It is interesting to note that Elonka Dunin (one of the most prominent people involved with the cracking of Kryptos and the Cyrillic Projector) put a slashdotting in her timeline of important Kryptos events.
I also have selected the firstname.lastname@gmail.com naming standard. Funny thing is, I have not received one single peice of spam (marked or otherwise) in the last 3 months. I use the account lightly and even occationally list it as my contact in web forms, and yet not one. Coundn't tell ya why I have been so lucky.
I actually use IE instead of FireFox. (though I do have FireFox installed) Why would I do such a thing? Simple: Google Toolbar. I simply can't browse the internet without the glory that is the google toolbar anymore. Another added benefit of IE is that poorly written web pages (ie IE specific) often look/function better. Now I know that IE is about a secure as a "no trespassing" sign in theory, but in practice I haven't had a single problem with it. Just don't click yes on every popup and run adaware now and again. Anyhow, just my $0.02
Get rid of the electoral college. It is no longer needed. Its just that simple.
Furthermore, we should use the condorcet voting system with schwartz sequential dropping for cyclic ambiguety resolution. It is hands down better then the plurality system currently implemented in the US.
Don't forget that the next president will likely be apppointing 3 supreme court justices. While not making a law, that will certainly have an effect on the interpretation of laws such as the DCMA
I dislike the stupid software restriction just as much as the rest of you, but I can really see where blizzard is coming from on this one. I would wager that over 99% of people using the bnetd service are doing so with pirated copies of Blizzard's product. While bnetd in and of itself does not harm Blizzard, it does greatly add to the enjoyment of piracy which does hurt Blizzard. (and hey, fear not, you can still use a VPN to play cracked copies with your friends)
Aside from the occational windows update I have never had to reboot my XP machine and I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to reboot my 2k machine. I suspect this statistic is because 8% of windows users are so technologically inept that no OS could withstand thier abuse.
His net worth usually rests in the 40-60 billion range and he has given away about 3 billion. This puts him at giving about 5% to 7.5% of his wealth away. This is much greater then the 0.1% some moron earlier credited him with. In fact it is a larger percentage then most americans. I would be willing to wager that Bill Gates gives away a larger percentage of his income then all the Linux distro CEOs averaged.
I notice that Gates is getting flamed despite his many charities. As much as many of you disagree with Microsofts operating policy, Bill Gates alone has given:
$1 billion over 20 years to establish the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program, which will support promising minority students through college and some kinds of graduate school.
$750 million over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which includes the World Health Organization, the Rockefeller Foundation, Unicef, pharmaceutical companies and the World Bank.
$350 million over three years to teachers, administrators, school districts and schools to improve America's K-12 education, starting in Washington State.
$200 million to the Gates Library Program, which is wiring public libraries in America's poorest communities in an effort to close the "digital divide."
$100 million to the Gates Children's Vaccine Program, which will accelerate delivery of lifesaving vaccines to children in the poorest countries of the world.
$50 million to the Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, run by the Columbia University School of Public Health.
$50 million to the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, to conduct research on promising candidates for a malaria vaccine.
$50 million to an international group called the Alliance for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer.
$50 million to a fund for global polio eradication, led by the World Health Organization, Unicef, Rotary International and the U.N. Foundation.
$40 million to the International Vaccine Institute, a research program based in Seoul, South Korea.
$28 million to Unicef for the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus.
$25 million to the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation.
$25 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is creating coalitions of research scientists, pharmaceutical companies and governments in developing countries to look for a safe, effective, widely accessible vaccine against AIDS.
Source: New York Times
And all this was of the year 2000. Now I have not checked this, but I suspect the charitable donations from every Linux distro CEO combined would fall well short of this. Admit it, Bill Gates is in fact doing some good in this world.
"Simply the fact that Windows Firewall can be turned off by another application is enough to tell me Microsoft has goofed again"
Any 3rd party filewall could easily be turned off by another application as well. It would just have to end the process and there are about 9 different ways to go about that in windows.
Just last week some jerk from hinet.net started using my smtp server. I think he got a couple thousand messages off before I put an end to his shenanigans. Is there any form of retribution one can take against this behavior?
"I don't accept that you can't design a repair bot for under that launch cost?"
I would be willing to believe it. Just the other day my $300 autonomous vacuum cleaner decided to get lost, drive off the stairs and break itself. It didn't even have to survive in space. When it comes down to it, I don't have a lot of faith in robots at the moment.
