You assume that an admin knows everything, and has infinite time on his hands.
I assume that someone being paid to look after a network at least has the sense to FIREWALL the damn thing. I could go months without patching my XP box and not be concerned about 'net nasties.
Read Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's a kick-ass book about what might happen if we saw a comet coming right for us, and what might happen if a big chunk of it actually hit us. Read it, it's cool.
What offends me is that I get the performance I currently get from my 2.5GHz machine running XP, and the implication that to run Longhorn in a similiarly comfortable fashion I'm going to need *another* 2-4GHz of power?!?! Just to run my OS? Bullshit, not going to happen on any of my machines. When I eventually have hardware that won't run on 98se or XP, I will abandon Windows entirely and just go hardcore Linux. Hopefully it will be usable by then.
So, even though these are the specs for the "average" computer, it's possible to have it today. And bottom line, if it can be done today, then there is no reason to think it wouldn't be average in 2.5-3.0 years.
But to me, 'average' computer specs implies that I can have all of this for $2000 or less, including a decent monitor. When that happens for these specs I'll stop laughing. Oh it's inevitable sure, but for now it's rediculous.
The people who take you on the tours are so eager for your business (at least nowdays) that they show you just about everything.
Or even to familiarize a new employee with parts of the place they have no need to know about. When I started my job at the cable ISP I work at, I was shown pretty much everything. But I work in the field, on the customer's side of the cable modem.. I had no real reason to be in the big room with racks and racks of servers and billions of bits of traffic flowing all around. I mean, it was real cool and I was excited to be in there, but it had no actual bearing on my job. I could have been anybody with foul intentions, it was fairly easy to get the job..
These second tier victims aren't necessarily weak and gullible - nor are they all on the internet. They were often approached by someone they knew and trusted. These cases, if none other, are a reason for us to be vigilant, and do what we can to put the frighteners on people that would purvey such scams.
ObObi-Wan: Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
For a song to become a super mp3, tracking P2P users and multi channel sound.... wouldn't this be naturally much bigger than 5MB? If so wouldn't it be easy for the P2P user to just recognize that and avoid downloading it right away.
A significant increase in size would mean there was actually information to fill those extra tracks, wouldn't it? P2P info would be really small compared to the audio data. If I take a normal stereo song and put it in this 4 channel format, what would go in those other two tracks? And while you and I probably do look at the file size most of the time, I can assure you that quite a lot of people don't. I don't know how many times I've had to point out to people that they should be looking at the bitrate, or the size, to figure out whether they are going to get a good quality version. Most people respond with a blank look when the subject of compression comes up. Tell them to look for a song that's about 1 meg per minute as a baseline of quality, and they will ask, 'What's a meg? I know that word from somewhere, I have 125 of them I think.'
Try it on at least 2 of your own systems to get 'less-mixed' results. No slight to your parents, but whenever I hear of someone going over to their parents' house to attempt to install or upgrade something, I generally expect to hear later that there was some pre-existing major damage that prevented things from going smoothly. Whereas on your own system, which has been lovingly cared for by a geek, your result is not surprising.
It is now 2004. This is a operating system from 1998. WTF? In other news, I have finally developed fixes for the 1946 Packard Station wagon's carburator issues. Anyone driving a 1946 Packard on a daily basis can get the kit from me. Details will be given on a headline on/.
You're implying that as time has gone on, that MS operating systems have gotten better somehow, rather than worse. Bigger, bloatier, cruftier, that's about the only direction things have increased. I routinely tell people that Win 98 was the last version of windows that was any good. 2 of my machines still use it, and the only reason my primary machine doesn't use it is because it has 1.5GB of ram in it. So I'm going to give this 'service pack' a try, and finally get my hardware to have the speed that I bought it for.
If you go far enough back, we probably didn't have much privacy at all at one time, in small bands huddling around fires. But it didn't matter because you could pick your nose in front of everybody and they wouldn't care.
The potential for abuse of such a system is very high. To consider one scenario, say your spouse hires a sleazy private detective to check up on you, who has a contact in the Ministry of Privacy (obOrwell), who finds out that you drove your car to Ogdenville about six months ago while you were supposed to be at a conference in Capital City.
