Posts by Pascal Monett 18221 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
Bees do indeed have a quite efficient resource-harvesting method, but Aliens do a better job. Not only do they relentlessly pursue and capture all "resources" in their vicinity, but they go one step further by dragging their captives back to the hive and transforming them into more Aliens !
Not sure what killer app we could devise from that example, but I'm sure we could kill something with it.
Hmm . . how long have I been hearing that ? Gosh, just about ever since AMD existed, if I remember correctly.
And it'll continue for the rest of the century, I guess.
AMD has already been in worse shape, and now it has graphics potential to boost it along as well.
I don't know, but I'm guessing that AMD is going to burst the shell again in a year or two, just like it did with the Athlon range that rattled Intel's cage so much. I think AMD is going to give us a really good CPU with integrated graphics in the coming years, and that CPU is going to give Intel a hard time again.
The only frustrating thing about AMD is the fact that it screws up so regularly. But it has survived dire straights before, and I don't think that its current potential puts it in a worse situation than it was seven years ago.
In any case, I've heard "AMD is gonna die" for decades now. AMD is still here, stronger than before. Still got problems, but still here nonetheless.
First of all, I seem to recall that there is intense argument around the question of whether or not we have a valid test for intelligence, meaning that the IQ tests those jokers used are anything but approved.
Second, based solely on my personal experience and observations, I believe that the more good looks a woman has, the more she is in danger of not having pursued her studies very far (I'm not saying she's stupid, just that she rarely goes for a university degree).
Because we all know that a stunning beauty has no need for academic credentials - there will be no end of wealthy suitors just begging for a chance to take care of her for the rest of their lives. Her only job is to find the one that will last for the long haul, if she has the presence of mind to worry about that kind of detail.
Indeed, I would even go so far as to suggest that the more a woman is ugly, the more she will work her brain and get academic credentials to make up for that lack in the attractiveness department.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some women are too intelligent to satisfy themselves with triggering the drool reflex wherever they go, and some are simply too thick to notice that nobody ever seems to want to stay next to them for more than a bus ride. As said before, intelligence comes in various guises, and so does the lack of it.
But I think that it takes a rather strong character to keep pushing one's grey matter when one's pink matter has a high rate of success.
And I dispute the validity of the IQ tests completely.
Okay, you may stoke the flames when ready.
you really need to brush up on your history. Nero most assuredly did NOT try to SAVE Rome from the conflagration.
Nero wanted a new Rome, wanted to do away with the dirt, filth and grime in the streets of old Rome (not actually a bad idea in itself), and he did what any lazy, insane nutcase would do : he tried reformatting.
And, if you manage to read enough History, you'll even learn that Nero actually took a harp and sang from his balcony while Rome burned.
Go ahead and look it up. I'm sure even Wackypedia has that part right.
So basically you're saying that US companies abroad have to comply with foreign laws, but they obey US laws when at home ? What insight ! In one fell stroke you basically justify Yahoo! China's turning over personal details of dissidents, AND Yahoo! US boldly refusing to let Iranians sign up as Iranians. Wow.
Really, John, we don't need to SEARCH for "another lame-ass excuse to badmouth America and Americans", all we have to do is wait for one to present itself. It's like waiting for the bus, can't be more than an hour.
The reaction of the diplomats is one thing, personally I find it understandable that they demand an explanation at the very least. An international incident may be a bit overboard though.
On the other hand, what on Earth possessed the minds of the journos when they decided to use Bablefish to translate their prose ? Don't they have translators in Israel ? It seems to me that plain old horse sense has been seriously lacking here. If you have an official text to send in a language you do not know, it is obvious that you should get it checked by someone who DOES master that language, just to make sure that at least the glaring mistakes can be avoided.
In that sense, I perfectly agree with the Dutch guys receiving this load of tripe. It demonstrates a blatant disregard for anything resembling simply courtesy. it is an insult in itself.
When private capitalist monopolies start blathering about their interest in child welfare.
I mean really, we already have psychiatrists specialized in child psychology. No need for "polls". Why not simply consult the expert ?
