included but not true: actual apartment #, you do not blog about your favourites. included and most likely not true: given your stance on freedom and privacy, perhaps you have no Xbox 360? included and most likely true : owns at least one Mac, and at least a Linux box and has a lot of MIDI equipment included, possibly true: a Windows machine, W2K or better used for playing chess, among other things. not included but possibly true: You likely still have an Atari ST kicking around
Guesses as to Kim's identity: Kim Seungbeom, is scathing's or berlinergirl's real name Kim?, Kim Flint, In regards to the cat, no clues found in my admittedly shallow searches.
Actually, my first thought was a Heinlein reference. If memory serves, it was in Time Enough For Love where Lazarus/Woodrow/Theodore was given a a set of coveralls to use as period garb for pre-WWI America until he can acquire authentic clothing from that time frame. It was described as "Hercules cloth, won't get dirty and can't wear out" or words to that effect.
It seems the term "Hercules Cloth" has been adopted by contemporary fabric makers, I've found a reference that lists Hercules as a tough, two-ply polyester used in flags. Source
For the lazy criminal here is a map to Jeff Koftinoff's apartment: 1131 Burnaby St
Note the parks within easy running distance if the police should happen to interrupt your B&E and the hospital if you throw out your back hauling all that stuff out to your truck.
Also, Jeff is a contributer to Open Source software so please don't steal any of the media (CD's, thumb drives etc) since you can probably download much of it from Freshmeat or his own website
I found two odd things when googling Jeff; first, that he lives in apt #5, not #4 so perhaps Jeff is trying to arrange that an annoying neighbor get robbed?
Second, he once posted a number of conspiracy theory pages that are now all 404. So perhaps this isn't really Jeff issuing this invitation? perhaps it's the CIA looking to take him down for posting the Truth?
I'd post more but it is really hard to do invasive, privacy violating searches while bouncing a toddler on one's knee and keeping him away from the keyboard.
Oil in space? E.E. "Doc" Smith saw it coming. A major element of The Sub-Space Explorers (sorry no wiki article, but published by Ace in 1965, Berkeley Books paperback form in 1983 ISBN 0-425-06245-7) is the idea of huge corporations, each running entire planets dedicated to each specialized industry. (Lactia produces milk and meat, NewMars produces oil and so on)
As for planets divided into two warring factions based on irrational ideologies; well, there are too many to list in science fiction. (Probably because the problem is so damn common down here!)
But a notable one can be found in Star Trek:TOS
Question for the cryptography slashdotters out there. I have only a superficial and mostly layman's knowledge of cryptography, so while I understand the need for random numbers exists, I don't know much about how they are created or used. I'm not clear on how it is possible for a digital machine, particularly a commodity hardware machine, to create random numbers that form the basis of seeds or simple one-time pads. It is my impression that any mathematical algorithm you can run in software is potentially guessable unless you use a truly random number at some point. I can imagine a device that perhaps listens to an analogue and random signal such as the thermal noise within the machine, cosmic background radiation or whatever, but this wouldn't be a commodity server running in a raised floor room. (Come to think of it, CMB might not be random and hence unguessable enough since an attacker can listen to the exact same random signal as your machine, if he is using the same algorithm he might be able to come up with the same numbers. {IANAA I am not an astrophysicist, so I don't know for sure, do two neighboring receivers pointed at the sky get the same signal values?}
I guess my questions boil down to this:
1) Is there a good way of generating sufficiently random numbers using cheap hardware?
2) If 1)=yes then why would anyone mess around with pseudo-randomness?
Put me down as another who falls in the "WTF?" category.
This is also my first time seeing an idle story on the front page. Here are my thoughts on them:
1)I like the idea of adding idle.slashdot stories to the front page. It's a department that frankly I am ashamed to admit I didn't realize existed.
2) I'd rather not see NSFW stories period. When I want to see those, there is a plethora of links bookmarked on my home machine. Just about every workplace has a code of conduct regarding personal computer use. A lot allow changing the homepage to something of personal interest, but only as long as there is nothing objectionable in the content. Sure, the NSFW tag makes sure I don't launch some loud obscene video where my co-workers can overhear, but I'm very reluctant to trust to tagging as a way to decide what to click. Also, even if I don't click the NSFW links, the mere fact that NSFW material is available here is enough to render it bannable on my school and work computers. Thankfully no one has looked at the logs, then checked out the site thoroughly enough to find that such material is here and then give me grief about it (yet).
3) I really don't like the new format for idle.slashdot. I will admit that I took a _long_ time to get used to every new look that slashdot has adopted. However, one thing has remained more or less consistent is that the layout echoed the green and white bar tractor feed paper I grew up using. I _like_ that look. It calls to mind indestructible line printers, small monochrome monitors and hard drives the size of filing cabinets* The new look for idle.slashdot now resembles some upstart blog with a truly horrible taste in colour scheme.
4) That said, I do like the treatment of the slashdot logo. I do like the idea of changing the logo slightly for different departments and for certain (geek related) holidays.
* The first hard drive I ever saw was the size of two 3 drawer file cabinets, the second about the size of a bankers box and the third was a 5.25" model with a whopping 4GB if memory serves correctly.
