something like "Hello xxxx, here are your
last few messenger messages:
Something like that would make me very
happy - Because I would have instant feedback
about whether or not my attempts to circumvent
stupid network usage policies had succeeded,
and if so, did they work anonymously.
Mind you, I don't care about vising playboy.com
from work - I never understood the point of
porn at work anyway, since every work environment
I've ever encountered made killing kittens all
but impossible while there. But corporate IT
departments have a bad habit of blocking
valid, work-related traffic that
they don't see the need for. "We notice you've
visited alphaworks.ibm.com over fifty times in
the last two weeks, so we've decided to block
it to boost your productivity and ''help'' you
not waste company resources.".
Incidentally, I see the parent article's theme
as very similar - Too many people use IM, so
block it. This ignores the fact that many
people using it may well have a valid, work-related
reason for doing so. Personally I've used IM
exactly three times (from home, not work, though),
and each of those times I used it for the sole
purpose of chatting with a fellow coder about
something that, in another context, would count
as work related (yeah, call me a geek, I actually
code for fun).
The size of a deposit they'd need to deter people
buying them and not returning them would scare away
the majority of their potential customers.
For comparison, base-model 2MP digital cams at
walmart.com go for around $100... Even the
cheesy 0.5MP cams go for $30-40.
If they expect people to plunk down more than
twice the cost (to the customer, ie, $11) of
the cameras, they will fail even without geeks
reverse engineering them.
I'd say their best shot at this not greatly
hurting their bottom line would come from
the use of some "real" encryption to store
the pics. And even then, since they need
to process these at a large number of
preexisting locations, they will need
to use a reasonably standard hardware interface,
and fairly simple-to-use software. While
it would certainly move the use of these from
"gray" to "definitely illegal", some photo
processing clerk making minimum wage will
no doubt release the software to the internet,
making even that level of protection useless.
That long? If they've already released them
to a test market, I'd give it about a week.
Especially now that Slashdot has mentioned
it, geeks everywhere will swarm to Wisconsin
to buy a few and see how they work.
Expect a hack for this before they even hit
stores outside the test market (likely meaning
they'll never hit stores outside the test
market, since Ritz will very quickly discover
that they've started taking a HUGE loss when
people buy these but don't return them for
processing and recycling).
Unless Ritz has found a way to literally
produce a $10 digital camera, this one won't
last long. Say hello to the next NetPC or
CueCat.
On my cable modem (adelphia) I get 10-12ms
for the first 8 or so hops as they are all on
the adelphia servers, after that I can get as
low as 20ms
Um... Wow?
I also have cablemodem through Adelphia,
and get FAR higher ping times...
To just my segment gateway, I get 11ms. To
the very first non-Adelphia node, I get 75ms.
To a machine on COX's cablemodem network, I
get as high as 120ms (speaking of which, back
when I had COX myself, which used @home at
the time, I got similar latencies).
So I don't think I'd complain much over a
30ms ping.:-(
Realistically I represent a small minority
of consumers who values privacy over money and
the market can charge a premium for selling to
me and others like me.
Do what I (and many others) do - Find a group
of similarly inclined people, and simply swap
cards around within the group every few weeks.
Doesn't really matter who has your card,
since no one can use it against you, and
it effectively maintains your privacy while
still giving you the same discount.
And, in a best-case scenario, you've managed
to poison numerous databases containing what
various companies believe represents your
interests and buying habits. I'd pay
more just to know I've managed to
do that, nevermind the discount.
If you look at the statistics, poverty
doesn't begin to explain it.
Okay, troll-baby...
At the risk of going very far OT, the statistics
do demonstrate that socioeconomic class
dictates crime rates.
Or to put it a way that most racists usually
can grasp - Poor urban whites have the same
crime stats as poor urban blacks. Middle-class
suburban blacks have the same (far lower) crime
stats as middle-class suburban whites.
Sorry to burst that particular bubble, but you
ignore a simple and verifiably truth. Take an
intoductory sociology course. It will do wonders
for the accuracy of your world-view.
Couldn't this be turned around by making
false online identies? Tailoring it to garner
the best prices?
Yes, it could, thus the only reason I don't
really feel all that concerned about the
possibility of vastly different prices for
different people.
Not just online, though, but more importantly,
in the real world as well. From the article,
for example, it talks about the diehard Coke
drinker paying twice as much because the
company will exploit his preference. Easy
solution? Find a similarly diehard Pepsi
fan, and each buy the other's soda for them.
So both pay less than the mean rate,
as the respective companies try to lure each
over to their own product with extremely
discounted prices.
Now, in some situations this wouldn't work.
But for anything costing more than a few
bucks (electronics, for example), "shopping
around" would go from "check pricewatch"
to "ask grandma (or someone who would normally
have significantly different buying habits
than yourself) how much she can get that
great new toy for".
Finally, a way to screw corporate America with
their own tools of torture. Bring it on!
Is this to sanitize the article, or is race
really ignored in the database (surely making
its predictions less accurate than what would
be possible)?
I mean this in no "politically correct" way
(nor in a racist way), but, such a system
would still show a difference between races
in dropout rates (which will quite likely earn
it a lot of heat a few years down the road).
Not for any "real" differences, but because of
yet another false correlation- Namely, money
and urbanization.
A far greater proportion of minorities come from
poor families and live in large cities than do
whites. Generally, sociologists consider that
the "cause" (rather than a symptom) of most of
the negative statistics disproportionately
associated with minorities. Higher crime,
lower education, and the like. Incidentally,
this appears true, as whites in similar situations
show the same "negative" statistics, but the
larger percentage of whites who do alright
economically balances that out over the population
as a whole.
So, simply including socioeconomic status of
a person's family effectively predicts the
same things as race.
"This will go on your permanent record!", for
years just an idle threat, may finally have
some real meaning.
And for any HS'ers reading this and wondering
if I tell the truth... I had less than stellar
grades (before college, where I did very well).
Got suspended once. Due to moving, I may not
actually have ever completed 5th grade. Yet,
I got accepted to every college to which I
applied (including a few "big name" ones, of
which I actually went to WPI my first year.
Hated it and left, but that goes beyond my
intended point).