Or is Microsoft trying to convince people that psychology is a field that can be determined by poll results ?
Timothy Zahn (one of my favorite SF writers) penned the Conquerors trilogy in which future pilots are jacked Matrix-style into an "augmented" reality where their own persona becomes part of a larger consciousness. Okay, my words, but that's the idea.
The nickname "Copperhead" was due to the physical jack at the base of the brain that interfaced the pilot and the enhanced reality machine.
A good read. Looks like we're starting down that path at last.
Like Flash. heard of that too. And I've FlashBlock and AdBlock on my Firefox browser.
I trust no site that overloads its site with code when simple HTML could have done just as well.
And I don't need no stinkin' app to set a redirection in my etc/hosts file, thank you - did that years ago with my keyboard and Notepad.
Frankly, all this hooplah around code in web sites is getting on my nerves. Stop polluting my bandwidth with all this gunk I don't need that only serves to give you web coders the means to track what I do in the vain hope that you can then target my needs more effectively.
Well I've got news for you guys : you can't "target" my needs. You just can't.
But hey, don't let that stop your career. So long as there are other coders developing AdBlock, FlashBlock and soon AJAXBlock, I can continue to ignore your annoying stuff and you can keep making money out of it.
Happiness all around then, right ?
Yeah, we know full well that TCP was initially put in place for military communications, thanks for the recall.
Fact is, today the IP stack is public knowledge. So much public that a bunch of kids in University with too much time on their hands thought out and started the P2P craze that is making music execs hopping mad. Is that public enough for you ?
Fact again : anyone who can read and code can make another widget to send TCP packets running helter skelter across the Web. And he doesn't even need a license ! Is that public enough for you ?
By the way, just how much bandwidth do you think military comms is taking up today, on a world-wide scale ? Right. Today, TCP-IP is public, and it doesn't really matter where it came from.
"the shaken presenters 'improvising' "
Goodness me ! They didn't have their daily quota of pithy jokes on a prompt card any more !
Once upon there were presenters that could not only steer and maintain a conversation, but also had the knowledge and culture to actually appear as if they had a clue.
Alas, those people retired, either willingly or not, to be replaced by the same generation of useless androids endlessly parroting inane banter. There might have been some measure of cost reduction in the move, but the end result is that TV is now even more stupid than the people who watch it.
Which makes those who watch it feel like they're "on top" of things.
CQFD.
Finally another excuse for giving my hard-earned money to Microsoft only to get a bunch of empty promises in return.
I can't wait for the chance to see my new MHS box flounder horribly as soon as I ask it to actually do something, not to mention that I fully expect it to not stream anything anywhere at all before phoning home to find out whether it should or not. And let's not forget the pleasures of Genuine Advantage, which will genuinely pop up a message after every other Windows Update to tell me that I have to re-validate my pirate copy within 30 days - except I won't have a screen to see the popup on.
On second thought, I think I'll pass. Microsoft already has a dismal track record when it comes to respecting my privacy on my desktop - I can only shudder to think of what that will become on a system that Microsoft is supposed to manage entirely on its own.
And today's managers that are long in the teeth want to shine, so they shift IT responsibilities to dead-end managers that don't have a future in the company.
Plus, it's a lot easier to blame a subordinate for wasting corporate money. If you've approved the expense yourself, then you're the one who might be shipped off.
is that it evolves a lot faster than Symantec (anyone surprised ? thought not).
Any sender that is not on my whitelist get his mail sent to the spam bin. In the spam bin, any string that corresponds to anything I have previously flagged gets the mail deleted permanently.
End of story.
I haven't seen any of these reselling jokes since I flagged it five months ago. Besides, I don't click on links sent to me by people I don't know.
"It also checks (...) how many visitors the site gets"
Um, by the way, has this page count issue been finally resolved in a scientifically-approved manner ?
Or are page counts still an art of approximation and ego-inflation ?
Because if they are still imprecise, then somebody is going to be bothered for more than he's worth.
Not really fair, is it ?
