The fact that the industry has changed (mp3 compression, cheap 100 GB storage) may require that the AHRA be clarified or expanded [...]
I wonder how well it would go over to expand the terms to include royalties on hard drives, ZIPs, floppies, RAM, and everything else that might conceivably be used to hold recorded music?
Course it'll never get to me... the downside of living in the sticks.
I thought that was what the thrust of
this article was. Something about it being easier to do in the sticks, what with a more predictible customer base, personal contact and service for clients, not having to ramp up to a HUGE base so quickly, ability to front-load all the investment costs, etc..
I didn't come across the call-for-questions until it was far too late to get my question modded. But Wil, something I've always wanted to know...
Are you at all disappointed that you didn't actually end up looking like that hunk of steroidal man-meat that Q briefly turned Wesley into in that one episode?
Since our government represenatatives seem to be somewhat lacking in basic know-how of technology, is there anything planned to somehow educate them of the existing and future technology (in layman's terms, of course) and the implications of laws restricting it?
Well of course there's something planned. What do you thing this gentleman does for a living?
Of course it is all in the context of his clients' technologies, and the implications of laws on his clients' interest. Often this is cast in the light of the implications it has for the public.
My point being, that the "education" of politicians regarding the intersection of laws and <technology, economics, technology, culture, science, vegetable rights> will happen only with, and principaly because of, a bias on the part of the "educator".
Perhaps what you mean to ask is, "Is there anyone speaking for our agenda of <openness, freedom, crypto-anarcho-libertarianism, slashdotism>?"
What is the political future of the internet sales tax exemption?
It doesn't take a lobbyist to answer this one:
Not Good.
Current economic forecasts have revenues down for the majority of states. (Many of them also have promised make-up salary for state employees who are activated National Guard, which will tighten the belt that much more.) Most state and local gov'ts are casting about for "new" revenue streams. Internet sales taxes look like they'll pay the bills pretty handily.
auroral activity *may* be observed approximately north of a line from...
central/southern california to arizona to new mexico to texas to louisiana to mississippi to alabama to georgia and possibly northern regions of florida to south carolina.
We're using an access point located outside our firewall behind another firewall. [...] Anyone breaking the security of our access point gets plain old Internet access and doesn't get into the corporate net.
Is this your company's only net access?
I hope that you are running that guerilla net knowingly.
It is one thing to openly allow access, with users presumably understanding that they should not abuse a common resource. It is another to leave your (I'm assuming) fat pipe open to NetStumblers, who may be more inclined to over-exploit it while they still can.
Also, does unencrypted SMTP or other traffic go in/out via this link? You have a sniffer's paradise if it does.
Well obviously, any metaphor interpreted as a direct comparison will eventually shear (thank you Neal Stephenson) when you take it too far. But as far as I'm concerned, the glut of fiber currently has more in common with the rails than the pavement. (Though that doesn't have to remain the case.)
The ongoing build-up of highway mileage in the US is under the direction of our various governments, from local to national. Commercial gain in construction doesn't come into the picture until it is time to bid out the building contracts. The only real area for speculation has been in the economic potential of land in proximity to the proposed public thoroughfare.
By contrast, the century-ago boom in railroad construction really was that if-you-build-it-they-will-come type of speculation by private moneyed interests.
Eventually, consolidation followed the boom, as smaller and over-extended lines failed, or were snapped up by the larger, better managed, or just plain more politically powerful lines. Redundant lines were closed. Unprofitable areas were abandoned.
I can think of only one freeway that has been torn down because the municipality thought it was a mistake that didn't serve the public's needs. With few exceptions, are no "dark" highways. Despite what your local politicians may say, roads aren't widened to relieve congestion. They are built to increase capacity. Congestion just means that they haven't been widening them fast enough.
You want to see dark fiber light up, socialize the network and make access to it free to the individual, just like the US highway system. Latency may increase, but only because the volume has exploded. And underexploited resources will NEVER be a problem again.
But as things are going now, we'll soon be needing a something like Rails to Trails for glass wire.
Dang that slash editor and my inability to correctly cut-and-paste.
"beneficial" above was supposed to point to Edibleweeds.com, a terrific site on Dandelions.
As an aside, the latin name for dandelion, Taraxacum Officinale, means "Official Remedy for Disorders". That's the kind of sentiment I'd associate with voluntary wireless networks!
"Parasitic" is a pretty lame term, unless your primary motive is to hook in more readers for your article.
So, which wireless resources in these areas are these "parasites" sucking dry? Kinda hard to live off the sweet, tasty blood of promises and vaporware.
