One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Text Ads community when IDC confirmed that Text Ads market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all banners. Coming on the heels of a recent Advertiser-Backed survey which plainly states that Text Ads hav lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Text Ads is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Webmasters comprehensive annoyance test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Text Ads's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Text Ads faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Text Ads because Text Ads are dying. Things are looking very bad for Text Ads. As many of us are already aware, Text Ads continue to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Google Text Ads are the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core advertisers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Google Text Ad customer Slashdot and Freshmeat only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Google Text Ads are dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers. Google leader Mr. Page states that there are 7000 people who click through Google Text Ads. How many users of Google Text Ads are there? Let's see. Google Text Ad click throughs on Slashdot are about half of the volume of Google Text Ad click-throughs. Therefore there are about 700 Text Advertisers. A recent article put Google Text Ads at about 80 percent of the Text Ads market. Now Freshmeat is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house. All major surveys show that Text Ads have steadily declined in market share. Text Ads are very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Text Ads are to survive at all it will be among Advertiser dilettante dabblers. Text Ads continue to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save them at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Text Ads are dead.
Would this be considered a text ad? I'd say so, unless you want to classify it into a new class, like 'integrated ad.'
Gator does things similar ot this. It "watches" what you do, and presents competitor coupons and such. Aside from the fact it's annoying as all hell, it's decent adware software. They get really high click through rates, and it actually is a cool idea. When you look at a book at Amazon, it'll tell you, "IF you go to Barnes & Noble and buy this, we'll give you 5% off"
Annoys Amazon, but it sure as hell works. It's like the legal mafia of advertising.
It's the idea that anything that's done is justified, because there has to be a good reason for it.
My post was tongue in cheek. It wasn't meant to be a serious post, and I suppose I could have added allegedly in there, or perhaps some more less subtle jibes. I think it's rather lacking that the evidence provided cites he is being nailed with 3 counts of aiding terrorism by associating with "The Portland 6"... I love that term, it's being touted all over here now (Portland, OR)
The thing that raises flags for me is his $10K donation towards a charity that is being investigated for terrorism support. I'd like to see a stronger case presented by the government, and I think it's likely he'll be let go. Still sucks spending a few months in custody though.
You want to excuse this incident because he is guilty? Fine, just don't complain next time its you held without due process for something you didn't do.
My post was actually tongue-in-cheek for the charges. It seems the complaint is rather weak.
As for being held... If I am held as a material witness, with a judges orders, chances are there is a damn good reason why I am there. I will also know why I am being held, just ordered to not reveal that to other people. Material Witness is a different realm, and has been going on for years, and years. It's one of those.. hrmm.. pinnacles, so to speak, of the judicial system.
Does any one else read/usr/src as "User / Source?" or am I just and old Unix guy and all the newbies see this as "U S R / S R C"? Another newbie thing is using ":wq!" in vi vs ":x!" which has done the same thing since before 1980.
It's always user-slash-source or, user-slash-local-bin. And I didn't know of:x!... I feel odd, now.
What he should have proposed was to rename "usr" to "sys" since its now all system stuff there and then users could get their stuff back under "usr" where it belongs. Of course/usr/bin/cat and friends have a very long tradition. Users were moved to/home so that when they fill up the tiny disk, you can still put more stuff in/usr. That was clearly a great idea of a BOFH./usr is user-land binaries and data./home is home directory stuff./usr/local is user-land binaries and data, specific to that machine.
If I was doing a distro for newbies, I would stop tring to alias around their cluelessness. For example aliasing rm to rm -i is dangerous and I'm likly to fire any clown who thinks its a good idea because they "don't understand" and someday the fool will screw up real bad as root. If they want safty, alias "del" or "delete" to "rm -i" but never ever get in the habbit of building protections in a way that they will go away if you shell changes.
If you want to build a Unix system for newbies, you will have to clone Aqua. Pure and simple. Make it so you have to be advanced to open a shell, and then you are fine. The concept of multiple desktops can be daunting to a lot of Windows users. My girlfriend is just now starting to get used to using Linux, and feeling comfortable using it. All she does is use Mozilla, but at least it's a start:)
Let's see. He suggests some sugar-coating -- change/home into/users,/var into/log -- why is "users" a better name than "home"? He reinvents a few things, like default applications of various types (I know debian already does this; I imagine others do too.) And, of course, it's far too confusing to make the user choose a desktop environment upon installation -- we have to make sure that others aren't possible to use. He suggests drag-and-drop package installation... I have a hard time that nobody's done that before (how hard could it possibly be?) but maybe he's right there.
His symlinking ideas just cracked me up. I almost stopped reading at that point, but I forced myself to continue. I then found that this guy is just an idiot. He doesn't actually know how a Unix or Linux system is laid out, and what goes into making a comprehensive operating system. His, "Install MP3 Support" menu option was idiotic, as it prompts you for the option to install MP3 support in the freaking install.
Mapping/var into/log was dumb, as/var/log is there, and/var/spool is for mail and such..../var is a decent name, and newbie users shouldn't be mucking in it with the expectation it's only log files.
Most of the ideas aren't really bad...
Just horribly misinformed and ignorant.
and the truth is, he probably could have implemented virtually all his suggestions in not much more time than it took to write his article. Why doesn't he do it, and then let us know how it turned out?
Because, he would have used Mandrake or RedHat and just changed the name and a few menu options and declared success. I also doubt he has the knowledge to do any of it, anyway...
Whatever the origins of these holidays are, in recent history (which is really what counts, since we're discussing commercialization of religious symbols/holidays/etc... a recent Western phenomenon), they were pretty well strictly attached to Christianity in Western culture. So, holidays that had strong religious connotations are being twisted to serve commercial interests, so, what, we can sell more bunnies and chocolates?
