The purpose of the American military is to provide jobs to the lower classes and keep the money circulating. Automating target identification defeats the purpose, however it does push money up towards the geniuses that come up with this stuff.
most of the responses were that the poster should stick with Google Apps for mail hosting, because self-hosting was too difficult
I've been self-hosting my personal email for the last 3 years and have found it to be almost as pain free as a hosted account. The only issues I've run into is that on a couple of occasions the IP address block containing the IP address of my server would get blacklisted and I would have to go through the procedure of getting my IP address whitelisted. On one occasion an automatic software update failed to bring postfix back up, so I had to start it manually. That's it.
I might get one spam email every few months, despite not running any kind of spam filtering software (i.e. SpamAssassin). Other than the above issues I've never had to tinker with anything, it just works - and email is sent and received instantly because my server never has to queue my messages.
When setting up an email server most people who have problems fail to ensure that:
The server's SMTP banner messages resolves to the server's primary IP address (do 'telnet 25', the part following the '220' is the SMTP banner message
The PTR record of the primary IP address resolves to the SMTP banner message
Strong passwords are used, thus allowing the account to get compromised by spambots
The downside of course is that you have to pay for hosting and a domain and you have to go through the hassle of initially setting it up. For postfix (SMTP) and dovecot (POP3/IMAP) you need to configure:
I was using Junkbuster. I set the HTTP spec to 1.0 and it's working now. Thanks!
Re:that strange history problem/bug?
on
Mozilla 0.9.3 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"..where if i go to google. and then click on a choice after searching, sometimes it'll try to access that page in the google.com domain. IOW: it'll just tack the path on the end of the present domain name."
I've seen that problem, too. Sometimes I'll click on a link and Mozilla will try to load something from it's history list instead. I first noticed this problem in a 0.9.2+ nightly and it remains in 0.9.3, which I've just downloaded and tried. I have not seen it in 0.9.2 and it is so annoying that I plan to stick with 0.9.2 for the time being.
I agree with both of you. Use the right tool for the job. If it's a legal issue such as most of those that the EFF deals with the court system is definitely the way to go. Other worthy problems require peaceful non-violent protests.
This may seem off-topic at first, but please read through it and you'll see
what I mean.
I would like to present you with a song about George W. Bush. I didn't write
it, of course, and the RIAA owns the rights to it, but I present it as an
act of drawing upon the popular culture in order to make a political statement:
---------
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man can you see me at all
Nowhere man, don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all, 'till somebody else
Lends you a hand
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
---------
Now, what the article is saying is that the Supreme Court's ruling on the
freelance publisher case could be interpreted to mean that the recording
industry could be compelled to license its material to Napster by a court
ruling at a price to be determined by a court. What I'd like to know is if
I use RIAA material as I have just done to make a political statement would
the same apply? And if so, what amount would the court set as an appropriate
fee for the compulsory licence?
Dear Honorable Representative Charlie A. Gonzales,
I would have written to you about this matter earlier but I've felt
a sense of powerlessness that I'm sure most ordinary working Americans
share; that possessing only a voice no longer has any meaning to an institution
that has become an Ebay where laws are written and sold to the highest
bidder.
This sense of powerlessness is in my belief the greatest single threat
to our National Security. That the self-evidence of this is completely
lost on our nations conscience and government is just more proof of how
far we as a people have lost our ability to govern ourselves to the Monied
Insterests. Timothy McVeigh took lives and gave his own life just as the
Minutemen who won our nation's independence from England; his belief in
the principles which founded this nation and his sense of powerlessness
to fight our current government's lack of respect for its own Constitution
by speaking up drove him to fight in the only way he knew how and to have
the courage to stand up for his truly American beliefs all the way to his
last breath before his state-sanctioned murder, without remorse. As long
as the Monied Interests continue to buy laws that violate our Constitution
this threat to our National Security will remain. No missile defense, no
amount of spending on our military and police can protect us from the next
Timothy McVeigh. The Timothy McVeighs that our sold-out government will
continue to breed through their disrespect for our Constitution will continue
to blow up buildings and kill innocent women and children or infect and
kill with biological agents everyone in a large city or two (maybe even Washington,
D.C.) on the ever-increasing number of anniversaries of FBI^h^h^h SS misdeeds
until Congress returns to respecting the very Constitution from which it
derives its sole legitimacy. When the next McVeigh strikes I'll just smile
and say to myself "I told you so," knowing just whose hands really bear the
blood. It's like Thomas Jefferson said: "The Tree of Liberty must, from
time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots." And while I'll deeply
admire and respect the McVeighs' belief in our Constitution I'll deplore
their actions because it will give our sold-out government another "excuse"
to further repress our freedoms and trample our Constitution. Lest you get
the wrong idea I'm not a terrorist who would ever commit an act of violence.
The terrorists that I view as role models are Gandhi and Martin Luther King
- terrorists who created terror in the hearts of the Establishments of their
times through non-violent means. I am a terrorist who would dare speak up
against the Monied Interests that have purchased our government; a terrorist
who's act of terrorism is to write to their representative as I am doing
now and risk imprisonment by Big Brother for unapproved thoughts (thought-crimes)
that might cost the Monied Interests a penny or two of their soon to be
constitutionally guaranteed profits. Yes, you read that right, Rep. Gonzalez,
I'm so disillusioned that I'm equating the act of writing my Representative
in the House of Representatives of the United States of America with an act
of terrorism. It seems that the Monied Interests and their bought-and-paid-for
government already believe that their profits are a constitutionally granted
right - that competition and survival in the marketplace and responsibility
to society at large are obsolete - so they might not get around to fixing
such a mere technicality.
Having said that, I'm writing you this letter to protest the FBI's^h^h^h^h^h
SS's latest Ruby Ridge, their latest Waco. On July 16, 2001 (A Date That
Will..) Adobe, Inc. ordered the FBI^h^h^h SS to imprison Dmitry Sklyarov,
a Russian programmer and father of two young children, because he gave
a speech that described the flaws in Adobe's encryption process used in
one of its products. An act no different from Ralph Nader describing the
flaws in Firestone's tires. An act not only legal but required in his own
country so that Russian citizens can exercise their fair-use rights under
Russian copyright law and so that Adobe could thus legally sell its product
there. An act of speech. Free speech, that once was protected under the
First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. But
not free anymore. He remains in jail as I write this, having been denied
not just bail but unconstitutionally denied a bail hearing. He has been
charged with felony criminal violation of the DMCA, a law bought and paid
for by Monied Interests to protect their intellectual property by violating
the First Amendment of our Constitution. Leaders in Congress are now saying
that this is just what they expected of the DMCA and are applauding his arrest!!!
