About the new Athlons...
on
The New Athlons
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· Score: 3, Insightful
My roommate and I were just talking about this subject last night. While new chips are coming out every three months it seems, there is other hardware limiting the PC and the all powerful gaming rig. It would behoove you Taco, to get a really sweet mobo, monitor, and case, and then get the cheapest CPU chip you can find. After all, 1 year from now, the 'new' Athlon 4's will be standard fair in the chip market, and probably 1/2 the price too.
Besides, given AMD's track record for good chips (lately), and cheaply priced, that outperform the P4's, and with P4's hitting 2GHz soon, I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now you would be able to find those Athlon 4's for under $100...
Ok, sounds fair enough. But what about compared to something like -television- that certainly many more children do for many more hours in their youth.
What I find even more interesting, is people trying to equate electrical impulses in the brain with 'knowledge'. I would think that like the previous story here on slashdot, brain activity is more concentrated and focused (like an athlete's brain activity), and that this study just further reinforced such an idea. Could it also be that the students playing the simplistic Nintendo game which uses very few 'physics' laws in determining movements of on-screen characters, was simply a matter of the students being used to playing the game, thereby requiring less thought? Did they test this on a bunch of adults playing the game too? I doubt it. Probably just another 'research' to prove that video games are pure evil.
I have to think a lot harder and concentrate more when kicking a soccer (futbol for the rest of the world) ball, than Pele or some other soccer star. They're so used to the moves and muscular control that half of what they do has become second nature to them, where as I have to concentrate much harder to accomplish the same things.
And like the comic book illustration from a previous poster, it seems today's leaders and parental figures have seem to forgotten what their forefather's found out. Comic books don't kill people, people kill people.
It's one thing not to like somebody. It's another thing to have the local thug (e.g. government) beat him up and take his stuff. Let OSS take MS down on its own.
That only works when there is fair competition in the marketplace. Remember, there is a difference between having a monopoly position in the marketplace based on a good product, and using that monopoly position to force other companies to conform to your standards. The courts decided M$ WAS bullying other companies around unfairly, and therefore decided to take away some of their monopoly powers.
Unfortunately, since M$ has now been forced to stop bullying around its competitors, it's taken to bullying around its own customers.
I've got a little section of a cubicle wall devoted to the corporate knick-knacks and trinkets that I've aqcuired over 3 years of working at this company. Helps me keep in perspective, what I'm doing, versus why I'm doing it (i.e. - not doing it for the knick-knacks as they're all cheap).
I also recall reading somewhere that the people who organized their desk (cleaned it up) on a weekly or even daily basis before going home, were more productive workers. I can attest to the fact that it's much more satisfying to sit at a desk that is free of a million pages of tech specs and memos than it is to sit down and have to *see* all the work waiting for me.
I had a little bonsai tree once, but it died from too much 'Coke dumping' before I would leave for the day. I'm thinking I should get some greenery back into my cube, and soon.
Since when in a 'free' country should the ability to hide a message be of interest to the "legal community"?
Secrets that suddenly can be made not secret amounts to huge amounts of money in many cases, that's why. Tobacco companies tried to 'keep secret' the fact that their product was highly carcinogenic for years. When the 'secret' was finally let out, guess who made the most money off of it? I've got a Forbes magazine from a month or two ago sitting at home that details how certain lawyers have made billions of dollars (USD) off of litigating corporate 'secrets.'
So, this is good news for string theorists, bad news for evolutionists. After all, if you can't count on the 'constants' being the exact same value in the past, how can you actually date the age of the earth, fossils, the universe, etc. accurately? Sounds like the scientists from both sides of the pond (the psuedo science called Evolutionary Theory and the observational science called physics) should start coordinating a little better on exactly what constitutes scientific fact.
Yes, I'm karma whoring, and No, I don't care if you mod me down.
I would be offended at any cash advancement for my efforts. why?
Simply because I code for the love of it, not for the money. Hell, I live out of a 2-story carboard box, code on an old 386 laptop weighing a hefty 50 pounds, and eat sewer trash for meals. And you know what, that Ferrari I bought during the dot-com fiasco just isn't fun to drive anymore. So please don't send me money, just send a simple chain email around the world 50 times to let me know that I have many, many friends.
