Paypal has foreign transaction fees too. $0.30 + nearly 4%. I found out about this the hard way because I sold a high-value item to someone that had a Florida address, but whose Paypal account was apparently linked to a foreign bank. As a result, I paid about $30 extra in Paypal fees on a hand-made item that only had about $100 in pre-fee profit as it was. (And if you're wondering, the buyer was legit: not a scam.)
As a buyer, you never see these fees (and the seller is prohibited from adding them only to international orders), but rest assured that nearly all sellers take them into consideration when pricing their merchandise if any significant percentage of their sales are foreign.
(before Sony, video games consoles were generally designed/made by companies that only did video games, not electronic giants)
Eh? Atari is just about the only company I can think of that started out as a video game company. Sega manufactured coin-op games and machines whilst Nintendo made playing cards, operated a taxi cab company, and built a few hotels for decades before entering the video game market. Just about every other company that made video game consoles in the 70's, 80's, and 90's was already a major player in the electronics, amusement, or toy industries.
ChromeOS is a web OS, and in the browser you can do everything you can do in your regular browser, like changing your search engine to 'Bing', using MS Office 2010 online or Zohoo office, Yahoo mail, and any other competing web service you desire.
Well, it's really too early to speculate on what the shipped version of Chrome OS will be like. However, from reading the design documents, it's readily apparent to me that Google is intending for Chrome OS to integrate tightly with their online services. That's really the whole reason the project was started in the first place. You won't be able to make full use of the device without a Google account and you (most likely) will not be able to swap out the browser for one that doesn't track your activity online.
The average wages are completly different, based on a quick google it seems to be about 100 dollar vs 2000 dollars. So 1 iPod sales generates enough money to pay for 1 months work in china but only a... few days in the US.
Wait, what? In which fairytale American city is the average wage anywhere near $2000 for a few days' work? I'll grant that the dollar is worth far more in less developed countries but don't blow it out of proportion, please.
Facebook says it will adopt a new power distribution design that shifts the UPS and battery backup functions from the data center into the cabinet by adding a 12-volt battery to each server power supply, an approach pioneered by Google.
I hope facebook's lawyers know that Google has a patent application for this very idea. TFA didn't mention whether or not they are actually licensing these and other Google-patented techniques.
Pager broadcasts are completely separate from cell networks and don't really have anything in common in them, to my knowledge. Pager networks are incredibly robust. I believe they'll scale to thousands of messages per minute at least and if you look at the logs posted by wikileaks, there are rarely more than a few dozen every second. Although I guess the downside is that you normally have to place a phone call or have Internet connectivity to send a page.
On a related note, it's possible to use a second-hand pager and a few dollars' worth of components to make your very own pager scanner. Ladyada posted a nice HOWTO on how to do this.
Electronic synthesizer makers/hackers/repairers have problems with counterfeit chips too. The Roland TB-303 has a number of transistors that have not been made in decades. Some have suitable modern replacements, but others do not. You have to be very careful buying transistors and chips to repair old synths (like the Juno) because it can be hard to spot fakes from looks alone. Chip counterfeiters can be very good at replacing a chip's markings. Sometimes you don't find out that it's a fake until you get it soldered into the circuit. Ebay is the most popular place for these kinds of scams, but occasionally a reputable electronics retailer will be duped into carrying them.
Yep, I have experience with this. I did autopilot repair in the Air Force and most of the systems I worked on were decades old. Most airplanes have a few non-essential parts that fail literally every few weeks because the manufacturing run was contracted out to some company that did a godawful job at re-engineering and manufacturing the part which was originally designed sometime in the 60's.
Around 2000, we had a navigation system test bench that was controlled by a rackmount IBM 8086 PC. (The navigation system was considered "state of the art" then, if that tells you anything.) Well, we all know that hard drives die eventually but this thing lasted an incredible 25 years before a significant number of sectors started to become unreadable. Because the million-dollar bench was mostly useless without the PC, I took it upon myself to find a replacement disk. What a mistake that was... I managed to find one at GREAT expense to American taxpayers and it turned out that the replacement disk was in ever worse shape than the original. Produced another, same result. You just can't buy a new hard disk that old anymore and swapping out whole computer for something a little newer was non-trivial and was against many, many regulations. I finally managed to find one that was advertised as "never used," but I tell you I tried to stay as far away from that bench as possible after that. I sometimes wonder whether its still in use or if the system maintenance was simply contracted out.
