Re:I'm always skeptical when someone tries to sell
on
What's Microsoft Up To?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
But hey, at least VeriTest was honest enough to put that fact (that the test was paid for my MSFT) right up front, unlike the Mindcraft back in 1999.
The subtitle ("Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft") definitely makes me think, "Take these results with a very LARGE grain of salt." Don't get me wrong... I would be just as sceptical of the result if Red Hat had paid for the study and the result had shown RH parity or superiority to WinServer2k3. Frankly, the only time I think these comparison tests have much credibility is when BOTH the test sponsor AND the testing lab are independent of the vendors of all products tested (as in Mitre's various test studies for various government agencies).
I think that a little research will show that the true "inventor" of popup ads was Netscape when they created the javascript language in around... ohh... let me think... 1995.
Every window object in javascript has a method to open a new child browser window. The URL for the content to display is, IIRC, one of the parameters passed to the open method. Therefore, using javascript (or any client-side scripting language) to display advertisements is trivially obvious.
In short, there's nothing original to this patent and it will, IMNSHO, be invalidated the first time he tries to sue for infringement.
BTW, I use Mozilla and have certain javascript "features" disabled and I blackhole many of the worst ad servers in/etc/hosts... I occasionally turn the javascript on to engage in online banking, but I immediately turn it off after I leave.
As for the "audio popups that can't be turned off"... I have a power button on my speakers that is NOT software controlled. I don't, at this time, use a notebook, but if I did, I'm sure that the mixer app most OS's have now would allow me to set the volume to zero rather quickly. There's no WAY anyone can be FORCED to accept adverts except by denying content to those people who refuse. For the few sites that do that, I have other places to spend my online time and my "page impressions."
Let's get ONE thing perfectly straight here... there WAS no trial! Grokster won it's case on a Motion for Summary Judgment. Basically, the court looked at the evidence submitted by the parties (who BOTH moved for summary judgment) and said "there are NO material facts in dispute, the only questions to be decided are questions of law, therefore, I can decide this suit WITHOUT a trial.
Why is this distinction important, you ask? The lawsuit was in FEDERAL court. The federal courts of appeal in the US are VERY deferential to the District Courts in deciding whether a summary judgment was the proper way to dispose of a case. The Court of Appeals will start from a presumption that the judge was RIGHT and the burden will be on the RIAA to prove that the judge was wrong on the LAW he followed in deciding the case. The burden is on the RIAA to show that the judge's decision was "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the rule of law." This is an EXTREMELY heavy burden on an appellant, especially since the district judge's "Memorandum and Order" appears to be WELL supported by U.S. Supreme Court case law.
<rant>
To state the matter bluntly, the RIAA has throw a punch and drawn back a bloody stump for their effort. The fact that this has occurred in the entertainment industry's own back yard means that this case, when it is affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will establish a VERY important precedent (I would estimate that it will be at LEAST as important as the Betamax case) with regard to whether a technology should be suppressed because it CAN be used for copyright infringement. Napster was correct... Napster DID have control over their network and they COULD ban users engaged in copyright infringement. It is a matter of FACT that Napster turned a blind eye to rampant copyright infringement on their network when they had a (rather blunt-object sort of) means to control it.
Grokster, KaZAa, LimeWire, gnutella, etc., are the opening efforts at a very promising internet technology. P2P promises to make the distribution of FLOSS and independently published literature and art a routine matter. It is true that you can't make a profit on your work if you share it by P2P, but true artists often work for the love of the art... (cf, e.g., Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, many sci-fi fanfic authors). P2P means that people don't have to maintain crappy geocities websites to distribute their creative works for free if that's what floats their boat.
It is now and always HAS been my postition that I support strong copyright protection. After all, that's what keeps free (libre) software free. The FSF ACTIVELY enforces the copyrights assigned to it by various FLOSS authors.
Why the HELL isn't Hollywood willing to do the same when their copyrights are MUCH more valuable, from a financial point of view? One possibility is is that these highly profitable companies who, collectively, have more money than Bill Gates, would rather spend that money buying legislators who will pass laws shifting the cost of enforcing their property rights to the general public than spend it directly on legal fees (which are recoverable under copyright law).
