First of all, NEVER let a search proceed without a warrant. Even if you are doing something illegal. (Heck, ESPECIALLYif you are....) The reason is this: In the event they do find something incriminating you can contest the grounds by which they got a warrant in the first place.
This is why we shouldn't let 12 year olds post to these forums. This is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. Perhaps we should let the government wire your house with video cameras. Heck, I'd rather know that they were watching you 24 hours a day so that you couldn't build fertilizer bombs in your garage. Perhaps after Littleton, every parent should wire their kid's rooms so that we know their not hoarding weapons.
I could have also saved myself alot of trouble by not having walls, would you reccommend that too??
Have you ever heard the saying "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither"?? Get it through your sloping forehead, liberty is something you defend, not something you are given.
First of all, NEVER let a search proceed without a warrant. Even if you are doing something illegal. (Heck, ESPECIALLYif you are....) The reason is this: In the event they do find something incriminating you can contest the grounds by which they got a warrant in the first place.
Also, the police were never precise about what they were looking for. Or how they knew how to look. And no, proving them wrong would not make them look like idiots, it would reaffirm for them the belief that SS tactics will work in America.
The net economic benefit for allowing this patent is simple. It will show that there is profit to be made from designing better Codecs.
Had patents not been available, would we have WMA? MP3? And for that matter many of the other popular codecs we have become used to. I'm sure you'll spout some pithy comment that translates to yes, but the truth of it is that Frauhumper and Microshaft hired a bunch of people to design these coding algorithims, actively promoted them, and made them popular.
Projects like Bladeenc and Ogg Vorbis are a response to a proprietary codec. Not the origin. I mean no disrespect to any of the members of these projects, but the fact remains, that bladeenc was developed after many had put their paid work hours into defining how it should work. And more importantly, these engineers provided proof-of-concept, which as we all know, is really the most difficult part of any science.
How many times do we see someone say "That can't be done" until someone does it, and then the same person sits there and says, "I could do that." And really this sounds much the same.
Sure the GIF patent sucks, but the GIF patent is only a problem because the GIF format was designed well with a lionshare of features that were needed for an emerging new media. (Which was not new and emerging at the time.) PNG can come in and copy the functionality, but hats off to the original GIF team for creating the spec. So, does this mean that we should only be allowed to hold patents for things that are only useful to my clients, my apps, and my machine?? Horse Hockey.
projects like Ogg Vorbis show that patents are not necessary to finance such research
Odd... You mean after a proprietary company has come in and created demand?? This would be similar to saying "Linux shows that the personal computer is a marketable (or desirable) device." No, Apple and IBM/MS did that. Before then, the PC was dead in the water. (Yeah, you should know)
So sorry to tell you, the prospect of making money drives business to invest in R&D that creates products. When OSS comes along and actually furthers the software industry instead of copying the work and functionality of current systems, I'll begin to have less faith in patents.
Besides, look at Visi-Calc... Everybody agrees that this guy got screwed for not patenting the spreadsheet, most tell him it was a colossal blunder, but we all hate swpats, don't we??
Your reality check was returned for insufficient funds.
Linux is harder to keep up to date. This is blatantly untrue. The truth of it is, that when MS released these monolithic SP's and hotfixes, many of them did more harm than good. W2k SP2 and Exchange server are a good example, as well as the still undocumented effect of running the March hotfix on a W2k machine running IE 5.5. While the SP2 problems were at least fixable with a paralell install, the march hotfix is non-fixable without reloading the OS. (Maybe this is why MS will still not claim it as a bug.)
The truth of it is, many shops WILL NOT install a service pack unless there is a specific bug they are looking to quash. Otherwise, the machine will stay at the service pack level that was available when the OS was first installed. Our SUN machines, on the other hand, are regularily patched without a reboot. (or a 2 hour frikkin' download) If the patch causes a problem, It can easily be removed. I could say the same for our SUSE servers, and our AIX servers.
And, while NT bug updates get more press coverage, is because the release sparingly, and then ask that you download a 105 MB patch. In addition, Microsoft will not document a Bug until it has the solution. This has led to severe holes going unpatched for months while it's customers are in the dark. *nix generally releases patches for individual files and programs, their patches are more timely, and much easier to install.
So, to keep it simple, patching an NT server means:
15 committee meetings to decide if we should really do this.
Full back-up of the server.
Install Service Pack and pray.
To patch the SUN boxen??
root# patchadd
Slick installers?? If that's how you choose an OS, you deserve what you get. While I'll admit that many of the Linux installers are nasty, I'll only use the installer once. (Insert rant about paralell installs and the sinking feeling that the 30th software package you installed is what's cusing the "Windows Protection Error")
And finally, if diamonds are in short supply, are emeralds as good?? Are the diamonds worth it? Yes, your usual Unix sysadmin costs more, but has also been in the industry longer, and stands a decent chance of actually knowing the system. Many NT admins are hired right out of the class and just thought, "Gee, computer guys make alot of money." And while many of them get past this stage, that's usually when they become Unix sysadmins. Also, UNIX sysadmins are generally asked to do more with the OS. Like shell scripting for starters. When NT admins have to know wscript, maybe we'll have better NT admins.
