I hear you, and I'm not saying I disagree, but if society, and I mean society in general, demands that this has to stop, then it has to stop, whether the police like it or not. People can be fired for this behavior, assuming the politicians have the backbone to do it. And they'll only develop that backbone if the public demands they develop it. And the best way to get the public interested is to show them what's going on. Hell, take those images and videos and launch a Web site that showcases them. If it gets the content and the traffic, it'll get noticed by the mainstream media, if nothing else because it's an interesting story. And that will get people thinking and talking.
To turn what some of our pro-oppression friends would like to say on its head: If the police have nothing to hide, then why should they mind being taped?
Seriously, we all know that police brutality goes on. What we don't know is how much. Well, this is a way to find out. If these images end up on YouTube, great. They may be ugly, but this isn't something you sweep under the rug. Let's get it out there and get it stopped. If this does that, then it's a good thing.
That's not the idea. The idea is that someone else has a camera and videotapes the incident. It's also meant to be a deterrent. If the cops don't know whether or not someone is videotaping them, it will serve to keep them honest.
They can hate it all they want, but they serve us, not the other way around. We tell them what to do, not the other way around. If, as a society, we want to tape the police, then they must accept it.
And who gets to decide if you deserve this beating? Why, the cops who administer it. And what if your offense was "running your mouth", "not showing the proper respect", or "getting in the way"? What if you just happened to see something the cops would rather you not have seen, so they decide to "teach you a lesson"?
The police are supposed to be there to arrest those who break the law. Once a chase is over, the person who was fleeing is not putting anyone else in danger. And since there are laws against engaging in such a flight after committing a crime, there are appropriate punishments. And the responsibility of determining guilt and punishing anyone found guilty is exclusively that of the courts, NOT the police. If the police could do it, then we might as well let them shoot an alleged murderer in the head as soon as they find him.
The problem here is that you're viewing these people as an annoyance, when you should be viewing them as an opportunity to take a short break from work and have a little fun. When one of these guys calls, have some fun with him. In the beginning, pretend that you're interested. He'll stay on the line because he thinks he has a prospect. Then, ever so slowly, allow the conversation to drift into the absurd. Think of how you can have fun with him by wasting as much of his time as possible, all the while entertaining yourself. The goal is to walk the fine line between believability and absurdity, so he isn't sure whether you're serious or just jerking him around, which will cause him to stay on the phone, just in case you're being serious. Eventually, the recruiting company will see that calling your company is so unproductive, they'll stop.
I know that SysRq originally had a reason for existence, but its functionality was never used, and that was many years ago. If it hasn't been used by now, it won't be, so how about reassigning that key to do something useful. Just pick a use, since just about anything is better than its current use, which is absolutely nothing.
1. Universal remotes. Great idea in theory, but they're often hard as hell to program, especially after you lose the programming guide. Even when they're programmed correctly, they still can't perform some important function that the original remote can, so you end up having to keep both of them around, which defeats the purpose of the universal remote.
2. The meaningless icons on many electronic devices. Yeah, I know, they use them so they don't have to label the buttons in different languages for each country they sell the products in, but all these things seem to do is equally confuse everyone around the world as to what they mean.
3. Convoluted shower controls. I swear, every time I take a shower in a hotel, I have to spend several minutes figuring out how the damn controls work. How about faucet manufacturers stop trying to be cute and just give me one knob for cold, one knob for hot, and a control to switch from bath to shower. I can take it from there.
4. Wall warts. I know they serve a purpose, but do they really need to be on the end of the cord, where they take up three spots on the power strip? How about placing them in the middle of the cord, so I can use more than three plugs on my six-outlet strip.
5. Windows XP's habit of constantly reminding you that the computer needs to be restarted after an update. Memo to XP: I told you five minutes ago that I didn't want to restart, and I haven't changed my mind. How about you shut the fuck up, and when I'm ready to restart, I'll get back to you.
6. So-called water-saving toilets. Sure, they use less water, but they don't work worth a shit (pun intended). So, do you really save any water when you have to flush them twice because the first time wasn't entirely successful?
I had the Z520a, and it had the exact same button, except on that model it took a picture with the camera. I don't know how many shots I had of the inside of my pocket, but it was plenty.
