Thumbprints + hospitals is a bad idea. Doctors and nurses passing between "zones" need to (or at least should) use an antibacterial wash to keep from cross-contaminating patients. Add in yet another shared surface that all those hands will be touching means another vector to pass those germs around. Not to mention the difficulty of those employees who have to wear gloves. A touchless key fob that can be worn on the wrist, however, would be better.
And the parent is also absolutely correct re: "artistic input" of the modern-day pop idol. For a brief while I worked as a PA to a guy who wrote/produced songs for hit machines like Britney. When he and his partner would write a new song, I'd be the one sending it out to various talent managers to shop it around.
Though, that is how the music industry used to work. Frank Sinatra didn't write "My Way". Paul Anka did. Most of Elvis' songs were written for him, too. Songwriters would bring in a song, and sell it to the studio, who would have an artist record it. Things worked that way in Rock and Roll until about the time the Beatles came around.
I have never understood why Microsoft does this. Well, beyond the "make more money" aspect but that's because they're a company in the business of making money.
It's a marketing thing. Consider:
DUDE: $100 for an OS? That's too expensive.
MS: Okay, we'll take care of that.
...Later...
MS: Here we go. Ultimate OS. Only $299!
DUDE: Too expensive!
MS: Well, if $299 is too much, then how about Basic OS for $100? You're saving $199!
I'm just disappointed that he didn't do it in full makeup. I wouldn't want to be the clerk that had to talk to the sketch artist. It'd be a day you pray the security cameras didn't fail.
They should just do what the ESRB does. "Online content may change game experience. Online content not rated." Admit there's not much they can do about it, and be done with it.
Either they're not checking or the credit card company isn't allowed to disclose the customer's address without a court order, as my canadian card works fine.
But they can turn on the Address Verification System (AVS). You would have to enter your address into the "billing address" fields. While processing the transaction, they can request that the payment provider verify the address. If it doesn't match, they can reject the payment.
By making those fields mandatory, they'll force you to declare the country of origin of your credit card, and they can act (in)appropriately from there.
This story's been online for hours now, and there's no Clone War jokes? Alright, everyone. Turn in your geek cards. And I know which one of you have them. (Thanks RFID!)
Having not read much amateur writing myself, I think you make an interesting point. I wonder if a magazine like F&SF could have any success by having a website on which anyone could submit stories, and their editors read through, find the good ones and publish them. All the stories could be available for users to browse through and rate, but the prospect of being put into print might attract more authors and make the site a success.
Probably not. The sticking point is-- how do you pay the editor? Editors (of the good/reputable magazines, at least) tend to be educated, and have a knack for the language, and are in tune with the "art" of writing. In short, they're talented, and this is their livleyhood. Given that:
1) You pay for these editors
2) You use free editors.
With #1, you need a website making money to pay them for making the content of the website good enough to pay money for. I wonder if ouroboros.com is available?
With #2, you're hoping for the best. You might get good editors, you might not. Would you want to read fiction controlled by Wikipedia editors?
The last thing is the sheer volume of entries you'll get. Just ask any editor about the slush pile. Buy them a drink first. F&SF has a turn-around time of about 2-3 weeks-- and that is a phenomenal feat. Most magazines will take 1-2 months for a submission to make it through the queue. That's a lot of submissions, given that people (in most cases) still need to snail mail it. Can you imagine what will happen when you open it up electronically, and everyone including every Harry Potter/Picard fanfic writer submits? That is a lot of slush.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but it would be quite the challenge to find a working, profitable sweet spot between amature free-for-all and professional tightly-run-ship
With all the talks of ethics, I have to wonder about Amazon's. This keeps happening over and over again, and yet Amazon doesn't seem to ever respond accordingly: kick the company off Amazon. Refuse to sell any of their products ever again.
Any company would hurt if major distribution networks refused to sell their products. (Why do you think there's no Adult Only rated games?)
