Supporting two different driver model means more complexity and less things added to DX10 in the same timeframe.
I'm still on my first cup of coffee, which may be why I'm confused here - but I was under the impression that all the hardware up till now (IE: Vista) had to support the graphics interface, not the other way around where the graphical sub system had to support the hardware. Isn't this why you would see "Supports OpenGL/DirectX#!!!" on packaging of the given video card?
If I recall correctly, Linux went through a major change in the module structure and there for all the drivers had to be re-written (IE: NVidia), but none of graphical subsystems had to (IE: OpenGL,SDL,etc..). Isn't this essentially the same thing?
How is this any different than a kernel trojan on linux?
The difference is that you can *fix* Linux on a live system as long as you have shell access. Kernel trojan? (never heard of one, but for argument sakes) - recompile and install a new kernel, libc corruption? (or any system files for that matter) - there is somekind of switch with rpm that allows you verify every installed file on your system, if anything has changed with files that should not be - reinstall those packages live. You *CAN'T* do any of that with windows, there is only 1 kernel and that is not installable, and you can't go to M$ and download (or even purchase) a new set system dll's, and not to mention that if the registry gets corrupted your hozed completely - under linux, have the kernel boot bash instead of/sbin/init and fix the *text* configuration files manualy...
Granted you have to really know what your doing with Linux to be able to pull this off, and it would take a while - but 1) a full team of so called *gurus* of M$ them selves tried to do this with windoze and failed, I've done this by myself with Linux and succeded a number of times, 2) yes, it would be much quicker to spend 30mins reinstalling and formating a new OS, and leaving the end user to re-install everything - but by the time they got *everything* back to the way it was if they ever could, it would take 10 times longer and they would probably do the same things as before to get them into the same situation again - fixing everything live, I'm sure the engineers would get frustrated and lock everything down airtight so they wont be called again (I know I would).
The fact that the whole system is much less accountable and more open to abuse and attacks than a physical system is more an issue that not of the involved people (voting officials and Diebold) just don't care about than one that I expect that they intend to personally exploit.
What gets me is that Diebold makes these types of machines for 2 completely different industries - 1) the financial industry, and 2) the Government. From what I understand, the ATM's are pretty secure and yet these voting booth's can't even do 100% of the time what the abacus does, let alone security... What's ironic though is the purpose of these machines is convenience in industry #1, while supposed to provide accuracy if nothing else in industry #2 - which ultimately picks the head honcho of industry #1. Wouldn't this ultimately mean that Diebold is negatively impacting industry #1 to some degree?
Imagine a time and place where you have a security rating... you approach an airport terminal and hand them your ID card (or scan your arm) but you can't board the plane because you've been making too many phone calls to your friends who happen to have a rap sheet.
You don't have to imagine that hard, to a certain extent it's already happening - just not with airplanes, instead your banned from going to the senior prom. The officials apparenly have backed off due to preasure, but it's got to start somewhere...
Very much agreed with your statement, the only way I see this actually doing any good is bringing together the brainiac's and the "Not-So-Bright's" of our world.
In that the NSB's will state something so blatently stupid and obvious, that it throws the brainiacs for a loop and consequently adding a new (although completely obvious) angle to the problem. Sometimes you just need to back up, and look at things from a different angle to figure it out - the seeing the forest through the trees thing...
Do you really think Open Source AV can't fsck up your PC if there are bugs in it?
Agreed - both can hoze your system up, BUT when it comes down to it, since neither comes with anykind of warranty and both usually have the same level of support (obtained differently ofcourse) - I would much rather know that I didnt waste X amount of dollars on something that didn't really do all that much different than the free stuff...
And let's be honest, how many people actually look at the source of programs (updates) they install?
Not a lot, but atleast the OSS community has it as a standard to have the change log readily availiable for anyone and everyone to grab and read if they so choose, and if you get the source directly from the author - there is usually a big page of all the changes before you get to the download link, so you will know in advance if the upgrade is worth it or not...
Not trying to start a flame war here, but in all honesty this is one of the major reasons I try to use Linux exclusively. I mean, for example, I have a some what high end entertainment system - what ever peice I choose to spend $500+ on - I EXPECT it to work seemlessly with the amp and TV, AND I expect it to work for a few years atleast, if it doesnt I get pissed and will never buy that brand again (Dennon is at the top of my list now).
The same goes for computers the way I look at it, I can either spends hundreds and thousands on software (I'm into graphic/3D design), or get everything for free and try to make do. The difference is that if Im going to spend all that money - it better damn well work and NOT make things worse, especially when I can get the functional equivalent for FREE!!!!
