>Ok, how do you prove you didn't bomb the car, then use a time jump device to jump back before it exploded and just didn't blow up the car in the second timeline?
Oh, that's easy. I just explain the general theory of relativity. Not that difficult, really. Wrote a short report on it in high school.
>Or how do you prove that you didn't use advanced nanotechnology and matter replicators to create a new car and restore everything to the way it would be if you hadn't bombed the car.
Another easy one. They're figments of the late Gene Roddenberry's imagination. The fact there's hundreds of episodes produced by him proves this. Unless, of course, you want to pretend those weren't sets. In that case perhaps you'd enjoy a short trip to Paramount Studios, followed by a long trip to the rubber room?:-)
>Since you can not disprove the use of either time travel or replicator technology
Sure I can disprove it. If time travel were real then the car causing me trouble would simply cease to exist (ie: I'd go back in time and pay the salesman to kill the deal, the butterfly effect takes care of the rest).
Replicator technology, well, for that one I'd just subpeona Gene's show notes. I'm sure his wife would be happy to send me copies, after having fits of hysterical laughter.
>The best you could do is prove it beyond a REASONABLE doubt, which is much different that absolutely proving a negative.
??? No, sorry man. "Reasonable doubt" has nothing to do with people understanding that certain things can't, and others just don't exist.
Reasonable doubt is OJ not being able to squeeze into size small gloves. It isn't pretending that Star Trek is real...:)
As an example, I can prove a negative. I can prove I don't own the Royal Family's jewels by taking you on a tour of Buckingham Palace, and providing you with a physics textbook, for example. You might say I replaced them with fakes. Perhaps they'd let me prove to you they aren't through demonstration (probably not). The last refuge would be to suggest I managed to create a new diamond-like material that isn't diamond. Then the world would be laughing at you (or perhaps just think you're nuts for not making money on it?)
Hey, I'll prove one more thing! That you don't have my lottery ticket! How can I prove it? Well, if it weren't the internet, I'd just give you my address and you could take a look...
I'm not saying all negatives are possible to prove, just that there are obvious ones that are.
>Funny how you think the private sector should get more taxpayer money...
They should if it's a solid investment.
Let's see... give away $20 million to a company that might sell $20 billion in space travel. What 35% (or more) of $20 billion again? More than $20 million, right?
>You can't prove they don't cause violence just like you can't prove someone didn't commit a crime.
While proving a negative is difficult, it isn't impossible like high school science would like you to believe.:-) [No, not accusing you of anything, don't worry!]
For example, say you are charged with bombing a car. If, down the road, someone finds that car in perfect condition, then you have proof the crime wasn't comitted.
Same thing with video evidence, etc. Sure, there's the argument it could be faked. But that doesn't hold water any more than evidence proving a positive being faked.
>Let's say the boat doesn't come with holes but a machine would perforate them if it reliably detects you are running away from police...would not that be acceptable??
This idea has been thrown about for cars for a long time, and for a LONG time it would cost next to nothing to install a fuel cut off that the police could remotely activate.
Why isn't it done?
It's your car and you damn well should do with it as you please. People won't buy a crippled product, and if they're forced to, criminals (and a lot of regular people) will just remove the fuel cut off.
NOTE: *MOST* cars governed to certain maximum speeds are not "crippled". Most are set to not go above those speeds because the manufacturers know they are too crappy to be anywhere near safe at those speeds. If they didn't do it, and knowingly sold you dangerous cars without letting you know (as if a car manufacturer would tell you the car is unsafe!) they're very much liable for anything that happens to you in that car.
I have read that some extremely expensive sports cars are limited to under about 250 km/h (or is it 320 km/h, I can't remember). This is, again, voluntary, and done in the hopes that actual legislation doesn't come into play.
>"I could care less", in the context of disinterest, is some kind of threat to care less about something, which ironically matters little to an adversarial opponent.
Immediately, no. Assuming the opponent wants you to care more, your attitude would be considered far more displeasurable than someone who is already at their bottom of caring about something, wouldn't it? Which is the point, right?
Which bugs you more? Someone saying they'll continue to care even less in the future about something you love, or someone who says they are caring, right now, as little as they believe possible?
>Either way, reversing the sense of the well understood "I couldn't care less" is no way to obtain emphasis of the original sense.
Which is well understood depends heavily on where you are... the alt.usage.english FAQ explains this best:
The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all" (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less", which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960.
(No, they don't conclude which is "right", leading one to assume that what's right depends on where you are located when speaking the phrase).
>love/hate and time are two dimensions
Again, how do you view love/hate? To you, is hate a zero-gain emotion, and love a positive emotion, without a neutral? Or is hate a negative emotion, and love a positive, with a neutral state (and many others) between?
