I know traffic-shaping solutions are being considered (I'm not in that particular decision loop), but I've heard that we haven't yet found one that works for us.
Actually, I personally know next to nothing about what's involved in network traffic shaping: does it happen at the router level? Do you put some software on your firewall? Most importantly, if it's software, are there any open-source traffic-shaping programs out there?
I'd appreciate learning more about this. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
What I meant was this: at our college, we have a stated policy in place for computer lab use. Academic usage takes absolute priority over personal use. If the computer lab is full and there are students waiting in line to type their papers, the lab assistant will go to the front of the lab and announce, "Could those who are using the computer lab for personal use please finish what they are doing and log off; we've got people waiting to type their papers here." We're applying a similar principle to our Internet connection: if personal use of the network is limiting academic use, it will be restricted. Unfortunately, we haven't found a good traffic-shaping solution yet, so we're stuck with all-or-nothing blocking. We're actively searching for a traffic-shaping solution that will work, but haven't found one yet. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Jason Kroll, the author of the Linux Journal article, suggests boycotting the entire motion picture industry: "Specifically, boycott Disney, Sony, MGM, Paramount, Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. All together. Everything they do." And I can't say I disagree with him, but:
If you're going to boycott, publicize your reasons! Put up a web page stating (in a calm and rational manner) the reasons for your boycott, giving all the history you can without getting too verbose. Assume this is going to be read by someone who hasn't even heard of DeCSS, let alone Jon Johansen. Then put the URL in your.sig, put links to it on your main web page, and so on.
Publicizing doesn't have to be online. Put up posters! Find public places where posters would be appropriate (i.e., NOT the store window of Blockbusters, since it's their private property, and you don't want people ignoring your message because you were disrespectful of other people's property), and spread the word! Include a BRIEF (we're talking five lines of text here) summary of the reasons for your boycott, and put your URL at the bottom so people can find out more if they're interested.
If you've got the time, organize a picket line! Find some friends willing to help, make some signs resembling your posters with "BOYCOTT THE MOVIE INDUSTRY" or some such message in big letters, with reasons underneath, and parade back and forth in front of Blockbusters and other movie-related stores. As long as you're peaceful and don't physically block people from entering the stores, they can't legally touch you. If you happen to know anyone involved in any sort of labor union, ask them for advice on how to do a picket line.
That's about it. Remember to act like reasonable adults, and be ready to give reasons to anyone who asks you "Why are you boycotting?" We've got the moral high ground here; let's act like it. It's like Linux advocacy: if you maintain your cool and act reasonable, many more people will listen to you than if you shout and scream.
Briefing's over, ladies and gentlemen. You know what to do. Now get out there and execute Plan Boycott! They'll never know what hit 'em! ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Well, my personal experience with roller-coasters is that I've never had any trouble with them. Getting slammed around in different directions by G-forces feels exhilirating, not nauseating, to me. So I must be one of those people with weak cochlear sympathy. BUT: I really hate plain old merry-go-'rounds of the kind that can be found on any children's playground! Being spun fast around the vertical axis triggers all my nausea reactions.
For me, random, changing motion == fine. Constant vertical-axis rotation == nausea. I wonder what that says about my inner ear?
Oh, and for the record: My vote for "Ride I Absolutely Will Never Get On Even If They Pay Me" goes to the spinning-teacups ride (the one with an Alice in Wonderland theme) at Disneyworld (or is it Disneyland?). I've never been to Disneyworld/land/whatever, and don't particularly want to. But I've seen short video clips of that ride, and it scares me! Constantly rotating around a vertical axis that ITSELF is rotating around another vertical axis... If you want to see me throw up in record time, put me on that ride.
Let's hear from anyone else who's interested: what roller-coasters or rides make you throw up, and what leaves your inner ear completely indifferent? ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Actually, I just bought a Postscript printer for $350 once shipping & handling was factored in. It's the Lexmark Optra E310, and it handles Postscript Level 2 natively. List price on Lexmark's website is $400, although a Price Watch search ought to turn up some cheaper prices. Do a DejaNews search for "Lexmark Optra E310" and you can read about other people's experiences with this printer. I bought mine from Electrified, where they list refurbished Optra E310's for $300 ($299, technically). Note that that does not include a parallel cable (though it does include a toner cartridge, otherwise I'd be a little steamed), which wound up costing me an extra $15. Add hefty shipping & handling fees (due, I suppose, to the weight of the package, although I'm sure I got overcharged there too), it still came out to about $350, which is cheaper than anywhere else I found. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Congratulations on an excellent comeback! Do you intend to make any follow-up on that warning about perjury if Mr. Gallagher and/or the firm of Sargoy, Stein, Rosen & Shapiro do not retract their statements? If so, I would suggest documenting your claims now. Get someone from your ISP to validate your claim that no links to sites containing DeCSS exist. Get a written and/or PGP-signed letter from Frank A. Stevenson repeating his authorization to publish his cryptanalysis of CSS paper. And with documentation in hand, send Mr. Gallagher and his law firm another letter asking them to retract their statements. If they fail to respond within a reasonable time, approach an attorney about a lawsuit against them for libel. (Or is it slander? One is written, the other spoken, but I always forget which).
