Oh sure, I agree that the hardware and stuff has to be paid for - I am not complaining about that at all.
My point is that suddenly MAPS has decreed that its data, submitted (FOR FREE) by users and admins the world over, is suddenly copyrighted by MAPS. THAT'S where I have a problem.
By all means charge for acess as necessary to pay for the servers and bandwidth and stuff, but do NOT try to claim information freely submitted by others is suddenly MAPS copyright.
That's an old old idea - I've been doing it for about 3 years now.
Any good ISP will let you have infinite email addresses (anythingyoulike@domain_name.isp.tld) so it's easy to do it for free.
I've had spam to addresses given to eBay, Barnes&Noble, Slashdot (even though the address is never published...), several online greetings card places etc. Interestingly, none from my bank, creditcards, gamelink nor Amazon.
Does make it easy to bin loads of spam, as you stop dealing with particular companies so you just direct email to the appropriate address to/dev/null - sorted:-)
Point 1 - you do not HAVE to buy the cablemodem from NTL. You can buy one from them for £150, or LEASE one from them for £5 pcm, or provide your own.
Point 2 - wtf should they give you your money back? Do you expect Ford to give you your money back when you decide you can no longer use your Ford Mondeo?
Point 3 - of COURSE they will let the next occupant reconnect using that same cable modem.
Jeez, you'd think that at least SOME people would look in to their options before whinging on slashdot about how unfair life is *sigh*
(BTW, I am speaking as an NTL cable customer - I know what I am talking about because, unlike Gordonjcp, I actually did my own *research*).
To answer your second point (and I am surprised you didn't spot this if you really DID watch all of B5), the answer lies in the triluminary-jobbie-thingy.
you know, the thing given th eto Mimbari by Valen.
Now, the only problem with THIS is that it was the Mimbari who gave it to Sinclair, who then went back in time and gave it to the Mimbari, so they could give it to him...
Spotted the major flaw yet?
As for the pilot, of course they are going to try to pretend it all fits, even though some of the key elements of the pilot (mere chemicals being able to be injected via contact to a being of pure energy) are in direct conflict woith the actual series.
Not that it's too much of a problem - all pilots include loads of things which eithe5r never make it into a real series, or which get changed in order to work properly in the real series.
Simple answer is to do what most people do - just ignore the appalling pilot and all is well.
You are complaining because the camera does a better job than a cop and, as a result, there is a slightly higher chance of "bad guys" being caught?
As for the cameras giving probable cause to allow a stop&search - that is utter bollocks and you know it. All that they identification will do is enable the police to spot someone who may be one of their suspects, whom they can then look at phgysically in person, and if they still look like a known suspect, THEN they can approach them for identification.
Nice try at covering their foul-up there, but they did foul up completely - the rushed excuse the producers came up with is, at best, utterly lame. Even allowing for some poison to be able to affect creatures of pure energy (e.g. Vorlons), there is no way any of the lesser species would be able to glean sufficient knowledge of the Vorlons to be able to come up with such a "poison" in the first place.
And yes, I followed B5 right from the rather boring piecemeal S1, through the excellent S2, 3 and 4 and to the end of the utter crap S5. I am aware the Valenb/Sinclair thing was planned as part of the storyline from the start (although it was not planned that Sinclair be ditched from B5 itself at the end of S1 though, necesitating quite a rewrite of parts of the storyline). However, the actual story itself has a MAJOR plot hole, if you care to look.
"I have to give mad props to B5 for having a planned story arc BEFORE the series was ever aired - it prevented some of the ludicrous plot holes "
Erm, you mean like the fundamental plot hole introduced in the pilot?
You remember, the one where a normal being was able to apply a poison to Kosh by injecting it into him through his encounter suit?!
Unless you are telling me that the Vorlons made a massive several-year-evolutionary-leap ijn hte short time between the pilot and the first series...
Nope, B5 had several plot holes (don't get me started on that whole Valen/Sinclair thing - a major flaw in there if you look), and the certainly started with a MAJOR plot hole.
Fixer, if there is a warrant outstanding for your arrest, then the Police have the right to arrest you on the spot re that warrant regardless of "probable cause".
