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User: DaveRobb

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Comments · 27

  1. Re:Liquids on planes on Laptop Fires On Airplanes · · Score: 1

    The problem I have is that it's not the people who own the planes making the rules. And it's not even necessarily the government of the country in which I'm flying who's originated the rules. There are now so many treaties and inter-country agreements about airline regulation that if the 900lb gorilla in the international civil aviation industry (the US) decides that liquids are bad, then everyone else has play by their rules.

  2. Re:Fry. on MediaDefender Explains Itself · · Score: 1

    I only have one question: how can we retaliate?

    Talk to people you know at ISPs (or if you work there yourself, push for the following) and have them blackhole MediaDefender. Denial of service attacks are (hopefully!) against the contract they have with their upstreams, and even if they're not, it's a fairly commonly accepted practice to blackhole known DoS sources.

  3. Re:The pace of change is slowing down. on What Will Life Be Like In 2008? · · Score: 1

    How well do these time periods correlate with major world wars or other technology change driving events?

  4. Re:At what price? on Why Is Less Than 99.9% Uptime Acceptable? · · Score: 2, Informative

    RFC 1925 Rule 7a.

    Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can't have all three)

    People want high reliability, but they're not prepared to pay for it. If they _are_ prepared to pay more money, they miss the point that unless they spend a LOT more money, they'll only increase one of Good (aka reliable) or Fast, not both.

  5. Re:How about legal use of bittorrent? on Comcast Sued Over P2P Blocking · · Score: 1

    Perhaps this is a time for Opportunistic Encryption to make a comeback? Then as far as Comcast is concerned, all traffic looks exactly the same...

  6. Re:How do you get the hydrogen back out? on Aluminum Alloy Releases Hydrogen From Water · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nice idea, but aluminium smelting isn't something that can be just turned on and off on a daily basis as the cheap power becomes available.

  7. Re:it's their own dang fault... on Judge Rules Against Deep-Linking of Content · · Score: 1

    Would you agree if someone has referer protection, and someone bypasses this, that would be theft?

    I'm not sure I'd count it as theft, since in the case being looked at here the person linking to the content (whether they're bypassing the referer protection or not) isn't actually the one retrieving the content. Can you be charged with theft if you have a sign pointing to where the spare key to a house is? Probably not, but you might get done as an accessory.

    Well, how is that any different from a copyright notice at the bottom of every page, or a copyright on the content itself which says "this content cannot be republished without permission". That's "a lock" too. It makes it quite clear the content is not to be freely deep linked.

    Again I have a problem with the idea that linking to content (deeply or otherwise) counts as publishing it. If you made a copy of it and hosted it on your own webserver then fine, that's in violation of copyright. But linking to something isn't the same. The original "owner" is still in control of the content and how and when it is served up.

    It occurs to me that a interesting way of determining if this aspect of the copyright on something has been violated is whether or not the copyright holder can still choose NOT to publish the content. If they have that ability, then their copyright is still intact. If not, then obviously there are copies out there under their control.

  8. Re:it's their own dang fault... on Judge Rules Against Deep-Linking of Content · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your response is analogous to the idea that just because my bicycle is on my own property, clearly labeled and locked up, that it's my own fault it was stolen because I didn't have a bigger lock.

    Deep linking has nothing to do with the size of the lock. THERE IS NO LOCK. If I can get to some content simply by asking the webserver for it (ie no http auth, no cookie, no nothing, just an HTTP GET) then the "lock" you speak of does not exist.

    People who deep link know exactly what they're doing. They're stealing content from other sites for their own gain.

    They are not stealing the content. They are simply saying where it is.

  9. Re:Bad on What Corporate Email Limits Do You Have? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the reasons that big mailbox limits should be discouraged is that big limits generally encourage people to use their mailboxes to archive important information there, which is inappropriate, and often leads to losing important stuff.

    Why do you consider it to be inappropriate? My email is backed up daily, is searchable, and provides a nice indexed (by date/sender/subject) record of my work.

  10. Re:Ask Slashdot: on Women's Institute Consulted on Nuclear Waste · · Score: 1

    > Ask Slashdot: Where would YOU put the UK's store of lethal radioactive waste?

    Missing option: The White House.

  11. Thunderbirds are go! on Old Airlift Vehicle Concept Made New · · Score: 1

    Ok, so who else thinks this thing looks like Thunderbird 2?

    http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~ajhs/hobbies/tbird2.htm l

  12. It's not "just like shoplifting" on King Kong vs. Movie Pirates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "I always thought that piracy connotes something glamorous," Mr. Meyer said. "Let's call it what it is: theft. I think it's just like shoplifting."

    Bollocks. If I were to take something from a shop, then the shop can't sell it to someone else, and thus can be said to have lost not only revenue but also an asset.

    If I were to copy a movie from the Net, then you might at a stretch argue that I've deprived the studio of revenue (although I still pay to go and watch movies which are good - if I download one and it sucks, I don't pay to go and see it), but I think it's pushing it to say that I've stolen an asset. It still exists, right where it was. The movie studio doesn't have anything less than they did when we started.

    Revenues from movies are dropping because the studios are rarely coming out with anything original. Stop making dull sequels, or remakes of 60s TV shows, and perhaps we'll see movie revenue return - but likely not at the cinema, as the article says; people are now commonly watching movies on their home cinema system.

  13. Levels of protection on How GPS Is Killing Lighthouses · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I get the feeling from reading this article that this while this quote:

    Though the 15 lighthouses on the North Sea cost German taxpayers about 400,000 a year to operate, money alone should not be a reason for shutting them down.

    says money isn't the only reason, the shipping companies and possibly governments have no reason other than money to want to see them gone.

