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User: Hallow

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  1. Evil CD's? Make UMG suffer! on Universal Music Prepares for Copy-Protection Complaints · · Score: 1

    Everyone with a Linux/BSD/etc. unix box, everyone with a Mac, should go buy as many of these cd's as they can afford. Open the packages. And return all of them because they won't play on your computer. They won't be able to sell them as new again, and UMG could be out some big $$. They want to screw the consumers over? I say let's screw them over!

  2. Modifying Source-Available, Non-Free Products on Should Public Funds Mean Public Code? · · Score: 1

    The modifications to those source-available non-open source products could be put in a patch, and that patch could then be put under a BSD license (allowing the owner of the original software, as well as other users, to benefit).

    If the license of the original product allows distribution of patches, that is. If they don't, then it might well be reasonable to have an exception, such that all code generated with public funds that can legally be released in an open source fashion must be. - If it can't legally be released, then don't release it. If it can be, it should have to be.

  3. Re:Not hard at all... on Gift Card Hacking · · Score: 1

    Using DPS blows chunks - I wonder if they'll ever modernize the system. However, it makes a lot of sense. You can't steal what's not on the shelves, and it's easier to track who's got what in stock. I'm surprised it took them this long to tie it into their website (which I founded by the way, back in the answer city pc days) so that you could purchase stuff online and pick it up at the store.

    If it wasn't for the fact that I totally abhor the corporate culture their at CC (which insiders know as Circuit Shitty), and the fact that I don't like high pressure commmission based sales, I might actually like CC (comes from being dicked over on the website creation and then being layed off).

    I'm now a Best Buy addict who avoids circuit city whenever possible, and advises my friends to do the same. 90 days to 1 year same as cash baby!

  4. Re:This does not bode well... on Palm/3Com Graffiti A Patent Infringement on Xerox · · Score: 1
    First of, let me state that I have no problems with Xerox being paid for their invention. However, considering the increasing competition from Microsoft, and the current faltering of Palm, this could potentially be devestating to the PalmOS world. Palm/3Com (don't know how that's going to be split!) are going to have to pay years and years of damages on top of licensing the patent.

    Palm could certainly change PalmOS to use a different character recognition technology - for example TealScript already does this (although it too appears to be infringing on Xerox's patent).

    Graffiti seems well integrated into PalmOS though, and to really fully replace it I'm sure would take more than writing a plugin.

  5. This does not bode well... on Palm/3Com Graffiti A Patent Infringement on Xerox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    for Palm or it's licensees, Handspring, Sony, and HandEra (and perhaps others). Xerox wants damages for infringement, plus they intend to force Palm to cease selling PDA's or to license the patent. If Palm can't afford it... all PalmOS based devices may be in trouble.

    Anyone know if BeOS had any non-infringing handwriting recognition? This might force Palm to move ahead with a switch to ARM and a new OS.

  6. Re:Inevitable? on CG Idols - Human Not Required · · Score: 1

    Everyone eventually dies. It might take a while, but everyone eventually does. There are no immortals. Life is a terminal illness.

  7. Re:These are all addressed on a state level on French Government Online-Why Isn't the U.S.? · · Score: 1

    How about a federally operated portal that provides links to all these services that the states offer?

    In other words, don't centralize the services... but centralize the way people find the services.

  8. Re:Why not U.S.? on French Government Online-Why Isn't the U.S.? · · Score: 1

    France != EU.

  9. Why LGPL is good. Why RMS is OK. on RMS Running For GNOME Board Of Directors · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The root cause IS creating free software, that's what the Gnome Project is about. But software that interoperates and is build ontop of the architecture that the Gnome Project provides can be free/costly, open/closed. Imagine if libc was straight gpl'd. You could have no commercial application written for Linux. An LGPL'd Gnome library set allows commercial apps to be written for Gnome, and sit side by side with free (beer and/or speech) applications. And the commercial developers don't have to pay anything extra to make use of these technologies.

    KDE, with QT, your apps are stuck being GPL'd, or you have to pay trolltech for QT. Yah, it's their project, they have the right too, blah blah blah.

    For something that's as "essential" as desktop gui apps and related services, lgpl is the way to go. You make it cheap for *everybody* to develop apps, and it's a win win situation.

    As far as RMS goes, he wrote emacs, created the FSF, the GPL, and the FSF has created so much great GNU software (especially for developers), it's not funny. I'd say he's provided a rather significant contribution to just about any project that uses GNU software, including the Gnome project. As such, by the rules, he should be able to run. Would he be a right fit? Will he be voted in? That's a whole other story.