Like the Pentagon Papers this sticks in my craw and turns the screw in ways
that constitute Cruel and Unusual Punishment. This is evidence on its face
that many of your Dishonorable Colleagues are of such nonexistent morality
as to have re-election funding as their one and only desire and motivation
(to hell with the Constitution) that makes Clinton^h^h^h Nixon^h^h^h Hitler^h^h^h
Satan look like the Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ Himself. It is they
who should be in jail right now, not Sklyarov!!! And we complain when China
detains our citizens!!! Boys and Girls, can you say, HYPOCRISY? Can you say
Pot? Kettle? Black? I thought you could!!! Too bad your Sold-Out Dishonorable
Colleagues in Congress can't. And they won't care either because the sheeple
who voted them into office will never hear about the DMCA or Sklyarov because
the Monied Interests who bought the DMCA and who had Sklyarov illegally jailed
will make sure they'll never hear about it on TV or in the newspapers or
they'll slant the news to make it look like it's the DMCA that's good and
it's the Big Bad Evil Hackers who are Just Getting What They Deserve.
I would also like you to know that I found the courage and fortitude
today to kick a habit more addictive than Crack Cocaine, a habit more
"American" than reruns of "Little House On The Prairie." To protest the
DMCA, I called AOL Time Warner and canceled the cable television service
that I was paying $70 a month for. I told them why. Not that they even
bothered to ask. I kept my broadband internet service because even though
it comes from a Monopoly it's the only way I can keep myself informed about
what is really happening on our planet but if the Monied Interests And
The Congress It Bought And Paid For has its way the Internet will become
just as relevant here as it is now in China. Then I'll have to cancel my
Internet service, and then I don't know what I'll do, maybe quit the computer
profession that our nation is now as dependent on for its economic survival
as a newborn baby human is on its mother and drink vodka all day to drown
my sadness and misery at what the once great United States of America has
become thanks to the Monied Interests and the Government They Bought And
Paid For.
I've also considered renouncing my American citizenship and moving
to another country, but where to? Within the dictatorship of the multinationals
who buy not just the laws of nations but the treaties between them as well,
no land will be safe for freedom. We may as well all live in one big Afghanistan.
I need to digress here and say one thing. Although campaign finance
reform may be what's needed to get the Monied Interests out of bed with
our government I have to say that passing campaign finance reform legislation
that violates the First Amendment is no better than the DMCA. We need to
carefully consider a Constitutional Amendment to fix the problem. Why can't
the Congressmen who are so anxious to get a constitutional amendment to punish
those who burn the flag consider a constitutional amendment to return the
government to the people? Answer: their bought and paid for. They have to
be to get the sheeple to elect them. The United States of America is (expletive
deleted).
So please, Rep. Gonzalez, Save Freedom. Save us from those who want
to "Round Up The Terrorists Who Warp Our Childrens' Minds By Saying On The
"Evil" Internet That It Is OK To Burn Our Flag, Write Software That Competes
With Microsoft And Give It Away For Free, Own Guns, Worship Allah, Read
Playboy, Have An Abortion, Play Video Games, Etc. Etc. And Subject Them
To Cruel And Unusual Punishment And Then Execute Them And Let The Sheeple
Watch It On Pay-Per-View So That The Conservative Media (The Monied Interests
have convinced the sheeple that it's the "Liberal Media", a "Hitler Big
Lie" if there ever was one) Can Fund Your Dishonorable Colleagues' Re-Election."
De-Motivate The Next Timothy McVeigh. Defend Us From Monied Interests Who
Have Paid Congress To Trample Our Constitution To Protect Their Profits And
Further Widen The Already Enormous Gap Between Rich And Poor. And, Please,
Rep. Gonzalez, FREE SKLYAROV. REPEAL THE DMCA. YES, I KNOW THAT WE ARE REQUIRED
BY THE WIPO TREATY THAT WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY MONIED INTERESTS TO
IMPLEMENT THE DMCA BUT IF WE CAN IGNORE THE ABM TREATY AND BUILD A MISSILE
DEFENSE^h^h^h MAGINOT LINE WE CAN IGNORE WIPO AND REPEAL THE DMCA. ALSO,
OPPOSE THE NOMINATION OF ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, - THE NAZI GAS CHAMBER
OPERATOR WHO FOLLOWED ADOBE'S ORDERS AND INSTRUCTED HIS MINIONS TO ARREST
DMITRY SKLYAROV - TO BE HEAD OF THE FBI^h^h^h SS. Stand Up For The People.
Stand Up And Defend Our Constitution. Do It For Your Constituents. Do It
For The United States of America. Do It Because You Know It's The Right
Thing To Do. Do It For Our Children.
Now, here's a much more coolheaded letter that someone else who calls
himself "bsdbigot" (an afficianado of the BSD computer operating system,
no doubt) on www.slashdot.org wrote that I've "cut and pasted", an act
which will soon be illegal if the Monied Interests continue to have their
way with our Government. I'm way too bitter to write as he has so I have
no choice but to use (or as the Monied Interests say, "pirate") his words:
"I am writing to you to voice my concern with the legality of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (forthwith DMCA), signed into law Oct. 28, 1998
as Public Law 105-304. I do believe that the government has a responsibility
to aid in the protection of copyrighted materials. However, the government,
first and foremost, is responsible for ensuring that citizens retain their
rights.
The DMCA serves only as a monetary protection to the corporations publishing
digital materials. It does not address "fair use" by law-abiding citizens,
which is a cornerstone of copyright law. More importantly, enforcement
of the DMCA deliberately restricts freedom afforded in Amendment I of the
United States Constitution. Corporations have a responsibility to their
shareholders and investors. One side effect of the DMCA is that poorly
engineered software - something that should be a liability to a corporation
- is effectively certified as saleable by the government. Imagine, as a
parallel, walking into a grocery store to purchase a steak for dinner. Imagine
that all the beef for sale was in a pile on the floor, unwrapped, not refrigerated,
next to the store's loading dock and garbage chute. If the DMCA applied to
this hypothetical situation, it would prevent you from telling anyone about
the unsanitary conditions in which the beef was purchased. That is an affront
to the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the
freedom of speech." If the DMCA applied in this situation, you could only
cook the meat exactly as the store instructs you, not because the DMCA says
that you must use only the store's recipe, but because the DMCA prohibits
development and dissemination of the technology required to make fair use
of the meat. If the store's recipe called for pan-frying the steak, charcoal
grills would be illegal circumvention devices.
