Humor heals. Dig it? I'd rather take a chance at hurting someone with a joke that might make them laugh, than to ensure with certainty that I won't affect them at all by posting exactly nothing.
Maybe not officially, but I'd wager that someone, somewhere you've been working, in IT, had a P2P app of some sort running. On purpose. Whether to download a copy of Knoppix to troubleshoot a dead PC from the floor, or to grab Led Zeppelin's complete discography for something to listen to at work, it's there.
You just don't notice it, because we tend to hide very well. Arr, matey!
(It's my opinion that it ranks right up there with commenting on Slashdot articles and reading the local newspaper in terms of wasted company resources. The legal angle is perhaps more interesting, but chances are that by being in IT, they'll never be found anyway -- when the heat comes on, they'll just stop, and you'll never know precisely who they are.)
But I'm thinking more along the lines of "Eat at Joe's," "Ford - Drive one," and "Drink Pepsi." I think we, as a society, can make this whole piracy thing pay for itself in no time, if it can just be properly capitalized.
Let's switch off the conspiracy theories and think more practically, shall we?
Some movies are shot in 3D. In the 1950s, this meant watching a movie with red- and blue-lensed glasses made of cardboard, and/or a headache. For quite some time now, however, the prevailing technique has been to issue 3D glasses with LCD shutters for lenses.
These shutters are controlled and synchronized with the film by IR. Therefore: Somewhere, pointed at the audience, is a big IR emitter.
Crossing 4-lane interstate (or most other limited-access) highways on foot is stupid, but also is illegal. Certainly, it would be the pedestrian's fault if they get plastered by a truck.
There are, however, other 4-lane highways which are perfectly safe to cross, within the confines of what is lawful, at any time of day. Main street, in my own town, is one such highway. Sure, there are traffic lights and crosswalks throughout downtown, but also up to four concurrent state and US routes sharing the road, and pretty dense traffic at certain times of day.
There is even at least one crosswalk enabling pedestrians right-of-way on a busy 4-lane state highway which is NOT marked by traffic light in my little town. To use it, one just enters the crosswalk and begins walking out into traffic. Stupid? Perhaps. Dangerous? Obviously. Criminal? It's a fucking crosswalk!
And if I, a pedestrian, am crossing within the law at any of these places and get hit by a truck, it most certainly IS the driver's fault. It's their responsibility to NOT hit me, no matter how many IQ points I'm missing.
Your analogy suggests that if I see someone walking around with a sword, and I pass them on the sidewalk and get cut, that it's my fault for doing so. Just like it's my fault if I'm a slender and attractive lady with provocative attire, walking home, late at night, down a dark road, and I get raped/robbed/kidnapped. It's my fault, right? Cuz, obviously, I'm ASKING to be raped. Yeah, sure.
Or, suppose a man in a ski mask is knocking on my door, and after I answer it, he clubs me over the head and helps himself to my belongings. I suppose that's my fault, too? Yeah. Right. What if it's January in northern Ohio? What if it's not? Why the fuck would it matter? It's my door, and there's no law prohibiting me from doing whatever I want with it. I can open it whenever I want, for whomever I want. The guy in the ski mask has a responsibility to follow laws and not steal from others, no matter how stupid his victim is.
Just because a thing is obviously foolish to do, doesn't mean that the blame gets shifted to the victim. Being stupid and/or doing stupid things isn't a crime.
With just those two types of message, I have to wonder: Are Australians unable to receive email on their phones? And, if they can, who pays for it?
I, myself, have made a forwarding email alias for my phone at my (Google Apps-hosted) personal domain. Works extremely well, archives everything received so I can review it later on the PC, and is something I can instantly turn off if it ever starts getting spammy. I use the shit out of it to such an extent that I'd be lost without it.
I'm in the US, so my various random travels aren't affected much by this bill, but:
Suppose someone is travelling to the US to do the equivalent of a typical budget USian European vacation: Arrive, go somewhere, sleep on the train to somewhere else, see what's there, stay at a random hostel if the things are particularly interesting there, or sleep on a train to somewhere else, visit that place, rinse, repeat . . .
There isn't any address that might be valid for more than about 10 hours, and most of those hours will be at night when the mail isn't arriving.
In this instance, I can't trust DHS to not seize my laptop -- how on Earth could trust them to get it back to me before I've moved on?
And, let us not forget: There's absolutely fucking nothing that can be transferred on a mobile laptop, that could not be transferred over the Intar-web at large in the form of a Truecrypt image. The whole idea is laptop seizures is totally fucked to begin with.
If I produce and sell a video card with a higher-than-recommended-by-nVidia clock on the GPU, I'm changing the spec. By changing the spec, I'm also assuming all of the liability of doing so. It's under my own warranty; nVidia isn't going to see any failed GPUs sent back to them in the event that they fail.
