I've beaten off clueless geeks once or twice before, and I haven't found a good way to do it.
Plenty of lube and a solid pair of safety glasses might be a good start.*
*You asked for it, and damn am I glad we don't work together. That would surely have gotten me reprimanded.
I fail to see the difference - the quality is the same to you.
The difference will be in the price, and the advertised features of the *more expensive equipment*. Would you be pissed if you bought a Viper and found out the manufacturer had put in a limiter that wouldn't let you exceed 45mph if you used non-factory wheel rims?
OK, let's compare apples to apples. Run IE for six months, surfing as normal. At the end of this period, perform a test:
Open 5 or 6 IE windows, then add up the resource usage for IE, plus the resource usage of any and all spyware processes running, plus any plug-ins for IE. Compare this total usage to Firefox memory usage, having the same pages loaded in tabs.
If some brilliant music entrepreneur wanted to make a small fortune, s/he would offer lifetime downloadability of tracks in whatever protected format is popular at the time.
This would require the tracking of your purchase history, but if your hard drive crashed, a file got corrupted, or a next-gen format came out that offered superior quality, you'd be able to re-download the song in the new format.
For this additional service level, people would pay, say $1.50 instead of $1 per track. At least this way, you'd never have to worry about your investment in music being wiped out due to unforeseen events.
The notion that the majority of us shouldn't be able to do a thing because a tiny, dysfunctional minority might not be able to handle it is absurd.
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they went after the potheads, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a pothead. Next, they went after the protesters, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a protester. After that, they tried to crack down on unwholesome music, but I wasn't a musician so I said nothing. Now, they've gone after games and I have no excuse on which to base my arguments.
(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller.)
And yes, I realize the seriousness of the original context... but I couldn't help mentioning the similarity.
While I admire the intent behind this movement, this will serve only to further limit Chinese exposure to American culture and ideas. We should be encouraging businesses to push into Chinese markets, both for social reasons and to restore (as much as possible) the trade balance between nations.
Well, under the social contract we call the Constitution, the courts have a handy checklist of things the Gov't can do. If something doesn't show up in the Constitution, it's supposed to be a no-no to try and regulate it.
It really should be simple, but there are a lot of people in this world who just can't understand that. I don't know whether to laugh at them or to cry at the stupid, miserable state of humanity when something so simple is so often misunderstood.
Sorry, but the first amendment only covers those things that it explicitly states: Religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly, and communication to the government. Expression is not solely defined by speech, and is thus not covered by the First Amendment.. The U.S. is not Germany, which does have a freedom of expression law.
I love when people assume that whatever's in the First 8 amendments is all the Constitution has to say on the issue of rights. See:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And yeah, the issue at hand might be whether the First Amendment deals with expression (according to SCOTUS, it does), but the argument seemed to include a tangent as to whether a right to expression exists. It does.
First off, (Magic) Kingdom for Sale isn't Terry Pratchett. That's Terry Brooks.
90% of Pratchett's work is set in Discworld, and they're not "series" as such. Whichever set of his characters he's most interested in at the time, he publishes a book about. So, sometimes it's hit-and-miss.
From *this* fan's perspective, you should read (in descending order of importance):
1. Small Gods (funny book, doesn't require a lot of prior DW knowledge) 2. Feet of Clay (my first discworld read, also very accessible). 3. Interesting Times (IMNSHO, the funniest DW book).
Now, as is always the case, others will have different opinions. The man has written nearly 30 books set in Discworld, so almost anyone you ask will have different favorites. My bet is that most would recommend Small Gods as an introduction to the Pratchett style, without having to read every other Discworld book to catch all the inside-jokes.
I believe that the current state of "intellectual property" laws is not meeting this justification, and is actually impeding creativity & innovation in our society.
Okay, I've seen about a thousand different ideas for altering or outright disposing of the copyright system. Many of the arguments presented hinge on the point that the current system, by extending copyright for such a long term, is inhibiting creativity.
How exactly is it that not allowing someone to re-use an old idea (say, Mickey Mouse) is somehow stifling creativity? In my mind, a long copyright term almost seems to *enforce* creativity. If you can't re-use the ideas and images of others, you're going to have to come up with content on your own, right?
