Slashdot Mirror

It is this sort of thing that leads to the sort of Web site licenses seen here:

http://www.radiofreenation.com/rfn_news_titlepage. html

Which, among other things, says :

3.17 You warrant that your access to this site is not a violation of local laws and regulations in force at the location where you are accessing these Web Sites, and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations.

3.18 You warrant that your access to these Web Sites is not a violation of local laws and regulations of the Country, province, state, county, city, town, or any other type of government jurisdiction of which you are a citizen and/or whose laws you are subject to; and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations.

[...]

4.15 You warrant that your contribution to these Web Sites is not a violation of local laws and regulations of the Country, province, state, county, city, town, or any other type of government jurisdiction of which you are a citizen and/or whose laws you are subject to; and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations, including obscenity laws as judged by local community standards, promotion of and/or access to child pornography, incitement to illegal acts and/or other crimes not specifically mentioned.

4.16 You warrant that your contribution to this site is not a violation of local laws and regulations in force at the location where you are accessing these Web Sites, and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations, including obscenity laws as judged by local community standards, promotion of and/or access to child pornography, incitement to illegal acts and/or any other crimes not specifically mentioned.

This has been an issue that no one really wants to confront, making sure that the stuff submitted to the organization or the site does not not present a legal issue.

You can have flame wars over this stuff. I can recall watching the folks who put this ageement together have an all out brawl over three or four months before they got it nailed down.

Of course people freak when they see a long license agreement. Paranoia takes over.

But there is the other angle, that people are being held responsible for the material they submit, so that the publication (web or otherwise) doesn't take the penalty for your stupidity if you put up something that could cause a legal problem.

I am going to be self serving this morning. This was posted early this morning over on Radio Free Nation.:

The BBC is reporting a sort of experiment with robots, where robots are being let loose in a colony of machines in an attempt to find out whether they can learn from their experiences. The Living Robots Experiment will be open to the public from 27 March at the Magna Science Adventure Center in Rotherham in England. The scientists behind this unusual experiment describe it as an evolutionary arms race for robots. The robots have one goal - to obtain enough energy to survive and breed. The "prey" robots find their food from light sensors within the arena, while the robot predators feed off prey by stalking and chasing them before sucking away their power. 'Living Robots' is a world-first experiment into artificial evolution." huge amount of info at the Living Robots link

yeh, and there is an electronic form of genetics too. Links on the RFN site in the story

Now to get some coffee

You guys have down a marvelous job.

Although, being on dial up, getting into any site was a struggle [smile]

as a secondary note, I have seen a few random reports of senseless actions. I trust that the Slash Crowd is wise and intelligent and educated enough to avoid this.

One should never accept the invitation to hate, especially in conditions like these. it becomes a slippery slope.

We all have exceptions that we make, for our favorite pet peeves and political causes. Even so, This is a big step to making things right. This does not mean that we do not take action to save ourselves and our friends. People may appoint us as their enemies, their opponents, even as their executioners. We should hate them for their lack of good sense, or for their own hatred.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

As discussed briefly this morning on ABC News, the correct question regarding the buildings is not "why did they fall?", but rather, "why did they stay up?"

Apparently, for the vast majority of buildings in the USA, an impact by an aircraft, similar to what happened, would take them down almost instantly. The construction of these buildings saved lives.

There are many articles in New Scientist Magazine on many related subjects to this event, including one that discusses the buildings in some detail.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
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I recall various comments where people object to probes visiting any planet where there may be any possible form of life, on the basis that we may cause contamination.

This I consider this to be rather foolhardy, to throw away the chance for access to another world because we are afraid that we might do something.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Of course, there are an almost infinite number of ways to visualize the internet.

It is interesting to see how people handle the various dimensions.

Map making is a long and honored geek advocation, going all the way back to ancient times.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

From Local News in Boston: CNN is reporting that one of the planes that hit the towers is a Boeing 767 that was hijacked from Boston's Logan Airport.

