That's actually true, disgusting as it might sound
on
Keyboards Are Disgusting
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Actually, what you state has some scientific backing.
I heard it on the news last year that some German (?) scientist recommended eating nose mucous. As he stated, the nose is the only organ of the body that for the most part does not have a self-cleaning mechanism. The purpose of the mucous is believed to be (among other things) the entrapment of bacteria and other undesirables that would otherwise have entered the body.
By picking, we provide the nasal passages with a method of cleaning to provide new mucous and by -- ugh -- eating we introduce the bacteria into our systems that were otherwise trapped, thus allowing our immune systems to learn about it and, more importantly, learn to defeat it.
I actually discussed this a few days later with a friend of mine who's an Emergency Medical Technician and was a medic in the Army Reserves. After hearing the doctor's explanation, he agreed that it all makes sense. The immune system can't practice its self-defense if it doesn't have any targets to destroy.
Personally, I'll take my chances with the keyboard instead.:)
Had this survey come out a few years ago, I would have called "Bullshit!" But recently Sun seems to be bringing some common-sense, "what techies want" designs and prices to the table.
The article focuses a lot on the implementation of Opteron, and that's really what Sun wants to hear because that was a big gamble for them. It's been paying off really well, though. The good things that I've heard about the Opteron systems vastly outweighs the bad. I just wish that Sun didn't pull that moronic marketing blunder for the Ultra 20. Advertise: $29.95 per month! Reality: $395 per year in annual installments, and if your credit card is set to expire before then we're cahrging you everything at once! They could have sold a ton of Ultra 20s if they had stuck to their $29.95/month advertising slogan. I know that definitely I'd have one.
Now we'll have to see how Sun fares with their latest low-energy-consumption push.
I'm personally pleased to see this. Sun for a long time was barely holding their head above water, thanks to being weighed down by Scott McNealy's arrogance. We're Sun! You will pay four times the cost of a comparable non-Sun system and you will be pleased because our hardware has the Sun logo on it. Sun finally seems have shed that attitude and it appears to be paying off. But considering that a lot of people still look at Sun with skepticism, all that it will take is one major blunder to ruin it for them. (Does anyone else remember the widespread UltraSPARC, 8MB eCache error problems? Or the memory DIMMs from one of their four manufacturers that caused sporradic system crashes?)
What do you mean? If course it's caused by people!
Old English (okay, Anglo-Saxon) documents from the Middle Ages state that there used to be vinyards in southern England hundreds of years before Columbus sailed this way. A team from Harvard University also concluded a few years ago that, based on tree rings, ice cores, and so forth, in the period between roughly 850-1300 the global temperature was much warmer than it is today followed by what they refer to a "mini ice age" in roughly 1300, which killed the English ability to produce wine. England cannot effectively have vineyards today because of the much cooler temperatures, obviously. Of course, there was so much heavy industry and pollution back then... er... wait a minute... no, there wasn't. So how could England possibly have had warm temperatures to support vinyards during the Middle Ages with no greenhouse emmissions unless -- **gasp** -- the earth did it by itself or by some outside stimuli!
This is the problem with the modern environmental movement. They equate correlation with causation througout history based on less than 100 years of scientific data. While I will not simply and arrogantly discount all claims that we are having some impact, like a lot of anti-environmentalists do, I believe that nature is far more powerful and has more ways to adjust itself to us (or force us to adjust ourselves to it) than we give it credit for. I know that goes against the Slashdot groupthink and that I'll probably get censored.. er.. modded down becasue of it, but, hey, it's only karma.
Um... you do remember to use the "R" button to switch to 640x480 resolution, which produced great graphics in the days of 320x200, right? The red/blue and "Magic Eye" kitch were also very impressive for the day. Again, they were added for fun more than a real benefit, but the red/blue 3D was well done and the "Magic Eye" effect was cool when you got used to it, especially when you were flying over a building!
I would absolutely love to see a Magic Carpet sequel using modern graphics and surround sound. I even went so far as to build a 233 MHz PC with PC-DOS 7 and (just for fun) Windows 3.1 so that I could play Magic Carpet in its native environment. All that I needed was to use a CPU slowdown utility.
So, even with an Athlon 3200+, GeForce 6600GT, 4.1 sound system, and 21" monitor next to me with BF2, HL2, and a slew of other games installed, the basic simplicity, great gameplay, and truly deformable terrain (which still has not been duplicated in modern games) make the Magic Carpet series scream for a sequel.
The crew of TellTale Games has already acquired the rights to Sam and Max from Steve Purcell. Most of the crew of TTG were the developers of the cancelled "Sam and Max: Freelance Police" and therefore are probably the best team to get the rights to it.
In order to keep the blindly inept LucasArts off their back, the new game will be completely different from what they were making at LucasArts and will most likely use the engine that they used for Bone. My only gripe is that the game will be episodic, not a complete game at once but "episodes" scattered over time; but as long as all of the great aspects of the original "Sam and Max" are intact (with a 3D engine, of course), I'll be thrilled when this is released.
