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They also used to rake in $400,000/mo in banners

Never underestimate the power of a clueless random with a blank address bar. Before you know it sex.com is "porn on the internet" just like banks.com.au is "australian banks on the internet" just like windows is "computers"...

slashcode messes up yet another link.

let's try it this way:

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0%2C1367%2C4887 4%2C00.html

I don't think you understand it very well. To quote Disney:

"There is no right to fair use ... Fair use is a defense against infringement."

Have a read of this article at Wired entitled "The Great MS Patch Nobody Uses". (brief extract below).

A free, downloadable update that transforms Microsoft's Outlook into a significantly more secure e-mail application has languished virtually ignored on Microsoft's website for more than a year.

Although the majority of recent viral attacks have come compliments of worms that don't rely only on e-mail to spread, the Outlook E-mail Security Update (OESU) can stop or greatly lessen the impact of most malicious code, such as BadTrans and SirCam, if only people would download and install it.

OESU blocks the receipt and transmission of most of the e-mail attachments that typically can contain virus or worm code. The update also stops malicious code from spreading by blocking unauthorized access to Outlook and its address book. Many viruses and worms spread by surreptitiously e-mailing themselves to e-mail addresses culled from an infected computer's system files.

Funny how if the other 99% of people had this patch then virus spreading would drop drastically.

One alternative is Ken Perlin's QuikWriting, which has been discussed on slashdot and covered by Wired.

"Quikwriting is significantly faster and less stressful to use than Graffiti, and lets you write very quickly without ever picking your stylus up off the surface, although it has the disadvantage that you need to learn a special alphabet. For further info, you can preview a Technote in either PDF or PostScript, which was published at the ACM UIST'98 conference."

Another alternative that builds on Perlin's QuikWriting work, is Francois Guimbretiere's and Terry Winograd's FlowMenus, published at UIST'00.

"We present a new kind of marking menu that was developed for use with a pen device on display surfaces such as large, high resolution, wall-mounted displays. It integrates capabilities of previously separate mechanisms such as marking menus and Quikwriting, and facilitates the entry of multiple commands. While using this menu, the pen never has to leave the active surface so that consecutive menu selections, data entry (text and parameters) and direct manipulation tasks can be integrated fluidly."

I'm currently designing and programming a user interface on the Palm for a remote control application. So I've implemented "Finger Pies", which are simply pie menus that you can use with your finger!

To paraphrase Ben Shneiderman: Finger Pies work well for implementing direct manipulation user interfaces on handheld personal touch screen devices, in which the application provides meaningful, engaging, tightly coupled feedback on the screen, in response to your gesture. By integrating immediate gratification over time, the user enjoys the satisfaction of direct engagement in an immersive experience, and achieves the cognitive resonance of continuous gratification. [My apologies to Ben for the tongue in cheek impression.]

Finger Pies are not meant to replace character input systems like Graffiti, but they are extremely useful and reliable for many applications of handheld input devices, because they're easy enough to use with your finger instead of a pen.

Finger pies are good for reliably selecting between two, four or eight options at a time (which can be nested as pop up submenus), and they're much more robust and resistant to noise than gesture recognition.

One problem with gesture recognition in general, is that it doesn't allow for "reselection" or in-flight refinement and error correction. That is, once you've made a mistake in a gesture, there's no way to change or cancel it, so you will often get characters that you don't mean, and you have to stop what you're doing and erase the mistake.

Pie menus allow you to cancel or change the selection at any time before you commit to the selection, so you can easily browse the menus. So pie menus are most appropriate when there aren't too many items, the items don't change dynamically over time, and when you need to minimize the error rate and selection time.

Most gesture recognition systems are not "self revealing" like pie menus, which can pop up a "map" showing the directions. So pie menus are much easier to learn than gesture recognition, and more appropriate for novice users. Best of all, they naturally train users to "mouse ahead" and select without looking, so they have a smooth, gentle learning curve.

Another advantage of pie menus is that they're not patented or restricted, and there are several freely available open source implementations.

