I heard about this last night at a lug meeting (Keith had shown the screenshots at the Desktop Linux conference in Boston on Monday) and I'm wondering how long before we see this in XFree86. Particularly considering Keith's history with the project and XFree's general reluctance to release more than once or twice a year...
Anyone else read this, and start thinking about the _big_ satellite dishes? We used to have one that was about 6-7 feet in diameter, and that's what I immediately thought of...
I find it quite amusing that in the Root Prompt news box that I have at the top of my right hand sidebar, the second news item is titled "Postfix: A Secure and Easy-to-Use MTA"
McBride: The Canopy Group [of Utah] is an investment company. Those are just ignorant statements about SCO's business. Hundreds of customers like and use SCO's Unix products.
I don't know about hundreds but I'll give 'em 100 -- in binary.
I find it interesting how similar some of the symptoms match up between what the reviewer is quoting and some popular "identifiers" of Attention Deficit Disorder. I was recently (almost) diagnosed with ADD, and found the whole experience to be rather... lacking substance. There were a lot of maybe's, and could mean's throughout the process, but this review brings to light a good point: how often are depression, anxiety, and ADD mis-diagnosed due to an incorrect interpretation of a person's personality type?
Most notably, the points about immersion into a project, or the need to break up what you're working on to feel comfortable; both are representative (supposedly) of ADD and ADHD symptoms, respectively. My tendency to withdraw, have a smaller group of friends, zone out (or into) a project were all signs that my physician used to attempt to give me a diagnosis of ADD.
Furthermore, I personally have a lot of problems with ADD and ADHD, in that I feel it is diagnosed too often, or for the wrong reasons. Perhaps this book and the study it represents would shed some light on cases where the stock "problem teen" issues do not fall under the depression/ADD cookie cutter mold.
Exactly. More information on the Secure IDE feature, with a picture of the dongle, can be found here.
One important point that I've not seen made yet is, how is this going to be of any benefit when you know that most people are just going to leave the dongle connected all the time, and go on happily convinced that their computer is somehow more "secure".
Idiots will, by nature of their existence, destroy any good idea.
Not to mention that Unix was written in C, and since SCO own's everything Unix, they own everything C, which was helped in its propagation by Brian's book with Dennis, both of whom will be the next victims of "ze vicious leetigashun" for illegally spreading word of SCO's property, and allowing people to come up with the idea of derivative works, since C is now owned by SCO, so is everything written in said language...
However, the RIAA's strongarm, bullying tactics are pissing me off.
How so? Admittedly, maybe you weren't one of them, but the masses here at/. have been crying for so long to the tune that the RIAA needed to start going after people stealing music by using existing copyright law. They are, and people are still whining, or saying "yea, but" and generally trying to backup a few steps and justify their downloads. (again, you may not be one of these, just using your post as a kickoff point)
... people also have a right to such as "innocent until proven guilty," and "freedom from unwarranted search and seizure" and a dozen other rights the RIAA, MPAA, and their highly funded Washington lawmakers would trample on in the rush to stamp out music piracy.
Yes, they do, but they also waive that right to privacy with the 'thou shalt not do anything untoward or illegal on our network' clause of the ISP's TOS. This fiasco with the RIAA could also turn into a test of ISP TOS agreements on the side, with this particular point. I wouldn't be too surprised to see a few attempted lawsuits against the providers for giving customer information to the RIAA. Although Verizon lost, some private citizens agains a provider may get somewhere.
The whole point is to (hopefully/not likely) get people to stop and think about arguments similar to yours. Frame the objections in terms of changing the infrastructure, instead of a knee-jerk reaction & blaming the RIAA (evil bastards that they are). They are operating within the law, as many people have been screaming and challenging them to do for the longest time, instead of their groundless suits against the p2p companies.
final disclaimer: I personally hate the RIAA as much as the next person, but more for jacking the prices on cds more than is justifiable, than going after people illegally sharing music on p2p networks.
