Presumably supersonic planes pretty much have to be a specific shape; Delta wings and a sharp pointed nose, which was a design principle already established in the 1960's.
I see...and we're supposed to know who does and does not come in? A network outage is potentially relevent for everyone...maybe you don't come in, but you expect a build to occur over the weekend...maybe someone else who works on your project needed to do work that may cause a delay in something you were expecting to do on Monday. Who knows...the point is, don't complain if something is down and you were told a week ago via email you decided not to read that the outage was going to occur.
And maybe you've sent something to the entire company marked "Important", which isn't important to most people. People learn to associate the "important" marker with some mundane IT stuff that doesn;t affect them. Of course they're surprised when it does affect them. They've been trained to ignore it.
Right, so you again on one hand indicate we're slow to respond and on the other think it's reasonable for us to handle things that office staff really should be doing further setting us behind. I've been asked to fix so many things...fax machines, fans, copiers, mini fridges, etc...It's ridiculous.
Delegate. Get a list of support numbers. Forward the request on to the right person.
This is very selfish of you, because each stuck job in the queue prevents someone else from being able to print. We're also not talking about 2 or 3 tries. We're talking about the people who go, "Hmm...it didn't print...well...click click click click click click click click..."
You're expecting a user to know how the print queue works. They assume that either it prints, or the request gets lost. Most people are not IT experts.
Hey...blame software developers...not sysadmins...I personally read all dialogues that come up before clicking on them. If I don't like certain dialogues, you can usually check a box that tells the software not to display them.
I do blame the software developers. You seem to be blaming the users. It's not their fault. Can you check a box that stops windows from warning about a change in extension, or that firefox couldn't find a web page? You use software where errors are actually important. Most people don't.
Hey, I wasn't expecting anyone to take me seriously. I just wanted to provide a different take on these things. A few of them are a little tenuous because I wanted to cover all 35 of them.
A few points though;
It's very difficult to fix a problem without the user present. It's also very frustrating to have people put in support calls and immediately disappear.
True. It's also the perfect time to get a coffee. especially if the admin guy usually takes 5 minutes or so to finish what he's doing.
Remember that the next time there's a scheduled outage and you bitch about everything not working when you come in over the weekend to do work
There's the problem. I don't come in over the weekend. Ever. The fact that you are, and your telling me about it means that you're giving me pointless information, which devalues the important emails.
Mmmhmm...and you're a programmer. You work with computers, I see no reason why you shouldn't know how to fix the copier either.
Why would a programmer need to use a photocopier:P But if someone asked me to fix it, I would. I'd call the photocopier repair guy. If I didn't know who that was, I'd call someone who probably does.
Your phone line can be crappy enough to not allow a modem to dial out, yet still be used to make calls. This can, and does happen frequently.
This is a matter that can be diagnosed over the phone. I've never had a line so bad that the computer didn't register a dial tone though.
Gee...if it doesn't work the first time, try the same exact thing 20 more times
Did I actually remember to press print? Did I click ok and not cancel? Better not tell the cranky IT guy in case he gets mad at me. Let's give it another couple of goes to make sure it's definitely not working. It's not like it's going to use up any paper if it doesn't work.
Hmm...one printer didn't work, lets mess them all up.
If trying to print is what's causing the printers to mess up, then the print server is broken.
What, suspension bridge cables?
Come on. a mouse cable is made from durable plastic, and steel! this can handle a fairly sustantial compression force. It's also only bearing a fraction of the weight of the computer.
Warning deleting this file may cause certain programs to no longer function...should we ask first...naaa...delete it.
Warning! You are about to delete an EXE file! This will stop it from working! Are you sure?". "WARNING! I am about to do what you asked me to do!". "WARNING!!!! You are changin the extension of this file from.txt to.html" "WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!!! I couldn't find this web page. I felt this was so important that I had to interrupt the entire applciation to let you know". The Alert dialogue is so overused that people have learned to ignore it.
How is this related to a sysadmin's job at all? Call a damn locksmith.
Don't be such a Jobsworth. You're the person most likely to know who can help. You're the technical assistant they're most familiar with. If someone asks me about the database interface on the software, I'll point them to the person who wrote the database interface.