-Don

Penny Lane: "This song was written about the roundabout in liverpool where John and Paul grew up. Half of the song is fact, half is fiction, but most of it is nostalgia. John was starting to write about personal places, and Paul really took this one and ran. "I wrote that the barber had photographs of every head he'd had the pleasure of knowing. Actually, he just had photos of different hair styles. But all the people do stop and say hello." say Paul. Also, "finger pie" is actually an old obscenity in Liverpool. The girls would never thnk of saying the word. It was used in the song as a fun joke for the lads back home. Months after, waitresses in Liverpool had to put up with lads asking for "fish and finger pie." There is also a phallic reference to the "fireman who keeps his fire engine clean." Penny Lane has become a Beatles landmark, and like Blue Jay Way, has it's problems with stolen signs, which are now nicely bolted down. Penny Lane was recorded on December 29, 1966 and released as a single with Strawberry Fields.The song also has a promotional video." -http://members.aol.com/Sumacca/songs.html

The problem has caused even Rob Malda, the founder of Slashdot, to sound the alarm. Malda, known by his nom de net, CmdrTaco, can get down and dirty himself. So when CmdrTaco's own troops provoke his disgust, you know there's a serious problem.

i like that part the best haha.
hidden lil tid bit on page 3 :)
HERE

Microsoft and Apple ads are everywhere, but no one is funding major marketing campaigns for desktop Linux. No one with any clout is carrying the torch for desktop Linux. Who is Linux's Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Not Linus Torvalds. He supports desktop Linux, but does little proselytizing.

care of: this link here from wired.com

the truth is revealed... wired.com even printed an article about this... *sigh* someday you all will see the truth.

Read here then realize the undying truth. =)

yeah, too bad any linux office programs are useless.

please read THIS from wired.com about your linux OS, then face the hard truth

Good article. There's another article that might explain Universal's reasoning for adding copy-protection. (HINT: It really has little to do with piracy.)

http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,49188,00.html

On Tuesday, Universal Music Group becomes the first label to sell copy-protected CDs in the United States with the release of its soundtrack Fast & Furious -- More Music. This comes at a time when the recording industry is asking consumers to pay for music that can only be listened to on the PC.

The newly released CD will keep people from listening to their music on the computer, game consoles and other digital devices. If they wanted to go through the major labels to buy the same music for their computer, the only way would be to sign up for Pressplay, one of the major label subscription services, when it launches later this month.

Essentially, consumers would be required to pay once for a physical CD and once for the digital music file. The restrictions for online subscription services and physical CDs are part of a music industry-wide attempt to stop online music piracy.

Bascially, they want to move everyone into a position where they get paid everytime you "space-shift" your music. Playing your CD in CD player? Pay for it once. Playing it on the computer? Pay for it again. <begin sarcasm>After all, we've got to keep those RIAA pockets filled, don't we?<end sarcasm>

Check out the Wired article on the workshop. Preston Padden, head of government relations for Disney, is quoted as saying :

"There is no right to fair use ... Fair use is a defense against infringement."

This from the company that bought off the politicians to change the law in the 90s and so prevent Mickey Mouse going out of copyright in 2004. This from the company that appropriates others' intellectual property and claims it as their own (Snow White, Aladdin, Christmas Carol, countless others). They are thieves and liars.

Note that not a single work has gone out of copyright in the US since the first world war. If the corps get their way, nothing will ever go out of copyright again. We will still have a culture, but you'll need to purchase a license to partake of it.

Funny you should mention that.

Quoth Wired: "Jack Valenti predicts that Congress will require copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs."

Quoth Tackhead: "Jack Valenti can take a long, hard suck on my arse."

The scary part is the article's title: "A Call to End Copyright Confusion". I don't see any confusion. I'm sure Jack isn't confused either.

Right now, ripping is legal. Distributing ripped MP3s isn't. Jack wants to make sure that ripping is also illegal, so he can sell us the same movie twice - once on DVD, and once on our PC. Just like Hilary wants to sell us the same music twice - once on copy-crippled CD, and once-per-listen on our PCs.

The other scary quote from the Wired article: "'I am openly, unabashedly in support of the government stepping in to set standards,' said Preston Padden, head of government relations for Disney."

1) Head of government relations. Nice title for your business card. That's right. Walt Disney, the cute little mouse company, has a position that might as well be called "Ambassador". No fucking wonder they get the copyrights on the Rat extended on demand. They've fucking got an embassy.

2) The word "standards", and all that implies.

I think we can see the spin for SSSCA right now. Existing copyright laws are somehow confusing. Existing copy control technologies are broken because they're not standardized across all devices. We therefore resolve the "confusion" by having the government adopt Jack and Hilary and Mickey's "standard" in all devices.

