... when legitimate businesses are sending me unsolicited email, I can click the "remove" link with confidence that I will be removed, not sent more spam.
Would you consider Disney to be a legitimate business?
Let me tell you a little story. Last Christmas season, Robin (girlfriend) wanted a certain collectable disney figure, so I went to disney.com to find and order it.
At the end of my checkout process, after I'd put in my credit card number, the last page informed me that they had automatically added me to their email marketing list. No checkbox to uncheck... they added me without permission, but they did have a little button I could click to opt-out.
So I clicked Disney's opt-out button: 404 Not Found Error. Damn thing didn't work and I was pissed.
I eventually dug up an email contact address (they obviously don't want to hear from end customers... try looking around on their site for it). Someone did reply eventually, asking for more info, and I replied but there was never a second response.
The SPAM started rolling in. Every message contained an address to supposedly unsubscribe. I replied to every single one to unsubscribe... but after a month (somewhere in February) their regular email promotions were still showing up every several days.
I use Spam Assassin to filter spam, but I set the threshold pretty high since a lot of random people contact me regarding my website. Disney's un-unsubscribable spam was coming in just under the threshold, so I added a custom rule for it to add a couple points and finally the problem was solved.
Maybe Disney is the only offender. Maybe my case was a fluke and normally that webpage button works and maybe that month their email unsubscribe was not working for some reason but has been fixed? But I doubt my experience is unique.
The truth is that they (think they) make money from building that spamy newsletter subscriber list, so they do everything they can to get you on it... including automatically adding you without even asking permission. They have little incentive to let you unsubscribe. So the unsubscribe mechanisms are poorly maintained and tend to not even work.
Legitimate business, Disney Corporation, and lightweight spammer with non-working unsubscribe.
Re: dang, I need a jumpstart...
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This will be really nice when I find myself needing a jump...
When you someday get a newer car (one that would have a 36/42 volt system), you'll find it has features to greatly reduce the chance you'll run your battery down... like automatic shutoff of the lights if you leave them on by mistake. Most newer cars have these features, and certainly any 42 volt cars in the near future would have it.
easier to get shocked from 36+ volts
42 volts is still very safe. Even in europe with stringent electrical safety standards, you need to be over 60 volts before heavier insulation is required.
easier for the electrical system to fry itself in a flood situation
If there is a flood that raises high enough to immerse your car that deeply in water, you'll have plenty of much worse problems to worry about.
Is it just me,
No, there are plenty of other people who resist any changes, no matter how well thought out and beneficial they may be.
is the automotive industry quickly moving to purely disposable/recycleable cars?
Not likely. Look at full service warranties, which are now often 50000 miles. That long was unheard of 15-20 years ago. Most modern cars do last longer.
When I look at a 2003 model car, I have a hard time picturing it still running and still together in 15 years. Really makes me wonder what a 2010 model car will be like.
Probably even better, if the historical trend continues. Replacement parts will likely become even more specialized and expensive, and repair work may continue to require more and more specialized skills and equipment. But the truth is that cars have slowly but steadily improved over the last few decades.
First off, I have nothing against the RIAA really. They are a business.
Aren't they really a trade orgination which represents the combined/similar interests of its members (who are conventional businesses).
A corrupt and monopolistic business to be sure,
Aren't those big 5 labeles a cartel.
To be a monopoly, you really need to be one company controlling a market (eg, Microsoft). But the market is controlled by a group of 5 labels who collude
to control the market.
but they are out to make money and survive.
Maybe you can't blame them, but plenty of others do.
Their "survive" strategy (so far) has largely been to attempt to stifle new technology... same basic story as radio and the recordable cassette tape. Short sighted then, short sighted now.
On the "make money" front, the highly unfavorable contracts that artists have no option but to sign, and the widespread crooked accounting they practice hardly gives them the moral high ground.
Looks like someone finally turned around and countersued. That someone was John Benn, who won $50,000 plus court costs.
What does Novak immediately do... attempt to dodge payment by declaring bankruptcy. If you look at the last page of the 7-page PDF file, there's John Benn listed amoung the creditors, and if you flip back to page 1, on the bottom the $50,001-$100,000 box is checked for the estimated debt.
Let's hope Johm persues this asshole further get gets a the court to impose a payment schedule so Novak doesn't weasle his way out of this one.
UCITA mostly stalled or stopped
on
Copyright Defeats?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I'd hardly call the UCITA a "defeat". Yeah, it passed in a couple states where it was rushed through, but in all the others it's met stiff resistance and is stalled or dead.
I think, therefore, I rant. You expected different on/.?
In true slashdot form, without reading the linked paper.
You are making a pile of assumptions (yadda, yadda)
No, the linked paper did, and it supported them well. Specifically, they claim that even with perfect DRM some user somewhere can use a high quality camera and microphone to make a "good enough" copy. The premise is that authenticated p2p clients running in a tamper-resistant environment employing strong reputation management that can't be cheated (easily and on a grand scale) makes p2p networks very relisiant against attacks. And these are exactly the capabilities that DRM will provide.
Tying a reputaion to hardware is great, till you want to want to shed it.
Good or evil is not the point. Your personal (mis)usage of p2p networks and ability to recover from bad reputation is not the point. The point is that DRM makes tying reputation to hardware possible, and it will allow p2p reputation management to impede the RIAA and others from disrupting the network in a "scalable" manner (term from the article, which you didn't read).
DRM is not about to make pirating easier, it will make pirating easier to procecute.
Again, from the paper, DRM is about authentication to remote systems so they can "trust" that your computer will act as intended, and one potential unforseen consequence is that p2p systems may be able to use DRM to secure their networks from disruption by copyright holders. Whatever Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA originally intended DRM is irrelevant. This article is about the potential unintended consequences of implementing DRM on a wide scale.
I'm writing to specifically you, "teamhasnoi" (as very few people will ever read this reply and I'm clicking "no karma bonus" since your reply is at +1).