Because while what you say is potentially true, I'm not aware of any instances of an old Blu-Ray player being unable to play a new Blu-Ray movie by virtue of oldness alone. Some features don't work if the hardware can't support the function, sure, but so far as I've seen the movies themselves always work fine.
In fact, I thought one of the purposes of having a Java virtual machines built into players was to allow discs to create their own operating (and DRM) environment in software, instead of relying on hardcoded firmware for everything.
So is there some basis in reality for what you're suggesting, or are you just espousing a theory?
I used to maintain a proper, multiuser Linux box. It ran under a bench at work, and always performed every task we ever asked of it quickly and without complaint, from mail and IRC serving to remote X sessions with Netscape.
It was a 486DX4/100 with 24 megs of RAM. Swap, I believe, was in the range of 50MB.
Honestly, I don't see why anyone needs any more than that -- I don't really do any more stuff with a computer now, than we all did with that box, back then. You're really preaching to the choir.
But on the other hand, my computer sure does work a lot faster with a couple (or more) gigs of RAM and a proper swap file, than it does pared to its bare essentials.
So I guess, to answer your question: Time marches on. Computers get faster, have more RAM, do more stuff, cost less money. Software catches up with these new computers, over time, and grows to be as slow and bloated as the new machines are fast and efficient.
Right now, RAM is relatively cheap for the benefit of having it. So, enjoy it while it lasts -- history has shown that it won't be that way forever. But swap is still much cheaper. And so, when one discusses the difference between 256MB, or 8, 16 or even 32 gigs of swap, we're talking about a couple of dollars worth of disk AT MOST. There's better (ie: more expensive) things to spend time optimizing than trying to minimize swap.
So set the swap to be huge, and forget it. Spend the time you've saved by not worrying about it (time==money) on some more RAM or a good glass of beer or something.
Because if you've already successfully chewed through 8GB of RAM, having an extra 256MB of swap available just in case isn't likely to be a very meaningful stop-gap.
The other advantage of swap, which I've not seen anyone discuss here yet, is that unused programs and data will be flushed out of RAM to make room for more buffers and cache.
Might not seem like a big deal, either, but: Suppose you've got OpenOffice and Firefox open, but you haven't used them for awhile. They're each using a few hundred megs of RAM. You then decide to, say, start editing a DVD (or some other disk-intensive thing). With enough RAM and enough swap, the unused programs will be swapped to disk, and the RAM freed by doing sowill be used to cache as much of the DVD as possible. This makes the editing process quicker, and less CPU intensive.
In other words, swapless systems (or those with limited swap) are cache-starved.
I might do that. It'll be interesting to see how much time it has stolen from you, and whether or not you still think it's worthwhile.
I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, too -- at least reboot, for a kernel patch, the mail server at work had uptime of 609 days, with zero unplanned service interruptions other than the occasional connectivity snafu.
It's not rocket science by any stretch, but keeping this stuff rolling and secure does require a fair bit of time.
why would anyone want to spend 50$ on a 3 year old card when they can get a 1 year old "better" card for 90$
Perhaps someone only has $60, and still wants to eat for the rest of the day.
*shrug*
Generally, your "insightful" rhetorical question is absurd, like this: Why would anyone want to spend $50,000 on a 3-year-old Corvette when they can get a better 1-year-old Corvette C6 Z06 for $90,000?
When I worked in large regional retailer (clothes, groceries, toys, electronics, etc) a half-dozen years ago, it was a rule that there was to be no picture-taking on the premises, at all. Standard action was to either ask them to stop, or call management or security, depending on which one seemed most appropriate.
In fact, it was even a policy that pictures from inside of the store, if dropped off at the in-store photo lab for development, should not be printed for the customer.
Retailers *really* *are* paranoid about stuff like that, and not even just as related to prices. The layout of things on shelves, the colors and placement of signage, use of lighting, how the back stock is managed -- basically, they consider everything in the entire bloody store to be their own trade secret, even though almost all of it is right out in the open for all to see.
Slashdot Mirror
Sheesh, guys.
Humor heals. Dig it? I'd rather take a chance at hurting someone with a joke that might make them laugh, than to ensure with certainty that I won't affect them at all by posting exactly nothing.
Oh, sure.
Maybe not officially, but I'd wager that someone, somewhere you've been working, in IT, had a P2P app of some sort running. On purpose. Whether to download a copy of Knoppix to troubleshoot a dead PC from the floor, or to grab Led Zeppelin's complete discography for something to listen to at work, it's there.
You just don't notice it, because we tend to hide very well. Arr, matey!
