With anything scientific, people generally talk about giga (G) being 1x10^9. That's an American billion.
A French/British billion (1x10^12) is tera (T) in SI prefixes.
So, since we take 1 eV to be 1.60x10^-19 J (to 3 sig. figs.), 1TeV (units are case sensitive) is:
1.6x10^-19 x 1x10^12 =
1.60x10^-7 J, or, with SI prefixes, 160 nJ (nanojoules, 10^-9)
(Strictly speaking, the Joule isn't the SI standard. In base units, the Joule is:
m^2.kg.s^-2.
because W (energy) = F (force, in newtons, which is also not an SI base unit) * d (distance, in metres, which is a base unit)
F (force, N) = m (mass, in kilogrammes, a base unit) * acceleration (in ms^-2, which is expressed in base units)
So W = mad or, in units, kg * ms^-2 * m. Which simplifies to give the unit above.
But everyone just uses J.)
You may or may not have known all that, but other people may benefit. Disclaimer: I don't claim to be perfectly right, but this is my understanding of the SI units, and it's served me well so far.
Re:Pointless scare mongering
on
Digital Drugs
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· Score: 1
I'm not saying it's proof, but I definitely felt different. I know what I felt. That said, 1 of my friends is completely immune to them, another only really got affected by the "opium" one, another one is mildly affected by various different ones.
I don't know, it seems quite hypnotic to me. For me, it works. If it's placebo, or if it's hypnotism or if it's binaural beats, I don't know.
That's the site for the program I use, you can get a free trial set (includes alcohol IIRC) and then you have to pay. Or, I'm sure you'd be able to find it on a torrent or something, I can't see any obvious protection... if you're that way inclined.
They do take a while to do, from 5 minutes to 40+, with most being around 20-25.
You probably don't trust what I say, and I wouldn't expect you to, but I'm adamant that for a laugh at LAN parties when someone's installing a game, it's good fun for me and the guys it works on.
Pointless scare mongering
on
Digital Drugs
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· Score: 2, Funny
I've tried digital drugs before. I've had many. They include:
Weed, hash, peyote
Good old alcohol
One that simulates an orgasm.
LSD/Acid
And some others. Saying that these cause any lasting effects is pure bullshit.
Any time I've used these drugs, the effect has worn off within half an hour at most, often after 10 minutes. I've never tried the above drugs excepting alcohol and orgasm, so I can't really comment on how accurate they are, but alcohol made me act drunk, and the orgasm... well, you know.
The others mostly just made me feel numb for a while, and made me giggle at random stuff. I repeat that no lasting damage is caused. Sure, I wouldn't advise getting a car for half an hour after using these, just as a precaution... but you'll be fine in half an hour.
I think if Jurassic Park has taught us anything it's not to clone dinosaurs by combining ancient DNA preserved in amber with genes from Bullfrogs then put them in a high tech enclosure and bring a small, select group to view it before opening up to the public.
Indeed. Instead, you should bring a large group of people from the public, and sit back with a beer (and a shotgun) and enjoy.
It is a bot that ruins the experience for other players. To level up, the bots have to grind the most profitable (in terms of experience and often money) monsters they can find. Bots often pair up, wiping the monsters out almost as soon as they spawn. This means that those particular monsters are unavailable to other players. If a certain player needs to kill those mobs for a quest, he's out of luck, and will have to quest elsewhere, wasting his time and effort.
Secondly, these bots farm money and pump that into the economy. That's not how it's meant to work, and it destabilises the economy. Often, people with lots of money buy loads of items, then sell them back as the only seller of such-and-such an item, at a raised price. If you earned the money to do that yourself, then that's fair enough, but if you entered your details on a website and had the gold given to you, prices go up for other players while you reap the rewards for cheating. Also, if you're getting money for free in terms of game effort, you're at an unfair advantage and will be able to advance faster than other players who have to work for it (although that's kind of the definition of cheating).
Thirdly, if you let people pay to start at higher levels, that gives some people who can afford it a huge advantage. People who start at lower levels and don't pay still have to do the levelling, and are highly unlikely to find any equipment on the Auction House (no-one is playing at that level, so they don't get drops to sell for that level) and will find it hard to get a group for lower level dungeons, meaning once again that they can't gear up as well as they'd like to, and removing content for them.
Anyone who uses these bot programs, and anyone who buys gold off them is an asshat and most certainly should be banned. If you want to cheat in an MMO, go and make your own so you can cheat without bothering us who enjoy playing.
I heard this being discussed on national radio, and I was horrified at how rapidly socity was deteriorating into accepting any and all authority. My dad, 28-years my elder, said that "law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear" and that "they would beat sense into you if you were being a wanker". He hasn't read 1984, so it amazed me how easily he submitted - his words echo the ending of Orwell's book.
By "they", he was referring to "sensible" adults, but it worries me that it might not be long before "they" could be used to mean the government.
There's something going scarily wrong with Britain, and I don't want to be a part of it. The second I get the chance, I'm leaving. There are much better places to live, where I won't be watched all the time.
And a Google seach for 'linux games' should probably shut you up about Linux having no games; change 'no games' to 'has very few commercially developed games', and you're right. But there are many games for Linux.