There is one slight flaw with that plan. How does a victim know when to give the trojan CC# and when to give the real one? The whole point of fishing is to look as safe and legit as possible*. If, for example, my mother-in-law from Mr. BadGuy Phisher gets an email offering (of all things) heavily discounted embroidery pattern files for her embroidery machine. She thinks he really has such files for sale, she actually does want the product, so she provides her real CC# and not the false one. Now, this is a woman who is keenly aware of the potential for credit card fraud and identity theft. I have seen her save all of her receipts and manual charge slips in a shopping bag so her husband can burn them out in the shop. She is convinced that Bad Men are rooting through trash to collect CC's and banking info. She is convinced that these Bad Men are somehow able to access her account based on the string of numbers that appear on the receipt when she uses her debit card.
Yet, despite this paranoia, she still buys hordes of knick-knacks, limited edition "collectibles", sewing supplies and such on EBay. Paypal being too scary for her, she uses her CC to pay for all of that. Try as I might, I can't seem to persuade her that a person in CA selling cutesy crocheted animal sweaters could be a Bad Man just as easily as some person rooting through her trash. As for email based scams; well, I set up her email client to reject anyone not already in her address book and have trained her in the habit of sending the initial email to them, rather than waiting until she gets one. As a major side benefit for me, it has drastically cut down the number of "cute", "humorous" or "inspirational" forwards she sends me.
*The bar to appear safe and legit enough for some users can be staggeringly low. Lets face it, there are always going to be some stupid people around.
That would be The Commonwealth of Nations actually. And I rather suspect that limiting iplayer stuff to only IP's from the 53 member nations would not be an trivial matter. Some of those nations are too small to have been assigned their own unique block of IP's by the IANA. Just for example, there are more people in my hometown (~20K in the core municipality) than there are in the entire country of Nauru yet both the people there and the people here share the same Queen and Auntie Beeb
It has always been my understanding that all sprinters train intensively to maximize the energy they get back from the foot during a race. I seem to recall seeing a "the technology behind the sport" where runners of all sorts were having their training regimes designed and studied by an impressive array of scientific talent. One scene comes to mind in particular, a sprint runner being filmed by a high speed camera and having his motions translated into stick figure models in a computer. From there, the experts were studying every aspect of his motion, looking to achieve the highest energy returns and economy of motion. The study was so focused that there was some mention of changing his wrist angle so as to shave a tiny amount of time off his launch.
I would expect that this gentleman has spent an equal amount of time working on his admittedly specialized gait in order to maximize the efficiency of his prosthesis. On that score alone he is at best the equal of any of the other runners out there and arguably at a slight handicap because his specialized gait is not as "natural" for the human body as what the other runners would be using and hence, presumably not as efficient.
However, my take on the article is that the real issue is the prosthesis he wants to use to compete with. It apparently is a more efficient device for storing and returning energy to the runner than the human foot is capable of, even under ideal conditions. Thus, it does give him a material advantage over the other athletes. The key question(s) in my mind is, does it return more energy then the combination of human foot and engineered, custom made and very high tech shoes that some of the competitors will undoubtedly be wearing? Does it give more advantage over that foot/shoe combination then that shoe/foot combination has over the lessor shoes the feet from poorer nations will be wearing? (note that any advantage a high tech sprint shoe would be fairly minimal compared to a standard pair of leather and round spiked sprint shoes.)
In short, all else being equal, would the technology give him enough edge to be an unfair advantage over a runner from say Sierra Leone? The IAAF seems to think it would.
As others have pointed out(even those who confuse the IAAF with the IOC), the committee has had to rule on a variety of mechanical aids, ranging from poles to sleds to swimsuits. Even the gas mixture used in bicycle tires is subject to approval. In every case that I am aware of where the committee approved some new artifact to be used in official competition, it was either something shown to be readily available to all competitors well in advance or was believed to have no significant advantage over what other athletes already had access to.*
Shamelessly ripping off Piers Anthony's concept of sport falling into a grid of 1. Physical 2. Mental 3. Chance 4. Arts and A)Naked, B)Tool C)Machine and D) Animal, sprinting is supposed to come under 1A Physical, Naked. One could argue that a prosthesis which gives a significant advantage changes the game to 1B.
As others have suggested, I think this guy needs to come back with a different prosthesis design, one whose mechanical performance is as close to an ideal human foot as possible.
*There are a few sports where it has always been a contest of man and machine vs other men and their machines. Velodrome racing (1C)is one example of that. There has always been more leeway about the technological edge any athlete or team has over the others.
What this means is that movies are going more "open source" than ever before. This also means that your chances of being in a movie have gone UP! Want to be in a movie? No problem, make your own! Want to be in a movie that tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people will actually _see_? Again, no problem, there seems to be a limitless demand for porn out there, just upload your film to a few carefully selected sites and P2P apps and away you go. Of course, no one will know your name or even care much about who you are unless you manage to do something very notable. (And it won't be something you'll want to put on your CV or discuss around the water cooler at work.)
Want to be recognized on the street, perhaps asked for your autograph in restaurants? Now that is more of a challenge since the distribution chain to the local cinemas and video stores is still pretty tough to get into unless you are a major studio. Amateur porn is probably not the best genre for that either.
