Here in the Netherlands the banks are trying to distribute just such a system. It's not really popular at the moment, because of a chicken/egg problem: there aren't enough places you can use it, so not many people use the chip on their ATM cards (which nearly every bank ATM card issued here in the Netherlands has). But there aren't enough places to use it cause there doesn't seem to be a market.
It's a very nice system when it works. You recharge it (up to EUR450, US$450) and jam the card in a slot at your point of sale and after pressing "yes" the transaction is done in a couple seconds.
But of course it's not perfect. The chip readers are quite error prone. In my local supermarket, the slot for the card faces upwards, and thus collects a lot of dust; it doesn't work. Tells me my card is unusable when I just used it a couple hours ago.
Cash is less prone to dust, fortunately. When one is faced with the situation where one can't get a candy bar from the vending machine cause the chipreader isn't working, it's very frustrating, and one wishes it would accept coins. But there are many applications for this: p.o.s. at supermarkets and other shops, vending machines (who'se coin mechanisms often fail - sometimes due to vandalism), parking meters, public transport ticket vending machines, restuarants, etc. The reader unit doesn't have to be in a fixed location either. They can be mobile, which is nice if you wanna pay at the table for your dinner.
Anyways, once it is pervasive, it'll be cool (as long as the chipreaders work); I guess people need some time to get used to the idea of not using coins and bills.
Actually, for an ISP [xs4all.nl] here in the Netherlands, if you sucessfully hack them and tell them about it without doing any damage, they give you a month free access. How nice.:-)
But yes, that would be an easy way to shut off these boxes spewing requests all over the place.
I don't really see the problem. Net2Phone services work in Europe, don't they? Why should the servers in the US distinguish between a hardware Net2Phone implementation and a software implementation, like the one included with MSN Chat. Or am I make gross assumptions here?
Never mind the solar power.... when you're in motion, you can use that energy. Get a littly bike light dynamo for your power source. It should be enough to power a PDA, I don't know about the power requirements for the larger computer mentioned. A huge solar panel would be less convenient, I think.
Yeah, I've been wondering the same... waiting for a story to hit Slashdot explaining the outages, the strangely formatted main page (with stories from previous days in there). No more obscurity!
Re:Stop Talking, Start Doing
on
Quake on IPv6
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· Score: 1
Eh, I keep getting internal server error when I try the registration form. And eh, www.linux.org has it buried pretty deeply. Not a very informative link, if you ask me. Looks promising, though.
The problem is is that some people want their desktops to look very slick and spiffy. Others want only functionality. And people make these different desktops. It's not something that is likely to happen.
Yeah, I too, used to play it a lot. Although I never got it to work again after I stopped using a 8086 with a CGA screen. Although I now have it on my Palm Pilot, but it's less fun. There's no music! Let me know if you get it to work.
Yeah, but it's not only your time. All this junk mail doesn't only cost you time, it also costs energy to send it. Most importantly, how much paper do you think could be saved if only people that actually wanted the junk mail (as several posters pointed out) got the mail? I recycle all my paper, but why recycle it when it could have been prevented in the first place?
There's one hitch: if you have a modem dialup link or a really crappy other link which is very unreliable, a whole bunch of mirrors won't let you resume FTP. If you have a crappy link, make sure you can resume.
I find myself being motivated by wanting to live interesting experiences. I don't find the need to "fight" for some cause, although I do my best to promote and educate people about free operating systems. What drives me is still curiosity, the will to find out how stuff works.
These two machines fit the specifications. They can read CDR's and CDRW's filled with MP3s and the DiViDo has ID3 support too. They can both play DVDs, are region free (or you can make them region free very easily) and they both don't care about the upcoming RCE encoding and they can both be made MacroVision free (so you can record DVD's to VHS tapes. The XWave and the DiViDo. I don't know if these are also availabe in the US. They might have their counterparts.
It's too annoying to put all those things toghether and have to find an easy way to attach a keyboard/mouse to control the damn thing. I don't want to wait for it to boot up and I hate the noise of fans and spinning DVD drives.
That's why you burn your downloaded ISO images onto CDRW's, not CDR's. Then when the next version of your favorite distribution comes you, you just use the CD again!
Um, how do you propose they will read it? A CDROM drive is a fairly sophisticated device, while the codecs and filesystems required to be able to read them will probably be unknown. However, the idea you put forward is interesting.
What about games on PDA's? I enjoy them greatly, and going back to a black and white screen with a very low resolution is like playing games on black and white PCs with CGA graphics. Hey, they're even the same games! Frogger, Digger, etc...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Here in the Netherlands the banks are trying to distribute just such a system. It's not really popular at the moment, because of a chicken/egg problem: there aren't enough places you can use it, so not many people use the chip on their ATM cards (which nearly every bank ATM card issued here in the Netherlands has). But there aren't enough places to use it cause there doesn't seem to be a market.
It's a very nice system when it works. You recharge it (up to EUR450, US$450) and jam the card in a slot at your point of sale and after pressing "yes" the transaction is done in a couple seconds.