I couldn't care less about trademark law, so long as no generic terms are allowed as trademarks. What's left?
Patents. As far as I can see, the Patent system is the only area of IP law that really has an inhibiting effect on innovation. There are only two kinds of successful inventors: those who can afford to thoroughly research existing patents, looking for submarine patents, and those who have the savvy to sell their ideas to companies (either for research and production, or as part of a patent portfolio).
If I'm missing something here, please feel free to point it out, but I just don't see where limiting peoples' ability to copy already-existent ideas somehow inhibits new creations.
1. What are the theories behind simple anonymous sharing of data?
For starters, turn as many people as possible into open proxies. Then encrypt traffic between those proxies. Get brave volunteers to allow their machines to be end-nodes (places where traffic is allowed to exit and enter the network) instead of just routing nodes. Ideally, the end-nodes should be located in countries with a) negligible computer-crime budgets, or b) negligible computer crime laws. This has a detrimental effect on network latency (and possibly throughput), but it's hard for a country to prosecute someone for something that isn't illegal where the someone lives.
2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?
The concept of a swarm is incompatible with anonymity. See, in a Bittorrent situation, there must be some entity that handles the "who gets connected to whom". Also, it's always possible to see the IP address of anyone who sends you data. So if you're in a swarm, you can tell (by sniffing your own traffic) who is sending and receiving data. If you're only receiving illegal files, you can logically assume that anyone sending you bits is providing said illegal data.
One notable exception to this would be if an entire area (say, a neighborhood, town, or nation) were to have a free-access mesh network that offers dynamic addressing. Then someone could, in theory, write software that would periodically establish a new IP address within the mesh (disconnect, change MAC address, reconnect). Add bonus points if all traffic between the clients and the access point is encrypted.
3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?
The need for information privacy is as important now as it has ever been, or will ever be. It's all based on the user's perception. If you maintain good security practices and don't wind up with trojans on your system, *and* you don't do anything illegal, you only have to worry about commercial exploitation. If you get hacked, the acts of another could be pinned on you.
More important than the need for information privacy is the need for a consensus that the mere encryption of data does not constitute a reason for the authorities to break it and/or question you. Ideally, they'd require real-world probable cause before even being able to capture your traffic. All too often, that is not the case.
Climatology does not have much demonstrated predictive capability (remember, in the 70's the disaster du jour was a new ice age).
The problem with this statement is that you completely discount the ability of a scientific field to improve its methods, technologies, and results.
In 1971, Intel released the 4004, widely considered the world's first microprocessor. It was capable of a whopping 740khz. It would have taken 52 million of those processors to perform in equivalence to the Earth Simulator, which is entirely dedicated to studying the climate, and is not the only such computing device available to climatologists.
The sciences have come a long way from the days of using a slide rule for calculations. Maybe you should re-think this argument using a more modern mindset.
All of that said, I agree with you that alternate energy sources should be a top priority for the human race, with a heavy focus on sources that might prove to be more environmentally neutral.
Those who say this is worthless because it doesn't completely fix all your problems with the system, should evaluate the following:
"All these incremental fixes to Firefox are just annoying. I wish they'd just get over it and release version 5.1 *right now*. Anything else is a waste of time and effort."
Change at this level of society doesn't come in an avalanche, it's an incremental, patch-like process. This is done to minimize harm to the basic structure of society, which after all has fed and educated some of us, despite its flaws. I don't know how many others like me are out there, but I know I've been hoping for exactly this kind of open review for patents for a long time. Now hobbyists and competing commercial interests will have the ability and incentive to help crush some of the utterly stupid patents that get granted.
I guess as long as they're not planning to have the satellite return to Earth, it's all good. Remember, this is how Night of the Living Dead all started.
Slashdot is catching up with fark.com... seriously, how many story submissions were directly inspired by a fark headline? Do some submitters think the net cred they earn for the submission isn't counterbalanced by their being complete tools?
I saw this on fark *days* ago. It isn't news, it's barely for nerds, and it doesn't matter.
For another, kids in the US, as a whole, are far from "all right" these days. If you don't see that, you're not taking an honest look at the state of today's younger generation.