To have a negative requires a double-ended scale, and that means two dimensions (a point on a line,) rather than a simple on/off decision (you either love it or you hate it).
To me that implies two dimensions: A love dimension, and a hate dimension. And, yeah, in my world, you *can* love and hate something; both at the same time. I love honey dip donuts with sprinkles, but I hate the way they always end up stuck in my teeth.
Although, I suppose it's all just nitpicking, really.:-)
>Only in some kind of tightly closed society would the phrase "I couldn't care less about cars" mean that abstruse superposition of states.
Hey now... are you trying to say Americans are better, or worse, than everyone else (or just no opinion at all?) Hmmm... I'm Canadian. I guess I get to decide which is right (why the hell does he go to so much trouble, and yet not clear this up?!) Thank God for not being mentioned.
>and misuse of the simple phrase "I couldn't care less"
It means TWO possible things. Both phrases can be interpreted, validly, in two opposite ways. It depends if you are looking at the current or future state of the person.
"I could care less about cars"
Indicates either that, on a "care" scale of 1 to 10, you're at a 10, and therefore care more about cars than the minimum (you are positive towards them in an immediate manner), or, that, on a scale of 1 to 10, you're at 2, and therefore could (and shall) care less about cars than normal (you are negative towards them in a future manner).
"I couldn't care less about cars"
Indicates either that, on a "care" scale of 1 to 10, you're at 1, and therefore hate cars more than you ever will (future), or, you are at 10, and love cars to death at that moment to the point that it would be impossible for you to care less (immediate, although this example doesn't clearly show it, unfortunately).
Some are mistaken, that's because they forget to visualize the scale not as two dimensional (love and hate), but as three dimensional (love, hate, and time). When a time component is added, one can see the phrases' meanings reverse. And yes, I love them both -- complaints about them are a perfect example of what happens when one limits their thoughts to the present, and not the future. I could, and couldn't, care less about them.
Aren't you ashamed of yourself when attacking other's self-esteem using intentionally loaded questions? Do you do this often? When will you stop doing this?
>Microsoft incorporating that code into their own FTP.EXE didn't magically make the original BSD released code disappear.
No, but even though FTP.exe is virtually 100% BSD code, I still can't give it away, can I? And I can't get the source for FTP.exe either, can I?
>You can't take whatever Microsoft added to the BSD released code, unless they released it under an OpenSource licence.
BINGO!
>But that's their right, they are free to licence their own code however they like.
??? Explain this "right" to me. Is this like saying I would own the Mona Lisa if I scribbled over it?
>is still free for anyone to use however they like, provided they comply with the BSD Licence. Your (BSD's) Code is still there.
Ok. Then it should be easy for me to get ahold of the code MS used for FTP.EXE. Remember, if it doesn't include "(C) Microsoft" it isn't the right code (although it might be close, it won't include the changes necessary to make it run under windows).
Perhaps you can help point me to this code I am having so much trouble getting my hot little hands on. That way I'd be able to remove the copyright on it and I'd have no trouble distributing the exact same EXE Microsoft is without getting in any trouble (well, assuming I used their compiler to compile it).
>I have a $1,000 Mont Blanc pen, and I can assure you that it is most definitely the best alternative to a Bic.
Always?
Is is the best alternative for the millions of uses a Bic has? Gifts for customers? Form filling pens? Using it to chisel away at a stuck together mess? Spitwad launcher? Pen that you can leave at the office without worrying? Pen that you'd lend, heck, perhaps even give to a complete stranger if they need one?
There's a lot of uses for a Bic pen that you'd never use a $1000 pen for. It's all about how and when you use a pen. A MontBlanc pen is GREAT for when you want to make a style statement, and great if you are writing your masterpiece with a pen (Damn Biro pens and their ability to wear down your wrists!).
Considering not a lot of people write more than a few pages a day with a pen (except perhaps university students and professors, of which the students don't have enough money to buy a good pen, and professors don't want their good pen stolen), a MontBlanc is more a statement of style than a particularly more useful writing instrument.
(And, yes, I own a few expensive pens too [Not MontBlanc, Waterman]. They get used far less, though, than the Bic pens sitting in various drawers.)
It's a lot like comparing eating at the McDonald's or the local "Fine Dining" establishment. Sure, the haute couture restaurante might have the best tasting and stylish food, and assuming every McDonald's had a Fine Dining restaurant beside it, you'd go there everytime (assuming you're stinking rich). But the fact is ubiquity and affordability often (always?) beat quality. McDonald's is a far better restaurant because it's affordable by everyone and you can get to one (depending on where you live) without a lot of effort. Those two items can count for a lot.