Chrome OS only exists as an extremely early alpha at this point. I'm betting the final, non-development version won't make it so easy to get a root terminal, especially since they claim that they will eventually pitch this primarily to wireless telcos.
This is true only to a point... I think there should be more emphasis on the merit of self-education. Learning for learning's sake. The smartest people in the world didn't get the majority of their education from school or their parents. They learned almost everything on their own. A good portion of them got this way simply by virtue of having a excessively boring childhood with parents that were either disinterested in their child's education or simply didn't have the time to interact with their kids on a frequent or even daily basis.
This field in particular (information technology) was gutted about seven years ago under the last administration in the name of short term profits.
Wait, what? I was no fan of the Bush Crew, trust me, but I fail to see how they were even indirectly responsible for the dot-com bubble. The dot-com bubble is the classic example of investors behaving stupidly, nothing more. Ditto for the housing crash last year, which eventually led us into the current recession.
There is no R&D budget left for innovation, and not much has happened that's revolutionary in this industry since the bubble burst.
Okay, so your official position is that nothing innovative has happened in the whole entire I.T. field since 2001? Have you been having an exceptionally long snooze or what?
I just sat down at the computer for dinner with my spicy tuna roll and this is the top story on the Front page. Thank you Slashdot, for ruining my appetite yet again.
More and more movies are getting made the cheap way: with green screens and computers for the entirety of the environment and some of the actors. The effect is obvious even to someone like me who doesn't watch movies very often. I don't mind poorly-done special effects now and again, but when the whole movie is one gigantic cheesy effect, it really cheapens the experience. The two best examples I can think of are 300 and the latest Indiana Jones installment. I only watched the first half-hour of the latter before giving up.
Fedora is based and distributed from the US and a "do you want to infringe on the copyrights and patents of another company" button won't cut it.
Uh, it's not illegal in any country for a distribution to prompt the user to download and install a package. It's only illegal for them to distribute it themselves. (Hence, the button.)
Some of us seem to keep bouncing back and forth between KDE and GNOME based on which sucks less.
Back in the day, I settled on GNOME 1.2 because it was much faster than KDE and highly configurable. Then GNOME 2.0 was released and took away almost all of the configuration options. (It was a conscious design decision. They were trying to imitate Apple, I think, by parading around their "less is more" foolishness.) KDE 3 was in good shape by then, so I switched because it gave me the option to set up my desktop exactly how I wanted it. When KDE 4 came out, virtually all development stopped on 3.5, so I was forced back to GNOME, which had finally regained most of the power that it had back in the 1.2 days. Now they're going to change it up on me again...
If I can make one request of the GNOME developers it's this: before releasing GNOME 3, please at least wait until KDE 4 stops sucking.
Can't help you on Windows or Mac, but on Linux- and BSD-based systems, there is an enormous number of window managers and desktop environments to choose from. Chance are very good that there's at least one that comes close to your own personal definition of efficient.
These people committed a crime, did their time and now they are free again. They should be given a chance to reintegrate into society.
I am not a German citizen, but...
Jail time is punishment for committing a crime. It does not (and should not) grant you a clean slate. To put it in religious terms, serving out your punishment does not absolve you of your sins. You live with the consequences of your actions your whole life, even if that means social reintegration is difficult.
Adobe's answer is just the greatest kind of cop out. "Websites just need to make sure to check all uploaded material".
Just because you have a seething hated of Adobe and didn't bother to RTFM doesn't mean Adobe is wrong.
I'm no security expert, but the issue seems to boil down to:
1) It might be considered a security flaw by some, but it's not a bug and it's not even unique to Flash. Everything is working as designed. 2) Yes, in 2009, website programmers still have to throughly validate and/or sanitize all data coming from untrusted sources, no exceptions. Even if it's hard.
