AlterSlash ~ the unofficial SlashDot digest, by Jonathan Hedley.

 Published: Thu Aug 21 15:11:02 2008 UTC.   XML: Regular / Extended

Contents

  1. Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing
  2. Timing Technology Behind Olympic Record Results
  3. FEMA Phones Hacked, Calls Mideast and Asia
  4. Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven
  5. People On No-Fly List Can Sue In District Court
  6. Canadian Privacy Czar Wants To Anonymize Court Records On the Web
  7. 42% of Web Users Sneak Onto Other Online Accounts
  8. Six Questions To Ask Before Telecommuting
  9. Ragnar Tornquist On Video Game Storytelling
  10. A Mozilla Plugin to Help Overcome IE Rendering Flaw
  11. How Do I Prevent Lan Party Theft?
  12. Nvidia Rumored To Be Readying X86 Chip Release
  13. James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China
  14. Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer
  15. Microsoft To Buy $100M More SUSE Support Vouchers

Noise graph of Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing - by CmdrTaco (39% noise) View Skip
PhilDEE writes “Microsoft is in the process of applying for two patents for a private browsing mode in their next version of Internet Explorer, a feature already present in Safari, among other browsers.”

Trademark not patent - by zoobab (Score: 4, Informative) Thread

While searching the patent numbers, it appears that this story is not even about patents:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080820/microsoft-hints-private-browsing-feature-ie/

“On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks for:”

So please CmdrTaco, update your article.

Best,

Trademarks, not patents! - by LO0G (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

They aren’t patent applications, they’re trademark applications. Check the source

BIG difference.

Patents==Bad and subject to prior art. 
Trademarks==Good, and not subject to prior art.

Re:Trademarks, not patents! - by Dancindan84 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Yeap. Nothing to see here. Why BBC would translate trademark->patent for no apparent reason is a good question though.

Re:Trademarks, not patents! - by falcon5768 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
while your right, I would hardly consider Trademarks good too, especially when its often used to Trademark very common things like colors, common words, etc, which it is not supposed to be used for, and like Patents very hard to overturn.

A good example would be the non-profit org who where sued by Miracle Grow for using GREEN and YELLOW on their package of fertilizer despite the package it’s self looking NOTHING like a Miracle Grow package at all.

Re:Microsoft: - by Godji (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Nice to meat you

Given that you’re talking about lawyers, I don’t think that’s a spelling mistake…


Noise graph of Timing Technology Behind Olympic Record Results Timing Technology Behind Olympic Record Results - by CmdrTaco (54% noise) View Skip
An anonymous reader writes “We’ve been on the edge of our seats cheering on the athletes at the Beijing Olympic games — but so often do athletes victories and defeats rely on accurate timing. As the athletes compete on the world stage behind the scenes technology records their results. This interview with Omega’s Christophe Berthaud (video) — the company’s 23rd time as official Olympic timekeeper — explores how far the technology has come since the first time it was used in 1932.”

Finally! - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 3, Funny) Thread

It’s about time!

Not accurate. Consistent. - by hal2814 (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

Winning Olympic events that involve fastest finish have nothing to do with accurate timing. Getting a world record might but everything about getting a medal is relative to your performance against your peers. Consistency is all that matters. And given that most of these events are run in qualifying heats, consistency between separate races is often not a factor. Even in race Phelps won by 0.01 seconds, the photo finish was just as telling as the actual clock results.

Re:Not accurate. Consistent. - by hotdiggitydawg (Score: 2) Thread

given that most of these events are run in qualifying heats, consistency between separate races is often not a factor.

I disagree. Frequently the final is comprised of the three fastest from semifinal A, the three fastest from semifinal B, and then the two fastest remaining competitors from either race. Consistency between races is extremely important to these people.

Re:Not accurate. Consistent. - by oldspewey (Score: 2) Thread

also track (maybe on the blocks to see who actually is leaving first)

This is already done - they no longer rely on human judging to determine false starts

What? TFA? - by FredFredrickson (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
I swear I tried to RTFA, but.. uh.. it doesn’t exist…


Noise graph of FEMA Phones Hacked, Calls Mideast and Asia FEMA Phones Hacked, Calls Mideast and Asia - by CmdrTaco (40% noise) View Skip
purplehayes writes “A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia. The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.”

Who is valuing these minutes? - by Sir_Real (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Twelve Grand?! Is this another indicator of inflation? Who is billing this out? For 12 grand the phone companies should give you a phone that will work for life, from anywhere, to anywhere. Are the same people responsible for claiming that a quarter of schwag has a “street value” of fifty grand?

Hacker? - by ilovegeorgebush (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Shouldn’t this be ‘phreaker’? The article even states the break-in was over their PBX (i.e. a convential phone system, not VoIP).

Re:Hacker? - by Enderandrew (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

He used a whistle found in a cereal box.

Re:Hacker? - by elrous0 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
No, he trained his dog to howl at 2600 hz.

