SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.
The Space Station User's Guide is a terrific resource on the entire space station (written and assembled by one of the engineers who worked on it BTW), including the live NASA TV broadcast of the docking.
And yes, I submitted this link this morning to Slashdot but it got rejected in favour of the Space.com link in this story - go figure.
Depends on what you mean here. I use PHP scripts to present information drawn from my mysql database as webpages definitely. But I also use it to publish static html pages, create text files, ftp files from one server to another, verify data values in my database etc - all tasks that could have been done in Perl (and perhaps more effectively) but which I have done using PHP simply because I am more familiar with it than I am with Perl. In this sense, it is a competitor with Perl, in the sense that most sysadmins will not be writing their maintenance scripts in PHP, no it is probably not in competition with Perl.
Overall I find PHP scripts are easier to decipher when you return to them 6 months later to make a change, I think it has a simpler syntax and some very logical improvements over some aspects of Perl, and for these reasons I prefer it. Mind you there are some older scripts written in Perl that I still occasionally have to tweak, but most of these have been replaced by PHP scripts whenever the need arose.
But just think of the boon this could represent to script kiddies everwhere....
M$ AI: It looks like you are trying to crack a system, can I offer you some help from my knowledge base? There an excellent source of exploits covering most M$ products located here.
With regards to failures, when I was in Moscow in 1980 (on a Russian language immersion course that failed to achieve its goal since everyone I met wanted to practice their English), I visited a culture and technology fair which included a Space program display. The main feature was a complete mockup of a Soyuz craft that you could explore (but the lineup and time considerations prevented me from doing so alas), and behind it was a wall of photos of Astronauts in the Soviet Space program. I asked and was told it was a memorial to those who had died in the cause of exploring space. There must have been at least 100 faces up there, probably more than that (I seem to recall it was more like 300 but it is all very fuzzy in my mind now).
If this is true, then they have paid a far higher cost for their achievements than the great folks at NASA have ever faced.
At least this is in the Summer with temperatures hovering in the near zero range from what I understand. The only time I was in the high arctic, I spent 2 weeks at Clyde River on Baffin Island in early December. It completely redefined cold for me. Temperatures ranged from -20C to -40C (with windchill making that an impressive -70C at night on one occaision). There we were in like 9 layers of clothing and the local Innuit kids are racing around in jeans, a heavy T-shirt and sneakers on their snowmobiles. We complained about the cold and the Innuit Rangers we were with told us we should come back in late January to early February when "The real winter comes". Since I was in the Canadian Army at the time, we naturally were staying in tents.
Mind you it was an incredible experience, but one I am glad to remember from the comfort of my balmy Victoria apartment thank you very much...
Why wrong geography? The Orientals did not have a monopoly on high quality swords - damascened steel swords were manufactured by the Arabs (thus the name), in Spain, and even by the Vikings. I think it is absolutely wonderful that they are making a western pattern sword, as it may help dispel the myth that only in the East could they make a decent sword. The processes involved were pretty much identical to those used in the East to the best of my knowledge.
We lost our sword fighting traditions with the rise of the industrial revolution. We retained fencing admittedly, but this is mostly preserved the highly stylized form of the modern sport, not as a martial art. We have lost the use of the older forms of swords such as the broadsword mentioned in this article completely, save for a few published works, and the efforts of organizations like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) who try to reproduce the methods used by practical application.
But lacking the sword-fighting traditions and preserved martial arts does not mean that the weapons themselves were not of great quality.
With regards to medieval swords, please don't forget that the armor of the time was poorly manufactured, and not to be compared (even mentally) with modern steel. It had a tendancy to shatter on impact, so the blow of a knight's sword did not need to pierce the metal armor of his opponent in some cases, but merely batter it into oblivion.
At least according to this article on spaceref.com which states that the eartch approaching asteroid 2000 BF19 has a small probability of impacting Earth. And this press release would seem to counteract the claims made here, since NASA states they have cut their estimate of the total number of large asteriods in the Solar System in half.
