
I don't see why in the heck you're modded as funny, but ah well.
Anyway, the Japanese, and English languages are completely different. You can't interpret a language without also throwing in parts of its culture, and what conventions there are in speech. They might have said literally "We don't have a decision", or something similar, but, if a Japanese person is talking to another Japanese person, the true meaning conveyed behind it is "We decide no." The best way to look at it is that there is no direct translation of almost any sentence in any language, to another sentence in another language. It is the interpreters job to make a judgement on what the meaning would be in English, and if they decided to interpret it as "We decide no." Well, I'd bet they knew the weight resting on their shoulders, and I'd bet they're a lot more qualified to make that decision than you and I are.
BTW, interesting thing, in Japan at least, there's a difference between a translator, and an interpreter. A translator directly translates what is said, practically word-for-word, as close as they can get. An interpreter many times puts their own spin on things (which I'd doubt is what happened in this situation), and has to go based on their experience and knowledge of the culture to translate the *meaning*. A translator converts what is said. An interpreter converts the meaning of what is said.
Example: When someone asks the phrase "how are you?" in Japanese, it's rude to answer anything negative. A translator would probably say "How are you?", whereas an interpreter would probably say "Hello" or some other non-inquisitive greeting.
It'd be quite difficult to make a digital web cam. Sure, basic photography is simple. The reason? All you need to do is capture the light, and you've got a nice chemical compound that does that fine. You don't have to delve into the actual process of getting it to capture (yea you have to develop it, but the chemical compound on the film does the capturing).
With anything digital, you have to use a matrix of photo-sensitive sensors, process, and send them out to the computer. Which means you either need to buy a CMOS board, or that other kind of photographic digital thing. Figure out how it interfaces, connect a USB interfacing chip onto it (I think they're pretty cheap, Buffer->USB->Program, you handle the arrows and the Program, everything else you'd practically have to buy. I guess you could create the USB interfacing yourself, but that would be tedious, and not important. Using the serial or parallel ports would be easier if you're going to do it yourself, btw.)
Anyway, what another poster said. Go buy a cheap rebate webcam, take it apart, play with the parts some, and put it back together. I'm pretty sure there's nothing that's going to be hurt by light or by touching in a webcam (though not positive, IANADigiPhotgrapher).
This post is getting kinda long, but I wanna share this. I had this idea on a way to make a cheap, possibly portable, digital camera....well, not film camera at least. I'd take three photodiodes (diodes that block when there's light, and don't block when there's not), put the three primary color filters over them, have the light coming in through a slit, and hitting two mirrors, then going to the photodiodes. When you hit the button to take the photo, it rotates the first mirror horizontally, back and forth, as fast as possible, and the second mirror slowly scans down. The output from the photodiodes would directly going to a cassette tape. Later, I could read the cassette tape on my computer, and write a program to analyze it and extract the picture. I thought it was neat because the parts were cheap, but highly impractical. Especially considering it'd take about a second to take the picture with standard photodiodes (~25ns per reading, IIRC). Anything longer than 1/15th of a second *requires* a tripod...imagine the shaking going on with the motors as well.
Dude, XSLT has been working *fine* in Firefox since it was named phoenix, like, version 0.5 or so. Make sure you have your MIME types set up correctly, and the appropriate XML headers. If what you created was standards-compliant, it'd work fine in firefox.
I did a search to find out what HTAs are: "HTML Applications (HTAs) behave like any other applications on your computer, whether they are written in C++, Visual Basic, or J++. HTAs are like a dream come true for programmers who want the power of Internet Explorer without its strict security model and user interface. Now you can create browser-dependent applications that display themselves to your users as a plain window, without any resemblance to Internet Explorer's window." (Emphasis mine)
Sounds like a security hazard to me, plus it sounds like they were meant to be browser dependent. Ever heard of this thing called Java? You can create your own windows, and applications, and have them on the web. Not only that, but the applications created with it will run on almost any operating system. If Java doesn't suit you, why not just use standard EXEs, developed in some standard language? Use an open-source exe packaging tool to package all of the necessary files along with it, and the user wouldn't even notice a difference I bet. It's not like you're gaining any security from using HTAs.
And in regards to HTC...I've obviously never used the technology, but after some preliminary searching, it sounds like yet another activeX style feature. Use java, flash, or something cross-browser. There's no reason to use HTAs, or HTCs, you can get the same functionality, and ease of use, using standards-compliant, cross-browser functionality. It's your(or, those large corporations') choice to use microsoft's technology, but don't say it simply can't be done in other browsers, because it most likely can.
There's this thing. It's called google. You type something into it, and it searches the web for that something. You should try it sometime.
