I've been using MySQL here and there for a while and I'm definitely looking to migrate away from it. In my experience, it blows up once a month, on average. When I say "blows up", I mean, it can expand in memory size until the box bogs down (FreeBSD & Solaris - and they eventually recover - I'd shudder to think what it does to Linux), or else sudden Signal 11s.
This has nothing to do with the stress the box is under; the behavior is the same whether the box does millions of hits a day or mere dozens.
Supposedly, Red Hat is considering working on support for replication? I'm none too clear on how that would work with no support for transactions...
I agree that the anonymous poster went a little overboard in his/her language, and that being anonymous probably emboldened him (yes, i'm sure it's a male), but he has a certain point.
My wife's last job was producing stories for a cable news program focussed on science stories, and I am 100% certain that CNN released this story because of the movie. There are stories like this all the time that come out of the scientific world, but they only get wider play because of "general interest." A cynical, but accurate dissection of this term is "sensational, weird, or tied to current events." And expensive movies are current events valued the same as, say, how global warming creates changing weather patterns, considered in the wake of a hurricane killing 40,000 in Central America.
OK, so it may be a cynical viewpoint, but just because we're geeks doesn't entitle us to be ignorant about the way that things that interest us become news items. The story and the movie are not coincidental. The story would not have been run but for the movie.
That being said, you are correct that NASA has public relations concerns which can affect the timing of their announcements... if they want funding, publicity helps, and piggy-backing a release on a big Hollywood movie can't hurt.
While you can reduce the overall poisioning of the net that this technique causes by serving images from a non-poisoned host, the fact is that if I run a large proxy server, and a lot of people visit sites using this technique, that site is going to cost me a huge amount of money in forced hardware upgrades, because every session is taking up a host space in my proxy cache. Plus, there's the extra DNS traffic, which isn't much, but overall, location poisoning SUCKS
Personally, I would set up all proxies to deny a site using this technique.
Maybe, it's obvious, maybe it isn't, but Sevenval SUCKS!!!. If there's one thing that the recent Doubleclick nonsense shows, it's that the general public will only stand for getting the shaft on privacy issues for so long. And the location poisoning technique is too obvious, so people will raise a stink.
It's one thing to patent a sucky technique, but since the technique sucks too much to have real commercial value, you can just let this thing die on it's own, sucking for air.
So, what's so great about AOLServer? The nice thing about AOLServer is that out of the box it is ready to handle connections to relational databases. No need to make ODBC calls, etc. AOLServer sets up connections when it starts up and your web pages can get handles from a pool of these connections, use them, then recycle...
PHP does this, too, and it's integrated into Apache, which has some fairly obvious advantages (don't underestimate the advantage of ubiquity - ever). 90% of the problems in performance I've seen are usually due to bad design, inefficient database use, and often a serious misconfiguration somewhere.
But if none of these are the case, and the original questioner still has database bottlenecks, then the solutions start to get more involved and expensive. Many other first optimizations have been mentioned many times on./ and everywhere else, like: move the database to a separate machine (preferably to a private network behind the front end server(s), use expires headers on your graphics to encourage longer caching, serve graphics from a different machine, use reverse proxying to break up requests to different machines performing queries, and make everything static that doesn't need to be dynamic. This last one has enabled me to really stretch the abilities of sites, so I'll repeat it; if it doesn't need to be dynamically generated every time, don't do it!
But if there is still a bottleneck at the database, it gets expensive, because no open source databases currently do replication. You need replication to do true mirroring of databases. Guess what? It's expensive. But from the sound of the project, I'm sure the questioner will fix the problem long before that's an issue.
This comment is absolutely right on. It is an important symbolic concession, but it's a little early to break out the champagne, or wag our tails and bark a bark of joy and lick the master's hand.
Alternately, Bezos can announce that he will only enforce Amazon patents for three years. After which anyone can use them.
It's pretty rare for someone in Bezos' position to make such direct and open comments. When was the last time you heard Gates or McNealy et al engage in honest, public, rational discussion with their critics in an attempt to engage them? There is some hope for this guy.
Jeff, you got me listening, which I didn't think would happen. Keep talking. PLEASE talk to politicians about this, the public doesn't know the system is broke, or how this harms them. With the internet hype factor, and a couple more voices (Larry? you out there?), this is the best hope I've seen for rational political dialog on these topics. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself on both sides of these issues so often, you'll be praying to your laywers before you go to sleep at night.
