I remember a similar story. The first day the guy was mostly just writing down the numbers. The casino owners probably assumed he was just annother crackpot. He recorded the values for all the tables, and later analyzed them finding at least one table with significant bias. (The bias needs to be large enough to overcome the payout bias that favors the house.) So the guy played at that table, and starting winning big. After a few days the casino caught on, and swapped the wheels. It took the guy a part of the day to figure out what happened, but once he did, he was ableto locate his wheel by a scrath on it. So what the casino did next was buy a wheel where the dividers between the numbers are swapable. Under this system the guy lost most or all of the money he won.
The swappable divider system is virtually perfect. Whenever they are swapped the bias of the wheel changes. So simply change the bias of the wheel fequently enough that there has not been enough time to gather enough statistics to exploit the bias. (change it say every 60 min. or even every 30 minutes if paranoid). Have an extra wheel ready to swap with the current one so that there is virtually no downtime due to randomizing the dividers. One cannot even build up statistical information over time of the bias with each divider confuguration because the dividers would be too difficult to distinguish. A paranoid casino could even have many extra divers (thousands) to make the number of purmutations prohibitavely large.
HDMI is basically DVI and SP-DIF (digital audio [coaxial or fiber]) together on the same cable. Strictly speaking some of the most recent revisions of HDMI have diverged somewhat from the DVI spec. However, DVI devices can use the decoding chips for HDMI and thus support anything (besides audio) that HDMI supports, incuding HDCP and the new color depths (for example).
DRM does mostly hurt honest people who are not technically inclined. However it does prevent dishonest people who are not technically inclined from "pirating."
In other words: It hurts honest people, but because it prevents casual "piracy", it is deemed a success. Nobody ever expected DRM to stop "piracy" completely. DRM is also a success in that it can cause consumers to buy the same content multiple times, so that they can use it on all their devices.
The parent was not a troll. The parent was describing Vista, and asking: "Since when has Apple's plan been to release something like Vista?" (late, with many feature missing, unreasonable specs, a large number of options, and a fairly hefty price.) It was a little hard to notice it, but the parent does have a point. Apple has a very different business model than Microsoft.
Now as for vista's versions. Vista actually has fewer versions than XP. The simple fact is that many of XP's versions were rarely heard of. For home users in the US there will be only really three choices. The italic options are the ones home consumers will see.
Vista Starter: Stripped down version to be sold only in developing countries. (Cheap but very crippled).
Windows Vista Home Basic: This is roughly equivlent to XP Home.
Windows Vista Home Premium: This is roughly equivlent to buying XP MCE.
Windows Vista Business: Roughly equivlent to XP pro for normal businesses.
Windows Vista Enterprise: Roughly equivlent to XP pro for Enterprise businesses
Windows Vista Ultimate: Includes all features of all versions. Roughly equivlent for home users of buying XP Pro, except that it will include the Media Center features.
And new to Vista is Windows Anytime Upgrade which means if you buy Home Basic and realize you really wanted Home Premium or even Ultimate, you can use a control panel applet to upgrade. You may need your CD for this. The anytime upgrade pricing will hopefully only be slightly higher than the price differential between versions.
They ban game enhancement devices that "enable the play of import software and/or back up versions of software". Obviously that is only a problem if those could not be trivially done without the software. I'm fairly sure it was possible to play backup copies without ScummVM, so ScummVM is not enabling the users.
It also does not qualify as a game enhancement device because it is a game component, not an enhancement device. It is a replacment for a shipped component, but it is still a component. If the parent's post is correct then it is even a semi-official component. The only sane reason for paypal to ban game enhancement devices is to avoid the possibility of being sued by a game maker. In this case, that is not going to happen.
It is also clear that this was not the type of device that Paypal was thinking about when they wrote that. They were almost certanly thinking about things for consoles that in addition to cheating could be used more or less like a mod chip. That is not the case here.
You have some choices. A card based system is generally a good idea.
There are three card types that are common and moderately safe:
1. Magstripe: Simple and cheep, but easy to duplicate.
2. Smartcard: Very difficult to fake, slightly less convient than than swipecards.
3. Contactless Smart Cards: Nearly as secure as smartcard, and far more convient. Employees would prefer this option, but it is probably the most espesnsive.
