Sounds kinda like where Hotmail is going, too. Remember how they've been promising to remove the ability to access Hotmail accounts via Outlook and Outlook Express, unless you're a paying customer?
I know people are going to probably think of this as a joke, but isn't this a perfect way for today's crop of FPS junkies to apply their skills? Assuming the robot can respond quickly to instructions, this could play out like a real-life "Counter-Strike" or, to a much lesser degree, "Quake" or "Half-Life".
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to lend itself to close-quarters urban combat, which is what we're seeing more of in Iraq these days. I can't see a soldier deploying one of the Packbots in the field, then sitting down with a laptop to control it while exposing themselves to fire from any number of directions.
This could have a drastic effect on the security and well-being of our citizens if caffeine is ever reclassified as a Schedule 1 drug. The last type of person I ever want to meet is a strung-out, hallucinating coffee junkie jonesing for his next fix.
>>I don't think people need software to detect these malicious applications; >>when their home pages get set to http://www.pornomonkeysonmeth.com >>
and their 3.2 Ghz processor is pegged at 100% trying to open up Notepad, >>I think they're already well aware that malcious applcations are >>present on their system.
>You've not done tech support, have you?
Sure I have! I actually fielded the issue I mentioned in my original post -- you can read moreabout ithere.
Gates said Microsoft will offer software to detect malicious applications and that the company will keep it up-to-date on an ongoing basis.
I don't think people need software to detect these malicious applications; when their home pages get set to http://www.pornomonkeysonmeth.com and their 3.2 Ghz processor is pegged at 100% trying to open up Notepad, I think they're already well aware that malcious applcations are present on their system.
CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software.
Microsoft has also gone public with their newest strategy: develop software that will prevent maltware from being installed in the first place, instead of merely detecting its presence. They have codenamed this software "Linux", and it will be offered free of charge to all existing customers.
I wonder what kind of fps these things will get running Doom 3 will all the goodies turned on. Our would it require 12 or 96 Radeon x800 Platinum Edition video cards for that?
My Samsung SPH-A460 cell phone only shows the time when it can get a cellular signal. There's also a host of additional phone book software design flaws that make it less useful than my previous, archaic green-and-black phone. Here's to hoping this makes it easier for developers to easily integrate essential functionality into their products.
I had LASEK done on July 9, 2004, at the NYC office of Diamond Vision. I've been considering getting laser surgery done since 1999; I've had glasses since I was 8 years old, and at that point I was making a fair bit of cash, so I started thinking about it. I had a few practical reasons for wanting the surgery, none of them to do with how I looked wearing glasses. My glasses were always expensive, since I bought nice frames and got the thin-glass "option"; I wear them pretty rigidly on my face, so they left a mark on the bridge of my nose; and glasses always got in the way of my sport-type activities (scuba, snowboarding), since I needed to buy custom or oversized gear to preserve my vision.
Anyway, I first heard about LASIK back in 1999, when I was living in Colorado and the procedure was still fairly new. At that point, it was practically a first-generation technology -- the VisX Star S2 was a big step in making LASIK less risky -- but I was still interested in it. Anyway, I got my eyes screened for free at a clinic there, and I was told I was an excellent middle-of-the-road candidate. To corroborate that assessment, I got my eyes screened at a second clinic, and they said the same thing: low astigmatism, stabilized vision, crappy eyes but still an excellent candidate for post-op improvement to 20/40 or 20/20. However, it was very expensive (the clinics quoted me $4000 - $5000 for both eyes, excluding post-op meds), so I held off.
Jump ahead to July 2004: I'm paying down my school bills quickly, my credit cards are paid off / current, and my girlfriend just started a new job, so blowing cash on a vacation somewhere isn't an option for a few months. Like you, I had some extra cash burning a hole in my pocket, and I hadn't forgotten about LASIK, so I decided to look into it again. My first round of research was a mixed bag: the doctors with the most experience (5000+ operations under their belt) charged a lot ($4000 - $5500), but the technology had improved a lot since 1999. VisX has received FDA approval of its 3rd generation LASIK laser, the VisX Star 4, as well as a complementary screening procedure called CustomVue, VisX's branded take on a more generic procedure known as Custom LASIK. Taken together, the LASIK procedure is more highly customized to your own eye's specifications, so the post-op risks (halos, night glare, starbursts, over/undercorrection) are reduced by an order of magnitude. Whereas in previous years, doctors could only measure to within 0.25 increments, the new tech allows them to do it in 0.01 increments. Good stuff.
