Re:Just say no to anti-trust
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AOL Nation
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· Score: 2
Becaues, it's the gut feeling of geeks everywhere that traditional broadcast media (time warner) should not be able to purchase one of their largest competitors, simply because it will narrow consumer choice. Competitor? Yes.. they are a competitor.. they are both in the business of capturing people's attention and time.
Absolutely! Squid would do it, Junkbuster might be better suited, and a bit simpler. Heck. I'd set up squid *anyway*, that way, you have a record of what's being done with your network (to a point, anyway) and the caching is oh so nice.
But these thefts have nothign to do with all of this.. they have to do simply with the company keeping it's customer databse, including credit card numbers, online, where it should never be.
And seriously, why should card owners be liable for *ANYTHING*? The card is just a symbol of the credit granted to the individual, not the credit itself.
So. What kind of dipshit e-commerce company keeps their customer database ONLINE? Gee. That takes a REAL BIG CRANIUM. Card numbers should either be removed as soon as the transaction is complete, or at least logged to a secure system. The machines performing transactions should be highly isolated. Something like this should NEVER happen.
The registrars are != to the DNS system itself. Yes, they play a very important and necessary (at this point in time, anyway) role in it's functioning. They are the insertion point. Now, DNS servers (nameservers) at this point, anyway, follow a rather common concept of (more or less quoted from the Bat book (sendmail) "Be conservative in what you do and liberal in what you expect from others." It applies to sendmail, but also applies to other concepts. Many nameservers will relay erroneous information, but that doesn't mean it should be there in the first place. The standards say *NO* trailing - on a domain. So.. the registrars shouldn't be registering them.
Someone pointed out in another post under this article that technically a domain can contain a trailing -, but cannot be the target of an A, MX, or several other record types. Though this is quite possibly true, it is also true that the global DNS system at large is not used for all the things it was designed for. (ie: all IN records.... of course, because it's in the internet domain, but what else would it be for nowadays?)
The point is that it's the first "LINUX BASED SUPERCOMPUTER", not the FIRST SUPERCOMPUTER. A rather big difference, I'd say. India has supercomputers. They made them themselves. They aren't stupid.
For *about* 10 years. Well.. I've been using it for 8.... and there were certainly a good sized handful of people using it before I was. I'm fairly sure I heard about it at least a year before that.. possibly more.
Of course, I could go check some linux timeline before sticking my foot in my mouth....
Yay. The Empeg. Let's discuss this... NOw, a year and a half ago, I think it was around then.. I thought it was pretty cool, and the price was okay.
They said by March 1999 they would be in full production. It's almost March 2000 and they still aren't in full production. They have shipped beta units.. whee. ANd the price is too much.
Go look at the price of SBC's, and the price of drives, etc.... it's *NOT* that expensive. A chip containing a full stereo mp3 decoder I can pick up for $5. Now, I'm not saying it's cheap, or can be done in 2 days.... but if I can build the exact same thing in my shop for arond $300-$400 bucks, there is no reason for a mass-produced version to cost over a thousand.
It's harder and harder because there is far much more noise these days. It used to be that people only ever got noticed because they had talent, or at least, it was more like that than it is today. These days, there is so much shit crammed into your face it's hard to get away from it and find something interesting.
Know how I find interesting things? My friends. Interesting music, Interesting booze, interesting sports, interesting.. everything.
It serves to reinforce that you are GROWING UP. (That is you, in general, not you as an individual, as you are obviously not growing up)
Many readers here I bet are 25 or under.... And lots of the people we grew up looking up to are starting to get rather old.. so it serves to let us know that we are mortal, and that soon we will be those icons for the generations to come.
As I read it, it's not because state laws require penalty free cancellation, but because giving the consumer $400, but requiring them to RETURN it unless they hold out their full MSN contract to the end make sthat $400 *GIFT* become a $400 consumer LOAN, and in California, it is illegal to tie a loan into the purchase of a product or service. You can't lend someone money on the condition that they use your bank for savings, etc...
