Skip: When I was a little boy I helped my father install voltage monitors because somebody idiot engineering overclocked his workstation... This thing could be used to overclock the entire datacenter and no one would know a thing about it until it was the entire east coast was blacked out.
It's been a while since I've felt this sick about the nature of America, the law, and mankind.
When the question was raised about the artificial figures and reasonable sentencing the responses were 1> the figures are reasonable and 2> the sentencing is just the law. (I.e. we are just enforcing the law.)
It is a sad time for mankind that the law supercedes common sense and ration behavior towards your fellow man.
First, on calculating piracy damages:
In the course of prosecuting piracy we have found servers containing over 20,000 titles of pirated software, movies, music and games. The value of the copyrighted material on servers like this is frequently in the millions of dollars. Factor in the number of times those titles are distributed over the Internet, and the damage amounts skyrocket. The sentencing structure reflects this harm.
The lawyer missed the point of the question... which was how can you justify these numbers. The answer was the same math that raised the question to begin with. The problem is that it doesn't address real damages, only imagined. What needs to be shown is actual lost sales resulting from the infringement. And since that is nearly impossible to track, perhaps the only reasonable measure is how the infringing distributor profited.
And on the subject of sentencing: Is it ever justice ever served my making an example of someone? That means that the sentence for a convicted criminal includes punishment for a criminal that wasn't convicted, doesn't it?
Both these problems with dealing with your fellow man are rejected because they are not the way the law is worded, and these guys are perfectly willing to enforce them regardless of any reasonable standard of right and wrong. (gee... who else can we think of that was "just complying with the law of the land"?)
Grr. I think I need to found a new nation... perhaps on the moon or something.
I just tried to run windows update. I haven't run it since I built the computer 6 weeks ago, but here is the text of the page I got:
Windows Update is the online extension of Windows that helps you get the most out of your computer.
Windows Update uses ActiveX Controls and active scripting to display content correctly and to determine which updates apply to your computer.
To view and download updates for your computer, your Internet Explorer security settings must meet the following requirements:
Security must be set to medium or lower Active scripting must be set to enabled The download and initialization of ActiveX Controls must be set to enabled Note These are default settings for Internet Explorer.
To check your Internet Explorer security settings
On the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, click Internet Options. Click the Security tab. Click the Internet icon, and then click Custom Level. Make sure the following settings are set to Enable or Prompt: Download signed ActiveX Controls Run ActiveX Controls and plug-ins Script ActiveX Controls marked safe for scripting Active scripting
(c) 2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.
This is funny on so many levels:
- don't ya'll fix ie security?
- do ya'll trust ms automatically?
- ms's default setting are medium or lower?!?
If that's what they want to do, fine because MS would then have to use those same horrible standards. This would have the affect of making their software too difficult for themselves to maintain and/or making people not want to use it if there is another commercial or OSS solution that uses better standards.
you know, that's exactly what should have come from the anti trust suit... Microsoft should have been:
1> required to publish standards for their software.
2> required to comply with those standards.
3> required to publish changes to those standard some period of time before implementing said changes (say, 6 weeks)
Not sure exactly what your requirements are but software RAID is easy to do. You'll take a slight performace hit (minor by todays processing standards), but if you were that worried about perfomance that much I doubt you'd be asking about RAID 5.
Why is it that an article discovery about this 'clock' system in plants seems to be more a description of photosynthesis (which is fairly well understood, if I remember my highschool biology correctly) than the newly discovered clock?
Maybe they just don't know how the clock works yet, but it would be nice to have more information about the nature of the clock than a explaination of photosynthesis. I know that that photosynthesis is worked in because the clock has an effect on it, but is that really the real story? It isn't IMHO.
doesn't gamma come right after beta? more like beta and gamma or alpha thru gamma.
now if it had gone through test releases beta through omikron...
Re:Helm's Deep recreation on Myth.
on
Myth II Updated
·
· Score: 1
ARRRHG!!! There were no elves at the Battle of Helms Deep! Peter Jackson is a dork, he completely missed the climax of that part of the story. Now the battle at Minas Tirth and the Siege of Gondor, with the rescued when thing seem to be their lowest is gonna be, "Ho Hum, seen it before."