Re:Who hacks phones anymore? - by sm62704 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I saw this on Yahoo news this morning (and submitted it, apparently my submission wasn’t the first). It looked to me like the purpose of the hack was to discredit the DHS, which is FEMA’s parent organization.

Note that all the calls went to middle east countries, including Afghanistan and Yemen, both Taliban havens. IMO the hacker did the US a great service by exposing FEMA’s incompetence. Katrina is fading in folks’ memories and “Brownie”, who took the fall for that cluster fuck, is long gone but the agency is still apparently still incredibly dysfunctional and run by incompetents.

Excellence and failure both start at the top. When the head guy is incompetent, he will hire incompetents.


Noise graph of Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven - by CmdrTaco (70% noise) View Skip
stylemessiah writes “The winner of several Eureka Science Awards in Australia is a crafty chick who devised a way to create solar cells cheaply using a pizza oven, nail polish and an inkjet printer. This was developed to address the high cost of cells and in particular for the worlds poorest regions. She wanted to give the @2 billion people around the world who dont have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy. This could have profound (and a good profound) implications for education and health in those in the poorest regions in the world. And it all started with her parents giving her a solar energy kit when she was 10…”

what the hell? - by Pope (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

“She wanted to give the @2 billion people around the world who dont have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy.”

What does ”@2 billion” mean? “At two billion?” Maybe ”~2 billion?”

I can give the poor of the world energy … - by tjstork (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

for a lot cheaper. All I need is a bunch of guys with shovels, and a boat, and we can give the world’s poor good old coal. It’s our environmental priorities, which we choose, that make energy more expensive. If we all could tolerate soot filled cities, like London in 1880, we could have dirt cheap heat and light and electricity just by burning coal and sometimes making steam with it for power.

The point is, when people make announcements like this, its not to give poor people the most energy, it is rather to give them energy that is fundamentally more expensive, but to lower that window as much as possible.

So let’s not say that we are giving the poor the “cheapest energy possible”, because, that’s not what we’re doing.

Pity they did not print the details - by Ancient_Hacker (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

If you do a little digging, you find there is far less to this story than you might think.

All the lady did is develop a simple way of printing electrical contacts onto the silicon surface.

That’s a mighty small part of the overall cell’s cost. It’s not going to bring cell prices down so the “2 billion” can afford them. heck, the top 2 billion can’t afford them.

Re:Pity they did not print the details - by objekt (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Link us up, bro’! Or are you just poo-pooing any progress in reducing the cost of solar cells yet again? Yeah, I did a little digging. ;-)

For those who like to watch… - by serps (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
For those who like to watch:

Nominee video of Nicole Kuepper

Vodcast of People’s Choice awards ceremony (Look for ep 26, 2008)


Noise graph of People On No-Fly List Can Sue In District Court People On No-Fly List Can Sue In District Court - by samzenpus (42% noise) View Skip
I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes “According to a new ruling, those put on the No-Fly List can challenge their inclusion in federal court. Previously, they had to go directly to an appellate court, which would deprive them of any chance to subpoena documents or witnesses and make gathering evidence difficult or impossible. Knowing the government, they will get around this by creating a ‘No-Sue’ list and making it even harder to change your name.”

Re:It’s Downhill from Here - by meringuoid (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
Our enemy has become, not the Muslim fundamentalists, but the federal government of the United States.

Muslim fundamentalists have never been an enemy worthy of the name. They’re a bunch of hopeless dreamers; we’re told they want to establish some terrible Caliphate over the whole world, but so what? While we’re wishing, I’d like a Ferrari, and the Amish prefer to be called ‘sons of the soil’, but it’s not going to happen.

The chief threats to the US global hegemony are the Chinese government, the Russian gas firms, the European Central Bank, and peak oil. A bunch of fuckwits in suicide vests shouldn’t even be on the radar.

Totally Pointless - by jmpeax (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Wow, and to think that the whole thing is totally pointless with regard to its supposed necessity for anti-terrorism purposes because it’s actually trivial to get around:

Denise Robinson says she tells the skycaps her son is on the list, tips heavily and is given boarding passes. And booking her son as “J. Pierce Robinson” also has let the family bypass the watch list hassle.  
 
Capt. James Robinson said he has learned that “Jim Robinson” and “J.K. Robinson” are not on the list.

Terrorist’s wouldn’t even need to use fake names! They’d just need to abbreviate their real ones. 
 
What a sad state of affairs.

list easy to circumvent - by MollyB (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

A recent CNN feature story was about 3 American males named James Robinson. Two were professionals, and one was a young boy. The mother of the boy says that she merely changes the form of her son’s name (in this case, to J. Pierce Robinson, IIRC) and the family (or the other gentlemen) can fly unhassled.

Let me see if I got this stright… - by SplinterOfChaos (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
So, you get on this list that says you’re such a threat to the nation, we don’t want you flying planes, and we do this without permission because this guy’s DANGEROUS. Yet, they’re so little a threat that a court case can get them off the list.  
 
And who said there are no good comedians in the US?

Re:A Big Problem - by Ihlosi (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

What next, national gun ownership registration lists?

