Not another one
on
PHP Cookbook
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Am I the only one who is sick of seeing reviews of PHP and MySQL books ? How many is enough ? Are there that many people clicking through the bn.com affiliate links when a review is posted here ?
WTF are you talking about ? Just because some guy offers some service which people CAN CHOOSE to subscribe to, you say he's ripping people off ? How do you know it's a ripoff ? How can you say it's a ripoff when at this very site people are posting links about the latest LOTR trailer, or information about the creation of the Matrix, or trading every last bit of anime trivia and treating these events like some major important news ? Against this backdrop, and the reality that there are people out there willing to pay for 24-h cartoon channels and anime channels and fishing channels, who's NOT to say that there aren't some serious Star Wars fans (I'm not one of them) who'd be more than happy to pay the 20 bucks ? If they want to pay it, who is anyone else to say they're being ripped off ?
OSDN is already using your data for their own benefit:
OSDN may use accumulated aggregate data for several purposes including, but not limited to, marketing analysis, evaluation of OSDN's services, and business planning..
There is no prohibition against selling it to other parties. So why the cry of wolf ? I'm pretty sure that if someone found aggregate Slashdot information useful, OSDN would be - or is - selling it. And I don't care. Is it a violation of my privacy if some marketing firm studies aggregate customer behavior in a store and discovers that the majority of customers turn right when they enter ? I don't think it is, and that sort of aggregate research is happening all the time.
And there are some of us who think laptops are cool but when we look at the price we go and buy desktops with more memory and a faster processor for less.
If you can't afford to pay the premium for the very features that make tablets(laptops) cool, then you probably don't need a tablet(laptop) in the first place.
And there is no impact to their resources when I tap in.
So what if I just hack WEP to eavesdrop on your network, without ever sending any packets your way. What if I just use it to eavesdrop on conversations between your boss and you, or you and your wife, or you and your divorce attorney, or you and you gay lover, or if I use it to watch the webcam you have hooked up in your bedroom ? I'm not impacting your resourcs by eavesdropping. Is that OK ? Whether or not there is an impact on resources is, to me anyways, clearly immaterial.
I think there is a distinct difference between intercepting publically broadcast information, and eavesdropping on cell calls.
How exactly is the satellite signal any more "publically (sic) broadcast" than cell phone signals ? The satellite signal is clearly intended not for the general public, but for customers of the satellite company, and to that end they are encrypted. Cell phone signals are just as publicly available. So explain to me what the "distinct difference" is. Is it just that in one case a company is being victimized, and in another case a person is ?
Microsoft is a long way from its ultimate goal where users can take security for granted in its products
For that matter, Linux is far away from this goal as well. It just doesn't give people as much chauvinistic pleasure to trumpet it. From the glee and sarcasm in the early replies, you'd think Linux is unexploitable.
And many people have pointed out that while the majority of exploits have been directed at Windows machines, there are a lot more Windows users than anything else.
Why don't you ask the shareholders of the companies behind these movies how much "is enough" ? The movie companies have an OBLIGATION to their shareholders to make as much money as they can, and if I were a shareholder I would expect them to honour that obligation. I don't want any company I'm invested in to decide they've made "enough", when there is more to be made. I want the company to make all the money it can for *me*, and let *me* decide what I want to do with any supposed 'excess'.
I don't see anyone here crying that we should donate money to movie companies that spent a lot of money to produce a box-office bomb.
I think the only thing large-scale movie piracy shows is that many people would rather get things for free than pay for them. If DVDs were $5, people would still be ripping them and trading them for free.
So what if people have already paid to see the movie ? Why does watching it once, twice, or five times exonerate people from illegally copying it ?
The very fact that these companies have made a movie good enough that people want to see it multiple times means they should be compensated multiply for producing such a movie.
