A caveat with free antivirus software is that some provide scanning only while others have resident protection included.
NOD32 is the best anti-virus I've used but it's not free. Avast and AVG are the best free substitutes I've encountered, I currently favour Avast but it gets too many false positives for my liking, and by default downloads large updates on a daily basis.
Because they rapidly evolve, there's no substitute for trying out multiple antivirus programs that have a high virus detection rating and picking the least worst one.
As people have mentioned firewall software here as well, I was after one that didn't chew up a lot of CPU time while downloading torrents and Ghostwall fits the bill. However I am assuming that the windows XP firewall does not provide equal protection.
Strangely the discussion is more civilised here than at Ars Technica, hopefully this revelation will be the beginning of the end of the net filtering idea. When I first heard of it, it sounded like a valid way to make it easier for people with children to filter their internet, and there was an opt-out option (I really disliked the idea of opt-out rather than opt-in though). Now it sounds like it will turn us into a second great firewall of China, so I think the further this goes the more consternation will increase.
An interesting angle, my basic viewpoint is that there is no real issue with wikipedia being sprawlingly large and having 100,000 articles on Pokemon because it is not in the printed medium.
I think control is the main reason that wikipedia has been terrorised by "purges" of content, some pimply geek who gets pushed around at school likes to have his or her own little fifedom od content, or may aspire to be one of wikipedia's "higher ups".
The obsessive compliance with copyright is what first got me disillusioned with wikipedia, anything in a grey area disappeared if you didn't remove the delete tags that were applied to it on a regular basis by someone's automated bot. Next up was people quoting vague guidelines as concrete justification for removing galleries from pages. Whenever I visit wikipedia nowdays I notice its paucity of images and speedy deletion notices underneath existing images.
Has wikipedia ever had grief over its use of images at any point, which might justify this extreme paranoia? No, it's just that a few geeks like to exert that level of control over the entire wikipedia through their use of bots (automated programs written by the user).
I played the PC version of GTA:SA with the hot coffee setting turned on and I could not believe such a fuss was created about something so innocuous. In case anyone doesn't know, there's about 5 seconds of sex taking place INSIDE a house (with the camera showing the outside of the house), I was expecting graphic nudity given the amount of controversy. So this was merely about the fact that sex takes place in the game than any actual depiction of it.
What would it cost to hire a lawyer, go to court and win (if winning or the complaint being withdrawn is the likely outcome)? Would it be more than $3000?
I used to watch this regularly on Channel 7 (in Australia) when it aired at 2am, I liked the way Russert would let the guest respond to a question and move on, I always think this is far more effective (if the response is BS) than trying to debate the point and get the person to acknowledge they may be wrong.
I had my fill of US politics a while back but Meet the Press made for good Sunday night viewing for Americanophiles. Some episodes were very entertaining and others not so entertaining, and I found it interesting during elections to see Russert's interaction with Katie Couric, outside of his element perhaps.
Open up the Li-ion batteries and use the (hopefully 18650) cells to power torches from sites like DealExtreme. I had a Pentium 133mHz IMB Thinkpad that was a bad eBay purchase, the battery wouldn't take charge. I opened up the battery pack and found eight out of twelve useable 17500 cells (these can be used in place of a 3xAAA battery holder). Be warned that any short circuiting during the dismantling procedure will cause the batteries to eject toxic gas and possibly catch on fire.
Recently watched "Who Killed the Electric Car", it's strange to think that something similar to the Tesla had already been made by GM in the mid-90's because of California's zero emissions law. When the emission law went, so did GM's electric car.
What's an Atari 2600? I guess that's something people of each decade faces, people born in the 2000's will lament that people born in the 2010's haven't heard of the Playstation 3 or Windows XP.
Or in the not too distant future senior citizens won't have participated in WW2 or remember a time before TV...
"going around and banning things because they are potentially unsafe is a slippery slope"
That's why kids in America have the privilege of growing up with fireworks (I haven't fact checked that) and kids in Australia only get to play around with sparklers (which can be turned into a roman candle if you have the patience).
Fortunately I bought a green laser pointer from Dealextreme.com (claimed 50mW, probably 30mW) a while back. I was thinking of buying another as they won't be able to be imported again but one is enough considering the limited novelty value.
I wonder if it will affect the number of incidents of lasers shined into aircraft cabins,as lasers are everywhere in CD and DVD drives and can be turned into pointers if you know which model to buy and have some basic electronics experience.
There seems to have been zero investigation as to why people are shining lasers at aircraft at airports, are they local residents angry at noise levels or people looking to (potentially) cause wanton destruction?
