Point taken about the zealotry, but there is some truth to the original statement. I setup a dual boot machine once (somewhere back in the RedHat 5.x days) and I've never done it again. Why? Because you invariably end up staying in only one of the systems (well, at least I did). If you're trying to learn another system, it's not going to do any good since you'll just stay in the system you already know all the time. The only real way to learn a new system (be it Linux, BSD, or Windows [if you were lucky enough to grow up in the UNIX world]) is to setup a dedicated machine with that system.
Dual boot may work for testing, but it never works (in my experience) if you're trying to learn a new system.
Anyone can reject any traffic from any other host that they please, as long as they own the server.
True enough -- but your ISP shouldn't be deciding that for you. The edges of the Internet are smart and can make those decisions; the middle is stupid and can't.
The people running the "0wn3d winboxen" are, unfortunately, all of our peers. We can try to ignore them, but those peers have the same "rights" on the Internet as any other host. Kind of like, no matter how stupid someone is, they still have the same rights as everyone else (in the U.S., at least). You may ignore what they're saying (or selling), but that doesn't mean that the government should step in and censor them.
What Microsoft ads? Maybe they took them down, but I don't see any ads whatsoever in the article. Although, maybe that's because I browse with Mozilla and have some nice CSS rules to block 99% of all banner ads. I'm always amazed at how ugly the Internet looks whenever I use someone else's (usually IE) machine. But, hey, if they like looking at pop-ups and banner ads even when I tell them there's a better way, who am I to press the issue? After all, as long as IE has huge marketshare, the marketing people won't try to shove their wares in my face.
Sorry, the Internet doesn't work like that. Every host is a peer; no host is inherently better than another. It may be more powerful, but they all (should) have the same "rights" for lack of a better word. They can all send and receive IP datagrams. If a peer sends another peer a specific IP packet, and the second peer responds, well, that's how the Internet works. Another basic design element of the Internet is that the middle is stupid. Routers route, they don't think about what they're routing. That is why the Internet works so well.
The idiots who try to partition off the Internet into "servers" and "clients" or make the middle of the Internet smart (even if they think they're doing something good by blocking spammers) are trying to turn the Internet into TV. Fortunately, the freedom that the Internet provides cannot be easily taken away. People will work around the limitations, or a new Internet will be made. I just wish the idiots (including spammers) would stop making more work for the rest of us.
So would signing your email with GPG, but I don't see very many radical anti-spammers suggesting that. Because, you know, that's a simple solution that (a) can be gradually phased in, (b) doesn't require chaninging DNS, and (c) gives the end points of the network (the users) the power to decide what they want to do. No, much better to make the internals of the network smarter, because that's really more in line with the ideals of the Internet.
But as I've always said: "Spammers are evil -- they make email slow and hard to use and waste resources; radical anti-spammers are worse -- they actively try to destroy email for everyone else."
With the standard script, if Thunderbird is running, trying to start Mozilla results in an obscure error about missing components (I think, it's been a while). This is because the magic that's used to locate the running Mozilla process finds Thunderbird first, and tries to launch a URL with it. Of course, Thunderbird doesn't have the navigator component, so that fails.
Here is my full patch to my/usr/bin/mozilla script. IIRC, it relies on the fact that Thunderbird will fail the openURL command, and then the script will fall through to other code that spawns a new Mozilla window.
---/usr/bin/mozilla 2004-03-25 08:33:56.000000000 -0500 +++/usr/bin/mozilla 2004-03-25 19:48:24.000000000 -0500 @@ -216,7 +216,9 @@
# If there is no command line argument at all then try to open a new
# window in an already running instance.
if [ "${ALREADY_RUNNING}" -eq "1" ] && [ -z "$1" ]; then - exec $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM "xfeDoCommand(openBrowser)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null + $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM "openURL(,new-window)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null + ret=$? + if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then exit $ret; fi
fi
# if there's no command line argument and there's not a running @@ -259,7 +261,7 @@
if [[ -z $NEW_WINDOW ]];then
exec $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM $othersopt "openurl($optlast)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null
else - exec $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM $othersopt "openurl($optlast,new-window)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null + exec $MOZ_CLIENT_PROGRAM $othersopt "openurl($optlast,new-tab)" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null
fi
fi
(Slashcode (and HTML) seems to be dropping some spaces in those diffs. You might have to apply them manually.)
I could never figure out who actually owned this script (my distro (Gentoo) or the Mozilla people), so I've never known even who to submit these fixes to. That, and I've had terrible luck even getting Bugzilla people to even admit reproducable bugs exist (such as bug number 238112).