And you're right, there is no substitute for seeing a movie - almost any movie - on a big screen. So what ? People STILL pay for pay-per-views, and people STILL pay for DVDs, and people STILL pay for video tapes, and there are STILL people who will watch a rip instead of going to the movie that 1st or 2nd or 3rd time. This all means that the companies are still losing something from these rips, regardless of the somewhat hollow "no substitute" argument.
Right. *Noone* watches movies by themselves. And the BT downloads aren't going to hurt DVD sales at all, because watching DVDs are somehow "social events" in ways that divx rips aren't.
If I were an employer, and one of my employees asked me for the opportunity to play games on my dime, arguing that he'd improve his productivity while on his lunch break, I'd generously offer to fire him so that he could spend the entire work day improving his productivity. Why should *I* be the one to limit just how productive this employee can become ?
What a brain-dead premise. Volleyball courts and gyms, I can see. Computer and video games ? Give me a break.
Maybe the Korean government is going to look for people who are making way too many posts and make sure they're not about to die from sitting at their terminal for 8 hours in some Seoul baang.
The GPL is a tool. Consequences resulting from the use of any given tool are the burden of the weilder, not the tool.
Absolutely, but what this does show - in spades - is that companies need to be extremely circumspect when dealing with the GPL because if they're not, there might be long-ranging unintended ramifications to their business down the road.
But I do not buy the notion that a corporation should be protected from "embarrassment" based on the crimes their employees commit. Consider accounting crimes and insider trading, for example.
Of course not. But SOME consideration has to be made for your employers, and you have to give them SOME chance to rectify the situation in a manner that is reasonable, even in a situation like insider trading. You are their agent, after all.
In such a situation, some professional governing bodies recommend that you report the incident to your supervisor. If management refuses to act, you THEN have an obligation to 1) abstain from any activity connected to the illegal act, and possibly 2) seek legal counsel as to whether you are obligated to report the matter to legal authorities.
Obviously there is some subjectivity to the application of these rules - obviously you would react differently depending on whether you had evidence that the guy was going to plan a bombing in the next few days, versus if you had evidence they were illegally sharing Madonna MP3s.
You work for the company. You should at least consider the company's interests. Having the cops investigate could expose the company to considerable costs if the cops have to shut down the network or look around for other illegal files, which they may well have cause to, since all they (and you) really know is illegal material is stored on a company computer - which for all you know was put there by some disgruntled employee or admin at the office.
The right thing to do is report it to your manager. Presumably they will bring it to the attention of the authorities, and if they don't, well THEN you consider going to the cops yourself.
Why is whistleblowing so sanctified when it's on the part of the little guy ? Would we automatically want companies notifying the cops if a drug test showed we had (say) coke in our system ? Should we expect our neighbours to call the RIAA if they have evidence that you're sharing files illegally ?
I've been using Mozilla and Netscape, and I couldn't stand how opening a link in a new tab also switched focus to that tab. I don't know about previous FireBird versions, but this one opens a new tab but keeps focus on the current window, which is how I think it *should* work.
I have always said that a free market/capitalist system is a self regulating system. I *know* MS will lose marketshare and be a shadow of its former self in 10 years because EVERY other monopoly has done the same. IBM was busted for monopolistic policies in the 70s.
Ff what you say is true and the free market is self-regulating, then we shouldn't have needed the legal system to "bust" the IBM monopoly - it would have broken itself.
It *could* be just P.R. damage control designed to counter how silly MS was looking. The CNN article I read indicated that the legitimacy of the toilet was attested to by several other MS staffers.
If people don't like the terms the record companies are offering them - and that includes the price - then what they should do is REFUSE TO CONSUME THEIR PRODUCT. Grabbing the latest Madonna tune off Kazaa and sanctifying your actions by saying "the album is overpriced" or "I only want to buy song Z, but I don't have that option" only gives the record companies fodder for working harder to fight AGAINST fair use. Here's an analogy: In my neighbourhood, at Christmas time, people can buy trees by depositing the requested money in a safe box and helping themself to a tree. If I thought these vendors were charging an unfair price, the RIGHT thing to do is not buy a tree. The RIGHT thing to do is emphatically NOT to take the tree without paying for it. If we do the latter, how is the vendor to know that we refuse to buy their product because it's not a fair price ? How can the vendor possibly trust these signals as market signals ?