Actually, trademark - and this suit, really, regardless of the IANAL exact legal argument presented - is different from other intangible properties/rights in that it exists to protect the consumer as much as the producer.
If, by looking at a design, a layperson could be forgiven for confusing it with an original design done by someone else, that has as much danger of defrauding the consumer into buying the "wrong" thing as it does of doing economic harm to the creator of the original design. Anyone who's been to a NYC electronics store and seen boxes of televisions labelled "Panarsonic" knows exactly what I'm talking about. But the infringing companies don't have to intend consumer confusion for it to happen, and consumers want to be protected from it, no matter what the intentions of the makers.
While this particular case may raise hackles with the./ crowd, for reasons peculiar to the./ ethos, no one marginally familiar with industrial design can be surprised or upset about this.
This suit won't prevent anyone from making computers, or even from making rounded, one piece computers, or from making computers with translucent stuff, or from making computers in slurpee blue, or from making one that's the trendiest industrial design since the VW beetle in the 60's, or from making them so gosh darn cute you want to lick them, but it might make it difficult to do all these things at once. I don't think anyone is suffering for it.
Personally, I'd like to see more butch, metallic, boldfaced, but elegantly designed industrial-looking computers, and fewer attempts to make them so cute 'n cuddly.
Well, it might be unsupported opinion; hearsay is when you are repeating as fact something about which you have no knowledge but the utterance of a third party.
Anyway, the opinion expressed is certainly a bit of hyperbole, but it's not utterly without foundation. Not all countries create a body of intellectual property law and enforcement with the same zeal as the U.S.
China, for instance. Most of the third world, in fact. There was I think a Bruce Sterling novel set in a future after commercial software became a non-market, largely because China so eagerly pirated and redistributed everything, which wrecked Western economies. While this is also hyperbole (it's science fiction, after all), it's not too hard to imagine that Disney might have a hard time keeping possession of Mickey Mouse til the 23rd century (and they would, which would have a weird side effect of making David Bowie's great-great-N grandchildren into aristocrats living off the eternal deed of his works), and that copyright and patent law might undergo some huge changes as a result of globalization.
Imagine, for a moment, that China goes completely mercenary (it's really NOT hard to imagine this, based on the spam I've been getting recently) and starts running major porn sites with forbidden Alyssa Milano photos, streaming Pamela & Tommy for free at all hours, scanning Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler right off the magazine rack and putting it online. They could run porno sites with 10,000 free samples, all with pirated content. Then, they'd enable downloads of cracked Win2K for $10. Does anyone really think the Chinese government, if it cynically decided to make money off crazy, corrupt amerikans this way, would enforce intellectual property rights? How would you stop them? It might be a lot harder than you think, for the same reasons that international borders are so porous to drugs and other contraband. Every time you plug a leak, someone else can make money by poking a new hole.
Wanna give the RIAA a brain seizure? I think contemplating "mp3.cn" might cause some of their leaders to purchase new underwear.
I wonder if it isn't more sour grapes over the decline in the importance of Slackware than anything else.
Could be. But it sounded more like wistful regret, and not very deep at that. I think the reactions here are just a little bit overblown.
Though as a *BSD user, I can understand why people are a bit on edge. It helped to read Jordan Hubbard's comment that FreeBSD can no more be un-freed than Linux. It seems apparent that BSDi is doing this more along the lines of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" than "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer." If they tried to un-free the code, developers would simply jump ship to another BSD, or start a new one where the old one left off, even if it required a new coat of paint on the code to free it from new and evil masters. GPL advocates sometimes forget that this is how the BSDs came about in the first place. They've already weathered that test, and it would be highly foolish for any corporation to stake their plans on the same thing not happening again.
The big deal is that intellectual property is not truly property, as it does not naturally have one of the main characteristics of property; exclusivity. That means, if I enjoy the thing, then you cannot. So intellectual property - ALL OF IT - is a limited, government supported monopoly which CREATES property out of a thing in order to creat this specific characteristic, and thereby give TEMPORARY benefits to the creators in order to give them an incentive to create. But there are supposed to be limits to this.
