Really, I learned a lot more in undergraduate genetics, microbiology, botany and orgainic chemistry courses on how to be a terrorist than I did by launching model rockets.
Got Botulism? It might take a while to isolate and identify the proper strain, but terrorists don't have the marketing department breathing down their necks to meet a shipping date. They're patient if they have to be. Once identified, it's just a matter of culturing and refining the toxin.
Got Ricin? Yes, the lovely castor bean plant (ricinus communis) produces a rather nice toxin. Readily available through many plant stores. A bit of applied organic chemistry lab work, and you too can get the desired organic compound.
Got GB Nerve gas? Malathion (an readily available and highly used insecticide) and the first component of the binary nerve gas GB are very similar. Any organic chemist worth his money would be able to do some work to make it exactly similar. The other component is isopropol alcohol. You can find that in any drugstore.
Got FAE? Why bother with ANFO (ammonium-nitrate fuel-oil, the fertilizer bomb that has been used in many, many places) truck bombs? A little bit of applied mechanical engineering and you to can have explosives on par with low-yield nuclear weapons. Sure, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide may be a bit hard to source, but you can use others to get a similar result.
Or, as was demonstrated by one nutcase in South Korea, all it takes is a determined individual with gasoline to kill many people on a subway.
Model rockets? Give me a break. Next on the list: slingshots.
Passifism works only if you're dealing with a culture that is not willing to butcher you.
If Ghandi lived under Nazi occupation, or Stalinist Russia, or Pol Pot's "Killing Fields"....
The last line wouldn't be: "And then you win" it would be: "And then you die".
Don't think that Micro$oft is not going to try using every dirty, underhanded, legal and semi-legal trick in the book to undermine and destroy OSS. The only solution is to make a better product and diversify the software base.
Linux is too much of a niche product. MS ranted about "Developers, developers, developers!" Ours should be "Desktop, desktop, desktop!"
Just Effing Great
on
Reflections
·
· Score: 4, Funny
First, it's people yakking on the cell phone in the movie theater.
Now it going to be people wanking off to their live-feed pr0n delived to their cellular in the movie theater.
Lousy in Practice. Simply stated, most avalanche victims are killed from blunt-force trauma.
Suffice to say, being dragged down a mountain by a wall of snow going 200 miles an hour, carring assorted debris (rock, ice, other mountaineers, AOL CD's, etc.), hitting various hard objects along the way (rock, ice, other mountaineers, RIAA/MPAA representatives, etc.), is not good for one's health.
Asphyxiation still represents a problem. But most are killed by the spin-cycle.
And this represents the major problem facing Windows users.
I say, divide and conquer. Or more to the point, know your user. Different people have different expectations. Programmers want to know about toolsets and whatnot. Windows reboot monkeys (sorry about the mandatory dig) want to learn about being able to run a server. Office users want to know about applications and usablility.
The first two camps are relatively easy to accomodate. The last is the hardest due to the fact that Linux just-ain't-there-yet-but-we-will-be-real-soon.
Some of the administrative books I recommend are: Linux Admistration: A Beginners Guide 2nd Ed.by Steve Shaw I toss this one under every Windows admin's nose who wants to come over to our camp. It's a good starting point.
Essential System Administration by Aeleen Frisch. The one that sits on your desk when you need to look things up. The New Testament. Less polemic. Still excellent.
Throw in Linux in a Nutshell for quick reference and those represent my "Linux Admin Starter Kit". Add your own ingredients to make it work.
I won't bother listing each and every other good admin book because many of them are specialized. BUT, a good book on bash, vi, emacs, sendmail, dns/bind, firewalls, etc. are all nice for expanding ones brain. Oddly enough, most of them are known by the fact that they have an animal on the front cover....
\Programmers can just go and have at 'er with all the tools available to them for the amazing price of free.
Office worker types: be prepared for some serious hand holding. They don't want to deal with administrative issues, security, etc. They just want something that's going to work. I'd actually recommend OS X first. Failing that, Running Linux in the latest and greatest eddition.
Oh yeah, parting words: HELP those who want to make the transition. The Linux community needs to change from RTFM, STFW and STFU to, "How can I help you?" THAT will help people to be more willing to make the move.
