Microsoft co-owns MSNBC with NBC-Universal. Presently, MSNBC's cable ratings are in the cellar, behind CNN and Fox"news." It really sux being in last place.
Microsoft, which is profit-minded, wishes to drive people to their product. In fact, they have taken specific steps to do that in other areas. Has anyone noticed that there is a free, installable copy of Microsoft Money given away with each copy of their operating system? (One wonders if it is ever actually installed...)
The issue here is, while there are better news sites out there, Microsoft wishes you to try theirs. If MSNBC winds up as bad as Microsoft Money as compared to Intuit's Quicken, people will start ignoring the existence of the link, unless the provenance of the link is hidden.
Frankly, I think both Microsoft and NBC Universal have a lot of work to do on MSNBC in making the content more compelling and more accurate. last I heard, MSNBC didn't work with Apple's browser and didn't work well with most of the alternatives to Internet Exploiter. Their content has gaps, many large. The NBC Network creates news stories that are run later (and in news time lots later on MSNBC -- in essence, the news is "repurposed" on MSNBC with the only actual news reported stuff that is freely available from the NBC affiliate stations (car chases and floods -- also re-purposed). Inviting Yet Another Talking Head to speak to your miniscule audience is not news.
I don't think Microsoft's spider will change the fact that there is nothing compelling on MSNBC. They're facing the same problem there that they have with their personal finance program.
I note that this year, despite two national political conventions in cities, the allocation of money for homeland security is apportioned so that states with low populations receive a windfall, while states with large urban areas have to foot the bill for their own security.
This, in light of the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that al-Qaida took advantage of this very same type of governmental ineptitude in their attack on America almost three years ago provides me with ample proof that there is plenty of reason to doubt security.
Just today, the FBI told all of the news agencies that they had information that al-Qaida is specifically targeting the news vans at Fleet Center.
In light of all of this, I have to figure that the terrorists are either in the US government and plotting to keep us all so scared that we won't go anywhere or do anything or they are evil hackers bent on global dominance through the takeover of every computer for the purpose of downloading everyone's bank account information from their copy of Quicken (probably a pirated copy). Frankly, I like the hacker idea best.
Fade up on Joe Democrat at the Boston Convention, computer unsecured from WiFi attack. Suddenly, randon characters race across his computer screen.
Mesmerized, Joe stares into his screen as the images flitting before him lull him into a hypnotic trance as we fade to black...
Fade up on Joe Democrat as he shakes the hand of the Candidate. The Candidate pauses and looks intently at Joe's eyes, which begin to display random characters like his computer screen did. The Candidate nods and immediately rises to go tot he lecturn.
Cut to the Candidate delivering a speech where he refuses the party's nomination and decides to not run.
Cut to the newsvans where the producers and directors stare at each other in consternation as Joe Democrat infiltrates the newsvan compound unseen. Fade to black.
Fade up on idyllic world without media, computers political parties, newspapers, candidates or cursing Vice Presidents. Camera trucks into the open door of the Presidential Mansion, through the entryway of the Oval Office. There, wearing the Turban of the Holy One sits...
if the author(s) of this crappy malware type software actually spent as much time/effort into a GOOD PRODUCT as they put into making it's removal difficult... they would probably have a great product and people would enjoy using it, and maybe even give them legit business.
Most of the writers of malware don't distribute, they just post the code for all to see and comment on. Then they design scripts that will compile the code and post that. Most of the people who do actually distribute the malware are referred to as script kiddies and are generally reviled by the authors of the code. They tend to be misanthropic loners who can't get a date (shades of my own teen-aged years) who revel in the news of the pain they have unleashed on others.
Windows/IE is targeted by crapware writers because of its popularity... Lately many sites have been advising people to dump ie...
A question, perhaps rhetorical: Since Internet Exploder is actually an integral part of the Windoze operating system, does there exist a means by which one might be able to remove it with its known hacks? I routinely recommend that people not use Microsoft's browser or their e-mail client because of the target size those programs represent coupled with the number of exploits in them. This is not to unnecessarily malign Microsoft (more than they deserve) but rather to spark a discussion on the exploits that remain even when someone uses a different browser.
The original author and others note that the malware is becoming harder to remove. Surely this is due to the fact that Microsoft does offer patches to their system software and the difficulty presented in removing the malware is all about an attempt by the black-hat hackers to keep their software present and viable on the infected computers.
I regularly and routinely run Ad Aware on my GF's XP Home computer and found that it did successfully kill pop ups but the cookies kept coming back. So I have been slowly and methodically editing Internet Exploiter's Internet Preferences - Security section to place the most probable URLs of the offending cookie-setters into the "Restricted Zone" for IE. This stops the cookie setting for the advertisements cold. Perhaps these advertisers will stop setting cookies as a result. I know that most advertisements are not about malware but I see a cookie from a site such as "servedby.advertising.com" as a security breach.
NASA is trying to fund lots of things and its priorities have shifted in accordance with its history and funding.
Back in the 1960s Congress funded NASA programs because it was "necessary" to beat the Soviets in technology. And the Space Race was the technology showcase that the Soviets chose for us (they were the first in Space with both unmanned and manned vehicles). Congressional candidates translated that into politics: If you did not vote for NASA funding, you were "soft on Communism."
By the time of the moon landings, the rhetoric had changed from "red scare" and "red baiting" to The Great Society, basic human rights and whether or not one was for or against the war in Vietnam. Detante was in vogue because Nixon was winning the "unfought wars" against China and Russia with his trips there.
NASA's attitudes changed from an assumption that funding would always be there, which encouraged a "can do" attitude, to wondering how to save programs and which programs to save. NASA negotiated with people who wanted launch vehicles and found it had competition -- not from the Soviets, who were still unacceptable to the West but from the newly-minted European corporation, largely funded by those governments in Western Europe who needed access to Clarke orbit for geostationary communication satellites.
NASA's first proposal, which I remember from my World Book Encyclopedia, was to build a reusable manned vehicle that it could fit atop a Saturn rocket engine. NASA would use the Saturn V (which was used to launch the moon missions as well as Skylab) to construct an outpost in low Earth orbit and use these reusable vehicles to transfer men and cargo to a space station. The space station would, in turn, be a waypoint for launches to the moon and beyond.