Most of us feel that if we buy a CD, it belongs to us, in that we can listen to it, make copies of it, play it out loud, etc. It doesn't matter whether a record company spent $1 or $1,000,000 to promote it, when we spent money, we acquired the rights I mentioned above. Now look at region locking in DVDs, or artificial degradation of digital copies, and see if they don't infringe on the rights THAT WE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.
The problem is that governments are now so often corrupted by business interests (corruption is what I call it when a company gives money to a politician, who then acts on the company's behalf), that governments are going too far in CREATING property rights where, in fact, none naturally exist.
I've never yet seen a rational basis for creation of monopolies by governments for the sole benefit the monopolists. "Because we have it, and we had Sonny Bono change the rules in our favor so I can keep it" doesn't justify anything, and is also a mickey-mouse cop-out. Literally.
How come it seems that the people that think that IP laws and patents are dumb are also the same people that have no IP or patents of their own? I'd be much more interested in these arguments if people or companies like Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft etc all came forward and said they thought that existing patent and IP laws should be done away with.
I'm afraid you are talking through your hat, here. Most of the opinions to which you refer are not against intellectual property in general, but opposed to the spurious and grasping nature it has recently acquired, especially in the area of software patents.
I have co-filed patents. I thought they were stupid things to patent, but they were done for defensive reasons. Oh, what was that, you wanted statements from large software companies? Well, here is an incredibly powerful and direct statement from Oracle that falsifies your claim. I would also point out that an increasing amount of code from companies like IBM and Apple is being unburdened from the usual IP restrictions. Standards and openness are good for innovators.
I'm sure there are other companies, top talent, and management who feel the same way, but who don't have the courage to step forward. Granted, Bill Gates and Scott McNealy are probably not among them.
Your comment may not be flamebait, but it's not very bright either:
without big business you'd probably still be working at a factory for minimum wage
Aside from being rather questionable economic theory, this makes me wonder, who would be running that factory?
There is nothing good about taking away all consumer rights; the fact that the UCITA takes these away from individuals and big business alike should be a clue that something stinks. It's a disaster for large businesses and small, and sets a terrible, terrible legal precedent in trying to enforce contracts that are "agreed to" before they are seen.
Please moderate the aforementioned... Oh, forget it, most of you folks wouldn't know humor if it bit you in the ass. And I can tell, because it did.
It's one thing for Katz to pontificate about online hostility, it's another thing for someone to defend an obvious dumb, indefensible comment with "It was just a joke, man!" That's usually the excuse people use when they are called on their bull, often of the racist, sexist, homophobic, or religiously bigoted variety.
Katz, there is something worse than hostile behavior online; the degradation of discourse. Making transparently false claims is part of that, whether it's the death of the usenet by spam or simple "every opinion is equal, even if it's false" cowardice. Lameass moderators who mark postings as flamebait because they castigate someone for wanton untruths is another. Oh, yeah, and Taco rimmed me.
The fifth amendment protections afforded by US law apply to criminal cases. Civil cases can compel more compliance. So be very careful.
By segregating your email into different folders, you have a better position to avoid confiscation of your data. While it would be uncommon for a court to sanction walking into someone's office and carting out every file cabinet, their ignorance of technology enables them to think it somehow reasonable to cart out your computers wholesale. By segregating your mail, you might be able to prevent this by turning over relevant mail folders and you would have better recourse and possibility for some ultimate justice should a court decide (as they all too often do, these days) to shit all over the fourth amendment (which once provided protections against "unreasonable search and seizure") for marginal reasons (like the mere suspicion that someone _might_ be dealing drugs or have participated in computer crimes). Sounds unreasonable? It is. Your congressman doesn't care if you write, unless you are writing a big fat check. Join the EFF instead.
And for Linux/*BSD/UNIX, try 'obliterate'. It erases files by writing them over several times with random data and _then_ deleting them. Windows users can also use Datafellow F-Secure desktop for win32s, if they feel compelled to spend buckaroos (and most do). With a little luck, there will be free PGP-based utilities by year's end (the studied randomness in PGP encryption provides a good source of random data for wiping).
All caching is copyright infringement according to your simplistic view. Go firebomb your IT department or shut up.
Banner ads use a variety of techniques to bust caching. If you aren't using them, you should shut up or get the fuck out of the ad serving business.
./ could easily provide a pass-through cache without violating a single copyright. If they can't, then the DOJ is under a moral obligation to arrest for piracy everyone who maufactures caching proxies under the DCMA. Get a life, you bootlick.
