You may be right. They threatened to sue a large commerical linux user by mid-February, but apparently the deadline came and went. That must be what confused me... Is there a SCO/Novell lawsuit out there, or is that still in the "threatening letter" stage?
I somewhat understand your angst, but the following is a bit ridiculous:
"I find that the DRM used in the iTunes store is fair, and more or less barely noticeable"
It's far from fair, since it requires the kludgey solution of burning to CD and then ripping to an actual usable format in order to make use of your OWN files on your OWN machines.
If you got a track from iTMS, you MUST have downloaded it with iTunes. Thus, you have a solution for using the original file on your machine (Windows and Mac). Don't complain about the lack of Linux support. It's apple's baby and they can do what they want with it.
I'm not saying you have to like AAC, or support its right to exist, but if you knowingly buy an iTMS track, caveat emptor.
Also, I'd like to know what rights Fairplay has denied you? The right to share music with all your friends? Copyright law already forbids that. Fairplay only enforces it. Your example of AAC to CD to MP3/WMA/etc. claims that you have lost the right to directly convert AAC to another format. I hardly find that overly restrictive, considering the alternatives (only one machine, only one portable music player, limited times burning the track, etc.)
Free speech rights don't include the right to libel or slander. Unless SCO can prove otherwise, they are certainly guilty of slander (Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation) against, at the very least, Linus for claiming he is the ringleader of an international group of IP pirates and copyright infringers.
Libel (A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation; the act of presenting such material to the public) requires publication. I'm not sure what, if anything, SCO itself has published. Most publications have been interviews with SCOs officers, published by various members of the media.
IMO, BTW IANAL TLA, SCO is also guilty of barratry (The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones) as they have filed numerous suits against various groups without providing so much as a shred of tangible evidence (ie, evidence that wasn't refuted within 24 hours).
In short, take those free speech arguments and shove 'em where the sun don't shine. Even free speech has its limitations...
Re:Germany has a sense of humor
on
Germany Muzzles SCO
·
· Score: 5, Informative
That's a mistranslation. SCO has been saying that they reserve the right to sue any Linux user, except those who bought a SCO or Caldera distribution. The German court says that SCO must quit saying that.
Apparently, the translation turned from saying the above to, SCO may not threaten to sue any linux user, except those who bought a SCO or Caldera distribution... gotta distribute the logical not throughout the statement properly!!!
No, this is not quite expose. The big difference is that you don't see the actual virtual desktop and the scaled version at the same time... you toggle between them. Also, expose shrinks windows and places them where it can. Multiple full screen windows will not end up in the same place (which would be pointless).
This is more like a feature of several linux WMs where you have a section of the "toolbar" that displays a grid representing your virtual desktops. On each section of the grid are smaller rectangles representing open windows on that desktop. Hence, the "each pane contains a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop."
It's a shame, but I don't know of any consumer computer manufacturer that has what I would call "good" tech support anymore, with the exception of Apple (and then you only get 90 days unless you spring for Applecare).
That's not true... Every piece of apple branded hardware I've bought from apple has come with a one year warranty (ibook, airport card and assorted cables). You only get 90 days on third party parts (like my d-link bluetooth adapter), but that's all the OEM gives. You don't expect Apple to extend another manufacturer's warranty, do you?
He wrote the original guidebook for nethack. Yes, it's true... freaked me out when I first saw it, but here's the header from doc/Guidebook.txt of the nethack-3.4.3 package available at www.nethack.org:
A Guide To The Mazes of Menace (Guidebook for NetHack)
Eric S. Raymond (Extensively edited and expanded for 3.4)
No. No. A thousand times no. Buying out SCO would just put more money into Darl's hands and the hands of his cronies. Is that what you really want? Personally, I want to see Darl McBride broke, homeless, and begging on the streets.
Re:The problem with the celebrity voice-overs
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 1
Too true... can you say "ick!"? Oh, and don't forget Opie, I mean Ronny^H^H Howard. He helped make that episode a true dog.