But NASA had problems getting customers to buy into its new concept, because its reusable launch vehicle, or "shuttle" was too small. The military insisted that its cargo bay be of a certain size, so that they could launch large spy satellites. NASA, fearing that all satellite launches would go to Arianespace, kowtowed to the US military and built our present shuttle system. The delay in changing the program cost them ten years and billions of dollars. It cost them most of their "can do" managers. It also cost them support in Congress and among the American people. With no regular launches, media started asking NASA the questions previously reserved for congressmen and the President: "Is this a good use of taxpayer money?"
NASA administrators and PR people started talking about spinoffs from their scientific endeavors to answer many of these questions and even initiated the publication of a magazine in 1996 to help convince the public and corporations that NASA programs are relevant.
Then came the shuttle program. It was over budget, very, very late and hugely popular, until the launches became routine. And what made them routine was a consistent refusal, within top level managers to see that space flight is more dangerous than flying in a private plane. Also, there was no funding for a place for the shuttle to get to as before the first shuttle launched, Skylab fell from the sky. By the time of the Challenger accident in 1986, upper level managers were no longer listening to the scientists assembling and handling the equipment And I would argue that the recommendations in management behavior didn't change.
Nowadays, NASA is infected with a "can't do" attitude as the Columbia tragedy grounds NASA and the facts are reported that managers felt it was best to risk the lives of the astronauts and the shuttle because they
I am not implying anything. Syndicated shows are sold to stations within each market one-by-one (or, as in the way the King brothers sell shows in groups of shows to individual stations). King World also sells to cable networks and I am not surprised that they syndicate Jeopardy! to GSN.
Your particular market may show the game on CBS this year and on ABC next year -- it all depends on how much faith the broadcaster has that the show will rake in an audience and make money for the station and how much the station wants to pay for the show. It is not a networked show, it is a syndicated show.
In the last year, the CBS network paid handsomely to buy the syndication company and made the King Brothers, especially Michael King very rich. But their means of distribution remains the same: The highest bidder in each market gets the show.
Jeopardy is syndicated by King World. The fact that it is on your WB station is an indication that the other stations in your area did not pay for it (or bid high enough to get it). Look for the King World logo at the end of the show.
Children quickly become fascinated with things that are a part (and sometimes a horrible part) of their lives. One could say that the purpose for children is to go forth and gather diseases from schools so that they might infect their parents. And so do adults, as in the case of the Black Death and the pandemics of bubonic plague that swept Europe.
A prime case of this type of fascination is in the art of the time, such as that of Hieronymus Bosch and others who began drawing images of intense suffering and disease.
The death caused by these pandemics may also be seen as beneficent, as it gave rise to increased rights for the peasantry, the creation of a "middle class" and the concept of general human rights, which lead to the end of the feudal system of governments. The nobility could no longer compel peasants to work their land just for their protection and the peasantry demanded actual pay for work.
This also gave rise to the general usage of sirnames that stuck throughout generations, as the kings would tax their noblemen on the basis of the potential in numbers of persons on their lands, instead of only on the size of their holdings. When the kings revenue collectors were faced with seventeen "Johns" they would assign names to them on basis of their employment, where they lived, or how they looked instead of who their father or master was.
One can usually find the etymology of one's sirname in the common tongue of this period.
First, a disclaimer: I am a Mac owner and use a PC at work. My bias is towards getting my work done not towards a particular platform. I think Apple makes things easier, which is why I purchased a Mac.
On Windows keyboards, the [Caps Lock] key changes the period and comma keys to "less than" and "greater than" respectively. While I suppose this can be handy for HTML coding, it's not just a little annoying. In other words, it acts just like the IBM Selectric(TM) keyboard did. Apple's keyboards don't do this. They also do not shift the number key row, nor do they shift the function keys.
I find this kind of re-translation of [Caps Lock] may be more handy.
I used to do television productions and when quoting jobs had a line that I tended to put into all contracts, labeled "SC." None of my clients ever enquired as to its significance.
I would generally vary the "SC" fee based on my apprehension of what the client was all about, based on a number of observations as well as a number of questions I asked from the beginning of the job estimate. The "SC" fee was the "Stupidity Charge," and I generally -- and fairly accurately over time -- tended to correctly estimate a client's stupidity factor for which I would charge on the basis of a percentage of the entire job.
I would imagine that BCW2's friend who charges to remove spy-ware is, in his own way, accepting a fee for the "SC," and I heartily approve.
I recently found out that my girlfriend's IT department ought to pay an "SC." Two weeks ago, I installed additional RAM into her business laptop. It was shipped to her with 256M of system RAM and she is a department manager, responsible for upwards of 200 to 250 e-mails and five telephone conference schedules daily. She uses Microsoft's Outlook (which I do not recommend unless within a company over a VPN to an Exchange Server), which manages everything from her contacts to her calendar and e-mail. She typically had Excel, Word, Outlook, Internet Exploder, MSN Messenger and her VPN client running at once. It took 20 minutes for her computer to boot.
After I installed 512M of additional RAM into her computer and hooked up a USB hard disk for her to archive Outlook e-mail to and to use for backups, her IT department claimed the following:
Adding RAM does not speed up your computer.
An external hard drive is not a good way to back up a system.
She should have shipped it (she would have been unable to work for two days) to the home office if she was having problems.
While she can claim a tax deduction for "unreimbursed business expense" for these items, she is making a strong case for her company to reimburse her for these additions. Her company is currently sending laptops with 256M of system RAM to its sales staff.
I installed Ad-Aware on her home computer and she typically has 4 to 16 files to sequester daily. Shortly after I did this, her IT department initiated a campaign to push spy-ware onto all visiters of her company's website so that they can track where their customers go from there. I would hope that they decide to be "good Internet citizens" and don't do that.
The various States are calling their sales tax "Use Tax" where it applies to the Internet. But they call it sales tax within the state. Essentially, since the purchase is made out-of-state it acts as a tariff on goods from another state, which is prohibited by the federal Constitution. And the reason why the various States have not made more than a token stink about this is because they must think they would lose if they went after someone who had enough money and time to take their case to the US Supreme Court.
