If I buy gold, just how, exactly, does that affect you?
The big one is inflation. There are very few ways to take money out of the WoW economy, and gold-farmers artifically increase the supply of it. Essentially, this means that a normal player, playing for a reasonable amount of time, can no longer buy things on the auction house that they ought to be able to afford.
It also distorts the value between vendor sold goods (fixed price), and monster-dropped goods (sold by other players, with a constantly increasing price).
Another big problem is the gold-farmers actually take over certain areas, where monsters have expensive drops. Then, if you actually need that drop for a quest, you have to stand around waiting for a monster spawn, and literally race another character to get the kill.
The point is, cheating in an MMORPG is not like cheating in a stand-alone game. Decisions of a single character affect the economy and world of everyone in the game. Farming makes the game harder and less fun for legitimate players.
In all seriousness, how many good reasons could there be for a US citizen to have an account in a tax haven?
The article says they are looking for information on any customer who had money sent to over 30 countries. You don't think any American paypal user has legitimate ties to one of 30 countries? Someone can be sending money to family or friends, or be planning on buying a vacation home in one of these places, or otherwise be doing business with people in one of those _30+_ countries.
This probe worries me, because it just isn't well targetted. Nobody would have a problem if the IRS had a warrant for information about a specific person. However, they don't even have suspects!
Unless you bundle it with some kind of computer giveaway or those fabled $100 laptops, it's not going to be the 'great internet equalizer' or lead to any kind of social equity...
It's not hard to buy a $100 computer. It's not going to be particular new or (in my opinion) particularly useable, but you can get one.
Just check craigslist or your local flea market or swap meet. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if computer donation charities get a growth spurt because of this wifi program. Check out some links like these for information on donating your own old machines:
Because if no one buys the first generation, there isn't any second or third generation to buy...
Well, no, not exactly. If no one buys bug-prone and defective first generations, companies will realize that they really need to pay for their own beta testing. Then, first generation hardware will become useable and buyable again.
Cinnamon (an apple fangirl, who is still going to buy a 12" Macbook pro when they come out.)
Umeno and his colleagues suggest using an agreed quasar radio signal to add randomness to a stream cipher - a method of encrypting information at high speed.
Each communicating party would only need to know which quasar to monitor and when to start in order to encrypt and decrypt a message. Without knowing the target quasar and time an eavesdropper should be unable to decrypt the message.
Both parties having access to same source of randomness is exactly what they're talking about here. Essentially this means that the radio signal choice is their shared private key.
Ok, this seems pretty easily brute forceable. How big can the key space of all possible radio signals be?
May I ask where the hell you are that still has more analog than digital?
I have problematic reception in DC, suburban Maryland, and South Texas. Verizon is famed for having the best network, but my guess is it's only the best when you have a phone that supports both analog and digital.
It ain't about stopping ``piracy.'' Not even in the slightest.
Weeelll, it is about stopping piracy. It's just not about stopping professional bootlegging and piracy. It's about stopping casual end-user piracy.
They want to make it hard to give a copy of content to a friend. It's not that they care about the actual copy made that way, but they think that this way they can change the morals of consumers. If they make it hard to casually copy something, and say loudly how illegal and terrible it is to want to, maybe people will buy instead of downloading.
I had a phone that was capable of analog on verizon... it sucked the battery dry ~5x faster than digital, even while not making calls....
Sure, but I bet you actually had signal? I have been a happy Verizon customer for several years, as I had better signal than any of my friends. Then, I switched to a Treo, which only does digital.
Boom, low to no signal, almost anywhere I cared about. I love the phone, but analog is just further deployed.
1) How can a single voting machine even cost $40K? I want to see the parts breakdown on *that*.
It's not a single voting machine -- they're are talking about flying out several technician to reexamine all the voting machines for the entire county.
I'm also highly skeptical that the price will actually be that high. According to the article:
Diebold's $40,000 estimate is exaggerated to frighten other clerks from questioning the machines' integrity, Funk said. "What they are really saying is, 'We don't want anyone else to think of doing this.' "....