I agree... Bart the General was one of the very first episodes I ever saw (the 5th one ever) and I was hooked. The animation really wasn't great, but the writing was beyond compare. Two Cars in Every Garage, 3 Eyes on Every Fish (a very loose take on Citizen Kane) from early in Season 2 is probably my favorite of all!
Burns: Amazing, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you.
Smithers: You are noble and poetic in defeat, sir.
Best. Dialog. Ever.
My local WB affiliate is running through seasons 1 and 2 right now... brings back fond memories (even if I do have the DVD box sets).
On the other hand, I saw Bart the Daredevil again last night. I was really struck by how poor the animation was at certain points. One in particular is where the kids are watching wrestling on the TV and start throwing popcorn at the screen. The arm motions are totally wrong... I would have to say that, by the end of season 2, the animation was getting there, but not quite yet.
As for celebrity voice overs, the first episode with Danny Devito was in Season 2 (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) and the first episode where Sideshow Bob talks (Krusty Gets Busted) was in Season 1. Kelsey Grammar had been on Cheers for several years by then, although he hadn't yet spun that into Frasier.
As someone holding 3 physics degrees, I think I can state that the reason is that people in ChemE get jobs doing ChemE, a well defined section of the job market.
There are very few jobs in "physics", especially for those with nothing but a BA/BS. To become a research physicist, you need a Ph.D.; ditto for most collegiate level teaching posts (some smaller schools/community colleges take M.S. levels).
Those only holding bachelor-level degrees end up in all sorts of jobs. Some become teachers (the 32k end of the spectrum), some become sysadmins, some become programmers, and some try to sell you fries with your burger and soda.
Still others have dual degrees or extensive course work/experience in a minor field of study, and go into the job market in that other field, using the excellent analytical and problem solving skills obtained from their physics education.
The rest, like me, end up in grad school for five years before graduating and taking one of the aforementioned jobs at a slightly higher salary!
Obscurity on top of security is surely better than security alone, no? ssh is a pretty secure protocol as it is. This just obfuscates the path to port 22...
I, too, am in the RTP area, and saw the same thing. Luckily, we have a very heterogeneous home network... one iBook, one XP laptop and one linux server. I completed the survey, intending to use it with the XP laptop if selected. I noticed that the form factors are pcmcia, external USB and, presumably, internal (PCI?) NIC.
Nothing from a hardware standpoint prohibits using with another system, but since mac laptops don't have pcmcia cards, and I really want to test this out away from home, the XP laptop is really the only sensible choice.
Based on what I know about hardware rollouts, they just figure that a) most people use windows, b) they need to support users, and c) it's easiest to train techs to support one system, so they pick the most prevalent one. Now, if the full service is rolled out with lack of support for non-MS operating systems, I'd be somewhat more upset...
That's why my wife has a 1.5+ ct. sapphire solitare on her engagement ring! It's her favorite stone, it's much larger than a comparably priced diamond, and it's quite the conversation piece. She often gets stopped by total strangers who think her ring is beautiful and unique... which it is, as I picked out the stone and the setting and paid for the jeweler to mount it.
The SA Explorer 8000 is a two tuner digital cable receiver with built in PVR. I have to pay $10/mo for digital cable and an additional $6/mo for the PVR. BTW, this is with TWC-NC.
Overall, I think it's an average machine. It's no TiVo. You don't own the box, so a) don't think about hacking it and b) because of a), there is precious little information out there. The interface ranges from ok to dog slow, and changing the channel is rather slow. Since it is always recording, changing the channel involves closing the current write buffer, tuning to another channel, and opening a new write buffer. For some reason, this is much slower than you might think. Instead of channel surfing, you learn to surf the onscreen guide, selecting an interesting channel when you find one.
I have heard a lot of people whine that their box would occassionally dump all recorded shows. Well, after 4 months, that finally happened to me about a week ago. There wasn't a whole lot on there I hadn't already seen, but it really pissed me off.
Others have complained that their box would often decide not to start recording a show they had scheduled or manually asked to record. I have not had any such problems. Every show I have wanted to record has been done so successfully.
