Title: Sub Studio: Where Rock and Roll Was Born Description: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and other greats recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN. It's still there and still analog. Timothy lord talked with sun recording engineer Matt Ross-Spang...
00:00 - <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Sun Studio in Memphis, TN... where Rock and Roll was born" appears over a shot of a red "SUN STUDIO" neon sign in a window.
00:02 - <TITLE> A shot of Timothy Lord with the Sun Studio building behind him appears.
00:02 - Timothy> Studio engineer Matt Ross-Spang wasn't even born when most of Sun's most famous records were cut. Nonetheless, he's thought a lot about what makes them sound the way they do. He's gonna talk us through some of the tech.
00:11 - <TITLE> Various shots of audio equipment appear; a Scully 280 reel to reel tape machine and a mixing panel. (1), is played in the background.
00:18 - <TITLE> The interviewee, Matt Ross-Spang, is shown sitting in Sun Studio control room, with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Studio Engineer Matt Ross-Spang"
00:18 - Matt> Around 30's, 40's, is prolly, you know, when they start making decent recording stuff that you can still use besides, like, a wax recorder or something. So I've got that.. a bunch of microphones are from the 40's and 50's.. 60's - I've got pretty much every decade down. Of course Ampexes are from the 50's, those mono tape machines that I use, and the Scully is from the 50's and 60's. The newest tape machine would be the Studer a80... -
00:43 - <TITLE> The view zooms in on the tape machine discussed before zooming back out.
00:43 - Matt>... - which is kind of like the Cadillac of tape machines - they made the best ones and they were the last makers of the best tape machines.
00:50 - <TITLE> "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis is played in the background.
00:50 - Matt> Really high quality tape machines. You'll find them in all the major studios running tape. Some people like 'm, some people don't - they're not.. as far as tape machine goes, they don't have that crazy tape characteristic as much as the Scully, because a Scully is a bunch of lead, and this one is like, you know, trying to make it as clean as possible. But they sound, really cool. So that's probably the most modern tape machine I have for sure.
01:20 - Matt> And then you got the outboard gear. That's the same thing, 50's... -
01:23 - <TITLE> The camera pans up slightly to show the gear being discussed before panning back down.
01:23 - Matt>... - there's some stuff from, you know, few years ago, up there. It's stuff that I like, really unique stuff.
01:28 - Timothy> Does anything stick out from the older, from the 50's and 60's, that is, you know, outboard gear that you're really happy to use?
01;34 - Matt> Well, I think, if you're talking about effects or outboard.. 50's, I mean, in the 50's they used - besides a real room - for reverb they used a plate in the 60's. Plate reverb is something digital will never be able to emulate,... -
01:49 - <TITLE> "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins is played in the background.
01:49 - Matt>... - and tape echo. They've got plenty of plugins that do tape echo, but you gotta hear the tape echo, you've gotta smell the tape to get tape echo, and it's.. especially for Sun, if I don't use tape echo then I need to f... get a new job. *laughs*
02:06 - Timothy> Is your job pretty safe? As an analog specializing engineer?
02:11 - Matt> Yeah - I mean, you know, I do freelancing stuff.. other places, and I, you know, I'm not saying Pro Tools sucks. I'm not saying I have to cut the tape and I can only use 50's gear. I've gone to studios
Yeah, that's just bad game design, and something that does get exploited in other ways as well. People with a 3 monitor setup in an FPS, for example, can get a nice wide view that people on a single monitor cannot; even if they changed the field of view setting, everything would get compressed into that single screen. Unfortunately it's not something that's easily dealt with short of hard-limiting the screen real-estate that's actually used by the game.. and then you'd just get gamers complaining that on their 4:3 screen, only a 16:9 portion is used, or vice versa. And if you have to use the entire screen, somebody is going to benefit one way or another. Unless you have some OSD element that you can mess with (in 16:9 vs 16:10, the extra 16:1 could be covered up with an OSD element that is always on-screen, e.g., while in the 16:9 version where it would overlap the view it fades out when not in use).
Besides, do away with the touchpad, it'll be a touchscreen panel anyway. If I just measure the keyboard part of my notebook, it's about 28cm*12cm, or 21:9. Which means the bezel wouldn't be any much 'wider' than it is now (although I realize modern notebooks have thinner bezels.. except in the top where they fit a webcam).
And given that it's a nice high-res 4k display, you can fit a website within a 4:3 subsection if you'd prefer - you'd have s[ace on the left/right for other things - other windows, perhaps:)
Everybody seems to be confused as to what more than 1080 pixels vertical would possibly be used for.
Except that the resolution quoted is 1366x768. That's not even close to 1080. It's enough to allow it to be called 'HD' at 720p, though - which is why your argument still stands; as long as people can watch a video and do some facebook/twitter/e-mail/general web browsing, they don't really need the higher resolution.
Higher resolution is available - it just generally costs a pretty penny more and usually commands a larger screen.
uh oh... cue the aspect ratio people.. the ones complaining about 16:9 and saying 16:10 is so much better for computer work, only to be snubbed by the 4:3 people who don't know why anybody would want to work with any sort of 'wide screen' monitor, who in turn will be ridiculed by the CAD people stroking their 5:4 monitors, while the 16:9 folk just roll their eyes, and their monitor by 90 degrees, and put on a trollface.
The people who are going to complain the loudest are exactly those who should have just gone and gotten that Maglite (or Fenix or whatever), because all they saw was a flashlight that was bright and relatively cheap (at the time anyway).
The people who are defending that project tooth & nail are exactly those who don't need a FAQ spelling out for them what they could do with the programmable feature, the indicators, the accelerometer or open design - because they already know, are simply curious, or think it will somehow drive development of flashlights forward. Can't blame them either - not too long ago, flashlights only had on and off. Then people said that the on was too bright, so manufacturers added a dimmer mode. Then security people said it'd be nice if they could make it strobe, so manufacturers added strobe capability. Then somebody thought it'd be a good idea if the light could do an SOS, so manufacturers added a strobe function. ( Up to this point, I've described the Fenix LD-10 ). Now this guy comes along and basically says "it's all good and well that manufacturers add modes based on popular input, but why not just open it all up? If somebody wants to send morse code, let them do it. If somebody wants to make it pulse, let them do it. If somebody wants to make it fade in/out by turning one's wrist, let them do it".
It's that what appeals to the latter group of backers, and probably what drew Rip!ey's interest as well.
Call them fools because you think a flashlight should only have an 'on' switch, but in the end - if that project ever delivers, I do have to agree - they'd get much more value (from their pov) from that flashlight than they would from 'a decent Maglite'.
Thus it goes for pretty much all of the 'widget' type projects at KickStarter - count the iPhone docks, then try to figure out why anybody would buy one of those instead of the $5-$25 items at the nearest electronics warehouse. I certainly can't - but plenty of successful, and delivered, projects show that there's lots of people who can.
One thing that does set the HexBright project apart (having looked at the comments), is that it seems like its project creator is in fact handling refunds from those who ask for it.
I have absolutely no idea how KickStarter's vetting process works. In fact, it's extremely difficult to communicate with KickStarter at all. Yes, if you're Tim Schafer with a $3M project, you bet you can get their staff to appear by live feed and broadcast to the world. If you're a backer wondering why KickStarter just canceled a project, they will tell you that they don't comment on that. If you're that project's creator, they will tell you that they don't comment on that. If you run into any problems whatsoever, you'd be lucky to get the form reply saying that... the don't comment on that, but have a read through their ToS in which they absolve themselves from everything.
This is not much different from other crowdfunding platforms, mind you - I suppose it's an issue of scale.
You can't actually look into each and every project with a fine-toothed comb. There's an average of 3 projects posted every 5 minutes, more on Mondays (well, this week it was on Tuesday). It's just undoable without hiring staff to specifically do this - and that would just cut into profits for what.. the minute number of projects that end up being actually fraudulent and only slightly larger number of projects that fail to deliver what was promised, especially given the nuances I outlined in my post?
It's much easier to just say "hey, we're just a facilitator - if you have a problem with the creator/backer, you can fight it out amongst yourselves".
That's why sometimes even projects that very clearly should not have made it through any sort of at-a-glance review process (such as projektor) still make it through, even when it's in KickStarter's very own interest to give that project all the attention they can (such as the KickStarter mobile app project, which was accepted on day N, and suspended on day N+1. Why? We'll never know.
Before any change to the ToS occurs, changes will have to occur internally at the crowdfunding platforms - and that'll be a slow change if it ever happens at all.
For what it's worth, that lawyer is building a case for himself (he's a backer of the project), isn't looking to start a class action lawsuit, has made it very clear that he's not every other backer's lawyer, and has asked others in the state where he's registered - Arizona - to write him only if they're interested. This is not an ambulance chaser. Which you would have known, had you googled:D
oh absolutely not, I did say "and at least you adhere to it yourself" - I've seen my share of hypocrites in traditional funding models just as in crowdfunding - crowdfunding just tends to dupe (if it is a dupe) more people at once, rather than a single lump-sum investor.
Thanks for the update - you did get me wondering. On the other hand... if you already have code, just not code you're perfectly pleased with, and you need to hire an artist to make you some good graphics, but you do already have stand-ins, crowdfunding could still be an excellent platform for you without abandoning your principles, just letting them be more flexible. But I understand where you're coming from, and wish you the best of luck:)
Well that's certainly a cynical point of view, but I can understand why, and at least you adhere to it yourself. How is Project X coming along anyway? To a cynic, that 'donate' button doesn't look all that tempting.
