You just beat me to it:) Echelon still exists, although it uses a legal loophole that prevents (not that effectively, it would seem) governments from spying directly on their citizens. Instead, the US government allows the UK to spy on US citizens, while the UK government allows the US to spy on the British. Then they swap reports. The result is essentially the same as spying on your own people, and covers all phone calls, faxes and email transmissions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
Not only that, but he's been given bad advice regarding the astigmatisms. An astigmatism is usually caused by a mis-shaped cornea or lens in the eye. It is usually hereditary, but certain eye diseases and even sporting injuries can cause it. Staring at close-to objects doesn't. I have no doubt that having an astigmatism makes hours of intensive computer work trickier, but rest, water, frequent screen breaks (yeah, right) and not smoking while working can all help.
HTH.
You might wish to reconsider that choice. While Trend Micro's AV program certainly leaves your PC with plenty of CPU cycles free, it is also much less effective than more heavy-weight options. While I have not found McAfee VirusScan to be the best, it's more accurate than Trend's offering. Other good ones (F-Secure and Kaspersky) are also CPU hogs. Rather a slow PC than a nuked one, IMHO.
The reason format wars are annoying is that early adopters get burned. At least the drive is external, so there is scope for upgrading just that, and not the whole device. Consumers could nix a format by ignoring it, but why bother? It's rare that one format has particularly more interesting features than another in practice (for non-hacker types). The obvious solution is to wait and see what happens but, if you can't bear to do that and have pots of cash, buy easily-upgradable gadgets.
That bullshit external drive will be potentially a lot easier to ditch and upgrade when the standards all change 5 minutes later. Rather that than buy a whole new console, IMHO.
In wonder if it will continue to be the case, if/when TVs become more fully-featured. Imagine millions of net-connected TVs worldwide - potentially an attractive target for virus writers, I would have thought. Macs/Linux desktops are not as prevalent as Windows desktops, but TVs tend to be quite popular. That said, I have Linux server logs packed with intrusion attempts from Linux worms. I've encountered more worm/rootkit combinations in the last year than Windows viruses (I don't run Windows often).
Also consider necessary background utilities your TV might need to run. Personal firewalls, anti-virus scanners, some-software-not-yet-invented that will handle your internet TV subscriptions, 'tuner' programs and so on will all require memory and processor cycles. By the time we're all watching telly off the internet, our TVs might be heavily loaded with software that will protect us from the next uber-virus capable of infecting streaming video, or some such annoyance.
That's not going to happen unless we either have fast hardware or a very efficient (and secure) operating system - or both,
Tell that to Dan Cuthbert. He threw a../ at a charity website and ended up branded the 'Tsunami Hacker'. You don't have to actually gain unauthorised access to a site to be deemed a 'hacker' these days.
Slashdot Mirror
You just beat me to it :) Echelon still exists, although it uses a legal loophole that prevents (not that effectively, it would seem) governments from spying directly on their citizens. Instead, the US government allows the UK to spy on US citizens, while the UK government allows the US to spy on the British. Then they swap reports. The result is essentially the same as spying on your own people, and covers all phone calls, faxes and email transmissions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
If people are prepared to spot themselves on Google Earth, as well as other things, there's no reason why they won't look for specks of stardust.
punch cards?
Getting a girlfriend is going to help neither his concentration nor his programming skills.
Not only that, but he's been given bad advice regarding the astigmatisms. An astigmatism is usually caused by a mis-shaped cornea or lens in the eye. It is usually hereditary, but certain eye diseases and even sporting injuries can cause it. Staring at close-to objects doesn't. I have no doubt that having an astigmatism makes hours of intensive computer work trickier, but rest, water, frequent screen breaks (yeah, right) and not smoking while working can all help. HTH.
I had hoped that the situation in Soweto had changed. The news report you link to is seven years old. However, it seems not. Just over a year ago there was a report about boys as young as seven committing gang rapes: The youngest member of this group is just six - barely capable of tying his own shoe laces, yet somehow old enough to have committed the most serious of sexual offences, however impossible that might sound.
You might wish to reconsider that choice. While Trend Micro's AV program certainly leaves your PC with plenty of CPU cycles free, it is also much less effective than more heavy-weight options. While I have not found McAfee VirusScan to be the best, it's more accurate than Trend's offering. Other good ones (F-Secure and Kaspersky) are also CPU hogs. Rather a slow PC than a nuked one, IMHO.
The reason format wars are annoying is that early adopters get burned. At least the drive is external, so there is scope for upgrading just that, and not the whole device. Consumers could nix a format by ignoring it, but why bother? It's rare that one format has particularly more interesting features than another in practice (for non-hacker types). The obvious solution is to wait and see what happens but, if you can't bear to do that and have pots of cash, buy easily-upgradable gadgets.
That bullshit external drive will be potentially a lot easier to ditch and upgrade when the standards all change 5 minutes later. Rather that than buy a whole new console, IMHO.
In wonder if it will continue to be the case, if/when TVs become more fully-featured. Imagine millions of net-connected TVs worldwide - potentially an attractive target for virus writers, I would have thought. Macs/Linux desktops are not as prevalent as Windows desktops, but TVs tend to be quite popular. That said, I have Linux server logs packed with intrusion attempts from Linux worms. I've encountered more worm/rootkit combinations in the last year than Windows viruses (I don't run Windows often).
Also consider necessary background utilities your TV might need to run. Personal firewalls, anti-virus scanners, some-software-not-yet-invented that will handle your internet TV subscriptions, 'tuner' programs and so on will all require memory and processor cycles. By the time we're all watching telly off the internet, our TVs might be heavily loaded with software that will protect us from the next uber-virus capable of infecting streaming video, or some such annoyance. That's not going to happen unless we either have fast hardware or a very efficient (and secure) operating system - or both,
Tell that to Dan Cuthbert. He threw a ../ at a charity website and ended up branded the 'Tsunami Hacker'. You don't have to actually gain unauthorised access to a site to be deemed a 'hacker' these days.