Wouldn't it have been nice if ebook technology had been around when Ben Franklin instituted the first Libraries in the U.S.? Franklin could have been indited too!
If they were really penalizing people for downloading all copyrighted materials, then you would get yanked for downloading GPL'd software, since it is, in fact, copyrighted.
Hey! Take a look at the bottom right corner of your page when you load slashdot! There is an OSDN copyright!
Really, I don't think any aussies who is doing anything legitimate (reading the NYTimes for example) has anything to worry about here.
I support any ISP for yanking connectivity of anyone for any reason. It's the ISPs right. Maybe they don't like you because you don't take baths (sorry RMS).
What is disturbing is that the ISP in question is actively monitoring it's user's online transactions and actions. That, in my OP is a violation of privacy.
No... not too much TV. Just 9 years in the Navy. You can talk about all of the procedures in place to prevent something like this from happening, but I have seen, first hand, many occasions where a call from the Commanding Officer was all that was needed to stir ship's company into a tizzy.
I can't tell you how many times as an 18-year-old sailor straight out of boot camp I was required to stand various guard watches... without any pass down on procedures and just the general orders of sentry to get me through the night (and no way to communicate with someone higher up.) If an Admiral had called me up telling me to let such-and-such truck onto the pier, I would have done it because I would have been initimidated by rank and I wouldn't have known any better.
While this is a really great leap in TTS technologies... which is sure to make computers for the blind even more accessible then ever... the idea of being able to reproduce any voice is very scary.
What happens when you get a sample of some General's voice and then use a synthesiser to call up the poor kid on guard duty and get him to let a bunch of terrorists enter the base?
Look. I posted that when I really should have been heading off to bed. It turned into a huge rambling nonsensical paragraph that should have never been.
Maybe if I slept more, my posts would make more sense and be based on logic.
Yes, I think we are all very tired of the countless "X10" camera ads that seem to be popping up everywhere. I can't take a stroll through anywhere in my company without seeing some poor sap whose closing those ads.
But the problem really isn't the pop-up ads. The problem is that no one has really found a way to turn the web into a truly money-making medium... except for those selling porn of course.
In the absence of real profits, the marketing geniuses of the world turn toward the one thing that they know: selling advertising time and space. And the reality is, this isn't that bad.
Like many Americans, I watch my share of television. I have of watching the good old broadcast stations (NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, etc.), but I choose to pay for access to other channels via cable. I do not, however, pay for premium channels like HBO, Showtime or Playboy. That is my choice.
And here is where it gets scary for the internet... we are headed toward the same direction.
In the near future, the Internet is going to be segmented according to what content you are willing to pay for. Using AOL/Time Warner? You get access to what they want you to see. If you want more, you have to pay outside interests. Meanwhile, your buddy down the street is using @home and the two of you are lucky just to be able to email each other. You won't be able to game against each other or IRC together of anything because you will each be seperated by various firewalls that the service providers and content providers will have in place to make sure you pay your dues.
And the "free" sites on the internet will be few and seldom used. They won't have the same glitz that the big sites will have.
Now, I realize that I am tired. Looking over my rant, I'm not sure if any of it made any sense... and there ain't a drop of caffiene in the house. Hopefully, it will interest someone and add to the discussion, otherwise just mod me down.
Karma is at 50... 45... 30...
Warning Karma level is dropping rapidly, please change your rate of descent.
25... 20... 10...
>Open browser.
The browser is now open.
>Point browser at slashdot.
I can't see any slashdot here!
>Type slashdot.org in browser.
You quickly type the information into the browser and press enter, the browser slowly... very slowly loads the web page.
>Examine browser.
The browser is currently displaying the slashdot.org home page. There is an interview here.
>Skip interview.
You don't read the interview.
>Get first post.
The first post is already taken.
If they had just approached the author of KIllustrator and asked, "Would you please change your name?" I'll bet he would have quietly changed it and this would have never been an issue.
Wow. I didn't notice that you had been moderated down. Your suggestion seemed valid to me, just not valid for my circumstances.
Regions Bank does have a FORM of downloading information... but you have to directly connect to them using either MS Money or Quicken.
What I would really like to see with GnuCash is the integration of a flexible plugin system. That way, someone who is in your situation could have a script to automatically download your QIF files for you... and someone in my situation could have a script that would read the info from the website and integrate that (much the way tvguide.pl goes out to tvguide.com and extracts television listing for your area.)
