Seriously, if you are an independent artist and your music is on napster your not going to see a dime. The money from Napster is going to the RIAA as a licensing fee for their music being downloaded, but what about you? Are you going to payed for your work?
Someone in the gov't needs to look at this a cry foul, because now not only does the RIAA get to profit from their own artists, but anyone who writes something that makes its way onto Napster.
To answer your question on if patches are finacially motivated: yes and no. Yes as in you have to release a product eventually, but no because you will never write a perfect software program the first time around. There are so many things that can effect your software from hardware, drivers, other software, etc. You can not possibly test every single configuration out there, so at some point you have to rely on feedback from your customer to find problem areas.
That being said, there are times when products are rushed out the door before they are ready. I had experience with that at my old company, and the reasoning was purely finacial. I really can't fault them for releasing early though since we had to play a delicate balance of releasing something good and going under, and eventually had to split the middle.
Keeping aliens from infringing on copyrights. Engineers will have to figure out a way to track down all the radio signals that have left Earth in the last 100 years and block them as to prevent alien beings from enjoying content they have not payed for.
This is related to the article too because phase 2 of the plan is to prevent all wireless transmissions of anything so aliens that have reached earth cannot use thier moon-transglobifiers to enjoy content they haven't paid for. The aliens will just have to rent a house and order cable like everyone else.
First rule of database management: back up your data.
I find it amazing that this data would not be backed up. Not to jump to conclusions or anything, but I bet this has to do with some cost cutting measure since it would be expensive to back up such a large amount of data. I guess now we get to see some middle management type sweat because his knuckleheaded decision cost years of research.
Maybe it's for the best though, god only knows what corporations would do after they got this information. After them genome is all figured out, it would be a race to profit, no matter who was hurt. And don't think for a minute this wouldn't be used for all the wrong reasons.
I actually forget what the actual name of the game I played in college was. It was some form of tetris, but you are right it did have a generic name, not the Tetris brand.
I imagine this has something to do with some product like Killustrator or some other knock of open-source product. So whoever this is was having trouble changing the program's name, so they decided to go after everyone who uses it. Sounds like someone is taking leasons from M$.
Why did this even get onto slashdot? All this company has right now is a bunch of marketing fluff. For example:
As major contributors to three standard graphics initiatives (XFree86, Mesa/OpenGL, DRI), we are in a unique position to assure our clients that any development we participate in will integrate seamlessly with all major Linux distributions.
Unique position!?!?!?! Integrate seamlessly!?!?!?! OpenGL!?!?!?! XFree86!?!?!?! Holy crap, where do I sign? Reading though thier site I couldn't find any useful information, just a bunch of marketing material. Why do companies like this get onto slashdot when the only thing they have done is master the art of throwing around buzz-words (or did I answer my own question...)
You have to figure that is the average person is receiving 2500 spam emails a year, then the spammers must be getting enough feedback to make it worthwhile. If you think about it, you don't need a high rate, or even moderate rate, of responses from mass mailings since a small percentage could cover your spamming costs. What we need to do is find the small percentage that is responding to this mail and whack them over the head, otherwise it will never end.
How is "squinting" over thousands of lines of code good work? Basically the job we are looking at here is looking at code for hours and hours so you can find that one number that make a character immortal or whatever. Now I don't know about everyone else, but I prefer to writing my own stuff rather than spending hours reading over someone else's work (which has to be reverse engineered to read, so goodbye comments, formatting, etc.)
Like I said, this may just be me. But personally I can't see the attraction of a job that involves reading code when you can get one writing it.
I know with a group of geeks like this I'll end up getting moded as troll or something, but I don't understand why anyone would think that Live! is outdated. I can understand the need to constantly upgrade video cards, but in the way of sound most people do not go much beyond stereo sound, and those that do will usually end up with some 4-5 point 3D sound setup. For these purposes Live! is more than enough, so I would argue that it is not aging, outdated, or whatever else you want to call it.
I know we've said this before, but whenever Passport allows access to everyone bank account and stock portfolio the Passport servers will the the target of every black-hat hacker on the planet. And you know that script kiddies will be blasting it constantly with DOS attacks.
I'm sure MS will have excuses for why it happened to, like published security holes and such. But it will be their fault for leaving so much critical information linked to one account.