Perhaps trusting statistical analysis is the problem? Whats the saying "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics"?
I submitted this story, with a link to this brief article 5 hours ago and it was rejected. I don't want to whine, but its a shame to see the same story posted as news HOURS after it broke, but quoting a different website.
The only effective difference between the posting on Spaceref.com and Space.com is the fact that the former is more cautious about what is effectively still a rumour, and the later is willing to declare it fact when we won't actually know most of the details until they make the official announcement.
I have not seen the film, nor read the book, nor will I ever. I revile the "church" of $cientology in all its forms, and will do absolutely nothing to help it in any way. The only thing I can say about the film that is in any way positive is that because it is such a bad film (by all reports), I can only hope that the producers of the film fail to make enough money to justify any further attempts by the Co$ to try to profit from L. Ron Hubbard's books by turning them into films.
Note: I am completely tolerant where freedom of religion is concerned, being of a minority and often persecuted religion myself (Wicca), but I do not include $cientology in the category of religion but rather in the same category as confidence tricks and scams. It is the greatest perversion of the freedom of religion that the scam artists of the Church of $cientology can get away with their bilking of the guillible and hide behind the guise of being a Religion.
I bought a sword recently on ebay, for a grand total of $56 US. I estimated this as roughly $82 Cdn. Not bad I think, for what was offered and looked forward to receiving it. I had to pay an additional $15 shipping, plus $12 shipping to get it to Canada (Grand total so far $83 US).
Then it hit the border. Canada customs examined the package, opened it, and finding neither a receipt for the value, nor a declaration of the value of the item, appraised it at $250 Cdn. They then added duty of $17.50 Cdn, plus GST and PST of $18.73 Cdn each.
Three weeks after I ordered it, the postman arrived at my door and told me I had to pay $54.96 to receive the item. I had no cash on me, so I had to pick it up the following day from the post office.
I complained to Canada customs about the misevaluation, and once I send off a letter explaining the actual cost of the item, I (hopefully, this is the Government after all) will receive a reimbursement of some of the money, since the GST and PST charged were excessive.
My point here is simply that I purchased an item for $56 US, and ended up paying roughly $182 dollars for it (the exchange rate that day was slightly worse that I thought it was). I bow to the power of e-commerce which has apparently let me purchase an item which has more tax and shipping costs associated with it than the actual cost of the item. Needless to say, I don't plan on purchasing ANYTHING over the net in the future. Its just not economically feasible - what looked like a deal ended up being a complete rip-off IMHO, thanks to the Government duty and taxes and the costs charged for shipping.
There is absolutely NO NEED or justification for adding an additional tax burden onto the poor fucking consumer with a Web Tax. We are already getting reamed if we purchase over the net and have the temerity to buy across a national boundary.
I play a lot of Counterstrike (the most popular mod for Halflife online), and while it does slow you down when you are carrying a lot of stuff, its based on what weapon you have in your hand, not what you are carrying, so switching to the knife means you can run faster with a heavy weapon and lots of ammo. Kinda lame in the reality sense.
I do see any reason why they could not add a "fatigue meter" which reflects how much exertion you are putting out, slows down your reactions when high, and cycles down when you rest. I think this would add a bit of realism to games without taking away the fun factor of being able to haul around heavy weapons and loads of ammo. It would also equalize things for the poor schmuck who only has a pistol when you have an AK47. If you just ran a long ways and your aim and speed were affected while he has been at rest the entire time, then he might be able to pop you when you meet.
While not realistic overall, I think CS is probably better than most games out there for the balancing realism vs gameplay. Except for the stupid leaping maneuver to avoid being shot which I think they should eliminate.
As I see it, the greatest danger here is that we (as the Western World) have lost the willpower to actually place our troops in harm's way. Politicians (rightly enough) see media coverage of dead Americans (or Canadians in my country's case) as something negative which will be remembered the next time we visit the polls, so they are unwilling to risk casualties to achieve a national goal. The public's knowledge of what is at stake is entirely shaped by the media - who do not have "The Truth" in mind when they formulate a broadcast, but rather "The Ratings" (ie advertising potential) - and as a result the public is happy to see high-tech wizardry saving potential casualties to achieve some particular goal that they have been made to understand is important.