Now go see how they celebrate Christmas in Japan. You can't steal something that already exists, then get pissed off that some people don't subscribe to the same sets of beliefs that you have.
Basically, my problem is with commercial interests taking essentially non-commercial values/beliefs/etc and manipulating them for their own gain. I hardly thing this argument is debatable, given the way your average Christian "celebrates" Christmas and Easter. I happen to have a similar problem with Valentines day, the (ultimately twisted) wedding industry, and many other things I'm sure I could think of if I didn't have to go to a meeting right now...;)
Easter and Christmas were always about commercialization, though. There has never been a point in time where Christmas, nor Easter, were about celebrating without buying things for people. It's just one of those things that were around before Christianity, and it's Christians that say the people who celebrate it without religious contexts are wrong.
Jesus of Nazareth didn't die so I could have chocolate bunnies. The fertility celebration is Easter, to me. Just like Christmas is a time for me to be close to the misses, on what used to be the shortest time of the year, and have some romantic moments.
A holiday is just a date, which is made by those who celebrate it for whatever reasons. People buy things on holidays, so people sell things as much as they can. You can't get mad at businesses for doing what businesses do. And it is silly to be annoyed by people who aren't Christian celebrating holidays that were around long before Christians.
Japanese would be an excellent choice, simply because it has very clear, simple rules for making words out of sounds; a syllable follows the basic vowel-consonant pattern. As Japanese has relatively few sounds compared with English, I'd imagaine it would be a good language with which to start.
Japanese lip reading is very hard though. For example, you can't tell if I'm saying, "tsu", "zu", "su" just by my lips. You can also go through "ra", "ri", "ru", "re", "ro" without moving your lips (and if you do, you sound like a major foreigner)
Japanese would be hard to read lips, but easy to recognize phonetically (without slang.) For example, a common word is "sumimasen" but it's pronounced (bear with me, switching to english since it's slang) "see-mah-sen"
It's seems that this would work best in a language that balances between lip pronounciation and phonetic pronunciation. English, perhaps German as well. Spanish would probably not be difficult, nor would French, as long as you realize you are talking to a computer...
Totally OT, but nice.sig. I'm atheist, myself, but I have rather strong issues with religious holidays being perverted for commercial gain. Heck, even Christmas has some sense of it's religious foundations... but Easter, the holiest Christian holiday, is completely commercialized. Truly amazing, IMHO.
Glad you aren't informed. Easter and Christmas were both around before Jesus was a twinkle in Gods eye. Easter (Oestera) was the fertility festival, and Christmas was the Winter Solstace celebration to show the Gods people were kind and giving, so they sun would come out more. The shortest day of the year used to be on the 25th of December, and has switched to the 21st now.
Christians are the ones who "commercialized" the holidays... of course it was because they were being slaughtered for being Christians, so they just piggy backed on top of existing holidays so they wouldn't be so conspicuous.
Not really...public sentiment in Japan and Germany is against the US military based there. Read some foreign news sometime.
I'm not sure how it is in Germany, but you are mostly wrong about Japan. The sentiment is, "Don't fuck with us." but not, "Get the fuck out." Right now, Japan is especially happy to have US military presence because of the N. Korea situation. If you read any Japanese news sites, you'll find a lot of concern about N. Korea right now.
Yes because you are stupid. What kinda person wants to earn their wealth when someone is willing to give it to them? What do you get out of this "earning" feeling that makes you do this? its illogical and you know it. Sure I have to earn everything, but I do not enjoy it, if I could have everything for free i'd take it.
No, I already have more than enough money to live on that I earn. If I'm going to push myself into the elite of the countries wealth, I will earn it myself. It's not a sense of earning, or anything. It's a sense of accomplishment, because to me, a lifestyle that I make is more important than any amount of money I may or may not possess. I doubt you can understand this concept.
Wrong, I'm not complaining that someone driving a nice car owes me something, I'm saying I'm going to survive period, and I dont have to play by the rules to do it, because the rules dont really matter more than survival, survival matters, the rules? Who gives a fuck about the rules as long as I eat 3 meals a day. You are so obssessed with the rules that you'd turn down a million dollars because you want to earn every dollar. Sorry but thats stupid.
You are complaining that $1.00 a song is too much, and it should be priced at $0.50 because it's more affordable. You complain you don't have a job. You complain about a lot of shit, and the only reason why is because you suck. You may think it's stupid, but that's because you obviously haven't accomplished anything in your life. As for me, I started out without money for college (So fuck you and your college degree), went to college by working and family support, and then made a very strong career. You just sit and cry like a little bitch. See the difference there?
Why because its against the rules? Fuck the rules, if someone offers me something for free, well I'm going to take it, Ill take free food, free movies, free music, and whatever else anyone wants to offer me, simply because its given to me, stupid people like you dont celebrate holidays like xmas because you dont believe in sharing, you wont accept gifts because you didnt earn your gift, whatever stupid.
And you know what type of person doesn't amount to anything? Go look in a mirror. I do celebrate Christmas, and my birthday, because it's merely a holiday to show gratitude and respect for those close to me. Just because I want to earn my wealth, doesn't mean I don't appreciate gifts. What I don't appreciate is having my lifestyle handed to me, when I have had to work for it. You should try working for something, you'll probably find out that it is better than free-loading all the time. My guess is you will never figure this out and turn into a degenerate member of society and plague the tax payers with your incompotence and excuses.
