What I think we should see more of is alternative delivery methods explored. Sprint PCS just deployed their new wireless network, I'd think wireless access would sidestep the Baby Bells entirely. Even better are satellite internet options (no new ground infrastructure required).
Link to the code but don't tell us non-coders how to defend against it. "NetBIOS enabled" can mean many different things, after all. NetBIOS enabled on the target interface or on any interface? Anybody with NetBIOS running on their internet interface is a fool to begin with and probably deserves to be crashed...
Of course, even that could be solved easily enough with a router and/or port blocking.
"Wolfe" averaged a subpar 1.134 million households for eight episodes this summer (May 27 through August 18), and a disastrous 387,000 viewers aged 18-49.
Although shot in Toronto, "Nero Wolfe" cost $1.1 million an episode, as production designers had to build sets replicating 1930s New York interiors. A&E ponied up a pricey $700,000 per episode.
I could all but guarantee every one of those households that watched Nero Wolfe would have paid $2.00 per episode to watch it. And suddenly A&E would have something like a 100% return on their investments. But instead now there's only one good new detective show on, and with my luck they'll can Monk, too.
"The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek?"
Buffy? No, but that's personal preference. News? Not as it's done now, unless we're talking about a classy outfit like BBC World News or Jim Leher. $1.00 to $2.00 per episode of Enterprise? Heck yeah. I'd much rather spend as much as $10.00 a month to watch Enterprise than to spend $10.00 on a movie ticket to see Nemesis.
If anything such a pricing scheme would bring movie ticket prices back down to the real world.
"As an example, I had a buddy that had a string of DUIs and got his license suspended"
This means he's had a string of DUI convictions and has had his license suspended as a part of his convictions.
Suspecting someone of violating a law because of a previous criminal record is "reasonable" as far as constitutionality goes. Suspecting that someone might have a criminal record some time in the future is "unreasonable."
"He couldn't believe that the police would pull him over for such a piddly deal, especially considering the amount of traffic that has faulty lights on their vehicles (stand on a streetcorner and count sometime, you will be amazed)."
The law is the law is the law. If you are drivign around with bad lights, you can get pulled over and issued a ticket. Yes, not everybody is going to get pulled over for that one, but that doesn't mean it's legal. If you have a problem with how the police are enforcing the law, talk to your local officials.
"But everybody else is doing it!" is not a valid legal defense.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from unreasonable searches and seizures; and no warrant to search any place, or to seize any person or thing, shall issue without describing them as particularly as may be; nor then, unless there be probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.
Now, if the Wilmington police have a warrant they can present for inspection for each and every one of the entries in this database.... well, that just means there's at least one judge that needs to be impeached.
Whoopee! Yet another format for the MPAA and RIAA to force digital "rights" managment onto! Managing their so-called "rights" by managing all of ours into nothingness! Let's all help them out by running out and buying it like the lemmings we are!
"Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes (about 30 million households, and consider that a quarter of these homes have more than one player), compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players (about 90% of homes in the USA have a VHS player) and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."
That is odd. Why aren't more customers running out and buying the newer technology with all its new features? Features like the inability to fast-forward through commercials or FBI warnings. Features like the inability to make archival copies as guaranteed by copyright law. Features like region coding. VCR's don't even have a cartel like the DVD Forum to eliminate all competition through their strong-arm tactics! Who the heck wants to record television broadcasts, anyway? As we all know, that's both amoral and illegal!
I used to have a DVD player, but then I got rid of my PlayStation 2. If they want me to buy into a new technology, they can come back when they stop trying to do through technology what they can't do legally. Of course, trying to put out a better product in a capitalistic market is a completely alien concept to them...
Re:Researching more efficient ways to kill people.
on
Electric Armor
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· Score: 2
" The U.S. government spends more money to research more efficient ways to kill people and gain forceful control over them than any other area."
Guess what: money doesn't solve everything. While money can at least be used to invest in new technology, our State Department won't be any more effective if we quadruple their salaries or give them all their own private jets.
The least socially sophisticated way of resolving problems with other people is killing them.
No, that's the second least sophisticated. The least sophisticated is sitting around and moaning about the problem instead of actually trying to come up with a solution or acting upon said solution. Murderers at least show some sort of initiative.
"The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries, directly killing about 3,000,000 people in the last 33 years."
Like I just said, sitting around and moaning about the problem...
Of course, armchair diplomacy is always easier than the real thing because you never have to leave your chair.
Re:It doesn't matter anymore
on
Electric Armor
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· Score: 2
"Note first of all that the most advanced American battlefield tank does not use reactive armour because of the very-secret surface material used to coat it."
Don't make vague, over-broad statements like this without the ability to point to references to back it up.
"That said, no one is putting much stock in manned tanks for future warfare."
Actually, looking at your lack of initiative in that first comment, allow me to quote the key points:
Any advantage an anti-tank system gains over tanks is to a large extent transitory, lasting only until tank design or operational theory can be changed.
...
Whatever form the defensive system may take, as missile technology advances, so does anti-missile.
...
The limiting factor on anti-tank warheads normally is not the effectiveness of the warhead, but the difficulties in getting the warhead to the target. The missile or aircraft delivering the warhead can be jammed, shot down, etc., and if you are firing it from a gun, you will have to have something about the size of a tank to carry it anyway.
...
Current research on high energy laser weapons centers around the rocket pumped laser. The rocket exhaust supplies both the energy and cooling for the laser. If this laser system develops as expected, it could provide an effective tank weapon. The weapon would be heavy but the 120mm high velocity gun and shock-absorbing mounting on tanks today are in the weight area of two tons already. Will the laser become the tank's major weapon? Quite possibly, but only time will tell.