No, no, people are brainwashed enough to think that if they can still have their gun, they’re not living in a totalitarian state.

You don’t need to take people’s guns away if you’ve already poisoned their minds with your crap.


Noise graph of Canadian Privacy Czar Wants To Anonymize Court Records On the Web Canadian Privacy Czar Wants To Anonymize Court Records On the Web - by samzenpus (81% noise) View Skip
An anonymous reader writes “The web is evil and must be stopped — because it makes public information too public. So says Canada’s Privacy Commissioner. She wants to ‘anonymize’ court records by substituting initials for names. The Toronto Star quotes Jennifer Stodddart as saying ‘The open court rule, which is extremely historically important, has now become distorted by the effect of massive search engines… Court decisions and other related documents, which contain all sorts of personal information, are now searchable worldwide, which was never intended when openness rules were devised.’ All Stoddart’s proposal would do is erect a minor barrier for the techno unsaavy. Researchers, reporters, geeks, and most teenagers would still be able to figure out who’s who. Stoddart seems to believe only in an abstract notion of freedom and access — but only as long as not too many people use it and no one suffers. She cites the case of someone who is upset at reading the divorce case of her parents. Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?”

Czar!?! - by thirty-seven (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
“Canadian Privacy Czar”  
There are no “czar” positions in Canada, even in slang terms. Yes, I know that it has become a popular term in US politics - drug czar , war czar , etc. It’s really, really stupid in that context, and in a Canadian context it is additionally inappropriate.

Degree easy access is not a wishy-washy concept. - by lkypnk (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Open but not “lying in the open” access to information is an important concept. In the United States, many privacy-related things are left lying in the open - who’s in prison, who’s been arrested, the declared value of your home with the municipality. These can all be viewed online. In Canada, these are generally considered public information as well, but you can’t access them that easily. They’re not in a public database on the web. You have to write a letter or fill out a form and mail it in.

Although information in court records is considered public, it has in every practical sense stayed obscure until fairly recently, because few people besides reporters would wander into a courthouse basement to read it, Stoddart said.

There is a difference between in a basement in the public archives and online. When you make it easier to access a person’s private information, you’re more likely to have people doing look-ups for trivial/unjustifiable reasons. An employer doing a search on Google for an employee’s name now might find a court appearance of the employee from several years ago for drug possession. The employee may have been acquitted, but that’s still going to tarnish the employer’s reputation of the employee. That’s important, especially when discriminating based on arrest or court appearance record is illegal in Canada.

The Canadian legal system generally recognizes that access to such information in certain cases is extremely important. It is also recognized that publishing such information online in an easily accessible form could cause a lot of harm to a person’s right to privacy. If it’s important enough you need to know, it should be important enough for you to haul your butt to the local archives or paying the fee to have a copy mailed to you.

I’m sure to many Americans it would seem a bit nutty, the idea of making it “sorta” hard to access public personal information, but it fits in well with previous thought on privacy in Canada.

Oh, the Irony… - by Bieeanda (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Anyone else catch that this is an anonymous reader complaining about adding a layer of anonymity to court records, before slipping in a few editorial jabs?

I don’t see anything wrong with it— this is no different than case histories involving people listed as ‘Mr. F—-’ and the like.

False choice - by jamesh (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?

Neither. If I was ever falsely accused and taken to court for something really unsavoury then having my name come up against the charges would not be such a good thing.

Is it the records of the court case itself or the names of the people involved that is the important thing here? I’d say the former, in which case anonymising the names of those involved seems like quite a reasonable thing to do.

Anonymising of email addresses is done all the time on publicly archived mailing lists and I don’t hear an outcry about that.

And for the alphabet distributionally challenged? - by Waffle Iron (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

She wants to ‘anonymize’ court records by substituting initials for names.

My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?


Noise graph of 42% of Web Users Sneak Onto Other Online Accounts 42% of Web Users Sneak Onto Other Online Accounts - by samzenpus (78% noise) View Skip
An anonymous reader writes “In an online survey, 42 percent of Internet users admitted to logging into other people’s email and social networking accounts without their knowledge. The poll doesn’t ask if passwords were found, granted, or stolen — which would make for further interesting results. The write-up summarizing the results defines the respondents as part of an “educated tech-readership” and questions the ethics of logging onto someone else’s account, and whether those differ depending on the person and relationship.”

I cry “BS!” - by Simonetta (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I can’t believe this. They say that 42% of the people that they asked had used another person’s password or account. And the people asked are all internet users.

    It is a logical fault to assume from these two statements that 42% of all internet users have used another person’s password or account for unethical purposes.

    What was the sample audience? Were they all students simply using each other’s common passwords to peek into each other’s love notes? The article gives that impression and then posts a headline that implies that 42% of ALL INTERNET USERS are dangerous highly-advanced techno-crackers who can and would empty your bank account at any time that they would choose.

    Another example of deliberate media exaggeration and fear-mongering over an activity that, when examined, turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. Is Fox News behind this? Or just some schmuck desperate for a story to file?