I mentioned securing port 139 about a month ago. I got "Port 139????"
Also, in closing, Win NT has too many "Script Kiddie" attacks suceed to be taken seriously. When a frikkin' Outlook worm is a billion dollar virus.... Unix may be vulnerable, but not to the average idiot. Look at the stupid Kornikova(SP?) virus. Two weeks into visual basic, and someone exploits the heck out of MS.
~Hammy
"Your leaving will fill the void that was created when you first came here."
I for one do not believe that this government expects us to believe that a system like Echelon will not be used against the citizens of this country. If most people understood what the modern govt. already does to "identify" possible lawbreakers, they would be shocked.
The U.S. Government is known to publish at least 30% of the hate magazines published in this country. There are automated reviews of your utility bills that seek certain patterns. Random IR thermal imaging is employed by almost every city with a population over 250,000. I could keep going on.
These techniques are used to identify people for the local police to investigate. They are illegal, and any evidence cannot be used in court, but they do lead the police to people and then it just gets worse.
I found out about this 6 years ago. I stared growing hydroponic veggies and bonsai etc.... I purchased some nice Hydro equipment from a catalog store, including a big MH light etc... I was initially harassed approximately 5 months after purchasing the equipment. 2 police showed up at my house and said that due to a high volume of people coming and going from my house (my mother was my only visitor all day) they had "probable cause" to search, and I should just let them in. When I refused, they started threatening, etc.
They could never get a warrant, because they could not justify it. So instead, they went through my trash, tapped my phones, put my house under surveilance, followed me to work and stooping me and giving me tickets and they trying to search my car.
To make a long story short, I sued for harrasment, and it was revealed that they got my name and address from the hydro store, (govt. run) and then watched my house for the light to start, and then waited 5 months so they could catch me "at harvest". The only problem is I was growing Roma tomatoes and a lime tree.
I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, and I can't get them to work more than 4-5 feet away. But they can sniff my signal from across the street. Technology frikkin' sucks.
While the Flamethrowers may be out of line, I do have some issues with some of his beliefs.
Most importantly, Raskin has a theory on UI and an idealized view of what can be accomplished. Neither of these can be viewed as realistic. An old axiom that comes to mind is: "The best way to make software user-friendly is to limit options."
Sure, let's do away with Beginner and Advanced interfaces to computers... How? Just do away with the advanced interface. Let's do away with Perl and its TMTOWTDI core belief.
Ideally, the computer should learn as it goes along. This is somewhat possible even with the "!grep" syntax of the shells. And even aliasing. When I type "!grep" it remembers the last grep pattern I did. What if grep became more intelligent. So I could say.... "grep messages.log" and it would remember the string I last searched that file for and options.
The next step in UI development is a UI that will learn from its user and adapt. Not a UI that tries to simplify the entire computing experience so that it is manageable by anyone with an IQ over 75. This was the initial design of the Mac OS, and one of it's worst features IMHO.
I'm reminded of VCR plus, the "make it easy to record programs" breakthrough of the '90's. VCR programming was too hard for most people it was reasoned, why not make it easier. Well, sure enough the problems with VCR plus were worse than trying to learn to set the recorder. And the "User-Friendliness" (aka. lack of telling you what's going on) made you reluctant to use it anyway, because you didn't know whether it would work or not until after it was supposed to have worked.
Modeless????? Well, the original modes came out of the fact that noone could decide how these things should work, some liked to insert, some overwrite. My mother has never switched modes, but I do 3-4 times an hour. Again, the answer is to do away with insert or overstrike, or devise something even more onerous that will not look like a mode but still accomplish the same thing I can do with one button right now. Perhaps Raskin would also like to do away with "Caps Lock" in the process. (Yes, that is also a mode.)
While there are some good points, the S/N ratio is well over 50.... And it is many times Raskin himself who is unwilling or unable to give up or reconsider what he thinks he "knows" as truths, often to his own detriment. Much of it stemming from the beliefs he fostered as an Apple developer.
Yeah, but this article is worse than fluff. It's fluffed fluff.
It appears to me that he read a nonsensical book published by braindead academics with a faulty hypothesis, an outdated outlook, and a flashy title. Now the true insult is that he claims this to be revolutionary work of genius. The truth is probably more like "I didn't understand half of the book, but the half I did get made multimedia seem really impressive."
Katz often falls into the trap of many academics. "I don't understand it, so I should probably praise it." Plus, a perusal of the Katz archives will show his undying love fest with "virtual communities", another term that gets the Katz slippery definition, etc... Going back to his Wired days and his rants on "geek culture", which he obviously does not know beans about, and the fututre of technology, see earlier sidenote, we begin seeing that Katz is not really a person with a finger on the pulse of anything but some made up words like "digerati".
