rather above the usual sophistication. Perhaps not quite art, but definately at least craft.
Now I'll take it more seriously anyway.
The business model isn't the only one by which one can measure "success" or "failure."
Clearly the measure of "success" for an open source program is whether or not *I* find it successful. This is the reason that all Linux needs to "succeed" is for one geek sitting in a basement somewhere at three in the morning going, "Oh, wow man."
The rest is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.
of a "click through" EULA.Simply becoming aware of the existence of the contract brings it into full force. A full audit is performed at the end of the contract period to determine compliance.
Holy Lawyer may well, in a humorous fashion, be considered an oxymoron. In reality such things exist. Who do you think prosocuted the accused during the inquisition? The more socially acceptable "Unholy" lawyer is a real entity as well. The term "Devil's Advocate" is no metaphorical construct as most people seem to believe. This is the official term applied to the "defense counsul" of the church accused.
KFG
The BSA may complain all they want. . .
on
Euro DMCA Fails
·
· Score: 2
that they have no protection. The fact of the matter is their *right* to protection is defined by *law.* In fact, the very right to have anything to protect at *all* is so defined.
Without such definitions they have * no rights.*
IP is a purely manmade construct. Different nations and cultures have different ideas on the extent to which they will assert and defend such "rights."
If you wish to do business internationally, get used to it.
You might well even have to get used to the idea that certain cultures and legal systems do not accept the so called "right" to IP.
It's incredibly arrogant to take your business model formed to comply with and take advantage of one nation's set of laws and demand that other nations mold their laws to comply with your business model.
If you find this arrangement unacceptable why not get into a business where you *make stuff?* It works for others.
One may well advertise and sell less and less product the *more* one advertises.
Yes, there is some as-yet-unidentified to you phenomenom which effects both why companies advertise and why people do/do not buy such advertised products.
Believing that advertising *causes* sales is, in fact, the *cause* of many company failures.
Hell, most companies don't even understand the critical distinction between advertising and promotion and where they sit relative to each other in an overall marketing scheme.
Study the classic relational case of the corelated mosquito and sporozoan *cause* of malaria.
And ask yourself this, why have *I* not bought one of these things, even though I've received the advertisting and for several years was a full time professional R/C car racer/shop owner who right now sits within easy reach of thousands of dollars of treasured R/C car equipment and have for decades wished there was a viable means of racing R/C cars in a tabletop setting, if advertising "causes" sales.
Pay particular attention to the resistent case. It often points to true causes much more reliably than corelation does. In science this is almost always where the Nobel Prizes are hiding.
Also note that psycologically believing one can "cause" other people to behave in particular ways is an aberation that can lead to dysfunctional behaviours. Companies that believe advertising "causes" sales often exhibit such dysfunctional behaviours in their relationships with their customers.
Examine the concepts "incite," "induce," and "sympathetic magic."
It wouldnt' hurt to read "Ogilvy on Advertising" either.
for men who are too embaressed to buy Playboy. I'm not making this up. It's their overt raison d'etre. The whole magazine reeks of it too.
Stand up and be a man, and what's more, a *geek.*
Playboy really is the geek's magazine for nudity *and* content.
Asimov, Bradbury ( the space elevator appeared in Playboy before anywhere else. If you weren't reading Playboy you were behind the tech curve), Ellison and many other geek favorites were in the habit of publishing first in Playboy. Gahan Wilson and Shel Silverstien also called Playboy home. The "Playboy lifestyle" was always heavily geek oriented with the latest and greatest of tech, both mechanical and electronic.
A good review in Playboy has always been a highly desirable commodity in the electronics world. The idea that Sharp would link to one is hardly surprising or amusing.
And it doesn't hurt that they present naked women as objects of art and beauty without treating you, or *them*, as being some sort of perv. We were all born naked, and frankly, it's this neurotic focus on clothing and the denial of sexuality that's the perversion.
Magazines like Maxim are obsence they way they actually pander to this neurosis.
I'm not a crook or a terrorist for God's sake. I'm in *training.* Coke is talking contract and they're considering me for a color commentator position with "Monday Night Crack."
Oh stop crying Ma. That does *not* mean I'm a junkie.
