This is exactly why they don't want to release code if possible. They don't want to have some fucktard ruin their own firmware and try to get linksys to reflash it for free under warranty.
If it is reflashable then Mr. Fucktard can reflash it him/herself. No need to involve Linksys in that transaction.
Reminds me of the AOL for broadband commercial "Blocks unwanted spam"
AOL is a firm believer in "wanted spam." Popups as well. They are very big on advertising. They spam their customers. Hooray! $25/month for a dialup connection to a network seperate from the internet (though with a gateway) and a mailbox full of spam from the ISP and anyone else who feels like it as well. Good idea. Better idea? Pay $50/mnth to AOL (Oh I am sorry, Time Warner) then an additional $25 a month to AOL to get a broadband connection with "software that helps protect you" and much much of that spam you wanted (after all, you did pay the $25 for extra spam....).
Of course he'll get a new job, probably a better paying one. @Stake, on the other hand... None of you will ever buy from them after this, right? They let their greed get in the way of their objectivity. Those insecurities earn them money, that's why they don't support his opinions. You can't trust companies like that to give you good security advice.
If we followed slashdot's advice, we would never buy anything or even view ads for stuff. But even slashdot bombards us, not just with ads, but with stories that tell us to go buy stuff. They scream about the RIAA, but then there's a new CD out. DVDs are illegal to view under LInux thanks to the MPAA, but by the way LOTR is coming out in a new version on DVD. Oh the dilemmas of the modern man!:P
Maybe so with software, but you do see 'wares' on a regular basis. Go to a flea market, and people don't sell their ware. They sell their wares. Be they kitchen wares, textile wares, automotive wares.... Software is the word that doesn't follow the pattern.
Maybe the people who say "war-ez" go to Juarez for their warez.:)
This version has some comments by Bruce Schneier supporting Greer. One has to wonder if Microsoft did not threaten a BSA audit or some such thing. Honestly, the probelm with Microsoft is that too many people use their products and actually seem to think there is a legitemate purpose for them beyond using the cds as coasters. These people refuse to allow even the slightest criticism of Microsoft and look at it as wild-eyed hatred.
But there are legitemate reasons to oppose what Microsoft is doing and their products, quite frankly, are a major cause of the problems we have today in the technology industry. The report in question does not in fact go far enough at all.
Of course, everyone on this whole thread missed the point that low batteries is only ONE cause of these things flipping over. Turning or accelerating suddenly can make it happen to.
No, what you missed was that turning or accellerating suddenly when the battery was low was likely to cause the segway to tip over.
Of course, everyone on this whole thread missed the point that low batteries is only ONE cause of these things flipping over. Turning or accelerating suddenly can make it happen to.
when the battery was low was likely to cause the segway to tip over.
I truly hope that it wasnt a downright battle of friggin' wits.
I do not think that word means what you think it means. You know, I really think it is sad that so many slashdotters use reference.com as a dictionary when a real dictionary is available. Reference.com has never produced a decent definition of a word as far as I can tell, and seems to have less authority than any other random wiki.
Merriam Webster has the following for "frigging":
Main Entry: frig Pronunciation: 'frig Function: intransitive verb Inflected Form(s): frigged; frigging Etymology: Middle English fryggen to wriggle Date: 1598 usually vulgar : COPULATE -- sometimes used in the present participle as a meaningless intensive
In other words, it is a less vulgar form of "fucking" and is used in all the same senses of that word, though I would personally say it is rarely used in the literal sense. (Such as "Tom fucked Shirley." You never hear "Tom frigged Shirley." ) Masturbation? Whatever.
You are, of course, correct-- but I think the issue here is graceful failure. Its one thing if my car stops moving when it runs out of gas. Its another thing if my car flips over on its roof and bursts into flames when it runs out of gas.
The problem here is the way batteries work. An internal combustion engine, as you rightly point out, immediately stops if there is no more fuel. But on a battery you gradually lose charge and this of course leads to the situation described in the article, where you have enough juice to limp along but not enough to work as well. All battery operated devices work this way because taht is how batteries work.