But of course it's not perfect. The chip readers are quite error prone. In my local supermarket, the slot for the card faces upwards, and thus collects a lot of dust; it doesn't work. Tells me my card is unusable when I just used it a couple hours ago.
Cash is less prone to dust, fortunately. When one is faced with the situation where one can't get a candy bar from the vending machine cause the chipreader isn't working, it's very frustrating, and one wishes it would accept coins. But there are many applications for this: p.o.s. at supermarkets and other shops, vending machines (who'se coin mechanisms often fail - sometimes due to vandalism), parking meters, public transport ticket vending machines, restuarants, etc. The reader unit doesn't have to be in a fixed location either. They can be mobile, which is nice if you wanna pay at the table for your dinner.
Anyways, once it is pervasive, it'll be cool (as long as the chipreaders work); I guess people need some time to get used to the idea of not using coins and bills.
That's my 0.02 euro's.
Actually, for an ISP [xs4all.nl] here in the Netherlands, if you sucessfully hack them and tell them about it without doing any damage, they give you a month free access. How nice. :-)
But yes, that would be an easy way to shut off these boxes spewing requests all over the place.
These kinds of messages really nicely bring accross the message that everyone in the Slashdot community is for pirating and illegally copying IP.
Yeah, CDs are too expensive, but copying music illegally isn't going to change that in a hurry
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Why wasn't this moderated Funny? I mean, sheesh...downward force? Hahahaa! Funny shit.
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I thought this was kind of interesting and some of the pictures are even quite nice:
evolutionary art.
Yeah, the guy wrote the program and imbued it with some concepts of what's 'nice' and what isn't, but so did the LISP thing in the story above.
Cheers!
Costyn.
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I don't really see the problem. Net2Phone services work in Europe, don't they? Why should the servers in the US distinguish between a hardware Net2Phone implementation and a software implementation, like the one included with MSN Chat. Or am I make gross assumptions here?
Cheers!
Costyn.
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When and why did CDDB become GraceNote? If I remember correctly, it was a free service first, right? Did some company buy it up?
Cheers...
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Never mind the solar power.... when you're in motion, you can use that energy. Get a littly bike light dynamo for your power source. It should be enough to power a PDA, I don't know about the power requirements for the larger computer mentioned. A huge solar panel would be less convenient, I think.
Hmm.... it seems to have dissapeared at thefever.com. Some lame Trintium Gaming Network page instead.
Here's a mirror: All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Yeah, I've been wondering the same... waiting for a story to hit Slashdot explaining the outages, the strangely formatted main page (with stories from previous days in there). No more obscurity!
I think MIR chunks will be hitting the ocean at around:
2001-03-20 13:23:25
That's funny shit... who wrote this??
Eh, I keep getting internal server error when I try the registration form. And eh, www.linux.org has it buried pretty deeply. Not a very informative link, if you ask me. Looks promising, though.
Cheers...
The problem is is that some people want their desktops to look very slick and spiffy. Others want only functionality. And people make these different desktops. It's not something that is likely to happen.
Yeah, I too, used to play it a lot. Although I never got it to work again after I stopped using a 8086 with a CGA screen. Although I now have it on my Palm Pilot, but it's less fun. There's no music! Let me know if you get it to work.
Cheers...
Yeah, but it's not only your time. All this junk mail doesn't only cost you time, it also costs energy to send it. Most importantly, how much paper do you think could be saved if only people that actually wanted the junk mail (as several posters pointed out) got the mail? I recycle all my paper, but why recycle it when it could have been prevented in the first place?
There's one hitch: if you have a modem dialup link or a really crappy other link which is very unreliable, a whole bunch of mirrors won't let you resume FTP. If you have a crappy link, make sure you can resume.
Cheers...
Indeed I was referring to fully automatic, but it is an important distinction to make.
I find myself being motivated by wanting to live interesting experiences. I don't find the need to "fight" for some cause, although I do my best to promote and educate people about free operating systems. What drives me is still curiosity, the will to find out how stuff works.
What if he/she were holding an automatic? Holding down the trigger would not be good. :-)
These two machines fit the specifications. They can read CDR's and CDRW's filled with MP3s and the DiViDo has ID3 support too. They can both play DVDs, are region free (or you can make them region free very easily) and they both don't care about the upcoming RCE encoding and they can both be made MacroVision free (so you can record DVD's to VHS tapes. The XWave and the DiViDo. I don't know if these are also availabe in the US. They might have their counterparts.
Cheers,
Costyn.
It's too annoying to put all those things toghether and have to find an easy way to attach a keyboard/mouse to control the damn thing. I don't want to wait for it to boot up and I hate the noise of fans and spinning DVD drives.
That's why you burn your downloaded ISO images onto CDRW's, not CDR's. Then when the next version of your favorite distribution comes you, you just use the CD again!
Um, how do you propose they will read it? A CDROM drive is a fairly sophisticated device, while the codecs and filesystems required to be able to read them will probably be unknown. However, the idea you put forward is interesting.
What about games on PDA's? I enjoy them greatly, and going back to a black and white screen with a very low resolution is like playing games on black and white PCs with CGA graphics. Hey, they're even the same games! Frogger, Digger, etc... :-)