Transcodes media, on demand, so your PS3 will play it.
I use it running inside a stripped down VM running Windows on a Sid host. Just mount your media from the local machine over Samba and point it at the share.
It also plays nicely with the Wii, 360, most smart phones, most of the DLNA home media devices, and can stream to any web browser that has Flash installed.
Dictators were the West's way of keeping a lid on various fractured populaces for the purposes of maintaining stability, usually so western powers could continue exploiting the resources of those countries.
It's only a recent phenomenon that spreading Democracy has been considered a better idea than installing a strong dictator to hold things together. Despite that ideal, look at how many dictatorships Clinton and Bush Jr have been buddy buddy with.
I don't think that the 'Spreading Democracy!' meme Bush and company are using to install a friendly government is any better. Smacks rather badly of the old ideal that Communism was so appealing to the worker-class that they couldn't possibly turn it down, and that countries that didn't jump right into bed with the Reds were obviously being manipulated by the bourgeoisie and needed 'liberation'. By force.
One of the better tricks I used to use was to wait for that one fast rising star, and hitch an early ride on it's coat-tails disagreeing loudly, but only just slightly. Attack the implementation while saying it's a good idea. Liken it to some thirty year old failed technology everyone knows the name of, but doesn't remember using because it either sucked much crap or was out of their price league, and say you hope it works this time around.
For example, someone comments on how neat it is to be able to browse the web wirelessly from their Palm Vx. The post is +3 in the first five minutes of the thread.
You could easily compare the GPRS module to the cinder block 300-baud modem you had as a kid, and comment it will catch on when the size comes down. Contemplate the pocket-size of the individual owning one, the strength of the belt required to hold it up, or go straight for "No, I'm not a body builder. I just got this new Palm wireless modem [UUUNFFF]" in the lead line and subject of the post.
Comment that the young whippersnappers don't understand real wireless, because back in the day you used 47MHZ RF-serial adapters the size of an eight track tape with the approximate baud rate of two Novice class Hams practicing Morse code and the range of however far you could throw it inside the current room. Bonus points for "You couldn't extend the range by throwing it through the wall, but that didn't stop me from trying!"
Say you really wish that this had caught on the first time, when folks were plugging their Tandy 100s into the brand new Motorola hand-held cell-phones, and you thought it was amazing. A portable serial terminal you could fit in a small duffel bag and use with no power, no phone, no nothin'. "The Tandy probably got better battery life!" could help.
(Only eighteen-hundred posts here, but I did make the Karma top five before it got capped, with about half of what Signal11 managed.)
You know how the CIA uses reverse-engineered alien technology to scan your brain, right? Spread frequency directional RF in the low 8GHz range at between 1400 and 1750w. When exposed to the field, your neurons phase-lock to some minor harmonic when they fire. Then they just sit back and listen to all your remaining brain cells chirp away.
How the FBI 'hacks' your computer isn't much different, but it's a lot easier, and shares some of the same gear. Instead of using the RF field to modulate your neurons, they use it to induce a weak localized EM field in the computer and then read back the disturbances in that field from the harmonic corresponding to the sub-gigahertz bus of the machine into a low-cost simulator.
The great news is you don't really have to do anything out of the ordinary to counter the attack. You already have plenty of tin-foil on hand from making your hat. (They wouldn't be scanning your machine if they could scan your brain directly, after all.)
What you need to do is enclose your computer, peripherals, and cables with two layers of foil, shiny side out. (It increases the relative capacitance of the foil layer.) Be especially sure to cover any openings in the case, like fans and vent holes. I recommend a little Super Glue here and there in trouble areas such as the keyboard, where typing through the layer of foil tends to deform it.
The monitor is best dealt with by making a hood out of cardboard, furring strip and foil. Glue a couple of furring strips 8-10 inches longer than your head is away from the monitor to the top of it, and then build a cardboard box around both the monitor and your head, using the furring strips as support. Some people have reported better results ridding themselves of the van parked across the street by cladding both sides of the cardboard with two sheets of tin-foil. The reasoning is that the induced EM field in the monitor tends to be stronger. I'm doubtful of the claim, but it can't hurt!
The hole at the bottom for your head can be left comfortably large to fit your skull through supposedly. I typically build a little 'skirt' out of strips of foil long enough to cover down past my shoulders and then staple them to the bottom of the hood just to be sure though.
