How else do you explain the update coming 6 hours before the initial posting. What's that? Conflicting timestamps? Damn. I really wanted that time machine! Oh well...
And well they should be. I mean, the front page of peacefire.org showed a picture of several naked people in various stages of undress engaged in group sex around a table littered with poker chips, munitions clips, beer, doobies, pentagrams and at least one copy of the Kinsey report. The caption read "Violent guerillas screwing for Satan."
[Amazon is] simply using the current system to protect their business. They will not necessarily enforce the patent rigidly; it will often be too expensive.
When I read this, I automatically appended "We will only enforce the patent on our largest competitors." Given the fact that they have already obtained a temporary injunction against bn.com from using a similar system, that seems somewhat justified.
I agree with Jeff that, if they didn't patent it, someone else would. Also, obtaining a patent on a business model is a lot easier than establishing legal prior use, but the point remains the same: Predatory business practices are not the way to go. The best businesses will survive on their own, others will fall by the wayside.
I am impressed by Jeff's response, though. I hope he and Tim succeed in their push for USPTO reform.
I had my doubts as to the authenticity of this whole thread, but the parent to this message just gave it all away...
Doesn't anyone think that $473/minute legal consultation fees are a tad high. Well, how about dropping the decimal places and text around his figures: $3133 7. Hmmm... looks like [hax0r|skript-kiddy]speak to me!
I will admit that this is one of the more clever trolls posted in quite a while. Kudos, dmg... whoever you are.
OK, thanks Tayknight. I was at work and didn't have the book handy. It's been a long time since I read or watched 2010... I didn't even notice that this article was filed under the all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-Europa dept. until about an hour later.
"The Single Instance Store recognizes that there's duplication, coalesces the extra copies and stores the bits once instead of several times," Bolosky said. "So if you have 10 files with the same exact bits, instead of storing this data 10 times, it stores it once. It frees up a lot of space, and you realize performance improvements on the server."
The point being that W2K will automatically notice if multiple files are bit-for-bit copies of each other, and store the file once with symbolic links in other folders. It's the automatic part that makes this an M$ innovation.
BTW, I am *not* advocating M$ at all, just pointing out a yet-another-misconception in the Slashdot title...
Ever watch any of those insipid infomercials? Heck, consider just about any commercial selling music/kitchenware/exercise equipment/... you get the picture. They clearly state that residents of the state in which the business is located (and typically one or two specific other states) must include x% sales tax. Now, if you live in one of the other 46-48 states, you pay no sales tax.
Is Congress considering taxing these transactions? Not that I've heard of. (Of course, I'd better keep my mouth shut lest some minion of Congress is reading/. this morning.)
IMO, internet sales are no different. I could live with taxation of goods involved in intrastate commerce, but interstate commerce is another matter.
Others have clearly outlined problems with taxing interstate commerce, so I'll merely sum them up. Would taxes be based on the state the company ships from or the state in which they are incorporated (what about small e-commerce sites that aren't incorportated... are there any?). Maybe BOTH states will want their own cut. 12-15% sales tax on e-commerce will put a serious damper on continued growth. Another option would be to assess tax based on the location of the customer. But then a business will have to keep up to date on the tax laws in all 50 states, not to mention foreign practices when shipping overseas (or is banning international e-commerce next on the agenda?).
In short, this has many of the same problems as passing legislature regarding the internet. There are no such things as "local standards" on the web. What the US outlaws, other countries permit, and accessing hosts outside US jurisdiction is as easy as clicking a link or typing a URL.
My message to Congress is this: Listen to your informed constituents. They certainly know more about this matter than you could ever hope to know... it's their jobs and livelihood. You are supposed to be comprised of representatives of the people. Represent us! Oh, and try to do a better job in the future...
That about sums up my uses for the paper. I still pay $13/mo for my local newspaper, and the average daily edition has comix and local sports. Monday has a section all about technology (and since I'm in Raleigh, NC, this is pretty good... regular contributions from MetaLab, etc.) and Saturday has real estate listings (I'm looking for a new house). Otherwise, it all ends up in the bottom of my rabbits' litter pans!
Depends on whether you are using a compiled language or an interpreted language. C++ has to be compiled and run as separate steps, but scripting languages (perl, etc.) or database interface languages ([PL/]SQL, etc.) are fed to an interpreter which executes the commands directly.
What this all means in the context of the UCITA, I have no idea...
Yeah, I usually put in right at 40 hrs/wk, but I have only been working for 4 months (just out of grad school) and am programming business applications. Not exactly the high-stress portion of the "knowledge-worker" demographic.
In a way, I guess I am working on a remotely similar level, if by remotely you mean same order of magnitude!
