I think anyone with their brain on ought to recognize that whatever "cold fusion" is, it's not fusion. It may well be a unique reaction, and it may well genereate "excess heat", but there aren't serious nuclear byproducts
It's unfortunate that pseudo science frequently uses the "they're shutting us out" argument, because there is some truth to it. Mainstream Science *is* an old-boy club (despite having women involved), and you don't always get very far with radical new items. Of course being unwilling to have your work peer reviewed doesn't help, and P&F were stupid to release their info via press release rather than reviewed journals--I never got the impression that the journals would have flat turned them down if they hadn't made such outrageous claims so publically.
What's really interesting are the companies (such as http://www.new-energy.com/) doing further research and claiming results. One guy interviewed in Wired (unfortunately I can't find the reference because he didn't call his processes "cold fusion") has a process which is related that not only produces excess heat, but also interesting chemical bondings to create metals with some organic properties.
Overall, both sides have plenty of blame--P&F and their rabid supporters shouldn't be surprised that by breaking the process they got into hot water with the establishment, and the establishment should not be so quick to dismiss people as quacks until they are definitively proven so.
Randall would use the passwords to re-install his gate program as another user, and hence be able to bypass the firewall security and get to his email faster. Seems to make sense to me, whether it's true or not.
The court's response was pretty clear on what Randall was accused of. The biggest problems were that he was performing activities without authorization that were, in fact, breaking into computers and also knowingly in violation of Intel policy. The "gate" program, no matter how secure he wanted to make it, was against their security policy, period, and he should have known better than to install it without explicit permission to do so (TWICE, the second time AFTER a warning).
Running crack against the passwords from machines that he should have known he was not supposed to have access to (belonging to a group he had been let go from) also seems quite foolish. It's not explicitly stated (as the gate case is), but presumably it was also against company policy to run crack without authorization.
Whether Randall likes it or not, what he was doing was obviously against the rules of his workplace, and unfortunately was also against the law. As they say, "ignorance of the law is no excuse". He is correctly convicted of the items alleged against him, as far as I can see, since there is no appearance that (as he claims) he actually had authorization from the responsible managers to try to crack those systems, and it is definitely the case that his "gate" was against the rules and he'd been warned about it once before doing it again.
If you think that the law should be changed, by all means, change it, but he's guilty as the statute is written.
I agree with Randall that the $70k levied against him is probably excessive, but on the other hand, what was the cost of the work that went into confirming that he did indeed ONLY do what he claimed? That's not always a trivial task.
Maybe this is true in your neck of the woods, but it's ridiculously untrue elsewhere. My ADSL product, *with* ISP, is $50 a month. NO way anyone is undercutting that by over $50 a month. Furthermore, my installation was less than 30 days after my order, and in fact only just over a week from when I actually moved into the house I ordered it for. Ameritech got their techs there 2 days before that, so PERHAPS they could have beaten Covad by 2 days, but that seems hardly worth arguing over.
It was cheap to install, the service
hasn't gone down once
Lucky You. Where I live, the Cable Modem service is as unreliable, or moreso, than my DSL. And I'm sure there are those with DSL who can say theirs hasn't gone down either.
I really wonder how often my DSL would go down if Covad owned the premesis though....
Most of the answers seemed well thought out and direct, but the answer to the question about standards was a total sidestep. Two specific examples, Java and Kerberos (one of which *didn't* have a lawsuit associated with it, so he could have at *least* responded to that) were handed on a platter, and all we got back was "everyone extends the standards".
Problem is, not everyone extends the standards to the point where they don't interoperate with other vendor's versions of these standards, do they?
And why in the world would an ILEC want to undercut their profitable T-1 etc. business by offering DSL? Never mind anti-competetive practices, the new FCC will be just fine looking the other way while "the market" shuts a huge number of us out of broadband (god knows I don't want to have to get a cable modem, the service here sucks from what my neighbors tell me).
