Haven't actually seen the virus itself, but I've been getting barraged by notices from various server installations of "Declude Virus" telling my that my server sent them an infected e-mail. They then proceed to include the original headers which clearly show the offending e-mail came from somewhere else. They suggest, "If this virus did originate from one of your users, you may want to consider adding virus protection to your mailserver." Uh, I won't be installing their software, that's for sure.
Well, saying Howard Dean is being called "Net Savvy" by those who like him is a lot different from saying he's being called "Net Savvy" by technically ignorant political journalists.
I got this spam too, and my strong suspicion was it was indeed a joe job. I sent a uce complaint to the sending ISP with copies to (like that'll help) and (also looked to see if there was an easy way to complain via the Web or e-mail to the FEC; there isn't). Unfortunately deanforamerica.com doesn't maintain an Abuse address, so that bounced, and I didn't get around to trying to send it to their Postmaster account. Whether or not it's them sending the e-mail, I'd really like to see the Dean campaign respond -- and to do that, they have to be aware of the problem.
I think the FTC would be much better off spending its money to educate potential victims of spam than it would going after the actual spammers.
Or (and this idea just came to me when reading this article; I'm not advocating it... yet): what about making it illegal to place an order in response to an illegal (or fraudulent; e.g. with forged headers) bulk unsolicited e-mail? Make the people making these purchases subject to a fine of some percentage (maybe 100%) of what they pay the spammer. Basically penalize people for not doing the most basic checking up on who they're "buying" from...
The Economist had an article on this back in 1999: "The QWERY myth" (April 1, 1999 print edition). [Curiously, the article's also online here, but you've got to be registered at the site to read it (costs money; is free, though, if you've already got a print subscription).]
Talks about the "myth", relying heavily on an article by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys" (which is also available online). Among other things, the Liebowitz/Margolis piece "tells you plenty about the history of the typewriter--but what every economist should have concluded from it was that another example of 'locking in' had better be found. QWERTY simply will not do."
Among other things, there was one main study (conducted by the US Navy in 1944) that showed the Dvorak keyboard was superior to QWERTY, but the "experiments were conducted by one Lieutenant-Commander August Dvorak, the navy's top time-and-motion man, and owner of the Dvorak layout patent."
This is not a right to reply to offensive material.
I probably should have used the word "aggrieve" rather than "offend," then.
This is a right to reply to statements made about you that you believe are factually untrue.
Is the person making the original statements on a web site to be held responsible for the factual accuracy of the reply which she is obligated to post (or at least post a link to)? What if she thinks or knows the reply to be factually untrue? What if the reply -- to adequately explain the factual errors of the original statements -- has to make statements concerning a third party, and what if some of those details turn out to be inaccurate or are at least disputed?
So if somebody has a web site that offends another person, that person gets to have his reply posted for a period on the web site. What, though, if the reply offends some third party? Does the third party get to have his reply to the reply posted on the original web site? What about a reply to that?
Might also consider sending your $13 (and/or other money you want to give to a good cause) to the Future of Music coalition, which describes itself as "a not-for-profit think tank based in Washington, DC that strives for the creation of a musicians' middle class. The FMC's primary goal is to educate musicians and the public at large about some of the critical issues that are shaping the policy debate in the music/technology space." They're decidedly anit-RIAA and pro-musician and favor alternatives to RIAA-controlled distribution.
This whole line of thought (more diversity in radio airplay --> more records artists/songs exposedt to the public --> more demand --> more sales) is why it's so strange that the RIAA came out so opposed to making it easy for alternative radio stations to enter the webcasting race. More diverse webcasting could partly offset reduced diversity in over-the-air broadcasting, and drive sales.
I'm forced to conclude that the RIAA knows that more diverse, alternative radio stations are also more likely to play independent artists and are (maybe) less likely to accept payola, so the RIAA is afraid that the increased sales won't necessarily be of major label releases, and that is the explanation for their opposition to webcasting.
I am a major shareholder in the largest of those five corporations, yet -- speaking only for myself, and not for AOL Time Warner -- I oppose these rules. They will stifle debate, inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, 10 years later, to launch CNN.
been done... rember the ibook ant farm?
on
Ant Farm PC
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· Score: 1, Funny
been done... but more naturally... rember the ibook ant farm?
What about possible collateral damage: did any of SpamKing's neighbors' mail delivery get slowed down (or otherwise affected)? (Is there any way to tell?)
Reminds me of an episode in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character. Richard Feynman pointed out problems with security of file cabinets containing secret documents at Los Alamos. The "solution" to the problem? Easy! Keep Feynman away from the cabinets!
Finally, it occurs to the mainstream press that RIAA labels might actually be getting killed be legitimate competition and NOT by "pirates"??