Re:Books, catalogs, and *.coms
on
Middle Media
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· Score: 1
The internet, like catalogues, will become a low-capital way to break into specific retail markets.
I've worked in/with large media companies, so perhaps for that reason I can't really find fault with Katz on this one.
But the comment (see parent) on Amazon buying Borders is right on; they'd be crazy not to. The reason that Katz has a point here is that while old media have no clue about the 'Net (I have experience with this one), the old media are more willing and able to buy up the new. Barnes and Nobles may see their way to starting up on their own, but Disney will happily buy up Go (even if they don't quite know what to do with it) and ABC will stream Matt Drudge on the net. So there is, in fact, a middle ground springing up more rapidly than anyone has predicted. People were too busy predicting whether the new media would take over or die; and as usual, the ignored third possibility was the thing that happened.
Fact is, the Matrix works where usual explorations of the virtual reality theme suck. Why? Because these humans were raised from birth to be part of this VR. All their neural pathways would be organized around the Matrix, which explains why it seems real to them and why one death would imply the other. Both the body and the matrix itself have co-developed to recognize the same death, as it were. Most VR doesn't get hardwired into your autonomous neural functions, CRAPface.
As an X-Files episode, well, let's just say I'd rather see them back underground being slowly digested by a giant hallucinogenic mushroom than watch some rather tired sci-fi tropes get some smirks from Mulder, but not much else in the way of original commentary.
There is a difference between passively not spending public funds by not choosing to carry Barely Legal and actively censoring content by actively spending dollars on censorship software. If you don't know the difference, move to Cuba you un-American fucking fruitcake.
Please moderate the parent of this comment as a troll. If you enter the claimed search into jeeves, you get no such porno. Which would make the poster a troll, if he weren't just a fucking liar. So did you get your hundred bucks reward, loser?
Re:Jon Katz killed the first article due to bad re
on
LonelyNet (Part Two)
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· Score: 1
I have to agree with you on this one... with the exception that this is one of the best things to come from Katz. I love to bash Katz as much as anyone, but this time, he got it right.
A lot of people know only the commercialized side of the net, and aren't familiar with the tens of thousands of special interest mailing lists, special interest web sites, etc. Only when something makes the rounds, like hamsterdance.com or something, are they ever even dimly aware that ebay and aol are just the tip of the iceberg.
What is wrong with this study is that it loudly insists that the commercialized web is the only thing on the internet, and does so in a way that is a travesty even were it to appear on the local news.
If you think that the entertainment industry as such has the concerns of artists in mind, then either you are a dumb fuck who has never been anywhere near it, or your nose is so full of payola coke that you can't tell your ass from a hole in the ground. Take a look at MP3; the artists come down much more on the side of freedom, because they know they get the shaft from the industry/old boys network/racket every single day. This suit is the attempt to make sure that the artists can't go directly to the consumer, and needs the syndicate to survive. Fuckhead.
The flat world on top of a tortoise thing is stolen from Hindu mythology somewhere. I'd hope a review would give more of a clue about the nature of such a strange world.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Ya know, if I never hear anyone say "there oughta be a law against that" again, it would be fine with me... An extension of tort law through common sense and precedent is far preferable to having gov't agencies going around inspecting routers, which you can bet your sweet ass will cause more problems than it will ever solve.
But the interesting possibility is not if Joe Linux Luser is held liable by his ISP, but if a class action suit is brought against the software companies (pick your favorite target;-) who knowingly ship and do not fix security problems that provide the basis for these kind of attacks...
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with the stress the box is under; the behavior is the same whether the box does millions of hits a day or mere dozens.
Supposedly, Red Hat is considering working on support for replication? I'm none too clear on how that would work with no support for transactions...
My wife's last job was producing stories for a cable news program focussed on science stories, and I am 100% certain that CNN released this story because of the movie. There are stories like this all the time that come out of the scientific world, but they only get wider play because of "general interest." A cynical, but accurate dissection of this term is "sensational, weird, or tied to current events." And expensive movies are current events valued the same as, say, how global warming creates changing weather patterns, considered in the wake of a hurricane killing 40,000 in Central America.
OK, so it may be a cynical viewpoint, but just because we're geeks doesn't entitle us to be ignorant about the way that things that interest us become news items. The story and the movie are not coincidental. The story would not have been run but for the movie.