"some Segway HTs may not deliver enough power, allowing the rider to fall. This can happen if the rider speeds up abruptly, encounters an obstacle, or continues to ride after receiving a low-battery alert."
or if the rider is fresh from a tennis match with Poppy, rushing to an appointment to bomb some unsuspecting nation back to the stone age.
Maybe this is why the segway s being recalled?
Anyway this is just one more example of the stupification of America. So if a person has a chance of being hurt if they operate a vehicle outside of the manufacturer's specifications, ignoring the manual and all visible warnings, ths is cause for a recall?
Great, maybe I should just start backing into people with a Winstar equipped with rear sensors and then sue Ford.
err WTF ?!?! "The new world order is one in which corporations enforce their own censorship, violate rights, and pass their own laws without any pesky constitution or democratic process to get in their way.
It is a FREE service they have been providing, no laws involved, no right to chat that I know of, and last time I checked they did not need constitutional or congressional approval to alter the terms of a service you offer for NO COST.
I personally won't use it, won't allow it on my network, and block it at the firewall, but it is M$'s business to do with as they see fit...Not some god given right ensured by our forefathers...
And I bet you thought you were being insightful saying a thing like that. You are simply proving my point. Corporations get carte blanche. "After all, it is their service."
Well what happens when all the corporations decide to do the same thing and there are no alternatives? That's right, people get screwed. Microsoft has decided to curtail free speech with the claim that "it's just business." But everything on the net is "just business."
Basically what you are saying is that corporations can do whatever they want. That is exactly my point.
Teenage girls have been raped for centuries. It doesn't suddenly become worse because they meet their rapist over the Internet. The real focus here is on pre-teens -- remember that pedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescents.
Or to put it another way, if there's grass on the field, go ahead and play:-)
Interestingly enough, I recently saw the 1969 Dragnet movie on AMC. The featured criminal was a photographer who picked up models and then tied them up, took pictures of them, raped them, and killed them. One of the more interesting aspects of this tale (which was, as all Dragnet tales were, a dramatization of s true story) was the fact the killer used pen pal letters and personal ads to attract victims.
People have been using remote means to meet mates for millenia. As for the teenage girls thing, well, you have to understand that the currently accepted ages of consent are very recent as are the idea of consent itself. Remotely arranged marriages involving very young girls have been the rule of the day in many societies.
Of course that all clouds the issue. The fact is that even in societies/situations where marriage was consensual for both parties, it has been a common practice to get to know people remotely in order to ultimately form these unions, and it has been the case that evildoers have taken undue advatage of the situation. The internet is just a new and faster way to do it, and actually is much safer than letters in that you can do a lot more checking with the internet. For instance, you can get streaming video of a person, which makes it less likely they are sending fake pictures. You can check their statements to see if they are lying. You can check people's criminal record. All of this is possible through the internet and less so using older means
"If Microsoft discovers its services are being abused and finds that it can at least control or stop that abuse from continuing, don't you think they'd want to try it? And yes, I fully realise that this argument can easily be transmuted against Linux users or anyone else MS doesn't like. But in this case, again, I have to ask: what would you do?"
Does it really make sense to make a public service a payed service in the US, and to take it down completely in other parts of the world? What about the people using this service in those 28 countries, are they all spammers and porn-mongers?
The article hints at something interesting:
"It's a signal that some of the joyful early days of the Internet have moved on a bit. Chat was one of those things that was a bit hippyish. It was free and open. But a small minority have changed that for everyone. It's very sad," Sutton said.
It is really an interesting question on how far you're willing to go taking away freedoms/openness from your customers because a small minority does something illegal/unwanted with it. Sutton is playing the 9/11 card very cheaply, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. Are you really buying into this?
Honestly, this is just a sign of things to come, and fits right into Microsoft's business model, worldview, and plan for the world. The new world order is one in which corporations enforce their own censorship, violate rights, and pass their own laws without any pesky constitution or democratic process to get in their way. Bill Gates bought into the cyberpunk future and made sure he was at the helm of the most powerful corporation in the world therefore.