A darker thought is that they want criminal penalties attached to any and ALL forms of copyright infringement fot the purpose of invoking the legal doctrin of "liability per se", which would award them a damned near automatic judgment against anyone convicted of a criminal copyright infringement, whether that is shipping MILLIONS of pirated CDs a week from your warehouse in Hong Kong or sharing a ripped mp3 file of a copyrighted work out to the internet.
The media conglomerates want to stomp out peer-to-peer because it threatens their stranglehold on the distribution of entertainment. More
A file sharer has noway to know if my copying an mp3 to my computer is legal or not.
Incorrect, grasshopper... the "piracy" does not occur when you download a file you have no legal right to possess... the "piracy" occurs when the "file-sharer" serves the file out to the 'net. The act of infringement is complete when the file is offered because the right that is infringed is the right to distribute the work.
Understand this and understand it well. It is NOT illegal to download a file from a P2P network. It MAY be illegal for you to possess the file if it is a copyrighted work that you have no other legal basis for owning. If you have a paid-for CD that includes the track in question, you have done nothing wrong by DLing a copy from the 'net for your personal use, although it would be a little more sanitary, from a legal perspective, if you had ripped and encoded that mp3 yourself. It is NOT illegal to "Rip, Mix & Burn" ((C)Apple Computer, 2002) for your OWN use! It IS illegal for you to serve out files over a P2P network and it IS illegal for you to "Rip, Mix & Burn" ((C)Apple Computer, 2002) and give the CD-R to someone else, because you are DISTRIBUTING the work in violation of the copyright.
I first saw porn sites that popped up an ad page, hid all the window decorations and then maximized the window about 5 years ago. Of course I haven't seen popups at ALL since I learned how to turn off javascript about 3 days later.
I guess I'll just have to alias the entire unicast.com domain to the good old 127.0.0.1 IP address in/etc/hosts now...
I think we are dealing with a fundamental misunderstanding of statutory damages here...
Quote:
If AOL sues Ralsky, the maximum they can get from him, per day, is $25 000. Meanwhile, he can throw 2 964 000 000 emails per day at AOL, if he so chooses.
Incorrect grasshopper... statutory damages are damages that can be awarded WITHOUT proof of ANY actual damage. As such, they represent a FLOOR for damage awards NOT a cap. Under this law, a party can sue for statutory damages of $10.00/message up to a maximum of $25,000.00 whether they can prove they suffered actual damage or NOT, however, if they can prove MORE than $25,000.00 in damages, they can sue for their actual damages. If Ralsky was dumb enough to spend 24 hours mailbombing nothing but aol.com with all 190 of his mailservers, I am sure that AOL would be able to prove a helluva lot more than $25,000.00 in damages from bandwidth consumption alone. Hell, he might even find himself charged with terrorism under the anti-hacking provisions of the PATRIOT Act for attempting a DDoS attack on AOL.
Hmmmmm... now that's an intriguing thought... maybe that PATRIOT Act isn't such a bad thing after all... (just kidding)
One problem... well, actually a couple of problems... with your approach, but they're sort of related.
First, there are ISPs whose mail servers do NOT "do their job properly"... this can vary from machines that are misconfigured or just plain flaky all the way to ISPs who threaten to terminate a user's account for spamming when they were, in fact, running a legitimate mailing list.
A perfect example of this is one reason I no longer use RoadRunner for my ISP... for some reason that was never adequately explained to me they blocked my IP address from access to their pop server. After spending a week calling tech support every single day and having to get escalated through level 2 support and finally to their NOC techs, I got fed up with it. Their suggested workaround was to use www.web2mail.com, but that sucked so bad I considered it unusable. I finally just blew them off and switched to another backhaul ISP for my cable connection.
The second is the problem of ISPs that rewrite headers to add their own advertising to my e-mail... yes, it's not just Yahoo, Hotmail and the other webmail sites that do that... RoadRunner's smtp server does it too... even though "I must advertise for RoadRunner on every one of my e-mails" is NOT part of their Terms of Service. I object to that, so I run my own MTA. I may have to give it up if AOL ever figures out that my MTA is not an ISP-run machine, but so far they haven't blocked me.
It's not a matter of paranoia and it's not a question of FCC approval. It's FAA regulations. All electronic items capable of generating any interence with the avionics in an aircraft, private OR commercial, have to be "TSO"d by the FAA (a testing process similar to "type-acceptance" by the FCC but MUCH more stringent due to the public safety implications).