Mind you, The troops themselves are still motivated to risk their lives when directed, but it seems the political will to implement their use is utterly missing.
The problem with this is that artillery and aircraft have never one a war, it requires infantry on the ground occupying key targets to defeat an enemy. Unfortunately, this means casualties in any conflict - high tech wizardry can only limit the number of casualties, not eliminate them.
Events like Kosovo do not resolve situations, only delay them. The Balkans will errupt again in the next few years because we failed to solve the problem there, same as with Iraq. The folks that started the conflict on the other side are still in power in both cases.
One of the prime causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was the fact that they had hired foreign troops to defend it, and when push came to shove those troops were not motivated enough to actually be effective. I sincerely hope that high tech weapons and button pushing are not our "foreign troops"...
True enough on most of your points. I did not mean to imply that the readers of/. have any apparent power, but they are very good at winnowing out negative stories concerning the actions of Microsoft. Therefore any such actions are very likely to come to light.
As for piracy, sure, MS has every right to try to halt sales of pirated software, but where does it show that any effort has been made to ascertain that the software being sold is in fact pirated? In this you are correct, it is Ebay that is at fault here, since it appears they simply dumped any sales of MS software as soon as MS requested it.
As for PR, I think MS does have to worry about it. Prior to the MS-DOJ trial, the average person viewed MS as the perfectly ethical giant of the software industry. Apparently many folks were shocked to hear that MS had been accused of questionable business practices and had even violated the law. I think they DO need to worry about public opinion - for the first time the media is now starting to publish articles which are highly critical of MS. The general public may not read/. but they do read ZDnet, Wired, CNN, etc. If MS starts looking less than snow-white to the average user, then other OS options might look more acceptable to those who would not otherwise consider them. Its a small point, but I don't think it should be callously dismissed.
I realize this is a minor issue when compared to the points raised in the DOJ investigation, but MS using its might to restrict users abilities to sell legitimately purchased software on a legitimate exchange is surely indicative of the fact that it has not changed its modus operandi generally. This is the sort of action that I would expect to encounter where MS is concerned. This would seem to bode poorly for MS's ability to police itself were the courts to go with its suggested penalties in the monopoly case, no?
As for your summary, I concede your point, this is probably nothing more than a big corporation trying to fight piracy, and if a few legitimate sales get killed, not giving a damn since it only means that users will have to purchase their software new from MS, and not second hand at a better price. While/. may not have a lot of power on its own (ie none effectively), it does have the power of opinion. More and more news agencies seem to be turning to/. to get the latest news on various issues. At least its appearing as a quoted source more often it seems. Ironic, given that/. in many instances feeds off of news on those same sites.
I am purely amazed that at this juncture in the MS-DOJ trial proceedings that M$ would engage in such a negative way on such a public forum. I mean, its not like this would go unnoticed with the vigilant/. community on the prowl. You would think that if they had even half a wit between them, they would be pulling back into their shell a bit. I think they deserve to be broken up, if not closed completely.
Its bad enough that Ebay completely violated its own policies and re-rated the user comments up a notch (apparently making some negative comments into positive ones in the process), but its worse that M$ can use Ebay to ban legitimate sales of M$ software.
Mind you I have a copy of WinNT 4.0 on CD (totally legit) but I would not want to sell it to anyone - I would not want to inflict it on anyone. But then I have a conscience - I guess Microsoft does not...
And all system backups must be done onto 5 1/4 floppies...
Re: The problem with Euro E-Commerce
on
Boo No More
·
· Score: 2
What justifies these extreme costs? Somebody somewhere is making a killing on this, and at the same time killing the internet in Europe it would seem. I am not sure of the value of the pound, but it seems like I probably pay less in rent for my 2 bdrm apartment than you do for your 64kb connection.