Considering on a search for "/etc/shadow" the first result is a page explaining what it is, why in the heck did you even comment asking a question like this? You deserve to not have your question answered. Google first, don't expect other people to fulfill your laziness.
Just a tip to everyone else playing with UT mods...*never* put anything from a mod in the main UT system directory. It was trying to load Red Orchestra stuff cause I tried putting the RedOrchestra/System stuff into the ut system directory...and it gave me that X11 error as a result.
I get this error: _X11TransSocketOpen: socket() failed for tcp _X11TransSocketOpenCOTSClient: Unable to open socket for tcp _X11TransOpen: transport open failed for tcp/0:0 Couldn't set video mode: Could not create GL context
I got the same error when I installed Red Orchestra (another mod), but installing the patch fixed it. I 've obviously still got the patch installed, so I'm at a loss for what to do. Any advice?
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno what everyone's worried about. I mean, it says encryption...not like, product key and verification crap. If Valve was actually worried about it, then they would have put some 128-bit, maybe even 256-bit single-key encryption in there, stuff which would never feasibly be broken. Now of course, that assumes the scheme only has one working key, which if they did do it like a product key thing, wouldn't work.
::shrug:: Practically unbreakable. I don't know if that's feasible under steam either, but my point is that all it takes is some easily found strong encryption (gnupg stuff, even) to make this practically uncrackable until the game is released.
But, at least, if I was valve...encrypt a seperate copy for each player, with an id to identify which key valve needs to give that player when they buy the game.
lol, do your calculations first before making wild claims, I'm assuming 32-bit color, and 30 frames per second...which the frame rate at least is probably on the low-end:
(1920*1080 * 4 bytes per pixel * 30 frames per second)
straight from google:
(1 920 * 1 080 * 4 * 30 bytes per second) * 2.5 hours = 2.03680247 terabytes
You'd need 3 of these discs to store a two and a half hour movie in the format you said. Sure, these discs are massive, but don't underestimate the size of a movie...it's practically impossible at this stage of technology to work with raw video.
BTW, if you're planning on storing the video raw, why use variable bitrate? Why not just store the audio raw as well? Raw audio is actually manageable at least.
So this device makes the can -1 1/9 degrees colder? That doesn't make any sense. We're talking relative degrees, not absolute...skip the (+/-)32 step.
30 degrees fahrenheit = 16 degrees celsius
Dude, when's the last time you've seen someone *seriously* using a voice recognition system, or anything other than a qwerty keyboard?...'Nuff said, you need to stuff this question away for a few years.
BTW, hand writing recognition? *cough* talk about slow as heck -- there's no way hand-writing recognition would replace typing, like, ever, it takes way too long to write something.
Dude...you're living in a dream world if you think linux doesn't violate any patents. How long have you been reading slashdot? There's been all sorts of articles about "Microsoft granted patent on double click" or that sorta thing. I'm quite confident that linux violates quite a few patents, though I've never done a search myself. I'm also quite confident that MS Windows violates quite a few patents (they're in some law suits now about it).
"They know Linux doesn't violate any patents. If this were not the case, providing such insurance would be a terrible idea "
Do you think car insurance companies provide insurance knowing that people don't get into accidents? No, the idea is that the majority of people who are paying for the insurance will not need it, but having that insurance will help them secure support within the company for migrating to linux. Both companies benefit from linux insurance. This is especially true considering that, if I get sued over patents for using a commercial product, such as windows or oracle or something, you can bet that the creator of those products would step forward and help me defend myself. With linux there is no one to do that, unless you're subscribing to a particular distribution that might or might not have the money for it. This is why larger companies don't need insurance for running commercial software, but it's quite helpful when running open source software.
I welcome the option of getting insurance for running open source software, as the major effect it'll have is to encourage big business to switch.
Ahh, according to another poster, I'm not and now that I think about it, it does make sense that it'd send an ICMP response to a closed port.
The thing about increasing security is only partly true. Encrypting a time stamp and stuff would make the protocol more secure, but the idea is to have something which is amazingly simple, so that there are very few bugs, and close to no exploits for it, as an extra layer for the real security which should be implemented into the daemon that this one is covering for.
After reading the other responses to my post, I do like the port knocking idea. Hiding a daemon is a good thing, and using UDP just exposes another daemon, unlike port knocking.
I do appreciate the advantages of port knocking, but I was under the impression that there's no such thing as open/closed UDP ports if you're not on that box. Is there an ICMP or other response to let boxes know that UDP ports are closed when something is sent to them? I just assumed that there was no response by default to UDP, and if there was no response from the daemon that watched for the UDP string, then it'd be the same thing.
