Well, you can use a style that's more discreet than MSNM's candy interface. And yes, like the X-Box controller, the MSNM is teh hueg.
Disclaimer: The last sentence was ironic (as should be clear from the use of "teh hueg", but as this is/. I won't trust people to not take it as an invitation to a flamewar). Yes, the MSNM interface is a bit unwieldy and most other IMs tend to feel much lighter just because they take up less screen estate. No, I don't think that anything was wrong with the original X-Box controllers.
For me it is. It allows for several concurrent logins and distinguishes between the clients - so you can say that all IMs should be received by your desktop unless your laptop is connected, in which case IMs should go there. It also offers access to other IM networks like ICQ/AIM and, of course, Jabber.
Audio/Video chat is not supported, depending on whether you need that Jabber might or might not be suitable for you. I'm not sure if it's possible to use a video chat capable client via an MSN transport.
Note that I've discussed the protocol here. There are multi-protocol clients that support video chats via MSN/ICQ/whatever already (for example Trillian or a modified version of Gaim). They also tend to shove less flashy candy-colored graphics in your face, thus integrating with the rest of the desktop better than the MSN Messenger does... I prefer the plainness of Gaim (or Psi, now that I do everything via Jabber), but YMMV, of course.
In my contacts list there are 12 ICQ users (mostly people I know from the real life), 15 MSN users (mostly people I know from the internet) and three Jabbber users (exclusively geeks I know from the 'net). For some reason no one I've first met offline uses MSN as their primary IM client and all people I've met online don't use ICQ - it's either MSN only or both.
I have yet to meet an AIM/YIM user.
Phh. Just take a mallet, smash the case and bring a dremel in case there's an additional cable protection. If they ask why the hell you're destroying their furniture explain that you're a rock star. Who's afraid of VMs.
Actually, that was the first thing I thought when I saw this thread. If they go out of their way in order to give you a fully transparent VM, they'll surely find a way to make sure you boot into it.
Fred: "And now we'll see who the silicone monster really is!" *pulls off the mask*
Everyone: *gasp* "It's Steve Jobs!"
Steve Jobs: "Yes, and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling geeks!"
That makes sense. Also, if you order from their online store and have the thing customized, you'll probably get the newer model - it'll take more time for the old makes to disappear from the shelves than to disappear from their manufacturing site... thingie.
True. A few days after I bought my 12" iBook they sent me a mail stating that a) a new version of the 12" iBook was just released, b) my order automatically got upgraded and c) they even matched the hardware configuration to what they believed I would choose for the newer model (eg. I originally selected a 60 GB HDD and the new model now had 80 GB as the biggest size, so they gave me 80). And to top that all off, the newer model was cheaper than the old one. In the end I got 200 MHz and 20 GB extra and paid about 100 EUR less.
If they actually tell you about it this is wonderful and it has really impressed me - it has put Apple into my personal "companies I like dealing with" list. Not sure how I would have reacted if they never had told me...
Slashdotting? I'm downloading from the original server with an average speed of 80 KB/sec. Either no one cares about that file or they have lots of upstream.
There's the difference: A customer is a person who might give you money if your product/service is good enough and you treat him well. A consumer is a mindless money-spending machine that will buy anything if the media tells him to. A customer expects you to be friendly towards him in order to make business with you. A consumer is expected to fork over his cash without caring if he needs the stuff or how he is being treated.
The fact that customers seem to degrade into consumers in large numbers is one of the scarier things about today's society.
Unless the other side decides to implement guerilla warfare.
Besides, how exactly are you going to defend the internet? All you actually could defend are most of the root servers (as they are in your country), but doingg so is kind of pointless, as the cables connecting the contients are much harder to defend - and if someone wants to take down the 'net they just need to cut enough of these cables.
The only way the internet can really become robust is if thee are root servers all over the world. That way someone could separate the North America from the rest of the internet and everyone else would not have major outages because there only are three root servers left, two of which are sitting in Europe.
