I like the metaphor "fight fire with fire" because it illustrates that it depends on the concept and methodology, whether using fire to extinguish another one will just escalate the problem or whether it will kill off the other fire's ressources.
In the same way I'm pondering about whether this approach will initially cause more fire (the clogging you talk about), but eventually will kill off the spammers on by one, or whether the spammers will find ways around this system as well.
They seemed to be pissed off by the bombardment of their servers by Bluefrog anyways.. So it does seem to be one of their vulnerabilities - they do need to receive the 'legitimate' replies (ie. those by people that really admit having small dicks to anonymous companies) on their own servers.
If they opt for using zombies to spam mails that will at least make it more complicated for them and the permanent additional traffic might alert some of the administrators (and some users) to secure their systems.
Maybe this should really be implemented as an open source plugin for file sharing programs that already use up a lot of the net's bandwidth. The coding has to be waterproof though..
Argh sorry for the typos and incoherence, dudes - I'm quite tired. But what do you think about this idea of a decentralized network spamming the spammers? Possible? Effective?
That was the concept of Blue Frog. And it seemed to piss off certain spammers so much that they got out a weapon at their disposal DDOS which works perfectly against centralized systems like the Bluefrog system.
Consequently they logical way to would be to use the same means, i.e. attacking them from distributed sources as well. Not in the form of zombies like Pharmamaster did, but in the form of distributed database software. The 'other' blue frog (Azureus and its DHT) comes to mind - a similar distribute database software could be written that (instead of distributing seeding nodes and data packets) 'spams' the spammers.
Now we just need someone who will do it (Bluefrog?)..
Perhaps I should have noted that this was a parody on the parent; a parody on different levels, one being not totally 'keeping it real' just like the parent poster..
In this respect one interesting illustration of this randomness (which is one of the pillars of evolution) is the horse. All our domestic breeds of horse Equus caballus be it a little pony or a huge Shire horse have 64 chromosomes. The only wild horse species left is the Przewalski's horse Equus ferus przewalskii which has 66 chromosomes, yet these species can produce fertile offspring (as opposed to hybrids of horses and Zebras, that have 44 chromosomes).
Due to some 'random' thing happening two the chromosomes simply merged, yet when recombining to form the zygote the seperate chromosomes of the wild horse find their way to match up and combine with the domestic horses chromosomes. The resulting offspring will have 65 chromosomes.
When excluding his rampant anti-semitism the young Hitler would be considered a decent man by many conservatices nowadays (he stood for "values" etc.etc.). For your reference I'll recount some of the good things he did in his life.
When he was a poor unsuccessful artist at the age of 21 his mother died and he gave his share of orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler).
He gave many Germans back the sense of worth after the defeat in WWI, many Germans believed they were unjustly humiliated by the actions of the 'winners' because before and throughout the war they were on par with other leading European nations like England and France, yet afterwards they were politically basically begging for mercy.
This was not only a matter of hurt feelings, but of real suffering as Germany along with the other countries devastated by the war was struggling to recover, but additionally had to pay tremendous reparations according to the Versailles treaty. Hitler disregarded the Versailles treaty (which at the time was seen as unfair by other countries as well) and created many jobs helping Germany out of the recession.
He improved the infrastructure by having railroads and the autobahn built. At the same time he commissioned Porsche with creating the Volkswagen ("people's car") Beetle so everyone could drive around in an affordable car. (Even 70 years later people still are.)
By acquring the Sudetenland, mainly inhabited by Germans at the border region of Czechoslovakia (Munich Agreement) he arguably decreased tensions in that region. It earned him Time magazine's "Man of the Year" title. (After WWII the 3 million Germans were forced to leave their homes in the Sudetenland)
Up until then he was seen by most other leaders as the strong little, maybe a bit awkward, guy (parodied brilliantly be Chaplin) who helped Germany back up. Britain's prime minister upon returning from Germany is quoted saying "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time."