This is very bad

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

I am watching TV News on my local ABC News, and saw the second aircraft go into the building. Analysts on ABC saw the second aircraft loooks similar to a Boeing 767, or some form of Airbus. Currently both towers are burning in the top 20 or so floors of one building. The second aircraft appears to have hit within the top 30 or 40 floors, at 9:03 by my watch. The Northern Tower was hit about 8:40 - 8:45 eastern time. New York City has shut down all Airports, and the airspace, and are evacuating major public building

There are also unconfirmed reports of an aircraft being hi-jacked shortly before the incidents.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Haptic researchers are also working on hardware and software that will enable people to feel fabric in great detail--right down to the grain of the thread and the bias. But, he said, mainstream commercial use of haptics for e-commerce is years away.

I wouldn't mind a mouse where there is a tactile surface where the buttons are today. There would have to be several configuration options.

• tactile graphics, turn on/off
• Tactile text turn on/off
• tactile intensity adjustment, similar to sharpness - brightness - contrast in monitors
• Scale adjustments for buttons, etc.

I wouldn't mind having tactile for buttons, table edges, lines, etc.

although I wonder what the best way for to enable your right/secondary click options would be.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

What is especially interesting is the style of play. Please note that this is speed chess. Apparently, after a certain point, he found that the opening was basically not important.

the game mentioned in the BBC piece had the mystery opponent pusing the pawns all forward one row. and then kicking butt on the grand master.

obviously someone of high skill messing with the minds of his opponents.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

if we find life on Mars, we will never be able to colonise it. Expanding the human experience beyond the shores, the gravity well of this puny Earth requires a virgin territory. But if Mars is soiled with life, we cannot infect it with out own, for that would be interstellar ecocide.

So we commit planetary suicide becuase we are afraid to contaminate a few lichens?

This is lunacy of the highest order.

Now we should check it out to make sure there are no instellar cruisers or bases under that sand. Don't want to piss off the neighbors, especially if they are better armed.

Besides, they have likely seen Our tv shows. No skeletons in our closet. We park them on the lawn to scare the neighbors.

[smile]

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

The Detailde summary goes an inspection of the Web Sense software that was being used by the court. The results were typical:

our tax dollars are being spent to protect judges, and library users, against Liza Minnelli, Jewish teens, a grocer, a speakers' bureau, a mortgage company--and some free speech advocates. All of these sites are blocked by WebSENSE under the Sex1, Sex2 or Adult Entertainment categories, the settings used in the federal courts and in libraries.

The actual article is here

The letter is which AO Director Mecham Blinked is here.

Nice article, btw.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

All attempts to bypass copy protection are supposedly illegal under the provisions of the DCMA.

So the next question is :

Is filing a lawsuit to stop the data collection and to stop this practice in fact a violation under the DCMA, and an illegal lawsuit?

you know somebody is going to try to argue that point, and may even find a nitwit judge to agree.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

It seems like the potentials for Linux are sort of obvious, given the merger.

The problem is that HP will have to lay off about 16,000 more people. I wonder how many of these will be part of the Linux project.

What are the odds that HP will do something idiotic and get rid of Linux instead of pulling it into its heart and soul?

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"br

Since my original post was immediately modded to -1 by biased moderators, I thought I'd post again to provide some links to further information.

Radio Free Nation had a quick story on this about lunch time.

Since they are a political site, they may be more appropriate for this sort of discussion.

They may even welcome an article if you put something up that is well thought out and coherantly argued.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

Since my original post was immediately modded to -1 by biased moderators, I thought I'd post again to provide some links to further information.

Radio Free Nation had a quick story on this about lunch time.

Since they are a political site, they may be more appropriate for this sort of discussion.

They may even welcome an article if you put something up that is well thought out and coherantly argued.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

Justice is the most important point here. Microsoft should not benefit from it's illegal conduct.

There are other penalties that could make Microsoft wish it had been broken up.

The basic idea is that Microsoft should not benefit or profit from the proceeds of their illegal acts.

Therefore, one possible solution could be:

1) the equivalent of a jail term

• Microsoft should not release any new software or any revision or update to their operating system software in any way for an extended period of time. Occasional patches may be issued so long as they are standalone, issued for no cost, and can fit on a single standard format floppy disk. (1.44) megabytes
• The period of time that this prohibition should be in force should at least equal the period of time that they have had profit from their illegal acts (5 to 10 years), if not more. The purpose of this is to inhibit their dominance of the market as it was achieved by illegal acts, and return the conditions as much as possible to what it was when Microsoft committed the illegal acts.
• If Windows XP is not released to market, then the penalty can be reduced slightly (3 to 5 years).
• There should be a very substantial fine to remove any profits that they have accrued as a result of their illegal activity.