It all depends on what needs filesharing REALLY serves. If P2P is primarily servicing legitimate fair-use needs, then the economics motivating the record companies will be far different than the economics that would motivate them if P2P is primarily servicing the desires of many/most people to have things for free. I know that some people claim to own CDs, but grab tunes from those CDs off P2P anyways because it's easier (which boggles my mind considering how easy it is to do). Do we really believe that constitutes more than a minority of the traffic on Gnutella/Kazaa ?
The obvious fact that so much P2P is NOT fair-use-motivated helps drive the record companies to seeking out protections that jeopardize fair-use.
Further, the guy sharing the music is the only one that knows factually that what he is doing is wrong.
If this argument made any sense, then I would presume a person caught trying to buy coke from a drugdealer could say he didn't really know whether the dealer was going to rip him off, and therefore, didn't really know whether he was buying illegal drugs or some innocuous, legal-to-possess white powder. Soliciting almost every illegal activity I can think of right now is punishable. What makes the solicitation by P2P special ?
...DRM technologies that destroy our fair use as consumers. Our problem with them is not that they are trying to prevent us from stealing music.
You're wrong. *Some* people are legitimately considered with fair use issues. A lot of other people aren't. A lot of people seem to think that record companies "need to adapt", which seems to be a shorthand for "sell things to us in the manner we want them sold, all terms dictated by us, and the price we want them sold at". If the record companies don't give in on all terms, these people think it's OK for them to do whatever they want.
"fair use" is getting thrown around a lot, but I bet a good portion of people crying "fair use" have downloaded music they have no claim to fair use for.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one who is sick of seeing reviews of PHP and MySQL books ? How many is enough ? Are there that many people clicking through the bn.com affiliate links when a review is posted here ?
WTF are you talking about ? Just because some guy offers some service which people CAN CHOOSE to subscribe to, you say he's ripping people off ? How do you know it's a ripoff ? How can you say it's a ripoff when at this very site people are posting links about the latest LOTR trailer, or information about the creation of the Matrix, or trading every last bit of anime trivia and treating these events like some major important news ? Against this backdrop, and the reality that there are people out there willing to pay for 24-h cartoon channels and anime channels and fishing channels, who's NOT to say that there aren't some serious Star Wars fans (I'm not one of them) who'd be more than happy to pay the 20 bucks ? If they want to pay it, who is anyone else to say they're being ripped off ?
OSDN is already using your data for their own benefit:
.
OSDN may use accumulated aggregate data for several purposes including, but not limited to, marketing analysis, evaluation of OSDN's services, and business planning.
There is no prohibition against selling it to other parties. So why the cry of wolf ? I'm pretty sure that if someone found aggregate Slashdot information useful, OSDN would be - or is - selling it. And I don't care. Is it a violation of my privacy if some marketing firm studies aggregate customer behavior in a store and discovers that the majority of customers turn right when they enter ? I don't think it is, and that sort of aggregate research is happening all the time.
And there are some of us who think laptops are cool but when we look at the price we go and buy desktops with more memory and a faster processor for less.
If you can't afford to pay the premium for the very features that make tablets(laptops) cool, then you probably don't need a tablet(laptop) in the first place.
And there is no impact to their resources when I tap in.
So what if I just hack WEP to eavesdrop on your network, without ever sending any packets your way. What if I just use it to eavesdrop on conversations between your boss and you, or you and your wife, or you and your divorce attorney, or you and you gay lover, or if I use it to watch the webcam you have hooked up in your bedroom ? I'm not impacting your resourcs by eavesdropping. Is that OK ? Whether or not there is an impact on resources is, to me anyways, clearly immaterial.