    Crying wolf destroys the perception of journalistic integrity for everyone.

Ok, fess up. - by PPH (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Which one of you got hold of CmdrTaco’s password and posted all these lame stories?

Did it to nuke a MySpace account - by AaronW (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I once had to do this. Some idiot on MySpace set their account to use one of my email addresses. Repeated requests to Myspace went unanswered, so I just used the password recovery tool to change it and promptly deleted his account. Problem solved.

What were the survey questions? - by Dan B. (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Like all surveys that want to portray a ‘shocking’ result, it all comes down to the wording of the questions. It is very easy to get a respondent to tick yes on a question that asks “do you log in to other people’s accounts” by first baiting them with a whole bunch of rubbish like “do you help others with their IT issues” and so on.

Without the actual survey, the results are, in my opinion, just as good as made up.

Bugmenot - by gringer (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

does bugmenot count?


Noise graph of Six Questions To Ask Before Telecommuting Six Questions To Ask Before Telecommuting - by samzenpus (80% noise) View Skip
Lucas123 writes “With gas prices 30% higher this summer over last, telecommuting is back on everyone’s radar. According to a Computerworld story, however, IT and telecommuting don’t have a great record of success. For example, citing negative impacts on productivity, HP ended its telecommuting policy for hundreds of workers two years ago, and this year, Intel began requiring more than half the teleworkers in its IT group to report to the office at least four days a week. So before leaping, some questions you should ask as a manager if you’re considering telework include: How will you define and measure performance? Will creativity suffer? What about employees stuck in the office?”

Telecommuting FTW - by billcopc (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I’m very pro-telecommuting, but I can understand why it fails for so many people.

Reasons it works for me:

- I’m a developer, and almost all the jobs we see are one-man gigs - it’s not a team development kind of company. 
- I communicate via email and phone, and rarely attend meetings. I just take the specs and produce the app. Client interaction is very limited, mostly handled by our dedicated sales and support guy (our human shield!) 
- I’m self-motivated. If I’m working 9-5, then I’ll work 9-5 from home too, and the wife can pretty much pretend I don’t exist during those hours. 
- I live with the wife, but we have no kids 
- I have a ridiculously overpowered workstation, and I know how to use it 
- I can focus better with some background music, and the headphone thing just doesn’t cut it, compared to my nice speakers 
- I actually find the office distracting, since we’re all quite rowdy and jocular (think Animal House) 
- If a box barfs or panics, I can always hop in a cab and fix it - IF it happens! If it’s mission-critical, the appropriate KVM-IP and/or remote-reboot gadgets be acquired.

Turn all of those things around, and you’ll get all the reasons why some people can’t telecommute. The noise, the distractions, the plentiful opportunities for laziness - some households just aren’t suitable for work.

Me, I work all the time. I have private contracts, I build web sites, I produce music - my home is my office. Another little bit that helps is my job is a 10 minute bike or bus ride away, so I don’t care about travel time. I telecommute because I like it, and I wish I could do it more because I think I could accomplish more work per week. I’m comfortable at home, no need to buy lunches (not a pack-lunch kinda guy), and since I’m so used to working here, my brain subliminally shifts into high gear - at the office I’m always kinda half-dazed, the environment just doesn’t suit me.

One day a week will accomplish nothing. It takes a while to get into the telework mindset, it’s a psychosomatic thing - working from home is like trying to change your sleep schedule: the first few days will be chaotic, but over time you get the hang of it and you’re back to sleeping/working like you always did.

I could write a book on the topic, but really most of it is just common sense. Make a list of your reasons why you want to telecommute, then make a list of goals or success indicators. If you hesitate while writing either list, then telecommuting is not for you.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter - by Psychotria (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

[…] you will miss that commute time as a way to separate your personal life from your work life.

You know, I’d never thought of that before. My commute is 45 minutes each way and I am thinking of work in both directions. It’s true though, the 45 minutes into work my mind is preparing for work. The 45 minutes home, my mind is tying up loose ends so when I finally get home, I can switch off. I do write notes when I get home if I think of something while in the car driving, but they’re very short notes that I email myself so I can refocus on them the next day. If it were not for the drive, I’m not sure the switching off when I pull into the garage would be as easy.

Re:I am a full-time telecommuter - by phallstrom (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The transition time is very very real. I work from home and have for 3 years now. After a day’s work I go for a 10-15 minute walk (or try to). My wife calls it my transition time. And it’s exactly that.

Also, get a home office. With a door. And headphones that kill the noise. Most days are great, but sometimes our two kids decide to yell all day. With the headphones I don’t hear them, zone out, and code. Without them I go nuts.

But it is pretty awesome when your 2 year old comes in just to give you a hug in the middle of the day!

anti-telecommuting propaganda - by onehitwonder (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Well duh. Anyone with an ounce of common sense will ask the questions outlined in this story. I can’t believe Computerworld felt this article needed to be written. Obviously, companies should have policies about telecommuting. And obviously, not every employee or role inside a company lends itself to working from home. No one is advocating a telecommuting free-for-all.