Wake up and pay attention.
In your "fight" against DRM, this paper is a big break for you. Obviously you hate DRM, so take advantage of every opportunity to make convincing arguements against DRM.
You're acting like zealous idiot. This recent development only helps your cause. It is powerful ammunition. Stop acting like a fool and arguing that it's wrong. Even if it is wrong, the chance that it's not wrong (that DRM really will strengthen p2p networking and piracy) makes a very powerful and convincing arguement the deploying DRM is unwise (unwise to thwart piracy, if it only turns out to bolster p2p networking's effectiveness)!
I'll spell it out in detail just one more time, in hope that you can understand.
Someone who's convicted against "piracy" and "peer to peer networking" and thinks DRM is a great idea will not reconsider their viewpoint when they hear your inane and (largely) uninfored ranting. But someone who's strongly against piracy will probably think twice when they learn that DRM can secure peer to peer networks and thus make piracy even more widespread.
Even if you're still don't believe that DRM could ever help secure p2p networks against attack, get over that. Think FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). FUD is very powerful, and you can employ the FUD tactic to win (or improve your hopeless ranting) against DRM. This well written paper, which will gain even more credibility if it passes peer review and gets published in a journal, raises serious concerns over how DRM will be applied and what the real consequence on piracy will be. Even if you think it's wrong (try reading it first), use the tactic of convincing pro-DRM, pro-DRM advocates that it has a good point, and that point is that DRM may end up aiding piracy more than it impedes it. Someone who's ultimate goal is to stop piracy will think twice if they find any credibility in the paper (and it has plenty). That's a whole lot more effective than your current ranting will ever be.
Obviously someone was too busy ranting to actually read the paper....
How is this going to help piracy?
By allowing p2p developers to lock out rouge apps that would tamper with their network. By tying reputation management to physical "trusted" hardware, so the (limited) damage possible by a user unmodified app can be attributed to that user in the future. Much the same way it will allow game developers to lock out cheaters with modified game software (IMHO, the only "good" thing that will likely result from DRM).
Aren't all these programs, music, movies and whatever passes for 'content' for 'consumers' going to be *locked* to one machine?
Presumably the applications which major publishers will trust will enforce limits on what users to do with "content".
The assumption is that someone will break the DRM in some way and extract the content and distribute an unencrypted copy that does not require DRM authentication of the client.
Therein lies the "problem"... DRM to increase the difficulty in extracting an unencypted copy is not a full solution. The RIAA/MPAA/BSA must still attack p2p distribution systems. As p2p systems implement improved reputation management to thwart attacks, successful attacks on future p2p systems will require modified (hostile) p2p clients or running vast number of authentic clients (only feasible using virtual computers and scripted input). Reputation management will only thwart attacks if the hostile clients are a minority of the total population.
If DRM locks out modified clients and prevents controlling authentic clients by scripting and ties reputation to hardware (which costs real dollars, rather than emulated virtual hardware), then it will allow future p2p networks to be quite resiliant to attacks. Or make successful attacks prohibitively expensive.
This all assumes that designers of disruptive p2p clients will not be able to defeat the DRM for their own purposes.
Remember, YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE - you are NOT TRUSTED.
You do get to decide, if you are publishing something and initiating communication. The decision is not made in advance by a central authority (eg, Microsoft, RIAA, etc) wether an application is trusted to run or read a particular file. If you author a p2p app, you do get to decide to authenticate your peers.
The hypothetical p2p clients of the future would not trust that a peer is actually the authentic application. They would not trust other peers until the DRM authenticates them. Indeed YOU WILL NOT BE TRUSTED to join the p2p network until the DRM could authenticate that you are using an unmodified client that will not disrupt the network or compromise it in some way, and it is executing in a tamper-resistant environment which assures that it will not behave in a highly destructive manner. Whatever disruptive actions you perform (uploading bogus files) can be tied to your reputation which is not easily forged because it is tied to the physical hardware you are using.
In other words, YOU WILL NOT BE TRUSED by to be a pirate, until you can prove you are, via DRM.
Just as DRM can prevent you from running apps not approved by the RIAA when downloading from Sony, so it can prevent the RIAA from running modified clients that attempt to cripple p2p file sharing.
Just as DRM can tie data to your one piece of real hardware, so it can tie your p2p reputation to your hardware and thus allow p2p networks to avoid users who upload bogus files, fail to propagate searches and network traffic, etc.
That is how DRM is (supposedly) going to help piracy. Or at least p2p networks, which are presumably used for piracy.
This could have been ended years ago if Microsoft had dropped a Look & Feel lawsuit on them.
It was Microsoft that ended "look and feel" lawsuits forever after successfully defending themselves from Apple over Windows 3.1's similarity to the Macintosh.
But you people can't have your cake and eat it too -- if bitch about them not giving to charity, and then you can't turn around and bitch about them doing it, regardless of how they do it
Oh yes, "we" (the mythical monolithic slashdot/geek community) can bitch about it all we want to, regardless of wether the complaints are justified or not.
But if the nature of their "donation" is not in good faith, perhaps because it's false ecomony for the receipients, or perhaps because it violates antitrust law, then the "bitching" is almost certainly justified.
The key word is "if". Maybe you trust Microsoft? Afterall, they're doing "trustworthy computing" now. If you trust them, you're probably in a tiny minority. Almost nobody trusts Microsoft anymore.
This would be like bitching about Ford trying to increase their market share if they donated trucks to organizations that brought meals to the elderly that couldn't get out of the house.
As many others have pointed out so well, Microsoft's software has a special non-transferable licensing agreement attached.
If Ford donates a bunch of trucks that aren't appropriate for the job, they can easily be sold and the correct type of vehicles (or other materials) can be purchased. Not so with software that has "strings attached".