If you are flying in a private aircraft and your non-TSO'd cellphone or WiFi device causes a problem, it's assumed that you'll have the good sense to turn it off, or, alternatively, that you'll have enough insurance coverage to pay for the damage you cause.
On an airliner with 200+ passengers, the cabin crew doesn't have the capability to determine WHICH device will cause a problem, so the only safe choice it require that they ALL be turned off.
Sorry if you find it inconvenient, I'd rather get down in one piece. If you absolutely HAVE to be able to use your wireless device on commercial flights, pony up for one that IS TSO'd (it will cost about 5-10 times what you paid for the one you have), otherwise, quit complaining.
Re:And the answer is...
on
SSH or IPSec?
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· Score: 1
I agree ssh, hands down, especially if you use compression too. My employer uses the Cisco VPN client for remote access by Windows machines. Cisco allegedly has a Linux client too, but I've not had a lot of pleasant experience with it. We (the Unix admins) had been using ssh to work from home for so long, we didn't even get any argument about using it instead of the VPN when the late scuffle in the desert broke out.
I disagree. The statements in today's strip are statements of opinion which are not even a valid basis for a suit in libel. They are no different, except for the degree of stridency, than an editorial column in a newspaper.
If you think the strip in question might NOT meet the legal standard of a "parody", I'd suggest you spend some time reading this U.S. Supreme Court case.
1. Even if they successfully defend themselves against AmGreet, I don't see how they'd get much compensation for damages... legal costs aside, how much money have they lost here? No problem... you respond to their petition with an answer, followed immediately by a motion for summary judgment and a motion for sanctions for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. In a matter of THIS nature, there is a stack of caselaw about 1.5 inches high that I will assure you any lawyer who has passed the Bar Exam is VERY familiar with, and ALL of those cases say that parody falls within the realm of free speech.
2. You... do have a passing familiarity with the American legal system, right? You know how lawyers cost a LOT of money, and trials take a LONG TIME and get appealed a lot? And you know how you don't get paid until the end, even if you win? I don't know that the PA guys have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around that they don't need for the next couple of years, when the court stuff would be finished and they'd possibly get paid.
I don't know if the author of the parent to your post does or not, but I can assure you I do, and if I were still practicing law, I'd take the representation for court costs + awarded sanctions because I can also assure that sanctions are a GIVEN in a case of this nature.
The real reason that manhole covers are round is that the circle is the smallest shape that encloses a specified area. A round manhole cover requires the least amount of steel to manufacture of all possible shapes that would provide an opening that size, therefore it is the least expensive to manufacture.
I'm not in the habit of replying to my own posts, BUT...
When one of my reps sends a "piss off quick, I'm bought and paid for by the media conglomerates and I'm an honest politician. I STAY bought." type response, I send them a follow-up message to the effect that "Corporations can contribute campaign funds, but I can vote against you."
<rant>Probably true, BUT I read slashdot, and you can rest assured that I write concise, well-reasoned e-mails to my representatives whenever there is an issue that gets my dander up. I also write congratulatory e-mails to Congresspersons who do something that indicates they "get it" whether they represent me or not.
Oddly enough, this has resulted in my U.S. Congressman saying that he will weigh the B.A.L.A.N.C.E. Act and consider the issues I raised for him before he decides whether to support it or not. It has also resulted in e-mails from Congresspersons who do NOT represent me thanking me for my encouraging words and passing along information about other legislation touching on similar issues to the one I initially wrote them about.
In short, there actually ARE some people in Congress that have a clue. They are few and far between, but they are there (think Rick Boucher, Zoe Lofgren, etc). They are fighting the good fight and they deserve to know that we appreciate their efforts. Write them whether they represent you or not and give them props. Write your OWN reps and tell them you want them to support such and such a Bill and explain (rationally) WHY you want them to do that. Put it in terms of issues like consumer protection, fair use (for copyright issues), and civil liberties (see Patriot II). Play the knee-jerk hot buttons like a fine piano and you WILL effect the outcome. However, "Dear CongressDUDE, Please vote against this act because I have fun P2P-ing free music on Kazaa" won't cut it. </rant>
I'll second it too, but instead of Merrill Lynch, check out A.G. Edwards or Edward Jones. They tied for the top spot in J.D. Powers' customer satisfaction survey last year.