Though, I do have to wonder about the darker
side of such tracking. Already, we have
students removed from regular classes for
so little an offense as acting different, for
writing "dark" poetry, for daring to speak
against the system even on private websites.
I see this finding more use in eliminating
MORE people from the regular education
system than it will in keeping potential
dropouts in school.
Check out the comparison table at 7-zip's
homepage.
It claims about 9% better than WinRAR. I
haven't personally verified that claim
(mostly because I never RAR anything, I
either zip them or 7z them), but... Since
it costs nothing, download a copy (From the
link I gave above) and see for yourself.
At worst, you'll delete it tomorrow. At best,
you'll find a great new (free!) program to
handle all your de/compression needs (And no,
I have nothing to do with its development, so
this doesn't count as a shameless plug).
Well, let's pretend you didn't mean to start
a "better language" war, and address your
points.
Don't even get me started on the 'C is
faster than C++ myth'. Only in the hands of
an idiot.
MYTH??? Bring it on, Java-boy. Pick any
CPU intensive task, and my C code will DESTROY
your best Java code for speed.
Java does have its uses, including decent type
checking and memory management, as you mentioned.
Those carry a cost, however. You don't get
something for nothing, and with Java, the cost
comes in the form of a performance hit.
most programmers don't have enough training
to use a more complex language.
A curious statement... Would you care to give
a few examples of more "complex" languages?
Particularly with regards to their
greater-than-Turing-completeness compared to
C?
Or do you mean syntactically, in the sense
that you find Brainfuck and Malbolge the
epitome of a perfect programming language?
C is really just glorified assembly
language.
Yes and no. For the most part, you can
trivially convert C to assembler line-by-line,
without too much effort. However, the nice
neat flow control mechanisms of C makes it
almost immeasurably easier to work with than
assembler. Don't get me wrong, I do like
asm (just can't beat it for speed), but
it works best for drop-in function replacements,
not for creating the entire framework of a large
application.
I think C is only still alive because it
is supported on most systems,
Heh... Which, ironically enough, counts as
the ONLY reason Java came into existance, and
even now that it has "matured", I can build
an ANSI-C compatible program on about 6x more
platforms than you can run a standard Java app
on (whichver "standard" of compatibility you
want to pretend exists for Java).
Now go ahead, suck up the humility and
grudgingly point out that, since most
Java implementations come written in C,
you could build a VM on any machine with
a C compiler. But that kinda defeats your
own point. (And, at least half of those
platforms lack the resources to actually
*use* the Java VM, although I have to admit
I'd like to see someone try using Java on
an embedded 68HC05 with 4k ROM and 256 bytes
of RAM, if just for the amusement value).
Java has its place. C has its place. Scheme
has its place. Perl and Python have their
place. Tcl/Tk have their place. I won't
pretend people can (or rather, "should", since
technically anything the machine can do, you can
use C to make it do so) use C for everything, if
you don't pretend that C hasn't made it as the
single most widely supported and generally
hardware-wise powerful language for a reason - Namely,
it works, and what it does, it does well. You can
try to use a hacksaw to cut lumber, but don't blame
the hacksaw for doing the job poorly.
The ones that are like $1300 American
each? Not exactly the most practical
option, I'd say.
At the moment, no, not practical.
However, the parent post mentioned that he felt
concerned that in the future he would
not have the ability to get a large CRT.
10 years ago, 21" CRTs cost in that same
range, around UDS $1000-$1500 for the entry
level ones and going up steeply after that.
Three years ago I picked up a pair of
them for just under $300 (great deal at the
time, though now you can regularly get them
in the $300-$400 range).
Don't know how I lived without it... The
larger screen makes many tasks SO much
easier, I can no longer stand to work for
more than a few minutes on anything below
19" (like using a dialup after having
a cablemodem for a few years). Of course,
I also just set up my first "Real" dual
monitor config... Once again, I don't know
how I used to work with so much less screen
area, I now look forward to exactly such
cheap 21" LCDs as we dicsuss so I can tile
an entire wall with them (or at the very
least, 5 on-edge panels arranged around my
desk in an arc).;-).
But (forgive my rambling), a similar trend
will apply to LCDs. They will come down in
price to a reasonable range in a few years,
long before CRTs become a rarity.
0844: pour cup of coffee before
it's actually ready
Depending on your coffee maker, I discovered
a trick to saving time with this...
Have your cup ready, with milk and sugar
(or whatever you use in your coffee,
personally I like a single ice-cube so I
don't need to wait for it to cool) already
in it.
Fill the pot with water, and place the
coffee in the brewing basket.
Place your cup under the brewing basket,
and dump the water into the appropriate
spot on your machine.
Poof, instant cup of coffee. Just make
sure to stick the pot under the stream of
hot coffee as you remove your cup, or you'll
have a bit of a mess.
Everybody, start using the (open source)
7-zip instead.
No kidding. It amazes me that a lot more
people don't use this - It handles all the
major formats (zip, tar, gz, bz2, cab, no
"sit", though) better than the "native"
program for them does, and hey, open source
to boot. And, its "7z" format really does
get 10-30% better compression than even
bzip2.
Gotta agree with the other response to you,
though - the interface needs MAJOR work.
It doesn't "look" bad, but feels very
counterintuitive. Hell, if they totally
eliminated the psuedo-explorer-esque look and
just let me drag-and-drop, I'd consider it
perfect.
Yes. So sorry to see you leave!
More jobs for me!!
Uh, not really, thus the entire point
of the parent post. Rather than hire
you or I for "only" half our salaries
an allowing us to live somewhere cheaper,
companies would rather hire someone in
India or Eastern Europe.
So someone moving to such a place doesn't
actually leave more jobs for us, it merely
acknowledges that fewer and fewer jobs
remain for domestic IT workers to take.
And now even IBM has gotten in on this,
effectively "legitimizing" such reprehensible
business practices.
Well, we may all suffer for it, but eventually
corporate America will realize that you can't
sell products to people who have no money. So
just let them keep laying us off, and when the
starving mobs appear in the boardroom with
torches and pitchforks, they can't say they
couldn't see it coming.