Since my state wants to call it a "useage tax" on one hand (making it constitutional if they can collect it) and a "sales tax" for product bought and sold within the state, I shall allow my state to first prove that I am using the item purchased and then send me a bill, based on the actual usage observed.
I should mention that I purchased a number of gifts on-line that are currently being used (and not by me) outside of my home state over the holiday season last year. Since I never intended to use the product and never did use the product, how can they claim usage?/p?
You are, of course, absolutely correct in your "760x575" image resolution for television in your transmission standard. People in Europe and the UK see a bit sharper picture.
What you give up for that resolution is the faster frame rate that we enjoy in the United States. While I was working for a satellite transmission company here, we had a number of brits over to cover one of our Presidential elections. They remarked that we had much richer colors than they had over in the UK and I believe that was an "optical delusion" created by the increased frame rate. Generally, when I have travelled to the UK I notice a slight flicker in your television. If I am there for more than two weeks, the flicker "dissappears" because my eyes get used to it.
The use of a prism block in high quality cameras does not lead to too much signal loss or color bleed unless the prism block has imperfections and they don't in high-quality cameras, like the kind made by Ikegami and Sony Broadcast. None of our broadcast cameras at the NBC company use mirrors to split the image.
I do own a Canon GL-2 camera that does use the mirrors as you describe them It is a cheaper way of splitting the signal and it does work well, as they've been working on the quality of those things for a little while. I believe the first camera I worked with that used the mirrors instead of a prism was a JVC "industrial" camera that had tubes and one could really tell the difference between that and a broadcast camera.
Lastly, I would respectfully disagree that blue is an "inferred" image. While it does make up the smallest part of the video signal, it does get its own CCD within a camera. Perhaps you are thinking of the components for Betacam broadcast equipment, which are R-Y, B-Y and C from which green is inferred (this is a tape specification and does translate into the 4:2:2, 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 digital signals that make up DVC25, DVC50 and Mini-DV components. In the UK, Mini-DV uses 4:2:0 because of your peculiar type of encoding every other line's color information, while in the US we use 4:1:1 for our mini-DV.
In my case, I am a video engineer for the NBC company.
I suppose one could say that compression is a type of encryption if you do not know how the signal was compressed. For example, Sony's Digi-Betacam uses DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) to compress the signal as it goes down on tape. But they also make a machine that uses MPEG, another that uses M-JPEG and I think there is another format in there as well.
You'd wind up having to try out one decoder after another to figure out how the signal was compressed. That hardly winds up being cheap just to view FTA satellite signals.
Are there standards? Yes, but each situation calls for a different one. If what you have is a man sitting in a studio talking, MPEG is a great compression format. It's really crummy for sports though. Within our plant, we're completely uncompressed on our routers, completely compressed on our network. I think we have settled (as a network) on the DV25 codec, which is about the quality of mini-DV. If we sent that as a stream over satellite, then switch to MPEG for a talking head, then switch to something else for Graphics and another thing for sports, you'd be constantly chasing your tail trying to apply decompression methods.
I can tell you from our standpoint we're going to use compression tools that give us the most bang for our buck.
Essentially, that's what all professional cameras do.
A broadcast television camera (which is really pretty low-resolution, unless it's a true HTDV camera) has three CCD sensors mounted to a prisim block that splits the image into the three component colors for television (RGB). The use of three CCDs for television is necessitated by the fact that the desired result is a color image without waiting to assemble a color composite from three black and whites. Broadcast television results in images that are pretty close to 640x480 (again, prety low res).
The MER images are stills. As such, there is time to put together a composite of the separate components taken with the filters. The data desired is high resolution and each of the composite images (irRGB) yields different information. Additionally, JPL is not lacking computer time for assembling the result of the component images. We're not talking live video feeds here.
I note that there has been some discussion of weight here. That is not a factor in this case. Each of the filters, together with the CCD and the precise movement motor probably weighs about the same as a three CCD system, but in this case, it is one CCD, so any defects can be known and programmed around so there are no trade-offs. The issues JPL/NASA are dealing with have more to do with the size of the data sets and the available time in which the MERs can communicate with Earth.
First, my credentials: I worked in satellite transmission about 19 years ago and had a pretty good handle on what was what back then. I currently work for a national television network out of NYC. I know what has changed and what will be happening in the next few years.
On all satellites in Clarke orbits (Geostationary, first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke yes that one) the transponders are simple "Repeat what you just received" gizmoes. On the older ones, they'll continue to send back FTA stuff as they receive it but there is a movement afoot to cheapen the use of satellites by digitizing signals and using the bandwidth better by compression. This started happening first with C band satellites because C band is so expensive. C band also is less prone to rain fade and atmospheric problems.
Presently, the K band is on the chopping block (as in let's chop this one transponder by digitally-encoding several signals into the space of one) and you will notice, as time goes by, that a lot more transponders will "become encoded." This is not all about preventing you, dear reader, from getting the signals. It is being done for cost reasons alone.
At the network level, it is believed that the viewer cannot see the difference between the compressed and uncompressed signals and the non-compressed signals. While this may become a factor with the adoption of HDTV by the consumer, the network executives just don't care that much about quality these days. The assumption is that the viewer will tune in regardless.
So look for a steady decrease in the number of signals your big dish can pick up as time goes on.
Based on your inquiry, I have to conclude that you are looking at getting your pet nerd some kind of electronic gadget that he has always, in his heart, wanted. That is really sweet.
But we live in a high-tech world that is lacking in high touch. I would recommend that you err on the side of high touch and get him something that has nothing to do with the technological rings he can run around others who live "more mundane" lives.
I was once sent a dozen roses by a girlfriend, who had them sent to my workplace. As Valentine's Day this year falls on a Saturday, you could surprise him and awe his co-workers on Friday, which would certainly result in a very long-lasting memory for him, or you could send them to his home or apartment on Saturday, to arrive before you got there. I highly recommend that you have the roses sent with a vase, as he may be the type to not own one.
Give him a dozen coupons for a free backrub by his favorite massage artist (that would be you, of course). Take him to a movie and hold his hand. Cook him a meal at your place -- or at his place.
