That picture begs the question of how the user interacts with the watch. It looks like there's a microphone there (or maybe it's a speaker so that ^G's work) - maybe it uses voice-recognition? That'd be kinda cool (maybe a Linux port of ViaVoice?). Or do you need to telnet/ssh/rlogin/whatever into it from a computer over the wireless connection to actually interact? And it doesn't look terribly useful, considering it seems to be missing a time-display.
There's only so small you can make these devices until the lack of a useable user-interface makes them rather useless. There's only so small a keyboard can get until it is no longer really useable by human hands - and laptops have already pushed that as far as it can reasonably go. Plus the interface area looks a hair too small to be very useful - I can't imaging trying to go through man pages or reading READMEs on that thing. This seems to be of limited usefulness - although it's nice to know that IBM considers embedded Linux to be the way of the future.
We won't do anything if we all individually go after our representatives. Maybe if we could get together as a group, or something, but Slashdot really isn't that important politically.
We're seeing usernumbers in the 200,000s now - so let's assume that 200,000 logged in people read Slashdot, and that 400,000 more read Slashdot but don't create accounts. Furthermore, let's assume that every reader is a citizen elligible to vote in the US. This is patently absurd, but why not?
If all 600,000 people decide to show their opinions with their votes, then against the total voter turnout for the last presidential election (96,456,345 people) that means that Slashdot as a whole is less than 1% of the total voters. This is even assuming that the voter turn-out doesn't get better, and remains constant. If it gets worse than we might get more of a vote, but still more than likely not enough to actually have an effect on the election. (600,000/96,456,345 is about 0.00622, or 0.622%)
Just voting or just writing politicians isn't going to effect anything. What we need to do is get our opinions heard somehow. Make it sound like we're not just a group of losers who don't wanna lose access to porn. And not just by our representives - if they see that 25% of their voters feel one way, but 75% feel another, guess which way they'll go. We need to win non-geeks onto our side. Find people who needed resources from the library and were denied access because they were filtered. Get letters in the paper.
Your representatives are not going to listen to a group that they feel is unimportant - if we can show them that a large group of people is against censoring the Internet, then we might be able to do something.
Even if there were 10 million people against censorship, all there needs to be are 11 million for it, and we lose. Get people who otherwise wouldn't have an opinion into the act. Just complaining to our representatives won't actually do anything. Make this an important issue to them. Make it an issue for reelection.
The reason why people flame anonymously is because, as you will soon figure out (or not if you have a single digit IQ -- which is likely), no
one can voice their opinion without being[ ]moderated down and losing karma. No one wants to do that on their real names/accounts.
It's not out of cowardice, you see.
Uh, sounds like cowardice to me. If you believe in something, you should be willing to put your name to it. If you refuse to tell someone what you actually think by not telling them you think it, and refuse to except that you might lose some karma, than that sure as hell sounds like the cowardly way out.
Then again, the fact that people ARE posting dumb crap anonymously to avoid the karma hit suggests that moderation IS working, to an extent.
So if you're going to flame me, you might as well work up the courage to actually admit who you are. Not doing so is cowardice.
It's also arguable that flaming period is cowardly, but that depends on each individuals morals.
Hemos gave a much better response to that question on a different article which he basically refers directly to. (Guess he didn't want to have to post it twice?)
The post:
RE: Doubleclick.
Believe me, if I had my way, we wouldn't be using it. But DoubleClick is what many of the advertisers use as their service, becauseDoubleClick does a good job of tracking click-thrus and such for them. That, and the honest truth, most big companies don't know
how to run their own web server for ad serving, and so outsource. So - unfortunantely, a necessary evil of serving banner ads.
As for the webbug - I've never called it bad or evil. I think it's stupid, but Andover uses it to track traffic. I think caches fuck it up, but...c'est la vie. It doesn't do anything, so I don't particularly care about. I'm more concerned with stopping advertisers from using Java in banner ads, or sound, or shockwave, or...
Basically, Slashdot is no longer controlled by just CmdrTaco and Hemos, Andover.net is a company, and needs to turn a profit. And a reality of advertising on the Web is DoubleClick.
...And for more fun, the W3C is actually changing standards on people yet again. Although apparently Mozilla does handle entities correctly (It would appear that <SIG><TT> etc would have been OK), the W3C is trying to move people to XHTML. In XHTML, an entity is defines as matching (basically)/&\c+;/ where \c is defined to mean a "name" character (part of the XML schema RegEx definition).
So it's best to use the ';' anyway, although XHTML is unlikely to become a commonly used standard anytime soon.
There are some other fun things that browsers don't do right.
If that didn't look like: There are some other fun things that browsers don't do right. Than your browser is broken. Mozilla doesn't do that - I should submit a bug report. But that construct is also being disallowed in XHTML. (The <STRONG> should have been ended when it encountered a </> after "things".)
Standards compliance would be so much easier if people stopped changing the standards...
