Before I get flamed, allow me to clarify the obvious: time doesn't slow down because humans feel endangered. Our perception of time may slow down because of psychological and physiological conditions.
Sounds a bit weak to me. Though such an event can be frightening or exhilarating, you KNOW that it's coming, and you KNOW that it's perfectly safe. To me, the experience of going over a roller coaster hill is different than the experience of being involved in an auto accident. I say more research is required.
Let this be a lesson to Microsoft and all other technologies companies looking to use the legal system to unfairly bully and intimidate the true innovators of the industry.
Hey, you know. My grandfather was a Canadian soldier who met my oma in Holland during World War 2. World War 2 was started by Adolf Hitler. THEREFORE, I would never exist without Adolf Hitler.
I guess I'd better be thankful...
"Point five is an attempt to turn the "innovation" argument on its head. For years, pundits outside the music industry have accused labels of pandering to teens through boy bands and "manufactured" celebrities instead of being concerned with finding, producing, and releasing art. The IFPI suggests that the labels could (and would) be doing exactly that if file-swapping went away."
Ah yes, much like our movie industry which produces mostly art films and not reel after reel of trashy thrillers, soulless action films and toilet-humor comedy.
"Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money."
Perfectly rational sounding to me. Definitely no fear-mongering here.
Blaming terrorism and the decline of western culture on file sharing. Does this strike anyone as a new low?
Here we have another prime example of the problem. There seems to be a class of technical users whose response to technical education is the "No, STUPID" approach. The user asks, "Can I do this?" and the technician responds by berating of the user.
My concern is that e-mail delivered to our server reaches our users, and that e-mail we send reaches our clients. That happens. We work very hard for that, and it happens, which I have to say I'm pretty proud of. If there are any other problems, it's on another server, and out of my hands. Now, call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you're a major ISP that caters to large numbers of common users, you probably shouldn't ban all e-mails that have GIFs inline. People are going to put graphics in their e-mails: smileys, footers, and whatever else, because e-mail is capable of such things.
It is not the job of the people who run the systems to implement half-assed solutions and blame common user behaviour for the problems. Your approach to solving the problem is synonymous to a user phoning up Microsoft to complain about a Windows-based virus or trojan, and having the technician say: "Well the problem is Windows, you're exposing yourself to attack. Have you tried using DOS? Much fewer problems with viruses..."
This unfortunate attitude is that pervades the highly technical population at large. It's the reason Linux has taken so long to reach even the tiniest level of market penetration on the desktop. Because the technical population would rather use the "No, STUPID" approach that sit down and say: "Yes, it's hard to get the right device drivers, here's how to go about it." or "Yes, you might have to tweak your installation of this program. It's not super-intuitive, but if you follow these basic steps..."
As technicians, it's our job to help out those with less 5killz than us, not punish users for common behaviour. I am not a demagogue who holds the mystical keys to some arcane black majicks. I'm an IT guy, and it's my job to make our network operates the way the users expect.
So, up yours STUPID. Have a nice day.:-)
(P.S. - It's worth mentioning: since we work with publicly traded companies, even plain-text messages are often flagged by other servers as "stock spam", when in fact that are perfectly legitimate business correspondence e-mails. Perhaps we should start sending our e-mails with code words in place of anything that might be stock-related? I'm sure our customers will LOVE that...)
It seems that a lot of image spammers have tried to circumvent newer spam-blocking technology by using animated GIFs: the first frame of which is blank, and the second of which contains the ad.
For months, we had consistent problems with clients e-mails (using a major ISP I won't mention here) not reaching our server. Curiously, it would happen most often with replies to our original e-mails.
After months of anguish and highly accusatory phonecalls to the ISP's tech support, we discovered the problem. Our company e-mail signature contains GIF images. When a client replied to us, quoting the original e-mail, the ISP would scan the e-mail, detect the inline GIF, and block the e-mail.
Since we changed the format of our signature to use JPEGs instead of GIFs, we've had no problems with the ISP blocking client replies.
So once again I assert: the biggest problem with spam isn't even the spammers, it's the n00b sysadmins who implement agressing spam-blocking rules before thinking about the consequences. I'd rather get more spam that have legitimate e-mails blocked by false positives.
"The first thing we'll do is kill all the spammers..."
SOCAN and other such organizations take a lot of heat from the digital-anarchy types for collecting performance royalties on behalf of artists. One needs to remember that performance-rights organizations aren't necessarily affiliated with record companies. They're operating on behalf of the artists themselves.
We'd all like to live in a society where culture is free and ubiquitous. Squeezing greedy record companies out of the equation with modern technology is a no-brainer. But let's not forget that organizations like SOCAN are what allow artists to support themselves. Without the revenues that royalties provide, artists can't support themselves. Personally, I'm more they're likely to find a job riding a desk than to "starve for my art".
