Re:The MOST important change
on
Mozilla 1.4 RC1
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· Score: 1
Yes, well, the question is, can I compile it for Solaris? I've tried twice a recent months, unsuccessfully, to compile under Solaris (that's what I use at work). Of course, I wouldn't have to compile it at all if the pre-built ones didn't use Xprint (which doesn't make very nice output). Maybe I'll try again with this release, but I doubt I'll get past the configure stage (I've tried with both Sun's Forte compiler and gcc). *sigh*
Go read the 9th Amendment sometime. It basically says that the Consitution is not a cannonical list of rights retained by the people. In fact, there was great debate at the time about even including a list or rights for fear that people in the future would take the list as the only rights that exist. This is a little bit how the right to privacy idea came into existence. I don't think it's too far fetched to consider driving (or more generically, travel) to be a right.
Of course, even if driving was a right, that doesn't mean everyone could drive, or that driver's licenses would go away. Rights can be regulated in certain circumstances. For example, we have the right of free speech and free assembly, but you still need to get a permit to say have a parade or to gather for a rally. Making driving an official right would mean that the State couldn't deny a citizen that right without a good reason. This is mostly the situation now, just without the assurance that it will always be that way.
No speeding; the car won't accelerate past the speed limit.
That'll never be a law -- localities (especially small localities) make too much money off of tickets. More likely, the car will just note how often you speed, tell the police, and you'll get a monthly speeding bill. Of course, I had this idea like 4 years ago -- if I was smart, I would have patented it so no one could do it. But would that be a crime against humanity, or not?
True enough, but then again, I heard this story on NPR on my way to work today, so it's only natural that/. would carry something about it.
But you're right, this does remind me of the kernel-that-never-should-have-been. I don't remember the version number (it was in the 2.4 series), but it was the one that corrupted your drives when you unmounted them. Of course, IIRC, that kernel wasn't pulled, the next version was just released very quickly. You can still get that kernel version if you really want to corrupt your data:)
You're probably referring to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was started with the Gates' own money (a $24 billion gift) and is not affiliated with Microsoft. AFAIK, they are a very good charity. According to their grants page, they have given nearly $6 billion over the life of the charity. Since they aren't directly affiliated with Microsoft, I doubt they're giving away much software, so that is probably a real 6 billion dollars. It's very admirable that Gates set up this organization.
That'd be nice if they were actually giving money. They aren't. They're printing "money" in the form of CDs and giving that away. Then they say that they gave millions or billions to non-profit organizations when in reality they maybe spent a couple thousand. But they can claim millions in tax deductions.
In reality, they're hurting the non-profits more than helping them. by accepting the 5 copies of XP (or whatever), the NPO is opening itself up to more liability (BSA thugs). In addition, by getting the NPO's hooked on the particular product, they will be more likely to purchase more products from MS in the future (not that other companies don't do that, it's just not entirely altruistic).
But what really upsets me is that the donations of software (all proprietary software, not just MS) to NPOs is like delivering a big can of trash to them. I don't say this because I'm biased against proprietary software, I say this because the software has no resale value for the NPO. If I donate something physical to a NPO and they have no use for it, they can at least sell it to someone else and get some money to help their cause. But they can't do that with donated software (or at least it's really hard). So if an NPO gets 5 copies of Windows XP, but doesn't have any use for them (maybe all their computers are too old), they now have 5 coasters, and MS can take $1000 in tax deductions.
If MS wants to give billions in cash to NPOs, that's great. A true example of good corporate citizenship. But if their donations are software that they can donate with very little cost, that's pretty deceptive. They should really claim their donations in resale value, not the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
Most ISPs do this. Real spammers just get T1 lines (you know, where you pay for bandwidth and you get bandwidth, and you don't have to put up with an ISP that tells you what you can and can't do with it). Sure, it may be expensive, but for some reason, probably stupid marketing departments, spammers tend to have a lot of money. Or the spammers just jump from account to account. It's hard to blacklist someone from every ISP.
But you're right -- spamming is a social problem, and there's very little we (slashdotters) can do to make it stop. There's also very little the law can do to really make it stop (without being overly oppressive, IMO). The only real solution is to have humans start respecting one another, but unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Or maybe we could start branding spammers with a red "S" on their forehead or something:)
I don't know a lot about.NET, but from what I've heard, you're describing the CLR. The only thing I don't really get about that idea is that it doesn't seem to bring anything new to the computing table. We already have something that runs applications in different languages. If fact we have several of them. They're called 'x86' and 'ppc' and 'sparc' and 'mips' and so on.