The smartcards use public key cryptography with challenge/response verification which makes them quite secure. Arguagble more secure than physical keys.
Oversubscription is a fact of life. Buy a plane ticket and you have a chance of being bumped because the flight was oversold. Buy a movie ticket and you have a chance of being barred because they hit capacity. Many businesses oversell because they cannot guarantee every sale will actually be used. If they didn't oversell, planes might fly much less than full, movie theaters might play to almost emoty houses, and while that isn't the rule, it happens more often without overselling and that is seen as a loss.
The prblem with that is that it is unfair and absurd. Airlines should never oversell tickets because if they sell all tickets they have made a full plane's profit. If they really want to avoid flying with empty seats, they can sell standby tickets. The same goes with a movie theatre. Oversubscribing (instead of standby) is unreasonable.
That clause does not mean what you think it means. Removing DRM *IS NOT* a case of copyright infringment. It is a new crime called "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Circumvention of DRM is not copyright infringment, so obviously "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.".
The confusion here is that the new crime is copyright related, and estabished in a bill that deals with copyright, but it is still a seperate crime.
Meanwhile, the publishers have a new way to force you to buy new. My physics book came with a code for online homework, and an electronic response clicker thing. The code is only good once, and my professor requires we do it. A used book is about $90, however if you have to buy the code for the homework seperately, it costs about $50. The clicker is like $20 seperatle, and the frequency code card for it is like $40. A new textbook, which includes all of this for "free" is $140. By adding in 1-use only crap, and convincing lazy profs to use it, they have completely killed the secondary market for that book.
I love the way the codes for the online homework courses are all created by the same company, despite being used by many competeing book publishers.
Anyway, the publisher usually provides the instructor with a re-usable code code that all students can use for the online homework. I know that I have not even removed the shrink wrap from my chemistry book, but have enrolled in the online homework (The best one I have ever seen too!). Always ask the prof for a free code before opening the code booklet that comes with your textbook or buying a new code booklet if your textbook is used.
Now, as for the clickers, I am only familiar with Einstructions's CPS unit. You buy the clicker, and in theory you could get a used one. (You will have to work with the previous owner and einstruction to have their account removed from the database, so that you can enter the serial number into your new account, but it is possible). You then must enroll the clicker into your courses. Yo do this you must pay online with a credit card, use a code card. Code cards can be bought at the bookstore (DO THIS! EInstruction makes less profit like this), or may come packaged with a textbook. The ones that come with a textbook come in two forms: Free enrollment, or 50% off.
The reason you pay per class, or per semester (depends on how much the school has payed EInstruction) is that EInstruction is offering a service. Just about everyting to do with the clicker operated over a web service. There is no techincal reason for this, as stand-alone software could obviously be used. EInstruction claims the reason is that the webservice makes things easier for the Prof. That is a very questionable claim.
But the clicker really does not have anything to do with forcing you to buy a new textbook.
Okay, I don't know the EXACT voltage Edison's DC power ran at, but I know for SURE it was less than 50 volts, since anything above that approaches being dangerous. Considering he suggested it was so safe you couldn't even feel the electricity, I'd probably say it's closer to the 12 volts a car runs at.
Edison's system ran at about 100V DC. At the same voltage DC is somewhat safer than AC although not by as much as ome may think. People recive shocks of 120V AC every day in this country, and very few of them die from it. An incondesent light bulb acts pretty much the same at 100 V DC as at 100 V RMS AC. Really on the AC the light dims and brightens along the 60Hz waveform, but the average light produced is equivlent to what would be output by the same voltage DC.
No.. But it is completely trivial to setup. Simply wire the batteries so they are in series rather than in parallel.
If you need more voltage you could make it 2 or 4 batteries. For this you would have two sets of [two batteries wired in parralell] that are then connected in series.
Very interesting. Dell MediaDirect 2.0 (which is XPe based) does not seem to do this. It has hibernate image to speed up booting by 30 seconds or so, but on shutdown it appears to be hibernating, rather than just shutting down. HORM sounds like it was custom made for this very purpose. Of course I have trouble playing with MediaDirect because apparently nobody besides Dell has ever used an HPA on a SATA drive.