Also, up until then his leadership hasn't caused human casualties yet (though in some places Jews and 'associal people' were already harshly persecuted). Some historians believe that if he had been assassinated 1935 or even 1938 (before the war and before anti-nazi and anti-German propaganda really set off) he would have gone down into history as the powerful authoritarian leader that helped stabilize Germany. Nazi and fascist sentiments permeating through society (at that time not only in Germany), as the basis for the power of his political party, would still have had to struggle against communist (Germany is after all the country of Marx) and capitalist ideologies (e.g. US companies had established footholds in Germany and worked together with German companies even after WWII had began) - especially when realizing the inevitable clash of these ideologies and the resulting Cold War Germany would have had not choice but to pick a side (or 'be picked').
Disclaimer: Though this post might not look like it (due to reasons mentioned earlier) I maintain that Hitler was a bad person. But I also want to point out that he was a human like anyone of us and thus we all are prone to the same faults and weaknesses: we have to constantly reevaluate ourselves and others whether we fall victim to hatred and fascist tendencies. - This is the lesson that many people neglect to learn from this particular part of history.
You have a point. First wait for somebody else to make lots of money with your alleged patent, THEN sue them.
(Hasn't worked out for SCO though; either because they didn't really have a case or because their lawyers weren't good enough to pull it off - depends on how corrupt you believe the system is)
Yea the non-Skype VoIP system is great. With SIPphones and the mentioned websites we have the technology to make free/cheap phone calls to anywhere.
One step further would be to extend (free) wireless LAN coverage and put WLAN adapters and VoIP software into cell phones - voila: free cell phone airtime! Then we could also call from anywhere. (Calling people would still be expensive in non-WLAN areas though and obviously impossible in places that don't offer cell phone coverage either.)
There are a few problems I see though.. 1. Skype is the one VoIP company with all the bells and whistles and might very well bury the other services, in this world the power of marketing is tremendous; 2. the other VoIP providers will want to make some more money as well eventually - I can't see how they would run they free services forever; 3. same goes for the open WLAN access points: some access points, e.g. in hotels require you to register and pay a fee for use; if the (Municipality) government doesn't subsidize it many with no direct gain from it will close their access points for public use.
"Don't let the terrorists(TM) get to you! If you are afraid of the terrorists(TM) the terrorists(TM) have already won! We will protect you from the terrorists(TM), because they might strike again anywhere anytime! Just don't think about the terrorists(TM), forget about terrorists(TM) - it's that simple! We'll help you with that by attacking countries that harbor terrorists(TM) and sending you daily updates on our war on terror(TM) through the usual channels. Thank you for your patriotism(TM)! - Your Government(TM)"
"I have yet to actually read anywhere a coherant and sober reason for why it's a fallacy to compare things to Hitler or the Nazis."
The point with Godwin's Law is that the mention of Hitler/Nazis is very often too emotionalizing to continue the discussion in a constructive way, thus it diminishes the probability of resolving the debate in a good way.
The reason for this is that just by mentioning words such as "Hitler" or "Nazi" you are stirring up images and irrational thoughts that everyone of us is confronted with when learning about that part of history. We connect these words with visions of extreme atrocities against other humans, but also with simple anti-nazi propaganda that we have been fed with since WWII.
A very simple example to reflect this: if I were to say "Hitler did many good things." the first thought that will go through most people's minds would be that I am a nazi with all the characteristics associated with one (racist, anti-semitic, authoritarian etc.). Thing is, that I'd consider myself as quite the opposite of a nazi, yet I would stand by that sentence above because it is true (as true as "Hitler was not a good man."). Yet due to the reasons mentioned above most people will react irrationally to my statement and any possibility for rational discussion will be buried.