I hope the various courts looking into Microsoft's monopoly examine this closely, there is a lot of potential for Microsoft to extend its monopoly here.
Yes, I'm sure they'll hear about this, but will they care, no. The problem here is the focus of the anti-trust suits focus on the Windows OS and abusing that monopoly. Microsoft isn't extending themselves into the DVD market (and the console market) by abusing they're monopoly position in the OS market. Remember, MS is allowed to compete in as many markets as it likes, as long as they compete in a fair (and I use the word loosely) manner, and they don't gain a position in that market due to a monopolistic position in another market.
Finally we found that City of Mermaids that I've been dreaming of. I hope one decides she wants to become human and mistakens me to be a handsome prince (both of which I am not). Of course then I would have to put up with her stupid crab's singing, so maybe it's better if she doesn't surface.
Not be to be blunt or anything, but hasn't it occured to you that eventually we will end up with a few major ISPs? We watched for years as small ISPs struggled and went out of business, while the large players sucked up the business.
Nope, I sure as hell not suprised we're going down this road. All this new policy will do is speed up the natural selection of companies until a few monster ISPs (probably run by an existing monster like AOL/Time Warner/Nullsoft) run everything.
Of course, the impression I got after all of this, was that if I couldn't vote against them in an upcoming election, they didn't care about my opinion.
This is perfectly reasonable considering that the responsibily of all senators and representatives is to protect the interest of the people who live in their state/district. This is outdated considering we live in a much different country than we did 200 years ago, however his response is exactly what the founders of the country were aiming to have happen.
It trys to be a search engine rather than a search engine/chat room/news source/email/job search "portal". It does one thing, and it does it really well.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, if you are an independent artist and your music is on napster your not going to see a dime. The money from Napster is going to the RIAA as a licensing fee for their music being downloaded, but what about you? Are you going to payed for your work? Someone in the gov't needs to look at this a cry foul, because now not only does the RIAA get to profit from their own artists, but anyone who writes something that makes its way onto Napster.
To answer your question on if patches are finacially motivated: yes and no. Yes as in you have to release a product eventually, but no because you will never write a perfect software program the first time around. There are so many things that can effect your software from hardware, drivers, other software, etc. You can not possibly test every single configuration out there, so at some point you have to rely on feedback from your customer to find problem areas.
That being said, there are times when products are rushed out the door before they are ready. I had experience with that at my old company, and the reasoning was purely finacial. I really can't fault them for releasing early though since we had to play a delicate balance of releasing something good and going under, and eventually had to split the middle.
Keeping aliens from infringing on copyrights. Engineers will have to figure out a way to track down all the radio signals that have left Earth in the last 100 years and block them as to prevent alien beings from enjoying content they have not payed for.
This is related to the article too because phase 2 of the plan is to prevent all wireless transmissions of anything so aliens that have reached earth cannot use thier moon-transglobifiers to enjoy content they haven't paid for. The aliens will just have to rent a house and order cable like everyone else.
First rule of database management: back up your data.
I find it amazing that this data would not be backed up. Not to jump to conclusions or anything, but I bet this has to do with some cost cutting measure since it would be expensive to back up such a large amount of data. I guess now we get to see some middle management type sweat because his knuckleheaded decision cost years of research.
Maybe it's for the best though, god only knows what corporations would do after they got this information. After them genome is all figured out, it would be a race to profit, no matter who was hurt. And don't think for a minute this wouldn't be used for all the wrong reasons.
What would be the results if Microsoft held this poll?
.NET secure, after Symantec found the first virus to infect the software:
Is Microsoft
a) Yes
b) Sure
c) You bet!
I actually forget what the actual name of the game I played in college was. It was some form of tetris, but you are right it did have a generic name, not the Tetris brand.
I would have never gotten through my long lectures without my handy tetris playing calculator.
I imagine this has something to do with some product like Killustrator or some other knock of open-source product. So whoever this is was having trouble changing the program's name, so they decided to go after everyone who uses it. Sounds like someone is taking leasons from M$.
Why did this even get onto slashdot? All this company has right now is a bunch of marketing fluff. For example:
As major contributors to three standard graphics initiatives (XFree86, Mesa/OpenGL, DRI), we are in a unique position to assure our clients that any development we participate in will integrate seamlessly with all major Linux distributions.