Must be a Toronto thing because all my local stores have had plenty of controllers. As for the consoles, it took me about a month to get my hands on one, but a lucky call to Circuit City one day told me that they were getting 18 in the next morning, and they were giving out vouchers before the store opened. Went there, got a voucher, went and had breakfast at Waffle House, and came back and picked it up. A buddy of mine was also able to snag one, which is sitting in my closet until he can figure out what he wants to do with it.
For a few days after that, www.wiihunt.com was reporting that stores around here had them, but they were gone in less than a week, and now we're back to having none anywhere in the state, as far as I can tell.
I've been watching this develop tonight, and Digg has gone into meltdown, not so much in the technical sense but in the sense that the user base is in open revolt, posting stories containing the code and commenting on events over...and...over...and over. As quickly as one article is removed, two more appear, and the tone of them is getting angrier and angrier by the hour.
Just my opinion, but I don't see how Digg can come out of this with any credibility left. Was this ever about the DMCA? Perhaps in the beginning, but it's turned into a battle of wills between the Digg admins and its user base, and, even if the admins could somehow manage to magically obliterate every article on this subject, they're going to have a hard time explaining themselves to the user base, who are, by and large, mad as hell.
And to those who are, indeed, mad as hell, consider what you will do after this incident is over. Kevin and the other admins may indeed fear a lawsuit if they don't take these articles down. Is that wrong, or is the law that allows this possibility the thing that is wrong? It's easy to sit there and paste line after line of numbers, but what would you do in the face of a lawsuit, even if it it's a ridiculous lawsuit supported by a law crafted just for this kind of abuse? You're taking action now, but will you get organized to push for real change tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that?
Although one telecom company or another may want to filter certain traffic, I seriously doubt that they can all agree on which traffic to filter, so there's no reason to filter it on this cable, at least not in some wholesale way. Any filtering is going to be done in exactly the same way as it's been done before: through firewalls and other packet shaping tools at the ISP level. And really, there's no reason to believe that this cable will have any impact on that, one way or another.
A couple of years ago, I viewed a local e-voting demonstration presented by a disability advocacy group. I have no reason to believe that these folks were bought and paid for by a company, but they were solidly behind the idea. I kept bringing up the need for a paper trail, and, to be honest, I'm not sure if the guy fully grasped the significance of what I was talking about. I finally got him to say, yes, this machine could be hooked up to a printer to produce such a trail, but it wasn't easy to drag that assurance out of him.
Here's the thing. Many disability activists are strongly in favor of electronic voting because they see it as a way to allow people with disabilities to vote without assistance. And, yes, these machines can allow for that. I stood there, closed my eyes, and was able to navigate the system and vote without being able to see a thing. Bearing this in mind, we need to make these people aware of the risks that e-voting can create when it isn't implemented properly. As someone else said, what's worse: getting assistance to vote a ballot that will count or being able to independently vote one that may not count?
Yes, it certainly is a crime. And you see how vigorously the provision against bogus takedown notices is being enforced. Right now, if a media company says something you put up violates their copyrights, even if it clearly doesn't, then down it comes. You, as the real copyright owner, have to fight to have it restored. And what happens to the company who sent the notice? Not a damn thing.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, could fire off a DMCA request and get something taken down. I bet it'd be fairly easy, since many of these things would come by e-mail, and spoofing a domain in the From field is trivial. And i seriously doubt that most organizations bother to check the validity of such requests. They likely get them, read them in a cursory fashion, and then take the referenced content down.
And perhaps it's time to test the system, preferably on the content of the big media companies and politicians, especially the latter. Once those who support the DMCA find out how easily it can be misused in a way that harms them, then you'll see then have a miraculous awakening to its problems.
"Then, too, if Windows Vista is any indication of what lies ahead, the company's software will continue to require ever more awe-inspiring hardware--a far cry from the light and nimble Web-based applications Mozilla engineers envision."
This may be true, but how is using Firefox helpful if the PC owner has already invested in all that hardware to run Vista?
It's nice to see Dell moving toward preinstalled Linux, but will that be enough? IMHO, Linux is great, but I wonder if it's too much OS for some people. One of the reasons that Windows succeeds is that it offers just enough functionality for most people. Look at it this way. I carry a Swiss army knife in my pocket. It's one of the smaller ones, with maybe 14 tools in it. I could go out and get the one that has something like 36 tools, but I don't need that. If I was going on a camping trip, maybe it would be useful, but it isn't necessary.
