...if I had any idea who these Olson twins are. Perhaps the are a US phenomenon that we in the Old World know nothing about? And if that is the case, how did Acclaim think they could make a nice video game franchise out of this one?
Since I have all the TNG DVDs, I picked up Nemesis when it was in the cheapo bin. It still hurt, but at least it has Wil's cameo.
I watched the interviews on the DVD (I couldn't bear to watch the movie again). They told the script writer wasn't really into Star Trek, and had only seen a few episodes, but, oh yeah, he could write a killer script based on his movie experience.
So we've seen what that has come to. Laser shows, space battles, cheap rip-offs of good movies (it has scenes from Star Wars, Mad Max, Excalibur and even Ben Hur), and definitely uninteresting characterisation.
And the killer joke was Gates McFadden saying she liked the script because it really did justice to the character of Beverly Crusher. Sorry Gates, Bev ended up on the cutting room floor.
Yes... 14 year old uber-geeks cracking games and software in mom's basement... yes, that something deserving the title "synicate".
Maybe it's 14 year olds who do the cracking. It is certainly not 14 year olds who are multiplying and distributing this stuff on hundreds of thousands of DVDs and sell them internationally. I regularly got offered Fairlight and Kalisto DVDs at work. Reasonably priced, you know. Just a good profit for the middle men, since nothing goes to the copyright holders.
It might be a surprise to you, but these distributors are like the mafia. They have a well-oiled business dealing in stolen goods.
Sure, the police should pick up violent criminals. But that does not mean they should let financial criminals go until the last rapist is behind bars.
I, for one, as a professional software developer am mighty pleased with this action. All the time I was thinking: it would be so easy to crack down on these people, why don't they do something about it? And now they did. Good show, I say.
OK, I'll do my best to turn this in something meaningful:
---
National Police Force, 22 April 2004
On 21 April 2004, information delivered by the US Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, led to property searches in eight countries, among which the Netherlands.
The information is related to international criminal organisations which use computers and the Internet for the large-scale and worldwide exchange of illegal copies of digital files, which violates copyright legislation. In the Internet-world such organisations are known as "Warez-groups".
A group known as "Fairlight" is one the oldest and best-known groups within the warez-scene. This group has existed since the middle of the 1990s and has the reputation to be responsible for cracking copy-protections of popular and high-quality entertainment software, such as computer games. Fairlight is also known as one of the few Warez-groups doing this for financial gain.
Fraud officers of the FBI have investigated the activities of Fairlight. They determined IP-addresses of computers used by Fairlight, with which the physical locations of those computers could be determined. In some cases it concerned FTP-servers located in the Netherlands, used for the storage and transport of illegal copies of programs.
Based on the information obtained from the American authorities, a number of Dutch residents were suspected to form an organisation, together with foreigners, that multiplied and distributed copyright protected works. It is presumed this organisation has been active in the Netherlands for some years.
Persons and locations related to the known IP-adresses have been investigated closer.
On Wednesday 21 April 2004, three o'clock PM, fourteen houses in the Netherlands have been searched by the FIOD-ECD, supported by the national police force. Several universities have been asked to turn over stored data in relation with the known IP-addresses.
The search happened in all cooperating countries simultaneously.
While the investigation is going on, no further statements will be made.
---
My own opinion is that this was a long time coming. I often got offered Fairlight CDs even at work! Tracing IP-addresses to locations seems to me to be a good enough reason to do a search.
Well, actually, fixed file name lengths make your record lengths fixed, which makes it MUCH faster to parse through the data
You are absolutely right, but the remark was directed at the claim that 8.3 would save disk space.
Furthermore, since MS-DOS did not sort files in the file system, it would not do a binary search, but always would go sequentially through all files. So no speed gain from a fixed file length. Again, because of Microsoft laziness.
Finally, there are other ways to get speed apart from a binary search on sorted filenames with a fixed length. Hashing, for instance.
If someone is broke it doesn't mean you can't sue them. It only means there is no money to gain. So the question is if IBM is after money. I think the answer is NO.
4DOS was a DOS alternative that supported long filenames. So hardware limitations are no argument.
Limiting filenames to 8.3 is just laziness. Even worse: all filenames used those 11 bytes, even if they didn't need them: how's that for efficiency?
The best option would be to allow the user filenames of any length, and telling him: hey, you can use 255 characters for a name, but remember it costs disk space.
This would require a bit of programming from the side of Microsoft. They didn't do that. They didn't need to, because they sold someone else's creation. And that was, as you mention, QDOS, which isn't named for nothing "Quick & Dirty Operating System". 8.3 is the quick way, not the right way.