I know I'm not meant to reply to trolls, but I couldn't resist. I know that each OS has its strengths and weaknesses, and so should you. Tossers like you just piss me off. I have a dual-boot Windows XP/Ubuntu 6.06 system. I get the best of both worlds, so you can't give me shit like that and say that one is t3h suckzorz. If you want to just use Windows, go ahead. Tell everyone you like Windows in an appropriate manner. But no one cares that you hate Linux when you have are flamebait arguments to use to try and put it down. If you actually have any decent arguments, maybe someone would listen. But, at the moment, as I said: No one cares. Being good with a computer is recognising different needs/wants and being able to find and use or make programs to sort out those needs/wants. If the want is games, then Windows is probably better. If the want is a usually rock-steady, fairly secure system for everyday use, Linux could be the way to go. If you like open-source, you have one real choice. If you'd prefer closed source (for whatever reason), Windows is the way. Or have a dual boot, and your problems are sorted. Or, take an alternative route and get a Mac or use a BSD. Whatever, just recognise that different pieces of software are better at different things.
There's one huge problem with that type of CAPTCHA; personal opinion gets involved. There are people in the world who find overweight women attractive, so would answer differently to others, whereas others might go for the best smiles, whatever. Then, when a computer tells them they have shit taste in women and accuses them of being a bot when they don't pick the specified 3, they get pissed off with the site and leave:
"I'm not having that! Who's this bastard computer to tell me that those women aren't attractive?" (General response from a British bloke who obviously isn't tech-savvy.)
And, because you've obviously tried to cater for everyone in the world who visits your site, you have the problem of the fact that there are people in the world who don't find anything attractive at all. And also people who find everything attractive.
A much better CAPTCHA would be something for which there is no doubt of the answer, provided you spoke the language the site is in (and if you don't, why are you on it?). For example, the user is presented with 9 pictures: 3 of cats, 6 of dogs, and told to click on the cats. Even then, it is trivial to write a program/script to try all possible combinations, but you're not gonna alienate users, because a cat is a cat, and a dog is a dog.
I know you said there would still be people with problems with the HotOrNot thing, but you cite an example that really doesn't help your argument at all; even the most geeky/. member has met a girl/boy before (they may be gay or bi) and found at least someone attractive. Or has seen porn, which is probably more likely...:) And, as I said, the cat/dog problem solves this one... if you're on a computer, on a website, you could just google for cat/dog to find out what they looked like if you were so sad as to have never seen one.
If you're catering for the blind? Well, then you start getting fancy and adding sound files and shit... for example, you could make 2 sound files, play one of them randomly, repeat 10 times and ask the user to say how many times they heard a certain word. For example, the sounds could be: "cat", "cat", "dog", "dog", "dog", "cat", "dog", "dog", "dog", "cat", and the user would be asked to input the number of "cat"s (4, obviously). And, to combat scripts, it's random. It can still be broken by a script that keeps on guessing randomly, but all types of security have weaknesses.
Please note: This post assumes that we're not trying to prevent people who are hired to spam up sites, but that we are trying to fight bots. I personally believe there's nothing to beat hired spammers except good ol' human moderation, possibly aided by a search program for the usual spam words (viagra, buy, cheap, free trial period, discreet delivery etc., although the standard spammer's English is so bad these words probably won't be found...) which flags up potentially spam posts (but that will, of course return some false positives. Nothing's perfect).
Your title and post make you sound like you think this shouldn't be released open source, just in case spammers use it.
Well, then OOo will have to stop releasing their office suite: just think, Base could be used to store e-mail addresses to spam! Or, maybe no open source e-mail clients should be released, because the spammers might use it to send spam!
Don't blame the software for the way it is used; It's the user's fault if (s)he decides to use it malevolently. Most software has the potential for misuse, some more than others, but that doesn't mean that fear of spam should stop tools that have a chance to be misused being released. Just think of the positive uses of programs like this.
Besides, it's more than easy enough for spammers to just make a program to do stuff like break CAPTCHAs (yes, I know they're designed to defeat spammers, but nothing's perfect).
You don't have to pay a TV licence unless you own a piece of equipment capable of receiving a TV programme - this includes VCRs and PCs with TV Tuner cards, but not a bog-standard PC. At the moment, this doesn't include computers, because the law is nullified if the device broadcasts the programme at a different time to the TV. Internet broadcasting is a grey area, and the TV Licencing guys want to extend the licence to all devices capable of receiving and kind of video, but this is not yet the case.
Also, you say if you haven't paid the licence you can't use the service- I haven't paid, and I can use it. I'm British, but there you go.
Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux
on
A New Kind of OS
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· Score: 1
if you require your users to program, build a programming environment that suits their needs, don't throw them into a general-purpose programming language (which requires a CS degree to be mastered).
Your point on the whole is good, but I think you make an oversight; nothing requires a degree to be mastered, and I don't believe it's possible to master anything through a course. Sure, it might be quicker to learn something through a degree, but it's equally possble to teach yourself through books, online tutorials and by just working things out (which, admittedly, would take a very long time).
I can use myself as an example. I'd never been taught anything about programming by a human standing in front of me explaining stuff until after I'd learnt C++ (from a book, and internet tutorials), and even then it was a really bad programmer teaching me Visual Basic.