If you were to fly over the red areas,
you would be tugged ever so slightly
downwards;
As opposed to? Yes, in our normal experience,
gravity acts as an attractive force.
the blues mark regions where the planet's
attraction is much weaker.
"Much weaker"? The entire range corresponds
to about 0.1% of Earth's mean gravitational
attraction. For comparison, the apparent
decrease in local gravity at the equator
due to centrifugal force FAR exceeds the
differences shown in the linked article
(by a factor of about 5, in fact). And
even that only changes the local
apparent force to 9.78m/s/s.
Then again, I suppose we have separate
careers called "journalist" and "scientist"
for a reason.;-)
it's indicative of the kind of blinders-on,
hands-on-ears mentality that's really prevalent
here
I actually did not mean it as such. I really,
honestly read and re-read the answers, with the
hope that they would make some sense to somewhat
attenuate the anti-RIAA and legal-pessimism you
correctly identify as rampant on Slashdot. I
did not expect the DoJ to say "okay, pirate all
you want", but I did expect at least serious
answers.
Instead, their answers left me rather
dissapointed even in my low expectations.
Rather than giving us any useful information,
even so far as opinions go, they
gave half a dozen printed pages of standard
legal doublespeak and CYA'ing. In the
entirety of their responses, they only managed
to really "say" two clear things - That they
will continue to act as the RIAA's executioners;
and that morality and reality have no place
whatsoever in the performance of the DoJ's
duties.
If I had to distill all the questions down to
one simple core idea, it would amount to "Do you
guys really consider all of us who download even a
single MP3, possibly of something we already own,
as hardcore criminals who should serve years in
prison and pay millions in fines?". And, despite
that blunt theme through all the questions, they
totally avoided outright saying the "yes" it seems
like they would have liked. Perhaps they feared
open revolt if it came out that the US government
fully supports putting literally half the US
population in prison?
I suppose part of the fault lies in my own
expectations - I really should not have expected
a group of lawyers to say anything meaningful.
They actually understand just how screwed
up our laws can seem, and, far more than most of
us (possibly with good reason), apparently have
a deep fear of everything they say coming back
to bite them on the keister. Thus they say
nothing, in as many words as possible. However,
if they had no intention of seriously answering
our questions, they should not have offered
in the first place.
I don't think we can gut the DMCA just
because it's being used in a heavy-handed
fashion; it's got a real use, and that's
protecting the person trying to make a
living off of the software they wrote.
While a tad offtopic (in that I specifically
avoided excessive mention of the DMCA in my
post), I would like to reply to that anyway.
The DMCA does NOT protect people
trying to make a living off their work.
IP law already does that. The DMCA makes
the implicit (and in some parts, explicit)
assumption that the entire human race will
violate copyright and steal IP if given
half a chance. This runs so absolutely
contrary to the core of US law that it
amazes me that the supreme court didn't
strike down the DMCA days after its passage.
So yes, the whole thing does need
to cease to exist. It counts as redundant
at best, and more likely, entirely
unconstitutional. Though, of course, "We
the People" don't get to decide that, rich
old men in the RIAA's pockets do.
(While sarcastic, I have attempted to not
outright put words in their mouth, for which
they would no doubt find a reason to sentence
me to federally-sanctioned assrape).
Q) What services [do you offer] for an open
source copyright holder
A) None. We consider the "seriousness of the offense",
and since open source neither involves money, nor do
we take it serious, we mostly ignore the lot of you.
Insert example of an actually for-profit small business
suffering that we helped.
Q) Can you please enlighten me as to why software
and media "pirates" as well as other "computer
criminals" are in many cases treated worse than
rapists and violent criminals who use weapons?
A) They don't actually get worse sentences, they
get a maximum of five years per count. Now please
don't do the math to figure out that, while most
people only commit one or two murders, all you
pitiful little geeks carry around "mix" CDs that,
at our whim, would get you 800 years in the federal
pen to hang out with all those murderers and
rapists you mention.
Q) If DRM-included hardware does become the
law via the CBDTPA (SSSCA) or any other legislation,
how does this interact with regards to copyright
expiration?
A) Look at the monkey. Look! Look at it!
Oh, and don't circumvent any copy protection,
or else.
Q) how will you prevent this 'going
native' phenomenon?
A) We prefer to think of it as "becoming
civilized" rather than "going native". Insert
"mom & pop" reference again. Mention "checks
and balances" that have no relevance since we
decide who to bring to trial in the first place.
Damnit, stop thinking out loud.
Q) Do you feel that you truly have sufficient
technical experience as opposed to your obvious
legal ones?
A) No.
Q)Accordingly, what steps are being taken to
clarify the correct terminology and to avoid
jingoistic use of words like 'theft', 'thieves'
and 'stealing' amongst law enforcement and
elsewhere?
A) Sorry, false advertising cases go to the
FCC, who just got spanked by congress so don't
expect much from them for a few decades.
Q) does [fair use] exist?
A) Yes, for journalists. All you damn
thieves (see previous answer) can go
pound sand. If you don't like DRM,
don't buy - er, license - any new music
or movies.
Q) Is a distinction made between different
levels of IP infringement?
A) Yes. We prosecute yours, while the
RIAA can do no wrong. Mom & Pop.
Civil matter, go away. Meep.
Q) Do you know of any cases in which
the sender of an invalid takedown notice...
has been successfully charged with perjury?
A) No no no, you misunderstand. They don't
actually have to tell the truth,
they just need to actually hold the copyright
they claim you infringe. We don't really give
a damn whether or not they actually have a
sound basis for harassing all you plebes and
sticking you with huge legal bills - We
just care that you don't do use similar
tactics on the real "victims" here, the RIAA.
(I wish I didn't mock this one so true to the
actual answer).
Q) What is your opinion on the case of
Daniel Peng?
A) No comment.
Q) do you find that these anti-IP-infringement
techniques have a real effect on preventing
such things from happenning?
A) Yes, but not enough. Damnit, if only
we could make these things electrocute
people who tamper with them! That'd
teach you damn hippies.
Q) As a Canadian I am curious as to the
co-operation you receive (if any) from
agencies outside the US?