Also note that what the EU are raising is a question of accountability: If someting bad happens, who is the authority in charge? Currently it's the USA, which leaves the network vulnerable to politically oriented manipulation - everyone knows that you guys love your world politics and that you tend to take a "whatever it takes" approach even if it means violating your own laws. If a multinational authority would be in charge of the internet, things would be much safer because of the beaurocracy.
What do you think is the biggest benefit of democracy? It's not the fact that Joe Sixpack can cast his grossly misinformed vote. It's safety. It's hard to turn a decently made democracy into something else. Any form of govrenment with only one or a few people entitled to rule the country are vulnerable to assassinations or careful manipulation of the ruler. Democracies are mch harder to twist because a) you have to manipulate/kill much more people in order to get your result and b) there are rules everywhere and the effort needed to get drastic changes past the beaurocracy ensure that no one can quickly take over the country without using significant military force. The ineffectiveness andd slowness of the system are it's biggest selling points!
Now think about the internet. Imagine you were the EU: Would you rather let some inflexible, slow, easy to monitor body have the ultimate control over the world's most important medium - or a country known for it's tendency to do whatever the heck it pleases and to be proud of not being held accountable to anyone?
The alternative, of course, would be to pump money into projects like the European Open Root Server Network in order to become completely independent from ICANN (which, of course, would cost both the EU and ICANN time and money because they have to manage synchronization of their records). I'd imagine the Chinese to follow the example (if they haven't set up their own root server network already) and pretty soon the internet would be split up into a half-dozen smaller networks. Well, at least it would improve robustness, if enough of the networks are interconnected.
True. Just looking at the German BILD (AFAIK the most widely read newspaper in Europe) shows you that journalists have no accountability. The BILD is making hidden advertisements for companies whose managers happen to be in the publisher's supervisory board. They print big stories with titles like "The murderer of $VICTIM was found" or "This pig has killes $VICTIM" when the police have officially announced that they only have the prime suspect and that it's ot clear whether he was guilty. In the last ten years they have been reprimanded for violating the German press codex almost seventy times, not counting the occasions on which the press council officially disapproved of their style of coverage - for example when they showed photographs of relatives of people involved in a crime case without bothering to make them unidentifiable (actually, according to the press codex they shouldn't print photographs of the relatives at all!).
I just read our local newspaper. They're not quite a high quality publication, but at least I can trust them not to ignore reality in order to put their spin on everything or to ignore the personality rights of people so that they can have one more sensationalist headline.
Additionally, what do you expect to be one of the first targets for the sniper to pick off? The anti-sniper robot, of course. Sure, you can use multiple robots, but then again, the enemy can use multiple snipers (or multiple ways of breaking your (probably horribly expensive) equipment) as well.
Additional countermeasures could include a speaker and some makeshift pyrotechnics (to imitate the sound/IR signature of a gunshot) that are remotely controlled by the sniper, who has all the time in the world to give off a shot andd move away while everyone is looking in the wrong direction. Set up multiple "gunfire dummies" for better effect.
I'm not saying that this device desn't make the sniper's job more difficult, but someone will find a way to render it useless - at the latest when other countries start to impement similar devices.
When you think about it, this thing really sounds like a cheap cyberdeck. Of course there are a few questions that aren't covered by the article (How strong is the MPCP? Is the deck hardened? And how many megapulse can the memory banks hold?), but I believe that the AMD Geode might be a good cyberdeck for the decker who doesn't have the money for a PCD-100. Sure, it's no Fairlight Excalibur, but in a pinch this low-end cyberdeck might come in handy - for example when you unexpectedly get hit by Grey IC. And it still beats using a terminal to crack that security network.
Millions of potential future coding monkeys. Just because someone grew up with Linux doesn't mean they'd never work for Microsoft.
By the way, Microsoft is trying to get their foot into the third world's door - with their Starter Editions. Cheap, crippled Windows for the developing world. If they play their cards well, they might manage to keep Linux from gaining more then a 30% market share there, as well (think "exclusive OEM contracts").