This analogy describes what has occurred concerning the encryption
system used by the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) movie industry. The encryption
was found to be faulty and not worthy of protecting billions of dollars
of copyrighted material. Whether or not the intent was to slander the grocery
store, to steal the bad meat from the grocery store, or to protect people
from eating bad meat, DeCSS was released. DeCSS showed the world that the
grocery store is not able to protect its meat from going bad. Under the
DMCA, DeCSS is unlawful. Under previous copyright law, DeCSS is lawful -
it provides a method for you to eat steak tartar, steak and lobster, filet
mignon, or charbroiled porterhouse. Like the FDA and various Departments
of Health, previous copyright law already prohibits you from reselling your
meat in a manner that is dangerous to public health. In its current form,
the DMCA does no service to either the shareholders and investors of the
grocery store, or to the citizens who shop there. The DMCA only protects
the store's secret about how the meat is handled and ensures that the consumer
will use the store's recipe for preparing the meat.
A report this week by Scott Hettrick of Variety indicates that approximately
20% of all television-owning households now has a DVD player. The report
also says that 460 million DVD movies have been sold since 1997, when the
format was first publicly available. In fiscal years 1997 and 1998, Warner
Home Video's gross sales of DVD movies were $50 million and $170 million,
respectively. If you figure an average consumer cost of $20.00 (US) for
a single DVD movie, you have a multi-billion dollar industry, which is supported
by an optimistic ten percent of the US population. Ten billion dollars
have been spent on DVD movies in only 3 years! And, the growth rate is
phenomenal - 200% to 250% per year. These facts should make it clear that
any piracy that might occur without the DMCA would be, from a fiscal standpoint,
irrelevant. Let us not forget that criminals are criminals - they have
no respect for the law. The DMCA is supposed to protect against piracy,
but I would argue that piracy will continue with or without the DMCA, and
piracy can be prosecuted under existing copyright law. In this light,
the DMCA - already a bad law - is also extraneous.
DeCSS is not the only challenger to the DMCA - I use it in my example
because it has been high profile in the last year. Last week saw the arrest
of Russian Dmitry Sklyarov in a case that is sure to put DMCA to the test.
His company (based in Russia) sells a product that takes advantage of poor
encryption on Adobe eBook data. This product gives consumers back their
fair use rights, but it has been labeled a circumvention device under the
terms of the DMCA. This is a sad misnomer - neither DeCSS nor this other
product circumvents any protection device. They use an alternate or similar
algorithm to decrypt the copyrighted data within. The only thing being circumvented
in either case is the manufacturer's intended use (the store's recipe). In
fact, in the case of DeCSS, significant advances have been made in the speed
and reliability of the decryption - a fact that the Motion Picture Association
of America (MPAA) and the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) would
prefer to hide from consumers. So, here we see another adverse affect of
the DMCA: the market for complimentary products is being stifled. Of course,
this latest case is also an "international incident," which can only serve
to add stress to already strained relations between the United States and
Russia. As a result of the DMCA and Sklyarov's arrest, various groups and
individuals have initiated a boycott of all Adobe products and a boycott
against all international conferences held in the United States. The DMCA
is actually hurting a large corporation - the free market is starting to
reject corporations that support the DMCA.
There are other challenges to the DMCA in the making. Content Protection
for Recordable Media (CPRM) and Digital Music Access Technology (DMAT)
are two multi-corporation technologies that threaten to eliminate fair
use. There are initiatives to provide alternatives to these corporate strategies,
but reality says that the money that the large corporations can invest
in saturating the market with these new technologies will prohibit people
from trying to find an alternative.
I do not advocate piracy or plagiarism, and I understand that those
practices are exactly what the DMCA is supposed to prevent. The DMCA is
good for preventing these practices, but it reaches that goal at the expense
of citizens? rights. This is truly a new genre of legislation, and it is
asinine to assume that the DMCA is the answer to all questions that arise,
or to assume that previous copyright legislation is sufficient. There has
to be a happy medium, and I?m convinced that it has yet to be found. Whatever
the middle ground is, it needs to be beneficial to both corporations and
consumers.
I am pro-business. America continues to remain the most significant
world power largely because of the corporations that support our economy
and our government, and I have no wish to detract from our success and continued
position on top of the world. The government, however, has no business protecting
business from consumers. Inherent to a free market economy is the ability
of the consumer to choose. The DMCA prevents choices. The government should
limit its involvement in the free market to protecting consumers from business
and preventing attempts to undermine our economy. I ask that you take my
position under advisement and do what can be done to repeal the DMCA."
Sincerely,
Blind_RMS_Groupie
P.S. Yes, I'm aware that you're not on the committee that according
to House procedure has the sole power to repeal the DMCA. But you could
read my letter into the Record. If you do that, please let me know when
so I can go to a friends house and tape it off of CSPAN, assuming of course
that Congress hasn't sold the copyrights to its own deliberations to Microsoft
AOL Time Warner Disney GE Bertelsmann Sony, Inc. (MSAOLTWDGEBS on the NYNASDAQSE)
and that it is still legal for me to do so. OH, WAIT, ON SECOND THOUGHT,
PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!!! PLEASE, KEEP THIS LETTER A SECRET!!! IF MSAOLTWDGEBS,
INC. FINDS OUT ABOUT IT THEY'LL ORDER THE FBI^h^h^h SS TO COME AND BREAK
INTO MY HOUSE, STEAL MY HOUSE AND BELONGINGS AND AUCTION THEM OFF AND POCKET
THE PROCEEDS, ARREST ME AND THROW ME INTO A PRISON, OWNED AND OPERATED FOR
PROFIT BY MSAOLTWDGEBS, INC., WHERE THE GUARDS CAN WATCH AND LAUGH AS BUBBA
POUNDS ME UP THE RECTUM UNTIL I DIE FROM INTERNAL BLEEDING.