Again, the idea is to remove any profit or gain that resulted from their illegal acts.

2) Another alternate solution is to require that all operating system software releases must meet the approval in advance from a government commission comprised of a large number of industry experts. This includes any software integrated into the operating system, and any software intended to replace the operating system. Maybe three from each state in involved in the law suits, plus three from the Federal Government. With a quorum of 2/3 needed to vote. Again from a 5 or Ten year period.

With each of these, if this means that .NET is put on hold, then tough. It is meant to be a penalty. Similar to if you when to jail for several years.

Of course, criminals routinely protest that the jail sentences are unfair, and that they are mis-understood. This should not inhibit the administration of Justice.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

This is OpenSource. She can still work on it just without pay, and on her own time. This is not good, most certainly, but hey, at least she isn't stricken from contributing.

Which is one of the obvious strengths of the open source system. Although It sort of depends on what her severance package was, etc....

You can spend an awful lot of time working on a project, and find that it drained time away from you looking for a job.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

This makes some sense, given Gulf War syndrome, etc.

You basically do not want to send in occupation forces into an area where you just poisoned the heck out of it. It would be dangerous to your own troops, and the civilian population who you are trying to win to your side.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

There's a scale. "Genius" is at the top, then "outstanding performers" in the fields of business, science and the arts, and so on down.

This is not precisely true. A good quick intro is here:

http://www.immigrationlawusa.com/visa.php3

which is not complete, but gives you an idea. You can also see the

US State Department Visa page

which, of course, does not have an easy chart to help sort things out.

And here is the complete list:

Temporary Non-Immigrant Categories

A-1 Diplomatic or consular officers, close relatives *
A-2 Other foreign government officials or employees, close relatives*
A-3 Attendants, servants and personal employees, close relatives*
B-1 Temporary Visitor for Business
B-2 Temporary Visitor for Pleasure
C-1 In Transit*
C-2 In Transit to UN Headquarters *
C-3 In Transit -Foreign government official, family and employees*
D-1 Crewman Visa, shore privileges only while vessel is in port*
D-2 Crewman Visa intending to depart on another vessel*
E-1 Treaty Trader, spouse and children
E-2 Treaty Investor, spouse and children
F-1 Student Visas*
G-1 Principal recognized foreign government representative to an international organization, staff, spouse and children*
G-2 Other recognized foreign government representative to an international organization, staff, close relatives*
G-3 Nonrecognized foreign government representative to an international organization, close relatives*
G-4 International organization officers or employees, close relatives*
G-5 Attendants, servants, or personal employees of G-1, G-2, G-3 and G-4, close relatives*
H-1B Specialty Occupations (professionals)
H-1C Nurses in health professional shortage areas
H-2A Temporary Agricultural worker
H-2B Temporary Non-Agricultural worker
H-3 Trainees *
I Representative of Foreign Information Media *
J-1 Exchange Visitor
K-1 Fiancee & Fiance of U.S. Citizen *
K-3 Spouse of U.S. Citizen*
L-1 Intracompany Transferee
M-1 Non-Academic Students *
NATO-1 Principal Permanent Representative to NATO and staff, spouses and children*
NATO-2 Other representative to NATO and staff, spouses and children*
NATO-3 Official clerical staff accompanying NATO representatives, spouses and children*
NATO-4 "Officials" of NATO, spouses and children*
NATO-5 NATO Experts, spouses and children*
NATO-6 NATO Civilians, spouses and children*
NATO-7 Servants of NATO-1 through NATO-6 and their spouses and children*
O-1 Temporary Worker of Extraordinary Ability
O-2 Accompanying O-1
P-1 Athletes and entertainment groups*
P-2 Artists and Entertainers under reciprocal exchange program*
P-3 Culturally Unique Artists and Entertainers *
Q-1 Cultural Exchange visitors* (spouses and children can use the B-2)
Q-2 Irish Peace Process Program Participant*
R-1 Religious Workers*
S-5 Suppliers of information regarding crimes*
S-6 Suppliers of information regarding terrorism*
SK1 Certain retired International Organization or NATO employees
TN Free Trade Professionals
V-1 Spouse of Permanent Resident,With 2nd A Permanent Immigrant Family Category Filed Before December 22, 2000*

