[wiggles index finger over thumb]...it's the world's smallest violin, playing for everyone who wants to have their cake and eat it too, and whines about it to everyone else.
...the widespread student cracking through mandatory "filtering software" demonstrates that those who are smart enough to understand the information they're supposed to be "protected" from, will also be smart enough to crack the technology designed to "protect" them from it.
I'd bet anything a crack will be released before the technology is even released to the general market. It'll become as ubiquitous as DeCSS or filtering/AOL parental lock cracks.
Bottom line, anyone who thinks this technology will pose a threat to any but the most simpleminded computer users (which does not include most hardcore gamers) is just paranoid. It'll be as effective as CSS or Macrovision.
Not necessarily. If it indeed happened, there should be an iridium layer at the geologic layer corresponding to the date they propose for this mysterious impact. If they find one, and it predates all known Yellowstone eruptions, is below all Yellowstone-originated ash layers, and gets thicker toward the suspected impact zone, those would be strong evidence...
...that the old legend really *is* true - MS has, on an off-network computer surrounded by Faraday cages, secured by DNA-scan login and 4096-bit-encryption, stored in a bombproof chrome-vanadium steel vault located in the middle of a heavily guarded bunker somewhere deep under the Cascades:
One (1) copy of a program the sole function of which is to compile Windows from the True Source Code. The only user input: checkboxes. For each new version of Windows, one more box becomes unchecked.
This time, they'll uncheck "Disallow non-administrator accounts normal security permissions needed to install common software," possibly also "Generate random hardware driver malfunctions and system hangs" - no, the latter they'll slowly phase in as Linux gains in compatibility with newer hardware.
Remaining in the default compilation for Longhorn:
+ Create enormous fragmented swapfiles + Refuse to allow user interaction by mouse, keyboard, or other input devices intermittently
(with "display hourglass cursor, blink irregularly to give impression of computer hard at work" enabled) + Generate random cache misses and hard disk activity + Grow registry at each logon + Generate random HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet\* registry keys and values + Progress bar friction [the feature that enables progress bars for installations, driver DB searches, etc to move steadily to the 90% mark, then hang for minutes at a time - and in the case of copying files with Explorer, sometimes even move backwards] + Error message obfuscator + DLL memory space destabilizer + Microsoft encryption escrow link (use all default-enabled TCP ports in invisible mode) + Corrupt NTFS indexes and security descriptors during file writes + Mandatory 30-60 second Shutdown waitstate + Steal, lock GDI, User stack memory space over time + Intermittent kernel fault: on + Insert CPU waitstates into third-party browser executable code + Random power cycling during Windows startup + Intermittent DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL during boot: reset counter each time PCI or memory cards reseated + Remove pertinent Help topics and index words on-the-fly (redirect to Microsoft "Premium Support" webpage)
..and of course:
+ Pop up Wizard character over cursor at whim
To name a few.
Thus, the original Windows Perfect Edition (a subtly copyright-noninfringingly-rewritten version of BSD Unix) will be slowly unveiled over the next ten to twenty years.
There are such games! They're called MUDs or MUCKs;)
I know, you mean single-player games. That's the thing about multiplayer; not everyone can be the Chosen One who Saves The Entire Universe From The Evil Wizard Gznornax...
Hey, the Modarchive is still standing.. and I've been using it since I was in high school back in the mid-90s.. as it says on the site:
"Now featuring over 11.69GB in more than 29851 compressed music files.
There's a lot of good stuff on there, too. Mods will always be around; they're more flexible and extensible than MIDI, and less CPU-intensive and time-consuming to edit than wavefiles or MP3s.
Some sites 'figure it out' when lots of people start logging in as the cypherpunks account.. but if 'cypherpunks' doesn't work, just add '1' or '01', and try counting up a few before giving up. For example, on NYtimes.com, 'cypherpunks/cypherpunks' is no longer good, but 'cypherpunks01/cypherpunks01' still works.
Yes.. but if somehow you were to foolishly assume that instead of 60 2k x 4k CCDs, you had 60*2k=120k by 60*4k=240k, you would indeed get 28.8 billion pixels, like our unfortunate parent poster did.