Jesus I've gotta move out of the basement and find my own place.
ate. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows.
Arrragh!
Linux can be damn near all things to all men. In some ways this seems to mean that everyone finds one thing about Linux they *don't* like and bitch about it, while ignoring everything about it they might well find they love.
Certainly, in this particular case, John is having to ignore virtually all of Linux to say what he's said here.
Hey John, KDE and Gnome aren't Linux. They're the most Windows like of Linux GUI's because they are the only one's that overtly set out to be so. Of course that means they get the most attention because *that's what most people want.* Duh!
Why not go out and try all the other available interfaces? But If you bitch, *even once*, about some other GUI not doing something the way Windows does while you're doing it you'll deserve a bitch slapping.
How's this for innovation John? No windows at all and a dozens of small "tools," rather than large "apps," that allow you to use them in various combinations that the makers couldn't even imagine, polished to perfection by three generations of geeks until they shine like pearls in the cyber sunlight?
I might also point out that "Linux" doesn't do anything. Literally. It just sits there. The *users* of Linux do things. Since it isn't a propriatary product it has no existence outside what people *do* with it.
One of the things that Linux users do is dick around with interfaces. In fact, Linux is probably the most used OS for such activities because of its price, availability and license, but primarily because of the inate flexibility of the OS. Some of this "dicking around" is going on with academic enviroments to which everyone is not privy.
But most of all John, 5 months, or a year from now, when you write a column on how Linux isn't being picked up because it's too arcane and unlike Windows, I'm going to remember.
For God's sake, pick a position or talk about something else.
Yes! They rely on volume *over time*
on
ISP Chief on Spam
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Just slowing them down will make the whole affair less attractive. Not eliminate it, but at least eliminate a good deal of it.
You think the second will annoy you. My guess is that, unless you are using mail as some sort of IM device, after the first few times you won't notice *10* seconds.
Delay a spammer's mail 10 seconds *per item* and you bring him to his knees.
Of course the spammers are going after IM now. ..
KFG
Well I certainly have no objection to this "flying
on
Wi-Fi From The Sky
·
· Score: 1
But I'll note that the interview in question was with the person with a vested interest in this technology. There was no "counterpoint" from the other side. I also note he didn't say it only took one person to bring it down, make repairs or changes, and send it back up again. He said it only took one person to "handle it on the ground." Quite a different statement. It only requires one *ground crew,* not one *person* in the facility. Count on half a dozen at least in real life. The communictions package is *2000 Kg. worth of gear.* One guy isn't going to handle that, nor is the ground crew going to be the technical staff that maintains it. If nothing else someone is going to have to clean the toilet and shovel the walk. The balloon guy isn't going to do everything.
I'm not against this idea at all. I love airships and balloons. In fact, I'm the guy that submited the last Slashdot story on Zeppelins and can't wait to see them cruising the skys again, or get a chance to ride in one.
I simply believe that the whole endeavor is going to be far more problematic, and expensive, than this guy making publicity forcasts about his own comapany is projecting.
I'll also, in journalistic fairness, state that my own bias is that on land I'm perfectly happy with the wired system I already have and from wireless I'm more interested in having coverage *outside* the scope of these balloons.
Like the middle of the Atlantic.
KFG
But the cost of keeping a satellite up is nil
on
Wi-Fi From The Sky
·
· Score: 1
Until you have to replace it of course. The ballons are going to be relatively expensive to maintain in manpower. The chief advantage of the balloons is the distribution of costs over time, carriers and geography. You don't need a single source to finance them and you can put them up piecemeal as you go along.
The satellites cover the whole earth at one go. The ballons will *never* cover the whole earth. This will be very important for some, albeit a minority.
You're right, for VoIP the lag will be, at the very least, annoying. Video conferencing is really VoIP with pictures as far as that goes. The lag in surfing isn't so bad, and in streaming video from a nonlive source is nearly unnoticable. For any download activity, in fact, you only notice it for the first second. That's all.
Of course we're still waiting for real VoIP. I'm not holding my breath either. There are too many vested interests for whom that would be "A Bad Thing (tm)." The *only* advantage for the *user* that VoIP has is the potential savings in cost. If the vested interests can keep the cost high, well, there ya go.