Hey admin I had to reinstall windows 95 on my 10 year old laptop and now the modem doesn't work. Could you fix it...
Sure. It's most likely got a hayes compatible modem in there. If not, the Windows auto detect wizard will detect it because it's either pre-95 hardware or a plug and play device.
So is there some government regulation dictating how much the broadband providers have to charge.
Do you live in an area where it's impossible to get a service that charges based on bandwidth used?
Are you totally unable to spend more money to get more bandwidth?
I'm sorry. I don't see your point. Perhaps if you explained your argument rather than coming up with a trite snide comment it might have been worth responding.
1. We are asocial nerds. Please don't personalise your machine. It confuses us.
2. We are incapable of replicating any bugs you produce. sorry.
3. If you are unable to do any work, please stare at your screen until the admin gets round to stopping by. DO NOT get a coffee. We'll be there within an hour.
4. The admin is incapable of engaging in discussion to diagnose problems. Please remember to diagnose your problem yourself before telling the admin.
6. All our admin emails are sent as high importance. We think we're important people, and you really need to know everything we send you no matter how trivial it may seem to you.
7. IT people are unable to leave their computers for more than 3 minutes at a time. Please take this into consideration when you think they're working.
8. Admins left school before they were taught upper case letters. Please use lower case.
9. Warning, admins can only administer one type of equipment. They are also unable to direct you to the admins who deal with other equipment.
10. Admins can be called even if you don't have a working phone line. Try it sometime.
11. Admin people have no idea what the company policy is on disposal of computer equipment, and have no interest in finding out.
12. If an admin person asks you to bring your computer to them, and they aren't there, please lug it back to your desk and try again later. Don't assume they will remember asking you to bring it to them.
13. Remember, admin believe anything you say is wrong..
14. The admin will be there shortly. The last 50 times were just an anomoly.
15. If at first you don't succeed, give up.
16. And don't try innivatinve solutions
17. We expect you to be able to handle our specialism as well as your own. It's important to know that RS-232 and RS-343 are totally differnt.
18. Please use online help. Admins believe it actually helps.
19. The mouse cable cannot handle the same loads as most other cables.
20. Eating at your desk is a privilege only afforded to admins.
21. All messages are important. You must stop working and meditate on the significance of the error box that asked you to confirm every single action you perform.
22. IT people are most likely to be engaged in personal business at work. Please remmebr this is moreimportant than what they get paid for.
23. The admin's work is more important than yours.
24. Please learn to do the admins job for him.
25. IT people do not deal with IT problems. Sorry.
26. IT people, dispite claiming to have lots of skill are unable to find the person with a spare key.
27. Admin are unable to come and fix a problem. They are welded to their computers.
28. Even though we give you lots of email space, please don't use it.
29. We can't be bothered supplying sufficient resources for printing.
30. IT people have no sense of irony. Please don't make jokes.
31. Only IT people are entitled to send mundane information to everybody.
32. IT people have no interest in the field they've dedicated their life to. If you meet them in a social context, try to engage them in discussions about historic Welsh sculpture.
33. Admin people can't put name labels on computers.
34. Please supply documentation. We are unable to use the handy wizards to work out what your hardware is.
35. Even though we have been rude and downright insulting towards you, we expect you to be polite and courteous to us.
It's not practical. It means that we assume that peopel are always going to spenda fixed amount on music in any given time. Not only that, but it means that those who can't afford it, rather than getting fewer songs, as is the case at the moment, will be entitled to none at all.
Some of us like to be able to choose the amount we spend.
Death of author + 75 years isn't it? JM Barrie died in 1937.
But this is just a nitpick. There are many great works in the public domain, and we can probably find a lot of cases of fair use and public domain works being greatly beneficial both to the public and large corporations.
It is a valid point that it is the only justification.
Burt that doesn't mean it should be dismissed. It means we need to decide just how important the ideology of adventure actually is. You seem to think the answer is "very important". Fair enough. It's probably a much better argument than scientific research.
Uhh, the reason for all this is that the guy offered every episode for download, from his site, in ASF and DIVX format.
Well spotted that man.
We are defending this guy why?
Here we see the dangers of only getting one side of the story. That said, this is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They could have simply demanded the ISP remove access to the material. Anti-terrorism measures should not be used for a relatively minor crime.