The ironic thing is that the free stuff is a hell of alot more stable, whether this is due to the architecture of the OS or how alot of comercial software these days seem to be released as beta and updated later, cant say - all I know is my shit works. But to answer you original question, I have an extra "project" drive aside from the file server - I store all my working projects and important stuff on it, so if I have to reinstall due to a bad update, or overall crash - that drive doesnt get formated, although I do admit that in this situation it wouldnt have mattered =(
To me it all boils down to the warranty/gaurantee with ANY product. Why would anyone pay $$$ for something when it can totaly hoze up their world and with NO compensation? From what I can tell, you get all the same exact stuff (warranty,support,updates,etc..) with the free stuff as you do with the comercial stuff - they are just obtained in completely different and un-related ways; essentially - the comercial software had better damn well do something I really need and that I can't come close to doing with the free stuff, which fortunately I haven't seen alot of.
Screw the hookers, keep the geeks on the terminals - I know that if a pandemic hits and Im told to stay home, I sure as better have a nice comfortable air-conditioned shack, all my cable channels running and those damn admins at WoW had better not be calling in sick either!!!
An ex-boss of mine tried to convince me to start my own one man corporation, aparently you can do it by registering it in Washington or somewhere. With Corporations being able to get away with so much crap these days, and at the most simply get a slap on the wrist for shit that us mere humans get years in jail for - it's starting to seem to me that doing this would no longer be just for tax reasons, but for survivability in a world gone wrong...
It would be "FixIt Inc." so anything and everything I do, could be twisted (just like all the real corps do) to fall under the umbrella of the corporation...
1) Circumventing DRM [to execise my right for backups of media I own] (Research and Development)
It goes without saying that BellSouth are probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, gateways between IPs in US and the rest of the world.
This is my concern... My website is housed with lunarpages.com, they in turn are already purchasing said bandwith from SBC on my behalf along with a donzen others - which in turn prolly all purchase pipes of some sort or another from ma bell up stream somewhere.
I cant see the brainy execs of SBC (or what not) being stupid enough to impose this at the ISP level, cuz it would obviously just drive their customers elsewhere. So, it stands to reason they would have to do this at the datacenter level upstream... Are they going to start filtering ALL 4.3 billion IP addresses? That would certainly bog down the entire net... Not to mention that it would add more instability to the net as a whole simply because there will be more points of failure now, if the bandwidth limiting system goes down cuz of a database problem, does everything go down?
I would agree with this. And to add to it, I would just simply not worry all that much about this -/. has grown and so will the number of complainers and whiners - and they are ALWAYS louder than everyone else, it still seems the same old slashdot to me from years back.
If anything, I would revamp the karma system - and even add a category (of sorts or something) for the karma to where the readers could mark it as something they "dont" want to read about (for what ever reason, even if it is because it is from a particular poster) - so in effect it would be harder for that poster to post stories in the future. And likewise if you have bad karma from the replies you do, it would also be harder to make a post and so on.
I too am VERY tired of the discusions about some story being 50% about the poster or some conspiracy thing about the editors, the original reply starts out funny and then goes way off topic from there. The moderators either aren't doing a good job or they dont care - maybe a better incentive for the moderators, say if you moderate well for a given time period you get awarded "subscription" status for a week or something. On the moderation stuff, one thing I would do is have an option for marking it funny, insightful or what ever and then another to mark it as to it's relavance. I've come across countless replies that were hilarious or very insightful - but that were off topic also, I had only one choice so I moderated as to what it was the most of...
Something else you could do to stop the conspiracy hounds - is to have a link that goes to a page about the status of that particular submission. A page that would show everyone who submitted about that story, their karma rating (and likewise rating for submisions), their position in the "que" so to speak, etc... Put enough information their about the submission it self, and it would stop a bunch of the conspiracy peeps...
Maybe I RTFA wrong, but what I got out of it was that the big corporations that be went after another P2P site, and when it came down to the meat and potatoes nothing was being done wrong, but they still got their way. I know everyone around here hates the patriot act and the spying and such, but what really scares me is that atleast the government is kept in check by the constitution, declaration of independance, civil rights, etc.. (It's being pushed right now because we are at war, but that's another issue - and it will get turned around one way or another) - while the these corporations are only kept in check by the size of their war chest, and they have declared war on john que public...
IMHO, bigbrother isn't coming from the government(s) but from the powerfulcorporations.
At least when you are busted from the governments that be (you are presumed inococent until proven guilty) , depending on the nature of the crime - you are given a chance at rehabiliation because simply put the punishment is to fit the crime. While with the corporations, you are guilty untill proven inocent (the complete opposite), even if you are lucky enough to be able to afford to defend your self - atleast with the government if you aren't you are given a public defender, and in the mean time they are going after to ruin your life, and I'm sure succeeding...
Looking at things from this guys perspective looks like he is a simple novice who uploaded the movie (IE being sloppy about it)...
However, if you look at it from a real pirates angle who IS going to be tech savy - this is very probable... I mean, if I was a pirate - I would do what ever it takes (as long as it is reasonably feasable) to flip a bird at the industry, and make them look like fools (IE not being able to catch me). Taking my old laptop, plugging it into my cheap $40 DC converter from FRY's, spending a few hours driving around until I find an unsecured access point, parking/locking everything up and leaving for a day would be worth it - and not that big of a deal. The worst that could happen, is that the owners of the access point would check for connections, not recognise me and zap my connection - I move on to somewhere else.
