If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system?
To lend an air of legitimacy to his claims knowing no one will really backup their system. Or the trojan could be delayed by so long that by the time it activates the backups will be useless anyway.
Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
Well, literally, the disclaimer is saying he doesn't guarantee it not to screw up your system. It's reverse-reverse psychology: If I say it will definately work, no one will believe me, so I'll say it may not work and then they will think it will.
I'm not claiming it is or isn't malware, but the evidence you've provided is hardly compelling that it isn't.
Scantron readers and the like are generally designed around preventing the person filling out the form from cheating. There is little incentive for the person grading the test to want to cheat, nor the company making them to want to fudge the grades. The student usually gets his test paper back and can complain if the scanner marked it incorrectly. None of this is true for voting. The scanners can be rigged and there is no way to check that they are right except my a manual recount.
This is not to say that it can't work with the right procedures and protocols, but the suitability of scanners for grading papers, where only one person has a vested interest in the outcome and is able to double check it, doesn't necessarily make them suitable for voting.
The preferred method of working with Blender is one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard. I've noticed that, in most applications, the number of times I have to switch from mouse to keyboard greatly affects my productivity.
They're definitely not mutually exclusive. Easy to use and easy to learn is the holy grail of interface design. If Photoshop's is both, they do deserve credit.
That being said, I feel that any GUI application with a well-designed interface should be fairly intuitive and I should be able to get up to speed in a few minutes (I learn quickly).... My experiences with other peoples' work proves that The Gimp is capable and powerful. My experiences with my own work proves that The Gimp has a steep learning curve mostly due to its odd interface.
I think you're confusing "easy to learn" with "easy to use". An interface that is simple and intuitive can often get in the way of productivity. Often used functions that are easy to find may take several mouse clicks to use when a keyboard command, while not intuitive, would make it much easier to do the same thing. Blender is a great example of this. "Intuitive" is the last thing I would call the interface, but once you learn it it's incredibly productive. Whether or not Gimp falls into this category, I don't know as I'm not a graphic designer nor do I have much experience with either Photoshop or Gimp. But how easy it is to learn should not be the sole, or even primary, metric on judging an interface. For serious work, where someone is going to take the time to learn the application beyond the hobby user level, how easy it is to perform common tasks is going to trump easy to learn every time.
Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!
on
Spammer Sues SpamCop
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You have to be taking a proactive action by filling out and submitting the form. That's enough to make it opt in.
If the primary purpose of the form, from the user's point of view, is to get on the spam list, then yes, it's opt in. If getting on the spam list is a side-effect of filling out the form (for example, to get an email confirmation of an order), then it's opt out.
There are three possibities for any yes/no question: question answered "yes"; question answered "no"; and question not answered. It's what you do in the "question not answered" case that determines if it's opt in or opt out. If "question not answered" puts you on the list, it's opt out. If it doesn't, it's opt in. If you don't ask the question and put them on the list, it's opt out.
Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!
on
Spammer Sues SpamCop
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Opt in with one of Richter's site, and just like the name of his company implies, you opt in REAL BIG to absolutely anybody who wants to Spam you via him. Oh, the dangers of leaving a pre-checked checkbox still checked when you submit the form.
A checkbox asking for commercial email that is checked by default is opt out, not opt in. The user still has to take action to not get spam.
Do you want spam from us? [default: yes] Do you not want spam from us? [default: no]
They both say "we will send you spam unless you tell us otherwise". Both are opt out.
If you want to be completely contrary you could say that a violent crime isn't a thread to society. It's only a threat to its single victim, and therefore 99.999% of society aren't affected, or threatened, at all.
Violent crimes are a threat to society because they infringe on the rights of a single victim. Our society (assuming US) is based on the protection of the rights of the individual. If violence against a single victim is not prevented, then the society becomes one of "might makes right" rather than the society we have now. I'd call that a significant threat to society.
Whether you thinks there's a good reason or not, it IS illegal to copy a song. End of story. You're committing a crime.