Now Microsoft is in a position where no government in the world dares to challenge their authority. Even Bush, who is ready to fight the whole world and cares not one whit for international laws or what Europe has to say is afraid to do anything about Microsoft.
The only hope is to undermine them through the very capitalist process itself. But even then we have not resolved the issue that governments have ceased to govern and protect the rights of their citizens, that civil law has replaced criminal law, and that multinational corporations are indeed the new government, beholden to no one, and ready to stand as our new masters.
If we were successful, however, then the greedy whores would probably just sick thier puppet governments on us to eliminate the threat. ( Ohh, they've got butter knives! WMD! WMD! )
When you consider that in the past software, particularly encryption software, was considered WMD by the US and even now such dangerous machines as the G3+ and P3+ processors and PS2s are controlled exports on similar grounds, you are not far off. "Oh look, they have PS2s and Macintoshes with OpenSSH installed! WMD! WMD! Let's liberate 'em and have Hilary Rosen write their constitution!":P
Check out www.tomax.com (i know a few people who work there) with a browser without flash. Completely and totally useless.
I think it's things like this that turn off people to flash. I refuse to install the plugin for Mozilla, as a site as bad as this one (without a non-Flash option) doesn't deserve my traffic.
At least some sites offer a more vanilla version of their site.
Yes, this is what the other poster was getting at, and the problem is you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater here just as s/he was saying. After all, there are legitemate uses for flash... nitrozac and homestarrunner cartoons, for example. And pr0n.
I am in fact soon to start work on an animated online series for which I could not come up with a better technology than flash. After all, it allows one to have animation, sound, music, and hyperlinks. I was pretty bummed when I found out Macromedia wanted like $800-$1000 for the tools to make flash cartoons, as I was not sure I would even be able to use them effectively. But I am hoping StarOffice will be enough for this purpose for the $80 it cost.
What's the use of broadband when it has just 64k of RAM? It'll download all it can store in memory in just over a second even using a dial-up connection.. and if the connection is for a lot of small packets, I don't think broadband connections particularly help latency in the case of small packets.
The use is being able to connect your C64 to the internet without buying a dialup connection. It's one thing to still be running a C64. It is absolute madness to pay $23.95 a month for a dialup internet connection just for your C64 when you already have broadband at a cheaper price than that.
Ok, now that makes more sense. But aren't we all supposed to hate flash? I mean that's what the Slashdot Collective keeps telling my coritical implant...
This is because Mozilla comes with no plugins and slashdotters cannot handle a simple plugin install.
Am I missing something or Shockwave has been ported to other OS-s(besides Win) since the last time I checked??? I agree that.swf may be *EVENTUALLY* cross-platform with the appropriate plug-ins, but Shockwave, wtF??
Yes you have been missing something. Here you go. Man I could not deal with Linux if I could not get my swf pr0n and homestarrunner!:)
I am suprised that Sun's Star Office recieves so much attention from slashdot and the open sauce community.
Ability Office offers similar functionality in most cases, it can export to PDF, open all MS Office file types and doesn't use a ugly as hell windowing toolkit.
It can even be run on linux. Star Office is not very similar to Open Office at all, sun kept the best parts to themselves (database app) so why are they seen to be *cooler* to open source zealots then other perfectly good office sweets?
Also its cheaper than StarOffice, Ability only costs 69.95
Firstly, Star Office is built on the same base as OpenOffice.org and they do share code. But you are right about proprietary bits. Still this makes Star Office appealing to Open Source Advocates (though it may rankle some in Free Software).
Secondly, the simple fact you can make Flash presentations with this is one reason I am about to shell out $80 for it. I had been thinking of doing some Flash, but Macromedia wants something like $1000 just to do it and I would have to run Windows. This is $80 to do flash on Linux, plus have a nice office suite. That is a very good value to me.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly why they don't want to release code if possible. They don't want to have some fucktard ruin their own firmware and try to get linksys to reflash it for free under warranty.
If it is reflashable then Mr. Fucktard can reflash it him/herself. No need to involve Linksys in that transaction.