I'm glad that I don't allow Javascript to run on Slashdot or on any other site.
The JavaScript is basically irrelavent - it just determines the time the client read it as opposed to the time the server read it. If you have JavaScript disabled, then the same image is used, this time created through a set of <NOSCRIPT> tags. The ONLY difference is that the numbers generated in this case are generated server-side, not client-side. You might wanna try blocking images2.slashdot.org instead. (In the case of Mozilla, bring up the context menu for the image, and choose Block Image from Loading and all adds will be gone. Eventually they may allow you to add sites manually, but for the time being, it works. Assuming you can find the 1 pixel...)
Believe me, if I had my way, we wouldn't be using it. But DoubleClick is what many of the advertisers use as their service, because DoubleClick does a good job of tracking click-thrus and such for them. That, and the honest truth, most big companies don't know how to run their own web server for ad serving, and so outsource. So - unfortunantely, a necessary evil of serving banner ads.
As for the webbug - I've never called it bad or evil. I think it's stupid, but Andover uses it to track traffic. I think caches fuck it up, but...c'est la vie. It doesn't do anything, so I don't particularly care about. I'm more concerned with stopping advertisers from using Java in banner ads, or sound,or shockwave, or...
"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life."
You really aren't helping anyone by giving beggers food/money. Best-case, you're feeding them for a day. Worst-case, you're helping a heroine addiction (money-handouts only - unless they can get heroine for food...). If you could help Kent get a paying job somewhere, that'd be much more productive then giving him hand-outs. Personally, I think that if people were really concerned about helping the poor, then they'd create instutions that would get these people off the streets and allow them to support themselves.
I've worked at what amounts to a soup-kitchen. I've seen some of the people there. They're good people, but they could really use some help getting on their feet and supporting themselves. Maybe there should be government-supported farms where poor people can grow their own food and get money for it, or something. Helping the poor means much more than just keeping them fed.
Stop giving people fish. Start teaching them to do it for themselves. You said that begging is hard work. Then stop forcing these people to continue to beg, and try helping them in some way. There are programs out there that try and give poor people a place to start a "productive" life.
Actually, it's because Linux is a true multi-user operating system, something not even NT can claim.
Really late for me to be posting this, but...
I wonder how many other people got sick and tired of having to logoff/logon under Windows NT to install new patches/new software? Where I work, most of the new software is installed over the network, although the local Admin. account generally speaking cannot access the network. (Mainly because the network admin. account password isn't given out much. In other words, the admin account for your machine cannot access the main network domain because it isn't a domain member and doesn't have permissions.)
Solution? Give your user account admin priviledges, then you don't need to keep logging off/logging on to install new software.
You can't even change most of the settings in Windows2000 without logging off and then back in as Admin. That "Run As..." thing they were talking about doesn't apply to the control panel! Most of the time I su under Linux it's to change some minor setting. Logging off and logging back in (involving closing all open apps) gets really annoying, really fast. If I weren't required to use NT, I wouldn't.
(And yes, black helicopters do exist. My uncle used to paint them.)
What good would a black helicopter do? If they're going after civilians at night, I suppose that it might work, but during the day, a black helicopter would kinda stand out against the sun. I'd think. But then again, helicopters aren't exactly noiseless. Unless they can be fairly far away, you'd either have to be VERY noisy to miss them or just mostly deaf.
If the helicopters are being used against other nations, then what good does them being "black" do? Radars can just detect them. Paint does nothing (useful) against radar. (Although black might obsorb some of the radar emission, I guess.)
Or does black mean covert? If black means covert, what did your uncle used to paint?
And wouldn't a helicopter done up to look like a CEO's private chopper be less suspicious than a black one?
Just to be partially on-topic, unlike black helicopters, a properly inplemented Carnivore would be unnoticible. Somewhere along the lines you "fork" the packets, a copy to carnivore, a copy on it's merry way. As far as the copy at the other end is concerned, it never strayed off course, even though a clone did. Much more scary than black helicopters - unless those helicopters are after more than just information.
This is really ludicrous, and makes me quite happy I set up my own email server at home.
So, when you receive a message that has the following headers:
Received: from mailsrv.myhouse.net (Mail Server) by out.mail.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:37:28 -0400 Received: from out.mail.bigisp.net (Mail Server) by carnivore.mail.bigisp.net (Carnivore Listening Device) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:34:12 -0400 Received: from carnivore.mail.bigisp.net (Carnivore Listening Device) by pop.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net> Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:33:03 -0400 Received: from your.friends.comp.bigisp.net (Mail Server) by pop.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:34:12 -0400
You'll understand why that may not be enough. (Note to nitpickers: I probably screwed up those headers. It's an example. I dunno exactly how they are generated. I guessed. It gets the point across.)
Just because your network doesn't have carnivore installed on it, doesn't mean that one of the networks your packets goes through doesn't. Unless you're absolutely sure that none of your packets will ever come in contact with carnivore.