This is why mentioning Hitler as a comparison to augment a rational debate will only work with certain (educated) people, but usually not if your peers are your average Joe Doe - yes, even here on Slashdot, though at least here fortunately the demographics seem to be scewed a bit towards the 'rational debaters'. Apparently the moderation system improves the SNR as well;)
You could even further reduce cost by breaking single DVDs into pieces and 'decorating' your packages and envelopes with it. It's a bit more work I guess, but DVD sprinkles actually look nice;)
I have a hunch this is just some dysinformation put out to build up support for the Iran invasion. "Just nuke them - they will survive! And generations from now they will mutate to become Christians/Jews."
Just because you don't agree with someone's views, doesn't make them unintelligent.
Depends on what the views are based on - if they're based on stupidity and ignorance as is the case with a host of politicians, then yes, they are to be shown as the idiots they are.
Intellectually, I'm curious what that makes the rest of them."
How about "intellectually challenged"? - And I'd wager those who conceived that term might be among them - "intellectually curious", just the sound of it makes some of my braincells want to through up..
Even if the notebook was engineered well enough (additional cost) to dissipate the heat fast enough from the CPU there are still several downsides having a hot notebook. You have to consider that the more heat the CPU produces the more will spread through conduction all over the notebook, no matter how well it's engineered. This will cause
the overall life expectancy of electrical components to degrade (HDDs, RAM come to mind, and basically anything that uses caps)
the LiIon batteries to die earlier (it's annoying to see the capacity dropping within months of use replacing them is still quite expensive)
your lap to fry unless you use an insulator such as a telephone book or you restrict yourself to the tabletop
But if the CPU architecture really is that good, it should be easy to make a cool low voltage version that still has enough power to.. say... run Windows Vista (scnr;)
It's not 'evidently true' - it's 'evidently authentic' meaning it is not a fake. So if people find a copy of the book you were mentioning it would be an 'authentic' document of history.
Jesus is growing increasingly frustrated that the people closest to him just don't get it;
National Geographic recently publicized the 'Gospel of Judas' (an evidently authentic gospel written apparently in a similar timeframe as most of the gospels). There was a scene portraying this; one time Jesus approaches his disciples and see they are praying in thanks of the food that was given to them by god and he just starts bursts out laughing because none of his apostels really 'get it' (mind you none of them were very book-read let alone religious scholars before they knew him), sans one which is Judas. 'It' being that the creator is not the one to be worshipped as he his only a fraction of what encompasses the true almighty God. Judas was the only one who understood this.
There was an evident rivalry amongst certain members of the apostels, as can be expected, personally as well as in the way they would interpret Jesus' words. This is reflected by the inconsistency and different emphasises in recounts of the same stories (see 'synoptic problem/dilemma' about this, one example would be that Mark makes no mention of Judas as the traitor, whereas John is very certain it is him and describes him accordingly) as well as the very existence of writings by apostels (et al.) that didn't make it into the bible because people decades later decided they weren't in tune with what they believed to be Jesus' teachings (socalled apocryphals texts of the NT).
The Gospel of Judas sheds a different kind of light on the whole story. He is the only one whole understands Jesus and therefore is bestowed upon with the burden of handing Jesus over to the Roman guards so Jesus could fulfill his destiny. Check it out, In case you missed it on TV, it's still floating around as a torrent.
We need to find out how much of the global warming that we have seen is due to our activities. It might be 10%. It might be 90%. We just don't know. It might even be 100% natural.
As you correctly state in you following point the above point is moot:
We need to determine how far the warming will go. At what point will it slow down or even reverse itself? It really doesn't matter at all whether or not we are the cause.
we need to determine, based on the other factors, whether or not we should even try to slow it down or stop it. The benefits of global warming, up to a reasonable point, may outweigh the downside.
This is the main question it all boils down to, as of now it's a matter of belief - do we believe the scientific models that tell us global warming will increase the number and intensity natural disasters, or do we trust in the arguments that support the opposite (or neutral) position.
