This is the same as welfare or Widows and Orphans laws. They are intended to give those that do not have deep pockets a chance to compete against those with deep pockets.
In open software's case there are people willing to volunteer to lobby but they just don't have the resources to appeal to a congresscritter's wallet^H^H^H^H^H^Hsenibilities.
In the end, something has to be done to level the playing field. Laws like this will do just that.
The big question is: Why is O'reilly doing this? Has Billy Deep-Pockets gotten to him? Or is he worried that laws like this will make it difficult for him to make a profit int he future?
Who on Earth wants to try to jump into a series on the 22nd book? Nobody! This is why Baen is releasing all the earlier books.
Take a look at the other books that they are releasing. They are all the first one or more books in a series. The idea is to get people to read a book that they would never have read. If they are interested in the series they will pick up the entire series. That's right, the entire series.
If you have a ten book series and you liked the first book, are you about to go out and buy the next 9 without getting a copy of the first one? No.
When you get down to it, this is brilliant way to increase readership in series that would otherwise get very few new people. This has nothing to do with the battle between electronic books and paper books. It's about Baen using their brains to make money instead of trying to legislate the money into their pockets.
It's not _real_ technology...
on
Social Robot?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Until it can do games and/or porn.
(Did you ever notice that no one wnats to admit this. They always try for the educational uses for a while first)
One of the neat things I notice is that all of the links within the ad point through the Yahoo ad site (rd.yahoo.com). As a way of avoiding massive downloads of crap I don't care about, I routinely add these sites (can you say doubleclick?) to my hosts file. Now I guess I have to go through the annoyance of hand editing their URLs before I can view the articles.
I wonder how long it will be before these types of redirects are moved onto the server side, with non-obvious redirects, to force you to click onto the ad site.
One of the things that's always irked me is the concept that these types know so much about me. If they know me so well, why can't they seem to figure out that I immediately throw away all fliers, advertisements, free product offers, and trial subscriptions. I instantly delete any spam that makes it throught the gaunlet of my filters. And most important of all, I firmly and completely believe that it should be legal to kill telemarketers.
One of the things you have to admit about Micros~1 is that they don't just sit on their hands and let the world pass them by. NO!!! They continue to find new and interesting bugs.
Things that you've never seen before. Things that you would have told yourself, "There's no way anyone would release something with a hole that obvious."
There's a whole world of possibilities out there. As long as we allow Micros~1 to be free to innovate, they will continue to find them!
Free software is evil. If you don't pay money for something no matter how bad it is thent he terrorists win!
Call me old fashioned but I still consider a "tiny" app to be something that can fit into 64K.
It was only last year that Opera got too large to fit on a floppy and that's a program that has never felt tiny.
Perhaps the word you're searching for is "reasonable".
Re:Shower Curtain Prior Art
on
IgNobel Awards
·
· Score: 1
Uh... You're supposed to put the base of the curtain inside the tub.
If you're in a standup shower, direct it so that the curtain gets hit when it blows it.
Shower Curtain Prior Art
on
IgNobel Awards
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Oh hell... At least it was prior thought. I figured this out ages ago (1981-ish). and I even came up with a better solution: redirect the shower head slightly towards the curtain. The water pressure overcomes the other forces.
OK, here's a test... What was the name or content of that theme? Can you hum the tune? Are you going to be cleaning the puke out of the carpet in front of your arm chair for weeks?
The show itself was nice, not great, not a single "Wow... Cool!" in the thing, but nice.
That theme, however, SUCKED. Jeesoos Fraggin Christo! Friends has a better theme. Sixty Minutes has a better theme!
BLECH BLECH BARF RALPH PUKE RETCH PUKE
Oh... And do ya think is was a little chilly in that decontamination room?
While the article talked about beach balls, Univac, birthday cakes, Broncos, bowling balls, Coke cans, and Callista Flockhart.. It was completely devoid of any information we have not seen before.
It's called Brilliant Pebbles, guys. Sheesh!
OK, they mentioned funding is a consideration in the development.