Tanks aren't going anywhere soon. If anything, with the advent of weapons-grade lasers, the airplane will be the weapon system to become obsolete with nothing to hide behind and not enough thrust to carry real armor.
The best defense is simply not to be slow,
You've been watching too many WWII documentaries. Try looking at Gulf War clips instead. Modern tanks with their gas-turbine engines can reach speeds upwards of 60 MPH, and that's with a speed governor to keep the engine from shredding the power train. A 60-ton MBT moving that fast is not something you want to go up against.
"Can i please not take any movie as a reference for stuff like this"
What did you expect? This is what happens when you try to use Wired as a substitute for Jane's Defense Weekly.
I swear, everybody on/. bemoans the way "normal" media gets coverage of things like Linux all fouled up, but then assume the computer-centric media somehow knows more about other subjects than honest-to-God experts.
Between the DMCA and DRM and Congress helping corps trash Title 9 and the First Amendment I've had my fill. The only thing members of Congress (like this guy) seem to be doing is opening their wallets to lobbyists and campaign contributors and don't seem to give a rat's ass about the people they're supposed to be representing. I'm getting to the point where I fear the only way things will change is if I do it myself.
I turned 25 last month. I'm a resident of my state. I've still got three months until November. Does anybody know of any "Running for Congress for Dummies" websites or books out there? I think I've found most of the necesary paperwork but I don't think that's all there is to it...
I can understand all the other other operating systems listed being smacked with this problem, but MS didn't start "integrating" the browser into the operating system until Windows 98, which was released well after NT 4.0. I was under the impression that the NT 4.0 Explorer is based on the Windows 95 interface and IE was just another application.
Senator Mary Landrieu 724 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510-0001
Dear Senator Landrieu:
Earlier this month the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a record fine of nearly $5.4 million to Fax.com for transmitting unsolicited advertisements via fax machine (ie. "junk faxing"). Coincidentally, the Associated Press published a series of three articles covering the state of unsolicited e-mail advertising ("spam"). I'm left wondering how the FCC can come down hard on junk faxers but how spammers (arguably of a lower moral class) are allowed to continue to operate nearly unmolested.
The law Fax.com was found to be guilty of breaking is Section 227 of Title 47 of the United States Code. The relevant text follows:
Restrictions on the use of automated telephone equipment:
It shall be unlawful for any person in the United States (...) to use any to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine(.)
It is my understanding that the reasoning behind this law is based on the ownership of resources. Fax machines are purchased and maintained at the owner's expense and only the owner's expense. An unsolicited advertisement sent to this fax machine amounts to nothing less the use of these expensive resources without prior consent. In effect "junk faxing" is considered theft and as such the offenders are held accountable by law.
What does this have to do with spam? In my opinion, everything.
Receiving an e-mail is by all accounts more expensive than receiving a fax. While several companies are now offering stand-alone e-mail clients, I have yet to see one of those with a lower price tag than a fax machine. But even if their price tags were the same, an e-mail station requires that the owner not only pay a monthly fee for a telephone line but also a second monthly fee for the e-mail account itself.
Of course not even an end client is enough to receive an e-mail. The e-mail account you would be paying for is maintained on a very large (and very expensive) e-mail server, complete with its dedicated (and pricey) connection to the internet. There is simply nothing comparable to an e-mail server in the faxing domain. While a bank of fax machines doesn't cost more than the price of the machines and their associated telephone lines, the price a dedicated e-mail server and the associated connections can easily resemble that of a small car.
So why is it that the FCC is given free reign to crack down on junk faxers but spammers are free to consume valuable equipment they do not own?
If you are familiar with the AP articles I mentioned earlier you will know that spam is steadily eliminating the usefulness of e-mail itself. It has been estimated that spam accounts for up to 80% of the e-mail traffic to major e-mail domains such as Hotmail and Yahoo, a problem that their respective owners are all but powerless to fix. As more and more internet resources are tied up by these advertisements, the owners of these resources have had to resort to cutting off offending service providers from the rest of the internet entirely. Customers are finding themselves unable to use the internet access they have paid for simply because another customer of that same provider is abusing theirs.
But even then the providers are powerless to drop spammers. Spammers in the recent AP articles have proudly boasted of the way they outright defraud unsuspecting internet service providers when signing up for an account. And when the provider threatens action, the spammer threatens the provider with legal action. In recent months a spammer was even successful in receiving a legal injunction against their service provider, preventing the provider from stopping the spammer from abusing their resources.
I have little problem with receiving advertisements through the U. S. Postal Service. I know that the delivery cost for every article in my mailbox has been entirely paid by the sender. And while I am not happy with the current situation with telemarketers (I must pay for local telephone service before I have the "privilege"of being contacted by telemarketers), I must grudgingly admit that the state and federal laws designed to restrict telemarketing have been mostly successful. But I am not happy about paying several thousand dollars for a computer and $20.00 a month simply to have my e-mail account flooded to capacity with advertisements for products and services I have no interest in (and preventing legitimate e-mail from reaching me in the process). I am sure that you yourself have been bombarded with advertisements for websites featuring "nasty teens" or "penis enhancement." I have noticed that your office no longer maintains an e-mail address accessible to the public.
The examples of spam I mentioned in the last paragraph bring me to another point: I have noticed on your website your stated commitment to enforcing decency laws on the internet, to protecting children from access to objectionable material on the internet. It should be obvious by now to even the most casual of internet users that the biggest offender in this area is the spammer. While a user must actively attempt to locate a website in order to find such material on the world wide web, the mere existence of an e-mail account all but guarantees that the owner will have such material delivered to them on a daily (if not hourly) basis.