In effect, it would have been a $400 loan, and the repayment terms would have been a 3 year subscription to MSN.
They clearly stated, even before SW:TPM was in the theater, that NO STAR WARS movies would be released on DVD until the first 3 were done. Why is this rehashed all the time? It's no surpsise... it's not news... I bet we'll hear about it AGAIN when they release the episode 2 on VHS... the slashdot title will be 'Lucas refuses to release Episode 2 on DVD..' then there will be several hundred comments of speculation as to why this is the case.. then someone will point out that this was always the plan. Feh.
I think one of the largest culprits in bad events like this is lack of documentation/planning. It's not that the hosting company is negligent, but that the users assume certain things about the hosting company without getting it in writing.
ie: Did the hosting company specify that they had daily backups? Weekly? Did they state that they had a disaster recovery plan? Did you ask? Did you state *your* needs as the customer, or did you just assume, as many people do, 'They are a web hosting company, so they'll have daily backups, a super-fast disaster recovery plan, fault tolerant systems, and enough staff/resources to deal with problems efficiently.). This is not the case in a great many companies.
As for backups, you should have your own off-site backups, and if it's e-commerce related, you should damn well have your OWN disaster recovery plan. Your own backups. Your own copy of the records, either that, or contractual obligations that your provider will supply those services.
Of course, IANAL, but as rediculous as it sounds, if you read the statute, it clearly states that it is illegal to manufacture and distribute devices who's main purpose is to eavesdrop on conversations.
So. Here we go. Perhaps they *ARE* in violation of the law, though certainly not intentionally. Did this require armed officers and intimidating tactics? Probably not. Is this kind of tactic good for the country? Probably not. A simple letter from a lawyer/government agency explaining the particular aspects of the law and why they are in violation would have done the trick. Why was a search warrant needed.. was it not clear that the company *was* making these things and *was* selling them? Would the company have denied this? No.. they would have said 'of COURSE we do that, that's what we DO! What's the big deal?'
But hey.. if you make laws.. you gotta deal with the reprecussions. Remember that next time you want congress to 'protect' you by law.
I see it as very simple. if the Employer *requires* you to work from home, then the employer is responsible for providing you with the tools to do your job, unless your employment contract states otherwise. If he is responsible for providing you tools, then he is responsible for providing SAFE tools.
If you are working on a consulting/contract basis, then you are your own employer, and are responsible for yourself, completely. If a prospective client (employer) requires you to spend millions of hours in front of your computer, and your computer is inadequate for the task, you ahd best factor in required upgrades to your work environment into the contract price.
It was fairly unique, as far as home computing went. To say it was 'stable' is a misnomer. The software running on them was also simpler (and I saw enough meditating amigas..) They had thousands of colors, not millions (4096 in certain graphics modes) And the stereo digital sound was great too. It took the IBM compatable world several years to catch up with that idea.. the *only* way an a500 could produce sound (other than using the floppy drive) was digitally, through one of it's 2 dac's... a concept that the rest of the world completely missed. THey spent all their time on FM synthesis and other wierd things....
I must say. The magical quality this machine had is unparallelled. Never has a machine caught my attention like the amiga. It was completely mystical. And even today, the graphics on the amiga 500 have a certain quality to them that I've never seen on another machine. The mac comes close... I think it has to do with the way they blend colors.. but I'm not sure, and certainly not an expert. And the sound was superb.
This seems straightforward to me, how you make money, though I realize it gets fuzzier in practice.
I believe a copmany should not make money simply by excercising complete control over a set of information (ie: a database). The service they provide me is one of collecting and providing me with said information.
20 years ago, if you had a 1GB database that I could pay to access online, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. There is no way I could store that kind of information myself anyway.. so you were, in effect, providing a data-warehousing service. The databse is just one way to look at it.