I’m also disappointed that the article called out two examples of companies that back-tracked on their telecommuting arrangements without discussing any of the success stories—and there are many. I realize this is shameless self-promotion, but last month I wrote an article for CIO.com about a small software company, Chorus, that closed all of its offices in an admittedly rather drastic cost-cutting move, and now everyone at Chorus—everyone—works from home. And you know what, the strategy is working out well for Chorus employees’ productivity. The company made some mistakes in rolling out the telecommuting strategy, but overall they approached it sensibly, and it’s working.

Let’s learn from the success stories and not use the failures to promote an anti-telecommuting agenda.

Milestones - by unity100 (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
when telecommuting, you will find it VERY difficult to explain being late on any milestone. in office, you are there, people see you ‘work’, and therefore your excuses (valid or not) has greater acceptance. however when telecommuting, everyone is on the lookout to prevent slacking, and any excuse will have a greater rate of being taken as slacking.  
 
simple as that. milestones, output. rock solid.


Noise graph of Ragnar Tornquist On Video Game Storytelling Ragnar Tornquist On Video Game Storytelling - by Soulskill (52% noise) View Skip
Ragnar Tornquist is respected as one of the best storytellers in today’s game industry. He’s done work on Anarchy: Online, Dreamfall, and upcoming MMO The Secret World. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a lengthy three-part interview with Tornquist about how good stories are crafted, how they interact with other aspects of the games, and what his preferences are for building a compelling character. “We had all these characters who were on a journey of faith, and we said how can we ensure that this theme is carried through, and have a clear view of how their journeys happen. So we said, every single major character had to fit into this model. Everybody starts out at the top. Faith can be anything — it can be religion, it can be a belief in yourself, in your abilities, in the work you do. As we face challenge, there’s a process where we have loss of faith. It can be a minor thing: thinking one day, ‘God, I suck at what I do. I can’t do this.’ And a lot of people after that point turn themselves around, face those problems, challenge them and they conquer them, and they say, ‘Screw that, I am good at what I do.’ I think most happy people live in this loop.”

Mixed feelings - by Selanit (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I have mixed feelings about Tornquist. He created The Longest Journey which was absolutely amazing, particularly for its story. My favorite game ever. Vivid, detailed characterization, intricate world-building, compelling plot. The tech wasn’t impressive (3D figures superimposed on 2D backdrops), but the story was so great that I didn’t care.

Then came the sequel, Dreamfall. Oh. My. God. The game was a lot prettier, a good deal more tech glitz. But the UI was atrocious (horrible camera control, unplayable on PC without a USB controller), gratuitous fighting scenes built in (complete with lousy combat controls), and the puzzles (such as they were) didn’t make sense. Worse, the plot was incoherent at many crucial points, and the main character (Chloe) completely failed to engage my sympathy or even interest. I got to the end and was sorry she hadn’t died permanently somewhere along the way.

Dreamfall had the most severe case of sequel-itis I’ve ever seen. The original was amazing, astounding, wonderful, and sold a bazillion copies. Then the corporate types took over and threw a ton of cash at the sequel, and it sucked hard. The only comparable thing I can think of? Indiana Jones — Raiders of the Lost Ark was terrific, and Temple of Doom sucked so hard that nobody ever plays it on TV, not even at 4 AM to fill up time. That’s how Dreamfall was.

I have hopes for the third TLJ installment — after all, The Last Crusade rescued Indiana Jones from one-hit wonder status. It could happen again. But then I think of how the Matrix series went downhill, and fear.

Best MMO name ever. - by jbsooter (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I misread and got excited because I thought the upcoming MMO was called “The Secret World: Rock, Paper, Shotgun.” I have no idea what a game named that would be like but I’d probably pay money to find out.

Re:Compelling characters? - by Plaid Phantom (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
We don’t talk about High School Musical here.

Biff McLargehuge? - by Itninja (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
This sounds like one of those made-up names the guys on MST3K would come up with. Ragnar Tornquist? If ring-wraiths were real and were active in the adult film industry, they would have names like this.

Who is Ragnar Tournqist? - by Ethanol-fueled (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Ragnar Tourqist was born Wilbur McDougal in Peoria, Illinois and developed his fantasy- writing skills as an excape from the beatings he suffered in high school at the hands of the elitist chess club. He enjoys painting figurines and staging epic battles with his Pez dispenser collection. Also, he likes ponies.


Noise graph of A Mozilla Plugin to Help Overcome IE Rendering Flaw A Mozilla Plugin to Help Overcome IE Rendering Flaw - by timothy (69% noise) View Skip
least_weasel writes “An article on Ars Technica reveals Mozilla’s intention to create and release a plugin for Internet Explorer that would allow the often-criticized IE to utilize some of the cooler rendering code developed for Firefox. The current WIP focuses on rendering using HTML5 standards, but the plans seem to be more ambitious than just fixing this one small piece of IE. The article covers some of the plans, hurdles, and potential benefits. It also spills the beans on the code name for the project: Screaming Monkey.”