Reminds me of the AOL for broadband commercial "Blocks unwanted spam"
AOL is a firm believer in "wanted spam." Popups as well. They are very big on advertising. They spam their customers. Hooray! $25/month for a dialup connection to a network seperate from the internet (though with a gateway) and a mailbox full of spam from the ISP and anyone else who feels like it as well. Good idea. Better idea? Pay $50/mnth to AOL (Oh I am sorry, Time Warner) then an additional $25 a month to AOL to get a broadband connection with "software that helps protect you" and much much of that spam you wanted (after all, you did pay the $25 for extra spam....).
No, AOL is not for idiots. Not at all... :P :)
can I harvest his email address from the article?
If you can read it. The link above did not work for me. This one may be better.
You mean this one? :P
Of course he'll get a new job, probably a better paying one. @Stake, on the other hand... None of you will ever buy from them after this, right? They let their greed get in the way of their objectivity. Those insecurities earn them money, that's why they don't support his opinions. You can't trust companies like that to give you good security advice.
If we followed slashdot's advice, we would never buy anything or even view ads for stuff. But even slashdot bombards us, not just with ads, but with stories that tell us to go buy stuff. They scream about the RIAA, but then there's a new CD out. DVDs are illegal to view under LInux thanks to the MPAA, but by the way LOTR is coming out in a new version on DVD. Oh the dilemmas of the modern man! :P
Maybe so with software, but you do see 'wares' on a regular basis. Go to a flea market, and people don't sell their ware. They sell their wares. Be they kitchen wares, textile wares, automotive wares....
Software is the word that doesn't follow the pattern.
Maybe the people who say "war-ez" go to Juarez for their warez. :)
This version has some comments by Bruce Schneier supporting Greer. One has to wonder if Microsoft did not threaten a BSA audit or some such thing. Honestly, the probelm with Microsoft is that too many people use their products and actually seem to think there is a legitemate purpose for them beyond using the cds as coasters. These people refuse to allow even the slightest criticism of Microsoft and look at it as wild-eyed hatred.
But there are legitemate reasons to oppose what Microsoft is doing and their products, quite frankly, are a major cause of the problems we have today in the technology industry. The report in question does not in fact go far enough at all.
Of course, everyone on this whole thread missed the point that low batteries is only ONE cause of these things flipping over. Turning or accelerating suddenly can make it happen to.
No, what you missed was that turning or accellerating suddenly when the battery was low was likely to cause the segway to tip over.
Goodbye karma.. hello preview button... :P
Of course, everyone on this whole thread missed the point that low batteries is only ONE cause of these things flipping over. Turning or accelerating suddenly can make it happen to.
when the battery was low was likely to cause the segway to tip over.
I'm sure Pistons enjoyed it too. What an unusual name, is he your friend or your dog?
He's the guy recording the act for posterity in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :P
Please see the definition of friggin' (frigging).
I truly hope that it wasnt a downright battle of friggin' wits.
I do not think that word means what you think it means. You know, I really think it is sad that so many slashdotters use reference.com as a dictionary when a real dictionary is available. Reference.com has never produced a decent definition of a word as far as I can tell, and seems to have less authority than any other random wiki.
Merriam Webster has the following for "frigging":
Main Entry: frig
Pronunciation: 'frig
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): frigged; frigging
Etymology: Middle English fryggen to wriggle
Date: 1598
usually vulgar : COPULATE -- sometimes used in the present participle as a meaningless intensive
In other words, it is a less vulgar form of "fucking" and is used in all the same senses of that word, though I would personally say it is rarely used in the literal sense. (Such as "Tom fucked Shirley." You never hear "Tom frigged Shirley." ) Masturbation? Whatever.
You are, of course, correct-- but I think the issue here is graceful failure. Its one thing if my car stops moving when it runs out of gas. Its another thing if my car flips over on its roof and bursts into flames when it runs out of gas.
The problem here is the way batteries work. An internal combustion engine, as you rightly point out, immediately stops if there is no more fuel. But on a battery you gradually lose charge and this of course leads to the situation described in the article, where you have enough juice to limp along but not enough to work as well. All battery operated devices work this way because taht is how batteries work.