I was considering moving to England or Scotland at some point in the next few years (always wanted to spend some time there) but perhaps not, if the future of the internet is looking bleak...
Under the FOIP I have the right to request that the Government send me a copy of all the information on me that is in this database, right?
Why don't we get as many citizens as possible to use this right to get sent their information.
Of course, since its a database, it gets updated. So perhaps we ought to request this information on a regular basis - say monthly.
If enough people did so, the government would have to close down the database because they could not afford to keep sending out the information to those citizens requesting it....
Let me assure you there is nothing "trivial" about a search engine - the amount of coding and research that goes into developing a new search engine on the order of Google or Fastsearch is anything but trivial. Thats why every time you see a new academic study on a new method of searching the web the folks involved end up leaving the university and forming a company (and all the research papers get harder to find after that too, funny eh?). The fact that most search engines are still not performing to the standard we might expect simply indicates the monumental task they face.
Oh, yeah. I asked it "What is Alexandrian Wicca?" and got a page that told me it did not know the word "Alexandrian", after telling it to accept the word, it told me it did not know the word "Wicca" and quit. A further question resulted in a response of "I don't know the answer to your question" (Which was "Who was Gerald Gardner?"). I chose these questions cause their kinda obscure - but I did not expect a completely null response. Next...
So, we would be adding a checkbox to grant/. permission to republish a specific comment, and a checkbox to grant them permission to delete a comment if required on a messsage-by-message basis? Excellent idea. I will have to incorporate that into my own php-based/.-like code (http://www.omphalos.net). Great ideas all....
By default these would have to be unchecked, but there could be a preferences panel option to automatically check them if the user so desires - assuming that this would not be challengable legally somehow. Perhaps we need to require a user to explicitly check their comments when submitting (so as to avoid the same criticisms that are applied to most software license agreements - which most folk do not read I am sure)...
Slashdot Mirror
SpaceRef.com has a whole section of their site devoted to providing information on the HMP/Mars project up in Haughton Crater. Marc Boucher of Spaceref is up in Haughton Crater as part of the NASA team and is the webmaster for the site. The latest entries from his personal journal are located here.
The Space Station User's Guide is a terrific resource on the entire space station (written and assembled by one of the engineers who worked on it BTW), including the live NASA TV broadcast of the docking.
And yes, I submitted this link this morning to Slashdot but it got rejected in favour of the Space.com link in this story - go figure.
Depends on what you mean here. I use PHP scripts to present information drawn from my mysql database as webpages definitely. But I also use it to publish static html pages, create text files, ftp files from one server to another, verify data values in my database etc - all tasks that could have been done in Perl (and perhaps more effectively) but which I have done using PHP simply because I am more familiar with it than I am with Perl. In this sense, it is a competitor with Perl, in the sense that most sysadmins will not be writing their maintenance scripts in PHP, no it is probably not in competition with Perl.
Overall I find PHP scripts are easier to decipher when you return to them 6 months later to make a change, I think it has a simpler syntax and some very logical improvements over some aspects of Perl, and for these reasons I prefer it. Mind you there are some older scripts written in Perl that I still occasionally have to tweak, but most of these have been replaced by PHP scripts whenever the need arose.
But just think of the boon this could represent to script kiddies everwhere....
M$ AI: It looks like you are trying to crack a system, can I offer you some help from my knowledge base? There an excellent source of exploits covering most M$ products located here.
There is more information on the Solar eruption over here on Spaceref.com.
With regards to failures, when I was in Moscow in 1980 (on a Russian language immersion course that failed to achieve its goal since everyone I met wanted to practice their English), I visited a culture and technology fair which included a Space program display. The main feature was a complete mockup of a Soyuz craft that you could explore (but the lineup and time considerations prevented me from doing so alas), and behind it was a wall of photos of Astronauts in the Soviet Space program. I asked and was told it was a memorial to those who had died in the cause of exploring space. There must have been at least 100 faces up there, probably more than that (I seem to recall it was more like 300 but it is all very fuzzy in my mind now).
