You don't even have to consider it because Finnish law gives you the undisputed right to reverse engineer programs. It even explicitly says that an usage license stating otherwise has no effect on this right.
Yes we have. Trusted Computing is a mechanism by which computer code may be executed on your computer without you having any possibility of figuring out what it does: it is sent to a dedicated chip in some encrypted format.
D. Bq.:
1. Do you have anyone from the TASVideos forums on Skype, and if so, do you talk to them with audio and/or webcam?
2. If you had to choose one TASer who's no longer around anymore to have come back, who would it be?
3. About how much does this site cost to keep up per month? (Excluding stuff like new hardware costs and repairs)
4. What do you think was the most controversial...(and why?)
a) topic on the site?
b) movie made on the site/community?
5. Many people on this forum seem to be Finnish. Have you ever met a single one in person?
6. How many movies have you seen across the net that originate from this site without any information regarding how it was made or where it comes from? (eg, omg guy beats super mario borthesr in 12 mins lolol)
1. Yes, and no. I don't talk with anyone via Skype :P (Mostly because nobody wants to talk to me, and also, mostly because nowadays I only have Skype at work, where I cannot really talk off-business; the Linux version here at home works but I don't have the necessary audio hardware for it.)
2. Choose one, that's a tough one. I would like to see Walker Boh do more TASes.
3. Not much. The network bill is paid by my company, and electricity is rather cheap. If I spread the costs of hardware updates evenly across their lifetime, I guess around $2 per day, perhaps less. My electricity bill is around 25..30 € per month, but that includes also things like the refrigerator, the oven and the washing machine.
4a. I'm too good at forgetting. I would need to search in order to answer this. Sorry.
4b. Recent Hitler no Fukkatsu comes to my mind. There was a lot of arguing about it.
5. I've known Warp personally even before the forming of this site. Others, no. Not even AnotherGamer who lives in the same ~30kpop city as I.
6. Around ten I guess. The last time it happened was the first time when I played the copyright violation card and had Youtube remove it.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Hey, uncle Bis... where do babies come from?
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
(...) it is my understanding that until the child is old enough to make consciously a choice that they know is not good, they are pure and eligible to get to heaven.
Isn't that be a rather dangerous belief? Earlier in the post, you said you didn't know if this is true, but it's just that there was this mother who murdered her children for precisely this reason. Since she was already going to hell, she believed she was doing a good deed and the best thing for her children, ensuring them an eternity of happiness in heaven by killing them. Even if her children did get to heaven, did she do a good thing or a bad thing?
Mad people find ways to do mad things regardless of what they believe in. Often, those people have decided their actions long before they fabricate up the "reasons" for them.
Blublu wrote:
If faith and the real world (ie hard evidence) contradict each other, is it possible the real world is wrong?
Is this a loaded question? Seems that way to me.
Blublu wrote:
Do you believe I will literally burn in hell for all eternity, or is hell more of a "symbolic" thing? As far as I know, I'm a good person, yet I believe there is no god. (strong atheism)
I don't believe anything as for your fate. I can only deduce, but I will avoid saying it because things may always change for you and I prefer not to be one who dooms.
However, as for the definition of hell: I know tho twings. (1) It is irreversible eternal separation from God and (2) it is described as continuously painful.
Item 1 alone could allow the interpretation of it being your existence voided out, as if you permanently stop existing like you didn't before your birth, but item 2 was also described by Jesus, so that cannot really be it I guess. In the Revelations it was also described as a lake of fire, which matches with item 2, but to which degree that was symbolic I also don't know.
Do you think Hellfire is regular fire that burns using Oxygen, or some kind of continuous nuclear fission/fusion generated fire, similar to that which keeps stars burning?
Do you think Hell will eventually extinguish itself much like stars do?
Three levels redesigned completely, one almost done and six more to go.
I don't remember whether the password entry screen works yet. It is difficult to use, that's for sure.
Happy pies to you too. :)
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Which came first, the chicken or the hen?
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Ah, yes that must be how it was.
arkiandruski wrote:
I am not a programmer and only have a basic understanding of binary and hexidecimal, but I notice that 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 all are very popular numbers. However, 1024 is the next number that seems to be important. Why doesn't 512 get the same amount of attention as the others?
These numbers are powers of two, of course.
However, as it often is, numbers decrease in popularity as their scalar value increases. 1024 is more popular than 512, despite being larger in value, probably because it is the factor used in the binary kilo, i.e. kibi. A kibibyte (previously called kilobyte) is 1024 bytes.
how could they decide to stop offering you anything based on a closed source bios? there are no forced upgrades, so what'll work now will in theory work forever, or at least until material breakdown.