I'm sure everyone's already fired up calc and done these simple multiplications.. but:
2.6e9 bytes (I'm assuming they're not using binary gigabytes) / 3 bytes per pixel true color (= ~860 megapixels) / 162 (9x18 inches, get ~5.4e6 bytes per in^2 - that's almost hard drive encoding resolution!), sqrt the answer, get ~2300 pixels per inch linear resolution (yeah, that's about 8 times what most magazines print at AFAIK), multiply that out by 9x18, and get:
a resolution of approx. 42,000 (h) x 21,000(v). (sorry, only 2 sigdigs)!... my DSC-F717 weeps in shame.
I mean, *damn*.. that's over 40x20 normal-ressed monitors.. you could cover the side of a building with an image out of this camera.
Obviously stolen from Mr. Garrison's design! The only thing missing is the anal stabilizer... I mean, I guess you could drive it without one, but.. what's the point, right, Mr. Hat?
...although it does bear a striking resemblance to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album cover. *chuckles*..
Still, it has a very 'retrofuturistic' quality to it.. and personally, I wouldn't mind seeing these on the shoulders of whoever ends up standing on Mars.. it's got.. well, a classic feel to it.
I see a lot of people discrediting the idea of using lenses for telescopes (too heavy, fresnels don't focus well, mirrors are cheaper and lighter) - however, this page (at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) describes a concept for a space telescope using a five-meter segmented fresnel lens as the objective, mounted between two spacecraft (separated by a few km - now that's a big focal length!), and a smaller (movable) lens as an 'eyepiece', in effect creating a huge refracting telescope.
Quote from the site:
"Diffractive telescopes using Fresnel lenses fabricated on thin membranes offer several advantages over telescopes using mirrors; thin membrane lenses are lightweight, packageable and space deployable. Transmissive diffractive lenses are much less sensitive to surface deformations compared to mirrors, and the chromatic effects due to the diffractive primary can be completely compensated for."
So, there's a use for 'em - cheap, large-scale space telescope objective lenses which are relatively robust compared to mirrors - no "Hubble trouble" with these. And if manufactured in segments, as LLNL is doing, it's easy to create *very* big lenses which fold up into a small space.. take a look at the demo lens at the bottom of the page.. wonder how many pennies THAT thing'd melt.;)
Actually, I see a lot of people disclaiming the idea of using lenses for telescopes (too heavy, fresnels don't focus well, mirrors are cheaper and lighter) - however, this page (at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) describes a concept for a space telescope using a *five-meter* segmented fresnel lens as the objective, two spacecraft separated by a few km, and a smaller (movable) lens as an 'eyepiece', in effect creating a huge refracting telescope.
Quote from the site:
"Diffractive telescopes using Fresnel lenses fabricated on thin membranes offer several advantages over telescopes using mirrors; thin membrane lenses are lightweight, packageable and space deployable. Transmissive diffractive lenses are much less sensitive to surface deformations compared to mirrors, and the chromatic effects due to the diffractive primary can be completely compensated for."
So, there's a use for 'em - cheap, large-scale space telescope objective lenses which are relatively robust compared to mirrors - no "Hubble trouble" with these. And if manufactured in segments, as LLNL is doing, it's easy to create *very* big lenses which fold up into a small space..
Gee, I guess all that experience I have flying the airship around in Final Fantasy are finally paying off.. (though I must say that mana beasts maneuver more easily..)
Now I just have to imagine that happening in a 3d space, instead of a 2D map, and there you have it.
Hell, why worry over computational time?.. rigorous proofs?.. why not turn the problem over to us RPG gamers?..
Just stick a few pixels (er, voxels) together to represent some attractive anime-style heroes and heroines, a villain with moderate levels of hair pointiness and tortured psyche.. take the top off of the damage point limit for battles, the experience point and level limits (which are, let's face it, the only real 'upper limits' on any RPG..)
Then, add a sufficiently complex random quest, item, weapon, worldmap and monster generator, in which the parameters of the problem to be solved are encoded, and you've got a nice big distributed neural computing project that pays for itself.. might need to add a few extra axes to the controllers and a participation waiver (just stick it in the EULA, no one ever reads those anyway, I know I don't..) and you'll be rich and powerful before you can cast Bolt 1..
Actually, considering the theoretical processing power of, shall we call it, a "distributed organic-intelligence-based RPG-structured problem-solving network".. one might speculate on whether someone's already put this idea into effect..
After all.. just how many of us have been enslaved by The Sims Online or Everquest instead of using our brainpower for our own purposes?..
Hmm.. are we entertaining ourselves?.. or becoming mindless network nodes performing calculations for the shadow masters of the human race?..
I uh, gotta go, my A button finger is itching.. must.. find.. more.. items..
