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Slashback: Bankruptcy, SUVdiving, Singalongs
Not like that un-American GPL. agentZ writes "The first Microsoft government customer to buy access to the Windows source code is Russia according to this CNet story. Interesting to note FAPSI, one of their intelligence agencies, authorized the purchase. Perhaps they're looking for vulnerabilities in the U.S. Government's dependence on Microsoft?"
The difference between Chapter 11 and The End. prostoalex writes "In regards to a recent heated discussion on whether tech companies can make it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, XO Communications, the telecom company of the dot-com era, seems to be doing quite well after filing Chapter 11. The article on Internet.com also mentions another company, Covad Communications, picking up customers and more business after filing for Chapter 11."
There's hope in PCI Land. Regarding the Slashdot post of a few days ago about the PCI-SIG ("The End of the Free PCI Device List"), PCI-SIG Chairman Tony Pierce writes
"YourVote.com Supporters:Thank you for making us aware of your concerns regarding Jim Boemler's online Vendor and Device Lists for the PCI technology.
There has been a misunderstanding between PCI-SIG and Jim - PCI-SIG officers are currently working with Jim to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. We respect Jim Boemler's work and are committed to support the PCI specification efforts industry-wide. We are confident that we will come to an amicable resolution.
We are pleased to see the strong industry support for PCI technologies and value your response to the issues. We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way.
Thank you for your support over the years. We will be sure to keep you informed as we come to resolution in this situation."
This lowers Finland on my list of vacation spots. E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."
Would still rather see a statement signed in blood. Error27 writes "Earlier this week, Slashdot linked to a Maureen O'Gara article that claimed SCO was probably going to try charge Linux users $96 per CPU. More than one person thought SCO's denial was, "Awfully ambiguous". Hopefully this article clears up any doubts. Essentially, SCO will continue to charge IBM but not RedHat or SCO's UnitedLinux partners."
Perhaps I can volunteer my dad's Suburbans? Finally, joe jennings writes
"A few months ago you ran a story about the cars my team and I skydived with and crashed into the desert. This is a bit of an update.Next month, we're going to blow up my Nissan Pathfinder. Its twisted remains will be welded to a steel beam and planted on a plot of land in the mojave desert. We're starting "suv ranch," a tribute to gas guzzlers, a dying trend (we hope).
I intend to thoroughly document the project and will post images and quicktime videos on gaspig.com."
For those to lazy to type in 10 characters: Clicky
Ummm.... last time I checked you still couldn't export crypto outside the U.S. - won't this kinda kill the purchase ??? Sorry I couldn't add more but am already running late
Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids.
Yeah... that's going to be enforceable. What are they going to do, interview the kids as they come out of day care? We thought we had it bad with the RIAA. Sheesh!
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
In finland, do they have Fair Use? Because Nursery Rymes and such would be the stereotypical fair use type deal, I mean, it should be argued that that's for educational purposes, which is generally covered under fair use. It's specifically menchioned as an exception here.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
"The Soviet Union? I though you guys broke up?"
"Yeees, thats what ve wanted ve wanted you to think! Ha ha, haa hahaha!"
This really just goes too far, I hope that every parent who has kids in Finland in day care sends them to the head office of this organisation. Thousands of screaming stinking kids should change their minds pretty quickly.
"Essentially, SCO will continue to charge IBM but not RedHat or SCO's UnitedLinux partners."
Isn't that called being discriminatory? Charging different people different amounts for the same thing? (Actually The entire Linux pricing issue skirts legality, but that's a different topic)
Besides, their "word" on that convinces who? If/when Linux actually does take off on the desktop, and Red Hat starts raking in the billions, SCO will just stick to their word then? "United Linux" vs Red Hat? You don't think this won't heat up in the future?
When monkeys fly out of my...
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
umm, isn't the recreational use of airplanes- which use a lot of gas and pollute a lot more than the worse suv's- including to dump suv's out of them, a lot worse than the suv's themselves?
The link should point to http://www.gaspig.com
Or Check the Google Cache
Link to crash-diving SUV enthusiasts should point to gaspig.com, not gaspic.com
And one can't but wonder why it hasn't occured to them that the best way to do it is not to send a cease & decist letter in the first place... What a load of hogwash. The tool was already available to the public in some way untill they started interfering, and now they're looking for a way to make sure that... *sigh*
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
With prices of around 75p/l for fuel, you can't afford to drive viechles like that over here in Britain, let alone throw them out of a plane.
Well as much as I liked seeing skydiving vehicles in the odd James Bonf Flick and all I don't see this as an good way to protest SUV's.
1. You need to gas the planes to get the cars up into the wild blue yonder. MORE POLLUTION.
2. Crashing theme into the desert. I am sure that this does wonders for the native wildlife and natural look of the desert. Just cause it is empty space doesn't mean we have to throw trashed cars into it. Even if you remove all the hydrocarbons and glass, it's still junk.
3. Then blowing up a Nissan Pathfinder. Hmmm, releasing smoke and debris and further polluting the enviroment. Could have recycled the metal into something else.
I am all about making a statement about SUV's and pollution. But you doing things like driving a small car, riding a bike, using the bus. But spending money, resources, and then further polluting the air with a Jack Ass like stunt. Just don't make much sense to me.