If this is true, then they have paid a far higher cost for their achievements than the great folks at NASA have ever faced.
There is more information on Zvezda here on Spaceref.com.
At least this is in the Summer with temperatures hovering in the near zero range from what I understand. The only time I was in the high arctic, I spent 2 weeks at Clyde River on Baffin Island in early December. It completely redefined cold for me. Temperatures ranged from -20C to -40C (with windchill making that an impressive -70C at night on one occaision). There we were in like 9 layers of clothing and the local Innuit kids are racing around in jeans, a heavy T-shirt and sneakers on their snowmobiles. We complained about the cold and the Innuit Rangers we were with told us we should come back in late January to early February when "The real winter comes". Since I was in the Canadian Army at the time, we naturally were staying in tents.
Mind you it was an incredible experience, but one I am glad to remember from the comfort of my balmy Victoria apartment thank you very much...
Why wrong geography? The Orientals did not have a monopoly on high quality swords - damascened steel swords were manufactured by the Arabs (thus the name), in Spain, and even by the Vikings. I think it is absolutely wonderful that they are making a western pattern sword, as it may help dispel the myth that only in the East could they make a decent sword. The processes involved were pretty much identical to those used in the East to the best of my knowledge.
We lost our sword fighting traditions with the rise of the industrial revolution. We retained fencing admittedly, but this is mostly preserved the highly stylized form of the modern sport, not as a martial art. We have lost the use of the older forms of swords such as the broadsword mentioned in this article completely, save for a few published works, and the efforts of organizations like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) who try to reproduce the methods used by practical application.
But lacking the sword-fighting traditions and preserved martial arts does not mean that the weapons themselves were not of great quality.
With regards to medieval swords, please don't forget that the armor of the time was poorly manufactured, and not to be compared (even mentally) with modern steel. It had a tendancy to shatter on impact, so the blow of a knight's sword did not need to pierce the metal armor of his opponent in some cases, but merely batter it into oblivion.
At least according to this article on spaceref.com which states that the eartch approaching asteroid 2000 BF19 has a small probability of impacting Earth. And this press release would seem to counteract the claims made here, since NASA states they have cut their estimate of the total number of large asteriods in the Solar System in half.
Perhaps trusting statistical analysis is the problem? Whats the saying "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics"?
I submitted this story, with a link to this brief article 5 hours ago and it was rejected. I don't want to whine, but its a shame to see the same story posted as news HOURS after it broke, but quoting a different website.
The only effective difference between the posting on Spaceref.com and Space.com is the fact that the former is more cautious about what is effectively still a rumour, and the later is willing to declare it fact when we won't actually know most of the details until they make the official announcement.
I have not seen the film, nor read the book, nor will I ever. I revile the "church" of $cientology in all its forms, and will do absolutely nothing to help it in any way. The only thing I can say about the film that is in any way positive is that because it is such a bad film (by all reports), I can only hope that the producers of the film fail to make enough money to justify any further attempts by the Co$ to try to profit from L. Ron Hubbard's books by turning them into films.
Note: I am completely tolerant where freedom of religion is concerned, being of a minority and often persecuted religion myself (Wicca), but I do not include $cientology in the category of religion but rather in the same category as confidence tricks and scams. It is the greatest perversion of the freedom of religion that the scam artists of the Church of $cientology can get away with their bilking of the guillible and hide behind the guise of being a Religion.
I bought a sword recently on ebay, for a grand total of $56 US. I estimated this as roughly $82 Cdn. Not bad I think, for what was offered and looked forward to receiving it. I had to pay an additional $15 shipping, plus $12 shipping to get it to Canada (Grand total so far $83 US).
Then it hit the border. Canada customs examined the package, opened it, and finding neither a receipt for the value, nor a declaration of the value of the item, appraised it at $250 Cdn. They then added duty of $17.50 Cdn, plus GST and PST of $18.73 Cdn each.
Three weeks after I ordered it, the postman arrived at my door and told me I had to pay $54.96 to receive the item. I had no cash on me, so I had to pick it up the following day from the post office.
