It boggles my mind that people could possibly take a "stock tip" from a picture of jumbled up, scrambled words with all sorts of triangles and circles in the background. The fact is that most people don't. The real reason these things are so popular is that everyone knows it's a scam. People then feel like they're "in the know," and hence that they can beat the scammer. The idea is that if you know it's a scam, you can buy stock and then dump it before the scammer does.
This never works, simply because the scammer has such an enormous volume of the stock pre-purchased that they can easily undercut your selling price on the market while still making a profit, and hence their stocks will always be dumped before yours are. Of course, in theory, if you have an even larger volume, and can undercut them, you could profit. That would, however, technically mean you are now the pump and dump scammer, even if they do all the work for you.
I'd say ending up on the front page of digg or Fark or whatever is pretty unpleasant, but I didn't see too much of an uproar when the Star Wars Kid was put in the same spot. He was, after all, in more of a private situation than the street. And he is of course not the only one, just the first one that popped into my head. Basically, I agree with you that it is unpleasant, but this kind of thing has been going on for ages without any comment - why is it heinous when a map is attached?
I think that there has been a bit of a misapprehension here. I am in no way suggesting that the government of Britain is a sinister totalitarian regime, or anything of the sort. I am sorry that you seemed to take the comment of a stranger on the internet as such an offense to your national sentiment - of course, I am assuming that you are a Briton, the only reason I can find for your ire. On the other hand, it seems you have also assumed I am American (c.f. "even in the USA, with its consitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech, you can cause a national scandal by revealing the identity of a CIA field agent..."), which I am in fact not. As a matter of fact, although I am not resident there, I hold a British passport.
After reading your comment I tried to do some checking of the things I remembered off the top of my head, and I will readily admit that possesion of the book was never illegal in Britain. However, two publishers were invited to tea with the MI5 spooks, and decided not to publish the book - one of them, however, passed it on the their Australian branch, which then brought it out.
In any case, the minutiae of the legal battle are not the central point of what I was trying to get at. I was simply trying to illustrate a case where "state secrets" were kept in the dark not because they were dangerous but because they were embarrasing to the government. I was attempting to make the point that sometimes it is not unpatriotic to violate the State Secrets Act, and that if this blogger is such a case then I wholeheartedly endorse the dissemination of his "secrets."
Once again, I regret to have caused you and your family such distress, but next time perhaps you should argue about the points relevant to the discussion at hand, rather than get carried away by a detail of no consequence to the philosophy of the case (however, a detail that I freely admit was erroneously worded, since "banned" is not the same as "had its publishers pressured into silence").
While that is true, shopping for the cheapest gas doesn't help that. I guess there are really two separate issues here: People worrying about the cost of gas itself, and people trying to find the cheapest gas.
Worrying about the cost of gas is probably valid, because as you point out, it is a useful metric of consumer-goods prices across the board. However, as others have pointed out and I will reiterate, other places have *far* higher gas prices (they just look smaller because they're measured in litres).
However, hunting around for the gas station that is $0.03 cheaper is a pointless activity. I would be inclined to agree with those who say it only happens because the prices are displayed in huge letters. Interesting social experiment: try switching all prices over to per litre, and even though the amounts per value are the same, I bet people would freak out a lot less over the large signs.
That is the same argument the British government put forward when Peter Wright did the same for MI5 in his "Spycatcher" book. Mr. Wright had been a faithful servant of the secret services for many years, and responsible for some very major intel breakthroughs, including some that were critical to the British war effort against the Axis. He, however, had good reason to believe that the highest levels of MI5 had been infiltrated by the Soviets, and he decided to take action.
He wrote a long report ("The Dossier") and sent it straight to the Prime Minister, who promptly forwarded it to the accused managers for review. They, of course, gave themselves a clean bill of health, and started making life hell for Mr. Wright. Disgusted at how his efforts to help his country were going nowhere, he decided to go public. "Spycatcher" was the result of that decision.