I don't know if this will work on Windows, but this is my solution on UNIX. My/usr/bin/mozilla is really just a shell script wrapper. Near the end of the script, I replaced "openurl($optlast,new-window)" with "openurl($optlast,new-tab)". Then I sent my default browser action (I think it was a GNOME property, but it's sometimes app specific) to run/usr/bin/mozilla with the URL as the argument (that's pretty standard anyway). Now, whenever I click a link, it opens in a new tab.
The only problem I've had with this is that on Solaris, of the Mozilla window is on another virtual desktop, when the page loads, Mozilla is moved to the current desktop (instead of waiting for me to go to it). This is probably just a CDE issue, though.
Works great on Linux, though. In fact, the weirdest thing is clicking on a link on an app running from a different machine and having it (probably through some $DISPLAY and X magic) tell Mozilla running locally to open the URL. Exactly what you'd want, but not what you'd expect. Now, if only I could get that (and my other fix to make Mozilla and Thunderbird play nice together) be the standard so I wouldn't have to repatch every release.
That graph has been referenced before, but it's deceptive. Besides the fact that there are no numbers on it, look at the tick marks on the y axis. There are six of them. And the first is slightly above the x-axis, but not enough above to make the distance from 0 to the first tick be the same as the distance from the first to the second ticks. Which means that the graph is offset (this is the deceptive part). If you look at where the lines are, it looks like the distance between tick marks could be about 10% (just a guess, but it seems to fit). That would put the little purple line right at about 10%, just like the grandparent poster quoted.
Personally, I don't doubt Mozilla usage could be 10% (I know just about everyone I've shown Mozilla or FireFox to have switched, some immediately). However, I also wouldn't be too surprised if the actual number was lower (never overestimate the intelligence of the population). But without actual numbers, it's really hard to tell.
To uninstall software you just drag the application folder to the trash.
Now, I don't own a Mac, and know very little about how they actually work (other than what I read on/.), but are you saying that Macs have no concept of shared libraries? That's the first big uninstallation problem (Apps A and B both depend on shared library C -- if app A is uninstalled, can/should it uninstall library C without affecting other apps?).
What about preferences? I've read Mac OSX is a UNIX like system, so are there no dot files in the user's home directory? Are there no system wide preferences in the/etc (or whatever it's equivalent is)?
On any shared system, uninstallation is going to be a non-trivial problem, and I'd be surprised if it really is that easy to (un)install on a Mac.
Personally, I think there are many Linux based solutions (RPM, Deb, ebuild, etc) that, while they may have their problems, are far superior to anything in the Windows/Mac world.
Windows doesn't necessairly become more unstable because of crap in the Registry, but it does become slower. It just takes longer to load a larger registry, search through more keys, etc. Sure, it may only slow down each search by a couple of milliseconds, but there are a lot of searches that go on all the time. Bad/outdated information in the registry can also cause problems if the program accessing that data is poorly written (though I don't think any system components have this problem).
Of course, I don't run Windows anymore (Linux at home, Solaris at work, life is good)... this is just what I remember:)
That's a good question. I did some googling, and even looked in the man pages, but I couldn't find anything. The other replies seem reasonable, but I have another theory. The man page for 'dd' says "dd - convert and copy a file". With that, the natural inclination would be to call it 'cc' (Convert and Copy), but that was already taken by the C Compiler. So perhaps the original author just went to the next letter, 'd', and called it "dd".
I don't disagree with your post, but I'd like to point out that recommended speeds are just that -- recommended. If the sign is yellow, it's a recommended speed, and you can't be ticketed for going over it (unless it was snowy/slippery or other conditions made it unsafe). You can only be ticketed for going over the limit posted on the white speed limit signs.
...creationists are now using the term "macro-evolution" when they attack science, instead of just "evolution".
That may be because evolutionists changed the meaning of "evolution" to be "change over time" and then ridculed anyone who argued against it. Most rational religious people (at least the ones I know) would never argue against induced evolution, that is, evolution because of an environmental change. It's pretty easy to show cultures of bacteria becoming resistant to a particular drug, etc. based on survival of the fittest. No one argues against that.
What is questioned is spontaneous speciation, or "macro-evolution". No one has ever really proven that happened, and I don't think anyone ever will, until someone invents a time machine. It's as much a matter of faith as believing in God, but most evolutionists don't want to admit that, and will probably attack me/mod me down for saying it.