You're worried about credit cards? Did you ever apply for welfare? (Since the "Hartz IV" reform, the German welfare system requires such a ridiculuos amount of information that even the CIA wouldn't want to look at half of it. Like how much money you currently have in your briefcase.)
I hope the eMule download servers will last through the onslaught of eDonkey users all downloading eMule at the same time. Yes, all five of them.
eDonkey has been insignificant for the last few years. eMule is much superior and had a much bigger market share (we're talking an order of magnitude here), so eDonkey folding is interesting only from a "the industry vs. the rest of the world" point of view. Sharing-wise, I doubt anyone will really notice.
It's not as if mass murderers would get killed in less than ten years (USA) or at all (pretty much the rest of the Western world). If you have a decade of spare time or two, you might participate in a study simply because there isn't much else to do. And it's not like mass murderers would be locked away in ultra-high security bunkers which no one may ever enter, especially not the mailman. You ask the right people for permission and you can get in touch with someone who's on Death Row.
Is there a difference between a corporation and a political party? The former is an organization entirely fixated on growth and profit and the latter behaves as if it was...
Well, mIRC does have a pretty nifty scripting language. As much as I like being able to use PHP scripts in Konversation, it'd be nice if I could also let scripts be triggered by received text like in mIRC. Or use simple commands to create usable GUIs. (And no, I won't switch to XChat and learn Tcl or Python. Maybe if they offer Ruby support.)
Okay, so mIRC is the Microsoft of chat clients: It doesn't care about the standards everyone else uses (Unicode), it creates de-facto standards by extending protocols without asking (color codes) and it creates hordes of users who can't imagine that someone might be using some other program. But it does have a nice scripting language.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would they name a that thing Butt-raper Gonzolez?
The name is derived from its unique hunting technique, which consists of erm, attacking the prey... from behind.
BTW, I really need a bumper sticker reading "HAHA t3h Xianz r teh dum!!11"
Really.
Well, you can use a style that's more discreet than MSNM's candy interface. And yes, like the X-Box controller, the MSNM is teh hueg.
/. I won't trust people to not take it as an invitation to a flamewar). Yes, the MSNM interface is a bit unwieldy and most other IMs tend to feel much lighter just because they take up less screen estate. No, I don't think that anything was wrong with the original X-Box controllers.
Disclaimer: The last sentence was ironic (as should be clear from the use of "teh hueg", but as this is
For me it is. It allows for several concurrent logins and distinguishes between the clients - so you can say that all IMs should be received by your desktop unless your laptop is connected, in which case IMs should go there. It also offers access to other IM networks like ICQ/AIM and, of course, Jabber.
Audio/Video chat is not supported, depending on whether you need that Jabber might or might not be suitable for you. I'm not sure if it's possible to use a video chat capable client via an MSN transport.
Note that I've discussed the protocol here. There are multi-protocol clients that support video chats via MSN/ICQ/whatever already (for example Trillian or a modified version of Gaim). They also tend to shove less flashy candy-colored graphics in your face, thus integrating with the rest of the desktop better than the MSN Messenger does... I prefer the plainness of Gaim (or Psi, now that I do everything via Jabber), but YMMV, of course.
In my contacts list there are 12 ICQ users (mostly people I know from the real life), 15 MSN users (mostly people I know from the internet) and three Jabbber users (exclusively geeks I know from the 'net). For some reason no one I've first met offline uses MSN as their primary IM client and all people I've met online don't use ICQ - it's either MSN only or both.
I have yet to meet an AIM/YIM user.
You know you're a geek when the first thing to come to your mind is a support character in an old Mega Man game.
Phh. Just take a mallet, smash the case and bring a dremel in case there's an additional cable protection. If they ask why the hell you're destroying their furniture explain that you're a rock star. Who's afraid of VMs.
Actually, that was the first thing I thought when I saw this thread. If they go out of their way in order to give you a fully transparent VM, they'll surely find a way to make sure you boot into it.
1.) Modify laws of robotics to add "EXCEPT FOR LAWYERS" everywhere humans are involved.
