I am not a lawyer but as I understand it, there's no "failure to defend" clause for patents. Surely, any such clause would have been used against UNISYS. --
(The following is tangential to your main point, with which I agree)
I don't imagine the poster you're responding to has any interest in seeing Diamond develop and release Linux drivers and support programs. He specifically mentioned specs. It's better for the open source community (including not only the Linux community) to receive the specs and write its own drivers and utilities than to have some binaries handed to it.
Now, I'm not familiar with the Rio uploading issue, but if MassacrE's description is correct, Diamond denied requests for specs from people who were willing to write and release, at no cost to Diamond, tools that would make the Rio usable for more people. Is that a smart business decision?
Often it seems like we free software commies and linux zealots want companies to give us their goods for free. We want something for nothing and when we get it, we thoroughly inspect the gift horse's mouth. What a bunch of ungrateful, demanding losers!
I can only speak for myself, but when I complain about companies not releasing information, it's not because I think I have a right to get it or that they don't have the right to control it or that "information wants to be free". It's because I feel it would be in everybody's best interest if the information were free. "Everbody" includes the company. By stubbornly guarding register specs etc., I feel a hardware maker is shooting himself in the foot, locking out potential buyers and inadequately supporting their current customers. If I'm not a current customer, that's fine. I just spend my money elsewhere. But if I am, then I have a problem that exists solely for illogical reasons of corporate paranoia and that is what bugs me so much. --
...till we have a conduit from the smart fridge to the smart microwave and the fridge's loading bay opens into the hallway where the supermarket delivery bots can access it? --
The article used the term "sneakernet". In case there are others as unenlightened as I myself was a moment ago, let me share the definition with them:
sneakernet/snee'ker-net/ n.
Term used (generally with ironic intent) for transfer of electronic information by physically carrying tape, disks, or some other media from one machine to another. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs." Also called `Tennis-Net', `Armpit-Net', `Floppy-Net' or `Shoenet'; in the 1990s, `Nike network' after a well-known sneaker brand.
I'm not bothered by the fact that people make these errors on Slashdot because I expect Slashdot posts to be perfect in form. I don't. I'm with you; I want the information, the sentiment, the opinion.
The reason this bothers me is that it shows that people can't spell the possessive pronoun "its" correctly (not just on Slashdot, but everywhere).
I get annoyed when people do things incorrectly. That doesn't mean I need to grow up or get out more.
Anyway, since the previous post I've come across this, which shows that this error is not a such a new thing (as you might recall, that was what my post centered on). --
Have you really tried that with 256kbps or are you just extrapolating from your experience with lower bitrates? I can imagine hearing flaws in my 256kbps mp3's but I'm not sure I could tell them apart from uncompressed cd audio. I would definitely not say they don't come close (but then again only a small part of my collection is classical music). --
Please be polite when correcting people's grammar. It's nicer and more effective.
Perhaps it's my imagination, but I don't think mixing up "it's" and "its" was this common before Slashdot became popular. Now I see it all over the web. Could it be that just a few nerds who failed English (or should have) are responsible for this?
Here's an interesting experiment: Get someone capable to proofread every Slashdot article for a few weeks and eliminate these errors from the articles (just the articles, not the discussion). Observe the effect on discussions. Will usage of "its" increase as fewer people type "it's" in its place?
Hell, don't observe anything; just proofread the fucking articles! --
"What picture?", I asked myself. I went to take a look and noticed the "Downloadable Images" heading. Below it, I saw three links... to TIFF images. WTF? Haven't these people heard of JPEG? I'm still waiting for the damn thing to download. --
/me wonders: If he reasons like a brain damaged monkey, wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that he is a brain damaged monkey than a 13 year old? --
If "we" did want all information to be free and still demanded our privacy, we would indeed be hypocrites. But we don't. Some people say "information wants to be free" but not all of us say that and those who do don't always mean what you appear to think they do.
When we demand openness, we aren't asking to see the data stored within systems, but the code that runs the system -- the very code we want to ensure is good enough to protect our privacy among other things. --
Ok, bring on the flames, but at least consider the question:
Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, on the whole, they suck at it. About 40.000 killed annually in the USA alone should show us that.
We know software is never foolproof, programmers and engineers fuck up, etc., but still, I think a suitable team could make a system that would keep more of its users alive, take better routes, use less energy, etc., etc.
"But the average red-blooded American working stiff likes driving and won't give up that feeling of being free and in control for anything!".