>Macs are the best alternative in exactly the same way a $35,000 Cadillac, Audi or BMW is the best alternative to a $16,000 Kia, Ford or Chevy
Good point. Both get you from point A to point B in exactly the same time, except the Cadillac/Audi/BMW cost a LOT more to operate, are expensive as hell to repair when they break, get stolen a lot, and tend to draw a lot more tickets from police officers.
But, unlike the Kia/Ford/Chevy, they're a bit more comfortable and tend to have a nicer looking design.
Thanks! You're dead on the money with that one. And, true to my colours, I'm sticking to a Toyota Corolla. Decades old design, cheap to get fixed, and light on the gas. It's all I need.
>Between laserprinters, online (local replicas or server replicas) forms, and workgroup communication, we've completely eliminated multipart NCR forms in our company (300+ people). With a good, secure groupware solution (we use Lotus Notes), a digital signature is just as good as a physical signature.
That sounds great, but my company has only myself and business partner working there. Anything that requires signing either goes outside the company, or is incoming to the company (customer signed forms, for example). There are no internal items that require signing (what would be the point?)
AFAIK, there's no cost-effective digital signature solution to a good chained pen stuck to the front desk.
>once your company gets to a large enough size, you want to recycle them like other paper, but you can't
Interesting. Perhaps you live in an area that is more picky about recycling than I do. When I was working "for the man", we threw forms in the trash and recycling all the time without complaints either way. Perhaps we were just making someone's job difficult without knowing it, though.
IMHO, The reason most people have problems with modern stereo equipment is simply because most of it is so POORLY set up. It's all set up with the BOSE methodology: No highs, no lows, MUST BE BOSE. Sometimes it's impossible to get a really good sound out of it (The H/K amp I bought just a couple of years ago is like this -- the too expensive piece of crap doesn't even have a contour button! As if I'm going to drive the amp at full volume all day or something!)
Worse yet, many of today's transistor/fet amps are designed like crap. Even *good* ones are. There is no way a class B amp is going to sound anything like a tube amp.
However, I think you'll find that if you are to compare a well designed, quailty, EXPENSIVE transistor amp to a tube amp, without looking at which one you're listening to, they'll be indistinguishable (assuming the transistor amp has been EQd to a similar spec as the distorted output of a tube amp).
The one pointless things I do hear from a lot of audiophiles is that a tube amp handles overload better. So what? Most tube amps are going to explode if you draw much more than 50 watts RMS from them. A decent transistor/fet amp can easily supply 100 watts RMS at less than 0.1% THD. Why anyone would want to overload an amp, especially an expensive tube amp, is beyond me (then again, I'm not a musician, perhaps it's a useful characteristic?)
Most of the problem comes from the fact that a perfect reproduction of sound (usually done with a flat-EQ solid state amp) actually sounds rather crappy to human ears. People enjoy a boost of bass, and sometimes more treble (as long as it isn't crackling). Personally, I saved myself the bother and expense, and just bought myself a good EQ for that crappy H/K amp. Sounds as good as I'll ever want it to.
I'm not saying that a tube amp's distortion doesn't sound good to YOU, what I'm saying is that if I take a good recording of the output of a tube amp and play it on a flat-EQed solid state stereo, you'd likely be unable to tell the difference.
>Plus, Disk drives have a mean time to failure of what???...18 months or so?
Well, I can tell you this. To this day my original C64 diskettes are still in perfect and readable condition. This also includes the ones I chipped to be double sided (even though they weren't supposed to be). Perhaps it depends on what drive and media you use. Storage conditions are also a factor.
>"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Exactly. Allow me to add some verbosity:
When you use the BSD license, you allow your project to have all freedom removed from it (example: ftp.exe). When you give up such freedom, in an attempt to gain the security of your software being compatible with non-free systems, you end up with neither (ftp.exe isn't going to run on anything that doesn't emulate windows, or isn't windows itself).
Whereas, with the GPL, you require everyone have the freedom to use the software. You don't allow anyone to remove the freedoms, even if it does mean you would have the personal security of being able to integrate your software into a non-free system.
>Why not when the relay's operator has received numerous messages at abuse@ and postmaster@ about the UCE flowing through the relay?
Maybe, but we're talking about a random email from an "authority" mentioning it might be dangerous to leave your server unguarded. They're different.
>How would one consider an e-mail service provider that just received hundreds of spams through your open relay "uninvolved"?
Again, they aren't the FTC.
>Insurance companies seem to think so, denying claims unless you can prove that you kept your doors locked.