The point is that a real pirate is going to do what they can to not get caught, they wont do something as blatant as this, to upload a movie when they know the industry is looking for them...
1) I would have to say that you seemed to be WAY to polite in that you told them... "these seem like fraudulent clicks.", when the click through in question was from an automated "robot", aka wget...
From the man page of wget: WGET(1)... GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from the Web.... While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion Standard (/robots.txt)
From the google adsence page... Prohibited Clicks and Impressions
Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to: repeated manual clicks or impressions, incentives to click or to generate impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, or other deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.
2) It disturbs me that the glorious Google, would claim that WGET is a valid click through when GNU acknowledges it is a robot (of sorts).
3) It also disturbs me that (you say) your final rejection notice of your claim came from support in India - from my experience with such support, they are simple robots and don't care about solving your problem - they only want to close that ticket, regardless of the outcome let alone any detective work.
Sry, I pressed the wrong button =P.. Anyhow my ultimate question is simple - why are we wanting to teach that what we know regarding science is it, no more to explore and prove/disprove - especially when we KNOW that we dont know everything. I would think that in science class, it would be perfectly viable to say there is another theory in how we came to be - I mean it is a fucking theory, and THAT is where science starts... This generation is just going to made to look (more) like the fools we are, if it is found to be scientific proof in the next few hundred years that we come from something other than pure randomness; JUST like the fools that swore up and down that the earth was flat...
If I remember right, the US was found because some stupid ass moron thought the world was actually round - he was critisized left and right because you could simply look at the horizon and see with your own eyes that the world was flat; I mean come on, seeing is believing!
On a serious note, I was always under the impression that science is suppose to simply be exploring the unknown - nothing more nothing less. The down side is that it seems the over whelming majority of humans seem to be closed minded, and dont want to fathom anything that cant see, in their imagination or reality. One of my philosophy professors and me would get into some major discusions here and there and was able to actually connect the dots between "real" science and religion, with the HUGE gaps being filled in with Parapsychology, string theory, and ofcourse good old philosophy. Of course it was all theory but it did make since, what gets me is that we (humans) dont even know how the brain completely works, DNA, cancer,etc... and yet we are perfectly happy in saying that we know everything so there ISN'T any magical creator. I've read somewhere that DNA is like the perfect computer, if DNA is so freak'n complicated and so "perfect" - take the next step, push the boundries, could complete randomness form perfection? Or is something else responsible for it, whether it is another species from Mars or a sole creator.
If uneducated preachers spread unenlighted views
IMHO, you've got it backwards. A preachers sole job is to "preach" about a given religion, NOT about possible alternatives. While on the the other hand it is the job of a scientist to explore the unknown, and consequently prove -OR- disprove such theories. The problem lies in the fact that *disproving* ideas is WAY to simple - "Look at the horizon, it's flat you idiotic moron!" While proving crazy ass ideas takes alot more work. The problem with science and religion is in the fact that there is a very huge gap between the two, kind of like the gap in land that Columbus had to cover to prove that the world was in reality round - and just think about how much work he had to go through to prove his idea - cruising the Antlantic in a (relatively) small ship with hurricanes, squalls and thousands of miles of nothing would be an extreme bitch!
Ironically, Marquette University encourages students to post public comments about their professors, and these comments can be very negative.
So what about all these other students who were encouraged to do the same thing, and they even gave the names of the professors where this guy didnt? Seems a little 2 faced to me...
When the student had the temerity to ask for the hearing he had every right to, they ignored the expert testimony of their own ethicist, refused to hear the testimony of a faculty member who could discuss the prevailing norms of student blogging, and came down on the student like a ton of bricks.
It looks to me like this says it all...
The entire process did not look like the adjudication of a case of student misconduct. It looked like a vendetta.
Granted, he was given a hearing - but aren't hearings suppose to be impartial so they can litterally figure out want went wrong and actually correct the issue at hand?
The way this "dean" handeled things, makes me wonder if he was actually the professor in question. I mean, if I was a dean and it came to my attention that one of my top students (on the dean's list) was having major issues with one of my proffesors I would want to check things out - maybe he went over the top because is was stressed out and all, but perhaps there would have been some validity to his issues that should require attention...
Especially since they encourage blogging (in order for prospective students to see what their school is like), and it seems as though the dean was totaly flippant to even his own faculty - it looks to me like this guy was totally railroaded for some reason, and yes his rights either re-written on the fly or totaly ignored...
All in all, if I was going into dentistry I would pass on this place regardless of how "good" it is suppose to be for the simple fact that it seems that the dean is just a little to imature for my taste...
Dont know why this was rated a "5", it is way off base...
So be a responsible parent and grandfather then, and restrict those things from your kids yourself.
So your saying to slap a ball and chain on our children, and either follow them around everywhere physically or attach some kind of tracking and surviliance system to them so we know what they are doing at all times and stop them when they want to "push the rules" when given the chance?
Don't take the easy, selfish route of asking the State to do your parenting for you.