Hey, I'm all for anything that will
1) bring down the energy requirements of a laptop
and
2) increase its performance
With this tech now (almost) in the hands of the public, it is no surprise to expect the cost to plummet in the coming years until no laptop is delivered without a 200GB SSD for a mere $90 premium.
Then my laprop might finally stop chugging along at a snails pace.
Since no one has picked that up, and you seem to not know, I have to point out that a "hardware" firewall is typically a router with firewall code packed into one of the chips - in the hardware, so to speak.
The main advantage of that is that there is simply no way for a hacker to "overwrite" the code. If there is no flaw in the code (and firewalls have had much experience by now - any flaw is quickly found), then there is simply no way to subvert it.
What is commonly named a "software" firewall is the app you have sitting in your Taskbar. It can be more or less well written, it can function better or not, but one thing is sure : it IS open to getting hacked from other components of the PC it's running on (especially if the user is of the run-any-attachment-I-get kind).
I have a hardware firewall and my PC has anti-spyware and anti-virus monitors. I have yet to be infected by anything (but I think before I open an attachment), and my PC is not part of a botnet either. I think that is a pretty good reason to keep one.
Frankly, disk space is so cheap it's ridiculous. Today, anyone with a PC at home can easily get over 300GB of disk space. Aside from rabid gamers and filesharers, that is largely enough for reading mail and the occasional surfing.
And for companies, with incomparably larger IT budgets, I really cannot imagine they'll be interested by an online storage space - what with the security issues, the payment arrangements (you'll probably be paying by the megabyte both written and read), and the lag (you don't get 100mbps lines yet, do you ?), I just cannot imagine the users will be happy.
Why is Vista not selling ? I think the essential issue is the perceived performance. Taking 15 minutes to delete a file is simply unacceptable. In the same way, a remote storage area accessible via Internet is not going to work better either, because of the same performance issues. I don't care how much money you're ready to throw at this, there is simply not enough bandwidth available to get gigabyte speeds to thousands of companies.
And I cannot imagine users being content when they have to wait 10 minutes, or even 5, for their very important rush-job report to just open, let alone get working on it. Autosave is going to be a nightmare. And what about unexpected connexion issues ? What about ISP issues ?
I'm sure there are companies with solid IT practices that never experience any downtime. I'm also quite sure that a backhoe can cause a lot of trouble in very little time. You don't often find a backhoe on company premises, now do you ?
For all these reasons and more, I just fail to see how online remote storage is actually going to do any better than remote HelpDesk call centers.
But hey, that doesn't mean that some Fortune 500 companies won't buy into it, as usual.
I am a gamer myself. My game of choice at this time is Battlefield 2. Think Saving Private Ryan but with a lot more virtual people on screen.
I have a long history with FPS games (that's First Person Shooters for the uninitiated), which goes right back to the original Castle Wolfenstein. In other ords, I've been playing these games since they came out.
Each new generation was carefully crafted to run on the current hardware - and each one looked better than the previous one. When Quake 2 came out I was mesmerized - hey look ! I can actually see THROUGH a window !
In short, realism has been going up all the time. Today, in BF2, it is quite realistic enough - for a game. It is NOT a slaughter party though, there are sever limitations to what you can actually do. But that's all right - it's a game.
To answer Mr. AC, as far as I'm concerned we have now all the realism we need. I've been playing the Crysis demo and the artificial blurring is not really my piece of cake. They named in motion-blur, but really I just find it blurry - period. And I somewhat resent having forked over almost €300 for a graphics card that makes things blurry. I can do that if I squint my eyes, thank you. So really, I find we have enough realism. I do not need to play a game that looks like real life. I do not even want to play a game that looks real.
However, I am tired of games that persist to limit what I can do and how I can do it. If a tank rams the side of a house, it's not the tank that should get damage, right ? If a plane drops a few bombs on a building, the building should be rather heavily damaged, right ? Well none of all that happens in BF2, and DX10 does not seem to allow that either. The only thing DX10 does is add pretty pixels. Well I say we have enough pretty pixels already. We have absolutely gorgeous pixels. So let's start working on gameplay, okay ?