Insurance companies, no matter how much they would like to be, aren't judges or police. They can deny a claim, but they can't tell you that you're aiding and abetting a criminal. There's a big difference between not following a contract and breaking the law.
>Does anything in CAN-SPAM make it unlawful to knowingly aid and abet spammers in the United States?
It's only knowingly when you've been told by the spammer he'll be using your relay for spamming.
I don't think that applies for someone uninvolved warning you that it might be. You aren't aiding and abetting someone stealing your car when you ignore the "keep your car locked" signs at the parking lot, are you? (I really, really, really hope not, anyways.)
>If you want his advice on running a business, there is a big chance that he will lead you astray, so that you do not become competition.
As a business owner myself (why, oh why, do I have to say that over and over?) I can tell you for certain I would have no qualms advising others on how to correctly run a business as long as they are in a different field.
In other words, if you were to ask Ernie how to run your Income Tax Service (for example) better, assuming he thinks similar to me, he would certainly give you good advice, or at least advice that would be relevant to his business.
If you were competition, I wouldn't lie. I'd simply tell you "Sorry, I can't discuss such things." No big deal. No need to anger the competition by lying; that gets you absolutely nowhere (In fact, it can turn a fair competitor into an angry competitor.)
>When you buy a T1 worth of IP in a the form of a T1 you spend $200+ just for the local loop and the bandwidth itself costs $800 from a quality carrier all the way down to $400 from a third tier. Lets break down my 'expensive' broadband connection.
No ISP worth their salt would get a connection like that today. If it were still 1994, it'd be cool. But, a decade later, conenctions and prices have changed. If you were talking OC-3 prices, you'd make sense.
Then again, OC-3 is not going to cost you anything like a T-1. Yeah, it'll cost much more, but will still cost much less "by-the-byte".
>The typical slashdot responder who coyly dodges specifying that he has a god given right to steal music and video owned (right or wrong) by someone else, and jumps into arguments about false advertising, facist ISPs, and the like.
I fail to see how shoplifting affects an ISP. Unless you are shoplifting their modems. Then again, AFAIK, modems (of any type) don't come with music and definately don't come with videos.
Or, did you not mean stealing? Perhaps you are talking about piracy. They are chalk and cheese, you know.
>I think given the horrible way all of you are being treated that the solution should be obvious - pool your funds, pick the most vocal opponent of these policies, and let him spend your hard earned money on building a 'proper' broadband ISP.... the silence is deafening...
Yeah. Because charging the full, proper price for an unlimited connection is going to attract a lot of users when other ISPs undercut you by lying that their connection is unlimited, when it really isn't. (Of course it isn't).
You can't compete when someone is breaking laws like that. I know that myself, as a business owner, I couldn't. That's why if I were in the ISP market, I'd be working on getting this problem fixed. I'm surprised legitimate ISPs aren't crying foul RIGHT NOW. Oh well.
>That is quite a few more orders of magnitude difference.
Only when you look at it from a simplistic point of view.
Even I, a rabid email user, have sent more than 1 letter in a month.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is stopping a company "bulk"-mailing, manually, thousands of letters a month. In fact, I know several that do just that. Not big enough to afford a franking and sorting maching, not small enough to do without mass-mailing.
(2 - 0.37) * 5000 = WAY more than the cost of even the WORST "abuser". Yet the mail system can handle it!
>The unlimited local calling analogy breaks down in that even though I could physically talk on my phone for a whole month I would still only be tying up one circuit.
Yes. Again, a small exchange may have only 50 lines for 500 users (Remember party lines?). You've managed to tie up 2 of those lines (or one circuit), 4% of all their resources. Even the worst bandwidth hogs aren't that bad.
>Using a high speed internet account excessively is analogous to calling someone on your phone and then walking over to a few of your neighbors' houses and using their phones at the same time
I'd say it's a bit more like having multiple phone lines, and shotgunning your connection across them all. Which I've done. And never got a single complaint letter from the telco. At all. Zip, zero, nada.
Slashdot Mirror
>I'd personally like to thank Nissan for coming up with yet another way to fck up the natural processes on this planet.
Natural, like a bearded pope, or pedophilia?
Sorry to break it to you, but daily we change natural processes on this planet. Chaging hail to snow or water sounds like a great idea to me.
>Ok, how do you prove you didn't bomb the car, then use a time jump device to jump back before it exploded and just didn't blow up the car in the second timeline?
:-)
:)
Oh, that's easy. I just explain the general theory of relativity. Not that difficult, really. Wrote a short report on it in high school.
>Or how do you prove that you didn't use advanced nanotechnology and matter replicators to create a new car and restore everything to the way it would be if you hadn't bombed the car.