And it took Microsoft only twenty years to make it right...
Would you go around to all your friends to ask what to name your child?
Actually, I know a girl who was not content with her name (it was "Froukje", pronounced "Frowck-yuh", and then her parents moved to the US...), so she asked her friends to give her a new name. They actually picked a nice one -- contrary what my friends would do if I asked them this.
Will someone please explain to me why, if we're running a trade deficit and have been for next to forever, the dollar is still so strong compared to other currencies?
It's not. When the euro was introduced, the rate was about 1$ = 1euro. Quickly the euro took a dive and it went to something like 1$ = 0.8euro. Since about a year the dollar went down. We are now at something like 1$ = 1.25euro. Comparing the euro to other currencies (for instance to those of countries that could have joined the EMU but didn't), we see that this change is because of the dollar, not because of the euro that was pretty much stable with respect to those other currencies. This is actually good for American export, though.
Or were you comparing the dollar to third-world countries? Be serious.
You might have noticed that many spam messages contain strings of random characters, both in the subject line and in the message. The are to twarth such filters as you propose: each message is unique.
Although I don't think this article has the right solution, I don't see a problem with redesigning the email method.
If a "spam-free" email exists in parallel with the email as we have it now, I will divert the spam-free mail to my inbox, and the spammy mail, through a filter, to a junk-suspect folder to be checked once a week. Of course, this spammy mail will get an auto-reply that tells the sender how to contact me using the spam-free protocol. After a while, I am certain the people I really want to hear from will all use the spam-free protocol, and I will stop checking the regular email, after the changing the auto-reply to "your mail has just been ignored".
The key to get a massive retooling accepted is by using the original one in parallel. It will die off soon enough.
It's kind of a naive question, perhaps, but is the cost of creating strong copy protection worth the savings in pirated items?
Never. It's mathematically certain that any copy-protection scheme can be hacked. As soon as it is worth the money to hack it, it will be. And if it isn't worth the money to hack it, it wasn't worth the money to develop it in the first place. So in the end, you save nothing on pirated items.
Why a digit? Don't you known that there are many other interesting characters? Even if you stick to ASCII, you have more than 100 choices. Be creative! Go below the space character!
Quote:
"You are The Crimson Tape, new leader of the Superhero League of Hoboken, with the amazing power to Create Orginazational Charts. You'll be joined by Tropical Oil Man ("capable of raising the cholestoral level of his opponents"), Robomop ("an intelligent kitchen appliance capable of cleaning up almost any mess"), Iron Tummy ("capable of eating spicy foods without any distress"), Captain Excitement (his "aura of lethargy and dullness can put many opponents to sleep instantly"), and Mademoiselle Pepperoni ("capable of seeing inside a pizza box without even opening it")."
OK, you're right about the asteroids not being ice. I was confused for a moment. Still, nickel-iron probably wouldn't make the investment worthwhile, you would need something a lot better. Now find that.
Endangering the Earth: Yes, if it is too big it will cause climate changes. The moon is an asteroid, you know. However, that was not what I was referring to. I meant, the bigger its mass, the harder it is too control -- and we wouldn't want to lose control of an asteroid that is approaching Earth and that won't burn up in the stratosphere, would we? I mean, space shuttles blow up, so it is not as if we have this technology licked, do we?
Carving up an asteroid: you make it sound easy.
Dropping pieces of it in the atmosphere (that must be able to survive re-entry) at the right time so they land wherever they are supposed to land. You probably know the space shuttle needs constant adjustment when descending. What are you going to do: also add jets to those pieces? And then add an astronaut to them to adjust things? Remember, dropping the pieces in the sea won't work, because they'll sink.
Finally: I think "using space technology to move stuff through the atmosphere to solve a real big problem we are having" is relevant to both asteroid mining and nuclear waste disposal in space. Only nuclear waste disposal is much more urgent.
History is written by the winners. Bill Gates is clearly a winner...
Re:Asteroid Mining
on
The Wrong Stuff
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I think something more would be required. You must find such an astroid (usually they are ice). You must find one that is big enough to make the investment worthwhile, yet small enough not to endanger the Earth. You must build those jets onto it and navigate it. Then, when it is close to Earth, you must mine it and transfer the ores down -- which is a bit of a problem since they will burn up in the stratosphere if you do not do that in a capsule. Talk about costs.
Remember, it is much easier to send up our nuclear waste and shoot it into the Sun. Nobody is doing that now, simply because it is too risky and too damn expensive.