When he attempted to have it published in Britain, his publishers were pressured into dropping the book ("invited to have tea with the Treasury lawyers" is the jargon), and he eventually took it to an Australian firm. The aussies went ahead with the book, and the British government sued him in Australia. The judged ruled in Mr. Wright's favour, noting that the British government's case was entirely laughable and irresponsible.
To my knowledge, the book is still banned in Britain. However, in the rest of the world it became a massive best-seller, and eventually shamed the British government into pushing for reforms of the recruitment process of the intelligence services.
This is another case of a book that was deemed to be full of state secrets, and therefore should be kept hidden. However, how was it beneficial to the government of Britain, or the national security of Britain, to ignore and hush up the fact that their intelligence services were riddled with moles? In some cases, state secrets must be busted open, because sometimes they are only secret because they are embarassing, not dangerous.
I say give this guy a chance. If he's just a fame seeker who is gratuitously spilling secrets to get himself on a best-seller list, shut him down. But if he has something important to say - publish the hell out of his book. Make it visible in every corner of the world and make sure some change comes of it.
Not to be the jerk here, but it really shouldn't be that big of a news story that some people discussed the idea that it might not be the best security practice to allow unvalidated user input.
Nobody would think of performing no kind of checking on things submitted into a plain old text box, so why would it be safe just because it's now in the "synergetic web 2.0 blogosphere of community-driven empowerment through technology"
Oh well, still a moderately interesting article...
Although the article deals specifically with the US, I do believe the results they put forward can be applied to Canada (my location) equally well. I just finished High School in a private school that follows the International Baccalaureate curriculum, and that strongly enforces the idea that those not fit for a course should not be in it. However, even here, my physics teacher is retiring at the end of this year (admittedly he's been teaching for a long time) due to issues with parents feeling his approach is too lax.
This is the guy who gave me a perfect mark on a lab report where I concluded that the law of conservation of energy was bullshit, since that is what the data supported. Of course, I was very tounge in cheek, please don't start informing me that I'm a dunce. But my point was that this guy was very good about actual scientific thinking, and he's been forced out because parents don't want scientific thinking, they want someone to force us to memorize the answers that will give us high scores on the standardised tests.
Maybe I'm just silly, but I'd think that this would have a sort of self-limiting effect, much like supply and demand in economic markets. My logic is that as HD video slows down the internet, the incentive to use the internet to watch this kind of stuff will diminish, thus alleviating the pressure. This balance between availability of bandwidth and demand for it, expressed as "cost," or rather, speed of downloads, would make the problem disappear by forcing usage to level out at a point acceptable to all.
And anyway, isn't there tons of dark fibre around?
Of course, I may be insane, and no, I did not RTFA.
As I understand it, but of course I am not a quantum crypto researcher, the idea is that this is secure because your premise of "If something can be read, and written - it can be copied." does not hold true.
The idea is that with these quantum particles you are transmitting the data by means of the "spin" property of the particles, rather than simple on/off pulses. The key point is that by measuring the spin you affect it and change it completely, meaning that anyone at the other end will know, because all their data will be garbled.
This method doesn't stop someone from listening in, but if they do so, all parties involved will know and can just avoid using the compromised keys. If, however, you don't listen in on the key transmission, the data can then be sent encrypted and you are out of the loop once again.
Of course, as someone said, a repeater makes this all pointless.
Re:Why are we helping spammer?
on
Spam Gets Personal
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Don't be so hasty to attack their research. If you think about it, this isn't really any different from publishing a whitepaper showing how to break the DRM on a file, or how to phreak an old phone. No, this is not intended as flamebait, but it seems to me like any distinction drawn between those actions is based simply on the prevailing culture and attitudes at/. where breaking DRM = good, sending spam = bad.
Now I'm not trying to argue that we should have more spam, but the people at Sony would also not want to argue that we should have more DRM-cracking. It's simply a matter of perspective. And anyway, I'm sure the paper (no I didn't RTFA) was created to try to address the problem before it really shows up so it's not so bad rather than encouraging the noxious spamlords.