Things like these (predicting future) ultimatly cannot be proven. I can't prove to you that the cup I'll drop will fall down to the floor, but we can be pretty certain, because (our) science predicts it and is even able to tell how it will fall and whether it will break etc.
An interesting thing to point out is, that the proponents of fighting global warming are actually the "conservatives" (in the truest meaning of the word), whereas the other side (the political conservatives/Republicans) are in effect steering into an environment of change (if they are going to have it their way). Oh yea - and they are doing that without an exit strategy (sorry had to put that in - and it's sad because it's true)..
Might be redundant, but I'll make this post anyway.
Whether global warming is occurring and to what extend humans are involved is not the question! How we prevent or at least slow down its effects (desertification, floods, hurricanes etc.) is the question that needs to be answered.
When looking for solutions for complex problems you have to ask the right questions.
Damn you stereotype bashing attractive clever people! Don't do this to us - most +5 Funny posts here derive from the fact that we associate geekdom with the Simpsons' comic book guy type of people.;)
Slashdot Mirror
In the same way I'm pondering about whether this approach will initially cause more fire (the clogging you talk about), but eventually will kill off the spammers on by one, or whether the spammers will find ways around this system as well.
They seemed to be pissed off by the bombardment of their servers by Bluefrog anyways.. So it does seem to be one of their vulnerabilities - they do need to receive the 'legitimate' replies (ie. those by people that really admit having small dicks to anonymous companies) on their own servers.
If they opt for using zombies to spam mails that will at least make it more complicated for them and the permanent additional traffic might alert some of the administrators (and some users) to secure their systems.
Maybe this should really be implemented as an open source plugin for file sharing programs that already use up a lot of the net's bandwidth. The coding has to be waterproof though..
Argh sorry for the typos and incoherence, dudes - I'm quite tired. But what do you think about this idea of a decentralized network spamming the spammers? Possible? Effective?
Consequently they logical way to would be to use the same means, i.e. attacking them from distributed sources as well. Not in the form of zombies like Pharmamaster did, but in the form of distributed database software. The 'other' blue frog (Azureus and its DHT) comes to mind - a similar distribute database software could be written that (instead of distributing seeding nodes and data packets) 'spams' the spammers. Now we just need someone who will do it (Bluefrog?)..
Perhaps I should have noted that this was a parody on the parent; a parody on different levels, one being not totally 'keeping it real' just like the parent poster..
On both, things run perfectly, with all gui features, protected mode, CGA, VGA, stereo sound etc etc.
(ducks! gets smitten by a P-IV-heatsink, but modded '10, Interesting' at the same time =D)
Seriously - 1GB ram (512MB for low end installs) seems like an awful lot to me....
Due to some 'random' thing happening two the chromosomes simply merged, yet when recombining to form the zygote the seperate chromosomes of the wild horse find their way to match up and combine with the domestic horses chromosomes. The resulting offspring will have 65 chromosomes.
When he was a poor unsuccessful artist at the age of 21 his mother died and he gave his share of orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler).
He gave many Germans back the sense of worth after the defeat in WWI, many Germans believed they were unjustly humiliated by the actions of the 'winners' because before and throughout the war they were on par with other leading European nations like England and France, yet afterwards they were politically basically begging for mercy.
This was not only a matter of hurt feelings, but of real suffering as Germany along with the other countries devastated by the war was struggling to recover, but additionally had to pay tremendous reparations according to the Versailles treaty. Hitler disregarded the Versailles treaty (which at the time was seen as unfair by other countries as well) and created many jobs helping Germany out of the recession.
He improved the infrastructure by having railroads and the autobahn built. At the same time he commissioned Porsche with creating the Volkswagen ("people's car") Beetle so everyone could drive around in an affordable car. (Even 70 years later people still are.)