It takes effort to download a QIF file if you don't have a bank that has the option available. I know, I know, change banks right? The problem there, is that I am an employee of Regions Bank and get far too many benefits banking with them then I would elsewhere.
Online banking is a great feature that I would love to see incorporated into GnuCash. I realize that there are probably a ton of obsticles to making this a reality, so here is my question:
Would it be possible to incorporate some sort of perl plugin to GnuCash that would go out to a bank's web site, access the banking account information on the site, access the relevant data and then format it in a way that could be pasted into the existing GnuCash data?
My bank, Region Bank, allows customers to access their checking account via a web browser. I hate to see this resource going to waste.
I guess I should have clarified. I wake up at 5:00 every morning. Not 4:59, and not 5:01. I always wake up at 5:00. It doesn't matter what time I go to sleep, 9:00PM or 12:00AM. I wake up at 5:00.
When I travel to another time zone, I wake up at 5:00 in the local time zone.
As a member of MENSA, I am very proud to have a VCR clock that blinks 12:00.
Why am I going to waste my time to set a clock that is just going to get reset everytime the power goes out? Setting the VCR clock is a waste of time for me because I never use the "timed recording" feature. In fact, I live in my own little world where the time of day is of no consequence. I go to sleep when I am tired and get up when I awake.
Wow. You totally read my comment without paying any attention to the content. Perhaps you could have followed the entire thread instead of just reading and replying to the one comment.
Thanks for calling me a Windows zealot. I'm not one. If anything, I am a Linux advocate. The only magazine subscription that I hold is to Linux Journal.
However, I do think that too many Linux advocates are too quick to give the finger to Microsoft for the wrong reasons. I'm all about giving them the finger for the right ones.
Yes, Microsoft's operating systems are not the "end-all be-all" operating system. It was that fact that first led me to discover Linux back in 1993. I went from using an Amiga to a PC and I was totally appalled that Windows 3.1 was considered the "state of the art."
I have used Linux as my ONLY operating system for 3 years. Recently, in an attempt to make sure that I don't distance myself from the rest of the world too much, I decided to give Windows another try (after winning a "not for resale" copy of windows 2000 at a show).
You know what I found? I found an OS that was actually pretty good. I have yet to experience a blue screen (your results may vary...) I have saved money (Net2Phone.)
Yes, dial-pad is considering Linux support, but it is not there yet. And even if it were, my laptop's microphone has never worked under Linux with any version of OSS or ALSA. Besides, I tried dail-pad under windows and found that Net2Phone's performance is much better.
As for your comment about bandwidth, even in today's world of Cable Modems and DSL, 90% of the internet's home users still dial-up. I have always downloaded my copies at work since I live in a rural area where my fastest modem connection is limited to 24.6 kbps.
If you are going to hit Microsoft, do it because it is closed-source. The argument that Windows is inferior is simply NOT a valid one (or at least, it is one that is more subjective to individual opinion then to clear fact.) I have had out-of-the-box Linux distro's that locked up and entered an unusable state just as often as I have had Windows blue screen.
The truth is, I would not be using Windows right now if I had not won an NFR copy. I built a computer from scratch for my in-laws and put Mandrake on it to avoid the tangles of Windows license agreements and product costs.
I'm glad I did it though. I have learned a lot about Linux just by running Windows.
Don't just nay-say Microsoft because it's the cool thing to do on Slashdot. Throw in a pinch of reality.
Microsoft does NOT call it's incremental updates "new OSes." They call them service packs. They did not even call Win98SE a new OS, they called it a new version of the OS.
Win98SE was, in reality, what Microsoft wanted Windows 98 to have been from the beginning, they just could no longer hold-up the release date for Windows 98 due to PR concerns.
Look, I have no love for Microsoft. I just get tired of hearing the same old lame arguments about Microsoft continually rolling out new versions and forcing the customer to upgrade. That's bull. If you are using Windows 95, there is no one forcing you to upgrade.
Sure, maybe Microsoft should slow down it's release of versions so that you won't feel the need to upgrade from Windows 95 to Win98 to Win98SE to WinME. That's FOUR versions release over the period of FIVE years. How many versions does the average Linux distribution go through in the same time period?
Hell, Mandrake and RedHat are fighting each other to see who can release the most version upgrades over the course of a single year. Why? TO MAKE MONEY. They are hoping that you and I won't have the bandwidth available to constantly download the latest version so that maybe, just maybe, we'll purchase a shrink-wrapped copy.