Unless of course they added an expiration timer or something, but they could easily hardwire the thing. How will the open source bios protect you from that?
A BIOS can still do ill-adviced decisions. Imagine for example, a BIOS manufacturer makes a contract with Microsoft and adds code in the BIOS that checks that if the product ID in the Windows installation on the disk matches certain blacklist, it would refuse to boot anything.
Or like my IBM laptop is: I cannot perform a BIOS update unless I have a fully charged battery plugged into it in addition to the power cord. However, the reason I would like to perform a BIOS update is because the current BIOS misinterprets the battery's signals and does not allow to fully charge it.
Tub wrote:
How can open source software protect you from a network interface card that's abusing DMA capabilities to sniff your RAM and send suspicious information directly over the network? Actually listening to the outgoing packets should allow the NIC to detect your IP/gateway/DNS, so it's a feasible attack.
That's true though. In fact I thought about it; open source hardware, before you even posted that. It's probably the next item on FSF's list :)
Tub wrote:
Also, since phpBB was mentioned: have you taken a look at phpBB3 yet? It's probably infeasible to upgrade the heavily modified tasvideos forum, but are there any features in phpBB3 you'd like to have here?
I haven't. It's still a release candidate only? I can wait. :)
Dear Bisqwit, I'll ask my question here, since it's the only place where you'll answer it appearantly (IRC ísn't good enough anymore).
(1) How can you justify locking TheEnglishMan's "Ask me something"-topic?
If the reason is "we already have enough of those", I think it's a really bad reason. It was ok when you made the same topic as Fabian, it was ok when Upthorn made the same topic, it was ok when Omni made the same topic. These "ask me anything"-topics put someone in the center of attention for no particular reason... and I could see that others (like TheEnglishMan) also want their own "ask me something"-topic to also get some attention. Yet, while he did nothing different than you, Upthorn or Omni (creating a duplicate topic), his was locked and the others were not.
(2) How about locking all "Ask me something"-topics?
If there are questions for a particular person, a private message will work just as well. Maybe compiling a list of people who enjoy getting tons of useless questions in their inbox could be compiled (just a suggestion).
Dear Bisqwit,
Sure, an open-source BIOS could allow you to fix annoying bugs, which is of some practical value. IMHO not worth the effort though, just kick the vendor in the butt. Same you'd do if your audio card was broken.
In case of features implemented to harm / control the customer (like your MS-example, or TPM): that'll be implemented in hardware, where it's mostly tamper-proof. No open BIOS can help you there.
Bisqwit wrote:
That's true though. In fact I thought about it; open source hardware, before you even posted that. It's probably the next item on FSF's list :)
..which in turn is worthless, because changing and recompiling isn't feasible. So is comparing the actual hardware to the 'source'. They could give you a nice clean source and an IC full of malware, how'd you notice?
But you could check the source for errors, you say? But isn't that the company's job? Why should I have to do that?
Wouldn't requirements for clear interface specifications (to allow integration/driver programming) and more liability on spec violations solve the problem without requiring sources that'd only help product fakers anyway?
If the "requires battery AND power supply for upgrade"-feature had been documented, wouldn't you prefer avoiding the product altogether instead of having to spend time and/or money reprogramming the bios?
Wouldn't reading about the feature in a documentation be easier than browsing tons of source code to make an informed product choice?
Re:phpBB3. I'm using an RC on a private 7-user-board and so far I like it. Can't comment on stability, server load and security, but there are some useful features in there. IMHO worth taking a look, but of course that can wait until after the actual release :)
I was unofficially officially not a member anymore, but this has got to be the funniest thing I have ever seen!
I'm not sure what you mean!
I mean that when I saw the "Ask Fabian" and "Ask Bisqwit" threads, I simply cracked up! It is simply one of the funniest things I have ever seen posted in an internet forum! It's one of those things where LOL can actually be taken literally. Maybe it's irrationality on my part; I don't know.
I think he means he doesn't understand what "I was unofficially officially not a member anymore," means.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
1. Have you ever fully banned anyone from the forum?
2. Will you celebrate (or take notice in any way) when you make your 5000th post?
1. Yes (Marsh8472)
2. Not planning to.
Baxter wrote:
Dear Bisqwit, I'll ask my question here, since (0) it's the only place where you'll answer it appearantly (IRC ísn't good enough anymore).