Also, most creationists don't attack science in general. They have no problems with most all branches of science. Having difficulting believing in one particular theory and questioning it does not "attack science". Sure, there are some religious wackos that do attack science, but there are plenty of science wackos that attack religion, so I guess it all balances out in the end. A true intellectual will realize that neither religion nor science hold all the answers -- but they each hold some.
Let me start with a rant: I tell you, the radical anti-spammers really are becoming more of a problem than the actual spammers! Spammers are evil: they make email hard to use and take up Internet resources. Radical anti-spammers are worse: they actively try to make email not work. They are the primary reason I have to run my own mail server. I don't want to lose email because some idiot admin thinks some email I got is spam and deletes it. Or worse, just blacklists whole swaths of IP space. Unfortunately, since I chose to run my own mailsever, I've now earned the ire of the same anti-spammers, because I'm not using a corporate controlled mail server. Spam is a problem, but it's not worth destroying email over!
Now that that's out of the way, to the poster, the only thing I can say is to inform your clients that you cannot accept email addresses at these disreputable places (AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail) because they often drop or misdirect valid email. Or, you can accept the addresses, but warn them (in big, red letters) that email sent to those addresses may not get through. Presumably, if they are paying for this service, they do want the mail, so it's up to them to give you a working address. Maybe then, they will lean on their ISP to actually fix the problem.
True enough. I should have been more conclusive in my previous post, because I'm sure it does happen all the time.
Why would you buy a DVD of something you already saw? Pay $20 for commentaries and a behind the scenes documentary?
Well, then why does someone who saw the movie in the theater by the DVD? There are lots of reasons to buy the DVD if you like the movie.
I assume that you mean poor quality as in image/sound.
No, I mean the movie is a bad movie. Like a bad script, bad acting, bad directing -- like a Star Wars prequel:)
Actually, downloading a poorly captured/encoded movie you like is probably pretty good incentive to buy the DVD. Maybe the MPAA should start distributing DivX movies with the last 20 minutes missing or something (hmmm... maybe I shouldn't give them ideas).
Possibly some, but according to the article, they targetted "disadvantaged" schools. I doubt that was unintentional. No offence intended, but students in those schools will be less likely to have parents well versed in copyright law. After all, how many lawyers (or even well off computer professionals) send their kids to "disadvantaged" schools?
I wouldn't be surprised if most of the parents believed the lies (or at least gross oversimplification) that was being taught and were pleased that important people (like executives from E!) cared enough to teach their kids about the evils of free music and movies.
After all, "If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it."
What about when I download a movie, its in excellent quality (or even half decent), and then he never plunks down the $20?
While that probably does happen to some extent, the movie industry is probably much more worried about you downloading a movie, seeing that it's poor quality and then (justifibily) never plunking down $20 for a crappy movie (and probably not even wasting a 10 cent CDR on it either:)
...choose good passwords, change them frequently,...
While I agree in principle, those two are almost mutally exclusive. Unless you have a super memory, it's going to be difficult to have genuinely good that change frequently. By good, I mean randomly generated, containing characters from different sets (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols) and of sufficient length (6-8 characters).
At the company I work, there is a password policy in effect that mandates password rotation every 90 days. When I first started there, I was good, and generated new random passwords each time. I quickly found this was unsustainable in the long run, since I'd only just have begun to learn the password really well (i.e., be able to enter it without thinking) when it was time to change again. I also had to write down the new random password when I changed it, in case I forgot it while I was learning it. Talk about a bad practice!
Suffice it to say, I came up with a scheme whereby I reduced the randomness of my password from 8 charcters to 5 characters (3 characters must change every change). Granted, it's still mostly random, and I don't have to write it down, but I do consider it less secure than a good, truly random password that stays around for a while.
So, either choose strong passwords, or change your weak ones often. Both is difficult, and often overkill.
Maybe someone can answer this. I primarily use Gnome at home, and like it's system monitor for CPU and memory statistics. However, it only seems to work locally. Is there anyway to get it to display statistics for remote computers, possibly using something like RPC.statd (internal network, so insecurity isn't as much of an issue)?
I know at work, I can use Solaris' perfmon tool to monitor our Linux server's current stats, but I can't seem to find anything like that for Linux on the client side. Anyone know of a way to do it?
Actually satellites are not designed to be maintained. It is only the rare satellite that receives servicing, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. This is for two reasons: servicing missions are absurdly expensive, and most TV satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, which is unreachable by the Shuttle.
Fair enough, though I was more referring to monitoring the satellites, sending data to them, correcting their orbits, and even to some extent preparing to replace them when they need to be retired (that should be considered a maintenance expense, but I'm not an accountant, so maybe it's not).