Of course, it's up to you, but that's what I would be doing if I had gotten a threatening letter such as that one. And if you do this, please publish the results to let everyone know what happens. It would be nice to know that lawyers can't get away with threatening people without cause... ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
I work for the Resnet group (RESidence hall NETwork -- Ethernet in the dorms) at my college, and let me tell you, Napster looks very different from the "other side", when you're the admin trying to run around making sure everyone has enough bandwidth. Before we introduced Resnet, our bandwidth (two T1's) was almost never more than 50% full. Bandwidth usage graphs for the second T1 showed long periods of inactivity with the occasion spike of 3% or 5% usage. Now, two years later, we've got 100% usage on both T1's during the middle of the day, and I wouldn't be surprised if that expanded until both our T1's are completely filled all the time.
Napster and Hotline are two of the many reasons our bandwidth is filling up (streaming media and games are other reasons, but we've found that games aren't sucking up too much bandwidth -- yet). When the first Hotline server showed up on our network, we noticed it right away: bandwidth usage on our Internet connection was suddenly 100%, all the time. A little research showed that all this bandwidth usage was coming from JUST ONE USER! We immediately blocked the Hotline ports (and explained to that user why Hotline's use of bandwidth wasn't acceptable -- he hadn't realized what a bandwidth hog Hotline was and had been acting ignorance, not malice). Now Napster is doing the same thing, sucking up bandwidth that has nothing to do with the primary goal of this institution (it is, after all, an academic institution and academic Internet use gets first priority over everything else). Furthermore, a little packet-sniffing shows that most (I estimate 90%, though I don't have hard figures at the moment) of the traffic is OUTGOING -- people outside of the college downloading MP3s from Napster servers within out network. There is no way that this can be construed as being the function of our Internet connection.
The legality or otherwise of Napster's primary use (sharing MP3s) had nothing to do with the decision to block it except to make the decision process marginally shorter. If folks had been passing around Linux.iso images, we might have argued it for another five minutes or so, but we still would have reached the same conclusion: we have limited bandwidth, and we need that bandwidth to remain accessible to everybody. A small number of users cannot be allowed to continually suck up all the available bandwidth.
Of course, in a few months another bandwidth-hogging program will appear, and we'll have to block yet another set of ports / IP addresses / whatever. And the game of bandwidth whack-a-mole continues... ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Your rhetorical question is worthless -- I'm going to prove that by answering it.
Why should a doctor use surgical tools rather than a swiss army knife for heart surgery? Because a swiss army knife is an inadequate tool for heart surgery. By contrast, a computer with a DVD drive is an adequate tool for watching movies on DVD. For evidence, I offer the thousands of computers already used for that purpose, with Windows DVD software.
Now I repeat what others have said: I bought the DVD disc in the store. By doing so, I did not buy all rights to the content (the film), which remains the intellectual property of the publisher, movie studio, what have you. What I paid my $20 for was the right to watch this movie whenever I want on my own equipment, without rebroadcasting it or making it available for "public viewing" (as per the FBI warning that is standard on all VHS videocassettes). It should not matter what equipment I use: if I want to use a 5-inch TV rather than a 40-inch TV, that's my right. If I want to use a Sony DVD player rather than a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. If I want to use my Windows computer instead of a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. (This has been amply demonstrated by the fact that the MPAA has not gone after the thousands of consumers who bought Windows DVD software). And if I want to use my Linux computer to play DVD movies instead of my Windows computer, that should be my right also. That is why everyone is so "up in arms" about this: DeCSS is (currently) the only thing that makes it possible to watch DVD's under Linux, and we're upset because the MPAA's attempted crackdown against DeCSS is going to take that right away from us. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
What he meant was the viewing threshhold, not the posting threshhold. In other words, if you're not logged in, your posts stay rated at 0, as usual. But you only see comments with a score of 2 or higher by default. Of course, you can easily change that viewing threshhold with the control gadgets at the top of each/. page, just as before.