Responsibility only works in a world thats fair, if everyone who worked hard were successful, we wouldnt have people like Bill Gates around who make all the money but do none of the work. Learn about society, its not a meritocracy.
So what, the world isn't fair. If you are going to say that Bill Gates didn't work hard to build Microsoft, it just shows exactly how clueless you really are. If you had any sense of how the adult world works, you'd understand that. Companies don't turn into massive firms without strong leadership and sharp business skills. Apparently you just think it's luck, which makes it easy for you to say that your own life failures are luck as well. Too bad that isn't the case. You are a failure because of you, and no other reasons. Life isn't fair, but you are a failure.
so I'm assuming you having money is your fault? No its not your fault, your fault is having the skills required to make money, getting the job however is you being lucky, you find a job, you do not earn a job.
My having money is my fault. When I was 14 and attended college courses as often as I could afford. When I begged for jobs doing anything computer related, unti
If I offered you 1 million dollars you wouldnt accept it because you didnt earn it? I mean if I give you a million dollars, you would have STOLEN MONEY! OH NO!!
No, I wouldn't take it. Just like I don't buy lottery tickets. I earn my wealth in the best ways I can. Maybe you should try it. Not like this makes any sense what so ever anyway. This is like arguing that apples are better than peaches because Zebras have spots.
I didnt complain about the price of music until the music industry complained about me not buying music, well if they are going to complain about how I'm not buying music, I get to complain about how they over price music, I mean how can you expect me to buy music when it is out of my price range and then say that I'm destroying the music industry, start passing all these ridiculous laws, I mean look at the whole situation, not just what I say on a msg board and then it begins to make sense.
You have no right to complain about music. You don't have money to buy it, so shut up. If you had money to buy it, and didn't, then you could have an opinion. It's not even like you are too young to vote and complaining about an election. You are like a bum, complaining that someone driving a Benz owes you something. Nothing that you say makes sense. You are crying like a little bitch with a skinned knee because you are too proud to get a job. Congratulations on your degree, now why don't you try doing something with your life that means something?
No you dont work harder, you just have more clout, experience, and are lucky.
Oh? I don't work harder? Go ahead and tell my clients that. You are right, I do have more experience because I know how to talk to people and establish a network and I don't think I'm entitled to something in which I'm not. You should try to figure that out, maybe you will be happier in life. Not that I care, I think the world would be a better place if you just offed yourself and made room for someone who didn't whine so much.
and theres more people like me than people like you in the market, if there wasnt, we wouldnt have 100 million people using Kazaa and 4-5 million people using MAC.
No, there aren't more people like me, than you. You are in the minority. Most people have jobs. I use Kazaa, but I still own a copy of 90% of the songs I have on mp3. So what's your point?
People buy whats cheap because the average person is poor, or have a family to take care of, you are a single guy with a good job, you are rare unless you are in San Francisco or Boston and then you arent so rare.
Average person is poor. Uhm, you do realize that poor is a subjective word meaning you make less money than the average person. No fucking wonder you don't have a job, you're illiterate.
Its hard as hell to find a job in a depression, The economy has been losing jobs for the last few years, its hard to find a job and even if I somehow manage to find one, I can expect to make about $10 an hour tops, which is pennies. Getting a job gives me just enough money to the movies once per week, or buy a couple CDs a month, I did the calculation, I'd have around $20 a week of money I can actually spend on myself if I get an average part time job, after all my bills thats about all I'd have, and hey I'd even want that, I'm looking for a job right now and if it were easier to find a job than to complain about not having one, maybe everyone in the USA would have a job, its not easy to find a job.
Oh, good for you. Get a fucking job and stop bitching. Shit. You are not entitled to a movie, or a few CDs a month. You are entitled to not fucking bitch about your life because you make your life. Not me, not anybody. You! Yes, that's right. It's all your fault. Nobody elses. Don't blame the economy, because I moved to a town I don't know anybody in right in the worst part of it. I moved to a town that had record unemployment rates. I also was only unemplo
I know that English is one of the more easy languages to "lip read." It goes into the latin roots, and such. I'm sure that using slang will make it much harder, but I'd be curious how it works with other languages. I think that Japanese (when spoken clearly, and not using dialects) would be incredibly easy where Chinese could be very difficult. If anybody has time and a desire to hack on it, keep me posted if you do multi-lingual work. I'm really curious on how it goes.
Here is where you are an idiot, and I'm going to make this brief because I don't feel like embarassing you any further than you do so yourself.
Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
Implementing clean room disection of a copyright protection system is protected here:
Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
Oops, guess you don't really know what you are talking about, then?
You can't attack my arguments or my facts, so you attack me.
This would imply you had facts to back you, which you don't. You quote parts of a law. You know, I could make anything illegal if only I quoted parts of laws. If you actually backed up your arguments with real facts, such as a thorough understanding of the DMCA by reading the entire thing than you could argue. Now you are just a little chimp repeating what other people have said, with the same level of understanding that you possess.
I guess it's easier for you to complain about not working, than it is to get a job doing something you may not necessarily like to pay the bills. Must be nice having parents that can support those decisions, eh?
You must be living in a fantasy world..50 a song is what a college student whos poor can afford to pay, the poor college students are the majority of the people who use Kazaa, not you. If record companies complain that poor college students are becoming pirates, perhaps a solution is to offer music at a price EVERYONE can afford.
You don't need music. If you do, there are plenty of radio stations, both old-fashioned-over-the-air-waves and net radio stations. You don't need to steal. You don't need to buy any music. So don't, asshole. Don't complain you can't afford something you don't need. I can't afford to buy a Ferrari, but I'm not going to yell like a 5 year old kid who thinks they should price them so "EVERYONE" can afford.
