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User: Milo

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Comments · 11

  1. Re:popping noise on Public CD Copying Machine in Australia · · Score: 1

    Yes, just the other day I decided to photocopy the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At two book pages per photocopy, it was only about 500 copies. At $0.10 a copy, it only came to $50. It was so much cheaper and more convenient that buying the books from a store for $25.

  2. Re:Give me a minute... on Senate Trashes Civil Liberties; House to Vote Today · · Score: 1

    Actually, I do see this as having an effect on Bin Laden. Using strong encryption in the US would be illegal. Apparently, there a quite a number of Al Queda members and supporters in the US. If anyone of them sends an encryped email, they can (and proably would) be arrested.

    The FBI/CIA/NSA/whomever can just monitor the bits flowing from the computers of susupected terrorists, and when they can't figure out what it says because of the encryption, they can arrest the person for using encryption. Cool huh.

  3. Re:Initial reactions on J# · · Score: 3, Informative
    "Visual J# .NET enables Microsoft Visual J++ customers and other Java-language programmers"

    Tsk, tsk, Bill. There's no "other" in that sentence.


    Actually, the is an other. They are only referring to the java language, not the java platform. Like has been done for a large number of other languages, the .Net platform will allow compiling of java code to their intermediate language (IL), which will then run in the .Net common language runtime (CLR).

    Basically, instead of compiling to java bytecode and running in a JVM, it will compile to IL and run on the CLR.

    If you want cross platform support, this sucks. However, if you want to take your java app and get the best bang for your buck on the windows platform, using the CLR will probably provide better performance than a JVM, because the writer of the OS writes the CLR.

    So, even if you don't currently develop with Visual J++, if you're going to release a java app for Windows.Net, you might want to think about using the MS compiler, if not the IDE.

  4. Re:read the story folks on Brian West Update · · Score: 1

    It's more like finding someones wallet, copying down the credit cards numbers, SIN number, etc., selling it and the returning the wallet. I'm pretty sure that if you sell/give away that info, that would be a crime.

  5. Re:This goes to show... on RIAA Sues MP3.com · · Score: 1

    In a couple of years, it'll probably only take a c ouple of dollars of hard drive space.

  6. Re:what's the big deal? on Live or Memorex? · · Score: 1

    > For one I'm oblivious to advertising most of the time anyway

    Well, consciously, maybe. If you see the ad, your brain is going to process it, and it WILL be stored in your memory. Then, the next time you see the product, you'll get a feeling of familiarity. That's how human memory works. I spent a few years at university studying human memory, and one of the things that I learned is that once you experience something, even if you don't consciously remember it, it remains in your memory and it will produce this familiarity effect. As long as the feeling isn't negative, you've been sold.

  7. Re:financial threats? on eBay Sues Auction-Indexer · · Score: 1

    I doubt eBay is looking at this solely based on how it may affect them right now. They're probably worried about how it will affect their ability to make money in the future. Most of the large web companies aren't interested in just being a niche, they want to be THE web company. Just look at Amazon. eBay is trying to protect it's interests, not just now, but in the future.

    This is also why I hope they lose. The more control a few large companies have over the internet, the more it becomes just a tool of commercialism, and less a tool of information.

    Milo

  8. Could a spider be used to count existing servers? on ESR and the MindCraft Fiasco · · Score: 1

    Technically, it could be done. Whenever an HTTP request is sent to a server, one of the servers repsponse headers is the type of server. For example, Slashdot returns 'Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod perl/1.18'.

    Maybe we can get google to do a count of this when they do their spidering. Then again, I would assume that the people who are releasing number of different types of servers are already doing something like this themselves. I could be wrong though, since I haven't checked.

  9. definitely sick, but free speech on Dilbert Hole now Closed Down · · Score: 1

    It is definitely possible that these strips can be seen as a parody of society, or of the workplace (though I personally think that's a bit of a stretch). However, I don't really see them as being a parody of Dilbert. They just used Scott Adams copyrighted art work to try and get a message across. I'm not quite sure what that message is, but I guess that's up to whoever is reading it to decide.

    I do wonder, however, whether copyright laws differentiate between using part of a copyrighted work to parody that work, and using part of a copyrighted work to parody something completely unrelated. In this case, it seems that if there is parody, it is of the second kind, and whether or not it is legal depends on how the law differentiates these two issues.

    Unfortunately, I'm a programmer, and I'm not up to date on copyright law. Does anyone know if the law treats these two situations differently?

    Dave

  10. Who'd contribute to Windows code? on ESR/OSI's letter to Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Even if MS does make Windows code open source, in a reasonable manner (unlikely), how many developers are going to write code and give it back to MS. According to Jamie Zawinski's resignation letter, only about 30 people contributed code to Mozilla. Considering that among developers, there are probably more people willing to help Netscape than MS, how many people would give MS source code for free?

  11. wasn't this part of april fools day? on Thought Recognition · · Score: 1

    Definitely looks made up. First it talks about the kid being part of a top secret project that nobody knows about. Then it mentions the kid's office being two doors down from Bill's. Kind of a hard place to be inconspicuous, if you ask me.