Actually it's the BBC that is being sensationalist. The quote is from the BBC article, which was why I balanced it with the "truth" from Trustux's press release.
With your current little debacle in the Middle East, I would have thought the idea of ridding yourselves of dependance on gas/petrol would be a good incentive.
You've yet to see station selling suitable fuel?
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's called supply and demand. If no-one is driving the cars, why would they stock the fuel?
It's exactly the same problem that faced unleaded petrol.
Why did unleaded take off? Well, in the UK a government mandate was passed forcing all cars sold after 1st April 1989 to run on unleaded. An EU directive, 98/70/EC, made selling leaded leaded petrol in the UK after January 2000 illegal.
Until goverments give manufacturers and fuel suppliers a swift kick, errr, benefit to promote new fuels, no-one will bother. (Cue the usual comment about oil companies owning the US goernment here).
First let me state I bought it for the girlfriend:)
Anyway, like the acticle description of Sony's technique, the CD plays in a normal CD player, or a DVD player, however when put into a PC it autoruns and starts a little, quite good looking player, and plays the CD using this player.
Now if I use Media Player, or Real to play the CD, it still works, but if I try to rip the CD, each track errors about 5 seconds in.
By the looks of things, the CD based player software has digital versions of the songs embedded in it. According to the player the tracks are encoded at 47kps.
It's clearly labelled as "Copy Controlled" on the front and back of the CD. It is not described anywhere on the media as a "CD", nor does the Phillip's logo appear. Minimum listed specs are Windows 95, Pentium II, 4Mb RAM. But as you can still play it using your normal computer, I guess those specs are for their little specific player.
The point of all this? None really, it does stop you ripping the music, but it's still playable from everywhere else, your CD player, your DVD, or your own player software. Almost seems reasonable when you think about it.
Each bluetooth device has an ID, like a network card has a MAC address. In order to get most devices, and I assume the mouse here is the same, you have to pair them up. Once they are paired, they work together, otherwise I'd be on the train on my notebook leeching someone elses bluetooth GPRS connection via an unpaired phone.
So, this little toy comes with a blue tooth adapter to plug into the USB port. The Microsoft bluetooh keyboard and mouse also have their own adapter.... except some of us have laptops with bluetooth built in, or seperate cards. Why are we ending up with a seperate USB adapter for every piece of hardware?
But SMIL is a well defined, standard format. Considering that real has support it for ages, and Real One uses it extensively, especially with premium content like VidZone et al, the lack of SMIL support makes it a very crippled player. A lot of streams these days simple have the RAM file link to a SMIL file, as this is the only way to offer even simple meta data.
The open formats it supports are already out there, they've kept the useful ones, Real Streaming support as binary only.
It's also crippled, in that it doesn't support SMIL, so the fancy type of streaming done right now with real (pictures, and text with your video) aren't possible.
The Windows TPC benchmark was on last years hardware (IBM xSeries 370, released last year).
The Oracle TPC benchmark is on next years hardware (HP ProLiant DL580R - not available till May 2003).
Crowing about how performance is higher under Linux is FUD. It's not a fair comparison. Or didn't the story submitter understand that hardware always affects performance?
Not true. If you can prove you don't watch BBC channels (for example you only have a DVD hooked up and no external attenna), you do not have to pay.
The rules state "If you use or install television receiving equipment to [b]receive or record television programme services[/b] you are required by law to have a valid TV Licence." - emphasis added.
My point was that it should NOT be a CD Burner, it should simply allow downloads via a web interface. Basically all your arguments site that the options are for audiophiles, any service out there would be designed for early adopters, which a great amount will already know what bit rate is, plus people who are going to be initially interested in a pay service will be music enthusiasts, not joe-idiot.
OK, point taken on the interface. However, I would argue the interface is up to the seller. We have an interesting bunch of customers, and all their interfaces are different.
The problem with aiming at early adopters is that the early adopters in this market are the Napster users. The ones who don't see any problem in sharing. The music industry hates this (and you can see why).
You're thinking like a techie, not joe user. Face it, music downloads are not aimed at us.
Music stored available in multiple standard formats with multiple bit rates: OGG,MP3,FLAC,SHN
Aside from MP3, normal users don't know, and frankly don't care about the other formats. Hell, if their machine plays it, they're happy, and as 99.99% of joe users have Microsoft's media player available for their OS, then MP3, WMA and maybe RA would be the choosen formats.
$10/month you only get to download 64kbps mp3's, $15/month for 128, working your way up to $30+/month for flac or shn downloads that are lossless.
Again, this is for the "normal" public, not the audiophile. They won't care about higher bitrates. As long as it sounds ok (128kps) they won't care.