The first thing you do is walk into the john and empty the first four cups of coffee from your bladder in preparation for the next three you'll imbibe while trying to look thoughtful and ignoring your email..
I think it boils down to a question of perception.
It doesn't matter whether they're computer generated digital constructs injected into my brain-stem ala 'The Matrix', computer controlled androids ala 'Westworld', or actors.
If I can't tell the difference with my eyes and senses, it doesn't matter.
You just summed up 'Westworld' without Yul Brynner trying to plug you with a Colt.
So actually, not only is your idea is 30 years older than the accelerated graphics card, it was written by Michael Crichton after an acid trip through 'Pirates of the Carribean'.
likely the heatsinks are made out of the tortured souls of Vista QC'ers.
Suuure.. Vista QC.. Next thing you'll be telling me that BluRay discs are made from the scales of Nessie, or that Bigfoot designed the original X-Box controller.
My apologies, and thank you for the correction. I actually looked, and I am not only 100% wrong but you are 100% right.
In my defense, I was remembering a conversation eight years past with a neighbor fifty years my senior. And hosing it. That or Sully hosed it in the first place, I'm not sure.
The NATO round will fit in a Russian AK47. The Russian round will not fit in a NATO weapon.
The AK47 is a 7.62/54R (rimmed.311), the NATO design is 7.62/51 (rimless.308).
But actually firing the NATO round in an AK47 is asking for catastrophic failure, because the length of the NATO rimless round in an AK47 is 3mm short in a situation where 0.05mm makes a difference.
Mark it down to post 9/11 security theater. There are lots of new laws like that, authored with the thought to prosecute people for buying the instruments of forgery with intent.
They don't have to wait until you actually make meth to bust you for it, don't have to wait until you've made explosives to bust you for them, why do you think they're going to wait 'till you have a fake ID to bust you? They merely have to cry 'But the terrorists!' and get what they want.
Having false identification in and of itself is a crime in all 50 states of the union. You don't have to even use it. The mere existence of the fake ID is enough. (In some states, you don't even have to have it to be charged with a crime. They just have to prove you wanted one and were capable of obtaining it.)
Oh, no.. Microsoft is Evil Incarnate, without a doubt.. Half their user interface design team have prior work experience in sadomasochism, the head of internal accounting is a lesser Old One, and their MSDN technical writers are paid in pints of human blood and sheep carcasses.
Waggener Edstrom, on the other hand, just needs to run their assistants through a course on Outlook again.
I mean, sure, most TV's don't have VGA inputs, so the Apple TV wins out on connection method.
But lots and lots of video cards do DVI and component, and every HD set on the planet at least does component.
Go shopping for a $100 Nvidia or ATI card, I bet you'll find more with composite HDTV output than a VGA port on the back. (Not counting the ones that come bundled with a DVI-VGA converter, of course.)
Windows XP isn't end-of-life yet, and will continue to be useful for gaming well past it. There is very little point upgrading right now, and if sales don't start taking off for it very soon there will be little point for game companies to go DX10. Lots of games published today continue to run as far back as Windows 98, after all.
Worry about it in a year or two, when the fact you're running Windows XP becomes a security headache, or it becomes time to upgrade the machine.
On the other hand; If the game you're worried about is World of Warcraft, go ahead and find something else. It runs great on any reasonable Mac, or if you want to go the free software route, great on Linux with Cedega. (I understand it's also supported under Crossover these days). In a year of WoW under Debian Sid/Cedega I haven't had but an hours extra trouble out of it over Windows, and nothing serious at all. (Just remember: If you use Ventrilo, it's a pain under Cedega/Wine/etc. Teamspeak works great though! Even works easily on my Bluetooth headset.)
But since we're talking about online applications, it's reasonable to assume that the information is stored electronically
Bah! You're assuming any company I'd be willing to trust with my retirement is also willing to trust day to day operations to "That Suckwell thing Microsoft sold us" or, heaven forbid, the IT department.
That sucker went into a HR-drone's mailbox the instant you hit "Submit Form".
and since it's usually more effort to remove old data then let it hang around, I would guess that a lot of it is still knocking around for months or years
No worries, even if they did go full electronic. The lifespan of an average corporate mailbox (based on my experiences) is a lot shorter than the filing box in the closet. And more secure. Not only is your application diluted by viagra spam, porn spam, press-release spam, corporate spam, departmental spam, and the 4,420 messages warning them they are over quota, it's in a mailbox even the owner can only access half the time, haven forgotten her password. Apparently the middle name and birthdate of her unholy child has eluded her.