P.P.S. I'm unenployed right now, which explains why I have the time
to write this letter. Since I can no longer in clear conscience have anything
to do with Microsoft or Adobe or their products I might have to flip burgers
to support myself when my savings run out. Fortunately, with my living
expenses being as low as they are, I can support myself that way.
cc: POTUS (vice-president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: w (president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: President Putin (president@gov.ru)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (Phil_Gramm@gramm.senate.gov)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (senator@hutchison.senate.gov)
Well, according to Paragraph 99 in the conclusion to his discussion on the matter, he states that:
The proper function of law is to facilitate economic advances that provide a net benefit to the public. The prevailing intellectual property, contract, and preemption laws are each designed to achieve this purpose. Since mass-market public software licenses conform to these laws and provide a net benefit to the public, their enforceability should be declared certain.
Although I agree with you wholeheartedly on being "turned into happy little consumers" I think there's more to the issue of restricted upstream bandwidth than companies not being willing to provide it. With cable the infrastructure was not designed to provide huge amounts of upstream bandwidth and what is available is limited to shortwave frequencies. I'm sure that cable companies would love to offer real business class services over their cable networks but the fact that they don't IMO speaks volumes about their infrastructure limitations. Here, RoadRunner offers "business" cable modem service but all you get is more email accounts, you're still stuck with DHCP, the speeds are the same and the TOS still prohibits servers.
As for servers, I've had RoadRunner for a year and a half running a Linux box at home with Apache and SSH running. As far as I can tell only the email port is blocked; I've always been able to access my web server from work and I use SSH to access my home box from work and transfer files back and forth. The only problem I have is that about once a month I'm forced to take a new IP address at home and so sometimes I find myself locked out until I can get home and see what my new IP address is. The local Time Warner office's unofficial (verbally stated) policy is to look the other way at this sort of intermittent activity; they feel that DHCP prevents "real" servers from soaking up the upstream bandwidth.
As for bandwidth, I'll post this from their faq:
Southwestern Bell gives a bandwidth guarantee for their
ADSL service. Does Road Runner offer the same?
No we do not, although we provide substantially greater bandwidth than ADSL. You
should experience faster speeds through Road Runner than through any form of
ADSL or other DSL technologies. Because use and number of users varies, we
cannot provide a guaranteed Internet connect speed. Unfortunately, no one can
except to the first point of aggregation. For an ISP with dial in, the speed can be
guaranteed only as far as the terminal server. For ISDN, only to the access server.
For ADSL, only to the DSLAM. For T- I or T-3, only to the first router. Please
examine any claim carefully. You will have full 10 mbps Ethernet connection
between computer and the cable modem. The RF coax from the node to your home
is the first aggregation point for the cable modem, providing substantially greater
bandwidth than ADSL. We expect that downstream (from the internet to you) be
over 20 mbps on the LAN section and the upstream (to the Internet) be in excess of
2 mbps, also on the LAN segment. Also, Road Runner is built to scale, so each
person experiences their own up to 2000 kbps or more download and 384 upload,
regardless of how many surf or download at the same time. Road Runner is secure,
too.
I can vouch for their speed claims; I've seen download speeds as high as 280 kilobytes/s while updating my box from ftp.us.debian.org. I've never seen any slowdowns that I've been able to pin down as due to sharing bandwidth with other users (usually it's due to dropped packets resulting from RF ingress interfering with the upstream channel and TW has become really good at locating and fixing this over time; service has become progressively better over time in this regard and the problem is largely resolved. In fact, recently I thought the noise problem had returned so I called tech support and informed them of this. The front-line guy asked my for my IP address and after about two minutes he informed me that my cable modem was not dropping packets but that my Linux box was!! I rather meekly thanked him for the information and after some quick research found out that there was a packet drop issue with the 3com adapter I was using. I switched to another adapter and the problem was solved!) As for their "Road Runner is secure, too." statement all this means is that their cable modems are routers, meaning of course that you don't see your neighbor's packets unless they are addressed to you. Each user is of course responsible for securing their own box, just like with any other Internet service.
Among the things Monsanto has done is a "brand" of potato which produces it's own round-ups. Ie, if for instance a Colorado bug gets to a Monsanto potato and starts eating, in a few minutes it falls dead on the ground. And people are supposed to eat that food.
Genetically modified potatoes are all but dead.
Although I'm no fan of McDonalds, they've decided that the risk of consumer backlash against the use of GM potatoes in their cash-cow french fries is too high so they now only buy non-GM potatoes. They're such a huge buyer of potatoes that few if any farmers will now plant GM potatoes.
Reasonable range is in the eye of the driver. I don't understand what the big deal about range is when it comes to an electric car.
Now, range is important in a gasoline powered car. Why? Because it's the only thing on the market right now. (Hybrids are fancy gas cars, IMO, and GM doesn't even lease EV1s any more.) If I need to drive 300-500 Km I will do it in a gas car. For me this is quite often actually as I have a friend that I like to visit on weekends that lives 300 Km away.
My daily driving habits are different, though. I rarely, if ever, drive more than 70 Km (43 miles) in a single day on a workday. Average is more like 35 Km. For this, an electric car with lead-acid or better batteries is more than sufficient. As long as it can recharge overnight that's all I need. Pull the car into the garage when I get home from work, plug in the charger, unplug it before I leave in the morning, no big deal. Easier than having to watch a gas gauge and having to decide if I'm low enough on gas to justify time spent filling up and coordinating the gauge reading with my distance from the cheapest gas station.
I think with the present technology the optimum combination is a gas car for long trips and an electric car for commuting. Unfortunately the car co's marketing depts think consumers are too stupid to see things this way. Maybe they are. *sigh*.
..but the $64K (USD) question is, is it too late to get this scheme adopted by the FCC as the forthcoming standard? An awful lot of money has been invested in the currently proposed standard.
If this new scheme were to become the standard it would mean that plain old VCRs would have another 10-20 years of useful life left to them, meaning I can still copy stuff off the air. I'm not so sure that would still be the case after a complete switchover to a digital format and the obsolesence of NTSC.
Finally, a use for the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie! And with some minor adaptation it could be used for the rest of your body as well.
--
There's a better way..
on
Solar Sails
·
· Score: 5
This is certainly interesting, especially in that it's being done by a private firm, but I find the idea of Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2) much more fascinating. The idea is that you replicate a miniature version of the Earth's magnetosphere around a spacecraft and let the plasma push against that instead. The beauty of it is that thrust remains relatively constant because as the craft moves farther away from the sun the reduced plasma pressure results in a correspondingly larger artifical magnetosphere. Also the thrust can be varied electronically instead of mechanically and there's no moving parts.