Now, in response to Mr. Ball, I really have only one thing to say : I've played a lot of gory games, and I've even played Grand Theft Auto uncensored. In games, I have done atrocious things. In real life, the only thing I am atrocious with is mosquitoes.
I've never even actually punched anyone. I avoid conflict if I can at all - and that just might include running for it if I'm up against more than one guy. The sickest fantasy I have is winning the Euro Lottery. Yet I believe I would have no trouble gutting a virtual character with a sword, if a game gave me the chance. I don't think I'm a wierdo, and I don't think you'll disagree with that. We both know what a wierdo is and I'd say just about anything is capable of pushing them over the edge.
In my opinion, blood, gore and twisted acts in games is no worse than watching any given snuff film (don't know any titles, I don't watch that), of even Hollywood titles like Blade, Basic Instinct, Natural Born Killers, or Reservoir Dogs.
Hollywood has exposed more people to gore, murder and twisted minds than any game can ever hope to touch. And a game does not get reruns on TV after five years.
In any case, you're absolutely right on one point : the debate is far from finished.
Well if it is that indispensable to have an independent GPS system, maybe it would also be a good idea to mandate all government structures to use Linux, thereby removing the most widespread malware vector that is Windows ?
And concerning our imperial past, yes, we can actually be trusted because we've grown tired of it, whereas you guys are still getting high on it. As for being forbidden to travel or protect myself, I don't from where you're pulling that but, seeing as you don't live here, it's normal that you don't have a clue. Especially since you seem to think that Great Britain _is_ the EU. I'm sure there's more than one Englishman who'd have a lot to say about that.
As for the right to privacy, you're making the mistake of thinking that what your government does, everyone else's government does as well. You probably think that your Constitutional Rights apply anywhere in the world, too. I hope, for your sake, that you never discover just how wrong you are.
I would like ICANN to start actually enforcing proper details on the registrant page. Not necessarily publishing them on Whois, but actually pulling the rug from entries that are inexact or incomplete.
But of course, that would mean the ICANN actually checks the stuff - and I seriously doubt that that gets done unless there's a complaint (and even if, it'll be the honest mistake that'll get sanctioned nine times out of ten, while the visibly bogus entry will sail by unscathed).
At the condition that they put out a game where you can hunt today's politicians from every country. Could be a very cultural game, you know. Chasing after the Queen in the stately halls of Buckingham Palace, gunning down Sarkozy under the Eiffel Tower, or blasting Dubya to bits in a pretzel parlor.
If they make a game like that, I'll buy a Wii with all the accessories, just for that game. Promise !
Actually, it is you. First you talk about Apple "detractors" (hint : a detractor is generally against what your subject is), then you mention Mac zealots (hint : zealots are 110% FOR the subject).
But don't worry, Apple zealots are being just as knee-jerk reactive/abusive as ever, and Apple detractors are responding with the usual taunts and condescension.
All is normal, you may continue with your lives.
Just to side with the devil, I must say that it seems quite possible to have the main chip (the one passing the test) devoid of any "fault" that can be detected, and include another, less-important (and untested) chip that will somehow trigger a fault in the main one via a pattern of signals and/or frequencies.
If found inadvertently before use, said fault could be passed off as a "normal" bug, no feathers ruffled. But if it does manage to sneak under the radar, then when needed, the bug could be triggered and bang! there goes the satellite GPS system for all soldiers involved.
Sure it sounds far-fetched, but hey, it doesn't sound impossible, now does it ?
The only thing that is respectable about Scientology is its dangerosity. Scientology is a ridiculous premise (pseudo-religion resulting from a brash joke-turned-boast) from which its success is due to more than questionable mind tactics against people who do not have the mental stamina to resist.
Scientology preys and feeds on the weak without any moral restraint. Good ol' Tom has not really been subject to the full course, he's just a gilded representative having suffered through none of the moral tortures inflicted on those with less money, luck and fame.
So sure, for him, Scientology is great.
Now go ask someone who has tried to leave it. I'll wager they paint it in a very different light.
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