On the other hand, just because it seems implausible doesn't mean it's impossible. Sometimes the exposure from e.g. KickStarter is exactly what you needed - whether that is because you didn't put in enough effort before you went that route or whether that's because outside investors only get convinced after seeing the KickStarter project is moot.
Here's one such example, and I readily accept that it may be a full-on fraud as it has nothing to show except for updates that I could've written just as well, and a photo of the guy in a mountain range (vacationing off backers' money, or genuinely a business trip?): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1116966310/multi-touch-keyboard-and-mouse/
In that project's latest update, they actually admit that the funding they got through KickStarter ended up not being enough, but that the tech company (who showed interest after seeing the KickStarter project) they mentioned in an update prior will be covering the expenses and honor the KickStarter pledges.
So, and I'll stick with your cynical view, if that is all true, then it would be a clear case where the KickStarter project was substantial in the process of getting noticed by the right people. I doubt the project creator would have found that tech company by themselves (being in another continent entirely), and how would that tech company have found him if he was just trying to pitch the idea to banks, private investors and the-usual-suspect VCs?
And if you think KickStarter is 'bad', check out Quirky. Quirky has people pitch in ideas that are completely whack most of the time - but VCs and product design industries do keep an eye on them just in case there's that lone gem in there that they can work with; and Quirky itself is a part of that process, offering their services, contacts, expertise to help make things happen.
Indiegogo requires campaign owners to fufill their Perks as a part of our Terms of Service. Perks are manged solely by campaign owners; we do not guarantee or take any legal responsibility for Perk fulfillment. Contributors can use our Terms of Service as a document in the court of law, should you choose to take legal action against a campaign owner for failing to fulfill a Perk.
( emphasis mine )
So while most platforms (try to) stay away from legal responsibility, you may have recourse against the project creator directly - and you'd certainly do wise to check the terms of the crowdfunding platform of choice.
I think we can all agree that if the project creator takes the money and goes vacationing on a tropical island with it, then the project definitely failed as it was little more than a scam. Unless that's actually what the project was (not applicable to KickStarter, but there's plenty of fund-my-life crowdfunding platforms).
So that leaves failure modes that are a bit more intricate.
Say the developer throws in the towel - so you don't get the 'thing' you pledged for (be that a widget or a book or a movie or whatever) - after trying to make things work, and there's good reason to believe that they did indeed try. That's a failure to deliver, but was the project a failure? Maybe they learned something from it, maybe others can take what they did and expand on it, etc. Personally I still see it as a failure, but in the grand scheme of things, there are people who pledge just because they think the idea is interesting and deserves a chance. If in the end it doesn't work out, at least it was tried, and that's good enough for them.
Then there's those projects that do deliver, but they deliver late. How late is too late? If a movie takes not 3 months to complete as written in the pitch, but ends up taking 9 months instead, does that mean the project failed? You did, after all, get the movie in the end, so how is that failure? Well, if the movie is supposed to be on-topic for fairly recent events (let's say the movie is supposed to come out just before the U.S. presidential elections to make people think about their choice) and ends up being so late that it becomes irrelevant, then I'd say it probably still failed. Otherwise, i.e. if the movie isn't really time-sensitive, then I don't see the problem other than the frustration of having to wait longer than expected to see it. That's enough for people to download movies rather than wait for release in their countries, so movie project creators can take away from that what they wish. For widgets, it's much the same thing. The HexBright Open Source light, for example, is running late - way late - and some people are requesting refunds despite the progress shown in updates. In some ways, it has been overtaken by other flashlights (i.e. brighter, maybe more compact). If that's what a person backed that project for, then that project has failed. On the other hand, it still has the unique programmable features, its grip, the tailcap indicator, and open source implementation - so it still has an edge over other flashlights in that area and those who backed it for those reasons are less likely to consider the project failed.
Then there's projects that promise thing A, but end up delivering thing A'. Recently there was a metal iPhone case, for example, that looked pretty good and - being an iThing project - got plenty of backers. Turns out that once delivered, people realized their signal dropped significantly. Did that project fail, in terms of exploring whether what they wanted to do was actually a good thing? To those who could no longer actually place any calls - yes. To those who still could, and thought their iPhone now looks like the hottest thing since the iPhone - nope. In fact, that project's creator adjusted their FAQ to indicate that some signal loss may be apparent, but if you like the look then you'll just take that for granted. Another project was a capacitive touch stylus for tablets - it initially shipped with a nib that didn't work very well for some people. Did it fail? Largely, no. Why? Because the project creator got right on top of it, had better nibs made, and sent those out at no cost on request.
In this particular project, the Eyez, it really depends on whether or not you believe the project creators' updates (and their lack of updates for a long time does not instill confidence), and whether or not the product is quickly becoming irrelevant ('spy' glasses are available on ebay for cheap - they just generally don't connect to your
Of course you still don't have a real guarantee, I don't have a contract, I can't get a refund.
While you don't have a guarantee, at least one lawyer (registered with AZ state bar) believes you as a project backer do, in fact, have a contract with the project creator.
Therefore any failure to deliver as promised can be seen as a breach of contract, subject to whatever laws apply in your jurisdiction.
That lawyer is exploring filing a court case as a matter of principle. I'd point you to him, but 1. he's limited to AZ and 2. even though he's a lawyer, he's not your lawyer and I don't think he has any interest of becoming it either, limiting himself to a particular project. It's not difficult to Google anyway.
You do also have refund options. For one thing, you can dispute the charge with your credit card issuer (as KickStarter only goes through Amazon at the moment, which wants a credit card). I believe somebody also said you can go through some Amazon hoops, but I haven't really looked into this. But I think the easiest route to begin with is to just ask the project creator about a refund. Many are willing to oblige if there's a good reason (and keep in mind that they do lose money on this, as they can only personally refund the amount they got - which is minus the charges by KickStarter and Amazon).
I don't know if MBAs are needed, but some common business sense may be applicable.
As it is, nearly every project I have backed has run late - anywhere from 2 weeks to 7 months and counting. But projects running late is pretty much par for the course everywhere (and if not running late, then almost certainly over budget or underperforming).
I think backers need to have a bit of common sense as well, though. The HexBright project is a good example. It's running late and yes the guy continued the engineering process even after the project was funded. Then again, the project itself was billed as the "HexBright - Open Source Light" and it was clear from the beginning that while some of the basics were laid down (choice of LED, body shape), there was plenty left to do especially on the Flex (programmable variant). In that case, I think it's actually great that he got a bunch of feedback from backers and even adjusted designs to suit. Those who only backed the project in order to get a cheap, bright flashlight (and thus couldn't care less about it being programmable or open source) may well be dismayed, and I can see where they're coming from - but it's been said before and KickStarter would do well to stress it more: KickStarter is not a store.
That's not to say that project creators should be allowed to get away with just anything, though. The Juicies project is looking like people want to see blood, literally. The Hanfree project is looking like it may even see legal action against it; a backer who is a lawyer believes its failure after successful funding to be a breach of contract between the backer and the creator.
But at some point things will meet in the middle... backers will get a greater realization that they're basically just throwing money at something and hoping for the best, and project creators will realize that at some point they'll have to deliver or they just might be unlucky enough to face the consequences.
We're kind of off-topic from the main question re: games and KickStarter, I guess, so a small bit about that here... KickStarter has always seen game projects, some successful, some not so successful. Yes, the recent Double Fine Adventure success spurred a lot more game devs to jump on the bandwagon, and some are even getting a good deal out of it. I don't think it will lead to any sort of fundamental change in game development, though - no more than the Humble Bundles did. It's just another option out there for both developers and their target audience.
If anything, I think it'll show some indie devs that they may not have to wing it; they can get crowdfunding. In which case - as long as they can do their PR well, as they'll lose the by-association that KickStarter projects enjoy - they might as well go with e.g. 8bitfunding.com or roll their own crowdfunding webpage ( there's a wordpress plugin that makes this easy, for example ).
I know the mission statement probably doesn't care all that much about Slashdot being a news breaker, it's always been more about the discussion, but the discussion becomes a bit stale when the story goes up 18 hours after the rest of the world posted about it.
While I appreciate the desire for timely news, there are also up sides to the delay. One big up side is that the story has somewhat settled down and there's more facts going around than speculation and knee-jerk reactions.
In that respect, though, I do miss Slashback. You'd essentially get the best of both worlds most of the time. On the one hand you'd have articles posted quickly, loads of knee-jerk comments, as well as some more noteworthy comments. On the other, after a few days, there would be a Slashback post summarizing a few of the news articles, developments since the original ones, and sometimes including some of the top comments from the previous posts, which then served as a basis for further discussion with a far greater SNR.
Title: How Has Reporting on Linux Changed in the Last Decade? Description: Steven J. Vaugh-Nichols, who has been writing about Linux nearly forever, explains how much covering it has changed - for the better. For one thing, he says, he no longer has to tell people what Linux is.
[00:00] <TITLE> "Tech Journalist Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols" appears along with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "How as reporting on Linux changed in the last 10 years?" over a view of the interviewee in what appears to be a private residence room.