I taught myself all of C++; I'm not saying I'm a master, because I think becoming the master of a language requires years of experience (something that applies to both programming and spoken languages, and to most things), which is also why I think you can't master something through a degree, but I am saying that if you ask me to explain any feature (anything; function pointers, pointers to members, the most obscure thing you can think of) of C++ (or C), I can explain it. Not only this, but after 3 years of using C++ I can also explain why a feature works, and why it is required. A master would be able to use all of this knowledge effortlessly to make very advanced programs, which I can't yet do.
I think you mean the word master here as fully learning a language. If you do, by your logic I'm a master of C++. But, IMO, mastering the language takes experience, knowledge and imagination. A CS degree will only speed up the process.
An IM network is only as popular as the people who use it. Because most of the people in the UK who use MSN Messenger are teenagers chatting to each other, it's very rare (at least in my limited experiance) to encounter anyone who's older than 20. In my very limited knowledge, I know of one girl who was talked to by a paedophile over Messenger (he eventally started tossing himself off on webcam and asking her to get her tits out, which she declined) and she blocked and deleted him very quickly. Paedophiles are a real threat on Messenger, because the teens using Messenger are plentiful.
If you tried moving all of these teens to a different network, you'd end up with the paedophiles moving network with the teens, and pressure on the developers of the new network to add this feature. I say teens should be left MSN Messenger for themselves, and everyone else should use a different protocol. Messenger has a lot of potential for being a 'teen-friendly' messenger client, and this paedo-watch feature is going to help that image.
On a slightly different note, I really can't see this feature not requiring the person doing the accusing to send their conversation, giving some evidence for why they think accused is a paedophile. The police won't even start to bother to look if there's not at least a bit of evidence against the accused.
Seconded. I went to see it the day it came out... I was at the second screening of the day, and there were 13 people in the cinema. In the first of the day, there had been about 15. All of the people in the room were either geeks (the people I went with and myself) or looked like geeks (everyone else). It's a great shame, beacuse I enjoyed the movie a lot, despite the plot holes (how the hell would you get a device to open up the door of a crate full of snakes through airport security?).
I can see SoaP being very much like TRON; a good movie, but only really for geeks, and flopping because of it. Even though SoaP is more mainstream than TRON, I reckon it'll be the same.
Heh, you think that's weird? Here in Britain, it's pretty much the norm for teenagers of 14 to complain that they want beer... and spirits... and just about anything alcoholic, really. No one would think twice about serving someone in the Army, whether they were 16 or 18 (which is the legal age to start drinking over here).
Fair enough, I don't know for certain. But I doubt Microsoft wouldn't be cheeky enough to slip ads into full-screen games. First of all, they'd have to open up a way to do that without impairing gameplay in any way, or else be subjected to many, very pissed-off game players complaining. Microsoft would have to make a deal with game companies - I don't see any other way of them getting their ads into games without just putting them in random positions, or by using up a large amount of screen space (forcing the games to run at 800x600 when I want them in 1024x768). And I play a lot of newer games at 640x480 (I can't afford a very good graphics card, so I have to have fairly crud graphics), so I don't think MS can take up much more room from the screen with a resolution so small. They'd have to force the game to run at a tiny resolution.
Since the games I run are full-screen and don't use the Windows UI (they have their own customised UI, as do most games), there won't be a standard way to add adverts to all games, because all games could theoretically use different, custom UIs. I'd imagine that Microsoft will only be able to add adverts to the basic Windows areas (Windows Explorer, the start bar, the desktop, etc.) and into parts of the standard UI (menu bars, perhaps.)
Still, you make a fair point. But, if MS can put ads into games without affecting gameplay in any way, I'm not that bothered. I'm willing to put up with it to get Windows for free, because I'll be using Linux most of the time any way.
MSN Messenger is a good example of the ad-supported Windows "problem". Linux users don't use it (they use GAIM or Kopete or some other Linux-friendly messenger.) so they don't get the ads that come with it.
But, MSN Messenger has features that other, Linux-friendly IM clients don't have: webcam support out of the box, audio conversations, games...
The same can be said about the Windows-Linux situation in general. Linux users get a free operating system, with no ads, but they don't get the Windows-only programs that have been developed. A lot of companies have programs made for them that will only function in Windows, so they can't afford to use Linux: their programs wouldn't work. Sure, Linux has wine, but can anyone really say that they can get all windows programs to work perfectly under wine?
Back slightly more on topic, I can see the use of a free Windows. That way, a lot of Linux users who have a dual boot system for Windows games won't have to pay for a/use a pirated copy of Windows, but they can still use Windows legally, and free of charge. This is actually a good thing from Microsoft. As long as they don't force the ads down your throat, I can see the advantages of this.
A free Windows certainly wouldn't bother me; I won't be seeing any ads when I use Windows for the only reason I do use it: games, games and more games.:)
Ah... when that happens, and women DO want tech stuff for their birthday, I'll finally be able to buy the perfect present, because I'll actually understand what's hot and what's not... no more "Oh yeah, that's... erm... lovely. Thanks." comments about various fashion items meant as presents, but obviously showing my lack of knowledge about anything fashionable.
