More and more sites use HTTPS for the whole session nowadays, either by default or by opt-in. Even Facebook, where I keep a token account that I almost never log into.
I'm all for security and strong passwords and all that, but so far, no one has been able to give me a good enough reason for me to bother with "securing" my wireless network.
People can sniff your passwords! -- I don't send them in the clear; I use SSH and SSL for everything.
You'll get viruses! -- I don't trust my network; I treat it as part of the public Internet and use sensible firewall settings.
People will use your bandwidth! -- I don't care. My bandwidth isn't capped.
People will use your connection for child porn and you'll be sent to Gitmo! -- This is the only argument I've heard that has at least some semblance of relevance. It's still pretty weak, though. If it were true, cafes, hotels and similar establishments would find themselves in hot water all the time and I have never heard of such a case.
Well, if it's fully anonymous, it's not a social network, really, but it should be possible to set up a pseudonymous social network, where users go by handles instead of real names. Preferably in I2P or Freenet or Tor or some other darknet so IPs can't be logged. I've actually wondered for quite some time why this hasn't happened (well, I2P has that Twitter-like thing, whatever it's called, but it doesn't see much use).
Though it saddens me to say it, when it comes to hardware support, Windows just works.
Provided that you buy your laptop with Windows preinstalled, yes. If we're talking about installing either Windows or Linux on a "naked" laptop then, in my experience, it's simply a crap shoot. Modern Linux distros come with most drivers you're likely to need included, but they're sometimes crap (especially when it comes to graphics) and you may or may not be able to find better ones on the net.
Windows is almost guaranteed not to have the drivers you want included on the installation media -- but you can usually find them fairly easily (on the net or on the, usually crapware-laden, CD or DVD that came with the hardware). There are exceptions, like recently when for the life of me I just could not find Windows drivers for the crappy Intel audio card in a cheap laptop. In Ubuntu, audio just worked. But suspend didn't; probably a BIOS issue.
In most cases, yes. But some time last year, I was on a Ryan Air flight on which advertisements throughout the plane announced the availability of in-flight cellular services (at significant markup, of course). Out of curiosity, I switched my phone on at cruising altitude and, if memory serves me, got a text message welcoming me to the service. Out of frugality, I refrained from making any calls.
Movies are hyped up for a long time before actual release in cinema, meaning a demand is created before the supply is actually available.
Well, I seem to vaguely recall instances where upcoming albums, at least, were wildly anticipated long before they were available. But maybe this doesn't happen anymore, maybe it was always pretty unusual, and maybe it mostly happened among fans hardcore enough to gladly pay for albums to "give back to the artists." So I guess you're still right.
What you describe is probably inevitable; we are certainly moving in that direction now. But I think people will eventually stop putting up with it. Either there will be a "peaceful revolution," where people start diverting their money to companies willing to provide entertainment and culture on more reasonable terms, or an "arms race" of stronger and stronger DRM and higher and higher prices on the one hand, and more and more widespread piracy on the other. Either way, unless we also move into a completely totalitarian society, the DRM-lovers can't win.
While I have little to no personal knowledge of Australian politics, friends and acquaintances tell me it's largely a game of copycatting/catching up with big brother (literally) USA. "Oh look, they're becoming a police state. Let's do that, too. Why? Just because. No worries, mate."
while i agree that we are too many, the only way to reduce world population to 2-3 biliions in 50 years is nukes; We're almost 7 billions, not almost 4...
Well... I agree that the only reasonable conclusion is that there are just too fucking many of us. If we don't bring the population down ourselves, somehow (as, of course, we won't), the system will self-regulate and do it for us, somehow (most likely in some way we won't much care for, like a cataclysmic natural disaster or a global pandemic).
An interesting question is how we could possibly bring the population down in a reasonably palatable way. Massive emigration to colonies in space? We just don't have the technology for that. Birth control? As someone else said, this would pretty soon cause enormous social problems with growing numbers of elderly relying on shrinking numbers of younger people for support (a very mild version of this problem can already be seen in countries like Japan). Something else? If so, what?
Who cares about games? I used to have a Zaurus, and it was (mostly) great for note-taking, calendaring, web surfing, MP3 playing, even casual video viewing. Plus, it ran Linux, was pretty hackable and had a terminal. And it fit nicely in a pocket, although it was a tad heavy. My Symbian smartphone sorta kinda does (most of) the same things, but not quite as well and it doesn't have a proper keyboard.