Do you want your own star on the Walk of Fame, or perhaps your mark in front of Grauman's Chinese? That is a _real_ challenge. All I can suggest is that you try to parlay what little fame your work in amateur porn gets you into being cast in some big studio movies and be willing, perhaps even eager to sleep your way to the top and have a generous hand with the bribes.
P.S.
Since this *is* Slashdot, happy hunting grounds of the beady eyed pendant, I'll note that Nicole Richie _has_ been in a movie. {Kids in America (2005)}
The Skycat 220 is supposed to have a payload capacity of 220 tons. (No, I dunno if those are metric, long or short tons) That handily beats any on-the-road wheeled vehicle I know of. They can go to remote places where roads and rails don't run. Thus beating the trains. They can carry more weight and go further than a helocopter for less money. They are also much quieter and cheaper to operate than a jumbo jet. And unlike those trucks and trains, LTACs are pretty good at crossing oceans. These things aren't intended to compete with trucks and trains, not directly in thier narrow fields anyway. They compete with trains on flexibility of destination, with trucks and helocopters on total payload, with conventional aircraft on cost and with ships on speed. I agree with your basic point that a blimp is not nearly as good at other transport systems are best at, but for some particular uses it still has some advantages. Here are some cases where I can see a major economic advantage to using some sort of LTAC over more conventional transportation: 1) carrying heavy gear to remote locations. (Mining, military, telecom etc) 2) anything that involves hanging around in the sky for long hours. (police patrol, weather research, space launch monitoring, customs patrol.) 3) many things that involve getting a better view than you can get down here. (air traffic control, high altitude research, some types of cosmic ray research, military reconnaissance ) 4) the Skycat in particular, with it's self landing systems, would make a damn fine traveling medical clinic and disaster response vehicle for Canada, Russia, Australia and pretty much most of Africa. 5) I'm not sure how such a large and light vehicle can handle itself in the turbulence of a forest fire, but if they can be made to handle that environment they'd have a LOT more capacity than any chopper for water or fire retardants and a lot more flexibility in where to refill. 6)Avalanche control. You could get right up close to a potential avalanche site without making as much noise as a chopper, giving you more flexibility and control in triggering it. 7)wild life monitoring. you can quietly drift over a herd or flock without disturbing it as much as a helicopter would. (come to think of it, it wouldn't be as vulnerable to bird strike would it?)
Bottom line, no one, not even the optimistic writer of TFA is claiming that these craft will render trains, trucks, heavier than air aircraft and ships obsolete. We're just in the process of bringing back a very unique tool into our logistics chains.
P.S. The Skycat company also promotes their design as a possible executive aircraft, something I am dubious on. But imagine what a wonderful RV it would make for the ultra rich! With a payload of 20 tons for even the smallest, you could pack out an entire cabin and camp site, preloaded and provisioned for any remote fishing or hunting spot you can imagine.
I see your point; but that leaves the buyer in the uneasy position of doing business with a complete stranger, often from a foreign country, who has proven himself to be sleazy enough to spam and yet being forced to trust that he is honest enough to actually send him what he thought he was ordering.
I've read or watched many news articles where a shipment of counterfeit pharmaceuticals was intercepted by authorities and found to be watered down versions of the actual drug, a cocktail of other drugs whose effects might be confused with the actions of the real drug by a hapless user or a totally worthless placebo of some kind. I vaguely recall seeing at least one news article about seized alleged stimulants and steroids that upon analysis contained outright poisons (arsenic IIRC) and a sizable percentage of "unidentified materials". I also happen to know that there are many drugs that require special handling in order to be effective. (It seems like most of the prescriptions my kids get require refrigeration) It seems to me that buying drugs on the Internet, based on a spam ad, is about as wise as buying white powder packets or tan crystalline rocks from some shifty eyed corner pusher. Your life is only safe as long as the profit from repeat business is higher then the profit the pusher will see if he steps on his product with whatever he has laying around. I don't imagine the average spam vendor really relies on repeat business all that much do you? I will readily concede that some folks are poor enough or medically desperate enough to need black or gray market drugs, (e.g.,taxol for cancer, AZT for AIDS) but that doesn't fit the kind of drugs I have been seeing advertised. I don't think there are many people for whom taking Viagra, anabolic steroids, diet pills or rohypnol is a life or death issue.
My thinking is that some men and women who are seeking long-term bonds *that involve reproduction* will probably do as you suggest and take drastic measures to try and achieve that elusive "ideal (wo)man" package. To balance that, even now there are many people who don't play that game of trying to compete with the carefully crafted images we are presented with in the media. Some because they are too insightful/cynical to take it seriously, some because they consciously or subconsciously recognize the futility of even trying. (Lets face it, contrary to all those extreme make-over shows, only a very small percentage of people could ever look even remotely as "perfect"* as those models we are confronted with every day and the vast majority of those people who still require a team of professionals to achieve that. (As referenced earlier, look at the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty video. Starting with Make-up and progressing through Wardrobe to Photography and final Post-shoot processing there could easily be a dozen skilled people working toward the final product, none of whom were even remotely as attractive as the model herself ended up appearing.)