I am in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the company is simply called Nova Scotia Power. I checked out the systems in more detail, and it turns out I was partly wrong: The systems don't actually store the energy for later use, they simply do things like heat your home/water during the off peak hours and then store the heat until needed. Since heating is the single largest power-drain, it results in pretty big savings.
However I do recognise this isn't exactly the same thing as what the article describes, but it is the same concept - buy the power when it's cheap, save it until you need it.
It is indeed a great idea. That's why my provincial power company has been selling similar units for years now.
Seriously though, this isn't all that novel. Judging from the whopping price tag I am guessing that this is slightly more intricate than the stuff we have, but as a concept, nothing new.
The way I see it, people are missing the real point here. It's not whether it is okay/wrong/justifiable/the greatest thing ever to have cops and bosses looking up your info online, it's about facing up to the consequences of your own actions.
It has always bothered me how people distinguish between the act of doing something, and the event of having a boss/cop/whatever find out about it. If you don't want people to know you've been doing drugs, then the answer isn't to make sure no photos are posted online; the answer is to not do it. Maybe I'm a little too hung up on the existentialist books I've been reading, but it seems to me that you should only do things you are willing to admit to doing. If you think it's okay to do drugs, then do them, and be frank about it. It is a strong form of hypocrisy to do them and then hope nobody finds out.
If you are a drug user, don't hide it. If you think it's the right way to be, don't lie about it. If you think it's wrong, if you're embarrassed and unwilling to put it out in the open... don't do it. You are the sum of your actions - don't become something to be ashamed of.
I know that being an apologist for Microsoft is hardly a favored position here at Slashdot, however...
In this case it really does seem to me that they have a case. While the two typefaces are very similar, there are more differences than the ones pointed out (i.e. the Q and the 1). In general, Segoe seems to be more rounded and broader. I agree that the two are very similar, but, as someone else said, it is by necessity that many typefaces look the same - you wouldn't be able to read them otherwise. The two typefaces are different enough that I'd definitely consider them separate. It's just like comparing those two to Arial, Tahoma, or any other sans-serif font of that style.
The real issue lies with someone at Microsoft having said they were the same. Does anyone have any more info that would allow us to form a proper judgement? Because it's entirely different if it was their font designer who said it or if it was a random employee whom they asked "hey, do these two look the same to you?"
The process of creation is also crucial. Did they take Frutiger next and modify it a little, or did they actually create something, and then later on realised "uh oh, that looks rather similar to what this other fellow made..." ? If it's an honestly created piece of work, then I say let them have it, regardless of the similarities.
Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous, so maybe I should clarify things a bit, although I'd be the first to mod this offtopic given half a chance, but since half the thread I started has gone that way, what the hell?
So here goes. I just thought I should clarify: I was not trying to use a slashdot post as an in-depth vehicle for a discussion of my love-life. I simply referenced in passing a real-life example without giving any depth, background, or context. I agree with the posters who are saying things like "don't expect to conduct your relationship over IM," because, hey, that would be one weird relationship. And I don't expect that. That wasn't my point. My point was that , even though the whole point of IM is to enable conversation, it is impossible to have a real good conversation with someone who is IMing tons of people simultaneously.
I'm not trying to discuss my girlfriend or how much attention the average man needs from a significant other and can we find an equation to determine how many people we can IM and still meet this and while we're at it let's do some statistical analysis of response times and number of sweet nothings. That's not it, people. My point was just this: sometimes people talk to lots of people and that is not as focused as talking to one person.
Maybe I am just misinterpreting sarcasm here, but if not: There is not yet an IE7 out. It is in beta I believe and will ship with Vista. Actually, I think they may also be releasing it for XP sometime this summer. What the article/summary meant was that the hole is still there in the new browser.
