I actually just called his office in DC, to express my delight with his statements. When I asked the chick who answered the phone if she knew where I could get some warez and shit, she gave me an url. This dude is hard core.
Seriously, tho, I did call his office to express my satisfaction, and the chick who answered the phone was quite nice. The Rep used to be a lawyer and she says that he is quite interested in fair use and the DCMA. This URL is a lit of his technology significant statements, letters and bills. Interesting reading.
If you are a constituent of Rep. Boucher's (Live in Southwest VA, 9th District) it is even more important that you call, as he doesn't work for us, he works for you.
>But turning DeCSS from hundreds of lines of incomprehensible gibberish into a mere SEVEN >lines of compact code will make the DMCA a lot harder to stand up to public scrutiny.
Man, sorry, but I'm afraid that, comprehensibility-wise (I just made up that word, I think), 5 lines of perl is just as bad as 10 pages of c to the general, non-coding public. If you don't code, you don't code, and you won't understand. Furthermore, the 'viewing public' most likely won't understand the concept of elegant programming, which this certianly is. I wish that it weren't the case, but one sticking point with the DMCA and the DeCSS lawsuit is that there's a fair amount of work J. Random Workguy has to do to understand the concepts, and as long as JRW has his Coors Lite and his Doritos, he's not going to care that much.
Why thank you, sir. Always had an idea of what it meant, but not the origin of the phrase. I suppose that I was just too lazy to search. But thanks, anyhoo. Brant
This seems to be yet another instance of separating the wheat from the chaff (I dunno what the hell chaff is, but my grandma always talked about it, and I don't think she meant shredded aluminum) when it comes to e-commerce. The people who read the security bulletin and fixed the goddamn problem are FINE. These morons who plug the box into the CoLo facility and leave it at that deserve what they goddamn get. This is just a case of morons getting screwed. Chalk it up to a learning experience that only cost you a couple grand instead of your entire company, apply the patches and move the fsck on.
Sorry. I'm tired today and drank about 10 cups of coffee. And I'm all worked up about the DCMA for some reason. *sigh* Why do I hate?
From what the article in the Post said, it seems that the RIAssholesA will have to provide 1)Artist name 2)Song Title 3)Filename (!!!)
The requirement of filename is just beautiful. That means taht the RIAA can't just say block Metallica's Nothing Else matters, kill 'em all, ride the lightning and bla bla bla.
The music companies are never going to be able to make an effective list. I know that a) the songs that I rip for personal use (legal under fair use) are either named wierdly by RealJukebox, or named by me with filenames like 'somegoddamnsong.mp3' because I'm lazy. This is going to be a serious thorn in the side of the record companies. YAY!
That's also one of the 'catches' with the CueCat: They use encryption that (I think) consists of swapping all of the bits, or something equally simple. This, while obviously not difficult to crack, makes hacking the CueCat a violation of the DCMA.
Before this whole Australian DCMA thing started, I had always thought that the Aussies were all like Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. I think I liked that much better. Brant
I found an article today where some internet guru type (don't recall and I'm too lazy and drunk to find it) was taling about uses for G3 tech and the wireless web. his main point was this: The wireless web, and wireless internet applicanes, aren't going to be used for work.
They are going to be primarily used for entertainment. The only information services people are going to use are stuff like mapping, movietimes and directions. In the near future, nobody is going to be typing novels or trading stocks or anything like that on these wireless do-dangles.
I think that they'll sell like crazy, and I might buy one myself, just so I can/. and ignore my pitiful life, but I don't know that the 'business justifications' for it will be that great. I certianly want to try one out. I mean, what better client than someone who's posting online at 22.44 on a friday night?
I believe that I saw it on CNN last night or the night before. Singles are still being sold (mostly rap, R&B and pop), and they have been going through a steady decline in the last 10 years or so. However, in the last year or so, they've taken a sharp nosedive. This dive in single sales is more than negated by the increase in LP and EP sales (20% more than last year, I think). I looked but couldn't find a link. I didn't really look that hard. I'm tired. Brant
I admittedly have a Libertarian bent, but the establishment of further restrictions on domain names doesn't seem very good. Is the registration going to be limited by the person who is registered as contact information or the website that is in place (see the slashdot/Andover.net post above). And what if a company decides to go from non-profit to profit? It happens to hospitals on a fairly regular basis.. Does that mean that they'll have to change addresses?