Temporary Non-Immigrant Dependent Categories

C-3 Spouse and children of foreign government official in transit*
F-2 Spouse and children of student *
H-4 Spouse and children of alien classified as H-1, H-2, or H-3
J-2 Spouse and children of Exchange Visitor
K-2 Children of Fiancee & Fiance of U.S. Citizen*
K-4 Unmarried Child of Spouse of U.S. Citizen*
L-2 Spouse and children of Intracompany Transferee
M-2 Spouse and children of Non-Academic Students*
N-8 Parent of child classified SK-3 ("SK-3" includes certain special immigrant officers and employees of international organizations.)*
N-9 Child of parent classified N-8 or SK-1, SK-2, or SK-4. ("SK-" categories are certain special immigrant officers and employees of international organizations.)*
O-3 Spouse and children of O-1 or O-2 aliens
P-4 Spouse and children of P-1, P-2 or P-3
Q-3 Spouse and child of Q-2*
R-2 Spouse and child of Religious Workers*
S-7 Family member of S-5 or S-6*
SK2 Spouse of SK1 retired international organization or NATO employees
SK3 Certain unmarried sons or daughters of an international organization or NATO employee
SK4 Certain surviving spouses of deceased international organization or NATO employees
TD Spouse and child of Free Trade Professionals
V-2 Unmarried Child of a V-1 Applicant*

Permanent Immigrant Categories-Employment Categories

EB 1st Employment based- 1st Preference Priority Workers: People of Extraordinary Ability, Outstanding
Professors and Researchers, and Multi-national Managers and Executives
EB 2nd Employment based - 2nd Preference Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees or Persons ofExceptional Ability (Includes National Interest Waiver)
EB 3rd Employment based - 3rd Preference Skilled workers, Professionals and Other Workers
EB 4th Employment Based-4th Preference Certain Special Immigrants *
EB5th Employment Based -5th Preference Employment Creation Investors
IR Spouses, and Children unmarried and under the age of 21, of U.S. Citizens; Parents of U.S. Citizens, said Citizens age 21 or older
1st Unmarried Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens
2nd A Spouses, and children unmarried and under the age of 21, of Permanent Residents
2nd B Unmarried Sons and Daughters, age 21 or older , of Permanent Residents
3rd Married Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens
4th Brothers and Sisters of U.S. Citizens, said Citizens age 21 or older
LB Spouses and Children of Legalization Beneficiaries*

That about covers it.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Well, even the competitors 'merican version of Robot Wars is going to be in for a shock if they see this thing. I happen to see it over the week end (through an intoxicated haze), and it was basically a slug fest throwing out the wimpiest competitor each time, instead of the trial like they have in the British version. With that wacko wrestler guy as the announcer raving on about total destruction. The Bots seemed to abe a generation or two behind the current Battlebots

Son of Wyachi is designed for sheer destruction, and sort of just dares folks to come in an attack. Looks like they'll need something like cast concrete armor to be effective against it

The american version of Robot Wars feels like they are trying to add the flavor of the WWF to it. And they are screwing up. Hype verses content. Where have I heard this before?

- - -
Radio Free Nation
a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Someone was going to post this eventually.

True enough.

Although this goes back to the ancient paranoia of big government of any kind. although originally this was ancient Rome.

There is a large community of people who are always going to oppose things like this just for this specific reason.

Think of what MS could do with this sort of Government Standard, for example.

It all does come down to a matter of trust. and sadly, the number of people and organizations that we normally can trust implicity with this sort of thing are tragically few.

Until then, this sort of thing is probably a bad idea. Just because of the problem of trust, and the few bad apples.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
If You have the Story, We have the Soap Box

I was up way too late last night, so this is not going to be all that coherant. not that what I say is all that often.

This is just a reflection on the root cause of the obvious success that Linux continues to have, as evidenced by this story.

Somehow I think that the personality of the main visionary behind a piece of software does occasionally express itself in the software in certain subtle ways.

In The case of Linux vs MS, where people want to contribute their energies to some degree, where people give things to the project. This vs MS where alot of people do not want to contribute and where resources are boughtr, paid for, and taken.

Alot of this has to do with the social agreements regarding what is right and normal and just behavior for capitalism, big business, etc. It's what "everyone does". But this seems to be changing with the model of contribution and community help.