"We've decided we are going have Diebold come and go through these machines and see if they are compromised," he said, adding the company may be able to work with them on reducing the cost.
A.) Are you talking about installation or finding files? They're two different operations, but both are pretty trivial on OSX. For installation, download a.dmg, and double-click on it. If it's a standalone.app, you might need to drag it to go where you want, presumably the application folder. But then, it will work anywhere you want it to, because Apple apps are all packaged to be self-sufficient.
To find files, just type a word into spotlight. It has automatically indexed your hard drive, and will search for any word in real time, changing the displayed search results as you type. What can be more intuitive?
B.) I don't know the exact details of your system, of course, but a very fast Intel Imac (1.83 Intel Core Duo) will run you $1300. You'll probably want to stick some extra RAM in there for between $200 and $300, depending on where you shop. It's more expensive than building your own to be sure, but its not $3000.
C.) Ummm... good? I think you're trying to say that the fabled Mac security is illusory, and due purely towards their low market share. It might be true. We won't know for a while, and I certainly don't believe my Mac is invulnerable. But I do believe the Unix foundation and solid Apple engineering leaves less gaping holes than Windows has.
Cinnamon
Re:Things that make you go hmmm...
on
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The difference is that storage is cheap, but bandwidth is expensive.
If you store 1 GB of mail, you will probably only access each individual message 5 times, ever. If you put up 1 GB of data on the web, you want it to be downloaded by as many people as possible, every day for the live of the page.
Even in the most linear stories, traditional media has to work very hard to make a reader/watcher feel the tension of the main character's choices. We are desensitzed to the classic hero position -- "Choose right or die." It takes an extremely talented writer to really make you worry.
But even in the most unoriginal and linear games, you are in the hot seat and you can *die* if you choose wrong. This is especially try of nethack/moria roguelikes, where death doesn't just mean load up the last save point.
It immerses you in a story. Games have emotional power -- I hope to see more developers use them to tell a story and not just see pretty pictures.
Cinnamon
Slashdot Mirror
If I buy gold, just how, exactly, does that affect you?
The big one is inflation. There are very few ways to take money out of the WoW economy, and gold-farmers artifically increase the supply of it. Essentially, this means that a normal player, playing for a reasonable amount of time, can no longer buy things on the auction house that they ought to be able to afford.
It also distorts the value between vendor sold goods (fixed price), and monster-dropped goods (sold by other players, with a constantly increasing price).
Another big problem is the gold-farmers actually take over certain areas, where monsters have expensive drops. Then, if you actually need that drop for a quest, you have to stand around waiting for a monster spawn, and literally race another character to get the kill.
The point is, cheating in an MMORPG is not like cheating in a stand-alone game. Decisions of a single character affect the economy and world of everyone in the game. Farming makes the game harder and less fun for legitimate players.
Why Pennsylvania? Do you associate intercourse with brotherly love?
Intercourse, PA. Right next to Paradise, PA. These are real towns in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercourse,_PA
Hmm, now that I read your message again, you might know that. Well, maybe somebody else needs the information.
In all seriousness, how many good reasons could there be for a US citizen to have an account in a tax haven?
The article says they are looking for information on any customer who had money sent to over 30 countries. You don't think any American paypal user has legitimate ties to one of 30 countries? Someone can be sending money to family or friends, or be planning on buying a vacation home in one of these places, or otherwise be doing business with people in one of those _30+_ countries.
This probe worries me, because it just isn't well targetted. Nobody would have a problem if the IRS had a warrant for information about a specific person. However, they don't even have suspects!
For those not in the know, IHTFP actually stands for "I Hate This F* Place"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHTFP
-Cinnamon
Unless you bundle it with some kind of computer giveaway or those fabled $100 laptops, it's not going to be the 'great internet equalizer' or lead to any kind of social equity...
o r_Learning_pro.html
It's not hard to buy a $100 computer. It's not going to be particular new or (in my opinion) particularly useable, but you can get one.
