Actually, I think a part of the research they didn't announce was time-travel. But they've only managed a few hours so far; keep on eye on last week's news for more useful "jumps".
As someone who works with traders, I'd say that the randomness/unpredictability of the markets is part of the reason *why* traders are so reliant on their models.
Otherwise, it's all just blind gambling (which it isn't far off, anyway).
The advent of full on algo trading means that random events in the market have the ability to wipe out tons of capital because the models predict (e.g.) a global crash when it's just a blip. (Extreme example)
The other part of the problem is that traders are nowadays just glorified clerks in that all (well, 90%+) of the actual calculation and predictive work is done by complex platforms (or Excel), so they don't really care or have exposure to the real risks behind their trading.
Coupled with the huge bonuses they used to get (I'm in London where bonuses are being denied; is it the same elsewhere?) as long as they showed *quantity* of trades, it was always a recipe for disaster.
Unless they've changed it considerably, it used to be a glass/acrylic-topped table with a projector underneath, not a "high-resolution display" (granted, decent projectors are still pretty expensive).
The "touchscreen" element was emulated using multiple (five, I think) IR-cameras and triangulating the location of all IR-reflecting contacts.
I'm not saying it's simple, but it's nowhere near as expensive as developing a large touchscreen capable of detecting many contacts (i.e. more than Apple multi-touch). Also, their tech (while not as compact) has the ability to scale to larger forms much more easily.
I don't want to incite this argument further, but Chernobyl (whilst still a terrible tragedy) was caused by human error and poor reactor design - two things that can (and mostly have been) resolved through experience.
The truth is that most current, high-volume, electricity-producing techniques have huge down-sides to them.
The biggest problems with nuclear plants (after waste-material, where huge advances are being made) is how to clean them up after coolant leakage or decommissioning (as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Decommissioning).
Yahoo isn't primarily a search provider, they're a content portal (at least, I think that's how they present themselves).
I agree, their main site is very cluttered, but for their primary target audience it offers everything they need/want (since they can customise it).
True, for people doing a search, Google has become popular because of its simple homepage - but personally, I haven't visited a search engine's homepage in months, because I use the search bar on Fx instead.
On the subject of this merger, I'm a little worried. I joined Yahoo pre-95 when they pretty much were the WWW (well, them and Geocities, who they now own). I was fearful of the MS merger because I thought MS would bugger Yahoo's services (most notably Mail, that I use as an emergency account, and Flickr). But I feel that News Corp would be more interested in using the personal information to do their usual of swaying public opinion with well-placed and well-worded headlines/opinion features.
Anyway, the only reason XP doesn't support it is because Microsoft decided to prevent people still using XP when directX10 takes hold.
I don't really want to defend Microsoft, but that isn't the only reason. The Vista driver subsystem is significantly different in the graphics/audio area to XP - it was a ground-up redesign, hence the early driver issues with Vista.
From my experience of it, I reckon it has better longevity than XPs design (which was inherited directly from NT).
Driver-wise, there are still major problems in the audio area; but Microsoft refuses to get involved, laying the blame squarely with the audio hardware vendors. This is stupid on their part because the consumer only sees that Vista has worse sound (and performance) than XP - they don't think "oh, but it's the driver not the OS".
I see no reason why Linux (and other non-MS OSs) won't have some sort of D10 substitute at some point in the future - but it's unlikely a usable one for XP will appear since it would require huge amounts of work to core parts of the OS.
A highly fallacious (and common) argument. Valve aren't only trying to cover the costs of the CD and box; these games have been in development for years at a staggering cost.
I agree with other comments that Valve could correct this situation by allowing "offenders" to register a local license. I'm not sure how many other companies have tried charging local prices for products, like this, but it should be encouraged. The only way I can see other companies doing the same, is if they know that they can prevent the market from mass-importing the cheaper product.
Caveat: I like in the UK, and we get stung a lot by the 1:1 import of goods from US$ to £.
Personally, I bought it on Steam because it's so much easier, and I'm more than happy to fund Valve's work.
Did you complain to Microsoft, or did it reactivate? This happened to me when I bought my 8800, but it tells me my activation key has already been used...
I haven't got around to complaining to MS yet, so I'm wondering if anybody else has and got a result?
I like the incremental improvements from XP to Vista, but expiring my key because of a new video card is ridiculous.