If you make hardware that doesn't meet the standard, you're guilty of making things "confusing" for the consumer, and nobody will buy your product. (And men with guns, "empowered" by the new law, will "protect the consumer" by taking your hardware off the market.)

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49201,00 .html

It seems like SSSCA is just taking a breather, for now. You overestimate the influence of IT in our "bread and circuses" democracy. Remember, Hollywood provides the circuses....

A good friend of mine teaches elementary school here in the Silicon Valley, and last year she had the misfortune of having 2 children affected by this, one with Autism and the other with Asperger's.

Now, at 225,000 computers, maybe your neighbor has a really large house...

56 bit DES is insecure when you're worried about protecting LONG TERM** data against well financed competitors or governments. Don't worry about your neighbor.

**Linksys doesn't say how the key is chosen nor how it is distributed. If the key is regenerated each time you power up, or at some interval, you have to worry even less: after your "neighbor" spends 2 months cracking the key with his 225,000 computers, he'll only be able to decrypt the month or so of data he sniffed and saved. He won't be able to decrypt your current data, since the key has long since changed.

Wired ran an article about this, while it was primarially centered around the failure of internet appliances such as the I-Opener, ePods, Audrey, Sony eVilla and Virgin Webplayer, it offered some good insight into the future of web devices and broadband.

A portable web tablet or accesing the web through HDTV never looked cooler, just a shame no one is making a profit doing it.

Why video game companies are willing to risk large sums on a traditionally low yield business (movie making) when their own video game market is already larger than the revenue stream for movies.

This bogus statistic was widely circulated, and subsequently very quitely debunked. What was actually true was that *worldwide* video game grosses were larger than *U.S.* movie ticket sales, which is much less surprising and much less signifigant.

What's more, when combined with some other numbers, the video game biz looks like a better candidate for the "low yield" club than the movie business. From Wired News:

The [computer and video game] industry created more than 219,000 jobs and paid $7.2 billion in wages in 2000, according to the study. Retail sales of computer and video game hardware and software totaled about $7.8 billion.

So, according to this article, the combined pc/video game business watched very nearly it's entire revenue stream go right back out the door in salaries alone, last year, at least. No wonder PC games are under seige and the more profitable console games are front and center.

The movie business has had some famous flops, but in general, there are more opportunities in the movie business to use sheer marketing firepower to ensure that a crummy product still makes big money.

I'm not saying that I think video game companies can make good movies - heck, 90% of the time, they can't even make good video games - but I can understand the desire to move into a market that has more predictable revenues and great tie-in opportunities.

Wired? Give me a break. Look at this article on their main page about animal washing service. Call me autistic if you will, but I'm not paying attention to this story until a valid study is done, reported by a respectable news source.

The article adresses this and says "Anyone who says this is due to better diagnostics has his head in the sand." I never met the parents, so I wouldn't be able to tell you whether they had this, but I did meet the kids. I can tell you, it wouldn't matter if there were only 5 kids in a class, it still wouldn't work with these kids. They need INDIVIDUAL attention.

No, class sizes have not gotten bigger, they have gotten smaller (at least in California in grades K-3). While 10+ years ago classes could be as large as 35+ kids, now the cap is at 20. So you can't blame it on larger classes.

And no, not all kids in the Silicon Valley are rich, about 9% of the county's population is considered below the poverty line.

I do agree with you on one point, the programmer community should get more involved in the education process.

MOCA was co-sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat. A bi-partisan bill which is needed if it is to have any chance of passing. The RIAA spreads its money across the board, Republican's or Democrats, it doesn't matter. The RIAA is losing a lot of credibility on Capital Hill after the USA Act fiasco

• Investigators served 56 search warrants and expect to grab about 130 computers.

  Customs agent Allan Doody said each computer has between one to two terabytes of stolen software.

for some reason, the wired print version has more info, including this bit:

ElComSoft's chief executive, Alex Katalov, said he was pleased that the company, not Sklyarov, would bear sole responsibility for the charges.

wouldn't it be ironic if a russian company played a role in freeing america from an unjust law?

• April 17, 1990, posted by Jon Blow:
  ...By this time, the wizards [dungeonmasters] had locked off a few areas that were just spam-for-the-senses...
  
