> I keep on hearing people say over and over how these big content companies need to find a "new business model" that will work on the Internet. That may well be true, but can YOU think of a business model that'll work for books, music, and movies on the 'net?
As I said once before, the problem is that big content companies (and the legislators they 0wn) all think they have an entitlement to make it big on the internet, and since they can't think of a business plan that will actually work, they are trying to legislate that entitlement into reality, civil right be damned in the process.
> Of course NASA isn't exactly known for thinking outside the box...
Actually, there's a pretty cool idea floating around for sending two craft (one USian and one Russian, IIRC) and tethering them together so that they would rotate around a common center.
>... and again, the nice young lady at the register recognized the faces of me and my coworker... with a warm greeting (something else I don't get at Border's these days).
See, Border's is just trying to use technology to stay competitive!
They'll hook the cameras up to the cash registers, so when you check out the register can say "Thanks for your business, Bob. Come back soon."
It will be every bit as friendly as your old store, without the expense of hiring friendly employees.
If you're lucky they'll mis-recognize your face and put the till on some other sucker's credit card.
> how exactly would a recognition system help them out? No one is there to watch it! Would it alert managers, or would they have to hire more loss prevention?
It would trigger the lasers mounted around the store to burn the offender to a crisp.
Our actuaries have shown that the expense of the lawsuits resulting from false positives would be offset by the amount saved due to reduced shoplifting, and we feel that our obligations to our shareholders require us to take the route that does most for the bottom line. People whose faces look like shoplifters are advised to shop elsewhere for their own safety.
> with regards to the use of cameras to catch red-light breakers
Camera+radar speeding ticket generators have been around for decades, but never found wide-scale deployment in the USA. I've spent some time wondering why, and I conclude that the reasons are -
probably vandalism of the devices;
ineffectuality, because once people know about the devices they will slow down within their field of vision, and drive faster elsewhere to make up for it;
most importantly of all, if traffic violations resulted in a near certainty of getting a ticket, people would stop violating the traffic laws and ticket-based civic revenues would plummet.
Also, I think the police by and large enjoy the cat-n-mouse games with violaters, and would be very disappointed to have it replaced by an automated system.
Side note, especially relevant to my last bullet above: back in the 80's a lot of US cities got multi-million dollar federal grants of "get tough on crime" money, and at least one of them spent the money by putting 200 more cruisers out on speed trap duty.
City governments tend to have odd notions about what their obligations to their citizens are.
> the British people, after decades of things going "BOOM!" in the middle of London and other cities, have choosen to turn over many of their privacy rights
And that stopped all the bombing, right?
[OT:]
> Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
My baby's countin' never cause you alarm;
My baby's brother never break-a-your arm.
Sorry; just showing off that I caught the reference.
> It turns out if you slip a razor blade between the sticky side and the laptop it'll hold down the button and not go off while you pry the laptop out.
> Next time you buy a CD try this out: Grow your fingernails a bit long, not too long but maybe a millimeter longer then usual. Slip your fingernails under the tag use at least two maybe 3 fingers and drag them across the CD. It'll pop right off, there might be a little adhesive left. It might take you a try or two but eventually you'll have those tags off faster then they can run them over that little pad.
Sounds to me like you're distributing information about circumvention devices.
Moving on to related topics...
When I was a kid I heard on the radio that a couple of guys shoplifted a canoe from a sporting goods store, but got busted when they came back to get paddles and stuff.
Of course, I suspect that most news stories of this type are made up, but at least this one was funny.
> What surprises me is that some of the major hardware vendors would put up with this.
A classic case of taking the short-term easy route without regard for the long-term consequences.
They are now completely beholden to Microsoft, and would have trouble changing their business plan to change that fact, if they did decide that they wanted to.
> "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion,..."
Micorsoft is in the business of misconstruing things: "innovate", "bug", "user friendly", "stable", "inexpensive", etc., etc., etc. They hardly make a statement without twisting the meaning of something around.