Whether they identify the person initially by having a cop oin the street corner seeing him, or from a camera identifying him, makes zero difference.
You really do need to think calmly about things before you start flaming, you know.
When you are in public, how CAN that be private?!?!
Now, if they were targeting the cameras to look through your bedroom curtains or whatever, then I agree with you.
But using cameras to identify people who are IN PUBLIC? Get real!
Several flaws in your paranoid outburst there, Steeltoe.
Point 1 - all the identify-camera-gizmo does is help the police identify what appears to be a known suspect.
Now, are you seriously telling me that you actually believe that, purely because one is spotted and (mistakenly) identified by ne of these devices that "they" will thrown you in jail? Get real!
Point 2 - Yeah, right. Like the police have nothing better to do that blackmail one person out of the millions the camera monitors. Even assuming they spotted you (which is unlikely unless you are a Known Felon or a Known Suspect). Get real.
Point 3 - If youare defrauding the insurance company by claiming youare more crippled than you are, then I bloody well do hope you get caught and busted - it is scum like that who are directly responsible for spiralling premiums.
Only problem there is, gcc *still* doesn't support 64-bit compilation for Solaris (which is understandable I suppose - after all, Solaris has only been 64-bit for about 3 years now...).
A bit of a pain when Sol8 is a 64-bit OS.
So yes, gcc is available, and even useable for some userland applications, but forget it for serious stuff, I'm afraid.
No, what they do know is that they bought your email address with millions of others.
They know not where your address came from nor what sites you visit.
How else do youexplain that I receive porno emails to an address which is not used on the computer from which I web browse. (There's no point in me saying I don't visit porn sites as you'll refuse to believe).
All M$ are doing is saying "Don't use "viral" tools when developing our stuff, and don't distribute our stuff with "viral" software. By "viral" they mean "software which imposes other conditions upon M$".
I.e. ALL they are doing is asking you not to cause M$ code to be forced to become GPL'd.
OK, which part of "A recently released Gartner Dataquest report, sponsored by several companies including Microsoft, found that just 8.6 percent of server shipments in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2000 were Linux-based" didn't you understand?
The report made it perfectly clear that they were comparing ONLY servers (for ALL OSes) that were biught within the past 3 months, period.
Now, if you choose to interpret that as them claiming only 8.6% of ALL server are Linux-based, then that is your problem, not theirs.
Yes, there are a great many existing Linux servers out there, just as there are a great many NT, W2k, Solaris, QNX, *BSD and goodness-knows all sorts of servers out there. That, however, was not what the survey was designed to find out. As it made clear, it was looking to see what %age of NEW servers were being installed with which OSes, and that is what it did.
I guess if I were a manufacturer of new hardware, I'd be interested to know what OSes people buying new equipment wanted to run - I'd be far less interested in what OS someone was running on their old 486-in-the-basement...
As they state quite clearly in the article, "We went to end users, rather than looking at just sales numbers, and asked them what servers they had bought over the past three months and what operating system they had installed on it over the same period" (my emphasis).
See what they state? They asked what OSes people INSTALLED on the systems they had bought, NOT what OS the system shipped with.
"How many electronic devices you buy in a week?"
Depends - this week I bought 3:-)
"How many books, magazines, newspaper you buy in a week? "
I never buy newspapers or magazines. Books - it varies as the mood strikes. Maybe 1 or 2 a month. Depends how big they are, how much spare time I have and whether I am in the mood for reading or not. However, I never throw out any of my books, so they pose no waste disposal issues, unlike electronic equipment. Yes, I keep ALL of my books - it is nice to sometimes dip in to them from time to time. Other times, when friends are round, they might notice a book and borrow it - not as easy or likely with books purely in electronic form...
"The idea is to have one device for a person...which will serve you for years, may a life time and more"
And there is where your argument falls down.
Do you seriously, for even one second, believe this will happen? I mean just look around you at the moment. People with mobile phones upgrading them all the time ( I do not know ANYONE who has a mobile phone more than 2 years old). People with PDAs upgrading them regularly - mine is 18 months old and I feel like I have the oldest one around at times!
