Another change seeks to curb about 90 percent of Windows XP piracy. Microsoft introduced Product Activation with the operating system, which uses a numeric key to lock the software to the hardware. But code stolen from a large Microsoft customer allowed rampant illegal Windows XP copying. People using Windows XP with the stolen key will not be able to apply the service pack or any future updates available from Microsoft's Web site.
"Basically we're freezing their computer where it is," Cullinan said. "We're not preventing them from using it, but obviously one of the benefits of having a license is keeping your PC updated."
Not that any/.ers would use pirated software, but interesting nonetheless
btw, I have a couple of them left I purchased just before the sale was suspended from thinkgeek. I have these for sale. send me an email and we will talk.:)
"Hey!... psssst!... kid!... you wanna buy a T-shirt?"
Now, isn't this kind of everyday computing just the thing that most users do at home?
Sure, but the most important focus for Linux right now is, I believe, industrial and embedded use; an open OS used at every level of our society and throughout the supply chain will be of tremendous benefit to everyone on the planet, far into the future.
Home use is pretty small potatoes when you consider the stultifying effect that proprietry, closed software has as a whole.
But, he said, Linux isn't being asked to do too much high-stress computing here. "It's just a nice, low-cost platform for doing kind of everyday computing."
Sooo... if they actually needed it to do anything other than the computational equivalent of a nice picnic, they would gone for a "serious" OS?
Anyone with some knowledge of online transactions knows that offering something for $1 is generally not profitable.
I'm guessing that they're going to work towards some sort of portfolio or account system were you buy multiple song credits at a time, making the transaction costs less significant.
If they've any brains, all the music companies will eventually get together and create universal song credits that can be spent on any song. If that happens, people will be more than happy to spend, say $15 at a time. A smart marketing move would be to package these 15-credit packages as an opportunity for consumers to create their "very own compilations".
Fabulous? You've got to be kidding. I bought the book after being blown away by the movie Blade Runner. After reading "Do Androids...", my only thought was how did they make such a great movie out of that huge, steaming, stinking pile of doggy poo. The book is beyond bad. It's dreadful. It's crap. It's major shit. My god, I can't believe I wasted a couple of hours of my life on that garbage!
Perhaps it makes more sense to read Philip K. Dick's stuff sequentially, starting with his early short stories. That way you can get into his deliciously paranoid mindset. He was the pioneer and absolute master of that unique sense of foreboding that made films like Blade Runner and Total Recall so interesting.
Okay, if the music biz is finally waking up to reality, let's make sure that they set the terms of their initial toe-dipping at a realistic level. Having persuaded them of a general, provisional willingness on our part to pay for content, it's important that they don't develop overly high expectations, Stephen King-style, only to have them torn down by reality, causing them to retreat back into denial.
As I see it, many people (certainly the same number of people who currently buy CDs) will eventually be willing to buy music online if it fulfills the following requirements:
1. Reasonable cost. I always suspected that, for sound marketing reasons, we'd end up paying a dollar per song. It's a fair price and I've no doubt that music companies are about to make more money then their thieving little minds ever dreamt possible; at a $ a pop, there will be a massive increase in the casual purchase of music.
2. (Convenience) Now that we, the consumers, are going to be covering the cost of the physical storage of music we've purchased, the industry needs to fully accept that they are in the business of marketing and selling rights, rather than physical products. Storing downloaded songs on our computers and portable devices, there's a high chance that we will loose them at some point and need to download them again. For that reason, songs we pay for must become part of an online, permanently accessible portfolio that we have permanent, eternal access to.
3. (Convenience #2) No messing around with weird-ass propriety/encrypted formats. Take it as read that if people want to pirate music (and, of course, many will) they're going to find a way no matter what you do. That, however, is no reason to inflict inconvenience and device incompatible formats on your paying customers. Accept reality and move on.
So, there you have it, follow the above, simple ingredients and the music industry enters a new Golden Age as the world's highest paid web hosts.
The long developmental time for films is a frustrating and, sometimes, sad thing. One of our greatest writers, Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.
That was particulary sad because, as told in Lawrence Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions : A Life of Philip K. Dick, this would have been a self-vindicating landmark in a life tortured by schizophrenia and criminal disregard by literary critics.
Attorneys for the DVD CCA declined to comment on today's filing. When the group filed its appeal two months ago, it said a November 2001 ruling in New York supports its assertion that the First Amendment was not intended to block courts from preventing the illegal distribution of a program that improperly uses DVD CCA's trade secrets.
IANAL but it seems to me that this courts eventual ruling will have important implications for any further action the 2600 crew decide to take.