That being said, you are correct that NASA has public relations concerns which can affect the timing of their announcements... if they want funding, publicity helps, and piggy-backing a release on a big Hollywood movie can't hurt.
While you can reduce the overall poisioning of the net that this technique causes by serving images from a non-poisoned host, the fact is that if I run a large proxy server, and a lot of people visit sites using this technique, that site is going to cost me a huge amount of money in forced hardware upgrades, because every session is taking up a host space in my proxy cache. Plus, there's the extra DNS traffic, which isn't much, but overall, location poisoning SUCKS
Personally, I would set up all proxies to deny a site using this technique.
Maybe, it's obvious, maybe it isn't, but Sevenval SUCKS!!!. If there's one thing that the recent Doubleclick nonsense shows, it's that the general public will only stand for getting the shaft on privacy issues for so long. And the location poisoning technique is too obvious, so people will raise a stink.
It's one thing to patent a sucky technique, but since the technique sucks too much to have real commercial value, you can just let this thing die on it's own, sucking for air.
PHP does this, too, and it's integrated into Apache, which has some fairly obvious advantages (don't underestimate the advantage of ubiquity - ever). 90% of the problems in performance I've seen are usually due to bad design, inefficient database use, and often a serious misconfiguration somewhere.
But if none of these are the case, and the original questioner still has database bottlenecks, then the solutions start to get more involved and expensive. Many other first optimizations have been mentioned many times on ./ and everywhere else, like: move the database to a separate machine (preferably to a private network behind the front end server(s), use expires headers on your graphics to encourage longer caching, serve graphics from a different machine, use reverse proxying to break up requests to different machines performing queries, and make everything static that doesn't need to be dynamic. This last one has enabled me to really stretch the abilities of sites, so I'll repeat it; if it doesn't need to be dynamically generated every time, don't do it!
But if there is still a bottleneck at the database, it gets expensive, because no open source databases currently do replication. You need replication to do true mirroring of databases. Guess what? It's expensive. But from the sound of the project, I'm sure the questioner will fix the problem long before that's an issue.
Jeff, you got me listening, which I didn't think would happen. Keep talking. PLEASE talk to politicians about this, the public doesn't know the system is broke, or how this harms them. With the internet hype factor, and a couple more voices (Larry? you out there?), this is the best hope I've seen for rational political dialog on these topics. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself on both sides of these issues so often, you'll be praying to your laywers before you go to sleep at night.
If, by looking at a design, a layperson could be forgiven for confusing it with an original design done by someone else, that has as much danger of defrauding the consumer into buying the "wrong" thing as it does of doing economic harm to the creator of the original design. Anyone who's been to a NYC electronics store and seen boxes of televisions labelled "Panarsonic" knows exactly what I'm talking about. But the infringing companies don't have to intend consumer confusion for it to happen, and consumers want to be protected from it, no matter what the intentions of the makers.
While this particular case may raise hackles with the ./ crowd, for reasons peculiar to the ./ ethos, no one marginally familiar with industrial design can be surprised or upset about this.
This suit won't prevent anyone from making computers, or even from making rounded, one piece computers, or from making computers with translucent stuff, or from making computers in slurpee blue, or from making one that's the trendiest industrial design since the VW beetle in the 60's, or from making them so gosh darn cute you want to lick them, but it might make it difficult to do all these things at once. I don't think anyone is suffering for it.
Personally, I'd like to see more butch, metallic, boldfaced, but elegantly designed industrial-looking computers, and fewer attempts to make them so cute 'n cuddly.
You got ME confused for a second, there... Yeah, 12 of the first 50 edu sites that are on the blacklist, not 12 of the first 50 random .edu pages.
You know, "4 out of 5 dentists recommend foobar for their patients who chew gum"
Well, it might be unsupported opinion; hearsay is when you are repeating as fact something about which you have no knowledge but the utterance of a third party.
Anyway, the opinion expressed is certainly a bit of hyperbole, but it's not utterly without foundation. Not all countries create a body of intellectual property law and enforcement with the same zeal as the U.S.