But they don't, so I have to wonder what's more valuable to Amazon: The integrity of their rating system, or the profit from selling "5-star" products from Carbonite (or any other rating-scam company)?
So, will YouTube bother vetting these ads, or will they become the next great haven for unvetted rogue Flash ads that redirect you to malware sites?
Worse. Some dumbass content owner (not creator) will decide that the viewers need to be punished. They'll toss a goatse into all of their ID's content.
It might need some nifty technology, but it's not beyond the realm of plausibility. The fake card has a blutooth relay built into it. You can get those to be pretty darn tiny-- that was their purpose. The accomplice at the store has a netbook or some other smaller Internet enabled device in their briefcase. That device is wifi'd up to the nearest hotspot, which connects via the Internet to the waiter's handheld device.
It might be possible to prevent something like this by lowering the timing window below the window required for the Internet transaction. But that's just a race to find a better relay method.
The fact is the attack isn't currently easy or convenient, but it's plausible-- and thus those in charge of security need to think about preventing it, and those of ill-intent will be thinking of exploiting it.
It's coming to North America, but slowly. Mainly because it will be expensive, and only serves to protect the consumer.
Contrast that with the UK banks that have implemented the "chip and pin", where the courts ruled that due to the PIN, they aren't responsible for theft. The banks practically orgasamed all over themselves to get it going.
It still doesn't offer complete protection. You can take the UK card to Germany, where merchants have not implemented the PIN. Or you can still shop inside the UK; just damage the chip. The card will fallback into "swipe and sign" mode that is used for cards without a PIN (such as those visiting from America).
Or, even with the chip and pin, all one needs to do is some shoulder surfing. Everyone covers their PIN at an ATM. In other situations, people aren't used to doing that (restaurant, etc). Once you've identified a PIN, pick the person's pocket.
Or buy things online.
Or steal a lot of cards, and attempt to brute-force the PIN.
Or there's an interesting relay attack:
Consider the following scenario: You go for lunch in a small restaurant in
London, and pay using your chipcard at the end of the meal. What you don't
know is that the waiter at the restaurant is corrupt. You ask for the bill, and
the waiter goes off to fetch a handheld Chip and PIN machine that he brings
over to you. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, his accomplice is loitering in a
jeweller's store. The waiter sends an SMS message to his accomplice, who goes up
to make a purchase. Just as you insert your card into the waiter's terminal, the
accomplice puts a fake card into the jeweller's terminal. The waiter's sabotaged
reader simply forwards all the traffic from your card wirelessly to the card in
the reader at the jewellers, and pretends to ask you to pay for lunch. You enter
the PIN, thinking you're paying for lunch, but in fact you're buying the crooks
a diamond!
If a kid is responsible enough to hold a job that pays well enough to afford an iPhone, then I'll just assume that they are responsible enough to handle omgdrugz!
And if it's a spoiled kid who was handed a pacifier^H^H^H^H^H^H^H iPhone, then their parents have already screwed them up far more than a game ever will.
The thing with these reviews is that they're actively interfering with the spread of accurate information
I have to wonder what's more valuable to Amazon? The integrity of their review section, or the profit from selling Belkin products?
If it's the former, I'd like to see them give Belkin a suspension or ban from Amazon. "We won't lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do."
Of course, I'm being optimistic, and most likely they won't. Not having them means that someone who is going to buy a router AND a bunch of other things won't split their order (they'll just buy somewhere else). And people who start off looking for a Belkin but end up buying a $200 product instead won't.
(All this ignores the third option, which is that by making an example out of Belkin, it might be a short term loss, but a long term gain since other companies will know not to fuzz with Amazon)
If you cause all atoms, down to the smallest level, within the envelope of your craft to be trapped in a void that stops experiencing the timestream and doesn't appear to the outside world, but the void itself is still acted upon by the forces of the outside world, then the void should remain in place until the occupants exit at the designated "arrival" time.
Except that one explains moving forward in time. And really, it's just an extension of a cryo-freeze. How, then, does the De Lorean travel BACK in time?