Demonoid had the best community out of the "public" torrent sites and made for a richer filesharing experience, I've been lamenting it's loss ever since. The Pirate Bay is okay but didn't have the range of Demonoid. I used to have a Torrentleech account with 20gb worth of positive ratio but was a victim of their new "regular login" rule, so it's great to have a comparable site back from the dead.
Asking sellers to offer it as an option is one thing, disallowing the classic direct deposit payment method is pure greed. They skim 3% on all payments (found this out the hard way when a guy offered to pay for an $1850 motorbike through Paypal). They are really testing the limits of their monopoly power with this, hopefully it'll open the door to competing sites (eg. Oztion) reaching critical mass. eBay is a good way to get rid of unneeded items though so I guess I'll have to sell as much as I can now and give eg. the Trading Post more serious consideration.
A revolving team of reporters contributing to a blog would probably alleviate the stress. Even just maintaining a personal blog can be stressful if you feel that you (alone) should post regularly to maintain other's interest.
Commonly available Cree R2 LEDS are 100 lumens per watt so this new light bulb is 1.4 times the efficiency. It'll be interesting to see if it appears in anything in the future or will just be an interesting technology that remains unexploited due to cheaper competing technologies.
So were those Paedophilia accusations a few years back just slander or founded in fact? It appears to be the former, but why would try to tarnish his reputation like that?
I'm definitely in the inclusionist camp, I got fed up and quit editing (although I may rejoin under a new name) because of the deletionists, who hold the upper hand because only certain popular editors get nominated for the power to delete (and lock, etc.). When I joined in '04 wikipedia was largely inclusionist but since it reached around 750,000 english articles, became increasingly deletionist to the point that it is now largely deletionist.
Also, the "free" part of its motto "the free encyclopedia" also means open-source, so anything with a hint of not being GDFL approved is deleted with prejudice. "Fair use" at some point became "fair game", nevermind that I (and others) spent time sourcing fair use images only to have them all deleted.
Slashdot Mirror
That is hardly an endorsement, except to say that it fulfils their strict open source/GNU criteria.
A caveat with free antivirus software is that some provide scanning only while others have resident protection included.
NOD32 is the best anti-virus I've used but it's not free.
Avast and AVG are the best free substitutes I've encountered, I currently favour Avast but it gets too many false positives for my liking, and by default downloads large updates on a daily basis.
Because they rapidly evolve, there's no substitute for trying out multiple antivirus programs that have a high virus detection rating and picking the least worst one.
As people have mentioned firewall software here as well, I was after one that didn't chew up a lot of CPU time while downloading torrents and Ghostwall fits the bill. However I am assuming that the windows XP firewall does not provide equal protection.
The problem with the ribbon is that it assumes that menus and toolbars are not a quick and easy way of finding what you want.
Strangely the discussion is more civilised here than at Ars Technica, hopefully this revelation will be the beginning of the end of the net filtering idea.
When I first heard of it, it sounded like a valid way to make it easier for people with children to filter their internet, and there was an opt-out option (I really disliked the idea of opt-out rather than opt-in though).
Now it sounds like it will turn us into a second great firewall of China, so I think the further this goes the more consternation will increase.
Wow, focussing and avoiding interruptions was too much for this Jason person.
Or was he given the chair on a television show called Focus?
An interesting angle, my basic viewpoint is that there is no real issue with wikipedia being sprawlingly large and having 100,000 articles on Pokemon because it is not in the printed medium.
I think control is the main reason that wikipedia has been terrorised by "purges" of content, some pimply geek who gets pushed around at school likes to have his or her own little fifedom od content, or may aspire to be one of wikipedia's "higher ups".
The obsessive compliance with copyright is what first got me disillusioned with wikipedia, anything in a grey area disappeared if you didn't remove the delete tags that were applied to it on a regular basis by someone's automated bot.
Next up was people quoting vague guidelines as concrete justification for removing galleries from pages. Whenever I visit wikipedia nowdays I notice its paucity of images and speedy deletion notices underneath existing images.
Has wikipedia ever had grief over its use of images at any point, which might justify this extreme paranoia? No, it's just that a few geeks like to exert that level of control over the entire wikipedia through their use of bots (automated programs written by the user).
I played the PC version of GTA:SA with the hot coffee setting turned on and I could not believe such a fuss was created about something so innocuous. In case anyone doesn't know, there's about 5 seconds of sex taking place INSIDE a house (with the camera showing the outside of the house), I was expecting graphic nudity given the amount of controversy.