Honestly, my bookshelf is ready to collapse with number of administrative related books.But if I was trying to get someone up to speed realtively quickly, I'd recommend the following:
Really, the best migration book for Windows users to the Linux world that I've seen to date. Wide, but shallow, but that does not need to be bad. It's a good primer, but it does tend towards "cookbook" solutions. Get a deeper book once you've read through this. (3rd edition is due out in November, BTW. Makes a good Christmas gift to a Windows user that you know is trying to "covert")
Opinionated. Polemic. A touch of arrogance, even. But this book and read it cover-to-cover. They obviously are biased against Windows servers. So will you after using *nix as well. Mine's dog-eared and highlighted to hell.
Dear God, if you don't own this, please go and buy it. Honestly, a definitive book on *nix. Twice as dog-eared and worn as Nemeth. You'll get this book when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Add a few specialty books to the mix, and you're more than set. Just read BOFH and develop the neccessary arrogant, anti-social attitude as you go;-)
You're wrong-- The americas cup is still about real sailors. Anyone who enters the americas cup without the stamina and fearlessness and judgment of a free climber combined with the technical prowess of your average programmer is going to loose.
Free climber? Surely you must be joking. The difference between free climbing and sailing is profound. Last time I checked the sailing magazines, they don't run obituaries as part of the regularly featured contents.
Sound of sailing hitting the water: SPLASH!
Sound of a climbing hitting the rock/ground: SPLAT!
Please don't confuse climbers with a bunch of rich boys and their oversized bathtub toys.
A lot of praise is being said about the IOGear USB KVM switches. I personally have a their 4 port MiniView. It's advertised as being "Linux compatable".
It's a classic case of when someone says YMMV, and you find out that sure enough, your mile is not == 5,280 feet.
For instance, with a stock RedHat 7.3 kernel (2.4.18-3 through.18-5), the usb kernel modules does not like it at all. (Mind you, the 2.4.19.rc-3 patch does have a kludge for the Aten/IOGear USB switch, but I haven't played with it yet, so again, YMMV).
Their advertised keyboard hot-switching doesn't apparently like the MS Internet Keyboard Pro, either. So, it's either manually reach over to the KVM and select the system you want, or curse at the folks at IOGear who are patently clueless.
Otherwise than that, works great on the standard Windows boxes and the Mac platform.
But, for now, it's pretty much SSH/X-windows forwarding to use that Linux box.
Perhaps some of the folks at Big Blue have not forgotten how Microsoft went and sold MS DOS to any and all IBM PC-clone manufacturers.
So, I am certain that there is a small contingent of IBM that is more than glad to steal Microsoft's market share and give them a big serving of ass pie while they're at it.
Sigh, here we sit six months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Osama, how much money will it take to put Parliment Hill in Ottawa on the next priority target list? I have a blank cheque in hand, and I'll fill in as many zeros as you need. I'll even guide the planes in.
In all seriousness, this kind of insane behavior only happens when scum-sucking, bottom-feeding lawyers [aka: elected politicians] have one too many power lunches with "industry" (and certainly not my industry, that is for certain) representatives.
I go through a freaking spindle a week for data archiving purposes alone. Why? It's cheap and machine readable on pretty much any machine with a CD-ROM. It's strictly for business use. No pirated.mp3s or software here. Just business records and other content that we are the legitimate owners of.
Why in all that's unholy should a damned dime go to the RIAA/MPAA/LMNOP? In this kind of business scenario: Levy == subsidy.
That's right. As a business, this levy amounts to our subsidizing another industry at our own expense. Now, why should we do that? I don't have the various recording industries subsidizing our business in any fashion.
I'll be contacted my Minister of Parliment immediately. I suggest any Canadian/.'ers do the same. This nonsense has gotten out of hand, and will only get worse unless we speak out.
I can only imagine what would happen for people using netstumbler: "The airwaves! They're saturated! I've never seen so much pr0n!"
In all honesty, I've mentioned a number of times the advantage of wiring up the ol' fraternity house. Since most of them are not geeks, their eyes get more glazed over than after a 6 kegger party. Simply stated, most fraternity members are not interested in being able to run SSH over an 802.11b WLAN.
Being able to score with the hotties in the sorrority next door, that's another thing entirely.
Actually, I was born in Edmonton, raised in Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and Rimbey, moved back to Edmonton and and lived there for 15 years before moving to Seattle. As for the women, that's where I met my wife, so you should watch your tongue:-)
Born here. Raised here. Met wife here. Live and work here.