I agree. I was mostly reponfing to "zork with souns and stills" which seemed so absurd considering Z-machine v6 files. I personally have never much used TADS (hardly touched it as a programmer, but have played a handfull of games.) The alure of tads as being easier to leanr than inform due to being more C-like, never grabbed my attention, probably because I was able to learn Inform6 with little difficulty. I also never playd much with Glulx, wich is quite surprising, especially as I have read at least half the pages on Zarf's site.
Really, you often did not run more than one version of dos. If you had more than one folder, you were likely just using the command.com of the newer DOS. You were almost guarenteed to be running the kernel from the more recent DOS. This is because the files with the kernel were stored in the root directory. However the two folder did have seperate copyies of the userland commonents, so it is more like a chroot than booting into the other version of DOS.
However, most versions of Windows did allow multiple parallel installations. With these you really were booting into two seperate operating systems.
Your idea for linux in C:\lin is not as far fetched as you might think. I'm pretty sure that Windows 98's boot selector would have been able to load loadlin.exe (That program runs in true DOS mode, and basically pushes the DOS kernel out of memory, and then loads the linux kernel.)
Linux should even be able to boot from fat32, so what you are describing is entirely possible. By abusing the XP's bootloader support for legacy OS's (non-nt based windows) you should be able to still do this.
I'm feeling verbose today, so I will explain how this is done.
1. Install DOS on a fat partition (Ideally use MSDOS 8 from Windows ME), It really should be fat32. 2. Copy the bootsector (*not* the MBR) to BOOTSECT.DOS (use a utility like 'dd'). 3. Back up all the files. (I'm not sure if XP clobbers DOS if a legacy Windows is not installed). 4. Install Windows XP, being sure to keep the partition as FAT32. 5. If any of the files from MSDOS is then missing, restore it from the backup. 6. Now we edit C:\boot.ini. (It is by default Read-only, hidden, and system).
If you see a line that mentions MSDOS then apparently XP setup did this step for you. Simple change
that line to read linux. Go to the next step. Otherwise, add a second line to the
"[operating systems]" section that reads (omit the brakcets):
{c:\bootsect.dos="Linux">} 7. If all went well, when booting Windows, if you choose Linux at the prompt
you will boot into MSDOS. Now you must simply setup loadlin.exe to load a kernel,
and boot from C:\lin. You will also need to install userland components, etc.
This is the hardest part, and I cannot help you with it, but it should be possible. 8. Finally edit config.sys or autoexec.bat such that it runs loadlin.exe
(It is interesting that people claimed non-NT based Windows to not be an OS, but merely a shell. Windows has always had its own kernel, which should make it a complete OS, even if it does run on top of another.)
Actually the Z-Machine (which is the VM that Zork used) Does support sound and stills. Infocom themselves used this in a few games.
The Visual Novels are usually more linear, with less chance for interaction. A bit more C.Y.O.A.-like than the Infocom games with multimedia.
They claim that it includes the DVD-style extra features. So it is equivlent to a store bought DVD, except that the picture quality is somewhat worse so it can fit on a single layer writable DVD.
Even if there is a way to prevent copying, what prevents you from burning multiple copies of the DVD the same way as one burns the first?
If the program does not allow it, it should be possible for a hacked driver to capture the commands sent to the DVD burner, which could be replayed later.
Except that there is a different business model. One model that works for some content is the subscription model.
The street performer protocol. Basically piracy is non-existant under that system because the creator makes all their money before the content is released. Once they release the content they allow freely copying and transcoding the content. The only thing they might restrict is the creation of derivitive works. Using a trusted escrow service this is very much possible.
A date can be set where if the funds are insufficent they are returned to the donator (pre-purchaser). Or perhaps the donators can change their mind and pull out. One of these systems would encourage participation by the public, because they do not have to fear that the target is never reach and therefore they wasted their money.
I mean games like Halo could easilly get enough pre-orders to meet the ransom posted by the developer.
I tend to think the piracy just means the business meathods should be re-evaluated.