That's not being selfish what so ever - get real, it's expecting that the society as a whole would be responsible and not limit the amount of violance and sexual situations their minors are exposed to. The same concept as a neighborhood watch, neighbors helping neighbors. The only problem is that back in the day when movie ratings were started, it was more on a society based type of thing - where now a days to get anything done it has to be through legal channels.
Your temporary convenience is not worth your freedom, nor the freedom of your neighbours.
Don't know what kind of neighbors you have, but the majority of mine can all drink, drive, see rated "R" movies, purchase Playboys, etc... It's only their children who are justifiably restricted from these activities, and this law (if it was passwed) would not have effected that scenario in one way or the other.
That makes no sense. You're going to hold some vague high ground and not install this because it might allow Sony's DRM to be installed? Rather than protect yourself by eliminating 95% of the threats, you won't protect yourself at all? I don't get that attitude.
Personally, there is no way I'm going to switch from Norton to M$ - Norton is only (from what I know) bound by the law, IE the DMCA, where M$ has enough $$$ to blow off the law and likewise only be concerened with the size of their wallet/profit, hince getting in bed with crap like the SONY DRM and regardless of the effect on their customers, letting it slide - it's in their EULA afterall that they won't be held liable for anything what so ever...
Do not block any ventilation openings on the console or power supply. Do not place the console or power supply on a bed, sofa, or other soft surface that may block ventilation openings. Do not place the console or power supply in a confined space, such as a bookcase, rack, or stereo cabinet, unless the space is well ventilated.
Now I dont have the 360, but from these pics, it looks like any other black power brick (just really big) - IE: no such ventilation openings (the power supply in your PC is what comes to mind). So throwing it on the carpet between the TV and the console seems to be following the directions, and you would think that the 5-10 foot space betwen the console on the set would be more than enough ventalation, especially if your not any kind of engineer.
This will prolly get ignored or flamed like other posts I've made, but what the hell...
With all the potential of rigged elections and such, and everyone here concerned about democracy, and with Diebold (the company that was nailed to the cross a while back for all the corruption and scandels - how are they still around?!?!) making rediculous systems and claims... Why doesnt the open source community make our own - I ***KNOW*** that we could make a system that would out do everything out there 100 fold (duh), and I would think that there is enough backers of OSS that it could be pushed through politically. I was thinking about this the last time/. had its fun with the diebold crap, but I've never started any OSS projects let alone lead one =/
Hmmm, intriguing idea... I've always been interested in AI and would dream up about what it would take - I came up with a 3 majors peices to the puzzle, hardware wize that is...
1) Processing ability - 5000 opterons should be able to do the trick (in parellel ofcourse), think for a sec how fast your brain processes AND stores all the similarities between the 5 sences resulting in memories and consciousness. Basically be able to process as fast as the data comes in.
2) Data storage - the system would need ALOT of readily available storage at its imediate disposal for all the nodes of information and the coresponding path ways linking them all together, and that would just be short term memory, long term memory would need alot more.
3) Information - we are talking about Google here, and with the fiber lines it would be coming it fast and furious...
Put all these together, with ofcourse the right underlying OS (the rumors of the Google OS?) and you have your sentinent AI system... The only question that comes to mind is why portable? I can only think of 2 reasons...
1) These "systems" would be something like a Game cube of sorts but with a core ability to be interlinked and likewise act as one, when the system starts to become over worked throw in other "cube"... Hince the ability to actually "grow".
2) military purposes - drop one of these suckers into the middle of a batle field, have it suck up all the information it can (via some fancy sensors, wireless, etc..), and then we will have and enormous advantage by far, and having somesort of AI system at the reigns to make since of all the data with a specific purpose in mind would be devistating for an enemy...
The portability of this seems to be the interesting part, afterall why would you want or need something this powerful to be portable? The only peice that is missing at face value to all of this is the AI system - again back to the rumored Google OS... Just like when we are "switched on" at birth, we are far from thinking and processing information like we do now - just in the same way a real AI system (IMHO) can't just be programed, executed and BAM you have AI, the programing would be in how it handles the data and forms the conections and likewise follows those pathways to form memories/understandings and hince it would be born like you and I, and over time grow into something useful - and just like you and I if it is abused and such as it is "growing up" and is not cared for and nurtured it would simply go the same route as would a human being in the same situation... This all goes back to the portability of this and the cube concpept of being able to simply plunk these guys down and they start acting as one - Im no brain scientist by far, but I would think that if we all had the same sized brain as when we were born we would be thinking slow (because of all the data our brain would have to "sort" through to get to a conclusion) and because of the limited storage (no growth) we wouldnt be able to stack all of the knowledge into understanding string theory and quantum physics and the like.
Just my consipracy theory of sorts, but good enough to start buying google stock IMHO... It seems pretty obivous they are going to be doing something interesting with all this =)
Slashdot Mirror
Supporting two different driver model means more complexity and less things added to DX10 in the same timeframe.
