just don't stop to ask where the energy comes from
on
James Bond Gadgets
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· Score: 1
super-strong electromagnets built into wristwatches, finger-sized lasers that can cut through metal, electric saws in you watch (again).
If we had the technology to supply these things with the power they need, we'd never need to switch off our laptops, as the batteries would never run out. However, they'd have far too much stored energy to ever be let through airport security.
Leaving aside the incompetence of the statement, does a (mere) judge think that what he/she says will make any difference to the RIAA. After all, they're engaged in a *war* against all these heinous criminals. (ok, irony mode OFF)
The Autrailian government is considering implementing a web filtering system - but they don't want people to know that it doesn't work.
Given that they state (in the cited article) that it will block "all illegal material", then by definition anything it allows through must therefore be legal, The only conclusion I can logically draw from this is that their government is against filtering, blocking or generally censoring the internet - but that they don't want their people to know this. Strange!
Governments generally would like the internet to go away. It transfers far too much power into the hands of the people (and criminals). While they can't ban it outright, they can make it difficult to use and promote an idea of it being socially suspect - ooooh, you download stuff? so are you a paedophile or a pirate?
Allowing ISPs to act arbitrarily and at the same time requiring them to accept ever more onerous responsibilities is a passive-aggressive way of furthering this goal.
The standard UK package is sold as "unlimited" but with a small asterisk beside that particular weasel-word, which qualifies it as "subject to our acceptable use policy". if you can find the AUP, and understand the mish-mash of jargon and legalese, it will say that it isn't really unlimited at all. But that there's an undisclosed upper limit on the volume you may download. However, the ISPs are too shy to explicitly say what this upper limit is. Further, they give users no way to check what their usage has been (e.g. did you accidentally leave an internet radio-station playing for a week or two?).
Once you transgress this limit - whatever it happens to be, you get a letter (or email) telling you that you've broken the rules and if you do it again, you'll be cut off. However, this is completely arbitrary and un-testable as normal users have no means of challenging the veracity of the claim, nor of knowing in advance what this unspoken limit was.
So confused? yes, but confused that the ISPs are able to get away with such blatant mis-selling and arbitrary and un-appealable activites.
So you're saying that having the data/server app available at half of normal speed is MORE of a problem than having the server completely down while you replace drives and restore from tape?
Not at all. Simply that the more data you need to write (to a fresh/replaced RAID element) the longer it takes. Any conclusions you draw from that is your own work, not mine. I have my own set of corollaries and remedies for this situation.
The larger the drives, the longer it takes to resilver (rebuild the RAID) the array. During this time performance takes a real hit - no matter what the vendors tell you, it's unavoidable: you simply must copy all that data.
In practice, this means that while your array is rebuilding, your performance SLAs go out of the window. If this is for an interactive server, such as a TP database or web service you end up with lots of complaints and a large backlog of work.
The result is that as disks get bigger, the recovery takes longer. This is what make RAID less desirable, not the possibility of a subsequent failure - that can always be worked around.
This tells us nothing we didn't know already: airport security is riddled with thieves. Whether they take stuff out of your checked luggage, or take it off you blatantly at the security gates - there are no safeguards, oversights or checks to stop these people acting with impunity.
These are the modern day (government approved) highwaymen and the only solution I can think of is to label them socially ("you work in airport security? oh dear - is that the time already...") as the pariahs they really are.
the process of breaking up a large country into many smaller ones is often known as "balkanisation". When you do this, you always raise the possibility of trade barriers, and protectionism. these are the single quickest ways to screw up an economy (and to bring down a government). What we need are larger trading areas - with common interests, standards and regulations, not smaller ones.
but it would determine whether a file is digitally identical to one on the child-porn list
So if this thing does perform a hash on a file, then changing one small part of it would completely alter the result. Presumably there's more to it than that - otherwise anyone wanting to post an image (that was on a list - there's nothing that limits this to kiddie porn) would make a near-identical copy and the whole detection system becomes worthless.
Windows mobile already has this. Just keep the O/S and applications in non-volatile memory (or with a battery backup) and you're there. The only issue seems to me to be the huge variety of peripherals - with variable quality code. Provided you keep very tight control (i.e. disallow) what can be conected to the box - or what you expect to be available in the first 1 second, you could do this with Windows (even Vista) or Linux today.
what's the point of having a cyber-tzar if he (or she) is then going to turn around and tell you everything's fine?
Of course he will talk up the threat - that's his job. Since there's no way that these intangibles can ever be measured, he's on pretty secure ground too. If no threats materialise it's because of his vigilance and the skill of his team - not because there were never any real threats to begin with.
If a threat does turn into a real attack - well, he needs more money, powers and curtailed freedoms to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Really, no-one cares who the editors are (do they?) I was assuming that the name under "Posted by" was actually the name of the person who came up with the story. That would be much more helpful than the same old, irrelevant, names that get inserted into the headers.