Yes, Vegas casinos are obsessive about security. Besides the domed cameras, Expect many pinhole cameras. They are extreamely paranoid about their weekest link, The blackjack tables. They have banned table hopping, have the automatic continous shufflers, and the dealers are often trained in card-counting, and keep track of the count. Thus when a player seems to act differently when the count is high, or when the count is low, it becomes quite clear that the player is counting cards. Casinos also keep track of player's winnings, and will share these statictics with their competitors. If a player is consistantly exceeding the offical odds, for a significant period of time, then they are likely to be banned. On the other hand if a player seems to be consistantly losing money, and yet keeps coming back, the casino does well to encourage the player, as that player is making them money.
Casinos will often employ facial recognician software, for keeping out the banned players, and other software, that tracks a players apparent 'nervousness'. A player that seems constantly nervous probably has something to hide.
Security is probably the weakest at the poker tables, as generally the casinos cannot lose at the poker tables, because the dealer is not a casino employee. As long as the players are not using some method to read the other players cards, and do not have cards up their sleeves, the casino has little interest in the poker tables.
I am not a casino employee, but this message is based on a few accounts by cassino employees, and a bit of speculation.
No, theft is theft. Theft has no implications on copyright, trade secrets, etc.
Even though they are no longer in the store owner's posession, they are still legal the store owner's property,
and the store owner is legally allowed to make duplicates of things he/she owns, or things that were broadcasted.
(At least, currently that is legal, AFAICT, but it may not stay that way for long).
Re:A New Core Class in College?
on
PGP & GPG
·
· Score: 1
If you understood more, or at least if you were a bit more paranoid, you would only keep subkeys on a device like a pda. Then if the PDA is loast or stolen,
you can revoke the subkeys, and not lose the signatures on your User ID(s). Of course it would render all signatures by that subkey worthless, but that is a nessesity, as the subkey must be considered compromised.
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The swappable divider system is virtually perfect. Whenever they are swapped the bias of the wheel changes. So simply change the bias of the wheel fequently enough that there has not been enough time to gather enough statistics to exploit the bias. (change it say every 60 min. or even every 30 minutes if paranoid). Have an extra wheel ready to swap with the current one so that there is virtually no downtime due to randomizing the dividers. One cannot even build up statistical information over time of the bias with each divider confuguration because the dividers would be too difficult to distinguish. A paranoid casino could even have many extra divers (thousands) to make the number of purmutations prohibitavely large.
HDMI is basically DVI and SP-DIF (digital audio [coaxial or fiber]) together on the same cable. Strictly speaking some of the most recent revisions of HDMI have diverged somewhat from the DVI spec. However, DVI devices can use the decoding chips for HDMI and thus support anything (besides audio) that HDMI supports, incuding HDCP and the new color depths (for example).
In other words: It hurts honest people, but because it prevents casual "piracy", it is deemed a success. Nobody ever expected DRM to stop "piracy" completely. DRM is also a success in that it can cause consumers to buy the same content multiple times, so that they can use it on all their devices.
Now as for vista's versions. Vista actually has fewer versions than XP. The simple fact is that many of XP's versions were rarely heard of. For home users in the US there will be only really three choices. The italic options are the ones home consumers will see.
And new to Vista is Windows Anytime Upgrade which means if you buy Home Basic and realize you really wanted Home Premium or even Ultimate, you can use a control panel applet to upgrade. You may need your CD for this. The anytime upgrade pricing will hopefully only be slightly higher than the price differential between versions.
They ban game enhancement devices that "enable the play of import software and/or back up versions of software". Obviously that is only a problem if those could not be trivially done without the software. I'm fairly sure it was possible to play backup copies without ScummVM, so ScummVM is not enabling the users.
It also does not qualify as a game enhancement device because it is a game component, not an enhancement device. It is a replacment for a shipped component, but it is still a component. If the parent's post is correct then it is even a semi-official component. The only sane reason for paypal to ban game enhancement devices is to avoid the possibility of being sued by a game maker. In this case, that is not going to happen.
It is also clear that this was not the type of device that Paypal was thinking about when they wrote that. They were almost certanly thinking about things for consoles that in addition to cheating could be used more or less like a mod chip. That is not the case here.