First: That's not what you said. You said that reverse engineering was only illegal when it was actually used to make infringing copies, not that it simply allows one to do so
The primary purpose, was to make a copy of a DVD. The movie studio lawyers spent a lot of time arguing this point. In fact, it was difficult to use DeCSS without making a copy.
Second: DeCSS is the result of reverse engineering.
Indeed it was. This is not, in itself, the reason it is illegal though.
Incorrect. The charges were dropped with restrictive agreements by Sklyarov and Elcomsoft.
Not due to the weakness of their case so much as due to the bad publicity of suing a professor (as well as fear that they could lose the case).
They had no case! Not only was it reverse engineered with permission from the creators, it was not actually used for protection of any copyrighted work.
The case is still pending. However the copyright office can say whatever it wants with no effect. It's the court that matters.
Don;t you think the court may consider the copyright office's opinion on the matter as fairly significant?
The fact is, some instances of reverse engineering that would otherwise be legal are illegal under the DMCA.
Well, that is true. I'm sorry if my statements were misleading. Perhaps I was a little too vague in my general statement about where reverse engineering was illegal, but the basic point still stands. Most of the time, it is perfectly legal.
DeCSS is illegal even if you never even intend to use it. Hosting a hyperlink to it is also illegal.
Yes, but that's not because it was reverse engineered. It was because it allowed access to a protected work.
SourceForge used to host a project called "PlayFair". It no longer does due to legal issues.
But this was because it allowed people to access protected works. Not because it used reverse engineering.
A Russian programmer was imprisoned for giving a presentation on the flawed security of Adobe's encrypted PDF format.
And acquitted
University Professors have been warned that an academic presentation would result in legal action via the DMCA.
But those threatening to do so backed down and retreated as soon as they were challenged.
Third-party print cartridges have been outlawed by the DMCA (no infringing copies are even possible in this case).
No they haven't. The copyright office has said as much. There is merely a temporary injunction on them while the legal dispute continues. In this casem I suspect they are making infringing copies of the cartridges.
So, why would they want to set them up like that? It wouldn't be for reliability, since you're making them less reliable. Data access speed would not be a factor because we're looking at lots of small isloated pieces of data being accesses in parallel by several different users, with each user wanting to access a different piece of data. It would be quicker to access each piece of data on its own drive.
Reverse engineering the copy protection is legal for interoperability. Real could reasonably make the case that the purpose of reverse engineering was not to access copyrighted work, but to allow others to access material that they have a licence to do.
Since they're not planning to access, copy or use the files that are protected, and there's little case law covering this particular circumstance, they probably have quite a good case.
While I agree that they probably won't be using consumer level drives, I think you're expecting them to be a lot less reliable than they actually would be.
A 100GB disk will have 100 users, checking their email roughly 3 times per day, and probably each receiving about a dozen emails. If the spam filtering is done before the mail is written to a specific drive, then that's 12 writes of about 100K each, and maybe about 20 reads of roughly the same amount per person, or 1200 writes and 2000 reads. Heavy use, perhaps, but not really the sort of pressure that will kill it in a matter of days.
I understand they have to make money but if they weren't advertising they could lower the costs of their products and make the same amount of money.
Possibly they could, but even if they could, the chances are, they'd keep the prices the same and increase their profits.
In practice, it's a lot more complicated than that. They advertise primarily to increase demand. The higher demand can mean that a higher price results in higher profits, but advertisinbg is a fixed cost rather than a per-unit cost, so doesn't directly affect end user prices.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting one that.
Presumably supersonic planes pretty much have to be a specific shape; Delta wings and a sharp pointed nose, which was a design principle already established in the 1960's.
I see...and we're supposed to know who does and does not come in? A network outage is potentially relevent for everyone...maybe you don't come in, but you expect a build to occur over the weekend...maybe someone else who works on your project needed to do work that may cause a delay in something you were expecting to do on Monday. Who knows...the point is, don't complain if something is down and you were told a week ago via email you decided not to read that the outage was going to occur.
And maybe you've sent something to the entire company marked "Important", which isn't important to most people. People learn to associate the "important" marker with some mundane IT stuff that doesn;t affect them. Of course they're surprised when it does affect them. They've been trained to ignore it.