Shelob was the perfect climax. JACKSON!!! We HATES it forEVER!!!
Of course the army of the dead will be cool, if Jackson bothered to read that part of the story (which I for one don't count on.)
Sorry.... Dunno what came over me... won't happen again.
Just to be clear, I did not suggest that it is ok to steal cable, just that I could own my own descrambler to watch cable. as I understand it the cable company is of course allowed to filter the signal I get, but I can descrambler what ever I do get as I see fit.
The FCC says this is legal http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/nrc b4009.txt
"Cable operators may not prevent customers from using their own equipment if such equipment is technically compatible with the cable system."
Absolutely! Howvever, I regret to inform you that the brick was chipped as it passed thru my window.
Since I had access to the brick, I was able to patch it, but I will only release the patched brick under the GPL. Fortunately, the brick no longer crashes windows.
If I return your brick and you use it, that building will clearly be a derivative work. If you lock that derivative building, I'll be forced to file suit against you for DMCA and GPL violations.
Why is it legal for me to have a cable tv descrambler and watch a cable off of a wire (which the cable company can claim ownership of) but not for me to decrypt a satalite signal from the airwaves which the statalite company cannot legimately claim ownership of?
Under current law, it seems that if someone throws a brick through my window and I pick it up, I am guilty of stealing a brick.
Reminds me of a great show a few years back called Connections (I think.) I should know the name of the host and find some links, but I don't have any and my first google attempt didn't help.
Basically it followed the flow of technology backwards. Like "The space shuttle would not have been possible with out an ancient egyptian plow." and then documents key technologies that make up a modern civilization.
They gave some of those out to some managers here last year. The implication for us was, "Plan on working some long hours... in fact plan on sleeping at you desk."
They were given at a time when we knew some rough changes were on the horizon, so that my have swayed our view. In fact, I think everyone I know of that got one got laid off 5 months later.
I thought they were cool, but not being a manager I didn't rate getting anything. (except to keep but job, but the jury's still out on that =])
maybe it will be easier to start over from scratch
as we're fond of saying on my on my architecture team when folks try to fix application problems with more hardware... "$$$ will buy a lot of developement."
I guess in this case, "4000 windows licenses would buy a lot of nice OSS code." =]
Re:interference...
on
Electric Armor
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Yes, antennae are targets, but I've never see an armored vehicle with out them ( and I servered 6 years in a armored division. ) In fact, US tankers are trained to shoot at the target with the most antennae as that is most likely a command vehicle or otherwise crucial to the cooridnation of the enemy.
...and not to mention that nukes are set off in the air cause it delivers more of the blast to a larger area (true for conventional bombs too - daisy cutters, made popular recently in Afganistan do this, ususally with a long pole to touch the ground and trip the detonator at about 20ft.) Both Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated by a radar that estimated the distance to the ground and set the bombs off at about 2000 and 500 feet above ground level, respectively. While it is possible to do that with a timer, I really doubt it's ever done.
I saw a great site one time that let you pick a latitude, longitude, detonation altitude, and bomb size (in megatons) and it would generate a map of the destruction area, but the link eludes me at the moment.
Did you ever try netgenesis? It aint cheap, but it does a lot of ad hoc reporting rather than the static reports that things like webtrends (and what urchin appears to do - although I'm not really familiar with that)
They also have an API that you can use to build custom functionality and/or match data against other systems (like a customer database)
Compaq has some nice offerings. I'm working with their blade servers which, because of stringent space requirement are very difficult to do a traditional installation. as a token url, here's a link to some info on the subject from compaq. as a side note, compaq's blade aren't the most flexible in the world, but they look from a price/manageability perspective.
I always thought that cats hated the violin most... what with the cat gut strings and all.
Re:It's not what you think...
on
Speed Reading?
·
· Score: 1
your post (esp. heavy use of 'ppl') reminds of an interesting thing I learned recently. In Hebrew, reading material not targeted at childern doesn't use vowels. As in 'ppl' for people. Of course hebrew uses vowels very diffently than english (they don't change the meaning of the word - just expain how to pronounce it) but that would increase the word density (and possibly read rate). it also makes the assumption that you know the words, which. I submit, is why may people '"say" every word'. it's a crutch that helps a lot with words you don't recognize, but for most words it just slows you down.