Imagine the real world selection pressures that would lead to. Only people who are both very financially successful enough to be properly primped and who are genetically fortunate enough to make the most of that primping would be able to get a living breathing mate. (who must also be equally successful and fortunate) Every one else starts "faking it", marrying oh-so-perfect* robots. Some because they can't or won't successfully compete for a live mate, others because the damn-near "perfect" living mates out there do not suit their tastes.** When I look at how many people freely give away their private information in the form of spyware, use crappy products because they are "good enough" and over pay for even basic commodities because they can't be bothered to do any comparison shopping I am forced to cynically conclude that for most folks, a sex bot that can pass a Turing test would be more than good enough. The lack of reproduction capability would be a very minor issue. (And if/when we can build a sex bot that can pass a Turing test, surely toddler-bots and teen-bots wouldn't be all that difficult?) And as it has always been, those who are both hopelessly ugly and financial failures will get the short end of the stick. In other words, I see widely available sex bots as just turning up the volume on the selective pressures that already exist. Ultimately, however, the desire to mate, the desire to have sex is rooted in the instinct to reproduce. Even the most convincing of bots would leave it's owner feeling vaguely empty and unfulfilled because they would *know* that it wasn't real. We already have the technology to be able to have an orgasm any time we want all by ourselves and our sexual mores have relaxed enough that it is possible to have a "fuck friend" or other purely sexual relationship. Even when a person achieves a perfect arrangement for their sexual needs, they still often find themselves longing for that long-term pair bond. Remember, even homosexuals (male or female) in very strong life-long relationships sometimes want to be married and have kids.***
*There are as many definitions of "perfect" in a potential mate as there are people seeking. However, the common "ideal" is shaped by group-thinking and until comparatively recently, was shaped primarily on what the majority of people liked in common. Mass media has hi-jacked the common notion of beauty and has been progressively exaggerating certain traits in order to be as influential as possible. And no, I don't blame 20th century advertisers and marketers solely for this. The trend started, as near as I can tell, with the creation of art/media. Look at Upper Paleolithic Venus If this isn't a iconic representation using hypertrophied traits to enhance a message I dunno what is. {As with much of archeology, just what message it was meant t
Worse yet, Jane probably won't think of this, but would she really want a program on *your* computer knowing what emails she gets but does not forward to you?
Ob disclaimer: I am not Jane, but I married her daughter and now, BOFH help me, I'm stuck giving her free(1) support.
(1)I *do* get a tasty selection of baked goods at my birthday and Christmas, but if we assume that is my fee than either I am terribly underpaid and overworked or her fruitcake and pastries are the most expensive I have ever seen. And any good (read: bitter and cynical) tech knows which is the true answer.
Go ahead and delete your cookies. A deactivated account is still there, just cannot be seen by normal users in searches, contact lists etc. All of your installed applications are still there, along with all of your personal data you were compelled to give the application access to in order to use the application. The only certain way to ensure the integrity of your data is to delete all personal information and settings you can, uninstall all applications and then deactivate your account. You then send an email to privacy@facebook.com and ask them to delete your profile in it's entirety. (do me a favour? tell them barbarian818 at hotmail dot com sent you!) Three gotchas come to mind: 1) You must use the same email address that you log in with to make the deletion request 2) You apparently cannot have emails still traveling in the system at the time they process the request or they'll just kick your request back to you and repeat the instructions to delete all personal info. (I happen to have sent a mass email to everyone in my contact list. There were enough people that I had to craft two identical messages and send each out to half of my list. Despite being warned that I was quitting and hence unable to read any replies, and despite other peoples complaints about "spam" one of those copies is still alive and being replied to. Sadly, but not surprisingly, almost all of the current replies are along the lines of "everyone shut up so this thread can die, I'm tired of this spam in my inbox, no-one cares ok?" Everything else has been deleted by me. The site requires a profile image of some kind, it wouldn't let me simply delete my photo. So I gave it one of those Despair posters in my photo's place. 3)This is a company that has proven that the members are the product, not the customer. They have also proven that they will lie or use deceptive practices to ensure that the real money makers can continue unimpeded. I have nothing to assure you that your profile will be deleted as requested. (At the moment, Facebook admins are playing the "you gotta delete all your personal stuff first" game with me thanks to that mass email I mentioned.)
I have been exchanging emails with a Pam from User support on my concerns. If anyone wants to read what she has to say to me, reply to this post and I'll copy and paste the contents over to my reply.
Actually, I have had reasonable experiences with Tigerdirect.ca. Setting aside the whole Mail In Rebate nonsense, my experiences with them have always exceeded my expectations. My experiences with cartridgestore.ca on the phone have been stellar. I'm not fond of their website, but the people you get on the phone actually work in the store and really know printers and printer supplies.
Oblig. disclaimer: Aside from having purchased products from each of these, I have no connection, business or otherwise with either firm. This is exactly what it appears to be, an unsolicited testimonial from a satisfied customer. IYMMV
And I was just able to confirm that a message I sent to everyone in my contact list is still bouncing back and forth between all the people it is addressed to. Funny but sad is that the vast majority of the replies are requests for everyone else to stop replying to it as they are sick of getting what they call "spam" in their inbox. My inbox contained all the replies that had been made since after I deactivated my account and requested that it be deleted. (Using the form field on the deactivation request page.) Clearly, my account, while "deactivated" is still able to accept messages on my behalf. And from what I recall reading in the Beacon announcement, advertisers are still able to use what little profile information remains to further their campaigns. Apparently, the only people who can't see a deactivated profile are the other users.