Put0
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Bloomberg says it's just a chance to LOOK at the code (by visiting Redmond perhaps or having them visit you?) But News.com reports that MS will let governments BUILD their own custom versions (doesn't say whether by MS or by themselves). Which is it? There's a big difference there.
And also is it access to ALL the source code, or just the security-related bits?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Regarding XO Chapter 11, if XO does well, is Ted Fortsmann getting his shares back? He owned large number of shares and of course, he lost them all because of the bankruptcy, but I'm wondering if he's still entitled to his shares and so forth. Does anyone know? Anyone familiar with bonds, stocks, etc.?
IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
microsoft's code owns you!
Within a couple of years, non-democratic governments will have a copy of the source code of Windows, and some governments, that have been cooperating with local companies to do industrial espionage, will also have it.
The old argument that Linux is less secure because evil hackers can see the source code now also applies to Windows. Except that the good guys can't see the Windows source code. I wonder what they're hiding.
Lars Dybdahl.
source code looks at YOU!
north korea has nukes and russia has the windows source code.
i don't know which is worse. seriously.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
You know, there are some valid reasons for owning a small SUV, like the Pathfinder, or a Ford Explorer.
I carry a family, go camping, and occasionally pull a trailer with my Explorer. I guarantee you that I can't do some of these things in a Geo Metro.
What good is 45 mpg if you have to make four round trips to get your stuff there, that you can do in one with an Explorer?
Ok, I guess this was all mean to be lighthearted, but "allies" spy on each other all the time -- England, in fact, has been incredibly succesful and active in spying on the US, even as the US was entering WWII.
It'd be naive to assume that allies aren't busy spying on each other.
It's the sort of thing we find out way after the fact, of course, but sure, why not (it seems like a good idea to me!)
Try throwing cowboy neal out a plane, hes much heavier than a ford explorer.
Nuclear weapons require a separate, expensive, delivery mechanism. Software attacks can be accomplished from the comfort of the living room couch (or government office) by anybody with a cheap PC and some skillz.
XO doing well - Well of course they are doing well - they have been going nuts signing up major spamhausen, and protecting the ones they already have. Easy to make more money when you are able to charge 3X the going rate to insure your spammer customers don't have to suffer the pain of disconnection.
PCI spec - Translation - "BOY OH BOY did we step in it! Jeez who'd'a thunk that this would piss so many people off! OK, we are making nice now, stop flaming our servers!"
Finnish Nannys Question - if they sing a song for which copyright has expired, do they have to pay? "All right kids, from the top: There's a nice wee lass, her name's Mary Mack..."
SCO charges IBM, not RH or others... OK, so screwing some people is OK, so long as it isn't me?!?! It would be funny if IBM bought SCO and then freed the IP...
Crashing cars into the desert So, we are going to protest wastefulness by wasting vehicles.... ???
www.eFax.com are spammers
"We understand this site has been a very valuable tool and are working together to find a solution to make sure that the tool is available to the public in some way." As in we'll maintain it, and we'll charge you to look at it. Perhaps I'm just used to interpreting these things from other evil things and having been burned in the past (CDDB?) we don't trust anyone again. Still, it sounds an awful lot like they are going to try to steal all the data as their own.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
No one remembers that song. Go away - freak!
This morning when it snowed 3 inches and you can't go anywhere around here without hitting a nice steep hill. But then again a few cars are all wheel drive like the Eagle Talon or Subaru something or other.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
It isn't flamebait just because you don't like SUVs. Airneil made a valid comment.
Trademarks must be defended by the holder or they get taken away, copyrights are always in effect until they run out or the work they protect is put in the public domain.
Post your total shopping list for the past year to your journal, and then let US bash it, if you want to make sanctimonious comments about another poster's vehicle choice.
Er...
A nuclear weapon can level a city. No people, no bodies, just a few square miles of wasteland--and outside that, death and destruction that would be "biological warfare" if it was contagious and not just fallout.
Windows source code, OTOH, is almost nothing more than a chance to attack an insecure system--secure systems don't bare windows to the world, generally--and they're attacked anyway by reverse-engingeering crackers.
*sigh*
Uh, keep in mind, this is /., and the quote you're whining about comes from one of the /. editors, which means it has just about zero credibility.
If you'd actually read the article, you'd see that this is all in reference to some old compatibility libraries that aren't included with your typical Linux distro. It goes on to say, "SCO is exploring the options of getting intellectual property payments from companies that use SCO licensed libraries [...] without paying for them," and goes on to say, "[c]ompanies like IBM have been, and are continuing to pay, SCO for the use of these and other licenses." (Emhasis mine.)
As a lot of us expected, this whole thing really does seem to be a tempest in a teapot.
--typical hypocrisy. You are correct. Idiots who call themselvesd 'ecologists" can do whatever they want to, because they are only interested in what YOU do. They espouse and mumble the words of "socialism" but their actions scream FASCISM. Can't burn fossil fuel so lets go skydiving! Liars are liars, that's it. That's like al bore, the inventor of the internet, flying with his retinue to the kyoto treaty digs, burning more fuel in one trip than the avertage US "energy hog" does in a lifetime. Naw, he coulda proved his point with a little video conferencing and telecommuting, nope, had to fly jumbo jets and be accompanied by hundeds of goon camp followers.