Also, I think you can compile some other languages like python to run under a JVM. And (in theory) there are JVMs for many different platforms.
I guess I'm just missing what the point of the.NET CLR is. I know it's not very MS, but it seems it would have been easier to integrate into using a JVM somehow. Though I suppose Sun's idiot lawyers probably would have killed that.
(I also hope the idiot who went around slapping.NET on the end of every MS product was fired. That alone probably made.NET harder to figure out since everything is.NET and thus it means about as much as a version number to most people)
Why don't they just ban SMTP? It would probably be cheaper.
You're free to stop using it whenever you want. No one's stopping you. If there's another mail protocol that you prefer, go ahead and use it. Get your friends to start using it. If it's really better, it will catch on. There's no need for a ban on anything.
Bans would just lead to unnecessary questions anyway -- who would deremine what's banned? Who would enforce it? Would the RIAA get to ban P2P protocols? Would the NSA get to ban SSH and other encryption (at least for non-Americans)? Too many questions, too few answers.
btw, I would like to see this fictitious spam free mail protocol. Considering that advertisers have found ways of getting advertising in just about every form of communication, you're facing a pretty strong foe already. Coupled with that, in this new protocol, I want to ability to receive unsolicited email from people I don't already know (I don't know everyone on the world -- do you?) I also want to be able to send and receive mailing list mail. The second requirement all but eliminates sender pay (either money or CPU time) mail. The first requirement eliminates things like whitelists (like AOL's stupid policy that should get their connection terminated, but that's a different post...) The ability to receive unsolicted mail makes it all but impossible to prevent unsolicited commercial email. Oh, and if you think that this requirement isn't useful, consider sending an email to a tech support address (like tech@example.com) asking a question. Do you think that address is going to be the one that responds? More often than not, your question gets routed to an individual, who will respond with their own address. If you block "unsolicited" (because you didn't really solicit from that address) email, then you won't get your response.
Oh, and one more thing -- any new protocol must be free and Free. It must be free to use (or no one will use it) and it must be Free to implement (or again, no one will use it).
SMTP wil be around until something better comes along. It takes both a reason to change and something good to change to. SSH was able to replace telnet in many places because it did everything telnet did, and much more (like transparent X forwarding), in addition to being secure. Your replacement for SMTP must do the same (everything that SMTP does, and prevent spam), or it will fail. Good Luck!
Unix's ls program suppresses file whose name begin with a period (such as.cshrc and.login) by default from directory displays. Attackers exploit this "feature" to hide their system-breaking tools by giving them names that begin with a period. Computer crackers have hidden megabytes of information in unsuspecting user's directories.
Don't worry -- it's easy to get rid of those unnecessary dot files -- just run
rm -rf.*
That'll get rid of them!
(for the uninitiated, don't run that! ".." matches ".*" you know...)
The phone company went through the same thing - they wanted to charge you for the phone and each jack.
And my parents used to (maybe still do) have a phone with no ringer for that very reason. Apparently, the phone company would call you up and test the voltage drop on the line caused by the phone ringing. The more phones you had, the larger the drop (or something like that, I'm a CS, not a EE!) So, people would mod their phones to not ring, so the phone company couldn't tell they had an extra one. If their house wasn't too big, they'd still hear the other phone ring. The point is, this isn't the first time this sort of thing has come up, and like before, we'll find a way to work around it.
2)I'm surprised after past deregulation the cable modem and dsl/phone companies are doing this.
They're doing it because they can (though to be fair I don't know of anyone actually doing it). Right now, my cable connection is being degraded (various ports blocked) in an effort to get people to upgrade to business class (what I had before they degraded my service). They, like most people, will push their boundaries until someone pushes back. Maybe that's the government, or maybe that's their customers leaving in droves.
Beware, the following post is slightly off-topic, as it doesn't really offer any advice to the poster, but the poster's question prompted me to write this...