Echelon is the largest contributor to the exasperation that Europe feels towards America. Essentially, Europe is happy to back the US line on everything as they, too, stand to gain from the promoting the fantasy of a free market that puts the rest of the world at a permanent disadvantage.
What stuns European leaders is the fact the US is just as enthusiastic about screwing them: using this incredibly sophisticated spy network, lavishly funded by the American people, to undermine European companies, all the while evangelistically talking up the idea of Free Markets.
And the kicker is that, in order not to rock the boat, the European leaders have to pretend they don't know that Echelon exists! So far only the Netherlands government has officially acknowledged what everyone already knows.
Here's an article describing the growing concerns of America's most important partner. The main problem is that the contradiction between the Free Market talk and actual actions such as Echelon threaten to stoke a widespread antipathy towards America.
BTW, I'm so tired of the way in which any post that in any way examines American foreign policy gets modded down. If we're discussing Echelon, of all things, we should be able to discuss it's real implications without feeling that someone is attacking the American Way of Life.
Same excellent P2P but without the spyware and ads.
Keep in mind that some websites that Google indicates were once uploading it might have stopped, either because of bandwidth problems or because Sharman's lawyers have been breathing down their necks.
So, be patient and it might help to concentrate your search around non-US websites.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll bet they're holding lotteries in the Federal Pen right now to see who gets to be Bill Gate's boyfriend.
Kinda useful, then, the way he rocks back and forth.
From the Cnet article:
Another change seeks to curb about 90 percent of Windows XP piracy. Microsoft introduced Product Activation with the operating system, which uses a numeric key to lock the software to the hardware. But code stolen from a large Microsoft customer allowed rampant illegal Windows XP copying. People using Windows XP with the stolen key will not be able to apply the service pack or any future updates available from Microsoft's Web site.
"Basically we're freezing their computer where it is," Cullinan said. "We're not preventing them from using it, but obviously one of the benefits of having a license is keeping your PC updated."
Not that any /.ers would use pirated software, but interesting nonetheless
So say i'm using a digital camcorder in the mall...
Hold on, have you paid the mall their location fee?
With regard to the front cover's question, overlayed on possibly the smuggest Bill Gates photo I've ever seen:
"How To Beat Him"
I'm hoping that the answer boils down to "with a large wooden bat, spiked with rusty nails".
The companion piece to this article, Untangling the Future, is also pretty interesting.
Perhaps there are some local scum who would be willing to give NEAR a bit of a push to get it going.
btw, I have a couple of them left I purchased just before the sale was suspended from thinkgeek. I have these for sale. send me an email and we will talk.
"Hey!... psssst!... kid!... you wanna buy a T-shirt?"
Now, isn't this kind of everyday computing just the thing that most users do at home?
Sure, but the most important focus for Linux right now is, I believe, industrial and embedded use; an open OS used at every level of our society and throughout the supply chain will be of tremendous benefit to everyone on the planet, far into the future.
Home use is pretty small potatoes when you consider the stultifying effect that proprietry, closed software has as a whole.
From the article:
But, he said, Linux isn't being asked to do too much high-stress computing here. "It's just a nice, low-cost platform for doing kind of everyday computing."
Sooo... if they actually needed it to do anything other than the computational equivalent of a nice picnic, they would gone for a "serious" OS?
Like Windows?
plans to convert its... cash registers in more than 2,500 stores to the upstart operating system
Jesus, "upstart" operating system, is there any way they could make this sound more terrifying to corporate America?
Anyone with some knowledge of online transactions knows that offering something for $1 is generally not profitable.
I'm guessing that they're going to work towards some sort of portfolio or account system were you buy multiple song credits at a time, making the transaction costs less significant.
If they've any brains, all the music companies will eventually get together and create universal song credits that can be spent on any song. If that happens, people will be more than happy to spend, say $15 at a time. A smart marketing move would be to package these 15-credit packages as an opportunity for consumers to create their "very own compilations".
Fabulous? You've got to be kidding. I bought the book after being blown away by the movie Blade Runner. After reading "Do Androids...", my only thought was how did they make such a great movie out of that huge, steaming, stinking pile of doggy poo. The book is beyond bad. It's dreadful. It's crap. It's major shit. My god, I can't believe I wasted a couple of hours of my life on that garbage!
Perhaps it makes more sense to read Philip K. Dick's stuff sequentially, starting with his early short stories. That way you can get into his deliciously paranoid mindset. He was the pioneer and absolute master of that unique sense of foreboding that made films like Blade Runner and Total Recall so interesting.
Okay, if the music biz is finally waking up to reality, let's make sure that they set the terms of their initial toe-dipping at a realistic level. Having persuaded them of a general, provisional willingness on our part to pay for content, it's important that they don't develop overly high expectations, Stephen King-style, only to have them torn down by reality, causing them to retreat back into denial.