But I wouldn't expect your e-mail to actually have a Carnivore header. In fact, I'd doubt that Carnivore even leaves headers, and even if it does, it'll probably be something seemingly innocent like mailhub4.bigisp.net. Large-key encryption offers better protection than a private mail server. Just make sure that anyone you'd ever like to talk with gets your key in meatspace somehow, or instead gets it through SSL or something. I'll bet Carnivore looks for PGP keys and snarf's 'em up too.
Circuit - contains the circuit diagram for the nuclear missile ignition system.
Molecule - contains a diagram of the molecules that make up a patented drug.
Car - contains instructions on how a patented portion of the engine works.
I can get a book that describes how a car works. Is that free speech? I can go out and look up the structure of various molecules. Is that free speech? My point is that just because you can put it on a shirt doesn't make it free speech. Although maybe you couldn't fit anything large on a shirt (like maybe the source to Windows) you could still put some small portions of stuff that is clearly owned by someone else. Just because it's possible to give information out over a shirt doesn't mean that it's OK.
Just because code is on a shirt doesn't mean it's a form of expression, unless a circuit is a form of expression, a catalytic converter is a form of expression, or anything else that can be written down is a form of expression. Technology is technology, whether or not it is a form of expression is up for society to decide.
That might explain why her account, which was a word followed by some digits, got spammed while my Hotmail account, which was actually my initials followed by digits, didn't. It's not actually a word, and it's long enough (I spelled part of my name out the entire way, putting me past 5 chars) that it probably won't be gotten randomly. Except I finally did get an porno spam today, so even I may no longer be safe...
In the now infamous Halloween Documents, MS made reference to the fact that their IP stack could use improvment, apparently it was suggested that they may wish to release them open-source to try and improve them. The closed anchor is here. Look for a bullet labeled "Put out parts of the source code," it details the fact that they thought the the IP stack needed improvement, and that they were thinking of trying to "tap the resouce" that OpenSource provides.
At one point, my sister created a Hotmail account. Being a bit of a technophobe, she only gave it to two friends in meatspace. After a month, it was full of spam - for pr0n sites. I have no idea how she managed to get onto pornspammers lists, but she did. Given that I doubt my sister is interested in looking at "cum-guzzling bitches" it seems a bit odd that she'd get that junk.
I have yet to figure out how she did that. Either her friends are into some... strange stuff and gave her address out (which I doubt), or someone managed to obtain her address to spam it. But the strange thing was that it was all basically porno ads. M$ might sell addresses to big companies, but I didn't think MS was into the porn industry. Maybe some Hotmail exec traded the address book for free access to a porn site.
First, in that case, it would require someone to actually notice that down three levels it was possible to gain access to the DeCSS code. Second, I think what I meant when I tried to write legalese (IANAL, but few people here are) is that were they describing methods of obtaining DeCSS (as in, "Here's a link to DeCSS!"), then that would be wrong. If instead it was something like "In a recent article on Slashdot..." which happened to have a comment posted by one of the serveral people with.sigs that link to DeCSS code, then that would be OK. They aren't saying "Here! Go to break CSS!" but rather referring people somewhere else for information.
Reguardless, I'm hoping that 2600 win the case. The point is that 2600 can't possibly hope to win in the long run should the judge rule against them. Besides, at some point, it no longer becomes worth it to post the link. When we're getting something like "SAKJ9098234LKJDLKSJWJEHR" which you need to decrypt with the enclosed Perl script, then you're getting to the point where it's too difficult to bother trying anymore. Besides, I've already got my copy of the DeCSS source - both in electronic form, and as a hardcopy.
"And it is hereby ordered that 2600 or its associates shall not publish anything that will allow the deencryption of CSS encrypted information, nor shall they publish anything that describes methods of obtaining information that allows CSS encrypted information to be decrypted by any method that is not licenced to decrypt CSS encrypted information. Should it be found that 2600 has broken these terms, then they shall be subject to a $20,000 fine per instance."
Trust me, lawyers can find ways to do it. I think that about covers any way of giving out information on decrypting CSS. I wouldn't put it past the judge to find ways to prevent 2600 from giving out DeCSS code should he rule against them. Judges are paid to do this, after all. He'll come up with a set of terms that prohibits it. It's his job.
My God! You've uncovered a conspiracy! The Amish are trying to destroy one of the major technology sites by inudating it with posts that seem insightful and informative but are actually cleverly hidden trolls! I hadn't realized it until you connected NPO Technologies "Jon Erikson" with the Amish. It's all so clear now!
My younger brother and I were shopping. He wanted to purchase a computer game. He was told he could not because he was a minor. I was allowed to purchase it being over 18. (I think this was actually conservative-store-policy since it was after all a game, but you get the idea.) In theory, I made the transaction for him, and then allowed him the usage rights or something. All that means is that the parent is going to have to come along.
