Slashdot Mirror


User: rtfa-troll

rtfa-troll's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,204
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,204

  1. Re:When I was in Switzerland on Is Open Source Different In Europe Than In the US? · · Score: 1

    The Swiss seemed to have some sort of conception that open source was at higher level morally - which I still don't understand.

    Open source, is definitely morally better in the same way as a clean factory is morally better than a dirty one. Maybe the owners chose the clean factory because it was cheaper, but they still aren't polluting the environment and they're still worth supporting because they are morally neutral. The other factory actually is polluting and is morally bad.

    If you start to look at the F in FOSS, however, it's quite different you'll find that many people choose to be involved because they want to contribute something useful to the world. That seems to be pretty clear.

  2. Re:More than a suggestion on Mars Rover's Epic Trek For the Crater Endeavor · · Score: 1

    A human crew could ride that far in a day, given an appropriate Mars buggy.

    And the buggy that could drive the human could go twice as far if it left the human behind. Plus your question about cost is easy. For the cost of one human mission you could have ten buggy missions; each one learning from the last. Each individual mission would be less capable than one human mission, but the sum would be much much better. Human missions to Mars are like the late circuses in Rome. They put on a good show to distract the proletariat from the collapse of the empire.

  3. Re:How about http web traffic? on Nevada Businesses Must Start Encrypting E-Mail By Oct. 1st · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes and no. The law says that you have to encrypt when you send personal data. The definition of encryption is pretty broad but the definition of personal data is very narrow so you could have a web site which is unencrypted except for the part where the customers identified themselves.

    Overall, I don't see the problem with this. That they allow weak encryption is a red herring. Strong encryption will also comply with the ruling and so most people will use that. Weak encryption is often better than nothing. There are loopholes, but those can be closed later. This looks like a good start.

  4. Re:Their copyright should be toast on Playstation 3 Video DRM Only Allows One Download · · Score: 1

    Well, everybody's allowed to discuss whatever you want, and don't let this post stop you from discussing the difficulties of geranium growing in the mountains of Afghanistan, but the grandparent and I are discussing whether it's "OK" if "they" "clearly mark this as a rental". I'm saying it's not "OK". Sony expects us to pay for protecting their business from unlicensed copying, but they aren't providing the social gains that are meant to be their part of the bargain. I guess if they made sure that all libraries had a non-restrictions managed version or something similar then it could be okay. I doubt they are doing that though.

  5. Their copyright should be toast on Playstation 3 Video DRM Only Allows One Download · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is not okay even for rental. When you get a rental video, there's still a real physical video and often the video store ends up selling that off at discount. The most important thing about this is that they are breaking the trade which makes copyright acceptable. In return for their ability to restrict other people's right to copy they should be delivering works that people can keep forever. If they deliberately make that impossible they shouldn't have any right to control other people's copying.

  6. Re:This Just In on Palin Email Hacker Found · · Score: 1

    When an elected official's son goes to Iraq, it's "peasant propaganda"?

    You've misunderstood the grandparent. He's not saying that she sent her son for propaganda. He's saying she's so stupid that she unthinkingly follows propaganda designed for peasants and sends her son to Iraq. Personally I think that it's good if representatives end up with some comprehension that their acts have consequences. Anyway; it's been suggested that there are various reasons why people end up in the army, not all of which are due to their preference. E.g. as a way of avoiding some kinds of legal case by getting the judge to see the better side of the person and the real wish to reform.

    perhaps a more reasonable question would be what is so wrong with her that all her kids end up so messed up. True, it could just be bad luck, but I guess most people want their vice-president to be a lucky kind of person.

  7. Re:Student start-up hosting on Re-purposing a Student Tech Service Group? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's probably not possible since most such student groups use academic networks and donated hardware. This tends to limit non-personal commercial usage.

  8. Re:It's time to face a simple fact about the iPhon on Apple Bans iPhone App For Competing With Mail.app · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a waste of investment. It's just that simple

    That makes no sense. Most iPhones actually do what they're supposed to do. They're not supposed to be an open platform. If that's what you want, get something else!

    the grandaprent obviously means that developing on the Iphone is a waste of investment. Most people do that kind of investment with a plan for a small reasonable return and a reasonable hope for great riches if their application happens to hit a sweet spot. With the iphone the situation is that, if you do hit that sweet spot, Apple can, and will just eliminate your application whilst introducing their own one. You end up doing free (or even profitable) R&D for Apple.