Because in the USA "fiscal conservative" is a euphemism for "spend tax money on the things that fiscal conservatives like".
Re:Paying for the right to pirate... via contract
on
RIAA To Target CD-R
·
· Score: 2
> If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for?
Reminds me of a decade or so ago when certain jurisdictions in the USA decided to put a tax on marijuana so that they could hit their victims up for tax evasion along with the the usual time in the pokey.
It seemed to me at the time that establishing a tax on something was a de facto way of legalizing it, though I hardly expected the f0cked 0p US legal system to reach that obvious conclusion.
Haven't heard anything about this in years, so I don't know how it turned out.
Etymologically, it's from "Hugh's Town". But I think Hugh's original Town was in England, and Houston, Tx, got the name indirectly.
> Is Hosuton anywhere near Houston?
Almost sounds like it could be a place in Japan. However, a quick googling turns up 608 hits on Hosuton, and all the ones I checked were for Hosuton, Tx.
Maybe it's a little Texas Speed-Trap Town (tm), doing the geographic equivalent of cybersquatting?
The biggest threat of v0te h@cking does not arise in the voting booth. What concern me more are -
Are the voting booths on a network that can be reached from outside on election day?
If the votes are h@x0red after the election, will it be possible to detect that fact? (I.e., there won't be any physical ballots to recount.)
If the machines are rigged before the election, will it be possible to detect that fact?
IMO, the risks of computerized elections are not worth the payoff. Alas, the last election set up a situation where counties all over the nation will have an excuse to eagerly spend our tax dollars on snake-oil solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
> I keep on hearing people say over and over how these big content companies need to find a "new business model" that will work on the Internet. That may well be true, but can YOU think of a business model that'll work for books, music, and movies on the 'net?
As I said once before, the problem is that big content companies (and the legislators they 0wn) all think they have an entitlement to make it big on the internet, and since they can't think of a business plan that will actually work, they are trying to legislate that entitlement into reality, civil right be damned in the process.
> I also have pine setup to launch the the MS Word viewer on command.
Macro viruses and all?
> Of course NASA isn't exactly known for thinking outside the box...
Actually, there's a pretty cool idea floating around for sending two craft (one USian and one Russian, IIRC) and tethering them together so that they would rotate around a common center.
> ... and again, the nice young lady at the register recognized the faces of me and my coworker ... with a warm greeting (something else I don't get at Border's these days).
See, Border's is just trying to use technology to stay competitive!
They'll hook the cameras up to the cash registers, so when you check out the register can say "Thanks for your business, Bob. Come back soon."
It will be every bit as friendly as your old store, without the expense of hiring friendly employees.
If you're lucky they'll mis-recognize your face and put the till on some other sucker's credit card.
> how exactly would a recognition system help them out? No one is there to watch it! Would it alert managers, or would they have to hire more loss prevention?
It would trigger the lasers mounted around the store to burn the offender to a crisp.
Our actuaries have shown that the expense of the lawsuits resulting from false positives would be offset by the amount saved due to reduced shoplifting, and we feel that our obligations to our shareholders require us to take the route that does most for the bottom line. People whose faces look like shoplifters are advised to shop elsewhere for their own safety.
Camera+radar speeding ticket generators have been around for decades, but never found wide-scale deployment in the USA. I've spent some time wondering why, and I conclude that the reasons are -
- probably vandalism of the devices;
- ineffectuality, because once people know about the devices they will slow down within their field of vision, and drive faster elsewhere to make up for it;
- most importantly of all, if traffic violations resulted in a near certainty of getting a ticket, people would stop violating the traffic laws and ticket-based civic revenues would plummet.
Also, I think the police by and large enjoy the cat-n-mouse games with violaters, and would be very disappointed to have it replaced by an automated system.Side note, especially relevant to my last bullet above: back in the 80's a lot of US cities got multi-million dollar federal grants of "get tough on crime" money, and at least one of them spent the money by putting 200 more cruisers out on speed trap duty.