Exactly backwards - by markdavis (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
This is exactly backwards to what most of us need. We need a [multiplatform] plugin for Firefox that will allow broken IE-only sites to work under Firefox so we can continue to use the browser of our choice. Not that I want to promote the use of IE-only coding, but the reality is that if the site doesn’t work, the average users always blame Firefox, not the site designer.

Re:Will not succeed on the field - by Ant P. (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Any person “clever” enough to click Yes on an activeX installation prompt, you mean?

Look to the beam in your own eye - by szquirrel (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Hey, that’s great. Do they also have plans to fix the flaws in Firefox?

Off the top of my head, could we finally have support for SVG as a native image format? Or even just SVG rendering that isn’t slower than a stone cow?

Don’t want to sound like the grumpy old man, I just want most of my web shit to work in *one* browser before I worry about how it works in every browser.

Interesting, but difficult - by AKAImBatman (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

FYI, Screaming Monkey was already discussed in an earlier story.

Unfortunately, scripted manipulation of VML is too slow to be used for highly interactive web applications. Mozilla’s solution is to bake its own native Canvas implementation into an ActiveX plugin that can be integrated directly into Internet Explorer.

The only problem is getting people to install the plugin. My own solution was to use the market penetration of Java Applets to develop a shunt that would render Canvas using Java APIs. (Note that the events system has not been completed in that demo. Make sure you click outside the block falling area so that the browser receives the keyboard commands.)

The same sort of shunt could be done with Flash 9 or Silverlight. Which would do a nice end-run around the problem of getting plugins installed.

Spill the beans? - by EvilRyry (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

I’ve been reading about this for months. Its not exactly top secret.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Tamarin:ScreamingMonkey


Noise graph of How Do I Prevent Lan Party Theft? How Do I Prevent Lan Party Theft? - by timothy (94% noise) View Skip
DragonTHC writes “I’m thinking about hosting a lan party open to the public. I’m aiming for approximately 60 people to attend. I can handle all the logistics of operation. The only thing I can’t wrap my head around is: how do I prevent theft at the lan party? Do I hire security guards? Do I need security cameras? I don’t know the people who will attend, and I don’t know if they’re trustworthy enough to not steal other people’s equipment. What do I do?”

Re:48 hr lan @ a public university’s solution - by IndustrialComplex (Score: 2) Thread

Sorry for the formatting of my previous post. I forgot I had HTML enabled. In addition to the registering of equipment I would suggest the following.

a. Enough volunteers to patrol the gaming areas. Keeping food off tables. Making sure that people aren’t damaging equipment, helping them troubleshoot. A good team of volunteers on a regular schedule will help.

b. ban the backpacks. In my day, gaming laptops didn’t exist, but I could see how this would be an issue today.

C. Provide transportation in and out of the gaming area. Registration is easier if your volunteers are helping carry out the equipment. Maybe even require that equipment in and out of the LAN area be on an open cart?

Remember that the LAN that we worked on was a major event and it was continuous for 48 hours, so it required shifts of volunteers, and a larger volume of equipment and people than a typical evening only LAN party. The checkpoints and padlocks may be overkill for your event. It worked for us, and tailor your plan accordingly.

Hell’s Angels - by jjn1056 (Score: 2) Thread

I heard they still do security, although you might have to put up with them selling dope on the side.

Solution - by pak9rabid (Score: 2) Thread
Don’t host it at your house (rent out space to host it), and require everyone to sign release forms…that should get your legal bases covered and people won’t be stealing shit from your house…just keep a good eye on your equipment and advise everyone else to do the same.

Defensive Thinking - by Rinisari (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

If this will be your first LAN party, go smaller. Get a feel for the check-in dynamics and such. Then grow.

If you’ve got a few smaller ones under your belt, and you want to go big, read on.

First, indemnify, indemnify, indemnify. Require all attendees to sign a waiver which says they will not hold you accountable for any equipment harm or theft or any personal harm or theft. Ensure that each person knows that they are responsible for their own equipment and actions, and can leave at any time.

Second, if you’re asking for money, clarify the refund procedure. I suggest establishing a no-refund policy, then bending that policy on a case-by-case basis.

Third, hold the LAN in a secure, very public location. I recommend a church or community center for a 60-man LAN, then a firehall once you break 100.

Fourth, establish clearly defined, binding rules which outline attendees’ expected behavior. I recommend taking a look at the rules contained in the Pittco information sheet, published by the Pittsburgh LAN Coalition (disclaimer: I wrote it and am an organizer of its Iron Storm events).

Fifth, tell every attendee that security is their responsibility when they sign up and when they arrive. Advise them to bring as little equipment as they can. They should consider locks (barrels, the more numbers the better) for their case and they should put their name on everything. They should also backup their data before coming to the LAN.

Sixth, if someone comes to you and says they think that something has been stolen, ask them to ask the people around them if they’ve seen it. Some people immediately think that something has been stolen when perhaps it is underneath something or fell onto the floor. If a lot of people have left the party and/or it’s near the end of the party, tell the person to post a lost and found request on your forums (you do have forums, right?) and to remind you so that you can send something in a mass email (you have all of the addresses of your attendees, right?).

