Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the instructions, safety rules, and EULAs that come with your power tools. Using power tools properly greatly reduces the risk of personal injury. And remember, there is no more important safety rule than to wear these, safety glasses.
"Hmmm, it says 'Press Any Key.' Where is the 'any key'? Ooh, a TAB sure sounds good right about now... Ah, it's working! I'm thirsty. Now where is that TAB?"
In any event, kudos for a governmental entity deciding something didn't work, and that therefore they shouldn't waste any more time and/or money on it.
If only every governement agency could be this honest with themselves about use of their resources (including the human kind)!
Unless maybe you are at a music school? Or are taking music classes?
Last I heard there wasn't a great problem with piracy of Mozart masterworks. Furthermore, any music on the listening list of a music class will be found -- on reserve I might add -- at the university library. The library is incidentally a much better place to listen and study than the average dorm room. Some schools (this was some years ago, so policies may have changed) even let you invoke the educational fair use policies to make a cassette tape of the things you are listening to.
In short, I doubt anyone will be making mp3s of Beethoven available on the campus network, and I doubt anyone will be using campus music services for educational purposes. Why should they waste the hard drive space and the bandwidth?
Techie: Yes sir, I know. I am in the door to door tech support business. Can I interest you in some high quality tech support? My rates are very reasonable!
Customer: No, thanks. Goodb...
Techie: Are you sure you don't have bugs to troubleshoot?
Customer: No, really, thanks for coming, but....
Techie: Perhaps I could install some peripherals for you?
Customer: No!
Techie: Maybe I could run anti-virus software and defrag your hard drive. That's the special of the day!
Customer: No!
Techie: Any mysterious crashes I can diagnose, and then tell you you need to put in some more RAM and reinstall your operating system?
Customer: Well... wait, NO!
Techie: Maybe I could just open and close all your windows. I offer that service for only a dollar!
Alright, if the purpose of broadband is the available to get media you can find at Borders without leaving the house, you are absolutely correct. Disney and AOL/TW and all the big record houses and all the big movie houses are not going to allow "content" to be available without DRM in place.
But fraction of media on the internet does that encompass? StrongBad doesn't care if you have DRM. That independent band you like would actually like you to forward their track to a few close friends because then your friends might buy their album. None of the online games you like to play depend on DRM. Diesel Sweeties and User Friendly and Sinfest don't care if you use DRM.
The idea that broadband depends on DRM is silly. Broadband depends on people wanting and being able to afford fast connections. It depends on cable companies and telcos and ISPs making those connections available. And it frankly depends on the fact that Big Business just doesn't seem to know how to put together a fast loading site anymore, prefering to bloat it with long flash animations and big graphics and stupid html tricks and java for no apparent reason. Indeed, it might be possible that copious spam makes people want broadband -- all the faster to download the email.
I refuse to beleive that any significant proportion of adults who pay for broadband do so for the express purpose of piracy.
I am perfectly willing to beleive this. Here's why. Call a stockbroker. Any broker, with any brokerage. Say you'd like to arrange to have money wired into your brokerage account. He will say how sorry he is that he can't do that. When you ask why, he will say it's illlegal under the PATRIOT act.
Go ahead, call another broker and ask if that's true.
Re:Dumping rabbits
on
Easter Humor
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Don't forget baby chicks. Thankfully this isn't as common as it used to be, but somehow parents with no common sense would buy baby chicks for the kids. Sometimes they would have thier feathers dyed. Assuming these hapless creatures survived the first few days of child affection and somewhat less than expert care, it would at some point become evident that the little critter was growing up to be a chicken.
The "government" is made up of our elected officials and in turn their appointees along with lower-level hired civil servants who are, bear with me here, made of of ordinary citizens just like you and me.
I didn't elect Ashcroft, I didn't vote for Tom Ridge, and I don't consider Donny Rumsfeld an "ordinary citizen." Yes, I voted for Senators, who confirmed these people. I don't recall voting for a single IRS Auditor or Army General.
It isn't just the party system. It's that the party system creates the career politician and the career bureaucrat (did you know that it takes 30 years working for the government to get a pension? sheesh.)
And all of this changes the fact that protections of the Bill of Rights are being eroded in what way? The Elections in 2004 are not apt to repeal portions of USA PATRIOT.
In the U.S., the digital PPV system operators have installed copy protection capability in their digital set top boxes. However, they have indicated that they will not activate copy protection until the studios release their movies to the PPV system operators at or closer to the same time as they release them to home video. This standoff between the system operators and the studios has had a negative impact on our potential revenues and net income opportunities, although it is less of an issue in international markets, where studios have been able to insist that PPV movies be copy protected.