Looking back over the past 18 stories I got on the front page of/. There are only 4 different authors cited. Surely more people in slashdot-land have a handle on newsworthy events.
It it that people just can't be arsed to submit stories, or is there a clique at work here?
... and just as annoying as a source of interruptions, too.
It seems that he says one thing and then instantly contradicts himself. Yes, too many meetings are bad - as are interruptions (at least for the interruptee, presumably the interrupter achieves their goals). However, having someone continually IM'ing you (or whatever - all these things are basically as bad as each other) is just as much a distraction and source of interruptions.
Oh yes, and making dumb statements like
It's really hard to change that organization if you don't have the
power to change it
doesn't make him sound like he knows what he's talking about - either
Re:Couldn't find it... getting a bit ahead
on
Roku To Go Open Source
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· Score: 2, Informative
The story says that Roku will release an open source version - in the hope that it'll help them sell more boxes.
This (slashdot article) is a story about a story of something that will/might happen in the future. I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for the outcome.
If you're working in 1st line then you are not using your degree, or any of the skills you picked up during the course. That means that you're essentially the same as one of this-year's graduates, except that you'll have had 2 years to forget stuff and won't have been taught the current stuff that this year's grads. have.
Really, your career is now in tech. support and given the usual turnover in support staff, 2 years is a long time to be on the bottom rung (please don't take this as an offense, it's just an observation). It does show that for whatever reason, you haven't progressed in your current employment.
If you're looking for a career change (from what you're doing now) then the good news is that your CV is "marketable" as you're getting interviews, the problem must be what the interviewer sees when you're in the interview. Sounds like it's time for a makeover before you become institutionalised.
But the people who really kill projects aren't those who write the code. They're the ones who prevaricate about designs, choose inappropriate languages, tools and development schemes. The people who build-in limitations as they don't have the skill (or vision) to appreciate the implications of what they're designing or make things so hopelessly complicated - in the name of flexibility - that no super-coder could ever implement the design.
Bad code can be rewritten, but lousy design is here forever
Looking at the actual list, most of the people cited weren't the sole originators of a work, merely the figurehead. In fact I haven't heard of most of them - or their "products", so to call them famous is greatly exaggerating their actual obscurity.
For example, there's one guy credited with Microsoft Word. Now I'd bet my pension that he hasn't written every version single-handed. Likewise Larry Ellison as the creator of Oracle - no. There are thousands of people who create each version of Oracle, not simply one guy.
This list is too simplistic to have any value, and time spent analysing it is largely wasted.
Simple: it's behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. IANAL, but this covers everything the police don't want you to do. They don't have to obtain a conviction - they merely arrest you, take you for questioning, confiscate your camera then let you go without charge some hours later.
You will then have been summarily imprisoned for a period of time - although you were never found guilty of any crime.
This is purely deterrence (and very effective it is, too) to stop anyone from doing anything they don't like. You won't get beaten up and officially nothing happened - except that you have been grossly inconvenienced and maybe lost your camera, too. As with any bullying regime, this type of action is executed with impunity as the police involved will not have to answer to anyone, or justify their actions.
Of course, surveillance *can* be used by a police state, but it can be used against the state as well.
Not if the police state makes it unlawful for anyone but themselves to use surveillance. In the UK, you'll more than likely have your camera taken off you if the police spot you filming them.
Slashdot Mirror
super-strong electromagnets built into wristwatches, finger-sized lasers that can cut through metal, electric saws in you watch (again). If we had the technology to supply these things with the power they need, we'd never need to switch off our laptops, as the batteries would never run out. However, they'd have far too much stored energy to ever be let through airport security.
it's terribly critical that you stop it
Leaving aside the incompetence of the statement, does a (mere) judge think that what he/she says will make any difference to the RIAA. After all, they're engaged in a *war* against all these heinous criminals. (ok, irony mode OFF)
The Autrailian government is considering implementing a web filtering system - but they don't want people to know that it doesn't work.
Given that they state (in the cited article) that it will block "all illegal material", then by definition anything it allows through must therefore be legal, The only conclusion I can logically draw from this is that their government is against filtering, blocking or generally censoring the internet - but that they don't want their people to know this. Strange!
Allowing ISPs to act arbitrarily and at the same time requiring them to accept ever more onerous responsibilities is a passive-aggressive way of furthering this goal.
Once you transgress this limit - whatever it happens to be, you get a letter (or email) telling you that you've broken the rules and if you do it again, you'll be cut off. However, this is completely arbitrary and un-testable as normal users have no means of challenging the veracity of the claim, nor of knowing in advance what this unspoken limit was.
So confused? yes, but confused that the ISPs are able to get away with such blatant mis-selling and arbitrary and un-appealable activites.
No doubt when the upturn arrives, we'll see all these arguments rolled out again, for whatever self-serving purpose they support.