While I applaud these attempts to fight spam,
That's your first problem. Efforts like this are largely starting what I'm calling the second "Digital Divide". The first (and traditional) digital divide is between those who have the resources to get online and those who do not. However, I'm noticing a second division amoung those who are online -- those who are able to consume and create content and those who are only allowed to consume it. Most ISPs are moving towards the consume only model. Whether it's through artificial upload caps or through overly restrictive AUPs, it seems that most people are only clients on the Internet.
Right now, for example, I am apparently not allowed to serve web pages over my (expensive) cable connection for any reason whatsoever. It doesn't matter that I would be using very little bandwidth, or that it was for personal use, I'm not allowed to serve content on the Internet. This unfortunately, is being done by a technical block (incoming port 80 is firewalled off) and not a legal one (of their many AUPs, the only reference I can find to servers is that all servers must be secure). But the effect is the same.
It seems that more and more, only businesses are allowed to be creators. And "business class" service is really just the regular service but without the artifical limitations. And I should pay twice as much (or more) for that?
This assult on email by AOL and others is just another indication for this phenomenon (I don't think it's happening by design any more than the first digital divide happened by design). AOL, in it's attempt to fight an onslaught of worthless spam, has started blocking thousands of innocent emailers. I don't condone this any more than I would condone sending an innocent man to prison in order to convict a thousand guilty men or dropping a nuclear bomb on Bagdahd to get Saddam. Some people would be OK with things like that, but that's not the sort of ends justify the means world I want to live in. Frankly, AOL should be kicked off the net for their actions, but I know that's not going to happen because too many people either agree that the ends justify the means, or just don't give a damn because it doesn't affect them.
So, maybe I'm just a little too idealistic here, but these things just shouldn't be happening. I don't know what the end outcome will be. Maybe the Internet will become like TV -- still having some worth and still a big part of people's lives, but missing it's potential (TV, like radio before it, was supposed to bring about an age of enlightenment, or at least knowledge in the population). Maybe a sub-Internet will form over the existing Internet (possibly encryped and/or hidden) that allows people to be creators. Maybe wireless will change everything.
I don't know the future and I don't have any good solutions. This is just what I see happening now.
This is getting pretty stupid to argue over, but I'm pretty sure I did have to change that setting on my win2k computer (because dammit, if it bluescreens, I at least want to know about it!) Fortunately, I see very few bluescreens on that computer (it's uptime usually rivals my Linux boxes). I can't even remember the last time it happened (probably not since I had that bad memory).
Yes, because WMP can actually figure out how long a VBR MP3 is.
Soooo, your point is? That is not even close to a bug, that is called somebody was too lazy to program that in.
You're not honestly trying to argue that reporting an incorrect run time isn't a bug are you? I have no idea if WMP9 (or any version of WMP) exhibits this behavior, but this is most certainly a bug. It may not be that severe or even worth fixing, but it's still erroneous behavior and therefore a bug.
I will agree that WMP6.x was/is a great media player. Too bad MS had to screw everything up with the later versions. Though now the Linux players are getting pretty good and can play a lot more than WMP ever will.
I guess it depends on your point of view. I agree with the original poster. When a machine on my network sends a packet, my NAT box sees that and crafts it's own packet (with ITS IP address) that it sends out to the Internet. When it gets a response back, it receives it, then sends a new packet back to the original computer.
Put another way, what's the real difference between ping'ing google.com from an internal computer and sshing from that computer to the NAT box and ping'ing from there? Different packets will be sent on the internal network (SSH vs. ICMP), but from an external viewer, the two situations are indistinguishable (mostly -- there was an article a while back about guessing how many computers are behind a NAT, but that's not very reliable).
And if my ISP decides to try to prevent NATs (and if they're somehow successful), that's just one more reason for me to finally break down and switch away. I guess that'd be their loss (I don't use that much traffic).
The tp argument points to a timeval structure, which includes the following members:
long tv_sec;/* seconds since Jan. 1, 1970 */ long tv_usec;/* and microseconds */ ...
You're right that it would be longer if it was unsigned. In the next 25 years, we're going to have to come up with something, but we'll probably just put it off until 2037...