And this despite the various "taxes" independents have to pay the RIAA for the right to compete with them (built-in fees on DAT tape, CD-R media; attacks on webstreaming, etc.)
My personal fave Coen Bros picture (I love them all -- though Barton Fink possibly least): Miller's Crossing. Great gangster movie. Finally coming out soon on DVD.
Course, I've also got to say how much I like Blood Simple (first time I watched it was on video; watched it, then rewound and had to watch it again). And Raising Arizona -- funniest kidnapping/baby caper/American Southwest movie... ever. And the cinematography alone is enough to make The Man Who Wasn't There a masterpiece -- and it's got so much more than just cinematography!
Obviously the RIAA member record companies will have to consent and will be recieving royalties for these CD's. They own the songs (and the artists' souls) afterall. If Clear Channel were to try to do this without a contract from the labels, they would certainly be sued. I wouldn't be surpised to see the record companies bail on this deal though. We all know how open minded the major labels are towards creating new products, especially products people actually want. I'm sure they'll find some reason to be afraid of this.
Clear Channel is in a position to essentially force bands and labels to agree to let them put out these live CDs.
According to this page on their Web site, the Clear Channel Entertainment "Music Group currently owns, operates and/or exclusively books 135 live entertainment venues, including 41 amphitheaters in the U.S. and 30 venues in Europe"; and, "In 2001 the Music Group generated approximately 70 percent of concert ticket revenue in the U.S." When you think about how many venues a typical US tour will play, you realize just how dominant this makes Clear Channel's position.
Their dominance is further fortified by their position in the radio market: Clear Channel radio "daily reaches 54% of all people ages 18-49" according to this page, which means they control what I think can safely be assumed to be the primary means of promoting large concerts and tours to a huge share of the concert-going population.
In other words: if bands or labels don't agree to let Clear Channel put out these concert CDs, Clear Channel can simply decide to kill the tour by 1) not letting the bands play the venues unless they let Clear Channel put out the CDs and 2) not promote tours where the band has not given Clear Channel permission to put out these CDs.
Without the blessing of Clear Channel, bands and labels are simply shut off from large-scale airplay and concert tours -- and, therefore, from commercial success. See, for example, Eric Boehlert's articles at Salon.com.
Not sure how Apple's decision to release a KHTML browser really hurts Mozilla. Especially when you consider the default browser in Mac OS X has been Internet Explorer so far (hopefully to change when Safari gets out of beta?). If anything, it should serve as incentive to improve Mozilla.
Personally, I still prefer Mozilla on Mac OS X to Safari, but as Safari becomes more full featured, we'll see how they compare. There's one particularly annoying problem with Mozilla on Mac OS X (acknowledged in the release notes, but I don't think yet, as a "bug"):
Mozilla will not run when the application is installed on a UFS partition. The workaround is to move the application folder to an HFS+ partition and it will run correctly.
I do use Mozilla on Mac OS X fairly regularly, but until this problem is fixed, Chimera is my favorite browser. Runs on a UFS volume, cocoa, decidedly un-bloated.
Yeah, when an AP story says the "hard drives" were stolen, I'm definitely not picturing a scenario in which thieves open the case, take out the drives, and then run. I bet they just took the whole computer, which to the AP writer probably means "monitor and hard drive." Speculation, but I'm betting they had no idea what they were taking.
Slashdot Mirror
Haven't actually seen the virus itself, but I've been getting barraged by notices from various server installations of "Declude Virus" telling my that my server sent them an infected e-mail. They then proceed to include the original headers which clearly show the offending e-mail came from somewhere else. They suggest, "If this virus did originate from one of your users, you may want to consider adding virus protection to your mailserver." Uh, I won't be installing their software, that's for sure.
Well, saying Howard Dean is being called "Net Savvy" by those who like him is a lot different from saying he's being called "Net Savvy" by technically ignorant political journalists.
I got this spam too, and my strong suspicion was it was indeed a joe job. I sent a uce complaint to the sending ISP with copies to (like that'll help) and (also looked to see if there was an easy way to complain via the Web or e-mail to the FEC; there isn't). Unfortunately deanforamerica.com doesn't maintain an Abuse address, so that bounced, and I didn't get around to trying to send it to their Postmaster account. Whether or not it's them sending the e-mail, I'd really like to see the Dean campaign respond -- and to do that, they have to be aware of the problem.
No sign of problems in Chicago...
I think the FTC would be much better off spending its money to educate potential victims of spam than it would going after the actual spammers.
Or (and this idea just came to me when reading this article; I'm not advocating it ... yet): what about making it illegal to place an order in response to an illegal (or fraudulent; e.g. with forged headers) bulk unsolicited e-mail? Make the people making these purchases subject to a fine of some percentage (maybe 100%) of what they pay the spammer. Basically penalize people for not doing the most basic checking up on who they're "buying" from...