China, for instance. Most of the third world, in fact. There was I think a Bruce Sterling novel set in a future after commercial software became a non-market, largely because China so eagerly pirated and redistributed everything, which wrecked Western economies. While this is also hyperbole (it's science fiction, after all), it's not too hard to imagine that Disney might have a hard time keeping possession of Mickey Mouse til the 23rd century (and they would, which would have a weird side effect of making David Bowie's great-great-N grandchildren into aristocrats living off the eternal deed of his works), and that copyright and patent law might undergo some huge changes as a result of globalization.
Imagine, for a moment, that China goes completely mercenary (it's really NOT hard to imagine this, based on the spam I've been getting recently) and starts running major porn sites with forbidden Alyssa Milano photos, streaming Pamela & Tommy for free at all hours, scanning Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler right off the magazine rack and putting it online. They could run porno sites with 10,000 free samples, all with pirated content. Then, they'd enable downloads of cracked Win2K for $10. Does anyone really think the Chinese government, if it cynically decided to make money off crazy, corrupt amerikans this way, would enforce intellectual property rights? How would you stop them? It might be a lot harder than you think, for the same reasons that international borders are so porous to drugs and other contraband. Every time you plug a leak, someone else can make money by poking a new hole.
Wanna give the RIAA a brain seizure? I think contemplating "mp3.cn" might cause some of their leaders to purchase new underwear.
Could be. But it sounded more like wistful regret, and not very deep at that. I think the reactions here are just a little bit overblown.
Though as a *BSD user, I can understand why people are a bit on edge. It helped to read Jordan Hubbard's comment that FreeBSD can no more be un-freed than Linux. It seems apparent that BSDi is doing this more along the lines of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" than "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer." If they tried to un-free the code, developers would simply jump ship to another BSD, or start a new one where the old one left off, even if it required a new coat of paint on the code to free it from new and evil masters. GPL advocates sometimes forget that this is how the BSDs came about in the first place. They've already weathered that test, and it would be highly foolish for any corporation to stake their plans on the same thing not happening again.
Most of us feel that if we buy a CD, it belongs to us, in that we can listen to it, make copies of it, play it out loud, etc. It doesn't matter whether a record company spent $1 or $1,000,000 to promote it, when we spent money, we acquired the rights I mentioned above. Now look at region locking in DVDs, or artificial degradation of digital copies, and see if they don't infringe on the rights THAT WE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.
The problem is that governments are now so often corrupted by business interests (corruption is what I call it when a company gives money to a politician, who then acts on the company's behalf), that governments are going too far in CREATING property rights where, in fact, none naturally exist.
I've never yet seen a rational basis for creation of monopolies by governments for the sole benefit the monopolists. "Because we have it, and we had Sonny Bono change the rules in our favor so I can keep it" doesn't justify anything, and is also a mickey-mouse cop-out. Literally.
I have co-filed patents. I thought they were stupid things to patent, but they were done for defensive reasons. Oh, what was that, you wanted statements from large software companies? Well, here is an incredibly powerful and direct statement from Oracle that falsifies your claim. I would also point out that an increasing amount of code from companies like IBM and Apple is being unburdened from the usual IP restrictions. Standards and openness are good for innovators.
I'm sure there are other companies, top talent, and management who feel the same way, but who don't have the courage to step forward. Granted, Bill Gates and Scott McNealy are probably not among them.
There is nothing good about taking away all consumer rights; the fact that the UCITA takes these away from individuals and big business alike should be a clue that something stinks. It's a disaster for large businesses and small, and sets a terrible, terrible legal precedent in trying to enforce contracts that are "agreed to" before they are seen.
Please moderate the aforementioned... Oh, forget it, most of you folks wouldn't know humor if it bit you in the ass. And I can tell, because it did.
It's one thing for Katz to pontificate about online hostility, it's another thing for someone to defend an obvious dumb, indefensible comment with "It was just a joke, man!" That's usually the excuse people use when they are called on their bull, often of the racist, sexist, homophobic, or religiously bigoted variety.
Katz, there is something worse than hostile behavior online; the degradation of discourse. Making transparently false claims is part of that, whether it's the death of the usenet by spam or simple "every opinion is equal, even if it's false" cowardice. Lameass moderators who mark postings as flamebait because they castigate someone for wanton untruths is another. Oh, yeah, and Taco rimmed me.
Yup, and if you can't provide better arguments, and back them up with reason, then stay anonymous, Coward. Or better yet stay quiet.
The fifth amendment protections afforded by US law apply to criminal cases. Civil cases can compel more compliance. So be very careful.