I've actually worked places where they thought of telecommuting as being able to work from home after-hours and on weekends.
One of the things you need to do is make your boss aware that, because of the amount of time you have to spend in the car, you will probably be too tired to think about working longer than 9-5. Also mention that this might cause an increase in sick days and incedental home emergencies that most other employees get off for free. These can always be voiced as "Well... I't not like I'm about to start doing this, but you never know"
Legos click just fine. Most kids have them and most kids love them. Since kids had amazing abilities to fantasize, Legos are perfect. The fact that parents don't yell at you when you destroy a creation is also a major plus.
But...
There are no names. No Barbie, no GI Joe, no Sonic, or Barney. The child creates everything. The problem is that there's no sense of community to share their creations with their friends. They say "Blascar blew Rennist to smithereens," And their friends say, "So?" Or "Who?"
One of the great strengths of capitalism, not just the internet, is that small companies/groups can always sneak under the radar of big business.
It's rarely the established players who create the next big thing. It's the little guys working the niches. The niche catches on, the little guy gets big, the new big guy misses the next little guy, life goes on.
As Microsoft is learning: you can try and try to control everything, but there is one of you and lot of people trying to find ways around you.
BTW, this doesn't say that the short term won't suck though.
Documented proof??? As if spam doesn't take enough of my time. I have anecdotal evidence that most of the time the address is invalid, sometimes I get removed, sometimes the remove is ignored, and other times the flood gates open.
If you think it's a urban legend then you should have no fear of trying it yourself.
This is completely useless. It was written by people who understand the situation and put into an RFC where it will be read by people who understand the situation. The people who should read it, spammers and spammees, DON'T READ RFCS.
Here is a perfect example of how useless this is:
DO let recipients know how to remove themselves from a mailing list. Advertisers should make this as easy as possible, and place the instructions in every message sent.
Excuse me??? As we are all painfully aware, answering spam just validates the address. We've been telling our webTV using relatives for years "Don't answer spam." Now they're saying "If people do the right think then the right think wil happen." HUH? If peple did the right thing then spammers would all DIE!!!
One of the things that killed V-ger for a lot of hardcore TrekkIES is how it ignored the past. Even the Treknobabble didn't jive with the crap that spewed from just south of Jordie's visor. TrekkIES have their bibles and their manuals and their script books and their novelizations. They will spot a sham easily.
That said... It's time to show my true colors...
ENTERPRISE!?!?!? There was no ship previously named Enterprise. This is called trying to suck them in.
A Vulcan aboard the Enterprise. HELLO?!?!?!? Oh, but she's a babe. I'm sorry... "austere yet sensual". I guess Jerry Ryan is getting a little saggy for Berman so he needs to rustle up a new date.
Phlox. What the fuck is this? Did Ficus (Remember Quark???) do it with a salmon? I smell Sneezix...
Spike? Oh hey... Let's come up with something really new... Let's have the Chief Engineer be someone with a funny accent.
UGH!!! This will suck so hard you'll be buying V-ger on Betamax to get happy.
Which is all this. Congrats... We've been spammed. Instead of mentioning money to get our attention, "Linux" was the repeated hook. The text of the thing gave it away for me. So, should I forward the link to this article to at least 10 friends within 2 minutes so I can get a free widgy???
BLECH!!!
Registrant:
Norman Megill
19 Locke Lane
Lexington, MA 02420
US
Domain Name: metamath.org
Administrative Contact:
Megill, Norman nm@alum.mit.edu
Gee Norm, If you're going to pull the wool over the Slashdot community's eyes, the least you can do is post anonymously.
The trick with any legislation is to follow the money. In most (not all) cases spam is specifically designed to make money for the sender. It seems to me that the proper response is to craft laws that allow you to easily go after the person who would get the money.
This concept solves one of the major problems in trying to nab spammers... Locating them. Spammers can hide. They can move. They can generally stay safe forever. But there is that one common thread... Someone wants to get their hands on your money. To do that they need to provide contact info of some sort. BINGO!!! You have someone you can nail.