I guess I have two points here. First, if someone is going to use Firefox on Vista, then the hardware savings they'd experience with Firefox is negated by the fact that they needed all that hardware just to run Vista, never mind any other apps. Now, if they want to avoid Vista, then Linux is their only choice on the PC platform, and I have to wonder if it's ready for the masses. Say what you will about Linspire, but they seemed to have the right idea by simplifying things as much as possible.
It's been time to rework SMTP for a decade now. First, it was open mail servers. Next, it was the lack of any verification that a mail server was in the domain it claimed to be in in its HELO line. Next, it's the lack of a way for the SMTP server to authenticate a connecting user.
For every one of these problems, a solution has had to be cobbled together, usually using a large amount of gum, duct tape, and string.
And how long have people been discussing a replacement to SMTP? I remember posts on this subject on NANAE over 10 years ago. Ten YEARS, yet nothing has been done, and now e-mail is slowly sinking under the weight of billions of pieces of spam and phishing scams.
Someone had better come up with a solution before some company develops a proprietary mail system that only its software can be used to access. And, yes, this will happen, sooner or later. So, we can have a better mousetrap based on open standards or one based on proprietary, closed standards.
I have to agree with this statement, but I think it's important to point out that it's the right-wing nutjobs who hate France, not a majority of Americans. I still laugh at the whole freedom fries/freedom toast thing. Morons. These people seem to forget, or they never knew, that if France hadn't helped us during the Revolutionary War, we'd likely have lost, and, had we lost, you can bet that the British Crown would have punished us severely.
We have a lot to thank the French for. They've given the world culture, good food, and philosophy, and they helped liberate us from Britain. Oh yeah, and there's that statue they sent us. I'd say they've earned our respect.
As for the flash drive project, I don't know. I have a feeling that many kids will simply erase them and use them for storing files. I applaud the effort, but a live CD or DVD might have been a better idea. What I'd do is set the CD/DVD up so that, if the kid runs it, they'll find a link to send them to a page where they can request the flash drive. That way, the drive will only go to those who are interested in using it for its intended purpose. Sure, they can still wipe it, but at least they'll have the chance to experience OSS before they get the drive.
Yes, I do. First, the original post that started this topic is speculative. Second, unless you have someone from MS come in here and explain things, it's all speculative. And even if this hypothetical MS person did appear, whatever he or she says would still be speculative, since there was never a cooperative agreement between Apple and MS in the first place.
We'd probably have gotten a situation where Apple developed a version of the iPod for the Mac, and MS developed one for Windows. My guess is that the Windows version would have been tied into WMP, while Apple would have gone with iTunes.
It would have been a mess. I seriously doubt MS would have allowed support for AAC+ on their version, while Apple would have shunned WMA. The market would have been split between the two companies, and the iPod would have likely been a failure. One of the reasons the iPod took off (other than its UI) was the fact that it works across both Macs and PCs. Another reason is the simple design of iTMS. It just works. I seriously doubt that MS could have developed something similar, and they would have stuck their fingers into iTMS just enough to ruin it. Look at the Zune. MS has had years to pick the iPod and iTMS apart, and this is the best they can do? Pathetic.
If Zune sharing is advertising, then why would the music companies want that? After all, since most of what they put out these days is shit, they'd rather you buy it sight unseen, as it were. If people could hear it once or twice, they'd be done listening to it and have no desire to spend money on it.
That's what the sat link is for. At any rate, you don't need the impoverished country to have fat pipes. If you've got this kind of money to spend, you can afford to bring in an undersea cable and establish your own connection if you need something with lower latency and more bandwidth than a satellite link can offer.
If I had anything close to Sealand's asking price, why would I want it? With that kind of money, you could probably negotiate with an impoverished country for the sale, including sovereignty, of a small island. I'd rather have a real island instead of an old, burned-out gun platform.