Another sad and not unexpected development is that more of my contacts complained about my "spamming" them or took the time to belittle my privacy concerns than chose to think about the issues or even click on the links I provided for more information. I have now become the family crank whose emails are often deleted unread while all them keep creating more and more personal content for Facebook to sell.
Slashdot Mirror
included but not true: actual apartment #, you do not blog about your favourites.
included and most likely not true: given your stance on freedom and privacy, perhaps you have no Xbox 360?
included and most likely true : owns at least one Mac, and at least a Linux box and has a lot of MIDI equipment
included, possibly true: a Windows machine, W2K or better used for playing chess, among other things.
not included but possibly true: You likely still have an Atari ST kicking around
Guesses as to Kim's identity: Kim Seungbeom, is scathing's or berlinergirl's real name Kim?, Kim Flint,
In regards to the cat, no clues found in my admittedly shallow searches.
It seems the term "Hercules Cloth" has been adopted by contemporary fabric makers, I've found a reference that lists Hercules as a tough, two-ply polyester used in flags. Source
1131 Burnaby St
Note the parks within easy running distance if the police should happen to interrupt your B&E and the hospital if you throw out your back hauling all that stuff out to your truck.
Also, Jeff is a contributer to Open Source software so please don't steal any of the media (CD's, thumb drives etc) since you can probably download much of it from Freshmeat or his own website
I found two odd things when googling Jeff; first, that he lives in apt #5, not #4 so perhaps Jeff is trying to arrange that an annoying neighbor get robbed?
Second, he once posted a number of conspiracy theory pages that are now all 404. So perhaps this isn't really Jeff issuing this invitation? perhaps it's the CIA looking to take him down for posting the Truth?
I'd post more but it is really hard to do invasive, privacy violating searches while bouncing a toddler on one's knee and keeping him away from the keyboard.
Oil in space? E.E. "Doc" Smith saw it coming. A major element of The Sub-Space Explorers (sorry no wiki article, but published by Ace in 1965, Berkeley Books paperback form in 1983 ISBN 0-425-06245-7) is the idea of huge corporations, each running entire planets dedicated to each specialized industry. (Lactia produces milk and meat, NewMars produces oil and so on)
As for planets divided into two warring factions based on irrational ideologies; well, there are too many to list in science fiction. (Probably because the problem is so damn common down here!)
But a notable one can be found in Star Trek:TOS
I guess my questions boil down to this:
1) Is there a good way of generating sufficiently random numbers using cheap hardware?
2) If 1)=yes then why would anyone mess around with pseudo-randomness?
*_technically_ I suppose the linked image is supposed to be erotic, but if it's considered a NSFW image where you work then I truly pity you.
Does this mean we will get to see Ballmer and Page battle it out with swords in a Vancouver alley? Please?
Well, that explains some of the hatred I've seen expressed in a.s.r over the PDP-11, I never realized the OS was an MS product.
2) I'd rather not see NSFW stories period. When I want to see those, there is a plethora of links bookmarked on my home machine. Just about every workplace has a code of conduct regarding personal computer use. A lot allow changing the homepage to something of personal interest, but only as long as there is nothing objectionable in the content. Sure, the NSFW tag makes sure I don't launch some loud obscene video where my co-workers can overhear, but I'm very reluctant to trust to tagging as a way to decide what to click. Also, even if I don't click the NSFW links, the mere fact that NSFW material is available here is enough to render it bannable on my school and work computers. Thankfully no one has looked at the logs, then checked out the site thoroughly enough to find that such material is here and then give me grief about it (yet).
3) I really don't like the new format for idle.slashdot. I will admit that I took a _long_ time to get used to every new look that slashdot has adopted. However, one thing has remained more or less consistent is that the layout echoed the green and white bar tractor feed paper I grew up using. I _like_ that look. It calls to mind indestructible line printers, small monochrome monitors and hard drives the size of filing cabinets* The new look for idle.slashdot now resembles some upstart blog with a truly horrible taste in colour scheme.
4) That said, I do like the treatment of the slashdot logo. I do like the idea of changing the logo slightly for different departments and for certain (geek related) holidays.
* The first hard drive I ever saw was the size of two 3 drawer file cabinets, the second about the size of a bankers box and the third was a 5.25" model with a whopping 4GB if memory serves correctly.
That scene was based on 1984 which in turn incorporated real Nazi and Soviet Propaganda"
There is one slight flaw with that plan. How does a victim know when to give the trojan CC# and when to give the real one? The whole point of fishing is to look as safe and legit as possible*. If, for example, my mother-in-law from Mr. BadGuy Phisher gets an email offering (of all things) heavily discounted embroidery pattern files for her embroidery machine. She thinks he really has such files for sale, she actually does want the product, so she provides her real CC# and not the false one. Now, this is a woman who is keenly aware of the potential for credit card fraud and identity theft. I have seen her save all of her receipts and manual charge slips in a shopping bag so her husband can burn them out in the shop. She is convinced that Bad Men are rooting through trash to collect CC's and banking info. She is convinced that these Bad Men are somehow able to access her account based on the string of numbers that appear on the receipt when she uses her debit card.