Besides, most under-age people buying music are going to need rides to the location where they purchase music anyway. Since the youngest licenced-driver age I am aware of is 15, it's quite possible for them to know an 18-year-old who comes along just to buy the product. Just like you can't sell cigarettes to anyone under 18, I can see a possibility where you can't sell CD's to people under 18. Of course, this opens up lots of interesting legal questions ("Can I give the CD to a friend for exclusive use if I signed the contract?") but I think the RIAA would cover it. This would probably piss people off, but since the RIAA doesn't seem too concerned about their public image, I can see it happening.
I keep seeing this interesting perspective of what most musicians expect expressed on this site. Trouble is, it ain't so.... at least, for musicians of the caliber that most Napster users are hungry for... or of the caliber you'd pay $16 a CD for.
Maybe they're not in it for the love of it anymore, but they used to be. No band is going to make it if they decide that they are in it for the money alone. They have to have actual talent - and if you have talent, more than likely you're going to enjoy it. Any band that has the persiverance to get signed probably didn't start it for the money.
There are some exceptions to that (namely, groups like Backstreet Boys or New Kinds on the Block that were created specifically to make money), but most musicians I know do it for the love of music. If they make money off it, that's great. No one I know who plays anything objects to making money off their talent - but not making anything off it is OK too. They just like to do it.
Inconceivably, they expect to be compensated. If they don't, they're probably amiable amateurs. The starving artist stereotype belongs in the last century.
Before an artist is actually signed, they need to be discovered. To be discovered, they need to be playing somewhere, somehow. Usually, they won't be pulling big bucks at this stage. In fact, many successful musician's main job when they were signed wasn't music at all. They did it as something on the side.
The kind of equipment and talent it takes to compose, play and produce a high-quality album doens't come cheap. Sure, there are a lot of musicians who fit into your category of "just wanting to be appreciated", but they are probably not doing much cutting-edge composing, and they are not recording in $100/hour studios.
No, and they don't need to either. They aren't trying to release records. Besides, I know plenty of people who know enough to record a CD for about $2000 at a one-time cost, and at about $1 a CD after that. Most of the $2000 is something capable of burning audio CDs, the rest is equipment to record sound. I can record CDs of people on my computer, with decent quality. Most starting bands can as well. When a band gets bigger, they might consider trying to book studio time and playing for money, but not at the start.
Next time "Before They Were Rock-Stars" is on VH1, listen to what the musicians did before they "hit it big." Most of them had a day-job, and got gigs at local bars for some extra cash and for fun. Also listen to inteviews with major artists. Listen to how many still say that it's mostly about the music. If I recall, Lars was upset about Napster not only because it was stealling potential income, but also because he didn't have the choice to put music out that way. Any musician who is in it only for the money doesn't deserve any - they've sold out, and are no longer worth listening to. Yeah, musicians like to get paid for doing music. But that's not surprising. I like writing code - and I like getting compensated for it. Artists like creating their art, and they'd like to get compenstated for it as well. But even if I couldn't get hired, I'd still do some code in my spare time.
All the musicians I know personally are in it for fun. They may not be after the persuit of incredible excellence, for perfection, but they are after fun. Don't forget, most musicians aren't Metallica or Britney Speares. They're the ones playing in the garage band down the street, the people in the church choir, the people playing in the street. Yeah, they'd love some cash for doing it, and if their music's any good, they deserve it to some extent. But nothing's greater to a musician than being told that their music is wonderful and a moving experience.
Just because some people hit it big doesn't mean everyone will, or everyone should. Try going to the next highschool "battle of the bands" and asking the band members why they play. I'll bet the answers would be closer to "for the love of music" then "for huge cash advances." Of course, it could also be "to pick up chicks":)
They used skins for one main reason: It makes porting the browser one hell of a lot easier.
Mozilla currently has builds that run on Linux, Windows, MacOS, Solaris, etc. How did they port it? Well, they have a nicely abstracted GUI kit. Besides, for all intents and purposes, Mozilla as a browser really is ready for prime-time. I've been using the browser as my main browser for quite a while now, and although I've run into some annoying <TEXTAREA> bugs, it's worked fine. Fortunately the TEXTAREA and HTTP POST bugs seem to have been fixed, making sending comments much, much, easier.
The only thing that's really missing is Java - everything else is in there. They have really nice CSS/HTML/JavaScript support - all almost completely and fully implemented. The browser itself works quite nicely. I don't use it for e-mail, I don't use it to read newsgroups, I use it to browse. For that, it's fine - although an 8MB download is stretching the limits of modem users. I dunno, I like Mozilla - when it finally gets released for prime-time, I think it'd be better than IE. After all, just think of this slogan: "All the power of IE, without the annoying VBScript security holes."
There is in fact a currently-active suit denouncing the latest copyright act as unconstitutional...