A) While historically the Canadians have
told us to go [expletive deleted] ourselves
on matters of IP and copyright, thanks to
our recent proving of our total and utter
insanity in Iraq, we have made great strides
in expanding US legal hegemony. We have
complete confidence that, within a few
years, we won't even need to go through
diplomatic channels to simply abduct
foreign nationals in their sleep for the
purpose of pretending to give them a fair
trial here in the Land of the Free.
So I'll only have to be careful for a
maximum of 60 months in prison while bending
over for the soap, as opposed to 70 to 87.
That's good news.
I resisted hitting "reply" when I first
read that in the DoJ's response, but since
you commented on it...
I can't help but notice the phrase "for one
count".
5 years per count of copyright violation.
Wow.
So, basically, taking an RIAA-esque
interpretation of copyright law, all
of us carrying around an MP3 mix CD
could literally receive an 800-year
sentence in a the federal pen.
But really, the DoJ insists that copyright
doesn't carry stiffer penalties than rape
or murder.
BS. Does anyone else notice that most of
the DoJ's answers seem directed toward
justifying their corporate pandering, while
at the same time denying it?
I think their answer to the "do you have
any technically competent people" basically
covers it. They all but said "no". "Well,
Steve does fairly well with those neato
Microsoft Office programs, but when we have
real trouble, like how to open a new type
of email attachment, we call Jimmy up from
the mail room to help us out". Yeah.
Whatever.
Put simply, they have such a poor grasp of
modern tech culture that they really
believe a person might only have a single
infringing file in their posession. Hell,
I have more than that which I've downloaded
accidentally, yet they don't consider
the penalties a tad draconian.
The 60's started a generational war with
the WO(s)D. Looks like we've kicked off
the new millenium with a generational
war on geeks.
You don't need a zippy 2GB drive, you
just need an extra 2GB of RAM...
Heh, now THAT I could go for. Considering
the low price of RAM, I can think of nothing
better. Perhaps with the advent of 64bit
desktop PCs (and the associated larger
address space), we'll finally see that as
a real (or even default) option. Ahhh...:-)
Actually, as an aside, I have made a setup
very much like that in my work on embedded
Linux systems. Don't know if it would work
as well for Windows, which doesn't seem to
support the idea of remounting the root
partition on a ramdisk, but under Linux, it
made certain things go INCREDIBLY fast. Like
starting and restoring a full X session in
literally 3 seconds. Like any normal program
invokes instantly (We have grown used
to waiting a second or two for even most
trivial programs (like "true") to respond
the first time they run in a while... The
difference stuns you the first few dozen
times).
As another aside, I do use a ramdisk for the
Windows temp directory, and while not as
drastic as my above Linux example, it does
make a noticeable difference in many programs
(and, theoretically, should reduce long-term
file fragmentation as a nice bonus).
I very much hope they DO have the
right to ban an RF signal that just happens
to go through their property.
Because...
By the legal implications of such a
decision, I would very much like to
sue DTV to stop irradiating my home.
And Sprint. And Verizon. And any
other company with which I do not have
a service contract that finds it simply
"convenient" to not need to target their
signal only to their users..
And no, I do not wear a tin-foil beanie.
I just object to having a signal on my
property, through my body, through my
electronic equipment, that I neither
want nor have the right to access without
paying someone for a signal that already
exists.
However, I expect the stadium to lose,
for the same reason. Winning would set
a VERY dangerous precedent to our
corporate masters.
I often wonder how much stuff could be
packed in a 16-platter douhle-height 8
inch hard-disk drive...
At 50Gb/in^2, with a half-inch spindle, just
a hair over 10TB. Which nicely illustrates
my exact point.
Also, though they may not read it, I'd like
to reply here to the other comments to my
post (I do so hate writing the same things
more than once - Slashdot needs a sort of
post-a-hardlink capability to prevent
on-thread discussions from fanning out
uncontrollably .;-)
I realize spinning an 8" platter at 7200RPM
doesn't really make all that great of an idea.
I don't suggest spinning them that fast - Why
not 1200RPM? Yeah, slower seek times (though
with a large number of platters and a decent
physical layout, overall transfer rate doesn't
need to drop), but that satisfies what I (and
I believe many people) want - Obscene amounts
of drive space, and as long as I can still
load an OGG, or an uncompressed digital cam
image, or a bloated PDF manual, in a second or
two, it runs "fast enough". Human response
times make file access times completely
irrelevant for anything not directly critical
to overall system performance (ie, keep a
zippy 2GB drive for the OS, and give me
my nice slow 2TB drive for everything else).
They also talked about drive sizes
changes (3.5in -> 2.5in)
Bah, why always smaller???
Current HDDs store 50Gb/in^2, and area
increases with the square of the
radius. That single inch decrease results
in literally half the platter area
(not counting the spindle). OTOH, with
even current areal densities we could have
1TB 5.25" HDDs. THAT would make me a
happy consumer.
But no, that would make too much sense.
Instead, they'll shrink the drive, requiring
radical new (and untested in the wilds)
technologies just to keep up with the
same overall size.
Hey, I can appreciate smaller in most
aspects of technology. But as long as
we store data on spinning platters,
where surface area matters, bigger,
up to the width of a typical case (ie,
5.25in), makes a WHOLE lot more sense.
Hell, use 10" platters and design the
case around the HDD lying parallel to
the MB for all I care, as long as I
have obscene amounts of drive space.
Then again, I probably count as one of
the few people who considered the Quantum
Bigfoot series a great idea - Large,
cheap, somewhat slower drives. For most
uses, as long as a drive has a "reasonable"
seek time and transfer rate (ie, within an
order of magnitude of other modern drives),
size matters more than speed. Most of us
don't do realtime DV processing, we store
tons of what amounts to largely offline
content (ie, a huge CD changer would do just
as well, other than for the drive we keep
our OS on).
Rather than trying to make cron do something
it doesn't want to (which obviously won't
work in this situation without modifying
cron, not a good idea if you rely on it for
other things), write a tiny program that
does nothing more than load a list of GMT
times at which it needs to do something,
and executes a script associated with that
time.
You'd need only one main config file, looking
something like:
00:00 script.ut
16:00 script.pmt
19:00 script.edt
(blah, blah, blah)
And each individual script could have as
much variation as you possibly want.
