Re:Boy, euro boy makes all kinds of assumptions
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Let me summarize:
(A) If you bothered to read my previous posts, you would quickly learn I am a resident of Ontario, Canada.
(B) It might not be possible to decode these formats, but the US says its illegal. Unfortunately, the laws they are using are being applied worldwide. And countries that choose to buck the trend seem to send their "innocents" to the US for trial anyways.
(C) Just because its possible dosen't make it legal. It's possible, cheaper, and easier, for me to drive my car on the wrong side of the road than break the encryption on a DVD, but then I'd go to jail.
(D) Toilet talk doesn't win any arguments here. Doesn't win many anywhere else, either.
(E) Freedom is the ability for me to copy a DVD without worrying that one of the world's superpowers is going to throw me in jail when they get the chance. Freedom is'nt always the ability to do things -- sometimes its the ability to do morally right things without worry of reprisal.
(F) If you think that the companies aren't going after individuals, then you don't know anyone pirating DirecTV in the US.
Re:WMA is about 2x as compact as MP3....
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
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· Score: 1
>...but has optional copy protection, like MP3 does.
The same style optional copy protection that MiniDisc, DiVX, DVD, VHS, Beta, and DAT have. Just look at how often companies choose not to use it!
>They usually complain about the optional copy protection, similar to MP3.
Yup, because we know from the past that optional copy protection usually ends up a defacto standard. When was the last time you bought a DVD that wasn't encrypted?
Exactly.
>but I'm sure there are far too many people here who are mindless anti-MS zealots to even give it a listen
Nope, there's just too few people here who have been bitten by the RIAA and MPAA. However, feel free to keep the wool over your eyes. I'm surprised that its so thick you haven't noticed what's going on in your local CD shop.
>Australia is a signatory to the same international copyright treaties as everyone else.
Yep, but... KaaZaa itself doesn't include any material that is of questionable original. The client itself is made of 100% pure legit code.
Perhaps they hope that in Australia they won't extend copyright violation to include clients that can be coaxed into it?
Re:The best reason to go: Good pings for everyone
on
Million Man LAN
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· Score: 1
"Why did it have to be millionMANlan, instead of millionPERSONLAN?"
Because english, unless used very specifically, is a genderless language. The word man has been (and if me and my english teachers have their way, will conitnue to be) used as a generic non-gender term for ages. It falls into the same category as he and his.
If I'm trying to put down women, you'll know when I am. But I don't, I won't, and I'm not.
It's right there, at dictionary.com. A "whopping" 33% of the definitions specify gender. The rest (10 of 15) clearly do not.
I guess I've never been one to use fashionable language. Thank God, since if I went round saying some of the stuff (especially fake computer references) on TV I'd probably want to lock myself up! 8-D
>I find it more and more difficult to simply administer my systems because all the suits want to know every move I make three weeks in advance.
Well, that's fine. Since that's what they want, make sure you get it written down as policy. I'm sure (as long as you don't mention your upcoming idea) they'll do it in a heartbeat.
Now, when they want something done, you can simply point to their signed policy and say "Not for 3 weeks. I think I'm going to take my holidays now, since there's nothing to do, if there's no problem with that. Just let me whip up a quick presentation for you first."
>Here in the UK we pay around £12-£16 ($18-$24) for a single CD and double CDs can cost more.
Last time I ventured into America (a year ago) this was the price one paid in American $$$ for some of the latest releases, and most of the re-releases.
Double CDs in Canada, unless you look far and wide, will cost $35-$45 CDN ($25-$35 US). Imports cost about 50% more.
I still don't understand why an album sells for more than (or the same as) the movie Waterworld (for example). Waterworld cost $175 million, was a money loser right from the box office in America (so they have a lot of catching up to do in home sales), yet still retails for $9.98 US. The soundtrack for that same movie, which cost far, far, far less to produce, and has had far less promotion also costs $9.98.
Maybe I don't get it. Maybe it actually costs $175 million to record a record these days and I'm deluding myself. I guess you have to buy a radio station every time you record a track nowadays to get a studio quality cut?
>Licenses are the methods by which software companies make money.