On the other hand, you can schedule a show to be recorded on one channel or all channels; a particular time slot or any time; new episodes only, old episodes only, or both. If you see a show in the program guide you want to record, just press record and that one show is instantly scheduled to record. Since it has two tuners, you can record two shows at once. You can (obviously) watch one of those two shows, or watch a previously saved program. You've only got two tuners, so you cannot record two channels and watch a third... The machine also seems to detect instances where you are requesting a third channel (trying to record 3 things at once, or recording 2 shows and trying to watch a third) and warns you that you can screw up one or more of your recordings if you keep it up!
Also, for those people who are turned off by the idea of the PVR "suggesting" shows for you to watch by recording them w/o permission, I haven't seen anything like that on this machine. There may be an option like that buried somewhere, but if there is, it surely isn't on by default.
Lastly, there seems to be no way to get shows off the box. There is a front USB A connector, ostensibly for use with a USB keyboard. I've heard rumors that some of the SA Explorers have one or more firewire connectors in the back, which are totally inoperable at the present time. I've seen no official word from SA or TW regarding making those ports functional apart from a vague statement that they could be made functional with "a software upgrade". There is no ethernet/RJ-45 jack on the box anywhere. Also, unlike a TiVo, the SA gets its program information from the cable connection, so you don't need a phone line... Good thing given the lack of RJ-45/RJ-11 ports!
All in all, for the price you pay ($0 up front, no contract terms, and $6/month), this isn't a bad deal.... but it's no TiVo.
However, you can do this with my Time/Warner PVR. In my area, Time/Warner doles out Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 PVRs to thier customers ($6/mo more than a digital cable box). It has 2 tuners built into the box, so it only requires a single cable connection. This also means you can do PiP on a TV that doesn't normally have that capability!
Digging through his home page, it looks like he lives in or near Ohio. Sounds like the middle of a work day to me! Or maybe he's just taking a vacation day today...
You're missing the point that most people don't want to work for a megalomaniac. You sound a lot like my wife's former manager. He would often stand outside the restroom and chastise people for taking too long, explosive diarrhea or not... accuse them of stealing from the company by taking extended potty breaks on company time.
No one wants to work for a boss like that... except maybe you.
Open this link in another tab/window and continue reading. The image in the top right of the page shows the molecular structure of water in its crystalline phase. Note the well ordered structure of each O atom having 4 H as nearest neighbors, the two H atoms covalently bonded to the O and the two H bonded to the next nearest O. There is a bit of empty space within the lattice structure.
Now, imagine breaking up this structure. Take the top molecule and rotate it by approximately 120 degrees, so that the H atom in the upper left of the image is now positioned between the H atoms bonded to the O second from the top. This is what happens when the ice melts... the molecules get closer together, causing the density to increase slightly upon melting.
If you have access to the Feynman lectures on physics, there is much better explanation with more pictures explaining this phenomenon.
Here is what I found out... I have one of the oldest covered iBooks, a 700MHz model with S/N UV2206.... She confirmed the machine S/N, my contact information and the approximate date of repair, in my case, early Nov, 2003. She looked up the details the tech had entered and confirmed that the repair I had done was indeed covered.
She then told me that Apple would be contacting all affected users via mail (not sure if you have to call in, or if they will proactively contact ALL affected iBook owners). Apparently, I am due a full refund ($450), but I don't know when I'll actually see that money!
Did you read ANYTHING about this article. Everything in there specifically mentions that this program covers people who have had LOGIC BOARDS fail. A logic board and a battery are two entirely different things. Apparently, there was a manufacturing defect in SOME of the logic boards used in iBooks (some, not all) that would cause them to eventually flake out and die.
If you bought an iBook between 5/2002 and 4/2003 and have had to pay (or end up having issues outside of normal AppleCare coverage for up to 3 years from date of purchase) for repairs specifically due to the bad logic boards, Apple with either fix it free, or refund money to those who've already ponied up the ~$500 for the repair.
To summarize:
iPod program -> battery iBook program -> logic board
It's funny, but in the late 90s, there were a lot of contractors out there because of the outrageous hourly rates they could command. Now, there's a lot of contractors out there (myself included) who are doing it because of a lack of permanent jobs.