Weed would probably be a better biological metaphor. Weeds are opportunistic, reproduce handily, and often thrive best in places that are underutilized by "desired" plants (roadsides, fallow fields, vacant lots, transitional areas). In fact, a great many of what folks would consider "weeds" are beneficial plants that can be used as food or medicine, or just plain provide beauty.
there was a proposal under consideration in the House to mothball two carrier fleets(!) to divert money to Missle Defense. The Joint Chiefs were not amused.
I wonder if this was some representative's attempt at illustration of a point through use of irony.
Though as I think about it, what it really reminds me of is the kind of interactions I have with my 2-year-old son:
I know you want some ice cream, but that means we have to
leave the playground if we are going to go get some. I'm sorry that you don't want to leave the playground, but we can't really do both at the same time.
Speaking of military intervention...
I think I figured out how to get Triana launched.
Send it up as a test-target for the proposed missile defense system. But "accidentally" disable it's GPS beacon.
But then, I guess that knowing ahead of time that it's going to be headed for the Lagrange 1 point pretty much gives it as big a "Kick Me" sign as the first test-target had. Hrm. I got it! Make Triana one of the unconvincing decoys that the next test-target throws out. Disguise it as a mylar baloon. That'd work.
6) That the patent rights Microsoft is licensing only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make.
* I don't understand this one, someone care to explain? (I think that they mean that if I make a derivitave, it is not owned by Microsoft? Or, does it mean not protected by Microsoft?)
I am assuredly not an IP lawyer, and maybe I'm paranoid about subterfuge, but I would definitely consult one before agreeing to this license.
The problem comes with the way that "the patent rights Microsoft is licensing" is inspecific as to the direction of the verb "to license".
Is MS talking about some theoretical patent rights that they have licensed from a third party? They don't mention any specific third parties. They don't even explicitly bring up third parties at all in that clause.
Perhaps they talking about patent rights of their own that they are licensing to the downloader. This would be an important distinction.
In the first case, the whole license primarily covers the rights and restrictions around the *coyright* to the code. The second case enlarges the license's scope to include a broader range of IP law.
You could be licensing an MS-owned patent without realizing it. And by the text that finishes the clause, "... only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make." , your newly licensed rights seem to be limited to examination, with implementation firmly prohibited.
With as much hay as MS has made of the "viral nature" of the GPL, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were looking for a way to adopt GPL methods to their own ends.
Gift horse? Mouth? Don't look, you say?
Tell that to the Trojans!
Try shopping around any of the second-hand computer stores in you area. The case for an older 486- or early pentium-class server should probably do you. It won't be pretty from having gathered dust, various stains and nicks over the years; and it will weigh a ton.
The mount points might all not match up to an ATX MB, but enough should. There should easily be room enough inside for any extra fans you might need.
It would probably cost you between $25 and $75, depending on the vintage/speed/size of the other hardware in it that you don't really care about.
Shoot, I probably have one around that has at least 8 knockouts. Plus at least a half dozen 9-pin and 25-pin D-shell outs, and other various openings. Reverse my email address and mail me if you are interested. You can have it for shipping costs, or pick it up if you can get to Central Ohio.
Yes, you could have an alarm line put in. However, because the alarm uses the high frequency range that DSL uses for it's monitoring, you won't get DSL on that line.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into the post to which you responded, but I think the suggestion was that once the alarm line was run, it could be converted to DSL. Either negotiate the conversion plainly with the telco, or cancel the alarm and then order DSL a day later on the now-free line. No excuses about not having copper all the way. What are they gonna do, rip the wires back out?
Freedb have in effect written their own version of cddb with the same interfaces, and Roxio are using their existing technology to access freedb. As Roxio presumably developed the interface to cddb with the of Gracenote and then switched, Gracenote's effort has not been rewarded.
I would argue that the method of access is really just a de-facto standard API. As others have pointed out, the database and interfaces to it were originally declared to be open, and only after-the-fact have monopolistic controls (copyright and patent assertions) been brought to bear in defense of its new ostensible proprietary status.
One example: if it had the bandwidth, maybe the corner grocery store would let you order online, and have your groceries ready for you when you got to the store, saving you time. Instead we have WebVan and HomeGrocer.com [...]
I don't know about that. There's a handful of things that the come along with a full-time, hi-cap internet connection that most corner grocers or even regional supermarkets are just NOT able to understand nor handle well. Things like international range of reach, and system security, for two examples. These are things that even the market dominators got wrong.