Making money by unscrupulous licensing clauses is like selling something with a 3 year "Bumper-to-Bumper" warranty, and burying in the fine print "Years apply to standard uranus years only".
The minute your customer walks in your store after 300 days have passed and doesn't get any service, you better damn well bet you'll lose them as a customer and every single person they show that contract to in the future.
That scheme works great for companies that go out of business every year, but Borland's been in business longer than I want to look up. Do they really want to change their name, and lose any bit of goodwill attached to it?
I would sincerely hope not. Having a solid gold company image name is (almost) better than money itself.
We had to buy specially sized and shaped CD-ROMs for replacements in the PowerMacs at the college. Although they are IDE, the design specs used prevented any other CD drive from fitting. Virtually all other parts were like this -- memory, mainboard, monitor, anything and everything inside that box other than the hard drive had was non-standard. Yep, sure they were _mac_ standard, but...
Anyone who says mac isn't proprietary is virtually saying cars aren't proprietary. I mean, sure, I can make most any sunvisor fit my car, but just _try_ and put a Ford carbeurator in a Toyota.
>If you disagree, please illustrate your points individually.
I prefer to make my points in the shape of a short paragraph or two, TYVM.
Macs are proprietary because they don't follow standards already set in place properly. Their idea of following standards is half assed (such as in my above example) and likely will remain that way.
Just try to fit any other monitor on the iLamp's stand... nope, you can't.
"The Terminal Man" - Man gets computer brain implanted and goes insane
"Short Circuit 1 & 2" - Robot gets heart and goes soft
"Explorers" - Three geeks build a magic bubble that brings them to magic places (dear God I wish that weren't true)
"Saturn 3" - Robot decides to get kinky
"Spacecamp" - Jinx gets anti-lonely and puts his friend M a x... i n... s p a c e... f o r e v e r... [watch the movie and you'll understand the spaces]
"Captain Power" - Any episode
"Jumpin' Jack Flash" - Whoopi goes zowii in pre-IRC chats!
"Freejack" - Man gets trapped in high tech future where machines watch your every move
"Runaway" - Lead kiss singer washes face. Resulting paranoia makes Burt Reynold's his mortal enemy and he builds robots to fix the problem.
"D.A.R.Y.L." - Need I say more? Probably. Its sitting unwatched on my shelf because I seem to recall trying to get the whole idea of having watched it (and liked it) on TV movie night once when I was a child...
"Not Quite Human 1 and 2" - Robot boy learns life is too hard for him so he does the only humane thing possible -- DESTROYS HIMSELF! Or does he?
"Fortress 1 and 2" - Computer prison computer gets angry and wants revenge or something like that
"Cyborg 1 2 and 3" - VanDamme amazes with his martial arts skills when he blinds someone in their eye for real! Oh, and he is like... not liking cyborgs or something. I never understood the plot to any of the cyborg series.
"Class of 1999" - Robot teachers close all their doors at the same time and drive Ford Tempos through demilitarized zones to stop rampaging kids.
"Brainstorm" - Tape your mind. Then loan it to...
"Spacehunter: Adventures in the forbidden zone" - Hey, it took place in outer space, what more you want? It on video CD? Too late... I already time shifted it.
"Time Runner" - If it stars the lead actor from StarWars, it must be good, right? (well, it is more watchable than star wars, I admit!)
"Battlestar Galactica" - Anything -- the movie, the TV shows, whatever
"Star Trek 1-MMXXIV" - Oh YEAH.
"Toy Story" - First hit 100% CGI movie.
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" - Well, not CGI, but if it were 1988 again this movie would be a feature on slashdot I'm sure.
"Total Recall" - Live in VR land, for a while, until it becomes true. Drink PEPSI!
"Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe" - Jesse the mayor Ventura talks to a wearable wrist based computer, telling people it has VD.
"The Quiet Earth" - What happens when you watch all these movies in one night, like I plan to in the near future. Mmmmmm, the theater all to myself. "Let's all go to the lobby and get ourselves some snacks!"
>Theft is theft, no matter who you're screwing over
Yeah, but the dictionary explains theft isn't copying files. Just read it. Theft, or its identical but clearly defined brother, larceny only applies when a physical item has been removed from the posession of another. In other words, the violated no longer has posession of the item.