All of these ideas have been high touch gifts given me by significant others that have been memorable and deeply treasured. None cost $100, unless your florist has the most incredible roses in the world -- or unless your florist is in the UK (they happen to charge a lot more than those in the US).
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This is to say, their domain is anything that flies, can be made to fly and anything that goes into outer space.
Were I a commercial pilot I would really want NASA to explore what might happen in an aircraft at altitude when and if a bullet tore through a window, the fuselage the deck between the passenger and cargo compartments, etc.
This has implications with respect to stopping a terrorist takeover of a plane for the purpose of using it as an incendiary bomb and I would not be at all surprised to see the US government request of NASA that they test these kinds of scenerios to better educate pilots who, under current US law, may now carry a firearm in their cockpit.
Furthermore, since NASA is seen by the airlines as not having a political agenda to push, any other work in this area of terror supression would be seen in a more favorable light by the airlines than any other US governmental agency.
I realize the originator of this thread may pray to a deity that he calls "Allah" and he may also be completely disinterested in religion. It's my opinion (as a NYC resident) that the main perpetrators of the attacks that occurred here and in Washington are completely disinterested in religion and their connection with a Supreme Being and are very interested in their own personal power over others. Most people who try to control others in the name of a religion, nationality or cult are much more interested in personal power than in anything else and my connection into the world of the continuing conflict in Northern Ireland bear that out.
Thus, I would say to the Son of Sahaf that NASA is seen in a much better light by many than the US Department of Immigration, the Department of Homeland Security and most of the other federal agencies because they, too have power agendas where NASA doesn't. It is due to NASA's clear mission -- To make flight safer -- that it may have been chosen as a better alternative than, say the FBI.
I am really sure that it will never be a NASA scientist who will detain someone for suspicion that they may be connected to terrorism.
Re:NASA and the Military, two peas in a pod
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The Future of NASA
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· Score: 1
Finally some sense from within.
I read the reports of he Challenger and Columbia accidents. Both were basically caused by management not listening to scientists and engineers who knew better. In the case of Columbia, management began to believe that a risk to the crew was an "acceptable factor in the dangers of spaceflight." Someone who is dead cannot come back and question why he was allowed to die.
NASA used to have an incredible consultant who was, himself, a scientist. Dr. von Braun had a vision of spaceflight that still influences the designs and ideas of the NASA manned space programs. Presently, the management team is made up of politically-connected MBAs who know nothing about science and everything about politics (everything from how to shift the blame and not be seen as making a questionable decision to the type of politics that connects them to Congress and the Administration). That's pretty useless for managing a space program, if you ask me.
When the military was allowed to get involved in NASA, they demanded a shuttle that could launch their payloads, which changed the Shuttle from a vehicle that would take man into space to a large semitrailer rig with extra crew space. I specifically recall the NASA Dyno-soar concept which is presently being re-proposed as a rescue platform for the ISS. I recall this because I was alive then and watched every moon landing, every Gemini mission and every Mercury mission.
The last President to fund NASA was Johnson, though Nixon kept the money flowing long enough to take the credit for the successful Apollo programs. NASA has been in a tailspin ever since.
I would tend to agree with Dr. Pournelle's lament. But there is an issue here that the comment completely ignores and that is the issue of governmental contributions to science.
Back when we were trying to fulfill Werner von Braun's dream of space exploration (we got the earth orbiting space station and the moon landing transposed in our timeline due to the Cold War), the US government and the taxpayers were very happy to fund original research -- not just in NASA but in many other scientific endeavors.
Now, the vast majority of funds for science are coming from private industry and private industry has an agenda: Profits.
This is not to say that profit motives are not good, nor useful, but I would mention that the largest funders in the world funding scientific endeavors into a causal link between smoking and cancer were the tobacco companies. It was not until very recently that several European governments, together with a couple of foundations in the US began to explore the relationship between nicotine and addiction, as well as how nicotine addicts the user that governments have found it a defensible strategy to limit smoking in the workplace and in public buildings. The tobacco companies never allowed any studies on addiction to be published because doing that would have threatened their profits
I believe that governments ought to fund science and so-called "blue sky" research. Why? Because when governments do fund this kind of research, it gets done and we move forward in our understanding of our world, our universe and our capabilities as human beings.
I would remind all readers here that, without government funding, there would have been no infrastructure for the Internet as it is today. I have a very good memory of what e-mail was like before the universal connectivity of the Internet made it cheap and trivial for everyone to have it. This web page you are looking at, all of the e-mail you have received in the past month (including, unfortunately, the junk e-mail) and almost all of the jobs that go with these things are derived from a 100% governmentally-funded "blue sky" research project.
US President Ronald Regan (who, fittingly, has no memory of these things) and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led the way in the obliteration of governmentally-funded research, a policy that has become a world wide standard. The profit motive has taken over, and the desire of those engines of profit do not think long-term, they think in terms of their quarterly bonus.
Thus until or unless governments begin, once again, to fund science, I fear there will be very little advancement, save in the science of warfare.
Where I work, we have used a program (which started out running on dumb terminals connected to a DEC minicomputer) for many years to keep apprised of the newswires (AP, Reuters, TASS, etc), write and edit news stories and prepare a rundown for a news program.
The IM equivilant on this program is the "Top Screen" which will allow you to determine whether or not the person you are trying to message is logged onto the server and will store and forward the message when the person does log on. You are able to store and save messages and conversations.
This was always a better idea for short messages than e-mail, especially for group collaboration on a story. In a large organization, it's really nice to be able to message a correspondant or producer in the London Bureau or in Baghdad to get the general gist of a story as it develops.
Presently the program is owned by Avid and our version is called iNews (Sorry, Apple).
The company I work for presently has rolled out an internal "chat" client that is supposed to allow us to universally chat throughout the company. None of the news people use it, preferring the "top screen" within iNews (which everyone working in news tends to have open anyway). This makes for further segregation between upper level management and those of us who actually produce the content that makes us money.
So I would add that, within a corporation, certain clients and standards for instant messaging become part of the corporate behaviors. I should suggest that further study along these lines might be in order.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft co-owns MSNBC with NBC-Universal. Presently, MSNBC's cable ratings are in the cellar, behind CNN and Fox"news." It really sux being in last place.
