Why not _force_ all pr0n sites to have a.xxx TLD? Easily spotted by search engines, web filters and all. So all of us who can handle the internet in it's glorious tangle can find what we want, and avoid what we don't. And segregate other sites into more stringent TLD's - like.tec for tech sites,.sel for ecommerce,.hmr for funny sites etc etc etc.
Off-topic, but:
Is there some reason that TLD's should only be three letters? Why not.SELL for e-commerce,.TECH for technical sites, etc, etc?
Now that M$ have publicly admitted that their IP has been compromised, they are in a good position to complain about anyone producing any competing products.
If a C# compiler were to appear on the scene for a non-Windows platform, might the authors not be accused of having used M$'s IP in order to produce it? The same goes for any piece of code to appear that threatens their.NET stranglehold strategy.
I have not seen any definitive list of what code was compromised. Has that been made public? Or are they free to point to anything that appears in future and say it is based on their IP?
Hell, maybe they are making the whole incident up!
It might help if you called DELL themselves and asked how they arrived at their ratio of 10:1 performance differential. Maybe they based this on the results of impartial tests performed by some third-party group with no axe to grind.
These days most sites require javascript and/or java to run "correctly," and email and AIM are both really popular.
Uh-uh. Won't fly.
Javascript support is a necessary part of the browser application, I'll grant you that. I'd even grant Java, except they don't seem to have bothered to include it. At least not yet.
E-mail? AIM? Those are totally separate applications that should be produced separately, with their own separate executables, and their own separate release schedules. The browser should not be delayed so that an e-mail client can be released as part of the base package.
In case you have not noticed there are a few dozen e-mail packages already available, and I doubt the majority of people who currently use e-mail under UNIX/Linux are in any hurry to switch! I've used Netscape since 1.0 and I've never used any integrated e-mail client.
BUT I find it hard to believe mozilla is fast and stable on a 166. I've been running the builds(out of cvs) for a long time now and it chugs slowly along even on a P3 500.
I agree. It creeps along on my P5/233, takes sometimes as much as a minute to load a browser window (spins up my CD-ROM drive for some reason) does not do JAVA, fails to work with secure sites, crashes several times a day (I've filled in that feedback full-circle wossnot a million times) looks exceedingly ugly and is, generally, the shittiest browser I've ever used.
On my Celery500 I use Netscape 4.73 and have NO plans to replace it with M17 and have grave misgivings about downloading any later milestones any time within the next two years.
Frankly, I think Mozilla is the worlds leading Open-Source failure and I doubt it will ever come to anything. At the rate of progress I've observed it will take them another two years to come even close to that POS from M$ and by then the world will have moved on. The number of users will probably remain (statistically) zero until the project is abandonned.
If you were to meet someone on the street, and they asked the way to the nearest bank. They then
left you, and robbed that bank. It's not YOUR responsibility.
But if they came and asked you for plans to the bank and dynamite for the vault and lockpicks for the door and an electronic combination-cracker and you gave them all this stuff..... Wanna bet you'd be liable?
The RIAA went ape-shit over them sending electronic version of CD's they owned in streaming form to consumers.
Streaming audio to those consumers who have paid for it is obviously where the industry is going. The simple solution to the RIAA's problem of people ripping/sharing CD's is not to sell CD's any more! Instead, the consumer will buy a license to stream the audio off some server whenever they like.
Now whoever offers this service will make a mint of money as people pay various monthly fees for various "packages" as per cable TV, etc. And the RIAA obviously wants to be the only game in town when that day comes, so you can count on them jumping hard, onto the spine of anyone who tries to set up any service similar to this.
The artists don't see enough of the profits from a CD. And that's why we've flocked to Napster and Gnutella and the like.
The rest of your post made sense, but I have to comment on this bit:
It is true the artists don't see enough of the profits. It is true that I (and probably most other people) would prefer if the lion's share of the money went to the artist instead of to the fat-cat middle-men.
But by and large, people have not flocked to Napster and Gnutella because of the profits (or lack thereof) seen by the artist. People have flocked to N and G because of two reasons:
It's convenient
It's cheap
And to hell with the artists profits, because using Gnutella/Napster doesn't alter the profit-picture for the artist one little bit.