(Money an insult? You have got to be kidding me! - or smoking some really good weed)
I've tried Red Hat and Mandrake both on the same machine. I preferred Mandrake. More Windows user oriented build than RedHat which I think is aimed at user friendly -> for sysadmins. I recommend Mandrake, despite it's buggy operation. Currently my keyboard configuration is somehow screwing up the xfonts system which all occurred after simply RPM'ing XMMS 1.2.5.:(
Although Mandrake has a ways to go before it becomes really easy to install and use, out of the distro's I've tried: RedHat 5.1, Mandrake 7.2, Slackware, and TinyLinux, it's definitely my current fave.
Well, on the flip side, watermarking could potentially be a useful way for you to lock down back up data and audio CD's that you burned yourself and own so that no one could copy (or potentially even access) the info on the CD (or DVD) without the watermarking key. I know encryption methods already exist for this sort of thing, but newer, better ones can't be bad. You know what they always say... "Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door."
It's not the tool that's bad, it's how it's used that can be bad...
I don't own an eBook, or ever really want to. I just purchased the gold-embossed version of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings at barnesandnoble.com and hope to receive the copies of those books in another day or so. Sure, I've already got the paperback versions, I'm a tech-head who likes all things electronic, but there's just something about having that hardback, heavy book sitting on your shelf at home. I obviously can't loan out an eBook to a friend either, which is why paper books come in handy. If I lose or damage one, I don't have to go out and spend $200 on the reader and another $10 on the 'book license'.
I know all of this has been said a hundred times b4 on slashdot, but I just don't see the logic in trying to control something which has the potential to make people's lives easier, when there's obviously no lost profits involved (as evidenced by the lack of eBook titles selling at all, despite the 'encryption'). Obviously I think the same thing applies to mp3's, but musicians are usually more glamoritized by our US culture than book authors are, so it's harder to pin down just how much mp3's really decrease profits (if at all).
From the article: Excite@Home sells advertising space "keyed" to trademark company names, but said "if there are objections (from owners of that name), we take the ad down," according to John Sullivan, associate general counsel at Excite@Home.
Has our corporate society (and society as a whole) degenerated so low that as long as know one knows, or complains, about your company's disrespectful, possibly illegal activities, then it must be OK? The end NEVER justifies the means. Too bad America has bought into the lie with billions in corporate greed.
Children do not 'run things.' The real issues that we're seeing is that no longer are children limited to the books their local library carries, the TV shows that are on, or the things their teachers and parents know. The internet provides a wealth, and probably an overabundance, of information, free for the taking. It's just that kids are the only ones with the time to engross themselves in their own particular field of interest, be it stock market manipulation, computer gaming, hacking, cracking, politics (probably not many kids, but some no doubt), etc. 'Adults' simply have more "freedoms" (driving a car, owning a business, being married) that inherently contain more responsibilities, and therefore more time commitments. I think this is the point Katz was trying to get at, but it wasn't blatantly clear to some of you Katz haters.
We should all encourage, and monitor, our children's internet useage. For that matter, kids should be encouraged to learn regardless, but the Internet is what makes learning beyond traditional means possible. I know my library has very few books on Linux, or Eagle Talon's, or case modding, or religious persecution, but thanks to the Internet, that info is easy to find. Make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't, but encourage learning, and a self-motivated desire to learn. It will aid them greatly in their lives to 'love to learn.' It's helped me, and I didn't even have the Internet until I went to college. Just think what I could have learned in grade school if I had.
What gets me is how it seems like DS is arrested for violation of American law for things here did in Russia, really. And the rest was merely a snow job to make it look legal. I guess that since he is russian, free speech rights do not apply?
This is why current programs from the UN about copyright protection, international police forces, a global economy, and other 'Tower of Babel' type legislation is so dangerous. No longer does your vote in your community, state, and country count, because the 'global community' could always overrule any laws your local government passed. I like how the US has decided our own rules (DMCA) are so much more high and mighty than Russia's...