If ICANN had done a decent job of selecting new TLDs, I would be less nervous about this whole process.. but.aero? Christ on a crutch, cut me some slack.
This new.org scheme opens the door towards full registration regulation (ooh, that rhymed. Sort of) and regulation always seems to mean one thing. The little guy gets fucked. (patent pending)
I realize that your post was most likely a troll, but unfortunately I get this nagging feeling that a lot of people here on/. feel the same way, due to the constant hatred that pours out towards "M$" and "tHe bIlLBoRg." So I respond.
I can't believe that you have the nerve to say that MS hasn't done good things during its tenure as the reigning champion of operating systems. For all of its problems, Windows 9x and friends has allowed my 85 year old grandmother to correspond with me via email. She was able to get her computer out of the box and online in less than an hour. How long does it take to recompile a kernel on a 500 Mhz machine?
Furthermore, the fact that you say:
I do not run Microsoft products. I pay less for hardware and software, my computer runs faster, and crashes less. That, too, would seem like demonstrable harm by Microsoft. That statement is pretty much meaningless. I drive a Ford Escort. It sucks. My boss drives a Lexus. His car 'runs faster' and has better safety equipement, so it 'crashes less.' Does that mean that Ford has done 'demonstrable harm' to Toyota?
As far as your comments about, f'rinstance, the ILOVEYOU virus and its ilk go, it is only logical that MS products would be the prime target for viral attacks. They run the OS on 90 some odd percent of the computers in the world. Do you think that viral programmers would write a virus that would only effect, say, IBM-DOS? No! Because that would be stupid. Very few people run IBM-DOS anymore, and writing a virus for it would be an exercise in futility unless you were doing it as a thought experiment.
That's all I have for now. I haven't even had my coffee yet. I'm sure this is going to get modded down as a flame, but hey: I'm cranky.
I have a question for someone out there who has more knowledge than I about patents/patent law, or at least someone with an opinion...
Say I develop a sprocket of some sort, we'll call it a Byzantium Powered Nose Picker (BPNP) for the sake of argument. I do not patent this device, and I market it for a year or two, unpatented. Can Amazon come in, patent the BPNP, and force me to stop making and selling it? Will my BPNP sales and development count as prior art?
The question comes from an earler suggestion about amazon's patent of referring from a different website for money and the fact that the pr0n industry could produce buttloads (that's the word they used inthe article) of prior art for that concept. So would that hold up?
They were also discovered (I think) by scientifical-types who were shooting lasers at graphite , for some reason. This somehow made buckyballs, adn they said to themselves 'this is nifty. I bet we could put a bunch of shit in here'. According to my semi-unreliable memory, buckyballs are fairly toxic, and make a fine black powder when they're together.
Scientists have also found buckyballs filled with helium in the ground where comet/meteor strikes have occured. This article on popular science has some details about that.
The article says that these SiBuckyballs (suckyballs?) 'may' be able to serve as qbits. Interesting, yes. Fathomable to a dumb monkey like me? No. I mean, hell, I'm all about quantum computing. More better faster cheaper and all that, but the reason I read Popular Science and Discover magazine instead of Scientific American is that the articles in the former mags are *so* very much more comprehensible to me. I mean, I'm not a moron (really!) but I am also not a physicist, chemist, lawyer, doctor, lesbian or a Bhuddist. I have various knowledge in all of these fields, but no formal training. PopSci and Discover give so much more background and explination of basic concepts than does SciAm. I just wish that Popular Science would have more technical articles, but still explained in little words for dumbasses like me. Okay, I'm done ranting now. Panties are no longer in a metaphorical bunch.
Pretty nifty.. But I have a couple of problems/questions.. It says that the sail is only 30m in diameter. I was under the impression (from reading Omni magazine and Larry Niven, admittedly not the most reliable of sources) that one needed a sail of huge (kilometers) size to be able to get a noticeable boost from the solar sails. Also, the article says that they're using inflatable tubes to unfurl/stabilize the sail. IANAP (IANA Physicist) but wouldn't that make those inflatable tubes have to be tremendously strong to be able to survive in the low-pressure environs of space?