Yeah, it's in the appeal stages, and according to the site, it should enter an appelate court in "spring 2000." Lemme see, this article was posted Jul 30 2000 - that should be after spring, right? No news isn't always good news... And they already lost in the first court, and case law seems to be quite firm against them. The best bet would be to petition our various representatives to create newer, better copyright laws more in the favor of consumers.
There is a difference - mainly, most programmers writing Open Source stuff expect it to remain open, and benifit some others. They don't expect any other sort of return, except maybe the gratitude of creating something useful to others. Most musicians actually feel the same way, they just want to be appreciated. At least until they "hit it big" or whatever.
Actually, most of the Linux distros are realatively harmless in this way. Although they include software written by people for free, they don't directly profit on that. After all, you could always go out and download all of it for free. What do they provide, then? A way to bundle it all together, so that it's gotten from one source. A way to install it from one source with some form of documentation. And, for those who want it, a place to go for guaranteed support.
How is this better? What are they giving back to the community? Well, by having RedHat, for instance, I was able to download RedHat 6.2 and burn it to a CD-ROM under Windows. Then I was able to install it, all for free, all realitively easily. What does that mean? Linux now has one more supporter. The distributions get more people into Linux, by providing and important service. In this way, they give back to the community simply by building interest, even if they do nothing else. Likewise, Corell Linux is getting my mother interested in Linux, and my brother is now becoming more interested in Open Source software then he was before.
What does the RIAA do? Well, they hype music (and distros similarly hype Linux), and they distribute it. Linux distros usually distribute some version for free. Does the RIAA? Nope. Does the RIAA want people to be able to sample the music first? Evidently not, they seem to think that the only use someone who owns a CD is is to listen to the music themselves. The only other thing the RIAA does it to try and force people through one channel of distribution - the RIAA themselves. Do any Linux distros do this? Not yet... The RIAA is more comparable to Microsoft than a Linux distro - they want (and seem to have) a monopoly, and are trying to crush anything that might topple their empire. I'd much rather see the RIAA declared illegal and let all the labels start actually competeing against each other.
Tom Lehrer, one of the mainstays on Dr. Demento, has a bachelor's and master's in math from Harvard.
Not only that, but he taught/teaches math a a university (Harvard?) somewhere. Besides, it's really not that surprising, Tom Lehrer's music wasn't "pop" anyway, it required some form of intellect. Especially "New Math":)
Slashdot Mirror
There's only so small you can make these devices until the lack of a useable user-interface makes them rather useless. There's only so small a keyboard can get until it is no longer really useable by human hands - and laptops have already pushed that as far as it can reasonably go. Plus the interface area looks a hair too small to be very useful - I can't imaging trying to go through man pages or reading READMEs on that thing. This seems to be of limited usefulness - although it's nice to know that IBM considers embedded Linux to be the way of the future.
We're seeing usernumbers in the 200,000s now - so let's assume that 200,000 logged in people read Slashdot, and that 400,000 more read Slashdot but don't create accounts. Furthermore, let's assume that every reader is a citizen elligible to vote in the US. This is patently absurd, but why not?
If all 600,000 people decide to show their opinions with their votes, then against the total voter turnout for the last presidential election (96,456,345 people) that means that Slashdot as a whole is less than 1% of the total voters. This is even assuming that the voter turn-out doesn't get better, and remains constant. If it gets worse than we might get more of a vote, but still more than likely not enough to actually have an effect on the election. (600,000/96,456,345 is about 0.00622, or 0.622%)
Just voting or just writing politicians isn't going to effect anything. What we need to do is get our opinions heard somehow. Make it sound like we're not just a group of losers who don't wanna lose access to porn. And not just by our representives - if they see that 25% of their voters feel one way, but 75% feel another, guess which way they'll go. We need to win non-geeks onto our side. Find people who needed resources from the library and were denied access because they were filtered. Get letters in the paper.
Your representatives are not going to listen to a group that they feel is unimportant - if we can show them that a large group of people is against censoring the Internet, then we might be able to do something.
Even if there were 10 million people against censorship, all there needs to be are 11 million for it, and we lose. Get people who otherwise wouldn't have an opinion into the act. Just complaining to our representatives won't actually do anything. Make this an important issue to them. Make it an issue for reelection.
It's not out of cowardice, you see.
Uh, sounds like cowardice to me. If you believe in something, you should be willing to put your name to it. If you refuse to tell someone what you actually think by not telling them you think it, and refuse to except that you might lose some karma, than that sure as hell sounds like the cowardly way out.
Then again, the fact that people ARE posting dumb crap anonymously to avoid the karma hit suggests that moderation IS working, to an extent.
So if you're going to flame me, you might as well work up the courage to actually admit who you are. Not doing so is cowardice.
It's also arguable that flaming period is cowardly, but that depends on each individuals morals.
The post:
This is also addressed in the Slashdot FAQ.