Get them to pull their collective heads out of their asses as well. This may be the hardest thing to do, since Cableco's just don't seem to have a clue.
In all honesty, I'd gladly pay more money for more bandwidth. A couple of issues, though:
No fscking port limitations If I'm being metered, then I should be able to run any service I desire (Yes, this means running what has been viewed as a "server" application previously, like SSHD.). I'm just paying for packet A to get to destination B.
Guaranteed QOS Yes, bill me per packet if you so damn well want to, but I want contractual terms that state 128 kbs/256 kbs/n^2 kbs guaranteed or they are in violation, with fee scheduling to match. After all, I'm willing to pay for my usage.
Redress If you don't have the technical know-how as an ISP (or refuse to hire the people with it, more to the point) to recognize that I'm being ping flooded off the net, which is something beyond the scope and control of anyone, I don't have to face a $infinity bill at the end of the billing period. As it is, it's bend over and grab the ankles time. Something is inherently wrong with the current scenario, and there is no motivation to change it. Implement binding arbitration, or alternate means of redress to deal with the interent equivalent of force majeur.
Acceptable means of determining usage My cable modem has a default HTTPD config. You could packet storm that thing off the the internet, but the local loop router would register only packets going through to my node. Bzzt! Not acceptable.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of plenty more.
I've often said that the RIAA/MPAA/LMNOP are working up a great sweat playing the P2P Whack-A-Mole game. Someone, somewhere, should explain to them what NP means in mathematical terms;-)
I'll go off on a slight tangent, but bear with me. When you need water, you just go to the tap and turn it on (at least in North America, that is). You get what you what when you need it.
What you don't hear is the Water, Gas and Power company screaming about how their rights are being destroyed by people being able to bottle the water and give it freely to a friend or neighbour. (Or derivative uses thereof, such as cooking, flushing, etcetera).
Why? It's commoditized. It's too damn cheap to bother with repackaging or giving it away. It's there. You get charged by the aggregate volume that you use in a month. You want to give a hectaliter to Joe Farmer down the street? Go right ahead, we'll bill you for your use. But why bother? Joe Farmer can get it for himself.
This is what the music industries need to realize. The cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the lamp and Elvis has left the building. The days of charging $20/cd are gone for good.
This does not have to be a bad thing.
Commoditize the damn thing so that it's too damn cheap to bother with trading music (other than, "Listen to this cool track I downloaded"). Give people high bit-rate, guaranteed quality, do-what-you-want-with it music for pennies on the song, and you'll make more money than you can dream of. And judging by these guys expense accounts, that's a lot of dinero.
"Princess Lea, now you will see the true nature and power of the Dark Side of the force."
"No, Lord Vader! We are just a peaceful planet of granola eaters and tree huggers!"
"Yes, watch as the Empire unleashes the ultimate weapon....the Slashdot effect!"
Really, this is amazing, we've Slashdotted eBay.
In this corner: IT versus...
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 2
...the bicycle
Balance sensors:
IT: complex software and embeded circuitry used in conjunction with gyroscopes (5) to accomodate shifts in weight and terrain.
Bicycle: uses embed, neural networked balance sensors (2) of operator in conjunction with 2 plane-oriented gyroscopes (wheels, 2) to accomodate shifts in weight and terrain
Advantage: Bicycle. Extensive beta-testing and significant market penetration of biological control units predominate.
Power-train: IT: battery operated motors, NiCd & NiMH. Regchargeable by plugging in any battery outlet. Good for approx. 6 hours.
Bicycle: uses operator biochemical force-actuators (legs, 2) for power-train. Rechargable at any lunch counter. Good for approx. 12 hours, or longer if reserves (fat) used.
Advantage: Bicycle: mean lifetime on force-actuators before requiring replacement is 75 years.
Motors:
IT: two which drive the vehicle independently. Emission free and fully redundant. If one fails, the other takes over.
Bicycle: two which drive the vehicle independently. Emission free and fully redundant. If one fails, the other takes over.
Advantage: Tie
CPU:
IT: pair of circuit boards ("sisterboards") sends commands to motor units based on input from sensors.
Bicycle: operator neural network ("left hemisphere" and "right hemisphere") sends commands to motor units based on input on sensors.