Bottom line: This is not news. Some random security researcher took a known caveat in a fully-documented system and tried to sensationalize it, that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
Paypal has foreign transaction fees too. $0.30 + nearly 4%. I found out about this the hard way because I sold a high-value item to someone that had a Florida address, but whose Paypal account was apparently linked to a foreign bank. As a result, I paid about $30 extra in Paypal fees on a hand-made item that only had about $100 in pre-fee profit as it was. (And if you're wondering, the buyer was legit: not a scam.)
As a buyer, you never see these fees (and the seller is prohibited from adding them only to international orders), but rest assured that nearly all sellers take them into consideration when pricing their merchandise if any significant percentage of their sales are foreign.
Eh? Atari is just about the only company I can think of that started out as a video game company. Sega manufactured coin-op games and machines whilst Nintendo made playing cards, operated a taxi cab company, and built a few hotels for decades before entering the video game market. Just about every other company that made video game consoles in the 70's, 80's, and 90's was already a major player in the electronics, amusement, or toy industries.
Well, it's really too early to speculate on what the shipped version of Chrome OS will be like. However, from reading the design documents, it's readily apparent to me that Google is intending for Chrome OS to integrate tightly with their online services. That's really the whole reason the project was started in the first place. You won't be able to make full use of the device without a Google account and you (most likely) will not be able to swap out the browser for one that doesn't track your activity online.
Wait, what? In which fairytale American city is the average wage anywhere near $2000 for a few days' work? I'll grant that the dollar is worth far more in less developed countries but don't blow it out of proportion, please.
I hope facebook's lawyers know that Google has a patent application for this very idea. TFA didn't mention whether or not they are actually licensing these and other Google-patented techniques.
I would assume these messages were all being broadcast form/to the general NYC area, not just the twin towers.
Pager broadcasts are completely separate from cell networks and don't really have anything in common in them, to my knowledge. Pager networks are incredibly robust. I believe they'll scale to thousands of messages per minute at least and if you look at the logs posted by wikileaks, there are rarely more than a few dozen every second. Although I guess the downside is that you normally have to place a phone call or have Internet connectivity to send a page.
On a related note, it's possible to use a second-hand pager and a few dollars' worth of components to make your very own pager scanner. Ladyada posted a nice HOWTO on how to do this.
Electronic synthesizer makers/hackers/repairers have problems with counterfeit chips too. The Roland TB-303 has a number of transistors that have not been made in decades. Some have suitable modern replacements, but others do not. You have to be very careful buying transistors and chips to repair old synths (like the Juno) because it can be hard to spot fakes from looks alone. Chip counterfeiters can be very good at replacing a chip's markings. Sometimes you don't find out that it's a fake until you get it soldered into the circuit. Ebay is the most popular place for these kinds of scams, but occasionally a reputable electronics retailer will be duped into carrying them.
Yep, I have experience with this. I did autopilot repair in the Air Force and most of the systems I worked on were decades old. Most airplanes have a few non-essential parts that fail literally every few weeks because the manufacturing run was contracted out to some company that did a godawful job at re-engineering and manufacturing the part which was originally designed sometime in the 60's.
Around 2000, we had a navigation system test bench that was controlled by a rackmount IBM 8086 PC. (The navigation system was considered "state of the art" then, if that tells you anything.) Well, we all know that hard drives die eventually but this thing lasted an incredible 25 years before a significant number of sectors started to become unreadable. Because the million-dollar bench was mostly useless without the PC, I took it upon myself to find a replacement disk. What a mistake that was... I managed to find one at GREAT expense to American taxpayers and it turned out that the replacement disk was in ever worse shape than the original. Produced another, same result. You just can't buy a new hard disk that old anymore and swapping out whole computer for something a little newer was non-trivial and was against many, many regulations. I finally managed to find one that was advertised as "never used," but I tell you I tried to stay as far away from that bench as possible after that. I sometimes wonder whether its still in use or if the system maintenance was simply contracted out.