Basically, Slashdot is no longer controlled by just CmdrTaco and Hemos, Andover.net is a company, and needs to turn a profit. And a reality of advertising on the Web is DoubleClick.
So it's best to use the ';' anyway, although XHTML is unlikely to become a commonly used standard anytime soon.
There are some other fun things that browsers don't do right.
If that didn't look like:
There are some other fun things that browsers don't do right.
Than your browser is broken. Mozilla doesn't do that - I should submit a bug report. But that construct is also being disallowed in XHTML. (The <STRONG> should have been ended when it encountered a </> after "things".)
Standards compliance would be so much easier if people stopped changing the standards...
The JavaScript is basically irrelavent - it just determines the time the client read it as opposed to the time the server read it. If you have JavaScript disabled, then the same image is used, this time created through a set of <NOSCRIPT> tags. The ONLY difference is that the numbers generated in this case are generated server-side, not client-side. You might wanna try blocking images2.slashdot.org instead. (In the case of Mozilla, bring up the context menu for the image, and choose Block Image from Loading and all adds will be gone. Eventually they may allow you to add sites manually, but for the time being, it works. Assuming you can find the 1 pixel...)
For the truely lazy:
This page on his site is actually kinda funny. Although it's already been circulated in via e-mail.
But overall, it'd be nice if he'd create a new account and STOP WHINING .
"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life."
You really aren't helping anyone by giving beggers food/money. Best-case, you're feeding them for a day. Worst-case, you're helping a heroine addiction (money-handouts only - unless they can get heroine for food...). If you could help Kent get a paying job somewhere, that'd be much more productive then giving him hand-outs. Personally, I think that if people were really concerned about helping the poor, then they'd create instutions that would get these people off the streets and allow them to support themselves.
I've worked at what amounts to a soup-kitchen. I've seen some of the people there. They're good people, but they could really use some help getting on their feet and supporting themselves. Maybe there should be government-supported farms where poor people can grow their own food and get money for it, or something. Helping the poor means much more than just keeping them fed.
Stop giving people fish. Start teaching them to do it for themselves. You said that begging is hard work. Then stop forcing these people to continue to beg, and try helping them in some way. There are programs out there that try and give poor people a place to start a "productive" life.
Really late for me to be posting this, but...
I wonder how many other people got sick and tired of having to logoff/logon under Windows NT to install new patches/new software? Where I work, most of the new software is installed over the network, although the local Admin. account generally speaking cannot access the network. (Mainly because the network admin. account password isn't given out much. In other words, the admin account for your machine cannot access the main network domain because it isn't a domain member and doesn't have permissions.)
Solution? Give your user account admin priviledges, then you don't need to keep logging off/logging on to install new software.
You can't even change most of the settings in Windows2000 without logging off and then back in as Admin. That "Run As..." thing they were talking about doesn't apply to the control panel! Most of the time I su under Linux it's to change some minor setting. Logging off and logging back in (involving closing all open apps) gets really annoying, really fast. If I weren't required to use NT, I wouldn't.
What good would a black helicopter do? If they're going after civilians at night, I suppose that it might work, but during the day, a black helicopter would kinda stand out against the sun. I'd think. But then again, helicopters aren't exactly noiseless. Unless they can be fairly far away, you'd either have to be VERY noisy to miss them or just mostly deaf.
If the helicopters are being used against other nations, then what good does them being "black" do? Radars can just detect them. Paint does nothing (useful) against radar. (Although black might obsorb some of the radar emission, I guess.)
Or does black mean covert? If black means covert, what did your uncle used to paint?
And wouldn't a helicopter done up to look like a CEO's private chopper be less suspicious than a black one?
Just to be partially on-topic, unlike black helicopters, a properly inplemented Carnivore would be unnoticible. Somewhere along the lines you "fork" the packets, a copy to carnivore, a copy on it's merry way. As far as the copy at the other end is concerned, it never strayed off course, even though a clone did. Much more scary than black helicopters - unless those helicopters are after more than just information.
So, when you receive a message that has the following headers:
Received: from mailsrv.myhouse.net (Mail Server) by out.mail.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:37:28 -0400
Received: from out.mail.bigisp.net (Mail Server) by carnivore.mail.bigisp.net (Carnivore Listening Device) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:34:12 -0400
Received: from carnivore.mail.bigisp.net (Carnivore Listening Device) by pop.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net> Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:33:03 -0400
Received: from your.friends.comp.bigisp.net (Mail Server) by pop.bigisp.net (Mail Server) with ESMTP id GABLDEGOOK for <blakestah@myhouse.net>; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:34:12 -0400
You'll understand why that may not be enough. (Note to nitpickers: I probably screwed up those headers. It's an example. I dunno exactly how they are generated. I guessed. It gets the point across.)
Just because your network doesn't have carnivore installed on it, doesn't mean that one of the networks your packets goes through doesn't. Unless you're absolutely sure that none of your packets will ever come in contact with carnivore.