[00:02] Steven> The last decade, well, you know, the thing is, we've won. We haven't really realized it 'cos we didn't win the way that we thought we would, you know, marching down the streets of Redmond holding torches and Bill Gates fleeing, in a helicopter, petting a white cat as he goes, saying "I'll get you Mr. Linus, you and your little penguins, too!" - stay tuned for the sequel. As a result of that, reporting about it has also sort of changed. Once upon a time, if I were to write anything at all about Linux, I'd have to say what Linux is and go through a lot of background information. I don't need to do that anymore. Instead, what I have to do is, I have to remind people that, you know, Linux is everywhere. So it's a different sort of context. Also, when I wrote about Linux, it used to be I could assume that my audience was pretty technical - because nobody except techies really got into Linux. And, again, it's sort of different now. Everyone sort of knows about Linux, so I don't have to get really technical about it, but again I sort of have to remind them of where Linux is in today's computer world - which is, again, you know, it's everywhere.
[01:30] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Android?" fades in and out of view.
[01:30] Steven> Android is actually, again, it's one of those areas that we're winning in. I mean, sure, all the excitement is about iPhones, but you know Linux - rather, Android - which, again, is just Linux - it's just an embedded Linux, that's all it is, folks! - is pretty much in all these devices. If you have a smartphone, if you have a tablet, if it's not an iPhone, if it's not an iPad, it's almost certainly running Android. The way I see it spinning out is, you know, people who just absolutely have to have that nifty, cool, Apple device.. okay, they're gonna buy that, they'll pay a premium for it. But for everybody else, it's going to be Android.
[02:18] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Is Oracle relevant to Linux?" fades in and out of view.
[02:18] Steven> As far as the patents go, I've been following that pretty darn closely. Not as closely as Pamela Jones over at Groklaw does - and her friends. But, you know, the bottom line is.. out of all the patents that Oracle brought up against Android, only two of those remain. Of those two, their own expert came out and said "Well, the damages from this would probably come to something like, you know, maybe, maybe, high end $70M or $80M. If, if, Google is found guilty." Now, $70M or $80M, I mean that's a lot of money to you and me - but for companies the size of Google and Oracle? I mean, that's a hiccup. I mean, that's a footnote. If you wanna talk about a company that has actually made real money from Android and hasn't had a thing to do with it, the company you wanna talk about is Microsoft. Because they've got all these cross-licensing deals with the OEMs, because the OEMs are a little scared of Microsoft, so they'll just pay off these patent deals without actually trying to fight them. It wouldn't surprise me to know that Microsoft actually makes more money from Android than they do from their Windows Phone or Mobile CE or one of the other various mobile platforms they have now. Oracle, though - You know, it's turned into a non-story.
[03:54] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Oracle L
[00:00] <TITLE> "Plantronics is Working to Help Collaboration with Far-Flung Workers, Suppliers, and Clients" appears along with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Chris Yeich, Geeknet" over a view of Chris sitting in front of a a white (p)leather surface.
[00:03] Chris> With today's increasingly distributed workforce where a worker can work from an office, from home, on the road and even at a coffee shop, collaboration is the name of the game. For IT decision makers it means that they've gotta find new ways to use new technology to help facilitate that collaboration. Unified communications is one way to get there. I had the chance recently to speak with Plantronics about collaboration and unified communications, and here's what they had to say.
[00:30] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Karen Auby, Senior Manager, Public Relations, Plantronics" fades in and out of view.
[00:30] Karen> Plantronics has really been focused on understanding how businesses are working today, because the idea of going to a place to work and clocking in at 9 and leaving at 5 - it's sort of an outdated method. Now, people are working wherever they are, whenever they can, and just really producing results that are meaningful for a company. So I can understand it's a big challenge for IT to be able to keep everyone connected as they become more distributed. Plantronics has really been looking at how to help our own employees collaborate, because we have people who work in Europe.. we are a global company, we have offices in Asia, and in Europe.. and keeping them all connected is extremely important for product development, for marketing, for business development, for finance - regardless of the area within the organization, collaboration is really important, and it's something that Plantronics is very, very focused on.
[01:25] Chris> So when it comes to unified communications you [...] bunch of different types of technologies. Where do you see some of the biggest hurdles for IT managers in being able to effectively implement a broad-based unified communication strategy? What is some of the stumbling blocks that you see based on your experience working with IT orgs?
[01:44] Karen> Well, to be honest, I think a lot of it is end user adoption and getting end users excited and interested and feeling like IT isn't pushing down another thing they need to learn, but actually understand - as an end user - understanding "Hey, this is actually gonna make my job easier - this is gonna make life better for me, and less frustrating." So I think the importance of simplicity and training and ease of use really can't be overstated. If you want unified communications or any collaboration tools to really affect ROI, affect the bottom line, affect innovation within a company.
[02:20] Chris> One last question for you: So Plantronics - a lot of focus on audio quality. Tell me a little about how that component, that specific component of audio, fits into the overarching - again, the umbrella theme of - unified communications, knowing that we've got tools like Skype chat, instant messaging. Where does audio fit in?
[02:39] Karen> There's so much emotion that comes out in voice that you don't get in text. There's a difference between "Hey, great job" and "Hey! Great job!", and so we really believe in the power of voice. So you can get business done so much quicker sometimes just by picking up the phone, rather than back-and-forth e-mails. I, personally, think that - and Plantronics definitely, the company, we believe that - voice is a natural way to communicate and that you see tools that embrace voice as the easiest, most synchronous, communication method is really one-on-one voice calls, and/or conference calls as well. As f
Title: Leonid Shtilman Says Many Computer Users are Overprivileged Description: The more privileges, the more risk of getting hacked and having Bad People do Bad Things to your company's computers.
[00:00] <TITLE> "Privilege Management and Application Control Solutions Are Essential security Tools" appears over a stylized view of the interviewee, sitting in what appears to be a food court. The SlashdotTV logo bar appears in the bottom and reads "Leonid Shtilman - CEO, Viewfinity"
[00:02] Leonid> My name is Leonid Shtilman, and I'm CEO of Viewfinity. Viewfinity as a company started 4 years ago, and the main business is providing security solution as Software-as-a-Service. What kind of security solution? It's management of privileges of end users. By privileges we mean, by the end point are you administrator, are you standard users, or, shortly, what you can do and what you can not do on your personal computer or, in the case of administrators of servers, what you can do as administrator of server.
[00:43] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "You have a new product coming out / Can you tell us a little about it?"
[00:44] Leonid> The problem with privileges is that if you want to do it granularly - I mean that you say "You are not administrator but I will allow you to certain functions as administrator" - the problem is how to manage those requests. One person, let's call it developer say "I cannot live without full administrative privileges", our software is telling him "You can live as standard users, but we will allow you, as administrator, to use your Visual Studio" or "... we can allow you, as administrator, to use another tool." But generally speaking, we don't want you will be master of the universe and you will do whatever with you computer. Why? Because it's dangerous. So this account, somebody can get more important and most sensitive corporative servers, and this is our main business. The business how to manage enormous amount of requests to have administrative rights for this or for another purpose.
[01:52] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "Those are IT benefits. What about business benefits?"
[01:52] Leonid> I can give you an example: Usually end users are standard users let's say, in a bank. And then some of them is going to travel to conference, like this one. In this case he needs to print, he cannot print; because he is standard user he cannot install printer. Or "I need to use particular website with ActiveX on it", you can not use it because you're standard user. So for business is how to have still secure environment but not to disturb business. This is what we are all about. Not to disturb business process, but still stay secure.
[02:35] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "What benefits does your product give specifically to software developers?"
[02:36] Leonid> So, actually, it's two benefit. One benefit is for the managers of this group of developers. The managers will be sure if they will use our software that the environment is secure, they will not afraid of, what is called sometimes, 'insider', that insider will do some damage. So it is a protection of organization from developers. Another benefit is that with our software, developers can actually.. they can develop any software which requires administrative rights without thinking twice because this software will be later managed with our package, package of Viewfinity. So Viewfinity will take care who can use this software, who will be blocked from using this software, and so on. So it's more freedom for developers, and more secure environment for the managers of development team.
[03:38] <TITLE> The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "One last question - From a top-level perspective, what is the num
Title: Blue Gecko is an 11 Year Old Remote Database Administration Startup Description: Keeping the startup mentality is essential for success, says co-founder Sarah Novotny
[00:00] <TITLE> "Making Money Doing Remote Database Administration" fades in superimposed over a view of Sarah Novotny sitting on a leater softa in a casual-looking room. The SlashdotTV logo bar in the bottom reads "Blue Gecko co-founder Sarah Novotny".
[00:02] Sarah> We're here today at my company, Blue Gecko. I founded this company 11, almost 12, years ago now with two business partners that I met at Amazon. The whole idea that we took here, away from operational work from Amazon, was big company operations are important and broad, and all of the different processes that are involved in that can be applied to smaller to medium sized businesses, or businesses that have specific technology units that really aren't related to their core business. So we wanted to be able to help them come to good, solid, robust technology practices that we knew from big web and Amazon years and years past. My business partners here are Chuck Edwards and JJ Ecker, and we've been working with each other for almost 12 years now.
[00:53] Sarah> Remote database administration which is our core business, means that we really can administer servers and services anywhere in the world, and at the moment we have customers in Asia-Pacific, so we've got some customers in Japan, we've got customers in New Zealand, we have customers in Europe, in Denmark, and in Switzerland, and then we have customers all over the U.S, and I think we may even have a couple of Canadian customers at this point.