And yes, the IMF, G8, UN and other 'global' man-made thinktank/control groups suck, according to me.
From timothy: Completely agreed with you that under the surface (and in the development model, philosophy etc) that XP is full of privacy problems, untouchable code and general hassle anyhow, but that's just not what this article addressed.
And from the article (pg2): XP chose my icons for me. I ended up as a guitar, and my wife was a frog. Never mind the Smart-Tags, IE6 privacy issues, registration reactivation for major hardware upgrades, product activation and all of the other issues that XP has that makes some of us weary of using it...Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club. As if the KMFMS t-shirt she wore to a Goth club the other night wasn't enough.
Sorry timothy, you're right. I guess I got a little carried away on my first post. I should have also included (instead of just implied) that Windows has a more polished visual appeal and organization to it's desktop, menus, folder structure, etc. than Mandrake 8 does. Unfortunately for me, any visual appeals and/or similarities between Mandrake8 KDE and WinXP are not sufficient enough for me to hang on to Windows.
I actually tried this in Konquerer a couple days ago. Didn't have any immediate results, but somehow www.rob.com managed to set a cookie on my Mandrake8 box, which I readily found out was most likely due to my trying to find CodeRed'ed servers that had hit me. Funny thing is, I never received the popup requesting me to allow the cookie when surfing for his IP, and I have Konq set to Ask Permission for every cookie placing attempt. Weird.
The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
Except for the M$ EULA, all the proprietary code that no one is allowed to touch, being required to signup your personal data on Passport which has been shown to be quite breakable and insecure (after all, it's a companies website which has had a notorious history of bad security - Code Red, Sircam, the list goes on), and the fact that I can't install XP on the new machines that I buy after the original one gets outdated and no longer used.
Sorry, but for all of Mandrake's (and Linux in general) shortcomings, I'd trust my important things (and personal data) to Madrake before XP. XP runs better, sure, but it's M$'s arrogant attitude towards it's 'stupid' users I have a problem with, not how well it's software runs. And to prove I'm not a troll: I've got 2 machines at home, one is running Mandrake8, the other Win98. the Mandrake 8 machine had a major system fart over the weekend and X isn't working now, my Win98 machine is still fine. But I'm still determined to wrestle with Mandrake until it's working again before I even THINK about buying XP.
I will be the first to admit, I used Napster all the time. Before Napster, I downloaded/traded MP3s on IRC. I now have 7 GB of MP3s on my computer. However, I do not kid myself and say that this is fair use or whatever.
Napster is as much theft as listening to the radio is 'theft.' I could make tapes off the radio and then copy those tapes and give 'em to my friends. But that's not very convenient and pretty time-consuming. Remember that I've paid at least $700 for my computer in the first place, plus a monthly access fee to d/l all the mp3's I want, so that's not all that cheap either. The benefit in mp3's versus radio recordings is quality of sound, longevity of the data (digitally stored on my hard drive, not analog on a tape), and actually knowing the artist's name, album name, song title, year published, etc. (if the mp3 has the ID3 tags set properly). So you see, I can do the exact same thing thru the radio, it's just that the computer makes it easier for me to do it on my own time, with the music I want to listen to (not some of the crap the radio stations dictate I listen to). Are you actually advocating doing away with analogue and/or digitally broadcast radio signals because we could all copy the music for 'illegal' uses?
Well, if the new code is what's killing our ability to post today, I would say it needs a little work. I've been having issues all afternoon with Slashdot.
And no load testing?!? Dear Lord man! This is slashdot, home of the infamous/.'ing DoS web attack! Of course it's going to get load tested.
P.S. I also do not recommend letting Katz post a story right before releasing new code to your site. There's no better way to 'load balance test' than that...
Napster was popular for the sole reason that it allowed people to steal. DeCSS is a somewhat more gray area, but it still basically allowed people to steal. Sklyarov did nothing beneficial for society, he merely found yet another way to steal and publicized it.
People stealing on Napster, eh? Wow, we've got a lot of thieves out there (probably in the millions!). If so much stealing was going on (millions were doing it), then why did the industry they were stealing from actually have increased profits during such a reviled time of evil and thievery?