Yet, despite this paranoia, she still buys hordes of knick-knacks, limited edition "collectibles", sewing supplies and such on EBay. Paypal being too scary for her, she uses her CC to pay for all of that. Try as I might, I can't seem to persuade her that a person in CA selling cutesy crocheted animal sweaters could be a Bad Man just as easily as some person rooting through her trash. As for email based scams; well, I set up her email client to reject anyone not already in her address book and have trained her in the habit of sending the initial email to them, rather than waiting until she gets one. As a major side benefit for me, it has drastically cut down the number of "cute", "humorous" or "inspirational" forwards she sends me.
*The bar to appear safe and legit enough for some users can be staggeringly low. Lets face it, there are always going to be some stupid people around.
That would be The Commonwealth of Nations actually. And I rather suspect that limiting iplayer stuff to only IP's from the 53 member nations would not be an trivial matter. Some of those nations are too small to have been assigned their own unique block of IP's by the IANA. Just for example, there are more people in my hometown (~20K in the core municipality) than there are in the entire country of Nauru yet both the people there and the people here share the same Queen and Auntie Beeb
Clearly the mental trauma that is/was WebTV has left a gap in your memory.
Take a look at this cross-section of one of the more complex models.
(warning deep linked image from a site which contains NSFW material)
I would expect that this gentleman has spent an equal amount of time working on his admittedly specialized gait in order to maximize the efficiency of his prosthesis. On that score alone he is at best the equal of any of the other runners out there and arguably at a slight handicap because his specialized gait is not as "natural" for the human body as what the other runners would be using and hence, presumably not as efficient.
However, my take on the article is that the real issue is the prosthesis he wants to use to compete with. It apparently is a more efficient device for storing and returning energy to the runner than the human foot is capable of, even under ideal conditions. Thus, it does give him a material advantage over the other athletes. The key question(s) in my mind is, does it return more energy then the combination of human foot and engineered, custom made and very high tech shoes that some of the competitors will undoubtedly be wearing? Does it give more advantage over that foot/shoe combination then that shoe/foot combination has over the lessor shoes the feet from poorer nations will be wearing? (note that any advantage a high tech sprint shoe would be fairly minimal compared to a standard pair of leather and round spiked sprint shoes.)
In short, all else being equal, would the technology give him enough edge to be an unfair advantage over a runner from say Sierra Leone? The IAAF seems to think it would.
As others have pointed out(even those who confuse the IAAF with the IOC), the committee has had to rule on a variety of mechanical aids, ranging from poles to sleds to swimsuits. Even the gas mixture used in bicycle tires is subject to approval. In every case that I am aware of where the committee approved some new artifact to be used in official competition, it was either something shown to be readily available to all competitors well in advance or was believed to have no significant advantage over what other athletes already had access to.*
Shamelessly ripping off Piers Anthony's concept of sport falling into a grid of 1. Physical 2. Mental 3. Chance 4. Arts and A)Naked, B)Tool C)Machine and D) Animal, sprinting is supposed to come under 1A Physical, Naked. One could argue that a prosthesis which gives a significant advantage changes the game to 1B.
As others have suggested, I think this guy needs to come back with a different prosthesis design, one whose mechanical performance is as close to an ideal human foot as possible.
*There are a few sports where it has always been a contest of man and machine vs other men and their machines. Velodrome racing (1C)is one example of that. There has always been more leeway about the technological edge any athlete or team has over the others.
What this means is that movies are going more "open source" than ever before. This also means that your chances of being in a movie have gone UP! Want to be in a movie? No problem, make your own!
Want to be in a movie that tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people will actually _see_? Again, no problem, there seems to be a limitless demand for porn out there, just upload your film to a few carefully selected sites and P2P apps and away you go. Of course, no one will know your name or even care much about who you are unless you manage to do something very notable. (And it won't be something you'll want to put on your CV or discuss around the water cooler at work.)
Want to be recognized on the street, perhaps asked for your autograph in restaurants? Now that is more of a challenge since the distribution chain to the local cinemas and video stores is still pretty tough to get into unless you are a major studio. Amateur porn is probably not the best genre for that either.
Do you want your own star on the Walk of Fame, or perhaps your mark in front of Grauman's Chinese? That is a _real_ challenge. All I can suggest is that you try to parlay what little fame your work in amateur porn gets you into being cast in some big studio movies and be willing, perhaps even eager to sleep your way to the top and have a generous hand with the bribes.
P.S.
Since this *is* Slashdot, happy hunting grounds of the beady eyed pendant, I'll note that Nicole Richie _has_ been in a movie. {Kids in America (2005)}
Try these guys, complete turnkey solutions and components.
http://www.fosi.com/
The Skycat 220 is supposed to have a payload capacity of 220 tons. (No, I dunno if those are metric, long or short tons) That handily beats any on-the-road wheeled vehicle I know of. They can go to remote places where roads and rails don't run. Thus beating the trains. They can carry more weight and go further than a helocopter for less money. They are also much quieter and cheaper to operate than a jumbo jet. And unlike those trucks and trains, LTACs are pretty good at crossing oceans. These things aren't intended to compete with trucks and trains, not directly in thier narrow fields anyway. They compete with trains on flexibility of destination, with trucks and helocopters on total payload, with conventional aircraft on cost and with ships on speed.