Another easy one. They're figments of the late Gene Roddenberry's imagination. The fact there's hundreds of episodes produced by him proves this. Unless, of course, you want to pretend those weren't sets. In that case perhaps you'd enjoy a short trip to Paramount Studios, followed by a long trip to the rubber room?
>Since you can not disprove the use of either time travel or replicator technology
Sure I can disprove it. If time travel were real then the car causing me trouble would simply cease to exist (ie: I'd go back in time and pay the salesman to kill the deal, the butterfly effect takes care of the rest).
Replicator technology, well, for that one I'd just subpeona Gene's show notes. I'm sure his wife would be happy to send me copies, after having fits of hysterical laughter.
>The best you could do is prove it beyond a REASONABLE doubt, which is much different that absolutely proving a negative.
??? No, sorry man. "Reasonable doubt" has nothing to do with people understanding that certain things can't, and others just don't exist.
Reasonable doubt is OJ not being able to squeeze into size small gloves. It isn't pretending that Star Trek is real...
As an example, I can prove a negative. I can prove I don't own the Royal Family's jewels by taking you on a tour of Buckingham Palace, and providing you with a physics textbook, for example. You might say I replaced them with fakes. Perhaps they'd let me prove to you they aren't through demonstration (probably not). The last refuge would be to suggest I managed to create a new diamond-like material that isn't diamond. Then the world would be laughing at you (or perhaps just think you're nuts for not making money on it?)
Hey, I'll prove one more thing! That you don't have my lottery ticket! How can I prove it? Well, if it weren't the internet, I'd just give you my address and you could take a look...
I'm not saying all negatives are possible to prove, just that there are obvious ones that are.
>Funny how you think the private sector should get more taxpayer money...
They should if it's a solid investment.
Let's see... give away $20 million to a company that might sell $20 billion in space travel. What 35% (or more) of $20 billion again? More than $20 million, right?
But I thought the defendant and judge are the only people who can demand trial by jury?
>You can't prove they don't cause violence just like you can't prove someone didn't commit a crime.
:-) [No, not accusing you of anything, don't worry!]
While proving a negative is difficult, it isn't impossible like high school science would like you to believe.
For example, say you are charged with bombing a car. If, down the road, someone finds that car in perfect condition, then you have proof the crime wasn't comitted.
Same thing with video evidence, etc. Sure, there's the argument it could be faked. But that doesn't hold water any more than evidence proving a positive being faked.
>Let's say the boat doesn't come with holes but a machine would perforate them if it reliably detects you are running away from police...would not that be acceptable??
This idea has been thrown about for cars for a long time, and for a LONG time it would cost next to nothing to install a fuel cut off that the police could remotely activate.
Why isn't it done?
It's your car and you damn well should do with it as you please. People won't buy a crippled product, and if they're forced to, criminals (and a lot of regular people) will just remove the fuel cut off.
NOTE: *MOST* cars governed to certain maximum speeds are not "crippled". Most are set to not go above those speeds because the manufacturers know they are too crappy to be anywhere near safe at those speeds. If they didn't do it, and knowingly sold you dangerous cars without letting you know (as if a car manufacturer would tell you the car is unsafe!) they're very much liable for anything that happens to you in that car.
I have read that some extremely expensive sports cars are limited to under about 250 km/h (or is it 320 km/h, I can't remember). This is, again, voluntary, and done in the hopes that actual legislation doesn't come into play.
>"I could care less", in the context of disinterest, is some kind of threat to care less about something, which ironically matters little to an adversarial opponent.
:-)
Immediately, no. Assuming the opponent wants you to care more, your attitude would be considered far more displeasurable than someone who is already at their bottom of caring about something, wouldn't it? Which is the point, right?
Which bugs you more? Someone saying they'll continue to care even less in the future about something you love, or someone who says they are caring, right now, as little as they believe possible?
>Either way, reversing the sense of the well understood "I couldn't care less" is no way to obtain emphasis of the original sense.
Which is well understood depends heavily on where you are... the alt.usage.english FAQ explains this best:
The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all" (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less", which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960.
(No, they don't conclude which is "right", leading one to assume that what's right depends on where you are located when speaking the phrase).
>love/hate and time are two dimensions
Again, how do you view love/hate? To you, is hate a zero-gain emotion, and love a positive emotion, without a neutral? Or is hate a negative emotion, and love a positive, with a neutral state (and many others) between?
To have a negative requires a double-ended scale, and that means two dimensions (a point on a line,) rather than a simple on/off decision (you either love it or you hate it).