The program would take very close to no
memory or CPU, needing only a few dozen
time/scriptname pairs at most, and it would
just sleep() 99.99999% of the time. Depending
on what sort of security you need on the
individual midnight events, you could write
such a program in under 50 lines easily.
As for daylight savings, if you really
need to guarantee your program runs at midnight,
add a single flag to the config file to specify
an offset function to use. You'd realistically
only need three, one for the screwed up dates
the US uses for changing to/from daylight saving
time, one for the EU's summer time, and one for
no change. 10 lines of code each.
Slashdot Mirror
something like "Hello xxxx, here are your last few messenger messages:
Something like that would make me very happy - Because I would have instant feedback about whether or not my attempts to circumvent stupid network usage policies had succeeded, and if so, did they work anonymously.
Mind you, I don't care about vising playboy.com from work - I never understood the point of porn at work anyway, since every work environment I've ever encountered made killing kittens all but impossible while there. But corporate IT departments have a bad habit of blocking valid, work-related traffic that they don't see the need for. "We notice you've visited alphaworks.ibm.com over fifty times in the last two weeks, so we've decided to block it to boost your productivity and ''help'' you not waste company resources.".
Incidentally, I see the parent article's theme as very similar - Too many people use IM, so block it. This ignores the fact that many people using it may well have a valid, work-related reason for doing so. Personally I've used IM exactly three times (from home, not work, though), and each of those times I used it for the sole purpose of chatting with a fellow coder about something that, in another context, would count as work related (yeah, call me a geek, I actually code for fun).
So I wonder if they'll require a deposit.
The size of a deposit they'd need to deter people buying them and not returning them would scare away the majority of their potential customers.
For comparison, base-model 2MP digital cams at walmart.com go for around $100... Even the cheesy 0.5MP cams go for $30-40.
If they expect people to plunk down more than twice the cost (to the customer, ie, $11) of the cameras, they will fail even without geeks reverse engineering them.
I'd say their best shot at this not greatly hurting their bottom line would come from the use of some "real" encryption to store the pics. And even then, since they need to process these at a large number of preexisting locations, they will need to use a reasonably standard hardware interface, and fairly simple-to-use software. While it would certainly move the use of these from "gray" to "definitely illegal", some photo processing clerk making minimum wage will no doubt release the software to the internet, making even that level of protection useless.
I've got my $5 on September 24th.
That long? If they've already released them to a test market, I'd give it about a week. Especially now that Slashdot has mentioned it, geeks everywhere will swarm to Wisconsin to buy a few and see how they work.
Expect a hack for this before they even hit stores outside the test market (likely meaning they'll never hit stores outside the test market, since Ritz will very quickly discover that they've started taking a HUGE loss when people buy these but don't return them for processing and recycling).
Unless Ritz has found a way to literally produce a $10 digital camera, this one won't last long. Say hello to the next NetPC or CueCat.
On my cable modem (adelphia) I get 10-12ms for the first 8 or so hops as they are all on the adelphia servers, after that I can get as low as 20ms
:-(
Um... Wow?
I also have cablemodem through Adelphia, and get FAR higher ping times...
To just my segment gateway, I get 11ms. To the very first non-Adelphia node, I get 75ms. To a machine on COX's cablemodem network, I get as high as 120ms (speaking of which, back when I had COX myself, which used @home at the time, I got similar latencies).
So I don't think I'd complain much over a 30ms ping.
Realistically I represent a small minority of consumers who values privacy over money and the market can charge a premium for selling to me and others like me.
Do what I (and many others) do - Find a group of similarly inclined people, and simply swap cards around within the group every few weeks. Doesn't really matter who has your card, since no one can use it against you, and it effectively maintains your privacy while still giving you the same discount.
And, in a best-case scenario, you've managed to poison numerous databases containing what various companies believe represents your interests and buying habits. I'd pay more just to know I've managed to do that, nevermind the discount.
If you look at the statistics, poverty doesn't begin to explain it.
Okay, troll-baby...
At the risk of going very far OT, the statistics do demonstrate that socioeconomic class dictates crime rates.
Or to put it a way that most racists usually can grasp - Poor urban whites have the same crime stats as poor urban blacks. Middle-class suburban blacks have the same (far lower) crime stats as middle-class suburban whites.
Sorry to burst that particular bubble, but you ignore a simple and verifiably truth. Take an intoductory sociology course. It will do wonders for the accuracy of your world-view.
Couldn't this be turned around by making false online identies? Tailoring it to garner the best prices?
Yes, it could, thus the only reason I don't really feel all that concerned about the possibility of vastly different prices for different people.
Not just online, though, but more importantly, in the real world as well. From the article, for example, it talks about the diehard Coke drinker paying twice as much because the company will exploit his preference. Easy solution? Find a similarly diehard Pepsi fan, and each buy the other's soda for them. So both pay less than the mean rate, as the respective companies try to lure each over to their own product with extremely discounted prices.
Now, in some situations this wouldn't work. But for anything costing more than a few bucks (electronics, for example), "shopping around" would go from "check pricewatch" to "ask grandma (or someone who would normally have significantly different buying habits than yourself) how much she can get that great new toy for".
Finally, a way to screw corporate America with their own tools of torture. Bring it on!
Is this to sanitize the article, or is race really ignored in the database (surely making its predictions less accurate than what would be possible)?
I mean this in no "politically correct" way (nor in a racist way), but, such a system would still show a difference between races in dropout rates (which will quite likely earn it a lot of heat a few years down the road).
Not for any "real" differences, but because of yet another false correlation- Namely, money and urbanization.
A far greater proportion of minorities come from poor families and live in large cities than do whites. Generally, sociologists consider that the "cause" (rather than a symptom) of most of the negative statistics disproportionately associated with minorities. Higher crime, lower education, and the like. Incidentally, this appears true, as whites in similar situations show the same "negative" statistics, but the larger percentage of whites who do alright economically balances that out over the population as a whole.
So, simply including socioeconomic status of a person's family effectively predicts the same things as race.
"This will go on your permanent record!", for years just an idle threat, may finally have some real meaning.