There are three card types that are common and moderately safe:
1. Magstripe: Simple and cheep, but easy to duplicate.
2. Smartcard: Very difficult to fake, slightly less convient than than swipecards.
3. Contactless Smart Cards: Nearly as secure as smartcard, and far more convient. Employees would prefer this option, but it is probably the most espesnsive.
The smartcards use public key cryptography with challenge/response verification which makes them quite secure. Arguagble more secure than physical keys.
Avoid passive RFID cards.
The prblem with that is that it is unfair and absurd. Airlines should never oversell tickets because if they sell all tickets they have made a full plane's profit. If they really want to avoid flying with empty seats, they can sell standby tickets. The same goes with a movie theatre. Oversubscribing (instead of standby) is unreasonable.
That clause does not mean what you think it means. Removing DRM *IS NOT* a case of copyright infringment. It is a new crime called "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Circumvention of DRM is not copyright infringment, so obviously "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.".
The confusion here is that the new crime is copyright related, and estabished in a bill that deals with copyright, but it is still a seperate crime.
Anyway, the publisher usually provides the instructor with a re-usable code code that all students can use for the online homework. I know that I have not even removed the shrink wrap from my chemistry book, but have enrolled in the online homework (The best one I have ever seen too!). Always ask the prof for a free code before opening the code booklet that comes with your textbook or buying a new code booklet if your textbook is used.
Now, as for the clickers, I am only familiar with Einstructions's CPS unit. You buy the clicker, and in theory you could get a used one. (You will have to work with the previous owner and einstruction to have their account removed from the database, so that you can enter the serial number into your new account, but it is possible). You then must enroll the clicker into your courses. Yo do this you must pay online with a credit card, use a code card. Code cards can be bought at the bookstore (DO THIS! EInstruction makes less profit like this), or may come packaged with a textbook. The ones that come with a textbook come in two forms: Free enrollment, or 50% off.
The reason you pay per class, or per semester (depends on how much the school has payed EInstruction) is that EInstruction is offering a service. Just about everyting to do with the clicker operated over a web service. There is no techincal reason for this, as stand-alone software could obviously be used. EInstruction claims the reason is that the webservice makes things easier for the Prof. That is a very questionable claim.
But the clicker really does not have anything to do with forcing you to buy a new textbook.
Based on annother comment, it sounds like the female is the farmer or wife of the farmer.
Same exact device. The video in the article is the classic SawStop hotdog video.
No.. But it is completely trivial to setup.
Simply wire the batteries so they are in series rather than in parallel.
If you need more voltage you could make it 2 or 4 batteries. For this you would have two sets of [two batteries wired in parralell] that are then connected in series.
Very interesting. Dell MediaDirect 2.0 (which is XPe based) does not seem to do this. It has hibernate image to speed up booting by 30 seconds or so, but on shutdown it appears to be hibernating, rather than just shutting down. HORM sounds like it was custom made for this very purpose. Of course I have trouble playing with MediaDirect because apparently nobody besides Dell has ever used an HPA on a SATA drive.
That Inform7 though... wow!
Really, you often did not run more than one version of dos. If you had more than one folder, you were likely just using the command.com of the newer DOS.
You were almost guarenteed to be running the kernel from the more recent DOS. This is because the files with the kernel were stored in the root directory.
However the two folder did have seperate copyies of the userland commonents, so it is more like a chroot than booting into the other version of DOS.
However, most versions of Windows did allow multiple parallel installations. With these you really were booting into two seperate operating systems.
Your idea for linux in C:\lin is not as far fetched as you might think. I'm pretty sure that Windows 98's boot selector would have been able to load
loadlin.exe (That program runs in true DOS mode, and basically pushes the DOS kernel out of memory, and then loads the linux kernel.)
Linux should even be able to boot from fat32, so what you are describing is entirely possible.
By abusing the XP's bootloader support for legacy OS's (non-nt based windows) you should be able
to still do this.
I'm feeling verbose today, so I will explain how this is done.