If they want to improve their financial position, the artists had better start bypassing the middle-men. When I do buy music, I'd much prefer to pay the money to the artist, direct. But in return I want them to send me a CD direct, and most artists are not set up to market their own disks. And ten years ago it would have been impractical for them to do so, but now...
This may sound a bit strange, but do we really need IP laws at all? I personally think the idea of Intellectual Property is a little silly. Once you share an idea with others (by simply telling them about it), it's no longer yours.
It's not as simple as that.
It's like me saying to you: "I have a great idea, and I'll explain it to you only on the condition that you do not pass it on." If you reject my offer, then you don't get to hear the idea. But if you agree, then you should honor the terms of the agreement.
The problem with Copyright (which is essentially an agreement between the person who has the IP and the person who wants it) is when someone decides that they want the idea, but reject the agreement. If you accept the idea (buy the book/CD/DVD/etc) you are ethically bound to accept the terms of the agreement (no copying). When people buy the IP with every intention of renaging on the agreement, you get problems.
I don't think it's your right to destroy their business.
Suppose you bought a Toyota. No, suppose the company gave you a Toyota. It came with instructions saying "Use only Toyota Gasolene in this vehicle". You take the car home, and it works great, but the nearest Toyota Gas Station is 18 miles from your house which is inconvenient.
Your neighbor says "Drill out the jets with a 7 millimeter drill, and it will use anygas!". Now the car is yours, parked in your driveway, insured by your money, and you are liable for it. Why should you not drill out the jets if it is more convenient to you? Because Toyota prefers you to put up with the inconvenience? Because they never expected you to have the smarts to drill out the jets? Because it is all part of their plan to make lots of money?
I think what their gripe really boils down to is they're giving away hardware and attempting to build a software and service business model around that.
Tough Titty!
A razorblade company decides to give away millions of free razors, as a loss-leader. They intend to make their money selling blades. Unfortunately, the world discovers that these razors make idealsauce-ap handles. So millions of free razors end up being used as saucepan handles and generate no razorblade-sale revenue at all. Whose fault is this?
The razorblade company will have to either
Accept that their plans are flawed and stop giving away razors
Change the design of the razors so they are no longer suitable for use with saucepans (and accept that the new design might turn out ideal for tuning carburetors)
Conclude that despite the fact that their razors are being used as saucepan handles, enough are being used as razors to make the plan essentially successful
The company wants to make money (big surprise). They have a loopy plan, which partially backfires in their face (boo hoo!). Exactly why should I voluntarily give up my rights to help them make money despite a flawed business plan?
I think the company feelings about this issue are quite valid.
I think they are completely clueless as to what IP really is in the first place, and mistakenly believe that if they don't like something, they can just throw lawyers at it and it will go away.
If you bought a chain-saw engine, manufactured some custom brackets, and fitted the engine to a racing go-cart, would you be stealing someone's Intellectual Property? What property exactly, the diameter and spacing of the holes for the mounting bolts? If the chain-saw company disaproved, should they sue everyone who makes brackets? Who sells brackets? Who publishes bracket-plans on a go-cart website?
But what if the company "rented" them to the end user?
So long as you returned the unit in acceptable condition (as rented plus reasonable wear and tear), exactly what would there be for them to complain about?
You don't pull a microwave apart and put it back together then complain when you get radiation poisoning do you ?
AAMOF, I knew a guy who pulled his microwave apart and put it back together as a microwave transceiver for the ham radio 2.4 GHz band. No, he didn't complain about radiation poisoning, and if he had the company would have rightfully claimed that he'd voided his waranty.
The thing is, if you sell (or give) me a microwave or a bar-code scanner, I can use it to anchor my boat, prop open my window, or carry water to feed my dog. You can void my waranty but you can't stop me from mounting it on a pedestal and calling it a statue.
Now, if someone had decompiled/dis-assembled their copyrighted software then they might have a leg to stand on, but that (AFAIK) is not the case.
They used a plastic envelope that, when inflated with CO2, assumed the shape of an ordinary convex lens a few feet across. It would focus the energy from a normal loudspeaker into a narrow beam, so that verbal messages could more easily be passed to troopers on the ground. "He's behind that bush!" sort of thing I suppose.
I don't know how well it worked - prolly not as well as this new technology - and I don't know if it is still in service. But I saw video of the system in action on the British TV news nearly 20 years ago.