It isn't just that this kind of thing affects our productivity at work. I find it drastically affects our interpersonal relationships in general. A rather pathetic and depressing example: Whenever I and my girlfriend are talking in person we get along amazingly - we discuss interesting things, and find each other to be amusing and fun. But when I try to talk to her online or on the phone, it's impossible. She is constantly talking to about four other people, and even when she tries to devote more attention to me, it is really not possible, and these conversations usually end with me giving up in frustration, which needless to say is slowly killing our relationship, especially if I try to ask her to shut off the other stuff.
Apart from this little side rant into bitterness, my point is that we are becoming so inundated with communications, and we are trying so hard to talk and connect with everyone, that it is impossible to talk to anyone. Mobile communications can enhance productivity and relationships if used properly, but God knows they can be a pain.
Lightning and Sunbird share the same codebase, and therefore have the exact same functionality and bugs, but Sunbird is standalone, whereas Lightning requires Thunderbird or the like.
I used Sunbird for a little while a while back, and while it is a step in the right direction, it really needs a lot of work. Of course, this new release may have fixed all the bugs that irked me, and it is of course only version 0.1 - and with that in mind, Sunbird/Lightning really is a factor to consider, but not quite ready for widespread use. When it is though, it will be good.
Now I admit that I have only done one year of real physics study and am therefore nowhere near an expert on this, but it seems to me that the computer shields they manufacture could actually have a purpose - TEMPEST shields. You know, keep EMF in rather than blocking it out. Of course, they only make monitor ones, but still, a step in the right direction, no?
Barcodes can most certainly mark humans, and have been used for that purpose extensively. The reason they can't ever be a secure way of doing things is that they provide no guarantee that they are unique - it would be too easy to get a barcode tattoo simulating someone else. RFID on the other hand (supposedly and ideally at least) would overcome this limitation through crypto and the like.
I recently got rid of Windows 98 off an old Toshiba notebook (not exactly quite sure how old) with a 4GB harddrive and 64mb RAM. While the windows configuration certainly wasn't too impressive, trying to run any graphical stuff under Linux is a nightmare. However, just running Slackware in the old-school way, it works pretty well. I guess the point of this post is: Linux may work, but it doesn't work all that great on old hardware.
As shaitand points out, Dell itself would only be responsible for supporting the distro they have shipped originally. However, you do have a point in that the diverse nature of Linux (and pretty much all open source type software) is sometimes a barrier to adoption.
Dell may be reluctant to start shipping Linux (or at least shipping it as a regular thing) because they fear that the effort of offering a variety of distros is too much (as you point out), and simply offering one distro is probably not going to generate enough interest (read purchases) to make it viable.
Of course, Dell's strategy of building the computers according to specs would seem to facilitate the adoption of several OSs/distros, since they don't need to have a supply of all different types constantly. The problem with this is that they still need to keep a staff with expertise on all of the different types.
So essentially, if they only ship one distro, it's not enough variety to generate much profit, but if they ship many, it's too much effort to generate much profit. The one thing that could really speed adoption of Linux (notice I only say "speed adoption," not "enhance quality" or "be beneficial") would be if one particular distro really outshone all others and became the de facto standard, what people always meant when they said Linux. Only then would it become seriously lucrative for Dell to ship Linux.
As I understand it, ARG is essentially a MMORPG, but one where the game is actually designed simply to let you live out a second life. (I think Second Life is actually the name of a popular one). Instead of running around for one or two hours a day doing some quest and killing fantasy monsters, you spend ten or so hours pretending to be a [instert favourite sexual orientation here] member of [inster favourite minority here] living in Laos.
Good points. It always did amaze me how their computers had such advanced AI, but I suppose it was just mere telepathy with the user that made them so prescient.
Minor clarification of little note: The computer I mentioned from The Island would actually not give gorilla arm. It was essentially a table, with the user's hands resting horizontally on the surface or downwards if used while standing. Basically it was like a PC-less standard office desk, only nothing on it was physical but rather images on the desk surface.