[01:23] <TITLE> SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out, reading "How do you get new clients?"
[01:23] Sarah> We actually have found that customers come to us for referrals - we don't do a lot of outreach. Most of the customers that we have received and brought in on board, have been because they've had relationships with other people, and this is one of the great parts of community. Both Open Source community in general, but generally the tech community is that we all have favorites, and we all have people and services that we trust and then those can then give sort of this second level of trust to share. So you get sort of an associated trust that passes on: "Oh yeah, you should work with Blue Gecko - they're great!"
[02:03] Sarah> Yeah, 10 years has been a really big mark to have passed that, especially with a business that is a really strange blend of Open Source support as well as proprietary support. Part of our business is Oracle and Oracle E-Business Suite support, SQL Server support, and then part of our business is very open databases-focused, so PostgreS and MySQL, and Drizzle as well. I would say we still have the start-up mentality. We always had a really strange blend though of start-up and scrappy and getting it done, and very process-driven enterprise. Because we have customers that are both; we have total start-up "Oh God I just got my VC and it's burning a hole in my pocket!", and then we have the very large companies, Fortune 100 companies, that have us working on a particular stack, and they are much more process-driven. So we've always had kind of that blend. But, because this is operational support, we work all the time. Someone here is always awake, someone that works for Blue Gecko is always awake, someone is always looking at the queues and answering phones, answering pagers, making sure that our monitoring is watching things appropriately. So as long as someone is covering something, you can pretty much work whenever you want - it's just a matter of saying "I will be available from this time to this time", and making sure that there's coverage for the different business areas, business units.
[03:23] Sarah> The big pitch to people who might be a small start-up, or worried about being able to control the employee, the thing
There is only one move in which White can force a draw - and to find out what it is, you'll have to RTFA.
Nah, I'm just pulling your leg, here you go..
We now know the exact outcome of this position, assuming perfect play, of course. I know your next question, so I am going to pre-empt it: there is only one move that draws for White, and that is, somewhat surprisingly, 3.Be2. Every other move loses by force.
Anybody really interested in the details will still RTFA anyway and the rest of us won't be left hanging with a teaser.
I've been reading about this thing ever since the story broke and found plenty of apps that do more or less the same thing - it's only after Cult of Mac reported about it that it seems the outrage really took off... and even then still only for this app.
The most worrying story I read was that people (they mention girls/women. a lot. pulling at the ol' heartstrings, I suppose, as the app can list men just as well) should indeed be aware of what information they put out there when they go and sign up for facebook, foursquare, etc. If you feel a "but" coming, here goes: BUT, that doesn't mean that people should be allowed to just take that information and use it for their own purposes.
They likened it to the "with what she was wearing, she had it coming" adage. Which is a horrible thing, and a horrible comparison as it immediately conjures up images of sexual assault / rape. In reality, the comparison is more akin to "with what she was wearing, she shouldn't complain that somebody was looking". If somebody walks down the street dressed up as Batman, I'm going to look. If somebody walks down the street in shorts that are little more than panties made out of denim, I'm going to look (female or not), because who wouldn't? I'm not going to suggest that if you're wearing that, you want to get sexually assaulted, and perhaps you don't even want to get looked at - but in the latter case you really just have a poor grasp on reality.
So if somebody puts up information on foursquare about where they are, and I find that information, think the person looks cute, yes - I may just google them, and find their facebook, and then take a closer look. Is that creepy? Well if I look up your favorite movie, drink, etc., walk into the establishment, sit down close to you and order your favorite drink and start yapping away about that movie.. yes. But then I'm a creep - that doesn't make finding that information 'creepy'. It's just human curiosity. Millions of people don't find it one bit creepy when it's a story in the latest tabloid / Cosmo / etc.
And yet that is exactly the sort of thing that is being argued in these articles. That when you put something on facebook, you're actually only putting it up there for the purposes that you want it to be used for. Even if you've made it public for the world, that you get full control over how that information is used. So you want to be found with foursquare because that's how you get your cheaper drink, but you don't want anybody -but- that establishment to know that. Of course the establishment has the exact opposing desire: they want as many people checked in there as possible. Neither of them are likely to 'want' apps like these to exist, but the latter two desires are completely opposite.
So what is the solution? Why, ban these apps, of course. Never mind that the information can still be looked up manually (or by means of other apps), as long as the threat that's on the radar has been eliminated.
One suggestion that I did find interesting was getting a notification when somebody uses your information. Unfortunately, that would be technically a horrible mess, and with things like foursquare, how quickly would you turn those notifications off when you get dozens per day from random passers-by / people doing web queries / etc?
There was a great opportunity here to teach people about their privacy settings, but it has gotten completely undermined by simply labeling the app as 'creepy', 'stalker app', etc. and the defense that just because you're telling the world where you are, that doesn't mean the world should actually be listening.
This includes Cult of Mac, whose latter stories have focused more on the app than on the privacy issues with foursquare/facebook. Though I wouldn't expect much different, seeing as Cult of Mac uses a comment syndication service (Vanilla) which, in part, accepts facebook logins. Which in turn yields your facebook profile image. Which in turn yields your facebook profile, no matter what you make your user name in the comment appear to be. Doctor, heal thyself.
Title: David Maman, Co-Founder and CTO of GreenSQL, Talks About Database Security Description: GreenSQL creates and maintains both proprietary and open source database security software
[00:00] <TITLE> "GreenSQL is a Database Security Solution..." appears above the SlashdotTV logo bar with "David Maman - Co-Founder & CTO, GreenSQL" in the bottom of the view of a still shot from the interview, showing David Maman over a dark background.
[00:02] David> My name is David Maman, I'm CTO and founded of GreenSQL. GreenSQL is a company which provides a solution for database security as well as performance and compliance, eventually. GreenSQL started as an Open Source project, actually. In 2006, me and a friend started a very, very nice and easy-going Open Source project, and the Open Source project up 'til today is the only solution available for MySQL database - to secure it. When I'm saying "securing it", it's not just about hardening password, but it's truly identifying threads in queries running to the database, and detecting it. Even though it was a very simple solution that we have invested only a few hours in, each one of us, in our free time, the first 3 years we had more than 100,000 downloads of the Open Source project. The Open Source project was so common that we started receiving a lot of feature requests and a lot of support requests for actually huge organizations - that we were surprised as well. As time passed we've seen that there is an unmet need in the market; not only that enterprise companies - and I'm talking about high-end telecom and enterprise companies got great solution that they can buy, like Imperva acquired by IBM, and like Secerno which Oracle have purchased 2 years ago, and so on, and so on - but medium and even large organization that can not afford $200k for a basic solution, don't have any solution in the market. We raised capital, and we started a company and we developed from scratch a new solution, and we call it unified database security. It's a software-based solution that provides you database security, database auditing, database performance and database masking in one extremely easy to manage, to install, and to troubleshoot software-based solution. We started sales less than a year ago, and we are going high and up 'til today we got more than 2,000 downloads per month. The solution is very easy to use, so because we have started from Open Source - and even though it's a completely different solution, that's got nothing to do with the Open Source - we are maintaining the Open Source, but not in a high level. Even though it's a very easy and simple to use solution, we have decided to also give a free version, so you get the security for free. You can pay only for additional features like auditing, like masking, like performance and so on, and so on. So we get more than 2,000 new installations per month at customer premises, and we support, currently, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgreS, and very soon Oracle as well.
[02:54] David> As a developer, you never take into consideration the entire life cycle of your information, the information itself that is eventually stored inside databases - and it doesn't matter which type of application you develop, and which platform you use, eventually the information is stored inside a database. Even though you can clear it as "it's okay, and my database is secured", but when unauthorized access is being accessed to your database, unauthorized users, unauthorized application, all the big noise surrounding SQL injection attacks for example, how you can defend from SQL injections. So naturally, the good developers will say that "I don't need that! I know how to write a secure code!" - and I'm sure most of the people do know how to write secure code. The problem is that you use a lot of legacy applications and a lot of legacy code, that you
New rules require British Airways and other airlines flying to certain airports outside America to submit passengers' personal data to US authorities. [...] Even if the flight plan steers well clear of US territory, travellers whom the Americans regard as suspicious will be denied boarding.
Emphasis mine. This statement is what is supposed to re-assure us that it's ridiculous. ( Not to say that it isn't, but keep reading... )
Washington has extended the obligation to air routes that over-fly US airspace, such as Heathrow to Mexico City or Gatwick to Havana.
Emphasis again mine. So here's the twist. If you fly through a particular nation's airspace, are you 'steering clear of' that nation's territory? Wikipedia (don't worry, dictionaries appear to agree) states...
"Airspace means the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere."
It's still ridiculous because it makes little sense. Not just because of the notion that you wouldn't actually set afoot in said territory, but because the few cases in which you might (such as an emergency requiring diverting to one of that nation's airports) also apply to many other routes that don't cross that airspace but still come close enough for the pilots to decide to, or be forced to, land there - security clearance issues or no security clearance issues.
Slashdot Mirror
SuN! SuN studio! aaaaaa! I curse thee, lameness filter!
Title: Sub Studio: Where Rock and Roll Was Born
Description: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and other greats recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN. It's still there and still analog. Timothy lord talked with sun recording engineer Matt Ross-Spang...