I run into this alot at my job - I've found recently that customers _rarely_ have legal copies of their OS. Sometimes, it is a legal copy, but having no way to prove it, and no disk to reinstall from, they end up having to pay me for a new copy, or an upgrade at the least. Many times I've gotten to a customer's site, tallied the probable time, parts, and software needed, and turned around saying simply "buy a new computer. It'll be cheaper." Does this hurt my business? Not at all. Customers love honesty, and that statement (and explanation if necessary) will almost always get me more business in the long run.
DRM is necessary because people have shown the willingness (and in some cases zeal) for stealing material.
What a great point. So often, people around here get tied up in ranting, raving and denouncing the evil RIAA that they forget this little detail: we gave the RIAA a reason to act the way they do. Sure, not every action they do can be excused by this, but c'mon... They have every right to go after people sharing *copyrighted* songs on p2p networks. The word stealing may not line up exactly with many/.ers take on the law, but what else do you call taking something for free when it's a product being sold by a company? Especially when that company owns the *copyrights* to the material? We never hear about "book pirates" here on/. but it would amount to exactly the same thing. If someone were to distribute the text of a book online, it is exactly the same as sharing a copyrighted mp3. It's giving people something for nothing, regardless if they "wouldn't have bought it in the first place." DRM is a viable way to prevent unauthorized distribution (read: p2p) of *copyrighted* materials.
Now, for my disclaimer. Can DRM be abused? Absolutely. And very easily. It's up to us as consumers to police this. We need to respect the companies right to protect their product from theft (yes, theft), while at the same time ensuring that they provide the services we ask for, and allow us to exercise our fair use rights.
All sales are final etc. If it's a sale, can they unilaterally withdraw the sale based on a spurious interpretation of their terms and conditions?
Of course not. But would you walk into a bookstore and ask for a replacement to that new Harry Potter book you picked up last week, because you lost yours, or it was destroyed in an accident?
I can see it now, "I was reading next to the pool when little Jimmy came running by and bumped it right in! The text bled all through the pages, and it's completely useless now! I'd like a replacement copy, since I did buy it last week."
You may argue that since there's no physical media, this is somehow different. Fah! We all know that it's oh so much of a hassle to burn a cd from a collection of mp3's...
The fact that they allow you to re-download your songs is IMO merely a nice gesture. Ultimately, you are responsible for backing up your songs to a cd, another computer, etc. If your computer crashes, it's your problem. Not theirs.
For smaller ISPs to flourish they need to offer something the Big Boys (ie SBC & co) do not, perhaps better customer support, or some sort of Value Added Service.
As a geek, I'd have to vote for Speakeasy on this one. I wish I could've gone with their service when I had dsl at my last apartment, but they had to set me up with a gateway in Seattle. (I live in Michigan - minimum pings to anything about 150) They offer the largest spectrum of bandwidth options I've seen from an ISP, they're Linux-friendly, and they allow you to do what you want with your line. There was a slashdot article not too long ago on how they encouraged their users to share their bandwidth over wireless routers. (I'm too lazy to go find it tho) IMO, Speakeasy is the geek's ISP. I almost wish I could get dsl in my area, just for their "feature" and geek-friendly outlook.
It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company
First of all, this is already the case. In my last apartment, I had dsl, and when I was shopping around, I must've browsed through twenty different ISP's. I originally tried to go with Speakeasy, which was just getting rolling, but as they didn't have a Chicago POP at the time, and I'm in Michigan... It caused a few problems having my gateway in Seattle. (minimum ping to anywhere of 150) In the end I went with Telocity, which later became DirectTV DSL, and was quite happy with the service. I had 1 Mbit down and 384 Kbit up; enough to run simple services such as my webserver, an ftp server, and ssh.
which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access)
Secondly, this is highly unlikely, at least not anytime soon. I would guess (and it is just a guess, IMHO, disclaimer, etc, etc.) that most DSL ISP's are already operating at a loss, and still paying for the infrastructure they had to setup. Until that overhead goes away for the company, they can't in good faith to their shareholders drop their prices. As it is, I don't feel broadband prices are too out of line; I paid $55/mo for that dsl connection, and $60/mo for my cable right now. While this may be a bit much for casual users, I definitely get my money's worth.