The angry rant that slashdot carried a while ago, from one of the BSD developers, was regarding great similarity between a couple of header (.h) files consisting mostly of constants and codes relating to that particular piece of hardware, not actual executable code he had written. Maybe this is the same incident you're remembering?
Perhaps it was copied and the names of things altered? Perhaps the same basic information was obtained separately?
At least as I recall, the files in question were primarily raw information such as contants and declarations, and not actual executable code. (IANAL, but...) it is a well established that raw information is not copyrightable. Only specific expression and derived works can be the subject of copyright.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't try to sue. It only means your case will be without merit if the copying is limited to basic information (not misappropriated trade secrets). Maybe SCO's claims are as groundless, maybe they really do have a case. Maybe LinuxTag will force them to disclose the evidence (or lack thereof) sooner, or maybe we'll all just have to wait for the public disclosure by the court.
But that episode where one of the BSD developers got slashdot to post his troll/flame didn't appear to go anywhere, and the overwhelming majority of (highly moderated) comments at the time were noting that the claimed copying was only header files consisting primarily of raw information that probably isn't protected by copyright.... and that the polite thing to do would have been to give credit in the comments, if it were copied (which still wasn't clear).
As a measure of "reasonable", consider that the direct marketing association, previously against virtually any email marketing regulation has recently reversed course because the amount of spam has become so unreasonable that they fear "legitimate" marketing will be lost in the noise of fraud, penis enlargers, and other utter junk.
Another simple indicator of "reasonable" is that major ISP such as AOL, Earthlink, MSN have recently gone to filtering email for spam.... something they resisted for years.
Also a good measure of "reasonable" is the decline in the number of people using the internet. Yes, many people who don't get a lot of value from using the internet are saying "it's all a bunch of junk and not worth $15/month" (or whatever they pay).
If spam were "reasonable", why would 29 of 50 states have already passed anti-spam laws? We're not talking about only a few states, but over half. And at the federal level, multiple anti-spam bills are in committee and it's widely believe that at least one will soon be passed as there is near universal support now and almost nobody (except you) is still denying the problem exists and the only disagreement is what the "solution" is.
Maybe the annoyance of spam still seems reasonable to you, but you should wake up to the fact that your view, which was once shared by a majority of other users, is now clearly in the minority.
That's democracy. The overwhelming majority is now clearly in favor of anti-spam law and regulation. You last few no-regulation-no-matter-how-bad-the-problem libertarians can whine all you like, but it's not gonna change anything at this point.
What you've got is a blank canvas in which the user can paint any color he wishes whether that's officially licensed Microsoft software or pirated software.
Why is it so hard to imagine that users will simply just use whatever comes with the machine? As long as it works, and even if it occasionally crashes or doesn't work in some way (eg, the long sordid history of a certain monopoly vendor)., they'll probably never bother to go to the considerable trouble to reformat and install 'doze.
Especially since the machine doesn't include a cdrom or floppy drive.
Yeah, right, my insurance company has complete control over my fate, so they know in advance when selling me my policies that my next accident, illness and eventual death will each occur shortly after the applicable policies expire!
Insurance companies don't control the risk associated with their policies. Microsoft does control their release date (neglecting slippage).
The only sort of policy you could really compare to Microsoft's software assurance (licensing 6.0) is the insurance "protection" provided by gangsters, who do control the thugs who will come trash your property.
There's no aftermarket support industry? Who the hell says?
Well, Gartner, distilled by Newsfactor (and published for $95 less, plus a couple banner ads).
That's why I wrote "real myth" in front of each one. Please re-read the parent message alongside the Newsfactor summary of Gartner's "linux desktop myths".
Which is it?
It's not my opinon, it's just my paraphrasing. But they seem to say that you won't be able to support linux yourself and they your support staff can't learn linux.
Real Myth: Using free cross platform apps lowers the cost of Windows, therefore Linux offers no additional savings.
Myth: Linux Is Free
Real Myth: Microsoft includes support for licensed desktop windows. So to compare costs, you simply compare the license fees paid to Microsoft to the "enterprise support" fees paid to a company like Redhat. You can't compare "free" linux to license windows because of the support bundled with very licensed desktop windows.
Myth: Linux Means No Forced Upgrades
Real Myth: You will not be able to pay anyone else for provide support once it is no longer available from the original linux distributor, and you will not be able to support it in-house. The discontinuance of support is a "forced upgrade" as compelling (and legally binding) as a contract which requires upgrades to maintain discounted pricing.
Myth: Linux Management Is Easier
Real Myth: Users will still screw up their systems as they do with windows ('cause they'll all be running as root?)
Myth: Linux Has a Lower TCO
Real Myth: System admins can't manage linux well, because they also manage windows poorly (presumably because the two system are so similar and both similarly lacking built-in remote management)
Myth: Linux Means Longer Hardware Life
Real Myth: Older PCs require "expenditure" for [free] software upgrades at least one. Thus it would be less expensive to simply discard the hardware! (yet still "spend" for the software update). Likewise, keeping PCs longer means more different (all PC compatible) models will be present, which costs more to "support" than simply discaring those older PCs and buying new ones.
Myth: Skills Are Transferable
Real Myth: Your existing desktop support staff are old dogs who can't learn new tricks.
... those who are promoting them are screaming as loud as they can to get heard and will say whatever will get them a little attention.
While at the same time, the above-the-radar entrenched monopoly has legions of sales reps making regular calls and visits to decision makers, saying something like "I'd be afraid to install that if my job depended on it, because it's quite uncertain if it'll save money or even cost more, and I doubt it would work anyway".
VoD is gonna be great, after a hard day at the paperless office, not having to find a place to park my flying car at the Blockbuster will really lift that last daily burden, thus finally fulgilling space age technology's promise of a life of leisure.
Then again, the video store's not far away, so I could always just get there with my jet pack to avoid the parking hassle, so maybe I can live with video on demand anyway.
....but you can't expect them to have a DVDfairy hanging out in their office crapping out DVDs on demand--there's a limited number, and this looks like the most reasonable way of distributing them fairly.