From what I understand, it is also an "all-inclusive" license meaning that TTG has the rights to create more than just games using the Sam and Max license. TTG already has started a web comic for Sam and Max as well. Make sure to put the mouse cursor over each comic frame to see the "action".
The Soviet Russia trolls take the opposite view of yours (i.e. that it is funny) for no reason than to play devil's advocate in a hostile manner.
Sorry, but I have to disagree here. The Soviet Russia posts are merely old jokes that no one except the poster finds to be funny anymore because the humor is long since worn out. They're neither hostile nor devil's advocate. They're just stupid jokes that for some uncanny reason some people just don't know to stop using.
A "troll" is indeed more applicable to someone who intentially tries to disrupt in a hostile manner, like a KKK guy posting to a Black Panther's newsgroup or the GNAA/penis parrot posts. The "Soviet Russia" jokes - with the exception of the rare ones that actually to apply to the article - are nothing more than pathetic, overusefd jokes from people who are funny in their own minds, but most certainly not "trolls".
And I won't go so far as to say that I personally need a rocking chair, but I will (unfortunately) confess that I at least was using the Internet heavily since the mid-1980s. I've seen my share of trolls on BBSs and newsgroups, so I have to agree with the GP that the Soviet posts are not trolls.
Hey, at least I admitted to skimming over the article, unlike those who don't even bother to click the link then come out with some major diatribe/lecture just on the summary. (And of course we all know how accurate Slashdot summaries have a tendency of being!)
I'll also do something else very rare on Slashdot: MY BAD! I MISSED THAT PART OF IT! A Slashdot mea culpa! Who would have thought?!
Besides, that doesn't preclude the fact that this is a slow news week so let the conspiracies abound!:P
I dislike MS as much as anyone else on Slashdot; however, is this a Windows XP flaw or is it just an Internet Explorer/Outlook flaw? Unless I missed it when I read (okay, skimmed) TFA, the article implies that Windows XP is the problem. Looks more to me like it's an IE/Outlook flaw.
I run Firefox and Eudora on XP in addition to Zone Alarm, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and McAfee AV. My wife uses Firefox and Thunderbird. IE is used only on those web sites that require it (which are very, very, very, few) and I uninstall Outlook from every PC. Will I be infected just because I'm running XP? I highly doubt it. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but my doubt factor is nearly maximum. That does not downgrade the severity threat. After all, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Eudora are in a very small minority of Windows users' favorite applications. Believe me, I love to see Microsoft dragged through the mud when possible, but let's at least keep it realistic.
This clearly is a slow news week. The anti-Bush-administration people are making an issue over an NSA web cookie and now we're blaming an entire operating system for application flaws. (I know the whole argument about IE and Outlook being integrated into the operating system, but I still don't see this as an operating system issue if other apps on the same operating system are not vulnerable.)
You should know better than to submit (A) any "news" that could enflame anti-Bush, Slashdot rhetoric, (B) any "news" that would shed even the slightest of negative on anything related to Republicans, and (C) any "news" that could warrant tin foil hats on Slashdot. In this case, you got to mix all three!!
A virtual hydrogen bomb you've created! --Whoops!-- I hope no NSA cookie picks up that I mentioned "hydrogen bomb" in a Slashdot thread.:)
Thank you for proving that you're just a flaming liberal who's looking to pin anything possible on Bush and that any discussion with you is the equivalent of trying to discuss physics with a brick wall.
FWIW, I am not happy with Bush, I don't like Fox News, I thought that the whole Clinton impeachment was a bunch of bullshit and a waste of taxpayer dollars that would just come back to bite the GOP in the ass, which it has done.
That's a nice broad brush that you've got there. I see that you use it often even though you have no idea how to properly hold it.
It won't go far when it gets Mount Fuji dropped on it. I guess that would be a mountain over a molehill, though.:) But I have seen a Killer Rabbit in a British documentary from the early 1970s! I was no ordinary rabbit, with bones strewn about its lair!
From TFA: The House on Wednesday is expected to adopt the compromise version of a fiscal 2002 Treasury-Postal Service bill, H.R. 2590, that would expand privacy protections for people visiting federal Web sites and provide funds for crime-fighting technology.
It's an article from 2001 that states that the House is expected to adopt this provision. Please provide the document that states that this particular clause not only made it into the bill, but that the bill was approved by both houses of Congress and that President Bush actually signed it.
After that, please show me the test that all government employees have to take proving that they are fluent and fully-versed in the millions upon millions of rules and regulations to which they need to adhere and the ramifications thereof for violating any such rules and ramifications.
I also expect to see that various documents thus proving that all levels of management are also refreshed on a regular basis of the policies and violation ramifications. After all, we would not want them to forget any of the millions of laws and policies that they have to adhere to, would we?
It was wrong when the Republicans went on a witch hunt against Clinton who admitted to breaking the law - lying under oath. Just because the tables are turned does not make it less of a witch hunt nor does it make said witch hunt "less wrong".