When I first read the post I thought "wow, this engine is going to propel this thing to mach 7.6 as it goes down!", but according to the article this is not the case. The engine is designed to provide readings that will help to calibrate supersonic wind tunnel tests and as such its optimal configuration for this purpose is one that doesn't produce any significant net thrust. Engines that produce thrust will come later.
There's more reasons not to write code for Playstations than the inability to write Free Software for them due to the NDA issue.
Does anyone remember this Slashdot article quoting Sony VP Steve Heckler as saying "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Since reading the above quote I've decided never to purchase another Sony product.
What's interesting is that RMS deviates from his usual perspective at the end of the exchange:
"But I could imagine that a PS2 wrapper that supports some standard interface used on other machines might make SONY extremely unhappy, because of encouraging people to write their software portably instead of writing it specifically for the PS2. Making them unhappy seems like a good thing given the circumstances."
I wholeheartedly agree. Closed source is OK if its purpose is to piss Sony off!
$22,750 will get you 14.7 megapixels worth of SGI 1600SW monitors. That's $5833 USD/megapixel for the so-called "Ultimate Monitor" and $1526 USD/megapixel for the SGI 1600SW. Reminds me of the saying about a fool and his money...
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, it's been a vast wasteland for the past 50 years.
The purpose of the American military is to provide jobs to the lower classes and keep the money circulating. Automating target identification defeats the purpose, however it does push money up towards the geniuses that come up with this stuff.
most of the responses were that the poster should stick with Google Apps for mail hosting, because self-hosting was too difficult
I've been self-hosting my personal email for the last 3 years and have found it to be almost as pain free as a hosted account. The only issues I've run into is that on a couple of occasions the IP address block containing the IP address of my server would get blacklisted and I would have to go through the procedure of getting my IP address whitelisted. On one occasion an automatic software update failed to bring postfix back up, so I had to start it manually. That's it.
I might get one spam email every few months, despite not running any kind of spam filtering software (i.e. SpamAssassin). Other than the above issues I've never had to tinker with anything, it just works - and email is sent and received instantly because my server never has to queue my messages.
When setting up an email server most people who have problems fail to ensure that:
The downside of course is that you have to pay for hosting and a domain and you have to go through the hassle of initially setting it up. For postfix (SMTP) and dovecot (POP3/IMAP) you need to configure:
G+ may be evil but Google is your friend when it comes to getting these files setup correctly ;)
Sky indeed blue, research study concludes.
Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I was using Junkbuster. I set the HTTP spec to 1.0 and it's working now. Thanks!
I agree with both of you. Use the right tool for the job. If it's a legal issue such as most of those that the EFF deals with the court system is definitely the way to go. Other worthy problems require peaceful non-violent protests.
This may seem off-topic at first, but please read through it and you'll see what I mean.
I would like to present you with a song about George W. Bush. I didn't write it, of course, and the RIAA owns the rights to it, but I present it as an act of drawing upon the popular culture in order to make a political statement:
---------
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man can you see me at all
Nowhere man, don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all, 'till somebody else
Lends you a hand
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
---------
Now, what the article is saying is that the Supreme Court's ruling on the freelance publisher case could be interpreted to mean that the recording industry could be compelled to license its material to Napster by a court ruling at a price to be determined by a court. What I'd like to know is if I use RIAA material as I have just done to make a political statement would the same apply? And if so, what amount would the court set as an appropriate fee for the compulsory licence?
I meant doesn't allow the s tag
The copy I sent him was handwritten and unfortunately Slashdot doesn't allow tags.
Dear Honorable Representative Charlie A. Gonzales,
..) Adobe, Inc. ordered the FBI^h^h^h SS to imprison Dmitry Sklyarov,
a Russian programmer and father of two young children, because he gave
a speech that described the flaws in Adobe's encryption process used in
one of its products. An act no different from Ralph Nader describing the
flaws in Firestone's tires. An act not only legal but required in his own
country so that Russian citizens can exercise their fair-use rights under
Russian copyright law and so that Adobe could thus legally sell its product
there. An act of speech. Free speech, that once was protected under the
First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. But
not free anymore. He remains in jail as I write this, having been denied
not just bail but unconstitutionally denied a bail hearing. He has been
charged with felony criminal violation of the DMCA, a law bought and paid
for by Monied Interests to protect their intellectual property by violating
the First Amendment of our Constitution. Leaders in Congress are now saying
that this is just what they expected of the DMCA and are applauding his arrest!!!
Like the Pentagon Papers this sticks in my craw and turns the screw in ways
that constitute Cruel and Unusual Punishment. This is evidence on its face
that many of your Dishonorable Colleagues are of such nonexistent morality
as to have re-election funding as their one and only desire and motivation
(to hell with the Constitution) that makes Clinton^h^h^h Nixon^h^h^h Hitler^h^h^h
Satan look like the Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ Himself. It is they
who should be in jail right now, not Sklyarov!!! And we complain when China
detains our citizens!!! Boys and Girls, can you say, HYPOCRISY? Can you say
Pot? Kettle? Black? I thought you could!!! Too bad your Sold-Out Dishonorable
Colleagues in Congress can't. And they won't care either because the sheeple
who voted them into office will never hear about the DMCA or Sklyarov because
the Monied Interests who bought the DMCA and who had Sklyarov illegally jailed
will make sure they'll never hear about it on TV or in the newspapers or
they'll slant the news to make it look like it's the DMCA that's good and
it's the Big Bad Evil Hackers who are Just Getting What They Deserve.
I would have written to you about this matter earlier but I've felt a sense of powerlessness that I'm sure most ordinary working Americans share; that possessing only a voice no longer has any meaning to an institution that has become an Ebay where laws are written and sold to the highest bidder.