Advantage: Bicycle: operator neural networks includes threat detection, navagation ability and significant other software components.
I swear, the moment these things cross the border, I'll be on my MLA's ass like a fat kid on Smarties.
Honestly, every time I puchase a CD-R, I am paying a levy that gets redistributed to the record companies for the priviledge of being able to record music at home. The moment that I can no longer do so, it's -- repeat after me -- "taxation without compensation".
Otherwise: buy-return-complain-rinse-wash-repeat
I'm sure it will be economically unsound to distribute CDs in a format that the consumer does not want. Namely, ones that prevent fair-usage rights...the one's that I'm already being taxed on.
Yup. Pouches for everything you could ever need and then some. Palm? Check. Phone? Check. Nerf-dart gun? Check. Junk food? Check.
Best of all, you're ready to go in case you have an issue with the accounting department regading your IRS withholding taxes and such! Err, that is, out the door, not to switch with a Glock and scads of clips....
Slashdot Mirror
I tried Safari for awhile. Didn't particularly like it as:
1) It's a bitch balancing a monitor on your lap while your on the shitter.
2) Highlighter on the screen sucks. Especially when you scroll.
3) Higlighting a monitor while balancing it on your lap in the bathroom is just a a home safety accident nightmare.
4) Dragging a monitor into the bedroom will just get your ass divorced fast.
Really, I learned a lot more in undergraduate genetics, microbiology, botany and orgainic chemistry courses on how to be a terrorist than I did by launching model rockets.
Got Botulism? It might take a while to isolate and identify the proper strain, but terrorists don't have the marketing department breathing down their necks to meet a shipping date. They're patient if they have to be. Once identified, it's just a matter of culturing and refining the toxin.
Got Ricin? Yes, the lovely castor bean plant (ricinus communis) produces a rather nice toxin. Readily available through many plant stores. A bit of applied organic chemistry lab work, and you too can get the desired organic compound.
Got GB Nerve gas? Malathion (an readily available and highly used insecticide) and the first component of the binary nerve gas GB are very similar. Any organic chemist worth his money would be able to do some work to make it exactly similar. The other component is isopropol alcohol. You can find that in any drugstore.
Got FAE? Why bother with ANFO (ammonium-nitrate fuel-oil, the fertilizer bomb that has been used in many, many places) truck bombs? A little bit of applied mechanical engineering and you to can have explosives on par with low-yield nuclear weapons. Sure, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide may be a bit hard to source, but you can use others to get a similar result.
Or, as was demonstrated by one nutcase in South Korea, all it takes is a determined individual with gasoline to kill many people on a subway.
Model rockets? Give me a break. Next on the list: slingshots.
Passifism works only if you're dealing with a culture that is not willing to butcher you.
If Ghandi lived under Nazi occupation, or Stalinist Russia, or Pol Pot's "Killing Fields"....
The last line wouldn't be: "And then you win" it would be: "And then you die".
Don't think that Micro$oft is not going to try using every dirty, underhanded, legal and semi-legal trick in the book to undermine and destroy OSS. The only solution is to make a better product and diversify the software base.
Linux is too much of a niche product. MS ranted about "Developers, developers, developers!" Ours should be "Desktop, desktop, desktop!"
First, it's people yakking on the cell phone in the movie theater.
Now it going to be people wanking off to their live-feed pr0n delived to their cellular in the movie theater.
Lovely....
Lousy in Practice. Simply stated, most avalanche victims are killed from blunt-force trauma.
Suffice to say, being dragged down a mountain by a wall of snow going 200 miles an hour, carring assorted debris (rock, ice, other mountaineers, AOL CD's, etc.), hitting various hard objects along the way (rock, ice, other mountaineers, RIAA/MPAA representatives, etc.), is not good for one's health.
Asphyxiation still represents a problem. But most are killed by the spin-cycle.
And this represents the major problem facing Windows users.
I say, divide and conquer. Or more to the point, know your user. Different people have different expectations.
Programmers want to know about toolsets and whatnot. Windows reboot monkeys (sorry about the mandatory dig) want to learn about being able to run a server. Office users want to know about applications and usablility.
The first two camps are relatively easy to accomodate. The last is the hardest due to the fact that Linux just-ain't-there-yet-but-we-will-be-real-soon.