That way, journalists and other non-Slashdot regulars will see the good stuff before they see the crud. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Do you think you could give some advice to someone who hasn't gone to law school on how to start educating myself about the law? I suppose I could just go to the library's U.S. Government Documents section, get down the huge book of laws, and start reading, but that would take far too much time for the little return I would get since I don't even have the basics yet.
So, what are some good books, websites, and/or other media that you would recommend to start out educating myself about law, defending oneself against a suit, and other such topics?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Well, it's true for me. When I graduate in a year and a half, I'm going to be basing my housing decisions on whether I can get ADSL in the area. Now naturally that's not going to be my only criterion, and price is going to be a larger factor that Internet access until I get a decently-paying job (which I'm well aware may not be for several years, I'm not that naive), but it's certain that between two similarly-priced apartments, one of which is in an ADSL area and the other one of which isn't, I'm going to choose the one with the high-speed Net access.
The whole "high-speed access addiction" is true, too. I'm not addicted to the Internet, but I am addicted (in a different way) to high-speed access, in that when I don't have it I go through a sort of withdrawal. Over Christmas break I was back at my parents' house using their 28K modem. Find something I want to download: "A meg and a half? No sweat! (click) (a few seconds pass). What? Whaddaya mean time remaining: ten minutes?... Oh yeah, I forgot." Fortunately for me, by a year and a half from now (when I graduate) market forces will probably have gotten ADSL installed in most large towns, and I'll have a decent chance of getting it. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Uh, you just completely missed the point of what you just classified as "hate speech". The poster wasn't expressing his own anti-Semitism, he was pointing out the bigotry of the previous poster's statement. By changing just one word and applying the previous poster's very own statement to a different group, he succinctly pointed out the bigotry of the original statement.
That comment about Jews wasn't bigotry or "hate speech", it was sarcasm. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
I spend a lot of time hitting escape to continue loading a page when some advertisement banner linked from a slow server pops up. I should be able to right-click on these banners whenever I see them and say "Don't ever load any animated gifs from this server again." I would be willing to spend the time to learn whatever scripting language to get this simple feature (but I would not be willing to go through tens of megs of C that I don't have a hope of understanding).
Actually, you can use ipchains to do that. See for example section 4.2 of the latest IPCHAINS-HOWTO where the author lists rules to drop all packets coming from doubleclick.net. Everytime a slow ad server is slowing down your connection, add it to your ipcahins "DENY" list. Make sure you also drop outgoing connections to doubleclick.net (or whatever the ad server is) so you'll get an immediate "broken image" icon rather than a long wait.
Hopefully, that should take care of your slow banner ad problem. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Not to defend AllAdvantage (I think "get paid to watch advertising" gimmicks are crass), but I don't consider a link in a sig to be "spamming". If this person were posting repeatedly for no reason other than to get his/her sig seen, yes, that would be "spamming". But a URL in a sig is commonly-accepted Usenet practice, and I think the same should apply to Slashdot.
Apologies for the topic drift, back to the regular discussion. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
This seems a good time to mention the excellent book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by Neil Postman (the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, the (in)famous critique of television's effect on society). Your local library should have it, and it's well-worth buying to have on your bookshelf. He talks about, among other things, the ethic of technology that says, "Well, we know how to do this, so we should do it". E.g., we now know how to clone mammals -- so let's start cloning people. Not everybody thinks this way, of course, but enough do that once a new technology is developed, it will be used. Mr. Postman wants to say that technology is not a panacea, and that there are some problems that technology cannot solve.
Even if you disagree with Mr. Postman's thesis (especially if you disagree), read his book. It's well-reasoned and very thought-provoking. Mr. Postman is by no means a Luddite, but he is a warning voice to remind us that Utopia does not exist, and that our technological solutions always carry unwanted side-effects (the Law of Unintended Consequences). A good read to balance Jon Katz's apparent technophilia. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
In this case, no. See, the whole "Should we do it" / "Can we do it" dichotomy has been around for as long as the "ethics of technology" debate has been going on. It's not so much that KDubuisson was quoting Jurassic Park as that Jurassic Park quoted the same thing that he was trying to refer to. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
I use Windowmaker (current version 0.61.1). The "root" menu, as well as the window-switching menu, can be accessed through keyboard shortcuts (defaults to F12 and F11 respectively). I use multiple workspaces and switch back and forth by pressing Alt-# where # is the number of the workspace I want. Using Windowmaker's "Rename workspace" feature, I label each one: "Main", "Games", "Netscape", "Programming" and then switch to whichever one is appropriate before I launch a program. It works well for me and I usually don't need the mouse. You can set focus mode to be "Click to focus" and then switch the focus among the windows on your current workspace by using Alt-Tab, a key combo that's probably been drilled into your fingers by constant Windows use. The fact that Alt-Tab stays on the current workspace is very nice, as is the fact that the window list (F11) shows all the windows as well as which workspace they're on, so you can use that menu to switch workspaces or just remind you of which Alt-# key you want to press.