In my opinion the solution to this problem is very simple: expand 227 U. S. C. 47 to prohibit unsolicited e-mail advertisements in exactly the same way it prohibits unsolicited fax advertisements. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
I have seen some ineffective bills drift through both houses of Congress that are written to allow unsolicited messages so long as they have an "opt-out" mechanism. Ignoring the fact that such legal loopholes would essentially negate the law entirely (can you prove that you tried to opt out?), it quite literally sickens me the way some of your fellow members of Congress feel that spam is somehow an issue dealing with the freedom of speech. The mere existence of the internet and the supposed changes it has on how business and the legal system work (even though such "changes" have been shown to be a lie) have helped to convince these poor fools that people should somehow have a right to use and abuse the property of others. Does my neighbor have the constitutional right to break my kneecap so long as they provide me with the ability to "opt out" of future kneecappings?
The United States Constitution guarantees that all citizens are free to say what they want. It does not guarantee a soapbox upon which they can say it. Just as I am not guaranteed the right to have a billboard on Interstate 10, spammers should not have the "right" to use the resources of others simply because they're there.
Expanding 227 U. S. C. 47 to include e-mail is an extremely important issue to me and I hope with your stated interests on your website that it is also an important issue to you as well. I know that you are up for re-election this November and I intend to find out how your competitors feel on the issue as well.
The more I think about it the more I think they could make a serious dent in IE's user base with this idea...
Netscape World Headquarters P. O. Box 7050 Mountain View, CA 94039-7050
Dear Netscape:
I recently purchased a copy of your Netscape 6.2 browser on CD and until today was looking forward to purchasing Netscape 7.0 as soon as it was released. I enjoy being able to use a widely-supported browser that is both independet from and agnostic to my operating system, and was eagerly awaiting the time Netscape would include the rest of the features I enjoy from Mozilla 1.0.
I say "until today" because I just learned that Netscape 7.0 will not be including one of the features of Mozilla 1.0 that I was looking forward to, the option to turn off unrequested windows that effectively kills pop-up advertising on the web. Because of that I do not forsee myself using anything but Mozilla as my web browser of choice for the forseeable future.
I realize that your parent company, AOL/Time-Warner, earns a great deal of income from business customers who purchase such pop-up advertising from them. I also realize that, since Netscape is now distributed free of charge, the opinion of the end-users who paid no money is insignifigant compared to the opinion of the business customers that have paid a great deal of money. However I as an end-user seriously dislike the idea of having my software hijacked by a remote website.
I would like to offer a compromise.
I want to use a web browser that is both supported by the vast majority of plug-in writers and allows me to avoid pop-up advertising. In fact, I would pay money for such a web browser. I doubt I am alone in this opinion as the ability to disable pop-up windows has been one of the driving features of the so-called "niche" browsers available today (such as Mozilla). In fact I can think of many Microsoft Internet Explorer users who would rather use such a browser.
Why not offer Netscape 7.0 in two versions? Make your intended version of Netscape 7.0 available as a free download, but allow those of us who would rather the end-user have a greater say in browser development to pay for a "deluxe" version on CD, which would include the ability to disable pop-up ads as well as any other new features you can think up. Perhaps include some other perks with the bundled software (Composer with a JavaScript editor? Shiney new Winamp-branded MP3 encoder? "Deluxe Only" Netscape radio stations?) Rigorously advertise it as option. $20.00 US to $25.00 seems like a reasonable price for such a product. On the one hand, users such as myself will finally have the browser we've been waiting for since the development of the openWindow JavaScript command. On the other hand the price of the deluxe version will offset any lost revenue from your advertisers. And you would be able to appease any misgivings from your advertisers by pointing out that the majority of Netscape users would still be using the free "basic" version with manditory pop-ups.
I'm not advocating releasing Netscape 7.0 as "shareware" or "crippleware." Those who aren't interested in paying money for a web browser should still have access to Netscape 7.0 as it now stands, something they have come to expect in a free web browser. But by the same token those of us who are interested in paying money for such features should be given access to them.
I hope that your executives can see the value in my suggested compromise before the scheduled release of Netscape 7.0.
P. S. I realize the idea of a Winamp-branded MP3 encoder would probably give the executives at AOL/Time-Warner nightmares, but look at it this way: Users with access to an MP3 player but no immediate knowledge of "ripping CDs" are more likely to turn to file-sharing networks to find MP3 files to play than their own CD libraries.
Right on top of the table is the feard "Intergalactic Cat of Destruction" that is known to ravage armies in this and many other universes. Closely related to the "Toddler Cthulu" and "Cosmic Sneeze."
End-user customers don't like pop-up ads, but corporate customers are paying for said pop-up ads. The will of the customer who spends the most money wins, right? In this case it's more like "the customer who spends any money wins." When you use Netscape (or any other free browser) you get exactly what you've paid for.
Why not a compromise? Offer Netscape 7.0 for download as it currently is, but offer it for sale on CD with the anti-popup feature. Rigorously advertise it as such. Let the end-users decide with their wallets how much they don't like pop-up ads. Heck, bump the price of the CD up to $15 or $20. The paying customer gets a browser with all the features they want, AOL/TW gets money in CD sales that they would have lost from the lack of pop-up ads, and the ad owners still have access to all the people who don't believe in paying for a browser.
