is it just me, or are there more and more similarities between the RIAA's public handling of these cases and the SCO ordeal? It seems like ever week or so another judge issues a smackdown to the RIAA's motions or momentum. I hope for the sake of the public that this doesn't drag on as long as the SCO trial did/is, but I can't help but draw the conclusion that the RIAA's path is ultimately doomed. If not doomed by the courts, then doomed by inciting subversion in their user base. It's just a shame that this has to affect so many more people than just SCO vs. Novell/IBM (and Linux users collectively)
Hate to interrupt your Apple gushing, but Apple is a member of the BSA. Kinda like record labels and the RIAA, or the movie studios and the MPAA, Apple subsidizes and strengthens the BSA to enable these kind of activities.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but as far as your Apple upgrading is concerned, explain to me why I can buy a gen 1 Zune and upgrade it for free to use gen 2 firmware (opening up wifi access and getting all the normal goodies) but I can't get the latest firmware on my 5th gen 30GB iPod.
I think the paranoia of the "death to privacy" crowd is fueled simply because employers and other similar people are taking an more active interest in their prospective employee and their PUBLIC life. I caps public for the simple reason that once you post your 5,000 word essay on how you scored with the fat girl last night and you can't remember it because you had a Jim Beam IV drip, it moves from your private life (implied privacy due to the controlled dissemination (or lack thereof) of information, assuming the fat girl plays ball as well) to your public life and is not fair game to ridicule, reprimand, response by the other party (since if she implied privacy, you didn't hold up your end of the deal) or review by a neutral third party trying to gauge what kind of person you are. From a corporate perspective, it makes good business sense. I don't want to hire as a outside sales representative someone I know has demonstrated public displays of drunkenness and shenanigans. What if he forgets to take off a company supplied piece of clothing, and now his mugshot is displayed with my company logo? Or even better, someone who can't keep it in his(or her, not trying to be sexist) pants, brags about all the people they've slept with on FaceBook/MySpace, and opens a possibility for a sexual harassment suit?
Working from home isn't a bad thing (if you can handle it and can prioritize life/work appropriately). I believe an IT department, if the organization is so structured, should allow people who can handle the access to work from home. To do this, WE will provide YOU with the necessary equipment to do this task. This allows standardization (as much as can be afforded) and redundancy (I would imagine an inventory of at least one backup device).
To have someone who just arbitrarily says "I'm going to work from home!" and then attempts to use his 12 year old virus infected PC with his dialup access to go through the VPN and start downloading a 20MB Powerpoint is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. Even worse is the stink he raises when you finally have to tell him that he either can't work from home with his current gear, or has to go through the proper channels to get approval/funding for the correct gear.
Not to mention the fact that you sometimes get suckered into supporting the home network. That of itself is all kinds of hell.
You raise a very valid point, I am curious to see how they get around this myself. Not to mention the fact that satellite usually means about ~300ms latency right off the bat, not to mention the fact that the moron sitting next to me just HAS to email a 1GB Powerpoint presentation over VPN...
Come on, you mean to tell me that Boeing wanted to put 100 some access points on this plane? You could get 2, MAYBE 3 Cisco 1131AG's placed strategically could fill the cabin completely.
But, wired being much faster, I really can't argue:)
Just make your damn profile private! If you are naive enough to think that everyone in the world wants to read your profile, you are probably too naive to understand that everyone's intentions sometimes aren't friendly.
One of our HR people just to prove a point attempted to look at my profile, and then sent me a friend request which I denied for that reason. Making a definitive wall between work and whatever it is that I do at home is very important.
Absolutely. Whoever thought it would be a good fucking idea to put ECW on SciFi needs to be fired with extreme prejudice. If I had mod points, you would get one.
I just hit the scifi.com main page, and there is not ONE mention of BSG anywhere on the page. If you stop advertising the show, only the die-hards will watch and it will descend into cult status.
Broadcasting music openly to local peers via wireless? Allowing (possibly) anonymous connections via wifi?
if MS caved so badly as to give the RIAA a kickback on every unit sold with the premise that they would be used for illegal means, why on earth would you think they would enable such features that almost beg for copyright infringement (as the RIAA sees it)???
I can tell you that these things are a pain in the ass. Not so much from a technology standpoint, but mainly from the users. I get calls all the time: "My blackberry didn't receive this email in 2.3 seconds, the system is down, FIX THIS NOW!!!"