Yup, I know about the law definition of posession. Of course, since this applies only to the violated and their product is still in their hands with their rightful ownership intact it still doesn't count.
Now, walking into NSync's house and stealing all their papers with their ideas for their next album is the only copyright violation I can come up with on the spot that is also theft.
However, fortunately KaZaa can't do that (yet)!
>and didn't understand that leaving Kazaa, Morpheus and all their other file trading utilities on all day long was not only illegal
No, leaving it on all day is not illegal. Perhaps against your AUP, but breaking an agreement between student and university is not illegal. That's why he can't go to jail or get community service for abusing your bandwidth in any way he likes.
Or do you mean that trading the Nsync album is illegal? There's a big difference between the medium and the message, you know. Just ask the art department.
I don't disagree with your actions, but unfortunately it seems the BSA has caught another computer professional up in their redefinition of the english language. Don't let it happen! Fight the power and keep the dictionary true to its roots! Copying copyrighted files without permission is copyright violation. Nothing more, nothing less.
You can say piracy. This word, however, is intentionally both overused and loaded. I'm sure you and me both don't consider a software "pirate" someone who goes to coastal villiages and nearby ships to rape women and pillage.
Sorry, don't take this all too seriously. I just think that when people stop calling piracy theft (which it isn't) people will see that the crime committed is nowhere near the level the RIAA would consider it.
>Blocking file sharing is difficult. You effectively have to put a bandwidth cap on the dorms, or block entire ranges of ports.
No, its far easier than that.
You have a proxy which only allows HTTP requests (and checks for anything abnormal). This proxy gets top priority on QOS. You have a socks proxy which only works for certain requested services by blocking requests to anything but certain IPs (some IM clients, anything teachers specifically ask for). This also gets top QOS priority. Any internal traffic also gets high QOS.
Anything else (ie traffic not going through the proxy) gets minimum QOS, or possibly rate limiting too.
So there you go. Speed is still snappy for normal use, and you have blocked extreme abuse of filesharing utilities. Telnet/ssh still works because how much speed do you need for that? My 14.4k modem handles it perfectly fine.
Why I, a lowly technical college student figured this out, and supposedly high-IQ university professors and IT staff didn't is far beyond me. Maybe they could do a study of how being far removed from the problem brings better answers?
Because their college requires them to take a few Access, VB, and Office 2k courses, along with their other programming content, like mine. And don't forget RPG and Cobol... I've been looking for something to compile those for Linux properly, but its rough going.
>Even accepting that Internet access is required tio be a "productive member of society" (which is doubtful)
I don't know about that. I was required by the government of Ontario to use either the internet (at home) or the internet on a booth at one of their very few business registration centers between the hours of (exaggerating a little) 2:39-2:40 pm. According to the lady who works there, their computer stops working after 3:00 pm, although the office stays open until 5:00. For fun I asked if there was any way I could do anything there without using the computer. She said "no". Must be a sweeet job!
Anyways, that Compaq system doesn't include an OS.
I don't know if the FTA broadcast of CBC is still going (I would certainly assume it is!) because I've had no reason to get a DVB receiver, what with CBC being broadcast in a city not to far from mine.:)
>Go ahead, you buy 1 copy and install on 120,000 machines. I'm sure you have the time for it.
Well, the answer to the question you inferred is very simple. Since digital data doesn't lose anything over generations, you can make copies from the copies. So, knowing this, let's see how many burning cycles it would take to make 120,000 CDs:
2^x = 120000
Log 120000 = 17 cycles.
2
With 24x burners this would take under 1 hour (17 * 3.3 minutes). Of course, one could read the entire CD to a massiver server and simply burn 120,000 copies at once in 3.3 minutes, but hey, why would we want to do that?
Don't tell me they don't have that many burners to do the work, either. This is Korea... they make the things by the millions!
>Just because the head-in-the-sand US market has never been very enthusiastic about them doesn't mean they have failed.