    And as to the speculation as to why he's running? I haven't seen any links to any vitriolic GNU/Gnome (lol, sorry, couldn't resist) oriented emails. RMS is not a man who's known for hiding his opinions.

  10. Re:Protests on MS Settlement: Six States (And Samba) Say "Stop!" · · Score: 1

    The thing about a monopoly that makes it illegal is the use of control in one market to gain unfair advantage or control in another market.

    In the case of the X-box, MicroSoft is selling the hardware well below cost, riding on the funds their near total monopoly in desktop pc operating systems have given them, to enter into a new market.

    Sure, Sony and Nintendo do this too, betting on the software royalties to more than make up for the difference. But as far as I'm aware, neither has a monopoly (and no, a monopoly on a particular game doesn't count!)

  11. Re:8 minutes of commercials.. on U.S. Logo-Free TV Broadcast Organizations? · · Score: 1

    If he doesn't have a "private" balcony or patio they can. Also, if they provide a "community" dish they can as well.

  12. Re:AT&T digital cable on U.S. Logo-Free TV Broadcast Organizations? · · Score: 1

    I agree! AT&T digital cable was great for the first few months, when they were still actually mediaone in my area.

    The ads are annoying and are a hinderance to
    navigation. And it's really, really slow since
    they switched from the old text only menu (which wasn't blazing to being with).

    Regular digital channels, and even pay per movies get pixelated, and the picture jumps and disappears from time to time.

    The only decent thing they've done recently is
    add more adult channels. ;) lol.

    I'm very much considering shelling out the money for directv hardware and service (the "gimmie all the channels" platinum is equivalent, actually slightly better than I get now, for about $20 more/month). I've got some friends with it, and the interface is fast and snazzy, and they offer widescreen on some payperviews.

  13. Let him know... on Gilmore Commission Recommends Secret 'Cyber Court' · · Score: 1

    Go to Gilmore's site, and let him know what you think through his feedback from. ESPECIALLY if you are from VA. Try and keep it calm and rational though. Enough voices speak up, and this won't happen. One senator has changed his mind already, in part no doubt to some geeky persuasion.

  14. MySQL bashing. on Major Changes To MySQL Coming Soon · · Score: 1

    Enough of the MySQL bashing already. PostgreSQL is great ok? That doesn't mean there's not a place for MySQL.

    The place I work for is probably going to go with MySQL, and I'll tell you why.

    Currently, all our databases are in MS Access. The largest of which has about 12,000 rows, which could grow up to about 65,000 rows in my lifetime. In our couple of "big" datasets, updates are done annually.

    99.999% of everything we do will be database reads, with the occasional conference registration type deal.

    We require win32 odbc access, as we're still a primarily wintel shop (I don't like it, but I live with it for now). We need people to be able to connect, retrieve, and edit their data with Access, as it's what they know. MyODBC is far ahead of the PostgreSQL ODBC driver.

    It wouldn't make much sense for us to buy Oracle, or run PostgreSQL. It adds uneeded complexity where just using MySQL provides us with the needed speed improvement (900 ms for a query against access down to 30 ms for the same query against the same data in MySQL).

    Use the tool that fits the job. If we were doing GIS, storing gb's or tb's of data, needed massive fault tolerance, etc., we'd look towards Postgres or a commercial solution. But the truth is, we just don't need it... we need something inbetween Access and Postgres... something with the performance but relative ease of administration. MySQL fits that bill quite nicely.

  15. Re:I'm ashamed to say it, but I agree with RMS on Stallman: Thousands Dead, Millions Deprived of Liberties · · Score: 1

    Actually, you are incorrect. You do have the freedom to do those things, you don't have a control collar around your neck or a pain inducer implanted in your brain monitoring your thoughts to keep you from doing bad deeds. Yes, someone may well try and stop you.

    You must, however, deal with the consequences of having committed those acts.

    There's an old saying - "my rights end where yours begin" (or it could be your rights end where mine begin, either way). We do have to watch carefully and be vigilant, as someone may claim that they have the "right" to be and feel safe all the time, when certainly they do not, especiall when it would trample on my (our) right to freedom of speech, religion, press, etc.

  16. Re:The Canadian Connection? on More News And Links On Yesterday's Terrorist Attack · · Score: 1

    The issue is that it's been known for some time that anti-US groups, who want to get into the US, have a better chance if they use Canada as a way onto the continent, like the guy last year that wanted to blow up the space needle.