I want a pocket computer, but nobody makes those anymore now that everything, for some reason, has to look like a damn Iphone. The Pandora looks very interesting. If only they hadn't wasted so much space on those game controller thingies and instead made the keyboard a little bit bigger.
There's nothing unsafe about juggling with chainsaws, unless you do things in a lazy way and don't think things through. As long as you train properly, and make sure to cover all of your safety aspects, you'll be fine.
I'm not railing on you. I'm just saying that some things, no matter how useful*, are not for everyone.
* The usefulness of juggling with chainsaws can be debated. This is not career advice.
It's also not guaranteed that a peer in the swam is downloading or uploading. The only way to be 99% sure is to send/receive to/from a given peer. But, if you don't send/receive 100% of the content to/from that single peer, it would be hard to claim copyright infringement, as you couldn't prove a full copy had been shared by that IP address.
...did anyone think it was a good idea to give Facebook your webmail password, as they are constantly pestering you to do? "We won't store your password." Yeah right.
And your example is flawed in other ways too. For example, Hitler didn't pick Jews arbitrarily; he picked them because they were the terrorists/commies/witches of their time, widely believed to be trying to destroy Western civilization for some vague nefarious ideological reasons. It was easy for Hitler to fan that fear, and to convince people the Jews were trying to destroy their lifestyle and would never stop, so the people needed to give him the power to deal with the problem; in other words, exactly the same shit as we are having nowadays.
Just for that, I'd mod you up if I had mod points. Thank you.
According to TFA, analysts expect Youtube to turn a profit this year. And, while it's not entirely clear, it appears that these analysts made this prediction before news of video rentals came out.
Whatever happened to Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube? And where is their revenue coming from, anyway? Can they really make that much from the relatively few ads they have, or is Google engaging in a little creative bookkeeping to make it appear that Youtube is doing great? Why would they do that?
Your examples of countries the US "conquered" are all wrong, here are some countries the US did control and did conquer.
Japan.
Western Germany.
Italy.
South Korea.
Central and western United States.
You're proving the very point you're arguing against. Those countries were indeed properly conquered by the US, who then responsibly and honorably proceeded to help them rebuild their infrastructure, adopt democracy, and subsequently regain independence. However... Notice how there are no recent examples in the list? Remember how the US has acted in similar cases recently? Usually, they have gone in, screwed things up even worse than they were before, and then left. Iraq may yet turn out to be different -- probably because they have oil.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, okay, missed that bit. Thanks.
sorry, how is this different from fon?
More and more sites use HTTPS for the whole session nowadays, either by default or by opt-in. Even Facebook, where I keep a token account that I almost never log into.
I'm all for security and strong passwords and all that, but so far, no one has been able to give me a good enough reason for me to bother with "securing" my wireless network.
People can sniff your passwords! -- I don't send them in the clear; I use SSH and SSL for everything.
You'll get viruses! -- I don't trust my network; I treat it as part of the public Internet and use sensible firewall settings.
People will use your bandwidth! -- I don't care. My bandwidth isn't capped.
People will use your connection for child porn and you'll be sent to Gitmo! -- This is the only argument I've heard that has at least some semblance of relevance. It's still pretty weak, though. If it were true, cafes, hotels and similar establishments would find themselves in hot water all the time and I have never heard of such a case.
What else is there?
Well, if it's fully anonymous, it's not a social network, really, but it should be possible to set up a pseudonymous social network, where users go by handles instead of real names. Preferably in I2P or Freenet or Tor or some other darknet so IPs can't be logged. I've actually wondered for quite some time why this hasn't happened (well, I2P has that Twitter-like thing, whatever it's called, but it doesn't see much use).
Though it saddens me to say it, when it comes to hardware support, Windows just works.
Provided that you buy your laptop with Windows preinstalled, yes. If we're talking about installing either Windows or Linux on a "naked" laptop then, in my experience, it's simply a crap shoot. Modern Linux distros come with most drivers you're likely to need included, but they're sometimes crap (especially when it comes to graphics) and you may or may not be able to find better ones on the net.
Windows is almost guaranteed not to have the drivers you want included on the installation media -- but you can usually find them fairly easily (on the net or on the, usually crapware-laden, CD or DVD that came with the hardware). There are exceptions, like recently when for the life of me I just could not find Windows drivers for the crappy Intel audio card in a cheap laptop. In Ubuntu, audio just worked. But suspend didn't; probably a BIOS issue.
And Facebook is so the right place for that.