I've only been at this for 4 months now, but have a freshly signed and delivered 12-month contract (for which I turned down a permanent government job). At least I won't be out job hunting for 6-8 months, which IMO is the biggest down side to contracting.
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You may be right. They threatened to sue a large commerical linux user by mid-February, but apparently the deadline came and went. That must be what confused me... Is there a SCO/Novell lawsuit out there, or is that still in the "threatening letter" stage?
I somewhat understand your angst, but the following is a bit ridiculous:
"I find that the DRM used in the iTunes store is fair, and more or less barely noticeable"
It's far from fair, since it requires the kludgey solution of burning to CD and then ripping to an actual usable format in order to make use of your OWN files on your OWN machines.
If you got a track from iTMS, you MUST have downloaded it with iTunes. Thus, you have a solution for using the original file on your machine (Windows and Mac). Don't complain about the lack of Linux support. It's apple's baby and they can do what they want with it.
I'm not saying you have to like AAC, or support its right to exist, but if you knowingly buy an iTMS track, caveat emptor.
Also, I'd like to know what rights Fairplay has denied you? The right to share music with all your friends? Copyright law already forbids that. Fairplay only enforces it. Your example of AAC to CD to MP3/WMA/etc. claims that you have lost the right to directly convert AAC to another format. I hardly find that overly restrictive, considering the alternatives (only one machine, only one portable music player, limited times burning the track, etc.)
Free speech rights don't include the right to libel or slander. Unless SCO can prove otherwise, they are certainly guilty of slander (Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation) against, at the very least, Linus for claiming he is the ringleader of an international group of IP pirates and copyright infringers.
Libel (A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation; the act of presenting such material to the public) requires publication. I'm not sure what, if anything, SCO itself has published. Most publications have been interviews with SCOs officers, published by various members of the media.
IMO, BTW IANAL TLA, SCO is also guilty of barratry (The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones) as they have filed numerous suits against various groups without providing so much as a shred of tangible evidence (ie, evidence that wasn't refuted within 24 hours).
In short, take those free speech arguments and shove 'em where the sun don't shine. Even free speech has its limitations...
That's a mistranslation. SCO has been saying that they reserve the right to sue any Linux user, except those who bought a SCO or Caldera distribution. The German court says that SCO must quit saying that.
Apparently, the translation turned from saying the above to, SCO may not threaten to sue any linux user, except those who bought a SCO or Caldera distribution... gotta distribute the logical not throughout the statement properly!!!
No, this is not quite expose. The big difference is that you don't see the actual virtual desktop and the scaled version at the same time... you toggle between them. Also, expose shrinks windows and places them where it can. Multiple full screen windows will not end up in the same place (which would be pointless).
This is more like a feature of several linux WMs where you have a section of the "toolbar" that displays a grid representing your virtual desktops. On each section of the grid are smaller rectangles representing open windows on that desktop. Hence, the "each pane contains a scaled virtual desktop having dimensions that are proportionally less than the dimensions of a corresponding full-size virtual desktop."
At least, that's my take on things...
He wrote the original guidebook for nethack. Yes, it's true... freaked me out when I first saw it, but here's the header from doc/Guidebook.txt of the nethack-3.4.3 package available at www.nethack.org:
A Guide To The Mazes of Menace
(Guidebook for NetHack)
Eric S. Raymond
(Extensively edited and expanded for 3.4)
No. No. A thousand times no. Buying out SCO would just put more money into Darl's hands and the hands of his cronies. Is that what you really want? Personally, I want to see Darl McBride broke, homeless, and begging on the streets.
Too true... can you say "ick!"? Oh, and don't forget Opie, I mean Ronny^H^H Howard. He helped make that episode a true dog.
I agree... Bart the General was one of the very first episodes I ever saw (the 5th one ever) and I was hooked. The animation really wasn't great, but the writing was beyond compare. Two Cars in Every Garage, 3 Eyes on Every Fish (a very loose take on Citizen Kane) from early in Season 2 is probably my favorite of all!
