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User: argent

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  1. Re:Refresh my memory, please? on Orrin Hatch to Lead Senate Panel on Copyright, Patents · · Score: 1

    It's a question of fair play - how could I possibly demand protection for my own rights, if I'm not prepared to afford that same protection to others?

    The rights the entertainment industry is demanding is the right to control the use of their "software", not just the distribution.

    You don't have to support everything someone regards as a right: you don't accept the right to drink-and-drive, do you? How about the right to torture? There's people who consider both of these to be "rights".

  2. Re:Refresh my memory, please? on Orrin Hatch to Lead Senate Panel on Copyright, Patents · · Score: 1

    To the best of my knowledge, people who shout for enforcement of the GPL demand it be enforced against companies, entities with an embedded power base.

    Irrelevant. You just fell into the trap he baited for you. The answer is that the GPL doesn't restrict use, just distribution. The music and movie industry is trying to restrict use.

  3. Red Herring! Red Herring! on Orrin Hatch to Lead Senate Panel on Copyright, Patents · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Could someone tell me what the essential difference is between someone violating the license terms on a copyrighted work released under a GPL license, and someone violating the terms under which a CD is released by (for example) Sony?

    This is a complete red herring. What the industry is trying to stop with their heavy-handed digital right management and anti-reverse-engineering laws is not activity they are authorised to prevent, and it's not analogous to any activity the GPL prevents.

    When I take a GPLed program and modify it and keep my modifications secret I'm not violating the GPL unless I distribute the binary to someone without gicing them the source. Copyright controls distribution, not use.

    When I rip a CD so I can play it on my computer or mp3 player I'm not violating the terms under which a CD is released by Sony. If I give someone a copy or keep the files after I sell the CD I am, but that's not what the indusry is trying to prevent... they're trying to prevent me from playing the music, not distributing it.

    So the answer to your red herring is "none, and it's irrelevant".

    By the way, I like your handle, "B.S.Artist".

  4. Re:My Idea... on Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking · · Score: 1

    How much in the way of undamaged auditory nerves does that need to function? The optical schemes involve direct input to the visual cortex, which is a bit deeper in the brain.

  5. Plus, it's already being done. on Faulty Chips Might Just be 'Good Enough' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but anything like a graphic chip is going to be too complex to handle.

    Depends...

    Graphics chips these days have multiple pipelines, and are shipped in variants with different numbers of pipelines. If you can build a board that lets you use (say) any two pipelines out of a 4-pipeline chip, then you can use more of the defective chips. Similarly, if you're making MP3 chips, and their FM radio or LCD subsystems fail, you sell them to APple to put in the iPod Shuffle...

    The thing is, defective chips are already sorted into bins like this. Processors are binned by clock speed... buy a low-speed CPU and it could well have come from the same run as its higher-speed cousin. Memory has mechanisms to allow for a certain number of bad cells. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some 2-pipeline GPUs are 4-pipeline versions that failed the 3rd or 4th pipeline.

    I don't know how much headroom is left.

  6. Re:Wrong on CSS Support IE 7.0's Weakest Link · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I tend to agree. Microsoft's security model is inherently broken and unfixable.

  7. Re:IE is broken, CSS is broken on CSS Support IE 7.0's Weakest Link · · Score: 1

    "I can do this in five minutes with tables and it will work in all browsers. Screw this."

    Then do it in tables.

    CSS does not have a grid layout engine, it just has an absolute layout engine and a relative layout engine (like the Tcl/Tk placer and packer). The only way to get grid layout on a web page is through tables. If you need grid layout, use tables.

    The lack of a grid layout engine is the biggest problem in CSS, and I can kind of see why they left it out... a lot of the stuff in CSS is a reaction to the abuse of tables, and people have a lot of experience in typesetting programs that do amazing things with relative layout. But, really, a grid layout engine is needed for application user interfaces. They discovered that in Tcl/Tk and added one, now it's time for CSS to follow suit.

  8. Re:Time, July 1, 1974 on Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking · · Score: 1

    I checked it because I thought you were quoting from a Heinlein story featuring a Dr. Pinneo.

    Nope, that's from an article I photocopied from Time Magazine in 1974. Dr Pinneo is real, though if you google for him most of the hits are from fringe activist types waving red flags about the CIA using Dr. Pinneo's technology for negarious ends.

  9. Time, July 1, 1974 on Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article reminded me of something I stuck in my scrapbook back in high school. Amazingly enough, I was able to dig around and find it...

    Mind Reading Computer

    The experiment looks like some ingenious test of mental telepathy. Seated inside a small isolation booth with wires trailing from the helmet on her head, teh subject seems deep in concentration. She does not speek or move. Near by, a white-coated scientist intently watches a TV screen. Suddenly, a little white dot hovering in the center of the screen comes to life. It sweeps to te top of the screen, then it reverses itself and comes back down. After a pause, it veers to the right, stops, moves to the left, momentarily speeds up and finally halts - almost as if it were under the control of some external intelligence.

    The article goes on to describe the work of S.R.I. researcher Lawrence Pinneo in translating thoughts to action. Googling on his name in interesting.

    Did this take 30 years to get from Stanford to Caltech?

  10. Re:How Firefox Adoption Effects Linux/*BSD Adoptio on Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage · · Score: 1

    For corporations, this may be different because Firefox is harder manage using traditional means (no group policies)

    They have a real schizophrenic approach to Firefox at work. Corporate says "IE only", Helpdesk says "You ought to try Firefox".