I complained to Canada customs about the misevaluation, and once I send off a letter explaining the actual cost of the item, I (hopefully, this is the Government after all) will receive a reimbursement of some of the money, since the GST and PST charged were excessive.
My point here is simply that I purchased an item for $56 US, and ended up paying roughly $182 dollars for it (the exchange rate that day was slightly worse that I thought it was). I bow to the power of e-commerce which has apparently let me purchase an item which has more tax and shipping costs associated with it than the actual cost of the item. Needless to say, I don't plan on purchasing ANYTHING over the net in the future. Its just not economically feasible - what looked like a deal ended up being a complete rip-off IMHO, thanks to the Government duty and taxes and the costs charged for shipping.
There is absolutely NO NEED or justification for adding an additional tax burden onto the poor fucking consumer with a Web Tax. We are already getting reamed if we purchase over the net and have the temerity to buy across a national boundary.
I play a lot of Counterstrike (the most popular mod for Halflife online), and while it does slow you down when you are carrying a lot of stuff, its based on what weapon you have in your hand, not what you are carrying, so switching to the knife means you can run faster with a heavy weapon and lots of ammo. Kinda lame in the reality sense.
I do see any reason why they could not add a "fatigue meter" which reflects how much exertion you are putting out, slows down your reactions when high, and cycles down when you rest. I think this would add a bit of realism to games without taking away the fun factor of being able to haul around heavy weapons and loads of ammo. It would also equalize things for the poor schmuck who only has a pistol when you have an AK47. If you just ran a long ways and your aim and speed were affected while he has been at rest the entire time, then he might be able to pop you when you meet.
While not realistic overall, I think CS is probably better than most games out there for the balancing realism vs gameplay. Except for the stupid leaping maneuver to avoid being shot which I think they should eliminate.
As I see it, the greatest danger here is that we (as the Western World) have lost the willpower to actually place our troops in harm's way. Politicians (rightly enough) see media coverage of dead Americans (or Canadians in my country's case) as something negative which will be remembered the next time we visit the polls, so they are unwilling to risk casualties to achieve a national goal. The public's knowledge of what is at stake is entirely shaped by the media - who do not have "The Truth" in mind when they formulate a broadcast, but rather "The Ratings" (ie advertising potential) - and as a result the public is happy to see high-tech wizardry saving potential casualties to achieve some particular goal that they have been made to understand is important.
Mind you, The troops themselves are still motivated to risk their lives when directed, but it seems the political will to implement their use is utterly missing.
The problem with this is that artillery and aircraft have never one a war, it requires infantry on the ground occupying key targets to defeat an enemy. Unfortunately, this means casualties in any conflict - high tech wizardry can only limit the number of casualties, not eliminate them.
Events like Kosovo do not resolve situations, only delay them. The Balkans will errupt again in the next few years because we failed to solve the problem there, same as with Iraq. The folks that started the conflict on the other side are still in power in both cases.
One of the prime causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was the fact that they had hired foreign troops to defend it, and when push came to shove those troops were not motivated enough to actually be effective. I sincerely hope that high tech weapons and button pushing are not our "foreign troops"...
True enough on most of your points. I did not mean to imply that the readers of /. have any apparent power, but they are very good at winnowing out negative stories concerning the actions of Microsoft. Therefore any such actions are very likely to come to light.
As for piracy, sure, MS has every right to try to halt sales of pirated software, but where does it show that any effort has been made to ascertain that the software being sold is in fact pirated? In this you are correct, it is Ebay that is at fault here, since it appears they simply dumped any sales of MS software as soon as MS requested it.
As for PR, I think MS does have to worry about it. Prior to the MS-DOJ trial, the average person viewed MS as the perfectly ethical giant of the software industry. Apparently many folks were shocked to hear that MS had been accused of questionable business practices and had even violated the law. I think they DO need to worry about public opinion - for the first time the media is now starting to publish articles which are highly critical of MS. The general public may not read /. but they do read ZDnet, Wired, CNN, etc. If MS starts looking less than snow-white to the average user, then other OS options might look more acceptable to those who would not otherwise consider them. Its a small point, but I don't think it should be callously dismissed.