And before any "eco"-tistical- trolls reply, I run on solar PV panels, DO YOU? Or does your "gaming" take all your spare loot and time? And note 2 to indignant trolls, I am neither a dem or repub or green or any other bogus "political party" so don't slap your divisive labels and make assumptions.
...I think...
What SubtleNuance is saying is that perhaps the use of gas in this situation is justified by the mindshare gain for the idea that SUVs waste a lot of gas. Right?
Maybe it's a glider?
Rank comments and posts against each other at We-Rank.com
...Government looks for vulnerabilities in Microsoft.
paintball
Well when I was that age we got,
'Oh Christmas tree'
'Ride a cock horse'
'here we go round the mulbry bush'
Who are they paying royalties too, anon?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
> The first Microsoft government customer to buy
> access to the Windows source code is Russia...
Wait a minute. I thought way back when Microsoft's internal network was thoroughly compromised, they traced some part of the hack back to a Russian address.
Why on earth would they bother with Microsoft?
Maybe someone took the 1-800-RU Legit too literally?
I am wondering how well protected the source code will be. If the history (such as Moscow police "white pages" database with all the unlisted numbers included quickly leaking out) is any indication, we might soon see CDs with full Windows sources being sold for a few bugs on every corner in Moscow...
In fact, we might see a variant of an "open-source windows" movement actaully happening there!
Isn't 'Ride a cock horse' at a daycare center considered sexual abuse?
This space for rent, inquire within.
Are "Educationa Licenses" selling the same thing to different people for different prices?
paintball
This is absolutely ridiculous and non-enforcable. It even screams for civil disobedience, if something like this gets passed. Nobody will take the law serious anymore, if too many crazy laws are made. Even people I know who don't know anything about mp3s and P-t-P software, are becoming more and more pissed off at things like copyright protection and excessive prices for music that tends to get worse (cfr. bland, faceless, uninspired, synthethical pre-fab pop 'sensations' that are pushed and hyped everywhere these days).
It also goes to show (again) that many people involved in the music business are in it rather for the love of money than the love of music.
(Which is -in a horrible way- understandable when you make and sell 'artists' as 'products').
And pollution is just one of the arguments against SUVs.
The pollution problem is a cumulative effect. The most effective way to cut pollution is to pollute less on our twice daily commutes by driving more efficient vehicles more often. It's not by out and out banning any one type of vehicle. California made great progress over the last 10 years, and their system should be copied. However, it's clear that it was only a first step, and it now needs to be taken farther through more widespread adoption, and more stringent efficiency regulations.
Raus unserem land!!
Gas guzzlers suck, and you drop them from the sky to prove the point, and yet you were driving a pathfinder?
Me guesses that you decided this *after* the thing was beyond economical repair, or a couple hundred thousand miles.
Actually, FAPSI (AKA FAGCI) is the Russian counterpart of NSA, with little to no foreign intelligence duties (as declared, that is). They are known as having good cryptoanalysts and computer security staff.
As for the dangers of showing off the s3kr1t code running "sensitive" tasks to shady foreign agencies, we all know at which point the mistake has been made, don't we?
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Or perhaps you are not aware that spying is not restricted to enemies? In fact, Jane's had an article several weeks ago about Russia stepping up US espionage activities, especially utilizing Russian-American immigrants.
And I really, really hope that SCO remember how much FUD the OSF and Unix International wrangle created. A big bitch-fight could see the "winner" taking possesion of a balkanised fringe market in a .NET world. They need to permanently settle this before someone makes it an issue with customers.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
In spring of 99 there were a few programmers from Russia hanging out at Novell, looking through code to make sure that there weren't any "back doors" in the code that could potentially give the US government access to Russian servers. I was told this was a requirement before they would buy certain Novell software. I would think that previously they would have imposed similar requirements on Microsoft as well.
This friend of a friend from church was telling us what a great guy he was helping the hungry, poor, and homeless in distant lands, and his most recent project was organizing relief for Bosnia. While he was saying all this, my (then girlfriend, now wife) pointed at her plate and indicated she couldn't finish the other half of her hot dog. I already had 2 brats, but I was still a little bit hungry and I scarfed up that half a hot dog.
Anyway, this grossed by friend out, which I thought was funny in light of all what he was saying. I mean part of helping the hungry is like not throwing out food?
On the other hand, eating off someone's plate in public is traditionally a way of signalling that one is in a somewhat intimate relationship. My friend was both a geek-like person and a perhaps somewhat sexually-repressed Catholic-like person, and perhaps this was too much, but maybe what you eat off your girlfriend's plate are fries and not a half-eaten hot dog. But parents routinely eat half-eaten food left behind by children so I don't know what the big deal was about the hot dog, but I thought Mr. Helping the Hungry was making too much fuss.
If you are looking for a way to put your money where your mouth is in the SUV debate, take a look at this site: The Detroit Project
Maybe this has been said before.
What happens when governments start finding flaws in the Windows source code? Will the US ban Microsoft from selling their source code because it would in turn be giving away security secrets about the US government's own Window's-based security issues? Then you wonder, if it became "illegal" to sell source code of such a critical nature, what would happen with open source operating systems? Governments around the world would be literally forced to use open source operating systems while the US government cleans up its Windows mess or is forced to convert as well. Microsoft would have no choice but to turn Windows into an open source operating system.
http://www.askthevoid.com
CNET reported last week that they were concerned about stuff like Red Hat pointing to their libraries to use in running sw like Star-Office and then say, BTW, these libraries need to be licensed. nudge, nudge, wink, wink, implied?