Blatant misinformation aside, the Katz columns are little more than fluff. Here we have a silicon insider, and this is the best he can come up with??
Soon he'll claim that one out of twenty of his predictions were right because of blanket statements like "I was among the early group who believed in the future of multimedia", even though his thoughs on multimedia are far from revolutionary. Indeed, all those bytes to say nothing at all, just double talk and happy words, but rest assured, he is a visionary.
BTW, if you find his comments relevant and interesting, you may want to consider a lobotomy. Normal posters who do not make a living off of this generally have more interesting things to add to the conversation, and they even get their facts right sometimes.
Hmmm, if we moderated all of Katz's stories, what do you think his karma would be??
Microsoft was perfectly happy with their licensing scheme until this year. We pay site licensing (or whatever the MS speek is for it.) for our Windows and Office. We pay these yearly etc... This year, with no money in the budget for new PC's, employees, or anything else, we cut our site licensing agreement.
The MS rep said "You can't do this!" and I said yes I can son, I own them there copies of Win2k. I'm sure we are not the only people to think of this...
We are just now doing a site wide client migration to Win2k from Win95. You can laugh, but all of our vendors only support a Win95 client. (How will 3 year licensing affect this??)
The truth of this is that solution providers will look for more stable clients to work with. And this will hurt Microsoft. Most of our providers are none too happy with Windows connectivity, DB access, stability, etc... Now tell them they have to re-certify their Client OS every 3 years, and then get all of their clients to upgrade, verify the server still works with the latest version.... Egad, what a nightmare.
We have a 20 year old Sun OS 3.5 that made it past Y2K working with 6 year old clients. I also have a 5 year old Solaris system that we expect another 15 years of service from. A 12 year old AIX box, etc... Still running the OS they came with. Mircosoft might like to know that some of our machines still use DOS 6.2, BY DESIGN!
With the new MS plan, I would have to upgrade all of these machines to use new hardware, new drivers, etc... What about support for legacy cards, like the Core Logix A/D to D/A converters?? Will Bill gates write me a driver??
MR. Gates, that gun is pointing right at your foot...
If I give you the plans for the bike, and you build the bike and it breaks, should I be sued?? Most OSS is distributed in source form, with another interested party compiling and creating the installer package.
So now, I give the bike plans to RedHat, RedHat builds the bike, you ride the bike and it breaks. Who should be sued?? RedHat will tell you to sue me, (here comes the warranty problems), and I'll tell you to pi$$ up a rope.
What the UCTIA does not define is: If the software is written by party 1, sold by party 2, who is responsable for a warranty?? So redhat goes out and makes sure that the OSS programmers cannot be sued because KTetris crashed their webserver. (In the bargain, they have gained some questionable ground for themselves.)
I think that source should be looked at as speech, and compiled binaries should be viewed as a manufactured product. Saying that I think all warranty claims should be dependent on the customer following a mantenance and setup procedure outlined in the manual. (You can't return your car because you didn't fill it up with gas, or change the oil.)
I'd be willing to bet that we see the first version of Windows shipped with a decent manual....
Besides, what kind of warranty?? "We'll refund you %1000 of the purchase price." Great for free software. Do I get a nickel everytime NT bluescreens on me? A dollar for every frag I racked up before the machine dies in a fit of screaming rage?
Software warranties are designed to be unenforceable, they simply act as a barrier to software produced by a non-corporate entity.
~This here is beer, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle you can hold it in your hand....
Have you looked at the new RPG Grimoire?? They are talking about releasing one game a month for about twenty bucks a piece. The reason?? A reusable engine. That could just as well be an open source engine....
The truth of it is that most PC games are too damn long because they have no replayability. Most modern games have an enjoyment cycle that is approximately 10 hours beyond the tme required to play the demo.
I also love the presupposition that "People in Universities do Research, the same guy on a home computer is a vandal." D e C S S was about research, just not by some professor in the stifling halls of academia.
Most of us computer geeks (the good ones at least) have maybe a year or two at college before we were snapped up by a ravenous job market. So why live with this absurd notion that a princeton professor is doing research and Alan Cox has a hobby.
Worse yet, the slashdot audience is now saying the man's a genius for caving in to the RIAA, when the article mentions no benefit from the spineless wonder. The only place it's mentioned is in the Slashdot teaser! (And that's good ol' slashdot spin...)
The Princeton researchers are still as spineless today as they were yesterday.
Why not try to use resonance?? Products like the Bose wave use long resanator tubes to get decent bass out of two 1" speakers. What would happen if you used a resonator with the mylar stretched across it?? (An old drum body, etc...)