This community help model requires more healthy and alive community to work well, while the typical capitalist model can work in a perverse way with criminal types who steal resources. In fact, it can be difficult to avoid.

We eventually come to the point where we have the successes that we have today.

and we can say, with some logic, that the two operating systems and the companies, etc reflect the main personalites involved. Linux is much more community oriented, while MS is more imperial (or something), in its own way.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

People need to also talk this up on Talk shows:

Well, mr. talk show host, I was talking to a friend who was testing this new version of Windows, and boy is it a dog"

[insert reasons that the talk show host can agree with]

just enough to poison the well. simple reasons for regular folks, like the whole Passport fiasco.

heck telling them the plain truth about the copy protection stuff and registration stuff will do the job.

now mind you, I would never do something like this, but you can't even make a copy for your kids machine, or for your wife. You got to buy a whole nother copy! I paid my money. I should be able to do what I want with it!

That should be good enough to do the job.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

This would logically lead to the question: so why did we bomb Yugoslavia, exactly?

and this leads to the question of what responsibilities do you have to your neighbors (as a country).

Could you apply your laws to the actions of individuals in the other country?

Could you say where the line is to be drawn, and when is it proper to intervene, if ever?

And then you can discuss the individual situations in Yougoslavia, an area of the world the gave us the word 'Balkanization'

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

the most basic part of this is trying to prosecute someone for doing something that was legal in his own country.

The USA does not own or run Russia. So why are we trying to enforce our laws there?

How about making Russia a full fledged member of the USA so that the US can really make them obey USA laws. Sorry, there is that small detail on democracy. They might take over the USA that way.

What else is the US going to go after?

y'know, Adobe should PAY for Dmitri's defense. It is only fair.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
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I thought they were going to try to recruit the martians to try to take over the earth.

or maybe re-engineer the probe to disrupt the satellite pron distribution, blackmailing the techies who run the world. (somehow that idea has potential as an episode.)

you get the idea.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

With IBM haviong said that they would put One Billion dollars usian into Linux, what's a measely 45 million dollar in the mix?

I figure they probably what to keep as much diversity as possible going. So IBM makes sense in a way.

But what about Intel? I'm not up to speed on their involvement.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

There's a building sentiment that DMCA is horrible and should be repealed or reworked.

only so long as the RIAA, the MPAA, and other related orgasnizations do not take this as an opportunity to turn the screws event tighter.Gotta watch the bastards.

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Radio Free Nation
a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

This is NOT limited to the tech industry.

for example, take a look at Media Whores Online

As they describe themselves: "The site that set out to bring the media to their knees - but found they were already there"

They stomp on everyone's toes.

good stuff

-

- - -
Radio Free Nation
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

I wonder if an IDS or firewall can be configured to protect against such leeching

or sabotage the results. Given these tidbits from the papers:

As expected and by design, incorrect solu-tions do not generate responses from the web server.

Our technique does not receive a positive acknowledgement that a solution is invalid because an invalid solution is dropped by TCP. Consequently, there is a possibility of false negatives, cases in which a correct solution is not returned

... because this technique exploits the TCP checksum, it circumvents the function the checksum provides. The TCP checksum catches errors that are not caught in the checks provided by the transport layer, such as errors in intermediate routers and the end points

The actual number of TCP checksum failures depends on the communication path, message data, and other factors.

Of course, it is very nice that they note:

parasitic computing represents an advanced but ethically challenging alternative for cluster computing, as it uses resources without the consent of the computer's owner.

Aren't there some things that would be better left untouched?

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an indepedant news site based on Slash Code

Although I noticed this bit:

The Army's now going to something called Army Knowledge Online, and they're centralizing the funding for computers, networking and MIS management. They're not necessarily centralizing the operation, I think that'll be the next step. They're trying to come up with an AOL-like model for the Army, for computing.

I don't know, but this seems like trouble to me.

:)

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code

So while the P2P technology gets the support of the Military, while the RIAA, etc goes after it because of their paranoia.

Maybe national security will trump corporate interests after all.

or will folks get discounts on their weapon purchases?

[smile]

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code

Where you have many governments trying to impose their laws around the world, it seems that the only way webmasters and site-owners can protect themselves is to adopt elaborate license agreements like seen here. Part of this is includes:

3.17 You warrant that your access to this site is not a violation of local laws and regulations in force at the location where you are accessing these Web Sites, and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations.