Vote for Pedro
You get 9 GPH and 145 MPH and 55 percent power out of a Warrior? Is this a pick any two? Could you teach me your leaning procedure?
In SOVIET RUSSIA, the Windows source code reads you!
Nathan
In Soviet Russia, Windows buys access to you!
Um, wait a minute...
I know some fairly well-placed programmers who have worked on XP and Win2k, and even they didn't have access to the complete source code the way governments will.
So we should ask ourselves what Microsoft gains from an unofficial general release of their code. I think there's a lot of speculation that can be done here, and it becomes very paranoid very quickly. In the reasonable realm, I think two things are possible:
1) Microsoft cries "uncle" when their source is plastered all over the net. They start lawyers and a few bots looking through thousands of lines of GPLed code looking for similarities. They then sue the writers of the code for stealing MS code and using it in GPL software (which would be very, very clearly against the law).
2) They use the illicitly released code as an experiment. They know it can't start showing up in applications, because they haven't released it legally, and nobody wants to be sued (for an essentially legitimate reason) by a company with billions and billions in the bank. So they see how often code like it shows up. How much people mimic their code. How people try to stretch the limits of the law to use some of MS's techniques. Or if people are simply uninterested. Letting it be released illegally seems to be a great way to test the waters for a legal release of protected source code, Apple-style.
3) The third possibility is that Microsoft knows that their code will be stolen, but that doesn't scare them quite as much as the prospect of losing tens of thousands of government computers to OSS.
For our sake, I hope that it's 2 or 3...
~Shylock0
Comments and questions welcome. Flames ignored.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
Once he have the second ad, this blows the doors open for Letterman, Leno, or SNL to come up with if you do ____ you are helping terrorists -- is seems to have good comic potential now that these adds are so far over the top.
Trademarks must be defended [...] copyrights are always in effect
True and true. The post you were responding to was incorrect in saying that copyrights must be defended or you lose them. However, this particular case was a trademark case (the web site was reportedly using trademarked terms and logos without permission), so the PCI-SIG did indeed need to defend their trademark or risk losing it. Perhaps they were needlessly heavy-handed, but they clearly had to do something.
Maybe nannys should sing Metallica songs in protest?
Hey, we could *all* have a day where we sing "Enter Sandman" out loud in public places and refuse to pay.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
RAD! Reasonable And Discriminatory!
You can keep me from teaching and singing songs to people by cutting my throat. Failing that, stay the fuck out of my way.
Music is an Art form, not a business. It comes from and belongs to the people. Your greed is one step less than that of the money-changers that Christ threw out of the temple. I am not alone. Our numbers are growing. Enjoy your yachts and cocaine now, because we have you in our sights and mark my words, we will take you down.
c-hack.com |
"Perhaps they're looking for vulnerabilities in the U.S. Government's dependence on Microsoft?"
Still fighting the cold war, are we? Still running paranoid from the bogeyman?
Sheesh.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
....what a splendid word!
I would have thought that any relatively powerfull state would have access to the windows source code if they really wanted. If needed they would resort to espionage, I presume.
:-)
I doubt the russians didn't already had access to the code. It's kinda weird they are paying Microsoft to get this.
I presume this is just an officialization
You cannot proceed from the informal to formal by formal means
> Still running paranoid from the bogeyman? ... and it's not even the _right_ bogeyman any more!
-----sharks
If enough big companies file for Chapter 11, and they get better deals, wouldn't this have a ripple effect?
Company A owes $500 but gets a deal to pay Co. B $300, Co. B still owes $500 plus more and thus has toeither file bankruptcy or borrow. Borrowing leads down the bankruptcy road if it's done helter-skelter like.
What, i thought it be nice to support /. by clicking an ad but they use DOUBLICLICK? Where are the ethics!?!
What if someone sent a copy of the source code to the swedish government? According to the law, everything you send to them, or everything that is presented in a court of law, will be publicly availible for everyone, with a few exceptions. The Scientology bible can now be read by anyone because of this, I heard.
bius sig file. This is a moebius sig file. This is a moe
" Try throwing cowboy neal out a plane, hes much heavier than a ford explorer."
Jesus, man! Think of the environmental damage, before you go off doing stuff like that.
There's something to be said for "big cars" just being cooler than small ones.
I was given a car for my 16th birthday because I commute to school 54 miles/day round trip. My parents were tired of driving me there and didn't want me to take the bus, so it was worth $15,000 to get rid of that responsibility.
I was told I could pick any car I wanted from what was available used...Choices ranging from civics, mustangs, escourts, kias, some light pickups and smaller SUVs.
I opted for the Honda Civic sedan. It gets 22/29 MPG; about double what most SUVs get and about 1.4 what my friend's mustang gets. I spend $25/week on gas and I'm good to go; my best friend probably spends $30-40.
I would *much* prefer something like a Dodge Durango to the Civic. It's bigger, it sits higher above ground so I feel more "in control", it has a bigger engine, and it's got a decent stock sound system. And it's *not* one of the gas guzzlers (although it's not anything like my civic.)