I'm still on my first cup of coffee, which may be why I'm confused here - but I was under the impression that all the hardware up till now (IE: Vista) had to support the graphics interface, not the other way around where the graphical sub system had to support the hardware. Isn't this why you would see "Supports OpenGL/DirectX#!!!" on packaging of the given video card?
If I recall correctly, Linux went through a major change in the module structure and there for all the drivers had to be re-written (IE: NVidia), but none of graphical subsystems had to (IE: OpenGL,SDL,etc..). Isn't this essentially the same thing?
How is this any different than a kernel trojan on linux?
/sbin/init and fix the *text* configuration files manualy...
The difference is that you can *fix* Linux on a live system as long as you have shell access. Kernel trojan? (never heard of one, but for argument sakes) - recompile and install a new kernel, libc corruption? (or any system files for that matter) - there is somekind of switch with rpm that allows you verify every installed file on your system, if anything has changed with files that should not be - reinstall those packages live. You *CAN'T* do any of that with windows, there is only 1 kernel and that is not installable, and you can't go to M$ and download (or even purchase) a new set system dll's, and not to mention that if the registry gets corrupted your hozed completely - under linux, have the kernel boot bash instead of
Granted you have to really know what your doing with Linux to be able to pull this off, and it would take a while - but 1) a full team of so called *gurus* of M$ them selves tried to do this with windoze and failed, I've done this by myself with Linux and succeded a number of times, 2) yes, it would be much quicker to spend 30mins reinstalling and formating a new OS, and leaving the end user to re-install everything - but by the time they got *everything* back to the way it was if they ever could, it would take 10 times longer and they would probably do the same things as before to get them into the same situation again - fixing everything live, I'm sure the engineers would get frustrated and lock everything down airtight so they wont be called again (I know I would).
When I have to rent my word processor and spread sheet program.
What about renting the OS itself - I wouldn't put it past M$ to try this...
cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda
The fact that the whole system is much less accountable and more open to abuse and attacks than a physical system is more an issue that not of the involved people (voting officials and Diebold) just don't care about than one that I expect that they intend to personally exploit.
What gets me is that Diebold makes these types of machines for 2 completely different industries - 1) the financial industry, and 2) the Government. From what I understand, the ATM's are pretty secure and yet these voting booth's can't even do 100% of the time what the abacus does, let alone security... What's ironic though is the purpose of these machines is convenience in industry #1, while supposed to provide accuracy if nothing else in industry #2 - which ultimately picks the head honcho of industry #1. Wouldn't this ultimately mean that Diebold is negatively impacting industry #1 to some degree?
Imagine a time and place where you have a security rating ... you approach an airport terminal and hand them your ID card (or scan your arm) but you can't board the plane because you've been making too many phone calls to your friends who happen to have a rap sheet.
You don't have to imagine that hard, to a certain extent it's already happening - just not with airplanes, instead your banned from going to the senior prom. The officials apparenly have backed off due to preasure, but it's got to start somewhere...
Very much agreed with your statement, the only way I see this actually doing any good is bringing together the brainiac's and the "Not-So-Bright's" of our world. In that the NSB's will state something so blatently stupid and obvious, that it throws the brainiacs for a loop and consequently adding a new (although completely obvious) angle to the problem. Sometimes you just need to back up, and look at things from a different angle to figure it out - the seeing the forest through the trees thing...
Do you really think Open Source AV can't fsck up your PC if there are bugs in it?
Agreed - both can hoze your system up, BUT when it comes down to it, since neither comes with anykind of warranty and both usually have the same level of support (obtained differently ofcourse) - I would much rather know that I didnt waste X amount of dollars on something that didn't really do all that much different than the free stuff...
And let's be honest, how many people actually look at the source of programs (updates) they install?
Not a lot, but atleast the OSS community has it as a standard to have the change log readily availiable for anyone and everyone to grab and read if they so choose, and if you get the source directly from the author - there is usually a big page of all the changes before you get to the download link, so you will know in advance if the upgrade is worth it or not...
Not trying to start a flame war here, but in all honesty this is one of the major reasons I try to use Linux exclusively. I mean, for example, I have a some what high end entertainment system - what ever peice I choose to spend $500+ on - I EXPECT it to work seemlessly with the amp and TV, AND I expect it to work for a few years atleast, if it doesnt I get pissed and will never buy that brand again (Dennon is at the top of my list now).
The same goes for computers the way I look at it, I can either spends hundreds and thousands on software (I'm into graphic/3D design), or get everything for free and try to make do. The difference is that if Im going to spend all that money - it better damn well work and NOT make things worse, especially when I can get the functional equivalent for FREE!!!!
The ironic thing is that the free stuff is a hell of alot more stable, whether this is due to the architecture of the OS or how alot of comercial software these days seem to be released as beta and updated later, cant say - all I know is my shit works. But to answer you original question, I have an extra "project" drive aside from the file server - I store all my working projects and important stuff on it, so if I have to reinstall due to a bad update, or overall crash - that drive doesnt get formated, although I do admit that in this situation it wouldnt have mattered =(
To me it all boils down to the warranty/gaurantee with ANY product. Why would anyone pay $$$ for something when it can totaly hoze up their world and with NO compensation? From what I can tell, you get all the same exact stuff (warranty,support,updates,etc..) with the free stuff as you do with the comercial stuff - they are just obtained in completely different and un-related ways; essentially - the comercial software had better damn well do something I really need and that I can't come close to doing with the free stuff, which fortunately I haven't seen alot of.