In most cases, yes. But some time last year, I was on a Ryan Air flight on which advertisements throughout the plane announced the availability of in-flight cellular services (at significant markup, of course). Out of curiosity, I switched my phone on at cruising altitude and, if memory serves me, got a text message welcoming me to the service. Out of frugality, I refrained from making any calls.
Movies are hyped up for a long time before actual release in cinema, meaning a demand is created before the supply is actually available.
Well, I seem to vaguely recall instances where upcoming albums, at least, were wildly anticipated long before they were available. But maybe this doesn't happen anymore, maybe it was always pretty unusual, and maybe it mostly happened among fans hardcore enough to gladly pay for albums to "give back to the artists." So I guess you're still right.
Aren't songs leaked into the pool of piracy before they're officially released anyway? (I know movies are.) How will this make any difference then?
Ehm... Read the article? Oh right, this is Slashdot. Sorry, never mind.
But it sure can be wildly successful. See: iPhone, iPad.
...welcome our rear-touching overlords.
What you describe is probably inevitable; we are certainly moving in that direction now. But I think people will eventually stop putting up with it. Either there will be a "peaceful revolution," where people start diverting their money to companies willing to provide entertainment and culture on more reasonable terms, or an "arms race" of stronger and stronger DRM and higher and higher prices on the one hand, and more and more widespread piracy on the other. Either way, unless we also move into a completely totalitarian society, the DRM-lovers can't win.
[...] where are all the java games?
In cell phones.
While I have little to no personal knowledge of Australian politics, friends and acquaintances tell me it's largely a game of copycatting/catching up with big brother (literally) USA. "Oh look, they're becoming a police state. Let's do that, too. Why? Just because. No worries, mate."
the more times an article like this shows up in a respected blog or publication
Yeah. Like Slashdot.
while i agree that we are too many, the only way to reduce world population to 2-3 biliions in 50 years is nukes; We're almost 7 billions, not almost 4...
Well... I agree that the only reasonable conclusion is that there are just too fucking many of us. If we don't bring the population down ourselves, somehow (as, of course, we won't), the system will self-regulate and do it for us, somehow (most likely in some way we won't much care for, like a cataclysmic natural disaster or a global pandemic).
An interesting question is how we could possibly bring the population down in a reasonably palatable way. Massive emigration to colonies in space? We just don't have the technology for that. Birth control? As someone else said, this would pretty soon cause enormous social problems with growing numbers of elderly relying on shrinking numbers of younger people for support (a very mild version of this problem can already be seen in countries like Japan). Something else? If so, what?
Who cares about games? I used to have a Zaurus, and it was (mostly) great for note-taking, calendaring, web surfing, MP3 playing, even casual video viewing. Plus, it ran Linux, was pretty hackable and had a terminal. And it fit nicely in a pocket, although it was a tad heavy. My Symbian smartphone sorta kinda does (most of) the same things, but not quite as well and it doesn't have a proper keyboard.
I want a pocket computer, but nobody makes those anymore now that everything, for some reason, has to look like a damn Iphone. The Pandora looks very interesting. If only they hadn't wasted so much space on those game controller thingies and instead made the keyboard a little bit bigger.
There's nothing unsafe about juggling with chainsaws, unless you do things in a lazy way and don't think things through. As long as you train properly, and make sure to cover all of your safety aspects, you'll be fine.
I'm not railing on you. I'm just saying that some things, no matter how useful*, are not for everyone.
* The usefulness of juggling with chainsaws can be debated. This is not career advice.
Sure, but do the courts know that?
...did anyone think it was a good idea to give Facebook your webmail password, as they are constantly pestering you to do? "We won't store your password." Yeah right.
Just for that, I'd mod you up if I had mod points. Thank you.
According to TFA, analysts expect Youtube to turn a profit this year. And, while it's not entirely clear, it appears that these analysts made this prediction before news of video rentals came out.
Whatever happened to Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube? And where is their revenue coming from, anyway? Can they really make that much from the relatively few ads they have, or is Google engaging in a little creative bookkeeping to make it appear that Youtube is doing great? Why would they do that?
Your examples of countries the US "conquered" are all wrong, here are some countries the US did control and did conquer.
Japan. Western Germany. Italy. South Korea. Central and western United States.
You're proving the very point you're arguing against. Those countries were indeed properly conquered by the US, who then responsibly and honorably proceeded to help them rebuild their infrastructure, adopt democracy, and subsequently regain independence. However... Notice how there are no recent examples in the list? Remember how the US has acted in similar cases recently? Usually, they have gone in, screwed things up even worse than they were before, and then left. Iraq may yet turn out to be different -- probably because they have oil.