Just imagine the look on your girlfriend's face when she sees you got her the new *insert trendy and popular tech item here*!
I think music is whatever people make it. If you like a particular genre more than others, then that's your 'good music' whether people agree or not. If you don't like a certain genre, it's your idea of 'bad' music.
Personally, I like funk, rock and jazz music. To me, that's great music, and especially funk because of the heavy emphasis on bass (which I play, and like.). I dislike any music in which no instruments are played, because I think it lacks talent. Rappers who join together but who have no musicians are a singing group to me, but as soon as you add musicians, they're a band. That's just my opinion, and I respect any other views.
My sister, for example thinks it's all shite, and listens to R&B and Hip-hop. It's all about taste.
Yet, for example, when you look at the French football team, half of the players are black. That's not racism. Zinedine Zidane, voted the popular Frenchman ever in fact had Algerian parents. How is that racist? Sure, there are some racial problems in parts of France, but France as a whole is doing a very good job of showing that they are proud of being a multicultural society.
I live in a fairly single colour society in Britain, and I won't pretend that when I see a black guy I say in my head, "Cool, it's a black guy." Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all racist, but that's how people are brought up, certainly in my area.
As an example of how I was brought up in a single colour society: My primary school class was completely white, and there was one Asian girl in the whole year. As children, we didn't really differentiate and say that she was different, but we were still learning to: when we were drawing, 'the skin colour' was the pink, and no one even thought of the brown to use as a skin colour.
Having said that, the education system is a lot better now: my cousin (currently in primary schools) has lots of friends from different ethnic minorities. Asian, African, you name it. Best of all, she doesn't even recognise that they're different; she knows that everyone's the same thanks to modern education.
I don't think it's racist to say that a black guy is black, just as much as it's not homophobic to call a gay man gay. It's stating fact, because the term 'black' has evolved to refer to black guys, even though blacks are probably closer to being brown. The term white is the same (we say white, but we're really pink/red when we overindulge in the sun).
I'm not saying that racism isn't a problem. I know it is, because I see racism almost daily, but it can be overcome if the education is right, just like STIs, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, smoking and alochol abuse. It's all about the education. Racism might still be a problem in our generation, but in the new generation it will be a far smaller problem. I'd guess that racism will be eradicated slowly, but that eventually it will be crushed.
I'm a British kid (14), and I must admit that the programming that's taught at my school is crap. We get taught nothing until the 6th form, apart from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and making IE-only webpages in Frontpage (A really old free version, can't remember what exactly). Every two years, a group of good students are picked to have a special, half-day lesson on programming VBA for Excel with the Head of Computing, who makes it as boring as possible and puts many people off programming for life.
I had to teach myself to program, with the aid of Herbert Schildt's books. I learnt C++ and Java, and of course HTML, CSS and PHP. I do a lot of stuff with my computer that my friends can't comprehend: running Linux, making programs and small games, and geeky stuff in general. The reason they can't understand it? They don't want to.
A lot of people think that it instantly makes you an outcast from society to program. A lot of people think it's impossibly hard, and that only super-geeks can do it. A lot of people don't even know what OS they're running: they just use a computer to use MSN Messenger to talk to their friends, and occasionally to do homework, or make a crappy website with an online site editor that makes awful pages. I've even had some people say that computers would be useless if it wasn't for MSN Messenger. That's a worrying thought.
I certainly hope that my school is the exception rather than the rule, but I think it might take a few super-geeks to help educate new programmers.
I agree. Guitar Pro 4 (and now 5, I believe) is the way to go for musicians. I play bass in a band, and guitar pro has helped me to learn all the songs I needed to practise. It also helps while writing out your own songs.
It's easy to use, and it supports both guitar tabulare (VERY handy for budding guitarists) and standard notation, which increases its appeal to other musicians. There is a chord builder and scales shown on a guitar fretboard and on a keyboard diagram. I teach myself, so things like that have helped me a lot.
Of course, all of these things are only aids; no program is any substitute for practise.
While I couldn't be called someone who has used 1and1 a lot, I did buy a domain from them. The service I recieved was less than great. I got a letter from some company I'd never heard of, talking to me about domains, never once mentioning anything about why it had been sent, or how they had got my address. The only reason that I would have got such a letter is that 1and1 sent them my address, as I am very particular about who knows where I live. The letter also gave me some sort of access code, which confused me as I thought that I already owned my domain.
When I tried out my control panel, I found it confusing and hard to use, as I was, at the time, new to Web Developing and computing in general. The many names the the corporation seems to have also hit me, as I kept on ending up on the American site, and I'm British. I was repeatedly told that my data was incorrect when trying to log in, because I thought that I was on the right site. I knew that my data WAS correct, because I was copying it from an e-mail that had been sent to me.
Also, I recieved very little information on what to do to CANCEL my order. To be honest, I don't really care, but It'd be nice to know that someone isn't charging my credit card every two years. Does anyone have any information on how to cancel?
All in all, 1and1 (or oneandone, or whatever they're called) were absolutly crap for me, though others might indeed have had a good experience. I certainly know that I'm not going to use them again.