3.18 You warrant that your access to these Web Sites is not a violation of local laws and regulations of the Country, province, state, county, city, town, or any other type of government jurisdiction of which you are a citizen and/or whose laws you are subject to; and You agree to hold harmless these Web Sites, CyberKnowledge, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents for any actions by you that may be a violation of such local laws and regulations.

4.05 You agree that you shall indemnify and hold harmless these Web Sites, the Web Site Owner, and CyberKnowledge Staff and/or Authorized Agents from any claims that your Contributions infringes a third party's copyright or contains inaccurate, defamatory, libelous, or unlawful material.

All of which throws the responsibilities back on the original author.

It sounds from the evolution that they got away from from the original product line, and lost their way. They go heavy into the themed kits, until now they have super complicated stuff.

When the best play is when you exercise your imagination. They took it from a toy for all ages to a smaller market, a toy for adults who play with blocks and other stuff. a smaller market.

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Radio Free Nation
an news site based on Slash Code

Screw my karma

Get enough so that it doesn't matter. [smile]

Internet Explorer 6.0 is out

I figure that MS has enough bucks to promote their own monoploy

That said, MS always has the weirdest logic with their product names. For example, Windows CE = wince

The fact that I.E. as commonly pronounced, sounds like a scream of agony doesn't help. On the other hand, Koffice looks like you could say it "cough-ice", but that doesn't really work. And Konqueror is a decent name.

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Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code

The Power of /. can squash a web server hosting vanalla HTML...

which is why they are doing it before the end of the summer. If they waited until the middle of september, there would be an awful lot of schools that would have their own bandwidth issues with all the students try to watch it on their own individual boxes.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

The only reason this company is doing it is because they can pay the Russians the equivalent of minimum wage. ($1000/month /160 hours = $6.25/hour if they only work 40 hours/week!). There's nothign admirable about this company.

I know of a number of educational software houses that do the same thing, subcontract to developers in the Ukraine.

On the other hand, The more they are addicted to the American Life Style, the more trouble they will make for big corporations and governments where they live.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternative news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"

Well it seems that Linux will continue to make progress while MS continues with FUDware.

Especially since the Financial field uses alot of very custom made stuff, it is not like thay are just going to go with Access.

The hidden advantadge is that people with access to money will now have first hand experience with Linux, and this will expose any lies in the marketing spin that is out there.

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Radio Free Nation
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"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
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I can remember a pron theater many years ago in the city of Boston that tried to argue that they were a church, and that their films were part of the sacraments for their worshippers.

Didn't go very far, but you had to admire their gusto.

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The rate increase in bug reporting is possibly due to wider use; as each build got better and better, more and more people tried it and found more and more things (little things) wrong.

Well, it is also natural to not right up to cosmetic bugs when you are more concerned with truly broken features.

This probably means that the "Look and Polish" bugs are starting to get attention, as well as performance bugs (ie, it works, but it is slow)

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Radio Free Nation
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While there will be many protesters, and this is very helpful, what is also needed is effective legal counsel.

I am sure that they will appreciate all of the legal help and donations that you can scrounge up.

On the other hand, if all of the attendents at the Expo were able to block the San Jose traffic for a few hours with their march, it might help with the publicity on a national scale.

maybe

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Radio Free Nation
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Obviously, you could need alot of power in the hardware when the operating system does not have enough power to do the job correctly.

This could be for a lot of reasons: mis-configuration, mis-design, software load on the system, bloat, whatever. There are users who are proad of the number of open windows they can have on a desktop, like this makes them a power user or something.

of course, there is the old "it's not a bug, it's a feature" factor as well"

Comparisons to known operating systems are obvious

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Radio Free Nation
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Which side of mars is that? are you suggesting the whole exploding 5th planet thing? having craters on half the planet would mean that asteroids chose to strike mars between certain hours every day.. and not during other hours.. I'm not sure why but this doesn't quite make sense to me...

Not a problem. You can search on the string:

line dichotomy mars craters

and get all kinds of links at google. The boundary of the crater disparity is at about 35 - 40 degres angle to the equator. There are these links that are interesting:

* http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/cha p12.htm - Part of a book online - describe the conventional view of the dichotomy

This paper says that the impacts did not take place on a on a repeating basis, but was part of a one time event. Probably 65 million years ago. There are other pieces of the puzzle that tie into this, available from good scientists, on the web.
* http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides.htm which is from the other side of the fence, but is not badly written.