Many people in science and technology use Celsius rather than Farenheit. 20 degrees C = 68 degrees F... a bit on the cool side for my liking, but perfectly reasonable value for room temperature.
Hmm... something just occurred to me as I was reading your post, trog. You say "My fience [sic]... uses AOL on her iMac. She's very bright and intelligent, but when it comes to computers, she just wants to use them as a tool - nothing more. She has no desire to learn Linux."
Now, this is where I realized something: maybe the Linux zealots should quit evangalizing to people who are comfortable with their computers and work more at convincing the truly new computer users instead.
Sure, most people don't need to know how to use multiple computers, but at some point, your fiance learned how to use a Mac. What if, at that point in her life, someone had shown her how to use a Linux machine instead? She's really learned no more or less about computers. She has simply learned how to use a (different) system.
IMO, there's no point telling a computer user how much better Linux is than the OS they are using now. We need to be the ones there when a user gets his first computer.
Then again, people who have never experienced Windows might not appreciate what it means to have a stable OS;^}
I very much want Linux to succeed, but I do think that there are certain ideals that need to be maintained. Avoiding AOL is one of them. I have no experience with them, but friends of mine who do have complained that AOL does nothing more than mask the *real* internet (their words).
Since you shared some of your experiences, I'll reciprocate... I also have been using Linux for about 4 years, mostly as a portal to remote supercomputers (during grad school) and somewhat on my home system. During college and grad school, I was continually exposed to *nix environments, and consider myself a fairly adept user. However, when it comes to system administration, at times I still need a good thwacking with a large clue stick.
IMO, the real problem is that, currently, Linux (which is inherently multi-user) requires a goodly amount of administration compared to Windows and MacOS (inherently single-user OSes). Consider software installation: in Windows, you download a file, extract it (typically through an install wizard) and click ok several times, and *poof* it's ready to run (after the obligatory reboot, of course:) In linux, there are no such "user-friendly" graphical installers (except for some OS distributions)... at least no widely used ones. Most of what a redhat user does is rpm -ivh foo.rpm, or some such variant. Additionally, this must be done as root, which opens the machine up to all levels of clusterf**king by the user.
While I'm all for the spread of Linux as a desktop OS, I'm afraid it will never happen. Most people just want a computer that they can turn on, click on icons, and chat/word-process/etc. An inherently multi-user system, such as linux, *BSD, etc. adds a level of complexity that this type of user will never want to navigate.
I guess I see the spread of linux in the light that there are millions of people out there who actually want to learn and understand more about how their computer works. To me, that's more important than which company comes out on top.
Nb: M$ aside, of course... THEY don't want computer users to understand what they are doing: they might stop paying for crappy software then!
A lot of people just want to use their computers to talk to other people. AOL is full of other people.
If that's all they want to do, fine. I can't imagine that a company would sell a pre-installed Linux system without a web browser. It's not going to be IE; most likely it would be netscape (among current non-beta browsers). With the AOL takeover of netscape, AIM is built right in. Register a nickname, go to www.aol.com, and follow the links to the chat rooms.
IMO, nothing there is too complicated for the average newby, especially if the computer came with any documentation on how to do the things an "average" user would want to do. The best part is that no one would have to resort to such a crappy ISP.
Yes, it is true that Linux users tend to be a (over?) zealous bunch, this line has me greatly concerned:
Convince Steve Case to let America Online's engineers port AOL 5.0 to Linux.
Yes, we need newbies (ie. more users, who will all be newbies for a time) for the Linux movement to progress, but the last thing we need is a dumbing down of Linux to this level!!!
Try a mirror. You, Paul, are whining about the lack of a "complete Jon Katz filter". I'll continue to state that you ought to have one built in... it's called a brain.
If that doesn't work, try this... foreach $article (<ON_SLASHDOT>) { next $article if $article =~/jon katz/i} (you do realize this a joke, right?)
The guy is hardly my hero. I rarely ever agree with him, but I am reminded of the famous quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
The option doesn't exclude all Katz stuff. Of course, I don't have to read him. But then, you don't have to read the comments of those you call "whiners" -- and yet, you do
See, here is the difference... you don't want to read (or even see) Jon Katz articles, but you click on them anyway. Myself, I *choose* to read Jon Katz articles because all of you "I hate Jon Katz" whiners amuse me. Get the difference yet?
Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to have a coherent and productive conversation with people who feel compelled to use phrases like "bum-boy" to make a point. References to latent homosexuality are not becoming... nor are they accurate.