By acquring the Sudetenland, mainly inhabited by Germans at the border region of Czechoslovakia (Munich Agreement) he arguably decreased tensions in that region. It earned him Time magazine's "Man of the Year" title. (After WWII the 3 million Germans were forced to leave their homes in the Sudetenland)
Up until then he was seen by most other leaders as the strong little, maybe a bit awkward, guy (parodied brilliantly be Chaplin) who helped Germany back up. Britain's prime minister upon returning from Germany is quoted saying "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time."
Also, up until then his leadership hasn't caused human casualties yet (though in some places Jews and 'associal people' were already harshly persecuted). Some historians believe that if he had been assassinated 1935 or even 1938 (before the war and before anti-nazi and anti-German propaganda really set off) he would have gone down into history as the powerful authoritarian leader that helped stabilize Germany. Nazi and fascist sentiments permeating through society (at that time not only in Germany), as the basis for the power of his political party, would still have had to struggle against communist (Germany is after all the country of Marx) and capitalist ideologies (e.g. US companies had established footholds in Germany and worked together with German companies even after WWII had began) - especially when realizing the inevitable clash of these ideologies and the resulting Cold War Germany would have had not choice but to pick a side (or 'be picked').
Disclaimer: Though this post might not look like it (due to reasons mentioned earlier) I maintain that Hitler was a bad person. But I also want to point out that he was a human like anyone of us and thus we all are prone to the same faults and weaknesses: we have to constantly reevaluate ourselves and others whether we fall victim to hatred and fascist tendencies. - This is the lesson that many people neglect to learn from this particular part of history.
(Hasn't worked out for SCO though; either because they didn't really have a case or because their lawyers weren't good enough to pull it off - depends on how corrupt you believe the system is)
One step further would be to extend (free) wireless LAN coverage and put WLAN adapters and VoIP software into cell phones - voila: free cell phone airtime! Then we could also call from anywhere. (Calling people would still be expensive in non-WLAN areas though and obviously impossible in places that don't offer cell phone coverage either.)
There are a few problems I see though.. 1. Skype is the one VoIP company with all the bells and whistles and might very well bury the other services, in this world the power of marketing is tremendous; 2. the other VoIP providers will want to make some more money as well eventually - I can't see how they would run they free services forever; 3. same goes for the open WLAN access points: some access points, e.g. in hotels require you to register and pay a fee for use; if the (Municipality) government doesn't subsidize it many with no direct gain from it will close their access points for public use.
"Don't let the terrorists(TM) get to you! If you are afraid of the terrorists(TM) the terrorists(TM) have already won! We will protect you from the terrorists(TM), because they might strike again anywhere anytime! Just don't think about the terrorists(TM), forget about terrorists(TM) - it's that simple! We'll help you with that by attacking countries that harbor terrorists(TM) and sending you daily updates on our war on terror(TM) through the usual channels. Thank you for your patriotism(TM)! - Your Government(TM)"
The point with Godwin's Law is that the mention of Hitler/Nazis is very often too emotionalizing to continue the discussion in a constructive way, thus it diminishes the probability of resolving the debate in a good way.
The reason for this is that just by mentioning words such as "Hitler" or "Nazi" you are stirring up images and irrational thoughts that everyone of us is confronted with when learning about that part of history. We connect these words with visions of extreme atrocities against other humans, but also with simple anti-nazi propaganda that we have been fed with since WWII.
A very simple example to reflect this: if I were to say "Hitler did many good things." the first thought that will go through most people's minds would be that I am a nazi with all the characteristics associated with one (racist, anti-semitic, authoritarian etc.). Thing is, that I'd consider myself as quite the opposite of a nazi, yet I would stand by that sentence above because it is true (as true as "Hitler was not a good man."). Yet due to the reasons mentioned above most people will react irrationally to my statement and any possibility for rational discussion will be buried.