Anyway, I decided to pull the trigger after a friend-of-a-friend told me he had it done at a place in NYC, by a doctor (Dr. Kornstein) with over 15,000 procedures under his belt, AND the procedure was covered by my vision insurance plan, TruVision, AND the price was far more affordable than I had found previously. The entire procedure cost me ~$2650: ~$2500 for the LASIK (for both eyes!), ~$100 in post-op medication, and ~$50 in cab fare between my apartment and the doctor's office for the surgery and first two post-op checkups. Here's the breakdown of what happened:
1) Two weeks before my surgery, I was given a free screening of my eyes. Nothing major was done, other than dilating my eyes, so driving wouldn't have been recommended afterwards (if I used a car in NYC, that is). After finding out I'm a good candidate for laser surgery, I decide to set up my appointment for July 9 @ 4:30pm. I'm told to schedule a pre-op exam for the week preceding the operation, and two post-op exams:
Thuggin: Spending money like an idiot, drinking to an excess, being only turned on by bimbos with no brains, beating eachother senseless with tire irons or whatever, shooting people you hate, getting shot at by people who hate you, eating only at drive thru, drinking alize and crystal, attending strip clubs like they were the new church, membership at the The Player'S Club, Gucci, bling-bling, busta move on da dance flo, Po Po, bein' Po cuz ya spendt it awl (not the same as Po Po), scrappin, etc.
Sounds more like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas than anything else. All for ~$50, once it's released....... and when it comes down to it, I'd rather play the (video) game than pose in the lifestyle.
The United Nations is aiming to bring a "modern day epidemic" of junk e-mail under control within the next two years by standardizing legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers
Because we all know that legislation will solve the problem of junk mail. Hell, we can barely discern how the spam networks function right now -- and regardless of what the UN legislates, it's not going to solve the inherent flaws in the way email is relayed now.
Anyways, let BenQ take the brunt of a new tech. If I'd want a 16x dvd+-rw drive so badly, I'd wait for very good quality ( Plextor ) or a good medium between quality and price. ( NEC )
Lite-On has actually surprised me with the quality of the products they offer, particularly because their products tend to be so much cheaper than market leaders like Plextor.
Just wait until the dual-core AMD and Intel CPUs start hitting the market in force in 2005 / 2006. You'll be able to dedicate one core CPU to UT24k and one to DVD burning without having to suffer any gaming downtime. Of course, just think of what you could do if you dedicate BOTH cores to gaming.......;)
Windows 2000 is the OS I currently run, and I love it to no end. I've seen a few blue screens, but that was also before I started using a router and installing software countermeasures (Ad Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Spy Sweeper, Pop-Up Stopper, Macafee ViruScan, SpamNet). After those different layers of security were installed on top of a clean Windows 2000 install, I haven't encountered any major problems.
Before Windows 2000 came along, Windows 95 was the last incarnation of Windows I believed to be relatively stable. While Windows 98 offers excellent hardware and driver detection, it seems that within 12 months of serious use it always needs to be reformatted to get it back into working order. I'm not tech-savvy enough to know exactly why this is, but it's held true on a lot of machines I've come across -- boxes I haven't ever touched, but that have been in use for ~1 year and seem to be lagging.
Windows XP might be an improvement on an already good thing. That being said, my current Windows 2000-sized shoes fit, so I'm gonna continue wearing them.
For me, it isn't even about whether I dislike the music enough to turn me off from copying. I've been turned off from music in general by the artificially-high monopolist prices and the RIAA's efforts to curtail my use of the product I paid for. In fact, I don't even bother scouring the p2p or IRC networks anymore; there's plenty of other forms of entertainment that's worth the time and expense to invest in (consoles, PC upgrades, movies, going out to dinner, etc).
But I also hear you about not being able to afford the music. Regardless of what George W. Bush is trying to tell you in the hopes of getting re-elected, we're still in a recession. And you're not alone if you can't afford to spend $15 on a CD, when there are plenty of other things to spend your money on, be they bills, loans, or other forms of entertainment besides music. My guess is that if the price of music came down to a more reasonable level, and the quality remained as high as it is today, you would see more people willing to buy music, which would probably increase overall revenue. But until the RIAA buys into that idea, nothing will change.
Seeing as how I haven't purchased more than a handful of albums in the past two years, I think they can count all of their efforts to prevent me from copying their music as a resounding success.
And most definitely do not forget SQL Server 2000 user-defined functions, which allows you to call stored procedures as inline functions in database queries. You really don't need those!