(It's my opinion that it ranks right up there with commenting on Slashdot articles and reading the local newspaper in terms of wasted company resources. The legal angle is perhaps more interesting, but chances are that by being in IT, they'll never be found anyway -- when the heat comes on, they'll just stop, and you'll never know precisely who they are.)
Wow. He must've really been a stud to have already reproduced at a little past six months old.
Not to play Captain Obvious here or anything, but:
The only thing waiting for you at the end of a lengthy 70 degree slope is death.
If it's DNS hostnames you're worried about, I've got some ocean-front property in in-addr.arpa to sell you . . .
Selling spam is not hustling any more than selling cars, furnace repair, or sex is: In any case, money is exchanged for goods and services.
I certainly get my share of spam, so I'd guess that on a given day they're generally doing pretty well at performing the services they were hired for.
Right on.
But I'm thinking more along the lines of "Eat at Joe's," "Ford - Drive one," and "Drink Pepsi." I think we, as a society, can make this whole piracy thing pay for itself in no time, if it can just be properly capitalized.
Right. Because selling crack across the street from a school is EXACTLY like recording a movie with a video camera.
Thank you for finally setting the record straight.
Let's switch off the conspiracy theories and think more practically, shall we?
Some movies are shot in 3D. In the 1950s, this meant watching a movie with red- and blue-lensed glasses made of cardboard, and/or a headache. For quite some time now, however, the prevailing technique has been to issue 3D glasses with LCD shutters for lenses.
These shutters are controlled and synchronized with the film by IR. Therefore: Somewhere, pointed at the audience, is a big IR emitter.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
You're Catholic, aren't you?
Your analogy is quite fucked, and plainly wrong.
Crossing 4-lane interstate (or most other limited-access) highways on foot is stupid, but also is illegal. Certainly, it would be the pedestrian's fault if they get plastered by a truck.
There are, however, other 4-lane highways which are perfectly safe to cross, within the confines of what is lawful, at any time of day. Main street, in my own town, is one such highway. Sure, there are traffic lights and crosswalks throughout downtown, but also up to four concurrent state and US routes sharing the road, and pretty dense traffic at certain times of day.
There is even at least one crosswalk enabling pedestrians right-of-way on a busy 4-lane state highway which is NOT marked by traffic light in my little town. To use it, one just enters the crosswalk and begins walking out into traffic. Stupid? Perhaps. Dangerous? Obviously. Criminal? It's a fucking crosswalk!
And if I, a pedestrian, am crossing within the law at any of these places and get hit by a truck, it most certainly IS the driver's fault. It's their responsibility to NOT hit me, no matter how many IQ points I'm missing.
Your analogy suggests that if I see someone walking around with a sword, and I pass them on the sidewalk and get cut, that it's my fault for doing so. Just like it's my fault if I'm a slender and attractive lady with provocative attire, walking home, late at night, down a dark road, and I get raped/robbed/kidnapped. It's my fault, right? Cuz, obviously, I'm ASKING to be raped. Yeah, sure.
Or, suppose a man in a ski mask is knocking on my door, and after I answer it, he clubs me over the head and helps himself to my belongings. I suppose that's my fault, too? Yeah. Right. What if it's January in northern Ohio? What if it's not? Why the fuck would it matter? It's my door, and there's no law prohibiting me from doing whatever I want with it. I can open it whenever I want, for whomever I want. The guy in the ski mask has a responsibility to follow laws and not steal from others, no matter how stupid his victim is.
Just because a thing is obviously foolish to do, doesn't mean that the blame gets shifted to the victim. Being stupid and/or doing stupid things isn't a crime.
With just those two types of message, I have to wonder: Are Australians unable to receive email on their phones? And, if they can, who pays for it?
I, myself, have made a forwarding email alias for my phone at my (Google Apps-hosted) personal domain. Works extremely well, archives everything received so I can review it later on the PC, and is something I can instantly turn off if it ever starts getting spammy. I use the shit out of it to such an extent that I'd be lost without it.
Perhaps.
I'm in the US, so my various random travels aren't affected much by this bill, but:
Suppose someone is travelling to the US to do the equivalent of a typical budget USian European vacation: Arrive, go somewhere, sleep on the train to somewhere else, see what's there, stay at a random hostel if the things are particularly interesting there, or sleep on a train to somewhere else, visit that place, rinse, repeat . . .
There isn't any address that might be valid for more than about 10 hours, and most of those hours will be at night when the mail isn't arriving.
In this instance, I can't trust DHS to not seize my laptop -- how on Earth could trust them to get it back to me before I've moved on?
And, let us not forget: There's absolutely fucking nothing that can be transferred on a mobile laptop, that could not be transferred over the Intar-web at large in the form of a Truecrypt image. The whole idea is laptop seizures is totally fucked to begin with.
