Craig, as everyone will attest, Google has become indespensible. As such a tool, virtually required for useful Internet work, I see Google as similar to a public utility. What do you see as the pros and cons of being viewed in this light?
Furthermore, estimates are that search engines miss a large portion of Internet content available. There must be literally millions of web pages that don't even show up in your cache because they are too small, or because nobody links to them. But there may be a site out there that has all the information you could ever want to know about some esoteric topic that only the person who created the site and the few friends that person may have...but since nobody else links to it, nobody else knows about it.
So how do you find those treasure troves? And how do you decide which ones are treasure troves and which ones are the millions of "all about me" web pages? Or do you care?
I don't understand how keeping track of information like this can possibly help with security or ANYTHING for that matter.
What I don't get is this: Evidence exists that the CIA, FBI, NSA, et. al. already had enough raw data in their hands that if they had their heads on right, they could've stopped the 9/11 attack...so the amount of information they have access to already isn't the problem...it's what they do with it.
So how the hell is giving them more data going to help? All it will do is cause information overload and all those cops will start ignoring even more than they do already...which will actually make it easier for those bent on crime and distruction.
After all, if there are 50 average joe's to every 1 kidnapper/drug dealer/terrorist, then if I'm one of the bad guys...I'd be hoping the government is too busy watching the 50 good guys so as to be more likely to overlook me.
The first Disney film with any cg effects was "The Black Cauldron" in 1985.
What is your source on that? I always thought the first was The Great Mouse Detective which was their 26th feature film, just after The Black Cauldron.
Well, then you are either too small for Infogrames/Bioware to be bothered, or they sue you and you get to defend your position in court. If you are willing to do that, go for it. The more litigation that smacks down EULAs we get, the more precedent...mo' betta.
Just remember you're taking a gamble that they won't mind or that you can afford to keep paying your lawyer(s) as long as they can keep you in court.
The rights you and Infogrames/Bioware agree you have under the EULA.
The EULA says they assign you the right to make mods and share them. It also says Inogrames/Bioware ha[s|ve] the right to revoke that right...provided they are not using or distributing your mods at the time of revokation.
I am merely pointing out that by agreeing to the EULA, you're agreeing that Infogrames/Bioware can revoke rights you both agree you have (purportedly to make playing the game a better experience) before they start using or distributing your mods. And, you are also agreeing that after they revoke those rights, they can use or distribute your mods but you no longer can.
I have no clue where you get anything about not taking responsibility for one's actions...that's either a troll or a ridiculous leap of logic.
I advocate you know what you are agreeing to before you agree to it...I think that actually qualifies as taking responsibility for one's actions...not the opposite, as you imply.
6. Revocation of Rights. Infogrames and/or BioWare may at any time and in their sole discretion revoke your right to make your Variations publicly available (whether you are Distributing or Serving), provided that Infogrames and/or BioWare shall not revoke your right to Distribute a Variation if Infogrames and/or BioWare is, at the time of such revocation, using or distributing such Variation.
There is nothing to prevent them from revoking your right to make your variations publicly available just before they start using or distributing your variation.
That is, the EULA says they can't revoke your right when they are using or distributing your stuff; but, they leave the door wide open to take away your rights...and THEN start using and distributing your stuff.
You miss the point. I am nothing special. My example merely illustrates that server logs are not very reliable measures of what users are actually using to connect to their web site.
Mozilla/Netscape, Opera, curl, wget, and many other tools allow you to change your user-agent to look like IE.
Many web sites will not even come up if you don't identify as IE.
Point is, web server logs are as meaningful as web polls.
It is a mere accident that those hogs happen to be MP3 users.
I am a high bandwidth user and I have maybe d/l-ed a dozen MP3 files in my lifetime. Who is to say that just because someone is high bandwidth, they are into illegal shit?
I'm sure there a lot of people streaming video legally (pr0n) and gaming...which may be a violation of some AUPs, but is not illegal. I mean, after all, Neverwinter Nights will be out soon so there should be a lot more people setting up game servers and having local groups gaming online.
I am not attacking your post because I think we are in agreement. But I don't even think there is any evidence available at this point proving that those hogs happen to be MP3 users...
During an economic downturn it's the shittiest job I can imagine.
I am in management. Our company is unlike many other businesses at present.