Release Date: November 5, 2004 Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Director: Brad Bird Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Sarah Vowell, Brad Bird
Genre: Action, Animation, Adventure, Comedy MPAA Rating: Not available Official Website:TheIncredibles.com
Plot Summary: From the Academy Award-winning creators of "Toy Story", "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo", comes this hilarious action-packed animated adventure about superheroes. Bob Parr used to be one of the world's greatest superheroes (known to all as "Mr. Incredible"), saving lives and fighting evil on a daily basis. But now fifteen years later, Bob and his wife (a famous superhero in her own right) have adopted civilian identities and retreated to the suburbs to live normal lives with their three kids. Now he's a clock-punching insurance claims adjuster fighting boredom and a bulging waistline. Itching to get back into action, Bob gets his chance when a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top-secret assignment. Pixar Animation Studios stretches the boundaries of the art form with this stylish and entertaining film. Acclaimed filmmaker Brad Bird ("The Iron Giant") directs.
For that price I'd rather go and buy the album and rip it myself.
Have you ever considered that maybe that's the RIAA's strategy? Think about it: by hiking the price of individual songs, they'll make more money off of the same product consumers were buying before. And in raising the per-song price, users will consider the retail-priced CDs to be a bargain, when multiplying the average cost of buying a single song by the number of tracks on the album.
I hardly feel sorry for people who decide who are bitching and moaning about the price increase, though. The RIAA is still gouging consumers and screwing the artists it purports to represent; the only difference is that Apple is doing their dirty work for them, under the guise of a groundbreaking distribution channel. And despite all this, consumers still keep coming back for more. As a wise man once said: "A fool on their money are soon parted".
For example, I've forgotten that I need to be bothered with buying overpriced CDs for the past 8 years. Instead, I've been spending my cash on video games, DVDs, live entertainment and socializing with my friends.
And sometimes I also forget that I don't need to buy a CD in order to determine whether I like the music. P2P has been gracious enough to keep reminding me of this whenever I feel the urge to go to the nearest Virgin Megastore..........
Slashdot Mirror
So when are they releasing the source code?
The same time they release the source code to Netscape.
>>Quite an amazing piece of gear; if you ever get the chance to get up close to one, take it.
>take it? and where the heck am I gonna go with a big noisy windmill sticking out of my pocket?
What pants size do you wear, and where did you buy them?
Sounds kinda like where Hotmail is going, too. Remember how they've been promising to remove the ability to access Hotmail accounts via Outlook and Outlook Express, unless you're a paying customer?
I know people are going to probably think of this as a joke, but isn't this a perfect way for today's crop of FPS junkies to apply their skills? Assuming the robot can respond quickly to instructions, this could play out like a real-life "Counter-Strike" or, to a much lesser degree, "Quake" or "Half-Life".
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to lend itself to close-quarters urban combat, which is what we're seeing more of in Iraq these days. I can't see a soldier deploying one of the Packbots in the field, then sitting down with a laptop to control it while exposing themselves to fire from any number of directions.
Thermite.
This could have a drastic effect on the security and well-being of our citizens if caffeine is ever reclassified as a Schedule 1 drug. The last type of person I ever want to meet is a strung-out, hallucinating coffee junkie jonesing for his next fix.
>>I don't think people need software to detect these malicious applications;
>>when their home pages get set to http://www.pornomonkeysonmeth.com
>> and their 3.2 Ghz processor is pegged at 100% trying to open up Notepad,
>>I think they're already well aware that malcious applcations are
>>present on their system.
>You've not done tech support, have you?
Sure I have! I actually fielded the issue I mentioned in my original post -- you can read more about it here.
Gates said Microsoft will offer software to detect malicious applications and that the company will keep it up-to-date on an ongoing basis.
I don't think people need software to detect these malicious applications; when their home pages get set to http://www.pornomonkeysonmeth.com and their 3.2 Ghz processor is pegged at 100% trying to open up Notepad, I think they're already well aware that malcious applcations are present on their system.
CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software.
Microsoft has also gone public with their newest strategy: develop software that will prevent maltware from being installed in the first place, instead of merely detecting its presence. They have codenamed this software "Linux", and it will be offered free of charge to all existing customers.
Who'll be buying CDs... by the time LongHorn comes out...???
Who buys CDs now? The last one I bought was Radiohead's "Hail To The Thief", and that was for my girlfriend.
I wonder what kind of fps these things will get running Doom 3 will all the goodies turned on. Our would it require 12 or 96 Radeon x800 Platinum Edition video cards for that?
My Samsung SPH-A460 cell phone only shows the time when it can get a cellular signal. There's also a host of additional phone book software design flaws that make it less useful than my previous, archaic green-and-black phone. Here's to hoping this makes it easier for developers to easily integrate essential functionality into their products.