So, yes, It is only a matter of time until PPV will be copy protected. Have a nice day. =/
Ok, we all know that sales tax helps the state and local government provide services, right? And judging from the comments most of you know that if you buy from an in-state mail order or internet retailer that they charge you tax and send it on to the state. Some of you even know that in states where they have income tax you are *supposed* to report to the state any such purchases from out of state vendors and send the state thier fair share of "use tax."
Now, what if instead of your local government demanding a cut of your non-local mail/net order purchases, tax is paid based on where the purchase was made? You buy something from Amazon.com, then Washington state and Seattle get the tax money. You buy from Apple's online store, California/Cupertino gets it. After all, you don't get a tax break if you buy from the Best Buy in the next state instead of the one down the block, do you?
This avoids the complecated process of non-local retailers trying to figure out just what is the state and local sales tax in Smalltown SD and where should the money be sent. It also keeps city hall from knowing you ordered stuff at that online sextoy shop.
I hate to throw cold water on this, but with a digital certificate, are you proving that you are Jean Deau, or that you are sitting at Jean Deau's computer? This distinction isn't that important for, say, your my.excite.com page, but is vital for dealing with the Government. The links provided don't really give much detail on how this will be implemented. Will each Canadian have his own password, eh? Not being a Canadian myself, I am willing to work with the assumptions that a) there is some way of telling John Smith of Quebec from John Smith of Vancouver b) a substantial enough percentage of Canadians have access to the internet to make this not a waste of time and money.
In some ways there already are two modes. One is the GUI. If you need more power you open up the terminal, and enter the second, more advanced mode. A recent MacAddict article talks about various, erm, problems you might experience using OS X, and the solution to over half of them includes "Go to the Terminal."
Since Joe Average is not going to muck about with the command line, there is a de facto advanced mode which does not interfere with the appearance of the default mode.
On the one hand, I'd like my personal information to stay as private as is reasonably possible. On the other hand I know complete privacy is gone in this country. If you don't believe me, do a google search for yourself. Better yet, do a google search for a former boy/girlfriend. I bet in less than 5 minutes you will know what metropolitan area they live in and have a pretty good idea what they do for a living. You might even know what their hobbies are these days.
There is a silver lining to this. It's nice to know that if my next door neighbor were to be brutally murdered and the weapon tossed over the fence into my yard, the nice folks at the police station could pull up records saying I was shopping 10 miles away at the time of the crime.
In less than 5 minutes, in less time than it took some of you guys to fume about how TERRIBLE this is, I actually changed my prefs back to "don't send me anything" status. Thank you to the anonymous coward who brought this to my attention, and sorry I don't feel like getting terribly worked up about this.
In the Real World, most experts recommend that Normal American Citizens keep old tax records and related documents 7 years. IIRC, this is the statute of limitations on Tax Fraud, and therefore the limit of how long the IRS can call you on the carpet over old returns.
I fail to see why accounting firms should not be held to the same standard.
Do you go to a private college or a public one? If you attend a pirvate college, then various donations, trusts, and endowments from people much wealthier than you are likely to ever become helped pay for your education. If you go to a public college then taxpayers subsidize part of your tuition. If you receive a Pell Grant part of my Federal Income Taxes went to that. If you receive GI Bill funding, Federally guaranteed student loans, or half a dozen other government run methods of tuition payment, then your claim of paying your own way through college is farcical.
I don't mind paying for there to be computers in the library or the classrooms, and I don't even mind paying for legitimate internet usage. I do mind paying for your classmates using a bigger pipe than many of us grown-ups can afford for illegal activities. Oh yeah, piracy is still illegal.
Somebody ought to write a virus that doesn't do anything malicious, but randomly votes in any online survey it encounters. Better yet, it should then infect the server of the survey so that the survey itself will infect new hosts.
Of course *if* we are to take this at face value: 1) Guy gets list of email addresses. 2) Guy mails everybody on list of email addresses asking if recipient wants his services. This is definition spam. 3) Recipient reports as spam. 4) Sender immediately gets snippy and obscene. 5) Much comedy ensues.
Much aggravation and bandwidth could have been saved by using a little kindness. Example: "Dear Sir, I am terribly sorry to find that you are not in fact the human resources contact for your company. I honestly only intended to contact them, and deeply regret any inconvenience I may have inadvertently caused you. I certainly will endevour not to make such a mistake again. This being the case, would you please let my ISP know that this has all been a misunderstanding? They are threatening to close my account, which needless to say would be a great inconvenience. Thank you so much for your time."