I used http://siteburg.com/ to host my website. They give you free PHP4 (perfect for me, I can't be arsed to learn the differences between Versions 4 and 5) and a free MySQL database. I have more space than I'll ever use (100 Mb, but it's not a big site), and 10Gb bandwidth a month. And the best part is this: It's totally free!
I've never had any trouble, and have, therefore, never needed to contact them. My worst ever problem was a slight bit of downtime once, during the night, and a slight slowdown at random points in the afternoon, but never enough to be a real problem.
I can heartily recommend everyone who needs a small and easy to use package to use Siteburg, as it really is a great free webhosting option.
Slashdot Mirror
With anything scientific, people generally talk about giga (G) being 1x10^9. That's an American billion.
A French/British billion (1x10^12) is tera (T) in SI prefixes.
So, since we take 1 eV to be 1.60x10^-19 J (to 3 sig. figs.), 1TeV (units are case sensitive) is:
1.6x10^-19 x 1x10^12 =
1.60x10^-7 J, or, with SI prefixes, 160 nJ (nanojoules, 10^-9)
(Strictly speaking, the Joule isn't the SI standard. In base units, the Joule is:
m^2.kg.s^-2.
because W (energy) = F (force, in newtons, which is also not an SI base unit) * d (distance, in metres, which is a base unit)
F (force, N) = m (mass, in kilogrammes, a base unit) * acceleration (in ms^-2, which is expressed in base units)
So W = mad or, in units, kg * ms^-2 * m. Which simplifies to give the unit above.
But everyone just uses J.)
You may or may not have known all that, but other people may benefit. Disclaimer: I don't claim to be perfectly right, but this is my understanding of the SI units, and it's served me well so far.
I'm not saying it's proof, but I definitely felt different. I know what I felt. That said, 1 of my friends is completely immune to them, another only really got affected by the "opium" one, another one is mildly affected by various different ones.
I don't know, it seems quite hypnotic to me. For me, it works. If it's placebo, or if it's hypnotism or if it's binaural beats, I don't know.
But hell, if you're a cynic, download some and do it yourself. http://www.i-doser.com/
That's the site for the program I use, you can get a free trial set (includes alcohol IIRC) and then you have to pay. Or, I'm sure you'd be able to find it on a torrent or something, I can't see any obvious protection... if you're that way inclined.
They do take a while to do, from 5 minutes to 40+, with most being around 20-25.
You probably don't trust what I say, and I wouldn't expect you to, but I'm adamant that for a laugh at LAN parties when someone's installing a game, it's good fun for me and the guys it works on.
I've tried digital drugs before. I've had many. They include:
And some others. Saying that these cause any lasting effects is pure bullshit.
Any time I've used these drugs, the effect has worn off within half an hour at most, often after 10 minutes. I've never tried the above drugs excepting alcohol and orgasm, so I can't really comment on how accurate they are, but alcohol made me act drunk, and the orgasm... well, you know.
The others mostly just made me feel numb for a while, and made me giggle at random stuff. I repeat that no lasting damage is caused. Sure, I wouldn't advise getting a car for half an hour after using these, just as a precaution... but you'll be fine in half an hour.
I think if Jurassic Park has taught us anything it's not to clone dinosaurs by combining ancient DNA preserved in amber with genes from Bullfrogs then put them in a high tech enclosure and bring a small, select group to view it before opening up to the public.
Indeed. Instead, you should bring a large group of people from the public, and sit back with a beer (and a shotgun) and enjoy.
Bullshit.
It is a bot that ruins the experience for other players. To level up, the bots have to grind the most profitable (in terms of experience and often money) monsters they can find. Bots often pair up, wiping the monsters out almost as soon as they spawn. This means that those particular monsters are unavailable to other players. If a certain player needs to kill those mobs for a quest, he's out of luck, and will have to quest elsewhere, wasting his time and effort.
Secondly, these bots farm money and pump that into the economy. That's not how it's meant to work, and it destabilises the economy. Often, people with lots of money buy loads of items, then sell them back as the only seller of such-and-such an item, at a raised price. If you earned the money to do that yourself, then that's fair enough, but if you entered your details on a website and had the gold given to you, prices go up for other players while you reap the rewards for cheating. Also, if you're getting money for free in terms of game effort, you're at an unfair advantage and will be able to advance faster than other players who have to work for it (although that's kind of the definition of cheating).
Thirdly, if you let people pay to start at higher levels, that gives some people who can afford it a huge advantage. People who start at lower levels and don't pay still have to do the levelling, and are highly unlikely to find any equipment on the Auction House (no-one is playing at that level, so they don't get drops to sell for that level) and will find it hard to get a group for lower level dungeons, meaning once again that they can't gear up as well as they'd like to, and removing content for them.
Anyone who uses these bot programs, and anyone who buys gold off them is an asshat and most certainly should be banned. If you want to cheat in an MMO, go and make your own so you can cheat without bothering us who enjoy playing.
I know what you're talking about.
I heard this being discussed on national radio, and I was horrified at how rapidly socity was deteriorating into accepting any and all authority. My dad, 28-years my elder, said that "law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear" and that "they would beat sense into you if you were being a wanker". He hasn't read 1984, so it amazed me how easily he submitted - his words echo the ending of Orwell's book.