    Others have compared this with Windows, but actually it's very similar. Microsoft has shown a willingness to kill any partner which gets too big for it's boots by competing against them. E.g. look at Borland which was wiped out by microsoft's compiler suite; look at Netscape; look even at Oracle: they were only saved because they had other platforms. Even so Oracle is in a much worse position because of MSSql than it would be otherwise.

  9. Re:So? on Activision Goes After Individual Game Pirates · · Score: 1

    Criminal law has totally different standards. You generally have to be "guilty beyond reasonable doubt". Civil cases tend to be decided on "the balance of probability" or other standards weaker than reasonable doubt. Punishment is for the guilty and so should have to fit into criminal law standards.

  10. Re:So? on Activision Goes After Individual Game Pirates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, don't complain, with ideas like mine I could easily run for office and at least I haven't done that .... yet.

  11. Re:So? on Activision Goes After Individual Game Pirates · · Score: 5, Funny
    I have spent my entire youth learning how to roll excellent joints. It was a risk, but I was certain that by the time I grew up dope would be legalised and I would be able to become national champion. I didn't managed to get a degree or any exercise and I'm not even fit for manual labour now, but if I had concentrated on education instead then I would have been the head of a software company which overtook Microsoft.

    I demand the taxpayer pay me billions that I risked and lost with my career choice. I took the risk and I deserve the profits.

  12. Re:Finally! on Canonical Offers Sale of Proprietary Codecs for Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    Yes, I wish we lived in a world where all formats, protocols, and standards were Free, but they never will be so long as capitalism remains our official state religion.ut they never will be so long as capitalism remains our official state religion.

    And this gives us quite clearly what's wrong with this being set up as the default. I live in a capitalist society where I can use these codecs for free. A society without software patents. Canonical should be clearly telling us that you only need these licenses if you are in a patent oppressed society and making it easy for the rest of us to benefit from our extra freedom. If people in software patent free societies still buy this software then they don't get to see the benefit of their societies stand for freedom.

  13. Re:MS were on both systems on Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop · · Score: 1

    We don't have to prove that at all. All we have to prove is that Microsoft claimed a link between the change to Windows and improved stability. To prove that just look at the MS press releases about the project. Because of their previous claims, Microsoft has to prove that not only was the fault not linked to Windows, but that they could have done nothing reasonable to prevent it.

  14. Re:Controversy? What controversy? on Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop · · Score: 3, Informative

    those donations are being channeled into things many of those people don't belive in or wish to support.

    Whilst I don't know if Microsoft paid the "donate one get one" price that everyone else had to pay; I note that I seem to have been taken in by MS FUD and at least MS has had to pay something towards the cost of these laptops. Apologies to anyone at OLPC who I offended. I'll be more careful about trusting MS in future :-) :-(

  15. Re:Controversy? What controversy? on Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be a bit more specific; OLPC took donations from people who believed they were helping to increase educational freedom in basic computing in the third world and used that money to further the aims of a company specifically trying to reduce that freedom. I'm not totally sure that Sugar is a good idea; I really don't know if OLPC with Linux could be perfect. However, I do know that the organisation was built up on money from people donating their second laptops and that those donations are being channeled into things many of those people don't belive in or wish to support.

  16. Re:Controversy? What controversy? on Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop · · Score: 1

    controversy (plural controversies):
    1. A debate, discussion of opposing opinions;

  17. Re:A good plan on Tapping the Web's Collective Wisdom For Patents · · Score: 1

    It depends what question the court is examining. If the court is examining the question of whether something is covered by the patent then you are right. As long as you haven't done anything more than the prior art then it may help (but no more than prior art which you find and show wasn't taken into account.

    However, if the court is covering the question of whether the patent is valid at all; showing that prior art wasn't declared which should have been can have a real influence. It can also be useful to show that the person making the patent application didn't do all that they should have done. The latter can seriously help reduce damages.

    If you RTFA, you'll see that patent applicants themselves even stated that their patent applications were "strengthened" by the addition of prior art. Does that sound like a good idea to you? Perhaps if you are a patent applicant.

  18. Be careful in your advocacy on Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This trial will be a great success. Everything will work great. If need be there will be one MS support person per child. The problems will come two years down the line when it turns out that vista's successor is needed to do any work with windows and doesn't run on the existing hardware. Remember the London stock exchange. Everybody knew how "Windows" increased it's stability. Now, it's two years later and nobody remembers that Windows was involved at the point when the whole thing crashes and can't be recovered.