Of course, I know exactly what kind of responses I'm going to get from the Slashdot crowd. "Browsers want to be free! I shouldn't have to pay for a feature that I can get elsewhere for free!" To you I have one thing to say: You're only perpetuating the current business model. Like it or not hosting costs money. I'm not in support of the loonies that say end-users must be forced to view advertising, but it will always be in those sites' best interests to use anti-ad-blocking software because the advertisers are their only paying customers. The "website subscription" model works because the end-user suddenly becomes a paying customer and immediately has more say to how the site owner should conduct business.
AOL/TW makes a great deal of their money from advertisers and pretty much $0 from their browsers. We have no right to bitch and moan about what AOL/TW does with their browser because our opinion is worth exactly what we paid for it. I for one would like to at least be given the option of being a real paying customer and having my say in how one of the major browsers on the internet today gets developed.
1.) Design their page just the way they want it (ads and all), then take a screenshot of it and upload the imegemapped-JPG as their website. Kinda hard to block parts of a JPG
2.) The main page does nothing but open a pop-up window and display a message in the main window that says "To continue, please follow the link in the pop-up."
And now I forsee myself getting flamed about "Why are you helping THEM?" Why? Because I think forcing their viewers to view advertisements will ultmately end up with them shooting themselves in the foot and forcing themselves off the web entirely. I'm willing to bet that their sites get X number of visitors mostly because a great many of them have the option of turning off advertisements in one way or another. Deny them that right, force them to decide between advertisements and no access, and they will ultimately choose the "no access" option every time.
"I have been trying to find a suitable way of replacing banners on my (commercial) web sites."
Here's a silly question: If you have a commercial site, shouldn't your product/service sales be the thing paying for your web hosting?
"The pressure to accept more agressive banner terms is rising, however - we don't want our company.com to go titsup.com and lose 100,000s of satisfied people."
If your customers are so satisfied, why are you having so much trouble paying for your website yourself?
And have you stopped to consider that perhaps your customers are becoming less satisfied as your advertising gets more aggressive? I can think of several websites I no longer visit because of such tactics.
"Would you be interested in a re-introduction of the HTTP/1.1 "Cost:" header - or similar measures - and pay 0.02 per mouse click? Because that is what you "pay" indirectly to the company providing you a service."
Hosting companies traffic pricing is based on bits-per-unit-time, not flat-out bits. If it costs you $0.02 every time somebody clicks on something on your website, you should look into throttling back your upload.
"If you use anti-banner software you are effectively cheating the webmaster into providing you his service, without paying for it. It's like going to a restaurant and not paying because you didn't want to see the ads on the inside cover of the menu."
No, it's more like this:
I go to McDonald's. I order a Big Mac and a large fries, but no drink. Should McDonald's then charge me an extra "no drink" fee because I didn't yield to all the Coke ads in the building that Coca-Cola Inc. paid for?
"Do you expect to get everything for free at McDonalds just because you paid the bus to get you there?"
Do you expect me to have to pay for a Coke with my meal if I didn't ask for one?
Do you expect me to have to pay for a DVD I didn't ask for that showed up in my mailbox simple because Columbia House shipped it to me?
Forcing something onto someone who doesn't want it is amoral and often illegal. The fact that the "something" in question is advertising doesn't change anything.
"NOBODY expects to get everything for free in the supermarket just because they already paid the taxi."
Nobody expects the supermarket to fill your trunk with groceries you have no interest in purchasing and then billing you for those "purchases" just because you drove your car to the supermarket.
Nobody expects you to continue to pay for daily taxi rides to the supermarket, not because you neede more groceries but because the supermarket might have changed its advertising.
"The "Springer" editor house in Germany which sells the "Spiegel" magazine (very popular) published a comparison recently. The magazine costs about 3.- and contains about 40% ads. Without the ads, it would have to cost about 30.- to cover the printing and distribution costs!"
I buy a magazine. It's mine now. The publishers have no say if I decide to shake the magazine and get rid of all those silly mail-in business-reply-mail postcards before bothering to read it. I paid money for the magazine, it's mine.
I purchase a television with a VCR. The shows that come into my television are mine now. The broadcasters have no right to say that I cannot record a show and fast-forward through the ads. I paid for the hardware with which to decode their television signals, it's mine.
I go to a website. The copy in my cache is mine now. I paid for the resources to both download the website and cache in which it is stored. The hosters have no right to say how I will or will not manipulate this copy in my cache. I paid for the ability to view it, it's mine.
Movie theater tickets are not a contract requiring me to pay careful attention to all advertisements before, during and after a movie.
Sports games tickets are not a contract requiring me to pay careful attention to the advertising on the playing field and the palyers.
A cable TV subscription is not a contract requiring me not to channel surf during a commercial break.
Paying for local telephone service is not a contract requiring me to pay close attention to what telemarketers have to say.
There is no legal requirement that I must open and read all advertisements that appear in my USPS mailbox.
And there certainly isn't a requirement that I carefully go through the newspaper and pay careful attention to any and all advertisements in it before reading the news.
So what makes you think that the internet somehow changes things? Just because it's the internet doesn't mean the old business and legal models no longer apply, as I hope you would have learned by now. There is no legal or moral obligation for your customers to continue to support you simply because they were interested in your product in the past, no matter how much bold text you use.
"Rebuilt New York a mile away. Motocycle gangs will battle each other, gray skinned wrinkly children will roam the streets, and a teenage boy with a red cape and a "Da Da Da" theme will wreak havoc."
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
I could have written a better diologue...
Besides, you forgot the "talking apes keeping humans as slaves/pets" option.
"Wrong - the standard of living in Indian cities is generally pretty close to what it is in the US - thus sayeth the guy from India who works 5 feet away from me."
How about outside the cities? What of the suburbs? Are there even any? Does civilization seemingly disappear ten miles outside of the city?