• June 27, 1990, posted by Vintage Mutant Ganja Technerd:
  For example, a delay of 5 to 10 seconds between object creations and logging in, will all do the trick of 'limiting' spamming without the juggling of quotas, login times, keeping track of hosts, et al.
  
• October 4, 1990, posted by A Molitor:
  ...when you run a MUD advertised as having few or no rules, a MUD where you can do anything, players *will* spam it. This is not conjecture, but documented historical fact. Ask around about BloodMUD some time.
  

• From: Jon Blow (blojo@tornado.Berkeley.EDU)
  Subject: Re: Word wrap
  Newsgroups: alt.mud
  Date: 1990-01-22 23:18:55 PST
  Right now my entire adventure is formatted to be easy-readable in 80 columns. This is also a pain, since 1) It takes much longer for me to write it, and I constantly feel a loss of artistic quality when I am forced to reword so that a line will fit; 2) People with wordwrap must turn it OFF, or the adventure will look like Spam. Bummer.

I thought this was interesting. Microsoft is teaming up with Predictive Networks, whose vice president happens to be Christopher Painter, the guy who nabbed Mitnick.

No, they didn't agree to that. That's the point.

e.g. see this or this

It's freaky that is for sure. Wired had a good story on it from back in 1998. But it is even more apropos now, a recent story brings up the good point

"It's really hard to escape from your past now if your past included electronic conversations," Jerry Franks, an open source programmer, said in an e-mail. "We're probably the first generation whose 'permanent record,' will follow us for life, exactly as our high school principal warned us it would."

For the love of god, in college my friend used his roomates email and posted this

If anyone can imagine a gravy-lickin' good time, here's all you have : to do: I tablespoon Heinz chicken gravy, applied generously to one's penis. 1, preferably two bowls of Northern Lights #5, and an eager :bull terrier, and you're good to go! : BTW may I suggest a new newsgroup alt.drugs.pot.bestiality?

That is a hell of a permenant record to live down.

It's freaky that is for sure. Wired had a good story on it from back in 1998. But it is even more apropos now, a recent story brings up the good point

"It's really hard to escape from your past now if your past included electronic conversations," Jerry Franks, an open source programmer, said in an e-mail. "We're probably the first generation whose 'permanent record,' will follow us for life, exactly as our high school principal warned us it would."

For the love of god, in college my friend used his roomates email and posted this

If anyone can imagine a gravy-lickin' good time, here's all you have : to do: I tablespoon Heinz chicken gravy, applied generously to one's penis. 1, preferably two bowls of Northern Lights #5, and an eager :bull terrier, and you're good to go! : BTW may I suggest a new newsgroup alt.drugs.pot.bestiality?

That is a hell of a permenant record to live down.

And while we're on the subject, anybody have any nominations for great moments in Slashdot history? I'll start. Here is the first article on Slashdot that mentions Google.

A lot of people on here have stated that the government should just step back and let people pirate and the whole "it's not hurting anyone" mentality. What is not often quite obvious is organized crimes syndicates have taken to selling pirated software and pawning pirated software as legal copies to fund their illegal activities. (It's talked about in this article) These are the people that the government is going after, not joe blow who copied his friends version of Photoshop.

Secondly, (I don't intend on starting an OS war) but it is kind of hypocritical to say that all software should be free. Everything in the world cost money. Software is not cheap to produce. Wait, I take that back.. GOOD software is not cheap to produce. Companies invest heavily to research, develop, hire programmers, rent offices, marketing, etc to sell their software. Just because the final product is pressed onto a 10 cent CD doesn't mean that it does cost ten cents. People have argued, Companies should price it so high if they don't want people to pirate. Well, there is a thing called supply and demand. It is only because there is enough demand for it that companies can price it so high. Secondly, they price it high because it is a good product that they have invested time and money into. [Even with Windows, nobody is forcing anyone to purchase windows...and yes, you CAN get a PC without paying MS tax]. Well..that's my rambling..

This is why I started using Mozilla.

"There are 1,500 warez members nationwide, officials estimate, and eight to 10 major groups."

- wired article

does that mean we have to pay dues now?

I always thought it was spelled "37337."

MSNBC and Wired. Seems that no one was arrested (in the US, at least - 5 people were in England). One customs agent said each computer has an average of 1-2 terabytes of software (Wired article). Wow.

Thanks a million, Google!