Big cars are just nicer for people to have...you can fit more friends, more stuff, stretch your legs, have more room with a girl, whatever it is you're doing, you have more room for it.
Economy cars cost less; bigger cars cost more. It's a tradeoff.
Wow... Your car has worse fuel economy than my '84 Chevrolet K5 Blazer 4x4 (diesel). I get anywhere from 25-30mpg on the highway, and I rarely drop below 20mpg during a week of nothing but city traffic.
In all seriousness, why the hell can't we have Subarus that get 40mpg, and still have AWD? I just bought a 2002 Olds Silhouette GLS that has AWD, and I get the same mileage as your Subaru. It has way more room inside, and could definately tow more. It won't win an autocross, though.
What's my next car going to be? A Honda Insight, if I can afford to buy one new. If you want to talk economy and low environmental impact, that's your only real option. An old diesel VW Rabbit gets roughly the same milage as a Prius or the Civic Hybrid, and I'd take a clean burning diesel over a gas engine any day of the week.
SUVs have a place. When my family and I lived in Bangladesh, we used SUVs (well, *real* SUVs, not consumer SUVs) because dirt roads in rainy countries become mud roads. When going out to a village, even an SUV wouldn't do, you'd have to use a military Jeep. Same thing for my friend, who used SUVs in Kenya. So yes, there are perfectly valid reasons for owning an SUV. That said, when was the last time a road in the suburbs of DC turned into a mud pit?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Before you judge Finland over this company's actions, bear in mind a few things:
Finland has arguably the best laws regarding crypto., and personal privacy is guaranteed to a greater degree there than most everywhere else. Note that OpenSSH is based there.
Crime rate is disgustingly low; prisons do not even have walls or bars or armed guards. You can leave your baby in a pram on the sidewalk while you're shopping and Nothing Will Happen.
They are also a very technology-centric country, with the highest concentration of mobile phones per capita, for example.
Oh, and medical care is every citizen's right
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
(Or is everyone on Slashdot too young to get that joke?)
this is gonna be off-topic:
Yeah, what's all this crap about "Russia wanting to harm USA".
Well learn this americans, Russia never REALLY threatened USA and never created through MEDIA hate to their people like US citizens developed for nearly 40 years.
There was this CRAP about the hydrogen bomb, everyoe did, YOU did it first and did 316 experiments in the earth's atmosphere.
Russians did their test like 999998 other countries but they happened to make the greatest bomb of all a 999998 megatons one or sth.
Americans got scared and officially declared the cold war a very clear sign of the third world war
Hollywood and US media really liked it. It was so great. Material for 999999998 new movies and documentaries to scare the hell out of US citizens and the rest of the western world.
People god scared, people believed soviet union had hydrogen bombs aimed at usa to KILL YOU ALL.
And all this was crap, soviet union had bombs like any other country. It happened to be the largest and strongest of all at the time and needed the weapons for their protection..
It was nothing different to soviet union than ANY other country that would have "the bomb" that would make US army and people scared. It just happened to be the largest and strongest country after us.
So, quit all this crap about soviets wanting to hack into us MS-based military systems because it's all full of crap.
Russians right now are POOR people. They spread around the world needing jobs, wanting to survive.
Russia is a POOR country, a country that DID mistakes in the past, did BIG mistakes at some point, but don't all countries do?
What is different in that people though is:
They are not getting scared like most US citizens and they don't believe their politicians and media like little kids.
what is it to them if my blownen 350 84 Suburban sucks gas, I paid for it. Now consider the cost of each flight, the waste of fuel simply doing this. Bet they wouldn't complain to loadly if they needed to hitch a ride from me if they ever landed of course in the middle of no where! God help them if they hit a Desert Turtle.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
some kind Russian posts that source onto Gnutella!
I'll comment on XO Communications...
They have been billing our company roughly $54 a month, for 3 years for services we never ordered and do not desire. Namely, web hosting space.
Then, after multiple letters to their billing, then legal offices, they have the nerve to stick a collecter on us.
Last time I talked to the collector, I said, you want the money, sue us! Because the counter claim will include a federal charge of "false billing by mail" and other collection violations under Georgia law.
He said, "they won't sue you, they just hope you are dumb enough to pay."
Hrm, I wonder just how many "bad debts" they have been writing off each year on the books. Or how much they have in "accounts receivable".
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
In SoViEt RuSsIa, FAPSI makes interesting note of YOU!
How is helping the hungry like not throwing out food?
I mean, sure, if not throwing out food actually meant there was more food to go around and food went to more people because of it, but that's just not the case. The problem of people going without food is one of distribution alone. There is enough food to go around, it's just a matter of working around things like tyrannical regimes and plain obstanancy.
In S0V1ET RU5514, C-Net story is according to GOVERNMENT!
In theory, all bankruptcies follow the "absolute priority rule": senior claims have to be paid back in full, or the claims junior to them must not get any value at all. Except in very weird situations, all stock is junior to all debt, so the stockholders are wiped out completely unless the debt can be repaid completely.
The "in theory" above is because the American Chapter 11 system is flawed in several ways. The most important is that the stockholders (through the managers they chose) generally remain in control of the company until a "plan of reorganization" is approved by the court, even if it's clear that they aren't entitled to receive anything. That doesn't actually entitle the stockholders to benefit, but it does allow them to "hold up" the creditors. Often, the creditors will agree to let the stockholders keep a small fraction of the company to get them to agree to a plan and get the company out of bankruptcy.