Professor Farnsworth: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure. Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand? Professor Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
I'd be interested to know if this threat constitutes "coercion" in court (which it seems to me). If so, any information you provide is inadmissible under current law...
Of course, that logic would only apply if it wasn't a terrorism case, anyway.
Yeah, that's correct.
If she could see the sent ones, it was definitely her account that was used.
Was she using the same Yahoo and eBay password? Otherwise, as mr_mischief said, there are loads of ways to get email account passwords since they are sent over unsecure POP/SMTP so often.
Through Yahoo, though... that seems unlikely. I don't really use it, but I thought the login page was https only?
Basically, there are too many ways to be sure. As long as her password's changed, she'll have to assume she's alright.
In addition to mr_mischief's post, check the raw email headers and look at where it came from. It's so very easy to use a direct SMTP connection to either a relay or the target server and just lie about who sent the email using the "FROM" header.
If you can verify that it came from a mail relay, try contacting them about it. A lot of times the server admin doesn't realise they've buggered the security (once I contacted one that had accidentally connected his NIC to the WAN instead of LAN... he was a bit shocked). That at least helps countless other people. You can also check if that relay is already on http://www.spamhaus.org/ and consider adding it otherwise.
If it really is her email that's been hacked, just change her password to a/decent/ one.
In fairness, he's been promising his next kid for ages. He says it's going to be a world political figurehead/and/ sport champion... seriously. Apparently it's only 9 months away still.
The best example of this is the current trend to tell people your "porn name" - which is your first pet's name and your mother's maiden name...
Couple this with the fact that people give out their email address and date of birth to anybody (see any social network), and you can have a great time with identity fraud. Weeeeeee!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Get the train from Euston to Bletchley (40 mins) and visit Bletchley Park: http://www.bletchleypark.org/
The Computer Museum is geek heaven!
Actually, I think a part of the research they didn't announce was time-travel. But they've only managed a few hours so far; keep on eye on last week's news for more useful "jumps".
I actually went to see him at this talk. Very interesting guy.
As someone who works with traders, I'd say that the randomness/unpredictability of the markets is part of the reason *why* traders are so reliant on their models.
Otherwise, it's all just blind gambling (which it isn't far off, anyway).
The advent of full on algo trading means that random events in the market have the ability to wipe out tons of capital because the models predict (e.g.) a global crash when it's just a blip. (Extreme example)
The other part of the problem is that traders are nowadays just glorified clerks in that all (well, 90%+) of the actual calculation and predictive work is done by complex platforms (or Excel), so they don't really care or have exposure to the real risks behind their trading.
Coupled with the huge bonuses they used to get (I'm in London where bonuses are being denied; is it the same elsewhere?) as long as they showed *quantity* of trades, it was always a recipe for disaster.
The guy (or gal) was etching those stones using a friggin' lightning bolt from his cloud in the sky... that's pretty damned impressive.
Unless they've changed it considerably, it used to be a glass/acrylic-topped table with a projector underneath, not a "high-resolution display" (granted, decent projectors are still pretty expensive).
The "touchscreen" element was emulated using multiple (five, I think) IR-cameras and triangulating the location of all IR-reflecting contacts.
I'm not saying it's simple, but it's nowhere near as expensive as developing a large touchscreen capable of detecting many contacts (i.e. more than Apple multi-touch).
Also, their tech (while not as compact) has the ability to scale to larger forms much more easily.
And yet only one of them uses Vista and 2 use XP... such faith from the industry ;)
I don't want to incite this argument further, but Chernobyl (whilst still a terrible tragedy) was caused by human error and poor reactor design - two things that can (and mostly have been) resolved through experience.
The truth is that most current, high-volume, electricity-producing techniques have huge down-sides to them.
The biggest problems with nuclear plants (after waste-material, where huge advances are being made) is how to clean them up after coolant leakage or decommissioning (as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Decommissioning).
Personally, I prefer nuclear (fission) to coal, but I'd like to see fusion power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power) research given more importance.
(Sorry for only wp links - at work and don't have time to look elsewhere)
Actually... I think you're missing it.
Yahoo isn't primarily a search provider, they're a content portal (at least, I think that's how they present themselves).
I agree, their main site is very cluttered, but for their primary target audience it offers everything they need/want (since they can customise it).