If a bag of chips were $1, I wouldnt eat chips anymore, if a mc donalds hamburger were $50 (about the price of a resturant meal) I wouldnt be eating there anymore.
What the hell type of restaurants do you go for? $50 a meal? I go to some pretty damned nice restaurants and never pay $50 a meal. In fact, every 5-star restaurant I've been to has been in the range of $30 - $50 a meal, and do you know how rare a true 5-star restaurant is? If you can't afford to buy a $1.00 song, I doubt you will ever be able to afford to pay $50 for a meal. Grow the fuck up.
You aren't their target audience anyway, so shut your pie hole. You couldn't even afford a mac to begin with, so why do you care what prices they are? Of course, you probably think Macs should be a buck fifty five, don't you? That way it's fair-rights, so that everyone is equal. News flash, asshole, I work for my life-style and my toys. Maybe you should try it, too.
Or just move to a communist state, where music wants to be free.
Yes there is. Do you realize that is is possible to violate the DMCA by doing nothing more than sitting motionless and THINKING?!?! No, I'm sure you don't. The DMCA literally outlaws certain thoughts. People don't "get it" because they think it's all about computers. Any calculation a computer can do a human can do. Given pencil and paper any decryption can be run by hand, and with dedication and work many can be done purely mentally.
Blah, Blah, Blah. You don't know shit about the DMCA. You obviously have only read Michaels assertions on the DMCA, and have actually never dealt with it what so ever. Here's a newflash: Don't redistribute your tools for modifying someones copyrighted work and you are fine. You can even distribute your work as long as it's purposes extend beyond circumventing copyright.
You are an ill-informed, FUD spreading idiot with no knowledge of the actual law. Instead you spew filth you read on Slashdot as if it is some salatious information, to which you alone are akin to. You don't know shit about it, kid. Go educate yourself before you give yourself an aneurysm.
The LKM thread, where Linux expresses his views on DRM.
The only way to try to block DRM would be through the licence. I'm not sure Linus has the authority to change the licence other people's code is released under. And there are thousands of contributors to Linux. And even if he could change the licence, it would be nearly impossible to write it in a manner that would effectively block DRM without causing all sorts of nasty side effects.
DRM is a tool, nothing more. DRM can be used for good purposes, stop believing all the FUD. Microsoft has released good products, that are very helpful. There is no good reason to block DRM. Not a damned one, aside from trying to be a rebel without a cause.
If I missed another option please tell me what it is or provide a link.
Implement DRM, as a tool, and not get involved in the politics surrounding the tool.
You realize that they have made quite a few modifications to the AK-47 design?
The SA80 (which is a modern rifle) had full auto removed because no one ever hit anything with it. You get three round burst mode only. ISTR that the M16 is the same.
Full auto is for close combat where you are just trying to spray. I don't think anybody uses it for any sort of distance shots at all. Burst fire, or single shot is good for actually aiming.
You must not live in the States. The way it works here is that you have priveledge of being able to own from a short list of weapons,
That's actually a pretty long list. I'm guessing you haven't looked at it much....all much weaker than military hardware and completely unable to provide the security of a free state if an enemy or civil government were to attack us, and this priveledge can be taked away in many cases from incorrectly filing for your permit or being convicted of a felony.
You do not need a permit to have a gun. And it doesn't matter if you have a "legal" gun or an M-16. For example, a hunting rifle is more accurate and effective than AK-47s that are prominent in guerilla warfare and Mid-East.
The latter allows the government to enact laws that target a certain demographic, such as criminal processing for smoking or ingesting indigenous horiculture, and thus reduce the amount of people in that demographic who can own a firearm (the same process is used to take away the priveledge to vote).
You commit a felony, and get sentenced, you don't get a gun. That is what matters. I can get a gun, and walk around with it strapped to my belt and nobody can do a damned thing as long as I don't go into a bank, school area, or airport. You are confusing a gun license, concealed weapons permit, and right to carry I think.
I would like to remove stupid people from traffic jams just like you but that would really piss me off. Then I couldn't have fun driving my ultra-fast Eagle Talon TSi AWD. Systems that take control from the people are almost bad when considered from a rights standpoint. Just look at Congress lately. Why would you want more control taken from you?
Outside of metro areas, have roads that don't have automated drive systems and problem solved.
Point is, argue why you should be allowed to own a gun, or argue why not, but don't discuss banning knives or fists because the same argument can be taken to an opposite yet equally ridiculous extreme, to no real purpose.
I shouldn't have to argue why I shouldn't have a gun, any more than I should have to argue why I should have a computer or a car.
I do no harm to innocents by owning a gun. My neighbors are not influenced by me owning a gun. I can protect my family better. I can protect myself better. Guns don't kill people, stupid people kill people with the help of bullets.
Now, give me a good reason why I shouldn't have a gun. Don't spout the, "Why do you need it?" or "You don't need it." You don't need a car, or computer.
Slashdot Mirror
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Text Ads community when IDC confirmed that Text Ads market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all banners. Coming on the heels of a recent Advertiser-Backed survey which plainly states that Text Ads hav lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Text Ads is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Webmasters comprehensive annoyance test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Text Ads's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Text Ads faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Text Ads because Text Ads are dying. Things are looking very bad for Text Ads. As many of us are already aware, Text Ads continue to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Google Text Ads are the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core advertisers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Google Text Ad customer Slashdot and Freshmeat only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Google Text Ads are dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Google leader Mr. Page states that there are 7000 people who click through Google Text Ads. How many users of Google Text Ads are there? Let's see. Google Text Ad click throughs on Slashdot are about half of the volume of Google Text Ad click-throughs. Therefore there are about 700 Text Advertisers. A recent article put Google Text Ads at about 80 percent of the Text Ads market. Now Freshmeat is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house. All major surveys show that Text Ads have steadily declined in market share. Text Ads are very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Text Ads are to survive at all it will be among Advertiser dilettante dabblers. Text Ads continue to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save them at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Text Ads are dead.