The money for the broadcasting infrastructure has to come from one of three places: advertisers, viewers, or the government.... It's not viable to ask advertisers to bear the sole responsibility for subsidising the medium
Why not? I agree that a single satellite is a much larger investment than a broadcast tower, but the number of satellites is much smaller than the number of broadcast towers. I don't know any details, but I'd be surprised if there are more that 5 satellites in geosync orbit to service the U.S. (probably more like 2-3) compared to the number of broadcast towers for the same area. I'd suspect that the costs for the satellites, though high, would be less than the costs for all the broadcast towers.
However, the real problem is a checken-or-the-egg one -- DirecTV could make money off of adertising if it had the viewership, but it takes time to get that viewership. Since broadcast towers are smaller, they can be built in a more granular fashion, as vierership supports them. In DirecTV's case, they had to essentially build all the towers first, which I agree is a significant undertaking, and one which probably couldn't suceed on adertising alone, at least initially.
As for your claim that "DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes," you're advocating that DirecTV should use the access equipment to subsidize the service? How would this be different from using smart cards?
I meant that DirecTV would sell dishes much much like antenna manufacturers sell antennas for over the air broadcasts. Antennas don't do anything special, other than help collect the signals, just like satellite dishes do. The difference is that the signal wouldn't be encrypted and anyone could access it. Of course, this means that other companies could more easily compete with DirecTV which probably explains why they wouldn't like that. After further thought, I'll admit that this option, though nice for consumers, may not be so good for the company.
The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers.
Again, after further thought, I'll admit that it might not be, at least initially and with the current system. However, that still doesn't allow DirecTV to go around bullying people, or even, IMO, allow them to try to prevent people from receiving and decrypting their signals. Taking a page out of McBride's book, the only people DirecTV could legitimately go after are people they have contracts with. If I, as someone who's never had a relationship with DirecTV, built a device that picked up EM signals directed at me and translated them into something my TV could display, I don't see why anyone would think that (a) it's illegal or (b) I should stop. People don't have a right to get paid. Of course, if DirecTV changed their encryption so only their customers could still access the data, then I'd be out of luck.
Of course, maybe I feel this way because I work with technology and see technological solutions. Lawyers probably only see lawyer solutions.
Bickering about language will accomplish little, but those who have used "theft" and "piracy" for copyright infringement deliberately chose those words for their negative connotation.
You can use the same stupid argument to justify any sort of espionage or hacking. Do you also think hacking someone's wlan from their parking lot is OK, since they broadcast intentionally to the parking lot and you are there.
What, do you think that the U.S. doesn't intercept (or try to intercept) foreign governments' transmissions, because that would be theft? Or that they don't try to do the same to the US (and each other)?
Hacking, is different, because it's active (you're sending instructions, not passively monitoring transmissions). But if someone is stupid enough to send valuable data unencrypted over a wireless link, sure, they should expect that it might be monitored. The same way two people talking loudly in public should expect that others can hear them.
If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion.
If she's doing this in public and charging some audience members, I wouldn't expect the police to make others who want to see it pay as well.
Right now the biggest problem in the world is your stupid posts, at least to me.
You must live in that Walgreen's "Perfect" world, right? Where countries don't spy on one another and the biggest problem is someone's opinion on the Internet?:)
I'm sorry, maybe this is a troll, but I have to respond/rant. There are no DirecTV thieves. And if there are, then the police should track down the people who stole equipment or other property from DirecTV and make them return it (in addition to facing charges).
If DirecTV wants to put a satellite in orbit and have that satellite broadcast digital information that anyone with a satellite dish can receive, then they shouldn't be upset when people do just that. NBC isn't upset if I put up an antenna to receive the stuff they broadcast -- in fact, they're happy I do. DirecTV has already done all the work necessary to get the signal to my home -- whether I view it doesn't affect their costs at all (for the record, I don't have satellite TV, and with companies like DirecTV running things, I probably never will).
DirecTV is trying to sell and control both sides of the transmission, and frankly, I don't think the law should be on their side. They chose, and in fact got special permission, to send these signals. They're using up part of the EM spectrum, the public's EM spectrum, mind you, and then turning around and expecting the government to stop people from listening to what they broadcast.
Sure, you'll say that it's not economically viable for DirectTV to not charge customers by the month, and to that, I say so be it! Somehow over the air broadcast TV survived, and flourished. Broadcast towers require maintenance, just like satellites. Do you think TV would have ever become as popular as it is today if broadcast TV wasn't free? DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes and access to broadcast on the network, and then thre wouldn't even be an issue of people listening to a signal they're not supposed to hear. The fact that DirecTV thinks the govenment should enforce the current arrangement and the government agrees is bad enough. DirecTV's barratry/blackmail against innocent smart card developers (and even the not so innocent ones) is disgusting, and should be itself illegal.
