what was going through his head was that he had to get signed forms from the DC office every time he wanted to plug in a computer (ok, reasonable) or printer (I guess you could... print stuff out? Instead of, y'know, copying it to a USB drive). Put enough of these silly barriers in any geek's way, and s/he'll find a way around 'em.
Y'know, with all of these horrid policies of net neutrality, legally-backed DRM on everything, and so on; we should make two "rooms" somewhere close enough to DC to bring policymakers to. In one room, you get access to a peer-supported free-for-all system, with (realistic) economic forecasts of how a free-media culture supports its artists, citing real world examples. In the other room, you get the DRM'ed, Net-traffic-law world, which resembles AOL, where you have to constantly pay for every piddly service, and all the media is essentially content-less, as it's entirely corporate, without any resampling, covers of classic songs, usage of old film clips, etc. All with another ecomomic forecast that reveals the reality of this world - oligopoly and monopoly-like businesses able to extract a huge percentage of consumer surplus, with actual lower payments to artists than the "free" model, and encouraging an increasingly unequal society.
We'd have to set up a list of tasks to do in each. e.g.
- you got called in to the office to do sign some papers, and will miss The Big Game. Can you - watch it over the Internet? record it at home for later? If possible, for how much? - you heard a song on the radio that you liked, but didn't catch the artist's name. You called in to the radio station, but couldn't get ahold of anyone who could help. You remember some distinctive lyrics; can you "google" it? -You bought a DVD movie. Your DVD player seems to be broken, can you watch it on your computer?
I agree -- how, exactly, is MS planning to shut windows down? This seems unlikely, and a case for a massive class-action lawsuit of a humongous backdoor programmed into Windows, that somehow hasn't been exploited as yet? I'm dubious.
What may be the case is that M$ requires WGA to download even critical patches, which will not exactly improve the security ratings of Windows, as half of all windows computers suddenly stop getting security updates.
Our....metal phones. Because, y'know, there's a lot of metal in that little plastic thing, and I don't carry around coins, keys, or a pocketknife, wear metal-rimmed glasses or use headphones already because of lightning strike possibilities.
Why does it need to be pulled from shelves? Just make a "do not sell to minors" label on it and if they sell to a minor then they get fined/jail
Exactly. We have quite enough precident for this with, oh, I don't know, things like liquor, tobacco, porno mags, and movies. Make the (already existing) ESRB ratings carry a legal punch preventing their sale to minors.
Well, the upper/lower case of the file (lower case letters are 0, upper are 1) also match an internal checksum that a shell script grepping over out entire filesystem checks against various magic numbers using a crontab that's set to run every third minute (the HD makes weird noises otherwise!)
For some reason, the IT staff keeps trying to get shotgun purchases approved as business expenses.
I use case to version. The current working file is all lower case, the current muck-around with is in all upper case, and versions are in mixed case, with the location of upper case letters indicating recent-ness,
e.g.
test.pl - known good working copy TEST.PL - testing copy, under current development Test.pl - testing copy 1 rev back tEst.pl - testing copy 2 revs back
This becomes a bit less useful for multiple revs on the current branch, but then I just add silly letters at the end, e.g.
If you need the "Windows" environment (for legacy apps?), then 98SE is a perfectly good operating system for computers over 5 years old. It runs almost everything (that the hardware could handle, at least), and is a whole lot lighter than XP.
I mean, if you're not wedded to applications, you can get almost any Linux install to run, better, on a machine that can handle 98SE, but some people aren't down for that:|
In August of this year, the Department of Homeland Security began testing RFID tags at five border crossings under the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, or "US VISIT."
when we adopt DVORAK keyboards and Microsoft has less than 80% market share. It's called lock-in. Academically, it's called path dependency. Optimistically it's network effects. Sigh deeply and continue on.
It's true! The V is the Masonic Square, with the I and P forming the compass. The "o" is meant to stand in for the "G" in the center. It's OBVIOUS PEOPLE.
Slashdot Mirror
to riff off of an above comment, I have a bass guitar shaped like a bass fish, it requires a special base.
This will rapidly create a new DIY lube-refill industry to parallel the ink kit method.
In fact, the ink-refill-kit people should band together, form a cabal, and get a business process patent ASAP!
what was going through his head was that he had to get signed forms from the DC office every time he wanted to plug in a computer (ok, reasonable) or printer (I guess you could ... print stuff out? Instead of, y'know, copying it to a USB drive). Put enough of these silly barriers in any geek's way, and s/he'll find a way around 'em.
Nevertheless, our tax dollars are funding this ham-handedness.