Would this be considered a text ad? I'd say so, unless you want to classify it into a new class, like 'integrated ad.'
Gator does things similar ot this. It "watches" what you do, and presents competitor coupons and such. Aside from the fact it's annoying as all hell, it's decent adware software. They get really high click through rates, and it actually is a cool idea. When you look at a book at Amazon, it'll tell you, "IF you go to Barnes & Noble and buy this, we'll give you 5% off"
Annoys Amazon, but it sure as hell works. It's like the legal mafia of advertising.
It's the idea that anything that's done is justified, because there has to be a good reason for it.
... I love that term, it's being touted all over here now (Portland, OR)
My post was tongue in cheek. It wasn't meant to be a serious post, and I suppose I could have added allegedly in there, or perhaps some more less subtle jibes. I think it's rather lacking that the evidence provided cites he is being nailed with 3 counts of aiding terrorism by associating with "The Portland 6"
The thing that raises flags for me is his $10K donation towards a charity that is being investigated for terrorism support. I'd like to see a stronger case presented by the government, and I think it's likely he'll be let go. Still sucks spending a few months in custody though.
You want to excuse this incident because he is guilty? Fine, just don't complain next time its you held without due process for something you didn't do.
My post was actually tongue-in-cheek for the charges. It seems the complaint is rather weak.
As for being held... If I am held as a material witness, with a judges orders, chances are there is a damn good reason why I am there. I will also know why I am being held, just ordered to not reveal that to other people. Material Witness is a different realm, and has been going on for years, and years. It's one of those.. hrmm.. pinnacles, so to speak, of the judicial system.
Oh, so he is An Offical Enemy of the State, I say send him to Guantanamo and lock him up for life - due process? Pfth, who needs it.
Considering he went to Hong Kong and associated with 5 people who were trying to fight with the Taliban, it doesn't look to good for him.
Moral of the story, don't help terrorists!
Does any one else read /usr/src as "User / Source?" or am I just and old Unix guy and all the newbies see this as "U S R / S R C"? Another newbie thing is using ":wq!" in vi vs ":x!" which has done the same thing since before 1980.
:x!... I feel odd, now.
/usr/bin/cat and friends have a very long tradition. Users were moved to /home so that when they fill up the tiny disk, you can still put more stuff in /usr. That was clearly a great idea of a BOFH. /usr is user-land binaries and data. /home is home directory stuff. /usr/local is user-land binaries and data, specific to that machine.
:)
It's always user-slash-source or, user-slash-local-bin. And I didn't know of
What he should have proposed was to rename "usr" to "sys" since its now all system stuff there and then users could get their stuff back under "usr" where it belongs. Of course
If I was doing a distro for newbies, I would stop tring to alias around their cluelessness. For example aliasing rm to rm -i is dangerous and I'm likly to fire any clown who thinks its a good idea because they "don't understand" and someday the fool will screw up real bad as root. If they want safty, alias "del" or "delete" to "rm -i" but never ever get in the habbit of building protections in a way that they will go away if you shell changes.
If you want to build a Unix system for newbies, you will have to clone Aqua. Pure and simple. Make it so you have to be advanced to open a shell, and then you are fine. The concept of multiple desktops can be daunting to a lot of Windows users. My girlfriend is just now starting to get used to using Linux, and feeling comfortable using it. All she does is use Mozilla, but at least it's a start
Let's see. He suggests some sugar-coating -- change /home into /users, /var into /log -- why is "users" a better name than "home"? He reinvents a few things, like default applications of various types (I know debian already does this; I imagine others do too.) And, of course, it's far too confusing to make the user choose a desktop environment upon installation -- we have to make sure that others aren't possible to use. He suggests drag-and-drop package installation ... I have a hard time that nobody's done that before (how hard could it possibly be?) but maybe he's right there.
/var into /log was dumb, as /var/log is there, and /var/spool is for mail and such.... /var is a decent name, and newbie users shouldn't be mucking in it with the expectation it's only log files.
...
His symlinking ideas just cracked me up. I almost stopped reading at that point, but I forced myself to continue. I then found that this guy is just an idiot. He doesn't actually know how a Unix or Linux system is laid out, and what goes into making a comprehensive operating system. His, "Install MP3 Support" menu option was idiotic, as it prompts you for the option to install MP3 support in the freaking install.
Mapping
Most of the ideas aren't really bad
Just horribly misinformed and ignorant.
and the truth is, he probably could have implemented virtually all his suggestions in not much more time than it took to write his article. Why doesn't he do it, and then let us know how it turned out?
Because, he would have used Mandrake or RedHat and just changed the name and a few menu options and declared success. I also doubt he has the knowledge to do any of it, anyway...
Bar codes have been in use for much longer than that - see for example these animal barcodes.
So has your reasoning skills.
Whatever the origins of these holidays are, in recent history (which is really what counts, since we're discussing commercialization of religious symbols/holidays/etc... a recent Western phenomenon), they were pretty well strictly attached to Christianity in Western culture. So, holidays that had strong religious connotations are being twisted to serve commercial interests, so, what, we can sell more bunnies and chocolates?