And for any HS'ers reading this and wondering if I tell the truth... I had less than stellar grades (before college, where I did very well). Got suspended once. Due to moving, I may not actually have ever completed 5th grade. Yet, I got accepted to every college to which I applied (including a few "big name" ones, of which I actually went to WPI my first year. Hated it and left, but that goes beyond my intended point).
Though, I do have to wonder about the darker side of such tracking. Already, we have students removed from regular classes for so little an offense as acting different, for writing "dark" poetry, for daring to speak against the system even on private websites. I see this finding more use in eliminating MORE people from the regular education system than it will in keeping potential dropouts in school.
Conform. Or else.
Sigh.
I think the Mutual Standards Base should be created from the best of both.
;-)
Oh, good... Someone else who read the title and thought it referred to some problem between endianness and POSIX.
(Don't know if anyone else will notice you meant that as a joke, though...)
How does it comepare to RAR thou?
Check out the comparison table at 7-zip's homepage.
It claims about 9% better than WinRAR. I haven't personally verified that claim (mostly because I never RAR anything, I either zip them or 7z them), but... Since it costs nothing, download a copy (From the link I gave above) and see for yourself.
At worst, you'll delete it tomorrow. At best, you'll find a great new (free!) program to handle all your de/compression needs (And no, I have nothing to do with its development, so this doesn't count as a shameless plug).
Wow, no down-mods as a troll for you yet?
Well, let's pretend you didn't mean to start a "better language" war, and address your points.
Don't even get me started on the 'C is faster than C++ myth'. Only in the hands of an idiot.
MYTH??? Bring it on, Java-boy. Pick any CPU intensive task, and my C code will DESTROY your best Java code for speed.
Java does have its uses, including decent type checking and memory management, as you mentioned. Those carry a cost, however. You don't get something for nothing, and with Java, the cost comes in the form of a performance hit.
most programmers don't have enough training to use a more complex language.
A curious statement... Would you care to give a few examples of more "complex" languages? Particularly with regards to their greater-than-Turing-completeness compared to C?
Or do you mean syntactically, in the sense that you find Brainfuck and Malbolge the epitome of a perfect programming language?
C is really just glorified assembly language.
Yes and no. For the most part, you can trivially convert C to assembler line-by-line, without too much effort. However, the nice neat flow control mechanisms of C makes it almost immeasurably easier to work with than assembler. Don't get me wrong, I do like asm (just can't beat it for speed), but it works best for drop-in function replacements, not for creating the entire framework of a large application.
I think C is only still alive because it is supported on most systems,
Heh... Which, ironically enough, counts as the ONLY reason Java came into existance, and even now that it has "matured", I can build an ANSI-C compatible program on about 6x more platforms than you can run a standard Java app on (whichver "standard" of compatibility you want to pretend exists for Java).
Now go ahead, suck up the humility and grudgingly point out that, since most Java implementations come written in C, you could build a VM on any machine with a C compiler. But that kinda defeats your own point. (And, at least half of those platforms lack the resources to actually *use* the Java VM, although I have to admit I'd like to see someone try using Java on an embedded 68HC05 with 4k ROM and 256 bytes of RAM, if just for the amusement value).
Java has its place. C has its place. Scheme has its place. Perl and Python have their place. Tcl/Tk have their place. I won't pretend people can (or rather, "should", since technically anything the machine can do, you can use C to make it do so) use C for everything, if you don't pretend that C hasn't made it as the single most widely supported and generally hardware-wise powerful language for a reason - Namely, it works, and what it does, it does well. You can try to use a hacksaw to cut lumber, but don't blame the hacksaw for doing the job poorly.
The ones that are like $1300 American each? Not exactly the most practical option, I'd say.
;-).
At the moment, no, not practical.
However, the parent post mentioned that he felt concerned that in the future he would not have the ability to get a large CRT.
10 years ago, 21" CRTs cost in that same range, around UDS $1000-$1500 for the entry level ones and going up steeply after that.
Three years ago I picked up a pair of them for just under $300 (great deal at the time, though now you can regularly get them in the $300-$400 range).
Don't know how I lived without it... The larger screen makes many tasks SO much easier, I can no longer stand to work for more than a few minutes on anything below 19" (like using a dialup after having a cablemodem for a few years). Of course, I also just set up my first "Real" dual monitor config... Once again, I don't know how I used to work with so much less screen area, I now look forward to exactly such cheap 21" LCDs as we dicsuss so I can tile an entire wall with them (or at the very least, 5 on-edge panels arranged around my desk in an arc).
But (forgive my rambling), a similar trend will apply to LCDs. They will come down in price to a reasonable range in a few years, long before CRTs become a rarity.
0844: pour cup of coffee before it's actually ready
Depending on your coffee maker, I discovered a trick to saving time with this...
Have your cup ready, with milk and sugar (or whatever you use in your coffee, personally I like a single ice-cube so I don't need to wait for it to cool) already in it.
Fill the pot with water, and place the coffee in the brewing basket.
Place your cup under the brewing basket, and dump the water into the appropriate spot on your machine.
Poof, instant cup of coffee. Just make sure to stick the pot under the stream of hot coffee as you remove your cup, or you'll have a bit of a mess.
Everybody, start using the (open source) 7-zip instead.
No kidding. It amazes me that a lot more people don't use this - It handles all the major formats (zip, tar, gz, bz2, cab, no "sit", though) better than the "native" program for them does, and hey, open source to boot. And, its "7z" format really does get 10-30% better compression than even bzip2.
Gotta agree with the other response to you, though - the interface needs MAJOR work. It doesn't "look" bad, but feels very counterintuitive. Hell, if they totally eliminated the psuedo-explorer-esque look and just let me drag-and-drop, I'd consider it perfect.
Yes. So sorry to see you leave! More jobs for me!!
Uh, not really, thus the entire point of the parent post. Rather than hire you or I for "only" half our salaries an allowing us to live somewhere cheaper, companies would rather hire someone in India or Eastern Europe.
So someone moving to such a place doesn't actually leave more jobs for us, it merely acknowledges that fewer and fewer jobs remain for domestic IT workers to take.
And now even IBM has gotten in on this, effectively "legitimizing" such reprehensible business practices.