I realize this is a minor issue when compared to the points raised in the DOJ investigation, but MS using its might to restrict users abilities to sell legitimately purchased software on a legitimate exchange is surely indicative of the fact that it has not changed its modus operandi generally. This is the sort of action that I would expect to encounter where MS is concerned. This would seem to bode poorly for MS's ability to police itself were the courts to go with its suggested penalties in the monopoly case, no?
As for your summary, I concede your point, this is probably nothing more than a big corporation trying to fight piracy, and if a few legitimate sales get killed, not giving a damn since it only means that users will have to purchase their software new from MS, and not second hand at a better price. While /. may not have a lot of power on its own (ie none effectively), it does have the power of opinion. More and more news agencies seem to be turning to /. to get the latest news on various issues. At least its appearing as a quoted source more often it seems. Ironic, given that /. in many instances feeds off of news on those same sites.
I am purely amazed that at this juncture in the MS-DOJ trial proceedings that M$ would engage in such a negative way on such a public forum. I mean, its not like this would go unnoticed with the vigilant /. community on the prowl. You would think that if they had even half a wit between them, they would be pulling back into their shell a bit. I think they deserve to be broken up, if not closed completely.
Its bad enough that Ebay completely violated its own policies and re-rated the user comments up a notch (apparently making some negative comments into positive ones in the process), but its worse that M$ can use Ebay to ban legitimate sales of M$ software.
Mind you I have a copy of WinNT 4.0 on CD (totally legit) but I would not want to sell it to anyone - I would not want to inflict it on anyone. But then I have a conscience - I guess Microsoft does not...
There is more information related to this article here on spaceref.com
And all system backups must be done onto 5 1/4 floppies...
What justifies these extreme costs? Somebody somewhere is making a killing on this, and at the same time killing the internet in Europe it would seem. I am not sure of the value of the pound, but it seems like I probably pay less in rent for my 2 bdrm apartment than you do for your 64kb connection.
I was considering moving to England or Scotland at some point in the next few years (always wanted to spend some time there) but perhaps not, if the future of the internet is looking bleak...
Under the FOIP I have the right to request that the Government send me a copy of all the information on me that is in this database, right?
Why don't we get as many citizens as possible to use this right to get sent their information.
Of course, since its a database, it gets updated. So perhaps we ought to request this information on a regular basis - say monthly.
If enough people did so, the government would have to close down the database because they could not afford to keep sending out the information to those citizens requesting it....
Let me assure you there is nothing "trivial" about a search engine - the amount of coding and research that goes into developing a new search engine on the order of Google or Fastsearch is anything but trivial. Thats why every time you see a new academic study on a new method of searching the web the folks involved end up leaving the university and forming a company (and all the research papers get harder to find after that too, funny eh?).
The fact that most search engines are still not performing to the standard we might expect simply indicates the monumental task they face.
Oh, yeah. I asked it "What is Alexandrian Wicca?" and got a page that told me it did not know the word "Alexandrian", after telling it to accept the word, it told me it did not know the word "Wicca" and quit. A further question resulted in a response of "I don't know the answer to your question" (Which was "Who was Gerald Gardner?"). I chose these questions cause their kinda obscure - but I did not expect a completely null response. Next...
So, we would be adding a checkbox to grant /. permission to republish a specific comment, and a checkbox to grant them permission to delete a comment if required on a messsage-by-message basis? Excellent idea. I will have to incorporate that into my own php-based /.-like code (http://www.omphalos.net). Great ideas all....
By default these would have to be unchecked, but there could be a preferences panel option to automatically check them if the user so desires - assuming that this would not be challengable legally somehow. Perhaps we need to require a user to explicitly check their comments when submitting (so as to avoid the same criticisms that are applied to most software license agreements - which most folk do not read I am sure)...