As I see it, many people (certainly the same number of people who currently buy CDs) will eventually be willing to buy music online if it fulfills the following requirements:
1. Reasonable cost. I always suspected that, for sound marketing reasons, we'd end up paying a dollar per song. It's a fair price and I've no doubt that music companies are about to make more money then their thieving little minds ever dreamt possible; at a $ a pop, there will be a massive increase in the casual purchase of music.
2. (Convenience) Now that we, the consumers, are going to be covering the cost of the physical storage of music we've purchased, the industry needs to fully accept that they are in the business of marketing and selling rights, rather than physical products. Storing downloaded songs on our computers and portable devices, there's a high chance that we will loose them at some point and need to download them again. For that reason, songs we pay for must become part of an online, permanently accessible portfolio that we have permanent, eternal access to.
3. (Convenience #2) No messing around with weird-ass propriety/encrypted formats. Take it as read that if people want to pirate music (and, of course, many will) they're going to find a way no matter what you do. That, however, is no reason to inflict inconvenience and device incompatible formats on your paying customers. Accept reality and move on.
So, there you have it, follow the above, simple ingredients and the music industry enters a new Golden Age as the world's highest paid web hosts.
So, should we kill Orson Scott Card in order to see the movie in *our* lifetime?
It couldn't hurt.
I mean, Hollywood is the one place where dying improves your career prospects.
The long developmental time for films is a frustrating and, sometimes, sad thing. One of our greatest writers, Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.
That was particulary sad because, as told in Lawrence Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions : A Life of Philip K. Dick, this would have been a self-vindicating landmark in a life tortured by schizophrenia and criminal disregard by literary critics.
It's worth noting that Douglas Adams also died after years trying to get a film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the ground.
Do you have a link about this official acknowledgement by the dutch government? Thanks.
Sure:
Dutch government acknowledges Echelon spy network
The only country in the EU that I personally have any faith is in GB
Well, Ireland is practically the 51st state.
And I've heard that Poland is very pro-US too.
Question is, do I get the one with the main source or the one with the decryption tables?
Ideally you'd get both, but which is arguably the "most illicit"?
Hell, forget illicit, wear whichever one looks cooler.
Sometime we nerds have to compromise our principles in the interests of possibly, at some point, getting some.
Yes, but there is a pretty important legal link
From the NewsBytes article:
Attorneys for the DVD CCA declined to comment on today's filing. When the group filed its appeal two months ago, it said a November 2001 ruling in New York supports its assertion that the First Amendment was not intended to block courts from preventing the illegal distribution of a program that improperly uses DVD CCA's trade secrets.
IANAL but it seems to me that this courts eventual ruling will have important implications for any further action the 2600 crew decide to take.
Damn, if they make DeCSS legal, my ownership of a T-Shirt with the DeCSS code written on it will be completely meaningless!
Let's hope that the lower court's decision is quashed.
From the Salon article:
Scalfani sells CDs for free. That is, if you don't count the $4.95 "shipping" charge
So, if I turn up at their offices in person, with a box, these CDs really will be free. As in free.
If I were the word free, I'd be feeling pretty raw and abused these days.
Echelon is the largest contributor to the exasperation that Europe feels towards America. Essentially, Europe is happy to back the US line on everything as they, too, stand to gain from the promoting the fantasy of a free market that puts the rest of the world at a permanent disadvantage.
What stuns European leaders is the fact the US is just as enthusiastic about screwing them: using this incredibly sophisticated spy network, lavishly funded by the American people, to undermine European companies, all the while evangelistically talking up the idea of Free Markets.
And the kicker is that, in order not to rock the boat, the European leaders have to pretend they don't know that Echelon exists! So far only the Netherlands government has officially acknowledged what everyone already knows.
Here's an article describing the growing concerns of America's most important partner. The main problem is that the contradiction between the Free Market talk and actual actions such as Echelon threaten to stoke a widespread antipathy towards America.
BTW, I'm so tired of the way in which any post that in any way examines American foreign policy gets modded down. If we're discussing Echelon, of all things, we should be able to discuss it's real implications without feeling that someone is attacking the American Way of Life.
"you can train your robot to do things like... send email..."
Great, because my laptop's been having problems logging on to my mail account lately.
The most important thing to remember about Kazaa is that you shouldn't use it...
Same excellent P2P but without the spyware and ads.
Keep in mind that some websites that Google indicates were once uploading it might have stopped, either because of bandwidth problems or because Sharman's lawyers have been breathing down their necks.
So, be patient and it might help to concentrate your search around non-US websites.
I tried edonkey, didn't like it.