Nowadays, if you have a small database (something I can't reasonably fit on my computer), why should I be paying tons of money for accessing individual records, when the whole thing is pretty small anyway?
I guess what I'm saying is, even though they like to pretend it's the information that it's all about, the real service that has been provided in the past is one of data warehousing, and data sorting; doing what others did not have the resources to do.
Huh. Yeah. It 'didn't work out' because it's in Microsoft's interests to keep the different operating systmes going. It just drives up sales, as people start buying both.
I believe this to be true. Many acts of government/industry as of late like to make us think this is not the case (ie: personal copying of music in exchange for a tarriff on recordable media in Canada, DeCSS, etc...). The fact is, copyright protected people's right to not have others steal their work for profit, or to make it so they cannot profit from their original work; to foster their talented creation of more work. 'Fair use' has always applied, and personal copies are certainly fair use.
Right. But this isn't ESR acting as a spokesman for the open source community.. this is ESR sending an email. In fact, pretty much anything ESR publicly says about ANYTHING regarding OSS you would probably categorize as 'acting as a spokesman' and he would probably categorize as 'sending email'.
Well, perhaps they, being *skilled* at reverse engineering software, and basically, really good hackers, they had better tools in windows to tear apart the WINDOWS player (xing). Not everyone uses linux exclusively... So. Given that, it is simpler to write the windows software as a test than the linux software, given the code you are basing it on is for the windows platform. And their end goal may very well have been to be able to view dvd on linux.
No. He can't. It's not been defended in the first place, and is a common name. The main reason for Linux holding the trademark Linux is to prevent others from trademarking it.
IN other words, anyone can use the name linux, but nobody can stop someone else from using it.
There are also dozens of trademarks with the name Linux in them.
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Becaues, it's the gut feeling of geeks everywhere that traditional broadcast media (time warner) should not be able to purchase one of their largest competitors, simply because it will narrow consumer choice.
Competitor? Yes.. they are a competitor.. they are both in the business of capturing people's attention and time.
Absolutely! Squid would do it, Junkbuster might be better suited, and a bit simpler.
Heck. I'd set up squid *anyway*, that way, you have a record of what's being done with your network (to a point, anyway) and the caching is oh so nice.
But these thefts have nothign to do with all of this.. they have to do simply with the company keeping it's customer databse, including credit card numbers, online, where it should never be.
And seriously, why should card owners be liable for *ANYTHING*? The card is just a symbol of the credit granted to the individual, not the credit itself.
So. What kind of dipshit e-commerce company keeps their customer database ONLINE? Gee. That takes a REAL BIG CRANIUM.
Card numbers should either be removed as soon as the transaction is complete, or at least logged to a secure system. The machines performing transactions should be highly isolated.
Something like this should NEVER happen.
The registrars are != to the DNS system itself. Yes, they play a very important and necessary (at this point in time, anyway) role in it's functioning. They are the insertion point.
Now, DNS servers (nameservers) at this point, anyway, follow a rather common concept of (more or less quoted from the Bat book (sendmail)
"Be conservative in what you do and liberal in what you expect from others."
It applies to sendmail, but also applies to other concepts. Many nameservers will relay erroneous information, but that doesn't mean it should be there in the first place.
The standards say *NO* trailing - on a domain.
So.. the registrars shouldn't be registering them.
Someone pointed out in another post under this article that technically a domain can contain a trailing -, but cannot be the target of an A, MX, or several other record types.
Though this is quite possibly true, it is also true that the global DNS system at large is not used for all the things it was designed for.
(ie: all IN records.... of course, because it's in the internet domain, but what else would it be for nowadays?)
That's funny, considering that most credit cards are already charging the maximum interest rate allowed by law, or very close to it.
The point is that it's the first "LINUX BASED SUPERCOMPUTER", not the FIRST SUPERCOMPUTER.
A rather big difference, I'd say.