Then kindly quote the law which was approved by the House, approved by the Senate, and signed by any President that makes the usage of permanent cookies on any government web site a violation of federal law. I know of no law and thus far none of the anti-Bush, or in your apparent case anti-Republican, crowd has been able to bring forth the bill that placed that restriction into law.
Clinton lied under oath. That is a violation of established law.
But unless you can bring forth the bill from Congress that made permanent cookies illegal, the phrase "no President is above the law" doesn't apply at all.
So is speeding. Don't tell me that you have never done that.
So is downloading music/software that you didn't pay for. Don't tell me that you have never done that.
So are a number of other laws that should have been taken off the books long ago that people don't care about and law enforcement doesn't bother to enforce. They're all against the law as well.
The fact that you are expecting every employee at every level to be fully knowledgable of every law and every ramification for every action does nothing more than show that you are on a witch hunt.
And for the record as much as I disliked Clinton even I knew from the start that the whole blowjob issue was overblown (no pun intended) and an unnecessary witch hunt that was doomed to fail. So, stop being childish by lumping those of us who see this issue for the security pittance that it is as "Bush apologists".
So either one or both agencies in question are simply incompetent, or lying to us. Which do you think is more plausible?
Wow! The fact that you're even asking this is a clear indication that you have never worked in any government entity. All levels of government - federal, state, and local - are loaded with incompetency and attempt to lie to the public whenever such lying is "in the public interest" or covers their asses.
You also seem to have some notion that as soon as you become a government employee that you are going to somehow assume and retain all legal ramifications based on all existing laws just by being hired. Management changes happen. Staff changes happen. The notion that all government employees of all levels will be aware of all rules and regulations regarding all functions is highly naive. For all we know, the installation of this supposed "off-the-shelf" software was the first task of a new, NSA intern in the IT department.
I know that you dislike (hate?) the current administration, but this is absolutely a "mountain out of molehill" scenario in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe I'm lacking some information on cookie spcifications, but I was under the impression that cookies can only be read/written by the web site that you are visiting unless there are links to other sites, such as advertising sites, that manipulate cookies. This is of course how you can visit a site but then get cookies from 24/7 media, AdServer, and others. But the cookies cannot be arbitrarily read by other web sites unless there is some kind of partnership going on. Again, this is the impression that I was under regarding general cookie use. So, if that's correct the NSA cookie is not even an issue when you visit other web sites unless they're specifically looking for it -- like any of them would.
Okay, so the NSA puts a permanent cookie on the system. Why is this an issue? It's not a security breach; it's not a cross-advertising cookie that tracks where you go. There's not one of us who has installed software and went over every configuration setting with a fine-toothed comb, particularly with off-the-shelf software, at one time or another. Cookies are also easily removed and can be blocked on future visits. Of course, the web logs themselves can get the IP address of everyone who visits, so even if you block cookies, the NSA can still tell exactly when a specific IP address contacted their site.
I realize that the U.S. government, particularly the current administration, is not a favorite of the Slashdot crowd and that this will be (and has already been) touted as "yet another flagrant policy violation!!!" by political opportunists here on/. But this to me is nothing more than unnecessarily putting some fuel on an already smouldering dislike for the current administration, courtesy of an ill-informed and/or careless IT person at the NSA, in the hopes that a large, anti-NSA and more generally anti-current-administration fire will grow out of it.
Just my two cents. Convert to your currency as necessary.
This was all through internal Motorola documentation, hardware, and software that involved DOCSIS-compliant cable modems, so I can't readily provide that information. (And I left the company/project several years ago.) But the same type of methodolgy is used for DSL as well. (One of the final stages of modem initialization, after locating the uplink and downlink frequencies, is the downloading of the configuration file which tells the modem which cap speeds to use.
You also need to know that any ISP that catches you messing with your connection will terminate your account almost immediately. When information about how to do this was leaked a few years ago, just about every ISP implemented a "no tolerance" policy to those who uncapped their bandwidth. BroadbandReports.com had a lot of messages posted about people who got knocked off their connection for uncapping their modem. So, I don't recommend doing it.
Needless to say I was furious when I learned that speed caps are managed through a configuration file for the modem and are so easily changed. It wasn't even coded. You start the configuration utility, load the file, change the decimal number for the amount of kb/sec for each stream, save the configuration file, and reset the modem so that it downloads the configuration file again. Done! Bastards...
Currently, I get 6 Mb/sec (minimum, consistent speed) through Comcast. Frankly, I don't need any more for my home. Any major downloading that I want/need to do can be done overnight.
I am more frustrated by the stranglehold that most ISPs utilize regarding uplink speeds. It's absolutely ridiculous that I have a 6 Mb/sec down speed but 128 Kb/sec up speed. If I'm uploading a major web site upgrade or getting on-line with some Battlefield 2 action, the up speeds are much more important. When my nephew is over and both of us are connecting to the BF2 network on separate systems, my network goes crazy and a lot of other Internet-related functions are brought to a crawl because the uplink it almost totally taken up by the two BF2 connections.