You, sir, are perpetuating the very same view of the next generation that has been held by adults since the dawn of time.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation. - Adlai Stevenson
The idea that the younger generation is less moral, less disciplined, less smart, less hard-working, etc., is thousands of years old. EVERY generation seems to believe this about the generation after it.
Methinks you misunderestimate the number of Windows users who take whatever settings Microsoft gives them (ie, DRMed WMV cd-rips). Compounded by the very-much-larger installed base, I'd still assume that AAC was in third place, but rapidly threatening WMA's dominion over second.
In my estimation:
1)MP3 == 80%
2)WMV == 10%
3)AAC == 7.5%
4)OGG == 2.0%
5)Others == %0.5
but for every success there are hundreds of completely useless failures out there.
"No, I haven't failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work!"
---Thomas Edison on "failed attempts" to create the lightbulb
It is also true that for every closed-source success story, there are hundreds (or more) failures. The same applies to almost every area of life, in fact.
Choose 2 initial keystrokes; use a 5 or 6 digit word that describes what you're protecting (make sure it's always the same number of digits, for memorization purposes); add 2 numerical digits to the end.
So your bank pass might be "qimybank41", your slashdot pass might be "qislashd41", and your paypal "qipaypal41".
This generates a 9-10 character password that is cryptographically strong while enabling you to instantly remember any password for something you use.
It is, of course, strongest when the first and last sets of keys are randomly chosen; you should also practice common security such as not letting people read over your shoulder.
If you don't reveal your modifying keys (intentionally or by stupidity), the only way your pass will be cracked is if your computer is already compromised (ie, packet sniffers and keystroke loggers).
A method for increasing the storage space available on a disc.
Abstract: This method will enable any producer of CD/DVD/etc media to increase the total available storage of said media, as well as allowing the master device to read and write to said discs in a faster fashion.
The Method: make the bits smaller.
3. Profit??
Um... I'm about to put my head on the karma chopping block on this one, but:
Microsoft banked 9 BILLION $ last year. Significant negative growth (their revenue did actually drop from 2003) aside, the odds of any 10-year stretch leaving the company shattered on the rocks are pretty slim, barring disastrous mismanagement.
They're sitting on enough cash that the company could operate with Zero revenue for a very long period of time, and the odds of that happening any time soon are indeed very low.
As for 'scrambling to stay relevant' - it's a lot easier to stay relevant than to be relevant. I say this vis a vis Firefox. It's a radically superior alternative to IE in almost every respect, has been around for a while, is stable, and got major publicity. Yet IE's market share has not tumbled, merely taken a dip. $10 says that 5 years from now, IE (or, MS's flagship browser, should it ever change names) will still be the dominant browser, defined as a market usage of >50%.
Underestimating your opponents is not wise, and it seems you are doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so fast. WWW by a mile.
I've beaten off clueless geeks once or twice before, and I haven't found a good way to do it. Plenty of lube and a solid pair of safety glasses might be a good start.* *You asked for it, and damn am I glad we don't work together. That would surely have gotten me reprimanded.
The difference will be in the price, and the advertised features of the *more expensive equipment*. Would you be pissed if you bought a Viper and found out the manufacturer had put in a limiter that wouldn't let you exceed 45mph if you used non-factory wheel rims?
Open 5 or 6 IE windows, then add up the resource usage for IE, plus the resource usage of any and all spyware processes running, plus any plug-ins for IE. Compare this total usage to Firefox memory usage, having the same pages loaded in tabs.
THEN tell me Firefox is a memory hog.
This would require the tracking of your purchase history, but if your hard drive crashed, a file got corrupted, or a next-gen format came out that offered superior quality, you'd be able to re-download the song in the new format.
For this additional service level, people would pay, say $1.50 instead of $1 per track. At least this way, you'd never have to worry about your investment in music being wiped out due to unforeseen events.
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they went after the potheads, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a pothead. Next, they went after the protesters, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a protester. After that, they tried to crack down on unwholesome music, but I wasn't a musician so I said nothing. Now, they've gone after games and I have no excuse on which to base my arguments.
(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller.)