You're right. The problem of facism in America has to be dealt with. How can we let these facists go around, judging people merely on the basis of face? Face is an inborn quality, not a personal choice - I can't help it if my face isn't like yours. I was just born that way. Isn't it time all of us - whether we believe in face or not - just got along?
Yes, I've noticed that PSU is doing some very good work with LIGOS as well.. there's a mysterious little nondescript door on the 2nd floor of my physics dept, a little brown door with the words 'Center for Gravitational Wave Research' stenciled neatly in old-fashioned letters on the frosted glass.. asked my physics prof about it and he confirmed that PSU is indeed one of the forefront institutions working on it.. I'm going to have to find a way to wiggle my way into helping them out with it;)
What would Sandman's dad think of the Singularity?
on
Ask Neil Gaiman
·
· Score: 1
So.. what do you think of Transhumanism/ists, and their/the extropians' theory of the Singularity, and the possibility of reaching this supposed 'Omega Point' within the next generation? And do you want it to happen, or not, and why?
(no, really, I say this in all seriousness, stop moderating me 'funny', dammit!;)
..of, oh, only TEN YEARS AGO, when I had to run a DOS extender (like DOS/4GW, anyone remember that?) to get at the boundless uncharted wilderness of RAM over 1 MB.. *chuckles*.. the more things change, the more they stay the same. Oh, and remember having to change your BIOS to access more than 64megs of RAM? Ha.
Just amazing, though, that standard memory configurations have exploded by a factor of a thousand in ten years.. I guess by 2013 we'll all be running machines with, oh, around 1-2 terabytes of RAM.. and complaining that Windows NBTTWP ("no bugs, this time, we promise") runs like shit..
Sooo.. is 'ultra' more than 'hyper'?;) I've always wondered about that one. After all, if we go with the Nintendo Proposition, where 'Ultra' comes after 'Super' (the 64 was called the Ultra 64 for a while, that's why its product code was NUS-64).. and 'Hyper' hasn't been used yet, we come up with the opposite conclusion.. then again, unless they discover an 'ultranova', I suppose we're stuck with 'ultra' and 'hyper' being equal.
Slashdot Mirror
[wiggles index finger over thumb]...it's the world's smallest violin, playing for everyone who wants to have their cake and eat it too, and whines about it to everyone else.
...the widespread student cracking through mandatory "filtering software" demonstrates that those who are smart enough to understand the information they're supposed to be "protected" from, will also be smart enough to crack the technology designed to "protect" them from it.
I'd bet anything a crack will be released before the technology is even released to the general market. It'll become as ubiquitous as DeCSS or filtering/AOL parental lock cracks.
Bottom line, anyone who thinks this technology will pose a threat to any but the most simpleminded computer users (which does not include most hardcore gamers) is just paranoid. It'll be as effective as CSS or Macrovision.
Not necessarily. If it indeed happened, there should be an iridium layer at the geologic layer corresponding to the date they propose for this mysterious impact. If they find one, and it predates all known Yellowstone eruptions, is below all Yellowstone-originated ash layers, and gets thicker toward the suspected impact zone, those would be strong evidence...
...that the old legend really *is* true - MS has, on an off-network computer surrounded by Faraday cages, secured by DNA-scan login and 4096-bit-encryption, stored in a bombproof chrome-vanadium steel vault located in the middle of a heavily guarded bunker somewhere deep under the Cascades:
..and of course:
One (1) copy of a program the sole function of which is to compile Windows from the True Source Code. The only user input: checkboxes. For each new version of Windows, one more box becomes unchecked.
This time, they'll uncheck "Disallow non-administrator accounts normal security permissions needed to install common software," possibly also "Generate random hardware driver malfunctions and system hangs" - no, the latter they'll slowly phase in as Linux gains in compatibility with newer hardware.
Remaining in the default compilation for Longhorn:
+ Create enormous fragmented swapfiles
+ Refuse to allow user interaction by mouse, keyboard, or other input devices intermittently
(with "display hourglass cursor, blink irregularly to give impression of computer hard at work" enabled)
+ Generate random cache misses and hard disk activity
+ Grow registry at each logon
+ Generate random HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet\* registry keys and values
+ Progress bar friction [the feature that enables progress bars for installations, driver DB searches, etc to move steadily to the 90% mark, then hang for minutes at a time - and in the case of copying files with Explorer, sometimes even move backwards]
+ Error message obfuscator
+ DLL memory space destabilizer
+ Microsoft encryption escrow link (use all default-enabled TCP ports in invisible mode)
+ Corrupt NTFS indexes and security descriptors during file writes
+ Mandatory 30-60 second Shutdown waitstate
+ Steal, lock GDI, User stack memory space over time
+ Intermittent kernel fault: on
+ Insert CPU waitstates into third-party browser executable code
+ Random power cycling during Windows startup
+ Intermittent DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL during boot: reset counter each time PCI or memory cards reseated
+ Remove pertinent Help topics and index words on-the-fly (redirect to Microsoft "Premium Support" webpage)
+ Pop up Wizard character over cursor at whim
To name a few.