<sigh> For the sake of 40.000 people a year, the average red-blooded American can grow up!
PS. Sorry for the US-centric post, but I wanted to fit in "red-blooded American". Just pretend we're all American for the moment. --
You do have the right to speed, at least here in Iceland, if it's an emergency (we're talking shit-my-kid-swallowed-bleach emergency). You just have to report it afterwards and I think you're supposed to hang something white out the window as a signal, but I don't imagine anyone would fault you for neglecting that. --
I agree with the statement elsewhere in this discussion that UF is making fun of the situation rather than the user. Furthermore, while I'm not an avid fan or even a long-time, frequent, reader of UF, even I have seen enough to know it's not a comic about dumb tech support calls. It's a comic about the lives of everybody at the ISP and dumb tech support calls are a small part of that.
Anyway, in case anyone was going form an opinion of the guy based solely on this somewhat objectionable rant, take a look at this as well. --
Clearly this is a plot by Andover.net to start the flamewar of a lifetime and leave the open source community a smoldering plain of ashes. Microsoft must be behind this. --
When I read your post, I just knew I'd come across something that did what you want. Something that translates data structures between languages. Something with a 4-letter acronym where the two middle letters were the same. Xdds? no. Sddx? no. Damnit! I couldn't remember what it was called.
Now, two days later, I'm looking for something entirely different and my search leads me to a glossary page. That wasn't what I was looking for so I hit back, but for an instant just before the page was erased, I scrolled down and saw it in the corner of my eye:
Cool. Meanwhile, the only places where I can get alchohol is bars, restaurants and the government monopoly liquor store. It's common practice around here to knock off early on Fridays to go to the liquor store before it closes.
Boasting about not knowing Spanish in the United States is about as ignorant and idiotic as boasting about not knowing French in Canada.
That's true. However, I'm not boasting about not knowing Spanish in the United States. Would you like to know why? Don't answer, I'll tell you. Two reasons. One: I'm not in the United States. I am not an American, you see. I'm Icelandic. Yes, that's right, a non-American reading Slashdot. Gasp! Who would have thought it? Two: Regardless of my whereabouts or nationality, I wasn't boasting about not knowing Spanish. I was stating a fact: most of us don't know Spanish. This fact supports my point, which is that the Spanish meaning of "Debian" doesn't strongly affect the name's overall suitability for a Linux distribution.
If you want to display your ignorance of your fellow citizens' cultures, find a less multicultural society.
Slashdot Mirror
TiVO is illegal to export? Why?
--
There was a zoom key?
--
I am not a lawyer but as I understand it, there's no "failure to defend" clause for patents. Surely, any such clause would have been used against UNISYS.
--
I don't imagine the poster you're responding to has any interest in seeing Diamond develop and release Linux drivers and support programs. He specifically mentioned specs. It's better for the open source community (including not only the Linux community) to receive the specs and write its own drivers and utilities than to have some binaries handed to it.
Now, I'm not familiar with the Rio uploading issue, but if MassacrE's description is correct, Diamond denied requests for specs from people who were willing to write and release, at no cost to Diamond, tools that would make the Rio usable for more people. Is that a smart business decision?
Often it seems like we free software commies and linux zealots want companies to give us their goods for free. We want something for nothing and when we get it, we thoroughly inspect the gift horse's mouth. What a bunch of ungrateful, demanding losers!
I can only speak for myself, but when I complain about companies not releasing information, it's not because I think I have a right to get it or that they don't have the right to control it or that "information wants to be free". It's because I feel it would be in everybody's best interest if the information were free. "Everbody" includes the company. By stubbornly guarding register specs etc., I feel a hardware maker is shooting himself in the foot, locking out potential buyers and inadequately supporting their current customers. If I'm not a current customer, that's fine. I just spend my money elsewhere. But if I am, then I have a problem that exists solely for illogical reasons of corporate paranoia and that is what bugs me so much.
--
...till we have a conduit from the smart fridge to the smart microwave and the fridge's loading bay opens into the hallway where the supermarket delivery bots can access it?
--
sneakernet /snee'ker-net/ n.
Term used (generally with ironic intent) for transfer of electronic information by physically carrying tape, disks, or some other media from one machine to another. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs." Also called `Tennis-Net', `Armpit-Net', `Floppy-Net' or `Shoenet'; in the 1990s, `Nike network' after a well-known sneaker brand.