00:00 - <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Sun Studio in Memphis, TN... where Rock and Roll was born" appears over a shot of a red "SUN STUDIO" neon sign in a window.
00:02 - <TITLE>
A shot of Timothy Lord with the Sun Studio building behind him appears.
00:02 - Timothy>
Studio engineer Matt Ross-Spang wasn't even born when most of Sun's most famous records were cut.
Nonetheless, he's thought a lot about what makes them sound the way they do.
He's gonna talk us through some of the tech.
00:11 - <TITLE>
Various shots of audio equipment appear; a Scully 280 reel to reel tape machine and a mixing panel.
(1), is played in the background.
00:18 - <TITLE>
The interviewee, Matt Ross-Spang, is shown sitting in Sun Studio control room, with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Studio Engineer Matt Ross-Spang"
00:18 - Matt> ... -
Around 30's, 40's, is prolly, you know, when they start making decent recording stuff that you can still use besides, like, a wax recorder or something.
So I've got that.. a bunch of microphones are from the 40's and 50's.. 60's - I've got pretty much every decade down.
Of course Ampexes are from the 50's, those mono tape machines that I use, and the Scully is from the 50's and 60's.
The newest tape machine would be the Studer a80
00:43 - <TITLE>
The view zooms in on the tape machine discussed before zooming back out.
00:43 - Matt> ... - which is kind of like the Cadillac of tape machines - they made the best ones and they were the last makers of the best tape machines.
00:50 - <TITLE>
"Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis is played in the background.
00:50 - Matt>
Really high quality tape machines.
You'll find them in all the major studios running tape.
Some people like 'm, some people don't - they're not.. as far as tape machine goes, they don't have that crazy tape characteristic as much as the Scully, because a Scully is a bunch of lead, and this one is like, you know, trying to make it as clean as possible.
But they sound, really cool.
So that's probably the most modern tape machine I have for sure.
01:20 - Matt> ... -
And then you got the outboard gear.
That's the same thing, 50's
01:23 - <TITLE>
The camera pans up slightly to show the gear being discussed before panning back down.
01:23 - Matt> ... - there's some stuff from, you know, few years ago, up there.
It's stuff that I like, really unique stuff.
01:28 - Timothy>
Does anything stick out from the older, from the 50's and 60's, that is, you know, outboard gear that you're really happy to use?
01;34 - Matt> ... -
Well, I think, if you're talking about effects or outboard.. 50's, I mean, in the 50's they used - besides a real room - for reverb they used a plate in the 60's.
Plate reverb is something digital will never be able to emulate,
01:49 - <TITLE>
"Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins is played in the background.
01:49 - Matt> ... - and tape echo.
They've got plenty of plugins that do tape echo, but you gotta hear the tape echo, you've gotta smell the tape to get tape echo, and it's.. especially for Sun, if I don't use tape echo then I need to f... get a new job. *laughs*
02:06 - Timothy>
Is your job pretty safe?
As an analog specializing engineer?
02:11 - Matt>
Yeah - I mean, you know, I do freelancing stuff.. other places, and I, you know, I'm not saying Pro Tools sucks.
I'm not saying I have to cut the tape and I can only use 50's gear.
I've gone to studios
Yeah, that's just bad game design, and something that does get exploited in other ways as well. People with a 3 monitor setup in an FPS, for example, can get a nice wide view that people on a single monitor cannot; even if they changed the field of view setting, everything would get compressed into that single screen.
Unfortunately it's not something that's easily dealt with short of hard-limiting the screen real-estate that's actually used by the game.. and then you'd just get gamers complaining that on their 4:3 screen, only a 16:9 portion is used, or vice versa. And if you have to use the entire screen, somebody is going to benefit one way or another. Unless you have some OSD element that you can mess with (in 16:9 vs 16:10, the extra 16:1 could be covered up with an OSD element that is always on-screen, e.g., while in the 16:9 version where it would overlap the view it fades out when not in use).
don't hate the bezel, embrace the bezel!
Besides, do away with the touchpad, it'll be a touchscreen panel anyway.
If I just measure the keyboard part of my notebook, it's about 28cm*12cm, or 21:9. Which means the bezel wouldn't be any much 'wider' than it is now (although I realize modern notebooks have thinner bezels.. except in the top where they fit a webcam).
And given that it's a nice high-res 4k display, you can fit a website within a 4:3 subsection if you'd prefer - you'd have s[ace on the left/right for other things - other windows, perhaps :)
Except that the resolution quoted is 1366x768. That's not even close to 1080. It's enough to allow it to be called 'HD' at 720p, though - which is why your argument still stands; as long as people can watch a video and do some facebook/twitter/e-mail/general web browsing, they don't really need the higher resolution.
Higher resolution is available - it just generally costs a pretty penny more and usually commands a larger screen.
uh oh... cue the aspect ratio people.. the ones complaining about 16:9 and saying 16:10 is so much better for computer work, only to be snubbed by the 4:3 people who don't know why anybody would want to work with any sort of 'wide screen' monitor, who in turn will be ridiculed by the CAD people stroking their 5:4 monitors, while the 16:9 folk just roll their eyes, and their monitor by 90 degrees, and put on a trollface.
Now... where's my 32" 4k 3D 12bit 2.39:1...
That's just the thing though, isn't it?
The people who are going to complain the loudest are exactly those who should have just gone and gotten that Maglite (or Fenix or whatever), because all they saw was a flashlight that was bright and relatively cheap (at the time anyway).
The people who are defending that project tooth & nail are exactly those who don't need a FAQ spelling out for them what they could do with the programmable feature, the indicators, the accelerometer or open design - because they already know, are simply curious, or think it will somehow drive development of flashlights forward.
Can't blame them either - not too long ago, flashlights only had on and off. Then people said that the on was too bright, so manufacturers added a dimmer mode. Then security people said it'd be nice if they could make it strobe, so manufacturers added strobe capability. Then somebody thought it'd be a good idea if the light could do an SOS, so manufacturers added a strobe function. ( Up to this point, I've described the Fenix LD-10 ).
Now this guy comes along and basically says "it's all good and well that manufacturers add modes based on popular input, but why not just open it all up? If somebody wants to send morse code, let them do it. If somebody wants to make it pulse, let them do it. If somebody wants to make it fade in/out by turning one's wrist, let them do it".
It's that what appeals to the latter group of backers, and probably what drew Rip!ey's interest as well.
Call them fools because you think a flashlight should only have an 'on' switch, but in the end - if that project ever delivers, I do have to agree - they'd get much more value (from their pov) from that flashlight than they would from 'a decent Maglite'.
Thus it goes for pretty much all of the 'widget' type projects at KickStarter - count the iPhone docks, then try to figure out why anybody would buy one of those instead of the $5-$25 items at the nearest electronics warehouse. I certainly can't - but plenty of successful, and delivered, projects show that there's lots of people who can.
One thing that does set the HexBright project apart (having looked at the comments), is that it seems like its project creator is in fact handling refunds from those who ask for it.
I have absolutely no idea how KickStarter's vetting process works. In fact, it's extremely difficult to communicate with KickStarter at all.
Yes, if you're Tim Schafer with a $3M project, you bet you can get their staff to appear by live feed and broadcast to the world.
If you're a backer wondering why KickStarter just canceled a project, they will tell you that they don't comment on that. If you're that project's creator, they will tell you that they don't comment on that. If you run into any problems whatsoever, you'd be lucky to get the form reply saying that... the don't comment on that, but have a read through their ToS in which they absolve themselves from everything.
This is not much different from other crowdfunding platforms, mind you - I suppose it's an issue of scale.
You can't actually look into each and every project with a fine-toothed comb. There's an average of 3 projects posted every 5 minutes, more on Mondays (well, this week it was on Tuesday). It's just undoable without hiring staff to specifically do this - and that would just cut into profits for what.. the minute number of projects that end up being actually fraudulent and only slightly larger number of projects that fail to deliver what was promised, especially given the nuances I outlined in my post?
It's much easier to just say "hey, we're just a facilitator - if you have a problem with the creator/backer, you can fight it out amongst yourselves".
That's why sometimes even projects that very clearly should not have made it through any sort of at-a-glance review process (such as projektor) still make it through, even when it's in KickStarter's very own interest to give that project all the attention they can (such as the KickStarter mobile app project, which was accepted on day N, and suspended on day N+1. Why? We'll never know.
Before any change to the ToS occurs, changes will have to occur internally at the crowdfunding platforms - and that'll be a slow change if it ever happens at all.
For what it's worth, that lawyer is building a case for himself (he's a backer of the project), isn't looking to start a class action lawsuit, has made it very clear that he's not every other backer's lawyer, and has asked others in the state where he's registered - Arizona - to write him only if they're interested. This is not an ambulance chaser. :D
Which you would have known, had you googled
oh absolutely not, I did say "and at least you adhere to it yourself" - I've seen my share of hypocrites in traditional funding models just as in crowdfunding - crowdfunding just tends to dupe (if it is a dupe) more people at once, rather than a single lump-sum investor.