Seventh, remember that most people who come to LANs aren’t going to want to steal anything because they’re going to be busy guarding their own equipment. Do not allow spectators. If you must, require that they be escorted, or that they check-in with you every so often. Also, use wristbands to keep track of who checked-in. If someone doesn’t have a wristband or a staff T-shirt (consider that after an event or two), you have every right to tell them to leave. Call the cops if you have to. Just do not use force—you are not certified or licensed to do such things in public places and you will open yourself to legal trouble.

Eighth, post this question at forums for MillionManLAN, EverLAN, Lake Effect LAN, Pittco, Noreaster, and some of the other larger, non-corporate-sponsored LANs. They’ll give you good advice, and you’ll even draw some people to your event!

Do like at chuckee cheese - by nurb432 (Score: 3, Funny) Thread

Stamp everyones hands, and compare it to what they take out.

Oh, and armed guards for those that try.. A few dead bodies on a stake out front will be a grand deterrent.


Noise graph of Nvidia Rumored To Be Readying X86 Chip Release Nvidia Rumored To Be Readying X86 Chip Release - by timothy (80% noise) View Skip
jdb2 writes with the (honestly labeled) rumor from the Inquirer “that Nvidia is preparing to release an x86 microprocessor with its guns targeted directly at its two major rivals — Intel and AMD/ATI,” and excerpts from the just-linked Inquirer article: “THE HOT RUMOR going around IDF … [is] that the company will do an x86 part. The background whispers say that the part will be announced next week at Nvision … Nvidia’s men in white coats certainly have the brainpower to do it, but they also most certainly don’t have a license to sell such a part. NV is basically locked out unless Intel and AMD both decide to be magnanimous, and we would not recommend holding your breath waiting for this to happen … That leaves the lawsuit option open … Any attempt to enter the market without a license would bring down Intel legal on them like flying monkeys blackening the sky. It would get ugly. Really ugly. Expensive too.””

Implement “Not X86” X86 - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

Seems easy to bypass the X86 issue. Create a full CPU using the X86 instruction set. Remove anything and everything related to 286 protected mode (keep “real” and 386 “protected” modes). Optionally, remove ring 1 & 2 from 386 protected mode, but keep the register format the same (windows and unix only use ring 0 and ring 3). Then, add a new CPU instruction or two that would really boost the performance of Nvidia’s graphics drivers, which Nvidia can autodetect and use in their shipping drivers (just like most graphics drivers used to detect SSE and the like). Naturally, no one else would use these instructions, but Nvidia could be a good citizen and document them.

The resulting chip wouldn’t be X86, because all X86 code does not run. The result would be a new chip that isn’t backwards compatible. Let Intel bark and moan all day long in their marketing that the chip isn’t X86. All Nvidia has to do is make sure it runs Windows just fine without a new SKU from Microsoft (is it Intel’s fault that MS doesn’t use 286 protected mode? Is it Intel’s fault that MS doesn’t use ring 1 or ring 2?).

There would still be a lawsuit, and it would be *wise* to ensure that your legal team is well funded. But it seems most legal arguments are letter of the law these days, and the subset and extended X86 is definitely not X86 (you can produce code that works on X86, but would fail on this, you can produce code that works on this but fails on X86).

This would be a ballsy move for Nvidia, but seems right up their alley.

Cyrix did it. - by Inominate (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Cyrix originally didn’t license anything. They reverse engineered 386/486 designs. Intel sued them over it and mostly lost. The settlement allowed Cyrix to continue producing the designs, provided they were made in Intel licensed factories. Later, Cyrix nailed Intel infringing on some of their patents, and it was settled by allowing each to use the others patents.

If Nvidia tries to produce their own CPU, I would guess they’d be sued, but it would probably end in a pro-nvidia settlement. I suspect Nvidia holds some patents they can dangle over Intel’s head.

Anyways, all of the speculation is meaningless, if Nvidia is actually doing this they’ve got the legal parts taken care of.

Old news… - by ruinevil (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
NVidia has an x86 processor. http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_m6117c.html

Re:A “license” for unrelease, unannounced rumors - by arashi sohaku (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Wait… you read the article?

Something I forgot to mention in the summary - by jdb2 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
The idea of Nvidia producing an x86 CPU might seem dubious but perhaps not in the light of the fact that Nvidia bought Stexar in 2006. Stexar was a little known and quite secretive startup composed of a large portion of ex-Intel engineers and higher-ups from Intel’s Xeon team. Before being swallowed by Nvidia they were intimating that work was being done on some sort of x86 “DSP”.  
 
jdb2


Noise graph of James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China - by timothy (80% noise) View Skip
An anonymous reader writes “News from Free Tibet 2008 that internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early on August 19th while preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. According to a Twitter message received yesterday by Students for a Free Tibet at approximately 5 pm Beijing Standard Time, Powderly had been detained by Chinese authorities at 3 am. His current whereabouts remain unknown. Powderly was the inventor of throwies.” (Powderly’s detention was also mentioned at Make Magazine’s blog.)