I had LASEK done on July 9, 2004, at the NYC office of Diamond Vision. I've been considering getting laser surgery done since 1999; I've had glasses since I was 8 years old, and at that point I was making a fair bit of cash, so I started thinking about it. I had a few practical reasons for wanting the surgery, none of them to do with how I looked wearing glasses. My glasses were always expensive, since I bought nice frames and got the thin-glass "option"; I wear them pretty rigidly on my face, so they left a mark on the bridge of my nose; and glasses always got in the way of my sport-type activities (scuba, snowboarding), since I needed to buy custom or oversized gear to preserve my vision.
Anyway, I first heard about LASIK back in 1999, when I was living in Colorado and the procedure was still fairly new. At that point, it was practically a first-generation technology -- the VisX Star S2 was a big step in making LASIK less risky -- but I was still interested in it. Anyway, I got my eyes screened for free at a clinic there, and I was told I was an excellent middle-of-the-road candidate. To corroborate that assessment, I got my eyes screened at a second clinic, and they said the same thing: low astigmatism, stabilized vision, crappy eyes but still an excellent candidate for post-op improvement to 20/40 or 20/20. However, it was very expensive (the clinics quoted me $4000 - $5000 for both eyes, excluding post-op meds), so I held off.
Jump ahead to July 2004: I'm paying down my school bills quickly, my credit cards are paid off / current, and my girlfriend just started a new job, so blowing cash on a vacation somewhere isn't an option for a few months. Like you, I had some extra cash burning a hole in my pocket, and I hadn't forgotten about LASIK, so I decided to look into it again. My first round of research was a mixed bag: the doctors with the most experience (5000+ operations under their belt) charged a lot ($4000 - $5500), but the technology had improved a lot since 1999. VisX has received FDA approval of its 3rd generation LASIK laser, the VisX Star 4, as well as a complementary screening procedure called CustomVue, VisX's branded take on a more generic procedure known as Custom LASIK. Taken together, the LASIK procedure is more highly customized to your own eye's specifications, so the post-op risks (halos, night glare, starbursts, over/undercorrection) are reduced by an order of magnitude. Whereas in previous years, doctors could only measure to within 0.25 increments, the new tech allows them to do it in 0.01 increments. Good stuff.
Anyway, I decided to pull the trigger after a friend-of-a-friend told me he had it done at a place in NYC, by a doctor (Dr. Kornstein) with over 15,000 procedures under his belt, AND the procedure was covered by my vision insurance plan, TruVision, AND the price was far more affordable than I had found previously. The entire procedure cost me ~$2650: ~$2500 for the LASIK (for both eyes!), ~$100 in post-op medication, and ~$50 in cab fare between my apartment and the doctor's office for the surgery and first two post-op checkups. Here's the breakdown of what happened:
1) Two weeks before my surgery, I was given a free screening of my eyes. Nothing major was done, other than dilating my eyes, so driving wouldn't have been recommended afterwards (if I used a car in NYC, that is). After finding out I'm a good candidate for laser surgery, I decide to set up my appointment for July 9 @ 4:30pm. I'm told to schedule a pre-op exam for the week preceding the operation, and two post-op exams:
>> >> You insufferable ass -- you just slashdotted Illinois.
>> Yeah, like anyone will care? Or even notice? *psssh*
What is an "Illinois"?
Thuggin: Spending money like an idiot, drinking to an excess, being only turned on by bimbos with no brains, beating eachother senseless with tire irons or whatever, shooting people you hate, getting shot at by people who hate you, eating only at drive thru, drinking alize and crystal, attending strip clubs like they were the new church, membership at the The Player'S Club, Gucci, bling-bling, busta move on da dance flo, Po Po, bein' Po cuz ya spendt it awl (not the same as Po Po), scrappin, etc.
Sounds more like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas than anything else. All for ~$50, once it's released....... and when it comes down to it, I'd rather play the (video) game than pose in the lifestyle.
The United Nations is aiming to bring a "modern day epidemic" of junk e-mail under control within the next two years by standardizing legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers
Because we all know that legislation will solve the problem of junk mail. Hell, we can barely discern how the spam networks function right now -- and regardless of what the UN legislates, it's not going to solve the inherent flaws in the way email is relayed now.
Anyways, let BenQ take the brunt of a new tech. If I'd want a 16x dvd+-rw drive so badly, I'd wait for very good quality ( Plextor ) or a good medium between quality and price. ( NEC )
Lite-On has actually surprised me with the quality of the products they offer, particularly because their products tend to be so much cheaper than market leaders like Plextor.