Let's see, to upgrade to the latest consumer version of Mandrake you'll pay... somewhere between $30 and $130. To upgrade to the Latest consumer version of RedHat, you pay... between $30 and $80.00. To upgrade to the latest consumer version of Windows, you'll pay $90.00. Only with Windows, you won't have to upgrade to a new version every 4 to 6 months. And yes, I realize that you can download RedHat and Mandrake for free, but since most people don't have the bandwidth, they are going to end up buying it.
And what does running Windows get me? It saves me from all that time spent downloading, compiling and tweaking software so that I can get a poor implementation of something that works great under Windows. (Ever try using Linux to watch VCD's? The frame rate is terrible, and there is just NO WAY for my laptop to provide fullscreen video.)
Running Windows gives me access to services like Net2Phone, which, to date, has saved me several hundred dollars in long distance charges (my family lives on the other side of the country.)
Look, I love Linux. Linux is great, awesome, and wonderful. But before Linux can ever compete with Windows, the developers and users are going to need to take some time away from their Linux Boxen and sit down to a Windows Box and judge it fairly and acurately. Windows still provides better functionallity and services (client side) then Linux does. Linux has a LONG way to go before it becomes a viable "everyman" operating system.
1. Okay. It's documented. So? That doesn't make it any less distasteful.
2. Microsoft does charge for it's application in the beginning. So does RedHat. Yes, you can get RedHat for free, but their bussiness model sure hopes you'll go to the store and buy a copy off the shelf.
Actually, Katz is refering to a brief comment made in Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line." Only Katz got it wrong.
Microsoft is directly responsible for the creation of Linux. Because of Microsoft, computer hardware became standardized to the i386 platform and hardware prices dropped to where a young Finnish college student could afford a computer to tinker with.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm. Indicted. Not indited.
Wouldn't it have been nice if ebook technology had been around when Ben Franklin instituted the first Libraries in the U.S.? Franklin could have been indited too!
If they were really penalizing people for downloading all copyrighted materials, then you would get yanked for downloading GPL'd software, since it is, in fact, copyrighted.
Hey! Take a look at the bottom right corner of your page when you load slashdot! There is an OSDN copyright!
Really, I don't think any aussies who is doing anything legitimate (reading the NYTimes for example) has anything to worry about here.
I support any ISP for yanking connectivity of anyone for any reason. It's the ISPs right. Maybe they don't like you because you don't take baths (sorry RMS).
What is disturbing is that the ISP in question is actively monitoring it's user's online transactions and actions. That, in my OP is a violation of privacy.
No... not too much TV. Just 9 years in the Navy. You can talk about all of the procedures in place to prevent something like this from happening, but I have seen, first hand, many occasions where a call from the Commanding Officer was all that was needed to stir ship's company into a tizzy.
I can't tell you how many times as an 18-year-old sailor straight out of boot camp I was required to stand various guard watches... without any pass down on procedures and just the general orders of sentry to get me through the night (and no way to communicate with someone higher up.) If an Admiral had called me up telling me to let such-and-such truck onto the pier, I would have done it because I would have been initimidated by rank and I wouldn't have known any better.
While this is a really great leap in TTS technologies... which is sure to make computers for the blind even more accessible then ever... the idea of being able to reproduce any voice is very scary.
What happens when you get a sample of some General's voice and then use a synthesiser to call up the poor kid on guard duty and get him to let a bunch of terrorists enter the base?
Look. I posted that when I really should have been heading off to bed. It turned into a huge rambling nonsensical paragraph that should have never been.
Maybe if I slept more, my posts would make more sense and be based on logic.
Yes, I think we are all very tired of the countless "X10" camera ads that seem to be popping up everywhere. I can't take a stroll through anywhere in my company without seeing some poor sap whose closing those ads. But the problem really isn't the pop-up ads. The problem is that no one has really found a way to turn the web into a truly money-making medium... except for those selling porn of course. In the absence of real profits, the marketing geniuses of the world turn toward the one thing that they know: selling advertising time and space. And the reality is, this isn't that bad. Like many Americans, I watch my share of television. I have of watching the good old broadcast stations (NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, etc.), but I choose to pay for access to other channels via cable. I do not, however, pay for premium channels like HBO, Showtime or Playboy. That is my choice. And here is where it gets scary for the internet... we are headed toward the same direction. In the near future, the Internet is going to be segmented according to what content you are willing to pay for. Using AOL/Time Warner? You get access to what they want you to see. If you want more, you have to pay outside interests. Meanwhile, your buddy down the street is using @home and the two of you are lucky just to be able to email each other. You won't be able to game against each other or IRC together of anything because you will each be seperated by various firewalls that the service providers and content providers will have in place to make sure you pay your dues. And the "free" sites on the internet will be few and seldom used. They won't have the same glitz that the big sites will have. Now, I realize that I am tired. Looking over my rant, I'm not sure if any of it made any sense... and there ain't a drop of caffiene in the house. Hopefully, it will interest someone and add to the discussion, otherwise just mod me down. Karma is at 50... 45... 30... Warning Karma level is dropping rapidly, please change your rate of descent. 25... 20... 10...