Tibet rant, this needs to be said… - by Anita Coney (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit. And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we’d probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business. Heck, we’d probably even detain a couple of them.

You’re funny. - by microbox (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit  
 
Tibetans don’t think they’ve been part of China since 1792. They thought they were running Tibet. And they did, until they were invaded in 1959. You might not like it, but tough shit 
 
And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we’d probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business.  
 
NONSENSE! We’d laugh. That’s it. We’d laugh and laugh and laugh.

Re:Tibet rant, this needs to be said… - by Hatta (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

If California wanted to go back to Mexico, what right would we have to stop them?

Your rights online - by Matt Perry (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

What does this have to do with my online rights? Shouldn’t this be filed under politics?

Is this a surprise? - by ucblockhead (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Going to foreign countries run by totalitarian governments to protest is a bit on the unwise side regardless of how just the cause.


Noise graph of Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer - by timothy (87% noise) View Skip
Calopteryx writes “Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. A study reported in New Scientist suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones. After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations.”

What’s missing from the study… - by NewYorkCountryLawyer (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread
is any analysis of whether the more long-lived men in a polygamous society are those with multiple wives, or those with no wives.

Wives need wives - by theCat (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Any reliable wife will tell you that what she needs most on any given day is a wife. We compensate for monogamy by hiring wives for our wives; house cleaners, babysitters, daycare, diaper service, food delivery. Also, by living (well in the US) in a throw-away technical society we have striped away the need to make or repair clothes (sewing), prepare complex meals (eating out), corresponding (email, phone) and many other things that women “had” to do or felt needed to be done in a proper society.

My wife and I, married almost 14 years and with two kids, have discussed “getting” (not sure how to put it) a second wife. She’s not opposed to it, understands it completely, but we haven’t had a chance to try it yet. Since we live sustainably and don’t take advantage of the many means to rent a wife, we don’t really have much choice except to look for help. If you are going to use a woman that way, then you should support her, I feel. Renting is just a way to use something and throw it away, in the end. And paying for services that a woman could do herself is expensive the realm of the rich.

I don’t know how having two wives would make me live longer as such, never gave it any thought, but it would reduce how much I worry about our family economy if I had two wives working as sisters to hold everything together, get back to simpler ways of doing things by hand and without technology. Homeschooling, food preparation and gardening are suddenly easier. My wife works so hard… she needs a wife.

[PS: Some will chorus “then help her do her work you smuck!” To which I reply “Ah, but I’m the one building the house.” You see, when you really adopt the idea of do-it-yerself you bite off this enormous load of work that nobody even thinks about any more.]

And what about the women? - by VoidCrow (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread
Getting a decent shag out of a man is hard enough without having to share him with other women.

i’m outraged! - by Lord Ender (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

Why was I not invited to participate in this study? No matter which test group you are assigned to, you end up getting tail. I happen to be a strong proponent of getting tail.

I just asked my wife about this - by jandrese (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
She guaranteed me that sleeping with other women would have the opposite effect on my longevity.


Noise graph of Microsoft To Buy $100M More SUSE Support Vouchers Microsoft To Buy $100M More SUSE Support Vouchers - by timothy (47% noise) View
CWmike writes “Microsoft will buy and resell up to another $100 million worth of enterprise support subscriptions for Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system. Two years ago, Microsoft agreed to buy and resell $240 million worth of the vouchers. Susan Hauser, general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing at Microsoft, confirmed that some of the subscription vouchers were sold to customers for less than face value, though none were given away for free.”

Subtle effects on SUSE - by FritzSolms (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
There do seem some subtle effects on SUSE, though. If you install version 11.0 on a machine which has Windows pre-installed (because you couldn’t buy the Laptop without the Microsoft tax), it no longer gives yo a pref=configured option to remove the Windows. The only way, it seems, to remove Windows now is to go through a manual partitioning process which may be a bit daunting for the average home user. In versions prior to the Microsoft partnership, there was a convenient option to do a clean install removing all existing partitions including an MS partition. Fritz

Re:Microsoft to sell SUSE Support Vouchers .. - by Penguinisto (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

insert car analogy here …

Ford giving you a discount on your next Chevy (and service on the thing while you own it, too!)

Dunno what would be more incredulous - selling the scheme with a straight face, or actually buying into it with one.

(hey, you asked…)

/P

Why? - by ShieldW0lf (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Why would you buy Linux support from MS? You would think you’d get better support buying it from, oh, a lemonade stand perhaps?

Re:Why? - by Giometrix (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Why would you buy Linux support from MS? You would think you’d get better support buying it from, oh, a lemonade stand perhaps?

Because Microsoft is know for excellent support?

Re:Why? - by SlipperHat (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Why would you buy Linux support from MS? You would think you’d get better support buying it from, oh, a lemonade stand perhaps?

Because Microsoft is know for excellent support?

No, because Microsoft is known for its high quality lemons.


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