Just wait until the dual-core AMD and Intel CPUs start hitting the market in force in 2005 / 2006. You'll be able to dedicate one core CPU to UT24k and one to DVD burning without having to suffer any gaming downtime. Of course, just think of what you could do if you dedicate BOTH cores to gaming....... ;)
Windows 2000 is the OS I currently run, and I love it to no end. I've seen a few blue screens, but that was also before I started using a router and installing software countermeasures (Ad Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Spy Sweeper, Pop-Up Stopper, Macafee ViruScan, SpamNet). After those different layers of security were installed on top of a clean Windows 2000 install, I haven't encountered any major problems.
Before Windows 2000 came along, Windows 95 was the last incarnation of Windows I believed to be relatively stable. While Windows 98 offers excellent hardware and driver detection, it seems that within 12 months of serious use it always needs to be reformatted to get it back into working order. I'm not tech-savvy enough to know exactly why this is, but it's held true on a lot of machines I've come across -- boxes I haven't ever touched, but that have been in use for ~1 year and seem to be lagging.
Windows XP might be an improvement on an already good thing. That being said, my current Windows 2000-sized shoes fit, so I'm gonna continue wearing them.
For me, it isn't even about whether I dislike the music enough to turn me off from copying. I've been turned off from music in general by the artificially-high monopolist prices and the RIAA's efforts to curtail my use of the product I paid for. In fact, I don't even bother scouring the p2p or IRC networks anymore; there's plenty of other forms of entertainment that's worth the time and expense to invest in (consoles, PC upgrades, movies, going out to dinner, etc).
But I also hear you about not being able to afford the music. Regardless of what George W. Bush is trying to tell you in the hopes of getting re-elected, we're still in a recession. And you're not alone if you can't afford to spend $15 on a CD, when there are plenty of other things to spend your money on, be they bills, loans, or other forms of entertainment besides music. My guess is that if the price of music came down to a more reasonable level, and the quality remained as high as it is today, you would see more people willing to buy music, which would probably increase overall revenue. But until the RIAA buys into that idea, nothing will change.
Seeing as how I haven't purchased more than a handful of albums in the past two years, I think they can count all of their efforts to prevent me from copying their music as a resounding success.
And most definitely do not forget SQL Server 2000 user-defined functions, which allows you to call stored procedures as inline functions in database queries. You really don't need those!
The Incredibles
Release Date: November 5, 2004
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Director: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Sarah Vowell, Brad Bird
Genre: Action, Animation, Adventure, Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not available
Official Website: TheIncredibles.com
Plot Summary: From the Academy Award-winning creators of "Toy Story", "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo", comes this hilarious action-packed animated adventure about superheroes. Bob Parr used to be one of the world's greatest superheroes (known to all as "Mr. Incredible"), saving lives and fighting evil on a daily basis. But now fifteen years later, Bob and his wife (a famous superhero in her own right) have adopted civilian identities and retreated to the suburbs to live normal lives with their three kids. Now he's a clock-punching insurance claims adjuster fighting boredom and a bulging waistline. Itching to get back into action, Bob gets his chance when a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top-secret assignment. Pixar Animation Studios stretches the boundaries of the art form with this stylish and entertaining film. Acclaimed filmmaker Brad Bird ("The Iron Giant") directs.
He should start now on that graphics card that longhorn will need.
One triple-core GPU with a billion transistors, comin' right up! Now you can view your Windows desktop in 256-bit color!
as high as $16.99.
For that price I'd rather go and buy the album and rip it myself.
Have you ever considered that maybe that's the RIAA's strategy? Think about it: by hiking the price of individual songs, they'll make more money off of the same product consumers were buying before. And in raising the per-song price, users will consider the retail-priced CDs to be a bargain, when multiplying the average cost of buying a single song by the number of tracks on the album.
I hardly feel sorry for people who decide who are bitching and moaning about the price increase, though. The RIAA is still gouging consumers and screwing the artists it purports to represent; the only difference is that Apple is doing their dirty work for them, under the guise of a groundbreaking distribution channel. And despite all this, consumers still keep coming back for more. As a wise man once said: "A fool on their money are soon parted".
For example, I've forgotten that I need to be bothered with buying overpriced CDs for the past 8 years. Instead, I've been spending my cash on video games, DVDs, live entertainment and socializing with my friends.
And sometimes I also forget that I don't need to buy a CD in order to determine whether I like the music. P2P has been gracious enough to keep reminding me of this whenever I feel the urge to go to the nearest Virgin Megastore..........