To me that implies two dimensions: A love dimension, and a hate dimension. And, yeah, in my world, you *can* love and hate something; both at the same time. I love honey dip donuts with sprinkles, but I hate the way they always end up stuck in my teeth.
Although, I suppose it's all just nitpicking, really.
>Only in some kind of tightly closed society would the phrase "I couldn't care less about cars" mean that abstruse superposition of states.
Hey now... are you trying to say Americans are better, or worse, than everyone else (or just no opinion at all?) Hmmm... I'm Canadian. I guess I get to decide which is right (why the hell does he go to so much trouble, and yet not clear this up?!) Thank God for not being mentioned.
>and misuse of the simple phrase "I couldn't care less"
It means TWO possible things. Both phrases can be interpreted, validly, in two opposite ways. It depends if you are looking at the current or future state of the person.
"I could care less about cars"
Indicates either that, on a "care" scale of 1 to 10, you're at a 10, and therefore care more about cars than the minimum (you are positive towards them in an immediate manner), or, that, on a scale of 1 to 10, you're at 2, and therefore could (and shall) care less about cars than normal (you are negative towards them in a future manner).
"I couldn't care less about cars"
Indicates either that, on a "care" scale of 1 to 10, you're at 1, and therefore hate cars more than you ever will (future), or, you are at 10, and love cars to death at that moment to the point that it would be impossible for you to care less (immediate, although this example doesn't clearly show it, unfortunately).
This might help, a bit.
Some are mistaken, that's because they forget to visualize the scale not as two dimensional (love and hate), but as three dimensional (love, hate, and time). When a time component is added, one can see the phrases' meanings reverse. And yes, I love them both -- complaints about them are a perfect example of what happens when one limits their thoughts to the present, and not the future. I could, and couldn't, care less about them.
>Holy cow, you're being obtuse on purpose, right?
Aren't you ashamed of yourself when attacking other's self-esteem using intentionally loaded questions? Do you do this often? When will you stop doing this?
>Microsoft incorporating that code into their own FTP.EXE didn't magically make the original BSD released code disappear.
No, but even though FTP.exe is virtually 100% BSD code, I still can't give it away, can I? And I can't get the source for FTP.exe either, can I?
>You can't take whatever Microsoft added to the BSD released code, unless they released it under an OpenSource licence.
BINGO!
>But that's their right, they are free to licence their own code however they like.
??? Explain this "right" to me. Is this like saying I would own the Mona Lisa if I scribbled over it?
You've confused me.
>is still free for anyone to use however they like, provided they comply with the BSD Licence. Your (BSD's) Code is still there.
Ok. Then it should be easy for me to get ahold of the code MS used for FTP.EXE. Remember, if it doesn't include "(C) Microsoft" it isn't the right code (although it might be close, it won't include the changes necessary to make it run under windows).
Perhaps you can help point me to this code I am having so much trouble getting my hot little hands on. That way I'd be able to remove the copyright on it and I'd have no trouble distributing the exact same EXE Microsoft is without getting in any trouble (well, assuming I used their compiler to compile it).
Thanks!
>It has nothing whatsoever to do with "preserving the freedom" of *your* code.
In that case, copying Windows' ftp.exe to a disk "for a friend" is A-OK with the law, right?
>I have a $1,000 Mont Blanc pen, and I can assure you that it is most definitely the best alternative to a Bic.
Always?
Is is the best alternative for the millions of uses a Bic has? Gifts for customers? Form filling pens? Using it to chisel away at a stuck together mess? Spitwad launcher? Pen that you can leave at the office without worrying? Pen that you'd lend, heck, perhaps even give to a complete stranger if they need one?
There's a lot of uses for a Bic pen that you'd never use a $1000 pen for. It's all about how and when you use a pen. A MontBlanc pen is GREAT for when you want to make a style statement, and great if you are writing your masterpiece with a pen (Damn Biro pens and their ability to wear down your wrists!).
Considering not a lot of people write more than a few pages a day with a pen (except perhaps university students and professors, of which the students don't have enough money to buy a good pen, and professors don't want their good pen stolen), a MontBlanc is more a statement of style than a particularly more useful writing instrument.
(And, yes, I own a few expensive pens too [Not MontBlanc, Waterman]. They get used far less, though, than the Bic pens sitting in various drawers.)
It's a lot like comparing eating at the McDonald's or the local "Fine Dining" establishment. Sure, the haute couture restaurante might have the best tasting and stylish food, and assuming every McDonald's had a Fine Dining restaurant beside it, you'd go there everytime (assuming you're stinking rich). But the fact is ubiquity and affordability often (always?) beat quality. McDonald's is a far better restaurant because it's affordable by everyone and you can get to one (depending on where you live) without a lot of effort. Those two items can count for a lot.