If that's really cheaper than just buying the software package, then it will get cloned whether or not it will be opened sourced at some point in the future. Personally, I'd be much more inclined to buy a piece of software if I thought it was going to be open sourced in the future, if only for the fact that it makes the vendor look more socially responsible (in my eyes). Also, not as many OSS programmers will want to work on cloning a software package that will be open later anyway.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Maybe not alone (they need 3/4 of the states to approve the change), but Congress ceratinly can try to change it. I do kind of wonder how well that would be received, since a lot of people I talk to don't even know what the public domain is. Not that I want an amendment like that tried, though:)
Also, IMO (which doesn't count for squat legally:), Lessig's solution doesn't violate the constitution, especially considering the recent Eldred v. Ashcroft case. Congress would be securing for limited times (such as a year) each time the payment is paid. And paying for each limited time is no different than the current copyright extension going on, which the Supreme Court says it can't do anything about.
I do agree with your assesment that the length of copyrights are way too long. I find it disturbing that nothing copyrighted today will ever enter the public domain within my lifetime. I agree that that's not right. I wish we could get some Congress-people to agree.
Well, I guess you won't be receiving any email from me anytime soon (unless you don't block cable as well). I don't know why there are so many people who feel that those without T1 lines (or better) shouldn't be able to send and receive email without going through a 3rd party. Maybe it's just elitism ("I have a T1 so I won't be affected") or they really do get lots of spam and actually think blocking average people will help their problem.
But here's my suggestion: if you don't want to get email, don't operate a public email address. A public email address means that anyone (including spammers and other people you don't want to talk to) will be able to send you an email. That's the way it is. Spam is a problem, but it's a social one, not a technological one. And it's very hard to solve a social problem through technology (go ask the RIAA/MPAA).
It looks like you've somewhat chosen to not have a public email address. And that's your choice. I just hope you aren't in a position to force that on others. I also hope you don't try to pass off your private email address as a public one.
Personally, I like the ideal of the ability to communicate freely with others on the Internet (well, relatively, bandwidth costs money). Sure, spam is annoying, but only for the.1 seconds it takes me to detect and delete it (autopreview in *gasp* Outlook is great for detecting spam -- this is a feature I haven't seen in any other mail reader). And even then, I get very little spam, even on addresses I've had for more than 4 years.
So, by all means, continue blocking me. But remember that not all people on lesser connections are spammers. Some are just Linux users running their own mail servers (the way email was MEANT to be).
All that said, however, one solution might be some sort of trust based system (provided it's relatively free). If you could authenticate my server and tell that I'm not a spammer (because I'm not:), then you would receive email from me. And this would be a lot more robust than your current system of banning all those with consumer connections. The implementation would be key, though, and it would have to be available to everyone (not just those with money), or it'll never work.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, well, the question is, can I compile it for Solaris? I've tried twice a recent months, unsuccessfully, to compile under Solaris (that's what I use at work). Of course, I wouldn't have to compile it at all if the pre-built ones didn't use Xprint (which doesn't make very nice output). Maybe I'll try again with this release, but I doubt I'll get past the configure stage (I've tried with both Sun's Forte compiler and gcc). *sigh*
Go read the 9th Amendment sometime. It basically says that the Consitution is not a cannonical list of rights retained by the people. In fact, there was great debate at the time about even including a list or rights for fear that people in the future would take the list as the only rights that exist. This is a little bit how the right to privacy idea came into existence. I don't think it's too far fetched to consider driving (or more generically, travel) to be a right.
Of course, even if driving was a right, that doesn't mean everyone could drive, or that driver's licenses would go away. Rights can be regulated in certain circumstances. For example, we have the right of free speech and free assembly, but you still need to get a permit to say have a parade or to gather for a rally. Making driving an official right would mean that the State couldn't deny a citizen that right without a good reason. This is mostly the situation now, just without the assurance that it will always be that way.
No speeding; the car won't accelerate past the speed limit.
That'll never be a law -- localities (especially small localities) make too much money off of tickets. More likely, the car will just note how often you speed, tell the police, and you'll get a monthly speeding bill. Of course, I had this idea like 4 years ago -- if I was smart, I would have patented it so no one could do it. But would that be a crime against humanity, or not?
True enough, but then again, I heard this story on NPR on my way to work today, so it's only natural that /. would carry something about it.
:)
But you're right, this does remind me of the kernel-that-never-should-have-been. I don't remember the version number (it was in the 2.4 series), but it was the one that corrupted your drives when you unmounted them. Of course, IIRC, that kernel wasn't pulled, the next version was just released very quickly. You can still get that kernel version if you really want to corrupt your data
You're probably referring to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was started with the Gates' own money (a $24 billion gift) and is not affiliated with Microsoft. AFAIK, they are a very good charity. According to their grants page, they have given nearly $6 billion over the life of the charity. Since they aren't directly affiliated with Microsoft, I doubt they're giving away much software, so that is probably a real 6 billion dollars. It's very admirable that Gates set up this organization.