1. Install DOS on a fat partition (Ideally use MSDOS 8 from Windows ME), It really should be fat32.
2. Copy the bootsector (*not* the MBR) to BOOTSECT.DOS (use a utility like 'dd').
3. Back up all the files. (I'm not sure if XP clobbers DOS if a legacy Windows is not installed).
4. Install Windows XP, being sure to keep the partition as FAT32.
5. If any of the files from MSDOS is then missing, restore it from the backup.
6. Now we edit C:\boot.ini. (It is by default Read-only, hidden, and system).
If you see a line that mentions MSDOS then apparently XP setup did this step for you. Simple change
that line to read linux. Go to the next step. Otherwise, add a second line to the
"[operating systems]" section that reads (omit the brakcets):
{c:\bootsect.dos="Linux">}
7. If all went well, when booting Windows, if you choose Linux at the prompt
you will boot into MSDOS. Now you must simply setup loadlin.exe to load a kernel,
and boot from C:\lin. You will also need to install userland components, etc.
This is the hardest part, and I cannot help you with it, but it should be possible.
8. Finally edit config.sys or autoexec.bat such that it runs loadlin.exe
(It is interesting that people claimed non-NT based Windows to not be an OS, but merely a shell. Windows has always had its own kernel, which should make it a complete OS, even if it does run on top of another.)
Ok. The technology they use is FluxDVD. http://www.fluxdvd.com/ Perhaps more information about the copy protection system can be found there.
They claim that it includes the DVD-style extra features. So it is equivlent to a store bought DVD, except that the picture quality is somewhat worse so it can fit on a single layer writable DVD.
Even if there is a way to prevent copying, what prevents you from burning multiple copies of the DVD the same way as one burns the first? If the program does not allow it, it should be possible for a hacked driver to capture the commands sent to the DVD burner, which could be replayed later.
Except that there is a different business model.
One model that works for some content is the subscription model.
The street performer protocol.
Basically piracy is non-existant under that system because the creator makes all their money before the content is released. Once they
release the content they allow freely copying and transcoding the content. The only thing they might restrict is the creation of derivitive works.
Using a trusted escrow service this is very much possible.
A date can be set where if the funds are insufficent they are returned to the donator (pre-purchaser).
Or perhaps the donators can change their mind and pull out. One of these systems would encourage participation by the public,
because they do not have to fear that the target is never reach and therefore they wasted their money.
I mean games like Halo could easilly get enough pre-orders to meet the ransom posted by the developer.
I tend to think the piracy just means the business meathods should be re-evaluated.
Yes, Vegas casinos are obsessive about security. Besides the domed cameras, Expect many pinhole cameras. They are extreamely paranoid about their weekest link,
The blackjack tables. They have banned table hopping, have the automatic continous shufflers, and the dealers are often trained in card-counting, and keep track of the count.
Thus when a player seems to act differently when the count is high, or when the count is low, it becomes quite clear that the player is counting cards.
Casinos also keep track of player's winnings, and will share these statictics with their competitors. If a player is consistantly exceeding the offical odds, for a significant period of time, then they are likely to be banned. On the other hand if a player seems to be consistantly losing money, and yet keeps coming back, the casino does well to encourage the player, as that player is making them money.
Casinos will often employ facial recognician software, for keeping out the banned players, and other software, that tracks a players apparent 'nervousness'. A player that seems constantly nervous probably has something to hide.
Security is probably the weakest at the poker tables, as generally the casinos cannot lose at the poker tables, because the dealer is not a casino employee. As long as the players are not using some method to read the other players cards, and do not have cards up their sleeves, the casino has little interest in the poker tables.
I am not a casino employee, but this message is based on a few accounts by cassino employees, and a bit of speculation.
No, theft is theft. Theft has no implications on copyright, trade secrets, etc. Even though they are no longer in the store owner's posession, they are still legal the store owner's property, and the store owner is legally allowed to make duplicates of things he/she owns, or things that were broadcasted. (At least, currently that is legal, AFAICT, but it may not stay that way for long).
If you understood more, or at least if you were a bit more paranoid, you would only keep subkeys on a device like a pda. Then if the PDA is loast or stolen, you can revoke the subkeys, and not lose the signatures on your User ID(s). Of course it would render all signatures by that subkey worthless, but that is a nessesity, as the subkey must be considered compromised.
Look again. It may be hiring, but it opens Spring 2007.