You can and should expect the service to work as advertised. They don't advertise a "DVDfairy", but they do lead you to believe you'll be able to get the movies you want ("virtually every DVD published"), and you can rent as many as you like ("Rent all you want"... "as often as you like").
Rent All You Want
With Netflix you can rent as many DVDs as you want for just $20 a month. You keep a revolving library of up to 3 DVDs at a time and can exchange them for new available DVDs as often as you like. The number of DVDs you rent depends on how quickly you watch and return each of your DVDs.
More Than 13,500 Movies
We have virtually every DVD published -- everything from classics to new releases. As a member, you'll be able to choose from any of our 13,500 titles -- five times the selection of a typical video store. Our web site is available 24 hours a day and makes finding movies simple and convenient.
.... perfectly justifiable in many cases. Consider a software vendor who has released a product specifically for a certain class of operating systems. It would be entirely reasonable for them to restrict the use of that application (via the EULA) to avoid deployment on other OS's, due to the unpredictable issues that will pop up.
In this case, the application being restricted is not one Microsoft built. Microsoft only made the compiler (Visual FoxPro). The restriction is that applications built using their compiler and including its runtime libraries are supposedly restricted from being used on non-windows systems.
So they really have no "quality control" justification in this case, since Microsoft is only the author of the tool, not the developer of the application who would "take the heat" if it did not work.
Slow execution (unless copied to fast memory at startup, as the bios usually is). EPROMs are very slow devices. Eg, fast ones are 55 ns and 16 bits wide... memory bandwidth of 36 Mbyte/sec. That's 10X slower than SDRAM. Slower 70, 90 and 120 ns, 8 bit wide EPROM and Flash chips are the most cost effective.
Would not boot faster. OS boot time is dominated by hardware detection and initialization, and system-level (Sys5 init) startup. Loading the kernel image from the drive is an insignificant portion of the startup time.
In the good 'ole days of the C-64 and Apple ][, you booted quite instantly into a basic intepreter... but if you wanted to boot into an "operating system", well, that took a LOT longer. As I recall, the C64 disk drive was extreemly slow.
I'm glad you replied and you're interested in the project. I hear your concern about SATA, and I feel compelled to respond with a couple points you may not have considered.
A hundred million PCs are getting sold this year without SATA support....
Just because you don't have SATA doesn't mean you can't add it. You're going to spend $280(approx) for a SSD, spend $600-1000 to populate it with memory, and about $50-200 for battery packs and perhaps a UPS, but you wouldn't also
spend
just $32 to add a couple Serial ATA ports ???
Serial ATA makes a lot of sense for a many reasons, the main one being that it's simply faster than parallel ATA. Today, SATA is 150 Mbytes/sec... only slightly faster than the fastest parallel ATA at 133 Mbytes/sec. But in designing a high speed SSD, I'm certainly not going to skimp and I'll definately
use
a SATA PHY chip that supports 300 Mbytes/sec, or the planned 600 Mbytes/sec if a PHY chip is available, or a pin-compatible version is planned. I'm also planning on
primarily
designing around reconfigurable FPGA-based hardware, which reduces a lot of the risk and development costs, and might allow me to populate the boards with faster PHY chips as they become available.
With 300 Mbyte/sec SATA and the plans for 600 Mbyte/sec down the road, AND many gigabytes of DDR DRAM media that can actually have sustained I/O at those speeds with virtually zero latency, parallel ATA is looking like quite a dinosaur. Of course, future motherboards will need PCI-X or some other faster bus to transfer these amazing speeds... but all that is coming soon.
Anyway, the main point is that you can pretty painlessly add SATA ports to your existing PC with an inexpensive card. And lots of inexpensive adaptors are available to retrofit "legacy" parallel ATA drives to SATA (which will likely be needed if motherboards start phasing out parallel ATA connectors... which is expected soon since all the new semiconductor processes don't provide 5 volt tolerant I/O pins anymore).
Considering making an affordable SDD with IDE
on
Getting Rid of the Disks
·
· Score: 5, Informative
For several months, we've been tossing around the idea of making an "affordable" solid state disk circuit board at PJRC. The article asks:
What if someone started making SSDs for the consumer market, though? How cheap could they be?
Produced at modest volumes in the USA (not made by the boat-load in China), we've been looking at somewhere in the $250 to $300 (usd) range for the bare board with 16 or 20 DIMM sockets, IDE interface, and power management circuitry with aux power inputs.
The unit is planned to fit into the form factor of a cdrom drive, which allows just enough room for 20 sockets and a couple inches to pack in all the circuitry, IDE and power connectors. There just isn't room for a battery, so the plan is to have 2 or 3 "aux power" connectors that accept 9 to 12 volts. We'd make a battery pack that fits into a 5 or 3 inch drive bay and recharges itself from PC power, so you could connect 1, 2, or maybe even 3 battery packs, or maybe a battery pack and 12 volts from some external source like a "wall-wart" power adaptor plugged into a cheap UPS, or maybe something a bit more "reliable". I'm not sure what the battery pack will cost, but it's hard to imagine it'll be over $50-60 even if we splurge a bit for a fancy microcontroller-based rapid charger and advanced battery monitor.
Today, 512 meg DIMMs are the most affordable, and today's pricewatch says about $40 for PC100-SDRAM and $46 for PC2100-DDR. Prices fluctuate quite a bit... a few months ago the 512 meg PC100-SDRAM was $30. But assuming you pay $40 each for 20, plus $280 for the bare drive and $60 for a battery pack, that puts you at $1140 for a 10 gig ultra-ultra-fast drive. Ouch. Even if the prices drop back to $30, which puts you under four digits, it's still quite expensive.
But not as expensive as the article claims.