So this was merely about the fact that sex takes place in the game than any actual depiction of it.
kdawson has framed things in an ambiguous manner, it's the road rage of the person INSIDE the car with stickers, not of the person behind them.
What would it cost to hire a lawyer, go to court and win (if winning or the complaint being withdrawn is the likely outcome)?
Would it be more than $3000?
I used to watch this regularly on Channel 7 (in Australia) when it aired at 2am, I liked the way Russert would let the guest respond to a question and move on, I always think this is far more effective (if the response is BS) than trying to debate the point and get the person to acknowledge they may be wrong.
I had my fill of US politics a while back but Meet the Press made for good Sunday night viewing for Americanophiles. Some episodes were very entertaining and others not so entertaining, and I found it interesting during elections to see Russert's interaction with Katie Couric, outside of his element perhaps.
No it will not be the new Blade Runner as it has none of the same themes.
It might be the new Existenz or Videodrome, say.
Open up the Li-ion batteries and use the (hopefully 18650) cells to power torches from sites like DealExtreme. I had a Pentium 133mHz IMB Thinkpad that was a bad eBay purchase, the battery wouldn't take charge. I opened up the battery pack and found eight out of twelve useable 17500 cells (these can be used in place of a 3xAAA battery holder).
Be warned that any short circuiting during the dismantling procedure will cause the batteries to eject toxic gas and possibly catch on fire.
I'd rather have a Li-ion battery explode than a hydrogen tank.
Recently watched "Who Killed the Electric Car", it's strange to think that something similar to the Tesla had already been made by GM in the mid-90's because of California's zero emissions law. When the emission law went, so did GM's electric car.
Or in the not too distant future senior citizens won't have participated in WW2 or remember a time before TV...
"going around and banning things because they are potentially unsafe is a slippery slope"
That's why kids in America have the privilege of growing up with fireworks (I haven't fact checked that) and kids in Australia only get to play around with sparklers (which can be turned into a roman candle if you have the patience).
Fortunately I bought a green laser pointer from Dealextreme.com (claimed 50mW, probably 30mW) a while back. I was thinking of buying another as they won't be able to be imported again but one is enough considering the limited novelty value.
,as lasers are everywhere in CD and DVD drives and can be turned into pointers if you know which model to buy and have some basic electronics experience.
I wonder if it will affect the number of incidents of lasers shined into aircraft cabins
There seems to have been zero investigation as to why people are shining lasers at aircraft at airports, are they local residents angry at noise levels or people looking to (potentially) cause wanton destruction?
Demonoid had the best community out of the "public" torrent sites and made for a richer filesharing experience, I've been lamenting it's loss ever since.
The Pirate Bay is okay but didn't have the range of Demonoid. I used to have a Torrentleech account with 20gb worth of positive ratio but was a victim of their new "regular login" rule, so it's great to have a comparable site back from the dead.
Asking sellers to offer it as an option is one thing, disallowing the classic direct deposit payment method is pure greed. They skim 3% on all payments (found this out the hard way when a guy offered to pay for an $1850 motorbike through Paypal).
They are really testing the limits of their monopoly power with this, hopefully it'll open the door to competing sites (eg. Oztion) reaching critical mass.
eBay is a good way to get rid of unneeded items though so I guess I'll have to sell as much as I can now and give eg. the Trading Post more serious consideration.
That's 13.6 kilos for those in metric countries.
A revolving team of reporters contributing to a blog would probably alleviate the stress. Even just maintaining a personal blog can be stressful if you feel that you (alone) should post regularly to maintain other's interest.
This has probably been mentioned by five other people but the title of this news item can be interpreted in two ways.
Commonly available Cree R2 LEDS are 100 lumens per watt so this new light bulb is 1.4 times the efficiency. It'll be interesting to see if it appears in anything in the future or will just be an interesting technology that remains unexploited due to cheaper competing technologies.
So were those Paedophilia accusations a few years back just slander or founded in fact? It appears to be the former, but why would try to tarnish his reputation like that?
Can I have my blog entries posted on slashdot too?
I'm definitely in the inclusionist camp, I got fed up and quit editing (although I may rejoin under a new name) because of the deletionists, who hold the upper hand because only certain popular editors get nominated for the power to delete (and lock, etc.).
When I joined in '04 wikipedia was largely inclusionist but since it reached around 750,000 english articles, became increasingly deletionist to the point that it is now largely deletionist.
Also, the "free" part of its motto "the free encyclopedia" also means open-source, so anything with a hint of not being GDFL approved is deleted with prejudice. "Fair use" at some point became "fair game", nevermind that I (and others) spent time sourcing fair use images only to have them all deleted.