There are bigger problems in the world than some people watching satellite TV without paying DirecTV for the privilege!
Yeah, you're right, it's not like Scalia apologized for the incident or anything. He probably didn't even know it happened until well after the fact (considering he was speaking at the time).
The US Marshal, on the other hand, may be up for the award...
Slashdot Mirror
Point taken about the zealotry, but there is some truth to the original statement. I setup a dual boot machine once (somewhere back in the RedHat 5.x days) and I've never done it again. Why? Because you invariably end up staying in only one of the systems (well, at least I did). If you're trying to learn another system, it's not going to do any good since you'll just stay in the system you already know all the time. The only real way to learn a new system (be it Linux, BSD, or Windows [if you were lucky enough to grow up in the UNIX world]) is to setup a dedicated machine with that system.
Dual boot may work for testing, but it never works (in my experience) if you're trying to learn a new system.
Anyone can reject any traffic from any other host that they please, as long as they own the server.
True enough -- but your ISP shouldn't be deciding that for you. The edges of the Internet are smart and can make those decisions; the middle is stupid and can't.
The people running the "0wn3d winboxen" are, unfortunately, all of our peers. We can try to ignore them, but those peers have the same "rights" on the Internet as any other host. Kind of like, no matter how stupid someone is, they still have the same rights as everyone else (in the U.S., at least). You may ignore what they're saying (or selling), but that doesn't mean that the government should step in and censor them.
What Microsoft ads? Maybe they took them down, but I don't see any ads whatsoever in the article. Although, maybe that's because I browse with Mozilla and have some nice CSS rules to block 99% of all banner ads. I'm always amazed at how ugly the Internet looks whenever I use someone else's (usually IE) machine. But, hey, if they like looking at pop-ups and banner ads even when I tell them there's a better way, who am I to press the issue? After all, as long as IE has huge marketshare, the marketing people won't try to shove their wares in my face.
Sorry, the Internet doesn't work like that. Every host is a peer; no host is inherently better than another. It may be more powerful, but they all (should) have the same "rights" for lack of a better word. They can all send and receive IP datagrams. If a peer sends another peer a specific IP packet, and the second peer responds, well, that's how the Internet works. Another basic design element of the Internet is that the middle is stupid. Routers route, they don't think about what they're routing. That is why the Internet works so well.
The idiots who try to partition off the Internet into "servers" and "clients" or make the middle of the Internet smart (even if they think they're doing something good by blocking spammers) are trying to turn the Internet into TV. Fortunately, the freedom that the Internet provides cannot be easily taken away. People will work around the limitations, or a new Internet will be made. I just wish the idiots (including spammers) would stop making more work for the rest of us.
Serenity NOW!
Insanity LATER!
So would signing your email with GPG, but I don't see very many radical anti-spammers suggesting that. Because, you know, that's a simple solution that (a) can be gradually phased in, (b) doesn't require chaninging DNS, and (c) gives the end points of the network (the users) the power to decide what they want to do. No, much better to make the internals of the network smarter, because that's really more in line with the ideals of the Internet.
But as I've always said: "Spammers are evil -- they make email slow and hard to use and waste resources; radical anti-spammers are worse -- they actively try to destroy email for everyone else."
I sign all my email... why don't you?
Here is my full patch to my
I could never figure out who actually owned this script (my distro (Gentoo) or the Mozilla people), so I've never known even who to submit these fixes to. That, and I've had terrible luck even getting Bugzilla people to even admit reproducable bugs exist (such as bug number 238112).
I don't know if this will work on Windows, but this is my solution on UNIX. My /usr/bin/mozilla is really just a shell script wrapper. Near the end of the script, I replaced "openurl($optlast,new-window)" with "openurl($optlast,new-tab)". Then I sent my default browser action (I think it was a GNOME property, but it's sometimes app specific) to run /usr/bin/mozilla with the URL as the argument (that's pretty standard anyway). Now, whenever I click a link, it opens in a new tab.
The only problem I've had with this is that on Solaris, of the Mozilla window is on another virtual desktop, when the page loads, Mozilla is moved to the current desktop (instead of waiting for me to go to it). This is probably just a CDE issue, though.