When asked how Microsoft could release programs owned by its competitors, Gates replied cryptically, "That's the innovative part," and refused to elaborate.
Actually, he will be using the Napster distribution model. This allows you to give away other peoples IP and get away with it through sheer weight of numbers.
It isn't so much the thought of a foreign vocabulary that is intertesting, but the idea of foreign grammar!
ALGOL-68 had a slew of english functions... and then there was entier() which meant floor() but was expressed in French because the Frogs decided it wasn't fair that all the functions were in English (I ask you!).
But the structure of the various statements followed an english-like gramatical syntax.
if if = then then then:= else else else:= fi fi;
Yes, the keywords were not reserved; they had to be bold to be recognised as keywords! (Or underlined, or single-quoted.)
But no matter how confusing the choice of names; even if they are in the Russian alphabet, the grammar is essentially english: if condition then action else alternate-action fi But perhaps in some other human language, condition/alternation is expressed in some other gramatical form? What about:
do action providing condition otherwise alternate-action done
Alas, I don't know any other human languages, so I'm making it up! Any stack-based human languages out there? Besides Polish, I mean...
I have to assume that anyone listening to MP3 today, is listening at what is to them acceptable quality levels. Because it they thought the quality was unaceptable, they would not be accepting it by listening! Therefore I see the benefit of the new format being one of size.
If a.OGG (?) file with a bit-rate of 128 is equivilent in audio quality to the 192kbps.MP3s I currently use, then the advantage to me is the 33%-ish reduction in file size. This means I can buy a 40Gb hard drive instead of a 60Gb hard drive. I can get approximately 180 tracks on a CD-R instead of 120. I can download a track via my 56kbps modem in 20 minutes instead of 30, and an album in three hours instead of five. So all else being equal, why would I not choose to encode as.OGG files instead of.MP3? Why wouldn't I D/L.OGG files and take 50% longer to D/L.MP3?
It is all down to one thing: The software that is available for me to use. I need to be able to encode my new CD's into the new format with the same degree of ease as I currently encode.MP3 files. I need to be able to playback the new format using the same or comparable software to what I currently use. (People using "skinnable" GUI applications will want to continue to do so, as will those who prefer using command-line apps.)
It would appear that plug-ins for the common players are available, as are encoders for the common platforms. The coded is free, so anyone who wants can include it in their code. So it looks like there is every chance the software will be there when you want it.
As for the Gbytes of 'legacy'.MP3 files out there, the playback applications simply need to be able to playback both formats interchangeably. It would be nice to have an MP3->OGG conversion utility, particularly one that did not cost in terms of audio quality. But that is not critical to the adoption of the new format.
In every case where the defendant was actually using the domain to provide goods or services, the transfer request was denied.
Unfortunately, the internet were not created in order to allow commercial entities to provide goods and services. It wasn't that long ago that we were discussing whether to allow commercial entities to use the internet at all.
Suppose I register a domain, say "keepout.com" (taken, BTW) and set up a web-site for the personal and private use of myself and other family members. We keep family photographs on that site. And other family-related information.
Then, several years later, someone forms a company called "Keepout Inc." and sues me for the domain name. Or an existing company with that name that is late in joining the e-ratrace decides to sue me. Or some other company begins to market a device called the KeepOut Burglar Alarm. What, do we have to automatically bend over and take it up the butt because we are not "providing goods and services"?
If everyone would use the TLD for their country each country could police its name space independently. Of course arbiters are going to run into a backlog when they are trying to take on the entire planet.
So you propose that the non-country TLD's (.com,.net, etc) get terminated? Or were you proposing that you and your country get to continue using those TLDs? Or what?
Even if you could get say, all of the G7 nations to enact similar laws spammers would just move servers to a different country and it would be business as usual.
What does the location of the server have to do with it? You press your case against the company that is being advertised, not against the advertising "agency".
Didn't you know? Companies are no longer allowed to advertise, because *gasp* they might make money. Can't have that with the NWO.
Oh, you can advertise alright, but you have to pay for the adverts yourself. Suppose you turned on the TV and at the end of the month you got a bill from the TV station for all the adverts you watched. How would that be with you in your NWO?
