So if this passes and the teleco's get their immunity can they be forced to show what they did? A lot of grants of immunity seem to be so that the immunized party can testify to the actions they took (legal or illegal). So with the immunity they shouldn't have any reason to protest releasing the records showing just how big this was/is.
Card games like these were implemented on Plato (University of Illinois educational system from the 70s/80s/90s) in the late 70s and 80s. They were called inter-terminal games. The terminals were all connected back to the mainframe. If you want to argue that the terminals were just display devices (512x512 plasma screens with keyboards and touch panels) there were also plenty games written for the PlatoV/IST/Viking terminals (later generation terminals that had 8080 or z80 procs in them that you could run downloaded code on).
Networked ranking systems have existed on Plato since shortly after the first inter-terminal games were written.
Patents like these are stupid because there is prior art available.
I've got a friend who worked at a software company for a number of years and was involved in a lot of projects. He gave his notice and said he could continue working for up to 4 weeks to help transition projects if needed. He had timed things to be leaving after wrapping up the project he was working on. Really tried to be a nice guy about it. And he was switching to a job that did software in a totally different field -- no common customers, no related technology.
The management didn't quite see it that way. He was asked to wait in a conference room while they conferred. They had security put his personal possessions into a box, turned off his access, had HR come review all his NDAs and threaten him, and then made a public announcement (over the paging system) that he was no longer an employee and was being escorted out. And then gave a 2 security guard escort to the parking lot, and followed him until he drove off the lot.
He tried to keep it all in perspective -- he was a bit shocked at how he was treated since he thought he had a good relationship with the company, and had wanted to leave on good terms. His new employer was happy to let him start early.
Funny enough two weeks later the old company called him. Could he help fix a problem a very important customer was running into? They said if he came in and helped he could pick up his final paycheck at the same time (nice veiled threat). He was cool about it. He said that his new job was taking up all this time and he didn't have any time currently, but that he might be able to offer some advice to the current staff over the phone. Oh, and they could mail him his check. Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. Lots of threats, cursing, and such. Wish he'd recorded that. His new company gave him Group Legal as part of his benefits, so last I heard he was using that to attempt to get his final paycheck. And he's incredibly happy at his new company.
He'd have done it with style. This would be beneath him -- in fact he'd probably be insulted. He'd probably clean the place out and then blow up the building as a lesson to the owners.
Oh, he'd have said something witty, too.
His wife would have just killed everyone in the middle of the day.
The AT&T Star (? think that was the name, plastic case, deployed on lots of contracts) was designed for easy servicing. The product manager's young daughter was shown replacing the mobo in it. This was back in the early 90s.
I've used TiVo for years. When I got an HD tv I got the comcast/motorola DVR (DCT3416). I've been through 3 boxes so far. The software in the box is horrible. It gets "busy" and doesn't respond to the remote for 30 seconds or more, but it is queuing up all the buttons to replay as soon as it isn't busy. If you fast forward/reverse there is a chance that it will get freeze. Playback sometimes doesn't include sound unless you change the channel and go back. Don't even get me started on how the box handles (crashes is a better word) EAS (emergency signals). I've accumulated a dozen or so software issues with the box that the company says "we know, but there is no scheduled fix date."
And my favorite is that after a couple of months the box will start "slowing down" more and more frequently. The fix is to replace the box -- so says Comcast.
So yes -- I will gladly be purchasing the TiVo HD box just so I can get rid of the piece of junk Comcast/Motorola calls a DVR.
I've been using the Motorola Comcast HD-DVR since January. I've gone through 3 units. Each one is a steaming pile of crap.
The most annoying problem is what the article describes -- that it just "hangs" and stops responding to input. But most of the time it is queuing up the input. So if you've hit a lot of buttons they are all waiting to be replayed.
There are other common situations near the top of the hour where the unit freezes for a minute or two.
The unit sometimes gets into a situation where it drops frames while displaying HD signals. So any movement in the picture is jumpy.
The "Emergency Access System" for displaying Amber alerts, Weather events, whatever doesn't appear to ever have been tested. It usually crashes my unit which requires a power cycle to get it working again.
Comcast doesn't want to hear about these problems. They don't care.
How about a port of Pidgin or some other open source (ad free) messenger for WinCE 5 (on an HTC Wizard)? The software that comes with the TMobile MDA blows (and uses SMS).
Now that China is starting to develop IP of their own it will be interesting to see how they react when other countries pirate it. I doubt they'll say "it's ok."
I'll get the room next to the vending machines. Listening to the THUNK of cans of Coke or Pepsi (whichever pays for sponsorship) being dispensed is always fun.
Actually it'll probably be the manuvering jets firing outside the wall all night.