I recently read a column from the head of a research institute who said that they get often approached by space agencies asking if they would please give them some experiments to do in space, so they have a reason to go up there again. The columnist stated that doing stuff in space usually isn't science. The research questions postulated are mostly of the kind "How do these bacteria multiply... IN SPACE?", "How does this chemical reaction go... IN SPACE?" etc. That isn't science, it's just preliminary exploration: see if something interesting will happen if you do it... IN SPACE!
Slashdot Mirror
SPAM directly onto your retina? Are you crazy?
...if I had any idea who these Olson twins are. Perhaps the are a US phenomenon that we in the Old World know nothing about? And if that is the case, how did Acclaim think they could make a nice video game franchise out of this one?
Ex-ex-gf? Does that mean you picked her up again?
Don't forget that Grim Fandango is based on a lot of movies (Casablanca for starters). Not that that makes it any less of a great game.
Of course, I doubt they caught the big honcho's with their action, but they certainly caught some guys that could lead them in the right way.
Just steps in the right direction.
Since I have all the TNG DVDs, I picked up Nemesis when it was in the cheapo bin. It still hurt, but at least it has Wil's cameo.
I watched the interviews on the DVD (I couldn't bear to watch the movie again). They told the script writer wasn't really into Star Trek, and had only seen a few episodes, but, oh yeah, he could write a killer script based on his movie experience.
So we've seen what that has come to. Laser shows, space battles, cheap rip-offs of good movies (it has scenes from Star Wars, Mad Max, Excalibur and even Ben Hur), and definitely uninteresting characterisation.
And the killer joke was Gates McFadden saying she liked the script because it really did justice to the character of Beverly Crusher. Sorry Gates, Bev ended up on the cutting room floor.
So who expects anything good from Berman?
Hello? Anyone?
Maybe it's 14 year olds who do the cracking. It is certainly not 14 year olds who are multiplying and distributing this stuff on hundreds of thousands of DVDs and sell them internationally. I regularly got offered Fairlight and Kalisto DVDs at work. Reasonably priced, you know. Just a good profit for the middle men, since nothing goes to the copyright holders.
It might be a surprise to you, but these distributors are like the mafia. They have a well-oiled business dealing in stolen goods.
Sure, the police should pick up violent criminals. But that does not mean they should let financial criminals go until the last rapist is behind bars.
I, for one, as a professional software developer am mighty pleased with this action. All the time I was thinking: it would be so easy to crack down on these people, why don't they do something about it? And now they did. Good show, I say.
---
National Police Force, 22 April 2004
On 21 April 2004, information delivered by the US Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, led to property searches in eight countries, among which the Netherlands.
The information is related to international criminal organisations which use computers and the Internet for the large-scale and worldwide exchange of illegal copies of digital files, which violates copyright legislation. In the Internet-world such organisations are known as "Warez-groups".
A group known as "Fairlight" is one the oldest and best-known groups within the warez-scene. This group has existed since the middle of the 1990s and has the reputation to be responsible for cracking copy-protections of popular and high-quality entertainment software, such as computer games. Fairlight is also known as one of the few Warez-groups doing this for financial gain.
Fraud officers of the FBI have investigated the activities of Fairlight. They determined IP-addresses of computers used by Fairlight, with which the physical locations of those computers could be determined. In some cases it concerned FTP-servers located in the Netherlands, used for the storage and transport of illegal copies of programs.
Based on the information obtained from the American authorities, a number of Dutch residents were suspected to form an organisation, together with foreigners, that multiplied and distributed copyright protected works. It is presumed this organisation has been active in the Netherlands for some years.
Persons and locations related to the known IP-adresses have been investigated closer.
On Wednesday 21 April 2004, three o'clock PM, fourteen houses in the Netherlands have been searched by the FIOD-ECD, supported by the national police force. Several universities have been asked to turn over stored data in relation with the known IP-addresses.
The search happened in all cooperating countries simultaneously.
While the investigation is going on, no further statements will be made.
---
My own opinion is that this was a long time coming. I often got offered Fairlight CDs even at work! Tracing IP-addresses to locations seems to me to be a good enough reason to do a search.
You are absolutely right, but the remark was directed at the claim that 8.3 would save disk space.
Furthermore, since MS-DOS did not sort files in the file system, it would not do a binary search, but always would go sequentially through all files. So no speed gain from a fixed file length. Again, because of Microsoft laziness.
Finally, there are other ways to get speed apart from a binary search on sorted filenames with a fixed length. Hashing, for instance.
If someone is broke it doesn't mean you can't sue them. It only means there is no money to gain. So the question is if IBM is after money. I think the answer is NO.
Limiting filenames to 8.3 is just laziness. Even worse: all filenames used those 11 bytes, even if they didn't need them: how's that for efficiency?