Some of the administrative books I recommend are:
Linux Admistration: A Beginners Guide 2nd Ed.by Steve Shaw
I toss this one under every Windows admin's nose who wants to come over to our camp. It's a good starting point.
Linux Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth et al.
The bible. Old Testament-style. Polemic. God bless them.
Essential System Administration by Aeleen Frisch.
The one that sits on your desk when you need to look things up. The New Testament. Less polemic. Still excellent.
Throw in Linux in a Nutshell for quick reference and those represent my "Linux Admin Starter Kit". Add your own ingredients to make it work.
I won't bother listing each and every other good admin book because many of them are specialized. BUT, a good book on bash, vi, emacs, sendmail, dns/bind, firewalls, etc. are all nice for expanding ones brain. Oddly enough, most of them are known by the fact that they have an animal on the front cover....
\Programmers can just go and have at 'er with all the tools available to them for the amazing price of free.
Office worker types: be prepared for some serious hand holding. They don't want to deal with administrative issues, security, etc. They just want something that's going to work. I'd actually recommend OS X first. Failing that, Running Linux in the latest and greatest eddition.
Oh yeah, parting words: HELP those who want to make the transition. The Linux community needs to change from RTFM, STFW and STFU to, "How can I help you?" THAT will help people to be more willing to make the move.
Let see here....
1. Produce multi-million dollar movies and distribute them
2. ???
3. No profit due to Step 2
Revise:
1. Produce multi-million dollar movies and distribute them DRM
2. ???
3. NO PROFIT! Who-hoo!
Sounds like the same-ol'-same-ol' to me....
Honestly, my bookshelf is ready to collapse with number of administrative related books.But if I was trying to get someone up to speed realtively quickly, I'd recommend the following:
;-)
Linux Administration: A Beginners Guide 2nd Ed.
Author: Shaw, Steve
Really, the best migration book for Windows users to the Linux world that I've seen to date. Wide, but shallow, but that does not need to be bad. It's a good primer, but it does tend towards "cookbook" solutions. Get a deeper book once you've read through this. (3rd edition is due out in November, BTW. Makes a good Christmas gift to a Windows user that you know is trying to "covert")
Linux Administration Handbook
Author: Nemeth et al.
Opinionated. Polemic. A touch of arrogance, even. But this book and read it cover-to-cover. They obviously are biased against Windows servers. So will you after using *nix as well. Mine's dog-eared and highlighted to hell.
Essential System Administration
Author: Frisch, Aeleen
Dear God, if you don't own this, please go and buy it. Honestly, a definitive book on *nix. Twice as dog-eared and worn as Nemeth. You'll get this book when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Add a few specialty books to the mix, and you're more than set. Just read BOFH and develop the neccessary arrogant, anti-social attitude as you go
Cheers.
You're wrong-- The americas cup is still about real sailors. Anyone who enters the americas cup without the stamina and fearlessness and judgment of a free climber combined with the technical prowess of your average programmer is going to loose.
Free climber? Surely you must be joking. The difference between free climbing and sailing is profound. Last time I checked the sailing magazines, they don't run obituaries as part of the regularly featured contents.
Sound of sailing hitting the water: SPLASH!
Sound of a climbing hitting the rock/ground: SPLAT!
Please don't confuse climbers with a bunch of rich boys and their oversized bathtub toys.
The musical sound of Windows blue-screening.
You could even have a nice menu:
Select your musical preference:
1) Death-metal guitars
2) Funeral dirge
3) Cat-in-heat-at-12:00-am
Ohhh, the possibilities....
It would be better than the anguished "NOOOOOO!" frequently heard around the office.
A lot of praise is being said about the IOGear USB KVM switches. I personally have a their 4 port MiniView. It's advertised as being "Linux compatable".
.18-5), the usb kernel modules does not like it at all. (Mind you, the 2.4.19.rc-3 patch does have a kludge for the Aten/IOGear USB switch, but I haven't played with it yet, so again, YMMV).
It's a classic case of when someone says YMMV, and you find out that sure enough, your mile is not == 5,280 feet.
For instance, with a stock RedHat 7.3 kernel (2.4.18-3 through
Their advertised keyboard hot-switching doesn't apparently like the MS Internet Keyboard Pro, either. So, it's either manually reach over to the KVM and select the system you want, or curse at the folks at IOGear who are patently clueless.