By "they", he was referring to "sensible" adults, but it worries me that it might not be long before "they" could be used to mean the government.
There's something going scarily wrong with Britain, and I don't want to be a part of it. The second I get the chance, I'm leaving. There are much better places to live, where I won't be watched all the time.
*cough* XGL/Compiz *cough*
And a Google seach for 'linux games' should probably shut you up about Linux having no games; change 'no games' to 'has very few commercially developed games', and you're right. But there are many games for Linux.
I know I'm not meant to reply to trolls, but I couldn't resist. I know that each OS has its strengths and weaknesses, and so should you. Tossers like you just piss me off. I have a dual-boot Windows XP/Ubuntu 6.06 system. I get the best of both worlds, so you can't give me shit like that and say that one is t3h suckzorz. If you want to just use Windows, go ahead. Tell everyone you like Windows in an appropriate manner. But no one cares that you hate Linux when you have are flamebait arguments to use to try and put it down. If you actually have any decent arguments, maybe someone would listen. But, at the moment, as I said: No one cares. Being good with a computer is recognising different needs/wants and being able to find and use or make programs to sort out those needs/wants. If the want is games, then Windows is probably better. If the want is a usually rock-steady, fairly secure system for everyday use, Linux could be the way to go. If you like open-source, you have one real choice. If you'd prefer closed source (for whatever reason), Windows is the way. Or have a dual boot, and your problems are sorted. Or, take an alternative route and get a Mac or use a BSD. Whatever, just recognise that different pieces of software are better at different things.
There's one huge problem with that type of CAPTCHA; personal opinion gets involved. There are people in the world who find overweight women attractive, so would answer differently to others, whereas others might go for the best smiles, whatever. Then, when a computer tells them they have shit taste in women and accuses them of being a bot when they don't pick the specified 3, they get pissed off with the site and leave:
"I'm not having that! Who's this bastard computer to tell me that those women aren't attractive?" (General response from a British bloke who obviously isn't tech-savvy.)
And, because you've obviously tried to cater for everyone in the world who visits your site, you have the problem of the fact that there are people in the world who don't find anything attractive at all. And also people who find everything attractive.
A much better CAPTCHA would be something for which there is no doubt of the answer, provided you spoke the language the site is in (and if you don't, why are you on it?). For example, the user is presented with 9 pictures: 3 of cats, 6 of dogs, and told to click on the cats. Even then, it is trivial to write a program/script to try all possible combinations, but you're not gonna alienate users, because a cat is a cat, and a dog is a dog.
I know you said there would still be people with problems with the HotOrNot thing, but you cite an example that really doesn't help your argument at all; even the most geeky /. member has met a girl/boy before (they may be gay or bi) and found at least someone attractive. Or has seen porn, which is probably more likely... :) And, as I said, the cat/dog problem solves this one... if you're on a computer, on a website, you could just google for cat/dog to find out what they looked like if you were so sad as to have never seen one.
If you're catering for the blind? Well, then you start getting fancy and adding sound files and shit... for example, you could make 2 sound files, play one of them randomly, repeat 10 times and ask the user to say how many times they heard a certain word. For example, the sounds could be: "cat", "cat", "dog", "dog", "dog", "cat", "dog", "dog", "dog", "cat", and the user would be asked to input the number of "cat"s (4, obviously). And, to combat scripts, it's random. It can still be broken by a script that keeps on guessing randomly, but all types of security have weaknesses.
Please note: This post assumes that we're not trying to prevent people who are hired to spam up sites, but that we are trying to fight bots. I personally believe there's nothing to beat hired spammers except good ol' human moderation, possibly aided by a search program for the usual spam words (viagra, buy, cheap, free trial period, discreet delivery etc., although the standard spammer's English is so bad these words probably won't be found...) which flags up potentially spam posts (but that will, of course return some false positives. Nothing's perfect).
Your title and post make you sound like you think this shouldn't be released open source, just in case spammers use it.
Well, then OOo will have to stop releasing their office suite: just think, Base could be used to store e-mail addresses to spam! Or, maybe no open source e-mail clients should be released, because the spammers might use it to send spam!
Don't blame the software for the way it is used; It's the user's fault if (s)he decides to use it malevolently. Most software has the potential for misuse, some more than others, but that doesn't mean that fear of spam should stop tools that have a chance to be misused being released. Just think of the positive uses of programs like this.
Besides, it's more than easy enough for spammers to just make a program to do stuff like break CAPTCHAs (yes, I know they're designed to defeat spammers, but nothing's perfect).
You don't have to pay a TV licence unless you own a piece of equipment capable of receiving a TV programme - this includes VCRs and PCs with TV Tuner cards, but not a bog-standard PC. At the moment, this doesn't include computers, because the law is nullified if the device broadcasts the programme at a different time to the TV. Internet broadcasting is a grey area, and the TV Licencing guys want to extend the licence to all devices capable of receiving and kind of video, but this is not yet the case.
Also, you say if you haven't paid the licence you can't use the service- I haven't paid, and I can use it. I'm British, but there you go.
if you require your users to program, build a programming environment that suits their needs, don't throw them into a general-purpose programming language (which requires a CS degree to be mastered).