Microsoft, which is profit-minded, wishes to drive people to their product. In fact, they have taken specific steps to do that in other areas. Has anyone noticed that there is a free, installable copy of Microsoft Money given away with each copy of their operating system? (One wonders if it is ever actually installed...)
The issue here is, while there are better news sites out there, Microsoft wishes you to try theirs. If MSNBC winds up as bad as Microsoft Money as compared to Intuit's Quicken, people will start ignoring the existence of the link, unless the provenance of the link is hidden.
Frankly, I think both Microsoft and NBC Universal have a lot of work to do on MSNBC in making the content more compelling and more accurate. last I heard, MSNBC didn't work with Apple's browser and didn't work well with most of the alternatives to Internet Exploiter. Their content has gaps, many large. The NBC Network creates news stories that are run later (and in news time lots later on MSNBC -- in essence, the news is "repurposed" on MSNBC with the only actual news reported stuff that is freely available from the NBC affiliate stations (car chases and floods -- also re-purposed). Inviting Yet Another Talking Head to speak to your miniscule audience is not news.
I don't think Microsoft's spider will change the fact that there is nothing compelling on MSNBC. They're facing the same problem there that they have with their personal finance program.
I note that this year, despite two national political conventions in cities, the allocation of money for homeland security is apportioned so that states with low populations receive a windfall, while states with large urban areas have to foot the bill for their own security.
This, in light of the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that al-Qaida took advantage of this very same type of governmental ineptitude in their attack on America almost three years ago provides me with ample proof that there is plenty of reason to doubt security.
Just today, the FBI told all of the news agencies that they had information that al-Qaida is specifically targeting the news vans at Fleet Center.
In light of all of this, I have to figure that the terrorists are either in the US government and plotting to keep us all so scared that we won't go anywhere or do anything or they are evil hackers bent on global dominance through the takeover of every computer for the purpose of downloading everyone's bank account information from their copy of Quicken (probably a pirated copy). Frankly, I like the hacker idea best.
Fade up on Joe Democrat at the Boston Convention, computer unsecured from WiFi attack. Suddenly, randon characters race across his computer screen.
Mesmerized, Joe stares into his screen as the images flitting before him lull him into a hypnotic trance as we fade to black...
Fade up on Joe Democrat as he shakes the hand of the Candidate. The Candidate pauses and looks intently at Joe's eyes, which begin to display random characters like his computer screen did. The Candidate nods and immediately rises to go tot he lecturn.
Cut to the Candidate delivering a speech where he refuses the party's nomination and decides to not run.
Cut to the newsvans where the producers and directors stare at each other in consternation as Joe Democrat infiltrates the newsvan compound unseen. Fade to black.
Fade up on idyllic world without media, computers political parties, newspapers, candidates or cursing Vice Presidents. Camera trucks into the open door of the Presidential Mansion, through the entryway of the Oval Office. There, wearing the Turban of the Holy One sits...
Monica Lewinsky!
sjs132 writes:
if the author(s) of this crappy malware type software actually spent as much time/effort into a GOOD PRODUCT as they put into making it's removal difficult ... they would probably have a great product and people would enjoy using it, and maybe even give them legit business.
Most of the writers of malware don't distribute, they just post the code for all to see and comment on. Then they design scripts that will compile the code and post that. Most of the people who do actually distribute the malware are referred to as script kiddies and are generally reviled by the authors of the code. They tend to be misanthropic loners who can't get a date (shades of my own teen-aged years) who revel in the news of the pain they have unleashed on others.
jcasey writes:
Windows/IE is targeted by crapware writers because of its popularity ... Lately many sites have been advising people to dump ie ...
A question, perhaps rhetorical: Since Internet Exploder is actually an integral part of the Windoze operating system, does there exist a means by which one might be able to remove it with its known hacks? I routinely recommend that people not use Microsoft's browser or their e-mail client because of the target size those programs represent coupled with the number of exploits in them. This is not to unnecessarily malign Microsoft (more than they deserve) but rather to spark a discussion on the exploits that remain even when someone uses a different browser.
The original author and others note that the malware is becoming harder to remove. Surely this is due to the fact that Microsoft does offer patches to their system software and the difficulty presented in removing the malware is all about an attempt by the black-hat hackers to keep their software present and viable on the infected computers.
I regularly and routinely run Ad Aware on my GF's XP Home computer and found that it did successfully kill pop ups but the cookies kept coming back. So I have been slowly and methodically editing Internet Exploiter's Internet Preferences - Security section to place the most probable URLs of the offending cookie-setters into the "Restricted Zone" for IE. This stops the cookie setting for the advertisements cold. Perhaps these advertisers will stop setting cookies as a result. I know that most advertisements are not about malware but I see a cookie from a site such as "servedby.advertising.com" as a security breach.
NASA is trying to fund lots of things and its priorities have shifted in accordance with its history and funding.
Back in the 1960s Congress funded NASA programs because it was "necessary" to beat the Soviets in technology. And the Space Race was the technology showcase that the Soviets chose for us (they were the first in Space with both unmanned and manned vehicles). Congressional candidates translated that into politics: If you did not vote for NASA funding, you were "soft on Communism."
By the time of the moon landings, the rhetoric had changed from "red scare" and "red baiting" to The Great Society, basic human rights and whether or not one was for or against the war in Vietnam. Detante was in vogue because Nixon was winning the "unfought wars" against China and Russia with his trips there.
NASA's attitudes changed from an assumption that funding would always be there, which encouraged a "can do" attitude, to wondering how to save programs and which programs to save. NASA negotiated with people who wanted launch vehicles and found it had competition -- not from the Soviets, who were still unacceptable to the West but from the newly-minted European corporation, largely funded by those governments in Western Europe who needed access to Clarke orbit for geostationary communication satellites.
NASA's first proposal, which I remember from my World Book Encyclopedia, was to build a reusable manned vehicle that it could fit atop a Saturn rocket engine. NASA would use the Saturn V (which was used to launch the moon missions as well as Skylab) to construct an outpost in low Earth orbit and use these reusable vehicles to transfer men and cargo to a space station. The space station would, in turn, be a waypoint for launches to the moon and beyond.