But remember, this is a manufacturer trying to sell this to a studio. They probably know full well that this will be cracked within 30 minutes, but as long as those 30 minutes occur after some studio has signed a licensing deal to use this scheme, they don't care, as long as the check clears.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear you, and I'm not saying I disagree, but if society, and I mean society in general, demands that this has to stop, then it has to stop, whether the police like it or not. People can be fired for this behavior, assuming the politicians have the backbone to do it. And they'll only develop that backbone if the public demands they develop it. And the best way to get the public interested is to show them what's going on. Hell, take those images and videos and launch a Web site that showcases them. If it gets the content and the traffic, it'll get noticed by the mainstream media, if nothing else because it's an interesting story. And that will get people thinking and talking.
To turn what some of our pro-oppression friends would like to say on its head: If the police have nothing to hide, then why should they mind being taped?
Seriously, we all know that police brutality goes on. What we don't know is how much. Well, this is a way to find out. If these images end up on YouTube, great. They may be ugly, but this isn't something you sweep under the rug. Let's get it out there and get it stopped. If this does that, then it's a good thing.
That's not the idea. The idea is that someone else has a camera and videotapes the incident. It's also meant to be a deterrent. If the cops don't know whether or not someone is videotaping them, it will serve to keep them honest.
They can hate it all they want, but they serve us, not the other way around. We tell them what to do, not the other way around. If, as a society, we want to tape the police, then they must accept it.
And who gets to decide if you deserve this beating? Why, the cops who administer it. And what if your offense was "running your mouth", "not showing the proper respect", or "getting in the way"? What if you just happened to see something the cops would rather you not have seen, so they decide to "teach you a lesson"?
The police are supposed to be there to arrest those who break the law. Once a chase is over, the person who was fleeing is not putting anyone else in danger. And since there are laws against engaging in such a flight after committing a crime, there are appropriate punishments. And the responsibility of determining guilt and punishing anyone found guilty is exclusively that of the courts, NOT the police. If the police could do it, then we might as well let them shoot an alleged murderer in the head as soon as they find him.
The problem here is that you're viewing these people as an annoyance, when you should be viewing them as an opportunity to take a short break from work and have a little fun. When one of these guys calls, have some fun with him. In the beginning, pretend that you're interested. He'll stay on the line because he thinks he has a prospect. Then, ever so slowly, allow the conversation to drift into the absurd. Think of how you can have fun with him by wasting as much of his time as possible, all the while entertaining yourself. The goal is to walk the fine line between believability and absurdity, so he isn't sure whether you're serious or just jerking him around, which will cause him to stay on the phone, just in case you're being serious. Eventually, the recruiting company will see that calling your company is so unproductive, they'll stop.
I know that SysRq originally had a reason for existence, but its functionality was never used, and that was many years ago. If it hasn't been used by now, it won't be, so how about reassigning that key to do something useful. Just pick a use, since just about anything is better than its current use, which is absolutely nothing.
1. Universal remotes. Great idea in theory, but they're often hard as hell to program, especially after you lose the programming guide. Even when they're programmed correctly, they still can't perform some important function that the original remote can, so you end up having to keep both of them around, which defeats the purpose of the universal remote.
2. The meaningless icons on many electronic devices. Yeah, I know, they use them so they don't have to label the buttons in different languages for each country they sell the products in, but all these things seem to do is equally confuse everyone around the world as to what they mean.
3. Convoluted shower controls. I swear, every time I take a shower in a hotel, I have to spend several minutes figuring out how the damn controls work. How about faucet manufacturers stop trying to be cute and just give me one knob for cold, one knob for hot, and a control to switch from bath to shower. I can take it from there.
4. Wall warts. I know they serve a purpose, but do they really need to be on the end of the cord, where they take up three spots on the power strip? How about placing them in the middle of the cord, so I can use more than three plugs on my six-outlet strip.
5. Windows XP's habit of constantly reminding you that the computer needs to be restarted after an update. Memo to XP: I told you five minutes ago that I didn't want to restart, and I haven't changed my mind. How about you shut the fuck up, and when I'm ready to restart, I'll get back to you.
6. So-called water-saving toilets. Sure, they use less water, but they don't work worth a shit (pun intended). So, do you really save any water when you have to flush them twice because the first time wasn't entirely successful?
I had the Z520a, and it had the exact same button, except on that model it took a picture with the camera. I don't know how many shots I had of the inside of my pocket, but it was plenty.