Do you even read before you post? My entire fucking point is that it's illegal and shouldn't be. Who the hell would argue against it being illegal if it wasn't illegal?
a) it's copyright infringement, not theft. They are not the same. Not even close.
b) if the copyright holder is not selling it, there's no loss if someone copies it. End of story. No harm whatsoever. There is no good reason for copying a song that you can't buy to be illegal.
Spam costs my ISP much more than it costs me since they have to pay for their bandwidth and the equipment to handle the traffic. I'm only indirectly affected (my ISP account costs a little more each month, but that's the extent of it). So giving me the $500 doesn't help my ISP, but if I don't get the $500 I'm less likely to report it. And having my ISP report it means they would have to read all my email to decide what is spam and what isn't. I don't want them doing that (yes, I know they can anyway, but they have little reason to now).
But, yes, I've always said that when spammers pay the total cost of delivery, they can send me as much as they want. Junk postal mail is an annoyance but it doesn't cost me anything, so I tolerate it. Spam defrays the some of the cost of sending the email to the end user (at least indirectly), which is what makes it a problem.
Fines for spam should actually help curb it since the profitability is the motive. Take the profit out of the equation and most of the spam should dry up. But there will be some who will be able to charge enough to make the fines just another cost of doing business. For these people (as well as those who just flat out refuse to pay the fines) jail may be the only punishment that stops them from doing it.
That's why you fine them a percentage of their assets.
The argument against that is why should one person be punished more than another for committing the same crime? It depends on your definitions of "penalty" and "punishment". And how do you punish someone with no assets? It would also greatly complicate the process. Can you imagine having to perform an audit on everyone who ran a red light just to calculate their fine? It can also lead to corruption within the system. Municipalities could decide to target more expensive cars for traffic offenses knowing the fine will be more. There goes equal protection under the law...
I hate spam as much as the next person, but PLEASE explain how it outright hurts the economy. Show me how the dent in the overall US Economy that was made because of spammers.
It's theft of services. If millions of people decided not to pay their phone bills, that would hurt the economy.
I don't care how you look at it, a spammer is not a threat to society.
Violent crimes are not the only threat to society. Theft, unpunished, is a threat to society. The whole idea of property goes out the window if you don't punish theft. No property means no incentive to be productive (in a capitalist society such as ours). Why work to buy property if someone can take it from you? Why work to buy property if you can take if from someone else?
Crimes that AREN'T a threat to society should only be punishable by a fine.
a) anything that's not a threat to society should not be a crime.
b) Fines just allow the wealthy to break the law because they can afford to.
They really don't have a choice. It's not trademark infringement unless you're using the term to describe a canned meat product that is not made by Hormel.
Except, if you download this older music, it may make you less likely to buy currently available music.
First, the new songs are not the old songs. If I want the old song, a new song is not a replacement for it. So this scenario isn't very likely. Second, even if it does make me less likely to buy the new music, so what? Buying a used car makes me less likely to buy a new car. Should that be illegal? The purpose of Copyright is not to protect the label's market share.
But our (the U.S.) legal system doesn't allow people to make up new rules just 'cause they don't like the way things work.
But it does allow us to voice our opinions when the law is wrong and try to get it changed. We should be thankful for that, too.
The RAII has no issues with you watching it on a Linux box.
Yes they do. The DMCA says so. The code to view the DVD on a Linux machine "cracks the encryption". Guess what, so does the code to view it on a Windows machine. There is no difference between the Linux machine and the Windows machine when they decode the DVD to be viewed. Yet one is legal and the other is not.
It has nothing to do with your OS, and everything to do with how most people here interpret what is "fair use". Personally, I have no problem paying for the right to view a DVD or listen to a CD.
Nobody is suggesting you should be allowed to view DVD's without paying for them.
The real criminals, oh like say the ones that they are actively bringing to court over their usage of P2P networks to trade illicit MP3's?
The RIAA is not just going after the "real criminals". Borrowing heavily from Lawrence Lessig, there are essentially four kinds of downloading going on:
1) Those who download instead of buying. These are the "real criminals" and nobody is arguing whether this should be illegal.
2) Those who download and then buy. Yes, it does happen. People download a song, like it, and then buy the album. These are not the "real criminals". This is helping the recording industry, not hurting it, and it shouldn't be illegal.