What I don't understand is why these companies don't allow a mixture. "For $$.$$ per month you get any combination up to { insert speed here }" to allow the customer to specify the perfect combination. Or allow the user to specifiy from a range of combinations as long as the combined speeds are not greater than X. And it's not difficult for ISPs to do.
Most modems, particularly those that are DOCSIS compliant, utilize a tiny (about 100 byte -- yes, 100 byte) configuration file that is downloaded via TFTP from the ISP when the modem is reset. I've used the configuration tools to make these files when I was involved in broadband deployment on the east coast. There are separate, numeric fields to create up and down speed caps. Modify the fields, save the configuration file, associate the broadband modem with that configuration file, reset, done. The new upload and download speeds are defined. "A la carte" broadband is simple to do. The ISPs refuse to do it, I guess because it would provide a benefit to the customer.
I certainly would not mind FttH if it ever befomes available and it provides an equal or better value; but if I was given the option right now to take 512 Kb/sec or 1 Mb/sec from the downlink and apply that to the uplink, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
Your listing is accurate, but you purposefully strayed from the point that I was making by intentionally selecting hardware that is way overkill for a basic HTPC. You're attempting to sell a BMW when a Ford Focus will serve the majority of the community nicely. (No comment on the vehicles listed, people. I'm just using them for comparison's sake.) You're looking at really modern hardware for a totally beefed-up system, which is totally not necessary for a lot of people. NO ONE -- repeat -- NO ONE needs the hardware that you mentioned just to make an HTPC.
For true video and audiophiles, yes, what you listed is still overkill but closer to the requirements. For the basic functions that were listed in the article that this whole thread is about, there is no need whatsoever for the powehouse that you listed.
Had you bothered to read the parent - which is more than can be expected from an Anonymous Coward, I grant you - you would have seen that he stated that he had problems with other applications when the autorun was disabled.
Home theatre PCs are pretty nice however they are expensive
Not trying to take your whole statement out of context, but this one struck me because it's absolutely not true. You can make a decent HTPC out of nothing more than
* an 800 MHz Athlon
* An ATI All-In-Wonder card (even the old AIW 7200 had everything that was necessary including remote)
* Sound Blaster Live 5.1
* whatever hard disk space you want
All of these parts can be purchased on the cheap on eBay, if you don't already have them. (And we can't really be considered to be geeks unless we have a few spare systems laying around, right?) Playing DVDs is NOT CPU intensive for the most part. I can watch DVDs on my 450 MHz Pentium II laptop in full screen without issue.
If you get into high-quality DIVX or WMV, yes, you'll need something beefier, but even brand new systems that are more than up to the task in memory and CPU power can be purchased for less than $400. Even if you need to buy another video card, HTPC cards - even high-def - are not outrageously expensive if you know where to look, and no one said that you need the best of the best. As I mentioned before, my AIT AIW7200 does time-shifting, has a remote, can take complete control of what I watch on the TV, and has software like that gives me the ability to record a future show just be double-clicking on it.
As for hard drives, I just bought a 200 GB drive on NewEgg for less than $100. That's a sh*tload of hours of Divx movies, even in high quality.
Sorry, but if you think that HTPCs are expensive, then it's glaringly evident that you've never tried to buy or build one, or else you're trying to buy an Alienware version.:)
I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that a vibrating controller feature is a clear reason to spends hundreds of dollars for a console as opposed to a PC. Forget graphics; forget sound; you are pleased to have spent $400+ to play CoD with a rumbling joystick?
You're exactly the kind of hard-core console user that exacerbates my confusion. Although to be fair, I also don't understand the people who will pay $500+ for a video card for their PC, either.
Personally, the only reasons I would own a console are a) if they didn't release some uber-game for the PC, or my computer wouldn't be able to run it for years, and b) consoles just work, in general.
Agreed on both counts, and the refusal of developers to release some console uber-games on the PC really pisses me off. But in fairness there are a lot of demographics involved as well.
Halo, for instance. We all know how that game is effectively what sold the original Xbox in the beginning. When I played the PC version, I was unimpressed. It was another FPS as far as I'm concerned. (I want to see GoldenEye upgraded for the PC! Drool, drool!)
But I for one will not spend hundreds of dollars on a new console just to play a few games that aren't available for the PC. I think that's a bit of arrogance that a lot of console makers and console game developers have. I'll either wait to get the console (and possibly the game) second-hand, which means that they get no money, or I'll do without, which means they get no money. But I'm probably in the minority on that.
I feel the need to stress again that I'm not anti-console. I just don't understand the fervor for it that obviously millions of people have. I just don't understand how the author can actually complain because the 360 doesn't have those features, yet the PC on which he created his article DOES! Considerng how the prices of some new PCs are the same as the 360, "console fever" further confuses me.
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Actually, what you state has some scientific backing.