Unique position!?!?!?! Integrate seamlessly!?!?!?! OpenGL!?!?!?! XFree86!?!?!?! Holy crap, where do I sign? Reading though thier site I couldn't find any useful information, just a bunch of marketing material. Why do companies like this get onto slashdot when the only thing they have done is master the art of throwing around buzz-words (or did I answer my own question...)
You have to figure that is the average person is receiving 2500 spam emails a year, then the spammers must be getting enough feedback to make it worthwhile. If you think about it, you don't need a high rate, or even moderate rate, of responses from mass mailings since a small percentage could cover your spamming costs. What we need to do is find the small percentage that is responding to this mail and whack them over the head, otherwise it will never end.
Good work, if you can get it.
How is "squinting" over thousands of lines of code good work? Basically the job we are looking at here is looking at code for hours and hours so you can find that one number that make a character immortal or whatever. Now I don't know about everyone else, but I prefer to writing my own stuff rather than spending hours reading over someone else's work (which has to be reverse engineered to read, so goodbye comments, formatting, etc.)
Like I said, this may just be me. But personally I can't see the attraction of a job that involves reading code when you can get one writing it.
-Xenopax
I know with a group of geeks like this I'll end up getting moded as troll or something, but I don't understand why anyone would think that Live! is outdated. I can understand the need to constantly upgrade video cards, but in the way of sound most people do not go much beyond stereo sound, and those that do will usually end up with some 4-5 point 3D sound setup. For these purposes Live! is more than enough, so I would argue that it is not aging, outdated, or whatever else you want to call it.
I know we've said this before, but whenever Passport allows access to everyone bank account and stock portfolio the Passport servers will the the target of every black-hat hacker on the planet. And you know that script kiddies will be blasting it constantly with DOS attacks.
I'm sure MS will have excuses for why it happened to, like published security holes and such. But it will be their fault for leaving so much critical information linked to one account.
-Xenopax
I hope the various courts looking into Microsoft's monopoly examine this closely, there is a lot of potential for Microsoft to extend its monopoly here.
Yes, I'm sure they'll hear about this, but will they care, no. The problem here is the focus of the anti-trust suits focus on the Windows OS and abusing that monopoly. Microsoft isn't extending themselves into the DVD market (and the console market) by abusing they're monopoly position in the OS market. Remember, MS is allowed to compete in as many markets as it likes, as long as they compete in a fair (and I use the word loosely) manner, and they don't gain a position in that market due to a monopolistic position in another market.
An anonymous reader writes: "... Are you reading, Santa?"
Yes, but who do I deliver to?
-Santa
You can find an interview with Paul Weinzweig from ADC at http://www.earthfiles.com/earth249.htm.
Finally we found that City of Mermaids that I've been dreaming of. I hope one decides she wants to become human and mistakens me to be a handsome prince (both of which I am not). Of course then I would have to put up with her stupid crab's singing, so maybe it's better if she doesn't surface.
I hope they come out with a driving game for this.
Not be to be blunt or anything, but hasn't it occured to you that eventually we will end up with a few major ISPs? We watched for years as small ISPs struggled and went out of business, while the large players sucked up the business.
Nope, I sure as hell not suprised we're going down this road. All this new policy will do is speed up the natural selection of companies until a few monster ISPs (probably run by an existing monster like AOL/Time Warner/Nullsoft) run everything.
If you work for the RIAA as a hacker you will now have an unlimited resource for pirating mp3s.
Of course, the impression I got after all of this, was that if I couldn't vote against them in an upcoming election, they didn't care about my opinion.
This is perfectly reasonable considering that the responsibily of all senators and representatives is to protect the interest of the people who live in their state/district. This is outdated considering we live in a much different country than we did 200 years ago, however his response is exactly what the founders of the country were aiming to have happen.
First VA Linux, then Exodus, next thing you know we'll find out that slashdot's boxes are running on BeOS!
Perhaps Slashdot should create a permenant slashbox for this organization so everyone knows where to go to donate to fight things like the DMCA.
It trys to be a search engine rather than a search engine/chat room/news source/email/job search "portal". It does one thing, and it does it really well.
Who is this "govement" was and why they are concerned with "wether"?