3) Those who download what is no longer commercially available. If they aren't selling it, there's no lost profit from the illicit copy, and thus no harm.
4) Those who download songs the copyright holder has given permission to download, or songs that are in the public domain. This is completely legal.
The RIAA wants you to believe that everyone they're suing is in category 1. But it's not true. They aren't making the distinction.
The interviewer bordered on whining with his "I rented a DVD at Blockbuster, why is it illegal for me to play it with my 6-line Linux DVD program on my homebuilt HDTV?" argument, repeated ad nauseum.
Which neither Valenti, nor you, addressed adequately.
The question is not what gives you the right to watch it on a Linux computer. The question is what's the harm if someone does? How does watching a movie on a Windows machine differ from watching the same movie on the same computer with Linux as the OS? How does the movie industry suffer from this? Why should it be illegal? It is their responsibility to prove the harm, not ours to prove the right.
(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:
(1) literary works;
(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;
(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;
(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
(7) sound recordings; and
(8) architectural works.
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.[emphasis mine]
Ideas are not protected. Only the expression of the idea.
Though these WiFi Trackers do sound like a good idea, maybe if the parents kept a good eye on their children, the need for these trackers could be avoided.
Despite the best efforts of the most responsible parents, some kids do get lost. Used properly (ie. not replacing supervision, but supplementing it), the trackers could be very helpful. It's like insurance: nobody wants to need it but nobody wants to not have it. It's a backup. As long as it's used as a backup, there's no problem.
My only problem with this is the tendency some people have to rely on technology. In other words, I'm afraid some parents will think that they don't have to watch their children because the tracking device will do that for them.
But that's a problem with people, not the technology.
Slashdot Mirror
If he was trying to get you to download and install a Trojan horse, why would he tell you to backup your system?
To lend an air of legitimacy to his claims knowing no one will really backup their system. Or the trojan could be delayed by so long that by the time it activates the backups will be useless anyway.
Why would he have a disclaimer with dire warnings about 'no warranty' and "damages" rather than a statement that the software is "r33ly L33t" and that you need it now?
Well, literally, the disclaimer is saying he doesn't guarantee it not to screw up your system. It's reverse-reverse psychology: If I say it will definately work, no one will believe me, so I'll say it may not work and then they will think it will.
I'm not claiming it is or isn't malware, but the evidence you've provided is hardly compelling that it isn't.
Scantron readers and the like are generally designed around preventing the person filling out the form from cheating. There is little incentive for the person grading the test to want to cheat, nor the company making them to want to fudge the grades. The student usually gets his test paper back and can complain if the scanner marked it incorrectly. None of this is true for voting. The scanners can be rigged and there is no way to check that they are right except my a manual recount.
This is not to say that it can't work with the right procedures and protocols, but the suitability of scanners for grading papers, where only one person has a vested interest in the outcome and is able to double check it, doesn't necessarily make them suitable for voting.
The preferred method of working with Blender is one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard. I've noticed that, in most applications, the number of times I have to switch from mouse to keyboard greatly affects my productivity.
They're definitely not mutually exclusive. Easy to use and easy to learn is the holy grail of interface design. If Photoshop's is both, they do deserve credit.
That being said, I feel that any GUI application with a well-designed interface should be fairly intuitive and I should be able to get up to speed in a few minutes (I learn quickly). ...
My experiences with other peoples' work proves that The Gimp is capable and powerful. My experiences with my own work proves that The Gimp has a steep learning curve mostly due to its odd interface.
I think you're confusing "easy to learn" with "easy to use". An interface that is simple and intuitive can often get in the way of productivity. Often used functions that are easy to find may take several mouse clicks to use when a keyboard command, while not intuitive, would make it much easier to do the same thing. Blender is a great example of this. "Intuitive" is the last thing I would call the interface, but once you learn it it's incredibly productive. Whether or not Gimp falls into this category, I don't know as I'm not a graphic designer nor do I have much experience with either Photoshop or Gimp. But how easy it is to learn should not be the sole, or even primary, metric on judging an interface. For serious work, where someone is going to take the time to learn the application beyond the hobby user level, how easy it is to perform common tasks is going to trump easy to learn every time.