True, for people doing a search, Google has become popular because of its simple homepage - but personally, I haven't visited a search engine's homepage in months, because I use the search bar on Fx instead.
On the subject of this merger, I'm a little worried.
I joined Yahoo pre-95 when they pretty much were the WWW (well, them and Geocities, who they now own).
I was fearful of the MS merger because I thought MS would bugger Yahoo's services (most notably Mail, that I use as an emergency account, and Flickr). But I feel that News Corp would be more interested in using the personal information to do their usual of swaying public opinion with well-placed and well-worded headlines/opinion features.
As a European, I'm intrigued as to what the different behaviours are?
I don't really want to defend Microsoft, but that isn't the only reason.
The Vista driver subsystem is significantly different in the graphics/audio area to XP - it was a ground-up redesign, hence the early driver issues with Vista.
From my experience of it, I reckon it has better longevity than XPs design (which was inherited directly from NT).
Driver-wise, there are still major problems in the audio area; but Microsoft refuses to get involved, laying the blame squarely with the audio hardware vendors.
This is stupid on their part because the consumer only sees that Vista has worse sound (and performance) than XP - they don't think "oh, but it's the driver not the OS".
I see no reason why Linux (and other non-MS OSs) won't have some sort of D10 substitute at some point in the future - but it's unlikely a usable one for XP will appear since it would require huge amounts of work to core parts of the OS.
The underlying hubris, I believe
Where was the CowboyNeal item?
A highly fallacious (and common) argument.
Valve aren't only trying to cover the costs of the CD and box; these games have been in development for years at a staggering cost.
I agree with other comments that Valve could correct this situation by allowing "offenders" to register a local license.
I'm not sure how many other companies have tried charging local prices for products, like this, but it should be encouraged. The only way I can see other companies doing the same, is if they know that they can prevent the market from mass-importing the cheaper product.
Caveat: I like in the UK, and we get stung a lot by the 1:1 import of goods from US$ to £.
Personally, I bought it on Steam because it's so much easier, and I'm more than happy to fund Valve's work.
Did you complain to Microsoft, or did it reactivate?
This happened to me when I bought my 8800, but it tells me my activation key has already been used...
I haven't got around to complaining to MS yet, so I'm wondering if anybody else has and got a result?
I like the incremental improvements from XP to Vista, but expiring my key because of a new video card is ridiculous.
I was about to post the same.
It was hardly quiet, if you read the correct article.
Professor Farnsworth: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure.
Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?
Professor Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
I'd be interested to know if this threat constitutes "coercion" in court (which it seems to me).
If so, any information you provide is inadmissible under current law...
Of course, that logic would only apply if it wasn't a terrorism case, anyway.
Yeah, that's correct. If she could see the sent ones, it was definitely her account that was used. Was she using the same Yahoo and eBay password? Otherwise, as mr_mischief said, there are loads of ways to get email account passwords since they are sent over unsecure POP/SMTP so often. Through Yahoo, though... that seems unlikely. I don't really use it, but I thought the login page was https only? Basically, there are too many ways to be sure. As long as her password's changed, she'll have to assume she's alright.
In addition to mr_mischief's post, check the raw email headers and look at where it came from.
/decent/ one.
It's so very easy to use a direct SMTP connection to either a relay or the target server and just lie about who sent the email using the "FROM" header.
SMTP is one of those annoying protocols that is just too damned "okay" (and ubiquitous) to be reimplemented with better source address verification. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_ID )
If you can verify that it came from a mail relay, try contacting them about it. A lot of times the server admin doesn't realise they've buggered the security (once I contacted one that had accidentally connected his NIC to the WAN instead of LAN... he was a bit shocked). That at least helps countless other people.
You can also check if that relay is already on http://www.spamhaus.org/ and consider adding it otherwise.
If it really is her email that's been hacked, just change her password to a
But I say that they have to just put up with 'em. Uncivilised buggers.
In fairness, he's been promising his next kid for ages. /and/ sport champion... seriously.
He says it's going to be a world political figurehead
Apparently it's only 9 months away still.
(hehe - captcha is "restart")
The best example of this is the current trend to tell people your "porn name" - which is your first pet's name and your mother's maiden name...
Couple this with the fact that people give out their email address and date of birth to anybody (see any social network), and you can have a great time with identity fraud. Weeeeeee!!!!
Maybe