Well, we may all suffer for it, but eventually corporate America will realize that you can't sell products to people who have no money. So just let them keep laying us off, and when the starving mobs appear in the boardroom with torches and pitchforks, they can't say they couldn't see it coming.
If you were to fly over the red areas, you would be tugged ever so slightly downwards;
;-)
As opposed to? Yes, in our normal experience, gravity acts as an attractive force.
the blues mark regions where the planet's attraction is much weaker.
"Much weaker"? The entire range corresponds to about 0.1% of Earth's mean gravitational attraction. For comparison, the apparent decrease in local gravity at the equator due to centrifugal force FAR exceeds the differences shown in the linked article (by a factor of about 5, in fact). And even that only changes the local apparent force to 9.78m/s/s.
Then again, I suppose we have separate careers called "journalist" and "scientist" for a reason.
it's indicative of the kind of blinders-on, hands-on-ears mentality that's really prevalent here
I actually did not mean it as such. I really, honestly read and re-read the answers, with the hope that they would make some sense to somewhat attenuate the anti-RIAA and legal-pessimism you correctly identify as rampant on Slashdot. I did not expect the DoJ to say "okay, pirate all you want", but I did expect at least serious answers.
Instead, their answers left me rather dissapointed even in my low expectations. Rather than giving us any useful information, even so far as opinions go, they gave half a dozen printed pages of standard legal doublespeak and CYA'ing. In the entirety of their responses, they only managed to really "say" two clear things - That they will continue to act as the RIAA's executioners; and that morality and reality have no place whatsoever in the performance of the DoJ's duties.
If I had to distill all the questions down to one simple core idea, it would amount to "Do you guys really consider all of us who download even a single MP3, possibly of something we already own, as hardcore criminals who should serve years in prison and pay millions in fines?". And, despite that blunt theme through all the questions, they totally avoided outright saying the "yes" it seems like they would have liked. Perhaps they feared open revolt if it came out that the US government fully supports putting literally half the US population in prison?
I suppose part of the fault lies in my own expectations - I really should not have expected a group of lawyers to say anything meaningful. They actually understand just how screwed up our laws can seem, and, far more than most of us (possibly with good reason), apparently have a deep fear of everything they say coming back to bite them on the keister. Thus they say nothing, in as many words as possible. However, if they had no intention of seriously answering our questions, they should not have offered in the first place.
I don't think we can gut the DMCA just because it's being used in a heavy-handed fashion; it's got a real use, and that's protecting the person trying to make a living off of the software they wrote.
While a tad offtopic (in that I specifically avoided excessive mention of the DMCA in my post), I would like to reply to that anyway.
The DMCA does NOT protect people trying to make a living off their work. IP law already does that. The DMCA makes the implicit (and in some parts, explicit) assumption that the entire human race will violate copyright and steal IP if given half a chance. This runs so absolutely contrary to the core of US law that it amazes me that the supreme court didn't strike down the DMCA days after its passage. So yes, the whole thing does need to cease to exist. It counts as redundant at best, and more likely, entirely unconstitutional. Though, of course, "We the People" don't get to decide that, rich old men in the RIAA's pockets do.
(While sarcastic, I have attempted to not outright put words in their mouth, for which they would no doubt find a reason to sentence me to federally-sanctioned assrape).
...
has been successfully charged with perjury?
Q) What services [do you offer] for an open source copyright holder
A) None. We consider the "seriousness of the offense", and since open source neither involves money, nor do we take it serious, we mostly ignore the lot of you. Insert example of an actually for-profit small business suffering that we helped.
Q) Can you please enlighten me as to why software and media "pirates" as well as other "computer criminals" are in many cases treated worse than rapists and violent criminals who use weapons?
A) They don't actually get worse sentences, they get a maximum of five years per count. Now please don't do the math to figure out that, while most people only commit one or two murders, all you pitiful little geeks carry around "mix" CDs that, at our whim, would get you 800 years in the federal pen to hang out with all those murderers and rapists you mention.
Q) If DRM-included hardware does become the law via the CBDTPA (SSSCA) or any other legislation, how does this interact with regards to copyright expiration?
A) Look at the monkey. Look! Look at it! Oh, and don't circumvent any copy protection, or else.
Q) how will you prevent this 'going native' phenomenon?
A) We prefer to think of it as "becoming civilized" rather than "going native". Insert "mom & pop" reference again. Mention "checks and balances" that have no relevance since we decide who to bring to trial in the first place. Damnit, stop thinking out loud.
Q) Do you feel that you truly have sufficient technical experience as opposed to your obvious legal ones?
A) No.
Q)Accordingly, what steps are being taken to clarify the correct terminology and to avoid jingoistic use of words like 'theft', 'thieves' and 'stealing' amongst law enforcement and elsewhere?
A) Sorry, false advertising cases go to the FCC, who just got spanked by congress so don't expect much from them for a few decades.
Q) does [fair use] exist?
A) Yes, for journalists. All you damn thieves (see previous answer) can go pound sand. If you don't like DRM, don't buy - er, license - any new music or movies.
Q) Is a distinction made between different levels of IP infringement?
A) Yes. We prosecute yours, while the RIAA can do no wrong. Mom & Pop. Civil matter, go away. Meep.
Q) Do you know of any cases in which the sender of an invalid takedown notice
A) No no no, you misunderstand. They don't actually have to tell the truth, they just need to actually hold the copyright they claim you infringe. We don't really give a damn whether or not they actually have a sound basis for harassing all you plebes and sticking you with huge legal bills - We just care that you don't do use similar tactics on the real "victims" here, the RIAA. (I wish I didn't mock this one so true to the actual answer).
Q) What is your opinion on the case of Daniel Peng?
A) No comment.
Q) do you find that these anti-IP-infringement techniques have a real effect on preventing such things from happenning?
A) Yes, but not enough. Damnit, if only we could make these things electrocute people who tamper with them! That'd teach you damn hippies.
Q) As a Canadian I am curious as to the co-operation you receive (if any) from agencies outside the US?
A) While historically the Canadians have told us to go [expletive deleted] ourselves on matters of IP and copyright, thanks to our recent proving of our total and utter insanity in Iraq, we have made great strides in expanding US legal hegemony. We have complete confidence that, within a few years, we won't even need to go through diplomatic channels to simply abduct foreign nationals in their sleep for the purpose of pretending to give them a fair trial here in the Land of the Free.