India has supercomputers. They made them themselves. They aren't stupid.
For *about* 10 years.
Well.. I've been using it for 8.... and there were certainly a good sized handful of people using it before I was.
I'm fairly sure I heard about it at least a year before that.. possibly more.
Of course, I could go check some linux timeline before sticking my foot in my mouth....
Yay. The Empeg. Let's discuss this...
NOw, a year and a half ago, I think it was around then.. I thought it was pretty cool, and the price was okay.
They said by March 1999 they would be in full production.
It's almost March 2000 and they still aren't in full production. They have shipped beta units.. whee. ANd the price is too much.
Go look at the price of SBC's, and the price of drives, etc.... it's *NOT* that expensive.
A chip containing a full stereo mp3 decoder I can pick up for $5. Now, I'm not saying it's cheap, or can be done in 2 days.... but if I can build the exact same thing in my shop for arond $300-$400 bucks, there is no reason for a mass-produced version to cost over a thousand.
It's harder and harder because there is far much more noise these days.
It used to be that people only ever got noticed because they had talent, or at least, it was more like that than it is today.
These days, there is so much shit crammed into your face it's hard to get away from it and find something interesting.
Know how I find interesting things? My friends.
Interesting music, Interesting booze, interesting sports, interesting.. everything.
It serves to reinforce that you are GROWING UP. (That is you, in general, not you as an individual, as you are obviously not growing up)
Many readers here I bet are 25 or under....
And lots of the people we grew up looking up to are starting to get rather old.. so it serves to let us know that we are mortal, and that soon we will be those icons for the generations to come.
No. If the contract clearly states that you can cancel it at any time, without penalty, then that is what you are doing. Signing it and breaking it.
Quid pro quo? gimme a break. MS is never that up front anyway......
As I read it, it's not because state laws require penalty free cancellation, but because giving the consumer $400, but requiring them to RETURN it unless they hold out their full MSN contract to the end make sthat $400 *GIFT* become a $400 consumer LOAN, and in California, it is illegal to tie a loan into the purchase of a product or service. You can't lend someone money on the condition that they use your bank for savings, etc...
In effect, it would have been a $400 loan, and the repayment terms would have been a 3 year subscription to MSN.
Microsoft will exploit loopholes in their own favour whenever possible, so why shouldn't the consumer when the tables are turned?
They clearly stated, even before SW:TPM was in the theater, that NO STAR WARS movies would be released on DVD until the first 3 were done. Why is this rehashed all the time? It's no surpsise...
it's not news...
I bet we'll hear about it AGAIN when they release the episode 2 on VHS... the slashdot title will be 'Lucas refuses to release Episode 2 on DVD..'
then there will be several hundred comments of speculation as to why this is the case.. then someone will point out that this was always the plan.
Feh.
I think one of the largest culprits in bad events like this is lack of documentation/planning.
It's not that the hosting company is negligent, but that the users assume certain things about the hosting company without getting it in writing.
ie: Did the hosting company specify that they had daily backups? Weekly? Did they state that they had a disaster recovery plan? Did you ask? Did you state *your* needs as the customer, or did you just assume, as many people do, 'They are a web hosting company, so they'll have daily backups, a super-fast disaster recovery plan, fault tolerant systems, and enough staff/resources to deal with problems efficiently.).
This is not the case in a great many companies.
As for backups, you should have your own off-site backups, and if it's e-commerce related, you should damn well have your OWN disaster recovery plan. Your own backups. Your own copy of the records, either that, or contractual obligations that your provider will supply those services.
Of course, IANAL, but as rediculous as it sounds, if you read the statute, it clearly states that it is illegal to manufacture and distribute devices who's main purpose is to eavesdrop on conversations.
So. Here we go. Perhaps they *ARE* in violation of the law, though certainly not intentionally.