:)
I heard it on the news last year that some German (?) scientist recommended eating nose mucous. As he stated, the nose is the only organ of the body that for the most part does not have a self-cleaning mechanism. The purpose of the mucous is believed to be (among other things) the entrapment of bacteria and other undesirables that would otherwise have entered the body.
By picking, we provide the nasal passages with a method of cleaning to provide new mucous and by -- ugh -- eating we introduce the bacteria into our systems that were otherwise trapped, thus allowing our immune systems to learn about it and, more importantly, learn to defeat it.
I actually discussed this a few days later with a friend of mine who's an Emergency Medical Technician and was a medic in the Army Reserves. After hearing the doctor's explanation, he agreed that it all makes sense. The immune system can't practice its self-defense if it doesn't have any targets to destroy.
Personally, I'll take my chances with the keyboard instead.
Had this survey come out a few years ago, I would have called "Bullshit!" But recently Sun seems to be bringing some common-sense, "what techies want" designs and prices to the table.
The article focuses a lot on the implementation of Opteron, and that's really what Sun wants to hear because that was a big gamble for them. It's been paying off really well, though. The good things that I've heard about the Opteron systems vastly outweighs the bad. I just wish that Sun didn't pull that moronic marketing blunder for the Ultra 20. Advertise: $29.95 per month! Reality: $395 per year in annual installments, and if your credit card is set to expire before then we're cahrging you everything at once! They could have sold a ton of Ultra 20s if they had stuck to their $29.95/month advertising slogan. I know that definitely I'd have one.
Now we'll have to see how Sun fares with their latest low-energy-consumption push.
I'm personally pleased to see this. Sun for a long time was barely holding their head above water, thanks to being weighed down by Scott McNealy's arrogance. We're Sun! You will pay four times the cost of a comparable non-Sun system and you will be pleased because our hardware has the Sun logo on it. Sun finally seems have shed that attitude and it appears to be paying off. But considering that a lot of people still look at Sun with skepticism, all that it will take is one major blunder to ruin it for them. (Does anyone else remember the widespread UltraSPARC, 8MB eCache error problems? Or the memory DIMMs from one of their four manufacturers that caused sporradic system crashes?)
What do you mean? If course it's caused by people!
... er ... wait a minute ... no, there wasn't. So how could England possibly have had warm temperatures to support vinyards during the Middle Ages with no greenhouse emmissions unless -- **gasp** -- the earth did it by itself or by some outside stimuli!
.. er .. modded down becasue of it, but, hey, it's only karma.
Old English (okay, Anglo-Saxon) documents from the Middle Ages state that there used to be vinyards in southern England hundreds of years before Columbus sailed this way. A team from Harvard University also concluded a few years ago that, based on tree rings, ice cores, and so forth, in the period between roughly 850-1300 the global temperature was much warmer than it is today followed by what they refer to a "mini ice age" in roughly 1300, which killed the English ability to produce wine. England cannot effectively have vineyards today because of the much cooler temperatures, obviously. Of course, there was so much heavy industry and pollution back then
This is the problem with the modern environmental movement. They equate correlation with causation througout history based on less than 100 years of scientific data. While I will not simply and arrogantly discount all claims that we are having some impact, like a lot of anti-environmentalists do, I believe that nature is far more powerful and has more ways to adjust itself to us (or force us to adjust ourselves to it) than we give it credit for. I know that goes against the Slashdot groupthink and that I'll probably get censored
Um ... you do remember to use the "R" button to switch to 640x480 resolution, which produced great graphics in the days of 320x200, right? The red/blue and "Magic Eye" kitch were also very impressive for the day. Again, they were added for fun more than a real benefit, but the red/blue 3D was well done and the "Magic Eye" effect was cool when you got used to it, especially when you were flying over a building!
I would absolutely love to see a Magic Carpet sequel using modern graphics and surround sound. I even went so far as to build a 233 MHz PC with PC-DOS 7 and (just for fun) Windows 3.1 so that I could play Magic Carpet in its native environment. All that I needed was to use a CPU slowdown utility.
So, even with an Athlon 3200+, GeForce 6600GT, 4.1 sound system, and 21" monitor next to me with BF2, HL2, and a slew of other games installed, the basic simplicity, great gameplay, and truly deformable terrain (which still has not been duplicated in modern games) make the Magic Carpet series scream for a sequel.
R.I.P., Bullfrog! We miss ya!
The crew of TellTale Games has already acquired the rights to Sam and Max from Steve Purcell. Most of the crew of TTG were the developers of the cancelled "Sam and Max: Freelance Police" and therefore are probably the best team to get the rights to it.
In order to keep the blindly inept LucasArts off their back, the new game will be completely different from what they were making at LucasArts and will most likely use the engine that they used for Bone. My only gripe is that the game will be episodic, not a complete game at once but "episodes" scattered over time; but as long as all of the great aspects of the original "Sam and Max" are intact (with a 3D engine, of course), I'll be thrilled when this is released.