The best option would be to allow the user filenames of any length, and telling him: hey, you can use 255 characters for a name, but remember it costs disk space.
This would require a bit of programming from the side of Microsoft. They didn't do that. They didn't need to, because they sold someone else's creation. And that was, as you mention, QDOS, which isn't named for nothing "Quick & Dirty Operating System". 8.3 is the quick way, not the right way.
And it took Microsoft only twenty years to make it right...
Although SCO will ask you for $699.
Actually, I know a girl who was not content with her name (it was "Froukje", pronounced "Frowck-yuh", and then her parents moved to the US...), so she asked her friends to give her a new name. They actually picked a nice one -- contrary what my friends would do if I asked them this.
It's not. When the euro was introduced, the rate was about 1$ = 1euro. Quickly the euro took a dive and it went to something like 1$ = 0.8euro. Since about a year the dollar went down. We are now at something like 1$ = 1.25euro. Comparing the euro to other currencies (for instance to those of countries that could have joined the EMU but didn't), we see that this change is because of the dollar, not because of the euro that was pretty much stable with respect to those other currencies. This is actually good for American export, though.
Or were you comparing the dollar to third-world countries? Be serious.
You might have noticed that many spam messages contain strings of random characters, both in the subject line and in the message. The are to twarth such filters as you propose: each message is unique.
If a "spam-free" email exists in parallel with the email as we have it now, I will divert the spam-free mail to my inbox, and the spammy mail, through a filter, to a junk-suspect folder to be checked once a week. Of course, this spammy mail will get an auto-reply that tells the sender how to contact me using the spam-free protocol. After a while, I am certain the people I really want to hear from will all use the spam-free protocol, and I will stop checking the regular email, after the changing the auto-reply to "your mail has just been ignored".
The key to get a massive retooling accepted is by using the original one in parallel. It will die off soon enough.
Never. It's mathematically certain that any copy-protection scheme can be hacked. As soon as it is worth the money to hack it, it will be. And if it isn't worth the money to hack it, it wasn't worth the money to develop it in the first place. So in the end, you save nothing on pirated items.
You are probably violating some of SCO's intellectual property. Just send them $699 to be on the safe side.
For a boy: j^F or ^Omon.
For a girl: ^Gle or ^Vthia or ^Xdy.
Quote: "You are The Crimson Tape, new leader of the Superhero League of Hoboken, with the amazing power to Create Orginazational Charts. You'll be joined by Tropical Oil Man ("capable of raising the cholestoral level of his opponents"), Robomop ("an intelligent kitchen appliance capable of cleaning up almost any mess"), Iron Tummy ("capable of eating spicy foods without any distress"), Captain Excitement (his "aura of lethargy and dullness can put many opponents to sleep instantly"), and Mademoiselle Pepperoni ("capable of seeing inside a pizza box without even opening it")."
AFAIK no-one has ever argued that file-sharing helps record sales.
OK, you're right about the asteroids not being ice. I was confused for a moment. Still, nickel-iron probably wouldn't make the investment worthwhile, you would need something a lot better. Now find that.
Endangering the Earth: Yes, if it is too big it will cause climate changes. The moon is an asteroid, you know. However, that was not what I was referring to. I meant, the bigger its mass, the harder it is too control -- and we wouldn't want to lose control of an asteroid that is approaching Earth and that won't burn up in the stratosphere, would we? I mean, space shuttles blow up, so it is not as if we have this technology licked, do we?
Carving up an asteroid: you make it sound easy.
Dropping pieces of it in the atmosphere (that must be able to survive re-entry) at the right time so they land wherever they are supposed to land. You probably know the space shuttle needs constant adjustment when descending. What are you going to do: also add jets to those pieces? And then add an astronaut to them to adjust things? Remember, dropping the pieces in the sea won't work, because they'll sink.
Finally: I think "using space technology to move stuff through the atmosphere to solve a real big problem we are having" is relevant to both asteroid mining and nuclear waste disposal in space. Only nuclear waste disposal is much more urgent.
Thank you, and good night.
History is written by the winners. Bill Gates is clearly a winner...
Remember, it is much easier to send up our nuclear waste and shoot it into the Sun. Nobody is doing that now, simply because it is too risky and too damn expensive.
I recently read a column from the head of a research institute who said that they get often approached by space agencies asking if they would please give them some experiments to do in space, so they have a reason to go up there again. The columnist stated that doing stuff in space usually isn't science. The research questions postulated are mostly of the kind "How do these bacteria multiply... IN SPACE?", "How does this chemical reaction go... IN SPACE?" etc. That isn't science, it's just preliminary exploration: see if something interesting will happen if you do it... IN SPACE!