How many times have we read of credit card #'s and other personal info being stolen from the big dot-coms? Kozmo & WebVan were no big deal to me because they never opened a service in my city. If I ever do go online for groceries or pet food, finding Al's Market in Beaverton Oregon isn't going to do me much good when I live in Ohio. But if I'm a l337 Ha|<0r, the account info Al has on his does-everything, Plug-N-Serve WinNT box will still buy me some bitchen equipment that I can have shipped to the doorstep of some never-home yuppies across town, where I can pick it up at my leisure.
I know a corner grocer. Not a Safeway/Big Bear/Osco/Kroger/Sav-On/Giant Eagle/Piggly-Wiggly type place, but a true, neighborhood corner grocery store owner. He has a hard enough time getting his books to balance correctly. He doesn't have the $-room in his business to hire a comp-geek who really knows what he is doing. He doesn't want to compete on a (inter-)national scale. Not for web-purchase traffic, and not for staffing.
I don't completely disagree with your premise. Perhaps more available hi-cap access would have created a broader field of candidates in most industries. Perhaps the few who succeeded would have been more robust. Perhaps spreading the access would have had the effect of spreading the money, instead of the internet version of trickle-down we just watch trickle into the sewer. But I think the instant-global-reach of the web/internet tends to create monopolies quickly. In the same way that Western culture is more and more dominating world culture through internationalization of media. And I won't even get into how those two things tend to work and play well together....
IE, every time a new NT service pack comes out (what is this last one, the eighth?) I don't re-burn my install CD to overwrite the source files with the newer SP version. I just go ahead and install SP0/1/2 and then when I'm all done install SP4/5/6. Ditto for the critical updates/hotfixes/security bulletins.
Hey, that's a GREAT idea. My contract clients are paying me by the hour, after all. I can triple my billable hours AND catch up on slashdot while I'm babysitting CD's and downloads.
AT&T Campuswide readers plug directly into our LAN
Are you sure? The specs for the stripe readers listed at the second link you provided describe the readers as communicating either throuch standard 9600bps serial or via RS-485 multidrop. RS-485 as a standard does not specify connector-type, and it is not uncommon to use twisted-pair cable and RJ-45 connectors for RS-485.
So your campus may have what LOOKS like a LAN connection for the stripe-reader, but is probably a separate circuit that goes direct to the VAX.
And a good thing, too. I could just imagine someone sniffing the traffic between the stripe-reading security system and the VAX... spoofing card identities... unlocking doors to restricted areas... getting unlimited copies on the Xerox machine in the library... adding large $ balances to their cards...
Virgin's Webplayer. They go for $150 to $200 on eBay these days, but an enterprising person put together a coop to bulk order surplus and returned units for Boundless. We ended up ordering almost 400 Webplayers together, and Boundless set the price at $100 each. That opportunity is over, but only time, energy and willingness is stopping anyone else from putting together another order.
People are doing all sorts of different things with them. I'm sure someone is making an X-term.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how well it would go over to expand the terms to include royalties on hard drives, ZIPs, floppies, RAM, and everything else that might conceivably be used to hold recorded music?
I thought that was what the thrust of this article was. Something about it being easier to do in the sticks, what with a more predictible customer base, personal contact and service for clients, not having to ramp up to a HUGE base so quickly, ability to front-load all the investment costs, etc..
Of course it can!
Now you can use your GameBoyCam to get pics of the panty lines and bra straps of random strangers and post them to your favorite website.
I didn't come across the call-for-questions until it was far too late to get my question modded. But Wil, something I've always wanted to know...
Are you at all disappointed that you didn't actually end up looking like that hunk of steroidal man-meat that Q briefly turned Wesley into in that one episode?
Sounds like he would have rated a Darwin as well.
Well of course there's something planned. What do you thing this gentleman does for a living?
Of course it is all in the context of his clients' technologies, and the implications of laws on his clients' interest. Often this is cast in the light of the implications it has for the public.
My point being, that the "education" of politicians regarding the intersection of laws and <technology, economics, technology, culture, science, vegetable rights> will happen only with, and principaly because of, a bias on the part of the "educator".
Perhaps what you mean to ask is, "Is there anyone speaking for our agenda of <openness, freedom, crypto-anarcho-libertarianism, slashdotism>?"
It doesn't take a lobbyist to answer this one:
Not Good.
Current economic forecasts have revenues down for the majority of states. (Many of them also have promised make-up salary for state employees who are activated National Guard, which will tighten the belt that much more.) Most state and local gov'ts are casting about for "new" revenue streams. Internet sales taxes look like they'll pay the bills pretty handily.