I live in Chicago (Actually Oak Park), have Primus DSL ADSL at 684k down/128k up, and typically get around 60Kbytes/second (684kbits/10 standard expectation). I do sometimes get worse; however, my biggest problem is that my first hop ping time is an outrageous 100 ms. That and Primus' lack of reliability (though to give them credit, it *has* been a few weeks now since I had a major outage, so maybe it's getting better).
Bottom line: if someone is only getting 128kbit DSL it's probably because they're using IDSL (DSL over ISDN) because they live outside the ADSL distance limitations.
You need an effective geographic elected representative to help your community get their fare share of their tax dollars back,
This sentiment goes up like a HUGE red flag for me. If we are in need of "getting our tax dollars back" then perhaps we ought not be giving away those tax dollars to begin with. Lower federal taxes in favor of higher local taxes for local projects seems reasonable to me....lower taxes overall would be better if we can do it responsibly.
Computers are *tools*. There is a science of how to make/apply these tools effectively, and there are some sciences that are "adjacent" to that science, but that is not the same as science being enabled BY the tools.
Why exactly do you say that the post in question does not fall under "fair use"? Was it the COMPLETE OTIII? My understanding was that it was a large document, the sort that wouldn't really make for a very effective post on Slashdot. If it was only some section or sections of OTIII it *does* fall under fair use (but of course DMCA and Co$ never would understand that).
(p.s. next time try breaking up your lists with html breaks. Much more readable).
I wonder what would happen if we started telling these CEO's details about their medical history, or their web visits, how long they would resist privacy legislation....
Y'all should note that I didn't say that none occurred--I said I didn't know of any. Thank everyone for educating me. I *am* dubious about how many wars between "rival" sects can be called killing non-believers, and somewhat less so about whether the other slaughters were "in the name of religion" rather than just coincidental, but I consider myself corrected.
In direct response to someone claiming that Scientologists were "just defending their copyright in this case", I said: Some of the more interesting attacks on scientology detractors were against people who were only QUOTING BITS of the
OT Manuals, trying to make a point. This practice is known as "fair use" and copyright does NOT prevent it.
Harassing such people is not "asserting copyright".
Can someone explain to me how this is offtopic? Oh, wait, I know. A scientologist has gotten moderator priveledges and I'm being suppressed for expressing relevant details that are unflattering.
Slashdot Mirror
Excuse? Provide support for this claim, please. International law is international law, so 12 miles it is, thank you.
It's unfortunate that pseudo science frequently uses the "they're shutting us out" argument, because there is some truth to it. Mainstream Science *is* an old-boy club (despite having women involved), and you don't always get very far with radical new items. Of course being unwilling to have your work peer reviewed doesn't help, and P&F were stupid to release their info via press release rather than reviewed journals--I never got the impression that the journals would have flat turned them down if they hadn't made such outrageous claims so publically.
What's really interesting are the companies (such as http://www.new-energy.com/) doing further research and claiming results. One guy interviewed in Wired (unfortunately I can't find the reference because he didn't call his processes "cold fusion") has a process which is related that not only produces excess heat, but also interesting chemical bondings to create metals with some organic properties.
Overall, both sides have plenty of blame--P&F and their rabid supporters shouldn't be surprised that by breaking the process they got into hot water with the establishment, and the establishment should not be so quick to dismiss people as quacks until they are definitively proven so.
Randall would use the passwords to re-install his gate program as another user, and hence be able to bypass the firewall security and get to his email faster. Seems to make sense to me, whether it's true or not.
Running crack against the passwords from machines that he should have known he was not supposed to have access to (belonging to a group he had been let go from) also seems quite foolish. It's not explicitly stated (as the gate case is), but presumably it was also against company policy to run crack without authorization.