City governments tend to have odd notions about what their obligations to their citizens are.
And that stopped all the bombing, right?
[OT:]
> Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Sorry; just showing off that I caught the reference.
> It turns out if you slip a razor blade between the sticky side and the laptop it'll hold down the button and not go off while you pry the laptop out.
> Next time you buy a CD try this out: Grow your fingernails a bit long, not too long but maybe a millimeter longer then usual. Slip your fingernails under the tag use at least two maybe 3 fingers and drag them across the CD. It'll pop right off, there might be a little adhesive left. It might take you a try or two but eventually you'll have those tags off faster then they can run them over that little pad.
Sounds to me like you're distributing information about circumvention devices.
Moving on to related topics...
When I was a kid I heard on the radio that a couple of guys shoplifted a canoe from a sporting goods store, but got busted when they came back to get paddles and stuff.
Of course, I suspect that most news stories of this type are made up, but at least this one was funny.
> What surprises me is that some of the major hardware vendors would put up with this.
A classic case of taking the short-term easy route without regard for the long-term consequences.
They are now completely beholden to Microsoft, and would have trouble changing their business plan to change that fact, if they did decide that they wanted to.
> BTW, I know this will seem incredibly petty and shallow...
Did you forget you were posting to Slashdot?
> "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, ..."
Micorsoft is in the business of misconstruing things: "innovate", "bug", "user friendly", "stable", "inexpensive", etc., etc., etc. They hardly make a statement without twisting the meaning of something around.
And my system has 11 years uptime!
> didnt windows 95 come out 6 years ago today?
Wow. I still hadn't heard that it was gay!
> 10 years in computer history is a big milestone
Yep. That's almost 20% of the way back to the Beginning of Time, as far as electronic computers go.
> I thought Linux's birthday was actually September 17th
Yeah, but this makes it easier for Slashdot to run the story twice.
> And why is the city paying for them again?
Because in the USA "fiscal conservative" is a euphemism for "spend tax money on the things that fiscal conservatives like".
> If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for?
Reminds me of a decade or so ago when certain jurisdictions in the USA decided to put a tax on marijuana so that they could hit their victims up for tax evasion along with the the usual time in the pokey.
It seemed to me at the time that establishing a tax on something was a de facto way of legalizing it, though I hardly expected the f0cked 0p US legal system to reach that obvious conclusion.
Haven't heard anything about this in years, so I don't know how it turned out.
> Faked video tapes, lying executives, and now this.
The good news is, the campaign probably isn't having quite the desired effect on the Utah AG's office.
> ...until it's referred to as GNUnix.
Heh heh... Let's insist on calling it GNU/UNIX.
Makes sense, until you expand the acronym.
UN-GNU: UNIX is not GNU
> I just can't believe you quote an entire email and don't give credit to the author.
Isn't stealing e-mail what this article is all about?
> AOL: You've got mail!
Hotmail: You got nailed!
> There was no Hugh's town.
... < Hugh's Town.
As I said, the original Hugh's Town was in Merry Olde England.
Houston [Tx] < [Sam] Houston <
> How come they call it "Hewston"?
Etymologically, it's from "Hugh's Town". But I think Hugh's original Town was in England, and Houston, Tx, got the name indirectly.
> Is Hosuton anywhere near Houston?
Almost sounds like it could be a place in Japan. However, a quick googling turns up 608 hits on Hosuton, and all the ones I checked were for Hosuton, Tx.
Maybe it's a little Texas Speed-Trap Town (tm), doing the geographic equivalent of cybersquatting?
- Are the voting booths on a network that can be reached from outside on election day?
- If the votes are h@x0red after the election, will it be possible to detect that fact? (I.e., there won't be any physical ballots to recount.)
- If the machines are rigged before the election, will it be possible to detect that fact?
IMO, the risks of computerized elections are not worth the payoff. Alas, the last election set up a situation where counties all over the nation will have an excuse to eagerly spend our tax dollars on snake-oil solutions.