Screw the hookers, keep the geeks on the terminals - I know that if a pandemic hits and Im told to stay home, I sure as better have a nice comfortable air-conditioned shack, all my cable channels running and those damn admins at WoW had better not be calling in sick either!!!
An ex-boss of mine tried to convince me to start my own one man corporation, aparently you can do it by registering it in Washington or somewhere. With Corporations being able to get away with so much crap these days, and at the most simply get a slap on the wrist for shit that us mere humans get years in jail for - it's starting to seem to me that doing this would no longer be just for tax reasons, but for survivability in a world gone wrong...
...
It would be "FixIt Inc." so anything and everything I do, could be twisted (just like all the real corps do) to fall under the umbrella of the corporation...
1) Circumventing DRM [to execise my right for backups of media I own] (Research and Development)
2) Whistle Blowing (Public Relations,fixing whats wrong [primary focus])
3)
4) Get hands slapped
5) Profit!!
It goes without saying that BellSouth are probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, gateways between IPs in US and the rest of the world.
This is my concern... My website is housed with lunarpages.com, they in turn are already purchasing said bandwith from SBC on my behalf along with a donzen others - which in turn prolly all purchase pipes of some sort or another from ma bell up stream somewhere.
I cant see the brainy execs of SBC (or what not) being stupid enough to impose this at the ISP level, cuz it would obviously just drive their customers elsewhere. So, it stands to reason they would have to do this at the datacenter level upstream... Are they going to start filtering ALL 4.3 billion IP addresses? That would certainly bog down the entire net... Not to mention that it would add more instability to the net as a whole simply because there will be more points of failure now, if the bandwidth limiting system goes down cuz of a database problem, does everything go down?
I would agree with this. And to add to it, I would just simply not worry all that much about this - /. has grown and so will the number of complainers and whiners - and they are ALWAYS louder than everyone else, it still seems the same old slashdot to me from years back.
If anything, I would revamp the karma system - and even add a category (of sorts or something) for the karma to where the readers could mark it as something they "dont" want to read about (for what ever reason, even if it is because it is from a particular poster) - so in effect it would be harder for that poster to post stories in the future. And likewise if you have bad karma from the replies you do, it would also be harder to make a post and so on.
I too am VERY tired of the discusions about some story being 50% about the poster or some conspiracy thing about the editors, the original reply starts out funny and then goes way off topic from there. The moderators either aren't doing a good job or they dont care - maybe a better incentive for the moderators, say if you moderate well for a given time period you get awarded "subscription" status for a week or something. On the moderation stuff, one thing I would do is have an option for marking it funny, insightful or what ever and then another to mark it as to it's relavance. I've come across countless replies that were hilarious or very insightful - but that were off topic also, I had only one choice so I moderated as to what it was the most of...
Something else you could do to stop the conspiracy hounds - is to have a link that goes to a page about the status of that particular submission. A page that would show everyone who submitted about that story, their karma rating (and likewise rating for submisions), their position in the "que" so to speak, etc... Put enough information their about the submission it self, and it would stop a bunch of the conspiracy peeps...
Maybe I RTFA wrong, but what I got out of it was that the big corporations that be went after another P2P site, and when it came down to the meat and potatoes nothing was being done wrong, but they still got their way. I know everyone around here hates the patriot act and the spying and such, but what really scares me is that atleast the government is kept in check by the constitution, declaration of independance, civil rights, etc.. (It's being pushed right now because we are at war, but that's another issue - and it will get turned around one way or another) - while the these corporations are only kept in check by the size of their war chest, and they have declared war on john que public...
IMHO, bigbrother isn't coming from the government(s) but from the powerful corporations.
At least when you are busted from the governments that be (you are presumed inococent until proven guilty) , depending on the nature of the crime - you are given a chance at rehabiliation because simply put the punishment is to fit the crime. While with the corporations, you are guilty untill proven inocent (the complete opposite), even if you are lucky enough to be able to afford to defend your self - atleast with the government if you aren't you are given a public defender, and in the mean time they are going after to ruin your life, and I'm sure succeeding...
Looking at things from this guys perspective looks like he is a simple novice who uploaded the movie (IE being sloppy about it)...
However, if you look at it from a real pirates angle who IS going to be tech savy - this is very probable... I mean, if I was a pirate - I would do what ever it takes (as long as it is reasonably feasable) to flip a bird at the industry, and make them look like fools (IE not being able to catch me). Taking my old laptop, plugging it into my cheap $40 DC converter from FRY's, spending a few hours driving around until I find an unsecured access point, parking/locking everything up and leaving for a day would be worth it - and not that big of a deal. The worst that could happen, is that the owners of the access point would check for connections, not recognise me and zap my connection - I move on to somewhere else.