Ashcroft is doing his level best to keep the idea unattractive as well.
KFG
Dozens of ballons, or three satellites
on
Wi-Fi From The Sky
·
· Score: 2
Other than initial outlay, for most purposes, the satellite solution still seems the most viable to me.
Of course lag times are a bitch when you're playing Quake or IL2. This is a real issue to me and others, but totally irrelevant to the average net user.
Maybe 'neutrino radio' zapped directly through the earth?
is now flamebait? Not even a controversial fact at that.
It's standard practice damn near anywhere the dead actually have any money, although the *means* of levying the tax are often disguised ( such as a sales tax of a procedure or piece of 'funerary equipment' with no overt need to exist but required by law).
And what the hell else is an "inheretence tax" but taxing the dead? It comes from the deceased's estate, not from the heir's.
And as I said, it's banned because of it's sexual content.At least that's the overt reason. All you have to do is pick up any American newspaper and read the front page to find out we're not too keen on antiwar sentiment, at least as a nation, either. It's not "patriotic."
We dearly love to wave the flag and "send in the Marines."
KFG
I'm an American, but I've spent some time. . .
on
Taxing Text Messages?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
living in "developing" nations. I've seen this happen. I've come to the conclusion that it might well be better to starve on your own than take the "help" the IMF offers. Of course this is rarely an option because the IMF is usually called in by the 'developed' nations who already have the nation in trouble by the economic balls. The money raised isn't used so much to bail out the local economy as it is to bail out American and European companies invested in the troubled nation. Economic investments in 'infrastructure' are usually even made in such a way as to make sure all the jobs and money go to these Americans and Europeans, rather to local businesses and workers, thus actually depressing the local economy even further.
I think most people in 'developed' nations might not realize one other fact that relates to this specific issue. In rich countries it's the more economically 'endowed' and early adopters who are the most likely to have cell phones. They're a nice little toy.Teenage girls use them to keep track of each other while shopping at the mall for clothes they can't fit into their already overstuffed closets.
In poor countries it's the *poor* who are most likely to have cell phones. Your house may not have electricity. Hell, you may not even have a *house,* but you can at least scrape up enough money to have a phone so if a job offer comes in you can get it, and steal recharges from whatever source you can manage. Rich people have homes and land lines.
The *banks and businesses* are too poor to pay up enough to stay solvent (or are just plain not paying up). The solution is to squeeze pennies from the poor and unemployed.
leopards, but "lion" sure sounds more impressive and is the most generally understood common name. It's also been called the "American Panther" which is, technically, more correct, but then no one knows what the hell you're talking about.
That would explain why I find blank tapes so hard to find and the price to be so high.
No end user demand.
With the microwave thing you're just being doofey though. I've never met *anyone* (including the guy down the street who actually called me up to show him how to use glue and change the string on his weedwhacker)who didn't know how to use one of these, from 2 to over 100 years old. They're the most universally used, and loved, bit of kitchen equipment since, well, sliced bread and the electric toaster.
It is a standard (although deprecated) *nix tool that comes with virtually every Linux distro, similar to DOSes xcopy, except that since *nix treats all data as a stream it makes a bit for bit duplicate of the source. In the case of a DVD this means that the resulting disk is an *exact* duplicate of the original. It violates no trademark or patent law ( these only apply if you *distribute* the disk or a playback device, and as you say, violation in regards to the disk itself only effects your right to call it a DVD(tm)).
This isn't a cracking tool. *It leaves the CSS intact.* It's a *duplication* tool. The copy cannot be played on any device that could not play the source disk. It complies in every respect with the standard. Thus it's a perfectly valid copy tool that does not even violate the DMCA, since no attempt has even been made to circuvent the copy protection.
The very idea that someone might simply copy the copy protection appears to have been an idea totally foreign to the mindset of the media types who believe that anyone who copies anything for any reason is a "pirate" raping and pillage them and their families.
All *I* want is a backup disk as legally provided for in fair use law. An *exact* duplicate gives this backup disk while violating *no* law. As I said, not even the DMCA.
KFG
KFG
Oh damn, for a minute I thought . . .
on
Multi-User Subversion
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Slashdot Mirror
rather above the usual sophistication. Perhaps not quite art, but definately at least craft.