WTH is the deal with paragraph (k)? They're trying to phase out VCRs, for crying out loud.
But they haven't yet, and Blockbuster still rents out a significant number of videocassettes. Subsection (k) just says it's illegal to make or sell home VCRs that DON'T respond to the various copy protection technologies used on analog systems, specifically, futzing about with the AGC signal.
Not only dust, but smoke, fog and rain, and there's no shortage of any of those on the battlefield. Hell, this might even bring back the old tactic of using smudgepots to generate smokescreens in battle.
... but this is an infantry weapon...
... and infantry fights whenever battle is joined. Just ask the troops in Iraq if they stopped fighting during the recent dust storms.
I, personally don't ever see man-packed energy weapons replacing good ol' slug throwers. They are relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to maintain, and extremely reliable. They also pack a knockdown punch that I don't believe a laser rifle can match.
Slashdot Mirror
But hey, at least VeriTest was honest enough to put that fact (that the test was paid for my MSFT) right up front, unlike the Mindcraft back in 1999.
... I would be just as sceptical of the result if Red Hat had paid for the study and the result had shown RH parity or superiority to WinServer2k3. Frankly, the only time I think these comparison tests have much credibility is when BOTH the test sponsor AND the testing lab are independent of the vendors of all products tested (as in Mitre's various test studies for various government agencies).
The subtitle ("Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft") definitely makes me think, "Take these results with a very LARGE grain of salt." Don't get me wrong
I think that a little research will show that the true "inventor" of popup ads was Netscape when they created the javascript language in around ... ohh ... let me think ... 1995.
/etc/hosts ... I occasionally turn the javascript on to engage in online banking, but I immediately turn it off after I leave.
... I have a power button on my speakers that is NOT software controlled. I don't, at this time, use a notebook, but if I did, I'm sure that the mixer app most OS's have now would allow me to set the volume to zero rather quickly. There's no WAY anyone can be FORCED to accept adverts except by denying content to those people who refuse. For the few sites that do that, I have other places to spend my online time and my "page impressions."
Every window object in javascript has a method to open a new child browser window. The URL for the content to display is, IIRC, one of the parameters passed to the open method. Therefore, using javascript (or any client-side scripting language) to display advertisements is trivially obvious.
In short, there's nothing original to this patent and it will, IMNSHO, be invalidated the first time he tries to sue for infringement.
BTW, I use Mozilla and have certain javascript "features" disabled and I blackhole many of the worst ad servers in
As for the "audio popups that can't be turned off"
and you have a problem with this?
The fact is that the RNA / MPAA exists to 1) ensure that artisits are in the position to be butt-f$cked
Let's get ONE thing perfectly straight here ... there WAS no trial! Grokster won it's case on a Motion for Summary Judgment. Basically, the court looked at the evidence submitted by the parties (who BOTH moved for summary judgment) and said "there are NO material facts in dispute, the only questions to be decided are questions of law, therefore, I can decide this suit WITHOUT a trial.
... Napster DID have control over their network and they COULD ban users engaged in copyright infringement. It is a matter of FACT that Napster turned a blind eye to rampant copyright infringement on their network when they had a (rather blunt-object sort of) means to control it.
... (cf, e.g., Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, many sci-fi fanfic authors). P2P means that people don't have to maintain crappy geocities websites to distribute their creative works for free if that's what floats their boat.
Why is this distinction important, you ask? The lawsuit was in FEDERAL court. The federal courts of appeal in the US are VERY deferential to the District Courts in deciding whether a summary judgment was the proper way to dispose of a case. The Court of Appeals will start from a presumption that the judge was RIGHT and the burden will be on the RIAA to prove that the judge was wrong on the LAW he followed in deciding the case. The burden is on the RIAA to show that the judge's decision was "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the rule of law." This is an EXTREMELY heavy burden on an appellant, especially since the district judge's "Memorandum and Order" appears to be WELL supported by U.S. Supreme Court case law.