1. Trillian (I love chatting)
2. McAfee virus scan (I hate virii)
3. AdAware (I hate spyware)
4. Daemon Tools (I love to steal)
5. Sortpicts (I love pr0n)
6. Visual Studio (generally handy)
7. Photoshop (My friends love being edited into pr0n)
8. SmartFTP (generally handy)
9. IIS (I love pain)
10. SubVersion (is way better then CVS)
I have the same advice that I did last time the french sued google: Just don't let the french use Google. It will both punish them for bringing trivial suits and dissuade others from following thier example.
While I do partake in less then legal software at times and benefit from such groups as those being cracked down upon, even I must admit that the government isn't overstepping its bounds or bowing to thier "corporate masters." Whether they are a "syndicate" or not, these online groups are violating the law and have no right to do so. Software and recording companies do put a lot of work into thier product and do have the right to charge whatever they want for them. If you do not like it, I see that you have the following options:
1)Don't buy it. If nobody buys a product at a given price, the company will lower it or go out of business.
2)Create your own competing product at a price you deam resonable.
3)Vote to remove the legal protections that you bash the government for enforcing as is thier duty.
I Don't know what this guy is talking about. There are lots of innovative new games.:p
Seriously I think its funny article, though I suspect that people will never get tired of games even if they are just the same old crap with increasingly pretty graphics.
I find that most people's parents
a) Do not know how to use Linux or Mac OS
b) Have little interest in learning them
c) Require even more tech support if you do get them to switch somehow
As a result, I find its best to just make do with windows. In some cases, products such as Deep Freeze and other such apps will do a fine job of preventing a computer from being messed up. Other times just configuring the computer properly and explaining a thing or two to the users will suffice. I have my folks on windows 2000 using the administrator account. Other then a hard drive failure (hardly their fault), they have not had a lick of trouble despite not being technologically inclined. Simply dismissing because they won't switch to operating systems doesn't do anybody any good.
Holy crap that is about the stupedist thing I have ever heard. If I were Google, I would ban all of france from thier service until it was repealed. Stupid French.
If you use a Mac as your primary machine and expect that people should cater to your idiocy and waste time and money writing games fo you, I hope you choke. Valve doesn't owe you shit, and there is no excuse for somebody stealing thier hard work. I work in the game industry and know just how hard it is to accomplish what they have done. If they want to delay release for any reason whatsoever thats thier decision. They don't owe you shit as I said before.
Slashdot Mirror
It is interesting to note that Elonka Dunin (one of the most prominent people involved with the cracking of Kryptos and the Cyrillic Projector) put a slashdotting in her timeline of important Kryptos events.
I also have selected the firstname.lastname@gmail.com naming standard. Funny thing is, I have not received one single peice of spam (marked or otherwise) in the last 3 months. I use the account lightly and even occationally list it as my contact in web forms, and yet not one. Coundn't tell ya why I have been so lucky.
I had the *exact* same problem. I even did the jump like 4x to make sure.
My liquid nitrogen cooled case is the coldest place on earth!
I actually use IE instead of FireFox. (though I do have FireFox installed) Why would I do such a thing? Simple: Google Toolbar. I simply can't browse the internet without the glory that is the google toolbar anymore. Another added benefit of IE is that poorly written web pages (ie IE specific) often look/function better. Now I know that IE is about a secure as a "no trespassing" sign in theory, but in practice I haven't had a single problem with it. Just don't click yes on every popup and run adaware now and again. Anyhow, just my $0.02
Get rid of the electoral college. It is no longer needed. Its just that simple.
Furthermore, we should use the condorcet voting system with schwartz sequential dropping for cyclic ambiguety resolution. It is hands down better then the plurality system currently implemented in the US.
Don't forget that the next president will likely be apppointing 3 supreme court justices. While not making a law, that will certainly have an effect on the interpretation of laws such as the DCMA
The best part is I read that while putting off a programming assignment.
I dislike the stupid software restriction just as much as the rest of you, but I can really see where blizzard is coming from on this one. I would wager that over 99% of people using the bnetd service are doing so with pirated copies of Blizzard's product. While bnetd in and of itself does not harm Blizzard, it does greatly add to the enjoyment of piracy which does hurt Blizzard. (and hey, fear not, you can still use a VPN to play cracked copies with your friends)
I would bet my house that this "secure format" will do little to nothing to stop the music piracy you all love so much. I wouldn't worry about it.
Aside from the occational windows update I have never had to reboot my XP machine and I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to reboot my 2k machine. I suspect this statistic is because 8% of windows users are so technologically inept that no OS could withstand thier abuse.
His net worth usually rests in the 40-60 billion range and he has given away about 3 billion. This puts him at giving about 5% to 7.5% of his wealth away. This is much greater then the 0.1% some moron earlier credited him with. In fact it is a larger percentage then most americans. I would be willing to wager that Bill Gates gives away a larger percentage of his income then all the Linux distro CEOs averaged.
