I just looked at their product list. They are charging $29.95 for a program to stop Windows Messenger Popups! That should be criminal. That takes about thirty seconds to do by yourself without special software.
I was about to say that. My old employer (several years ago) wouldn't allow us web access, but would allow Telnet connections outside of our network. My ISP back then was pretty freewheeling and would let users login and use a remote command prompt on their Solaris servers. Lynx wasn't a great browsing experience, but I was able to read quite a bit. I also kept up on my news and e-mail (this was my first experience with Unix-type systems - now I have two Linux boxes on my own network).
I had so streamlined my position (database work) that what used to be a 70 hour a week job could be done in about twelve. They were just thrilled that I was able to stay abreast of everything and not require overtime. Eventually though they figured out that I wasn't as busy as they originally thought and gave me another full-time position as well, so I could only slack off two hours a day. Ahhh... the good old days...
Yes, credit card companies do use this kind of thing to flag "strange" account activity. I used to work in collections for a major bank and I had to deal with an irate soon-to-be-former customer who had gone on vacation to Bermuda and tried to use his card. Of course the computer thought that a sudden purchase in the Caribbean was unusual for the account and it generated a call to his home telephone number to see if he meant to make that purchase. Needless to say, he wasn't home to take the call, and his account was suspended.
Systems like this are helpful - most of the time - but they'll bite legitimate users on occasion and if there aren't good ways to handle problems like this, you can lose customers (in a commercial setting at least). On a LAN, the worst you'll probably do is keep tech support busy and lose efficiency.
I believe there is intelligent life out there, but I feel that the chances of us detecting them is slim to none.
The assumptions that go into SETI are a bit far-fetched to me. I think of it as a kind of psychological and technological anthropromorphism. We are making big assumptions in thinking that their technology is going to be similar to ours, and an even bigger assumption in thinking that they share the same curiosity and interest in finding other life beyond their own stellar systems.
If they have followed a similar technological path to us, wouldn't a species a bit more advanced than us be more likely to be quieter than us (electromagnetically speaking)? Why pollute their spectrum with all the cr@p we are? So I feel that a chance detection of stray EM noise would be unlikely.
A bigger question: why are all of the other solar systems so darned far away?
I'm writing a game set in nearby space, and according to the best database I was able to compile, there are 3588 star systems within 120 light years. Few of them are as inhabitable as our own. The majority of the systems have red dwarf primaries and the zone in which liquid water can exist is so small as to be insignificant. Brighter stars tend to be variable, too young or too short lived. Nearby livable systems (by human standards at least) are pretty rare, and those that seem likely have already been scanned many times.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Reminds me of an old website of mine. It had a %100 accurate fortune telling PERL CGI script. It had one response to all queries:
"You are going to die."
Before you ask why I did it in a script, let me just say I was even more of an idiot back then.
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I just looked at their product list. They are charging $29.95 for a program to stop Windows Messenger Popups! That should be criminal. That takes about thirty seconds to do by yourself without special software.
I was about to say that. My old employer (several years ago) wouldn't allow us web access, but would allow Telnet connections outside of our network. My ISP back then was pretty freewheeling and would let users login and use a remote command prompt on their Solaris servers. Lynx wasn't a great browsing experience, but I was able to read quite a bit. I also kept up on my news and e-mail (this was my first experience with Unix-type systems - now I have two Linux boxes on my own network).
I had so streamlined my position (database work) that what used to be a 70 hour a week job could be done in about twelve. They were just thrilled that I was able to stay abreast of everything and not require overtime. Eventually though they figured out that I wasn't as busy as they originally thought and gave me another full-time position as well, so I could only slack off two hours a day. Ahhh... the good old days...
Yes, credit card companies do use this kind of thing to flag "strange" account activity. I used to work in collections for a major bank and I had to deal with an irate soon-to-be-former customer who had gone on vacation to Bermuda and tried to use his card. Of course the computer thought that a sudden purchase in the Caribbean was unusual for the account and it generated a call to his home telephone number to see if he meant to make that purchase. Needless to say, he wasn't home to take the call, and his account was suspended.
Systems like this are helpful - most of the time - but they'll bite legitimate users on occasion and if there aren't good ways to handle problems like this, you can lose customers (in a commercial setting at least). On a LAN, the worst you'll probably do is keep tech support busy and lose efficiency.
I believe there is intelligent life out there, but I feel that the chances of us detecting them is slim to none.
The assumptions that go into SETI are a bit far-fetched to me. I think of it as a kind of psychological and technological anthropromorphism. We are making big assumptions in thinking that their technology is going to be similar to ours, and an even bigger assumption in thinking that they share the same curiosity and interest in finding other life beyond their own stellar systems.
If they have followed a similar technological path to us, wouldn't a species a bit more advanced than us be more likely to be quieter than us (electromagnetically speaking)? Why pollute their spectrum with all the cr@p we are? So I feel that a chance detection of stray EM noise would be unlikely.
A bigger question: why are all of the other solar systems so darned far away?
I'm writing a game set in nearby space, and according to the best database I was able to compile, there are 3588 star systems within 120 light years. Few of them are as inhabitable as our own. The majority of the systems have red dwarf primaries and the zone in which liquid water can exist is so small as to be insignificant. Brighter stars tend to be variable, too young or too short lived. Nearby livable systems (by human standards at least) are pretty rare, and those that seem likely have already been scanned many times.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Reminds me of an old website of mine. It had a %100 accurate fortune telling PERL CGI script. It had one response to all queries:
"You are going to die."
Before you ask why I did it in a script, let me just say I was even more of an idiot back then.
Finally after 35 years of bad birthdays on April 13th, I finally have a possibly memorable one to look forward to - even if it is 24+ years away.
Note: whenever my birthday falls on Friday the 13th (like the one in 2029), it's also Good Friday.