Burns: Amazing, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you.
Smithers: You are noble and poetic in defeat, sir.
Best. Dialog. Ever.
My local WB affiliate is running through seasons 1 and 2 right now... brings back fond memories (even if I do have the DVD box sets).
On the other hand, I saw Bart the Daredevil again last night. I was really struck by how poor the animation was at certain points. One in particular is where the kids are watching wrestling on the TV and start throwing popcorn at the screen. The arm motions are totally wrong... I would have to say that, by the end of season 2, the animation was getting there, but not quite yet.
As for celebrity voice overs, the first episode with Danny Devito was in Season 2 (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) and the first episode where Sideshow Bob talks (Krusty Gets Busted) was in Season 1. Kelsey Grammar had been on Cheers for several years by then, although he hadn't yet spun that into Frasier.
What in the world do you need that kind of resolution for a Palm based system? Are they looking at expanding into other types of systems?
As someone holding 3 physics degrees, I think I can state that the reason is that people in ChemE get jobs doing ChemE, a well defined section of the job market.
There are very few jobs in "physics", especially for those with nothing but a BA/BS. To become a research physicist, you need a Ph.D.; ditto for most collegiate level teaching posts (some smaller schools/community colleges take M.S. levels).
Those only holding bachelor-level degrees end up in all sorts of jobs. Some become teachers (the 32k end of the spectrum), some become sysadmins, some become programmers, and some try to sell you fries with your burger and soda.
Still others have dual degrees or extensive course work/experience in a minor field of study, and go into the job market in that other field, using the excellent analytical and problem solving skills obtained from their physics education.
The rest, like me, end up in grad school for five years before graduating and taking one of the aforementioned jobs at a slightly higher salary!
Obscurity on top of security is surely better than security alone, no? ssh is a pretty secure protocol as it is. This just obfuscates the path to port 22...
yer right... was speaking only of what i know, white dual-usb ibooks. mea culpa.
I, too, am in the RTP area, and saw the same thing. Luckily, we have a very heterogeneous home network... one iBook, one XP laptop and one linux server. I completed the survey, intending to use it with the XP laptop if selected. I noticed that the form factors are pcmcia, external USB and, presumably, internal (PCI?) NIC.
Nothing from a hardware standpoint prohibits using with another system, but since mac laptops don't have pcmcia cards, and I really want to test this out away from home, the XP laptop is really the only sensible choice.
Based on what I know about hardware rollouts, they just figure that a) most people use windows, b) they need to support users, and c) it's easiest to train techs to support one system, so they pick the most prevalent one. Now, if the full service is rolled out with lack of support for non-MS operating systems, I'd be somewhat more upset...
That's why my wife has a 1.5+ ct. sapphire solitare on her engagement ring! It's her favorite stone, it's much larger than a comparably priced diamond, and it's quite the conversation piece. She often gets stopped by total strangers who think her ring is beautiful and unique... which it is, as I picked out the stone and the setting and paid for the jeweler to mount it.
The SA Explorer 8000 is a two tuner digital cable receiver with built in PVR. I have to pay $10/mo for digital cable and an additional $6/mo for the PVR. BTW, this is with TWC-NC.
Overall, I think it's an average machine. It's no TiVo. You don't own the box, so a) don't think about hacking it and b) because of a), there is precious little information out there. The interface ranges from ok to dog slow, and changing the channel is rather slow. Since it is always recording, changing the channel involves closing the current write buffer, tuning to another channel, and opening a new write buffer. For some reason, this is much slower than you might think. Instead of channel surfing, you learn to surf the onscreen guide, selecting an interesting channel when you find one.
I have heard a lot of people whine that their box would occassionally dump all recorded shows. Well, after 4 months, that finally happened to me about a week ago. There wasn't a whole lot on there I hadn't already seen, but it really pissed me off.
Others have complained that their box would often decide not to start recording a show they had scheduled or manually asked to record. I have not had any such problems. Every show I have wanted to record has been done so successfully.