The fact that it accepts multiple input points is the key here. I'm really looking forward to the future when PCs are more like desks, with everything you need sitting right there on a giant touchscreen monitor (cf. the desk of that guy in the movie The Island). It would also be nifty to use this for digital music. No need to connect keyboards or anything like that, the monitor itself could replicate the functionality exactly, even touch-sensitiveness.
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This never works, simply because the scammer has such an enormous volume of the stock pre-purchased that they can easily undercut your selling price on the market while still making a profit, and hence their stocks will always be dumped before yours are. Of course, in theory, if you have an even larger volume, and can undercut them, you could profit. That would, however, technically mean you are now the pump and dump scammer, even if they do all the work for you.
I'd say ending up on the front page of digg or Fark or whatever is pretty unpleasant, but I didn't see too much of an uproar when the Star Wars Kid was put in the same spot. He was, after all, in more of a private situation than the street. And he is of course not the only one, just the first one that popped into my head. Basically, I agree with you that it is unpleasant, but this kind of thing has been going on for ages without any comment - why is it heinous when a map is attached?
I think that there has been a bit of a misapprehension here. I am in no way suggesting that the government of Britain is a sinister totalitarian regime, or anything of the sort. I am sorry that you seemed to take the comment of a stranger on the internet as such an offense to your national sentiment - of course, I am assuming that you are a Briton, the only reason I can find for your ire. On the other hand, it seems you have also assumed I am American (c.f. "even in the USA, with its consitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech, you can cause a national scandal by revealing the identity of a CIA field agent..."), which I am in fact not. As a matter of fact, although I am not resident there, I hold a British passport.
After reading your comment I tried to do some checking of the things I remembered off the top of my head, and I will readily admit that possesion of the book was never illegal in Britain. However, two publishers were invited to tea with the MI5 spooks, and decided not to publish the book - one of them, however, passed it on the their Australian branch, which then brought it out.
In any case, the minutiae of the legal battle are not the central point of what I was trying to get at. I was simply trying to illustrate a case where "state secrets" were kept in the dark not because they were dangerous but because they were embarrasing to the government. I was attempting to make the point that sometimes it is not unpatriotic to violate the State Secrets Act, and that if this blogger is such a case then I wholeheartedly endorse the dissemination of his "secrets."
Once again, I regret to have caused you and your family such distress, but next time perhaps you should argue about the points relevant to the discussion at hand, rather than get carried away by a detail of no consequence to the philosophy of the case (however, a detail that I freely admit was erroneously worded, since "banned" is not the same as "had its publishers pressured into silence").
While that is true, shopping for the cheapest gas doesn't help that. I guess there are really two separate issues here: People worrying about the cost of gas itself, and people trying to find the cheapest gas.
Worrying about the cost of gas is probably valid, because as you point out, it is a useful metric of consumer-goods prices across the board. However, as others have pointed out and I will reiterate, other places have *far* higher gas prices (they just look smaller because they're measured in litres).
However, hunting around for the gas station that is $0.03 cheaper is a pointless activity. I would be inclined to agree with those who say it only happens because the prices are displayed in huge letters. Interesting social experiment: try switching all prices over to per litre, and even though the amounts per value are the same, I bet people would freak out a lot less over the large signs.
That is the same argument the British government put forward when Peter Wright did the same for MI5 in his "Spycatcher" book. Mr. Wright had been a faithful servant of the secret services for many years, and responsible for some very major intel breakthroughs, including some that were critical to the British war effort against the Axis. He, however, had good reason to believe that the highest levels of MI5 had been infiltrated by the Soviets, and he decided to take action.
He wrote a long report ("The Dossier") and sent it straight to the Prime Minister, who promptly forwarded it to the accused managers for review. They, of course, gave themselves a clean bill of health, and started making life hell for Mr. Wright. Disgusted at how his efforts to help his country were going nowhere, he decided to go public. "Spycatcher" was the result of that decision.
When he attempted to have it published in Britain, his publishers were pressured into dropping the book ("invited to have tea with the Treasury lawyers" is the jargon), and he eventually took it to an Australian firm. The aussies went ahead with the book, and the British government sued him in Australia. The judged ruled in Mr. Wright's favour, noting that the British government's case was entirely laughable and irresponsible.