I think there is a distinct difference between intercepting publically broadcast information, and eavesdropping on cell calls.
How exactly is the satellite signal any more "publically (sic) broadcast" than cell phone signals ? The satellite signal is clearly intended not for the general public, but for customers of the satellite company, and to that end they are encrypted. Cell phone signals are just as publicly available. So explain to me what the "distinct difference" is. Is it just that in one case a company is being victimized, and in another case a person is ?
Microsoft is a long way from its ultimate goal where users can take security for granted in its products
For that matter, Linux is far away from this goal as well. It just doesn't give people as much chauvinistic pleasure to trumpet it. From the glee and sarcasm in the early replies, you'd think Linux is unexploitable.
And many people have pointed out that while the majority of exploits have been directed at Windows machines, there are a lot more Windows users than anything else.
How much is enough, Hollywood?
Why don't you ask the shareholders of the companies behind these movies how much "is enough" ? The movie companies have an OBLIGATION to their shareholders to make as much money as they can, and if I were a shareholder I would expect them to honour that obligation. I don't want any company I'm invested in to decide they've made "enough", when there is more to be made. I want the company to make all the money it can for *me*, and let *me* decide what I want to do with any supposed 'excess'.
I don't see anyone here crying that we should donate money to movie companies that spent a lot of money to produce a box-office bomb.
I think the only thing large-scale movie piracy shows is that many people would rather get things for free than pay for them. If DVDs were $5, people would still be ripping them and trading them for free.
So what if people have already paid to see the movie ? Why does watching it once, twice, or five times exonerate people from illegally copying it ?
The very fact that these companies have made a movie good enough that people want to see it multiple times means they should be compensated multiply for producing such a movie.
And you're right, there is no substitute for seeing a movie - almost any movie - on a big screen. So what ? People STILL pay for pay-per-views, and people STILL pay for DVDs, and people STILL pay for video tapes, and there are STILL people who will watch a rip instead of going to the movie that 1st or 2nd or 3rd time. This all means that the companies are still losing something from these rips, regardless of the somewhat hollow "no substitute" argument.
Right. *Noone* watches movies by themselves. And the BT downloads aren't going to hurt DVD sales at all, because watching DVDs are somehow "social events" in ways that divx rips aren't.
If I were an employer, and one of my employees asked me for the opportunity to play games on my dime, arguing that he'd improve his productivity while on his lunch break, I'd generously offer to fire him so that he could spend the entire work day improving his productivity. Why should *I* be the one to limit just how productive this employee can become ?
What a brain-dead premise. Volleyball courts and gyms, I can see. Computer and video games ? Give me a break.
Maybe the Korean government is going to look for people who are making way too many posts and make sure they're not about to die from sitting at their terminal for 8 hours in some Seoul baang.
It will be really interesting to log onto a Korean discussion forum and see that all the posts are made by Messrs Kim, Park, and Oh.
The GPL is a tool. Consequences resulting from the use of any given tool are the burden of the weilder, not the tool.
Absolutely, but what this does show - in spades - is that companies need to be extremely circumspect when dealing with the GPL because if they're not, there might be long-ranging unintended ramifications to their business down the road.
George W. Bush has started submitting articles to /.?
Just be thankful that Clinton isn't submitting articles and Kennedy isn't around, or we'd all be wiping the spunk off the webpages. Interns beware !!!
But I do not buy the notion that a corporation should be protected from "embarrassment" based on the crimes their employees commit. Consider accounting crimes and insider trading, for example.
Of course not. But SOME consideration has to be made for your employers, and you have to give them SOME chance to rectify the situation in a manner that is reasonable, even in a situation like insider trading. You are their agent, after all.
In such a situation, some professional governing bodies recommend that you report the incident to your supervisor. If management refuses to act, you THEN have an obligation to 1) abstain from any activity connected to the illegal act, and possibly 2) seek legal counsel as to whether you are obligated to report the matter to legal authorities.