Getting elected to the presidency does not give him immunity to questions, criticisms, or even mockery from his constituents.
But what does he win if he gets appointed to the presidency instead?
"some Segway HTs may not deliver enough power, allowing the rider to fall. This can happen if the rider speeds up abruptly, encounters an obstacle, or continues to ride after receiving a low-battery alert."
or if the rider is fresh from a tennis match with Poppy, rushing to an appointment to bomb some unsuspecting nation back to the stone age.
Maybe this is why the segway s being recalled?
Anyway this is just one more example of the stupification of America. So if a person has a chance of being hurt if they operate a vehicle outside of the manufacturer's specifications, ignoring the manual and all visible warnings, ths is cause for a recall?
Great, maybe I should just start backing into people with a Winstar equipped with rear sensors and then sue Ford.
err WTF ?!?! "The new world order is one in which corporations enforce their own censorship, violate rights, and pass their own laws without any pesky constitution or democratic process to get in their way.
It is a FREE service they have been providing, no laws involved, no right to chat that I know of, and last time I checked they did not need constitutional or congressional approval to alter the terms of a service you offer for NO COST.
I personally won't use it, won't allow it on my network, and block it at the firewall, but it is M$'s business to do with as they see fit...Not some god given right ensured by our forefathers...
And I bet you thought you were being insightful saying a thing like that. You are simply proving my point. Corporations get carte blanche. "After all, it is their service."
Well what happens when all the corporations decide to do the same thing and there are no alternatives? That's right, people get screwed. Microsoft has decided to curtail free speech with the claim that "it's just business." But everything on the net is "just business."
Basically what you are saying is that corporations can do whatever they want. That is exactly my point.
Teenage girls have been raped for centuries. It doesn't suddenly become worse because they meet their rapist over the Internet. The real focus here is on pre-teens -- remember that pedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescents.
Or to put it another way, if there's grass on the field, go ahead and play :-)
Interestingly enough, I recently saw the 1969 Dragnet movie on AMC. The featured criminal was a photographer who picked up models and then tied them up, took pictures of them, raped them, and killed them. One of the more interesting aspects of this tale (which was, as all Dragnet tales were, a dramatization of s true story) was the fact the killer used pen pal letters and personal ads to attract victims.
People have been using remote means to meet mates for millenia. As for the teenage girls thing, well, you have to understand that the currently accepted ages of consent are very recent as are the idea of consent itself. Remotely arranged marriages involving very young girls have been the rule of the day in many societies.
Of course that all clouds the issue. The fact is that even in societies/situations where marriage was consensual for both parties, it has been a common practice to get to know people remotely in order to ultimately form these unions, and it has been the case that evildoers have taken undue advatage of the situation. The internet is just a new and faster way to do it, and actually is much safer than letters in that you can do a lot more checking with the internet. For instance, you can get streaming video of a person, which makes it less likely they are sending fake pictures. You can check their statements to see if they are lying. You can check people's criminal record. All of this is possible through the internet and less so using older means
"If Microsoft discovers its services are being abused and finds that it can at least control or stop that abuse from continuing, don't you think they'd want to try it? And yes, I fully realise that this argument can easily be transmuted against Linux users or anyone else MS doesn't like. But in this case, again, I have to ask: what would you do?"
Does it really make sense to make a public service a payed service in the US, and to take it down completely in other parts of the world? What about the people using this service in those 28 countries, are they all spammers and porn-mongers?
The article hints at something interesting:
"It's a signal that some of the joyful early days of the Internet have moved on a bit. Chat was one of those things that was a bit hippyish. It was free and open. But a small minority have changed that for everyone. It's very sad," Sutton said.
It is really an interesting question on how far you're willing to go taking away freedoms/openness from your customers because a small minority does something illegal/unwanted with it. Sutton is playing the 9/11 card very cheaply, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read this. Are you really buying into this?