You have to be taking a proactive action by filling out and submitting the form. That's enough to make it opt in.
If the primary purpose of the form, from the user's point of view, is to get on the spam list, then yes, it's opt in. If getting on the spam list is a side-effect of filling out the form (for example, to get an email confirmation of an order), then it's opt out.
There are three possibities for any yes/no question: question answered "yes"; question answered "no"; and question not answered. It's what you do in the "question not answered" case that determines if it's opt in or opt out. If "question not answered" puts you on the list, it's opt out. If it doesn't, it's opt in. If you don't ask the question and put them on the list, it's opt out.
Opt in with one of Richter's site, and just like the name of his company implies, you opt in REAL BIG to absolutely anybody who wants to Spam you via him. Oh, the dangers of leaving a pre-checked checkbox still checked when you submit the form.
A checkbox asking for commercial email that is checked by default is opt out, not opt in. The user still has to take action to not get spam.
Do you want spam from us? [default: yes]
Do you not want spam from us? [default: no]
They both say "we will send you spam unless you tell us otherwise". Both are opt out.
If you want to be completely contrary you could say that a violent crime isn't a thread to society. It's only a threat to its single victim, and therefore 99.999% of society aren't affected, or threatened, at all.
Violent crimes are a threat to society because they infringe on the rights of a single victim. Our society (assuming US) is based on the protection of the rights of the individual. If violence against a single victim is not prevented, then the society becomes one of "might makes right" rather than the society we have now. I'd call that a significant threat to society.
Whether you thinks there's a good reason or not, it IS illegal to copy a song. End of story. You're committing a crime.
Do you even read before you post? My entire fucking point is that it's illegal and shouldn't be. Who the hell would argue against it being illegal if it wasn't illegal?
STEALING an old song is, and should be, illegal.
a) it's copyright infringement, not theft. They are not the same. Not even close.
b) if the copyright holder is not selling it, there's no loss if someone copies it. End of story. No harm whatsoever. There is no good reason for copying a song that you can't buy to be illegal.
Spam costs my ISP much more than it costs me since they have to pay for their bandwidth and the equipment to handle the traffic. I'm only indirectly affected (my ISP account costs a little more each month, but that's the extent of it). So giving me the $500 doesn't help my ISP, but if I don't get the $500 I'm less likely to report it. And having my ISP report it means they would have to read all my email to decide what is spam and what isn't. I don't want them doing that (yes, I know they can anyway, but they have little reason to now).
But, yes, I've always said that when spammers pay the total cost of delivery, they can send me as much as they want. Junk postal mail is an annoyance but it doesn't cost me anything, so I tolerate it. Spam defrays the some of the cost of sending the email to the end user (at least indirectly), which is what makes it a problem.
Fines for spam should actually help curb it since the profitability is the motive. Take the profit out of the equation and most of the spam should dry up. But there will be some who will be able to charge enough to make the fines just another cost of doing business. For these people (as well as those who just flat out refuse to pay the fines) jail may be the only punishment that stops them from doing it.
That's why you fine them a percentage of their assets.
The argument against that is why should one person be punished more than another for committing the same crime? It depends on your definitions of "penalty" and "punishment". And how do you punish someone with no assets? It would also greatly complicate the process. Can you imagine having to perform an audit on everyone who ran a red light just to calculate their fine? It can also lead to corruption within the system. Municipalities could decide to target more expensive cars for traffic offenses knowing the fine will be more. There goes equal protection under the law...
I hate spam as much as the next person, but PLEASE explain how it outright hurts the economy. Show me how the dent in the overall US Economy that was made because of spammers.
It's theft of services. If millions of people decided not to pay their phone bills, that would hurt the economy.
I don't care how you look at it, a spammer is not a threat to society.
Violent crimes are not the only threat to society. Theft, unpunished, is a threat to society. The whole idea of property goes out the window if you don't punish theft. No property means no incentive to be productive (in a capitalist society such as ours). Why work to buy property if someone can take it from you? Why work to buy property if you can take if from someone else?