A middle class isn't defined by "just like the middle class in the US," it's defined by the class that's supposed to be between the rich and the poor. If the rich live in the cities and the poor live everywhere else with very little dividing the two, it's pretty safe to say that there is no meaningful middle class.
"Time isn't that crucial here, considering that the thing will already be years late because of Russia's inability to meet a deadline."
At least they've supplied the damned lifeboat. The lack of a newer, bigger lifeboat to allow double the ISS crew is a failing of NASA to keep up, not Rosaviakosmos.
" I predict the feedback will be filled with the following:"
You covered just about all the bases, but you missed the biggest one:
Whining to the effect of "We're still using 20 year old shuttles? How dumb!"
Closely related to your #2, but different because it involves people not actually reading the article and simply looking at the words "shutle fleet" "cracks" and "grounded."
Slashdot Mirror
Naw, really!?
What I think we should see more of is alternative delivery methods explored. Sprint PCS just deployed their new wireless network, I'd think wireless access would sidestep the Baby Bells entirely. Even better are satellite internet options (no new ground infrastructure required).
But instead we have... well... you get the idea.
Link to the code but don't tell us non-coders how to defend against it. "NetBIOS enabled" can mean many different things, after all. NetBIOS enabled on the target interface or on any interface? Anybody with NetBIOS running on their internet interface is a fool to begin with and probably deserves to be crashed...
Of course, even that could be solved easily enough with a router and/or port blocking.
"The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek?"
Buffy? No, but that's personal preference. News? Not as it's done now, unless we're talking about a classy outfit like BBC World News or Jim Leher. $1.00 to $2.00 per episode of Enterprise? Heck yeah. I'd much rather spend as much as $10.00 a month to watch Enterprise than to spend $10.00 on a movie ticket to see Nemesis.
If anything such a pricing scheme would bring movie ticket prices back down to the real world.
Except there's a flaw in your analogy:
"As an example, I had a buddy that had a string of DUIs and got his license suspended"
This means he's had a string of DUI convictions and has had his license suspended as a part of his convictions.
Suspecting someone of violating a law because of a previous criminal record is "reasonable" as far as constitutionality goes. Suspecting that someone might have a criminal record some time in the future is "unreasonable."
"He couldn't believe that the police would pull him over for such a piddly deal, especially considering the amount of traffic that has faulty lights on their vehicles (stand on a streetcorner and count sometime, you will be amazed)."
The law is the law is the law. If you are drivign around with bad lights, you can get pulled over and issued a ticket. Yes, not everybody is going to get pulled over for that one, but that doesn't mean it's legal. If you have a problem with how the police are enforcing the law, talk to your local officials.
"But everybody else is doing it!" is not a valid legal defense.
Whoopee! Yet another format for the MPAA and RIAA to force digital "rights" managment onto! Managing their so-called "rights" by managing all of ours into nothingness! Let's all help them out by running out and buying it like the lemmings we are!
"Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes (about 30 million households, and consider that a quarter of these homes have more than one player), compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players (about 90% of homes in the USA have a VHS player) and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."
That is odd. Why aren't more customers running out and buying the newer technology with all its new features? Features like the inability to fast-forward through commercials or FBI warnings. Features like the inability to make archival copies as guaranteed by copyright law. Features like region coding. VCR's don't even have a cartel like the DVD Forum to eliminate all competition through their strong-arm tactics! Who the heck wants to record television broadcasts, anyway? As we all know, that's both amoral and illegal!
I used to have a DVD player, but then I got rid of my PlayStation 2. If they want me to buy into a new technology, they can come back when they stop trying to do through technology what they can't do legally. Of course, trying to put out a better product in a capitalistic market is a completely alien concept to them...
" The U.S. government spends more money to research more efficient ways to kill people and gain forceful control over them than any other area."
Guess what: money doesn't solve everything. While money can at least be used to invest in new technology, our State Department won't be any more effective if we quadruple their salaries or give them all their own private jets.
The least socially sophisticated way of resolving problems with other people is killing them.
No, that's the second least sophisticated. The least sophisticated is sitting around and moaning about the problem instead of actually trying to come up with a solution or acting upon said solution. Murderers at least show some sort of initiative.
"The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries, directly killing about 3,000,000 people in the last 33 years."
Like I just said, sitting around and moaning about the problem...
Of course, armchair diplomacy is always easier than the real thing because you never have to leave your chair.
Don't make vague, over-broad statements like this without the ability to point to references to back it up.
"That said, no one is putting much stock in manned tanks for future warfare."
Read me.
Actually, looking at your lack of initiative in that first comment, allow me to quote the key points:
.........
Tanks aren't going anywhere soon. If anything, with the advent of weapons-grade lasers, the airplane will be the weapon system to become obsolete with nothing to hide behind and not enough thrust to carry real armor.
The best defense is simply not to be slow,
You've been watching too many WWII documentaries. Try looking at Gulf War clips instead. Modern tanks with their gas-turbine engines can reach speeds upwards of 60 MPH, and that's with a speed governor to keep the engine from shredding the power train. A 60-ton MBT moving that fast is not something you want to go up against.
"Can i please not take any movie as a reference for stuff like this"
/. bemoans the way "normal" media gets coverage of things like Linux all fouled up, but then assume the computer-centric media somehow knows more about other subjects than honest-to-God experts.
What did you expect? This is what happens when you try to use Wired as a substitute for Jane's Defense Weekly.