Aurora Borealis, shinin down on Dallas! Can you picture that?
Is this your company's only net access? I hope that you are running that guerilla net knowingly.
It is one thing to openly allow access, with users presumably understanding that they should not abuse a common resource. It is another to leave your (I'm assuming) fat pipe open to NetStumblers, who may be more inclined to over-exploit it while they still can.
Also, does unencrypted SMTP or other traffic go in/out via this link? You have a sniffer's paradise if it does.
Well obviously, any metaphor interpreted as a direct comparison will eventually shear (thank you Neal Stephenson) when you take it too far. But as far as I'm concerned, the glut of fiber currently has more in common with the rails than the pavement. (Though that doesn't have to remain the case.)
The ongoing build-up of highway mileage in the US is under the direction of our various governments, from local to national. Commercial gain in construction doesn't come into the picture until it is time to bid out the building contracts. The only real area for speculation has been in the economic potential of land in proximity to the proposed public thoroughfare.
By contrast, the century-ago boom in railroad construction really was that if-you-build-it-they-will-come type of speculation by private moneyed interests. Eventually, consolidation followed the boom, as smaller and over-extended lines failed, or were snapped up by the larger, better managed, or just plain more politically powerful lines. Redundant lines were closed. Unprofitable areas were abandoned.
I can think of only one freeway that has been torn down because the municipality thought it was a mistake that didn't serve the public's needs. With few exceptions, are no "dark" highways. Despite what your local politicians may say, roads aren't widened to relieve congestion. They are built to increase capacity. Congestion just means that they haven't been widening them fast enough.
You want to see dark fiber light up, socialize the network and make access to it free to the individual, just like the US highway system. Latency may increase, but only because the volume has exploded. And underexploited resources will NEVER be a problem again.
But as things are going now, we'll soon be needing a something like Rails to Trails for glass wire.
Dang that slash editor and my inability to correctly cut-and-paste.
"beneficial" above was supposed to point to Edibleweeds.com, a terrific site on Dandelions.
As an aside, the latin name for dandelion, Taraxacum Officinale, means "Official Remedy for Disorders". That's the kind of sentiment I'd associate with voluntary wireless networks!
"Parasitic" is a pretty lame term, unless your primary motive is to hook in more readers for your article.
So, which wireless resources in these areas are these "parasites" sucking dry? Kinda hard to live off the sweet, tasty blood of promises and vaporware.
Weed would probably be a better biological metaphor. Weeds are opportunistic, reproduce handily, and often thrive best in places that are underutilized by "desired" plants (roadsides, fallow fields, vacant lots, transitional areas). In fact, a great many of what folks would consider "weeds" are beneficial plants that can be used as food or medicine, or just plain provide beauty.
No. That's called Wired Magazine. Though, these days, it is a bit of a stretch to call what they're hiding "information".
I wonder if this was some representative's attempt at illustration of a point through use of irony.
Though as I think about it, what it really reminds me of is the kind of interactions I have with my 2-year-old son:
Speaking of military intervention... I think I figured out how to get Triana launched.
Send it up as a test-target for the proposed missile defense system. But "accidentally" disable it's GPS beacon.
But then, I guess that knowing ahead of time that it's going to be headed for the Lagrange 1 point pretty much gives it as big a "Kick Me" sign as the first test-target had. Hrm. I got it! Make Triana one of the unconvincing decoys that the next test-target throws out. Disguise it as a mylar baloon. That'd work.
A simple answer would be something like:
The shady spot under the tree in the backyard.
Others include:
My friend's apartment, one floor down and on the other side of the hallway.
The garage.
The coffee shop I live upstairs from.
etc.
I am assuredly not an IP lawyer, and maybe I'm paranoid about subterfuge, but I would definitely consult one before agreeing to this license.
The problem comes with the way that "the patent rights Microsoft is licensing" is inspecific as to the direction of the verb "to license".
Is MS talking about some theoretical patent rights that they have licensed from a third party? They don't mention any specific third parties. They don't even explicitly bring up third parties at all in that clause.
Perhaps they talking about patent rights of their own that they are licensing to the downloader. This would be an important distinction.
In the first case, the whole license primarily covers the rights and restrictions around the *coyright* to the code. The second case enlarges the license's scope to include a broader range of IP law.
You could be licensing an MS-owned patent without realizing it. And by the text that finishes the clause, "... only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make." , your newly licensed rights seem to be limited to examination, with implementation firmly prohibited.