Your point on the whole is good, but I think you make an oversight; nothing requires a degree to be mastered, and I don't believe it's possible to master anything through a course. Sure, it might be quicker to learn something through a degree, but it's equally possble to teach yourself through books, online tutorials and by just working things out (which, admittedly, would take a very long time).
I can use myself as an example. I'd never been taught anything about programming by a human standing in front of me explaining stuff until after I'd learnt C++ (from a book, and internet tutorials), and even then it was a really bad programmer teaching me Visual Basic.
I taught myself all of C++; I'm not saying I'm a master, because I think becoming the master of a language requires years of experience (something that applies to both programming and spoken languages, and to most things), which is also why I think you can't master something through a degree, but I am saying that if you ask me to explain any feature (anything; function pointers, pointers to members, the most obscure thing you can think of) of C++ (or C), I can explain it. Not only this, but after 3 years of using C++ I can also explain why a feature works, and why it is required. A master would be able to use all of this knowledge effortlessly to make very advanced programs, which I can't yet do.
I think you mean the word master here as fully learning a language. If you do, by your logic I'm a master of C++. But, IMO, mastering the language takes experience, knowledge and imagination. A CS degree will only speed up the process.
Here's a link to the BBC article, which I believe provides a bit more information:
BBC ArticleAn IM network is only as popular as the people who use it. Because most of the people in the UK who use MSN Messenger are teenagers chatting to each other, it's very rare (at least in my limited experiance) to encounter anyone who's older than 20. In my very limited knowledge, I know of one girl who was talked to by a paedophile over Messenger (he eventally started tossing himself off on webcam and asking her to get her tits out, which she declined) and she blocked and deleted him very quickly. Paedophiles are a real threat on Messenger, because the teens using Messenger are plentiful.
If you tried moving all of these teens to a different network, you'd end up with the paedophiles moving network with the teens, and pressure on the developers of the new network to add this feature. I say teens should be left MSN Messenger for themselves, and everyone else should use a different protocol. Messenger has a lot of potential for being a 'teen-friendly' messenger client, and this paedo-watch feature is going to help that image.
On a slightly different note, I really can't see this feature not requiring the person doing the accusing to send their conversation, giving some evidence for why they think accused is a paedophile. The police won't even start to bother to look if there's not at least a bit of evidence against the accused.
Seconded. I went to see it the day it came out... I was at the second screening of the day, and there were 13 people in the cinema. In the first of the day, there had been about 15. All of the people in the room were either geeks (the people I went with and myself) or looked like geeks (everyone else). It's a great shame, beacuse I enjoyed the movie a lot, despite the plot holes (how the hell would you get a device to open up the door of a crate full of snakes through airport security?).
I can see SoaP being very much like TRON; a good movie, but only really for geeks, and flopping because of it. Even though SoaP is more mainstream than TRON, I reckon it'll be the same.
Heh, you think that's weird? Here in Britain, it's pretty much the norm for teenagers of 14 to complain that they want beer... and spirits... and just about anything alcoholic, really. No one would think twice about serving someone in the Army, whether they were 16 or 18 (which is the legal age to start drinking over here).
Fair enough, I don't know for certain. But I doubt Microsoft wouldn't be cheeky enough to slip ads into full-screen games. First of all, they'd have to open up a way to do that without impairing gameplay in any way, or else be subjected to many, very pissed-off game players complaining. Microsoft would have to make a deal with game companies - I don't see any other way of them getting their ads into games without just putting them in random positions, or by using up a large amount of screen space (forcing the games to run at 800x600 when I want them in 1024x768). And I play a lot of newer games at 640x480 (I can't afford a very good graphics card, so I have to have fairly crud graphics), so I don't think MS can take up much more room from the screen with a resolution so small. They'd have to force the game to run at a tiny resolution.
Since the games I run are full-screen and don't use the Windows UI (they have their own customised UI, as do most games), there won't be a standard way to add adverts to all games, because all games could theoretically use different, custom UIs. I'd imagine that Microsoft will only be able to add adverts to the basic Windows areas (Windows Explorer, the start bar, the desktop, etc.) and into parts of the standard UI (menu bars, perhaps.)
Still, you make a fair point. But, if MS can put ads into games without affecting gameplay in any way, I'm not that bothered. I'm willing to put up with it to get Windows for free, because I'll be using Linux most of the time any way.
MSN Messenger is a good example of the ad-supported Windows "problem". Linux users don't use it (they use GAIM or Kopete or some other Linux-friendly messenger.) so they don't get the ads that come with it.
But, MSN Messenger has features that other, Linux-friendly IM clients don't have: webcam support out of the box, audio conversations, games...
The same can be said about the Windows-Linux situation in general. Linux users get a free operating system, with no ads, but they don't get the Windows-only programs that have been developed. A lot of companies have programs made for them that will only function in Windows, so they can't afford to use Linux: their programs wouldn't work. Sure, Linux has wine, but can anyone really say that they can get all windows programs to work perfectly under wine?
Back slightly more on topic, I can see the use of a free Windows. That way, a lot of Linux users who have a dual boot system for Windows games won't have to pay for a/use a pirated copy of Windows, but they can still use Windows legally, and free of charge. This is actually a good thing from Microsoft. As long as they don't force the ads down your throat, I can see the advantages of this.