There is a certain threshold that exists between productive and slave. Slavery, indentured or not, exists when you are inextricably bound to your employer, and have to respond immediately to his commands, on demand, 24/7. At least in my office, with most of the BB users, that line has been crossed.
From a technology standpoint, Blackberry Enterprise Server isn't really THAT bad, I just wish there would be more QA from RIM's developers. Hotfixes and service packs come out far too often, but at least they are trying.
I am also curious to see how the social effect would play out. Let's say you had a neighborhood of moisture farmers growing food to trade for stuff (I don't play MMO's, so my terms could be way off) and next door someone arbitrarily sets up some miltary outpost or something that disrupts the activities of the group without causing them harm (like something a HOA would regulate in real life) Would the masses form something along the lines of a HOA and settle it civilly, or would they try to go after them in a video game style, hiring assassins or leet ninja warlocks to kill them?
Connery: "I've got to ask you...about the Penis Mightier." Trebek: "No, no, no, that's The Pen is Mightier!" C: "Gussy it up however you want Trebek, what matters is, does it work! Will it really mighty my penis man!" Nicholas Cage: "wait, wait, wait, you guys are selling penis mightiers?!"
Since I lack the philosophical education to completely explain what "Love" is (other than a simple chemical addiction from the brain;) ) I will not attempt to answer that here.
What I will leave you with is a artist's parody of this same query.
You automatically assume that everyone in America (or the world) who would purchase one of these has a high-speed internet connection. In the real world, that doesn't happen.
Plus, this would eat into the profit margins of the big retail stores. They will never allow that to happen.
Quoth the parent: I expect the next move from these guys to be buying some small spin-off for $10 million and turning it into a media powerhouse to later sell for $7 billion and a seat on the board of an even larger company...
And you are making this out to be a bad thing why? Say they buy some small Internet startup that does something, they bring their considerable financial arsenal to bear, make that something do 5 other things and market to 10x more people who buy 7x more of these, don't you think that they would be entitled to sell it for an order of magnitude more than they bought it for, since the value is that much more? And given such a proven track record, that a larger company would value and covet these kind of strategies and execution for their company?
Umm, WinXP SP2 (not sure if it's just SP2, but that's all I run before I got my BT dongle) does have support for Bluetooth. Sorry.
In fact, I believe that MS's drivers, as simplistic as they are, are far and away better than Toshiba's BT stack (Try to set up BT HotSync with a Treo 650 over Toshiba BT drivers). Unfortunately, they don't hold a candle to the WIDCOMM drivers.
The real travesty in all this is the fact that there are 3 separate comm stacks for the exact same hardware. Even worse is that they are licensed in such a way that I cannot use the WIDCOMM drivers for a BT device that came with Toshiba drivers. However, I can use the MS drivers for anything.
First of all, if it was truly "completely and utterly ineffective marketing" then this problem would have sorted itself out a long time ago. I know that someone, somewhere, is buying this overpriced crap, and generating enough revenue to keep this thing going.
Part of the issue (and definitely the hardest to solve) is that the ISP's have no choice but to take a reactive approach. As you correctly pointed out, the ISP's have "escalated to the point where ISPs are getting fairly efficient at shutting down the spammers' mailboxes and web presences within minutes or hours of them sending out a barrage of advertising" Now the problem becomes (and really always has been) that the ads are ALREADY SENT OUT. You can only shut it down after the violation has been made, you can't (nor should you under normal circumstances, once again, murky water here) either deny service to as "suspected" spammer or proactively monitor connection utils (like port 25, for example, not like the spammers have a centralized source anyway) for a certain threshold then chop, thereby at least reducing the number of emails that go through.
It's nice that the links die within a few hours, but I can rest assured knowing that if I was wanting to purchase those p3nif phills from a email with a dead link, that I need only wait a few hours before I get another email with a brand new one.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is IBM.
is it just me, or are there more and more similarities between the RIAA's public handling of these cases and the SCO ordeal? It seems like ever week or so another judge issues a smackdown to the RIAA's motions or momentum. I hope for the sake of the public that this doesn't drag on as long as the SCO trial did/is, but I can't help but draw the conclusion that the RIAA's path is ultimately doomed. If not doomed by the courts, then doomed by inciting subversion in their user base. It's just a shame that this has to affect so many more people than just SCO vs. Novell/IBM (and Linux users collectively)
Hate to interrupt your Apple gushing, but Apple is a member of the BSA. Kinda like record labels and the RIAA, or the movie studios and the MPAA, Apple subsidizes and strengthens the BSA to enable these kind of activities.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but as far as your Apple upgrading is concerned, explain to me why I can buy a gen 1 Zune and upgrade it for free to use gen 2 firmware (opening up wifi access and getting all the normal goodies) but I can't get the latest firmware on my 5th gen 30GB iPod.