This sense of powerlessness is in my belief the greatest single threat to our National Security. That the self-evidence of this is completely lost on our nations conscience and government is just more proof of how far we as a people have lost our ability to govern ourselves to the Monied Insterests. Timothy McVeigh took lives and gave his own life just as the Minutemen who won our nation's independence from England; his belief in the principles which founded this nation and his sense of powerlessness to fight our current government's lack of respect for its own Constitution by speaking up drove him to fight in the only way he knew how and to have the courage to stand up for his truly American beliefs all the way to his last breath before his state-sanctioned murder, without remorse. As long as the Monied Interests continue to buy laws that violate our Constitution this threat to our National Security will remain. No missile defense, no amount of spending on our military and police can protect us from the next Timothy McVeigh. The Timothy McVeighs that our sold-out government will continue to breed through their disrespect for our Constitution will continue to blow up buildings and kill innocent women and children or infect and kill with biological agents everyone in a large city or two (maybe even Washington, D.C.) on the ever-increasing number of anniversaries of FBI^h^h^h SS misdeeds until Congress returns to respecting the very Constitution from which it derives its sole legitimacy. When the next McVeigh strikes I'll just smile and say to myself "I told you so," knowing just whose hands really bear the blood. It's like Thomas Jefferson said: "The Tree of Liberty must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots." And while I'll deeply admire and respect the McVeighs' belief in our Constitution I'll deplore their actions because it will give our sold-out government another "excuse" to further repress our freedoms and trample our Constitution. Lest you get the wrong idea I'm not a terrorist who would ever commit an act of violence. The terrorists that I view as role models are Gandhi and Martin Luther King - terrorists who created terror in the hearts of the Establishments of their times through non-violent means. I am a terrorist who would dare speak up against the Monied Interests that have purchased our government; a terrorist who's act of terrorism is to write to their representative as I am doing now and risk imprisonment by Big Brother for unapproved thoughts (thought-crimes) that might cost the Monied Interests a penny or two of their soon to be constitutionally guaranteed profits. Yes, you read that right, Rep. Gonzalez, I'm so disillusioned that I'm equating the act of writing my Representative in the House of Representatives of the United States of America with an act of terrorism. It seems that the Monied Interests and their bought-and-paid-for government already believe that their profits are a constitutionally granted right - that competition and survival in the marketplace and responsibility to society at large are obsolete - so they might not get around to fixing such a mere technicality.
Having said that, I'm writing you this letter to protest the FBI's^h^h^h^h^h SS's latest Ruby Ridge, their latest Waco. On July 16, 2001 (A Date That Will
I would also like you to know that I found the courage and fortitude today to kick a habit more addictive than Crack Cocaine, a habit more "American" than reruns of "Little House On The Prairie." To protest the DMCA, I called AOL Time Warner and canceled the cable television service that I was paying $70 a month for. I told them why. Not that they even bothered to ask. I kept my broadband internet service because even though it comes from a Monopoly it's the only way I can keep myself informed about what is really happening on our planet but if the Monied Interests And The Congress It Bought And Paid For has its way the Internet will become just as relevant here as it is now in China. Then I'll have to cancel my Internet service, and then I don't know what I'll do, maybe quit the computer profession that our nation is now as dependent on for its economic survival as a newborn baby human is on its mother and drink vodka all day to drown my sadness and misery at what the once great United States of America has become thanks to the Monied Interests and the Government They Bought And Paid For.
I've also considered renouncing my American citizenship and moving to another country, but where to? Within the dictatorship of the multinationals who buy not just the laws of nations but the treaties between them as well, no land will be safe for freedom. We may as well all live in one big Afghanistan.
I need to digress here and say one thing. Although campaign finance reform may be what's needed to get the Monied Interests out of bed with our government I have to say that passing campaign finance reform legislation that violates the First Amendment is no better than the DMCA. We need to carefully consider a Constitutional Amendment to fix the problem. Why can't the Congressmen who are so anxious to get a constitutional amendment to punish those who burn the flag consider a constitutional amendment to return the government to the people? Answer: their bought and paid for. They have to be to get the sheeple to elect them. The United States of America is (expletive deleted).
So please, Rep. Gonzalez, Save Freedom. Save us from those who want to "Round Up The Terrorists Who Warp Our Childrens' Minds By Saying On The "Evil" Internet That It Is OK To Burn Our Flag, Write Software That Competes With Microsoft And Give It Away For Free, Own Guns, Worship Allah, Read Playboy, Have An Abortion, Play Video Games, Etc. Etc. And Subject Them To Cruel And Unusual Punishment And Then Execute Them And Let The Sheeple Watch It On Pay-Per-View So That The Conservative Media (The Monied Interests have convinced the sheeple that it's the "Liberal Media", a "Hitler Big Lie" if there ever was one) Can Fund Your Dishonorable Colleagues' Re-Election." De-Motivate The Next Timothy McVeigh. Defend Us From Monied Interests Who Have Paid Congress To Trample Our Constitution To Protect Their Profits And Further Widen The Already Enormous Gap Between Rich And Poor. And, Please, Rep. Gonzalez, FREE SKLYAROV. REPEAL THE DMCA. YES, I KNOW THAT WE ARE REQUIRED BY THE WIPO TREATY THAT WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY MONIED INTERESTS TO IMPLEMENT THE DMCA BUT IF WE CAN IGNORE THE ABM TREATY AND BUILD A MISSILE DEFENSE^h^h^h MAGINOT LINE WE CAN IGNORE WIPO AND REPEAL THE DMCA. ALSO, OPPOSE THE NOMINATION OF ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, - THE NAZI GAS CHAMBER OPERATOR WHO FOLLOWED ADOBE'S ORDERS AND INSTRUCTED HIS MINIONS TO ARREST DMITRY SKLYAROV - TO BE HEAD OF THE FBI^h^h^h SS. Stand Up For The People. Stand Up And Defend Our Constitution. Do It For Your Constituents. Do It For The United States of America. Do It Because You Know It's The Right Thing To Do. Do It For Our Children.
Now, here's a much more coolheaded letter that someone else who calls himself "bsdbigot" (an afficianado of the BSD computer operating system, no doubt) on www.slashdot.org wrote that I've "cut and pasted", an act which will soon be illegal if the Monied Interests continue to have their way with our Government. I'm way too bitter to write as he has so I have no choice but to use (or as the Monied Interests say, "pirate") his words:
"I am writing to you to voice my concern with the legality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (forthwith DMCA), signed into law Oct. 28, 1998 as Public Law 105-304. I do believe that the government has a responsibility to aid in the protection of copyrighted materials. However, the government, first and foremost, is responsible for ensuring that citizens retain their rights.