I agree there's an abuse potential, but you'll have to do way better than that for an example that will gain my sympathy. It seems the ones that shriek loudest about privacy loss really are trying to pull something, and that's why they care so much about it. This is out in public. Sure, it's an unblinking eye that has a much greater opportunity to observe all passersby, but without cameras you still have no guarantee that Joe Sixpack isn't going to notice you trying to work your hashpipe as you drive down the street and phone in your plate. Or, to cite your example, maybe the philandering husband will get noticed by his wife's cousin who is visiting a friend in Ogdenville one fateful day, no surveillance cameras needed. Bad Hubby took his chances and will pay the piper one way or another. Who cares how he got busted, he was being an idiot to begin with.
What the hell is a "robot psychiatrist", and why should I care?
I have to agree. We are not even close to needing a 'Robot Psychologist' whatever the hell that is. One day perhaps we may need to explore AI psych, but right now this is mental masturbation, pure and simple.
My question is, how do you justify even taking such a title when there is clearly nothing in the world that needs such assistance, and without ANY timeframe on when/if such a need will arise?
My cat is way more intelligent and aware than anything we are even close to building. My cat has practically no rights in our society (laws against animal cruelty are all she has). I don't think we're going to be able to answer questions of Rights and whatnot until artificial minds are much closer to our level. It's going to be a play-it-by-ear type of scenario.
I've watched too much Chobits perhaps, but is it right for a human to fall in love with an artificially intelligent(and emotional) robot? Just a thought of what could happen...
If it's got the body of a Real Doll, then yes, it's perfectly right. Where is mine???
Most kids have cellphones anyway. What about the old-fashioned method of meeting like calling the kid and asking "can we meet at the X building in 15 minutes?" An even older fashion would be to tell your kids "if anything goes wrong, we meet at location X every half an hour" or "Talk to a park official if you get lost, so they can help us finding each other"
You must not have been around many 8 year olds. Cellphone, lost very easily. Meet at location X every half hour? Yeah that's gonna happen. How about taking the parental responsibility of staying with your kids? Those who find that cramps their style should have kept it wrapped.
I think the privacy concern is not about who will be tracking 8-year olds at Legoland, but rather that the device is very small. Small enough, it could be put just about anywhere, like into manufactured items such as bank cards, cellphones (wouldn't need your phone on for it to work), and other things that identify a user.
using a mouse requires movement of the entire upper extremity.
It does? My right arm rests on the armrest of my chair. The base of my palm rests on the edge of my desk (or could rest on a gel pad for those so inclined), so only my fingers and thumb tend to be moving as I mouse about. Wrist movement is very minimal. I hate trackballs because then I am using mostly the thumb instead of spreading out the work. 5 digits working in harmony offer much better control than 1. Any of your fingers including the thumb are moved from way up your arm anyhow, so I don't really see the benefit of avoiding using 'the entire upper extremity' if it comes to that.
Not to pick nits, but shouldn't it have infinite miles per gallon? Zero miles per gallon implies that, no matter how much gas you put in it, it'll never go anywhere.
It has neither. Deny gas, or pour gas all over it to your heart's content and you will not affect the efficiency one iota... Unless someone nearby is smoking, in which case the 'Zero Miles per Gallon' statement would become true.
I really loved that game, I still play it through from time to time, especially after a hardware upgrade.. Sure it was a buggy performance hog, but it would be cool to see a movie of it. With modern hardware you can modify the.ini file to be able to see pretty much the whole world from up on top of Castle British, it's pretty cool.
DIY though?? I don't see that happening for some reason?
I made one for less than $5.00 (fresnel lens, cardboard, duct tape) plus an old composite monitor. It was very dim, needed the room pitch black, but was amazingly cool all the same. $5.00 for a 6-foot wide novelty screen. It was at least worth the effort of assembly (less than an hour, real simple) to see it actually working to a reasonable degree.
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You assume that an admin knows everything, and has infinite time on his hands.
I assume that someone being paid to look after a network at least has the sense to FIREWALL the damn thing. I could go months without patching my XP box and not be concerned about 'net nasties.
Read Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's a kick-ass book about what might happen if we saw a comet coming right for us, and what might happen if a big chunk of it actually hit us. Read it, it's cool.