$1 billion over 20 years to establish the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program, which will support promising minority students through college and some kinds of graduate school.
$750 million over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which includes the World Health Organization, the Rockefeller Foundation, Unicef, pharmaceutical companies and the World Bank.
$350 million over three years to teachers, administrators, school districts and schools to improve America's K-12 education, starting in Washington State.
$200 million to the Gates Library Program, which is wiring public libraries in America's poorest communities in an effort to close the "digital divide."
$100 million to the Gates Children's Vaccine Program, which will accelerate delivery of lifesaving vaccines to children in the poorest countries of the world.
$50 million to the Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, run by the Columbia University School of Public Health.
$50 million to the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, to conduct research on promising candidates for a malaria vaccine.
$50 million to an international group called the Alliance for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer.
$50 million to a fund for global polio eradication, led by the World Health Organization, Unicef, Rotary International and the U.N. Foundation.
$40 million to the International Vaccine Institute, a research program based in Seoul, South Korea.
$28 million to Unicef for the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus.
$25 million to the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation.
$25 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is creating coalitions of research scientists, pharmaceutical companies and governments in developing countries to look for a safe, effective, widely accessible vaccine against AIDS.
Source: New York Times
And all this was of the year 2000. Now I have not checked this, but I suspect the charitable donations from every Linux distro CEO combined would fall well short of this. Admit it, Bill Gates is in fact doing some good in this world.
"Simply the fact that Windows Firewall can be turned off by another application is enough to tell me Microsoft has goofed again"
Any 3rd party filewall could easily be turned off by another application as well. It would just have to end the process and there are about 9 different ways to go about that in windows.
"Alternative MSN client supporting video? "
MSN messenger supports video chat. I believe MS netmeeting does as well. Heck, they even have video chat for the xbox
Just last week some jerk from hinet.net started using my smtp server. I think he got a couple thousand messages off before I put an end to his shenanigans. Is there any form of retribution one can take against this behavior?
"I don't accept that you can't design a repair bot for under that launch cost?"
I would be willing to believe it. Just the other day my $300 autonomous vacuum cleaner decided to get lost, drive off the stairs and break itself. It didn't even have to survive in space. When it comes down to it, I don't have a lot of faith in robots at the moment.
1. Trillian (I love chatting) 2. McAfee virus scan (I hate virii) 3. AdAware (I hate spyware) 4. Daemon Tools (I love to steal) 5. Sortpicts (I love pr0n) 6. Visual Studio (generally handy) 7. Photoshop (My friends love being edited into pr0n) 8. SmartFTP (generally handy) 9. IIS (I love pain) 10. SubVersion (is way better then CVS)
I have the same advice that I did last time the french sued google: Just don't let the french use Google. It will both punish them for bringing trivial suits and dissuade others from following thier example.
While I do partake in less then legal software at times and benefit from such groups as those being cracked down upon, even I must admit that the government isn't overstepping its bounds or bowing to thier "corporate masters." Whether they are a "syndicate" or not, these online groups are violating the law and have no right to do so. Software and recording companies do put a lot of work into thier product and do have the right to charge whatever they want for them. If you do not like it, I see that you have the following options:
1)Don't buy it. If nobody buys a product at a given price, the company will lower it or go out of business.
2)Create your own competing product at a price you deam resonable.
3)Vote to remove the legal protections that you bash the government for enforcing as is thier duty.
Seriously I think its funny article, though I suspect that people will never get tired of games even if they are just the same old crap with increasingly pretty graphics.
$5 says that the traffic from slashdot would bring their site down if it had video on it...
I find that most people's parents a) Do not know how to use Linux or Mac OS b) Have little interest in learning them c) Require even more tech support if you do get them to switch somehow As a result, I find its best to just make do with windows. In some cases, products such as Deep Freeze and other such apps will do a fine job of preventing a computer from being messed up. Other times just configuring the computer properly and explaining a thing or two to the users will suffice. I have my folks on windows 2000 using the administrator account. Other then a hard drive failure (hardly their fault), they have not had a lick of trouble despite not being technologically inclined. Simply dismissing because they won't switch to operating systems doesn't do anybody any good.
Holy crap that is about the stupedist thing I have ever heard. If I were Google, I would ban all of france from thier service until it was repealed. Stupid French.
If you use a Mac as your primary machine and expect that people should cater to your idiocy and waste time and money writing games fo you, I hope you choke. Valve doesn't owe you shit, and there is no excuse for somebody stealing thier hard work. I work in the game industry and know just how hard it is to accomplish what they have done. If they want to delay release for any reason whatsoever thats thier decision. They don't owe you shit as I said before.