Right, so you again on one hand indicate we're slow to respond and on the other think it's reasonable for us to handle things that office staff really should be doing further setting us behind. I've been asked to fix so many things...fax machines, fans, copiers, mini fridges, etc...It's ridiculous.
Delegate. Get a list of support numbers. Forward the request on to the right person.
This is very selfish of you, because each stuck job in the queue prevents someone else from being able to print. We're also not talking about 2 or 3 tries. We're talking about the people who go, "Hmm...it didn't print...well...click click click click click click click click..."
You're expecting a user to know how the print queue works. They assume that either it prints, or the request gets lost. Most people are not IT experts.
Hey...blame software developers...not sysadmins...I personally read all dialogues that come up before clicking on them. If I don't like certain dialogues, you can usually check a box that tells the software not to display them.
I do blame the software developers. You seem to be blaming the users. It's not their fault. Can you check a box that stops windows from warning about a change in extension, or that firefox couldn't find a web page? You use software where errors are actually important. Most people don't.
Hey, I wasn't expecting anyone to take me seriously. I just wanted to provide a different take on these things. A few of them are a little tenuous because I wanted to cover all 35 of them.
.txt to .html" "WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!!! I couldn't find this web page. I felt this was so important that I had to interrupt the entire applciation to let you know". The Alert dialogue is so overused that people have learned to ignore it.
A few points though;
It's very difficult to fix a problem without the user present. It's also very frustrating to have people put in support calls and immediately disappear.
True. It's also the perfect time to get a coffee. especially if the admin guy usually takes 5 minutes or so to finish what he's doing.
Remember that the next time there's a scheduled outage and you bitch about everything not working when you come in over the weekend to do work
There's the problem. I don't come in over the weekend. Ever. The fact that you are, and your telling me about it means that you're giving me pointless information, which devalues the important emails.
Mmmhmm...and you're a programmer. You work with computers, I see no reason why you shouldn't know how to fix the copier either.
Why would a programmer need to use a photocopier:P But if someone asked me to fix it, I would. I'd call the photocopier repair guy. If I didn't know who that was, I'd call someone who probably does.
Your phone line can be crappy enough to not allow a modem to dial out, yet still be used to make calls. This can, and does happen frequently.
This is a matter that can be diagnosed over the phone. I've never had a line so bad that the computer didn't register a dial tone though.
Gee...if it doesn't work the first time, try the same exact thing 20 more times
Did I actually remember to press print? Did I click ok and not cancel? Better not tell the cranky IT guy in case he gets mad at me. Let's give it another couple of goes to make sure it's definitely not working. It's not like it's going to use up any paper if it doesn't work.
Hmm...one printer didn't work, lets mess them all up.
If trying to print is what's causing the printers to mess up, then the print server is broken.
What, suspension bridge cables?
Come on. a mouse cable is made from durable plastic, and steel! this can handle a fairly sustantial compression force. It's also only bearing a fraction of the weight of the computer.
Warning deleting this file may cause certain programs to no longer function...should we ask first...naaa...delete it.
Warning! You are about to delete an EXE file! This will stop it from working! Are you sure?". "WARNING! I am about to do what you asked me to do!". "WARNING!!!! You are changin the extension of this file from
How is this related to a sysadmin's job at all? Call a damn locksmith.
Don't be such a Jobsworth. You're the person most likely to know who can help. You're the technical assistant they're most familiar with. If someone asks me about the database interface on the software, I'll point them to the person who wrote the database interface.
Hey admin I had to reinstall windows 95 on my 10 year old laptop and now the modem doesn't work. Could you fix it...
Sure. It's most likely got a hayes compatible modem in there. If not, the Windows auto detect wizard will detect it because it's either pre-95 hardware or a plug and play device.
Okayyyyy...
So is there some government regulation dictating how much the broadband providers have to charge.
Do you live in an area where it's impossible to get a service that charges based on bandwidth used?
Are you totally unable to spend more money to get more bandwidth?
I'm sorry. I don't see your point. Perhaps if you explained your argument rather than coming up with a trite snide comment it might have been worth responding.
Happy sysadmins day indeed.