What offends me is that I get the performance I currently get from my 2.5GHz machine running XP, and the implication that to run Longhorn in a similiarly comfortable fashion I'm going to need *another* 2-4GHz of power?!?! Just to run my OS? Bullshit, not going to happen on any of my machines. When I eventually have hardware that won't run on 98se or XP, I will abandon Windows entirely and just go hardcore Linux. Hopefully it will be usable by then.
So, even though these are the specs for the "average" computer, it's possible to have it today. And bottom line, if it can be done today, then there is no reason to think it wouldn't be average in 2.5-3.0 years.
But to me, 'average' computer specs implies that I can have all of this for $2000 or less, including a decent monitor. When that happens for these specs I'll stop laughing. Oh it's inevitable sure, but for now it's rediculous.
The people who take you on the tours are so eager for your business (at least nowdays) that they show you just about everything.
Or even to familiarize a new employee with parts of the place they have no need to know about. When I started my job at the cable ISP I work at, I was shown pretty much everything. But I work in the field, on the customer's side of the cable modem.. I had no real reason to be in the big room with racks and racks of servers and billions of bits of traffic flowing all around. I mean, it was real cool and I was excited to be in there, but it had no actual bearing on my job. I could have been anybody with foul intentions, it was fairly easy to get the job..
These second tier victims aren't necessarily weak and gullible - nor are they all on the internet. They were often approached by someone they knew and trusted. These cases, if none other, are a reason for us to be vigilant, and do what we can to put the frighteners on people that would purvey such scams.
ObObi-Wan: Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?
For a song to become a super mp3, tracking P2P users and multi channel sound.... wouldn't this be naturally much bigger than 5MB? If so wouldn't it be easy for the P2P user to just recognize that and avoid downloading it right away.
A significant increase in size would mean there was actually information to fill those extra tracks, wouldn't it? P2P info would be really small compared to the audio data. If I take a normal stereo song and put it in this 4 channel format, what would go in those other two tracks? And while you and I probably do look at the file size most of the time, I can assure you that quite a lot of people don't. I don't know how many times I've had to point out to people that they should be looking at the bitrate, or the size, to figure out whether they are going to get a good quality version. Most people respond with a blank look when the subject of compression comes up. Tell them to look for a song that's about 1 meg per minute as a baseline of quality, and they will ask, 'What's a meg? I know that word from somewhere, I have 125 of them I think.'
Try it on at least 2 of your own systems to get 'less-mixed' results. No slight to your parents, but whenever I hear of someone going over to their parents' house to attempt to install or upgrade something, I generally expect to hear later that there was some pre-existing major damage that prevented things from going smoothly. Whereas on your own system, which has been lovingly cared for by a geek, your result is not surprising.
It is now 2004. This is a operating system from 1998. WTF? In other news, I have finally developed fixes for the 1946 Packard Station wagon's carburator issues. Anyone driving a 1946 Packard on a daily basis can get the kit from me. Details will be given on a headline on /.
You're implying that as time has gone on, that MS operating systems have gotten better somehow, rather than worse. Bigger, bloatier, cruftier, that's about the only direction things have increased. I routinely tell people that Win 98 was the last version of windows that was any good. 2 of my machines still use it, and the only reason my primary machine doesn't use it is because it has 1.5GB of ram in it. So I'm going to give this 'service pack' a try, and finally get my hardware to have the speed that I bought it for.
I can tell you personally that gerbilling and snowballing are both enjoyable activities assuming you take the right precautions.
Should I? No, maybe I won't...
Somebody wake me up when they say they've found Numenor.
If you go far enough back, we probably didn't have much privacy at all at one time, in small bands huddling around fires. But it didn't matter because you could pick your nose in front of everybody and they wouldn't care.
The potential for abuse of such a system is very high. To consider one scenario, say your spouse hires a sleazy private detective to check up on you, who has a contact in the Ministry of Privacy (obOrwell), who finds out that you drove your car to Ogdenville about six months ago while you were supposed to be at a conference in Capital City.