No, the US market simply decided not to waste money on a half-baked idea like MiniDisc. Now that there is a solution which does everything that Minidisc can do, except 10-50x faster, and with over 50% market penetration; America has decided the time is right for a portable solution. They just let you be the guinea pigs with MiniDisc.
So what is the solution that bests MiniDisc in every single way known?
8 cm Re-Writeable CDs and MP3 encoders/players designed for these. Expect this open format to become HOT as more people realize MiniCD lets them put multiple albums on a disc of similar size to MD, of similar quality to MD, and allows them to play it in well over half the locations they might travel. And don't forget the ace-in-the-hole of most any format over MD, ease of copying. Not to mention the full data compatibility of the disc, allowing people to store interesting tidbits like music videos, album art, and other things MiniDisc either wasn't designed to handle, or which Sony forced format incompatibility with. Let me repeat the most important point: Philips, a very large investor in the CD format, actually wants you to be able to use these CDs to copy as much music as you like, unlike Sony and their proprietary MiniDisc format.
If you ask me, MD needs to rest with Sony's many other stillborn consumer formats, such as Beta and MemoryStick.
>They are extremely popular in Asia,
That's great, but virtually no music that appeals to the American market is produced in Asia. This makes the format further unappealing to us.
What's good for Asia isn't always good for us. If MiniDisc has worked out for them, good for them. It didn't here simply because people here want easy to use, unemcumbered music formats.
>Price just isn't a big as factor as everyone here thinks
I agree. The freedom of not being locked into a proprietary solution and platform independance is a much bigger factor. Of course, this assumes people decide to look more than a few months into the future, which it seems no one will, except insightful university-level people such as yourself. Also, as is often taught in universities, the potential cost of backdoors and bugs that aren't reported in security-through-obscurity systems will often outweigh the cost of the OS itself!
Most importantly, and so often referenced by upper level educational instituions such as yours, is the inherent cost involved in using a system which you cannot yourself fix. A system which requires constant outside intervention will very quickly cause a huge support bill, nevermind the headache all the support technicians will end up with!
Of course, as someone who works at a university, I'm certain you are well aware of these problems surrounding OSes for which full disclosure of the code isn't aviailible, for which very poor API documentation is availiable, and for which support costs an arm and a leg. And, as a university equipment purchaser, I'm certain you understand that the staff and students at the university itself are able to repair any problems found themselves, should they be given access to the necessary tools, ensuring support costs are extremely low and repairs are lightning quick.
I'm glad you made the right decision and put BSD on all your systems. However, I'm not certain where Linux fails in the above requiremnts. Perhaps you'd care to explain.:)
>True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?
Playing DVDs, viewing TV from (some) TV cards, DOS, when you're tired and just want things "big"...
>I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...
They probably screwed up on the shadow mask on your monitor. I'd return it... This is pretty unusual. But finding dead pixels on LCDs is completely normal, unfortunately.
>Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT
You need a monitor with a sharpness control... There's one inside labelled focus, but then again there's 20 kV inside. Don't open up your monitor unless you know what you are doing!
>I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...
I don't know what CRT and LCD you're using, but $ for $ I've found that if you buy an LCD and CRT of the same size and price, you get a CRT that beats out the LCD.
But hey, maybe I haven't seen a good LCD for a while... the only one I've got is on this laptop I'm typing on, and the brightness, colour, and contrast fade unless I'm viewing it at the "right" angle.:-/
Slashdot Mirror
Let me summarize:
(A) If you bothered to read my previous posts, you would quickly learn I am a resident of Ontario, Canada.
(B) It might not be possible to decode these formats, but the US says its illegal. Unfortunately, the laws they are using are being applied worldwide. And countries that choose to buck the trend seem to send their "innocents" to the US for trial anyways.
(C) Just because its possible dosen't make it legal. It's possible, cheaper, and easier, for me to drive my car on the wrong side of the road than break the encryption on a DVD, but then I'd go to jail.
(D) Toilet talk doesn't win any arguments here. Doesn't win many anywhere else, either.
(E) Freedom is the ability for me to copy a DVD without worrying that one of the world's superpowers is going to throw me in jail when they get the chance. Freedom is'nt always the ability to do things -- sometimes its the ability to do morally right things without worry of reprisal.