I realize that this will not correct the already low bass response, as there apparently are no surfaces capable of producing the long low waves, but should add depth and take away from the tinniness of the speakers. With contact on a wood resonator, percussion and bass should at least produce a pleasant woody thump.
Borrowing from works is not only common as dirt, but a way of making art reach a better audience.
I am a musician, and much of music relies on the listener having a cultural reference in common with the performer. From the early days of Jazz, musical jokes were introduced by comping lines from well known songs. A modern example would be playing the melody of "Light my Fire" during a solo over "Burning down the House".
As Bruce Thomas said: "You play the melody of one lick and the rhythm of another, that's where licks come from."
In painting, you still use the techniques and styles of many generations of artists. Under the DCMA, an artists could copyright something as simple as a color, or a theme. So, when an artist copyrights "Nudes" or "Still Life" or "Photo-Realism" how much "new" will be left??
All art must move in paitent steps from the known to the new. Art appeals to us only in the way it is different from what we already know. When the DCMA has rendered popular culture as a tool of the corporations, there will be little to build upon. No art, science, or prosperity is built in a vacuum, we build upon the resources of others.
Your remarks on RZA?? Sampling simply copies the work of previous artists, (other artists that have used samples, not artists they are sampling, since you have already pointed out that they mostly(?) make their own loops) they are not doing something totally new, they are doing something new in an old medium. Are they using 4/4 time? And I'm sure I could much more easily deconstuct their tracks and find at least one or two snippets that could get them sued even if they had never heard the song the the snippet matched.
(In the Van Halen vs. Tone Loc decision two notes were considered enough to prove copyright infringement. As long as they were deemed "recognizable or reminiscient" of the original.)
So, throw out all of the things you have read about art, color, paint, and canvas. As you would say, clinging to this knowledge is just "riding the coattails of others".
In addition, under the DCMA, art criticism is outlawed without the consent of the artist. Since you would be "discussing or describing the techniques used in the creation of a copyrighted work." Works well to help companies punish anyone who says anything negative about any of their products. (BTW, if the criticism did not fit the above description, it was not very good criticism.)
Finally, before this degenerates into the usual "You're an idiot"/. nonsense, I assure you I am not alone in this. I'll put in the relevant quotes and you can attack these artists reputation if need be.
Johhny Cash: "The Public Domain is the best place to steal songs from, no royalties!" -VH1 Storytellers
Elvis Costello: "The best part of the song is when I mention Billy-Boy Arnold and Bruce played the lick..."
Well, the Christians said it was 4,000 years old, and when science said they were wrong, they said science is wrong. But hey, noone's calling them looney and accusing them of selling garbage.
The difference between a cult and a religion is only in who believes it and how much power they have. And the church of scientology is going after that power.
"But my friend, the facts don't support your thesis."
"Well, so much the worse for facts"
Re:PA seems to be getting Slashdotted...
on
eFront From Inside
·
· Score: 2
Yeah, but we already know that their servers are not that good. I am amazed that their servers crash often, they don't pay up, and people were still signing their contracts.... Glad I didn't.
Copy Protection is an inevitable part of the future. And it should be. And I hope that the law protects the protection schemes.
With that said...
Most devices and media have some form of copy protection on them to this day. You cannot have a glimmer of hope without it. And if you don't and still succeed, the VC's will insist that it be added if you want some funding. (Or the RIAA will fund it just to get Copy Protection added).
The ability to duplicate bits is not a right, but a skill. If they copy protect the bits, and I am one of 100 people who can copy the bits now, I have a marketable skill. (Gee, isn't that basically what the record companies do?) And I personally don't believe that everyone out there needs to know the "skill" of copying bits.
I do hope that the law protects them, because the CP technology is bound to be minimum as long as they have "The Law" to protect them. If they had to rely on technology alone to keep me out, they'd probably hire some guy who's tons smarter than me, and I'll wind up paying for someone else's skill.
In short, I'd rather they keep putting deadbolts on straw doors and not progress to putting a padlock on a metal chest.
No man is so defenseless as when he believes himself safe.
If you want to hit someone in the nose, aim for the back of their head.
American Indians, (i.e. Native Americans) can also be referred to as "Amerinds" and many prefer it. Amerindians(?) is not quite it.
P.S. Indian comes from "in dios" or "under god". Not from the fact that Columbus thought he landed in India (Which was not even called India then). White People thought they had found heaven... Maybe that's why God makes them suffer to get in.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, NEVER let a search proceed without a warrant. Even if you are doing something illegal. (Heck, ESPECIALLYif you are....) The reason is this: In the event they do find something incriminating you can contest the grounds by which they got a warrant in the first place.
This is why we shouldn't let 12 year olds post to these forums. This is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. Perhaps we should let the government wire your house with video cameras. Heck, I'd rather know that they were watching you 24 hours a day so that you couldn't build fertilizer bombs in your garage. Perhaps after Littleton, every parent should wire their kid's rooms so that we know their not hoarding weapons.