<rant>
To state the matter bluntly, the RIAA has throw a punch and drawn back a bloody stump for their effort. The fact that this has occurred in the entertainment industry's own back yard means that this case, when it is affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will establish a VERY important precedent (I would estimate that it will be at LEAST as important as the Betamax case) with regard to whether a technology should be suppressed because it CAN be used for copyright infringement. Napster was correct
Grokster, KaZAa, LimeWire, gnutella, etc., are the opening efforts at a very promising internet technology. P2P promises to make the distribution of FLOSS and independently published literature and art a routine matter. It is true that you can't make a profit on your work if you share it by P2P, but true artists often work for the love of the art
It is now and always HAS been my postition that I support strong copyright protection. After all, that's what keeps free (libre) software free. The FSF ACTIVELY enforces the copyrights assigned to it by various FLOSS authors.
Why the HELL isn't Hollywood willing to do the same when their copyrights are MUCH more valuable, from a financial point of view? One possibility is is that these highly profitable companies who, collectively, have more money than Bill Gates, would rather spend that money buying legislators who will pass laws shifting the cost of enforcing their property rights to the general public than spend it directly on legal fees (which are recoverable under copyright law).
A darker thought is that they want criminal penalties attached to any and ALL forms of copyright infringement fot the purpose of invoking the legal doctrin of "liability per se", which would award them a damned near automatic judgment against anyone convicted of a criminal copyright infringement, whether that is shipping MILLIONS of pirated CDs a week from your warehouse in Hong Kong or sharing a ripped mp3 file of a copyrighted work out to the internet.
The media conglomerates want to stomp out peer-to-peer because it threatens their stranglehold on the distribution of entertainment. More
Incorrect, grasshopper
Understand this and understand it well. It is NOT illegal to download a file from a P2P network. It MAY be illegal for you to possess the file if it is a copyrighted work that you have no other legal basis for owning. If you have a paid-for CD that includes the track in question, you have done nothing wrong by DLing a copy from the 'net for your personal use, although it would be a little more sanitary, from a legal perspective, if you had ripped and encoded that mp3 yourself. It is NOT illegal to "Rip, Mix & Burn" ((C)Apple Computer, 2002) for your OWN use! It IS illegal for you to serve out files over a P2P network and it IS illegal for you to "Rip, Mix & Burn" ((C)Apple Computer, 2002) and give the CD-R to someone else, because you are DISTRIBUTING the work in violation of the copyright.
I first saw porn sites that popped up an ad page, hid all the window decorations and then maximized the window about 5 years ago. Of course I haven't seen popups at ALL since I learned how to turn off javascript about 3 days later.
/etc/hosts now ...
I guess I'll just have to alias the entire unicast.com domain to the good old 127.0.0.1 IP address in
Quote:
Incorrect grasshopper
Hmmmmm
One problem ... well, actually a couple of problems ... with your approach, but they're sort of related.
... this can vary from machines that are misconfigured or just plain flaky all the way to ISPs who threaten to terminate a user's account for spamming when they were, in fact, running a legitimate mailing list.
... for some reason that was never adequately explained to me they blocked my IP address from access to their pop server. After spending a week calling tech support every single day and having to get escalated through level 2 support and finally to their NOC techs, I got fed up with it. Their suggested workaround was to use www.web2mail.com, but that sucked so bad I considered it unusable. I finally just blew them off and switched to another backhaul ISP for my cable connection.
... yes, it's not just Yahoo, Hotmail and the other webmail sites that do that ... RoadRunner's smtp server does it too ... even though "I must advertise for RoadRunner on every one of my e-mails" is NOT part of their Terms of Service. I object to that, so I run my own MTA. I may have to give it up if AOL ever figures out that my MTA is not an ISP-run machine, but so far they haven't blocked me.
First, there are ISPs whose mail servers do NOT "do their job properly"
A perfect example of this is one reason I no longer use RoadRunner for my ISP
The second is the problem of ISPs that rewrite headers to add their own advertising to my e-mail
Just my $0.02
It's not a matter of paranoia and it's not a question of FCC approval. It's FAA regulations. All electronic items capable of generating any interence with the avionics in an aircraft, private OR commercial, have to be "TSO"d by the FAA (a testing process similar to "type-acceptance" by the FCC but MUCH more stringent due to the public safety implications).
If you are flying in a private aircraft and your non-TSO'd cellphone or WiFi device causes a problem, it's assumed that you'll have the good sense to turn it off, or, alternatively, that you'll have enough insurance coverage to pay for the damage you cause.
On an airliner with 200+ passengers, the cabin crew doesn't have the capability to determine WHICH device will cause a problem, so the only safe choice it require that they ALL be turned off.