I agree with your basic point that a blimp is not nearly as good at other transport systems are best at, but for some particular uses it still has some advantages. Here are some cases where I can see a major economic advantage to using some sort of LTAC over more conventional transportation:
1) carrying heavy gear to remote locations. (Mining, military, telecom etc)
2) anything that involves hanging around in the sky for long hours. (police patrol, weather research, space launch monitoring, customs patrol.)
3) many things that involve getting a better view than you can get down here. (air traffic control, high altitude research, some types of cosmic ray research, military reconnaissance )
4) the Skycat in particular, with it's self landing systems, would make a damn fine traveling medical clinic and disaster response vehicle for Canada, Russia, Australia and pretty much most of Africa.
5) I'm not sure how such a large and light vehicle can handle itself in the turbulence of a forest fire, but if they can be made to handle that environment they'd have a LOT more capacity than any chopper for water or fire retardants and a lot more flexibility in where to refill.
6)Avalanche control. You could get right up close to a potential avalanche site without making as much noise as a chopper, giving you more flexibility and control in triggering it.
7)wild life monitoring. you can quietly drift over a herd or flock without disturbing it as much as a helicopter would. (come to think of it, it wouldn't be as vulnerable to bird strike would it?)
Bottom line, no one, not even the optimistic writer of TFA is claiming that these craft will render trains, trucks, heavier than air aircraft and ships obsolete. We're just in the process of bringing back a very unique tool into our logistics chains.
P.S. The Skycat company also promotes their design as a possible executive aircraft, something I am dubious on. But imagine what a wonderful RV it would make for the ultra rich! With a payload of 20 tons for even the smallest, you could pack out an entire cabin and camp site, preloaded and provisioned for any remote fishing or hunting spot you can imagine.
you must have missed the earlier story today on Slashdot where it was speculated that someday we may be able to actually fall in love with sex bots!
I see your point; but that leaves the buyer in the uneasy position of doing business with a complete stranger, often from a foreign country, who has proven himself to be sleazy enough to spam and yet being forced to trust that he is honest enough to actually send him what he thought he was ordering. I've read or watched many news articles where a shipment of counterfeit pharmaceuticals was intercepted by authorities and found to be watered down versions of the actual drug, a cocktail of other drugs whose effects might be confused with the actions of the real drug by a hapless user or a totally worthless placebo of some kind. I vaguely recall seeing at least one news article about seized alleged stimulants and steroids that upon analysis contained outright poisons (arsenic IIRC) and a sizable percentage of "unidentified materials". I also happen to know that there are many drugs that require special handling in order to be effective. (It seems like most of the prescriptions my kids get require refrigeration) It seems to me that buying drugs on the Internet, based on a spam ad, is about as wise as buying white powder packets or tan crystalline rocks from some shifty eyed corner pusher. Your life is only safe as long as the profit from repeat business is higher then the profit the pusher will see if he steps on his product with whatever he has laying around. I don't imagine the average spam vendor really relies on repeat business all that much do you? I will readily concede that some folks are poor enough or medically desperate enough to need black or gray market drugs, (e.g.,taxol for cancer, AZT for AIDS) but that doesn't fit the kind of drugs I have been seeing advertised. I don't think there are many people for whom taking Viagra, anabolic steroids, diet pills or rohypnol is a life or death issue.
My thinking is that some men and women who are seeking long-term bonds *that involve reproduction* will probably do as you suggest and take drastic measures to try and achieve that elusive "ideal (wo)man" package. To balance that, even now there are many people who don't play that game of trying to compete with the carefully crafted images we are presented with in the media. Some because they are too insightful/cynical to take it seriously, some because they consciously or subconsciously recognize the futility of even trying. (Lets face it, contrary to all those extreme make-over shows, only a very small percentage of people could ever look even remotely as "perfect"* as those models we are confronted with every day and the vast majority of those people who still require a team of professionals to achieve that. (As referenced earlier, look at the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty video. Starting with Make-up and progressing through Wardrobe to Photography and final Post-shoot processing there could easily be a dozen skilled people working toward the final product, none of whom were even remotely as attractive as the model herself ended up appearing.)