But NASA had problems getting customers to buy into its new concept, because its reusable launch vehicle, or "shuttle" was too small. The military insisted that its cargo bay be of a certain size, so that they could launch large spy satellites. NASA, fearing that all satellite launches would go to Arianespace, kowtowed to the US military and built our present shuttle system. The delay in changing the program cost them ten years and billions of dollars. It cost them most of their "can do" managers. It also cost them support in Congress and among the American people. With no regular launches, media started asking NASA the questions previously reserved for congressmen and the President: "Is this a good use of taxpayer money?"
NASA administrators and PR people started talking about spinoffs from their scientific endeavors to answer many of these questions and even initiated the publication of a magazine in 1996 to help convince the public and corporations that NASA programs are relevant.
Then came the shuttle program. It was over budget, very, very late and hugely popular, until the launches became routine. And what made them routine was a consistent refusal, within top level managers to see that space flight is more dangerous than flying in a private plane. Also, there was no funding for a place for the shuttle to get to as before the first shuttle launched, Skylab fell from the sky. By the time of the Challenger accident in 1986, upper level managers were no longer listening to the scientists assembling and handling the equipment And I would argue that the recommendations in management behavior didn't change.
Nowadays, NASA is infected with a "can't do" attitude as the Columbia tragedy grounds NASA and the facts are reported that managers felt it was best to risk the lives of the astronauts and the shuttle because they
I am not implying anything. Syndicated shows are sold to stations within each market one-by-one (or, as in the way the King brothers sell shows in groups of shows to individual stations). King World also sells to cable networks and I am not surprised that they syndicate Jeopardy! to GSN.
Your particular market may show the game on CBS this year and on ABC next year -- it all depends on how much faith the broadcaster has that the show will rake in an audience and make money for the station and how much the station wants to pay for the show. It is not a networked show, it is a syndicated show.
In the last year, the CBS network paid handsomely to buy the syndication company and made the King Brothers, especially Michael King very rich. But their means of distribution remains the same: The highest bidder in each market gets the show.
Jeopardy is syndicated by King World. The fact that it is on your WB station is an indication that the other stations in your area did not pay for it (or bid high enough to get it). Look for the King World logo at the end of the show.
Children quickly become fascinated with things that are a part (and sometimes a horrible part) of their lives. One could say that the purpose for children is to go forth and gather diseases from schools so that they might infect their parents. And so do adults, as in the case of the Black Death and the pandemics of bubonic plague that swept Europe.
A prime case of this type of fascination is in the art of the time, such as that of Hieronymus Bosch and others who began drawing images of intense suffering and disease.
The death caused by these pandemics may also be seen as beneficent, as it gave rise to increased rights for the peasantry, the creation of a "middle class" and the concept of general human rights, which lead to the end of the feudal system of governments. The nobility could no longer compel peasants to work their land just for their protection and the peasantry demanded actual pay for work.
This also gave rise to the general usage of sirnames that stuck throughout generations, as the kings would tax their noblemen on the basis of the potential in numbers of persons on their lands, instead of only on the size of their holdings. When the kings revenue collectors were faced with seventeen "Johns" they would assign names to them on basis of their employment, where they lived, or how they looked instead of who their father or master was.
One can usually find the etymology of one's sirname in the common tongue of this period.
First, a disclaimer: I am a Mac owner and use a PC at work. My bias is towards getting my work done not towards a particular platform. I think Apple makes things easier, which is why I purchased a Mac.
On Windows keyboards, the [Caps Lock] key changes the period and comma keys to "less than" and "greater than" respectively. While I suppose this can be handy for HTML coding, it's not just a little annoying. In other words, it acts just like the IBM Selectric(TM) keyboard did. Apple's keyboards don't do this. They also do not shift the number key row, nor do they shift the function keys.
I find this kind of re-translation of [Caps Lock] may be more handy.
Please feel free to use my handle. I am fairly well-known over at the OS X FAQ forums.
I used to do television productions and when quoting jobs had a line that I tended to put into all contracts, labeled "SC." None of my clients ever enquired as to its significance.
I would generally vary the "SC" fee based on my apprehension of what the client was all about, based on a number of observations as well as a number of questions I asked from the beginning of the job estimate. The "SC" fee was the "Stupidity Charge," and I generally -- and fairly accurately over time -- tended to correctly estimate a client's stupidity factor for which I would charge on the basis of a percentage of the entire job.
I would imagine that BCW2's friend who charges to remove spy-ware is, in his own way, accepting a fee for the "SC," and I heartily approve.
I recently found out that my girlfriend's IT department ought to pay an "SC." Two weeks ago, I installed additional RAM into her business laptop. It was shipped to her with 256M of system RAM and she is a department manager, responsible for upwards of 200 to 250 e-mails and five telephone conference schedules daily. She uses Microsoft's Outlook (which I do not recommend unless within a company over a VPN to an Exchange Server), which manages everything from her contacts to her calendar and e-mail. She typically had Excel, Word, Outlook, Internet Exploder, MSN Messenger and her VPN client running at once. It took 20 minutes for her computer to boot.
After I installed 512M of additional RAM into her computer and hooked up a USB hard disk for her to archive Outlook e-mail to and to use for backups, her IT department claimed the following:
Adding RAM does not speed up your computer.
An external hard drive is not a good way to back up a system.
She should have shipped it (she would have been unable to work for two days) to the home office if she was having problems.
While she can claim a tax deduction for "unreimbursed business expense" for these items, she is making a strong case for her company to reimburse her for these additions. Her company is currently sending laptops with 256M of system RAM to its sales staff.
I installed Ad-Aware on her home computer and she typically has 4 to 16 files to sequester daily. Shortly after I did this, her IT department initiated a campaign to push spy-ware onto all visiters of her company's website so that they can track where their customers go from there. I would hope that they decide to be "good Internet citizens" and don't do that.
The various States are calling their sales tax "Use Tax" where it applies to the Internet. But they call it sales tax within the state. Essentially, since the purchase is made out-of-state it acts as a tariff on goods from another state, which is prohibited by the federal Constitution. And the reason why the various States have not made more than a token stink about this is because they must think they would lose if they went after someone who had enough money and time to take their case to the US Supreme Court.