I'm still trying to figure out where to buy the invisiclues for setting up a Samba server...
>Open browser.
The browser is now open.
>Point browser at slashdot.
I can't see any slashdot here!
>Type slashdot.org in browser.
You quickly type the information into the browser and press enter, the browser slowly... very slowly loads the web page.
>Examine browser.
The browser is currently displaying the slashdot.org home page. There is an interview here.
>Skip interview.
You don't read the interview.
>Get first post.
The first post is already taken.
It would depend on how they asked!
I see no problem with changing the name "Killustrator" to something like, say "KPhotoshop"
;-)
It's good to see Adobe being more civil, but...
If they had just approached the author of KIllustrator and asked, "Would you please change your name?" I'll bet he would have quietly changed it and this would have never been an issue.
Wow. I didn't notice that you had been moderated down. Your suggestion seemed valid to me, just not valid for my circumstances.
Regions Bank does have a FORM of downloading information... but you have to directly connect to them using either MS Money or Quicken.
What I would really like to see with GnuCash is the integration of a flexible plugin system. That way, someone who is in your situation could have a script to automatically download your QIF files for you... and someone in my situation could have a script that would read the info from the website and integrate that (much the way tvguide.pl goes out to tvguide.com and extracts television listing for your area.)
It takes effort to download a QIF file if you don't have a bank that has the option available. I know, I know, change banks right? The problem there, is that I am an employee of Regions Bank and get far too many benefits banking with them then I would elsewhere.
Online banking is a great feature that I would love to see incorporated into GnuCash. I realize that there are probably a ton of obsticles to making this a reality, so here is my question:
Would it be possible to incorporate some sort of perl plugin to GnuCash that would go out to a bank's web site, access the banking account information on the site, access the relevant data and then format it in a way that could be pasted into the existing GnuCash data?
My bank, Region Bank, allows customers to access their checking account via a web browser. I hate to see this resource going to waste.
Yes. Well, a little "preview" would have have done a lot of good...
I guess I should have clarified. I wake up at 5:00 every morning. Not 4:59, and not 5:01. I always wake up at 5:00. It doesn't matter what time I go to sleep, 9:00PM or 12:00AM. I wake up at 5:00.
When I travel to another time zone, I wake up at 5:00 in the local time zone.
I don't know why.
Good point. Just thought I would give you some feedback since you haven't been moderated up.
Ahem.
As a member of MENSA, I am very proud to have a VCR clock that blinks 12:00.
Why am I going to waste my time to set a clock that is just going to get reset everytime the power goes out? Setting the VCR clock is a waste of time for me because I never use the "timed recording" feature. In fact, I live in my own little world where the time of day is of no consequence. I go to sleep when I am tired and get up when I awake.
ppplllbbbtttt!
Wow. You totally read my comment without paying any attention to the content. Perhaps you could have followed the entire thread instead of just reading and replying to the one comment.
Thanks for calling me a Windows zealot. I'm not one. If anything, I am a Linux advocate. The only magazine subscription that I hold is to Linux Journal.
However, I do think that too many Linux advocates are too quick to give the finger to Microsoft for the wrong reasons. I'm all about giving them the finger for the right ones.
Yes, Microsoft's operating systems are not the "end-all be-all" operating system. It was that fact that first led me to discover Linux back in 1993. I went from using an Amiga to a PC and I was totally appalled that Windows 3.1 was considered the "state of the art."
I have used Linux as my ONLY operating system for 3 years. Recently, in an attempt to make sure that I don't distance myself from the rest of the world too much, I decided to give Windows another try (after winning a "not for resale" copy of windows 2000 at a show).
You know what I found? I found an OS that was actually pretty good. I have yet to experience a blue screen (your results may vary...) I have saved money (Net2Phone.)