(F) If you think that the companies aren't going after individuals, then you don't know anyone pirating DirecTV in the US.
>...but has optional copy protection, like MP3 does.
The same style optional copy protection that MiniDisc, DiVX, DVD, VHS, Beta, and DAT have. Just look at how often companies choose not to use it!
>They usually complain about the optional copy protection, similar to MP3.
Yup, because we know from the past that optional copy protection usually ends up a defacto standard. When was the last time you bought a DVD that wasn't encrypted?
Exactly.
>but I'm sure there are far too many people here who are mindless anti-MS zealots to even give it a listen
Nope, there's just too few people here who have been bitten by the RIAA and MPAA. However, feel free to keep the wool over your eyes. I'm surprised that its so thick you haven't noticed what's going on in your local CD shop.
>Australia is a signatory to the same international copyright treaties as everyone else.
Yep, but... KaaZaa itself doesn't include any material that is of questionable original. The client itself is made of 100% pure legit code.
Perhaps they hope that in Australia they won't extend copyright violation to include clients that can be coaxed into it?
"Why did it have to be millionMANlan, instead of millionPERSONLAN?"
Because english, unless used very specifically, is a genderless language. The word man has been (and if me and my english teachers have their way, will conitnue to be) used as a generic non-gender term for ages. It falls into the same category as he and his.
If I'm trying to put down women, you'll know when I am. But I don't, I won't, and I'm not.
It's right there, at dictionary.com. A "whopping" 33% of the definitions specify gender. The rest (10 of 15) clearly do not.
I guess I've never been one to use fashionable language. Thank God, since if I went round saying some of the stuff (especially fake computer references) on TV I'd probably want to lock myself up! 8-D
Do I win a prize?
BTW: I'm a big High-Tech movie fan, but I also thought that movie sucked... Why did the kid have to be that weird?
>I find it more and more difficult to simply administer my systems because all the suits want to know every move I make three weeks in advance.
:-)
Well, that's fine. Since that's what they want, make sure you get it written down as policy. I'm sure (as long as you don't mention your upcoming idea) they'll do it in a heartbeat.
Now, when they want something done, you can simply point to their signed policy and say "Not for 3 weeks. I think I'm going to take my holidays now, since there's nothing to do, if there's no problem with that. Just let me whip up a quick presentation for you first."
Problem solved in a very diplomatic way.
>Here in the UK we pay around £12-£16 ($18-$24) for a single CD and double CDs can cost more.
Last time I ventured into America (a year ago) this was the price one paid in American $$$ for some of the latest releases, and most of the re-releases.
Double CDs in Canada, unless you look far and wide, will cost $35-$45 CDN ($25-$35 US). Imports cost about 50% more.
I still don't understand why an album sells for more than (or the same as) the movie Waterworld (for example). Waterworld cost $175 million, was a money loser right from the box office in America (so they have a lot of catching up to do in home sales), yet still retails for $9.98 US. The soundtrack for that same movie, which cost far, far, far less to produce, and has had far less promotion also costs $9.98.
Maybe I don't get it. Maybe it actually costs $175 million to record a record these days and I'm deluding myself. I guess you have to buy a radio station every time you record a track nowadays to get a studio quality cut?
Me and my crappy astronomy. Maybe I should have attended at least one lecture. :)
s/uranus/mercury/
>Licenses are the methods by which software companies make money.
Making money by unscrupulous licensing clauses is like selling something with a 3 year "Bumper-to-Bumper" warranty, and burying in the fine print "Years apply to standard uranus years only".
The minute your customer walks in your store after 300 days have passed and doesn't get any service, you better damn well bet you'll lose them as a customer and every single person they show that contract to in the future.
That scheme works great for companies that go out of business every year, but Borland's been in business longer than I want to look up. Do they really want to change their name, and lose any bit of goodwill attached to it?
I would sincerely hope not. Having a solid gold company image name is (almost) better than money itself.
We had to buy specially sized and shaped CD-ROMs for replacements in the PowerMacs at the college. Although they are IDE, the design specs used prevented any other CD drive from fitting. Virtually all other parts were like this -- memory, mainboard, monitor, anything and everything inside that box other than the hard drive had was non-standard. Yep, sure they were _mac_ standard, but...