Since my state wants to call it a "useage tax" on one hand (making it constitutional if they can collect it) and a "sales tax" for product bought and sold within the state, I shall allow my state to first prove that I am using the item purchased and then send me a bill, based on the actual usage observed.
I should mention that I purchased a number of gifts on-line that are currently being used (and not by me) outside of my home state over the holiday season last year. Since I never intended to use the product and never did use the product, how can they claim usage?/p?
Uh oh, a purist!
You are, of course, absolutely correct in your "760x575" image resolution for television in your transmission standard. People in Europe and the UK see a bit sharper picture.
What you give up for that resolution is the faster frame rate that we enjoy in the United States. While I was working for a satellite transmission company here, we had a number of brits over to cover one of our Presidential elections. They remarked that we had much richer colors than they had over in the UK and I believe that was an "optical delusion" created by the increased frame rate. Generally, when I have travelled to the UK I notice a slight flicker in your television. If I am there for more than two weeks, the flicker "dissappears" because my eyes get used to it.
The use of a prism block in high quality cameras does not lead to too much signal loss or color bleed unless the prism block has imperfections and they don't in high-quality cameras, like the kind made by Ikegami and Sony Broadcast. None of our broadcast cameras at the NBC company use mirrors to split the image.
I do own a Canon GL-2 camera that does use the mirrors as you describe them It is a cheaper way of splitting the signal and it does work well, as they've been working on the quality of those things for a little while. I believe the first camera I worked with that used the mirrors instead of a prism was a JVC "industrial" camera that had tubes and one could really tell the difference between that and a broadcast camera.
Lastly, I would respectfully disagree that blue is an "inferred" image. While it does make up the smallest part of the video signal, it does get its own CCD within a camera. Perhaps you are thinking of the components for Betacam broadcast equipment, which are R-Y, B-Y and C from which green is inferred (this is a tape specification and does translate into the 4:2:2, 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 digital signals that make up DVC25, DVC50 and Mini-DV components. In the UK, Mini-DV uses 4:2:0 because of your peculiar type of encoding every other line's color information, while in the US we use 4:1:1 for our mini-DV.
In my case, I am a video engineer for the NBC company.
I suppose one could say that compression is a type of encryption if you do not know how the signal was compressed. For example, Sony's Digi-Betacam uses DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) to compress the signal as it goes down on tape. But they also make a machine that uses MPEG, another that uses M-JPEG and I think there is another format in there as well.
You'd wind up having to try out one decoder after another to figure out how the signal was compressed. That hardly winds up being cheap just to view FTA satellite signals.
Are there standards? Yes, but each situation calls for a different one. If what you have is a man sitting in a studio talking, MPEG is a great compression format. It's really crummy for sports though. Within our plant, we're completely uncompressed on our routers, completely compressed on our network. I think we have settled (as a network) on the DV25 codec, which is about the quality of mini-DV. If we sent that as a stream over satellite, then switch to MPEG for a talking head, then switch to something else for Graphics and another thing for sports, you'd be constantly chasing your tail trying to apply decompression methods.
I can tell you from our standpoint we're going to use compression tools that give us the most bang for our buck.
Essentially, that's what all professional cameras do.
A broadcast television camera (which is really pretty low-resolution, unless it's a true HTDV camera) has three CCD sensors mounted to a prisim block that splits the image into the three component colors for television (RGB). The use of three CCDs for television is necessitated by the fact that the desired result is a color image without waiting to assemble a color composite from three black and whites. Broadcast television results in images that are pretty close to 640x480 (again, prety low res).
The MER images are stills. As such, there is time to put together a composite of the separate components taken with the filters. The data desired is high resolution and each of the composite images (irRGB) yields different information. Additionally, JPL is not lacking computer time for assembling the result of the component images. We're not talking live video feeds here.
I note that there has been some discussion of weight here. That is not a factor in this case. Each of the filters, together with the CCD and the precise movement motor probably weighs about the same as a three CCD system, but in this case, it is one CCD, so any defects can be known and programmed around so there are no trade-offs. The issues JPL/NASA are dealing with have more to do with the size of the data sets and the available time in which the MERs can communicate with Earth.
First, my credentials: I worked in satellite transmission about 19 years ago and had a pretty good handle on what was what back then. I currently work for a national television network out of NYC. I know what has changed and what will be happening in the next few years.
On all satellites in Clarke orbits (Geostationary, first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke yes that one) the transponders are simple "Repeat what you just received" gizmoes. On the older ones, they'll continue to send back FTA stuff as they receive it but there is a movement afoot to cheapen the use of satellites by digitizing signals and using the bandwidth better by compression. This started happening first with C band satellites because C band is so expensive. C band also is less prone to rain fade and atmospheric problems.
Presently, the K band is on the chopping block (as in let's chop this one transponder by digitally-encoding several signals into the space of one) and you will notice, as time goes by, that a lot more transponders will "become encoded." This is not all about preventing you, dear reader, from getting the signals. It is being done for cost reasons alone.
At the network level, it is believed that the viewer cannot see the difference between the compressed and uncompressed signals and the non-compressed signals. While this may become a factor with the adoption of HDTV by the consumer, the network executives just don't care that much about quality these days. The assumption is that the viewer will tune in regardless.
So look for a steady decrease in the number of signals your big dish can pick up as time goes on.
Based on your inquiry, I have to conclude that you are looking at getting your pet nerd some kind of electronic gadget that he has always, in his heart, wanted. That is really sweet.
But we live in a high-tech world that is lacking in high touch. I would recommend that you err on the side of high touch and get him something that has nothing to do with the technological rings he can run around others who live "more mundane" lives.
I was once sent a dozen roses by a girlfriend, who had them sent to my workplace. As Valentine's Day this year falls on a Saturday, you could surprise him and awe his co-workers on Friday, which would certainly result in a very long-lasting memory for him, or you could send them to his home or apartment on Saturday, to arrive before you got there. I highly recommend that you have the roses sent with a vase, as he may be the type to not own one.