Thus, the original Windows Perfect Edition (a subtly copyright-noninfringingly-rewritten version of BSD Unix) will be slowly unveiled over the next ten to twenty years.
There are such games! They're called MUDs or MUCKs ;)
I know, you mean single-player games. That's the thing about multiplayer; not everyone can be the Chosen One who Saves The Entire Universe From The Evil Wizard Gznornax...
Yeah, a storyline. Like "You have to kill Nazis - they're bad."
"Now featuring over 11.69GB in more than 29851 compressed music files. There's a lot of good stuff on there, too. Mods will always be around; they're more flexible and extensible than MIDI, and less CPU-intensive and time-consuming to edit than wavefiles or MP3s.
Some sites 'figure it out' when lots of people start logging in as the cypherpunks account.. but if 'cypherpunks' doesn't work, just add '1' or '01', and try counting up a few before giving up. For example, on NYtimes.com, 'cypherpunks/cypherpunks' is no longer good, but 'cypherpunks01/cypherpunks01' still works.
"But hey! You can't see Japan from the US because of the curvature of the Earth!"
Response from Person Who Has To Make Another Joke To Piggyback On First Joke:
"Yeah, you could reduce the price of japscat pr0n by getting around the import duties!"
Response from smartass: see above ;)
Yes.. but if somehow you were to foolishly assume that instead of 60 2k x 4k CCDs, you had 60*2k=120k by 60*4k=240k, you would indeed get 28.8 billion pixels, like our unfortunate parent poster did.
I'm sure everyone's already fired up calc and done these simple multiplications.. but: 2.6e9 bytes (I'm assuming they're not using binary gigabytes) / 3 bytes per pixel true color (= ~860 megapixels) / 162 (9x18 inches, get ~5.4e6 bytes per in^2 - that's almost hard drive encoding resolution!), sqrt the answer, get ~2300 pixels per inch linear resolution (yeah, that's about 8 times what most magazines print at AFAIK), multiply that out by 9x18, and get: a resolution of approx. 42,000 (h) x 21,000(v). (sorry, only 2 sigdigs)!... my DSC-F717 weeps in shame. I mean, *damn*.. that's over 40x20 normal-ressed monitors.. you could cover the side of a building with an image out of this camera.
Obviously stolen from Mr. Garrison's design! The only thing missing is the anal stabilizer... I mean, I guess you could drive it without one, but.. what's the point, right, Mr. Hat?
"Kill mobile phones.. KILL MOBILE PHONES!"
Gotta love those phone costumes, too..
Still, it has a very 'retrofuturistic' quality to it.. and personally, I wouldn't mind seeing these on the shoulders of whoever ends up standing on Mars.. it's got.. well, a classic feel to it.
re: 2.. actually, have you ever wondered what, exactly, an "assclown" is?.. Well, now you know.
Quote from the site:
"Diffractive telescopes using Fresnel lenses fabricated on thin membranes offer several advantages over telescopes using mirrors; thin membrane lenses are lightweight, packageable and space deployable. Transmissive diffractive lenses are much less sensitive to surface deformations compared to mirrors, and the chromatic effects due to the diffractive primary can be completely compensated for."