Those thoughts aside... It's pretty cool. And I wish I could launch my girlfriends cat out of a goshdarned ICBM tube.
Really, what would make me happy is if they made a version that took out all of that Mimei shit... either that or replaced her with a classic anime chick.. you know, the one that gets molested by the Invid or what have you. She really irritates me. Or just get rid of the singing. That would be so much better.
That said, I've been on the preorder list for 3 days now. I can't wait.. and at such a reasonable price. I was scared they were going to charge 50 bucks a disc or some crap like that.
Why is it that in the late 90's early 00's, studios/entertainment/media companies can't come up with any new content? Charlies Angels. TW2002. Star Wars I. Down to Earth.
This doesn't necessarily mean that I don't support the old coming back as new, but it is sort of wierd that all of this old stuff is coming back to haunt us.
Although, the new content hasn't always knocked my socks off lately, either... Which leads to the question: Did we use up all of the 'good' content ideas in the 60s and 70s?
I've got to give credit to them for trying... I don't see MS doing anything close to this. Apple is trying to balance legitimate business concerns with giving users what they want. In short, they are trying to 'Think Different'. Sure, maybe they haven't made it all the way to pure GPL or done the best that they could have, but they're making an effort to fight the good fight, and shouldn't that be worth something?
I'd think that the responsiveness would vary depending on what surface you're using the mouse on... a blue desk? Get a red LED... a red desk? Blue LED... Additionally, they didn't specify in the article whether they had picked up a high intensity blue led or no.
If there is a different reason for a blue LED not working as well, or my Science! is incorrect, or you know why it came with a red LED in the first place, please let me know.
I read in the Wall Street Journal today that, because of the patent that has been filed on behalf of Johaan Gutenberg for movable type and for the concept of 'two-eyed reading', Whistler is going to require all users of WinXP to wear a specialized pair of glasses (called 'DigiOpthoLooker Things', or 'DOLT' by MS) that, unless the text being displayed onscreen has been licensed (licenses are valid for 12.3 minutes or whenever the reader gets off the toilet), will turn jet black.
MS, in turn, is being sued by God and Douglas Adams (who filed for a speculative patent for his 'peril sensitive sunglasses' used in HHGTTG) for patent infringement on, in God's case, patent 0000000000001: Looking at stuff.
According to the WSJ, God has a pretty good case, and MS is looking to settle out of court, but only if God will turn Linus into a turnip. This latest barrage of lawsuits does not bode well for the elimination of the paper book as we know it.
Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, I need to stop drinking so much coffe.
Now I know that/. is pro-linux, anti-M$, but I personally like and use daily the MS office suite, including Outlook. I know that, as the article says, everyone wants to "once and for all replace... MS Office" and the evil demons that infest the sinking ship of microsoft, but the Office suite works pretty well for the average terminal monkey who doesn't want to have to see anything but his email and that cute paperclip. And Anna Kourni-whatshername. Now this project would be seriously neat if they could make it include the MS Office standards so that the terminal monkeys could still have the paperclip, and the hardcore linux d00dz could have whatever client that they wanted....
I don't see how this is breaking news, except for the fact that it's Maxtor doing it and not some other company. Other companies have been making HDDs that are bad-ass sturdy for years, they're used by the USAF in warplanes (I believe that Seagate makes most of them). Tangentially, does anyone know how the sturdy drives that are used for military applications differ from this one? Are the military drives one side, one platter, too, or do they use some other sort of method to make them tough?
Slashdot Mirror
I actually just called his office in DC, to express my delight with his statements. When I asked the chick who answered the phone if she knew where I could get some warez and shit, she gave me an url. This dude is hard core.
Seriously, tho, I did call his office to express my satisfaction, and the chick who answered the phone was quite nice. The Rep used to be a lawyer and she says that he is quite interested in fair use and the DCMA. This URL is a lit of his technology significant statements, letters and bills. Interesting reading.