(from the jargon file)
--
The reason this bothers me is that it shows that people can't spell the possessive pronoun "its" correctly (not just on Slashdot, but everywhere).
I get annoyed when people do things incorrectly. That doesn't mean I need to grow up or get out more.
Anyway, since the previous post I've come across this, which shows that this error is not a such a new thing (as you might recall, that was what my post centered on).
--
Have you really tried that with 256kbps or are you just extrapolating from your experience with lower bitrates? I can imagine hearing flaws in my 256kbps mp3's but I'm not sure I could tell them apart from uncompressed cd audio. I would definitely not say they don't come close (but then again only a small part of my collection is classical music).
--
...2 million people in times square is just not acceptable.
--
Perhaps it's my imagination, but I don't think mixing up "it's" and "its" was this common before Slashdot became popular. Now I see it all over the web. Could it be that just a few nerds who failed English (or should have) are responsible for this?
Here's an interesting experiment: Get someone capable to proofread every Slashdot article for a few weeks and eliminate these errors from the articles (just the articles, not the discussion). Observe the effect on discussions. Will usage of "its" increase as fewer people type "it's" in its place?
Hell, don't observe anything; just proofread the fucking articles!
--
You know, you can disable Katz's articles entirely. I haven't read a Katz post in months. If he'd stopped posting, I wouldn't know!
--
"What picture?", I asked myself. I went to take a look and noticed the "Downloadable Images" heading. Below it, I saw three links... to TIFF images. WTF? Haven't these people heard of JPEG? I'm still waiting for the damn thing to download.
--
Well, most of the stuff posted here is just as much news at T+1 day as it is at T.
--
/me wonders: If he reasons like a brain damaged monkey, wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that he is a brain damaged monkey than a 13 year old?
--
If "we" did want all information to be free and still demanded our privacy, we would indeed be hypocrites. But we don't. Some people say "information wants to be free" but not all of us say that and those who do don't always mean what you appear to think they do.
When we demand openness, we aren't asking to see the data stored within systems, but the code that runs the system -- the very code we want to ensure is good enough to protect our privacy among other things.
--
Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, on the whole, they suck at it. About 40.000 killed annually in the USA alone should show us that.
We know software is never foolproof, programmers and engineers fuck up, etc., but still, I think a suitable team could make a system that would keep more of its users alive, take better routes, use less energy, etc., etc.
"But the average red-blooded American working stiff likes driving and won't give up that feeling of being free and in control for anything!".
<sigh> For the sake of 40.000 people a year, the average red-blooded American can grow up!
PS. Sorry for the US-centric post, but I wanted to fit in "red-blooded American". Just pretend we're all American for the moment.
--
You do have the right to speed, at least here in Iceland, if it's an emergency (we're talking shit-my-kid-swallowed-bleach emergency). You just have to report it afterwards and I think you're supposed to hang something white out the window as a signal, but I don't imagine anyone would fault you for neglecting that.
--
Anyway, in case anyone was going form an opinion of the guy based solely on this somewhat objectionable rant, take a look at this as well.
--
Clearly this is a plot by Andover.net to start the flamewar of a lifetime and leave the open source community a smoldering plain of ashes. Microsoft must be behind this.
--
Now, two days later, I'm looking for something entirely different and my search leads me to a glossary page. That wasn't what I was looking for so I hit back, but for an instant just before the page was erased, I scrolled down and saw it in the corner of my eye:
WDDX
--
It's a slight embarrassment, that's all. A small price to pay for knowing none of your fellow passengers are carrying a ceramic pistol.
--
I like "Zulu" better anyway.
--
Pretty hilarius, huh?
--
/me wonders if a drive-through beer joint is really a good idea.
--
Boasting about not knowing Spanish in the United States is about as ignorant and idiotic as boasting about not knowing French in Canada.
That's true. However, I'm not boasting about not knowing Spanish in the United States. Would you like to know why? Don't answer, I'll tell you. Two reasons. One: I'm not in the United States. I am not an American, you see. I'm Icelandic. Yes, that's right, a non-American reading Slashdot. Gasp! Who would have thought it? Two: Regardless of my whereabouts or nationality, I wasn't boasting about not knowing Spanish. I was stating a fact: most of us don't know Spanish. This fact supports my point, which is that the Spanish meaning of "Debian" doesn't strongly affect the name's overall suitability for a Linux distribution.
If you want to display your ignorance of your fellow citizens' cultures, find a less multicultural society.
Ditto.
--