>Macs are the best alternative in exactly the same way a $35,000 Cadillac, Audi or BMW is the best alternative to a $16,000 Kia, Ford or Chevy
Good point. Both get you from point A to point B in exactly the same time, except the Cadillac/Audi/BMW cost a LOT more to operate, are expensive as hell to repair when they break, get stolen a lot, and tend to draw a lot more tickets from police officers.
But, unlike the Kia/Ford/Chevy, they're a bit more comfortable and tend to have a nicer looking design.
Thanks! You're dead on the money with that one. And, true to my colours, I'm sticking to a Toyota Corolla. Decades old design, cheap to get fixed, and light on the gas. It's all I need.
>Between laserprinters, online (local replicas or server replicas) forms, and workgroup communication, we've completely eliminated multipart NCR forms in our company (300+ people). With a good, secure groupware solution (we use Lotus Notes), a digital signature is just as good as a physical signature.
That sounds great, but my company has only myself and business partner working there. Anything that requires signing either goes outside the company, or is incoming to the company (customer signed forms, for example). There are no internal items that require signing (what would be the point?)
AFAIK, there's no cost-effective digital signature solution to a good chained pen stuck to the front desk.
>once your company gets to a large enough size, you want to recycle them like other paper, but you can't
Interesting. Perhaps you live in an area that is more picky about recycling than I do. When I was working "for the man", we threw forms in the trash and recycling all the time without complaints either way. Perhaps we were just making someone's job difficult without knowing it, though.
IMHO, The reason most people have problems with modern stereo equipment is simply because most of it is so POORLY set up. It's all set up with the BOSE methodology: No highs, no lows, MUST BE BOSE. Sometimes it's impossible to get a really good sound out of it (The H/K amp I bought just a couple of years ago is like this -- the too expensive piece of crap doesn't even have a contour button! As if I'm going to drive the amp at full volume all day or something!)
Worse yet, many of today's transistor/fet amps are designed like crap. Even *good* ones are. There is no way a class B amp is going to sound anything like a tube amp.
However, I think you'll find that if you are to compare a well designed, quailty, EXPENSIVE transistor amp to a tube amp, without looking at which one you're listening to, they'll be indistinguishable (assuming the transistor amp has been EQd to a similar spec as the distorted output of a tube amp).
Here's a bit more on the subject. And another bit more.
The one pointless things I do hear from a lot of audiophiles is that a tube amp handles overload better. So what? Most tube amps are going to explode if you draw much more than 50 watts RMS from them. A decent transistor/fet amp can easily supply 100 watts RMS at less than 0.1% THD. Why anyone would want to overload an amp, especially an expensive tube amp, is beyond me (then again, I'm not a musician, perhaps it's a useful characteristic?)
Most of the problem comes from the fact that a perfect reproduction of sound (usually done with a flat-EQ solid state amp) actually sounds rather crappy to human ears. People enjoy a boost of bass, and sometimes more treble (as long as it isn't crackling). Personally, I saved myself the bother and expense, and just bought myself a good EQ for that crappy H/K amp. Sounds as good as I'll ever want it to.
I'm not saying that a tube amp's distortion doesn't sound good to YOU, what I'm saying is that if I take a good recording of the output of a tube amp and play it on a flat-EQed solid state stereo, you'd likely be unable to tell the difference.
>Plus, Disk drives have a mean time to failure of what???...18 months or so?
Well, I can tell you this. To this day my original C64 diskettes are still in perfect and readable condition. This also includes the ones I chipped to be double sided (even though they weren't supposed to be). Perhaps it depends on what drive and media you use. Storage conditions are also a factor.
Problem?
Because I got sick of throwing batteries away
Solution.
>Why can't you just print the same form multiple times
Signed forms.
If the form needs to be signed (what doesn't, nowadays?) it's considered rude to ask for 4 separate signatures from one person for a simple form.
>Macs have always been the best alternative for the desktop, so no, not really.
Macs are the best alternative in exactly the same way a $1,000 MontBlanc pen is the best alternative to a $0.10 Bic.
>"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Exactly. Allow me to add some verbosity:
When you use the BSD license, you allow your project to have all freedom removed from it (example: ftp.exe). When you give up such freedom, in an attempt to gain the security of your software being compatible with non-free systems, you end up with neither (ftp.exe isn't going to run on anything that doesn't emulate windows, or isn't windows itself).
Whereas, with the GPL, you require everyone have the freedom to use the software. You don't allow anyone to remove the freedoms, even if it does mean you would have the personal security of being able to integrate your software into a non-free system.