In the last ten or fifteen years at up to a dozen different places I've only ever seen one storage system for applicants that didn't get the job: Box in the back of a storage closet.
No one knows it's there except the HR drone that hid them, and the closet is locked because it also contains said HR drones stash of candy and Garfield posters.
In fact, it's probably better protected than information people want. In those same places, sales records, customer billing info and record on current employees were treated with less security.
IANAL (yet) but I'm not aware of any case where fictional descriptions of an object were used as prior art to invalidate a patent under 35 U.S.C. 102 or 103. If someone could produce a proper citation, I'd be *very* interested to read about it.
Existing patents can already be a case for invalidation. Couple that with the fact most patents are already strictly fiction in that they describe something that doesn't work, has never and will never be built, or when implemented doesn't exactly follow the intentionally over-broad patent, and I see no reason why a work of literary fiction isn't prior art.
Actually, I can think of one. Arthur C. Clarke is credited with inventing the communications satellite on the strength of fiction.
They watch the VBI (video blanking interval). When you cut from a show to a commercial, or vice versa, or from one commercial to another, the VBI screams "Hey! New video feed!"..
After it figures out the opening credits for the show from start time, anything that was a cut away and lasts less than 62s is a commercial, and doesn't get shown.
Think about it.. As the gentleman said, the reason they don't use Steam is that it is run by a competitor. Lots of other companies probably feel the same way.
By spinning Steam, Valve opens up the revenue stream that is their competition. The new company can be a lot more profitable that way. If more companies jump on Steam, it could easily go from 'a leader in digital distribution' in marketing literature to 'Hunh? You don't have Steam? Noob, what the hell is wrong with you?' to the public.
Slashdot Mirror
It's my understanding that Slashcode used to mark a lot of UIDs as unavailable to be used for internal functions.
They're probably just going to get rid of one that no longer is reserved by the system.
http://www.tversity.com/
Transcodes media, on demand, so your PS3 will play it.
I use it running inside a stripped down VM running Windows on a Sid host. Just mount your media from the local machine over Samba and point it at the share.
It also plays nicely with the Wii, 360, most smart phones, most of the DLNA home media devices, and can stream to any web browser that has Flash installed.
Dictators were the West's way of keeping a lid on various fractured populaces for the purposes of maintaining stability, usually so western powers could continue exploiting the resources of those countries.
It's only a recent phenomenon that spreading Democracy has been considered a better idea than installing a strong dictator to hold things together. Despite that ideal, look at how many dictatorships Clinton and Bush Jr have been buddy buddy with.
I don't think that the 'Spreading Democracy!' meme Bush and company are using to install a friendly government is any better. Smacks rather badly of the old ideal that Communism was so appealing to the worker-class that they couldn't possibly turn it down, and that countries that didn't jump right into bed with the Reds were obviously being manipulated by the bourgeoisie and needed 'liberation'. By force.
One of the better tricks I used to use was to wait for that one fast rising star, and hitch an early ride on it's coat-tails disagreeing loudly, but only just slightly. Attack the implementation while saying it's a good idea. Liken it to some thirty year old failed technology everyone knows the name of, but doesn't remember using because it either sucked much crap or was out of their price league, and say you hope it works this time around.
For example, someone comments on how neat it is to be able to browse the web wirelessly from their Palm Vx. The post is +3 in the first five minutes of the thread.
You could easily compare the GPRS module to the cinder block 300-baud modem you had as a kid, and comment it will catch on when the size comes down. Contemplate the pocket-size of the individual owning one, the strength of the belt required to hold it up, or go straight for "No, I'm not a body builder. I just got this new Palm wireless modem [UUUNFFF]" in the lead line and subject of the post.
Comment that the young whippersnappers don't understand real wireless, because back in the day you used 47MHZ RF-serial adapters the size of an eight track tape with the approximate baud rate of two Novice class Hams practicing Morse code and the range of however far you could throw it inside the current room. Bonus points for "You couldn't extend the range by throwing it through the wall, but that didn't stop me from trying!"
Say you really wish that this had caught on the first time, when folks were plugging their Tandy 100s into the brand new Motorola hand-held cell-phones, and you thought it was amazing. A portable serial terminal you could fit in a small duffel bag and use with no power, no phone, no nothin'. "The Tandy probably got better battery life!" could help.
(Only eighteen-hundred posts here, but I did make the Karma top five before it got capped, with about half of what Signal11 managed.)