    I don't think we're placing blame on Canada, they're a free society very similar to our own, and the attack could have easily gone in the other direction. The blame is more on the openness of our border as a potential entry point. We're probably going to start treating everyone coming in from Canada and Mexico as if they were coming from any other foriegn country. :(

  17. Re:Thought expierement. on Full-Screen Video Over 28.8k: The Claims Continue · · Score: 1

    There was an article about Pi recently. There's an algorithm that will let you start grabbing pie at any given point. Pi potentially contains all possible combinations of numbers.

    All you'd need would be the stop point and the number of bits, allowing any data to be represented by just two numbers.

    The problem is finding the portion of Pi that matches. ;)

  18. Solutions on Australian Court OKs International Net-Defamation Suit · · Score: 1

    Ok, so how do we block everyone in Australia from accessing our websites? The only thing I can think of is to terminate their net access completely. But they could come in through some other country. So we'd have to block all other countries. Turning the international internet into a national network. Any country accessing "our" network would have to agree that any legal actions must be in U.S. courts under U.S. law at the least, perhaps even having to pay a hefty access fee.

    There are only two other (semi-reasonable without resorting to violence) options I see: a world government or UN court type oversight, or a treaty that prevents this crap.

  19. Re:Surprising? No... on Palm To Purchase Be's IP · · Score: 1

    I heard it stated quite a few times - the beos source can pretty much never be opened because they licensed quite a bit of code.

    I can understand how this could be an issue,
    but I mean, look at Netscape/Mozilla. Anything
    that's not there will be filled in given
    enough time, patience, and coding.

    I'd rather see something that looks like swiss
    cheese be released than have beos die.

  20. Re:Next DMCA test - prosecution for doing research on HDCP Encryption Cracked, Details Unreleased Due To DMCA · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, but most of the time the courts don't rule against the person who wrote the manual on how to pick the lock, created the skeleton key, or sold the lockpicks to the crook.

    It's the act of breaking the lock, not information, tools or ability that allow one to bypass the lock, that should be, and already was illegal.

  21. Re:Other Famous Computer Voice on Mega-ISP Update: Layoffs At AOL, Voices At MSN · · Score: 1

    Not to mention she also:

    played Lady Morella in Babylon 5.

    played a nurse in ST:TOS (nurse Chapel, who
    became a doctor in Star Trek the Movie).

    a doctor in E:FC.

    Mary Jane's Aunt Anna in the spiderman cartoons.

    Gwen Rutherford, "Lumpy"'s mom on Leave it to Beaver.

    http://us.imdb.com/Name?Barrett,+Majel

  22. Re:Big Deal? on Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Make what happen? Give people an irrational fear of the police? By far, the vast majority of police officers are honest, decent people. What's the old saying, a few bad apples spoil the bunch?

    Don't blame the police for the kid bolting and killing himself. Blame his stupidity, his driving skills (or lack thereof), and maybe put a little blame on society/news media.

    I'd love to have a world where cops wouldn't have to carry guns. But when teenage gangsters already have better firepower then they do? I'm sorry, but we live in a violent world, these men and women put their lives on the line every day, and should have a means to defend their lives.

  23. Re:Big Deal? on Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim · · Score: 1

    As far as I remember, there is no right to anonymity in the constitution. If that was the case, ever criminal would go free, claiming that the discovery of their identity was a violation of their right to anonymity. There are laws in this country as there are in any other.

    I don't think this even violates your right to privacy. They aren't filming you in your own home. They get you in public. You could probably even setup your own program to do this, and charge money to find deadbeat dads and such. It's perfectly legal, and IMHO, not that bad a thing. If you don't like it... move... or stay inside.

    If I become wanted for some reason, any reason, then the police use whatever they have at their disposal to locate me, as they always have since law enforcement came into being. Be it a dog, a fingerprint, or a camera. And if it's because of some horrible reason like not agreeing with a religious or political ideology? Then this country is a lot deeper doo-doo than just having on the street face-recognition cameras.

  24. Re:Big Deal? on Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim · · Score: 1

    I seriously don't think he lost much if any respect on his construction site. They all probably had a good laugh about it. It's basically a case of mistaken identity, and was cleared up after a few minutes of conversation.
    What were the police supposed to do? Would he have rather had them come to his home? Or should they have waited until he gets pulled for a traffic violation, or is someplace by himself so he won't be embarassed when they talk to him?

    It's not like the falsely accused and arrested the man.

  25. Big Deal? on Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim · · Score: 1, Troll

    I don't really see what the big deal is. The tracked him down, and asked him some questions. Identity theft is real people... if he was the deadbeat dad or whatever hiding under a new identy, this would be a good thing. The guy wasn't arrested. The guy wasn't charged. He wasn't even hauled down to the station. Cry me a frickin' river.