(1) How can you justify locking TheEnglishMan's "Ask me something"-topic?
If the reason is "we already have enough of those", I think it's a really bad reason. It was ok when you made the same topic as Fabian, it was ok when Upthorn made the same topic, it was ok when Omni made the same topic. These "ask me anything"-topics put someone in the center of attention for no particular reason... and I could see that others (like TheEnglishMan) also want their own "ask me something"-topic to also get some attention. Yet, while he did nothing different than you, Upthorn or Omni (creating a duplicate topic), his was locked and the others were not.
(2) How about locking all "Ask me something"-topics?
If there are questions for a particular person, a private message will work just as well. Maybe compiling a list of people who enjoy getting tons of useless questions in their inbox could be compiled (just a suggestion).
(0) I just may take some time.
(1) I think Upthorn's post was already enough to demonstrate that enough is enough. Not more are needed. The "trendwhore" argument is a good one.
(1b) I started my thread with a step backwards because of the very reason that it was a duplicate of Fabian's thread (one of the things hidden behind the "more" word in the thread starting post). Still, I thought it may be possible that because of my position as a site administrator, the thread could still have value even in the presence of Fabian's thread.
(2) I don't see a reason to lock this thread, nor a reason to lock Fabian's thread. Neither are abusive or detrimental to the forums.
Upthorn wrote:
I think he means he doesn't understand what "I was unofficially officially not a member anymore," means.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Bisqwit wrote:
mr_roberts_z wrote:
1. Have you ever fully banned anyone from the forum?
2. Will you celebrate (or take notice in any way) when you make your 5000th post?
1. Yes (Marsh8472)
2. Not planning to.
...
Upthorn wrote:
I think he means he doesn't understand what "I was unofficially officially not a member anymore," means.
Precisely.
No mention of funguy10? He was enjoyable too.
And Deep Loner's comment was apparently in reference to a PM he sent you a while ago at the same point he stopped posting a lot...
Dear Bisqwit:
Why does my browser keep trying to connect to this site on port 5?
(This isn't a support question, since everything is working properly. I'm just curious.)
Joined: 9/23/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Moreno Valley, California
Dear Bisqwit:
As someone who also has a strong religious faith, I'd like to ask how you begin and end your days. I used to pray a lot, but as I read more, I prayed less. It began to feel like vain repetition, and now I just pray when I feel a great urge to beg God for something. What do you think?
"The way to move out of judgment is to move into gratitude." — Neale Donald Walsch
DannyLilithborne on IRC
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Dear Bisqwit,
This may have been mentioned somewhere on the site, but what Linux distro(s) do you use? why do you prefer this/these to others?
Sincerely,
<<< That guy
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Dromiceius＞ I have no idea. I haven't heard that from anyone else.
mushroom＞ Both Official and BitTornado.
Twelvepack＞ Answered already when Vatchern asked.
Raiscan＞Gentoo and Debian. Debian in the server, Gentoo in others. As for why ― I got the perception that Debian has the lowest workload for maintenance of all distributions (yet ability to extend it without significantly breaking anything), and it seems to be exactly that. On the other hand, Gentoo is for lots of experimenting and I just wanted to try it out.
Dasrik＞ I'm similar to you in this aspect: I pray rarely. However, I believe that a prayer is not supposed to be a ritual; rather it is supposed to be two-way communication with God. During the days I pondered how I'm going to answer your question, I stumbled across this page, which details some different forms of prayer. It contains some aspects that I hadn't considered before.
I do three kinds of prayer:
― "Petition", i.e. ask God to fulfill a wish. It may be that I wish to find my lost keys, or that I wish that it won't rain so much. When I was a teenager, there was this one summer where God seemed to always answer when I asked that the rain goes away within a certain amount of time. Usually no more than 15 minutes. Then again, there are a lot of times when nothing seems to happen.
― "Battle", i.e. ask for support for someone else when it is reasonable to think that spiritual issues may be involved. These prayers may often last for a long time. (For me, 5 minutes is a long time when it comes to prayers…) An example situation could be that someone is contemplating suicide.
― "Just talk". This is rare, I usually only do this when I am stopped by something in the life.
I don't do ritualistic prayers such as the good night's prayer.
I find myself most motivated in the "battle" type of prayers. Unfortunately, it is also the most consuming kind of prayer, because it is, well, battle. However, I'm very convinced that it helps.
Like I said, because I'm much similar to you in this aspect, I'm not really in a position to give you good instructions on how to improve your prayer life, but at least I hope that this message of mine helps you in some way.