On the other hand, you can schedule a show to be recorded on one channel or all channels; a particular time slot or any time; new episodes only, old episodes only, or both. If you see a show in the program guide you want to record, just press record and that one show is instantly scheduled to record. Since it has two tuners, you can record two shows at once. You can (obviously) watch one of those two shows, or watch a previously saved program. You've only got two tuners, so you cannot record two channels and watch a third... The machine also seems to detect instances where you are requesting a third channel (trying to record 3 things at once, or recording 2 shows and trying to watch a third) and warns you that you can screw up one or more of your recordings if you keep it up!
Also, for those people who are turned off by the idea of the PVR "suggesting" shows for you to watch by recording them w/o permission, I haven't seen anything like that on this machine. There may be an option like that buried somewhere, but if there is, it surely isn't on by default.
Lastly, there seems to be no way to get shows off the box. There is a front USB A connector, ostensibly for use with a USB keyboard. I've heard rumors that some of the SA Explorers have one or more firewire connectors in the back, which are totally inoperable at the present time. I've seen no official word from SA or TW regarding making those ports functional apart from a vague statement that they could be made functional with "a software upgrade". There is no ethernet/RJ-45 jack on the box anywhere. Also, unlike a TiVo, the SA gets its program information from the cable connection, so you don't need a phone line... Good thing given the lack of RJ-45/RJ-11 ports!
All in all, for the price you pay ($0 up front, no contract terms, and $6/month), this isn't a bad deal.... but it's no TiVo.
However, you can do this with my Time/Warner PVR. In my area, Time/Warner doles out Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 PVRs to thier customers ($6/mo more than a digital cable box). It has 2 tuners built into the box, so it only requires a single cable connection. This also means you can do PiP on a TV that doesn't normally have that capability!
Ok... we'll let you slide this time... ;-)
Digging through his home page, it looks like he lives in or near Ohio. Sounds like the middle of a work day to me! Or maybe he's just taking a vacation day today...
You're missing the point that most people don't want to work for a megalomaniac. You sound a lot like my wife's former manager. He would often stand outside the restroom and chastise people for taking too long, explosive diarrhea or not... accuse them of stealing from the company by taking extended potty breaks on company time.
No one wants to work for a boss like that... except maybe you.
Now, imagine breaking up this structure. Take the top molecule and rotate it by approximately 120 degrees, so that the H atom in the upper left of the image is now positioned between the H atoms bonded to the O second from the top. This is what happens when the ice melts... the molecules get closer together, causing the density to increase slightly upon melting.
If you have access to the Feynman lectures on physics, there is much better explanation with more pictures explaining this phenomenon.
Here is what I found out... I have one of the oldest covered iBooks, a 700MHz model with S/N UV2206.... She confirmed the machine S/N, my contact information and the approximate date of repair, in my case, early Nov, 2003. She looked up the details the tech had entered and confirmed that the repair I had done was indeed covered.
She then told me that Apple would be contacting all affected users via mail (not sure if you have to call in, or if they will proactively contact ALL affected iBook owners). Apparently, I am due a full refund ($450), but I don't know when I'll actually see that money!
Did you read ANYTHING about this article. Everything in there specifically mentions that this program covers people who have had LOGIC BOARDS fail. A logic board and a battery are two entirely different things. Apparently, there was a manufacturing defect in SOME of the logic boards used in iBooks (some, not all) that would cause them to eventually flake out and die.
If you bought an iBook between 5/2002 and 4/2003 and have had to pay (or end up having issues outside of normal AppleCare coverage for up to 3 years from date of purchase) for repairs specifically due to the bad logic boards, Apple with either fix it free, or refund money to those who've already ponied up the ~$500 for the repair.
To summarize:
iPod program -> battery
iBook program -> logic board
It's funny, but in the late 90s, there were a lot of contractors out there because of the outrageous hourly rates they could command. Now, there's a lot of contractors out there (myself included) who are doing it because of a lack of permanent jobs.
I've only been at this for 4 months now, but have a freshly signed and delivered 12-month contract (for which I turned down a permanent government job). At least I won't be out job hunting for 6-8 months, which IMO is the biggest down side to contracting.