Anyway, at this point the project is pure vapor. The earliest you might see it would be about one year from now, but 18 months is more likely. Even though DDR is more expensive today, the design will almost certainly use DDR because it is expected to become cheaper and remain more easily available for the years to come. It's also quite likely I'll do serial ATA only, as S-ATA is going to become the mainstream down the road, and it's already gaining acceptance now. My hope is that 1 and 2 gig DIMMs will become more common and their price/byte will come in line with the 128/256/512M sizes.... 'cause there's no way we're going to get more than 20 DIMM sockets into the 5.25 inch drive bay form factor.
The project also has a number of technical challenges... including the difficulty of connecting that many unbuffered DIMMs (the design will need 4 or 5 separate memory channels and a lot of buffers & PLLs that there aren't really room for on the board).
Well, the issue appears related to the "End of life" code written into the product, which is what that article discusses. Apparently, Microsoft coded Office 2000 to 'expire' and to need to be reativated at some point
That's the best news I've heard yet today. When this time comes, a whole lotta folks are going to be questioning wether they wanna pay again or install openoffice.
I'm using Mozilla 1.2.1 right now, and it's allocated 69 megs of RAM. I've got 6 windows open, plus the mail client and the download manager window.
But even if you talk about space on the disk,/usr/lib/mozilla-1.2.1 has about 32 megs of files in it.
So I don't know where 14 megs came from... but at least on RH8 it's about 3 times that much on disk and 5 times that much in RAM with only a half-dozen windows open.
Mozilla has good company though. Several gnome apps are allocating between 15 to 40 megs of ram, and X is using 55 megs. Total gnome desktop memory usage is about 220 megs of RAM... and that's just with a half dozen mozilla windows, 11 gnome terminal windows, one other old x-app (using 6 megs), and the default panel and applets that Redhat 8.0 comes with by default.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you consider Disney to be a legitimate business?
Let me tell you a little story. Last Christmas season, Robin (girlfriend) wanted a certain collectable disney figure, so I went to disney.com to find and order it.
At the end of my checkout process, after I'd put in my credit card number, the last page informed me that they had automatically added me to their email marketing list. No checkbox to uncheck... they added me without permission, but they did have a little button I could click to opt-out.
So I clicked Disney's opt-out button: 404 Not Found Error. Damn thing didn't work and I was pissed.
I eventually dug up an email contact address (they obviously don't want to hear from end customers... try looking around on their site for it). Someone did reply eventually, asking for more info, and I replied but there was never a second response.
The SPAM started rolling in. Every message contained an address to supposedly unsubscribe. I replied to every single one to unsubscribe... but after a month (somewhere in February) their regular email promotions were still showing up every several days.
I use Spam Assassin to filter spam, but I set the threshold pretty high since a lot of random people contact me regarding my website. Disney's un-unsubscribable spam was coming in just under the threshold, so I added a custom rule for it to add a couple points and finally the problem was solved.
Maybe Disney is the only offender. Maybe my case was a fluke and normally that webpage button works and maybe that month their email unsubscribe was not working for some reason but has been fixed? But I doubt my experience is unique.
The truth is that they (think they) make money from building that spamy newsletter subscriber list, so they do everything they can to get you on it... including automatically adding you without even asking permission. They have little incentive to let you unsubscribe. So the unsubscribe mechanisms are poorly maintained and tend to not even work.
Legitimate business, Disney Corporation, and lightweight spammer with non-working unsubscribe.
When you someday get a newer car (one that would have a 36/42 volt system), you'll find it has features to greatly reduce the chance you'll run your battery down... like automatic shutoff of the lights if you leave them on by mistake. Most newer cars have these features, and certainly any 42 volt cars in the near future would have it.
easier to get shocked from 36+ volts
42 volts is still very safe. Even in europe with stringent electrical safety standards, you need to be over 60 volts before heavier insulation is required.
easier for the electrical system to fry itself in a flood situation
If there is a flood that raises high enough to immerse your car that deeply in water, you'll have plenty of much worse problems to worry about.
Is it just me,
No, there are plenty of other people who resist any changes, no matter how well thought out and beneficial they may be.
is the automotive industry quickly moving to purely disposable/recycleable cars?
Not likely. Look at full service warranties, which are now often 50000 miles. That long was unheard of 15-20 years ago. Most modern cars do last longer.
When I look at a 2003 model car, I have a hard time picturing it still running and still together in 15 years. Really makes me wonder what a 2010 model car will be like.
Probably even better, if the historical trend continues. Replacement parts will likely become even more specialized and expensive, and repair work may continue to require more and more specialized skills and equipment. But the truth is that cars have slowly but steadily improved over the last few decades.
Aren't they really a trade orgination which represents the combined/similar interests of its members (who are conventional businesses).
A corrupt and monopolistic business to be sure,
Aren't those big 5 labeles a cartel. To be a monopoly, you really need to be one company controlling a market (eg, Microsoft). But the market is controlled by a group of 5 labels who collude to control the market.
but they are out to make money and survive.
Maybe you can't blame them, but plenty of others do.
Their "survive" strategy (so far) has largely been to attempt to stifle new technology... same basic story as radio and the recordable cassette tape. Short sighted then, short sighted now.
On the "make money" front, the highly unfavorable contracts that artists have no option but to sign, and the widespread crooked accounting they practice hardly gives them the moral high ground.
What does Novak immediately do... attempt to dodge payment by declaring bankruptcy. If you look at the last page of the 7-page PDF file, there's John Benn listed amoung the creditors, and if you flip back to page 1, on the bottom the $50,001-$100,000 box is checked for the estimated debt.
Let's hope Johm persues this asshole further get gets a the court to impose a payment schedule so Novak doesn't weasle his way out of this one.
MS SQL Server
Outlook
Internet Information Server (IIS)
Internet Explorer
Word / Office
All versions of Windows running almost any email client
And if that's not enough, there are many more examples.
I'd hardly call the UCITA a "defeat". Yeah, it passed in a couple states where it was rushed through, but in all the others it's met stiff resistance and is stalled or dead.