Give him a dozen coupons for a free backrub by his favorite massage artist (that would be you, of course). Take him to a movie and hold his hand. Cook him a meal at your place -- or at his place.
All of these ideas have been high touch gifts given me by significant others that have been memorable and deeply treasured. None cost $100, unless your florist has the most incredible roses in the world -- or unless your florist is in the UK (they happen to charge a lot more than those in the US).
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This is to say, their domain is anything that flies, can be made to fly and anything that goes into outer space.
Were I a commercial pilot I would really want NASA to explore what might happen in an aircraft at altitude when and if a bullet tore through a window, the fuselage the deck between the passenger and cargo compartments, etc.
This has implications with respect to stopping a terrorist takeover of a plane for the purpose of using it as an incendiary bomb and I would not be at all surprised to see the US government request of NASA that they test these kinds of scenerios to better educate pilots who, under current US law, may now carry a firearm in their cockpit.
Furthermore, since NASA is seen by the airlines as not having a political agenda to push, any other work in this area of terror supression would be seen in a more favorable light by the airlines than any other US governmental agency.
I realize the originator of this thread may pray to a deity that he calls "Allah" and he may also be completely disinterested in religion. It's my opinion (as a NYC resident) that the main perpetrators of the attacks that occurred here and in Washington are completely disinterested in religion and their connection with a Supreme Being and are very interested in their own personal power over others. Most people who try to control others in the name of a religion, nationality or cult are much more interested in personal power than in anything else and my connection into the world of the continuing conflict in Northern Ireland bear that out.
Thus, I would say to the Son of Sahaf that NASA is seen in a much better light by many than the US Department of Immigration, the Department of Homeland Security and most of the other federal agencies because they, too have power agendas where NASA doesn't. It is due to NASA's clear mission -- To make flight safer -- that it may have been chosen as a better alternative than, say the FBI.
I am really sure that it will never be a NASA scientist who will detain someone for suspicion that they may be connected to terrorism.
Finally some sense from within.
I read the reports of he Challenger and Columbia accidents. Both were basically caused by management not listening to scientists and engineers who knew better. In the case of Columbia, management began to believe that a risk to the crew was an "acceptable factor in the dangers of spaceflight." Someone who is dead cannot come back and question why he was allowed to die.
NASA used to have an incredible consultant who was, himself, a scientist. Dr. von Braun had a vision of spaceflight that still influences the designs and ideas of the NASA manned space programs. Presently, the management team is made up of politically-connected MBAs who know nothing about science and everything about politics (everything from how to shift the blame and not be seen as making a questionable decision to the type of politics that connects them to Congress and the Administration). That's pretty useless for managing a space program, if you ask me.
When the military was allowed to get involved in NASA, they demanded a shuttle that could launch their payloads, which changed the Shuttle from a vehicle that would take man into space to a large semitrailer rig with extra crew space. I specifically recall the NASA Dyno-soar concept which is presently being re-proposed as a rescue platform for the ISS. I recall this because I was alive then and watched every moon landing, every Gemini mission and every Mercury mission.
The last President to fund NASA was Johnson, though Nixon kept the money flowing long enough to take the credit for the successful Apollo programs. NASA has been in a tailspin ever since.
I would tend to agree with Dr. Pournelle's lament. But there is an issue here that the comment completely ignores and that is the issue of governmental contributions to science.
Back when we were trying to fulfill Werner von Braun's dream of space exploration (we got the earth orbiting space station and the moon landing transposed in our timeline due to the Cold War), the US government and the taxpayers were very happy to fund original research -- not just in NASA but in many other scientific endeavors.
Now, the vast majority of funds for science are coming from private industry and private industry has an agenda: Profits.
This is not to say that profit motives are not good, nor useful, but I would mention that the largest funders in the world funding scientific endeavors into a causal link between smoking and cancer were the tobacco companies. It was not until very recently that several European governments, together with a couple of foundations in the US began to explore the relationship between nicotine and addiction, as well as how nicotine addicts the user that governments have found it a defensible strategy to limit smoking in the workplace and in public buildings. The tobacco companies never allowed any studies on addiction to be published because doing that would have threatened their profits
I believe that governments ought to fund science and so-called "blue sky" research. Why? Because when governments do fund this kind of research, it gets done and we move forward in our understanding of our world, our universe and our capabilities as human beings.
I would remind all readers here that, without government funding, there would have been no infrastructure for the Internet as it is today. I have a very good memory of what e-mail was like before the universal connectivity of the Internet made it cheap and trivial for everyone to have it. This web page you are looking at, all of the e-mail you have received in the past month (including, unfortunately, the junk e-mail) and almost all of the jobs that go with these things are derived from a 100% governmentally-funded "blue sky" research project.
US President Ronald Regan (who, fittingly, has no memory of these things) and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led the way in the obliteration of governmentally-funded research, a policy that has become a world wide standard. The profit motive has taken over, and the desire of those engines of profit do not think long-term, they think in terms of their quarterly bonus.
Thus until or unless governments begin, once again, to fund science, I fear there will be very little advancement, save in the science of warfare.
Where I work, we have used a program (which started out running on dumb terminals connected to a DEC minicomputer) for many years to keep apprised of the newswires (AP, Reuters, TASS, etc), write and edit news stories and prepare a rundown for a news program. The IM equivilant on this program is the "Top Screen" which will allow you to determine whether or not the person you are trying to message is logged onto the server and will store and forward the message when the person does log on. You are able to store and save messages and conversations. This was always a better idea for short messages than e-mail, especially for group collaboration on a story. In a large organization, it's really nice to be able to message a correspondant or producer in the London Bureau or in Baghdad to get the general gist of a story as it develops. Presently the program is owned by Avid and our version is called iNews (Sorry, Apple). The company I work for presently has rolled out an internal "chat" client that is supposed to allow us to universally chat throughout the company. None of the news people use it, preferring the "top screen" within iNews (which everyone working in news tends to have open anyway). This makes for further segregation between upper level management and those of us who actually produce the content that makes us money. So I would add that, within a corporation, certain clients and standards for instant messaging become part of the corporate behaviors. I should suggest that further study along these lines might be in order.