Thanks for the update - you did get me wondering. On the other hand... if you already have code, just not code you're perfectly pleased with, and you need to hire an artist to make you some good graphics, but you do already have stand-ins, crowdfunding could still be an excellent platform for you without abandoning your principles, just letting them be more flexible. :)
But I understand where you're coming from, and wish you the best of luck
Well that's certainly a cynical point of view, but I can understand why, and at least you adhere to it yourself. How is Project X coming along anyway? To a cynic, that 'donate' button doesn't look all that tempting.
On the other hand, just because it seems implausible doesn't mean it's impossible. Sometimes the exposure from e.g. KickStarter is exactly what you needed - whether that is because you didn't put in enough effort before you went that route or whether that's because outside investors only get convinced after seeing the KickStarter project is moot.
Here's one such example, and I readily accept that it may be a full-on fraud as it has nothing to show except for updates that I could've written just as well, and a photo of the guy in a mountain range (vacationing off backers' money, or genuinely a business trip?):
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1116966310/multi-touch-keyboard-and-mouse/
In that project's latest update, they actually admit that the funding they got through KickStarter ended up not being enough, but that the tech company (who showed interest after seeing the KickStarter project) they mentioned in an update prior will be covering the expenses and honor the KickStarter pledges.
So, and I'll stick with your cynical view, if that is all true, then it would be a clear case where the KickStarter project was substantial in the process of getting noticed by the right people. I doubt the project creator would have found that tech company by themselves (being in another continent entirely), and how would that tech company have found him if he was just trying to pitch the idea to banks, private investors and the-usual-suspect VCs?
And if you think KickStarter is 'bad', check out Quirky. Quirky has people pitch in ideas that are completely whack most of the time - but VCs and product design industries do keep an eye on them just in case there's that lone gem in there that they can work with; and Quirky itself is a part of that process, offering their services, contacts, expertise to help make things happen.
Reply to self, would post anon if there weren't that annoying timer telling me it's only been 15 minutes since I last posted when I do so.
----
IndieGoGo, another crowdfunding platform, does actually spell out the option of taking the project creator to court yourself:
http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20501033-how-does-indiegogo-deal-with-fraudulent-campaigns
( emphasis mine )
So while most platforms (try to) stay away from legal responsibility, you may have recourse against the project creator directly - and you'd certainly do wise to check the terms of the crowdfunding platform of choice.
Failure depends on your personal definition.
I think we can all agree that if the project creator takes the money and goes vacationing on a tropical island with it, then the project definitely failed as it was little more than a scam. Unless that's actually what the project was (not applicable to KickStarter, but there's plenty of fund-my-life crowdfunding platforms).
So that leaves failure modes that are a bit more intricate.
Say the developer throws in the towel - so you don't get the 'thing' you pledged for (be that a widget or a book or a movie or whatever) - after trying to make things work, and there's good reason to believe that they did indeed try.
That's a failure to deliver, but was the project a failure? Maybe they learned something from it, maybe others can take what they did and expand on it, etc.
Personally I still see it as a failure, but in the grand scheme of things, there are people who pledge just because they think the idea is interesting and deserves a chance. If in the end it doesn't work out, at least it was tried, and that's good enough for them.
Then there's those projects that do deliver, but they deliver late. How late is too late?
If a movie takes not 3 months to complete as written in the pitch, but ends up taking 9 months instead, does that mean the project failed?
You did, after all, get the movie in the end, so how is that failure?
Well, if the movie is supposed to be on-topic for fairly recent events (let's say the movie is supposed to come out just before the U.S. presidential elections to make people think about their choice) and ends up being so late that it becomes irrelevant, then I'd say it probably still failed. Otherwise, i.e. if the movie isn't really time-sensitive, then I don't see the problem other than the frustration of having to wait longer than expected to see it. That's enough for people to download movies rather than wait for release in their countries, so movie project creators can take away from that what they wish.
For widgets, it's much the same thing. The HexBright Open Source light, for example, is running late - way late - and some people are requesting refunds despite the progress shown in updates. In some ways, it has been overtaken by other flashlights (i.e. brighter, maybe more compact). If that's what a person backed that project for, then that project has failed. On the other hand, it still has the unique programmable features, its grip, the tailcap indicator, and open source implementation - so it still has an edge over other flashlights in that area and those who backed it for those reasons are less likely to consider the project failed.
Then there's projects that promise thing A, but end up delivering thing A'.
Recently there was a metal iPhone case, for example, that looked pretty good and - being an iThing project - got plenty of backers. Turns out that once delivered, people realized their signal dropped significantly.
Did that project fail, in terms of exploring whether what they wanted to do was actually a good thing?
To those who could no longer actually place any calls - yes.
To those who still could, and thought their iPhone now looks like the hottest thing since the iPhone - nope.
In fact, that project's creator adjusted their FAQ to indicate that some signal loss may be apparent, but if you like the look then you'll just take that for granted.
Another project was a capacitive touch stylus for tablets - it initially shipped with a nib that didn't work very well for some people. Did it fail? Largely, no. Why? Because the project creator got right on top of it, had better nibs made, and sent those out at no cost on request.
In this particular project, the Eyez, it really depends on whether or not you believe the project creators' updates (and their lack of updates for a long time does not instill confidence), and whether or not the product is quickly becoming irrelevant ('spy' glasses are available on ebay for cheap - they just generally don't connect to your
While you don't have a guarantee, at least one lawyer (registered with AZ state bar) believes you as a project backer do, in fact, have a contract with the project creator.
Therefore any failure to deliver as promised can be seen as a breach of contract, subject to whatever laws apply in your jurisdiction.
That lawyer is exploring filing a court case as a matter of principle. I'd point you to him, but 1. he's limited to AZ and 2. even though he's a lawyer, he's not your lawyer and I don't think he has any interest of becoming it either, limiting himself to a particular project. It's not difficult to Google anyway.
You do also have refund options. For one thing, you can dispute the charge with your credit card issuer (as KickStarter only goes through Amazon at the moment, which wants a credit card). I believe somebody also said you can go through some Amazon hoops, but I haven't really looked into this.
But I think the easiest route to begin with is to just ask the project creator about a refund. Many are willing to oblige if there's a good reason (and keep in mind that they do lose money on this, as they can only personally refund the amount they got - which is minus the charges by KickStarter and Amazon).
I don't know if MBAs are needed, but some common business sense may be applicable.
As it is, nearly every project I have backed has run late - anywhere from 2 weeks to 7 months and counting.
But projects running late is pretty much par for the course everywhere (and if not running late, then almost certainly over budget or underperforming).
I think backers need to have a bit of common sense as well, though.
The HexBright project is a good example. It's running late and yes the guy continued the engineering process even after the project was funded. Then again, the project itself was billed as the "HexBright - Open Source Light" and it was clear from the beginning that while some of the basics were laid down (choice of LED, body shape), there was plenty left to do especially on the Flex (programmable variant). In that case, I think it's actually great that he got a bunch of feedback from backers and even adjusted designs to suit.
Those who only backed the project in order to get a cheap, bright flashlight (and thus couldn't care less about it being programmable or open source) may well be dismayed, and I can see where they're coming from - but it's been said before and KickStarter would do well to stress it more: KickStarter is not a store.
That's not to say that project creators should be allowed to get away with just anything, though.
The Juicies project is looking like people want to see blood, literally.
The Hanfree project is looking like it may even see legal action against it; a backer who is a lawyer believes its failure after successful funding to be a breach of contract between the backer and the creator.
But at some point things will meet in the middle... backers will get a greater realization that they're basically just throwing money at something and hoping for the best, and project creators will realize that at some point they'll have to deliver or they just might be unlucky enough to face the consequences.
We're kind of off-topic from the main question re: games and KickStarter, I guess, so a small bit about that here...
KickStarter has always seen game projects, some successful, some not so successful. Yes, the recent Double Fine Adventure success spurred a lot more game devs to jump on the bandwagon, and some are even getting a good deal out of it. I don't think it will lead to any sort of fundamental change in game development, though - no more than the Humble Bundles did. It's just another option out there for both developers and their target audience.
If anything, I think it'll show some indie devs that they may not have to wing it; they can get crowdfunding. In which case - as long as they can do their PR well, as they'll lose the by-association that KickStarter projects enjoy - they might as well go with e.g. 8bitfunding.com or roll their own crowdfunding webpage ( there's a wordpress plugin that makes this easy, for example ).
While I appreciate the desire for timely news, there are also up sides to the delay.
One big up side is that the story has somewhat settled down and there's more facts going around than speculation and knee-jerk reactions.
In that respect, though, I do miss Slashback. You'd essentially get the best of both worlds most of the time.
On the one hand you'd have articles posted quickly, loads of knee-jerk comments, as well as some more noteworthy comments.
On the other, after a few days, there would be a Slashback post summarizing a few of the news articles, developments since the original ones, and sometimes including some of the top comments from the previous posts, which then served as a basis for further discussion with a far greater SNR.
http://slashdot.org/archive.pl?op=topics&keyword=slashback
( Look for the ones beginning with "Slashback:" )
Title: How Has Reporting on Linux Changed in the Last Decade?
Description: Steven J. Vaugh-Nichols, who has been writing about Linux nearly forever, explains how much covering it has changed - for the better. For one thing, he says, he no longer has to tell people what Linux is.
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Tech Journalist Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols" appears along with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "How as reporting on Linux changed in the last 10 years?" over a view of the interviewee in what appears to be a private residence room.
[00:02] Steven>
The last decade, well, you know, the thing is, we've won.