To my knowledge, the book is still banned in Britain. However, in the rest of the world it became a massive best-seller, and eventually shamed the British government into pushing for reforms of the recruitment process of the intelligence services.
This is another case of a book that was deemed to be full of state secrets, and therefore should be kept hidden. However, how was it beneficial to the government of Britain, or the national security of Britain, to ignore and hush up the fact that their intelligence services were riddled with moles? In some cases, state secrets must be busted open, because sometimes they are only secret because they are embarassing, not dangerous.
I say give this guy a chance. If he's just a fame seeker who is gratuitously spilling secrets to get himself on a best-seller list, shut him down. But if he has something important to say - publish the hell out of his book. Make it visible in every corner of the world and make sure some change comes of it.
Not to be the jerk here, but it really shouldn't be that big of a news story that some people discussed the idea that it might not be the best security practice to allow unvalidated user input.
Nobody would think of performing no kind of checking on things submitted into a plain old text box, so why would it be safe just because it's now in the "synergetic web 2.0 blogosphere of community-driven empowerment through technology"
Oh well, still a moderately interesting article...
That's really very ironic.
Although the article deals specifically with the US, I do believe the results they put forward can be applied to Canada (my location) equally well. I just finished High School in a private school that follows the International Baccalaureate curriculum, and that strongly enforces the idea that those not fit for a course should not be in it. However, even here, my physics teacher is retiring at the end of this year (admittedly he's been teaching for a long time) due to issues with parents feeling his approach is too lax.
This is the guy who gave me a perfect mark on a lab report where I concluded that the law of conservation of energy was bullshit, since that is what the data supported. Of course, I was very tounge in cheek, please don't start informing me that I'm a dunce. But my point was that this guy was very good about actual scientific thinking, and he's been forced out because parents don't want scientific thinking, they want someone to force us to memorize the answers that will give us high scores on the standardised tests.
Maybe I'm just silly, but I'd think that this would have a sort of self-limiting effect, much like supply and demand in economic markets. My logic is that as HD video slows down the internet, the incentive to use the internet to watch this kind of stuff will diminish, thus alleviating the pressure. This balance between availability of bandwidth and demand for it, expressed as "cost," or rather, speed of downloads, would make the problem disappear by forcing usage to level out at a point acceptable to all.
And anyway, isn't there tons of dark fibre around?
Of course, I may be insane, and no, I did not RTFA.
As I understand it, but of course I am not a quantum crypto researcher, the idea is that this is secure because your premise of "If something can be read, and written - it can be copied." does not hold true.
The idea is that with these quantum particles you are transmitting the data by means of the "spin" property of the particles, rather than simple on/off pulses. The key point is that by measuring the spin you affect it and change it completely, meaning that anyone at the other end will know, because all their data will be garbled.
This method doesn't stop someone from listening in, but if they do so, all parties involved will know and can just avoid using the compromised keys. If, however, you don't listen in on the key transmission, the data can then be sent encrypted and you are out of the loop once again.
Of course, as someone said, a repeater makes this all pointless.
Don't be so hasty to attack their research. If you think about it, this isn't really any different from publishing a whitepaper showing how to break the DRM on a file, or how to phreak an old phone. No, this is not intended as flamebait, but it seems to me like any distinction drawn between those actions is based simply on the prevailing culture and attitudes at /. where breaking DRM = good, sending spam = bad.
Now I'm not trying to argue that we should have more spam, but the people at Sony would also not want to argue that we should have more DRM-cracking. It's simply a matter of perspective. And anyway, I'm sure the paper (no I didn't RTFA) was created to try to address the problem before it really shows up so it's not so bad rather than encouraging the noxious spamlords.
I am in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the company is simply called Nova Scotia Power. I checked out the systems in more detail, and it turns out I was partly wrong: The systems don't actually store the energy for later use, they simply do things like heat your home/water during the off peak hours and then store the heat until needed. Since heating is the single largest power-drain, it results in pretty big savings.