Works great on Linux, though. In fact, the weirdest thing is clicking on a link on an app running from a different machine and having it (probably through some $DISPLAY and X magic) tell Mozilla running locally to open the URL. Exactly what you'd want, but not what you'd expect. Now, if only I could get that (and my other fix to make Mozilla and Thunderbird play nice together) be the standard so I wouldn't have to repatch every release.
That graph has been referenced before, but it's deceptive. Besides the fact that there are no numbers on it, look at the tick marks on the y axis. There are six of them. And the first is slightly above the x-axis, but not enough above to make the distance from 0 to the first tick be the same as the distance from the first to the second ticks. Which means that the graph is offset (this is the deceptive part). If you look at where the lines are, it looks like the distance between tick marks could be about 10% (just a guess, but it seems to fit). That would put the little purple line right at about 10%, just like the grandparent poster quoted.
Personally, I don't doubt Mozilla usage could be 10% (I know just about everyone I've shown Mozilla or FireFox to have switched, some immediately). However, I also wouldn't be too surprised if the actual number was lower (never overestimate the intelligence of the population). But without actual numbers, it's really hard to tell.
To uninstall software you just drag the application folder to the trash.
/.), but are you saying that Macs have no concept of shared libraries? That's the first big uninstallation problem (Apps A and B both depend on shared library C -- if app A is uninstalled, can/should it uninstall library C without affecting other apps?).
/etc (or whatever it's equivalent is)?
Now, I don't own a Mac, and know very little about how they actually work (other than what I read on
What about preferences? I've read Mac OSX is a UNIX like system, so are there no dot files in the user's home directory? Are there no system wide preferences in the
On any shared system, uninstallation is going to be a non-trivial problem, and I'd be surprised if it really is that easy to (un)install on a Mac.
Personally, I think there are many Linux based solutions (RPM, Deb, ebuild, etc) that, while they may have their problems, are far superior to anything in the Windows/Mac world.
Windows doesn't necessairly become more unstable because of crap in the Registry, but it does become slower. It just takes longer to load a larger registry, search through more keys, etc. Sure, it may only slow down each search by a couple of milliseconds, but there are a lot of searches that go on all the time. Bad/outdated information in the registry can also cause problems if the program accessing that data is poorly written (though I don't think any system components have this problem).
:)
Of course, I don't run Windows anymore (Linux at home, Solaris at work, life is good)... this is just what I remember
That's a good question. I did some googling, and even looked in the man pages, but I couldn't find anything. The other replies seem reasonable, but I have another theory. The man page for 'dd' says "dd - convert and copy a file". With that, the natural inclination would be to call it 'cc' (Convert and Copy), but that was already taken by the C Compiler. So perhaps the original author just went to the next letter, 'd', and called it "dd".
I don't disagree with your post, but I'd like to point out that recommended speeds are just that -- recommended. If the sign is yellow, it's a recommended speed, and you can't be ticketed for going over it (unless it was snowy/slippery or other conditions made it unsafe). You can only be ticketed for going over the limit posted on the white speed limit signs.
Of course, IANAL, etc, etc.
...creationists are now using the term "macro-evolution" when they attack science, instead of just "evolution".
That may be because evolutionists changed the meaning of "evolution" to be "change over time" and then ridculed anyone who argued against it. Most rational religious people (at least the ones I know) would never argue against induced evolution, that is, evolution because of an environmental change. It's pretty easy to show cultures of bacteria becoming resistant to a particular drug, etc. based on survival of the fittest. No one argues against that.
What is questioned is spontaneous speciation, or "macro-evolution". No one has ever really proven that happened, and I don't think anyone ever will, until someone invents a time machine. It's as much a matter of faith as believing in God, but most evolutionists don't want to admit that, and will probably attack me/mod me down for saying it.
Also, most creationists don't attack science in general. They have no problems with most all branches of science. Having difficulting believing in one particular theory and questioning it does not "attack science". Sure, there are some religious wackos that do attack science, but there are plenty of science wackos that attack religion, so I guess it all balances out in the end. A true intellectual will realize that neither religion nor science hold all the answers -- but they each hold some.
OK, it's 1-2-3-4-5 -- the same as my luggage!
Let me start with a rant:
I tell you, the radical anti-spammers really are becoming more of a problem than the actual spammers! Spammers are evil: they make email hard to use and take up Internet resources. Radical anti-spammers are worse: they actively try to make email not work. They are the primary reason I have to run my own mail server. I don't want to lose email because some idiot admin thinks some email I got is spam and deletes it. Or worse, just blacklists whole swaths of IP space. Unfortunately, since I chose to run my own mailsever, I've now earned the ire of the same anti-spammers, because I'm not using a corporate controlled mail server. Spam is a problem, but it's not worth destroying email over!