Every CD ever made period.
*grin* That will *never* happen, unless AOL/TW takes over every record label.
Allow transfer to portables and CD's
The OD2 offering allows burning to CD for an extra price.
An intuitive web interface
So you want a web interface that controls your hard drive, and your CD burner? Are you MAD? Allowing code like that, which would pop out of the Java sandbox, or would be deliver as ActiveX is frightening.
Up front admission: I work one of OD2's rivals. So if you like, take what I say with a pinch of salt.
OD's service, as well as ours, does not cut out the middle man. The labels still get paid. OD2 paid the labels for this content (albeit by offering shares in themselves, not with actual cash). The subscription fee you pay does, therefore, filter back to the label. I would be very surprised to see any minor label, let alone any independant band hhave content available.
OD2 are well known within the industry for offering Microsoft formats only (perhaps one of the reasons MSN have choose them to power the MSN downloads.
Their licensing model is a music "rental" scheme. The problem, for slashdot users, is this seems unacceptable to the "technical public". The normal public may well go for this, after all, 99% of people accept the video hire model, why not music hire. However, it is, in my opinion, still too limited. If I am going to pay for access I want more than 25 downloads per month. I'd happily pay £10 pcm for access to all of EMI's back catalogue. Maybe one day EMI will listen and go for it (and preferably use my code base *grin*).
However, the suggestion in the story that "these services cut out the middlemen and if they should ever succeed record retailers would be left out in the cold" is rubbish. The labels provide the music, of course they get paid.
Simple really. How fast is the average *INTERNET* connection? 1Mbps? 2Mbps?
While WiFi at 11Mbps isn't suitable for connection multiple machines on a network, transfering large files, it's more than suitable for connecting to an internet connection on. Even at 11Mbps the bandwidth limitation will be the speed of the internet connection.
Rabbit, et al, were implemented as CT2 technology at the end of the 1980s. Four operators were licensed to operate phonepoint (or equivalent) systems. When a user wanted to make a call from a mobile phone, they would lock onto the nearest low-power transmitter; with the aim to place transmitters would be in shops, tube stations, and so on and there would be few gaps in coverage in urban areas.
There was no mobility, as once a call had been set up through one base station it could not be transferred to another, also you could not take incoming calls (unless you were at home, where it worked like a cordless phone).
Rabbit failed because "proper" mobiles (albeit analogue) were taking off and moving from the brick car phone models, and they allowed incoming calls, and movement from cell to cell.
Don't be paranoid - if you get an email you don't want, just follow the remove instructions - 99% of emailers will remove you from their lists, and the ones who don't are probably just disorganized.
Did the little spammer get his peepee whacked? Come on, are we that stupid? If any of you believe that, create a random free email account, then use it to opt-out. Now sit back and watch. It's educational.
Re:Take down their mail servers!!!
on
Meet the Spammers
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· Score: 2
Sometimes the originating IP is there. It depends on the compromised mailer, or proxy. Usually there are fake headers in there too.
spamhaus, spews et al already publish blacklists, albeit in a DNS form, which most of the common mail servers can use to reject mail on.
Re:Take down their mail servers!!!
on
Meet the Spammers
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· Score: 2
It would do nothing. Spam software these days don't use the spam companies mail server, but instead uses open SMTP relays, or uses open proxies and then connects out. That's why open relay and open proxy blacklists are so damned useful.
Check the sending domains exists when mail is sent.
Drop the common abusive domains
Increase the amount of blocked domains you can have. 250 is not enough when people use aaaa.com, aaab.com and so on
Data mine the individual block lists. If more than 20% of hotmail users block a domain, then it should be looked at
All these things are pretty standard these days, but webmail providers (not just hotmail) don't actually seem to bother. Remember, the more times you check your inbox, the more ads they have viewed.
It was put to a vote, and the yes vote won. Those on the losing side will always feel 'ridden over' but that will happen in any democracy.
Yes, but the vote wasn't open for the "common good". If nominet was truely democratic, then the vote would have included all *.uk domain holders. That's what I mean by riding roughshood, in the same way ICANN ignore any public input these days.
I think you are probably an exception to the rule.
What a poilte way of putting it:) I probably am, but there horror stories appear in uk.net with regularity. You assertation that I never followed it up is insulting. Would you like to see the monthly emails?
What, you mean these accounts?
The 1999 accounts? With no previous, or following years accounts with which you can compare?
I respectfully disagree.
Your right of course. I still assert they are not transparent, for example, full transcripts of meetings would go a long way to that, as well as voting records for resolutions. They are not run for the common good, in that they do not listen to their, albeit indirect, customers, the domain holders.