Disclosure: I believe it should be loegal to kill telemarketers and spammers. Don't give me that "It's only their job" shit. It didn't work in Nuremberg, it won't work here.
And the "freedom speech" angle doesn't work here either. I demand to be allow to exercise by freedom of speech by not being afflicted with these people. The freedom of speech does not give you the constitutional right to an audience.
Damn. I started this thinking that I wasn't going to foam at the mouth. Sigh.
Here is the Wind
River press release about the BSDi aquisition.Hereis the FAQ
about the aquisition. The quote that probably is most important
to the Slashdot community is:
Q. What is Wind Rivers philosophy on open source technology? A. Wind River has always used open source technology. In fact, Wind
River was the first licensee of the BSD network stack. The company
supports the open source community and is committed to maintaining,
distributing, and supporting FreeBSD. To spearhead that effort, BSDis
Chairman of the Board Dr. Marshall Kirk McKusick, Vice President Open
Source Technology & Chief Evangelist Jordan Hubbard, and Chief
Technology Architect Michael Karels will join Wind River. Hubbard will
continue to be responsible for the development and promotion of the
FreeBSD OS as the release engineer for all FreeBSD products.
Wind River feels that FreeBSD is an open source OS based on a rich
heritage and solid technical foundation and offers great technology and
sensible licensing terms to its community. With FreeBSD, the open source
and business communities can drive the individual and industry standards
for a UNIX-based OS.
For additional info, here are the Yahoo and Reutuers
articles.
This aquisition is combined with Wind River's purchase of Eonic
Systems,a developer of high-performance software solutions for
real-time embedded DSP application.
Slashdot Mirror
In open software's case there are people willing to volunteer to lobby but they just don't have the resources to appeal to a congresscritter's wallet^H^H^H^H^H^Hsenibilities.
In the end, something has to be done to level the playing field. Laws like this will do just that.
The big question is: Why is O'reilly doing this? Has Billy Deep-Pockets gotten to him? Or is he worried that laws like this will make it difficult for him to make a profit int he future?
Take a look at the other books that they are releasing. They are all the first one or more books in a series. The idea is to get people to read a book that they would never have read. If they are interested in the series they will pick up the entire series. That's right, the entire series.
If you have a ten book series and you liked the first book, are you about to go out and buy the next 9 without getting a copy of the first one? No.
When you get down to it, this is brilliant way to increase readership in series that would otherwise get very few new people. This has nothing to do with the battle between electronic books and paper books. It's about Baen using their brains to make money instead of trying to legislate the money into their pockets.
(Did you ever notice that no one wnats to admit this. They always try for the educational uses for a while first)
I wonder how long it will be before these types of redirects are moved onto the server side, with non-obvious redirects, to force you to click onto the ad site.
One of the things that's always irked me is the concept that these types know so much about me. If they know me so well, why can't they seem to figure out that I immediately throw away all fliers, advertisements, free product offers, and trial subscriptions. I instantly delete any spam that makes it throught the gaunlet of my filters. And most important of all, I firmly and completely believe that it should be legal to kill telemarketers.
Things that you've never seen before. Things that you would have told yourself, "There's no way anyone would release something with a hole that obvious."
There's a whole world of possibilities out there. As long as we allow Micros~1 to be free to innovate, they will continue to find them!
Free software is evil. If you don't pay money for something no matter how bad it is thent he terrorists win!
It was only last year that Opera got too large to fit on a floppy and that's a program that has never felt tiny.
Perhaps the word you're searching for is "reasonable".
If you're in a standup shower, direct it so that the curtain gets hit when it blows it.
OK, where the hell is my grant???
The show itself was nice, not great, not a single "Wow... Cool!" in the thing, but nice.
That theme, however, SUCKED. Jeesoos Fraggin Christo! Friends has a better theme. Sixty Minutes has a better theme!
BLECH BLECH BARF RALPH PUKE RETCH PUKE
Oh... And do ya think is was a little chilly in that decontamination room?
Unless I see a blanket pardon first, I do nothing. I don't want to do the right thing then get hunted down by my own government.