At first blush that sounds like a reasonable litmus test. However, most professors at the type of institution where this would be an issue have student assistants of some variety. Professor Q says to Student Assistant B "I need you to do this task for a project I am working on." Student assistants, btw, are paid a pittance of a stipend for such services, making them unquestionably employees for purposes of this discussion. Even if the student assistant comes up with a novel, patentable solution for the problem, it is effectively a work-for-hire.
Slashdot Mirror
I am trying to decide whether Google is Stupid or Evil.
Stupid, because what are the odds of caching the one serious tidbit of information from the various channel Gurus when they are not bashing newbies.
Evil, because it reminds me of conversations on IRC containing such statements like "now you've done it, echelon is listening for sure."
[norm_abram]
Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the instructions, safety rules, and EULAs that come with your power tools. Using power tools properly greatly reduces the risk of personal injury. And remember, there is no more important safety rule than to wear these, safety glasses.
[/norm_abram]
Norm, BTW, uses a Macintosh and makes a lot of his own jigs. He'll even sell you plans of how to make your own.
I have no idea whether there is a EULA on his measured drawings.
"Hmmm, it says 'Press Any Key.' Where is the 'any key'? Ooh, a TAB sure sounds good right about now... Ah, it's working! I'm thirsty. Now where is that TAB?"
--paraphrased, Homer J. Simpson
In any event, kudos for a governmental entity deciding something didn't work, and that therefore they shouldn't waste any more time and/or money on it.
If only every governement agency could be this honest with themselves about use of their resources (including the human kind)!
If you do not like the fact that this device will allow anyone to find out exactly where you are, I emphatically recommend that you not purchase one.
That is all.
Unless maybe you are at a music school? Or are taking music classes?
Last I heard there wasn't a great problem with piracy of Mozart masterworks. Furthermore, any music on the listening list of a music class will be found -- on reserve I might add -- at the university library. The library is incidentally a much better place to listen and study than the average dorm room. Some schools (this was some years ago, so policies may have changed) even let you invoke the educational fair use policies to make a cassette tape of the things you are listening to.
In short, I doubt anyone will be making mp3s of Beethoven available on the campus network, and I doubt anyone will be using campus music services for educational purposes. Why should they waste the hard drive space and the bandwidth?
[Knock Knock Knock]
Customer: Who is it?
Techie: Tech support.
Customer: I didn't call for any tech support!
Techie: Yes sir, I know. I am in the door to door tech support business. Can I interest you in some high quality tech support? My rates are very reasonable!
Customer: No, thanks. Goodb...
Techie: Are you sure you don't have bugs to troubleshoot?
Customer: No, really, thanks for coming, but....
Techie: Perhaps I could install some peripherals for you?
Customer: No!
Techie: Maybe I could run anti-virus software and defrag your hard drive. That's the special of the day!
Customer: No!
Techie: Any mysterious crashes I can diagnose, and then tell you you need to put in some more RAM and reinstall your operating system?
Customer: Well... wait, NO!
Techie: Maybe I could just open and close all your windows. I offer that service for only a dollar!
Customer: Go away or I'm calling the cops!
Alright, if the purpose of broadband is the available to get media you can find at Borders without leaving the house, you are absolutely correct. Disney and AOL/TW and all the big record houses and all the big movie houses are not going to allow "content" to be available without DRM in place.
But fraction of media on the internet does that encompass? StrongBad doesn't care if you have DRM. That independent band you like would actually like you to forward their track to a few close friends because then your friends might buy their album. None of the online games you like to play depend on DRM. Diesel Sweeties and User Friendly and Sinfest don't care if you use DRM.
The idea that broadband depends on DRM is silly. Broadband depends on people wanting and being able to afford fast connections. It depends on cable companies and telcos and ISPs making those connections available. And it frankly depends on the fact that Big Business just doesn't seem to know how to put together a fast loading site anymore, prefering to bloat it with long flash animations and big graphics and stupid html tricks and java for no apparent reason. Indeed, it might be possible that copious spam makes people want broadband -- all the faster to download the email.
I refuse to beleive that any significant proportion of adults who pay for broadband do so for the express purpose of piracy.
I am perfectly willing to beleive this. Here's why. Call a stockbroker. Any broker, with any brokerage. Say you'd like to arrange to have money wired into your brokerage account. He will say how sorry he is that he can't do that. When you ask why, he will say it's illlegal under the PATRIOT act.