Must be a Toronto thing because all my local stores have had plenty of controllers. As for the consoles, it took me about a month to get my hands on one, but a lucky call to Circuit City one day told me that they were getting 18 in the next morning, and they were giving out vouchers before the store opened. Went there, got a voucher, went and had breakfast at Waffle House, and came back and picked it up. A buddy of mine was also able to snag one, which is sitting in my closet until he can figure out what he wants to do with it.
For a few days after that, www.wiihunt.com was reporting that stores around here had them, but they were gone in less than a week, and now we're back to having none anywhere in the state, as far as I can tell.
I've been watching this develop tonight, and Digg has gone into meltdown, not so much in the technical sense but in the sense that the user base is in open revolt, posting stories containing the code and commenting on events over...and...over...and over. As quickly as one article is removed, two more appear, and the tone of them is getting angrier and angrier by the hour.
Just my opinion, but I don't see how Digg can come out of this with any credibility left. Was this ever about the DMCA? Perhaps in the beginning, but it's turned into a battle of wills between the Digg admins and its user base, and, even if the admins could somehow manage to magically obliterate every article on this subject, they're going to have a hard time explaining themselves to the user base, who are, by and large, mad as hell.
And to those who are, indeed, mad as hell, consider what you will do after this incident is over. Kevin and the other admins may indeed fear a lawsuit if they don't take these articles down. Is that wrong, or is the law that allows this possibility the thing that is wrong? It's easy to sit there and paste line after line of numbers, but what would you do in the face of a lawsuit, even if it it's a ridiculous lawsuit supported by a law crafted just for this kind of abuse? You're taking action now, but will you get organized to push for real change tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that?
They'll likely challenge those patents and file an appeal based on that challenge.
Any company holding a patent today probably feels as if it's on pretty shaky ground.
What makes you say that?
Although one telecom company or another may want to filter certain traffic, I seriously doubt that they can all agree on which traffic to filter, so there's no reason to filter it on this cable, at least not in some wholesale way. Any filtering is going to be done in exactly the same way as it's been done before: through firewalls and other packet shaping tools at the ISP level. And really, there's no reason to believe that this cable will have any impact on that, one way or another.
A couple of years ago, I viewed a local e-voting demonstration presented by a disability advocacy group. I have no reason to believe that these folks were bought and paid for by a company, but they were solidly behind the idea. I kept bringing up the need for a paper trail, and, to be honest, I'm not sure if the guy fully grasped the significance of what I was talking about. I finally got him to say, yes, this machine could be hooked up to a printer to produce such a trail, but it wasn't easy to drag that assurance out of him.
Here's the thing. Many disability activists are strongly in favor of electronic voting because they see it as a way to allow people with disabilities to vote without assistance. And, yes, these machines can allow for that. I stood there, closed my eyes, and was able to navigate the system and vote without being able to see a thing. Bearing this in mind, we need to make these people aware of the risks that e-voting can create when it isn't implemented properly. As someone else said, what's worse: getting assistance to vote a ballot that will count or being able to independently vote one that may not count?
Yes, it certainly is a crime. And you see how vigorously the provision against bogus takedown notices is being enforced. Right now, if a media company says something you put up violates their copyrights, even if it clearly doesn't, then down it comes. You, as the real copyright owner, have to fight to have it restored. And what happens to the company who sent the notice? Not a damn thing.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, could fire off a DMCA request and get something taken down. I bet it'd be fairly easy, since many of these things would come by e-mail, and spoofing a domain in the From field is trivial. And i seriously doubt that most organizations bother to check the validity of such requests. They likely get them, read them in a cursory fashion, and then take the referenced content down.
And perhaps it's time to test the system, preferably on the content of the big media companies and politicians, especially the latter. Once those who support the DMCA find out how easily it can be misused in a way that harms them, then you'll see then have a miraculous awakening to its problems.
"Then, too, if Windows Vista is any indication of what lies ahead, the company's software will continue to require ever more awe-inspiring hardware--a far cry from the light and nimble Web-based applications Mozilla engineers envision."
This may be true, but how is using Firefox helpful if the PC owner has already invested in all that hardware to run Vista?
It's nice to see Dell moving toward preinstalled Linux, but will that be enough? IMHO, Linux is great, but I wonder if it's too much OS for some people. One of the reasons that Windows succeeds is that it offers just enough functionality for most people. Look at it this way. I carry a Swiss army knife in my pocket. It's one of the smaller ones, with maybe 14 tools in it. I could go out and get the one that has something like 36 tools, but I don't need that. If I was going on a camping trip, maybe it would be useful, but it isn't necessary.