In the mean time it gives some unknowns their 5 minutes in the spotlight.
So you're saying that having the data/server app available at half of normal speed is MORE of a problem than having the server completely down while you replace drives and restore from tape?
Not at all. Simply that the more data you need to write (to a fresh/replaced RAID element) the longer it takes. Any conclusions you draw from that is your own work, not mine. I have my own set of corollaries and remedies for this situation.
In practice, this means that while your array is rebuilding, your performance SLAs go out of the window. If this is for an interactive server, such as a TP database or web service you end up with lots of complaints and a large backlog of work.
The result is that as disks get bigger, the recovery takes longer. This is what make RAID less desirable, not the possibility of a subsequent failure - that can always be worked around.
On that basis it's hard to see how they could do a proper job for less.
These are the modern day (government approved) highwaymen and the only solution I can think of is to label them socially ("you work in airport security? oh dear - is that the time already ...") as the pariahs they really are.
the process of breaking up a large country into many smaller ones is often known as "balkanisation". When you do this, you always raise the possibility of trade barriers, and protectionism. these are the single quickest ways to screw up an economy (and to bring down a government). What we need are larger trading areas - with common interests, standards and regulations, not smaller ones.
but it would determine whether a file is digitally identical to one on the child-porn list
So if this thing does perform a hash on a file, then changing one small part of it would completely alter the result. Presumably there's more to it than that - otherwise anyone wanting to post an image (that was on a list - there's nothing that limits this to kiddie porn) would make a near-identical copy and the whole detection system becomes worthless.
Same for instant off (yawn)
Of course he will talk up the threat - that's his job. Since there's no way that these intangibles can ever be measured, he's on pretty secure ground too. If no threats materialise it's because of his vigilance and the skill of his team - not because there were never any real threats to begin with.
If a threat does turn into a real attack - well, he needs more money, powers and curtailed freedoms to ensure it doesn't happen again.
2) can it receive phone calls? check
3) will it fit in my trouser pockets? check
That's pretty much all I need from a phone - if I didn't have one already, I might consider this
Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 14, @03:14PM
from the given-enough-eyeballs dept.
Really, no-one cares who the editors are (do they?) I was assuming that the name under "Posted by" was actually the name of the person who came up with the story. That would be much more helpful than the same old, irrelevant, names that get inserted into the headers.
It it that people just can't be arsed to submit stories, or is there a clique at work here?
It seems that he says one thing and then instantly contradicts himself. Yes, too many meetings are bad - as are interruptions (at least for the interruptee, presumably the interrupter achieves their goals). However, having someone continually IM'ing you (or whatever - all these things are basically as bad as each other) is just as much a distraction and source of interruptions.
Oh yes, and making dumb statements like
It's really hard to change that organization if you don't have the power to change it
doesn't make him sound like he knows what he's talking about - either
This (slashdot article) is a story about a story of something that will/might happen in the future. I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for the outcome.
Really, your career is now in tech. support and given the usual turnover in support staff, 2 years is a long time to be on the bottom rung (please don't take this as an offense, it's just an observation). It does show that for whatever reason, you haven't progressed in your current employment.
If you're looking for a career change (from what you're doing now) then the good news is that your CV is "marketable" as you're getting interviews, the problem must be what the interviewer sees when you're in the interview. Sounds like it's time for a makeover before you become institutionalised.
include posted code to verify the stupidity level
But the people who really kill projects aren't those who write the code. They're the ones who prevaricate about designs, choose inappropriate languages, tools and development schemes. The people who build-in limitations as they don't have the skill (or vision) to appreciate the implications of what they're designing or make things so hopelessly complicated - in the name of flexibility - that no super-coder could ever implement the design.
Bad code can be rewritten, but lousy design is here forever
For example, there's one guy credited with Microsoft Word. Now I'd bet my pension that he hasn't written every version single-handed. Likewise Larry Ellison as the creator of Oracle - no. There are thousands of people who create each version of Oracle, not simply one guy.
This list is too simplistic to have any value, and time spent analysing it is largely wasted.
Please cite the law that allows them to do this
Simple: it's behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. IANAL, but this covers everything the police don't want you to do. They don't have to obtain a conviction - they merely arrest you, take you for questioning, confiscate your camera then let you go without charge some hours later.
You will then have been summarily imprisoned for a period of time - although you were never found guilty of any crime.
This is purely deterrence (and very effective it is, too) to stop anyone from doing anything they don't like. You won't get beaten up and officially nothing happened - except that you have been grossly inconvenienced and maybe lost your camera, too. As with any bullying regime, this type of action is executed with impunity as the police involved will not have to answer to anyone, or justify their actions.
Of course, surveillance *can* be used by a police state, but it can be used against the state as well.
Not if the police state makes it unlawful for anyone but themselves to use surveillance. In the UK, you'll more than likely have your camera taken off you if the police spot you filming them.
and (highly reflective) sun-vizor