Now that that's out of the way, to the poster, the only thing I can say is to inform your clients that you cannot accept email addresses at these disreputable places (AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail) because they often drop or misdirect valid email. Or, you can accept the addresses, but warn them (in big, red letters) that email sent to those addresses may not get through. Presumably, if they are paying for this service, they do want the mail, so it's up to them to give you a working address. Maybe then, they will lean on their ISP to actually fix the problem.
It happens all the time.
:)
True enough. I should have been more conclusive in my previous post, because I'm sure it does happen all the time.
Why would you buy a DVD of something you already saw? Pay $20 for commentaries and a behind the scenes documentary?
Well, then why does someone who saw the movie in the theater by the DVD? There are lots of reasons to buy the DVD if you like the movie.
I assume that you mean poor quality as in image/sound.
No, I mean the movie is a bad movie. Like a bad script, bad acting, bad directing -- like a Star Wars prequel
Actually, downloading a poorly captured/encoded movie you like is probably pretty good incentive to buy the DVD. Maybe the MPAA should start distributing DivX movies with the last 20 minutes missing or something (hmmm... maybe I shouldn't give them ideas).
Possibly some, but according to the article, they targetted "disadvantaged" schools. I doubt that was unintentional. No offence intended, but students in those schools will be less likely to have parents well versed in copyright law. After all, how many lawyers (or even well off computer professionals) send their kids to "disadvantaged" schools?
I wouldn't be surprised if most of the parents believed the lies (or at least gross oversimplification) that was being taught and were pleased that important people (like executives from E!) cared enough to teach their kids about the evils of free music and movies.
After all, "If you don't pay for it, you've stolen it."
What about when I download a movie, its in excellent quality (or even half decent), and then he never plunks down the $20?
:)
While that probably does happen to some extent, the movie industry is probably much more worried about you downloading a movie, seeing that it's poor quality and then (justifibily) never plunking down $20 for a crappy movie (and probably not even wasting a 10 cent CDR on it either
...choose good passwords, change them frequently,...
While I agree in principle, those two are almost mutally exclusive. Unless you have a super memory, it's going to be difficult to have genuinely good that change frequently. By good, I mean randomly generated, containing characters from different sets (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols) and of sufficient length (6-8 characters).
At the company I work, there is a password policy in effect that mandates password rotation every 90 days. When I first started there, I was good, and generated new random passwords each time. I quickly found this was unsustainable in the long run, since I'd only just have begun to learn the password really well (i.e., be able to enter it without thinking) when it was time to change again. I also had to write down the new random password when I changed it, in case I forgot it while I was learning it. Talk about a bad practice!
Suffice it to say, I came up with a scheme whereby I reduced the randomness of my password from 8 charcters to 5 characters (3 characters must change every change). Granted, it's still mostly random, and I don't have to write it down, but I do consider it less secure than a good, truly random password that stays around for a while.
So, either choose strong passwords, or change your weak ones often. Both is difficult, and often overkill.
Maybe someone can answer this. I primarily use Gnome at home, and like it's system monitor for CPU and memory statistics. However, it only seems to work locally. Is there anyway to get it to display statistics for remote computers, possibly using something like RPC.statd (internal network, so insecurity isn't as much of an issue)?
I know at work, I can use Solaris' perfmon tool to monitor our Linux server's current stats, but I can't seem to find anything like that for Linux on the client side. Anyone know of a way to do it?
Actually satellites are not designed to be maintained. It is only the rare satellite that receives servicing, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. This is for two reasons: servicing missions are absurdly expensive, and most TV satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, which is unreachable by the Shuttle.
... It's not viable to ask advertisers to bear the sole responsibility for subsidising the medium
Fair enough, though I was more referring to monitoring the satellites, sending data to them, correcting their orbits, and even to some extent preparing to replace them when they need to be retired (that should be considered a maintenance expense, but I'm not an accountant, so maybe it's not).
The money for the broadcasting infrastructure has to come from one of three places: advertisers, viewers, or the government.
Why not? I agree that a single satellite is a much larger investment than a broadcast tower, but the number of satellites is much smaller than the number of broadcast towers. I don't know any details, but I'd be surprised if there are more that 5 satellites in geosync orbit to service the U.S. (probably more like 2-3) compared to the number of broadcast towers for the same area. I'd suspect that the costs for the satellites, though high, would be less than the costs for all the broadcast towers.