I swear, everybody on
I've moved it to my new website
Between the DMCA and DRM and Congress helping corps trash Title 9 and the First Amendment I've had my fill. The only thing members of Congress (like this guy) seem to be doing is opening their wallets to lobbyists and campaign contributors and don't seem to give a rat's ass about the people they're supposed to be representing. I'm getting to the point where I fear the only way things will change is if I do it myself.
I turned 25 last month. I'm a resident of my state. I've still got three months until November. Does anybody know of any "Running for Congress for Dummies" websites or books out there? I think I've found most of the necesary paperwork but I don't think that's all there is to it...
There is now
I can understand all the other other operating systems listed being smacked with this problem, but MS didn't start "integrating" the browser into the operating system until Windows 98, which was released well after NT 4.0. I was under the impression that the NT 4.0 Explorer is based on the Windows 95 interface and IE was just another application.
Senator Mary Landrieu
724 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Dear Senator Landrieu:
Earlier this month the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a record fine of nearly $5.4 million to Fax.com for transmitting unsolicited advertisements via fax machine (ie. "junk faxing"). Coincidentally, the Associated Press published a series of three articles covering the state of unsolicited e-mail advertising ("spam"). I'm left wondering how the FCC can come down hard on junk faxers but how spammers (arguably of a lower moral class) are allowed to continue to operate nearly unmolested.
The law Fax.com was found to be guilty of breaking is Section 227 of Title 47 of the United States Code. The relevant text follows:
Restrictions on the use of automated telephone equipment:
It shall be unlawful for any person in the United States (...) to use any to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine(.)
It is my understanding that the reasoning behind this law is based on the ownership of resources. Fax machines are purchased and maintained at the owner's expense and only the owner's expense. An unsolicited advertisement sent to this fax machine amounts to nothing less the use of these expensive resources without prior consent. In effect "junk faxing" is considered theft and as such the offenders are held accountable by law.
What does this have to do with spam? In my opinion, everything.
Receiving an e-mail is by all accounts more expensive than receiving a fax. While several companies are now offering stand-alone e-mail clients, I have yet to see one of those with a lower price tag than a fax machine. But even if their price tags were the same, an e-mail station requires that the owner not only pay a monthly fee for a telephone line but also a second monthly fee for the e-mail account itself.
Of course not even an end client is enough to receive an e-mail. The e-mail account you would be paying for is maintained on a very large (and very expensive) e-mail server, complete with its dedicated (and pricey) connection to the internet. There is simply nothing comparable to an e-mail server in the faxing domain. While a bank of fax machines doesn't cost more than the price of the machines and their associated telephone lines, the price a dedicated e-mail server and the associated connections can easily resemble that of a small car.
So why is it that the FCC is given free reign to crack down on junk faxers but spammers are free to consume valuable equipment they do not own?
If you are familiar with the AP articles I mentioned earlier you will know that spam is steadily eliminating the usefulness of e-mail itself. It has been estimated that spam accounts for up to 80% of the e-mail traffic to major e-mail domains such as Hotmail and Yahoo, a problem that their respective owners are all but powerless to fix. As more and more internet resources are tied up by these advertisements, the owners of these resources have had to resort to cutting off offending service providers from the rest of the internet entirely. Customers are finding themselves unable to use the internet access they have paid for simply because another customer of that same provider is abusing theirs.
But even then the providers are powerless to drop spammers. Spammers in the recent AP articles have proudly boasted of the way they outright defraud unsuspecting internet service providers when signing up for an account. And when the provider threatens action, the spammer threatens the provider with legal action. In recent months a spammer was even successful in receiving a legal injunction against their service provider, preventing the provider from stopping the spammer from abusing their resources.
I have little problem with receiving advertisements through the U. S. Postal Service. I know that the delivery cost for every article in my mailbox has been entirely paid by the sender. And while I am not happy with the current situation with telemarketers (I must pay for local telephone service before I have the "privilege"of being contacted by telemarketers), I must grudgingly admit that the state and federal laws designed to restrict telemarketing have been mostly successful. But I am not happy about paying several thousand dollars for a computer and $20.00 a month simply to have my e-mail account flooded to capacity with advertisements for products and services I have no interest in (and preventing legitimate e-mail from reaching me in the process). I am sure that you yourself have been bombarded with advertisements for websites featuring "nasty teens" or "penis enhancement." I have noticed that your office no longer maintains an e-mail address accessible to the public.
The examples of spam I mentioned in the last paragraph bring me to another point: I have noticed on your website your stated commitment to enforcing decency laws on the internet, to protecting children from access to objectionable material on the internet. It should be obvious by now to even the most casual of internet users that the biggest offender in this area is the spammer. While a user must actively attempt to locate a website in order to find such material on the world wide web, the mere existence of an e-mail account all but guarantees that the owner will have such material delivered to them on a daily (if not hourly) basis.
In my opinion the solution to this problem is very simple: expand 227 U. S. C. 47 to prohibit unsolicited e-mail advertisements in exactly the same way it prohibits unsolicited fax advertisements. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
I have seen some ineffective bills drift through both houses of Congress that are written to allow unsolicited messages so long as they have an "opt-out" mechanism. Ignoring the fact that such legal loopholes would essentially negate the law entirely (can you prove that you tried to opt out?), it quite literally sickens me the way some of your fellow members of Congress feel that spam is somehow an issue dealing with the freedom of speech. The mere existence of the internet and the supposed changes it has on how business and the legal system work (even though such "changes" have been shown to be a lie) have helped to convince these poor fools that people should somehow have a right to use and abuse the property of others. Does my neighbor have the constitutional right to break my kneecap so long as they provide me with the ability to "opt out" of future kneecappings?