I came in here to say almost exactly this.
I think the paranoia of the "death to privacy" crowd is fueled simply because employers and other similar people are taking an more active interest in their prospective employee and their PUBLIC life. I caps public for the simple reason that once you post your 5,000 word essay on how you scored with the fat girl last night and you can't remember it because you had a Jim Beam IV drip, it moves from your private life (implied privacy due to the controlled dissemination (or lack thereof) of information, assuming the fat girl plays ball as well) to your public life and is not fair game to ridicule, reprimand, response by the other party (since if she implied privacy, you didn't hold up your end of the deal) or review by a neutral third party trying to gauge what kind of person you are. From a corporate perspective, it makes good business sense. I don't want to hire as a outside sales representative someone I know has demonstrated public displays of drunkenness and shenanigans. What if he forgets to take off a company supplied piece of clothing, and now his mugshot is displayed with my company logo? Or even better, someone who can't keep it in his(or her, not trying to be sexist) pants, brags about all the people they've slept with on FaceBook/MySpace, and opens a possibility for a sexual harassment suit?
Working from home isn't a bad thing (if you can handle it and can prioritize life/work appropriately). I believe an IT department, if the organization is so structured, should allow people who can handle the access to work from home. To do this, WE will provide YOU with the necessary equipment to do this task. This allows standardization (as much as can be afforded) and redundancy (I would imagine an inventory of at least one backup device).
To have someone who just arbitrarily says "I'm going to work from home!" and then attempts to use his 12 year old virus infected PC with his dialup access to go through the VPN and start downloading a 20MB Powerpoint is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. Even worse is the stink he raises when you finally have to tell him that he either can't work from home with his current gear, or has to go through the proper channels to get approval/funding for the correct gear.
Not to mention the fact that you sometimes get suckered into supporting the home network. That of itself is all kinds of hell.
Not to mention the fact that I should have hiw Preview instead of Submit. Grammar (and reading!) nazi's flame away!
You raise a very valid point, I am curious to see how they get around this myself. Not to mention the fact that satellite usually means about ~300ms latency right off the bat, not to mention the fact that the moron sitting next to me just HAS to email a 1GB Powerpoint presentation over VPN...
Come on, you mean to tell me that Boeing wanted to put 100 some access points on this plane? You could get 2, MAYBE 3 Cisco 1131AG's placed strategically could fill the cabin completely.
:)
But, wired being much faster, I really can't argue
Just make your damn profile private! If you are naive enough to think that everyone in the world wants to read your profile, you are probably too naive to understand that everyone's intentions sometimes aren't friendly.
One of our HR people just to prove a point attempted to look at my profile, and then sent me a friend request which I denied for that reason. Making a definitive wall between work and whatever it is that I do at home is very important.
Absolutely. Whoever thought it would be a good fucking idea to put ECW on SciFi needs to be fired with extreme prejudice. If I had mod points, you would get one.
I just hit the scifi.com main page, and there is not ONE mention of BSG anywhere on the page. If you stop advertising the show, only the die-hards will watch and it will descend into cult status.
Broadcasting music openly to local peers via wireless? Allowing (possibly) anonymous connections via wifi?
if MS caved so badly as to give the RIAA a kickback on every unit sold with the premise that they would be used for illegal means, why on earth would you think they would enable such features that almost beg for copyright infringement (as the RIAA sees it)???
I can tell you that these things are a pain in the ass. Not so much from a technology standpoint, but mainly from the users. I get calls all the time: "My blackberry didn't receive this email in 2.3 seconds, the system is down, FIX THIS NOW!!!"
There is a certain threshold that exists between productive and slave. Slavery, indentured or not, exists when you are inextricably bound to your employer, and have to respond immediately to his commands, on demand, 24/7. At least in my office, with most of the BB users, that line has been crossed.