OT, I know, but to your problems with recovering file associations... browse to a.gif/.jpeg/.whatevergraphicfile in explorer, hold down the shift key and right click on the file. Then go to 'Open with' and select the application you'd like it to be associated with in the future, make sure the "always use this application" checkbox is marked, and click ok...
Voila!:) The interface for file associations in Tools->Folder Options is exceedingly clunky and unmanageable.
I'm not sure if I clarified it enough in my first post, but I do agree with you, wholeheartedly. I think there are two important things to keep in mind here: first, we (as the "clerics") have to push to get those departments that can work (and work well) with free software, to do it. Second, I'm not sure how feasible this is, but I think the trick with getting 99% is the PR that has to go along with it. We have to make sure that the relevant parties know without a doubt that there is an alternative which could lower the TCO by nearly half, maintain compatability, and is able to be launched with minimal effort. If we are successful at this, then the only remaining factor that will influence the overall acceptance of free software and their low-cost alternatives is the time that managers take to react and implement. If they are fast enough, we can immediately clamp down on that new market share, and assimilate/expand from there.
As stated here I think Sun should consider adding something along these lines:
An additional benefit of the agreement allows each Purdue faculty and staff member and each Purdue student to install and use the selected Microsoft products on one computer that he or she owns, for University-related work.
For additional effect. Ah, well, it's a step in the right direction. I should also add, that SO has been on all of ourlab computers for several years. Now we just need to get rid of / replace the rest of that junk:)
Slashdot Mirror
I see you've been caught up in the ESPN "World Series of Poker" epidemic as well.
Careful, now... don't loose your temper!
:)
Gotta love the slashdot effect on grammar
I heard about this last night at a lug meeting (Keith had shown the screenshots at the Desktop Linux conference in Boston on Monday) and I'm wondering how long before we see this in XFree86. Particularly considering Keith's history with the project and XFree's general reluctance to release more than once or twice a year...
woohoo! more bandwidth for me! Now where did I put those .torrent files...
Anyone else read this, and start thinking about the _big_ satellite dishes? We used to have one that was about 6-7 feet in diameter, and that's what I immediately thought of...
Shit, now I'm just making myself feel old.
I wouldn't piss on Lars Ulrich's head if he was on fire.
...Oh, I dunno about that. I mean, c'mon -- shit smells bad enough as it is, but have you ever smelled burning shit?
I find it quite amusing that in the Root Prompt news box that I have at the top of my right hand sidebar, the second news item is titled "Postfix: A Secure and Easy-to-Use MTA"
McBride: The Canopy Group [of Utah] is an investment company. Those are just ignorant statements about SCO's business. Hundreds of customers like and use SCO's Unix products.
I don't know about hundreds but I'll give 'em 100 -- in binary.
I find it interesting how similar some of the symptoms match up between what the reviewer is quoting and some popular "identifiers" of Attention Deficit Disorder. I was recently (almost) diagnosed with ADD, and found the whole experience to be rather ... lacking substance. There were a lot of maybe's, and could mean's throughout the process, but this review brings to light a good point: how often are depression, anxiety, and ADD mis-diagnosed due to an incorrect interpretation of a person's personality type?
Most notably, the points about immersion into a project, or the need to break up what you're working on to feel comfortable; both are representative (supposedly) of ADD and ADHD symptoms, respectively. My tendency to withdraw, have a smaller group of friends, zone out (or into) a project were all signs that my physician used to attempt to give me a diagnosis of ADD.
Furthermore, I personally have a lot of problems with ADD and ADHD, in that I feel it is diagnosed too often, or for the wrong reasons. Perhaps this book and the study it represents would shed some light on cases where the stock "problem teen" issues do not fall under the depression/ADD cookie cutter mold.
(j/k, I'm just karma whoring for 'Funny')
No problem... I am single, and I am a gamer, and I use Linux as my primary OS.... Oh Shit! I have no life!
you mean kinda like this? I think it might be interesting, also somewhat along the same lines of wacky ergonomic keyboards.
Anyone else got links to weird "ergonomic" input device experiments?
Exactly. More information on the Secure IDE feature, with a picture of the dongle, can be found here.