From what I understand, it is also an "all-inclusive" license meaning that TTG has the rights to create more than just games using the Sam and Max license. TTG already has started a web comic for Sam and Max as well. Make sure to put the mouse cursor over each comic frame to see the "action".
The Soviet Russia trolls take the opposite view of yours (i.e. that it is funny) for no reason than to play devil's advocate in a hostile manner.
Sorry, but I have to disagree here. The Soviet Russia posts are merely old jokes that no one except the poster finds to be funny anymore because the humor is long since worn out. They're neither hostile nor devil's advocate. They're just stupid jokes that for some uncanny reason some people just don't know to stop using.
A "troll" is indeed more applicable to someone who intentially tries to disrupt in a hostile manner, like a KKK guy posting to a Black Panther's newsgroup or the GNAA/penis parrot posts. The "Soviet Russia" jokes - with the exception of the rare ones that actually to apply to the article - are nothing more than pathetic, overusefd jokes from people who are funny in their own minds, but most certainly not "trolls".
And I won't go so far as to say that I personally need a rocking chair, but I will (unfortunately) confess that I at least was using the Internet heavily since the mid-1980s. I've seen my share of trolls on BBSs and newsgroups, so I have to agree with the GP that the Soviet posts are not trolls.
Not that it matters in the grand sceme of things.
Have a good new year!
Hey, at least I admitted to skimming over the article, unlike those who don't even bother to click the link then come out with some major diatribe/lecture just on the summary. (And of course we all know how accurate Slashdot summaries have a tendency of being!)
:P
I'll also do something else very rare on Slashdot: MY BAD! I MISSED THAT PART OF IT! A Slashdot mea culpa! Who would have thought?!
Besides, that doesn't preclude the fact that this is a slow news week so let the conspiracies abound!
I dislike MS as much as anyone else on Slashdot; however, is this a Windows XP flaw or is it just an Internet Explorer/Outlook flaw? Unless I missed it when I read (okay, skimmed) TFA, the article implies that Windows XP is the problem. Looks more to me like it's an IE/Outlook flaw.
I run Firefox and Eudora on XP in addition to Zone Alarm, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and McAfee AV. My wife uses Firefox and Thunderbird. IE is used only on those web sites that require it (which are very, very, very, few) and I uninstall Outlook from every PC. Will I be infected just because I'm running XP? I highly doubt it. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but my doubt factor is nearly maximum. That does not downgrade the severity threat. After all, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Eudora are in a very small minority of Windows users' favorite applications. Believe me, I love to see Microsoft dragged through the mud when possible, but let's at least keep it realistic.
This clearly is a slow news week. The anti-Bush-administration people are making an issue over an NSA web cookie and now we're blaming an entire operating system for application flaws. (I know the whole argument about IE and Outlook being integrated into the operating system, but I still don't see this as an operating system issue if other apps on the same operating system are not vulnerable.)
You should know better than to submit (A) any "news" that could enflame anti-Bush, Slashdot rhetoric, (B) any "news" that would shed even the slightest of negative on anything related to Republicans, and (C) any "news" that could warrant tin foil hats on Slashdot. In this case, you got to mix all three!!
:)
A virtual hydrogen bomb you've created! --Whoops!-- I hope no NSA cookie picks up that I mentioned "hydrogen bomb" in a Slashdot thread.
Thank you for proving that you're just a flaming liberal who's looking to pin anything possible on Bush and that any discussion with you is the equivalent of trying to discuss physics with a brick wall.
FWIW, I am not happy with Bush, I don't like Fox News, I thought that the whole Clinton impeachment was a bunch of bullshit and a waste of taxpayer dollars that would just come back to bite the GOP in the ass, which it has done.
That's a nice broad brush that you've got there. I see that you use it often even though you have no idea how to properly hold it.
It won't go far when it gets Mount Fuji dropped on it. I guess that would be a mountain over a molehill, though. :) But I have seen a Killer Rabbit in a British documentary from the early 1970s! I was no ordinary rabbit, with bones strewn about its lair!
Policy = Internal law = Completely unenforceable by the Judicial branch = One of the worst excuses I've seen for this anti-Bush witch hunt yet.
From TFA: The House on Wednesday is expected to adopt the compromise version of a fiscal 2002 Treasury-Postal Service bill, H.R. 2590, that would expand privacy protections for people visiting federal Web sites and provide funds for crime-fighting technology.
It's an article from 2001 that states that the House is expected to adopt this provision. Please provide the document that states that this particular clause not only made it into the bill, but that the bill was approved by both houses of Congress and that President Bush actually signed it.
After that, please show me the test that all government employees have to take proving that they are fluent and fully-versed in the millions upon millions of rules and regulations to which they need to adhere and the ramifications thereof for violating any such rules and ramifications.
I also expect to see that various documents thus proving that all levels of management are also refreshed on a regular basis of the policies and violation ramifications. After all, we would not want them to forget any of the millions of laws and policies that they have to adhere to, would we?