Slashdot Mirror
Eric
And well they should be. I mean, the front page of peacefire.org showed a picture of several naked people in various stages of undress engaged in group sex around a table littered with poker chips, munitions clips, beer, doobies, pentagrams and at least one copy of the Kinsey report. The caption read "Violent guerillas screwing for Satan."
;-)
Eric
When I read this, I automatically appended "We will only enforce the patent on our largest competitors." Given the fact that they have already obtained a temporary injunction against bn.com from using a similar system, that seems somewhat justified.
I agree with Jeff that, if they didn't patent it, someone else would. Also, obtaining a patent on a business model is a lot easier than establishing legal prior use, but the point remains the same: Predatory business practices are not the way to go. The best businesses will survive on their own, others will fall by the wayside.
I am impressed by Jeff's response, though. I hope he and Tim succeed in their push for USPTO reform.
Eric
Eric (who knows nothing about Latin, so forgive my possible grammatical errors)
Symantec is pushing some crappy software in iGear.
OK, now let's sit back and see if I get sued. I'm waiting.
Still waiting...
Eric
Eric
I have discovered a truly remarkable solution to this cypher which, unfortunately, is too large to fit in the available bandwidth to this server...
I had my doubts as to the authenticity of this whole thread, but the parent to this message just gave it all away...
Doesn't anyone think that $473/minute legal consultation fees are a tad high. Well, how about dropping the decimal places and text around his figures: $3133 7. Hmmm... looks like [hax0r|skript-kiddy]speak to me!
I will admit that this is one of the more clever trolls posted in quite a while. Kudos, dmg... whoever you are.
Eric
OK, thanks Tayknight. I was at work and didn't have the book handy. It's been a long time since I read or watched 2010... I didn't even notice that this article was filed under the all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-Europa dept. until about an hour later.
Eric
All these worlds are yours except Europa... attempt no landing there.
Only we're there 10 years early!
Eric
The point being that W2K will automatically notice if multiple files are bit-for-bit copies of each other, and store the file once with symbolic links in other folders. It's the automatic part that makes this an M$ innovation.
BTW, I am *not* advocating M$ at all, just pointing out a yet-another-misconception in the Slashdot title...
Eric
Eric
Ever watch any of those insipid infomercials? Heck, consider just about any commercial selling music/kitchenware/exercise equipment/... you get the picture. They clearly state that residents of the state in which the business is located (and typically one or two specific other states) must include x% sales tax. Now, if you live in one of the other 46-48 states, you pay no sales tax.
/. this morning.)
Is Congress considering taxing these transactions? Not that I've heard of. (Of course, I'd better keep my mouth shut lest some minion of Congress is reading
IMO, internet sales are no different. I could live with taxation of goods involved in intrastate commerce, but interstate commerce is another matter.
Others have clearly outlined problems with taxing interstate commerce, so I'll merely sum them up. Would taxes be based on the state the company ships from or the state in which they are incorporated (what about small e-commerce sites that aren't incorportated... are there any?). Maybe BOTH states will want their own cut. 12-15% sales tax on e-commerce will put a serious damper on continued growth. Another option would be to assess tax based on the location of the customer. But then a business will have to keep up to date on the tax laws in all 50 states, not to mention foreign practices when shipping overseas (or is banning international e-commerce next on the agenda?).
In short, this has many of the same problems as passing legislature regarding the internet. There are no such things as "local standards" on the web. What the US outlaws, other countries permit, and accessing hosts outside US jurisdiction is as easy as clicking a link or typing a URL.
My message to Congress is this: Listen to your informed constituents. They certainly know more about this matter than you could ever hope to know... it's their jobs and livelihood. You are supposed to be comprised of representatives of the people. Represent us! Oh, and try to do a better job in the future...
Eric
That about sums up my uses for the paper. I still pay $13/mo for my local newspaper, and the average daily edition has comix and local sports. Monday has a section all about technology (and since I'm in Raleigh, NC, this is pretty good... regular contributions from MetaLab, etc.) and Saturday has real estate listings (I'm looking for a new house). Otherwise, it all ends up in the bottom of my rabbits' litter pans!
Eric
Oops... darn > and < disappeared from specific places...
Lets try
perl -e '{tr/[a-zA-Z0-9][n-za-mN-ZA-M5-90-4]/g;print}' < DeCSS.cpp > DeCSS.r13
I'll supply the rot13 version...
;->
perl -e '{tr/[a-zA-Z0-9][n-za-mN-ZA-M5-90-4]/g;print}' DeCSS.r13
Sorry, but the special characters have to stay the same
Eric
Depends on whether you are using a compiled language or an interpreted language. C++ has to be compiled and run as separate steps, but scripting languages (perl, etc.) or database interface languages ([PL/]SQL, etc.) are fed to an interpreter which executes the commands directly.