Whether Randall likes it or not, what he was doing was obviously against the rules of his workplace, and unfortunately was also against the law. As they say, "ignorance of the law is no excuse". He is correctly convicted of the items alleged against him, as far as I can see, since there is no appearance that (as he claims) he actually had authorization from the responsible managers to try to crack those systems, and it is definitely the case that his "gate" was against the rules and he'd been warned about it once before doing it again.
If you think that the law should be changed, by all means, change it, but he's guilty as the statute is written.
I agree with Randall that the $70k levied against him is probably excessive, but on the other hand, what was the cost of the work that went into confirming that he did indeed ONLY do what he claimed? That's not always a trivial task.
Sounds just like Snowcrash, if you ask me. People running around gathering intelligence on other people and selling to the highest bidder....
Maybe this is true in your neck of the woods, but it's ridiculously untrue elsewhere. My ADSL product, *with* ISP, is $50 a month. NO way anyone is undercutting that by over $50 a month. Furthermore, my installation was less than 30 days after my order, and in fact only just over a week from when I actually moved into the house I ordered it for. Ameritech got their techs there 2 days before that, so PERHAPS they could have beaten Covad by 2 days, but that seems hardly worth arguing over.
Lucky You. Where I live, the Cable Modem service is as unreliable, or moreso, than my DSL. And I'm sure there are those with DSL who can say theirs hasn't gone down either.
I really wonder how often my DSL would go down if Covad owned the premesis though....
Problem is, not everyone extends the standards to the point where they don't interoperate with other vendor's versions of these standards, do they?
And why in the world would an ILEC want to undercut their profitable T-1 etc. business by offering DSL? Never mind anti-competetive practices, the new FCC will be just fine looking the other way while "the market" shuts a huge number of us out of broadband (god knows I don't want to have to get a cable modem, the service here sucks from what my neighbors tell me).
It's not evil that they're for profit. It's evil that they claim to be doing real philanthropy to trojan horse their client onto your system.
Unfortunately, for every lawyer with principles, there are 10 behind with none.
Wasn't Northpoint the first step along this route?
BS. It lives with neither of the established parties; they just want to perpetuate their duopoly on the political process, not freedom.
Bottom line: if someone is only getting 128kbit DSL it's probably because they're using IDSL (DSL over ISDN) because they live outside the ADSL distance limitations.
This sentiment goes up like a HUGE red flag for me. If we are in need of "getting our tax dollars back" then perhaps we ought not be giving away those tax dollars to begin with. Lower federal taxes in favor of higher local taxes for local projects seems reasonable to me....lower taxes overall would be better if we can do it responsibly.
Computers are *tools*. There is a science of how to make/apply these tools effectively, and there are some sciences that are "adjacent" to that science, but that is not the same as science being enabled BY the tools.
Oh, and another song based on the same three freaking chords is any different.....
It doesn't seem like a bad idea, but it sure smells a bit like blackmail. "Pay up or we'll spam you out of existence."
(p.s. next time try breaking up your lists with html breaks. Much more readable).
I wonder what would happen if we started telling these CEO's details about their medical history, or their web visits, how long they would resist privacy legislation....
Y'all should note that I didn't say that none occurred--I said I didn't know of any. Thank everyone for educating me. I *am* dubious about how many wars between "rival" sects can be called killing non-believers, and somewhat less so about whether the other slaughters were "in the name of religion" rather than just coincidental, but I consider myself corrected.
Some of the more interesting attacks on scientology detractors were against people who were only QUOTING BITS of the OT Manuals, trying to make a point. This practice is known as "fair use" and copyright does NOT prevent it. Harassing such people is not "asserting copyright".
Can someone explain to me how this is offtopic? Oh, wait, I know. A scientologist has gotten moderator priveledges and I'm being suppressed for expressing relevant details that are unflattering.
We may not understand your beliefs, but we base our judgements on your actions. Get thee out then.
If you're going to give lessons you should get the lessons RIGHT. It's "Promethean Fire".
"He doesn't love you. He just wants all your money."