It was wrong when the Republicans went on a witch hunt against Clinton who admitted to breaking the law - lying under oath. Just because the tables are turned does not make it less of a witch hunt nor does it make said witch hunt "less wrong".
Then kindly quote the law which was approved by the House, approved by the Senate, and signed by any President that makes the usage of permanent cookies on any government web site a violation of federal law. I know of no law and thus far none of the anti-Bush, or in your apparent case anti-Republican, crowd has been able to bring forth the bill that placed that restriction into law.
Clinton lied under oath. That is a violation of established law. But unless you can bring forth the bill from Congress that made permanent cookies illegal, the phrase "no President is above the law" doesn't apply at all.
Because it is against the law.
So is speeding. Don't tell me that you have never done that.
So is downloading music/software that you didn't pay for. Don't tell me that you have never done that.
So are a number of other laws that should have been taken off the books long ago that people don't care about and law enforcement doesn't bother to enforce. They're all against the law as well.
The fact that you are expecting every employee at every level to be fully knowledgable of every law and every ramification for every action does nothing more than show that you are on a witch hunt.
And for the record as much as I disliked Clinton even I knew from the start that the whole blowjob issue was overblown (no pun intended) and an unnecessary witch hunt that was doomed to fail. So, stop being childish by lumping those of us who see this issue for the security pittance that it is as "Bush apologists".
So either one or both agencies in question are simply incompetent, or lying to us. Which do you think is more plausible?
Wow! The fact that you're even asking this is a clear indication that you have never worked in any government entity. All levels of government - federal, state, and local - are loaded with incompetency and attempt to lie to the public whenever such lying is "in the public interest" or covers their asses.
You also seem to have some notion that as soon as you become a government employee that you are going to somehow assume and retain all legal ramifications based on all existing laws just by being hired. Management changes happen. Staff changes happen. The notion that all government employees of all levels will be aware of all rules and regulations regarding all functions is highly naive. For all we know, the installation of this supposed "off-the-shelf" software was the first task of a new, NSA intern in the IT department.
I know that you dislike (hate?) the current administration, but this is absolutely a "mountain out of molehill" scenario in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe I'm lacking some information on cookie spcifications, but I was under the impression that cookies can only be read/written by the web site that you are visiting unless there are links to other sites, such as advertising sites, that manipulate cookies. This is of course how you can visit a site but then get cookies from 24/7 media, AdServer, and others. But the cookies cannot be arbitrarily read by other web sites unless there is some kind of partnership going on. Again, this is the impression that I was under regarding general cookie use. So, if that's correct the NSA cookie is not even an issue when you visit other web sites unless they're specifically looking for it -- like any of them would.
/. But this to me is nothing more than unnecessarily putting some fuel on an already smouldering dislike for the current administration, courtesy of an ill-informed and/or careless IT person at the NSA, in the hopes that a large, anti-NSA and more generally anti-current-administration fire will grow out of it.
Okay, so the NSA puts a permanent cookie on the system. Why is this an issue? It's not a security breach; it's not a cross-advertising cookie that tracks where you go. There's not one of us who has installed software and went over every configuration setting with a fine-toothed comb, particularly with off-the-shelf software, at one time or another. Cookies are also easily removed and can be blocked on future visits. Of course, the web logs themselves can get the IP address of everyone who visits, so even if you block cookies, the NSA can still tell exactly when a specific IP address contacted their site.
I realize that the U.S. government, particularly the current administration, is not a favorite of the Slashdot crowd and that this will be (and has already been) touted as "yet another flagrant policy violation!!!" by political opportunists here on
Just my two cents. Convert to your currency as necessary.
This was all through internal Motorola documentation, hardware, and software that involved DOCSIS-compliant cable modems, so I can't readily provide that information. (And I left the company/project several years ago.) But the same type of methodolgy is used for DSL as well. (One of the final stages of modem initialization, after locating the uplink and downlink frequencies, is the downloading of the configuration file which tells the modem which cap speeds to use.
You also need to know that any ISP that catches you messing with your connection will terminate your account almost immediately. When information about how to do this was leaked a few years ago, just about every ISP implemented a "no tolerance" policy to those who uncapped their bandwidth. BroadbandReports.com had a lot of messages posted about people who got knocked off their connection for uncapping their modem. So, I don't recommend doing it.
Needless to say I was furious when I learned that speed caps are managed through a configuration file for the modem and are so easily changed. It wasn't even coded. You start the configuration utility, load the file, change the decimal number for the amount of kb/sec for each stream, save the configuration file, and reset the modem so that it downloads the configuration file again. Done! Bastards...
Currently, I get 6 Mb/sec (minimum, consistent speed) through Comcast. Frankly, I don't need any more for my home. Any major downloading that I want/need to do can be done overnight.
I am more frustrated by the stranglehold that most ISPs utilize regarding uplink speeds. It's absolutely ridiculous that I have a 6 Mb/sec down speed but 128 Kb/sec up speed. If I'm uploading a major web site upgrade or getting on-line with some Battlefield 2 action, the up speeds are much more important. When my nephew is over and both of us are connecting to the BF2 network on separate systems, my network goes crazy and a lot of other Internet-related functions are brought to a crawl because the uplink it almost totally taken up by the two BF2 connections.