We haven't really realized it 'cos we didn't win the way that we thought we would, you know, marching down the streets of Redmond holding torches and Bill Gates fleeing, in a helicopter, petting a white cat as he goes, saying "I'll get you Mr. Linus, you and your little penguins, too!" - stay tuned for the sequel.
As a result of that, reporting about it has also sort of changed.
Once upon a time, if I were to write anything at all about Linux, I'd have to say what Linux is and go through a lot of background information.
I don't need to do that anymore.
Instead, what I have to do is, I have to remind people that, you know, Linux is everywhere.
So it's a different sort of context.
Also, when I wrote about Linux, it used to be I could assume that my audience was pretty technical - because nobody except techies really got into Linux.
And, again, it's sort of different now.
Everyone sort of knows about Linux, so I don't have to get really technical about it, but again I sort of have to remind them of where Linux is in today's computer world - which is, again, you know, it's everywhere.
[01:30] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Android?" fades in and out of view.
[01:30] Steven>
Android is actually, again, it's one of those areas that we're winning in.
I mean, sure, all the excitement is about iPhones, but you know Linux - rather, Android - which, again, is just Linux - it's just an embedded Linux, that's all it is, folks! - is pretty much in all these devices.
If you have a smartphone, if you have a tablet, if it's not an iPhone, if it's not an iPad, it's almost certainly running Android.
The way I see it spinning out is, you know, people who just absolutely have to have that nifty, cool, Apple device.. okay, they're gonna buy that, they'll pay a premium for it.
But for everybody else, it's going to be Android.
[02:18] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Is Oracle relevant to Linux?" fades in and out of view.
[02:18] Steven>
As far as the patents go, I've been following that pretty darn closely.
Not as closely as Pamela Jones over at Groklaw does - and her friends.
But, you know, the bottom line is.. out of all the patents that Oracle brought up against Android, only two of those remain.
Of those two, their own expert came out and said "Well, the damages from this would probably come to something like, you know, maybe, maybe, high end $70M or $80M. If, if, Google is found guilty."
Now, $70M or $80M, I mean that's a lot of money to you and me - but for companies the size of Google and Oracle?
I mean, that's a hiccup.
I mean, that's a footnote.
If you wanna talk about a company that has actually made real money from Android and hasn't had a thing to do with it, the company you wanna talk about is Microsoft.
Because they've got all these cross-licensing deals with the OEMs, because the OEMs are a little scared of Microsoft, so they'll just pay off these patent deals without actually trying to fight them.
It wouldn't surprise me to know that Microsoft actually makes more money from Android than they do from their Windows Phone or Mobile CE or one of the other various mobile platforms they have now.
Oracle, though - You know, it's turned into a non-story.
[03:54] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "What about Oracle L
Title: Plantronics Helps Make Remote Workers' Lives Easier
Description: Better sound = better communications
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Plantronics is Working to Help Collaboration with Far-Flung Workers, Suppliers, and Clients" appears along with the SlashdotTV logo bar reading "Chris Yeich, Geeknet" over a view of Chris sitting in front of a a white (p)leather surface.
[00:03] Chris>
With today's increasingly distributed workforce where a worker can work from an office, from home, on the road and even at a coffee shop, collaboration is the name of the game.
For IT decision makers it means that they've gotta find new ways to use new technology to help facilitate that collaboration.
Unified communications is one way to get there.
I had the chance recently to speak with Plantronics about collaboration and unified communications, and here's what they had to say.
[00:30] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar with "Karen Auby, Senior Manager, Public Relations, Plantronics" fades in and out of view.
[00:30] Karen>
Plantronics has really been focused on understanding how businesses are working today, because the idea of going to a place to work and clocking in at 9 and leaving at 5 - it's sort of an outdated method.
Now, people are working wherever they are, whenever they can, and just really producing results that are meaningful for a company.
So I can understand it's a big challenge for IT to be able to keep everyone connected as they become more distributed.
Plantronics has really been looking at how to help our own employees collaborate, because we have people who work in Europe.. we are a global company, we have offices in Asia, and in Europe.. and keeping them all connected is extremely important for product development, for marketing, for business development, for finance - regardless of the area within the organization, collaboration is really important, and it's something that Plantronics is very, very focused on.
[01:25] Chris>
So when it comes to unified communications you [...] bunch of different types of technologies.
Where do you see some of the biggest hurdles for IT managers in being able to effectively implement a broad-based unified communication strategy?
What is some of the stumbling blocks that you see based on your experience working with IT orgs?
[01:44] Karen>
Well, to be honest, I think a lot of it is end user adoption and getting end users excited and interested and feeling like IT isn't pushing down another thing they need to learn, but actually understand - as an end user - understanding "Hey, this is actually gonna make my job easier - this is gonna make life better for me, and less frustrating."
So I think the importance of simplicity and training and ease of use really can't be overstated.
If you want unified communications or any collaboration tools to really affect ROI, affect the bottom line, affect innovation within a company.
[02:20] Chris>
One last question for you:
So Plantronics - a lot of focus on audio quality.
Tell me a little about how that component, that specific component of audio, fits into the overarching - again, the umbrella theme of - unified communications, knowing that we've got tools like Skype chat, instant messaging.
Where does audio fit in?
[02:39] Karen>
There's so much emotion that comes out in voice that you don't get in text.
There's a difference between "Hey, great job" and "Hey! Great job!", and so we really believe in the power of voice.
So you can get business done so much quicker sometimes just by picking up the phone, rather than back-and-forth e-mails.
I, personally, think that - and Plantronics definitely, the company, we believe that - voice is a natural way to communicate and that you see tools that embrace voice as the easiest, most synchronous, communication method is really one-on-one voice calls, and/or conference calls as well.
As f
well, it's certainly not my job - but thanks all the same :D
Title: Leonid Shtilman Says Many Computer Users are Overprivileged
Description: The more privileges, the more risk of getting hacked and having Bad People do Bad Things to your company's computers.
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Privilege Management and Application Control Solutions Are Essential security Tools" appears over a stylized view of the interviewee, sitting in what appears to be a food court.
The SlashdotTV logo bar appears in the bottom and reads "Leonid Shtilman - CEO, Viewfinity"
[00:02] Leonid>
My name is Leonid Shtilman, and I'm CEO of Viewfinity.
Viewfinity as a company started 4 years ago, and the main business is providing security solution as Software-as-a-Service.
What kind of security solution?
It's management of privileges of end users.
By privileges we mean, by the end point are you administrator, are you standard users, or, shortly, what you can do and what you can not do on your personal computer or, in the case of administrators of servers, what you can do as administrator of server.
[00:43] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "You have a new product coming out / Can you tell us a little about it?"
[00:44] Leonid>
The problem with privileges is that if you want to do it granularly - I mean that you say "You are not administrator but I will allow you to certain functions as administrator" - the problem is how to manage those requests.
One person, let's call it developer say "I cannot live without full administrative privileges", our software is telling him "You can live as standard users, but we will allow you, as administrator, to use your Visual Studio" or "... we can allow you, as administrator, to use another tool."
But generally speaking, we don't want you will be master of the universe and you will do whatever with you computer.
Why?
Because it's dangerous.
So this account, somebody can get more important and most sensitive corporative servers, and this is our main business.
The business how to manage enormous amount of requests to have administrative rights for this or for another purpose.
[01:52] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "Those are IT benefits. What about business benefits?"
[01:52] Leonid>
I can give you an example:
Usually end users are standard users let's say, in a bank.
And then some of them is going to travel to conference, like this one.
In this case he needs to print, he cannot print; because he is standard user he cannot install printer.
Or "I need to use particular website with ActiveX on it", you can not use it because you're standard user.
So for business is how to have still secure environment but not to disturb business.
This is what we are all about.
Not to disturb business process, but still stay secure.
[02:35] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "What benefits does your product give specifically to software developers?"
[02:36] Leonid> .. they can develop any software which requires administrative rights without thinking twice because this software will be later managed with our package, package of Viewfinity.
So, actually, it's two benefit.
One benefit is for the managers of this group of developers.
The managers will be sure if they will use our software that the environment is secure, they will not afraid of, what is called sometimes, 'insider', that insider will do some damage.
So it is a protection of organization from developers.
Another benefit is that with our software, developers can actually
So Viewfinity will take care who can use this software, who will be blocked from using this software, and so on.
So it's more freedom for developers, and more secure environment for the managers of development team.
[03:38] <TITLE>
The SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out of view, reading "One last question - From a top-level perspective, what is the num
Title: Blue Gecko is an 11 Year Old Remote Database Administration Startup
Description: Keeping the startup mentality is essential for success, says co-founder Sarah Novotny
[00:00] <TITLE>
"Making Money Doing Remote Database Administration" fades in superimposed over a view of Sarah Novotny sitting on a leater softa in a casual-looking room. The SlashdotTV logo bar in the bottom reads "Blue Gecko co-founder Sarah Novotny".
[00:02] Sarah>
We're here today at my company, Blue Gecko.
I founded this company 11, almost 12, years ago now with two business partners that I met at Amazon.
The whole idea that we took here, away from operational work from Amazon, was big company operations are important and broad, and all of the different processes that are involved in that can be applied to smaller to medium sized businesses, or businesses that have specific technology units that really aren't related to their core business.