Honestly, this is just a sign of things to come, and fits right into Microsoft's business model, worldview, and plan for the world. The new world order is one in which corporations enforce their own censorship, violate rights, and pass their own laws without any pesky constitution or democratic process to get in their way. Bill Gates bought into the cyberpunk future and made sure he was at the helm of the most powerful corporation in the world therefore.
Now Microsoft is in a position where no government in the world dares to challenge their authority. Even Bush, who is ready to fight the whole world and cares not one whit for international laws or what Europe has to say is afraid to do anything about Microsoft.
The only hope is to undermine them through the very capitalist process itself. But even then we have not resolved the issue that governments have ceased to govern and protect the rights of their citizens, that civil law has replaced criminal law, and that multinational corporations are indeed the new government, beholden to no one, and ready to stand as our new masters.
I'm your chef!!
But who will be the telephone sanitizer?
If we were successful, however, then the greedy whores would probably just sick thier puppet governments on us to eliminate the threat. ( Ohh, they've got butter knives! WMD! WMD! )
When you consider that in the past software, particularly encryption software, was considered WMD by the US and even now such dangerous machines as the G3+ and P3+ processors and PS2s are controlled exports on similar grounds, you are not far off. "Oh look, they have PS2s and Macintoshes with OpenSSH installed! WMD! WMD! Let's liberate 'em and have Hilary Rosen write their constitution!" :P
Check out www.tomax.com (i know a few people who work there) with a browser without flash. Completely and totally useless.
I think it's things like this that turn off people to flash. I refuse to install the plugin for Mozilla, as a site as bad as this one (without a non-Flash option) doesn't deserve my traffic.
At least some sites offer a more vanilla version of their site.
Yes, this is what the other poster was getting at, and the problem is you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater here just as s/he was saying. After all, there are legitemate uses for flash... nitrozac and homestarrunner cartoons, for example. And pr0n.
I am in fact soon to start work on an animated online series for which I could not come up with a better technology than flash. After all, it allows one to have animation, sound, music, and hyperlinks. I was pretty bummed when I found out Macromedia wanted like $800-$1000 for the tools to make flash cartoons, as I was not sure I would even be able to use them effectively. But I am hoping StarOffice will be enough for this purpose for the $80 it cost.
What's the use of broadband when it has just 64k of RAM? It'll download all it can store in memory in just over a second even using a dial-up connection.. and if the connection is for a lot of small packets, I don't think broadband connections particularly help latency in the case of small packets.
The use is being able to connect your C64 to the internet without buying a dialup connection. It's one thing to still be running a C64. It is absolute madness to pay $23.95 a month for a dialup internet connection just for your C64 when you already have broadband at a cheaper price than that.
This link seems to work.
Ok, now that makes more sense. But aren't we all supposed to hate flash? I mean that's what the Slashdot Collective keeps telling my coritical implant...
This is because Mozilla comes with no plugins and slashdotters cannot handle a simple plugin install.
Am I missing something or Shockwave has been ported to other OS-s(besides Win) since the last time I checked??? I agree that .swf may be *EVENTUALLY* cross-platform with the appropriate plug-ins, but Shockwave, wtF??
Yes you have been missing something. Here you go. Man I could not deal with Linux if I could not get my swf pr0n and homestarrunner! :)
I am suprised that Sun's Star Office recieves so much attention from slashdot and the open sauce community.
Ability Office offers similar functionality in most cases, it can export to PDF, open all MS Office file types and doesn't use a ugly as hell windowing toolkit.
It can even be run on linux. Star Office is not very similar to Open Office at all, sun kept the best parts to themselves (database app) so why are they seen to be *cooler* to open source zealots then other perfectly good office sweets?
Also its cheaper than StarOffice, Ability only costs 69.95
Firstly, Star Office is built on the same base as OpenOffice.org and they do share code. But you are right about proprietary bits. Still this makes Star Office appealing to Open Source Advocates (though it may rankle some in Free Software).
Secondly, the simple fact you can make Flash presentations with this is one reason I am about to shell out $80 for it. I had been thinking of doing some Flash, but Macromedia wants something like $1000 just to do it and I would have to run Windows. This is $80 to do flash on Linux, plus have a nice office suite. That is a very good value to me.