So it is now illegal for me to copy something for my own personal use (backups) which I have already purchased? That's what fair use clauses in American copyright law are all about, but you're telling me that just because a newer law invalidated a previous law, that the new law is more fair? Read through the Bill of Rights and you'll realize that laws are made because someone gets screwed and wants to protect themselves from the same screwing in the future. I would think that new laws that go against time tested ones are usually an attempt at an end-run around not being able to re-screw someone over. That's what the DMCA looks like to me.
Don't believe me? When was the last time someone actually practiced what they preached and downloaded some songs by the independent artists on MP3.com? Those few who have actually done it know that independent artists generally produce crap, and go back to trying to find their Eminem and Metallica mp3s.
Just because a distribution method sucks, doesn't mean the ideas behind it are not good. MP3.com sucked, but mp3's are a great way to listen to more than one currently popular song from a band. And yes, after downloading songs from Napster, I have then gone out and purchased several CD's because I liked what I heard. And not crap from no name bad artists on MP3.com; I'm talking about mainstream techno artists like The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Fatboy Slim, etc. (Yes, I'm a techno freak).
To sum it all up:
I think Dmitri Skylarov should be released because he has done nothing wrong. According to the DMCA, *maybe*, but only in his own country, and only in an effort to provide people purchasing eBook Adobe software a way to back up their ALREADY purchased literature. The beauty of technology should be to make our lives easier. If I drop a paper book in the pool, well, I'd better go out and buy a new one. That sucks. But if I accidentally drop my eBook in the pool, sure, I may have lost my eBook Reader, but with Dmitri's software, I was able to store all of the actual literature to a backup computer inside my house. Therefore, my life has been made easier. Certainly this tool could be used for illegally distributing copies of an eBook, but we shouldn't penalize people using the tool correctly for other's misuse of the tool (Yes, I know it's been said already in above posts, but it needs to be reiterated). Besides, it's primarily people in other parts of the world (NOT the USA) where software is being illegally copied and resold for profit (like in China). Let's address the 'piracy' of software where it's at its worst, first. Do not penalize the law-abiding US citizen because Microsoft, Adobe, and other MULTI-BILLION dollar companies are losing money to cheap skates in China. Companies do not *NEED* to profit off of my misfortune. Unfortunately, that's what lawyers are for...
Both Mozilla and Konqueror are good browsers, but Mozilla is more technologically advanced, and the portability issue means a lot for it's acceptance and possible market-share.
Well, Mozilla may be more technologically advanced (I really don't know how you're defining that, so that's up for debate), but I find Konquerer to be a bit easier to use, and faster in Linux KDE. Obviously there is no Konquerer on my work Win2k box, so Mozilla is the choice browser for me at work. I'm just glad to get away from IE and Nutscrape finally! Keep it up all you OpenSource developers! I love you guys.
There are already several easy technical fixes to prevent source spoofing , and if Gibson and Cringely's phantasy comes true, they will all be deployed in various Internet routers in a matter of weeks. Some of them already are implemented in Cisco routers, but are not enabled by default.
It's this kind of thinking that gave us the CodeRed worm in the first place you fool! Sorry to flame you on this one, but it really doesn't make any sense. That's like telling a new home buyer that they their doors allow easy entry and exit from their home, but the homeowner will need to install their own security devices (locks) in order to protect themselves. Guess how many new homeowners would laugh in the face of the builder if they heard that?! The locks are obviously not fool-proof mechanisms for security, but the simple fact that they're there dissuade most civilized people from trying to 'break and enter.'
And let's face it, there's not very many, if any, sysadmins allowing this bug to propagate because they haven't updated their win2000 servers. It's mainly the home office user, the small business without a sysadmin, the home user, etc. with the 'always on' connection that's causing the problem. I think Steve Gibson is right in saying that WinXP allows default configurations of low security to impede the normal usage of the internet. Most people, even computer literate ones, will not be installing every last security update patch when they buy that new eMachine at Best Buy. They'll just be glad to have their cable connection and a new computer to play the latest MMORPG with.