One important point that I've not seen made yet is, how is this going to be of any benefit when you know that most people are just going to leave the dongle connected all the time, and go on happily convinced that their computer is somehow more "secure".
Idiots will, by nature of their existence, destroy any good idea.
Not to mention that Unix was written in C, and since SCO own's everything Unix, they own everything C, which was helped in its propagation by Brian's book with Dennis, both of whom will be the next victims of "ze vicious leetigashun" for illegally spreading word of SCO's property, and allowing people to come up with the idea of derivative works, since C is now owned by SCO, so is everything written in said language...
Somebody shoot me. Please.
"... That's no moon!"
A good working copy of the HHGTTG, or really, any way off this rock?
The longer I wait around here, the more likely they are to demolish the damn thing and build an interchange through it...
I'll play DA on this one for a sec...
/. have been crying for so long to the tune that the RIAA needed to start going after people stealing music by using existing copyright law. They are, and people are still whining, or saying "yea, but" and generally trying to backup a few steps and justify their downloads. (again, you may not be one of these, just using your post as a kickoff point)
... people also have a right to such as "innocent until proven guilty," and "freedom from unwarranted search and seizure" and a dozen other rights the RIAA, MPAA, and their highly funded Washington lawmakers would trample on in the rush to stamp out music piracy.
However, the RIAA's strongarm, bullying tactics are pissing me off.
How so? Admittedly, maybe you weren't one of them, but the masses here at
Yes, they do, but they also waive that right to privacy with the 'thou shalt not do anything untoward or illegal on our network' clause of the ISP's TOS. This fiasco with the RIAA could also turn into a test of ISP TOS agreements on the side, with this particular point. I wouldn't be too surprised to see a few attempted lawsuits against the providers for giving customer information to the RIAA. Although Verizon lost, some private citizens agains a provider may get somewhere.
The whole point is to (hopefully/not likely) get people to stop and think about arguments similar to yours. Frame the objections in terms of changing the infrastructure, instead of a knee-jerk reaction & blaming the RIAA (evil bastards that they are). They are operating within the law, as many people have been screaming and challenging them to do for the longest time, instead of their groundless suits against the p2p companies.
final disclaimer: I personally hate the RIAA as much as the next person, but more for jacking the prices on cds more than is justifiable, than going after people illegally sharing music on p2p networks.
I run into this alot at my job - I've found recently that customers _rarely_ have legal copies of their OS. Sometimes, it is a legal copy, but having no way to prove it, and no disk to reinstall from, they end up having to pay me for a new copy, or an upgrade at the least. Many times I've gotten to a customer's site, tallied the probable time, parts, and software needed, and turned around saying simply "buy a new computer. It'll be cheaper." Does this hurt my business? Not at all. Customers love honesty, and that statement (and explanation if necessary) will almost always get me more business in the long run.
DRM is necessary because people have shown the willingness (and in some cases zeal) for stealing material.
/.ers take on the law, but what else do you call taking something for free when it's a product being sold by a company? Especially when that company owns the *copyrights* to the material? We never hear about "book pirates" here on /. but it would amount to exactly the same thing. If someone were to distribute the text of a book online, it is exactly the same as sharing a copyrighted mp3. It's giving people something for nothing, regardless if they "wouldn't have bought it in the first place." DRM is a viable way to prevent unauthorized distribution (read: p2p) of *copyrighted* materials.
What a great point. So often, people around here get tied up in ranting, raving and denouncing the evil RIAA that they forget this little detail: we gave the RIAA a reason to act the way they do. Sure, not every action they do can be excused by this, but c'mon... They have every right to go after people sharing *copyrighted* songs on p2p networks. The word stealing may not line up exactly with many
Now, for my disclaimer. Can DRM be abused? Absolutely. And very easily. It's up to us as consumers to police this. We need to respect the companies right to protect their product from theft (yes, theft), while at the same time ensuring that they provide the services we ask for, and allow us to exercise our fair use rights.
All sales are final etc. If it's a sale, can they unilaterally withdraw the sale based on a spurious interpretation of their terms and conditions?
Of course not. But would you walk into a bookstore and ask for a replacement to that new Harry Potter book you picked up last week, because you lost yours, or it was destroyed in an accident?