So it will be with electronic book readers - there will be a constant stream of newer ones coming to market, and people will keep upgrading because the "have" to have the "l;atest features / style / whatever".
In order for the product to be a huge success, it will have to be priced as a commodity item, otherwise only small groups of people will buy it "Hell, I can by 10 years worth of books for that much, why should I buy one of those?". HOWEVER, if it is a commidoty item in price, people will treat it as such and upgrade regularly when newer flashier ones come out:-/
Personally, I still prefer paper at the moment anyway - far more versatile, much easier to read, etc. Maybe that will change with technology, who knows, but for now, I'll stick to books (as it were).
"a)your lawn is private property"
So is my computer.
"b) by having a server on the Internet you imply that you are willing to
accept conntections from the outside world."
Interesting.
Please point me to the legal agreement I signed which states that - you
ought to have no difficulty if your assertion is true.
My system is my system, for use by me and those whom I authorise to use it,
and NO-ONE ELSE. If you portscan my system, I wanna know WHY, and you
better have a bloody good reason for it.
The ONLY possible reason you could have for portscanning me is to probe for
weaknesses in an attempt to hack my system.
I see absolutely no problem with making portscanning illegal - indeed, it is
advantageous as it affords greater legal recourse tothose under attack.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh sure, I agree that the hardware and stuff has to be paid for - I am not complaining about that at all.
My point is that suddenly MAPS has decreed that its data, submitted (FOR FREE) by users and admins the world over, is suddenly copyrighted by MAPS. THAT'S where I have a problem.
By all means charge for acess as necessary to pay for the servers and bandwidth and stuff, but do NOT try to claim information freely submitted by others is suddenly MAPS copyright.
Actually, that's a damned good idea! Let them read the Spam you get 'cos they sold your details.
Nice one!
That's an old old idea - I've been doing it for about 3 years now.
/dev/null - sorted :-)
Any good ISP will let you have infinite email addresses (anythingyoulike@domain_name.isp.tld) so it's easy to do it for free.
I've had spam to addresses given to eBay, Barnes&Noble, Slashdot (even though the address is never published...), several online greetings card places etc. Interestingly, none from my bank, creditcards, gamelink nor Amazon.
Does make it easy to bin loads of spam, as you stop dealing with particular companies so you just direct email to the appropriate address to
OK, correct me if I am wrong, but the data in MAPS are built up from a lot of user-submissions reporting open relays and spammers etc.
So how come it is OK for MAPS to claim copyright and charge for access to community-submitted data, but NOT OK for CDDB to do exactly the same thing?
 --
Absolutely no paradox at all.
The first router is a device which routs, rout being pronounced rowt, hence it is a rowter.
The secon router is one which deals with routes; route being pronounced root, the device is a rooter.
Absolutely no contradiction or paradox at all - perhaps you ought to learn your native language before professing shame at using it, eh?
Bollocks.
The book was written at the SAME TIME as the movie.
Don't believe me? Then perhaps you will believe Arthur C Clarke himself - check out his foreword in the latest reprint of 2001.
Point 1 - you do not HAVE to buy the cablemodem from NTL. You can buy one from them for £150, or LEASE one from them for £5 pcm, or provide your own.
Point 2 - wtf should they give you your money back? Do you expect Ford to give you your money back when you decide you can no longer use your Ford Mondeo?
Point 3 - of COURSE they will let the next occupant reconnect using that same cable modem.
Jeez, you'd think that at least SOME people would look in to their options before whinging on slashdot about how unfair life is *sigh*
(BTW, I am speaking as an NTL cable customer - I know what I am talking about because, unlike Gordonjcp, I actually did my own *research*).
--
Point 1 - if you design to the W3C standards then you are covered anyway (or just check using FREE M$IE under MacOS).
Point 2 - read them easily using StarOffice.
Point 3 - read them easily using StarOffice.
See? You do have a choice, if you are willing to use your brain for a change to think.
To answer your second point (and I am surprised you didn't spot this if you really DID watch all of B5), the answer lies in the triluminary-jobbie-thingy.
you know, the thing given th eto Mimbari by Valen.