With as much hay as MS has made of the "viral nature" of the GPL, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were looking for a way to adopt GPL methods to their own ends.
Gift horse? Mouth? Don't look, you say?
Tell that to the Trojans!
Try shopping around any of the second-hand computer stores in you area. The case for an older 486- or early pentium-class server should probably do you. It won't be pretty from having gathered dust, various stains and nicks over the years; and it will weigh a ton.
The mount points might all not match up to an ATX MB, but enough should. There should easily be room enough inside for any extra fans you might need.
It would probably cost you between $25 and $75, depending on the vintage/speed/size of the other hardware in it that you don't really care about.
Shoot, I probably have one around that has at least 8 knockouts. Plus at least a half dozen 9-pin and 25-pin D-shell outs, and other various openings. Reverse my email address and mail me if you are interested. You can have it for shipping costs, or pick it up if you can get to Central Ohio.
Is it just me, or did this headline make anyone else think of some kind of gadget-festooned vehicle for a teutonic superhero?
Perhaps I'm reading too much into the post to which you responded, but I think the suggestion was that once the alarm line was run, it could be converted to DSL. Either negotiate the conversion plainly with the telco, or cancel the alarm and then order DSL a day later on the now-free line. No excuses about not having copper all the way. What are they gonna do, rip the wires back out?
I would argue that the method of access is really just a de-facto standard API. As others have pointed out, the database and interfaces to it were originally declared to be open, and only after-the-fact have monopolistic controls (copyright and patent assertions) been brought to bear in defense of its new ostensible proprietary status.
Yeah, isn't that great!
I don't even have to leave my bedroom to get to where I live!
I don't know about that. There's a handful of things that the come along with a full-time, hi-cap internet connection that most corner grocers or even regional supermarkets are just NOT able to understand nor handle well. Things like international range of reach, and system security, for two examples. These are things that even the market dominators got wrong.
How many times have we read of credit card #'s and other personal info being stolen from the big dot-coms? Kozmo & WebVan were no big deal to me because they never opened a service in my city. If I ever do go online for groceries or pet food, finding Al's Market in Beaverton Oregon isn't going to do me much good when I live in Ohio. But if I'm a l337 Ha|<0r, the account info Al has on his does-everything, Plug-N-Serve WinNT box will still buy me some bitchen equipment that I can have shipped to the doorstep of some never-home yuppies across town, where I can pick it up at my leisure.
I know a corner grocer. Not a Safeway/Big Bear/Osco/Kroger/Sav-On/Giant Eagle/Piggly-Wiggly type place, but a true, neighborhood corner grocery store owner. He has a hard enough time getting his books to balance correctly. He doesn't have the $-room in his business to hire a comp-geek who really knows what he is doing. He doesn't want to compete on a (inter-)national scale. Not for web-purchase traffic, and not for staffing.
I don't completely disagree with your premise. Perhaps more available hi-cap access would have created a broader field of candidates in most industries. Perhaps the few who succeeded would have been more robust. Perhaps spreading the access would have had the effect of spreading the money, instead of the internet version of trickle-down we just watch trickle into the sewer. But I think the instant-global-reach of the web/internet tends to create monopolies quickly. In the same way that Western culture is more and more dominating world culture through internationalization of media. And I won't even get into how those two things tend to work and play well together....
Hey, that's a GREAT idea. My contract clients are paying me by the hour, after all. I can triple my billable hours AND catch up on slashdot while I'm babysitting CD's and downloads.
Are you sure? The specs for the stripe readers listed at the second link you provided describe the readers as communicating either throuch standard 9600bps serial or via RS-485 multidrop. RS-485 as a standard does not specify connector-type, and it is not uncommon to use twisted-pair cable and RJ-45 connectors for RS-485.
So your campus may have what LOOKS like a LAN connection for the stripe-reader, but is probably a separate circuit that goes direct to the VAX.
And a good thing, too. I could just imagine someone sniffing the traffic between the stripe-reading security system and the VAX ... spoofing card identities ... unlocking doors to restricted areas ... getting unlimited copies on the Xerox machine in the library ... adding large $ balances to their cards ...
Along the same lines...
Virgin's Webplayer. They go for $150 to $200 on eBay these days, but an enterprising person put together a coop to bulk order surplus and returned units for Boundless. We ended up ordering almost 400 Webplayers together, and Boundless set the price at $100 each. That opportunity is over, but only time, energy and willingness is stopping anyone else from putting together another order.
People are doing all sorts of different things with them. I'm sure someone is making an X-term.