Sorry if you find it inconvenient, I'd rather get down in one piece. If you absolutely HAVE to be able to use your wireless device on commercial flights, pony up for one that IS TSO'd (it will cost about 5-10 times what you paid for the one you have), otherwise, quit complaining.
I agree ssh, hands down, especially if you use compression too. My employer uses the Cisco VPN client for remote access by Windows machines. Cisco allegedly has a Linux client too, but I've not had a lot of pleasant experience with it. We (the Unix admins) had been using ssh to work from home for so long, we didn't even get any argument about using it instead of the VPN when the late scuffle in the desert broke out.
I disagree. The statements in today's strip are statements of opinion which are not even a valid basis for a suit in libel. They are no different, except for the degree of stridency, than an editorial column in a newspaper.
If you think the strip in question might NOT meet the legal standard of a "parody", I'd suggest you spend some time reading this U.S. Supreme Court case.
This "innovation" is, no doubt, a response to the 2.4 kernel's optional khttpd.
The real reason that manhole covers are round is that the circle is the smallest shape that encloses a specified area. A round manhole cover requires the least amount of steel to manufacture of all possible shapes that would provide an opening that size, therefore it is the least expensive to manufacture.
... and, IIRC, TCP/IP was invented back in the late eighties as part of the work to build DARPAnet and later the internet ...
I'm not in the habit of replying to my own posts, BUT ...
When one of my reps sends a "piss off quick, I'm bought and paid for by the media conglomerates and I'm an honest politician. I STAY bought." type response, I send them a follow-up message to the effect that "Corporations can contribute campaign funds, but I can vote against you."
<rant>Probably true, BUT I read slashdot, and you can rest assured that I write concise, well-reasoned e-mails to my representatives whenever there is an issue that gets my dander up. I also write congratulatory e-mails to Congresspersons who do something that indicates they "get it" whether they represent me or not.
Oddly enough, this has resulted in my U.S. Congressman saying that he will weigh the B.A.L.A.N.C.E. Act and consider the issues I raised for him before he decides whether to support it or not. It has also resulted in e-mails from Congresspersons who do NOT represent me thanking me for my encouraging words and passing along information about other legislation touching on similar issues to the one I initially wrote them about.
In short, there actually ARE some people in Congress that have a clue. They are few and far between, but they are there (think Rick Boucher, Zoe Lofgren, etc). They are fighting the good fight and they deserve to know that we appreciate their efforts. Write them whether they represent you or not and give them props. Write your OWN reps and tell them you want them to support such and such a Bill and explain (rationally) WHY you want them to do that. Put it in terms of issues like consumer protection, fair use (for copyright issues), and civil liberties (see Patriot II). Play the knee-jerk hot buttons like a fine piano and you WILL effect the outcome. However, "Dear CongressDUDE, Please vote against this act because I have fun P2P-ing free music on Kazaa" won't cut it.
</rant>
That is all
I'll second it too, but instead of Merrill Lynch, check out A.G. Edwards or Edward Jones. They tied for the top spot in J.D. Powers' customer satisfaction survey last year.
Troll??
must be a moderator on crack because this was an honest attempt to comment.
but RedHat, Debian, SuSE and even SGI got there first.
More like leading supplier of hot air and frivolous lawsuits.
Yeah, and the suppository is 38.9cm by 30cm by 4.57cm ... OUCH!
But they haven't yet, and Blockbuster still rents out a significant number of videocassettes. Subsection (k) just says it's illegal to make or sell home VCRs that DON'T respond to the various copy protection technologies used on analog systems, specifically, futzing about with the AGC signal.
Irish coffee, aka "God's Blessing" (see, Callahan's Cross-Time Salloon by Spider Robinson):
1 cup freshly-made Jamaica Blue Mountain
1.5 ounce Bushmill's Black Label Irish Whiskey
top with Whipped cream if you really feel motivated to gild the lily of perfection.
Not only dust, but smoke, fog and rain, and there's no shortage of any of those on the battlefield. Hell, this might even bring back the old tactic of using smudgepots to generate smokescreens in battle.
I, personally don't ever see man-packed energy weapons replacing good ol' slug throwers. They are relatively inexpensive, relatively easy to maintain, and extremely reliable. They also pack a knockdown punch that I don't believe a laser rifle can match.