2.) ?????
3.) Hilarity ensues.
Fred: "And now we'll see who the silicone monster really is!" *pulls off the mask*
Everyone: *gasp* "It's Steve Jobs!"
Steve Jobs: "Yes, and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling geeks!"
That makes sense. Also, if you order from their online store and have the thing customized, you'll probably get the newer model - it'll take more time for the old makes to disappear from the shelves than to disappear from their manufacturing site... thingie.
True. A few days after I bought my 12" iBook they sent me a mail stating that a) a new version of the 12" iBook was just released, b) my order automatically got upgraded and c) they even matched the hardware configuration to what they believed I would choose for the newer model (eg. I originally selected a 60 GB HDD and the new model now had 80 GB as the biggest size, so they gave me 80). And to top that all off, the newer model was cheaper than the old one. In the end I got 200 MHz and 20 GB extra and paid about 100 EUR less.
If they actually tell you about it this is wonderful and it has really impressed me - it has put Apple into my personal "companies I like dealing with" list. Not sure how I would have reacted if they never had told me...
Slashdotting? I'm downloading from the original server with an average speed of 80 KB/sec. Either no one cares about that file or they have lots of upstream.
There's the difference: A customer is a person who might give you money if your product/service is good enough and you treat him well. A consumer is a mindless money-spending machine that will buy anything if the media tells him to. A customer expects you to be friendly towards him in order to make business with you. A consumer is expected to fork over his cash without caring if he needs the stuff or how he is being treated.
The fact that customers seem to degrade into consumers in large numbers is one of the scarier things about today's society.
Obviously, the internet should be under control of the state of Delaware.
There's a large supply of tables to choose from. You even put them together yourself. Just name them Coffee, Kitchen, End, etc.
I think Eksjö, Björkudden or Nygård would be better names.
Unless the other side decides to implement guerilla warfare.
Besides, how exactly are you going to defend the internet? All you actually could defend are most of the root servers (as they are in your country), but doingg so is kind of pointless, as the cables connecting the contients are much harder to defend - and if someone wants to take down the 'net they just need to cut enough of these cables.
The only way the internet can really become robust is if thee are root servers all over the world. That way someone could separate the North America from the rest of the internet and everyone else would not have major outages because there only are three root servers left, two of which are sitting in Europe.
Also note that what the EU are raising is a question of accountability: If someting bad happens, who is the authority in charge? Currently it's the USA, which leaves the network vulnerable to politically oriented manipulation - everyone knows that you guys love your world politics and that you tend to take a "whatever it takes" approach even if it means violating your own laws. If a multinational authority would be in charge of the internet, things would be much safer because of the beaurocracy.
What do you think is the biggest benefit of democracy? It's not the fact that Joe Sixpack can cast his grossly misinformed vote. It's safety. It's hard to turn a decently made democracy into something else. Any form of govrenment with only one or a few people entitled to rule the country are vulnerable to assassinations or careful manipulation of the ruler. Democracies are mch harder to twist because a) you have to manipulate/kill much more people in order to get your result and b) there are rules everywhere and the effort needed to get drastic changes past the beaurocracy ensure that no one can quickly take over the country without using significant military force. The ineffectiveness andd slowness of the system are it's biggest selling points!
Now think about the internet. Imagine you were the EU: Would you rather let some inflexible, slow, easy to monitor body have the ultimate control over the world's most important medium - or a country known for it's tendency to do whatever the heck it pleases and to be proud of not being held accountable to anyone?
The alternative, of course, would be to pump money into projects like the European Open Root Server Network in order to become completely independent from ICANN (which, of course, would cost both the EU and ICANN time and money because they have to manage synchronization of their records). I'd imagine the Chinese to follow the example (if they haven't set up their own root server network already) and pretty soon the internet would be split up into a half-dozen smaller networks. Well, at least it would improve robustness, if enough of the networks are interconnected.