The point is that a real pirate is going to do what they can to not get caught, they wont do something as blatant as this, to upload a movie when they know the industry is looking for them...
1) I would have to say that you seemed to be WAY to polite in that you told them ... "these seem like fraudulent clicks.", when the click through in question was from an automated "robot", aka wget...
... GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from the Web. ... While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion Standard (/robots.txt)
From the man page of wget:
WGET(1)
From the google adsence page...
Prohibited Clicks and Impressions
Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to: repeated manual clicks or impressions, incentives to click or to generate impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, or other deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.
2) It disturbs me that the glorious Google, would claim that WGET is a valid click through when GNU acknowledges it is a robot (of sorts).
3) It also disturbs me that (you say) your final rejection notice of your claim came from support in India - from my experience with such support, they are simple robots and don't care about solving your problem - they only want to close that ticket, regardless of the outcome let alone any detective work.
Sry, I pressed the wrong button =P.. Anyhow my ultimate question is simple - why are we wanting to teach that what we know regarding science is it, no more to explore and prove/disprove - especially when we KNOW that we dont know everything. I would think that in science class, it would be perfectly viable to say there is another theory in how we came to be - I mean it is a fucking theory, and THAT is where science starts... This generation is just going to made to look (more) like the fools we are, if it is found to be scientific proof in the next few hundred years that we come from something other than pure randomness; JUST like the fools that swore up and down that the earth was flat...
Just my 2 cents, Flame away...
pseudo-science infiltrate the United States
If I remember right, the US was found because some stupid ass moron thought the world was actually round - he was critisized left and right because you could simply look at the horizon and see with your own eyes that the world was flat; I mean come on, seeing is believing!
On a serious note, I was always under the impression that science is suppose to simply be exploring the unknown - nothing more nothing less. The down side is that it seems the over whelming majority of humans seem to be closed minded, and dont want to fathom anything that cant see, in their imagination or reality. One of my philosophy professors and me would get into some major discusions here and there and was able to actually connect the dots between "real" science and religion, with the HUGE gaps being filled in with Parapsychology, string theory, and ofcourse good old philosophy. Of course it was all theory but it did make since, what gets me is that we (humans) dont even know how the brain completely works, DNA, cancer,etc... and yet we are perfectly happy in saying that we know everything so there ISN'T any magical creator. I've read somewhere that DNA is like the perfect computer, if DNA is so freak'n complicated and so "perfect" - take the next step, push the boundries, could complete randomness form perfection? Or is something else responsible for it, whether it is another species from Mars or a sole creator.
If uneducated preachers spread unenlighted views
IMHO, you've got it backwards. A preachers sole job is to "preach" about a given religion, NOT about possible alternatives. While on the the other hand it is the job of a scientist to explore the unknown, and consequently prove -OR- disprove such theories. The problem lies in the fact that *disproving* ideas is WAY to simple - "Look at the horizon, it's flat you idiotic moron!" While proving crazy ass ideas takes alot more work. The problem with science and religion is in the fact that there is a very huge gap between the two, kind of like the gap in land that Columbus had to cover to prove that the world was in reality round - and just think about how much work he had to go through to prove his idea - cruising the Antlantic in a (relatively) small ship with hurricanes, squalls and thousands of miles of nothing would be an extreme bitch!
Ironically, Marquette University encourages students to post public comments about their professors, and these comments can be very negative.
So what about all these other students who were encouraged to do the same thing, and they even gave the names of the professors where this guy didnt? Seems a little 2 faced to me...
When the student had the temerity to ask for the hearing he had every right to, they ignored the expert testimony of their own ethicist, refused to hear the testimony of a faculty member who could discuss the prevailing norms of student blogging, and came down on the student like a ton of bricks.
It looks to me like this says it all...
The entire process did not look like the adjudication of a case of student misconduct. It looked like a vendetta.
Granted, he was given a hearing - but aren't hearings suppose to be impartial so they can litterally figure out want went wrong and actually correct the issue at hand?
The way this "dean" handeled things, makes me wonder if he was actually the professor in question. I mean, if I was a dean and it came to my attention that one of my top students (on the dean's list) was having major issues with one of my proffesors I would want to check things out - maybe he went over the top because is was stressed out and all, but perhaps there would have been some validity to his issues that should require attention...
Especially since they encourage blogging (in order for prospective students to see what their school is like), and it seems as though the dean was totaly flippant to even his own faculty - it looks to me like this guy was totally railroaded for some reason, and yes his rights either re-written on the fly or totaly ignored...
All in all, if I was going into dentistry I would pass on this place regardless of how "good" it is suppose to be for the simple fact that it seems that the dean is just a little to imature for my taste...
Dont know why this was rated a "5", it is way off base...
So be a responsible parent and grandfather then, and restrict those things from your kids yourself.
So your saying to slap a ball and chain on our children, and either follow them around everywhere physically or attach some kind of tracking and surviliance system to them so we know what they are doing at all times and stop them when they want to "push the rules" when given the chance?