Go ahead, call another broker and ask if that's true.
Don't forget baby chicks. Thankfully this isn't as common as it used to be, but somehow parents with no common sense would buy baby chicks for the kids. Sometimes they would have thier feathers dyed. Assuming these hapless creatures survived the first few days of child affection and somewhat less than expert care, it would at some point become evident that the little critter was growing up to be a chicken.
The "government" is made up of our elected officials and in turn their appointees along with lower-level hired civil servants who are, bear with me here, made of of ordinary citizens just like you and me.
I didn't elect Ashcroft, I didn't vote for Tom Ridge, and I don't consider Donny Rumsfeld an "ordinary citizen." Yes, I voted for Senators, who confirmed these people. I don't recall voting for a single IRS Auditor or Army General.
It isn't just the party system. It's that the party system creates the career politician and the career bureaucrat (did you know that it takes 30 years working for the government to get a pension? sheesh.)
And all of this changes the fact that protections of the Bill of Rights are being eroded in what way? The Elections in 2004 are not apt to repeal portions of USA PATRIOT.
From Macrovision's Annual Report, as filed with the SEC:
So, yes, It is only a matter of time until PPV will be copy protected. Have a nice day. =/
Now, what if instead of your local government demanding a cut of your non-local mail/net order purchases, tax is paid based on where the purchase was made? You buy something from Amazon.com, then Washington state and Seattle get the tax money. You buy from Apple's online store, California/Cupertino gets it. After all, you don't get a tax break if you buy from the Best Buy in the next state instead of the one down the block, do you?
This avoids the complecated process of non-local retailers trying to figure out just what is the state and local sales tax in Smalltown SD and where should the money be sent. It also keeps city hall from knowing you ordered stuff at that online sextoy shop.
I hate to throw cold water on this, but with a digital certificate, are you proving that you are Jean Deau, or that you are sitting at Jean Deau's computer? This distinction isn't that important for, say, your my.excite.com page, but is vital for dealing with the Government. The links provided don't really give much detail on how this will be implemented. Will each Canadian have his own password, eh? Not being a Canadian myself, I am willing to work with the assumptions that a) there is some way of telling John Smith of Quebec from John Smith of Vancouver b) a substantial enough percentage of Canadians have access to the internet to make this not a waste of time and money.
Da. The Comick you are lookink for is here. Enjoy your plannink for world domination.
Since Joe Average is not going to muck about with the command line, there is a de facto advanced mode which does not interfere with the appearance of the default mode.
I guess we'd better fast forward a verse or so and see if we can get Universe Boy on the job.
There's also the small matter that, IMHO, John Cage would have found this brouhaha amusing. The man did have a sense of humor, you know.
There is a silver lining to this. It's nice to know that if my next door neighbor were to be brutally murdered and the weapon tossed over the fence into my yard, the nice folks at the police station could pull up records saying I was shopping 10 miles away at the time of the crime.
In less than 5 minutes, in less time than it took some of you guys to fume about how TERRIBLE this is, I actually changed my prefs back to "don't send me anything" status. Thank you to the anonymous coward who brought this to my attention, and sorry I don't feel like getting terribly worked up about this.
I fail to see why accounting firms should not be held to the same standard.
I don't mind paying for there to be computers in the library or the classrooms, and I don't even mind paying for legitimate internet usage. I do mind paying for your classmates using a bigger pipe than many of us grown-ups can afford for illegal activities. Oh yeah, piracy is still illegal.
Hope you enjoy the big pipe.
Somebody ought to write a virus that doesn't do anything malicious, but randomly votes in any online survey it encounters. Better yet, it should then infect the server of the survey so that the survey itself will infect new hosts.
Much aggravation and bandwidth could have been saved by using a little kindness. Example: "Dear Sir, I am terribly sorry to find that you are not in fact the human resources contact for your company. I honestly only intended to contact them, and deeply regret any inconvenience I may have inadvertently caused you. I certainly will endevour not to make such a mistake again. This being the case, would you please let my ISP know that this has all been a misunderstanding? They are threatening to close my account, which needless to say would be a great inconvenience. Thank you so much for your time."
At first blush that sounds like a reasonable litmus test. However, most professors at the type of institution where this would be an issue have student assistants of some variety. Professor Q says to Student Assistant B "I need you to do this task for a project I am working on." Student assistants, btw, are paid a pittance of a stipend for such services, making them unquestionably employees for purposes of this discussion. Even if the student assistant comes up with a novel, patentable solution for the problem, it is effectively a work-for-hire.