I think, therefore, I rant. You expected different on /.?
In true slashdot form, without reading the linked paper.
You are making a pile of assumptions (yadda, yadda)
No, the linked paper did, and it supported them well. Specifically, they claim that even with perfect DRM some user somewhere can use a high quality camera and microphone to make a "good enough" copy. The premise is that authenticated p2p clients running in a tamper-resistant environment employing strong reputation management that can't be cheated (easily and on a grand scale) makes p2p networks very relisiant against attacks. And these are exactly the capabilities that DRM will provide.
Tying a reputaion to hardware is great, till you want to want to shed it.
Good or evil is not the point. Your personal (mis)usage of p2p networks and ability to recover from bad reputation is not the point. The point is that DRM makes tying reputation to hardware possible, and it will allow p2p reputation management to impede the RIAA and others from disrupting the network in a "scalable" manner (term from the article, which you didn't read).
DRM is not about to make pirating easier, it will make pirating easier to procecute.
Again, from the paper, DRM is about authentication to remote systems so they can "trust" that your computer will act as intended, and one potential unforseen consequence is that p2p systems may be able to use DRM to secure their networks from disruption by copyright holders. Whatever Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA originally intended DRM is irrelevant. This article is about the potential unintended consequences of implementing DRM on a wide scale.
I'm writing to specifically you, "teamhasnoi" (as very few people will ever read this reply and I'm clicking "no karma bonus" since your reply is at +1).
Wake up and pay attention.
In your "fight" against DRM, this paper is a big break for you. Obviously you hate DRM, so take advantage of every opportunity to make convincing arguements against DRM.
You're acting like zealous idiot. This recent development only helps your cause. It is powerful ammunition. Stop acting like a fool and arguing that it's wrong. Even if it is wrong, the chance that it's not wrong (that DRM really will strengthen p2p networking and piracy) makes a very powerful and convincing arguement the deploying DRM is unwise (unwise to thwart piracy, if it only turns out to bolster p2p networking's effectiveness)!
I'll spell it out in detail just one more time, in hope that you can understand.
Someone who's convicted against "piracy" and "peer to peer networking" and thinks DRM is a great idea will not reconsider their viewpoint when they hear your inane and (largely) uninfored ranting. But someone who's strongly against piracy will probably think twice when they learn that DRM can secure peer to peer networks and thus make piracy even more widespread.
Even if you're still don't believe that DRM could ever help secure p2p networks against attack, get over that. Think FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). FUD is very powerful, and you can employ the FUD tactic to win (or improve your hopeless ranting) against DRM. This well written paper, which will gain even more credibility if it passes peer review and gets published in a journal, raises serious concerns over how DRM will be applied and what the real consequence on piracy will be. Even if you think it's wrong (try reading it first), use the tactic of convincing pro-DRM, pro-DRM advocates that it has a good point, and that point is that DRM may end up aiding piracy more than it impedes it. Someone who's ultimate goal is to stop piracy will think twice if they find any credibility in the paper (and it has plenty). That's a whole lot more effective than your current ranting will ever be.
How is this going to help piracy?
By allowing p2p developers to lock out rouge apps that would tamper with their network. By tying reputation management to physical "trusted" hardware, so the (limited) damage possible by a user unmodified app can be attributed to that user in the future. Much the same way it will allow game developers to lock out cheaters with modified game software (IMHO, the only "good" thing that will likely result from DRM).
Aren't all these programs, music, movies and whatever passes for 'content' for 'consumers' going to be *locked* to one machine?
Presumably the applications which major publishers will trust will enforce limits on what users to do with "content".
The assumption is that someone will break the DRM in some way and extract the content and distribute an unencrypted copy that does not require DRM authentication of the client.
Therein lies the "problem"... DRM to increase the difficulty in extracting an unencypted copy is not a full solution. The RIAA/MPAA/BSA must still attack p2p distribution systems. As p2p systems implement improved reputation management to thwart attacks, successful attacks on future p2p systems will require modified (hostile) p2p clients or running vast number of authentic clients (only feasible using virtual computers and scripted input). Reputation management will only thwart attacks if the hostile clients are a minority of the total population.
If DRM locks out modified clients and prevents controlling authentic clients by scripting and ties reputation to hardware (which costs real dollars, rather than emulated virtual hardware), then it will allow future p2p networks to be quite resiliant to attacks. Or make successful attacks prohibitively expensive.
This all assumes that designers of disruptive p2p clients will not be able to defeat the DRM for their own purposes.
Remember, YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE - you are NOT TRUSTED.
You do get to decide, if you are publishing something and initiating communication. The decision is not made in advance by a central authority (eg, Microsoft, RIAA, etc) wether an application is trusted to run or read a particular file. If you author a p2p app, you do get to decide to authenticate your peers.
The hypothetical p2p clients of the future would not trust that a peer is actually the authentic application. They would not trust other peers until the DRM authenticates them. Indeed YOU WILL NOT BE TRUSTED to join the p2p network until the DRM could authenticate that you are using an unmodified client that will not disrupt the network or compromise it in some way, and it is executing in a tamper-resistant environment which assures that it will not behave in a highly destructive manner. Whatever disruptive actions you perform (uploading bogus files) can be tied to your reputation which is not easily forged because it is tied to the physical hardware you are using.
In other words, YOU WILL NOT BE TRUSED by to be a pirate, until you can prove you are, via DRM.
Just as DRM can prevent you from running apps not approved by the RIAA when downloading from Sony, so it can prevent the RIAA from running modified clients that attempt to cripple p2p file sharing.
Just as DRM can tie data to your one piece of real hardware, so it can tie your p2p reputation to your hardware and thus allow p2p networks to avoid users who upload bogus files, fail to propagate searches and network traffic, etc.
That is how DRM is (supposedly) going to help piracy. Or at least p2p networks, which are presumably used for piracy.