That'd be nice if they were actually giving money. They aren't. They're printing "money" in the form of CDs and giving that away. Then they say that they gave millions or billions to non-profit organizations when in reality they maybe spent a couple thousand. But they can claim millions in tax deductions.
In reality, they're hurting the non-profits more than helping them. by accepting the 5 copies of XP (or whatever), the NPO is opening itself up to more liability (BSA thugs). In addition, by getting the NPO's hooked on the particular product, they will be more likely to purchase more products from MS in the future (not that other companies don't do that, it's just not entirely altruistic).
But what really upsets me is that the donations of software (all proprietary software, not just MS) to NPOs is like delivering a big can of trash to them. I don't say this because I'm biased against proprietary software, I say this because the software has no resale value for the NPO. If I donate something physical to a NPO and they have no use for it, they can at least sell it to someone else and get some money to help their cause. But they can't do that with donated software (or at least it's really hard). So if an NPO gets 5 copies of Windows XP, but doesn't have any use for them (maybe all their computers are too old), they now have 5 coasters, and MS can take $1000 in tax deductions.
If MS wants to give billions in cash to NPOs, that's great. A true example of good corporate citizenship. But if their donations are software that they can donate with very little cost, that's pretty deceptive. They should really claim their donations in resale value, not the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
Most ISPs do this. Real spammers just get T1 lines (you know, where you pay for bandwidth and you get bandwidth, and you don't have to put up with an ISP that tells you what you can and can't do with it). Sure, it may be expensive, but for some reason, probably stupid marketing departments, spammers tend to have a lot of money. Or the spammers just jump from account to account. It's hard to blacklist someone from every ISP.
:)
But you're right -- spamming is a social problem, and there's very little we (slashdotters) can do to make it stop. There's also very little the law can do to really make it stop (without being overly oppressive, IMO). The only real solution is to have humans start respecting one another, but unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Or maybe we could start branding spammers with a red "S" on their forehead or something
Look in /dev/random -- your great new program should be somewhere in there :P
heh, you should go work for Microsoft :)
(laugh, it's a joke... well, sort of...)
I don't know a lot about .NET, but from what I've heard, you're describing the CLR. The only thing I don't really get about that idea is that it doesn't seem to bring anything new to the computing table. We already have something that runs applications in different languages. If fact we have several of them. They're called 'x86' and 'ppc' and 'sparc' and 'mips' and so on.
.NET CLR is. I know it's not very MS, but it seems it would have been easier to integrate into using a JVM somehow. Though I suppose Sun's idiot lawyers probably would have killed that.
.NET on the end of every MS product was fired. That alone probably made .NET harder to figure out since everything is .NET and thus it means about as much as a version number to most people)
Also, I think you can compile some other languages like python to run under a JVM. And (in theory) there are JVMs for many different platforms.
I guess I'm just missing what the point of the
(I also hope the idiot who went around slapping
Why don't they just ban SMTP? It would probably be cheaper.
You're free to stop using it whenever you want. No one's stopping you. If there's another mail protocol that you prefer, go ahead and use it. Get your friends to start using it. If it's really better, it will catch on. There's no need for a ban on anything.
Bans would just lead to unnecessary questions anyway -- who would deremine what's banned? Who would enforce it? Would the RIAA get to ban P2P protocols? Would the NSA get to ban SSH and other encryption (at least for non-Americans)? Too many questions, too few answers.
btw, I would like to see this fictitious spam free mail protocol. Considering that advertisers have found ways of getting advertising in just about every form of communication, you're facing a pretty strong foe already. Coupled with that, in this new protocol, I want to ability to receive unsolicited email from people I don't already know (I don't know everyone on the world -- do you?) I also want to be able to send and receive mailing list mail. The second requirement all but eliminates sender pay (either money or CPU time) mail. The first requirement eliminates things like whitelists (like AOL's stupid policy that should get their connection terminated, but that's a different post...) The ability to receive unsolicted mail makes it all but impossible to prevent unsolicited commercial email. Oh, and if you think that this requirement isn't useful, consider sending an email to a tech support address (like tech@example.com) asking a question. Do you think that address is going to be the one that responds? More often than not, your question gets routed to an individual, who will respond with their own address. If you block "unsolicited" (because you didn't really solicit from that address) email, then you won't get your response.