If you are a constituent of Rep. Boucher's (Live in Southwest VA, 9th District) it is even more important that you call, as he doesn't work for us, he works for you.
Brant
>But turning DeCSS from hundreds of lines of incomprehensible gibberish into a mere SEVEN >lines of compact code will make the DMCA a lot harder to stand up to public scrutiny.
Man, sorry, but I'm afraid that, comprehensibility-wise (I just made up that word, I think), 5 lines of perl is just as bad as 10 pages of c to the general, non-coding public. If you don't code, you don't code, and you won't understand. Furthermore, the 'viewing public' most likely won't understand the concept of elegant programming, which this certianly is.
I wish that it weren't the case, but one sticking point with the DMCA and the DeCSS lawsuit is that there's a fair amount of work J. Random Workguy has to do to understand the concepts, and as long as JRW has his Coors Lite and his Doritos, he's not going to care that much.
Brant
Why thank you, sir. Always had an idea of what it meant, but not the origin of the phrase. I suppose that I was just too lazy to search. But thanks, anyhoo.
Brant
This seems to be yet another instance of separating the wheat from the chaff (I dunno what the hell chaff is, but my grandma always talked about it, and I don't think she meant shredded aluminum) when it comes to e-commerce. The people who read the security bulletin and fixed the goddamn problem are FINE. These morons who plug the box into the CoLo facility and leave it at that deserve what they goddamn get. This is just a case of morons getting screwed. Chalk it up to a learning experience that only cost you a couple grand instead of your entire company, apply the patches and move the fsck on.
Sorry. I'm tired today and drank about 10 cups of coffee. And I'm all worked up about the DCMA for some reason. *sigh* Why do I hate?
Brant
From what the article in the Post said, it seems that the RIAssholesA will have to provide
1)Artist name
2)Song Title
3)Filename (!!!)
The requirement of filename is just beautiful. That means taht the RIAA can't just say block Metallica's Nothing Else matters, kill 'em all, ride the lightning and bla bla bla.
The music companies are never going to be able to make an effective list. I know that a) the songs that I rip for personal use (legal under fair use) are either named wierdly by RealJukebox, or named by me with filenames like 'somegoddamnsong.mp3' because I'm lazy. This is going to be a serious thorn in the side of the record companies. YAY!
Brant
That's also one of the 'catches' with the CueCat: They use encryption that (I think) consists of swapping all of the bits, or something equally simple. This, while obviously not difficult to crack, makes hacking the CueCat a violation of the DCMA.
Brant
Before this whole Australian DCMA thing started, I had always thought that the Aussies were all like Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. I think I liked that much better.
Brant
I found an article today where some internet guru type (don't recall and I'm too lazy and drunk to find it) was taling about uses for G3 tech and the wireless web. his main point was this: The wireless web, and wireless internet applicanes, aren't going to be used for work.
/. and ignore my pitiful life, but I don't know that the 'business justifications' for it will be that great.
They are going to be primarily used for entertainment. The only information services people are going to use are stuff like mapping, movietimes and directions. In the near future, nobody is going to be typing novels or trading stocks or anything like that on these wireless do-dangles.
I think that they'll sell like crazy, and I might buy one myself, just so I can
I certianly want to try one out. I mean, what better client than someone who's posting online at 22.44 on a friday night?
Brant
I believe that I saw it on CNN last night or the night before. Singles are still being sold (mostly rap, R&B and pop), and they have been going through a steady decline in the last 10 years or so. However, in the last year or so, they've taken a sharp nosedive. This dive in single sales is more than negated by the increase in LP and EP sales (20% more than last year, I think). I looked but couldn't find a link. I didn't really look that hard. I'm tired.
Brant
I admittedly have a Libertarian bent, but the establishment of further restrictions on domain names doesn't seem very good. Is the registration going to be limited by the person who is registered as contact information or the website that is in place (see the slashdot/Andover.net post above). And what if a company decides to go from non-profit to profit? It happens to hospitals on a fairly regular basis.. Does that mean that they'll have to change addresses?
.aero? Christ on a crutch, cut me some slack.