Obviously there is some subjectivity to the application of these rules - obviously you would react differently depending on whether you had evidence that the guy was going to plan a bombing in the next few days, versus if you had evidence they were illegally sharing Madonna MP3s.
You work for the company. You should at least consider the company's interests. Having the cops investigate could expose the company to considerable costs if the cops have to shut down the network or look around for other illegal files, which they may well have cause to, since all they (and you) really know is illegal material is stored on a company computer - which for all you know was put there by some disgruntled employee or admin at the office.
The right thing to do is report it to your manager. Presumably they will bring it to the attention of the authorities, and if they don't, well THEN you consider going to the cops yourself.
Why is whistleblowing so sanctified when it's on the part of the little guy ? Would we automatically want companies notifying the cops if a drug test showed we had (say) coke in our system ? Should we expect our neighbours to call the RIAA if they have evidence that you're sharing files illegally ?
I've been using Mozilla and Netscape, and I couldn't stand how opening a link in a new tab also switched focus to that tab. I don't know about previous FireBird versions, but this one opens a new tab but keeps focus on the current window, which is how I think it *should* work.
Ff what you say is true and the free market is self-regulating, then we shouldn't have needed the legal system to "bust" the IBM monopoly - it would have broken itself.
It *could* be just P.R. damage control designed to counter how silly MS was looking. The CNN article I read indicated that the legitimacy of the toilet was attested to by several other MS staffers.
here he is, a Slashdot regular. You gotta take your hat off to the guy...not everybody gets a second chance.
God. I hope if *I* ever get a second chance it will be as something more than a Slashdot regular.
If people don't like the terms the record companies are offering them - and that includes the price - then what they should do is REFUSE TO CONSUME THEIR PRODUCT. Grabbing the latest Madonna tune off Kazaa and sanctifying your actions by saying "the album is overpriced" or "I only want to buy song Z, but I don't have that option" only gives the record companies fodder for working harder to fight AGAINST fair use. Here's an analogy: In my neighbourhood, at Christmas time, people can buy trees by depositing the requested money in a safe box and helping themself to a tree. If I thought these vendors were charging an unfair price, the RIGHT thing to do is not buy a tree. The RIGHT thing to do is emphatically NOT to take the tree without paying for it. If we do the latter, how is the vendor to know that we refuse to buy their product because it's not a fair price ? How can the vendor possibly trust these signals as market signals ?
It all depends on what needs filesharing REALLY serves. If P2P is primarily servicing legitimate fair-use needs, then the economics motivating the record companies will be far different than the economics that would motivate them if P2P is primarily servicing the desires of many/most people to have things for free. I know that some people claim to own CDs, but grab tunes from those CDs off P2P anyways because it's easier (which boggles my mind considering how easy it is to do). Do we really believe that constitutes more than a minority of the traffic on Gnutella/Kazaa ?
The obvious fact that so much P2P is NOT fair-use-motivated helps drive the record companies to seeking out protections that jeopardize fair-use.
Further, the guy sharing the music is the only one that knows factually that what he is doing is wrong.
If this argument made any sense, then I would presume a person caught trying to buy coke from a drugdealer could say he didn't really know whether the dealer was going to rip him off, and therefore, didn't really know whether he was buying illegal drugs or some innocuous, legal-to-possess white powder. Soliciting almost every illegal activity I can think of right now is punishable. What makes the solicitation by P2P special ?
...DRM technologies that destroy our fair use as consumers. Our problem with them is not that they are trying to prevent us from stealing music.
You're wrong. *Some* people are legitimately considered with fair use issues. A lot of other people aren't. A lot of people seem to think that record companies "need to adapt", which seems to be a shorthand for "sell things to us in the manner we want them sold, all terms dictated by us, and the price we want them sold at". If the record companies don't give in on all terms, these people think it's OK for them to do whatever they want.
"fair use" is getting thrown around a lot, but I bet a good portion of people crying "fair use" have downloaded music they have no claim to fair use for.