And yes, I realize the seriousness of the original context... but I couldn't help mentioning the similarity.
While I admire the intent behind this movement, this will serve only to further limit Chinese exposure to American culture and ideas. We should be encouraging businesses to push into Chinese markets, both for social reasons and to restore (as much as possible) the trade balance between nations.
It really should be simple, but there are a lot of people in this world who just can't understand that. I don't know whether to laugh at them or to cry at the stupid, miserable state of humanity when something so simple is so often misunderstood.
I love when people assume that whatever's in the First 8 amendments is all the Constitution has to say on the issue of rights. See:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And yeah, the issue at hand might be whether the First Amendment deals with expression (according to SCOTUS, it does), but the argument seemed to include a tangent as to whether a right to expression exists. It does.
90% of Pratchett's work is set in Discworld, and they're not "series" as such. Whichever set of his characters he's most interested in at the time, he publishes a book about. So, sometimes it's hit-and-miss.
From *this* fan's perspective, you should read (in descending order of importance):
1. Small Gods (funny book, doesn't require a lot of prior DW knowledge)
2. Feet of Clay (my first discworld read, also very accessible).
3. Interesting Times (IMNSHO, the funniest DW book).
Now, as is always the case, others will have different opinions. The man has written nearly 30 books set in Discworld, so almost anyone you ask will have different favorites. My bet is that most would recommend Small Gods as an introduction to the Pratchett style, without having to read every other Discworld book to catch all the inside-jokes.
Okay, I've seen about a thousand different ideas for altering or outright disposing of the copyright system. Many of the arguments presented hinge on the point that the current system, by extending copyright for such a long term, is inhibiting creativity.
How exactly is it that not allowing someone to re-use an old idea (say, Mickey Mouse) is somehow stifling creativity? In my mind, a long copyright term almost seems to *enforce* creativity. If you can't re-use the ideas and images of others, you're going to have to come up with content on your own, right?
I couldn't care less about trademark law, so long as no generic terms are allowed as trademarks. What's left?
Patents. As far as I can see, the Patent system is the only area of IP law that really has an inhibiting effect on innovation. There are only two kinds of successful inventors: those who can afford to thoroughly research existing patents, looking for submarine patents, and those who have the savvy to sell their ideas to companies (either for research and production, or as part of a patent portfolio).
If I'm missing something here, please feel free to point it out, but I just don't see where limiting peoples' ability to copy already-existent ideas somehow inhibits new creations.
For starters, turn as many people as possible into open proxies. Then encrypt traffic between those proxies. Get brave volunteers to allow their machines to be end-nodes (places where traffic is allowed to exit and enter the network) instead of just routing nodes. Ideally, the end-nodes should be located in countries with a) negligible computer-crime budgets, or b) negligible computer crime laws. This has a detrimental effect on network latency (and possibly throughput), but it's hard for a country to prosecute someone for something that isn't illegal where the someone lives.
2. Is it possible to completely diversify the Internet away from IP-based hosting to a new swarm-network of anonymous users all hosting little pieces of various forms of information? 2b. Is anyone working on this swarm idea?
The concept of a swarm is incompatible with anonymity. See, in a Bittorrent situation, there must be some entity that handles the "who gets connected to whom". Also, it's always possible to see the IP address of anyone who sends you data. So if you're in a swarm, you can tell (by sniffing your own traffic) who is sending and receiving data. If you're only receiving illegal files, you can logically assume that anyone sending you bits is providing said illegal data.
One notable exception to this would be if an entire area (say, a neighborhood, town, or nation) were to have a free-access mesh network that offers dynamic addressing. Then someone could, in theory, write software that would periodically establish a new IP address within the mesh (disconnect, change MAC address, reconnect). Add bonus points if all traffic between the clients and the access point is encrypted.
3. As information becomes more accessible, will the need for information privacy be important? 3b. Is it more important to create a totally anonymous information sharing network than it is to work on harder to break encryption schemes?
The need for information privacy is as important now as it has ever been, or will ever be. It's all based on the user's perception. If you maintain good security practices and don't wind up with trojans on your system, *and* you don't do anything illegal, you only have to worry about commercial exploitation. If you get hacked, the acts of another could be pinned on you.