There's always the "way out there" Niven theory: The universe is circular; it will, expand, collapse, and expand again in a perfect pattern. Everything that was will be again. So instead of traveling back in time 1 year, you instead build a craft that can withstand the destruction and rebirth of the Universe, arm it with your above-mentioned time-freezer, then travel forward 100 trillion - 1 years. If you over-shoot the mark, just try again.
And I gotta tell you: fellas.. you have got what appears to be a dynamite inauguration! I'll be honest.. fellas, it was communicating great. But.. I could've used a little more Bell COWs!
Slashdot Mirror
Thumbprints + hospitals is a bad idea. Doctors and nurses passing between "zones" need to (or at least should) use an antibacterial wash to keep from cross-contaminating patients. Add in yet another shared surface that all those hands will be touching means another vector to pass those germs around. Not to mention the difficulty of those employees who have to wear gloves. A touchless key fob that can be worn on the wrist, however, would be better.
Though, that is how the music industry used to work. Frank Sinatra didn't write "My Way". Paul Anka did. Most of Elvis' songs were written for him, too. Songwriters would bring in a song, and sell it to the studio, who would have an artist record it. Things worked that way in Rock and Roll until about the time the Beatles came around.
There's Windows 7, Windows 7 Lite, and new Windows 7 Dry.
It's a marketing thing. Consider:
DUDE: $100 for an OS? That's too expensive.
MS: Okay, we'll take care of that.
...Later...
MS: Here we go. Ultimate OS. Only $299!
DUDE: Too expensive!
MS: Well, if $299 is too much, then how about Basic OS for $100? You're saving $199!
DUDE: That's a huge saving. I'll buy it.
I'm just disappointed that he didn't do it in full makeup. I wouldn't want to be the clerk that had to talk to the sketch artist. It'd be a day you pray the security cameras didn't fail.
They should just do what the ESRB does. "Online content may change game experience. Online content not rated." Admit there's not much they can do about it, and be done with it.
Yet.
I'm just waiting for someone to post a link to a 30 second long clip of the Super Bowl that ends with no porn.
BOWLROLLED!
But they can turn on the Address Verification System (AVS). You would have to enter your address into the "billing address" fields. While processing the transaction, they can request that the payment provider verify the address. If it doesn't match, they can reject the payment.
By making those fields mandatory, they'll force you to declare the country of origin of your credit card, and they can act (in)appropriately from there.
This story's been online for hours now, and there's no Clone War jokes? Alright, everyone. Turn in your geek cards. And I know which one of you have them. (Thanks RFID!)
Probably not. The sticking point is-- how do you pay the editor? Editors (of the good/reputable magazines, at least) tend to be educated, and have a knack for the language, and are in tune with the "art" of writing. In short, they're talented, and this is their livleyhood. Given that:
1) You pay for these editors
2) You use free editors.
With #1, you need a website making money to pay them for making the content of the website good enough to pay money for. I wonder if ouroboros.com is available?
With #2, you're hoping for the best. You might get good editors, you might not. Would you want to read fiction controlled by Wikipedia editors?
The last thing is the sheer volume of entries you'll get. Just ask any editor about the slush pile. Buy them a drink first. F&SF has a turn-around time of about 2-3 weeks-- and that is a phenomenal feat. Most magazines will take 1-2 months for a submission to make it through the queue. That's a lot of submissions, given that people (in most cases) still need to snail mail it. Can you imagine what will happen when you open it up electronically, and everyone including every Harry Potter/Picard fanfic writer submits? That is a lot of slush.
I'm not saying it's not possible, but it would be quite the challenge to find a working, profitable sweet spot between amature free-for-all and professional tightly-run-ship
Slap a "this crowd may be harmful to your sanity" label on them, and ignore.
And while you have them on the phone, make sure you also tell them your thoughts on IP law reform!
?
They already have a tool for that. It's called a Linux Live CD.
I know this is a Carbonite joke, but...