I agree there's an abuse potential, but you'll have to do way better than that for an example that will gain my sympathy. It seems the ones that shriek loudest about privacy loss really are trying to pull something, and that's why they care so much about it. This is out in public. Sure, it's an unblinking eye that has a much greater opportunity to observe all passersby, but without cameras you still have no guarantee that Joe Sixpack isn't going to notice you trying to work your hashpipe as you drive down the street and phone in your plate. Or, to cite your example, maybe the philandering husband will get noticed by his wife's cousin who is visiting a friend in Ogdenville one fateful day, no surveillance cameras needed. Bad Hubby took his chances and will pay the piper one way or another. Who cares how he got busted, he was being an idiot to begin with.
Well done! With one single post, I believe this whole conversation is finished. Everyone else just be quiet, this article is done. :)
What the hell is a "robot psychiatrist", and why should I care?
I have to agree. We are not even close to needing a 'Robot Psychologist' whatever the hell that is. One day perhaps we may need to explore AI psych, but right now this is mental masturbation, pure and simple.
My question is, how do you justify even taking such a title when there is clearly nothing in the world that needs such assistance, and without ANY timeframe on when/if such a need will arise?
My cat is way more intelligent and aware than anything we are even close to building. My cat has practically no rights in our society (laws against animal cruelty are all she has). I don't think we're going to be able to answer questions of Rights and whatnot until artificial minds are much closer to our level. It's going to be a play-it-by-ear type of scenario.
I've watched too much Chobits perhaps, but is it right for a human to fall in love with an artificially intelligent(and emotional) robot? Just a thought of what could happen...
If it's got the body of a Real Doll, then yes, it's perfectly right. Where is mine???
I am certain they will ensure that preditors of children will not be able to hijack the system and locate your kids as effectively as you can.
Umm, I think that a fox roaming the henhouse doesn't really care about the location of a *particular* one, they are all around.
Most kids have cellphones anyway. What about the old-fashioned method of meeting like calling the kid and asking "can we meet at the X building in 15 minutes?" An even older fashion would be to tell your kids "if anything goes wrong, we meet at location X every half an hour" or "Talk to a park official if you get lost, so they can help us finding each other"
You must not have been around many 8 year olds. Cellphone, lost very easily. Meet at location X every half hour? Yeah that's gonna happen. How about taking the parental responsibility of staying with your kids? Those who find that cramps their style should have kept it wrapped.
I think the privacy concern is not about who will be tracking 8-year olds at Legoland, but rather that the device is very small. Small enough, it could be put just about anywhere, like into manufactured items such as bank cards, cellphones (wouldn't need your phone on for it to work), and other things that identify a user.
using a mouse requires movement of the entire upper extremity.
It does? My right arm rests on the armrest of my chair. The base of my palm rests on the edge of my desk (or could rest on a gel pad for those so inclined), so only my fingers and thumb tend to be moving as I mouse about. Wrist movement is very minimal. I hate trackballs because then I am using mostly the thumb instead of spreading out the work. 5 digits working in harmony offer much better control than 1. Any of your fingers including the thumb are moved from way up your arm anyhow, so I don't really see the benefit of avoiding using 'the entire upper extremity' if it comes to that.
Is he talking about a hummer?
Possibly.. A hummer in a moving vehicle is often prone to cause great amounts of damage.
Not to pick nits, but shouldn't it have infinite miles per gallon? Zero miles per gallon implies that, no matter how much gas you put in it, it'll never go anywhere.
It has neither. Deny gas, or pour gas all over it to your heart's content and you will not affect the efficiency one iota... Unless someone nearby is smoking, in which case the 'Zero Miles per Gallon' statement would become true.
I really loved that game, I still play it through from time to time, especially after a hardware upgrade.. Sure it was a buggy performance hog, but it would be cool to see a movie of it. With modern hardware you can modify the .ini file to be able to see pretty much the whole world from up on top of Castle British, it's pretty cool.
DIY though?? I don't see that happening for some reason?
I made one for less than $5.00 (fresnel lens, cardboard, duct tape) plus an old composite monitor. It was very dim, needed the room pitch black, but was amazingly cool all the same. $5.00 for a 6-foot wide novelty screen. It was at least worth the effort of assembly (less than an hour, real simple) to see it actually working to a reasonable degree.
I like cool stuff that sucks.