We are actually growing right now and have been for the last few years...in spite of an economic downturn. This is for two reasons:
Competent management - at least for now <grin>
We are small enough (~$20M US annual revenue, 100-150 employees) so as to remain agile and mostly devoid of bloat.
As an example, we recently had an all-hands afternoon team-building exercise with free food and drink for all. One person dropped and broke a glass bottle. Our CEO cleaned it up. Get that? Not the janitor...not the guy who broke it...the CEO got out a broom and dustpan and cleaned up the mess.
We all work hard, and nobody is above the small stuff.
Not necessarily. I mean to say "competent management" implies an ability to manage... in other words, to handle problems before they get out of hand. So, naturally, competent management would have made better decisions and kept things in line, avoiding the fscking of the employees and customers.
But, let me ask you this: Would it be better for half the employees to be out of work than all of them?
We are living in a cruel, cold world, you know. There is people out there who are willing to commit crimes without worrying consequences.
It seems to me this is a social problem that legislation cannot fix. Some people are willing to die for their cause and no amount of legislation is going to change that fact.
Prevention is a matter of deterrent. If there is enough of a deterrent, most people will be deterred. No amount of deterrent will stop a fanatic.
It's like computer security. There is a continuum on which one end approaches complete security, and the other end approaches complete insecurity. If we let things go towards the complete freedom end, having no laws and no deterrent to crime, individual ethics will not save us. If we let things go towards the complete security end, we have no freedom to do anything.
In real life, just like computer security, the trick is to find the point where we are secure enough and free enough simultaneously.
Without locking the world down completely, we will always have to deal with those on whom deterrents are ineffective.
I prefer to remain free and be assumed innocent of a crime until such time as I am proven guilty of one. Some people may use their freedom towards evil ends...the solution is not to lock us all up, rather it is to raise us up to a better level...to educate, create socially responsible governments, and raise all peoples out of poverty.
In short, until humans evolve into a better species...we're fucked.
IBM makes more money from software sales than from anything else. According to their financial statements, they bring in a ton more revenue on hardware and services, but software is over 80% margin.
Slashdot Mirror
78% of statistics are made up on the spot ;^)
Craig, as everyone will attest, Google has become indespensible. As such a tool, virtually required for useful Internet work, I see Google as similar to a public utility. What do you see as the pros and cons of being viewed in this light?
Furthermore, estimates are that search engines miss a large portion of Internet content available. There must be literally millions of web pages that don't even show up in your cache because they are too small, or because nobody links to them. But there may be a site out there that has all the information you could ever want to know about some esoteric topic that only the person who created the site and the few friends that person may have...but since nobody else links to it, nobody else knows about it.
So how do you find those treasure troves? And how do you decide which ones are treasure troves and which ones are the millions of "all about me" web pages? Or do you care?
What I don't get is this: Evidence exists that the CIA, FBI, NSA, et. al. already had enough raw data in their hands that if they had their heads on right, they could've stopped the 9/11 attack...so the amount of information they have access to already isn't the problem...it's what they do with it.
So how the hell is giving them more data going to help? All it will do is cause information overload and all those cops will start ignoring even more than they do already...which will actually make it easier for those bent on crime and distruction.
After all, if there are 50 average joe's to every 1 kidnapper/drug dealer/terrorist, then if I'm one of the bad guys...I'd be hoping the government is too busy watching the 50 good guys so as to be more likely to overlook me.
What is your source on that? I always thought the first was The Great Mouse Detective which was their 26th feature film, just after The Black Cauldron.
What then?
Well, then you are either too small for Infogrames/Bioware to be bothered, or they sue you and you get to defend your position in court. If you are willing to do that, go for it. The more litigation that smacks down EULAs we get, the more precedent...mo' betta.
Just remember you're taking a gamble that they won't mind or that you can afford to keep paying your lawyer(s) as long as they can keep you in court.
The EULA says they assign you the right to make mods and share them. It also says Inogrames/Bioware ha[s|ve] the right to revoke that right...provided they are not using or distributing your mods at the time of revokation.
I am merely pointing out that by agreeing to the EULA, you're agreeing that Infogrames/Bioware can revoke rights you both agree you have (purportedly to make playing the game a better experience) before they start using or distributing your mods. And, you are also agreeing that after they revoke those rights, they can use or distribute your mods but you no longer can.
I have no clue where you get anything about not taking responsibility for one's actions...that's either a troll or a ridiculous leap of logic.