1. We are asocial nerds. Please don't personalise your machine. It confuses us.
2. We are incapable of replicating any bugs you produce. sorry.
3. If you are unable to do any work, please stare at your screen until the admin gets round to stopping by. DO NOT get a coffee. We'll be there within an hour.
4. The admin is incapable of engaging in discussion to diagnose problems. Please remember to diagnose your problem yourself before telling the admin.
6. All our admin emails are sent as high importance. We think we're important people, and you really need to know everything we send you no matter how trivial it may seem to you.
7. IT people are unable to leave their computers for more than 3 minutes at a time. Please take this into consideration when you think they're working.
8. Admins left school before they were taught upper case letters. Please use lower case.
9. Warning, admins can only administer one type of equipment. They are also unable to direct you to the admins who deal with other equipment.
10. Admins can be called even if you don't have a working phone line. Try it sometime.
11. Admin people have no idea what the company policy is on disposal of computer equipment, and have no interest in finding out.
12. If an admin person asks you to bring your computer to them, and they aren't there, please lug it back to your desk and try again later. Don't assume they will remember asking you to bring it to them.
13. Remember, admin believe anything you say is wrong..
14. The admin will be there shortly. The last 50 times were just an anomoly.
15. If at first you don't succeed, give up.
16. And don't try innivatinve solutions
17. We expect you to be able to handle our specialism as well as your own. It's important to know that RS-232 and RS-343 are totally differnt.
18. Please use online help. Admins believe it actually helps.
19. The mouse cable cannot handle the same loads as most other cables.
20. Eating at your desk is a privilege only afforded to admins.
21. All messages are important. You must stop working and meditate on the significance of the error box that asked you to confirm every single action you perform.
22. IT people are most likely to be engaged in personal business at work. Please remmebr this is moreimportant than what they get paid for.
23. The admin's work is more important than yours.
24. Please learn to do the admins job for him.
25. IT people do not deal with IT problems. Sorry.
26. IT people, dispite claiming to have lots of skill are unable to find the person with a spare key.
27. Admin are unable to come and fix a problem. They are welded to their computers.
28. Even though we give you lots of email space, please don't use it.
29. We can't be bothered supplying sufficient resources for printing.
30. IT people have no sense of irony. Please don't make jokes.
31. Only IT people are entitled to send mundane information to everybody.
32. IT people have no interest in the field they've dedicated their life to. If you meet them in a social context, try to engage them in discussions about historic Welsh sculpture.
33. Admin people can't put name labels on computers.
34. Please supply documentation. We are unable to use the handy wizards to work out what your hardware is.
35. Even though we have been rude and downright insulting towards you, we expect you to be polite and courteous to us.
It's not practical. It means that we assume that peopel are always going to spenda fixed amount on music in any given time. Not only that, but it means that those who can't afford it, rather than getting fewer songs, as is the case at the moment, will be entitled to none at all.
Some of us like to be able to choose the amount we spend.
Death of author + 75 years isn't it? JM Barrie died in 1937.
But this is just a nitpick. There are many great works in the public domain, and we can probably find a lot of cases of fair use and public domain works being greatly beneficial both to the public and large corporations.
I don't think Peter Pan is Public Domain in the US for another 8 years or so.
And people would still steal music (yes, I said steal, let go of your state of denial, nerd)
There's nothing wrong with stealing.
British gas, I put down to incompetent big businesses. They didn't have any procedures in place to check whether their customers may die of cold.
And while we're at it, the pensioners did have 3 months to alert the authorities themselves. They were cut off in August.
So far, we have enough trouble launching unmanned probes into space on journeys that take years
In general, humans are a lot beter at coping with uinforseen eventualities than robots though.
It is a valid point that it is the only justification.
Burt that doesn't mean it should be dismissed. It means we need to decide just how important the ideology of adventure actually is. You seem to think the answer is "very important". Fair enough. It's probably a much better argument than scientific research.
Troll tuesday?
Come on, man. That's sooo 1999!
Uhh, the reason for all this is that the guy offered every episode for download, from his site, in ASF and DIVX format.
Well spotted that man.
We are defending this guy why?
Here we see the dangers of only getting one side of the story. That said, this is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They could have simply demanded the ISP remove access to the material. Anti-terrorism measures should not be used for a relatively minor crime.