Of course, specific stockholders can get new stock for reasons other than their old stock: by buying creditors' claims, or by investing new money. I was under the impression that Fortsmann had bought up lots of bonds so as to own a lot of post-bankruptcy stock.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
After that just to protest the use of foreign oil and it's damaging effects on the environment, we're going to crash this fully loaded oil tanker. Oh wait...
And how many of you guys crying about wasted resources replaced a working computer just cause it was a few jiggahertz slower, or a working printer or monitor. There's so much of this crap now they're shipping it back overseas to get rid of it. GET A DAMN LIFE
Some of you may remember the "Mentally Contaminated" buttons somebody gave out at Usenix to people who'd dealt with the real code and therefore had to be careful about what they wrote to avoid contaminating BSD and freeware apps.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...Russia wants to avoid problems like this.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The use of the PCI-SIG trademark logo is something they might have needed to do something about to protect, but they should have asked him politely to make it obvious that his site was unofficial, if it wasn't already obvious enough, and either make the logo point to their web site or put appropriate words next to it, or even to take the logo off if it was used in a confusing way. I'm guessing that the logo was there to say "The official PCI-SIG site is at www.___.etc." or whatever. That's really about all.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They didn't _ask_ anything, they ordered.
They told him to take down the website - not just the logo, but anything using the term "PCI", and said if he wanted to go to a lot of work and expense to do them a favor by having his employer put the site back up, they might consider it. If the PCI-SIG (themselves) has asked him to do something about the logo, and maybe add some trademark notices, he probably would have been ok with that, but they were clearly not just talking about the logo, but the whole thing.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What you can do with a Geo Metro is often more than people give it credit for being able to do.
One of my fond memories from my mis-spent you was taking my Chevy Sprint (the forerunner to the Geo Metro, which was basically a brand rename for the Sprint) up over El Monte. El Monte is basically a "pass" over the mountain from North Fork, in Ogden Valley, UT, through to Porcupine, which is by Logan, UT. Basically, it's 1100 feet of vertical ascent over about 15 miles, over rutted dirt roads, followed by 800 vertical feet of descent (we were going fishing at Porcupine resevouir, and going that way saves 2 hours of travel).
At the very top of the mountain was a group of "he-man, danger-man" types, all there in their extremely jacked-up 4-wheel-drive trucks, drinking beer, and congradulating themselves on being able to "go wheelin'" and get up to the top of the mountain, away from the riff-raff. Each truck has a minimum cost of $15,000, compared to the less than $5,000 for my Sprint (1980's; the eqivalent price for the same truck these days is $45,000+).
The looks on their faces as I came over the crest of the last hill to the top of the mountain, and drove by them with four passengers (Mike, Kike, and Scott), invading their "four-wheel-drive-only" space in my Chevy Sprint was *priceless*.
About the only thing you couldn't do with it was tow a boat or a trailer full of snowmobiles.
Oh yeah; the thing had a carbuerator, not fuel injection, and it got 52 MPG (standard transmission, no air conditioning)...
-- Terry
IN SOVEIT RUSSIA...
oh wait, that joke's probably the reason tensions are escalating.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
That is the reason my wife drives a Honda Odyessey (some would call it an SUV, emphasis on the U rather than S) and I drive the Honda Civic 5-Speed and I have the life insurance policy.
My next car may be an SUV or a luxury sedan. In making my decision not once will the concerns of the Greens, environmentalists, WhatWouldJesusDrivers or other issue-oriented activists enter the equation.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
As far as sifting through GPL'd code goes, I'm sure they do it on a regular basis, and if they found anything they would sue regardless of whether or not they had released the code. I'd like to get a look at the Microsoft code myself at least for one reason. I wonder if there's any real innovation in there.
My Blog
This is the quote I found at the bottom of this page just now:
"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying." -- Nikita Khrushchev
I'll say, comrade.
Elder Jedi: (waves hand) You don't need a Hummer H2 to cross the sands of Tatooine.
Young Jedi: I don't need a Hummer H2 to crosss the sands of Tatooine.
Elder Jedi: Now you're learning!
Perhaps the statement isn't supposed to be
"SUVs pollute the environment.",
but rather,
"SUVs are symbols of disgustingly excessive consumerism."
or
"SUVs are a major factor in our reliance on foreign oil."
or perhaps (most appropriately)
"SUVs are unsafe."
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Translation: "Crap, someone noticed this! We're working with Jimbo now to do damage control and keep our keisters from being bitten off. If so many people hadn't swamped our mail server, we would have gotten away with this and let him die quietly."
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Oh? It's not a gas guzzler? 12/17 (14 Average) sure looks like to me. That's just about the same as a Cadillac Esclade.
SUV drop you from airplane!
*Nod* Long time no see!;)
I do have to take some umbrage at your characterization of Volvos and their drivers, however. I'm the (proud) owner of a 1990 Volvo 740 turbo wagon. It's safe. It's comfy. I can fit a 36" TV (still in box) in the cargo hold (been there, done that, got the t-shirt). It also isn't the size of an Escalade or Expedition.