It's called Brilliant Pebbles, guys. Sheesh!
OK, they mentioned funding is a consideration in the development.
A complete fluff piece.
One of the things you need to do is make your boss aware that, because of the amount of time you have to spend in the car, you will probably be too tired to think about working longer than 9-5. Also mention that this might cause an increase in sick days and incedental home emergencies that most other employees get off for free. These can always be voiced as "Well... I't not like I'm about to start doing this, but you never know"
foma - harmless untruths; useful and harmless b.s. -- coined by Kurt Vonnegut (This definition found here. I'm sure there are prettier ones)
But...
There are no names. No Barbie, no GI Joe, no Sonic, or Barney. The child creates everything. The problem is that there's no sense of community to share their creations with their friends. They say "Blascar blew Rennist to smithereens," And their friends say, "So?" Or "Who?"
It's rarely the established players who create the next big thing. It's the little guys working the niches. The niche catches on, the little guy gets big, the new big guy misses the next little guy, life goes on.
As Microsoft is learning: you can try and try to control everything, but there is one of you and lot of people trying to find ways around you.
BTW, this doesn't say that the short term won't suck though.
I just say no to:
I you didn't buy into all this crap that you don't need then people will not be able to take advantage of your machine.
If enough people say no, then the web pages have to cater to the masses if they want the eyeballs.
Documented proof??? As if spam doesn't take enough of my time. I have anecdotal evidence that most of the time the address is invalid, sometimes I get removed, sometimes the remove is ignored, and other times the flood gates open.
If you think it's a urban legend then you should have no fear of trying it yourself.
Here is a perfect example of how useless this is:
DO let recipients know how to remove themselves from a mailing list. Advertisers should make this as easy as possible, and place the instructions in every message sent.
Excuse me??? As we are all painfully aware, answering spam just validates the address. We've been telling our webTV using relatives for years "Don't answer spam." Now they're saying "If people do the right think then the right think wil happen." HUH? If peple did the right thing then spammers would all DIE!!!Do they hold the business case patent on charging for access to business case patents??? (Uh-oh... I feel a stack fence coming!)
One of the things that killed V-ger for a lot of hardcore TrekkIES is how it ignored the past. Even the Treknobabble didn't jive with the crap that spewed from just south of Jordie's visor. TrekkIES have their bibles and their manuals and their script books and their novelizations. They will spot a sham easily.
That said... It's time to show my true colors...
ENTERPRISE!?!?!? There was no ship previously named Enterprise. This is called trying to suck them in.
A Vulcan aboard the Enterprise. HELLO?!?!?!? Oh, but she's a babe. I'm sorry... "austere yet sensual". I guess Jerry Ryan is getting a little saggy for Berman so he needs to rustle up a new date.
Phlox. What the fuck is this? Did Ficus (Remember Quark???) do it with a salmon? I smell Sneezix...
Spike? Oh hey... Let's come up with something really new... Let's have the Chief Engineer be someone with a funny accent.
UGH!!! This will suck so hard you'll be buying V-ger on Betamax to get happy.
Sigh... Thank god there's new B5 on the horizon.
BLECH!!!
Gee Norm, If you're going to pull the wool over the Slashdot community's eyes, the least you can do is post anonymously.
This concept solves one of the major problems in trying to nab spammers... Locating them. Spammers can hide. They can move. They can generally stay safe forever. But there is that one common thread... Someone wants to get their hands on your money. To do that they need to provide contact info of some sort. BINGO!!! You have someone you can nail.
Disclosure: I believe it should be loegal to kill telemarketers and spammers. Don't give me that "It's only their job" shit. It didn't work in Nuremberg, it won't work here.
And the "freedom speech" angle doesn't work here either. I demand to be allow to exercise by freedom of speech by not being afflicted with these people. The freedom of speech does not give you the constitutional right to an audience.
Damn. I started this thinking that I wasn't going to foam at the mouth. Sigh.
I have to wonder if this is in response to that move. They didn't annouce any release date so this could be yet another Micros~1 FUD tactic.