;)
Now go see how they celebrate Christmas in Japan. You can't steal something that already exists, then get pissed off that some people don't subscribe to the same sets of beliefs that you have.
Basically, my problem is with commercial interests taking essentially non-commercial values/beliefs/etc and manipulating them for their own gain. I hardly thing this argument is debatable, given the way your average Christian "celebrates" Christmas and Easter. I happen to have a similar problem with Valentines day, the (ultimately twisted) wedding industry, and many other things I'm sure I could think of if I didn't have to go to a meeting right now...
Easter and Christmas were always about commercialization, though. There has never been a point in time where Christmas, nor Easter, were about celebrating without buying things for people. It's just one of those things that were around before Christianity, and it's Christians that say the people who celebrate it without religious contexts are wrong.
Jesus of Nazareth didn't die so I could have chocolate bunnies. The fertility celebration is Easter, to me. Just like Christmas is a time for me to be close to the misses, on what used to be the shortest time of the year, and have some romantic moments.
A holiday is just a date, which is made by those who celebrate it for whatever reasons. People buy things on holidays, so people sell things as much as they can. You can't get mad at businesses for doing what businesses do. And it is silly to be annoyed by people who aren't Christian celebrating holidays that were around long before Christians.
Japanese would be an excellent choice, simply because it has very clear, simple rules for making words out of sounds; a syllable follows the basic vowel-consonant pattern. As Japanese has relatively few sounds compared with English, I'd imagaine it would be a good language with which to start.
Japanese lip reading is very hard though. For example, you can't tell if I'm saying, "tsu", "zu", "su" just by my lips. You can also go through "ra", "ri", "ru", "re", "ro" without moving your lips (and if you do, you sound like a major foreigner)
Japanese would be hard to read lips, but easy to recognize phonetically (without slang.) For example, a common word is "sumimasen" but it's pronounced (bear with me, switching to english since it's slang) "see-mah-sen"
It's seems that this would work best in a language that balances between lip pronounciation and phonetic pronunciation. English, perhaps German as well. Spanish would probably not be difficult, nor would French, as long as you realize you are talking to a computer...
Totally OT, but nice .sig. I'm atheist, myself, but I have rather strong issues with religious holidays being perverted for commercial gain. Heck, even Christmas has some sense of it's religious foundations... but Easter, the holiest Christian holiday, is completely commercialized. Truly amazing, IMHO.
Glad you aren't informed. Easter and Christmas were both around before Jesus was a twinkle in Gods eye. Easter (Oestera) was the fertility festival, and Christmas was the Winter Solstace celebration to show the Gods people were kind and giving, so they sun would come out more. The shortest day of the year used to be on the 25th of December, and has switched to the 21st now.
Christians are the ones who "commercialized" the holidays... of course it was because they were being slaughtered for being Christians, so they just piggy backed on top of existing holidays so they wouldn't be so conspicuous.
Not really...public sentiment in Japan and Germany is against the US military based there. Read some foreign news sometime.
I'm not sure how it is in Germany, but you are mostly wrong about Japan. The sentiment is, "Don't fuck with us." but not, "Get the fuck out." Right now, Japan is especially happy to have US military presence because of the N. Korea situation. If you read any Japanese news sites, you'll find a lot of concern about N. Korea right now.
Yes because you are stupid. What kinda person wants to earn their wealth when someone is willing to give it to them? What do you get out of this "earning" feeling that makes you do this? its illogical and you know it. Sure I have to earn everything, but I do not enjoy it, if I could have everything for free i'd take it.
No, I already have more than enough money to live on that I earn. If I'm going to push myself into the elite of the countries wealth, I will earn it myself. It's not a sense of earning, or anything. It's a sense of accomplishment, because to me, a lifestyle that I make is more important than any amount of money I may or may not possess. I doubt you can understand this concept.
Wrong, I'm not complaining that someone driving a nice car owes me something, I'm saying I'm going to survive period, and I dont have to play by the rules to do it, because the rules dont really matter more than survival, survival matters, the rules? Who gives a fuck about the rules as long as I eat 3 meals a day. You are so obssessed with the rules that you'd turn down a million dollars because you want to earn every dollar. Sorry but thats stupid.
You are complaining that $1.00 a song is too much, and it should be priced at $0.50 because it's more affordable. You complain you don't have a job. You complain about a lot of shit, and the only reason why is because you suck. You may think it's stupid, but that's because you obviously haven't accomplished anything in your life. As for me, I started out without money for college (So fuck you and your college degree), went to college by working and family support, and then made a very strong career. You just sit and cry like a little bitch. See the difference there?
Why because its against the rules? Fuck the rules, if someone offers me something for free, well I'm going to take it, Ill take free food, free movies, free music, and whatever else anyone wants to offer me, simply because its given to me, stupid people like you dont celebrate holidays like xmas because you dont believe in sharing, you wont accept gifts because you didnt earn your gift, whatever stupid.
And you know what type of person doesn't amount to anything? Go look in a mirror. I do celebrate Christmas, and my birthday, because it's merely a holiday to show gratitude and respect for those close to me. Just because I want to earn my wealth, doesn't mean I don't appreciate gifts. What I don't appreciate is having my lifestyle handed to me, when I have had to work for it. You should try working for something, you'll probably find out that it is better than free-loading all the time. My guess is you will never figure this out and turn into a degenerate member of society and plague the tax payers with your incompotence and excuses.
Responsibility only works in a world thats fair, if everyone who worked hard were successful, we wouldnt have people like Bill Gates around who make all the money but do none of the work. Learn about society, its not a meritocracy.