What this all means in the context of the UCITA, I have no idea...
Perl Monger: Python bites!
Python Hacker: BS! Perl sucks!
Repeat ad nauseum ...
Eric
Yeah, I usually put in right at 40 hrs/wk, but I have only been working for 4 months (just out of grad school) and am programming business applications. Not exactly the high-stress portion of the "knowledge-worker" demographic.
In a way, I guess I am working on a remotely similar level, if by remotely you mean same order of magnitude!
Eric
Many people in science and technology use Celsius rather than Farenheit. 20 degrees C = 68 degrees F... a bit on the cool side for my liking, but perfectly reasonable value for room temperature.
Eric
Hmm... something just occurred to me as I was reading your post, trog. You say "My fience [sic] ... uses AOL on her iMac. She's very bright and intelligent, but when it comes to computers, she just wants to use them as a tool - nothing more. She has no desire to learn Linux."
;^}
Now, this is where I realized something: maybe the Linux zealots should quit evangalizing to people who are comfortable with their computers and work more at convincing the truly new computer users instead.
Sure, most people don't need to know how to use multiple computers, but at some point, your fiance learned how to use a Mac. What if, at that point in her life, someone had shown her how to use a Linux machine instead? She's really learned no more or less about computers. She has simply learned how to use a (different) system.
IMO, there's no point telling a computer user how much better Linux is than the OS they are using now. We need to be the ones there when a user gets his first computer.
Then again, people who have never experienced Windows might not appreciate what it means to have a stable OS
Eric
I very much want Linux to succeed, but I do think that there are certain ideals that need to be maintained. Avoiding AOL is one of them. I have no experience with them, but friends of mine who do have complained that AOL does nothing more than mask the *real* internet (their words).
:) In linux, there are no such "user-friendly" graphical installers (except for some OS distributions) ... at least no widely used ones. Most of what a redhat user does is rpm -ivh foo.rpm, or some such variant. Additionally, this must be done as root, which opens the machine up to all levels of clusterf**king by the user.
Since you shared some of your experiences, I'll reciprocate... I also have been using Linux for about 4 years, mostly as a portal to remote supercomputers (during grad school) and somewhat on my home system. During college and grad school, I was continually exposed to *nix environments, and consider myself a fairly adept user. However, when it comes to system administration, at times I still need a good thwacking with a large clue stick.
IMO, the real problem is that, currently, Linux (which is inherently multi-user) requires a goodly amount of administration compared to Windows and MacOS (inherently single-user OSes). Consider software installation: in Windows, you download a file, extract it (typically through an install wizard) and click ok several times, and *poof* it's ready to run (after the obligatory reboot, of course
While I'm all for the spread of Linux as a desktop OS, I'm afraid it will never happen. Most people just want a computer that they can turn on, click on icons, and chat/word-process/etc. An inherently multi-user system, such as linux, *BSD, etc. adds a level of complexity that this type of user will never want to navigate.
I guess I see the spread of linux in the light that there are millions of people out there who actually want to learn and understand more about how their computer works. To me, that's more important than which company comes out on top.
Nb: M$ aside, of course... THEY don't want computer users to understand what they are doing: they might stop paying for crappy software then!
Eric
If that's all they want to do, fine. I can't imagine that a company would sell a pre-installed Linux system without a web browser. It's not going to be IE; most likely it would be netscape (among current non-beta browsers). With the AOL takeover of netscape, AIM is built right in. Register a nickname, go to www.aol.com, and follow the links to the chat rooms.
IMO, nothing there is too complicated for the average newby, especially if the computer came with any documentation on how to do the things an "average" user would want to do. The best part is that no one would have to resort to such a crappy ISP.
Eric
Yes, we need newbies (ie. more users, who will all be newbies for a time) for the Linux movement to progress, but the last thing we need is a dumbing down of Linux to this level!!!
Eric
Try a mirror. You, Paul, are whining about the lack of a "complete Jon Katz filter". I'll continue to state that you ought to have one built in... it's called a brain.
If that doesn't work, try this... /jon katz/i}
foreach $article (<ON_SLASHDOT>) {
next $article if $article =~
(you do realize this a joke, right?)
The guy is hardly my hero. I rarely ever agree with him, but I am reminded of the famous quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
See, here is the difference... you don't want to read (or even see) Jon Katz articles, but you click on them anyway. Myself, I *choose* to read Jon Katz articles because all of you "I hate Jon Katz" whiners amuse me. Get the difference yet?
Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to have a coherent and productive conversation with people who feel compelled to use phrases like "bum-boy" to make a point. References to latent homosexuality are not becoming... nor are they accurate.