Checking out the keyboard-configuration program under WindowMaker, here are the things you can do with the keyboard:
Open applications menu
Open window list menu
Open window commands menu
Hide active application
Miniaturize active window
Close active window
Maximize active window
Maximize active window vertically
Raise active window
Lower active window
Raise/lower window under mouse pointer
Shade active window
Move/Resize active window
Select active window
Focus next window
Focus previous window
Switch to next workspace
Switch to previous workspace
Switch to next ten workspaces
Switch to previous ten workspaces
Switch to workspace 1
Switch to workspace 2 . . .
Switch to workspace 10
Shortcut for window 1
Shortcut for window 2 . . .
Shortcut for window 10
Raise Clip
Lower Clip
Raise/Lower Clip
As you can see, there's quite a lot of keyboard control built-in. Try it out! ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
I for one think it's great that this can happen. Even if I didn't believe EPIC holds the "high moral ground" in this case, I would still think this is, in part, a good thing. The U.S. Constitution set up a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one governmental body, executive, legislative, or judicial, would have too much power. (Although I think the Supreme Court is starting to have too much legislative power for my taste, but that's another subject). But then these three-letter agencies were set up, with little or no checks on their power. Sure, they have a charter, but what happens if/when they break that charter?
Well, this is what happens. Groups of citizens say to these government bodies, "Your just authority derives only from our consent, and we don't consent to this." Now it merely remains to be seen what the NSA will do.
You know, in a way their actions so far make a weird kind of sense. I mean, it's a really good idea for an agency devoted to cyptography and information-gathering to release as little information as possible to the outside world. Which is why when you ask an NSA employee anything, he/she is likely to respond, "No comment." It's standard policy. But it seems that someone forgot just exactly who they're supposed to report to, and who they're supposed to keep in the dark. You keep your enemies in the dark, not your bosses. It would seem that someone forgot who the NSA's bosses are. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, What's the largest site of all? With articles and posts galore, Seeking for the highest (Score: ) As moderators sift and sort, Giving good posts just reward. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, What's the largest site of all?
Mirror, mirror, on the 'Net, What's the geekiest site yet? "Stuff that Matters," "News for Nerds," Aren't just empty slogan words. Linux, Windows, BSD, All discussed bellig'rently. Mirror, mirror, on the 'Net, What's the geekiest site yet?
Yet Slashdot's feared, or so it seems, By webmasters of modest means. For if there should appear a link On Slashdot, then lo! Ere a blink Of time should pass, thousands of geeks Will click on it. And then, such creaks Of servers grinding to a halt: Those 404's are Slashdot's fault!
And so, oh mirror, duplicate My page, lest it evaporate. For Slashdot linked to it, you know, And now my server's awfully slow.
Hope you enjoyed it. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Let me try to explain the terminology... Infrastructure is the physical wires going into your computer, whether they be connected to a POTS modem, a cable "modem", or a DSL "modem". Presumably you would pay a monthly fee for the maintenance of those, just like you pay the local phone company extra for a second phone line into your house. An ISP uses the existing physical network to deliver Internet traffic: you get an IP address from your ISP, not your infrastructure provider. ISP's pay the infrastucture providers for the cost of using their networks, and pass on that cost to you in your monthly ISP fee -- want more bandwidth, pay a higher fee. If you're dissatisfied with your ISP's service, well, there are several others with local POP's (Points of Presence) near you, so you can easily switch.
The concern here is that AT&T, an infrastructure provider, is merging with MediaOne, an ISP to provide a bundled infrastructure + IP address commercial package. Sounds fine, right? Well, stop to think about it.
Say your ISP blocks port 6667 (the most common IRC port) for some reason -- say liability concerns about the legality of IRC activity. Or say they don't want you connecting to any USENET servers but their own, so they block port 119 (the NNTP port) connections to all servers except theirs. You'd soon ditch them and move to another ISP, wouldn't you? And you'd stop paying the first ISP, because you weren't using their services anymore.
And there's the rub.