Now I'll take it more seriously anyway.
The business model isn't the only one by which one can measure "success" or "failure."
Clearly the measure of "success" for an open source program is whether or not *I* find it successful. This is the reason that all Linux needs to "succeed" is for one geek sitting in a basement somewhere at three in the morning going, "Oh, wow man."
The rest is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.
KFG
of a "click through" EULA.Simply becoming aware of the existence of the contract brings it into full force. A full audit is performed at the end of the contract period to determine compliance.
Holy Lawyer may well, in a humorous fashion, be considered an oxymoron. In reality such things exist. Who do you think prosocuted the accused during the inquisition? The more socially acceptable "Unholy" lawyer is a real entity as well. The term "Devil's Advocate" is no metaphorical construct as most people seem to believe. This is the official term applied to the
"defense counsul" of the church accused.
KFG
that they have no protection. The fact of the matter is their *right* to protection is defined by *law.* In fact, the very right to have anything to protect at *all* is so defined.
Without such definitions they have * no rights.*
IP is a purely manmade construct. Different nations and cultures have different ideas on the extent to which they will assert and defend such "rights."
If you wish to do business internationally, get used to it.
You might well even have to get used to the idea that certain cultures and legal systems do not accept the so called "right" to IP.
It's incredibly arrogant to take your business model formed to comply with and take advantage of one nation's set of laws and demand that other nations mold their laws to comply with your business model.
If you find this arrangement unacceptable why not get into a business where you *make stuff?* It works for others.
KFG
step one.
KFG
have a clue. Stay away from marketing classes. Most of them will do everything in their power to beat it out of you.
KFG
Abbey Road backwards.
KFG
One may well advertise and sell less and less product the *more* one advertises.
Yes, there is some as-yet-unidentified to you phenomenom which effects both why companies advertise and why people do/do not buy such advertised products.
Believing that advertising *causes* sales is, in fact, the *cause* of many company failures.
Hell, most companies don't even understand the critical distinction between advertising and promotion and where they sit relative to each other in an overall marketing scheme.
Study the classic relational case of the corelated mosquito and sporozoan *cause* of malaria.
And ask yourself this, why have *I* not bought one of these things, even though I've received the advertisting and for several years was a full time professional R/C car racer/shop owner who right now sits within easy reach of thousands of dollars of treasured R/C car equipment and have for decades wished there was a viable means of racing R/C cars in a tabletop setting, if advertising "causes" sales.
Pay particular attention to the resistent case. It often points to true causes much more reliably than corelation does. In science this is almost always where the Nobel Prizes are hiding.
Also note that psycologically believing one can "cause" other people to behave in particular ways is an aberation that can lead to dysfunctional behaviours. Companies that believe advertising "causes" sales often exhibit such dysfunctional behaviours in their relationships with their customers.
Examine the concepts "incite," "induce," and "sympathetic magic."
It wouldnt' hurt to read "Ogilvy on Advertising" either.
KFG
is not causation.
Say it.
Rinse and repeat.
KFG
for men who are too embaressed to buy Playboy. I'm not making this up. It's their overt raison d'etre. The whole magazine reeks of it too.
Stand up and be a man, and what's more, a *geek.*
Playboy really is the geek's magazine for nudity *and* content.
Asimov, Bradbury ( the space elevator appeared in Playboy before anywhere else. If you weren't reading Playboy you were behind the tech curve), Ellison and many other geek favorites were in the habit of publishing first in Playboy. Gahan Wilson and Shel Silverstien also called Playboy home. The "Playboy lifestyle" was always heavily geek oriented with the latest and greatest of tech, both mechanical and electronic.
A good review in Playboy has always been a highly desirable commodity in the electronics world. The idea that Sharp would link to one is hardly surprising or amusing.
And it doesn't hurt that they present naked women as objects of art and beauty without treating you, or *them*, as being some sort of perv. We were all born naked, and frankly, it's this neurotic focus on clothing and the denial of sexuality that's the perversion.
Magazines like Maxim are obsence they way they actually pander to this neurosis.
KFG
I'm not a crook or a terrorist for God's sake. I'm in *training.* Coke is talking contract and they're considering me for a color commentator position with "Monday Night Crack."