I can see it now, "I was reading next to the pool when little Jimmy came running by and bumped it right in! The text bled all through the pages, and it's completely useless now! I'd like a replacement copy, since I did buy it last week."
You may argue that since there's no physical media, this is somehow different. Fah! We all know that it's oh so much of a hassle to burn a cd from a collection of mp3's...
The fact that they allow you to re-download your songs is IMO merely a nice gesture. Ultimately, you are responsible for backing up your songs to a cd, another computer, etc. If your computer crashes, it's your problem. Not theirs.
For smaller ISPs to flourish they need to offer something the Big Boys (ie SBC & co) do not, perhaps better customer support, or some sort of Value Added Service.
As a geek, I'd have to vote for Speakeasy on this one. I wish I could've gone with their service when I had dsl at my last apartment, but they had to set me up with a gateway in Seattle. (I live in Michigan - minimum pings to anything about 150) They offer the largest spectrum of bandwidth options I've seen from an ISP, they're Linux-friendly, and they allow you to do what you want with your line. There was a slashdot article not too long ago on how they encouraged their users to share their bandwidth over wireless routers. (I'm too lazy to go find it tho) IMO, Speakeasy is the geek's ISP. I almost wish I could get dsl in my area, just for their "feature" and geek-friendly outlook.
It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company
First of all, this is already the case. In my last apartment, I had dsl, and when I was shopping around, I must've browsed through twenty different ISP's. I originally tried to go with Speakeasy, which was just getting rolling, but as they didn't have a Chicago POP at the time, and I'm in Michigan... It caused a few problems having my gateway in Seattle. (minimum ping to anywhere of 150) In the end I went with Telocity, which later became DirectTV DSL, and was quite happy with the service. I had 1 Mbit down and 384 Kbit up; enough to run simple services such as my webserver, an ftp server, and ssh.
which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access)
Secondly, this is highly unlikely, at least not anytime soon. I would guess (and it is just a guess, IMHO, disclaimer, etc, etc.) that most DSL ISP's are already operating at a loss, and still paying for the infrastructure they had to setup. Until that overhead goes away for the company, they can't in good faith to their shareholders drop their prices. As it is, I don't feel broadband prices are too out of line; I paid $55/mo for that dsl connection, and $60/mo for my cable right now. While this may be a bit much for casual users, I definitely get my money's worth.
OT, I know, but to your problems with recovering file associations... browse to a .gif/.jpeg/.whatevergraphicfile in explorer, hold down the shift key and right click on the file. Then go to 'Open with' and select the application you'd like it to be associated with in the future, make sure the "always use this application" checkbox is marked, and click ok...
:) The interface for file associations in Tools->Folder Options is exceedingly clunky and unmanageable.
Voila!
When I bought my house the transaction resulted in a key, but I can assure you that's not what I paid more than half a million dollars for...
:P
You paid $500,000+ for an Everquest House?!? Damn - I hope you got one that's at least over 1MB and has "pets" in the basement
Gwyd
You're welcome, I hear and understand :)
I'm not sure if I clarified it enough in my first post, but I do agree with you, wholeheartedly. I think there are two important things to keep in mind here: first, we (as the "clerics") have to push to get those departments that can work (and work well) with free software, to do it. Second, I'm not sure how feasible this is, but I think the trick with getting 99% is the PR that has to go along with it. We have to make sure that the relevant parties know without a doubt that there is an alternative which could lower the TCO by nearly half, maintain compatability, and is able to be launched with minimal effort. If we are successful at this, then the only remaining factor that will influence the overall acceptance of free software and their low-cost alternatives is the time that managers take to react and implement. If they are fast enough, we can immediately clamp down on that new market share, and assimilate/expand from there.
Craig
As stated here I think Sun should consider adding something along these lines:
:)
An additional benefit of the agreement allows each Purdue faculty and staff member and each Purdue student to install and use the selected Microsoft products on one computer that he or she owns, for University-related work.
For additional effect. Ah, well, it's a step in the right direction. I should also add, that SO has been on all of our lab computers for several years. Now we just need to get rid of / replace the rest of that junk