But no, using encryption on the UDP daemon would be making it more complex, very similar to the encrypted port knocking sequence, I wasn't going to suggest that solution, because I understand that the goal is to hide the daemon from anyone that's looking for it. I thought that listening to a UDP port would do that, but apparently I was wrong?
Correct. The OS fingerprint isn't really even that hard to fake. Read the nmap man page if you're curious, it explains a bit more about it. It basically just has to do with how quickly, and in what way the ip layer responds to different things. (I've not looked at the link in the article so I dunno if it explains OS fingerprinting at all, or if it just says that the new port knocking implementation implements it)
Well, as another poster pointed out, if someone sniffs what ports you're connecting to, then it would be simple to replay that knock. That's the reason you need a security level underneath it, and shouldn't rely on port knocking unless it's a changing sequence (like the one-time pad idea also mentioned in the post).
I'm not quite sure how the OS detection is supposed to help. Maybe you could customize things for different OSes? As long as port knocking schemes are implemented on two OSes, you could let the port knocker determine which OS you're connecting from, and connect to a specific service depending upon it. I don't really see any other use for the OS-dependent port knocking, but it's something that's cool, and not been done before, so I guess it's news-worthy.
The specific example the parent to your comment cited was sending a string to a UDP port. I believe he understands the advantages of port knocking, which you explained unnecessarily. UDP is connectionless, and as far as I can tell, there's not much difference between sending a standard string to UDP to tell the OS to open up the port to you, and port knocking for the same purpose. However, the differences in implementation are vast. UDP is already implemented, whereas these port knocking solutions are still in development. UDP is probably going to be a lot easier to implement without interfacing with the system firewall, hence a lot simpler, and not introducing bugs into your firewall system. About the only advantage port knocking might have over a UDP string is exactly that -- It lays on top of your firewall instead of underneath it, but I'm not quite sure that that would have any advantages whatsoever.
"If people use words the way they want then won't they hit a wall if applying for a job or filling in important documents as they travel through life?"
Yes, you're right about that. I'm not saying that *individuals* should use the language how they want. I'm saying that society as a whole *will* use the language how they want. If that means changing the meaning of the word irony, I don't think there's any stopping them. But individuals in society are still expected to know how to communicate with the different levels of society, such as businesses, or in casual settings, etc. If one hasn't put forth the effort to learn how today's society expects writing in a formal situation, then that reflects badly on that individual, but I don't think it's a comment on evolution of language at all. Formal speak, and casual speak have been quite different for quite a while, and it's the same way in most languages.
That's interesting about the creating words thing. Did the professors accept that you used a word you created? Could they figure out what it meant? Or was it more just an exercise in etymology?(I think that's the right word. study of the sources of words is what I meant)
I'm not really trying to give any rules that need to be followed or anything. I just don't think it's right to straight up tell someone they're wrong in their usage of a word, when it's the same way that the majority of the society uses it. Maybe saying something like "It's not technically right" or "Well, it's sort of evolved to mean that, but what it's supposed to mean is..." And I also think it's completely pointless to do so on slashdot. Most readers have heard the fact that irony means something different than what most people think it does at some point before, and either don't care to know, or already know and don't care.
Heheh, I don't really have much to say about the different country's languages. I think it just means that British English and American English will continue to become less alike.
Did you know, in China, there was one origin for their language, along with a writing system. But the writing system wasn't phonetic (it was based solely on meaning), and there was no standard way to sound out things in text. Now, as a result of that, there are over a thousand different 'dialects' of the chinese language, and the majority of them cannot understand each other. If you learn mandarin, the most used dialect, you can only speak with about 20% (that was the number I last heard, I think) of actual Chinese people. The different regions developed mostly seperately, and hence, their languages evolved differently. I'm sure it also has to do with the few people who did travel not speaking it correctly, but yea, I think the whole British English and American English thing would've ended up similar to that, if it weren't for the internet and such telecommunication devices.
Thanks for the longest exchange I've had on slashdot so far, it's quite an interesting discussion.
Yes, just let words evolve. That's what they do anyway. You don't have to play catch, the people at Webster's do. The dictionary is a guideline, not a mandate. The way that people speak the language tells the dictionary what to print, not the other way around. Did you know "ain't" is in most dictionaries now? Now you can correct people: It *wasn't* a word.
Languages will evolve no matter what people do about it. There is no stopping it, it's something that happens, just like there's no stopping people from enjoying cheap pop music, or stopping people from voting for George Bush Jr. because he seems like a nice guy, or whatever. Intellectuals have always been somewhat disconnected from society, and this is one issue in which intellectuals will always be somewhat disconnected. They say "Hey, don't screw up the language", whereas, in reality, the language has been getting 'screwed up' since it's inception.