Slashdot Mirror
A press release telling the truth? Oh the irony
.. that refuse to disconnect anyone spamvertising yahoo store URLs? I'm surprised yahoo has the gall to carry the story.
With your current little debacle in the Middle East, I would have thought the idea of ridding yourselves of dependance on gas/petrol would be a good incentive.
It's called supply and demand. If no-one is driving the cars, why would they stock the fuel?
It's exactly the same problem that faced unleaded petrol.
Why did unleaded take off? Well, in the UK a government mandate was passed forcing all cars sold after 1st April 1989 to run on unleaded. An EU directive, 98/70/EC, made selling leaded leaded petrol in the UK after January 2000 illegal.
Until goverments give manufacturers and fuel suppliers a swift kick, errr, benefit to promote new fuels, no-one will bother. (Cue the usual comment about oil companies owning the US goernment here).
First let me state I bought it for the girlfriend :)
Anyway, like the acticle description of Sony's technique, the CD plays in a normal CD player, or a DVD player, however when put into a PC it autoruns and starts a little, quite good looking player, and plays the CD using this player.
Now if I use Media Player, or Real to play the CD, it still works, but if I try to rip the CD, each track errors about 5 seconds in.
By the looks of things, the CD based player software has digital versions of the songs embedded in it. According to the player the tracks are encoded at 47kps.
It's clearly labelled as "Copy Controlled" on the front and back of the CD. It is not described anywhere on the media as a "CD", nor does the Phillip's logo appear. Minimum listed specs are Windows 95, Pentium II, 4Mb RAM. But as you can still play it using your normal computer, I guess those specs are for their little specific player.
The point of all this? None really, it does stop you ripping the music, but it's still playable from everywhere else, your CD player, your DVD, or your own player software. Almost seems reasonable when you think about it.
Nope.
Each bluetooth device has an ID, like a network card has a MAC address. In order to get most devices, and I assume the mouse here is the same, you have to pair them up. Once they are paired, they work together, otherwise I'd be on the train on my notebook leeching someone elses bluetooth GPRS connection via an unpaired phone.
So, this little toy comes with a blue tooth adapter to plug into the USB port. The Microsoft bluetooh keyboard and mouse also have their own adapter.... except some of us have laptops with bluetooth built in, or seperate cards. Why are we ending up with a seperate USB adapter for every piece of hardware?
But SMIL is a well defined, standard format. Considering that real has support it for ages, and Real One uses it extensively, especially with premium content like VidZone et al, the lack of SMIL support makes it a very crippled player. A lot of streams these days simple have the RAM file link to a SMIL file, as this is the only way to offer even simple meta data.
Not entrirely free? Well it's not open either.
The open formats it supports are already out there, they've kept the useful ones, Real Streaming support as binary only.
It's also crippled, in that it doesn't support SMIL, so the fancy type of streaming done right now with real (pictures, and text with your video) aren't possible.
The Windows TPC benchmark was on last years hardware (IBM xSeries 370, released last year).
The Oracle TPC benchmark is on next years hardware (HP ProLiant DL580R - not available till May 2003).
Crowing about how performance is higher under Linux is FUD. It's not a fair comparison. Or didn't the story submitter understand that hardware always affects performance?
The rules state "If you use or install television receiving equipment to [b]receive or record television programme services[/b] you are required by law to have a valid TV Licence." - emphasis added.
My point was that it should NOT be a CD Burner, it should simply allow downloads via a web interface. Basically all your arguments site that the options are for audiophiles, any service out there would be designed for early adopters, which a great amount will already know what bit rate is, plus people who are going to be initially interested in a pay service will be music enthusiasts, not joe-idiot.
OK, point taken on the interface. However, I would argue the interface is up to the seller. We have an interesting bunch of customers, and all their interfaces are different.
The problem with aiming at early adopters is that the early adopters in this market are the Napster users. The ones who don't see any problem in sharing. The music industry hates this (and you can see why).
You're thinking like a techie, not joe user. Face it, music downloads are not aimed at us.
Music stored available in multiple standard formats with multiple bit rates: OGG,MP3,FLAC,SHN
Aside from MP3, normal users don't know, and frankly don't care about the other formats. Hell, if their machine plays it, they're happy, and as 99.99% of joe users have Microsoft's media player available for their OS, then MP3, WMA and maybe RA would be the choosen formats.
$10/month you only get to download 64kbps mp3's, $15/month for 128, working your way up to $30+/month for flac or shn downloads that are lossless.