Y'know, with all of these horrid policies of net neutrality, legally-backed DRM on everything, and so on; we should make two "rooms" somewhere close enough to DC to bring policymakers to. In one room, you get access to a peer-supported free-for-all system, with (realistic) economic forecasts of how a free-media culture supports its artists, citing real world examples. In the other room, you get the DRM'ed, Net-traffic-law world, which resembles AOL, where you have to constantly pay for every piddly service, and all the media is essentially content-less, as it's entirely corporate, without any resampling, covers of classic songs, usage of old film clips, etc. All with another ecomomic forecast that reveals the reality of this world - oligopoly and monopoly-like businesses able to extract a huge percentage of consumer surplus, with actual lower payments to artists than the "free" model, and encouraging an increasingly unequal society.
We'd have to set up a list of tasks to do in each. e.g.
- you got called in to the office to do sign some papers, and will miss The Big Game. Can you - watch it over the Internet? record it at home for later? If possible, for how much?
- you heard a song on the radio that you liked, but didn't catch the artist's name. You called in to the radio station, but couldn't get ahold of anyone who could help. You remember some distinctive lyrics; can you "google" it?
-You bought a DVD movie. Your DVD player seems to be broken, can you watch it on your computer?
and so on.
I seem to remember saying this might happen
I agree -- how, exactly, is MS planning to shut windows down? This seems unlikely, and a case for a massive class-action lawsuit of a humongous backdoor programmed into Windows, that somehow hasn't been exploited as yet? I'm dubious.
What may be the case is that M$ requires WGA to download even critical patches, which will not exactly improve the security ratings of Windows, as half of all windows computers suddenly stop getting security updates.
This is what adblock is for.
Our....metal phones. Because, y'know, there's a lot of metal in that little plastic thing, and I don't carry around coins, keys, or a pocketknife, wear metal-rimmed glasses or use headphones already because of lightning strike possibilities.
What next, do I have to clean my rubber suit?
Don't go to shady sites. ...
Dude, you just posted to slashdot.
Why does it need to be pulled from shelves? Just make a "do not sell to minors" label on it and if they sell to a minor then they get fined/jail
Exactly. We have quite enough precident for this with, oh, I don't know, things like liquor, tobacco, porno mags, and movies. Make the (already existing) ESRB ratings carry a legal punch preventing their sale to minors.
Well, the upper/lower case of the file (lower case letters are 0, upper are 1) also match an internal checksum that a shell script grepping over out entire filesystem checks against various magic numbers using a crontab that's set to run every third minute (the HD makes weird noises otherwise!)
For some reason, the IT staff keeps trying to get shotgun purchases approved as business expenses.
I use case to version. The current working file is all lower case, the current muck-around with is in all upper case, and versions are in mixed case, with the location of upper case letters indicating recent-ness,
e.g.
test.pl - known good working copy
TEST.PL - testing copy, under current development
Test.pl - testing copy 1 rev back
tEst.pl - testing copy 2 revs back
This becomes a bit less useful for multiple revs on the current branch, but then I just add silly letters at the end, e.g.
test.pl.ofcourseimjokingyoufuckwiT
If you're drinking two cups of coffee with your Cheerios at breakfast, that's two Martinis that you're not drinking with your Cheerios at breakfast.
Right, I can save 'em for lunch!
(or are you saying that the coffee is cancelling out the two Martinis with breakfast? If so, more power to ya!)
Quiet! My remote Jedi Mind Trick finally worked!
"These are not the nodes you're looking for"
I'd hardly count going through the puffer as a near body-cavity search.
If you need the "Windows" environment (for legacy apps?), then 98SE is a perfectly good operating system for computers over 5 years old. It runs almost everything (that the hardware could handle, at least), and is a whole lot lighter than XP.
:|
I mean, if you're not wedded to applications, you can get almost any Linux install to run, better, on a machine that can handle 98SE, but some people aren't down for that
It appears to be a required "upgrade" if you use the Windows or Microsoft Update site.
This is when you set up an admin account and remove admin privileges from the normal user account.
Oh, right. sorry, that doesn't actually solve anything.
I usually make an end-run and install spyware-free apps that do what the kid'll do anyway; bittorrent, kazaaLite, etc.
The real solution of course is educating the parent and the kid about such things, but no one wants to spend money or time doing that.
"are you sure about that?"
when we adopt DVORAK keyboards and Microsoft has less than 80% market share. It's called lock-in. Academically, it's called path dependency. Optimistically it's network effects. Sigh deeply and continue on.
It's true! The V is the Masonic Square, with the I and P forming the compass. The "o" is meant to stand in for the "G" in the center. It's OBVIOUS PEOPLE.
(the preceeding may have been sarcasm)
I'm sure that when you're 38, you'll claim to be "30"
I generally agree; but I still find the price a bit steep for a thin client. I'm sure it'll find a use.
hear hear. Sometimes. Wait, ALWAYS, the setup work in prepping a site to be CSS-able is the hard part.