    Don't say that this trial will be bad or won't succeed. MS will throw everything they have to make it work. Do remember that Peru is building up problems for the future. Do try to explain how that will happen. Do remind people that the first trial has nothing to do with the reality. Do remind them that it's what happens two years or more down the line which you have to look at. Do remind them that the London Stock Exchange will never be credible again.

  19. this is a key chance on Congress May Kill NIH Open Access Research Rules · · Score: 1
    This can be a key opportunity. Mostly people don't understand copyrights and patents much. What they do understand is tuned by the words "intellectual property" which treats these things as if they were solid things that you can only get if someone else loses theirs.

    When the IP people start to threaten other people's health, it's a great opportunity to show the harm they really do. When they attempted to kill people in Africa in order to over charge for AIDS drugs this really backfired. Try to make this change backfire too.

  20. Re:A good plan on Tapping the Web's Collective Wisdom For Patents · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now, I'm not a patent lawyer (though nor, I suspect are you) so there might be something I'm missing, but I don't think this is a good use of our time.

    These patents have been accepted That means that we failed in peer to patent. The patents were accepted with new prior art. That means that it's no longer easy to use that prior art to challenge the patent. The patent examiner has taken it into account and accepted the patent anyway. I think that, if the prior art had remained secret, it could be brought out at the time of a lawsuit and be used to invalidate the patent. The courts are a much harsher environment than the patent examiner for patents.

    Since this project hasn't managed to block any patents, it's total effect is to strengthen patents which would otherwise be weaker. The prior art was there anyway. We could have found it when there was a lawsuit. Now it won't do us any good.

  21. Re:Well on Questioning Google's Privacy Reform · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm shocked. Terrified in fact. If your site, with all the traffic you see, is keeping logs then we should just completely give up on trying to get Google to improve it's privacy policy and make you priority numero uno. After all, what Google knows about the web and it's users can probably be stored on one cylinder of one plater of the tiniest server in your data centre which extends to every horizon.

    sorry; which site?

    P.S. if you RTFA, you might find out that Google, whilst maybe not particularly well known to you, is actually quite a big search engine.

  22. Has Yahoo remembered where it's coming from. on Yahoo! Opens Its Website To Third-Party Developers · · Score: 1

    One of the things that I've heard about failed takeover bids is that normally the companies share price goes down immediately after and stays down for a while. However, then it often goes back up to and exceeds the value it had before the takeover. I wonder if a takeover threat isn't a thing which allows companies to reassess where they are coming from and start to seriously thing about what they should be doing. I'm optimistically hoping that Yahoo returns to it's position as an internet leader, pushing forward new services and ideas. In the days when so much commercial junk is seen as leading we could definitely do with some fresh ideas.

  23. Re:I disagree. on Judge Rules Defense Can Get DUI Machine Source Code · · Score: 1

    This isn't enough and I guess you are confusing the courts with the state. I agree that the state hasn't had proper controls on the device; doesn't deserve access to the source and doesn't need it. I also agree that, without original source code and a log of what happened from the build of that to the device install, the device should never be enough to find the person guilty.

    The courts, and in particular the defence, are a different case. It's possible that the device could also prove that the person is innocent. Maybe, due to a bug in the display system, a reading of 14.2 (which seems to mean guilty) could only happen when the person's blood alcohol is actually 0.42. Maybe 14.2 is completely impossible and proves that the policemen lied. The device was present at the scene of a crime under investigation. The judges have the right to inquire into absolutely everyting about it.

    This doesn't even have to mean that the state will get access to the source code. The code may be kept secret by court order with access given only to specific defence experts who are only allowed to publish their findings. This isn't ideal though, since it will make the source code analysis very expensive. However, the court could even find that the state; as a punishment for failing to provide an appropriate device in a case where it should have, should cover the defences costs in this investigation.

  24. Why not prosecute? on Judge Rules Defense Can Get DUI Machine Source Code · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm sorry, but if a company is making it impossible for DUI prosecutions to be done fairly, the company officers should be sitting in jail whilst we wait to find out if they can get the source code together or not.

  25. Re:Look, People, This is REALLY SIMPLE... on University Brings Charges Against White Hat Hacker · · Score: 1

    Is DVD Jon a black hat[....]? He'd certainly never have gotten permission to do that.

    DVD Jon owned the DVD player and DVDs he cracked. The black hats were the people who were trying to stop him from using his own property for accessing his own information. That is to say the media companies. There is no comparison.