Follow me here:
A computer used to take up a room.
Then, computers were large cabinets in a computer room.
Now, they are boxes in a computer cabinet in a computer room.
So we can extrapolate the next step for computers is to be cardss in computer box in a computer cabinet in a computer room.
Slashdot Mirror
Skip: When I was a little boy I helped my father install voltage monitors because somebody idiot engineering overclocked his workstation... This thing could be used to overclock the entire datacenter and no one would know a thing about it until it was the entire east coast was blacked out.
I hate to be a grammar nazi, lord knows mine is atrocious. But can someone explain to be why people have so much trouble with 'then' vs. 'than'?
This is the one grammar mistake that really grates on my nerves.
For those who don't know: 'then' is used for continuation, 'than' is a comparison.
"If we play better than our opponents, then we will win." Got it?
OK that's out of my system... won't happen again.
When the question was raised about the artificial figures and reasonable sentencing the responses were 1> the figures are reasonable and 2> the sentencing is just the law. (I.e. we are just enforcing the law.)
It is a sad time for mankind that the law supercedes common sense and ration behavior towards your fellow man.
First, on calculating piracy damages:
The lawyer missed the point of the question... which was how can you justify these numbers. The answer was the same math that raised the question to begin with. The problem is that it doesn't address real damages, only imagined. What needs to be shown is actual lost sales resulting from the infringement. And since that is nearly impossible to track, perhaps the only reasonable measure is how the infringing distributor profited.
And on the subject of sentencing: Is it ever justice ever served my making an example of someone? That means that the sentence for a convicted criminal includes punishment for a criminal that wasn't convicted, doesn't it?
Both these problems with dealing with your fellow man are rejected because they are not the way the law is worded, and these guys are perfectly willing to enforce them regardless of any reasonable standard of right and wrong. (gee... who else can we think of that was "just complying with the law of the land"?)
Grr. I think I need to found a new nation... perhaps on the moon or something.
I haven't run it since I built the computer 6 weeks ago, but here is the text of the page I got:
This is funny on so many levels:
- don't ya'll fix ie security?
- do ya'll trust ms automatically?
- ms's default setting are medium or lower?!?
I play as Red Rabbit or March Hare... Did I see you is desert combat last night?
you know, that's exactly what should have come from the anti trust suit...
Microsoft should have been:
1> required to publish standards for their software.
2> required to comply with those standards.
3> required to publish changes to those standard some period of time before implementing said changes (say, 6 weeks)
not that it matters nowadays or anything.
Not sure exactly what your requirements are but software RAID is easy to do. You'll take a slight performace hit (minor by todays processing standards), but if you were that worried about perfomance that much I doubt you'd be asking about RAID 5.
Is there a reason to rule that out?
Why is it that an article discovery about this 'clock' system in plants seems to be more a description of photosynthesis (which is fairly well understood, if I remember my highschool biology correctly) than the newly discovered clock?
Maybe they just don't know how the clock works yet, but it would be nice to have more information about the nature of the clock than a explaination of photosynthesis. I know that that photosynthesis is worked in because the clock has an effect on it, but is that really the real story? It isn't IMHO.
doesn't gamma come right after beta? more like beta and gamma or alpha thru gamma.
now if it had gone through test releases beta through omikron...
ARRRHG!!! There were no elves at the Battle of Helms Deep! Peter Jackson is a dork, he completely missed the climax of that part of the story. Now the battle at Minas Tirth and the Siege of Gondor, with the rescued when thing seem to be their lowest is gonna be, "Ho Hum, seen it before ."
Shelob was the perfect climax. JACKSON!!! We HATES it forEVER!!!
Of course the army of the dead will be cool, if Jackson bothered to read that part of the story (which I for one don't count on.)
Sorry.... Dunno what came over me... won't happen again.
Just to be clear, I did not suggest that it is ok to steal cable, just that I could own my own descrambler to watch cable. as I understand it the cable company is of course allowed to filter the signal I get, but I can descrambler what ever I do get as I see fit.
c b4009.txt
The FCC says this is legal http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/nr
"Cable operators may not prevent customers from using their own equipment if such equipment is technically compatible with the cable system."