So what, the world isn't fair. If you are going to say that Bill Gates didn't work hard to build Microsoft, it just shows exactly how clueless you really are. If you had any sense of how the adult world works, you'd understand that. Companies don't turn into massive firms without strong leadership and sharp business skills. Apparently you just think it's luck, which makes it easy for you to say that your own life failures are luck as well. Too bad that isn't the case. You are a failure because of you, and no other reasons. Life isn't fair, but you are a failure.
so I'm assuming you having money is your fault? No its not your fault, your fault is having the skills required to make money, getting the job however is you being lucky, you find a job, you do not earn a job.
My having money is my fault. When I was 14 and attended college courses as often as I could afford. When I begged for jobs doing anything computer related, unti
If I offered you 1 million dollars you wouldnt accept it because you didnt earn it? I mean if I give you a million dollars, you would have STOLEN MONEY! OH NO!!
No, I wouldn't take it. Just like I don't buy lottery tickets. I earn my wealth in the best ways I can. Maybe you should try it. Not like this makes any sense what so ever anyway. This is like arguing that apples are better than peaches because Zebras have spots.
I didnt complain about the price of music until the music industry complained about me not buying music, well if they are going to complain about how I'm not buying music, I get to complain about how they over price music, I mean how can you expect me to buy music when it is out of my price range and then say that I'm destroying the music industry, start passing all these ridiculous laws, I mean look at the whole situation, not just what I say on a msg board and then it begins to make sense.
You have no right to complain about music. You don't have money to buy it, so shut up. If you had money to buy it, and didn't, then you could have an opinion. It's not even like you are too young to vote and complaining about an election. You are like a bum, complaining that someone driving a Benz owes you something. Nothing that you say makes sense. You are crying like a little bitch with a skinned knee because you are too proud to get a job. Congratulations on your degree, now why don't you try doing something with your life that means something?
No you dont work harder, you just have more clout, experience, and are lucky.
Oh? I don't work harder? Go ahead and tell my clients that. You are right, I do have more experience because I know how to talk to people and establish a network and I don't think I'm entitled to something in which I'm not. You should try to figure that out, maybe you will be happier in life. Not that I care, I think the world would be a better place if you just offed yourself and made room for someone who didn't whine so much.
and theres more people like me than people like you in the market, if there wasnt, we wouldnt have 100 million people using Kazaa and 4-5 million people using MAC.
No, there aren't more people like me, than you. You are in the minority. Most people have jobs. I use Kazaa, but I still own a copy of 90% of the songs I have on mp3. So what's your point?
People buy whats cheap because the average person is poor, or have a family to take care of, you are a single guy with a good job, you are rare unless you are in San Francisco or Boston and then you arent so rare.
Average person is poor. Uhm, you do realize that poor is a subjective word meaning you make less money than the average person. No fucking wonder you don't have a job, you're illiterate.
Its hard as hell to find a job in a depression, The economy has been losing jobs for the last few years, its hard to find a job and even if I somehow manage to find one, I can expect to make about $10 an hour tops, which is pennies. Getting a job gives me just enough money to the movies once per week, or buy a couple CDs a month, I did the calculation, I'd have around $20 a week of money I can actually spend on myself if I get an average part time job, after all my bills thats about all I'd have, and hey I'd even want that, I'm looking for a job right now and if it were easier to find a job than to complain about not having one, maybe everyone in the USA would have a job, its not easy to find a job.
Oh, good for you. Get a fucking job and stop bitching. Shit. You are not entitled to a movie, or a few CDs a month. You are entitled to not fucking bitch about your life because you make your life. Not me, not anybody. You! Yes, that's right. It's all your fault. Nobody elses. Don't blame the economy, because I moved to a town I don't know anybody in right in the worst part of it. I moved to a town that had record unemployment rates. I also was only unemplo
I know that English is one of the more easy languages to "lip read." It goes into the latin roots, and such. I'm sure that using slang will make it much harder, but I'd be curious how it works with other languages. I think that Japanese (when spoken clearly, and not using dialects) would be incredibly easy where Chinese could be very difficult. If anybody has time and a desire to hack on it, keep me posted if you do multi-lingual work. I'm really curious on how it goes.
Implementing clean room disection of a copyright protection system is protected here:
Oops, guess you don't really know what you are talking about, then?
You can't attack my arguments or my facts, so you attack me.
This would imply you had facts to back you, which you don't. You quote parts of a law. You know, I could make anything illegal if only I quoted parts of laws. If you actually backed up your arguments with real facts, such as a thorough understanding of the DMCA by reading the entire thing than you could argue. Now you are just a little chimp repeating what other people have said, with the same level of understanding that you possess.
So, try again. It's fun watching you.
You tell me to get a job, where? Mc donalds?
.50 a song is what a college student whos poor can afford to pay, the poor college students are the majority of the people who use Kazaa, not you. If record companies complain that poor college students are becoming pirates, perhaps a solution is to offer music at a price EVERYONE can afford.
I guess it's easier for you to complain about not working, than it is to get a job doing something you may not necessarily like to pay the bills. Must be nice having parents that can support those decisions, eh?
You must be living in a fantasy world.
You don't need music. If you do, there are plenty of radio stations, both old-fashioned-over-the-air-waves and net radio stations. You don't need to steal. You don't need to buy any music. So don't, asshole. Don't complain you can't afford something you don't need. I can't afford to buy a Ferrari, but I'm not going to yell like a 5 year old kid who thinks they should price them so "EVERYONE" can afford.
If a bag of chips were $1, I wouldnt eat chips anymore, if a mc donalds hamburger were $50 (about the price of a resturant meal) I wouldnt be eating there anymore.