It's good to know the current proper meaning of a word, and it can be good to correct people when they think a word means something completely different than what it does...but irony is understood by most in a way contrary to the literary term, and by correcting them, you're essentially pushing them away from modern usage of the word; Correct people so that they can be understood better, not just because it's what may be technically 'correct'. If you really have a problem with using a word 'incorrectly', just try not to use the word...and be understanding when someone uses the modern definition of it, as opposed to the literary definition.
It's not because *one* person doesn't feel like paying attention, it's because society as a whole is using that word differently than how the dictionaries say it should be.
You say "Just because someone doesn't feel like paying attention in english class, why should...", I say "Just because someone over 200 years ago thought a word should be used this way, why should we listen?"
Conversation may be more ambiguous twenty-five years from now, but that's the way it is, and you correcting the 50-100 or so people you're going to correct on slashdot is not going to slow that down any. Even if it is an important word in a literary sense, I don't think the meaning of the word irony changing will cause some big catastrophe on our society, or even that anyone outside of college or the literary studies will notice.
The jist of your argument is "This is how it's always been, why should we change it? Losing words sucks and all" which, to me at least, doesn't hold much water. The purpose of language is communication. Communication in the present, not with the people who created the word irony, or have used it in its traditional sense. The majority of people in today's society (at least in the US, I don't know if it's similarly changing in Britain or not) think the word irony means what you're saying it doesn't. A language isn't defined by it's dictionary, it's defined by the people who speak it, and how it's spoken, and your definition of the word irony is quickly becoming obsolete. Languages always evolve, and this is one aspect of the English language evolving.
I pretty much feel the same way about the word 'Hacker', RMS, and others are wasting their time trying to revive this word, no matter how much sentimental value they may have in it.
Irony is one of those words that's very quickly being redefined by modern usage. Stop being an ass, and just go along with it, you can't fight it.
Overall, a valid 'Ask Slashdot'. But one thing bugs me. "More points of failure." I guess that's technically true, but I'd think having half of your data saved is better than having all of it lost -- I fail to see how having more drives is a bad thing when it comes to reliability.
Simply having a patent doesn't mean it's valid. The USPTO does a small search for previous art, but it *doesn't* do a search to see if it infringes on other patents. Getting granted a patent isn't giving the permission to use what's described in it, it's getting permission to tell others not to, and possibly have the US government agree with you. Any patent granted can still be shot down by a court. There are a lot of invalid patents currently held, and the major reason why they've not been invalidated officially is because there's not been a lawsuit where they've come under the scope.
For all intents and purposes, a patent is only useful for threats or for beginning a lawsuit until it's been challenged and upheld in a court. BTW, if the patent is valid, then lots of times the other party will determine that on their own (with their legal team), and settle out of court.
The patents like this that microsoft holds, like that double-click patent that everyone talks about, will probably never be actually used, unless they *really* *really* need it. Which I'd doubt will happen.
BTW, IANAL. If I'm misinformed, lemme know.
Racism - The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
He never said they were worse, or better. He never said that there weren't exceptions. He was making a generalization. And I don't think there's one argument you could make that would convince anyone that, in general, the Japanese way of thinking is not different than the American way of thinking. *You* are being overly PC.
I don't see why in the heck you're modded as funny, but ah well.
Anyway, the Japanese, and English languages are completely different. You can't interpret a language without also throwing in parts of its culture, and what conventions there are in speech. They might have said literally "We don't have a decision", or something similar, but, if a Japanese person is talking to another Japanese person, the true meaning conveyed behind it is "We decide no." The best way to look at it is that there is no direct translation of almost any sentence in any language, to another sentence in another language. It is the interpreters job to make a judgement on what the meaning would be in English, and if they decided to interpret it as "We decide no." Well, I'd bet they knew the weight resting on their shoulders, and I'd bet they're a lot more qualified to make that decision than you and I are.
BTW, interesting thing, in Japan at least, there's a difference between a translator, and an interpreter. A translator directly translates what is said, practically word-for-word, as close as they can get. An interpreter many times puts their own spin on things (which I'd doubt is what happened in this situation), and has to go based on their experience and knowledge of the culture to translate the *meaning*. A translator converts what is said. An interpreter converts the meaning of what is said.
Example: When someone asks the phrase "how are you?" in Japanese, it's rude to answer anything negative. A translator would probably say "How are you?", whereas an interpreter would probably say "Hello" or some other non-inquisitive greeting.