Anyone who says mac isn't proprietary is virtually saying cars aren't proprietary. I mean, sure, I can make most any sunvisor fit my car, but just _try_ and put a Ford carbeurator in a Toyota.
>If you disagree, please illustrate your points individually.
I prefer to make my points in the shape of a short paragraph or two, TYVM.
Macs are proprietary because they don't follow standards already set in place properly. Their idea of following standards is half assed (such as in my above example) and likely will remain that way.
Just try to fit any other monitor on the iLamp's stand... nope, you can't.
Did it teach you UML in 24 hours?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Damn, I _always_ get the two confused! Argh!
I guess me not knowing Gene Simmons wasn't the Kiss lead singer goes to show how little Kiss I've listened to. Maybe that isn't a bad thing?
Aww you forgot about:
"The Terminal Man" - Man gets computer brain implanted and goes insane
"Short Circuit 1 & 2" - Robot gets heart and goes soft
"Explorers" - Three geeks build a magic bubble that brings them to magic places (dear God I wish that weren't true)
"Saturn 3" - Robot decides to get kinky
"Spacecamp" - Jinx gets anti-lonely and puts his friend M a x... i n... s p a c e... f o r e v e r... [watch the movie and you'll understand the spaces]
"Captain Power" - Any episode
"Jumpin' Jack Flash" - Whoopi goes zowii in pre-IRC chats!
"Freejack" - Man gets trapped in high tech future where machines watch your every move
"Runaway" - Lead kiss singer washes face. Resulting paranoia makes Burt Reynold's his mortal enemy and he builds robots to fix the problem.
"D.A.R.Y.L." - Need I say more? Probably. Its sitting unwatched on my shelf because I seem to recall trying to get the whole idea of having watched it (and liked it) on TV movie night once when I was a child...
"Not Quite Human 1 and 2" - Robot boy learns life is too hard for him so he does the only humane thing possible -- DESTROYS HIMSELF! Or does he?
"Fortress 1 and 2" - Computer prison computer gets angry and wants revenge or something like that
"Cyborg 1 2 and 3" - VanDamme amazes with his martial arts skills when he blinds someone in their eye for real! Oh, and he is like... not liking cyborgs or something. I never understood the plot to any of the cyborg series.
"Class of 1999" - Robot teachers close all their doors at the same time and drive Ford Tempos through demilitarized zones to stop rampaging kids.
"Brainstorm" - Tape your mind. Then loan it to...
"Spacehunter: Adventures in the forbidden zone" - Hey, it took place in outer space, what more you want? It on video CD? Too late... I already time shifted it.
"Time Runner" - If it stars the lead actor from StarWars, it must be good, right? (well, it is more watchable than star wars, I admit!)
"Battlestar Galactica" - Anything -- the movie, the TV shows, whatever
"Star Trek 1-MMXXIV" - Oh YEAH.
"Toy Story" - First hit 100% CGI movie.
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" - Well, not CGI, but if it were 1988 again this movie would be a feature on slashdot I'm sure.
"Total Recall" - Live in VR land, for a while, until it becomes true. Drink PEPSI!
"Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe" - Jesse the mayor Ventura talks to a wearable wrist based computer, telling people it has VD.
"The Quiet Earth" - What happens when you watch all these movies in one night, like I plan to in the near future. Mmmmmm, the theater all to myself. "Let's all go to the lobby and get ourselves some snacks!"
Do you need more examples? I could go on! >:-D
Look a little harder.
>Theft is theft, no matter who you're screwing over
Yeah, but the dictionary explains theft isn't copying files. Just read it. Theft, or its identical but clearly defined brother, larceny only applies when a physical item has been removed from the posession of another. In other words, the violated no longer has posession of the item.
Yup, I know about the law definition of posession. Of course, since this applies only to the violated and their product is still in their hands with their rightful ownership intact it still doesn't count.
Now, walking into NSync's house and stealing all their papers with their ideas for their next album is the only copyright violation I can come up with on the spot that is also theft.
However, fortunately KaZaa can't do that (yet)!