If AT&T is allowed to bundle its infrastructure service with MediaOne's ISP service, you'll be paying for MediaOne whether you use it or not. It would be like bundling an OS with your new computer so that you paid for the OS whether you wanted it or not (<sarcasm>which I'm sure has never happened...</sarcasm>). Say MediaOne starts blocking the ports used for IP telephony -- after all, that's a direct competitor to AT&T's primary business. Suddenly, millions of MediaOne customers are forced either to switch to another ISP or give up using IP telephony. And if they switch to another ISP, they're still paying for MediaOne! Don't want to pay for MediaOne? Sorry -- it comes with your DSL connection; if you don't want MediaOne, you're going to have to find another DSL service. What? There aren't any other DSL providers in your area? That's just too bad. At least with the Wintel hardware/OS bundling, you had other choices -- you could buy a Mac, or an Amiga, or a Sparc, or... But with this situation, you'll be forced to pay for MediaOne -- and how many people will choose to pay *extra* for another ISP? Very few -- most, in the scenario I describe, would choose instead to give up IP telephony.
And that's what the concern is. If AT&T is allowed to bundle ISP services with infrastructure services, it can kill any use of the network it doesn't like, by doing things like I just described. That's why this paper is important, and why infrastructure needs to be kept separate from Internet access. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
I think your information is several months (?) out-of-date. I don't remember the details, but: a) Crypto is legal in France if you get a "trusted third party" to hold a copy of the keys and release it to the government under certain conditions, like a court order (basically the "key escrow" laws we all know and love), and b) I remember a story on Slashdot several months ago about encryption being (possibly) made legal in France, with the key escrow laws being either reduced or eliminated. Again, I don't remember the sources, but a Slashdot search for "France" ought to find everything relevant.
Seems to me France is acquiring clues much more rapidly than the U.S. these days...
Uh, Jon? Hello? Are you asking for kneejerk-reaction flames here? Let me quote a few things you said:
... non-physical agents of good and evil (which might well include TV, movies, the Net, animation and recorded music)...
From context, I understand you to be lumping all the parenthesized items together under the category of agents of evil, and ascribing that view to those who believe in spiritual warfare. Nothing could be further from the truth. All the things you mentioned are media, and the message is what has an influence (whether for good or evil) on people. It may not have been your intention to portray anyone who believes that spiritual warfare is a real phenomenon as an ignorant bigot who believes that technology is bad, but that's how it came out.
But without question, many geeks are already on the wrong path, loving stuff like "South Park" and "The Simpsons" as they do, Satan's productions all.
I don't know about South Park, since I've never watched it nor talked to others about it. But here at Wheaton College, one of the more famous Christian colleges in the U.S., you can go to the T.V. room of any dorm at 6:00 P.M. and more than likely you'll find a large crowd watching "The Simpsons". Wrong again.
Technology, a disseminator of so much information, a force for freedom, has always come under fire as Satan's ally.
And here you reveal your own pro-technology prejudices. Technology is good, so anyone who thinks it isn't must be ignorant. I realize I'm grossly exaggerating your position, but I'm doing so to try to make a point. I'm trying to make you think about your own prejudices and whether or not they're always correct. Try to realize that technology is a tool that can be used for both good and evil. From the splitting of the atom came both a clean source of power (leaving aside the discussion on nuclear accidents, which can usually be prevented by following appropriate safety precautions) and the most destructive weapon ever invented. Technology is a two-edged sword and should be handled carefully, not blindly accepted.
Finally, Jon, I'd like to object to the general characterization of Christians as ignorant and/or bigoted. There are ignorant bigots in every group you care to choose, whether it be Christians, feminists, Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, veterans, anti-war activists, environmentalists, you name it. But I know a lot of really wise people, whom I deeply respect, who are Christians. They've examined many different philosophies and religions and have come to the conclusion that Christianity is correct and true. Surely you know some, too. Why don't you go ask them, "You know, ________, you seem like a pretty intelligent person. You're not the kind to blindly accept what others tell you. So how come you're a Christian?" If you come across as genuinely asking, not just trying to mock them, they'll be thrilled to sit down with you and explain.
I guess what I'm saying is that you're in danger of confusing the messenger with the message. Keep that distinction firmly in mind.
By the way: what I said above about asking a Christian you know "So why exactly do you believe what you believe?": I mean it. Do. It's always good to understand the other person's position. You know, even though I wouldn't exactly consider myself the wisest person in the world, and I know I still have a lot to learn, I do have my reasons for believing in Christianity. If anyone is interested in engaging in a discussion, E-mail me or reply to this. (I suggest E-mail, because it's not exactly on topic for Slashdot.) My E-mail address is not munged in any way. ----- The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I personally know next to nothing about what's involved in network traffic shaping: does it happen at the router level? Do you put some software on your firewall? Most importantly, if it's software, are there any open-source traffic-shaping programs out there?