Yeah? So, I get all my knowedge of American slang from 80's TV!
I hope you're not telling me you don't all speak like that. I may well have offended the US ambassador.
First: That's not what you said. You said that reverse engineering was only illegal when it was actually used to make infringing copies, not that it simply allows one to do so
The primary purpose, was to make a copy of a DVD. The movie studio lawyers spent a lot of time arguing this point. In fact, it was difficult to use DeCSS without making a copy.
Second: DeCSS is the result of reverse engineering.
Indeed it was. This is not, in itself, the reason it is illegal though.
Incorrect. The charges were dropped with restrictive agreements by Sklyarov and Elcomsoft.
Did zdnet get it wrong then
Not due to the weakness of their case so much as due to the bad publicity of suing a professor (as well as fear that they could lose the case).
They had no case! Not only was it reverse engineered with permission from the creators, it was not actually used for protection of any copyrighted work.
The case is still pending. However the copyright office can say whatever it wants with no effect. It's the court that matters.
Don;t you think the court may consider the copyright office's opinion on the matter as fairly significant?
The fact is, some instances of reverse engineering that would otherwise be legal are illegal under the DMCA.
Well, that is true. I'm sorry if my statements were misleading. Perhaps I was a little too vague in my general statement about where reverse engineering was illegal, but the basic point still stands. Most of the time, it is perfectly legal.
DeCSS is illegal even if you never even intend to use it. Hosting a hyperlink to it is also illegal.
Yes, but that's not because it was reverse engineered. It was because it allowed access to a protected work.
SourceForge used to host a project called "PlayFair". It no longer does due to legal issues.
But this was because it allowed people to access protected works. Not because it used reverse engineering.
A Russian programmer was imprisoned for giving a presentation on the flawed security of Adobe's encrypted PDF format.
And acquitted
University Professors have been warned that an academic presentation would result in legal action via the DMCA.
But those threatening to do so backed down and retreated as soon as they were challenged.
Third-party print cartridges have been outlawed by the DMCA (no infringing copies are even possible in this case).
No they haven't. The copyright office has said as much. There is merely a temporary injunction on them while the legal dispute continues. In this casem I suspect they are making infringing copies of the cartridges.
Yeah, ask Johannsen about that.
You mean this guy?
Better yet, ask Valenti's successor why we still can't play DVDs on Linux legally, if the above statement is true.
You can. You simply can't rip them to hard disk and then decrypt them.
That was a translation to British.
Slashdot being a US site, should therefore translate it again to "We'll see you in court, sucka"
So, why would they want to set them up like that? It wouldn't be for reliability, since you're making them less reliable. Data access speed would not be a factor because we're looking at lots of small isloated pieces of data being accesses in parallel by several different users, with each user wanting to access a different piece of data. It would be quicker to access each piece of data on its own drive.
Reverse engineering the copy protection is legal for interoperability. Real could reasonably make the case that the purpose of reverse engineering was not to access copyrighted work, but to allow others to access material that they have a licence to do.
Since they're not planning to access, copy or use the files that are protected, and there's little case law covering this particular circumstance, they probably have quite a good case.
I have no idea why people who haven't even read the legislation keep making comments that are plain incorrect.
The only time reverse engineering is illegal under the DMCA is when it is used for making infringing copies.
While I agree that they probably won't be using consumer level drives, I think you're expecting them to be a lot less reliable than they actually would be.
A 100GB disk will have 100 users, checking their email roughly 3 times per day, and probably each receiving about a dozen emails. If the spam filtering is done before the mail is written to a specific drive, then that's 12 writes of about 100K each, and maybe about 20 reads of roughly the same amount per person, or 1200 writes and 2000 reads. Heavy use, perhaps, but not really the sort of pressure that will kill it in a matter of days.
Yes, but how much is it worth per user?
I understand they have to make money but if they weren't advertising they could lower the costs of their products and make the same amount of money.
Possibly they could, but even if they could, the chances are, they'd keep the prices the same and increase their profits.
In practice, it's a lot more complicated than that. They advertise primarily to increase demand. The higher demand can mean that a higher price results in higher profits, but advertisinbg is a fixed cost rather than a per-unit cost, so doesn't directly affect end user prices.