I could have also saved myself alot of trouble by not having walls, would you reccommend that too??
Have you ever heard the saying "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither"?? Get it through your sloping forehead, liberty is something you defend, not something you are given.
First of all, NEVER let a search proceed without a warrant. Even if you are doing something illegal. (Heck, ESPECIALLYif you are....) The reason is this: In the event they do find something incriminating you can contest the grounds by which they got a warrant in the first place.
Also, the police were never precise about what they were looking for. Or how they knew how to look. And no, proving them wrong would not make them look like idiots, it would reaffirm for them the belief that SS tactics will work in America.
The net economic benefit for allowing this patent is simple. It will show that there is profit to be made from designing better Codecs.
Had patents not been available, would we have WMA? MP3? And for that matter many of the other popular codecs we have become used to. I'm sure you'll spout some pithy comment that translates to yes, but the truth of it is that Frauhumper and Microshaft hired a bunch of people to design these coding algorithims, actively promoted them, and made them popular.
Projects like Bladeenc and Ogg Vorbis are a response to a proprietary codec. Not the origin. I mean no disrespect to any of the members of these projects, but the fact remains, that bladeenc was developed after many had put their paid work hours into defining how it should work. And more importantly, these engineers provided proof-of-concept, which as we all know, is really the most difficult part of any science.
How many times do we see someone say "That can't be done" until someone does it, and then the same person sits there and says, "I could do that." And really this sounds much the same.
Sure the GIF patent sucks, but the GIF patent is only a problem because the GIF format was designed well with a lionshare of features that were needed for an emerging new media. (Which was not new and emerging at the time.) PNG can come in and copy the functionality, but hats off to the original GIF team for creating the spec. So, does this mean that we should only be allowed to hold patents for things that are only useful to my clients, my apps, and my machine?? Horse Hockey.
projects like Ogg Vorbis show that patents are not necessary to finance such research
Odd... You mean after a proprietary company has come in and created demand?? This would be similar to saying "Linux shows that the personal computer is a marketable (or desirable) device." No, Apple and IBM/MS did that. Before then, the PC was dead in the water. (Yeah, you should know)
So sorry to tell you, the prospect of making money drives business to invest in R&D that creates products. When OSS comes along and actually furthers the software industry instead of copying the work and functionality of current systems, I'll begin to have less faith in patents.
Besides, look at Visi-Calc... Everybody agrees that this guy got screwed for not patenting the spreadsheet, most tell him it was a colossal blunder, but we all hate swpats, don't we??
Your reality check was returned for insufficient funds.
~Hammy
To respond to your points in order:
Linux is harder to keep up to date. This is blatantly untrue. The truth of it is, that when MS released these monolithic SP's and hotfixes, many of them did more harm than good. W2k SP2 and Exchange server are a good example, as well as the still undocumented effect of running the March hotfix on a W2k machine running IE 5.5. While the SP2 problems were at least fixable with a paralell install, the march hotfix is non-fixable without reloading the OS. (Maybe this is why MS will still not claim it as a bug.)
The truth of it is, many shops WILL NOT install a service pack unless there is a specific bug they are looking to quash. Otherwise, the machine will stay at the service pack level that was available when the OS was first installed. Our SUN machines, on the other hand, are regularily patched without a reboot. (or a 2 hour frikkin' download) If the patch causes a problem, It can easily be removed. I could say the same for our SUSE servers, and our AIX servers.
And, while NT bug updates get more press coverage, is because the release sparingly, and then ask that you download a 105 MB patch. In addition, Microsoft will not document a Bug until it has the solution. This has led to severe holes going unpatched for months while it's customers are in the dark. *nix generally releases patches for individual files and programs, their patches are more timely, and much easier to install.
So, to keep it simple, patching an NT server means:
15 committee meetings to decide if we should really do this.
Full back-up of the server.
Install Service Pack and pray.
To patch the SUN boxen??
root# patchadd
Slick installers?? If that's how you choose an OS, you deserve what you get. While I'll admit that many of the Linux installers are nasty, I'll only use the installer once. (Insert rant about paralell installs and the sinking feeling that the 30th software package you installed is what's cusing the "Windows Protection Error")
And finally, if diamonds are in short supply, are emeralds as good?? Are the diamonds worth it? Yes, your usual Unix sysadmin costs more, but has also been in the industry longer, and stands a decent chance of actually knowing the system. Many NT admins are hired right out of the class and just thought, "Gee, computer guys make alot of money." And while many of them get past this stage, that's usually when they become Unix sysadmins. Also, UNIX sysadmins are generally asked to do more with the OS. Like shell scripting for starters. When NT admins have to know wscript, maybe we'll have better NT admins.
I mentioned securing port 139 about a month ago. I got "Port 139????"