More important than the need for information privacy is the need for a consensus that the mere encryption of data does not constitute a reason for the authorities to break it and/or question you. Ideally, they'd require real-world probable cause before even being able to capture your traffic. All too often, that is not the case.
The problem with this statement is that you completely discount the ability of a scientific field to improve its methods, technologies, and results.
In 1971, Intel released the 4004, widely considered the world's first microprocessor. It was capable of a whopping 740khz. It would have taken 52 million of those processors to perform in equivalence to the Earth Simulator, which is entirely dedicated to studying the climate, and is not the only such computing device available to climatologists.
The sciences have come a long way from the days of using a slide rule for calculations. Maybe you should re-think this argument using a more modern mindset.
All of that said, I agree with you that alternate energy sources should be a top priority for the human race, with a heavy focus on sources that might prove to be more environmentally neutral.
"All these incremental fixes to Firefox are just annoying. I wish they'd just get over it and release version 5.1 *right now*. Anything else is a waste of time and effort."
Change at this level of society doesn't come in an avalanche, it's an incremental, patch-like process. This is done to minimize harm to the basic structure of society, which after all has fed and educated some of us, despite its flaws. I don't know how many others like me are out there, but I know I've been hoping for exactly this kind of open review for patents for a long time. Now hobbyists and competing commercial interests will have the ability and incentive to help crush some of the utterly stupid patents that get granted.
I guess as long as they're not planning to have the satellite return to Earth, it's all good. Remember, this is how Night of the Living Dead all started.
Slashdot is catching up with fark.com ... seriously, how many story submissions were directly inspired by a fark headline? Do some submitters think the net cred they earn for the submission isn't counterbalanced by their being complete tools?
I saw this on fark *days* ago. It isn't news, it's barely for nerds, and it doesn't matter.
You, sir, are perpetuating the very same view of the next generation that has been held by adults since the dawn of time.
Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation. - Adlai Stevenson
The idea that the younger generation is less moral, less disciplined, less smart, less hard-working, etc., is thousands of years old. EVERY generation seems to believe this about the generation after it.
In my estimation:
1)MP3 == 80%
2)WMV == 10%
3)AAC == 7.5%
4)OGG == 2.0%
5)Others == %0.5
"No, I haven't failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work!" ---Thomas Edison on "failed attempts" to create the lightbulb
It is also true that for every closed-source success story, there are hundreds (or more) failures. The same applies to almost every area of life, in fact.
So your bank pass might be "qimybank41", your slashdot pass might be "qislashd41", and your paypal "qipaypal41".
This generates a 9-10 character password that is cryptographically strong while enabling you to instantly remember any password for something you use.
It is, of course, strongest when the first and last sets of keys are randomly chosen; you should also practice common security such as not letting people read over your shoulder.
If you don't reveal your modifying keys (intentionally or by stupidity), the only way your pass will be cracked is if your computer is already compromised (ie, packet sniffers and keystroke loggers).
Abstract: This method will enable any producer of CD/DVD/etc media to increase the total available storage of said media, as well as allowing the master device to read and write to said discs in a faster fashion. The Method: make the bits smaller. 3. Profit??
What to do next time:
1. Realize you got ditched.
2. Find another date.
3. Profit?
You mean there are women on slashdot?
Microsoft banked 9 BILLION $ last year. Significant negative growth (their revenue did actually drop from 2003) aside, the odds of any 10-year stretch leaving the company shattered on the rocks are pretty slim, barring disastrous mismanagement. They're sitting on enough cash that the company could operate with Zero revenue for a very long period of time, and the odds of that happening any time soon are indeed very low. As for 'scrambling to stay relevant' - it's a lot easier to stay relevant than to be relevant. I say this vis a vis Firefox. It's a radically superior alternative to IE in almost every respect, has been around for a while, is stable, and got major publicity. Yet IE's market share has not tumbled, merely taken a dip. $10 says that 5 years from now, IE (or, MS's flagship browser, should it ever change names) will still be the dominant browser, defined as a market usage of >50%. Underestimating your opponents is not wise, and it seems you are doing so.