Absolutely! Howvever, I regret to inform you that the brick was chipped as it passed thru my window.
Since I had access to the brick, I was able to patch it, but I will only release the patched brick under the GPL. Fortunately, the brick no longer crashes windows.
If I return your brick and you use it, that building will clearly be a derivative work. If you lock that derivative building, I'll be forced to file suit against you for DMCA and GPL violations.
Why is it legal for me to have a cable tv descrambler and watch a cable off of a wire (which the cable company can claim ownership of) but not for me to decrypt a satalite signal from the airwaves which the statalite company cannot legimately claim ownership of?
Under current law, it seems that if someone throws a brick through my window and I pick it up, I am guilty of stealing a brick.
Reminds me of a great show a few years back called Connections (I think.) I should know the name of the host and find some links, but I don't have any and my first google attempt didn't help.
Basically it followed the flow of technology backwards. Like "The space shuttle would not have been possible with out an ancient egyptian plow." and then documents key technologies that make up a modern civilization.
Anyway it was a great show.
My wife sells that sort of this. They have gift catalogs is a varity of price ranges. I anyone is interested I'd be glad to connect you.
They gave some of those out to some managers here last year. The implication for us was, "Plan on working some long hours... in fact plan on sleeping at you desk."
They were given at a time when we knew some rough changes were on the horizon, so that my have swayed our view. In fact, I think everyone I know of that got one got laid off 5 months later.
I thought they were cool, but not being a manager I didn't rate getting anything. (except to keep but job, but the jury's still out on that =])
maybe it will be easier to start over from scratch
as we're fond of saying on my on my architecture team when folks try to fix application problems with more hardware... "$$$ will buy a lot of developement."
I guess in this case, "4000 windows licenses would buy a lot of nice OSS code." =]
Yes, antennae are targets, but I've never see an armored vehicle with out them ( and I servered 6 years in a armored division. ) In fact, US tankers are trained to shoot at the target with the most antennae as that is most likely a command vehicle or otherwise crucial to the cooridnation of the enemy.
...and not to mention that nukes are set off in the air cause it delivers more of the blast to a larger area (true for conventional bombs too - daisy cutters, made popular recently in Afganistan do this, ususally with a long pole to touch the ground and trip the detonator at about 20ft.) Both Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated by a radar that estimated the distance to the ground and set the bombs off at about 2000 and 500 feet above ground level, respectively. While it is possible to do that with a timer, I really doubt it's ever done.
I saw a great site one time that let you pick a latitude, longitude, detonation altitude, and bomb size (in megatons) and it would generate a map of the destruction area, but the link eludes me at the moment.
Did you ever try netgenesis? It aint cheap, but it does a lot of ad hoc reporting rather than the static reports that things like webtrends (and what urchin appears to do - although I'm not really familiar with that)
They also have an API that you can use to build custom functionality and/or match data against other systems (like a customer database)
And the apache helicopter, been doing it for more than 10 years.
Compaq has some nice offerings. I'm working with their blade servers which, because of stringent space requirement are very difficult to do a traditional installation. as a token url, here's a link to some info on the subject from compaq. as a side note, compaq's blade aren't the most flexible in the world, but they look from a price/manageability perspective.
I always thought that cats hated the violin most... what with the cat gut strings and all.
your post (esp. heavy use of 'ppl') reminds of an interesting thing I learned recently. In Hebrew, reading material not targeted at childern doesn't use vowels. As in 'ppl' for people. Of course hebrew uses vowels very diffently than english (they don't change the meaning of the word - just expain how to pronounce it) but that would increase the word density (and possibly read rate). it also makes the assumption that you know the words, which. I submit, is why may people '"say" every word'. it's a crutch that helps a lot with words you don't recognize, but for most words it just slows you down.
Follow me here:
A computer used to take up a room.
Then, computers were large cabinets in a computer room.
Now, they are boxes in a computer cabinet in a computer room.
So we can extrapolate the next step for computers is to be cardss in computer box in a computer cabinet in a computer room.
It's a natural (obvious) progression really.