  11. Re:Microsoft could easily win this (minor) war on Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage · · Score: 1

    . Make a .NET control that gives complete control over the manipulation and creation of Office documents...

    What wonderful phishing opportunities that would provide!

  12. Re:Not sure this makes sense on Firefox Continues to Bite into IE Usage · · Score: 1

    The default browser for Mac OS X Jaguar was Internet Explorer. Safari wasn't even istalled until you used Software Update. Many Mac isers are still using IE on the Mac. And since IE on the Mac isn't integrated into the OS the way IE on Windows is, they're relatively safe in doing so.

    I'm the guy who gets called in whenever someone with a Powerbook or iBook has a problem at work, because I'm the only tech who's drunk the white kool-aid. It's amazing how many people running Panther still use IE.

    And Firefox is quite popular on the Mac. See, Mac users aren't really used to having a single dominant browser... there's even people still using iCab on OS X! Plus...

  13. Re:My Idea... on Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We already have a neural network that can be used to play back patterns into the visual cortex. It's called the visual cortex. It turns out there's a straightforward mapping from the visual field to parts of the visual cortex, and they've got quite useful results using both directly implanted electrodes and external stimulation. More amazingly, the brain can actually learn to "see" through completely different pathways. One experiment involved an aray of pins on the patient's back!

    Not that it's not an interesting idea, but vision is probably too easy a problem to be worthwhile. Hearing may actually be harder.

  14. And this surprises anyone? on Inside the Free iPod Offer · · Score: 1

    These kinds of free stuff deals have been around forever. They used to be on the back cover of Boys Fun Adventure, offering free telescopes and the like.

    The difference here is that they're offering something attractive to the /. demographic. They've grown up a bit.

  15. Re:Hmmm... on iPod Shuffle Lookalike Hits CeBIT · · Score: 1

    IBM
    UBM
    We All BM
    For IBM -- H.A.R.L.I.E. (Wehn HARLIE was one, David Gerrold)

  16. Re:9 Episodes... on Lucas To Redo Star Wars In 3-D · · Score: 1

    In American film history we have two movies that have changed, inspired and affected culture to a staggering degree: The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars.

    Star Wars was riding on the contrails of 2001.

  17. Re:9 Episodes... on Lucas To Redo Star Wars In 3-D · · Score: 1

    Actually, I wish somebody else would deliver them.

    The Wacharski Brothers, maybe?

  18. Re:9 Episodes... on Lucas To Redo Star Wars In 3-D · · Score: 1

    Lucas likes to pretend he's had this grand vision all along from day one, but the plot inconsistancies and herky-jerky flow of the story looks more like incoherent post-facto ramblings than it does "planned".

    Who cares what he planned, once he said it he became trapped in the land of Retcon forever.

  19. Re:Not a vulnerability. on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    Similar to the way Linux will dump all its VM pages in favor of allocating them to disk buffers;

    Surely there's something you can use to tune the VM/buffer cache ratio...?

  20. 9 Episodes... on Lucas To Redo Star Wars In 3-D · · Score: 4, Funny

    You might have thought that it was going to all be over on May 15 with the release of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

    Lucas originally promised 9 episodes.

    his fans are going to make sure he delivers, even if it involves necromancy.

  21. Re:fork bomb not a vulnerability on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    BSD has a number of limits turned on by default.

    This is neither "good" nor "bad", it's just a difference between the systems. BSD was developed in an academic environment, where a system typically had dozens to hundreds of naive and enthusiastic users logged on at one time. As a result it takes a more conservative approach to resource management than Linux with its single-user orientation.

  22. Re:Not a vulnerability. on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    Locking down all such resources sounds just like the definition of a "hardened" operating system.

    Or a realtime operating system. Have you used a tightly partitioned OS with mandatory access controls? I have... and, well, getting back to my original message and completing the text you quoted: "to lock them all down would leave you with a system that's so restricted as to be nearly useless as a general computing platform"... that's a pretty good description of guaranteed-response-time hard realtime and MAC partitioned environments.

  23. Re:So- on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    Lots of (and the term "lots" is relative) exploits and vulnerabilites being posted these days about Linux distros.

    Lots of the problems listed as "exploits" and "vulnerabilities" are no such thing. This is true no matter what the platform... I would guess half the so-called "security vulnerabilities" I see announced for Windows, even, are no such thing.

    Thus the terms have become diluted, and who wins by muddying the waters? Who has most to gain by people becoming confused about what's really an exploit...?

  24. Re:Thread, not process! on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    Fork spawns a new thread in a current process. It does not spawn a new process.

    That's exactly what it does not do.

    Fork is the only mechanism that exists in standard UNIX for creating a new process.

  25. Re:No, this is completely incorrect. on Some Linux Distros Found Vulnerable By Default · · Score: 1

    Just the other day I messed up a pike script and it used up all my RAM. But my ulimit was set to 128MB of RAM, so pike just got an out of memory error and exited.

    You're making an unwarranted assumption. You can't assume that just because you can prevent a buggy script from bringing a system down by accident, you're safe from a malicious user deliberately attempting to perform a denial of service attack through local resource exhaustion.

    Not having a process limit by default is a bug. For it to be classified as a vulnerability you'd have to tie that directly in to a security issue, and I don't think that's teh case here.

    This kind of uninformed and ignorant attitude seems quite common in the linux world now that most users aren't experiences unix admins.

    *snork*

    Do a bit of research into who you're talking to, mate.