I advocate you know what you are agreeing to before you agree to it...I think that actually qualifies as taking responsibility for one's actions...not the opposite, as you imply.
That is, the EULA says they can't revoke your right when they are using or distributing your stuff; but, they leave the door wide open to take away your rights...and THEN start using and distributing your stuff.
My father-in-law uses AOL.
If I am visiting and need Internet access, I connect with AOL. As soon as I connect, I minimize AOL and launch Opera.
Do you suggest AOL is censoring what I can see this way?
Or do you suggest my father-in-law and the hordes of AOL users lack the ability to do the same as me?
Nice troll. I'll feed you...
You miss the point. I am nothing special. My example merely illustrates that server logs are not very reliable measures of what users are actually using to connect to their web site.
Mozilla/Netscape, Opera, curl, wget, and many other tools allow you to change your user-agent to look like IE.
Many web sites will not even come up if you don't identify as IE.
Point is, web server logs are as meaningful as web polls.
There are 34 million people using AOL.
I just read where some people estimate at least a million of them are using their "1000 free hours for 45 days" and will never pay AOL.
When their time runs out and AOL ships them a new CD the month after switching to Gecko, there will *quickly* be a million users on it.
Additionally, while I'm sure a lot of AOL users don't upgrade regularly, if only 5% do, there's 1.7 Million new Mozilla users, *quickly*.
But, you're right, not instantly...my bad.
And I use Opera, but identify as IE5.
And when I use curl, I use an IE5 user-agent string. Some sites just won't let you in otherwise.
We've all heard it before: when (yes, I said when) AOL switches to Mozilla, there will instantly be millions of Mozilla users.
Ahh, my imperfect ear never heard it quite that way. I just listened to some .wavs of it and realize it clearly is shmonsequences. .sig fixed.
Where do I find one of those?
I'm sure there a lot of people streaming video legally (pr0n) and gaming...which may be a violation of some AUPs, but is not illegal. I mean, after all, Neverwinter Nights will be out soon so there should be a lot more people setting up game servers and having local groups gaming online.
I am not attacking your post because I think we are in agreement. But I don't even think there is any evidence available at this point proving that those hogs happen to be MP3 users...
It's already capped.
1.544 Mbps
OMG! You just cracked me up...I had forgotten about him.
You are educated stupid and cannot calculate a time cube!
There are three kinds of lies:
- lies
- damn lies
- statistics
People on either side of any debate publish "information" that only favors their view.The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
We are actually growing right now and have been for the last few years...in spite of an economic downturn. This is for two reasons:
- Competent management - at least for now <grin>
- We are small enough (~$20M US annual revenue, 100-150 employees) so as to remain agile and mostly devoid of bloat.
As an example, we recently had an all-hands afternoon team-building exercise with free food and drink for all. One person dropped and broke a glass bottle. Our CEO cleaned it up. Get that? Not the janitor...not the guy who broke it...the CEO got out a broom and dustpan and cleaned up the mess.We all work hard, and nobody is above the small stuff.
Not necessarily. I mean to say "competent management" implies an ability to manage ... in other words, to handle problems before they get out of hand. So, naturally, competent management would have made better decisions and kept things in line, avoiding the fscking of the employees and customers.
But, let me ask you this: Would it be better for half the employees to be out of work than all of them?
Of course not...it will be from the shite-heads in management making all the lame-ass decisions that got you so fucked in the first place.
As always.
Why go to all this trouble? If I don't want to hear the noise from my computer I just to turn the TV up...
Prevention is a matter of deterrent. If there is enough of a deterrent, most people will be deterred. No amount of deterrent will stop a fanatic.
It's like computer security. There is a continuum on which one end approaches complete security, and the other end approaches complete insecurity. If we let things go towards the complete freedom end, having no laws and no deterrent to crime, individual ethics will not save us. If we let things go towards the complete security end, we have no freedom to do anything.
In real life, just like computer security, the trick is to find the point where we are secure enough and free enough simultaneously.
Without locking the world down completely, we will always have to deal with those on whom deterrents are ineffective.
I prefer to remain free and be assumed innocent of a crime until such time as I am proven guilty of one. Some people may use their freedom towards evil ends...the solution is not to lock us all up, rather it is to raise us up to a better level...to educate, create socially responsible governments, and raise all peoples out of poverty.
In short, until humans evolve into a better species...we're fucked.