However, the real problem is a checken-or-the-egg one -- DirecTV could make money off of adertising if it had the viewership, but it takes time to get that viewership. Since broadcast towers are smaller, they can be built in a more granular fashion, as vierership supports them. In DirecTV's case, they had to essentially build all the towers first, which I agree is a significant undertaking, and one which probably couldn't suceed on adertising alone, at least initially.
As for your claim that "DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes," you're advocating that DirecTV should use the access equipment to subsidize the service? How would this be different from using smart cards?
I meant that DirecTV would sell dishes much much like antenna manufacturers sell antennas for over the air broadcasts. Antennas don't do anything special, other than help collect the signals, just like satellite dishes do. The difference is that the signal wouldn't be encrypted and anyone could access it. Of course, this means that other companies could more easily compete with DirecTV which probably explains why they wouldn't like that. After further thought, I'll admit that this option, though nice for consumers, may not be so good for the company.
The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers.
Again, after further thought, I'll admit that it might not be, at least initially and with the current system. However, that still doesn't allow DirecTV to go around bullying people, or even, IMO, allow them to try to prevent people from receiving and decrypting their signals. Taking a page out of McBride's book, the only people DirecTV could legitimately go after are people they have contracts with. If I, as someone who's never had a relationship with DirecTV, built a device that picked up EM signals directed at me and translated them into something my TV could display, I don't see why anyone would think that (a) it's illegal or (b) I should stop. People don't have a right to get paid. Of course, if DirecTV changed their encryption so only their customers could still access the data, then I'd be out of luck.
Of course, maybe I feel this way because I work with technology and see technological solutions. Lawyers probably only see lawyer solutions.
Bickering about language will accomplish little, but those who have used "theft" and "piracy" for copyright infringement deliberately chose those words for their negative connotation.
:)
You can use the same stupid argument to justify any sort of espionage or hacking. Do you also think hacking someone's wlan from their parking lot is OK, since they broadcast intentionally to the parking lot and you are there.
What, do you think that the U.S. doesn't intercept (or try to intercept) foreign governments' transmissions, because that would be theft? Or that they don't try to do the same to the US (and each other)?
Hacking, is different, because it's active (you're sending instructions, not passively monitoring transmissions). But if someone is stupid enough to send valuable data unencrypted over a wireless link, sure, they should expect that it might be monitored. The same way two people talking loudly in public should expect that others can hear them.
If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion.
If she's doing this in public and charging some audience members, I wouldn't expect the police to make others who want to see it pay as well.
Right now the biggest problem in the world is your stupid posts, at least to me.
You must live in that Walgreen's "Perfect" world, right? Where countries don't spy on one another and the biggest problem is someone's opinion on the Internet?
There are DirecTV Thieves.
I'm sorry, maybe this is a troll, but I have to respond/rant. There are no DirecTV thieves. And if there are, then the police should track down the people who stole equipment or other property from DirecTV and make them return it (in addition to facing charges).
If DirecTV wants to put a satellite in orbit and have that satellite broadcast digital information that anyone with a satellite dish can receive, then they shouldn't be upset when people do just that. NBC isn't upset if I put up an antenna to receive the stuff they broadcast -- in fact, they're happy I do. DirecTV has already done all the work necessary to get the signal to my home -- whether I view it doesn't affect their costs at all (for the record, I don't have satellite TV, and with companies like DirecTV running things, I probably never will).
DirecTV is trying to sell and control both sides of the transmission, and frankly, I don't think the law should be on their side. They chose, and in fact got special permission, to send these signals. They're using up part of the EM spectrum, the public's EM spectrum, mind you, and then turning around and expecting the government to stop people from listening to what they broadcast.
Sure, you'll say that it's not economically viable for DirectTV to not charge customers by the month, and to that, I say so be it! Somehow over the air broadcast TV survived, and flourished. Broadcast towers require maintenance, just like satellites. Do you think TV would have ever become as popular as it is today if broadcast TV wasn't free? DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes and access to broadcast on the network, and then thre wouldn't even be an issue of people listening to a signal they're not supposed to hear. The fact that DirecTV thinks the govenment should enforce the current arrangement and the government agrees is bad enough. DirecTV's barratry/blackmail against innocent smart card developers (and even the not so innocent ones) is disgusting, and should be itself illegal.
There are bigger problems in the world than some people watching satellite TV without paying DirecTV for the privilege!
Yeah, you're right, it's not like Scalia apologized for the incident or anything. He probably didn't even know it happened until well after the fact (considering he was speaking at the time).
The US Marshal, on the other hand, may be up for the award...