Yes, dial-pad is considering Linux support, but it is not there yet. And even if it were, my laptop's microphone has never worked under Linux with any version of OSS or ALSA. Besides, I tried dail-pad under windows and found that Net2Phone's performance is much better.
As for your comment about bandwidth, even in today's world of Cable Modems and DSL, 90% of the internet's home users still dial-up. I have always downloaded my copies at work since I live in a rural area where my fastest modem connection is limited to 24.6 kbps.
If you are going to hit Microsoft, do it because it is closed-source. The argument that Windows is inferior is simply NOT a valid one (or at least, it is one that is more subjective to individual opinion then to clear fact.) I have had out-of-the-box Linux distro's that locked up and entered an unusable state just as often as I have had Windows blue screen.
The truth is, I would not be using Windows right now if I had not won an NFR copy. I built a computer from scratch for my in-laws and put Mandrake on it to avoid the tangles of Windows license agreements and product costs.
I'm glad I did it though. I have learned a lot about Linux just by running Windows.
And if it works, RedHat will be right behind them. Come on. RedHat is in it for the money every bit as much as Microsoft is.
.net services.
It's Microsoft's JOB to make money (it's what their shareholders pay them for.)
.net may have a grand vision for paying for software as a service, but just wait to see how many consumers actually pay for and use
Don't just nay-say Microsoft because it's the cool thing to do on Slashdot. Throw in a pinch of reality.
Microsoft does NOT call it's incremental updates "new OSes." They call them service packs. They did not even call Win98SE a new OS, they called it a new version of the OS.
Win98SE was, in reality, what Microsoft wanted Windows 98 to have been from the beginning, they just could no longer hold-up the release date for Windows 98 due to PR concerns.
Look, I have no love for Microsoft. I just get tired of hearing the same old lame arguments about Microsoft continually rolling out new versions and forcing the customer to upgrade. That's bull. If you are using Windows 95, there is no one forcing you to upgrade.
Sure, maybe Microsoft should slow down it's release of versions so that you won't feel the need to upgrade from Windows 95 to Win98 to Win98SE to WinME. That's FOUR versions release over the period of FIVE years. How many versions does the average Linux distribution go through in the same time period?
Hell, Mandrake and RedHat are fighting each other to see who can release the most version upgrades over the course of a single year. Why? TO MAKE MONEY. They are hoping that you and I won't have the bandwidth available to constantly download the latest version so that maybe, just maybe, we'll purchase a shrink-wrapped copy.
Let's see, to upgrade to the latest consumer version of Mandrake you'll pay... somewhere between $30 and $130. To upgrade to the Latest consumer version of RedHat, you pay... between $30 and $80.00. To upgrade to the latest consumer version of Windows, you'll pay $90.00. Only with Windows, you won't have to upgrade to a new version every 4 to 6 months. And yes, I realize that you can download RedHat and Mandrake for free, but since most people don't have the bandwidth, they are going to end up buying it.
And what does running Windows get me? It saves me from all that time spent downloading, compiling and tweaking software so that I can get a poor implementation of something that works great under Windows. (Ever try using Linux to watch VCD's? The frame rate is terrible, and there is just NO WAY for my laptop to provide fullscreen video.)
Running Windows gives me access to services like Net2Phone, which, to date, has saved me several hundred dollars in long distance charges (my family lives on the other side of the country.)
Look, I love Linux. Linux is great, awesome, and wonderful. But before Linux can ever compete with Windows, the developers and users are going to need to take some time away from their Linux Boxen and sit down to a Windows Box and judge it fairly and acurately. Windows still provides better functionallity and services (client side) then Linux does. Linux has a LONG way to go before it becomes a viable "everyman" operating system.
1. Okay. It's documented. So? That doesn't make it any less distasteful.
2. Microsoft does charge for it's application in the beginning. So does RedHat. Yes, you can get RedHat for free, but their bussiness model sure hopes you'll go to the store and buy a copy off the shelf.
3. Apt-get.
Even Microsoft doesn't charge for it's incremental updates...
The "Medium sized length of rope used for jumping" patent is not valid, and actually infringes on my earlier patent:
"Medium sized length of rope used for hanging."
-- Judge Thomas Lynch
Actually, Katz is refering to a brief comment made in Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line." Only Katz got it wrong.
Microsoft is directly responsible for the creation of Linux. Because of Microsoft, computer hardware became standardized to the i386 platform and hardware prices dropped to where a young Finnish college student could afford a computer to tinker with.