What's really pathetic is that every newscast I saw last night about Code Red, made no mention of how to innoculate your computer against the virus. Every one of them said, "Just simply reboot your computer and everything's fine!" - What a lame excuse for 'solving the problem'.
Well, they held Kevin Mitnick in jail for four years IIRC, without ANY bail hearing because he was deemed to great a threat to society. I think what has happened here is a great attempt at a cover up of technology.
Everyone knows that the invention of the gun gave increased benefits (very effective protection from wild animals, hunting benefits, etc.) while also provided very harmful uses (killing fellow humans, overthrowing governments, etc.). Every new technology, every new idea, has two sides to its abilities. Good uses and bad uses. Why would the computer be any different? Of course it will provide us with both benefits and detriments. Mitnick was one of the first to point out the major flaws in this new technology.
The really bad thing about the DMCA, Dmitri in jail, Felten being barred from presenting circumvention techniques, etc. is this: Rather than inform everyone that computers can be both used for good and bad, the government has taken the stance that they are inherently good, and that all bad uses of the tool, should be made criminal. Therefore, make potentially harmful uses of a tool evil, and outlawed. Was it the computer that did the illegal breaking and entering into restricted companies computer systems? No. It was the person, Mitnick. Now, rather than punish the criminal, (here comes the sarcasm) - after all, people are inherintly GOOD and should be tolerated and loooovved at all times no matter what they do - (sarcasm rant over), we punish everyone using the tool. We make it a punishment to even be in possession of the tool. We call it evil and a 'circumvention' device, rather than simply a tool.
If the program nmap was outlawed, I wouldn't be able to scan my own network's open ports to find security flaws. Likewise, I wouldn't be able to scan other networks for security flaws. Well, it can be used illegally, therefore it must be bad, BAN IT! That's ridiculous! My own ineptitude and laziness to not secure my network is my fault, and mine alone. It's called the 'Blame Game', and these days everyone seems to be playing it. Ford and Firestone are still blaming the other one for killing people unintentionally.
The big question is: Who do you trust more? Yourself - to know how to use a tool properly, or someone else (government, corps, special interest groups, etc) telling you how to use the tool properly. I vote for the former, myself.
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Besides, given AMD's track record for good chips (lately), and cheaply priced, that outperform the P4's, and with P4's hitting 2GHz soon, I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now you would be able to find those Athlon 4's for under $100...
What I find even more interesting, is people trying to equate electrical impulses in the brain with 'knowledge'. I would think that like the previous story here on slashdot, brain activity is more concentrated and focused (like an athlete's brain activity), and that this study just further reinforced such an idea. Could it also be that the students playing the simplistic Nintendo game which uses very few 'physics' laws in determining movements of on-screen characters, was simply a matter of the students being used to playing the game, thereby requiring less thought? Did they test this on a bunch of adults playing the game too? I doubt it. Probably just another 'research' to prove that video games are pure evil.
I have to think a lot harder and concentrate more when kicking a soccer (futbol for the rest of the world) ball, than Pele or some other soccer star. They're so used to the moves and muscular control that half of what they do has become second nature to them, where as I have to concentrate much harder to accomplish the same things.
And like the comic book illustration from a previous poster, it seems today's leaders and parental figures have seem to forgotten what their forefather's found out. Comic books don't kill people, people kill people.
That only works when there is fair competition in the marketplace. Remember, there is a difference between having a monopoly position in the marketplace based on a good product, and using that monopoly position to force other companies to conform to your standards. The courts decided M$ WAS bullying other companies around unfairly, and therefore decided to take away some of their monopoly powers.
Unfortunately, since M$ has now been forced to stop bullying around its competitors, it's taken to bullying around its own customers.
I also recall reading somewhere that the people who organized their desk (cleaned it up) on a weekly or even daily basis before going home, were more productive workers. I can attest to the fact that it's much more satisfying to sit at a desk that is free of a million pages of tech specs and memos than it is to sit down and have to *see* all the work waiting for me.
I had a little bonsai tree once, but it died from too much 'Coke dumping' before I would leave for the day. I'm thinking I should get some greenery back into my cube, and soon.