Otherwise than that, works great on the standard Windows boxes and the Mac platform.
But, for now, it's pretty much SSH/X-windows forwarding to use that Linux box.
Perhaps some of the folks at Big Blue have not forgotten how Microsoft went and sold MS DOS to any and all IBM PC-clone manufacturers.
So, I am certain that there is a small contingent of IBM that is more than glad to steal Microsoft's market share and give them a big serving of ass pie while they're at it.
Or maybe it's just me....
...A big linear accelerator/mass-driver aimed at Redmond, WA.
Is that too much to ask for?
Sigh, here we sit six months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Osama, how much money will it take to put Parliment Hill in Ottawa on the next priority target list? I have a blank cheque in hand, and I'll fill in as many zeros as you need. I'll even guide the planes in.
.mp3s or software here. Just business records and other content that we are the legitimate owners of.
/.'ers do the same. This nonsense has gotten out of hand, and will only get worse unless we speak out.
In all seriousness, this kind of insane behavior only happens when scum-sucking, bottom-feeding lawyers [aka: elected politicians] have one too many power lunches with "industry" (and certainly not my industry, that is for certain) representatives.
I go through a freaking spindle a week for data archiving purposes alone. Why? It's cheap and machine readable on pretty much any machine with a CD-ROM. It's strictly for business use. No pirated
Why in all that's unholy should a damned dime go to the RIAA/MPAA/LMNOP? In this kind of business scenario:
Levy == subsidy.
That's right. As a business, this levy amounts to our subsidizing another industry at our own expense. Now, why should we do that? I don't have the various recording industries subsidizing our business in any fashion.
I'll be contacted my Minister of Parliment immediately. I suggest any Canadian
Fuming....
Dear God.
I can only imagine what would happen for people using netstumbler:
"The airwaves! They're saturated! I've never seen so much pr0n!"
In all honesty, I've mentioned a number of times the advantage of wiring up the ol' fraternity house.
Since most of them are not geeks, their eyes get more glazed over than after a 6 kegger party. Simply stated, most fraternity members are not interested in being able to run SSH over an 802.11b WLAN.
Being able to score with the hotties in the sorrority next door, that's another thing entirely.
Go Deke!
Actually, I was born in Edmonton, raised in Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and Rimbey, moved back to Edmonton and and lived there for 15 years before moving to Seattle. As for the women, that's where I met my wife, so you should watch your tongue :-)
;-)
Born here. Raised here. Met wife here. Live and work here.
Not complaints here!
Funny.
Sure they grew up here. But they didn't have to stay here, especially once they hit it big. Maybe it's something else....nah.
Please, please don't move here. It's very cold, the residents are more surly than hung-over Texan and the women are large-boned and ugly.
Even if you can't get DSL or Cable there is a satellite service which will allow you to download at better speeds than dialup.
Care to mention which provider(s) have satellite broadband service in Canada? It would be nice.
Get them to pull their collective heads out of their asses as well. This may be the hardest thing to do, since Cableco's just don't seem to have a clue.
.
In all honesty, I'd gladly pay more money for more bandwidth. A couple of issues, though:
No fscking port limitations If I'm being metered, then I should be able to run any service I desire (Yes, this means running what has been viewed as a "server" application previously, like SSHD.). I'm just paying for packet A to get to destination B.
Guaranteed QOS Yes, bill me per packet if you so damn well want to, but I want contractual terms that state 128 kbs/256 kbs/n^2 kbs guaranteed or they are in violation, with fee scheduling to match. After all, I'm willing to pay for my usage.
Redress If you don't have the technical know-how as an ISP (or refuse to hire the people with it, more to the point) to recognize that I'm being ping flooded off the net, which is something beyond the scope and control of anyone, I don't have to face a $infinity bill at the end of the billing period. As it is, it's bend over and grab the ankles time. Something is inherently wrong with the current scenario, and there is no motivation to change it. Implement binding arbitration, or alternate means of redress to deal with the interent equivalent of force majeur
Acceptable means of determining usage My cable modem has a default HTTPD config. You could packet storm that thing off the the internet, but the local loop router would register only packets going through to my node. Bzzt! Not acceptable.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of plenty more.