Oh stop crying Ma. That does *not* mean I'm a junkie.
Jesus I've gotta move out of the basement and find my own place.
KFG
ate. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows.
Arrragh!
Linux can be damn near all things to all men. In some ways this seems to mean that everyone finds one thing about Linux they *don't* like and bitch about it, while ignoring everything about it they might well find they love.
Certainly, in this particular case, John is having to ignore virtually all of Linux to say what he's said here.
Hey John, KDE and Gnome aren't Linux. They're the most Windows like of Linux GUI's because they are the only one's that overtly set out to be so. Of course that means they get the most attention because *that's what most people want.* Duh!
Why not go out and try all the other available interfaces? But If you bitch, *even once*, about some other GUI not doing something the way Windows does while you're doing it you'll deserve a bitch slapping.
How's this for innovation John? No windows at all and a dozens of small "tools," rather than large "apps," that allow you to use them in various combinations that the makers couldn't even imagine, polished to perfection by three generations of geeks until they shine like pearls in the cyber sunlight?
I might also point out that "Linux" doesn't do anything. Literally. It just sits there. The *users* of Linux do things. Since it isn't a propriatary product it has no existence outside what people *do* with it.
One of the things that Linux users do is dick around with interfaces. In fact, Linux is probably the most used OS for such activities because of its price, availability and license, but primarily because of the inate flexibility of the OS. Some of this "dicking around" is going on with academic enviroments to which everyone is not privy.
But most of all John, 5 months, or a year from now, when you write a column on how Linux isn't being picked up because it's too arcane and unlike Windows, I'm going to remember.
For God's sake, pick a position or talk about something else.
KFG
Neither did Harrison Ford ever make a car.
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/
http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/dvorak.html
KFG
Just slowing them down will make the whole affair less attractive. Not eliminate it, but at least eliminate a good deal of it.
.
You think the second will annoy you. My guess is that, unless you are using mail as some sort of IM device, after the first few times you won't notice *10* seconds.
Delay a spammer's mail 10 seconds *per item* and you bring him to his knees.
Of course the spammers are going after IM now. .
KFG
But I'll note that the interview in question was with the person with a vested interest in this technology. There was no "counterpoint" from the other side. I also note he didn't say it only took one person to bring it down, make repairs or changes, and send it back up again. He said it only took one person to "handle it on the ground." Quite a different statement. It only requires one *ground crew,* not one *person* in the facility. Count on half a dozen at least in real life. The communictions package is *2000 Kg. worth of gear.* One guy isn't going to handle that, nor is the ground crew going to be the technical staff that maintains it. If nothing else someone is going to have to clean the toilet and shovel the walk. The balloon guy isn't going to do everything.
I'm not against this idea at all. I love airships and balloons. In fact, I'm the guy that submited the last Slashdot story on Zeppelins and can't wait to see them cruising the skys again, or get a chance to ride in one.
I simply believe that the whole endeavor is going to be far more problematic, and expensive, than this guy making publicity forcasts about his own comapany is projecting.
I'll also, in journalistic fairness, state that my own bias is that on land I'm perfectly happy with the wired system I already have and from wireless I'm more interested in having coverage *outside* the scope of these balloons.
Like the middle of the Atlantic.
KFG
Until you have to replace it of course. The ballons are going to be relatively expensive to maintain in manpower. The chief advantage of the balloons is the distribution of costs over time, carriers and geography. You don't need a single source to finance them and you can put them up piecemeal as you go along.
The satellites cover the whole earth at one go. The ballons will *never* cover the whole earth. This will be very important for some, albeit a minority.
You're right, for VoIP the lag will be, at the very least, annoying. Video conferencing is really VoIP with pictures as far as that goes. The lag in surfing isn't so bad, and in streaming video from a nonlive source is nearly unnoticable. For any download activity, in fact, you only notice it for the first second. That's all.
Of course we're still waiting for real VoIP. I'm not holding my breath either. There are too many vested interests for whom that would be "A Bad Thing (tm)." The *only* advantage for the *user* that VoIP has is the potential savings in cost. If the vested interests can keep the cost high, well, there ya go.
Ashcroft is doing his level best to keep the idea unattractive as well.