Crimes that AREN'T a threat to society should only be punishable by a fine.
a) anything that's not a threat to society should not be a crime.
b) Fines just allow the wealthy to break the law because they can afford to.
They really don't have a choice. It's not trademark infringement unless you're using the term to describe a canned meat product that is not made by Hormel.
Except, if you download this older music, it may make you less likely to buy currently available music.
First, the new songs are not the old songs. If I want the old song, a new song is not a replacement for it. So this scenario isn't very likely. Second, even if it does make me less likely to buy the new music, so what? Buying a used car makes me less likely to buy a new car. Should that be illegal? The purpose of Copyright is not to protect the label's market share.
But our (the U.S.) legal system doesn't allow people to make up new rules just 'cause they don't like the way things work.
But it does allow us to voice our opinions when the law is wrong and try to get it changed. We should be thankful for that, too.
There is no harm in watching it on a Linux box.
Then why should it be illegal?
The RAII has no issues with you watching it on a Linux box.
Yes they do. The DMCA says so. The code to view the DVD on a Linux machine "cracks the encryption". Guess what, so does the code to view it on a Windows machine. There is no difference between the Linux machine and the Windows machine when they decode the DVD to be viewed. Yet one is legal and the other is not.
It has nothing to do with your OS, and everything to do with how most people here interpret what is "fair use". Personally, I have no problem paying for the right to view a DVD or listen to a CD.
Nobody is suggesting you should be allowed to view DVD's without paying for them.
The real criminals, oh like say the ones that they are actively bringing to court over their usage of P2P networks to trade illicit MP3's?
The RIAA is not just going after the "real criminals". Borrowing heavily from Lawrence Lessig, there are essentially four kinds of downloading going on:
1) Those who download instead of buying. These are the "real criminals" and nobody is arguing whether this should be illegal.
2) Those who download and then buy. Yes, it does happen. People download a song, like it, and then buy the album. These are not the "real criminals". This is helping the recording industry, not hurting it, and it shouldn't be illegal.
3) Those who download what is no longer commercially available. If they aren't selling it, there's no lost profit from the illicit copy, and thus no harm.
4) Those who download songs the copyright holder has given permission to download, or songs that are in the public domain. This is completely legal.
The RIAA wants you to believe that everyone they're suing is in category 1. But it's not true. They aren't making the distinction.
Where is the harm in watching it on a Linux box? Why should it be illegal to do so?
The interviewer bordered on whining with his "I rented a DVD at Blockbuster, why is it illegal for me to play it with my 6-line Linux DVD program on my homebuilt HDTV?" argument, repeated ad nauseum.
Which neither Valenti, nor you, addressed adequately.
The question is not what gives you the right to watch it on a Linux computer. The question is what's the harm if someone does? How does watching a movie on a Windows machine differ from watching the same movie on the same computer with Linux as the OS? How does the movie industry suffer from this? Why should it be illegal? It is their responsibility to prove the harm, not ours to prove the right.
No, that's apparently what patents are for (JPEG, one-click, etc).
d mode.
The patent office is currently in grant-it-and-let-someone-else-tell-us-it's-no-goo
I could probably patent the sandwich.
2. Using a knife or other spreading utensil, apply condiments to bread slices
That would infringe upon my bread-buttering patent.
According to Copyright Law:
Ideas are not protected. Only the expression of the idea.
Though these WiFi Trackers do sound like a good idea, maybe if the parents kept a good eye on their children, the need for these trackers could be avoided.
Despite the best efforts of the most responsible parents, some kids do get lost. Used properly (ie. not replacing supervision, but supplementing it), the trackers could be very helpful. It's like insurance: nobody wants to need it but nobody wants to not have it. It's a backup. As long as it's used as a backup, there's no problem.
My only problem with this is the tendency some people have to rely on technology. In other words, I'm afraid some parents will think that they don't have to watch their children because the tracking device will do that for them.
But that's a problem with people, not the technology.
The other side to this is that if people understood more physics, they might find the bad physics less entertaining.