Moderators are being nice to me, that's all.
Funny doesn't give Karma since the revamp, but Informative does.
Not that it matters much with the cap, which I have only myself to blame for.
You know how the CIA uses reverse-engineered alien technology to scan your brain, right? Spread frequency directional RF in the low 8GHz range at between 1400 and 1750w. When exposed to the field, your neurons phase-lock to some minor harmonic when they fire. Then they just sit back and listen to all your remaining brain cells chirp away.
How the FBI 'hacks' your computer isn't much different, but it's a lot easier, and shares some of the same gear. Instead of using the RF field to modulate your neurons, they use it to induce a weak localized EM field in the computer and then read back the disturbances in that field from the harmonic corresponding to the sub-gigahertz bus of the machine into a low-cost simulator.
The great news is you don't really have to do anything out of the ordinary to counter the attack. You already have plenty of tin-foil on hand from making your hat. (They wouldn't be scanning your machine if they could scan your brain directly, after all.)
What you need to do is enclose your computer, peripherals, and cables with two layers of foil, shiny side out. (It increases the relative capacitance of the foil layer.) Be especially sure to cover any openings in the case, like fans and vent holes. I recommend a little Super Glue here and there in trouble areas such as the keyboard, where typing through the layer of foil tends to deform it.
The monitor is best dealt with by making a hood out of cardboard, furring strip and foil. Glue a couple of furring strips 8-10 inches longer than your head is away from the monitor to the top of it, and then build a cardboard box around both the monitor and your head, using the furring strips as support. Some people have reported better results ridding themselves of the van parked across the street by cladding both sides of the cardboard with two sheets of tin-foil. The reasoning is that the induced EM field in the monitor tends to be stronger. I'm doubtful of the claim, but it can't hurt!
The hole at the bottom for your head can be left comfortably large to fit your skull through supposedly. I typically build a little 'skirt' out of strips of foil long enough to cover down past my shoulders and then staple them to the bottom of the hood just to be sure though.
The first thing you do is walk into the john and empty the first four cups of coffee from your bladder in preparation for the next three you'll imbibe while trying to look thoughtful and ignoring your email..
At least that's what I did.
It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas are has affected America's tax and knowledge base.
And with America's schools turning out such fine writers as the submitter, it should be obvious this is the case.
I think it boils down to a question of perception.
It doesn't matter whether they're computer generated digital constructs injected into my brain-stem ala 'The Matrix', computer controlled androids ala 'Westworld', or actors.
If I can't tell the difference with my eyes and senses, it doesn't matter.
You just summed up 'Westworld' without Yul Brynner trying to plug you with a Colt.
So actually, not only is your idea is 30 years older than the accelerated graphics card, it was written by Michael Crichton after an acid trip through 'Pirates of the Carribean'.
likely the heatsinks are made out of the tortured souls of Vista QC'ers.
Suuure.. Vista QC.. Next thing you'll be telling me that BluRay discs are made from the scales of Nessie, or that Bigfoot designed the original X-Box controller.
Though.. I would almost believe that last one.
My apologies, and thank you for the correction. I actually looked, and I am not only 100% wrong but you are 100% right.
In my defense, I was remembering a conversation eight years past with a neighbor fifty years my senior. And hosing it. That or Sully hosed it in the first place, I'm not sure.
What he says has a small grain of truth to it.
.311), the NATO design is 7.62/51 (rimless .308).
The NATO round will fit in a Russian AK47. The Russian round will not fit in a NATO weapon.
The AK47 is a 7.62/54R (rimmed
But actually firing the NATO round in an AK47 is asking for catastrophic failure, because the length of the NATO rimless round in an AK47 is 3mm short in a situation where 0.05mm makes a difference.
It made it through to Windows 2000. You could still sort of run almost any 16 bit binary and most 32 bit ones..
They killed it off in XP/2003 though I think there is a third-party OS/2 subsystem for those.
Who the hell is Bill Hilf and why should I care?
/.
Seriously. Someone give me a reason this isn't just the mass-media version of a GNAA/"BSD is dying" comment on
I wish I were joking, really.
Mark it down to post 9/11 security theater. There are lots of new laws like that, authored with the thought to prosecute people for buying the instruments of forgery with intent.
They don't have to wait until you actually make meth to bust you for it, don't have to wait until you've made explosives to bust you for them, why do you think they're going to wait 'till you have a fake ID to bust you? They merely have to cry 'But the terrorists!' and get what they want.