But I wouldn't expect your e-mail to actually have a Carnivore header. In fact, I'd doubt that Carnivore even leaves headers, and even if it does, it'll probably be something seemingly innocent like mailhub4.bigisp.net. Large-key encryption offers better protection than a private mail server. Just make sure that anyone you'd ever like to talk with gets your key in meatspace somehow, or instead gets it through SSL or something. I'll bet Carnivore looks for PGP keys and snarf's 'em up too.
- Circuit - contains the circuit diagram for the nuclear missile ignition system.
- Molecule - contains a diagram of the molecules that make up a patented drug.
- Car - contains instructions on how a patented portion of the engine works.
I can get a book that describes how a car works. Is that free speech? I can go out and look up the structure of various molecules. Is that free speech? My point is that just because you can put it on a shirt doesn't make it free speech. Although maybe you couldn't fit anything large on a shirt (like maybe the source to Windows) you could still put some small portions of stuff that is clearly owned by someone else. Just because it's possible to give information out over a shirt doesn't mean that it's OK.Just because code is on a shirt doesn't mean it's a form of expression, unless a circuit is a form of expression, a catalytic converter is a form of expression, or anything else that can be written down is a form of expression. Technology is technology, whether or not it is a form of expression is up for society to decide.
That might explain why her account, which was a word followed by some digits, got spammed while my Hotmail account, which was actually my initials followed by digits, didn't. It's not actually a word, and it's long enough (I spelled part of my name out the entire way, putting me past 5 chars) that it probably won't be gotten randomly. Except I finally did get an porno spam today, so even I may no longer be safe...
In the now infamous Halloween Documents, MS made reference to the fact that their IP stack could use improvment, apparently it was suggested that they may wish to release them open-source to try and improve them. The closed anchor is here. Look for a bullet labeled "Put out parts of the source code," it details the fact that they thought the the IP stack needed improvement, and that they were thinking of trying to "tap the resouce" that OpenSource provides.
I have yet to figure out how she did that. Either her friends are into some... strange stuff and gave her address out (which I doubt), or someone managed to obtain her address to spam it. But the strange thing was that it was all basically porno ads. M$ might sell addresses to big companies, but I didn't think MS was into the porn industry. Maybe some Hotmail exec traded the address book for free access to a porn site.
Reguardless, I'm hoping that 2600 win the case. The point is that 2600 can't possibly hope to win in the long run should the judge rule against them. Besides, at some point, it no longer becomes worth it to post the link. When we're getting something like "SAKJ9098234LKJDLKSJWJEHR" which you need to decrypt with the enclosed Perl script, then you're getting to the point where it's too difficult to bother trying anymore. Besides, I've already got my copy of the DeCSS source - both in electronic form, and as a hardcopy.
Trust me, lawyers can find ways to do it. I think that about covers any way of giving out information on decrypting CSS. I wouldn't put it past the judge to find ways to prevent 2600 from giving out DeCSS code should he rule against them. Judges are paid to do this, after all. He'll come up with a set of terms that prohibits it. It's his job.
My God! You've uncovered a conspiracy! The Amish are trying to destroy one of the major technology sites by inudating it with posts that seem insightful and informative but are actually cleverly hidden trolls! I hadn't realized it until you connected NPO Technologies "Jon Erikson" with the Amish. It's all so clear now!
Besides, most under-age people buying music are going to need rides to the location where they purchase music anyway. Since the youngest licenced-driver age I am aware of is 15, it's quite possible for them to know an 18-year-old who comes along just to buy the product. Just like you can't sell cigarettes to anyone under 18, I can see a possibility where you can't sell CD's to people under 18. Of course, this opens up lots of interesting legal questions ("Can I give the CD to a friend for exclusive use if I signed the contract?") but I think the RIAA would cover it. This would probably piss people off, but since the RIAA doesn't seem too concerned about their public image, I can see it happening.
Maybe they're not in it for the love of it anymore, but they used to be. No band is going to make it if they decide that they are in it for the money alone. They have to have actual talent - and if you have talent, more than likely you're going to enjoy it. Any band that has the persiverance to get signed probably didn't start it for the money.
There are some exceptions to that (namely, groups like Backstreet Boys or New Kinds on the Block that were created specifically to make money), but most musicians I know do it for the love of music. If they make money off it, that's great. No one I know who plays anything objects to making money off their talent - but not making anything off it is OK too. They just like to do it.
Inconceivably, they expect to be compensated. If they don't, they're probably amiable amateurs. The starving artist stereotype belongs in the last century.
Before an artist is actually signed, they need to be discovered. To be discovered, they need to be playing somewhere, somehow. Usually, they won't be pulling big bucks at this stage. In fact, many successful musician's main job when they were signed wasn't music at all. They did it as something on the side.
The kind of equipment and talent it takes to compose, play and produce a high-quality album doens't come cheap. Sure, there are a lot of musicians who fit into your category of "just wanting to be appreciated", but they are probably not doing much cutting-edge composing, and they are not recording in $100/hour studios.
