In 1990, people would have given the ideas of a global network just ten years later and an invasion from Mars about equal credence.... ie, nearly none.
I agree with all of your post except for this line.
You seem to have forgotten about FidoNet. It wasn't real-time, but it was worldwide and it even had Internet gateways to get email back and forth. I used to run a multi-line FidoNet BBS and spent hours every day reading various echomail groups (similar to NNTP newsgroups). And I sent email back and forth to my brother who had an account on a university Internet server too.
Now if it served some purpose to the item/service I was purchasing, fine.
I live in a small town. I purchase my groceries at the Coop store, and buy lumber and paint at the Coop lumberyard when I need lumber and paint. I am a member of the local Coop and every time I buy something I give them my membership number. (Actually, I don't have to give my number about half of the time at the grocery store -- most of the regular checkout people know my number.)
I get a refund every year of a percentage of the amount that I spent at the Coop during the year. My share of the "profit", as it were.
The local hardware store started indexing your purchases by phone number a couple of years ago too. Every time I buy something at the hardware store, they enter my phone number into their computer. This is useful because I can go to the hardware store today and say that I want a can of paint in the same colour as the one that I bought last July; they look up the purchase and hand over the paint. Warranty returns work the same way. I don't need to "keep the receipt" if I don't want to. The bread machine that I bought 11 months ago quit last week -- it has a one year warranty. I carried it into the store and carried a new machine back home.
but I do certainly hope that most developers, artists, free thinkers, and everyone else who uses the web and forms of digital media/media creation and distribution tools to express themselves in any way shape or form would fight this sort of abuse; I know I would - and I wouldn't comply with shit just after receiving a letter.
That's very easy to say when you're sitting behind a keyboard on a comfy chair. It's harder to say when you're holding a legal threat in your hand and thinking about your house, your car, your savings account and your kid's college fund.
If more people don't start standing up for their rights we're all going to get walked on, and there are plenty of bastards lining up to do it.
Go do all of your important work on a manual typewriter, no carbon paper, type each copy required.
Won't work. Text can be recovered from the typewriter ribbon. With a film ribbon you can read directly off of the ribbon; with a new cloth ribbon you could probably do the same. A worn cloth ribbon might be harder to deal with, but I'm pretty sure that it could be done.
When I decided that I wanted to learn C I got a book on ANSI C, dug out my David Ahl books, and translated games from Basic to C. It was a tremendously enjoyable project.
A friend of mine used to be hooked on Sea Battle. He had a C64 at his office for the specific purpose of playing Sea Battle.
could you imagine Q handing bond the keys to a pontiac, or a ford, or any car that is not up at an unattainable status?
I certainly could. So could Ian Fleming, the author of the original James Bond books. 007 drives various cars in the books, ranging from sports cars to rusted-out old jalopies and even such things as marsh buggies.
Yes, the books are more "down-to-it" than the movies, especially the newer movies.
Was this the effect of sponsorship to remove references to competitors?
I remember seeing an advertisement in the paper (yeah, irony) from the producers of a movie that was being filmed near here a while back. They wanted "extras" to come and stand in a crowd and watch a parade. The ad said, "Dress as you normally would to watch a parade, but no logo t-shirts or branded clothing is allowed."
About a year ago, I saw a vacuum-sealing machine at a hardware store with a price tag of about $70 on it. It seemed like a good deal so I went home and checked the price on the Internet, and discovered that those machines usually sell for about $150. Gosh, must be on sale. I'll go right back to purchase it.
When I got it to the till and asked for the box for it (it was the last one on the shelf) they brought up a box with a different vacuum sealing machine already in it. A much cheaper model. Sorry guys, that's not the machine I'm buying.
It took some arguing and the store manager got involved, but I eventually got my vacuum sealing machine for $70 as the price said it was.
If you win your case, you've not only made SONY liable for your damages (plus your court costs) you've also cost them probably more than your damages especially if they send one of their legal department lawyers. If you lose, you've still won a moral victory that cost you no more than the cost of one of SONY's CDs and some of your time.
And after all of this fiddling around in court, and assuming that you win, what have you actually gained?
You got your money back that you spent for computer repair that you could have done yourself for free, and in less time than you spent sitting around in court dealing with it.
Shows lose their illusion when they start putting fake pop cans on TV.
Back in the "old days", television programs that included products always turned the product so the label didn't show. You could still tell that it was a bottle of Pepsi or a Budweiser (for example), but the labels were not shown and they weren't waved around like they are today.
And the realism wasn't spoiled by doing it that way.
Twenty years ago, the CRTC (Canadian equivalent to the US FCC) used to have vehicles driving around looking for unlicensed and over-powered radio transmitters. Cars covered with antennas....