Imagine the real world selection pressures that would lead to. Only people who are both very financially successful enough to be properly primped and who are genetically fortunate enough to make the most of that primping would be able to get a living breathing mate. (who must also be equally successful and fortunate) Every one else starts "faking it", marrying oh-so-perfect* robots. Some because they can't or won't successfully compete for a live mate, others because the damn-near "perfect" living mates out there do not suit their tastes.** When I look at how many people freely give away their private information in the form of spyware, use crappy products because they are "good enough" and over pay for even basic commodities because they can't be bothered to do any comparison shopping I am forced to cynically conclude that for most folks, a sex bot that can pass a Turing test would be more than good enough. The lack of reproduction capability would be a very minor issue. (And if/when we can build a sex bot that can pass a Turing test, surely toddler-bots and teen-bots wouldn't be all that difficult?) And as it has always been, those who are both hopelessly ugly and financial failures will get the short end of the stick. In other words, I see widely available sex bots as just turning up the volume on the selective pressures that already exist. Ultimately, however, the desire to mate, the desire to have sex is rooted in the instinct to reproduce. Even the most convincing of bots would leave it's owner feeling vaguely empty and unfulfilled because they would *know* that it wasn't real. We already have the technology to be able to have an orgasm any time we want all by ourselves and our sexual mores have relaxed enough that it is possible to have a "fuck friend" or other purely sexual relationship. Even when a person achieves a perfect arrangement for their sexual needs, they still often find themselves longing for that long-term pair bond. Remember, even homosexuals (male or female) in very strong life-long relationships sometimes want to be married and have kids.***
*There are as many definitions of "perfect" in a potential mate as there are people seeking. However, the common "ideal" is shaped by group-thinking and until comparatively recently, was shaped primarily on what the majority of people liked in common. Mass media has hi-jacked the common notion of beauty and has been progressively exaggerating certain traits in order to be as influential as possible. And no, I don't blame 20th century advertisers and marketers solely for this. The trend started, as near as I can tell, with the creation of art/media. Look at Upper Paleolithic Venus If this isn't a iconic representation using hypertrophied traits to enhance a message I dunno what is. {As with much of archeology, just what message it was meant t
Worse yet, Jane probably won't think of this, but would she really want a program on *your* computer knowing what emails she gets but does not forward to you? Ob disclaimer: I am not Jane, but I married her daughter and now, BOFH help me, I'm stuck giving her free(1) support. (1)I *do* get a tasty selection of baked goods at my birthday and Christmas, but if we assume that is my fee than either I am terribly underpaid and overworked or her fruitcake and pastries are the most expensive I have ever seen. And any good (read: bitter and cynical) tech knows which is the true answer.
Go ahead and delete your cookies. A deactivated account is still there, just cannot be seen by normal users in searches, contact lists etc. All of your installed applications are still there, along with all of your personal data you were compelled to give the application access to in order to use the application. The only certain way to ensure the integrity of your data is to delete all personal information and settings you can, uninstall all applications and then deactivate your account. You then send an email to privacy@facebook.com and ask them to delete your profile in it's entirety. (do me a favour? tell them barbarian818 at hotmail dot com sent you!)
Three gotchas come to mind:
1) You must use the same email address that you log in with to make the deletion request
2) You apparently cannot have emails still traveling in the system at the time they process the request or they'll just kick your request back to you and repeat the instructions to delete all personal info. (I happen to have sent a mass email to everyone in my contact list. There were enough people that I had to craft two identical messages and send each out to half of my list. Despite being warned that I was quitting and hence unable to read any replies, and despite other peoples complaints about "spam" one of those copies is still alive and being replied to. Sadly, but not surprisingly, almost all of the current replies are along the lines of "everyone shut up so this thread can die, I'm tired of this spam in my inbox, no-one cares ok?"
Everything else has been deleted by me. The site requires a profile image of some kind, it wouldn't let me simply delete my photo. So I gave it one of those Despair posters in my photo's place.
3)This is a company that has proven that the members are the product, not the customer. They have also proven that they will lie or use deceptive practices to ensure that the real money makers can continue unimpeded. I have nothing to assure you that your profile will be deleted as requested. (At the moment, Facebook admins are playing the "you gotta delete all your personal stuff first" game with me thanks to that mass email I mentioned.)
I have been exchanging emails with a Pam from User support on my concerns. If anyone wants to read what she has to say to me, reply to this post and I'll copy and paste the contents over to my reply.
Actually, I have had reasonable experiences with Tigerdirect.ca. Setting aside the whole Mail In Rebate nonsense, my experiences with them have always exceeded my expectations. My experiences with cartridgestore.ca on the phone have been stellar. I'm not fond of their website, but the people you get on the phone actually work in the store and really know printers and printer supplies.
Oblig. disclaimer: Aside from having purchased products from each of these, I have no connection, business or otherwise with either firm. This is exactly what it appears to be, an unsolicited testimonial from a satisfied customer. IYMMV
And I was just able to confirm that a message I sent to everyone in my contact list is still bouncing back and forth between all the people it is addressed to. Funny but sad is that the vast majority of the replies are requests for everyone else to stop replying to it as they are sick of getting what they call "spam" in their inbox. My inbox contained all the replies that had been made since after I deactivated my account and requested that it be deleted. (Using the form field on the deactivation request page.) Clearly, my account, while "deactivated" is still able to accept messages on my behalf. And from what I recall reading in the Beacon announcement, advertisers are still able to use what little profile information remains to further their campaigns. Apparently, the only people who can't see a deactivated profile are the other users. Another sad and not unexpected development is that more of my contacts complained about my "spamming" them or took the time to belittle my privacy concerns than chose to think about the issues or even click on the links I provided for more information. I have now become the family crank whose emails are often deleted unread while all them keep creating more and more personal content for Facebook to sell.