Someone has to pay for art, and that someone is all of us who enjoy it.
While our workstations are still Windows only, I've managed to make to make our office's server environment 100% OS X Server. Ironically, our MS Access database application is now served by a mySQL backend on an XServe.
However, corporations and businesses in general are prone to using a lot of custom-designed software built by Windows-only outfits. Until that changes, Apple will have a hard time penetrating the corporation.
This deal has to get by regulators first. More than one government organization is going to have a problem with these two heavy hitters creating a virtual monopoly in a sparsely-populated communications medium. I have to say I'd be disappointed if this deal passed. Competition is what makes corporations fight for our business. Without it, they've got no incentive to improve.
The issue is not that automating keystrokes illegal. The issue is that the WoW EULA says that you can't use software that does this very thing. If indeed the company that makes Glider is selling it as a WoW autopilot, then they're encouraging users to violate their license agreement. In that aspect, I'm inclined to side with Blizzard. They're trying to create an environment as egalitarian as possible for their players.
What perplexes me is that WoW already includes the hardy anti-cheating monitor nicknamed "The Warden" to watch for programs that do exactly this sort of thing. Wouldn't Blizzard simply modify the Warden so that WoW won't run when Glider is active?
Recently our office built a bunch of new computers from new parts and purchased OEM copies of Windows from the hardware vendor for them. Several of the motherboards turned out to be faulty, so we had to replace them. In some cases, validation worked without any problems despite the hardware change.
For the computers which, inexplicably, failed validation after replacement, a simple call to Microsoft explaining the situation was all that was required to reactivate the OS.
I can't see why they'd be giving you such a hard time.
Out small office uses a combination of Pocketec portable USB hard drives and a simple but powerful little piece of shareware called Synchronize It! which provides us with highly customizable differential backups.
The downside is that the portability of the drives hinders scheduling. However, because we can simply take the drives home with us, multiple backups of our data are available at any given time off-site. In case of theft, failure or damage to our fileserver and database, we'll be ready.
Who writes these things? And why do they get posted on Slashdot endlessly?
First off, I found the 3D interface from Minority Report to be fascinating; and given the unique function of the computer who is to say that it wasn't the most efficient manner of manipulating the data? Second, I noticed that in Star Trek characters generally used keypads/control panels for complex tasks, while others could be dictated more speedily and/or helped the character focus his or her thoughts. This seemed perfectly justifiable to me.
And yes, for the UMPTEENTH time, the UNIX GUI from Jurassic Park was silly. You are not the first person to have noticed this. But the fact is that having much of that incredibly tense scene plunked out on a keyboard in a monochrome command line would have put most audiences to sleep.
Is it necessary to hack apart some of our favorite geek fiction without the slightest suspension of disbelief so that some of us can feel hoity-toity about their computer savvy? Please...
Stupid, stupid, sweaty nerds! Too bad there isn't something in the EULA about not supporting "defective users".
When will people learn that electronics are delicate? You don't throw them. If you THROW them, they BREAK. Isn't that, like, implicit? I have a Wii, and I can't imagine how someone could break that strap without winging the thing with all their might. If you BROKE your TOY, buy yourself a new one. Don't blame a perfectly reputable company for your own idiocy.
I have to disagree with some of what's been said. Firstly, and perhaps more importantly, I have NEVER been a fan of ANY Zelda game, and it is Twilight Princess that's the one game that's totally turned me around on the land of Hyrule.
Yes, Zelda games have already had beautifully composed music, and Twilight is no exception. But it was about damn time Nintendo grew up and abandoned it's AWFUL MIDI-esque synthesizers and recorded some orchestral audio. Very bad form Nintendo, this game deserved better instruments.
Regardless of whether or not this was to be a GameCube game first, the WiiMote is a totally natural way to play this game and I think it's essential to the way I've experienced the game.
This IS Zelda at it's most distilled and finest, and I finally feel like a part of the genre which so many enjoy but which I myself have had trouble adopting.
Slashdot Mirror
Before I get flamed, allow me to clarify the obvious: time doesn't slow down because humans feel endangered. Our perception of time may slow down because of psychological and physiological conditions.
Sounds a bit weak to me. Though such an event can be frightening or exhilarating, you KNOW that it's coming, and you KNOW that it's perfectly safe. To me, the experience of going over a roller coaster hill is different than the experience of being involved in an auto accident. I say more research is required.
This sounds like a job for the Hardy Boys.... ... okay, not really. They suck.