I'm glad you mentioned that quote.
>Why not when the relay's operator has received numerous messages at abuse@ and postmaster@ about the UCE flowing through the relay?
Maybe, but we're talking about a random email from an "authority" mentioning it might be dangerous to leave your server unguarded. They're different.
>How would one consider an e-mail service provider that just received hundreds of spams through your open relay "uninvolved"?
Again, they aren't the FTC.
>Insurance companies seem to think so, denying claims unless you can prove that you kept your doors locked.
Insurance companies, no matter how much they would like to be, aren't judges or police. They can deny a claim, but they can't tell you that you're aiding and abetting a criminal. There's a big difference between not following a contract and breaking the law.
>Does anything in CAN-SPAM make it unlawful to knowingly aid and abet spammers in the United States?
It's only knowingly when you've been told by the spammer he'll be using your relay for spamming.
I don't think that applies for someone uninvolved warning you that it might be. You aren't aiding and abetting someone stealing your car when you ignore the "keep your car locked" signs at the parking lot, are you? (I really, really, really hope not, anyways.)
>If you want his advice on running a business, there is a big chance that he will lead you astray, so that you do not become competition.
As a business owner myself (why, oh why, do I have to say that over and over?) I can tell you for certain I would have no qualms advising others on how to correctly run a business as long as they are in a different field.
In other words, if you were to ask Ernie how to run your Income Tax Service (for example) better, assuming he thinks similar to me, he would certainly give you good advice, or at least advice that would be relevant to his business.
If you were competition, I wouldn't lie. I'd simply tell you "Sorry, I can't discuss such things." No big deal. No need to anger the competition by lying; that gets you absolutely nowhere (In fact, it can turn a fair competitor into an angry competitor.)
>When you buy a T1 worth of IP in a the form of a T1 you spend $200+ just for the local loop and the bandwidth itself costs $800 from a quality carrier all the way down to $400 from a third tier. Lets break down my 'expensive' broadband connection.
... the silence is deafening ...
No ISP worth their salt would get a connection like that today. If it were still 1994, it'd be cool. But, a decade later, conenctions and prices have changed. If you were talking OC-3 prices, you'd make sense.
Then again, OC-3 is not going to cost you anything like a T-1. Yeah, it'll cost much more, but will still cost much less "by-the-byte".
>The typical slashdot responder who coyly dodges specifying that he has a god given right to steal music and video owned (right or wrong) by someone else, and jumps into arguments about false advertising, facist ISPs, and the like.
I fail to see how shoplifting affects an ISP. Unless you are shoplifting their modems. Then again, AFAIK, modems (of any type) don't come with music and definately don't come with videos.
Or, did you not mean stealing? Perhaps you are talking about piracy. They are chalk and cheese, you know.
>I think given the horrible way all of you are being treated that the solution should be obvious - pool your funds, pick the most vocal opponent of these policies, and let him spend your hard earned money on building a 'proper' broadband ISP.
Yeah. Because charging the full, proper price for an unlimited connection is going to attract a lot of users when other ISPs undercut you by lying that their connection is unlimited, when it really isn't. (Of course it isn't).
You can't compete when someone is breaking laws like that. I know that myself, as a business owner, I couldn't. That's why if I were in the ISP market, I'd be working on getting this problem fixed. I'm surprised legitimate ISPs aren't crying foul RIGHT NOW. Oh well.
>That is quite a few more orders of magnitude difference.
Only when you look at it from a simplistic point of view.
Even I, a rabid email user, have sent more than 1 letter in a month.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is stopping a company "bulk"-mailing, manually, thousands of letters a month. In fact, I know several that do just that. Not big enough to afford a franking and sorting maching, not small enough to do without mass-mailing.
(2 - 0.37) * 5000 = WAY more than the cost of even the WORST "abuser". Yet the mail system can handle it!
>The unlimited local calling analogy breaks down in that even though I could physically talk on my phone for a whole month I would still only be tying up one circuit.
Yes. Again, a small exchange may have only 50 lines for 500 users (Remember party lines?). You've managed to tie up 2 of those lines (or one circuit), 4% of all their resources. Even the worst bandwidth hogs aren't that bad.
>Using a high speed internet account excessively is analogous to calling someone on your phone and then walking over to a few of your neighbors' houses and using their phones at the same time
I'd say it's a bit more like having multiple phone lines, and shotgunning your connection across them all. Which I've done. And never got a single complaint letter from the telco. At all. Zip, zero, nada.
That sounds a lot like VDR, except it's missing the ability to receive a satellite signal, and it's had way less development.