Secrets that suddenly can be made not secret amounts to huge amounts of money in many cases, that's why. Tobacco companies tried to 'keep secret' the fact that their product was highly carcinogenic for years. When the 'secret' was finally let out, guess who made the most money off of it? I've got a Forbes magazine from a month or two ago sitting at home that details how certain lawyers have made billions of dollars (USD) off of litigating corporate 'secrets.'
Please explain, because all you've done so far is validate the creationist argument.
Yes, I'm karma whoring, and No, I don't care if you mod me down.
Simply because I code for the love of it, not for the money. Hell, I live out of a 2-story carboard box, code on an old 386 laptop weighing a hefty 50 pounds, and eat sewer trash for meals. And you know what, that Ferrari I bought during the dot-com fiasco just isn't fun to drive anymore. So please don't send me money, just send a simple chain email around the world 50 times to let me know that I have many, many friends.
(Money an insult? You have got to be kidding me! - or smoking some really good weed)
Although Mandrake has a ways to go before it becomes really easy to install and use, out of the distro's I've tried: RedHat 5.1, Mandrake 7.2, Slackware, and TinyLinux, it's definitely my current fave.
It's not the tool that's bad, it's how it's used that can be bad...
I don't own an eBook, or ever really want to. I just purchased the gold-embossed version of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings at barnesandnoble.com and hope to receive the copies of those books in another day or so. Sure, I've already got the paperback versions, I'm a tech-head who likes all things electronic, but there's just something about having that hardback, heavy book sitting on your shelf at home. I obviously can't loan out an eBook to a friend either, which is why paper books come in handy. If I lose or damage one, I don't have to go out and spend $200 on the reader and another $10 on the 'book license'.
I know all of this has been said a hundred times b4 on slashdot, but I just don't see the logic in trying to control something which has the potential to make people's lives easier, when there's obviously no lost profits involved (as evidenced by the lack of eBook titles selling at all, despite the 'encryption'). Obviously I think the same thing applies to mp3's, but musicians are usually more glamoritized by our US culture than book authors are, so it's harder to pin down just how much mp3's really decrease profits (if at all).
Has our corporate society (and society as a whole) degenerated so low that as long as know one knows, or complains, about your company's disrespectful, possibly illegal activities, then it must be OK? The end NEVER justifies the means. Too bad America has bought into the lie with billions in corporate greed.
We should all encourage, and monitor, our children's internet useage. For that matter, kids should be encouraged to learn regardless, but the Internet is what makes learning beyond traditional means possible. I know my library has very few books on Linux, or Eagle Talon's, or case modding, or religious persecution, but thanks to the Internet, that info is easy to find. Make sure they're not getting into things they shouldn't, but encourage learning, and a self-motivated desire to learn. It will aid them greatly in their lives to 'love to learn.' It's helped me, and I didn't even have the Internet until I went to college. Just think what I could have learned in grade school if I had.
This is why current programs from the UN about copyright protection, international police forces, a global economy, and other 'Tower of Babel' type legislation is so dangerous. No longer does your vote in your community, state, and country count, because the 'global community' could always overrule any laws your local government passed. I like how the US has decided our own rules (DMCA) are so much more high and mighty than Russia's...
And yes, the IMF, G8, UN and other 'global' man-made thinktank/control groups suck, according to me.
Completely agreed with you that under the surface (and in the development model, philosophy etc) that XP is full of privacy problems, untouchable code and general hassle anyhow, but that's just not what this article addressed.
And from the article (pg2):
XP chose my icons for me. I ended up as a guitar, and my wife was a frog. Never mind the Smart-Tags, IE6 privacy issues, registration reactivation for major hardware upgrades, product activation and all of the other issues that XP has that makes some of us weary of using it...Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club. As if the KMFMS t-shirt she wore to a Goth club the other night wasn't enough.
Sorry timothy, you're right. I guess I got a little carried away on my first post. I should have also included (instead of just implied) that Windows has a more polished visual appeal and organization to it's desktop, menus, folder structure, etc. than Mandrake 8 does. Unfortunately for me, any visual appeals and/or similarities between Mandrake8 KDE and WinXP are not sufficient enough for me to hang on to Windows.