Also, in closing, Win NT has too many "Script Kiddie" attacks suceed to be taken seriously. When a frikkin' Outlook worm is a billion dollar virus.... Unix may be vulnerable, but not to the average idiot. Look at the stupid Kornikova(SP?) virus. Two weeks into visual basic, and someone exploits the heck out of MS.
~Hammy
"Your leaving will fill the void that was created when you first came here."
I for one do not believe that this government expects us to believe that a system like Echelon will not be used against the citizens of this country. If most people understood what the modern govt. already does to "identify" possible lawbreakers, they would be shocked.
The U.S. Government is known to publish at least 30% of the hate magazines published in this country. There are automated reviews of your utility bills that seek certain patterns. Random IR thermal imaging is employed by almost every city with a population over 250,000. I could keep going on.
These techniques are used to identify people for the local police to investigate. They are illegal, and any evidence cannot be used in court, but they do lead the police to people and then it just gets worse.
I found out about this 6 years ago. I stared growing hydroponic veggies and bonsai etc.... I purchased some nice Hydro equipment from a catalog store, including a big MH light etc... I was initially harassed approximately 5 months after purchasing the equipment. 2 police showed up at my house and said that due to a high volume of people coming and going from my house (my mother was my only visitor all day) they had "probable cause" to search, and I should just let them in. When I refused, they started threatening, etc.
They could never get a warrant, because they could not justify it. So instead, they went through my trash, tapped my phones, put my house under surveilance, followed me to work and stooping me and giving me tickets and they trying to search my car.
To make a long story short, I sued for harrasment, and it was revealed that they got my name and address from the hydro store, (govt. run) and then watched my house for the light to start, and then waited 5 months so they could catch me "at harvest". The only problem is I was growing Roma tomatoes and a lime tree.
"Mother should I trust the Government???"
~Hammy
36", that's a nice giant screen.....
I bought a Princeton Arcadia as a Refurb for about $400.00....
If you have any links on how to improve my range I'm all for it.
(I can't even sit withit 6' of my monitor....)
I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, and I can't get them to work more than 4-5 feet away. But they can sniff my signal from across the street. Technology frikkin' sucks.
~Hammy
While the Flamethrowers may be out of line, I do have some issues with some of his beliefs.
Most importantly, Raskin has a theory on UI and an idealized view of what can be accomplished. Neither of these can be viewed as realistic. An old axiom that comes to mind is: "The best way to make software user-friendly is to limit options."
Sure, let's do away with Beginner and Advanced interfaces to computers... How? Just do away with the advanced interface. Let's do away with Perl and its TMTOWTDI core belief.
Ideally, the computer should learn as it goes along. This is somewhat possible even with the "!grep" syntax of the shells. And even aliasing. When I type "!grep" it remembers the last grep pattern I did. What if grep became more intelligent. So I could say.... "grep messages.log" and it would remember the string I last searched that file for and options.
The next step in UI development is a UI that will learn from its user and adapt. Not a UI that tries to simplify the entire computing experience so that it is manageable by anyone with an IQ over 75. This was the initial design of the Mac OS, and one of it's worst features IMHO.
I'm reminded of VCR plus, the "make it easy to record programs" breakthrough of the '90's. VCR programming was too hard for most people it was reasoned, why not make it easier. Well, sure enough the problems with VCR plus were worse than trying to learn to set the recorder. And the "User-Friendliness" (aka. lack of telling you what's going on) made you reluctant to use it anyway, because you didn't know whether it would work or not until after it was supposed to have worked.
Modeless????? Well, the original modes came out of the fact that noone could decide how these things should work, some liked to insert, some overwrite. My mother has never switched modes, but I do 3-4 times an hour. Again, the answer is to do away with insert or overstrike, or devise something even more onerous that will not look like a mode but still accomplish the same thing I can do with one button right now. Perhaps Raskin would also like to do away with "Caps Lock" in the process. (Yes, that is also a mode.)
While there are some good points, the S/N ratio is well over 50.... And it is many times Raskin himself who is unwilling or unable to give up or reconsider what he thinks he "knows" as truths, often to his own detriment. Much of it stemming from the beliefs he fostered as an Apple developer.
~Hammy
Geez, forget your midol this morning???
no text
Yeah, but this article is worse than fluff. It's fluffed fluff.
It appears to me that he read a nonsensical book published by braindead academics with a faulty hypothesis, an outdated outlook, and a flashy title. Now the true insult is that he claims this to be revolutionary work of genius. The truth is probably more like "I didn't understand half of the book, but the half I did get made multimedia seem really impressive."
Katz often falls into the trap of many academics. "I don't understand it, so I should probably praise it." Plus, a perusal of the Katz archives will show his undying love fest with "virtual communities", another term that gets the Katz slippery definition, etc... Going back to his Wired days and his rants on "geek culture", which he obviously does not know beans about, and the fututre of technology, see earlier sidenote, we begin seeing that Katz is not really a person with a finger on the pulse of anything but some made up words like "digerati".