The DMCA serves only as a monetary protection to the corporations publishing digital materials. It does not address "fair use" by law-abiding citizens, which is a cornerstone of copyright law. More importantly, enforcement of the DMCA deliberately restricts freedom afforded in Amendment I of the United States Constitution. Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders and investors. One side effect of the DMCA is that poorly engineered software - something that should be a liability to a corporation - is effectively certified as saleable by the government. Imagine, as a parallel, walking into a grocery store to purchase a steak for dinner. Imagine that all the beef for sale was in a pile on the floor, unwrapped, not refrigerated, next to the store's loading dock and garbage chute. If the DMCA applied to this hypothetical situation, it would prevent you from telling anyone about the unsanitary conditions in which the beef was purchased. That is an affront to the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech." If the DMCA applied in this situation, you could only cook the meat exactly as the store instructs you, not because the DMCA says that you must use only the store's recipe, but because the DMCA prohibits development and dissemination of the technology required to make fair use of the meat. If the store's recipe called for pan-frying the steak, charcoal grills would be illegal circumvention devices.
This analogy describes what has occurred concerning the encryption system used by the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) movie industry. The encryption was found to be faulty and not worthy of protecting billions of dollars of copyrighted material. Whether or not the intent was to slander the grocery store, to steal the bad meat from the grocery store, or to protect people from eating bad meat, DeCSS was released. DeCSS showed the world that the grocery store is not able to protect its meat from going bad. Under the DMCA, DeCSS is unlawful. Under previous copyright law, DeCSS is lawful - it provides a method for you to eat steak tartar, steak and lobster, filet mignon, or charbroiled porterhouse. Like the FDA and various Departments of Health, previous copyright law already prohibits you from reselling your meat in a manner that is dangerous to public health. In its current form, the DMCA does no service to either the shareholders and investors of the grocery store, or to the citizens who shop there. The DMCA only protects the store's secret about how the meat is handled and ensures that the consumer will use the store's recipe for preparing the meat.
A report this week by Scott Hettrick of Variety indicates that approximately 20% of all television-owning households now has a DVD player. The report also says that 460 million DVD movies have been sold since 1997, when the format was first publicly available. In fiscal years 1997 and 1998, Warner Home Video's gross sales of DVD movies were $50 million and $170 million, respectively. If you figure an average consumer cost of $20.00 (US) for a single DVD movie, you have a multi-billion dollar industry, which is supported by an optimistic ten percent of the US population. Ten billion dollars have been spent on DVD movies in only 3 years! And, the growth rate is phenomenal - 200% to 250% per year. These facts should make it clear that any piracy that might occur without the DMCA would be, from a fiscal standpoint, irrelevant. Let us not forget that criminals are criminals - they have no respect for the law. The DMCA is supposed to protect against piracy, but I would argue that piracy will continue with or without the DMCA, and piracy can be prosecuted under existing copyright law. In this light, the DMCA - already a bad law - is also extraneous.
DeCSS is not the only challenger to the DMCA - I use it in my example because it has been high profile in the last year. Last week saw the arrest of Russian Dmitry Sklyarov in a case that is sure to put DMCA to the test. His company (based in Russia) sells a product that takes advantage of poor encryption on Adobe eBook data. This product gives consumers back their fair use rights, but it has been labeled a circumvention device under the terms of the DMCA. This is a sad misnomer - neither DeCSS nor this other product circumvents any protection device. They use an alternate or similar algorithm to decrypt the copyrighted data within. The only thing being circumvented in either case is the manufacturer's intended use (the store's recipe). In fact, in the case of DeCSS, significant advances have been made in the speed and reliability of the decryption - a fact that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) would prefer to hide from consumers. So, here we see another adverse affect of the DMCA: the market for complimentary products is being stifled. Of course, this latest case is also an "international incident," which can only serve to add stress to already strained relations between the United States and Russia. As a result of the DMCA and Sklyarov's arrest, various groups and individuals have initiated a boycott of all Adobe products and a boycott against all international conferences held in the United States. The DMCA is actually hurting a large corporation - the free market is starting to reject corporations that support the DMCA.
There are other challenges to the DMCA in the making. Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) and Digital Music Access Technology (DMAT) are two multi-corporation technologies that threaten to eliminate fair use. There are initiatives to provide alternatives to these corporate strategies, but reality says that the money that the large corporations can invest in saturating the market with these new technologies will prohibit people from trying to find an alternative.
I do not advocate piracy or plagiarism, and I understand that those practices are exactly what the DMCA is supposed to prevent. The DMCA is good for preventing these practices, but it reaches that goal at the expense of citizens? rights. This is truly a new genre of legislation, and it is asinine to assume that the DMCA is the answer to all questions that arise, or to assume that previous copyright legislation is sufficient. There has to be a happy medium, and I?m convinced that it has yet to be found. Whatever the middle ground is, it needs to be beneficial to both corporations and consumers.
I am pro-business. America continues to remain the most significant world power largely because of the corporations that support our economy and our government, and I have no wish to detract from our success and continued position on top of the world. The government, however, has no business protecting business from consumers. Inherent to a free market economy is the ability of the consumer to choose. The DMCA prevents choices. The government should limit its involvement in the free market to protecting consumers from business and preventing attempts to undermine our economy. I ask that you take my position under advisement and do what can be done to repeal the DMCA."
Sincerely,
Blind_RMS_Groupie
P.S. Yes, I'm aware that you're not on the committee that according to House procedure has the sole power to repeal the DMCA. But you could read my letter into the Record. If you do that, please let me know when so I can go to a friends house and tape it off of CSPAN, assuming of course that Congress hasn't sold the copyrights to its own deliberations to Microsoft AOL Time Warner Disney GE Bertelsmann Sony, Inc. (MSAOLTWDGEBS on the NYNASDAQSE) and that it is still legal for me to do so. OH, WAIT, ON SECOND THOUGHT, PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!!! PLEASE, KEEP THIS LETTER A SECRET!!! IF MSAOLTWDGEBS, INC. FINDS OUT ABOUT IT THEY'LL ORDER THE FBI^h^h^h SS TO COME AND BREAK INTO MY HOUSE, STEAL MY HOUSE AND BELONGINGS AND AUCTION THEM OFF AND POCKET THE PROCEEDS, ARREST ME AND THROW ME INTO A PRISON, OWNED AND OPERATED FOR PROFIT BY MSAOLTWDGEBS, INC., WHERE THE GUARDS CAN WATCH AND LAUGH AS BUBBA POUNDS ME UP THE RECTUM UNTIL I DIE FROM INTERNAL BLEEDING.