A free Windows certainly wouldn't bother me; I won't be seeing any ads when I use Windows for the only reason I do use it: games, games and more games. :)
Ah... when that happens, and women DO want tech stuff for their birthday, I'll finally be able to buy the perfect present, because I'll actually understand what's hot and what's not... no more "Oh yeah, that's... erm... lovely. Thanks." comments about various fashion items meant as presents, but obviously showing my lack of knowledge about anything fashionable.
Just imagine the look on your girlfriend's face when she sees you got her the new *insert trendy and popular tech item here*!
That'll be the day... (well, a guy can dream.)
What is good/bad music?
I think music is whatever people make it. If you like a particular genre more than others, then that's your 'good music' whether people agree or not. If you don't like a certain genre, it's your idea of 'bad' music.
Personally, I like funk, rock and jazz music. To me, that's great music, and especially funk because of the heavy emphasis on bass (which I play, and like.). I dislike any music in which no instruments are played, because I think it lacks talent. Rappers who join together but who have no musicians are a singing group to me, but as soon as you add musicians, they're a band. That's just my opinion, and I respect any other views.
My sister, for example thinks it's all shite, and listens to R&B and Hip-hop. It's all about taste.
Yet, for example, when you look at the French football team, half of the players are black. That's not racism. Zinedine Zidane, voted the popular Frenchman ever in fact had Algerian parents. How is that racist? Sure, there are some racial problems in parts of France, but France as a whole is doing a very good job of showing that they are proud of being a multicultural society.
I live in a fairly single colour society in Britain, and I won't pretend that when I see a black guy I say in my head, "Cool, it's a black guy." Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all racist, but that's how people are brought up, certainly in my area.
As an example of how I was brought up in a single colour society: My primary school class was completely white, and there was one Asian girl in the whole year. As children, we didn't really differentiate and say that she was different, but we were still learning to: when we were drawing, 'the skin colour' was the pink, and no one even thought of the brown to use as a skin colour.
Having said that, the education system is a lot better now: my cousin (currently in primary schools) has lots of friends from different ethnic minorities. Asian, African, you name it. Best of all, she doesn't even recognise that they're different; she knows that everyone's the same thanks to modern education.
I don't think it's racist to say that a black guy is black, just as much as it's not homophobic to call a gay man gay. It's stating fact, because the term 'black' has evolved to refer to black guys, even though blacks are probably closer to being brown. The term white is the same (we say white, but we're really pink/red when we overindulge in the sun).
I'm not saying that racism isn't a problem. I know it is, because I see racism almost daily, but it can be overcome if the education is right, just like STIs, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, smoking and alochol abuse. It's all about the education. Racism might still be a problem in our generation, but in the new generation it will be a far smaller problem. I'd guess that racism will be eradicated slowly, but that eventually it will be crushed.
I had to teach myself to program, with the aid of Herbert Schildt's books. I learnt C++ and Java, and of course HTML, CSS and PHP. I do a lot of stuff with my computer that my friends can't comprehend: running Linux, making programs and small games, and geeky stuff in general. The reason they can't understand it? They don't want to.
A lot of people think that it instantly makes you an outcast from society to program. A lot of people think it's impossibly hard, and that only super-geeks can do it. A lot of people don't even know what OS they're running: they just use a computer to use MSN Messenger to talk to their friends, and occasionally to do homework, or make a crappy website with an online site editor that makes awful pages. I've even had some people say that computers would be useless if it wasn't for MSN Messenger. That's a worrying thought.
I certainly hope that my school is the exception rather than the rule, but I think it might take a few super-geeks to help educate new programmers.
I agree. Guitar Pro 4 (and now 5, I believe) is the way to go for musicians. I play bass in a band, and guitar pro has helped me to learn all the songs I needed to practise. It also helps while writing out your own songs.
It's easy to use, and it supports both guitar tabulare (VERY handy for budding guitarists) and standard notation, which increases its appeal to other musicians. There is a chord builder and scales shown on a guitar fretboard and on a keyboard diagram. I teach myself, so things like that have helped me a lot.
Of course, all of these things are only aids; no program is any substitute for practise.
When I tried out my control panel, I found it confusing and hard to use, as I was, at the time, new to Web Developing and computing in general. The many names the the corporation seems to have also hit me, as I kept on ending up on the American site, and I'm British. I was repeatedly told that my data was incorrect when trying to log in, because I thought that I was on the right site. I knew that my data WAS correct, because I was copying it from an e-mail that had been sent to me.
Also, I recieved very little information on what to do to CANCEL my order. To be honest, I don't really care, but It'd be nice to know that someone isn't charging my credit card every two years. Does anyone have any information on how to cancel?
All in all, 1and1 (or oneandone, or whatever they're called) were absolutly crap for me, though others might indeed have had a good experience. I certainly know that I'm not going to use them again.
I've never had any trouble, and have, therefore, never needed to contact them. My worst ever problem was a slight bit of downtime once, during the night, and a slight slowdown at random points in the afternoon, but never enough to be a real problem.
I can heartily recommend everyone who needs a small and easy to use package to use Siteburg, as it really is a great free webhosting option.