So I'll only have to be careful for a maximum of 60 months in prison while bending over for the soap, as opposed to 70 to 87. That's good news.
I resisted hitting "reply" when I first read that in the DoJ's response, but since you commented on it...
I can't help but notice the phrase "for one count".
5 years per count of copyright violation.
Wow.
So, basically, taking an RIAA-esque interpretation of copyright law, all of us carrying around an MP3 mix CD could literally receive an 800-year sentence in a the federal pen.
But really, the DoJ insists that copyright doesn't carry stiffer penalties than rape or murder.
BS. Does anyone else notice that most of the DoJ's answers seem directed toward justifying their corporate pandering, while at the same time denying it?
I think their answer to the "do you have any technically competent people" basically covers it. They all but said "no". "Well, Steve does fairly well with those neato Microsoft Office programs, but when we have real trouble, like how to open a new type of email attachment, we call Jimmy up from the mail room to help us out". Yeah. Whatever.
Put simply, they have such a poor grasp of modern tech culture that they really believe a person might only have a single infringing file in their posession. Hell, I have more than that which I've downloaded accidentally, yet they don't consider the penalties a tad draconian.
The 60's started a generational war with the WO(s)D. Looks like we've kicked off the new millenium with a generational war on geeks.
You don't need a zippy 2GB drive, you just need an extra 2GB of RAM...
:-)
Heh, now THAT I could go for. Considering the low price of RAM, I can think of nothing better. Perhaps with the advent of 64bit desktop PCs (and the associated larger address space), we'll finally see that as a real (or even default) option. Ahhh...
Actually, as an aside, I have made a setup very much like that in my work on embedded Linux systems. Don't know if it would work as well for Windows, which doesn't seem to support the idea of remounting the root partition on a ramdisk, but under Linux, it made certain things go INCREDIBLY fast. Like starting and restoring a full X session in literally 3 seconds. Like any normal program invokes instantly (We have grown used to waiting a second or two for even most trivial programs (like "true") to respond the first time they run in a while... The difference stuns you the first few dozen times).
As another aside, I do use a ramdisk for the Windows temp directory, and while not as drastic as my above Linux example, it does make a noticeable difference in many programs (and, theoretically, should reduce long-term file fragmentation as a nice bonus).
Do they have the legal rights to control such?
I very much hope they DO have the right to ban an RF signal that just happens to go through their property.
Because...
By the legal implications of such a decision, I would very much like to sue DTV to stop irradiating my home. And Sprint. And Verizon. And any other company with which I do not have a service contract that finds it simply "convenient" to not need to target their signal only to their users..
And no, I do not wear a tin-foil beanie. I just object to having a signal on my property, through my body, through my electronic equipment, that I neither want nor have the right to access without paying someone for a signal that already exists.
However, I expect the stadium to lose, for the same reason. Winning would set a VERY dangerous precedent to our corporate masters.
I often wonder how much stuff could be packed in a 16-platter douhle-height 8 inch hard-disk drive...
;-)
At 50Gb/in^2, with a half-inch spindle, just a hair over 10TB. Which nicely illustrates my exact point.
Also, though they may not read it, I'd like to reply here to the other comments to my post (I do so hate writing the same things more than once - Slashdot needs a sort of post-a-hardlink capability to prevent on-thread discussions from fanning out uncontrollably .
I realize spinning an 8" platter at 7200RPM doesn't really make all that great of an idea. I don't suggest spinning them that fast - Why not 1200RPM? Yeah, slower seek times (though with a large number of platters and a decent physical layout, overall transfer rate doesn't need to drop), but that satisfies what I (and I believe many people) want - Obscene amounts of drive space, and as long as I can still load an OGG, or an uncompressed digital cam image, or a bloated PDF manual, in a second or two, it runs "fast enough". Human response times make file access times completely irrelevant for anything not directly critical to overall system performance (ie, keep a zippy 2GB drive for the OS, and give me my nice slow 2TB drive for everything else).
They also talked about drive sizes changes (3.5in -> 2.5in)
Bah, why always smaller???
Current HDDs store 50Gb/in^2, and area increases with the square of the radius. That single inch decrease results in literally half the platter area (not counting the spindle). OTOH, with even current areal densities we could have 1TB 5.25" HDDs. THAT would make me a happy consumer.
But no, that would make too much sense. Instead, they'll shrink the drive, requiring radical new (and untested in the wilds) technologies just to keep up with the same overall size.
Hey, I can appreciate smaller in most aspects of technology. But as long as we store data on spinning platters, where surface area matters, bigger, up to the width of a typical case (ie, 5.25in), makes a WHOLE lot more sense. Hell, use 10" platters and design the case around the HDD lying parallel to the MB for all I care, as long as I have obscene amounts of drive space.
Then again, I probably count as one of the few people who considered the Quantum Bigfoot series a great idea - Large, cheap, somewhat slower drives. For most uses, as long as a drive has a "reasonable" seek time and transfer rate (ie, within an order of magnitude of other modern drives), size matters more than speed. Most of us don't do realtime DV processing, we store tons of what amounts to largely offline content (ie, a huge CD changer would do just as well, other than for the drive we keep our OS on).
Rather than trying to make cron do something it doesn't want to (which obviously won't work in this situation without modifying cron, not a good idea if you rely on it for other things), write a tiny program that does nothing more than load a list of GMT times at which it needs to do something, and executes a script associated with that time.
You'd need only one main config file, looking something like:
00:00 script.ut
16:00 script.pmt
19:00 script.edt
(blah, blah, blah)
And each individual script could have as much variation as you possibly want.
The program would take very close to no memory or CPU, needing only a few dozen time/scriptname pairs at most, and it would just sleep() 99.99999% of the time. Depending on what sort of security you need on the individual midnight events, you could write such a program in under 50 lines easily.
As for daylight savings, if you really need to guarantee your program runs at midnight, add a single flag to the config file to specify an offset function to use. You'd realistically only need three, one for the screwed up dates the US uses for changing to/from daylight saving time, one for the EU's summer time, and one for no change. 10 lines of code each.