I actually tried this in Konquerer a couple days ago. Didn't have any immediate results, but somehow www.rob.com managed to set a cookie on my Mandrake8 box, which I readily found out was most likely due to my trying to find CodeRed'ed servers that had hit me. Funny thing is, I never received the popup requesting me to allow the cookie when surfing for his IP, and I have Konq set to Ask Permission for every cookie placing attempt. Weird.
Except for the M$ EULA, all the proprietary code that no one is allowed to touch, being required to signup your personal data on Passport which has been shown to be quite breakable and insecure (after all, it's a companies website which has had a notorious history of bad security - Code Red, Sircam, the list goes on), and the fact that I can't install XP on the new machines that I buy after the original one gets outdated and no longer used.
Sorry, but for all of Mandrake's (and Linux in general) shortcomings, I'd trust my important things (and personal data) to Madrake before XP. XP runs better, sure, but it's M$'s arrogant attitude towards it's 'stupid' users I have a problem with, not how well it's software runs. And to prove I'm not a troll: I've got 2 machines at home, one is running Mandrake8, the other Win98. the Mandrake 8 machine had a major system fart over the weekend and X isn't working now, my Win98 machine is still fine. But I'm still determined to wrestle with Mandrake until it's working again before I even THINK about buying XP.
Napster is as much theft as listening to the radio is 'theft.' I could make tapes off the radio and then copy those tapes and give 'em to my friends. But that's not very convenient and pretty time-consuming. Remember that I've paid at least $700 for my computer in the first place, plus a monthly access fee to d/l all the mp3's I want, so that's not all that cheap either. The benefit in mp3's versus radio recordings is quality of sound, longevity of the data (digitally stored on my hard drive, not analog on a tape), and actually knowing the artist's name, album name, song title, year published, etc. (if the mp3 has the ID3 tags set properly). So you see, I can do the exact same thing thru the radio, it's just that the computer makes it easier for me to do it on my own time, with the music I want to listen to (not some of the crap the radio stations dictate I listen to). Are you actually advocating doing away with analogue and/or digitally broadcast radio signals because we could all copy the music for 'illegal' uses?
And no load testing?!? Dear Lord man! This is slashdot, home of the infamous /.'ing DoS web attack! Of course it's going to get load tested.
P.S. I also do not recommend letting Katz post a story right before releasing new code to your site. There's no better way to 'load balance test' than that...
Napster was popular for the sole reason that it allowed people to steal. DeCSS is a somewhat more gray area, but it still basically allowed people to steal. Sklyarov did nothing beneficial for society, he merely found yet another way to steal and publicized it.
People stealing on Napster, eh? Wow, we've got a lot of thieves out there (probably in the millions!). If so much stealing was going on (millions were doing it), then why did the industry they were stealing from actually have increased profits during such a reviled time of evil and thievery?
So it is now illegal for me to copy something for my own personal use (backups) which I have already purchased? That's what fair use clauses in American copyright law are all about, but you're telling me that just because a newer law invalidated a previous law, that the new law is more fair? Read through the Bill of Rights and you'll realize that laws are made because someone gets screwed and wants to protect themselves from the same screwing in the future. I would think that new laws that go against time tested ones are usually an attempt at an end-run around not being able to re-screw someone over. That's what the DMCA looks like to me.
Don't believe me? When was the last time someone actually practiced what they preached and downloaded some songs by the independent artists on MP3.com? Those few who have actually done it know that independent artists generally produce crap, and go back to trying to find their Eminem and Metallica mp3s.
Just because a distribution method sucks, doesn't mean the ideas behind it are not good. MP3.com sucked, but mp3's are a great way to listen to more than one currently popular song from a band. And yes, after downloading songs from Napster, I have then gone out and purchased several CD's because I liked what I heard. And not crap from no name bad artists on MP3.com; I'm talking about mainstream techno artists like The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Fatboy Slim, etc. (Yes, I'm a techno freak).