Now, the only problem with THIS is that it was the Mimbari who gave it to Sinclair, who then went back in time and gave it to the Mimbari, so they could give it to him...
Spotted the major flaw yet?
As for the pilot, of course they are going to try to pretend it all fits, even though some of the key elements of the pilot (mere chemicals being able to be injected via contact to a being of pure energy) are in direct conflict woith the actual series.
Not that it's too much of a problem - all pilots include loads of things which eithe5r never make it into a real series, or which get changed in order to work properly in the real series.
Simple answer is to do what most people do - just ignore the appalling pilot and all is well.
So let's see if I get this right.
You are complaining because the camera does a better job than a cop and, as a result, there is a slightly higher chance of "bad guys" being caught?
As for the cameras giving probable cause to allow a stop&search - that is utter bollocks and you know it. All that they identification will do is enable the police to spot someone who may be one of their suspects, whom they can then look at phgysically in person, and if they still look like a known suspect, THEN they can approach them for identification.
Please do try to control your paranoia!
Nice try at covering their foul-up there, but they did foul up completely - the rushed excuse the producers came up with is, at best, utterly lame. Even allowing for some poison to be able to affect creatures of pure energy (e.g. Vorlons), there is no way any of the lesser species would be able to glean sufficient knowledge of the Vorlons to be able to come up with such a "poison" in the first place.
And yes, I followed B5 right from the rather boring piecemeal S1, through the excellent S2, 3 and 4 and to the end of the utter crap S5. I am aware the Valenb/Sinclair thing was planned as part of the storyline from the start (although it was not planned that Sinclair be ditched from B5 itself at the end of S1 though, necesitating quite a rewrite of parts of the storyline). However, the actual story itself has a MAJOR plot hole, if you care to look.
Nope, you are in EXACTLY THE SAME situation as if a cop on teh street thought you looked like the guy with the warrant.
EXACTLY the same situation.
The only downside is in the mind of the criminal who has a (slightly) higher chance of being spotted and apprehended.
Deal with it.
You mean just like Battlestar Galactica (movie from 1978) failed to do?
Erm, you mean like the fundamental plot hole introduced in the pilot? You remember, the one where a normal being was able to apply a poison to Kosh by injecting it into him through his encounter suit?!
Unless you are telling me that the Vorlons made a massive several-year-evolutionary-leap ijn hte short time between the pilot and the first series...
Nope, B5 had several plot holes (don't get me started on that whole Valen/Sinclair thing - a major flaw in there if you look), and the certainly started with a MAJOR plot hole.
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Fixer, if there is a warrant outstanding for your arrest, then the Police have the right to arrest you on the spot re that warrant regardless of "probable cause".
Whether they identify the person initially by having a cop oin the street corner seeing him, or from a camera identifying him, makes zero difference.
You really do need to think calmly about things before you start flaming, you know.
Invasion of WHAT privacy?
When you are in public, how CAN that be private?!?!
Now, if they were targeting the cameras to look through your bedroom curtains or whatever, then I agree with you.
But using cameras to identify people who are IN PUBLIC? Get real!
--
Several flaws in your paranoid outburst there, Steeltoe.
Point 1 - all the identify-camera-gizmo does is help the police identify what appears to be a known suspect.
Now, are you seriously telling me that you actually believe that, purely because one is spotted and (mistakenly) identified by ne of these devices that "they" will thrown you in jail? Get real!
Point 2 - Yeah, right. Like the police have nothing better to do that blackmail one person out of the millions the camera monitors. Even assuming they spotted you (which is unlikely unless you are a Known Felon or a Known Suspect). Get real.
Point 3 - If youare defrauding the insurance company by claiming youare more crippled than you are, then I bloody well do hope you get caught and busted - it is scum like that who are directly responsible for spiralling premiums.
--
Only problem there is, gcc *still* doesn't support 64-bit compilation for Solaris (which is understandable I suppose - after all, Solaris has only been 64-bit for about 3 years now...).
A bit of a pain when Sol8 is a 64-bit OS.