    And for what? 400k euro/year? Granted, that's only for 15 lighthouses, but that's peanuts compared to what is spent on other things.

    I wonder what a supertanker spill would cost to clean up, after there's a power failure onboard and the GPS nav systems are offline, and there aren't any lighthouses to use as backups.
  14. Re:DSL speed vs IP speed on BIC-TCP 6,000 Times Quicker Than DSL · · Score: 1

    Correct, it won't be slowed by TCP. But that doesn't make it "6000 times faster than DSL", because (at least for my DSL connection), that would give me a 36Gbit link. Where do I sign up? :)

    Comparing BIC-TCP directly to DSL is misleading.

  15. Re:DSL speed vs IP speed on BIC-TCP 6,000 Times Quicker Than DSL · · Score: 1

    You're right, it should be transport layer. I obviously require more coffee. :)

  16. DSL speed vs IP speed on BIC-TCP 6,000 Times Quicker Than DSL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article somewhat erroneously compares the speed of "DSL" vs the speed of "BIC-TCP". DSL is a link-layer protocol. BIC-TCP is an network layer protocol. These are different things. See http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/OSI_Layers.asp for details.

    The question I'd love to ask the authors would be "so, what happens when I run BIC-TCP over a DSL modem? Does it suddenly become 6000 times faster?" I don't think so.
    Connections are still going to be constrained by the underlying link speed, and the internet will not become thousands of times faster overnight because of this.

    Sure, BIC-TCP looks like it's more efficient than TCP and that's a good thing, but the gains this protocol provides over TCP are in scalability when using suitably big links.

  17. BRN&GTBRNT on "L33T" Speak Invades Schools · · Score: 1

    The subject here is the name of the "Burn and get burnt" anti-cd copying campaign being run by the New Zealand recording industry. I, and several other people I know have emailed and written to them expressing our disgust at this continued use of "l33t" abbreviations.

    Their reply? "You are right to point out that TXT language appears to be on the increase.
    TXT language is an increasingly common way for young people to communicate.
    But we have chosen that method of getting across our Burn and Get Burnt
    message for a specific reason. It's called 'talking to people in a language
    they understand'."

    I pondered replying to them, but I could come up with a reply that didn't start with "are you on drugs?"

  18. Free email services on Klez, The Virus that Keeps on Giving · · Score: 1

    From the article :

    ====
    Montez now understands the e-mails came from Klez-subscribed news lists. But he said that since his free e-mail account only stores a certain amount of messages, he's lost access to the account twice this week. He believes he's also lost a significant amount of business-related e-mails.
    ====

    Why is it that people continue to rely on free email services for business-related matters? Then, when something goes wrong, they moan and whinge and wonder why no-one has any sympathy.

    Sheesh. You get what you pay for.

  19. Re:Justified Usage on U.S. Works Up Plans for Using Nuclear Arms · · Score: 1

    I'm quite well aware that there are situations in history that don't fit this model, and that there will be always be nutbars out there who are bent on killing millions of people just to see their ideals propagated.

    And I still maintain my viewpoint that to get a lasting peace, you need to (as you put it) engage in "dialog" and find a common ground. Sure, there are times when you need to stop Hussein/Hitler/Stalin/whoever in their tracks by use of force, but gee, how long has the peace wrought from those acts lasted? Not long enough for my liking. Hussein is still out there, and a significant number of people are now pissed off at the US and other powers because of the actions they took. Don't get me wrong here, I'm glad they did something, but it's going to take some time yet before the dust settles and we can all just get along(tm). See Northern Ireland as an example - violence sure as hell hasn't worked. Granted, talking doesn't seem to be working too well so far, but it's got a far better chance of achieving something long term than killing more people off will.

    Maybe I seem young to you (I doubt I'm as young as you suspect I am) - I think it's more that I haven't aquired the cynicism that lots of people believe they need to view the world with.

    Life does not always have to be this way. And it won't be. Either humanity will grow up and stop killing each other, or we'll wipe ourselves out. I'm undecided yet which solution is preferable.

  20. Re:Justified Usage on U.S. Works Up Plans for Using Nuclear Arms · · Score: 1

    Peace may be purchased with superior firepower, but the warranty that comes with such peace isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

    Lasting peace comes from understanding and compromise. Which, because we're dealing with the human race here, means that short term peace often seems more desirable.

    Stop the planet, I want to get off.

  21. Re:Destination-based Wavelengths on Is Hyperchip Hype? · · Score: 1

    What it sounds like is a hardware/optical version of MPLS.

    Cute, but not really that revolutionary.

  22. Original Simcity on Simsville Canceled · · Score: 1

    Ok, so how many people still have the original version of SimCity? And the Terrain Editor?

    I still remember trying to find ways to copy the pesky black-on-dark-red page with for the copy protection.

  23. Re:What? on NIST Wants An Electronic Kilogram · · Score: 1

    I propose a new standard instead.... the CowboyNeal.

  24. Small correction on Israeli AI System "Hal" And The Turing Test · · Score: 1

    >Science fiction aficionados are aware of the >potential downside to Hal, whose
    >namesake in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space >Odyssey" killed off most of its
    >crew during a space mission.

    s/Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C Clarke/

  25. Re:Well, so much for the F-22... on Stealth Aircraft Useless? · · Score: 1

    >a defence system is as only good as it's power source

    Bring back barrage balloons :)