The United States Constitution guarantees that all citizens are free to say what they want. It does not guarantee a soapbox upon which they can say it. Just as I am not guaranteed the right to have a billboard on Interstate 10, spammers should not have the "right" to use the resources of others simply because they're there.
Expanding 227 U. S. C. 47 to include e-mail is an extremely important issue to me and I hope with your stated interests on your website that it is also an important issue to you as well. I know that you are up for re-election this November and I intend to find out how your competitors feel on the issue as well.
The more I think about it the more I think they could make a serious dent in IE's user base with this idea...
Netscape World Headquarters
P. O. Box 7050
Mountain View, CA 94039-7050
Dear Netscape:
I recently purchased a copy of your Netscape 6.2 browser on CD and until today was looking forward to purchasing Netscape 7.0 as soon as it was released. I enjoy being able to use a widely-supported browser that is both independet from and agnostic to my operating system, and was eagerly awaiting the time Netscape would include the rest of the features I enjoy from Mozilla 1.0.
I say "until today" because I just learned that Netscape 7.0 will not be including one of the features of Mozilla 1.0 that I was looking forward to, the option to turn off unrequested windows that effectively kills pop-up advertising on the web. Because of that I do not forsee myself using anything but Mozilla as my web browser of choice for the forseeable future.
I realize that your parent company, AOL/Time-Warner, earns a great deal of income from business customers who purchase such pop-up advertising from them. I also realize that, since Netscape is now distributed free of charge, the opinion of the end-users who paid no money is insignifigant compared to the opinion of the business customers that have paid a great deal of money. However I as an end-user seriously dislike the idea of having my software hijacked by a remote website.
I would like to offer a compromise.
I want to use a web browser that is both supported by the vast majority of plug-in writers and allows me to avoid pop-up advertising. In fact, I would pay money for such a web browser. I doubt I am alone in this opinion as the ability to disable pop-up windows has been one of the driving features of the so-called "niche" browsers available today (such as Mozilla). In fact I can think of many Microsoft Internet Explorer users who would rather use such a browser.
Why not offer Netscape 7.0 in two versions? Make your intended version of Netscape 7.0 available as a free download, but allow those of us who would rather the end-user have a greater say in browser development to pay for a "deluxe" version on CD, which would include the ability to disable pop-up ads as well as any other new features you can think up. Perhaps include some other perks with the bundled software (Composer with a JavaScript editor? Shiney new Winamp-branded MP3 encoder? "Deluxe Only" Netscape radio stations?) Rigorously advertise it as option. $20.00 US to $25.00 seems like a reasonable price for such a product. On the one hand, users such as myself will finally have the browser we've been waiting for since the development of the openWindow JavaScript command. On the other hand the price of the deluxe version will offset any lost revenue from your advertisers. And you would be able to appease any misgivings from your advertisers by pointing out that the majority of Netscape users would still be using the free "basic" version with manditory pop-ups.
I'm not advocating releasing Netscape 7.0 as "shareware" or "crippleware." Those who aren't interested in paying money for a web browser should still have access to Netscape 7.0 as it now stands, something they have come to expect in a free web browser. But by the same token those of us who are interested in paying money for such features should be given access to them.
I hope that your executives can see the value in my suggested compromise before the scheduled release of Netscape 7.0.
P. S. I realize the idea of a Winamp-branded MP3 encoder would probably give the executives at AOL/Time-Warner nightmares, but look at it this way: Users with access to an MP3 player but no immediate knowledge of "ripping CDs" are more likely to turn to file-sharing networks to find MP3 files to play than their own CD libraries.
Right on top of the table is the feard "Intergalactic Cat of Destruction" that is known to ravage armies in this and many other universes. Closely related to the "Toddler Cthulu" and "Cosmic Sneeze."
"The sad part is, ten years ago I would have killed for one :) Now my wife won't let me... :P"
Won't let you have the table or won't let you kill? What about maiming and/or dismembering?
End-user customers don't like pop-up ads, but corporate customers are paying for said pop-up ads. The will of the customer who spends the most money wins, right? In this case it's more like "the customer who spends any money wins." When you use Netscape (or any other free browser) you get exactly what you've paid for.
Why not a compromise? Offer Netscape 7.0 for download as it currently is, but offer it for sale on CD with the anti-popup feature. Rigorously advertise it as such. Let the end-users decide with their wallets how much they don't like pop-up ads. Heck, bump the price of the CD up to $15 or $20. The paying customer gets a browser with all the features they want, AOL/TW gets money in CD sales that they would have lost from the lack of pop-up ads, and the ad owners still have access to all the people who don't believe in paying for a browser.
Of course, I know exactly what kind of responses I'm going to get from the Slashdot crowd. "Browsers want to be free! I shouldn't have to pay for a feature that I can get elsewhere for free!" To you I have one thing to say: You're only perpetuating the current business model. Like it or not hosting costs money. I'm not in support of the loonies that say end-users must be forced to view advertising, but it will always be in those sites' best interests to use anti-ad-blocking software because the advertisers are their only paying customers. The "website subscription" model works because the end-user suddenly becomes a paying customer and immediately has more say to how the site owner should conduct business.
AOL/TW makes a great deal of their money from advertisers and pretty much $0 from their browsers. We have no right to bitch and moan about what AOL/TW does with their browser because our opinion is worth exactly what we paid for it. I for one would like to at least be given the option of being a real paying customer and having my say in how one of the major browsers on the internet today gets developed.
They would either:
1.) Design their page just the way they want it (ads and all), then take a screenshot of it and upload the imegemapped-JPG as their website. Kinda hard to block parts of a JPG
2.) The main page does nothing but open a pop-up window and display a message in the main window that says "To continue, please follow the link in the pop-up."