I'd appreciate learning more about this.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
What I meant was this: at our college, we have a stated policy in place for computer lab use. Academic usage takes absolute priority over personal use. If the computer lab is full and there are students waiting in line to type their papers, the lab assistant will go to the front of the lab and announce, "Could those who are using the computer lab for personal use please finish what they are doing and log off; we've got people waiting to type their papers here." We're applying a similar principle to our Internet connection: if personal use of the network is limiting academic use, it will be restricted. Unfortunately, we haven't found a good traffic-shaping solution yet, so we're stuck with all-or-nothing blocking. We're actively searching for a traffic-shaping solution that will work, but haven't found one yet.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
That's about it. Remember to act like reasonable adults, and be ready to give reasons to anyone who asks you "Why are you boycotting?" We've got the moral high ground here; let's act like it. It's like Linux advocacy: if you maintain your cool and act reasonable, many more people will listen to you than if you shout and scream.
Briefing's over, ladies and gentlemen. You know what to do. Now get out there and execute Plan Boycott! They'll never know what hit 'em!
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
For me, random, changing motion == fine. Constant vertical-axis rotation == nausea. I wonder what that says about my inner ear?
Oh, and for the record: My vote for "Ride I Absolutely Will Never Get On Even If They Pay Me" goes to the spinning-teacups ride (the one with an Alice in Wonderland theme) at Disneyworld (or is it Disneyland?). I've never been to Disneyworld/land/whatever, and don't particularly want to. But I've seen short video clips of that ride, and it scares me! Constantly rotating around a vertical axis that ITSELF is rotating around another vertical axis... If you want to see me throw up in record time, put me on that ride.
Let's hear from anyone else who's interested: what roller-coasters or rides make you throw up, and what leaves your inner ear completely indifferent?
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Actually, I just bought a Postscript printer for $350 once shipping & handling was factored in. It's the Lexmark Optra E310, and it handles Postscript Level 2 natively. List price on Lexmark's website is $400, although a Price Watch search ought to turn up some cheaper prices. Do a DejaNews search for "Lexmark Optra E310" and you can read about other people's experiences with this printer. I bought mine from Electrified, where they list refurbished Optra E310's for $300 ($299, technically). Note that that does not include a parallel cable (though it does include a toner cartridge, otherwise I'd be a little steamed), which wound up costing me an extra $15. Add hefty shipping & handling fees (due, I suppose, to the weight of the package, although I'm sure I got overcharged there too), it still came out to about $350, which is cheaper than anywhere else I found.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Of course, it's up to you, but that's what I would be doing if I had gotten a threatening letter such as that one. And if you do this, please publish the results to let everyone know what happens. It would be nice to know that lawyers can't get away with threatening people without cause...
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Napster and Hotline are two of the many reasons our bandwidth is filling up (streaming media and games are other reasons, but we've found that games aren't sucking up too much bandwidth -- yet). When the first Hotline server showed up on our network, we noticed it right away: bandwidth usage on our Internet connection was suddenly 100%, all the time. A little research showed that all this bandwidth usage was coming from JUST ONE USER! We immediately blocked the Hotline ports (and explained to that user why Hotline's use of bandwidth wasn't acceptable -- he hadn't realized what a bandwidth hog Hotline was and had been acting ignorance, not malice). Now Napster is doing the same thing, sucking up bandwidth that has nothing to do with the primary goal of this institution (it is, after all, an academic institution and academic Internet use gets first priority over everything else). Furthermore, a little packet-sniffing shows that most (I estimate 90%, though I don't have hard figures at the moment) of the traffic is OUTGOING -- people outside of the college downloading MP3s from Napster servers within out network. There is no way that this can be construed as being the function of our Internet connection.
The legality or otherwise of Napster's primary use (sharing MP3s) had nothing to do with the decision to block it except to make the decision process marginally shorter. If folks had been passing around Linux .iso images, we might have argued it for another five minutes or so, but we still would have reached the same conclusion: we have limited bandwidth, and we need that bandwidth to remain accessible to everybody. A small number of users cannot be allowed to continually suck up all the available bandwidth.
Of course, in a few months another bandwidth-hogging program will appear, and we'll have to block yet another set of ports / IP addresses / whatever. And the game of bandwidth whack-a-mole continues...
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Why should a doctor use surgical tools rather than a swiss army knife for heart surgery? Because a swiss army knife is an inadequate tool for heart surgery. By contrast, a computer with a DVD drive is an adequate tool for watching movies on DVD. For evidence, I offer the thousands of computers already used for that purpose, with Windows DVD software.