No, and they don't need to either. They aren't trying to release records. Besides, I know plenty of people who know enough to record a CD for about $2000 at a one-time cost, and at about $1 a CD after that. Most of the $2000 is something capable of burning audio CDs, the rest is equipment to record sound. I can record CDs of people on my computer, with decent quality. Most starting bands can as well. When a band gets bigger, they might consider trying to book studio time and playing for money, but not at the start.
Next time "Before They Were Rock-Stars" is on VH1, listen to what the musicians did before they "hit it big." Most of them had a day-job, and got gigs at local bars for some extra cash and for fun. Also listen to inteviews with major artists. Listen to how many still say that it's mostly about the music. If I recall, Lars was upset about Napster not only because it was stealling potential income, but also because he didn't have the choice to put music out that way. Any musician who is in it only for the money doesn't deserve any - they've sold out, and are no longer worth listening to. Yeah, musicians like to get paid for doing music. But that's not surprising. I like writing code - and I like getting compensated for it. Artists like creating their art, and they'd like to get compenstated for it as well. But even if I couldn't get hired, I'd still do some code in my spare time.
All the musicians I know personally are in it for fun. They may not be after the persuit of incredible excellence, for perfection, but they are after fun. Don't forget, most musicians aren't Metallica or Britney Speares. They're the ones playing in the garage band down the street, the people in the church choir, the people playing in the street. Yeah, they'd love some cash for doing it, and if their music's any good, they deserve it to some extent. But nothing's greater to a musician than being told that their music is wonderful and a moving experience.
Just because some people hit it big doesn't mean everyone will, or everyone should. Try going to the next highschool "battle of the bands" and asking the band members why they play. I'll bet the answers would be closer to "for the love of music" then "for huge cash advances." Of course, it could also be "to pick up chicks" :)
Mozilla currently has builds that run on Linux, Windows, MacOS, Solaris, etc. How did they port it? Well, they have a nicely abstracted GUI kit. Besides, for all intents and purposes, Mozilla as a browser really is ready for prime-time. I've been using the browser as my main browser for quite a while now, and although I've run into some annoying <TEXTAREA> bugs, it's worked fine. Fortunately the TEXTAREA and HTTP POST bugs seem to have been fixed, making sending comments much, much, easier.
The only thing that's really missing is Java - everything else is in there. They have really nice CSS/HTML/JavaScript support - all almost completely and fully implemented. The browser itself works quite nicely. I don't use it for e-mail, I don't use it to read newsgroups, I use it to browse. For that, it's fine - although an 8MB download is stretching the limits of modem users. I dunno, I like Mozilla - when it finally gets released for prime-time, I think it'd be better than IE. After all, just think of this slogan: "All the power of IE, without the annoying VBScript security holes."
This Post Posted Through Mozilla Build 2000072920
Yeah, it's in the appeal stages, and according to the site, it should enter an appelate court in "spring 2000." Lemme see, this article was posted Jul 30 2000 - that should be after spring, right? No news isn't always good news... And they already lost in the first court, and case law seems to be quite firm against them. The best bet would be to petition our various representatives to create newer, better copyright laws more in the favor of consumers.
Actually, most of the Linux distros are realatively harmless in this way. Although they include software written by people for free, they don't directly profit on that. After all, you could always go out and download all of it for free. What do they provide, then? A way to bundle it all together, so that it's gotten from one source. A way to install it from one source with some form of documentation. And, for those who want it, a place to go for guaranteed support.
How is this better? What are they giving back to the community? Well, by having RedHat, for instance, I was able to download RedHat 6.2 and burn it to a CD-ROM under Windows. Then I was able to install it, all for free, all realitively easily. What does that mean? Linux now has one more supporter. The distributions get more people into Linux, by providing and important service. In this way, they give back to the community simply by building interest, even if they do nothing else. Likewise, Corell Linux is getting my mother interested in Linux, and my brother is now becoming more interested in Open Source software then he was before.
What does the RIAA do? Well, they hype music (and distros similarly hype Linux), and they distribute it. Linux distros usually distribute some version for free. Does the RIAA? Nope. Does the RIAA want people to be able to sample the music first? Evidently not, they seem to think that the only use someone who owns a CD is is to listen to the music themselves. The only other thing the RIAA does it to try and force people through one channel of distribution - the RIAA themselves. Do any Linux distros do this? Not yet... The RIAA is more comparable to Microsoft than a Linux distro - they want (and seem to have) a monopoly, and are trying to crush anything that might topple their empire. I'd much rather see the RIAA declared illegal and let all the labels start actually competeing against each other.
Not only that, but he taught/teaches math a a university (Harvard?) somewhere. Besides, it's really not that surprising, Tom Lehrer's music wasn't "pop" anyway, it required some form of intellect. Especially "New Math" :)