Blatant misinformation aside, the Katz columns are little more than fluff. Here we have a silicon insider, and this is the best he can come up with??
Soon he'll claim that one out of twenty of his predictions were right because of blanket statements like "I was among the early group who believed in the future of multimedia", even though his thoughs on multimedia are far from revolutionary. Indeed, all those bytes to say nothing at all, just double talk and happy words, but rest assured, he is a visionary.
BTW, if you find his comments relevant and interesting, you may want to consider a lobotomy. Normal posters who do not make a living off of this generally have more interesting things to add to the conversation, and they even get their facts right sometimes.
Hmmm, if we moderated all of Katz's stories, what do you think his karma would be??
~Hammy
"Up yours! I already have a karma of 50...."
The funny thing is this....
Microsoft was perfectly happy with their licensing scheme until this year. We pay site licensing (or whatever the MS speek is for it.) for our Windows and Office. We pay these yearly etc... This year, with no money in the budget for new PC's, employees, or anything else, we cut our site licensing agreement.
The MS rep said "You can't do this!" and I said yes I can son, I own them there copies of Win2k. I'm sure we are not the only people to think of this...
We are just now doing a site wide client migration to Win2k from Win95. You can laugh, but all of our vendors only support a Win95 client. (How will 3 year licensing affect this??)
The truth of this is that solution providers will look for more stable clients to work with. And this will hurt Microsoft. Most of our providers are none too happy with Windows connectivity, DB access, stability, etc... Now tell them they have to re-certify their Client OS every 3 years, and then get all of their clients to upgrade, verify the server still works with the latest version.... Egad, what a nightmare.
We have a 20 year old Sun OS 3.5 that made it past Y2K working with 6 year old clients. I also have a 5 year old Solaris system that we expect another 15 years of service from. A 12 year old AIX box, etc... Still running the OS they came with. Mircosoft might like to know that some of our machines still use DOS 6.2, BY DESIGN!
With the new MS plan, I would have to upgrade all of these machines to use new hardware, new drivers, etc... What about support for legacy cards, like the Core Logix A/D to D/A converters?? Will Bill gates write me a driver??
MR. Gates, that gun is pointing right at your foot...
~Hammy
Maybe a lesbian plumber??? Maybe she's not the real mother and is trying to hide it??
~Ignorance is bliss, and I'm ever so happy.
If I give you the plans for the bike, and you build the bike and it breaks, should I be sued?? Most OSS is distributed in source form, with another interested party compiling and creating the installer package.
So now, I give the bike plans to RedHat, RedHat builds the bike, you ride the bike and it breaks. Who should be sued?? RedHat will tell you to sue me, (here comes the warranty problems), and I'll tell you to pi$$ up a rope.
What the UCTIA does not define is: If the software is written by party 1, sold by party 2, who is responsable for a warranty?? So redhat goes out and makes sure that the OSS programmers cannot be sued because KTetris crashed their webserver. (In the bargain, they have gained some questionable ground for themselves.)
I think that source should be looked at as speech, and compiled binaries should be viewed as a manufactured product. Saying that I think all warranty claims should be dependent on the customer following a mantenance and setup procedure outlined in the manual. (You can't return your car because you didn't fill it up with gas, or change the oil.)
I'd be willing to bet that we see the first version of Windows shipped with a decent manual....
Besides, what kind of warranty?? "We'll refund you %1000 of the purchase price." Great for free software. Do I get a nickel everytime NT bluescreens on me? A dollar for every frag I racked up before the machine dies in a fit of screaming rage?
Software warranties are designed to be unenforceable, they simply act as a barrier to software produced by a non-corporate entity.
~This here is beer, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle you can hold it in your hand....
Maybe we could call them the "Linux Industry Consortium Kabbal"... LICK!
Have you looked at the new RPG Grimoire?? They are talking about releasing one game a month for about twenty bucks a piece. The reason?? A reusable engine. That could just as well be an open source engine....
The truth of it is that most PC games are too damn long because they have no replayability. Most modern games have an enjoyment cycle that is approximately 10 hours beyond the tme required to play the demo.
I also love the presupposition that "People in Universities do Research, the same guy on a home computer is a vandal." D e C S S was about research, just not by some professor in the stifling halls of academia.
Most of us computer geeks (the good ones at least) have maybe a year or two at college before we were snapped up by a ravenous job market. So why live with this absurd notion that a princeton professor is doing research and Alan Cox has a hobby.
Worse yet, the slashdot audience is now saying the man's a genius for caving in to the RIAA, when the article mentions no benefit from the spineless wonder. The only place it's mentioned is in the Slashdot teaser! (And that's good ol' slashdot spin...)
The Princeton researchers are still as spineless today as they were yesterday.
Here's a DIY project for you...