KFG
Other than initial outlay, for most purposes, the satellite solution still seems the most viable to me.
Of course lag times are a bitch when you're playing Quake or IL2. This is a real issue to me and others, but totally irrelevant to the average net user.
Maybe 'neutrino radio' zapped directly through the earth?
KFG
is now flamebait? Not even a controversial fact at that.
It's standard practice damn near anywhere the dead actually have any money, although the *means* of levying the tax are often disguised ( such as a sales tax of a procedure or piece of 'funerary equipment' with no overt need to exist but required by law).
And what the hell else is an "inheretence tax" but taxing the dead? It comes from the deceased's estate, not from the heir's.
KFG
And as I said, it's banned because of it's sexual content.At least that's the overt reason. All you have to do is pick up any American newspaper and read the front page to find out we're not too keen on antiwar sentiment, at least as a nation, either. It's not "patriotic."
We dearly love to wave the flag and "send in the Marines."
KFG
living in "developing" nations. I've seen this happen. I've come to the conclusion that it might well be better to starve on your own than take the "help" the IMF offers. Of course this is rarely an option because the IMF is usually called in by the 'developed' nations who already have the nation in trouble by the economic balls. The money raised isn't used so much to bail out the local economy as it is to bail out American and European companies invested in the troubled nation. Economic investments in 'infrastructure' are usually even made in such a way as to make sure all the jobs and money go to these Americans and Europeans, rather to local businesses and workers, thus actually depressing the local economy even further.
I think most people in 'developed' nations might not realize one other fact that relates to this specific issue. In rich countries it's the more economically 'endowed' and early adopters who are the most likely to have cell phones. They're a nice little toy.Teenage girls use them to keep track of each other while shopping at the mall for clothes they can't fit into their already overstuffed closets.
In poor countries it's the *poor* who are most likely to have cell phones. Your house may not have electricity. Hell, you may not even have a *house,* but you can at least scrape up enough money to have a phone so if a job offer comes in you can get it, and steal recharges from whatever source you can manage. Rich people have homes and land lines.
The *banks and businesses* are too poor to pay up enough to stay solvent (or are just plain not paying up). The solution is to squeeze pennies from the poor and unemployed.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm, right.
KFG
leopards, but "lion" sure sounds more impressive and is the most generally understood common name. It's also been called the "American Panther" which is, technically, more correct, but then no one knows what the hell you're talking about.
KFG
I had to switch to IE to see what the hell the parent post was talking about.
In Konquerer with Java disabled the demonstration of the abuse never occured and just left me staring in puzzlement at the page.
KFG
That would explain why I find blank tapes so hard to find and the price to be so high.
No end user demand.
With the microwave thing you're just being doofey though. I've never met *anyone* (including the guy down the street who actually called me up to show him how to use glue and change the string on his weedwhacker)who didn't know how to use one of these, from 2 to over 100 years old. They're the most universally used, and loved, bit of kitchen equipment since, well, sliced bread and the electric toaster.
KFG
It is a standard (although deprecated) *nix tool that comes with virtually every Linux distro, similar to DOSes xcopy, except that since *nix treats all data as a stream it makes a bit for bit duplicate of the source. In the case of a DVD this means that the resulting disk is an *exact* duplicate of the original. It violates no trademark or patent law ( these only apply if you *distribute* the disk or a playback device, and as you say, violation in regards to the disk itself only effects your right to call it a DVD(tm)).
This isn't a cracking tool. *It leaves the CSS intact.* It's a *duplication* tool. The copy cannot be played on any device that could not play the source disk. It complies in every respect with the standard. Thus it's a perfectly valid copy tool that does not even violate the DMCA, since no attempt has even been made to circuvent the copy protection.
The very idea that someone might simply copy the copy protection appears to have been an idea totally foreign to the mindset of the media types who believe that anyone who copies anything for any reason is a "pirate" raping and pillage them and their families.
All *I* want is a backup disk as legally provided for in fair use law. An *exact* duplicate gives this backup disk while violating *no* law. As I said, not even the DMCA.
KFG
KFG
this had something to do with CPU Wars.
KFG
I've already been modded down for responding to a modded down offtopic post.
Go figure.
KFG