True. Just looking at the German BILD (AFAIK the most widely read newspaper in Europe) shows you that journalists have no accountability. The BILD is making hidden advertisements for companies whose managers happen to be in the publisher's supervisory board. They print big stories with titles like "The murderer of $VICTIM was found" or "This pig has killes $VICTIM" when the police have officially announced that they only have the prime suspect and that it's ot clear whether he was guilty. In the last ten years they have been reprimanded for violating the German press codex almost seventy times, not counting the occasions on which the press council officially disapproved of their style of coverage - for example when they showed photographs of relatives of people involved in a crime case without bothering to make them unidentifiable (actually, according to the press codex they shouldn't print photographs of the relatives at all!).
I just read our local newspaper. They're not quite a high quality publication, but at least I can trust them not to ignore reality in order to put their spin on everything or to ignore the personality rights of people so that they can have one more sensationalist headline.
I thought it already happened to you...
Additionally, what do you expect to be one of the first targets for the sniper to pick off? The anti-sniper robot, of course. Sure, you can use multiple robots, but then again, the enemy can use multiple snipers (or multiple ways of breaking your (probably horribly expensive) equipment) as well.
Additional countermeasures could include a speaker and some makeshift pyrotechnics (to imitate the sound/IR signature of a gunshot) that are remotely controlled by the sniper, who has all the time in the world to give off a shot andd move away while everyone is looking in the wrong direction. Set up multiple "gunfire dummies" for better effect.
I'm not saying that this device desn't make the sniper's job more difficult, but someone will find a way to render it useless - at the latest when other countries start to impement similar devices.
When you think about it, this thing really sounds like a cheap cyberdeck. Of course there are a few questions that aren't covered by the article (How strong is the MPCP? Is the deck hardened? And how many megapulse can the memory banks hold?), but I believe that the AMD Geode might be a good cyberdeck for the decker who doesn't have the money for a PCD-100. Sure, it's no Fairlight Excalibur, but in a pinch this low-end cyberdeck might come in handy - for example when you unexpectedly get hit by Grey IC. And it still beats using a terminal to crack that security network.
Millions of potential future coding monkeys. Just because someone grew up with Linux doesn't mean they'd never work for Microsoft.
By the way, Microsoft is trying to get their foot into the third world's door - with their Starter Editions. Cheap, crippled Windows for the developing world. If they play their cards well, they might manage to keep Linux from gaining more then a 30% market share there, as well (think "exclusive OEM contracts").
You're worried about credit cards? Did you ever apply for welfare? (Since the "Hartz IV" reform, the German welfare system requires such a ridiculuos amount of information that even the CIA wouldn't want to look at half of it. Like how much money you currently have in your briefcase.)
I hope the eMule download servers will last through the onslaught of eDonkey users all downloading eMule at the same time. Yes, all five of them.
eDonkey has been insignificant for the last few years. eMule is much superior and had a much bigger market share (we're talking an order of magnitude here), so eDonkey folding is interesting only from a "the industry vs. the rest of the world" point of view. Sharing-wise, I doubt anyone will really notice.
It's not as if mass murderers would get killed in less than ten years (USA) or at all (pretty much the rest of the Western world). If you have a decade of spare time or two, you might participate in a study simply because there isn't much else to do. And it's not like mass murderers would be locked away in ultra-high security bunkers which no one may ever enter, especially not the mailman. You ask the right people for permission and you can get in touch with someone who's on Death Row.
Is there a difference between a corporation and a political party? The former is an organization entirely fixated on growth and profit and the latter behaves as if it was...
Well, mIRC does have a pretty nifty scripting language. As much as I like being able to use PHP scripts in Konversation, it'd be nice if I could also let scripts be triggered by received text like in mIRC. Or use simple commands to create usable GUIs. (And no, I won't switch to XChat and learn Tcl or Python. Maybe if they offer Ruby support.)
Okay, so mIRC is the Microsoft of chat clients: It doesn't care about the standards everyone else uses (Unicode), it creates de-facto standards by extending protocols without asking (color codes) and it creates hordes of users who can't imagine that someone might be using some other program. But it does have a nice scripting language.