(thanks go to Bill C. from the lugwash list)

Send this to Judge Motz - Wired reports that he's only got 200 complaint letters so far.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz
Garmatz Federal Courthouse, Suite 4415
101 West Lombard St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

It is my belief that the proposed antitrust settlement with Microsoft
Corporation is not in the best interests of the American people. It
does not protect against future abuses and in fact encourages the
spread of the Microsoft software monopoly by training a vast army of
young people to use their operating system and attendant application
programs to the exclusion of very viable software alternatives.
America is based on freedom of choice; but students in Americas'
public schools can only learn to use computers, an essential skill
for the coming generation of employees, on the products provided to
them. Today, the Dept. of Justice has an opportunity to broaden the
scope of that choice and thus empower generations yet unborn. It also
has the opportunity to cave in to Bill Gates and thus must choose
between greatness and ignominy.

The Northern Territories school district in Australia, with a
population of just over 200,000, finds that it saved $1,000,000 in
the first year alone by using Linux alongside Microsoft products to
provide computer education at all grade levels. This was enough to
allow the school district to purchase an additional 1,000 computers
for distribution in the schools and as loaner units for students (and
their parents) to use at home. In a few short years their children
will be competing, very effectively, on the worldwide intellectual
marketplace against American children whose access to hardware was
hampered by the prohibitive cost imposed by the practice of using
Microsoft products all but exclusively in the public schools. The
Australian experience could have been dramatically more productive
had they used Linux as the operating system on all their computers
but it was a good initial step. The present savings represent its use
in their servers only.


http://opensourceschools.org/article.php?story=2 00 11207001012102

I support the notion that Microsoft should pay its fine in hardware
donations only. It has been brought to my attention that Red Hat
Software of Research Triangle Park, NC, (near Durham, NC) has offered
to provide pro-bono copies of the Linux operating system
corresponding to a Microsoft donation of hardware. It is my desire
that any donation of software that Microsoft might choose to make
would not be included in the proposed settlement but must also be a
pro-bono gesture corresponding to the Red Hat Software offer.
Moreover, any copies of software Microsoft might donate should
require no payment of any sort by the schools at any forward point in
time. It must be a true donation of indefinite duration, just as the
Red Hat offer is. Otherwise, if required to pay, the schools would
eventually have to abandon their training programs for lack of funds
to re-license / upgrade their software.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011120/202744_1.html

While Microsoft Corporation should not be excluded from expressing
generosity, such generosity, expressed as software gifts, only
furthers their ability to monopolize the marketplace and should not
be permitted as a part of the penalty for having followed illegal
practices in the establishment of their dominance in the software
market.

Microsoft has painted itself the champion of choice and freewill
while villifying open-source software as being un-American. I think
it is time for their actions, public and private, to match their very
public words.

Software donations should be no part of the proposed settlement.

This article explains why they aren't a bank... scary or not, they couldn't attain their goals under the constraints of a true bank. Wired Mag Article

I have a lot of respect for Joy's technical acumen. Perhaps someone else can do something deeper than this press release.
What is it, specifically, besides (insert file-sharing utility here) with enhanced security?
I recall the Wired article about Jini, but a 'Doze beater it was not. Should we expect anything different from this equally-cooled-named product?
Notwithstanding trading MP3 files and gaming, is anyone using peer-to-peer applications?

This reminds me of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) last January, the town sits within a valley with snow covered mountains each side, they used a high powered laser to project words onto the snowy hill above the town, you could submit messages through the web or via SMS (GSM text).

This reminds me of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) last January, the town sits within a valley with snow covered mountains each side, they used a high powered laser to project words onto the snowy hill above the town, you could submit messages through the web or via SMS (GSM text).

The state of Victoria needs about 7600MW of power. The proposed convection tower's *peak* output is 200MW. For comparison, the two gas power stations I have data on (I work for an energy company here in the UK) are 600MW and 850MW. It seems like the tower is playing in the right ballpark, although it really is completely dependent on its mean output, not its peak.

BTW, the gas power stations produce power extremely close to their capacity, 24 hours a day. Power is expensive to store, so you really try and avoid overproduction. If the tower's output varies wildly over a 24-hour period, or even seasonally, this will be a disadvantage.

Still, it's a pretty damn cool idea - a zero emissions power station with no requirements for supply lines, *and* it's already been prototyped in Manzanares. I wonder if a *smaller* tower might be a better idea (cheaper, less of an eyesore), using the principles of micropower to build a robust, distributed network of smaller-scale power stations, rather than fewer, giant power stations.