From a technology standpoint, Blackberry Enterprise Server isn't really THAT bad, I just wish there would be more QA from RIM's developers. Hotfixes and service packs come out far too often, but at least they are trying.
I am also curious to see how the social effect would play out. Let's say you had a neighborhood of moisture farmers growing food to trade for stuff (I don't play MMO's, so my terms could be way off) and next door someone arbitrarily sets up some miltary outpost or something that disrupts the activities of the group without causing them harm (like something a HOA would regulate in real life) Would the masses form something along the lines of a HOA and settle it civilly, or would they try to go after them in a video game style, hiring assassins or leet ninja warlocks to kill them?
Wait, isn't this all covered in Sims 2?
BUCK FUTTER!
Connery: "I've got to ask you...about the Penis Mightier."
Trebek: "No, no, no, that's The Pen is Mightier!"
C: "Gussy it up however you want Trebek, what matters is, does it work! Will it really mighty my penis man!"
Nicholas Cage: "wait, wait, wait, you guys are selling penis mightiers?!"
so that probably means it's better than you are in Quake...
and, before anyone asks, I did not make said YTMND. I am not trying to viewbomb the site, I just think it's funny as hell. :)
Since I lack the philosophical education to completely explain what "Love" is (other than a simple chemical addiction from the brain ;) ) I will not attempt to answer that here.
:)
What I will leave you with is a artist's parody of this same query.
Go ponder that for a while.
http://whatishl.ytmnd.com/
Yeah, until it becomes self aware. Then the only thing you can do is fire up the flamethrowers and pray.
You automatically assume that everyone in America (or the world) who would purchase one of these has a high-speed internet connection. In the real world, that doesn't happen.
Plus, this would eat into the profit margins of the big retail stores. They will never allow that to happen.
Then I misinterpreted you. However, as others have pointed out, it isn't like Steve is being wholly original in his $1 salary thing.
:)
Apart from that, this is capitalism at it's purest. Good game.
Quoth the parent:
I expect the next move from these guys to be buying some small spin-off for $10 million and turning it into a media powerhouse to later sell for $7 billion and a seat on the board of an even larger company...
And you are making this out to be a bad thing why? Say they buy some small Internet startup that does something, they bring their considerable financial arsenal to bear, make that something do 5 other things and market to 10x more people who buy 7x more of these, don't you think that they would be entitled to sell it for an order of magnitude more than they bought it for, since the value is that much more? And given such a proven track record, that a larger company would value and covet these kind of strategies and execution for their company?
I like the cut of your jib, sir, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I almost forgot, I patented newsletters. Assuming you have one in circulation, I would need 15% of the gross in licensing fees.
Jib's still good though.
Umm, WinXP SP2 (not sure if it's just SP2, but that's all I run before I got my BT dongle) does have support for Bluetooth. Sorry.
In fact, I believe that MS's drivers, as simplistic as they are, are far and away better than Toshiba's BT stack (Try to set up BT HotSync with a Treo 650 over Toshiba BT drivers). Unfortunately, they don't hold a candle to the WIDCOMM drivers.
The real travesty in all this is the fact that there are 3 separate comm stacks for the exact same hardware. Even worse is that they are licensed in such a way that I cannot use the WIDCOMM drivers for a BT device that came with Toshiba drivers. However, I can use the MS drivers for anything.
First of all, if it was truly "completely and utterly ineffective marketing" then this problem would have sorted itself out a long time ago. I know that someone, somewhere, is buying this overpriced crap, and generating enough revenue to keep this thing going.
Part of the issue (and definitely the hardest to solve) is that the ISP's have no choice but to take a reactive approach. As you correctly pointed out, the ISP's have "escalated to the point where ISPs are getting fairly efficient at shutting down the spammers' mailboxes and web presences within minutes or hours of them sending out a barrage of advertising" Now the problem becomes (and really always has been) that the ads are ALREADY SENT OUT. You can only shut it down after the violation has been made, you can't (nor should you under normal circumstances, once again, murky water here) either deny service to as "suspected" spammer or proactively monitor connection utils (like port 25, for example, not like the spammers have a centralized source anyway) for a certain threshold then chop, thereby at least reducing the number of emails that go through.
It's nice that the links die within a few hours, but I can rest assured knowing that if I was wanting to purchase those p3nif phills from a email with a dead link, that I need only wait a few hours before I get another email with a brand new one.