Ah.... I was trying to figure out what horses had to do with the subject matter. I was thinking it might be some subtle joke about buggy whip manufacturers.
NOT just make their website exactly like the printed paper.
A friend of mine has a small paper that he sells online subscriptions to as well as having it on newsstands.
I put it online a couple of years ago. It was exactly the same as the printed version -- just a PNG of each page that you could flip through.
A few months ago I redesigned it for him so it's a nice clicky-clicky headline thing - go directly to the section you want by category and so on; much more native Internet-ish than printed-paper-on-the-screen. And online subscription revenue has now gone through the roof, compared to what it was before.
I wrote and maintain a DOS application for a publishing company. A few years back they asked me to write a small database that would work on their Windows machine. Since I had (and have) no Windows development tools, I decided to install DOSEMU on one of my Linux computers and use a DOS-based compiler that I still had laying around in my computer junk pile to write their little program.
That publishing company has grown and now has a multi-user LTSP system running, and my little DOS program has grown bit by bit and become a multi-thousand line thing that does everything from classified ads to preparation of plates for their offset presses.
It runs fine under DOSEMU and (currently) Fedora Core 4, on their machines and on mine.
So now the law was revised and the police *CAN* pull you over and ticket you for not wearing a seatbelt
Funny story: One chap in the town where I used to live was known as a bit of a rebel. The very first time I saw him, he was wearing an old brown duster with matching hat, and pedaling a yellow unicycle down main street just as fast as he could go.
The provincial government passed a law stating that you were required to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. So he proceeded to get an old motorcycle (for just this purpose), and rode it around town with a helmet strapped to his knee!
He got a ticket, of course, and took it to court, and beat the charges.
Slashdot Mirror
In 1990, people would have given the ideas of a global network just ten years later and an invasion from Mars about equal credence.... ie, nearly none.
I agree with all of your post except for this line.
You seem to have forgotten about FidoNet. It wasn't real-time, but it was worldwide and it even had Internet gateways to get email back and forth. I used to run a multi-line FidoNet BBS and spent hours every day reading various echomail groups (similar to NNTP newsgroups). And I sent email back and forth to my brother who had an account on a university Internet server too.
Now if it served some purpose to the item/service I was purchasing, fine.
I live in a small town. I purchase my groceries at the Coop store, and buy lumber and paint at the Coop lumberyard when I need lumber and paint. I am a member of the local Coop and every time I buy something I give them my membership number. (Actually, I don't have to give my number about half of the time at the grocery store -- most of the regular checkout people know my number.)
I get a refund every year of a percentage of the amount that I spent at the Coop during the year. My share of the "profit", as it were.
The local hardware store started indexing your purchases by phone number a couple of years ago too. Every time I buy something at the hardware store, they enter my phone number into their computer. This is useful because I can go to the hardware store today and say that I want a can of paint in the same colour as the one that I bought last July; they look up the purchase and hand over the paint. Warranty returns work the same way. I don't need to "keep the receipt" if I don't want to. The bread machine that I bought 11 months ago quit last week -- it has a one year warranty. I carried it into the store and carried a new machine back home.
but I do certainly hope that most developers, artists, free thinkers, and everyone else who uses the web and forms of digital media/media creation and distribution tools to express themselves in any way shape or form would fight this sort of abuse; I know I would - and I wouldn't comply with shit just after receiving a letter.
That's very easy to say when you're sitting behind a keyboard on a comfy chair. It's harder to say when you're holding a legal threat in your hand and thinking about your house, your car, your savings account and your kid's college fund.
If more people don't start standing up for their rights we're all going to get walked on, and there are plenty of bastards lining up to do it.
True indeed.
Go do all of your important work on a manual typewriter, no carbon paper, type each copy required.
Won't work. Text can be recovered from the typewriter ribbon. With a film ribbon you can read directly off of the ribbon; with a new cloth ribbon you could probably do the same. A worn cloth ribbon might be harder to deal with, but I'm pretty sure that it could be done.
When I decided that I wanted to learn C I got a book on ANSI C, dug out my David Ahl books, and translated games from Basic to C. It was a tremendously enjoyable project.
A friend of mine used to be hooked on Sea Battle. He had a C64 at his office for the specific purpose of playing Sea Battle.
manage to bump into their friends
In the immortal words of Maxwell Smart, "Tiny Little Feet."
So there. *tee hee*
could you imagine Q handing bond the keys to a pontiac, or a ford, or any car that is not up at an unattainable status?
I certainly could. So could Ian Fleming, the author of the original James Bond books. 007 drives various cars in the books, ranging from sports cars to rusted-out old jalopies and even such things as marsh buggies.
Yes, the books are more "down-to-it" than the movies, especially the newer movies.
Was this the effect of sponsorship to remove references to competitors?