It'd be quite difficult to make a digital web cam. Sure, basic photography is simple. The reason? All you need to do is capture the light, and you've got a nice chemical compound that does that fine. You don't have to delve into the actual process of getting it to capture (yea you have to develop it, but the chemical compound on the film does the capturing).
With anything digital, you have to use a matrix of photo-sensitive sensors, process, and send them out to the computer. Which means you either need to buy a CMOS board, or that other kind of photographic digital thing. Figure out how it interfaces, connect a USB interfacing chip onto it (I think they're pretty cheap, Buffer->USB->Program, you handle the arrows and the Program, everything else you'd practically have to buy. I guess you could create the USB interfacing yourself, but that would be tedious, and not important. Using the serial or parallel ports would be easier if you're going to do it yourself, btw.)
Anyway, what another poster said. Go buy a cheap rebate webcam, take it apart, play with the parts some, and put it back together. I'm pretty sure there's nothing that's going to be hurt by light or by touching in a webcam (though not positive, IANADigiPhotgrapher).
This post is getting kinda long, but I wanna share this. I had this idea on a way to make a cheap, possibly portable, digital camera....well, not film camera at least. I'd take three photodiodes (diodes that block when there's light, and don't block when there's not), put the three primary color filters over them, have the light coming in through a slit, and hitting two mirrors, then going to the photodiodes. When you hit the button to take the photo, it rotates the first mirror horizontally, back and forth, as fast as possible, and the second mirror slowly scans down. The output from the photodiodes would directly going to a cassette tape. Later, I could read the cassette tape on my computer, and write a program to analyze it and extract the picture. I thought it was neat because the parts were cheap, but highly impractical. Especially considering it'd take about a second to take the picture with standard photodiodes (~25ns per reading, IIRC). Anything longer than 1/15th of a second *requires* a tripod...imagine the shaking going on with the motors as well.
Anyway, yea, happy learning and stuff.
I'm not fuming about it, but the poster said that Mozilla didn't have any equivalent technologies, which is what I was debating.
Dude, XSLT has been working *fine* in Firefox since it was named phoenix, like, version 0.5 or so. Make sure you have your MIME types set up correctly, and the appropriate XML headers. If what you created was standards-compliant, it'd work fine in firefox.
I did a search to find out what HTAs are:
"HTML Applications (HTAs) behave like any other applications on your computer, whether they are written in C++, Visual Basic, or J++. HTAs are like a dream come true for programmers who want the power of Internet Explorer without its strict security model and user interface. Now you can create browser-dependent applications that display themselves to your users as a plain window, without any resemblance to Internet Explorer's window." (Emphasis mine)
Sounds like a security hazard to me, plus it sounds like they were meant to be browser dependent. Ever heard of this thing called Java? You can create your own windows, and applications, and have them on the web. Not only that, but the applications created with it will run on almost any operating system. If Java doesn't suit you, why not just use standard EXEs, developed in some standard language? Use an open-source exe packaging tool to package all of the necessary files along with it, and the user wouldn't even notice a difference I bet. It's not like you're gaining any security from using HTAs.
And in regards to HTC...I've obviously never used the technology, but after some preliminary searching, it sounds like yet another activeX style feature. Use java, flash, or something cross-browser. There's no reason to use HTAs, or HTCs, you can get the same functionality, and ease of use, using standards-compliant, cross-browser functionality. It's your(or, those large corporations') choice to use microsoft's technology, but don't say it simply can't be done in other browsers, because it most likely can.
Darnit, I thought I told you people to google before asking questions! Look!: http://www.google.com/search?q=google
The first result is google.com. Geez, you people are lazy.
(I'm kidding too, of course)
There's this thing. It's called google. You type something into it, and it searches the web for that something. You should try it sometime.
Considering on a search for "/etc/shadow" the first result is a page explaining what it is, why in the heck did you even comment asking a question like this? You deserve to not have your question answered. Google first, don't expect other people to fulfill your laziness.
Heh, thanks, I managed to figure it out though.
Just a tip to everyone else playing with UT mods...*never* put anything from a mod in the main UT system directory. It was trying to load Red Orchestra stuff cause I tried putting the RedOrchestra/System stuff into the ut system directory...and it gave me that X11 error as a result.
I get this error:
_X11TransSocketOpen: socket() failed for tcp
_X11TransSocketOpenCOTSClient: Unable to open socket for tcp
_X11TransOpen: transport open failed for tcp/0:0
Couldn't set video mode: Could not create GL context
I got the same error when I installed Red Orchestra (another mod), but installing the patch fixed it. I 've obviously still got the patch installed, so I'm at a loss for what to do. Any advice?