Again, this is for the "normal" public, not the audiophile. They won't care about higher bitrates. As long as it sounds ok (128kps) they won't care.
Every CD ever made period.
*grin* That will *never* happen, unless AOL/TW takes over every record label.
Allow transfer to portables and CD's
The OD2 offering allows burning to CD for an extra price.
An intuitive web interface
So you want a web interface that controls your hard drive, and your CD burner? Are you MAD? Allowing code like that, which would pop out of the Java sandbox, or would be deliver as ActiveX is frightening.
(Note I work for an OD2 competitor)
Up front admission: I work one of OD2's rivals. So if you like, take what I say with a pinch of salt.
OD's service, as well as ours, does not cut out the middle man. The labels still get paid. OD2 paid the labels for this content (albeit by offering shares in themselves, not with actual cash). The subscription fee you pay does, therefore, filter back to the label. I would be very surprised to see any minor label, let alone any independant band hhave content available.
OD2 are well known within the industry for offering Microsoft formats only (perhaps one of the reasons MSN have choose them to power the MSN downloads.
Their licensing model is a music "rental" scheme. The problem, for slashdot users, is this seems unacceptable to the "technical public". The normal public may well go for this, after all, 99% of people accept the video hire model, why not music hire. However, it is, in my opinion, still too limited. If I am going to pay for access I want more than 25 downloads per month. I'd happily pay £10 pcm for access to all of EMI's back catalogue. Maybe one day EMI will listen and go for it (and preferably use my code base *grin*).
However, the suggestion in the story that "these services cut out the middlemen and if they should ever succeed record retailers would be left out in the cold" is rubbish. The labels provide the music, of course they get paid.
Simple really. How fast is the average *INTERNET* connection? 1Mbps? 2Mbps?
While WiFi at 11Mbps isn't suitable for connection multiple machines on a network, transfering large files, it's more than suitable for connecting to an internet connection on. Even at 11Mbps the bandwidth limitation will be the speed of the internet connection.
Rabbit, et al, were implemented as CT2 technology at the end of the 1980s. Four operators were licensed to operate phonepoint (or equivalent) systems. When a user wanted to make a call from a mobile phone, they would lock onto the nearest low-power transmitter; with the aim to place transmitters would be in shops, tube stations, and so on and there would be few gaps in coverage in urban areas.
There was no mobility, as once a call had been set up through one base station it could not be transferred to another, also you could not take incoming calls (unless you were at home, where it worked like a cordless phone).
Rabbit failed because "proper" mobiles (albeit analogue) were taking off and moving from the brick car phone models, and they allowed incoming calls, and movement from cell to cell.
Did the little spammer get his peepee whacked? Come on, are we that stupid? If any of you believe that, create a random free email account, then use it to opt-out. Now sit back and watch. It's educational.
They used to sell (well they say they no longer do)
- Advanced Direct Remailer (bulk emailer)
http://www.mailutilities.com/adr/
- Advanced Email Extractor (WWW email harvester)
http://www.mailutilities.com/aee/
More information is at http://www.politechbot.com/p-02361.html and all over the web and usenet.Sometimes the originating IP is there. It depends on the compromised mailer, or proxy. Usually there are fake headers in there too.
spamhaus, spews et al already publish blacklists, albeit in a DNS form, which most of the common mail servers can use to reject mail on.
It would do nothing. Spam software these days don't use the spam companies mail server, but instead uses open SMTP relays, or uses open proxies and then connects out. That's why open relay and open proxy blacklists are so damned useful.
And Thomas Cowles isn't exactly of "high moral fibre", even setting aside his spamming.
Of course if his email address got picked up by spam crawlers, that would be bad
So posting bbalan@surenet.net would be bad
You can inform the auto update program to simply download and prompt, not auto install.
All these things are pretty standard these days, but webmail providers (not just hotmail) don't actually seem to bother. Remember, the more times you check your inbox, the more ads they have viewed.
Yes, but the vote wasn't open for the "common good". If nominet was truely democratic, then the vote would have included all *.uk domain holders. That's what I mean by riding roughshood, in the same way ICANN ignore any public input these days.
I think you are probably an exception to the rule.
What a poilte way of putting it :) I probably am, but there horror stories appear in uk.net with regularity. You assertation that I never followed it up is insulting. Would you like to see the monthly emails?
What, you mean these accounts?
The 1999 accounts? With no previous, or following years accounts with which you can compare?
I respectfully disagree.
Your right of course. I still assert they are not transparent, for example, full transcripts of meetings would go a long way to that, as well as voting records for resolutions. They are not run for the common good, in that they do not listen to their, albeit indirect, customers, the domain holders.