Did this require armed officers and intimidating tactics? Probably not. Is this kind of tactic good for the country? Probably not. A simple letter from a lawyer/government agency explaining the particular aspects of the law and why they are in violation would have done the trick. Why was a search warrant needed.. was it not clear that the company *was* making these things and *was* selling them? Would the company have denied this? No.. they would have said 'of COURSE we do that, that's what we DO! What's the big deal?'
But hey.. if you make laws.. you gotta deal with the reprecussions.
Remember that next time you want congress to 'protect' you by law.
I see it as very simple.
if the Employer *requires* you to work from home, then the employer is responsible for providing you with the tools to do your job, unless your employment contract states otherwise.
If he is responsible for providing you tools, then he is responsible for providing SAFE tools.
If you are working on a consulting/contract basis, then you are your own employer, and are responsible for yourself, completely. If a prospective client (employer) requires you to spend millions of hours in front of your computer, and your computer is inadequate for the task, you ahd best factor in required upgrades to your work environment into the contract price.
It was fairly unique, as far as home computing went.
To say it was 'stable' is a misnomer. The software running on them was also simpler (and I saw enough meditating amigas..)
They had thousands of colors, not millions (4096 in certain graphics modes)
And the stereo digital sound was great too. It took the IBM compatable world several years to catch up with that idea.. the *only* way an a500 could produce sound (other than using the floppy drive) was digitally, through one of it's 2 dac's... a concept that the rest of the world completely missed. THey spent all their time on FM synthesis and other wierd things....
I must say. The magical quality this machine had is unparallelled. Never has a machine caught my attention like the amiga. It was completely mystical.
And even today, the graphics on the amiga 500 have a certain quality to them that I've never seen on another machine. The mac comes close... I think it has to do with the way they blend colors.. but I'm not sure, and certainly not an expert.
And the sound was superb.
This seems straightforward to me, how you make money, though I realize it gets fuzzier in practice.
I believe a copmany should not make money simply by excercising complete control over a set of information (ie: a database). The service they provide me is one of collecting and providing me with said information.
20 years ago, if you had a 1GB database that I could pay to access online, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. There is no way I could store that kind of information myself anyway.. so you were, in effect, providing a data-warehousing service. The databse is just one way to look at it.
Nowadays, if you have a small database (something I can't reasonably fit on my computer), why should I be paying tons of money for accessing individual records, when the whole thing is pretty small anyway?
I guess what I'm saying is, even though they like to pretend it's the information that it's all about, the real service that has been provided in the past is one of data warehousing, and data sorting; doing what others did not have the resources to do.
Huh. Yeah. It 'didn't work out' because it's in Microsoft's interests to keep the different operating systmes going. It just drives up sales, as people start buying both.
I believe this to be true. Many acts of government/industry as of late like to make us think this is not the case (ie: personal copying of music in exchange for a tarriff on recordable media in Canada, DeCSS, etc...).
The fact is, copyright protected people's right to not have others steal their work for profit, or to make it so they cannot profit from their original work; to foster their talented creation of more work.
'Fair use' has always applied, and personal copies are certainly fair use.
Right. But this isn't ESR acting as a spokesman for the open source community.. this is ESR sending an email.
In fact, pretty much anything ESR publicly says about ANYTHING regarding OSS you would probably categorize as 'acting as a spokesman' and he would probably categorize as 'sending email'.
Well, perhaps they, being *skilled* at reverse engineering software, and basically, really good hackers, they had better tools in windows to tear apart the WINDOWS player (xing).
Not everyone uses linux exclusively...
So. Given that, it is simpler to write the windows software as a test than the linux software, given the code you are basing it on is for the windows platform.
And their end goal may very well have been to be able to view dvd on linux.
No. He can't. It's not been defended in the first place, and is a common name.
The main reason for Linux holding the trademark Linux is to prevent others from trademarking it.
IN other words, anyone can use the name linux, but nobody can stop someone else from using it.
There are also dozens of trademarks with the name Linux in them.