And now I forsee myself getting flamed about "Why are you helping THEM?" Why? Because I think forcing their viewers to view advertisements will ultmately end up with them shooting themselves in the foot and forcing themselves off the web entirely. I'm willing to bet that their sites get X number of visitors mostly because a great many of them have the option of turning off advertisements in one way or another. Deny them that right, force them to decide between advertisements and no access, and they will ultimately choose the "no access" option every time.
"I have been trying to find a suitable way of replacing banners on my (commercial) web sites."
Here's a silly question: If you have a commercial site, shouldn't your product/service sales be the thing paying for your web hosting?
"The pressure to accept more agressive banner terms is rising, however - we don't want our company.com to go titsup.com and lose 100,000s of satisfied people."
If your customers are so satisfied, why are you having so much trouble paying for your website yourself?
And have you stopped to consider that perhaps your customers are becoming less satisfied as your advertising gets more aggressive? I can think of several websites I no longer visit because of such tactics.
"Would you be interested in a re-introduction of the HTTP/1.1 "Cost:" header - or similar measures - and pay 0.02 per mouse click? Because that is what you "pay" indirectly to the company providing you a service."
Hosting companies traffic pricing is based on bits-per-unit-time, not flat-out bits. If it costs you $0.02 every time somebody clicks on something on your website, you should look into throttling back your upload.
"If you use anti-banner software you are effectively cheating the webmaster into providing you his service, without paying for it. It's like going to a restaurant and not paying because you didn't want to see the ads on the inside cover of the menu."
No, it's more like this:
I go to McDonald's. I order a Big Mac and a large fries, but no drink. Should McDonald's then charge me an extra "no drink" fee because I didn't yield to all the Coke ads in the building that Coca-Cola Inc. paid for?
"Do you expect to get everything for free at McDonalds just because you paid the bus to get you there?"
Do you expect me to have to pay for a Coke with my meal if I didn't ask for one?
Do you expect me to have to pay for a DVD I didn't ask for that showed up in my mailbox simple because Columbia House shipped it to me?
Forcing something onto someone who doesn't want it is amoral and often illegal. The fact that the "something" in question is advertising doesn't change anything.
"NOBODY expects to get everything for free in the supermarket just because they already paid the taxi."
Nobody expects the supermarket to fill your trunk with groceries you have no interest in purchasing and then billing you for those "purchases" just because you drove your car to the supermarket.
Nobody expects you to continue to pay for daily taxi rides to the supermarket, not because you neede more groceries but because the supermarket might have changed its advertising.
"The "Springer" editor house in Germany which sells the "Spiegel" magazine (very popular) published a comparison recently. The magazine costs about 3.- and contains about 40% ads. Without the ads, it would have to cost about 30.- to cover the printing and distribution costs!"
I buy a magazine. It's mine now. The publishers have no say if I decide to shake the magazine and get rid of all those silly mail-in business-reply-mail postcards before bothering to read it. I paid money for the magazine, it's mine.
I purchase a television with a VCR. The shows that come into my television are mine now. The broadcasters have no right to say that I cannot record a show and fast-forward through the ads. I paid for the hardware with which to decode their television signals, it's mine.
I go to a website. The copy in my cache is mine now. I paid for the resources to both download the website and cache in which it is stored. The hosters have no right to say how I will or will not manipulate this copy in my cache. I paid for the ability to view it, it's mine.
Movie theater tickets are not a contract requiring me to pay careful attention to all advertisements before, during and after a movie.
Sports games tickets are not a contract requiring me to pay careful attention to the advertising on the playing field and the palyers.
A cable TV subscription is not a contract requiring me not to channel surf during a commercial break.
Paying for local telephone service is not a contract requiring me to pay close attention to what telemarketers have to say.
There is no legal requirement that I must open and read all advertisements that appear in my USPS mailbox.
And there certainly isn't a requirement that I carefully go through the newspaper and pay careful attention to any and all advertisements in it before reading the news.
So what makes you think that the internet somehow changes things? Just because it's the internet doesn't mean the old business and legal models no longer apply, as I hope you would have learned by now. There is no legal or moral obligation for your customers to continue to support you simply because they were interested in your product in the past, no matter how much bold text you use.
"Rebuilt New York a mile away. Motocycle gangs will battle each other, gray skinned wrinkly children will roam the streets, and a teenage boy with a red cape and a "Da Da Da" theme will wreak havoc."
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
I could have written a better diologue...
Besides, you forgot the "talking apes keeping humans as slaves/pets" option.
"And what happened to the plans for the original York?"
They're in York, PA.
"Wrong - the standard of living in Indian cities is generally pretty close to what it is in the US - thus sayeth the guy from India who works 5 feet away from me."
How about outside the cities? What of the suburbs? Are there even any? Does civilization seemingly disappear ten miles outside of the city?
A middle class isn't defined by "just like the middle class in the US," it's defined by the class that's supposed to be between the rich and the poor. If the rich live in the cities and the poor live everywhere else with very little dividing the two, it's pretty safe to say that there is no meaningful middle class.
"Time isn't that crucial here, considering that the thing will already be years late because of Russia's inability to meet a deadline."
At least they've supplied the damned lifeboat. The lack of a newer, bigger lifeboat to allow double the ISS crew is a failing of NASA to keep up, not Rosaviakosmos.
" I predict the feedback will be filled with the following:"
You covered just about all the bases, but you missed the biggest one:
Whining to the effect of "We're still using 20 year old shuttles? How dumb!"
Closely related to your #2, but different because it involves people not actually reading the article and simply looking at the words "shutle fleet" "cracks" and "grounded."