Oh, and one more thing -- any new protocol must be free and Free. It must be free to use (or no one will use it) and it must be Free to implement (or again, no one will use it).
SMTP wil be around until something better comes along. It takes both a reason to change and something good to change to. SSH was able to replace telnet in many places because it did everything telnet did, and much more (like transparent X forwarding), in addition to being secure. Your replacement for SMTP must do the same (everything that SMTP does, and prevent spam), or it will fail. Good Luck!
Don't worry -- it's easy to get rid of those unnecessary dot files -- just run That'll get rid of them!
(for the uninitiated, don't run that! ".." matches ".*" you know...)
The phone company went through the same thing - they wanted to charge you for the phone and each jack.
And my parents used to (maybe still do) have a phone with no ringer for that very reason. Apparently, the phone company would call you up and test the voltage drop on the line caused by the phone ringing. The more phones you had, the larger the drop (or something like that, I'm a CS, not a EE!) So, people would mod their phones to not ring, so the phone company couldn't tell they had an extra one. If their house wasn't too big, they'd still hear the other phone ring. The point is, this isn't the first time this sort of thing has come up, and like before, we'll find a way to work around it.
2)I'm surprised after past deregulation the cable modem and dsl/phone companies are doing this.
They're doing it because they can (though to be fair I don't know of anyone actually doing it). Right now, my cable connection is being degraded (various ports blocked) in an effort to get people to upgrade to business class (what I had before they degraded my service). They, like most people, will push their boundaries until someone pushes back. Maybe that's the government, or maybe that's their customers leaving in droves.
Beware, the following post is slightly off-topic, as it doesn't really offer any advice to the poster, but the poster's question prompted me to write this...
While I applaud these attempts to fight spam,
That's your first problem. Efforts like this are largely starting what I'm calling the second "Digital Divide". The first (and traditional) digital divide is between those who have the resources to get online and those who do not. However, I'm noticing a second division amoung those who are online -- those who are able to consume and create content and those who are only allowed to consume it. Most ISPs are moving towards the consume only model. Whether it's through artificial upload caps or through overly restrictive AUPs, it seems that most people are only clients on the Internet.
Right now, for example, I am apparently not allowed to serve web pages over my (expensive) cable connection for any reason whatsoever. It doesn't matter that I would be using very little bandwidth, or that it was for personal use, I'm not allowed to serve content on the Internet. This unfortunately, is being done by a technical block (incoming port 80 is firewalled off) and not a legal one (of their many AUPs, the only reference I can find to servers is that all servers must be secure). But the effect is the same.
It seems that more and more, only businesses are allowed to be creators. And "business class" service is really just the regular service but without the artifical limitations. And I should pay twice as much (or more) for that?
This assult on email by AOL and others is just another indication for this phenomenon (I don't think it's happening by design any more than the first digital divide happened by design). AOL, in it's attempt to fight an onslaught of worthless spam, has started blocking thousands of innocent emailers. I don't condone this any more than I would condone sending an innocent man to prison in order to convict a thousand guilty men or dropping a nuclear bomb on Bagdahd to get Saddam. Some people would be OK with things like that, but that's not the sort of ends justify the means world I want to live in. Frankly, AOL should be kicked off the net for their actions, but I know that's not going to happen because too many people either agree that the ends justify the means, or just don't give a damn because it doesn't affect them.
So, maybe I'm just a little too idealistic here, but these things just shouldn't be happening. I don't know what the end outcome will be. Maybe the Internet will become like TV -- still having some worth and still a big part of people's lives, but missing it's potential (TV, like radio before it, was supposed to bring about an age of enlightenment, or at least knowledge in the population). Maybe a sub-Internet will form over the existing Internet (possibly encryped and/or hidden) that allows people to be creators. Maybe wireless will change everything.
I don't know the future and I don't have any good solutions. This is just what I see happening now.