I guess I have two points here. First, if someone is going to use Firefox on Vista, then the hardware savings they'd experience with Firefox is negated by the fact that they needed all that hardware just to run Vista, never mind any other apps. Now, if they want to avoid Vista, then Linux is their only choice on the PC platform, and I have to wonder if it's ready for the masses. Say what you will about Linspire, but they seemed to have the right idea by simplifying things as much as possible.
It's been time to rework SMTP for a decade now. First, it was open mail servers. Next, it was the lack of any verification that a mail server was in the domain it claimed to be in in its HELO line. Next, it's the lack of a way for the SMTP server to authenticate a connecting user.
For every one of these problems, a solution has had to be cobbled together, usually using a large amount of gum, duct tape, and string.
And how long have people been discussing a replacement to SMTP? I remember posts on this subject on NANAE over 10 years ago. Ten YEARS, yet nothing has been done, and now e-mail is slowly sinking under the weight of billions of pieces of spam and phishing scams.
Someone had better come up with a solution before some company develops a proprietary mail system that only its software can be used to access. And, yes, this will happen, sooner or later. So, we can have a better mousetrap based on open standards or one based on proprietary, closed standards.
I have to agree with this statement, but I think it's important to point out that it's the right-wing nutjobs who hate France, not a majority of Americans. I still laugh at the whole freedom fries/freedom toast thing. Morons. These people seem to forget, or they never knew, that if France hadn't helped us during the Revolutionary War, we'd likely have lost, and, had we lost, you can bet that the British Crown would have punished us severely. We have a lot to thank the French for. They've given the world culture, good food, and philosophy, and they helped liberate us from Britain. Oh yeah, and there's that statue they sent us. I'd say they've earned our respect. As for the flash drive project, I don't know. I have a feeling that many kids will simply erase them and use them for storing files. I applaud the effort, but a live CD or DVD might have been a better idea. What I'd do is set the CD/DVD up so that, if the kid runs it, they'll find a link to send them to a page where they can request the flash drive. That way, the drive will only go to those who are interested in using it for its intended purpose. Sure, they can still wipe it, but at least they'll have the chance to experience OSS before they get the drive.
Yes, I do. First, the original post that started this topic is speculative. Second, unless you have someone from MS come in here and explain things, it's all speculative. And even if this hypothetical MS person did appear, whatever he or she says would still be speculative, since there was never a cooperative agreement between Apple and MS in the first place.
We'd probably have gotten a situation where Apple developed a version of the iPod for the Mac, and MS developed one for Windows. My guess is that the Windows version would have been tied into WMP, while Apple would have gone with iTunes. It would have been a mess. I seriously doubt MS would have allowed support for AAC+ on their version, while Apple would have shunned WMA. The market would have been split between the two companies, and the iPod would have likely been a failure. One of the reasons the iPod took off (other than its UI) was the fact that it works across both Macs and PCs. Another reason is the simple design of iTMS. It just works. I seriously doubt that MS could have developed something similar, and they would have stuck their fingers into iTMS just enough to ruin it. Look at the Zune. MS has had years to pick the iPod and iTMS apart, and this is the best they can do? Pathetic.
If Zune sharing is advertising, then why would the music companies want that? After all, since most of what they put out these days is shit, they'd rather you buy it sight unseen, as it were. If people could hear it once or twice, they'd be done listening to it and have no desire to spend money on it.
That's what the sat link is for. At any rate, you don't need the impoverished country to have fat pipes. If you've got this kind of money to spend, you can afford to bring in an undersea cable and establish your own connection if you need something with lower latency and more bandwidth than a satellite link can offer.
If I had anything close to Sealand's asking price, why would I want it? With that kind of money, you could probably negotiate with an impoverished country for the sale, including sovereignty, of a small island. I'd rather have a real island instead of an old, burned-out gun platform.
But remember, this is a manufacturer trying to sell this to a studio. They probably know full well that this will be cracked within 30 minutes, but as long as those 30 minutes occur after some studio has signed a licensing deal to use this scheme, they don't care, as long as the check clears.