However I do recognise this isn't exactly the same thing as what the article describes, but it is the same concept - buy the power when it's cheap, save it until you need it.
It is indeed a great idea. That's why my provincial power company has been selling similar units for years now.
Seriously though, this isn't all that novel. Judging from the whopping price tag I am guessing that this is slightly more intricate than the stuff we have, but as a concept, nothing new.
The way I see it, people are missing the real point here. It's not whether it is okay/wrong/justifiable/the greatest thing ever to have cops and bosses looking up your info online, it's about facing up to the consequences of your own actions.
It has always bothered me how people distinguish between the act of doing something, and the event of having a boss/cop/whatever find out about it. If you don't want people to know you've been doing drugs, then the answer isn't to make sure no photos are posted online; the answer is to not do it. Maybe I'm a little too hung up on the existentialist books I've been reading, but it seems to me that you should only do things you are willing to admit to doing. If you think it's okay to do drugs, then do them, and be frank about it. It is a strong form of hypocrisy to do them and then hope nobody finds out.
If you are a drug user, don't hide it. If you think it's the right way to be, don't lie about it. If you think it's wrong, if you're embarrassed and unwilling to put it out in the open... don't do it. You are the sum of your actions - don't become something to be ashamed of.
I know that being an apologist for Microsoft is hardly a favored position here at Slashdot, however...
In this case it really does seem to me that they have a case. While the two typefaces are very similar, there are more differences than the ones pointed out (i.e. the Q and the 1). In general, Segoe seems to be more rounded and broader. I agree that the two are very similar, but, as someone else said, it is by necessity that many typefaces look the same - you wouldn't be able to read them otherwise. The two typefaces are different enough that I'd definitely consider them separate. It's just like comparing those two to Arial, Tahoma, or any other sans-serif font of that style.
The real issue lies with someone at Microsoft having said they were the same. Does anyone have any more info that would allow us to form a proper judgement? Because it's entirely different if it was their font designer who said it or if it was a random employee whom they asked "hey, do these two look the same to you?"
The process of creation is also crucial. Did they take Frutiger next and modify it a little, or did they actually create something, and then later on realised "uh oh, that looks rather similar to what this other fellow made..." ? If it's an honestly created piece of work, then I say let them have it, regardless of the similarities.
Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous, so maybe I should clarify things a bit, although I'd be the first to mod this offtopic given half a chance, but since half the thread I started has gone that way, what the hell?
So here goes. I just thought I should clarify: I was not trying to use a slashdot post as an in-depth vehicle for a discussion of my love-life. I simply referenced in passing a real-life example without giving any depth, background, or context. I agree with the posters who are saying things like "don't expect to conduct your relationship over IM," because, hey, that would be one weird relationship. And I don't expect that. That wasn't my point. My point was that , even though the whole point of IM is to enable conversation, it is impossible to have a real good conversation with someone who is IMing tons of people simultaneously.
I'm not trying to discuss my girlfriend or how much attention the average man needs from a significant other and can we find an equation to determine how many people we can IM and still meet this and while we're at it let's do some statistical analysis of response times and number of sweet nothings. That's not it, people. My point was just this: sometimes people talk to lots of people and that is not as focused as talking to one person.
Maybe I am just misinterpreting sarcasm here, but if not: There is not yet an IE7 out. It is in beta I believe and will ship with Vista. Actually, I think they may also be releasing it for XP sometime this summer. What the article/summary meant was that the hole is still there in the new browser.
It isn't just that this kind of thing affects our productivity at work. I find it drastically affects our interpersonal relationships in general. A rather pathetic and depressing example: Whenever I and my girlfriend are talking in person we get along amazingly - we discuss interesting things, and find each other to be amusing and fun. But when I try to talk to her online or on the phone, it's impossible. She is constantly talking to about four other people, and even when she tries to devote more attention to me, it is really not possible, and these conversations usually end with me giving up in frustration, which needless to say is slowly killing our relationship, especially if I try to ask her to shut off the other stuff.