With all the talks of ethics, I have to wonder about Amazon's. This keeps happening over and over again, and yet Amazon doesn't seem to ever respond accordingly: kick the company off Amazon. Refuse to sell any of their products ever again.
Any company would hurt if major distribution networks refused to sell their products. (Why do you think there's no Adult Only rated games?)
But they don't, so I have to wonder what's more valuable to Amazon: The integrity of their rating system, or the profit from selling "5-star" products from Carbonite (or any other rating-scam company)?
Worse. Some dumbass content owner (not creator) will decide that the viewers need to be punished. They'll toss a goatse into all of their ID's content.
It might need some nifty technology, but it's not beyond the realm of plausibility. The fake card has a blutooth relay built into it. You can get those to be pretty darn tiny-- that was their purpose. The accomplice at the store has a netbook or some other smaller Internet enabled device in their briefcase. That device is wifi'd up to the nearest hotspot, which connects via the Internet to the waiter's handheld device.
It might be possible to prevent something like this by lowering the timing window below the window required for the Internet transaction. But that's just a race to find a better relay method.
The fact is the attack isn't currently easy or convenient, but it's plausible-- and thus those in charge of security need to think about preventing it, and those of ill-intent will be thinking of exploiting it.
It's coming to North America, but slowly. Mainly because it will be expensive, and only serves to protect the consumer.
Contrast that with the UK banks that have implemented the "chip and pin", where the courts ruled that due to the PIN, they aren't responsible for theft. The banks practically orgasamed all over themselves to get it going.
It still doesn't offer complete protection. You can take the UK card to Germany, where merchants have not implemented the PIN. Or you can still shop inside the UK; just damage the chip. The card will fallback into "swipe and sign" mode that is used for cards without a PIN (such as those visiting from America).
Or, even with the chip and pin, all one needs to do is some shoulder surfing. Everyone covers their PIN at an ATM. In other situations, people aren't used to doing that (restaurant, etc). Once you've identified a PIN, pick the person's pocket.
Or buy things online.
Or steal a lot of cards, and attempt to brute-force the PIN.
Or there's an interesting relay attack:
- "Chip and Spin", http://www.chipandspin.co.uk/
If a kid is responsible enough to hold a job that pays well enough to afford an iPhone, then I'll just assume that they are responsible enough to handle omgdrugz!
And if it's a spoiled kid who was handed a pacifier^H^H^H^H^H^H^H iPhone, then their parents have already screwed them up far more than a game ever will.
I have to wonder what's more valuable to Amazon? The integrity of their review section, or the profit from selling Belkin products?
If it's the former, I'd like to see them give Belkin a suspension or ban from Amazon. "We won't lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do."
Of course, I'm being optimistic, and most likely they won't. Not having them means that someone who is going to buy a router AND a bunch of other things won't split their order (they'll just buy somewhere else). And people who start off looking for a Belkin but end up buying a $200 product instead won't.
(All this ignores the third option, which is that by making an example out of Belkin, it might be a short term loss, but a long term gain since other companies will know not to fuzz with Amazon)
Except that one explains moving forward in time. And really, it's just an extension of a cryo-freeze. How, then, does the De Lorean travel BACK in time?
There's always the "way out there" Niven theory: The universe is circular; it will, expand, collapse, and expand again in a perfect pattern. Everything that was will be again. So instead of traveling back in time 1 year, you instead build a craft that can withstand the destruction and rebirth of the Universe, arm it with your above-mentioned time-freezer, then travel forward 100 trillion - 1 years. If you over-shoot the mark, just try again.
And I gotta tell you: fellas.. you have got what appears to be a dynamite inauguration! I'll be honest.. fellas, it was communicating great. But.. I could've used a little more Bell COWs!
Dude, it's nothing to laugh at. If you tried to get at Obama, those Care Bares would fucking murder you. With care!
People who invoke Godwin's law are real forum nazis.
Or you can just install TVersity on your main PC. That way you can stream videos to your PS3 OR Xbox, including direct access to Youtube.