My observation is that most Volvo drivers are parents who want safety for their families, so I (a single 20-something male) am a bit of an anomaly, but I wouldn't characterise Volvo drivers as idiots, or even as being worse than minivan drivers.
I understand your sensitivity at suddenly being lumped in with the source of all evil. At the same time, us Volvo drivers aren't any worse than you and your Cherokee. As a matter of fact, with Fordzillas and Chevyzillas running around, I'm darned glad that I have a safe car like my 740. If I got crushed by one of the morons driving those things and I was driving one of these cheap Japanese cars, I don't think I'd survive. With the Volvo, I at least have a fighting chance.
anyhow...end of rant....I just hate to see disparaging remarks about one of the best cars on the road....
What is your Slash Rating?
Linux is more secure because all the "evil" hackers have access to the source and we Russians have sacrificed a lot to become a democratic free market economy.
Sorry, I'm losing your point here... Does our becoming free market (yes, I'm Russian too) contribute to Linux security in any significant way?
We are a European nation [...] the only people being oppressed are the Chechen swine who would rather kill us than make peace.
This is too sore (and too off) a topic, but no good European nation should oppress any group of its citizens on a wholesale, prejudiced basis.
I have no sympathy for them we through a 100 millon dollars a year into the void that is Chechnya and get nothing but death in return. If it wasnt for Russian food they would all starve to death.
Hate speech won't avail. If the government and the Duma resolve to keep Chechnya as part of the federation (we tried the otherwise, but it proved much worse), the people living there shall be entitled to citizen rights (this means criminals shall be punished, too). You don't suggest occupation and genocide, do you? We are waist deep in this shit already.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
As for these whack-jobs dropping vehicles into the desert, they should be prosecuted for environmental crimes. I live in the desert, it's a highly fragile ecosystem that just doesn't need any more abuse by mental midgets with weak justifications for blowing up things. The desert's already littered with tens of thousands of things that people took out to shoot up or blow up. Plus, you're just not going to get me to believe that they completely sanitized these vehicles by removing every last millileter of fuel, oil, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, engine coolant, freon, etc from the vehicle. I won't even get into the by-products from burning the vehicle that will saturate the ground for a couple hundred feet around the burn site.
good point, if you must drop suvs from airplanes, do it in the city
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
I seem to recall that Covad filed for chapter 11, and has actually bounced back reasonably well from said. I even saw a Covad installer truck the other day...
In Soviet Russia, code fails you!
Wait a sec, that's also true in Socialist America.
After all, a little note that says "Microsoft is selling sensitive information about the software running on US Government servers to other governments" sent to the right people can do wonders for Government policy.
I could not believe what I read in the newspaper about nurseries needing to pay Teosto, so I decided to just ignore it. Then I read it on Slashdot...
I just did something I normally never do: I called Teosto and complained. I had a nice chat with the lady in the other end of the phone, and she promised to take my complaints further. Cities have BTW paid a certain sum based on the city's population to Teosto every year since 1979, which includes all activities maintained by the city, i.e. elderly people's homes, hospitals, etc. *Private* nurseries have not been included so far, and that's what they're targetting now.
If someone else wants to call and complain, be polite if you want to get your message through (and speak fluently Finnish and preferrably live in Finland as well). Oh, and the next person to call remembers to say that musicians live (I hope!) mostly on the income of their recording contracts and not on Teosto sponsorings.
-pfl
Most people have no business driving pickup trucks on the road, either.
It is not your place to decide for other people what is, or is not, their business. It is not ANYONE'S place to decide for other people what kind(s) of cars they will be allowed to own, how many kids they'll be allowed to have, what they will be allowed to eat, or anything else.
I, too, am annoyed by city people driving large 4WD's that appear to never leave the pavement. I think they're stupid. But I will defend to the death their right to make their own decisions about what kind of car to own.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
gosh, if you are really trying to make a statement, drop an SUV on times square, or fishermans' wharf, or the astrodome... maybe the enron headquarters? better yet, exxon!
I don't understand you calling Teosto a bad thing. Think about it: They enforce nurseries and taxis to pay royalties which no one is going to pay. Hence, no music, no Britney Spears or Christina Aquilera ever again! WOOHOO!
In some 20 states of the US it is probably illegal to sing while having sex, so i guess you're out of luck here.
Free as in mason.
O. K., I drive a 3/4 ton Suburban with a 7.4 l. V-8, just about as big as you can get. And I drive it a lot. Why? Because of insurance. With insurance set up the way it is, I have to buy a policy for each vehicle I own and want to drive. This provides a huge financial disincentive to having several purpose-built vehicles. If I could easily insure ME, not the vehicle, I would have several different vehicles. I would keep the Suburban for towing (I recently moved a several ton front loader from Iowa to Denver, nothing smaller would do that.), I would have a small, fuel efficent car for commuting in nice weather, an AWD sedan for winter commutes, and, likely, a pickup for all that miscellaneous that pickups do so well. They would all be older models and the whole batch would cost a lot less than a new Escalade. I can't afford that senario because of the ongoing monthly insurance costs so I drive one vehicle that is capable of meeting all my needs. I pay a little more in gas but it's a lot cheaper than the insurance payments on a handful of units. If I could just tell the insurance people I've got 3 drivers in my family instead of 2 cars, a truck, an SUV, an antique, a boat, and a motorcycle, life would be a lot simpler and cheaper for me. Right now, I need to deal with 3 insurance companies just to cover all the toys. But if it was just me covered, the exposure on the 'burb is pretty low sitting in the parking lot at the lake when I'm out on the boat and the exposure on the boat is paractically nil when it's in my back yard. As it is, I have to pay for separate, full-time coverage for both. I am willing to pay for 3 drivers = max 3 vehicles in use at a time but I can't afford to pay for several sitting quitely at home causing almost no risk.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
Although not identical to the Finnish laws on copyright, the UK government are attempting to pass a law which could theoretically affect a nursery school teacher singing to infants.