Apart from this little side rant into bitterness, my point is that we are becoming so inundated with communications, and we are trying so hard to talk and connect with everyone, that it is impossible to talk to anyone. Mobile communications can enhance productivity and relationships if used properly, but God knows they can be a pain.
Lightning and Sunbird share the same codebase, and therefore have the exact same functionality and bugs, but Sunbird is standalone, whereas Lightning requires Thunderbird or the like.
I used Sunbird for a little while a while back, and while it is a step in the right direction, it really needs a lot of work. Of course, this new release may have fixed all the bugs that irked me, and it is of course only version 0.1 - and with that in mind, Sunbird/Lightning really is a factor to consider, but not quite ready for widespread use. When it is though, it will be good.
Now I admit that I have only done one year of real physics study and am therefore nowhere near an expert on this, but it seems to me that the computer shields they manufacture could actually have a purpose - TEMPEST shields. You know, keep EMF in rather than blocking it out. Of course, they only make monitor ones, but still, a step in the right direction, no?
Barcodes can most certainly mark humans, and have been used for that purpose extensively. The reason they can't ever be a secure way of doing things is that they provide no guarantee that they are unique - it would be too easy to get a barcode tattoo simulating someone else. RFID on the other hand (supposedly and ideally at least) would overcome this limitation through crypto and the like.
I recently got rid of Windows 98 off an old Toshiba notebook (not exactly quite sure how old) with a 4GB harddrive and 64mb RAM. While the windows configuration certainly wasn't too impressive, trying to run any graphical stuff under Linux is a nightmare. However, just running Slackware in the old-school way, it works pretty well. I guess the point of this post is: Linux may work, but it doesn't work all that great on old hardware.
As shaitand points out, Dell itself would only be responsible for supporting the distro they have shipped originally. However, you do have a point in that the diverse nature of Linux (and pretty much all open source type software) is sometimes a barrier to adoption.
Dell may be reluctant to start shipping Linux (or at least shipping it as a regular thing) because they fear that the effort of offering a variety of distros is too much (as you point out), and simply offering one distro is probably not going to generate enough interest (read purchases) to make it viable.
Of course, Dell's strategy of building the computers according to specs would seem to facilitate the adoption of several OSs/distros, since they don't need to have a supply of all different types constantly. The problem with this is that they still need to keep a staff with expertise on all of the different types.
So essentially, if they only ship one distro, it's not enough variety to generate much profit, but if they ship many, it's too much effort to generate much profit. The one thing that could really speed adoption of Linux (notice I only say "speed adoption," not "enhance quality" or "be beneficial") would be if one particular distro really outshone all others and became the de facto standard, what people always meant when they said Linux. Only then would it become seriously lucrative for Dell to ship Linux.
As I understand it, ARG is essentially a MMORPG, but one where the game is actually designed simply to let you live out a second life. (I think Second Life is actually the name of a popular one). Instead of running around for one or two hours a day doing some quest and killing fantasy monsters, you spend ten or so hours pretending to be a [instert favourite sexual orientation here] member of [inster favourite minority here] living in Laos.
Good points. It always did amaze me how their computers had such advanced AI, but I suppose it was just mere telepathy with the user that made them so prescient.
Minor clarification of little note: The computer I mentioned from The Island would actually not give gorilla arm. It was essentially a table, with the user's hands resting horizontally on the surface or downwards if used while standing. Basically it was like a PC-less standard office desk, only nothing on it was physical but rather images on the desk surface.
The fact that it accepts multiple input points is the key here. I'm really looking forward to the future when PCs are more like desks, with everything you need sitting right there on a giant touchscreen monitor (cf. the desk of that guy in the movie The Island). It would also be nifty to use this for digital music. No need to connect keyboards or anything like that, the monitor itself could replicate the functionality exactly, even touch-sensitiveness.