This is why mentioning Hitler as a comparison to augment a rational debate will only work with certain (educated) people, but usually not if your peers are your average Joe Doe - yes, even here on Slashdot, though at least here fortunately the demographics seem to be scewed a bit towards the 'rational debaters'. Apparently the moderation system improves the SNR as well ;)
You could even further reduce cost by breaking single DVDs into pieces and 'decorating' your packages and envelopes with it. It's a bit more work I guess, but DVD sprinkles actually look nice ;)
Moderated "troll"? This was a joke! Some people have no sense of humor and take everything personal..
I have a hunch this is just some dysinformation put out to build up support for the Iran invasion. "Just nuke them - they will survive! And generations from now they will mutate to become Christians/Jews."
Depends on what the views are based on - if they're based on stupidity and ignorance as is the case with a host of politicians, then yes, they are to be shown as the idiots they are.
How about "intellectually challenged"? - And I'd wager those who conceived that term might be among them - "intellectually curious", just the sound of it makes some of my braincells want to through up..
But if the CPU architecture really is that good, it should be easy to make a cool low voltage version that still has enough power to.. say... run Windows Vista (scnr ;)
I've never experienced the memory leak issue with my firefox, but for those that do - maybe this clarifies some things.
And for those that are really tight on memory there is always lynx ;)
It's not 'evidently true' - it's 'evidently authentic' meaning it is not a fake. So if people find a copy of the book you were mentioning it would be an 'authentic' document of history.
Argh, correction - actually it's centuries later..
National Geographic recently publicized the 'Gospel of Judas' (an evidently authentic gospel written apparently in a similar timeframe as most of the gospels). There was a scene portraying this; one time Jesus approaches his disciples and see they are praying in thanks of the food that was given to them by god and he just starts bursts out laughing because none of his apostels really 'get it' (mind you none of them were very book-read let alone religious scholars before they knew him), sans one which is Judas. 'It' being that the creator is not the one to be worshipped as he his only a fraction of what encompasses the true almighty God. Judas was the only one who understood this.
There was an evident rivalry amongst certain members of the apostels, as can be expected, personally as well as in the way they would interpret Jesus' words. This is reflected by the inconsistency and different emphasises in recounts of the same stories (see 'synoptic problem/dilemma' about this, one example would be that Mark makes no mention of Judas as the traitor, whereas John is very certain it is him and describes him accordingly) as well as the very existence of writings by apostels (et al.) that didn't make it into the bible because people decades later decided they weren't in tune with what they believed to be Jesus' teachings (socalled apocryphals texts of the NT).
The Gospel of Judas sheds a different kind of light on the whole story. He is the only one whole understands Jesus and therefore is bestowed upon with the burden of handing Jesus over to the Roman guards so Jesus could fulfill his destiny. Check it out, In case you missed it on TV, it's still floating around as a torrent.
As you correctly state in you following point the above point is moot:
We need to determine how far the warming will go. At what point will it slow down or even reverse itself? It really doesn't matter at all whether or not we are the cause.
we need to determine, based on the other factors, whether or not we should even try to slow it down or stop it. The benefits of global warming, up to a reasonable point, may outweigh the downside.
This is the main question it all boils down to, as of now it's a matter of belief - do we believe the scientific models that tell us global warming will increase the number and intensity natural disasters, or do we trust in the arguments that support the opposite (or neutral) position.
Things like these (predicting future) ultimatly cannot be proven. I can't prove to you that the cup I'll drop will fall down to the floor, but we can be pretty certain, because (our) science predicts it and is even able to tell how it will fall and whether it will break etc.
An interesting thing to point out is, that the proponents of fighting global warming are actually the "conservatives" (in the truest meaning of the word), whereas the other side (the political conservatives/Republicans) are in effect steering into an environment of change (if they are going to have it their way). Oh yea - and they are doing that without an exit strategy (sorry had to put that in - and it's sad because it's true)..
Whether global warming is occurring and to what extend humans are involved is not the question! How we prevent or at least slow down its effects (desertification, floods, hurricanes etc.) is the question that needs to be answered.
When looking for solutions for complex problems you have to ask the right questions.
What are German board games though?