Slashdot Mirror
Why not _force_ all pr0n sites to have a .xxx TLD? Easily spotted by search engines, web filters and all. So all of us who can handle the internet in it's glorious tangle can find what we want, and avoid what we don't. And segregate other sites into more stringent TLD's - like .tec for tech sites, .sel for ecommerce, .hmr for funny sites etc etc etc.
.SELL for e-commerce, .TECH for technical sites, etc, etc?
Off-topic, but:
Is there some reason that TLD's should only be three letters? Why not
:wq
Now that M$ have publicly admitted that their IP has been compromised, they are in a good position to complain about anyone producing any competing products.
.NET stranglehold strategy.
If a C# compiler were to appear on the scene for a non-Windows platform, might the authors not be accused of having used M$'s IP in order to produce it? The same goes for any piece of code to appear that threatens their
I have not seen any definitive list of what code was compromised. Has that been made public? Or are they free to point to anything that appears in future and say it is based on their IP?
Hell, maybe they are making the whole incident up!
Why should Peter let the uber-stable power user-oriented Slackware head towards the bug infested hail-the-script-kiddies Red Hat?
You're right! Slackware is king!
But it's Patrick Volkerding. Not Peter.
:)
It might help if you called DELL themselves and asked how they arrived at their ratio of 10:1 performance differential. Maybe they based this on the results of impartial tests performed by some third-party group with no axe to grind.
Like MindCraft.....
These days most sites require javascript and/or java to run "correctly," and email and AIM are both really popular.
Uh-uh. Won't fly.
Javascript support is a necessary part of the browser application, I'll grant you that. I'd even grant Java, except they don't seem to have bothered to include it. At least not yet.
E-mail? AIM? Those are totally separate applications that should be produced separately, with their own separate executables, and their own separate release schedules. The browser should not be delayed so that an e-mail client can be released as part of the base package.
In case you have not noticed there are a few dozen e-mail packages already available, and I doubt the majority of people who currently use e-mail under UNIX/Linux are in any hurry to switch! I've used Netscape since 1.0 and I've never used any integrated e-mail client.
BUT I find it hard to believe mozilla is fast and stable on a 166. I've been running the builds(out of cvs) for a long time now and it chugs slowly along even on a P3 500.
I agree. It creeps along on my P5/233, takes sometimes as much as a minute to load a browser window (spins up my CD-ROM drive for some reason) does not do JAVA, fails to work with secure sites, crashes several times a day (I've filled in that feedback full-circle wossnot a million times) looks exceedingly ugly and is, generally, the shittiest browser I've ever used.
On my Celery500 I use Netscape 4.73 and have NO plans to replace it with M17 and have grave misgivings about downloading any later milestones any time within the next two years.
Frankly, I think Mozilla is the worlds leading Open-Source failure and I doubt it will ever come to anything. At the rate of progress I've observed it will take them another two years to come even close to that POS from M$ and by then the world will have moved on. The number of users will probably remain (statistically) zero until the project is abandonned.
I'd love to think I was wrong, but....
If you were to meet someone on the street, and they asked the way to the nearest bank. They then
left you, and robbed that bank. It's not YOUR responsibility.
But if they came and asked you for plans to the bank and dynamite for the vault and lockpicks for the door and an electronic combination-cracker and you gave them all this stuff..... Wanna bet you'd be liable?
The RIAA went ape-shit over them sending electronic version of CD's they owned in streaming form to consumers.
Streaming audio to those consumers who have paid for it is obviously where the industry is going. The simple solution to the RIAA's problem of people ripping/sharing CD's is not to sell CD's any more! Instead, the consumer will buy a license to stream the audio off some server whenever they like.
Now whoever offers this service will make a mint of money as people pay various monthly fees for various "packages" as per cable TV, etc. And the RIAA obviously wants to be the only game in town when that day comes, so you can count on them jumping hard, onto the spine of anyone who tries to set up any service similar to this.
The rest of your post made sense, but I have to comment on this bit:
It is true the artists don't see enough of the profits. It is true that I (and probably most other people) would prefer if the lion's share of the money went to the artist instead of to the fat-cat middle-men.
But by and large, people have not flocked to Napster and Gnutella because of the profits (or lack thereof) seen by the artist. People have flocked to N and G because of two reasons:
And to hell with the artists profits, because using Gnutella/Napster doesn't alter the profit-picture for the artist one little bit.