Now I repeat what others have said: I bought the DVD disc in the store. By doing so, I did not buy all rights to the content (the film), which remains the intellectual property of the publisher, movie studio, what have you. What I paid my $20 for was the right to watch this movie whenever I want on my own equipment, without rebroadcasting it or making it available for "public viewing" (as per the FBI warning that is standard on all VHS videocassettes). It should not matter what equipment I use: if I want to use a 5-inch TV rather than a 40-inch TV, that's my right. If I want to use a Sony DVD player rather than a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. If I want to use my Windows computer instead of a Panasonic DVD player, that's my right. (This has been amply demonstrated by the fact that the MPAA has not gone after the thousands of consumers who bought Windows DVD software). And if I want to use my Linux computer to play DVD movies instead of my Windows computer, that should be my right also . That is why everyone is so "up in arms" about this: DeCSS is (currently) the only thing that makes it possible to watch DVD's under Linux, and we're upset because the MPAA's attempted crackdown against DeCSS is going to take that right away from us.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
That way, journalists and other non-Slashdot regulars will see the good stuff before they see the crud.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
So, what are some good books, websites, and/or other media that you would recommend to start out educating myself about law, defending oneself against a suit, and other such topics?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The whole "high-speed access addiction" is true, too. I'm not addicted to the Internet, but I am addicted (in a different way) to high-speed access, in that when I don't have it I go through a sort of withdrawal. Over Christmas break I was back at my parents' house using their 28K modem. Find something I want to download: "A meg and a half? No sweat! (click) (a few seconds pass). What? Whaddaya mean time remaining: ten minutes? ... Oh yeah, I forgot." Fortunately for me, by a year and a half from now (when I graduate) market forces will probably have gotten ADSL installed in most large towns, and I'll have a decent chance of getting it.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
That comment about Jews wasn't bigotry or "hate speech", it was sarcasm.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Actually, you can use ipchains to do that. See for example section 4.2 of the latest IPCHAINS-HOWTO where the author lists rules to drop all packets coming from doubleclick.net. Everytime a slow ad server is slowing down your connection, add it to your ipcahins "DENY" list. Make sure you also drop outgoing connections to doubleclick.net (or whatever the ad server is) so you'll get an immediate "broken image" icon rather than a long wait.
Hopefully, that should take care of your slow banner ad problem.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Apologies for the topic drift, back to the regular discussion.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Even if you disagree with Mr. Postman's thesis (especially if you disagree), read his book. It's well-reasoned and very thought-provoking. Mr. Postman is by no means a Luddite, but he is a warning voice to remind us that Utopia does not exist, and that our technological solutions always carry unwanted side-effects (the Law of Unintended Consequences). A good read to balance Jon Katz's apparent technophilia.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
In this case, no. See, the whole "Should we do it" / "Can we do it" dichotomy has been around for as long as the "ethics of technology" debate has been going on. It's not so much that KDubuisson was quoting Jurassic Park as that Jurassic Park quoted the same thing that he was trying to refer to.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Checking out the keyboard-configuration program under WindowMaker, here are the things you can do with the keyboard:
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As you can see, there's quite a lot of keyboard control built-in. Try it out!
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Well, this is what happens. Groups of citizens say to these government bodies, "Your just authority derives only from our consent, and we don't consent to this." Now it merely remains to be seen what the NSA will do.
You know, in a way their actions so far make a weird kind of sense. I mean, it's a really good idea for an agency devoted to cyptography and information-gathering to release as little information as possible to the outside world. Which is why when you ask an NSA employee anything, he/she is likely to respond, "No comment." It's standard policy. But it seems that someone forgot just exactly who they're supposed to report to, and who they're supposed to keep in the dark. You keep your enemies in the dark, not your bosses. It would seem that someone forgot who the NSA's bosses are.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
What's the largest site of all?
With articles and posts galore,
Seeking for the highest (Score: )
As moderators sift and sort,
Giving good posts just reward.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
What's the largest site of all?
Mirror, mirror, on the 'Net,
What's the geekiest site yet?
"Stuff that Matters," "News for Nerds,"
Aren't just empty slogan words.
Linux, Windows, BSD,
All discussed bellig'rently.
Mirror, mirror, on the 'Net,
What's the geekiest site yet?
Yet Slashdot's feared, or so it seems,
By webmasters of modest means.
For if there should appear a link
On Slashdot, then lo! Ere a blink
Of time should pass, thousands of geeks
Will click on it. And then, such creaks
Of servers grinding to a halt:
Those 404's are Slashdot's fault!
And so, oh mirror, duplicate
My page, lest it evaporate.
For Slashdot linked to it, you know,
And now my server's awfully slow.
Hope you enjoyed it.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The concern here is that AT&T, an infrastructure provider, is merging with MediaOne, an ISP to provide a bundled infrastructure + IP address commercial package. Sounds fine, right? Well, stop to think about it.