Still, it's a very interesting coincidence if that's all it is. Quite the supervillain collector if it isn't.
In Soviet Russia, domain resolves you!
Let this be a lesson to Microsoft and all other technologies companies looking to use the legal system to unfairly bully and intimidate the true innovators of the industry.
We make technology, not lawsuits.
If the son has a decent knowledge of computing, there's really nothing that can be done.
My opinion is that she should just approach her son and talk to him frankly about any issues that she's concerned about.
Hey, you know. My grandfather was a Canadian soldier who met my oma in Holland during World War 2. World War 2 was started by Adolf Hitler. THEREFORE, I would never exist without Adolf Hitler. I guess I'd better be thankful...
Damn you Jenny Craig! DAMN YOOOUUU!!!!
"Point five is an attempt to turn the "innovation" argument on its head. For years, pundits outside the music industry have accused labels of pandering to teens through boy bands and "manufactured" celebrities instead of being concerned with finding, producing, and releasing art. The IFPI suggests that the labels could (and would) be doing exactly that if file-swapping went away."
Ah yes, much like our movie industry which produces mostly art films and not reel after reel of trashy thrillers, soulless action films and toilet-humor comedy.
"Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money."
Perfectly rational sounding to me. Definitely no fear-mongering here.
Blaming terrorism and the decline of western culture on file sharing. Does this strike anyone as a new low?
Does this mean we can look forward to a new, improved Google Mars?
Here we have another prime example of the problem. There seems to be a class of technical users whose response to technical education is the "No, STUPID" approach. The user asks, "Can I do this?" and the technician responds by berating of the user.
:-)
My concern is that e-mail delivered to our server reaches our users, and that e-mail we send reaches our clients. That happens. We work very hard for that, and it happens, which I have to say I'm pretty proud of. If there are any other problems, it's on another server, and out of my hands. Now, call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you're a major ISP that caters to large numbers of common users, you probably shouldn't ban all e-mails that have GIFs inline. People are going to put graphics in their e-mails: smileys, footers, and whatever else, because e-mail is capable of such things.
It is not the job of the people who run the systems to implement half-assed solutions and blame common user behaviour for the problems. Your approach to solving the problem is synonymous to a user phoning up Microsoft to complain about a Windows-based virus or trojan, and having the technician say: "Well the problem is Windows, you're exposing yourself to attack. Have you tried using DOS? Much fewer problems with viruses..."
This unfortunate attitude is that pervades the highly technical population at large. It's the reason Linux has taken so long to reach even the tiniest level of market penetration on the desktop. Because the technical population would rather use the "No, STUPID" approach that sit down and say: "Yes, it's hard to get the right device drivers, here's how to go about it." or "Yes, you might have to tweak your installation of this program. It's not super-intuitive, but if you follow these basic steps..."
As technicians, it's our job to help out those with less 5killz than us, not punish users for common behaviour. I am not a demagogue who holds the mystical keys to some arcane black majicks. I'm an IT guy, and it's my job to make our network operates the way the users expect.
So, up yours STUPID. Have a nice day.
(P.S. - It's worth mentioning: since we work with publicly traded companies, even plain-text messages are often flagged by other servers as "stock spam", when in fact that are perfectly legitimate business correspondence e-mails. Perhaps we should start sending our e-mails with code words in place of anything that might be stock-related? I'm sure our customers will LOVE that...)
It's called branding. Talk to our marketing department. Besides, I'm sure the extra 10K per messages isn't going to crash the intertubes.
It seems that a lot of image spammers have tried to circumvent newer spam-blocking technology by using animated GIFs: the first frame of which is blank, and the second of which contains the ad.
For months, we had consistent problems with clients e-mails (using a major ISP I won't mention here) not reaching our server. Curiously, it would happen most often with replies to our original e-mails.
After months of anguish and highly accusatory phonecalls to the ISP's tech support, we discovered the problem. Our company e-mail signature contains GIF images. When a client replied to us, quoting the original e-mail, the ISP would scan the e-mail, detect the inline GIF, and block the e-mail.
Since we changed the format of our signature to use JPEGs instead of GIFs, we've had no problems with the ISP blocking client replies.
So once again I assert: the biggest problem with spam isn't even the spammers, it's the n00b sysadmins who implement agressing spam-blocking rules before thinking about the consequences. I'd rather get more spam that have legitimate e-mails blocked by false positives.
"The first thing we'll do is kill all the spammers..."
SOCAN and other such organizations take a lot of heat from the digital-anarchy types for collecting performance royalties on behalf of artists. One needs to remember that performance-rights organizations aren't necessarily affiliated with record companies. They're operating on behalf of the artists themselves.