So yes, gcc is available, and even useable for some userland applications, but forget it for serious stuff, I'm afraid.
--
No, what they do know is that they bought your email address with millions of others.
They know not where your address came from nor what sites you visit.
How else do youexplain that I receive porno emails to an address which is not used on the computer from which I web browse. (There's no point in me saying I don't visit porn sites as you'll refuse to believe).
What utter crap you speak, oh anon-one.
All M$ are doing is saying "Don't use "viral" tools when developing our stuff, and don't distribute our stuff with "viral" software. By "viral" they mean "software which imposes other conditions upon M$".
I.e. ALL they are doing is asking you not to cause M$ code to be forced to become GPL'd.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Deal with it.
The report made it perfectly clear that they were comparing ONLY servers (for ALL OSes) that were biught within the past 3 months, period.
Now, if you choose to interpret that as them claiming only 8.6% of ALL server are Linux-based, then that is your problem, not theirs.
Yes, there are a great many existing Linux servers out there, just as there are a great many NT, W2k, Solaris, QNX, *BSD and goodness-knows all sorts of servers out there. That, however, was not what the survey was designed to find out. As it made clear, it was looking to see what %age of NEW servers were being installed with which OSes, and that is what it did.
I guess if I were a manufacturer of new hardware, I'd be interested to know what OSes people buying new equipment wanted to run - I'd be far less interested in what OS someone was running on their old 486-in-the-basement...
--
See what they state? They asked what OSes people INSTALLED on the systems they had bought, NOT what OS the system shipped with.
--
Depends - this week I bought 3
"How many books, magazines, newspaper you buy in a week? " I never buy newspapers or magazines. Books - it varies as the mood strikes. Maybe 1 or 2 a month. Depends how big they are, how much spare time I have and whether I am in the mood for reading or not. However, I never throw out any of my books, so they pose no waste disposal issues, unlike electronic equipment. Yes, I keep ALL of my books - it is nice to sometimes dip in to them from time to time. Other times, when friends are round, they might notice a book and borrow it - not as easy or likely with books purely in electronic form...
"The idea is to have one device for a person...which will serve you for years, may a life time and more"
And there is where your argument falls down.
Do you seriously, for even one second, believe this will happen? I mean just look around you at the moment. People with mobile phones upgrading them all the time ( I do not know ANYONE who has a mobile phone more than 2 years old). People with PDAs upgrading them regularly - mine is 18 months old and I feel like I have the oldest one around at times!
So it will be with electronic book readers - there will be a constant stream of newer ones coming to market, and people will keep upgrading because the "have" to have the "l;atest features / style / whatever".
In order for the product to be a huge success, it will have to be priced as a commodity item, otherwise only small groups of people will buy it "Hell, I can by 10 years worth of books for that much, why should I buy one of those?". HOWEVER, if it is a commidoty item in price, people will treat it as such and upgrade regularly when newer flashier ones come out :-/
Personally, I still prefer paper at the moment anyway - far more versatile, much easier to read, etc. Maybe that will change with technology, who knows, but for now, I'll stick to books (as it were).
--
So is my computer.
"b) by having a server on the Internet you imply that you are willing to accept conntections from the outside world."
Interesting. Please point me to the legal agreement I signed which states that - you ought to have no difficulty if your assertion is true.
My system is my system, for use by me and those whom I authorise to use it, and NO-ONE ELSE. If you portscan my system, I wanna know WHY, and you better have a bloody good reason for it.
The ONLY possible reason you could have for portscanning me is to probe for weaknesses in an attempt to hack my system.
I see absolutely no problem with making portscanning illegal - indeed, it is advantageous as it affords greater legal recourse tothose under attack.
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Problem with that is DVD cases clearly state the region for which they encoded on the back.
DVD playes quite clearly state the region(s) which they play.
DVD manuals quite clearly state that you need to buy the correct region disks.
Legally, you don't have a leg to stand on taking the DVD back.
Besides, any time I male-order R1 DVDs from US, they warn me they are R1, and ask me to confirm I accept they may or may not work on non-R1 players.
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