>and didn't understand that leaving Kazaa, Morpheus and all their other file trading utilities on all day long was not only illegal
No, leaving it on all day is not illegal. Perhaps against your AUP, but breaking an agreement between student and university is not illegal. That's why he can't go to jail or get community service for abusing your bandwidth in any way he likes.
Or do you mean that trading the Nsync album is illegal? There's a big difference between the medium and the message, you know. Just ask the art department.
I don't disagree with your actions, but unfortunately it seems the BSA has caught another computer professional up in their redefinition of the english language. Don't let it happen! Fight the power and keep the dictionary true to its roots! Copying copyrighted files without permission is copyright violation. Nothing more, nothing less.
You can say piracy. This word, however, is intentionally both overused and loaded. I'm sure you and me both don't consider a software "pirate" someone who goes to coastal villiages and nearby ships to rape women and pillage.
Sorry, don't take this all too seriously. I just think that when people stop calling piracy theft (which it isn't) people will see that the crime committed is nowhere near the level the RIAA would consider it.
>Blocking file sharing is difficult. You effectively have to put a bandwidth cap on the dorms, or block entire ranges of ports.
No, its far easier than that.
You have a proxy which only allows HTTP requests (and checks for anything abnormal). This proxy gets top priority on QOS. You have a socks proxy which only works for certain requested services by blocking requests to anything but certain IPs (some IM clients, anything teachers specifically ask for). This also gets top QOS priority. Any internal traffic also gets high QOS.
Anything else (ie traffic not going through the proxy) gets minimum QOS, or possibly rate limiting too.
So there you go. Speed is still snappy for normal use, and you have blocked extreme abuse of filesharing utilities. Telnet/ssh still works because how much speed do you need for that? My 14.4k modem handles it perfectly fine.
Why I, a lowly technical college student figured this out, and supposedly high-IQ university professors and IT staff didn't is far beyond me. Maybe they could do a study of how being far removed from the problem brings better answers?
>why would they need ms windows?
Because their college requires them to take a few Access, VB, and Office 2k courses, along with their other programming content, like mine. And don't forget RPG and Cobol... I've been looking for something to compile those for Linux properly, but its rough going.
>Even accepting that Internet access is required tio be a "productive member of society" (which is doubtful)
I don't know about that. I was required by the government of Ontario to use either the internet (at home) or the internet on a booth at one of their very few business registration centers between the hours of (exaggerating a little) 2:39-2:40 pm. According to the lady who works there, their computer stops working after 3:00 pm, although the office stays open until 5:00. For fun I asked if there was any way I could do anything there without using the computer. She said "no". Must be a sweeet job!
Anyways, that Compaq system doesn't include an OS.
How to get a free (and legal) satellite feed of CBC in three low-cost steps:
:)
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
I don't know if the FTA broadcast of CBC is still going (I would certainly assume it is!) because I've had no reason to get a DVB receiver, what with CBC being broadcast in a city not to far from mine.
To know its a fake.
Why does this image have jpeg compression errors and why is it so fuzzy when its a gif?
And what's the weird jpeg ringing noise around the spaceship in this gif image?
Simple answer: I think they stole some promo screenshots and used MS-Paint with a bmp to gif convertor to fake their site.
These guys might want to be careful, I hear the Vanuatuian government doesn't look kindly upon scammers.
If anyone here speaks Bislama, can you tell me if there's a hidden meaning to the word Linar?
Well, yeah, if you are sticking with windows and Messy-DOS, then yeah, you do have to pay out the ass.
:)
Now that they are going with a linux solution, they may as well use it throughout the process.
Click Here for a GPL clone of Symantec's Ghost Cloning software. Works wonders with various non-free OSes, too.
>Go ahead, you buy 1 copy and install on 120,000 machines. I'm sure you have the time for it.
Well, the answer to the question you inferred is very simple. Since digital data doesn't lose anything over generations, you can make copies from the copies. So, knowing this, let's see how many burning cycles it would take to make 120,000 CDs:
2^x = 120000
Log 120000 = 17 cycles.