By segregating your email into different folders, you have a better position to avoid confiscation of your data. While it would be uncommon for a court to sanction walking into someone's office and carting out every file cabinet, their ignorance of technology enables them to think it somehow reasonable to cart out your computers wholesale. By segregating your mail, you might be able to prevent this by turning over relevant mail folders and you would have better recourse and possibility for some ultimate justice should a court decide (as they all too often do, these days) to shit all over the fourth amendment (which once provided protections against "unreasonable search and seizure") for marginal reasons (like the mere suspicion that someone _might_ be dealing drugs or have participated in computer crimes). Sounds unreasonable? It is. Your congressman doesn't care if you write, unless you are writing a big fat check. Join the EFF instead.
And for Linux/*BSD/UNIX, try 'obliterate'. It erases files by writing them over several times with random data and _then_ deleting them. Windows users can also use Datafellow F-Secure desktop for win32s, if they feel compelled to spend buckaroos (and most do). With a little luck, there will be free PGP-based utilities by year's end (the studied randomness in PGP encryption provides a good source of random data for wiping).
I've worked in/with large media companies, so perhaps for that reason I can't really find fault with Katz on this one.
But the comment (see parent) on Amazon buying Borders is right on; they'd be crazy not to. The reason that Katz has a point here is that while old media have no clue about the 'Net (I have experience with this one), the old media are more willing and able to buy up the new. Barnes and Nobles may see their way to starting up on their own, but Disney will happily buy up Go (even if they don't quite know what to do with it) and ABC will stream Matt Drudge on the net. So there is, in fact, a middle ground springing up more rapidly than anyone has predicted. People were too busy predicting whether the new media would take over or die; and as usual, the ignored third possibility was the thing that happened.
Fact is, the Matrix works where usual explorations of the virtual reality theme suck. Why? Because these humans were raised from birth to be part of this VR. All their neural pathways would be organized around the Matrix, which explains why it seems real to them and why one death would imply the other. Both the body and the matrix itself have co-developed to recognize the same death, as it were. Most VR doesn't get hardwired into your autonomous neural functions, CRAPface.
As an X-Files episode, well, let's just say I'd rather see them back underground being slowly digested by a giant hallucinogenic mushroom than watch some rather tired sci-fi tropes get some smirks from Mulder, but not much else in the way of original commentary.
If you spent half as much time updating your lame parodies as spamming
There is a difference between passively not spending public funds by not choosing to carry Barely Legal and actively censoring content by actively spending dollars on censorship software. If you don't know the difference, move to Cuba you un-American fucking fruitcake.
Please moderate the parent of this comment as a troll. If you enter the claimed search into jeeves, you get no such porno. Which would make the poster a troll, if he weren't just a fucking liar. So did you get your hundred bucks reward, loser?
I have to agree with you on this one... with the exception that this is one of the best things to come from Katz. I love to bash Katz as much as anyone, but this time, he got it right.
A lot of people know only the commercialized side of the net, and aren't familiar with the tens of thousands of special interest mailing lists, special interest web sites, etc. Only when something makes the rounds, like hamsterdance.com or something, are they ever even dimly aware that ebay and aol are just the tip of the iceberg.
What is wrong with this study is that it loudly insists that the commercialized web is the only thing on the internet, and does so in a way that is a travesty even were it to appear on the local news.
If you think that the entertainment industry as such has the concerns of artists in mind, then either you are a dumb fuck who has never been anywhere near it, or your nose is so full of payola coke that you can't tell your ass from a hole in the ground. Take a look at MP3; the artists come down much more on the side of freedom, because they know they get the shaft from the industry/old boys network/racket every single day. This suit is the attempt to make sure that the artists can't go directly to the consumer, and needs the syndicate to survive. Fuckhead.
The flat world on top of a tortoise thing is stolen from Hindu mythology somewhere. I'd hope a review would give more of a clue about the nature of such a strange world.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Ya know, if I never hear anyone say "there oughta be a law against that" again, it would be fine with me... An extension of tort law through common sense and precedent is far preferable to having gov't agencies going around inspecting routers, which you can bet your sweet ass will cause more problems than it will ever solve.
But the interesting possibility is not if Joe Linux Luser is held liable by his ISP, but if a class action suit is brought against the software companies (pick your favorite target