If they want to improve their financial position, the artists had better start bypassing the middle-men. When I do buy music, I'd much prefer to pay the money to the artist, direct. But in return I want them to send me a CD direct, and most artists are not set up to market their own disks. And ten years ago it would have been impractical for them to do so, but now...
This may sound a bit strange, but do we really need IP laws at all? I personally think the idea of Intellectual Property is a little silly. Once you share an idea with others (by simply telling them about it), it's no longer yours.
It's not as simple as that.
It's like me saying to you: "I have a great idea, and I'll explain it to you only on the condition that you do not pass it on." If you reject my offer, then you don't get to hear the idea. But if you agree, then you should honor the terms of the agreement.
The problem with Copyright (which is essentially an agreement between the person who has the IP and the person who wants it) is when someone decides that they want the idea, but reject the agreement. If you accept the idea (buy the book/CD/DVD/etc) you are ethically bound to accept the terms of the agreement (no copying). When people buy the IP with every intention of renaging on the agreement, you get problems.
I don't think it's your right to destroy their business.
Suppose you bought a Toyota. No, suppose the company gave you a Toyota. It came with instructions saying "Use only Toyota Gasolene in this vehicle". You take the car home, and it works great, but the nearest Toyota Gas Station is 18 miles from your house which is inconvenient.
Your neighbor says "Drill out the jets with a 7 millimeter drill, and it will use anygas!". Now the car is yours, parked in your driveway, insured by your money, and you are liable for it. Why should you not drill out the jets if it is more convenient to you? Because Toyota prefers you to put up with the inconvenience? Because they never expected you to have the smarts to drill out the jets? Because it is all part of their plan to make lots of money?
Wise up and grab the Black'n'Decker!
Tough Titty!
A razorblade company decides to give away millions of free razors, as a loss-leader. They intend to make their money selling blades. Unfortunately, the world discovers that these razors make idealsauce-ap handles. So millions of free razors end up being used as saucepan handles and generate no razorblade-sale revenue at all. Whose fault is this?
The razorblade company will have to either
The company wants to make money (big surprise). They have a loopy plan, which partially backfires in their face (boo hoo!). Exactly why should I voluntarily give up my rights to help them make money despite a flawed business plan?
I think the company feelings about this issue are quite valid.
I think they are completely clueless as to what IP really is in the first place, and mistakenly believe that if they don't like something, they can just throw lawyers at it and it will go away.
If you bought a chain-saw engine, manufactured some custom brackets, and fitted the engine to a racing go-cart, would you be stealing someone's Intellectual Property? What property exactly, the diameter and spacing of the holes for the mounting bolts? If the chain-saw company disaproved, should they sue everyone who makes brackets? Who sells brackets? Who publishes bracket-plans on a go-cart website?
But what if the company "rented" them to the end user?
So long as you returned the unit in acceptable condition (as rented plus reasonable wear and tear), exactly what would there be for them to complain about?
You don't pull a microwave apart and put it back together then complain when you get radiation poisoning do you ?
AAMOF, I knew a guy who pulled his microwave apart and put it back together as a microwave transceiver for the ham radio 2.4 GHz band. No, he didn't complain about radiation poisoning, and if he had the company would have rightfully claimed that he'd voided his waranty.
The thing is, if you sell (or give) me a microwave or a bar-code scanner, I can use it to anchor my boat, prop open my window, or carry water to feed my dog. You can void my waranty but you can't stop me from mounting it on a pedestal and calling it a statue.
Now, if someone had decompiled/dis-assembled their copyrighted software then they might have a leg to stand on, but that (AFAIK) is not the case.
The British Lynx military helicopter, that is! :)
They used a plastic envelope that, when inflated with CO2, assumed the shape of an ordinary convex lens a few feet across. It would focus the energy from a normal loudspeaker into a narrow beam, so that verbal messages could more easily be passed to troopers on the ground. "He's behind that bush!" sort of thing I suppose.
I don't know how well it worked - prolly not as well as this new technology - and I don't know if it is still in service. But I saw video of the system in action on the British TV news nearly 20 years ago.
The G400/450 is a dual-head AGP card, not so? So how do you do Quad-head? Do you need a motherboard with two AGP slots? Do they make such a beast?