There are a lot of PDFs for download as well from many research papers.

Remarkably, at a June, 2001 Earth Systems Processes Global Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, astrobiologist Bruce Runnegar of the University of California in Los Angeles presented some striking independent evidence that "something" major happened in the solar system ~65 million years ago. Runnegar and his colleagues had previously identified evidence of a 400,000-year cycle in ancient ocean sediments, indicating changes in Earth's climate corresponding to natural fluctuations in its orbit. To probe this cycle's influence on Earth's climate over the past 100 million years, Runnegar's team constructed computer models based on known variations in planetary orbits, their proximity to the Sun and their interactive perturbations. In running the models, they found that the known fluctuations of the solar system's dynamics remained constant going back to 65 million years ago. Then, to their surprise, the frequency of perturbations to the orbits of the inner planets suddenly changed

This was on CNN, etc at the beginning of the summer. Simple searches for "Runnegar" yeild good results on CNN, and in general. for example:
http://cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/07/05/dinosaur.wobb le/index.html

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Radio Free Nation
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The history of the solar system seems like it was a lot more complex than people have been thinking.

Pluto is seen as a escaped moon of Neptune.

Evidence suggests that the Solar systyem underwent major changes about 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs seem to have been minor collateral damage.

Mars, for example, has a whole bunch of craters that cover just one side of the planet. The other half is pretty clean. Sounds like something went BOOM.

So oddities like asteroids orbiting pluto etc are par for the course.

What I find interesting is that The observations were carried out at the European Southern Observatory with the world's first operational "virtual telescope", Astrovirtel.

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Radio Free Nation
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Talkl about Soviet Russia!

"We have this secret evidence against, and you must trust us to tell you that you are guilty of crimes that violate these secret laws. If you knew what these laws were, we would have to shoot you.

[snort]

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." -FDR

Sounds like we made it.

We won the war against fascism, and communism, (WWII, Cold War, etc) only to be left with a communistic fascism called a corporate democracy. It is a communism of fascistic corporate interests.

Time to blow the planet while there is still a chance.

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Radio Free Nation
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So, even if the punishment was realistic, it wouldn't happen because it is a consquence for something that MS did "not" do. Or so they say.

We'll have to look at the findings of fact. But just because MS protests its innocence does not mean that they go un_punished.

I just proposed this as an alternate, since part of what they did was with an eye to gaining control of the internet. A couple of years ago this would have seemed laughable. Now it is possible.

Thus a penalty to put a stop on it.

but a 3 or 4 way breakup might work.

I just like the idea of Microsoft being forced out of a market they so desperately want to be in for an extended period of time that allows the other players a chance to recover from the damege they have suffered. Otherwise it is like someone being found guilty of a bank robbery not having to turn in the money.

The point of the penalty is that they should not have the benefit of the illegal acts they have committed. The question is: what is the best way to accomplish this?

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Radio Free Nation
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Since they can't do the breakup, then I propose the corporate equivalent of a Jail Sentence.

I would like to see them prohibited from publishing or releasing free or not free, any new software that is internet enabled such as a browser, etc for up 8 to 10 years. New versions of the OS could be released with only the current level of internet capability, say as of April 2001, or whatever

Time off for good behavior so if they play really nice the judge can knock it down to 5.

That, and a really good fine, like about 10 or 20 billion dollars, the possible profits from their illegal acts, should be a good enough slam to get their attention.

Let them sell Office if they want, without any new internet capability. No more new issues of IE, in or Out of Windows, freezing them at the current level. No more MSN special clients. No special .NET clients

Freeze the intenet capability right where it is right now.

This would certainly work as a jail term. They couldn't do anything with there ill gotten gains for many years. But it won't kill them.

And of course, to get anyplace, they might have to sell of part of their operation anyhow.

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Radio Free Nation
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Just looking at the cost of the infrastructure for a typical wireless setup, vs an overhead bird, plus the power of the xmitters, I would say that the low end wireless setups are always going to be less expensive, and that birds in the sky are always going to be relatively pricey. Which will be fine for corporate perks, etc, Bill Gates on Vacation, etc., but not for you average joe.

but the idea of Bill Gates on vacation in the Sahara is amusing.

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Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
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