.org scheme opens the door towards full registration regulation (ooh, that rhymed. Sort of) and regulation always seems to mean one thing. The little guy gets fucked. (patent pending)
If ICANN had done a decent job of selecting new TLDs, I would be less nervous about this whole process.. but
This new
Brant
I realize that your post was most likely a troll, but unfortunately I get this nagging feeling that a lot of people here on /. feel the same way, due to the constant hatred that pours out towards "M$" and "tHe bIlLBoRg." So I respond.
I can't believe that you have the nerve to say that MS hasn't done good things during its tenure as the reigning champion of operating systems. For all of its problems, Windows 9x and friends has allowed my 85 year old grandmother to correspond with me via email. She was able to get her computer out of the box and online in less than an hour. How long does it take to recompile a kernel on a 500 Mhz machine?
Furthermore, the fact that you say:
I do not run Microsoft products. I pay less for hardware and software, my computer runs faster, and crashes less. That, too, would seem like demonstrable harm by Microsoft.
That statement is pretty much meaningless. I drive a Ford Escort. It sucks. My boss drives a Lexus. His car 'runs faster' and has better safety equipement, so it 'crashes less.' Does that mean that Ford has done 'demonstrable harm' to Toyota?
As far as your comments about, f'rinstance, the ILOVEYOU virus and its ilk go, it is only logical that MS products would be the prime target for viral attacks. They run the OS on 90 some odd percent of the computers in the world. Do you think that viral programmers would write a virus that would only effect, say, IBM-DOS? No! Because that would be stupid. Very few people run IBM-DOS anymore, and writing a virus for it would be an exercise in futility unless you were doing it as a thought experiment.
That's all I have for now. I haven't even had my coffee yet. I'm sure this is going to get modded down as a flame, but hey: I'm cranky.
Brant
I have a question for someone out there who has more knowledge than I about patents/patent law, or at least someone with an opinion...
Say I develop a sprocket of some sort, we'll call it a Byzantium Powered Nose Picker (BPNP) for the sake of argument. I do not patent this device, and I market it for a year or two, unpatented. Can Amazon come in, patent the BPNP, and force me to stop making and selling it? Will my BPNP sales and development count as prior art?
The question comes from an earler suggestion about amazon's patent of referring from a different website for money and the fact that the pr0n industry could produce buttloads (that's the word they used inthe article) of prior art for that concept. So would that hold up?
Anyone?
Brant
They were also discovered (I think) by scientifical-types who were shooting lasers at graphite , for some reason. This somehow made buckyballs, adn they said to themselves 'this is nifty. I bet we could put a bunch of shit in here'.
According to my semi-unreliable memory, buckyballs are fairly toxic, and make a fine black powder when they're together.
Scientists have also found buckyballs filled with helium in the ground where comet/meteor strikes have occured. This article on popular science has some details about that.
Brant
Time for a little rant.
The article says that these SiBuckyballs (suckyballs?) 'may' be able to serve as qbits. Interesting, yes. Fathomable to a dumb monkey like me? No. I mean, hell, I'm all about quantum computing. More better faster cheaper and all that, but the reason I read Popular Science and Discover magazine instead of Scientific American is that the articles in the former mags are *so* very much more comprehensible to me. I mean, I'm not a moron (really!) but I am also not a physicist, chemist, lawyer, doctor, lesbian or a Bhuddist. I have various knowledge in all of these fields, but no formal training. PopSci and Discover give so much more background and explination of basic concepts than does SciAm. I just wish that Popular Science would have more technical articles, but still explained in little words for dumbasses like me.
Okay, I'm done ranting now. Panties are no longer in a metaphorical bunch.
So how about them Knicks, eh?
Brant
The IMDB (again!) shows this about the word Diablo: 146 Feature films, 7 tv movies, 2 video games and 3 porno movies.
I suppose that this means that we can expect a bevy of lawsuits from Blizzard.
Assholes. Sheez.
Brant
Pretty nifty.. But I have a couple of problems/questions..