To me the real question is "When will Sun be releasing the various TCKs?" The conformance suites are what is needed to validate any of the java implementations and call them "Java" in the eyes of Sun (and their lawyers).
As James Gosling has said -- the source to the JVMs and libraries has been available for 10 years. But the TCKs aren't available in source or binary form.
This has been going on for literally decades. Lots of old "time sharing" systems would add custom MOTDs for holidays. The University of Illinois Plato System used to customize the "clock page" on the login display (512x512 plasma display terminals back in the '70s!). It got turned into a pumpkin on Halloween, a Christmas tree on christmas, a turkey on ThanksGiving http://www.platopeople.com/whatsnew.html/ midway down the page is an example image from 1973.
*RANT ON* Nothing will change until the "important" people get their personal information outted -- and on a regular basis.
The government (Congress, President) don't really care about folks like the veterans beyond paying lipservice to the data thefts.
Now if we'd see where all the personal information of people in the Executive and Legislative branches was stolen and published we might see some action.
I'm surprised nobody regularly publishes the information of the upper management teams of the major credit reporting agencies. Actually I'm not. Clearly these folks are helping to support ID theft by lobbying Congress to NOT allow any crackdowns. They are probably provided immunity from ID theft as a courtesy by the major ID theft organizations.
It was recently reported that Congress is working on a bill to override the 17 state laws cracking down on ID theft. One change would be the right to "freeze" your credit information. Some states allow you to do that whenever you want. The proposed change would be to allow you to freeze it only AFTER your ID had been stolen and misused (you'd have to prove it).
It used to be that to have a successful game you had to focus on gameplay -- not just pretty graphics and sound. There are some games these days that have good gameplay but years ago when the hardware could only pump out low-res bitmaps and every cycle mattered you truly had to think about how to make the game fun. And in the arcade business you had to make it fun on the first quarter otherwise no more got pumped in.
Eugene Jarvis, Larry DeMar, Ed Logg, Bob Flanagan, Owen Rubin just to name a few.
Slashdot Mirror
Nerf guns would be fun..
Lawn Darts are probably out..
I assume they are also entering the locations of all donut shops, food kiosks and bars.
You're probably thinking of the four color theorem. Appel and Haken proved it in 1976.
Maybe it has a bumper sticker that says "We Stop For No One".
So if this passes and the teleco's get their immunity can they be forced to show what they did? A lot of grants of immunity seem to be so that the immunized party can testify to the actions they took (legal or illegal). So with the immunity they shouldn't have any reason to protest releasing the records showing just how big this was/is.
Card games like these were implemented on Plato (University of Illinois educational system from the 70s/80s/90s) in the late 70s and 80s. They were called inter-terminal games. The terminals were all connected back to the mainframe. If you want to argue that the terminals were just display devices (512x512 plasma screens with keyboards and touch panels) there were also plenty games written for the PlatoV/IST/Viking terminals (later generation terminals that had 8080 or z80 procs in them that you could run downloaded code on).
Networked ranking systems have existed on Plato since shortly after the first inter-terminal games were written.
Patents like these are stupid because there is prior art available.
I wonder if he keeps the Galileo in the garage?
I've got a friend who worked at a software company for a number of years and was involved in a lot of projects. He gave his notice and said he could continue working for up to 4 weeks to help transition projects if needed. He had timed things to be leaving after wrapping up the project he was working on. Really tried to be a nice guy about it. And he was switching to a job that did software in a totally different field -- no common customers, no related technology.
The management didn't quite see it that way. He was asked to wait in a conference room while they conferred. They had security put his personal possessions into a box, turned off his access, had HR come review all his NDAs and threaten him, and then made a public announcement (over the paging system) that he was no longer an employee and was being escorted out. And then gave a 2 security guard escort to the parking lot, and followed him until he drove off the lot.
He tried to keep it all in perspective -- he was a bit shocked at how he was treated since he thought he had a good relationship with the company, and had wanted to leave on good terms. His new employer was happy to let him start early.
Funny enough two weeks later the old company called him. Could he help fix a problem a very important customer was running into? They said if he came in and helped he could pick up his final paycheck at the same time (nice veiled threat). He was cool about it. He said that his new job was taking up all this time and he didn't have any time currently, but that he might be able to offer some advice to the current staff over the phone. Oh, and they could mail him his check. Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. Lots of threats, cursing, and such. Wish he'd recorded that. His new company gave him Group Legal as part of his benefits, so last I heard he was using that to attempt to get his final paycheck. And he's incredibly happy at his new company.
He'd have done it with style. This would be beneath him -- in fact he'd probably be insulted. He'd probably clean the place out and then blow up the building as a lesson to the owners.
Oh, he'd have said something witty, too.
His wife would have just killed everyone in the middle of the day.
Obviously a ship starting its deceleration burn.