Chrome OS only exists as an extremely early alpha at this point. I'm betting the final, non-development version won't make it so easy to get a root terminal, especially since they claim that they will eventually pitch this primarily to wireless telcos.
Oh, well if that's what you're after, you'll want to speak to these guys then.
This is true only to a point... I think there should be more emphasis on the merit of self-education. Learning for learning's sake. The smartest people in the world didn't get the majority of their education from school or their parents. They learned almost everything on their own. A good portion of them got this way simply by virtue of having a excessively boring childhood with parents that were either disinterested in their child's education or simply didn't have the time to interact with their kids on a frequent or even daily basis.
Wait, what? I was no fan of the Bush Crew, trust me, but I fail to see how they were even indirectly responsible for the dot-com bubble. The dot-com bubble is the classic example of investors behaving stupidly, nothing more. Ditto for the housing crash last year, which eventually led us into the current recession.
Okay, so your official position is that nothing innovative has happened in the whole entire I.T. field since 2001? Have you been having an exceptionally long snooze or what?
I would rather laugh at the submitter's rather superb talent for understatement.
I just sat down at the computer for dinner with my spicy tuna roll and this is the top story on the Front page. Thank you Slashdot, for ruining my appetite yet again.
More and more movies are getting made the cheap way: with green screens and computers for the entirety of the environment and some of the actors. The effect is obvious even to someone like me who doesn't watch movies very often. I don't mind poorly-done special effects now and again, but when the whole movie is one gigantic cheesy effect, it really cheapens the experience. The two best examples I can think of are 300 and the latest Indiana Jones installment. I only watched the first half-hour of the latter before giving up.
If that, even. There are few, if any, investments in existence that can do all three of:
1) compound interest with no human interaction for that length of time
2) guarantee a net positive return
3) have an average annual rate of return better than the average annual inflation rate
The Internet doesn't see or do anything. People see copyright enforcement as damage and route around it.
Uh, it's not illegal in any country for a distribution to prompt the user to download and install a package. It's only illegal for them to distribute it themselves. (Hence, the button.)
Uh, not much since the vast majority of Facebook requires an account to view and is thus not indexed by Google.
Replace Facebook with Wordpress, eHow, expert-sexchange, or Digg, and the question makes more sense.
Some of us seem to keep bouncing back and forth between KDE and GNOME based on which sucks less.
Back in the day, I settled on GNOME 1.2 because it was much faster than KDE and highly configurable. Then GNOME 2.0 was released and took away almost all of the configuration options. (It was a conscious design decision. They were trying to imitate Apple, I think, by parading around their "less is more" foolishness.) KDE 3 was in good shape by then, so I switched because it gave me the option to set up my desktop exactly how I wanted it. When KDE 4 came out, virtually all development stopped on 3.5, so I was forced back to GNOME, which had finally regained most of the power that it had back in the 1.2 days. Now they're going to change it up on me again...
If I can make one request of the GNOME developers it's this: before releasing GNOME 3, please at least wait until KDE 4 stops sucking.
Can't help you on Windows or Mac, but on Linux- and BSD-based systems, there is an enormous number of window managers and desktop environments to choose from. Chance are very good that there's at least one that comes close to your own personal definition of efficient.
I am not a German citizen, but...
Jail time is punishment for committing a crime. It does not (and should not) grant you a clean slate. To put it in religious terms, serving out your punishment does not absolve you of your sins. You live with the consequences of your actions your whole life, even if that means social reintegration is difficult.
Just because you have a seething hated of Adobe and didn't bother to RTFM doesn't mean Adobe is wrong.
I'm no security expert, but the issue seems to boil down to:
1) It might be considered a security flaw by some, but it's not a bug and it's not even unique to Flash. Everything is working as designed.
2) Yes, in 2009, website programmers still have to throughly validate and/or sanitize all data coming from untrusted sources, no exceptions. Even if it's hard.
Bottom line: This is not news. Some random security researcher took a known caveat in a fully-documented system and tried to sensationalize it, that's all.
1999 called, they want their argument back. (Only back then it was Red Hat.)