P.P.S. I'm unenployed right now, which explains why I have the time to write this letter. Since I can no longer in clear conscience have anything to do with Microsoft or Adobe or their products I might have to flip burgers to support myself when my savings run out. Fortunately, with my living expenses being as low as they are, I can support myself that way.
cc: POTUS (vice-president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: w (president@whitehouse.gov)
cc: President Putin (president@gov.ru)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (Phil_Gramm@gramm.senate.gov)
cc: automated constituent opinion talley system (senator@hutchison.senate.gov)
So he's already answered the question: yes, he believes it's enforceable. Perhaps the question should be "have any new court precedent(s) or anything else changed your conclusions as expressed in Paragraph 99 since you wrote Facilitating Collaborative Software Development: The Enforceability of Mass-Market Public Software Licenses
(And please don't answer with, "It depends" :-).)
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Although I agree with you wholeheartedly on being "turned into happy little consumers" I think there's more to the issue of restricted upstream bandwidth than companies not being willing to provide it. With cable the infrastructure was not designed to provide huge amounts of upstream bandwidth and what is available is limited to shortwave frequencies. I'm sure that cable companies would love to offer real business class services over their cable networks but the fact that they don't IMO speaks volumes about their infrastructure limitations. Here, RoadRunner offers "business" cable modem service but all you get is more email accounts, you're still stuck with DHCP, the speeds are the same and the TOS still prohibits servers.
As for servers, I've had RoadRunner for a year and a half running a Linux box at home with Apache and SSH running. As far as I can tell only the email port is blocked; I've always been able to access my web server from work and I use SSH to access my home box from work and transfer files back and forth. The only problem I have is that about once a month I'm forced to take a new IP address at home and so sometimes I find myself locked out until I can get home and see what my new IP address is. The local Time Warner office's unofficial (verbally stated) policy is to look the other way at this sort of intermittent activity; they feel that DHCP prevents "real" servers from soaking up the upstream bandwidth.
As for bandwidth, I'll post this from their faq:
Southwestern Bell gives a bandwidth guarantee for their ADSL service. Does Road Runner offer the same?
No we do not, although we provide substantially greater bandwidth than ADSL. You should experience faster speeds through Road Runner than through any form of ADSL or other DSL technologies. Because use and number of users varies, we cannot provide a guaranteed Internet connect speed. Unfortunately, no one can except to the first point of aggregation. For an ISP with dial in, the speed can be guaranteed only as far as the terminal server. For ISDN, only to the access server. For ADSL, only to the DSLAM. For T- I or T-3, only to the first router. Please examine any claim carefully. You will have full 10 mbps Ethernet connection between computer and the cable modem. The RF coax from the node to your home is the first aggregation point for the cable modem, providing substantially greater bandwidth than ADSL. We expect that downstream (from the internet to you) be over 20 mbps on the LAN section and the upstream (to the Internet) be in excess of 2 mbps, also on the LAN segment. Also, Road Runner is built to scale, so each person experiences their own up to 2000 kbps or more download and 384 upload, regardless of how many surf or download at the same time. Road Runner is secure, too.
I can vouch for their speed claims; I've seen download speeds as high as 280 kilobytes/s while updating my box from ftp.us.debian.org. I've never seen any slowdowns that I've been able to pin down as due to sharing bandwidth with other users (usually it's due to dropped packets resulting from RF ingress interfering with the upstream channel and TW has become really good at locating and fixing this over time; service has become progressively better over time in this regard and the problem is largely resolved. In fact, recently I thought the noise problem had returned so I called tech support and informed them of this. The front-line guy asked my for my IP address and after about two minutes he informed me that my cable modem was not dropping packets but that my Linux box was!! I rather meekly thanked him for the information and after some quick research found out that there was a packet drop issue with the 3com adapter I was using. I switched to another adapter and the problem was solved!) As for their "Road Runner is secure, too." statement all this means is that their cable modems are routers, meaning of course that you don't see your neighbor's packets unless they are addressed to you. Each user is of course responsible for securing their own box, just like with any other Internet service.
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Genetically modified potatoes are all but dead.
Although I'm no fan of McDonalds, they've decided that the risk of consumer backlash against the use of GM potatoes in their cash-cow french fries is too high so they now only buy non-GM potatoes. They're such a huge buyer of potatoes that few if any farmers will now plant GM potatoes.
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Now, range is important in a gasoline powered car. Why? Because it's the only thing on the market right now. (Hybrids are fancy gas cars, IMO, and GM doesn't even lease EV1s any more.) If I need to drive 300-500 Km I will do it in a gas car. For me this is quite often actually as I have a friend that I like to visit on weekends that lives 300 Km away.
My daily driving habits are different, though. I rarely, if ever, drive more than 70 Km (43 miles) in a single day on a workday. Average is more like 35 Km. For this, an electric car with lead-acid or better batteries is more than sufficient. As long as it can recharge overnight that's all I need. Pull the car into the garage when I get home from work, plug in the charger, unplug it before I leave in the morning, no big deal. Easier than having to watch a gas gauge and having to decide if I'm low enough on gas to justify time spent filling up and coordinating the gauge reading with my distance from the cheapest gas station.
I think with the present technology the optimum combination is a gas car for long trips and an electric car for commuting. Unfortunately the car co's marketing depts think consumers are too stupid to see things this way. Maybe they are. *sigh*.
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If this new scheme were to become the standard it would mean that plain old VCRs would have another 10-20 years of useful life left to them, meaning I can still copy stuff off the air. I'm not so sure that would still be the case after a complete switchover to a digital format and the obsolesence of NTSC.
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Isn't this the essence of a Monopoly situation?
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Does anyone remember this Slashdot article quoting Sony VP Steve Heckler as saying "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Since reading the above quote I've decided never to purchase another Sony product.
What's interesting is that RMS deviates from his usual perspective at the end of the exchange:
"But I could imagine that a PS2 wrapper that supports some standard interface used on other machines might make SONY extremely unhappy, because of encouraging people to write their software portably instead of writing it specifically for the PS2. Making them unhappy seems like a good thing given the circumstances."
I wholeheartedly agree. Closed source is OK if its purpose is to piss Sony off!
(/rant)
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