Indianna Jones and the Horrendous Learjet Maintenance Bill
Indianna Jones and Colorectal Polyp from Hell
Indianna Jones and Seducing Women Far Too Young for An Octogenerian
and the best of all:
Indianna Jones Makes Harry Potter Bite the Pillow
(I really should stop reading Space Moose archives....)
I've often said that the RIAA/MPAA/LMNOP are working up a great sweat playing the P2P Whack-A-Mole game. Someone, somewhere, should explain to them what NP means in mathematical terms ;-)
I'll go off on a slight tangent, but bear with me. When you need water, you just go to the tap and turn it on (at least in North America, that is). You get what you what when you need it.
What you don't hear is the Water, Gas and Power company screaming about how their rights are being destroyed by people being able to bottle the water and give it freely to a friend or neighbour. (Or derivative uses thereof, such as cooking, flushing, etcetera).
Why? It's commoditized. It's too damn cheap to bother with repackaging or giving it away. It's there. You get charged by the aggregate volume that you use in a month. You want to give a hectaliter to Joe Farmer down the street? Go right ahead, we'll bill you for your use. But why bother? Joe Farmer can get it for himself.
This is what the music industries need to realize. The cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the lamp and Elvis has left the building. The days of charging $20/cd are gone for good.
This does not have to be a bad thing.
Commoditize the damn thing so that it's too damn cheap to bother with trading music (other than, "Listen to this cool track I downloaded"). Give people high bit-rate, guaranteed quality, do-what-you-want-with it music for pennies on the song, and you'll make more money than you can dream of. And judging by these guys expense accounts, that's a lot of dinero.
Otherwise, die like the dinosaurs did.
#include "heavy-breathing.h"
#incluide "voice-distortion.h"
"Princess Lea, now you will see the true nature and power of the Dark Side of the force."
"No, Lord Vader! We are just a peaceful planet of granola eaters and tree huggers!"
"Yes, watch as the Empire unleashes the ultimate weapon....the Slashdot effect!"
Really, this is amazing, we've Slashdotted eBay.
...the bicycle
Balance sensors:
IT: complex software and embeded circuitry used in conjunction with gyroscopes (5) to accomodate shifts in weight and terrain.
Bicycle: uses embed, neural networked balance sensors (2) of operator in conjunction with 2 plane-oriented gyroscopes (wheels, 2) to accomodate shifts in weight and terrain
Advantage: Bicycle. Extensive beta-testing and significant market penetration of biological control units predominate.
Power-train:
IT: battery operated motors, NiCd & NiMH. Regchargeable by plugging in any battery outlet. Good for approx. 6 hours.
Bicycle: uses operator biochemical force-actuators (legs, 2) for power-train. Rechargable at any lunch counter. Good for approx. 12 hours, or longer if reserves (fat) used.
Advantage: Bicycle: mean lifetime on force-actuators before requiring replacement is 75 years.
Motors:
IT: two which drive the vehicle independently. Emission free and fully redundant. If one fails, the other takes over.
Bicycle: two which drive the vehicle independently. Emission free and fully redundant. If one fails, the other takes over.
Advantage: Tie
CPU:
IT: pair of circuit boards ("sisterboards") sends commands to motor units based on input from sensors.
Bicycle: operator neural network ("left hemisphere" and "right hemisphere") sends commands to motor units based on input on sensors.
Advantage: Bicycle: operator neural networks includes threat detection, navagation ability and significant other software components.
Cost:
IT: who fscking knows?
Bicycle: less than IT
Advantage: Bicycle.
Winner: Bicycle.
I swear, the moment these things cross the border, I'll be on my MLA's ass like a fat kid on Smarties.
Honestly, every time I puchase a CD-R, I am paying a levy that gets redistributed to the record companies for the priviledge of being able to record music at home. The moment that I can no longer do so, it's -- repeat after me -- "taxation without compensation".
Otherwise: buy-return-complain-rinse-wash-repeat
I'm sure it will be economically unsound to distribute CDs in a format that the consumer does not want. Namely, ones that prevent fair-usage rights...the one's that I'm already being taxed on.
...Now these are vests!
Yup. Pouches for everything you could ever need and then some. Palm? Check. Phone? Check. Nerf-dart gun? Check. Junk food? Check.
Best of all, you're ready to go in case you have an issue with the accounting department regading your IRS withholding taxes and such! Err, that is, out the door, not to switch with a Glock and scads of clips....