Damn, distributed network? This is sounding like the internet power grid...

To get the first set of rules I saved up a few hundred spam and then found clusters with similar characteristics. Then I ran saved messages from lists and known people to tune the rules further. Some spammers now make small changes to the text so that matching based on long strings verbatim will not work. A dynamic spam filter would be a good AI / machine learning project.

Some people (Cancelmoose) on Usenet used to check cross-postings to detect spam. Perhaps a similar effect can be achieved by monitoring key routes / mail servers to detect multiple messages and label them as potential spam, maybe an RBL-style service.

There was a press release from Nintendo the other day and it spend some time talking about the 1.9 Games to Console ratio they obtained. A few days later MS announced that they had the best ratio ever recorded for an initial concole launch of 2.4.

Many stores were not selling the X-Box standalone. You had to buy the X-Box plus 2 or 3 games as part of a bundle. There is rumor that this bundling was an edict by Microsoft before a store was allowed to sell the X-Box. WIRED ran an article discussing how EB, ToysRUs and Gamestop were doing nothing but bundles, much to the annoyance of their customers who didn't necessarily want all the games in a particular bundle.

This number is important and the game developers are not fools. They have been in this arean much longer than MS and knows the deal.

It strongly looks like MS knew the deal and has been loading the deck to give themselves a better hand. Golden Rule #1: Never Let Microsoft Deal The Cards.

Recall reading the Wired article about the XBox, where they mention that its initial $300 dollar price will be driven down to around $100 as soon as possible.
Sorry about the low end of the computer market, but it'll be cool when you can drop a grand, pick up a ten-pack of them, and construct your Much-Ballyhooed Beowulf Cluster (MBBC).
Maybe one day /. itself could run on such an installation. Feel the irony.

Remember way back when VA (then called VA Research) snapped up Linux Hardware Solutions? They were acquired at the same time as "Enlightenment Solutions." Afterwards, they changed their name to "VA Linux Systems," probably because nobody knew what the hell "VA Research" meant.

A few months later, they announced their IPO. Folks there must have felt drunk when they saw their stock valuation vault to - well, it was the biggest first-day pop in history, let's just put it that way. Even Eric Raymond piped up about the windfall (salient points for the busy: "Wow. Thanks, Linux hackers. I'm buying a new gun. Charities can go fuck themselves.")

All this was only two years ago. How time flies. I'm looking at my comparatively antediluvean userID and feeling all nostaligic.

Incidentally - VA's stock has been doing not-so-badly since November. Interesting.

Remember way back when VA (then called VA Research) snapped up Linux Hardware Solutions? They were acquired at the same time as "Enlightenment Solutions." Afterwards, they changed their name to "VA Linux Systems," probably because nobody knew what the hell "VA Research" meant.

A few months later, they announced their IPO. Folks there must have felt drunk when they saw their stock valuation vault to - well, it was the biggest first-day pop in history, let's just put it that way. Even Eric Raymond piped up about the windfall (salient points for the busy: "Wow. Thanks, Linux hackers. I'm buying a new gun. Charities can go fuck themselves.")

All this was only two years ago. How time flies. I'm looking at my comparatively antediluvean userID and feeling all nostaligic.

Incidentally - VA's stock has been doing not-so-badly since November. Interesting.

Yeah, the article posted with the story had the case of Ticketmaster vs. Tickets.com where the judge ruled it was legal for Tickets.com to deep link to Ticketmaster. CmdrTaco mentions this in the story, not only did you not read the article linked, you didn't even read the /. story before posting your reaction? How did you know what the story was about, did you just read the headline?

Yeah, the article posted with the story had the case of Ticketmaster vs. Tickets.com where the judge ruled it was legal for Tickets.com to deep link to Ticketmaster. CmdrTaco mentions this in the story, not only did you not read the article linked, you didn't even read the /. story before posting your reaction? How did you know what the story was about, did you just read the headline?

Here is a story about the "Dumb Motherfucker" link on Google.

I just read that piece last night because I stay about 6 months behind in all my magazine reading. I would like to say I do it deliberately to keep things "in perspective," but its more like I've got too many classes and too much work and too much web site to read the things when they first come in.

One more moderation and I'll hit the karma ceiling...