Why are they baffled? They use the word "unlimited". To most people that means "without limit".
They like the sound of the word in their advertising. They just don't like to have to live up to that definition.
The AT&T Star (? think that was the name, plastic case, deployed on lots of contracts) was designed for easy servicing. The product manager's young daughter was shown replacing the mobo in it. This was back in the early 90s.
I've used TiVo for years. When I got an HD tv I got the comcast/motorola DVR (DCT3416). I've been through 3 boxes so far. The software in the box is horrible. It gets "busy" and doesn't respond to the remote for 30 seconds or more, but it is queuing up all the buttons to replay as soon as it isn't busy. If you fast forward/reverse there is a chance that it will get freeze. Playback sometimes doesn't include sound unless you change the channel and go back. Don't even get me started on how the box handles (crashes is a better word) EAS (emergency signals). I've accumulated a dozen or so software issues with the box that the company says "we know, but there is no scheduled fix date."
And my favorite is that after a couple of months the box will start "slowing down" more and more frequently. The fix is to replace the box -- so says Comcast.
So yes -- I will gladly be purchasing the TiVo HD box just so I can get rid of the piece of junk Comcast/Motorola calls a DVR.
I've been using the Motorola Comcast HD-DVR since January. I've gone through 3 units. Each one is a steaming pile of crap.
The most annoying problem is what the article describes -- that it just "hangs" and stops responding to input. But most of the time it is queuing up the input. So if you've hit a lot of buttons they are all waiting to be replayed.
There are other common situations near the top of the hour where the unit freezes for a minute or two.
The unit sometimes gets into a situation where it drops frames while displaying HD signals. So any movement in the picture is jumpy.
The "Emergency Access System" for displaying Amber alerts, Weather events, whatever doesn't appear to ever have been tested. It usually crashes my unit which requires a power cycle to get it working again.
Comcast doesn't want to hear about these problems. They don't care.
"Buy it after waiting 1 second" button.
How about a port of Pidgin or some other open source (ad free) messenger for WinCE 5 (on an HTC Wizard)? The software that comes with the TMobile MDA blows (and uses SMS).
Now that China is starting to develop IP of their own it will be interesting to see how they react when other countries pirate it. I doubt they'll say "it's ok."
Let's not forget the American Gothic episode titled "Meet the Beatles".
I'll get the room next to the vending machines. Listening to the THUNK of cans of Coke or Pepsi (whichever pays for sponsorship) being dispensed is always fun.
Actually it'll probably be the manuvering jets firing outside the wall all night.
To me the real question is "When will Sun be releasing the various TCKs?" The conformance suites are what is needed to validate any of the java implementations and call them "Java" in the eyes of Sun (and their lawyers).
As James Gosling has said -- the source to the JVMs and libraries has been available for 10 years. But the TCKs aren't available in source or binary form.
How about Jet Li for Sulu. No more wimpy sword fights.
This has been going on for literally decades. Lots of old "time sharing" systems would add custom MOTDs for holidays. The University of Illinois Plato System used to customize the "clock page" on the login display (512x512 plasma display terminals back in the '70s!). It got turned into a pumpkin on Halloween, a Christmas tree on christmas, a turkey on ThanksGiving http://www.platopeople.com/whatsnew.html/ midway down the page is an example image from 1973.
Now if we only had some Scrith to make it out of. It worked for the sunshade on the Ringworld. And was useful for a lot of other things.
*RANT ON*
Nothing will change until the "important" people get their personal information outted -- and on a regular basis.
The government (Congress, President) don't really care about folks like the veterans beyond paying lipservice to the data thefts.
Now if we'd see where all the personal information of people in the Executive and Legislative branches was stolen and published we might see some action.
I'm surprised nobody regularly publishes the information of the upper management teams of the major credit reporting agencies. Actually I'm not. Clearly these folks are helping to support ID theft by lobbying Congress to NOT allow any crackdowns. They are probably provided immunity from ID theft as a courtesy by the major ID theft organizations.
It was recently reported that Congress is working on a bill to override the 17 state laws cracking down on ID theft. One change would be the right to "freeze" your credit information. Some states allow you to do that whenever you want. The proposed change would be to allow you to freeze it only AFTER your ID had been stolen and misused (you'd have to prove it).
Nice...
*RANT OFF*
It used to be that to have a successful game you had to focus on gameplay -- not just pretty graphics and sound. There are some games these days that have good gameplay but years ago when the hardware could only pump out low-res bitmaps and every cycle mattered you truly had to think about how to make the game fun. And in the arcade business you had to make it fun on the first quarter otherwise no more got pumped in.
Eugene Jarvis, Larry DeMar, Ed Logg, Bob Flanagan, Owen Rubin just to name a few.