Just check craigslist or your local flea market or swap meet. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if computer donation charities get a growth spurt
because of this wifi program. Check out some links like these for information on donating your own old machines:
http://www.crc.org/
http://www.techsoup.org/recycle/donate
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/Computers_f
-Cinnamon
Because if no one buys the first generation, there isn't any second or third generation to buy...
Well, no, not exactly. If no one buys bug-prone and defective first generations, companies will realize that they really need to pay for their own beta testing. Then, first generation hardware will become useable and buyable again.
Cinnamon (an apple fangirl, who is still going to buy a 12" Macbook pro when they come out.)
From the article:
Umeno and his colleagues suggest using an agreed quasar radio signal to add randomness to a stream cipher - a method of encrypting information at high speed.
Each communicating party would only need to know which quasar to monitor and when to start in order to encrypt and decrypt a message. Without knowing the target quasar and time an eavesdropper should be unable to decrypt the message.
Both parties having access to same source of randomness is exactly what they're talking about here. Essentially this means that the radio signal choice is their shared private key.
Ok, this seems pretty easily brute forceable. How big can the key space of all possible radio signals be?
Cinnamon
May I ask where the hell you are that still has more analog than digital?
I have problematic reception in DC, suburban Maryland, and South Texas. Verizon is famed for having the best network, but my guess is it's only the best when you have a phone that supports both analog and digital.
Cinnamon
It ain't about stopping ``piracy.'' Not even in the slightest.
Weeelll, it is about stopping piracy. It's just not about stopping professional bootlegging and piracy. It's about stopping casual end-user piracy.
They want to make it hard to give a copy of content to a friend. It's not that they care about the actual copy made that way, but they think that this way they can change the morals of consumers. If they make it hard to casually copy something, and say loudly how illegal and terrible it is to want to, maybe people will buy instead of downloading.
Cinnamon
I had a phone that was capable of analog on verizon... it sucked the battery dry ~5x faster than digital, even while not making calls....
Sure, but I bet you actually had signal? I have been a happy Verizon customer for several years, as I had better signal than any of my friends. Then, I switched to a Treo, which only does digital.
Boom, low to no signal, almost anywhere I cared about. I love the phone, but analog is just further deployed.
Cinnamon
It's not a single voting machine -- they're are talking about flying out several technician to reexamine all the voting machines for the entire county.
I'm also highly skeptical that the price will actually be that high. According to the article:
Cinnamon
A.) Are you talking about installation or finding files? They're two different operations, but both are pretty trivial on OSX. For installation, download a .dmg, and double-click on it. If it's a standalone .app, you might need to drag it to go where you want, presumably the application folder. But then, it will work anywhere you want it to, because Apple apps are all packaged to be self-sufficient.
To find files, just type a word into spotlight. It has automatically indexed your hard drive, and will search for any word in real time, changing the displayed search results as you type. What can be more intuitive?
B.) I don't know the exact details of your system, of course, but a very fast Intel Imac (1.83 Intel Core Duo) will run you $1300. You'll probably want to stick some extra RAM in there for between $200 and $300, depending on where you shop. It's more expensive than building your own to be sure, but its not $3000.
C.) Ummm... good? I think you're trying to say that the fabled Mac security is illusory, and due purely towards their low market share. It might be true. We won't know for a while, and I certainly don't believe my Mac is invulnerable. But I do believe the Unix foundation and solid Apple engineering leaves less gaping holes than Windows has.
Cinnamon
The difference is that storage is cheap, but bandwidth is expensive.
If you store 1 GB of mail, you will probably only access each individual message 5 times, ever. If you put up 1 GB of data on the web, you want it to be downloaded by as many people as possible, every day for the live of the page.
Cinnamon
Even in the most linear stories, traditional media has to work very hard to make a reader/watcher feel the tension of the main character's choices. We are desensitzed to the classic hero position -- "Choose right or die." It takes an extremely talented writer to really make you worry. But even in the most unoriginal and linear games, you are in the hot seat and you can *die* if you choose wrong. This is especially try of nethack/moria roguelikes, where death doesn't just mean load up the last save point. It immerses you in a story. Games have emotional power -- I hope to see more developers use them to tell a story and not just see pretty pictures. Cinnamon