It says that the sail is only 30m in diameter. I was under the impression (from reading Omni magazine and Larry Niven, admittedly not the most reliable of sources) that one needed a sail of huge (kilometers) size to be able to get a noticeable boost from the solar sails. Also, the article says that they're using inflatable tubes to unfurl/stabilize the sail. IANAP (IANA Physicist) but wouldn't that make those inflatable tubes have to be tremendously strong to be able to survive in the low-pressure environs of space?
Those thoughts aside... It's pretty cool. And I wish I could launch my girlfriends cat out of a goshdarned ICBM tube.
Brant
Really, what would make me happy is if they made a version that took out all of that Mimei shit... either that or replaced her with a classic anime chick.. you know, the one that gets molested by the Invid or what have you. She really irritates me. Or just get rid of the singing. That would be so much better.
That said, I've been on the preorder list for 3 days now. I can't wait.. and at such a reasonable price. I was scared they were going to charge 50 bucks a disc or some crap like that.
Brant
Why is it that in the late 90's early 00's, studios/entertainment/media companies can't come up with any new content? Charlies Angels. TW2002. Star Wars I. Down to Earth.
This doesn't necessarily mean that I don't support the old coming back as new, but it is sort of wierd that all of this old stuff is coming back to haunt us.
Although, the new content hasn't always knocked my socks off lately, either... Which leads to the question: Did we use up all of the 'good' content ideas in the 60s and 70s?
Brant
I've got to give credit to them for trying...
I don't see MS doing anything close to this. Apple is trying to balance legitimate business concerns with giving users what they want. In short, they are trying to 'Think Different'.
Sure, maybe they haven't made it all the way to pure GPL or done the best that they could have, but they're making an effort to fight the good fight, and shouldn't that be worth something?
Brant
I'm going to have to quit my job right now..
Brant
What is that reason? (seriously)
I'd think that the responsiveness would vary depending on what surface you're using the mouse on... a blue desk? Get a red LED... a red desk? Blue LED... Additionally, they didn't specify in the article whether they had picked up a high intensity blue led or no.
If there is a different reason for a blue LED not working as well, or my Science! is incorrect, or you know why it came with a red LED in the first place, please let me know.
Brant
I read in the Wall Street Journal today that, because of the patent that has been filed on behalf of Johaan Gutenberg for movable type and for the concept of 'two-eyed reading', Whistler is going to require all users of WinXP to wear a specialized pair of glasses (called 'DigiOpthoLooker Things', or 'DOLT' by MS) that, unless the text being displayed onscreen has been licensed (licenses are valid for 12.3 minutes or whenever the reader gets off the toilet), will turn jet black.
MS, in turn, is being sued by God and Douglas Adams (who filed for a speculative patent for his 'peril sensitive sunglasses' used in HHGTTG) for patent infringement on, in God's case, patent 0000000000001: Looking at stuff.
According to the WSJ, God has a pretty good case, and MS is looking to settle out of court, but only if God will turn Linus into a turnip.
This latest barrage of lawsuits does not bode well for the elimination of the paper book as we know it.
Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, I need to stop drinking so much coffe.
Brant
Hell, they aren't just going to bring it home, they're going to land that bad boy on the White House lawn.
Y'all gotta remember, there's a goddamn texan in the Oval Office right now, and them boys at NASA are in Houston.
Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!
Brant
Now I know that /. is pro-linux, anti-M$, but I personally like and use daily the MS office suite, including Outlook. ... MS Office" and the evil demons that infest the sinking ship of microsoft, but the Office suite works pretty well for the average terminal monkey who doesn't want to have to see anything but his email and that cute paperclip.
I know that, as the article says, everyone wants to "once and for all replace
And Anna Kourni-whatshername.
Now this project would be seriously neat if they could make it include the MS Office standards so that the terminal monkeys could still have the paperclip, and the hardcore linux d00dz could have whatever client that they wanted....
Brant
I don't see how this is breaking news, except for the fact that it's Maxtor doing it and not some other company.
Other companies have been making HDDs that are bad-ass sturdy for years, they're used by the USAF in warplanes (I believe that Seagate makes most of them).
Tangentially, does anyone know how the sturdy drives that are used for military applications differ from this one? Are the military drives one side, one platter, too, or do they use some other sort of method to make them tough?
Brant