So we wanted to be able to help them come to good, solid, robust technology practices that we knew from big web and Amazon years and years past.
My business partners here are Chuck Edwards and JJ Ecker, and we've been working with each other for almost 12 years now.
[00:53] Sarah>
Remote database administration which is our core business, means that we really can administer servers and services anywhere in the world, and at the moment we have customers in Asia-Pacific, so we've got some customers in Japan, we've got customers in New Zealand, we have customers in Europe, in Denmark, and in Switzerland, and then we have customers all over the U.S, and I think we may even have a couple of Canadian customers at this point.
[01:23] <TITLE>
SlashdotTV logo bar fades in and out, reading "How do you get new clients?"
[01:23] Sarah>
We actually have found that customers come to us for referrals - we don't do a lot of outreach.
Most of the customers that we have received and brought in on board, have been because they've had relationships with other people, and this is one of the great parts of community.
Both Open Source community in general, but generally the tech community is that we all have favorites, and we all have people and services that we trust and then those can then give sort of this second level of trust to share.
So you get sort of an associated trust that passes on: "Oh yeah, you should work with Blue Gecko - they're great!"
[02:03] Sarah>
Yeah, 10 years has been a really big mark to have passed that, especially with a business that is a really strange blend of Open Source support as well as proprietary support.
Part of our business is Oracle and Oracle E-Business Suite support, SQL Server support, and then part of our business is very open databases-focused, so PostgreS and MySQL, and Drizzle as well.
I would say we still have the start-up mentality.
We always had a really strange blend though of start-up and scrappy and getting it done, and very process-driven enterprise.
Because we have customers that are both; we have total start-up "Oh God I just got my VC and it's burning a hole in my pocket!", and then we have the very large companies, Fortune 100 companies, that have us working on a particular stack, and they are much more process-driven.
So we've always had kind of that blend.
But, because this is operational support, we work all the time.
Someone here is always awake, someone that works for Blue Gecko is always awake, someone is always looking at the queues and answering phones, answering pagers, making sure that our monitoring is watching things appropriately.
So as long as someone is covering something, you can pretty much work whenever you want - it's just a matter of saying "I will be available from this time to this time", and making sure that there's coverage for the different business areas, business units.
[03:23] Sarah>
The big pitch to people who might be a small start-up, or worried about being able to control the employee, the thing
There is only one move in which White can force a draw - and to find out what it is, you'll have to RTFA.
Nah, I'm just pulling your leg, here you go..
Anybody really interested in the details will still RTFA anyway and the rest of us won't be left hanging with a teaser.
I've been reading about this thing ever since the story broke and found plenty of apps that do more or less the same thing - it's only after Cult of Mac reported about it that it seems the outrage really took off... and even then still only for this app.
The most worrying story I read was that people (they mention girls/women. a lot. pulling at the ol' heartstrings, I suppose, as the app can list men just as well) should indeed be aware of what information they put out there when they go and sign up for facebook, foursquare, etc.
If you feel a "but" coming, here goes:
BUT, that doesn't mean that people should be allowed to just take that information and use it for their own purposes.
They likened it to the "with what she was wearing, she had it coming" adage. Which is a horrible thing, and a horrible comparison as it immediately conjures up images of sexual assault / rape. In reality, the comparison is more akin to "with what she was wearing, she shouldn't complain that somebody was looking". If somebody walks down the street dressed up as Batman, I'm going to look. If somebody walks down the street in shorts that are little more than panties made out of denim, I'm going to look (female or not), because who wouldn't? I'm not going to suggest that if you're wearing that, you want to get sexually assaulted, and perhaps you don't even want to get looked at - but in the latter case you really just have a poor grasp on reality.
So if somebody puts up information on foursquare about where they are, and I find that information, think the person looks cute, yes - I may just google them, and find their facebook, and then take a closer look. Is that creepy? Well if I look up your favorite movie, drink, etc., walk into the establishment, sit down close to you and order your favorite drink and start yapping away about that movie.. yes. But then I'm a creep - that doesn't make finding that information 'creepy'. It's just human curiosity. Millions of people don't find it one bit creepy when it's a story in the latest tabloid / Cosmo / etc.
And yet that is exactly the sort of thing that is being argued in these articles. That when you put something on facebook, you're actually only putting it up there for the purposes that you want it to be used for. Even if you've made it public for the world, that you get full control over how that information is used.
So you want to be found with foursquare because that's how you get your cheaper drink, but you don't want anybody -but- that establishment to know that. Of course the establishment has the exact opposing desire: they want as many people checked in there as possible. Neither of them are likely to 'want' apps like these to exist, but the latter two desires are completely opposite.
So what is the solution? Why, ban these apps, of course.
Never mind that the information can still be looked up manually (or by means of other apps), as long as the threat that's on the radar has been eliminated.
One suggestion that I did find interesting was getting a notification when somebody uses your information. Unfortunately, that would be technically a horrible mess, and with things like foursquare, how quickly would you turn those notifications off when you get dozens per day from random passers-by / people doing web queries / etc?
There was a great opportunity here to teach people about their privacy settings, but it has gotten completely undermined by simply labeling the app as 'creepy', 'stalker app', etc. and the defense that just because you're telling the world where you are, that doesn't mean the world should actually be listening.
This includes Cult of Mac, whose latter stories have focused more on the app than on the privacy issues with foursquare/facebook.
Though I wouldn't expect much different, seeing as Cult of Mac uses a comment syndication service (Vanilla) which, in part, accepts facebook logins. Which in turn yields your facebook profile image. Which in turn yields your facebook profile, no matter what you make your user name in the comment appear to be.
Doctor, heal thyself.
Incoming!
-----
Title: David Maman, Co-Founder and CTO of GreenSQL, Talks About Database Security
Description: GreenSQL creates and maintains both proprietary and open source database security software
[00:00] <TITLE>
"GreenSQL is a Database Security Solution..." appears above the SlashdotTV logo bar with "David Maman - Co-Founder & CTO, GreenSQL" in the bottom of the view of a still shot from the interview, showing David Maman over a dark background.
[00:02] David>
My name is David Maman, I'm CTO and founded of GreenSQL.
GreenSQL is a company which provides a solution for database security as well as performance and compliance, eventually.
GreenSQL started as an Open Source project, actually.
In 2006, me and a friend started a very, very nice and easy-going Open Source project, and the Open Source project up 'til today is the only solution available for MySQL database - to secure it.
When I'm saying "securing it", it's not just about hardening password, but it's truly identifying threads in queries running to the database, and detecting it.
Even though it was a very simple solution that we have invested only a few hours in, each one of us, in our free time, the first 3 years we had more than 100,000 downloads of the Open Source project.
The Open Source project was so common that we started receiving a lot of feature requests and a lot of support requests for actually huge organizations - that we were surprised as well.
As time passed we've seen that there is an unmet need in the market; not only that enterprise companies - and I'm talking about high-end telecom and enterprise companies got great solution that they can buy, like Imperva acquired by IBM, and like Secerno which Oracle have purchased 2 years ago, and so on, and so on - but medium and even large organization that can not afford $200k for a basic solution, don't have any solution in the market.
We raised capital, and we started a company and we developed from scratch a new solution, and we call it unified database security.
It's a software-based solution that provides you database security, database auditing, database performance and database masking in one extremely easy to manage, to install, and to troubleshoot software-based solution.
We started sales less than a year ago, and we are going high and up 'til today we got more than 2,000 downloads per month.
The solution is very easy to use, so because we have started from Open Source - and even though it's a completely different solution, that's got nothing to do with the Open Source - we are maintaining the Open Source, but not in a high level.
Even though it's a very easy and simple to use solution, we have decided to also give a free version, so you get the security for free.
You can pay only for additional features like auditing, like masking, like performance and so on, and so on.
So we get more than 2,000 new installations per month at customer premises, and we support, currently, MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgreS, and very soon Oracle as well.
[02:54] David>
As a developer, you never take into consideration the entire life cycle of your information, the information itself that is eventually stored inside databases - and it doesn't matter which type of application you develop, and which platform you use, eventually the information is stored inside a database.
Even though you can clear it as "it's okay, and my database is secured", but when unauthorized access is being accessed to your database, unauthorized users, unauthorized application, all the big noise surrounding SQL injection attacks for example, how you can defend from SQL injections.
So naturally, the good developers will say that "I don't need that! I know how to write a secure code!" - and I'm sure most of the people do know how to write secure code.
The problem is that you use a lot of legacy applications and a lot of legacy code, that you
The article starts out with...
Emphasis mine. This statement is what is supposed to re-assure us that it's ridiculous.
( Not to say that it isn't, but keep reading... )
Emphasis again mine. So here's the twist. If you fly through a particular nation's airspace, are you 'steering clear of' that nation's territory?
Wikipedia (don't worry, dictionaries appear to agree) states...
Emphasis once again mine.
Their airspace, their rules. Some flights not too long ago were probably barred from entering Polish airspace as well and had to skim along its borders for its flight.
( http://twitter.com/#!/flightradar24/statuses/128071958293266432 )
It's still ridiculous because it makes little sense. Not just because of the notion that you wouldn't actually set afoot in said territory, but because the few cases in which you might (such as an emergency requiring diverting to one of that nation's airports) also apply to many other routes that don't cross that airspace but still come close enough for the pilots to decide to, or be forced to, land there - security clearance issues or no security clearance issues.