We'd all like to live in a society where culture is free and ubiquitous. Squeezing greedy record companies out of the equation with modern technology is a no-brainer. But let's not forget that organizations like SOCAN are what allow artists to support themselves. Without the revenues that royalties provide, artists can't support themselves. Personally, I'm more they're likely to find a job riding a desk than to "starve for my art".
Someone has to pay for art, and that someone is all of us who enjoy it.
While our workstations are still Windows only, I've managed to make to make our office's server environment 100% OS X Server. Ironically, our MS Access database application is now served by a mySQL backend on an XServe.
However, corporations and businesses in general are prone to using a lot of custom-designed software built by Windows-only outfits. Until that changes, Apple will have a hard time penetrating the corporation.
Back the truck up, kids.
This deal has to get by regulators first. More than one government organization is going to have a problem with these two heavy hitters creating a virtual monopoly in a sparsely-populated communications medium. I have to say I'd be disappointed if this deal passed. Competition is what makes corporations fight for our business. Without it, they've got no incentive to improve.
The issue is not that automating keystrokes illegal. The issue is that the WoW EULA says that you can't use software that does this very thing. If indeed the company that makes Glider is selling it as a WoW autopilot, then they're encouraging users to violate their license agreement. In that aspect, I'm inclined to side with Blizzard. They're trying to create an environment as egalitarian as possible for their players.
What perplexes me is that WoW already includes the hardy anti-cheating monitor nicknamed "The Warden" to watch for programs that do exactly this sort of thing. Wouldn't Blizzard simply modify the Warden so that WoW won't run when Glider is active?
Recently our office built a bunch of new computers from new parts and purchased OEM copies of Windows from the hardware vendor for them. Several of the motherboards turned out to be faulty, so we had to replace them. In some cases, validation worked without any problems despite the hardware change.
For the computers which, inexplicably, failed validation after replacement, a simple call to Microsoft explaining the situation was all that was required to reactivate the OS.
I can't see why they'd be giving you such a hard time.
I use tape for wrapping gifts.
Out small office uses a combination of Pocketec portable USB hard drives and a simple but powerful little piece of shareware called Synchronize It! which provides us with highly customizable differential backups.The downside is that the portability of the drives hinders scheduling. However, because we can simply take the drives home with us, multiple backups of our data are available at any given time off-site. In case of theft, failure or damage to our fileserver and database, we'll be ready.
The immaturity of the tech community is quite disappointing.
HILARIOUS. Oh silly Silicon Graphics...
:-D
Thank you. You have made my Christmas extra merry.
Not very indicative of UNIX in general, but still more exciting than a command line.
Who writes these things? And why do they get posted on Slashdot endlessly?
First off, I found the 3D interface from Minority Report to be fascinating; and given the unique function of the computer who is to say that it wasn't the most efficient manner of manipulating the data? Second, I noticed that in Star Trek characters generally used keypads/control panels for complex tasks, while others could be dictated more speedily and/or helped the character focus his or her thoughts. This seemed perfectly justifiable to me.
And yes, for the UMPTEENTH time, the UNIX GUI from Jurassic Park was silly. You are not the first person to have noticed this. But the fact is that having much of that incredibly tense scene plunked out on a keyboard in a monochrome command line would have put most audiences to sleep.
Is it necessary to hack apart some of our favorite geek fiction without the slightest suspension of disbelief so that some of us can feel hoity-toity about their computer savvy? Please...
Maybe the researchers should consider that the good mood is the symptom, not the cause.
Stupid, stupid, sweaty nerds! Too bad there isn't something in the EULA about not supporting "defective users".
When will people learn that electronics are delicate? You don't throw them. If you THROW them, they BREAK. Isn't that, like, implicit? I have a Wii, and I can't imagine how someone could break that strap without winging the thing with all their might. If you BROKE your TOY, buy yourself a new one. Don't blame a perfectly reputable company for your own idiocy.
STUUUUUPIIIIIIID!!!!!!
I have to disagree with some of what's been said. Firstly, and perhaps more importantly, I have NEVER been a fan of ANY Zelda game, and it is Twilight Princess that's the one game that's totally turned me around on the land of Hyrule.
Yes, Zelda games have already had beautifully composed music, and Twilight is no exception. But it was about damn time Nintendo grew up and abandoned it's AWFUL MIDI-esque synthesizers and recorded some orchestral audio. Very bad form Nintendo, this game deserved better instruments.
Regardless of whether or not this was to be a GameCube game first, the WiiMote is a totally natural way to play this game and I think it's essential to the way I've experienced the game.
This IS Zelda at it's most distilled and finest, and I finally feel like a part of the genre which so many enjoy but which I myself have had trouble adopting.