Don't take the easy, selfish route of asking the State to do your parenting for you.
That's not being selfish what so ever - get real, it's expecting that the society as a whole would be responsible and not limit the amount of violance and sexual situations their minors are exposed to. The same concept as a neighborhood watch, neighbors helping neighbors. The only problem is that back in the day when movie ratings were started, it was more on a society based type of thing - where now a days to get anything done it has to be through legal channels.
Your temporary convenience is not worth your freedom, nor the freedom of your neighbours.
Don't know what kind of neighbors you have, but the majority of mine can all drink, drive, see rated "R" movies, purchase Playboys, etc... It's only their children who are justifiably restricted from these activities, and this law (if it was passwed) would not have effected that scenario in one way or the other.
That makes no sense. You're going to hold some vague high ground and not install this because it might allow Sony's DRM to be installed? Rather than protect yourself by eliminating 95% of the threats, you won't protect yourself at all? I don't get that attitude.
Personally, there is no way I'm going to switch from Norton to M$ - Norton is only (from what I know) bound by the law, IE the DMCA, where M$ has enough $$$ to blow off the law and likewise only be concerened with the size of their wallet/profit, hince getting in bed with crap like the SONY DRM and regardless of the effect on their customers, letting it slide - it's in their EULA afterall that they won't be held liable for anything what so ever...
""Most people, I think, do not even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
You can just hear the urgency can't you...
Do not block any ventilation openings on the console or power supply. Do not place the console or power supply on a bed, sofa, or other soft surface that may block ventilation openings. Do not place the console or power supply in a confined space, such as a bookcase, rack, or stereo cabinet, unless the space is well ventilated.
Now I dont have the 360, but from these pics, it looks like any other black power brick (just really big) - IE: no such ventilation openings (the power supply in your PC is what comes to mind). So throwing it on the carpet between the TV and the console seems to be following the directions, and you would think that the 5-10 foot space betwen the console on the set would be more than enough ventalation, especially if your not any kind of engineer.
This will prolly get ignored or flamed like other posts I've made, but what the hell...
/. had its fun with the diebold crap, but I've never started any OSS projects let alone lead one =/
With all the potential of rigged elections and such, and everyone here concerned about democracy, and with Diebold (the company that was nailed to the cross a while back for all the corruption and scandels - how are they still around?!?!) making rediculous systems and claims... Why doesnt the open source community make our own - I ***KNOW*** that we could make a system that would out do everything out there 100 fold (duh), and I would think that there is enough backers of OSS that it could be pushed through politically. I was thinking about this the last time
Hmmm, intriguing idea... I've always been interested in AI and would dream up about what it would take - I came up with a 3 majors peices to the puzzle, hardware wize that is...
1) Processing ability - 5000 opterons should be able to do the trick (in parellel ofcourse), think for a sec how fast your brain processes AND stores all the similarities between the 5 sences resulting in memories and consciousness. Basically be able to process as fast as the data comes in.
2) Data storage - the system would need ALOT of readily available storage at its imediate disposal for all the nodes of information and the coresponding path ways linking them all together, and that would just be short term memory, long term memory would need alot more.
3) Information - we are talking about Google here, and with the fiber lines it would be coming it fast and furious...
Put all these together, with ofcourse the right underlying OS (the rumors of the Google OS?) and you have your sentinent AI system... The only question that comes to mind is why portable? I can only think of 2 reasons...
1) These "systems" would be something like a Game cube of sorts but with a core ability to be interlinked and likewise act as one, when the system starts to become over worked throw in other "cube"... Hince the ability to actually "grow".
2) military purposes - drop one of these suckers into the middle of a batle field, have it suck up all the information it can (via some fancy sensors, wireless, etc..), and then we will have and enormous advantage by far, and having somesort of AI system at the reigns to make since of all the data with a specific purpose in mind would be devistating for an enemy...
The portability of this seems to be the interesting part, afterall why would you want or need something this powerful to be portable? The only peice that is missing at face value to all of this is the AI system - again back to the rumored Google OS... Just like when we are "switched on" at birth, we are far from thinking and processing information like we do now - just in the same way a real AI system (IMHO) can't just be programed, executed and BAM you have AI, the programing would be in how it handles the data and forms the conections and likewise follows those pathways to form memories/understandings and hince it would be born like you and I, and over time grow into something useful - and just like you and I if it is abused and such as it is "growing up" and is not cared for and nurtured it would simply go the same route as would a human being in the same situation... This all goes back to the portability of this and the cube concpept of being able to simply plunk these guys down and they start acting as one - Im no brain scientist by far, but I would think that if we all had the same sized brain as when we were born we would be thinking slow (because of all the data our brain would have to "sort" through to get to a conclusion) and because of the limited storage (no growth) we wouldnt be able to stack all of the knowledge into understanding string theory and quantum physics and the like.
Just my consipracy theory of sorts, but good enough to start buying google stock IMHO... It seems pretty obivous they are going to be doing something interesting with all this =)