To sum it all up:
I think Dmitri Skylarov should be released because he has done nothing wrong. According to the DMCA, *maybe*, but only in his own country, and only in an effort to provide people purchasing eBook Adobe software a way to back up their ALREADY purchased literature. The beauty of technology should be to make our lives easier. If I drop a paper book in the pool, well, I'd better go out and buy a new one. That sucks. But if I accidentally drop my eBook in the pool, sure, I may have lost my eBook Reader, but with Dmitri's software, I was able to store all of the actual literature to a backup computer inside my house. Therefore, my life has been made easier. Certainly this tool could be used for illegally distributing copies of an eBook, but we shouldn't penalize people using the tool correctly for other's misuse of the tool (Yes, I know it's been said already in above posts, but it needs to be reiterated). Besides, it's primarily people in other parts of the world (NOT the USA) where software is being illegally copied and resold for profit (like in China). Let's address the 'piracy' of software where it's at its worst, first. Do not penalize the law-abiding US citizen because Microsoft, Adobe, and other MULTI-BILLION dollar companies are losing money to cheap skates in China. Companies do not *NEED* to profit off of my misfortune. Unfortunately, that's what lawyers are for...
Well, Mozilla may be more technologically advanced (I really don't know how you're defining that, so that's up for debate), but I find Konquerer to be a bit easier to use, and faster in Linux KDE. Obviously there is no Konquerer on my work Win2k box, so Mozilla is the choice browser for me at work. I'm just glad to get away from IE and Nutscrape finally! Keep it up all you OpenSource developers! I love you guys.
It's this kind of thinking that gave us the CodeRed worm in the first place you fool! Sorry to flame you on this one, but it really doesn't make any sense. That's like telling a new home buyer that they their doors allow easy entry and exit from their home, but the homeowner will need to install their own security devices (locks) in order to protect themselves. Guess how many new homeowners would laugh in the face of the builder if they heard that?! The locks are obviously not fool-proof mechanisms for security, but the simple fact that they're there dissuade most civilized people from trying to 'break and enter.'
What's really pathetic is that every newscast I saw last night about Code Red, made no mention of how to innoculate your computer against the virus. Every one of them said, "Just simply reboot your computer and everything's fine!" - What a lame excuse for 'solving the problem'.
I send this Ask Slashdot to you to get your advice.
Everyone knows that the invention of the gun gave increased benefits (very effective protection from wild animals, hunting benefits, etc.) while also provided very harmful uses (killing fellow humans, overthrowing governments, etc.). Every new technology, every new idea, has two sides to its abilities. Good uses and bad uses. Why would the computer be any different? Of course it will provide us with both benefits and detriments. Mitnick was one of the first to point out the major flaws in this new technology.
The really bad thing about the DMCA, Dmitri in jail, Felten being barred from presenting circumvention techniques, etc. is this: Rather than inform everyone that computers can be both used for good and bad, the government has taken the stance that they are inherently good, and that all bad uses of the tool, should be made criminal. Therefore, make potentially harmful uses of a tool evil, and outlawed. Was it the computer that did the illegal breaking and entering into restricted companies computer systems? No. It was the person, Mitnick. Now, rather than punish the criminal, (here comes the sarcasm) - after all, people are inherintly GOOD and should be tolerated and loooovved at all times no matter what they do - (sarcasm rant over), we punish everyone using the tool. We make it a punishment to even be in possession of the tool. We call it evil and a 'circumvention' device, rather than simply a tool.
If the program nmap was outlawed, I wouldn't be able to scan my own network's open ports to find security flaws. Likewise, I wouldn't be able to scan other networks for security flaws. Well, it can be used illegally, therefore it must be bad, BAN IT! That's ridiculous! My own ineptitude and laziness to not secure my network is my fault, and mine alone. It's called the 'Blame Game', and these days everyone seems to be playing it. Ford and Firestone are still blaming the other one for killing people unintentionally.
The big question is: Who do you trust more? Yourself - to know how to use a tool properly, or someone else (government, corps, special interest groups, etc) telling you how to use the tool properly. I vote for the former, myself.