When asked how Microsoft could release programs owned by its competitors, Gates replied cryptically, "That's the innovative part," and refused to elaborate.
Actually, he will be using the Napster distribution model. This allows you to give away other peoples IP and get away with it through sheer weight of numbers.
It isn't so much the thought of a foreign vocabulary that is intertesting, but the idea of foreign grammar!
:= else else else := fi fi;
ALGOL-68 had a slew of english functions... and then there was entier() which meant floor() but was expressed in French because the Frogs decided it wasn't fair that all the functions were in English (I ask you!).
But the structure of the various statements followed an english-like gramatical syntax.
if if = then then then
Yes, the keywords were not reserved; they had to be bold to be recognised as keywords! (Or underlined, or single-quoted.)
But no matter how confusing the choice of names; even if they are in the Russian alphabet, the grammar is essentially english: if condition then action else alternate-action fi But perhaps in some other human language, condition/alternation is expressed in some other gramatical form? What about:
do action providing condition otherwise alternate-action done
Alas, I don't know any other human languages, so I'm making it up! Any stack-based human languages out there? Besides Polish, I mean...
:)
I have to assume that anyone listening to MP3 today, is listening at what is to them acceptable quality levels. Because it they thought the quality was unaceptable, they would not be accepting it by listening! Therefore I see the benefit of the new format being one of size.
.OGG (?) file with a bit-rate of 128 is equivilent in audio quality to the 192kbps .MP3s I currently use, then the advantage to me is the 33%-ish reduction in file size. This means I can buy a 40Gb hard drive instead of a 60Gb hard drive. I can get approximately 180 tracks on a CD-R instead of 120. I can download a track via my 56kbps modem in 20 minutes instead of 30, and an album in three hours instead of five. So all else being equal, why would I not choose to encode as .OGG files instead of .MP3? Why wouldn't I D/L .OGG files and take 50% longer to D/L .MP3?
.MP3 files. I need to be able to playback the new format using the same or comparable software to what I currently use. (People using "skinnable" GUI applications will want to continue to do so, as will those who prefer using command-line apps.)
.MP3 files out there, the playback applications simply need to be able to playback both formats interchangeably. It would be nice to have an MP3->OGG conversion utility, particularly one that did not cost in terms of audio quality. But that is not critical to the adoption of the new format.
If a
It is all down to one thing: The software that is available for me to use. I need to be able to encode my new CD's into the new format with the same degree of ease as I currently encode
It would appear that plug-ins for the common players are available, as are encoders for the common platforms. The coded is free, so anyone who wants can include it in their code. So it looks like there is every chance the software will be there when you want it.
As for the Gbytes of 'legacy'
In every case where the defendant was actually using the domain to provide goods or services, the transfer request was denied.
Unfortunately, the internet were not created in order to allow commercial entities to provide goods and services. It wasn't that long ago that we were discussing whether to allow commercial entities to use the internet at all.
Suppose I register a domain, say "keepout.com" (taken, BTW) and set up a web-site for the personal and private use of myself and other family members. We keep family photographs on that site. And other family-related information.
Then, several years later, someone forms a company called "Keepout Inc." and sues me for the domain name. Or an existing company with that name that is late in joining the e-ratrace decides to sue me. Or some other company begins to market a device called the KeepOut Burglar Alarm. What, do we have to automatically bend over and take it up the butt because we are not "providing goods and services"?
If everyone would use the TLD for their country each country could police its name space independently. Of course arbiters are going to run into a backlog when they are trying to take on the entire planet.
.net, etc) get terminated? Or were you proposing that you and your country get to continue using those TLDs? Or what?
So you propose that the non-country TLD's (.com,
I have be receiving spam mail in my mail box at my house for 20 years!
Foooool!
Would you have kept quiet for 20 years if the paper-spam was being delivered COD???
Even if you could get say, all of the G7 nations to enact similar laws spammers would just move servers to a different country and it would be business as usual.
What does the location of the server have to do with it? You press your case against the company that is being advertised, not against the advertising "agency".
Didn't you know? Companies are no longer allowed to advertise, because *gasp* they might make money. Can't have that with the NWO.
Oh, you can advertise alright, but you have to pay for the adverts yourself. Suppose you turned on the TV and at the end of the month you got a bill from the TV station for all the adverts you watched. How would that be with you in your NWO?