Talks about the "myth", relying heavily on an article by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis, "The Fable of the Keys" (which is also available online). Among other things, the Liebowitz/Margolis piece "tells you plenty about the history of the typewriter--but what every economist should have concluded from it was that another example of 'locking in' had better be found. QWERTY simply will not do."
Among other things, there was one main study (conducted by the US Navy in 1944) that showed the Dvorak keyboard was superior to QWERTY, but the "experiments were conducted by one Lieutenant-Commander August Dvorak, the navy's top time-and-motion man, and owner of the Dvorak layout patent."
So if somebody has a web site that offends another person, that person gets to have his reply posted for a period on the web site. What, though, if the reply offends some third party? Does the third party get to have his reply to the reply posted on the original web site? What about a reply to that?
Might also consider sending your $13 (and/or other money you want to give to a good cause) to the Future of Music coalition, which describes itself as "a not-for-profit think tank based in Washington, DC that strives for the creation of a musicians' middle class. The FMC's primary goal is to educate musicians and the public at large about some of the critical issues that are shaping the policy debate in the music/technology space." They're decidedly anit-RIAA and pro-musician and favor alternatives to RIAA-controlled distribution.
I'm forced to conclude that the RIAA knows that more diverse, alternative radio stations are also more likely to play independent artists and are (maybe) less likely to accept payola, so the RIAA is afraid that the increased sales won't necessarily be of major label releases, and that is the explanation for their opposition to webcasting.
been done... but more naturally... rember the ibook ant farm?
Remember this?
It's cheaper, though, from amazon.com ($38.47 v. bn.com's $43.96).
If you're in Canada, chapters.indigo.ca has it for $54.56 Canadian (CAD) -- under $38 US.
What about possible collateral damage: did any of SpamKing's neighbors' mail delivery get slowed down (or otherwise affected)? (Is there any way to tell?)
Reminds me of an episode in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character. Richard Feynman pointed out problems with security of file cabinets containing secret documents at Los Alamos. The "solution" to the problem? Easy! Keep Feynman away from the cabinets!
And this despite the various "taxes" independents have to pay the RIAA for the right to compete with them (built-in fees on DAT tape, CD-R media; attacks on webstreaming, etc.)
Course, I've also got to say how much I like Blood Simple (first time I watched it was on video; watched it, then rewound and had to watch it again). And Raising Arizona -- funniest kidnapping/baby caper/American Southwest movie ... ever. And the cinematography alone is enough to make The Man Who Wasn't There a masterpiece -- and it's got so much more than just cinematography!
See also, e.g. this alternate 100 best.
It also finds things that are meant to be open. So?
Now if we can just get an implementation of the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)...
According to this page on their Web site, the Clear Channel Entertainment "Music Group currently owns, operates and/or exclusively books 135 live entertainment venues, including 41 amphitheaters in the U.S. and 30 venues in Europe"; and, "In 2001 the Music Group generated approximately 70 percent of concert ticket revenue in the U.S." When you think about how many venues a typical US tour will play, you realize just how dominant this makes Clear Channel's position.
Their dominance is further fortified by their position in the radio market: Clear Channel radio "daily reaches 54% of all people ages 18-49" according to this page, which means they control what I think can safely be assumed to be the primary means of promoting large concerts and tours to a huge share of the concert-going population.
In other words: if bands or labels don't agree to let Clear Channel put out these concert CDs, Clear Channel can simply decide to kill the tour by 1) not letting the bands play the venues unless they let Clear Channel put out the CDs and 2) not promote tours where the band has not given Clear Channel permission to put out these CDs.
Without the blessing of Clear Channel, bands and labels are simply shut off from large-scale airplay and concert tours -- and, therefore, from commercial success. See, for example, Eric Boehlert's articles at Salon.com.
When the FTC decided to try filtering
Not sure how Apple's decision to release a KHTML browser really hurts Mozilla. Especially when you consider the default browser in Mac OS X has been Internet Explorer so far (hopefully to change when Safari gets out of beta?). If anything, it should serve as incentive to improve Mozilla.
Personally, I still prefer Mozilla on Mac OS X to Safari, but as Safari becomes more full featured, we'll see how they compare. There's one particularly annoying problem with Mozilla on Mac OS X (acknowledged in the release notes, but I don't think yet, as a "bug"):
I do use Mozilla on Mac OS X fairly regularly, but until this problem is fixed, Chimera is my favorite browser. Runs on a UFS volume, cocoa, decidedly un-bloated.
Yeah, when an AP story says the "hard drives" were stolen, I'm definitely not picturing a scenario in which thieves open the case, take out the drives, and then run. I bet they just took the whole computer, which to the AP writer probably means "monitor and hard drive." Speculation, but I'm betting they had no idea what they were taking.