Say your ISP blocks port 6667 (the most common IRC port) for some reason -- say liability concerns about the legality of IRC activity. Or say they don't want you connecting to any USENET servers but their own, so they block port 119 (the NNTP port) connections to all servers except theirs. You'd soon ditch them and move to another ISP, wouldn't you? And you'd stop paying the first ISP, because you weren't using their services anymore.
And there's the rub.
If AT&T is allowed to bundle its infrastructure service with MediaOne's ISP service, you'll be paying for MediaOne whether you use it or not. It would be like bundling an OS with your new computer so that you paid for the OS whether you wanted it or not (<sarcasm>which I'm sure has never happened...</sarcasm>). Say MediaOne starts blocking the ports used for IP telephony -- after all, that's a direct competitor to AT&T's primary business. Suddenly, millions of MediaOne customers are forced either to switch to another ISP or give up using IP telephony. And if they switch to another ISP, they're still paying for MediaOne! Don't want to pay for MediaOne? Sorry -- it comes with your DSL connection; if you don't want MediaOne, you're going to have to find another DSL service. What? There aren't any other DSL providers in your area? That's just too bad. At least with the Wintel hardware/OS bundling, you had other choices -- you could buy a Mac, or an Amiga, or a Sparc, or... But with this situation, you'll be forced to pay for MediaOne -- and how many people will choose to pay *extra* for another ISP? Very few -- most, in the scenario I describe, would choose instead to give up IP telephony.
And that's what the concern is. If AT&T is allowed to bundle ISP services with infrastructure services, it can kill any use of the network it doesn't like, by doing things like I just described. That's why this paper is important, and why infrastructure needs to be kept separate from Internet access.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
IANAL stands for "I Am Not A Lawyer".
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Which window manager do you use?
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
NT = No Text. Why are you reading this?
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Seems to me France is acquiring clues much more rapidly than the U.S. these days...
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
From context, I understand you to be lumping all the parenthesized items together under the category of agents of evil, and ascribing that view to those who believe in spiritual warfare. Nothing could be further from the truth. All the things you mentioned are media, and the message is what has an influence (whether for good or evil) on people. It may not have been your intention to portray anyone who believes that spiritual warfare is a real phenomenon as an ignorant bigot who believes that technology is bad, but that's how it came out.
But without question, many geeks are already on the wrong path, loving stuff like "South Park" and "The Simpsons" as they do, Satan's productions all.
I don't know about South Park, since I've never watched it nor talked to others about it. But here at Wheaton College, one of the more famous Christian colleges in the U.S., you can go to the T.V. room of any dorm at 6:00 P.M. and more than likely you'll find a large crowd watching "The Simpsons". Wrong again.
Technology, a disseminator of so much information, a force for freedom, has always come under fire as Satan's ally.
And here you reveal your own pro-technology prejudices. Technology is good, so anyone who thinks it isn't must be ignorant. I realize I'm grossly exaggerating your position, but I'm doing so to try to make a point. I'm trying to make you think about your own prejudices and whether or not they're always correct. Try to realize that technology is a tool that can be used for both good and evil. From the splitting of the atom came both a clean source of power (leaving aside the discussion on nuclear accidents, which can usually be prevented by following appropriate safety precautions) and the most destructive weapon ever invented. Technology is a two-edged sword and should be handled carefully, not blindly accepted.
Finally, Jon, I'd like to object to the general characterization of Christians as ignorant and/or bigoted. There are ignorant bigots in every group you care to choose, whether it be Christians, feminists, Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, veterans, anti-war activists, environmentalists, you name it. But I know a lot of really wise people, whom I deeply respect, who are Christians. They've examined many different philosophies and religions and have come to the conclusion that Christianity is correct and true. Surely you know some, too. Why don't you go ask them, "You know, ________, you seem like a pretty intelligent person. You're not the kind to blindly accept what others tell you. So how come you're a Christian?" If you come across as genuinely asking, not just trying to mock them, they'll be thrilled to sit down with you and explain.
I guess what I'm saying is that you're in danger of confusing the messenger with the message. Keep that distinction firmly in mind.
By the way: what I said above about asking a Christian you know "So why exactly do you believe what you believe?": I mean it. Do. It's always good to understand the other person's position. You know, even though I wouldn't exactly consider myself the wisest person in the world, and I know I still have a lot to learn, I do have my reasons for believing in Christianity. If anyone is interested in engaging in a discussion, E-mail me or reply to this. (I suggest E-mail, because it's not exactly on topic for Slashdot.) My E-mail address is not munged in any way.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL: