I definitely wasn't looking for "the man" that's keeping us down. I'm looking towards where a potential black hole in the economy could exist.
If an M rating of available "cash" of 1.5T to 10T, and yet traded stocks value in the 45T, doesn't there seem to be a disconnect?
How can the "value" of stocks be greater than the sum of all cash available?
If there's only let's go high here, 15T in actual printed cash, not all of which is backed by anything other than our government's say so - or in reality - the Federal Reserve, which if memory serves, isn't even a government entity, but is or at least was, a privately held entity, then how can we possibly come to a total "stock" value of 45T? Then add in this even larger number which includes the value of all the privately held entities, and we start to see a huge disparity.
You can't have "value" without something to stand behind it. ie - we used to use gold, then silver - now the word of the Federal Reserve?
If we have all of these corporations looking to improve their bottom lines by raising cash, stock value, investor returns, etc.. What is the limit? What are the repurcussions of an all out failure in the system? Where will the minimum 30T in cash come from if all the stocks were to be (I know there are trading limits and market shutdowns) somehow cashed out, without their prices bottoming?
In the end, we have a system which allows artificial inflation of value based upon artificial numbers with nothing of substance behind them - ie - a company with 50 billion in stock value, doesn't have 50 billion in gold sitting around to back that value.
All in all, the stock market sounds an awfull lot like the federal government. Run out of money, no problem - the companies that play the market game will just "print more stock" so they can keep spending - as long as they can get someone to "buy" it.
Essentially, what we have, is one of the world's largest Casinos, operating without gambling permits.
I'm not sure how best to word this, however, the closest I can come to is that there should be something that "restricts" the value of all privately held companies, publicly held companies, stock values, etc to the "actual amount" of "valued cash / gold / silver" that is currently available.
Without this limit, all it is, is a virtual economy, that if you look carefully, is nothing but faith in promises that by and large are forgotten as soon as the cash is pocketed.
Has anyone ever tried to add up the total value of all the stocks (or even the top 50% of them) taking current stock value, multiplying it times number of outstanding shares (and whatever other numerical oddities might be involved) to come up with a floating total gross value of all (or top 50%) stocks?
How close to one of these M values would we get? Then add in all the assets reported by the corporations, how much closer do we get?
In the end, what percentage of M is actually owned by the people, what percentage by corporations, and of the people owned percentage, what percentage of that is owned by how few? ie - add up the richest americans net values (not including stock options/values) to derive the figure.
It could be interesting to find out that 98 or 99% of M is actually owned by corporations and about.0001 percent of the american population...
I know this is something of a tangent to the discussion, and may be moderated as off topic, however, I think it fits to portions of the discussion.
How much money is there in the United States? How much has been printed? How much is in circulation? How much has been lost? How much is moldering in a sealed mason jar under Uncle Funkenwagner's front porch?
The reason I'm asking is this? To what percentage of currently existing, freely exchanged cash do corporations aspire to? At what percentage of collective wealth do the people that support the corporations (ie pharmaceutical companies, oil companies) end up incapable of supporting any form of financial growth for these companies causing declines in stock prices and profits, increasing costs of said companies' products, which in turn causes a downward spiral.
I guess what I'm asking is, how many of the recessions have been caused by corporate greed?
Hmmm - and how are you going to stop the sperm whales from eating them day in and day out. I'm sure they eat more in a day, than we've caught or killed in all of human history so far.
The problem with trying to watch at around 610 meters, is that the pictures were taken at over 1000 meters, if I recall the show correctly, it may have been closer to 1300 or 1500 meters.
The squid put up a fight because one of it's tentacles was caught on one of the hooks that the bait was attached to. It eventually detached or snapped off the tentacle to escape, leaving the Dr. with one very long piece of evidence attached to the hook.
It was a very interesting show. It also showed another researcher working on the other end of the spectrum, capturing live baby giant squid, attempting to get them to live in captivity.
Also, I would hate to think that you could trademark "any and all possible output of this here al-go-rythm-thing-y".
That would be akin to trying to trademark "any and all possible output of my ass".
How can you base a trademark on a chunk of code that takes user generated input, mucks with it, and comes up with an output.
You can say that it's algorithm generated output, but it's still going to appear to anyone looking at it as seemingly random output. That's hardly what I would classify as something to which you could attach the (tm) to.
It's the output of the algorithm which would have to carry the TM, not the algorithm itself, as it's nothing more than software (or firmware programmed with the software). It gets worse, as it wouldn't take that much effort for someone to develop another algorithm that could come up with the exact same sequence of output. Then the whole watermark / signature would have to go out the door, as it wasn't the same code that generated the output, even though the signature came out binary equivelent.
Okay, I can accept that distinction - except for one minor issue.
Where do WE the people ever SEE the watermark or signature?
Aren't Trademarks traditionally accepted as something visual for PEOPLE to see? That's not to say that people couldn't use a file viewer to actually look at the binary sequence used to create the watermark, and / or signature and tell that they were somehow unique and distinctive enough to set them apart from some other randomly generated binary data?
If they are not disctinctive enough to anyone (I don't mean a professional software developer or file format expert), then they can hardly be given trademark status.
Is it truly a trademark, or is it just another component of the file format?
IMO it's just a file format component, and thus cannot be covered under a trademark.
Now if they wanted to patent or copyright the sequence of code used to generate the watermark and signature, they might have a leg to stand on. This would last until someone reverse engineers the code and comes up with a completely different method to do the same thing. This I believe, is why they took this indirect, and apparently deceptive spin through trademark law.
IMO, trying to trademark something that wasn't intended to be viewed or interpreted by a human being is analogous to trying to prove to a deaf person that "Ice Ice Baby" uses the same beat as "Under Pressure".
The lawyers could talk until they were blue in the face, however, I would still just look at them and laugh, and then dismiss the case with prejudice and then ask the state's bar association to dis-bar them to prevent future wastes of time in the judicial system.
Okay, so you're too dense to understand my meaning.
Yes, you can trademark a SINGLE random output.
You cannot apply for a trademark for "all possible random outputs".
They're talking about multiple random outputs - ie - each and every file has a different signature and watermark.
Unless the software is designed to submit each and every signature and watermark that is generated for trademark status, their case basis doesn't hold liquid, gas or solid matter.
The lawyers say that the watermarks and digital signatures are equivalent to a logo and that it is afforded protection under trademark law. That might be true if the watermark or signature were always the same. As an analogy, you can't just trademark the entire alphabet, and then expect to be able to sue anyone who uses the letters in their own trademarks or names.
Now, if the file format did some magic, where a trailer were computed and added that made the *signature* and *watermark* components identical, regardless of what the original content was, then they could trademark said signature or watermark.
ymmv - get rid of your home phone, go pure mobile.
Between the costs of the landline, local long distance, regular long distance, e911 fees, local taxes, etc... even if you went with something like Vonage, it's still more expensive to keep a landline and a mobile phone than to just use the mobile phone.
Add in something like a family share plan, and multiple households can go pure wireless and save even more.
Oh - it's also nice because they don't CHARGE you to keep your mobile phone unlisted.
And how many components of Apple's OS are actually performed using Safari's code?
Or is it Safari, running via Apple's OS code?
With Windows, there are a lot of components of the OS that use the browser's code to function, as opposed to the browser running in a layer on TOP of the OS. I think that's the key difference. Microsoft couldn't get their GUI to perform, so they embedded it into the kernel. Then they couldn't get their browser to function, so they embedded code for it into the lower layers of the OS.
Instead of spending time modifying the OS to do these functions properly, and seperately, they've entangled the code to a point where a bad chunk of code in one place, emperils the entire system. Nice going MS.
They are not *just* shifting it - they are selling a LEGAL copy of the DVD as well.
The user buys the DVD as well as the shifted content so that they have a LEGAL copy.
The company is doing the shifting of the media to a format that the users want the media in. Just because the MPAA is too stupid to do it themselves, doesn't preclude a company from doing it for them.
If someone has me shift media content because they don't have the knowledge to do so, does that make me an infringer?
The whole reason that a company has come up with this idea is due to the fact that the MPAA has tried to make it impossible for end-users to have *fair use* rights to the media / content they've purchased.
You should see the SPIA (Software Publisher's Installation Agreement) that's pasted on the front of my Computer.
It clearly states, that by allowing their software to be installed on this computer, that they agree to the following terms.
#1 All EULAs are null and void. #2 They WILL be held accountable if their software causes a problem. #3 I can do whatever the hell I want with their software once it's installed on MY computer. #4 They can NOT install anything *extra* without my explicit permission.
4a) Any attempts to do so will result in fines no less than 1 Million USD, and no more than (whatever they have in liquid assets) #5 Any updates or changes to the software's EULA must be approved by me before they can be sent out to anyone else.
I'm currently sitting at around 4.5 billion in fines. I'm waiting until I hit the "Trillion Dollar" mark, before I move forward with my lawsuits for SPIA violations.
Let's see... Just open up all of our American corporations so that all of their precious information, applications, systems, networks, etc are built, maintained, controlled by non citizens. Many of them have no drive to get things done correctly, safely, securely. Most of them do not have a stake in the companies that hire them. Couple this with language barriers, society barriers, background barriers, and we end up with ineffective employees. I've seen it time and time again, where the H1B holder can't comprehend the simplest things because they don't understand the context around it. They've gone to school, they've taken the classes and they've memorized the answers. However, ask them to think it through, to give the full reasoning behind each feature and function, and they just stare at you as if you've asked them to quote the value of Pi to the 3 billionth decimal place. They might even know the answer, they just can't comprehend the context of the question, because we base it on what we know and have learned over the years.
Do you really want all of the companies who sub-contract to the companies who supply the DoD with equipment to rely on H1B holders? How much of a cost increase is there when every line of code, every circuit, every component has to be double and triple checked by non H1B workers to make certain that security glitches, back-doors, etc weren't introduced.
What kind of holes will be introduced into software which uses personally identifiable information simply because the H1B worker took shortcuts to get the job done, because they CAN'T say no and push the time-lines back?
I'm sorry - there's just too many things that go wrong when you introduce too many non-native employees into the mix. It just doesn't work. It's not effective. It ALWAYS ends up costing more in the long run.
How do forensics help if/when the cache used was RAM Disk - which is recreated each boot?
LiveCDs mentioned many times before are great for browsing with no trails left behind.
VMWare Player, using a snapshot that's reset each boot is also a cool way to browse.
BTW - Read my other post in here - where it shows that Yahoo, Hotmail and GMail can all be configured to be retrieved/stored in the users local mail using outlook express.
Don't forget that the most commonly used (by less technically inclined people) e-mail client, outlook express, would download and store hotmail web-mail just as easily as it did pop3 / smtp mail.
I know, we make it so that they can never re-install the OS on the same hardware without buying a new license. Then we design in new security flaws (what? We don't need to design in new security flaws? They're already there? - cool - no extra work needed then) - wait for the operating system to fubar itself, and then collect another license fee when the user re-installs it.
Let's see - with a low estimate of 20 million users, at twice month re-install rates, that's 40 million licenses a month, at ~200 a pop, we collect 8 billion in revenue the first month alone... (cue the muahahahaha and mad scientist music)
meanwhile over at the Justice Department...
USAGboy - Holy rotten licensure Ratman, we've got to do something about this. Ratman (aka GWB) - Don't worry USAGboy, we've already got it covered - we collect $20 out of every $200 renewal fee. We get our money, M$ gets theirs, and our constituants are screwed as usual...
Slashdot Mirror
As others have stated - get the newer RC, or wait for the full release.
I have an IBM (pre Lenevo by a few weeeks) G41 laptop and the wireless works perfectly with my WRT54G R3.0.
I definitely wasn't looking for "the man" that's keeping us down. I'm looking towards where a potential black hole in the economy could exist.
If an M rating of available "cash" of 1.5T to 10T, and yet traded stocks value in the 45T, doesn't there seem to be a disconnect?
How can the "value" of stocks be greater than the sum of all cash available?
If there's only let's go high here, 15T in actual printed cash, not all of which is backed by anything other than our government's say so - or in reality - the Federal Reserve, which if memory serves, isn't even a government entity, but is or at least was, a privately held entity, then how can we possibly come to a total "stock" value of 45T? Then add in this even larger number which includes the value of all the privately held entities, and we start to see a huge disparity.
You can't have "value" without something to stand behind it. ie - we used to use gold, then silver - now the word of the Federal Reserve?
If we have all of these corporations looking to improve their bottom lines by raising cash, stock value, investor returns, etc.. What is the limit? What are the repurcussions of an all out failure in the system? Where will the minimum 30T in cash come from if all the stocks were to be (I know there are trading limits and market shutdowns) somehow cashed out, without their prices bottoming?
In the end, we have a system which allows artificial inflation of value based upon artificial numbers with nothing of substance behind them - ie - a company with 50 billion in stock value, doesn't have 50 billion in gold sitting around to back that value.
All in all, the stock market sounds an awfull lot like the federal government. Run out of money, no problem - the companies that play the market game will just "print more stock" so they can keep spending - as long as they can get someone to "buy" it.
Essentially, what we have, is one of the world's largest Casinos, operating without gambling permits.
I'm not sure how best to word this, however, the closest I can come to is that there should be something that "restricts" the value of all privately held companies, publicly held companies, stock values, etc to the "actual amount" of "valued cash / gold / silver" that is currently available.
Without this limit, all it is, is a virtual economy, that if you look carefully, is nothing but faith in promises that by and large are forgotten as soon as the cash is pocketed.
Okay, now I'll ask the next question.
.0001 percent of the american population...
Has anyone ever tried to add up the total value of all the stocks (or even the top 50% of them) taking current stock value, multiplying it times number of outstanding shares (and whatever other numerical oddities might be involved) to come up with a floating total gross value of all (or top 50%) stocks?
How close to one of these M values would we get? Then add in all the assets reported by the corporations, how much closer do we get?
In the end, what percentage of M is actually owned by the people, what percentage by corporations, and of the people owned percentage, what percentage of that is owned by how few? ie - add up the richest americans net values (not including stock options/values) to derive the figure.
It could be interesting to find out that 98 or 99% of M is actually owned by corporations and about
However, corporations are controlled by people, and if people are greedy, then the corporate policies will show this - ie - corporate greed.
Corporations are what they are made up of, in many (but not all) cases, greedy people.
I know this is something of a tangent to the discussion, and may be moderated as off topic, however, I think it fits to portions of the discussion.
How much money is there in the United States?
How much has been printed? How much is in circulation? How much has been lost? How much is moldering in a sealed mason jar under Uncle Funkenwagner's front porch?
The reason I'm asking is this? To what percentage of currently existing, freely exchanged cash do corporations aspire to? At what percentage of collective wealth do the people that support the corporations (ie pharmaceutical companies, oil companies) end up incapable of supporting any form of financial growth for these companies causing declines in stock prices and profits, increasing costs of said companies' products, which in turn causes a downward spiral.
I guess what I'm asking is, how many of the recessions have been caused by corporate greed?
Uhm - yeah - now try for a legal method. ie - most countries have either outright outlawed whaling, or have heavily limited it.
Make sure to avoid Greenpeace while you're out there.
Hmmm - and how are you going to stop the sperm whales from eating them day in and day out.
I'm sure they eat more in a day, than we've caught or killed in all of human history so far.
The problem with trying to watch at around 610 meters, is that the pictures were taken at over 1000 meters, if I recall the show correctly, it may have been closer to 1300 or 1500 meters.
The squid put up a fight because one of it's tentacles was caught on one of the hooks that the bait was attached to. It eventually detached or snapped off the tentacle to escape, leaving the Dr. with one very long piece of evidence attached to the hook.
It was a very interesting show. It also showed another researcher working on the other end of the spectrum, capturing live baby giant squid, attempting to get them to live in captivity.
Also, I would hate to think that you could trademark "any and all possible output of this here al-go-rythm-thing-y".
That would be akin to trying to trademark "any and all possible output of my ass".
How can you base a trademark on a chunk of code that takes user generated input, mucks with it, and comes up with an output.
You can say that it's algorithm generated output, but it's still going to appear to anyone looking at it as seemingly random output. That's hardly what I would classify as something to which you could attach the (tm) to.
ASDASDASDFASDHJASD (tm)
KJASDHFKJHASDKHASD (tm)
ASDSAFASKDJALSKDAS (tm)
IWISHICOULDTMTHIS! (tm)
SEERANDOMOUTPUTFTW (tm)
It's the output of the algorithm which would have to carry the TM, not the algorithm itself, as it's nothing more than software (or firmware programmed with the software).
It gets worse, as it wouldn't take that much effort for someone to develop another algorithm that could come up with the exact same sequence of output. Then the whole watermark / signature would have to go out the door, as it wasn't the same code that generated the output, even though the signature came out binary equivelent.
Okay, I can accept that distinction - except for one minor issue.
Where do WE the people ever SEE the watermark or signature?
Aren't Trademarks traditionally accepted as something visual for PEOPLE to see?
That's not to say that people couldn't use a file viewer to actually look at the binary sequence used to create the watermark, and / or signature and tell that they were somehow unique and distinctive enough to set them apart from some other randomly generated binary data?
If they are not disctinctive enough to anyone (I don't mean a professional software developer or file format expert), then they can hardly be given trademark status.
Is it truly a trademark, or is it just another component of the file format?
IMO it's just a file format component, and thus cannot be covered under a trademark.
Now if they wanted to patent or copyright the sequence of code used to generate the watermark and signature, they might have a leg to stand on. This would last until someone reverse engineers the code and comes up with a completely different method to do the same thing. This I believe, is why they took this indirect, and apparently deceptive spin through trademark law.
IMO, trying to trademark something that wasn't intended to be viewed or interpreted by a human being is analogous to trying to prove to a deaf person that "Ice Ice Baby" uses the same beat as "Under Pressure".
The lawyers could talk until they were blue in the face, however, I would still just look at them and laugh, and then dismiss the case with prejudice and then ask the state's bar association to dis-bar them to prevent future wastes of time in the judicial system.
Okay, so you're too dense to understand my meaning.
Yes, you can trademark a SINGLE random output.
You cannot apply for a trademark for "all possible random outputs".
They're talking about multiple random outputs - ie - each and every file has a different signature and watermark.
Unless the software is designed to submit each and every signature and watermark that is generated for trademark status, their case basis doesn't hold liquid, gas or solid matter.
As an analogy, you can't just trademark the entire alphabet, and then expect to be able to sue anyone who uses the letters in their own trademarks or names.
Now, if the file format did some magic, where a trailer were computed and added that made the *signature* and *watermark* components identical, regardless of what the original content was, then they could trademark said signature or watermark.
You can't trademark randomly generated data.
Just because they've chosen not to look for profit, doesn't mean you shouldn't.
Now, if you choose to donate time to the NPO, that's another matter entirely.
ymmv - get rid of your home phone, go pure mobile.
Between the costs of the landline, local long distance, regular long distance, e911 fees, local taxes, etc... even if you went with something like Vonage, it's still more expensive to keep a landline and a mobile phone than to just use the mobile phone.
Add in something like a family share plan, and multiple households can go pure wireless and save even more.
Oh - it's also nice because they don't CHARGE you to keep your mobile phone unlisted.
jmtcw
At this point however, the RIAA either HAS to sue the kid (or CEO), or they have to DROP all law-suits against now and forever.
Here's the reason.
How long will a court system allow for "Prejudicial" lawsuits to go on?
Thinks about it. All the defendant has to do is quote the artical, and ask "Why me? Why not them? They're prejudiced against me."
And how many components of Apple's OS are actually performed using Safari's code?
Or is it Safari, running via Apple's OS code?
With Windows, there are a lot of components of the OS that use the browser's code to function, as opposed to the browser running in a layer on TOP of the OS.
I think that's the key difference.
Microsoft couldn't get their GUI to perform, so they embedded it into the kernel. Then they couldn't get their browser to function, so they embedded code for it into the lower layers of the OS.
Instead of spending time modifying the OS to do these functions properly, and seperately, they've entangled the code to a point where a bad chunk of code in one place, emperils the entire system. Nice going MS.
Sorry - there are 11 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary.
Those that don't understand binary.
Those that should sit in their mom's basement and keep quiet.
There's actually 10 kinds of people on Slashdot.
Those that understand binary.
Those that don't.
They are not *just* shifting it - they are selling a LEGAL copy of the DVD as well.
The user buys the DVD as well as the shifted content so that they have a LEGAL copy.
The company is doing the shifting of the media to a format that the users want the media in. Just because the MPAA is too stupid to do it themselves, doesn't preclude a company from doing it for them.
If someone has me shift media content because they don't have the knowledge to do so, does that make me an infringer?
The whole reason that a company has come up with this idea is due to the fact that the MPAA has tried to make it impossible for end-users to have *fair use* rights to the media / content they've purchased.
You should see the SPIA (Software Publisher's Installation Agreement) that's pasted on the front of my Computer.
It clearly states, that by allowing their software to be installed on this computer, that they agree to the following terms.
#1 All EULAs are null and void.
#2 They WILL be held accountable if their software causes a problem.
#3 I can do whatever the hell I want with their software once it's installed on MY computer.
#4 They can NOT install anything *extra* without my explicit permission.
4a) Any attempts to do so will result in fines no less than 1 Million USD, and no more than (whatever they have in liquid assets)
#5 Any updates or changes to the software's EULA must be approved by me before they can be sent out to anyone else.
I'm currently sitting at around 4.5 billion in fines. I'm waiting until I hit the "Trillion Dollar" mark, before I move forward with my lawsuits for SPIA violations.
That's right, he's an idiot.
Let's see... Just open up all of our American corporations so that all of their precious information, applications, systems, networks, etc are built, maintained, controlled by non citizens. Many of them have no drive to get things done correctly, safely, securely. Most of them do not have a stake in the companies that hire them. Couple this with language barriers, society barriers, background barriers, and we end up with ineffective employees. I've seen it time and time again, where the H1B holder can't comprehend the simplest things because they don't understand the context around it. They've gone to school, they've taken the classes and they've memorized the answers. However, ask them to think it through, to give the full reasoning behind each feature and function, and they just stare at you as if you've asked them to quote the value of Pi to the 3 billionth decimal place. They might even know the answer, they just can't comprehend the context of the question, because we base it on what we know and have learned over the years.
Do you really want all of the companies who sub-contract to the companies who supply the DoD with equipment to rely on H1B holders? How much of a cost increase is there when every line of code, every circuit, every component has to be double and triple checked by non H1B workers to make certain that security glitches, back-doors, etc weren't introduced.
What kind of holes will be introduced into software which uses personally identifiable information simply because the H1B worker took shortcuts to get the job done, because they CAN'T say no and push the time-lines back?
I'm sorry - there's just too many things that go wrong when you introduce too many non-native employees into the mix. It just doesn't work. It's not effective. It ALWAYS ends up costing more in the long run.
How do forensics help if/when the cache used was RAM Disk - which is recreated each boot?
LiveCDs mentioned many times before are great for browsing with no trails left behind.
VMWare Player, using a snapshot that's reset each boot is also a cool way to browse.
BTW - Read my other post in here - where it shows that Yahoo, Hotmail and GMail can all be configured to be retrieved/stored in the users local mail using outlook express.
Don't forget that the most commonly used (by less technically inclined people) e-mail client, outlook express, would download and store hotmail web-mail just as easily as it did pop3 / smtp mail.
t o/oe/setup.mspx/e r=13276/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/how
http://help.yahoo.com/mail/pop/pop-06.html/
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ
Yes, they are USUALLY web only mail servers, however, as shown above, they can ALL be configured by the user to be used locally on their computer.
Windows Marketer...
Hmmm, how can we generate more revenue?
I know, we make it so that they can never re-install the OS on the same hardware without buying a new license.
Then we design in new security flaws (what? We don't need to design in new security flaws? They're already there? - cool - no extra work needed then) - wait for the operating system to fubar itself, and then collect another license fee when the user re-installs it.
Let's see - with a low estimate of 20 million users, at twice month re-install rates, that's 40 million licenses a month, at ~200 a pop, we collect 8 billion in revenue the first month alone... (cue the muahahahaha and mad scientist music)
meanwhile over at the Justice Department...
USAGboy - Holy rotten licensure Ratman, we've got to do something about this.
Ratman (aka GWB) - Don't worry USAGboy, we've already got it covered - we collect $20 out of every $200 renewal fee. We get our money, M$ gets theirs, and our constituants are screwed as usual...
That's one of the reasons that I think companies like "DomainsByProxy.com" are doing well in this day and age.