So, there's a use for 'em - cheap, large-scale space telescope objective lenses which are relatively robust compared to mirrors - no "Hubble trouble" with these. And if manufactured in segments, as LLNL is doing, it's easy to create *very* big lenses which fold up into a small space.. take a look at the demo lens at the bottom of the page.. wonder how many pennies THAT thing'd melt. ;)
Actually, I see a lot of people disclaiming the idea of using lenses for telescopes (too heavy, fresnels don't focus well, mirrors are cheaper and lighter) - however, this page (at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) describes a concept for a space telescope using a *five-meter* segmented fresnel lens as the objective, two spacecraft separated by a few km, and a smaller (movable) lens as an 'eyepiece', in effect creating a huge refracting telescope. Quote from the site: "Diffractive telescopes using Fresnel lenses fabricated on thin membranes offer several advantages over telescopes using mirrors; thin membrane lenses are lightweight, packageable and space deployable. Transmissive diffractive lenses are much less sensitive to surface deformations compared to mirrors, and the chromatic effects due to the diffractive primary can be completely compensated for." So, there's a use for 'em - cheap, large-scale space telescope objective lenses which are relatively robust compared to mirrors - no "Hubble trouble" with these. And if manufactured in segments, as LLNL is doing, it's easy to create *very* big lenses which fold up into a small space..
Gee, I guess all that experience I have flying the airship around in Final Fantasy are finally paying off.. (though I must say that mana beasts maneuver more easily..) Now I just have to imagine that happening in a 3d space, instead of a 2D map, and there you have it. Hell, why worry over computational time?.. rigorous proofs?.. why not turn the problem over to us RPG gamers?.. Just stick a few pixels (er, voxels) together to represent some attractive anime-style heroes and heroines, a villain with moderate levels of hair pointiness and tortured psyche.. take the top off of the damage point limit for battles, the experience point and level limits (which are, let's face it, the only real 'upper limits' on any RPG..) Then, add a sufficiently complex random quest, item, weapon, worldmap and monster generator, in which the parameters of the problem to be solved are encoded, and you've got a nice big distributed neural computing project that pays for itself.. might need to add a few extra axes to the controllers and a participation waiver (just stick it in the EULA, no one ever reads those anyway, I know I don't..) and you'll be rich and powerful before you can cast Bolt 1.. Actually, considering the theoretical processing power of, shall we call it, a "distributed organic-intelligence-based RPG-structured problem-solving network".. one might speculate on whether someone's already put this idea into effect.. After all.. just how many of us have been enslaved by The Sims Online or Everquest instead of using our brainpower for our own purposes?.. Hmm.. are we entertaining ourselves?.. or becoming mindless network nodes performing calculations for the shadow masters of the human race?.. I uh, gotta go, my A button finger is itching.. must.. find.. more.. items..
*giggles*
I like that. "Informative". Well, I guess it is. And I hate seeing that misquote. But still.. 'informative'.. *chuckles*..
You're right. The problem of facism in America has to be dealt with. How can we let these facists go around, judging people merely on the basis of face? Face is an inborn quality, not a personal choice - I can't help it if my face isn't like yours. I was just born that way. Isn't it time all of us - whether we believe in face or not - just got along?
Yes, I've noticed that PSU is doing some very good work with LIGOS as well.. there's a mysterious little nondescript door on the 2nd floor of my physics dept, a little brown door with the words 'Center for Gravitational Wave Research' stenciled neatly in old-fashioned letters on the frosted glass.. asked my physics prof about it and he confirmed that PSU is indeed one of the forefront institutions working on it.. I'm going to have to find a way to wiggle my way into helping them out with it ;)
So.. what do you think of Transhumanism/ists, and their/the extropians' theory of the Singularity, and the possibility of reaching this supposed 'Omega Point' within the next generation? And do you want it to happen, or not, and why?
;)
(no, really, I say this in all seriousness, stop moderating me 'funny', dammit!
..of, oh, only TEN YEARS AGO, when I had to run a DOS extender (like DOS/4GW, anyone remember that?) to get at the boundless uncharted wilderness of RAM over 1 MB.. *chuckles*.. the more things change, the more they stay the same. Oh, and remember having to change your BIOS to access more than 64megs of RAM? Ha.
Just amazing, though, that standard memory configurations have exploded by a factor of a thousand in ten years.. I guess by 2013 we'll all be running machines with, oh, around 1-2 terabytes of RAM.. and complaining that Windows NBTTWP ("no bugs, this time, we promise") runs like shit..
90% of Slashdot is LIBERTARIAN, not LIBERAL, from what I've seen. They both start with LIBER, but it's the SUFFIX that's important.
Sooo.. is 'ultra' more than 'hyper'? ;) I've always wondered about that one. After all, if we go with the Nintendo Proposition, where 'Ultra' comes after 'Super' (the 64 was called the Ultra 64 for a while, that's why its product code was NUS-64).. and 'Hyper' hasn't been used yet, we come up with the opposite conclusion.. then again, unless they discover an 'ultranova', I suppose we're stuck with 'ultra' and 'hyper' being equal.