What I don't understand is why these companies don't allow a mixture. "For $$.$$ per month you get any combination up to { insert speed here }" to allow the customer to specify the perfect combination. Or allow the user to specifiy from a range of combinations as long as the combined speeds are not greater than X. And it's not difficult for ISPs to do.
Most modems, particularly those that are DOCSIS compliant, utilize a tiny (about 100 byte -- yes, 100 byte) configuration file that is downloaded via TFTP from the ISP when the modem is reset. I've used the configuration tools to make these files when I was involved in broadband deployment on the east coast. There are separate, numeric fields to create up and down speed caps. Modify the fields, save the configuration file, associate the broadband modem with that configuration file, reset, done. The new upload and download speeds are defined. "A la carte" broadband is simple to do. The ISPs refuse to do it, I guess because it would provide a benefit to the customer.
I certainly would not mind FttH if it ever befomes available and it provides an equal or better value; but if I was given the option right now to take 512 Kb/sec or 1 Mb/sec from the downlink and apply that to the uplink, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
Your listing is accurate, but you purposefully strayed from the point that I was making by intentionally selecting hardware that is way overkill for a basic HTPC. You're attempting to sell a BMW when a Ford Focus will serve the majority of the community nicely. (No comment on the vehicles listed, people. I'm just using them for comparison's sake.) You're looking at really modern hardware for a totally beefed-up system, which is totally not necessary for a lot of people. NO ONE -- repeat -- NO ONE needs the hardware that you mentioned just to make an HTPC.
For true video and audiophiles, yes, what you listed is still overkill but closer to the requirements. For the basic functions that were listed in the article that this whole thread is about, there is no need whatsoever for the powehouse that you listed.
Had you bothered to read the parent - which is more than can be expected from an Anonymous Coward, I grant you - you would have seen that he stated that he had problems with other applications when the autorun was disabled.
Idiot.
Home theatre PCs are pretty nice however they are expensive
:)
Not trying to take your whole statement out of context, but this one struck me because it's absolutely not true. You can make a decent HTPC out of nothing more than
* an 800 MHz Athlon
* An ATI All-In-Wonder card (even the old AIW 7200 had everything that was necessary including remote)
* Sound Blaster Live 5.1
* whatever hard disk space you want
All of these parts can be purchased on the cheap on eBay, if you don't already have them. (And we can't really be considered to be geeks unless we have a few spare systems laying around, right?) Playing DVDs is NOT CPU intensive for the most part. I can watch DVDs on my 450 MHz Pentium II laptop in full screen without issue.
If you get into high-quality DIVX or WMV, yes, you'll need something beefier, but even brand new systems that are more than up to the task in memory and CPU power can be purchased for less than $400. Even if you need to buy another video card, HTPC cards - even high-def - are not outrageously expensive if you know where to look, and no one said that you need the best of the best. As I mentioned before, my AIT AIW7200 does time-shifting, has a remote, can take complete control of what I watch on the TV, and has software like that gives me the ability to record a future show just be double-clicking on it.
As for hard drives, I just bought a 200 GB drive on NewEgg for less than $100. That's a sh*tload of hours of Divx movies, even in high quality.
Sorry, but if you think that HTPCs are expensive, then it's glaringly evident that you've never tried to buy or build one, or else you're trying to buy an Alienware version.
I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that a vibrating controller feature is a clear reason to spends hundreds of dollars for a console as opposed to a PC. Forget graphics; forget sound; you are pleased to have spent $400+ to play CoD with a rumbling joystick?
You're exactly the kind of hard-core console user that exacerbates my confusion. Although to be fair, I also don't understand the people who will pay $500+ for a video card for their PC, either.
Personally, the only reasons I would own a console are a) if they didn't release some uber-game for the PC, or my computer wouldn't be able to run it for years, and b) consoles just work, in general.
Agreed on both counts, and the refusal of developers to release some console uber-games on the PC really pisses me off. But in fairness there are a lot of demographics involved as well.
Halo, for instance. We all know how that game is effectively what sold the original Xbox in the beginning. When I played the PC version, I was unimpressed. It was another FPS as far as I'm concerned. (I want to see GoldenEye upgraded for the PC! Drool, drool!)
But I for one will not spend hundreds of dollars on a new console just to play a few games that aren't available for the PC. I think that's a bit of arrogance that a lot of console makers and console game developers have. I'll either wait to get the console (and possibly the game) second-hand, which means that they get no money, or I'll do without, which means they get no money. But I'm probably in the minority on that.
I feel the need to stress again that I'm not anti-console. I just don't understand the fervor for it that obviously millions of people have. I just don't understand how the author can actually complain because the 360 doesn't have those features, yet the PC on which he created his article DOES! Considerng how the prices of some new PCs are the same as the 360, "console fever" further confuses me.