Except. You. Are. Short. Sighted.
If I produce and sell a video card with a higher-than-recommended-by-nVidia clock on the GPU, I'm changing the spec. By changing the spec, I'm also assuming all of the liability of doing so. It's under my own warranty; nVidia isn't going to see any failed GPUs sent back to them in the event that they fail.
Nothing to see here.
Care to cite a reference?
Because while what you say is potentially true, I'm not aware of any instances of an old Blu-Ray player being unable to play a new Blu-Ray movie by virtue of oldness alone. Some features don't work if the hardware can't support the function, sure, but so far as I've seen the movies themselves always work fine.
In fact, I thought one of the purposes of having a Java virtual machines built into players was to allow discs to create their own operating (and DRM) environment in software, instead of relying on hardcoded firmware for everything.
So is there some basis in reality for what you're suggesting, or are you just espousing a theory?
I used to maintain a proper, multiuser Linux box. It ran under a bench at work, and always performed every task we ever asked of it quickly and without complaint, from mail and IRC serving to remote X sessions with Netscape.
It was a 486DX4/100 with 24 megs of RAM. Swap, I believe, was in the range of 50MB.
Honestly, I don't see why anyone needs any more than that -- I don't really do any more stuff with a computer now, than we all did with that box, back then. You're really preaching to the choir.
But on the other hand, my computer sure does work a lot faster with a couple (or more) gigs of RAM and a proper swap file, than it does pared to its bare essentials.
So I guess, to answer your question: Time marches on. Computers get faster, have more RAM, do more stuff, cost less money. Software catches up with these new computers, over time, and grows to be as slow and bloated as the new machines are fast and efficient.
Right now, RAM is relatively cheap for the benefit of having it. So, enjoy it while it lasts -- history has shown that it won't be that way forever. But swap is still much cheaper. And so, when one discusses the difference between 256MB, or 8, 16 or even 32 gigs of swap, we're talking about a couple of dollars worth of disk AT MOST. There's better (ie: more expensive) things to spend time optimizing than trying to minimize swap.
So set the swap to be huge, and forget it. Spend the time you've saved by not worrying about it (time==money) on some more RAM or a good glass of beer or something.
Because if you've already successfully chewed through 8GB of RAM, having an extra 256MB of swap available just in case isn't likely to be a very meaningful stop-gap.
The other advantage of swap, which I've not seen anyone discuss here yet, is that unused programs and data will be flushed out of RAM to make room for more buffers and cache.
Might not seem like a big deal, either, but: Suppose you've got OpenOffice and Firefox open, but you haven't used them for awhile. They're each using a few hundred megs of RAM. You then decide to, say, start editing a DVD (or some other disk-intensive thing). With enough RAM and enough swap, the unused programs will be swapped to disk, and the RAM freed by doing sowill be used to cache as much of the DVD as possible. This makes the editing process quicker, and less CPU intensive.
In other words, swapless systems (or those with limited swap) are cache-starved.
Perhaps.
It'll be interesting to see how long one can be observed taking careful photographs of retail products before being asked to leave.
Right. Then, the universe just sort of ends.
(I thought this exception was obvious enough to leave out.)
I might do that. It'll be interesting to see how much time it has stolen from you, and whether or not you still think it's worthwhile.
I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, too -- at least reboot, for a kernel patch, the mail server at work had uptime of 609 days, with zero unplanned service interruptions other than the occasional connectivity snafu.
It's not rocket science by any stretch, but keeping this stuff rolling and secure does require a fair bit of time.
No matter what the amount of money you have is, someone out there has three orders of magnitude less.
why would anyone want to spend 50$ on a 3 year old card when they can get a 1 year old "better" card for 90$
Perhaps someone only has $60, and still wants to eat for the rest of the day.
*shrug*
Generally, your "insightful" rhetorical question is absurd, like this: Why would anyone want to spend $50,000 on a 3-year-old Corvette when they can get a better 1-year-old Corvette C6 Z06 for $90,000?
s/light pen/bar code reader/
When I worked in large regional retailer (clothes, groceries, toys, electronics, etc) a half-dozen years ago, it was a rule that there was to be no picture-taking on the premises, at all. Standard action was to either ask them to stop, or call management or security, depending on which one seemed most appropriate.
In fact, it was even a policy that pictures from inside of the store, if dropped off at the in-store photo lab for development, should not be printed for the customer.
Retailers *really* *are* paranoid about stuff like that, and not even just as related to prices. The layout of things on shelves, the colors and placement of signage, use of lighting, how the back stock is managed -- basically, they consider everything in the entire bloody store to be their own trade secret, even though almost all of it is right out in the open for all to see.
How does this enable progress?