Having false identification in and of itself is a crime in all 50 states of the union. You don't have to even use it. The mere existence of the fake ID is enough. (In some states, you don't even have to have it to be charged with a crime. They just have to prove you wanted one and were capable of obtaining it.)
Oh, no.. Microsoft is Evil Incarnate, without a doubt.. Half their user interface design team have prior work experience in sadomasochism, the head of internal accounting is a lesser Old One, and their MSDN technical writers are paid in pints of human blood and sheep carcasses.
Waggener Edstrom, on the other hand, just needs to run their assistants through a course on Outlook again.
I mean, sure, most TV's don't have VGA inputs, so the Apple TV wins out on connection method.
But lots and lots of video cards do DVI and component, and every HD set on the planet at least does component.
Go shopping for a $100 Nvidia or ATI card, I bet you'll find more with composite HDTV output than a VGA port on the back. (Not counting the ones that come bundled with a DVI-VGA converter, of course.)
Windows XP isn't end-of-life yet, and will continue to be useful for gaming well past it. There is very little point upgrading right now, and if sales don't start taking off for it very soon there will be little point for game companies to go DX10. Lots of games published today continue to run as far back as Windows 98, after all.
Worry about it in a year or two, when the fact you're running Windows XP becomes a security headache, or it becomes time to upgrade the machine.
On the other hand; If the game you're worried about is World of Warcraft, go ahead and find something else. It runs great on any reasonable Mac, or if you want to go the free software route, great on Linux with Cedega. (I understand it's also supported under Crossover these days). In a year of WoW under Debian Sid/Cedega I haven't had but an hours extra trouble out of it over Windows, and nothing serious at all. (Just remember: If you use Ventrilo, it's a pain under Cedega/Wine/etc. Teamspeak works great though! Even works easily on my Bluetooth headset.)
But since we're talking about online applications, it's reasonable to assume that the information is stored electronically
Bah! You're assuming any company I'd be willing to trust with my retirement is also willing to trust day to day operations to "That Suckwell thing Microsoft sold us" or, heaven forbid, the IT department.
That sucker went into a HR-drone's mailbox the instant you hit "Submit Form".
and since it's usually more effort to remove old data then let it hang around, I would guess that a lot of it is still knocking around for months or years
No worries, even if they did go full electronic. The lifespan of an average corporate mailbox (based on my experiences) is a lot shorter than the filing box in the closet. And more secure. Not only is your application diluted by viagra spam, porn spam, press-release spam, corporate spam, departmental spam, and the 4,420 messages warning them they are over quota, it's in a mailbox even the owner can only access half the time, haven forgotten her password. Apparently the middle name and birthdate of her unholy child has eluded her.
In the last ten or fifteen years at up to a dozen different places I've only ever seen one storage system for applicants that didn't get the job: Box in the back of a storage closet.
No one knows it's there except the HR drone that hid them, and the closet is locked because it also contains said HR drones stash of candy and Garfield posters.
In fact, it's probably better protected than information people want. In those same places, sales records, customer billing info and record on current employees were treated with less security.
IANAL (yet) but I'm not aware of any case where fictional descriptions of an object were used as prior art to invalidate a patent under 35 U.S.C. 102 or 103. If someone could produce a proper citation, I'd be *very* interested to read about it.
Existing patents can already be a case for invalidation. Couple that with the fact most patents are already strictly fiction in that they describe something that doesn't work, has never and will never be built, or when implemented doesn't exactly follow the intentionally over-broad patent, and I see no reason why a work of literary fiction isn't prior art.
Actually, I can think of one. Arthur C. Clarke is credited with inventing the communications satellite on the strength of fiction.
They watch the VBI (video blanking interval). When you cut from a show to a commercial, or vice versa, or from one commercial to another, the VBI screams "Hey! New video feed!"..
After it figures out the opening credits for the show from start time, anything that was a cut away and lasts less than 62s is a commercial, and doesn't get shown.
Think about it.. As the gentleman said, the reason they don't use Steam is that it is run by a competitor. Lots of other companies probably feel the same way.
By spinning Steam, Valve opens up the revenue stream that is their competition. The new company can be a lot more profitable that way. If more companies jump on Steam, it could easily go from 'a leader in digital distribution' in marketing literature to 'Hunh? You don't have Steam? Noob, what the hell is wrong with you?' to the public.