It was Microsoft that ended "look and feel" lawsuits forever after successfully defending themselves from Apple over Windows 3.1's similarity to the Macintosh.
Oh yes, "we" (the mythical monolithic slashdot/geek community) can bitch about it all we want to, regardless of wether the complaints are justified or not.
But if the nature of their "donation" is not in good faith, perhaps because it's false ecomony for the receipients, or perhaps because it violates antitrust law, then the "bitching" is almost certainly justified.
The key word is "if". Maybe you trust Microsoft? Afterall, they're doing "trustworthy computing" now. If you trust them, you're probably in a tiny minority. Almost nobody trusts Microsoft anymore.
This would be like bitching about Ford trying to increase their market share if they donated trucks to organizations that brought meals to the elderly that couldn't get out of the house.
As many others have pointed out so well, Microsoft's software has a special non-transferable licensing agreement attached.
If Ford donates a bunch of trucks that aren't appropriate for the job, they can easily be sold and the correct type of vehicles (or other materials) can be purchased. Not so with software that has "strings attached".
Perhaps it was copied and the names of things altered? Perhaps the same basic information was obtained separately?
At least as I recall, the files in question were primarily raw information such as contants and declarations, and not actual executable code. (IANAL, but...) it is a well established that raw information is not copyrightable. Only specific expression and derived works can be the subject of copyright.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't try to sue. It only means your case will be without merit if the copying is limited to basic information (not misappropriated trade secrets). Maybe SCO's claims are as groundless, maybe they really do have a case. Maybe LinuxTag will force them to disclose the evidence (or lack thereof) sooner, or maybe we'll all just have to wait for the public disclosure by the court.
But that episode where one of the BSD developers got slashdot to post his troll/flame didn't appear to go anywhere, and the overwhelming majority of (highly moderated) comments at the time were noting that the claimed copying was only header files consisting primarily of raw information that probably isn't protected by copyright.... and that the polite thing to do would have been to give credit in the comments, if it were copied (which still wasn't clear).
Another simple indicator of "reasonable" is that major ISP such as AOL, Earthlink, MSN have recently gone to filtering email for spam.... something they resisted for years.
Also a good measure of "reasonable" is the decline in the number of people using the internet. Yes, many people who don't get a lot of value from using the internet are saying "it's all a bunch of junk and not worth $15/month" (or whatever they pay).
If spam were "reasonable", why would 29 of 50 states have already passed anti-spam laws? We're not talking about only a few states, but over half. And at the federal level, multiple anti-spam bills are in committee and it's widely believe that at least one will soon be passed as there is near universal support now and almost nobody (except you) is still denying the problem exists and the only disagreement is what the "solution" is.
Maybe the annoyance of spam still seems reasonable to you, but you should wake up to the fact that your view, which was once shared by a majority of other users, is now clearly in the minority.
That's democracy. The overwhelming majority is now clearly in favor of anti-spam law and regulation. You last few no-regulation-no-matter-how-bad-the-problem libertarians can whine all you like, but it's not gonna change anything at this point.
Why is it so hard to imagine that users will simply just use whatever comes with the machine? As long as it works, and even if it occasionally crashes or doesn't work in some way (eg, the long sordid history of a certain monopoly vendor)., they'll probably never bother to go to the considerable trouble to reformat and install 'doze.
Especially since the machine doesn't include a cdrom or floppy drive.
Insurance companies don't control the risk associated with their policies. Microsoft does control their release date (neglecting slippage).
The only sort of policy you could really compare to Microsoft's software assurance (licensing 6.0) is the insurance "protection" provided by gangsters, who do control the thugs who will come trash your property.
Well, Gartner, distilled by Newsfactor (and published for $95 less, plus a couple banner ads).
That's why I wrote "real myth" in front of each one. Please re-read the parent message alongside the Newsfactor summary of Gartner's "linux desktop myths".
Which is it?
It's not my opinon, it's just my paraphrasing. But they seem to say that you won't be able to support linux yourself and they your support staff can't learn linux.
2003: Linux Desktop Myths (wonder when LWN will post something?)
So while we wait for LWN, here's my best shot:
Myth: Linux Will Be Less Expensive
Real Myth: Using free cross platform apps lowers the cost of Windows, therefore Linux offers no additional savings.
Myth: Linux Is Free
Real Myth: Microsoft includes support for licensed desktop windows. So to compare costs, you simply compare the license fees paid to Microsoft to the "enterprise support" fees paid to a company like Redhat. You can't compare "free" linux to license windows because of the support bundled with very licensed desktop windows.
Myth: Linux Means No Forced Upgrades
Real Myth: You will not be able to pay anyone else for provide support once it is no longer available from the original linux distributor, and you will not be able to support it in-house. The discontinuance of support is a "forced upgrade" as compelling (and legally binding) as a contract which requires upgrades to maintain discounted pricing.
Myth: Linux Management Is Easier
Real Myth: Users will still screw up their systems as they do with windows ('cause they'll all be running as root?)
Myth: Linux Has a Lower TCO
Real Myth: System admins can't manage linux well, because they also manage windows poorly (presumably because the two system are so similar and both similarly lacking built-in remote management)
Myth: Linux Means Longer Hardware Life
Real Myth: Older PCs require "expenditure" for [free] software upgrades at least one. Thus it would be less expensive to simply discard the hardware! (yet still "spend" for the software update). Likewise, keeping PCs longer means more different (all PC compatible) models will be present, which costs more to "support" than simply discaring those older PCs and buying new ones.
Myth: Skills Are Transferable
Real Myth: Your existing desktop support staff are old dogs who can't learn new tricks.
While at the same time, the above-the-radar entrenched monopoly has legions of sales reps making regular calls and visits to decision makers, saying something like "I'd be afraid to install that if my job depended on it, because it's quite uncertain if it'll save money or even cost more, and I doubt it would work anyway".