I remember seeing an advertisement in the paper (yeah, irony) from the producers of a movie that was being filmed near here a while back. They wanted "extras" to come and stand in a crowd and watch a parade. The ad said, "Dress as you normally would to watch a parade, but no logo t-shirts or branded clothing is allowed."
Musicians and artists had sponsors and patrons long before the words American or Libertarian were thought of.
Then it probably wasn't there.
Folks selling "genuine" CD's have no reason to hide or obscure that fact. Folks selling non-CD plastic circles may, on the other hand.
Data entry performance monitoring?
Training and support software. "Now click on the window at the top. Not that one. The one at the top."
About a year ago, I saw a vacuum-sealing machine at a hardware store with a price tag of about $70 on it. It seemed like a good deal so I went home and checked the price on the Internet, and discovered that those machines usually sell for about $150. Gosh, must be on sale. I'll go right back to purchase it.
When I got it to the till and asked for the box for it (it was the last one on the shelf) they brought up a box with a different vacuum sealing machine already in it. A much cheaper model. Sorry guys, that's not the machine I'm buying.
It took some arguing and the store manager got involved, but I eventually got my vacuum sealing machine for $70 as the price said it was.
Two-Part warranty: If it breaks, you own both pices.
Lifetime guarantee: When it quits, we kill you.
If you win your case, you've not only made SONY liable for your damages (plus your court costs) you've also cost them probably more than your damages especially if they send one of their legal department lawyers. If you lose, you've still won a moral victory that cost you no more than the cost of one of SONY's CDs and some of your time.
And after all of this fiddling around in court, and assuming that you win, what have you actually gained?
You got your money back that you spent for computer repair that you could have done yourself for free, and in less time than you spent sitting around in court dealing with it.
And what else?
Shows lose their illusion when they start putting fake pop cans on TV.
Back in the "old days", television programs that included products always turned the product so the label didn't show. You could still tell that it was a bottle of Pepsi or a Budweiser (for example), but the labels were not shown and they weren't waved around like they are today.
And the realism wasn't spoiled by doing it that way.
If you're downloading Elvis tracks, I'm willing to give a little here,
The stuff that I download tends to be MP3's of old time radio. (Box 13, Gunsmoke, Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, etc.)
but I'd tend to suggest you're not.
And you would be wrong. Well ok, it's not Elvis.
Point is, though, that there are some of us out here.
Workstations should be set to lock within a few minutes (mine is set for 2 minutes).
Don't you ever stop to think?
Good heavens, if my screen locked after two minutes of inactivity I wouldn't make it through the day.
Twenty years ago, the CRTC (Canadian equivalent to the US FCC) used to have vehicles driving around looking for unlicensed and over-powered radio transmitters. Cars covered with antennas....
Ah.... I was trying to figure out what horses had to do with the subject matter. I was thinking it might be some subtle joke about buggy whip manufacturers.
I guess it wasn't that deep after all.
He probably wanted to download the uninstaller onto a "safe" computer so he could examine it and see what it might do to a (his?) Windows box.
... are we supposed to put in our bird cages? Huh? HUH!?
Flyers, of course.
My bird has the opportunity to enjoy reading all of last week's Co-op specials every Sunday afternoon.
NOT just make their website exactly like the printed paper.
A friend of mine has a small paper that he sells online subscriptions to as well as having it on newsstands.
I put it online a couple of years ago. It was exactly the same as the printed version -- just a PNG of each page that you could flip through.
A few months ago I redesigned it for him so it's a nice clicky-clicky headline thing - go directly to the section you want by category and so on; much more native Internet-ish than printed-paper-on-the-screen. And online subscription revenue has now gone through the roof, compared to what it was before.
I wrote and maintain a DOS application for a publishing company. A few years back they asked me to write a small database that would work on their Windows machine. Since I had (and have) no Windows development tools, I decided to install DOSEMU on one of my Linux computers and use a DOS-based compiler that I still had laying around in my computer junk pile to write their little program.
That publishing company has grown and now has a multi-user LTSP system running, and my little DOS program has grown bit by bit and become a multi-thousand line thing that does everything from classified ads to preparation of plates for their offset presses.
It runs fine under DOSEMU and (currently) Fedora Core 4, on their machines and on mine.
RedHat doesn't use a stock kernel.
So now the law was revised and the police *CAN* pull you over and ticket you for not wearing a seatbelt
Funny story: One chap in the town where I used to live was known as a bit of a rebel. The very first time I saw him, he was wearing an old brown duster with matching hat, and pedaling a yellow unicycle down main street just as fast as he could go.
The provincial government passed a law stating that you were required to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. So he proceeded to get an old motorcycle (for just this purpose), and rode it around town with a helmet strapped to his knee!
He got a ticket, of course, and took it to court, and beat the charges.
After that, the government amended the law.