What the hell type of restaurants do you go for? $50 a meal? I go to some pretty damned nice restaurants and never pay $50 a meal. In fact, every 5-star restaurant I've been to has been in the range of $30 - $50 a meal, and do you know how rare a true 5-star restaurant is? If you can't afford to buy a $1.00 song, I doubt you will ever be able to afford to pay $50 for a meal. Grow the fuck up.
You aren't their target audience anyway, so shut your pie hole. You couldn't even afford a mac to begin with, so why do you care what prices they are? Of course, you probably think Macs should be a buck fifty five, don't you? That way it's fair-rights, so that everyone is equal. News flash, asshole, I work for my life-style and my toys. Maybe you should try it, too.
Or just move to a communist state, where music wants to be free.
Yes there is. Do you realize that is is possible to violate the DMCA by doing nothing more than sitting motionless and THINKING?!?! No, I'm sure you don't. The DMCA literally outlaws certain thoughts. People don't "get it" because they think it's all about computers. Any calculation a computer can do a human can do. Given pencil and paper any decryption can be run by hand, and with dedication and work many can be done purely mentally.
Blah, Blah, Blah. You don't know shit about the DMCA. You obviously have only read Michaels assertions on the DMCA, and have actually never dealt with it what so ever. Here's a newflash: Don't redistribute your tools for modifying someones copyrighted work and you are fine. You can even distribute your work as long as it's purposes extend beyond circumventing copyright.
You are an ill-informed, FUD spreading idiot with no knowledge of the actual law. Instead you spew filth you read on Slashdot as if it is some salatious information, to which you alone are akin to. You don't know shit about it, kid. Go educate yourself before you give yourself an aneurysm.
Which thread?
The LKM thread, where Linux expresses his views on DRM.
The only way to try to block DRM would be through the licence. I'm not sure Linus has the authority to change the licence other people's code is released under. And there are thousands of contributors to Linux. And even if he could change the licence, it would be nearly impossible to write it in a manner that would effectively block DRM without causing all sorts of nasty side effects.
DRM is a tool, nothing more. DRM can be used for good purposes, stop believing all the FUD. Microsoft has released good products, that are very helpful. There is no good reason to block DRM. Not a damned one, aside from trying to be a rebel without a cause.
If I missed another option please tell me what it is or provide a link.
Implement DRM, as a tool, and not get involved in the politics surrounding the tool.
Linus did not support DRM. I think he opposes DRM.
Linus said DRM is a tool, and he isn't opposed to tools only usage.
Basicly what he said was that he saw no plausible way to block it from within Linux. If you know of any way he could have done so I'd love to hear it.
Go back and read the thread...
We are talking about a AK47, not a modern rifle.
You realize that they have made quite a few modifications to the AK-47 design?
The SA80 (which is a modern rifle) had full auto removed because no one ever hit anything with it. You get three round burst mode only. ISTR that the M16 is the same.
Full auto is for close combat where you are just trying to spray. I don't think anybody uses it for any sort of distance shots at all. Burst fire, or single shot is good for actually aiming.
You must not live in the States. The way it works here is that you have priveledge of being able to own from a short list of weapons,
...all much weaker than military hardware and completely unable to provide the security of a free state if an enemy or civil government were to attack us, and this priveledge can be taked away in many cases from incorrectly filing for your permit or being convicted of a felony.
That's actually a pretty long list. I'm guessing you haven't looked at it much.
You do not need a permit to have a gun. And it doesn't matter if you have a "legal" gun or an M-16. For example, a hunting rifle is more accurate and effective than AK-47s that are prominent in guerilla warfare and Mid-East.
The latter allows the government to enact laws that target a certain demographic, such as criminal processing for smoking or ingesting indigenous horiculture, and thus reduce the amount of people in that demographic who can own a firearm (the same process is used to take away the priveledge to vote).
You commit a felony, and get sentenced, you don't get a gun. That is what matters. I can get a gun, and walk around with it strapped to my belt and nobody can do a damned thing as long as I don't go into a bank, school area, or airport. You are confusing a gun license, concealed weapons permit, and right to carry I think.
I would like to remove stupid people from traffic jams just like you but that would really piss me off. Then I couldn't have fun driving my ultra-fast Eagle Talon TSi AWD. Systems that take control from the people are almost bad when considered from a rights standpoint. Just look at Congress lately. Why would you want more control taken from you?
Outside of metro areas, have roads that don't have automated drive systems and problem solved.
Like use it for its intended purpose?
For protection? If I have to protect myself from my neighbors, than the gun is protecting myself.
Much like you would have to do to harm your neighbours with a nuke.
I don't think a nuke would do much in the way of protecting your house or family.
I've got a degree in nuclear physics, engineering, and am not a felon. Why shouldn't I have one?
Because a gun is something to protect yourself, and hunt with. A nuclear weapon is a weapon of mass destruction. See the difference, there?
I think I am starting to figure out why a lot of people are anti-gun. It's because a lot of people are fucking idiots.
Point is, argue why you should be allowed to own a gun, or argue why not, but don't discuss banning knives or fists because the same argument can be taken to an opposite yet equally ridiculous extreme, to no real purpose.
I shouldn't have to argue why I shouldn't have a gun, any more than I should have to argue why I should have a computer or a car.
I do no harm to innocents by owning a gun.
My neighbors are not influenced by me owning a gun.
I can protect my family better.
I can protect myself better.
Guns don't kill people, stupid people kill people with the help of bullets.
Now, give me a good reason why I shouldn't have a gun. Don't spout the, "Why do you need it?" or "You don't need it." You don't need a car, or computer.