Then again, the video store's not far away, so I could always just get there with my jet pack to avoid the parking hassle, so maybe I can live with video on demand anyway.
You can and should expect the service to work as advertised. They don't advertise a "DVDfairy", but they do lead you to believe you'll be able to get the movies you want ("virtually every DVD published"), and you can rent as many as you like ("Rent all you want" ... "as often as you like").
If you click the Learn More Button, you'll see what they advertise:
In this case, the application being restricted is not one Microsoft built. Microsoft only made the compiler (Visual FoxPro). The restriction is that applications built using their compiler and including its runtime libraries are supposedly restricted from being used on non-windows systems.
So they really have no "quality control" justification in this case, since Microsoft is only the author of the tool, not the developer of the application who would "take the heat" if it did not work.
In the good 'ole days of the C-64 and Apple ][, you booted quite instantly into a basic intepreter... but if you wanted to boot into an "operating system", well, that took a LOT longer. As I recall, the C64 disk drive was extreemly slow.
A hundred million PCs are getting sold this year without SATA support ....
Just because you don't have SATA doesn't mean you can't add it. You're going to spend $280(approx) for a SSD, spend $600-1000 to populate it with memory, and about $50-200 for battery packs and perhaps a UPS, but you wouldn't also spend just $32 to add a couple Serial ATA ports ???
Serial ATA makes a lot of sense for a many reasons, the main one being that it's simply faster than parallel ATA. Today, SATA is 150 Mbytes/sec... only slightly faster than the fastest parallel ATA at 133 Mbytes/sec. But in designing a high speed SSD, I'm certainly not going to skimp and I'll definately use a SATA PHY chip that supports 300 Mbytes/sec, or the planned 600 Mbytes/sec if a PHY chip is available, or a pin-compatible version is planned. I'm also planning on primarily designing around reconfigurable FPGA-based hardware, which reduces a lot of the risk and development costs, and might allow me to populate the boards with faster PHY chips as they become available.
With 300 Mbyte/sec SATA and the plans for 600 Mbyte/sec down the road, AND many gigabytes of DDR DRAM media that can actually have sustained I/O at those speeds with virtually zero latency, parallel ATA is looking like quite a dinosaur. Of course, future motherboards will need PCI-X or some other faster bus to transfer these amazing speeds... but all that is coming soon.
Anyway, the main point is that you can pretty painlessly add SATA ports to your existing PC with an inexpensive card. And lots of inexpensive adaptors are available to retrofit "legacy" parallel ATA drives to SATA (which will likely be needed if motherboards start phasing out parallel ATA connectors... which is expected soon since all the new semiconductor processes don't provide 5 volt tolerant I/O pins anymore).
What if someone started making SSDs for the consumer market, though? How cheap could they be?
Produced at modest volumes in the USA (not made by the boat-load in China), we've been looking at somewhere in the $250 to $300 (usd) range for the bare board with 16 or 20 DIMM sockets, IDE interface, and power management circuitry with aux power inputs.
The unit is planned to fit into the form factor of a cdrom drive, which allows just enough room for 20 sockets and a couple inches to pack in all the circuitry, IDE and power connectors. There just isn't room for a battery, so the plan is to have 2 or 3 "aux power" connectors that accept 9 to 12 volts. We'd make a battery pack that fits into a 5 or 3 inch drive bay and recharges itself from PC power, so you could connect 1, 2, or maybe even 3 battery packs, or maybe a battery pack and 12 volts from some external source like a "wall-wart" power adaptor plugged into a cheap UPS, or maybe something a bit more "reliable". I'm not sure what the battery pack will cost, but it's hard to imagine it'll be over $50-60 even if we splurge a bit for a fancy microcontroller-based rapid charger and advanced battery monitor.
Today, 512 meg DIMMs are the most affordable, and today's pricewatch says about $40 for PC100-SDRAM and $46 for PC2100-DDR. Prices fluctuate quite a bit... a few months ago the 512 meg PC100-SDRAM was $30. But assuming you pay $40 each for 20, plus $280 for the bare drive and $60 for a battery pack, that puts you at $1140 for a 10 gig ultra-ultra-fast drive. Ouch. Even if the prices drop back to $30, which puts you under four digits, it's still quite expensive.
But not as expensive as the article claims.
Anyway, at this point the project is pure vapor. The earliest you might see it would be about one year from now, but 18 months is more likely. Even though DDR is more expensive today, the design will almost certainly use DDR because it is expected to become cheaper and remain more easily available for the years to come. It's also quite likely I'll do serial ATA only, as S-ATA is going to become the mainstream down the road, and it's already gaining acceptance now. My hope is that 1 and 2 gig DIMMs will become more common and their price/byte will come in line with the 128/256/512M sizes.... 'cause there's no way we're going to get more than 20 DIMM sockets into the 5.25 inch drive bay form factor.
The project also has a number of technical challenges... including the difficulty of connecting that many unbuffered DIMMs (the design will need 4 or 5 separate memory channels and a lot of buffers & PLLs that there aren't really room for on the board).
Well, enough vapor for one day.
That's the best news I've heard yet today. When this time comes, a whole lotta folks are going to be questioning wether they wanna pay again or install openoffice.
I'm using Mozilla 1.2.1 right now, and it's allocated 69 megs of RAM. I've got 6 windows open, plus the mail client and the download manager window.
/usr/lib/mozilla-1.2.1 has about 32 megs of files in it.
But even if you talk about space on the disk,
So I don't know where 14 megs came from... but at least on RH8 it's about 3 times that much on disk and 5 times that much in RAM with only a half-dozen windows open.
Mozilla has good company though. Several gnome apps are allocating between 15 to 40 megs of ram, and X is using 55 megs. Total gnome desktop memory usage is about 220 megs of RAM... and that's just with a half dozen mozilla windows, 11 gnome terminal windows, one other old x-app (using 6 megs), and the default panel and applets that Redhat 8.0 comes with by default.