Here is some info, and here is the online petition protesting against this.
Q.
As other posters have indicated, I do believe that M$ releasing source to Russia is seen to them as a win-win situation. They "win" by potentially gaining a large government customer, with this what is hoped (by them) as the first of many major governments taking them up on it.
They also "win" because they WILL use the inevitable leak of source onto the wider internet as a means to kill/attack Wine and Samba and perhaps other "bothersome" OSS projects. They are not getting religion wrt their OS and opensource, they will NEVER get it but what they do get are unethical tactics to kill off competition. They will use leaked source as a weapon, that is as inevitable as is the leaking of the code.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Just to check, this is also the same California that mandated MTBE be added to gasoline? MTBE leaked into the groundwater, which resulted in a law being passed to force gas stations to build a whole new type of tank to prevent future leaks. This forced about half of the gas stations in the Bay Area out of business (I can't speak for the rest of the state), and now San Francisco has more expensive gas than anywhere except Hawaii (because of reduced competition, and the need to make up the cost of the renovations). I'd guess that, to the extent that Californians are driving more fuel efficient cars, the whole MTBE fiasco has more to do with it than anything.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Wow, thats right. I've seen those commercials that say SUV=TERRORISM. That's why I ran right out and traded in my RAV4 for a Lincoln Towncar.
There's a comment here that got me thinking: is the U.S. government paying money to microsoft for the privilege of fixing microsofts shoddy work? Are they really spending my tax dollars on that? If so, isn't this just another subsidy? Do the fixes get released to the public domain? Does anybody who works for the gov't care to comment?
--
Annotateit at Annotateit.com
In Soviet Russia, the source code examines you.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, will be quoted out of context on
That would be funnier and probably more realistic if it was the result of an integer subtraction underrun. Just a friendly suggestion :).
This lowers Finland on my list of vacation spots.
Same here. Previously, Finland was right up there with the Kerguelen Islands on my list of places to relax on the beach.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Let's all sing Happy Birthday! (copyright TimeWarner)
Ever wonder why nobody in TV shows or movies ever sings Happy Birthday? The license fees are too expensive.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I am the proud owner of a Lincoln Navigator. It gets 15-18 mpg. I purchased my SUV for several reasons.
1. Family safety. My family is safer in my SUV than in a traditional car. I do not drive at high speeds around turns or in inclement weather, so I am less concerned about roll-overs.
2. I do take the vehicle where 4WD is needed. I live in the American West, very near lots of open land that is extremely pleasurable to explore.
3. I live where it snows and 4WD is much easier than dealing with chains.
4. I coach my son's athletic teams and haul around more stuff than I could fit in a standard car.
5. I have the discretionary income to afford it.
It is also interesting to note that I pay more than my share of taxes to own my SUV. I pay more to register my car. I pay more gas taxes, because I burn more gas. These taxes pay for maintaining the roads, building new ones, and paying for mass transit systems that cannot pay for themselves.
I am all for improving gas mileage, even eliminating gas as a fuel. But be realistic. If you improve the average fuel economy by 20%, then taxes must be increased 20% to create equivalent revenue to support the infrastructure. By the time the MPG on my SUV is doubled, so will the MPG on all the other "standard" cars.
So, whats the solution? Stop complaining about SUV and come up with an equivalent solution that meets the needs of the market. If I had a choice of spending an extra $5k to double my MPG or go Electric, with all the same feature I have, I would have done so in a heartbeat.
Don't waste your time trying to change the dynamics of the marketplace, satisfy them instead!
Cheers,
Spending $50 to fill my gas tank for YOU
With the current state of russia's copyrights and the enforcement of these you can probably expect to see a source code pack up on p2p networks. Someone _will_ leak it.
+++ath0
I live in Moscow and make 100k a year Russia is poor because Russians have fled honestly for no reason. 200 billion dollars of Russian money is now abroad!!!! Russia would have the 6th largest economy in the world if our annual GDP was raised by 200 billion dollars!! As it is our population is decreasing so despite our size our population is the same size as that of Pakistan. Soon the Chinese will move in and there wont be enough of us to stop them short of using nukes.
Moscow is not expensive. At least not as much as you would like to make us believe.
If the Chechens are such a burden, then do the decent thing, the democratic thing, and run a referendum there regarding independence.
If you are the best Russia has to offer, mother Russia should be very worried.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... why they don't use their brains and use a cheaper, equaly safer, more enviromentaily sustainable mode of transport?
Inquiring, really thinking minds, want to know.
The espectacle of a US highway full of these monstruosities transporting mainly only one person is obscene. Not aesthetically mind you, which is most probably the only reason why those vehicles are bought, but moraly, economically and environmentaly obscene.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
important thing to people.
-- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
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