2
With 24x burners this would take under 1 hour (17 * 3.3 minutes). Of course, one could read the entire CD to a massiver server and simply burn 120,000 copies at once in 3.3 minutes, but hey, why would we want to do that?
Don't tell me they don't have that many burners to do the work, either. This is Korea... they make the things by the millions!
>Just because the head-in-the-sand US market has never been very enthusiastic about them doesn't mean they have failed.
No, the US market simply decided not to waste money on a half-baked idea like MiniDisc. Now that there is a solution which does everything that Minidisc can do, except 10-50x faster, and with over 50% market penetration; America has decided the time is right for a portable solution. They just let you be the guinea pigs with MiniDisc.
So what is the solution that bests MiniDisc in every single way known?
8 cm Re-Writeable CDs and MP3 encoders/players designed for these. Expect this open format to become HOT as more people realize MiniCD lets them put multiple albums on a disc of similar size to MD, of similar quality to MD, and allows them to play it in well over half the locations they might travel. And don't forget the ace-in-the-hole of most any format over MD, ease of copying. Not to mention the full data compatibility of the disc, allowing people to store interesting tidbits like music videos, album art, and other things MiniDisc either wasn't designed to handle, or which Sony forced format incompatibility with. Let me repeat the most important point: Philips, a very large investor in the CD format, actually wants you to be able to use these CDs to copy as much music as you like, unlike Sony and their proprietary MiniDisc format.
If you ask me, MD needs to rest with Sony's many other stillborn consumer formats, such as Beta and MemoryStick.
>They are extremely popular in Asia,
That's great, but virtually no music that appeals to the American market is produced in Asia. This makes the format further unappealing to us.
What's good for Asia isn't always good for us. If MiniDisc has worked out for them, good for them. It didn't here simply because people here want easy to use, unemcumbered music formats.
>Price just isn't a big as factor as everyone here thinks
:)
I agree. The freedom of not being locked into a proprietary solution and platform independance is a much bigger factor. Of course, this assumes people decide to look more than a few months into the future, which it seems no one will, except insightful university-level people such as yourself. Also, as is often taught in universities, the potential cost of backdoors and bugs that aren't reported in security-through-obscurity systems will often outweigh the cost of the OS itself!
Most importantly, and so often referenced by upper level educational instituions such as yours, is the inherent cost involved in using a system which you cannot yourself fix. A system which requires constant outside intervention will very quickly cause a huge support bill, nevermind the headache all the support technicians will end up with!
Of course, as someone who works at a university, I'm certain you are well aware of these problems surrounding OSes for which full disclosure of the code isn't aviailible, for which very poor API documentation is availiable, and for which support costs an arm and a leg. And, as a university equipment purchaser, I'm certain you understand that the staff and students at the university itself are able to repair any problems found themselves, should they be given access to the necessary tools, ensuring support costs are extremely low and repairs are lightning quick.
I'm glad you made the right decision and put BSD on all your systems. However, I'm not certain where Linux fails in the above requiremnts. Perhaps you'd care to explain.
Thank you.
>True, but how many times do you change resolutions other than for gaming?
:-/
Playing DVDs, viewing TV from (some) TV cards, DOS, when you're tired and just want things "big"...
>I've had a CRT with a bad pixel once...
They probably screwed up on the shadow mask on your monitor. I'd return it... This is pretty unusual. But finding dead pixels on LCDs is completely normal, unfortunately.
>Eh? no free antialiasing on a CRT
You need a monitor with a sharpness control... There's one inside labelled focus, but then again there's 20 kV inside. Don't open up your monitor unless you know what you are doing!
>I have a CRT sitting next to an LCD. I'd much rather use the LCD for any major graphics work. The only time the CRT really beats it out is when the brightness is turned up almost all the way, at which case the saturation goes down, not to mention it's harder to use... Also, my LCD does have adjustable colour temperature...
I don't know what CRT and LCD you're using, but $ for $ I've found that if you buy an LCD and CRT of the same size and price, you get a CRT that beats out the LCD.
But hey, maybe I haven't seen a good LCD for a while... the only one I've got is on this laptop I'm typing on, and the brightness, colour, and contrast fade unless I'm viewing it at the "right" angle.