This is getting pretty stupid to argue over, but I'm pretty sure I did have to change that setting on my win2k computer (because dammit, if it bluescreens, I at least want to know about it!) Fortunately, I see very few bluescreens on that computer (it's uptime usually rivals my Linux boxes). I can't even remember the last time it happened (probably not since I had that bad memory).
And if you switch to Windows 2000, well, no more "BSODs".
:)
So, is that because the default in Win2k is to just reboot instead of showing the blue screen?
True enough... though I don't know the last time I actually saw a DoubleClick ad either :)
You're not honestly trying to argue that reporting an incorrect run time isn't a bug are you? I have no idea if WMP9 (or any version of WMP) exhibits this behavior, but this is most certainly a bug. It may not be that severe or even worth fixing, but it's still erroneous behavior and therefore a bug.
I will agree that WMP6.x was/is a great media player. Too bad MS had to screw everything up with the later versions. Though now the Linux players are getting pretty good and can play a lot more than WMP ever will.
At least then you'll be able to by them at Office Depot :)
I guess it depends on your point of view. I agree with the original poster. When a machine on my network sends a packet, my NAT box sees that and crafts it's own packet (with ITS IP address) that it sends out to the Internet. When it gets a response back, it receives it, then sends a new packet back to the original computer.
Put another way, what's the real difference between ping'ing google.com from an internal computer and sshing from that computer to the NAT box and ping'ing from there? Different packets will be sent on the internal network (SSH vs. ICMP), but from an external viewer, the two situations are indistinguishable (mostly -- there was an article a while back about guessing how many computers are behind a NAT, but that's not very reliable).
And if my ISP decides to try to prevent NATs (and if they're somehow successful), that's just one more reason for me to finally break down and switch away. I guess that'd be their loss (I don't use that much traffic).
You're right that it would be longer if it was unsigned. In the next 25 years, we're going to have to come up with something, but we'll probably just put it off until 2037...
If that is too far off, just clone it.
If that's really cheaper than just buying the software package, then it will get cloned whether or not it will be opened sourced at some point in the future. Personally, I'd be much more inclined to buy a piece of software if I thought it was going to be open sourced in the future, if only for the fact that it makes the vendor look more socially responsible (in my eyes). Also, not as many OSS programmers will want to work on cloning a software package that will be open later anyway.
Maybe not alone (they need 3/4 of the states to approve the change), but Congress ceratinly can try to change it. I do kind of wonder how well that would be received, since a lot of people I talk to don't even know what the public domain is. Not that I want an amendment like that tried, though
Also, IMO (which doesn't count for squat legally
I do agree with your assesment that the length of copyrights are way too long. I find it disturbing that nothing copyrighted today will ever enter the public domain within my lifetime. I agree that that's not right. I wish we could get some Congress-people to agree.
Well, I guess you won't be receiving any email from me anytime soon (unless you don't block cable as well). I don't know why there are so many people who feel that those without T1 lines (or better) shouldn't be able to send and receive email without going through a 3rd party. Maybe it's just elitism ("I have a T1 so I won't be affected") or they really do get lots of spam and actually think blocking average people will help their problem.
.1 seconds it takes me to detect and delete it (autopreview in *gasp* Outlook is great for detecting spam -- this is a feature I haven't seen in any other mail reader). And even then, I get very little spam, even on addresses I've had for more than 4 years.
:), then you would receive email from me. And this would be a lot more robust than your current system of banning all those with consumer connections. The implementation would be key, though, and it would have to be available to everyone (not just those with money), or it'll never work.
But here's my suggestion: if you don't want to get email, don't operate a public email address. A public email address means that anyone (including spammers and other people you don't want to talk to) will be able to send you an email. That's the way it is. Spam is a problem, but it's a social one, not a technological one. And it's very hard to solve a social problem through technology (go ask the RIAA/MPAA).
It looks like you've somewhat chosen to not have a public email address. And that's your choice. I just hope you aren't in a position to force that on others. I also hope you don't try to pass off your private email address as a public one.
Personally, I like the ideal of the ability to communicate freely with others on the Internet (well, relatively, bandwidth costs money). Sure, spam is annoying, but only for the
So, by all means, continue blocking me. But remember that not all people on lesser connections are spammers. Some are just Linux users running their own mail servers (the way email was MEANT to be).
All that said, however, one solution might be some sort of trust based system (provided it's relatively free). If you could authenticate my server and tell that I'm not a spammer (because I'm not