Why not try to use resonance?? Products like the Bose wave use long resanator tubes to get decent bass out of two 1" speakers. What would happen if you used a resonator with the mylar stretched across it?? (An old drum body, etc...)
I realize that this will not correct the already low bass response, as there apparently are no surfaces capable of producing the long low waves, but should add depth and take away from the tinniness of the speakers. With contact on a wood resonator, percussion and bass should at least produce a pleasant woody thump.
Just a thought...
~Hammy
Borrowing from works is not only common as dirt, but a way of making art reach a better audience.
/. nonsense, I assure you I am not alone in this. I'll put in the relevant quotes and you can attack these artists reputation if need be.
I am a musician, and much of music relies on the listener having a cultural reference in common with the performer. From the early days of Jazz, musical jokes were introduced by comping lines from well known songs. A modern example would be playing the melody of "Light my Fire" during a solo over "Burning down the House".
As Bruce Thomas said: "You play the melody of one lick and the rhythm of another, that's where licks come from."
In painting, you still use the techniques and styles of many generations of artists. Under the DCMA, an artists could copyright something as simple as a color, or a theme. So, when an artist copyrights "Nudes" or "Still Life" or "Photo-Realism" how much "new" will be left??
All art must move in paitent steps from the known to the new. Art appeals to us only in the way it is different from what we already know. When the DCMA has rendered popular culture as a tool of the corporations, there will be little to build upon. No art, science, or prosperity is built in a vacuum, we build upon the resources of others.
Your remarks on RZA?? Sampling simply copies the work of previous artists, (other artists that have used samples, not artists they are sampling, since you have already pointed out that they mostly(?) make their own loops) they are not doing something totally new, they are doing something new in an old medium. Are they using 4/4 time? And I'm sure I could much more easily deconstuct their tracks and find at least one or two snippets that could get them sued even if they had never heard the song the the snippet matched.
(In the Van Halen vs. Tone Loc decision two notes were considered enough to prove copyright infringement. As long as they were deemed "recognizable or reminiscient" of the original.)
So, throw out all of the things you have read about art, color, paint, and canvas. As you would say, clinging to this knowledge is just "riding the coattails of others".
In addition, under the DCMA, art criticism is outlawed without the consent of the artist. Since you would be "discussing or describing the techniques used in the creation of a copyrighted work." Works well to help companies punish anyone who says anything negative about any of their products. (BTW, if the criticism did not fit the above description, it was not very good criticism.)
Finally, before this degenerates into the usual "You're an idiot"
Johhny Cash: "The Public Domain is the best place to steal songs from, no royalties!" -VH1 Storytellers
Elvis Costello: "The best part of the song is when I mention Billy-Boy Arnold and Bruce played the lick..."
~Hammy
"Happiness is a word for amateurs."
Well, the Christians said it was 4,000 years old, and when science said they were wrong, they said science is wrong. But hey, noone's calling them looney and accusing them of selling garbage.
The difference between a cult and a religion is only in who believes it and how much power they have. And the church of scientology is going after that power.
"But my friend, the facts don't support your thesis."
"Well, so much the worse for facts"
Yeah, but we already know that their servers are not that good. I am amazed that their servers crash often, they don't pay up, and people were still signing their contracts.... Glad I didn't.
Freaky news, geeky reviews
freakingeeks.com
Hmmmm....
Does Battlebots have a super-lightweight division???
Copy Protection is an inevitable part of the future. And it should be. And I hope that the law protects the protection schemes.
With that said...
Most devices and media have some form of copy protection on them to this day. You cannot have a glimmer of hope without it. And if you don't and still succeed, the VC's will insist that it be added if you want some funding. (Or the RIAA will fund it just to get Copy Protection added).
The ability to duplicate bits is not a right, but a skill. If they copy protect the bits, and I am one of 100 people who can copy the bits now, I have a marketable skill. (Gee, isn't that basically what the record companies do?) And I personally don't believe that everyone out there needs to know the "skill" of copying bits.
I do hope that the law protects them, because the CP technology is bound to be minimum as long as they have "The Law" to protect them. If they had to rely on technology alone to keep me out, they'd probably hire some guy who's tons smarter than me, and I'll wind up paying for someone else's skill.
In short, I'd rather they keep putting deadbolts on straw doors and not progress to putting a padlock on a metal chest.
No man is so defenseless as when he believes himself safe.
If you want to hit someone in the nose, aim for the back of their head.
~Jason
Hello??
Um, a patch cable on your sound card connecting headphones to mic works pretty darn well...
Just tossing that out there....
American Indians, (i.e. Native Americans) can also be referred to as "Amerinds" and many prefer it. Amerindians(?) is not quite it.
P.S. Indian comes from "in dios" or "under god". Not from the fact that Columbus thought he landed in India (Which was not even called India then). White People thought they had found heaven... Maybe that's why God makes them suffer to get in.